_ PART IV CHAPTER IV. THE DESIRE OF HIS HEART
The night was very hot, even hotter than the day had been. Only the whirring electric fan kept the air moving. It might have been midsummer instead of the end of September.
Bertrand de Montville, seated in an easy-chair and propped by cushions, raised his head from time to time and gasped for breath. He held a newspaper in his hand, for sleep was out of the question. He had been suffering severely during the day, but the pain had passed and only weariness remained. His face was yet drawn with the memory of it, and his eyes were heavily shadowed. But the inherent pluck of the man was still apparent. His pride of bearing had not waned.
He was reading with close attention a report upon the chief event of the hour--the trial of Guillaume Rodolphe at Valpre. It had been in progress for four days, and was likely to last for several more. The report he read was from the pen of Trevor Mordaunt, an account clear and direct as the man himself. So far the evidence had seemed to turn in Bertrand's favour, and, his protestations notwithstanding, it was impossible not to feel a quickening of the pulses as he realized this fact. Would they ever send for him? He asked himself. Would they ever desire to do justice to the man they had degraded?
It was evident that the writer of the account before him thought so. However Mordaunt's opinion of the man himself had altered, his conviction on the subject of his innocence of that primary crime had plainly remained unshaken. He had not allowed himself to be biased by subsequent events.
"And that is strange--that!" the Frenchman murmured, with his eyes upon the article. "Perhaps _la petite Christine_ has convinced him. But no--that is not probable."
He broke off as the door opened, and a quick smile of welcome flashed across his face. He stretched out both hands to the new-comer.
"All right. Sit still," said Max.
He sauntered across the room, his coat hanging open and displaying evening dress, and gave his hand into Bertrand's eager clasp. It was a very cool hand, and strong with a vitality that seemed capable of imparting itself.
He looked down at Bertrand with a queer glint of tenderness in his eyes. "I shouldn't have come up at this hour," he said, "but I guessed you would be awake. How goes it, old chap? Pretty bad, eh?"
"No, I am better," Bertrand said. "I am glad that you came up."
Max drew up a chair, and sat down beside his _protege_. For nearly three weeks now Bertrand had been with him. A post-card written from a squalid back-street lodging had been his first intimation that the Frenchman was in London, and within two hours of receiving it Max had removed him to the private nursing-home in which he himself was at that time domiciled. For, notwithstanding his youth, Max Wyndham was a privileged person, and owned as his greatest friend one of the most distinguished physicians in London.
His natural brilliance had brought him in the first place to the great man's notice; and though he was but a medical student, his foot was already firmly planted upon the ladder of success. There was little doubt that one day--and that probably not many years distant--Max Wyndham would be a great man too. Even as it was, his grip upon all things that concerned the profession he had chosen was so prodigious that his patron would upon occasion consult with him as an equal, detecting in him that flare of genius which in itself is of more value than years of accumulated knowledge. He had the gift of magnetism to an extraordinary degree, and he coupled with it an unerring instinct upon which he was not afraid to rely. Equipped thus, he was bound to come to the front, though whether the Wyndham blood in him would suffer him to stay there was a proposition that time alone could solve.
His effect upon Bertrand was little short of magical. Sitting there beside him with the wasted wrist between his fingers, and his green eyes gazing at nothing in particular, there was little about him to indicate a remarkable personality. Yet the drawn look passed wholly away from the sick man's face, and he leaned back among his pillows with a restfulness that he had been very far from feeling a few seconds earlier.
"So you are reading all about the Rodolphe _affaire_," Max said presently.
"It is Mr. Mordaunt's own report," Bertrand explained. "It interests me--that. I feel as if I heard him speak."
Max grunted. He had asked no question as to the circumstances that had led to Bertrand's departure, and Bertrand had volunteered no information. It had been a closed subject between them by mutual consent. But to-night for some reason Max approached it, warily, as one not sure of his ground.
"When do you hope to see him again?"
A slight flush rose in Bertrand's face. "Never--it is probable," he said sadly.
"Ah! Then you had a disagreement?"
Bertrand looked at him questioningly.
Max smiled a little. "No, it isn't vulgar curiosity. Fact is, I came across my cousin Jack Forest to-day. You remember Jack Forest? I've been dining with him at his club. We hadn't met for ages, and naturally we had a good deal to say to one another."
He paused, gently relinquishing his hold upon Bertrand's wrist, and got up to pour something out of a bottle on the mantelpiece into a medicine-glass.
"Drink this, old chap," he said, "or I shall tire you out before I've done."
"You have something to say to me?" Bertrand said quickly.
Max nodded. "I have. Drink first, and then I will tell you. That's the way. You needn't be in a hurry. You were going to tell me about that disagreement, weren't you? At least, I think you were. You have been rash enough to trust me before."
"But naturally," Bertrand said. He handed the glass back with a courteous gesture of thanks. "And I have not had cause to regret it. I will tell you why I disagreed with Mr. Mordaunt if you desire to know. It was because he found that he had been robbed, and that I"--he spread out his hands--"was the robber."
Max stared. "Found that you had robbed him! You!"
Bertrand nodded several times, but said no more.
"I don't believe it," Max said with conviction.
Bertrand smiled rather ruefully. "No? But yet the evidence was against me. And me, I did not contradict the evidence."
"I see. You were shielding someone. Who was it? Rupert?"
At Bertrand's quick start Max also smiled with grim humour. "You see, I know my own people rather well. I'm glad it wasn't Chris, anyway. Then she had nothing at all to do with your quarrel with Trevor?"
"Nothing," Bertrand said--"nothing." He paused a moment, then added, with something of an effort, "But I had decided that I would go before that. Mr. Mordaunt did not know why."
"Because of Chris?" There was a touch of sharpness in Max's voice.
Bertrand bent his head. "You were right that night. A man cannot hope to hide his heart for ever from the woman whom he loves."
"You told her, then?"
"It arrived without telling," Bertrand answered with simplicity.
"That means she cares for you?" Max said shrewdly.
Bertrand looked up. "_Mais c'est passe_," he said, his voice very low. "You have guessed the truth, but you only know it. Her husband--"
"My dear fellow, that's just the mischief. He knows it too," Max said.
"He!" Bertrand started upright.
Instantly Max's hand was upon him, checking him. "Keep still, Bertrand! You can't afford to waste your strength. Yes, Trevor knows. He knew on the very day you left. He found out that that blackguard Rodolphe had been blackmailing her. He had a scene with Chris, and she left him."
"Rodolphe! _Le canaille! Est-ce possible? Alors_, she is not--not with him--at Valpre--as I thought?" gasped Bertrand.
"No. She has not been near him since. I knew nothing of this till to-day. She hardly ever writes. I thought--as you did--that she had gone to France with Trevor. Instead of that, Jack tells me, she has been with his sister in Yorkshire all this time. She has been ill, is so still, I believe. They are coming to town to-morrow, to Percy Davenant's flat. Jack is very worried about it. He saw Trevor before he left England, but couldn't get him to listen to reason. He seems to have made up his mind to have no more to do with her, while she is fretting herself to a skeleton over it, but daren't make the first move towards a reconciliation. It probably wouldn't do any good if she did. He is as hard as iron. And if his mind is once made up--" Max left the sentence unfinished, and continued: "I think I shall go to Valpre and see what I can do. This has gone on long enough, and we can't have Chris making herself ill. I should think even he would see the force of that. This trial business will be over in a few days, and if I don't catch him he may go wandering, Heaven knows where. But it won't do. He must come back to her. I shall tell him so."
But at that Bertrand laid a nervous hand upon his arm. "My friend," he said, "you will not persuade him."
Max looked at him, and was confronted by eyes of gleaming resolution. "I believe I shall," he said. "I can persuade most people."
"You will not persuade him," Bertrand repeated. "That _scelerat_ has poisoned his mind. Moreover, you do not even know what passed between us."
"I don't need to know," Max said curtly.
Bertrand began to smile. "And you think you can plead your sister's cause without knowing, _hein_? No, no! the affair is too much advanced. There is only one man who can help the little Christine now. He would not listen to you, _mon cher_, if you went. But--to me, he will listen, even though he believes me to be a thief; for he is very just. I know that I can make him understand. And for that I shall go to him to-morrow. As you say, we cannot let _la petite_ fret."
He spoke quite quietly, but his eyes were shining with a fire that had not lit them for many a day.
"My dear chap, you can't go. You're not fit for it." Max spoke with quick decision. "I won't let you go, so there's an end of it."
But Bertrand laughed. "So? But I am more fit than you think, _mon ami_. Also it is my affair, this, and none but I can accomplish it. See, I start in the morning, and by this hour to-morrow I shall be with him."
"Folly! Madness!" Max said.
But indomitable resolution still shone in the Frenchman's eyes. "Listen to me, Max," he said. "If I spend my last breath thus, why not? I have not the least desire to cling to life. And is that madness? I love _la petite_ more than all. And is that folly? Why should I not give the strength that is still in me to accomplish the desire of my heart? Is mortal life so precious to those who have nothing for which to live?"
"Rot!" Max said fiercely. "You have plenty to live for. When this scoundrel Rodolphe is disposed of they will be reinstating you. You've got to live to have your honour vindicated. Does that mean nothing to you?"
Bertrand shrugged his shoulders. "It would interest me exactly as the procession under the windows interests those who watch. The procession passes, and the street is empty again. What is that to me?" He snapped his fingers carelessly. But the animation of his face had transformed it completely, giving him a look of youth with which Max was wholly unfamiliar. "See!" he said. "_Le bon Dieu_ has given me this thing to do, and He will give me the strength to do it. That is His way, _mon ami_. He does not command us to make bricks without straw."
Max grunted. "Whatever you do, you will have to pay for," he observed dryly. "And how are you going to get to Valpre without being arrested?"
"But I will disguise myself. That should be easy." Bertrand laughed again, and suddenly stretched out his arms and rose. "I am well," he declared. "I have been given the strength, and I will use it. Have no fear, Max. It will not fail me."
"I shall go too, then," Max said abruptly. "Sit down, man, and be rational. You don't suppose I shall let you tear all over France in your present condition by yourself, do you? If you excite yourself in this fashion, you will be having that infernal pain again. Sit down, I tell you!"
Bertrand sat down, but as if he moved on wires. "No," he said with confidence, "I shall not suffer any more to-night. You say that you will go with me? But indeed it is not necessary. And you have your work to do. I would not have you leave it on my account."
"I am coming," Max said, with finality, "And look here, Bertrand, I shall be in command of this expedition, and we are not going to travel at break-neck speed. You will not reach Valpre till the day after to-morrow. That is understood, is it?"
Bertrand hesitated and looked dubious.
"Come, man, it's for your own good. You don't want to die before you get there." Max's tone was severely practical.
"Ah no! Not that! I must not fail, Max. I must not fail." Bertrand spoke with great earnestness. He laid an impressive hand on his companion's arm. For a moment his face betrayed emotion. "I cannot--I will not--die before her happiness is assured. It is that for which I now live, for which I am ready to give my life. Max--_mon ami_--you will not let me die before--my work--is done!"
He spoke pantingly, as though speech had become an effort. The strain was beginning to tell upon him. But his eyes pleaded for him with a dumb intensity hard to meet.
Max took his wrist once more into his steady grasp. "If you will do as I tell you," he said, "I will see that you don't. Is that a bargain?"
A faint smile shone in the dark eyes at the peremptoriness of his speech. "But how you are despotic--you English!" protested the soft voice.
"Do you agree to that?" insisted Max.
"_Mais oui_. I submit myself--always--to you English. How can one--do other?"
"Then don't talk any more," said Max, with authority. "There's no time for drivel, so save your breath. You will want it when you get to Valpre."
"Ah, Valpre!" whispered Bertrand very softly as one utters a beloved name; and again more softly, "Valpre!" _