The Isle of Unrest Part 18

"And--?" inquired mademoiselle--a Frenchwoman's way of asking a thousand questions in one. Mademoiselle Brun knew all the conversational tricks that serve to economize words.

"It is all based upon supposition," said the erstwhile mathematical instructress of the school in the Rue du Cherche-Midi. "It will be time enough to arrive at a decision when the reverse comes. The Count de Va.s.selot or the Abbe Susini will, no doubt, warn us in time."

"Ah!" said Mademoiselle Brun.

"But, if you like, I will write to the Count de Va.s.selot," said Denise, in the voice of one making a concession.

Mademoiselle Brun thought deeply before replying. It is so easy to take a wrong turning at the cross-roads of life, and a.s.suredly Denise stood at a _carrefour_ now.

"Yes," said mademoiselle at length; "it would be well to do that."

And Denise went away to write the letter that Lory had asked for in case she wanted him. She did not show it to Mademoiselle Brun, but went out and posted it herself in the little square box, painted white, affixed to the white wall on the high-road, and just within sight of Olmeta. When she returned she went into the garden again, where she spent so great a part of these hot days that her face was burnt to a healthy brown, which was in keeping with her fearless eyes and carriage. Mademoiselle Brun, on the other hand, spent most of her days indoors, divining perhaps that Denise had of late fallen into an unconscious love of solitude.

Denise returned to the house at luncheon-time, entered by the window, and caught Mademoiselle Brun hastily shutting an atlas.

"I was wondering," she said, "where Saarbruck might be, and whether any one we know had time to get there before the battle."

"Yes."

"But Colonel Gilbert will tell us."

"Colonel Gilbert?" inquired Denise, turning rather sharply.

"Yes. I think he will come to-day or to-morrow."

And Mademoiselle Brun was right. In the full heat of the afternoon the great bell at the gate gave forth a single summons; for the colonel was always gentle in his ways.

"I made an opportunity," he said, "to escape from the barracks this hot day."

But he looked cool enough, and greeted Denise with his usual leisurely, friendly bow. His manner conveyed, better than any words, that she need feel no uneasiness on his account, and could treat him literally at his word, as a friend.

"In order to tell you, with all reserve, the good news," he continued.

"With all reserve!" echoed Mademoiselle Brun.

"Good news in a French newspaper, Mademoiselle--" And he finished with a gesture eloquent of the deepest distrust.

"I was wondering," said Mademoiselle Brun, speaking slowly, and in a manner that demanded for the time the colonel's undivided attention, "whether our friend the Count de Va.s.selot could have been at Saarbruck."

"The Count de Va.s.selot," said Colonel Gilbert, with an air of friendly surprise. "Has he quitted his beloved chateau? He is so attached to that old house, you know."

"He has joined his regiment," replied Mademoiselle Brun, upon whom the burden of the conversation fell; for Denise had gone to the open window, and was closing the shutters against the sun.

"Ah! Then I can tell you that he was not at Saarbruck. The count's regiment is not in that part of the country. I was forgetting that he was a soldier. He is, by the way, your nearest neighbour."

The colonel rose as he spoke, and went to the window--not to that where Denise was standing, but to the other, of which the sun-blinds were only half closed.

"You can, of course, see the chateau from here?" he said musingly.

"Yes," answered Mademoiselle Brun, with an uneasy glance.

What was Colonel Gilbert going to say?

He stood for a moment looking down into the valley, while Denise and Mademoiselle Brun waited.

"And you have perceived nothing that would seem to confirm the gossip current regarding your--enemy?" he asked, with a good-natured, deprecatory laugh.

"What gossip?" asked mademoiselle, bluntly.

The colonel shrugged his shoulders without looking round.

"Oh," he answered, "one does not believe all one hears. Besides, there are many who think that in such a remote spot as Corsica, it is not necessary to observe the ordinary--what shall I say?--etiquette of society."

He laughed uneasily, and spread out his hands as if, for his part, he would rather dismiss the subject. But Mademoiselle Brun could be frankly feminine at times.

"What is the gossip to which you refer?" she asked again.

"Oh, I do not believe a word of it--though I, myself, have seen. Well, mademoiselle--you will excuse my frankness?--they say there is some one in the chateau--some one whom the count wishes to conceal, you understand."

"Ah!" said mademoiselle, indifferently.

Denise said nothing. She was looking out of the window with a face as hard as the face of Mademoiselle Brun. She looked at her watch, seemed to make a quick mental calculation, and then turned and spoke to Colonel Gilbert with steady, smiling eyes.

"You have not told us your war news yet," she said.

So he told them what he knew, which, as a matter of fact, did not amount to much. Then he took his leave, and rode home in the cool of the evening--a solitary, brooding man, who had missed his way somehow early on the road of life, and lacked perhaps the strength of mind to go back and try again.

Denise said good-bye to him in the same friendly spirit which he had inaugurated. She was standing with her back to the window from which she had looked down on to the chateau of Va.s.selot while Colonel Gilbert related his idle gossip respecting that house. And Mademoiselle Brun, who remembered such trifles, noted that she never looked out of that window again, but avoided it as one would avoid a cupboard where there is a skeleton.

Denise, who consulted her watch again so soon as the colonel had left, wrote another letter, which she addressed in an open envelope to the postmaster at Ma.r.s.eilles, and enclosed a number of stamps. She went out on to the high-road, and waited there in the shade of the trees for the diligence, which would pa.s.s at four o'clock on its way to Bastia.

The driver of the diligence, like many who are on the road and have but a pa.s.sing glimpse of many men and many things, was a good-natured man, and willingly charged himself with Denise's commission. For that which she had enclosed was not a letter, but a telegram to be despatched from Ma.r.s.eilles on the arrival of the mail steamer there. It was addressed to Lory de Va.s.selot at the Cercle Militaire in Paris, and contained the words--

"Please return unopened the letter posted to-day."

CHAPTER XV.

WAR.

"When half-G.o.ds go, The G.o.ds arrive."

"Then," said the Baroness de Melide, "I shall go down to St. Germain en Pre, and say my prayers." And she rang the bell for her carriage.