The World for Sale Part 29

"Surely we understand," whispered Madame Bulteel.

The woman's courage returned, and she continued: "I could not go to my father, for he was riding the river scores of miles away. I was terribly alone. It was then that M'sieu' Marchand, who had bribed the woman to draw Dennis away, begged me to go away with him. He swore I should marry him as soon as I could be free of Dennis. I scarcely knew what I said or thought; but the place I had loved was hateful to me, so I went away with him."

A sharp, pained exclamation broke from the lips of Madame Bulteel, but presently she reached out and laid a hand upon the woman's arm. "Of course you went with him," she said. "You could not stay where you were and face the return of Dennis. There was no child to keep you, and the man that tempted you said he adored you?"

The woman looked gratefully at her. "That was what he said," she answered. "He said he was tired of wandering, and that he wanted a home-and there was a big house in Montreal."

She stopped suddenly upon an angry, smothered word from Fleda's lips.

A big house in Montreal! Fleda's first impulse was to break in upon the woman's story and tell her father what had happened just now outside their own house; but she waited.

"Yes, there was a big house in Montreal?" said Fleda, her eyes now resting sadly upon the woman.

"He said it should be mine. But that did not count. To be far away from all that had been was more than all else. I was not thinking of the man, or caring for him, I was flying from my shame. I did not see then the shame to which I was going. I was a fool, and I was mad and bad also.

When I waked--and it was soon--there was quick understanding between us.

The big house in Montreal--that was never meant for me. He was already married."

The old man stretched heavily to his feet, leaned both hands on the table, and looked at the woman with glowering eyes, while Fleda's heart seemed to stop beating.

"Married!" growled Gabriel Druse, with a blur of pa.s.sion in his voice.

He knew that Felix Marchand had followed his daughter as though he were a single man.

Fleda saw what was working in his mind. Since her father suspected, he should know all.

"He almost offered me the big house in Montreal this morning," she said evenly and coldly.

A malediction broke from the old man's lips.

"He almost thought he wanted me to marry him," Fleda added scornfully.

"And what did you say?" Druse asked.

"There could only be one thing to say. I told him I had never thought of making my home in a sewer." A grim smile broke over the old man's face, and he sat down again.

"Because I saw him with you I wanted to warn you," the woman continued.

"Yesterday, I came to warn him of his danger, and he laughed at me. From Madame Thibadeau I heard he had said he would make you sing his song.

When I came to tell you, there he was with you. But when he left you I was sure there was no need to speak. Still I felt I must tell you--perhaps because you are rich and strong, and will stop him from doing more harm."

"How do you know we are rich?" asked Druse in a rough tone.

"It is what the world says," was the reply. "Is there harm in that? In any case it was right to tell you all; so that one who had herded with a woman like me should not be friends with you."

"I have seen worse women than you," murmured the old man.

"What danger did you come to warn M. Marchand about?" asked Fleda.

"To his life," answered the woman.

"Do you want to save his life?" asked the old man.

"Ah, is it not always so?" intervened Madame Bulteel in a low, sad voice. "To be wronged like that does not make a woman just."

"I am just," answered the woman. "He deserves to die, but I want to save the man that will kill him when they meet."

"Who will kill him?" asked Fleda. "Dennis--he will kill Marchand if he can."

The old man leaned forward with puzzled, gloomy interest. "Why? Dennis left you for another. You say he had grown cold. Was that not what he wanted--that you should leave him?"

The woman looked at him with tearful eyes. "If I had known Dennis better, I should have waited. What he did is of the moment only. A man may fall and rise again, but it is not so with a woman. She thinks and thinks upon the scar that shows where she wounded herself; and she never forgets, and so her life becomes nothing--nothing."

No one saw that Madame Bulteel held herself rigidly, and was so white that even the sunlight was gold beside her look. Yet the strangest, saddest smile played about her lips; and presently, as the eyes of the others fastened on the woman and did not leave her, she regained her usual composure.

The woman kept looking at Gabriel Druse. "When Dennis found that I had gone, and knew why--for I left word on a sheet of paper--he went mad like me. Trailing to the south, to find M'sieu' Marchand, he had an accident, and was laid up in a shack for weeks on the Tanguishene River, and they could not move him. But at last a ranchman wrote to me, and the letter found me on the very day I left M'sieu'. When I got that letter begging me to go to the Tanguishene River, to nurse Dennis who loved me still, my heart sank. I said to myself I could not go; and Dennis and I must be apart always to the end of time. But then I thought again. He was ill, and his body was as broken as his mind. Well, since I could do his mind no good, I would try to help his body. I could do that much for him. So I went. But the letter to me had been long on the way, and when I got to the Tanguishene River he was almost well."

She paused and rocked her body to and fro for a moment as though in pain.

"He wanted me to go back to him then. He said he had never cared for the woman at Yargo, and that what he felt for me now was different from what it had ever been. When he had settled accounts we could go back to the ranch and be at peace. I knew what he meant by settling accounts, and it frightened me. That is why I am here. I came to warn the man, Marchand, for if Dennis kills him, then they will hang Dennis. Do you not see?

This is a country of law. I saw that Dennis had the madness in his brain, and so I left him again in the evening of the day I found him, and came here--it is a long way. Yesterday, M'sieu' Marchand laughed at me when I warned him. He said he could take care of himself. But such men as Dennis stop at nothing; there will be killing, if M'sieu' stays here."

"You will go back to Dennis?" asked Fleda gently. "Some other woman will make him happy when he forgets me," was the cheerless, grey reply.

The old man got up and, coming over, laid a hand upon her shoulder.

"Where did you think of going from here?" he asked.

"Anywhere--I don't know," was the reply.

"Is there no work here for her?" he asked, turning to Madame Bulteel.

"Yes, plenty," was the reply. "And room also?" he asked again.

"Was ever a tent too full, when the lost traveller stumbled into camp in the old days?" rejoined Fleda. The woman trembled to her feet, a glad look in her eyes. "I ought to go, but I am tired and I will gladly stay," she said and swayed against the table.

Madame Bulteel and Fleda put their arms round her, steadying her.

"This is not the way to act," said Fleda with a touch of sharp reproof.

Had she not her own trouble to face?

The stricken woman drew herself up and looked Fleda in the eyes. "I will find the right way, if I can," she said with courage.

A half-hour later, as the old man sat alone in the room where he had breakfasted, a rifle-shot rang out in the distance.

"The trouble begins," he said, as he rose and hastened into the hallway.

Another shot rang out. He caught up his wide felt hat, reached for a great walking-stick in the corner, and left the house hurriedly.