Frances Waldeaux Part 17

Doctors were not infallible--even D'Abri might be mistaken, after all.

George, coming in an hour later, found her sitting with her hands covering her face.

"Are you asleep, Lisa?"

"No."

"There is a telegram from Clara. My mother has left Munich for Vannes.

She will be here in two days."

She rose with an effort. "I am glad for you, George."

"You are ill, Lisa!"

"A little tired, only. Colette will give me my powder, and I shall be quite well in the morning. Will you send her to me now?"

After George was gone the rumbling of a diligence was heard in the courtyard, and presently a woman was brought up to the opposite chamber.

The hall was dark. Looking across it, Frances Waldeaux saw in the lighted room Lisa and her child.

CHAPTER XIV

Before we come to the dark story of that night in the inn, it is but fair to Frances to say that she came there with no definite evil purpose. She had been cheerful on her journey from Munich. There was one clear fact in her brain: She was on her way to George.

The countless toy farms of southern France, trimmed neatly by the inch, swept past her. In Brittany came melancholy stretches of brown heath and rain-beaten hills; or great affluent estates, the Manor houses covered with thatch, stagnant pools close to the doors, the cattle breaking through the slovenly wattled walls.

Frances, being a farmer, felt a vague amus.e.m.e.nt at these things, but they were all dim to her as a faded landscape hanging on the wall.

She was going to George.

Sometimes she seemed to be in Lucy's room again, with the sweet, clean air of youth about her. All of that purity and love might have gone into George's life--before it fell into the slough.

But she was going now to take it out of the slough.

There was a merchant and his wife from Geneva in the carriage with their little boy, a pretty child of five. Frances played and joked with him.

"Has madam also a son?" his mother asked civilly.

She said yes, and presently added, "My son has now a great trouble, but I am going to relieve him of it."

The woman, startled, stared at her.

"Is it not right for me to rid him of it?" she demanded loudly.

"Mais oui, certainement," said the Swiss. She watched Frances after that furtively. Her eyes, she thought, were quite sane. But how eccentric all of these Americans were!

Mrs. Waldeaux reached Vannes at nightfall. At last! Here was the place in this great empty world where he was.

When the diligence entered the courtyard, George was so near to the gate that the smoke of his cigar was blown into her face, but he did not see her. He was lean and pale, and his eyes told his misery. When she saw them his mother grew sick from head to foot with a sudden nausea. This was his wife's doing. She was killing him! Frances hurried into the inn, her legs giving way under her. She could not speak to him. She must think what to do.

She was taken to her room. It was dark, and across the corridor she saw Lisa in her lighted chamber. This was good luck! G.o.d had put the creature at once into her hands to deal with!

She was conscious of a strange exaltation, as if from wine--as if she would never need to sleep nor eat again. Her thoughts came and went like flashes of fire. She watched Lisa as she would a vampire, a creeping deadly beast. Pauline Felix--all that was adulterous and vile in women--there it was!

Her mind too, as never before, was full of a haughty complacency in herself. She felt like the member of some petty sect who is sure that G.o.d communes with him inside of his altar rails, while the man is outside whom he believes that G.o.d made only to be d.a.m.ned.

Lisa began to undress. Frances quickly turned away, ashamed of peeping into her chamber. But the one fact burned on into her brain:

The woman was killing George.

If G.o.d would rid the world of her! If a storm should rise now, and the lightning strike the house, and these stone walls should fall on her, now--now!

But the walls stood firm and the moonlight shone tranquilly on the world outside.

She told herself to be calm--to be just. But there was no justice while this woman went on with her work! G.o.d saw. He meant her to be stopped. Frances prayed to him frantically that Lisa might soon be put off of the earth. Just as the Catholic used to pray before he ma.s.sacred the Huguenot, or the Protestant, when he tied his Catholic brother to the stake. If this woman was mad for blood, it was a madness that many sincere people have shared.

Colette was busy with her mistress for a long time. She was very gentle and tender, being fond of Lisa, as people of her cla.s.s always were. She raised her voice as she made ready to leave the room.

"If the pain returns, here is the powder of morphia, mixed, within madame's reach," she said.

Frances came close to the door.

"And if it continues?" asked Lisa.

"Let monsieur call me. I would not trust him to measure a powder,"

Colette said, laughing. "It is too dangerous. He is not used to it--like me."

Mrs. Waldeaux saw her lay a paper package on a shelf.

"I will pray that the pain will not return," the girl said. "But if it does, let monsieur knock at my door. Here is the tisane when you are thirsty." She placed a goblet of milky liquid near the bed.

What more she said Frances did not hear.

It was to be! There was the morphia, and yonder the night drink within her reach. It was G.o.d's will.

Colette turned out the lamp, hesitated, and sat down by the fire.

Presently she rose softly, bent over her mistress, and, finding her asleep, left the room noiselessly. Her door closed far down the corridor.

Mrs. Waldeaux was quite alone, now.

It was but a step across the hall. So easy to do--easy. It must be done at once.

But her feet were like lead, she could not move; her tongue lay icy cold in her mouth. Her soul was willing, but her body rebelled.

What folly was this? It was the work of a moment. George would be free. She would have freed him.