Part 17 (1/2)

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.