Part 28 (1/2)

”Who is that?” asked Lisa just within, on the mat. She must have been there all the time.

”Barlasch,” he replied. And the bolts which he, in his knowledge of such matters, himself had oiled, were quickly drawn.

Inside he found Lisa, and behind her Mathilde and Desiree.

”Where is the patron?” he asked, turning to bolt the door again.

”He is out, in the town,” answered Desiree, in a strained voice. ”Where are you from?”

”From Kowno.”

Barlasch looked from one face to the other. His own was burnt red, and the light of the lamp hanging over his head gleamed on the icicles suspended to his eyebrows and ragged whiskers. In the warmth of the house his frozen garments began to melt, and from his limbs the water dripped to the floor with a sound like rain. Then he caught sight of Desiree's face.

”He is alive, I tell you that,” he said abruptly. ”And well, so far as we know. It was at Kowno that we got news of him. I have a letter.”

He opened his cloak, which was stiff like cardboard and creaked when he bent the rough cloth. Under his cloak he wore a Russian peasant's sheepskin coat, and beneath that the remains of his uniform.

”A dog's country,” he muttered, as he breathed on his fingers.

At last he found the letter, and gave it to Desiree.

”You will have to make your choice,” he commented, with a grimace indicative of a serious situation, ”like any other woman. No doubt you will choose wrong.”

Desiree went up two steps in order to be nearer the lamp, and they all watched her as she opened the letter.

”Is it from Charles?” asked Mathilde, speaking for the first time.

”No,” answered Desiree, rather breathlessly.

Barlasch nudged Lisa, indicated his own mouth, and pushed her towards the kitchen. He nodded cunningly to Mathilde, as if to say that they were now free to discuss family affairs; and added, with a gesture towards his inner man--

”Since last night--nothing.”

In a few minutes Desiree, having read the letter twice, handed it to her sister. It was characteristically short.

”We have found a man here,” wrote Louis d'Arragon, ”who travelled as far as Vilna with Charles. There they parted. Charles, who was ordered to Warsaw on staff work, told his friend that you were in Dantzig, and that, foreseeing a siege of the city, he had written to you to join him at Warsaw. This letter has doubtless been lost. I am following Charles to Warsaw, tracing him step by step, and if he has fallen ill by the way, as so many have done, shall certainly find him. Barlasch returns to bring you to Thorn, if you elect to join Charles. I will await you at Thorn, and if Charles has proceeded, we will follow him to Warsaw.”

Barlasch, who had watched Desiree, now followed Mathilde's eyes as they pa.s.sed to and fro over the closely written lines. As she neared the end, and her face, upon which deep shadows had been graven by sorrow and suspense, grew drawn and hopeless, he gave a curt laugh.

”There were two,” he said, ”travelling together--the Colonel de Casimir and the husband of--of la pet.i.te. They had facilities--name of G.o.d!--two carriages and an escort. In the carriages they had some of the Emperor's playthings--holy pictures, the imperial loot--I know not what. Besides that, they had some of their own--not furs and candlesticks such as we others carried on our backs, but gold and jewellery enough to make a man rich all his life.”

”How do you know that?” asked Mathilde, a dull light in her eyes.

”I--I know where it came from,” replied Barlasch, with an odd smile.

”Allez! you may take it from me.” And he muttered to himself in the patois of the Cotes du Nord.

”And they were safe and well at Vilna?” asked Mathilde.