Part 33 (2/2)

Ah, they were back again, those scenes of Bernay-sur-Mer! Whose face was that? Gaston Bernier! Old Gaston! And what was this that he was living again, that was so cruel in its realism? That night on the Perigeau ... that night when old Gaston died ... that day when he had made the beacon for Marie-Louise, the beacon with its arms outstretched that--he covered his face suddenly with his hands. If he could only strangle these thoughts--G.o.d, the loneliness and the pain they brought!

How the strains of that waltz seemed to sob out like some broken-hearted, lost and wandering thing! He s.h.i.+vered a little. How cold the night was, how wet and damp! How the engines throbbed, throbbed, throbbed, and seemed to catch the tempo of the distant music, and like m.u.f.fled drums beat time to it as to a dirge!

His hands dropped to his sides. From far down the deck came Myrna's rippling, silvery peal of laughter; and, through the group around her, he caught the sparkle of the magnificent diamond necklace at her throat, the white, fluffy wrap of fur thrown across her shoulders--and heard her laugh again. And at her laugh, he turned bitterly around to the rail to face the night as the s.h.i.+p drove into it, to let the wind and the wet mist blow into his face, to look down on the steerage deck below him. What a contrast! There, just beneath where he stood, in the filmy light that shone out from an open alleyway, alone, unsheltered, a pathetic figure in the drifting mist, her clothes damp around her, a woman leaned with bowed head against the s.h.i.+p's side. A wave of pity, but a pity that knew bitterness and irony, came upon him.

What would he read in the face of this poor immigrant if he could but see it? Misery? She looked miserable enough! Loneliness? Was she lonely, too? Was she as lonely as he? And then, as though in answer to his thoughts, she turned suddenly, lifting her face, and with a gesture of infinite yearning, of infinite longing, stretched out her arms toward the land, toward France, so far behind.

He did not move. He uttered no sound. In that moment, as she made that gesture, he was living only subconsciously. It was his beacon with outstretched arms, with those pure, perfect lips, with that sweet, gentle face, beautiful even with the pallor that was upon it. _It was Marie-Louise_!

The voices, the waltz strains, the throb of the engine, the sounds about him, the lift and fall of the liner's deck, the blackness of the night, all were blotted from him. He was conscious only of that figure on the deck below. There she stood, her arms outstretched--outstretched as he had modelled her in that figure that first had brought him fame, and his own words of the days gone by were ringing in his ears again. ”See, it is a beacon--the welcome of the fisherman home from the sea. And are you not that, Marie-Louise, and will you not stand on the sh.o.r.e at evening and hold out your arms for me as I pull home in the boat? Are you not the beacon, Marie-Louise--for me?” A welcome he had called it then, that posture of outstretched arms, that now symbolised, mute in its anguish, the tearing away from her of all that life had ever held to make it glad and joyous, the love of cherished France, her native country, her home, the friends that made home dear, those that loved her, those she loved.

Those she loved! And of them all, she had loved him, Jean Laparde--the most! It seemed to sound the depths of some abysmal treason in his soul. Whom or what had she to welcome now? It seemed to sum up all the tragedy that life could hold, and sweep upon him and engulf him.

It was Marie-Louise standing there on the steerage deck! It was Marie-Louise! He did not need to ask why--the answer was in his own soul.

And now a moan broke from his lips; and condemnation, stripped of mercy, naked, bare in its remorseless arraignment, surged upon him.

Honour, and glory, and wealth, and power, and fame, and luxury were his--and what had she, alone here in the cold, wet misery of the steerage, driven to the deck perhaps for a breath of pure air from where below a thousand, babel-tongued, were cattle-herded? What had she--where he had all? If the memories of that little white-cottaged haven on the sun-kissed sh.o.r.es of the Mediterranean had brought him a bitter loneliness--what must those memories be bringing to her? There, in Bernay-sur-Mer, was the only life that she had ever known; there were the simple folk who loved her; there were her friends, her a.s.sociations; there was her little world; there was her all--and he had driven her from it! As surely as though by brutal physical force, he had driven her from it! Yes; he had done that! That was why she was here!

His face, grey as the mist around him, went down on his arms upon the rail, and a sob shook the great shoulders. Where were the dreams that she and he had dreamed of life there together in the love that had known its birth in childhood? Where were they? Who had shattered them, that she was no longer there, but stood an outcast, friendless and alone, here in the steerage of the s.h.i.+p that was taking her from France? Where was the oath that he had sworn to Gaston as the brave old fisherman had died? ”There is a crucifix there; swear that you will guard her and that you will let no harm come to her.” Forsworn!

A traitor! He had chosen fame, and power, and position--and she, in her pure, unselfish love, had stood aside for him!

Again the sullen boom of the siren mourned out into the night, held, quavered, died away. Silence, intense, absolute! Then, stealing again upon the senses, the slap and wash of water against the liner's hull, the medley of a thousand s.h.i.+p sounds.

”_G.o.d_!”--the soul-torn cry fluttered from Jean's lips.

He had chosen wealth, and power, and fame, and position, and they had been Marie-Louise's gift to him--and his gift to her in return had been the bitterest dregs of life! And now wealth, and power, and fame, and position were his to-day, his beyond that of any other man's, he knew them all; they were his; he knew the adulation and the fawning of the great; but out of it all, out of the pomp and pageantry and the glitter, the tinsel and the gleam of gold, where was the one supreme, undying, immortal truth of life--who cared for Jean Laparde?

And then, as he raised his head and looked at her again, a strange, glad wonder crept upon him. Who cared for Jean Laparde? Out of all the world, who cared for Jean Laparde? In the figure there, wind-swept, the damp, thin clothing clinging closely about her form, in the face, half-veiled by the night and mist, he saw again that figure on the Perigeau Reef that once he had been man enough to risk his all, his life to save; and the kiss that had been his, the kiss that pledged them to each other in the fury of that storm, seemed warm again upon his lips--a pledge again--his answer! Who cared for Jean Laparde?

He strained toward her over the rail. It seemed as though some flame of glory were lighting up her face, and, reflected back, was lighting up his own soul with understanding. Those lips, the face, the throat, everything, all--he knew it now!--it was _she_ that he had been modelling there in Paris! It was she who was the womanhood of France to him because her soul and his were one, she who had been living in his heart, she that he loved--she who cared for Jean Laparde!

He lifted his head, bared now, far back on the ma.s.sive shoulders.

There was one way, and one way only, that he could claim her now. To be the Jean Laparde of old again! To slough from him the trappings that had stood a barrier between them! To be the Jean Laparde again of the world she knew!

He leaned further over the rail. She was moving away. He watched her, his face aglow--watched her until she was lost in the darkness along the deck.

”Marie-Louise! Marie-Louise!” he whispered, and reached out his arms.

”I am coming to you, Marie-Louise--my beacon--to you, Marie-Louise.”

--XI--

THE ”DEATH” OF JEAN LAPARDE

How wonderful the metamorphosis in all around him! How glad and gay and happy were the waltz strains floating merrily upon the air from far down the deck, how exquisite the melody and harmony rippling through the chords! And the chill and ugliness of the night were gone; and the loneliness was gone; and it was as though a glorious moonlit, star-decked sky were overhead; and the wet mist that drove upon him was as some magical, refres.h.i.+ng balm that laved his face! And in his heart was song.

”Marie-Louise! Marie-Louise! I am coming to you, Marie-Louise--my beacon--to you, Marie-Louise.” He stretched out his arms again across the rail; and then turning, and hurrying because there was a lightness in his steps that would not let them lag, he sought the deck companionway close at hand, and ran up to the deck above.

Not concrete yet, only dim and misty in his mind a plan took form.

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