Part 36 (1/2)
”Monsieur Valmain! Myrna! The others too--they all saw you there!
They knew! Ah!”--he cried, a gathering fury in his voice. ”Ah, I begin to understand Myrna's sudden desire for a voyage to America!
There was to be no chance that we should meet, you and I, Marie-Louise!
_Nom de Dieu_, I begin to see--many things! And you, meanwhile--how did she get rid of you? She made you leave Paris, eh? You were to go away!”
”It was what I must do. It was not mademoiselle who made me,” she answered. ”I was sick for a little while, and then I went away. Oh, Jean, can you not see what I have been trying to make you understand?
I had no right even to have _risked_ your seeing me, and I had meant that it should never be possible again--and so--and so that is why I am here. And now you have come to-night, Jean! It is very, very strange, and--and”--her voice was breaking again, despite the brave efforts at self-control--”but it cannot change anything--and you must go back--to France--and to your work. Go, Jean; go now, or I--I must go, because--because--”
”Marie-Louise!”--it was like some panic fear at his heart.
”Marie-Louise--you do not mean that?”
”There is no other way,” she said.
”But it is you who do not understand!” he told her frantically. ”My work! Can I not still work anywhere--anywhere where you and I can live our lives together, anywhere so that the world cannot come between us again? Somewhere in America and we will begin a new life together.
And is it not you that I need for that work? Is it not you that I must have if I am to work at all?”
”I was not with you, Jean, in Paris,” she said, and tried to smile, ”and yet all the world knows the name of Jean Laparde.” She held out her hands. ”I am going now, Jean--and you must go back to that world.
It was so grand and big, Jean, for you to do what you have done to-night--but there is _to-morrow_. Jean, dear Jean, in your great loving impulse you have not counted that. You could not live without the world you have come to know. You think you could to-night, because to-night there is only love; but to-morrow all that you would so splendidly have thrown away would begin to call to you again, and it would grow stronger and stronger, and you could never forget, and misery would come.”
”You do not believe me?”--it was like some cruel amazement upon him.
”You do not believe me? It is because once I thought those things greater than your love! And you do not believe me now, Marie-Louise!”
”It is because I will not let you spoil your life that I am going,” she said slowly; ”it is because I must make you understand that I will not let you do this thing; because you must, and I must make you--go back.”
She stood an instant looking at him, the dark eyes wide and tearless now, the lips parted bravely in a smile--and then she turned and walked from him along the deck.
”Marie-Louise! No!” he cried out hoa.r.s.ely, and stepped after her. ”I will not go back, Marie-Louise! I will never go back! It is done!
Marie-Louise! Marie-Louise!”
She did not answer him until she had reached the head of the steerage companionway that led below--and then for a moment she paused.
”All your life, Jean,” she whispered, ”you will be glad of what you have done to-night, because it was so brave a thing to do; and it will make you a better man, and I am no more afraid, as once I was, that you will forget that it is the _bon Dieu_, and not yourself, who has made you great. And after a little while you will be glad too that I--that I have gone.”
She was gone! He stood there in a numbed way. She was gone! He could not seem to realise that. Go back! Go back--and leave Marie-Louise!
Only that one thing was clear out of his dazed and staggered consciousness. He would not go back! He would never go back!
To-morrow, ay and the to-morrows all through life, Marie-Louise would find him there!
He raised his head suddenly, and turned and looked behind him. High above on that upper deck there seemed a strange confusion--and on the moment, from the bridge shrilled out an officer's whistle. Then, from deep down within the s.h.i.+p, the engine-room bell sounded in a m.u.f.fled clang; and an instant later dark forms were scurrying around one of the lifeboats; and now there were shouts, the creak of tackle--and the vibration of the s.h.i.+p was gone.
He moved back along the deck to stand close below the rail of the main deck where, oblivious to the damp and wet now, the pa.s.sengers in low-necked gowns, in evening dress, the dance forgotten, were crowding, jostling and pus.h.i.+ng each other in mad excitement.
A dozen voices spoke at once.
”Somebody has fallen overboard! ... Who is it? ... Who is it? ... How did it happen? ... Who is it? ... Who is it?...”
Jean's brows gathered in perplexed, strained furrows. Myrna and Monsieur Bliss had made their discovery of course, that was evident; but to stop the s.h.i.+p, to lower a boat when it was obviously absurd, when they had every reason to a.s.sume that his body by then must be miles astern! What was the meaning of that?