His love story

CHAPTER XIII

ONE DOG'S DAY

There must be a real philosophy in all proverbs. "Every dog has his day" is a significant one. It surely was for Pitchouné. He had his day. It was a glorious one, a terrible one, a memorable one, and he played his little part in it. He awoke at the gray dawn, springing like a flash from the foot of Sabron's bed, where he lay asleep, in response to the sound of the reveille, and Sabron sprang up after him.

Pitchouné in a few moments was in the center of real disorder. All he knew was that he followed his master all day long. The dog's knowledge did not comprehend the fact that not only had the native village, of which his master spoke in his letter to Miss Redmond, been destroyed, but that Sabron's regiment itself was menaced by a concerted and concentrated attack from an entire tribe, led by a fanatic as hotminded and as fierce as the Mahdi of Sudanese history.

Pitchouné followed at the heels of his master's horse. No one paid any attention to him. Heaven knows why he was not trampled to death, but he was not. No one trod on him; no horse's hoof hit his little wiry form that managed in the midst of carnage and death to keep itself secure and his hide whole. He smelt the gunpowder, he smelt the smoke, sniffed at it, threw up his pretty head and barked, puffed and panted, yelped and tore about and followed. He was not conscious of anything but that Sabron was in motion; that Sabron, his beloved master, was in action of some kind or other and he, a soldier's dog, was in action, too. He howled at fierce dark faces, when he saw them. He snarled at the bullets that whistled around his ears and, laying his little ears back, he shook his black muzzle in the very grin of death.

Sabron's horse was shot under him, and then Pitchouné saw his master, sprang upon him, and his feelings were not hurt that no attention was paid him, that not even his name was called, and as Sabron struggled on, Pitchouné followed. It was his day; he was fighting the natives; he was part of a battle; he was a soldier's dog! Little by little the creatures and things around him grew fewer, the smoke cleared and rolled away, there were a few feet of freedom around him in which he stood and barked; then he was off again close to his master's heels and not too soon. He did not know the blow that struck Sabron, but he saw him fall, and then there came into his canine heart some knowledge of the importance of his day. He had raced himself weary. Every bone in his little body ached with fatigue.

Sabron lay his length on the bed of a dried-up river, one of those phantom-like channels of a desert stream whose course runs watery only certain times of the year. Sabron, wounded in the abdomen, lay on his side. Pitchouné smelled him from head to foot, addressed himself to his restoration in his own way. He licked his face and hands and ears, sat sentinel at the beloved head where the forehead was covered with sweat and blood. He barked feverishly and to his attentive ears there came no answer whatsoever, either from the wounded man in the bed of the African river or from the silent plains.

Sabron was deserted. He had fallen and not been missed and his regiment, routed by the Arabs, had been driven into retreat. Finally the little dog, who knew by instinct that life remained in his master's body, set himself at work vigorously to awaken a sign of life. He attacked Sabron's shoulder as though it were a prey; he worried him, barked in his ear, struck him lightly with his paw, and finally, awakening to dreadful pain, to fever and to isolation, awakening perhaps to the battle for life, to the attentions of his friend, the spahi opened his eyes.

Sabron's wound was serious, but his body was vigorous, strong and healthy, and his mind more so. There was a film over it just now. He raised himself with great effort, and in a moment realized where he was and that to linger there was a horrible death. On each side of the river rose an inclined bank, not very high and thickly grown with mimosa bush. This meant to him that beyond it and probably within easy reach, there would be shade from the intense and dreadful glare beating down upon him, with death in every ray. He groaned and Pitchouné's voice answered him. Sabron paid no attention to his dog, did not even call his name. His mind, accustomed to quick decisions and to a matter-of-fact consideration of life, instantly took its proper course. He must get out of the river bed or die there, rot there.

What there was before him to do was so stupendous an undertaking that it made him almost unconscious of the pain in his loins. He could not stand, could not thoroughly raise himself; but by great and painful effort, bleeding at every move, he could crawl; he did so, and the sun beat upon him. Pitchouné walked by his side, whining, talking to him, encouraging him, and the spahi, ashen pale, his bright gray uniform ripped and stained, all alone in the desert, with death above him and death on every hand, crawled, dragged, hitched along out of the river to the bank, cheered, encouraged by his little dog.

For a drop of water he would have given—oh, what had he to give? For a little shade, he would have given—about all he had to give had been given to his duty in this engagement which could never bring him glory, or distinction or any renown. The work of a spahi with a native regiment is not a very glorious affair. He was simply an officer who fell doing his daily work.

Pitchouné barked and cried out to him: "Courage!"

"I shall die here at the foot of the mimosa," Sabron thought; and his hands hardly had the courage or strength to grasp the first bushes by which he meant to pull himself up on the bank. The little dog was close to him, leaping, springing near him, and Sabron did not know how tired and thirsty and exhausted his brave little companion was, or that perhaps in that heroic little body there was as much of a soldier's soul as in his own human form.

The sun was so hot that it seemed to sing in the bushes. Its torrid fever struck on his brow, struck on his chest; why did it not kill him? He was not even delirious, and yet the bushes sang dry and crackling. What was their melody? He knew it. Just one melody haunted him always, and now he knew the words: they were a prayer for safety.

"But," Sabron said aloud, "it is a prayer to be said at night and not in the afternoon of an African hell."

He began to climb; he pulled himself along, leaving his track in blood.

He fainted twice, and the thick growth held him like the wicker of a cradle, and before he came to his consciousness the sun was mercifully going down. He finally reached the top of the bank and lay there panting. Not far distant were the bushes of rose and mimosa flower, and still panting, weaker and ever weaker, his courage the only living thing in him, Sabron, with Pitchouné by his side, dragged himself into healing hands.

All that night Sabron was delirious; his mind traveled far into vague fantastic countries, led back again, ever gently, by a tune, to safety.

Every now and then he would realize that he was alone on the vast desert, destined to finish his existence here, to cease being a human creature and to become nothing but carrion. Moments of consciousness succeeded those of mental disorder. Every now and then he would feel Pitchouné close to his arm. The dog licked his hand and the touch was grateful to the deserted officer. Pitchouné licked his master's cheek and Sabron felt that there was another life beside his in the wilderness. Neither dog nor man could long exist, however, without food or drink, and Sabron was growing momentarily weaker.

The Frenchman, though a philosopher, realized how hard it was to die unsatisfied in love, unsatisfied in life, having accomplished nothing, having wished many things and realized at an early age only death! Then this point of view changed and the physical man was uppermost.

He groaned for water, he groaned for relief from pain, turned his head from side to side, and Pitchouné whined softly. Sabron was not strong enough to speak to him, and their voices, of man and beast, inarticulate, mingled—both left to die in the open.

Then Sabron violently rebelled and cried out in his soul against fate and destiny. He could have cursed the day he was born. Keenly desirous to live, to make his mark and to win everything a man values, why should he be picked and chosen for this lonely pathetic end? Moreover, he did not wish to suffer like this, to lose his grasp on life, to go on into wilder delirium and to die! He knew enough of injuries to feel sure that his wound alone could not kill him. When he had first dragged himself into the shade he had fainted, and when he came to himself he might have stanched his blood. His wound was hardly bleeding now. It had already died! Fatigue and thirst, fever would finish him, not his hurt. He was too young to die.

With great effort he raised himself on his arm and scanned the desert stretching on all sides like a rosy sea. Along the river bank the pale and delicate blossom and leaf of the mimosa lay like a bluish veil, and the smell of the evening and the smell of the mimosa flower and the perfumes of the weeds came to him, aromatic and sweet. Above his head the blue sky was ablaze with stars and directly over him the evening star hung like a crystal lamp. But there was no beauty in it for the wounded officer who looked in vain to the dark shadows on the desert that might mean approaching human life. It would be better to die as he was dying, than to be found by the enemy!

The sea of waste rolled unbroken as far as his fading eyes could reach. He sank back with a sigh, not to rise again, and closed his eyes and waited. He slept a short, restless, feverish sleep, and in it dreams chased one another like those evoked by a narcotic, but out of them, over and over again came the picture of Julia Redmond, and she sang to him the song whose words were a prayer for the safety of a loved one during the night.

From that romantic melody there seemed to rise more solemn ones. He heard the rolling of the organ in the cathedral in his native town, for he came from Rouen originally, where there is one of the most beautiful cathedrals in the world. The music rolled and rolled and passed over the desert's face. It seemed to lift his spirit and to cradle it. Then he breathed his prayers,—they took form, and in his sleep he repeated the Ave Maria and the Paternoster, and the words rolled and rolled over the desert's face and the supplication seemed to his feverish mind to mingle with the stars.

A sort of midnight dew fell upon him: so at least he thought, and it seemed to him a heavenly dew and to cover him like a benignant rain. He grew cooler. He prayed again, and with his words there came to the young man an ineffable sense of peace. He pillowed his fading thoughts upon it; he pillowed his aching mind upon it and his body, too, and the pain of his wound and he thought aloud, with only the night airs to hear him, in broken sentences: "If this is death it is not so bad. One should rather be afraid of life. This is not difficult, if I should ever get out of here I shall not regret this night."

Toward morning he grew calmer, he turned to speak to his little companion. In his troubled thoughts he had forgotten Pitchouné.

Sabron faintly called him. There was no response. Then the soldier listened in silence. It was absolutely unbroken. Not even the call of a night-bird—not even the cry of a hyena,—nothing came to him but the inarticulate voice of the desert. Great and solemn awe crept up to him, crept up to him like a spirit and sat down by his side. He felt his hands grow cold, and his feet grow cold. Now, unable to speak aloud, there passed through his mind that this, indeed, was death, desertion absolute in the heart of the plains.

CHAPTER XIV

AN AMERICAN GIRL

The Marquise d'Esclignac saw that she had to reckon with an American girl. Those who know these girls know what their temper and mettle are, and that they are capable of the finest reverberations.

Julia Redmond was very young. Otherwise she would never have let Sabron go without one sign that she was not indifferent to him, and that she was rather bored with the idea of titles and fortunes. But she adored her aunt and saw, moreover, something else than ribbons and velvets in the make-up of the aunt. She saw deeper than the polish that a long Parisian lifetime had overlaid, and she loved what she saw. She respected her aunt, and knowing the older lady's point of view, had been timid and hesitating until now.

Now the American girl woke up, or rather asserted herself.

"My dear Julia," said the Marquise d'Esclignac, "are you sure that all the tinned things, the cocoa, and so forth, are on board? I did not see that box."

"Ma tante," returned her niece from her steamer chair, "it's the only piece of luggage I am sure about."

At this response her aunt suffered a slight qualm for the fate of the rest of her luggage, and from her own chair in the shady part of the deck glanced toward her niece, whose eyes were on her book.

"What a practical girl she is," thought the Marquise d'Esclignac. "She seems ten years older than I. She is cut out to be the wife of a poor man. It is a pity she should have a fortune. Julia would have been charming as love in a cottage, whereas I..."

She remembered her hotel on the Parc Monceau, her château by the Rhone, her villa at Biarritz—and sighed. She had not always been the Marquise d'Esclignac; she had been an American girl first and remembered that her maiden name had been De Puyster and that she had come from Schenectady originally. But for many years she had forgotten these things. Near to Julia Redmond these last few weeks all but courage and simplicity had seemed to have tarnish on its wings.

Sabron had not been found.

It was a curious fact, and one that transpires now and then in the history of desert wars—the man is lost. The captain of the cavalry was missing, and the only news of him was that he had fallen in an engagement and that his body had never been recovered. Several sorties had been made to find him; the war department had done all that it could; he had disappeared from the face of the desert and even his bones could not be found.

From the moment that Julia Redmond had confessed her love for the Frenchman, a courage had been born in her which never faltered, and her aunt seemed to have been infected by it. The marquise grew sentimental, found out that she was more docile and impressionable than she had believed herself to be, and the veneer and etiquette (no doubt never a very real part of her) became less important than other things. During the last few weeks she had been more a De Puyster from Schenectady than the Marquise d'Esclignac.

"Ma tante," Julia Redmond had said to her when the last telegram was brought in to the Château d'Esclignac, "I shall leave for Africa to-morrow."

"My dear Julia!"

"He is alive! God will not let him die. Besides, I have prayed. I believe in God, don't you?"

"Of course, my dear Julia."

"Well," said the girl, whose pale cheeks and trembling hands that held the telegram made a sincere impression on her aunt, "well, then, if you believe, why do you doubt that he is alive? Some one must find him. Will you tell Eugene to have the motor here in an hour? The boat sails to-morrow, ma tante."

The marquise rolled her embroidery and put it aside for twelve months. Her fine hands looked capable as she did so.

"My dear Julia, a young and handsome woman can not follow like a daughter of the regiment, after the fortunes of a soldier."

"But a Red Cross nurse can, ma tante, and I have my diploma."

"The boat leaving to-morrow, my dear Julia, doesn't take passengers."

"Oh, ma tante! There will be no other boat for Algiers," she opened the newspaper, "until ... oh, heavens!"

"But Robert de Tremont's yacht is in the harbor."

Miss Redmond looked at her aunt speechlessly.

"I shall telegraph Madame de Haussonvelle and ask permission for you to go in that as an auxiliary of the Red Cross to Algiers, or, rather, Robert is at Nice. I shall telegraph him."

"Oh, ma tante!"

"He asked me to make up my own party for a cruise on the Mediterranean," said the Marquise d'Esclignac thoughtfully.

Miss Redmond fetched the telegraph blank and the pad from the table. The color began to return to her cheeks. She put from her mind the idea that her aunt had plans for her. All ways were fair in the present situation.

The Marquise d'Esclignac wrote her despatch, a very long one, slowly. She said to her servant:

"Call up the Villa des Perroquets at Nice. I wish to speak with the Duc de Tremont." She then drew her niece very gently to her side, looking up at her as a mother might have looked. "Darling Julia, Monsieur de Sabron has never told you that he loved you?"

Julia shook her head.

"Not in words, ma tante."

There was a silence, and then Julia Redmond said:

"I only want to assure myself that he is safe, that he lives. I only wish to know his fate."

"But if you go to him like this, ma chère, he will think you love him. He must marry you! You are making a serious declaration."

"Ah," breathed the girl from between trembling lips, "don't go on. I shall be shown the way."

The Marquise d'Esclignac then said, musing:

"I shall telegraph to England for provisions. Food is vile in Algiers. Also, Melanie must get out our summer clothes."

"Ma tante!" said Julia Redmond, "our summer clothes?"

"Did you think you were going alone, my dear Julia!"

She had been so thoroughly the American girl that she had thought of nothing but going. She threw her arms around her aunt's neck with an abandon that made the latter young again. The Marquise d'Esclignac kissed her niece tenderly.

"Madame la Marquise, Monsieur le Duc de Tremont is at the telephone," the servant announced to her from the doorway.

CHAPTER XV

JULIA'S ROMANCE

From her steamer chair the Marquise d'Esclignac asked:

"Are you absorbed in your book, Julia?"

Miss Redmond faintly smiled as she laid it down. She was absorbed in but one thing, morning, noon and night, waking or sleeping: when and where she should find him; how he was being treated. Had he been taken captive? He was not dead, of that she was sure.

"What is the book, Julia?"

"Le Conte d'un Spahi."

"Put it down and let me speak to you of Robert de Tremont."

Miss Redmond, being his guest and indebted to him for her luxurious transportation, could not in decency refuse the request.

"He knows nothing whatever of our errand, Julia."

"Ah, then, what does he think?"

Miss Redmond on the arm of her blue serge coat wore a band of white, in the center of which gleamed the Red Cross. The marquise, wrapped in a sable rug, held a small Pekinese lap-dog cuddled under her arm, and had only the appearance of a lady of leisure bent on a pleasure excursion. She did not suggest a rescuing party in the least. Her jaunty hat was enveloped by a delicate veil; her hands were incased in long white gloves. Now that she had encouraged her energetic niece and taken this decisive step, she relaxed and found what pleasure she might in the voyage.

"When we came on board last night, my dear, you remember that I sat with Robert in the salon until ... well, latish."

"After midnight?"

"Possibly; but I am fifty and he is thirty. Moreover, I am his godmother. He is enchanting, Julia, spiritual and sympathetic. I confess, my dear, that I find myself rather at a loss as to what to tell him."

Miss Redmond listened politely. She was supremely indifferent as to what had been told to her host. This was Tuesday; they should reach Algiers on Saturday at the latest. What news would meet them there? She held in her book the last despatch from the ministry of war. Supposing the Captain de Sabron had been taken captive by some marauding tribe and was being held for a ransom! This was the Romance of a Spahi, in which she was absorbed. Taken captive! She could not let herself think what that might mean.

"Robert's mother, you know, is my closest friend. His father was one of the witnesses of my marriage. I feel that I have brought up Robert ... it would have been so perfect." She sighed.

"Ma tante!" warned Miss Redmond, with a note of pain in her voice.

"Yes, yes," accepted the marquise, "I know, my dear, I know. But you can not escape from the yacht except in a lifeboat, and if you did it would be one of Robert's lifeboats! You must not be too formal with him." She tapped the nose of her Pekinese dog. "Be still, Mimi, that man is only a sailor! and if he were not here and at his duty you would be drowned, you little goose!"

The Pekinese dog was a new addition. Julia tried not to dislike her; for Julia, only Pitchouné existed. She could not touch Mimi without a sense of disloyalty.

The boat cut the azure water with its delicate white body, the decks glistened like glass. The sailor at whom Mimi had barked passed out of sight, and far up in the bow Tremont, in white flannels, stood smoking.

"I had to be very circumspect, my dear Julia, when I talked with Robert. You see you are not engaged to Monsieur de Sabron." The girl colored. "The sentimental woman in me," her aunt went on, "has responded to all your fantasies, but the practical woman in me calls me a romantic goose."

"Ah," breathed Miss Redmond, opening her book, "ma tante, let me read."

"Nonsense," said the marquise affectionately. "The most important part of the whole affair is that we are here—that we are en route to Algiers, is it not?"

The girl extended her hand gratefully.

"And thank you! Tell me, what did you say to him?"

The marquise hummed a little tune, and softly pulled Mimi's ears.

"Remember, my child, that if we find Monsieur de Sabron, the circumspection will have to be even greater still."

"Leave that to me, ma tante."

"You don't know," said the determined lady quite sweetly, "that he has the slightest desire to marry you, Julia."

Miss Redmond sat up in her chair, and flamed.

"Do you want to make me miserable?"

"I intend to let my worldly wisdom equal this emergency, Julia. I want Robert to have no suspicion of the facts."

"How can we prevent it, ma tante?"

"We can do so if you will obey me."

The girl started, and her aunt, looking up at the Duc de Tremont where he stood in the bow, saw that he showed signs of finishing his smoke and of joining them.

"Ma tante," said the girl quickly, "have you brought me here under false colors? Have you let him think..."

"Hush, Julia, you are indebted to him for accomplishing your own desire."

"But I would never, never..."

"Petite sotte," cried the marquise, "then you would never have been on this yacht."

Intensely troubled and annoyed, Julia asked in a low tone:

"For heaven's sake, ma tante, tell me what the Duc de Tremont thinks!"

Her aunt laughed softly. The intrigue and romance of it all entertained her. She had the sense of having made a very pretty concession to her niece, of having accomplished a very agreeable pleasure trip for herself. As for young Sabron, he would be sure to be discovered at the right moment, to be lionized, decorated and advanced. The reason that she had no wrinkles on her handsome cheek was because she went lightly through life.

"He thinks, my dearest girl, that you are like all your countrywomen: a little eccentric and that you have a strong mind. He thinks you one of the most tender-hearted and benevolent of girls."

"Ma tante, ma tante!"

"He thinks you are making a little mission into Algiers among the sick and the wounded. He thinks you are going to sing in the hospitals."

"But," exclaimed the girl, "he must think me mad."

"Young men don't care how mildly mad a beautiful young woman is, my dear Julia."

"But, he will find out ... he will know."

"No," said the marquise, "that he will not. I have attended to that. He will not leave his boat during the excursion, Julia. He remains, and we go on shore with our people."

"How splendid!" sighed Julia Redmond, relieved.

"I'm glad you think so," said her aunt rather shortly. "Now I have a favor to ask of you, my child."

Julia trembled.

"Ma tante?"

"While we are on board the yacht you will treat Robert charmingly."

"I am always polite to him, am I not?"

"You are like an irritated sphinx to him, my dear. You must be different."

"I thought," said the girl in a subdued voice, "that it would be like this. Oh, I wish I had sailed on any vessel, even a cargo vessel."

Looking at her gently, her aunt said: "Don't be ridiculous. I only wish to protect you, my child. I think I have proved my friendship. Remember, before the world you are nothing to Charles de Sabron. A woman's heart, my dear, has delusions as well as passions."

The girl crimsoned and bowed her charming head. "You are not called upon to tell Robert de Tremont that you are in love with a man who has not asked you to marry him, but you are his guest, and all I ask of you is that you make the voyage as agreeable to him as you can, my dear."

Tremont was coming toward them. Julia raised her head and murmured:

"I thank you for everything. I shall do what I can." And to herself she said: "That is, as far as my honor will let me."

CHAPTER XVI

THE DUKE IN DOUBT

The short journey to Africa—over a calm and perfect sea, whose waters were voices at her port to solace her, and where the stars alone glowed down like friends upon her and seemed to understand—was a torture to Julia Redmond. To herself she called her aunt cruel, over and over again, and felt a prisoner, a caged creature.

Tremont found her charming, though in this role of Florence Nightingale, she puzzled and perplexed him. She was nevertheless adorable. The young man had the good sense to make a discreet courtship and understood she would not be easily won. Until they reached Algiers, indeed, until the night before they disembarked, he had not said one word to her which might not have been shared by her aunt. In accordance with the French custom, they never were alone. The marquise shut her eyes and napped considerably and gave them every opportunity she could, but she was always present.

The Duc de Tremont had been often in love during his short life. He was a Latin and thought that women are made to be loved. It was part of his education to think this and to tell them this, and he also believed it a proof of his good taste to tell them this as soon as possible.

He was a thoroughly fine fellow. Some of his forefathers had fought and fallen in Agincourt. They had been dukes ever since. There was something distinctly noble in the blond young man, and Julia discovered it. Possibly she had felt it from the first. Some women are keen to feel. Perhaps if she had not felt it she might even have hesitated to go to Algiers as his guest.

From the moment that the old duchess had said to Robert de Tremont:

"Julia Redmond is a great catch, my dear boy. I should like to have you marry her," her son answered:

"Bien, ma mère," with cheerful acquiescence, and immediately considered it and went to Tarascon, to the Château d'Esclignac. When his mother had suggested the visit, he told her that he intended making up a party for the Mediterranean.

"Why don't you take your godmother and the American girl? Miss Redmond has an income of nearly a million francs and they say she is well-bred."

"Very good, ma mère."

When he saw Miss Redmond he found her lovely; not so lovely as the Comtesse de la Maine, whose invitation to dinner he had refused on the day his mother suggested the Château d'Esclignac. The comtesse was a widow. It is not very, very comme il faut to marry a widow, in the Faubourg St.-Germain. Miss Redmond's beauty was different. She was self-absorbed and cold. He did not understand her at all, but that was the American of her.

One of his friends had married an American girl and found out afterward that she chewed gum before breakfast. Pauvre Raymond! Miss Redmond did not suggest such possibilities. Still she was very different to a French jeune fille.

With his godmother he was entirely at ease. Ever since she had paid his trifling debts when he was a young man, he had adored her. Tremont, always discreet and almost in love with his godmother, kept her in a state of great good humor always, and when she had suggested to him this little party he had been delighted. In speaking over the telephone the Marquise d'Esclignac had said very firmly:

"My dear Robert, you understand that this excursion engages you to nothing."

"Oh, of course, marraine."

"We both need a change, and between ourselves, Julia has a little mission on foot."

Tremont would be delighted to help Miss Redmond carry it out. Whom else should he ask?

"By all means, any one you like," said his godmother diplomatically. "We want to sail the day after to-morrow." She felt safe, knowing that no worldly people would accept an invitation on twenty-four hours' notice.

"So," the Duc de Tremont reflected, as he hung up the receiver, "Miss Redmond has a scheme, a mission! Young girls do not have schemes and missions in good French society."

"Mademoiselle," he said to her, as they walked up and down on the deck in the pale sunset, in front of the chair of the Marquise d'Esclignac, "I never saw an ornament more becoming to a woman than the one you wear."

"The ornament, Monsieur?"

"On your sleeve. It is so beautiful. A string of pearls would not be more beautiful, although your pearls are lovely, too. Are all American girls Red Cross members?"

"But of course not, Monsieur. Are all girls anywhere one thing?"

"Yes," said the Duc de Tremont, "they are all charming, but there are gradations."

"Do you think that we shall reach Algiers to-morrow, Monsieur?"

"I hope not, Mademoiselle."

Miss Redmond turned her fine eyes on him.

"You hope not?"

"I should like this voyage to last forever, Mademoiselle."

"How ridiculous!"

Her look was so frank that he laughed in spite of himself, and instead of following up the politeness, he asked:

"Why do you think of Algiers as a field for nursing the sick, Mademoiselle?"

"There has been quite a deputation of the Red Cross women lately going from Paris to the East."

"But," said the young man, "there are poor in Tarascon, and sick, too. There is a great deal of poverty in Nice, and Paris is the nearest of all."

"The American girls are very imaginative," said Julia Redmond. "We must have some romance in all we do."

"I find the American girls very charming," said Tremont.

"Do you know many, Monsieur?"

"Only one," he said serenely.

Miss Redmond changed the subject quickly and cleverly, and before he knew it, Tremont was telling her stories about his own military service, which had been made in Africa. He talked well and entertained them both, and Julia Redmond listened when he told her of the desert, of its charm and its desolation, and of its dangers. An hour passed. The Marquise d'Esclignac took an ante-prandial stroll, Mimi mincing at her heels.

"Ce pauvre Sabron!" said Tremont. "He has disappeared off the face of the earth. What a horrible thing it was, Mademoiselle! I knew him in Paris; I remember meeting him again the night before he left the Midi. He was a fine fellow with a career before him, his friends say."

"What do you think has become of Monsieur de Sabron?"

Miss Redmond, so far, had only been able to ask this question of her aunt and of the stars. None of them had been able to tell her. Tremont shrugged his shoulders thoughtfully.

"He may have dragged himself away to die in some ambush that they have not discovered, or likely he has been taken captive, le pauvre diable!"

"France will do all it can, Monsieur..."

"They will do all they can, which is to wait. An extraordinary measure, if taken just now, would probably result in Sabron being put to death by his captors. He may be found to-morrow—he may never be found."

A slight murmur from the young girl beside him made Tremont look at her. He saw that her hands were clasped and that her face was quite white, her eyes staring fixedly before her, out toward Africa. Tremont said:

"You are compassion itself, Mademoiselle; you have a tender heart. No wonder you wear the Red Cross. I am a soldier, Mademoiselle. I thank you for all soldiers. I thank you for Sabron ... but, we must not talk of such things."

He thought her very charming, both romantic and idealistic. She would make a delightful friend. Would she not be too intense for a wife? However, many women of fashion joined the Red Cross. Tremont was a commonplace man, conventional in his heart and in his tastes.

"My children," said the marquise, coming up to them with Mimi in her arms, "you are as serious as though we were on a boat bound for the North Pole and expected to live on tinned things and salt fish. Aren't you hungry, Julia? Robert, take Mimi to my maid, will you? Julia," said her aunt as Tremont went away with the little dog, "you look dramatic, my dear, you're pale as death in spite of this divine air and this enchanting sea." She linked her arm through her niece's. "Take a brisk walk with me for five minutes and whip up your blood. I believe you were on the point of making Tremont some unwise confession."

"I assure you no, ma tante."

"Isn't Bob a darling, Julia?"

"Awfully," returned her niece absent-mindedly.

"He's the most eligible young man in Paris, Julia, and the most difficult to please."

"Ma tante," said the girl in a low tone, "he tells me that France at present can do practically nothing about finding Monsieur de Sabron. Fancy a great army and a great nation helpless for the rescue of a single soldier, and his life at stake!"

"Julia," said the marquise, taking the trembling hand in her own, "you will make yourself ill, my darling, and you will be no use to any one, you know."

"You're right," returned the girl, "I will be silent and I will only pray."

She turned from her aunt to stand for a few moments quiet, looking out at the sea, at the blue water through which the boat cut and flew. Along the horizon was a mist, rosy and translucent, and out of it white Algiers would shine before many hours.

When Tremont, at luncheon a little later, looked at his guests, he saw a new Julia. She had left her coat with the Red Cross in her cabin with her hat. In her pretty blouse, her pearls around her neck, the soft flush on her cheeks, she was apparently only a light-hearted woman of the world. She teased her aunt gently, she laughed very deliciously and lightly flirted with the Duc de Tremont, who opened a bottle of champagne. The Marquise d'Esclignac beamed upon her niece. Tremont found her more puzzling than ever. "She suggests the chameleon," he thought, "she has moods. Before, she was a tragic muse; at luncheon she is an adorable sybarite."

CHAPTER XVII

OUT OF THE DESERT

From a dreamy little villa, whose walls were streaming with bougainvillea, Miss Redmond looked over Algiers, over the tumult and hum of it, to the sea. Tremont, by her side, looked at her. From head to foot the girl was in white. On one side the bougainvillea laid its scarlet flowers against the stainless linen of her dress, and on her other arm was the Red Cross.

The American girl and the Frenchman had become the best of friends. She considered him a sincere companion and an unconscious confederate. He had not yet decided what he thought of her, or how. His promise to remain on the yacht had been broken and he paid his godmother and Miss Redmond constant visits at their villa, which the marquise rented for the season.

There were times when Tremont thought Miss Redmond's exile a fanatical one, but he always found her fascinating and a lovely woman, and he wondered what it was that kept him from laying his title and his fortune at her feet. It had been understood between the godmother and himself that he was to court Miss Redmond à l'americaine.

"She has been brought up in such a shocking fashion, Robert, that nothing but American love-making will appeal to her. You will have to make love to her, Robert. Can you do it?"

"But, marraine, I might as well make love to a sister of charity."

"There was la Belle Heloise, and no woman is immune."

"I think she is engaged to some American cowboy who will come and claim her, marraine."

His godmother was offended.

"Rubbish!" she said. "She is engaged to no one, Bob. She is an idealist, a Rosalind; but that will not prevent her from making an excellent wife."

"She is certainly very beautiful," said the Duc de Tremont, and he told Julia so.

"You are very beautiful," said the Duc de Tremont to Miss Redmond, as she leaned on the balcony of the villa. The bougainvillea leaned against her breast. "When you stood in the hospital under the window and sang to the poor devils, you looked like an angel."

"Poor things!" said Julia Redmond. "Do you think that they liked it?"

"Liked it!" exclaimed the young man enthusiastically, "couldn't you see by their faces? One poor devil said to me: 'One can die better now, Monsieur.' There was no hope for him, it seems."

Tremont and the Marquise d'Esclignac had docilely gone with Julia Redmond every day at a certain hour to the different hospitals, where Julia, after rendering some slight services to the nurses—for she was not needed—sang for the sick, standing in the outer hallway of the building open on every side. She knew that Sabron was not among these sick. Where he was or what sounds his ears might hear, she could not know; but she sang for him, and the fact put a sweetness in her voice that touched the ears of the suffering and uplifted those who were not too far down to be uplifted, and as for the dying, it helped them, as the soldier said, to die.

She had done this for several days, but now she was restless. Sabron was not in Algiers. No news had been brought of him. His regiment had been ordered out farther into the desert that seemed to stretch away into infinity, and the vast cruel sands knew, and the stars knew where Sabron had fallen and what was his history, and they kept the secret.

The marquise made herself as much at home as possible in Algiers, put up with the inefficiency of native servants, and her duty was done. Her first romantic élan was over. Sabron had recalled to her the idyl of a love-affair of a quarter of a century before, but she had been for too long the Marquise d'Esclignac to go back to an ideal. She pined to have her niece a duchess, and never spoke the unfortunate Sabron's name.

They were surrounded by fashionable life. As soon as their arrival had been made known there had been a flutter of cards and a passing of carriages and automobiles, and this worldly life added to the unhappiness and restlessness of Julia, Among the guests had been one woman whom she found sympathetic; the woman's eyes had drawn Julia to her. It was the Comtesse de la Maine, a widow, young as herself and, as Julia said, vastly better-looking. Turning to Tremont on the balcony, when he told her she was beautiful, she said:

"Madame de la Maine is my ideal of loveliness."

The young man wrinkled his fair brow.

"Do you think so, Mademoiselle? Why?"

"She has character as well as perfect lines. Her eyes look as though they could weep and laugh. Her mouth looks as though it could say adorable things."

Tremont laughed softly and said:

"Go on, you amuse me."

"And her hands look as though they could caress and comfort. I like her awfully. I wish she were my friend."

Tremont said nothing, and she glanced at him suddenly.

"She says such lovely things about you, Monsieur."

"Really! She is too indulgent."

"Don't be worldly," said Miss Redmond gravely, "be human. I like you best so. Don't you agree with me?"

"Madame de la Maine is a very charming woman," said the young man, and the girl saw a change come over his features.

At this moment, as they stood so together, Tremont pulling his mustache and looking out through the bougainvillea vines, a dark figure made its way through the garden to the villa, came and took its position under the balcony where the duke and Miss Redmond leaned. It was a native, a man in filthy rags. He turned his face to Tremont and bowed low to the lady.

"Excellency," he said in broken French, "my name is Hammet Abou. I was the ordonnance of Monsieur le Capitaine de Sabron."

"What!" exclaimed Tremont, "what did you say?"

"Ask him to come up here," said Julia Redmond, "or, no—let us go down to the garden."

"It is damp," said Tremont, "let me get you a shawl."

"No, no, I need nothing."

She had hurried before him down the little stairs leading into the garden from the balcony, and she had begun to speak to the native before Tremont appeared. In this recital he addressed his words to Julia alone.

"I am a very poor man, Excellency," he said in a mellifluous tone, "and very sick."

"Have you any money, Monsieur?"

"Pray do not suggest it," said the duke sharply. "Let him tell what he will; we will pay him later."

"I have been very sick," said the man. "I have left the army. I do not like the French army," said the native simply.

"You are very frank," said Tremont brutally. "Why do you come here at any rate?"

"Hush," said Julia Redmond imploringly. "Do not anger him, Monsieur, he may have news." She asked: "Have you news?" and there was a note in her voice that made Tremont glance at her.

"I have seen the excellency and her grandmother," said the native, "many times going into the garrison."

"What news have you of Captain de Sabron?" asked the girl directly. Without replying, the man said in a melancholy voice:

"I was his ordonnance, I saw him fall in the battle of Dirbal. I saw him shot in the side. I was shot, too. See?"

He started to pull away his rags. Tremont clutched him.

"You beast," he muttered, and pushed him back. "If you have anything to say, say it."

Looking at Julia Redmond's colorless face, the native asked meaningly:

"Does the excellency wish any news?"

"Yes," said Tremont, shaking him. "And if you do not give it, it will be the worse for you."

"Monsieur le Capitaine fell, and I fell, too; I saw no more."

Tremont said:

"You see the fellow is half lunatic and probably knows nothing about Sabron. I shall put him out of the garden."

But Miss Redmond paid no attention to her companion. She controlled her voice and asked the man:

"Was the Capitaine de Sabron alone?"

"Except," said the native steadily, with a glance of disgust at the duke, "except for his little dog."

"Ah!" exclaimed Julia Redmond, with a catch in her voice, "do you hear that? He must have been his servant. What was the dog's name?"

"My name," said the native, "is Hammet Abou."

To her at this moment Hammet Abou was the most important person in North Africa.

"What was the little dog's name, Hammet Abou?"

The man raised his eyes and looked at the white woman with admiration.

"Pitchouné," he said, and saw the effect.

Tremont saw the effect upon her, too.

"I have a wife and ten children," said the man, "and I live far away."

"Heavens! I haven't my purse," said Julia Redmond. "Will you not give him something, Monsieur?"

"Wait," said Tremont, "wait. What else do you know? If your information is worth anything to us we will pay you, don't be afraid."

"Perhaps the excellency's grandmother would like to hear, too," said the man naively.

Julia Redmond smiled: the youthful Marquise d'Esclignac!

Once more Tremont seized the man by the arm and shook him a little.

"If you don't tell what you have to say and be quick about it, my dear fellow, I shall hand you over to the police."

"What for?" said the man, "what have I done?"

"Well, what have you got to tell, and how much do you want for it?"

"I want one hundred francs for this," and he pulled out from his dirty rags a little packet and held it up cautiously.

It looked like a package of letters and a man's pocketbook.

"You take it," said the Duc de Tremont to Julia Redmond, "you take it, Mademoiselle." She did so without hesitation; it was evidently Sabron's pocketbook, a leather one with his initials upon it, together with a little package of letters. On the top she saw her letter to him. Her hand trembled so that she could scarcely hold the package. It seemed to be all that was left to her. She heard Tremont ask:

"Where did you get this, you miserable dog?"

"After the battle," said the man coolly, with evident truthfulness, "I was very sick. We were in camp several days at ——. Then I got better and went along the dried river bank to look for Monsieur le Capitaine, and I found this in the sands."

"Do you believe him?" asked Julia Redmond.

"Hum," said Tremont. He did not wish to tell her he thought the man capable of robbing the dead body of his master. He asked the native: "Have you no other news?"

The man was silent. He clutched the rags at his breast and looked at Julia Redmond.

"Please give him some money, Monsieur."

"The dog!" Tremont shook him again. "Not yet." And he said to the man: "If this is all you have to tell we will give you one hundred francs for this parcel. You can go and don't return here again."

"But it is not all," said the native quietly, looking at Julia.

Her heart began to beat like mad and she looked at the man. His keen dark eyes seemed to pierce her.

"Monsieur," said the American girl boldly, "would you leave me a moment with him? I think he wants to speak with me alone."

But the Duc de Tremont exclaimed in surprise:

"To speak with you alone, Mademoiselle! Why should he? Such a thing is not possible!"

"Don't go far," she begged, "but leave us a moment, I pray."

When Tremont, with great hesitation, took a few steps away from them and she stood face to face with the creature who had been with Sabron and seen him fall, she said earnestly:

"Now speak without reserve. Tell me everything."

The face of the man was transformed. He became human, devoted, ardent.

"Excellency," he said swiftly in his halting French, "I loved Monsieur le Capitaine. He was so kind and such a brave soldier. I want to go to find Monsieur le Capitaine, but I am ill and too weak to walk. I believe I know where he is hid—I want to go."

The girl breathed:

"Oh, can it be possible that what you say is true, Hammet Abou? Would you really go if you could?"

The man made, with a graceful gesture of his hand, a map in the air.

"It was like this," he said; "I think he fell into the bed of an old river. I think he drew himself up the bank. I followed the track of his blood. I was too weak to go any farther, Excellency."

"And how could you go now?" she asked.

"By caravan, like a merchant, secretly. I would find him."

Julia Redmond put out a slim hand, white as a gardenia. The native lifted it and touched his forehead with it.

"Hammet Abou," she said, "go away for to-night and come to-morrow—we will see you." And without waiting to speak again to Monsieur de Tremont, the native slid away out of the garden like a shadow, as though his limbs were not weak with disease and his breast shattered by shot.

When Monsieur de Tremont had walked once around the garden, keeping his eyes nevertheless on the group, he came back toward Julia Redmond, but not quickly enough, for she ran up the stairs and into the house with Sabron's packet in her hand.

CHAPTER XVIII

TWO LOVELY WOMEN

There was music at the Villa des Bougainvilleas. Miss Redmond sang; not Good-night, God Keep You Safe, but other things. Ever since her talk with Hammet Abou she had been, if not gay, in good spirits, more like her old self, and the Marquise d'Esclignac began to think that the image of Charles de Sabron had not been cut too deeply upon her mind. The marquise, from the lounge in the shadow of the room, enjoyed the picture (Sabron would not have added it to his collection) of her niece at the piano and the Duc de Tremont by her side. The Comtesse de la Maine sat in a little shadow of her own, musing and enjoying the picture of the Duc de Tremont and Miss Redmond very indifferently. She did not sing; she had no parlor accomplishments. She was poor, a widow, and had a child. She was not a brilliant match.

From where he stood, Tremont could see the Comtesse de la Maine in her little shadow, the oriental decorations a background to her slight Parisian figure, and a little out of the shadow, the bright aigret in her hair danced, shaking its sparkles of fire. She looked infinitely sad and infinitely appealing. One bare arm was along the back of her lounge. She leaned her head upon her hand.

After a few moments the Duc de Tremont quietly left the piano and Miss Redmond, and went and sat down beside the Comtesse de la Maine, who, in order to make a place for him, moved out of the shadow.

Julia, one after another, played songs she loved, keeping her fingers resolutely from the notes that wanted to run into a single song, the music, the song that linked her to the man whose life had become a mystery. She glanced at the Duc de Tremont and the Comtesse de la Maine. She glanced at her aunt, patting Mimi, who, freshly washed, adorned by pale blue ribbon, looked disdainful and princely, and with passion and feeling she began to sing the song that seemed to reach beyond the tawdry room of the villa in Algiers, and to go into the desert, trying in sweet intensity to speak and to comfort, and as she sat so singing to one man, Sabron would have adored adding that picture to his collection.

The servant came up to the marquise and gave her a message. The lady rose, beckoned Tremont to follow her, and went out on the veranda, followed by Mimi. Julia stopped playing and went over to the Comtesse de la Maine.

"Where have my aunt and Monsieur de Tremont gone, Madame?"

"To see some one who has come to suggest a camel excursion, I believe."

"He chooses a curious hour."

"Everything is curious in the East, Mademoiselle," returned the comtesse. "I feel as though my own life were turned upside down."

"We are not far enough in the East for that," smiled Julia Redmond. She regarded the comtesse with her frank girlish scrutiny. There was in it a fine truthfulness and utter disregard of all the barriers that long epochs of etiquette put between souls.

Julia Redmond knew nothing of French society and of the deference due to the arts of the old world. She knew, perhaps, very little of anything. She was young and unschooled. She knew, as some women know, how to feel, and how to be, and how to love. She was as honest as her ancestors, among whose traditions is the story that one of them could never tell a lie.

Julia Redmond sat beside the Comtesse de la Maine, whose elegance she admired enormously, and taking one of the lady's hands, with a frank liking she asked in her rich young voice:

"Why do you tolerate me, Madame?"

"Ma chère enfant," exclaimed the comtesse. "Why, you are adorable."

"It is terribly good of you to say so," murmured Julia Redmond. "It shows how generous you are."

"But you attribute qualities to me I do not deserve, Mademoiselle."

"You deserve them and much more, Madame. I loved you the first day I saw you; no one could help loving you."

Julia Redmond was irresistible. The Comtesse de la Maine had remarked her caprices, her moods, her sadness. She had seen that the good spirits were false and, as keen women do, she had attributed it to a love-affair with the Duc de Tremont. The girl's frankness was contagious. The Comtesse de la Maine murmured:

"I think the same of you, ma chère, vous êtes charmante."

Julia Redmond shook her head. She did not want compliments. The eyes of the two women met and read each other.

"Couldn't you be frank with me, Madame? It is so easy to be frank."

It was, indeed, impossible for Julia Redmond to be anything else. The comtesse, who was only a trifle older than the young girl, felt like her mother just then. She laughed.

"But be frank—about what?"

"You see," said Julia Redmond swiftly, "I care absolutely nothing for the Duc de Tremont, nothing."

"You don't love him?" returned Madame de la Maine, with deep accentuation. "Is it possible?"

The girl smiled.

"Yes, quite possible. I think he is a perfect dear. He is a splendid friend and I am devoted to him, but I don't love him at all, not at all."

"Ah!" breathed Madame de la Maine, and she looked at the American girl guardedly.

For a moment it was like a passage of arms between a frank young Indian chief and a Jesuit. Julia, as it were, shook her feathers and her beads.

"And I don't care in the least about being a duchess! My father made his money in oil. I am not an aristocrat like my aunt," she said.

"Then," said the Comtesse de la Maine, forgetting that she was a Jesuit, "you will marry Robert de Tremont simply to please your aunt?"

"But nothing on earth would induce me to marry him!" cried Julia Redmond. "That's what I'm telling you, Madame. I don't love him!"

The Comtesse de la Maine looked at her companion and bit her lip. She blushed more warmly than is permitted in the Faubourg St.-Germain, but she was young and the western influence is pernicious.

"I saw at once that you loved him," said Julia Redmond frankly. "That's why I speak as I do."

The Comtesse de la Maine drew back and exclaimed.

"Oh," said Julia Redmond, "don't deny it. I shan't like you half so well if you do. There is no shame in being in love, is there?—especially when the man you love, loves you."

The Comtesse de la Maine broke down, or, rather, she rose high. She rose above all the smallness of convention and the rules of her French formal education.

"You are wonderful," she said, laughing softly, her eyes full of tears. "Will you tell me what makes you think that he is fond of me?"

"But you know it so well," said Julia. "Hasn't he cared for you for a long time?"

Madame de la Maine wondered just how much Julia Redmond had heard, and as there was no way of finding out, she said graciously:

"He has seemed to love me very dearly for many years; but I am poor; I have a child. He is ambitious and he is the Duc de Tremont."

"Nonsense," said Julia. "He loves you. That's all that counts. You will be awfully happy. You will marry the Duc de Tremont, won't you? There's a dear."

"Happy," murmured the other woman, "happy, my dear friend, I never dreamed of such a thing!"

"Dream of it now," said Julia Redmond swiftly, "for it will come true."