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 THE ISLE OF UNEEST
 
 WORKS BY THE SAME AUTHOR. 
 
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 ' MONSIEUR LE COLUXEI,," HE SAID. {Puge 24.)
 
 THE 
 
 ISLE OF UNEEST 
 
 BT 
 
 HENEY SETON MERRIMAlSr 
 
 AUTHOR OF 
 'THE SOWEnS," "WITH EDGLD TOOLS," "IN KEDAk's TEKTS," ETC. 
 
 WITH ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 LONDON 
 SMITH, ELDER & CO., 15, WATERLOO PLACE 
 
 1900 
 
 (All rigJtfs rescrvtd)
 
 ISAAC FOOT 
 LIBRARY 
 
 Copyri'glU hy H. S. Scott, in the United Slates of America.
 
 P/^ LIBRARY 
 
 ^^ 9 ^ UNIVERSn . C;..' . -.r JFORNIA 
 
 C^ Tip' SANTA BARBARA 
 
 TO LUCASTA. 
 
 GOING TO THE WARS. 
 
 Tell me not, sweet, I am unkin 1 
 
 That from the nunuery 
 Of thy chaste breast, and quiet mind. 
 
 To war and arms I fly. 
 
 True : a new mistress now I choose, 
 
 The first foe in the field; 
 And with a stronger faith embrace 
 
 A sword, a horse, and shield. 
 
 Yet this inconstancy is such 
 
 As you too shall adore ; 
 I could not love thee, dear, so much 
 
 Lov'd I not honour more. 
 
 KlCHARD LOYELACE.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE. 
 
 I. The Moving Finger ... ... ... ... 1 
 
 II. OhEZ Clement ... ... ... ... 13 
 
 III. A By-path ... ... ... ... ... 25 
 
 IV. A Toss UP ... ... ... ... ... 37 
 
 V. In the Kue du Cherche-Midi ... ... ... 49 
 
 VI. Neighbours ... ... ... ... 61 
 
 VII. Journey's End ... ... ... ... ... 72 
 
 VIII. At Vasselot ... ... ... ... 84 
 
 IX. The Promised Land ... ... ... ... 96 
 
 X. Thus Far ... ... ... ... ... ICS 
 
 XL Br Surprise ... ... ... ... ... 120 
 
 XII. A Summons ... ... ... ... 132 
 
 XIIL War 144 
 
 XIV. Gossip ... ... ... 155 
 
 XV. War ... ... ... ... 166 
 
 XVI. A Masterful Man ... ... ... ... 177 
 
 XVII. Without Drum or Trumpet ... ... ... 188
 
 viii CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER 
 
 XVIII. A Woman of Action ... 
 
 PAGE 
 
 201 
 
 212 
 222 
 
 XIX. The Search 
 
 XX. WOUKDED 
 
 XXT. For France ... ... ... ••• 233 
 
 XXII. In the Macqcis ... ... ••• ••• ^45 
 
 XXIII. An Understanding ... ... ••• 257 
 
 XXIV. " Ce QUE Femme Veut " ... ... ... 2G9 
 
 XXV. On the Great Road ... ... ... 279 
 
 XXVI. The End of the Journey ... ... ••• 291 
 
 XXVII. The Abbe's Salad ... ... ••• 303 
 
 XXVIII. Gold ... .•• ••• ••• ••• ^U 
 
 XXIX. A Balanced Account ... ... ••• 324 
 
 XXX. The Beginning and the End ... ... ... 335 
 
 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 "Monsieur le Colonel," he said ... ... Frontispiece 
 
 She knelt by the Dead Man's Side ... To face imge 6 
 
 "Are too Lory de Vasselot?" ... ... ... „ 82 
 
 They pulled slowly out ... ... ... „ 198 
 
 They slowly cocked their Old-fashioned Single- 
 barrelled Guns ... ... ... ... „ 256 
 
 He threw the Abbe back ... ... ... „ 313
 
 THE ISLE OF UNEEST, 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE MOVING FIXGEE. 
 
 " The Moving Finger writes ; and, having writ, 
 Moves on : nor all thy piety nor wit 
 
 Shall lure it back to cancel half a line, 
 Nor all thy tears wash out a word of it." 
 
 The afternoon sun was lowering towards a heavy bank 
 of clouds hanging still and sullen over the Mediter- 
 ranean. A mistral was blowing. The last yellow rays 
 shone fiercely upon the towering coast of Corsica, and 
 the windows of the village of Olmeta glittered like 
 gold. 
 
 There are two Olmetas in Corsica, both in the north, 
 both on the west coast, both perched high like an eagle's 
 nest, both looking down upon those lashed waters of 
 the Mediterranean, which are not the waters that poets 
 sing of, for they are as often white as they are blue ; 
 they are seldom glassy except in the height of summer, 
 
 B
 
 2 THE ISLE OF UNREST. 
 
 and sailors tell that they are as treacherous as any 
 waters of the earth. Neither aneroid nor weather- 
 wisdom may, as a matter of fact, tell when a mistral 
 will arise, how it will blow, how veer, how drop and 
 rise, and drop again. For it will blow one day beneath 
 a cloudless sky, lashing the whole sea white like milk, 
 and blow harder to-morrow under racing clouds. 
 
 The great chestnut trees in and around Olmeta 
 groaned and strained in the grip of their lifelong foe. 
 The small door, the tiny windows, of every house were 
 rigorously closed. The whole place had a wind-swept 
 air despite the heavy foliage. Even the roads, and 
 notably the broad " Place," had been swept clean and 
 dustless. And in the middle of the " Place," between 
 the fountain and the church steps, a man lay dead 
 upon his face. 
 
 It is as well to state here, once for all, that we 
 are dealing with Olmeta-di-Tuda, and not that other 
 Olmeta^the virtuous, di Capocorso, in fact, which 
 would shudder at the thought of a dead man lying on 
 its "Place," before the windows of the very Mairie, 
 \mder the shadow of the church. For Cap Corse is the 
 good boy of Corsica, where men think sorrowfully 
 of the wilder communes to the south, and raise their 
 eyebrows at the very mention of Corte and Sartene — 
 where, at all events, the women have for husbands, 
 men — and not degenerate Pisan vine-snippers.
 
 THE MOVING FINGER. 3 
 
 It was not so long ago either. For the man might 
 have heen alive to-day, tlioiigh he would have been old 
 and bent no doubt ; for he was a thick-set man, and 
 must have been strong. He had, indeed, carried his 
 lead up from the road that runs by the Guadelle river. 
 Was he not to be traced all the way up the short cut 
 through the olive terraces by one bloody footprint at 
 regular intervals ? You could track his passage across 
 tlie " Place," towards the fountain of which he had 
 fallen short like a poisoned rat that tries to reach water 
 and fails. 
 
 He lay quite alone, still grasping the gun which he 
 had never laid aside since boyhood. No one went to 
 him ; no one had attempted to help him. He lay as 
 he had fallen, with a thin stream of blood running- 
 slowly from one trouser-leg. For this was Corsican 
 work — that is to say, dirty work — from behind a rock, 
 in the back, at close range, without warning or mercy, 
 as honest men would be ashamed to shoot the merest 
 beast of the forest. It was as likely as not a charge of 
 buck-shot low down in the body, leaving the rest to 
 hemorrhage or gangrene. 
 
 All Olmeta knew of it, and every man took care that 
 it should be no business of his. Several had approached, 
 pipe in mouth, and looked at the dead man without 
 comment ; but all had gone away again, idly, in- 
 differently. For in this the most beautiful of the
 
 4 THE ISLE OF UNREST. 
 
 islands, liumau life is held cheaper than in any land of 
 Europe. 
 
 Some one, it was understood, had gone to tell the 
 gendarmes down at St. Florent, There was no need to 
 send and tell his wife — half a dozen women were 
 racing through the olive groves to get the first taste of 
 that. Perhaps some one had gone towards Oletta to 
 meet the Abbe Susini, whose business in a measure 
 this must be. 
 
 The sun suddenly dipped behind the heavy bank of 
 clouds and the mountains darkened. Although it lies 
 in the very centre of the Mediterranean, Corsica is a 
 gloomy land, and the summits of her high mountains 
 are more often covered than clear. It is a land of 
 silence and brooding quiet. The women are seldom 
 gay ; the m en, in their heavy clothes of dark corduroy, 
 have little to say for themselves. Some of them were 
 standing now in the shadow of the great trees, smoking 
 their pipes in silence, and looking with a studied in- 
 difference at nothing. Each w^as prepared to swear 
 before a jury at the Bastia assizes that he knew 
 nothing of the " accident," as it is here called, to Pietro 
 Andrei, and had not seen him crawl up to Olmeta to 
 die. Indeed, Pietro Andrei's death seemed to be 
 nobody's business, though we are told that not so much 
 as a sparrow may fall unheeded. 
 
 The Abbe Susini was coming now — a little fiery man,
 
 THE MOVING FINGER. 5 
 
 with the walk of one who was slightly bow-legged, 
 though his cassock naturally concealed this defect. 
 He was small and not too broad, with a narrow face 
 and clean, straight features — something of the Spaniard, 
 something of the Greek, nothing Italian, nothing 
 French. In a word, this was a Corsican, which is to 
 say that he was different from any other European 
 race, and would, as sure as there is corn in Egypt, be 
 overbearing, masterful, impossible. He was, of course, 
 clean shaven, as brown as old oak, with little flashing 
 black eyes. His cassock was a good one, and his hat, 
 though dusty, shapely and new. But his whole 
 bearing threw, as it were, into the observer's face the 
 suggestion that the habit does not make the priest. 
 
 He came forward without undue haste, and displayed 
 little surprise and no horror. 
 
 " Quite like old times," he said to himself, remember- 
 ing the days of Louis Philippe. He knelt down beside 
 the dead man, and perhaps the attitude reminded him 
 of his calling ; for he fell to praying, and made the 
 gesture of the cross over Andrei's head. Then suddenly 
 he leapt to his feet, and shook his lean fist out towards 
 the valley and St. Florent, as if he knew whence this 
 trouble came. 
 
 " Provided they would keep their work in their own 
 commune," he cried, " instead of bringing disgrace on a 
 parish that has not had the gendarmes this — this "
 
 6 THE ISLE OF UNREST. 
 
 "Three clays," added one of the bystanders, who 
 had drawn near. And he said it with a certain pride, 
 as of one well pleased to belong to a virtuous com- 
 munity. 
 
 But the priest was not listening. He had already 
 turned aside in his quick, jerky way; for he was a 
 comparatively young man. He was looking through 
 the olives towards the south. 
 
 " It is the women," he said, and his face suddenly 
 hardened. He was impulsive, it appeared — quick 
 to feel for others, fiery in his anger, hasty in his 
 judgment. 
 
 From the direction in which he and the bystanders 
 looked, came the lium of many voices, and the high, in- 
 cessant shrieks of one who seemed demented. Presently 
 a confused procession appeared from the direction of the 
 south, hurrying through the narrow street now called 
 the line Carnot. It was headed by a woman, who led 
 a little child, running and stumbling as he ran. At 
 her heels a number of women hurried, confusedly 
 shouting, moaning, and wailing. The men stood waiting 
 for them in dead silence — a characteristic scene. The 
 leading w^oman seemed to be superior to her neighbours, 
 for she wore a black silk handkerchief on her head 
 instead of a white or coloured cotton. It is almost 
 a mantilla, and marks as clear a social distinction in 
 Corsica as does that head-dress in Spain. She dragged
 
 SHE KNELT BY THE DEAD 3IAN S SIDE.
 
 THE MOVING FINGER. 7.. 
 
 at the child, and scarce turned her head when he fell 
 and scrambled as best he could to his feet. He laughed 
 and crowed with delight, remembering last year's 
 carnival with that startling, photographic memory of 
 early childhood which never forgets. 
 
 At every few steps the woman gave a shriek as if 
 she were suffering some intermittent agony which 
 caught her at regular intervals. At the sight of the 
 crowd she gave a quick cry of despair, and ran forward, 
 leaving her child sprawling on the road. She knelt 
 by the dead man's side with shriek after shriek, and 
 seemed to lose all control over herself, for she gave way 
 to those strange gestures of despair of which many read 
 in novels and a few in the Scriptures, and which come 
 by instinct to those who have no reading at all. She 
 dragged the handkerchief from her head, and threw it 
 over her face. She beat her breast. She beat the very 
 ground with her clenched hands. Her little boy, 
 having gathered his belongings together and dusted his 
 cotton frock, now came forward, and stood watching her 
 with his fingers at his mouth. He took it to be a 
 game which he did not understand ; as indeed it was — • 
 the game of life. 
 
 The priest scratched his chin with his forefinger, 
 which was probably a habit with him when puzzled, 
 and stood looking down out of the corner of his eyes 
 at the "round.
 
 8 THE ISLE OF UNREST. 
 
 It was he, however, who moved first, and, sfcoopiag, 
 loosed the clenched fingers round the gun. It was a 
 double-barrelled gun, at full cock, and every man in 
 the little crowd assembled carried one like it. To this 
 day, if one meets a man, even in the streets of Corte 
 or Ajaccio, who carries no gun, it may be presumed 
 that it is only because he pins greater faith on a 
 revolver. 
 
 Neither hammer had fallen, and the abbe gave a 
 little nod. It was, it seemed, the usual thing to make 
 quite sure before shooting, so that there might be no 
 unnecessary waste of powder or risk of reprisal. The 
 woman looked at the gun, too, and knew the meaning 
 of the raised hammers. 
 
 She leapt to her feet, and looked round at the sullen 
 faces. 
 
 "And some of you know who did it," she said; 
 " and you will help the murderer when he goes to the 
 macquis, and take him food, and tell him when the 
 gendarmes are hunting him," 
 
 She waved her hand fiercely towards the mountains, 
 which loomed, range behind range, dark and forbidding 
 to the south, towards Calvi and Corte. But the men 
 only shrugged their shoulders ; for the forest and the 
 mountain brushwood were no longer the refuge they used 
 to be in this the last year of the iron rule of Napoleon 
 III., who, whether he possessed or not the Corsican
 
 THE MOVING FINGER. 9 
 
 blood that his foes deny him, knew, at all events, how 
 to rule Corsica better than any man before or since. 
 
 " No, no," said the priest, soothingly. " Those days 
 are gone. He will be taken, and justice will be done." 
 
 But he spoke without conviction, almost as if he had 
 no faith in this vaunted regeneration of a people whose 
 history is a story of endless strife — as if he could see 
 with a prophetic eye thirty years into the future, down 
 to the present day, when the last state of that land is 
 worse than the first. 
 
 " Justice ! " cried the woman. " There is no justice in 
 Corsica ! What had Pietro done that he should lie 
 there ? Only his duty — only that for which he was 
 paid. He was the Peruccas' agent, and because he 
 made the idlers pay their rent, they threatened him. 
 Because he put up fences, they raised their guns to 
 him. Because he stopped their thieving and their 
 lawlessness, they shoot him. He drove their cattle 
 from the fields because they were Perucca's fields, and 
 he was paid to watch his master's interests. But 
 Perucca they dare not touch, because his clan is large, 
 and would hunt the murderer down. If he was caught, 
 the Peruccas would make sure of the jury — ay ! and 
 of the judge at Bastia — but Pietro is not of Corsica ; 
 he has no friends and no clan, so justice is not 
 for him." 
 
 She knelt down again as she spoke and laid her
 
 10 TOE ISLE OF UNEEST. 
 
 liaiid on Iier dead husband's back, but she made no 
 attempt to move him. For although Pietro Andrei 
 was an Italian, his wife was Corsican — a woman of 
 Bonifacio, that grim town on a rock so often besieged 
 and never yet taken by a fair fight. Slie had been 
 brought up in, as it were, an atmosphere of con- 
 ventional lawlessness, and knew that it is well not 
 to touch a dead man till the gendarmes have seen 
 him, but to send a child or an old woman to the 
 gendarmerie, and then to stand aloof and know nothing, 
 and feign stupidity ; so that the officials, when they 
 arrive, may find the whole village at work in the fields 
 or sitting in their liomes, while the dead, who can 
 tell no tales, has suddenly few friends and no enemies. 
 
 Then Andrei's widow rose slowly to her feet. Her 
 face was composed now and set. She arranged the 
 black silk handkerchief on her head, and set her dress 
 in order. She was suddenly calm and quiet. 
 
 "But see," she said, looking round into eyes that 
 failed to meet lier own, " in this country each man 
 must execute his own justice. It has always been so, 
 and it will be so, so long as there are any Corsicans 
 left. And if there is no man left, then the women 
 must do it." 
 
 She tied her apron tighter, as if about to undertake 
 some hard domestic duty, and brushed the dust from 
 her black dress.
 
 THE MOVING FINGER. 11 
 
 " Come here," she said, turning to the child, and 
 lapsing into the soft dialect of the south and east — 
 " come here, thou child of Pietro Andrei." 
 
 The child came forward. He was probably two 
 years old, and understood nothing that was passing. 
 
 " See here, you of Olmeta," she said composedly ; 
 and, stooping down, she dipped her finger in the pool 
 of blood that had collected in the dust. "See here — 
 and here." 
 
 As she spoke she hastily smeared the blood over the 
 child's face and dragged him away from the priest, Avho 
 had stepped forward. 
 
 " No, no," he protested. " Those times are past." 
 
 " Past : " said the woman, with a flash of fury. " All 
 the country knows that your own mother did it to you 
 at Sartene, where you come from." 
 
 The abbe made no answer, but, taking the child by 
 the arm, dragged him gently away from his mother. 
 With his other hand he sought in liis pocket for a 
 handkerchief. But he was a lone man, without a 
 housekeeper, and the handkerchief was missing. The 
 child looked from one to the other, laughing uncertainly, 
 with his grimly decorated face. 
 
 Then tlie priest stooped, and with the skirt of liis 
 cassock wiped the child's face. 
 
 " There," he said to the woman, " take him home, 
 for I hear the "endarmes coming."
 
 12 THE ISLE OP UNREST. 
 
 Indeed, the trotting of horses and the clank of the 
 long swinging sabres could be heard on the road below 
 the°village, and one by one the onlookers dropped away, 
 leaving the Abbe Susini alone at the foot of the church 
 steps.
 
 ( 13 ) 
 
 CHAPTEE II. 
 
 CHEZ CLlfiMENT. 
 
 " Comiuc on est heureu:^ qiiand on sait cc qu'on vent I " 
 
 It was the dinner hour at the Hotel Clement at Bastia ; 
 and the event was of greater importance than the out- 
 ward appearance of the house would seem to promise. 
 For there is no promise at all about the house on the 
 left-hand side of Bastia's one street, the Boulevard du 
 Palais, which bears, as its only sign, a battered lamp 
 with the word " Clement " printed across it. The ground 
 floor is merely a rope and hemp warehouse. A small 
 Corsican donkey, no bigger than a Newfoundland dog, 
 lives in the basement, and passes many of his waking 
 hours in what may be termed the entrance hall of the 
 hotel, appearing to consider himself in some sort a 
 concierge. The upper floors of the huge Genoese house 
 are let out in large or small apartments to mysterious 
 families, of which the younger members are always to 
 be met carrying jugs carefully up and do^vn the greasy, 
 common staircase.
 
 14 THE ISLE OF UNREST. 
 
 The first floor is the Hotel Clement, or, to be more 
 correct, one is " cliez Clement " on the first floor. 
 
 " You stay with Clement," will be the natural remark 
 of any on board the jNIarseilles or Leghorn steamer, on 
 being told that the traveller disembarks at Bastia, 
 
 " We shall meet to-night chez Clement," the oflicers 
 say to each other on leaving the parade ground at four 
 o'clock. 
 
 "Dejeuner chez Clement," is the usual ending to a 
 notice of a marriage, or a first communion, in the 
 rdit Bastiais, that greatest of all foolscap-size journals. 
 
 It is comforting to reflect, in these times of hurried 
 changes, that the traveller to Bastia may still find him- 
 self chez Clement — may still have to kick at the closed 
 door of the first-floor flat, and find that door opened by 
 Clement himself, always affable, always gentlemanly, 
 with the same crumbs strewed carelessly down the 
 same waistcoat, or, if it is evening time, in his spotless 
 cook's dress. One may be sure of the same grave 
 welcome, and the easy transition from grave to gay, the 
 smiling, grand manner of conducting the guest to one of 
 those vague and darksome bedrooms, where the jug and 
 the basin never match, where the floor is of red tiles, 
 with a piece of uncertain carpet sliding hither and 
 thither, with the shutters always shut, and the musti- 
 ness of the middle ages hanging heavy in the air. For 
 Bastia has not changed, and never will. And it is not
 
 CHEZ CLEMENT. 15 
 
 only to be fervently hoped, but seems likely, that 
 Clement ■will never grow old, and never die, but con- 
 tinue to live and demonstrate the startling fact that 
 one may be born and live all one's life in a remote, 
 forgotten town, and still be a man of the world. 
 
 The soup had been served precisely at six, and the 
 four artillery officers were already seated at the square 
 table near the fireplace, which was and is still ex- 
 clusively the artillery table. The other halitues were 
 in their places at one or other of the half-dozen tables 
 that fill the room — two gentlemen from the Prefecture, 
 a civil engineer of the projected railway to Corte, 
 a commercial traveller of the old school, and, at the 
 corner table, farthest from the door, Colonel Gilbert 
 of the Engineers. A clever man this, who had seen 
 service in the Crimea, and had invariably distinguished 
 himself whenever the opportunity occurred ; but he 
 was one of those who await, and do not seek oppor- 
 tunities. Perhaps he had enemies, or, what is worse, 
 no friends ; for at the age of forty he found himself 
 appointed to Bastia, one of the waste places of the 
 War Office, where an inferior man would have done 
 better. 
 
 Colonel Gilbert was a handsome man, with a fair 
 moustache, a high forehead, surmounted by thin, 
 receding, smooth hair, and good-natured, idle eyes. He 
 lunched and dined chez Clement always, and was
 
 16 THE ISLE OF UNREST. 
 
 frankly, good naturedly bored at Bastia. He hated 
 Corsica, had no sympathy with the Corsican, and was 
 a Northern Frenchman to the tips of his long white 
 fingers. 
 
 "Your Bastia, my good Clement," he said to the 
 host, who invariably came to the dining-room with the 
 roast and solicited the opinion of each guest upon 
 the dinner in a few tactful, easy words — " your Bastia 
 is a sad place." 
 
 This evening Colonel Gilbert was in a less talkative 
 mood than usual, and exchanged only a nod with his 
 artillery colleagues as he passed to his own small table. 
 He opened his newspaper, and became interested in it 
 at once. It was several days old, and had come by way 
 of Nice and Ajaccio from Paris. All France was at 
 this time eager for news, and every Frenchman studied 
 the journal of his choice with that uneasiness which 
 seems to foreshadow in men's hearts the approach of 
 any great event. For this was the spring of 1870, 
 when France, under the hitherto iron rule of her 
 adventurer emperor, suddenly began to plunge and 
 rear, while the nations stood around her wondering who 
 should receive the first kick. The emperor was ill ; 
 the cheaper journals were already talking of his funeral. 
 He was uneasy and restless, turning those dull eyes 
 hither and thither over Europe — a man of inscrutable 
 face and deep hidden plans — perhaps the greatest
 
 CHEZ CLILMENT. 17 
 
 adventurer who ever sat a throne. Condemned by a 
 French Court of Peers in 1840 to imprisonment for 
 life, he went to Ham with the quiet question, " But 
 how long does perpetuity last in France ? " And eight 
 years Later he was absolute master of the country. 
 
 Corsica in particular was watching events, for Corsica 
 was cowed. She had come under the rule of this despot, 
 and for the first time in her history had found her 
 master. Instead of being numbered by hundreds, as they 
 were before and are again now at the end of the century, 
 the outlaws hiding in the mountains scarce exceeded a 
 score. The elections were conducted more honestly than 
 had ever been before, and the Continental newspapers 
 spoke hopefully of the dawn of civilization showing itself 
 among a people who have ever been lawless, have ever 
 loved war better than peac3. 
 
 "But it is a false dawn," said the Abbe Susini 
 of Olmeta, himself an insatiable reader of newspapers, 
 a keen and ardent politician. Like the majority of 
 Corsicans, he was a staunch Bonapartist, and held that 
 the founder of that marvellous dynasty was the greatest 
 man to walk this earth since the days of direct Divine 
 inspiration. 
 
 It was only because Napoleon III. was a Bonaparte 
 that Corsica endured his tyranny; perhaps, indeed, 
 tyranny and an iron rule suited better than equity or 
 tolerance a people descended from the most ancient of 
 
 c
 
 18 THE ISLE OF UNEEST. 
 
 tlie fighting races, speaking a tongue wherein occur 
 expressions of hate and strife that are Tuscan, Sicilian, 
 Greek, Spanish, and Arabic. 
 
 Now that the emperor's hand was losing its grip on 
 the helm, there were many in Corsica keenly alive to 
 the fact that any disturbance in France would probably 
 lead to anarchy in the turbulent island. There were 
 even some who saw a hidden motive in the appointment 
 of Colonel Gilbert as engineer ofl&cer to a fortified place 
 that had no need of his services. 
 
 Gilbert himself probably knew that his appointment 
 had been made in pursuance of the emperor's policy 
 of road and rail. For Corsica was to be opened up by 
 a railway, and would have none of it. And though 
 to day the railway from Bastia to Ajaccio is at last 
 open, the station at Corte remains a fortified place with 
 a loopholed wall around it. 
 
 But Colonel Gilbert kept his own counsel. He sat, 
 indeed, on the board of the struggling railway — a gift 
 of the French Government to a department which has 
 never paid its way, has always been an open wound. 
 But he never spoke there, and listened to the fierce 
 speeches of the local members with his idle, easy smile. 
 He seemed to stand aloof from his new neighbours and 
 their insular interests. He was, it appeared, a cultured 
 man, and perhaps found none in this wild island who 
 could understand his thoughts. His attitude towards
 
 CHEZ CLEMENT. 19 
 
 his surroundings was, in a word, tlie usual indifferent 
 attitude of the Frenchman in exile, reading only French 
 newspapers, fixing his attention only on France, and 
 awaiting with such patience as he could command the 
 moment to return thither. 
 
 " Any news ? " asked one of the artillery officers — a 
 sub-lieutenant recently attached to his battery, a penni- 
 less possessor of an historic name, who perhaps had 
 dreams of carving his way through to the front again. 
 
 The colonel shrus^^ed his shoulders. 
 
 " You may have the papers afterwards," he said ; for 
 it was not wise to discuss any news in a public place 
 at that time. " See you at the Eeunion, no doubt." 
 
 And he did not speak again except to Clement, who 
 came round to take the opinion of each guest upon the 
 fare provided. 
 
 " Passable," said the colonel — " passable, my good 
 Clement. But do you know, I could send you to prison 
 for providing this excellent leveret at this time of year. 
 Are there no game laws, my friend ? " 
 
 But Clement only laughed and spread out his hands, 
 for Corsica chooses to ignore the game laws. And the 
 colonel, having finished his coffee, buckled on his sword, 
 and went out into the twilight streets of what was once 
 the capital of Corsica. Bastia, indeed, has, like the 
 majority of men and women, its history written on its 
 face. On the high land above the old port stands the
 
 2{) THE ISLE OP UNREST. 
 
 citadel, just as the Genoese merchant-adventurers 
 planned it five hundred years ago. Beneath the 
 citadel, and clustered round the port, is the little old 
 Genoese town, no bigger than a village, which served 
 for two hundred and fifty years as capital to an island 
 in constant war, against which it had always to defend 
 itself. 
 
 It would seem that some hundred years ago, just 
 before the island became nominally a French posses- 
 sion, Bastia, for some reason or another, took it into its 
 municipal head to grow, and it ran as it were all down 
 the hill to that which is now the new harbour. It 
 built two broad streets of tall Genoese houses, of which 
 one somehow missed fire, and became a slum, while the 
 other, with its great houses but half inhabited, is to-day 
 the Boulevard du Palais, where fashionable Bastia 
 promenades itself — when it is too windy, as it almost 
 always is, to walk on the Place St. Nicholas — where all 
 the shops are, and where the modern European neces- 
 sities of daily life are not to be bought for love or 
 money. 
 
 There are, however, two excellent knife-shops in the 
 Boulevard du Palais, where every description of stiletto 
 may be purchased, where, indeed, the enterprising may 
 buy a knife which will not only go shrewdly into a foe, 
 but come right out on the other side — in front, that 
 is to say, for no true Corsican is so foolish as to stab
 
 CHEZ CLEMENT. 21 
 
 anywhere but in the back — and, protruding thus, will 
 display some pleasing legend, such as " Vendetta," or 
 " I serve my master," or " Viva Corsica," roughly en- 
 graved on the long blade. There is a macaroni ware- 
 house. There are two of those mysterious Mediterranean 
 provision warehouses, with some ancient dried sausages 
 hanging in the window, and either doorpost flanked by 
 a tub of sardines, highly, and yet, it would seem, in' 
 sufficiently, cured. There is a tiny book-shop displaying 
 a choice of religious pamphlets and a fly-blown copy of 
 a treatise on viniculture. And finally, an ironmonger 
 will sell you anything but a bath, while he thrives on 
 a lively trade in percussion- caps and gunpowder. 
 
 Colonel Gilbert did not pause to look at these 
 bewildering shop-windows, for the simple reason that 
 he knew every article there displayed. 
 
 He was, it will be remembered, a leisurely French- 
 man, than whom there are few human beings of a more 
 easily aroused attention. Any small street incident 
 sufficed to make him pause. He had the air of one 
 waiting for a train, who knows that it will not come 
 for hours yet. He strolled down the boulevard, smoking 
 a cigarette, and presently turned to the right, emerging 
 with head raised to meet the sea-breeze upon that 
 deserted promenade, the Place St. Nicholas. 
 
 Here he paused, and stood wdth his head slightly 
 inclined to one side— an attitude usually considered to
 
 22 THE ISLE OF UNREST. 
 
 be indicative of the artistic temperament, and admired 
 the prospect. The " Place " was deserted, and in the 
 middle the great statue of Xapoleon stood staring 
 blankly across the sea towards Elba. There is, whether 
 tlie artist intended it or not, a look of stony amazement 
 on this marble face as it gazes at the island of Elba 
 lying pink and hazy a few miles across that rippled 
 sea; for on this side of Corsica there is more peace 
 than in the open waters of the Gulf of Lyons. 
 
 " Surely," that look seems to say, " the world could 
 never expect that puny island to hold me." 
 
 Colonel Gilbert stood and looked dreamily across the 
 sea. It was plain to the most incompetent observer 
 that the statue represented one class of men — those 
 who make their opportunities ; while Gilbert, with his 
 high and slightly receding forehead, his lazy eyes and 
 good-natured mouth, was a fair type of that other class 
 which may take advantage of opportunities that offer 
 themselves. The majority of men have not even the 
 pluck to do that, which makes it easy for mediocre 
 people to get on in this world. 
 
 Colonel Gilbert turned on his heel and walked 
 slowly back to the Eeucion des Officiers— the military 
 club which stands on the Place St. Nicholas immedi- 
 ately behind the statue of JSTapoleon — a not too lively 
 place of entertainment, with a billiard-room, a reading- 
 room, and half a dozen iron tables and chairs on the
 
 CHEZ CLEMENT. ^3 
 
 pavement in front of the house. Here the colonel 
 seated himself, called for a liqueur, and sat watching 
 a young moon rise from the sea beyond the Islet of 
 Capraja. 
 
 It was the month of February, and the southern 
 spring was already in the air. The twilight is short 
 in these latitudes, and it was now nearly night. In 
 Corsica, as in Spain, the coolest hour is between sunset 
 and nightfall. With complete darkness there comes 
 a warm air from the ground. This was now beginning 
 to make itself felt ; but Gilbert had not only the pave- 
 ment, but the whole Place St. Nicholas to himself. 
 There are two reasons why Corsicans do not walk 
 abroad at night — the risk of a chill and the risk of 
 meeting one's enemy. 
 
 Colonel Gilbert gave no thought to these matters, 
 but sat with crossed legs and one spurred heel thrown 
 out, contentedly waiting as if for that train which he 
 must assuredly catch, or for that opportunity, perhaps, 
 which was so long in coming that he no longer seemed 
 to look for it. And while he sat there a man came 
 clanking from the town — a tired man, with heavy feet 
 and the iron heels of the labourer. He passed Colonel 
 Gilbert, and then, seeming to have recognized him by 
 the light of the moon, paused, and came back. 
 
 " Monsieur le colonel," he said, without raising his 
 hand to his hat, as a Frenchman would have done.
 
 24 THE ISLE OF UNREST. 
 
 " Yes," replied the colonel's pleasant voice, with no 
 ring of recognition in it. 
 
 "It is Mattel — the driver of the St. Florent diligence," 
 explained the man, who, indeed, carried his badge of 
 office, a long whip. 
 
 " Of course ; but I recognized you almost at once," 
 said the colonel, with that friendliness which is so 
 noticeable in the Eepublic to-day. 
 
 " You have seen me on the road often enough," said 
 the man, " and I have seen you. Monsieur le Colonel, 
 riding over to the Casa Perucca." 
 
 " Of course." 
 
 " You know Perucca's agent, Pietro Andrei ? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 "He was shot in the back on the 01m eta road this 
 afternoon." 
 
 Colonel Gilbert gave a slight start. 
 
 " Is that so ? " he said at length, quietly, after a 
 pause. 
 
 " Yes," said the diligence-driver ; and without 
 further comment he walked on, keeping well in the 
 middle of the road, as it is wise to do when one has 
 enemies.
 
 ( 25 ) 
 
 CHArXER III, 
 
 A BY-PATH. 
 
 " L'intriguG c'ost Iromper son homme ; I'habilete o'est faire qu'il so 
 trompe lui-meme." 
 
 For an idle-minded man, Colonel Gilbert was early 
 astir the next morning, and rode out of the town soon 
 after sunrise, following the Vescovato road, and chatting 
 pleasantly enough with the workers already on foot and 
 in saddle on their way to the great plain of Biguglia, 
 where men may labour all day, though, if they spend 
 so much as one night there, must surely die. For the 
 eastern coast of Corsica consists of a series of level 
 plains where malarial fever is as rife as in any African 
 swamp, and the traveller may ride through a fertile 
 land where eucalyptus and palm grow amid the vine- 
 yards, and yet no human being may live after sunset. 
 The labourer goes forth to his work in the morning 
 accompanied by his dog, carrying the ubiquitous double- 
 barrelled gun at full cock, and returns in the evening 
 to his mountain village, where, at all events, he may 
 breathe God's air without fear.
 
 26 THE ISLE OF UNKEST. 
 
 The colonel turned to the right a few miles out, 
 following the road which leads straight to that 
 mountain wall which divides all Corsica into the 
 " near " and the " far " side — into two peoples, speaking 
 a different dialect, following slightly different customs, 
 and only finding themselves united in the presence 
 of a common foe. The road mounts steadily, and this 
 February morning had broken grey and cloudy, so that 
 the colonel found himself in the mists that hang over 
 these mountains during the spring months, long before 
 he reached the narrow entrance to the grim and sound- 
 less Lancone Defile. The heavy clouds had nestled 
 down the mountains, covering them like a huge thick- 
 ness of wet cotton- wool. The road, which is little more 
 than a mule-path, is cut in the face of the rock, and, far 
 below, the river runs musically down to Lake Biguglia. 
 The colonel rode alone, though he could perceive 
 another traveller on the winding road in front of him 
 — a peasant in dark clothes, with a huge felt hat, 
 astride on a little active Corsican horse — sure of foot, 
 quick and nervous, as fiery as the men of this strange 
 land. 
 
 The defile is narrow, and the sun rarely warms the 
 river that runs through the depths where the foot 
 of man can never have trodden since God fashioned 
 this earth. Colonel Gilbert, it would appear, was 
 accustomed to solitude. Perhaps he had known it
 
 A BY-PATH. 27 
 
 so well during Iiis sojourn in this isLand of silence 
 and loneliness, that he had fallen a victim to its 
 dangerous charms, and being indolent by nature, had 
 discovered that it is less trouble to be alone than to 
 cultivate the society of man. The Lancone Defile has 
 to this day an evil name. It is not wise to pass 
 through it alone, for some have entered one end never 
 to emerge at the other. Colonel Gilbert pressed his 
 heavy charger, and gained rapidly on the horseman in 
 front of him. When he was within two hundred yards 
 of him, at the highest part of the pass and through the 
 narrow defile, he sought in the inner pocket of his tunic 
 — for in those days French officers possessed no other 
 clothes than their uniform — and produced a letter. 
 He examined it, crumpled it between his fingers, and 
 rubbed it across his dusty knee so that it looked old 
 and travel-stained at once. Then, with the letter in 
 his hand, he put spurs to his horse and galloped after 
 the horseman in front of him. The man turned almost 
 at once in his saddle, as if care rode behind him 
 there. 
 
 " Hi ! mon ami," cried the colonel, holding the letter 
 high above his head. " You have, I imagine, dropped 
 this letter ? " he added, as he approached the other, 
 who now awaited him. 
 
 " Where ? No ; but I have dropped no letter. 
 Where was it ? On the road ? "
 
 28 THE ISLE OP UNREST. 
 
 " Down there," answered the colonel, pointing back 
 with his whip, and handing over the letter with a final 
 air as if it were no affliir of his. 
 
 " Periicca," read the man, slowly, in the manner of 
 one liaving small dealings with pens and paper, " Mattel 
 Perucca — at Olmeta." 
 
 "Ah," said the colonel, lighting a cigarette. He 
 had apparently not troubled to read the address on the 
 envelope. 
 
 In such a thinly populated country as Corsica, faces 
 are of higher import than in crowded cities, where types 
 are mingled and individuality soon fades. The colonel 
 had already recognized this man as of Olmeta— one of 
 those, perhaps, who had stood smoking on the " Place " 
 there when Pietro Andrei crawled towards the fountain 
 and failed to reach it. 
 
 " I am going to Olmeta," said the man, " and you also, 
 perhaps." 
 
 " No ; I am exercising my horse, as you see. I shall 
 turn to the left at the cross-roads, and go towards 
 Murato. I may come round by Olmeta later— if I lose 
 my way." 
 
 The man smiled grimly. In Corsica men rarely 
 laugh. 
 
 " You will not do that. You know this country too 
 well for that. You are the officer connected with 
 the railway. I have seen you looking through your
 
 A BY-PATH. 29 
 
 iustmments at the earth, in the mountains, in the 
 rocks, and down in the plains — everywhere." 
 
 " It is my work," answered the colonel, tapping with 
 his whip the gold lace on his sleeve. " One must do 
 what one is ordered." 
 
 The other shrugged his shoulders, not seeming to 
 think that necessary. They rode on in silence, which 
 was only broken from time to time by the colonel, 
 who asked harmless questions as to the names of the 
 mountain summits now appearing through the riven 
 clouds, or the course of the rivers, or the ownership of 
 the wild and rocky land. At the cross-roads they 
 parted. 
 
 *' I am returning to Olmeta," said the peasant, as, 
 they neared the sign-post, " and will send that letter up 
 to the Casa Perucca by one of my children. I wonder " 
 — he paused, and, taking the letter from ]iis jacket 
 pocket, turned it curiously in his hand — " I wonder 
 what is in it ? " 
 
 The colonel shrugged his shoulders and turned his 
 horse's head. It was, it appeared, no business of his to 
 inquire what the letter contained, or to care whether 
 it be delivered or not. Indeed, he appeared to have 
 forgotten all about it. 
 
 "Good day, my friend— good day," he said absent- 
 mindedly. 
 
 And an hour later he rode up to the Casa Perucca,
 
 30 THE ISLE OF UNREST. 
 
 having approached that ancient house by a winding 
 path from the valley below, instead of by the high- 
 road from the Col San Stefano to Olmeta, which runs 
 past its very gate. The Casa Perucca is rather 
 singularly situated, and commands one of the most 
 wonderful views in this wild land of unrivalled prospects. 
 The high-road curves round the lower slope of the 
 mountains as round the base of a sugar-loaf, and is cut 
 at times out of the sheer rock, while a little lower it is 
 begirt by huge trees. It forms as it were a cornice, 
 perched three thousand feet above the valley, over 
 which it commands a view of mountain and bay and 
 inlet, but never a house, never a church, and the 
 farthest point is beyond Calvi, thirty miles away. 
 There is but one spur — a vast buttress of fertile land 
 thrown against the mountain, as a buttress may be 
 thrown against a church tower. 
 
 The Casa Perucca is built upon this spur of land, 
 and the Perucca estate — that is to say, the land 
 attached to the Casa (for property is held in small 
 tenures in Corsica) — is all that lies outside the road. 
 In the middle ages the position would have been 
 unrivalled, for it could be attacked from one side only, 
 and doubtless the Genoese Bank of St, George must 
 have had bitter reckonings with some dead and forgotten 
 rebel, who had his stronghold where the Casa now 
 stands. The present house is Italian in appearance —
 
 A BY-PATH. 31 
 
 a long, low, verandahed house, built iu two parts, as if 
 it had at one time been two liouses, and only connected 
 later by a round tower, now painted a darker colour 
 than the adjacent buildings. There are occasional 
 country houses like it to be found in Tuscany, notably 
 on the heights behind Fiesole. 
 
 The wall defining the peninsula is ten feet high, and 
 is built actually on the roadside, so that the Casa 
 Perucca, with its great wooden gate, turns a very cold 
 shoulder upon its poor neighbours. It is, as a matter 
 of fact, the best house north of Calvi, and the site of it 
 one of the oldest. Its only rival is the Chateau de 
 Vasselot, which stands deserted down in the valley a 
 few miles to the south, nearer to the sea, and farther 
 out of the world, for no high-road passes near it. 
 
 Beneath the Casa Perucca, on the northern slope of 
 the shoulder, the ground falls away rapidly in a series 
 of stony chutes, and to the south and west there are 
 evidences of the land having once been laid out in 
 terraces in the distant days when Corsicans were con- 
 tent to till the most fertile soil in Europe — always 
 excepting the Island of Majorca — but now in the wane 
 of the third empire, when every Corsican of any worth 
 had found employment in France, there were none to 
 grow vines or cultivate the olive. There is a short 
 cut up from the valley from the mouldering Chateau 
 de Vasselot, which is practicable for a trained horse.
 
 S-2 THE ISLE OF UNREST. 
 
 And Colonel Gilbert must have known tliis, for he had 
 described a circle in the wooded valley in order to gain 
 it. He must also have been to the Casa Perucca many 
 times before, for he rang the bell suspended outside the 
 door built in the thickness of the southern wall, where 
 a horseman would not have expected to gain admittance. 
 This door was, how^ever, constructed without steps on 
 its inner side, for Corsica has this in common with 
 Spain, that no man walks where he can ride, so that 
 steps are rarely built where a gradual slope will prove 
 more convenient. 
 
 There was something suggestive of a siege in the way 
 in which the door was cautiously opened, and a man- 
 servant peeped forth. 
 
 " Ah ! " he said, with relief, " it is the Colonel Gilbert. 
 Yes ; monsieur may see him, but no one else. Ah ! but 
 he is furious, I can tell you. He is in the verandah- 
 like a wild beast. I will take monsieur's horse." 
 
 Colonel Gilbert went through the palms and bamboos 
 and orange-trees alone, towards the house ; and there, 
 walking up and down, and stopping every moment to 
 glance towards the door, of which the bell still sounded, 
 he perceived a large, stout man, clad in light tweed, 
 wearing an old straw hat and carrying a thick stick. 
 
 " Ah ! " cried Perucca, " so you have heard the news. 
 And you have come, I hope, to apologize for your miser- 
 able France. It is thus that you govern Corsica, with
 
 A BY-PATH. 33 
 
 a Civil Service made up of a parcel of old women and 
 young counter-jumpers ! I have no patience with your 
 prefectures and your young men with flowing neck-ties 
 and kid gloves. Are we a girls' school to be governed 
 thus ? And you — such great soldiers ! Yes, I will 
 admit that the French are great soldiers, but you do 
 not know how to rule Corsica. A tight hand, colonel. 
 Holy name of thunder!" And he stamped his foot 
 with a decisiveness that made the verandah tremble. 
 
 The colonel laughed pleasantly. 
 
 " They want some men of your typo," he said. 
 
 "Ah!" cried Perucca, "I would rule them, for they 
 are cowards ; they are afraid of me. Do you know, 
 they had the impertinence to send one of their threaten- 
 ing letters to poor Andrei before they shot him. They 
 sent him a sheet of paper with a cross drawn on it. 
 Then 1 knew he was done for. They do not send that 
 loour river 
 
 He stopped short, and gave a jerk of the head. There 
 was somewhere in his fierce old heart a cord that vi- 
 brated to the touch of these rude mountain customs ; 
 for the man was a Corsican of long descent and pure 
 blood. Of such the fighting nations have made good 
 soldiers in the past, and even Piome could not make 
 them slaves. 
 
 " Or you could do it," went on Perucca, with a shrewd 
 nod, looking at him beneath shaggy brows. " The velvet 
 
 D
 
 34 THE ISLE OF UNREST. 
 
 glove — ell ? That would surprise them, for they have 
 never felt the touch of one. You, with your laugh and 
 idle ways, and behind them the perception — the per- 
 ception of the devil— or a woman." 
 
 The colonel had drawn forward a basket chair, and 
 was leaning back in it with crossed legs, and one foot 
 swinging, 
 
 "11 Heaven forbid ! No, my friend ; I require too 
 little. It is only the discontented wdio get on in the 
 world. But, mind you, I would not mind trying on 
 a small scale. I have often thought I should like to 
 buy a little property on this side of the island, and 
 cultivate it as they do up in Cap Corse. It would be 
 an amusement for my exile, and one could perhaps 
 make the butter for one's bread — green Chartreuse 
 instead of yellow — eh ? " 
 
 He paused, and seeing that the other made no reply, 
 continued in the same careless strain. 
 
 " If you or one of the other proprietors on this side 
 of the mountains would sell — perhaps." 
 
 But Perucca shook his head resolutely. 
 
 " No ; we should not do that. You, who have had to 
 do with the railway, must know that. We will let our 
 land go to rack and ruin, w^e will starve it and not 
 cultivate it, we will let the terraces fall away after the 
 rains, we will live miserably on the finest soil in Europe 
 — we may starve, but we won't sell."
 
 A BY-PATH. 35 
 
 Gilbert did not seem to be listening very intently. 
 He was watching the young bamboos now bursting into 
 their feathery new green, as they waved to and fro 
 against the blue sky. His head was sliglitly inclined 
 to one side, his eyes were contemplative. 
 
 '' It is a pity," he said, after a pause, " that Andrei 
 did not have a better knowledge of the insular 
 character. He need not have been in Olmeta church- 
 yard now." 
 
 " It is a pity," rapped out Perucca, with an emphatic 
 stick on the wooden floor, " that Andrei was so gentle 
 with them. He drove the cattle off the land. I should 
 have driven them into my own sheds, and told the 
 owners to come and take them. He w\as too easy-going, 
 too mild in his manners. Look at me — they don't send 
 me their threatening letters. You do not find any 
 crosses chalked on my door — eh ? " 
 
 And indeed, as he stood there, with his square 
 shoulders, his erect bearing and fiery, dark eyes, Mattel 
 Perucca seemed worthy of the name of his untamed 
 ancestors, and was not a man to be trifled with. 
 
 " Eh — what ? " he asked of the servant who had 
 approached timorously, bearing a letter on a tray. 
 " For me ? Something about Andrei, from those fools 
 of gendarmes, no doubt." 
 
 And he tore open the envelope which Colonel Gilbert 
 had handed to the peasant a couple of hours earlier in
 
 36 THE ISLE OF UNREST. 
 
 the Lancone Defile. He fixed his eye-glasses upon his 
 nose, clumsily, with one hand, and then unfolded the 
 letter. It was merely a sheet of blank paper, with a 
 cross drawn upon it. 
 
 His face suddenly blazed red with anger. His eyes 
 glared at the paper through the glasses placed crookedly 
 upon his nose. 
 
 " Holy name ! " he cried. " Look at this^this to me ! 
 The dogs ! " 
 
 The colonel looked at the paper with a shrug of the 
 shoulders. 
 
 "You will have to sell," he suggested lightly; and 
 glancing up at Perucca's face, saw something there that 
 made him leap to his feet. " HuUoa ! Here," he said 
 quickly — " sit down." 
 
 And as he forced Perucca into the chair, his hands 
 were already at the old man's collar. And in five 
 minutes, in the presence of Colonel Gilbert and two 
 old servants, Mattel Perucca died.
 
 ( 37 ) 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 A TOSS-UP. 
 " One can be but what one is born." 
 
 If any one had asked the Count Lory de Vasselot who 
 and what he was, he would probably have answered 
 that he was a member of the English Jockey Club. 
 For he held that that distinction conferred greater 
 honour upon him than the accident of his birth, which 
 enabled him to claim for grandfather the first Count de 
 Vasselot, one of Murat's aides-de-camp, a brilliant, 
 dashing cavalry officer, a boyhood's friend of the great 
 Napoleon. Lory de Vasselot was, moreover, a cavalry 
 officer himself, but had not taken part in any of the 
 enterprises of an emperor who held that to govern 
 Frenchmen it is necessary to provide them with a war 
 every four years. 
 
 " Bon Dieu ! " he told his friends, '•' I did not sleep 
 for two nights after I was elected to that great club." 
 
 Lory de Vasselot, moreover, did his best to live up
 
 38 THE ISLE OP UNREST, 
 
 to his position. He never, for instance, had his clothes 
 made in Paris. His very gloves came from a little 
 shop in Newmarket, where only the seamiest and 
 clumsiest of hand-coverings are provided, and horn 
 buttons are a sine qua non. 
 
 To desire to be mistaken for an Englishman is a 
 sure sign that you belong to the very best Parisian set, 
 and Lory de Vasselot's position was an enviable one, 
 for so long as he kept his hat on and stood quite still 
 and did not speak, he might easily have been some one 
 connected with the British turf. It must, of course, be 
 understood that the similitude of de Vasselot's desire 
 was only an outward one. We all think that every 
 other nation would fain be English, but as all other 
 countries have a like pitying contempt for us, there is 
 perhaps no harm done. And it is to be presumed that 
 if some candid friend were to tell de Vasselot that the 
 moment he uncovered his hair, or opened his lips, or 
 made a single movement, he was hopelessly and un- 
 mistakably French from top to toe, he would not have 
 been sorely distressed. 
 
 It will be remembered that the Third Napoleon — the 
 last of that strange dynasty — raised himself to the 
 Imperial throne — made himself, indeed, the most 
 powerful monarch in Europe — by statecraft, and not 
 by power of sword. With the magic of his name he 
 touched the heart of the most impetuous people in the
 
 A TOSS-UP. 39 
 
 world, and upon the uncertain, and, as it is whispered, 
 not always honest suffrage of the plebiscite, climbed 
 to the unstable height of despotism. For years he 
 ruled France with a sort of careless cynicism, and it 
 was only when his health failed that his hand began 
 to relax its grip. In the scramble for place and power, 
 the grandson of the first Count de Vasselot, might 
 easily have gained a prize, but Lory seemed to have 
 no ambition in that direction. Perhaps he had no 
 taste for ministry or bureau, nor cared to cultivate the 
 subtle knowledge of court and cabinet, which meant so 
 much at this time. His tastes were rather those of 
 the camp ; and, failing war, he had turned his thoughts 
 to sport. He had hunted in England and fished in 
 Norway. In the winter of 1869, he went to Africa for 
 big game, and, returning in the early weeks of March, 
 found France and his dear Paris gayer, more insouciant, 
 more brilliant than ever. 
 
 For the empire had never seemed more secure than 
 it did at this moment, had never stood higher in the 
 eyes of the world, had never boasted so lavish a court. 
 Paris was at her best, and Lory de Vasselot exclaimed 
 aloud, after the manner of his countrymen, at the sight 
 of the young buds and spring flowers around the Lac 
 in the Bois de Boulogne, as he rode there this fresh 
 morning. 
 
 He had only arrived in Paris the night before, and,
 
 40 THE ISLE OF UNREST. 
 
 dining at the Cercle MilitairO; had accepted the loan of 
 a horse. 
 
 "One will at all events see one's friends in the 
 wood," he said. But riding there in an ultra-English 
 suit of cords at the fashionable hour, he found that he 
 had somehow missed the fashion. The alleys, which had 
 been popular a year ago, were now deserted ; for there 
 is nothing so fickle as social taste, and the riders were 
 all at the other side of the Eoute de Longchamps. 
 
 Lory turned his horse's head in that direction, and 
 was riding leisurely, when he heard an authoritative 
 voice apparently directed towards himself. He was in 
 one of the narrow allecs, " reserved for cavaliers," and, 
 turning, perceived that the soft sandy gravel had pre- 
 vented his hearing the approach of other riders — a 
 man and a woman. And the woman's horse was beyond 
 control. It was a little, fiery Arab, leaping high in 
 the air at each stride, and timing a nasty forward 
 jerk of the head at the worst moment for its rider's 
 comfort. 
 
 There was no time to do anything but touch his own 
 trained charger with the spur and gallop ahead. He 
 turned in his saddle. The Arab was fxainincj on him, 
 and gradually leaving behind the heavy horse and 
 w^eighty rider who were giving chase. The woman, 
 with a set white face, was jerking at the bridle with her 
 left hand in an odd, mechanical, feeble way, while with
 
 A TOSS-UP. 41 
 
 her right, she held to the pommel of her saddle. But 
 she was swaying forward in an unmistakable manner. 
 She was only half conscious, and in a moment must 
 fall. 
 
 Lory glanced behind her, and saw a stout built man, 
 with a fair moustache and a sunburnt face, riding his 
 great horse in the stirrups like a jockey, his face 
 alight with that sudden excitement which sometimes 
 blazes in light blue eyes. He made a quick gesture, 
 which said as plainly as words — 
 
 " You must act, and quickly ; I can do nothing." 
 
 And the three thundered on. The rides in the Bois 
 de Boulogne are all bordered on either side by thick 
 trees. If Lory de Vasselot pulled across, he would 
 send the maddened Arab into the forest, where the 
 first low branch must of a necessity batter in its rider's 
 head. He rode on, gradually edging across to what in 
 France is the wrong side of the road. 
 
 "Hold on, madame ; hold on," he said, in a quick low 
 voice. 
 
 But the woman did not seem to hear him. She had 
 dropped the bridle now, and the Arab had thrown it 
 forward over its head. 
 
 Then Lory gradually reined in. The M'oman was 
 reeling in the saddle as the Arab thundered alongside. 
 The wind blew back the long habit, and showed her 
 foot to be firmly in the stirrup.
 
 42 THE ISLE OF UNREST. 
 
 " Stirrup, madame ! " slioiited Lory, as if she were 
 miles away. " Mon Dieu, your stirrup ! " 
 
 But she only looked ahead with glazed eyes. 
 
 Then, edging nearer with a delicate spur, de Vasselot 
 shook off his own right stirrup, and, leaning down, lifted 
 the fainting woman with his right arm clean out of 
 the saddle. He rested her weight upon his thigh, and, 
 feeling cautiously with his foot, found her stirrup and 
 kicked it free. He pulled up slowly, and, drawing 
 aside, allowed the lady's companion to pass him at a 
 steady gallop after the Arab. 
 
 The lady was now in a dead faint, her dark red hair 
 hanging like a rope across de Yasselot's arm. She 
 was, fortunately, not a big woman ; for it was no easy 
 position to find one's self in, on the top, thus, of a large 
 horse with a senseless burden and no help in sight. 
 He managed, however, to dismount, and rather breath- 
 lessly carried the lady to the shade of the trees, where 
 he laid her with her head on a mound of rising turf, 
 and, lifting aside her hair, saw her face for the first 
 time. 
 
 " Ah ! That dear baroness ! " he exclaimed ; and, 
 turning, he found himself bowing rather stiffly to the 
 gentleman, who had now returned, leading the runaway 
 horse. He was not, it may be mentioned, the baron. 
 
 While the two men were thus regarding each other 
 in a polite silence, the baroness opened a pair of
 
 A TOSS-UP. 43 
 
 remarkably bright brown eyes, at first with wonder, 
 and then with understanding, and finally with wonder 
 again when they lighted on de Vasselot. 
 
 " Lory ! " she cried. " But Mdiere have you fallen 
 from ? " 
 
 " It must have been from heaven, baroness," he 
 rcj)lied, " for I assuredly came at the right moment." 
 - He stood looking down at her — a lithe, neat, rather 
 small-made man. Then he turned to attend to his 
 horse. The baroness was already busy with her hair. 
 She rose to her feet and smoothed her habit, 
 
 "Ah, good ! " she laughed. " There is no harm done. 
 But you saved my life, my dear Lory. One cannot 
 have two opinions as to that. If it were not that the 
 colonel is watching us, I should embrace you. But I 
 have not introduced you. This is Colonel Gilbert — 
 my dear and good cousin. Lory de Vasselot. The 
 colonel is from Bastia, by the way, and the Count de 
 Vasselot pretends to be a Corsican. I mention it 
 because it is only friendly to tell you that you have 
 something more than the weather and my gratitude in 
 common." 
 
 She laughed as she spoke ; then became suddenly 
 grave, and sat down again with her hand to her eyes. 
 
 " And I am going to faint," she added, with ghastly 
 lips that tried to smile, "and nobody but you two 
 men."
 
 44 THE ISLE OF UNREST. 
 
 "It is the reaction," said Colonel Gilbert, in his 
 soothing way. But he exchanged a quick glance with 
 de Vasselot. " It will pass, baroness." 
 
 " It is well to remember at such a moment that one 
 is a sportswoman," suggested de Vasselot. 
 
 " And that one has de Vasselot blood in one's 
 veins, you mean. You may as well say it." She rose 
 as she spoke, and looked from one to the other with 
 a brave laugh. " Bring me that horse," she said. 
 
 De Vasselot conveyed by one inimitable gesture that 
 he admired her spirit, but refused to obey her. Colonel 
 Gilbert smiled contemplatively. He was of a different 
 school — of that school of Frenchmen which owes its 
 existence to Napoleon III. — impassive, almost taciturn 
 — more British than the typical Briton. De Vasselot, 
 on the contrary, was quick and vivacious. His fine- 
 cut face and dark eyes expressed a hundred things that 
 his tongue had no time to put into words. He was 
 hard and brown and sunburnt, which at once made 
 him manly despite his slight frame. 
 
 " Ah," he cried, with a gay laugh, " that is better. 
 But seriously, you know, you sliould have a patent 
 stirrup " 
 
 He broke off, described the patent stirrup in three 
 gestures, how it opened and released the foot. He 
 showed the rider falling, the horse galloping away, the 
 released lady-rider rising to her feet and satisfying
 
 A TOSS-UP. 45 
 
 herself that no bones were broken— all in three more 
 gestures. 
 
 " Voila ! " he said ; " I shall send you one." 
 
 "And you as poor — as poor," said the baroness, 
 whose husband was of the new nobility, which is based, 
 as all the world knows, on solid manufacture. "My 
 friend, you cannot afford it." 
 
 " I cannot afford to lose you," he said, with a sudden 
 gravity, and with eyes which, to the nninitiated, would 
 undoubtedly have conveyed the impression that she 
 was the whole world to him. " Besides," he added, as 
 an after-thought, " it is only sixteen francs." 
 
 The baroness threw up her gay brown eyes. 
 
 "Just Heaven," she exclaimed, "what it is to be able 
 to inspire such affection — to be valued at sixteen 
 francs ! " 
 
 Then— for she was as quick and changeable as him- 
 self — she turned, and touched his arm with her thickly 
 gloved hand. 
 
 " Seriously, my cousin, I cannot thank you, and 
 you, Colonel Gilbert, for your promptness and your 
 skill. And as to my stupid husband, you know, he 
 has no words ; when I tell him, he will only grunt 
 behind his great moustache, and he will never thank 
 you, and will never forget. Never ! Eemember 
 that." And with a wave of the riding-whip, which 
 was attached to her wrist, she described eternity.
 
 46 THE ISLE OF UNREST. 
 
 De Yasselot turned with a deprecatory shrug of the 
 shoulders, and busied himself with the girths of his 
 saddle. At the touch and the sight of the buckles, his 
 eyes became grave and earnest. And it is not only 
 Frenchmen who cherish this cult of the horse, making 
 false gods of saddle and bridle, and a sacred temple of 
 the harness-room. Very seriously de Vasselot shifted 
 the side-saddle from the Arab to his own large and 
 gentle horse — a wise old charger with a Eoman nose; 
 who never wasted his mettle in park tricks, but served 
 honestly the Government that paid his forage. 
 
 The Baroness de Melide watched the transaction 
 in respectful silence, for she too took Ic sport very 
 seriously, and had attended a course of lectures at a 
 riding-school on the art of keeping and using harness. 
 Her colour was now returning — that brilliant, delicate 
 colour which so often accompanies dark red hair — and 
 she gave a little sigh of resignation. 
 
 Colonel Gilbert looked at her, but said notliing. He 
 seemed to admire her, in the same contemplative way 
 that he had admired the moon rising behind the island 
 of Capraja from the Place St. Nicholas in Bastia. 
 
 De Yasselot noted the sigh, and glanced sharply at 
 her over the shoulder of the big charger. 
 
 " Of what are you thinking ? " he said. 
 
 " Of the millennium, mon ami." 
 
 " The millennium ? "
 
 A TOSS-UP. 47 
 
 " Yes," she answered, gathering the bridle ; " when 
 women shall perhaps be allowed to be natural. Our 
 mothers played at being afraid — we play at being 
 courageous." 
 
 As she spoke she placed a neat foot in Colonel 
 Gilbert's hand, who lifted her without effort to the 
 saddle. De Vasselot mounted the Arab, and they rode 
 slowly homewards by way of the Avenue de Long- 
 "champs, through the Porte Dauphine, and up that 
 which is now the Avenue du Bois de Boulogne, which 
 was quiet enough at this time of day. The baroness 
 was inclined to be silent. She had been more shaken 
 than she cared to confess to two soldiers. Colonel 
 Gilbert probably saw this, for he began to make con- 
 versation with de Vasselot. 
 
 "You do not come to Corsica," he said. 
 
 " I have never been there — shall never go there," 
 answered de Vasselot. " Tell me — is it not a terrible 
 place ? The end of the world, I am told. My mother " 
 — he broke off with a gesture of the utmost 
 despair. " She is dead ! " he interpolated — " always 
 told me that it was the most terrible place in the 
 world. At my father's death, more than thirty years 
 ago, she quitted Corsica, and came to live in Paris, 
 where I was born, and where, if God is good, I shall die." 
 
 " My cousin, you talk too much of death," put in 
 the baroness, seriously.
 
 48 THE ISLE OP UNEEST. 
 
 " As between soldiers, baroness," replied de Vasselot, 
 gaily. " It is our trade. You know the island well, 
 colonel ? " 
 
 " No, I cannot say that. But I know the Chateau 
 de Vasselot." 
 
 " Now, that is interesting ; and I who scarcely know 
 the address ! Near Calvi, is it not ? A waste of rocks, 
 and behind each rock at least one bandit — so my dear 
 mother assured me." 
 
 " It might be cultivated," answered Colonel Gilbert, 
 indifferently. " It might be made to yield a small 
 return. I have often thought so. I have even 
 thought of whiling away my exile by attempting some 
 such scheme. I once contemplated buying a piece of 
 land on that coast to try. Perhaps you would sell ? " 
 
 " Sell ! " laughed de Vasselot. " No ; I am not such 
 a scoundrel as that. I would toss you for it, my dear 
 colonel ; I would toss you for it, if you like." 
 
 And as they turned out of the avenue into one of 
 the palatial streets that run towards the Avenue Victor 
 Hugo, he made the gesture of throwing a coin into the 
 air.
 
 ( 49 ) 
 
 CHAPTER V, 
 
 IX THE EUE DU CHEKCHE-MIDI. 
 
 " II ne faut jamais se laisser trop voir, mcme a ceux qui nous aiment." 
 
 It was not very definitely known what Maclemoisello 
 Brun taught in the School of Our Lady of the Sacred 
 Heart in the Eue du Cherche-Midi in Paris. For it is 
 to be feared that Mademoiselle Brun knew nothing 
 except the world ; and it is precisely that form of 
 knowledge which is least cultivated in a convent 
 school. 
 
 " She has had a romance," whispered her bright- 
 eyed charges, and lapsed into suppressed giggles at 
 the mere mention of such a word in connection with 
 a little woman dressed in rusty black, with thin grey 
 hair, a thin grey face, and a yellow neck. 
 
 It would seem, however, that there is a point where 
 even a mother-superior must come down, as it were, 
 into the market-place and meet the world. That point 
 is where the convent purse rattles thinly and the 
 mother-superior must face hunger. It had, in fact, 
 
 E
 
 50 THE ISLE OF UNREST. 
 
 beeu intimated to the conductors of the School of the 
 Sisterhood of the Sacred Heart by the ladies of the 
 quarter of St. Germain, that the convent teaching 
 taudit too little of one world and too much of another. 
 And the mother-superior, being a sensible woman, 
 agreed to engage a certain number of teachers from the 
 outer world. Mademoiselle Brun was vaguely entitled 
 an instructress, while Mademoiselle Denise Lange bore 
 the proud title of mathematical mistress. 
 
 Mademoiselle Brun, with her compressed mouth, her 
 wrinkled face, and her cold hazel eyes, accepted the 
 situation, as we have to accept most situations in this 
 world, merely because there is no choice, 
 
 " What can you teach ? " asked the soft-eyed mother- 
 superior. 
 
 ''Anything," replied Mademoiselle Brun, with a 
 direct gaze, which somehow cowed the nun. 
 
 " She has had a romance," whispered some wag of 
 fourteen, when Mademoiselle Brun first appeared in 
 the schoolroom ; and that became the accepted legend 
 regarding her. 
 
 " What are you saying of me ? " she asked one day, 
 when her rather sudden appearance caused silence at 
 a moment when silence was not compulsory. 
 
 "That you once had a romance, mademoiselle," 
 answered some daring girl. 
 
 "Ah!"
 
 IN THE EUE DU CIIERCIIE-MIDI. 51 
 
 And perhaps the dusky wrinkles Lapsed into gentler 
 lines, for some one had the audacity to touch mademoi- 
 selle's hand with a birdlike tap of one finger. 
 
 "And you must tell it to us." 
 
 For there were no nuns present, and mademoiselle 
 was suspected of having a fine contempt for the most 
 stringent of the convent laws. 
 
 "No." 
 
 " But why not, mademoiselle ? " 
 
 " Because the real romances are never told," replied 
 Mademoiselle Brun. 
 
 But that was only her way, perhaps, of concealing 
 the fact that there was nothing to tell. She spoke 
 in a low voice, for her class shared the long school- 
 room this afternoon with the mathematical class. 
 The room did not lend itself to description, for it 
 had bare walls and two long windows looking down 
 disconsolately upon a courtyard, where a grey cat 
 sunned herself in the daytime and bewailed her lot at 
 night. Who, indeed, would be a convent cat ? 
 
 At the far end of the long room Mademoiselle 
 Denise Lange was superintending, with an earnest 
 face, the studies of five young ladies. It was only 
 necessary to look at the respective heads of the pupils 
 to conclude that these young persons were engaged in 
 mathematical problems, for there is nothing so dis- 
 composing to the hair as arithmetic. Mademoiselle
 
 52 THE ISLE OF UNREST. 
 
 Lange herself seemed no more capable of steering a 
 course through a double equation than her pupils, for 
 she was young and pretty, with laughing lips and fair 
 hair, now somewhat ruffled by her calculations. "When, 
 however, she looked up, it might have been perceived 
 that her glance was clear and penetrating. 
 
 There was no more popular person in the Convent of 
 the Sacred Heart than Denise Lange, and in no walk 
 of life is personal attractiveness so much appreciated as 
 in a girls' school. It is only later in life that ces 
 demoiselles begin to find that their neighbour's beauty 
 is but skin-deep. The nuns — " fond fools," Mademoi- 
 selle Brun called them — concluded that because Denise 
 was pretty she must be good. The girls loved Denise 
 with a wild and exceedingly ephemeral affection, be- 
 cause she was little more than a girl herself, and was, 
 like themselves, liable to moments of deep arithmetical 
 despondency. Mademoiselle Brun admitted that she 
 was fond of Denise because she was her second cousin, 
 and that was all. 
 
 When worldly mammas, essentially of the second 
 empire, who perhaps had doubts respecting a purely 
 conventual education, made inquiries on this subject, 
 the mother-superior, feeling very wicked and worldly, 
 usually made mention of the mathematical mistress, 
 Denise Lange, daughter of the great and good general 
 who was killed at Solferino. And no other word of
 
 IN THE HUE DU CHERCHE-MIDI. 55 
 
 identification was needed. For some keen-witted artist 
 had painted a great salon picture of, not a young 
 paladin, but a fat old soldier, eighteen stone, on his 
 huge charger, with shaking red cheeks and blazing 
 eyes, standing in his stirrups, bursting out of his tight 
 tunic, and roaring to his cnfants to follow him to 
 their death. 
 
 It was after tlie battle of Solferino that Mademoiselle 
 Brun had come into Denise Lange's life, taking her 
 from her convent school to live in a dull little apart- 
 ment in the Eue des Saints Peres, educating her, 
 dressing her, caring for her with a grim affection which 
 never wasted itself in words. How she pinched and 
 saved, and taught herself that she might teach others ; 
 how she triumphantly made both ends meet,— are secrets 
 which, like Mademoiselle Brun's romance, she would 
 not tell. For French women are not only cleverer and 
 more capable than French men, but they are cleverer 
 and more capable than any other women in the world. 
 History, moreover, will prove this ; for nearly all the 
 great women that the world has seen have been 
 produced by France. 
 
 Denise and Mademoiselle Brun still lived in the dull 
 little apartment in the Eue des Saints Peres — that 
 narrow street which runs southward from the Quai 
 Voltaire to the Boulevard St. Germain, where the cheap 
 frame-makers, the artists' colourmen, and the dealers
 
 54 THE ISLE OF UNREST. 
 
 in old prints have their shops. To the convent 
 school, the old woman and the young girl, walking 
 daily through the streets to their work, brought with 
 them that breath of worldliness which the advance of 
 civilization seemed to render desirable to the curriculum 
 of a girls' school. 
 
 " It must be lieavenly, mademoiselle, to walk in the 
 streets quite alone," said one of Mademoiselle Brun's 
 pupils to her one day. 
 
 " It is," was the reply ; " especially near the gutter." 
 
 But this afternoon there was no conversation, for 
 the literature class knew that Mademoiselle Brun was 
 in a contrary humour. 
 
 " She is looking at that dear Denise with discontented 
 eyes. She is in a shocking temper,"' had been the 
 whispered warning from mouth to mouth. 
 
 And in truth Mademoiselle Brun constantly glanced 
 down the length of the schoolroom to where Denise 
 was sitting. But a seeing eye could well perceive that 
 it was not with Denise, but with the schoolroom, that 
 the little old woman was discontented. Perhaps she 
 had at times a cruel thought that the Paie des Saints 
 Peres, emphasized as it were by the Piue du Cherche- 
 Midi, was hardly gay for a young life. Perhaps the 
 soft touch of spring that was in the March air stirred 
 up restless longings in the soul of this little grey 
 town-mouse.
 
 IN TEE RUE DU CHERCnE-MIDl. 55 
 
 And while she was watching Denise, the cross- 
 grained old nun who acted as concierge to this quiet 
 house came into the room, and handed Denise a long 
 blue envelope. 
 
 " It is addressed in a man's handwriting," she said 
 warningly. 
 
 " Then let us by all means send for the tongs," 
 answered Denise, taking the letter with a mock air of 
 alarm. 
 
 But she looked at it curiously, and glanced towards 
 Mademoiselle Brun before she opened it. It was, 
 perhaps, characteristic of the little old schoolmistress 
 to show no interest whatever. And yet to her it 
 probably seemed an age before Denise came towards 
 her, carrying the letter in her outstretched hand. 
 
 " At first," said the girl_, " I thought it was a joke 
 — a trick of one of the girls. But it is serious 
 enough. It is a romance inside a blue envelope— that 
 is all." 
 
 She gave a joyous laugh, and threw the letter down 
 on Mademoiselle Brun's knees. 
 
 " It is my father's cousin, Mattel Perucca, who has 
 died suddenly, and has left me an estate in Corsica," 
 she continued, impatiently opening the letter, which 
 Mademoiselle Brun fingered with pessimistic distrust. 
 " See here ! that is the address of my estate in 
 Corsica, where I shall invite you to stay with me —
 
 56 THE ISLE OF UNREST. 
 
 I, who stand before you in my old black alpaca, and 
 would borrow a hairpin if you can spare it." 
 
 Her hands were busy with her hair as she spoke ; 
 and she seemed to touch life and its entanglements as 
 lightly. Mademoiselle Brun, however, read the letter 
 very gravely. For she was a wise old Frenchwoman, 
 who knew that it is only bad news which may safely 
 be accepted as true. 
 
 The letter, which was accompanied by an enclosure, 
 was from a Marseilles solicitor, and began by inquiring 
 as to the identity of Mademoiselle Denise Lange, 
 instructress at the convent school in the Eue du 
 Cherche-Midi, with the daughter of the late General 
 Lange, who met his death on the field of Solferino. It 
 then proceeded to explain that Denise Lange had 
 inherited the property known as the Perucca property, 
 in the commune of Calvi, in the Island of Corsica. 
 Followed a schedule of the said property, which included 
 the historic chateau, known as the Casa Perucca. The 
 solicitor concluded with a word for himself, after the 
 manner of his kind, and clearly demonstrated that no 
 other lawyer was so capable as he to arrange the affairs 
 of Mademoiselle Denise Lange. 
 
 "Jean Jacques Moreau," read Mademoiselle Brun, 
 with some scorn, the signature of the Marseilles notary. 
 " An imbecile, your Jean Jacques — an imbecile, like 
 his great and mischievous namesake. He does not say
 
 IN THE RUE DU CHERCHE MIDI. 57 
 
 of what malady your second cousin died, or what 
 income the property will yield — if any." 
 
 " But we can ask him those particulars." 
 
 "And pay for each answer," retorted Mademoiselle 
 Brun, folding the letter reflectively. 
 
 She was remembering that a few minutes earlier she 
 had been thinking that their present existence was too 
 narrow for Denise ; and now, in the twinkling of an eye, 
 life seemed to be opening out and spreading with a 
 rapidity which only the thoughts of youth could follow 
 and the energy of spring keep pace with. 
 
 " Then we will go to Marseilles and ask the questions 
 ourselves, and then he cannot charge for each answer, 
 for I know he could never keep count." 
 
 But Mademoiselle Brnn only looked grave, and would 
 not rise to Denise's lighter humour. It almost seemed, 
 indeed, as if she were afraid — she who had never known 
 fear through all the years of pinch and struggle, who 
 had faced a world that had no use for her, that would 
 not buy the poor services she had to sell. For to know 
 the worst is always a relief, and to exchange it for 
 something better is like exchanging an old coat for a 
 new one. 
 
 "And in the mean time " said Mademoiselle 
 
 Brun, turning sharply upon her pupils, who had taken 
 the opportunity of abandoning French literature. 
 
 " In the mean time," said Denise, turning reluctantly
 
 58 THE ISLE OF UNREST. 
 
 away — " in the mean time, I am filling a vat of so many 
 cubic metres, from a well so many metres deep, with a 
 pail containing four litres, and of course the pail has 
 a leak in it, and the well becomes deeper as one draws 
 from it, and the Casa Perucca is, I suppose, a dream." 
 
 She went back to her work, and in a few moments 
 was quite absorbed in it. And it was Mademoiselle 
 Brun who could not settle to her French literature, 
 nor compose her thoughts at all. For change is the 
 natural desire of youth, and the belief that it must be 
 for the better, part and parcel of the astounding optimism 
 of that state of life. 
 
 A few minutes later Denise remembered the 
 enclosure — a letter in a thick white envelope, which 
 was still lying on her desk. She opened it. 
 
 •' Mademoiselle " (the letter ran), 
 
 " I think I have the pleasure of addressing 
 the daughter of an old comrade-in-arms, and this must 
 be my excuse for at once approaching my object. I 
 hear by accident that you have inherited from the late 
 Mattel Perucca his small property near Olmeta in 
 Corsica. I knew Mattei Perucca, and the property you 
 inherit is not unknown to one who has had official deal- 
 ings with landowners in Corsica. I tell you frankly 
 that it would be impossible, in the present disturbed 
 state of the island, for you to live at Olmeta, and I
 
 IN THE RUE DU CHERCIIE-MIDL 59 
 
 ask you as frankly wlietlier you are disposed to sell 
 me your small estate. I have long clieiislied the scheme 
 of buying a small parcel of land in Corsica for the 
 purpose of showing the natives that agriculture may 
 be made profitable in so fertile an island, by dint of 
 industry and a firm and nnswerving honesty. The 
 Perucca property would suit my purpose. You may 
 be doing a good action in handing over your tenants 
 to one who understands the Corsican nature. I, in 
 addition to relieving the monotony of my present 
 exile at Bastia, may perhaps be inaugurating a happier 
 state of affairs in this most unfortunate country. 
 " Awaiting your answer, I am, mademoiselle, 
 " Your obedient servant, 
 
 "Louis Gilbert (Colonel)." 
 
 The school bell nxnn, as Denise finished reading the 
 letter. The class was over. 
 
 " We shall descend into the well again to-morrow," 
 she said, closing her books. 
 
 The girls trooped out into the forlorn courtyard, 
 leaving Mademoiselle Brun and Denise alone in the 
 schoolroom. Mademoiselle Brun read the second letter 
 M'ith a silent concentration. She glanced up when she 
 had iinishcd it. 
 
 "Of course you will sell," she said, 
 
 Denise was looking out of the tall closed windows
 
 60 TOE ISLE OF UNREST. 
 
 at the few yards of sky that were visible above tlie 
 roofs. Some fleecy clouds were speeding across the 
 clear ether. 
 
 " No," she answered slowly ; " I think I shall go to 
 Corsica. Tell me," she added, after a pause — "I 
 suppose I have Corsican blood in my veins ? " 
 
 "I suppose so," admitted Mademoiselle Erun, 
 reluctantly.
 
 ( 61 ) 
 
 CHAPTER YI. 
 
 ^'EIGIIBOURS. 
 
 "Chaque homme a trois caractercs : cclui qu'il a, oelui qu'il montre, 
 et celui qu'il croit avoir," 
 
 By one of the strokes of good fortune wliicli come but 
 once to the most ardent student of fashion, the Baroness 
 de Me'lide had taken up horsiuess at the very begin- 
 ning of that estimable craze. It was, therefore, in mere 
 sequence to this pursuit that she fixed her abode on 
 the soutli side of the Champs Elysees, and within a 
 stone's throw of the Avenue du Bois de Boulogne, before 
 the world found out that it was quite impossible to live 
 elsewhere. It is so difficult, in truth, to foretell the 
 course of fashion, that one cannot help wondering why 
 the modern soothsayers, who eke out what appears to 
 be a miserable existence in the smaller streets of the 
 Faubourg St. Honore and in the neighourhood of Bond 
 Street, do not turn their second-sight to the contempla- 
 tion of the future of streets and districts, instead of 
 telling the curious a number of vague facts respecting 
 their past and vaguer prophecies as to the future.
 
 62 THE ISLE OF UNREST. 
 
 If, for instance, Ccngliostro had foretold that to-day 
 the Chausee d'Antin would be deserted ; that the 
 faubourg would have completely ousted the Eue St. 
 Honore ; that the Avenue de la Grande Armee should 
 be, fashionably speaking, dead after a short and brilliant 
 life ; and that the little streets of the Faubourg St. 
 Germain should be all that is most cliic — what fortunes 
 might have been made ! Indeed, no one in a trance or 
 in his right mind can tell to-day why it is right to walk 
 on the right-hand side of the Boulevard des Italiens 
 and the Boulevard des Capucines, and heinously wrong 
 to walk on the left ; while, on the contrary, no self- 
 respecting Parisian would allow himself to be seen on 
 the right-hand pavement of the Boulevard de la Made- 
 leine. Indeed, these things are a mystery, and the 
 wise seek only to obey, and not to ask the reason why. 
 
 It would be difficult to lay before the English reader 
 the precise social position of the Baroness de Mt^lide. 
 For there are wheels within wheels, or, more properly 
 perhaps, shades within shades, in the social world of 
 Paris, which are quite unsuspected on this side of the 
 Channel. Indeed, our ignorance of social France is 
 only surpassed by the French ignorance of social Eng- 
 land, The Baroness de Melide was rich, however, and 
 the rich, as we all know, have nothing to fear in this 
 world. As a matter of fact. Monsieur de Melide dated 
 bis nobility from Napoleon's creation, and madame's
 
 NEIGHBOURS. 63 
 
 grandfather was of the Emigration. By conviction, 
 they belonged to the Anglophile school, and theirs was 
 one of the prettiest little houses between the Avenue 
 Victor Hugo and the Avenue du Bois de Boulogne, 
 which is more important than ancestors. 
 
 It was to this miniature palace that Mademoiselle 
 Brun and Denise were bidden, to the new function of 
 afternoon tea, the day after the receipt of the lawyer's 
 letter. Madame de Melide would take no denial. 
 
 " I have already heard of Denise's good fortune ; and 
 from whom do you think ? " she wrote. " From my 
 dear good cousin, Lory de Vasselot, who is, if you will 
 believe it, a Corsican neighbour — the Vasselot and 
 Perucca estates actually adjoin. Both, I need hardly 
 tell you, bristle with bandits, and are quite impossible. 
 But I have quite decided that Lory shall marry Denise. 
 Come, therefore, without fail. I need not tell you to 
 see that Denise looks pretty. The good God has seen 
 to that for you. And as for Lory, he is an angel. I 
 cannot think why I did not marry him myself — except 
 that he did not ask me. And then there is my stupid, 
 whom nobody else would have, and who now sends his 
 dear love to his oldest friend. — Your devoted Jane." 
 
 The Baroness de Melide was called Jeanne, but she 
 had enthusiastically changed that name for its English 
 version at the period when England was, as it were, 
 first discovered by social France.
 
 64 THE ISLE OF UNREST, 
 
 When Mademoiselle Brun and Deniso arrived, they 
 found the baroness beautifully dressed as usual, and 
 very French, for the empress was at this time the 
 leader of the world's women, as the emperor — that 
 clever parvenu — was undoubtedly the first monarch in 
 Europe. It behoves not a masculine pen to attempt 
 a description of Madame de Melide's costume, which, 
 moreover, was of a bygone mode, and nothing is so 
 unsightly in death as a deceased fashion. 
 
 " How good of you to come ! " she cried, embracing 
 both ladies in turn, with a fervour which certainly 
 seemed to imply that she had no other friends on 
 earth. 
 
 In truth, she had, for the moment, none so dear ; for 
 there are certain warm hearts that are happy in always 
 loving, not the highest, but the nearest. 
 
 " Let me see, now," she added, vigorously dragging 
 forward chairs. " I asked some one to meet you — some 
 one I particularly wanted you to become acquainted 
 with, but I cannot remember who it is." As she spoke 
 she consulted a little red morocco betting-book. 
 
 " Lory ! " she cried, after a short search. " Yes, of 
 course it was Lory de Vasselot— my cousin. And — will 
 you believe it ? — he saved my life the other day, all in 
 a moment ! Yes ! I saw death, quite close, before my 
 eyes. Ugh ! And I, who am so wicked ! You do not 
 know what it is to be wicked and to know it, Denise —
 
 NEIGHBOURS. 65 
 
 you who are so young. But that dear Mademoiselle 
 Brun, she knows." 
 
 " Thank you," said mademoiselle. 
 
 " And Lory saved me, ah ! so cleverly. There is no 
 better horseman in the army, they say. Yes ; he will 
 certainly come this afternoon, unless there is a race 
 at Longchamps. Now, is there a race, I wonder ? " 
 
 " For the moment," said Mademoiselle Brun, very 
 gravely, " I cannot tell you." 
 
 " She is laughing at me," cried the baroness, shaking 
 a vivacious forefinger at Mademoiselle Brun. " But I 
 do not mind ; we cannot all be wise — eh ? " 
 
 " And what a dull world for the rest of us if you 
 were," said Mademoiselle Brun ; and Lory de Vasselot, 
 coming into the room at this moment, was met by her 
 sour smile. 
 
 " Ah ! " cried the baroness, " here he is. I present 
 you, my dear Lory, to Mademoiselle Brun, a terrible 
 friend of mine, and to Mademoiselle Lange, who, as 
 you know, has just inherited the other half of Corsica." 
 
 " My congratulations," answered Lory, shaking hands 
 with Denise in the English fashion. " An inheritance 
 is so nice when it is quite new," 
 
 " And figure to yourself that this dear child has no 
 notion how it has all come about ! She only knows 
 the bare fact that some one is dead, and she has gained 
 — well, a white elephant, one may suppose." 
 
 F
 
 66 THE ISLE OF UNEEST. 
 
 De Vasselot's quick face suddenly turned grave. 
 
 "Ah," he said, "then I can tell you how it has 
 all come about. Though I confess at once that I 
 have never been to Corsica, and have never found 
 myself a halfpenny the richer for owning land 
 there." 
 
 He paused for a moment, and glanced at Mademoi- 
 selle Brun. 
 
 " Unless," he interpolated, " such personal matters 
 will bore mademoiselle." 
 
 " But mademoiselle is the good angel of Mademoiselle 
 Lange, my dear, dull Lory," explained the baroness ; 
 and the object of the elucidation looked at him more 
 keenly than so trifling an incident would seem to 
 warrant. 
 
 " You will not be betraying secrets to the first-comer," 
 she said. 
 
 Still de Vasselot seemed to hesitate, as if choosing 
 his words. 
 
 " And, " he said at length, " they shot your cousin's 
 agent in the back, almost in the streets of Olmeta, and 
 Mattel Perucca himself died suddenly, presumably 
 from apoplexy, brought on by a gi'eat anger at receiving 
 a letter threatening his life — that is how it has come 
 about, mademoiselle." 
 
 He broke off short, with a quick gesture and a flash 
 of his eyes, usually so pleasant and smiling.
 
 NEIGHBOUES. Q>7 
 
 "I have that from a reliable source," he went on, 
 after a pause, during which Mademoiselle Bruu looked 
 steadily at Denise and said nothing. 
 
 " Gracious heavens ! " exclaimed the baroness, in a 
 whisper ; and for once was silenced. 
 
 " A faithful correspondent on the island," explained 
 de Vasselot. "Though why he is faithful I cannot tell 
 you. Some family legend, perhaps — I cannot tell. It 
 is the Abbe Susiui of Olraeta who has told me this. 
 He it was who told me of your — well, I can only 
 call it your misfortune, mademoiselle. For there is 
 assuredly a curse upon Corsica as there is upon Ireland. 
 It cannot govern itself, and no other can govern it. 
 The Napoleons have been the only men to make any- 
 thing of the island, but a man who is driving a pair of 
 horses down the Champs Elysees cannot give much 
 thought to his little dog that runs behind. And it is 
 in the Bonaparte blood to drive, not only a pair, but a 
 four-in-hand in the thickest traffic of the world. The 
 Abbe Susini tells me that when the emperor's hand 
 was firm, Corsica was almost orderly, justice was almost 
 administered, banditism was for the moment made to 
 feel the hand of the law, and the authorities could count 
 the number of outlaws evading their grip in the moun- 
 tains. But since the emperor's illness has taken a 
 dangerous turn things have gone back again. Corsica 
 is, it seems, a weather-glass by which one may tell the
 
 68 THE ISLE OF UNREST. 
 
 state of the political weather in Frauee ; and now it is 
 disturbed, mademoiselle." 
 
 He had become graver as he spoke, and now found 
 himself addressing Denise almost as if she were a man. 
 There is as much difference in listeners as there 
 is in talkers. And Lory de Vasselot, who belonged 
 to the new school of Frenchmen — the open-air, the 
 vigorous, the sportsmanlike — found his interlocutor 
 listening with clear eyes fixed frankly on his face. 
 Intelligence betrays itself in listening more than in 
 talking, and de Vasselot, with characteristic and an 
 eminently national intuition, perceived that this girl 
 from a covent school in the Piue du Cherche-]\Iidi was 
 not a person to whom to address drawing-room gene- 
 ralities, and those insults to the feminine compre- 
 hension which a bygone generation called compliments. 
 
 "But a woman need surely have nothing to fear," 
 said Denise, who had the habit of carrying her head 
 rather high, and now spoke as if this implied more 
 than a mere trick of deportment. 
 
 " A woman ! You are not going to Corsica, mademoi- 
 selle ? " 
 
 " But I am," she answered. 
 
 De Vasselot turned thoughtfully, and brought forward 
 a chair. He s:it down and gravely contemplated 
 Mademoiselle Brun, whose attitude — upright in a low 
 chair, with crossed hands and a compressed mouth —
 
 NEIGHBOURS. 69 
 
 betrayed nothing. A Frenchman is not nearly so 
 artificial as the shallow British observer has been 
 pleased to conclude. He is, in fact, much more a child 
 of nature than either an Englishman or a German. 
 Lory de Vasselot's expression said as plainly as words 
 to Mademoiselle Brun — 
 
 " And what have you been about ? " 
 
 It was so obvious that Mademoiselle Brun, almost 
 imperceptibly, shrugged one shoulder. She was power- 
 less, it appeared. 
 
 " But, if you will permit me to say so," said Lory, 
 sitting down and drawing near to Denise in his earnest- 
 ness, " that is impossible. I will not trouble you with 
 details, but it is an impossibility. I understand that 
 Mattel Perucca and his agent were the two strongest 
 men in the northern district, and they only attempted 
 to liold their own, nothinsj more. With the result that 
 you know." 
 
 " But there are many ways of attempting to hold 
 one's own," persisted Denise : and she shook her head 
 with a wisdom which only belongs to youth. 
 
 De Vasselot spread out his hands in utter despair. 
 The end of the world, it seemed, was at hand. And 
 Denise only laughed. 
 
 " And when I have regulated my own affairs, I will 
 undertake the management of your estate at a high 
 salary," she said.
 
 70 THE ISLE OF UNREST. 
 
 " There is only one thing to do," said Lory, gravely, 
 "and I have done it myself. I have abandoned the 
 idea of ever receiving a halfpenny of rent. I have 
 allowed the land to go out of cultivation. The vine- 
 terraces are falling, the olive trees are dying for want 
 of cultivation. A few peasants graze their cattle in my 
 garden, I understand. The house itself is only saved 
 from falling down by the fact that it is strongly built 
 of stone. I would sell for a mere song, if I could find 
 a serious offer of that trifle ; but nobody buys land in 
 Corsica— for the peasants recognize no title deeds and 
 respect no rights of ownership. I had indeed an offer 
 the other day, but it was undoubtedly a joke, and I 
 treated it as such." 
 
 "Denise also has had an offer to buy the Perucca 
 property," said Mademoiselle Brun. 
 
 " Yes," said Denise, seeing his surprise. " And you 
 would advise me to accept it ? " 
 
 " If it is a serious one, most decidedly." 
 
 " It is serious enough," answered Denise. " It is 
 from a Colonel Gilbert, an officer stationed at Bastia." 
 
 " Ah ! " he exclaimed ; and at that moment another 
 caller entered the room, and he rose with eager polite- 
 ness. 
 
 So it happened that Mademoiselle Brun could not see 
 his face, and was left wondering what the exclamation 
 meant.
 
 NEIGHBOUES. 7 1 
 
 Several other callers now appeared — persons of the 
 Baroness de Melide's own world, who had a hundred 
 society tricks, and bowed or shook hands according to 
 the latest mode. This was not Mademoiselle Brun's 
 world, and she was not interested to hear the latest 
 gossip from that hotbed of scandal, the Tuileries, nor did 
 the ever-changing face of the political world command 
 her attention. She therefore rose, and stiffly took her 
 leave. De Vasselot accompanied them to the hall. 
 
 Denise paused in the entrance, and turned to him. 
 
 " Seriously," she said, " do you advise me to accept 
 this offer to sell Perucca ? " 
 
 " I scarcely feel authorized to give you any advice 
 upon the subject," answered Lory, reluctantly. 
 " Though, after all, we are neighbours," 
 
 " Then " 
 
 "Then, I should say not, mademoiselle. At all 
 events, do nothing in haste. And, if I may ask it, will 
 you communicate with me before you finally decide ? " 
 
 They had come in an open cab, which was waiting 
 on the shady side of the street. 
 
 " A young man who changes his mind very quickly," 
 commented Mademoiselle Brun, as they drove away.
 
 72 THE ISLE OF UNREST. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 journey's end. 
 
 " The offender never pardons." 
 
 De Vasselot returned to the Baroness de Melide's 
 pretty drawing-room, and there, after the manner of his 
 countrymen, made himself agreeable in that vivacious 
 manner which earns the contempt of all honest and, if 
 one may say so, thick-headed Englishmen. He laughed 
 with one, and with another almost wept. Indeed, to 
 see him sympathize with an elderly countess whose dog 
 was grievously ill, one could only conclude that he too 
 had placed all his affections upon a canine life. 
 
 He outstayed the others, and then, holding out his 
 hand to the baroness, said curtly — 
 " Good-bye." 
 
 " Good-bye ! What do you mean ? " 
 " I am going to Corsica," he explained airily. 
 " But where did you get that idea, mon ami ? " 
 " It came. A few moments ago, I made up my 
 mind." And, with a gesture, he described the arrival
 
 JOUKNEY'S END. 73 
 
 of the idea, apparently from heaven, upon his head, and 
 then a sideward jerk of the arm seemed to indicate the 
 sudden and irrevocable making up of his own mind. 
 
 " But what for ? " cried the lady. " You were not 
 even born there. Your father died thirty years ago — 
 you will not even find his tomb. Your dear mother 
 left the place in horror, just before you were born. 
 Besides, you promised her that you would never return 
 to Corsica — and she who has been dead only five years ! 
 Is it filial, I ask you, my cousin ? Is it filial ? " 
 
 " Such a promise, of course, only held good during her 
 lifetime," answered Lory. " Since there is no one left 
 behind to be anxious on my account, it is assuredly no 
 one's affair whether I go or stay." 
 
 " And now you are asking me to say it will break 
 my heart if you go," said the baroness, with a gay 
 glance of her brown eyes ; " and you may ask — and 
 ask ! " 
 
 She shook hands as she spoke. 
 
 " Go, ingratitude ! " she said. " But tell me, what 
 will bring you back ? " 
 
 "War," he answered, with a laugh, pausing for a 
 moment on the threshold. 
 
 And three days later Lory de Vasselot stood on the 
 deck of a small trading steamer that rolled sideways 
 into Calvi Bay, on the shoulder, as it were, of one of 
 those March mistrals which serve as the last kick of
 
 74 THE ISLE OF UNREST. 
 
 the dying winter. De Vasselot had taken the first 
 steamer he could find at Marseilles, with a fine dis- 
 regard for personal comfort, which was part of his 
 military training and parcel of his sporting instincts. 
 He was, like many islanders, a good sailor, for, strange 
 as it may seem, a man may inherit from his forefathers 
 not only a taste for the sea, but a stout heart to face its 
 grievous sickness. 
 
 There are few finer sights than Calvi Bay when the 
 heavens are clear and the great mountains of the 
 interior tower above the bare coast-hills. But now 
 tlie clouds hung low over the island, and the shape 
 of the heights was only suggested by a deeper shadow 
 in the grey mist. The little town nestling on a pro- 
 montory looked gloomy and deserted with its small 
 square houses and mediaeval fortress — Calvi the faithful, 
 that fought so bravely for the Genoese masters whose 
 mark lies in every angle of its square stronghold ; Calvi, 
 where, if (as seems likely) the local historian is to 
 be believed, the greatest of all sailors was born, within 
 a day's ride of that other sordid little town where the 
 greatest of all soldiers first saw the liglit. Assuredly 
 Corsica has done its duty — has played its part in the 
 world's history — with Christopher Columbus and 
 Napoleon as leading actors. 
 
 De Vasselot landed in a small boat, carrying his own 
 simple luggage. He had not been very sociable on the
 
 JOURNEY'S END. 75 
 
 trading steamer ; had dined with the captain, and now 
 bade him farewell without an exchange of names. 
 Tliere is a small inn on the wharf facing the anchorage 
 and the wave- washed steps where the fishing-boats lie. 
 Here the traveller had a better lunch than the exterior 
 of the house would appear to promise, and found it easy 
 enough to keep his own counsel ; for he was now in 
 Corsica, where silence is not only golden, but speech is 
 apt to be fatal. 
 
 " I am going to St. Morent," he said to the woman 
 who had waited on him. " Can I have a carriage or a 
 horse ? I am indifferent which." 
 
 " You can have a horse," was the reply, " and leave 
 it at Eutali's at St. Florent when you have done with 
 it. The price is ten francs. There are parts of the 
 road impassable for a carriage in this wind." 
 
 De Vasselot replied by handing her ten francs, and 
 asked no further questions. If you wish to answer no 
 c|uestions, ask none. 
 
 The horse presently appeared, a little thin beast, all 
 wires, carrying its head too higli, boring impatiently — 
 masterful, intractable. 
 
 " He wants riding," said the man who led him to the 
 door, half sailor, half stableman, who made fast de 
 Vasselot's portmanteau to the front of the high Spanish 
 saddle with a piece of tarry rope and simple nautical 
 knots.
 
 76 THE ISLE OF UNREST. 
 
 He nodded curtly, with au upward jerk of the head, 
 as Lory climbed into the saddle and rode away ; for 
 there is nothing so difficult to conceal as horsemanship. 
 
 " A soldier," muttered the stable-man. " A gendarme, 
 as likely as not." 
 
 De Vasselot did not ask the way, but trusted to 
 Fortune, who as usual favoured him who left her a free 
 hand. There is but one street in Calvi, but one way 
 out of the town, and a cross-road leading north and 
 south. Lory turned to the north. He had a map in 
 his pocket, which he knew almost by heart ; for he 
 was an officer of the finest cavalry in the world, and 
 knew his business as well as any. And it is the 
 business of the individual trooper to find his way in an 
 unknown country. That a couple of hours' hard riding 
 brought him to liis own lands, de Vasselot knew not 
 nor heeded, for he was aware that he could establish 
 his rights only by force of martial law, and with a 
 miniature army at his back; for civil law here is 
 paralyzed by a cloud of false witnesses, while equity is 
 administered by a jury which is under the influence 
 of the two strongest of human motives, greed and 
 fear. 
 
 At times the solitary rider mounted into the clouds 
 that hung low upon the hills, shutting in the valleys 
 beneath their grey canopy, and again descended to 
 deep gorges, where brown water churned in narrow
 
 JOURNEY'S END. 77 
 
 places. And at all times he was alone. For the 
 Government has built roads through these rocky places, 
 but it has not yet succeeded in making traffic upon 
 them. 
 
 With the quickness of his race de Vasselot noted 
 everything — the trend of the watersheds, the colour of 
 the water, the prevailing wind as indicated by the 
 growth of the trees— a hundred petty details of Nature 
 which would escape any but a trained comprehension, 
 or that wonderful eye with which some men are born, 
 who cannot but be gipsies all their lives, whether fate 
 has made them rich or poor ; who cannot live in towns, 
 but must breathe the air of open heaven, and deal by 
 sea or land with the wondrous works of God. 
 
 It was growing dusk when de Vasselot crossed the 
 bridge that spans the Aliso — his own river, that ran 
 through and all around his own land — and urged his 
 tired horse along the level causeway built across the 
 old river-bed into the town of St. Florent. The field- 
 workers were returning from vineyard and olive grove, 
 but appeared to take little heed of him as he trotted 
 past them on the dusty road. These were no heavy, 
 agricultural boors, of the earth earthy, but lithe, dark- 
 eyed men and women, who tilled the ground grudgingly, 
 because they had no choice between that and starvation. 
 Their lack of curiosity arose, not from stupidity, but 
 from a sort of pride which is only seen in Spain and
 
 78 THE ISLE OF UNREST. 
 
 certain South American States. The proudest man is 
 he who is sufficient for himself. 
 
 A single inquiry enabled de Vasselot to find the 
 house of Eutali ; for St. Florent is a small place, with 
 Ichabod written large on its crumbling houses. It was 
 a house like another — that is to say, the ground floor 
 was a stable, M'hile the family lived above in an atmo- 
 sphere of its own and the stable drainage. 
 
 The traveller gave Eutali a small coin, which was 
 coldly accepted — for a Corsican never refuses money 
 like a Spaniard, but accepts it grudgingly, mindful of 
 the insult — and left St. Florent by the road that he had 
 come, on foot, humbly carrying his own portmanteau. 
 Thus Lory de Vasselot, went through his paternal 
 acres with a map. His intention was to catch a glimpse 
 of the Chateau de Vasselot, and walk on to the village 
 of Olmeta, and there beg bed and board from his faithful 
 correspondent, the Abbe Susini. 
 
 He followed the causeway across the marsh to the 
 mouth of the river, and here turned to the left, leaving 
 the route nationcde to Calvi on the right. That which 
 he now followed was the narrower ovute departementale, 
 which borders the course of the stream Guadelle, a 
 tributary to the Aliso. The valley is flat here — a mere 
 level of river deposit, damp in winter, but dry and 
 sandy in the autumn. Here are cornfields and vine- 
 yards all in one, with olives and almonds growing amid
 
 JOURNEY'S END. 79 
 
 the wheat — a promised land of milk and honey. There 
 are no walls, but great hedges of aloe and prickly pear 
 serve as a sterner landmark. At the side of the road 
 are here and there a few crosses — the silent witnesses 
 that stand on either side of every Corsican road — 
 marking the spot where such and such a one met his 
 death, or was found dead by his friends. 
 
 Above, perched on the slope that rises abruptly on 
 the left-hand side of the road, the village of Oletta 
 looks out over tlie plain towards St. Florent and the 
 sea — a few brown houses of dusky stone, with roofs of 
 stone ; a square- towered church, built just where the 
 cultivation ceases and the rocks and the macquis begin. 
 
 De Vasselot quitted the road where it begins sharply 
 to ascend, and took the narrow path that follows the 
 course of the river, winding through the olive groves 
 around the great rock that forms a shoulder of Monte 
 Torre, and breaks off abruptly in a sheer cliff. He 
 looked upward with a soldier's eye at this spot, designed 
 by nature as the site of a fort which could command 
 the whole valley and the roads to Corte and Calvi. 
 Far above, amid chestnut trees and some giant pines, 
 De Vasselot could see the roof and the chimneys of a 
 house — it was the Casa Perucca. Presently he was 
 so immediately below it that he could see it no longer 
 as he followed the path, winding as the river wound 
 through the narrow flat valley.
 
 80 THE ISLE OF UNHEST. 
 
 Suddenly he came out of the defile into a vast open 
 country, spread out like a fan upon a gentle slope 
 rising to the heiglit of the Col St. Stefano, where the 
 Bastia road comes through the Lancone defile — the 
 road by which Colonel Gilbert had ridden to the Casa 
 Perucca not so very long before. At the base of the 
 fan runs the Aliso, without haste, bordered on either 
 bank by oleanders growing like rushes. Halfway down 
 the slope is a lump of land which looks like, and 
 probably is, a piece of the mountain cast off by some 
 subterranean disturbance, and gently rolled down into 
 the valley. It stands alone, and on its summit, three 
 hundred feet above the plain, are the square-built walls 
 of what was once a castle. 
 
 Lory stood for a moment and looked at this prospect, 
 now pink and hazy in the reflected light of the western 
 sky. He knew that he was looking at the Chateau de 
 Vasselot. 
 
 Within the crumbling walls, built on the sheer edge 
 of the rock, stood, amid a disorderly thicket of bamboo 
 and feathery pepper and deep copper beech, a square 
 stone house with smokeless chimneys, and, so far as was 
 visible, every shutter shut. The owner of it and all 
 these lands, the bearer of the name that was written 
 here upon the map, walked slowly out into the open 
 country. He turned once and looked back at the 
 towering cliff behind him, the rocky peninsula where
 
 JOURNEY'S END. 81 
 
 the Casa Periicca stood amidst its great trees, and liid 
 the village of Olmeta, perched on the mountaiu side 
 behind it. 
 
 The short winter twilight was almost gone before 
 de Vasselot reached the base of the mound of half- 
 shattered rock upon which the chateau had been built. 
 The wall that had once been the outer battlement of 
 the old stronghold was so fallen into disrepair that he 
 anticipated no difficulty in finding a gap through which 
 to pass within the enclosure where the house was 
 hidden ; but he walked right round and found no such 
 breach. Where the wall of rock proved vulnerable, 
 tlie masonry, by some curious chance, was invariably 
 sound. 
 
 It had not been de Vasselot's intention to disturb 
 the old gardener, who, he understood, was left in charge 
 of the crumbling house, but to return the next day with 
 the Abbe Susini. But he was tired, and having failed 
 to gain an entrance, Mas put out and angry, when at 
 length he found himself near the great door built in 
 the solid wall on the north-west side of the ruin. A 
 rusty bell-chain was slowly swinging in the wind, 
 which was freshening again at sunset, as the mistral 
 nearly always does when it is dying. With some 
 difficulty he succeeded in swinging the heavy bell 
 suspended inside the door, so that it gave two curt 
 clangs as of a rusty tongue against moss-grown metal. 
 
 G
 
 82 THE ISLE OF UNREST. 
 
 After some time the door was opened by a grey- 
 haired man in his shirt-sleeves. He wore a huge Wack 
 felt hat, and the baggy corduroy trousers of a deep 
 brown, which are almost universal in this country. He 
 held the door half open and peered out. Then he 
 slowly opened it and stood back. 
 
 " Good God ! " he whispered. " Good God ! " 
 
 De Vasselot stepped over the threshold with one 
 quick glance at the single -barrelled gun in the mean's 
 hand. 
 
 " I am " he began. 
 
 " Yes," interrupted the other, breathlessly. " Straight 
 on ; the door is open." 
 
 Half puzzled. Lory de Vasselot advanced towards 
 the house alone ; for the peasant was long in closing 
 the door and readjusting chain and bolts. The 
 shutters of the house were all closed, but the door, as 
 he had said, was open. The place was neatly enough 
 kept, and the house stood on a lawn of that brilliant 
 green turf which is only seen in parts of England, in 
 Ireland, and in Corsica. 
 
 De Vasselot went into the house, which was all dark 
 by reason of the closed shutters. There was a large 
 room, opposite to the front door, dimly indicated by the 
 daylight beliind him. He went into it, and w^as going 
 straight to one of the windows to throw back the 
 shutters, when a sharp click brought him round on his
 
 "AKE YOU LOKY DE VASSELOT ? "
 
 JOURNEY'S END. 83 
 
 heels as if he had been shot. In a far corner of the 
 room, in a dark doorway, stood a shadow. The click 
 was that of a trigger. 
 
 Quick as thought de Vasselot ran to the window, 
 snatched at the opening, opened it, threw back the 
 shutter, and was round again with bright and flashing 
 eyes facing the doorway. A man stood there watching 
 him — a man of his own build, slight and quick, with 
 close upright hair like his own, but it was white ; with 
 a neat upturned moustache like his own, but it was 
 white ; with a small quick face like his own, but it was 
 bleached. The eyes that flashed back were dark like 
 his own. 
 
 " You are a de Vasselot," said this man, quickly. 
 " Are you Lory de Vasselot ? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " Then I am your father." 
 
 " Yes," said Lory, slowly ; " there is no mistaking 
 it."
 
 84 THE ISLE OF UNREST. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 AT VASSELOT. 
 
 " The life uuliveJ, the deed undone, the tear 
 Unshed . . . no: juJging these, who judges riglit?" 
 
 It was the father who spoke first. 
 
 " Shut that shutter, my friend," he said. " It has 
 not been opened for thirty years." 
 
 He had an odd habit of jerking his head upwards 
 and sideways with raised eyebrows. It would appear 
 that a trick of thus deploring some unavoidable mis- 
 fortune had crystallized itself, as it were, into a habit 
 by long use. And the old man rarely spoke now without 
 this upward jerk. 
 
 Lory closed the shutter and followed his father into 
 an adjoining room — a small, round apartment lighted 
 by a skylight and impregnated with tobacco-smoke. 
 The carpet was worn into holes in several places, and 
 the boards beneath were polished by the passage of 
 smooth soles. Lory glanced at his father's feet, which
 
 AT VASSELOT. 85 
 
 were encased in carpet slippers several sizes too large 
 for him, bought at a guess in the village shop. 
 
 Here again the two men stood and looked at each 
 other. And again it was the father who broke the 
 silence. 
 
 "My son," he said, half to himself; ''and a soldier. 
 Your mother was a bad woman, mon ami. And I 
 have lived thirty years in this room," he concluded 
 simply. 
 
 " Name of God ! " exclaimed Lory. " And what have 
 you done all this time ? " 
 
 " Carnations," replied the old man, gravely. " There 
 is still daylight. Come ; I will show you. Yes ; car- 
 nations." 
 
 As he spoke he turned and opened the door behind 
 him. It led out to a small terrace no larger than a 
 verandah, and every inch of earth was occupied by the 
 pale green of carnation-spikes. Some were budding, 
 some in bloom. But there was not a flower among 
 them at which a modern gardener would not have 
 laughed aloud. And there were tears in Lory de 
 Vasselot's eyes as he looked at them. 
 
 The father stood, jerking his head and looking at his 
 son, waiting his verdict. 
 
 " Yes," was the son's reply at last ; " yes — very 
 pretty." 
 
 " But to-night you cannot see them," said the old
 
 86 THE ISLE OF UNREST. 
 
 man, earnestly. " To-morrow morning — we shall get 
 up early, cli ? " 
 
 " Yes," said Lory, slowly ; and they went back into 
 the little windowless room. 
 
 " We will get up early," said the count, " to see the 
 pinks. This cursed mistral beats them to pieces, but 
 I have no other place to grow them. It is the only spot 
 that is not overlooked by Perucca." 
 
 He spoke slowly and indifferently, as if his spirit had 
 been bleached, like his face, by long confinement. He 
 had lost his grip of the world and of human interests. 
 As he looked at his son, his black eyes had a sort of 
 irresponsible vagueness in their glance. 
 
 "Tell me," said Lory, gently, at length, as if he 
 were speaking to a child ; " why have you done 
 this ? " 
 
 " Then you did not know that I was alive ? " inquired 
 his father in return, with an uncanny, quiet laugh, as 
 he sat down. 
 
 '' No." 
 
 " No ; no one knows that — no one but the Abbe 
 Susini and Jean there. You saw Jean as you came in. 
 He recognized you or he would not have let you in ; 
 for he is quick with his gun. He shot a man seven 
 years ago — one of Perucca's men, of course, who was 
 creeping up through the tamarisk trees. I do not 
 know what he came seeking, but he got more from
 
 AT VASSELOT. 87 
 
 Jean than he looked for. Jean was a boy when your 
 mother went to France, and he was left in charge of 
 the chateau. For they all thought that I had gone to 
 France with your mother, and perhaps the police 
 searched France for me ; I do not know. There is 
 a warrant out against me still, though the paper it 
 is written on must be yellow enough after thirty 
 years." 
 
 As he spoke he carefully drew up his trousers, which 
 were of corduroy, like Jean's ; indeed, the Count de 
 Vasselot was dressed like a peasant — but no rustic 
 dress could conceal the tale told by the small energetic 
 head, the clean-cut features. It was obvious that his 
 thoughts were more concerned in his immediate en- 
 vironments — in the care, for instance, to preserve his 
 trousers from bagging at the knee — than he was in the 
 past. He had the curious, slow touch and contem- 
 plative manner of the prisoner. 
 
 " Yes ; Jean was a boy when he first came here, and 
 now he is a grey-haired man, as you see. He picks the 
 olives and earns a little by selling them. Besides, I 
 provided myself with money long ago, before — before 
 I died. I thought I might live long, and I have, for 
 thirty years, like a tree." 
 
 Which was nearly true, for his life must have been 
 somewhere midway between the human and the 
 vegetable.
 
 88 THE ISLE OF UNREST. 
 
 " But why, my God: " cried Lory, impatiently, " why 
 have you done it ? " 
 
 " Why ? " echoed the count, in his calm and 
 suppressed way. " Why ? Because I am a Corsican, 
 and am not to be frightened into leaving the country 
 by a parcel of Peruccas. They are no better than the 
 Luccans you see working in the road, and the miser- 
 able Pisans M-ho come in the winter to build the 
 terraces. They are no Corsicans, but come from Pisa." 
 
 " But if they thought you were dead, what satisfaction 
 could there be in living on here ? " 
 
 But the count only looked at his son in silence. He 
 did not seem to follow the hasty argument. He had 
 the placid air of a child or a very old man, who will 
 not argue. 
 
 " Besides, Mattel Perucca is dead." 
 
 " So they say. So Jean tells me. I have not seen 
 the abbe lately. He does not dare to come more often 
 than once in three months — four times a year. Mattel 
 Perucca dead ! " He shook his head with the odd, 
 upward jerk and the weary smile. " I should like 
 to see his carcase," he said. 
 
 Then, after a pause, he went back to his original 
 train of thought. 
 
 " We are different," he said. " We are Corsicans. 
 It was only when the Bonapartes changed their name 
 to a French one that your great-grandfather Gallicized
 
 AT VASSELOT. 89 
 
 ours. We are not to be frightened away by the 
 Peruccas." 
 
 " But since he is dead " said Lory, with an effort 
 
 to be patient. 
 
 He was beginning to realize now that it was all real 
 and not a dream, that this was the Chateau de Vasselot, 
 and this was his father — this little, vague, quiet man, 
 who seemed to exist and speak as if he were only half 
 alive. 
 
 " He may be," was the answer ; " but that will make 
 no difference, since for one adherent that we have the 
 Peruccas have twenty. There are a thousand men 
 between Cap Corse and Balagna who, if I went outside 
 this door and was recognized, would shoot me like a rat." 
 
 " But why ? " 
 
 " Because they are of Perucca's clan, my friend," 
 replied the count, with a shrug of the shoulder. 
 
 " But still I ask why ? " persisted Lory. 
 
 And the count spread out his thin white hands with 
 a gesture of patient indifference. 
 
 " Well, of course I shot Andrei Perucca — the brother 
 — thirty years ago. We all know that. That is 
 ancient history." 
 
 Lory looked at the little white-haired, placid man, 
 and said no word. It was perhaps the wisest thing to 
 do. When you have nothing to say, say nothing. 
 
 " But he has had Ins revenge — that Mattel Perucca,"
 
 90 THE ISLE OF UNREST. 
 
 said the count at length, in a tone of careless remin- 
 iscence — " by living in that house all these years, 
 and, so they tell me, hy making a small fortune out of 
 the vines. The house is not his, the land is not his. 
 They are mine. Only he and I knew it, and to prove 
 it I should have to come to life. Besides, what is land 
 in this country, unless you till it with a spade in one 
 hand and a gun in the other ? " 
 
 Lory de Vasselot leant forward in his chair. 
 
 " But now is the time to act," he said. " I can act 
 if you will not. I can make use of the law." 
 
 " The law," answered his father, calmly. " Do you 
 think that you could get a jury in Bastia to give you a 
 verdict ? Do you think you could find a witness who 
 would dare to appear in your favour ? No, my friend. 
 There is no law in this country, except that ; " and he 
 pointed to a gun in the corner of the room, an old- 
 fashioned muzzle-loader, witli which he had had the 
 law of Andrei Perucca thirty years before. 
 
 " But now that there is no Perucca left the clan will 
 cease to exist," said Lory. 
 
 " Not at all," replied the father. " The inheritor of 
 the estate, whoever it is, will become the head of the 
 clan, and things will be as they were before. They 
 tell me it is a woman named Denise Lange." 
 
 Lory gave a start. He had forgotten Denise Lange, 
 and all that world of Paris fad and fashion.
 
 AT VASSELOT. 91 
 
 "And the women are always the worst," concluded 
 his father. 
 
 They sat in silence for some moments. And then 
 the count spoke again in his odd, detached way, as if 
 he were contemplating his environments from afar. 
 
 " There was a man in Sartene who had an enemy. 
 He was a shoemaker, and could therefore work at his 
 trade indoors. He never crossed his threshold for 
 sixteen years. One day they told him his enemy was 
 dead, that the funeral was for the same afternoon. It 
 passed his door, and when it had gone by, he stepped 
 out, after sixteen years, to watch it, and — Paff! He 
 twisted himself round as he writhed on the ground, and 
 there was his enemy, laughing, with the smoke still at 
 the muzzle. The funeral was a trick. No ; I shall 
 not believe that Mattel Perucca is dead until the Abbe 
 Susini tells me that he has seen the body. Not that 
 it would make any difference. I should not go outside 
 the door. I am accustomed to this life now." 
 
 He sat with his hands idly crossed on his knee, and 
 looked at nothing in particular. Nothing could arouse 
 him now from his apathy, except perhaps the culture of 
 carnations— certainly not the arrival of the son whom 
 he had never seen. He had that air of waiting without 
 expectancy which is assuredly the dungeon mark, and 
 a moral mourning worn for dead Hope. 
 
 Lory contemplated him as a strange old man who
 
 92 THE ISLE OF UNREST. 
 
 interested him despite himself. There was pity, but 
 nothing filial in his feelings. For filial love only grows 
 out of propinquity and a firm respect which must keep 
 pace with the growing demands of a daily increasing 
 comprehension. 
 
 " Why did you come ? " asked the count, suddenly. 
 
 It seemed as if his mind lay hidden under tlie 
 accumulated debris of tlie years, as the old chateau 
 perhaps lay hidden beneath that smooth turf which 
 only grows over ruins. 
 
 " I do not know," answered Lory, thoughtfully. Then 
 he turned in his quick way, and looked at his father 
 with a smile. " Perhaps it was the good God who put 
 the idea into my head, for it came quite suddenly. 
 We shall grow accustomed to each other, and then we 
 may find perhaps that it was a good thing that I 
 came." 
 
 The count looked at him with rather a puzzled air, 
 as if he did not quite understand. 
 
 " Yes," he said at length — " yes ; perhaps so. I 
 thought it likely that you would come. Do you mean 
 to stay ? " 
 
 " I do not know. I have not thought yet. I have 
 had no time to think. I only know I am hungry. 
 Perhaps Jean will get me something to eat." 
 
 " I have not dined yet," said the count, simply. 
 " Yes ; we will dine."
 
 AT VASSELOT. 93 
 
 He rose, aud, going to the door, called Jean, who 
 came, and a whispered consultation ensued. From out 
 of the debris of his mind the count seemed to have 
 unearthed the fact that he was a gentleman, and as 
 such was called upon to exercise an unsparing hospi- 
 tality. He rather impeded than helped the taciturn 
 man, who seemed to be gardener and servant all in one, 
 and who now prepared the table, setting thereon linen 
 and glass and silver of some value. There was 
 excellent wine, and over the simple meal the father 
 and son, in a jerky, explosive way, made merry. For 
 Lory was at heart a Frenchman, and the French know, 
 better than any, how near together tears and laughter 
 must ever be, and have less difficulty in snatching a 
 smile from sad environments than other men. 
 
 It was only as he finally cleared the table that Jean 
 broke his habitual silence. 
 
 " The moon is up," he said to the count, and that 
 was all. 
 
 The old man rose at once, and went to a window, 
 which had hitherto been shuttered and barred. 
 
 "I sometimes look out," he said, "when there is 
 a moon." 
 
 With odd, slow movements he opened the shutter 
 and window, and, turning, invited Lory by a jerk of 
 the head to come and look. The moon, which must 
 have been at the full, was behind the chateau, and
 
 94 THE ISLE OF UNREST. 
 
 therefore invisible. Before them, in a framework of 
 giant pines that have no match in Earope, lay a 
 panorama of rolling plain and gleaming river. Far 
 away towards Calvi and the south, range after range of 
 rugged mountain melted into a distance, where the 
 snow-clad summits of Cinto and Grosso stood majes- 
 tically against the sky. The clouds had vanished. It 
 was almost twilight under the southern moon. To the 
 right the sea lay shimmering. 
 
 " I did not know that there was anything like it in 
 Europe," said Lory, after a long pause. 
 
 " There is nothing like it," answered his father, 
 gravely, " in the world." 
 
 Father and son were still standing at the open 
 window, when Jean came hurriedly into the room. 
 
 " It is the abbe," he said, and went out again. 
 
 The count stepped down from the raised window 
 recess, and turned up the lamp, wdiich he had lowered. 
 Lory paused to close the shutter, and as he did so the 
 Abbe Susini came into the room "odthout looking 
 towards the window, which was near the door by 
 which he entered, without, therefore, seeing Lory. He 
 hurried into the room, and stopped dead, facing the 
 count. He threw out one finger, and pointed at 
 his interlocutor as he spoke, in his quick dramatic 
 way. 
 
 " I have just seen a man from Calvi. One landed
 
 AT VASSELOT. 95 
 
 there this morning whom he recognized. It could only 
 have been your son. If one recognizes him, another 
 may. Is the boy mad to return thus " 
 
 He broke off, and made a step nearer, peering into 
 the count's face. 
 
 " You know something. I see it in your face. 
 You know where he is." 
 
 "He is there," said the count, pointing over the 
 priest's shoulder. 
 
 " Then God bless him," said tlie Abbe Susini, turning 
 on his heel.
 
 9G THE ISLE OF UNREST. 
 
 CHAPTEK IX. 
 
 THE PROMISED LAND. 
 
 " I do not ask that flowers should always spring 
 Beneath my feet." 
 
 Colonel Gilbert was not one of those visionaries 
 who think that the lot of the individual man is to 
 be bettered by a change from, say, an empire to 
 a republic. Indeed, the late transformation from 
 a republic to an empire had made no difference to 
 him, for he was neither a friend nor a foe of the 
 emperor. He had nothing in common with those 
 soldiers of the Second Empire who had won their 
 spurs in the Tuileries, and owed promotion to a 
 woman's favouritism. He was, in a word, too good 
 a soldier to be a good courtier ; and politics represented 
 for him, as they do for most wise men, an after-break- 
 fast interest, and an edifying study of the careers of 
 a certain number of persons who mean to make them- 
 selves a name in the easiest arena tliat is open to 
 ambition.
 
 THE PROMISED LAND. 97 
 
 The colonel read the newspapers because there was 
 little else to do in Bastia, and the local gossip "on 
 tap," as it were, at the cafes and tlie " Eeunion des 
 Officiers," had but a limited interest for him. He was, 
 however, at heart a gossip, and rode or walked through 
 the streets of Bastia with that leisurely air which seems 
 to invite the passer-by to stop and exchange something 
 more than a formal salutation. 
 
 The days, indeed, were long enough ; for his service 
 often got the colonel out of bed at dawn, and his 
 work was frequently done before civilians were awake. 
 It thus happened that Colonel Gilbert was riding 
 along the coast-road from Brando to Bastia one 
 morning before the sun had risen very high above 
 the heights of Elba, The day was so clear that not 
 only were the rocky islands of Gorgona and Capraja 
 and Monte Cristo visible, but also the mysterious 
 flat Pianosa, so rarely seen, so capricious and singular 
 in its comings and goings that it fades from sight before 
 the very eyes, and in clear weather seems to lie like 
 a raft on the still M'ater. 
 
 The colonel was contemplating the scene with a 
 leisurely, artistic eye, when some instinct made him 
 turn his head and look over his shoulder towards the 
 north. 
 
 " Ali ! " he muttered, with a nod of satisfaction. 
 
 A steamer was slowly pounding down towards 
 
 H
 
 <98 THE ISLE OF UNREST. 
 
 Bastia. It was tlie Marseilles boat — the old Perseverance. 
 And for Colonel Gilbert she was sure to bring news 
 from France, possiljly some one with whom to while 
 away an hour or so in talk. He rode more leisurely 
 now, and the steamer passed him. By the time he 
 reached the dried-fruit factory on the northern out- 
 skirt of the town, the Perseverance had rounded the 
 pier-head, and was gently edging alongside the quay. 
 By the time he reached the harbour she was moored, 
 and her captain enjoying a morning cigar on the wharf. 
 
 Of course Colonel Gilbert knew the captain of the 
 Perseverance. Was he not friendly with the driver of 
 the St. Florent diligence ? All who brought news 
 from the outside world were the friends of this idle 
 soldier. 
 
 " Good morning, captain," he cried. " What news 
 of France ? " 
 
 The captain was a jovial man, with unkempt hair 
 and a smoke-grimed face. 
 
 "News, colonel," he answered. "It is not quite 
 ready yet. The emperor is always brewing it in the 
 Tuileries, but it is not ripe for the public palate 
 
 yet." 
 
 "Ah!" 
 
 "And in the mean time," said the captain, testing 
 with his foot the tautness of the hawser that moored 
 the Perseverance to the quay — " in the mean time
 
 THE PROMISED LAND. 99 
 
 they are busy at Cherbourg and Toulon. As to the 
 army, you probably know that better than I, nion 
 colonel." 
 
 And he finished with his jovial laugh. Then he 
 jerked his thumb in the direction of the steamer. 
 
 " Your newspapers are, no doubt, in the mail-bags," 
 he said. " We had a good passage, and are a full shi]). 
 Of passengers I have two — and ladies. One, by the 
 way, is the heiress of Mattel Perucca over at Olmeta, 
 whom you doubtless knew." 
 
 The colonel turned, and looked towards the steamer 
 with some interest. 
 
 " Is that so ? " he said reflectively. 
 " Yes ; a pinched old maid in a black dress. None 
 will marry her for her acres. It will be a pi^e sale with 
 a vengeance. I caught a glimpse of her as we came 
 out of harbour. I did not see the other, who is young — 
 her niece, I understand. There she is, coming on deck 
 now — the heiress, I mean. She will not look her best 
 after a night at sea." 
 
 And, with a jerk of the head, he indicated a black- 
 clad form on the deck of the Fcrseverancc. It happened 
 to be Mademoiselle Brun, who, as a matter of fact, 
 looked no different after a night at sea to what she 
 had looked in the drawing-room of the Baroness de 
 Melide. She was too old or too tough to take her 
 colour from her environments. She was standing
 
 100 THE ISLE OF UNREST. 
 
 with her back towards the quay, talking to the 
 steward, and did not, therefore, see the colonel until 
 tlie clank of his spurred heel on the deck made her 
 turn sharply. 
 
 " You, mademoiselle ! " exclaimed the colonel, on 
 seeing her face as he stood, kepi in hand, staring at her 
 in astonishment. 
 
 " Yes ; I am the ogre chosen by Fate to watch over 
 Denise Lange," she answered, holding out her withered 
 hand. 
 
 " But this is indeed a pleasure," said the colonel, with 
 his ready smile. " I came by a mere accident to offer 
 my services, as any Frenchman would, to ladies arriving 
 at such a place as Bastia, as a friend, moreover, of 
 Mattel Perucca, and never expected to see a face I knew. 
 It is years, mademoiselle, since we met — since before 
 the war — before Solferino." 
 
 "Yes," said Mademoiselle Brun ; "since before 
 Solferino." 
 
 And she glanced suspiciously at him, as if she had 
 something to hide. A chance word often is the " open 
 sesame " to that cupboard where we keep our cherished 
 skeleton. Colonel Gilbert saw the quick glance, and 
 misconstrued it. 
 
 " I wrote a letter some time ago," he said, " to Made- 
 moiselle Lange, making her an offer for her property, 
 little dreaming that I had so old a friend as yourself
 
 THE PROMISED LAND. 101 
 
 at hand, as one may say, to introduce us to each 
 other." 
 
 " No," said Mademoiselle Brim. 
 
 " And I was surprised to receive a refusal." 
 
 "Yes," said Mademoiselle Brun, looking across the 
 harbour towards the old town. 
 
 " There are not many buyers of land in Corsica," he 
 explained, half indifferently, " and there are plenty of 
 other plots which would serve my purpose. However, 
 I will not buy elsewhere until you and Mademoiselle 
 Lange have had an opportunity of seeing Perucca — that 
 is certain. No ; it is only friendly to keep my offer 
 open." 
 
 He was standing with his face turned towards the 
 deck-house and the saloon stairway, and tapped his 
 boot idly with his whip. There was something 
 expectant and almost anxious in his demeanour. 
 Mademoiselle Brun was looking at his face, and he was 
 perhaps not aware that it changed at this moment. 
 
 " Yes," she said, without looking round ; " that is 
 my niece. You find her pretty ? " 
 
 "Present me," answered the colonel, turning to 
 hook his sword to his belt. 
 
 Denise came hurriedly across the deck, her eyes 
 bright with anticipation and happiness. This was a 
 better life than that of the Piue du Cherche-Midi, and 
 the stir and bustle of the sailors, already at work on
 
 102 THE ISLE OF UNREST. 
 
 the cargo, were contagious. She noticed that Made- 
 moiselle Brun was speaking to an officer, but was more 
 interested in the carriage, which, in accordance with 
 an order sent by the captain, was at this moment 
 rattling across the stones towards the steamer. 
 
 '' This," said Mademoiselle Brun, ''is Colonel Gilbert, 
 whose letter you answered a few weeks ago." 
 
 "Ah, yes," said Denise, returning his bow, and 
 looking at him with frank eyes. " Thank you very 
 much, monsieur, but we are going to live at Perucca 
 ourselves." 
 
 ■ " By all means," laughed the colonel, " try it, 
 mademoiselle ; try it. It is an impossibility, I tell 
 you frankly. And Corsica is not a country in which to 
 attempt impossibilities. See here ! I perceive you 
 have your carriage ready, and the sailors are now 
 carrying your baggage ashore. You are going to drive 
 to Perucca, Good ! Now, as you pass along the road, 
 you will perceive on either side quite a number of 
 small crosses, simply planted at the roadside — some 
 of iron, some of wood, some with a name, some with 
 initials. They are to be found all over Corsica, at the 
 side of every road. Those are people, mademoiselle, 
 who have attempted impossibilities in this country and 
 have failed — at the very spot where the cross is planted. 
 You understand ? I speak as a soldier to a soldier's 
 daucrhter."
 
 THE PROMISED LAND. 103 
 
 He looked at her, and nodded slowly and gravely 
 with compressed lips. 
 
 " Rest assured that we shall not attempt impossi- 
 bilities," replied Denise, gaily. " We only ask to be 
 left alone to feed our poultry and attend to our garden. 
 I am told that the house and servants are as my 
 father's cousin left them, and we are expected to-day. " 
 
 "And you, colonel, shall be our protector," added 
 Mademoiselle Brun, with one of her straight looks. 
 
 The colonel laughed, shrugged his shoulders, and 
 accompanied them to the carriage which awaited 
 them. 
 
 " If one only knew whether you approve or disapprove 
 of these hair-brained proceedings," he took an oppor- 
 tunity of saying to Mademoiselle Brun, when Denise 
 was out of earshot. 
 
 " If I only knew myself," she replied coldly. 
 
 They climbed into the high, old-fashioned carriage, 
 and drove through the new Boulevard du Palais, 
 upward to the hills above the town. And if they 
 observed the small crosses on either side of the road, 
 marking the spot where some poor wight had come to 
 what is here called an accidental death, they took care 
 to make no mention of it. For Denise persisted in 
 seeing everything in that rose light which illumines 
 the world when we are young. She had even a good 
 word to say for the Perseverance, which vessel had
 
 104 THE ISLE OF UNREST. 
 
 assuredly need of such, and said that the captain was 
 a good French sailor, despite his grimy face. 
 
 " This," she cried, " is better than your stuffy school- 
 room ! " 
 
 And she stood up in the carriage to inhale the 
 breeze that hummed through the macquis from the 
 cool mountain-tops. There is no air like that which 
 comes as through a filter made of a hundred scented 
 trees— a subtle mingling of their clean woody odours. 
 
 " Look ! " she added, pointing down to the sea, which 
 looked calm from this great height. "Look at that 
 queer flat island there. That is Pianosa. And there 
 is Elba. Elba ! Cannot the magic of that word rouse 
 you ? But no, you have no Corsican blood in you ; 
 and you sit there with your uncompromising old face 
 and your black bonnet a little bit on one side, if I may 
 mention it " — and she proceeded to put Mademoiselle 
 Brun's bonnet straight — " you, who are always in 
 mourning for something — I don't know what," she 
 added half reflectively, as she sat down again. 
 
 The road to St. Florent mounts in a semi-circle 
 behind Bastia through orange -groves and vineyards, 
 and the tiny private burial-grounds so dear to Corsican 
 families of position. These, indeed, are a proud people, 
 for they are too good to await the last day in the com- 
 pany of their humbler brethren, but must needs have 
 a small garden and a liideous little mausoleum of their
 
 THE PEOMISED LAND. 105 
 
 own, with a fine view and easy access to the high- 
 road. 
 
 With many turns the great road climbs round tlie 
 face of the mountain, and soon leaving Bastia behind, 
 takes a southern trend, and suddenly commands from a 
 height a matchless view of the Lake of Biguglia and 
 the little hillside village where a Corsican parliament 
 once sat, which was once, indeed, the capital of this 
 war-torn island. For every village can boast of a 
 battle, and the rocky earth has run with the blood of 
 almost every European nation, as well as that of Turk 
 and Moor. Beyond the lake, and stretching away into 
 a blue haze where sea and land melt into one, lies 
 the great salt marsh where the first Greek colony 
 was located, where the ruins of Mariana remain to 
 this day. 
 
 Soon the road mounts above the level of the semi- 
 tropical vegetation, and passes along the face of bare 
 and stony heights, where the pines are small and the 
 macquis no higher than a man's head. 
 
 Denise, tired with so long a drive at a snail's pace, 
 jumped from the carriage. 
 
 " I will walk up this hill," she cried to the driver, 
 who had never turned in his seat or spoken a word to 
 them. 
 
 " Then keep close to the carriage," he answered. 
 
 " Why ? "
 
 106 THE ISLE OF UNEEST. 
 
 But he only indicated the macquis with his whip, 
 and made no further answer. Mademoiselle Brun said 
 nothing, but presently, when the driver paused to rest 
 the horses, she descended from the carriage and walked 
 with Denise. 
 
 It was nearly midday when they at last reached 
 the summit of the pass. The heavy clouds, which had 
 been long hanging over the mountains that border the 
 great plain of Biguglia, liad rolled northward before a 
 hot and oppressive breeze, and the sun was now hidden. 
 The carriage descended at a rapid trot, and once the 
 man got down and silently examined his brakes. The 
 road was a sort of cornice cut on the bare mountain 
 side, and a stumble or the slipping of a brake-block 
 would inevitably send the carriage rolling into the 
 valley below. 
 
 Denise sat upright, and looked quickly, with eager 
 movements of the head, from side to side. Soon they 
 reached the region of the upper pines, which are small, 
 and presently passed a piece of virgin forest — of those 
 great pines which have no like in Europe. 
 
 " Look ! " said Denise, gazing up at the great trees 
 with a sort of gasp of excitement. 
 
 But mademoiselle had only eyes for the road in front. 
 Before long they passed into the region of chestnuts, 
 and soon saw the first habitation they had seen for two 
 hours. For this is one of the most thinly peopled lands
 
 THE PROMISED LAND. 107 
 
 of Europe, and four great nations of the Continent have 
 at one time or other done their best to exterminate 
 this untameable race. Then a few more houses and 
 a smaller road branching off to the left from the high- 
 way. The carriage swung round into this, which led 
 straight to a wall built right across it. The driver 
 pulled up, and, turning, brought the horses to a stand- 
 still at a door built in the solid wall With his whip 
 he indicated a bell- chain, rusty and worn, that swung 
 in the breeze. 
 
 There was nobody to be seen. The clouds had closed 
 down over the mountains. Even the tops of the great 
 pines were hidden in a thin mist. 
 
 Denise got down and rang the bell. After a long 
 pause the door was opened by a woman in black, with 
 a black silk handkerchief over her head, who looked 
 gravely at them, 
 
 "I am Denise Lange," said the girl, 
 
 "And I," said the woman, stepping back to admit 
 them, " am the widow of Pietro Andrei, who was shot 
 at Olmeta," 
 
 And Denise Lange entered her own door followed by 
 Mademoiselle Brun.
 
 108 THE ISLE OF UNREST. 
 
 CHAPTEE X. 
 
 THUS FAR. 
 
 " There are some occasions on which a man must sell half his secret 
 iu order to conceal the rest." 
 
 "There is some one moving among the oleanders 
 down by the river," said the count, coming quickly 
 into the room wliere Lory de Vasselot was sitting, one 
 morning some days after his unexpected arrival at the 
 chateau. 
 
 The old man was cool enough, but he closed the 
 window that led to the small terrace where he culti- 
 vated his carnations, with that haste which indicates 
 a recognition of undeniable danger, coupled with no 
 feeling of fear. 
 
 " I know every branch in the valley," he said, " every 
 twig, every leaf, every shadow. There is some one 
 there." 
 
 Lory rose, and laid aside the pen with which he was 
 writing for an extended leave of absence. In four 
 days these two had, as one of tliem had predicted.
 
 THUS FAR. 109 
 
 grown accustomed to each otlier. And the line between 
 custom and necessity is a fine drawn one. 
 
 " Show me," he said, going towards the window. 
 
 " Ah ! " murmured the count, jerking his head. 
 " You will hardly perceive it unless you are a hunter — 
 or the hunted." 
 
 Lory glanced at his father. Assuredly the sleeping 
 mind was beginning to rouse itself. 
 
 "It is nothing but the stirring of a leaf here, the 
 movement of a branch there, which are unusual and 
 unnatural." 
 
 As he spoke, he opened the window with that slow 
 caution which had become habitual to his every thought 
 and action. 
 
 " There," he said, pointing with a steady hand ; " to 
 the left of that almond tree which is still in bloom. 
 Watch those willows which have come there since the 
 wall fell away, and the terrace slipped into the flooded 
 river twenty-one years this spring. You will see the 
 branches move. There — there ! You see. It is a 
 man, and he comes too slowly to have an honest 
 purpose." 
 
 " I see," said Lory. " Is that land ours ? " 
 
 The count gave an odd little laugh. 
 
 " You can see nothing from this window that is not 
 ours," he answered. " As much as any other man's," he 
 added, after a pause. For the conviction still holds
 
 110 THE ISLE OF UNREST. 
 
 good in some Corsican minds that the mountains are 
 common property. 
 
 " He is coming slowly, but not very cautiously," 
 said Lory. " Not like a man who thinks that he may 
 be watched from here. He probably is taking no heed 
 of these windows, for he thinks the place is deserted." 
 
 " It is more probable," replied the count, " that he 
 is cominti here to ascertain that fact. What the abbe 
 has heard, another may hear, though he would not 
 learn it from the abbe. If you want a secret kept, tell 
 it to a priest, and of all priests, tlie Abbe Susini. Some 
 one has heard that you are here in Corsica, and is 
 creeping up to the castle to find out." 
 
 " And I will go and find him out. Two can play at 
 that game in the bushes," said Lory, with a laugh. 
 
 " If you go, take a gun ; one can never tell how a 
 game may turn." 
 
 " Yes ; I will take a gun if you wish it." And Lory 
 went towards the door. " No," he said, pausing in 
 answer to a gesture made by his father, " not that one. 
 It is of too old a make." 
 
 And he went out of the room, leaving his father 
 holdinfj in his hand the "un with which he had shot 
 Andrei Perucca thirty years before. He stood looking 
 at the closed door with dim, refiective eyes. Then he 
 looked at the gun, which he set slowly back in its 
 corner.
 
 THUS FAR. Ill 
 
 " It seems," lie said to himself, *' that I am of too old 
 a make also." 
 
 He went to the window, and, opening it cautiously, 
 stood looking down into the valley. There he perceived 
 that, though two may play at the same game, it is 
 usually given to one to play it better than the other. 
 For he who was climbing up the hill might be followed 
 by a careful eye, by the chance displacement of a twig, 
 the bending of a bough ; while Lory, creeping down into 
 the valley, remained quite invisible, even to his father, 
 upon whose memory every shadow was imprinted. 
 
 " Aha ! " laughed the old man, under his breath. 
 " One sees that the boy is a Corsican. And," he 
 added, after a pause, " one would almost say that the 
 other is not." 
 
 In which the count's trained eye — trained as only is 
 the vision of the hunted — was by no means deceived. 
 For Lory, who was far down in the valley, had already 
 caught sight of a braided sleeve, and, a moment later, 
 recognized Colonel Gilbert. The colonel not only 
 failed to perceive him, but was in nowise looking for 
 him. He appeared to be entirely absorbed, first in 
 the examination of the ground beneath his feet, and 
 then in the contemplation of the rising land. In his 
 hand he seemed to be carrying a note-book, and, so far 
 as the watcher could see, consulted from time to time 
 a compass.
 
 112 THE ISLE OF UNKEST. 
 
 " He is only engaged in his trade," said Lory to 
 himself, with a langh ; and, going out into the open, 
 he sat down on a rock with the gun across his knee 
 and waited. 
 
 Thus it happened that Colonel Gilbert, w^orking his 
 way up through the bushes, note-book in hand, looked 
 up and saw, within a few yards of him, the owner of 
 the land upon which they stood, whom he had every 
 reason to believe to be in Paris. 
 
 His ruddy face was of a deeper red as he slipped his 
 note-book within his tunic and came forward, holding 
 out his hand. But his smile was as ready and good- 
 natured as ever. 
 
 " Well met ! " he said. " You find me, count, taking 
 a professional and business-like survey of the land that 
 you promised to sell me." 
 
 "You are welcome to take the survey," answered 
 Lory, taking the outstretched, cordial hand, " but I 
 must ask you to let me keep the land, I did not take 
 your offer seriously." 
 
 " It was intended seriously, I assure you." 
 
 " Then it was my mistake," answered Lory, quite 
 pleasantly. 
 
 He tapped himself vigorously on the chest, and made 
 a gesture indicating that at a word from the colonel he 
 was ready to lay violent hands upon himself for having 
 been so foolish. The colonel laughed, and shrugged his
 
 THUS FAR. 113 
 
 shoulders as if the matter were but a small one. The 
 pitiless Mediterranean, almost African, sun poured down 
 on them, and one of those short spells of absolute calm, 
 Avhich are characteristic of these latitudes, made it un- 
 bearably hot. The colonel took off his cap, and, sitting 
 down in quite a friendly way near de Vasselot on a 
 rock, proceeded to mop his high forehead, pressing back 
 the thin smooth hair which was touched here and there 
 with grey. 
 
 " You have come here at the wrong time," he said. 
 " The heats have begun. One longs for the cool breezes 
 of Paris or of Normandy." 
 
 And he paused, giving Lory an opportunity of explain- 
 ing why he had come at this time, which opportunity 
 w'as promptly neglected. 
 
 "At all events, count," said the colonel, replacing his 
 cap and lighting a cigarette, " I did not deceive you as 
 to the nature of the land which I wished to buy. It is 
 a desert, as you see. And yet I cannot help thinking 
 that something might be made of this land." 
 
 He sat and gazed lazily in front of him. Presently, 
 leaving his cigarette to smoulder, he began to buzz 
 through his teeth, in the bucolic manner, an air of 
 Offenbach. He was, in a word, entirely agricultural, 
 and consequently slow of speech. 
 
 " Yes, count," he said, with conviction, after a long 
 pause ; " there is only one drawback to Corsica." 
 
 I
 
 114 THE ISLE OF UNREST. 
 
 . "Ah?" 
 
 "The Corsicans," said the colonel, gravely. "You 
 do not know them as I do ; for I suppose you have only 
 been here a few days ? " 
 
 De Vasselot's quick eyes glanced for a moment at 
 the colonel's face, but no reply was made to the 
 supposition. Then the colonel fell to his guileless 
 Offenbach again. There is nothing so innocent as the 
 meditative rendering of a well-known tune. A popular 
 air is that which echoes in empty heads. 
 
 Colonel Gilbert glanced sideways at his companion. 
 He had not thought that this was a silent man. 
 Nature was singularly at fault in her mouldings 
 if this slightly made, dark-eyed Frenchman was 
 habitually taciturn. And the colonel was vaguely 
 uneasy. 
 
 "My horse," he said, "is up at Olmeta. I took a 
 walk round by the river. It is my business to answer 
 innumerable questions from the Ministry of the Interior. 
 Eailway projects are still in the air, you understand. 
 I must know my Corsica. Besides, as I tell you, I 
 thought I was on my own land." 
 
 " I am sorry that I cannot hold to my joke, for it was 
 nothing else, as you know," 
 
 " Yes, yes, of course," acquiesced the colonel. " And 
 in the mean time, it is a great pleasure to see you here, 
 as well as a surprise. I need hardly tell you that your
 
 THUS FAR. 115 
 
 presence here is quite unknown to your neighbours. 
 "We have little to talk about at this end of the island 
 now that the Administration is centred more than 
 ever at Ajaccio ; and were it known in the district 
 that you are at Vasselot, you may be sure I should 
 have heard of it at the cafe or at the hotel where I 
 dine." 
 
 " Yes. I came without drum or trumpet." 
 
 " You are wise." 
 
 The remark was made so significantly that Lory 
 could not ignore it even if such a course had re- 
 commended itself to one of his quick and impulsive 
 nature. 
 
 " What do you mean, colonel ? " 
 
 Gilbert made a little gesture of the hand that held 
 the half-burnt cigarette. He deprecated, it would 
 appear, having been drawn to talk on so serious a 
 topic. 
 
 " Well, I speak as one Frenchman to another, as one 
 soldier to another. If the emperor does not die, he will 
 declare war against Germany. There is the situation 
 in a nutshell, is it not ? And do you think the army 
 can afford to lose one man at the present time, 
 especially a man who has made good use of such small 
 opportunities of distinction as the fates have offered 
 him ? And, so far as I have been able to follow the 
 intricacies of the parochial politics, your life is not
 
 IIG THE ISLE OF UNREST. 
 
 worth two sous in this country, my dear count. There, 
 I have spoken, A word to the wise, is it not ? " 
 
 He rose, and threw away his cigarette with a nod 
 and a smile. 
 
 " And now I must be returning. You will allow me 
 to pass up that small pathway that leads past the 
 chateau. Some day I should, above all things, like to 
 see the chateau. I am interested in old houses, I tell 
 you frankly." 
 
 " I will walk part of the way with you," answered 
 Lory, with a stiffness which was entirely due to a 
 sense of self-reproach. For it was his instinct to be 
 hospitable and open-handed and friendly. And Lory 
 would have liked to ask the colonel then and there 
 to come to the chateau. 
 
 " By the way," said the colonel, as they climbed the 
 hill together, " I did not, of course, mean to suggest 
 that you should sell me the old house which bears 
 your name — only a piece of land, a few hectares on this 
 south-west slope, that I may amuse myself with 
 agriculture, as I told you. Perhaps some day you may 
 reconsider your decision ? " 
 
 He waited for a reply to this suggestion, or an 
 invitation in response to the hint that he was interested 
 in the old house. But neither came. 
 
 " I am much obliged to you for your warning as to 
 the unpopularity of my name in this district," said
 
 I'HUS FAIL 11? 
 
 Lory, rather laboriously changing the subject. " I had, 
 of course, heard something of the same sort before ; 
 but I do not attach much importance to local tradition, 
 do you ? " 
 
 The colonel paused for a few minutes. He had the 
 leisurely conversational manner of an old man. 
 
 " These people have undergone a change," he said 
 at length, " since their final subjugation by ourselves — 
 exactly a hundred years ago, by the way. They were 
 a turbulent, fighting, obstinate people. Those qualities 
 — good enough in times of war — go bad in times of 
 peace. They are a lawless, idle, dishonest people now. 
 Their grand fighting qualities have run to seed in 
 municipal disagreements and electioneering squabbles. 
 And, worst of all, we have grafted on them our French 
 thrift, which has run to greed. There is not a man in 
 the district who would shoot you, count, from any idea 
 of the vendetta, but there are a hundred who would 
 do it for a thousand-franc note, or in order to prevent 
 you taking back the property which he has stolen 
 from you. That is how it stands. And that is why 
 Pietro Andrei came to grief at Olmeta." 
 
 " And Mattel Perucca ? " asked Lory, thereby causing 
 the colonel to trip suddenly over a stone. 
 
 " Oh, Perucca," he answered. " That was different. 
 He died a more or less natural death. He was a very 
 stout man, and on receiving a letter, gave way to such
 
 118 THE ISLE OF UNREST. 
 
 ungovernable rage that he fell in a fit. True, it was a 
 threatening letter ; but such are common enough in this 
 country. It may have been a joke or may have had 
 some comparatively harmless object. None could have 
 foreseen such a result," 
 
 They were now near the chateau, and the colonel 
 rather suddenly shook hands and went away. 
 
 " I am always to be found at Bastia, and am always at 
 your service," he said, waving a farewell with his whip. 
 
 Lory found the door of the chateau ajar, and Jean 
 watching behind it. His father, however, seemed to 
 have forgotten upon what mission he had gone forth, 
 and was sitting placidly in the little room, lighted by a 
 skylight, where they always lived. The sight of Lory 
 reminded him, however. 
 
 " Who was it ? " he asked, without showing a very 
 keen interest. 
 
 "It was a man called Gilbert," answered Lory, 
 " whom I have met in Paris. An engineer. He is 
 stationed at Bastia, and is connected with the railway 
 
 scheme. A man I should like to like, and yet He 
 
 ought to be a good fellow. He has every qualification, 
 and yet " 
 
 Lory did not finish the sentence, but stood reflectively 
 looking at his father. 
 
 " He has more than once offered to buy Vasselot," 
 he said, watching for the effect.
 
 THUS FAR. 119 
 
 " You must never sell Vasselot," replied the old man. 
 He did not seem to conceive it possible that there 
 should be any temptation to do so. 
 
 "I do not quite understand Colonel Gilbert," con- 
 tinued Lory. " He has also offered to buy Perucca ; but 
 there I think he has to deal with a clever woman."
 
 120 THE ISLE OF UNREST. 
 
 CHAPTER Xr. 
 
 BY SURPRISE. 
 " C'est ce qu'on ne dit pas qui esplique co qu'on Jit." 
 
 FiiOM the Piue du Cherclie-Midi in Paris to the Casa 
 Perucca in Corsica is as complete a change as even the 
 heart of woman may desire. For the Eue du Cherche- 
 Midi is probably the noisiest corner of that noisy Paris 
 that lies south of the Seine ; and the Casa Perucca is 
 one of the few quiet corners of Europe where the 
 madding crowd is non-existent, and that crowning 
 effort of philanthropic folly, the statute holiday, has 
 yet to penetrate. 
 
 " Yes," said Mademoiselle Brun, one morning, after 
 she and Denise had passed two months in what she 
 was pleased to term exile — " yes ; it is peaceful. Give 
 me war," she added grimly, after a pause. 
 
 They were standing on the terrace that looked down 
 over the great valley of Vasselot. There was not a 
 house in sight except the crumbling chateau. The 
 month was June, and the river, which could be heard
 
 BY SURPRISE. 121 
 
 in winter, was now little more than a trickling stream. 
 A faint breeze stirred the young leaves of the copper- 
 beech, which is a silent tree by nature, and did not so 
 much as whisper now. There are few birds in Corsica, 
 for the natives are great sportsmen, and will shoot, 
 sitting, anything from a man to a sparrow in season 
 and out. 
 
 " Listen," said Mademoiselle Brun, holding up one 
 steady, yellow finger ; but the silence was such as will 
 make itself felt. "And the neighbours do not call 
 much," added mademoiselle, in completion of her own 
 thoughts. 
 
 Denise laughed. She had been up early, for they 
 were almost alone in the Casa Perucca now. The 
 servants who had obeyed Mattel Perucca in fear 
 and trembling, had refused to obey Denise, who, with 
 much spirit, had dismissed them one and all. An old 
 man remained, who was generally considered to be half- 
 witted ; and Maria Andrei, the widow of Pietro, who 
 was shot at Olmeta. Denise superintended the small 
 farm. 
 
 "That cheery Maria," said Mademoiselle Brun, 
 " she is our only resource, and reminds me of a cheap 
 funeral." 
 
 " There is the colonel," said Denise. " You forget 
 him." 
 
 " Yes ; there is the colonel, who is so kind to us."
 
 122 THE ISLE OF UNKEST. 
 
 And Mademoiselle Brun slowly contemplated the 
 whole landscape, taking in Denise, as it were, in 
 passing. 
 
 "And there is our little friend," she added, "down 
 in the valley there who does not call." 
 
 " Why do you call him little ? " asked Denise, 
 looking down at the Chateau de Vasselot. "He is 
 not little." 
 
 "He is not so large as the colonel," explained 
 mademoiselle. 
 
 " I wonder why he does not call ? " said Denise, 
 presently, looking down into the valley, as if she could 
 perhaps see the explanation there. 
 
 " It has something to do with the social geography 
 of the district," said mademoiselle, " which we do not 
 understand. The Cheap Funeral alone knows it. Half 
 of the country she colours red, the other half black. 
 Theoretically, we hate a number of persons who recipro- 
 cate the feeling heartily. Practically, we do not know 
 of their existence. I imagine the Count de Vasselot 
 hates us on the same principle." 
 
 " But we are not going to be dictated to by a number 
 of ignorant peasants," cried Denise, angrily. 
 
 " I rather fancy we are." 
 
 Denise was standing by the low wall, with her head 
 thrown back. She was naturally energetic, and had the 
 carriage that usually goes with that quality.
 
 BY SURPKISE. 123 
 
 " Are you sure lie is there ? " she asked, still looking 
 down at the chateau. 
 
 " No, I am not. I have only Maria's word for it." 
 
 " Then I am goinir to the village of Olmeta to find 
 out," said Denise. 
 
 And mademoiselle followed her to the house without 
 comment. Indeed, she seemed willing enough to do 
 that which they had been warned not to do. 
 
 On the road that skirts the hill and turns amid 
 groves of chestnut trees, they met two men, loitering 
 along with no business in hand, who scowled at them 
 and made no salutation. 
 
 "They may scowl beneath their great hats," said 
 Denise ; " I am not afraid of them." And she walked 
 on with her chin well up. 
 
 Below them, on the left, the terraces of vine and 
 olive were weed-grown and neglected; for Denise had 
 found no one to work on her land, and the soil here is 
 damp and warm, favouring a rapid growth. 
 
 Colonel Gilbert had been unable to help them in this 
 matter. His official position necessarily prevented his 
 taking an active part in any local differences. There 
 were Luccans, he said, to be hired at Bastia, hard- 
 working men and skilled vine-dressers, but they would 
 not come to a commune where such active hostility 
 existed, and to induce them to do so would inevitably 
 lead to bloodshed.
 
 124 THE ISLE OF UNREST. 
 
 The Abbe Susiiii had called, and told a similar tale 
 ill more guarded language. Finding the ladies good 
 Catholics, he pleaded for and abused his poor in one 
 breath, and then returned half the money that Denise 
 gave him. 
 
 " As likely as not you will be given credit for the 
 whole in heaven, mademoiselle, but I will only take 
 part of it," he said. 
 
 "A masterful man," commented Mademoiselle Brun, 
 when he was gone. 
 
 But the abbe had suggested no solution to Denise's 
 difficulties. The estate seemed to be drifting naturally 
 into the hands of the only man who wanted it, and, 
 after all, had offered a good price for it. 
 
 " I will find out from the Abbe Susini or the mayor 
 whether the Count de Vasselot is really here," Denise 
 said, as they approached the village. " And if he is, we 
 will go and see him. We cannot go on like this. He 
 says do not sell, and then he does not come near us. He 
 must give his reasons. Why should I take his advice ? " 
 
 " Why, indeed ? " said Mademoiselle Brun, to whom 
 the question was not quite a new one. 
 
 She knew that though Denise would rebel against de 
 Vasselot's advice, she would continue to follow it. 
 
 " It seems to be luncheon-time," said Denise, when 
 they reached the village. " The place is deserted. It 
 must be their dejeuner."
 
 BY SURPRISE. 125 
 
 " It may be," responded mademoiselle, with her man- 
 like curtness of speech. 
 
 They went into the church, which was empty, and 
 stayed but a few minutes there, for Mademoiselle Brun 
 was as short in her speech with God as with men. 
 When they came out to the market-place, that also 
 was deserted, which was singular, because the villagers 
 in Corsica spend nearly the whole day on the market- 
 place, talking politics and wldspering a hundred 
 intrigues of parochial policy ; for here a municipal 
 councillor is a great man, and usually a great scoundrel, 
 selling his favour and his vote, trafficking for power, and 
 misappropriating the public funds. Not only was the 
 market-place empty, but some of the house-doors were 
 closed. The door of a small shop was even shut from 
 within as they approached, and surreptitiously barred. 
 Mademoiselle Brun noticed it, and Denise did not 
 pretend to ignore it. 
 
 " One would say that we had an infectious com- 
 plaint," she said, with a short laugh. 
 
 They went to the house of the Abbe Susini. Even 
 this door was shut. 
 
 " The abbe is out," said the old woman, who came 
 in answer to their summons, and she closed the door 
 again with more speed than politeness. 
 
 Denise did not need to ask which was the mayor's 
 house, for a board, with the word " Mairie " painted
 
 126 THE ISLE OF UNEEST. 
 
 upon it (appropriately enough a movable board), was 
 affixed to a house nearly opposite to the church. As 
 they walked towards it, a stone, thrown from the far 
 corner of the Place, under the trees, narrowly missed 
 Denise, and rolled at her feet. Mademoiselle Brun 
 walked on, but Denise swung round on her heel. 
 There was no one to be seen, so she had to follow 
 Mademoiselle Brun, after all, in silence. She was 
 rather pale, but it was anger that lighted her eyes, and 
 not fear. 
 
 Almost immediately a volley of stones followed, and 
 a laugh rang out from beneath the trees. And, strange 
 to say, it was the laugh that at last frightened Denise, 
 and not the stones ; for it was a cruel laugh — the 
 laugh of a brutal fool, such as one may still hear in a 
 few European countries when boys are torturing dumb 
 animals. 
 
 " Let us hurry," said Denise, hastily. " Let us get to 
 the Mairie." 
 
 " Where we shall find the biggest scoundrel of 
 them all, no doubt," added mademoiselle, who was 
 alert and cool. 
 
 But before they reached the Mairie the stones had 
 ceased, and they both turned at the sound of a horse's 
 feet. It was Colonel Gilbert riding hastily into the 
 Place. He saw the stones lying there and the two 
 women standing alone in the sunlight. He looked
 
 BY SUEPRISE. 127 
 
 towards the trees, and then round at the closed houses. 
 With a shrug of the shoulders, he rode towards Denise 
 and dismounted. 
 
 " Mademoiselle," he said, " they have been frightening 
 
 you." 
 
 '* Yes," she answered. " They are not men, but 
 brutes." 
 
 The colonel, who was always gentle in manner, made 
 a deprecatory gesture with the great riding-whip that 
 be invariably carried. 
 
 " You must remember," he said, " that they are l)ut 
 half civilized. You know their history — they have been 
 conquered by all the greedy nations in succession, and 
 they have never known peace from the time that 
 history began until a hundred years ago. They are 
 barbarians, mademoiselle, and barbarians always dis- 
 trust a new-comer." 
 
 " But why do they hate me ? " 
 
 "Because they do not know you, mademoiselle," 
 replied the colonel, with perhaps a second meaning 
 in his blue eyes. 
 
 And, after a pause, he explained further. 
 
 " Because they do not understand you. They belong 
 to one of the strongest clans in Corsica, and it is the 
 ambition of every one to belong to a strong clan. But 
 the Peruccas are in danger of falling into dissension 
 and disorder, for they have ijo head. You are the
 
 128 THE ISLE OF UNREST. 
 
 head, mademoiselle. And the work they expect of you 
 is not work for such hands as yours," 
 
 And again Colonel Gilbert looked at Denise slowly 
 and thoughtfully. She did not perceive the glance, 
 for she was standing with her head half turned towards 
 the trees, 
 
 " Ah ! " he said, noting the direction of her glance, 
 " they will throw no more stones, mademoiselle. You 
 need have no anxiety. They fear a uniform as much 
 as they hate it," 
 
 " And if you had not come at that moment ? " 
 
 '• Ah ! " said the colonel, gravely ; and that was all. 
 *' At any rate, I am glad I came," he added, in a 
 lighter tone, after a pause, " You were going to the 
 Mairie, mesdemoiselles, when I arrived. Take my 
 advice, and do not go there. Go to the abbe if you 
 like — as a man, not as a priest — and come to me when- 
 ever you desire a service, but to no one else in Corsica." 
 
 Denise turned as if she were going to make an ex- 
 ception to this sweeping restriction, but she checked 
 herself and said nothing. And all the while Made- 
 moiselle Brun stood by in silence, a little, patient, 
 bent woman, with compressed lips, and those steady 
 hazel eyes that see so much and betray so little. 
 
 " The abbe is not at home," continued the colonel. 
 "I saw him many miles from here not long ago; 
 and although he is quick on his legs — none quicker—
 
 BY SURPRISE. 129 
 
 he cannot he hero yet. If you arc going towards 
 the Casa Pcrucca, you will perhaps allow me to 
 accompany you." 
 
 He led the way as he spoke, leading loosely by the 
 bridle the horse which followed him, and nuzzled 
 thoughtfully at his shoulder. The colonel was, it 
 appeared, one whose gentle ways endeared him to 
 animals. 
 
 It was glaringly hot, and when they reached the 
 Casa Perucca, Denise asked the colonel to come in and 
 rest. It was, moreover, luncheon-time, and in a thinly 
 populated country the great distances between neigh- 
 bours are conducive to an easier hospitality than that 
 which exists in closer quarters. The colonel naturally 
 stayed to luncheon. 
 
 He was kind and affable, and had a hundred little 
 scraps of gossip such as exiles love. He made no 
 mention of his offer to buy Perucca, remembered only 
 the fact that he was a gentleman accepting frankly a 
 lady's frank hospitality, and if the conversation turned 
 to local matters, he gracefully guided it elsewhere. 
 
 Immediately after luncheon he rose from the table, 
 refusing even to wait for coffee. 
 
 " I have my duties," he explained. " The War Office 
 is, for reasons known to itself, moving troops, and I 
 have gradually crept up the ladder at Bastia, till I am 
 nearly at the top there." 
 
 K
 
 130 THE ISLE OF UNIIEST. 
 
 Denise went with him to the stable to see that liis 
 horse had been cared for. 
 
 " They have only left me the decrepit and the half- 
 witted," she said, " but I am not beaten yet." 
 
 Colonel Gilbert fetched the horse himself and 
 tightened the girths. They walked together towards 
 the great gate of solid wood which fitted into the high 
 wall so closely that none could peep through so much 
 as a crack. At the door the colonel lingered, leaning 
 against his great horse and stroking its shoulder thought- 
 fully with a gloved finger. 
 
 " Mademoiselle," he said at length. 
 
 " Yes," answered Denise, looking at him so honestly 
 in the face that he had to turn away.. 
 
 " I want to ask you," lie said slowly, " to marry me." 
 
 Denise looked at him in utter astonishment, her face 
 suddenly red, her eyes lialf afraid. 
 
 "I do not understand you," she said. 
 
 " And yet it is simple enough," answered the colonel, 
 who himself was embarrassed and ill at ease. " I ask 
 
 you to marry me. You think I am too old " He 
 
 paused, seeking his words. " I am not forty yet, and, 
 at all events, I am not making the mistake usually 
 made by very young men. I do not imagine that I 
 love you — I know it." 
 
 They stood for a minute in silence ; then the colonel 
 spoke again.
 
 BY SURPRISE. 131 
 
 " Of what are you thinking, mademoiselle ? " 
 
 " That it is hard to lose the only friend we have in 
 Corsica." 
 
 " You need not do that;' replied the colonel. " I do 
 not even ask you to answer now." 
 
 " Oh, I can answer at once." 
 
 Colonel Gilbert bit his lip, and looked at the ground 
 in silence. 
 
 ** Then I am too old ? " he said at length. 
 
 "I do not know whether it is that or not," 
 answered Denise ; and neither spoke while the colonel 
 mounted and rode slowly away. Denise closed the 
 door quite softly behind him.
 
 132 THE ISr.E OF UNREST. 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 A SUMMONS. 
 
 *' One stern tyrannic thought thiit mado 
 An other thoughts its slave." 
 
 All round the Mediterranean Sea there dwell people 
 who understand the art of doing nothing. They do it 
 unblushingly, peaceably, and of a set purpose. More- 
 over, their forefathers must have been addicted to a 
 similar philosophy ; for there is no Mediterranean town 
 or village without its promenade or lounging-place, 
 where the trees have grown quite large, and the shade 
 is quite deep, and the wooden or stone seats are 
 shiny with use. Here those whom the French call 
 " worth-nothings " congregate peacefully and happily, 
 to look at the sea and contemplate life from that 
 reflective and calm standpoint which is only to be 
 enjoyed by the man who has nothing to lose. To 
 begin at Valentia, one will find these human weeds 
 almost Oriental in their apathy. Farther north, at 
 Barcelona, they are given to fitful lapses into activity
 
 A SUMMONS. 133 
 
 before the heat of the day. At Marseilles they are 
 almost energetic, and are even known to take the trouble 
 of asking the passer for alms. But eastward, beyond 
 Toulon, they understand their business better, and do 
 not even trouble to talk among themselves. The 
 French worth-nothing is, in a word, worth less than 
 any of his brothers — much less than the Italian, who 
 is quite easily roused to a display of temper and a rusty 
 knife — and more nearly approaches the supreme calm 
 of the Moor, who, across the Mediterranean, will sit all 
 day and stare at nothing with any man in the world. 
 And between these dreamy coasts there lie half a dozen 
 islands which, strange to say, are islands of unrest. In 
 IMajorca every man works from morn till eve. In 
 Minorca they do the same, and quarrel after nightfall. 
 In Iviza they quarrel all day. In Corsica they do 
 nothing, restlessly ; while Sardinia, as all the world 
 knows, is a hotbed of active discontent. 
 
 At Ajaccio there are half a dozen idlers on the Place 
 Bonaparte, who sit under the trees against the wall ; 
 but they never sit there long, and do not know their 
 business. At St. Florent, in the north of the island, 
 which has a western aspect — the best for idling— there 
 are but two real, unadulterated knights of industry, who 
 sit on the low wall of that which is called the New 
 Quay, and conscientiously do nothing from morning till 
 night.
 
 134 THE ISLE OF UNREST. 
 
 " Of course I know him," one was saying to the 
 other. "Do I not remember his father, and are not 
 all the de Vasselots cut with the same knife ? I tell 
 you there was a moon, and I saw him get off his horse, 
 just here at the very door of Eutali's stable, and unstrap 
 his sack, which he carried himself, and set off towards 
 Olmeta." 
 
 The speaker lapsed into silence, and Colonel Gilbert, 
 who had lunched, and was now sitting at the open 
 window of the little inn, which has neither sign nor 
 license, leant farther forward. For the word " Olmeta " 
 never failed to bring a light of energy and enterprise 
 into his quiet eyes. 
 
 The inn has its entrance in the main street of St. 
 Florent, and only the back windows look out upon the 
 quay and across the bay. It was at one of these 
 windows that Colonel Gilbert was enjoying a cigarette 
 and a cup of coffee, and the loafers on the quay were 
 unaware of his presence there. And for the sixth time 
 at least, the story of Lory de Vasselot's arrival at St. 
 Florent and departure for Olmeta was told and 
 patiently heard. Has not one of the great students 
 of human nature said that the canaille of all nations 
 are much alike ? And the dull or idle of intellect 
 assuredly resemble each other in the patience with 
 which they will listen to or tell the same story over 
 and over again.
 
 A SUMMONS. 135 
 
 Tlie colonel heard the tale, listlessly gazing across 
 the bay with dreamy eyes, and only gave the talker 
 his full attention when more ancient history was 
 touched upon. 
 
 " Yes," said the idler ; " and I remember his father 
 when he w^as just at that age — as like this one as one 
 sheep is like another. Xor have I forgotten the story 
 which few remember now." 
 
 He pressed down the tobacco into his wooden pipe — 
 for they are pipe-smokers in a cigarette latitude — and 
 waited cunningly for curiosity to grow. His com- 
 panion sliowed no sign, though the colonel set liis 
 empty coffee-cup noiselessly aside and leant his elbow 
 on the window-sill. 
 
 The speaker jerked his thumb in the direction of 
 Olmeta over his left shoulder far up on the mountain- 
 side. 
 
 " That story was buried with Perucca," he said, after 
 a long pause. " Perhaps the Abbe Susini knows it. 
 Wlio can tell what a priest knows ? There were two 
 Peruccas once — fine, big men — and neither married. 
 The other — Andrei Perucca — who has been in hell 
 these thirty years, made sheep's eyes, they told me, 
 at de Yasselot's young wife. She was French, and 
 willing enough, no doubt. She was dull, down there 
 in that great chateau ; and when a woman is dull 
 she must either so to church or to the devil. She
 
 136 THE ISLE OF UNREST. 
 
 cannot content herself with tobacco or the drink, like 
 a man. De Vasselot heard of it. He was a quiet man, 
 and he waited. One day he began to carry a gun, like 
 you and me — a bad example, eh? Then Andrei Perucca 
 was seen to carry a gun also. And, of course, in time 
 they met — up there on the road from Pruneta to 
 Murato. The clouds were down, and the gregale was 
 blowing cold and showery. It is when the gregale 
 blows that the clouds seem to whisper as they crowd 
 through the narrow places up among the peaks, and 
 there was no other sound while these two men crept 
 round each other among the rocks, like two cats upon 
 a roof. De Vasselot was quicker and smaller, and as 
 agile as a goat, and Andrei Perucca lost him altogether. 
 He was a fool. He went to look for him. As if any 
 one in his senses would go to look for a Corsican in 
 the rocks ! That is how the gendarmes get killed. At 
 length Andrei Perucca raised his head over a big stone, 
 and looked right into the muzzle of de Vasselot's gun. 
 The next minute there was no head upon Perucca's 
 shoulders." 
 
 The narrator paused, and relighted his pipe with a 
 foul-smelling sulphur match. 
 
 "Yes," he said reflectively j "they are fme men, 
 the de Vasselots." 
 
 He tapped himself on the chest with the stem of 
 his pipe, and made a gesture towards the mountains
 
 A SUMMONS. 137 
 
 and the skj, as if calling upon the gods to hear 
 him. 
 
 "I am all for the de Vasselots— I," he said. 
 
 Colonel Gilbert leant out of the window, and quietly 
 took stock of this valuaLle adherent. 
 
 " At that time," continued the speaker, " we had at 
 Bastia a young prefect who took himself seriously. 
 He was going to reform the world. They decided to 
 arrest the Count de Vasselot, though they had not a 
 scrap of evidence, and the clan was strong in those 
 days, stronger than the Peruccas are to-day. But they 
 never caught him. They disappeared bag and baggage — 
 went to Paris, I understand ; and they say the count 
 died there, or was perhaps killed by the Peruccas, who 
 grew strong under Mattel, so that in a few years it 
 would have been impossible for a de Vasselot to show 
 his face in this country. Then Mattel Perucca died, 
 and was hardly in his grave before this man came. I 
 tell you, I saw him myself, a de Vasselot, with his 
 father's quick way of turning his head, of sitting in the 
 saddle lightly like a Spaniard or a Corsican. That was 
 in the spring, and it is now July — three months ago. 
 And he has never been seen or heard of since. But he 
 is here, I tell you ; he is here in the island. As 
 likely as not he is in the old chateau down there in 
 the valley. No honest man has set his foot across the 
 threshold since the de Vasselots left it thirty years
 
 138 THE ISLE OF UNREST. 
 
 ago — only Jean is there, who has the evil eye. But 
 there are plenty of Perucca's people up at Olmeta who 
 would risk Jean's eye, and break down the doors of the 
 chateau at a word from the Casa Perucca. But the 
 girl there wlio is the head of the clan will not say the 
 word. She does not understand that she is powerful 
 if she would only go to work in tlie right way, and help 
 her people. Instead of that, she quarrels with them 
 over such small matters as the right of grazing or of 
 cutting wood. She will make the place too hot for 
 
 her " He broke off suddenly. " What is that ? " 
 
 he said, turning on the wall, which was polished smooth 
 by constant friction. 
 
 He turned to the north and listened, looking in the 
 direction of Cap Corse, from whence the Bastia road 
 comes winding down the mountain slopes. 
 
 " I hear nothing," said his companion. 
 
 " Then you are deaf. It is the diligence half an hour 
 before its time, and the driver of it is shouting as he 
 comes— shouting to the people on the road. It seems 
 that there is news " 
 
 But Colonel Gilbert heard no more, for he had 
 seized his sword, and was already halfway down the 
 stone stairs. It appeared that he expected news, and 
 when the diligence drew up in the narrow street, he was 
 there awaiting it, amid a buzzing crowd, which had 
 inexplicably assembled in the twinkling of an eye.
 
 A SUMMONS. 189 
 
 Yes ; there was assuredly news, for the diligence came 
 in at a gallop though there was no one on it but the 
 driver. He shouted incoherently, and waved his whip 
 above his head. Then, quite suddenly, perceiving 
 Colonel Gilbert, he snapped his lips together, threw 
 aside the reins, and leapt to the ground. 
 
 " Mon colonel," he said, " a word with you." 
 And they went apart into a doorway. Three words 
 sufficed to tell all that the diligence driver knew, and a 
 minute later the colonel hurried towards the stable of 
 the inn, where his horse stood ready. He rode away at 
 a sharp trot, not towards Bastia, but down the valley 
 of Vasselot. Although it was evident that he was 
 pressed for time, the colonel did not hurry his horse, 
 but rather relieved it when he could by dismounting, at 
 every sharp ascent, and riding where possible in the deep 
 shade of the chestnut trees. He turned aside from the 
 main road that climbs laboriously to Oletta and Olmeta, 
 and followed the river-path. In order to gain time 
 he presently left the path, and made a short cut across 
 the open land, glancing up at the Casa Perucca as he 
 did so. For he was trespassing. 
 
 He was riding leisurely enough when his horse 
 stumbled, and, in recovering itself, clumsily kicked a 
 great stone with such force that he shattered it to a 
 hundred pieces, and then stood on three legs, awkwardly 
 swinging his hoof in a way that horses have when the
 
 140 THE ISLE OF UNREST. 
 
 bone has been jarred. In a moment the colonel dis- 
 mounted, and felt the injured leg carefully. 
 
 " My friend," he said kindly, " you are a fool. What 
 are you doing ? Name of a dog " — he paused, and 
 collecting the pieces of broken quartz, threw them 
 away into the brush — "name of a dog, what are you 
 doing ? " 
 
 With an odd laugh Colonel Gilbert climbed into the 
 saddle again, and although he looked carefully up at 
 the Casa Perucca, he failed to see Mademoiselle Brun's 
 grey face amid the grey shadows of an olive tree. The 
 horse limped at first, but presently forgot his grievance 
 against the big stone that had lain in his path. The 
 colonel laughed to himself in a singular way more than 
 once at the seemingly trivial accident, and on regaining 
 the path, turned in his saddle to look again at the spot 
 where it had occurred. 
 
 On nearing the chateau he urged his horse to a 
 better pace, and reached the great door at a sharp trot. 
 He rang the bell without dismounting, and leisurely 
 quitted the saddle. But the summons was not 
 immediately answered. He jerked at the chain again, 
 and rattled on the door with the handle of his riding- 
 whip. At length the bolts were withdrawn, and the 
 heavy door opened sufficiently to admit a glance of 
 that evil eye which the peasants did not care to face. 
 
 Before speaking the colonel made a step forward, so
 
 A SUMMONS. 141 
 
 that his foot must necessarily prevent the closing of 
 the door. 
 
 " The Count de Vasselot," said he. 
 
 " Take away your foot/' rei^lied Jean. 
 
 The colonel noted with a good-natured surprise the 
 position of his stout riding-boot, and withdrew it. 
 
 " The Count de Vasselot," he repeated, " You need 
 not trouble, my friend, to tell any lies or to look at 
 me with your evil eye. I know the count is here, for 
 I saw him in Paris just before he came, and I spoke to 
 him at this very door a few weeks ago. He knows 
 me, and I think you know me too, my friend. Tell 
 your master I have news from France. He will see 
 me." 
 
 Jean unceremoniously closed the door, and the 
 colonel, who was moving away towards his horse, 
 turned sharply on his heel when he heard the bolts 
 being surreptitiously pushed back again. 
 
 " Ah ! " he said, and he stood outside the door with 
 his hand at his moustache, reflectively following Jean's 
 movements, " they are singularly careful to keep me 
 out, these people." 
 
 He had not long to wait, however, for presently 
 Lory came, stepping quickly over the high threshold 
 and closing the door behind him. But Gilbert was 
 taller than de Vasselot, and could see over his head. 
 He looked ris;ht through the house into the little
 
 142 TPIE ISLE OF UNREST. 
 
 garden on the terrace, and saw some one there who 
 was not Jean. And the light of surprise was still in 
 his eyes as he shook hands with Lory de Vasselot. 
 
 " You have news for me ? " inquired de Vasselot. 
 
 " News for every Frenchman." 
 
 " Ah ! " 
 
 " Yes. The emperor has decLared war against 
 Germany." 
 
 " War ! " echoed Lory, with a sudden laugh. 
 
 " Yes ; and your regiment is the first on the list." 
 
 " I know, I know ! " cried de Vasselot, his eyes 
 alight with excitement. " But this is good news that 
 you tell me. How can I thank you for coming ? I 
 must get home — I mean to France — at once. But this 
 is great news ! " He seized the colonel's hand and 
 shook it. " Great news, mon colonel — great news ! " 
 
 " Good news for you, for you are going. But I 
 shall be left behind as usual. Yes ; it is good news 
 for you," 
 
 " And for France," cried Lory, with both hands out- 
 spread, as if to indicate the glory that was awaiting 
 them. 
 
 " For France," said the colonel, gravely, '' it cannot 
 fail to be bad. But we must not think of that now." 
 
 "We shall never think of it," answered Lory. 
 " This is Monday ; there is a boat for Marseilles 
 to-night. I leave Bastia to-night, colonel."
 
 A SUMMONS. 143 
 
 " And I must get back there," said the colonel, 
 holding out his hand. 
 
 He rode thoughtfully back by the shortest route 
 through the Lancone Defile, and, as he approached 
 Bastia, from the heidits behind the town he saw the 
 steamer that would convey Lory to France coming 
 northward from Bonifacio. 
 
 " Yes," he said ; " he will leave Bastia to-night ; and 
 assuredly the good God, or the devil, helps me at 
 every turn of this affair."
 
 144 TDE ISLE OF UNEEST. 
 
 CHAPTEE XIII. 
 
 WAR. 
 
 "Since all that I can ever do for tliec 
 Is to do nothing, may'st thou never see, 
 Never divine, the all that nothing costeth me ! " 
 
 It is for kings to declare war, for nations to fight and 
 pay. Xapoleon III. declared war against Eussia, and 
 France fought side by side with England in the Crimea, 
 not because the gayest and most tragic of nations had 
 aught to gain, but to ensure an upstart emperor a place 
 among the monarchs of Europe. And that strange 
 alliance was merely one move in a long game played 
 by a consummate intriguer — a game which began 
 disastrously at Boulogne and ended disastrously at 
 Sedan, and yet was the most daring and brilliant feat 
 of European statesmanship that has been carried out 
 since the adventurer's great uncle went to St. Helena. 
 
 But no one knows why in July, 1870, Xapoleon III. 
 declared war against Germany. The secret of the 
 greatest war of modern times lies buried in the Imperial 
 mausoleum at Frocrnal.
 
 WAR. 145 
 
 There is a sort of surprise which is caused by the 
 sudden arrival of the long expected, and Germany 
 experienced it in that hot midsummer, for there 
 seemed to be no reason why war should break out 
 at the moment. Shortly before, the Spanish Govern- 
 ment had offered the crown to the hereditary Prince 
 Leopold of Hohenzollern, and France, ever ready to see 
 a grievance, found herself suited. But the hereditary 
 prince declined that throne, and the incident seemed 
 about to close. Then quite suddenly France made a 
 demand, with reference to any possible recurrence of 
 the same question, which Germany could not be ex- 
 pected to grant. It was an odd demand to make, and 
 in a flash of thought the great (^Jerman chancellor saw 
 that this meant war. Perhaps he had been waiting for 
 it. At all events, he was prepared for it, as were the 
 silent soldier, von Ptoon, and the gentle tactician, von 
 Moltke. These gentlemen were away fur a holiday, 
 but they returned, and, as history tells, had merely 
 to fill in a few dates on already prepared docu- 
 ments. 
 
 If France was not ready she tliought lierself so, and 
 was at all events willing. Nay, she was so eager that 
 she shouted when she should have held her tonaue. 
 And who sliall say what the schemer of the Tuileries 
 thought of it all behind that pleasant smile, those dull 
 and sphinx-like eyes ? He had always believed in his 
 
 L
 
 146 THE ISLE OP UNREST. 
 
 star, had always known that he was destined to be 
 great; and now perhaps he knew that his star was 
 waning — that the greatness was past. He made his 
 preparations quietly. He was never a flustered man, 
 this nephew of the greatest genius the world has 
 seen. Did he not sit three months later in front of a 
 cottage at Donchery and impassively smoke cigarette 
 after cigarette while waiting for Otto von Bismarck ? 
 He was a fatalist. 
 
 " The Moving Finger writes ; and, having writ, 
 Moves on." 
 
 And it must be remembered to his credit that he 
 asked no man's pity — a request as foolish to make for 
 a fallen emperor as for the ordinary man who has, for 
 instance, married in haste, and is given the leisure of a 
 whole lifetime in which to repent. For the human 
 heart is incapable of bestowing unadulterated pity : 
 there must be some contempt in it. If the fall of 
 Napoleon III. was great, let it be rem.embered that 
 few place themselves by their own exertions in a 
 position to fall at all. 
 
 The declaration of war was, on the whole, acclaimed 
 in France ; for Frenchmen are, above all men, soldiers. 
 Does not the whole world use French terms in the 
 technicalities of warfare ? The majority received the 
 news as Lory de Vasselot received it. For a time he 
 could only think that this was a great and glorious
 
 WAR. 147 
 
 moment in Lis life. He hurried in to tell his father, 
 but the count failed to rise to the occasion. 
 
 " War ! " he said. " Yes ; there have been many in 
 my time. They have not affected me — or my carnations." 
 
 "And I go to it to-night," announced Lory, watching 
 his father with eyes suddenly grave and anxious. 
 
 " Ah ! " said the count, and made no farther 
 comment. 
 
 Then, without pausing to consider his own motives, 
 Lory hurried up to the Casa Perucca to tell the ladies 
 there his great news. He must, it seemed, tell some- 
 body, and he knew no one else within reach, except 
 perhaps the Abbe Susini, who did not pretend to be a 
 Frenchman. 
 
 " Is it peace ? " asked Mademoiselle Brun, who, 
 having seen him climbing the steep slope in the 
 glaring sunshine, was waiting for him by the open side- 
 door when he arrived there. 
 
 He took her withered hand, and bowed over it as 
 gallantly as if it had been soft and young. 
 
 " What do you mean ? " he asked, looking at her 
 curiously. 
 
 "Well, it seems that the Casa Perucca and the 
 Chateau de Vasselot are not on visiting terms. We 
 only call on each other with a gun." 
 
 " It is odd that you should have asked me that," 
 said Lory, " for it is not peace, but war."
 
 148 THE ISLE OF UNREST. 
 
 And as he looked at her, her face hardened, her 
 steady eyes wavered for once. 
 
 " Ah ! " she said, her hands dropping sharply 
 against her dingy black dress in a gesture of despair. 
 " Again ! " 
 
 " Yes, mademoiselle," answered Lory, gently ; fur he 
 had a quick intuition, and knew at a glance that war 
 must have hurt this woman at one time of her life. 
 
 She stood for a moment tapping the ground with her 
 foot, looking reflectively across the valley. 
 
 " Assuredly," she said, " Frenchwomen must be the 
 bravest women in the world, or else there would never 
 be a light heart in the whole country. Come, let 
 us go in and tell Denise. It is Germany, I suppose ? " 
 
 "Yes, mademoiselle. They have long wanted it, and 
 we are obliging them at last. You look grave. It is 
 not bad news I bring you, but good." 
 
 " "Women like soldiers, but they hate war," said 
 mademoiselle, and ^^alked on slowly in silence. 
 
 After a pause, she turned and looked at him as if 
 she were going to ask him a question, but checked 
 herself. 
 
 " I almost did a foolish thing," she explained, seeing 
 his glance of surprise. " I was going to ask you if you 
 were going ? " 
 
 " Ah, yes, I am going," he answered, with a laugh 
 and a keen glance of excitement. " War is a necessary
 
 WAR. 149 
 
 evil, mademoiselle, and assists promotion. Why should 
 you hate it ? " 
 
 " Because we cannot interfere in it," replied 
 IMademoiselle Brun, with a snap of the lips. " We 
 shall find Denise in the garden to the north of the 
 house, picking green beans, Monsieur le Comte," 
 continued Mademoiselle Brun, with a glance in his 
 direction. 
 
 "Then I shall have time to help with the beans 
 before I go to the war," answered Lory; and they 
 walked on in silence. 
 
 The garden was but half cultivated — a luxuriant 
 thicket of fruit and weed, of trailing vine and wild 
 clematis. The air of it was heavy with a hundred 
 scents, and, in the shade, was cool, and of a mossy 
 odour rarely found in Southern seas. 
 
 They did not see Denise at first, and then suddenly 
 she emerged at the other end of the weed-grown path 
 where they stood. Lory hurried forward, hat in hand, 
 and perceived that Denise made a movement, as if to 
 go back into the shadow, which was immediately 
 restrained. 
 
 Mademoiselle Brun did not follow Lory, but turned 
 back towards the house. 
 
 " If they must quarrel," she said to herself, " they may 
 do it without my assistance." 
 
 And Denise seemed, indeed, ready to fall out with hei
 
 150 THE ISLE OF UNEEST. 
 
 neighbour, for she came towards him ^Yith heightened 
 colour and a flash of annoyance in her eyes. 
 
 " I am sorry they put you to the trouble of coming 
 out here," she said. 
 
 " Why, mademoiselle ? Because I find you picking 
 green beans ? " 
 
 " Xo ; not that. But one has one's pride. This is 
 my garden. I keep it ! Look at it ! " And she 
 waved her hand with a gesture of contempt. 
 
 De Yasselot looked gravely round him. Then, after 
 a pause, he made a movement of the deepest despair. 
 
 " Yes, mademoiselle," he said, with a great sigh, " it 
 is a wilderness," 
 
 " And now you are laughing at me." 
 
 " I, mademoiselle ? " And he faced her tragic eyes. 
 
 " You think I am a woman." 
 
 De Yasselot spread out his hands in deprecation, as 
 if, this time, she had hit the mark. 
 
 " Yes," he said slowly. 
 
 " I mean you think we are only capable of wearing 
 pretty clothes and listening to pretty speeches, and 
 that anything else is beyond our grasp altogether." 
 
 " ITothing in the world, mademoiselle, is beyond 
 your gi'asp, except" — he paused, and looked round 
 him — " except a spade, perhaps, and that is what this 
 garden wants." 
 
 They were very grave about it, and sat down on a
 
 WAR 151 
 
 rough seat built by Mattel Perucca, who had come there 
 in the hot weather. 
 
 " Then what is to be done ? " said Denise, simply. 
 
 Tor the French — the most intellectually subtle people 
 of the world — have a certain odd simplicity which 
 seems to have survived all the changes and chances of 
 monarchy, republic, and empire. 
 
 " I do not quite know. Have you not a man ? " 
 
 " I have nobody, except a decrepit old man, who is 
 half an imbecile," said Denise, with a short laugh. " I 
 get my provisions surreptitiously by the hand of 
 Madame Andrei. No one else comes near the Casa. 
 We are in a state of siege. I dare not go into Olmeta ; 
 but I am holding on because you advised me not to sell." 
 
 " I, mademoiselle ? " 
 
 " Yes ; in Paris. Have you forgotten ? " 
 
 " No," answered Lory, slowly — " no ; I have not 
 forgotten. But no one takes my advice — indeed, no 
 one asks it — except about a horse. They think I know 
 about a horse." And Lory smiled to himself at tlie 
 thought of his proud position. 
 
 " But you surely meant what you said ? " asked 
 Denise. 
 
 " Oh yes. But you honour me too much by taking my 
 opinion thus seriously without question, mademoiselle." 
 
 Denise was looking at him with her clear, searching 
 eyes, rather veiled by a suggestion of disappointment.
 
 152 THE ISLE OF UNREST. 
 
 " I thought — I thought you seemed so decided, so 
 sure of your own opinion," she said doubtfully. 
 
 De Vasselot was silent for a moment, then he turned 
 to her quickly, impulsively, confidentially. 
 
 " Listen," he said. " I will tell you the truth. I 
 said ' Don't sell.' I say * Don't sell ' still. And I have 
 not a shred of reason for doing so. There ! " 
 
 Denise was not a person who was easily led. She 
 laughed at the stern, strong Mademoiselle Brun to her 
 face, and treated her opinion with a gay contempt. 
 She had never yet been led. 
 
 " No," she said, and seemed ready to dispense with 
 reasons. " You will not sell, yourself ? " she said, after 
 a pause. 
 
 " No ; I cannot sell," he said quickly ; and she 
 remembered his answer long afterwards. 
 
 After a pause he explained farther. 
 
 " I tell you frankly," he said earnestly, for he was 
 always either very earnest or very gay — " I tell you 
 frankly, when we both received an offer to buy, I 
 thought there must be some reason why the places are 
 worth buying, but I have found none." 
 
 He paused, and, looking round, remembered that this 
 also was his, and did not belong to Denise at all, who 
 claimed it, and held it with such a high hand. 
 
 " As Corsica at present stands, Perucca and Vasselot 
 are valueless, mademoiselle. I claim the honour of
 
 WAR. 153 
 
 being in the same boat with you. And if the empire 
 falls — honjour lapaix ! " 
 
 And he sketched a grand upheaval with a wave of 
 his two hands in the air. 
 
 " But why should the empire fall ? " asked Denise, 
 sharply. 
 
 " Ah, but I have the head of a sparrow ! " cried Lory, 
 and he smote himself grievously on the forehead. " I 
 forgot to tell you the very thing that I came to tell 
 you. Which is odd, for until I came into this garden 
 I could think of nothing else. I was ready to shout 
 it to the trees. War has been declared, mademoiselle." 
 
 "War ! " said Denise ; and she drew in one whistling 
 breath through her teeth, as one may who has been 
 burnt by contact with heated metal, and sat looking 
 straight in front of her. " When do you go, Monsieur 
 le Comte ? " she asked, in a steady voice, after a 
 moment. 
 
 " To-night." 
 
 He rose, and stood before her, looking at the tangled 
 garden with a frown. 
 
 " Ah ! " he said, with a sudden laugh, " if the 
 emperor had only consulted me, he would not have 
 done it just yet. I want to go, of course, for I am a 
 soldier. But I do not want to go now. I should have 
 liked to see things more settled, here in Olmeta. If 
 the empire falls, mademoiselle, you must return to
 
 154 THE ISLE OF UNREST. 
 
 France ; remember that. I should have liked to have 
 offered you my poor assistance ; but I cannot — I must 
 go. There are others, however. There is Mademoiselle 
 Brun, with a man's heart in that little body. And 
 there is the Abbe Susini. Yes ; you can trust him as 
 you can trust a little English fighting terrier. Tell 
 
 him No; I will tell him. He is a Vasselot, 
 
 mademoiselle, but I shall make him a Perucca." 
 
 He held out his hand gaily to say good-bye. 
 
 " And — stay ! Will you write to me if you want me, 
 mademoiselle ? I may be able to get to you." 
 
 Denise did not answer for a moment. Then she 
 looked him straight in the eyes, as was her wont with 
 men and women alike. 
 
 " Yes," she said. 
 
 A few minutes later, Mademoiselle Brun came into 
 the garden. She looked round but saw no one. 
 Approaching the spot where she had left Denise, she 
 found the basket with a few beans in it, and Denise's 
 gloves lying there. She knew that Lory had gone, but 
 still she could see Denise nowhere. There were a 
 hundred places in the garden where any who did not 
 wish to be discovered could find concealment. 
 
 Mademoiselle Brun took np the basket and continued 
 to pick the French beans. 
 
 " My poor child ! my poor child ! " she muttered twice, 
 with a hard face.
 
 ( 155 ) 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 GOSSIP. 
 
 " Cupid is a casuist, 
 A mystic, and a cabalist. 
 Can your lurking thought surprise, 
 And interpret your device ? " 
 
 That which has been taken by the sword must be held 
 by the sword. In Corsica the blade is sheathed, but 
 it has never yet been laid aside. The quick events 
 of July thrust this sheathed weapon into the hand of 
 Colonel Gilbert, who, as he himself had predicted, was 
 left behind in the general exodus. 
 
 " If you are placed in command at Bastia, how 
 many, or how few men will suffice ? " asked the civil 
 authority, who was laid on the shelf by the outbreak 
 of war. 
 
 And Colonel Gilbert named what appeared to be an 
 absurd minimum, 
 
 " We must think of every event ; things may go 
 badly, the fortune of war may turn against us." 
 
 " Still I can do it," answered the colonel.
 
 156 THE ISLE OF UNREST. 
 
 " The empire may fall, and then Corsica will blaze 
 up like tow." 
 
 " Still I can do it," repeated the colonel. 
 
 It is the natural instinct of man to strike while his 
 blood is up, and the national spirit on either side of the 
 Tvhine was all for immediate action. The leaders them- 
 selves were anxious to begin, so that they might finish 
 before the winter. So the preparations were pushed 
 forward in Germany with a methodical haste, a sane 
 and deliberate foresight. In France it was more a 
 question of sentiment — the invincibility of French arms, 
 the heroism of French soldiers, the Napoleonic legend. 
 But while these abstract aids to warfare may make a 
 good individual soldier of that untidy little man in the 
 red trousers, who has, in his time, overrun all Europe, 
 it will not move great armies or organize a successful 
 campaign. For the French soldier must have some one 
 to fight for — some one towering man in whom he trusts, 
 who can turn to good account some of the best fight- 
 ing material the human race has yet produced. And 
 Napoleon III. was not such a man. 
 
 It is almost certain that he counted on receivincr 
 assistance from Austria or Italy, and when this was with- 
 held, the disease-stricken, suffering man must assuredly 
 have realized that his star was sinking. He had made 
 the mistake of putting off this great war too long. He 
 should have fouglit it years earlier, before the Prussians
 
 GOSSIP. 157 
 
 had made sure of those steady, grumbling Bavarians, 
 who bore the brunt of all the fighting, before his own 
 hand was fidtering at the helm, and the face of God 
 was turned away from the Napoleonic dynasty. 
 
 The emperor was no tactician, but he knew the 
 human heart. He knew that at any cost France must 
 lead off with a victory, not only for the sake of the 
 little man in the red trousers, but to impress watching 
 Europe, and perhaps snatch an ally from among the 
 hesitating powers. And the result was Saarbriick. 
 The news of it filtered through to Colonel Gilbert, who 
 was now quartered in the grey, picturesque "Watrin 
 barracks at Bastia, which jut out between the old 
 harbour and the plain of Biguglia, The colonel did 
 not believe half of it. It is always safe to subtract 
 from good news. But he sat down at once and wrote 
 to Denise Lange. He had not seen her, had not com- 
 municated with her, since he had asked her to marry 
 him, and she had refused. He was old enough to be 
 her father. He had asked her to marry him because 
 she would not sell Perucca, and he wanted that estate ; 
 which was not the right motive, but it is the usual one 
 with men who are past the foolishness of youth — that 
 foolishness which is better than all the wisdom of the 
 ages. 
 
 From having had nothing to do. Colonel Gilbert 
 found himself thrown into a whirl of work, or what
 
 158 THE ISLE OF UNREST. 
 
 would have been a whirl with a man less calm and 
 placid. Very much at ease, in wliite linen clothes, he 
 sat in his room in the bastion, and transacted the affairs 
 of his command with a leisurely good nature which 
 showed his complete grasp of the situation. 
 
 With regard to Denise, this middle-aged, cynical 
 Frenchman grasped the situation also. He was slowly 
 and surely falling in love with her. And she herself 
 had given him the first push down that facile descent 
 when she had refused to be his wife. 
 
 " Mademoiselle," he wrote, " to quarrel is, I 
 suppose, in the air of Corsica, and when we parted at 
 your gate some time ago, I am afraid I left you harbour- 
 ing a feeling of resentment against me. At this time, 
 and in the adverse days that I foresee must inevitably 
 be in store for France, none can afford to part with 
 friends who by any means can preserve them. In our 
 respective positions, you and I must rise above small 
 differences of opinion ; and I place myself unreservedly 
 at your service. I write to tell you that I have this 
 morning good news from France. We have won a 
 small victory at Saarbriick. So far, so good. But, in 
 case of a reverse, there is only too much reason to fear 
 that internal disturbances will arise in France, and 
 consequently in this unfortunate island. It is, therefore, 
 my duty to urge upon you the necessity of quitting 
 Perucca without delay. If you will not consent to
 
 GOSSIP. 159 
 
 leave the island, come at all events into Bastia, where, 
 at a few minutes' notice, I shall be able to place you in 
 a position of safety. I trust I am not one who is given 
 to exaggerating danger. Ask ]\Iademoiselle Brun, wdio 
 has known me since, as a young man, I had the 
 privilege of serving under your father, a general who 
 had the gift of drawing out from those about him such 
 few soldierly qualities as they might possess." 
 
 Denise received this letter by post the next morning, 
 and, after reading it twice, handed it to IMademoiselle 
 Brun, who was much too wise a woman to ask for an 
 explanation of those parts of it which she did not 
 comprehend. Indeed, she was manlike enough to pass 
 on with an unimpaired understanding to the second 
 part of tlie letter, whereas most women would have 
 been so consumed by curiosity as to be unable to give 
 more than half their mind to the colonel's further news. 
 
 " And ? " inquired mademoiselle — a French- 
 woman's way of asking a thousand questions in one. 
 IMademoiselle Brun knew all the conversational tricks 
 that serve to economize words. 
 
 " It is all based upon supposition," said the erstwhile 
 mathematical instructress of the school in the Paie du 
 Cherche-Midi. " It will be time enough to arrive at 
 a decision when the reverse comes. The Count de 
 Vasselot or the Abbe Siisini will, no doubt, M'arn us 
 in time."
 
 160 THE ISLE OF UNREST. 
 
 " All ! " said Mademoiselle Briin. 
 
 " But, if you like, I will write to the Count de 
 Vasselot," said Denise, in the voice of one making a 
 concession. 
 
 Mademoiselle Brun thought deeply before replying. 
 It is so easy to take a wrong turning at the cross-roads 
 of life, and assuredly Denise stood at a carrcfour 
 now. 
 
 " Yes," said mademoiselle at length ; " it would be 
 well to do that." 
 
 And Denise went away to write the letter that Lory 
 had asked for in case she wanted him. She did not 
 show it to Mademoiselle Brun, but went out and 
 posted it herself in the little square box, painted white, 
 affixed to the white wall on the high-road, and just 
 within sight of Olnieta. When she returned she went 
 into the garden again, where she spent so great a part 
 of these hot days that her face was burnt to a healthy 
 brown, which was in keeping Nvith her fearless eyes 
 and carriage. Mademoiselle Brun, on the other hand, 
 spent most of her days indoors, divining perhaps that 
 Denise had of late fallen into an unconscious love of 
 solitude. 
 
 Denise returned to the house at luncheon-time, 
 entered by the window, and caught Mademoiselle Brun 
 hastily shutting an atlas. 
 
 " I was wondering," she said, " where Saarbriick
 
 GOSSIP. IGl 
 
 might be, and whetlier any one we know had time to 
 get there before the battle." 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 " But Colonel Gilbert will tell us." 
 
 " Colonel Gilbert ? " inquired Denise, turning rather 
 sharply. 
 
 " Yes. I think he will come to-day or to-morrow." 
 
 And Mademoiselle Brun was right. In the full heat 
 of the afternoon the great bell at the gate gave forth 
 a single summons ; for the colonel was always gentle 
 in his ways. 
 
 " I made an opportunity," he said, " to escape from 
 the barracks this hot day." 
 
 But he looked cool enough, and greeted Denise 
 with his usual leisurely, friendly bow. His manner con- 
 veyed, better than any words, that she need feel no 
 uneasiness on his account, and could treat him literally 
 at his word, as a friend. 
 
 " In order to tell you, with all reserve, the good 
 news," he continued. 
 - " With all reserve ! " echoed Mademoiselle Brun. 
 
 " Good news in a French newspaper, Mademoi- 
 selle " And he finished with a gesture eloquent 
 
 of the deepest distrust. 
 
 " I was wondering," said Mademoiselle Brun, speak- 
 ing slowly, and in a manner that demanded for the 
 time the colonel's undivided attention, "whether our 
 
 M
 
 162 THE ISLE OF UNREST. 
 
 friend the Count de Vasselot could have been at Saar- 
 brlick." 
 
 " The Count de Vasselot," said Colonel Gilbert, with 
 an air of friendly surprise. *' Has he quitted his 
 beloved cliateau ? He is so attached to that old house, 
 you know." 
 
 "He has joined his regiment," replied Mademoiselle 
 Brun, upon whom the burden of the conversation fell ; 
 for Denise had gone to the open window, and was 
 closincj the shutters against the sun. 
 
 " Ah ! Then I can tell you that he was not at Saar- 
 briick. The count's regiment is not in that part of the 
 country. I was forgetting that he was a soldier. He 
 is, by the way, your nearest neighbour." 
 
 The colonel rose as he spoke, and went to the 
 window — not to that where Denise was standing, but 
 to the other, of which the sun-blinds were only half 
 closed. 
 
 " You can, of course, see the chateau from here ? " he 
 said musingly. 
 
 " Yes," answered Mademoiselle Brun, with an uneasy 
 glance. 
 
 What was Colonel Gilbert going to say ? 
 
 He stood for a moment looking down into the valley, 
 while Denise and Mademoiselle Brun waited. 
 
 "And you have perceived nothing that would 
 seem to confirm the gossip current regarding your —
 
 GOSSIP. 163 
 
 enemy ? " lie asked, with a good-natured, deprecatory 
 laugh. 
 
 " What gossip ? " asked mademoiselle, bluntly. 
 
 The colonel shrugged his shoulders without looking 
 round. 
 
 "Oh," he answered, "one does not believe all one 
 hears. Besides, there are many who think that in sucli 
 a remote spot as Corsica, it is not necessary to observe 
 the ordinary — what shall I say ? — etiquette of society." 
 
 He laughed uneasily, and spread out his hands as if, 
 for his part, he would rather dismiss the subject. Eut 
 Mademoiselle Brun could be frankly feminine at times. 
 
 " What is the gossip to which you refer ? " she asked 
 a^ain. 
 
 " Oh, I do not believe a word of it — tliough T,, 
 myself, have seen. Well, mademoiselle — you will 
 excuse my frankness ? — they say there is some one in 
 the chateau — some one whom the count wishes to con- 
 ceal, you understand." 
 
 " Ah ! " said mademoiselle, indifferently. 
 
 Denise said nothing. She was looking out of the 
 window with a face as hard as the face of Made- 
 moiselle Brun. She looked at her watch, seemed 
 to make a quick mental calculation, and then turned 
 and spoke to Colonel Gilbert with steady, smiling eyes. 
 
 " You have not told us your war news yet," she 
 said.
 
 164 THE ISLE OF UNREST. 
 
 So lie told tbcm what he knew, which, as a, matter 
 of fact, did not amount to much. Then he took his 
 leave, and rode home in the cool of the evening — a 
 solitary, brooding man, who had missed his way some- 
 how early on the road of life, and lacked perhaps the 
 strength of mind to go back and try again. 
 
 Denise said good-bye to him in the same friendly 
 spirit which he had inaugurated. She was standing 
 with her back to the window from which she had looked 
 down on to the chateau of Vasselot while Colonel 
 Gilbert related his idle gossip respecting that house. 
 And Mademoiselle Brun, who remembered such trifles, 
 noted that she never looked out of that window again, 
 but avoided it as one would avoid a cupboard where 
 there is a skeleton. 
 
 Denise, who consulted her watch again so soon as the 
 colonel had left, wrote another letter, which she addressed 
 in an open envelope to the postmaster at Marseilles, 
 and enclosed a number of stamps. She went out on 
 to the high-road, and waited there in the shade of the 
 trees for the diligence, which would pass at four o'clock 
 on its way to Bastia. 
 
 The driver of the diligence, like many who are on 
 the road and have but a passing glimpse of many men 
 and many things, was a good-natured man, and willingly 
 charged himself with Denise's commission. For that 
 which she had enclosed was not a letter, but a telegram
 
 GOSSIP. 165 
 
 to be despatched from Marseilles on the arrival of the 
 mail steamer there. It was addressed to Lory de 
 Vasselot at the Cercle Militaire in Paris, and contained 
 the words — 
 
 " Please return unopened the letter posted to-day."
 
 166 THE ISLE OF UNREST. 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 WAR. 
 
 " When half-gods go, 
 The gods arrive." 
 
 " Then," said the Baroness de Melide, " I shall go down 
 to St. Germain en Pre, and say my prayers." And she 
 rang the bell for her carriage. 
 
 On all great occasions in life, the Baroness de Melide 
 had taken her overburdened heart in a carriage and pair 
 to St. Germain en Pre. For she had always had a carriage 
 and pair for the mere ringing of a bell ever since her 
 girlhood, when the Baron de Melide had, with much 
 assistance from her, laid his name and fortune at her 
 feet. When she had helped him to ask her to be his 
 wife, she had ordered the carriage thus, as she was 
 ordering it now in the month of August, 1870, on being 
 told by her husband that the battle of Worth had been 
 fought and lost, and that Lory de Vasselot was safe. 
 
 " The Madeleine is nearer," suggested the baron, a 
 large man, with a vacant face which concealed a very
 
 WAR. 167 
 
 mine of common sense, " and you could give me a lift 
 as far as the club." 
 
 " The Madeleine is all very well for a wedding or a 
 funeral or a great public festivity of any sort," said the 
 baroness, with a harmless, light manner of talking of 
 grave subjects which is a closed book to the ordinary 
 stolid British mind ; " but when one has a prayer, 
 there is nowhere like St. Germain en Pre, which is old 
 and simple and dirty, so that one feels like a poor 
 woman. I shall put on an old dress." 
 
 She looked at her husband with a capable nod, as if 
 to convey the comforting assurance that he could leave 
 this matter entirely to her. 
 
 '' Yes," said the baron ; " do as you will." 
 
 Which permission the world was pleased to consider 
 superfluous in the present marital case. 
 
 " It is," he said, " the occasion for a prayer ; and say 
 a word for France. And Lory is safe — one of very, very 
 few survivors. Eemember that in your prayers, ma 
 mie, and remember me." 
 
 " I will see about it," answered the baroness. "If 
 I have time, I will perhaps put in a word for one who 
 is assuredly a great stupid — no name mentioned, you 
 understand." 
 
 So the Baroness de Melide went to the gloomy old 
 church of her choice, and sent up an incoherent prayer, 
 such as were arisinf^ from all over France at this time.
 
 168 THE ISLE OF UNREST. 
 
 On returning by the Boulevard St. Germain, she met a 
 friend, a woman whose husband had fallen at Weissem- 
 bourg, who gave her more news from the front. The 
 streets were crowded and yet idle. The men stood apart 
 in groups, talking in a low voice : the women stood apart 
 and watched them — for it is only in times of peace 
 that the women manage France. 
 
 The baroness went home, nervous, ill at ease. She 
 hardly noticed that the door was held open by a maid- 
 servant. The men had all gone out for news — some to 
 enrol themselves in the National Guard. She went up 
 to the drawing-room, and there, seated at her writing- 
 table with his back turned towards her, was Lory de 
 Vasselot. All the brightness had gone from his uniform. 
 He turned as she entered the room. 
 
 " Mon Dieu ! " she said, " what is it ? " 
 
 " What is what ? " he answered gravely. 
 
 " Why, your face," said the baroness. " Look — 
 look at it! " She took him by the arm, and turned him 
 towards a mirror half hidden in hot-house flowers. 
 " Look ! " she cried again. " Mon Dieu ! it is a tragedy, 
 your face. What is it ? " 
 
 Lory shrugged his shoulders. 
 
 " I was at Worth," he explained, " two days ago. I 
 suppose Worth will be written for life in the face 
 of every Frenchman who was there. They were three 
 to one. They are three to one wherever we turn."
 
 WAR. 1G9 
 
 He sat down again at the writing-table^ and the 
 baroness stood behind him, 
 
 "And this is M'ar," she said, tapping slowly on the 
 carpet with her foot. 
 
 She laid her hand on his shoulder, and, notinc: a 
 quick movement of withdrawal, glanced down. 
 
 " Ach ! " she exclaimed, in a whisper, as she drew 
 back. 
 
 The shoulder and sleeve of his tunic were stained 
 a deep brown. The gold lace was green in places and 
 sticky. In an odd silence she unbuttoned her glove, 
 and laid it quietly aside. 
 
 " It seems, mon ami, that we have only been playing 
 at life up to now," she said, after a pause. 
 
 And Lory did not answer her. He had several 
 letters lying before him, and had taken up his pen 
 again. 
 
 *' What brings you to Paris ? " asked the baroness, 
 suddenly. 
 
 " The emperor," he answered. " It is a queer story, 
 and I can tell you part of it. After Worth, I was 
 given a staff appointment — and why ? Because my 
 occupation was gone ; I had no men left." With a 
 quick gesture he described the utter annihilation of his 
 troop, "And I was sent into Metz with despatches. 
 While I was still there — ^jutlge of my surprise ! — the 
 emperor sent for me. You know him. He was sitting
 
 170 THE ISLE OP UNREST. 
 
 at a table, and looked a big man. Afterwards, when he 
 stood lip, I saw he was small. He bowed as I entered 
 the room — for he is polite even to the meanest private 
 of a line regiment — and as he bowed he winced. Even 
 that movement gave him pain. And then he smiled, 
 with an effort. * Monsieur de Vasselot,' he said ; and I 
 bowed. ' A Corsican,' he went on. ' Yes, sire.' Then he 
 took up a pen, and examined it. He wanted something 
 to look at, though he might safely have looked at me. 
 He could look any man in the face at any time, for 
 his eyes tell no tales. They are dull and veiled ; you 
 know them, for you have spoken to him often." 
 
 " Yes ; and I have seen the great snake at the 
 Jardin d'Acclimatation," answered the Baroness de 
 Melide, quietly. 
 
 " Then," continued Lory, " still looking at the pen, he 
 spoke slowly as if he had thought it all out before I 
 entered the room. ' When my uncle fell upon evil 
 times he naturally turned to his fellow-countrymen.' 
 ' Yes, sire.' ' I do not know you, Monsieur de Vasse- 
 lot, but I know your name. I am going to trust you 
 entirely. I want you to go to Paris for me.' " 
 
 " And that is all you are going to tell me ? " said the 
 baroness. 
 
 " That is all I can tell you. Whatever he may be, 
 he is more than a brave man — he is a stoic. I arrived 
 an hour ago, and went to the club for my letters, but I
 
 WAR. 171 
 
 did not dare to go in, because it is evident that I am 
 from the front. Look at my clothes. That is why I 
 come here and present myself before you as I am. I 
 must beg your hospitality for a few hours and the run 
 of your writing-table." 
 
 The baroness nodded her head repeatedly as she 
 looked at him. It was not only from his gold-laced 
 uniform that the brightness had gone, but from himself. 
 His manner was abrupt. He was almost stern. Tliis, 
 again, was war. 
 
 " You know that now, as always, our house is yours," 
 she said quietly ; for it is not all light hearts that 
 have nothing in them. 
 
 Then, being a practical Frenchwoman — and there is 
 no more practical being in the world — she rang for 
 luncheon. 
 
 " One sees," she said, " that you are hungry. One 
 must eat though empires fall." 
 
 " Ah ! " said Lory, turning sharply to look at her. 
 " You talk like that in Paris, do you ? " 
 
 " In the streets, my cousin, they speak plainer 
 language than that. But Henri will tell you what they 
 are saying on the pavement. I have sent for him to 
 the club to come home to luncheon. He forgives me 
 much, that poor man, but he would never forgive me 
 if I did not tell him that you were in Paris." 
 
 " Thank you," answered Lory. " I shall be glad to see
 
 172 THE ISLE OF UNKEST. 
 
 him. There are things which he ought to know, which 
 I cannot tell you." 
 
 "You think I am not discreet," said the baroness, 
 slowly drawing the pins from her smart hat. 
 
 Lory looked up at her with a laugh, which was 
 perhaps what she wanted, for there is no cunning like 
 the cunning of a woman who seeks to charm a man 
 from one humour to another. And when the baroness 
 had first seen Lory, she thought that his heart was 
 broken — by Worth, 
 
 " You are beautiful, but not discreet," he answered, 
 " That is the worst of men," she said reflectively, as 
 she laid her hat aside — "they always want an impossible 
 combination," 
 
 She looked back at him over her shoulder and 
 laughed, for she saw that she was gaining her point. 
 The quiet of this luxurious house, her own personality, 
 the subtle domesticity of her action in taking off her 
 hat in his presence — all these were soothing a mind 
 rasped and torn by battle and defeat. But there was 
 something yet which she had not grasped, and she knew 
 it. She glanced at the letters on the table before him. 
 As if the thought were transmitted across the room to 
 him. Lory took up an open telegram, and read it with a 
 puzzled face. He half turned towards her as if about 
 to speak, but closed his lips again. 
 
 " Yes," said the baroness, lightly. " What is it ? "
 
 WAR. 173 
 
 " It is," lie explained, after a pause, " tliat I have 
 had so little to do with women." 
 
 "Except me, mon cousin," said the baroness, coming 
 nearer to the writing-table. 
 
 " Except you, ma cousine," he answered, turning in 
 his chair and takincj her hand. 
 
 He glanced up at her with eyes that would appear 
 to the ordinary British mind to express a passionate 
 devotion, eminently French and thrilling and terrible, 
 but which really reflected only a very honest and 
 brotherly affection. For a Frenchman never hates or 
 loves as much as he thinks he does. 
 
 " Well," said the baroness, practically, " what is it ? " 
 
 " At the club," explained Lory, " I found a letter 
 and a telegram from Corsica." 
 
 " Both from Denise ? " asked the baroness, rather 
 bluntly. 
 
 " Both from Mademoiselle Lange. See how things 
 hinge upon a trifling chance — how much, we cannot 
 tell ! I happened to open the telegram first, and it told 
 me to return the letter unopened." 
 
 As he spoke he handed her the grey sheet upon 
 which were pasted the narrow blue paper ribbons bear- 
 ing the text. The baroness read the message slowly 
 and carefully. She glanced over the paper, down at 
 his head, with a little wise smile full of contempt 
 for his limited male understanding.
 
 174 THE ISLE OP UNREST. 
 
 " And the letter ? " she inquired. 
 
 He showed her a sealed envelope addressed by him- 
 self to Denisc at rerucca. She took it up and turned 
 it over slowly. It was stamped and ready for the post. 
 She then threw it down with a short laugh. 
 
 " I was thinking," she explained, " of the difference 
 between men and women. A woman would have filled 
 a cup with boiling water and laid that letter upon it. 
 It is quite easy. Why, we were taught it at the con- 
 vent school ! You could have opened the letter and 
 read it, and then closed it again and returned it. By 
 that simple subterfuge you would have known the 
 contents, and would still have had the credit for doing 
 as you were told. And I think three women out of 
 five would have done it, and the whole five would have 
 wanted to do it. Ah ! you may laugh. You do not 
 know what wretches we are compared to men — com- 
 pared especially to some few of them ; to a Baron Henri 
 de Melide or a Count de Vasselot — who are honourable 
 men, my cousin." 
 
 She touched him lightly on the shoulder with one 
 finger, and then turned away to look with thoughtful 
 eyes out of the window. 
 
 " I wonder what is in that letter," said Lory, return- 
 ing to his pen. 
 
 The baroness turned on her heel and looked at him 
 with her contemptuous smile again.
 
 WAR. 175 
 
 " Oh," she said carelessly, " she was probaLly in a 
 difficulty, which solved itself after the letter was posted. 
 Or she was afraid of something, and found that her 
 fears were unnecessary. That is all, no doubt." 
 
 There is, it appears, an esjjrit dc scxc which prevents 
 women from giving each other away. 
 
 " So you merely placed the letter in an envelope and 
 are returning it, thus, without comment ? " inquired the 
 baroness. 
 
 " Yes," answered Lory, who was writing a letter now. 
 
 And his cousin stood looking at him with an amused 
 and yet tender smile in her gay eyes. She remained 
 silent until he had finished. 
 
 " There," he said, taking an envelope and addressing 
 it hurriedly, " that is done. It is to the Abbe Susini 
 at Olmeta ; and it contains some of those things, my 
 cousin, that I cannot tell you." 
 
 " Do you think I care," said the baroness, " for your 
 stupid politics ? Do you think any woman cares for 
 politics who has found some stupid man to care for her ? 
 There is mij stupid in the street — on his new horse." 
 
 In a moment Lory was at the window. 
 
 "A new horse," he said earnestly. " I did not know 
 that. Why did you not tell me ? " 
 
 " We were talking of empires," replied the baroness. 
 " By the way," she added, in after-thouglit, " is our 
 good friend Colonel Gilbert in Corsica ? "
 
 176 THE ISLE OP UNREST. 
 
 " Yes — he is at Bastia." 
 
 "All," said the baroness, looking reflectively at 
 Denise's telegram, which she still held in her hand, " I 
 thought he was." 
 
 Then that placid man, the Baron Henri de Melide, 
 came into the room, and shook hands in the then novel 
 English fashion, looking at his lifelong friend with a 
 dull and apathetic eye. 
 
 " From the frontier ? " he inquired. 
 
 Lory laughed curtly. lie had returned from that 
 Last Frontier, where each one of us shall inevitably be 
 asked " Si monsieur a quelque chose a declarer ? " 
 
 " I shall give you ten minutes for your secrets, and 
 then luncheon will be ready," said the baroness, 
 quitting the room. 
 
 And Lory told his friend those things which were 
 not for a woman's hearing. 
 
 At luncheon both men were suspiciously cheerful; 
 and, doubtless, their companion read them like open 
 books. Immediately after coffee Lory took his leave. 
 
 " I leave Paris to-night," he said, with his old 
 cheerfulness. "This war is not over yet. We have 
 not the shadow of a chance of winning, but we shall 
 perhaps be able to show the world that France can 
 still fight." 
 
 Which prophecy assuredly came true.
 
 ( 177 ) 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 A MASTERFUL MAN. 
 
 " Tous les raisonnemcnts dcs hommes ne valciit pas un sentiment 
 d'une fcmmc." 
 
 It would seem that Lory de Vasselot had pLayed tlie 
 part of a stormy petrel when he visited Paris, for that 
 calm Frenchman, the Baron de Melide, packed his wife 
 off to Provence the same night, and the letter that Lory 
 wrote to the Abbe Susini, reaching Olmeta three days 
 later, aroused its recipient from a contemplative perusal 
 of the Petit Bastiais as if it had been a bomb-shell. 
 
 The abbe threw aside his newspaper and cigarette. 
 He was essentially a man of action. He had been on 
 his feet all day, hurrying hither and thither over his 
 widespread parish, interfering in this man's business 
 and that woman's quarrels with that hastiness which 
 usually characterizes the doings of such as pride them- 
 selves upon their capability for action and contempt 
 for mere passive thought. It was now evening, and a 
 blessed cool air was stealing down from the mountains. 
 
 N
 
 178 THE ISLE OF UKREST. 
 
 Successive days of unbroken sunshine had burnt all the 
 western side of the island, had almost dried up the 
 Aliso, which crept, a mere rivulet in its stormy bed, 
 towards St. Florent and the sea. 
 
 Susini went to the window of his little room and 
 opened the wooden shutters. His house is next to the 
 church at Olmeta and faces north-west ; so that in the 
 summer the evening sun glares across the valley into 
 its windows. He was no great scholar, and had but a 
 poor record in the archives of the college at Corte. 
 Lory de Vasselot had written in a hurry, and the letter 
 was a long one. Susini read it once, and was turning 
 it to read again, when, glancing out of the window, he 
 saw Denise cross the Place, and go into the church. 
 
 " Ah ! " he said aloud, " that will save me a long 
 walk." 
 
 Then he read the letter again, with curt nods of the 
 head from time to time, as if Lory were making points 
 or giving minute instructions. He folded the letter, 
 placed it in the pocket of his cassock, and gave himself 
 a smart tap on the chest, as if to indicate that this was 
 the moment and himself the man. He was brisk and 
 full of self-confidence, managing, interfering, command- 
 ing, as all true Corsicans are. He took his hat, hardly 
 paused to blow the dust off it, and hurried out into the 
 sunlit Place. He went rather slowly up the church 
 steps, however, for he was afraid of Denise. Her youth,
 
 A MASTERFUL MAN. 171) 
 
 and something spring-like and mystic in her being, 
 disturbed him, made him uneasy and shy ; which was 
 perhaps his reason for drawing aside the heavy leather 
 curtain and going into the church, instead of waiting 
 for her outside. He preferred to meet her on his own 
 ground — in the chill air, heavy with the odour of stale 
 incense, and in the dim light of that place where he 
 laid down, in blunt language, his own dim reading of 
 God's law. 
 
 He stood just within the curtain, looking at Denise, 
 who was praying on one of the low chairs a few yards 
 away from him ; and he was betrayed into a character- 
 istic impatience when she remained longer on her knees 
 than he (as a man) deemed necessary at that moment. 
 He showed his impatience by shuffling with his feet, and 
 still Denise took no notice. 
 
 The abbe, by chance or instinct, slipped his hand 
 within his cassock, and drew out the letter which he had 
 just received. The rustle of the thin paper brought 
 Denise to her feet in a moment, facing him. 
 
 " The French mail has arrived," said the priest. 
 
 " Yes," replied Denise, quickly, looking down at his 
 hands. 
 
 They were alone in the churcli which, as a matter 
 of fact, was never very well attended ; and the abbe, 
 who had not that respect for God or man which finds ex- 
 pression in a lowered voice, spoke in his natural tones.
 
 180 THE ISLE OF UNREST. 
 
 " And I have news which affects you, mademoiselle." 
 
 " I suppose that any news of France must do that," 
 replied Denise, with some spirit. 
 
 " Of course— of course," said the abbe, rubbing bis 
 chin with his forefinger, and making a rasping sound 
 on that shaven surface. 
 
 He reflected in silence for a moment, and Denise 
 made, in her turn, a hasty movement of impatience. 
 She had only met the abbe once or twice ; and all that she 
 knew of him was the fact that he had an imperious way 
 with liim which aroused a spirit of opposition in herself. 
 
 " Well, Monsieur I'Abbe," she said, " what is it ? " 
 
 " It is that Mademoiselle Brun and yourself will have 
 but two hours to prepare for your departure from the 
 Casa Perucca," he answered. And he drew out a large 
 silver watch, which he consulted with the quiet air of 
 a commander. 
 
 Denise glanced at him with some surprise, and then 
 smiled. 
 
 " By whose orders. Monsieur I'Abbe? " she inquired 
 ^^•ith a dangerous gentleness. 
 
 Then the priest realized that she meant fight, and all 
 Ids combativeness leapt, as it were, to meet hers. His 
 eyes flashed in the gloom of the twilit church. 
 
 "I, mademoiselle," he said, with that humility 
 which is nought but an aggravated form of pride. He 
 tapped himself on the chest with such emphasis that a
 
 A MASTERFUL MAN. 181 
 
 cloud of dust flew out of his cassock, and ho blew 
 defiance at her through it. " I — who speak, take the 
 liberty of making this suggestion, I, the Abbe Susini 
 — and your humble servant." 
 
 Which was not true : for he was no man's servant, 
 and only offered to heaven a half-defiant allegiance. 
 Denise wanted to know the contents of the letter he 
 held crushed within his fingers ; so she restrained an 
 impulse to answer him hastily, and merely laughed. 
 The priest thought that he had gained his point. 
 
 " I can give you two hours," he said, " in which to 
 make your preparations. At seven o'clock I shall 
 arrive at the Casa Perucca with a carriage, in which to 
 conduct Mademoiselle Brun and yourself to St. Florent, 
 where a yacht is awaiting you." 
 
 Denis3 bit her lip impatiently, and watched the thin 
 brown fingers that were clenched round the letter. 
 
 " Then what is your news from France ? " she asked. 
 " From whence is your letter — from the front ? " 
 
 " It is from Paris," answered the abbe, unfolding 
 the paper carelessly ; and Denise would not have been 
 human had she resisted the temptation to try and 
 decipher it. 
 
 " And ? " 
 
 " And," continued the abbe, shrugging his slioulders, 
 " I have nothing to add, mademoiselle. You must 
 quit Perucca before the morning. The news is bad, I
 
 182 THE ISLE OF UNREST. 
 
 tell you frankly. The empire is tottering to its fall, 
 and the news that I have in secret will be known all 
 over Corsica to-morrow. Who knows ? the island may 
 flare up like a heap of bracken, and no one bearing a 
 French name, or known to have French sympathies, will 
 be safe. You know how you yourself are regarded in 
 Olmeta. It is foolhardy to venture here this evening." 
 
 Denise shrugged her shoulders. She had plenty of 
 spirit, and, at all events, that courage which refuses to 
 admit the existence of danger. Perhaps she was not 
 thinking of danger, or of herself, at all. 
 
 " Then the Count Lory de Vasselot has ordered us 
 out of Corsica ? " she asked. 
 
 " Mademoiselle, we are wasting time," answered the 
 priest, folding the letter and replacing it in his pocket. 
 "A yacht is awaiting you off St. Florent. All is 
 organized " 
 
 " By the Count Lory de Vasselot ? " 
 
 The abbe stamped his foot impatiently. 
 
 " Bon Dieu, mademoiselle ! " he cried, " you will 
 make me lose my temper. The yacht, I tell you, is at 
 the entrance of the bay, and by to-morrow morning it 
 will be halfway to France. You cannot stay here. 
 You must make your choice between returning to 
 France and going into the Watrin barracks at Bastia. 
 Colonel Gilbert will, I fancy, know how to make you 
 obey him. And all Corsica is in the hands of Colonel
 
 A MASTERFUL MAN. 183 
 
 Gilbert — tliongh no one but Colonel Gilbert knows 
 that." 
 
 He spoke rapidly, thrusting forward his dark, eager 
 face, forgetting all his shyness, glaring defiance into 
 her quiet eyes. 
 
 " There, mademoiselle — and now your answer ? " 
 
 " Would it not be well if the Count Lory de Vasselot 
 attended to his own affairs at the Chateau de Vasselot, 
 and the interests he has there ? " replied Denise, 
 turning away from his persistent eyes. 
 
 And the abbe's face dropped as if she had shot him. 
 
 " Good ! " he said, after a moment's hesitation. " I 
 wash my hands of you. You refuse to go ? " 
 
 " Yes," answered Denise, going towards the door with 
 a high head, and, it is possible, an aching heart. For 
 the two often go together. 
 
 And the abbe, a man little given to the concealment 
 of his feelings, shook his fist at the leather curtain as it 
 fell into place behind her. 
 
 " Ah — these women ! " he said aloud. " A secret 
 that is thirty years old ! " 
 
 Denise hurried down the steps and away from the 
 village. She knew that the postman, having passed 
 through Olmeta, must now be on the high-road on his 
 way to Perucca, and she felt sure that he must have in 
 his bag the letter of which she had followed, in imagina- 
 tion, the progress during the last three days.
 
 184 THE ISLE OP UNREST. 
 
 " Now it is in the train from Paris to Marseilles ; now 
 it is on board the rcrsherancc, steaming across the Gulf 
 of Lyons," had been her thought night and morning. 
 " Xow it is at Bastia," she had imagined on waking 
 at dawn that day. And at length she had it now, in 
 thought, close to her on the Olmeta road in front of her. 
 
 At a turn of the road she caught sight of the post- 
 man, trudging along beneath the heavy chestnut trees. 
 Then at length she overtook him, and he stopped to 
 open the bag slung across his shoulder. He was a silent 
 man, who saluted her awkwardly, and handed her several 
 letters and a newspaper. With another salutation he 
 walked on, leaving Denise standing by the low wall 
 of the road alone. There was only one letter for her. 
 She turned it over and examined the seal : a bare sword 
 with a gay French motto beneath it — the device of the 
 Vasselots. 
 
 She opened the envelope after a long pause. It 
 contained nothing but her own travel-stained letter, 
 of which the seal had not been broken. And, as she 
 thoughtfully examined both envelopes, there glistened 
 ' in her eyes that light which it is vouchsafed to a few 
 men to see, and which is the nearest approach to the 
 light of heaven that ever illumines this poor earth. 
 For love has, among others, this peculiarity : that it 
 may live in the same heart with a great anger, and 
 seems to gain only strength from the proximity.
 
 A MASTERFUL MAN. 185 
 
 Deuise replaced tlie two letters in her pocket and 
 walked on. A carriage passed her, and she received a 
 curt bow and salutation from the Abbe Susini who was 
 in it. The carriage turned to the right at the cross- 
 roads, and rattled down the hill in the direction of 
 Vasselot. Denise's head went an inch higher at the 
 sight of it. 
 
 " I met the Abbe Susini at Olmeta," she said to 
 Mademoiselle Brun, a few minutes later in the great 
 bare drawing-room of the Casa Perucca. ''And he 
 transmitted the Count de Vasselot's command that wo 
 should leave the Casa Perucca to-night for Prance. I 
 suggested that the order should be given to the Chateau 
 de Vasselot instead of the Casa Perucca, and the abbe 
 took me at my word. He has gone to the Chateau de 
 Vasselot now in a carriage." 
 
 Mademoiselle Brun, who was busy with her work 
 near the window, laid aside her needle and looked at 
 Denise. She had a faculty of instantly going, as it were, 
 to the essential part of a question and tearing the heart 
 out of it : which faculty is, with all respect, more a 
 masculine than a feminine quality. She ignored the 
 side-issues and pounced, as it were, upon the central 
 thread — the reason that Lory de Vasselot had had fur 
 sending such an order. She rose and tore open the 
 newspaper, glanced at the war-news, and laid it aside. 
 Then she opened a letter addressed to herself. It was
 
 186 THE ISLE OF UNREST. 
 
 on superlatively thick paper and bore a coronet in one 
 corner. 
 
 " My Dear " (it ran), 
 
 " This mnch I have learnt from two men 
 who will tell me nothing — France is lost. The Holy 
 \'irgin help ns ! 
 
 " Yonr devoted 
 
 "Jane de Melide." 
 
 Mademoiselle Brun turned away to the window, and 
 stood there with her back to Denise for some moments. 
 At length she came back, and the girl saw something 
 in the grey and wizened face which stirred her heart, 
 she knew not why ; for all great tlioughts and high 
 qualities have power to illumine the humblest counte- 
 nance. 
 
 " You may stay here if you like," said Mademoiselle 
 Brun, " but I am going back to France to-night." 
 
 " What do you mean ? " 
 
 For reply Mademoiselle Brun handed her the Baroness 
 de Melide's letter. 
 
 " Yes," said Denise, when she had read the note. 
 " But I do not understand." 
 
 " No. • Because you never knew your father — tlie 
 bravest man God ever created. But some other man 
 will teach you some day." 
 
 " Teach me what ? " asked Denise, looking with
 
 A MASTERFUL MAN. 187 
 
 wonder at the little woman. " Of what are you 
 thinking ? " 
 
 " Of that of which Lory de Vasselot, and Henri de 
 Melide, and Jane, and all good Frenchmen and French- 
 women are thinking at this moment — of France, and 
 only France," said Mademoiselle Brim ; and out of her 
 mouse-like eyes there shone, at that moment, the soul 
 of a man — and of a brave man. 
 
 Her lips quivered for a moment, before she shut 
 them with a snap. Perhaps Denise wanted to be 
 persuaded to return to France. Perhaps the blood 
 that ran in her veins was stirred by the spirit of 
 Mademoiselle Brun, whose arguments were short and 
 sharp, as became a woman much given to economy in 
 words. At all events, the girl listened in silence while 
 mademoiselle explained that even two women might, 
 in some minute degree, help France at this moment. 
 For patriotism, like oourage, is infectious ; and it is a 
 poor heart that hurries to abandon a sinking ship. 
 
 It thus came about that, soon after sunset, Mademoi- 
 selle Brun and Denise hurried down to the cross-roads 
 to intercept the carriage, of which they could perceive 
 the lights slowly approaching across the dark valley 
 of Yassc'lot.
 
 188 THE ISLE OF UNREST. 
 
 CHArTER XVI r. 
 
 WITHOUT DRUM OR TRUMPET. 
 
 *' We do squint eacli through Lis loophole, 
 And then dream broad lieaveu 
 Is but the patch we sec." 
 
 It was almost dark when the abbe's carriage reached 
 the valley, and the driver paused to light the two stable- 
 lanterns tied with string to the dilapidated lamp- 
 brackets. The abbe was impatient, and fidgeted in 
 his seat. He was at heart an autocrat, and hated to 
 be defied even by one over whom he could not pretend 
 to have control. He snapped his finger and thumb 
 as he thought of Denise. 
 
 " She puzzles me," he muttered. *' What does she 
 want ? Bon Dieu, what does she want ? " 
 
 Then he spoke angrily to the driver, whose move- 
 ments were slow and clumsy. 
 
 " At all events my task is easier here," he consoled 
 himself by saying as the carriage approached the 
 chateau, " now that I am rid of these women."
 
 WITHOUT DRUM OR TRUMPET. 189 
 
 At last they reached the foot of the slope leading 
 up to the half-ruined house, which loomed against tbo 
 evening sky immediately above them ; and the driver 
 pulled up his restive horses with an air significant of 
 arrival. 
 
 " Right up to the chateau," cried the Abbe from 
 beneath the hood. 
 
 But the man made no movement, and sat on the box 
 muttering to himself. 
 
 " What ! " cried the ab1)e, who had caught some 
 words. " Jean has the evil eye ! What of Jean's evil 
 eye ? Here, I will give you my rosary to put round 
 your coward's neck. No ! Then down you get, my 
 friend. You can wait here till we come back." 
 
 As he spoke he leapt out, and, climbing into the 
 box, pushed the driver unceremoniously from his seat, 
 snatching the reins and whip from his hands. 
 
 " He ! " he cried. " Aliens, my little ones ! " 
 
 And with whip and voice he urged the horses up the 
 slope at a canter, while the carriage swayed across 
 from one great tree to another. They -reached tlie 
 summit in safety, and the priest pulled the horses up 
 at the great door— the first carriage to disturb the 
 quiet of that spot for nearly a generation. He twisted 
 the reins round the whip-socket, and clambering down 
 rang the great bell. It answered to his imperious 
 summons by the hollow clang that betrays an empty
 
 190 THE ISLE OF UNREST. 
 
 house. No one came. He stood without, drumming 
 with his fist on the doorpost. Then he turned to 
 listen. Some one was approaching from the darkness 
 of the trees. But it Avas only the driver following 
 sullenly on foot. 
 
 " Here ! " said the priest, recognizing him. " Go to 
 your horses ! " 
 
 As he spoke he was already untying one of the 
 stable -lanterns that swung at the lamp-bracket. His 
 eyes gleamed beneath the brim of his broad hat. He 
 was quick and anxious. 
 
 " Wait here till I come back," he said ; and, keeping 
 close to the wall, he disappeared among the low bushes. 
 
 There was another way in, by a door half hidden 
 among the ivy, which Jean used for his mysterious 
 comings and goings, and of which the abbe had a key. 
 He had brought it with him to-night by a lucky chance. 
 He had to push aside the ivy which hung from the 
 walls in great ropes, and only found the keyhole after 
 a hurried search. But the lock was in good order. 
 Jean, it appeared, was a careful man. 
 
 Susini hurried through a long passage to the little 
 round room where the Count de Vasselot had lived so 
 long. He stopped with his nose in the air, and sniffed 
 aloud. The atmosphere was heavy with the smell of 
 stale tobacco, and yet there could be detected the 
 sweeter odour of smoke scarcely cold. The room must
 
 • WITHOUT DRUM OE TRUMPET. 191 
 
 have been inhabited only a few hours ago. The abbe 
 opened the window, and the smell of carnations swept 
 in like the breath of another world. He returned to 
 the room, and, opening his lantern, lighted a candle 
 that stood on the mantelpiece. He looked round. 
 Sundry small articles in daily use — the count's pipe, 
 his old brass tobacco-box : a few such things that a 
 man lives with, and puts in his pocket when he goes 
 away — were missing. 
 
 " Buon Diou ! Buon Diou ! Buon Diou — gone ! " 
 muttered the priest, lapsing into his native dialect. 
 He looked around him with keen eyes — at the black- 
 ened walls, at the carpet worn into holes. " That Jean 
 must have known something that I do not know. All 
 the same, I shall look through the house." 
 
 He blew out the candle, and taking the lantern 
 quitted the room. He searched the whole house — 
 passing from empty room to empty room. The re- 
 ception-rooms were huge and sparingly furnished with 
 those thin-legged chairs and ancient card-tables which 
 recall tlie days of Letitia Eamolino and that easy-going 
 Charles Buonaparte, who brought into the world the 
 greatest captain that armies have ever seen. The 
 bedrooms were small : all alike smelt of moulderinn' 
 age. In one room the abbe stopped and raised his 
 inquiring nose ; the room had been inhabited by a 
 woman — years and years ago.
 
 192 THE ISLE OF UNREST. 
 
 He searched the house from top to bottom, and there 
 was no one in it. The abbe had failed in the two 
 missions confided to him by Lory, and he was one to 
 whom failure was peculiarly bitter. With respect to 
 the two women, he had perhaps scarcely expected 
 to succeed, for he had lived fifty years in the world, 
 and his calling had brought him into daily contact 
 with that salutary chastening of the spirit which must 
 assuredly be the lot of a man who seeks to enforce his 
 will upon women. But his failure to find the old Count 
 de Vasselot was a more serious matter. 
 
 He returned slowly to the carriage, and told the 
 driver to return to Olmeta. 
 
 " I have changed my plans," he said, still mindful 
 of the secret he had received with other pastoral charges 
 from his predecessor. " Jean is not in the chateau, so 
 I shall not go to St. Florent to-night." 
 
 He leant forward, and looked up at the old castle 
 outlined against the sky. A breeze was springing up 
 with the suddenness of all atmospheric changes in these 
 latitudes, and the old trees creaked and groaned, while 
 the leaves had already that rustling brittleness of sound 
 that betokens the approach of autumn. 
 
 As they crossed the broad valley the wind increased, 
 sweeping up the course of the Aliso in wild gusts. 
 It was blowing a gale before the horses fell to a quick 
 walk up the hill; and Mademoiselle Brun's small
 
 WITHOUT DRUM OR TRUMPET. 193 
 
 figure, planted in the middle of the roati, was the first 
 indication that the driver had of the presence of the 
 two women, though the widow Andrei, who accompanied 
 them and carried their travelling-bags, had already 
 called out more than once. 
 
 " The Abbe Susini ? " cried Mademoiselle Brun, in 
 curt interrogation. 
 
 In reply, the driver pointed to the inside of tho 
 carriage with the handle of his whip. 
 
 " You are alone ? " said mademoiselle, in surprise. 
 
 The light of the lantern shone brightly on her, and 
 on the dimmer form of Denise, silent and angry in the 
 background ; for Denise had allowed her inclination 
 to triumph over her pride, which conquest usually 
 leaves a sore heart behind it. 
 
 " But, yes ! " answered the abbe, alighting quickly 
 enough. 
 
 He guessed instantly that Denise had changed her 
 mind, and was indiscreet enough to put his thoughts 
 into words. 
 
 " So mademoiselle has thought better of it?" he said; 
 and got no answer for his pains. 
 
 Both Mademoiselle Brun and Denise were looking 
 curiously at the interior of the carriage from wliich 
 the priest emerged, leaving it, as they noted, empty. 
 
 " There is yet time to go to St. Florent ? " inquired 
 the elder woman. 
 

 
 194 THE ISLE OF UNREST. 
 
 The priest grabbed at his hat as a squall swept 
 up the road, whirling the dust high above their heads. 
 
 " Whether we shall get on board is another matter," 
 he muttered by way of answer. " Come, get into the 
 carriage ; we have no time to lose. It will be a bad 
 night at sea." 
 
 " Then, for my sins I shall be sea-sick," said 
 Mademoiselle Brun, imperturbably. 
 
 She took her bag from the hand of the widow Andrei, 
 and would have it nowhere but on her lap, where she 
 held it during the rapid drive, sitting bolt upright, 
 staring straight in front of her into the face of the abbe. 
 
 No one spoke, for each had thoughts sufficient to 
 occupy the moment. Susini perhaps had the narrowest 
 vein of reflection upon which to draw, and therefore 
 fidgeted in his seat and muttered to himself, for his 
 mental range was limited to Olmeta and the Chateau de 
 Vasselot. Mademoiselle Brun was thinking of France 
 — of her great past and her dim, uncertain future. 
 "While Denise sat stiller and more silent than either, 
 for her thoughts were at once as wide as the whole 
 world, and as narrow as the human heart. 
 
 At a turn in the road she looked up, and saw the 
 sharp outline of the Casa Perucca, black and sombre 
 against a sky now lighted by a rising moon, flecked 
 and broken by heavy clouds, with deep lurking shadows 
 and mountains of snowy whiteness. In the Casa
 
 WITHOUT DRUM OR TRUMPET. 195 
 
 Periicca sho had learnt what life means, and no man 
 or woman ever forgets the place where that lesson has 
 been accLmred. 
 
 "I shall come back," she whispered, looking up at 
 the great rock with its giant pines and the two square 
 chimneys half hidden in the foliage. 
 
 And the Abbe Susini, seeing a movement of her lips, 
 glanced curiously at her. He was still wondering what 
 she wanted. " Mon Dieu," lie was reflecting a second 
 time, " what does she want ? " 
 
 He stopped the carriage outside the town of St. 
 Florent at the end of the long causeway built across 
 the marsh, where the wind swept now from the open 
 bay with a salt flavour to it. He alighted, and took 
 Denise's bag, rightly concluding that Mademoiselle 
 Brun would prefer to carry her own. 
 
 " Follow me," he said, taking a delight in being as 
 curt as Mademoiselle Brun herself, and in denying 
 them the explanations they were too proud to demand. 
 
 They walked abreast through the narrow street dimly 
 lighted by a single lamp swinging on a gibbet at the 
 corner, turned sharp to the left, and found themselves 
 suddenly at the water's edge. A few boats bumped lazily 
 at some steps where the water lapped. It was blowing 
 hard out in the bay, but this corner was protected by 
 a half-ruined house built on a projecting rock. 
 
 The priest looked round.
 
 196 THE ISLE OF UNREST. 
 
 " He ! la-bas ! " he called out, in a guarded voice. 
 
 But he received no answer. 
 
 " Wait here," he said to the two women. " I will 
 fetch him from the caf6." And he disappeared. 
 
 Denise and mademoiselle stood in silence listening 
 to the lapping of the water and the slow, muffled 
 bumping of the boats until the abbe returned, followed 
 by a man who slouched along on bare feet. 
 
 " Yes," he was saying, " the yacht was there at sun- 
 set. I saw her myself lying just outside the point. 
 But it is folly to try and reach her to-night ; wait till 
 the morning, Monsieur I'Abbe." 
 
 " And find her gone," answered the priest. " Xo, 
 no ; we embark to-night, my friend. If these ladies are 
 willing, surely a St. Florent man will not hold back ? " 
 
 " But you have not told these ladies of the danger. 
 The wind is blowing right into the bay ; we cannot tack 
 out against it. It will take me two hours to row out 
 single-handed with some one baling out the whole time." 
 
 " But I will pull an oar with you," answered Susini. 
 " Come, show us which is your boat. Mademoiselle Brun 
 will bale out, and the young lady will steer. We shall 
 be quite a family party." 
 
 There was no denying a man who took matters into 
 his own hands so energetically. 
 
 " You can pull an oar ? " inquired the boatman^ 
 doubtfully.
 
 WiTflOUT DRUM OR TRlJMPET. 19V 
 
 " I was born at Bonifacio, my friend. Come, I will 
 take the bow oar if you will find me an oilskin coat. 
 It will not be too dry up in the bows to-night." 
 
 And, like most masterful people — right or wrong — the 
 abbe had his way, even to the humble ofiice assigned 
 to Mademoiselle Brun. 
 
 " You will need to remove your glove and bare your 
 arm," explained the boatman, lianding her an old tin 
 mug. " But you will not find the water cold. It is 
 always warmer at night. Thus the good God remembers 
 poor fishermen. The seas will come over the bows 
 when we round this corner ; they will rise up and hit 
 the abbe in the back, which is his affair ; then they 
 will wash aft into this well, and from that you must 
 bale it out all the time. When the seas come in, you 
 need not be alarmed, nor will it be necessary to cry out." 
 
 " Such instructions, my friend," said the priest. 
 Scrambling into his oilskin coat, *' are unnecessary to 
 mademoiselle, who is a woman of discernment." 
 
 *' But I try not to be," snapped Mademoiselle Brun. 
 She knew which women are most popular with men. 
 
 "As for you, mademoiselle," said the boatman to 
 Denise, " keep the boat pointed at the waves, and as 
 each one comes to you, cut it as you would cut a 
 cream cheese. She will jerk and pull at yon, but you 
 must not be afraid of her ; and remember that the 
 highest wave may be cut."
 
 198 THE ISLE OF UNREST. 
 
 " That young lady is not afiaid of much," muttered 
 the abbe, settling to his oar. 
 
 They pulled slowly out to tlie end of the rocky 
 promontory, upon which a ruined house still stands, 
 and shot suddenly out into a howling wind. The first 
 wave climbed leisurely over the weather-bow, and 
 slopped aft to the ladies' feet ; the second rose up, and 
 smote the abbe in the back. 
 
 " Cut them, mademoiselle ; cut them ! " shouted the 
 boatman. 
 
 And at intervals during that wild journey he 
 repeated the words, unceremoniously spitting the salt 
 water from his lips. The abbe, bending his back to the 
 work and the waves, gave a short laugh from time to 
 time, that had a ring in it to make Mademoiselle Brun 
 suddenly like the man — the fighting ring of exaltation 
 which adapts itself to any voice and any tongue. For 
 nearly an hour they rowed in silence, while made- 
 moiselle baled the water out, and Denise steered with 
 steady eyes piercing the darkness. 
 
 " We are quite close to it," she said at length ; for 
 she had long been steering towards a light that flickered 
 feebly across the broken water. 
 
 In a few moments they were alongside, and, amidst 
 confused shouting of orders, the two ladies were half 
 lifted, half dragged on board. The abbe followed them. 
 
 ** A word with you," he said, taking Mademoiselle
 
 THEY PULLED SLOWLY OUT.
 
 WITHOUT DRUM OR TRUMPET. 199 
 
 Bmn unceremoniously by the arm, and leading her 
 apart. " You will be met by friends on your arrival at 
 St. Eaphael to-morrow. And when you are free to do 
 so, will you do me a favour ? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " Find Lory de Vasselot, wherever he may be." 
 
 " Yes," answered Mademoiselle Brun. 
 
 " And tell him that I went to the Chateau de Vasse- 
 lot and found it empty." 
 
 Mademoiselle reflected for some moments. 
 
 " Yes ; I will do that," she said at length. 
 
 " Thank you." 
 
 The abbe stared hard at her beneath his dripping 
 hat for a moment, and then, turning abruptly, moved 
 towards the gangway, where his boat lay in com- 
 paratively smooth water at the lee-side of the yacht. 
 Denise was speaking to a man who seemed to be the 
 captain. 
 
 Mademoiselle Brun followed the abbe. 
 
 " By the way " she said. 
 
 Susini stopped, and looked into her face, dimly lighted 
 by the moon, which peeped at times through riven 
 clouds. 
 
 " Whom should you have found in the chateau ? " 
 she asked. 
 
 " Ah ! that I will not tell you." 
 
 Mademoiselle Brun gave a short lausih.
 
 200 THE ISLE OP UNREST. 
 
 " Then I shall find out. Trust a woman to find out 
 a secret." 
 
 The abbe was already over the bulwark, so that only 
 his dark face appeared above, with the water running 
 off it. His eyes gleamed in the moonlight. 
 
 " And a priest to keep one," he answered. And he 
 leapt down into the boat.
 
 ( 201 ) 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 A WOMAN OF ACTION, 
 
 " Love . . . gives to every power a double power 
 Above their functions and their offices." 
 
 " Ah ! " said Mademoiselle Brun, as slie stepped on deck 
 the next morning. And the contrast between the 
 gloomy departure from Corsica and the sunny return 
 to France was strong enough, without further comment 
 from this woman of few words. 
 
 The yacht was approaching the little harbour of St. 
 Eaphael at half speed on a sea as blue and still as the 
 Mediterranean of any poet's dream. The freshness of 
 morning was in the air — the freshness of Provence, 
 where the days are hot and the nights cool, and there 
 are no mists between the one and the other. Almost 
 straight ahead, the little town of Frejus (where another 
 Corsican landed to set men by the ears) stood up in 
 sharp outline against the dark pinewoods of Valescure, 
 with the thin wood-smoke curling up from a hundred 
 chimneys. To the left, the flat lands of Les Arcs half 
 hid the distant heights of Toulon ; and, to the right,
 
 202 THE ISLE OP UNREST. 
 
 headland after headland led the eye almost to the frontier 
 of Italy along the finest coast-line in the woi-ld. Every 
 shade of blue was on sky or sea or mountain, while the 
 deep morning shadows were transparent and almost 
 luminous. From the pinewoods a scent of resin swept 
 seaward, mingled with the subtle odour of the tropic 
 foliage near the shore. The sky was cloudless. This 
 was indeed the smiling land of France. 
 
 Denise, who had followed mademoiselle on deck, stood 
 still and drank it all in ; for such sights and scents 
 have a deep eloquence for the young, which older hearts 
 can only touch from the outside, vaguely and intangibly, 
 like the memory of a perfume. 
 
 Denise had slept well, and Mademoiselle Brun said 
 she had slept enough for an old woman. A cheery 
 little stewardess had brought them coffee soon after 
 daylight, and had answered a few curt questions put 
 to her by Mademoiselle Brun. 
 
 " Yes ; the yacht was the yacht of the Baron de 
 Melide,and the lek-7ioire,hj the same token, of madame, 
 who hated the sea." ■ 
 
 And madame was at the chateau near Frejus, where 
 Monsieur le Baron had installed her on the outbreak 
 of the war, and would assuredly be on the pier at St. 
 Eaphael to meet them. And God only knew where 
 Monsieur le Baron v/as. He had gone, it was said, to 
 the war in some civil capacity.
 
 A WOMAN OP ACTION. 203 
 
 As tliey stood on dock, Denise soon perceived the 
 little pier where there were, even at this early hour, a 
 few of those indefatigable Mediterranean Waltons wlio 
 fish and fish and catch nothing, all through the sunny 
 day. Presently Mademoiselle Brun caught sight of a 
 small dot of colour which seemed to move spasmodically 
 np and down. 
 
 " I see the parasol," she said, "of Jane'de Melidc. 
 What good friends we have ! " 
 
 And presently they were near enough to wave a 
 handkerchief in answer to the Baroness de Melide's 
 vigorous salutations. The yacht crept round the pier- 
 head, and was soon made fast to a small white buoy. 
 While a boat was being lowered, the baroness, in a gay 
 Parisian dress, walked impatiently backwards and for- 
 wards, waved her parasol, and called out incoherent 
 remarks, which Mademoiselle Brun answered by a curt 
 gesture of the hand. 
 
 " My poor friend ! " exclaimed the baroness, as she 
 embraced Mademoiselle Brun, " My dear Denise, you 
 are a brave woman. I have heard all about you." 
 
 And her quick, dancing eyes took in at a glance that 
 Denise had come against her will, and Mademoiselle 
 Brun had brought her. Of which Denise was ignorant, 
 for the sunshine and brightness of the scene affected her 
 and made her happy. 
 
 " Surely," she said, as they walked the length of the
 
 204 THE ISLE OF UNREST. 
 
 pier together, "the bad news has been exaggerated. 
 The war will soon be over and we shall be happy again." 
 
 " Do not talk of it," cried the baroness. " It is a 
 horror. I saw Lory, after Worth, and that was enough 
 war for me. And, figure to yourself ! — I am all alone 
 in this great house. It is a charity to come and stay 
 with me. Lory has gone to the front. My husband, 
 who said he loved me — where is he ? Bonjour, and 
 he is gone. He leaves me without a regret. And I, 
 who cry my eyes out ; or would cry them out if I were 
 a fool — such as mademoiselle thinks me. Ah ! I do 
 not know what has come to all the men." 
 
 "But I do," said mademoiselle, who had eeen war 
 before. 
 
 And the baroness, looking at that still face, laughed 
 her gay little inconsequent laugh. 
 
 A carriage was waiting for them in the shade of the 
 trees on the market-place, its smart horses and men 
 forming a strong contrast to the untidy town and slip- 
 shod idlers. As usual, a game of bowls was in progress, 
 and absorbed all the attention of the local intelligence. 
 
 " We have half an hour through the pine trees," 
 said the baroness, settling herself energetically on the 
 cushions. " And, do you know, I am thankful to see 
 you. I thought you would be prevented coming." 
 
 She glanced at Denise as she spoke, and with a 
 suddenly grave face, leant forward, and whispered—
 
 A WOMAN OP ACTION. 205 
 
 " The news is bad — the news is bad. All this has 
 been organized by Lory and my husband, who told me, 
 in so many words, that they must have us where 
 they can find us at a moment's notice. In case — ah, 
 mon Dieu! I do not know what is going to happen 
 to us all." 
 
 " Then are we to be moved about, like ornaments, 
 from one safe place to another ? " asked Denise, with a 
 laugh which was not wholly spontaneous. 
 
 " I have never been treated as an ornament yet," 
 put in Mademoiselle Brun, " and it is perhaps rather 
 late to begin now." 
 
 Denise looked at her inquiringly. 
 
 " Yes," said the little woman, quietly. "I am goiog 
 to the war — if Jane will take care of you while I am 
 away." 
 
 " And why should not I go too ? " asked Denise. 
 
 " Because you are too young and too pretty, my 
 dear — since you ask a plain question," replied the 
 baroness, impulsively. Then she turned towards made- 
 moiselle. " You know," she said, " that my precious 
 stupid is organizing a field hospital." 
 
 " I thought he would find something to do," answered 
 mademoiselle, curtly. 
 
 " Yes," said the baroness, slowly, " yes — because 
 when he was a boy he had for governess a certain 
 little woman whose teaching was deeds, not words.
 
 206 THE ISLE OF UNREST. 
 
 And he is paying for it himself. And we shall all he 
 ruined." 
 
 She spread out her rich dress, lay back in her 
 luxurious carriage, and smiled on Mademoiselle Brun 
 with something that was not mirth at the back of her 
 brown eyes. 
 
 " I shall go to him," said mademoiselle. And the 
 baroness made no reply for some moments. 
 
 " Do you know what he said ? " she asked. *' He said 
 we shall want women — old ones. I know one old 
 woman who will come ! " 
 
 Mademoiselle was buttoning her cotton gloves and 
 did not seem to hear. 
 
 " It was, of course. Lory," went on the baroness, 
 " who encouraged him and told him how to go about 
 it. And then he went back to the front to fight. 
 Mon Dieu ! he can fight — that Lory ! " 
 
 " Where is he ? " asked mademoiselle. And the 
 baroness spread out her gloved hands. 
 
 " At the front — I cannot tell you more," 
 
 And mademoiselle did not speak again. She was 
 essentially a woman of her word. She had undertaken 
 to find Lory and give him that odd, inexplicable 
 message from the abbe. She had not undertaken 
 much in her narrow life ; but she had usually accom- 
 plished, in a quiet, mouse-like way, that to which she 
 set her hand. And now, as she drove through the
 
 A WOMAN OF ACTION. 207 
 
 smiling country, with which it was almost impossible 
 to associate the idea of war, she was planning how she 
 could get to the front and work there under the Baron 
 de Melide, and find Lory de Vasselot. 
 
 "They are somewhere near a little place called 
 Sedan," said the baroness. 
 
 And Mademoiselle Brun set out that same day for 
 the little place called Sedan ; tlien known vaguely as 
 a fortress on the Belgian frontier, and now for ever 
 written in every Frenchman's heart as the scene of 
 one of those stupendous catastrophes to which France 
 seems liable, and from which she alone has the power 
 of recovery. For, whatever the history of the French 
 may be, it has never been dull reading, and she has 
 shown the whole world that one may carry a brave 
 and a light heart out of the deepest tragedy. 
 
 By day and night Mademoiselle Brun, sitting up- 
 right in a dark corner of a second-class carriage, made 
 her way northward across France. No one questioned 
 her, and she asked no one's help. A silent little old 
 woman assuredly attracts less attention to her comings 
 and goings than any other human being. And on the 
 third day mademoiselle actually reached Chalons, which 
 many a more important traveller might at this time 
 have failed to do. She found the town in confusion, 
 the civilians bewildered, the soldiers sullen. No one 
 knew what an hour misht brinf? forth. It was not
 
 208 THE ISLE OF UNREST. 
 
 even known wlio was in command. The emperor wag 
 somewhere near, but no one knew where. General 
 officers were seeking their army- corps. Private soldiers 
 were wandering in the streets seeking food and quarters. 
 The railway station was blocked with stores which had 
 been hastily discharged from trucks wanted elsewhere. 
 And it was no one's business to distribute the stores. 
 
 Mademoiselle Brun wandered from shop to shop, 
 gathering a hundred rumours but no information. " The 
 emperor is dying — Macmahon is wounded," a butcher 
 told her, as he mechanically sharpened his knife at her 
 approach, though he had not as much as a bone in his 
 shop to sell her. 
 
 She stopped a cuirassier riding a lame horse, his 
 own leg hastily bandaged with a piece of coloured 
 calico. 
 
 " What regiment ? " she asked. 
 
 " I have no regiment. There is nothing left. You 
 see in me the colonel, and the majors, and the captains. 
 I am the regiment," he answered with a laugh that 
 made mademoiselle bite her steady lip. 
 
 " Where are you going ? " 
 
 " I don't know. Can you give me a little money ? " 
 
 " I can give you a franc. I have not too much 
 myself. Where have you come from ? " 
 
 " I don't know. None of us knew where we were." 
 
 He thanked her, observed that he was very hungry.
 
 A WOMAN OF ACTION. 20D 
 
 and rode on. She found a night's lodging at a seed- 
 chandler's who had no seeds to sell. 
 
 " They will not need them this year," he said. " Thfe 
 Prussians are riding over the corn." 
 
 The next morning the indomitable little woman went 
 on her way towards Sedan in a forage-cart which was 
 going to the front. She told the corporal in charge that 
 she was attached to the Baron de Melide's field hospital 
 and must get to her work. 
 
 " You will not like it when you get there, my brave 
 lady," said the man, good-humouredly, making room for 
 her, 
 
 " I shall like it better than doing nothing here," she 
 replied. 
 
 And so they set forth through the country heavy 
 with harvest. It was the second of September. The 
 corn was ripe, the leaves were already turning ; for it 
 had been a dry summer, and since April hardly any 
 rain had fallen. 
 
 It was getting late in the afternoon when they met 
 a man in a dog-cart driving at a great pace. He j)ulled 
 up when he saw them. His face was the colour of lead, 
 his eyes were startlingly bloodshot. 
 
 " This parishioner has been badly scared," muttered 
 the soldier who was driving Mademoiselle Brun. 
 
 " Where are you going ? " asked the stranger in a 
 high, thin voice. 
 
 P
 
 210 THE ISLE OE UNREST. 
 
 "To Sedan." 
 
 " Then turn back," he cried ; " Sedan is no place for 
 a woman. It is a hell on earth. I saw it all, mon 
 Dieu. I saw it all. I was at Bazeilles. I saw the 
 children thrown into the windows of the burning 
 houses. I saw the Bavarians shoot our women in the 
 streets. I saw the troops rush into Sedan like rabbits 
 into their holes, and then the Prussians bombarxled the 
 town. They had six hundred guns all round the town, 
 and they fired upon that little place which was packed 
 full like a sheep-pen. It is not war — it is butchery. 
 What is the good God doing ? What is He thinking 
 of?" 
 
 And the man, who had the pasty face of a clerk or 
 a commercial traveller, raised his whip to heaven in a 
 gestiire of fierce anger. Mademoiselle Brun looked at 
 him with measuring eyes. He was almost a man at 
 that moment. But perhaps her standard of manhood 
 was too lii"h. 
 
 " And is Sedan taken ? " she asked quietly. 
 
 "Sedan is taken. Macmahon is wounded. The 
 emperor is prisoner, and the whole French army has 
 surrendered. Ninety thousand men. The Prussians 
 had two hundred and forty thousand men. Ah ! That 
 emperor — that scoundrel ! " 
 
 Mademoiselle Brun looked at him coldly, but without 
 surprise. She had dealt with Frenchmen all her life,
 
 A WOMAN OF ACTION. 211 
 
 and probably expected that tlie fallen should be 
 reviled — an unfortunate characteristic in an otherwise 
 great national spirit. 
 
 " And the cavalry ? " she asked. 
 
 " Ah ! " cried the man, and again his dull eye flashed. 
 " The cavalry were splendid. They tried to cut their 
 way out. Tliey passed through the Prussian cavalry 
 and actually faced the infantry, but the fire was terrible. 
 No man ever saw or heard anything like it. The 
 cuirassiers were mown down like corn. The cavalry 
 exists no longer, madame, but its name is immortal." 
 
 There was nothing poetic about Mademoiselle Brun, 
 who listened rather coldly. 
 
 " And you," she asked, " what are you ? you are 
 assuredly a Frenchman ? " 
 
 " Yes — I am a Frenchman." 
 
 " And yet your back is turned," said Mademoiselle 
 Brun, " towards the Prussians." 
 
 " I am a writer," explained the man — " a journalist. 
 It is my duty to go to some safe place and v/rite of all 
 that I have seen." 
 
 "Ah!" said Mademoiselle Brun. "Let us, my 
 friend," she said, turning to her companion on the forage- 
 cart, " proceed towards Sedan. "We are fortunately not 
 in the position of monsieur."
 
 212 THE ISLE OP UNREST. 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 THE SEARCH. 
 
 " Wisdom is ofttimes nearer when we &toop 
 Than when we soar," 
 
 There were many wlio thought the war was over that 
 rainy morning after the fall of Sedan. For events were 
 made to follow each other quickly by those three sleep- 
 less men who moved kings and emperors and armies 
 at their will. Bismarck, Moltke, and Eoon must have 
 slept but little — if they closed their eyes at all — between 
 the evening of the first and the morning of the third 
 day of September. For human foresight must have its 
 limits, and the German leaders could hardly have 
 dreamt, in their most optimistic moments, of the triumph 
 that awaited them. Bismarck could hardly have fore- 
 seen that he should have to provide for an imperial 
 prisoner. Moltke's marvellous plans of campaign 
 could scarcely have embraced the details necessary to 
 the immediate disposal of ninety thousand prisoners of 
 war, with many guns and horses and much ammunition.
 
 THE SEARCH. 213 
 
 It was but twenty-four hours after he had lefj 
 Sedan to seek, and seek in vain, the King of Prussia, 
 that the third Napoleon— the modern man of destiny 
 who had climbed so high and fallen so very low — set 
 out on his journey to the Palace of Wilhelrashohe, 
 never to set foot on French soil again. For he was 
 to seek a home, and finally a grave, in England, where 
 his bones will lie till that day when France shall think 
 fit to deposit them by those of the founder of the 
 adventurous dynasty. 
 
 Among those who stood in the muddy street of 
 Donchery that morning, and watched in silence the 
 departure of the simple carriage, was Mademoiselle 
 Brun, whose stern eyes rested for a moment on the 
 sphinx-like face, met for an instant the dull and 
 extinct gaze of the man who had twisted all France 
 round his little finger. 
 
 When the cavalcade had passed by, she turned away 
 and walked towards Sedan. The road was crowded 
 with troops, coming and going almost in silence. Long 
 strings of baggage- carts splashed past. Here and there 
 an ambulance waggon of lighter build was allowed 
 a quicker passage. Messengers rode, or hurried on 
 foot, one way and the other; but few spoke, and a 
 hush seemed to hang over all There was no cheering 
 this morning — even that was done. The rain splashed 
 pitilessly down on these men who had won a great
 
 214 THE ISLE OF UNREST. 
 
 victory, who now hurried hither and thither, afraid of 
 they knew not what, cowering beneath the silence 
 of Heaven. 
 
 Mademoiselle was stopped outside the gates of Sedan. 
 
 " You can go no further ! " said an under-officer of 
 a Bavarian regiment in passable French, the first to 
 question the coming or going of this insignificant and 
 self-possessed woman. 
 
 " But I can stay here ? " returned mademoiselle in 
 German. In teaching, she had learnt — which is more 
 than many teachers do. 
 
 " Yes, you can stay here," laughed the German. 
 
 And she stayed there patiently for hours in the rain 
 and mud. It was afternoon before her reward came. 
 No one heeded her, as, standing on an overturned gun- 
 carriage, beneath her shabby umbrella, she watched 
 the first detachment of nearly ten thousand Frenchmen 
 march out of the fortress to their captivity in Germany. 
 
 " No cavalry ? " she said to a bystander when the 
 last detachment had gone. 
 
 " There is no cavalry left, ma bonne dame," replied 
 the old man to wliom she had spoken. 
 
 "No cavalry left! And Lory de Vasselot was a 
 cuirassier. And Denise loved Lory." Mademoiselle 
 Brun knew that, though perhaps Denise herself was 
 scarcely aware of it. In these three thoughts mademoi- 
 selle told the whole history of Sedan as it affected her.
 
 THE SEAKCH. 215 
 
 Solferino had, for her, narrowed down to one man, fat 
 and old at that, riding at the head of his troops on a 
 great horse specially chosen to carry bulk. The victory 
 that was to mar one empire and make another, years 
 after Solferino, was summed up in three thoughts by 
 the woman who had the courage to live frankly in her 
 own small woman's world, who was ready to iight — 
 as resolutely as any fought at Sedan — for Denise. She 
 turned and went down that historic road, showing now, 
 as ever, a steady and courageous face to the workl, 
 though all who spoke to her stabbed her with the 
 words, " There is no cavalry left — no cavalry left, ma 
 bonne dame." 
 
 She hovered about Donchery and Sedan, and the 
 ruins of Bazeilles, for some days, and made sure that 
 Lory de Vasselot had not gone, a prisoner, to Germany. 
 Tlie confusion in tlie French camp was greater than 
 any had anticipated, and no reliable records of any 
 sort were obtainable. Mademoiselle could not even 
 ascertain whether Lory had fought at Sedan ; but she 
 shrewdly guessed that the mad attempt to cut a way 
 through the German lines was such as woidd re- 
 commend itself to his heart. She haunted, therefore, 
 the heiglits of Bazeilles, seeking among the dead one 
 who wore the cuirassier uniform. She found, God 
 knows, enough, but not Lory de Vasselot. 
 
 All this while she never wrote to Frejus, judging,
 
 216 THE ISLE OF UNREST. 
 
 with a deadly common sense, that no news is better than 
 bad news. Day by day she continued her self-imposed 
 task, on the slippery hill-sides and in the muddy 
 valleys, until at last she passed for a peasant-woman, 
 so bedraggled was her dress, so lined and weather- 
 beaten her face. Her hair grew white in those days, 
 her face greyer. She had not even enough to eat. 
 She lay down and slept whenever she could find a 
 roof to cover her. And always, night and day, she 
 carried with her the burthen of that bad news of which 
 she would not seek to relieve herself by the usual 
 human method of telling it to another. 
 
 And one day she wandered into a church ten miles on 
 the French side of Sedan, intending perhaps to tell her 
 bad news to One who will always listen. But she 
 found that this was no longer a house of prayer, for 
 the dead and dying were lying in rows on the floor. 
 As she entered, a tall man, coming quickly out, almost 
 knocked her down. His arms were full of cooking 
 utensils. He was in his shirt-sleeves : blood-stained, 
 smoke-grimed, unshaven and unwashed. He turned 
 to apologize, and began explaining that this was no 
 place for a woman ; but he stopped short. It was the 
 millionaire Baron de Melide. 
 
 Mademoiselle Brun sat suddenly down on a bench 
 near the door. She did not look at him. Indeed, she 
 purposely looked away and bit her lip with her little
 
 THE SEARCH. 217 
 
 fierce teeth because it would quiver. In a moment 
 she had recovered herself. 
 
 " I have come to help you," she said, 
 
 *' God knows, we want you," replied the baron — a 
 phlegmatic man, who, nevertheless, saw the quivering 
 lip, and turned away hastily. For he knew that made- 
 moiselle would never forgive herself, or him, if she 
 broke down now. 
 
 ''Here," he said, with a clumsy gaiety, " will you 
 wash these plates and dishes ? You will find the 
 pump in the cure's garden. We have nurses and 
 doctors, but we have no one to wash up. And it is 
 I who do it. This is my hospital. I have borrowed 
 the building from the good God." 
 
 Mademoiselle was naturally a secretive woman. 
 She could even be silent about her neighbours' affairs. 
 Susini had been guided by a quick intuition, character- 
 istic of his race, when he had confided in this French- 
 woman. She had been some hours in the baron's 
 hospital before she even mentioned Lory's name. 
 
 " And the Count de Vasselot ? " she inquired, in her 
 usual curt form of interrogation, as they M-ere taking 
 a hurried and unceremonious meal in the vestry by 
 the light of an altar candle. 
 
 The baron shook his head and gulped down his food. 
 
 " No news ? " inquired Mademoiselle Brun. 
 
 " None,"
 
 218 THE ISLE OF UNREST. 
 
 They continued to eat for some minutes in silence. 
 
 " Was he at Sedan ? " asked mademoiselle, at length. 
 
 " Yes," replied the baron, gravely. And then they 
 continued their meal in silence by the liglit of the 
 flickering candle. 
 
 " Have you any one looking for him ? " asked made- 
 moiselle, as she rose from the table and began to 
 clear it. 
 
 " I have sent two of my men to do so," replied the 
 baron, who was by nature no more expansive than his 
 old governess. And for some days there was no 
 mention of de Vasselot between them. 
 
 Mademoiselle found plenty of work to do besides 
 the menial labours of which she had relieved the man 
 who deemed himself fit for nothing more complicated 
 than washing dishes and providing funds. She wrote 
 letters for the wounded, and also for the dead. She 
 had a way of looking at those who groaned unneces- 
 sarily and out of idle self-pity, which was conducive to 
 silence, and therefore to the comfort of others. She 
 smoothed no pillows and proffered no soft words of 
 sympathy. But it was she who found out that the 
 cure had a piano. She it was who took two hospital 
 ■ attendants to the priest's humble house and brought 
 the instrument away. She had it placed inside the 
 altar rails, and fought the cure afterwards in the vestry 
 as to the heinousness of the proceeding.
 
 THE SEARCH. 219 
 
 " You will not play secular airs ? " pleaded the old 
 man. 
 
 " All that there is of the most secular," replied she, 
 inexorably. " And the recording angels will, no doubt, 
 enter it to my account — and not yours, m.onsieur le 
 cure." 
 
 So Mademoiselle Brun played to the wounded all 
 through the long afternoons until her fingers grew stiff. 
 And the doctors said that she saved more than one 
 fretting life. She was not a great musician, but she 
 had a soothing, old-fashioned touch. She only played 
 such ancient airs as she could remember. And the 
 more she played the more she remembered. It seemed 
 to come back to her — each day a little more. Which 
 was odd, for the music was, as she had promised the 
 cure, secular enough, and could not, therefore, have 
 been inspired by her sacred surroundings within the 
 altar rails. Though, after all, it may have been that 
 those who recorded this sacrilege against Mademoiselle 
 Brun, not only made a cross -entry on the credit side, 
 but helped her memory to recall that forgotten music. 
 
 Thus the days slipped by, and little news filtered 
 through to the quiet Ardennes village. The tide of 
 war had rolled on. The Germans, it was said, were 
 already halfway to Paris. And from Paris itself the 
 tidings were well-nigh incredible. One thing alone 
 was certain; the Bonaparte dynasty was at an end and
 
 220 THE ISLE OF UNREST. 
 
 the mighty schemes of au ambitious woman had 
 crumbled like ashes within her hands. All the plotting 
 of the Eegency had fallen to pieces with the fall of the 
 greatest schemer of them all, whom the Paris govern- 
 ment fatuously attempted to hookNvink. Napoleon the 
 Third was indeed a clever man, since his own wife never 
 knew how clever he was. So France was now a howling 
 Eepublic — a Eepublic being a community wherein every 
 man is not only equal to, but better than his neighbour, 
 and may therefore shout his loudest. 
 
 No great battles followed Sedan. France had but 
 one army left, and that was shut up in ]\Ietz, under the 
 command of another of the Paris plotters who was a 
 bad general and not even a good conspirator. 
 
 Poor France had again fallen into bad hands. It 
 seemed the end of all things. And yet for Mademoiselle 
 Brun, who loved France as well as any, all these 
 troubles were one day dispersed by a single note of a 
 man's voice. She was at the piano, it being afternoon, 
 and was so used to the shuffling of the bearer's feet that 
 she no longer turned to look when one was carried in 
 and another, a dead one perhaps, was carried out. 
 
 She heard a laugh, however, that made her music 
 suddenly mute. It was Lory de Vasselot who was 
 laughing, as they carried him into the little church. 
 He was explaining to the baron that he had heard of 
 his hospital, and had caused himself to be carried thither
 
 THE SEAECH. 221 
 
 as soon as he could be moved from the cottage, M'here 
 he had been cared for by some peasants. 
 
 The laugh was silenced, however, at the sight of 
 Mademoiselle Brun. 
 
 " You here, mademoiselle ? " he said. " Alone, I 
 hope," he added, wincing as the bearers set him down. 
 
 " Yes, I am alone. Denise is safe at Frejus with Jane 
 de Melide." 
 
 "Ah!" 
 
 " And your wounds ? " said Mademoiselle Brun. 
 
 " A sabre-cut on the right shoulder, a bullet through 
 the left leg — voila tout. I was in Sedan, and we tried 
 to get out. Tliat is all I know, mademoiselle." 
 
 Mademoiselle stood over him with her hands crossed 
 at her waist, looking down at him with compressed 
 lips. 
 
 " Not dangerous ? " she inquired, glancing at his 
 bandages, which indeed were numerous enough. 
 
 " I shall be in the saddle again in three weeks, they 
 
 tell me. If the war only lasts " He gave an odd, 
 
 eager laugh. "If the war only lasts " 
 
 Then he suddenly turned white and lost conscious- 
 ness.
 
 222 THE ISLE OF UNREST. 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 WOUNDED. 
 "Le temps furtiiie ce qu'il n'eljranle fas." 
 
 That niglit mademoiselle wrote to Denise at Frejus, 
 breakino' at last her lori<T silence. That she cjave the 
 barest facts, may be safely concluded. Neither did she 
 volunteer a thought or a conclusion. She was as 
 discreet as she was secretive. There are some secrets 
 which are infinitely safer in a woman's custody than 
 in a man's. You may tell a man in confidence the 
 amount of your income, and it will go no further ; but 
 in affairs of the heart, and not of the pocket, a woman 
 is safer. Indeed, you may tell a woman your heart's 
 secret, provided she keeps it where she keeps her own. 
 And Mademoiselle Brun had only one thought night 
 and day : the happiness of Denise. That, and a single 
 memory — the secret, perhaps, which was such a standing 
 joke at the school in the Eue du Cherche-Midi — made 
 up the whole life of this obscure woman.
 
 WOUNDED. 223 
 
 Two days later sbe gave Lory Susiui's message ; and 
 de Vasselot sent for the surgeon. 
 
 " I am going," he said. " Patch me up for a 
 journey." 
 
 Tlie surgeon had dealt so freely with life and death 
 that he only shrugged his shoulders. 
 
 "You cannot go alone," he said — " a man with one 
 arm and one leg." 
 
 Mademoiselle looked from one to the other. She was 
 willing enough that Lory should undertake this journey, 
 for he must needs pass through Provence to get to 
 Corsica. She did not attempt to lead events, but was 
 content to follow and steer them from time to time. 
 
 " I am going to the south of France," she said. " The 
 baron needs me no longer since the hospital is to be 
 moved to Paris. I can conduct Monsieur de Vasselot 
 — a part of the way, at all events." 
 
 And the rest arranged itself. Five days later Lory 
 de Vasselot was lifted from the railway carriage to the 
 Baroness de Melide's victoria at Frejus station. 
 
 " Madame's son is, no doubt, from Sedan ? " said 
 the courteous station-master, who personally attended 
 to the wounded man. 
 
 " He is from Sedan— but he is not my son. I never 
 had one," replied mademoiselle with composure. 
 
 She was tired, for she had hardly slept since Lory came 
 under her care. She sat open-eyed, with that knowledge
 
 224 THE ISLE OF UNREST. 
 
 which is given to so few — the knowledge of the gradual 
 completion of a set purpose. 
 
 They had travelled all night, and it was not yet 
 midday when mademoiselle first saw, and pointed out 
 to Lory, the white turret of the chateau among the 
 pines. 
 
 The baroness was on the steps to greet them. Like 
 many persons of a gay exterior, she had a kind heart 
 and a quick sympathy. She often did, and said, the 
 right thing, when cleverer people found themselves at 
 fault. She laughed when she saw Lory lying full 
 length across her smart carriage — laughed, despite his 
 white cheeks and the grey weariness of mademoiselle's 
 face. She seemed part of the sunshine and the brisk 
 resinous air. 
 
 "Ah, my cousin," she cried, "it does the eyes good 
 to see you ! I should like to carry you up these steps." 
 
 " In three weeks," answered de Yasselot, " I will 
 carry you down." 
 
 " His room is on the ground.floor," said the baroness 
 to mademoiselle, in an aside. " You are tired, my 
 dear — I see it. Your room is the same as before ; you 
 must lie down this afternoon. I will take care of Lory, 
 and Denise will — but, where is Denise ? I thought 
 she was behind me." 
 
 She paused to guide tlie men who were carrying de 
 Vasselot through the broad doorway,
 
 WOUNDED. 225 
 
 " Denise ! " she cried witliout looking round, " Denise ! 
 where are you ? " 
 
 Then turning, she saw Denise coming slowly down 
 the stairs. Her face was whiter than Mademoiselle 
 Brun's. Her eyes, clear and clever, were fixed on 
 Lory's face as if seeking something there. There was 
 an odd silence for a moment — such as the superstitious 
 say, is caused by the passage of an angel among human 
 beings — even the men carrying Lory seemed to tread 
 softly. It was he who broke the spell. 
 
 " Ah, mademoiselle ! " he said gaily, " the fortune of 
 war, you see ! " 
 
 " But it might have been so much worse," said the 
 baroness in a whisper to Mademoiselle Brun. "Bon 
 Dieu, it might have been so much worse ! " 
 
 And at luncheon they were gay enough. For a 
 national calamity is, after all, secondary to a family 
 calamity. Only de Vasselot and Mademoiselle Brun 
 had been close to war, and it was no new thing to them. 
 Theirs was, moreover, that sudden gaiety which comes 
 from re-action. The contrast of their present sur- 
 roundings to that little hospital in a church within 
 cannon-sound of Sedan — the quiet of this country 
 house, the baroness, Denise herself young and grave 
 • — were sufficient to chase away the horror of the past 
 weeks. 
 
 It was the baroness wdio kept the conversation alert, 
 
 Q
 
 226 THE ISLE OP UNREST. 
 
 asking a Imndred questions, and, as often as not, dis- 
 believing the answers. 
 
 "And you assure me," she said for the hundredth time, 
 *' that my poor husband is well. That he does not miss 
 me, I cannot of course believe with the best will in the 
 world, though Mademoiselle Brun assert it witTi her 
 gravest air. Now, tell me, how does he spend his 
 day?" 
 
 " Mostly in washing up dishes," replied mademoiselle, 
 looking severely at the baron's butler, whose hand 
 happened to shake at that moment as he offered a 
 plate. " But he is not good at it. He was ignorant of 
 the properties of soda until I informed him." 
 
 " But there is no glory in that," protested the baron- 
 ess. " It was only because he assured me that he 
 would not run into danger, and would inevitably be 
 made a grand commander of the Legion of Honour, that 
 he was allowed to go. I do not see the glory in washing 
 up dishes, my friends, I tell you frankly." 
 
 "No; but it is there," said mademoiselle. 
 
 After luncheon Lory, using his crutches, made his 
 way laboriously to the verandah that ran the length of 
 the southern face of the house. It was all hung with 
 creepers, and shaded from the sun by a dense curtain 
 of foliage. Here heliotrope grew like a vine on a 
 trellis against the wall, and semi-tropical flowers bloomed 
 in a bewilderinq; confusion. A little fountain trickled
 
 WOUNDED. 227 
 
 sleepily near at haud, in the mossy basin of wliicli a 
 talkative family of frogs had their habitation. 
 
 Half asleep in a long chair, de Vasselot was already 
 coming under the influence of this most healing air in 
 the world, when the rustle of a skirt made him turn. 
 
 " It is only I, my poor Lory," said the baroness, 
 looking down at him with an odd smile. " You 
 turned so quickly. Is there anything you want — any- 
 thing in my power to give you, I mean ? " 
 
 " I am afraid you have parted with that already." 
 
 " To that — scullery-man, you mean. Yes, j)erhaps 
 you are too late. It is so wise to ask too late, mon 
 cousin." 
 
 She laughed gaily, and turned away towards the 
 house. Then she stopped suddenly and came back to 
 him. 
 
 " Seriously," she said, looking down at him with a 
 grave face—" seriously. My prayers should always be 
 for any woman who became your wife — you, and your 
 soldiering. Ciel ! it would kill any woman who really 
 cared- " 
 
 She broke off and contemplated him as he lay at 
 full length. 
 
 " And she might care— a little — that poor woman." 
 
 " She would have to care for France as well," said 
 de Vasselot, momentarily grave at the thought of his 
 country.
 
 228 TnE ISLE OF UNREST. 
 
 " I know/' said the baroness, with a wise shake of 
 the head. " Mon ami, I know all about that." 
 
 " I have some new newspapers from Paris," she added, 
 going towards the house. " I will send them to you." 
 
 And it was Denise who brought the newspapers. 
 She handed them to him in silence. Their eyes met 
 for an instant, and both alike had that questioning 
 look which had shone in Denise's eyes as she came 
 downstairs. They seemed to know each other now 
 better than they had done when they last parted at 
 the Casa Perucca. 
 
 There was a chair near to his, and Denise sat down 
 there as if it had been placed on purpose — as perhaps 
 it had — by Fate. They were silent for a few moments, 
 gathering perhaps the threads that connected one wdth 
 the other. Por absence does not always break such 
 threads, and sometimes strengthens them. Then Lory 
 spoke without looking at her, 
 
 " You received the letter 1" he said. 
 f " Which letter ? " she asked hurriedly ; and then 
 closed her lips and slowly changed colour. 
 
 There was only one letter, of course. There could 
 be no other. For it had never been suggested that 
 Lory should write to her. 
 
 "Yes ; I received it," she answered. " Thank you." 
 
 " Will you answer one question 1 " asked Lory. 
 
 " If it is a fair one," she answered with a laugh.
 
 WOUNDED. 229 
 
 " And who is to decide whether it is a fair one or 
 not ? " 
 
 " Oh ! I will do that," replied Denise with decision. 
 
 She knew the weakness of her position, and was 
 prepared to defend it. Her eyes were shining, and 
 the colour had not faded from her cheeks yet. Lory 
 held his lip between his teeth as he looked at her. 
 She waited for the question, without meeting his 
 eyes, with a baffling little smile tilting the corners 
 of her lips. 
 
 " Well," she said, after a pause, " I suppose you have 
 decided not to ask it ? " 
 
 " I have decided to draw conclusions instead, 
 mademoiselle." 
 
 " Ah ! " 
 
 " What does ' Ah ! ' mean ? " 
 
 " It means that you will draw them wrong," she 
 answered ; and yet the tone of her voice seemed to 
 suggest that she would rather like to hear the con- 
 clusions. 
 
 " One may conclude then, simply, that you changed 
 your mind after you wrote, and claimed a woman's 
 privilege." 
 
 "Yes " 
 
 " That you were good enough to trust me to send the 
 letter back unopened; and yet you would not trust 
 me with the contents. One may conclude that it is,
 
 230 THE ISLE OF UNREST. 
 
 therefore, also a woman's privilege to be of two minds 
 at the same time." 
 
 " If she likes," answered Denise. To which wise 
 men know that there is no answer. 
 
 De Vasselot made a tragic gesture with his one 
 available hand, and cast his eyes upwards in a mute 
 appeal to the gods. He sighed heavily, and the 
 expression of his face seemed to indicate a hopeless 
 despair. 
 
 " What is the matter ? " she asked, with a solicitude 
 which was perhaps sliglitly exaggerated. 
 
 " What is one to understand ? I ask you that ? " said 
 Lory, turning towards her almost fiercely. 
 
 " What do you want to understand, monsieur ? " 
 asked Denise, quietly. 
 
 " Mon Dieu — you ! " 
 
 " Me ! " 
 
 "Yes. I cannot understand you at all. You ask 
 my advice, and then you act contrary to it. You 
 write me a letter, and you forbid me to open it. Ah ! 
 I was a fool to send that letter back. I have often 
 thought so since " 
 
 Denise was looking gravely at him with an expres- 
 sion in her eyes which made him stop, and laugh, and 
 contradict himself suddenly 
 
 " You are quite right, mademoiselle, I was not a 
 fool to send it back. It was the only thing I could
 
 WOUNDED. 231 
 
 do ; and yet I almost tlioiiglit, just now, that you were 
 not "lad that I had done so." 
 
 " Then you thought quite wrong," said Denise, 
 sharply, with a gleam of anger in her eyes. " You 
 think that it is only I who am difficult to understand. 
 You are no easier. They say in Balagna that, if you 
 liked, you could be a sort of king in ISTorthern Corsica, 
 and I am quite sure you have the manners of one." 
 
 " Thank you, mademoiselle," he said with a laugh. 
 
 "Oh — I do not mean the agreeable side of the 
 character. I meant that you are rather given to order- 
 ing people about. l^'ou send an incompetent and 
 stupid little priest to take us by the hand, and lead 
 us out of the Casa Perucca like two school-children, 
 without so much as a word of explanation." 
 
 " But I had not your permission to write to you." 
 
 Denise laughed gaily. 
 
 " So far as that goes you had not my permission 
 to order me out of my own house ; to send a steamer 
 to St. Florent to fetch me ; to treat me as if I were 
 a regiment, in a word — and yet you did it, monsieur." 
 
 Lory sat up in his desire to defend himself, winced 
 and lay down again. 
 
 " I fancy it is your Corsican blood," said Denise, 
 reflectively. She rose and re-arranged a very sporting 
 dustcloth which the baroness had laid across the 
 wounded man's legs, and which his movement ]iad
 
 232 THE ISLE OP UNREST. 
 
 cast to one side. " However, it remains for me to 
 thank you," slie said, and did not sit down again. 
 
 "It may have been badly done, mademoiselle," he 
 said earnestly, " but I still think that it was the wisest 
 thing to do." 
 
 " And still you give me no reasons," she said with- 
 out turning to look at him. She was standing at the 
 edge of the verandah, looking thoughtfully out at the 
 matchless view. For the house stood above the pines 
 which lay like a dusky green carpet between it and the 
 Mediterranean. " And I am not going to ask you for 
 them," she added with an odd little smile, not devoid 
 of that deep wisdom with which it is to be presumed 
 women are born ; for they have it when it is most useful 
 to them, and at an age when their masculine contem- 
 poraries are singularly ignorant of human nature. 
 
 " I am going," she said after a pause. " Jane told me 
 that I must not tire you." 
 
 "Then stay," he said. " It is only when you are not 
 there that I find it tiring." 
 
 She did not answer, and did not move until a servant 
 came noiselessly from the house and approached Lory, 
 
 " It is a man," he said, " who will not be denied, and 
 says he must speak to Monsieur le Comte. He is from 
 Corsica." 
 
 Denise turned, and her face was quite changed. 
 She had until that moment forgotten Corsica.
 
 ( 233 ) 
 
 CHAPTER XXr. 
 
 FOR FRANCE. 
 
 " Lov'd I not honour more." 
 
 The servant retired to bring the new arrival to the 
 verandah. Denise followed him, and, after a few paces, 
 returned to Lory, 
 
 " If it is one of my people," she said, " I should 
 like to see him before he goes." 
 
 The man who followed the servant to the verandah a 
 minute later had a dark, clean-shaven face, all drawn 
 into fine lines and innumerable minute wrinkles. Such 
 lines mean starvation ; but in this case they told a tale 
 of the past, for the dark eyes had no hungry look. 
 They looked hunted — that was all. The glitter of star- 
 vation had left them. He glanced uneasily around, 
 took off his hat and bowed curtly to Lory. The hat and 
 the clothes were new. Then he turned and looked at 
 the servant, who lingered, with a haughty stare which 
 must have been particularly offensive to that respect- 
 able Parisian menial. Tor the Corsicans are bad
 
 234 THE ISLE OF UNREST. 
 
 servants, and despise good servitude in others. When 
 the footman had gone, the new-comer turned to Lory, 
 and said, in a low voice — 
 
 " I saw you at Toulon. I have not seen many faces 
 in my life — for I have spent most of it in the macquis 
 — so I remember those I have once met, I knew the 
 Count de Vasselot when he was a young man, and he 
 was what you are now. You are a de Vasselot." 
 
 " Yes," answered Lory. 
 
 " I thought so. That is wliy I followed you from 
 Toulon — spending my last sou to do so," 
 
 He stopped. His two hands were in the pockets of 
 his dark corduroy trousers, and he jerked them out with 
 a sudden movement, bringing the empty pockets to 
 view. 
 
 " Voila ! " he said, " and I want to go to the war. So 
 I came to you." 
 
 '' Good," said Lory, looking him up and down. " You 
 look tough, mon ami." 
 
 " I am," answered the Corsican. " Ten years of 
 macquis, winter and summer — for one thing or 
 another — do not make a man soft. I was told — the 
 Abbe Susini told me — that France wants every man 
 she can get, so I thought I would try a little fighting." 
 
 " Good," said Lory again. " You will find it very 
 good fun." 
 
 The man cjave a twisted grin. He had forgotten how
 
 FOE FRANCE. 235 
 
 to laugh. He drew forward the chair that Deniso 
 had just quitted, and sat down close to Lory in quite a 
 friendly way, for there is a bond that draws fighting 
 men and roaming men together despite accidental 
 differences of station. 
 
 " One sees," he said, " that you are a de Vasselot. 
 And I belong to the de Vasselots — I. Whenever I 
 have got into trouble it has been on that side." 
 
 He looked round to make sure that none could 
 overhear. 
 
 " It was I who shot that Italian dog, Pietro Andrei," 
 he mentioned in confidence, " on the road below Olmeta 
 — but that was a personal matter." 
 
 " Ah ! " said Lory, who had heard the story of 
 Andrei's death on the market-place at Olmeta, and the 
 stern determination of his widow to avenge it. 
 
 "Yes — I was starving, and Andrei had money on 
 him. In the old days it was easy enough to get food 
 in the macquis. One could come down into the 
 villages at night. But now it is different. It is a 
 hard life there now, and one may easily die of starva- 
 tion. There are many who, like Pietro Andrei, are 
 friendly with the gendarmes." 
 
 He finished with a gesture of supreme disgust, as if 
 friendship with a gendarme were the basest of crimes. 
 
 "When did you see the Abbe Susini ? " asked Lory, 
 " and where — if you can tell me that ? "
 
 236 THE ISLE OF UNREST. 
 
 " I saw him iu the macquis. He often goes up into 
 the mountains alone, dressed like one of us. He is a 
 queer man, that abbe. He says that he sometimes 
 thinks it well to care for the wanderers from his flock 
 — a jest, you see." 
 
 And the man gave his crooked grin again. 
 
 " It was above Asco, in the high mountains near 
 Cinto," he continued, " and about a week ago. It was he 
 who gave me money, and told me to come and fight for 
 France. He was arranging for others to do the same." 
 
 " The abbe is a practical man," said Lory. 
 
 "Yes — and he told me news of Olmeta," said the 
 man, glancing sideways at his companion. 
 
 " What news ? " 
 
 " You have no doubt heard it — of Vasselot." 
 
 "I have heard nothing, my friend, but cannon. I 
 am from Sedan to-day." 
 
 The man seemed to hesitate. He turned uneasily in 
 his chair, glanced this way and that among the trees — 
 a habit acquired in the Inacquis, no doubt. He took 
 off his hat and passed his hand pensively over his hair. 
 Then he turned to Lory. 
 
 " There is no longer a Chateau de Vasselot — it is 
 gone — burnt to the ground, mon brave monsieur." 
 
 " Who burnt it ? " asked de Vasselot. 
 
 " Who knows ? " replied the man, " The Peruccas, 
 no doubt. They have a woman to lead them now ! "
 
 FOR FRANCE. 237 
 
 The man finished with a short laugh, which was 
 unpleasant to the ear. 
 
 Lory thought of the woman who was leading the 
 Peruccas now, who had quitted the chair in which her 
 accuser now sat, a few minutes earlier, and smiled. 
 
 " Have you a cigarette ? " asked the Corsican, 
 bluntly. 
 
 "Yes — but I cannot offer it to you. It is in my 
 right-hand pocket, and my right arm is disabled." 
 
 "An arm and a leg, eh?" said the man, seeking in 
 the pocket indicated by Lory, for the neat silver 
 cigarette-case, which he handled with a sort of grand 
 air — this gentleman of the mountain side. " You will 
 smoke also ? " 
 
 And with his own brown fingers he was kind enough 
 to place a cigarette between de Vasselot's lips. The 
 tobacco-smoke seemed to make him feel still more at 
 home with the head of his clan. For he sat down 
 again and began the conversation in quite a familiar 
 way. 
 
 " Who is this Colonel Gilbert of Bastia, who mixes 
 himself up in affairs ? " he inquired. 
 
 " What affairs, my friend ? " 
 
 " Well, the affairs of others, it would appear. We 
 hear strange stories in the macquis — and things that 
 one would never expect to reach the mountains. They 
 say that Colonel Gilbert busies himself in stirring up
 
 238 THE ISLE OF UNEEST. 
 
 the Periiccas and the de Vasselots against each other — 
 an affair that has slept these thirty years." 
 
 "Ah!" 
 
 " Yes, and you should know it, you who are the chief 
 of the de Vasselots, and have this woman to deal with ; 
 the women are always the worst. The chateau, they 
 say, was burnt down, and the women disappeared from 
 the Casa Perucca in the same week. The Casa Perucca 
 is empty now, and the Chateau de Vasselot is gone — at 
 Olmeta they are bored enough, I can tell you." 
 
 "They have nothing to quarrel about," suggested 
 Lory. 
 
 " Nothing," replied the Corsican, quite gravely. 
 
 " And the chateau was empty when they burnt it ? " 
 inquired Lory. 
 
 "Yes; it has been empty since I was a boy. I 
 remember it when I went to St. Florent to school, and 
 it was then that I used to see your father, the count. 
 He was powei'ful in those days — before the Peruccas 
 began to get strong. But they overrun that country 
 now, wliich is no doubt the rea^son why you have never 
 been there." 
 
 " Pardon me — I was there when the war broke out 
 two months ago." 
 
 "Ah ! We never heard that in the macquis, 
 though the Abbe Susini must have known it. He 
 knows so much that he does not tell— that abbe."
 
 FOR FRANCE. 239 
 
 " Wliicli makes liim the strong man lie is, mon ami." 
 
 " You are right — you are right," said the Corsican, 
 rising energetically. " But I am wasting your time 
 with my talk, and tiring you as well, no doubt." 
 
 *' Wait a minute," replied Lory, touching the bell that 
 stood on a table by his side. " I will give you a letter 
 to a friend of mine, commanding a regiment in Paris." 
 
 The servant brought the necessary materials, and Lory 
 prepared awkwardly to write. His arm was still weak, 
 but he could use his hand without pain. While he 
 was writing, the man sat watching him, and at last 
 muttered an exclamation of wonderment. 
 
 "It is a marvel how you resemble the count," ho 
 said, " as I remember him thirty years ago, when I was 
 a boy. And do you know, monsieur, I saw an old man 
 the other day for a moment, in passing on the road, 
 above Asco, who brought my heart into my throat. 
 If he had not been dead this score of years it might 
 have been your father — not as I remember him, but 
 as the years would have made him. I was hidden in 
 the trees at the side of the road, and he passed by on 
 foot. He had the air of going into the macquis. But 
 I do not know who he was." 
 
 " When was that ? " asked de Vasselot, pausing with 
 his pen on the paper. 
 
 *' That must have been a month ago," 
 
 " And you never saw or heard of him again ? "
 
 240 THE ISLE OF UNREST. 
 
 " No," answered the man. 
 
 Lory continued to write, liis arm moving laboriously 
 on the paper. 
 
 "I must have a name— of some sort," he said, "to 
 give my fiiend, the commandant." 
 
 "Ah! I cannot give you my own. Jean Florent^ 
 since I came from St. Florent— that will do." 
 
 De Vasselot wrote the name, folded and addressed the 
 letter. 
 
 " There, he said, " and I wish you good luck. Good 
 luck in war-time may mean gold lace on your sleeve in 
 a few months. I shall join you as soon as 1 can throw 
 my leg across a horse. Will two hundred francs serve 
 you to reach Paris ? " 
 
 " Give me one hundred. I am no beggar." 
 
 He took the letter and the bank note, shook hands, 
 and went away as abruptly as he came. The man was 
 a murderer, with probably more than one life to account 
 for ; and yet he carried his crimes with a certain dignity, 
 and had, at all events, that grand manner which comes 
 from the habit of facing life fearlessly with the odds 
 against. 
 
 Lory sat up and watched him. He rang the bell. 
 
 " See that man off the premises," he said to the 
 servant, " and then beg Mademoiselle Lange to be good 
 enough to return here." 
 
 Denise kept him waiting a long time, and then came
 
 FOR FRANCE. 241 
 
 with reluctant steps. The mention of Corsica seemed 
 to have changed her humour. She sat down, nevcrthe- 
 less, in the chair, placed there by Fate. 
 
 " You sent for me," she said, rather curtly. 
 
 " Because I could not come myself," he answered. 
 **I did not want you to see that man. Or rather, I 
 did not want him to see you. He is not one of your 
 people — quite the contrary," 
 
 And de Vasselot laughed with significance. 
 
 " One of yours ? " she suggested. 
 
 " So it appears, though I was not aware of the honour. 
 He described you as ' that woman. ' " 
 
 Denise laughed lightly, and threw back her head. 
 
 "He may describe me as he likes. Did he bring 
 you news ? " 
 
 And Denise turned away as she spoke, with 
 that air of indifference which so often covers a 
 keen desire for information, if it is a woman who 
 seeks it. 
 
 " Yes," answered Lory, turning, as she turned, to look 
 at her. He looked at her whenever opportunity offered. 
 The cheek half turned from him was a little sunburnt, 
 the colour of a peach that has ripened in the open 
 under a Southern sun, for Denise loved the air. 
 Perhaps he had only spoken the truth when he said 
 that her absence made him tired. There are many in 
 the world who have to fight against that weariness all
 
 242 THE ISLE OF UNEEST. 
 
 their lives. At last, as if with an effort, Deuisc turned, 
 and met his glance for a moment. 
 
 " Bad news," she said ; " I can see that." 
 
 " Yes. It is bad enough." 
 
 "Of your estates ? " inquired Denise. 
 
 " No. I never cared for the estate ; I do not care for 
 it now." 
 
 " Then it is of . . . 'some one ? " 
 
 Lory did not answer at once. 
 
 "I shall have to go back to Corsica," he said at 
 length, " as soon as I can move — in a few days." 
 
 Denise glanced at him with angry eyes. 
 
 " I was told that story," she said, " but did not 
 believe it." 
 
 De Vasselot turned and looked at her, but could not 
 see her averted face. His eyes were suddenly fierce. 
 He was a fighter — of a fighting stock — and he instantly 
 perceived that he was called upon at this moment to 
 fight for the happiness of his w^hole life. He put out 
 his hand and deliberately took hold of the skirt of her 
 dress. She should not run away at all events. He 
 twisted the soft material round his half-disabled fingers. 
 
 " What story ? " he asked quietly. 
 
 Denise's eyes flashed, and then suddenly grew gentle. 
 She did not quite know whether she was furious or afraid. 
 
 " That there was some one in the Chateau de Yasselot 
 to whom — whom you loved."
 
 FOR FRANCE. 243 
 
 " It is you that I love, mademoiselle," he answered 
 sharply, with a ring in his voice, which came as a sur- 
 prise to both of thein, and which she never forgot all her 
 life. "No. Do not go. You are pulling on my injured 
 arm and I shall not let go." 
 
 Denise sat still, silent and at bay. 
 
 " Then who was in the chateau ? " she asked at last. 
 
 " I cannot tell you." 
 
 " If it is as you say — about me — and I ask you 
 
 not to go to Corsica ? " 
 
 " I must go." 
 
 " "Why ? " asked Denise, with a dangerous quiet in 
 her voice. 
 
 " I cannot tell you." 
 
 " Then you expect a great deal." 
 
 De Vasselot slowly untwined his fingers and drew in 
 his arm. 
 
 " True," he said reflectively. " I must ask nothing or 
 too much. I asked more than you can give, mademoi- 
 selle." 
 
 A faint smile flickered across Denise's eyes. Who 
 was he, to say how much a woman can give ? She was 
 free to go now, but did not move. 
 
 " With Corsica and " she paused and glanced at 
 
 his helpless attitude in the long chair, " and the 
 
 war, your life is surely sufficiently occupied as it is," 
 she said coldly.
 
 24 -i THE ISLE OF UNREST. 
 
 " But these evil times will pass. The war will cease, 
 and then one may think of being happy. So long as 
 there is war, I must of course fight — fight — fight, while 
 there is a France to fight for." 
 
 Denise laughed. 
 
 " That is your scheme of life ? " she asked bitterly. 
 
 " Yes, mademoiselle." 
 
 She rose and turned angrily away. 
 
 " Then it is France you care for — if it is no one in 
 Corsica. France — nothing and nobody — but France." 
 
 And she left him.
 
 ( 245 ) 
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 IX THE MACQUIS. 
 " Before man made us citizens, great Nature made us men." 
 
 The Abbe Susini had no money, but lie was a charitable 
 man in a hasty and impulsive way. Even the very poor 
 may be charitable : they can think kindly of the rich. 
 It was not the rich of whom the abbe had a friendly 
 tliought, but the foolish and the stubborn. For this 
 fiery little priest knew more of the unwritten history of 
 the macquis than any in Corsica — infinitely more than 
 those whose business it was. 
 
 It is the custom at Ajaccio, and in a smaller way at 
 Bastia, to ignore the darker side of Corsican politics, 
 and the French officials are content with the endeavour 
 to get through their term of office with a whole skin. 
 It is not, as in other islands of the Mediterranean, the 
 gospel of " manana " which holds good here, but rather 
 the gospel of " So I found it — it will last my time." 
 So, from the prefet to the humblest gendarme, they 
 come, they serve, and they go back rejoicing to France. 
 They strike when absolutely forced to do so, but they
 
 246 THE ISLE OF UNREST. 
 
 commit the most fatal of all administrative errors 
 ■ — they strike gently. 
 
 The faults are not all on one side ; for tlie islanders 
 are at once turHulent and sullen. There are many who 
 " keep the country," as the local saying is, and wander 
 year after year in the mountain fastnesses, far above 
 road or pathway, beyond the feeble reach of the law, 
 rather than pay a trifling fine or bend their pride to 
 face a week's imprisonment. 
 
 In the macquis, as in better society, there are grades 
 of evil. Some are hiding from their own pride, others 
 are evading a lifelong sentence, while many know that 
 if the gendarme sees them he will shoot at sight — 
 running, standing, sleeping, as a keeper kills vermin. 
 Only a few months ago, on a road over which many 
 tourists must have travelled, a young man of twenty- 
 three was " destroyed " (the official term) by tlie gen- 
 darmes who wanted him for eleven murders. It is 
 commonly asserted tliat these bandits are not dangerous, 
 that they have no grievance against travellers. A 
 starving man has a grievance against the whole world, 
 and a condemned fratricide is not likely to pick and 
 choose his next victim if tempted by a little money 
 and the chance ef escape therewith from the island. 
 
 It is, moreover, usual for a man to take to the 
 macquis the moment that he finds himself involved in 
 some trouble, or, it may be, merely under suspicion.
 
 IN THE M ACQUIS. 247 
 
 From his retreat in the mountains he enters into nego- 
 tiations mth his lawyer, with the local magistrate, 
 with his witnesses, even with the police. He distrusts 
 justice itself, and only gives himself up or faces the 
 tribunal when he has made sure of acquittal or such a 
 sentence as his pride may swallow. Which details of 
 justice as understood in a province of France at the 
 beginning of the century may be read at the Assize 
 terms in those great newspapers, Le Petit Bastiais or Lc 
 Faoli Pascal, by any who have a halfpenny to spend on 
 literature. 
 
 It would appear easy enough to exterminate the 
 bandits as one would exterminate wolves or other largo 
 game ; but in such a country as Corsica, almost devoid 
 of roads, thinly populated, heavily wooded, the expense 
 would be greater than the administration is prepared 
 to incur. It would mean putting an army into the 
 field, prepared and equipped for a long campaign which 
 might ultimately reach the dignity of a civil war. Tlie 
 bandits are not worth it. The whole country is not 
 worth exploiting. Corsica is a small open wound on 
 the great back of France, carefully concealed and only 
 tended spasmodically from time to time at such periods 
 as the health of the whole frame is sufficiently good to 
 permit of serious attention being given to so small a 
 sore. And such times, as the wondering world knows, 
 are few and far between in the history of France.
 
 24B THE ISLE OF UNREST. 
 
 The law-abiding natives, or such natives as the law 
 has not found out, regard the denizens of the macquis 
 with a tender pity not unmixed with respect. As often 
 as not the bandit is a man with a real grievance, and 
 the poor have a soft place in their hearts for a man 
 with a grievance. And all Corsicans are poor. So all 
 are for the bandits, and every man's hand is secretly or 
 openly against the gendarme. Even in enmity, there 
 is a certain sense of honour among these naive people. 
 A man will shoot his foe in the back, but he will not 
 betray him to the gendarme. Among a primitive 
 people a man commands respect who has had the 
 courage to take the law into his own hands. Amidst a 
 subject population, he who rebels is not without honour. 
 
 It was among these and such as these that the Abbe 
 Susini sought from time to time his lost sheep. He 
 took a certain pleasure in donning the peasant clothes 
 that his father had worn, and in going to the mountains 
 as his forefathers had doubtless done before him. For 
 every man worthy of the name has lurking in his being 
 a remnant of the barbarian which makes him revolt 
 occasionally against the life of the city and the crowded 
 struggle of the streets, which sends him out to the waste 
 places of the world where God's air is at all events un- 
 tainted, where he may return to the primitive way of 
 living, to kill and gather with his own hands that which 
 must satisfy his own hunger.
 
 IN THE MACQUIS. 249 
 
 The abbe had never known a very highly refined state 
 of civilization. The barbarian was not buried very 
 deep. To him the voice of the wind through the trees, 
 the roar of the river, the fine, free air of the mountains 
 had a charm which he could not put into words. He 
 hungered for them as the exile hungers for the sight of 
 his own home. The air of houses choked him, as 
 sooner or later it seems to choke sailors and wanderers 
 who have known what it is to be in the open all night, 
 sleeping or waking beneath the stars, not by accident 
 as an adventure, but by habit. Then the abbe would 
 disappear for days together from Olmeta, and vanish 
 into that mystic, silent, prowling world of the macquis. 
 The sights he saw there, the men he met there, were 
 among those things which the villagers said the abbe 
 knew, but of which he never spoke. 
 
 During the stirring events of August and September 
 the priest at Olmeta, and Colonel Gilbert at Bastia, 
 watched each, in his individual way, the effect of the 
 news upon a very sensitive populace. The abbe stood 
 on the high-road one night within a stone's throw of 
 Perucca, and, looking down into the great valley, 
 watched the flickering flames consume all that remained 
 of the old Chateau de Vasselot. Colonel Gilbert, in his 
 little rooms in the bastion at Bastia, knew almost as 
 soon that the chateau was burning, and only evinced 
 his usual easy-going surprise. The colonel always
 
 250 THE ISLE OF UNREST. 
 
 seemed to be wondering that any should have the 
 energy to do active wrong; for virtue is more often 
 passive, and therefore less trouble. 
 
 The abbe was puzzled. 
 
 " An empty house," he muttered, " does not set itself 
 on fire. Who has done this ? and why ? " 
 
 For he knew every drift and current of feeling amid 
 his turbulent flock, and the burning of the chateau of 
 Vasselot seemed to serve no purpose, and to satisfy no 
 revenge. There was some influence at work which the 
 Abbe Susini did not understand. 
 
 He understood well enough that a hundred grievances 
 ■ — a hundred unsatisfied vengeances — had suddenly been 
 awakened by the events of the last months. The grip 
 of France was for a moment relaxed, and all Corsica 
 arose from its sullen sleep, not in organized revolt, but 
 in the desire to satisfy personal quarrels — to break in 
 one way or another the law which had made itself so 
 dreaded. The burning of the Chateau de Vasselot 
 might be the result of some such feeliiig ; but the abbe 
 thought otherwise. 
 
 He M^ent to Perucca, where all seemed quiet, though 
 he did not actually ring the great bell and speak to the 
 widow Andrei. 
 
 A few hours later, after nightfall, he set off on foot 
 by the road that leads to the Lancone Defile. But he 
 did not turn to the left at the cross-roads. He went
 
 IN THE MACQUIS. 251 
 
 straight on instead, by the track which ultimately leads 
 to Corte, in the middle of the island, and amidst the 
 high mountains. This is one of the loneliest spots in 
 all the lonely island, where men may wander for days 
 and never see a human being. The niacquis is thin 
 here, and not considered a desirable residence. In fact, 
 the mildest malefactor may have a whole mountain 
 to himself without any demonstration of violence 
 whatever. 
 
 This was not the abbe's destination. He was going 
 farther, where the ordinary traveller would fare worse, 
 and hurried along without looking to the left or right. 
 A half-moon was peeping through an occasional rift 
 in those heavy clouds which precede the autumn rains 
 in these latitudes, and gather with such astonishing 
 slowness and deliberation. It was not a dark night, 
 and the air was still. The abbe had mounted con- 
 siderably since leaving the cross-roads. His path now 
 entered a valley between two mountains. On either 
 side rose a sharp slope, broken, and rendered somewhat 
 inaccessible by boulders, which had at one time been 
 spilled down the mountain- side by some great upheaval, 
 and now seemed poised in patient expectance of the 
 next disturbance. 
 
 Suddenly the priest stopped, and stood rooted. A 
 faint sound, inaudible to a townsman's ear, made him 
 turn sharply to the right, and face the broken ground.
 
 252 THE ISLE OF UNREST. 
 
 A stone no bigger than a hazel nut had been dislodged 
 somewhere above him, and now rolled down to his 
 feet. The dead silence of the mountains closed over 
 him again. There was, of course, no one in sight. 
 
 " It is Susini of Olmeta," he said, speaking quietly, as 
 if he were in a room. 
 
 There was a moment's pause, and then a man rose 
 from behind a rock, and came silently on bare feet 
 down to the pathway. His approach was heralded by 
 a scent which would have roused any sporting dog to 
 frenzy. This man was witliin measurable distance of 
 the beasts of the forests. As he came into the moon- 
 light it was perceivable that he was hatless, and that 
 his tangled hair and beard were streaked with white. 
 His face was apparently black, and so were his hands. 
 He had obviously not washed himself for years. 
 
 "You here," said the abbe, recognizing one who 
 had for years and years been spoken of as a sort of 
 phantom, living in the summits— the life of an animal 
 — alone. 
 
 The other nodded. 
 
 " Then you have heard that the gendarmes are being 
 drafted into the army, and sent to France ? " 
 
 The man nodded again. He had done so long with- 
 out speech that he had no doubt come to recognize its 
 uselessness in the majority of human happenings. The 
 abbe felt in his pocket, and gave the man a packet of
 
 IN THE MACQUIS. 253 
 
 tobacco. The Corsicans, unlike nearly all other races 
 of the Mediterranean, are smokers of wooden pipes. 
 
 " Thanks," said the man. in an odd, soft voice, speak- 
 ing for the first time. 
 
 " I am going np into the mountains," said the 
 abbe, slowly, knowing no doubt that men who have 
 lived long with Nature are slow to understand words, 
 " to seek an old man who has recently gone there. 
 He is travelling with a man called Jean, who has the 
 evil eye." 
 
 " The Count de Vasselot," said the outlaw, quietly. 
 He touched his forehead with one finger and made 
 a vague wandering gesture of the hand. "I have 
 seen him. You go the wrong way. He is down 
 there, near the entrance to the Lancone Defile with 
 others." 
 
 He paused and looked round him with the slow and 
 distant glance which any may perceive in the eyes of 
 a caged wild beast. 
 
 " They are all down from the mountains," he said. 
 
 Even the Abbe Susini glanced uneasily over his 
 shoulder. These still, stony valleys were peopled by 
 the noiseless, predatory Ishmaels of the macquis. They 
 were, it is true, not numerous at this time, but those 
 who hnd escaped the clutch of the imperial law were 
 necessarily the most cunning and desperate. 
 
 " Buon," he said, turning to retrace his steps. " I
 
 254 THE ISLE OF UNREST. 
 
 shall go down to tlie Lancone Defile. God be with you, 
 my friend." 
 
 The man gave a queer laugh. He evidently thought 
 that the abbe expected too much. 
 
 The abbe Avalked until midnight, and then being 
 tired he found a quiet spot between two great rocks, 
 and lying down slept there until morning. In the 
 leather saddle-bag which formed his pillow he had 
 bread and some meat, which he ate as he walked on 
 towards the Lancone Defile. Once, soon after daylight, 
 he paused to listen, and the sound that had faintly 
 reached him was repeated. It was the warning whistle 
 of the steamer, the old Perseverance, entering Bastia 
 harbour ten miles away. He was still in the shade of 
 the great heights that lay between him and the Eastern 
 coast, and hurried while the day was cool. Then the 
 sun leapt up behind the hazy summits above Biguglia. 
 The abbe looked at his huge silver watch. It was 
 nearly eight o'clock. When he was near to the entrance 
 of the defile he stood in the middle of the road and 
 gave, in his high clear voice, the cry of the goat-herd 
 calling his flock. He gave it twice, and then repeated 
 it. If there were any in the macquis within a mile of 
 him they could not fail to see him as he stood on the 
 dusty road in the sunlight. 
 
 He was not disappointed. In a few minutes the 
 closely-set arbutus bushes above the road were pushed
 
 IN THE MACQUIS. 255 
 
 aside and a boy came out — an evil-faced youth with 
 a loose mouth. 
 
 " It is Jean of the Evil Eye who has sent me," he 
 said glibly, with an eye on the abbe's hands in case 
 there should be a knife. " He is up there with a 
 broken leg. He has with him the old man." 
 
 " The old man ? " repeated the abbe, interrogatively, 
 
 " Yes, he who is foolish." 
 
 " Show me the way," said Susini. " You need not 
 look at my hands ; I have nothing in them." 
 
 They climbed the steep slope that overhung the 
 road, forcing their way through the thick brushwood, 
 stumbling over the chaos of stones. Quite suddenly 
 they came upon a group of men sitting round a 
 smouldering fire where a tin coffee-pot stood amid the 
 ashes. One man had his leg roughly tied up in sticks. 
 It was Jean of the Evil Eye, who looked hard at the 
 Abbe Susini, and then turning, indicated with a nod the 
 Count de Vasselot who sat leaning against a tree. The 
 count recognized Susini and nodded vaguely. His 
 face, once bleached by long confinement, was burnt to 
 a' deep red ; his eyes were quite irresponsible. 
 
 " He is worse," said Jean, without lowering his voice. 
 " Sometimes I can only keej) him here by force. He 
 thinks the whole island is looking for him — he never 
 sleeps." 
 
 Jean was interrupted by the evil-faced boy, who had
 
 256 TDE ISLE OP UNREST. 
 
 risen, and was peering down towards the gates of tlio 
 defile. 
 
 " Tliere is a carriage on the road," he said. 
 
 They all listened. There were three other men 
 whom the abbe knew by sight and reputation. One 
 by one they rose to their feet and slowly cocked their 
 old-fashioned single-barrelled guns. 
 
 " It is the carriage from Olmeta — must be going to 
 Perucca," reported the boy. 
 
 And at the word Perucca, the count scrambled to his 
 feet, only to be dragged back by Jean. The old man's 
 eyes were alight with fear and hatred. He was grasping 
 Jean's gun. The abbe rose and peered down through 
 the bushes. Then he turned sharply and wrenched 
 Jean's firearm from the count's hands. 
 
 " They are friends of mine," he said. " The man who 
 shoots will be shot by me." 
 
 All turned and looked at him. They knew the abbe 
 and the gun. And while they looked, Denise and 
 Mademoiselle Brun drove past in safety.
 
 TIIEY SLOWLY COCKED THEIR OLD-FASHIONED SINGLE-BARRELLED GUNS.
 
 ( 257 ) 
 
 CHAPTER XXIir. 
 
 AN UNDEKSTANDIXG. 
 
 " Keep cool, and you command everybody." 
 
 Whex France realized that Napoleon III. had fallen, 
 she turned and rent his memory. No dog, it appears, 
 may have his day, but some cur must needs yelp at 
 his heels. Indeed (and this applies to literary fame 
 as to emperors), it is a sure sign that a man is climbing 
 high if the little dogs bark below. 
 
 And the little dogs and the curs remembered now 
 the many slights cast upon them. France had been 
 betrayed — was ruined. The twenty most prosperous 
 years of her history were forgotten. There was a rush 
 of patriots to Paris, and another rush of the chicken- 
 hearted to the coast and the frontier. 
 
 The Baron de Melide telegraphed to the baroness 
 to quit Frejus and go to Italy. And the baroness 
 telegraphed a refusal to do so. 
 
 Lory de Vasselot fretted as much as one of his buoyant 
 nature could fret under this forced inactivity. The sun- 
 shine, the beautiful surroundings, and the presence of 
 
 S
 
 258 THE ISLE OF UNREST. 
 
 friends, made him forget France at times, and think only 
 of the present. And Denise absorbed his thoughts of 
 the present and the future. She was a constant puzzle 
 to him. There seemed to be two Denise Lauges : one 
 who was gay with that deep note of wisdom in her 
 gaiety, which only French women compass, with odd 
 touches of tenderness and little traits of almost 
 maternal solicitude, which betrayed themselves at 
 such moments as the wounded man attempted to do 
 something which his crippled condition or his weak- 
 ness prevented him from accomplishing. The other 
 Denise was clear-eyed, logical, almost cold, who re- 
 sented any mention of Corsica or of the war. Indeed, 
 de Vasselot had seen her face harden at some laugh- 
 ing reference made by him to his approacliing 
 recovery. He was quick enough to perceive that 
 she was endeavouring to shut out of her life all but 
 the present, which was unusual; for most pin their 
 faith on the future until they are quite old, and their 
 future must necessarily be a phantom. 
 
 " I do not understand you, mademoiselle," he said, 
 one day, on one of the rare occasions when she had 
 allowed herself to be left alone with him. " You are 
 brave, and yet you are a coward ! " 
 
 And the resentment in her eyes took him by surprise. 
 He did not know, perhaps, that the wisest men never 
 see more than they are intended to see.
 
 AN UNDERSTANDING. i:50 
 
 " Pray do not try," she answered. " The eflurt might 
 dehiy your recovery and your return to the army." 
 
 She laughed, and presently left him. It is one 
 thing to face the future, and another to sit quietly 
 awaiting its approach. The majority of people spoil 
 their lives by going out to meet the future, deliberately 
 converting into a reality that which was only a dread. 
 They call it knowing the worst. 
 
 The next morning Mademoiselle Brun, with a com- 
 posed face and blinking eyes, mentioned casually 
 to Lory that she and Denise were going back to 
 Corsica. 
 
 " But why ? " cried Lory ; " but why, my dear 
 demoiselle ? " 
 
 " I do not know," answered Mademoiselle Brun, 
 smoothing her gloves. ''It will, at all events, show 
 the world that we are not afraid." 
 
 De Vasselot looked at her non-committing face and 
 held his peace. There was more in this than a man's 
 philosophy might dream of. 
 
 " When do you go ? " he asked after a pause. 
 
 " To-night, from Nice," was the answer. 
 
 And, as has been noted, Denise and mademoiselle 
 arrived at Bastia in the early morning, and drove to the 
 Casa Perucca, in the face of more than one rifle-barrel. 
 Mademoiselle Brun never asked questions, and, if she 
 knew why Denise had returned to Perucca so suddenly,
 
 260 THE ISLE OP UNREST. 
 
 she had not acquired the knowledge from the gul 
 herself, but had, behind her beady eyes, put two and 
 two together with that accuracy of which women have 
 the monopoly. She meekly set to work to make the 
 Casa Perucca comfortable, and took up her horti- 
 cultural labours where she had dropped them. 
 
 " One misses the Chateau de Vasselot," she said one 
 morning, standing by the open window that gave so 
 wide a view of the valley. 
 
 "Yes," answered Denise ; and that was all. 
 
 Mademoiselle went into the garden with her leather 
 gloves and a small basket. The odd thing about her 
 gardening was, that it was on such a minute scale 
 that the result was never visible to the ordinary eye. 
 Denise had, it appeared, given up gardening. Made- 
 moiselle Brun did not know how she occupied herself 
 at this time. She seemed to do nothing, and preferred 
 to do it alone. Eeturning to the house at midday, 
 mademoiselle went into the drawing-room, and there 
 found Denise and Colonel Gilbert seated at the table 
 with some papers, and a map spread out before them. 
 
 Both looked up with a guilty air, and Denise flushed 
 suddenly, while the colonel bit his lip. Immediately 
 he recovered himself, and rising, shook hands with the 
 new-comer. 
 
 " I heard that you had returned," he said, " and 
 hastened to pay my respects,"
 
 AN UNDEESTANDlNG. 261 
 
 "We were looking at the plans," added Denise, 
 hurriedly. " I have agreed to sell Perucca to Colonel 
 Gilbert — as you have always wished me to do." 
 
 " Yes ; I have always wished you do it," returned 
 Mademoiselle Brun, slowly. She was very cool and 
 collected, and in that had the advantage over her com- 
 panions. " Has the colonel the money in his pocket ? " 
 she asked with a dry smile. " Is it to be settled this 
 afternoon ? " 
 
 She glanced from one to the other. If love is blind, 
 he certainly tampers with the sight of those who have 
 had dealings with him. Denise was only thinking of 
 Perucca. She had not perceived that Colonel Gilbert 
 was honestly in love with her. But Mademoiselle Brun 
 saw it. She was wondering — if this thing had come to 
 Gilbert twenty years earlier — what manner of man it 
 might have made of him. It was a good love. Made- 
 moiselle saw that quite clearly. For a dishonest man 
 may at any moment be tripped up by an honest passion. 
 Which is one of those practical jokes of Fate that break 
 men's hearts. 
 
 " You know as well as I do," said Colonel Gilbert, 
 with more earnestness than he had ever shown, " that 
 the sooner you and mademoiselle are out of the island 
 the better." 
 
 " Bah ! " laughed mademoiselle. " With you at 
 Bastia to watch over us, mon colonel ! Besides, we
 
 262 THE ISLE OP UNREST. 
 
 Peruccas are invincible just now. Have we not burnt 
 down the Chateau de Vasselot ?" 
 
 Gilbert winced. Mademoiselle wondered why. 
 
 " I want it settled as soon as possible," put in 
 Denise, turning to the papers. " There is no need of 
 delay." 
 
 "None," acquiesced mademoiselle. She wanted to 
 sell Perucca and be done with it, and with the island. 
 She was a woman of iron nerve, but the gloom and 
 loneliness of Corsica had not left her at ease. There 
 was a haunting air of disaster that seemed to brood over 
 the whole land, with its miles and miles of untenanted 
 mountains, its malarial plains, and deserted sea-board. 
 " None," she repeated. " But such transactions are not 
 to be carried through, in a woman's drawing-room, 
 by two women and a soldier." 
 
 She looked from one to the other. She did not 
 know why one wanted to buy and the other to sell. She 
 only knew that her own inclination was to give tliem 
 every assistance, and to give it even against her better 
 judgment. It could only be, after all, the question of a 
 little more or a little less profit, and she, who had never 
 had any money, knew that the possession of it never 
 makes a woman one whit the happier. 
 
 " Then," said the colonel with his easy laugh — for he 
 was inimitable in the graceful art of yielding — " Then, 
 let us appoint a day to sign the necessary agreements
 
 AN UNDERSTANDING. 2G3 
 
 iu the office of tlie notary at Bastia. I tell you frankly 
 I want to get you out of the island." 
 
 The colonel stayed to lunch, and, whether by accident 
 or intention, made a better impression than he had ever 
 made before. He was intelligent, easy, full of informa- 
 tion and rara avis! proved himself to be a man without 
 conceit. He never complained of his ill-fortune in life, 
 but his individuality thrust the fact into every mind, 
 that this was a man destined for distinction who had 
 missed it. He seemed to be riding through life for a 
 fall, and rode with his chin up, gay and dehonnairc. 
 
 Mademoiselle Brun felt relieved by the thought tliat 
 the end of Corsica, and this impossible Casa Perucca, 
 was in sight. She was gay as a little grey mouse may 
 be gay at some domestic festivah She sent the widow 
 to the cellar, and the occasion was duly cele]3rated in a 
 bottle of Mattel Perucca's old wine. 
 
 With coffee came the question of fixing a date for the 
 signature of the deed of sale at the notary's office at 
 Bastia. And instantly the mouse skipped, as it were, 
 into a retired corner of the conversation and crouched 
 silent, watching with bright eyes. 
 
 " I should like it to be done soon," said the colonel, 
 who, at the suggestion of his hostess, had lighted a 
 cigarette. He seemed more himself witli a cigarette 
 between his fingers to contemplate with a dreamy eye, 
 to turn and twist in reflective idleness. " You will
 
 264 THE ISLE OF UNREST. 
 
 ■understand that my future movements are uncertain if, 
 as now seems possible, the war is not over." 
 
 " But surely it is over," put in Denise, quickly. 
 
 The colonel shruffs^ed his shoulders. 
 
 " Who can tell ? We are in the hands of a few 
 journalists and lawyers, mademoiselle. If the men 
 of words say 'Eesist,' we others are ready. I have 
 applied to be relieved of my command here, since 
 they are going to fortify Paris. Shall we say next 
 week ? " 
 
 "To-day is Thursday— shall we say Monday?" 
 replied Denise. 
 
 " Make it Wednesday," suggested Mademoiselle Brun 
 from her silent corner. 
 
 And after some discussion Wednesday was finally 
 selected. Mademoiselle Brun had no particular reason 
 why it should be Wednesday, in preference to Monday, 
 and, unlike most people in such circumstances, advanced 
 none. 
 
 " We shall require witnesses," she said as the colonel 
 took his leave. " I shall be able to find two to testify 
 to the signature of Denise." 
 
 The colonel had apparently forgotten this necessity. 
 He thanked her and departed. 
 
 " And on Wednesday," he said, " I shall in reality 
 have the money in my pocket." 
 
 During the afternoon mademoiselle announced her
 
 AN UXDERSTANDIKG. 265 
 
 intention of walking to Olmeta. It would be advisable 
 to secure the Abbe Susini as a witness, she said. He 
 was a busy man, and a journey to Bastia woidd of 
 necessity take u-p his whole day. Denise did not offer 
 to accompany her, so she set out alone at a quick pace, 
 learnt, no doubt, in the Eue des Saints Peres. 
 
 " They will not shoot at an old woman," she said, and 
 never looked aside. 
 
 The priest's housekeeper received her coldly. Yes, 
 the abbe was at home, she said, holding the door ajar 
 with scant hospitality. Mademoiselle pushed it open 
 and went into the narrow passage. She had not too 
 much respect for a priest, and none whatever for a 
 priest's housekeeper, who kept a house so badly. She 
 looked at the dirty floor, and with a subtle feminine 
 irony, sought the mat which was lying in the road 
 outside the house. She folded her hands at her waist, 
 and still grasping her cheap cotton umbrella, waited to 
 be announced. 
 
 The Abbe Susini received her in his little bare 
 study, where a few newspapers, lialf a dozen ancient 
 volumes of theology and a life of Napoleon the Great, 
 represented literature. He bowed silently and drew 
 forward his own horsehair armchair. Mademoiselle 
 Brun sat down, and crossed her hands upon the hilt of 
 her umbrella like a soldier at rest under arms. She 
 waited until the housekeeper had closed the door and
 
 26 G THE ISLE OF UNREST. 
 
 shuffled away to her own quarters. Then she looked 
 the resolute little abbe straight in the eyes. 
 
 "Let us understand each other," she said. 
 
 " Bon Dieu ! upon what point, mademoiselle ? " 
 
 Mademoiselle was still looking at him. Slie per- 
 ceived that there were some points upon which the 
 priest did not desire to be understood. She held up 
 one finger in its neutral- coloured cotton glove, and 
 shook it slowly from side to side. 
 
 " None of your theology," she said ; " I come to you 
 as a man — the only man I think in this island at 
 present." 
 
 " At present ? " 
 
 "Yes, the other is in France, recovering from his 
 wounds." 
 
 " Ah ! " said the abbe, glancing shrewdly into her 
 face. " You also have perceived that he is a man — that. 
 But there is our good Colonel Gilbert. You forget 
 him." 
 
 " He would have made a good priest," said made- 
 moiselle, bluntly, and the abbe laughed aloud. 
 
 " Ah ! but you amuse me, mademoiselle. You 
 amuse me enormously." And he leant back to laugh 
 at his ease. 
 
 " Yes, I came on purpose to amuse you. I came to 
 tell you that Denise Lange has sold Perucca to Colonel 
 Gilbert."
 
 AN UNDERSTANDING. 267 
 
 " Sacred name of — thunder," he muttered, the mirth 
 wiped away from his face as if with a cloth. He sat 
 bolt upright, glaring at her, his restless foot tapping on 
 the floor. 
 
 " Ah, you women ! " he ejaculated after a pause. 
 
 "Ah, you priests!" returned Mademoiselle Brun, 
 composedly. 
 
 " And you did not stop it," he said, looking at her 
 with undisguised contempt. 
 
 " I have no control. I used to have a little ; now I 
 have none." 
 
 She finished with a gesture, describing the action of 
 a leaf blown before the wind. 
 
 " But I have put off the signiug of the papers until 
 Wednesday," she continued. " I have undertaken to 
 provide two witnesses, yourself if you will consent, 
 the other — I thought we might get the other from 
 Frejus between now and Wednesday. A boat from 
 St. Florent to-night could surely, with this wind, 
 reach St. Eaphael to-morrow." 
 
 The abbe was looking at her with manifest approval, 
 
 '■' Clever," he said — " clever." 
 
 Mademoiselle Brun rose to go as abruptly as she had 
 come. 
 
 " Personally," she said, " I shall be glad to be 
 rid of Perucca for ever — but I fancied there are 
 reasons."
 
 268 THE ISLE OP UNREST. 
 
 " Yes," said the priest, slowly, " there are reasons." 
 " Oh ! I ask no questions," she snapped out at 
 him with her hand on the door. On the threshold she 
 paused. " All the same," she said, " I do ask a question. 
 Why does Colonel Gilbert want to buy ? " 
 
 The priest threw up his hands in angry bewilder- 
 ment. 
 
 " That is it! " he cried. " I wish I knew." 
 " Then find out," said mademoiselle, " between now 
 and Wednesday." 
 
 And with a curt nod she left him.
 
 ( 2C9 ) 
 
 CHAPTER XXIV, 
 
 "CE QUE FEMME VEUT." 
 
 " All nature is but art, unknown to thee ! 
 All chance, direction which thou canst not see." 
 
 It rained all night with a semi-tropical enthusiasm. 
 The autumn rains are looked for in these latitudes at 
 certain dates, and if by chance they fail, the whole 
 winter will be disturbed and broken. With sunrise, 
 however, the clouds broke on the western side of the 
 island, and from the summit of the great Perucca rock 
 the blue and distant sea was visible through the grey 
 confusion of mist and cloud. The autumn had been 
 a dry one, so tke whole mountain-side was clothed in 
 shades of red and brown, rising from the scarlet of the 
 blackberry leaves to the deep amber of the bare rock, 
 where all vegetation ceased. The distant peeps of the 
 valley of Vasselot glowed blue and purple, the sea was 
 a bright cobalt, and through the broken clouds the sun 
 cast shafts of yellow gold and shimmering silver. The 
 whole effect was dazzling, and such as dim Northern 
 eyes can scarce imagine.
 
 270 THE ISLE OF UNKEST. 
 
 Mademoiselle Brim, who had just risen from the table 
 where she and Denise had had their early breakfast of 
 coffee and bread, was standing by the window that 
 opened npon the verandah where old Mattei Perucca 
 had passed so many hours of his life. 
 
 " One should build on this spot," she began, " a con- 
 valescent home for atheists." 
 
 She broke off, and staggered back. The room, the 
 verandah, the whole world it seemed, was shaking and 
 vibrating like a rickety steam-engine. For a moment 
 the human senses were paralyzed by a deafening roar 
 and rattle. Mademoiselle Brun turned to Denise, and 
 for a time they clung to each other ; and then Denise, 
 whose strong young arms half lifted her companion 
 from the ground, gained the open window. She held 
 there for a moment, and then staggered across the 
 verandah and down the steps, dragging mademoiselle 
 with her. 
 
 There was no question of speech, of thought, of 
 understanding. They merely stood, holding to each 
 other, and watching the house; Then a sudden silence 
 closed over the world, and all was still. Denise turned 
 and looked down into the valley, smiling beneath them 
 in its brilliant colouring. Her hand was at her throat 
 as if she were choking. Mademoiselle, shaking in every 
 limb, turned and sat down on a garden seat. Denise 
 would not sit, but stood shaking and swaying like a
 
 "CE QUE FEMME VEUT." 271 
 
 reed in a mistral. And yet each in her way was as brave 
 a woman as could be found even in their own country. 
 
 Mademoiselle Brun leant forward, and held her head 
 between her two hands, while she stared at the ground 
 between her feet. At last speech came to her, but not 
 her natural voice. 
 
 "I suppose," she said, passing her little shrivelled 
 hand across her eyes, " that it was an earthquake." 
 
 "iSTo," said Denise. "Look!" And she pointed 
 with a shaking finger down towards the river. 
 
 A great piece of the mountain-side, comprising half 
 a dozen vine terraces, a few olive terraces, and a patch 
 of piuewood, had fallen bodily down into tlie river-bed, 
 leaving the slope a bare and scarified mass of rock and 
 red soil. The little Guadelle river, a tributary of the 
 Aliso, was completely dammed. Perucca was the 
 poorer by the complete disappearance of one of its 
 sunniest slopes, but the house stood unhurt. 
 
 " No more will fall," said Denise presently. " See ; 
 there is the bare rock." 
 
 Mademoiselle rose, and came slowly towards Denise. 
 They were recovering from their terror now. For at 
 all events, the cause of it lay before them, and lacked 
 the dread uncertainty of an earthquake. Mademoiselle 
 gave an odd laugh. 
 
 " It is the boundary-line between Perucca and Vasse- 
 lot," she said, " that has fallen into the valley."
 
 272 THE ISLE OF UNBEST. 
 
 Denise was thinking the same thought, and made 
 no answer. The footpath from the chateau up to the 
 Casa by which Gilbert had come on the day of Mattel 
 Perucca's death, by which he had also ridden to the 
 chateau one day, was completely obliterated. Where 
 it had crept along the face of the slope, there now rose 
 a bare red rock. There was no longer a short cut from 
 the one house to the other. It made Perucca all the 
 more inaccessible, 
 
 " Curious," whispered Mademoiselle Brun to herself, 
 as she turned towards the house. She went indoors to 
 get a hat, for the autumn sun was now glaring down 
 upon them. 
 
 When she came out again, Denise was sitting look- 
 ing thoughtfully down into the valley where had once 
 stood the old chateau, now gone, to which had led this 
 pathway, now wiped off the face of the earth. 
 
 " There is assuredly," she said, without looking round, 
 "a curse upon this country." 
 
 Which Seneca had thought eighteen hundred years 
 before, and which the history of the islands steadily 
 confirms. 
 
 Mademoiselle was drawing on her gloves, and carried 
 her umbrella. 
 
 " I am going down the pathway to look at it all," 
 she said. 
 
 There was nothing to be done. When Nature
 
 "GE QUE FEMME VEUT." 273 
 
 takes things into her own hands, men can only stand 
 by and look. Denise was perhaps more shaken than 
 the smaller, tougher woman. She made no attem[)t 
 to accompany mademoiselle, but sat in the shade of a 
 mimosa tree, and watched her descend into the valley, 
 now appearing, now hidden, in the brushwood. 
 
 Mademoiselle Brun made her way to the spot where 
 the pathway was suddenly cut short by the avalanche 
 of rock and rubble and soil. It happened to be the 
 exact spot where Colonel Gilbert's heavy horse had 
 stumbled months before, where the footpath crossed 
 the bed of a small mountain torrent. A few loosened 
 stones had come bowling down the slope, set free by 
 the landslip. These had fallen on to the pathway, and 
 there shattered themselves into a thousand pieces. 
 Mademoiselle stood among the debris. She looked 
 down in order to make sure of her foothold, and some- 
 thing caught her eye. She knelt down eagerly, and 
 then, looking up, glanced round surreptitiously like 
 a thief. She could not see the Casa Perucca. She 
 was alone on this solitary mountain-side. Slowly she 
 collected the debris of the broken rock, which was 
 mixed with a red powdery soil. 
 
 " Ciel ! " she whispered, " Ciel ! what fools we have 
 all been ! " 
 
 She rose from her knees with one clasped handful 
 of rubble. Slowly and thoughtfully she climbed the 
 
 T
 
 274 THE ISLE OF UNREST. 
 
 hill again. On the terrace, where she arrived hot and 
 tired, the widow Andrei met her. The woman had been 
 to the village on an errand, and had returned during 
 mademoiselle's absence. 
 
 " The Abbe Susini awaits you in the library," she 
 said. "He asked for you and not for mademoiselle, 
 who has gone to her own garden." 
 
 Mademoiselle hurried into the library. The arrival 
 of the abbe at this moment seemed providential, though 
 the explanation of it was simple enough. 
 
 " I came," he said, looking at her keenly, " on a 
 fool's errand. I came to ask whether the ladies were 
 afraid." 
 
 IMademoiselle gave a chilly smile. 
 
 " The ladies were not afraid. Monsieur I'Abbe," she 
 said. " They were terrified — since you ask." 
 
 She went to a side-table and brought a newspaper ; 
 for even in her excitement she was scrupulously tidy. 
 She laid it on the table in front of the abbe, rather 
 awkwardly with her left hand, and then, holding her 
 right over the newspaper, she suddenly opened it, and let 
 fall a little heap of stones and soil. Some of the stones 
 had a singular rounded appearance. 
 
 The abbe treated her movements with the kindly 
 interest offered at the shrine of childhood or imbecility. 
 It was evident that he supposed that the landslip had 
 unhinged Mademoiselle Brun's reason,
 
 "CE QUE FEMME VEUT." 275 
 
 " What is that ? " he asked soothingly, contemplating 
 the mineral trophy. 
 
 " I think," answered mademoiselle, " that it is the 
 explanation." 
 
 " The explanation of what, if one may inquire ? " 
 
 " Of your precious colonel," said mademoiselle. 
 "That is gold. Monsieur I'Abbe. I have seen similar 
 dirt in a museum in Paris." She took up one of the 
 pebbles. " Scrape it with your knife," she said, handing 
 it to him. 
 
 The abbe obeyed her, and volunteered on his own 
 account to bite it. He handed it back to her with the 
 marks of his teeth on it, and one side of it scraped clean 
 showing pure gold. Then he walked pensively to the 
 window, where he stood with his back turned to her in 
 deep thought for some minutes. At length he turned 
 on his heel and looked at her. 
 
 "It began," he said, holding up one finger and 
 shaking it slowly from side to side, which seemed to 
 indicate that his hearer must be silent for a while, 
 " long ago. I see it now." 
 
 " Part of it," corrected mademoiselle, inexorably. 
 
 " He must have discovered it two years ago when he 
 first surveyed this country for the proposed railway. 
 I see now why that man from St. Florent shot Pietro 
 Andrei on the high-road. Pietro Andrei was in the 
 way, and a little subtle revival of a forgotten vendetta
 
 276 TDE ISLE OF UNREST. 
 
 secured his removal, I see now whence came the 
 anonymous letter intended to frighten Mattel Perucca 
 away from here. It frightened him into the next world." 
 
 " And 1 see now," interrupted the refractory listener, 
 " why Denise received an offer for the estate before 
 she had become possessed of it, and an offer of marriage 
 before we had been here a month. But he tripped and 
 fell then," she concluded grimly. 
 
 " And all for money," said the abbe, contemptuously. 
 
 " Wait," said mademoiselle — " wait till you have 
 yourself been tempted. So many fall. It must be 
 greater than we think, that temptation. You and I 
 perhaps have never had it." 
 
 " No," replied the abbe', simply. " There has never 
 been more than a sou in my poor-box at the church. 
 I see now," continued Susini, " who has been 
 stirring up this old strife between the Peruccas and 
 the Vasselots — offering, as he was, to buy from one and 
 the other alternately. This dirt, mademoiselle, must 
 lie on both estates." 
 
 " It lies between the two." 
 
 The priest was deep in thought, rubbing his stubbly 
 chin with two fingers. 
 
 " I see so much now," he said at length, " which I 
 never understood before." 
 
 He turned towards the window, and looked down at 
 the rocky slope with a new interest.
 
 "CE QUE FEMME VEUT." 277 
 
 "There must be a great quantity of it," he said 
 reflectively. " He has M'alked over so many obstacles 
 to get to it, with his pleasant laugh." 
 
 " He has walked over his own heart," said mademoi- 
 selle, persistently contemplating the question from the 
 woman's point of view. 
 
 The priest moved impatiently. 
 
 " I was thinking of men's lives," he said. Then he 
 turned and faced her with a sudden gleam in his eye. 
 " There is one thing yet unexplained — the burning of 
 the Chateau de Vasselot. An empty house does not 
 ignite itself. Explain me that." 
 
 Mademoiselle shrugged her shoulders. 
 
 " That still remains to be explained," she said. " In 
 the mean time we must act." 
 
 " I know that — I know that," he cried. " I have 
 acted ! I am acting I De Vasselot arrives in Corsica 
 to-morrow night. A letter from him crossed the mes- 
 sage I sent to him by a special boat from St, Florent 
 last night." 
 
 " What brings him here ? " 
 
 The abbe turned and looked at lier with scorn. 
 
 " Bah ! " he cried. " You know as well as I. It is 
 the eyes of Mademoiselle Denise." 
 
 He took his hat and went towards the door. 
 
 " On Wednesday morning, if you do not see me 
 before, at the office of the notary, in the Boulevard du
 
 278 THE ISLE OP UNREST. 
 
 Palais at Bastia," he said. "Wliere there will be a 
 pretty salad for Mister the Colonel, prepared for him 
 by a woman and a priest — eh ! Both your witnesses 
 shall be there, mademoiselle — both." 
 
 He broke off with a langh and an upward jerk of the 
 head. 
 
 "Ah ! but he is a pretty scoundrel, your colonel." 
 
 "He is not my colonel," returned Mademoiselle 
 Brun. " Besides, even he has his good points. He is 
 brave, and he is capable of an honest affection." 
 
 The priest gave a scornful laugh. 
 
 "Ah! you women," he cried. "You think that 
 excuses everything. You do not know that if it is 
 worth anything it should make a man better instead of 
 worse. Otherwise it is not worth a snap of my finger 
 — your honest affection." 
 
 And he came back into the room on purpose to snap 
 his finger, in his rude way, quite close to Mademoiselle 
 Brun's parchment face.
 
 { 279 ) 
 
 CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 ON THE GREAT ROAD. 
 
 " Look in my face ; my name is Might-Have-Been. 
 I am also called No More, Too Late, Farewell." 
 
 " This," said the captain of the Jane, the Barou de 
 Me'lide's yacht, " is the bay of St, Florent. We anchor 
 a little further in." 
 
 "Yes," answered Lory, who stood on the bridge 
 beside the sailor, " I know it. I am glad to see it 
 again — to smell the smell of Corsica again." 
 
 "Monsieur le Comte is attached to his native 
 country ? " suggested the captain, consulting the chart 
 which he held folded in his hand. 
 
 De Vasselot was looking through a pair of marine 
 glasses across the hills to where the Perucca rock 
 jutted out of the mountain side. 
 
 " No ; I hate it. But I am glad to come back," he 
 said. 
 
 '•' Monsieur will be welcomed by his people. It is a 
 great power, the voice of the people." For the captain 
 was a Eepublican.
 
 280 THE ISLE OF UNREST. 
 
 " It is the bleating of sheep, mon capitaine," returned 
 de Vasselot, with a laugh. 
 
 They stood side by side in silence while the steamer 
 crept steadily forward into the shallow bay. Already 
 a boat had left the town wall, and was sailing out 
 leisurely on the evening breeze towards them. It came 
 alongside. De Yasselot gave some last instructions to 
 the captain, said farewell, and left the ship. It was a 
 soldier's breeze, and the boat ran free. In a few minutes 
 de Vasselot stepped ashore. The abbe was waiting for 
 him at the steps. It was almost dark, but de Vasselot 
 could see the priest's black eyes flashing with some 
 new excitement. De Vasselot held out his hand, but 
 Susini made a movement, of which the new-comer 
 recognized the significance in his quick way. He took 
 a step forward, and they embraced after the manner of 
 the French. 
 
 " Voila ! " said the abbe, " we are friends at last." 
 
 " I have always known that you were mine," 
 answered Lory. 
 
 " Good. And now I have bad news for you. A 
 friend's privilege. Monsieur le Comte." 
 
 "Ah," said Lory, looking sharply at him, 
 
 " Your father. I have found him and lost him 
 again. I found him where I knew he would be, in 
 the macquis, living the life that they live there, 
 with perfect tranquillity. Jean was with him. By
 
 ON THE GREAT ROAD. 281 
 
 some means or otlier Jean got wind of a proposed 
 investigation of the chateau. The Peruccas people 
 have been stirred up lately ; but that is a long story 
 which I cannot tell you now. At all events, they 
 quitted the chateau a few hours before the house was 
 mysteriously burnt down. To-day I received a message 
 from Jean. Your father left their camp before daybreak 
 to-day. All night he had been restless. He was in 
 a panic that the Peruccas are seeking him. He is no 
 longer responsible, mon ami ; his mind is gone. Prom 
 his muttered talk of the last few days, they conclude 
 that he is making his way south to Bonifacio, in order 
 to cross the straits from there to Sardinia. He is on 
 foot, alone, and deranged. There is my news." 
 
 "And Jean ? " asked de Vasselot, curtly ; for he was 
 quick in decision and in action. 
 
 " Jean has but half recovered from an accident. 
 The small bone of his leg was broken by a fall. He is 
 following on the back of an old horse which cannot 
 trot, the only one he could procure. I have ready for 
 you a good horse. You have but to follow the track 
 over tlie mountains due south — you know the stars, 
 you, who are a cavalry officer — until you join the Corte 
 road at Ponte Alle Leccia, then there is but the one 
 road to Bocognano. If you overtake your poor father, 
 you have but to detain him until Jean comes up. You 
 may trust Jean to bring him safely back to the yacht
 
 282 THE ISLE OF UNREST. 
 
 here as arranged. But you must be at Bastia at the 
 Hotel Clement at ten o'clock on "Wednesday morn- 
 ing. That is absolutely necessary. You understand — 
 life or death, you must be there. I and a woman, who 
 is clever enough, are mixing a salad for some one at 
 Bastia on Wednesday morning, and it is you who 
 are the vinegar." 
 
 " Where is the horse ? " asked Lory. 
 
 " It is a few paces away. Come, I will show you." 
 
 " Ah ! " cried Lory, whose voice had a ring of excite- 
 ment in it that always came when action was imminent. 
 " But I cannot go at that pace. It is not only Jean 
 who has but one leg. Your arm — thank you. Now 
 we can go." 
 
 And he limped by the side of Susini through the 
 dark alleys of St. Florent. The horse was waiting for 
 them beneath an archway which de Vasselot remembered. 
 It was the entry to the stable where he had left his 
 horse on the occasion of his first arrival in Corsica. 
 
 " Aha ! " he said, with a sort of glee as he settled 
 himself in the saddle. " It is good to be across a horse 
 again. Pity you are a priest ; you might come with me. 
 It will be a fine night for a ride. What a pity you 
 are a priest ! You were not meant for one, you 
 know." 
 
 " I am as the good God made me, and a little worse," 
 returned Susini. " That is your road."
 
 ON THE GREAT ROAD. 283 
 
 And so they parted. Lory rode on, liappy in that lie 
 was called upon to act without too much thought. 
 For those who think most, laugh least. De Vasselot's 
 life had been empty enough until the outbreak of the 
 war, and now it was full to overflowing. And though 
 France had fallen, and he himself, it would appear, 
 must be a pauper ; though his father must inevitably 
 be a living sorrow, which one who tasted it has told us 
 is worse than a dead one ; though Denise would have 
 nothing to say to him, — yet he was happier than he had 
 ever been. He was wise enough not to sift his happi- 
 ness. He had never spoken of it to others. It is wise not 
 to confide one's happiness to another ; he may pull it 
 to pieces in his endeavour to find out how it is 
 made. 
 
 The onlooker may only guess at the inner parts of 
 another's life ; but at times one may catch a glimpse of 
 the light that another sees. And it is, therefore, to be 
 safely presumed that Lory de Yasselot found a certain 
 happiness in the unswerving execution of his duty. 
 Not only as a soldier, but as a man, he rejoiced in a 
 strict sense of duty, which, in sober earnest, is one of 
 the best gifts that a man may possess. He had not 
 inherited it from father or mother. He had not acquired 
 it at St. Cyr. He had merely received it at second- 
 hand from Mademoiselle Brun, at third-hand from that 
 fat old General Lange who fell at Solferino. For the
 
 284 THE ISLE OF UNREST. 
 
 sclioo]girl in the Paie du Cherche-Midi was quite right 
 when she had pounced upon Mademoiselle Brun's secret, 
 which, however, lay safely dead and buried on that 
 battlefield. And Mademoiselle Brun had taught, had 
 shaped Henri de Melide; and Henri de Melide had 
 always been Lory de Vasselot's best friend. So the thin 
 silver thread of good had been woven through the web 
 of more lives than the little woman ever dreamt. Who 
 shall say what good or what evil the meanest of us 
 may thus accomplish ? 
 
 De Vasselot never thought of these things. He was 
 content to go straight ahead without looking down 
 those side paths into which so many immature thinkers 
 stray. He had fought at Sedan, had thrown his life with 
 no niggard hand into the balance. When wounded he had 
 cunningly escaped the attentions of the official field 
 hospitals. He might easily have sent in his name to 
 Prussian head-quarters as that of a wounded officer 
 begging to be released on imroh. But he cherished 
 the idea of living to fight another day. Denise, with 
 word and glance, and, more potent still, with silence, 
 had tempted him a hundred times to abandon the 
 idea of further service to France. " She does not under- 
 stand," he concluded ; and he threw Denise into the 
 balance. She made it clear to him that he must 
 choose between her and France. Without hesitation 
 he threw his happiness into the balance. For this
 
 ON THE GREAT ROAD. 285 
 
 Corsican — this dapper sportsman of the Bois tie 
 Boulogne and Longchamps — was, after all, that creation 
 of which the world has need to be most proud — a man. 
 
 Duty hud been his guiding light, though he himself 
 would have laughed the gayest denial to such an 
 accusation. Duty had brought him to Corsica. And — 
 for there is no human happiness that is not spiced by 
 duty — he had tlie hope of seeing Denise. 
 
 He rode up the valley of the Guadelle blithely 
 enough, despite the fact that his leg pained him and 
 his left arm ached abominably. Of course, he would 
 find his father — he knew that ; and the peace and quiet 
 of some rural home in France would restore the wander- 
 ing reason. And all was for the best in the best possible 
 world ! For Lory was a Frenchman, and into the 
 French nature there has assuredly filtered some of the 
 light of that sunny land. 
 
 At more than one turn of the road he looked up 
 towards Perucca. Once he saw a light in one of the 
 windows of the old house. Slowly he climbed to the 
 level of the tableland ; and Denise, sitting at the open 
 window, heard the sound of his horse's feet, and won- 
 dered who might be abroad at that hour. He glanced 
 at the ruined chapel that towers above the Chateau de 
 Vasselot on its rocky promontory, and peered curiously 
 down into the black valley, where the charred remains of 
 his ancestral home are to be found to this day. Murato
 
 286 THE ISLE OF UNEEST. 
 
 was asleep — a silent group of stone-roofed houses, one of 
 which, however, had seen the birth of a man notorious 
 enough in his day — Fieschi, the would-be assassin of 
 Louis Philippe. Every village in this island has, it 
 would seem, the odour of blood. 
 
 The road now mounted steadily, and presently led 
 through the rocky defile where Susini had turned back 
 on a similar errand scarce a week earlier. The rider 
 now emerged into the open, and made his careful way 
 along the face of a mountain. The chill air bespoke a 
 great altitude, which was confirmed by that waiting, 
 throbbing silence which is of the summits. Far down 
 on the right, across rolling ranges of lower hills, a 
 steady pin-point of light twinkled like a star. It was 
 the lighthouse of Punta-Eevellata, by Calvi, twenty 
 miles away. 
 
 The night was clear and dark. A few clouds lay on 
 the horizon to the south, and all the dome of heaven 
 was a glittering field of stars. De Yasselot's horse was 
 small and wiry — part Arab, part mountain pony — and 
 attended to his own affairs with the careful and sur- 
 prising intelligence possessed by horses, mules, and 
 donkeys that are born and bred to mountain roads. 
 After Murato the track had descended sharply, only to 
 mount again to the heights dividing the watersheds of 
 the Bevinco and the Golo. And now de Vasselot could 
 hear the Golo roaring in its rocky bed in the valley
 
 ON THE GREAT ROAD. 287 
 
 below. He knew that he was safe now, for he had 
 merely to follow the river till it led him to the high- 
 road at Ponte Alle Leccia. The country here was more 
 fertile, and the track led through the thickest macquis. 
 The subtle scent of flowering bushes filled the air with 
 a cool, soft flavour, almost to be tasted on the lips, of 
 arbutus, myrtle, cistus, oleander, tamarisk, and a score 
 of flowering heaths. The silence here was broken in- 
 cessantly by the stirring of the birds, which swarm in 
 these berry-bearing coppices. 
 
 The track crossed the narrow, flat valley, where, a 
 hundred years earlier, had been fought the last great 
 fight that finally subjugated Corsica to France. Here 
 de Vasselot passed through some patches of cultivated 
 ground — rare enough in this fertile land — noted the 
 shadowy shape of a couple of houses, and suddenly 
 found himself on the high-road. He had spared his 
 horse hitherto, but now urged the willing beast to a 
 better pace. This took the form of an uneven, fatigu- 
 ing trot, which, however, made good account of the 
 kilometres, and de Vasselot noted mechanically tlie 
 recurrence of the little square stones every five or six 
 minutes. 
 
 It was during that darkest hour which precedes the 
 dawn that he skirted the old capital, Corte, straggling 
 tip the hillside to the towering citadel standing out grey 
 and solemn against its background of great mountains.
 
 288 THE ISLE OF UNREST. 
 
 The rider could no.v see dimly a snow-clad height here 
 and there. Halfway between Corte and Vivario, where 
 the road climbs through bare heights, he paused, and 
 then hurried on again. He had heard in this desert 
 stillness the beat of a horse's feet on the road in front 
 of him. He was not mistaken, for when he drew up 
 to listen a second time there was no sound. The rider 
 had stopped, and was waiting for him. The outline 
 of his form could be seen against the starry sky at a turn 
 in the road further up the mountain-side. 
 
 " Is that you, Jean ? " cried Lory. 
 
 "Yes," answered the voice of the man who rarely 
 spoke. 
 
 The two horses exchanged a low, gurgled greeting. 
 
 " Are we on the right road ? What is the next 
 village ? " asked Lory. 
 
 " The next is a town — Vivario. We are on the 
 right road. At Vivario turn to the right, where the 
 road divides. He is going that way, through Bocognauo 
 and Bastelica to Sartene and Bonifacio. I have heard 
 of him many times, from one and the other." 
 
 From one and the other ! De Vasselot half turned 
 in his saddle to glance back at the road over which he 
 had travelled. He had seen and heard no one all 
 through the night. 
 
 " He procured a horse at Corte last evening," con- 
 tinued Jean. " It seems a good one. What is yours ? "
 
 ON THE GREAT EOAD. 289 
 
 " I have not seen mine," answered de Vasselot ; " I 
 can only feel him. But I think there are thirty kilo- 
 metres in him yet." As he spoke he had his hand in 
 his pocket. " Here," he said. *' Take some money. 
 Get a better horse at Vivario and follow me. It will 
 be daylight in an hour. Tell me again the names of 
 the places on the road." 
 
 " Vivario, Bocognano, Bastelica, Cauro, Sartene, 
 Bonifacio," repeated Jean, like a lesson. 
 
 "Vivario, Bocognano, Bastelica, Cauro, Sartene," 
 muttered de Vasselot, as he rode on. 
 
 He was in the great forest of Vizzavona when the 
 day broke, and he saw through the giant pines the rosy 
 tints of sunrise on the summit of Monte D'Oro, from 
 whence at dawn may be seen the coast-line of Italy 
 and France and, like dots upon a map, all the islets of 
 the sea. Still he met no one — had seen no living 
 being but Jean since quitting St. Florent at the other 
 extremity of the island. 
 
 It was freezingly cold at the summit of the pass 
 where the road traverses a cleft in the mountain- 
 range, and de Vasselot felt that weariness which comes to 
 men, however strong, just before the dawn ends a sleep- 
 less night. The horse, as he had told Jean, was still fresh 
 enough, and gained new energy as the air grew lighter. 
 The mountain town of Bocognano lies below the road, 
 and the scent of burning pinewood told that the peasants 
 
 V
 
 290 THE ISLE OF UNREST. 
 
 were astir. Here de Vasselot quitted the highway, and 
 took a side-road to Bastelica. As he came round the 
 slope of Monte Mezzo, the sun climbed up into the open 
 sky, and flooded the broad valley of the Prunelli with 
 lio'ht. De Vasselot had been crossing; watersheds all 
 night, climbing out of one valley only to descend into 
 another, crossing river after river with a monotony only 
 varied by the various dangers of the bridges. The valley 
 of the Prunelli seemed no different from others until he 
 looked across it, and perceived his road mounting on the 
 opposite slope. A single horseman was riding south- 
 ward at a good pace. It was his father at last.
 
 ( 291 ) 
 
 CHAPTER XXVI. 
 
 THE END OF THE JOURNEY. 
 
 " I.a joiirnee sera dure, 
 Mais elle se passera." 
 
 At the sight of the horseman on the road in front of 
 him, those instincts of the chase which must inevitably 
 be found in all manly hearts, were suddenly aroused, 
 and Lory surprised his willing horse by using the 
 spurs, of which the animal had hitherto been happily 
 ignorant. 
 
 At the same time he made a mistake. He gave 
 an eager shout, quite forgetting that the count had 
 never seen him in uniform, and would inevitably perceive 
 the glint of his accoutrements in the sunlight. The 
 instinct of the macquis was doubtless strong upon the 
 fugitive. There are certain habits of thought acquired 
 in a brief period of outlawry, which years of respecta- 
 bility can never efface. The count, who had lived in 
 secrecy more than half his life, took fright at the sight 
 of a sword, and down the quiet valley of the Prunelli
 
 292 TUE iSLE OV' UNREST. 
 
 father and son galloped one after the other — a wild and 
 uncanny chase. 
 
 With the cunning of the hunted, the count left the 
 road by the first opening he saw — a path leading into 
 a pine- wood ; but over this rough ground the trained 
 soldier was equal to the native-born. The track only led 
 to the open road again at a higher level, and de Vasselot 
 had gained on his father when they emerged from the 
 wood. 
 
 Lory had called to his father once or twice, reassuring 
 him, but without effect. The old count sat low in his 
 saddle and urged his horse with a mechanical jerk of 
 the heels. Thus they passed through the village of 
 Bastelica — a place with an evil name. It was early 
 still, and but few were astir, for the peasants of the 
 South are idle. In Corsica, moreover, the sight of a 
 flying man always sends others into hiding. No man 
 wishes to see him, though all sympathies are with him, 
 and the pursuer is avoided as if he bore the plague. 
 
 In Bastelica there were none but closed doors and 
 windows. A few children playing in the road instinc- 
 tively ran to their homes, where their mothers drew 
 them hurriedly indoors. The Bastelicans would have 
 nought to do with the law or the law-breaker. It 
 was the sullen indifference of the crushed, but the 
 imconquered. 
 
 Down into the valley, across another river— the
 
 THE END OF THE JOURNEY. 293 
 
 southern branch of the Priinelli — and up again. 
 Cauro was above them — a straggling village with one 
 large square house and a little church — Cauro, the 
 stepping-stone between civilization and those wild 
 districts about Sartene where the law has never yet 
 penetrated. Lory de Vasselot had gained a little on the 
 downward incline. He could now see that his father's 
 clothes were mud-stained and torn, that his long white 
 hair was ill-kempt. But the pursuer's horse was tired ; 
 for de Vasselot had been unable to relieve him of his 
 burden all through the night. Lame and disabled, he 
 could not mount or dismount without assistance. On 
 the upward slope, where the road climbs through a 
 rocky gorge, the fugitive gained ground. Out on the 
 open road again, within sight of Cauro, the count's 
 horse showed signs of distress, but gained visibly. The 
 count was unsteady in the saddle, riding heedlessly. 
 In an instant de Vasselot saw the danger. His father 
 was dropping with fatigue, and might at any moment 
 fall from the eaddle. 
 
 " Stop," he cried, " or I will shoot your horse 1 " 
 The count took no notice. Perhaps he did not hear. 
 The road now mounted in a zigzag. The fugitive was 
 already at the angle. In a few moments he would 
 be back again at a higher level. Lory knew he could 
 never overtake the fresher horse. There was but one 
 chance — the chance perhaps of two shots as his father
 
 294 THE ISLE OF UNREST. 
 
 passed along the road above him. Should the gendarmes 
 of Cauro, where there is a strong station, see this fugi- 
 tive, so evidently from the macquis, with all the signs 
 of outlawry upon him, they would fire upon him with- 
 out hesitation. Also he might at any moment fall 
 from the saddle and be dragged by the stirrup, 
 
 De Vasselot drew across the road to the outer edge 
 of it, from whence he could command a better view of 
 the upper slope. The count came on at a steady trot. 
 He looked down with eyes that had no reason in them 
 and yet no fear. He saw the barrel of the revolver, 
 polished by long use in an inner pocket, and looked 
 fearlessly into it. Lory fired and missed. His father 
 threw back his head and laughed. His white hair 
 fluttered in the wind. There was time for another shot. 
 Lory took a longer aim, remembering to fire low, and 
 horse and rider suddenly dropped behind the low wall 
 of the upper road. De Vasselot rode on. 
 
 '' It was the horse — it must have been the horse," he 
 said to himself, with misgiving in his heart. He turned 
 the corner at a gallop. On tlie road in front, the horse 
 was struggling to rise, but the count lay quite still in 
 the dust. Lory dismounted as well as he could. 
 Mechanically he tied the two horses together, then 
 turned towards his father. With his uninjured hand 
 he took the old man by the shoulder and raised him. 
 The dishevelled white head fell to one side with a jerk
 
 TPIE END OF THE JOURNEY. 295 
 
 that was unmistakable. The count was dead. And 
 Lory de Vasselot found himself face to face with that 
 question which so many have with them all through 
 life : the question whether at a certain point in the 
 crooked road of life he took the wrong or right turning. 
 
 Death itself had no particular terror for de Vasselot. 
 It was his trade, and it is easier to become familiar with 
 death than with suffering. He dragged his father to 
 the side of the road where a great chestnut tree cast a 
 shadow still, though its leaves were falling. Then he 
 looked round him. There was no one in sight. He 
 knew, moreover, that he was in a country where the 
 report of firearms repels rather than attracts attention. 
 It occurred to him at that moment that his father's horse 
 had risen to its feet — a fact which had suggested nothing 
 to his mind when he had tied the two bridles tocjether. 
 He examined the animal carefully. There was no blood 
 upon it ; no wound. The dust was rubbed away from 
 the knees. The horse had crossed its legs and fallen as 
 it started at the second report of his pistol. 
 
 Lory turned and stooped over his father. Here again, 
 was no blood — only the evidence of a broken neck. 
 Still, though indirectly, Lory de Vasselot had killed his 
 father. It was well for him that he was a soldier — 
 taught by experience to give their true value to the 
 strange chances of life and death. Moreover, he was a 
 Frenchman — gay in life and reckless of its end.
 
 296 THE ISLE OF UNREST. 
 
 He sat down by the side of the road and remembered 
 the Abbe Susini's words : " Life or death, you must be 
 at Bastia on Wednesday morning." 
 
 Mechanically, he drew his watch from within his 
 tunic, which was white with dust. The watch had run 
 down. And when Jean arrived a few minutes later, he 
 found Lory de Vasselot sitting in the shade of the great 
 chestnut tree, by the side of his dead father, sleepily 
 wdnding up his watch. 
 
 " I fired at the horse to lame it — it crossed its legs 
 
 and fell, throwing him against the wall," ho said, 
 
 shortly. 
 Jean lifted his master, noted the swinging head, and 
 
 laid him gently down again. 
 
 "Heaven soon takes those who are useless," he 
 said. 
 
 Then he slipped his hand within the old man's jacket. 
 The inner pockets were stuffed full of papers, which 
 Jean carefully withdrew. Some were tied together with 
 pink tape, long since faded to a dull grey. He made 
 one packet of them all and handed it to Lory. 
 
 " It was for those that they burnt the chateau," he 
 said ; " but we have outwitted them." 
 
 De Vasselot turned the clumsy parcel in his hand. 
 
 " What is it ? " he asked. 
 
 "It is the papers of Vasselot and Perucca — your 
 title-deeds."
 
 >T 
 
 THE END OF THE JOURNEY. 297 
 
 Lory laid the papers on the bank beside him. 
 
 '• In your pocket," corrected Jean, gruffly, " That is 
 the place for them." 
 
 And while Lory was securing the packet inside his 
 tunic, the unusually silent man spoke again. 
 
 " It is Fate who has handed them to you," he said. 
 
 '* Then you think tliat Fate has time to think of the 
 affairs of the Vasselots ? " 
 
 " 1 believe it, monsieur le comte." 
 
 They fell to talking of the past, and of the count. 
 Then de Yasselot told his companion that he must be in 
 Bastia in less than twenty-four hours, and Jean, whose 
 gloomy face was drawn and pinched by past hard- 
 ships, and a present desire for sleep, was alert in a 
 moment. 
 
 " When the abbe says it, it is important," he said. 
 
 " But it is easily done," protested de Vasselot, who 
 like many men of action had a certain contempt for 
 those crises in life which are but matters of words. 
 Which is a mistake; for as the world progresses it 
 grows more verbose, and for one moment of action, there 
 are in men's lives to-day a million words. 
 
 " It is to be done," answered Jean, " but not easily. 
 You must ride to Porto Vecchio and there find a man 
 called Casabianda. You will find him on the quay or 
 in the Cafe Amis. Tell him your name, and that you 
 must be at Bastia by daybreak. He has a good boat."
 
 298 THE ISLE OF UNREST. 
 
 Lory rose to his feet. There was a light in liis tired 
 eyes, and he sighed as he passed his hand across them, 
 for the thought of further action was like wine to him. 
 
 " But I must sleep, Jean, I must sleep," he said, 
 lightly. 
 
 " You can do that in Casabianda's boat," answered 
 Jean, who was already changing de Vasselot's good 
 saddle to the back of his own fresher horse. 
 
 Jean had to lift his master into the saddle, which 
 office the wiry Susini had performed for him at St. 
 Florent fourteen hours earlier. There is a good inn 
 at Cauro wliere de Vasselot procured a cup of coffee 
 and some bread without dismounting. Jean had given 
 him a list of names, and the route to Porto Vecchio 
 was not a difficult one, though it led through a deserted 
 country. By midday, de Vasselot caught sight of the 
 Eastern sea ; by three o'clock he saw the great gvdf 
 of Porto Vecchio, and before sunset he rode, half-asleep, 
 into the ancient town with its crumbling walls and ill- 
 paved streets. He had ridden in safety through one 
 of the waste places of this province of France — a 
 canton wherein a few years ago a well-known bandit 
 had forbidden the postal-service, and that postal 
 service was not— and he knew enough to be aware 
 that the mysterious messengers of the macquis had 
 cleared the way before him. But de Vasselot only 
 fully realized the magic of his own name when he at
 
 THE END OF THE JOURNEY. 299 
 
 length found the man, Casabianda — a scoundrel whose 
 personal appearance must assuredly have condemned 
 him without further evidence in any court of justice 
 except a Corsican court — who bowed before him as 
 before a king, and laid violent hands upon his wife and 
 daughter a few minutes later because the domestic 
 linen chest failed to rise to the height of a clean 
 table cloth. 
 
 The hospitality of Casabianda outLasted the sun. 
 He had the virtues of his primitive race, and that 
 appreciation of a guest which urges the entertainer to 
 give not only the best that he has, but the best that 
 he can borrow or steal. 
 
 "There is no breeze," said this Porto Vecchian, 
 jovially ; " it will come with the night. In waiting, 
 this is wine of Balagna." 
 
 And he drank perdition to the Peruccas. 
 
 With nightfall they set sail ; the great lateen 
 swinging lazily under the pressure of those light 
 airs that flit to and fro over the islands at evening 
 and sunrise. All the arts of civilization have as yet 
 failed to approach the easiest of all modes of progression 
 and conveyance — sailing on a light breeze. Por here is 
 speed without friction, passage through the air without 
 opposition, for it is the air that urges. Afloat, Casa- 
 bianda was a silent man. His seafaring was of a 
 surreptitious nature, perhaps. For companion, he had
 
 300 THE ISLE OF UNREST. 
 
 one with no roof to liis mouth, whose speech was in- 
 comprehensible — an excellent thing in law-breakers. 
 
 De Vasselot was soon asleep, and slept all through 
 that quiet night. He awoke to find the dawn spread- 
 ing its pearly light over the sea. The great plain of 
 liiguglia lay to the left under a soft blanket of mist, 
 as deadly they say, as any African miasma, above 
 which the distant mountains raised summits already 
 tinged with rose. Ahead and close at hand, flie old 
 town of Bastia jutted out into the sea, the bluff 
 Genoese bastion concealing the harbour from view. 
 De Vasselot had never been to Bastia, which Casa- 
 bianda described as a great and bewildering city, 
 where the unwary might soon lose himself. The 
 man of incomprehensible speech was, therefore, sent 
 ashore to conduct Lory to the Hotel Clement. Casa- 
 bianda, himself, would not land. The place reeked, 
 he said, of the gendarmerie, and was offensive to 
 his nostrils. 
 
 Clement had not opened his hospitable door. The 
 street door, of course, always stood open, and the 
 donkey that lived in the entrance-hall was astir. 
 Lory dismissed his guide, and after ringing a bell 
 which tinkled rather disappointingly just within the 
 door, sat down patiently on the stairs to wait. 
 At length the ancient chambermaid (who is no servant, 
 but just a woman, in the strictly domestic sense of
 
 THE END OF THE JOURNEY. 301 
 
 that fashionable word) reluctantly opened the door. 
 French and Italian were alike incomprehensible to 
 this lady, and de Vasselot was still explaining with 
 much volubility, and a wealth of gesture, that the 
 man he sought wore a tonsure, when Clement himself, 
 affable and supremely indifferent to the scantiness of 
 his own attire, appeared. 
 
 " Take the gentleman to number eleven," he com- 
 manded ; " the Abbe Susini expects him." 
 
 The last statement appeared to be made with that 
 breadth of veracity which is the special privilege of 
 hotel-keepers all the world over; for the abbe was 
 asleep when Lory entered his apartment. He awoke, 
 however, with a characteristic haste, and his first con- 
 scious movement was suggestive of a readiness to 
 defend himself against attack. 
 
 " Ah ! " he cried, with a laugh, " it is you. You 
 see me asleep." 
 
 " Asleep, but ready," answered de Vasselot, with a 
 laugh. He liked a quick man. 
 
 Without speaking, he unbuttoned his tunic and 
 threw his bundle of papers on the abbe's counterpane. 
 
 " Voila i " he said. " I suppose that is what you 
 want for your salad." 
 
 " It is what Jean and I have been trying to get 
 these three months," answered the priest. 
 
 He sat up in bed, and from that difficult position,
 
 302 THE ISLE OF UNEEST. 
 
 did the honours of his apartment with an unassailable 
 dignity. 
 
 " Sit down," he said, " and I will tell you a very 
 long story. Not that chair — those are my clothes, 
 my best soutane for this occasion — the other. That is 
 well."
 
 ( 303 ) 
 
 CHAPTER XXVir. 
 
 THE abbe's salad. 
 
 " He either fears his fate too much, 
 Or his deserts are small, 
 That dares not put it to the touch 
 To gain or lose it all." 
 
 " And mademoiselle's witnesses ? " inquired tlie notary, 
 when he had accommodated the ladies with chairs. 
 
 " Will arrive at ten o'clock," answered Mademoiselle 
 Bran, with a glance at the notary's clock. 
 
 It was three minutes to ten. The notary was a young 
 man, with smooth hair brushed straight back from a high 
 forehead. He was one of those men who look clever, 
 which, in some respects, is better than being clever. 
 For a man who really has brains usually perceives his 
 own limitations, while he who looks clever, and is not, 
 has that boundless faith in himself which serves to 
 carry men very far in a world which is too lazy to get 
 up and kick impertinence as it passes. 
 
 The room had that atmosphere of mixed stuffiness
 
 304 THE ISLE OF UNREST. 
 
 and cigarette smoke which the traveller may sample 
 iu any French post-office. It is also the official air of 
 a court of justice or a public bureau of any sort in 
 France. There was a blank space on the wall, where 
 a portrait of the emperor had lately hung. The 
 notary would fill it by-and-by with a president or a 
 king, or any face of any man who was for the moment 
 in authority. Behind him, on the wall, was suspended 
 a photograph of an elderly lady — his mother. It 
 established confidence in the hearts of female clients, 
 and reminded persons with daughters that this rising 
 lawyer had as yet no wife. 
 
 The notary's bow to Mademoiselle Bnm when she was 
 seated was condescending, which betrayed the small 
 fact that he was not so clever as he looked. To Denise 
 he endeavoured to convey in one graceful inclination 
 from the waist the deep regard of a legal adviser, 
 struggling nobly to keep in bounds the overwhelming 
 admiration of a man of heart and (out of office hours) 
 of spirit. Gilbert, who had already exchanged greet- 
 ings with the ladies, was leaning against the window, 
 playing idly with the blind- cord. The notary's office 
 was on the third floor. The colonel could not, there- 
 fore, see the pavement without leaning out, and the 
 window was shut. Mademoiselle Brun noted this as 
 she sat with crossed hands. She also remembered that 
 the Hotel Clement was on the same side of the
 
 THE ABBIiiS SALAD. 805 
 
 Boulevard du Palais as the house in which she found 
 herself. 
 
 The notary had intended to be affable, but he dimly 
 perceived that Denise was what he tersely called in 
 his own mind gr ancle dame, and was wise enough to 
 busy himself with his papers in silence. He also 
 suspected that Colonel Gilbert was a friend of these 
 ladies, but he did not care to take advantage of his 
 privilege in the presence of a fourth person, which left 
 an unpleasant flavour on the palate of the smooth- 
 haired lawyer. He glanced involuntarily at the 
 blank space on the wall, and thought of the Republic. 
 
 " I have prepared a deed of sale," he said, in a formal 
 voice, " which is as binding on both sides as if the full 
 purchase-money had been exchanged for the title-deeds. 
 All that will remain to be done after the present 
 signature will be the usual legal formalities between 
 notaries. Mademoiselle has but to sign here." And he 
 indicated a blank space on the document. 
 
 Mademoiselle Brun was looking at the timepiece 
 on the notary's wall. The town clocks were striking 
 the hour. A knock at the door made the notary 
 turn, witli his quill pen still indicating the space 
 for Denise's signature. It was the dingy clerk who 
 sat in a sort of cage in the outer office. After open- 
 ing the door he stood aside, and Susini came in with 
 glittering eyes and a defiant chin. There was a 
 
 X
 
 306 THE ISLE OF UNREST. 
 
 pause, and Lory de Vasselot limped into the room after 
 liim. He was smiling and pleasant as he always was ; 
 even, his friends said, on the battlefield. 
 
 He looked at Denise, met her eyes for a moment and 
 turned to bow with grave politeness to Gilbert. It 
 was, oddly enough, the colonel who brought forward a 
 chair for the wounded man. 
 
 " Sit down," he said curtly. 
 
 " These are my witnesses, Monsieur le Notaire," said 
 Mademoiselle Brun. 
 
 The abbe was rubbing his thin, brown hands together, 
 and contemplating the notary's table as a greedy man 
 might contemplate a laden board. The notary himself 
 was looking from one to the other. There was some- 
 thing in the atmosphere which he did not understand. 
 It was, perhaps, the presence in the room of a cleverer 
 head than his own, and he did not know upon whose 
 shoulders to locate it. Denise, whose nature was frank 
 and straightforward, was looking at Lory — looking him 
 reflectively up and down — as a mother might look at 
 a son of whose health she refrains from asking. 
 Mademoiselle was gazing at the blank space on the 
 wall, and the colonel was looking at mademoiselle with 
 an odd smile. 
 
 He was standinij in the embrasure of the window, 
 and at this moment glanced at his watch. The notary 
 looked at him inq^uiringly ; for his attitude seemed to
 
 THE ABBE'S SALAD. 307 
 
 indicate that he expected some one else. And at this 
 moment the music of a military band burst upon their 
 ears. The colonel looked over his shoulder down into 
 the street. He had his watch in his hand. De Vasselot 
 rose instantly and went to the window. He stood 
 beside the colonel, and those in the notary's office could 
 see that they were talking quickly and gravely together, 
 though the music drowned their voices. Behind them, 
 on the notary's table, lay their differences ; in front lay 
 that which bound them together with the strongest ties 
 between man and man — their honour and the honour 
 of France. The music died away, followed by the 
 diminishing sound of steady feet. All in the room 
 were silent for a few moments, until the two soldiers 
 turned from the window and came towards the table. 
 
 Then the notary spoke : — 
 
 " Mademoiselle has but to sign here," he repeated. 
 
 He indicated the exact spot, dipped the pen in the 
 ink, and handed it to Denise. She took the pen and 
 half turned towards Lory, as if she knew that he would 
 be the next to speak and wished him to understand 
 once and for all that he would speak in vain. 
 
 " Mademoiselle cannot sign there," he said. 
 
 Denise dipped the pen into the ink again, but she 
 did not sign. 
 
 -" Why not ? " she asked without looking round, her 
 hand still resting on the paper.
 
 808 THE ISLE OF UNREST. 
 
 " Because," answered Lory, addressing her directly, 
 " Perucca is not yours to sell. It is mine." 
 
 Denise turned and looked straight at Colonel Gilbert. 
 She had never been quite sure of him. He had never 
 appeared to her to be quite in earnest. His face showed 
 no surprise now. He had known this all along, and 
 did not even take the trouble to feign astonishment. 
 The notary gave a polite, incredulous, legal laugh. 
 
 " That is an old story. Monsieur le Comte." 
 
 At which point Susini so far forgot himself as to 
 make use of a rude local method of showing contempt 
 in pretending to spit upon the notary's floor. 
 
 " It is as old as you please," answered Lory, half 
 turning towards Gilbert, who in his turn made a gesture 
 in the direction of the notary, as if to say that the 
 lawyer had received his instructions and knew how to 
 act. 
 
 " Of course," said the notary in a judicial voice, " we 
 are aware that the conveyance of the Perucca estate by 
 the late Count de Yasselot to the late Mattel Perucca 
 lacked formality ; many conveyances in Corsica lacked 
 formality in the beginning of the century. In many 
 cases possession is the only title-deed. We can point 
 to a possession lasting over many years, which carries 
 the more weight from the fact that the late count and 
 his neighbour Monsieur Perucca were notoriously on 
 bad terms. If the count had been able, he would no
 
 THE ABBE'S SALAD. 309 
 
 doubt have evicted from Perucca a neiglibour so un- 
 sympathetic." 
 
 "You seem," said de Vasselot, quickly, " to be pre- 
 pared for my objection." 
 
 The notary spread out liis hands in a gesture that 
 conveyed assent. 
 
 " And if I had not come ? " 
 
 "I regret to say. Monsieur le Comte, that your 
 presence here bears little upon the transaction in hand. 
 You are only a witness. Mademoiselle will no doubt 
 complete the document now." 
 
 And the notary again handed Denise a pen. 
 
 " Hardly upon a title-deed which consists of posses- 
 sion only." 
 
 " Pardon me, but you have even less," said the notary. 
 " If I may remind you of it, you have probably no title- 
 deeds to Vasselot itself since the burning of the chateau." 
 
 " There you are wrong," answered Lory, quietly. 
 And the abbe snapped both fingers and thumbs in a 
 double-barrelled fcic de joie. 
 
 " The count may have possessed title-deeds before 
 his death, thirty years ago," said the notary, with that 
 polite patience in argument which the certain winner 
 alone can compass. 
 
 Then the colonel's quiet voice broke into the con- 
 versation. His manner was politely indifferent, and 
 seemed to plead for peace at any cost.
 
 310 THE ISLE OF UNREST. 
 
 " I slioiild much like to be done with these formal- 
 ities," he said — "if I may be allowed to suggest a 
 little promptitude. The troops are moving, as you have 
 heard. In an hour's time I sail for Marseilles with 
 these men. Let us finish with the signatures." 
 
 " Let us, on the contrary, delay signing until the war 
 is over," suggested Lory. 
 
 " You cannot bring your father to life again, monsieur, 
 and you cannot manufacture title-deeds. Your father, 
 the notary tells us, has been dead thirty years, and the 
 Chateau de Vasselot has been burnt with all the papers 
 in it. You have no case at all." 
 
 Lory was unbuttoning his tunic, awkwardly with 
 one hand. 
 
 " But the notary is wrong," he said. " The Chateau 
 de Vasselot was burnt, it is true, but here are the 
 title-deeds. My father did not die tliirty years ago, 
 but yesterday morning, in my arms." 
 
 Gilbert smiled gently. His innate politeness ob- 
 viously forbade him to laugh at this absurd story. 
 
 " Then where has he been all these years ? " he 
 inquired with a good-humoured patience. 
 
 " In the Chateau de Vasselot." 
 
 There was a dead silence for a moment, broken at 
 length by a movement on the part of Mademoiselle 
 Brun. In her abrupt way she struck herself on the 
 forehead as a fool.
 
 THE ABBl^'S SALAD. 311 
 
 " Yes," testified Susini, brusquely, " that is where lie 
 has been." 
 
 Denise remembered ever afterwards, that Lory did 
 not look at her at this moment of his complete justifi- 
 cation. It was now, and only for a moment, that 
 Colonel Gilbert lost his steady imperturbability. From 
 the time that Lory de Vasselot entered the room he had 
 known that he had inevitably failed. From that instant 
 the only question in his mind had been that of how 
 much his enemies knew. It could not be chance that 
 brought de Vasselot, and the Abbe Susini, and Made- 
 moiselle Brun together to meet him at that time. He 
 had been out-manoeuvred by some one of the three, and 
 he shrewdly suspected by whom. There was nothing to 
 do but face it — and he faced it with a calm audacity. 
 He simply ignored mademoiselle's blinking glance. He 
 met de Vasselot's quick eyes without fear, and smiled 
 coolly in the abbe's fiery face. But when Denise 
 turned and looked at him with direct and honest eyes, 
 his own wavered, and for a brief instant he saw himself 
 as Denise saw him— the bitterest moment of his life. 
 The esteem of the many is nothing compared to the 
 esteem of one. 
 
 In a moment he recovered himself and turned to- 
 wards Lory with his lazy smile. 
 
 " Even to a romance there must be some motive," he 
 said. " One naturally wonders wdiy your father should
 
 312 THE ISLE OF UNREST. 
 
 allow his enemy to keep possession of a house and 
 estate which were not his, and why he himself should 
 remain concealed in the Chateau de Vasselot." 
 
 " That is the affair of my father. There was that 
 between him and Mattel Perucca, which neither you 
 nor I, monsieur, have any business to investigate. There 
 are the title-deeds. You have a certain right to look at 
 them. You are therefore at liberty to satisfy yourself 
 that you cannot buy the Perucca estate from Made- 
 moiselle Lange, because it does not belong to Made- 
 moiselle Lange, and never has belonged to her ! A fact 
 of which you may have been aware." 
 
 " You seem to know much." 
 
 " I know more than you suspect," answered de 
 Vasselot. "I know, for instance, your reason for 
 desiring to buy land on the western slope of Monte 
 Torre." 
 
 " Ah ? " 
 
 By way of reply, de Vasselot laid upon the table in 
 front of Colonel Gilbert, the nugget no larger than a 
 pigeon's egg, that Mademoiselle Brun had found in the 
 debris of the landslip. The colonel looked at it, and 
 gave a short laugh. He was too indolent a man to 
 feel an acute curiosity. But there were many questions 
 he would have liked to ask at that moment. He knew 
 that de Vasselot was only the spokesman of another 
 who deliberately remained in the background. Lory
 
 HE THfiEW THE ABBE BACK.
 
 THE ABBE'S SALAD. 313 
 
 had not found the gold, he had not pieced together with 
 the patience of a clocksmith the wheels within wheels 
 that Colonel Gilbert had constructed through the care- 
 ful years. The whole story had been handed to him 
 whom it most concerned, complete in itself like a 
 barrister's brief, and de Vasselot was not setting it 
 forth with much skill, but bluntly, simply and generously 
 like a soldier, 
 
 " Surely I have said enough," were his next words, 
 and it is possible that the colonel and Mademoiselle 
 Brun alone understood the full meaning of the w^ords. 
 
 " Yes, monsieur," said Gilbert at length, " I think 
 you have." 
 
 And he moved towards the door in an odd, sidelong 
 way. He had taken only three steps, when he swung 
 round on his heel with a sharp exclamation. The Abbe 
 Susini, with blazing eyes — half mad with rage — had 
 flown at him like a terrier. 
 
 " Ah ! " said the colonel, catching him by the two 
 wrists, and holding him at arm's length with steady 
 northern nerve and muscle. " I know you Corsicans 
 too well to turn my back to one." 
 
 He threw the abbe back, so that the little man fell 
 heavily against the table; Susini recovered himself 
 with the litheness of a wjld animal, but when he flew 
 at the closed door again it was Denise who stood in 
 front of it.
 
 314 THE ISLE OF UNEEST. 
 
 CHAPTEE XXYIII. 
 
 GOLD. 
 
 '• I do believe yourself against yourself, 
 And will henceforward rather die than doubt." 
 
 All eyes were now turned on the notcary, who was 
 hurriedly looking through the papers thrown down 
 before him by Lory. 
 
 " They have passed through my hands before, when 
 I was a youth, in connection with a boundary dispute," 
 he said, as if to explain his apparent hastiness. " They 
 are all here — they are correct, monsieur." 
 
 He was a very quick man, and folding the papers as 
 he spoke, he tied them together with the faded pink 
 tape which had been fingered by three generations of 
 Vasselots. He laid the packet on the table close to 
 Lory's hand. Then he glanced at Denise and fell into 
 thought, arranging in his mind that which he had to say 
 to her. 
 
 " It is one of those cases, mademoiselle," he said at 
 length, " common enough in Corsica, where a verbal
 
 GOLD. 315 
 
 agreement has never been confirmed in writing. Men 
 who have been friends, become enemies so easily in 
 this country. I cannot tell yon npon what terms 
 Mattel Perucca lived in the Casa. No one can tell you 
 that. All that we know is that we have no title-deeds 
 — and that monsieur has them. The Casa may be 
 yours, but you cannot prove it. Such a case tried in a 
 law court in Corsica would go in favour of the litigant 
 who possessed the greater number of friends in the 
 locality. It would go in your favour if it could be 
 tried here. But it would need to go to Frauce. And 
 there we could only look for justice, and justice is on 
 the side of monsieur." 
 
 He apologized, as it were, for justice, of which he 
 made himself the representative in that room. Then 
 he turned towards de Vasselot. 
 
 " Monsieur is well within his rights " he said, 
 
 significantly, *•' if he insist on them." 
 
 " I insist on them," replied Lory, who was proud of 
 Denise's pride. 
 
 And Denise laughed. 
 
 The notary turned and looked curiously at her. 
 
 *' Mademoiselle is able to be amused." 
 
 " I was thinking of the Eue du Cherche-Midi in 
 Paris," she said, and the explanation left the lawyer 
 more puzzled than before. She took up her gloves 
 and drew them on.
 
 316 THE ISLE OF UNREST. 
 
 " Then I am rendered penniless, monsieur ? " she 
 asked the notary. 
 
 " By me," answered Lory. And even the notary 
 was silent. It is hard to silence a man who lives by 
 his tongue. But tliere were here, it seemed, under- 
 standings and misunderstandings which the lawyer 
 failed to comprehend. 
 
 The Abbe Susini had crossed the room and was 
 whispering something hurriedly to Mademoiselle Brun, 
 who acquiesced curtly and rather angrily. She had the 
 air of the man at the wheel, to whom one must not 
 speak. For she was endeavouring rather nervously 
 to steer two high-sailed vessels through those shoals 
 and quicksands that must be passed by all who set out 
 in quest of love. 
 
 Then the abbe turned impulsively to Lory. 
 
 " Mademoiselle must be told about the gold — she 
 must be told," he said. 
 
 " I had forgotten the gold," answered Lory, quite 
 truthfully. 
 
 " You have forgotten everything, except the eyes of 
 mademoiselle," the abbe muttered to himself as he 
 went back to his place near the window. De Yasselot 
 took up the packet of papers and began to untie the 
 tape awkwardly with his one able hand. He was so 
 slow that Mademoiselle Brun leant forward and assisted 
 him. Denise bit her lip and pushed a chair towards
 
 GOLD. 317 
 
 him with her foot. He sat down and unfolded a map 
 coloured and drawn in queer angles. This he laid upon 
 the table, and, by a gesture, called Mademoiselle Brun 
 and Denise to look at it, Tlie abbe took a pencil from 
 the notary's table, and after studying the map for a 
 moment he drew a careful circle in the centre of it, 
 embracing portions of the various colours and of the 
 two estates described respectively as Perucca and 
 Vasselot. 
 
 " That," he said to Lory, " is the probable radius of it 
 so far as the expert could tell me on his examination 
 of the ground yesterday." 
 
 Lory turned to Denise. 
 
 " You must think us all mad — at our games of cross- 
 purposes," he said. " It appears that there is gold in 
 the two estates — and gold has accounted for most 
 human madnesses. Where the abbe has drawn this line 
 there lies the gold — beyond the dreams of avarice, 
 mademoiselle. And Colonel Gilbert was the only man 
 who knew it. So you understand Gilbert, at all 
 events." 
 
 " You did not know it when I asked your advice in 
 Paris ? " 
 
 "I learnt it two hours ago from the Abbe Susini; 
 so I hastened here to claim the whole of it," answered 
 Lory, with a laugh. 
 
 But Denise was grave.
 
 318 THE ISLE OF UNREST. 
 
 " But you knew that Perucca Nvas never mine/' she 
 persisted. 
 
 " Yes, I knew that, but then Perucca was valueless. 
 So soon as I knew its value, I reclaimed it." 
 
 " I warn Monsieur de Vasselot that such frankness is 
 imprudent ; he may regret it," put in the notary with 
 a solemn face. And Denise gave him a glance of 
 withering pity. The poor man, it seemed, was quite at 
 sea. 
 
 "Thank you," laughed de Vasselot. "I only judge 
 myself as the world will judge me. You were very 
 rich, mademoiselle, and I have made you very poor." 
 
 Denise glanced at him, and said nothing. And de 
 Vasselot's breath came rather quickly. 
 
 " But the Casa Perucca is at your disposal so long as 
 you may choose to live there," he continued. " My 
 father is to be buried at Olmeta to-morrow, but I 
 cannot even remain to attend the funeral. So I need 
 not assure you that I do not want the Casa Perucca 
 for myself." 
 
 " Where are you going ? " asked Denise, bluntly. 
 
 " Back to France. I have heard news that makes it 
 necessary for me to return. Gambetta has escaped 
 from Paris in a balloon, and is organizing affairs at 
 Tours. We may yet make a defence." 
 
 " You ? " said Mademoiselle Brun. Into the one 
 word she threw, or attempted to throw, a world of
 
 GOLD. 319 
 
 contempt, as she looked him up and down, with his 
 arm in a sling, and his wounded leg bent awkwardly 
 to one side ; but her eyes glittered. This was a man 
 after her own heart. 
 
 "One has one's head left, mademoiselle," answered 
 Lory. Tlien he turned to the window, and held up one 
 hand. " Listen ! " he added. 
 
 It was the music of a second regiment marching 
 down the Boulevard du Palais, towards the port, and, 
 as it approached, it was rendered almost inaudible by 
 the shouts of the men themselves, and of the crowd 
 that cheered tliem. De Vasselot went to the window, 
 and opened it, his face twitching, and his eyes shining 
 with excitement. 
 
 " Listen to them," he said. " Listen to them. Ah ! 
 but it is good to hear them." 
 
 Instinctively the others followed him, and stood 
 grouped in the open window, looking down into the street. 
 The band was now passing, clanging out the Marseillaise, 
 and the fickle people cheered the new tricolour, as it 
 fluttered in the wind. Some one looked up, and per- 
 ceived de Vasselot's uniform. 
 
 " Come, mon capitaine," he cried ; " you are coming 
 with us ? " 
 
 Lory laughed, and shouted back — 
 
 " Yes — I am coming." 
 
 " See," cried a sergeant, who was gathering recruits as
 
 520 THE ISLE OF UNREST. 
 
 he went — " see ! there is one who has fought, and is 
 going to fight again ! Vive la France, mes enfants ! 
 Who comes ? Who comes ? " 
 
 And the soldiers, looking up, gave a cheer for the 
 wounded man who was to lead them. They passed on, 
 followed by a troup of young men and boys, half of 
 whom ultimately stepped on board the steamer at the 
 last moment, and went across the sea to fight for 
 France. 
 
 De Vasselot turned away from the window, and 
 went towards the table, where the papers lay in con- 
 fusion. The abbe took them up, and began to arrange 
 them in order. 
 
 " And the estate and the gold ? " he said ; " who 
 manages that, since you are going to fight ? " 
 
 "You," replied de Vasselot, "since you cannot 
 fight. There is no one but you in Corsica who can 
 manage it. There is none but you to understand 
 these people." 
 
 " All the world knows who manages half of Corsica," 
 put in Mademoiselle Brun, looking fiercely at the abbe. 
 But the abbe only stamped his foot impatiently. 
 
 "Woman's gossip," he muttered, as he shook the 
 papers together. "Yes; I will manage your estate if 
 you like. And if there is gold in the land, I will tear 
 it out. And there is gold. The amiable colonel is not 
 the man to have made a mistake on that point. I
 
 GOLD. 321 
 
 shall like the work. It will be an occupation. It 
 will serve to fill one's life." 
 
 " Your life is not empty," said mademoiselle. 
 
 The abbe turned and looked at her, his glittering eyes 
 meeting her twinkling glance. 
 
 " It is a priest's life," he said. " Come," he added, 
 turning to the lawyer — "come, Mr. the Notary, into 
 your other room, and write me out a form of authority 
 for the Count de Vasselot to sign. "VVe have had 
 enough of verbal agreements on this estate." 
 
 And, taking the notary by the arm, he went to the 
 door. On the threshold he turned, and looked at 
 Mademoiselle Brun. 
 
 " A priest's life," he said, " or an old woman's. It is 
 the same thing." 
 
 And Lory was left alone with mademoiselle and 
 Denise. The window was still open, and from the 
 port the sound of the military music reached their 
 ears faintly. Mademoiselle rose, and went to the 
 window, where she stood looking out. Her eyes were 
 dim as she looked across the sordid street, but her lips 
 were firm, and the hands that rested on the window-sill 
 quite steady. She had played consistently a strong 
 and careful game. Was she going to win or lose ? 
 She held that, next to being a soldier, it is good to be a 
 soldier's wife and the mother of fighting men. And 
 when she thought of the Eue du Cherche-Midi, she was 
 
 Y
 
 322 THE ISLE OF UNREST. 
 
 not able to be amused, as the notary had said of 
 Denise. 
 
 There was a short silence in the notary's office. De 
 Vasselot was fingering the hilt of his long cavalry 
 sword reflectively. After a moment he glanced across 
 at Denise. He was placed as it were between her and 
 the sword. And it was to the sword that he gave his 
 allegiance. 
 
 " You see," he said, in a low voice, " I must 
 go." 
 
 " Yes, you must go," she answered. She held her 
 lip for a moment between her teeth. Then she looked 
 steadily at him. " Go ! " she said. 
 
 He rose from his chair and looked towards Mademoi- 
 selle Brun's back. At the rattle of his scabbard against 
 the chair, mademoiselle turned. 
 
 " There is a horse waiting in the street below," she 
 said — " the great horse that Colonel Gilbert rides. It 
 is waiting for you, I suppose." 
 
 " I suppose so," said Lory, who went to the window 
 and looked curiously down. Gilbert was certainly an 
 odd man. He had left in anger, and had left his horse 
 for Lory to ride. He waited a moment, and then held 
 out liis hand to Mademoiselle Brun. All three seemed 
 to move and speak under a sort of oppression. It was 
 one of those moments that impress themselves indelibly 
 on the memory — a moment when words are suddenly
 
 GOLD. 323 
 
 useless — when the memory of an attitude and of a 
 silence remains all through life. 
 
 " Good-hye, mademoiselle," said Lory, with a sudden 
 cheerfulness ; " we shall meet in France next time." 
 
 Mademoiselle Brun held out her shrinking little 
 hand. 
 
 " Yes, in France," she answered. 
 
 To Denise, Lory said nothing. He merely shook 
 hands with her. Then he walked towards the door, 
 haltingly. He used liis sword like a walking stick, 
 with his one able hand. Denise had to open the door 
 for him. He was on the threshold, when Mademoiselle 
 Brun stopped him. 
 
 "Monsieur de Yasselot," she said, "when the 
 soldiers went past, you and Colonel Gilbert spoke 
 together hurriedly ; I saw you. You are not going 
 to fight — you two ? " 
 
 " Yes, mademoiselle, we are going to fight — the 
 Prussians. We are friends while we have a common 
 enemy. When there is no enemy — who knows ? He 
 has received a great appointment in France, and has 
 offered me a post under him. And I have accepted 
 it."
 
 324 THE ISLE OF UNREST. 
 
 CHAPTER XXIX. 
 
 A BALANCED ACCOUNT. 
 " Let the end try the man." 
 
 Bad news, it is said, travels fast. But in France good 
 news travels faster, and it is the evil tidings that lag 
 behind. It is part of a Frenchman's happy nature to 
 believe that which he wishes to be true. And although 
 the news travelled rapidly, that Gambetta — that spirit 
 of an unquenchable hope — had escaped from Paris with 
 full power to conduct the war from Tours, the notifica- 
 tion that the army of de la Motterouge had melted 
 away before the advance of von der Tann, did not 
 reach Lory de Vasselot until he passed to the north of 
 Marseilles with his handful of men. 
 
 That a general, so stricken in years as de la 
 Motterouge, should have been chosen for the command 
 of the first army of the Loire, spoke eloquently enough 
 of the straits in which France found herself at this 
 time. For this was the only army of the Government 
 of National Defence, the debris of Sedan, the hope of
 
 A BALANCED ACCOUNT. 325 
 
 France. General de la Motterouge had fought in the 
 Crimea : " Pen de feu et beaucoup de bayonette " had 
 been his maxim then. But the Crimea was fifteen 
 years earlier, and de la Motterouge was now an old 
 man. Before the superior numbers and the perfectly 
 drilled and equipped army of von der Tann, what 
 could he do but retreat ? 
 
 Thus, on their arrival in France, Colonel Gilbert and 
 Lory de Vasselot were greeted with the news that 
 Orleans had fallen into the hands of the enemy. It 
 was the same story of incompetence j)itted against 
 perfect organization — order and discipline meeting and 
 vanquishing ill-considered bravery. All the world 
 knows now that France should have capitulated after 
 Sedan. But the world knows also that Paris need 
 never have fallen, could France only have produced 
 one mediocre military genius in this her moment of 
 need. The capital was indeed surrounded, cut off from 
 all the world ; but the surrounding line was so thin that 
 good generalship from within could have pierced it, 
 and there was an eager army of brave men waiting to 
 join issue from the Loire. 
 
 It was to this army of the Loire that Colonel Gilbert 
 and de Vasselot were accredited. And it was an 
 amateur army. It came from every part of France, 
 and in its dress it ran to the picturesque. Franc- 
 tireurs de Cannes rubbed shoulders with Mobiles from
 
 326 THE ISLE OF UNREST. 
 
 the far northern departments. Spahis and Zouaves 
 from Africa bivouacked with fair-haired men whose 
 native tongue was German. There were soldiers who 
 had followed the drum all their lives, and there were 
 soldiers who did not know how to load their chassepots. 
 There were veteran non-commissioned officers hurriedly 
 drilling embryo priests ; and young gentlemen from St. 
 Cyr trying to form in line grey-headed peasants who 
 wore sabots. There were fancy soldiers and picturesque 
 fighters, who joined a regiment because its costume 
 appealed to their conception of patriotism. And if a 
 man prefers to fight for his country in the sombrero 
 and cloak of a comic-opera brigand, what boots it so 
 long as he fights well ? It must be remembered, more- 
 over, that it is quite as painful to die under a sombrero 
 as under a plainer covering. A man who wears such 
 clothes sees the picturesque side of life, and may there- 
 fore hold existence as dear as more practical persons 
 who take little heed of their appearance. For when 
 the time came these gentlemen fought well enough, and 
 ruined their picturesque get-up with their own blood. 
 And if they shouted very loud in the cafe, they shouted. 
 Heaven knows, as loud on the battle-field, when they 
 faced those hated, deadly, steady Bavarians, and died 
 shouting. 
 
 Of such material was the army of the Loire; and 
 when Chanzy came to them from North Africa — that
 
 A BALANCED ACCOUNT. 327 
 
 Punjaub of this stricken India from whence the strong 
 men came when they were wanted — when Chanzy 
 came to lead them, they commanded the respect of all 
 the world. For these were men fighting a losing fight, 
 without hope of victory, for the honour of France, 
 They fought with a deadly valour against superior 
 numbers beliind entrenchments ; they endeavoured tO' 
 turn the Germans out of insignificant villages after 
 allowing them time to fortify the position. They 
 fought in the open against an invisible enemy superior 
 in numbers, superior in artillery, and here and there 
 they gained a pitiful little hard-earned advantage. 
 
 De Vasselot, still unable to go to the front, was put 
 to train these men in a little quiet town on the Loire,., 
 where he lodged with a shoemaker, and worked harder 
 than any man in that sunny place had ever worked 
 before. It was his business to gather together such 
 men as could sit a horse, and teach them to be cavalry 
 soldiers. But first of all he taught them that the horse 
 was an animal possessing possibilities far beyond their 
 most optimistic conception of that sagacious but foolish 
 quadruped. He taught them a hundred tricks of heel 
 and wrist, by whicli a man may convey to a horse that 
 which he wishes him to do. He made the horse and 
 the man understand each other, and when they did 
 this he sent them to the front. 
 
 In the meantime France fed herself upon false news.
 
 328 THE ISLE OP UNREST. 
 
 and magnified small successes into great victories. 
 Gambetta made many eloquent speeches, and issued 
 fiery manifestoes to the soldiers; but speeches and 
 manifestoes do not win battles. Paris hoped all things 
 of the army of the Loire, and the army of the Loire 
 expected a successful sortie from Paris. And those 
 men of iron, Bismarck, Moltke, and the emperor, sat at 
 Versailles and waited. While they waited the winter 
 came. 
 
 De Vasselot, who had daily attempted to use his 
 ■wounded limbs, at length found himself fit for active 
 service, and got permission to join the army. Gilbert 
 -ivas no longer a colonel. He was a general now, and 
 commanded a division which had already made its 
 mark upon that man of misfortune — von der Taun, a 
 ■great soldier with no luck. 
 
 One frosty morning de Vasselot rode out of the little 
 town upon the Loire at the head of a handful of his 
 newly trained men. He was going to take up his 
 appointment : for he held the command of the whole 
 of the cavalry of General Gilbert's division. These 
 were days of quick promotion, of comet-like reputations, 
 and of great careers cut short. De Vasselot had 
 written to Jane de Melide the previous night, telling 
 her of his movements in the immediate future, of his 
 promotion, of his hopes. One hope which he did not 
 mention was that Denise might be at Frejus, and would
 
 A BALANCED ACCOUNT. 329 
 
 see the letter. Indeed, it was written to Denise, though 
 it was addressed to the Baronne de Melide. 
 
 Then he went blithely enough out to fight. For he 
 was quite a simple person, as many soldiers and many 
 horse-lovers are. He was also that which is vaguely 
 called a sportsman, and was ready to take a legitimate 
 risk not only cheerfully, but with joy. 
 
 " It is my only chance of making her care for me," 
 he said to himself. He may have been right or wrong. 
 There is a wisdom which is the exclusive possession of 
 the simple. And Lory may have known that it is 
 wiser to store up in a woman's mind memories that will 
 bear honour and respect in the future, than to make 
 appeal to her vanity in the present. For the love that 
 is won by vanity is itself vanity. 
 
 He said he was fighting for France, but it was also 
 for Denise that he fought. France and Denise had got 
 inextricably mixed in his mind, and both spelt honour. 
 His only method of making Denise love him was to 
 make himself worthy of her — an odd, old-fashioned 
 theory of action, and the only one that enables two 
 people to love each other all their lives. 
 
 In this spirit he joined the army of the Loire before 
 his wounds had liealed. He did not know that Denise 
 loved him already, that she had with a woman's 
 instinct divined in him the spirit, quite apart from the 
 opportunity, to do great things. And most men have
 
 330 THE ISLE OF UNREST 
 
 to content themselves with being loved for this spirit 
 and not for the performance which, somehow, is so 
 seldom accomplished. 
 
 And that which kept them apart was for their further 
 happiness ; it was even for the happiness of Denise in 
 case Lory never came back to her. For the majority 
 of people get what they want before they have learnt 
 to desire. It is only the lives of the few which are 
 taken in hand and so fashioned that there is a waiting 
 and an attainment at last. 
 
 Lory and Denise were exploring roads which few are 
 called upon to tread — dark roads with mud and stones 
 and many turnings, and each has a separate road to 
 tread and must find the way alone. But if Fate is 
 kind they may meet at the end without having gone 
 astray, or, which is rarer, without being spattered by the 
 mud. For those mud-stains will never rub off and never 
 be forgotten. Which is a hard saying, but a true one. 
 
 Lory had left Denise without any explanation of 
 these things. He had never thought of sparing her by 
 the simple method of neglecting his obvious duty. In 
 his mind she was the best of God's creations — a woman 
 strong to endure. That was sufficient for him ; and he 
 turned his attention to his horses and his men. He 
 never saw the background to his own life. It is usually 
 the onlooker who sees that, just as a critic sees more in 
 a picture than the painter ever put there.
 
 A BALANCED ACCOUNT. 331 
 
 Lory hardly knew of these questions himself. He 
 only half thought of them, and Denis e, far away in 
 Provence, thought the other half Which is love. 
 
 Lory took part in the fighting after Orleans and 
 risked his life freely, as he ever did when opportunity 
 offered. He was more than an officer, he was a leader. 
 And it is better to show the way than to point it out. 
 Although his orders came from General Gilbert, he had 
 never met his commanding officer since quitting the 
 little sunny town on the Loire where he had recovered 
 from his wounds. It was only after Chateaudun and 
 after the Coulmiers that they met, and it was only in 
 a small affair after all, the attempted recapture of a 
 village taken and hurriedly fortified by the Germans. 
 It was a night-attack. The army of the Loire was 
 rather fond of night-fighting ; for the night equalizes 
 matters between discipline and mere bravery. Also, 
 if your troops are bad, they may as well be beaten in 
 the dark as in the daylight. The survivors come away 
 with a better heart. Also, discipline is robbed of half 
 its strength by the absence of daylight. 
 
 Cavalry, it is known, are no good at night ; for horses 
 are nervous and will wliinny to friend or foe when 
 silence is imperative. And yet Lory received orders to 
 take part in this night-attack. Stranger things than that 
 were ordered and carried out in the campaign on the 
 Loire. All the rules of warfare were outraged, and
 
 332 THE ISLE OF UNREST. 
 
 those warriors who win and lose battles on paper cannot 
 explain many battles that were lost and won during 
 that winter. 
 
 There was a moon, and the ground was thinly 
 covered with snow. It was horribly cold when the 
 men turned out and silently rode to the spot indicated 
 in the orders. These were quite clear, and they meant 
 death. De Vasselot had practically to lead a forlorn 
 hope. A fellow-officer laughed when the instructions 
 were read to him. 
 
 " The general must be an enemy of yours," he said. 
 And the thought had not occurred to Lory before. 
 
 " No," he replied, " he is a sportsman." 
 
 " It is poor sport for us," muttered the officer, riding 
 away. 
 
 But Lory was right. For when the moment came 
 and he was waiting with his troopers behind a farm- 
 building, a scout rode in to say that reinforcements 
 were coming. As these rode across the open in the 
 moonlight, it was apparent that they were not 
 numerous ; for cavalry was scarce since Eeichshofen. 
 They were led by a man on a big horse, who was com- 
 fortably muffled up in a great fur-coat. 
 
 " De Vasselot," he said in a pleasant voice, as Lory 
 went forward to meet him. " De Vasselot, I have 
 brought a few more to help you. We must make a 
 great splash on this side, while the real attack is on
 
 A BALANCED ACCOUNT. 333 
 
 the other. We must show them the way — you and J." 
 And Gilbert laughed quietly. 
 
 It was not the moment for greetings. Lory gave a 
 few hurried orders in a low voice, and the new-comers 
 fell into line. They were scarcely in place when the 
 signal was given. A moment later they were galloping 
 across the open towards the village— a sight to lift any 
 heart above the thought of death. 
 
 Then the fire opened — a flash of flame like fork- 
 lightning running along the ground — a crashing volley 
 which mowed the assailants like a scythe. Lory and 
 Gilbert were both down, side by side. Lory, active as 
 a cat, was on his legs in a moment and leapt away 
 from the flying heels of his wounded horse. A second 
 volley blazed into the night, and Lory dropped a second 
 time. He moved a little, and cursed his luck. With 
 difficulty he raised himself on his elbow. 
 
 " Gilbert," he said, " Gilbert." 
 
 He dragged himself towards the general, who was 
 lying on his back. 
 
 " Gilbert," he said, with his mouth close to the 
 other's ear, " we should have been friends, you know, 
 all the same, but the luck was against us. It is not 
 for one to judge the other. Do you hear ? Do you 
 hear ? " 
 
 Gilbert lay quite still, staring at the moon with his. 
 easy, contemplative smile. His right arm was raised
 
 334 THE ISLE OF UNREST. 
 
 and his great sabre lield aloft to show the way, as he 
 had promised, now pointed silently to heaven. 
 
 Lory raised himself again, the blood running down 
 his sleeve over his right hand. 
 
 " Gilbert," he repeated, " do you understand ? " 
 Then he fell unconscious across the general's breast.
 
 ( 335 ) 
 
 CHAPTER XXX. 
 
 THE BEGINNING AND THE END. 
 " I gave — no matter what I gave — I win." 
 
 The careful student will find in the back numbers 
 of the Deutsche Bundscliau, that excellent family 
 magazine, the experiences of a German military doctor 
 with the army of General von der Tann. The story is 
 one touched by that deep and occasionally maudlin 
 spirit of sentimentality which finds a home in hearts 
 that beat for the Fatherland. Its most thrilling page 
 is the description of the finding, by the narrator, of the 
 body of a general officer during a sharp night engage- 
 ment, across which body was lying a wounded cavalry 
 colonel, who had evidently devoted himself to the 
 defence of his comrade in arms. 
 
 The reminiscent doctor makes good use of such com- 
 pound words as " brother-love " and " though-superior-in 
 rank -yet - comrade-in-arm s - and - companions - in - death- 
 affectionate," which linguistic facility enables the 
 German writer to build up as he progresses in his
 
 336 THE ISLE OF UNREST. 
 
 narration words of a phenomenal calibre, and bowl the 
 reader over, so to speak, at a long range. He finishes 
 by mentioning that the general was named Gilbert, a 
 man of colossal engineering skill, while the wounded 
 officer was the Count Lory de Vasselot, grandson of 
 one of Napoleon's most dashing cavalry leaders. The 
 doctor finishes right there, as the Americans say, and 
 quite forgets to note the fact that he himself picked up 
 de Yasselot under a spitting cross-fire, carried him into 
 his own field hospital and there tended him. Which 
 omission proves that to find a brave and kind heart it 
 is not necessary to consider what outer uniform may 
 cover, or guttural tongue distinguish, the inner man. 
 
 Lory was shot in two places again, and the doctors 
 who attended him laughed when they saw the old 
 wounds hardly yet healed. He would be lame for 
 years, they said, perhaps for life. He had a bullet in 
 his right shoulder and another had shattered his ankle. 
 Neitlier was dangerous, but his fighting days were done, 
 at all events for this campaign. 
 
 " You will not fight against us again," said the doctor, 
 with a smile on his broad Saxon features, and in exe- 
 crable French, which was not improved by the scissors 
 that he held between his lips. 
 
 "Not in this war, perhaps," answered the patient, 
 hopefully. 
 
 Again the tide of war moved on ; and, daily, the cold
 
 THE BEGINNING AND THE END. 337 
 
 increased. But its cliill was nothing to that coLJ, slow 
 death of hope that numbed all France. For it became 
 momentarily more apparent that those at the head of 
 affairs were incompetent — that the man upon whom 
 hope had been placed was nothing but a talker, a man 
 of words, an orator, a wind-bag. France, wlio has 
 usually led the way in the world's progress, had 
 entered upon that period of words — that Age of Talk — 
 in which she still labours, and which must inevitably 
 be the ruin of all her greatness. 
 
 For two weeks Lory lay in the improvised German 
 field hospital in that remote village, and made the 
 astounding progress towards recovery which is the 
 happy privilege of the light-hearted. It is said among 
 soldiers that a foe is no longer a foe when he is down, 
 and de Vasselot found himself among friends. 
 
 The German doctor wrote a letter for him. 
 
 " It will be good practice for my French," said the 
 artless Teuton, quite frankly. And the letter was 
 sent, but never reached its destination. Lory could 
 learn no news, however. In war there are, not two, 
 but three sides to a question. Each combatant has 
 one, and Truth has the third, which she often locks up 
 for ever in her quiet breast. 
 
 At last, one morning quite early, a horseman dis- 
 mounted at the door of the house in the village street, 
 where the hospital flag hung lazily i'n the still, frosty air. 
 
 z
 
 338 THE ISLE OF UXEEST. 
 
 "It is a civilian," said an attendant, in astonish- 
 ment, so rare was the sight of a plain coat at this time. 
 There followed a conversation in muffled voices in the 
 entrance hall ; not a French conversation in many tones 
 of voice — but a quiet Teutonic talk as between Germans 
 and Englishmen. Then the door opened, and a man 
 came into the room, removing a fur coat as he came. 
 He was a tall, impassive man, well dressed, wearing a 
 tweed suit and a single eye-glass. He might have been 
 an Englishman. He was, however, the Baron de 
 Melide, and his manner had that repose which belongs 
 to the new aristocracy of France and to the shreds that 
 remain, here and there, of the old. 
 
 " Left my ambulance to subordinates," he explained 
 as he shook Lory's hand. " Humanity is an excellent 
 quality, but one's friends come first. It has taken me 
 some time to find you. Have procured your parole for 
 you. You are quite useless^ they say," — the baron 
 eyed Lory with a calm and experienced glance as he 
 spoke — "so they release you on parole. They are 
 not generous, but they have an enormous common 
 sense." 
 
 The doctor, who understood French, laughed good- 
 naturedly, and the baron twisted his waxed moustache 
 and looked slightly uncomfortable. He was conscious 
 of having said the wrong thing as usual. 
 
 And all the while de Vasselot was talkino; and
 
 THE BEGINNING AND THE END. 339 
 
 laughing, and commenting on his friend's appearance 
 and clothes, and goodness of heart — all in a breath, as 
 was his manner. Also he found time to ask a hundred 
 questions which the stupid would take at least a week 
 to answer, but his answer to each would be the right 
 one. 
 
 It was during the great cold of the early days of 
 January, that the baron and Lory turned their backs 
 on that bitter valley of the Loire. They had a cross- 
 journey to Lyons, and there joined a main line train, 
 in which they fell asleep to awake in the brilliant 
 sunshine, amid the cool grey-greens, the bare rocks and 
 dark cypresses of the south. After Marseilles the 
 journey became tedious again. 
 
 " Heavens ! " cried Lory, impatiently, " what a delay ! 
 Why need they stop at this little station at all ? " 
 
 The baron made no reply just then. The train 
 travelled five miles while he stared thoughtfully at the 
 grey hills. It was six months since he had seen the 
 vivacious lady who was supposed by this one-eyed 
 world to rule him. 
 
 " After all," he said at length, " Frejus is a little 
 station." 
 
 For the baron was a philosopher. 
 
 When at last they reached the quiet tree-grown 
 station, where even to this day so few trains stop, and 
 so insignificant a business is transacted, they found the
 
 340 THE ISLE OF UNREST. 
 
 Baroness tie Melide on the platform awaiting them. 
 She was in black, as were all Frenchwomen at this 
 time. She gave an odd little langh at the sight of her 
 husband, and immediately held her lip between her 
 teeth, as if she were afraid that her laugh might change 
 to something else. 
 
 " Ah ! " she said, " how hungry you both look — and 
 yet you must have lunched at Toulon." 
 
 She looked curiously from one drawn face to the 
 other as the baron helped Lory to descend. 
 
 " Hungry," she repeated with a reflective nod. 
 " Perhaps your precious France does not satisfy." 
 
 And as she led the way to the carriage there was a 
 gleam, almost fierce, of triumph in her eyes. 
 
 The arrival at the chateau was uneventful. Mademoi- 
 selle Brun said no word at all ; but stood a little aside 
 with folded hands and watched. Denise, young and slim 
 in her black dress, shook hands and said that she was 
 afraid the travellers must be tired after their long journey. 
 
 " Why should Denise think that I was tired ? " the 
 baron inquired later, as he was opening his letters in 
 the study. 
 
 " Mon ami," replied the baroness, " she did not think 
 you were tired, and did not care whether you were or 
 not." 
 
 Lory had the same room assigned to him that opened 
 on to the verandah where heliotrope and roses and
 
 THE BEGINNING AND THE END. 341 
 
 Bougainvilliers contended for tlie mastery. Outside 
 his windows were placed the same table and long chair, 
 and beside the last the other chair where Denise had 
 sat — which had been placed there by Fate. The butler 
 was, it appeared, a man of few ideas. He had arranged 
 everything as before. 
 
 After his early coffee Lory went to the verandah and 
 lay down by that empty chair. It was a brilliant 
 morning, with a light keen air which has not its equal 
 all the world over. The sun was powerful enough to 
 draw the scent from the pinewoods, and the sea-breeze 
 swept it up towards the mountains. Lory waited alone 
 in the verandah all the morning. After luncheon the 
 baron assisted him back to his long chair, and all the 
 party came there and drank coffee. Coffee was one of 
 Mademoiselle Brun's solaces in life. " It makes exist- 
 ence bearable," she said — " if it is hot enough." But 
 she finished her cup quickly and went away. The 
 baron was full of business. He received a score of 
 letters during the day. At any moment the prelimin- 
 aries of peace might now be signed. He had not even 
 time for a cigarette. The baroness sat for some minutes 
 looking at Lory, endeavouring to make him meet her 
 shrewd eyes ; but he was looking out over the plain of 
 Les Arcs. Denise had not sat down, but was standing 
 rather restlessly at the edge of the verandah near the 
 heliotrope which clambered up the supports. She had
 
 342 THE ISLE OF UNREST. 
 
 picked a piece of the delicate flower and was idly 
 smelling it. 
 
 At last the baroness rose and walked away without 
 any explanation at all. After a few minutes, which 
 passed slowly in silence, Denise turned and came slowly 
 towards Lory. The chair had never been occupied. 
 She sat down and looked away from him. Her face, 
 still delicately sunburnt, was flushed. Then she turned, 
 and her eyes as they met his were stricken with fear. 
 
 " I did not understand," she said. And she must 
 have been referring to their conversation in that same 
 spot months before. She was either profoundly ignor- 
 ant of the world or profoundly indifferent to it. She 
 ought, of course, to have made some safe remark about 
 the weather. She ought to have distrusted Lory. But 
 he seemed to know her meaning without any difficulty. 
 
 " I think a great many people never understand, 
 mademoiselle." 
 
 " It has taken me a long time — nearly four months," 
 said Denise, reflectively. " But I understood quite 
 suddenly at Bastia — when the soldiers passed the 
 notary's office. I understood then what life is and 
 what it is meant to be." 
 
 Lory looked up at her for a moment. 
 
 " That is because you are nearer heaven than I am," 
 he said. 
 
 " But it was you who taught me, not heaven," said
 
 THE BEGINNING AND THE END. 343 
 
 Denise. " You said — well, you remember what you 
 said, perhaps — and then immediately after you denied 
 me the first thing I asked you. You knew what was 
 right, and I did not. You have always known what 
 was right, and have always done it. I see that now as 
 I look back. So I have learnt my lesson, you see." 
 She concluded with a grave smile. Life is full of 
 gravity, but love is the gravest part of it. 
 
 " Not from me," persisted Lory. 
 
 "Yes, from you. Suppose you had done what I 
 asked you. Suppose you had not gone to the war 
 again, what would have become of our lives ? " 
 
 " Perhaps," suggested Lory, " we have both to learn 
 from each other. Perhaps it is a long lesson and will 
 take all our lives. I think we are only beginning it. 
 And perhaps I opened the book when I told you that I 
 loved you, here in the verandah ! " 
 
 Denise turned and looked at him with a smile full 
 of pity, and touched with that contempt which women 
 sometimes bestow upon men for understanding so little 
 of life. 
 
 " Men Dieu! " she said, "I loved you long before that." 
 
 The sun was setting behind the distant Esterelles — 
 those low and lonesome mountains clad from foot to 
 summit in pine — when Mademoiselle Brun came out 
 into the garden. She had to pass across the verandah, 
 and instinctively turned to look towards that end of it
 
 344 THE ISLE OF UNREST. 
 
 where de Yasselot had come a second time to lie in the 
 sun and heal his wounds — a man who had fought a 
 good fiffht. 
 
 Denise was holding out a spray of heliotrope towards 
 Lory and he had taken, not the flower, but her hand : 
 and thus without a word and unconsciously they told 
 their whole story to mademoiselle. 
 
 The little old woman walked on without showinir 
 that she had seen and understood. She was not an 
 expansive person. 
 
 She sat down at the corner of the lowest terrace and 
 with blinking eyes stared across the great plain of Les 
 Arcs, where north and south meet, where the palm tree 
 and the pine grow side by side, towards the Esterelles 
 and the setting sun. The sky was clear, but for a few 
 little puffs of cloud low down towards the west, like a 
 flock of sheep ready to go home, waiting for the gate to 
 open. 
 
 Mademoiselle's thin lips were moving as if she were 
 whispering to the God whom she served with such a 
 remarkable paucity of words. It may have been that 
 she was muttering a sort of grim Nunc Dimittis — she 
 who had seen so many wars. " Now lettest Thou Thy 
 servant depart in peace." 
 
 THE END. 
 
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 There is not a dull page in it from first to last. All is light, colour, movement, blended 
 and inspired by a master hand.' 
 
 Twenty-first Edition. Crown Svo. 6s. 
 
 THE WHITE COMPANY. 
 
 TIMES. — ' We could not desire a more stirring romance, or one more flattering to 
 our national tradiiions. We feel thr<iu.jhoat that Air. Conan Doyle's story is not a mere 
 item in the catalogue of excilini; romances. It is real literature.' 
 
 ILLUSTRATED LONDON NEWS.—' I have read nothing of the kind so good 
 since " Ivanhoc," with which it has many points of resemblance.' 
 
 With a Frontispiece. Crown Svo. 6s. 
 
 THE GREEN FLAG: 
 
 AND OTHER STORIES OF WAR AND SPORT. 
 
 YORKSHIRE POST.—' There is not a weak story or a dull page in this volume. 
 Constructive skill, genuine huiujur, and a mastery of style, combine to make this the 
 most attractive volume of short stories we have for some time seen.' 
 
 DAILY TELEGRAPH.— ' Few novelists of our time would have told the story 
 in such stirring language, and the battle picture is perfect of its kind. Altogether the 
 volume is admirable.' 
 
 London: SMITH, ELDER & CO., 15 Waterloo Place.
 
 NOVELS BY S. R. CROCKETT. 
 
 With a Frontispiece. Crown 8vo. 6s. 
 
 LITTLE ANNA MARK. 
 
 Speaker. — ' Romantic ad- 
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 country, is undoubtedly Mr. 
 Crockett's strong f)oint. . . .There 
 is a good deal of vigorous writing 
 that does not miss fire like so 
 much in modern heroical stufT, 
 and " Little Anna Mark " is a 
 sufficiently dashing and attractive 
 heroine to fill the title-role with 
 effect. Altogether here is a good 
 tale to read.' 
 
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 ANNA MAHK. 
 
 Crown 8vo, Gs, 
 
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 Daily News. — 'In "Little 
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 his invention flag — one dramatic 
 incident succeeds another with 
 lightning rapidity.' 
 
 Daily Chronicle.-'Mr.Crock- 
 
 ett carries us along from exciting 
 incident to thrilling episode, and 
 gives us scarce time to breathe.' 
 
 THIRD EDITION. With 8 Full-page Illustrations. Crown Svo. 6s. 
 
 THE BLACK DOUGLAS. 
 
 Speaker. — ' Upon the whole, 
 the strongest piece of work we 
 have yet had from Mr. Crockett 
 ... a book which grips the 
 imagination in a thoroughly satis- 
 factory fashion.' 
 
 Academy.— 'A stirring story 
 of fighting, and loving, and 
 vengeance.' 
 
 Black and White.— 'A fine 
 
 vigorous story, full of hard fight- 
 ing and brave deeds.' 
 
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 BLACK DOUGLAS. 
 
 THIRD EDITION. 
 Crown Svo. 6s. 
 
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 BLACK DOUGLAS. 
 
 THIRD EDITION. 
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 Yorkshire Post.— 'A bril- 
 liant piece of work ; one of ti.e 
 best stories we have met.' 
 
 Christian World. — 'The 
 story is from beginning to end a 
 most thrilling one.' 
 
 Dally Chronicle. — ' With 
 
 many picturesque touches, han- 
 dling the gorgeous sequence of 
 media;val colours boldly and well, 
 Mr. Crockett does some of his 
 very best work. He outdoes any 
 of the work we have yet seen 
 from him of this kind.' 
 
 THIRD EDITION. With 8 Full-page Illustrations. Crown Svo. 6s. 
 
 THE RED AXE. 
 
 Daily News. — 'Well con- 
 structed ; always picturesque ; 
 and we pass from sensation to 
 sensation without pause.' 
 
 Speaker. — 'An admirable 
 story, told with sustained vigour 
 and skill.' 
 
 Daily Chronicle.— 'A story 
 
 rousing enough, set in a scene at 
 once fresh, original, and pictur- 
 esque.' 
 
 THE RED AXE. 
 
 THIRD EDITION. 
 Crown Svo. 6s. 
 
 THE RED AXE. 
 
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 THIRTY-FOURTH THOUSAND. 
 
 CLEQ KELLY, 
 
 Spectator. — ' The story teems 
 with incidents of all sorts, and 
 it carries the reader along, keenly 
 interested and full of sympathy, 
 from the first page to the last. 
 It is a thoroughly good and in- 
 teresting novel.' 
 
 Daily Chronicle.—' If ever 
 
 there was an ideal character in 
 fiction it is this heroic raga- 
 muffin.' 
 
 CLEG KELLY. 
 
 34lh THOUSAND. 
 Crown Svo. 6s. 
 
 CLEG KELLY. 
 
 34th THOUSAND. 
 Crown Svo. 6s. 
 
 Black and White.—' A stir- 
 ring story of br.ive men and 
 women.' 
 
 Weekly Sun.—' A powerful 
 
 story, which he tells in his own 
 masterly style. More than any 
 of his previous books it plays 
 upon the emotions, and takes a 
 firm grip at once upon the atten- 
 tion and the feelings of the 
 reader.' 
 
 Crown Svo. 6s. 
 
 ARAB OF 
 THE CITY. 
 Review of Reviews.— 'A 
 
 book which will add to the fame 
 of its author, and establish the 
 popularity of the Scotch story 
 on still wider and broader foun- 
 dations.' 
 Westminster Gazette.— 
 
 ' Cleg Kelly is from first to last 
 a wholly delightful and stimu- 
 lating figure — a hero fit to make 
 the fame of any book.' 
 
 London: SMITH, ELDER, & CO., 15 Waterloo Place, S.W.
 
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