A Soldier of the Legion. C. N. Williamson
Читать онлайн книгу.
out to be honest. He never tried to get more money out of me. Neither did the woman. His name was Paul Lefebre, and the village was Latour. I've never heard anything from them or about them since Jack and I and you and Anne left the Château de la Tour, when you were six weeks old. I didn't wish to hear. I wanted to forget, as if it had all been a bad dream. Only Anne's eyes wouldn't let me. They seemed to know too much. I couldn't help being glad when she was dead, though she'd been so faithful. But when Jack died in that dreadful, sudden way, then for the first time I felt remorse—horrible remorse, for a while. … I thought he was taken from me by God as a punishment—the one human being I'd ever loved dearly! And I got insomnia, because his spirit seemed to be near, looking at me, knowing everything. But the feeling passed. I suppose I'm not deep enough to feel anything for long. I lived down the remorse. And it was fortunate for me I had a child; otherwise all but a little money would have gone to the Reynold Dorans. You've been good to me, Max, and I've liked you very well. I've tried not to think about the past. But when I did think, I said to myself that you had nothing to complain of. What a different life it would have been for you, with your own people. And even as it is, you needn't give up anything unless you choose. If Jack were alive I'd never have told, even dying. But he's gone, and I shall be—soon. So far as I'm concerned I don't care which way you choose: whether you write to Doctor Lefebre or not. Only for the sake of the name—Jack's name—don't let there be a scandal if you decide to try and find the girl. Maybe you can't find her. She may be dead. Then it needn't go against your conscience to let things stay as they are. The Reynold Dorans have heaps of money."
"That isn't the question exactly," said Max. "Whatever happens, I haven't the right—but never mind. … I don't want to trouble you, God knows. I can see partly how you must have felt about the baby, and about fath—I mean, about the whole thing. It isn't for me to blame—I—thank you for telling me. Somehow I must manage—to make things straight, without injuring fath—without injuring the name." His voice broke a little. John Doran had died under an operation when Max was ten, but he had adored his father, and still adored his memory. There had been great love between the big, quiet sportsman and the mercurial, hot-headed, enthusiastic little boy whom Jack Doran had spoiled and called "Frenchy" for a pet name. After more than fourteen years, he could hear the kind voice now, clearly as ever. "Hullo, Frenchy! how are things with you to-day?" used to be the morning greeting.
How were things with him to-day? …
Max had heard the story with a stolidity which seemed to himself extraordinary; for excepting the shiver of physical pain which shook him at each sigh of suffering from under the veil, he had felt nothing, absolutely nothing, until the voice of dead Jack Doran seemed to call to him out of darkness.
"He wasn't my father," came the stabbing reminder; but the love which had been could never be taken away. "I must do what you would want me to do," Max answered the call. In his heart he knew what that thing was. He must give everything up. He ought to look for the girl and for his own parents, if they lived. The daughter of John Doran must have what was hers.
As he thought this, Rose spoke again, more slowly now, since the story was told, and there was no longer any haste. "Remember, nobody knows yet but you and me, Max," she said. "Not even Edwin Reeves. All he knows is that I had something to say to you. If he tried to guess what it was, he must have guessed something very different from this. Why not find out where she is, if you can, and somehow contrive to give her money or send it anonymously—enough to make her rich; and let the rest go as it is? I told you just now that I didn't care much either way, and I don't, for myself, because I shall be out of it all, and because I know you loved Jack too well not to be careful for his sake, what you do. But I care more for your sake than I thought I cared at first. You're so quiet, I know I've struck you hard. Almost—I wish I hadn't told."
"I don't," answered Max with an effort. "And you mustn't. It was the only thing."
And yet, even as he spoke, he was conscious of wishing that she had not told. Some women, having done what she had done for the love of a man and for their own vanity, would have gone out of the world in silence—still for the love of the man, and for their own vanity. Vanity had been the ruling passion of Rose Doran's life. Max had realized it before. Yet something in the end had been stronger than vanity, and had beaten it down. He wondered dimly what the thing was. Perhaps fear, lest soon, on the other side of the dark valley, she should have to meet reproach in the only eyes she had ever loved. And she needed help in crossing—Jack Doran's help. Maybe this was her way of reaching out for it. She had told the truth; and she seemed to think that was enough. She advised Max to leave things as they were, after all. And he was tempted to obey.
No longer was he stunned by the blow that had fallen. He felt the pain of it now, and faced the future consequences. He stood to lose everything: his career, for Max had his vanity, too; and without the Doran name and the Doran money he could not remain in the army.
If he resolved to hand over all that was his to the girl, he must go away, must leave the country.
He would have to think of some scheme by which the girl could get her rights, and the world could be left in ignorance of Rose Doran's fraud. To accomplish this, he must sacrifice himself utterly. He must disappear and be forgotten by his friends—a penniless man, without a country. And Billie Brookton would be lost to him.
Strange, this was his first conscious thought of her since he had stepped out of the train, almost his first since leaving her at Fort Ellsworth. He was half shocked at his forgetfulness of such a jewel, so nearly his, the jewel so many other men wanted. He wanted her, too, desperately, now that the clouds had parted for an instant to remind him of the bright world where she lived—the world of his past.
"You're so deadly still!" Rose murmured. "Are you thinking hard things of me?"
"No, never that," Max said.
"How are you going to decide? Shall you take my advice, keep your place in this world, and give her money, if you find her? And most likely you never can. It's such a long time ago." Rose's voice dragged. It was very small and weak, very tired.
"It's your advice for me to do that?" Max asked, almost incredulously. "And yet—she's your own child, his child."
"Not the child of our souls. You'll see what I mean, if you ever see her. Think it over—a few minutes, and then tell me. I feel—somehow I should like to know, before going. Wake me—in ten minutes. I think I could sleep—till then. Such a rest, since I told you! No pain."
"Oughtn't I to call the doctor?" Max half rose from his chair by the bedside.
"No, no. I want nothing—except to sleep—for ten minutes. Can you decide—in ten minutes?"
"Yes."
"You promise to wake me then?"
"Yes," Max said again.
For ten minutes there was silence in the room, save for a little sound of crackling wood in the open fire that Rose had always loved.
Max had decided, and the time had come to keep his promise. He must speak, to wake the sleeper. But he did not know what to call her. She said that she had never loved him as a son. She must always have felt irritated when he dared to address her as "Dearest"—he, the little French bourgeois. She would hate it now.
"Rose!" he whispered. Then a little louder, "Rose!"
She did not answer.
He would not have to tell her his decision. But perhaps she knew.
CHAPTER III
THE LAST ACT OF "GIRLS' LOVE"
The wail of grief that echoed through New York for Rose Doran, suddenly snatched from life in the prime of her beauty, sounded in the ears of Max a warning note. Her memory must not be smirched. And then again came the temptation. As she lay dying he had decided what to do. But now that she was dead, now that letters and telegrams