Gilbert Parker

“ But you have spoiled enough already. Don't you think that if Luke Freeman does marry, you had better be dead as you have been this last five years? To have spoiled one life ought to be enough to satisfy even a woman like you."
Her eyes looked through Blake Shorland's eyes and beyond them to something else; and then they closed. When they opened again, she said: "It is strange that I never thought of his marrying again. And now I want to kill her—just for the moment. That is the selfish devil in me. Well, what is to be done, monsieur? There is the Morgue left. But then there is no Morgue here. ”

“ M. Barre shrugged his shoulders pleasantly and replied: "If I had my way your freedom should be promptly curtailed, Gabrielle. You are an active citizen, but you are dangerous, truly."
"I like you better when you do not have your way. Yet my children do not hate you, M. Barre. You speak your thought, and they know what to expect. Your family have little more freedom in France than my children have here."
M. Barre looked at her keenly for an instant, then, lighting a cigarette, he said: "So, Gabrielle, so! That is enough. You wish to speak to M. Shorland—well!" ”

“ III After breakfast next morning Shorland expressed to M. Barre his intention of going to see Gabrielle Rouget. He was told that he must not go alone; a guard would be too conspicuous and might invite trouble; he himself would bear him company.
The hot January day was reflected from the red streets, white houses, and waxen leaves of the tropical foliage with enervating force. An occasional ex-convict sullenly lounged by, touching his cap as he was required by law; a native here and there leaned idly against a house-wall or a magnolia tree; ill-looking men and women loitered in the shade. ”

“ They would not let me serve France in Paris, but I die for her in New Caledonia. I have lived six-and-twenty years. I have loved the world. Many men have been kind, and once there was a woman—and I shall see her soon, quite soon. It is strange. The eyes will become blind, and then they will open, and—ah!" His fingers closed convulsively on those of Blake Shorland. When the ghastly tremor, the deadly corrosions of the poisoned spear passed he said: "So—so! It is the end. C'est bien, c'est bien!"
All round them the fight raged, and French soldiers were repeating
English bravery in the Soudan. ”

“ On the morning of the twenty-fifth they neared Noumea. Shorland thought of all that day meant to Luke and Clare. He was helpless to alter the course of events, to stay a terrible possibility.
"You can never trust a woman of Gabrielle's stamp," he said to himself, as they rode along through valleys of ferns, grenadillas, and limes. "They have no baseline of duty; they either rend themselves or rend others, but rend they must, hearts and not garments. Henri Durien knows, and she knows, and Alencon Barre knew, poor boy! But what Barre knew is buried with him back there under the palms. ”

“ There was but one hope—to break out, to meet the soldiers hand to hand and fight for passage to the friendly jungle and to the sea, where they might trust to that Providence who appears to help even the wicked sometimes. As Shorland looked upon the scene he thought of Alencon Barre's words: "It is always the same with France, always the same." ”

“ Shorland caught him and prevented him falling to the ground. A wild cry rose from the jungle behind and from the clearing ahead, and in a moment the infuriated French soldiers were in the thick of a hand-to-hand fray under a rain of spears and clubs. The spear that had struck Barre would have struck Shorland had he not bent backward when he did. As it was the weapon had torn a piece of cloth from his coat.
A moment, and the wounded man was lifted to the ground. The surgeon shook his head in sad negation. Death already blanched the young officer's face. ”

“ Shorland had a clear conviction that he ought to take Alencon Barre into his confidence. If Gabrielle Rouget should have any special connection with Luke Freeman, there might be need of the active counsel of a friend like this young officer, whose face bespoke chivalry and gentle birth. Better that Alencon Barre should know all, than that he should know in part and some day unwittingly make trouble. So he raised frank eyes to those of the other, and told the story of the man whose portrait had so affected Gabrielle Rouget. ”

“ The ex-convict slowly left the cafe still muttering.
"Well, Gabrielle, how are your children this morning? They look gloomy enough for the guillotine, eh?" said M. Barre.
"They are much trouble, sometimes—my children."
"Last night, for instance."
"Last night. But monsieur was unwise. We do not love the English here. They do not find it comfortable on English soil, in Australia—my children! Not so comfortable as Louis Philippe and Louis Napoleon. Criminal kings with gold are welcome; criminal subjects without gold— ah, that is another matter, monsieur. It is just the same. ”

“ Shorland paced up and down the room for a time, and then said: "Great heaven, suppose that by some hideous chance this woman, Gabrielle Rouget, or Lucile Laroche, should prove to be Freeman's wife! The evidence is so overwhelming. There evidently was some trick, some strange mistake, about the Morgue and the burial. This is the fourteenth of January; Freeman is to be married on the twenty-sixth! Monsieur, if this woman should be his wife, there never was brewed an uglier scrape. There is Freeman—that's pitiful; there is Clare Hazard—that's pitiful and horrible. For nothing can be done ”

“ He must do something that was conventional, natural, habitual, that would take his mind from the thing itself. At heart he was right. The rest was a question of living like a strong-nerved soldier to the last. The tobacco-smoke curled feebly from his lips, and was swallowed up in the clouds of powder-smoke that circled round them. With his head on his native servant's knee he watched Shorland uncork the bottle and pour the wine into the surgeon's medicine- glass. ”

“ Shorland.
"Well, Gabrielle, all English are not inhospitable. My friend here, we must be hospitable to him. The coals of fire, you know, Gabrielle. We owe him some thing for yesterday. He wishes to speak to you. Be careful, Gabrielle. No communist justice, Citizen Gabrielle." M. Barre smiled gaily.
Gabrielle smiled in reply, but it was not a pleasant smile, and she said: "Treachery, M. Barre—treachery in Noumea? There is no such thing. It is all fair in love and war. No quarter, no mercy, no hope. All is fair where all is foul, M. Barre." ”

“ Every hour was "absinthe-hour" in Noumea, which had improved on Paris in this particular. A knot of men stood at the door of the Cafe Voisin gesticulating nervously. One was pointing to a notice posted on the bulletin-board of the cafe announcing that all citizens must hold themselves in readiness to bear arms in case the rumoured insurrection among the natives proved serious. It was an evil-looking company who thus discussed Governor Rapont's commands. As the two passed in, Shorland noticed that one of the group made a menacing action towards Alencon Barre. ”

“ On my way out I stopped off at Port Said to try and find Freeman in Egypt, but failed. I heard of him at Cairo, and learned also that his wife's brother had joined them. Two years passed, and then I got a letter from an old friend, saying that Freeman's wife had eloped with a Frenchman. Another year, and then came a letter from Freeman himself, saying that his wife was dead; that he had identified her body in the Morgue at Paris—found drowned, and all that. He believed that remorse had driven her to suicide. ”

“ I asked him if there were any awkward complications any inconsiderate pressure from the girl's parents of brothers; and he promptly told me to be damned. I told him I thought he ought to know that an ambitious man might as well drown himself at once as get a fast woman in his path. ”

“ Again, another three years, and now he writes me that he is going to be married to Clare Hazard on the twenty sixth of this month. With that information came this portrait. I tell you all, M. Barre, because I feel that this woman Gabrielle has some connection with the past life of my friend Luke Freeman. She recognised the face, and you saw the effect. Now will you tell me what you know about her?"
Shorland had been much more communicative than was his custom. But he knew men. This man had done him a service, and that made towards friendship on both sides. ”

“ But the sight of your lover's agonies, his indignation, his anger, madden you and you get the lust of cruelty. You become insane. You make new wounds. You tear open old ones. You cut, you thrust, you bruise, you put acid in the sores— the sharpest nitric acid ”