The Rocks of Valpre by Ethel May Dell (best short books to read txt) 📖

Fact is, I came across my cousin Jack Forest to-day. You remember Jack Forest? I've been dining with him at his club. We hadn't met for ages, and naturally we had a good deal to say to one another."
He paused, gently relinquishing his hold upon Bertrand's wrist, and got up to pour something out of a bottle on the mantelpiece into a medicine-glass.
"Drink this, old chap," he said, "or I shall tire you out before I've done."
"You have something to say to me?" Bertrand said quickly.
Max nodded. "I have. Drink first, and then I will tell you. That's the way. You needn't be in a hurry. You were going to tell me about that disagreement, weren't you? At least, I think you were. You have been rash enough to trust me before."
"But naturally," Bertrand said. He handed the glass back with a courteous gesture of thanks. "And I have not had cause to regret it. I will tell you why I disagreed with Mr. Mordaunt if you desire to know. It was because he found that he had been robbed, and that I"--he spread out his hands--"was the robber."
Max stared. "Found that you had robbed him! You!"
Bertrand nodded several times, but said no more.
"I don't believe it," Max said with conviction.
Bertrand smiled rather ruefully. "No? But yet the evidence was against me. And me, I did not contradict the evidence."
"I see. You were shielding someone. Who was it? Rupert?"
At Bertrand's quick start Max also smiled with grim humour. "You see, I know my own people rather well. I'm glad it wasn't Chris, anyway. Then she had nothing at all to do with your quarrel with Trevor?"
"Nothing," Bertrand said--"nothing." He paused a moment, then added, with something of an effort, "But I had decided that I would go before that. Mr. Mordaunt did not know why."
"Because of Chris?" There was a touch of sharpness in Max's voice.
Bertrand bent his head. "You were right that night. A man cannot hope to hide his heart for ever from the woman whom he loves."
"You told her, then?"
"It arrived without telling," Bertrand answered with simplicity.
"That means she cares for you?" Max said shrewdly.
Bertrand looked up. "_Mais c'est passe_," he said, his voice very low. "You have guessed the truth, but you only know it. Her husband--"
"My dear fellow, that's just the mischief. He knows it too," Max said.
"He!" Bertrand started upright.
Instantly Max's hand was upon him, checking him. "Keep still, Bertrand! You can't afford to waste your strength. Yes, Trevor knows. He knew on the very day you left. He found out that that blackguard Rodolphe had been blackmailing her. He had a scene with Chris, and she left him."
"Rodolphe! _Le canaille! Est-ce possible? Alors_, she is not--not with him--at Valpre--as I thought?" gasped Bertrand.
"No. She has not been near him since. I knew nothing of this till to-day. She hardly ever writes. I thought--as you did--that she had gone to France with Trevor. Instead of that, Jack tells me, she has been with his sister in Yorkshire all this time. She has been ill, is so still, I believe. They are coming to town to-morrow, to Percy Davenant's flat. Jack is very worried about it. He saw Trevor before he left England, but couldn't get him to listen to reason. He seems to have made up his mind to have no more to do with her, while she is fretting herself to a skeleton over it, but daren't make the first move towards a reconciliation. It probably wouldn't do any good if she did. He is as hard as iron. And if his mind is once made up--" Max left the sentence unfinished, and continued: "I think I shall go to Valpre and see what I can do. This has gone on long enough, and we can't have Chris making herself ill. I should think even he would see the force of that. This trial business will be over in a few days, and if I don't catch him he may go wandering, Heaven knows where. But it won't do. He must come back to her. I shall tell him so."
But at that Bertrand laid a nervous hand upon his arm. "My friend," he said, "you will not persuade him."
Max looked at him, and was confronted by eyes of gleaming resolution. "I believe I shall," he said. "I can persuade most people."
"You will not persuade him," Bertrand repeated. "That _scelerat_ has poisoned his mind. Moreover, you do not even know what passed between us."
"I don't need to know," Max said curtly.
Bertrand began to smile. "And you think you can plead your sister's cause without knowing, _hein_? No, no! the affair is too much advanced. There is only one man who can help the little Christine now. He would not listen to you, _mon cher_, if you went. But--to me, he will listen, even though he believes me to be a thief; for he is very just. I know that I can make him understand. And for that I shall go to him to-morrow. As you say, we cannot let _la petite_ fret."
He spoke quite quietly, but his eyes were shining with a fire that had not lit them for many a day.
"My dear chap, you can't go. You're not fit for it." Max spoke with quick decision. "I won't let you go, so there's an end of it."
But Bertrand laughed. "So? But I am more fit than you think, _mon ami_. Also it is my affair, this, and none but I can accomplish it. See, I start in the morning, and by this hour to-morrow I shall be with him."
"Folly! Madness!" Max said.
But indomitable resolution still shone in the Frenchman's eyes. "Listen to me, Max," he said. "If I spend my last breath thus, why not? I have not the least desire to cling to life. And is that madness? I love _la petite_ more than all. And is that folly? Why should I not give the strength that is still in me to accomplish the desire of my heart? Is mortal life so precious to those who have nothing for which to live?"
"Rot!" Max said fiercely. "You have plenty to live for. When this scoundrel Rodolphe is disposed of they will be reinstating you. You've got to live to have your honour vindicated. Does that mean nothing to you?"
Bertrand shrugged his shoulders. "It would interest me exactly as the procession under the windows interests those who watch. The procession passes, and the street is empty again. What is that to me?" He snapped his fingers carelessly. But the animation of his face had transformed it completely, giving him a look of youth with which Max was wholly unfamiliar. "See!" he said. "_Le bon Dieu_ has given me this thing to do, and He will give me the strength to do it. That is His way, _mon ami_. He does not command us to make bricks without straw."
Max grunted. "Whatever you do, you will have to pay for," he observed dryly. "And how are you going to get to Valpre without being arrested?"
"But I will disguise myself. That should be easy." Bertrand laughed again, and suddenly stretched out his arms and rose. "I am well," he declared. "I have been given the strength, and I will use it. Have no fear, Max. It will not fail me."
"I shall go too, then," Max said abruptly. "Sit down, man, and be rational. You don't suppose I shall let you tear all over France in your present condition by yourself, do you? If you excite yourself in this fashion, you will be having that infernal pain again. Sit down, I tell you!"
Bertrand sat down, but as if he moved on wires. "No," he said with confidence, "I shall not suffer any more to-night. You say that you will go with me? But indeed it is not necessary. And you have your work to do. I would not have you leave it on my account."
"I am coming," Max said, with finality, "And look here, Bertrand, I shall be in command of this expedition, and we are not going to travel at break-neck speed. You will not reach Valpre till the day after to-morrow. That is understood, is it?"
Bertrand hesitated and looked dubious.
"Come, man, it's for your own good. You don't want to die before you get there." Max's tone was severely practical.
"Ah no! Not that! I must not fail, Max. I must not fail." Bertrand spoke with great earnestness. He laid an impressive hand on his companion's arm. For a moment his face betrayed emotion. "I cannot--I will not--die before her happiness is assured. It is that for which I now live, for which I am ready to give my life. Max--_mon ami_--you will not let me die before--my work--is done!"
He spoke pantingly, as though speech had become an effort. The strain was beginning to tell upon him. But his eyes pleaded for him with a dumb intensity hard to meet.
Max took his wrist once more into his steady grasp. "If you will do as I tell you," he said, "I will see that you don't. Is that a bargain?"
A faint smile shone in the dark eyes at the peremptoriness of his speech. "But how you are despotic--you English!" protested the soft voice.
"Do you agree to that?" insisted Max.
"_Mais oui_. I submit myself--always--to you English. How can one--do other?"
"Then don't talk any more," said Max, with authority. "There's no time for drivel, so save your breath. You will want it when you get to Valpre."
"Ah, Valpre!" whispered Bertrand very softly as one utters a beloved name; and again more softly, "Valpre!"


CHAPTER V
THE STRANGER

A long wave broke with a splash and spread up the sand in a broad band of silver foam. The tide was at its lowest, and the black rocks of Valpre stood up stark and grotesque in the evening light. The Gothic archway of the Magic Cave yawned mysteriously in the face of the cliff, and over it, with shrill wailings, flew countless seagulls, flashing their wings in the sunset.
The man who walked alone along the shore was too deeply engrossed in thought to take much note of his surroundings, although more than once he turned his eyes towards the darkness of the cave. A belt of rocks stretched between, covered with slimy, green seaweed. It was evident that he had no intention of crossing this to explore the mysteries beyond. Just out of reach of the sea he moved, his hands behind him and his head bent.
All through the day he had been pent in a stuffy courtroom, closely following the evidence that, like a net of strong weaving, was gradually closing around the prisoner Guillaume Rodolphe. All France was seething over the trial. All Europe watched with vivid interest.
Another man's name had begun to be uttered on all sides, in court and out of it, coupled continuously with the name of the man who was standing his trial. Bertrand de Montville, where was he? All France would soon be waiting to do him justice, to pay him high honour, to compensate him for the indignities he had wrongfully suffered. He would have to face another court-martial, it was true; but the outcome of that would be a foregone conclusion, and his acquittal would raise him to a pinnacle of popularity to which he had surely never aspired, even in the days when ambition had been the ruling passion of his life.
Undoubtedly he would be the hero of the hour, if he could be found. But where was he? Everyone was asking the question. None knew the answer. Some said he was in England, awaiting