Enkidoodle

We had been speaking for some time in a dull monotonous strain before I realized that we were discussing _The King in Yellow_. Oh the sin of writing such words,—words which are clear as crystal, limpid and musical as bubbling springs, words which sparkle and glow like the poisoned diamonds of the Medicis! Oh the wickedness, the hopeless damnation of a soul who could fascinate and paralyze human creatures with such words,—words understood by the ignorant and wise alike, words which are more precious than jewels, more soothing than music, more awful than death!

We talked on, unmindful of the gathering shadows, and she was begging me to throw away the clasp of black onyx quaintly inlaid with what we now knew to be the Yellow Sign. I never shall know why I refused, though even at this hour, here in my bedroom as I write this confession, I should be glad to know _what_ it was that prevented me from tearing the Yellow Sign from my breast and casting it into the fire. I am sure I wished to do so, and yet Tessie pleaded with me in vain. Night fell and the hours dragged on, but still we murmured to each other of the King and the Pallid Mask, and midnight sounded from the misty spires in the fog-wrapped city. We spoke of Hastur and of Cassilda, while outside the fog rolled against the blank window-panes as the cloud waves roll and break on the shores of Hali.

The house was very silent now, and not a sound came up from the misty streets. Tessie lay among the cushions, her face a grey blot in the gloom, but her hands were clasped in mine, and I knew that she knew and read my thoughts as I read hers, for we had understood the mystery of the Hyades and the Phantom of Truth was laid. Then as we answered each other, swiftly, silently, thought on thought, the shadows stirred in the gloom about us, and far in the distant streets we heard a sound. Nearer and nearer it came, the dull crunching of wheels, nearer and yet nearer, and now, outside before the door it ceased, and I dragged myself to the window and saw a black-plumed hearse. The gate below opened and shut, and I crept shaking to my door and bolted it, but I knew no bolts, no locks, could keep that creature out who was coming for the Yellow Sign. And now I heard him moving very softly along the hall. Now he was at the door, and the bolts rotted at his touch. Now he had entered. With eyes starting from my head I peered into the darkness, but when he came into the room I did not see him. It was only when I felt him envelope me in his cold soft grasp that I cried out and struggled with deadly fury, but my hands were useless and he tore the onyx clasp from my coat and struck me full in the face. Then, as I fell, I heard Tessie’s soft cry and her spirit fled: and even while falling I longed to follow her, for I knew that the King in Yellow had opened his tattered mantle and there was only God to cry to now.

I could tell more, but I cannot see what help it will be to the world. As for me, I am past human help or hope. As I lie here, writing, careless even whether or not I die before I finish, I can see the doctor gathering up his powders and phials with a vague gesture to the good priest beside me, which I understand.

They will be very curious to know the tragedy—they of the outside world who write books and print millions of newspapers, but I shall write no more, and the father confessor will seal my last words with the seal of sanctity when his holy office is done. They of the outside world may send their creatures into wrecked homes and death-smitten firesides, and their newspapers will batten on blood and tears, but with me their spies must halt before the confessional. They know that Tessie is dead and that I am dying. They know how the people in the house, aroused by an infernal scream, rushed into my room and found one living and two dead, but they do not know what I shall tell them now; they do not know that the doctor said as he pointed to a horrible decomposed heap on the floor—the livid corpse of the watchman from the church: “I have no theory, no explanation. That man must have been dead for months!”

* * * * *

I think I am dying. I wish the priest would—

THE DEMOISELLE D’YS

“Mais je croy que je Suis descendu on puiz Ténébreux onquel disoit Heraclytus estre Vereté cachée.”

“There be three things which are too wonderful for me, yea, four which I know not:

“The way of an eagle in the air; the way of a serpent upon a rock; the way of a ship in the midst of the sea; and the way of a man with a maid.”

The utter desolation of the scene began to have its effect; I sat down to face the situation and, if possible, recall to mind some landmark which might aid me in extricating myself from my present position. If I could only find the ocean again all would be clear, for I knew one could see the island of Groix from the cliffs.

I laid down my gun, and kneeling behind a rock lighted a pipe. Then I looked at my watch. It was nearly four o’clock. I might have wandered far from Kerselec since daybreak.

Standing the day before on the cliffs below Kerselec with Goulven, looking out over the sombre moors among which I had now lost my way, these downs had appeared to me level as a meadow, stretching to the horizon, and although I knew how deceptive is distance, I could not realize that what from Kerselec seemed to be mere grassy hollows were great valleys covered with gorse and heather, and what looked like scattered boulders were in reality enormous cliffs of granite.

“It’s a bad place for a stranger,” old Goulven had said: “you’d better take a guide;” and I had replied, “I shall not lose myself.” Now I knew that I had lost myself, as I sat there smoking, with the sea-wind blowing in my face. On every side stretched the moorland, covered with flowering gorse and heath and granite boulders. There was not a tree in sight, much less a house. After a while, I picked up the gun, and turning my back on the sun tramped on again.

There was little use in following any of the brawling streams which every now and then crossed my path, for, instead of flowing into the sea, they ran inland to reedy pools in the hollows of the moors. I had followed several, but they all led me to swamps or silent little ponds from which the snipe rose peeping and wheeled away in an ecstasy of fright. I began to feel fatigued, and the gun galled my shoulder in spite of the double pads. The sun sank lower and lower, shining level across yellow gorse and the moorland pools.

As I walked my own gigantic shadow led me on, seeming to lengthen at every step. The gorse scraped against my leggings, crackled beneath my feet, showering the brown earth with blossoms, and the brake bowed and billowed along my path. From tufts of heath rabbits scurried away through the bracken, and among the swamp grass I heard the wild duck’s drowsy quack. Once a fox stole across my path, and again, as I stooped to drink at a hurrying rill, a heron flapped heavily from the reeds beside me. I turned to look at the sun. It seemed to touch the edges of the plain. When at last I decided that it was useless to go on, and that I must make up my mind to spend at least one night on the moors, I threw myself down thoroughly fagged out. The evening sunlight slanted warm across my body, but the sea-winds began to rise, and I felt a chill strike through me from my wet shooting-boots. High overhead gulls were wheeling and tossing like bits of white paper; from some distant marsh a solitary curlew called. Little by little the sun sank into the plain, and the zenith flushed with the after-glow. I watched the sky change from palest gold to pink and then to smouldering fire. Clouds of midges danced above me, and high in the calm air a bat dipped and soared. My eyelids began to droop. Then as I shook off the drowsiness a sudden crash among the bracken roused me. I raised my eyes. A great bird hung quivering in the air above my face. For an instant I stared, incapable of motion; then something leaped past me in the ferns and the bird rose, wheeled, and pitched headlong into the brake.

I was on my feet in an instant peering through the gorse. There came the sound of a struggle from a bunch of heather close by, and then all was quiet. I stepped forward, my gun poised, but when I came to the heather the gun fell under my arm again, and I stood motionless in silent astonishment. A dead hare lay on the ground, and on the hare stood a magnificent falcon, one talon buried in the creature’s neck, the other planted firmly on its limp flank. But what astonished me, was not the mere sight of a falcon sitting upon its prey. I had seen that more than once. It was that the falcon was fitted with a sort of leash about both talons, and from the leash hung a round bit of metal like a sleigh-bell. The bird turned its fierce yellow eyes on me, and then stooped and struck its curved beak into the quarry. At the same instant hurried steps sounded among the heather, and a girl sprang into the covert in front. Without a glance at me she walked up to the falcon, and passing her gloved hand under its breast, raised it from the quarry. Then she deftly slipped a small hood over the bird’s head, and holding it out on her gauntlet, stooped and picked up the hare.

She passed a cord about the animal’s legs and fastened the end of the thong to her girdle. Then she started to retrace her steps through the covert. As she passed me I raised my cap and she acknowledged my presence with a scarcely perceptible inclination. I had been so astonished, so lost in admiration of the scene before my eyes, that it had not occurred to me that here was my salvation. But as she moved away I recollected that unless I wanted to sleep on a windy moor that night I had better recover my speech without delay. At my first word she hesitated, and as I stepped before her I thought a look of fear came into her beautiful eyes. But as I humbly explained my unpleasant plight, her face flushed and she looked at me in wonder.

“Surely you did not come from Kerselec!” she repeated.

Her sweet voice had no trace of the Breton accent nor of any accent which I knew, and yet there was something in it I seemed to have heard before, something quaint and indefinable, like the theme of an old song.

I explained that I was an American, unacquainted with Finistère, shooting there for my own amusement.

“An American,” she repeated in the same quaint musical tones. “I have never before seen an American.”

For a moment she stood silent, then looking at me she said. “If you should walk all night you could not reach Kerselec now, even if you had a guide.”

This was pleasant news.

“But,” I began, “if I could only find a peasant’s hut where I might get something to eat, and shelter.”

The falcon on her wrist fluttered and shook its head. The girl smoothed its glossy back and glanced at me.

“Look around,” she said gently. “Can you see the end of these moors? Look, north, south, east, west. Can you see anything but moorland and bracken?”

“No,” I said.

“The moor is wild and desolate. It is easy to enter, but sometimes they who enter never leave it. There are no peasants’ huts here.”

“Well,” I said, “if you will tell me in which direction Kerselec lies, to-morrow it will take me no longer to go back than it has to come.”

She looked at me again with an expression almost like pity.

“Ah,” she said, “to come is easy and takes hours; to go is different—and may take centuries.”

I stared at her in amazement but decided that I had misunderstood her. Then before I had time to speak she drew a whistle from her belt and sounded it.

“Sit down and rest,” she said to me; “you have come a long distance and are tired.”

She gathered up her pleated skirts and motioning me to follow picked her dainty way through the gorse to a flat rock among the ferns.

“They will be here directly,” she said, and taking a seat at one end of the rock invited me to sit down on the other edge. The after-glow was beginning to fade in the sky and a single star twinkled faintly through the rosy haze. A long wavering triangle of water-fowl drifted southward over our heads, and from the swamps around plover were calling.

“They are very beautiful—these moors,” she said quietly.

“Beautiful, but cruel to strangers,” I answered.

“Beautiful and cruel,” she repeated dreamily, “beautiful and cruel.”

“Like a woman,” I said stupidly.

“Oh,” she cried with a little catch in her breath, and looked at me. Her dark eyes met mine, and I thought she seemed angry or frightened.

“Like a woman,” she repeated under her breath, “How cruel to say so!” Then after a pause, as though speaking aloud to herself, “How cruel for him to say that!”

I don’t know what sort of an apology I offered for my inane, though harmless speech, but I know that she seemed so troubled about it that I began to think I had said something very dreadful without knowing it, and remembered with horror the pitfalls and snares which the French language sets for foreigners. While I was trying to imagine what I might have said, a sound of voices came across the moor, and the girl rose to her feet.

“No,” she said, with a trace of a smile on her pale face, “I will not accept your apologies, monsieur, but I must prove you wrong, and that shall be my revenge. Look. Here come Hastur and Raoul.”

Two men loomed up in the twilight. One had a sack across his shoulders and the other carried a hoop before him as a waiter carries a tray. The hoop was fastened with straps to his shoulders, and around the edge of the circlet sat three hooded falcons fitted with tinkling bells. The girl stepped up to the falconer, and with a quick turn of her wrist transferred her falcon to the hoop, where it quickly sidled off and nestled among its mates, who shook their hooded heads and ruffled their feathers till the belled jesses tinkled again. The other man stepped forward and bowing respectfully took up the hare and dropped it into the game-sack.

“These are my piqueurs,” said the girl, turning to me with a gentle dignity. “Raoul is a good fauconnier, and I shall some day make him grand veneur. Hastur is incomparable.”

The two silent men saluted me respectfully.

“Did I not tell you, monsieur, that I should prove you wrong?” she continued. “This, then, is my revenge, that you do me the courtesy of accepting food and shelter at my own house.”

Before I could answer she spoke to the falconers, who started instantly across the heath, and with a gracious gesture to me she followed. I don’t know whether I made her understand how profoundly grateful I felt, but she seemed pleased to listen, as we walked over the dewy heather.

“Are you not very tired?” she asked.

I had clean forgotten my fatigue in her presence, and I told her so.

“Don’t you think your gallantry is a little old-fashioned?” she said; and when I looked confused and humbled, she added quietly, “Oh, I like it, I like everything old-fashioned, and it is delightful to hear you say such pretty things.”

The moorland around us was very still now under its ghostly sheet of mist. The plovers had ceased their calling; the crickets and all the little creatures of the fields were silent as we passed, yet it seemed to me as if I could hear them beginning again far behind us. Well in advance, the two tall falconers strode across the heather, and the faint jingling of the hawks’ bells came to our ears in distant murmuring chimes.

Suddenly a splendid hound dashed out of the mist in front, followed by another and another until half-a-dozen or more were bounding and leaping around the girl beside me. She caressed and quieted them with her gloved hand, speaking to them in quaint terms which I remembered to have seen in old French manuscripts.

Then the falcons on the circlet borne by the falconer ahead began to beat their wings and scream, and from somewhere out of sight the notes of a hunting-horn floated across the moor. The hounds sprang away before us and vanished in the twilight, the falcons flapped and squealed upon their perch, and the girl, taking up the song of the horn, began to hum. Clear and mellow her voice sounded in the night air.

“Chasseur, chasseur, chassez encore, Quittez Rosette et Jeanneton, Tonton, tonton, tontaine, tonton, Ou, pour, rabattre, dès l’aurore, Que les Amours soient de planton, Tonton, tontaine, tonton.”

As I listened to her lovely voice a grey mass which rapidly grew more distinct loomed up in front, and the horn rang out joyously through the tumult of the hounds and falcons. A torch glimmered at a gate, a light streamed through an opening door, and we stepped upon a wooden bridge which trembled under our feet and rose creaking and straining behind us as we passed over the moat and into a small stone court, walled on every side. From an open doorway a man came and, bending in salutation, presented a cup to the girl beside me. She took the cup and touched it with her lips, then lowering it turned to me and said in a low voice, “I bid you welcome.”

At that moment one of the falconers came with another cup, but before handing it to me, presented it to the girl, who tasted it. The falconer made a gesture to receive it, but she hesitated a moment, and then, stepping forward, offered me the cup with her own hands. I felt this to be an act of extraordinary graciousness, but hardly knew what was expected of me, and did not raise it to my lips at once. The girl flushed crimson. I saw that I must act quickly.

“Mademoiselle,” I faltered, “a stranger whom you have saved from dangers he may never realize empties this cup to the gentlest and loveliest hostess of France.”

“In His name,” she murmured, crossing herself as I drained the cup. Then stepping into the doorway she turned to me with a pretty gesture and, taking my hand in hers, led me into the house, saying again and again: “You are very welcome, indeed you are welcome to the Château d’Ys.”

I awoke next morning with the music of the horn in my ears, and leaping out of the ancient bed, went to a curtained window where the sunlight filtered through little deep-set panes. The horn ceased as I looked into the court below.

A man who might have been brother to the two falconers of the night before stood in the midst of a pack of hounds. A curved horn was strapped over his back, and in his hand he held a long-lashed whip. The dogs whined and yelped, dancing around him in anticipation; there was the stamp of horses, too, in the walled yard.

“Mount!” cried a voice in Breton, and with a clatter of hoofs the two falconers, with falcons upon their wrists, rode into the courtyard among the hounds. Then I heard another voice which sent the blood throbbing through my heart: “Piriou Louis, hunt the hounds well and spare neither spur nor whip. Thou Raoul and thou Gaston, see that the _epervier_ does not prove himself _niais_, and if it be best in your judgment, _faites courtoisie à l’oiseau. Jardiner un oiseau_, like the _mué_ there on Hastur’s wrist, is not difficult, but thou, Raoul, mayest not find it so simple to govern that _hagard_. Twice last week he foamed _au vif_ and lost the _beccade_ although he is used to the _leurre_. The bird acts like a stupid _branchier_. _Paître un hagard n’est pas si facile._”

Was I dreaming? The old language of falconry which I had read in yellow manuscripts—the old forgotten French of the middle ages was sounding in my ears while the hounds bayed and the hawks’ bells tinkled accompaniment to the stamping horses. She spoke again in the sweet forgotten language:

“If you would rather attach the _longe_ and leave thy _hagard au bloc_, Raoul, I shall say nothing; for it were a pity to spoil so fair a day’s sport with an ill-trained _sors_. _Essimer abaisser_,—it is possibly the best way. _Ça lui donnera des reins._ I was perhaps hasty with the bird. It takes time to pass _à la filière_ and the exercises _d’escap_.”

Then the falconer Raoul bowed in his stirrups and replied: “If it be the pleasure of Mademoiselle, I shall keep the hawk.”

“It is my wish,” she answered. “Falconry I know, but you have yet to give me many a lesson in _Autourserie_, my poor Raoul. Sieur Piriou Louis mount!”

The huntsman sprang into an archway and in an instant returned, mounted upon a strong black horse, followed by a piqueur also mounted.

“Ah!” she cried joyously, “speed Glemarec René! speed! speed all! Sound thy horn, Sieur Piriou!”

The silvery music of the hunting-horn filled the courtyard, the hounds sprang through the gateway and galloping hoof-beats plunged out of the paved court; loud on the drawbridge, suddenly muffled, then lost in the heather and bracken of the moors. Distant and more distant sounded the horn, until it became so faint that the sudden carol of a soaring lark drowned it in my ears. I heard the voice below responding to some call from within the house.

“I do not regret the chase, I will go another time. Courtesy to the stranger, Pelagie, remember!”

And a feeble voice came quavering from within the house, “_Courtoisie_.”

I stripped, and rubbed myself from head to foot in the huge earthen basin of icy water which stood upon the stone floor at the foot of my bed. Then I looked about for my clothes. They were gone, but on a settle near the door lay a heap of garments which I inspected with astonishment. As my clothes had vanished, I was compelled to attire myself in the costume which had evidently been placed there for me to wear while my own clothes dried. Everything was there, cap, shoes, and hunting doublet of silvery grey homespun; but the close-fitting costume and seamless shoes belonged to another century, and I remembered the strange costumes of the three falconers in the courtyard. I was sure that it was not the modern dress of any portion of France or Brittany; but not until I was dressed and stood before a mirror between the windows did I realize that I was clothed much more like a young huntsman of the middle ages than like a Breton of that day. I hesitated and picked up the cap. Should I go down and present myself in that strange guise? There seemed to be no help for it, my own clothes were gone and there was no bell in the ancient chamber to call a servant; so I contented myself with removing a short hawk’s feather from the cap, and, opening the door, went downstairs.

By the fireplace in the large room at the foot of the stairs an old Breton woman sat spinning with a distaff. She looked up at me when I appeared, and, smiling frankly, wished me health in the Breton language, to which I laughingly replied in French. At the same moment my hostess appeared and returned my salutation with a grace and dignity that sent a thrill to my heart. Her lovely head with its dark curly hair was crowned with a head-dress which set all doubts as to the epoch of my own costume at rest. Her slender figure was exquisitely set off in the homespun hunting-gown edged with silver, and on her gauntlet-covered wrist she bore one of her petted hawks. With perfect simplicity she took my hand and led me into the garden in the court, and seating herself before a table invited me very sweetly to sit beside her. Then she asked me in her soft quaint accent how I had passed the night, and whether I was very much inconvenienced by wearing the clothes which old Pelagie had put there for me while I slept. I looked at my own clothes and shoes, drying in the sun by the garden-wall, and hated them. What horrors they were compared with the graceful costume which I now wore! I told her this laughing, but she agreed with me very seriously.

“We will throw them away,” she said in a quiet voice. In my astonishment I attempted to explain that I not only could not think of accepting clothes from anybody, although for all I knew it might be the custom of hospitality in that part of the country, but that I should cut an impossible figure if I returned to France clothed as I was then.

She laughed and tossed her pretty head, saying something in old French which I did not understand, and then Pelagie trotted out with a tray on which stood two bowls of milk, a loaf of white bread, fruit, a platter of honey-comb, and a flagon of deep red wine. “You see I have not yet broken my fast because I wished you to eat with me. But I am very hungry,” she smiled.

“I would rather die than forget one word of what you have said!” I blurted out, while my cheeks burned. “She will think me mad,” I added to myself, but she turned to me with sparkling eyes.

“Ah!” she murmured. “Then Monsieur knows all that there is of chivalry—”

She crossed herself and broke bread. I sat and watched her white hands, not daring to raise my eyes to hers.

“Will you not eat?” she asked. “Why do you look so troubled?”

Ah, why? I knew it now. I knew I would give my life to touch with my lips those rosy palms—I understood now that from the moment when I looked into her dark eyes there on the moor last night I had loved her. My great and sudden passion held me speechless.

“Are you ill at ease?” she asked again.

Then, like a man who pronounces his own doom, I answered in a low voice: “Yes, I am ill at ease for love of you.” And as she did not stir nor answer, the same power moved my lips in spite of me and I said, “I, who am unworthy of the lightest of your thoughts, I who abuse hospitality and repay your gentle courtesy with bold presumption, I love you.”

She leaned her head upon her hands, and answered softly, “I love you. Your words are very dear to me. I love you.”

“Then I shall win you.”

“Win me,” she replied.

But all the time I had been sitting silent, my face turned toward her. She, also silent, her sweet face resting on her upturned palm, sat facing me, and as her eyes looked into mine I knew that neither she nor I had spoken human speech; but I knew that her soul had answered mine, and I drew myself up feeling youth and joyous love coursing through every vein. She, with a bright colour in her lovely face, seemed as one awakened from a dream, and her eyes sought mine with a questioning glance which made me tremble with delight. We broke our fast, speaking of ourselves. I told her my name and she told me hers, the Demoiselle Jeanne d’Ys.

She spoke of her father and mother’s death, and how the nineteen of her years had been passed in the little fortified farm alone with her nurse Pelagie, Glemarec René the piqueur, and the four falconers, Raoul, Gaston, Hastur, and the Sieur Piriou Louis, who had served her father. She had never been outside the moorland—never even had seen a human soul before, except the falconers and Pelagie. She did not know how she had heard of Kerselec; perhaps the falconers had spoken of it. She knew the legends of Loup Garou and Jeanne la Flamme from her nurse Pelagie. She embroidered and spun flax. Her hawks and hounds were her only distraction. When she had met me there on the moor she had been so frightened that she almost dropped at the sound of my voice. She had, it was true, seen ships at sea from the cliffs, but as far as the eye could reach the moors over which she galloped were destitute of any sign of human life. There was a legend which old Pelagie told, how anybody once lost in the unexplored moorland might never return, because the moors were enchanted. She did not know whether it was true, she never had thought about it until she met me. She did not know whether the falconers had even been outside, or whether they could go if they would. The books in the house which Pelagie, the nurse, had taught her to read were hundreds of years old.

All this she told me with a sweet seriousness seldom seen in any one but children. My own name she found easy to pronounce, and insisted, because my first name was Philip, I must have French blood in me. She did not seem curious to learn anything about the outside world, and I thought perhaps she considered it had forfeited her interest and respect from the stories of her nurse.

We were still sitting at the table, and she was throwing grapes to the small field birds which came fearlessly to our very feet.

I began to speak in a vague way of going, but she would not hear of it, and before I knew it I had promised to stay a week and hunt with hawk and hound in their company. I also obtained permission to come again from Kerselec and visit her after my return.

“Why,” she said innocently, “I do not know what I should do if you never came back;” and I, knowing that I had no right to awaken her with the sudden shock which the avowal of my own love would bring to her, sat silent, hardly daring to breathe.

“You will come very often?” she asked.

“Very often,” I said.

“Every day?”

“Every day.”

“Oh,” she sighed, “I am very happy. Come and see my hawks.”

She rose and took my hand again with a childlike innocence of possession, and we walked through the garden and fruit trees to a grassy lawn which was bordered by a brook. Over the lawn were scattered fifteen or twenty stumps of trees—partially imbedded in the grass—and upon all of these except two sat falcons. They were attached to the stumps by thongs which were in turn fastened with steel rivets to their legs just above the talons. A little stream of pure spring water flowed in a winding course within easy distance of each perch.

The birds set up a clamour when the girl appeared, but she went from one to another, caressing some, taking others for an instant upon her wrist, or stooping to adjust their jesses.

“Are they not pretty?” she said. “See, here is a falcon-gentil. We call it ‘ignoble,’ because it takes the quarry in direct chase. This is a blue falcon. In falconry we call it ‘noble’ because it rises over the quarry, and wheeling, drops upon it from above. This white bird is a gerfalcon from the north. It is also ‘noble!’ Here is a merlin, and this tiercelet is a falcon-heroner.”

I asked her how she had learned the old language of falconry. She did not remember, but thought her father must have taught it to her when she was very young.

Then she led me away and showed me the young falcons still in the nest. “They are termed _niais_ in falconry,” she explained. “A _branchier_ is the young bird which is just able to leave the nest and hop from branch to branch. A young bird which has not yet moulted is called a _sors_, and a _mué_ is a hawk which has moulted in captivity. When we catch a wild falcon which has changed its plumage we term it a _hagard_. Raoul first taught me to dress a falcon. Shall I teach you how it is done?”

She seated herself on the bank of the stream among the falcons and I threw myself at her feet to listen.

Then the Demoiselle d’Ys held up one rosy-tipped finger and began very gravely.

“First one must catch the falcon.”

“I am caught,” I answered.

She laughed very prettily and told me my _dressage_ would perhaps be difficult, as I was noble.

“I am already tamed,” I replied; “jessed and belled.”

She laughed, delighted. “Oh, my brave falcon; then you will return at my call?”

“I am yours,” I answered gravely.

She sat silent for a moment. Then the colour heightened in her cheeks and she held up her finger again, saying, “Listen; I wish to speak of falconry—”

“I listen, Countess Jeanne d’Ys.”

But again she fell into the reverie, and her eyes seemed fixed on something beyond the summer clouds.

“Philip,” she said at last.

“Jeanne,” I whispered.

“That is all,—that is what I wished,” she sighed,—“Philip and Jeanne.”

She held her hand toward me and I touched it with my lips.

“Win me,” she said, but this time it was the body and soul which spoke in unison.

After a while she began again: “Let us speak of falconry.”

“Begin,” I replied; “we have caught the falcon.”

Then Jeanne d’Ys took my hand in both of hers and told me how with infinite patience the young falcon was taught to perch upon the wrist, how little by little it became used to the belled jesses and the _chaperon à cornette_.

“They must first have a good appetite,” she said; “then little by little I reduce their nourishment; which in falconry we call _pât_. When, after many nights passed _au bloc_ as these birds are now, I prevail upon the _hagard_ to stay quietly on the wrist, then the bird is ready to be taught to come for its food. I fix the _pât_ to the end of a thong, or _leurre_, and teach the bird to come to me as soon as I begin to whirl the cord in circles about my head. At first I drop the _pât_ when the falcon comes, and he eats the food on the ground. After a little he will learn to seize the _leurre_ in motion as I whirl it around my head or drag it over the ground. After this it is easy to teach the falcon to strike at game, always remembering to _‘faire courtoisie á l’oiseau’_, that is, to allow the bird to taste the quarry.”

A squeal from one of the falcons interrupted her, and she arose to adjust the _longe_ which had become whipped about the _bloc_, but the bird still flapped its wings and screamed.

“What _is_ the matter?” she said. “Philip, can you see?”

I looked around and at first saw nothing to cause the commotion, which was now heightened by the screams and flapping of all the birds. Then my eye fell upon the flat rock beside the stream from which the girl had risen. A grey serpent was moving slowly across the surface of the boulder, and the eyes in its flat triangular head sparkled like jet.

“A couleuvre,” she said quietly.

“It is harmless, is it not?” I asked.

She pointed to the black V-shaped figure on the neck.

“It is certain death,” she said; “it is a viper.”

We watched the reptile moving slowly over the smooth rock to where the sunlight fell in a broad warm patch.

I started forward to examine it, but she clung to my arm crying, “Don’t, Philip, I am afraid.”

“For me?”

“For you, Philip,—I love you.”

Then I took her in my arms and kissed her on the lips, but all I could say was: “Jeanne, Jeanne, Jeanne.” And as she lay trembling on my breast, something struck my foot in the grass below, but I did not heed it. Then again something struck my ankle, and a sharp pain shot through me. I looked into the sweet face of Jeanne d’Ys and kissed her, and with all my strength lifted her in my arms and flung her from me. Then bending, I tore the viper from my ankle and set my heel upon its head. I remember feeling weak and numb,—I remember falling to the ground. Through my slowly glazing eyes I saw Jeanne’s white face bending close to mine, and when the light in my eyes went out I still felt her arms about my neck, and her soft cheek against my drawn lips.

* * * * *

When I opened my eyes, I looked around in terror. Jeanne was gone. I saw the stream and the flat rock; I saw the crushed viper in the grass beside me, but the hawks and _blocs_ had disappeared. I sprang to my feet. The garden, the fruit trees, the drawbridge and the walled court were gone. I stared stupidly at a heap of crumbling ruins, ivy-covered and grey, through which great trees had pushed their way. I crept forward, dragging my numbed foot, and as I moved, a falcon sailed from the tree-tops among the ruins, and soaring, mounting in narrowing circles, faded and vanished in the clouds above.

“Jeanne, Jeanne,” I cried, but my voice died on my lips, and I fell on my knees among the weeds. And as God willed it, I, not knowing, had fallen kneeling before a crumbling shrine carved in stone for our Mother of Sorrows. I saw the sad face of the Virgin wrought in the cold stone. I saw the cross and thorns at her feet, and beneath it I read:

“PRAY FOR THE SOUL OF THE DEMOISELLE JEANNE D’Ys, WHO DIED IN HER YOUTH FOR LOVE OF PHILIP, A STRANGER. A.D. 1573.”

But upon the icy slab lay a woman’s glove still warm and fragrant.

THE PROPHETS’ PARADISE

“If but the Vine and Love Abjuring Band Are in the Prophets’ Paradise to stand, Alack, I doubt the Prophets’ Paradise, Were empty as the hollow of one’s hand.”

THE STUDIO

He smiled, saying, “Seek her throughout the world.”

I said, “Why tell me of the world? My world is here, between these walls and the sheet of glass above; here among gilded flagons and dull jewelled arms, tarnished frames and canvasses, black chests and high-backed chairs, quaintly carved and stained in blue and gold.”

“For whom do you wait?” he said, and I answered, “When she comes I shall know her.”

On my hearth a tongue of flame whispered secrets to the whitening ashes. In the street below I heard footsteps, a voice, and a song.

“For whom then do you wait?” he said, and I answered, “I shall know her.”

Footsteps, a voice, and a song in the street below, and I knew the song but neither the steps nor the voice.

“Fool!” he cried, “the song is the same, the voice and steps have but changed with years!”

On the hearth a tongue of flame whispered above the whitening ashes: “Wait no more; they have passed, the steps and the voice in the street below.”

Then he smiled, saying, “For whom do you wait? Seek her throughout the world!”

I answered, “My world is here, between these walls and the sheet of glass above; here among gilded flagons and dull jewelled arms, tarnished frames and canvasses, black chests and high-backed chairs, quaintly carved and stained in blue and gold.”

THE PHANTOM

The Phantom of the Past would go no further.

“If it is true,” she sighed, “that you find in me a friend, let us turn back together. You will forget, here, under the summer sky.”

I held her close, pleading, caressing; I seized her, white with anger, but she resisted.

“If it is true,” she sighed, “that you find in me a friend, let us turn back together.”

The Phantom of the Past would go no further.

THE SACRIFICE

I went into a field of flowers, whose petals are whiter than snow and whose hearts are pure gold.

Far afield a woman cried, “I have killed him I loved!” and from a jar she poured blood upon the flowers whose petals are whiter than snow and whose hearts are pure gold.

Far afield I followed, and on the jar I read a thousand names, while from within the fresh blood bubbled to the brim.

“I have killed him I loved!” she cried. “The world’s athirst; now let it drink!” She passed, and far afield I watched her pouring blood upon the flowers whose petals are whiter than snow and whose hearts are pure gold.

DESTINY

I came to the bridge which few may pass.

“Pass!” cried the keeper, but I laughed, saying, “There is time;” and he smiled and shut the gates.

To the bridge which few may pass came young and old. All were refused. Idly I stood and counted them, until, wearied of their noise and lamentations, I came again to the bridge which few may pass.

Those in the throng about the gates shrieked out, “He comes too late!” But I laughed, saying, “There is time.”

“Pass!” cried the keeper as I entered; then smiled and shut the gates.

THE THRONG

There, where the throng was thickest in the street, I stood with Pierrot. All eyes were turned on me.

“What are they laughing at?” I asked, but he grinned, dusting the chalk from my black cloak. “I cannot see; it must be something droll, perhaps an honest thief!”

All eyes were turned on me.

“He has robbed you of your purse!” they laughed.

“My purse!” I cried; “Pierrot—help! it is a thief!”

They laughed: “He has robbed you of your purse!”

Then Truth stepped out, holding a mirror. “If he is an honest thief,” cried Truth, “Pierrot shall find him with this mirror!” but he only grinned, dusting the chalk from my black cloak.

“You see,” he said, “Truth is an honest thief, she brings you back your mirror.”

All eyes were turned on me.

“Arrest Truth!” I cried, forgetting it was not a mirror but a purse I lost, standing with Pierrot, there, where the throng was thickest in the street.

THE JESTER

“Was she fair?” I asked, but he only chuckled, listening to the bells jingling on his cap.

“Stabbed,” he tittered. “Think of the long journey, the days of peril, the dreadful nights! Think how he wandered, for her sake, year after year, through hostile lands, yearning for kith and kin, yearning for her!”

“Stabbed,” he tittered, listening to the bells jingling on his cap.

“Was she fair?” I asked, but he only snarled, muttering to the bells jingling on his cap.

“She kissed him at the gate,” he tittered, “but in the hall his brother’s welcome touched his heart.”

“Was she fair?” I asked.

“Stabbed,” he chuckled. “Think of the long journey, the days of peril, the dreadful nights! Think how he wandered, for her sake, year after year through hostile lands, yearning for kith and kin, yearning for her!”

“She kissed him at the gate, but in the hall his brother’s welcome touched his heart.”

“Was she fair?” I asked; but he only snarled, listening to the bells jingling in his cap.

THE GREEN ROOM

The Clown turned his powdered face to the mirror.

“If to be fair is to be beautiful,” he said, “who can compare with me in my white mask?”

“Who can compare with him in his white mask?” I asked of Death beside me.

“Who can compare with me?” said Death, “for I am paler still.”

“You are very beautiful,” sighed the Clown, turning his powdered face from the mirror.

THE LOVE TEST

“If it is true that you love,” said Love, “then wait no longer. Give her these jewels which would dishonour her and so dishonour you in loving one dishonoured. If it is true that you love,” said Love, “then wait no longer.”

I took the jewels and went to her, but she trod upon them, sobbing: “Teach me to wait—I love you!”

“Then wait, if it is true,” said Love.

THE STREET OF THE FOUR WINDS

“Ferme tes yeux à demi, Croise tes bras sur ton sein, Et de ton cœur endormi Chasse à jamais tout dessein.” * * * * “Je chante la nature, Les étoiles du soir, les larmes du matin, Les couchers de soleil à l’horizon lointain, Le ciel qui parle au cœur d’existence future!”

The animal paused on the threshold, interrogative, alert, ready for flight if necessary. Severn laid down his palette, and held out a hand of welcome. The cat remained motionless, her yellow eyes fastened upon Severn.

“Puss,” he said, in his low, pleasant voice, “come in.”

The tip of her thin tail twitched uncertainly.

“Come in,” he said again.

Apparently she found his voice reassuring, for she slowly settled upon all fours, her eyes still fastened upon him, her tail tucked under her gaunt flanks.

He rose from his easel smiling. She eyed him quietly, and when he walked toward her she watched him bend above her without a wince; her eyes followed his hand until it touched her head. Then she uttered a ragged mew.

It had long been Severn’s custom to converse with animals, probably because he lived so much alone; and now he said, “What’s the matter, puss?”

Her timid eyes sought his.

“I understand,” he said gently, “you shall have it at once.”

Then moving quietly about he busied himself with the duties of a host, rinsed a saucer, filled it with the rest of the milk from the bottle on the window-sill, and kneeling down, crumbled a roll into the hollow of his hand.

The creature rose and crept toward the saucer.

With the handle of a palette-knife he stirred the crumbs and milk together and stepped back as she thrust her nose into the mess. He watched her in silence. From time to time the saucer clinked upon the tiled floor as she reached for a morsel on the rim; and at last the bread was all gone, and her purple tongue travelled over every unlicked spot until the saucer shone like polished marble. Then she sat up, and coolly turning her back to him, began her ablutions.

“Keep it up,” said Severn, much interested, “you need it.”

She flattened one ear, but neither turned nor interrupted her toilet. As the grime was slowly removed Severn observed that nature had intended her for a white cat. Her fur had disappeared in patches, from disease or the chances of war, her tail was bony and her spine sharp. But what charms she had were becoming apparent under vigorous licking, and he waited until she had finished before re-opening the conversation. When at last she closed her eyes and folded her forepaws under her breast, he began again very gently: “Puss, tell me your troubles.”

At the sound of his voice she broke into a harsh rumbling which he recognized as an attempt to purr. He bent over to rub her cheek and she mewed again, an amiable inquiring little mew, to which he replied, “Certainly, you are greatly improved, and when you recover your plumage you will be a gorgeous bird.” Much flattered, she stood up and marched around and around his legs, pushing her head between them and making pleased remarks, to which he responded with grave politeness.

“Now, what sent you here,” he said—“here into the Street of the Four Winds, and up five flights to the very door where you would be welcome? What was it that prevented your meditated flight when I turned from my canvas to encounter your yellow eyes? Are you a Latin Quarter cat as I am a Latin Quarter man? And why do you wear a rose-coloured flowered garter buckled about your neck?” The cat had climbed into his lap, and now sat purring as he passed his hand over her thin coat.

“Excuse me,” he continued in lazy soothing tones, harmonizing with her purring, “if I seem indelicate, but I cannot help musing on this rose-coloured garter, flowered so quaintly and fastened with a silver clasp. For the clasp is silver; I can see the mint mark on the edge, as is prescribed by the law of the French Republic. Now, why is this garter woven of rose silk and delicately embroidered,—why is this silken garter with its silver clasp about your famished throat? Am I indiscreet when I inquire if its owner is your owner? Is she some aged dame living in memory of youthful vanities, fond, doting on you, decorating you with her intimate personal attire? The circumference of the garter would suggest this, for your neck is thin, and the garter fits you. But then again I notice—I notice most things—that the garter is capable of being much enlarged. These small silver-rimmed eyelets, of which I count five, are proof of that. And now I observe that the fifth eyelet is worn out, as though the tongue of the clasp were accustomed to lie there. That seems to argue a well-rounded form.”

The cat curled her toes in contentment. The street was very still outside.

He murmured on: “Why should your mistress decorate you with an article most necessary to her at all times? Anyway, at most times. How did she come to slip this bit of silk and silver about your neck? Was it the caprice of a moment,—when you, before you had lost your pristine plumpness, marched singing into her bedroom to bid her good-morning? Of course, and she sat up among the pillows, her coiled hair tumbling to her shoulders, as you sprang upon the bed purring: ‘Good-day, my lady.’ Oh, it is very easy to understand,” he yawned, resting his head on the back of the chair. The cat still purred, tightening and relaxing her padded claws over his knee.

“Shall I tell you all about her, cat? She is very beautiful—your mistress,” he murmured drowsily, “and her hair is heavy as burnished gold. I could paint her,—not on canvas—for I should need shades and tones and hues and dyes more splendid than the iris of a splendid rainbow. I could only paint her with closed eyes, for in dreams alone can such colours as I need be found. For her eyes, I must have azure from skies untroubled by a cloud—the skies of dreamland. For her lips, roses from the palaces of slumberland, and for her brow, snow-drifts from mountains which tower in fantastic pinnacles to the moons;—oh, much higher than our moon here,—the crystal moons of dreamland. She is—very—beautiful, your mistress.”

The words died on his lips and his eyelids drooped.

The cat, too, was asleep, her cheek turned up upon her wasted flank, her paws relaxed and limp.

“It is fortunate,” said Severn, sitting up and stretching, “that we have tided over the dinner hour, for I have nothing to offer you for supper but what may be purchased with one silver franc.”

The cat on his knee rose, arched her back, yawned, and looked up at him.

“What shall it be? A roast chicken with salad? No? Possibly you prefer beef? Of course,—and I shall try an egg and some white bread. Now for the wines. Milk for you? Good. I shall take a little water, fresh from the wood,” with a motion toward the bucket in the sink.

He put on his hat and left the room. The cat followed to the door, and after he had closed it behind him, she settled down, smelling at the cracks, and cocking one ear at every creak from the crazy old building.

The door below opened and shut. The cat looked serious, for a moment doubtful, and her ears flattened in nervous expectation. Presently she rose with a jerk of her tail and started on a noiseless tour of the studio. She sneezed at a pot of turpentine, hastily retreating to the table, which she presently mounted, and having satisfied her curiosity concerning a roll of red modelling wax, returned to the door and sat down with her eyes on the crack over the threshold. Then she lifted her voice in a thin plaint.

When Severn returned he looked grave, but the cat, joyous and demonstrative, marched around him, rubbing her gaunt body against his legs, driving her head enthusiastically into his hand, and purring until her voice mounted to a squeal.

He placed a bit of meat, wrapped in brown paper, upon the table, and with a penknife cut it into shreds. The milk he took from a bottle which had served for medicine, and poured it into the saucer on the hearth.

The cat crouched before it, purring and lapping at the same time.

He cooked his egg and ate it with a slice of bread, watching her busy with the shredded meat, and when he had finished, and had filled and emptied a cup of water from the bucket in the sink, he sat down, taking her into his lap, where she at once curled up and began her toilet. He began to speak again, touching her caressingly at times by way of emphasis.

“Cat, I have found out where your mistress lives. It is not very far away;—it is here, under this same leaky roof, but in the north wing which I had supposed was uninhabited. My janitor tells me this. By chance, he is almost sober this evening. The butcher on the rue de Seine, where I bought your meat, knows you, and old Cabane the baker identified you with needless sarcasm. They tell me hard tales of your mistress which I shall not believe. They say she is idle and vain and pleasure-loving; they say she is harebrained and reckless. The little sculptor on the ground floor, who was buying rolls from old Cabane, spoke to me to-night for the first time, although we have always bowed to each other. He said she was very good and very beautiful. He has only seen her once, and does not know her name. I thanked him;—I don’t know why I thanked him so warmly. Cabane said, ‘Into this cursed Street of the Four Winds, the four winds blow all things evil.’ The sculptor looked confused, but when he went out with his rolls, he said to me, ‘I am sure, Monsieur, that she is as good as she is beautiful.’”

The cat had finished her toilet, and now, springing softly to the floor, went to the door and sniffed. He knelt beside her, and unclasping the garter held it for a moment in his hands. After a while he said: “There is a name engraved upon the silver clasp beneath the buckle. It is a pretty name, Sylvia Elven. Sylvia is a woman’s name, Elven is the name of a town. In Paris, in this quarter, above all, in this Street of the Four Winds, names are worn and put away as the fashions change with the seasons. I know the little town of Elven, for there I met Fate face to face and Fate was unkind. But do you know that in Elven Fate had another name, and that name was Sylvia?”

He replaced the garter and stood up looking down at the cat crouched before the closed door.

“The name of Elven has a charm for me. It tells me of meadows and clear rivers. The name of Sylvia troubles me like perfume from dead flowers.”

The cat mewed.

“Yes, yes,” he said soothingly, “I will take you back. Your Sylvia is not my Sylvia; the world is wide and Elven is not unknown. Yet in the darkness and filth of poorer Paris, in the sad shadows of this ancient house, these names are very pleasant to me.”

He lifted her in his arms and strode through the silent corridors to the stairs. Down five flights and into the moonlit court, past the little sculptor’s den, and then again in at the gate of the north wing and up the worm-eaten stairs he passed, until he came to a closed door. When he had stood knocking for a long time, something moved behind the door; it opened and he went in. The room was dark. As he crossed the threshold, the cat sprang from his arms into the shadows. He listened but heard nothing. The silence was oppressive and he struck a match. At his elbow stood a table and on the table a candle in a gilded candlestick. This he lighted, then looked around. The chamber was vast, the hangings heavy with embroidery. Over the fireplace towered a carved mantel, grey with the ashes of dead fires. In a recess by the deep-set windows stood a bed, from which the bedclothes, soft and fine as lace, trailed to the polished floor. He lifted the candle above his head. A handkerchief lay at his feet. It was faintly perfumed. He turned toward the windows. In front of them was a _canapé_ and over it were flung, pell-mell, a gown of silk, a heap of lace-like garments, white and delicate as spiders’ meshes, long, crumpled gloves, and, on the floor beneath, the stockings, the little pointed shoes, and one garter of rosy silk, quaintly flowered and fitted with a silver clasp. Wondering, he stepped forward and drew the heavy curtains from the bed. For a moment the candle flared in his hand; then his eyes met two other eyes, wide open, smiling, and the candle-flame flashed over hair heavy as gold.

She was pale, but not as white as he; her eyes were untroubled as a child’s; but he stared, trembling from head to foot, while the candle flickered in his hand.

At last he whispered: “Sylvia, it is I.”

Again he said, “It is I.”

Then, knowing that she was dead, he kissed her on the mouth. And through the long watches of the night the cat purred on his knee, tightening and relaxing her padded claws, until the sky paled above the Street of the Four Winds.

THE STREET OF THE FIRST SHELL

“Be of Good Cheer, the Sullen Month will die, And a young Moon requite us by and by: Look how the Old one, meagre, bent, and wan With age and Fast, is fainting from the sky.”

The room was already dark. The high roofs opposite cut off what little remained of the December daylight. The girl drew her chair nearer the window, and choosing a large needle, threaded it, knotting the thread over her fingers. Then she smoothed the baby garment across her knees, and bending, bit off the thread and drew the smaller needle from where it rested in the hem. When she had brushed away the stray threads and bits of lace, she laid it again over her knees caressingly. Then she slipped the threaded needle from her corsage and passed it through a button, but as the button spun down the thread, her hand faltered, the thread snapped, and the button rolled across the floor. She raised her head. Her eyes were fixed on a strip of waning light above the chimneys. From somewhere in the city came sounds like the distant beating of drums, and beyond, far beyond, a vague muttering, now growing, swelling, rumbling in the distance like the pounding of surf upon the rocks, now like the surf again, receding, growling, menacing. The cold had become intense, a bitter piercing cold which strained and snapped at joist and beam and turned the slush of yesterday to flint. From the street below every sound broke sharp and metallic—the clatter of sabots, the rattle of shutters or the rare sound of a human voice. The air was heavy, weighted with the black cold as with a pall. To breathe was painful, to move an effort.

In the desolate sky there was something that wearied, in the brooding clouds, something that saddened. It penetrated the freezing city cut by the freezing river, the splendid city with its towers and domes, its quays and bridges and its thousand spires. It entered the squares, it seized the avenues and the palaces, stole across bridges and crept among the narrow streets of the Latin Quarter, grey under the grey of the December sky. Sadness, utter sadness. A fine icy sleet was falling, powdering the pavement with a tiny crystalline dust. It sifted against the window-panes and drifted in heaps along the sill. The light at the window had nearly failed, and the girl bent low over her work. Presently she raised her head, brushing the curls from her eyes.

“Jack?”

“Dearest?”

“Don’t forget to clean your palette.”

He said, “All right,” and picking up the palette, sat down upon the floor in front of the stove. His head and shoulders were in the shadow, but the firelight fell across his knees and glimmered red on the blade of the palette-knife. Full in the firelight beside him stood a colour-box. On the lid was carved,

+-------------------------+ | J. TRENT. | | École des Beaux Arts. | | 1870. | +-------------------------+

This inscription was ornamented with an American and a French flag.

The sleet blew against the window-panes, covering them with stars and diamonds, then, melting from the warmer air within, ran down and froze again in fern-like traceries.

A dog whined and the patter of small paws sounded on the zinc behind the stove.

“Jack, dear, do you think Hercules is hungry?”

The patter of paws was redoubled behind the stove.

“He’s whining,” she continued nervously, “and if it isn’t because he’s hungry it is because—”

Her voice faltered. A loud humming filled the air, the windows vibrated.

“Oh, Jack,” she cried, “another—” but her voice was drowned in the scream of a shell tearing through the clouds overhead.

“That is the nearest yet,” she murmured.

“Oh, no,” he answered cheerfully, “it probably fell way over by Montmartre,” and as she did not answer, he said again with exaggerated unconcern, “They wouldn’t take the trouble to fire at the Latin Quarter; anyway they haven’t a battery that can hurt it.”

After a while she spoke up brightly: “Jack, dear, when are you going to take me to see Monsieur West’s statues?”

“I will bet,” he said, throwing down his palette and walking over to the window beside her, “that Colette has been here to-day.”

“Why?” she asked, opening her eyes very wide. Then, “Oh, it’s too bad!—really, men are tiresome when they think they know everything! And I warn you that if Monsieur West is vain enough to imagine that Colette—”

From the north another shell came whistling and quavering through the sky, passing above them with long-drawn screech which left the windows singing.

“That,” he blurted out, “was too near for comfort.”

They were silent for a while, then he spoke again gaily: “Go on, Sylvia, and wither poor West;” but she only sighed, “Oh, dear, I can never seem to get used to the shells.”

He sat down on the arm of the chair beside her.

Her scissors fell jingling to the floor; she tossed the unfinished frock after them, and putting both arms about his neck drew him down into her lap.

“Don’t go out to-night, Jack.”

He kissed her uplifted face; “You know I must; don’t make it hard for me.”

“But when I hear the shells and—and know you are out in the city—”

“But they all fall in Montmartre—”

“They may all fall in the Beaux Arts; you said yourself that two struck the Quai d’Orsay—”

“Mere accident—”

“Jack, have pity on me! Take me with you!”

“And who will there be to get dinner?”

She rose and flung herself on the bed.

“Oh, I can’t get used to it, and I know you must go, but I beg you not to be late to dinner. If you knew what I suffer! I—I—cannot help it, and you must be patient with me, dear.”

He said, “It is as safe there as it is in our own house.”

She watched him fill for her the alcohol lamp, and when he had lighted it and had taken his hat to go, she jumped up and clung to him in silence. After a moment he said: “Now, Sylvia, remember my courage is sustained by yours. Come, I must go!” She did not move, and he repeated: “I must go.” Then she stepped back and he thought she was going to speak and waited, but she only looked at him, and, a little impatiently, he kissed her again, saying: “Don’t worry, dearest.”

When he had reached the last flight of stairs on his way to the street a woman hobbled out of the house-keeper’s lodge waving a letter and calling: “Monsieur Jack! Monsieur Jack! this was left by Monsieur Fallowby!”

He took the letter, and leaning on the threshold of the lodge, read it:

“Dear Jack,

“I believe Braith is dead broke and I’m sure Fallowby is. Braith swears he isn’t, and Fallowby swears he is, so you can draw your own conclusions. I’ve got a scheme for a dinner, and if it works, I will let you fellows in.

“Yours faithfully, “West.

“P.S.—Fallowby has shaken Hartman and his gang, thank the Lord! There is something rotten there,—or it may be he’s only a miser.

“P.P.S.—I’m more desperately in love than ever, but I’m sure she does not care a straw for me.”

“All right,” said Trent, with a smile, to the concierge; “but tell me, how is Papa Cottard?”

The old woman shook her head and pointed to the curtained bed in the lodge.

“Père Cottard!” he cried cheerily, “how goes the wound to-day?”

He walked over to the bed and drew the curtains. An old man was lying among the tumbled sheets.

“Better?” smiled Trent.

“Better,” repeated the man wearily; and, after a pause, “Have you any news, Monsieur Jack?”

“I haven’t been out to-day. I will bring you any rumour I may hear, though goodness knows I’ve got enough of rumours,” he muttered to himself. Then aloud: “Cheer up; you’re looking better.”

“And the sortie?”

“Oh, the sortie, that’s for this week. General Trochu sent orders last night.”

“It will be terrible.”

“It will be sickening,” thought Trent as he went not into the street and turned the corner toward the rue de Seine; “slaughter, slaughter, phew! I’m glad I’m not going.”

The street was almost deserted. A few women muffled in tattered military capes crept along the frozen pavement, and a wretchedly clad gamin hovered over the sewer-hole on the corner of the Boulevard. A rope around his waist held his rags together. From the rope hung a rat, still warm and bleeding.

“There’s another in there,” he yelled at Trent; “I hit him but he got away.”

Trent crossed the street and asked: “How much?”

“Two francs for a quarter of a fat one; that’s what they give at the St. Germain Market.”

A violent fit of coughing interrupted him, but he wiped his face with the palm of his hand and looked cunningly at Trent.

“Last week you could buy a rat for six francs, but,” and here he swore vilely, “the rats have quit the rue de Seine and they kill them now over by the new hospital. I’ll let you have this for seven francs; I can sell it for ten in the Isle St. Louis.”

“You lie,” said Trent, “and let me tell you that if you try to swindle anybody in this quarter the people will make short work of you and your rats.”

He stood a moment eyeing the gamin, who pretended to snivel. Then he tossed him a franc, laughing. The child caught it, and thrusting it into his mouth wheeled about to the sewer-hole. For a second he crouched, motionless, alert, his eyes on the bars of the drain, then leaping forward he hurled a stone into the gutter, and Trent left him to finish a fierce grey rat that writhed squealing at the mouth of the sewer.

“Suppose Braith should come to that,” he thought; “poor little chap;” and hurrying, he turned in the dirty passage des Beaux Arts and entered the third house to the left.

“Monsieur is at home,” quavered the old concierge.

Home? A garret absolutely bare, save for the iron bedstead in the corner and the iron basin and pitcher on the floor.

West appeared at the door, winking with much mystery, and motioned Trent to enter. Braith, who was painting in bed to keep warm, looked up, laughed, and shook hands.

“Any news?”

The perfunctory question was answered as usual by: “Nothing but the cannon.”

Trent sat down on the bed.

“Where on earth did you get that?” he demanded, pointing to a half-finished chicken nestling in a wash-basin.

West grinned.

“Are you millionaires, you two? Out with it.”

Braith, looking a little ashamed, began, “Oh, it’s one of West’s exploits,” but was cut short by West, who said he would tell the story himself.

“You see, before the siege, I had a letter of introduction to a ‘_type_’ here, a fat banker, German-American variety. You know the species, I see. Well, of course I forgot to present the letter, but this morning, judging it to be a favourable opportunity, I called on him.

“The villain lives in comfort;—fires, my boy!—fires in the ante-rooms! The Buttons finally condescends to carry my letter and card up, leaving me standing in the hallway, which I did not like, so I entered the first room I saw and nearly fainted at the sight of a banquet on a table by the fire. Down comes Buttons, very insolent. No, oh, no, his master, ‘is not at home, and in fact is too busy to receive letters of introduction just now; the siege, and many business difficulties—’

“I deliver a kick to Buttons, pick up this chicken from the table, toss my card on to the empty plate, and addressing Buttons as a species of Prussian pig, march out with the honours of war.”

Trent shook his head.

“I forgot to say that Hartman often dines there, and I draw my own conclusions,” continued West. “Now about this chicken, half of it is for Braith and myself, and half for Colette, but of course you will help me eat my part because I’m not hungry.”

“Neither am I,” began Braith, but Trent, with a smile at the pinched faces before him, shook his head saying, “What nonsense! You know I’m never hungry!”

West hesitated, reddened, and then slicing off Braith’s portion, but not eating any himself, said good-night, and hurried away to number 470 rue Serpente, where lived a pretty girl named Colette, orphan after Sedan, and Heaven alone knew where she got the roses in her cheeks, for the siege came hard on the poor.

“That chicken will delight her, but I really believe she’s in love with West,” said Trent. Then walking over to the bed: “See here, old man, no dodging, you know, how much have you left?”

The other hesitated and flushed.

“Come, old chap,” insisted Trent.

Braith drew a purse from beneath his bolster, and handed it to his friend with a simplicity that touched him.

“Seven sons,” he counted; “you make me tired! Why on earth don’t you come to me? I take it d——d ill, Braith! How many times must I go over the same thing and explain to you that because I have money it is my duty to share it, and your duty and the duty of every American to share it with me? You can’t get a cent, the city’s blockaded, and the American Minister has his hands full with all the German riff-raff and deuce knows what! Why don’t you act sensibly?”

“I—I will, Trent, but it’s an obligation that perhaps I can never even in part repay, I’m poor and—”

“Of course you’ll pay me! If I were a usurer I would take your talent for security. When you are rich and famous—”

“Don’t, Trent—”

“All right, only no more monkey business.”

He slipped a dozen gold pieces into the purse, and tucking it again under the mattress smiled at Braith.

“How old are you?” he demanded.

“Sixteen.”

Trent laid his hand lightly on his friend’s shoulder. “I’m twenty-two, and I have the rights of a grandfather as far as you are concerned. You’ll do as I say until you’re twenty-one.”

“The siège will be over then, I hope,” said Braith, trying to laugh, but the prayer in their hearts: “How long, O Lord, how long!” was answered by the swift scream of a shell soaring among the storm-clouds of that December night.

West, standing in the doorway of a house in the rue Serpentine, was speaking angrily. He said he didn’t care whether Hartman liked it or not; he was telling him, not arguing with him.

“You call yourself an American!” he sneered; “Berlin and hell are full of that kind of American. You come loafing about Colette with your pockets stuffed with white bread and beef, and a bottle of wine at thirty francs and you can’t really afford to give a dollar to the American Ambulance and Public Assistance, which Braith does, and he’s half starved!”

Hartman retreated to the curbstone, but West followed him, his face like a thunder-cloud. “Don’t you dare to call yourself a countryman of mine,” he growled,—“no,—nor an artist either! Artists don’t worm themselves into the service of the Public Defence where they do nothing but feed like rats on the people’s food! And I’ll tell you now,” he continued dropping his voice, for Hartman had started as though stung, “you might better keep away from that Alsatian Brasserie and the smug-faced thieves who haunt it. You know what they do with suspects!”

“You lie, you hound!” screamed Hartman, and flung the bottle in his hand straight at West’s face. West had him by the throat in a second, and forcing him against the dead wall shook him wickedly.

“Now you listen to me,” he muttered, through his clenched teeth. “You are already a suspect and—I swear—I believe you are a paid spy! It isn’t my business to detect such vermin, and I don’t intend to denounce you, but understand this! Colette don’t like you and I can’t stand you, and if I catch you in this street again I’ll make it somewhat unpleasant. Get out, you sleek Prussian!”

Hartman had managed to drag a knife from his pocket, but West tore it from him and hurled him into the gutter. A gamin who had seen this burst into a peal of laughter, which rattled harshly in the silent street. Then everywhere windows were raised and rows of haggard faces appeared demanding to know why people should laugh in the starving city.

“Is it a victory?” murmured one.

“Look at that,” cried West as Hartman picked himself up from the pavement, “look! you miser! look at those faces!” But Hartman gave _him_ a look which he never forgot, and walked away without a word. Trent, who suddenly appeared at the corner, glanced curiously at West, who merely nodded toward his door saying, “Come in; Fallowby’s upstairs.”

“What are you doing with that knife?” demanded Fallowby, as he and Trent entered the studio.

West looked at his wounded hand, which still clutched the knife, but saying, “Cut myself by accident,” tossed it into a corner and washed the blood from his fingers.

Fallowby, fat and lazy, watched him without comment, but Trent, half divining how things had turned, walked over to Fallowby smiling.

“I’ve a bone to pick with you!” he said.

“Where is it? I’m hungry,” replied Fallowby with affected eagerness, but Trent, frowning, told him to listen.

“How much did I advance you a week ago?”

“Three hundred and eighty francs,” replied the other, with a squirm of contrition.

“Where is it?”

Fallowby began a series of intricate explanations, which were soon cut short by Trent.

“I know; you blew it in;—you always blow it in. I don’t care a rap what you did before the siege: I know you are rich and have a right to dispose of your money as you wish to, and I also know that, generally speaking, it is none of my business. But _now_ it is my business, as I have to supply the funds until you get some more, which you won’t until the siege is ended one way or another. I wish to share what I have, but I won’t see it thrown out of the window. Oh, yes, of course I know you will reimburse me, but that isn’t the question; and, anyway, it’s the opinion of your friends, old man, that you will not be worse off for a little abstinence from fleshly pleasures. You are positively a freak in this famine-cursed city of skeletons!”

“I _am_ rather stout,” he admitted.

“Is it true you are out of money?” demanded Trent.

“Yes, I am,” sighed the other.

“That roast sucking pig on the rue St. Honoré,—is it there yet?” continued Trent.

“Wh—at?” stammered the feeble one.

“Ah—I thought so! I caught you in ecstasy before that sucking pig at least a dozen times!”

Then laughing, he presented Fallowby with a roll of twenty franc pieces saying: “If these go for luxuries you must live on your own flesh,” and went over to aid West, who sat beside the wash-basin binding up his hand.

West suffered him to tie the knot, and then said: “You remember, yesterday, when I left you and Braith to take the chicken to Colette.”

“Chicken! Good heavens!” moaned Fallowby.

“Chicken,” repeated West, enjoying Fallowby’s grief;—“I—that is, I must explain that things are changed. Colette and I—are to be married—”

“What—what about the chicken?” groaned Fallowby.

“Shut up!” laughed Trent, and slipping his arm through West’s, walked to the stairway.

“The poor little thing,” said West, “just think, not a splinter of firewood for a week and wouldn’t tell me because she thought I needed it for my clay figure. Whew! When I heard it I smashed that smirking clay nymph to pieces, and the rest can freeze and be hanged!” After a moment he added timidly: “Won’t you call on your way down and say _bon soir_? It’s No. 17.”

“Yes,” said Trent, and he went out softly closing the door behind.

He stopped on the third landing, lighted a match, scanned the numbers over the row of dingy doors, and knocked at No. 17.

“C’est toi Georges?” The door opened.

“Oh, pardon, Monsieur Jack, I thought it was Monsieur West,” then blushing furiously, “Oh, I see you have heard! Oh, thank you so much for your wishes, and I’m sure we love each other very much,—and I’m dying to see Sylvia and tell her and—”

“And what?” laughed Trent.

“I am very happy,” she sighed.

“He’s pure gold,” returned Trent, and then gaily: “I want you and George to come and dine with us to-night. It’s a little treat,—you see to-morrow is Sylvia’s _fête_. She will be nineteen. I have written to Thorne, and the Guernalecs will come with their cousin Odile. Fallowby has engaged not to bring anybody but himself.”

The girl accepted shyly, charging him with loads of loving messages to Sylvia, and he said good-night.

He started up the street, walking swiftly, for it was bitter cold, and cutting across the rue de la Lune he entered the rue de Seine. The early winter night had fallen, almost without warning, but the sky was clear and myriads of stars glittered in the heavens. The bombardment had become furious—a steady rolling thunder from the Prussian cannon punctuated by the heavy shocks from Mont Valérien.

The shells streamed across the sky leaving trails like shooting stars, and now, as he turned to look back, rockets blue and red flared above the horizon from the Fort of Issy, and the Fortress of the North flamed like a bonfire.

“Good news!” a man shouted over by the Boulevard St. Germain. As if by magic the streets were filled with people,—shivering, chattering people with shrunken eyes.

“Jacques!” cried one. “The Army of the Loire!”

“Eh! _mon vieux_, it has come then at last! I told thee! I told thee! To-morrow—to-night—who knows?”

“Is it true? Is it a sortie?”

Some one said: “Oh, God—a sortie—and my son?” Another cried: “To the Seine? They say one can see the signals of the Army of the Loire from the Pont Neuf.”

There was a child standing near Trent who kept repeating: “Mamma, Mamma, then to-morrow we may eat white bread?” and beside him, an old man swaying, stumbling, his shrivelled hands crushed to his breast, muttering as if insane.

“Could it be true? Who has heard the news? The shoemaker on the rue de Buci had it from a Mobile who had heard a Franctireur repeat it to a captain of the National Guard.”

Trent followed the throng surging through the rue de Seine to the river.

Rocket after rocket clove the sky, and now, from Montmartre, the cannon clanged, and the batteries on Montparnasse joined in with a crash. The bridge was packed with people.

Trent asked: “Who has seen the signals of the Army of the Loire?”

“We are waiting for them,” was the reply.

He looked toward the north. Suddenly the huge silhouette of the Arc de Triomphe sprang into black relief against the flash of a cannon. The boom of the gun rolled along the quay and the old bridge vibrated.

Again over by the Point du Jour a flash and heavy explosion shook the bridge, and then the whole eastern bastion of the fortifications blazed and crackled, sending a red flame into the sky.

“Has any one seen the signals yet?” he asked again.

“We are waiting,” was the reply.

“Yes, waiting,” murmured a man behind him, “waiting, sick, starved, freezing, but waiting. Is it a sortie? They go gladly. Is it to starve? They starve. They have no time to think of surrender. Are they heroes,—these Parisians? Answer me, Trent!”

The American Ambulance surgeon turned about and scanned the parapets of the bridge.

“Any news, Doctor,” asked Trent mechanically.

“News?” said the doctor; “I don’t know any;—I haven’t time to know any. What are these people after?”

“They say that the Army of the Loire has signalled Mont Valérien.”

“Poor devils.” The doctor glanced about him for an instant, and then: “I’m so harried and worried that I don’t know what to do. After the last sortie we had the work of fifty ambulances on our poor little corps. To-morrow there’s another sortie, and I wish you fellows could come over to headquarters. We may need volunteers. How is madame?” he added abruptly.

“Well,” replied Trent, “but she seems to grow more nervous every day. I ought to be with her now.”

“Take care of her,” said the doctor, then with a sharp look at the people: “I can’t stop now—good-night!” and he hurried away muttering, “Poor devils!”

Trent leaned over the parapet and blinked at the black river surging through the arches. Dark objects, carried swiftly on the breast of the current, struck with a grinding tearing noise against the stone piers, spun around for an instant, and hurried away into the darkness. The ice from the Marne.

As he stood staring into the water, a hand was laid on his shoulder. “Hello, Southwark!” he cried, turning around; “this is a queer place for you!”

“Trent, I have something to tell you. Don’t stay here,—don’t believe in the Army of the Loire:” and the _attaché_ of the American Legation slipped his arm through Trent’s and drew him toward the Louvre.

“Then it’s another lie!” said Trent bitterly.

“Worse—we know at the Legation—I can’t speak of it. But that’s not what I have to say. Something happened this afternoon. The Alsatian Brasserie was visited and an American named Hartman has been arrested. Do you know him?”

“I know a German who calls himself an American;—his name is Hartman.”

“Well, he was arrested about two hours ago. They mean to shoot him.”

“What!”

“Of course we at the Legation can’t allow them to shoot him off-hand, but the evidence seems conclusive.”

“Is he a spy?”

“Well, the papers seized in his rooms are pretty damning proofs, and besides he was caught, they say, swindling the Public Food Committee. He drew rations for fifty, how, I don’t know. He claims to be an American artist here, and we have been obliged to take notice of it at the Legation. It’s a nasty affair.”

“To cheat the people at such a time is worse than robbing the poor-box,” cried Trent angrily. “Let them shoot him!”

“He’s an American citizen.”

“Yes, oh yes,” said the other with bitterness. “American citizenship is a precious privilege when every goggle-eyed German—” His anger choked him.