Baby Paul’s birthday was celebrated a few days after Toni and Denise returned, and there was a little fête, to which they were invited. It was given on the terrace of the Château Bernard where Paul and Lucie’s wedding breakfast had been served. The baby, a beautiful child toddling about, clung to Jacques, which hung around his neck by a little gold chain, with as much tenacity as Toni had clasped that gallant soldier for so many years of his boyhood. Also the little boy clung to Toni and, refusing to go to his nurse, insisted on being carried in Toni’s arms the whole afternoon. This pleased Toni immensely and amused everybody present. Lucie looked charming as ever, and thanked Toni for playing nurse-maid. The child’s beauty, and the delight of the young father and mother in him, almost broke Toni’s heart. In a little while the boy might be fatherless, and that gay and graceful Lucie might be widowed. He was still haunted by that vision of the face of Nicolas, whom he reckoned, if there be such a thing as a gradation in villainy, to be a worse villain than Pierre; that is to say, a more dangerous one. He glanced around him fearfully, expecting to see one or the other of them. At last, while walking about the grounds below the terrace, still carrying the little Paul in his short fluffy white dress, there was something like a horrible passing vision of Nicolas’ red head behind the hedge that divided the gardens from the park.
At that moment Lucie, followed by the nurse, appeared, tripping through the grass. Her pretty black head was bare and she held up her dainty chiffon skirts, showing beautiful black satin shoes with shining buckles on them.
“I came to look for you, Toni,” she cried, “you must enjoy yourself this afternoon and not be troubled with little Paul all the time. He must be made to go to his nurse and behave himself.”
“It is no trouble, Madame,” said Toni from the very bottom of his heart; “I love to have the little fellow in my arms and he is so quiet and good when he is with me.”
“Come, dearest,” said Lucie to the baby, “nurse will take you”—at which little Paul was neither good nor quiet, but kicked and screamed and would have nothing to say to the nurse, much to the indignation of the latter, who accused Toni of spoiling the child outrageously.
Glancing around at that moment, Toni distinctly saw Nicolas’ head behind the hedge. Not only he saw it, but Lucie as well. She walked toward the opening through which the path ran, and, as she saw Nicolas, very dusty and travel-stained, her generous heart went out in pity to him. She was always taking in stray cats and dogs, and stray human beings as well, and giving them a dinner and a franc, and on this day above all others no one near her should want for anything. She went up to Nicolas and asked pleasantly:
“Whom are you looking for, my man?”
Nicolas, in no wise taken aback, replied politely:
“For an old comrade of mine—Toni by name.”
He did not recognize Lucie, but seeing something in her manner of address which indicated that he might get money out of her, he whined:
“I have been serving my time in Africa and got back to France very poor, and I have hardly had a good meal since I came.”
“You shall not say that,” cried Lucie. “No person, and certainly no one who has been a soldier, shall want for a meal where we are. Come.” She turned and walked toward the château, the nurse, meanwhile, wrestling vigorously with the baby, whom Toni secretly encouraged in his rebellion.
Nicolas followed Lucie and was delighted at his own diplomacy. He reckoned her good for a couple of francs at least. She showed him a side entrance where, in a small and shady courtyard, the servants were drinking little Paul’s health and cutting a birthday cake expressly designed for them. Nicolas went in and not only ate and drank in honor of the little child whose father he meant to murder, but was provided with a good meal by Lucie’s orders. After he had eaten and drunk, he desired to slink away, not thinking it worth while to risk meeting Paul even in the pursuit of the couple of francs which he felt sure he could get out of Lucie. As he slouched rapidly across the lawn, he looked up and saw, on the terrace, Paul and Lucie standing together. All the guests had left and Madame Bernard had gone indoors, but Toni, meaning to give Paul a word of warning, remained a little while with Denise waiting for his chance to speak. But his warning was not necessary. As Lucie saw Nicolas’ shabby figure slinking across the lawn, she said to Paul:
“There is a man that I found outside the hedge and he has been a soldier, so I made him come in and he drank the baby’s health with the servants, and I made them give him a good meal besides.”
A glance of recognition, which neither Lucie nor Denise saw, passed between Paul and Toni. Paul only remarked to her:
“You should be a little careful, Lucie, in introducing strange men among the servants, even though they claim to be soldiers. However, no harm is done this time.”
“But he said he was hungry, Paul, and I can not bear that any one at the Château Bernard or at our house should want, for anything on this delightful day—the baby’s first birthday.”
As Lucie spoke, her eyes sparkled and she laid her hand on Paul’s shoulder. Their honeymoon had, as yet, no break.
Toni then turned to go with Denise.
He maintained his outward calm, though inwardly he was storm-tossed. He knew that Paul Verney suffered none of these qualms of terror, but was perfectly cool, calm and self-possessed.
“Oh, what a thing is courage,” thought Toni, “to be a brave man all around.”
But he was learning to master his fear a little, or at least to control the outward expression of it. He and Denise walked briskly through the park. Denise, it being still their honeymoon, would have liked to loiter a little in the twilight shadows, but Toni making the excuse that he would soon be due at the barracks, they lost no time. He took Denise’s hand in his. She thought it was a lover’s clasp, but in truth he felt that old clinging to Denise for protection as well as affection. He wished that he could have put his hand in his pocket and felt Jacques, but Jacques was now the treasured possession of the little Paul. Toni was glad when he got out of the park and into the lighted streets.
He had to go to the barracks and Denise was to return to their lodgings. They parted under a dark archway and had the opportunity to exchange a farewell kiss. Toni wondered if it would be the last kiss he would ever give Denise. For the first time, Denise, looking into Toni’s troubled eyes, began to suspect something was wrong with him, but she said no word and went quietly home.
It was then nearly eight o’clock and Toni was kept busy at the barracks for an hour more. He was off duty that night and was allowed to spend it at home, and at ten o’clock he left the big barrack yard to go to his lodgings. The afternoon and early evening had been brilliantly lovely, but now a cold rain was fitfully falling and the night sky was dark with storm-clouds which raced across the face of the moon. The streets of the little town grew deserted, and Toni, as he walked rapidly along, saw Nicolas and Pierre, in imagination, behind every wall and tree and corner. There was a short way to his lodgings, which led through the narrow and dark streets, but the long way led by the railway station where there were always people moving about and a plenty of light, and Toni concluded to take the long way home. He ran nearly all the way, longing to get to the circle of light made by the railway station. There was one place where he had to cross a bridge which spanned the iron tracks, and it was quite dark. Toni felt his heart thumping and jumping as he neared this place. Once across it, he would feel comparatively safe, and would walk along quietly in the glare of the electric lamps.
As he got to this place he heard a smothered cry, and, frightened as he was, he stopped and peered over the rail of the bridge. Near the track two figures were wrestling desperately. In the half-darkness, Toni could see that each one was trying to throw the other on the railway track. Far-off sounded the roar and reverberation, the thunder and shaking of the earth, of the fast-approaching express train. Toni was thrilled with horror and frozen to the ground. He could not have moved to have saved his life. In fact, there was no way for him to reach the two men struggling to destroy each other, except by leaping over the bridge twenty feet below. The huge headlight of the onrushing train cast a ghastly glare over the black earth, intersected by lines of steel, and revealed to Toni that the two figures in mortal struggle were Nicolas and Pierre. Nicolas was the stronger of the two, and he was trying to throw Pierre under the wheels of the advancing locomotive, but Pierre hung on with unnatural strength. He could not drag himself away from the track, but he clung fiercely and desperately to Nicolas. In an instant more the train thundered upon the two men and wild shrieks cut the air above the roar. The locomotive gave a sudden jar, and then plunged ahead and came to a stop. Toni, holding on with both hands to the parapet of the bridge, could have cried aloud in fear and horror of what was passing before him. A dozen figures of men with flashing lanterns appeared at once, and by the side of the track they picked up Pierre and Nicolas where they had been pitched. Both of them were quite dead.
“He stopped and peered over the rail of the bridge.”
All of Toni’s faculties had seemed numbed while he had watched this tragedy of less than five minutes’ duration, but in the space of a second the instinct of flight developed in him, and he turned around and ran, retracing his path, as if a thousand devils were after him. His heart was thumping still more wildly than when he had followed the same road a little while before, but now it was for joy. Toni was a primitive creature and was not troubled by any scruples in rejoicing at the death of his fellow man, when that fellow man had worried and troubled him as Pierre and Nicolas had done. He kept on thanking God in his heart, and even whispering his thanks as he ran.
He took the short way back to his lodgings. In the same street, only a few doors off, was a small church. The lights in most of the houses were out. All was quiet—the church and houses, as well as the people, seemed asleep. Toni’s pious instincts rose up and possessed him. He must go into that church and thank God for himself, for Denise, for Paul and for Lucie. He crept up the steps and quietly tried the door, but it was locked. Toni had a jack-knife in his pocket, and the lock on the church door not being worth much, he deliberately pried it open, and stepped softly into the church. It was dark and damp, and the flagstones were very cold, but far-off before the little altar the sanctuary lamp glowed brightly. A sudden remembrance overcame Toni of Madame Ravenel not daring to go far in the church, and he honestly reckoned himself a much worse person than Madame Ravenel, so he fell down on the cold stones of the aisle, just within the door, not on his knees, but on his face, and thanked God and all the saints that Pierre and Nicolas were dead. He recalled with an agony of remorse that when he was a boy he used to run away on Sundays instead of going to church, and felt himself the chief of sinners because he had not listened with the strictest attention and the deepest satisfaction to long-winded sermons. He began to sob and pray aloud in his ecstasy of gratitude, and promised more things to the Most High than the greatest saint that ever lived could have performed. He repeated every prayer he knew, but as his repertory was not extensive, he had to say them over again many times. The stones were hard and cold as most stones are, but Toni thought them a bed of roses. He did not know how long he had lain there, but presently sheer fatigue brought him to his senses. It occurred to him that Denise might be anxious about him, but he was in that exaltation of piety which made him rather exult in being uncomfortable himself and making Denise uncomfortable, too—a not uncommon condition in natures like Toni’s. He had been there more than an hour when he heard a light step behind him and turned. There was Denise with her hat and jacket on. She tiptoed up to him and whispered in his ear:
“I went out in the street to look for you, Toni, and I saw the church door open and you lying here. What are you doing?”
“Thanking God!” responded Toni out loud. “Down on your knees, Denise.”
Denise, very much astounded at this newly-developed piety of Toni’s, did as she was bid, having been piously brought up. At the end of a few minutes she rose, but Toni was obstinate. He wanted to stay in the church all night on his knees. Denise, determined to find out what ailed him, spoke to him with that tone of gentle authority which he had never resisted since they were little children together, walking hand in hand at Bienville. She dragged Toni out of the church, stumbling along in the darkness, and he shut the door carefully. They were only a step or two from their lodgings, and climbing up to their two little rooms, Toni took Denise in his arms and poured out the whole story of Nicolas and Pierre, sobbing between times, and laughing, like one possessed. Denise wept—she saw nothing to laugh at—and actually expressed some pity for the two lost souls of Nicolas and Pierre. This seemed really impious to Toni.
The recital did not take long, and then Toni, taking his cap, said:
“I must run now, as fast as I can, to the Château Bernard. Monsieur Paul must know this.”
Denise did not detain him and he ran softly down stairs and took his way through the dark streets and along the deserted highway until he reached the park of the Château Bernard. He climbed the wall and walked swiftly through the park until he got to the château, standing white and stately upon its broad terraces. It was then quite one o’clock in the morning. The sky had cleared and a great hobgoblin moon was looking down on the church steeples of the town, visible afar off. Toni knew the window of Paul’s room. It was on the first floor above the ground floor, and at a corner. He knew the only way to awaken Paul, without alarming the house, was to throw pebbles at his window, but there were no pebbles to be found. He remembered, however, that Paul was a light sleeper, and going under the window Toni called out softly a dozen times—“Paul—Paul—Monsieur.” Presently the window of the room came open, and he heard Paul’s voice asking softly:
“Who is that?”
“It is I,” whispered Toni, creeping under the window. “Come down.”
In a few moments a small door under the window opened noiselessly, and Paul came out in his trousers and shirt. Toni caught him around the neck and whispered in his ear:
“They are dead, Paul, both of them. They were fighting on the railway track when the Paris train came along. I saw them both quite dead.”
Paul knew at once whom Toni meant. A great wave of gratitude welled up in his heart. He did not, like Toni, drop on his face and weep and fall into a paroxysm of piety, but he felt his release from the sentence of death pronounced against them both, as much as Toni did.
“Then we are saved, Toni, from that knife-thrust in the heart or that blow on the side of the head,” said Paul quietly. “Thank God!”
“I have told Denise,” whispered Toni, “now you go, Paul, and tell Madame.”
Just then a light shone in Lucie’s window. She passed into Paul’s room, and going to the open window, her white figure leaned out.
“I am coming in now, dearest,” called Paul softly, stepping under the window. “I have good news.”
In a little while Toni was plodding back through the park. He meant to be a model husband, the best father that ever lived, if God should give him children, the most worthy, blameless corporal in the French army. He meant to give all his substance to the poor, including Denise’s dowry, to go to church twice a day on week-days and three times on Sundays, and to lead a life which would be a perfect combination of the contemplative and the actively charitable. All of the time that he could spare from his military duties, he meant to give to prayer, and to make Denise pray with him. He intended to fast and to make Denise fast, too. Not St. Elizabeth, queen of Hungary, married to St. Louis, king of France, could have led the life which Toni, in these first moments, promised that he and Denise should lead. Never was there on earth so good a man as Toni meant to be thereafter.
THE END