window," she murmured, "I was tempted."
"I don't wonder. This morning air puts life into one."
Cécile sat down again. Without waiting for permission Simon sat down beside her.
"I might echo your question, Monsieur le Docteur," the girl resumed with a smile: "Up betimes?"
"Not exactly, mademoiselle. As a matter of fact I am ready for bed now."
"You have been up all night?"
"With my patient."
"The dear old man! How is he?"
"Better now. But he has had a bad night."
"And you were with him all the time?"
"Of course."
"That was kind. And," the girl added with a smile, "did he confess to you?"
"No. But I guessed."
"Was he raving then, in delirium?"
"No. He was very weak, but quite conscious."
"Then how could you guess?"
"He is a priest, for he has a tonsure. He is a fugitive since his name is withheld. It was not very difficult."
"You won't..." she implored impulsively.
"Mademoiselle!" he retorted with gentle reproach.
"I know. I know," she rejoined quickly. "I ought not to have asked. You would not be capable of such a mean action. Everyone knows how noble and generous you always are, and you must try and forgive me."
She gave a quaint little sigh, and added with a curious strain of bitterness:
"We all seem a little unhinged these days. Nothing seems the same as it was just a few years ago. Our poor country has gone mad and so have we, in a way. But," she resumed more evenly, "I must not keep you from your rest. You lead such a busy life, you must not overtire yourself."
"Rest?" he exclaimed involuntarily. "Overtire myself? As if there was anything in the world...."
He contrived to check himself in time. The torrent of words which were about to rise from his heart to his lips would have had consequences, the seriousness of which it had been difficult to overestimate. Cécile de la Rodière was woman enough to realise this also, but womanlike too, she didn't want the interview to end abruptly like this. So she rose and turned to walk towards the gate. He followed, thinking the while how gladly he would have lingered on, how gladly he would have prolonged this tête-à-tête which to her probably was banal enough but which for him had been one of the happiest moments of his lonely life. Cécile, however, said nothing till they reached the postern gate. Here she came to a standstill, and while he was in the act of opening the gate, she stretched her hand out to him.
"Am I forgiven?" she asked, and gave him a glance that would have addled a stoic's brain. What could a man in love do, but bend the knee and kiss the little hand. It was a moment of serenity and of peace, with the wintry sun touching the bare branches of sycamore and chestnut with its silvery light. Out of the depths of the shrubbery close by there came the sound of pattering tiny feet, the scarce perceptible movements of small rodents on the prowl. Then the beating of a horse's hoof in the near distance on the frozen ground, and a man's voice saying:
"A pleasant journey, my friend, and come and see us soon again," followed almost immediately by a loud curse and a shout.
"What is that lout doing there?"
Cécile snatched her hand away, and turned frightened eyes in the direction whence the shout had come. But before Simon Pradel could jump to his feet, before Cécile could intervene, the young doctor was felled to the ground by a stunning blow from a riding-crop on the top of his head. All he heard as his senses reeled was Cécile's cry of horror and distress and her brother's infuriated shouts of "How dare you? How dare you?"
The crop was raised again and another blow came down, this time on the unfortunate young doctor's shoulders. But Pradel was not quite conscious now: he felt dizzy and sick and utterly helpless. All he could do was to put up one arm to shield his head from being hit again. He could just see Cécile's little feet beneath her skirt, and the edge of her cloak: he heard her agonised cry for help and Lord Devinne's voice calling out:
"François! For God's sake stop! You might kill him."
He tried to struggle to his feet, cursing himself for his helplessness, when suddenly a curious sound came from somewhere close by. Was it from the shrubbery, or from the road opposite? Or from the cypress trees that stood sentinel outside the park gates? Impossible to say: but it had a curious paralysing effect on everyone there, on that madman blind with fury as well as on his helpless victim. And yet the sound had nothing terrifying in it; it was just a prolonged, drawly, rather inane laugh; but the fact that it appeared to come from nowhere in particular and that there was no one in sight who could possibly have laughed at this moment, lent to the sound something peculiar and eerie. The age of superstition had not yet died away. François's curses froze on his lips, his cheeks became ashen grey, his arm brandishing the crop remained poised above his head as if suddenly turned to stone.
"What was that?" he continued to murmur.
"Some yokel in the road," Lord Devinne suggested, and then added lightly: "Anyway, my friend, it saved you from committing a murder."
The spell only lasted a few moments. Already François had recovered his senses, and with them, his rage.
"Committed a murder?" he retorted roughly. "I wish I had killed the brute."
He turned to his sister. "Come, Cécile!" he commanded.
She wouldn't come; she desired nothing else but to minister to the stricken man. He was lying huddled up on the ground and a gash across his forehead caused the blood to stream down his face; he had quite lost consciousness. François gave the prone helpless form a vicious kick.
"François," the girl cried, herself roused to fury by his cowardice, "I forbid you...."
"And I swear to you that I will kill him, unless you come away with me at once."
Cécile, horrified and indignant and afraid that the boy might do some greater mischief still, turned to Lord Devinne and said coolly:
"Milord, my brother is not responsible for his actions, so I must look to you to act as a Christian and a gentleman. If you need help, please call to Antoine in the stables. He will attend to Docteur Pradel, until he is able to get home."
She gave him a curt nod. Indeed, she did not attempt to conceal the contempt which she felt for his attitude during the whole of this infamous episode, for with the exception of the one call to François: "For God's sake, that's enough! you might kill him!" he had stood there beside his horse, with the reins over his arm, seemingly quite detached and indifferent to the abominable outrage perpetrated on a defenceless man. Even now as François by sheer force succeeded in dragging his sister away, he made a movement as if to get to horse again, until he met a last look from Cécile and apparently thought it better to make some show of human feeling.
"I'll get Antoine to give me a hand," he said, and leading his horse, he turned in the direction of the stables.
Chance,
