BROTHER AND SISTER

TAKING advantage of the leisure which first the return of calmer weather, second the successful handling of the fire, and finally the “restoration of order” on board, had left him during the last twenty-four hours, Chéri-Bibi was trying on, before the wardrobe, his new clothes. It must be admitted that the uniform fitted him like a glove, and he turned round and round with an expression of ingenuousness on his face that would have disarmed his judges.

“For that matter,” he said to himself, “I don’t see why this uniform should not suit me, seeing that my own suits the Captain so well.”

At this juncture the Dodger came in. He had been appointed Sub-Lieutenant. His pierrot-like face, ornamented with strips of court plaster from temple to chin, bore witness to a scar of which he was so proud that he would not have exchanged it for a kingdom.

“Captain,” he said, “the Lieutenant has just been taking the ship’s bearings.”

“I see,” said Chéri-Bibi in a tone which indicated an indifference to anything but stripes and brass buttons, the fascinating effect of which he was examining and admiring in the glass.

“It seems that we turned a few degrees too far to the south.”

“Quite possible.... Tell me, Dodger, what do you think of my uniform?”

“First rate, Captain.... It looks as if it had been made for you.”

“All the same,” sighed Chéri-Bibi, twirling an imaginary moustache, “it was unfortunate that we had a Minister of Marine who abolished full dress. I once saw full dress when I rowed in the Admiral’s boat, on the first of January, in Cayenne. Think of the cocked hat!”

“The epaulets.”

“The trousers with gold braid.”

“The dress-coat,” sighed the Dodger. “Oh, at La Rochelle whenever there was a ball at the Prefecture the military came from Lorient in full fig. In my opinion the Minister was jealous ... and you may depend upon it, he was a civilian.”

“A socialist minister,” said Chéri-Bibi with a contemptuous grimace. “There’s no hope with such people. They are the enemies of government and of all discipline. Now, bear this in mind, Dodger, without discipline, which emanates directly from government, and which can only be respected if it is adorned with distinctive badges, everything goes. There’s an end of civilized society.”

“How well you put it, Captain. You ought to repeat that to Little Buddha, who turns up his nose when I ask him to do anything, twiddles his thumbs, and passes his time in getting as drunk as a lord.... He is under my orders and he ought to do what I say. He tells me he doesn’t care a damn. But it’s not my fault if he hasn’t found a non-commissioned officer’s uniform that’ll fit him.”

“What about the Top? Has he found a uniform that suits him?”

“Yes, he’s managed to unearth one.”

“What is his rank?” asked the Captain.

“Well, he’s yeoman of signals.”

“That’s right, it’s just as well,” returned Chéri-Bibi as he crammed his fingers into a fine pair of white gloves. “That’s a bit of luck. We haven’t got a yeoman of signals, have we?”

At that point the Toper showed his face at the door. He was attired in a lieutenant’s full dress which was much too tight for him, but he did not complain lest they should find him a petty officer’s cast-off uniform which would not have satisfied his ambition. His right arm was in a sling.

“The Kanaka has just found the ship’s position,” he said.

“Yes, I know that,” returned Chéri-Bibi with an astonishingly easy bearing. “Will you have a cigarette?”

“A stinker. I don’t mind if I do, Captain.”

“Damn it all, I’ll put you under arrest if I hear you use such language again. Do you understand, Toper? A stinker! Get it into your nut once for all, my lad, that you are my second lieutenant. Well, speak like a gentleman or give up your gold stripes.”

“Very good, Captain,” replied the unfortunate Toper, lowering his head with an abashed air.

There was a knock at the door and Little Buddha came in, as round as a top and as red as a turkey-cock. Dressed as an ordinary seaman, but wearing the distinctive marks of an orderly--jacket, trousers with wide ends, large turned back collar, oilskin cap--he wore a white bandage over his forehead almost completely hiding the traces of the late fight. He gave the regulation salute.

“Captain, I’ve come to tell you that the Lieutenant, who was able to determine the hour-angle this morning and was on the point of finding the meridian altitude, has just taken an accurate observation....”

“You, my dear fellow,” interrupted Chéri-Bibi, “are trying to show off on the plea that you’ve been longer at school than we have. And perhaps you’d like to make us believe that you know something of navigation. You’ve got a swollen head, Little Buddha. What good is it going to do me that he’s taken the ship’s position? I don’t care one way or the other as long as the fine weather lasts.”

“All the same, Captain, we must know where we’re going and what we’re going to do,” they objected.

“I’ll tell you when it suits my fancy, you understand, you fellows. I am the only person to give orders here. If you are not satisfied with your positions you’d better say so. Isn’t the program for the day good enough for you? Stroll in the Zoological Gardens, ball, banquet, junketing.... Serious business to-morrow. Hold your jaw until the yeoman of signals enters your cabin and says: ‘Gentlemen of the Staff are expected to report themselves to the Captain.’ Then I will tell you what I intend to do. Do you follow me? Well, right about turn, march!”

“Captain, I want a word with you on behalf of the Countess,” ventured Little Buddha diffidently, turning back when he reached the door.

“Oh, rats! What does she want with me?”

“A few moments’ conversation.”

“What does she take me for?” exclaimed Chéri-Bibi in an indignant voice. “Every moment of my time belongs to the community. I have no right to waste a single second, particularly in listening to a woman’s chatter.”

“I say, Captain, she’s been very useful to us....”

“She’s in love with you, Captain,” cried the Toper. “You can see that from the fiery glances which she casts at you....”

But the Toper stopped short when he saw the look which Chéri-Bibi shot at him. The Captain went up to the Lieutenant as if he intended to annihilate him.

“Be quiet!” he snarled.... “You may as well understand one thing: Chéri-Bibi has always been a moral man, and it is not at this moment when you see him wearing a Captain’s uniform that he’ll begin to go to the bad. The Kanaka is a friend of mine. A friend’s wife is sacred. Besides, I want the women on board to be respected. The reason why you, Toper, are not dead at this moment is because Sister St. Mary of the Angels saved your life. Don’t forget that. And if you say another word which is not strictly proper you’ll have her to deal with, I can tell you.”

“Very good, Captain,” said the Lieutenant, standing to attention.

“How is the saintly girl getting on?” he inquired.

“Much better,” replied Chéri-Bibi. “The Kanaka and I passed the night at her bedside. She is now out of danger. She was suffering from a little fever. As to the bullet, that’s a mere trifle. It can stay where it is in the shoulder blade, and be extracted later on. Nothing is the matter with her lungs, which is the important point. And now go, all of you, where duty calls you.”

They went out after the Captain. A number of men on the lower decks were washing, cleaning, rubbing and polishing, and endeavoring, as far as possible to remove the traces of the frightful agony which had convulsed the _Bayard_. The men wore convicts’ garb and they bore a number on their arms. They were closely watched by convict guards, revolver in hand. The Sergeant on duty saluted the Captain as he passed.

“Anything fresh, Carrots?”

“Nothing fresh, Captain.”

“How about the ward...?”

“Captain!” the Toper had the courage to interject.

“Oh, yes, I was forgetting,” said Chéri-Bibi, smiling at his slip. “And Messieurs the late military overseers,” he went on, bending over and examining the convicts’ work, “are they getting used to their new positions?”

“Daren’t grumble, Captain. Besides, the first who kicked would have his brains blown out.”

“That’s the standing order, Sergeant,” said Chéri-Bibi approvingly. “By the way, stock-jobber, what’s been done with my standing orders?”

“We’ve read them to the men and to the prisoners in the cages, and in addition I’ve posted them on deck.”

“Good,” complimented Chéri-Bibi. “Authority and system, those are the twin masters on board represented by myself. Before those two precious forces--listen to this, you fellows--every man on board must bow, officers and ship’s company alike. If we want to do any good, we must have an iron discipline. There must be no exceptions. Every man must perfectly understand that he is the master of nothing on my ship but the air he breathes, and then only when he is actually breathing it....”

He strode on, drawing himself up to his full height and followed by his staff, who were turned to stone while the military overseers--the convicts of yesterday--presented arms.

He stopped for a moment, gazed at the deck, and addressed a few short sharp words to a petty officer who was lazily directing the cleaning of a ladder.

“There are bloodstains here.... Have them scraped off.”

He entered the sick-bay, which was crowded with the wounded and re-echoing with their sufferings. For twenty-four hours the Kanaka and the hospital orderlies had been amputating legs and arms amidst shrieking men. Chéri-Bibi’s appearance was greeted with shouts of mingled enthusiasm and hostility. And suddenly the man who had come with the intention of making a little speech of encouragement to them, felt suffocated in the oppressive odor of iodoform, and he turned his back and went away unashamed, declaring that “war was a horrible thing,” and that he wondered at those generals who, after a victory, could ride over the battle-field amid the dead and dying with a smile on their lips, such as he had seen when he was a schoolboy in pictures in his “History of France.” For himself, it made him feel rather inclined to weep.

He was under the influence of this impression when, having sent a message that he was coming, he opened the door of Sister St. Mary’s cabin. She lay in bed under the assiduous care of two nurses. A look of unspeakable sadness was on her pale face, and she did not return her brother’s greeting. Her eyes were lifted to heaven as if in prayer. Indeed her glance avoided the terrible man. After he had dismissed her nurses she murmured, still without looking at him:

“Is that you, Monsieur? What do you want with me? I cannot help you now that God has forsaken you. I prayed that He would bring you to repentance. But your fresh crimes surpass in horror those which you committed before.... Heavens, what a number of slain!” and she covered her face with her hands as though to shut out the awful spectacle of mutiny and massacre of which, sick unto death, she had been a witness towards the end.

Chéri-Bibi regarded her for some time without speaking, filled with a new emotion which he vainly strove to conceal. At length he took a chair and sat down by her bedside. Then he grasped her hand, which shook and trembled in his. For a moment she tried to withdraw it, but finally it remained passive under his dominating pressure.

“My little Jacqueline,” he gasped in a hoarse voice. “My little Jacqueline.”

The unhappy girl shook her head gently, mournfully, for there was now no little Jacqueline ... had not been for a long time, a very long time. There was no little Jacqueline since men had made her suffer so greatly. Not since there happened to be one man--the father of her best friend, of her young mistress, of her good Cecily--who had dared to run foul of that innocence which, until then, had been untouched save “by the wing of prayer,” to use the language of Chéri-Bibi, which at times was singularly poetic. There was no longer a little Jacqueline since her Chéri-Bibi had.... Oh, Chéri-Bibi, Chéri-Bibi! She had loved him so!

She saw him once more quite a little boy, joining in innocent games with her in the fragrant garden in the break of the cliff in those happy spring days in Normandy. He was a very ugly little boy, slightly capricious, slightly odd, but entirely gentle and good, and obedient in whatever she told him to do.

In turn they sought each other at school in Dieppe, and went back home like sensible children, saying “How do you do,” to the good wives of Le Pollet mending their nets, on the doorsteps, with long wooden needles. And then she saw again the hill at Puys with the flowers and butterflies all along the way.

Sometimes, though it was forbidden, they returned home by way of the cliff so as to have sight of the white sails on the sea, and to throw pebbles from the top onto the beach. They played and rolled about in the grass, or else, while eating their bread and butter, watched with curiosity the waving arms of the semaphore. He was even then strong and brave and stood in front of her when the cows drew near and stared too closely at them. How very fond they were of each other!... Chéri-Bibi! Chéri-Bibi! Her lips could not hold back the four dear syllables; they slipped out, softly, musically, as of yore. Chéri-Bibi!

Chéri-Bibi burst into tears. He sank with his head on the bed and wept in his fine Captain’s uniform as he had never wept in his cast-off convict’s clothes.

She too cried; and at length she said, gently withdrawing her hand from his despairing clasp:

“I ask God to forgive me for it, but, you see, in spite of your crimes I have not forgotten those days ... that blessed time of our childhood ... and if I still think of you without execrating you like other people, it is because I cannot forget that you committed your first crime for my sake. Oh, why did you set your mind on avenging me, Chéri-Bibi?”

As he heard those words the monster raised his head, instantly dry-eyed. He was consumed with a fury that burnt up his tears.

He rose with a wild gesture, stood erect above the poor nun’s bed, and lacerated the skin on his face with his nails to still the need in him to tear something to pieces.

“Oh, you too ... you too! You believed the Judge, and you always thought that I was lying. And yet you knew what I was. You saw me every day. You kissed me every day. You read my heart as you read a book. I’ve never lied to you ... to you. Yet you were like every one else, you believed that I was guilty of that crime. I wrote you fifty times explaining how it all happened. I swore to you that I was innocent. And now this is what you tell me. If it is for this that you came so far you might have stayed at home, Sister St. Mary of the Angels.”

“I came about another crime,” she said, laying her hand on her breast, for she felt as if she were stifling, and Chéri-Bibi’s anger had appalled her.

“For another what?”

“For another crime of which I know that you are innocent.”

“Oh, really, there are many of that sort,” he said in a thick voice. “But the first one means more to me than all the others. It is a load on my mind. It was the cause of everything ... the starting point of everything.... The others have passed from my memory.... But that one ... that one made me what I am.... Oh, I swear to you that I did not commit that crime as people believe. Why did you not have faith in what I wrote to you; what I once said to you in the Assize Court? Is it worth while to worship the Almighty if He makes you as blind as other people are? You were the first to condemn me....

“There you have the justice of your God, which does not see more clearly than any other justice. Oh, Jacqueline ... I’ll tell you something. I expected you to come to the Assize Court, and to cry aloud: ‘What he says is true.... On my soul my brother is innocent!’ But you didn’t come, and you still believe that it was I who faked up the whole story.”

“Yes, I believed that you did it, Chéri-Bibi,” said Sister St. Mary, sinking her voice. “But I say again that I have nothing against you for that. I have taken upon myself, before God, the burden of that particular crime, because you cared for me sufficiently to commit it for me.”

“Perhaps you’re right.... And it might well have happened. But if it had happened, believe me, Jacqueline ... if it had happened, well, I wouldn’t have made a mystery of it. I would have told you. I would have told all the world. I would have boasted about it in the country. That is the point which you haven’t realized, Jacqueline. That is the point which you must realize.... If you had understood it in that way, why, I shouldn’t be looking to-day for the man in the gray hat, the man who was the cause of all my troubles. You would have played your part. You would have remained in the country.... You would have kept your eyes and ears open.... You would, perhaps, have discovered him. You would have won back your brother’s honor before he had become what he is. Now it’s too late; there’s nothing, to be done. I am looked upon as a terror in the world from what I can gather. Every murder that is perpetrated is put down to Chéri-Bibi. Well, it was bound to come true in the end, for here I am at the head of a notorious gang. And since they would have it so, I must employ them....

“I am accursed, Jacqueline. It’s no use praying for me.... Well, while I’m on this point, I may tell you that no trouble of any sort would have occurred but for the Captain, whose obstinacy is the cause of it all. He is a pig-headed fellow is the Captain, I can tell you.... I offered him a way out of the difficulty which was highly original. Do you know what I suggested? That he should land me quietly on some deserted and uninhabited shore ... far from the society which sickens me. And it may be that there I should have become a saint. Upon my word, when I think of it I feel myself capable of being one! He refused to hear of it. He wanted war. I said to him: ‘Since it is war between us, I’ll fight you.’ Then the fighting broke out, and there you are!”

“No, no, it wasn’t fighting, wretched men that you are, cursed of God,” faltered Sister St. Mary, whose eyes were filled anew with the awful vision of the slaughter. “You murdered them.”

“What do you mean? What do you mean? Look here, have you lost your senses? Come, tell me this: What did they do when they fired upon us?”

“They did their duty.”

“And I tell you that you know absolutely nothing about it. You are a girl who can’t see the difference between one kind of death and another.” He went past the glass and caught sight of himself in uniform. “Many more men were killed at the Battle of Trafalgar!”

He sincerely believed that his sister was quite unjust in comparing his “naval battle,” as he called it, with the criminal incidents in his extraordinary career.

As she did not answer his sharp retort he turned round and observed that her head had fallen on to the pillow. Her face was so white that he was greatly alarmed, and thought of calling in the Kanaka, who had taken the place, in the sick-bay, of the chief surgeon killed on the field of honor. But she opened her eyes again and said with a sigh:

“Chéri-Bibi, I hope that God, in His mercy is going to take me to Him. I will pray for you, but before I die you must promise me one thing, that you will respect the lives of the people who are left, and will not touch a hair of the heads of the women and children here.”

“I can promise you, my sister, that we will land them uninjured on the coast as soon as we can do so without danger,” said Chéri-Bibi, almost forcing her to take a few drops of a draught which gave her renewed life. “The women and children are in their own quarters. I will see that they want for nothing. I am having them guarded, and there is nothing to fear on that score.”

In spite of his promise Sister St. Mary betrayed a certain anxiety.

“The poor things,” she complained. “I fear the worst from such ruffians.”

“You can be easy in your mind, I assure you,” he replied with a knowing air. “The ruffians have everything they want.”

“What do you mean?... You frighten me.”

“Weren’t there women prisoners in the cages?”

“Oh,” she muttered with a blush.

“There’s no ‘Oh’ about it.... Both parties are made to understand each other. And then don’t think that my men are heartless. Some of them even burst into poetry. They used to write each other love letters, and the unfortunate thing was that they were kept apart. Well, now they are together. They are satisfied; they don’t want any wrong-doing, and they are as meek as lambs in my hands. Listen to this as an example: Yesterday, when we were clearing the ship of the dead bodies, throwing them into the sea, two men from the old financiers’ cage took advantage of our saying a _De Profundis_ to fight like a couple of bruisers on the lower deck, for a woman, an old offender, uglier, upon my word, than the seven deadly sins. I broke the heads of both of them with my revolver.

“Oh, but I intend to have some regard for morality on board. The men have grasped the position, and, please believe me, are now civil to women. For that matter I promised the Captain that it should be so, for he feared lest they might behave badly to the fair sex. Forgive me for speaking of these things, but you brought it on yourself.”

“Where is the Captain?”

“He insisted on joining his crew and the military overseers who were already in the cages. I promised that their lives should be spared in return for their assistance, which we forced them to render us, in weathering the storm.”

“How do you work the ship now?”

“By our own resources,” replied Chéri-Bibi, “and with the assistance of the old crew. We’ve kept two helmsmen and the chief engineer, and such other men as are required for the ship’s working. They continue to help us, under pain of death, and subject to the authority of the Kanaka, the doctor who looks after you with so much devotion. He was a bit of a jack of all trades before he found himself among us. He was once at the naval school at Brest, then he studied medicine, afterwards he became a ship’s surgeon, and he’s been round the world several times. He knows a thing or two, and has been very useful to us.”

“In what way has he been useful? You are convicts and madmen. The day is not far distant when you will be hunted out and punished. Have you considered that an adventure like this can lead to absolutely no good?”

“My dear girl, people will think that the ship was lost with all hands in the storm. He shall know how to manage that. And afterwards, we shall take our chances like so many other people in the world. But, first of all, I promise you that all the men who are left over from the old crew shall be landed in a safe place. Furthermore, I hope that you will soon be well again. And you too, my dear Jacqueline, you shall be delivered from this hell.”

“In which you are Satan, Chéri-Bibi. Oh, may the Lord lead you to think things over before you add new crimes to the old ones. Just now, you spoke of the desert. You wanted to become a hermit. If you wish it, Chéri-Bibi, I will go with you.”

“Too late! I can’t leave my friends in the lurch, After getting them in such a fix, it would be cowardice, take that from Chéri-Bibi.”

“Your friends?”

“Of course,” said Chéri-Bibi, “they are detestable rascals. But I didn’t choose their company.... It was the judges who wrongly condemned me. It was society which put me in a cage as if I were a wild beast. It was Fatality which, as I know full well, one cannot fight against.”

“I, too, Chéri-Bibi, have had my troubles. I, too, have been pursued by Fatality. But I took refuge in religion, not in crime.”

“You! That’s a very different thing,” said Chéri-Bibi in a dogmatic tone. “You are a girl and I am a man.... There are certain things that a man will not take lying down if he has any grit in him. He begins to kick ... particularly if he’s a butcher’s boy! You see, Jacqueline, they were too unjust to me. It was bound to lead to disaster.... But, tell me, what did you mean just now? ... You spoke of another murder.”

Sister St. Mary of the Angels once more raised her eyes to heaven.

“One drop of blood,” she said, “a tiny drop of blood which was not shed by you in the red sea in which you are sailing.”

“Out with it. It doesn’t often happen that any one says to me: ‘You are not guilty of this crime.’ To what crime are you referring?”

“To the murder of the Marquis du Touchais, Cecily’s father-in-law.”

“Cecily!... Tell me about her.... Tell me about her.... Now that my poor parents are dead I’m not interested in what may happen at Dieppe.... But Cecily.... Just now when you recalled our walks on the cliff I was thinking of her.... I saw her as she was when sometimes she came among the corn with her mother.... She made herself garlands of corn and corn-poppies ... and then afterwards when I delivered the meat she weighed the joints, and always ordered calves’ bones for the gravy.... She asked for them in so soft a voice.... She liked both of us.... Does she still believe that I murdered her father on purpose?”

“Yes, she still believes it.”

“Oh!... Does she still believe that I murdered her husband’s father as well?”

“Yes, she still believes it.”

The monster clenched his fists and wrung his fingers.

“That, you see, is the most awful thing of all.... Because I can tell you, and perhaps you have guessed it.... I was in love with Cecily. I idolized her.... Oh, of course, it was from such a distance that it couldn’t do her any harm. Well, I shall never forgive your God, you understand, Jacqueline, for allowing fate to sully my reputation in her eyes.... You may say so on my behalf.”

“God knows that you are innocent of the Marquis du Touchais’s murder.”

“God is not sufficient. Is there any one else who knows it? Tell me, Jacqueline.”

“I know it.”

“Any one else?”

“Some woman whom you know very well, Chéri-Bibi.”

“What’s her name?... You must tell me.... You must tell me everything.... As you may well believe, this is something more than a piece of childish nonsense. I am not asking you at random as though it were a date in French history. I insist on your telling me. If I said that it was to demand justice you would laugh. Is there any justice for Chéri-Bibi? No! But I want justice done to me. Because the person who knows that I am innocent equally knows who is guilty. She knows the man in the gray hat. She might perhaps give me his name. Oh, pray to your God, Sister St. Mary of the Angels, for if it is true I may be able to lay hands on him.... Afterwards I will ask nothing better than to enter a Trappist monastery.”

“Chéri-Bibi, I haven’t told you all this so that you may be revenged on him. Besides, I can’t help you to wreak your vengeance, for I do not know who the guilty one is.”

“No, but there are people who do know. Come, my little sister, my little Jacqueline ... tell me how it all happened ... tell me what I ought to know. You say that you’re going to die. I tell you that it’s not true, but if you think so, you can’t wish to carry a secret like that to the grave with you. I’m listening.”

“It’s not I who ought to speak, but some one else.... Some one who will reveal everything at the proper time.”

“But suppose she dies, what would happen then?”

“She has made arrangements for everything to be known when the time comes.”

“When the time comes! A lot of good that will do me! But look here, is there no way of putting the clock on a bit? Tell me what you know about it.”

He spoke to her, the better to persuade her, in the slightly sing-song schoolboy tone and in the rough phrases which were characteristic of the country round about Le Pollet.

Sister St. Mary of the Angels passed her hand over her forehead, and seemed for a moment to be taking counsel with herself.

“Yes,” she said, “you ought at least to know who it is that possesses the secret. Listen then, Chéri-Bibi. It occurred some days before Christmas. I was going round the country collecting subscriptions for the poor children in the public nursery. I called on the Marchioness du Touchais.”

“Cecily.”

“Yes, Cecily. She was still very friendly with me, often confiding her troubles to me, and never losing an opportunity of alleviating want when I brought a case under her notice, if it was in her power....”

“What do you mean, if it was in her power? Hadn’t she always the power to do so? I thought those people were millionaires.”

“They’re getting richer and richer every day, Chéri-Bibi. Old Bourrelier....”

“The man I murdered,” he jeered in a dismal voice.

Sister St. Mary went on as if she had not heard him.

“Old Bourrelier invested his money well. After his death it was discovered that he had bought, for next to nothing, a considerable amount of property in Rouen, in the old St. Julien quarter, and an immense number of old tumble-down houses which, at that time, brought in very little, but which since the municipality transformed that locality have become one of the finest properties in Rouen. It all belonged to old Bourrelier, and it now belongs to the du Touchais’s. People say that they cleared more than twenty million francs out of this affair alone.”

“Twenty million francs!” sighed Chéri-Bibi with eyes upturned as if he could discern the promised land.

“Oh, the du Touchais’s are immensely rich now. Madame Bourrelier is dead, and her death brought more grist to the mill.”

“Not altogether,” said Chéri-Bibi. “Cecily Bourrelier had a brother.”

“Yes, Robert.... She still has him, but I don’t think she’ll have him very long. Cecily’s husband will see to that.”

“What do you mean?”

“Oh, it’s simple enough. The two young men were scarcely out of each other’s sight before Maxime was married. It is the same thing now. They lead very dissipated lives, you understand. Maxime is killing him by degrees with drink ... and other things. He arranges for his brother-in-law always to be surrounded by a certain class of women who play his game for him.... For many years it’s been a great scandal in Dieppe. They carry on in a way which arouses comment in the entire district, particularly in the summer during the racing season. Robert Bourrelier is only the shadow of his former self. When he dies, his money, like the rest, will go to the Marquis.”

“You always say the Marquis’s money,” returned Chéri-Bibi, who was listening to his sister with absorbed interest, “but I suppose it belongs in part to Cecily.... And with a fortune which exceeds thirty million francs, she can certainly help the poor and buy Christmas trees for the public nurseries,” he added dogmatically.

“That’s exactly where you make a mistake.... There’s something that I haven’t explained. The Marquis keeps a tight hold of the purse strings in his wife’s house. She has nothing at her command. He controls everything. Sometimes she has to ask him for money as if she were a beggar woman.”

“That’s too thick. But she’s only got to say the word. Everything belongs to her.”

“I dare say; but she is forced to give way to her husband’s every wish because of their son, Bernard, whom his father is continually threatening to send to a boarding school in Paris to be brought up as he pleases. Remember that the only consolation the unhappy woman has is this son whom she worships, and trains and educates herself. She would rather die than be parted from him, and the thought that he might be taken from her and placed in a school, some distance away, is enough to make her submit to anything. Besides, she never opposes the arbitrary decisions of her husband, and her life is entirely bound up in Bernard. She knows that a part of the fortune, whatever her husband may do, must revert to her child. Consequently the Marquis can go his own way. For that matter he doesn’t worry himself, as I’ve explained. There are many things that I could tell you on that subject, things of an unheard-of cruelty to poor Cecily, but it does not behoove me to enter into those horrors.”

“Yes, yes, please, Jacqueline, my little Jacqueline, tell me everything ... everything that can make me still further loathe and detest the monster who took Cecily from me.”

He spoke in such tones, alike of entreaty and fury, and the language seemed so extravagant coming from his lips that his sister paused in alarm.

“When I say ‘took Cecily from me,’” muttered Chéri-Bibi, “I know what I mean, and I am certainly the only one who does know, seeing that she was never mine. But, after all, he robbed her of happiness. Well, it is as though he had robbed me of my happiness, assuming that I ever had any. Do you realize something of what I feel now? Go on, my little Jacqueline ... what else has he done, the scoundrel?”

“Many other things like those which I have just told you.... You will be able to grasp the position. The young Marchioness lived after her marriage at the Château du Touchais on the cliff which you know so well. She settled down there with the Dowager Marchioness, Maxime’s mother. Her own mother, I must tell you, died almost immediately after old Bourrelier.”

“Yes, yes, you needn’t dwell on that,” said Chéri-Bibi.

“You will remember what a princely domain the Château du Touchais was,” went on Sister St. Mary, “and how Maxime was as proud as Punch of it. Well, one day he made his wife and his mother give up the place, and do you know why? To establish there under the nose of the poor things a ... a woman ... his ... exactly ... you’ve guessed it.”

Chéri-Bibi, incensed, gave a start.

“That was too awful, you know, Jacqueline. I have done many things in my life,” he said in a tone of sincerity, “but I would never have hurt my mother’s feelings or put my wife to shame.... Where did the poor women go to live?”

“They had no wish to leave the country in which they were both born. Cecily went back to the Bourreliers’ house, and the Dowager Marchioness rented a small cottage close by.”

“I can imagine that there was a great deal of tittle-tattle in the country.”

“You cannot conceive what a life the Marquis led her. Not a day passed without the other woman managing to inflict some affront upon her.... As you know, Puys is a small place; it’s almost like living in the same street. The odious woman had only to turn round to belittle the Marchioness with her show, to splash her with her carriages and motor-cars. In short, as we say at home, she was the only one in it.... Throughout the district, within a certain radius, although she did not belong to the place, people called her the ‘Belle of Dieppe.’ That was the name which the Parisians who stay at Dieppe during the summer christened her, because the Marquis’s yacht was called the _Belle of Dieppe_.”

“But what’s her real name? I don’t suppose she’s any better than she should be,” growled Chéri-Bibi, making a wry face. “Some woman who hangs about Paris, some chorus girl!”

“No, no; she’s a lady, moving in fashionable Parisian society. She comes from Poland, and she has a name, a real name, and lives at her husband’s place during the summer. He is the Baron de Proskof.”

“Well, and what does the husband say about it?”

“He doesn’t say anything, and the story goes that he has no say in the matter.... It seems that the Marquis du Touchais took over the Baron’s wife, who is very beautiful, and paid the Baron a million francs.”

“What a delightful world to live in!” exclaimed Chéri-Bibi, with a gesture of disgust, and tears in his eyes as he thought of Cecily. “Oh, I fancy I see her now.... She must suffer greatly with such carrion round her; she who is so fastidious and sensitive. I can’t help pitying her.... It’s all very fine to say that the creature is ‘the only one in it.’ It’s not fair to allow respectable women to be crushed by a thing like that.... Oh, if I had the power I’d make her sit up. So you say that poor Cecily....”

“Well, yes.... All this has led me away from the subject, but you now realize that Cecily is not her own mistress and is very unhappy. Every one at Dieppe sympathizes with her ... she is so kind.... As I was saying, I called on her one evening before Christmas. It was last winter. I went to see her at her house, but I was told that she had ‘returned’ with her son, the Dowager Marchioness, and Rose, the lady-companion, to Puys, to the Bourreliers’ villa, where they were intending to spend quietly the Christmas holidays. I had to see her at once since I wanted to make up a certain sum to buy a Christmas tree for the poor children. In spite of the snow and the rough weather I did not hesitate to climb the hill, and behold me ringing the bell at the Bourreliers’ house. I never go where we lived so happily with our parents, my poor Chéri-Bibi, without a feeling of emotion which you will readily understand.”

“Do I understand!...”

“I rang the bell more than once. Some one in the distance called out in a voice which I did not recognize, ‘Who’s there?’ for of course the keeper’s lodge was unoccupied. I replied that it was Sister St. Mary of the Angels. A lantern and a shadow appeared and the door was opened. Who opened it? It was Rose, the lady-companion, to whom I had never had the opportunity of speaking, because though the old lady was pleasant enough with her mistress, she was quite surly with other people.... She never stopped to chat with any one. Apart from her association with the old Marchioness there was something mysterious about her. On that evening, however, she received me quite amiably, though it seemed to me that when she took my hand to lead me through the garden her fingers trembled. I thanked her, telling her that I knew the house perfectly well, for I had lived in it when I was a child.... With that she coughed in an odd manner and changed the subject. I already had a vague feeling that a trifling something had happened that was not entirely natural. When all is said, it may have been usual for the old lady’s hand to shake like that. She showed me into the drawing-room, where I found the two marchionesses and the little boy.”

“How old is Cecily’s child?” asked Chéri-Bibi in a low voice.

“Young Bernard must be six years old now,” answered the nun, who had not failed to observe the emotion which seized her convict brother whenever she mentioned Cecily’s name. “The child is very fond of me because I’ve rather spoilt him when I’ve had the opportunity.”

“He’s like his mother, I suppose?” questioned Chéri-Bibi fiercely.

“No, he is not a bit like his mother; he is almost dark, while she is fair.”

“Hang it all, he’s like his father,” snarled Chéri-Bibi, clenching his fists.

“Well, no; he isn’t like his father either. He hasn’t got his father’s heavy and rough manner or anything that resembles him in the slightest degree.”

“Come, that’s a good thing. It would have been a pity had he taken after his father. It was the color of his hair which made you say he wasn’t like his mother, but he will be like her later on, you’ll see.... At all events; I hope the poor little chap will be like her.... Go on. I’m listening.”

“Old Rose sat down with us in the drawing-room, busying herself with her needlework and not saying a word. Nevertheless I felt that she was looking at me all the while. Why was she staring at me like that? We talked about the poor children, about Christmas, about the treat that we were preparing at the hospital, and, of course, the ladies promised me their assistance, and slipped a little money into my hand. I wanted to take my leave, but they would not allow me to go owing to the weather, for the snow was falling in great flakes. The wind, too, had risen. You can imagine the battle of the elements on the cliff. I saw that I must be sensible, and I stayed to dinner with the ladies, hoping that after dinner I might get back to Dieppe. But nothing of the sort. There was a regular storm. They had no conveyance at the villa at that time. They kept me for the night after sending their manservant, Jacquart, whom you knew, to inform the hospital that they need not expect me. After dinner we returned to the drawing-room, and the Dowager Marchioness, thinking to please me, recalled the days when as a child I lived in the villa with our parents. She spoke of me, but she took care not to speak of you.”

“Of course,” agreed Chéri-Bibi with a gloomy look. “Go on.”

“And yet for a moment she let herself go over the recollection of a fishing party, on the beach, when you were quite a kid, and saved from drowning a child who was bathing. Do you remember?”

“No ... I’ve forgotten my good deeds ... they would embarrass me,” growled Chéri-Bibi with a still more gloomy air.

“The Dowager Marchioness allowed herself to mention your name.... And then a silence fell.... We remained there, the four of us, without uttering a word.”

“Yes, my name created a slight sensation. Incidentally, the Marchioness was a blunderer.... What then?”

“I ... I felt as though I were choking ... and I had nothing to say.... I could not speak a word.... The two others....”

“Yes, the two others were thinking: one of them that I had murdered her husband, and the other that I had murdered her father. What a delightful party! And you, Jacqueline, for your part, were entitled to consider that Cecily’s father was the worst of blackguards. It was difficult to carry on a conversation in such circumstances.... You all three felt that you were the victims of the monster man.... Go on.”

“I seemed to be about to choke, and I began to cry wildly, unable to keep back great sobs. Then they were on their feet, the two Marchionesses who were also weeping, and kissed me affectionately, and little Bernard, who did not know what to make of it all, came over and kissed me too.”

“What was Rose doing during that time?” asked Chéri-Bibi bluntly.

“She did not kiss me, but she shook my hand in a very queer manner. She herself was trembling more than ever. She seemed to be shivering with the cold; her face was exceedingly white; and she stared at me with an extraordinary look in her eyes. Her lips, too, were bloodless as she said: ‘Poor Sister St. Mary of the Angels. Poor little Jacqueline!’ That was the most peculiar thing of all, for we did not know each other. At least we scarcely ever met in the old days. Then why did she say, ‘Poor little Jacqueline!’ What did it mean? There was almost a haggard look about her. Besides, she wanted to leave us at once, on the pretense that she was feeling cold and not quite well. Cecily said to her:

“‘Would you like me to send anything up to you? Shall I go with you?’

“‘No, no,’ she replied hastily. I don’t want anything. I’ll go and lie down. Good night, Mesdames.’ And she left the room, closing the door quickly behind her. It was as though she had fled.

“‘She’s down in the dumps again,’ said the Dowager Marchioness. ‘She didn’t used to be like that, so odd and silent all of a sudden that one can’t get two words out of her in the twenty-four hours. At one time she was liveliness itself and loved to make me laugh. One would imagine that she suffered from some nervous complaint which comes and goes without our knowing the reason why.’

“‘I have often noticed that Rose was not quite natural,’ said Cecily. ‘How long has she been like that?’

“‘Oh, for many years,’ replied the Marchioness evasively.

“They were silent before me. Obviously my presence prevented them from continuing the conversation. As a matter of fact Rose’s curious mannerism must have dated back to the time when troubles fell on the country.”

“Say rather from the time when I began my crimes; it would be simpler,” said Chéri-Bibi.... “Afterwards?...”

“Afterwards we said good night, and they gave me a room next to Rose’s. I heard her moving about during the night. She was walking up and down, and occasionally talking to herself, but I could not catch what she said. I also heard her heave deep sighs. I was greatly perplexed, as you may readily imagine. Nevertheless, worn out by fatigue, I fell asleep about two o’clock in the morning, and suddenly I was roused by my door being carefully opened.

“‘Who’s there?’ I cried.

“‘Hush.... Don’t make a noise, it’s I,’ said Rose. And she appeared before me whiter than a ghost.

“After closing the door she stepped up to me like a shadow, knelt at the foot of the bed, and shaking in the peculiar manner that had perturbed me before, took my hand in hers as she had done in the garden and drawing-room, and repeated:

“‘Poor little Jacqueline!’ And this time she added: ‘Poor Chéri-Bibi!’”

“What! She said that.... She really said that? ‘Poor Chéri-Bibi!’”

“Yes, that’s what she said.... She spoke as one in a dream.”

“Anyway, she said it. Therefore she had good reasons for saying it,” declared the convict with a catch in his breath. “Rose must know everything; that’s a certainty. Go ahead, be quick.”

Chéri-Bibi placed another spoonful of the draught between his sister’s lips in order to give her renewed strength. The spoon shook in his hand.

“Yes, she knows everything. She confessed as much. She said, ‘Poor Jacqueline, your brother was innocent.... ’Twas not he who killed the Marquis. It was some one else ... some one else....’

“Thereupon, as she repeated in increasingly stronger and even frenzied tones ‘it was some one else,’ her eyes dilated as though she saw that other person.... And she had a fit of hysteria. The ladies hastened in. We thought it was all over with her. But then she grew silent, and clenched her teeth to prevent a word from escaping her.”

“It is very unfortunate that she had that attack,” muttered Chéri-Bibi.

“Yes, it was indeed unfortunate, for I’ve always believed that she came to me that night to tell me the truth; at least the truth as she knew it; whereas next day she was herself again, and nothing more was said. In fact she affected not to understand me when I tried to reopen the conversation. But as you may well believe, I did not let her off. I endeavored several times to see her. Once when I met her in church and begged her, before God, to explain herself, she asked me ‘to be patient; the time would come, but the time was in God’s hands; she would do nothing to hasten it, and it would be wicked for me, as well as for her, even to wish for that time to come immediately.’ Then she said: ‘Don’t speak to me of such things; forget what I said if you wish to avoid a terrible catastrophe.’”

“Yes, but meanwhile I was hunted like a wild beast and taken back to penal servitude.”

“That’s exactly what I told her. She replied that you would probably be the first to wish her to keep silent.”

“It’s a bit too thick,” exclaimed Chéri-Bibi. “What can the whole thing mean? Rose no longer knew what she was talking about, that’s evident.”

“It was the last conversation I had with her. We were in the church square. Suddenly I saw her turn pale as she had done on the first night. She bowed to two persons who went past whom I did not at first notice. She left me abruptly. I have never seen her since. In the street I met the two persons who had passed us; they were Cecily and M. Georges de Pont-Marie.

“‘Rose is still a little strange in her manner,’ said the young Marchioness.

“‘Yes, a little,’ I replied, somewhat vaguely.

“Then M. de Pont-Marie added: ‘Personally, I’ve always had the impression that she was cracked.’

“You see, Chéri-Bibi, I am telling you everything that can interest you, and everything that I know. I declare before God, who hears us, that I know nothing more, not a scrap more.”

“How is it that Cecily and M. de Pont-Marie were out together? Are they on friendly terms?”

“As you are aware, M. de Pont-Marie has been her brother’s and the Marquis’s friend for a long time. He knew Cecily when she was a child. He was taking her out for a little change. Besides, M. de Pont-Marie has much improved during the last few years. He is a reformed character. He has given the go-by to the Marquis, who at the present time is cruising in his yacht, the _Belle of Dieppe_, in South American waters.”

At that moment a knock came at the cabin door, and Little Buddha’s voice was heard.

“Captain, the look out man signals castaways on our starboard bow.”