CHAPTER XXVIII

The clock had chimed the hour, the half, and the hour again, and still Marie lay tossing with mental anguish under the heavy blue hangings of the great bed. What terrible thing had she promised to do? Sell her husband's honor to this creature who had taken her own. She tried to look at every side of the problem, to work out in her tortured brain just what would happen if she defied Von Pfaffen. She knew he would not hesitate to go to the General and brand her. She knew he could do that without incriminating himself. He was diabolically clever. She could see the kind look fade from the General's eyes, the flush on Madame's cheek. She could hear Paulette justifying her suspicions of her, and Gerome--she crushed her knuckles against her lips till her teeth cut into them.

To see the lovelight die in his eyes, contempt taking its place, to know that she would become an object of loathing to him! The thought was so terrible that she smothered in the pillows the cry she could not restrain. She would rather see him dead, she thought, and know that he had died loving her, believing in her purity.

What was country, war, people, everything, compared to just this one man who was life itself and all that life could mean to her? She couldn't give him up. She couldn't stand by and let his love and faith in her be killed; she couldn't. She tossed and turned in an agony of despair.

Her imagination swept her on to the hour of her destiny, to the time when Gerome's child should be laid in her arms. If it were a son, could she bear to have him know the blot on his mother's life? Suppose it were a daughter, could she bequeath it this heritage of shame?

She went over, day by day, her life in Vienna since her father's death. In the scorching light of self-condemnation, she realized that she need not have stayed with Von Pfaffen after that one dreadful night. She could have run away then, as she had later. She saw herself as the foolish, inexperienced girl, tired of teaching stupid children, tired of singing for music hall habitués, tired of scrimping in order to live, glad of the haven and the companionship of one of her own class. She knew now that she had not been wholly ignorant of Von Pfaffen's intentions, or rather lack of intentions, toward herself, that she had simply let the days glide by, blinding herself to the situation and hoping against hope that he would marry her.

She realized now that the story, if it had ended after that first night in Von Pfaffen's apartment, would not have been so beyond pardon. But how could she ever explain those long months with him? She knew her husband's high standard of morals. She knew his intolerance of the thing that she had done. She knew his pride in the ancient family name that both he and his father had kept unsullied. And now what a blot on that honored escutcheon this would be!

"I can't bear it!" she sobbed. "I can't bear it!"

Then Von Pfaffen's words echoed in her mind like a siren's song.

"I promise in the name of my government, that no one shall know of your share in this. Your secret dies with me!"

Why hadn't he been killed at the Marne instead of Franz? Why did he have to live on to come here and torture her? Her thoughts were distorted, feverish. She saw herself an outcast, thrust into the streets, jeered at by her husband's people, despised by Gerome, her child taken from her, nothing left!

"God, oh, dear God," she moaned, "I can't let them know, I can't!"

France was her country only by adoption. The people meant nothing to her, their aims, nor this great struggle in which they were involved. Her own country meant little more. Her world was Gerome. If he were killed in battle, she could die too, and happily, if she knew that he had gone to his death loving and trusting her. But the thought that this knowledge would turn him from her, would make him curse her, living or dead, was too much for her to bear.

She hated Von Pfaffen with the deadly hatred of the woman whose betrayer uses his power over her against the man she loves. She was powerless in his grasp. She seemed to feel the steel bars of the trap he had set for her, closing against her tender flesh. Through the darkness, she could see his brilliant eyes, cold and cruel as they had looked into hers to-night. She knew she was helpless, she could only pray that Fate might be kind, might find some avenue of escape.

The down coverlet smothered her. She tossed it to the floor and slipping her bare feet onto the polished boards, began noiselessly pacing up and down the long room. The moonlight came between the heavy curtains and lay in a white streak on the floor. Back and forth, across this, she swung like a prisoned tigress, her nails biting into the flesh of her palms, the dry sobs catching in her throat. She knew that she would do what Von Pfaffen had insisted on her doing. She knew her courage was not great enough to take the consequences if she did not, but she loathed and hated herself, her very soul cried out against what she was going to do, cried out, as it beat against the bars her tormentor had forged for her.

Suddenly, through the stillness, came a slight sound, a faint rustling on the thick carpet of the corridor outside her door.

She stopped her wild pacing to listen. There it was again. Some one was astir, some one, whose stealthy, furtive movements, plainly told of their wish to be unheard.

She slipped into the loose robe Madame had left with her, and softly opened the door. Down the corridor, a spot of light from an electric torch danced uncertainly. Presently it stopped at the door of the General's bedroom, which was opened cautiously. The light was extinguished, and then silence.

Soundlessly she crept along the corridor toward the door which had been left purposely ajar, and through the crack, she could see the spot of light fluttering about the room. It rested for a moment on the fine face of the old soldier lying peacefully asleep, then shifted to the chair at the foot of the bed, over which hung his coat. A hand suddenly sprang out of the darkness and groped through the pockets. She heard a faint rustle of paper and the light was extinguished again.

She had only just time to slip back and flatten herself against the wall, when a man came out and softly closed the door after him.

She watched the light winking on and off, as he went down the stair and across the hall, and then noiselessly, she started to follow.