The Healer (Lancaster)

by G. B. Lancaster

THE HEALER

By G. B. LANCASTER

WHAT strange, almost impertinent courage had brought Fiennes back this year to the gay, familiar little hotel which clings between river and pine forest, just on the lip of the glacier-line heading Lake Lucerne, no man could say. Madame, black-browed, robust, had taken her well-coiffed head between her plump hands when she saw Fiennes crutching himself up the path, and had hurled shrill expostulation at her husband.

"Tiens! To return here—here, whence they carried him upon the outhouse door! C'est incroyable! Mon Dieu! What to do with him, le pauvre! A cripple among the climbers of mountains!"

"C'est ça," said the little man, and shrugged. "The mountains have destroyed him, and he comes to defy the mountains. They are like that, les Anglais. Never have they the grace to accept defeat."

"Imbécile!" cried Madame. "It is Monsieur Bohun who destroyed him, and he returns to defy monsieur—or to destroy him, peut-être. Il en a l'air."

"Bah! Le Monsieur Bohun? He can well guard himself—and la petite mademoiselle aussi——" But Madame waved her fingers at him.

"Oh, la, la, la!" she said, in disgust, and went out to meet Fiennes.

Fiennes read the hostile curiosity in her greeting. He read the resentment and awkward sympathy in the faces of the climbers coming back, burnt, weary, and cheerful, as he so often had come, under the blue haze shutting slowly down from the hushed heights of snow. He knew that they were asking what this derelict of manhood did here in a place reserved by Nature for the whole and strong, if ever place on earth was so reserved. He knew and he remembered that there was a glacier back in the Geschni Alp called after him. And then he saw the long mirrors of the lounge reflect a face sharpened and hollowed by suffering, and a body which dragged itself helplessly between two sticks, and he laughed to himself at the grim joke of it all. Here, where he had had no end of a jolly time last year, Bohun had destroyed him. Here, where—so report said—Bohun was having no end of a jolly time with the girl whom both had loved, he was come back to destroy Bohun. It was only chance that the moment should come to him at this place—chance—or the Devil. Fiennes had believed implicitly in a Devil since that hour among the avalanches when Bohun's impatience had forced him to jump short; and through those hideous after-dreams, when agony and despair had burnt the youth out of him, the Devil had usually taken the shape of Bohun. Now, in Fiennes' inner consciousness, they were very much one, and he went to meet that one with a curious cold joy.

The little old hotel was just the same, with the curtains blowing at the open windows in the warm night, and the half-lit lounge full of the scent of those meadows in hay which ran sheer to the foot of the Geschni itself. The people were much the same. They came year after year, even as he had done, and their recognition of Fiennes had hurt them far more than it hurt him. Fiennes was past that kind of hurting. He had reached a point when he had sufficient knowledge and sufficient callousness to inflict it on others instead.

He had loved Nina de Cazelet as a boy in summer-time loves the prettiest girl in a merry party; but long before he saw her wide, soft eyes of horror fix on him as he came down the lounge, he had known that that love was gone—gone with everything else, except hate. All through this year hate had been his spur, his lover, his plaything, and now, as Bohun stood up to greet him, he recognised that it was to be his weapon also.

Bohun seemed bigger than before—bigger and broader, unless it was because he himself had so pitifully shrunk. There was dismay on the rugged face, which showed brick-red with wind-burn against the strong black hair and moustache, but there was anger, too—anger and a savage sense of outrage. Fiennes understood. Bohun, even in this moment, was saying with the others—

"What the deuce brings him back here? Hasn't the fellow the decency to know that he's down and under? He's no sport if he can't accept the fortune of war better than this."

Fiennes preferred this attitude in Bohun to a stammering pity and regret. He sat down with the comfortable consciousness that he had turned their intimate talk into awkward conversation, and that Nina de Cazelet winced every time she looked at him. How that knowledge would have tortured him once, and how splendid it was that nothing could torture him any more! He talked to her, amused at her troubled answers and averted eyes, and he watched Bohun, sitting a little apart, with his powerful brown throat and hands showing the more virile for the white linen of his evening-dress.

Bohun was unusually strong, unusually efficient, and it was clear that he had taught Nina de Cazelet the worth of these things. During this year which had stepped his victim's life down to half-speed for ever, Bohun had not lost touch in any one way. He had amused himself. Fiennes had heard of him fishing in Norway, shooting in Scotland, hunting in the Cotswolds. He had done all the good and manly things which Fiennes would not do any more, and now he was on his way back to his legitimate work in Malay, vital and assured as ever. He had regretted the accident, and then he had resolutely throttled its memory, just as he had throttled the memory of other things. Of other things? Fiennes, easing his maimed hip among the cushions, suddenly began to laugh. Bohun glanced at him, and then he stood up with an impatient fling of his big, heavy body. It had been that very impatience which—— Well, never mind. Fiennes was going to have his money's worth for that now—or very nearly.

"They'll be dancing directly," said Bohun. "I'll get my gloves. The first with you, Miss de Cazelet?"

She nodded, not looking up, and for a moment, after Bohun had gone, there was silence. Fiennes, with that new intuition which isolation had given, had comprehended that there was real love here—that very soon Bohun would speak, and that the girl knew it. This matter of love and passion seemed strange enough to him now. Had he ever thought of these things? Would he ever think of them as Bohun was thinking? And would it mean to him the hell it was shortly going to mean to Bohun, if he did?

"You've seen a good deal of Bohun since we three were last here together, I suppose?" he suggested presently.

"No," said the girl, and colour caught her fair skin to the roots of her fair banded hair. "No, I have been travelling in Egypt with my father. We only met here about a fortnight ago."

She could have told the day and the hour, and Fiennes guessed it. He watched her closely, all the frank boyhood, all the natural impulses of his years burned out of him by the acid of his bitterness. The flutter of her breast showed beneath the pale green swathings of her slim shape, and in the white young throat a pulse was twitching. She was a girl just on the threshold of life, just on the eve of surrender, and she was recognising it in a half-exulting terror and awe. Under his hand Fiennes watched her. This, too, was for Bohun—this the last crown for the man who had flung him out of the fight, and who had trodden forward, conquering, uncaring. Some brutal, tortured instinct made him suddenly want to cry out, to strike those white, girlish shoulders with his clenched fist, to do something—anything—to harm this innocent sweetness which Bohun so prized, and which he did not prize any more.

And then he caught himself up. He could be more effective than that. By merely doing what he came to do, he could be more effective than that. Bohun himself would harm her, because, before the moment of consummation to which both were looking, Fiennes would have the sword between. The story was old—nearly twelve years old—and Bohun had buried it with a terrible and patient care. But a hint had come to Fiennes from somewhere, and the primeval passion of retaliation had set him seeking along the windings whereby Bohun had hid himself. This had taken him a year, and yet it had been worth the work. In Fiennes' hands that story had kick enough still to wreck the man—a dozen men. Major de Cazelet's daughter and—Bohun! While the music beat and swung in the alcove by the palms, and the dancers passed in a whirl by the door beyond, Fiennes sat quietly, finding exquisite pleasure in the thought—Major de Cazelet's daughter and Bohun! The Major himself paused on his way to the card-room to speak for a few strained minutes on such safe subjects as the weather and the unhealthy state of European affairs. "And the dickens knows what's happened now," he said. "No papers for a week, you know. That last fall of snow smashed the funicular. How on earth did you get here, Fiennes?"

"I've been taking it by slow stages," said Fiennes. "You forget that I can't do things as you young fellows can any more."

This and his laugh routed the Major; and then Fiennes sat still and saw the dancers go by, and waited for Bohun.

The man came at last, with a chattering woman who tried to flirt with him. Fiennes watched with his eyes screwed up, and at the first opportunity he beckoned across the room. Bohun came with an air of relief, and Fiennes heard the cane chair creak as he flung his weight into it and lit a cigarette.

"Thanks for the deliverance, Fiennes," he said. "She's the biggest nuisance in the place. Fine view you've got from this corner."

He smoked unconcernedly, with head flung back and foot over his knee. According to his creed, the tragedy of Fiennes was not to be allowed to trouble him. Fiennes understood that. After the accident Bohun had offered all the compensation in his power, but the anguished devil in Fiennes would have none of him. He had said that there was no compensation, and said rightly, until now. Fiennes drew a long breath, studying the man before him—the deep, alert eyes under the heavy brows, the jutting, rather sensual nose, and the mouth suggesting those inner graces which alone could have won for him the love of Nina de Cazelet. But there was enough of the brute in Bohun to ensure fight when the time came, and Fiennes wondered, with a chill of the flesh, what he was going to look like five minutes from now.

Fiennes had chosen the position with care. In the full blaze of publicity he was about to drive this man into his Gethsemane, and, from the very nature of the affair, there would be no escape. For a space he, too, smoked in silence, tasting the coming words on his tongue. Then—

"Let's see, is it eleven or twelve years since you were in Rhodesia, Bohun-Fawcett?" he asked.

Bohun's sudden movement proved the hit. But he recovered with a rapidity which made Fiennes smile. Learnt to be ready with his guard, had he?

"My name's Bohun," he said.

"Since twelve years ago. They only called you Fawcett on the Fronck Mine, didn't they? Of course, a double-barrelled name's clumsy. Don't suppose many knew you had it."

There was just a moment when Fiennes doubted if the man was going to stand up to this. The warm ruddiness had dropped from the harsh features, leaving them lined and ghastly, and the big body seemed to shrink together in the chair. Bohun knew. He was quick enough. He knew what had brought Fiennes all the way from England. Then the will took hold of the flesh again, and Bohun stretched a steady hand to brush the ash from his cigarette.

"I thanked Heaven you weren't killed last year," he said meditatively. "I wonder what I did that for?"

Fiennes gave a short croak of laughter, and Bohun looked up. His face was dazed, as though he were trying to puzzle out something.

"You're not going to deny it, then?" said Fiennes.

"What do you want me to deny?" asked Bohun, and Fiennes stooped forward.

"How much of that dirty story do you need repeated before I take it to Major de Cazelet?" he said.

Bohun leaned his elbow on the table, shading his face with his hand. The attitude was casual enough, and Fiennes alone guessed the sore need of the cover to this man who was already entering into his punishment.

"How much do you know?" he asked quietly.

"All of it, I think." Fiennes stooped nearer, dropping his voice. And, to his surprise, eagerly though he had waited for this, he did not want to look at Bohun. The matter went into five sentences, for Fiennes did not waste time on verbiage. There had been roguery on the Fronck Mine. Bohun had been bought, and when the scandal came out, Bohun went to gaol for six months. Then he disappeared among the little yellow miners of Central Malay, where white men are badly needed, because the malaria makes them die like flies unless the knife interferes with Providence. Bohun had come through years of that with honour and a clean reputation, believing that he had laid the ghost of his sin in those desolate jungles. But Fiennes had resurrected that ghost. He had spent time and money on the effort, and he did not grudge either.

"It was the only thing which kept me alive, I think," he said, and stopped to light another cigarette.

Bohun had not moved, but presently he said—

"Well, what are you going to do about it?"

"I suppose you know what this means to you?"

"I suppose I do," said Bohun. "I'm dealing with a gentleman."

Fiennes felt the blood surge on his thin cheeks. This was unfair.

"I hope Miss de Cazelet will endorse that later," he said, "for I mean——"

Bohun moved, and Fiennes forgot the end of the sentence. And yet the movement had been slight. It must have been the eyes which gave the other pause.

"Are you answerable for me—to her?" asked Bohun, very low.

"She let me have half her dances last year," answered Fiennes.

In some inexplicable way this wiped the livid fury from Bohun's face. "For Heaven's sake, Fiennes—— But even that doesn't give you any right over me."

"Never mind right. Let's say power," suggested Fiennes.

A passing woman brushed Bohun's shoulder, and his quick apology and smile aroused Fiennes' admiration and made him the more bitter because of it.

"You have no power which an honourable man could use," said Bohun then.

"What do you know about honourable men?"

The chair-arm creaked at the grip of Bohun's hand; but manner and face were admirably under guard, although moisture prickled the forehead and lip. The blood was drumming in Fiennes' ears. He felt a wild, high joy in the baiting of this man. Then Bohun said—

"Will you come and finish this talk in my room?"

"No," said Fiennes.

"You meant to pillory me here, then? I thought it was an accident, perhaps."

"No," said Fiennes again, "it was not accident."

"I see." He considered a moment. "It is because I supplied the accident and, incidentally, the pillory for you? Well, have it how you like. Now, will you tell me what you want of me?"

Fiennes was angry to find that he was shaking. Those brown, broad hands of Bohun's were steady as rock.

"I'll give you till to-morrow to get out of this house, on condition that you don't speak again to Miss de Cazelet."

Bohun turned in a flash. His shoulder was to the room, and only Fiennes saw his eyes. There was nothing dazed in them now.

"Perhaps it was better even for you to say that in a public place," he said, and then the blaze of Fiennes' hate leapt out.

"Even for me—for me, now you've made this of me! Ah! Curse you! D'you think I don't mean to take it out of that cursed soul and body of yours for having made this of me?"

"Steady! As I just said, this is a public place. Fiennes, you're talking like a coward and you're acting like a coward! Let's get out of this."

"Give me your word first about Miss de Cazelet."

"What have you to do with her? Do you want to marry her?"

"Marry her!" Fiennes flung himself forward, and the torrent of his words poured out close to Bohun's ear. "Are you brute enough to ask that? Can't you see that there'll never be any marrying for me? This—this business is only beginning. I'm going to get worse all the time. The doctors told me that. My life is done! It's done, and I'm not yet twenty-six! You can give me a good ten years—probably more. How'd you have liked to be put out of it all at twenty-six? I can't marry. I suppose I'll love—most men go through that some time or other—but I can't know what it means to have a girl waiting for me as that girl is waiting for you now. I can't ever know—— And do you think——" His words rushed into incoherence. "You expect to have everything … shan't have her … the Major will see to that … even if she would touch you when she knows!"

Before Bohun's stony silence he gasped himself into self-control, relit his cigarette, and fell back in his chair. People, glancing uneasily at the corner, opined that Fiennes had come back vindictively intent, and that Bohun was evidently indifferent to his upbraidings. But Fiennes, huddled in his chair, saw that, under the shadow of the broad hand, the sweat was dripping down Bohun's face, and his eyes followed the direction of Bohun's eyes towards the distant door. There, outlined in light, flower-slim and buoyant, stood Nina de Cazelet, with the yellow of her hair and the green of her pale gown—spring-tints borne by a maid in the spring of her time. There was the very essence of that simplicity which is so sound and sweet at core about the girl; but Fiennes knew well her English upbringing and her intense pride in her birth. And he knew the Major. No man with a smirch on him would be good enough for Major de Cazelet's daughter, nor, when it came to the question of the girl herself, would he be good enough for Nina de Cazelet.

An old story, time-buried, of temptation and shame; an old story, grimly and courageously outlived; an old story, dug up in its naked, yellowed bones, to stand for ever between these two! Fiennes shot another glance at the man beside him, and a shiver ran through him. He could never have endured what Bohun was enduring in such iron movelessness. He could never have known this intolerable battle of the spirit—love, passion, savage strife against the inevitable, brutal desire for retaliation, grief for the girl, and again—love!

Fiennes looked on. He had set out to get something of his own back, and already he knew dimly that he had not yet suffered as Bohun was suffering, that he never could suffer so, for he had neither Bohun's virility nor Bohun's powers of repression. He had eased himself by wild railing against Fate. Bohun would find no such ease. He had not even attempted excuses, although there had surely been some. There was a kind of splendour about this which maddened Fiennes the more. He knew how he himself would have behaved.

"You understand that I'm going to make this story public, both here and in England, Bohun?" he said.

"Yes," said Bohun.

"But I'll give you till to-morrow to get away, if you'll promise not to speak again to Miss de Cazelet."

Bohun looked at him.

"You fool!" he said quietly, and then Fiennes understood. He could do his worst. He could blacken Bohun before all this little gay company if he so chose, but he could not quench in the man that instinctive determination to fight until no last inch of ground was left him. Bohun would have his kisses from Nina de Cazelet if man could get them. They would be the first and the last, for the girl knew well what was due to her blood and her class, and she would know what was due to her insulted pride after Bohun had taken her kisses and her vows.

Fiennes felt a queer contraction of the heart as Bohun stood up. There was something pitiless, brutal, and yet so entirely natural about this. It was like Bohun to snatch on the very brink of the glacier for the one white spray of edelweiss, even though it went down into the cañon with him.

"You're—going to her now?" he said, with a catch in his breath. "Bohun, you'll only make it worse for you both!"

Bohun did not answer. Fiennes guessed that he did not hear. He went straight out through the open doors like a man drawn by a thread, and in the vivid splash of light across the terrace Fiennes saw him sharp-cut for a moment. He had lost that slight shoulder-stoop common to most men who have walked much through earth's waste places. He went swiftly, with head up, and a glow on his face and a light in his eyes. Fiennes half raised himself, trembling. Conventionalities, results, ethics, seemed suddenly sloughed away from Bohun. Through great agonies he had been wrenched back into the primitive essence of life. She was there, and he went to her with as little doubt, as little heed of consequences as mate draws to mate in those great jungle fastnesses which had not been great enough to absolve him from his sin.

Fiennes crutched himself into shelter of the window-curtains and peered out. She was there, but how in the world had Bohun known it? She was there, part-way down the slope where the little shrine with its battered wooden Madonna faced to the east. Starlight was tender on the meadows and on the half-veiled peaks, where one gash of white among the pine forests told of a waterfall. In the moveless air the rush of the water sounded faintly, seeming to bring a hurrying, potent life into the quiet night. And there was need for haste. Bohun had just so long as it would take Fiennes to drag himself into the card-room and show Major de Cazelet the little bundle of papers in his breast-pocket.

In his dancing slippers Bohun's feet made no sound on the grass, and she was bent over the shrine, relinking the dried buttercup chains which someone had laid there. Then she straightened, with slender bare arms hanging and her face upraised to the stars. Bohun halted suddenly. Nothing but her stillness could have stayed him, nothing but the utter girlishness of her could have held the devil which Fiennes had let loose. He had gone as a man goes into a hopeless fight, with the savage certainty in him that he will wrest something from life before it leaves him. Now he stood still, and slowly the ruddy flush died out along his veins and left his face white as her own.

Last year he had resisted the unconscious pull of her. That hole torn out of the best years of his life could only be filled by marriage with money and position, he had decided. Then a mightier power than his will had spoken, and the natural tenacity of him called up all his forces to obey. Values had changed, focuses shifted, plans had slipped away like water. Bohun was back, like the first great father of us all, on the first great quest—the wooing of the maid divine. And the hand against his heart now, checking the spirit which had brought him out, was the understanding, at the sight of her, that to him she was still the maid divine.

Moving suddenly, she saw him. Then, faintly smiling, she made a little gesture of acquiescence. It seemed to her natural that out of this warm, dusky silence he should come to her. It seemed to her that she had waited all her life just for this. She was Bohun's to take when he would, and both knew it with that simplicity which is begotten of supreme moments. And because to Bohun the moment was supreme, he understood, even as he came to her, that it would pass void into the void. Through disrepute, danger, unsuccess, he had beaten out his way, bluffing, taking chances, bruising and being bruised, better than some men, worse than a good many, not given to the graces of renunciation and self-denial, impatient of mercy and tenderness as of weaknesses which crippled a man. But now, with the brooding threat of Fiennes climbing the sky behind him, and the one bright point of that girl in the starlight before, it seemed to him suddenly that values had changed again. To spare her—this was the only vital thing. And to end the matter quickly—here his natural impatience spoke. But that was vital, too.

"Fiennes has gone to tell your father something about me," he said lightly. "It isn't a nice story, Miss de Cazelet, and I always knew that, if it came out, I'd have to go. I'm going in the morning, but I wanted to thank you for the good time you've helped me to have here. I won't forget it out in Malay."

He felt her stiffen up where she stood by the shrine, and he felt grimly that he had hit the right note. Then she said deliberately—

"The stories which Mr. Fiennes chooses to tell my father don't affect my friendships in any way."

"This will, when you hear it."

"I don't intend to hear it!"

There was a sudden pulse in her voice which quickened Bohun. But he kept still, with his eyes down. He saw what she would be at, fighting for her woman's right, her natural heritage, and he saw, as a man worn by knowledge of the world sees, how consummation of that right with him would break her.

"Nonsense!" he said. "Of course you'll hear it. And it's all true. Give Fiennes the credit for that. I'm no better than I should be, Miss de Cazelet, and perhaps a good deal worse. I just came to tell you that, and to say good-bye. I'll be away before you're up."

He turned; and then, with caught breath, she said—

"Is that all you came to say?"

"Yes," said Bohun.

"I thought— I—I thought, perhaps, there was something more," she said.

"No, I don't think so—not so far as I can remember," said Bohun.

He walked a few steps, and found that he was blundering over the shrine. A sharp corner somewhere caught his knee-cap, and he swore at it. Then he stopped stupidly and looked back at her. She did not speak again. The tragedy of her sex was guarding her now. Intensely woman, she was helpless in the power of her womanhood. She could not speak again. Bohun understood that, looking at her. And he understood, too, that he had not spared her so very much, after all. Her head was turned from him, and she stood straightly. The shadow of a tall pine tree was flung across her by the rising moon, but Bohun knew that it was in reality the shadow of himself. She was too slender and young to bear the weight of that shadow, too dear—— His feet jarred noisily on stones somewhere as he moved to her swiftly. And then, just when the scent of her hair, the curve of her short, drooping lip seemed the only living things in all the world, he swung on his heel and went over the lawn and in through the open windows with the half-drunken determination in. him to get his crucifixion over before she should know.

But within the lounge he was flung suddenly into a something which seemed to draw the earth away beneath his feet. A surge of faces was about him, a roar of voices, a seething of life on the wave of some great agitation. The Major was gripping his elbow, shouting into his ear. Winged words were about him, beating on him.

"War! The Great War of all the …" "… and, of course, everybody knew that if Germany …" "Oh, for goodness' sake, get out of my way! I've got to get back to my regiment, don't you know." "Austria …" "Belgium …" "Us!" "Us!" "But if only Serbia hadn't …" "What's that, Bohun? Been in bed, eh? Yes, the whole world's going to war. We chipped in yesterday, thank Heaven!"

The deep voice passed, and Bohun leaned against the wall and began to laugh. He had been prepared to face, before every person of his acquaintance, the most intimate torture a man may know, and here was the world gone to war to save him! Close by, a big man with a grey moustache was shaking the Major by both hands and sobbing.

"Our little Army!" he was saying. "Bless it! Our little Army! It'll show 'em the way, de Cazelet—it'll show 'em the way!"

The Major looked at Bohun. His eyes were lit, and new youth seemed to run like quicksilver through his lean limbs.

"Find Nina and bring her along, if you can, Bohun," he said. "Tell her we'll have to get our traps together. No saying how long the way will be open, you know."

Bohun, just on that thin edge of understanding when everything is bizarre and yet absolutely natural, turned to obey. But there was no crossing that room. The air in it seemed throbbing as though itself it were alive. The words seemed to hit and hop about like little bullets. Someone, wild-eyed and exulting, was demanding of the world what price the Little Navy Party now? A long-haired Frenchman was trying to sing the Marseillaise, and Madame, with splendid gestures, stood at the dining-room door to urge him on. A cold-eyed business man from Liverpool was patting Bohun on the shoulder.

"All right, old chap. Yes, old chap," he cried, "we'll give it to 'em in the neck! We'll give it to 'em the——"

Men were thrusting here and there, picking up the papers, reading a word or two, and flinging them down. Women stood apart, wide-eyed, with long-drawn breaths. Now all the men were in the centre, as though culled out from the women by the call. Fiennes was among them, hanging on his sticks, with patches of red on his thin face and a queer kind of desperate devil in his eyes. Bohun went over to him, and Fiennes' lips drew back a little from his teeth. He put a hot, shaking hand on Bohun's wrist.

"Just help me out—can't stand the crowd," he said, and Bohun got a strong arm about the shrunken body and bore him out into the corridor. That hot hand clung to his wrist still.

"Do you hear what they're saying?" whispered Fiennes. "We'll need every fit man—every fit man. Are you going to fight, Bohun? Are you?"

One thrust of reality came to Bohun out of all this welter of emotions.

"Me? Yes!" he said. "I'll join anything I can get into."

"The Major said that." Fiennes was stammering now, and he did not let go of Bohun's arm. "I told him, you know, I told him part—about you. And then this came. And they all said it's going to be the most hellish thing … The Major was looking for you right away. He said you'd keep your head in any devil's mess at all. I told him, but, don't you see, it's England. Bohun, they say we'll want every fit man!"

Bohun looked back into the room. Just under the centre lights a cavalryman with black hair was laughing. His head was thrown back, and his open mouth showed gilt in his teeth. A girl on her honeymoon trip held her young husband's hand against her breast, and still that old, grey-haired chap was pumping the Major's hands up and down.

"Our little Army!" he was saying. "A handful, but they'll do the work of ten conscript forces! Ten, I give you my word!"

A man and a tall girl passed by to the stairs. Bohun caught the end of a sentence: "God bless you, darling! I knew you'd take it like this," and the words brought a wince of pain out of him. He tried to shake free, but, like one left stranded on a beach while the full tide of life sets out to sea, Fiennes clutched him still.

"I'll have to stay here," he said. "Couldn't manage the journey. They won't violate Swiss neutrality, will they? All that about Belgium makes me sick. Bohun, it'll be all right here, don't you think?"

It seemed incredible that he was appealing to this man, resting on his strength of mind and body, absolutely certain that with neither would Bohun betray him. Bohun stooped, with a quick, searching look, then he set Fiennes down in a chair.

"My dear chap, don't you worry," he said. "You're right as rain. So are we all. Why, man, you don't imagine this fuss means scare, do you? Wait a bit. I'll get you something."

He disappeared, and was back in a minute with whisky. But that minute was the longest in Fiennes' life. The trumpet-call which had been blown through all the world, to split up the crust of selfishness and superficiality and lay bare the deeps below, had given him a brief and horrible glance at himself. He was glad that he, not Bohun, must answer to that call. He was glad that no man would doubt his courage because, let come what would come, he stayed hid in safety here. The grain would be winnowed out from the chaff now—someone had just said so. He would escape that blast, and Bohun was not afraid of it. Not afraid as he— Fiennes—was afraid. Bohun was laughing when he came back, and Fiennes loved him for it—loved him for the big muscles and the brutish black moustache and the deep chest-laughter and the eyes warm with a kind of terrible content. It would be good to remember, if bad times came, that such as Bohun were fighting for England—and for him. He caught at Bohun's sleeve, spilling the drink.

"I wish I hadn't told de Cazelet," he gasped. "I won't tell—anyone else."

"What?" Bohun laughed again. "Ross has promised to get me into his troop. He says this business is going to be hot enough to please the most exacting of us. Good luck for me, isn't it, eh? I can ride and shoot quite a bit."

He spoke quietly, but his hands shook now, and Fiennes felt a reeling sense of horror. The lust of killing was on this man, so lately wrenched away from all which his soul desired. That sharp call into the maelstrom of death meant good luck to him—good luck!

"Want anything more?" asked Bohun. "Not faint now? All right. See you later."

There was almost solicitude in the friendly voice. He turned and faced the Major, and the lean, grey man spoke with the eager ring of boyhood.

"I was looking for you, Bohun. What are you going to do?"

"Leaving for England in an hour with Ross. He says he'll squeeze me into his little lot somehow. Cavalry are sure to get a look in early."

"Wait and come with us in the morning," said the Major. "I'll see you fixed up all right if Ross doesn't. There'll be rather too many women along, and that's the truth, Bohun. We don't know yet what's waiting for us in France."

Bohun's eyes held the Major's for a questioning moment, and under the rough tanned skin his blood showed hotly.

"I had already thought of that," he said slowly. "But——" And then the two men looked away towards the lounge.

A little brown leaf of a lonely woman was shivering at the door, and stooping to her, cheering her with eager kindliness, was the girl those two men loved. Fair head, slender limbs, dark, deep-lashed eyes, and white and rosy flesh— they stood for womanhood even as that little brown wisp did. Again Bohun's eyes sought the Major's.

"I thought of that," he repeated. "But——" Again he hesitated, and the Major flared out at him.

"Gracious, man! You know what's already been done in Belgium! What are you thinking of?"

"Have you forgotten what Fiennes told you about me?" said Bohun directly.

"What Fiennes told me? I—let's see."

"I've been in prison, and deserved it," said Bohun. "I love your daughter, and if I go back with you, I believe I'll tell her so, Major de Cazelet!"

"Sh-sh-sh!" said the Major between his teeth. "Oh, hang it all, Bohun!" His glance crossed Bohun's for a second and flashed away again. "Um! Yes, Fiennes did tell me," he said.

There was a little silence. Both men had forgotten Fiennes. Then Bohun said heavily—

"I'll wait till morning, and if there's need later, I'll be on hand. Don't ask me to travel with you, that's all."

He swung on his heel, and the Major caught his elbow. The old, keen face was working.

"Bohun——" he said, and stopped. Then again: "Bohun——"

A dull light was smouldering in Bohun's eyes. He held himself stiff as iron, and his jaw was thrust out a little. Fiennes wondered how long he was going to suffer that detaining hand.

"Look here," said the Major, and his voice was unsteady, "we're into a bigger thing than private sins and sorrows now. Pity help us all! Come along and help me look after my girl, Bohun. Men and countries are both going into the melting-pot. It's only the way they'll come out that matters now, man."

"If I——" began Bohun, and then his voice sank to a kind of groan. The Major rubbed up his thin hair in a nervous, bothered way. First and last he was English, and an Englishman's word is very seldom his interpreter.

"Oh, don't be a fool! Go and get packed up," he said, with a hearty shake of Bohun's elbow. And then he went hurriedly away without a second look.

Fiennes saw the two women and the two men go up the stair together. And quite suddenly the hot tears stung his eyes. War the avenger, War the healer, War which breaks down the needless and builds up the imperishable—the storm of its great wings seemed all about him in the dim corridor, pitiless, glorious, winnowing out—what had they said?—winnowing out the chaff from the good grain of the soul.

 

Copyright, 1915, by G. B. Lancaster, in the United States of America.