Almost to her side I came before she was aware of me, so intent she was upon her purpose. Two men of the village, fishermen whom I knew, she had summoned to her, and was passionately urging them to take her to Kenneticook. But for all her beauty, her enthralling charm, they hung back doggedly—being but dull clods, and in a shaking terror at the very name of the Black Abbé. It passed my comprehension that they should have any power at all when those wonderful eyes burned upon them. Never had I seen her so beautiful as then, her face wild with entreaty, her bewildering hair half fallen about her shoulders. A white, soft-falling shawl, such as I had never before seen her wear, was flung about her, and one little hand with its live, restless fingers clutched the fabric closely to her throat, as if she had been disturbed at her toilet.
I was about to interrupt her, for there was no moment to lose if I would accomplish my purpose; 113but of a sudden she seemed to realize the hopelessness of her effort to move these stolid fishermen. Flinging out her arms with a gesture of bitterness and despair, she cried, pointing to Nicole’s boat:
“Push off the boat, you cowards, and I will go alone!”
And turning upon the word she found herself face to face with me.
Even in that light I could see her lips go ashen, and for a moment I thought she would drop. I sprang to catch her, but she recovered, and shrank in a kind of speechless fury from my touch. Then she found words for me, dreadful words for me to hear:
“Traitor! Assassin! Still you to persecute and thwart me. It is you they fear. It is you who plan the murder of that good and true man—you who will not let me go to warn him!” Then her voice broke into a wilder, more beseeching tone: “Oh, if you have one spark of shame, remember! Let them push off the boat; and let me go, that I may try to save him!”
Her reproaches hurt me not, but what seemed her passion for him steadied me and made me hard.
“You are mad, mademoiselle!” I answered sternly. “I am going to save him.”
“As you have saved our house to-night!” she 114cried, with a laugh that went through me like a sword.
“I was outwitted by my enemies—and yours, mademoiselle. I go now to warn him. Push down the boat, men. Haste! Haste!” I ordered, turning from her.
But she came close in front of me, her great eyes blazed up in my face, and she cried, “You go to see that he does not escape your hate!”
“Listen, mademoiselle,” I said sharply. “I swear to you by the mother of God that you have utterly misjudged me! I am no traitor. I have been a fool; or my sword would have been at your father’s side to-night. I swear to you that I go now to expiate my mistake by saving your lover for you.”
The first wave of doubt as to my treason came into her eyes at this; but her lips curled in bitter unbelief. Before she could speak, I went on:
“I swear to you by—by the soul of my dead mother I will save George Anderson or die fighting beside him! You shall have your lover,” I added, as I stepped toward the boat, which was now fairly afloat on the swirling current. Nicole was hoisting the sail, while one of the fishermen held the boat’s prow.
I think Yvonne’s heart believed me now, though her excited brain was as yet but partially convinced, or even, perhaps, as I have sometimes 115dared to think in the light of her later actions, another motive, quite unrealized by herself, began to work obscurely at the roots of her being as soon as she had admitted the first doubts as to my treachery. But not even her own self-searching can unravel all the intricacies of a woman’s motive. As I was about to step into the boat she passed me lightly as a flower which the wind lifts and blows. She seated herself beside the mast.
“What folly is this, mademoiselle?” I asked angrily, pausing with my hand upon the gunwale, and noticing the astonishment on Nicole’s face.
Her mouth set itself obstinately as her eyes met mine.
“I am going, too,” she said, “to see if you respect your mother’s soul.”
“You cannot!” I cried. “You will ruin our only chance. We must run miles through the woods after we land, if we are to get there ahead of La Garne’s butchers. You could not stay alone at the boat”—
“I can!” said she doggedly.
“You could not keep up with us,” I went on, unheeding her interruption. “And if we delayed for you we should be too late. Every moment you stay us now may be the one to cost his life.”
“I am going!” was all she said.
I set my teeth into my lips. There was no alternative. Stepping quietly into the boat as if forced 116to acquiesce in her decision, with my left hand I caught both little white wrists as they lay crossed, still for a moment, in her lap. I held them inexorably. At the same time I passed my right arm about the slim body, and lifted it. There was but the flutter of an instant’s struggle, its futility instantly recognized; and then, stepping over the boatside with her, I carried her to the edge of the wharf, set her softly down, sprang back into the boat, and pushed off as I did so.
“I will save him for you, mademoiselle,” I said, “and, believe me, I have just now saved him from you!”
But she made no answer. She did not move from the place where I had set her down. There was a strange look on her face, which I could not fathom; but I carried it with me, treasured and uncomprehended, as the boat slipped rapidly down the tide.
As long as I could discern the wharf at all I could see that white form moveless at its edge. I forgot my errand. I forgot her cruel distrust. I strained my gaze upon her, and knew nothing save that I loved her.