A Splendid Hazard, Harold MacGrath [websites to read books for free txt] 📗

toward the bed.

"Better?"

She nodded.

"Are you not dead for sleep?"

"It does not matter."

Breitmann's eyes opened, for his brain was wide awake. "Ferraud?"

"Yes. They wished me to say good-by for them."

"To me?" incredulously.

"They have none but good wishes."

"She will never know?"

"Not unless Mr. Fitzgerald tells her."

"Hildegarde, I had planned her abduction. Don't misunderstand. I have sunk low indeed, but not so low as that. I wanted to harry them. They would have left me free. She was to be a pawn. I shouldn't have hurt her."

"You do not care to return to Germany?"

"Nor to France, M. Ferraud."

"There's a wide world outside. You will find room enough," diffidently.

"An outlaw?"

"Of a kind."

"Be easy. I haven't even the wish to be buried there. There is more to the story, more than you know. My name is Herman Stüler . . . if I live. There is not a drop of French blood in my veins. Breitmann died on the field in the Soudan, and I took his papers." His eyes burned into Ferraud's.

"Perhaps that would be the best way," replied M. Ferraud pensively.

"What shall I do with the money? It is under the bed."

"Keep it. No one will contest your right to it, Herman Stüler; and besides, your French, fluent as it is, still possesses the Teutonic burr. Yes, Herman Stüler; very good, indeed."

Hildegarde eyed them in wonder. Were they both mad?

"Will you be sure always to remember?" said M. Ferraud to the bewildered woman. "Herman Stüler; Karl Breitmann, who was the great grandson of Napoleon, died of a gunshot in Africa. If you will always remember that, why even Paris will be possible some day."

Hildegarde was beginning to understand. She was coming to bless this little man.

"I do not believe that the money under the bed is safe there. I shall, if you wish, make arrangements with the local agents of the Credit Legonnais to take over the sum, without question, and to issue you two drafts, one on London and the other on New York, or in two letters of credit. Two millions; it is a big sum to let repose under one's bed, anywhere, let alone Corsica, where the amount might purchase half the island."

"I am, then, a rich man; no more crusades, no more stale bread and cheap tobacco, no more turning my cuffs and collars and clipping the frayed edges of my trousers. I am fortunate. There is a joke, too. Picard and his friends advanced me five thousand francs for the enterprise."

"I marvel where they got it!"

"I am sorry that I was rough with you."

"I bear you not the slightest ill-will. I never have. Herman Stüler; I must remember to have them make out the drafts in that name."

Breitmann appeared to be sleeping again. After waiting a moment or two, his guardian-angel tiptoed out.

An hour went by.

"Hildegarde, have you any money?"

"Enough for my needs."

"Will you take half of it?"

"Karl!"

"Will you?"

"No!"

He accepted this as final. And immediately his gaze became fixed on the bay. A sleek white ship was putting out to sea.

"They are leaving, Karl," she said, and the courage in her eyes beat down the pain in her heart.

"In my coat, inside; bring them to me." As he could move only his right arm and that but painfully, he bade her open each paper and hold it so that he could read plainly. The scrawl of the Great Captain; a deed and title; some dust dropping from the worn folds: how he strained his eyes upon them. He could not help the swift intake of air, and the stab which pierced his shoulder made him faint. She began to refold them. "No," he whispered. "Tear them up, tear them up!"

"Why, Karl."

"Tear them up, now, at once. I shall never look at them again. Do it. What does it matter? I am only Herman Stüler. Now!"

With shaking fingers she tipped the tattered sheets, and the tears ran over and down her cheeks. It would not have hurt her more had she torn the man's heart in twain. He watched her with fevered eyes till the last scrap floated into her lap.

"Now, toss them into the grate and light a match."

And when he saw the reflected glare on the opposite wall, he sank deeper into the pillow. The woman was openly sobbing. She came back to his side, knelt, and laid her lips upon his hand. There was now only a dim white speck on the horizon, and with that strange sea-magic the hull suddenly dipped down, and naught but a trail of smoke remained. Then this too vanished. Breitmann withdrew his hand, but he laid it upon her head.

"I am a broken man, Hildegarde; and in my madness I have been something of a rascal. But for all that, I had big dreams, but thus they go, the one in flames and the other out to sea." He stroked her hair. "Will you take what is left? Will you share with me the outlaw, be the wife of a disappointed outcast? Will you?"

"Would I not follow you to any land? Would I not share with you any miseries? Have you ever doubted the strength of my love?"

"Knowing that there was another?"

"Knowing even that."

"It is I who am little and you who are great. Hildegarde, we'll have our friend Ferraud seek a priest this afternoon and square accounts."

Her head dropped to the coverlet.

After that there was no sound except the crisp metallic rattle of the palms in the freshening breeze.


THE END


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Publication Date: 05-21-2008

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