"So I ask you this. Will you help to recover your husband?" he asked, with a simplicity of appeal which went home to Miranda all the more, because it did not presume to claim her help. "Either a search must be made privately through Morocco until he is found and bought, and such a search seems hopeless; or the unknown man who shouted through the door must be discovered. That is the simplest way. For this I do believe"--and he expressed his belief with a great solemnity and conviction which sank very memorably into Miranda's mind--"I believe that if we lay our hands upon that man we shall lay our hands also upon the means to rescue Warriner from his servitude."
"But how can I help? I do not know the man who shouted through the door." The words were flung at Fournier in a passion of impotence. "You say you need no money. I cannot scour Morocco. How can a woman help?"
M. Fournier hesitated. He took off his glasses. He found it easier to speak the matter of his thoughts when he saw her face dimly, and could not take note of its expressions.
"A woman very often has friends," he hinted.
He saw her face grow rosy and then pale.
"Yes, but I have lost the glove," she cried impulsively, and as she turned towards the perplexed M. Fournier, the blood rushed back into her cheeks. "I mean," she stammered, and broke off suddenly into a question which was at once an accusation and a challenge.
"And men, have they no friends?"
Fournier did not affect to misunderstand her.
"Here and there, perhaps a man has one friend who will deliberately risk much, even life, for him, but in those cases he has only one such friend. Warriner has one, but alas! that one friend is myself. Already, it is true, I have risked my life for him at the Scillies, and I would gladly lose it for him now, if I could only lose it without foreknowledge. But what can I do? A little fat Belgian bourgeois, of middle age, who speaks no language correctly but his own, and has only a few poor words of Arabic, a man of no strength, and, Madame, a coward,--what could I do inland in Morocco?" He made no parade of humility as he described himself; he used the simple, straightforward tone of one who advances cogent arguments. Miranda was moved by an impulse to hold out her hand to him.
"I beg your pardon," she said.