“I am sorry, dear. I had to tell you, because I have to tell you this too. I killed him.”
Marguerite took her hands from her face and stared at her lover.
“I had to,” said Paul, in a dull voice. “There was no other way to save him. But, of course, it”—and he sat down suddenly with his hands clenched together and his head bowed—“it troubles me dreadfully. Who he was I don’t know; his face was blackened with the fire. But he may have served with me in the Chaiouïa—he may have marched up with me to Fez—we may have sat together on many nights over a camp fire, telling each other how clever we were—and I had to kill him, just as one puts a horse out of its misery.”
“Oh, my dear,” said Marguerite. She was at his side with her arm about his shoulders—comforting him. “I didn’t understand. You could do nothing else. And you were quick. He would be the first to thank you.”
Paul took the hand that was laid upon his shoulders gratefully. “No, I could do nothing else,” he said. “But I want to move, so that I mayn’t think of it.”
“I know,” she said.
She made light of her own isolation in that house. Paul, it was plain to her, was in a dangerous mood. Horror at the thing which he had been forced to do, anger at the stroke of fate which had set him to the tragic choice between his passion and his duty, bitterness against the men in power who had refused to listen, were seething within him. He was in a mood to run riot in a berserk rage at a chance word, a chance touch, to kill and kill and kill, until he in turn was borne down and stamped to death. But Marguerite stood aside. One appeal—it would be enough if only her eyes looked it—and without a doubt he would stay. Yes, stay and remember that he had been stayed! She did not even bid him take care or hurry back to her. She called Selim and bade him stand by the outer door.
Paul took a great staff in his hand and came back to Marguerite, and kissed her on the lips.
“Thank you,” he said. “How you know!”
“I pay my little price, Paul, for a very big love,” and as was her way, she turned off the moment of emotion with a light word and a laugh. “There! Run along, and mind you don’t get your feet wet!”