"I may never come back. Something tells me that my life, such as it is—empty and worthless enough, God knows—has nearly run its full course. But if I do come back to claim the happiness which your love holds out for me,—I will not face you again with so deep a stain upon mine honour. I did not tell you before because I was too great a coward. I could not bear to think that you would despise me—I could not encounter the look of contempt in your eyes: so I remained silent to the call of honour. And now I speak because the next few hours will atone for everything. If I come back you will forgive. If I fall you will mourn. In either case I shall be happy that you know. Crystal! in all my life I spoke only one lie, and that was three months ago, when I set out to reclaim the King's money, which had been filched from you on the high road, and returned empty-handed. I found the money and I found the thief. No thief he, Crystal, but just a quixotic man, who desired to serve his country, our cause and you. That man was your friend Mr. Clyffurde. I don't think that I was ever jealous of him. I am not jealous of him now. Our love, Crystal, is too great and too strong to fear rivalry from anyone. He had taken the money from you because he knew that Victor de Marmont, with a strong body of men to help him, would have filched it from you for the benefit of the Corsican. He took the money from you because he knew that neither you nor the Comte would have listened to any warnings from him. He took the money from you with the sole purpose of conveying it to the King. Then I found him and taunted him, until the temptation came to me to act the part of a coward and a traitor. And this I did, Crystal, only because I loved you—because I knew that I could never win you while I was poor and in humble circumstances. I soon found out that Clyffurde was a friend. I begged him to let me have the money so that I might take it to the King and earn consideration and a reward thereby. That was my sin, Crystal, and also that I lied to you to disguise the sorry rôle which I had played. Clyffurde gave me the money because I told him how we loved one another—you and I—and that happiness could only come to you through our mutual love. He acted well, though in truth I meant to do him no wrong. Later Victor de Marmont came upon me, and wrested the money from me, and I was helpless to guard that for which I had played the part of a coward.
"I have eased my soul by telling you this, Crystal, and I know that no hard thoughts of me will dwell in your mind whilst I do all that a man can do for honour, King and country.
"Remember that the next few hours, perhaps, will atone for everything, and that Love excuses all things.
"Yours in love and sorrow,
"Maurice."
The letter, crumpled and damp, remained in Crystal's hand all the while that she sat by the open window, and the sound of moving horses and men in the distance conjured up before her eyes mental visions of all that to-morrow might mean. The letter was damp with her tears now, they had fallen incessantly on the paper while she re-read it a second time and then re-read it again.
A quixotic man! Maurice said airily. How little he understood! How well she—Crystal—knew what had been the motive of that quixotic action. She had learned so much to-night in the mazes of a waltz. Now, when she closed her eyes, she could still feel the dreamy motion with that strong arm round her, and she could hear the sweet, languid lilt of the music, and all the delicious elvish whisperings that reached her ear through the monotonous cadence of the dance. Of what her heart had felt then, she need now no longer be ashamed: all that should shame her now were her thoughts in the past, the belief that the hand which had held hers on that evening—long ago—in Brestalou could possibly have been the hand of a traitor: that the low-toned voice that spoke to her so earnestly of friendship then could ever be raised for the utterance of a lie.
Of such thoughts indeed she could be ashamed, and of her cruelty that other night in Paris, when she had made him suffer so abominably through her injustice and her contempt.
"The next few hours, perhaps, will atone for everything," Maurice had added. Ah, well! perhaps! But they could not erase the past; they could not control the more distant future. Maurice would come back—Crystal prayed earnestly that he should—but Clyffurde was gone out of her life for ever. God alone knew how this renewed war would end! How could she hope ever to meet a friend who had gone away determined never to see her again?
A last dance together! Well! they had had it! and that was the end. The end of a sweet romance that had had no beginning. He had gone now, as Maurice had gone, as all the men had gone who had listened to their country's call, and she, Crystal, could not convey to him even by a message, by a word, that she understood all that he had done for her, all that his actions had meant of devotion, of self-effacement, of pure and tender Love.