The Wounded Name

by D. K. Broster

It was true that, though the period which they were afterwards to know as the Hundred Days was over, hostilities were not. In the west neither side had disbanded; they were watching each other; and in some districts of Brittany fighting was still going on. But in others the Imperialists were withdrawing, and Arbelles was said to have been evacuated already. Royer undertook to procure a vehicle of some kind in Port-Marie, but a change of attire such as M. de Courtomer would have consented to wear was not to be had. However, they proposed in any case not to start till the afternoon, and to travel only as far as the little town of Sarzeau, where they would sleep the night, and where Laurent could supply this want.

"So that we may hope you will be at Sessignes on Tuesday," he remarked to Aymar. "And then, at last, you can be properly looked after."

"And I can also begin my campaign of deception," returned Aymar. "I cannot tell them the whole truth, Laurent, so I shall have to lie . . . and they will believe me." He stared at the sea—they were just outside the cave—and added, "The person in the whole world whom I most abhor the idea of lying to is just the one person to whom I can never tell the real, the full truth."

Laurent said nothing, but he could not help wondering whether it would not really be better for his friend to follow his own instincts and conceal nothing from . . . that person. But in so delicate a matter he could hardly proffer unsought advice.

(5)

When Laurent first saw that afternoon the ramshackle conveyance in the similitude of a chaise which waited for them at the famous turning under the chestnuts he thought—and said—that it would never take them even as far as Sarzeau. And though the ancient postilion fixed Lyons or Marseilles as the goal of which it was, on the contrary, capable, Laurent was right. The wheel did not, it is true, actually leave the axle, but its intention of shortly doing so was clear enough. Hence the prophet of disaster found himself, towards dusk, a mile and a half out from Sarzeau, trying to help the postilion render the last services to the worn-out linch-pin, and to prevent Aymar from doing the same—Aymar who would probably now have to walk into Sarzeau before he could sup.

"When this happens in romances," observed the amateur wheelwright regretfully, "some kind Samaritan usually appears and offers hospitality."

But it was not till a good twenty minutes later, when the wheel was on the point of being pronounced good for the short distance, that an oldish gentleman came walking briskly round the turn of the road, and, to Laurent's surreptitiously manifested joy, did warmly press them to sup with him. It seemed that he had witnessed their plight from an upper window of his house, near by, and had issued forth with that design, so that, had they wished, it would have been difficult to reject his invitation.

So the postilion was despatched with the chaise to the inn at Sarzeau to order them a room, and, as they walked away together, the old gentleman made himself known to his guests—M. de Lanascol. Aymar and Laurent named themselves in response, and as his friend did so a slight spasm of apprehension shot across Laurent's mind: would not the name of La Rocheterie be known to their host—what might he not have heard? But either the name meant nothing or M. de Lanascol had heard nothing.

Some half-hour later, in a large room with faded rugs and old-fashioned furniture, they were awaiting a supper which already announced itself by an appetizing smell. M. de Lanascol had monarchical sympathies, as he soon divulged; indeed, having regard to Laurent's unmistakable uniform, he would hardly have bidden the travellers else. And very shortly, after due elation over the Allied victory and speculation as to its ultimate results (since, from what he said, it was by no means obvious yet what was going to happen in France) he was sounding that young man, in a well-bred manner, on the fighting he supposed him to have seen.