The Wounded Name

by D. K. Broster

It was partly with the idea of leaving the field free for Aymar to have his explanation with Mme de Morsan that Laurent took himself off for a walk next morning, starting from the water-meadows below the château. He walked for a good hour and a half, steering himself by the towers of Sessignes on the rise, and accompanied all the time by the intense and quiet joy which had dwelt with him since last night—since Aymar had given him that overwhelming proof of his affection. For that acceptance of his was a greater happiness to Laurent than even the happiness of having something to offer him. . . .

Absorbed in this content, he was returning through the pastures, by the side of a hedge which divided one of the big fields from the next, when he was brought back to his surroundings by voices on the other side of it, a little ahead of him. He had advanced a few steps more before he realized that one was undoubtedly Aymar's. The other was a woman's—Mme de Morsan's?

If so, his manoeuvre had not been very successful. However, he need not interrupt the interview, for the hedge was too tall and too thick for them to see him, and if he passed swiftly and quietly they would probably not hear him either. Eavesdropping was naturally the last thought in his mind, since for one thing he knew the purpose of the meeting, and would certainly hear its result later from Aymar. He quickened his pace to get past, the grass muffling his footfall, when through the hedge there burst these startling words:

"Aymar, you cannot be as cold as you seem! Kiss me—kiss me only once, and you will know that you are not!"

The voice was Mme de Morsan's. And Aymar's quick "Eulalie, you are mad. Has the sun——" was swallowed up in the vehemence of her passion.

"The sun! It is you, with your pallor and your unapproachableness and your wounded honour! And you would be safe with me as you never will be with her! I do not care what you did! Aymar, Aymar! . . ."

Laurent heard no more. He had fled stealthily back on his tracks. Good Heavens! Poor Aymar! It was certain that the whole of this interview would never be related to him now!

He made a wide detour, but when he approached the river some half-hour later he pulled up again. A lady was leaning over the rail of the little bridge which he must traverse, staring into the water and swinging to and fro a tiny pink sunshade. It was Mme de Morsan. Well, it was unlikely that she would want to kiss him! Raising his hat, he courageously passed her, noticing that she was more than usually pale . . . whereas he thought that she ought to have been red. She gave him, however, a rather absent but quite unembarrassed smile.

It was Laurent himself who was embarrassed when, after search, he came on Aymar before déjeuner, in the hall. He had only just come in, and he had evidently been walking furiously, and was angry with something of the consuming anger of that penultimate day at Arbelles.

"Yes, she knows everything," he said curtly, as he went past Laurent to the stairs, "—everything but the cause, that is. But she will not tell what she knows."