The Wounded Name

by D. K. Broster

Laurent set his teeth. His fingers closed on the faintly scarred wrist. "I have thought that sometimes," he answered. "You have got entangled in another's dishonour. Then, as I am a living man, that other shall clear you.—Tell me, who is this de Fresne who would not admit the truth?"

Aymar's hand dropped from his eyes. He looked at the speaker with haggard astonishment. "De Fresne—where did you hear his name?" And without giving him time to reply he went on, "Oh, my dear Laurent, you are on the wrong road! No, no; de Fresne was . . . the victim, not the culprit. The truth . . ." A little shudder went through him, and he withdrew his hand from Laurent's grasp. "I have no one but myself to thank for my situation—that is the truth. I ought to have told you everything before this . . . and now there is no time . . ." He took a deep breath. "How much longer? I must be ready."

"Only a few minutes more," faltered Laurent, glancing away to the clock.—No one but myself to thank. . . . If he would only give him the clue! . . . But this was not the moment. If in a few instants Aymar de la Rocheterie was to be thrust out from the shelter of a roof, some preparation must be made—but what preparation? He had nothing but the ill-fitting clothes he wore. And as to provisions, there were none in the room. Laurent sprang up from his knees.

"You must take my cloak. There is brandy in the flask, I think."

"Your cloak?" repeated Aymar tonelessly. "It is uniform—I cannot wear it." He pulled himself to his feet and stood looking down at his returned possessions. "What am I to do with these?" he said, as though to himself, touching them stupidly. But as he took up the letter a spasm of pain came over his face. "I know what I will do with this. . . . Have you a tinderbox there?"

Laurent gave him his. With hands whose shaking he tried vainly to control Aymar at last obtained a light, set fire to the stained letter, and held it flaming till it fell in flakes on the table, till his own hand was almost burned. And Laurent stood dumb before an agony of soul which he felt to be as consuming as the mounting flame that was so strange in the daylight . . . and before the immediate vision of his own great loss. In a few moments—unless it were a cruel jest of authority—his friend would be torn from him. It was quite possible that he should never see him again. . . . And in that second he took his resolve: if he got a bullet in him, if he broke his neck over it, he would leave the château Arbelles himself that night.

"Aymar," he said abruptly, "tell me quickly in what direction you will go, for I mean to follow you."

"Direction?" repeated Aymar, staring at the ashes of the letter. "Direction—I don't know. Just away somewhere—where they do not know me. . . . A firing-party would have been so much more merciful," he added to himself.

He slowly put his money and the wallet into one pocket, while Laurent, with smarting eyes, slipped the brandy-flask into the other. The cross, with the laurel-encircled sword uppermost, still lay on the table by the ashes of the letter, only a small piece of its red ribbon, oddly jagged and torn, still adhering to it. Aymar looked down at it.

"Perhaps you would rather not have any remembrance of me—a man who can be insulted with impunity," he said, his lip curling. "But, if you care to, will you take this?" And he suddenly held out the decoration to his companion.