The Wounded Name

by D. K. Broster

The first moments of Laurent's grief were savage. He stood for some time at the window, his hands clenched together before him, his head against the grey panelling at the side, choking down the spasms of grief and fury which rose in his throat. He could not bear to look at the silent room. At last he stumbled over to Aymar's deserted bed and flung himself there, face downwards. God only knew where Aymar would lie to-night!

But very soon his mind was plotting the details of his own escape. This window here by Aymar's bed, after dark, because it looked out round the corner, not on the facade; it would be quite easy. If he could only have elicited from L'Oiseleur where he intended to go! But Aymar seemed to have no plan—how could he? The fiat had been to them both like an unforeseen sentence of death.

Laurent stirred and gripped the pillow—Aymar's pillow—where his face was buried. The remembrance of the offer of Aymar's cross—a death-bed action—was not comforting. That Aymar could attempt such a thing showed—what did it show? Laurent clutched the pillow harder. For L'Oiseleur had at last definitely confessed that he could not clear himself. Did he then know himself to be irretrievably ruined over this black business, in which, after all, that shadowy de Fresne had not played the villain? And could it be that in consequence he contemplated taking his own life? Was that why he had tried to bestow on his friend that significant gift, and was that why he had said: "You will never see me again"?

Laurent sprang up and threw open the window by the bed. The sentry very rarely paced round this corner. If he did, there was a convenient bush almost under the window. And the prisoner had not wasted his opportunities for observation during his walks on the terrace, so that he knew roughly the extent and lie of M. d'Arbelles' domain, was aware that it was not hampered with walls, and had a very good idea at what points the sentries were posted. But there were hours yet to get through before dark.

At about eight o'clock, as he was sitting in gloom and fever, watching the rain which had now come on, there unexpectedly entered to him Lieutenant Rigault. He looked concerned and somewhat shamefaced, but Laurent soon discovered that this embarrassment was not, as he at first supposed, on Aymar's account, but on his, Laurent's. The Colonel, it appeared, had given orders that one of the old dungeons which survived from the original château was to be prepared for M. de Courtomer's reception, but this retreat was in such a condition that it could not be ready till the morrow. Rigault feared, however, that this would be M. de Courtomer's last night in his present quarters.

Laurent (who was privately of the same opinion), while thanking him for the interest he took in his fate, intimated that he considered no dungeon was deep enough for Colonel Guitton to expiate the turning out of a wounded prisoner, scarcely able to stand, to die, perhaps, of exposure. But the young chasseur, while admitting that this had seemed to him rather inhuman, asked whether Laurent, in their place, would be disposed to condone treachery by making much of a traitor.

"Making much of!" exclaimed Laurent contemptuously. "You haven't run much risk of that at Arbelles, have you? What about yesterday's proceedings?—Were you there?"

"We all were; we had to be—orders. But do not go away with the idea, pray, Monsieur de Courtomer"—as Monsieur de Courtomer bent upon him a very pregnant look—"that the Colonel had it all his own way at that interview! There is not much of the Early Christian martyr about the modern Saint Sebas—— I beg your pardon! He said some pretty stinging things himself."

"He could hardly say anything stinging enough in reply to that suggestion that he should accept a commission with you!"

"Oh, he simply said he would rather die than do that. It was not very judicious," commented Rigault reflectively, "because then the Colonel was able to retort, 'I daresay you would rather like me to have you shot, since you think, no doubt, that the balls of an enemy firing-party would efface the marks of your own. I should never do that; a soldier's death is too good for you.' And," finished the young officer, as Laurent flushed hotly, "if the facts are as Colonel Richard reported them, I quite agree with that opinion."