“Ah, that is good, General! I was very thirsty without realizing it. Well, there is really not much to tell and surely nothing to command. I am here alone, with no obligations towards anyone. As it possibly may be my last chance, you may want to hear how I came to this place?”
“I beg of your Highness not to tell more than you wish. Of course I shall be glad to know your reasons for choosing this dangerous country”—then once more breaking down, he murmured: “Why did you, my boy, why did you?”
The sick man lightly pressed the older man’s arm, letting his hand rest upon the sleeve. Count Rondell mutely gazed upon the suffering youth, and saw that the boy before him knew the price he was to pay for his folly, knew it all—and it seemed as if he wanted to pay it. Through his mind there flitted thoughts of the futility of man’s plans when God willed otherwise. With this bitter reflection there came the grief of the thought of the death of this young life that had had no chance for fulfillment.
“Count, the woman who made me forget my duty, who caused me to quarrel with you and his Majesty—the woman for whose sake I was willing to give up honor, glory and a throne—she was nothing but a wanton. I shall be brief. Returning one day to our villa in Mentone, rather earlier than usual, I found her with Monsieur Goddard, her late business manager as I thought, in very intimate seclusion. I asked for explanations—she laughed! The man had the best, the only right in the world to be intimate with her—he was her lawful husband—the only man she ever really loved and always had loved. What cared she for a romantic boy—a fool! He was the man who had introduced me to her, who had aided my wooing—and who had conspired with her to gull me! During the months I was whispering words of love and endearment to the woman I was craving to make my wife, she and he were in a conspiracy to ruin me. All they wanted was my money.
“Humiliated and desperate, I grew reckless. How well you knew it, my friend! How you pleaded with me when first this great passion took hold of me! Would I had listened to you and obeyed your wise counsel; but it was too late. The poison of this ignoble passion, which I mistook for the holy fire of love, had entered my heart, had clouded my brain!
“After this discovery—I felt I had broken with everything in life. As I sinned—I became reckless.”
The sick boy sank back, breathing hard and gazed absently into space. His friend rose to soothe his agitation, but was arrested by an imperious motion of the feeble hand.
“Let me conclude, General. After this blow—I chose to show that I cared not for one woman’s treachery—and tried to prove this by publicly making love to other women. And when one morning my valet reported your arrival in the town, I felt that I dared not see you, that I must flee! That day I joined the troupe of ‘Le Ballet Occidental,’ which was to leave for Naples. I joined the company as the admirer of Mademoiselle Genée, and I followed this troupe to Alexandria and Cairo, thence to Bombay and Calcutta—and finally to Madras.
“On the way to the French settlement at Pondisherry I became very ill and they thought it best to take me off the train and put me in charge of the hospital. And the first night I could bear it no longer—they wouldn’t give me morphine to ease my pain—and I ran away—and—here I am. During all these latter weeks I always felt and sometimes knew that you, my dear Count, were near me—but fate was against you, my would-be saviour—against you and with me—the lost one—and so here I am!”
The last words came almost in a whisper. The Count sat still, his forehead damp with cold perspiration. The young man had spoken like a judge pronouncing his own doom!