The Belovéd Traitor

by Frank L. Packard

But what did it matter now? To-day—to-day all that was to be ended! To-day—how his heart leaped, and his being thrilled at the thought!—to-day they were to be together for always, to-day was to know the fulfilment of their love.

And then, too, there was another joy—the joy of a new and beautiful thing that had come into his life. The joy, pure, without alloy, unsmirched by sordid aims—the joy of work. How it brought a feverish excitement, how his fingers tingled for the touch of clay, how he yearned to give expression to that with which his soul was now aflame, the statue of dreams, real before him now, that mighty picture, that splendid allegory that should tell his beloved France that Jean Laparde lived again—but lived a new Laparde, and, if the good God willed it so, worthy in a humble way of the great gift that was his, worthy in a glad, tender way of the love that, so steadfast and so true, so unselfish and so pure, had saved him from himself. Yes, it had come to him—come to him at last, the base of that statue that he had never been able to see before. It had come to him here in the gloom, and struggle, and sweat, and toil of this miserable coal bunker; come to him, leaving him to stand a chastened man before the picture that was held up, perfect in every detail, before his mind's eye for him to gaze upon, leaving him to tremble with emotion at the thought that he should give it to the world to see.

It was a secret yet from Marie-Louise—a secret that was to be told to-night. There were to be just they two—and—yes, Father Anton, who would be there to bless them—to know. No one else, least of all Monsieur and Mademoiselle Bliss, who would in that case come hurrying back from America. No one else to know that he lived until the dream statue was done. There was the dream statue to make, and then all France, and all the world, if it would, should know that Jean Laparde still lived; for then the world would understand why the Jean Laparde it knew—had died.

He filled his barrow, emptied it, and filled it again—and worked on—and, strangest sound of all, strange indeed for that dark, joyless place, as he worked, he sang.

Came at last, faintly, the four double strokes of the ship's bell. Eight bells—four o'clock in the morning—the watch was ended. Jean handed his barrow and shovel to his relief, and, mounting the succession of steep, iron-runged perpendicular ladders, climbed upward from the ship's black depths, and made his way to the steerage deck.

It was dark here—with the darkness before the dawn. A fresh wind was blowing, and he put on his jacket; and, leaning over the side, watched the racing waves, and laughed at the buoyant lift of the deck beneath his feet, and threw back his head to drink into his lungs for the first time in many hours the sweet, fresh, God-given air.

"Marie-Louise! To-day—Marie-Louise! Marie-Louise!" his heart was saying.

And presently she came along the deck, and her hand stole into his. It was too dark to see her face; but her hair, truant in the wind, swept his cheek, and close to him he could feel her heart beat against his own. And as he held her there, there came upon him, softly, like some sacred presence, moving the soul of him with an holy joy, the wonder of her, and the great, immeasurable, priceless worth of the love she had given him.

"Marie-Louise," he whispered tenderly. "Your lips, ma bien-aimée!"

And in the darkness she raised her face to his, and he kissed her—and suddenly he found his eyes were wet. Glad tears they were; and yet, too, a pledge between himself and God that he would hold her always as he held her now, her life and happiness his dearest trust—a pledge that in itself asked grace and pardon in contrite penitence for that pledge of other days that he had broken.