The Belovéd Traitor

by Frank L. Packard

The chaste, sweet face was tired and weary and aged a little; but on the lips, sensitive, delicate, making even more beautiful their contour, was a brave, resolute little smile, as her eyes rested on the small white bed, neatly made, unslept in. It was over now, the fight that had been so hard and so cruel to fight; and she needed only the courage to go on to the end.

Over and over again, all through the night, she had thought it out. She loved Jean. She loved Jean so much! She had trembled once when she had tried to think how much, and the thought had come so quickly, before she could arrest it, that she loved Jean as much as she loved God—and then she had prayed the bon Dieu not to be angry with her for the sin, for she had not meant to think such thoughts as that.

It was true what they had said when they had passed by on the road yesterday evening. There was no place in his new life for her. A hundred little things all through the week had shown her that, only, until yesterday evening when Monsieur Bliss had spoken, she had not understood what they meant—Nanette, that first day, when Jean had come to lunch with mademoiselle and monsieur; the curious, side-long glances that the villagers gave her now; a strange, embarrassed reserve in Father Anton, when the good curé had spoken to her lately; that wide, vast gulf that lay between the world mademoiselle lived in, the world that Jean was going to, and her own world. They had all seen it—except herself. And she had not understood because she had not allowed herself to think what it might mean, what she knew now it meant—that she must lose Jean.

To let Jean go out of her life because France had claimed him—that was what her soul had whispered to her all through the night. A Daughter of France, her Uncle Gaston had called her proudly—it was Jean who had told her what her uncle had said—that he had taught her to love God and be never afraid. But she was afraid now, she had been afraid all through the night, for it seemed as if there were no more happiness, as though a great pain that would never go away again had come to her.

France had claimed Jean. He was to be a famous man. Did they not all talk of his glorious future? It was different with Jean—years ago even she had known that. She herself had told him he was different from the fishermen of Bernay-sur-Mer. Jean was born to the life that he was going to. Was he not even now taking his place amongst these great strangers as though he had been accustomed to do so always? And she, if she should try to do it, they would laugh at her, and she would bring ridicule upon Jean, and she could not do what Jean could do. She was a peasant girl whom mademoiselle scolded about going without shoes and stockings.

And Jean must surely have seen these things, too. But Jean, though he had heedlessly hurt her so when he had given away again the little beacon, would never speak to her of this, because this was a much greater thing which was to change all their lives. It was she who must speak to Jean, it was she who must tell him that she understood that the great future which lay before him must not be harmed; that she must not hold him back; that she must not stand in his way; that she would only hurt him in that dazzling, bewildering world that would disdain a fishergirl; that it was France, not she, who came first.

The night had brought her that. It was only the courage she needed now to act upon it.

She stood up, looking through the window—and the great dark eyes filled with a blinding mist.

"Jean! Jean!" she said brokenly aloud.

A little while she stood there, and then walked slowly across the room to the bed. And as once she had knelt there before, she dropped again upon her knees beside it. And now the smile came bravely again. They were wrong. It was not true. There was a place in his life for her—something that she could do now. There was one way in which her love could still help Jean in the wonderful life that had come to him.