"Look here, Christine," he said, "that five thousand dollars is not for you or for me. You will be safe enough if anything should happen to me; your people would look after you, and you have some money in your own right. But I've a sister, and she's lame. She never had to do a stroke of work in her life, and she can't do it now. I have shared with her anything I have had since times went wrong with us and our family. I needed money badly enough, but I didn't care very much whether I got it for myself or not—only for her. I wanted that five thousand dollars for her, and to her it shall go; not one penny to you, or to me, or to any other human being. The Rebellion is over: that money wouldn't have altered things one way or another. It's mine, and if anything happens to me—"
He suddenly stooped down and caught her hands, looking her in the eyes steadily.
"Christine," he said, "I want you never to ask me to spend a penny of that money; and I want you to promise me, by the name of the Virgin Mary, that you'll see my sister gets it, and that you'll never let her or any one else know where it came from. Come, Christine, will you do it for me? I know it's very little indeed I give you, and you're giving me everything; but some people are born to be debtors in this world, and some to be creditors, and some give all and get little, because—"
She interrupted him.
"Because they love as I love you," she said, throwing her arms round his neck. "Show me where the money is, and I'll do all you say, if—"
"Yes, if anything happens to me," he said, and dropped his hand caressingly upon her head. He loved her in that moment.
She raised her eyes to his. He stooped and kissed her. She was still in his arms as the door opened and Monsieur and Madame Lavilette entered, pale and angry.
CHAPTER XVIII
That night the British soldiers camped in the village. All over the country the rebels had been scattered and beaten, and Bonaventure had been humbled and injured. After the blind injustice of the fearful and the beaten, Nicolas Lavilette and his family were blamed for the miseries which had come upon the place. They had emerged from their isolation to tempt popular favour, had contrived many designs and ambitions, and in the midst of their largest hopes were humiliated, and were followed by resentment. The position was intolerable. In happy circumstances, Christine's marriage with Ferrol might have been a completion of their glory, but in reality it was the last blow to their progress.
In the dusk, Ferrol and Christine sat in his room: she, defiant, indignant, courageous; he hiding his real feelings, and knowing that all she now planned and arranged would come to naught. Three times that day he had had violent paroxysms of coughing; and at last had thrown himself on his bed, exhausted, helplessly wishing that something would end it all. Illusion had passed for ever. He no longer had a cold, but a mortal trouble that was killing him inch by inch. He remembered how a brother officer of his, dying of an incurable disease, and abhorring suicide, had gone into a cafe and slapped an unoffending bully and duellist in the face, inviting a combat. The end was sure, easy and honourable. For himself—he looked at Christine. Not all her abounding vitality, her warm, healthy body, or her overwhelming love, could give him one extra day of life, not one day. What a fool he had been to think that she could do so! And she must sit and watch him—she, with her primitive fierceness of love, must watch him sinking, fading helplessly out of life, sight and being.