“He died an hour after, and there was that woman left with lots to think about. First of all her husband wasn’t the drunkard that had disgraced her, but he was a convict serving his time and serving it wrongfully for a robbery he had not committed and for the sake of his brother.
“The thundering great fact stood up like a shot tower before her that Armand wasn’t the drunkard that had disgraced her in two ports and before a ship’s company, wasn’t the swine that took her allowance and asked for more. That he was a saint, if ever a man was a saint.
“She rushed home, telegraphed to Marseilles and re-commissioned the Gaudriole, that was still lying at the wharves. A week later she sailed again for Noumea.
“On the voyage, she plotted and planned. She had determined to save him from the four years or so of the remains of his sentence at all costs and hazards, and when the yacht put in here she had a plan fixed on, but it was kiboshed by the fact that the Governor, as I have said, was changed. However, she took up residence for awhile in the town, people she had known before called on her, and she gave out that her husband was dead.
“You can fancy how a rich widow was run after by all and sundry, myself included, not that I had any idea about her money. I only cared for herself. She knew this as women know such things by instinct, and one day when she was alone with me and I was going to tell her my mind about her, she dropped a bombshell on my head by telling me her whole story, capped by the fact that she had come to help her husband to escape. She asked for my help. I’m a queer chap in some ways. I told her I loved her enough to ruin myself for her by risking everything to give her husband back to her, and between us we worked out a plan that was a pippin.
“It would have freed Armand, only that we found on inquiring about him that he had already escaped—he was dead. Died of fever two months before she came.
“I heard once of a Japanese child that said her doll was alive because she loved it so much, adding that if you loved anything enough it lived. Well, in my experience, if you love anything enough you can make it love you.
“That woman stayed on in Noumea, and I made her love me at last. I married her, you know her, she is my wife. She loves Armand still, as a memory, and for the sake of his memory we live here. It’s as good a place to live in as anywhere else, especially now that they have settled to send no more convicts from France.”
CHAPTER XV.
THE ABBOTT MYSTERY
I