“It came. A few moments ago, I made up my mind.” And, with a gesture, he described the arrival of the idea, apparently from heaven, upon his head, and then a sideward jerk of the arm seemed to indicate the sudden and irrevocable making up of his own mind.
“But what for?” cried the lady. “You were not even born there. Your father died thirty years ago—you will not even find his tomb. Your dear mother left the place in horror, just before you were born. Besides, you promised her that you would never return to Corsica—and she who has been dead only five years! Is it filial, I ask you, my cousin? Is it filial?”
“Such a promise, of course, only held good during her lifetime,” answered Lory. “Since there is no one left behind to be anxious on my account, it is assuredly no one's affair whether I go or stay.”
“And now you are asking me to say it will break my heart if you go,” said the baroness, with a gay glance of her brown eyes; “and you may ask—and ask!”
She shook hands as she spoke.
“Go, ingratitude!” she said. “But tell me, what will bring you back?”
“War,” he answered, with a laugh, pausing for a moment on the threshold.
And three days later Lory de Vasselot stood on the deck of a small trading steamer that rolled sideways into Calvi Bay, on the shoulder, as it were, of one of those March mistrals which serve as the last kick of the dying winter. De Vasselot had taken the first steamer he could find at Marseilles, with a fine disregard for personal comfort, which was part of his military training and parcel of his sporting instincts. He was, like many islanders, a good sailor, for, strange as it may seem, a man may inherit from his forefathers not only a taste for the sea, but a stout heart to face its grievous sickness.
There are few finer sights than Calvi Bay when the heavens are clear and the great mountains of the interior tower above the bare coast-hills. But now the clouds hung low over the island, and the shape of the heights was only suggested by a deeper shadow in the grey mist. The little town nestling on a promontory looked gloomy and deserted with its small square houses and medieval fortress—Calvi the faithful, that fought so bravely for the Genoese masters whose mark lies in every angle of its square stronghold; Calvi, where, if (as seems likely) the local historian is to be believed, the greatest of all sailors was born, within a day's ride of that other sordid little town where the greatest of all soldiers first saw the light. Assuredly Corsica has done its duty—has played its part in the world's history—with Christopher Columbus and Napoleon as leading actors.
De Vasselot landed in a small boat, carrying his own simple luggage. He had not been very sociable on the trading steamer; had dined with the captain, and now bade him farewell without an exchange of names. There is a small inn on the wharf facing the anchorage and the wave-washed steps where the fishing-boats lie. Here the traveller had a better lunch than the exterior of the house would appear to promise, and found it easy enough to keep his own counsel; for he was now in Corsica, where silence is not only golden, but speech is apt to be fatal.