The Quest: A Romance

by Justus Miles Forman

"Of course there is no reason whatever for granting you any favours here. You're on the footing of a spy—a captured spy, and you're very lucky not to have got what you deserved instead of a trumpery flesh wound." The man's face twisted into a heavy scowl.

"Unfortunately," said he, "an—accident has put me—put us in as unpleasant a position towards you as you had put yourself towards us. We seem to stand in the position of having tried to poison you, and—well, we owe you something for that. Still, I'd meant to keep you locked up in this room so long as it was necessary to have you at La Lierre." He scowled once more in an intimidating fashion at Ste. Marie, and it was evident that he found himself embarrassed.

"And," he said awkwardly, "I suppose I owe something to your father's son.... Look here! if you're to be allowed in the garden you must understand that it's at fixed hours and not alone. Somebody will always be with you, and old Michel will be on hand to shoot you down if you try to run for it, or if you try to communicate with Arthur Benham. Is that understood?"

"Quite!" said Ste. Marie gaily.

"Quite understood and agreed to. And many thanks for your courtesy. I shan't forget it. We differ rather widely on some rather important subjects, you and I, but I must confess that you're very generous, and I thank you. The old Michel has my full permission to shoot at me if he sees me trying to fly over a fifteen foot wall."

"He'll shoot without asking your permission," said the Irishman grimly, "if you try that on, but I don't think you'll be apt to try it for the present—not with a crippled leg." He pulled out his watch and looked at it.

"Nine o'clock," said he. "If you care to begin to-day you can go out at eleven for an hour. I'll see that old Michel is ready at that time."

"Eleven will suit me perfectly," said Ste. Marie. "You're very good. Thanks once more!" The Irishman did not seem to hear. He replaced the watch in his pocket and turned away in silence. But before he left the room he stood a moment beside one of the windows, staring out into the morning sunshine, and the other man could see that his face had once more settled into the still and melancholic gloom which was characteristic of it. Ste. Marie watched and, for the first time, the man began to interest him as a human being. He had thought of O'Hara before merely as a rather shady adventurer of a not very rare type, but he looked at the adventurer's face now, and he saw that it was the face of a man of unspeakable sorrows. When O'Hara looked at one, one saw only a pair of singularly keen and hard blue eyes set under a bony brow. When those eyes were turned away, the man's attention relaxed, the face became a battleground furrowed and scarred with wrecked pride and with bitterness and with shame and with agony. Most soldiers of fortune have faces like that, for the world has used them very ill, and they have lost one precious thing after another until all are gone; and they have tasted everything that there is in life, and the flavour which remains is a very bitter flavour—dry like ashes.

It came to Ste. Marie, as he lay watching this man, that the story of the man's life, if he could be made to tell it would doubtless be one of the most interesting stories in the world, as must be the tale of the adventurous career of any one who has slipped down the ladder of respectability rung by rung into that shadowy no-man's-land, where the furtive birds of prey foregather and hatch their plots. It was plain enough that O'Hara had, as the phrase goes, seen better days. Without question he was a villain, but after all a generous villain. He had been very decent about making amends for that poisoning affair. A cheaper rascal would have behaved otherwise. Ste. Marie suddenly remembered what a friend of his had once said of this mysterious Irishman. The two had been sitting on the terrace of a café, and, as O'Hara passed by, Ste. Marie's friend pointed after him and said: "There goes some of the best blood that ever came out of Ireland. See what it has fallen to!"

Seemingly it had fallen pretty low. He would have liked very much to know about the downward stages, but he knew that he would never hear anything of them from the man himself, for O'Hara was clad, as it were, in an armour of taciturnity. He was incredibly silent. He wore mail that nothing could pierce.