Mr. Dallas looks around. They are all gazing at him with upturned faces—never had he a more polite, a more attentive circle of listeners. There is, however, one exception: his old friend, Mr. Arbuthnot, puts his hand up to conceal a yawn; he has heard the story before.
"Where was I? Oh, yes. Well, these young people—Monsieur Beaucourt thinks they were Americans—had gone to Italy for their honeymoon, and they were ending up in Paris. They arrived late at night—I think form Marseilles—and most providentially they were put on different floors in the hotel they had chosen in the Latin Quarter. Well, that very night—"
Mr. Dallas looks round him triumphantly. He does not exactly smile, for what he is going to say is really rather dreadful, but he has the eager, pleased look which all good story-tellers have when they have come to the point of their story.
"I don't believe that one man in a million would guess what happened!" He looks round him again, and has time to note complacently that the son of his host, who has risen, and whose hands grip the back of the chair from which he has risen, is staring, fascinated, across at him.
"A very, very strange and terrible thing befell this young couple. That first night of their stay in Paris, between two and three the bridegroom developed plague! Monsieur Beaucourt tells me that the poor fellow behaved with the greatest presence of mind; although he cannot of course have known what exactly was the matter with him, he gave orders that his wife was not to be disturbed, and that the hotel people were to send for a doctor at once. Luckily there was a medical man living in the same street; he leapt on the dreadful truth, sent for an ambulance, and within less than half an hour of the poor fellow's seizure he was whisked away to the nearest public hospital, where he died five hours later."
Mr. Dallas waits a moment, he is a little disappointed that no one speaks, and he hurries on:—
"And now comes the point of my story! Monsieur Beaucourt assures me that the fact was kept absolutely secret. He told me that had it leaked out it might have half emptied Paris. French people have a perfect terror of what they call 'la Peste.' But not a whisper of the truth got about, and that though a considerable number of people had to know, including many of the officials connected with the Prefecture of Police. The Prefect showed me the poor fellow's watch and bunch of seals, the only things, of course, that they were able to keep; he really spoke very nicely, very movingly about it—"
And then, at last, the speaker stops abruptly. He has seen his host's son reel a little, sway as does a man who is drunk, and then fall heavily to the ground.
It is hours later. The sun has long set. Gerald opens his eyes; and then he shuts them again, for he wants to go on dreaming. He is vaguely aware that he is lying in the magnificent Jacobean four-post bed which he had been far too miserable, too agitated to notice when his father had brought him up the night before. But now the restful beauty of the spacious room, the fantastic old coloured maps lining the walls, affect him agreeably, soothe his tired mind and brain.
During that dreamy moment of half-waking he has seen in the shadowed room, for the lights are heavily shaded, the figures of his father and of Daisy; he now hears his father's whisper:—"The doctor says he is only suffering from shock, but that when he wakes he must be kept very quiet."