Though I observed this rudeness, and might at another time have resented it as it deserved, I did not do so now. My mind was full of other things, and, for all I was concerned, the man was no more to me than a chair or the big press that concealed an angle of the room.
To be brief, it was not Pechaud’s warning, nor the strangeness of our meeting that occupied me. My thoughts were more about myself. I seemed to be, as it were, two men in one; to have two souls, one that was for ever combating, though vainly, the other, and evil essence, that was dragging me to the lowest deep. My nerves were not right, and I had determined to spend the night where I was rather than risk further temptation by sharing Marcilly’s room. The bridge of the Loup Garou was still fresh in my memory. The horror of the thing I had so nearly done still hung over me. I was afraid of myself. And so I sat and brooded, whilst the snow pattered outside against the glazing of the window, and the logs crackled in the fireplace within. Finally I became calmer, and as I looked around me I noticed that the stranger was still there. I began to be a little curious why he behaved in so odd a manner. Was he, like myself one whose thoughts gnawed at his vitals? I poured out some white Rochecorbon, acid and thin it was, and toyed with my cup. It was late, and the silence, broken only by the plashing of the snow, and the sputtering of the fire, became intolerable. I was determined to solve the mystery, so, getting to my feet and approaching my companion, I said:
“Monsieur! Will you do me the honor to drink a cup with me?”
He rose as I spoke, looked me full in the face, and holding out his hands burst out laughing.
“Ah, Vibrac!” he said, “I thought to have tired you out and got away unobserved; but it cannot be, I see. A cup—two cups, with pleasure.”
I had gone back a half pace in astonishment; for, as he rose, and spoke, I recognized my old comrade-in-arms, Ponthieu, of the Trans-Alpine Infantry. We embraced warmly, and were soon by the fireplace pledging each other.
“To meet you, of all people, here!” I said. “And on an affair, too. Else you had not been so retiring.”
He nodded and became grave in a moment. “Vibrac, you are with us, I know. You, too, do not journey for pleasure on a night like this.”
“No,” I said, “but let me give you a warning. There is danger here. Get you gone with the dawn, wherever you are bound.”
He sipped at his glass and looked at me keenly. “Vibrac, I know that, and know too I can trust you, although these are times when the father betrays the son, the brother the brother; tell me straight out, for old sake’s sake, are you still with the white scarf?” He dropped his voice to a whisper, and I nodded and smiled.