“Fourteen years since the day I saw her last! She looked out at me from the window with her eyes full of tears. The window was filled with flowers—she loved them. The tulips were there again—crimson tulips—with her white face behind them.”
Flemington listened with parted lips. His personal feelings, his shrinking dread of being drawn into the confidence of the man whom it was his business to betray, were swallowed by a wave of interest.
“I was no more than a boy, with my head full of cards and women and horses, and every devilry under heaven, when I went to the house among the canals. The Conte de Montdelys had built it, for he lived in Holland a part of the year to grow his tulips. He was a rich man—a hard, old, pinched Frenchman—but his passion was tulip-growing, and their cultivation was a new thing. It was a great sight to see the gardens he had planned at the water’s edge, with every colour reflected from the beds, and the green-shuttered house in the middle. Even the young men of the Brigade were glad to spend an afternoon looking upon the show, and the Conte would invite now one, now another. He loved to strut about exhibiting his gardens. Diane was his daughter—my poor Diane! Flemington, do I weary you?”
“No, no, indeed!” cried Archie, who had been lost, wandering in an enchanted labyrinth of bloom and colour as he listened. The image of the house rising from among its waterways was as vivid to him as if he had seen it with bodily eyes.
“She was so young,” said the soldier, “so gentle, so little suited to such as I. But she loved me—God knows why—and she was brave—brave to the end, as she lay dying by the roadside . . . and sending me her love. . . .”
He stopped and turned away; Archie could say nothing, for his throat had grown thick. Logie’s unconscious gift of filling his words with drama—a gift which is most often given to those who suspect it least—wrought on him.
James looked round, staring steadily and blindly over his companion’s shoulder.
“I took her away,” he went on, as though describing another man’s experiences; “there was no choice, for the Conte would not tolerate me. I was a Protestant, and I was poor, and there was a rich Spaniard whom he favoured. So we went. We were married in Breda, and for a year we lived in peace. Such days—such days! The Conte made no sign, and I thought, in my folly, he would let us alone. It seemed as though we had gained paradise at last; but I did not know him—Montdelys.”
“Then the boy was born. When he was two months old I was obliged to come back to Scotland; it was a matter concerning money which could not be delayed, for my little fortune had to be made doubly secure now, and I got leave from my regiment. I could not take Diane and the child, and I left them at Breda—safe, as I thought. At twenty-three we do not know men, not the endless treachery of them. Flemington, when God calls us all to judgment, there will be no mercy for treachery.”
Archie’s eyes, fixed on the other pair, whose keen grey light was blurred with pain, dropped. He breathed hard, and his nostrils quivered.