“Water!” he implored piteously. “I—I must have some—some of that. My throat! Ah! I can’t breathe.”
Hugh noticed his effort to dip his hand into the sea, and arrested his arm, exclaiming in a calm voice—
“No, by Heaven! you shan’t. That means death. Hope on; we may both live yet.”
“Ah,” he replied mechanically, his head sinking slowly back upon his companion’s arm. Presently he resumed, in low, broken tones, sometimes so feeble that the anxious listener could scarcely catch them. “I told you that when these students first met this woman she was poor. Cruel in her coquetry as was her wont by nature, she encouraged the attentions of Egerton, although his pocket was light as his heart. The artist adored her, with the same passionate ardour that dozens of men have done, yourself included—”
“Do you mean that Valérie was a thief’s mistress?” he cried in amazement, as the truth flashed upon him.
“Yes.”
“I don’t—I can’t believe it. How can you prove it? What was this man’s name?” he demanded.
“Victor Bérard,” and he hesitated for a second. “The unfortunate devil who afterwards, in order to assist her in a nefarious plot which has been only too successful, assumed the name of the Comte Lucien Chaulin-Servinière!”
“What! You!” cried Trethowen, scarcely believing his ears, and withdrawing his hand from the prostrate man’s head with a feeling of repulsion. “You were her lover!”
“Yes,” he continued, unmoved by his companion’s astonishment. “Remember when Egerton met her he believed she lived at home with her mother, who kept a little estaminet. He told her of his love, and she made pretence of entertaining true, honest affection for him. It was not long, however, before he discovered that she was no better than the rest of the women who sipped sirops at the Bullier. He found that in a handsome suite of rooms in the Boulevard Haussmann there resided a rich Englishman, named Nicholson. With this man she had a liaison, and when the artist charged her with it she admitted the truth, telling him that the Englishman held such power over her that she dare not refuse to visit him.”