Studies in love and in terror Part 7

With bent head, his hands clasped behind him, the mayor began walking up and down the long room.

Admiral de Saint Vilquier might now come at any moment, but the man awaiting him had not yet made up his mind how to word what he had to say--how much to tell, how much to conceal from, his wife's old friend.

He was only too well aware that if the desperate attempts which would soon be made to raise the _Neptune_ were successful, and if its human freight were rescued alive, the fact that there had been a woman on board could not be concealed. Thousands would know to-night, and millions to-morrow morning.

Not only would the amazing story provide newspaper readers all over the world with a thrilling, unexpected piece of news, but the fact that there had been a woman involved in the disaster would be perpetuated, as long as our civilization endures, in every account of subsequent accidents to submarine craft.

More intimately, vividly agonizing was the knowledge that the story, the scandal, would be revived when there arose the all-important question of a suitable marriage for Clairette or Jacqueline.

As he paced up and down the room, longing for and yet dreading the coming of the Admiral, he visualized what would happen. He could almost hear the whispered words: "Yes, dear friend, the girl is admirably brought up, and has a large fortune, also she and your son have taken quite a fancy for one another, but there is that very ugly story of the mother! Don't you remember that she was with her lover in the submarine _Neptune_? The citizens of Falaise still laugh at the story and point her out in the street. Like mother like daughter, you know!" Thus the miserable man tortured himself, turning the knife in his wound.

But stay---- Supposing the salvage appliances failed, as they had failed at Bizerta, to raise the _Neptune_? Then with the help of Admiral de Saint Vilquier the awful truth might be kept secret.

At last the door opened.

Jacques de Wissant took a step forward, and as his hand rested loosely for a moment in the old seaman's firmer grasp, he would have given many years of his life to postpone the coming interview.

"As you asked me so urgently to do so, I have come, M. de Wissant, to learn what you have to tell me. But I'm afraid the time I can spare you must be short. As you know, I am to be at the station in half an hour to meet the Minister of Marine. He will probably wish to go out at once to the scene of the calamity, and I shall have to accompany him."

The Admiral was annoyed at having been thus sent for to the town hall.

It was surely Jacques de Wissant's place to have come to him.

And then, while listening to the other's murmured excuses, the old naval officer happened to look straight into the face of the Mayor of Falaise, and at once a change came over his manner, even his voice softened and altered.

"Pardon my saying so, M. de Wissant," he exclaimed abruptly, "but you look extremely ill! You mustn't allow this sad business to take such a hold on you. It is tragic no doubt that such things must be, but remember"--he uttered the words solemnly--"they are the Price of Admiralty."

"I know, I know," muttered Jacques de Wissant.

"Shall we sit down?"

The deadly pallor, the look of strain on the face of the man before him was making the Admiral feel more and more uneasy. "It would be very awkward," he thought to himself, "were Jacques de Wissant to be taken ill, here, now, with me---- Ah, I have it!"

Then he said aloud, "You have doubtless had nothing to eat since the morning?" And as de Wissant nodded--"But that's absurd! It's always madness to go without food. Believe me, you will want all your strength during the next few days. As for me, I had fortunately lunched before I received the sad news. I keep to the old hours; I do not care for your English _dejeuners_ at one o'clock. Midday is late enough for me!"

"Admiral?" said the wretched man, "Admiral----?"

"Yes, take your time; I am not really in such a hurry. I am quite at your disposal."

"It is a question of honour," muttered Jacques de Wissant, "a question of honour, Admiral, or I should not trouble you with the matter."

Admiral de Saint Vilquier leant forward, but Jacques de Wissant avoided meeting the shrewd, searching eyes.

"The honour of a naval family is involved." The Mayor of Falaise was now speaking in a low, pleading voice.

The Admiral stiffened. "Ah!" he exclaimed. "So you have been asked to intercede with me on behalf of some young scapegrace. Well, who is it?

I'll look into the matter to-morrow morning. I really cannot think of anything to-day but of this terrible business----"

"----Admiral, it concerns this business."

"The loss of the _Neptune_? In what way can the honour of a naval family be possibly involved in such a matter?" There was a touch of hauteur as well as of indignant surprise in the fine old seaman's voice.

"Admiral," said Jacques de Wissant deliberately, "there was--there is--a woman on board the _Neptune_."

"A woman in the _Neptune_? That is quite impossible!" The Admiral got up from his chair. "It is one of our strictest regulations that no stranger be taken on board a submarine without a special permit from the Minister of Marine, countersigned by an admiral. No such permit has been issued for many months. In no case would a woman be allowed on board. Commander Dupre is far too conscientious, too loyal, an officer to break such a regulation."

"Commander Dupre," said Jacques de Wissant in a low, bitter tone, "was not too conscientious or too loyal an officer to break that regulation, for there is, I repeat it, a woman in the _Neptune_."

The Admiral sat down again. "But this is serious--very serious," he muttered.

He was thinking of the effect, not only at home but abroad, of such a breach of discipline.

He shook his head with a pained, angry gesture--"I understand what happened," he said at last. "The woman was of course poor Dupre's"--and then something in Jacques de Wissant's pallid face made him subst.i.tute, for the plain word he meant to have used, a softer, kindlier phrase--"poor Dupre's _bonne amie_," he said.

"I am advised not," said Jacques de Wissant shortly. "I am told that the person in question is a young lady."

"Do you mean an unmarried girl?" asked the Admiral. There was great curiosity and sincere relief in his voice.

"I beg of you not to ask me, Admiral! The family of the lady have implored me to reveal as little of the truth as possible. They have taken their own measures, and they are good measures, to account for her--her disappearance." The unhappy man spoke with considerable agitation.

"Quite so! Quite so! They are right. I have no wish to show indiscreet curiosity."

"Do you think anything can be done to prevent the fact becoming known?"

asked Jacques de Wissant--and, as the other waited a moment before answering, the suspense became almost more than he could endure.

He got up and instinctively stood with his back to the light. "The family of this young lady are willing to make any pecuniary sacrifice----"

"It is not a question of pecuniary sacrifice," the Admiral said stiffly.

"Money will never really purchase either secrecy or silence. But honour, M. de Wissant, will sometimes, nay, often, do both."

"Then you think the fact can be concealed?"

"I think it will be impossible to conceal it if the _Neptune_ is raised"--he hesitated, and his voice sank as he added the poignant words "_in time_. But if that happens, though I fear that it is not likely to happen, then I promise you that I will allow it to be thought that I had given this lady permission, and her improper action will be accepted for what it no doubt was--a foolish escapade. If Dupre and little Paritot are the men of honour I take them to be, one or other of them will of course marry her!"

"And if the _Neptune_ is not raised--" the Mayor's voice also dropped to a whisper--"_in time_--what then?"

"Then," said the Admiral, "everything will be done by me--so you can a.s.sure your unlucky friends--to conceal the fact that Commander Dupre failed in his duty. Not for his sake, you understand--he, I fear, deserves what he has suffered, what he is perhaps still suffering,"--a look of horror stole over his old, weather-roughened face--"but for the sake of the foolish girl and for the sake of her family. You say it is a naval family?"

"Yes," said Jacques de Wissant. "A noted naval family."

The Admiral got up. "And now I, on my side, must exact of you a pledge, M. de Wissant--" he looked searchingly at the Government official standing before him. "I solemnly implore you, monsieur, to keep this fact you have told me absolutely secret for the time being--secret even from the Minister of Marine."

The Mayor of Falaise bent his head. "I intend to act," he said slowly, "as if I had never heard it."

"I ask it for the honour, the repute, of the Service," muttered the old officer. "After all, M. de Wissant, the poor fellow did not mean much harm. We sailors have all, at different times of our lives, had some _bonne amie_ whom we found it devilish hard to leave on sh.o.r.e!"

The Admiral walked slowly towards the door. To-day had aged him years.

Then he turned and looked benignantly at Jacques de Wissant; the man before him might be stiff, cold, awkward in manner, but he was a gentleman, a man of honour.