Baby Paul’s birthday was celebrated1 a few days after Toni and Denise returned, and there was a little fête, to which they were invited. It was given on the terrace of the Château Bernard where Paul and Lucie’s wedding breakfast had been served. The baby, a beautiful child toddling2 about, clung to Jacques, which hung around his neck by a little gold chain, with as much tenacity3 as Toni had clasped that gallant4 soldier for so many years of his boyhood. Also the little boy clung to Toni and, refusing to go to his nurse, insisted on being carried in Toni’s arms the whole afternoon. This pleased Toni immensely and amused everybody present. Lucie looked charming as ever, and thanked Toni for playing nurse-maid. The child’s beauty, and the delight of the young father and mother in him, almost broke Toni’s heart. In a little while the boy might be fatherless, and that gay and graceful5 Lucie might be widowed. He was still haunted by that vision of the face of Nicolas, whom he reckoned, if there be such a thing as a gradation in villainy, to be a worse villain6 than Pierre; that is to say, a more dangerous one. He glanced around him fearfully, expecting to see one or the other of them. At last, while walking about the grounds below the terrace, still carrying the little Paul in his short fluffy7 white dress, there was something like a horrible passing vision of Nicolas’ red head behind the hedge that divided the gardens from the park.
At that moment Lucie, followed by the nurse, appeared, tripping through the grass. Her pretty black head was bare and she held up her dainty chiffon skirts, showing beautiful black satin shoes with shining buckles8 on them.
“I came to look for you, Toni,” she cried, “you must enjoy yourself this afternoon and not be troubled with little Paul all the time. He must be made to go to his nurse and behave himself.”
“It is no trouble, Madame,” said Toni from the very bottom of his heart; “I love to have the little fellow in my arms and he is so quiet and good when he is with me.”
“Come, dearest,” said Lucie to the baby, “nurse will take you”—at which little Paul was neither good nor quiet, but kicked and screamed and would have nothing to say to the nurse, much to the indignation of the latter, who accused Toni of spoiling the child outrageously9.
Glancing around at that moment, Toni distinctly saw Nicolas’ head behind the hedge. Not only he saw it, but Lucie as well. She walked toward the opening through which the path ran, and, as she saw Nicolas, very dusty and travel-stained, her generous heart went out in pity to him. She was always taking in stray cats and dogs, and stray human beings as well, and giving them a dinner and a franc, and on this day above all others no one near her should want for anything. She went up to Nicolas and asked pleasantly:
“Whom are you looking for, my man?”
Nicolas, in no wise taken aback, replied politely:
“For an old comrade of mine—Toni by name.”
He did not recognize Lucie, but seeing something in her manner of address which indicated that he might get money out of her, he whined10:
“I have been serving my time in Africa and got back to France very poor, and I have hardly had a good meal since I came.”
“You shall not say that,” cried Lucie. “No person, and certainly no one who has been a soldier, shall want for a meal where we are. Come.” She turned and walked toward the château, the nurse, meanwhile, wrestling vigorously with the baby, whom Toni secretly encouraged in his rebellion.
Nicolas followed Lucie and was delighted at his own diplomacy11. He reckoned her good for a couple of francs at least. She showed him a side entrance where, in a small and shady courtyard, the servants were drinking little Paul’s health and cutting a birthday cake expressly designed for them. Nicolas went in and not only ate and drank in honor of the little child whose father he meant to murder, but was provided with a good meal by Lucie’s orders. After he had eaten and drunk, he desired to slink away, not thinking it worth while to risk meeting Paul even in the pursuit of the couple of francs which he felt sure he could get out of Lucie. As he slouched rapidly across the lawn, he looked up and saw, on the terrace, Paul and Lucie standing12 together. All the guests had left and Madame Bernard had gone indoors, but Toni, meaning to give Paul a word of warning, remained a little while with Denise waiting for his chance to speak. But his warning was not necessary. As Lucie saw Nicolas’ shabby figure slinking across the lawn, she said to Paul:
“There is a man that I found outside the hedge and he has been a soldier, so I made him come in and he drank the baby’s health with the servants, and I made them give him a good meal besides.”
A glance of recognition, which neither Lucie nor Denise saw, passed between Paul and Toni. Paul only remarked to her:
“You should be a little careful, Lucie, in introducing strange men among the servants, even though they claim to be soldiers. However, no harm is done this time.”
“But he said he was hungry, Paul, and I can not bear that any one at the Château Bernard or at our house should want, for anything on this delightful13 day—the baby’s first birthday.”
As Lucie spoke14, her eyes sparkled and she laid her hand on Paul’s shoulder. Their honeymoon15 had, as yet, no break.
Toni then turned to go with Denise.
He maintained his outward calm, though inwardly he was storm-tossed. He knew that Paul Verney suffered none of these qualms16 of terror, but was perfectly17 cool, calm and self-possessed18.
“Oh, what a thing is courage,” thought Toni, “to be a brave man all around.”
But he was learning to master his fear a little, or at least to control the outward expression of it. He and Denise walked briskly through the park. Denise, it being still their honeymoon, would have liked to loiter a little in the twilight19 shadows, but Toni making the excuse that he would soon be due at the barracks, they lost no time. He took Denise’s hand in his. She thought it was a lover’s clasp, but in truth he felt that old clinging to Denise for protection as well as affection. He wished that he could have put his hand in his pocket and felt Jacques, but Jacques was now the treasured possession of the little Paul. Toni was glad when he got out of the park and into the lighted streets.
He had to go to the barracks and Denise was to return to their lodgings20. They parted under a dark archway and had the opportunity to exchange a farewell kiss. Toni wondered if it would be the last kiss he would ever give Denise. For the first time, Denise, looking into Toni’s troubled eyes, began to suspect something was wrong with him, but she said no word and went quietly home.
It was then nearly eight o’clock and Toni was kept busy at the barracks for an hour more. He was off duty that night and was allowed to spend it at home, and at ten o’clock he left the big barrack yard to go to his lodgings. The afternoon and early evening had been brilliantly lovely, but now a cold rain was fitfully falling and the night sky was dark with storm-clouds which raced across the face of the moon. The streets of the little town grew deserted21, and Toni, as he walked rapidly along, saw Nicolas and Pierre, in imagination, behind every wall and tree and corner. There was a short way to his lodgings, which led through the narrow and dark streets, but the long way led by the railway station where there were always people moving about and a plenty of light, and Toni concluded to take the long way home. He ran nearly all the way, longing22 to get to the circle of light made by the railway station. There was one place where he had to cross a bridge which spanned the iron tracks, and it was quite dark. Toni felt his heart thumping23 and jumping as he neared this place. Once across it, he would feel comparatively safe, and would walk along quietly in the glare of the electric lamps.
As he got to this place he heard a smothered24 cry, and, frightened as he was, he stopped and peered over the rail of the bridge. Near the track two figures were wrestling desperately25. In the half-darkness, Toni could see that each one was trying to throw the other on the railway track. Far-off sounded the roar and reverberation26, the thunder and shaking of the earth, of the fast-approaching express train. Toni was thrilled with horror and frozen to the ground. He could not have moved to have saved his life. In fact, there was no way for him to reach the two men struggling to destroy each other, except by leaping over the bridge twenty feet below. The huge headlight of the onrushing train cast a ghastly glare over the black earth, intersected by lines of steel, and revealed to Toni that the two figures in mortal struggle were Nicolas and Pierre. Nicolas was the stronger of the two, and he was trying to throw Pierre under the wheels of the advancing locomotive, but P............