Chapter V · - FREE—WITH A BROKEN WING (continued 2)

Was he indeed saying that? saying it with the slow, hot tears running down against his fingers? The sea was saying it relentlessly. . . . He took away his hands and brushed off the moisture, and found that he must have been there much longer than he knew, for it was light outside, with a cold and heartless light, and from the port a sail was stealing out as Aymar's might one day. And with that, out of the darkness still prevalent within the cave, there came Aymar's voice, no more than a little drowsy.

"What are you doing over there, Laurent? Did I disgust you so with my . . . my want of manhood, that you will not share the same bed with me?"

Laurent jumped. He had no idea that Aymar was awake, nor that he himself was visible. In spite of the words, the tone was not sarcastic; it merely held a sort of sad amusement.

"I . . . I found I couldn't sleep," he stammered hoarsely.

"You won't sleep sitting on that barrel!"

Almost unconsciously Laurent got up and sat down on the sand, putting his shoulders against the rock. "It is dawn," he murmured.

He heard Aymar sigh.

"Is your arm hurting you?"

"No, thanks. . . . Laurent, come back to bed."

Laurent dug his fingers into the sand. "I was abominably rude to you this evening," he said with a gulp.

"It was, I daresay, deserved. At any rate, you succeeded in getting me here."

"Well, go to sleep again," murmured Laurent.

"I will, if you will tell me why you are sitting out there."

There was a long pause, filled by the sea. Laurent had just made up his mind to one course of action—and now, suddenly, he was weighing the opposite. Why not? It was more honest, fairer to him. And there was so much in the voice, though it was even and unemotional, that tore his very heart.

"I am sitting here," he said at last slowly, "because I was thinking about you. Because the last few days I could not help . . ." He leant forward, clenched his hands between his knees, and said in a rush, "Aymar, what did you say to M. Perrelet that night?"

In the darkness Aymar observed quietly, "It is that, then. I thought so. God knows what I said! At any rate, M. Perrelet did not like it." He gave a desolate little laugh. "Am I responsible to you also?"

"I never meant to ask you," said Laurent, fighting down his misery. "You know what I have always thought about it all. . . . And after that ramrod, too . . ." A sound like a sob escaped him. "You must tell me something, Aymar. I'm . . . I'm too bewildered to go on in the dark any longer."

Neither sound nor movement came from the other end of the cave; only, outside, the sea came up twice, saluted the sand, and withdrew. Then Aymar spoke. "Yes, I must do it. I ought to have done it long ago—I know it. Only . . . well, you will know soon enough why I did not. Do you want me to tell you the story now?"

"Good God, no!" said Laurent, raising his head. "To-morrow. . . ." And then all his deep affection and a certain cold dread, warring together, swept over him. He sprang to his feet, and, going uncertainly over to him, dropped on his knees beside him. "—Or never, Aymar, if you choose. Let it be never then! I have no right——"

"No right! If ever in the world a man had a right! You ought not to have had to ask. As you have asked"—a suspicion of hardness crept into his voice—"you shall have it, every word, to-morrow . . . or rather to-day. What time is it?"

Laurent struck a light and looked at his watch, and had for his pains a little picture of his friend lying there, with his bandaged arm, challenged at last, on the heels of illness and suffering and extreme fatigue. The tinder must have shown the wretchedness on his own face, for Aymar put out his left hand a little and said very gently, "Why are you reproaching yourself, Laurent? You have no cause—no shadow of cause! And as you do not yet know how much I have you could still lie down here again . . . for a little."

And Laurent came instantly. He tried to seize the extended hand as he lay down, but it evaded him; and he lay there on his face, motionless, dreading the day. But the traitorous thoughts were stilled. . . .

(10)

Despite its spiritless dawn, it was a fine morning, with a breeze and circling gulls—not at all a morning on which to be executed . . . for that had been Laurent's sensation on rising. Only he was not sure now which was the victim and which the executioner.

The two of them had just finished breakfast outside the cave. Laurent felt himself far the more outwardly nervous, and when Aymar became absolutely silent he grew very nervous indeed, thinking that the next moment, or the next, would certainly hear him begin. But Aymar, perhaps, was experiencing a shrinking from that moment more acute still, for when Laurent, unable to bear the tension any longer, scrambled to his feet and picked up the loaf and the empty bowls, Aymar, too, got up, and without a word to him walked down towards the sea. He stood there with his head bent; and Laurent remembered once more how he had seen him, first in the sunshine, by moving water. He turned and went into the cave.

He had barely put away the loaf when Aymar's figure darkened the entrance.

"I will tell you what you want to know now," he said. "It shall be as short as I can make it, but even at that it will take a little time if you are to hear everything."

"Shall I come outside?" asked Laurent, not looking at him.

"No, I can tell you better in here, if you will allow me. The sea is disturbing—louder than that salmon river of yours." He looked round for a seat, and finally sat down on the heap of seaweed.

Then he, too, had been thinking of their first meeting. Laurent fetched for himself the keg he had sat on during the night.

"I must say again," resumed Aymar after a moment, "that I am fully aware you ought never to have had to ask for this. It was owed you on every count. But at Arbelles I . . . put it off from day to day; when I was turned out there was not time, and afterwards at Madeleine's, when I had at least one excellent opportunity, I—well, never mind why I did not take it. The only good excuse I have for my silence is, that to tell you the story properly I must have told you something rather intimate . . . and I did not know you very well at first. My other excuse is not so good." He paused, and played for a moment with the earing of the sail near his left hand. "The other excuse is merely my own cowardice. I thought that when you knew you would—— You see how M. Perrelet took it."

"But in M. Perrelet's case you were wandering—whatever you said," began Laurent, feeling a chill at the heart.

"Yes, I probably made him think it was worse than it was." He raised his head and smiled, a little drawn smile. "But I am quite clear-headed now . . . and you will not like what I am going to tell you, Laurent. (Please don't interrupt me, or I shall not be able to tell you at all.) Because I know that you have thought, until quite recently, that I was shielding someone." For the first time his voice betrayed real difficulty. "And I suppose I was. I was shielding . . . myself!"

As it came out he looked straight at his hearer, but Laurent, as though he had been the accused, could not meet his eyes. He put his hand over his own, his elbow on his knees.

"Go on," he said, all but inaudibly. He had turned very pale.

Aymar went on.