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Updated: June 5, 2025
The Frenchman sighed heavily. "The people in England did not know," he said. "No? Then you think he was guilty?" He stood up sharply and faced her. "I know that he was innocent," he said. "But it could not be proved. That is what the English could never realize. And chérie I was that man. I was Lieutenant de Montville." Chris was gazing at him in amazement. "You!" she said incredulously.
Bertrand de Montville, the vindicated hero, was being borne to his soldier's grave on the hill by the fortress. Soldiers preceded him. Soldiers followed him. A mixed crowd of journalists men from all parts of Europe came after. And from the window above, his little pal looked down. Max Wyndham stood beside her, the corners of his mouth drawn down and a very peculiar expression in his green eyes.
Bertrand de Montville, gunner and genius, had faced this fact until he was in a measure used to it. There was to be no escape for him. He, who had dared to scale the heights of Olympus and had diced with the gods, was to be hurled into the mire to rise therefrom no more for ever. He had climbed so high; almost his feet had reached the summit.
Only for that one second something that was in the nature of a message went from one man's soul to the other's. For that instant they were in communion, subtle but curiously distinct. And Bertrand de Montville went to his martyrdom with the knowledge that one man an Englishman believed in him, while Trevor Mordaunt was aware that he knew it, and was glad.
Olga persisted, still striving against silence. "I've studied it," said Max. He paused a moment; then, "The best fellow I ever knew was a Frenchman," he said. She looked up at him, caught by something in his tone. "A friend of yours?" He took off his hat with a reverence which she would have deemed utterly foreign to his nature. "Yes, a friend," he said. "Bertrand de Montville."
And the hand in his stirred and gripped in gratitude, Bertrand de Montville had not spent himself in vain. "Roses!" said Chris. "How nice!" She held the white blossoms that Jack had sent her against her face, and smiled. It was a very pathetic smile, a wan ghost of gaiety, possessing more of bravery than mirth.
He held it up, and de Montville had perforce to place the cigarette between his lips. His throat was working spasmodically, but with a valiant effort he managed to inhale a mouthful of smoke. He choked over it badly the next moment, however, and Mordaunt patted his back with much goodwill till he was better. "There, my dear fellow, lie down now and take it easy.
For more than a year I was greatly attached to the ruffians on the wharves, and to such of the Montville Indians as I could make friends with. A wandering party of Indians from the Penobscot tribe had their tents pitched for a whole summer just outside the city, with whom I became intimate, and spent my leisure time with them. I made my errands go their way, however long the circuit.
Had I known as I now know that the man who caused the Valpré scandal and your secretary, Bertrand de Montville, a criminal exile living upon your charity, were one and the same person, I would never have permitted you to marry my niece and expose her afresh to a temptation which she had already shown herself unable to resist."
But he did not guess that Bertrand de Montville had returned in his dreams to a land of enchantment, where the sun was always shining, and the sea was at peace, even that land where first he had forgotten the great goal of his ambition and had halted by the way to listen to a girl's light laughter while he drew for her his pictures in the sand.
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