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Updated: June 6, 2025
But Shorland, heavy at heart, looked at her and said nothing more. He wondered why it was that he did not loathe her. Somehow, even in her shame, she compelled a kind of admiration and awe. She was the wreck of splendid possibilities.
Stooping again she seized the carbine and levelled it at the officer in command. Before she could pull the trigger some one fired, and she fell across the body of her lover. A moment afterwards Shorland stood beside her. She was shot through the lungs. He stooped over her. "Gabrielle, Gabrielle!" he said. "Yes, yes, I know I saw you. This is the twenty-fifth. He will be married to-morrow-Luke.
A pause, in which the cries of the wounded came through the smoke, and then the dying man, feeling the approach of another convulsion, said: "A cigarette, mon ami." Blake Shorland put a cigarette between his lips and lighted it. "And now a little wine," the fallen soldier added. The surgeon, who had come again for a moment, nodded and said: "It may help."
You wish to speak to M. Shorland well!" He waved his hand to her and walked away from them. Gabrielle paused a moment, looking sharply at Blake Shorland, then she said: "Monsieur will come with me?" She led the way into another room, the boudoir, sitting-room, breakfast-room, library, all in one.
Shorland thought for a moment. She had spoken just now without sneering, without bravado, without hardness. He felt that behind this woman's outward cruelty and varying moods there was something working that perhaps might be trusted, something in Luke's interest. He was certain that this portrait had moved her deeply.
He got what was left of my fortune, and I got what was left of hers. For I was dead, you see dead, dead, dead!" She paused again. Neither spoke for a moment. Shorland was thinking what all this meant to Clare Hazard and Luke Freeman. "Where is he? What is he doing?" she said at length. "Tell me. I was I am his wife." "Yes, you were you are his wife.
The spear that had struck Barre would have struck Shorland had he not bent backward when he did. As it was the weapon had torn a piece of cloth from his coat. A moment, and the wounded man was lifted to the ground. The surgeon shook his head in sad negation. Death already blanched the young officer's face.
On the morning of the twenty-fifth they neared Noumea. Shorland thought of all that day meant to Luke and Clare. He was helpless to alter the course of events, to stay a terrible possibility. "You can never trust a woman of Gabrielle's stamp," he said to himself, as they rode along through valleys of ferns, grenadillas, and limes.
"But Henri Durien is a prisoner for life; he cannot hear of the marriage unless you tell him. M. Barre is a gentleman: he is my friend; his memory will be dead like you." "For M. Barre, well! But the other Henri. How do you know that he is here for life? Men get pardoned, men get free, men get free, I tell you." Shorland noticed the interrupted word.
Shorland stooped to pick it up, but, as he did so, he heard a low exclamation from Gabrielle. He looked up. She pointed to the portrait, and said gaspingly: "My God look! look!" She leaned forward and touched the portrait in his hand. "Look! look!" she said again. And then she paused, and a moment after laughed. But there was no mirth in her laughter it was hollow and nervous.
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