The Last Hope

  CHAPTER XXX

  IN THE FURROW AGAIN

  Turner, stumbling along the road to "The Black Sailor," probably wonderedwhy he had failed. It is to be presumed that he knew that the ally he hadlooked to for powerful aid had played him false at the crucial moment.

  His misfortune is common to all men who presume to take anything forgranted from a woman.

  Barebone, stumbling along in the dark in another direction, was as angrywith Miriam as she in her turn was angry with Turner. She was, Barebonereflected, so uncompromising. She saw her course so clearly, sounmistakably--as birds that fly in the night--and from that coursenothing, it seemed, would move her. It was a question of temperament andnot of principle. For, even half a century ago, high principles werebeginning to go out of fashion in the upper strata of a society which inthese days tolerates anything except cheating at games.

  Barebone himself was of a different temperament. He liked to blindhimself to the inevitable end, to temporise with the truth, whereasMiriam, with a sort of dogged courage essentially English, perceived thehard truth at once and clung to it, though it hurt. And all the whileBarebone knew at the back of his heart that his life was not his own toshape. At the end, says an Italian motto, stands Destiny. Barebone wantedto make believe; he wanted to pretend that his path lay down a floweryway, knowing all the while that he had a hill to climb and Destiny stoodat the top.

  Colville had come at the right time. It is the fate of some men to comeat the right moment, just as it is the lot of others never to be therewhen they are wanted and their place is filled by a bystander and anopportunity is gone for ever. Which is always a serious matter, for Godonly gives one or two opportunities to each of us.

  Colville had come with his ready sympathy, not expressed as theworld expresses its sympathy, in words, but by a hundred littleself-abnegations. He was always ready to act up to the principles of hiscompanion for the moment or to act up to no principles at all should thatcompanion be deficient. Moreover, he never took it upon himself to judgeothers, but extended to his neighbour a large tolerance, in return forwhich he seemed to ask nothing.

  "I have a carriage," he said, when on a broader cart-track they couldwalk side by side, "waiting for me at the roadside inn at the junction ofthe two roads. The man brought me from Ipswich to the outskirts ofFarlingford, and I sent him back to the high road to wait for me there,to put up and stay all night, if necessary."

  Barebone was beginning to feel tired. The wind was abominably cold. Heheard with satisfaction that Colville had as usual foreseen his wishes.

  "I dogged Turner all the way from Paris, hardly letting him out of mysight," Colville explained, cheerily, when they at length reached theroad. "It is easy enough to keep in touch with one so remarkably stout,for every one remembers him. What did he come to Farlingford for?"

  "Apparently to try and buy me off."

  "For Louis Bonaparte?"

  "He did not say so,"

  "No," said Colville. "He would not say so. But it is pretty generallysuspected that he is in that galley, and pulls an important oar in it,too. What did he offer you?"

  "Fifty thousand pounds."

  "Whew!" whistled Colville. He stopped short in the middle of the road."Whew!" he repeated, thoughtfully, "fifty thousand pounds! Gad! They mustbe afraid of you. They must think that we are in a strong position. Andwhat did you say, Barebone?"

  "I refused."

  "Why?"

  Barebone paused, and after a moment's thought made no answer at all. Hecould not explain to Dormer Colville his reason for refusing.

  "Outright?" inquired Colville, deep in thought.

  "Yes."

  Colville turned and glanced at him sideways, though it was too dark tosee his face.

  "I should have thought," he said, tentatively, after a while, "that itwould have been wise to accept. A bird in the hand, you know--a damnedbig bird! And then afterwards you could see what turned up."

  "You mean I could break my word later on," inquired Barebone, with thatodd downrightness which at times surprised Colville and made him think ofCaptain Clubbe.

  "Well, you know," he explained, with a tolerant laugh, "in politics itoften turns out that a man's duty is to break his word--duty toward hisparty, and his country, and that sort of thing."

  Which was plausible enough, as many eminent politicians seem to havefound in these later times.

  "I dare say it may be so," answered Barebone, "but I refused outright,and there is an end to it."

  For now that he was brought face to face with the situation, shorn ofside issues and set squarely before him, he envisaged it clearly enough.He did not want fifty thousand pounds. He had only wanted the money for amoment because the thought leapt into his mind that fifty thousand poundsmeant Miriam. Then he saw that little contemptuous smile tilting thecorner of her lips, and he had no use for a million.

  If he could not have Miriam, he would be King of France. It is thus thathistory is made, for those who make it are only men. And Clio, thatgreatest of the daughters of Zeus, about whose feet cluster all thefamous names of the makers of this world's story, has, after all, onlyhad the reversion of the earth's great men. She has taken them after someforgotten woman of their own choosing has had the first refusal.

  Thus it came about that the friendship so nearly severed one evening atthe Hotel Gemosac, in Paris, was renewed after a few months; and Barebonefelt assured once more that no one was so well disposed toward him asDormer Colville.

  There was no formal reconciliation, and neither deemed it necessary torefer to the past. Colville, it will be remembered, was an adept at thatgraceful tactfulness which is somewhat clumsily described by thistolerant generation as going on as if nothing had happened.

  By the time that the waning moon was high enough in the eastern sky toshed an appreciable light upon their path, they reached the junction ofthe two roads and set off at a brisk pace southward toward Ipswich. Sofar as the eye could reach, the wide heath was deserted, and they talkedat their ease.

  "There is nothing for it but to wake up my driver and make him take usback to Ipswich to-night. To-morrow morning we can take train to Londonand be there almost as soon as John Turner realises that you have givenhim the slip," said Colville, cheerily.

  "And then?"

  "And then back to France--where the sun shines, my friend, and the springis already in the air. Think of that! It is so, at least, at Gemosac, forI heard from the Marquis before I quitted Paris. Your disappearance hasnearly broken a heart or two down there, I can tell you. The old Marquiswas in a great state of anxiety. I have never seen him so upset aboutanything, and Juliette did not seem to be able to offer him anyconsolation."

  "Back to France?" echoed Barebone, not without a tone of relief, almostof exultation, in his voice. "Will it be possible to go back there, sincewe have to run away from Farlingford?"

  "Safer there than here," replied Colville. "It may sound odd, but it istrue. De Gemosac is one of the most powerful men in France--notintellectually, perhaps, but by reason of his great name--and they wouldnot dare to touch a protege or a guest of his. If you go back there nowyou must stay at Gemosac; they have put the chateau into a more habitablecondition, and are ready to receive you."

  He turned and glanced at Loo's face in the moonlight.

  "There will be a difference, you understand. You will be a differentperson from what you were when last there," he went on, in a muffledvoice.

  "Yes, I understand," replied Barebone, gravely. Already the dream wastaking shape--Colville's persuasive voice had awakened him to find thatit was no dream, but a reality--and Farlingford was fading back into theland of shadows. It was only France, after all, that was real.

  "That journey of ours," explained Colville, vaguely, "has made anextraordinary difference. The whole party is aroused and in deadlyearnest now."

  Barebone made no answer, and they walked on in meditative silence towardthe roadside inn, which stood up against the southern sky a few hundredyards ahe
ad.

  "In fact," Colville added, after a silence, "the ball is at your feet,Barebone. There can be no looking back now."

  And again Barebone made no answer. It was a tacit understanding, then.

  For greater secrecy, Barebone walked on toward Ipswich alone, whileColville went into the inn to arouse his driver, whom he found slumberingin the wide chimney corner before a log fire. From Ipswich to London, andthus on to Newhaven, they journeyed pleasantly enough in company, forthey were old companions of the road, and Colville's unruffled goodhumour made him an easy comrade for travel even in days when the idea ofcomfort reconciled with speed had not suggested itself to the mind ofman.

  Such, indeed, was his foresight that he had brought with him to London,and there left awaiting further need of it, that personal baggage whichLoo had perforce left behind him at the Hotel Gemosac in Paris.

  They made but a brief halt in London, where Colville admitted gaily thathe had no desire to be seen.

  "I might meet my tailor in Piccadilly," he said. "And there are otherswho may perhaps consider themselves aggrieved."

  At Colville's club, where they dined, he met more than one friend.

  "Hallo!" said one who had the ruddy countenance and bluff manners of aretired major. "Hallo! Who'd have expected to see you here? I didn'tknow--I--thought--eh! dammy!"

  And a hundred facetious questions gleamed from the major's eye.

  "All right, my boy," answered Colville, cheerfully. "I am off to Franceto-morrow morning."

  The Major shook his head wisely as if in approval of a course of conductsavouring of that prudence which is the better part of valour, glanced atLoo Barebone, and waited in vain for an invitation to take a vacant chairnear at hand.

  "Still in the south of France, I suppose?"

  "Still in the south of France," replied Colville, turning to Barebone ina final way, which had the effect of dismissing this inquisitive idler.

  While they were at dinner another came. He was a raw-boned Scotchman, whospoke in broken English when the waiter was absent and in perfect Frenchwhen that servitor hovered near.

  "I wish I could show my face in Paris," he said, frankly, "but I can't.Too much mixed up with Louis Philippe to find favour in the eyes of thePrince President."

  "Why?" asked Colville. "What could you gain by showing in Paris a facewhich I am sure has the stamp of innocence all over it?"

  The Scotchman laughed curtly.

  "Gain?" he answered. "Gain? I don't say I would, but I think I might beable to turn an honest penny out of the approaching events."

  "What events?"

  "The Lord alone knows," replied the Scotchman, who had never set foot inhis country, but had acquired elsewhere the prudent habit of neveranswering a question. "France doesn't, I am sure of that. I am thinkingthere will be events, though, before long, Colville. Will there not,now?"

  Colville looked at him with an open smile.

  "You mean," he said, slowly, "the Prince President."

  "That is what he calls himself at present. I'm wondering how long. Eh!man. He is just pouring money into the country from here, from America,from Austria--from wherever he can get it."

  "Why is he doing that?"

  "You must ask somebody who knows him better than I do. They say you knewhim yourself once well enough, eh?"

  "He is not a man I have much faith in," said Colville, vaguely. "AndFrance has no faith in him at all."

  "So I'm told. But France--well, does France know what she wants? Shemostly wants something without knowing what it is. She is like a woman.It's excitement she wants, perhaps. And she will buy it at any cost, andthen find afterward she has paid too dear for it. That is like a woman,too. But it isn't another Bonaparte she wants, I am sure of that."

  "So am I," answered Colville, with a side glance toward Barebone, a mereflicker of the eyelids.

  "Not unless it is a Napoleon of that ilk."

  "And he is not," completed Colville.

  "But--" the Scotchman paused, for a waiter came at this moment to tellhim that his dinner was ready at a table nearer to the fire. "But," hewent on, in French, for the waiter lingered, "but he might be able topersuade France that it is himself she wants--might he not, now? Withmoney at the back of it, eh?"

  "He might," admitted Colville, doubtfully. The Scotchman moved away, butcame back again.

  "I am thinking," he said, with a grim smile, "that like all intelligentpeople who know France, you are aware that it is a King she wants."

  "But not an Orleans King," replied Colville, with his friendly andindifferent laugh.

  The Scotchman smiled more grimly still and went away.

  He was seated too near for Colville and Loo to talk of him. But Colvilletook an opportunity to mention his name in an undertone. It was a nameknown all over Europe then, and forgotten now.