perhaps—and the Major swallowed hard, coughed fiercely, and scrubbed his bristly head violently with both big hands.
It would be a lying fraud and swindle; but what of that if it might save her life and reason—and he was prepared to forge a cheque, cheat at cards, or rob a blind Chinese beggar of his last sabuk, to give her a minute's comfort, rest, and peace.... For clearly she must weep or die, sleep or die, unless she were to lose her reason—and while she was in an asylum he could not take that quiet dive overboard so that they could all be together again in the keeping and peace of le bon Dieu.... Rather death than madness, a thousand times.... But if she died and he took steps to follow her—was there not some talk about suicides finding no place in Heaven?
Peste! What absurdity! For surely le bon Père had as much sense of fair-play and mercy as a battered old soldier-man of La Legion? But it had not come to that yet. The Legion does not surrender—and the Adjudant-Major of the First Battalion of The Regiment had still a ruse de guerre to try against the enemy. He would do his best with this "planchette" swindle, and play it for what it was worth. While there is life there is hope, and he had been in many a tight place before, and fought his way out.
To think of Edouard André Lucien Gallais playing with "planchette"! She had often begged him to join hands with her on its ebony board, and to endeavour to "get into communication" with the spirits of the departed—but he had always acted the farceur.
"Ask the sacred thing to tip us the next Grand Prix winner," he had said, or "But, yes—I would question the kind spirits as to the address of the pretty girl I saw at the station yesterday," and then he would cause the innocent machine to say things most unspiritual. Well—now he would see what sort of lying cheat he could make of himself. To lie is not gentlemanly—but to save life and reason is. If to lie is to blacken the soul—let the soul of Adjudant-Major Gallais be black as the blackest ibn Eblis, if thereby an hour's peace might descend upon the tortured soul of his wife. The good Lord God would understand a gentleman—being one Himself..
And the Major, large, heavy, and slow-witted, entered his wife's darkened room, and crept toward the bed whereon she lay, dry-eyed, talking aloud and monotonously.
"... To play such a trick on me! May Heaven reward those who play tricks. Of course, it is a hoax—but why does not mother cable back that there never was any fire at all, and that she knows nothing about the telegram? ... How could le petit Gingembre be dead, when there he is, in the photo, smiling at me so prettily, and looking so strong and well? What a fool I am! Anyone can play tricks on me. People do.... I shall tell my husband. He would never play a trick on me, nor allow such a thing.... A trick! A hoax! ... Of course, one can judge nothing from the handwriting of a telegram. Anybody could forge one. A letter would be so difficult to forge.... The sender of that wicked cable said to himself, 'Madame Gallais cannot pretend that the message does not come from her mother on grounds of the handwriting being different from that of her mother—because the writing is never that of the sender, but that of the telegraph-clerk. She will be deceived and think that her mother has really sent it.' ... How unspeakably cruel and wicked! No, a letter could not be forged, and that is why there is no letter. Let them wait until my husband can get at them. Mon petit Gingembre! And it is his birthday in a month.... What shall I get for him? I cannot make up my mind. One cannot get just what one wants out here, and if one sends the money for something to be bought at Home, it is not the same thing—it does not seem to the child as though his parents sent it at all. How lucky I am to have mother to leave him to. She simply worships him, and he couldn't have a happier time, nor better treatment, if I were there myself. No—that's just it—the happier a child is the less it needs you, and you wouldn't have it unhappy so that it did want you. How the darling will..." and then again rose the awful wailing cry as consciousness of the terrible truth, the cruel loss, the horrible fate, and the sensation of utter impotence of the bereaved, surged over the wearied, failing brain. She must cry or die.
The Major sat beside her and gently patted her, in his dull yearning to help, to relieve the dreadful agony, to do something.
A gust of rebellious rage shook him, and he longed to fight and to kill. Why was he smitten thus, and why was there no tangible opponent at whom he could rush, and whom he could hew and hack and slay? He rose to his feet, with clenched fists uplifted, and purpling face.
"Be calm," he said, and took a hold upon himself.
Useless to attempt to fight Fate or the Devil or whatever it was that struck you from behind like this, stabbed you in the back, turned life to dust and ashes.... He must grin and bear it like a man. Like a man—and what of the woman?
"He's happy now, petit, our petit Gingembre," said the poor wretch.
"He's just a jolly little angel, having a fête-day of a time. He's not weeping and unhappy. Not he, peaudezébie!"
"Burning!" screamed the woman. "My baby is burning! My petit Gingembre is burning, and no one will help him.... My baby is burning and Heaven looks on! Oh, mother!—Annette!—Marie!—Grégoire!—rush up to the bedroom! ... Quick—he is burning! The curtain is on fire. The blind has caught.... The dressing-table is alight.... The blind has fallen on the bed. His pillow is smouldering. He is suffocating. The bed is on fire..." and scream followed heartrending scream. The stricken husband seized the woman's hands and kissed them.
"No, petit, he never woke. He never felt anything. He just passed away to le bon Dieu in his sleep, without pain or fright, or anything. He just died in his sleep. There is no pain at all about that sort of suffocation, you know," he said.
"Oh, if I could but think so!" moaned the woman. "If I could only for a moment think so! ... Burning to death and screaming for mother.... Edouard! Shoot me—shoot me! Or let me..."
"See, Beloved of my Soul," urged her husband, gently shaking her. "I do solemnly swear that I know he was not hurt in the least. He never woke. I happen to know it. I am not saying it to comfort you. I know it."
"How could you know, Edouard? ... Oh, my little baby, my little son! Oh, wake me from this awful cauchemar, Edouard. Say I am dreaming and am going to wake."
"The little chap's gone, darling, but he went easy, and he's well out of this cursed world, anyhow. He'll never have suffering and unhappiness... And he had such a happy little life." ...
Then, for the first time in his career, the Major waxed eloquent, and, for the first time in his life, lied fluently and artistically. "I wonder if you'll believe me if I tell you how I know he wasn't hurt," he continued. "It's the truth, you know. I wouldn't lie to you, would I?"
"No, you wouldn't deceive me, and you haven't the wit if you would," replied his wife.
"No, dearest, that's just it. I wouldn't and couldn't, as you say. Well, look here, last night the little chap appeared to me. Le petit Gingembre himself! Faith of a gentleman, he did.... I may have been asleep, but he appeared to me as plain as you are now.... As pretty, I mean," he corrected with a heavy, anxious laugh and pat, peering into the drawn and disfigured face to see if his words reached the distraught mind, "and he said, 'Father, I want to speak to mother, and she cannot hear because she cries out and screams and sobs. It makes nae so wretched that I cannot bear it.'"
The man moistened parched lips with a leathery tongue.
"And he said, 'Tell her I was not hurt a little bit—not even touched by the flames. I just slept on, and knew nothing.... And I couldn't be happy, even in Heaven, while she grieves so.'"
The woman turned to him.
"Edouard, you are lying to me—and I am grateful to you. It is as terrible for you as for me," and she beat her forehead with clenched fists.
"Eugénie!" cried her husband, "Do you call me a liar! Me? Did I not give you my word of honour?"
"Aren't you lying, Edouard? Aren't you? ... Don't deceive me, Edouard André Gallais!" and she seized his wrist in a grip that hurt him.
"I take my solemn oath I am not lying," lied the