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Page 101
"When will the yacht sail?"
Always that question! "Go to sleep. I will wake you when I see it."
"I've been a scoundrel, Hildegarde;" and he closed his eyes.
Where would she go when he left this room? For the future was always
rising up with this question. What would she do, how would she live?
She too shut her eyes.
The door opened. The visitor was M. Ferraud. He touched his lips with
a finger and stole toward the bed.
"Better?"
She nodded.
"Are you not dead for sleep?"
"It does not matter."
Breitmann's eyes opened, for his brain was wide awake. "Ferraud?"
"Yes. They wished me to say good-by for them."
"To me?" incredulously.
"They have none but good wishes."
"She will never know?"
"Not unless Mr. Fitzgerald tells her."
"Hildegarde, I had planned her abduction. Don't misunderstand. I have
sunk low indeed, but not so low as that. I wanted to harry them. They
would have left me free. She was to be a pawn. I shouldn't have hurt
her."
"You do not care to return to Germany?"
"Nor to France, M. Ferraud."
"There's a wide world outside. You will find room enough," diffidently.
"An outlaw?"
"Of a kind."
"Be easy. I haven't even the wish to be buried there. There is more
to the story, more than you know. My name is Herman St�ler . . . if I
live. There is not a drop of French blood in my veins. Breitmann died
on the field in the Soudan, and I took his papers." His eyes burned
into Ferraud's.
"Perhaps that would be the best way," replied M. Ferraud pensively.
"What shall I do with the money? It is under the bed."
"Keep it. No one will contest your right to it, Herman St�ler; and
besides, your French, fluent as it is, still possesses the Teutonic
burr. Yes, Herman St�ler; very good, indeed."
Hildegarde eyed them in wonder. Were they both mad?
"Will you be sure always to remember?" said M. Ferraud to the
bewildered woman. "Herman St�ler; Karl Breitmann, who was the great
grandson of Napoleon, died of a gunshot in Africa. If you will always
remember that, why even Paris will be possible some day."
Hildegarde was beginning to understand. She was coming to bless this
little man.
"I do not believe that the money under the bed is safe there. I shall,
if you wish, make arrangements with the local agents of the Credit
Legonnais to take over the sum, _without question_, and to issue you
two drafts, one on London and the other on New York, or in two letters
of credit. Two millions; it is a big sum to let repose under one's
bed, anywhere, let alone Corsica, where the amount might purchase half
the island."
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