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Page 27
But he only repeated his expression.
"My word! . . . You got her ninety thousand dollars and let her
drive away with no eye on her! . . . . Such trust in the honesty
of our fellow creatures! . . . My word!"
I had to admit the deplorable negligence, but I had not thought
of any peril, and I did not know that she carried the money with
her until the conversation with my sister. There was some excuse
for me. I could not remember a robbery on this island.
Marquis snapped his jaws.
"You'll remember this one!" he said.
It was a ridiculous remark. How could one ever forget if this
incomparable creature were robbed and perhaps murdered. But were
there not some extenuating circumstances in my favor. I
presented them as we advanced; my sister and I lived in a rather
protected atmosphere apart from all criminal activities, we could
not foresee such a result. I had no knowledge of criminal
methods.
"I can well believe it," was the only reply Marquis returned to
me.
In addition to my extreme anxiety about Madame Barras I began now
to realize a profound sense of responsibility; every one, it
seemed, saw what I ought to have done, except myself. How had I
managed to overlook it? It was clear to other men. Major
Carrington had pointed it out to me as I was turning away; and
now here Sir Henry Marquis was expressing in no uncertain words
how negligent a creature he considered me - to permit my guest, a
woman, to go alone, at night, with this large sum of money.
It was not a pleasant retrospect. Other men - the world - would
scarcely hold me to a lesser negligence than Sir Henry Marquis!
I could not forbear, even in our haste, to seek some consolation.
"Do you think Madame Barras has been hurt?"
"Hurt!" he repeated. "How should Madame Barras be hurt?"
"In the robbery," I said.
"Robbery!" and he repeated that word. "There has been no
robbery!"
I replied in some astonishment.
"Really, Sir Henry! You but now assured me that I would remember
this night's robbery."
The drawl got back into his voice.
"Ah, yes," he said, "quite so. You will remember it."
The man was clearly, it seemed to me, so engrossed with the
mystery that it was idle to interrogate him. And he was walking
with a devil's stride.
Still the pointed query of the affair pressed me, and I made
another effort.
"Why did these assailants take Madame Barras on with them?"
Marquis regarded me, I thought, with wonder.
"The devil, man!" he said. "They couldn't leave her behind."
"The danger would be too great to them?"
"No," he said, "the danger would be too great to her."
At this moment an object before us in the road diverted our
attention. It was the cut-under and the horse. They were
standing by the roadside where it makes a great turn to enter the
village from the south. There is a wide border to the road at
this point, clear of underbrush, where the forest edges it, and
there are here, at the whim of some one, or by chance, two great
flat stones, one lying upon the other, but not fitting by a
hand's thickness by reason of the uneven surfaces.
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