The boy Mahmoud, with the letter in his vest, took his way by the inland paths towards S. Pharamond; it was not more than three miles, following the tracks the peasants used. Mahmoud was almost always dumb, but he was ceaselessly watchful; he adored his mistress, but he was morbidly jealous of her. In the gay households of La Jacquemerille, of Zaraizoff, of the HÔtel Napraxine, his precocity had become familiar with all the corruptions of the world of white faces. Speaking little he was supposed to understand as little; but, in truth, the small listening dusky boy understood every word which went past him. He had heard them in Paris speak of Othmar; he had comprehended that Othmar was the lover of his mistress; he had heard Paul say to his friends, ‘If it have ever been anyone, it is that one.’ He had understood, and he had taken a hatred of Othmar into his silent, savage, volcanic child’s heart.

When Mahmoud had been very ill with the cruel north winds which blew so bitterly on his lungs, made only to breathe the torrid air of the Soudan, his lady had come to see him, had spoken sweet words to him in his own tongue, had touched his dusky paw with her soft snowy hand. Mahmoud would have died a hundred deaths for her if he had had the chance; but he was jealous, like a little black sulking dachshund, of the mistress who sheltered him. Whenever he walked behind her, bearing her shawls or her sunshade, he could have kissed her shadow as it fell, but he could have plunged his dagger into the throats of the great gentlemen who sauntered by her side. He was furiously, blindly jealous, with the jealousy of a child and of a little wild beast blent in one. To his naturally evil passions the life of Paris had united a monkeyish malice and a precocious comprehension of vice. As he went now under the red blossoms of the pepper trees and the yellow flowers of the mimosas which fringed the route, a devilish fancy came into his head.

If, instead of giving the letter which he bore to Othmar, he took it to Othmar’s wife? His faculties had been educated enough in all the scandals and jests of Paris to surmise that so he might bring about with impunity a complication not easy to unravel, a storm not easy to allay. If his mistake were ever brought against him, it would seem only a mistake; he would take refuge behind his stolid childish mask of affected stupidity, which had served him well more than once. He had the cunning of the African, and he knew that the first condition for his own safety in effecting such a treason would be that no one should observe him on his errand. He entered the grounds of the chÂteau cautiously. The gates usually stood open in the daytime, and the boy’s gaily-clad figure glided in amongst the shrubs unperceived.

It was about five o’clock in the afternoon. Yseulte was seated out of doors, in a part of the gardens which was not in sight of the house. There was a large Judas tree there covered with its crimson blossoms; beneath it were some rustic chairs. She was reading, or affecting to read; the book was open on her lap. The crimson flowers every now and then, shaken by a south wind, fell down upon the unturned page.

Mahmoud had crept noiselessly about amongst the trees and plants, until he saw her, with that feline skill and silence which were natural to him, and had been developed by his life in the households of the Napraxines. He knew her well by sight; he had seen her constantly in Paris. He knew nothing of her otherwise, but he was French enough by education to be sure that for her to receive and read a letter addressed to her husband would bring about some dire disturbance.

So he approached her, bowing low as he had been taught to do, and tendered the letter to her.

‘From Madame la Princesse Napraxine,’ he said, repeating his salaam.

Yseulte took the letter with a strange tumult at her heart: she did not look at the superscription; she broke open the envelope with agitation and haste. It might be only a conventional sentence or two, an invitation or a farewell, or it might be some message of greater meaning. It seemed strange to her that Nadine Napraxine should address even the most formal words to her. She sat down under the boughs of the roseate Judas tree and read what was written, read it all with that instantaneous comprehension which comes to the brain in moments of intense excitement.

There were but a few sentences in all in it, but those had been written to Othmar, not to herself:

‘I have read your letter. I believe all that is said in it. I doubt most things, but I have never doubted your love for me. If there be any consolation to you in knowing this, you may believe it to the full. I am certain that you would do all you say if I would accept the gift of your life. But I will not; for it is not yours to give, and I do not rob the innocent. My dear Othmar, I have seen your wife a few hours ago; I sought her, she did not seek me; and from my soul I pity her, though I am not too easily moved to pity. I pity her because she loves you so greatly, and yet in your life she counts for nothing. She would die for you, yet she will never be able to quicken a single beat of your pulse. The fault is not hers—you admitted that the last evening I spoke to you in Paris—but she only irritates when she would please you, she only wearies you when she should stimulate you. You will never care for her; she is a young angel, yet she will go unloved by you all her life. But if you cannot do more, you can spare her some pain, some dishonour; and I desire you to spare her that. Yours is the fault that she is now beside you; you were in haste and blind, and adventured a rash experiment; but it would be ungenerous in us both if we made her pay all the penalty of my indifference and your error. You have a strange madness for me because I am far removed from you; but I—who am not mad—I can see that honour says to you, and generosity says to me the same thing. I do not use the stale word duty, because neither you nor I believe much in it; but honour and generosity call upon us to protect a child who cannot protect herself, and perhaps even a little also to remember a dead man who cannot avenge himself. I do not speak to you as moralists would speak; I only mean that you must remember those obligations which, as they were taken up unasked, must be fulfilled out of sheer sense of common honour. You cannot force yourself to care for her, but you can force yourself to conceal from her that you do not. She is one of those women who easily and willingly believe. For myself, I would sooner hesitate to dishonour a dead man than a living one; so, I think, would you, if you only pause and think of it. If I listened to you now when I have repulsed you before, it would always seem to me as if I had not been brave enough whilst he was living, whilst he could have killed me or you, or done anything he chose. This is mere sentimental superstition, no doubt, but so it is with me. We will not meet again, not yet, at least. You will not be happy, of course, nor will you love your wife; neither happiness nor love is to be had at command. But you are just by nature; be just now; do not let all the weight of a mistake, which was wholly of your own seeking and making, lie upon a creature altogether innocent. She is not wise as we are wise, but she has a beautiful nature; she is purity itself; be grateful. I do not say forget me, for that you will not do; but live so that I may admire you and not esteem you a coward. We have both always lived for ourselves, let us endeavour for a change to live a little for others.’

The letter was signed in full ‘NadÈge Fedorowna Princess Napraxine.’

Yseulte had read it once unconsciously, all its words seeming to smite her brain together like the blows of many hands upon an unresisting creature. She read it once again consciously, deliberately, word for word; then she rose and put it out towards the bearer of it.

‘It is not mine,’ she said, in a suffocated voice. ‘Take it to Count Othmar.’

But the African boy had disappeared. There was no sound near her except the sound of the sea breaking on the marble steps of the landing stairs far down below.

‘Take it, take it!’ she said, mechanically holding the letter out to the empty air. Then she staggered a little; her eyes grew blind; she groped with her hand to feel for the trunk of the tree, and crept to it and sank down on the bench beneath it, insensible.

How long she remained there she never knew. Gardeners were near, trimming the banksia roses of a covered arcade, and below, on the edge of the sea, there were boatmen and fishermen, and not fifty mÈtres away, in the house, in his library, Othmar was sitting, awaiting the reply to his letter. But no one knew what had befallen her. After awhile she was awakened by the touch of a sea breeze which rising rustled in the boughs and fanned her face.

When she was aroused and raised herself from her stupor, she saw the note lying before her on the ground.