The Red Book Magazine/Volume 30/Number 2/The Emeralds

by C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson

The Williamsons are living in Paris—in the center of the war-hurricane, where the very air is saturated with drama. This story is based on one of the situations with which they have come in contact.

The EMERALDS

By
C. N. and A. M. WILLIAMSON

ILLUSTRATED BY ROBERT MCCAIG

“HE loves me—he loves me not—passionately—not at all.”

That was the last leaf of the marguerite; and it was just what Mary O'Farrell had expected. It always came like that—either “he loves me not,” or “not at all,” whenever she asked a flower for the truth about Don Shelby. The girl was growing superstitious, because the thing confirmed her secret fear. A dozen other men cared, and told her too often that they cared; but—not a look, not a word, from Don Shelby!

Now days had passed, and he had not come to the house. He had not written. He had sent no flowers, no message. “I'm sure I don't care, if he doesn't,” she assured herself. And she tried to turn her thoughts toward a man who certainly did care—too much. But it was difficult, at this time, not to think of the two men together, for they were friends.

The place was Paris, and the time was early August, 1914. Mary knew what Louis Delenski would do. Though his father, the great Jean Delenski, was Polish by birth, and a citizen of the world by virtue of the voice which all the world had heard, Louis counted as a Frenchman; and he would fight of course, if the doctors would let him. If not, he would drive a military motor or serve France as best he could. But what would Don Shelby, the American, do?

He was a sportsman and had boxed with Carpentier. Lamar had taught him to fly. He had played polo in England; and had won with his car an endurance-test race in Scotland only last month. But he had come to Europe “for fun,” he frankly admitted, after inheriting a fortune, from an uncle. Now that “fun” was at an end in Europe for Heaven knew how long, would he go home? Or would he stay calmly in the country watching other men fight? Or would he offer himself to France?

Mary wondered, and could not answer her own questions. Although, superficially, Don seemed less subtle than Louis, Mary told herself that he was far, far less easy to understand. She thought that she understood Louis. Anyhow, she knew how he felt toward her, and what he would want to do in the war—which was precisely what she did not know about Don.

Mary was sitting under an immense weeping ash tree which formed an arbor at the end of a long pergola in Madame Montalban's garden. The girl had always loved the arbor tree, with its old stone seat underneath; and before the war (already that seemed long ago, though it was only a few days) she used to read there, peacefully, for hours on end. Now one could do nothing—wanted to do nothing—“peacefully.” One was keyed up to a strange suspense, as if one listened subconsciously to voices far off, whispering about the future. Mary would not have come to the arbor this afternoon if Madame Montalban had not sent her with a rather flimsy excuse, promising to join the “chère petite amie” later. Mary did not expect Madame in any case till tea-time. She did expect Louis, and would not be wholly sorry to see him. She was fond of Louis in a way, and she wanted to hear his news. So she flung aside what was left of the marguerite and put Don Shelby out of her mind—for several minutes.

MEANWHILE, in the house, Louis Delenski was talking of her with his aunt, Madame Montalban.

“Dear boy,” said Madame in the exquisite Parisian French which Mary O'Farrell was learning from her, “la petite is in the arbor. I have arranged that for you. When she sees you in your beautiful uniform, how can she resist? You look more romantic than romance itself!”

Louis laughed, though not a happy laugh. “I look perhaps like an actor dressed up as a soldier,” he said.

“But you are not an actor,” his aunt protested, “thanks to your father, who saw it would be best for you not to go on the stage.”

“He saw it would be best, because I am too weak,” Louis corrected her. His aunt's way of glossing everything over and shutting her eyes to realities annoyed him intensely in some moods, though in others he would beg her to say that Mary loved him, whether she really believed it or not.

“Ah, well, your not being strong gives you that interesting look which draws women's eyes wherever you go,” Madame consoled her favorite firmly. “You are a thousand times more attractive than your friend Shelby, who is such an athlete.”

“If only she thought so!” Louis muttered.

“She will think so to-day. For myself, I am sure she has always thought so. She has a soul of crystal, and never a word has she uttered to me about Shelby, except—”

“As if she would!” sneered Louis.

“Do not be so sharp with your poor aunt, who has adored you all these years!” Madame Montalban pleaded. “If you knew what I have done for you!”

“What have you done?”

“Why, my Louis is forever worrying lest la petite thinks more of Shelby than of him. Though I do not agree, I have done my best to make things secure. He is often here, as you know. The last time he came, I got him to go with me to look at my roses. He was bored, but what did that matter? I spoke as if there were an understanding between Mary and you. Of course I did not put it into words. Women know how to do these things!”

“What did he say?” Louis asked, half coaxingly, half sulkily.

“He said—nothing. He looked—stolid, as only an American or an Englishman can look. Personally, I do not think he admires Mary half as much as many other men do, whom you fear with her not at all. But even if I am wrong, he is your friend. He cannot be so—caddish is the English word, is it not?—as to stab you in the back? He hasn't been to see us for days—not since the declaration of war! It is rather marked.”

“I understand his absence partly,” said Louis, “becuse I know he has been busy every moment. He volunteered the first day, for the Aviation Corps. But as his country is neutral, there is a question—or was—whether his services could be accepted. Perhaps by this time it is decided one way or the other. When it is, he'll come.”

“Why don't you go and find Mary now?” Madam Montalban cut Louis short. Then, linking her arm in bis she led him in front of a mirror. “Does not that give you courage?” she asked.

Her nephew laughed, and freeing himself from her hand walked out through the long window into the garden. Nevertheless he had seen himself in the gorgeous uniform of a lieutenant of cuirassiers: in a second, he had taken in the picture of a tragically handsome face—thin, hollow-cheeked, with a passionate mouth, deep-set yet immense green-gray eyes under beautiful brows, and a smile that was somehow fatal. He was not satisfied with himself. He would have preferred to be of Don Shelby's type. Still he saw that in his smart uniform he was different from his old self, and that Tante Hélène's adjective romantic was not misapplied.

Louis adored Mary O'Farrell. He had amused himself with many flirtations before meeting the Irish-American girl, but since then she had been the only woman in his world. She had come from New York two years ago, to study voice-production with his father, the great Jean, whose favorite pupil she had become. Jean had recommended her to live with his widowed sister. The Contesse Montalban owned a charming old house which she had cleverly turned into a sort of super-pension, and Jean sent his richest pupils to her. Mary was said to be the richest of all, as well as the prettiest.

But it was not for her money that Louis cared, though he had only the allowance given him by the successful opera singer. It was for her beauty and extraordinary sweetness that he loved her. Unluckily for Louis, mostly all the other men who knew Mary O'Farrell loved her, too, which made things difficult, even though she lived in his aunt's house, where he was free to come and go. She was the darling of so many different sets—French, English and American, fashionable and artistic, that one could never be with the girl undisturbed for five minutes, despite her independence, and what a jeune fille Parisienne would considered her unconventionality.

BUT there was the adored one at this moment alone in the arbor! Louis saw by the flash in her eyes that she admired the lieutenant of cuirassiers. He saw something else as well—a curious, sudden sadness, and guessed what it meant: that she thought tragedy hung over him. He was aware that people said he “had a fatal look.” A strange inspiration came to him, that this time they would bring him good fortune. He meant to make the most of it!

“You see, I have my wish,” he said. “Lucky for me that I went to the school of officers when I decided that the army should be my métier! I start as a lieutenant. I have come to say good-by to you, belle Marie, before going even to my father. And I know you think as I think—I see it in your eyes—that the good-by will be forever.”

“Oh, no!” Mary cried. “It mustn't be forever! Neither you nor I must let such an idea come into our minds.”

“I've always felt I should die young, in one way or other,” Louis went on, when she had let him sit down beside her on the old high-backed stone seat. “That is the reason I never dared tell you how I worship you. But now it's different. Better to die for my country in battle than in my bed; and I don't much mind, really. At least, I would not mind if I could have a little—just a little—happiness first. No, I mean an immense happiness for a very short time! If you would marry me before I go, why, I could face death with courage, with joy—because of the memories I should carry beyond. I'd rather have you for my wife for two days than live to be old without you.”

“Why not try and live to be old with me?” Mary asked.

She spoke on impulse. She did not love Louis, and she was very near to loving another man. But she didn't quite love that other, she repeated. And the quickest way to forget him, since he didn't love her (even Madame Montalban noticed his indifference!) would be to throw herself heart and soul into giving Louis—dear, tragic Louis—the happiness he needed.

Mary would not have believed such a foolish thing about herself if anyone had twitted her with it, but perhaps it was partly the soldier-romance of Louis which made it impossible to refuse him. He looked like a male Valkyrie in his magnificent uniform. He was going to offer his life to his country, and his country would take it, Mary felt horribly sure. In the pity and pain of this presentiment she was glad to sacrifice herself. In another instant she was in Louis' arms; and after that, she could not have unsaid those impulsive words of hers, if she would. But she turned her cheek, and would not let him touch her lips. Instead, he kissed her white-rose cheek, and the soft, dark hair that waved over the pink ears. He kissed her hand, her wrist, her throat; and all the while Mary's heart was cold, so cold that she grew faint with fear—not fear of Louis, but fear that in wishing to act for the best, she had made a dreadful mistake. When she felt that she should scream if Louis kissed her again, she begged him: “Go and tell your aunt Hélène about us. Then come back to me, and bring Madame,” she added.

Louis obeyed with reluctance. He went through the long pergola, on which clematis hung like a thick curtain. If he had taken the path through the rose-garden, everything in Mary's future might have been different, for there he would have met Don Shelby. He would not have let Don go to Mary O'Farrell without the triumph of flinging the news in his friend's face. Louis liked Don, and had reason to be grateful, for Shelby believed in him as a budding playwright, which Jean Delenski did not: therefore Don had financed a one-act play for Jean's son, and it had been a success. Nevertheless friendship would not have counted with a man of Louis' temperament. There was no friendship he would not trample in the dust for the sake of a great love.

But Louis did not meet Shelby. The clematis clustered too thick for him to see out from the pergola to the rose-garden; and he was thinking too deeply of Mary to notice distant footsteps. So he went into the house and was greatly annoyed to find a visitor in his aunt's boudoir, une vieille fille who had known him since his boyhood. He had to be polite for a few moments, raging inwardly, before Madame Montalban in her tactful yet determined way got rid of the lady. Then he had to answer questions and receive congratulations.

"I told you how it would be!” Tante Hélène exclaimed. “You might have risked it long ago. And yet, perhaps you were right to wait. This war has already broken down barriers in hearts which might have remained closed.”

Madame Montalban did not know that Don had called. Her old friend had arrived just before Shelby; and when, as usual, he asked for “Madame la Comtesse,” the servant had said she was engaged for the moment with a visitor. Georges did not like Monsieur Louis, who had once laughed at him as an idiot—a “crétin.” But he did like “Monsieur S'elbie,” who was every inch a man, if a foreigner, and gave dazzling tips. Georges knew well that all these young men did not come for Madame, but for cette délicieuse Mademoiselle O'Farrell, who would be a grand singer one of these days, if she didn't marry and give up music, as a woman should. So he added that though Madame was unfortunately occupied, Mademoiselle was in the arbor. He, Georges, had seen her enter there with a book not an hour ago.

Shelby did not wait to discuss the subject further; he stalked through the hall into the rose-garden, and took that way to the arbor because it was the path farthest from Madame's boudoir window.

He did not mean to ask Mary to marry him. For a singularly successful and popular young man, he was almost stupidly modest. He couldn't write plays and Operas, or sing like an angel, or paint pictures or make statues and speak several languages, as half the men of Mary's acquaintance could. He thought of himself as rather a lump of a fellow, with none of the admirable Louis Delenski's fascinations; and when he was with the girl, he was silent and stupid, because he loved her so much he could think of nothing to say. If war had not come, however, he would sooner or later have summoned courage to try his luck, for he realized that he had as much right to try as Louis or any other man. Even if his services had been refused by France, he would have spoken, because in that case, having done what he thought his duty, his life would still have been his own to offer her. But now his services had been accepted. He was already a skilled aviator, and would be sent at once to the front. He knew that he might be killed any day; and it wouldn't be fair for a man to bind a girl to him in such conditions.

What he did mean to do was just to tell her he loved her, and that the thought of her would be in his heart whatever he did, and whatever happened. If, by wonderful good fortune, she listened with kindness, then he would go further. He would say that if he came back safe and sound at the end of the war, not crippled or disfigured, he would ask her to marry him. Meanwhile she would be free as air, free as if he hadn't spoken. Only, he couldn't bear to go away without telling her how great was his love, and what happiness it had been, and always would be till the end, for him to know that there was such a woman as she in the world.

As he came to her in the arbor of the weeping-ash, parting the curtainlike branches to enter, a light seemed to leap from the eyes of the girl to the eyes of the man. Don saw deep into her soul, and she into his. Each knew in a second what was in the heart of the other.

For an instant Mary forgot Louis and her promise. She realized only that Don loved her, and she loved him, and that all her doubts had been clouds hiding the sun.

As for Don, there was no reason why he should think of Louis at all, if there were love for him in Mary's eye Louis had had his chance, a better chance than his, Don Shelby's. This was Don's moment. With almost incredulous joy he seized it.

“Mary!” he said. He had never called her “Mary” before. Then suddenly, as they looked at each other in the delicate green twilight under the weeping-ash, there were no more words to speak. He took her hands and drew her toward him. In his mind was a vague consciousness he would have given an eternity of heaven for a minute like this.

It was as if he and Mary were isolated together inside a rainbow bubble which was the whole world. But the bubble broke as Mary drew back with a start. The light died out of her eyes, and fear stared at him.

“Oh, Don!” she gasped. “I forgot. I—I've just promised Louis—not ten minutes ago.”

“Louis?” he echoed. “But you love me.”

“Yes,” she said, “I do love you. I—didn't realize it, quite—because I was trying hard not to love you. I thought you didn't care for me—except as a friend.”

“Mary! How could you think that? As if any man who came near you could care for you as a friend! I've loved you so much, I hadn't the courage—”

“You—hadn't courage?”

“I felt such a dull fool beside you—and the other men you know. But now when I'm going away—”

“Not to America?”

“Good heavens, no! To the front, of course. I'm to fly—”

“Oh, Don! If you'd come to me yesterday—or only an hour ago!”

“I came the instant it was decided.”

“Ah, but it's an instant too late.”

“No,” said Don. “It can't be too late. It shall not! You don't know how I love you. And if you love me even a little—”

“A little! Ah, Don, this will break my heart.”

“But you belong to me,” he said. “When Louis knows, he wont even want to hold you to your promise. Do you think, if I were in his place, and he in mine, I would—”

“You can't judge for him,” she answered. “You and he are utterly different. Don, if Louis knew, he would want to hold me, I'm sure. But he mustn't know. He's not strong, as you are; yet he too is going to the front. I think it would kill Louis if I asked him to give me up. I couldn't do it. I simply could not!”

It was those words of Mary's that Louis caught as he came back to her with the news that his aunt would follow presently. Neither of the two under the tree heard or saw him. They were completely absorbed in one another, deaf and blind to everything outside.

Louis stood stiffly still for a few seconds. It was as if he had been stunned by an exploding shell which tore up all the earth around him. For a moment he wished for death, which seemed the sole solution. But as he came slowly back to himself—the real Louis—he grasped at such rags of life and happiness as he could snatch. Hastily, before they could wake from their dream and see him, he pushed aside the hanging branches and broke in upon them gayly, as if he had heard nothing. A confession of the truth from either of the two would ruin the whole future. If he were supposed to know that Mary loved another man, he would in common decency be forced to give her up. He chose ignorance, counting on her kind heart.

“Bon jour, mon vieux!” he exclaimed. “So you have come! I was never more glad to see you in my life. Has Mary told you the happy news?” He forced himself to speak cheerfully, to look happy, so that the girl might believe him bathed in a radiant illusion which it would be deadly cruel to break.

“I—she—we had just begun to talk of you,” Don answered, while a pair of Irish eyes implored: “For God's sake—for my sake—not a word to hurt him!”

Louis held out his hand, and Mary put hers into it. With Don so near, and their secret held silently between them, that handclasp was the sealing of the bargain.

All three were thankful when Madame Montalban appeared. She, in blissful ignorance, was charming to Don, and said how much he would be missed, how his friends would pray for his safety. Could he not stay, or return for the wedding? It must be arranged to take place at once, before Louis had to leave. Yes, with special influence, a marriage could be solemnized at a few days' notice. In days of war, one did not postpone happiness to some indefinite date in the future. Ah, but what a pity that Monsieur Shelby could not hope to be present! He must send good thoughts and wishes to his friends, as they would to him.

SOON after Don had made his adieus and departed, Mary found an excuse to leave Louis and his aunt together in the arbor, instead of Madame's leaving them, as she meant to do. “Stay with Louis,” the girl said, desperately desiring to be free of them both, if only for a little while. “If we are really to be married so soon, I must write some letters at once—letters that can't be put off,” she added. And rather than tell a fib (Mary hated fibs), she did write letters. But when she had somehow struggled through them, she flung herself on her bed, sobbing hard, dry sobs and shedding no tears lest Louis should see her stained eyelids and guess. “It would be like murder to hurt him,” she thought. “I've brought this on myself, and God helping me, I'll see it through.”

Down in the arbor Madame Montalban looked keenly at Louis.

“What is the matter?” she asked. “What has happened to bring this change over you, since you left me in the house?”

“Do I show it, then?” he answered with a question. “I hoped that no one could see.”

“I see,” said his aunt. “My eyes have watched you since your boyhood, when your dying mother begged me to stand in her place.”

Madame Montalban's look, her touch, brought the pent-up storm. Louis broke down and told Tante Hélène what he had overheard.

“I am a beast,” he said, “to keep Mary after that. But I can't help it; I should die if I gave her up. I shall probably die anyhow. And that is what she feels. Whether she knows it or not, that's what gives her the strength to stick by me. It's the same with Shelby. At this moment he's saying in his heart that my time wont be long, after all. She'll be a war-bride, and a war-widow; and then she'll be free to be a bride again. Oh, mon Dieu, Tante Hélène, when I picture that, it is worse than death!”

“Don't picture it, my boy,” Madame Montalban soothed him. “Mary is all heart, all kindness. You have only to ask her not to marry again if you are taken (as Heaven forbid!) for her to keep faith until the end of her days.”

“Perhaps,” Louis said heavily. “But I will not do that. She would grow to hate me. And yet—ah, if only there were a way to hold her fast forever without showing myself a monster of cruelty! I think I shall go mad if I can't find such a way.”

“I'll try to help you find it,” promised his aunt.

THE next few days were like a dream to Mary. Sometimes it seemed that it was only the sense of her own unimportance in the vast catastrophe of war which carried her through. But she bore herself well, and was charming to Louis about his two gifts.

The two gifts were an engagement-ring and the bridegroom's present to the bride Both were emeralds, for the emerald was Mary's birthstone, and the one she best loved. By an odd coincidence it was Louis' birthstone too. Because of his fondness for it, and because his eyes were more green than gray in some lights, his admiring friends gave him emeralds in every form—emerald tie-pins, emerald sleeve-links, his monogram in emeralds a paper-cutters and cigarette-cases. Of course, no other jewel could be thought of by him for Mary, or by Mary for him.

The ring was a big square emerald quaintly set in small diamonds. The bride-gift was a long chain of bluish platinum thickly set with emeralds and having one huge cabochon stone, in an intricate netting like a spider-web, as a pendant. When Louis came with his two offerings, Mary had not yet thought of any wedding present for him. Though famous for her “Irish generosity,” it had not even occurred to her that it might be a pleasant to Louis to receive something from her. When she had thanked him prettily, however, and the ring was on her engaged finger, she said: “What shall I give you to remember me by when you are gone?”

“A ring with our stone in it,” he answered promptly, as if he were prepared for the question. “It is our stone, you know—'the immediate jewel' of both our souls, since it belongs to the month in which we were born. I came into the world eight years ahead of you; but I think I had a presentiment of you always. I waited for 'the emerald girl,' and now she is mine. I want to be remember you (as if I would need that, or anything!) by an emerald which you will give me before we part. And I want you to be reminded of me by emeralds, which I've given and will give. These will not be the only ones. Somehow I'll contrive to send you others now and then. When they come, no matter what has happened or where I may be, you will know that I am alive and loving you. Emeralds keep hearts true, the saying is.”

Mary laughed a little at Louis' superstition. His manner was rather odd, and he spoke as if he had learned his words by heart. But she thought nothing of that, partly because she was preoccupied, and partly because, since the day of their engagement, he had never seemed normal. He was always feverish and overstrained, like an actor before the first performance of a play which will make or break him.

Don also chose an emerald for his wedding-present to Mary O'Farrell; and this was not strange, because everyone knew that it was her favorite stone. Louis, however, was secretly furious. He could not bear that the girl should accept that jewel from anyone except himself, now that she belonged to him. Since she could not return a marriage-gift to the giver, he got her to promise that she would never wear Shelby's beautiful brooch; and so for the first time she learned that Louis was jealous of Don. The brooch arrived on the wedding-day—the day of the religious ceremony; and Louis had just received bad news. Instead of having twenty-four hours with his wife, he was ordered by wire to join his regiment at the front without delay. He would have to bid the bride good-by within an hour after the marriage; and the breaking of his dream was a heavy blow. Mary could not be angry with him for his sharp words of injustice against Don; nor could she argue the question of wearing the brooch, as she would have at another time.

It was a quiet as well as a hurried wedding; and when Louis had left her, Mary could not realize the great change in her life. Superficially things went on much as before, except that she began training for work as an infirmière, and that there was a letter from Louis to read and answer each day. The answering was difficult, for there had to be just so many protestations of love or he was plunged into the depths of despair—and Mary felt that she had to do her best to keep up his spirits.

One day no letter arrived from Louis. On the next and the next also there was silence. Jean Delenski and Madame Montalban were sick with dread, and Mary's whole energy was needed to help them bear the suspense. A thousand small things might have prevented his writing, she said. But when an official telegram announced that Lieutenant Louis Delenski, of the cuirassiers, had fallen gloriously on the field of battle, both secretly blamed the girl because something within had not warned her, as their love had warned them. Mary did not try to defend herself. She too had felt the same cold weight of presentiment—had felt it since the day of her engagement to Louis; but she had felt with it a weight of guilt also, fearing that if the presentiment were fulfilled she might not be broken-hearted enough.

The tragic despair of the others engulfed her like a wave from some dark sea, and she almost rejoiced in her grief. It was good to grieve! Perhaps she had cared for Louis more than she knew. When a telegram from Don “somewhere in France,” came for Madame Louis Delenski, with the words, “Deepest sympathy. Profound regret,” she was not even tempted to write a line of thanks.

NOT many weeks later Mary wag pronounced sufficiently skilled to begin nursing in a hospital. She was sent to Boulogne; and her sweetness and beauty made the girl loved as an infirmière. She was becoming happy in her work—too happy, she thought sometimes—when one night her peace of mind was shattered with a tremendous shock. She was called back to her ward after an hour of rest, to attend a wounded aviator who had just been brought in.

It was Don Shelby, from whom she had had no news for nearly eight months, He had crashed to earth with his monoplane after chasing and bringing down a couple of Taubes (so some one was saying), and for a moment she thought that she would faint as she recognized the burned and tortured face. But she did not faint. It was she who helped the surgeon perform a delicate operation which bared the man's beating heart; and hours later it was into her eyes he looked, as consciousness came slowly back after ether-delirium. It was as if his spirit were called back from miles away, and rushed to its windows at the sound of a dear remembered voice.

It seemed a wonderful coincidence that he should be brought to her hospital of all others, and that she should be his nurse, but when he was getting better and could talk for a few moments on end, Don said that it was no coincidence; he had “willed it to happen.”

“I knew you were nursing,” he explained. “I heard that long ago. And since then I've had daydreams of my lying in a jolly little white cot like this, with you bending over me. I didn't try to get hurt of course. My job was to hurt the enemy. But all the same, those dreams just had to come true sometime, and somehow, and somewhere.”

He believed that Mary, not the surgeon or doctors, saved his life, which hung in the balance for a week or two; and perhaps he was right; for seeing her, and the way she looked at him in spite of herself while the danger lasted, gave him an incentive to live.

AFTER all, there was no longer any obstacle to keep them apart. They had loved each other, and Mary had sacrificed them both for her promise to Louis—who had been dead for nearly a year. He had not suggested that the girl-bride—never his wife—should sacrifice herself still further by remaining a widow. When Don was strong enough to move, he was to be packed off to Nice, to a convalescent home for officers. He had not yet dared to speak frankly to Louis' widow, but could not go without knowing his fate.

“I don't ask you to marry me now,” he said. “But tell me just one thing: you cared a little about me once. Could you begin all over again?”

“Ah, my fight always was to stop!” she cried before she had stopped to think. And so, of course, it was settled. Mary did not want Jean Delenski and Madame Montalban to hear of her engagement till the year of widowhood was over. Not that she was afraid of anything they might say to her (and she fancied that Madame had always guessed the truth about Don), but she wished to save their feelings as far as possible.

Somehow the secret of the “great romance” leaked out in the hospital, however, and a newspaper correspondent who happened to be visiting Boulogne at the time sent a paragraph to a Paris journal. The names of Mary O'Farrell Delenski and Donald Shelby, the American Ace, were well known, and the paragraph was not only copied but enlarged. Fate had taken the matter out of Mary's hands; and so she wrote to Jean and the Comtesse Montalban, explaining the circumstances. No answer came to her letter, and she was grieved, for she had loved “le grand maître” and felt an affection for his sister. Don's love made up for everything, however; and when he had been gone a few days, a delightful surprise was arranged for her by the doctor in charge.

The girl had worked hard for more than nine months, without a day's rest; and she was ordered south, with two other nurses from the same hospital, for a fortnight's holiday. A villa at Beaulieu had been opened as a “House of Repose” for war-nurses; and Beaulieu is only a few miles from Nice.

Don came over to call the moment his fiancée was settled; and in that beautiful Riviera garden Mary for the first time lost her sense of sin in being happy. Where all was loveliness, love was right.

She “let herself go,” joyously; and Don had just made her pin a sprig of orange-blossom onto the breast of her nurse's uniform when the postman appeared at the end of the path, with a parcel.

It was registered, had been forwarded from the hospital at Boulogne, and must be signed by Madame Delenski in person.

“What can it be?” Mary wondered when the facteur had trotted busily away. “See, the address is typed.”

Don had a pocketknife, and he cut the sting between the five red seals, on each of which was stamped the device of a salamander. It seemed to him that he had seen the design before, though he could not think where, and he was searching his brain while Mary removed the neat brown paper wrapping. Inside was a small wooden box about six inches by four in width. Don's knife was put to use again in prying up the cover. Within, a stuffing of jeweler's cotton protected a little green leather case. This Mary opened, sure now that some friend, reading of her engagement, had sent her a present. A tiny folded slip of paper dropped to the ground, but she was too preoccupied with what she had found, to notice.

On a bed of white satin lay a flexible bracelet of square emeralds linked together with brilliants.

“How exquisite!” the girl cried. But she looked more startled than pleased. The thought of Louis, and all he had said about emeralds, jumped into her mind, and she blushed painfully. “It's strange there should be no letter—no card!” she stammered. But Don saw the fallen paper on the grass between their garden chairs. He picked it up and with an odd reluctance he handed it to Mary without examining it.

“It's pasted together at the ends,” she said. Her fingers trembled as she tore off the narrow fastened edges of the letter. There was writing inside. Don watched her read, saw her stare, saw her blush fade to pallor, before she covered her face with both hands.

“Good heavens, what's the matter, my darling?” he cried.

LAME as he still was, he was out of his chair and bending over the girl in a second. She did not look up or answer, and Don realized that she could not. He took the open letter which lay in her lap. “Speak one word, if I'm not to read this,” “Otherwise, I'll take silence for consent.”

He waited a moment, but Mary spoke no word.

The instant Don's eyes fell on the small handwriting, he realized that it was Louis Delenski's. His heart leaped, then missed a beat. Then he regained some command of himself and read:

My beloved:

In life and death I am changelessly yours, and you are mine. Nothing and no one can come between, to part us. No distance can separate the one from the other. Wear this bracelet on your beautiful arm—the left, because it is nearer the heart; and know that in my heart your image lives always. Think of me when you see this, as I think ever of you.

Your husband, ⁠
Lovis Delenski.

“Heavens!” Don breathed, and dropped the paper as if it had burned his fingers. For a moment he stood silent, gazing down at the girl's dark head as the sun streamed on it through branches white with orange-blossoms. Then she looked up. “You see,” she whispered, “I can't marry you.”

It was all he could do not to break out fiercely against the dead man; but he controlled himself. “I see what you mean,” he said, “but I don't see the rest. This gift has come just now, by mere accident. Louis must have asked some friend, before he went to the front, to send it to you—perhaps for your birthday; and the friend forgot to post it at the right time, or hadn't your address. That's the only possible explanation.”

But it did not seem the only one to Louis' widow. She was sure that Louis must be alive. He had been taken prisoner, and had been falsely reported dead. Somehow, perhaps through a released comrade, he had contrived to send the parcel. “He warned me—I mean, promised—that he would find ways to get emeralds to me, now and then,” she told Don. “He said that when I received them, I would know, whatever happened, that he was alive and well, and thinking of me.”

Don remembered, as she spoke, where he had seen the design of the salamander. It was cut into an emerald seal. Some one had given it to Louis, who had shown it to Don at the time, and told him who was the giver. But Shelby could not recall the name now. He wished that he could, though it seemed foolish to suppose that the name might explain the mystery. Louis had not used the seal often, Don thought, or he would remember it more distinctly. Mary too would have recognized the design in the red wax on the parcel. He could not understand how a friend of Louis' had come into possession of the seal, but that puzzle could be explained in many ways.

Gently yet very firmly Don reminded the girl that Louis Delenski had not disappeared. He had been seen to fall, as a comrade of his had written to Jean, and the letter describing Louis' death had been published in a Paris paper. Don put aside her suggestion that “some cruel person” might have had a reason for making Louis' family believe him dead. No person could have had such a reason. Beyond doubt Louis had been killed almost a year ago; and Don pledged himself to solve the mystery of the emeralds.

Shelby was not strong yet; and seeing how he suffered and tried to hide his suffering behind a sort of bravado, Mary let herself appear to be convinced. But at heart she was not convinced. After all, it seemed that she had no right to love Don. When he was well, and able to bear the wrench, she would go to America, she thought—where he could not follow, because of his duty in the war.

Meanwhile Don set himself to tracing the parcel and its contents. The letter was written on common paper, such as soldiers use at the front. There was no jeweler's name on the green leather case. Advertisements with offers of large reward failed to produce the design or maker of the bracelet; but the postmark on the packet was Paris, and inquiries brought to light the fact that an old woman had registered it. The man who had written out the receipt could not describe the woman except that she was poorly dressed and might have been a small shopkeeper. He had not noticed her particularly at the time, and could recall no useful details of her appearance. A reward of five thousand francs was next offered by Don for evidence from the woman herself, or particulars by which she could be found. But no answer came, though the advertisement appeared in all the principal papers of Paris and the provinces, day after day and week after week.

Nevertheless Don still hoped—not (at last) for news of the emeralds, but that their influence upon Mary might eventually pass. He went back to the front; she returned to her work at the hospital, instead of sailing for America as she had told herself she ought to do. After all, she was needed here! And then what Don had hoped for, prayed for, began to come true. As time went on, the girl told herself that he must have been right in his deductions. If Louis lived, and had contrived to send the emeralds, he would contrive also to send her his news. He would wish to hear from his family and arrange to do so, as other prisoners did.

Don's letters were such as a friend might write; but Mary could read between the lines. She knew that he was only biding his time; and a month after the first anniversary of Louis' death he told her that he had ten days' leave. Might he come to see her in Boulogne? She answered “Yes,” and he came. Nearly three months had gone by since the emeralds had parted them in the garden at Beaulieu, and since then there had been no sign of life from Louis, though Don assured her he had sought to obtain information from every prisoners' camp in Germany.

The girl could not resist his reasoning and his love—or her own. So again they were engaged; and lest she should change her mind when his back was turned, Don got her promise to marry him at once, before his leave was up. Relations were now so strained between her and Jean Delenski that Mary dreaded writing to him again. He had never answered the letter announcing her engagement to Don; but Madame Montalban had written, after a long delay, excusing her brother and begging to have news from “la petite” now and then.

Mary had felt it her duty to write about the emeralds, and Madame had replied joyously. She and Jean would never cease to hope, she said, that Louis was alive. “Of course this wonderful sign of his living love will prevent your thinking again of marriage with another man,” she had added. And now, not only was Mary thinking of it again; she had decided upon the step. It was only the insistent urging of conscience which forced the girl to inform Jean and Madame Montalban that she intended to marry Don Shelby without delay.

AFTER what had happened before, Mary expected no answer, and none came. The wedding-day arrived, and for Mary the past had faded into a far-off background. The thought of Don filled the world for her; there was room for no other thought; they adored each other. Mary wondered how she could have dreamed of giving him up.

The girl's heart sang on her marriage morning. She was astir early, and dressing, when the nurse who had gone with her to Beaulieu months before brought a budget of letters and telegrams from friends who had heard the news. There was also a letter and a bunch of fresh white roses sent by hand, from Don.

Mary thanked her fellow-nurse. “You're a darling to bring me these yourself!” she said. “I wish you as much happiness as I have to-day.”

“Thank you, dear,” the older woman said, and went quickly to the door; but Mary stopped her before she could go out.

“What is it?” she asked. “You look worried. I hope you haven't had bad news of anyone you love—this day of all others?”

“Oh, no, no,” Sister Grayle answered in an odd tone. “I hope no bad news. I mean—there's nothing to worry about. Now I must run. I've lots to do, and I want it to be done quickly, so I can see you married. I love you, dear! We've all learned to love you. There isn't one of us wouldn't stick our hands in the fire to make you happy!”

Mary wondered a little at the other's manner, but forgot it and her in a moment, as she read Don's letter.

As the nurse went downstairs, she cast a furtive glance at a small parcel pushed under a table on the landing below Mary's room. It was a parcel wrapped in brown paper and sealed with five red seals, but it was so well hidden by the oilcloth table-cover that no one could see the typed address, “Madame Louis Delenski,” or the salamanders on the seals. She, Sister Grayle, had seen both, when she had asked to take up the mail for the bride to be. She had remembered the other parcel, almost the mate of this, which she herself—to her deep regret—had sent out by the postman to Mary in the garden at Beaulieu. Mary had made no secret what that parcel held, or what it had meant for her. Sister Grayle knew the whole truth, and she sympathized with Don—a man after her own heart. She had turned sick at sight of the trim parcel arriving on Mary's wedding-day. “Too horrible, if it's to begin all over again!” she said to herself. “There's some awful mystery—a cruel mystery. I don't believe Delenski's alive.” And without waiting to reflect further, she had flung the package under the table, on her way upstairs. Afterward, in Mary's room, seeing Mary's happy face, remorse had struck her. But she would not undo what she had done. She believed that Fate had taken her by the hand and made her hide the parcel.

“It will always be thought that I dropped it by accident. I'll never tell Mary the truth, whatever happens,” she reflected. “I hope to goodness the wicked thing wont be found till after she's married and gone with her husband. Anyhow, I've done my best by Don Shelby, whether he thanks me or not!”

THE wedding was in a church not far from the hospital, and the bride and bridegroom returned for a pathetic reception to be given in their honor by doctors and nurses, wounded soldiers being the only guests. The bride was to have three days off for the honeymoon. Then Don would go back to the front, and she would resume her work; but the world would be a new world for both. The wedding-gown was a nurse's uniform; but after the breakfast, and the cutting of the cake, Mrs. Don Shelby ran to her room to change.

“I sha'n't be fifteen minutes!” she said to her husband as she left him, with the smile he had dreamed of for years, day and night.

But the fifteen minutes passed—then another fifteen, and Mary did not come down. A military motorcar had been put at the disposal of the pair for a short ride to a country château lent for the honeymoon. The car had arrived and was waiting. Mary had wished to go her room alone, but Sister Grayle, as her friend and bridesmaid, was told by the doctor who was the hospital head to knock at the door. She went obediently, with the sensation of a vacuum where her heart should have been. Passing the table with the long oilcloth cover, she glanced furtively underneath. The little brown parcel which had lain in a corner against the wall had disappeared.

No answer followed her knock. She knocked again; and again there was silence. Something like an unformed prayer was on Sister Grayle's lips as she opened the door, and went in.

MARY lay on the narrow. bed, still in her nurse's uniform, her face to the wall. She did not move at the sound of her name.

“What has she done?” Sister Grayle faltered, half aloud. On the same floor, not far from this room, was a cupboard where medicines were kept. A dreadful idea sprang into the mind of Mary's friend. She saw herself guilty of murder. “I let her marry this man, and then—”

The thought broke in her brain, She glanced at the dressing-table close by, for a bottle. None was there, but instead she saw the parcel, open. Some officious one had spied it under the table in the hall and brought it to Mary's room. Or perhaps Mary herself had found it!

Lying on the brown paper was a white velvet case with the cover off. On a bed of white satin glinted the most curious jewel Sister Grayle had ever seen. It was a brooch, shaped like an eye, made of crystal with an immense round emerald in the middle which seemed to meet the nurse's frightened stare with an answering stare of secret intelligence.

She did not mean to read the letter which had dropped from Mary's hand the floor; but almost mechanically she stooped to pick it up. In the same way her eyes glanced fearfully over the few lines. She read:

My Mary, my wife forever:

I told you on our wedding-day that whenever you received the gift of an emerald from me, it would be a token that I lived and loved you always. Whatever rumors you may have heard about me, believe them false. Some day you will have the explanation, and we shall meet, not to part again. Meanwhile I send you a brooch instead of one which I once begged you not to wear. Remember, my friends used to laugh and say I had “emerald eyes.” This eye of emerald will watch over your love, and bring you happiness while you keep faith with me. It bids you be ready to welcome back, soon or late, your lover-husband,

Louis Delenski

Instantly Sister Grayle guessed that rather than be wife to two living men, Mary had chosen to die, on this her second wedding-day. Under the girl's hand she found an empty bottle marked Chloral. It must have held enough to bring death twice over; and already more than an hour had passed since Mary in despair had taken the stuff.

The nurse heard herself give a [great] sob and fell on her knees at the side of the bed. She knew that she ought to give an alarm, that perhaps even now it might not be too late to save Mary's life. Yet—was it not more cruel than kind, to try to save it? She must think for an instant. She must pray. But suddenly two strong hands lifted her up by the shoulders and set her in a chair. Don Shelby had pushed wide open the door Sister Grayle had left ajar, and had come in.

She saw, by a wild glance at his face, that he had seen what lay on the dressing-table—and the bottle of chloral which was now in plain sight. But though he had snatched her up from her knees, to get her out of his way, he seemed no longer conscious that she was in the room.

“Mary!” he called. “Louis sha'n't take you. You can't be dead. You shall not be dead! And if you are, I'll call you back by the strength of my love.”

He gathered the yielding body of the girl into his arms, holding her close, close, as if to relight the lamp of her heart from his own. He looked, Sister Grayle thought, as if all the passion of all the great lovers of the world, since time began, ran through him like a flame.

“Mary, come back to me,” he cried. “I can't live without you. I will not!”

Not even in answer to his call could she have come, perhaps, without other help. But the matron, fearing Mary might have fainted (her strength had long been strained to breaking-point in her work), had slowly followed Don upstairs. Nurse Grayle flew to her with the empty bottle and a word or two of explanation. A doctor was sent for, and after an hour of anxious work over the unconscious girl, it seemed that she had been saved.

SHE did not, however, return to normal consciousness. A cloud obscured her brain. She realized dimly that some dreadful calamity had fallen upon her, though what it was she did not remember. “God, let me die!” she murmured over and over, until the words hammered upon the ears that listened.

“It may be that she will never recover her senses. She has had a terrible shock,” the doctor said.

“And if she does recover, what will become of the poor child?” asked the matron, speaking more to herself than the others. For she had seen the emerald eye, and the letter signed “Louis Delenski.”

“She will recover, and she will be my wife,” said Don. “There are three days left of my leave. They were to have been our honeymoon. But now I shall spend them in Paris. I will find out who has played this coward's trick. Then I shall come back and prove to Mary that she was free to marry me. When I've made her understand,—for I will make her understand—she will want to get well. That's all she needs—and the care I shall take of her afterward.”

“Have you an idea where to begin—what to do?” Sister Grayle asked him; for since Beaulieu, she had been more or less in Mary's confidence.

“Yes, I have an idea,” he echoed. And then he was gone.

All that day and night Mary was very ill. They began to think that after all she would die. “It's what she would wish,” said the matron. “And perhaps it would be for the best.” She believed that Louis Delenski must be alive and, for some mysterious reason, in hiding. Twice, and only twice (Mary reminded Sister Grayle), he had made a sign. Once he had intervened to save his wife from engaging herself to Don Shelby, and again to prevent her going through the tragic farce of marriage. But Sister Grayle sent a long telegram to Don Shelby at a hotel where (Mary had told her) he stayed when in Paris. “Mary much worse. We fear she may be going from us. Come soon if only to say good-by. She may regain full consciousness toward the last and ask for you.”

As quickly as a slow train of war-days could bring him, Don came, and with him a magnificent-looking old man whose face was oddly familiar to the matron. “Why, it's Jean Delenski!” she exclaimed to Sister Grayle. “I heard him sing in opera years ago. One could never forget his face. But how he has aged! People told me before his son died—or disappeared—that they could be taken for brothers!

“—The dear child's mind is normal again,” she explained to Don. “To be honest with you, I'm not sure whether or not it's an encouraging symptom. She's so weak—and she has touched no food.”

“Has she asked for me?” Don wistfully inquired.

“She has spoken of you. She has not asked for you.”

“Monsieur Delenski has made me promise that he shall see her before I do. Will you find out if—”

He did not finish the sentence, but the matron knew well what he wished to add. She slipped away, and in a few moments returned to the two men.

JEAN DELENSKI went into Mary's room alone.

Lying on the narrow hospital bed, the girl looked like a finely chiseled marble statue of her old self. All her vitality was in the violet fire of her Irish eyes. “It was good of you to come, Maître,” she almost whispered, using for Jean the old name of his pupils. “I am sorry that I hurt you. Yet I loved you through all—and poor Madame. I could not believe but—oh, I'm too weak to explain now! You must understand. Have you heard from Louis? Don't be afraid to speak. I am floating between two worlds. I shall not stay in this one long. Are you here to give me—news?”

“I am here to beg your forgiveness,” he answered, “for myself and my sister. I have known the truth only these last few days, from her. And even she didn't wish your death. When Shelby came, and asked me straight out if Louis had left his emerald seal of the salamander to me, I said no. It was I who gave it to him, I had never seen it since his death. My sister was in the room. She had not wanted us to be alone together, Shelby and I. Her face made me think that there was a question of importance concerning that seal. Then Shelby threw at her some cruel words—that you were dying, that if you died, we would be your murderers.

“Then my sister broke down utterly. Poor woman, she has been a nervous wreck—a sad shadow of herself since Louis went. She confessed a plan they had made together, Louis and she—the day you promised to be his wife. It appears he overheard something between you and Shelby. He felt that death would be doubly death—death to his soul as well as body—if you married his friend when he was underground. He wrote two letters, on common paper, and put no date. He designed a bracelet and a brooch. They were to be made by a man who owed his fame as a jeweler to me in the days of my prime. He would do anything on earth for one of our family.

“The bracelet and the first letter were to be sent by my sister to you, if news ever came of your engagement. And for realism, Louis gave her the salamander seal which he thought you had seen. My sister dressed herself like a servant, registered the parcel at the post office. I knew nothing of all this, then. Hélène was afraid to tell me the secret—hers and Louis'. But when you wrote the other day that you would marry Shelby at once, she saw that it was for me a blow over the heart. She told me the whole story—and how she had sent a second parcel, a second letter. For a little while I let myself be seized by the drama of the tale. The plan was Louis'. I meant to let it stand. But Shelby came, and you had taken chloral rather than live be the wife of two men. He said you were dying. So we both—confessed. And I am here. Will you try to live—and forgive us?”

MARY lived. And for her to live and not forgive would be impossible. She and her “Ace” adore each other, in a way those who have never been parted cannot know.