CHAPTER XXI
A STARTLING TALE
Hardly able to believe that they were actually living this weird thing,the girls crowded into the shack after the stricken man and found thathe had sunk upon a bench and covered his face with his hands.
Strangely enough, though it had been Mollie who had precipitated thisthing, it was Betty who now took the lead. Softly she went over to theshrinking man and put a gentle hand on his shoulder.
"You say you did not kill your brother?" she questioned in so calm avoice that the girls marveled at her. "You are sure you did not?"
"No! no!" cried the man again raising his haggard face, deep-lined withthe marks of suffering, "No--I am not sure. Can you not see? It is thatthat is killing me. Yet in my sane moments I know that he was dead. Helay there, so white, so still, with only that red, red stream of bloodto mar his whiteness. I leaned down, I listened to his heart----" Theman had evidently forgotten the presence of the girls, engulfed as hewas in the horror of the incident he related. Once more he was livingthe tragedy, and the girls, tense, strained, horrified, lived it withhim.
"I listened to his heart," the man repeated, his arms stretched outbefore him, his long, delicate hands gripped with a fierceness that madethe knuckles go white. "There was no beating. I put my face close to hismouth to see if there was breath. But he had stopped breathing--forever!
"My heart went cold. I seized him by the shoulders. I called him by hisname--that brother that I had loved! Oh, how I had loved him. I beggedhim to come back to me, to open those gray lips that a moment before hadbeen beautiful with life--to speak to me--and all the time----" his handrelaxed and pointed to the floor and the girls followed the movementfascinated--"there kept spreading and spreading on the rug a deep redstain--my brother's blood! _Mon Dieu!_ And when I staggered to my feet Ifound that the horrible stuff had clung to my fingers--they were darkand sticky--the fingers of a murderer! I went mad then, I think. Irushed from the house, from the place. One thing only was in my mind. Toget away--to get away from Paris, that accursed city----" He paused,staring at the floor, and the girls waited, hardly daring to move forfear they would break the spell.
"The rest is like a bad dream to me," the man continued in a wearyvoice. "Ghost-ridden, haunted, I came to this country incognito--underwhat you call an assumed name. For a short time I stayed in NewOrleans----"
"But your violin!" Betty interrupted in a voice that amazed her, itseemed so little and weak. "Surely you were under contract."
The man turned on her what was almost a pitying look from his sunkeneyes.
"I could not play," he said, with a shrug of his shoulders. "To havegone to my manager would have been like going to the hangman--theelectric chair, what you have in this country. No, mademoiselle, I was amurderer, a man hunted by his fellowmen. There was but one thing for meto do--to hide, to dodge about like a rabbit from a pack of baying dogs.Hide!" he added bitterly. "I could not hide from myself.
"Always when the night grows dark and the wind it makes to howl aroundthis place I can hear my brother's voice uplifted in anger. We quarreledover something my uncle had said--a foolish quarrel. He called me liar,and I--something snapped in my brain, I think, and for a momenteverything went red. There was a wine bottle on the table--we had beendrinking--blindly I struck out with it---- Now, when the darkness comesand the wildcat calls into the night with a scream like a soul intorment, I hear again the tinkling of that bottle as it shattered, theshort groan, the falling of a heavy body.
"It is a wonder that I have not gone mad," he said. "Many a time I haveprayed that I might or that I might find courage to end this miserablelife and go to join my brother. But I am a coward, a coward----" Hisvoice lowered till it was almost inaudible and tears trickled throughthe long white fingers. "I have not the courage even to die. There is atribunal above that I should have to face, more just, more awful, thanany man-made law. There you have what Paul Loup has become."
"But you must not speak that way," said Betty, whose quick mind had beenforging ahead while the man had been speaking. "It is one thing to killa man deliberately, and quite another to kill in hot blood, blindly.Besides," she added eagerly, "you are not even sure that you did killyour brother. Did you--have you seen the papers since--since you ranaway?"
"No," said the man. His tone was dead, hopeless. "I was afraid of what Imight find there. He was dead, Mademoiselle," he added wearily. "When Isay that there is a doubt of that it is simply to give myself one littleexcuse for continuing to live. He did not move, he did not breathe. Ah,yes, he was dead, quite dead."
There was silence for a moment while Betty thought rapidly. Amy andMollie and Grace stared wide-eyed with the feeling that they werewitnessing some tremendous, swift-moving drama.
"Of course," said the man, breaking the silence abruptly, his sombereyes upon Betty, "there is but one thing left for me now to do. I shallsurrender to the authorities--a thing which I should have done long ago.Or," he added grimly, "you might rather go with me now. If you left me Imight attempt to escape--so you will think, Mademoiselle?"
There was a lift at the end of the sentence that made it a question and,startled, the girls looked at Betty to see what she would say.
The Little Captain herself was startled. Evidently the man thought theyhad been tracking him, had used their knowledge to trap him.
"Oh, it isn't as you think!" she cried impulsively. "We never had theslightest little wish to harm you. And please, please," she addedearnestly, "don't give yourself up to the authorities, or do anythingrash until you hear from me again. You may not believe me--I wouldn'tblame you if you didn't----" she went on shyly, for the man had risenand was staring at her, "but all we want to do is to help you if wecan----" she broke off confusedly for the look in the man's eyessilenced her.
"You know I am Paul Loup," he cried hoarsely. "You have heard my story,my confession from my own lips, and still you say that you wish me noharm! Who are you? what are you? what do you want of me?" He hadadvanced toward them, and in a panic the girls moved back toward theopen door. Only Betty stood fearlessly in his path.
"We are the Outdoor Girls, and we are living just at present on Gold RunRanch," she said quietly. "We found out who you were because you weregood enough to play for us at a benefit we gave at the Hostess House atCamp Liberty some time ago. And we came up here because we thought thatyou were in trouble and that we might help you. If we can't help you,I'm sorry." And with head bravely uplifted Betty turned toward the door.
She had almost reached it when he called to her.
"You are a brave girl," said Paul Loup slowly, his eyes intent onBetty's pretty face, "How do you know that I--the murderer--will notkill you also for this knowledge you have of me?"
Betty heard the frightened gasp of the girls behind her, but, strangelyenough, she herself felt no fear.
"You wouldn't do that," she said, her clear gaze holding his burningone. "You could not wish harm to a friend."
"Is that what you wish me to consider you--a friend?" asked the strangeman, feeling suddenly as though something warm and vital had closedabout his heart.
"If you will," replied Betty, reaching out her hand. "I would like verymuch to be."
But Paul Loup, for all he was a murderer and an outcast, was also aFrenchman. With a quick gesture, ignoring her outstretched hand hecaught her in his arms, held her there for a minute, then, releasingher, kissed her gently, first on one cheek, then on the other.
"I had forgotten there were kind hearts in the world," he murmuredbrokenly, turning from her. "You have restored my faith. _Au revoir_, myfriend."
Someway, somehow, the girls found themselves outside that little cabin,making their way blindly down the path to where their horses weretethered. In a daze they mounted and rode off down the trail.
When they came to the open trail they found that Betty was crying,openly, unashamed. Mollie pushed a handkerchief into her hand, but theLittle Captain did not seem to notice it. She stared straight ahead, herch
eeks burning, the tears rolling unchecked down her face.
"Never mind, honey," said Mollie, trying to steady her voice. "It washard for you, I know; but I would give anything I own to have made himfeel that way about me. I don't care if he did commit murder. I'm forhim--strong."
"To be all alone," said Betty as though Mollie had not spoken, "and soheart-hungry that a little sympathy from a stranger----" A sob chokedthe rest of her sentence. But a moment later she faced the girls with alight of resolve shining in her eyes.
"Girls," she said, "I don't believe Paul Loup is a murderer, and someway or other I'm going to prove it. A man like that just couldn't commitmurder. I know it!"