The King in Yellow by Robert W. Chambers (best ereader for pdf and epub .txt) 📕

me, I shall go out with the ambulance tomorrow morning. There is of course no danger, but it’s just as well to keep it from Sylvia.”

West nodded. Thorne and Guernalec, who had heard, broke in and offered assistance, and Fallowby volunteered with a groan.

“All right,” said Trent rapidly⁠—“no more now, but meet me at Ambulance headquarters tomorrow morning at eight.”

Sylvia and Colette, who were becoming uneasy at the conversation in English, now demanded to know what they were talking about.

“What does a sculptor usually talk about?” cried West, with a laugh.

Odile glanced reproachfully at Thorne, her fiancé.

“You are not French, you know, and it is none of your business, this war,” said Odile with much dignity.

Thorne looked meek, but West assumed an air of outraged virtue.

“It seems,” he said to Fallowby, “that a fellow cannot discuss the beauties of Greek sculpture in his mother tongue, without being openly suspected.”

Colette placed her hand over his mouth and turning to Sylvia, murmured, “They are horridly untruthful, these men.”

“I believe the word for ambulance is the same in both languages,” said Marie Guernalec saucily; “Sylvia, don’t trust Monsieur Trent.”

“Jack,” whispered Sylvia, “promise me⁠—”

A knock at the studio door interrupted her.

“Come in!” cried Fallowby, but Trent sprang up, and opening the door, looked out. Then with a hasty excuse to the rest, he stepped into the hallway and closed the door.

When he returned he was grumbling.

“What is it, Jack?” cried West.

“What is it?” repeated Trent savagely; “I’ll tell you what it is. I have received a dispatch from the American Minister to go at once and identify and claim, as a fellow-countryman and a brother artist, a rascally thief and a German spy!”

“Don’t go,” suggested Fallowby.

“If I don’t they’ll shoot him at once.”

“Let them,” growled Thorne.

“Do you fellows know who it is?”

“Hartman!” shouted West, inspired.

Sylvia sprang up deathly white, but Odile slipped her arm around her and supported her to a chair, saying calmly, “Sylvia has fainted⁠—it’s the hot room⁠—bring some water.”

Trent brought it at once.

Sylvia opened her eyes, and after a moment rose, and supported by Marie Guernalec and Trent, passed into the bedroom.

It was the signal for breaking up, and everybody came and shook hands with Trent, saying they hoped Sylvia would sleep it off and that it would be nothing.

When Marie Guernalec took leave of him, she avoided his eyes, but he spoke to her cordially and thanked her for her aid.

“Anything I can do, Jack?” inquired West, lingering, and then hurried downstairs to catch up with the rest.

Trent leaned over the banisters, listening to their footsteps and chatter, and then the lower door banged and the house was silent. He lingered, staring down into the blackness, biting his lips; then with an impatient movement, “I am crazy!” he muttered, and lighting a candle, went into the bedroom. Sylvia was lying on the bed. He bent over her, smoothing the curly hair on her forehead.

“Are you better, dear Sylvia?”

She did not answer, but raised her eyes to his. For an instant he met her gaze, but what he read there sent a chill to his heart and he sat down covering his face with his hands.

At last she spoke in a voice, changed and strained⁠—a voice which he had never heard, and he dropped his hands and listened, bolt upright in his chair.

“Jack, it has come at last. I have feared it and trembled⁠—ah! how often have I lain awake at night with this on my heart and prayed that I might die before you should ever know of it! For I love you, Jack, and if you go away I cannot live. I have deceived you;⁠—it happened before I knew you, but since that first day when you found me weeping in the Luxembourg and spoke to me, Jack, I have been faithful to you in every thought and deed. I loved you from the first, and did not dare to tell you this⁠—fearing that you would go away; and since then my love has grown⁠—grown⁠—and oh! I suffered!⁠—but I dared not tell you. And now you know, but you do not know the worst. For him⁠—now⁠—what do I care? He was cruel⁠—oh, so cruel!”

She hid her face in her arms.

“Must I go on? Must I tell you⁠—can you not imagine, oh! Jack⁠—”

He did not stir; his eyes seemed dead.

“I⁠—I was so young, I knew nothing, and he said⁠—said that he loved me⁠—”

Trent rose and struck the candle with his clenched fist, and the room was dark.

The bells of St. Sulpice tolled the hour, and she started up, speaking with feverish haste⁠—“I must finish! When you told me you loved me⁠—you⁠—you asked me nothing; but then, even then, it was too late, and that other life which binds me to him, must stand forever between you and me! For there is another whom he has claimed, and is good to. He must not die⁠—they cannot shoot him, for that other’s sake!”

Trent sat motionless, but his thoughts ran on in an interminable whirl.

Sylvia, little Sylvia, who shared with him his student life⁠—who bore with him the dreary desolation of the siege without complaint⁠—this slender blue-eyed girl whom he was so quietly fond of, whom he teased or caressed as the whim suited, who sometimes made him the least bit impatient with her passionate devotion to him⁠—could this be the same Sylvia who lay weeping there in the darkness?

Then he clinched his teeth. “Let him die! Let him die!”⁠—but then⁠—for Sylvia’s sake, and⁠—for that other’s sake⁠—Yes, he would go⁠—he must go⁠—his duty was plain before him. But Sylvia⁠—he could not be what he had been to her, and yet a vague terror seized him, now all was said. Trembling, he struck a light.

She lay there, her curly hair tumbled about her face, her small white hands pressed to her breast.

He could not leave her, and he could not stay. He never knew before that he loved her. She had been a mere comrade, this girl wife of his. Ah! he loved her now