Captain de Sabron and Julia Redmond

HIS LOVE STORY

By

MARIE VAN VORST

Author of
First Love, The Girl From His Town
The Broken Bell, etc.

ILLUSTRATIONS BY
HOWARD CHANDLER CHRISTY

NEW YORK
GROSSET & DUNLAP
PUBLISHERS

Copyright 1913
The Bobbs-Merrill Company

To
Monsieur le Capitaine Dadvisard
de la Cavalerie Française
Paris, 1912

CONTENTS

Chapter

I [A Serious Event]
II [Julia Redmond]
III [A Second Invitation]
IV [The Dog Pays]
V [The Golden Autumn]
VI [Ordered Away]
VII [A Soldier's Dog]
VIII [Homesick]
IX [The Fortunes of War]
X [Together Again]
XI [A Sacred Trust]
XII [The News From Africa]
XIII [One Dog's Day]
XIV [An American Girl]
XV [Julia's Romance]
XVI [The Duke in Doubt]
XVII [Out of the Desert]
XVIII [Two Lovely Women]
XIX [The Man in Rags]
XX [Julia Decides]
XXI [Master and Friend]
XXII [Into the Desert]
XXIII [Two Love Stories]
XXIV [The Meeting]
XXV [As Handsome Does]
XXVI [Congratulations]
XXVII [Valor in Retrospect]
XXVIII [Happiness]

HIS LOVE STORY

CHAPTER I
A SERIOUS EVENT

Le Comte de Sabron, in the undress uniform of captain in the —— Cavalry, sat smoking and thinking.... What is the use of being thirty years old with the brevet of captain and much distinction of family if you are a poor man—in short, what is the good of anything if you are alone in the world and no one cares what becomes of you?

He rang his bell, and when his ordonnance appeared, said sharply:

"Que diable is the noise in the stable, Brunet? Don't you know that when I smoke at this hour all Tarascon must be kept utterly silent?"

Tarascon is never silent. No French meridional town is, especially in the warm sunlight of a glorious May day.

"The noise, mon Capitaine," said Brunet, "is rather melancholy."

"Melancholy!" exclaimed the young officer. "It's infernal. Stop it at once."

The ordonnance held his kepi in his hand. He had a round good-natured face and kind gray eyes that were used to twinkle at his master's humor and caprices.

"I beg pardon, mon Capitaine, but a very serious event is taking place."

"It will be more serious yet, Brunet, if you don't keep things quiet."

"I am sorry to tell, mon Capitaine, that Michette has just died."

"Michette!" exclaimed the master. "What relation is she of yours, Brunet?"

"Ah, mon Capitaine," grinned the ordonnance, "relation! None! It is the little terrier that Monsieur le Capitaine may have remarked now and then in the garden."

Sabron nodded and took his cigarette out of his mouth as though in respect for the deceased.

"Ah, yes," he said, "that melancholy little dog! Well, Brunet!"

"She has just breathed her last, mon Capitaine, and she is leaving behind her rather a large family."

"I am not surprised," said the officer.

"There are six," vouchsafed Brunet, "of which, if mon Capitaine is willing, I should like to keep one."

"Nonsense," said Sabron, "on no account. You know perfectly well, Brunet, that I don't surround myself with things that can make me suffer. I have not kept a dog in ten years. I try not to care about my horses even. Everything to which I attach myself dies or causes me regret and pain. And I won't have any miserable little puppy to complicate existence."

"Bien, mon Capitaine," accepted the ordonnance tranquilly. "I have given away five. The sixth is in the stable; if Monsieur le Capitaine would come down and look at it...."

Sabron rose, threw his cigarette away and, following across the garden in the bland May light, went into the stable where Madame Michette, a small wire-haired Irish terrier had given birth to a fine family and herself gone the way of those who do their duty to a race. In the straw at his feet Sabron saw a rat-like, unprepossessing little object, crawling about feebly in search of warmth and nourishment, uttering pitiful little cries. Its extreme loneliness and helplessness touched the big soldier, who said curtly to his man:

"Wrap it up, and if you don't know how to feed it I should not be surprised if I could induce it to take a little warm milk from a quill. At all events we shall have a try with it. Fetch it along to my rooms."

And as he retraced his steps, leaving his order to be executed, he thought to himself: The little beggar is not much more alone in the world than I am! As he said that he recalled a word in the meridional patois: Pitchouné, which means "poor little thing."

"I shall call it Pitchouné," he thought, "and we shall see if it can't do better than its name suggests."

He went slowly back to his rooms and busied himself at his table with his correspondence. Among the letters was an invitation from the Marquise d'Esclignac, an American married to a Frenchman, and the great lady of the country thereabouts.

"Will you not," she wrote, "come to dine with us on Sunday? I have my niece with me. She would be glad to see a French soldier. She has expressed such a wish. She comes from a country where soldiers are rare. We dine at eight."

Sabron looked at the letter and its fine clear handwriting. Its wording was less formal than a French invitation is likely to be, and it gave him a sense of cordiality. He had seen, during his rides, the beautiful lines of the Château d'Esclignac. Its turrets surely looked upon the Rhone. There would be a divine view from the terraces. It would be a pleasure to go there. He thought more of what the place would be than of the people in it, for he was something of a hermit, rather a recluse, and very reserved.

He was writing a line of acceptance when Brunet came in, a tiny bundle in his hand.

"Put Pitchouné over there in the sunlight," ordered the officer, "and we shall see if we can bring him up by hand."

CHAPTER II
JULIA REDMOND

He remembered all his life the first dinner at the Château d'Esclignac, where from the terrace he saw the Rhone lying under the early moonlight and the shadows falling around the castle of good King René.

As he passed in, his sword clanking—for he went in full dress uniform to dine with the Marquise d'Esclignac—he saw the picture the two ladies made in their drawing-room: the marquise in a very splendid dress (which he never could remember) and her niece, a young lady from a country whose name it took him long to learn to pronounce, in a dress so simple that of course he never could forget it! He remembered for a great many years the fall of the ribbon at her pretty waist, the bunch of sweet peas at her girdle, and he always remembered the face that made the charm of the picture.

Their welcome to him was gracious. The American girl spoke French with an accent that Sabron thought bewilderingly charming, and he put aside some of his reserve and laughed and talked at his ease. After dinner (this he remembered with peculiar distinctness) Miss Redmond sang for him, and although he understood none of the words of the English ballad, he learned the melody by heart and it followed with him when he left. It went with him as he crossed the terrace into the moonlight to mount his horse; it went home with him; he hummed it, and when he got up to his room he hummed it again as he bent over the little roll of flannel in the corner and fed the puppy hot milk from a quill.

This was a painstaking operation and required patience and delicacy, both of which the big man had at his finger-tips. The tune of Miss Redmond's song did for a lullaby and the puppy fell comfortably to sleep while Sabron kept the picture of his evening's outing contentedly in his mind. But later he discovered that he was not so contented, and counted the hours when he might return.

He shortly made a call at the Château d'Esclignac with the result that he had a new picture to add to his collection. This time it was the picture of a lady alone; the Marquise d'Esclignac doing tapestry. While Sabron found that he had grown reticent again, he listened for another step and another voice and heard nothing; but before he took leave there was a hint of a second invitation to dinner.

The marquise was very handsome that afternoon and wore yet another bewildering dress. Sabron's simple taste was dazzled. Nevertheless, she made a graceful picture, one of beauty and refinement, and the young soldier took it away with him. As his horse began to trot, at the end of the alley, near the poplars at the lower end of the rose terrace he caught a glimpse of a white dress (undoubtedly a simpler dress than that worn by Madame d'Esclignac).

CHAPTER III
A SECOND INVITATION

"I don't think, mon Capitaine, that it is any use," Brunet told his master.

Sabron, in his shirt-sleeves, sat before a table on which, in a basket, lay Michette's only surviving puppy. It was a month old. Sabron already knew how bright its eyes were and how alluring its young ways.

"Be still, Brunet," commanded the officer. "You do not come from the south or you would be more sanguine. Pitchouné has got to live."

The puppy's clumsy adventuresome feet had taken him as far as the highroad, and on this day, as it were in order that he should understand the struggle for existence, a bicycle had cut him down in the prime of his youth, and now, according to Brunet, "there wasn't much use!"

Pitchouné was bandaged around his hind quarters and his adorable little head and forepaws came out of the handkerchief bandage.

"He won't eat anything from me, mon Capitaine," said Brunet, and Sabron ceremoniously opened the puppy's mouth and thrust down a dose. Pitchouné swallowed obediently.

Sabron had just returned from a long hard day with his troops, and tired out as he was, he forced himself to give his attention to Pitchouné. A second invitation to dinner lay on his table; he had counted the days until this night. It seemed too good to be true, he thought, that another picture was to add itself to his collection! He had mentally enjoyed the others often, giving preference to the first, when he dined at the château; but there had been a thrill in the second caused by the fluttering of the white dress down by the poplar walk.

To-night he would have the pleasure of taking in Miss Redmond to dinner.

"See, mon Capitaine," said Brunet, "the poor little fellow can't swallow it."

The water trickled out from either side of Pitchouné's mouth. The sturdy terrier refused milk in all forms, had done so since Sabron weaned him; but Sabron now returned to his nursery days, made Brunet fetch him warm milk and, taking the quill, dropped a few drops of the soothing liquid, into which he put a dash of brandy, down Pitchouné's throat. Pitchouné swallowed, got the drink down. gave a feeble yelp, and closed his eyes. When he opened them the glazed look had gone.

The officer hurried into his evening clothes and ordered Brunet, as he tied his cravat, to feed the puppy a little of the stimulant every hour until he should return. Pitchouné's eyes, now open, followed his handsome master to the door. As Sabron opened it he gave a pathetic yelp which made the capitaine turn about.

"Believe me, mon Capitaine," said the ordonnance with melancholy fatality, "it is no use. If I am left with Pitchouné it will be to see him die. I know his spirit, mon Capitaine. He lives for you alone."

"Nonsense," said the young officer impatiently, drawing on his gloves.

Pitchouné gave a plaintive wail from the bandages and tried to stir.

"As for feeding him, mon Capitaine," the ordonnance threw up his hands, "he will be stiff by the time..."

But Sabron was half-way down the stairs. The door was open, and on the porch he heard distinctly a third tenderly pathetic wail.

* * * * * * *

That evening the Marquise d'Esclignac read aloud to her niece the news that the Count de Sabron was not coming to dinner. He was "absolutely desolated" and had no words to express his regret and disappointment. The pleasure of dining with them both, a pleasure to which he had looked forward for a fortnight, must be renounced because he was obliged to sit up with a very sick friend, as there was no one else to take his place. In expressing his undying devotion and his renewed excuses he put his homage at their feet and kissed their hands.

The Marquise d'Esclignac, wearing another very beautiful dress, looked up at her niece, who was playing at the piano.

"A very poor excuse, my dear Julia, and a very late one."

"It sounds true, however. I believe him, don't you, ma tante?"

"I do not," said the marquise emphatically. "A Frenchman of good education is not supposed to refuse a dinner invitation an hour before he is expected. Nothing but a case of life and death would excuse it."

"He says a Very sick friend.'"

"Nonsense," exclaimed the marquise.

Miss Redmond played a few bars of the tune Sabron had hummed and which more than once had soothed Pitchouné, and which, did she know, Sabron was actually humming at that moment.

"I am rather disappointed," said the young girl, "but if we find it is a matter of life and death, ma tante, we will forgive him?"

The Marquise d'Esclignac had invited the Count de Sabron because she had been asked to do so by his colonel, who was an old and valued friend. She had other plans for her niece.

"I feel, my dear," she answered her now, "quite safe in promising that if it is a question of life and death we shall forgive him. I shall see his colonel to-morrow and ask him pointblank."

Miss Redmond rose from the piano and came over to her aunt, for dinner had been announced.

"Well, what do you think," she slipped her hand in her aunt's arm, "really, what do you think could be the reason?"

"Please don't ask me," exclaimed the Marquise d'Esclignac impatiently. "The reasons for young men's caprices are sometimes just as well not inquired into."

If Sabron, smoking in his bachelor quarters, lonely and disappointed, watching with an extraordinary fidelity by his "sick friend," could have seen the two ladies at their grand solitary dinner, his unfilled place between them, he might have felt the picture charming enough to have added to his collection.

CHAPTER IV
THE DOG PAYS

Pitchouné repaid what was given him.

He did not think that by getting well, reserving the right for the rest of his life to a distinguished limp in his right leg, that he had done all that was expected of him. He developed an ecstatic devotion to the captain, impossible for any human heart adequately to return. He followed Sabron like a shadow and when he could not follow him, took his place on a chair in the window, there to sit, his sharp profile against the light, his pointed ears forward, watching for the uniform he knew and admired extravagantly.

Pitchouné was a thoroughbred, and every muscle and fiber showed it, every hair and point asserted it, and he loved as only thoroughbreds can. You may say what you like about mongrel attachments, the thoroughbred in all cases reserves his brilliancy for crises.

Sabron, who had only seen Miss Redmond twice and thought about her countless times, never quite forgave his friend for the illness that kept him from the château. There was in Sabron's mind, much as he loved Pitchouné, the feeling that if he had gone that night...

There was never another invitation!

"Voyons, mon cher," his colonel had said to him kindly the next time he met him, "what stupidity have you been guilty of at the Château d'Esclignac?"

Poor Sabron blushed and shrugged his shoulders.

"I assure you," said the colonel, "that I did you harm there without knowing it. Madame d'Esclignac, who is a very clever woman, asked me with interest and sympathy, who your 'very sick friend' could be. As no one was very sick according to my knowledge, I told her so. She seemed triumphant and I saw at once that I had put you in the wrong."

It would have been simple to have explained to the colonel, but Sabron, reticent and reserved, did not choose to do so. He made a very insufficient excuse, and the colonel, as well as the marquise, thought ill of him. He learned later, with chagrin, that his friends were gone from the Midi. Rooted to the spot himself by his duties, he could not follow them. Meanwhile Pitchouné thrived, grew, cheered his loneliness, jumped over a stick, learned a trick or two from Brunet and a great many fascinating wiles and ways, no doubt inherited from his mother. He had a sense of humor truly Irish, a power of devotion that we designate as "canine," no doubt because no member of the human race has ever deserved it.

CHAPTER V
THE GOLDEN AUTUMN

Sabron longed for a change with autumn, when the falling leaves made the roads golden roundabout the Château d'Esclignac. He thought he would like to go away. He rode his horse one day up to the property of the hard-hearted unforgiving lady and, finding the gate open, rode through the grounds up to the terrace. Seeing no one, he sat in his saddle looking over the golden country to the Rhone and the castle of the good King René, where the autumn mists were like banners floating from the towers.

There was a solitary beauty around the lovely place that spoke to the young officer with a sweet melancholy. He fancied that Miss Redmond must often have looked out from one of the windows, and he wondered which one. The terrace was deserted and leaves from the vines strewed it with red and golden specters. Pitchouné raced after them, for the wind started them flying, and he rolled his tawny little body over and over in the rustling leaves. Then a rabbit, which before the arrival of Sabron had been sitting comfortably on the terrace stones, scuttled away like mad, and Pitchouné, somewhat hindered by his limp, tore after it.

The deserted château, the fact that there was nothing in his military life beyond the routine to interest him now in Tarascon, made Sabron eagerly look forward to a change, and he waited for letters from the minister of war which would send him to a new post.

The following day after his visit to the château he took a walk, Pitchouné at his heels, and stood aside in the highroad to let a yellow motor pass him, but the yellow motor at that moment drew up to the side of the road while the chauffeur got out to adjust some portion of the mechanism. Some one leaned from the yellow motor window and Sabron came forward to speak to the Marquise d'Esclignac and another lady by her side.

"How do you do, Monsieur? Do you remember us?"

(Had he ever forgotten them?) He regretted so very much not having been able to dine with them in the spring.

"And your sick friend?" asked Madame d'Esclignac keenly, "did he recover?"

"Yes," said Sabron, and Miss Redmond, who leaned forward, smiled at him and extended her pretty hand. Sabron opened the motor door.

"What a darling dog!" Miss Redmond cried. "What a bewitching face he has! He's an Irish terrier, isn't he?"

Sabron called Pitchouné, who diverted his attention from the chauffeur to come and be hauled up by the collar and presented. Sabron shook off his reticence.

"Let me make a confession," he said with a courteous bow. "This is my 'very sick friend.' Pitchouné was at the point of death the night of your dinner and I was just leaving the house when I realized that the helpless little chap could not weather the breeze without me. He had been run over by a bicycle and he needed some very special care."

Miss Redmond's hand was on Pitchouné's head, between his pointed ears. She looked sympathetic. She looked amused. She smiled.

"It was a question of 'life and death,' wasn't it?" she said eagerly to Sabron.

"Really, it was just that," answered the young officer, not knowing how significant the words were to the two ladies.

Then Madame d'Esclignac knew that she was beaten and that she owed something and was ready to pay. The chauffeur got up on his seat and she asked suavely:

"Won't you let us take you home, Monsieur Sabron?"

He thanked them. He was walking and had not finished his exercise.

"At all events," she pursued, "now that your excuse is no longer a good one, you will come this week to dinner, will you not?"

He would, of course, and watched the yellow motor drive away in the autumn sunlight, wishing rather less for the order from the minister of war to change his quarters than he had before.

CHAPTER VI
ORDERED AWAY

He had received his letter from the minister of war. Like many things we wish for, set our hopes upon, when they come we find that we do not want them at any price. The order was unwelcome. Sabron was to go to Algiers.

Winter is never very ugly around Tarascon. Like a lovely bunch of fruit in the brightest corner of a happy vineyard, the Midi is sheltered from the rude experiences that the seasons know farther north. Nevertheless, rains and winds, sea-born and vigorous, had swept in and upon the little town. The mistral came whistling and Sabron, from his window, looked down on his little garden from which summer had entirely flown. Pitchouné, by his side, looked down as well, but his expression, different from his master's, was ecstatic, for he saw, sliding along the brick wall, a cat with which he was on the most excited terms. His body tense, his ears forward, he gave a sharp series of barks and little soft growls, while his master tapped the window-pane to the tune of Miss Redmond's song.

Although Sabron had heard it several times, he did not know the words or that they were of a semi-religious, extremely sentimental character which would have been difficult to translate into French. He did not know that they ran something like this:

"God keep you safe, my love,
All through the night;
Rest close in His encircling arms
Until the light."

And there was more of it. He only knew that there was a pathos in the tune which spoke to his warm heart; which caressed and captivated him and which made him long deeply for a happiness he thought it most unlikely he would ever know.

There had been many pictures added to his collection: Miss Redmond at dinner, Miss Julia Redmond—he knew her first name now—before the piano; Miss Redmond in a smart coat, walking with him down the alley, while Pitchouné chased flying leaves and apparitions of rabbits hither and thither.

The Count de Sabron had always dreaded just what happened to him. He had fallen in love with a woman beyond his reach, for he had no fortune whatsoever, nothing but his captain's pay and his hard soldier's life, a wanderer's life and one which he hesitated to ask a woman to share. In spite of the fact that Madame d'Esclignac was agreeable to him, she was not cordial, and he understood that she did not consider him a parti for her niece. Other guests, as well as he, had shared her hospitality. He had been jealous of them, though he could not help seeing Miss Redmond's preference for himself. Not that he wanted to help it. He recalled that she had really sung to him, decidedly walked by his side when there had been more than the quartette, and he felt, in short, her sympathy.

"Pitchouné," he said to his companion, "we are better off in Algiers, mon vieux. The desert is the place for us. We shall get rid of fancies there and do some hard fighting one way or another."

Pitchouné, whose eyes had followed the cat out of sight, sprang upon his master and seemed quite ready for the new departure.

"I shall at least have you," Sabron said. "It will be your first campaign. We shall have some famous runs and I shall introduce you to a camel and make you acquainted with several donkeys, not to speak of the historic Arab steeds. You will see, my friend, that there are other animals besides yourself in creation."

"A telegram for mon capitaine." Brunet came in with the blue envelope which Sabron tore open.

"You will take with you neither horses nor dogs."

It was an order from the minister of war, just such a one as was sent to some half-dozen other young officers, all of whom, no doubt, felt more or less discomfited.

Sabron twisted the telegram, put it in the fireplace and lighted his cigarette with it, watching Pitchouné who, finding himself a comfortable corner in the armchair, had settled down for a nap.

"So," nodded the young man aloud, "I shall not even have Pitchouné."

He smoked, musing. In the rigid discipline of his soldier's life he was used to obedience. His softened eyes, however, and his nervous fingers as they pulled at his mustache, showed that the command had touched him.

"What shall I do with you, old fellow?"

Sabron and Pitchouné

Although Sabron's voice was low, the dog, whose head was down upon his paws, turned his bright brown eyes on his master with so much confidence and affection that it completed the work. Sabron walked across the floor, smoking, the spurs on his heels clanking, the light shining on his brilliant boots and on his form. He was a splendid-looking man with race and breeding, and he combined with his masculine force the gentleness of a woman.

"They want me to be lonely," he thought. "All that the chiefs consider is the soldier—not the man—even the companionship of my dog is denied me. What do they think I am going to do out there in the long eastern evenings?" He reflected. "What does the world expect an uncompanioned wanderer to do?" There are many things and the less thought about them, the better.

"A letter for Monsieur le Capitaine." Brunet returned with a note which he presented stiffly, and Pitchouné, who chose in his little brain to imagine Brunet an intruder, sprang from the chair like lightning, rushed at the servant, seized the leg of his pantaloons and began to worry them, growling, Brunet regarding him with adoration. Sabron had not thought aloud the last words of the telegram, which he had used to light his cigarette.

"... Nor will it be necessary to take a personal servant. The indigenes are capable ordonnances."

As he took the letter from Brunet's salver he said curtly:

"I am ordered to Algiers and I shall not take horses nor Pitchouné."

The dog, at the mention of his name, set Brunet's leg free and stood quiet, his head lifted.

"Nor you either, mon brave Brunet." Sabron put his hand on his servant's shoulder, the first familiarity he had ever shown a man who served him with devotion, and who would have given his life to save his master's. "Those," said the officer curtly, "are the orders from headquarters, and the least said about them the better."

The ruddy cheek of the servant turned pale. He mechanically touched his forehead.

"Bien, mon Capitaine," he murmured, with a little catch in his voice. He stood at attention, then wheeled and without being dismissed, stalked out of the room.

Pitchouné did not follow. He remained immovable like a little dog cut from bronze; he understood—who shall say—how much of the conversation? Sabron threw away his cigarette, then read his letter by the mantelpiece, leaning his arm upon it. He read slowly. He had broken the seal slowly. It was the first letter he had ever seen in this handwriting. It was written in French and ran thus:

"Monsieur:—My aunt wishes me to ask you if you will come to us for a little musicale to-morrow afternoon. We hope you will be free, and I hope," she added, "that you will bring Pitchouné. Not that I think he will care for the music, but afterward perhaps he will run with us as we walk to the gate. My aunt wishes me to say that she has learned from the colonel that you have been ordered to Algiers. In this way she says that we shall have an opportunity of wishing you bon voyage, and I say I hope Pitchouné will be a comfort to you."

The letter ended in the usual formal French fashion. Sabron, turning the letter and rereading it, found that it completed the work that had been going on in his lonely heart. He stood long, musing.

Pitchouné laid himself down on the rug, his bright little head between his paws, his affectionate eyes on his master. The firelight shone on them both, the musing young officer and the almost human-hearted little beast. So Brunet found them when he came in with the lamp shortly, and as he set it down on the table and its light shone on him, Sabron, glancing at the ordonnance, saw that his eyes were red, and liked him none the less for it.

CHAPTER VII
A SOLDIER'S DOG

"It is just as I thought," he told Pitchouné. "I took you into my life, you little rascal, against my will, and now, although it's not your fault, you are making me regret it. I shall end, Pitchouné, by being a cynic and misogynist, and learn to make idols of my career and my troops alone. After all, they may be tiresome, but they don't hurt as you do, and some other things as well."

Pitchouné, being invited to the musicale at the Château d'Esclignac, went along with his master, running behind the captain's horse. It was a heavenly January day, soft and mild, full of sunlight and delicious odors, and over the towers of King René's castle the sky banners were made of celestial blue.

The officer found the house full of people. He thought it hard that he might not have had one more intimate picture to add to his collection. When he entered the room a young man was playing a violoncello. There was a group at the piano, and among the people the only ones he clearly saw were the hostess, Madame d'Esclignac in a gorgeous velvet frock, then Miss Redmond, who stood by the window, listening to the music. She saw him come in and smiled to him, and from that moment his eyes hardly left her.

What the music was that afternoon the Count de Sabron could not have told very intelligently. Much of it was sweet, all of it was touching, but when Miss Redmond stood to sing and chose the little song of which he had made a lullaby, and sang it divinely, Sabron, his hands clasped behind his back and his head a little bent, still looking at her, thought that his heart would break. It was horrible to go away and not tell her. It was cowardly to feel so much and not be able to speak of it. And he felt that he might be equal to some wild deed, such as crossing the room violently, putting his hand over her slender one and saying:

"I am a soldier; I have nothing but a soldier's life. I am going to Africa to-morrow. Come with me; I want you. Come!"

All of which, slightly impossible and quite out of the question, nevertheless charmed and soothed him. The words of her English song, almost barbaric to him because incomprehensible, fell on his ears. Its melody was already part of him.

"Monsieur de Sabron," said Madame d'Esclignac, "you are going away to-morrow?"

"Yes, Madame."

"I expect you will be engaged in some awful native skirmishes. Perhaps you will even be able to send back a tiger skin."

"There are no tigers in that part of Africa, Madame."

The young soldier's dark eyes rested almost hostilely on the gorgeous marquise in her red gown. He felt that she was glad to have him go. He wanted to say: "I shall come back, however; I shall come back and when I return" ... but he knew that such a boast, or even such a hope was fruitless.

His colonel had told him only the day before that Miss Redmond was one of the richest American heiresses, and there was a question of a duke or a prince and heaven only knew what in the way of titles. As the marquise moved away her progress was something like the rolling of an elegant velvet chair, and while his feelings were still disturbed Miss Redmond crossed the room to him. Before Sabron quite knew how they had been able to escape the others or leave the room, he was standing with her in the winter garden where the sunlight came in through trellises and the perfume of the warmed plants was heavy and sweet. Below them flowed the Rhone, golden in the winter's light. The blue river swept its waves around old Tarascon and the battlements of King René's towers.

"You are going to Algiers to-morrow, Monsieur de Sabron?" Miss Redmond smiled, and how was Sabron to realize that she could not very well have wept there and then, had she wished to do so?

"Yes," he said. "I adore my regiment. I love my work. I have always wanted to see colonial service."

"Have you? It is delightful to find one's ambitions and desires satisfied," said Miss Redmond. "I have always longed to see the desert. It must be beautiful. Of course you are going to take Pitchouné?"

"Ah!" exclaimed Sabron, "that is just what I am not going to do."

"What!" she cried. "You are never going to leave that darling dog behind you?"

"I must, unfortunately. My superior officers do not allow me to take horses or dogs, or even my servant."

"Heavens!" she exclaimed. "What brutes they are! Why, Pitchouné will die of a broken heart." Then she said: "You are leaving him with your man servant?"

Sabron shook his head.

"Brunet would not be able to keep him."

"Ah!" she breathed. "He is looking for a home? Is he? If so, would you ... might I take care of Pitchouné?"

The Frenchman impulsively put out his hand, and she laid her own in it.

"You are too good," he murmured. "Thank you. Pitchouné will thank you."

He kissed her hand. That was all.

From within the salon came the noise of voices, and the bow of the violoncellist was beginning a new concerto. They stood looking at each other. No condition could have prevented it although the Marquise d'Esclignac was rolling toward them across the polished floor of the music-room. As though Sabron realized that he might never see this lovely young woman again, probably never would see her, and wanted before he left to have something made clear, he asked quickly:

"Could you, Mademoiselle, in a word or two tell me the meaning of the English song you sang?"

She flushed and laughed slightly.

"Well, it is not very easy to put it in prose," she hesitated. "Things sound so differently in music and poetry; but it means," she said in French, bravely, "why, it is a sort of prayer that some one you love very much should be kept safe night and day. That's about all. There is a little sadness in it, as though," and her cheeks glowed, "as if there was a sort of separation. It means..."

"Ah!" breathed the officer deeply, "I understand. Thank you."

And just then Madame d'Esclignac rolled up between them and with an unmistakable satisfaction presented to her niece the gentleman she had secured.

"My dear Julia, my godson, the Duc de Tremont." And Sabron bowed to both the ladies, to the duke, and went away.

This was the picture he might add to his collection: the older woman in her vivid dress, Julia in her simpler gown, and the titled Frenchman bowing over her hand.

When he went out to the front terrace Brunet was there with his horse, and Pitchouné was there as well, stiffly waiting at attention.

"Brunet," said the officer to his man, "will you take Pitchouné around to the servants' quarters and give him to Miss Redmond's maid? I am going to leave him here."

"Good, mon Capitaine," said the ordonnance, and whistled to the dog.

Pitchouné sprang toward his master with a short sharp bark. What he understood would be hard to say, but all that he wanted to do was to remain with Sabron. Sabron bent down and stroked him.

"Go, my friend, with Brunet. Go, mon vieux, go," he commanded sternly, and the little dog, trained to obedience as a soldier's dog should be, trotted reluctantly at the heels of the ordonnance, and the soldier threw his leg over the saddle and rode away. He rode regardless of anything but the fact that he was going.

CHAPTER VIII
HOMESICK

Pitchouné was a soldier's dog, born in a stable, of a mother who had been dear to the canteen. Michette had been une vrai vivandière, a real daughter of the regiment.

Pitchouné was a worthy son. He adored the drums and trumpets. He adored the fife. He adored the drills which he was accustomed to watch from a respectable distance. He liked Brunet, and the word had not yet been discovered which would express how he felt toward Monsieur le Capitaine, his master. His muscular little form expressed it in every fiber. His brown eyes looked it until their pathos might have melted a heart of iron.

There was nothing picturesque to Pitchouné in the Château d'Esclignac or in the charming room to which he was brought. The little dog took a flying tour around it, over sofas and chairs, landing on the window-seat, where he crouched. He was not wicked, but he was perfectly miserable, and the lovely wiles of Julia Redmond and her endearments left him unmoved. He refused meat and drink, was indifferent to the views from the window, to the beautiful view of King René's castle, to the tantalizing cat sunning herself against the wall. He flew about like mad, leaving destruction in his wake, tugged at the leash when they took him out for exercise. In short, Pitchouné was a homesick, lovesick little dog, and thereby endeared himself more than ever to his new mistress. She tied a ribbon around his neck, which he promptly chewed and scratched off. She tried to feed him with her own fair hands; he held his head high, looked bored and grew thin in the flanks.

"I think Captain de Sabron's little dog is going to die, ma tante," she told her aunt.

"Fiddlesticks, my dear Julia! Keep him tied up until he is accustomed to the place. It won't hurt him to fast; he will eat when he is hungry. I have a note from Robert. He has not gone to Monte Carlo."

"Ah!" breathed Miss Redmond indifferently.

She slowly went over to her piano and played a few measures of music that were a torture to Pitchouné, who found these ladylike performances in strong contrast to drums and trumpets. He felt himself as a soldier degraded and could not understand why he should be relegated to a salon and to the mild society of two ladies who did not even know how to pull his ears or roll him over on the rug with their riding boots and spurs. He sat against the window as was his habit, looking, watching, yearning.

"Vous avez tort, ma chère," said her aunt, who was working something less than a thousand flowers on her tapestry. "The chance to be a princess and a Tremont does not come twice in a young girl's life, and you know you have only to be reasonable, Julia."

Miss Redmond's fingers wandered, magnetically drawn by her thoughts, into a song which she played softly through. Pitchouné heard and turned his beautiful head and his soft eyes to her. He knew that tune. Neither drums nor trumpets had played it but there was no doubt about its being fit for soldiers. He had heard his master sing it, hum it, many times. It had soothed his nerves when he was a sick puppy and it went with many things of the intimate life with his master. He remembered it when he had dozed by the fire and dreamed of chasing cats and barking at Brunet and being a faithful dog all around; he heard again a beloved voice hum it to him. Pitchouné whined and softly jumped down from his seat. He put his forepaws on Miss Redmond's lap. She stopped and caressed him, and he licked her hand.

"That is the first time I have seen that dog show a spark of human gratitude, Julia, He is probably begging you to open the door and let him take a run."

Indeed Pitchouné did go to the door and waited appealingly.

"I think you might trust him out. I think he is tamed," said the Marquise d'Esclignac. "He is a real little savage."

Miss Redmond opened the door and Pitchouné shot out. She watched him tear like mad across the terrace, and scuttle into the woods, as she thought, after a rabbit. He was the color of the fallen leaves and she lost sight of him in the brown and golden brush.

CHAPTER IX
THE FORTUNES OF WAR

Sabron's departure had been delayed on account of a strike at the dockyards of Marseilles. He left Tarascon one lovely day toward the end of January and the old town with its sweetness and its sorrow, fell behind, as he rolled away to brighter suns. A friend from Paris took him to the port in his motor and there Sabron waited some forty-eight hours before he set sail. His boat lay out on the azure water, the brown rocks of the coast behind it. There was not a ripple on the sea. There was not a breeze to stir as he took the tug which was to convey him. He was inclined to dip his fingers in the indigo ocean, sure that he would find them blue. He climbed up the ladder alongside of the vessel, was welcomed by the captain, who knew him, and turned to go below, for he had been suffering from an attack of fever which now and then laid hold of him, ever since his campaign in Morocco.

Therefore, as he went into his cabin, which he did not leave until the steamer touched Algiers, he failed to see the baggage tender pull up and failed to see a sailor climb to the deck with a wet bedraggled thing in his hand that looked like an old fur cap except that it wriggled and was alive.

"This, mon commandant," said the sailor to the captain, "is the pluckiest little beast I ever saw."

He dropped a small terrier on the deck, who proceeded to shake himself vigorously and bark with apparent delight.

"No sooner had we pushed out from the quay than this little beggar sprang from the pier and began to swim after us. He was so funny that we let him swim for a bit and then we hauled him in. It is evidently a mascot, mon commandant, evidently a sailor dog who has run away to sea."

The captain looked with interest at Pitchouné, who engaged himself in making his toilet and biting after a flea or two which had not been drowned.

"We sailors," said the man saluting, "would like to keep him for luck, mon commandant."

"Take him down then," his superior officer ordered, "and don't let him up among the passengers."

* * * * * * *

It was a rough voyage. Sabron passed his time saying good-by to France and trying to keep his mind away from the Château d'Esclignac, which persisted in haunting his uneasy slumber. In a blaze of sunlight, Algiers, the white city, shone upon them on the morning of the third day and Sabron tried to take a more cheerful view of a soldier's life and fortunes.

He was a soldierly figure and a handsome one as he walked down the gangplank to the shore to be welcomed by fellow officers who were eager to see him, and presently was lost in the little crowd that streamed away from the docks into the white city.

CHAPTER X
TOGETHER AGAIN

That night after dinner and a cigarette, he strode into the streets to distract his mind with the sight of the oriental city and to fill his ears with the eager cries of the crowd. The lamps flickered. The sky overhead was as blue nearly as in daytime. He walked leisurely toward the native quarter, jostled, as he passed, by men in their brilliant costumes and by a veiled woman or two.

He stopped indifferently before a little café, his eyes on a Turkish bazaar where velvets and scarfs were being sold at double their worth under the light of a flaming yellow lamp. As he stood so, his back to the café where a number of the ship's crew were drinking, he heard a short sharp sound that had a sweet familiarity about it and whose individuality made him start with surprise. He could not believe his ears. He heard the bark again and then he was sprung upon by a little body that ran out from between the legs of a sailor who sat drinking his coffee and liquor.

"Gracious heavens!" exclaimed Sabron, thinking that he must be the victim of a hashish dream. "Pitchouné!"

The dog fawned on him and whined, crouched at his feet whining—like a child. Sabron bent and fondled him. The sailor from the table called the dog imperatively, but Pitchouné would have died at his master's feet rather than return. If his throat could have uttered words he would have spoken, but his eyes spoke. They looked as though they were tearful.

"Pitchouné, mon vieux! No, it can't be Pitchouné. But it is Pitchouné!" And Sabron took him up in his arms. The dog tried to lick his face.

"Voyons," said the officer to the marine, who came rolling over to them, "where did you get this dog?"

The young man's voice was imperative and he fixed stern eyes on the sailor, who pulled his forelock and explained.

"He was following me," said Sabron, not without a slight catch in his voice. The body of Pitchouné quivered under his arm. "He is my dog. I think his manner proves it. If you have grown fond of him I am sorry for you, but I think you will have to give him up."

Sabron put his hand in his pocket and turned a little away to be free of the native crowd that, chattering and grinning, amused and curious and eager to participate in any distribution of coin, was gathering around him. He found two gold pieces which he put into the hand of the sailor.

"Thank you for taking care of him. I am at the Royal Hotel." He nodded, and with Pitchouné under his arm pushed his way through the crowd and out of the bazaar.

He could not interview the dog himself, although he listened, amused, to Pitchouné's own manner of speech. He spent the latter part of the evening composing a letter to the minister of war, and although it was short, it must have possessed certain evident and telling qualities, for before he left Algiers proper for the desert, Sabron received a telegram much to the point:

"You may keep your dog. I congratulate you on such a faithful companion."

CHAPTER XI
A SACRED TRUST

His eyes had grown accustomed to the glare of the beautiful sands, but his sense of beauty was never satisfied with looking at the desert picture and drinking in the glory and the loveliness of the melancholy waste. Standing in the door of his tent in fatigue uniform, he said to Pitchouné:

"I could be perfectly happy here if I were not alone."

Pitchouné barked. He had not grown accustomed to the desert. He hated it. It slipped away from under his little feet; he could not run on it with any comfort. He spent his days idly in his master's tent or royally perched on a camel, crouching close to Sabron's man servant when they went on caravan explorations.

"Yes," said Sabron, "if I were not alone. I don't mean you, mon vieux. You are a great deal, but you really don't count, you know."

Before his eyes the sands were as pink as countless rose leaves. To Sabron they were as fragrant as flowers. The peculiar incense-like odor that hovers above the desert when the sun declines was to him the most delicious thing he had ever inhaled. All the west was as red as fire. The day had been hot and there came up the cool breeze that would give them a delicious night. Overhead, one by one, he watched the blossoming out of the great stars; each one hung above his lonely tent like a bridal flower in a veil of blue. On all sides, like white petals on the desert face, were the tents of his men and his officers, and from the encampment came the hum of military life, yet the silence to him was profound. He had only to order his stallion saddled and to ride away for a little distance in order to be alone with the absolute stillness.

This he often did and took his thoughts with him and came back to his tent more conscious of his solitude every night of his life.

There had been much looting of caravans in the region by brigands, and his business was that of sentinel for the commerce of the plains. Thieving and rapacious tribes were under his eye and his care. To-night, as he stood looking toward the west into the glow, shading his eyes with his hand, he saw coming toward them what he knew to be a caravan from Algiers. His ordonnance was a native soldier, one of the desert tribes, black as ink, and scarcely more child-like than Brunet and presumably as devoted.

"Mustapha," Sabron ordered, "fetch me out a lounge chair." He spoke in French and pointed, for the man understood imperfectly and Sabron did not yet speak Arabic.

He threw himself down, lighted a fresh cigarette, dragged Pitchouné by the nape of his neck up to his lap, and the two sat watching the caravan slowly grow into individuals of camels and riders and finally mass itself in shadow within some four or five hundred yards of the encampment.

The sentinels and the soldiers began to gather and Sabron saw a single footman making his way toward the camp.

"Go," he said to Mustapha, "and see what message the fellow brings to the regiment."

Mustapha went, and after a little returned, followed by the man himself, a black-bearded, half-naked Bedouin, swathed in dust-colored burnoose and carrying a bag.

He bowed to Captain de Sabron and extended the leather bag. On the outside of the leather there was a ticket pasted, which read:

"The Post for the —— Squadron of Cavalry—"

Sabron added mentally:

"—wherever it may happen to be!"

He ordered bakshish given to the man and sent him off. Then he opened the French mail. He was not more than three hundred miles from Algiers. It had taken him a long time to work down to Dirbal, however, and they had had some hardships. He felt a million miles away. The look of the primitive mail-bag and the knowledge of how far it had traveled to find the people to whom these letters were addressed made his hands reverent as he unfastened the sealed labels. He looked the letters through, returned the bag to Mustapha and sent him off to distribute the post.

Then, for the light was bad, brilliant though the night might be, he went into his tent with his own mail. On his dressing-table was a small illumination consisting of a fat candle set in a glass case. The mosquitoes and flies were thick around it. Pitchouné followed him and lay down on a rush mat by the side of Sabron's military bed, while the soldier read his letter.

"Monsieur:—

"I regret more than ever that I can not write your language perfectly. But even in my own I could not find any word to express how badly I feel over something which has happened.

"I took the best of care of Pitchouné. I thought I did, but I could not make him happy. He mourned terribly. He refused to eat, and one day I was so careless as to open the door for him and we have never seen him since. As far as I know he has not been found. Your man, Brunet, comes sometimes to see my maid, and he thinks he has been hurt and died in the woods."

Sabron glanced over to the mat where Pitchouné, stretched on his side, his forelegs wide, was breathing tranquilly in the heat.

"We have heard rumors of a little dog who was seen running along the highway, miles from Tarascon, but of course that could not have been Pitchouné."

Sabron nodded. "It was, however, mon brave," he said to the terrier.

"Not but what I think his little heart was brave enough and valiant enough to have followed you, but no dog could go so far without a better scent."

Sabron said: "It is one of the regrets of my life that you can not tell us about it. How did you get the scent? How did you follow me?" Pitchouné did not stir, and Sabron's eyes returned to the page.

"I do not think you will ever forgive us. You left us a trust and we did not guard it."

He put the letter down a moment, brushed some of the flies away from the candle and made the wick brighter. Mustapha came in, black as ebony, his woolly head bare. He stood as stiff as a ramrod and as black. In his child-like French he said:

"Monsieur le Lieutenant asks if Monsieur le Capitaine will come to play a game of carté in the mess tent?"

"No," said Sabron, without turning. "Not to-night." He went on with his letter:

"... a sacred trust."

Half aloud he murmured: "I left a very sacred trust at the Château d'Esclignac, Mademoiselle; but as no one knew anything about it there will be no question of guarding it, I dare say."

"... So I write you this letter to tell you about darling Pitchouné. I had grown to love him though he did not like me. I miss him terribly.... My aunt asks me to say that she hopes you had a fine crossing and that you will send us a tiger skin; but I am sure there are no tigers near Algiers. I say..."

And Sabron did not know how long Miss Redmond's pen had hesitated in writing the closing lines:

"... I say I hope you will be successful and that although nothing can take the place of Pitchouné, you will find some one to make the desert less solitary.
"Sincerely yours,
"JULIA REDMOND."

When Sabron had read the letter several times he kissed it fervently and put it in his pocket next his heart.

"That," he said to Pitchouné, making the dog an unusual confidence, "that will keep me less lonely. At the same time it makes me more so. This is a paradox, mon vieux, which you can not understand."

CHAPTER XII
THE NEWS FROM AFRICA

It took the better part of three evenings to answer her letter, and the writing of it gave Sabron a vast amount of pleasure and some tender sorrow. It made him feel at once so near to this lovely woman and at once so far away. In truth there is a great difference between a spahi on an African desert, and a young American heiress dreaming in her chintz-covered bedroom in a château in the Midi of France.

Notwithstanding, the young American heiress felt herself as much alone in her chintz-covered bedroom and as desolate, perhaps more so, than did Sabron in his tent. Julia Redmond felt, too, that she was surrounded by people hostile to her friend.

Sabron's letter told her of Pitchouné and was written as only the hand of a charming and imaginative Frenchman can write a letter. Also, his pent-up heart and his reserve made what he did say stronger than if perhaps he could have expressed it quite frankly.

Julia Redmond turned the sheets that told of Pitchouné's following his master, and colored with joy and pleasure as she read. She wiped away two tears at the end, where Sabron said:

"Think of it, Mademoiselle, a little dog following his master from peace and plenty, from quiet and security, into the desert! And think what it means to have this little friend!"

Julia Redmond reflected, was greatly touched and loved Pitchouné more than ever. She would have changed places with him gladly. It was an honor, a distinction to share a soldier's exile and to be his companion. Then Sabron wrote, in closing words which she read and reread many, many times.

"Mademoiselle, in this life many things follow us; certain of these follow us whether we will or not. Some things we are strong enough to forbid, yet we do not forbid them! My little dog followed me; I had nothing to do with that. It was a question of fate. Something else has followed me as well. It is not a living thing, and yet it has all the qualities of vitality. It is a tune. From the moment I left the château the first night I had the joy of seeing you, Mademoiselle, the tune you sang became a companion to me and has followed me everywhere ... followed me to my barracks, followed me across the sea, and here in my tent it keeps me company. I find that when I wake at night the melody sings to me; I find that when I mount my horse and ride with my men, when the desert's sands are shifted by my horse's feet, something sings in the sun and in the heat, something sings in the chase and in the pursuit, and in the nights, under the stars, the same air haunts me still.

"I am glad you told me what the words mean, for I find them beautiful; the music in it would not be the same without the strength and form of the words. So it is, Mademoiselle, with life. Feelings and sentiments, passions and emotions, are like music. They are great and beautiful; they follow us, they are part of us, but they would be nothing—music would be nothing without forms by which we could make it audible—appealing not to our senses alone but to our souls!

"And yet I must close my letter sending you only the tune; the words I can not send you, yet believe me, they form part of everything I do or say.

"To-morrow, I understand from my men, we shall have some lively work to do. Whatever that work is you will hear of it through the papers. There is a little town near here called Dirbal, inhabited by a poor tribe whose lives have been made miserable by robbers and slave-dealers. It is the business of us watchers of the plains to protect them, and I believe we shall have a lively skirmish with the marauders. There is a congregation of tribes coming down from the north. When I go out with my people to-morrow it may be into danger, for in a wandering life like this, who can tell? I do not mean to be either morbid or sentimental. I only mean to be serious, Mademoiselle, and I find that I am becoming so serious that it will be best to close.

"Adieu, Mademoiselle. When you look from your window on the Rhone Valley and see the peaceful fields of Tarascon, when you look on your peaceful gardens, perhaps your mind will travel farther and you will think of Africa. Do so if you can, and perhaps to-night you will say the words only of the song before you go to sleep.

"I am, Mademoiselle,
"Faithfully yours,
"CHARLES DE SABRON."

There was only one place for a letter such as that to rest, and it rested on that gentle pillow for many days. It proved a heavy weight against Julia Redmond's heart. She could, indeed, speak the words of the song, and did, and they rose as a nightly prayer for a soldier on the plains; but she could not keep her mind and thoughts at rest. She was troubled and unhappy; she grew pale and thin; she pined more than Pitchouné had pined, and she, alas! could not break her chains and run away.

The Duc de Tremont was a constant guest at the house, but he found the American heiress a very capricious and uncertain lady, and Madame d'Esclignac was severe with her niece.

"My dear Julia," she said to the beautiful girl, looking at her through her lorgnon; "I don't understand you. Every one of your family has married a title. We have not thought that we could do better with our money than build up fortunes already started; than in preserving noble races and noble names. There has never been a divorce in our family. I am a marquise, your cousin is a countess, your aunt is one of the peeresses of England, and as for you, my dear..."

Miss Redmond was standing by the piano. She had lifted the cover and was about to sit down to play. She smiled slightly at her aunt, and seemed in the moment to be the older woman.

"There are titles and titles, ma tante: the only question is what kind do you value the most?"

"The highest!" said her aunt without hesitation, "and the Duc de Tremont is undoubtedly one of the most famous partis in Europe."

"He will then find no difficulty in marrying," said the young girl, "and I do not wish to marry a man I do not love."

She sat down at the piano and her hands touched the keys. Her aunt, who was doing some dainty tapestry, whose fingers were creating silken flowers and whose mind was busy with fancies and ambitions very like the work she created, shrugged her shoulders.

"That seems to be," she said keenly, "the only tune you know, Julia."

"It's a pretty song, ma tante."