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A Pagan Of The South
by
Shorland had been much more communicative than was his custom. But he knew men. This man had done him a service, and that made towards friendship on both sides. He was an officer and a gentleman, and so he showed his hand. Then he wanted information and perhaps much more, though what that would be he could not yet tell.
M. Barre had smoked cigarettes freely during Shorland’s narrative. At the end he said with peculiar emphasis: “Your friend’s wife was surely a Frenchwoman?”
“Yes.”
“Was her name Laroche?”
“Yes, that was it. Do you think that Lucile Laroche and Gabrielle–!”
“That Lucile Laroche and Gabrielle Rouget are one? Yes. But that Lucile Laroche was the wife of your friend? Well, that is another matter. But we shall see soon. Listen. A scoundrel, Henri Durien, was sent out here for killing an American at cards. The jury called it murder, but recommended him to mercy, and he escaped the guillotine. He had the sympathy of the women, the Press did not deal hardly with him, and the Public Prosecutor did not seem to push the case as he might have done. But that was no matter to us. The woman, Gabrielle Rouget, followed him here, where he is a prisoner for life. He is engaged in road-making with other prisoners. She keeps the Cafe Voisin. Now here is the point which concerns your story. Once, when Gabrielle was permitted to see Henri, they quarrelled. I was acting as governor of the prison at the time, saw the meeting and heard the quarrel. No one else was near. Henri accused her of being intimate with a young officer of the post. I am sure there was no truth in it, for Gabrielle does not have followers of that kind. But Henri had got the idea from some source; perhaps by the convicts’ ‘Underground Railway,’ which has connection even with the Hotel du Gouverneur. Through it the prisoners know all that is going on, and more. In response to Henri’s accusation Gabrielle replied: ‘As I live, Henri, it is a lie.’ He sardonically rejoined: ‘But you do not live. You are dead, dead I tell you. You were found drowned and carried to the Morgue and properly identified–not by me, curse you, Lucile Laroche. And then you were properly buried, and not by me either, nor at my cost, curse you again. You are dead, I tell you!’ She looked at him as she looked at you the other day, dazed and spectre-like, and said: ‘Henri, I gave up my life once to a husband to please my brother.
“He was a villain, my brother. I gave it up a second time to please you, and because I loved you. I left behind me name, fortune, Paris, France, everything, to follow you here. I was willing to live here, while you lived, or till you should be free. And you curse me–you dare to curse me! Now I will give you some cause to curse. You are a devil–I am a sinner. Henceforth I shall be devil and sinner too.’ With that she left him. Since then she has been both devil and sinner, but not in the way he meant; simply a danger to the safety of this dangerous community; a Louise Michel–we had her here too!–without Louise Michel’s high motives. Gabrielle Rouget may cause a revolt of the convicts some day, to secure the escape of Henri Durien, or to give them all a chance. The Governor does not believe it, but I do. You noticed what I said about the Morgue, and that?”
Shorland paced up and down the room for a time, and then said: “Great heaven, suppose that by some hideous chance this woman, Gabrielle Rouget, or Lucile Laroche, should prove to be Freeman’s wife! The evidence is so overwhelming. There evidently was some trick, some strange mistake, about the Morgue and the burial. This is the fourteenth of January; Freeman is to be married on the twenty-sixth! Monsieur, if this woman should be his wife, there never was brewed an uglier scrape. There is Freeman–that’s pitiful; there is Clare Hazard–that’s pitiful and horrible. For nothing can be done; no cables from here, the Belle Sauvage gone, no vessels or sails for two weeks. Ah well, there’s only one thing to do–find out the truth from Gabrielle if I can, and trust in Providence.”