Chapter VIII - Page 2

"Do not say one word," she said solemnly in English. "It will make you ver' sick."

It was the first effort of either of them to address me in English. As I soon knew, the warning had exhausted her vocabulary. The baroness went below in a moment. Then the one who had spoken came over and sat near me, smiling.

"She does not know you can speak French," said she, whispering and addressing me in her native tongue, as the other tiptoed to the door. "On your life, do not let her know. She will never permit us to see you. She will keep us under lock and key. She knows we cannot speak English, so she thinks we cannot talk with you. It is a great lark. Are you better?"

What was I to do under orders from such authority? As they bade me, I hope you will say, for that is what I did. I had no easy conscience about it, I must own. Day after day I took my part in the little comedy. They came in Quaker-faced if the baroness were at hand, never speaking, except to her, until she had gone. Then--well, such animation, such wit, such bright eyes, such brilliancy, I have never seen or heard.

My wound was healing. War and stern duty were as things of the far past. The grand passion had hold of me. I tried to fight it down, to shake it off, but somehow it had the claws of a tiger. There was an odd thing about it all: I could not for the life of me tell which of the two charming girls I loved the better. It may seem incredible; I could not understand it myself. They looked alike, and yet they were quite different. Louison was a year older and of stouter build. She had more animation also, and always a quicker and perhaps a brighter answer. The other had a face more serious, albeit no less beautiful, and a slower tongue. She had little to say, but her silence had much in it to admire, and, indeed, to remember. They appealed to different men in me with equal force, I did not then know why. A perplexing problem it was, and I had to think and suffer much before I saw the end of it, and really came to know what love is and what it is not.

[Illustration: "I could not for the life of me tell which of the two charming girls I loved the better."]

Shortly I was near the end of this delightful season of illness. I had been out of bed a week. The baroness had read to me every day, and had been so kind that I felt a great shame for my part in our deception. Every afternoon she was off in a boat or in her caleche, and had promised to take me with her as soon as I was able to go.

"You know," said she, "I am going to make you to stay here a full month. I have the consent of the general."

I had begun to move about a little and enjoy the splendor of that forest home. There were, indeed, many rare and priceless things in it that came out of her chateau in France. She had some curious old clocks, tokens of ancestral taste and