“Here,” he said, “you’ve missed this.”
It was a little case in plaited straw, which had also come open; the beads of a rosary protruded from it.
They both stood up in silence. Captain Belval examined the rosary.
“What a curious coincidence!” he muttered. “These amethyst beads! This old-fashioned gold filigree setting! … It’s strange to find the same materials and the same workmanship. …”
He gave a start, and it was so marked that Coralie asked:
“Why, what’s the matter?”
He was holding in his fingers a bead larger than most of the others, forming a link between the string of tens and the shorter prayer-chain. And this bead was broken halfway across, almost level with the gold setting which held it.
“The coincidence,” he said, “is so inconceivable that I hardly dare … And yet the face can be verified at once. But first, one question: who gave you this rosary?”
“Nobody gave it to me. I’ve always had it.”
“But it must have belonged to somebody before?”
“To my mother, I suppose.”
“Your mother?”
“I expect so, in the same way as the different jewels which she left me.”
“Is your mother dead?”
“Yes, she died when I was four years old. I have only the vaguest recollection of her. But what has all this to do with a rosary?”
“It’s because of this,” he said. “Because of this amethyst bead broken in two.”
He undid his jacket and took his watch from his waistcoat-pocket. It had a number of trinkets fastened to it by a little leather and silver strap. One of these trinkets consisted of the half of an amethyst bead, also broken across, also held in a filigree setting. The original size of the two beads seemed to be identical. The two amethysts were of the same color and contained in the same filigree.
Coralie and Belval looked at each other anxiously. She stammered:
“It’s only an accident, nothing else …”
“I agree,” he said. “But, supposing these two halves fit each other exactly …”
“It’s impossible,” she said, herself frightened at the thought of the simple little act needed for the indisputable proof.
The officer, however, decided upon that act. He brought his right hand, which held the rosary-bead, and his left, which held the trinket, together. The hands hesitated, felt about and stopped. The contact was made.
The projections and indentations of the broken stones corresponded precisely. Each protruding part found a space to fit it. The two half amethysts were the two halves of the same amethyst. When joined, they formed one and the same bead.
There was a long pause, laden with excitement and mystery. Then, speaking in a low voice:
“I do not know either exactly where this trinket comes from,” Captain Belval said. “Ever since I was a child, I used to see it among other things of trifling value which I kept in a cardboard box: watch-keys, old rings, old-fashioned seals. I picked out these trinkets from among them two or three years ago. Where does this one come from? I don’t know. But what I do know …”
He had separated the two pieces and, examining them carefully, concluded:
“What I do know, beyond a doubt, is that the largest bead in this rosary came off one day and broke; and that the other, with its setting, went to form the trinket which I now have. You and I therefore possess the two halves of a thing which somebody else possessed twenty years ago.”
He went up to her and, in the same low and rather serious voice, said:
“You protested just now when I declared my faith in destiny and my certainty that events were leading us towards each other. Do you still deny it? For, after all, this is either an accident so extraordinary that we have no right to admit it or an actual fact which proves that our two lives have already touched in the past at some mysterious point and that they will meet again in the future, never to part. And that is why, without waiting for the perhaps distant future, I offer you today, when danger hangs over you, the support of my friendship. Observe that I am no longer speaking of love but only of friendship. Do you accept?”
She was nonplussed and so much perturbed by that miracle of the two broken amethysts, fitting each other exactly, that she appeared not to hear Belval’s voice.
“Do you accept?” he repeated.
After a moment she replied:
“No.”
“Then the proof which destiny has given you of its wishes does not satisfy you?” he said, good-humoredly.
“We must not see each other again,” she declared.
“Very well. I will leave it to chance. It will not be for long. Meanwhile, I promise to make no effort to see you.”
“Nor to find out my name?”
“Yes, I promise you.”
“Goodbye,” she said, giving him her hand.
“Au revoir,” he answered.
She moved away. When she reached the door, she seemed to hesitate. He was standing motionless by the chimney. Once more she said:
“Goodbye.”
“Au revoir, Little Mother Coralie.”
Then she went out.
Only when the street-door had closed behind her did Captain Belval go to one of the windows. He saw Coralie passing through the trees, looking quite small in the surrounding darkness. He felt a pang at his heart. Would he ever see her again?
“Shall I? Rather!” he exclaimed. “Why, tomorrow perhaps. Am I not the favorite of the gods?”
And, taking his stick, he set off, as he said, with his wooden leg foremost.
That evening, after dining at the nearest restaurant, Captain Belval went to Neuilly. The home run in connection with the hospital was a pleasant villa on the Boulevard Maillot, looking out on the Bois de Boulogne. Discipline was not too strictly enforced. The captain could come in at any hour of the night; and the man easily obtained leave from the matron.
“Is Ya-Bon there?” he asked this lady.
“Yes, he’s playing cards with his sweetheart.”
“He has the right to love and be loved,” he said. “Any letters for me?”
“No, only a parcel.”
“From whom?”
“A commissionaire brought it and just said that it was ‘for Captain Belval.’ I put it in your room.”
The officer went
