“He won’t come,” she repeated, “he won’t come.”
“You must write and tell him that there is no risk. You must say that if there were you would not dream of asking him. You must say that if he loves you he will not hesitate.”
“I won’t. I won’t.”
“Don’t be a fool. You can’t help yourself.”
She burst into a sudden flood of tears. She flung herself on the floor and seizing Ashenden’s knees implored him to have mercy on her.
“I will do anything in the world for you if you will let me go.”
“Don’t be absurd,” said Ashenden. “Do you think I want to become your lover? Come, come, you must be serious. You know the alternative.”
She raised herself to her feet and changing on a sudden to fury flung at Ashenden one foul name after another.
“I like you much better like that,” he said. “Now will you write or shall I send for the police?”
“He will not come. It is useless.”
“It is very much to your interest to make him come.”
“What do you mean by that? Do you mean that if I do everything in my power and fail, that …”
She looked at Ashenden with wild eyes.
“Yes, it means either you or him.”
She staggered. She put her hand to her heart. Then without a word she reached for pen and paper. But the letter was not to Ashenden’s liking and he made her write it again. When she had finished she flung herself on the bed and burst once more into passionate weeping. Her grief was real, but there was something theatrical in the expression of it that prevented it from being peculiarly moving to Ashenden. He felt his relation to her as impersonal as a doctor’s in the presence of a pain that he cannot alleviate. He saw now why R. had given him this peculiar task; it needed a cool head and an emotion well under control.
He did not see her next day. The answer to the letter was not delivered to him till after dinner, when it was brought to Ashenden’s little house by Félix.
“Well, what news have you?”
“Our friend is getting desperate,” smiled the Frenchman. “This afternoon she walked up to the station just as a train was about to start for Lyons. She was looking up and down uncertainly, so I went to her and asked if there was anything I could do. I introduced myself as an agent of the Sûreté. If looks could kill I should not be standing here now.”
“Sit down, mon ami,” said Ashenden.
“Merci. She walked away, she evidently thought it was no use to try to get on the train, but I have something more interesting to tell you. She has offered a boatman on the lake a thousand francs to take her across to Lausanne.”
“What did he say to her?”
“He said he couldn’t risk it.”
“Yes?”
The little agent gave his shoulders a slight shrug and smiled.
“She’s asked him to meet her on the road that leads to Evian at ten o’clock tonight so that they can talk of it again, and she’s given him to understand that she will not repulse too fiercely the advances of a lover. I have told him to do what he likes so long as he comes and tells me everything that is of importance.”
“Are you sure you can trust him?” asked Ashenden.
“Oh, quite. He knows nothing, of course, but that she is under surveillance. You need have no fear about him. He is a good boy. I have known him all his life.”
Ashenden read Chandra’s letter. It was eager and passionate. It throbbed strangely with the painful yearning of his heart. Love? Yes, if Ashenden knew anything of it there was the real thing. He told her how he spent the long, long hours walking by the lakeside and looking towards the coast of France. How near they were and yet so desperately parted! He repeated again and again that he could not come, and begged her not to ask him; he would do everything in the world for her, but that he dared not do, and yet if she insisted how could he resist her? He besought her to have mercy on him. And then he broke into a long wail at the thought that he must go away without seeing her, he asked her if there were not some means by which she could slip over, he swore that if he could ever hold her in his arms again he would never let her go. Even the forced and elaborate language in which it was written could not dim the hot fire that burned the pages; it was the letter of a madman.
“When will you hear the result of her interview with the boatman?” asked Ashenden.
“I have arranged to meet him at the landing-stage between eleven and twelve.”
Ashenden looked at his watch.
“I will come with you.”
They walked down the hill and reaching the quay for shelter from the cold wind stood in the lea of the customhouse. At last they saw a man approaching and Félix stepped out of the shadow that hid them.
“Antoine.”
“Monsieur Félix? I have a letter for you; I promised to take it to Lausanne by the first boat tomorrow.”
Ashenden gave the man a brief glance, but did not ask what had passed between him and Giulia Lazzari. He took the letter and by the light of Félix’s electric torch read it. It was in faulty German.
“On no account come. Pay no attention to my letters. Danger. I love you. Sweetheart. Don’t come.”
He put it in his pocket, gave the boatman fifty francs, and went home to bed. But the next day when he went
