The Eight Strokes of the Clock

"And it can't be very far away," he added. "Dalbrèque did not spend the whole night running about."

A tow-path followed the deserted bank. Another path led away from it. They chose the second and, passing between orchards enclosed by hedges, came to a landscape that seemed strangely familiar to them. Where had they seen that pool before, with the willows overhanging it? And where had they seen that abandoned hovel?

Suddenly both of them stopped with one accord:

"Oh!" said Hortense. "I can hardly believe my eyes!"

Opposite them was the white gate of a large orchard, at the back of which, among groups of old, gnarled apple-trees, appeared a cottage with blue shutters, the cottage of the Happy Princess.

"Of course!" cried Rénine. "And I ought to have known it, considering that the film showed both this cottage and the forest close by. And isn't everything happening exactly as in The Happy Princess? Isn't Dalbrèque dominated by the memory of it? The house, which is certainly the one in which Rose Andrée spent the summer, was empty. He has shut her up there."

"But the house, you told me, was in the Seine-inférieure."

"Well, so are we! To the left of the river, the Eure and the forest of Brotonne; to the right, the Seine-inférieure. But between them is the obstacle of the river, which is why I didn't connect the two. A hundred and fifty yards of water form a more effective division than dozens of miles."

The gate was locked. They got through the hedge a little lower down and walked towards the house, which was screened on one side by an old wall shaggy with ivy and roofed with thatch.

"It seems as if there was somebody there," said Hortense. "Didn't I hear the sound of a window?"

"Listen."

Some one struck a few chords on a piano. Then a voice arose, a woman's voice softly and solemnly singing a ballad that thrilled with restrained passion. The woman's whole soul seemed to breathe itself into the melodious notes.

They walked on. The wall concealed them from view, but they saw a sitting-room furnished with bright wall-paper and a blue Roman carpet. The throbbing voice ceased. The piano ended with a last chord; and the singer rose and appeared framed in the window.

"Rose Andrée!" whispered Hortense.

"Well!" said Rénine, admitting his astonishment. "This is the last thing that I expected! Rose Andrée! Rose Andrée at liberty! And singing Massenet in the sitting room of her cottage!"

"What does it all mean? Do you understand?" "Yes, but it has taken me long enough! But how could we have guessed …?"

Although they had never seen her except on the screen, they had not the least doubt that this was she. It was really Rose Andrée, or rather, the Happy Princess, whom they had admired a few days before, amidst the furniture of that very sitting-room or on the threshold of that very cottage. She was wearing the same dress; her hair was done in the same way; she had on the same bangles and necklaces as in The Happy Princess; and her lovely face, with its rosy cheeks and laughing eyes, bore the same look of joy and serenity.

Some sound must have caught her ear, for she leant over towards a clump of shrubs beside the cottage and whispered into the silent garden:

"Georges … Georges … Is that you, my darling?"

Receiving no reply, she drew herself up and stood smiling at the happy thoughts that seemed to flood her being.

But a door opened at the back of the room and an old peasant woman entered with a tray laden with bread, butter and milk:

"Here, Rose, my pretty one, I've brought you your supper. Milk fresh from the cow...."

And, putting down the tray, she continued:

"Aren't you afraid, Rose, of the chill of the night air? Perhaps you're expecting your sweetheart?"

"I haven't a sweetheart, my dear old Catherine."

"What next!" said the old woman, laughing. "Only this morning there were footprints under the window that didn't look at all proper!"

"A burglar's footprints perhaps, Catherine."

"Well, I don't say they weren't, Rose dear, especially as in your calling you have a lot of people round you whom it's well to be careful of. For instance, your friend Dalbrèque, eh? Nice goings on his are! You saw the paper yesterday. A fellow who has robbed and murdered people and carried off a woman at Le Havre …!"

Hortense and Rénine would have much liked to know what Rose Andrée thought of the revelations, but she had turned her back to them and was sitting at her supper; and the window was now closed, so that they could neither hear her reply nor see the expression of her features.

They waited for a moment. Hortense was listening with an anxious face. But Rénine began to laugh:

"Very funny, really funny! And such an unexpected ending! And we who were hunting for her in some cave or damp cellar, a horrible tomb where the poor thing was dying of hunger! It's a fact, she knew the terrors of that first night of captivity; and I maintain that, on that first night, she was flung, half-dead, into the cave. Only, there you are: the next morning she was alive! One night was enough to tame the little rogue and to make Dalbrèque as handsome as Prince Charming in her eyes! For see the difference. On the films or in novels, the Happy Princesses resist or commit suicide. But in real life … oh, woman, woman!"

"Yes," said Hortense, "but the man she loves is almost certainly dead."

"And a good thing too! It would be the best solution. What would be the outcome of this criminal love for a thief and murderer?"

A few minutes passed. Then, amid the peaceful silence of the waning day, mingled with the first shadows of the twilight, they again heard the grating of the window, which was cautiously opened. Rose Andrée leant over the garden and waited, with her eyes turned to the wall, as though she saw something there.

Presently, Rénine shook the ivy-branches.

"Ah!" she said. "This time I know you're there! Yes, the ivy's moving. Georges, Georges darling, why do you keep me waiting? Catherine has gone. I am all alone...."

She had knelt down and was distractedly stretching out her shapely arms covered with bangles which clashed with a metallic sound:

"Georges!… Georges!…"

Her every movement, the thrill of her voice, her whole being expressed desire and love. Hortense, deeply touched, could not help saying:

"How the poor thing loves him! If she but knew...."

"Ah!" cried the girl. "You've spoken. You're there, and you want me to come to you, don't you? Here I am, Georges!…"

She climbed over the window-ledge and began to run, while Rénine went round the wall and advanced to meet her.

She stopped short in front of him and stood choking at the sight of this man and woman whom she did not know and who were stepping out of the very shadow from which her beloved appeared to her each night.

Rénine bowed, gave his name and introduced his companion:

"Madame Hortense Daniel, a pupil and friend of your mother's."

Still motionless with stupefaction, her features drawn, she stammered:

"You know who I am?… And you were there just now?… You heard what I was saying …?"

Rénine, without hesitating or pausing in his speech, said:

"You are Rose Andrée, the Happy Princess. We saw you on the films the other evening; and circumstances led us to set out in search of you … to Le Havre, where you were abducted on the day when you were to have left for America, and to the forest of Brotonne, where you were imprisoned."

She protested eagerly, with a forced laugh: