She began to run along the quay, screaming and shouting like a lunatic, hurling herself blindly through the crowd regardless of the knocks she received or of the stares that followed her. Dock hands, market women, sailors and fishermen turned to look after the dishevelled, tear-stained woman running with outstretched arms and uttering heartbroken cries, apparently on the point of casting herself into the sea.
Marianne herself was aware of nothing, she saw and heard nothing, only that the ship was going away from her. The thought was torture. It was as though an invisible thread, woven from her own flesh, had been drawn between her and the American vessel, stretching tighter and tighter, agonizingly, until it tore the heart out of her breast and drowned it in the sea.
A single sentence repeated itself endlessly in her brain, with cruel insistence, like an ironic refrain:
'He didn't wait for me… He didn't wait…'
Jason had sailed across two seas and an ocean for this meeting, yet his patience and his love had not endured beyond five days. He had not sensed that she, whom he claimed to love, was there, close at hand; he had not heard her desperate cries. Now he was going away, sailing out to sea, to the sea that was his other mistress, this time, perhaps, for ever. How could she reach him now, how call him back?
She was gasping for breath and her heart was knocking painfully in her chest, but she ran on, her eyes, blinded with tears, fixed on the ever-widening dazzle of sunlight between ship and shore. It danced before her like an ultimate sign of hope, drawing her like a lover. A few more steps and she would plunge into it…
A strong hand grasped her just as she reached the very end of the quay.
She was on the point of casting herself, borne on an irresistible impulse, straight into the water, when she found herself pulled up short and overborne. She looked up and found herself face to face with Lieutenant Benielli, who was staring at her as if he had seen a ghost.
'You?' he ejaculated, as he recognized the frenzied woman whom he had just saved from suicide. 'Is it you? .. It's unbelievable!'
But Marianne had reached the point where the sight of Napoleon himself could not have surprised her. She did not even recognize who was holding her, seeing him only as an obstruction to be circumvented. She struggled furiously in his arms, fighting desperately to escape.
'Let me go!' she screamed. 'Let me go!'
Fortunately the Corsican lieutenant had a firm grip, but his patience was short. It came to an end abruptly and he gave his prisoner a smart shaking in an effort to silence the screams which were attracting everyone on the quay. Some of those who approached were looking quite ugly, seeing only that a member of the 'occupying' forces was molesting a young woman. Conscious that he was in a minority, Benielli opened his mouth and yelled:
'Dragoons! To me!'
Marianne herself did not see the arrival of Benielli's reinforcements. She continued to scream and struggle until the exasperated lieutenant silenced her with a neatly delivered blow from his fist. Instead of into the waters of the harbour, Marianne plunged into merciful unconsciousness.
When she came round from the effects of this involuntary swoon, under the influence of a compress of aromatic vinegar held under her nose, it was to find herself looking at the lower half of a black and yellow striped dressing-gown and a pair of embroidered slippers which seemed somehow familiar. She had worked that design of roses on a black background with her own hands.
She raised her head, reviving the pain in her injured jaw, and almost bit the pad which a kneeling chambermaid was holding under her nose. She thrust the girl away automatically and gave a cry of joy.
'Arcadius!'
It was he indeed. Swathed in the striped gown, his feet thrust into the slippers, and his hair standing on end in two comical tufts which made him look more like a mouse than ever, the Vicomte de Jolival was earnestly supervising the restorative treatment.
'She's come round, my lord,' the chambermaid announced, with remarkable perspicacity, as the invalid sat up.
'Splendid. You may leave us now.'
Almost before the girl had got to her feet and made room for him to sit down on the edge of the sofa, Marianne had flung herself into his arms.
The return of consciousness had brought with it the recollection of her woes and she fell on his chest and wept, too much distressed to utter a single word.
Deeply pitying, but also deeply experienced, Jolival allowed the storm to wear itself out and confined himself to gently stroking the still-damp hair of the girl he regarded in the light of an adopted daughter. Gradually, the sobs diminished and in a lost, little-girl voice, Marianne murmured into her old friend's ear:
'Jason!… He's gone!'
Arcadius laughed and raising Marianne's tear-blotched face from his shoulder, he drew a handkerchief from his dressing-gown pocket and wiped her red and swollen eyes.
'And is that why you were trying to throw yourself into the harbour? Yes, he's gone – all the way to Chioggia to take on fresh water and a cargo of smoked sturgeon. He'll be back tomorrow. In fact, it was for that very reason that Benielli was watching the harbour. I told him to be there as soon as the Sea Witch put to sea and I was to relieve him later on myself in case you should arrive while the ship was away, as indeed you did.'
A wonderful sense of relief stole over Marianne. She was torn between the desire to laugh and a strong impulse to cry again and she looked at Jolival with a good deal of respect.
'You knew I'd come?'
The urbane vicomte's smile faded and the girl saw that he had aged in her absence. There was a little more silver about his temples and lines of anxiety were deeply carved between his brows and at the corners of his mouth. Very tenderly, she kissed away the signs of worry.
'It was our one chance of finding you,' he said, sighing. 'I knew that if you were still alive, you would do your utmost to be here in time to meet Jason. And in spite of all our efforts, even the efforts of the Grand Duchess herself, who set her own police to work on the case, we could find no other clue. Agathe said something about a letter from Madame Cenami which might have had something to do with it, because you had gone out in a hurry, and plainly dressed, as though to avoid notice. But Madame Cenami had sent no letter, of course – and you failed to leave the slightest hint.' The last words were uttered in a mildly reproachful tone.
'Zoe's letter begged for secrecy. I supposed she must be in some trouble. I never thought… but if you only knew how I've regretted it!'
'Poor child. Love, friendship and prudence do not generally live easily together, especially where you are concerned. Naturally, both Arrighi and myself thought at once of your husband, that he had lost patience.'
'The Prince is dead,' Marianne said soberly. 'Murdered.'
'Hm.' It was Jolival's turn now to study his friend's face. How much she had endured was written dearly in its pallor and the haunted look in her eyes. He guessed that she had lived through some terrible experience and that it was, perhaps, still too soon to talk about it. So, postponing the inevitable questions, Jolival said merely:
'You shall tell me about it later. Obviously, that explains a good deal. But when you vanished, we were half out of our minds. Gracchus was threatening to set fire to the villa at Lucca and Agathe cried all day long and kept on insisting that the devil of the Sant'Annas had carried you off. The coolest person, as might have been expected, was the Duke of Padua. He went in person to the Villa dei Cavalli, with a strong escort, but found none there but servants, and no more of them than served to keep the place up. No one could tell him where the Prince was to be found. It seems that he is – or rather was – in the habit of going away suddenly, often for long periods, telling no one when he meant to return.