How can I be unhappy, if Brian need only wait, to
see?
CHAPTER XXX
Padre, my mind is like a thermometer exposed every minute to a different
temperature, but always high or low--never normal.
To tell, or not to tell, Father Beckett what the man I didn't see said
about Jim--or rather, what Julian O'Farrell said that he said! This has
been the constant question; but the thermometer invariably flies up or
down, far from the answer-point.
When our men came back to Amiens, I almost hoped that Puck would do his
worst--carry out his threat and "give me away" to Father Beckett. In
that case I should at least have been relieved from responsibility. But
Puck didn't. In my heart I had known all along that he would not.
If I could have felt for a whole minute at a time that it would be fair
to wake hopes which mightn't be fulfilled, out would have burst the
secret. But whenever I'd screwed up my courage to speak, Something would
remind me: "Herter sent word that there might be a message from
Switzerland. Better wait till it comes, for he wasn't sure of his facts.
He may have been misled." Or, when I'd decided _not_ to speak, another
Something would say: "Jim is alive. You _know_ he is alive! Herter is
helping him to escape. Don't let these dear old people suffer a minute
longer than they need."
But--well--so far I have waited. A week has passed since I wrote at
Amiens. We have arrived at Jim's chateau--the little, quaint, old
Chateau d'Andelle, with thick stone walls, black-beamed ceilings, and
amusing towers, set in the midst of an enchanted forest of Normandy.
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