La Librairie met later that same afternoon.
For security reasons they made use of the offices of Dr. Jacques Tournoux, a sympathizer who offered his rooms on occasion when the group needed greater precaution. It did not arouse suspicion for an unusual mix of men and women to come and go from a doctor’s office.
The doctor ushered each one of them in turn from the reception areas and to a private room on the second floor. Then he left them alone. Logan arrived late, for he had taken extra pains to insure he was not followed. The only others present were Henri, Lise, and Claude.
“Where’s Jean Pierre?” asked Logan, a gnawing fear suddenly coming into his mind.
“He’s been arrested,” answered Henri bleakly.
“Who else?”
“We have heard nothing from Antoine.”
“He’s been arrested as well,” said Logan. “That is, he voluntarily went with the Jews. He thought he could help them—I don’t know, maybe he can.”
“Then we are all that is left.”
“I’ll get Jean Pierre out,” declared Logan flatly.
“But,” said Henri, his cherubic face grim and taut, “we must prepare for the worst.”
“Jean Pierre will never talk!” exclaimed Lise.
“Nevertheless, we must all relocate and change our names.”
“Whether L’Escroc does it, or Trinity,” said Logan, “I’m going to get him out tonight.”
A silence enveloped the group for several moments as they tried to absorb the stunning blow that had struck them. Such things were to be expected. But it was made all the more difficult when it happened to good men like the faithful Antoine and dear Jean Pierre. Both had provided a kind of stability to La Librairie that only the spirits of those remaining could bear witness to.
Claude at last broke the silence. “At least we have lost a dangerous enemy,” he announced. “Arnaud Soustelle was killed this morning.”
Then he leveled his dark gaze on Logan. “But perhaps you were planning to tell us all about that, Anglais?”
“Funny, Claude,” rejoined Logan. “I was going to ask you the same question.”
“Ha! I only wish it had been my bullet to cut him down!”
“What happened, Michel?” asked Henri.
Logan proceeded to tell about his run-in with Soustelle. “I never saw who did the shooting,” he finished. “I’m still not sure whether the slug was meant for him or me.”
“But he admitted he knew all about you,” said Claude.
“Yes,” sighed Logan, “but I’m sure he hadn’t told anyone. I think the scoundrel was afraid to blow the whistle until he had positive proof. Von Graff has too much invested in me to be easily convinced. I’ve already seen him and cleared myself.”
“Very convenient!” mumbled Claude darkly.
“Quiet, Claude!” snapped Henri. “There will be none of that—not now!”
Claude slumped back in his chair and said nothing more.
“I wonder who did it,” mused Henri, “and why? Of course a man like Soustelle would have no dearth of enemies—”
“Who cares!” cut in Lise, with more emotion than seemed necessary. “The vermin is dead—another enemy is destroyed! Who cares why or how? We are rid of him, that’s all that matters!”
For a moment no one said anything, unable to respond to the uncharacteristic outburst. Then Henri’s concern showed through.
“Lise . . . what is it? Are you all right?”
“No! I’m not—I will never be right again!”
With the words she jumped up and fled the room.
Logan and Henri exchanged puzzled glances; then Logan rose and went after her. She had only gone to the end of the hall, where she now stood in a small windowed alcove of the bay window overlooking the pleasant street where Dr. Tournoux’s office was located.
Lise was gazing out, though she hardly even noticed the lovely summer scene below. When she heard the footsteps approaching behind her, she did not turn. But she knew it was Michel. As much as she longed to be near him, she was also afraid to face him.
She had already decided not to tell him what she had done. She was a killer now. She knew how distasteful violence was to him, despite what had occurred in Vouziers. He could not help but look on her differently now. If she had secretly hoped for love, she knew now it could never come about between them.
Neither could she tell him what had happened in order to win his gratitude. Her very act of supreme loyalty might well win his love, or else foster a sense of obligation that might be confused with love.
But she could not have his love that way—she could not have it anyway. That was clear now.
Perhaps it might have been possible with Michel Tanant. But never with Logan Macintyre, the man that still dwelt within him—the man who, in what seemed an altogether foreign world, another lifetime from this, had a child, a wife.
She could not turn and face him. She could not look into those eyes so filled with vitality and sensitivity.
“Lise . . . what’s troubling you?” he asked quietly.
“Nothing.” Her voice was as thin and empty as her lame response.
“You’re concerned about Jean Pierre?”
“Yes . . . that’s it.”
He sat down on the window seat next to where she stood.
“He’ll be fine,” he assured her. “I’m going to see to it.”
“I believe you, Michel,” she said. “I believe you can do anything you set your mind to.”
He shook his head in weary denial.
“It’s not true. It never was. Maybe I was lucky. But no—it wasn’t even that. For some reason, God seems to have been with me. I still can’t figure why He bothers. I suppose it won’t be long before He realizes I’m a lost cause.”
“No, Michel. That’s what is not true. God must not give up because He sees your heart. It is a good heart. It is only a little mixed up right now. But you are a good man.” She sat down, and finally faced him.
“A little mixed up—that is an understatement.” He rubbed his hands despairingly across his face.
Lise looked at him intently. “Someday . . .” she began, then without thinking she reached out and gently touched his cheek.
He laid his hand over hers.
“Oh, Michel,” she murmured, “what is to become of us?”
They looked deeply into each other’s eyes for what seemed an eternity. Then suddenly Logan squeezed his eyes shut and turned away from her gaze.
“Michel,” said Lise quietly, “you know how I feel . . . you know that I—”
He lurched to his feet, as if not wanting to hear what she was about to say, and yet something inside wanting to say the same thing himself.
“Blast this war—this life!” he exclaimed.
“I’m sorry, Michel. I shouldn’t have—”
“It’s not your fault.” But now it was he who could not look at her.
“Don’t you see, Lise,” he went on after a moment. “I feel the same way. In another time, another place, we might have . . . you must know what I mean. You and I . . . it’s there, Lise. We both know it. But this isn’t the real world. This is only a moment of time . . . when our paths chanced to cross, and—”
He stopped, searching for the right words, but knowing there were none.
“This war!” he exclaimed in a moment. “It has robbed me of everything! I’ve given my identity for it. I’ve lied for it. Dear Lord, I’ve even killed for it! There’s only one thing I have left, though I’m hardly even sure of that anymore. Oh, Lise! Allison is the only part of who I really am that still exists. Sometimes it would be easy to lose myself completely in Michel Tanant, and never go back—”
Now he turned to face her again.
“—so very easy, Lise! But I can’t. She is my wife, and if I destroy that, then I’ve destroyed everything!”
Logan thought for a minute or two.
“Yes . . . yes, I do,” he finally replied. “Of course I do.”
Even as he spoke Logan realized that Allison was his lifeline, the source of stability which God had provided to see him through this time.
“There has never been a question of loving her,” he added. “The problem was inside me—my discontentment was with myself. But never with her. Yes, I love her . . . more than anything.”
Though he thought he had left England to run away from her, Logan saw that all the time he had carried her with him, not as some chain of guilt around his neck, but rather as a precious link to who he was. Not only as Logan Macintyre instead of all the other fictional selves that had made their claim upon him. It went even deeper than that. His very personhood had its roots in her love for him. Everything he was as a man, even as a man of God, was wrapped up intrinsically in their relationship. Everything Logan wanted in life was there . . . with her—he knew that now.
Lise was a gentle, beautiful island in the crazy, dark, unreal world of horrors where he finally realized he did not belong. To reach out to her now, in the wrong way, whatever immediate comfort it might provide, would mean sacrificing all he truly was, for a mirage.
Though at this very moment it all seemed hopeless, somehow Logan Macintyre would rise from all the mire of his double life and deceit. And when he did, he wanted only Allison to be there reaching out to him.