C/U$fot?Jcai c/v 
 
 UNDER THE RED ROBE 
 
 COUNT HANNIBAL 
 
 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANC I 
 
 STANLEY J. WEYMAN
 
 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES 
 
 GIFT OF 
 
 Jeanette MacDonald
 
 HISTORICAL ROMANCES 
 
 UNDER THE 1(ED ?(QBE 
 
 COUNT HANNIBAL 
 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE
 
 'BY THE SAME AUTHOR 
 
 THE HOUSE OF THE WOLF 
 
 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE 
 
 UNDER THE RED ROBE 
 
 SHREWSBURY 
 
 SOPHIA 
 
 COUNT HANNIBAL 
 
 IN KINGS' BYWAYS 
 
 STARVECROW FARM 
 
 LAID UP IN LAVENDER 
 
 OVINGTON'S BANK 
 
 THE TRAVELLER IN THE FUR CLOAK 
 
 QUEEN'S FOLLY 
 
 THE LIVELY PEGGY
 
 HISTORICAL ROMANCES 
 
 Under The 'Red "Robe 
 Count Hannibal 
 (gentleman of France 
 
 BY 
 
 STANLEY J. WEYMAN 
 
 LONGMANS, GREEN AND CO. 
 
 55 FIFTH AVENUE NEW YORK
 
 HISTORICAL ROMANCES 
 
 UNDER THE RED ROBE COUNT HANNIBAL 
 A GENTLEMAN O! FRANCE 
 
 COPYRIGHT ' 1893 ' 1894 ' 1900 1901 ' 1921 
 BY STANLEY J. WEYMAN 
 
 PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
 
 College 
 Library 
 
 PR 
 
 UNDER THE RED ROBE
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER PACK 
 
 I. AT ZATON'S i 
 
 II. AT THE GREEN PILLAR 27 
 
 III. THE HOUSE IN THE WOOD 53 
 
 IV. MADAME AND MADEMOISELLE 78 
 
 V. REVENGE 102 
 
 VI. UNDER THE Pic DU MIDI 127 
 
 VII. A MASTER STROKE 153 
 
 VIII. THE QUESTION 178 
 
 IX. CLON . . . . ' . . . . . . 204 
 
 X. THE ARREST 231 
 
 XI. THE ROAD TO PARIS 259 
 
 XII. AT THE FINGER-POST 284 
 
 XIII. ST. MARTIN'S EVE 3" 
 
 XIV. ST. MARTIN'S SUMMER 325 
 
 v
 
 UNDER THE RED ROBE. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 AT ZATON'S. 
 
 " MARKED cards ! " 
 
 There were a score round us when the fool, 
 little knowing the man with whom he had to 
 deal, and as little how to lose like a gentleman, 
 flung the words in my teeth. He thought, I'll 
 be sworn, that I should storm and swear and 
 ruffle it like any common cock of the hackle. 
 But that was never Gil de Berault's way. For a 
 few seconds after he had spoken I did not even 
 look at him. I passed my eye instead smiling, 
 bien entendu round the ring of waiting faces, 
 saw that there was no one except De Pombal I 
 had cause to fear; and then at last I rose and 
 looked at the fool with the grim face I have 
 known impose on older and wiser men. 
 
 I B
 
 2 UNDER THE RED ROBE. 
 
 " Marked cards, M. 1'Anglais ? " I said, with a 
 chilling sneer. "They are used, I am told, to 
 trap players not unbirched schoolboys." 
 
 " Yet I say that they are marked ! " he replied 
 hotly, in his queer foreign jargon. "In my last 
 hand I had nothing. You doubled the stakes. 
 Bah, Sir, you knew ! You have swindled me ! " 
 
 "Monsieur is easy to swindle when he plays 
 with a mirror behind him," I answered tartly. 
 And at that there was a great roar of laughter, 
 which might have been heard in the street, and 
 which brought to the table every one in the 
 eating-house whom his violence had not already 
 attracted. But I did not relax my face. I waited 
 until all was quiet again, and then waving aside 
 two or three who stood between us and the en- 
 trance, I pointed gravely to the door. "There is 
 a little space behind the church of St. Jacques, 
 M. 1'Etranger," I said, putting on my hat and 
 taking my cloak on my arm. " Doubtless you 
 will accompany me thither ? " 
 
 He snatched up his hat, his face burning with 
 shame and rage. " With pleasure ! " he blurted 
 out. " To the devil, if you like ! "
 
 AT ZATON^S. 3 
 
 I thought the matter arranged, when the Mar- 
 quis laid his hand on the young fellow's arm 
 and checked him. " This must not be," he said, 
 turning from him to me with his grand fine- 
 gentleman's air. " You know me, M. de Berault. 
 This matter has gone far enough." 
 
 "Too far, M. de Pombal!" I answered bitterly. 
 "Still, if you wish to take the gentleman's place, 
 I shall raise no objection." 
 
 "Chut, man ! " he retorted, shrugging his shoul- 
 ders negligently. " I know you, and I do not fight 
 with men of your stamp. Nor need this gentle- 
 man." 
 
 " Undoubtedly," I replied, bowing low, " if he 
 prefers to be caned in the streets." 
 
 That stung the Marquis. " Have a care ! have 
 a care!" he cried hotly. "You go too far, M. 
 Berault." 
 
 "De Berault, if you please," I objected, eyeing 
 him sternly. " My family has borne the de as long 
 as yours, M. de Pombal." 
 
 He could not deny that, and he answered, " As 
 you please"; at the same time restraining his 
 friend by a gesture. "But none the less, take my 
 
 B 2
 
 4 UNDER THE RED ROBE. 
 
 advice," he continued. " The Cardinal has forbid- 
 den duelling, and this time he means it ! You 
 have been in trouble once and gone free. A 
 second time it may fare worse with you. Let this 
 gentleman go, therefore, M. de Berault. Besides 
 why, shame upon you, man ! " he exclaimed 
 hotly ; " he is but a lad ! " 
 
 Two or three who stood behind me applauded 
 that. But I turned and they met my eye ; and 
 they were as mum as mice. " His age is his own 
 concern," I said grimly. "He was old enough a 
 while ago to insult me." 
 
 "And I will prove my words!" the lad cried, 
 exploding at last. He had spirit enough, and the 
 Marquis had had hard work to restrain him so 
 long. "You do me jio service, M. de Pombal," he 
 continued, pettishly shaking off his friend's hand. 
 " By your leave, this gentleman and I will settle 
 this matter." 
 
 "That is better," I said, nodding drily, while 
 the Marquis stood aside, frowning and baffled. 
 "Permit me to lead the way." 
 
 Zaton's eating-house stands scarcely a hundred 
 paces from St. Jacques la Boucherie, and half the
 
 AT Z ATONES. 5 
 
 company went thither with us. The evening was 
 wet, the light in the streets was waning, the 
 streets themselves were dirty and slippery. There 
 were few passers in the Rue St. Antoine ; and 
 our party, which earlier in the day must have 
 attracted notice and a crowd, crossed unmarked, 
 and entered without interruption the paved trian- 
 gle which lies immediately behind the church. I 
 saw in the distance one of the Cardinal's guard 
 loitering in front of the scaffolding round the 
 new H6tel Richelieu ; and the sight of the uni- 
 form gave me pause for a moment. But it was 
 too late to repent. 
 
 The Englishman began at once to strip off his 
 clothes. I closed mine to the throat, for the air 
 was chilly. At that moment, while we stood pre- 
 paring and most of the company seemed a little 
 inclined to stand off from me, I felt a hand on 
 my arm, and, turning, saw the dwarfish tailor at 
 whose house in the Rue Savonnerie I lodged at 
 the time. The fellow's presence was unwelcome, 
 to say the least of it ; and though for want of 
 better company I had sometimes encouraged him 
 to be free with me at home, I took that to be no
 
 6 UNDER THE RED ROBE. 
 
 reason why I should be plagued with him before 
 gentlemen. I shook him off, therefore, hoping 
 by a frown to silence him. 
 
 He was not to be so easily put down, however. 
 And perforce I had to speak to him. "After- 
 wards, afterwards," I said. " I am engaged now." 
 
 "For God's sake, don't, Sir!" was the poor 
 fool's answer. " Don't do it ! You will bring a 
 curse on the house. He is but a lad, and " 
 
 " You, too ! " I exclaimed, losing patience. " Be 
 silent, you scum ! What do you know about gen- 
 tlemen's quarrels ? Leave me ; do you hear ? " 
 
 " But the Cardinal ! " he cried in a quavering 
 voice. " The Cardinal, M. de Berault ? The last 
 man you killed is not forgotten yet. This time 
 he will be sure to " 
 
 " Do you hear ? " I hissed. The fellow's im- 
 pudence passed all bounds. It was as bad as his 
 croaking. " Begone ! " I said. " I suppose you are 
 afraid he will kill me, and you will lose your money?" 
 
 Prison fell back at that almost as if I had struck 
 him, and I turned to my adversary, who had 
 been awaiting my motions with impatience. God 
 knows he did look young ; as he stood with his
 
 AT Z ATONES. 7 
 
 head bare and his fair hair drooping over his 
 smooth woman's forehead a mere lad fresh from 
 the College of Burgundy, if they have such a thing 
 in England. I felt a sudden chill as I looked at 
 him : a qualm, a tremor, a presentiment. What 
 was it the little tailor had said ? That I should 
 but there, he did not know. What did he know 
 of such things ? If I let this pass I must kill a 
 man a day, or leave Paris and the eating-house, 
 and starve. 
 
 " A thousand pardons," I said gravely, as I 
 drew and took my place. " A dun. I am sorry 
 that the poor devil caught me so inopportunely. 
 Now, however, I am at your service." 
 
 He saluted, and we crossed swords and began. 
 But from the first I had no doubt what the result 
 would be. The slippery stones and fading light 
 gave him, it is true, some chance, some advantage, 
 more than he deserved ; but I had no sooner felt 
 his blade than I knew that he was no swordsman. 
 Possibly he had taken half-a-dozen lessons in rapier 
 art, and practised what he learned with an Eng- 
 lishman as heavy and awkward as himself. But 
 that was all. He made a few wild, clumsy rushes,
 
 UNDER THE RED ROBE. 
 
 parrying widely. When I had foiled these, the 
 danger was over, and I held him at my mercy. 
 
 I played with him a little while, watching the 
 sweat gather on his brow, and the shadow of 
 the church-tower fall deeper and darker, like 
 the shadow of doom, on his face. Not out of 
 cruelty God knows I have never erred in that 
 direction ! but because, for the first time in my 
 life, I felt a strange reluctance to strike the blow. 
 The curls clung to his forehead ; his breath came 
 and went in gasps ; I heard the men behind me 
 murmur, and one or two of them drop an oath ; 
 and then I slipped slipped, and was down in a 
 moment on my right side, my elbow striking the 
 pavement so sharply that the arm grew numb to 
 the wrist. 
 
 He held off ! I heard a dozen voices cry, " Now ! 
 now you have him ! " But he held off. He stood 
 back and waited with his breast heaving and his 
 point lowered, until I had risen and stood again on 
 my guard. 
 
 " Enough ! enough ! " a rough voice behind me 
 cried. " Don't hurt the man after that." 
 
 "On guard, Sir!" I answered coldly for he
 
 AT ZATOWS. 9 
 
 seemed to waver. " It was an accident It shall 
 not avail you again." 
 
 Several voices cried " Shame ! " and one, " You 
 coward ! " But the Englishman stepped forward, 
 a fixed look in his blue eyes. He took his place 
 without a word. I read in his drawn white face 
 that he had made up his mind to the worst, and 
 his courage won my admiration. I would gladly 
 and thankfully have set one of the lookers-on 
 any of the lookers-on in his place ; but that 
 could not be. So I thought of Zaton's closed to 
 me, of Pombal's insult, of the sneers and slights 
 I had long kept at the sword's point ; and, press- 
 ing him suddenly in a heat of affected anger, I 
 thrust strongly over his guard, which had grown 
 feeble, and ran him through the chest. 
 
 When I saw him lying, laid out on the stones 
 with his eyes half shut, and his face glimmering 
 white in the dusk not that I saw him thus long, 
 for there were a dozen kneeling round him in a 
 twinkling I felt an unwonted pang. It passed, 
 however, in a moment. For I found myself con- 
 fronted by a ring of angry faces of men who, 
 keeping at a distance, hissed and threatened me.
 
 10 UNDER THE RED ROBE. 
 
 They were mostly canaille, who had gathered 
 during the fight, and had viewed all that passed 
 from the farther side of the railings. While 
 some snarled and raged at me like wolves, call- 
 ing me " Butcher ! " and " Cut-throat ! " and the 
 like, or cried out that Berault was at his trade 
 again, others threatened me with the vengeance 
 of the Cardinal, flung the edict in my teeth, and 
 said with glee that the guard were coming 
 they would see me hanged yet. 
 
 " His blood is on your head ! " one cried furi- 
 ously. " He will be dead in an hour. And you 
 will swing for him ! Hurrah ! " 
 
 " Begone to your kennel ! " I answered, with a 
 look which sent him a yard backwards, though 
 the railings were between us. And I wiped my 
 blade carefully, standing a little apart. For 
 well, I could understand it it was one of those 
 moments when a man is not popular. Those 
 who had come with me from the eating-house 
 eyed me askance, and turned their backs when 
 I drew nearer ; and those who had joined us and 
 obtained admission were scarcely more polite. 
 
 But I was not to be outdone in sangfroid.
 
 AT ZATOWS. II 
 
 I cocked my hat, and drawing my cloak over my 
 shoulders, went out with a swagger which drove 
 the curs from the gate before I came within a 
 dozen paces of it. The rascals outside fell back 
 as quickly, and in a moment I was in the street. 
 Another moment and I should have been clear 
 of the place and free to lie by for a while, when 
 a sudden scurry took place round me. The crowd 
 fled every way into the gloom, and in a hand-turn 
 a dozen of the Cardinal's guard closed round me. 
 
 I had some acquaintance with the officer in 
 command, and he saluted me civilly. " This is a 
 bad business, M. de Berault," he said. "The 
 man is dead they tell me." 
 
 "Neither dying nor dead," I answered lightly. 
 " If that be all, you may go home again." 
 
 "With you," he replied, with a grin, "certainly. 
 And as it rains, the sooner the better. I must 
 ask you for your sword, I am afraid." 
 
 "Take it," I said, with the philosophy which 
 never deserts me. "But the man will not die." 
 
 " I hope that may avail you," he answered in a 
 tone I did not like. " Left wheel, my friends ! 
 To the Chatelet! March!"
 
 12 UNDER THE RED ROBE. 
 
 "There are worse places," I said, and resigned 
 myself to fate. After all, I had been in prison 
 before, and learned that only one jail lets no 
 prisoner escape. 
 
 But when I found that my friend's orders were 
 to hand me over to the watch, and that I was 
 to be confined^ like any common jail-bird caught 
 cutting a purse or slitting a throat, I confess my 
 heart sank. If I could get speech with the 
 Cardinal, all would probably be well ; but if I 
 failed in this, or if the case came before him 
 in strange guise, or he were in a hard mood 
 himself, then it might go ill with me. The edict 
 said, death ! 
 
 And the lieutenant at the Chatelet did not 
 put himself to much trouble to hearten me. 
 " What ! again, M. de Berault ? " he said, raising 
 his eyebrows as he received me at the gate, 
 and recognized me by the light of the brazier 
 which his men were just kindling outside. " You 
 are a very bold man, Sir, or a very foolhardy 
 one, to come here again. The old business, I 
 suppose ? " 
 
 "Yes, but he is not dead," I answered coolly.
 
 AT Z ATONES. 13 
 
 "He has a trifle a mere scratch. It was behind 
 the church of St. Jacques." 
 
 " He looked dead enough," my friend the 
 guardsman interposed. He had not yet gone. 
 
 "Bah ! " I answered scornfully. " Have you ever 
 known me make a mistake ? When I kill a man, 
 I kill him. I put myself to pains, I tell you, not 
 to kill this Englishman. Therefore he will live." 
 
 " I hope so," the lieutenant said, with a dry 
 smile. " And you had better hope so, too, M. de 
 Berault. For if not " 
 
 "Well?" I said, somewhat troubled. "If not, 
 what, my friend ? " 
 
 " I fear he will be the last man you will fight," 
 he answered. " And even if he lives, I would not. 
 be too sure, my friend. This time the Cardinal is 
 determined to put it down." 
 
 " He and I are old friends," I said confidently. 
 
 " So I have heard," he answered, with a short 
 laugh. " I think the same was said of Chalais. I 
 do not remember that it saved his head." 
 
 This was not reassuring. But worse was to 
 come. Early in the morning orders were received 
 that I should be treated with especial strictness,
 
 14 UNDER THE RED ROBE. 
 
 and I was given the choice between irons and one 
 of the cells below the level. Choosing the latter, 
 I was left to reflect upon many things ; among 
 others, on the queer and uncertain nature of the 
 Cardinal, who loved, I knew, to play with a man 
 as a cat with a mouse ; and on the ill effects which 
 sometimes attend a high chest-thrust, however 
 carefully delivered. I only rescued myself at last 
 from these and other unpleasant reflections by 
 obtaining the loan of a pair of dice ; and the light 
 being just enough to enable me to reckon the 
 throws, I amused myself for hours by casting 
 them on certain principles of my own. But a 
 long run again and again upset my calculations; 
 and at last brought me to the conclusion that a 
 run of bad luck may be so persistent as to see 
 out the most sagacious player. This was not a 
 reflection very welcome to me at the moment. 
 
 Nevertheless, for three days it was all the com- 
 pany I had. At the end of that time the knave 
 of a jailer who attended me, and who had never 
 grown tired of telling me, after the fashion of his 
 kind, that I should be hanged, came to me with a 
 less assured air. " Perhaps you would like a little 
 water?" he said civilly.
 
 AT ZATON'S. 15 
 
 " Why, rascal ? " I asked. 
 
 " To wash with," he answered. 
 
 " I asked for some yesterday, and you would 
 Aot bring it," I grumbled. " However, better late 
 than never. Bring it now. If I must hang, I will 
 hang like a gentleman. But, depend upon it, the 
 Cardinal will not serve an old friend so scurvy a 
 trick." 
 
 "You are to go to him," he answered, when 
 he came back with the water. 
 
 "What? To the Cardinal?" I cried. 
 
 "Yes," he answered. 
 
 " Good ! " I exclaimed ; and in my joy I sprang 
 up at once, and began to refresh my dress. " So 
 all this time I have been doing him an injustice. 
 Vive Monseigneur ! I might have known it." 
 
 " Don't make too sure ! " the man answered 
 spitefully. Then he went on : "I have some- 
 thing else for you. A friend of yours left it 
 at the gate," he added. And he handed me a 
 packet. 
 
 " Quite so ! " I said, reading his rascally face 
 aright. "And you kept it as long as you dared 
 as long as you thought I should hang, you
 
 1 6 UNDER THE RED ROBE. 
 
 knave ! Was not that so ? But there, do not 
 lie to me. Tell me instead which of my friends 
 left it." For, to confess the truth, I had not 
 so many friends at this time ; and ten good 
 crowns the packet contained no less a sum 
 argued a pretty staunch friend, and one of whom 
 a man might be proud. 
 
 The knave sniggered maliciously. "A crooked, 
 dwarfish man left it," he said. " I doubt I might 
 call him a tailor and not be far out." 
 
 " Chut ! " I answered ; but I was a little out 
 of countenance. " I understand. An honest fel- 
 low enough, and in debt to me ! I am glad he 
 remembered. But when am I to go, friend ? " 
 
 " In an hour," he answered sullenly. Doubt- 
 less he had looked to get one of the crowns ; 
 but I was too old a hand for that. If I came 
 back I could buy his services ; and if I did not 
 I should have wasted my money. 
 
 Nevertheless, a little later, when I found my- 
 self on my way to the Hotel Richelieu under so 
 close a guard that I could see nothing except 
 the figures that immediately surrounded me, I 
 wished I had given him the money. At such
 
 AT ZATON^S. 17 
 
 times, when all hangs in the balance and the 
 sky is overcast, the mind runs on luck and old 
 superstitions, and is prone to think a crown given 
 here may avail there though there be a hun- 
 dred leagues away. 
 
 The Palais Richelieu was at this time in build- 
 ing, and we were required to wait in a long, 
 bare gallery, where the masons were at work. 
 I was kept a full hour here, pondering uncom- 
 fortably on the strange whims and fancies of 
 the great man who then ruled France as the 
 King's Lieutenant-General, with all the King's 
 powers ; and whose life I had once been the 
 means of saving by a little timely information. 
 On occasion he had done something to wipe out 
 the debt ; and at other times he had permitted 
 me to be free with him. We were not unknown 
 to one another, therefore. 
 
 Nevertheless, when the doors were at last thrown 
 open, and I was led into his presence, my confi- 
 dence underwent a shock. His cold glance, that, 
 roving over me, regarded me not as a man but 
 an item, the steely glitter of his southern eyes, 
 chilled me to the bone. The room was bare, the 
 
 c
 
 1 8 UNDER THE RED ROBE. 
 
 floor without carpet or covering. Some of the 
 woodwork lay about, unfinished and in pieces. 
 But the man this man, needed no surroundings. 
 His keen, pale face, his brilliant eyes, even his 
 presence though he was of no great height and 
 began already to stoop at the shoulders were 
 enough to awe the boldest. I recalled as I looked 
 at him a hundred tales of his iron will, his cold 
 heart, his unerring craft. He had humbled the 
 King's brother, the splendid Duke of Orleans, in 
 the dust. He had curbed the Queen-mother. A 
 dozen heads, the noblest in France, had come to 
 the block through him. Only two years before 
 he had quelled Rochelle ; only a few months be- 
 fore he had crushed the great insurrection in Lan- 
 gucdoc : and though the south, stripped of its old 
 privileges, still seethed with discontent, no one in 
 this year 1630 dared lift a hand against him 
 openly, at any rate. Under the surface a hundred 
 plots, a thousand intrigues, sought his life or his 
 power ; but these, I suppose, are the hap of every 
 great man. 
 
 No wonder, then, that the courage on which I 
 plumed myself sank low at sight of him ; or that
 
 AT ZATON'S. 19 
 
 it was as much as I could do to mingle with the 
 humility of my salute some touch of the sangfroid 
 of old acquaintanceship. 
 
 And perhaps that had been better left out. For 
 this man was without bowels. For a moment, 
 while he stood looking at me and before he spoke 
 to me, I gave myself up for lost. There was a 
 glint of cruel satisfaction in his eyes that warned 
 me, before he spoke, what he was going to say 
 to me. 
 
 " I could not have made a better catch, M. de 
 Berault," he said, smiling villainously, while he 
 gently smoothed the fur of a cat that had sprung 
 on the table beside him. "An old offender and 
 an excellent example. I doubt it will not stop 
 with you. But later, we will make you the war- 
 rant for flying at higher game." 
 
 "Monseigneur has handled a sword himself," I 
 blurted out. The very room seemed to be grow- 
 ing darker, the air colder. I was never nearer 
 fear in my life. 
 
 " Yes ? " he said, smiling delicately. " And so ? " 
 
 " Will not be too hard on the failings of a poor 
 gentleman."
 
 20 UN-DER THE RED ROBE. 
 
 " He shall suffer no more than a rich one," h< 
 replied suavely, as he stroked the cat. " Enjo) 
 that satisfaction, M. de Berault. Is that all ? " 
 
 "Once I was of service to your Eminence," ] 
 said desperately. 
 
 "Payment has been made," he answered, "more 
 than once. But for that I should not have seen 
 you, M. de Berault." 
 
 " The King's face ! " I cried, snatching at the 
 straw he seemed to hold out. 
 
 He laughed cynically, smoothly. His thin face, 
 his dark moustache, and whitening hair, gave him 
 an air of indescribable keenness. " I am not the 
 King," he said. " Besides, I am told you have 
 killed as many as six men in duels. You owe the 
 King, therefore, one life at least. You must pay 
 it. There is no more to be said, M. de Berault," 
 he continued coldly, turning away and beginning 
 to collect some papers. " The law must take its 
 course." 
 
 I thought he was about to nod to the lieuten- 
 ant to withdraw me, and a chilling sweat broke 
 out down my back. I saw the scaffold, I felt the 
 cords. A moment, and it would be too late ! " I
 
 AT ZATOWS. 21 
 
 have a favour to ask," I stammered desperately, 
 "if your Eminence would give me a moment 
 alone." 
 
 "To what end?" he answered, turning and eye- 
 ing me with cold disfavour. " I know you your 
 past all. It can do no good, my friend." 
 
 " Nor harm ! " I cried. " And I am a dying 
 man, Monseigneur !" 
 
 "That is true," he said thoughtfully. Still he 
 seemed to hesitate ; and my heart beat fast. At 
 last he looked at the lieutenant. " You may leave 
 us," he said shortly. " Now," when the officer 
 had withdrawn and left us alone, " what is it ? 
 Say what you have to say quickly. And above 
 all, do not try to fool me, M. de Berault." 
 
 But his piercing eyes so disconcerted me that 
 now I had my chance I could not find a word to 
 say, and stood before him mute. I think this 
 pleased him, for his face relaxed. 
 
 " Well ? " he said at last. " Is that all ? " 
 
 "The man is not dead," I muttered. 
 
 He shrugged his shoulders contemptuously. 
 "What of that?" he said. "That was not what 
 you wanted to say to me."
 
 22 UNDER THE RED ROBE. 
 
 "Once I saved your Eminence's life," I fai- 
 tered miserably. 
 
 "Admitted," he answered, in his thin, incisive 
 voice. " You mentioned the fact before. On the 
 other hand, you have taken six to my knowledge, 
 M. de Berault. You have lived the life of a 
 bully, a common bravo, a gamester. You, a man 
 of family ! For shame ! And it has brought you 
 to this. Yet on that one point I am willing to 
 hear more," he added abruptly. 
 
 "I might save your Eminence's life again," I 
 cried. It was a sudden inspiration. 
 
 " You know something," he said quickly, fixing 
 me with his eyes. " But no," he continued, shak 
 ing his head gently. " Pshaw ! the trick is old. 
 I have better spies than you, M. de Berault." 
 
 " But no better sword," I cried hoarsely. " No, 
 not in all your guard ! " 
 
 "That is true," he said. "That is true." To 
 my surprise, he spoke in a tone of consideration ; 
 and he looked down at the floor. " Let me think, 
 my friend," he continued. 
 
 He walked two or three times up and down 
 the room, while I stood trembling. I confess it
 
 AT Z ATONES. 23 
 
 trembling. The man whose pulses danger has 
 no power to quicken, is seldom proof against 
 suspense ; and the sudden hope his words awak- 
 ened in me so shook me that his figure, as he 
 trod lightly to and fro, with the cat rubbing 
 against his robe and turning time for time with 
 him, wavered before my eyes. I grasped the 
 table to steady myself. I had not admitted even 
 in my own mind how darkly the shadow of 
 Montfaucon and the gallows had fallen across 
 me. 
 
 I had leisure to recover myself, for it was some 
 time before he spoke. When he did, it was in 
 a voice harsh, changed, imperative. "You have 
 the reputation of a man faithful, at least, to his 
 employer," he said. "Do not answer me. I say 
 it is so. Well, I will trust you. I will give you 
 one more chance though it is a desperate one. 
 Woe to you if you fail me ! Do you know 
 Cocheforet in Beam? It is not far from Auch." 
 
 "No, your Eminence." 
 
 " Nor M. de Cocheforet ? " 
 
 " No, your Eminence." 
 
 "So much the better," he retorted. "But you
 
 24 UNDER THE RED ROBE. 
 
 have heard of him. He has been engaged in 
 every Gascon plot since the late King's death, 
 and gave me more trouble last year in the 
 Vivarais than any man twice his years. At 
 present he is at Bosost in Spain, with other 
 refugees, but I have learned that at frequent 
 intervals he visits his wife at Cocheforet, which 
 is six leagues within the border. On one of 
 these visits he must be arrested." 
 
 "That should be easy," I said. 
 
 The Cardinal looked at me. " Tush, man ! 
 what do you know about it ? " he answered 
 bluntly. " It is whispered at Cccheforet if a sol- 
 dier crosses the street at Auch. In the house 
 are only two or three servants, but they have 
 the country-side with them to a man, and they 
 are a dangerous breed. A spark might kindle 
 a fresh rising. The arrest, therefore, must be 
 made secretly." 
 
 I bowed. 
 
 " One resolute man inside the house, with the 
 help of two or three servants whom he could 
 summon to his aid at will, might effect it," the 
 Cardinal continued, glancing at a paper which lay
 
 AT Z ATONES. 25 
 
 on the table. "The question is, will you be the 
 man, my friend ? " 
 
 I hesitated ; then I bowed. What choice 
 had I ? 
 
 "Nay, nay, speak out ! " he said sharply. "Yes 
 or no, M. de Berault ? " 
 
 " Yes, your Eminence," I said reluctantly. 
 Again, I say, what choice had I ? 
 
 " You will bring him to Paris, and alive. He 
 knows things, and that is why I want him. You 
 understand?" 
 
 "I understand, Monseigneur," I answered. 
 
 " You will get into the house as you can," he 
 continued. " For that you will need strategy, and 
 good strategy. They suspect everybody. You 
 must deceive them. If you fail to deceive them, 
 or, deceiving them, are found out later, M. de 
 Berault I do not think you will trouble me 
 again, or break the edict a second time. On the 
 other hand, should you deceive me'' he smiled 
 still more subtly, but his voice sank to a purring 
 note "I will break you on the wheel like the 
 ruined gamester you are ! " 
 
 I met his look without quailing. " So be it ! "
 
 26 UNDER THE RED ROBE. 
 
 I said recklessly. " If I do not bring M. de 
 Cochefordt to Paris, you may do that to me, and 
 more also!" 
 
 " It is a bargain ! " he answered slowly. " I 
 think you will be faithful. For money, here are a 
 hundred crowns. That sum should suffice ; but if 
 you succeed you shall have twice as much more. 
 Well, that is all, I think. You understand?" 
 
 "Yes, Monseigneur." 
 
 "Then why do you wait?" 
 
 "The lieutenant?" I said modestly. 
 
 Monseigneur laughed to himself, and sitting 
 down wrote a word or two on a slip of paper. 
 " Give him that," he said, in high good-humour. 
 "I fear, M. de Berault, you will never get your 
 deserts in this world I "
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 AT THE GREEN PILLAR. 
 
 COCHEFORET lies in a billowy land of oak and 
 beech and chestnut a land of deep, leafy bot- 
 toms, and hills clothed with forest Ridge and 
 valley, glen and knoll, the woodland, sparsely 
 peopled and more sparsely tilled, stretches away 
 to the great snow mountains that here limit 
 France. It swarms with game wivh wolves 
 aiid bears, deer and boars. To the end of his 
 life I have heard that the great King loved this 
 district, and would sigh, when years and State 
 fell heavily on him, for the beech-groves and 
 box-covered hills of South Beam. From the 
 terraced steps of Auch you can see the forest 
 roll away in light and shadow, vale and upland, 
 to the base of the snow-peaks ; and, though 1 
 come from Brittany and love the smell of the 
 salt wind, I have seen few sights that outdo this. 
 
 27
 
 28 UNDER THE RED ROBE. 
 
 It was the second week in October when I 
 came to Cocheforet, and, dropping down from 
 the last wooded brow, rode quietly into the place 
 at evening. I was alone, and had ridden all 
 day in a glory of ruddy beech-leaves, through 
 the silence of forest roads, across clear brooks 
 and glades still green. I had seen more of the 
 quiet and peace of the country than had been 
 my share since boyhood, and I felt a little mel- 
 ancholy ; it might be for that reason, or because 
 I had no great taste for the task before me 
 the task now so imminent. In good faith, it 
 was not a gentleman's work, look at it how you 
 might. 
 
 But beggars must not be choosers, and I knew 
 that this feeling would pass away. At the inn, 
 in the presence of others, under the spur of 
 necessity, or in the excitement of the chase, 
 were that once begun, I should lose the feeling. 
 When a man is young, he seeks solitude : when 
 he is middle-aged he flies it and his thoughts. 
 I made without ado for the Green Pillar, a little 
 inn in the village street, to which I had been 
 iirected at Auch, and, thundering on the door
 
 AT THE GREEN PILLAR. 29 
 
 with the knob of my riding-switch, railed at the 
 man for keeping me waiting. 
 
 Here and there at hovel doors in the street 
 which was a mean, poor place, not worthy of 
 the name men and women looked out at me 
 suspiciously. But I affected to ignore them ; 
 and at last the host came. He was a fair 
 haired man, half Basque, half Frenchman, and 
 had scanned me well, I was sure, through some 
 window or peephole ; for, when he came out, 
 he betrayed no surprise at the sight of a well- 
 dressed stranger a portent in that out-of-the- 
 way village but eyed me with a kind of sullen 
 reserve. 
 
 " I can lie here to-night, I suppose ? " I said, 
 dropping the reins on the sorrel's neck. The 
 horse hung its head. 
 
 " I don't know," he answered stupidly. 
 
 I pointed to the green bough which topped a 
 post that stood opposite the door. 
 
 " This is an inn, is it not ? " I said. 
 
 " Yes," he answered slowly ; " it is an inn. 
 But " 
 
 "But you are full, or you are out of food* or
 
 30 UNDER THE RED ROBE. 
 
 your wife is ill, or something else is amiss," I 
 answered peevishly. " All the same, I am going 
 to lie here. So you must make the best of it, 
 and your wife, too if you have one." 
 
 He scratched his head, looking at me with an 
 ugly glitter in his eyes. But he said nothing, 
 and I dismounted. 
 
 "Where can I stable my horse?" I asked. 
 
 " I'll put it up," he answered sullenly, step- 
 ping forward and taking the reins in his hands. 
 
 " Very well," I said ; " but I go with you. A 
 merciful man is merciful to his beast, and where- 
 ever I go I see my horse fed." 
 
 " It will be fed," he said shortly. And then 
 he waited for me to go into the house. " The 
 wife is in there," he continued, looking at me 
 stubbornly. 
 
 "Imprimis if you understand Latin, my friend," 
 I answered, "the horse in the stall." 
 
 As if he saw it was no good, he turned the 
 sorrel slowly round, and began to lead it across 
 the village street. There was a shed behind 
 the inn, which I had already marked and taken 
 for the stable, and I was surprised when I found
 
 AT THE GREEN PILLAR. 31 
 
 he was not going there. But I made no remark, 
 and in a few minutes saw the horse well stabled 
 in a hovel which seemed to belong to a neighbour. 
 
 This done, the man led the way back to the 
 inn, carrying my valise. 
 
 " You have no other guests ? " I said, with a 
 casual air. I knew he was watching me closely. 
 
 " No," he answered. 
 
 "This is not much in the way to anywhere, I 
 suppose ? " 
 
 "No." 
 
 That was evident ; a more retired place I nevei 
 saw. The hanging woods, rising steeply to a 
 great height, so shut the valley in that I was 
 puzzled to think how a man could leave it save 
 by the road I had come. The cottages, which 
 were no more than mean, small huts, ran in a 
 straggling double line, with many gaps through 
 fallen trees and ill-cleared meadows. Among 
 them a noisy brook ran in and out. And the 
 inhabitants charcoal-burners, or swineherds, or 
 poor people of the like class, were no better than 
 their dwellings. I looked in vain for the Chateau. 
 It was not to be seen, and I dared not ask for it
 
 32 UNDER THE RED ROBE. 
 
 The man led me into the common room of the 
 tavern a low-roofed, poor place, lacking a chim- 
 ney or glazed windows, and grimy with smoke 
 and use. The fire a great half-burned tree 
 smouldered on a stone hearth, raised a foot from 
 the floor. A huge black pot simmered over it, 
 and beside one window lounged a country fellow 
 talking with the goodwife. In the dusk I could 
 not see his face, but I gave the woman a word, 
 and sat down to wait for my supper. 
 
 She seemed more silent than the common run 
 of women ; but this might be because her hus- 
 band was present. While she moved about, get- 
 ting my meal, he took his place against the door- 
 post and fell to staring at me so persistently that 
 I felt by no means at my ease. He was a tall, 
 strong fellow, with a rough moustache and brown 
 beard, cut in the mode Henri Ouatre ; and on the 
 subject of that king a safe one, I knew, with a 
 Bearnais and on that alone, I found it possible 
 to make him talk. Even then there was a suspi- 
 cious gleam in his eyes that bade me abstain from 
 questions ; and as the darkness deepened behind 
 him, and the firelight played more and more
 
 AT THE GREEN PILLAR. 33 
 
 strongly on his features, and I thought of the 
 leagues of woodland that lay between this remote 
 valley and Auch. I recalled the Cardinal's warn- 
 ing that if I failed in my attempt I should be 
 little likely to trouble Paris again. 
 
 The lout by the window paid no attention to 
 me ; nor I to him, when I had once satisfied my- 
 self that he was really what he seemed to be. 
 But by and by two or three men rough, un- 
 couth fellows dropped in to reinforce the land- 
 lord, and they, too, seemed to have no other 
 business than to sit in silence looking at me, or 
 now and again to exchange a word in a patois 
 of their own. By the time my supper was ready, 
 the knaves numbered six in all ; and, as they 
 were armed to a man with huge Spanish knives, 
 and evidently resented my presence in their dull 
 rustic fashion every rustic is suspicious 1 
 began to think that, unwittingly, I had put my 
 head into a wasp's nest. 
 
 Nevertheless, I ate and drank with apparent 
 appetite ; but little that passed within the circle 
 of light cast by the smoky lamp escaped me. I 
 watched the men's looks and gestures at least
 
 34 UNDER THE RED ROBE. 
 
 as sharply as they watched mine ; and all the 
 time I was racking my wits for some mode of dis- 
 arming their suspicions or failing that, of learn- 
 ing something more of the position, which, it was 
 clear, far exceeded in difficulty and danger any- 
 thing I had expected. The whole valley, it would 
 seem, was on the lookout to protect my man ! 
 
 I had purposely brought with me from Auch a 
 couple of bottles of choice Armagnac ; and these 
 had been carried into the house with my saddle- 
 bags. I took one out now and opened it, and 
 carelessly offered a dram of the spirit to the 
 landlord. He took it. As he drank it, I saw his 
 face flush; he handed back the cup reluctantly, 
 and on that hint I offered him another. The 
 strong spirit was already beginning to work. He 
 accepted, and in a few minutes began to talk 
 more freely and with less of the constraint which 
 had marked us. Still, his tongue ran chiefly on 
 questions he would know this, he would learn 
 that; but even this was a welcome change. I 
 told him openly whence I had come, by what 
 road, how long I had stayed in Auch, and where ; 
 and so far I satisfied his curiosity. Only wnen I
 
 AT THE GREEN PILLAR. 35 
 
 irame to the subject of my visit to Cocheforet I 
 kept a mysterious silence, hinting darkly at busi- 
 ness in Spain and friends across the border, and 
 this and that, and giving the peasants to under- 
 stand, if they pleased, that I was in the same 
 interest as their exiled master. 
 
 They took the bait, winked at one another, and 
 began to look at me in a more friendly way 
 the landlord foremost. But when I had led them 
 so far, I dared go no farther, lest I should com- 
 mit myself and be found out. I stopped, there- 
 tore, and, harking back to general subjects, 
 chanced to compare my province with theirs. 
 The landlord, now become almost talkative, was 
 not slow to take up this challenge; and it pres- 
 ently led to my acquiring a curious piece ot 
 knowledge. He was boasting of, his great snow 
 mountains, the forests that propped them, the 
 bears that roamed in them, the izards that loved 
 the ice, and the boars that fed on the oak mast. 
 
 " Well," I said, quite by chance, " we have not 
 these things, it is true. But we have things in 
 the north you have not. We have tens of thou- 
 sands of good horses not such ponies as you 
 
 D 2
 
 36 UNDER THE RED ROBE. 
 
 breed here. At the horse fair at Fe'camp my 
 sorrel would be lost in the crowd. Here in the 
 south you will not meet his match in a long day's 
 journey." 
 
 " Do not make too sure of that ! " the man 
 replied, his eyes bright with triumph and the 
 dram. "What would you say if I showed you 
 a better in my own stable?" 
 
 I saw that his words sent a kind of thrill 
 through his other hearers, and that such of them 
 as understood for two or three of them talked 
 their patois only looked at him angrily ; and 
 in a twinkling I began to comprehend. But ] 
 affected dulness, and laughed scornfully. 
 
 " Seeing is believing," I said. " I doubt if you 
 know a good horse here when you see one, my 
 friend." 
 
 " Oh, don't I ? " he said, winking. " Indeed ! " 
 
 " I doubt it," I answered stubbornly. 
 
 "Then come with me, and I will show you 
 one," he retorted, discretion giving way to vain- 
 glory. His wife and the others, I saw, looked 
 at him dumbfounded; but, without paying any 
 heed to them, he took up a lanthorn, and, assum-
 
 AT THE GREEN PILLAR. 37 
 
 ing an air of peculiar wisdom, opened the door. 
 " Come with me," he continued. " I don't know 
 a good horse when I see one, don't I ? I know 
 a better than yours, at any rate!" 
 
 I should not have been surprised if the other 
 men had interfered; but I suppose he was a 
 leader among them, and they did not, and in 
 a moment we were outside. Three paces through 
 the darkness took us to the stable, an offset at 
 the back of the inn. My man twirled the pin, 
 and, leading the way in, raised his lanthorn. A 
 horse whinnied softly, and turned its bright, soft 
 eyes on us a baldf aced chestnut, with white 
 hairs in its tail and one white stocking. 
 
 " There ! " my guide exclaimed, waving the 
 lanthorn to and fro boastfully, that I might see 
 its points. " What do you say to that ? Is that 
 an undersized pony ? " 
 
 " No," 1 answered, purposely stinting my 
 praise. "It is pretty fair for this country." 
 
 "Or any country," he answered wrathfully. 
 "Any country, I say I don't care where it is! 
 And I have reason to know ! Why, man, that 
 horse is But there, that is a good horse, if
 
 $8 UNDER THE RED ROBE. 
 
 ever you saw one \ " And with that he ended 
 abruptly and lamely, lowering the lanthorn with 
 a sudden gesture, and turning to the door. He 
 was on the instant in such hurry, that he almost 
 shouldered me out. 
 
 But I understood. I knew that he had nearly 
 betrayed all that he had been on the point of 
 blurting out that that was M. de Cochefore"t's 
 horse ! M. de Cocheforet's, comprenez bien ! And 
 while I turned away my face in the darkness, 
 that he might not see me smile, I was not sur- 
 prised to find the man in a moment changed, 
 and become, in the closing of the door, as sober 
 and suspicious as before, ashamed of himself and 
 enraged with me, and in a mood to cut my throat 
 for a trifle. 
 
 It was not my cue to quarrel, however any- 
 thing but that. I made, therefore, as if I had 
 seen nothing, and when we were back in the 
 inn praised the horse grudgingly, and like a man 
 but half convinced. The ugly looks and ugly 
 weapons I saw around me were fine incentives 
 to caution ; and no Italian, I flatter myself, could 
 have played his part more nicely than I did. But
 
 AT THE GREEN PILLAR. 39 
 
 I was heartily glad when it was over, and I found 
 myself, at last, left alone for the night in a little 
 garret a mere fowl-house upstairs, formed by 
 the roof and gable walls, and hung with strings 
 of apples and chestnuts. It was a poor sleeping- 
 place rough, chilly, and unclean. I ascended 
 to it by a ladder; my cloak and a little fern 
 formed my only bed. But I was glad to accept 
 it. It enabled me to be alone and to think out 
 the position unwatched. 
 
 Of course M. de Cocheforet was at the Chateau. 
 He had left his horse here, and gone up on 
 foot : probably that was his usual plan. He 
 was therefore within my reach, in one sense 
 I could not have come at a better time but in 
 another he was as much beyond it as if I were 
 still in Paris. So far was I from being able to 
 seize him that I dared not ask a question or let 
 fall a rash word, or even look about me freely. 
 I saw I dared not. The slightest hint of my 
 mission, the faintest breath of distrust, would 
 lead to throat-cutting and the throat would be 
 mine; while the longer I lay in the village, the 
 greater suspicion I should incur, and the closer 
 would be the watch kept over me.
 
 40 UNDER THE RED ROBE. 
 
 In such a position some men might have j^iven 
 up the attempt and saved themselves across the 
 border. But I have always valued myself on 
 my fidelity, and I did not shrink. If not to-day, 
 to-morrow ; if not this time, next time. The 
 dice do not always turn up aces. Bracing myself, 
 therefore, to the occasion, I crept, as soon as 
 the house was quiet, to the window, a small, 
 square, open lattice, much cobwebbed, and partly 
 stuffed with hay. I looked out. The village 
 seemed to be asleep. The dark branches of trees 
 hung a few feet away, and almost obscured a 
 grey, cloudy sky, through which a wet moon 
 sailed drearily. Looking downwards, I could at 
 first see nothing ; but as my eyes grew used to 
 the darkness I had only just put out my 
 rushlight I made out the stable-door and the 
 shadowy outlines of the lean-to roof. 
 
 I had hoped for this. I could now keep 
 watch, and learn at least whether Cochefore't 
 left before morning. If he did not I should 
 know he was still here. If he did, I should be 
 the better for seeing his features, and learning, 
 perhaps, other things that might be of use.
 
 AT THE GREEN PILLAR. 41 
 
 Making up my mind to be uncomfortable, I. 
 sat down on the floor by the lattice, and began 
 a vigil that might last, I knew, until morning. 
 It did last about an hour. At the end of that 
 time I heard whispering below, then footsteps; 
 then, as some persons turned a corner, a voice 
 speaking aloud and carelessly. I could not catch 
 the words spoken ; but the voice was a gentle- 
 man's, and its bold accents and masterful tone 
 left me in no doubt that the speaker was M. de 
 Cocheforet himself. Hoping to learn more, I 
 pressed my face nearer to the opening, and 
 I had just made out through the gloom two 
 figures one that of a tall, slight man, wearing 
 a cloak, the other, I thought, a woman's, in a 
 sheeny white dress when a thundering rap on 
 the door of my garret made me spring back a 
 yard from the lattice, and lie down hurriedly on 
 my couch. The noise was repeated. 
 
 "Well?" I cried, cursing the untimely inter, 
 ruption. I was burning with anxiety to see more. 
 "What is it? What is the matter?" 
 
 The trapdoor was lifted a foot or more. The 
 landlord thrust up his head.
 
 42 UNDER THE RED ROBE. 
 
 "You called, did you not?" he asked. Tie 
 held up a rushlight, which illumined half the 
 room and lit up his grinning face. 
 
 " Called at this hour of the night, you fool ? " 
 I answered angrily. " No ! I did not call. Go 
 to bed, man ! " 
 
 But he remained on the ladder, gaping stupidly. 
 
 " I heard you," he said. 
 
 "Go to bed ! You are drunk ! " I answered, 
 sitting up. " I tell you I did not call." 
 
 "Oh, very well," he answered slowly. "And 
 you do not want anything?" 
 
 " Nothing except to be left alone ! " I replied 
 sourly. 
 
 " Umph ! he said. " Good-night ! " 
 
 " Good-nignt ! Good-night ! " I answered, with 
 what patience I might. The tramp of the horse's 
 hoofs as it was led out of the stable was in 
 my ear at the moment. " Good-night ! ' I con- 
 tinued feverishly, hoping he would still retire 
 in time, and I have a chance to look out. " I 
 want to sleep." 
 
 " Good," he said, with a broad grin. " But 
 it is early yet, and you have plenty of time."
 
 AT THE GREEN PILLAR. 4*y 
 
 And then, at last, he slowly let down the trar> 
 door, and I heard him chuckle as Vie went down 
 the ladder. 
 
 Before he reached the bottom I was at the 
 window. The woman whom I had seen still 
 stood below, in the same place; and beside her 
 a man in a peasant's dress, holding a lanthorn, 
 But the man, the man I wanted to see was no 
 longer there. And it was evident that he was 
 gone; it was evident that the others no longer 
 feared me, for while I gazed the landlord came 
 out to them with another lanthorn, and said 
 something to the lady, and she looked up at my 
 window and laughed. 
 
 It was a warm night, and she wore nothing 
 over her white dress. I could see her tall, 
 shapely figure and shining eyes, and the firm 
 contour of her beautiful face ; which, if any 
 fault might be found with it, erred in being too 
 regular. She looked like a woman formed by 
 nature to meet dangers and difficulties ; and even 
 here, at midnight, in the midst of these desperate 
 men, she seemed in place. It was possible that 
 under her queenly exterior, and behind the con-
 
 44 UNDER THE RED ROBE. 
 
 temptuous laugh with which she heard the land 
 lord's story, there lurked a woman's soul capable 
 of folly and tenderness. But no outward sign 
 betrayed its presence. 
 
 I scanned her very carefully ; and secretly, if 
 the truth be told, I was glad to find Madame de 
 Cocheforet such a woman. I was glad that she 
 had laughed as she had that she was not a 
 little, tender, child-like woman, to be crushed by 
 the first pinch of trouble. For if I succeeded in 
 my task, if I but, pish ! Women, I said, were 
 all alike. She would find consolation quickly 
 enough. 
 
 I watched until the group broke up, and 
 Madame, with one of the men, went her way 
 round the corner of the inn, and out of my 
 sight. Then I retired to bed again, feeling more 
 than ever perplexed what course I should adopt. 
 It was clear that, to succeed, I must obtain 
 admission to the house. This was garrisoned, 
 unless my instruction* erred, by two or three 
 old men-servants only, and as many women ; 
 since Madame, to disguise her husband's visits 
 the more easily, lived, and gave out that she
 
 AT THE GREEN PILLAR. 45 
 
 lived, in great retirement. To seize her hus- 
 band at home, therefore, might be no impossible 
 task; though here, in the heart of the village, 
 a troop of horse might make the attempt, and 
 fail. 
 
 But how was I to gain admission to the house 
 a house guarded by quick-witted women, and 
 hedged in with all the precautions love could 
 devise ? That was the question ; and dawn found 
 me still debating it, still as far as ever from an 
 answer. With the first light I was glad to get 
 up. I thought that the fresh air might inspire 
 me, and I was tired, besides, of my stuffy closet 
 I crept stealthily down the ladder, and managed 
 to pass unseen through the lower room, in which 
 several persons were snoring heavily. The outei 
 door was not fastened, and in a hand-turn I 
 stood in the street. 
 
 It was still so early that the trees stood up 
 black against the reddening sky, but the bough 
 upon the post before the door was growing 
 green, and in a few minutes the grey light 
 would be everywhere. Already even in the road 
 way there was a glimmering of it; and as \
 
 46 UNDER THE RED ROBE. 
 
 stood at the corner of the house where I could 
 command both the front and the side on which 
 the stable opened looking greedily for any 
 trace of the midnight departure, my eyes de- 
 tected something light-coloured lying on the 
 ground. It was not more than two or three 
 paces from me, and I stepped to it and picked 
 It up curiously, hoping it might be a note. It 
 was not a note, however, but a tiny orange-col- 
 oured sachet, such as women carry in the bosom. 
 It was full of some faintly scented powder, and 
 bore on one side the initial " E," worked in 
 white silk; and was altogether a dainty little 
 toy, such as women love. 
 
 Doubtless Madame de Cocheforet had dropped 
 it in the night. I turned it over and over; and 
 then I put it away with a smile, thinking it 
 might be useful some time, and in some way. 
 I had scarcely done this, and turned with the 
 intention of exploring the street, when the door 
 behind me creaked on its leather hinges, and in 
 a moment my host stood at my elbow. 
 
 Evidently his suspicions were again aroused. 
 for from that time he managed to be with me,
 
 AT THE GREEN PILLAR. 47 
 
 on one pretence or another, until noon. More- 
 over, his manner grew each moment more churl- 
 ish, his hints plainer; until I could scarcely avoid 
 noticing the one or the other. About midday, 
 having followed me for the twentieth time into 
 the street, he came at last to the point, by ask- 
 ing me rudely if I did not need my horse. 
 
 "No," I said. "Why do you ask?" 
 
 " Because," he answered, with an ugly smile, 
 "this is not a very healthy place for strangers." 
 
 " Ah ! " I retorted. " But the border air suits 
 me, you see." 
 
 It was a lucky answer; for, taken with my 
 talk of the night before, it puzzled him, by again 
 suggesting that I was on the .losing side, and 
 had my reasons for lying near Spain. Before 
 he had done scratching his head over it, the clat- 
 ter of hoofs broke the sleepy quiet of the vil- 
 lage street, and the lady I had seen the night 
 before rode quickly round the corner, and drew 
 her horse on to its haunches. Without looking 
 at me, she called to the innkeeper to come to 
 her stirrup. 
 
 He went The moment his back was turned,.
 
 48 UNDER THE RED ROBE. 
 
 I slipped away, and in a twinkling was hidden 
 by a house. Two or three glum-looking fellows 
 stared at me as I passed, but no one moved ; and 
 in two minutes I was clear of the village, and in 
 a half-worn track which ran through the wood, 
 and led if my ideas were right to the Cha- 
 teau. To discover the house and learn all that 
 was to be learned about its situation was my 
 most pressing need : even at the risk of a knife- 
 thrust, I was determined to satisfy it. 
 
 I had not gone two hundred paces along the 
 path before I heard the tread of a horse behind 
 me, and I had just time to hide myself before 
 Madame came up and rode by me, sitting her 
 horse gracefully, and with all the courage of a 
 northern woman. I watched her pass, and then, 
 assured by her presence that I was in the right 
 road, I hurried after her. Two minutes' walking 
 at speed brought me to a light wooden bridge 
 spanning a stream. I crossed this, and, the wood 
 opening, saw before me first a wide, pleasant 
 meadow, and beyond this a terrace. On the ter- 
 race, pressed upon on three sides by thick woods, 
 stood a grey mansion, with the corner tourelles.
 
 AT THE GREEN" PILLAR. 49 
 
 steep, high roofs, and round balconies that men 
 loved and built in the days of the first Francis. 
 
 It was of good size, but wore, I fancied, a 
 gloomy aspect. A great yew hedge, which seemed 
 to enclose a walk or bowling-green, hid the ground 
 floor of the east wing from view, while a formal 
 rose garden, stiff even in neglect, lay in front of 
 the main building. The west wing, whose lower 
 roofs fell gradually away to the woods, probably 
 contained the stables and granaries. 
 
 I stood a moment only, but I marked all, and 
 noted how the road reached the house, and which 
 windows were open to attack ; then I turned and 
 hastened back. Fortunately, I met no one be- 
 tween the house and the village, and was able to 
 enter the inn with an air of the most complete 
 innocence. 
 
 Short as had been my absence, I found things 
 altered there. Round the door loitered and chat- 
 tered three strangers stout, well-armed fellows, 
 whose bearing suggested a curious mixture of 
 smugness and independence. Half-a-dozen pack- 
 horses stood tethered to the post in front of the 
 house; and the landlord's manner, from being
 
 50 UNDER THE RED ROBE. 
 
 rude and churlish only, had grown perplexed and 
 almost timid. One of the strangers, I soon found, 
 supplied him with wine ; the others were travel- 
 ling merchants, who rode in the first one's com- 
 pany for the sake of safety. All were substantial 
 men from Tarbes solid burgesses; and I was 
 not long in guessing that my host, fearing what 
 might leak out before them, and particularly that 
 I might refer to the previous night's disturbance, 
 was on tenterhooks while they remained. 
 
 For a time this did not suggest anything to me. 
 But when we had all taken our seats for supper 
 there came an addition to the party. The door 
 opened, and the fellow whom I had seen the night 
 before with Madame de Cocheforet entered, and 
 took a stool by the fire. I felt sure that he was 
 one of the servants at the Chateau ; and in a flash 
 his presence inspired me with the most feasible 
 plan for obtaining admission which I had yet hit 
 upon. I felt myself growing hot at the thought 
 it seemed so full of promise and of danger 
 and on the instant, without giving myself time 
 to think too much, I began to carry it into 
 effect.
 
 AT THE GREEN PILLAR. 51 
 
 I called for two or three bottles of better wine, 
 and, assuming a jovial air, passed it round the 
 table. When we had drunk a few glasses, I fell 
 to talking, and, choosing politics, took the side 
 of the Languedoc party and the malcontents, in 
 so reckless a fashion that the innkeeper was 
 beside himself at my imprudence. The mer- 
 chants, who belonged to the class with whom the 
 Cardinal was always most popular, looked first 
 astonished and then enraged. But I was not to 
 be checked. Hints and sour looks were lost upon 
 me. I grew more outspoken with every glass, I 
 drank to the Rochellois, I swore it would not be 
 long before they raised their heads again ; and at 
 last, while the innkeeper and his wife were en- 
 gaged lighting the lamp, I passed round the 
 bottle and called on all for a toast. 
 
 " I'll give you one to begin," I bragged noisily. 
 " A gentleman's toast ! A southern toast ! Here 
 is confusion to the Cardinal, and a health to all 
 who hate him ! " 
 
 " Mon Dieu ! " one of the strangers cried, 
 springing from his seat in a rage. " I am not 
 going to stomach that ! Is your house a common
 
 52 UNDER THE RED ROBE. 
 
 treason-hole," he continued, turning furiously on 
 the landlord, "that you suffer this?" 
 
 " Hoity-toity ! " I answered, coolly keeping my 
 seat. " What is all this ? Don't you relish my 
 toast, little man ? " 
 
 " No nor you ! " he retorted hotly, " whoever 
 you may be ! " 
 
 "Then I will give you another," I answered, 
 with a hiccough. " Perhaps it will be more to 
 your taste. Here is the Duke of Orleans, and 
 may he soon be King ! "
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE HOUSE IN THE WOOD. 
 
 MY words fairly startled the three men out of 
 their anger. Foi" a moment they glared at me 
 as if they had seen a ghost. Then the wine- 
 merchant clapped his hand on the table. " That 
 is enough ! " he said, with a look at his com- 
 panions. " I think there can be no mistake 
 about that. As damnable treason as ever I 
 heard whispered ! I congratulate you, Sir, on 
 your boldness. As for you," he continued, turn- 
 ing with an ugly sneer to the landlord, " I 
 shall know now the company you keep ! I was 
 not aware that my wine wet whistles to such 
 a tune!" 
 
 But if he was startled, the innkeeper was 
 furious, seeing his character thus taken away; 
 and, being at no time a man of many words, he 
 vented his rage exactly in the way I wished. In 
 
 S3
 
 54 UNDER THE RED ROBE. 
 
 a twinkling he raised such an uproar as can 
 scarcely be conceived. With a roar like a bull's 
 he ran headlong at the table, and overturned it 
 on the top of me. The woman saved the lamp 
 and fled with it into a corner, whence she and 
 the man from the Chateau watched the skirmish 
 in silence ; but the pewter cups and platters 
 flew spinning across the floor, while the table 
 pinned me to the ground among the ruins of my 
 stool. Having me at this disadvantage for at 
 first I made no resistance the landlord began 
 to belabour me with the first thing he snatched 
 up, and when I tried to defend myself cursed 
 me with each blow for a treacherous rogue and 
 a vagrant. Meanwhile, the three merchants, 
 delighted with the turn things had taken, skipped 
 round us laughing ; and now hounded him on, 
 now bantered me with " How is that for the 
 Duke of Orleans ? " and " How now, traitor ? " 
 
 When I thought this had lasted long enough 
 or, to speak more plainly, when I could stand 
 the innkeeper's drubbing no longer I threw 
 him off by a great effort, and struggled to my 
 feet. But still, though the blood was trickling
 
 THE HOUSE IN THE WOOD. 55 
 
 down my face, I refrained from drawing my 
 sword. I caught up instead a leg of the stool 
 which lay handy, and, watching my opportunity, 
 dealt the landlord a shrewd blow under the ear, 
 which laid him out in a moment on the wreck 
 of his own table. 
 
 " Now ! " I cried, brandishing my new weapon, 
 which fitted the hand to a nicety, " come on ! 
 Come on, if you dare to strike a blow, you ped- 
 dling, truckling, huckstering knaves ! A fig for 
 you and your shaveling Cardinal ! " 
 
 The red-faced wine-merchant drew his sword 
 in a one-two. " Why, you drunken fool," he 
 said wrathfully, " put that stick down, or I will 
 spit you like a lark ! " 
 
 " Lark in your teeth ! " I cried, staggering as 
 if the wine were in my head. "Another word, 
 and I " 
 
 He made a couple of savage passes at me, but 
 in a twinkling his sword flew across the room. 
 
 " Voila!" I shouted, lurching forward, as if I 
 had luck and not skill to thank for it. " Now 
 the next ! Come on, come on you white-livered 
 knaves ! " And, pretending a drunken frenzy,
 
 $6 UNDER THE RED ROBE. 
 
 I flung my weapon bodily amongst them, and 
 seizing the nearest, began to wrestle with him. 
 
 In a moment they all threw themselves upon 
 me, and, swearing copiously, bore me back to 
 the door. The wine-merchant cried breathlessly 
 to the woman to open it, and in a twinkling 
 they had me through it and half way across 
 the road. The one thing I feared was a knife- 
 thrust in the melee ; but I had to run that risk, 
 and the men were honest enough and, thinking 
 me drunk, indulgent. In a trice I found myself 
 on my back in the dirt, with my head humming ; 
 and heard the bars of the door fall noisily into 
 their places. 
 
 I got up and went to the door, and, to play 
 out my part, hammered on it frantically, crying 
 out to them to let me in. But the three trav- 
 ellers only jeered at me, and the landlord, com- 
 ing to the window, with his head bleeding, shook 
 his fist at me and cursed me for a mischief- 
 maker. 
 
 Baffled in this I retired to a log which lay 
 in the road a few paces from the house, and 
 sat down on it to await events. With torn
 
 THE HOUSE IN THE WOOD. 57 
 
 clothes and bleeding face, hatless and covered 
 vvith dirt, I was in scarcely better case than 
 my opponent. It was raining, too, and the 
 dripping branches swayed over my head. The 
 wind was in the south the coldest quarter. 
 I began to feel chilled and dispirited. If my 
 scheme failed, I had forfeited roof and bed to 
 no purpose, and placed future progress out of 
 the question. It was a critical moment. 
 
 But at last that happened for which I had 
 been looking. The door swung open a few 
 inches, and a man came noiselessly out; the 
 door was quickly barred behind him. He stood 
 a moment, waiting on the threshold and peering 
 into the gloom; and seemed to expect to be 
 attacked. Finding himself unmolested, however, 
 and all quiet, he went off steadily down the street 
 towards the Chateau. 
 
 I let a couple of minutes go by and then I 
 followed. I had no difficulty in hitting on the 
 track at the end of the street, but when I had 
 once plunged into the wood, I found myself in 
 darkness so intense that I soon stiayed from 
 the path, and fell over roots, and tore my
 
 58 UNDER THE RED ROBE. 
 
 clothes with thorns, and lost my temper twenty 
 times before I found the path again. However, I 
 gained the bridge at last, and caught sight of a 
 light twinkling before me. To make for it across 
 the meadow and terrace was an easy task ; yet 
 when I had reached the door and had hammered 
 upon it, I was in so sorry a plight that I sank 
 down, and had no need to play a part or pretend 
 to be worse than I was. 
 
 For a long time no one answered. The dark 
 house towering above me remained silent. I 
 could hear, mingled with the throbbings of my 
 heart, the steady croaking of the frogs in a pond 
 near the stables; but no other sound. In a frenzy 
 of impatience and disgust I stood up again and 
 hammered, kicking with my heels on the nail- 
 studded door, and crying out desperately, "A moi ! 
 A moi!" 
 
 Then, or a moment later, I hearc 1 a remote door 
 opened ; footsteps as of more than one person 
 drew near. I raised my voice and cried again, 
 "A moi!" 
 
 " Who is there ? " a voice asked. 
 
 " A gentleman in distress," I answered piteously,
 
 THE HOUSE IN THE WOOD. 59 
 
 moving my hands across the door. " For God's 
 sake open and let me in. I am hurt, and dying 
 of cold." 
 
 " What brings you here ? " the voice asked 
 sharply. Despite its tartness, I fancied it was a 
 woman's. 
 
 " Heaven knows ! " I answered desperately. " I 
 cannot tell. They maltreated me at the inn, and 
 threw me into the street. I crawled away, and 
 have been wandering in the wood for hours. 
 Then I saw a light here." 
 
 Thereon, some muttering took place on the 
 other side of the door, to which I had my ear 
 It ended in the bars being lowered. The door 
 swung partly open and a light shone out, dazzling 
 me. I tried to shade my eyes with mv fingers, 
 and as I did so fancied I heard a murmur of pity. 
 But when I looked in under screen of my hand I 
 saw only one person the man who held the 
 light, and his aspect was so strange, so terrify- 
 ing, that, shaken as I was by fatigue, I recoiled 
 a step. 
 
 He was a tall and very thin man, meanly 
 Pressed in a short scanty jacket and well-darned
 
 60 UNDER THE RED ROBE. 
 
 hose. Unable, for some reason, to bend his neckj 
 he carried his head with a strange stiffness. 
 
 And that head ! Never did living man show a 
 face so like death. His forehead was bald and 
 white, his cheek-bones stood out under the strained 
 skin, all the lower part of his face fell in, his jaws 
 receded, his cheeks were hollow, his lips and chin 
 were thin and fleshless. He seemed to have only 
 one expression a fixed grin. 
 
 While I stood looking at this formidable crea- 
 ture he made a quick motion to shut the door 
 again, smiling more widely. I had the presence 
 of mind to thrust in my foot, and, before he could 
 resent the act, a voice in the background cried : 
 " For shame, Clon ! Stand back. Stand back, do 
 you hear? I am afraid, Monsieur, that you are 
 hurt." 
 
 The last words were my welcome to that house ; 
 and, spoken at an hour and in circumstances so 
 gloomy, they made a lasting impression. Round 
 the hall ran a gallery, and this, the height of the 
 apartment, and the dark panelling seemed to swal- 
 low up the light. I stood within the entrance (as 
 it seemed to me) of a huge cave ; the skull-headed
 
 THE HOUSE IN THE WOOD. 6l 
 
 porter had the air of an ogre. Only the voice 
 which greeted me dispelled the illusion. I turned 
 trembling towards the quarter whence it came, 
 and, shading my eyes, made out a woman's form 
 standing in a doorway under the gallery. A 
 second figure, which I took to be that of the 
 servant I had seen at the inn, loomed uncer- 
 tainly beside her. 
 
 I bowed in silence. My teeth were chattering 
 I was faint without feigning, and felt a kind of 
 terror, hard to explain, at the sound of this 
 woman's voice. 
 
 "One of our people has told me about you," 
 she continued, speaking out of the darkness. " I 
 am sorry that this has happened to you here, but 
 I am afraid that you were indiscreet." 
 
 " I take all the blame, Madame," I answered 
 humbly. " I ask only shelter for the night." 
 
 "The time has not yet come when we cannot 
 give our friends that ! " she answered, with noble 
 courtesy. " When it does, Monsieur, we shall be 
 homeless ourselves." 
 
 I shivered, looking anywhere but at her; for I 
 had not sufficiently pictured this scene of my
 
 62 UNDER THE RED ROBE. 
 
 arrival I had not foreseen its details ; and now 
 I took part in it I felt a miserable meanness weigh 
 me down. I had never from the first liked the 
 work ! But, I had had no choice. And I had no 
 choice now. Luckily, the guise in which I came, 
 my fatigue, and wound were a sufficient mark, or 
 I should have incurred suspicion at once. For I 
 am sure that if ever in this world a brave man 
 wore a hang-dog air, or Gil de Berault fell below 
 himself, it was then and there on Madame de 
 Cocheforet's threshold, with her welcome sounding 
 in my ears. 
 
 One, I think, did suspect me. Clon, the porter, 
 continued to hold the door obstinately ajar and to 
 eye me with grinning spite, until his mistress, 
 with some sharpness, bade him drop the bars, 
 and conduct me to a room. 
 
 " Do you go also, Louis," she continued, speak- 
 ing to the man beside her, "and see this gentle- 
 man comfortably disposed. I am sorry," she 
 added, addressing me in the graceful tone she 
 had before used, and I thought I could see her 
 head bend in the darkness, " that our present cir- 
 cumstances do not permit us to welcome you more
 
 THE HOUSE IN THE WOOD. 63 
 
 fitly, Monsieur. But the troubles of the times 
 however, you will excuse what is lacking. Until 
 to-morrow, I have the honour to bid you good- 
 night." 
 
 "Good-night, Madame," I stammered, trem- 
 bling. I had not been able to distinguish her 
 face in the gloom of the doorway, but her voice, 
 her greeting, her presence, unmanned me. I was 
 troubled and perplexed ; I had not spirit to kick 
 a dog. I followed the two servants from the hall 
 without heeding how we went ; nor was it until we 
 came to a full stop at a door in a whitewashed 
 corridor, and it was forced upon me that some- 
 thing was in question between my two conductors, 
 that I began to take notice. 
 
 Then I saw that one of them, Louis, wished to 
 lodge me here where we stood. The porter, on 
 the other hand, who held the keys, would not. 
 He did not speak a word, nor did the other 
 and this gave a queer ominous character to the 
 debate ; but he continued to jerk his head towards 
 the farther end of the corridor, and, at last, he 
 carried his point. Louis shrugged his shoulders, 
 and moved on, glancing askance at me; and I,
 
 64 UNDER THE RED ROBE. 
 
 not understanding the matter in debate, followed 
 the pair in silence. 
 
 We reached the end of the corridor, and there, 
 for an instant, the monster with the keys paused 
 and grinned at me. Then he turned into a narrow 
 passage on the left, and after following it for some 
 paces, halted before a small, strong door. His key 
 jarred in the lock, but he forced it shrieking round, 
 and with a savage flourish threw the door open. 
 
 I walked in and saw a mean, bare chamber 
 with barred windows. The floor was indifferently 
 clean, there was no furniture. The yellow light 
 of the lanthorn falling on the stained walls gave 
 the place the look of a dungeon. I turned to the 
 two men. " This is not a very good room," I said. 
 "And it feels damp. Have you no other?" 
 
 Louis looked doubtfully at his companion. But 
 the porter shook his head stubbornly. 
 
 " Why does he not speak ? " I asked with 
 impatience. 
 
 " He is dumb," Louis answered. 
 
 "Dumb!" I exclaimed. "But he hears." 
 
 " He has ears," the servant answered drily. 
 "But he has no tongue, Monsieur."
 
 THE HOUSE IN THE WOOD. 65 
 
 I shuddered. " How did he lose it? " I asked. 
 
 " At Rochelle. He was a spy, and the King's 
 people took him the day the town surrendered. 
 They spared his life, but cut out his tongue." 
 
 "Ah ! " I said. I wished to say more, to be 
 natural, to show myself at my ease. But the 
 porter's eyes seemed to burn into me, and my 
 own tongue clove to the roof of my mouth. He 
 opened his lips and pointed to his throat with a 
 horrid gesture, and I shook my head and turned 
 from him " You can let me have some bed- 
 ding ? " I murmured hastily, for the sake of 
 saying something, and to escape. 
 
 " Of course, Monsieur," Louis answered. " I 
 will fetch some." 
 
 He went away, thinking doubtless that Clon 
 would stay with me. But after waiting . a min- 
 ute the porter strode off also with the lanthorn, 
 leaving me to stand in the middle of the damp, 
 dark room, and reflect on the position. It was 
 plain that Clon suspected me. This prison-like 
 room, with its barred window at the back of the 
 house, and in the wing farthest from the stables, 
 proved so much. Clearly, he was a dangerous
 
 66 UNDER THE RED ROBE. 
 
 fellow, of whom I must beware. I had just 
 begun to wonder how Madame could keep such 
 a monster in her house, when I heard his step 
 returning. He came in, lighting Louis, who car- 
 ried a small pallet and a bundle of coverings. 
 
 The dumb man had, besides the lanthorn, a 
 bowl of water and a piece of rag in his hand. 
 He set them down, and going out again, fetched 
 in a stool. Then he hung up the lanthorn on 
 a nail, took the bowl and rag, and invited me to 
 sit down. 
 
 I was loth to let him touch me ; but he con- 
 tinued to stand over me, pointing and grinning 
 with dark persistence, and, rather than stand on 
 a trifle, I sat down at last, and gave him his way. 
 He bathed my head carefully enough, and I dare 
 say did. it good ; but I understood. I knew that 
 his only desire was to learn whether the cut was 
 real or a pretence. I began to fear him more 
 and more, and, until he was gone from the room, 
 dared scarcely lift my face, lest he should read 
 too much in it. 
 
 Alone, even, I felt uncomfortable. This seemed 
 so sinister a business, and so ill begun. I was
 
 THE HOUSE IN THE WOOD. 67 
 
 in the house. But Madame's frank voice haunted 
 me, and the dumb man's eyes, full of suspicion 
 and menace. When I presently got up and tried 
 my door, I found it locked. The room smelled 
 dank and close like a vault. I could not sec 
 through the barred window ; but I could hear 
 the boughs sweep it in ghostly fashion ; and I 
 guessed that it looked out where the wood grew 
 close to the walls of the house ; and that even in 
 the day the sun never peeped through it. 
 
 Nevertheless, tired and worn out, I slept at 
 last. When I awoke the room was full of grey 
 light, the door stood open, and Louis, looking 
 ashamed of himself, waited by my pallet with a 
 cup of wine in his hand, and some bread and 
 fruit on a platter. 
 
 " Will Monsieur be good enough to rise ? " 
 he said. " It is eight o'clock." 
 
 "Willingly," I answered tartly. " Now that the 
 door is unlocked." 
 
 He turned red. " It was an oversight," he 
 stammered. " Clon is accustomed to lock the 
 door, and he did it inadvertently, forgetting that 
 there was any one " 
 
 r:
 
 68 UNDER THE RED ROBE. 
 
 " Inside ! " I said drily. 
 
 "Precisely, Monsieur." 
 
 "Ah!" I replied. "Well, I do not think the 
 oversight would please Madame de Cocheforet, 
 if she heard of it ? " 
 
 " If Monsieur would have the kindness not 
 to" 
 
 " Mention it, my good fellow ? " I answered, 
 looking at him with meaning, as I rose. " No ; 
 but it must not occur again." 
 
 I saw that this man was not like Qon. He 
 had the instincts of the family servant, and freed 
 from the influences of darkness, felt ashamed of 
 his conduct. While he arranged my clothes, he 
 looked round the room with an air of distaste, 
 and muttered once or twice that the furniture of 
 the principal chambers was packed away. 
 
 " M. de Cocheforet is abroad, I think ? " I said, 
 as I dressed. 
 
 " And likely to remain there," the man answered 
 carelessly, shrugging his shoulders. " Monsieur 
 will doubtless have heard that he is in trouble. 
 In the meantime, the house is triste, and Mon- 
 sieur must overlook much, if he stays. Madame
 
 THE HOUSE IN THE WOOD. 69 
 
 lives retired, and the roads are ill-made and visi- 
 tors few." 
 
 " When the lion was ill the jackals left him," I 
 said. 
 
 Louis nodded. " It is true," he answered 
 simply. He made no boast or brag on his own 
 account, I noticed ; and it came home to me that 
 he was a faithful fellow, such as I love. I ques- 
 tioned him discreetly, and learned that he and 
 Clon and an older man who lived over the sta- 
 bles were the only male servants left of a great 
 household. Madame, her sister-in-law, and three 
 women completed the family. 
 
 It took me some time to repair my wardrobe, so 
 that I dare say it was nearly ten when I left my 
 dismal little room. I found Louis waiting in the 
 corridor, and he told me that Madame de Coche- 
 foret and Mademoiselle were in the rose-garden, 
 and would be pleased to receive me. I nodded, 
 and he guided me through several dim passages 
 to a parlour with an open door, through which 
 the sun shone in gaily. Cheered by the morning 
 air and this sudden change to pleasantness and 
 life, I stepped lightly out.
 
 70 UNDER THE RED ROBE. 
 
 The two ladies were walking up and down 
 a wide path which bisected the garden. The 
 weeds grew rankly in the gravel underfoot, the 
 rose-bushes which bordered the walk thrust their 
 branches here and there in untrained freedom, 
 a dark yew hedge which formed the background 
 bristled with rough shoots and sadly needed trim- 
 ming. But I did not see any of these things then. 
 The grace, the noble air, the distinction of the two 
 women who paced slowly to meet me and who 
 shared all these qualities greatly as they differed 
 in others left me no power to notice trifles. 
 
 Mademoiselle was a head shorter than her belle 
 sceur a slender woman and petite, with a beauti- 
 ful face and a fair complexion. She walked with 
 dignity, but beside Madame's stately figure she 
 seemed almost childish. And it was character- 
 istic of the two that Mademoiselle as they drew 
 near to me regarded me with sorrowful attention, 
 Madame with a grave smile. 
 
 I bowed low. They returned the salute. 
 " This is my sister," Madame de Cocheforet said, 
 with a slight, a very slight air of condescension. 
 " Will you please to tell me your name, Monsieur ? "
 
 THE HOUSE IN THE WOOD. 7* 
 
 "I am M. de Barthe, a gentleman of Nor- 
 mandy," I said, taking the name of my mother. 
 My own, by a possibility, might be known. 
 
 Madame's face wore a puzzled look. " I do not 
 know your name, I think," she said thoughtfully. 
 Doubtless she was going over in her mind all 
 the names with which conspiracy had made her 
 familiar. 
 
 "That is my misfortune, Madame," I said 
 humbly. 
 
 " Nevertheless I am going to scold you," she 
 rejoined, still eyeing me with some keenness. " I 
 am glad to see that you are none the worse for 
 your adventure but others may be. And you 
 should have borne that in mind." 
 
 " I do not think that I hurt the man seriously," 
 I stammered. 
 
 " I do not refer to that," she answered coldly. 
 " You know, or should know, that we are in dis- 
 grace here ; that the Government regards us 
 already with an evil eye, and that a very small 
 thing would lead them to garrison the village and 
 perhaps oust us from the little the wars have left 
 us. You should have known this and considered
 
 72 UNDER THE RED ROBE. 
 
 it," she continued. " Whereas I do not say that 
 you are a braggart, M. de Barthe. But on this 
 one occasion you seem to have played the part 
 of one." 
 
 " Madame, I did not think," I stammered. 
 
 " Want of thought causes much evil," she an- 
 swered, smiling. " However, I have spoken, and 
 we trust that while you stay with us you will 
 be more careful. For the rest, Monsieur," she 
 continued graciously, raising her hand to prevent 
 me speaking, " we do not know why you are here, 
 or what plans you are pursuing. And we do not 
 wish to know. It is enough that you are of our 
 side. This house is at your service as long as you 
 please to use it. And if we can aid you in any 
 other way we will do so." 
 
 " Madame ! " I exclaimed ; and there I stopped. 
 I could not say any more. The rose-garden, with 
 its air of neglect, the shadow of the quiet house 
 that fell across it, the great yew hedge which 
 backed it, and was the pattern of one under 
 which I had played in childhood all had points 
 that pricked me. But the women's kindness, 
 their unquestioning confidence, the noble air of
 
 THE HOUSE IN THE WOOD. 73 
 
 hospitality which moved them! Against these 
 and their placid beauty in its peaceful frame I 
 had no shield. I turned away, and feigned to 
 be overcome by gratitude. " I have no words 
 to thank you!" I muttered presently. "I am 
 a little shaken this morning. I pardon me." 
 
 "We will leave you for a while," Mademoiselle 
 de Cocheforet said, in gentle, pitying tones. 
 " The air will revive you. Louis shall call you 
 when we go to dinner, M. de Barthe. Come, 
 Elise." 
 
 I bowed low to hide my face, and they nodded 
 pleasantly not looking closely at me as they 
 walked by me to the house. I watched the two 
 gracious, pale-robed figures until the doorway 
 swallowed them, and then I walked away to a 
 quiet corner where the shrubs grew highest and 
 the yew hedge threw its deepest shadow, and I 
 stood to think. 
 
 They were strange thoughts, I remember. If 
 the oak can think at the moment the wind uproots 
 it, or the gnarled thorn-bush when the landslip 
 tears it from the slope, they may have such 
 thoughts. I stared at the leaves, at the rotting
 
 74 UNDER THE RED ROBE. 
 
 blossoms, into the dark cavities of the hedge ; 
 I stared mechanically, dazed and wondering. 
 What was the purpose for which I was here ? 
 What was the work I had come to do ? Above 
 all, how my God ! how was I to do it in the 
 face of these helpless women, who trusted me 
 who opened their house to me ? Clon had not 
 frightened me, nor the loneliness of the leagued 
 village, nor the remoteness of this corner where 
 the dread Cardinal seemed a name, and the King's 
 writ ran slowly, and the rebellion, long quenched 
 elsewhere, still smouldered. But Madame's pure 
 faith, the younger woman's tenderness how was 
 I to face these ? 
 
 I cursed the Cardinal, I cursed the English 
 fool who had brought me to this, I cursed the 
 years of plenty and scarceness and the Quartier 
 Marais, and Zaton's, where I had lived like a 
 pig, and 
 
 A touch fell on my arm. I turned. It was 
 Clon. How he had stolen up so quietly, how 
 long he had been at my elbow, I could not tell. 
 But his eyes gleamed spitefully in their deep 
 sockets, and he laughed with his fleshless lips;
 
 THE HOUSE IN THE WOOD. 75 
 
 and I hated him. In the daylight the man 
 looked more like a death's-head than ever. I 
 fancied I read in his face that he knew my 
 secret, and I flashed into rage at sight of 
 him. 
 
 " What is it ? " I cried, with another oath. 
 ' Don't lay your corpse-claws on me ! " 
 
 He mowed at me, and, bowing with ironical 
 politeness, pointed to the house. " Is Madame 
 served ? " I said impatiently, crushing down my 
 nnger. " Is that what you mean, fool ? " 
 
 He nodded. 
 
 "Very well," I retorted. "I can find my way, 
 then. You may go ! " 
 
 He fell behind, and I strode back through the 
 sunshine and flowers, and along the grass-grown 
 paths, to the door by which I had come. I 
 walked fast, but his shadow kept pace with me, 
 driving out the strange thoughts in which I had 
 been indulging. Slowly but surely it darkened 
 my mood. After all, this was a little, little place ; 
 the people who lived here I shrugged my 
 shoulders. France, power, pleasure, life lay yon- 
 der in the great city. A boy might wreck himself
 
 76 UNDER THE RED ROBE, 
 
 here for a fancy ; a man of the world, never. 
 When I entered the room, where the two ladies 
 stood waiting for me by the table, I was myself 
 again. 
 
 " Clon made you understand, then ? " the 
 younger woman said kindly. 
 
 " Yes, Mademoiselle," I answered. On which 
 I saw the two smile at one another, and I added : 
 " He is a strange creature. I wonder you can 
 bear to have him near you." 
 
 " Poor man ! You do not know his story ? " 
 Madame said. 
 
 " I have heard something of it," I answered. 
 " Louis told me." 
 
 "Well, I do shudder at him, sometimes," she 
 replied, in a low voice. " He has suffered 
 and horribly, and for us. But I wish it had been 
 on any other service. Spies are necessary things, 
 but one does not wish to have to do with them ! 
 Anything in the nature of treachery is so hor- 
 rible." 
 
 " Quick, Louis ! the cognac, if you have any 
 there ! " Mademoiselle exclaimed. " I am sure 
 you are still feeling ill, Monsieur."
 
 THE HOUSE IN THE WOOD. 77 
 
 " No, I thank you," I muttered hoarsely, 
 making an effort to recover myself. " I am 
 quite well. It was an old wound that sometimes 
 touches me."
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 MADAME AND MADEMOISELLE. 
 
 To be frank, however, it was not the old wound 
 that touched me so nearly, but Madame's words; 
 which, finishing what Clon's sudden appearance 
 in the garden had begun, went a long way towards 
 hardening me and throwing me back into myself. 
 I saw with bitterness what I had perhaps for- 
 gotten for a moment how great was the chasm 
 which separated me from these women ; how im- 
 possible it was we could long think alike ; how far 
 apart in views, in experience, in aims we were. 
 And while I made a mock in my heart of their 
 high-flown sentiments or thought I did I 
 laughed no less at the folly which had led me 
 to dream, even for a moment, that I could, at my 
 age, go back go back and risk all for a whim, 
 a scruple, the fancy of a lonely hour. 
 
 I dare say something of this showed in my face : 
 78
 
 MADAME AND MADEMOISELLE. 7g 
 
 for Madame's eyes mirrored a dim reflection of 
 trouble as she looked at me, and Mademoiselle ate 
 nervously and at random. At any rate, I fancied 
 so, and I hastened to compose myself; and the 
 two, in pressing upon me the simple dainties of 
 the table, soon forgot, or appeared to forget, the 
 incident. 
 
 Yet in spite of this contretemps, that first meal 
 had a strange charm for me. The round table 
 whereat we dined was spread inside the open door 
 which led to the garden, so that the October sun- 
 shine fell full on the spotless linen and quaint old 
 plate, and the fresh balmy air filled the room with 
 the scent of sweet herbs. Louis served us with 
 the mien of major-domo, and set on each dish as 
 though it had been a peacock or a mess of orto- 
 lans. The woods provided the larger portion of 
 our meal ; the garden did its part ; the confections 
 Mademoiselle had cooked with her own hand. 
 
 By-and-bye, as the meal went on, as Louis trod 
 to and fro across the polished floor, and the last 
 insects of summer hummed sleepily outside, and 
 the two gracious faces continued to smile at me 
 out of the gloom for the ladies sat with their
 
 00 UNDER THE RED ROBE, 
 
 backs to the door I began to dream again. I 
 began to sink again into folly that was half 
 pleasure, half pain. The fury of the gaming- 
 house and the riot of Zaton's seemed far away. 
 The triumphs of the fencing-room even they 
 grew cheap and tawdry. I thought of existence 
 as one outside it. I balanced this against that, 
 and wondered whether, after all, the red soutane 
 were so much better than the homely jerkin, or 
 the fame of a day than ease and safety. 
 
 And life at Cocheforet was all after the pattern 
 of this dinner. Each day, I might almost say 
 each meal, gave rise to the same sequence of 
 thoughts. In Clon's presence, or when some 
 word of Madame's, unconsciously harsh, reminded 
 me of the distance between us, I was myself. At 
 other times, in face of this peaceful and intimate 
 life, which was only rendered possible by the 
 ^emoteness of the place and the peculiar circum- 
 stances in which the ladies stood, I felt a strange 
 weakness. The loneliness of the woods that en- 
 circled the house, and here and there afforded a 
 distant glimpse of snow-clad peaks; the absence 
 of any link to bind me to the old life, so that at
 
 MADAME AND MADEMOISELLE. 8 1 
 
 intervals it seemed unreal ; the remoteness of the 
 great world, all tended to sap my will and weaken 
 the purpose which had brought me to this place. 
 
 On the fourth day after my coming, however, 
 something happened to break the spell. It chanced 
 that I came late to dinner, and entered the room 
 hastily and without ceremony, expecting to find 
 Madame and her sister already seated. Instead, 
 I found them talking in a low tone by the open 
 door, with every mark of disorder in their appear- 
 ance ; while Clon and Louis stood at a little dis- 
 tance with downcast faces and perplexed looks. 
 
 I had tune to see all this, and then my en- 
 trance wrought a sudden change. Clon and Louis 
 sprang to attention ; Madame and her sister came 
 to the table and sat down, and made a shallow 
 pretence of being at their ease. But Mademoi- 
 selle's face was pale, her hand trembled; and 
 though Madame's greater self-command enabled 
 her to carry off the matter better, I saw that she 
 was not herself. Once or twice she spoke harshly 
 to Louis; she fell at other times into a brown 
 study ; and when she thought I was not watching 
 her, her face wore a look of deep anxiety.
 
 82 UNDER THE RED ROBE. 
 
 I wondered what all this meant; and I won- 
 dered more when, after the meal, the two walked 
 in the garden for an hour with Clon. Mademoi- 
 selle came from this interview alone, and I was 
 sure that she had been weeping. Madame and 
 the dark porter stayed outside some time longer; 
 then she, too, came in, and disappeared. 
 
 Clon did not return with her, and when I went 
 into the garden five minutes later Louis also had 
 vanished. Save for two women who sat sewing 
 at an upper window, the house seemed to be 
 deserted. Not a sound broke the afternoon still- 
 ness of room or garden, and yet I felt that more 
 was happening in this silence than appeared on 
 the surface. I began to grow curious suspi- 
 cious; and presently slipped out myself by way 
 of the stables, and, skirting the wood at the 
 back of the house, gained with a little trouble 
 the bridge which crossed the stream and led to 
 the village. 
 
 Turning round at this point, I could see the 
 house, and I moved a little aside into the under- 
 wood, and stood gazing at the windows, trying 
 to unriddle the matter. It was not likely that
 
 MADAME AND MADEMOISELLE. 83 
 
 M. de Cocheforet would repeat his visit so soon; 
 and, besides, the women's emotions had been 
 those of pure dismay and grief, unmixed with 
 any of the satisfaction to which such a meeting, 
 though snatched by stealth, would give rise. I 
 discarded my first thought, therefore that he 
 had returned unexpectedly and I sought for 
 another solution. 
 
 But none was on the instant forthcoming. The 
 windows remained obstinately blind, no figures 
 appeared on the terrace, the garden lay deserted, 
 and without life. My departure had not, as I half 
 expected it would, drawn the secret into light. 
 
 I watched a while, at times cursing my own 
 meanness; but the excitement of the moment 
 and the quest tided me over that. Then I de- 
 termined to go down into the village and see 
 whether anything was moving there. I had been 
 down to the inn once, and had been received 
 half sulkily, half courteously, as a person privi- 
 leged at the great house, and therefore to be 
 accepted. It would not be thought odd if I 
 went again ; and after a moment's thought, 
 I started down the track. 
 
 G 2
 
 84 UNDER THE RED ROBE. 
 
 This, where it ran through the wood, was so 
 densely shaded that the sun penetrated to it little, 
 and in patches only. A squirrel stirred at times, 
 sliding round a trunk, or scampering across the 
 dry leaves. Occasionally a pig grunted and 
 moved farther into the wood. But the place 
 was very quiet, and I do not know how it was 
 that I surprised Clon instead of being surprised 
 by him. 
 
 He was walking along the path before me with 
 his eyes on the ground walking so slowly, and 
 with his lean frame so bent that I might have 
 supposed him ill if I had not remarked the 
 steady movement of his head from right to left, 
 and the alert touch with which he now and again 
 displaced a clod of earth or a cluster of leaves. 
 By-and-bye he rose stiffly, and looked round him 
 suspiciously; but by that time I had slipped be- 
 hind a trunk, and was not to be seen ; and after 
 a brief interval he went back to his task, stoop- 
 ing over it more closely, if possible, than before, 
 and applying himself with even greater care. 
 
 By that time I had made up my mind that he 
 was tracking some one. But whom ? I could not
 
 MADAME AND MADEMOISELLE. 85 
 
 make a guess at that. I only knew that the 
 plot was thickening, and began to feel the eager- 
 ness of the chase. Of course, if the matter had 
 not to do with Cocheforet, it was no affair of 
 mine; but though it seemed unlikely that any- 
 thing could bring him back so soon, he might 
 still be at the bottom of this. And, besides, I 
 felt a natural curiosity. When Clon at last im- 
 proved his pace, and went on to the village, I took 
 up his task. I called to mind all the wood-lore 
 I had ever known, and scanned trodden mould 
 and crushed leaves with eager eyes. But in vain. 
 I could make nothing of it at all, and rose at 
 last with an aching back and no advantage. 
 
 I did not go on to the village after that, but 
 returned to the house, where I found Madame 
 pacing the garden. She looked up eagerly on 
 hearing my step ; and I was mistaken if she 
 was not disappointed if she had not been ex- 
 pecting some one else. She hid the feeling 
 bravely, however, and met me with a careless 
 word; but she turned to the house more than 
 once while we talked, and she seemed to be all 
 the while on the watch, and uneasy. I was not
 
 86 UNDER THE RED ROBE. 
 
 surprised when Clon's figure presently appeared 
 in the doorway, and she left me abruptly, and 
 went to him. I only felt more certain than 
 before that there was something strange on foot. 
 What it was, and whether it had to do with M. de 
 CocheCoret, I could not tell. But there it was, 
 and I grew more curious the longer I remained 
 alone. 
 
 She came back to me presently, looking 
 thoughtful and a trifle downcast. "That was 
 Clon, was it not ? " I said, studying her face. 
 
 " Yes," she answered. She spoke absently, 
 and did not look at me. 
 
 "How does he talk to you?" I asked, speak- 
 ing a trifle curtly. 
 
 As I intended, my tone roused her. " By 
 signs," she said. 
 
 ' Is he is he not a little mad?" I ventured. 
 I wanted to make her talk and forget herself. 
 
 She looked at me with sudden keenness, then 
 dropped her eyes. 
 
 " You do not like him ? " she said, a note of 
 challenge in her voice. " I have noticed that, 
 Monsieur."
 
 MADAME AND MADEMOISELLE. 87 
 
 " I think he does not like me," I replied. 
 
 " He is less trustful than we are," she an- 
 swered na'fvely. "It is natural that he should 
 be. He has seen more of the world." 
 
 That silenced me for a moment, but she did 
 not seem to notice it. " I was looking for him 
 a little while ago, and I could not find him," I 
 said, after a pause. 
 
 " He has been into the village," she answered. 
 
 I longed to pursue the matter farther; but 
 though she seemed to entertain no suspicion of 
 me, I dared not run the risk. I tried her, instead, 
 on another tack. " Mademoiselle de Cocheforet 
 does not seem very well to-day ? " I said. 
 
 " No ? " she answered carelessly. " Well, now 
 Vou speak of it, I do not think she is. She is 
 often anxious about my husband." 
 
 She uttered the last two words with a little 
 hesitation, and looked at me quickly when she 
 had spoken them. We were sitting at the mo- 
 ment on a stone seat which had the wall of the 
 house for a back ; and, fortunately, I was toying 
 with the branch of a creeping plant that hung 
 over it, so that she could not see more than the
 
 UNDER THE RED ROBE. 
 
 side of my face. For I knew that it altered. 
 Over ray voice, however, I had more control, and 
 I hastened to answer, "Yes, I suppose so," as 
 innocently as possible. 
 
 "He is at Bosost in Spain. You knew that, 
 I conclude?" she said, with a certain sharpness. 
 And she looked me in the face again very 
 directly. 
 
 "Yes," I answered, beginning to tremble. 
 
 " I suppose you have heard, too, that he 
 that he sometimes crosses the border?" she con- 
 tinued, in a low voice, but with a certain ring of 
 insistence in her tone. " Or, if you have not 
 heard it, you guess it ? " 
 
 I was in a quandary, and grew, in one second, 
 hot all over. Uncertain what amount of knowl- 
 edge I ought to admit, I took refuge in gallantry. 
 " I should be surprised if he did not," I answered, 
 with a bow, " being, as he is, so close, and having 
 such an inducement to return, Madame." 
 
 She drew a long, shivering sigh at the 
 thought of his peril, I fancied, and sat back 
 against the wall. Nor did she say any more, 
 though I heard her sigh again. In a moment
 
 MADAME AND MADEMOISELLE. 89 
 
 she rose. "The afternoons are growing chilly," 
 she said ; " I will go in and see how Mademoiselle 
 is. Sometimes she does not come to supper. If 
 she cannot descend this evening, I am afraid 
 you must excuse me too, Monsieur." 
 
 I said what was right, and watched her go in ; 
 and, as I did so, I loathed my errand, and the 
 mean contemptible curiosity which it had planted 
 in my mind, more than at any former time. 
 These women I could find it in my heart to 
 hate them for their frankness, for their foolish 
 confidence, and the silly trustfulness that made 
 them so easy a prey ! 
 
 Nom de Dieu ! What did the woman mean by 
 telling me all this ? To meet me in such a way, 
 to disarm one by such methods, was to take an 
 unfair advantage. It put a vile ay, the vilest 
 aspect, on the work I had to do. 
 
 Yet it was very odd ! What could M. de 
 Cochefore't mean by returning so soon, if M. de 
 Cochefore"t was here? And, on the other hand, 
 if it was not his unexpected presence that had so 
 upset the house, what was the secret? Whom 
 had Clon been tracking? And what was the
 
 90 UNDER THE RED ROBE. 
 
 cause of Madame's anxiety ? In a few minutes I 
 began to grow curious again ; and, as the ladies 
 did not appear at supper, I had leisure to give my 
 brain full license, and in the course of an hour 
 thought of a hundred keys to the mystery. But 
 none exactly fitted the lock, or laid open the 
 secret. 
 
 A false alarm that evening helped to puzzle me 
 still more. I was sitting, about an hour after 
 supper, on the same seat in the garden I had 
 my cloak and was smoking when Madame 
 came out like a ghost, and, without seeing me, 
 flitted away through the darkness toward the sta- 
 bles. For a moment I hesitated, then I followed 
 her. She went down the path and round the 
 stables, and so far I understood; but when she 
 had in this way gained the rear of the west wing, 
 she took a track through the thicket to the east of 
 the house again, and so came back to the garden 
 This gained, she came up the path and went in 
 through the parlour door, and disappeared after 
 making a clear circuit of the house, and not once 
 pausing or looking to right or left ! I confess I 
 was fairly baffled. I sank back on the seat I had
 
 MADAME AND MADEMOISELLE. 91 
 
 left, and said to myself that this was the lamest 
 of all conclusions. I was sure that she had ex- 
 changed no word with any one. I was equally 
 sure that she had not detected my presence 
 behind her. Why, then, had she made this 
 strange promenade, alone, unprotected, an hour 
 after nightfall? No dog had bayed, no one had 
 moved, she had not once paused, or listened, like 
 a person expecting a rencontre. I could not make 
 it out. And I came no nearer to solving it, though 
 I lay awake an hour beyond my usual time. 
 
 In the morning neither of the ladies descended 
 to dinner, and I heard that Mademoiselle was not 
 ao well. After a lonely meal, therefore I missed 
 them more than I should have supposed I re- 
 tired to my favourite seat, and fell to meditating. 
 
 The day was fine, and the garden pleasant. 
 Sitting there with my eyes on the old-fashioned 
 herb-beds, with the old-fashioned scents in the air, 
 and the dark belt of trees bounding the view on 
 either side, I could believe that I had been out of 
 Paris not three weeks, but three months. The 
 quiet lapped me round. I could fancy that I had 
 never loved anything else. The wood-doves cooed
 
 92 UNDER THE RED ROBE7 
 
 in the stillness; occasionally the harsh cry of a 
 jay jarred the silence. It was an hour after noon, 
 and hot. I think I nodded. 
 
 On a sudden, as if in a dream, I saw Clon's 
 face peering at me round the angle of the parlour 
 door. He looked, and in a moment withdrew, 
 and I heard whispering. The door was gently 
 closed. Then all was still again. 
 
 But I was wide awake now, and thinking hard. 
 Clearly the people of the house wished to assure 
 themselves that I was asleep and safely out of the 
 way. As clearly, it was to my interest to know 
 what was passing. Giving way to the temptation, 
 I rose quietly, and, stooping below the level of 
 the windows, slipped round the east end of the 
 house, passing between it and the great yew 
 hedge. Here I found all still, and no one stir- 
 ring. So, keeping a wary eye about me, I went 
 on round the house reversing the route which 
 Madame had taken the night before until I 
 gained the rear of the stables. Here I had 
 scarcely paused a second to scan the ground 
 before two persons came out of the stable-court 
 They were Madame and the porter.
 
 MADAME AND MADEMOISELLE. 93 
 
 They stood a brief while outside, and looked 
 up and down. Then Madame said something to 
 the man, and he nodded. Leaving him standing 
 where he was, she crossed the grass with a quick, 
 light step, and vanished among the trees. 
 
 In a moment my mind was made up to follow ; 
 and, as Clon turned at once and went in, I was 
 able to do so before it was too late. Bending low 
 among the shrubs, I ran hot-foot to the point 
 where Madame had entered the wood. Here I 
 found a narrow path, and ran nimbly along it, and 
 presently saw her grey robe fluttering among the 
 trees before me. It only remained to keep out of 
 her sight and give her no chance of discovering 
 that she was followed; and this I set myself to 
 do. Once or twice she glanced round, but the 
 wood was of beech, the light which passed 
 between the leaves was mere twilight, and my 
 clothes were dark-coloured. I had every advan- 
 tage, therefore, and little to fear as long as I 
 could keep her in view and still remain myself at 
 such a distance that the rustle of my tread would 
 not disturb her. 
 
 Assured that she was on her way to meet her
 
 94 UNDER THE RED ROBE. 
 
 husband, whom my presence kept from the house, 
 I felt that the crisis had come at last ; and I grew 
 more excited with each step I took. True, I de- 
 tested the task of watching her : it filled me with 
 peevish disgust. But in proportion as I hated it I 
 was eager to have it done and be done with it f 
 and succeed, and stuff my ears and begone from 
 the scene. When she presently came to the verge 
 of the beech wood, and, entering a little open 
 clearing, seemed to loiter, I went cautiously 
 This, I thought, must be the rendezvous ; and 1 
 held back warily, looking to see him step out of 
 the thicket. 
 
 But he did not, and by-and-bye she quickened 
 her pace. She crossed the open and entered a 
 wide ride cut through a low, dense wood of alder 
 and dwarf oak a wood so closely planted, and 
 so intertwined with hazel and elder and box that 
 the branches rose like a solid wall, twelve feet 
 high, on either side of the track. 
 
 Down this she passed, and I stood and watched 
 her go ; for I dared not follow. The ride stretched 
 away as straight as a line for four or five hundred 
 yards, a green path between green walls. To
 
 MADAME AND MADEMOISELLE. 95 
 
 it was to be immediately detected, if she turned ; 
 while the thicket itself permitted no passage. I 
 stood baffled and raging, and watched her pass 
 along. It seemed an age before she at last 
 reached the end, and, turning sharply to the right, 
 was in an instant gone from sight. 
 
 I waited then no longer. I started off, and, 
 running as lightly and quietly as I could, I sped 
 down the green alley. The sun shone into it, the 
 trees kept off the wind, and between heat and 
 haste, I sweated finely. But the turf was soft, 
 and the ground fell slightly, and in little more 
 than a minute I gained the end. Fifty yards 
 short of the turning I stayed myself, and, 
 stealing on, looked cautiously the way she had 
 gone. 
 
 I saw before me a second ride, the twin of the 
 other, and a hundred and fifty paces down it her 
 grey figure tripping on between the green hedges. 
 I stood and took breath, and cursed the wood and 
 the heat and Madame's wariness. We must have 
 come a league or two-thirds of a league, at least. 
 How far did the man expect her to plod to meet 
 him ? I began to grow angry. There is modera-
 
 96 UNDER THE RED ROBE. 
 
 tion even in the cooking of eggs, and this wood 
 might stretch into Spain, for all I knew! 
 
 Presently she turned the corner and was gone 
 again, and I had to repeat my manoeuvre. This 
 time, surely, I should find a change. But no ! 
 Another green ride stretched away into the depths 
 of the forest, with hedges of varying shades 
 here light and there dark, as hazel and elder, or 
 thorn, and yew and box prevailed but always 
 high and stiff and impervious. Half-way down the 
 ride Madame's figure tripped steadily on, the only 
 moving thing in sight. I wondered, stood, and, 
 when she vanished, followed only to find that 
 she had entered another track, a little narrower, 
 but in every other respect alike. 
 
 And so it went on for quite half an hour. 
 Sometimes Madame turned to the right, some- 
 times to the left. The maze seemed to be end- 
 less. Once or twice I wondered whether she had 
 lost her way, and was merely seeking to return. 
 But her steady, purposeful gait, her measured 
 pace, forbade the idea. I noticed, too, that she 
 seldom looked behind her rarely to right or left. 
 Once the ride down which she passed was car-
 
 MADAME AND MADEMOISELLE. 97 
 
 peted not with green, but with the silvery, sheeny 
 leaves of some creeping plant that in the distance 
 had a shimmer like that of water at evening. As 
 she trod this, with her face to the low sun, her tall 
 grey figure had a pure air that for the moment 
 startled me she looked unearthly. Then I swore 
 in scorn of myself, and at the next corner I had 
 my reward. She was no longer walking on. She 
 had stopped, I found, and seated herself on a 
 fallen tree that lay in the ride. 
 
 For some time I stood in ambush watching her, 
 and with each minute I grew more impatient At 
 last I began to doubt to have strange thoughts. 
 The green walls were growing dark. The sun 
 was sinking ; a sharp, white peak, miles and miles 
 away, which closed the vista of the ride began to 
 flush and colour rosily. Finally, but not before 
 I had had leisure to grow uneasy, she stood up 
 and walked on more slowly. I waited, as usual, 
 until the next turning hid her. Then I hastened 
 after her, and, warily passing round the corner 
 came face to face with her! 
 
 I knew all in a moment that she had fooled 
 me, tricked me, lured me away. Her face was 
 
 H
 
 98 UNDER THE RED ROBE. 
 
 white with scorn, her eyes blazed ; her figure, as 
 she confronted me, trembled with anger and infi- 
 nite contempt. 
 
 " You spy ! " she cried. " You hound ! You 
 gentleman ! Oh, mon Dieu ! if you are one of 
 us if you are really not canaille we shall pay 
 for this some day ! We shall pay a heavy reck- 
 oning in the time to come ! I did not think," she 
 continued her every syllable like the lash of 
 a whip "that there was anything so vile as 
 you in this world ! " 
 
 I stammered something I do not know what. 
 Her words burned into me into my heart ! Had 
 she been a man, I would have struck her dead! 
 
 "You thought you deceived me yesterday," 
 she continued, lowering her tone, but with no 
 lessening of the passion and contempt which 
 curled her lip and gave fulness to her voice. 
 " You plotter ! You surface trickster ! You 
 thought it an easy task to delude a woman 
 you find yourself deluded. God give you shame 
 that you may suffer ! " she continued mercilessly. 
 " You talked of Clon, but Clon beside you is the 
 most honourable of men ! "
 
 MADAME AND MADEMOISELLE. 99 
 
 "Madame," I said hoarsely and I know my 
 face was grey as ashes " let us understand one 
 another." 
 
 " God forbid ! " she cried, on the instant. " I 
 would not soil myself ! " 
 
 " Fie ! Madame," I said, trembling. " But then, 
 you are a woman. That should cost a man his 
 life!" 
 
 She laughed bitterly. 
 
 "You say well," she retorted. "I am not a 
 man. Neither am I Madame. Madame de 
 Cocheforet has spent this afternoon thanks 
 to your absence and your imbecility with her 
 husband. Yes, I hope that hurts you ! " she went 
 on, savagely snapping her little white teeth 
 together. " To spy and do vile work, and do it 
 ill, Monsieur Mpuchard Monsieur de Mouchard, 
 I should say I congratulate you!" 
 
 " You are not Madame de Cocheforet ! " I cried, 
 stunned even in the midst of my shame and 
 rage by this blow. 
 
 "No, Monsieur!" she answered grimly. "I 
 am not! And permit me to point out for we 
 io not all lie easily that I never said I was 
 
 H 9.
 
 100 UNDER THE RED ROBE. 
 
 You deceived yourself so skilfully that we had no 
 need to trick you." 
 
 " Mademoiselle, then ? " I muttered. 
 
 " Is Madame ! " she cried. " Yes, and I am 
 Mademoiselle de Cocheforet. And in that char- 
 acter, and in all others, I beg from this moment 
 to close our acquaintance, Sir. When we meet 
 again if we ever do meet which God for- 
 bid ! " she cried, her eyes sparkling, " do not pre- 
 sume to speak to me, or I will have you flogged 
 by the grooms. And do not stain our roof by 
 sleeping under it again. You may lie to-night in 
 the inn. It shall not be said that Cocheforet," 
 she continued proudly, "returned even treachery 
 with inhospitality ; and I will give orders to that 
 end. To-morrow begone back to your master, like 
 the whipped cur you are ! Spy and coward ! " 
 
 With the last fierce words she moved away. 
 I would have said something, I could almost have 
 found it in my heart to stop her and make her 
 hear. Nay, I had dreadful thoughts; for I was 
 the stronger, and I might have done with her as 
 I pleased. But she swept by me so fearlessly 
 as I might pass some loathsome cripple in the
 
 MADAME AND MADEMOISELLE. IOI 
 
 road that I stood turned to stone. Without 
 looking at me without turning her head' to see 
 whether I followed or remained, or what I did 
 she went steadily down the track until the trees 
 and the shadow and the growing darkness hid 
 her grey figure from me; and I found myself 
 alone.
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 REVENGE. 
 
 AND full of black rage ! Had she only re- 
 proached me, or, turning on me in the hour of 
 my victory, said all she had now said in the 
 moment of her own, I could have borne it. She 
 might have shamed me then, and I might have 
 taken the shame to myself, and forgiven her. 
 But, as it was, I stood there in the gathering 
 dusk, between the darkening hedges, baffled, 
 tricked, defeated ! And by a woman ! She had 
 pitted her wits against mine, her woman's will 
 against my experience, and she had come off the 
 victor. And then she had reviled me. As I took 
 it all in, and began to comprehend, also, the more 
 remote results, and how completely her move had 
 made further progress on my part impossible, I 
 hated her. She had tricked me with her gracious 
 ways and her slow-coming smile. And, after al]
 
 REVENGE. 103 
 
 for what she had said it was this man's life 
 or mine. What had I done that another man 
 would not do ? Man Dieu ! In the future there 
 was nothing I would not do. I would make her 
 smart for those words of hers! I would bring 
 her to her knees ! 
 
 Still, hot as I was, an hour might have restored 
 me to coolness. But when I started to return, 
 I fell into a fresh rage, for I remembered that I 
 did not know my way out of the maze of rides 
 and paths into which she had drawn me ; and 
 this and the mishaps which followed kept my 
 rage hot. For a full hour I wandered in the 
 wood, unable, though I knew where the village 
 lay, to find any track which led continuously in 
 one direction. Whenever, at the end of each 
 attempt, the thicket brought me up short, I fan- 
 cied I heard her laughing on the farther side of 
 the brake ; and the ignominy of this chance pun- 
 ishment, the check which the confinement placed 
 on my rage, almost maddened me. In the dark- 
 ness, I fell, and rose cursing ; I tore my hands 
 with thorns ; I stained my suit, which had suffered 
 sadly once before. At length, when I had almost
 
 104 UNDER THE RED ROBE. 
 
 resigned myself to lie in the wood, I caught sight 
 of the lights of the village, and trembling between 
 haste and anger, pressed towards them. In a 
 few minutes I stood in the little street. 
 
 The lights of the inn shone only fifty yards 
 away ; but before I could show myself even there 
 pride suggested that I should do something to 
 repair my clothes. I stopped, and scraped and 
 brushed them ; and, at the same time, did what 
 I could to compose my features. Then I ad- 
 vanced to the door and knocked. Almost on 
 the instant the landlord's voice cried from the 
 inside, " Enter, Monsieur ! " 
 
 I raised the latch and went in. The man was 
 alone, squatting over the fire, warming his hands 
 A black pot simmered on the ashes : as I entered, 
 he raised the lid and peeped inside. Then he 
 glanced over his shoulder. 
 
 " You expected me ? " I said defiantly, walking 
 to the hearth, and setting one of my damp boots 
 on the logs. 
 
 " Yes," he answered, nodding curtly. " Your 
 supper is just ready. I thought you would be 
 in about this time."
 
 REVENGE. 105 
 
 He grinned as he spoke, and it was with diffi- 
 culty I suppressed my wrath " Mademoiselle 
 de Cocheforet told you," I said, affecting in- 
 difference, " where I was ? " 
 
 " Ay, Mademoiselle or Madame," he replied, 
 grinning afresh. 
 
 So she had told him where she had left me, 
 and how she had tricked me ! She had made 
 me the village laughing-stock! My rage flashed 
 out afresh at the thought, and, at the sight of 
 his mocking face, I raised my fist. 
 
 But he read the threat in my eyes, and was 
 up in a moment, snarling, with his hand on his 
 knife. " Not again, Monsieur ! " he cried, in his 
 vile patois, " My head is sore still. Raise your 
 hand, and I will rip you up as I would a pig ! " 
 
 " Sit down, fool," I said. " I am not going 
 to harm you. Where is your wife ? " 
 
 " About her business." 
 
 "Which should be getting my supper," I re- 
 torted sharply. 
 
 He rose sullenly, and, fetching a platter, poured 
 the mess of broth and vegetables into it. Then 
 he went to a cupboard and brought out a loaf
 
 106 UNDER THE RED ROBE. 
 
 of black bread and a measure of wine, and set 
 them also on the table. "You see it," he said 
 laconically. 
 
 " And a poor welcome ! " I exclaimed. 
 
 He flamed into sudden passion at that. Lean- 
 ing with both his hands on the table, he thrust 
 his rugged face and blood-shot eyes close to 
 mine. His mustachios bristled; his beard trem- 
 bled. " Hark ye, Sirrah ! " he muttered, with 
 sullen emphasis " be content ! I have my sus- 
 picions. And if it were not for my lady's orders 
 I would put a knife into you, fair or foul, this 
 very night. You would lie snug outside, instead 
 of inside, and I do not think any one would be 
 the worse. But, as it is, be content. Keep a 
 still tongue ; and when you turn your back on 
 Cocheforet to-morrow keep it turned." 
 
 "Tut! tut!" I said but I confess I was a 
 little out of countenance. " Threatened men live 
 long, you rascal ! " 
 
 " In Paris ! " he answered significantly. " Not 
 here, Monsieur." 
 
 He straightened himself with that, nodded 
 once, and went back to the fire, and I shrugged
 
 REVENGE. 107 
 
 my shoulders and began to eat, affecting to for- 
 get his presence. The logs on the hearth burned 
 sullenly, and gave no light. The poor oil-lump, 
 casting weird shadows from wall to wall, served 
 only to discover the darkness. The room, with 
 its low roof and earthen floor, and foul clothes 
 flung here and there, reeked of stale meals and 
 garlic and vile cooking. I thought of the par- 
 lour at Cocheforet, and the dainty table, and 
 the stillness, and the scented pot-herbs; and, 
 though I was too old a soldier to eat the worse 
 because my spoon lacked washing, I felt the 
 change, and laid it savagely at Mademoiselle's 
 door. 
 
 The landlord, watching me stealthily from his 
 place by the hearth, read my thoughts, and 
 chuckled aloud. " Palace fare, palace man- 
 ners ! " he muttered scornfully. " Set a beggar 
 on horseback, and he will ride back to the 
 inn ! " 
 
 " Keep a civil tongue, will you ! " I answered, 
 scowling at him. 
 
 " Have you finished ? " he retorted. 
 
 I rose, without deigning to reply, and, going
 
 108 UNDER TJJE RED ROBE. 
 
 to the fire, drew off my boots, which were wet 
 through. He, on the instant, swept off the 
 wine and loaf to the cupboard, and then, coming 
 back for the platter I had used, took it, opened 
 the back door, and went out, leaving the door 
 ajar. The draught which came in beat the 
 flame of the lamp this way and that, and gave 
 the dingy, gloomy room an air still more miser- 
 able. I rose angrily from the fire, and went to 
 the door, intending to close it with a bang. 
 
 But when I reached it, I saw something, be- 
 tween door and jamb, which stayed my hand. 
 The door led to a shed in which the housewife 
 washed pots and the like. I felt some surprise, 
 therefore, when I found a light there at this 
 time of night ; still more surprise when I saw 
 what she was doing. 
 
 She was seated on the mud floor, with a rush- 
 light before her, and on either side of her a 
 high-piled heap of refuse and rubbish. From 
 one of these, at the moment I caught sight of 
 her, she was sorting things horrible, filthy 
 sweepings of road or floor to the other; shak- 
 ing and sifting each article as she passed it
 
 REVENGE. 109 
 
 across, and then taking up another and repeat- 
 ing the action with it, and so on : all minutely, 
 warily, with an air of so much patience and 
 persistence that I stood wondering. Some 
 things rags she held up between her eyes 
 and the light, some she passed through her 
 fingers, some she fairly tore in pieces. And 
 all the time her husband stood watching her 
 greedily, my platter still in his hand, as if her 
 strange occupation fascinated him. 
 
 I stood looking, also, for half a minute, per- 
 haps ; then the man's eye, raised for a single 
 second to the doorway, met mine. He started, 
 muttered something to his wife, and, quick as 
 thought, kicked the light out, leaving the shed 
 in darkness. Cursing him for an ill-conditioned 
 fellow, I walked back to the fire, laughing. In a 
 twinkling he followed me, his face dark with rage. 
 
 " Ventre saint gris ! " he exclaimed, thrusting 
 it close to mine. " Is not a man's house his 
 own ? " 
 
 " It is, for me," I answered coolly, shrugging 
 my shoulders. " And his wife : if she likes to 
 pick dirty rags at this hour, that is your affair."
 
 1 10 UNDER THE RED ROBE. 
 
 " Pig of a spy ! " he cried, foaming with rage 
 
 I was angry enough at bottom, but I had noth- 
 ing to gain by quarrelling with the fellow ; and 
 I curtly bade him remember himself. "Your 
 mistress gave you your orders," I said contempt- 
 uously. " Obey them ! " 
 
 He spat on the floor, but at the same time 
 he grew calmer. "You are right there," he 
 answered spitefully. " What matter, after all, 
 since you leave to-morrow at six ? Your horse 
 has been sent down, and your baggage is above." 
 
 " I will go to it," I retorted. " I want none 
 of your company. Give me a light, fellow!" 
 
 He obeyed reluctantly, and, glad to turn my 
 back on him, I went up the ladder, still wonder- 
 ing faintly, in the midst of my annoyance, what 
 his wife was about that my chance detection of 
 her had so enraged him. Even now he was not 
 quite himself. He followed me with abuse, and, 
 deprived by my departure of any other means 
 of showing his spite, fell to shouting through 
 the floor, bidding me remember six o'clock, and 
 be stirring ; with other taunts, which did not 
 cease until he had tired himself out.
 
 REVENGE. 1 1 1 
 
 The sight of my belongings which I had 
 left a few hours before at the Chateau strewn 
 about the floor of this garret, went some way 
 towards firing me again. But I was worn out 
 The indignities and mishaps of the evening had, 
 for once, crushed my spirit, and after swearing 
 an oath or two I began to pack my bags. Ven- 
 geance I would have ; but the time and manner 
 I left for daylight thought. Beyond six o'clock 
 in the morning I did not look forward; and if 
 I longed for anything it was for a little of the 
 good Armagnac I had wasted on those louts of 
 merchants in the kitchen below. It might have 
 done me good now. 
 
 I had wearily strapped up one bag, and nearly 
 filled the other, when I came upon something 
 which did, for the moment, rouse the devil in 
 me. This was the tiny orange-coloured sachet 
 which Mademoiselle had dropped the night I 
 first saw her at the inn, and which, it will be 
 remembered, I picked up. Since that night I 
 had not seen it, and had as good as forgotten 
 it. Now, as I folded up my other doublet, the 
 one I had then been wearing, it dropped from 
 the pocket.
 
 112 UNDER THE RED ROBE. 
 
 The sight of it recalled all that night, and 
 Mademoiselle's face in the lanthorn light, and my 
 fine plans, and the end of them ; and, in a fit of 
 childish fury, the outcome of long suppressed 
 passion, I snatched up the sachet from the floor 
 and tore it across and across, and flung the 
 pieces down. As they fell, a cloud of fine pun- 
 gent dust burst from them, and with the dust 
 something heavier, which tinkled sharply on 
 the boards. I looked down to see what this was 
 perhaps I already repented of my act but 
 for the moment I could see nothing. The floor 
 was grimy and uninviting, and the light bad. 
 
 In certain moods, however, a man is obstinate 
 about small things, and I moved the taper 
 nearer. As I did so, a point of light, a flash- 
 ing sparkle that shone for a second among the 
 dirt and refuse on the floor, caught my eye. It 
 was gone in a moment, but I had seen it. I 
 stared, and moved the light again, and the spark 
 flashed out afresh, this time in a different place. 
 Much puzzled, I knelt, and, in a twinkling, found 
 a tiny crystal. Hard by lay another and an- 
 other; each as large as a fair-sized pea. I took
 
 REVENGE. 113 
 
 up the three, and rose to my feet again, the 
 light in one hand, the crystals in the palm of 
 the other. 
 
 They were diamonds ! diamonds of price ! 
 I knew it in a moment. As I moved the taper 
 to and fro above them, and watched the fire 
 glow and tremble in their depths, I knew that 
 I held that which would buy the crazy inn and 
 all its contents a dozen times over. They were 
 diamonds ! Gems so fine, and of so rare a 
 water or I had never seen gems that my 
 hand trembled as I held them, and my head 
 grew hot, and my heart beat furiously. For a 
 moment I thought I dreamed, that my fancy 
 played me some trick; and I closed my eyes 
 and did not open them again for a minute. But 
 when I did, there they were, hard, real, and 
 angular. Convinced at last, in a maze of joy 
 and fear, I closed my hand upon them, and, 
 stealing on tip-toe to the trapdoor, laid first my 
 saddle on it, and then my bags, and over all 
 my cloak, breathing fast the while. 
 
 Then I . stole back ; and, taking up the light 
 again, began to search the floor, patiently, inch
 
 114 UNDER THE RED ROBE. 
 
 by inch, with naked feet, every sound making 
 me tremble as I crept hither and thither over 
 the creaking boards. And never was search 
 more successful or better paid. In the frag- 
 ments of the sachet I found six smaller diamonds 
 and a pair of rubies. Eight large diamonds 
 I found on the floor. One, the largest and 
 last-found, had bounded away, and lay against 
 the wall in the farthest corner. It took me an 
 hour to run that one to earth ; but afterwards 
 I spent another hour on my hands and knees 
 before I gave up the search, and, satisfied at 
 last that I had collected all, sat down on my 
 saddle on the trap-door, and, by the last flicker 
 ing light of a candle which I had taken from 
 my bag, gloated over my treasure a treasure 
 worthy of fabled Golconda. 
 
 Hardly could I believe in its reality, even now. 
 Recalling the jewels which the English Duke of 
 Buckingham wore on the occasion of his visit to 
 Paris in 1625, and of which there was so much 
 talk, I took these to be as fine, though less in 
 number. They should be worth fifteen thousand 
 crowns, more or less. Fifteen thousand crowns!
 
 REVENGE. 115 
 
 And I held them in the hollow of my hand 
 I who was scarcely worth ten thousand sous. 
 
 The candle going out cut short my admiration. 
 Left in the dark with these precious atoms, my 
 first thought was how I might dispose of them 
 safely ; which I did, for the time, by secreting 
 them in the lining of my boot. My second 
 thought turned on the question how they had 
 come where I had found them, among the pow- 
 dered spice and perfumes in Mademoiselle de 
 Cocheforet's sachet. 
 
 A minute's reflection enabled me to come very 
 near the secret, and at the same time shed a 
 flood of light on several dark places. What Clon 
 had been seeking on the path between the house 
 and the village, what the goodwife of the inn 
 had sought among the sweepings of yard and 
 floor, I knew now, the sachet. I knew, too, 
 what had caused the marked and sudden anxiety 
 I had noticed at the Chateau the loss of this 
 sachet. 
 
 And there for a while I came to a check. But 
 one step more up the ladder of thought brought 
 all in view. In a flash I guessed how the jewels
 
 Il6 UNDER THE RED ROBE. 
 
 had come to be in the sachet; and that it was 
 not Mademoiselle but M. de Cocheforet who 
 had mislaid them. And I thought the discovery 
 so important that I began to pace the room softly, 
 unable, in my excitement, to remain still. 
 
 Doubtless he had dropped the jewels in the 
 hurry of his start from the inn that night! 
 Doubtless, too, he had carried them in that 
 bizarre hiding-place for the sake of safety, con- 
 sidering it unlikely that robbers, if he fell into 
 their hands, would take the sachet from him ; 
 as still less likely that they would suspect it to 
 contain anything of value. Everywhere it would 
 pass for a love-gift, the work of his mistress. 
 
 Nor did my penetration stop there. Ten to 
 one the gems were family property, the last treas- 
 ure of the house ; and M. de Cocheforet, when I 
 saw him at the inn, was on his way to convey 
 them out of the country; either to secure them 
 from seizure by the Government, or to raise 
 money by selling them money to be spent in 
 some last desperate enterprise. For a day or 
 two, perhaps, after leaving Cocheforet, while the 
 mountain road and its chances occupied his
 
 REVENGE. 
 
 thoughts, he had not discovered his loss. Then 
 he had searched for the precious sachet, missed 
 it, and returned hot-foot on his tracks. 
 
 I was certain that I had hit on the true solu- 
 tion ; and all that night I sat wakeful in the 
 darkness, pondering what I should do. The 
 stones, unset as they were, could never be identi- 
 fied, never be claimed. The channel by which 
 they had come to my hands could never be 
 :raced. To all intents they were mine mine, 
 to do with as I pleased ! Fifteen thousand 
 crowns ! perhaps twenty thousand crowns ! 
 and I to leave at six in the morning, whether 
 I would or no ! I might leave for Spain with 
 the jewels in my pocket. 
 
 I confess I was tempted. The gems were so 
 fine that I doubt not some indifferently honest 
 men would have sold salvation for them. But a 
 Berault his honour ? No ! I was tempted, but 
 not for long. Thank God, a man may be reduced 
 to living by the fortunes of the dice, and may 
 even be called by a woman spy and coward 
 without becoming a thief. The temptation soon 
 left me I take credit for it and I fell to
 
 Il8 UNDER THE RED ROBE. 
 
 thinking of this and that plan for making use 
 of them. Once it occurred to me to take the 
 jewels to the Cardinal and buy my pardon with 
 them ; again, to use them as a trap to capture 
 Cocheforet; again to and then about five in 
 the morning, as I sat up on my wretched pallet, 
 while the first light stole slowly in through the 
 cobwebbed, hay-stuffed lattice, there came to me 
 the real plan, the plan of plans, on which I 
 acted. 
 
 It charmed me. I smacked my lips over it, 
 and hugged myself, and felt my eyes dilate in 
 the darkness, as I conned it. It seemed cruel, 
 it seemed mean ; I cared nothing. Mademoiselle 
 had boasted of her victory over me, of her 
 woman's wits and her acuteness ; and of my 
 dulness. She had said her grooms should flog 
 me, she had rated me as if I had been a 
 dog. Very well; we would see now whose 
 brains were the better, whose was the master 
 mind, whose should be the whipping. 
 
 The one thing required by my plan was that 
 I should get speech with her; that done, I could 
 trust myself, and my new-found weapon, for the
 
 REVENGE. 1 19 
 
 rest. But that was absolutely necessary ; and 
 seeing that there might be some difficulty about 
 it, I determined to descend as if my mind were 
 made up to go ; then, on pretence of saddling 
 my horse, I would slip away on foot, and lie in 
 wait near the Chateau until I saw her come out. 
 Or if I could not effect my purpose in that way 
 either by reason of the landlord's vigilance, 
 or for any other cause my course was still 
 easy. I would ride away, and when I had 
 proceeded a mile or so, tie up my horse in the 
 forest and return to the wooden bridge. Thence 
 I could watch the garden and front of the 
 Chateau until time and chance gave me the op- 
 portunity I sought. 
 
 So I saw my way quite clearly ; and when 
 the fellow below called me, reminding me rudely 
 that I must be going, and that it was six o'clock, 
 I was ready with my answer. I shouted sulkily 
 that I was coming, and, after a decent delay, 
 I took up my saddle and bags and went down. 
 
 Viewed by the cold morning light, the inn 
 room looked more smoky, more grimy, more 
 wretched than when I had last seen it. The
 
 120 UNDER THE RED ROBE. 
 
 goodwife was not visible. The fire was not 
 lighted. No provision, not so much as a stirrup- 
 cup or bowl of porridge cheered the heart. I 
 looked round, sniffing the stale smell of last 
 night's lamp, and grunted. " Are you going to 
 send me out fasting ? " I said, affecting a worse 
 humour than I felt. 
 
 The landlord was standing by the window, 
 stooping over a great pair of frayed and 
 furrowed thigh-boots, which he was labouring 
 to soften with copious grease. " Mademoiselle 
 ordered no breakfast," he answered, with a ma- 
 licious grin. 
 
 "Well, it does not much matter," I replied 
 grandly. " I shall be at Auch by noon." 
 
 ' That is as may be," he answered, with another 
 grin. I did not understand him, but I had 
 something else to think about, and I opened 
 the door and stepped out, intending to go to the 
 stable. Then in a second I comprehended. The 
 cold air laden with woodland moisture met me 
 and went to my bones ; but it was not that which 
 made me shiver. Outside the door, in the road, 
 sitting on horseback in silence, were two men.
 
 REVENGE. 121 
 
 One was Clon. The other, who held a spare 
 horse by the rein my horse was a man I 
 had seen at the inn, a rough, shock-headed, hard- 
 bitten fellow. Both were armed, and Clon was 
 booted. His mate rode barefoot, with a rusty 
 spur strapped to one heel. 
 
 The moment I saw them a sure and certain 
 fear crept into my mind : it was that made me 
 shiver. But I did not speak to them. I went 
 in again, and closed the door behind me. The 
 landlord was putting on the boots. " What does 
 this mean ? " I said hoarsely. I had a clear 
 prescience of what was coming. " Why are 
 these men here?" 
 
 " Orders," he answered laconically. 
 
 "Whose orders?" I retorted. 
 
 "Whose?" he answered bluntly. "Well, 
 Monsieur, that is my business. Enough that we 
 mean to see you out of the country, and out of 
 harm's way." 
 
 " But if I will not go ? " I cried. 
 
 " Monsieur will go," he answered coolly. 
 "There are no strangers in the village to-day," 
 he added, with a significant smile.
 
 122 UNDER THE RED ROBE. 
 
 " Do you mean to kidnap me ? " I replied, in a 
 rage. Behind the rage was something I will 
 not call it terror, for the brave feel no terror 
 but it was near akin to it. I had had to do 
 with rough men all my life, but there was a 
 grimness and truculence in the aspect of these 
 three that shook me. When I thought of the dark 
 paths and narrow lanes and cliff-sides we must 
 traverse, whichever road we took, I trembled. 
 
 "Kidnap you, Monsieur?" he answered, with 
 an everyday air. "That is as you please to call 
 it. One thing is certain, however," he continued, 
 maliciously touching an arquebuss which he had 
 produced and set upright against a chair while 
 I was at the door ; " if you attempt the slightest 
 resistance, we shall know how to put an end to 
 it, either here or on the road." 
 
 I drew a deep breath. The very imminence of 
 the danger restored me to the use of my faculties 
 I changed my tone and laughed aloud. " So 
 that is your plan, is it ? " I said. " The sooner 
 we start the better, then. And the sooner I see 
 Auch and your back turned, the more I shall be 
 pleased."
 
 REVENGE. 12* 
 
 He rose. " After you, Monsieur," he said. 
 
 I could not restrain a slight shiver. His new- 
 born politeness alarmed me more than his threats. 
 I knew the man and his ways, and I was sure 
 that it boded ill for me. 
 
 But I had no pistols, and only my sword and 
 knife, and I knew that resistance at this point 
 must be worse than vain. I went out jauntily, 
 therefore, the landlord coming after me with my 
 saddle and bags. 
 
 The street was empty, save for the two wait- 
 ing horsemen who sat in their saddles looking 
 doggedly before them. The sun had not yet 
 risen, the air was raw. The sky was grey, 
 cloudy, and cold My thoughts flew back to 
 the morning on which I had found the sachet 
 at that very spot, almost at that very hour ; 
 and for a moment I grew warm again at the 
 thought of the little packet I carried in my 
 boot. But the landlord's dry manner, the sullen 
 silence of his two companions, whose eyes steadily 
 refused to meet mine, chilled me again. For an 
 instant the impulse to refuse to mount, to refuse 
 to go, was almost irresistible ; then, knowing the
 
 124 UNDER THE RED ROBE. 
 
 madness of such a course, which might, and 
 probably would, give the men the chance they 
 desired, I crushed it down and went slowly to 
 my stirrup. 
 
 " I wonder you do not want my sword," I 
 said by way of sarcasm, as I swung myself up. 
 
 "We are not afraid of it," the innkeeper 
 answered gravely. " You may keep it for the 
 present." 
 
 I made no answer what answer had I to 
 make ? and we rode at a foot-pace down the 
 street; he and I leading, Glon and the shock- 
 headed man bringing up the rear. The leisurely 
 mode of our departure, the absence of hurry 
 or even haste, the men's indifference whether 
 they were seen, or what was thought, all served 
 to sink my spirits, and deepen my sense of 
 peril. I felt that they suspected me, that they 
 more than half guessed the nature of my errand 
 at Cocheforet, and that they were not minded 
 to be bound by Mademoiselle's orders. In par- 
 ticular I augured the worst from Clon's appear- 
 ance. His lean malevolent face and sunken 
 eyes, his very dumbness chilled me. Mercy had 
 no place there.
 
 REVENGE. 125 
 
 We rode soberly, so that nearly half an hour 
 elapsed before we gained the brow from which 
 I had taken my first look at Cocheforet. Among 
 the dwarf oaks whence I had viewed the valley 
 we paused to breathe our horses, and the strange 
 feelings with which I looked back on the scene 
 may be imagined. But I had short time for 
 indulging in sentiment or recollections. A curt 
 word, and we were moving again. 
 
 A quarter of a mile farther on the road to 
 Auch dipped into the valley. When we were 
 already half-way down this descent the inn- 
 keeper suddenly stretched out his hand and 
 caught my rein. " This way ! " he said. 
 
 I saw he would have me turn into a by-path 
 leading south-westwards a mere track, faint 
 and little trodden and encroached on by trees, 
 which led I knew not whither. I checked my 
 horse. " Why ? " I said rebelliously. " Do you 
 think I do not know the road ? This is the way 
 to Auch." 
 
 "To Auch yes," he answered bluntly. " But 
 we are not going to Auch." 
 
 "Whither then?" I said angrily.
 
 126 UNDER THE RED ROBE. 
 
 " You will see presently," he replied, with an 
 ugly smile. 
 
 " Yes, but I will know now ! " I retorted, pas- 
 sion getting the better of me. " I have come so 
 far with you. You will find it more easy to 
 take me farther, if you tell me your plans." 
 
 " You are a fool ! " he cried, with a snarl. 
 
 " Not so," I answered. " I ask only to know 
 whither I am going." 
 
 " Into Spain," he said. " Will that satisfy 
 you?" 
 
 " And what will you do with me there ? " I 
 asked, my heart giving a great bound. 
 
 " Hand you over to some friends of ours," he 
 answered curtly, "if you behave yourself. If 
 not, there is a shorter way, and one that will 
 save us some travelling. Make up your mind. 
 Monsieur. Which shall it be?"
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 UNDER THE PIC DU MIDI. 
 
 So that was their plan. Two or three hours 
 to the southward, the long white glittering wall 
 stretched east and west above the brown woods. 
 Beyond that lay Spain. Once across the border, 
 I might be detained, if no worse happened to me, 
 as a prisoner of war; for we were then at war 
 with Spain on the Italian side. Or I might be 
 handed over to one of the savage bands, half 
 smugglers, half brigands, that held the passes ; or 
 be delivered worst fate of all into the power 
 of the French exiles, of whom some would be 
 likely to recognize me and cut my throat. 
 
 " It is a long way into Spain," I muttered, 
 watching in a kind of fascination Clon handling 
 his pistols. 
 
 "I think you will find the other road longer 
 127
 
 128 UNDER THE RED ROBE. 
 
 still ! " the landlord answered grimly. " But 
 choose, and be quick about it." 
 
 They were three to one, and they had firearms. 
 In effect I had no choice. " Well, if I must I 
 must ! " I cried, making up my mind with seeming 
 recklessness. " Vogue la galore / Spain be it. It 
 will not be the first time I have heard the dons 
 talk." 
 
 The men nodded, as much as to say that they 
 had known what the end would be ; the landlord 
 released my rein ; and in a trice we were riding 
 down the narrow track, with our faces set towards 
 the mountains. 
 
 On one point my mind was now more easy. 
 The men meant fairly by me ; and I had no 
 longer to fear, as I had feared, a pistol shot in the 
 back at the first convenient ravine. As far as 
 that went, I might ride in peace. On the other 
 hand, if I let them carry me across the border my 
 fate was sealed. A man set down without creden- 
 tials or guards among the wild desperadoes who 
 swarmed in war time in the Asturian passes might 
 consider himself fortunate if an easy death fell to 
 his lot. In my case I could make a shrewd guess
 
 UNDER THE PIC DU MIDI. 129 
 
 what would happen. A single nod of meaning, 
 one muttered word, dropped among the savage 
 men with whom I should be left, and the dia- 
 monds hidden in my boot would go neither to the 
 Cardinal nor back to Mademoiselle nor would 
 it matter to me whither they went. 
 
 So while the others talked in their taciturn 
 fashion, or sometimes grinned at my gloomy face, 
 I looked out over the brown woods with eyes that 
 saw, yet did not see. The red squirrel swarming 
 up the trunk, the startled pigs that rushed away 
 grunting from their feast of mast, the solitary 
 rider who met us, armed to the teeth, and passed 
 northwards after whispering with the landlord 
 all these I saw. But my mind was not with them. 
 It was groping and feeling about like a hunted 
 mole for some way of escape. For time pressed. 
 The slope we were on was growing steeper. By- 
 and-bye we fell into a southward valley, and began 
 to follow it steadily upwards, crossing and recross- 
 ing a swiftly rushing stream. The snow-peaks 
 began to be hidden behind the rising bulk of hills 
 that overhung us ; and sometimes we could see 
 nothing before or behind but the wooded walls
 
 130 UNDER THE RED ROBE. 
 
 of our valley rising sheer and green a thousand 
 paces on either hand, with grey rocks half masked 
 by fern and ivy getting here and there through 
 the firs and alders. 
 
 It was a wild and sombre scene even at that 
 hour, with the midday sun shining on the rushing 
 water and drawing the scent out of the pines ; 
 but I knew that there was worse to come, and 
 sought desperately for some ruse by which I 
 might at least separate the men. Three were too 
 many; with one I might deal. At last, when I 
 had cudgelled my brain for an hour, and almost 
 resigned myself to a sudden charge on the men 
 single-handed a last desperate resort I thought 
 of a plan, dangerous, too, and almost desperate, 
 but which still seemed to promise something. It 
 came of my fingers resting in my pocket on the 
 fragments of the orange sachet, which, without 
 having any particular design in my mind, I had 
 taken care to bring with me. I had torn the 
 sachet into four pieces four corners. As I 
 played mechanically with them, one of my fingers 
 fitted into one, as into a glove ; a second finger 
 into another. And the plan came.
 
 UNDER THE PIC DU MIDI. 131 
 
 Still, before I could move in it, I had to wait 
 antil we stopped to bait the flagging horses, which 
 we did about noon at the head of the valley. 
 Then, pretending to drink from the stream, I man- 
 aged to secure unseen a handful of pebbles, slip- 
 ping them into the same pocket with the morsels 
 of stuff. On getting to horse again, I carefully 
 fitted a pebble, not too tightly, into the largest 
 scrap, and made ready for the attempt. 
 
 The landlord rode on my left, abreast of me; 
 the other two knaves behind. The road at this 
 stage favoured me, for the valley, which drained 
 the bare uplands that lay between the lower spurs 
 and the base of the real mountains, had become 
 wide and shallow. Here were no trees, and the 
 path was a mere -sheep-track covered with short 
 crisp grass, and running sometimes on this bank 
 of the stream and sometimes on that. 
 
 I waited until the ruffian beside me turned to 
 speak to the men behind. The moment he did so 
 and his eyes were averted, I slipped out the scrap 
 of satin in which I had placed the pebble, and 
 balancing it carefully on my right thigh as I rode, 
 I flipped it forward with all the strength of my 
 
 K 2
 
 132 UNDER THE RED ROBE. 
 
 thumb and finger. I meant it to fall a few paces 
 before us in the path, where it could be seen. 
 But alas for my hopes ! At the critical moment 
 my horse started, my finger struck the scrap 
 aslant, the pebble flew out, and the bit of stuff 
 fluttered into a whin-bush close to my stirrup 
 and was lost ! 
 
 I was bitterly disappointed, for the same thing 
 might happen again, and I had now only three 
 scraps left. But fortune favoured me, by putting 
 it into i my neighbour's head to plunge into a hot 
 debate with the shock-headed man on the nature 
 of some animals seen on a distant brow ; which he 
 said were izards, while the other maintained that 
 they were common goats. He continued, on this 
 account, to ride with his face turned the other 
 way. I had time to fit another pebble into the 
 second piece of stuff, and sliding it on to my 
 thigh, poised it, and flipped it. 
 
 This time my finger struck the tiny missile 
 fairly in the middle, and shot it so far and so 
 truly that it dropped exactly in the path ten paces 
 in front of us. The moment I saw it fall I kicked 
 my neighbour's nag in the ribs ; it started, and
 
 UNDER THE PIC DU MIDI. 133 
 
 he, turning in a rage, hit it. The next instant 
 he pulled it almost on to its haunches. 
 
 " Saint Gris ! " he cried ; and sat glaring at the 
 bit of yellow satin, with his face turned purple 
 and his jaw fallen. 
 
 "What is it?" I said, staring at him in turn. 
 "What is the matter, fool?" 
 
 "Matter?" he blurted out. "MonDieu!" 
 
 But Clon's excitement surpassed even his. The 
 dumb man no sooner saw what had attracted his 
 comrade's attention, than he uttered an inarticu- 
 late and horrible noise, and tumbling off his horse, 
 more like a beast than a man, threw himself bodily 
 on the precious morsel. 
 
 The innkeeper was not far behind him. An 
 instant and he was down, too, peering at the 
 thing; and for an instant I thought that they 
 would fight over it. However, though their jeal- 
 ousy was evident, their excitement cooled a little 
 when they discovered that the scrap of stuff was 
 empty; for, fortunately, the pebble had fallen out 
 of it. Still, it threw them into such a fever of 
 eagerness as it was wonderful to witness. They 
 nosed the ground where it had lain, they plucked
 
 134 UNDER THE RED ROBE. 
 
 up the grass and turf, and passed it through their 
 fingers, they ran to and fro like dogs on a trail; 
 and, glancing askance at one another, came back 
 always together to the point of departure. Neither 
 in his jealousy would suffer the other to be there 
 alone. 
 
 The shock-headed man and I sat our horses 
 and looked on ; he marvelling, and I pretending 
 to marvel. As the two searched up and down 
 the path, we moved a little out of it to give them 
 space ; and presently, when all their heads were 
 turned from me, I let a second morsel drop under 
 a gorse-bush. The shock-headed man, by-and-bye, 
 found this, and gave it to Clon ; and, as from the 
 circumstances of the first discovery no suspicion 
 attached to me, I ventured to find the third and 
 last scrap myself. I did not pick it up, but I 
 called the innkeeper, and he pounced on it as I 
 have seen a hawk pounce on a chicken. 
 
 They hunted for the fourth morsel, but, of 
 course, in vain, and in the end they desisted, 
 and fitted the three they had together; but 
 neither would let his own portion out of his 
 hands, and each looked at the other across the
 
 UNDER THE PIC DU MIDI. 1 35 
 
 spoil with eyes of suspicion. It was strange to 
 see them in that wide-stretching valley, whence 
 grey boar-backs of hills swelled up into the silence 
 of the snow it was strange, I say, in that .vast 
 solitude to see these two, mere dots on its bosom, 
 circling round one another in fierce forgetfulness 
 of the outside world, glaring and shifting their 
 ground like cocks about to engage, and wholly 
 engrossed by three scraps of orange-colour, 
 invisible at fifty paces ! 
 
 At last the innkeeper cried with an oath : " I 
 am going back. This must be known down 
 yonder. Give me your pieces, man, and do you 
 go with Antoine. It will be all right." 
 
 But Clon, waving a scrap in either hand and 
 thrusting his ghastly mask into the other's face, 
 shook his head in passionate denial. He could 
 not speak, but he made it clear that if any one 
 went back with the news he was the man to go. 
 
 " Nonsense ! " the landlord retorted fiercely. 
 "We cannot leave Antoine to go on alone with 
 him. Give me the stuff.'* 
 
 But Clon would not. He had no thought of 
 resigning the credit of the discovery, and I began
 
 136 UNDER THE RED ROBE. 
 
 to think that the two would really come to blows. 
 But there was an alternative, and first one and 
 then the other looked at me. It was a moment 
 of peril, and I knew it. My stratagem might 
 react on myself, and the two, to put an end to 
 this difficulty, agree to put an end to me. But 
 I faced them so coolly and showed so bold a 
 front, and the ground was so open, that the idea 
 took no root. They fell to wrangling again more 
 viciously than before. One tapped his gun and 
 the other his pistols. The landlord scolded, the 
 dumb man gurgled. At last their difference 
 ended as I had hoped it would. 
 
 " Very well then, we will both go back ! " the 
 innkeeper cried in a rage. " And Antoine must 
 see him on. But the blame be on your head. 
 Do you give the lad your pistols." 
 
 Clon took one pistol and gave it to the shock- 
 headed man. 
 
 " The other ! " the innkeeper said impatiently. 
 
 But Clon shook his head with a grim smile, 
 and pointed to the arquebuss. 
 
 By a sudden movement the landlord snatched 
 the pistol, and averted Clon's vengeance by
 
 UNDER THE PIC DU MIDI. 137 
 
 placing both it and the gun in the shock-headed 
 man's hands. " There ! " he said, addressing the 
 fatter, " now can you do ? If Monsieur tries to 
 escape or turn back, shoot him ! But four hours' 
 riding should bring you to the Roca Blanca. 
 You will find the men there, and will have no 
 more to do with it." 
 
 Antoine did not see things quite in that light, 
 however. He looked at me, and then at the 
 wild track in front otf us ; and he muttered an 
 oath and said he would die if he would. But 
 the landlord, who was in a frenzy of impatience, 
 drew him aside and talked to him, and in the 
 end seemed to persuade him ; for in a few 
 minutes the matter was settled. Antoine came 
 back and said sullenly, " Forward, Monsieur," the 
 two others stood on one side, I shrugged my 
 shoulders and kicked up my horse, and in a 
 twinkling we two were riding on together man 
 to man. I turned once or twice to see what 
 those we had left behind were doing, and always 
 found them standing in apparent debate ; but 
 my guard showed so much jealousy of these 
 movements that I presently shrugged my shoul- 
 ders again and desisted.
 
 138 UNDER THE RED ROBE. 
 
 I had racked my brains to bring about this 
 state of things. But, strange to say, now I had 
 succeeded, I found it' less satisfactory than I 
 had hoped. I had reduced the odds and got rid 
 of my most dangerous antagonists ; but Antoine, 
 left to himself, proved to be as full of suspicion 
 as an egg of meat. He rode a little behind me 
 with his gun across his saddle-bow, and a pistol 
 near his hand, and at the slightest pause on my 
 part, or if I turned to look at him, he muttered 
 his constant " Forward, Monsieur!" in a tone 
 that warned me that his finger was on the trigger. 
 At such a distance he could not miss ; and I 
 saw nothing for it but to go on meekly before 
 him to the Roca Blanca and my fate. 
 
 What was to be done ? The road presently 
 reached the end of the valley and entered a 
 narrow pine-clad defile, strewn with rocks and 
 boulders, over which the torrent plunged and 
 eddied with a deafening roar. In front the white 
 gleam of waterfalls broke the sombre ranks of 
 climbing trunks. The snow-line lay less than half 
 a mile away on either hand; and crowning all 
 af the end of the pass, as it seemed to the eye
 
 UNDER THE PIC DU MIDI. 139 
 
 -w rose the pure white pillar of the Pic du Midi 
 shooting up six thousand feet into the blue of 
 heaven Such a scene, so suddenly disclosed, was 
 enough to drive the sense of danger from my 
 mind ; and for a moment I reined in my horse. 
 But " Forward, Monsieur ! " came the grating 
 order. I fell to earth again, and went on. What 
 was to be done ? 
 
 I was at my wit's end to know. The man 
 refused to talk, refused to ride abreast of me, 
 
 would have no dismounting, no halting, no com- 
 
 \ 
 munication; at all. He would have nothing but 
 
 this silent, lonely procession of two, with the 
 muzzle of his gun at my back. And meanwhile 
 we were fast climbing the pass. We had left 
 the others an hour nearly two. The sun was 
 declining; the time, I supposed, about half-past 
 three. 
 
 If he would only let me come within reach 
 of him ! Or if anything would fall out to take 
 his attention ! When the pass presently widened 
 into a bare and dreary valley, strewn with huge 
 boulders, and with snow lying here and | there 
 in the hollows, I looked desperately before me,
 
 140 UNDER THE RED ROBE. 
 
 and scanned even the vast snow-fields that 
 overhung us and stretched away to the base of 
 the ice-peak. But I saw nothing. No bear 
 swung across the path, no izard showed itself 
 on the cliffs. The keen sharp air cut our 
 cheeks and warned me that we were approach- 
 ing the summit of the ridge. On all sides were 
 silence and desolation. 
 
 Man Dieu ! And the ruffians on whose 
 tender mercies I was to be thrown might come 
 to meet us ! They might appear at any mo- 
 ment. In my despair I loosened my hat on my 
 head, and let the first gust carry it to the 
 ground, and then with an oath of annoyance 
 tossed my feet loose to go after it. But the 
 rascal roared to me to keep my seat. 
 
 " Forward, Monsieur ! " he shouted brutally. 
 " Go on ! " 
 
 "But my hat!" I cried. " Mille tonnerres, 
 man! I must " 
 
 " Forward, Monsieur, or I shoot ! " he replied 
 inexorably, raising his gun. "One two " 
 
 And I went on. But, oh, I was wrathful ! 
 That I, Gil de Berault, should be outwitted and
 
 UNDER THE PIC DU MIDl. 141 
 
 led by the nose, like a ringed bull, by this 
 Gascon lout! That I, whom all Paris knew 
 and feared if it did not love the terror of 
 Zaton's, should come to my end in this dismal 
 waste of snow and rock, done to death by some 
 pitiful smuggler or thief ! It must not be ! 
 Surely in the last resort I could give an account 
 of one man, though his belt were stuffed with 
 pistols ! 
 
 But how? Only, it seemed, by open force. 
 My heart began to flutter as I planned it; and 
 then grew steady again. A hundred paces 
 before us a gully or ravine on the left ran up 
 into the snow-field. Opposite its mouth a jum- 
 ble of stones and broken rocks covered the 
 path. I marked this for the place. The knave 
 would need both his hands to hold up his nag 
 over the stones, and, if I turned on him sud- 
 denly enough, he might either drop his gun, or 
 fire it harmlessly. 
 
 But, in the meantime, something happened ; 
 as, at the last moment, things do happen. 
 While we were still fifty yards short of the 
 place, I found his horse's nose creeping for-
 
 142 UNDER THE RED ROBE. 
 
 ward on a level with my crupper; and, still 
 advancing, until I could see it out of the tail of 
 my eye, and my heart gave a great bound. He 
 was coming abreast of me : he was going to 
 deliver himself into my hands ! To cover my 
 excitement, I began to whistle. 
 
 " Hush ! " he muttered fiercely : his voice 
 sounding strange and unnatural. My first 
 thought was that he was ill, and I turned to 
 him. But he only said again, " Hush ! Pass 
 by here quietly, Monsieur." 
 
 " Why ? " I asked mutinously, curiosity get- 
 ting the better of me. For had I been wise I 
 had taken no notice ; every second his horse 
 was coming up with mine. Its nose was level 
 with my stirrup already. 
 
 " Hush, man ! " he said again. This time 
 there was no mistake about the panic in his 
 voice. " They call this the Devil's Chapel. 
 God send us safe by it! It is late to be here. 
 Look at those ! " he continued, pointing with 
 a finger which visibly shook. 
 
 I looked. At the mouth of the gully, in a 
 small space partly cleared of stones stood
 
 UNDER THE PIC DU MIDI. 143 
 
 three broken shafts, raised on rude pedestals. 
 "Well?" I said in a low voice. The sun 
 which was near setting flushed the great peak 
 above to the colour of blood; but the valley 
 was growing grey and each moment more 
 dreary. "Well, what of those?" I said. In 
 spite of my peril and the excitement of the 
 coming struggle I felt the chill of his fear. 
 Never had I seen so grim, so desolate, so God- 
 forsaken a place ! Involuntarily I shivered. 
 
 " They were crosses," he muttered, in a voice 
 little above a whisper, while his eyes roved this 
 way and that in terror. " The Cure of Gabas 
 blessed the place, and set them up. But next 
 morning they were as you see them now. Come 
 on, Monsieur, come on ! " he continued, pluck- 
 ing at my arm. " It is not safe here after sun- 
 set. Pray God, Satan be not at home ! " 
 
 He had completely forgotten in his panic 
 that he had anything to fear from me. His 
 gun dropped loosely across his saddle, his leg 
 rubbed mine. I saw this, and I changed my 
 plan of action. As our horses reached the 
 stones I stooped, as if to encourage mine, and
 
 144 UNDER THE RED ROBE. 
 
 by a sudden clutch snatched the gun bodily 
 from his hand; at the same time I backed my 
 horse with all my strength. It was done in a 
 moment! A second and I had him at the end 
 of the gun, and my finger was on the trigger. 
 Never was victory more easily gained. 
 
 He looked at me between rage and terror, 
 his jaw fallen. " Are you mad ? " he cried, his 
 teeth chattering as he spoke. Even in this 
 strait his eyes left me and wandered round in 
 alarm. 
 
 "No, sane!" I retorted fiercely. "But I do 
 not like this place any better than you do!" 
 Which was true enough, if not quite true. " So, 
 by your right, quick march ! " I continued imper- 
 atively. "Turn your horse, my friend, or take 
 the consequences." 
 
 He turned like a lamb, and headed down the 
 valley again, without giving a thought to his 
 pistols. I kept close to him, and in less than 
 a minute we had left the Devil's Chapel well 
 behind us, and were moving down again as we 
 had come up. Only now I held the gun. 
 
 When we had gone half a mile or so until
 
 UNDER THE PIC DU MIDL H5 
 
 then I did not feel comfortable myself, and 
 though I thanked Heaven the place existed, 
 thanked Heaven also that I was out of it 
 I bade him halt. " Take off your belt ! " I said 
 curtly, " and throw it down. But, mark me, if 
 you turn, I fire ! " 
 
 The spirit was quite gone out of him. He 
 obeyed mechanically. I jumped down, still cov- 
 ering him with the gun, and picked up the belt, 
 pistols and all. Then I remounted, and we went 
 on. By-and-bye he asked me sullenly what I 
 was going to do. 
 
 " Go back," I said, " and take the road to 
 Auch when I come to it." 
 
 " It will be dark in an hour," he answered 
 sulkily. 
 
 " I know that," I retorted. " We must camp 
 and do the best we can." 
 
 And as I said, we did. The daylight held 
 until we gained the skirts of the pine-wood at 
 the head of the pass. Here I chose a corner a 
 little off the track, and well-sheltered from the 
 wind, and bade him light a fire. I tethered the 
 horses near this and within sight. It remained
 
 146 UNDER THE RED ROBE. 
 
 only to sup. I had a piece of bread ; he had 
 another and an onion. We ate in silence, sitting 
 on opposite sides of the fire. 
 
 But after supper I found myself in a dilemma ; 
 I did not see how I was to sleep. The ruddy 
 light which gleamed on the knave's swart face 
 and sinewy hands showed also his eyes, black, 
 sullen, and watchful. I knew that the man was 
 plotting revenge ; that he would not hesitate to 
 plant his knife between my ribs should I give 
 him a chance. I could find only one alternative 
 to remaining awake. Had I been bloody-minded, 
 I should have chosen it and solved the question 
 at once and in my favour by shooting him as 
 he sat. 
 
 But I have never been a cruel man, and I 
 could not find it in my heart to do this. The 
 silence of the mountain and the sky - - which 
 seemed a thing apart from the roar of the tor- 
 rent and not to be broken by it awed me. 
 The vastness of the solitude in which we sat, 
 the dark void above through which the stars kept 
 shooting, the black gulf below in which the un- 
 seen waters boiled and surged, the absence of
 
 UNDER THE PIC DU MIDI. 147 
 
 other human company or other signs of human 
 existence put such a face upon the deed that I 
 gave up the thought of it with a shudder, and 
 resigned myself, instead, to watch through the 
 night the long, cold, Pyrenean night. Pres- 
 ently he curled himself up like a dog and slept 
 in the blaze, and then for a couple of hours I 
 sat opposite him, thinking. It seemed years 
 since I had seen Zaton's or thrown the dice. 
 The old life, the old employments should I ever 
 go back to them ? seemed dim and distant. 
 Would Cocheforet, the forest and the mountain, 
 the grey Chateau and its mistresses, seem one 
 day as dim ! And if one bit of life could fade 
 so quickly at the unrolling of another, and seem 
 in a moment pale and colourless, would all life 
 some day and somewhere, and all the things we 
 But faugh ! I was growing foolish. I sprang 
 up and kicked the wood together, and, taking up 
 the gun, began to pace to and fro under the cliff. 
 Strange that a little moonlight, a few stars, a 
 breath of solitude should carry a man back to 
 childhood and childish things !
 
 148 UNDER THE RED ROBE. 
 
 It was three in the afternoon of the next day, 
 and the sun lay hot on the oak groves, and the 
 air was full of warmth as we began to climb the 
 slope, on which the road to Auch shoots out of 
 the track. The yellow bracken and the fallen 
 leaves underfoot seemed to throw up light of 
 themselves, and here and there a patch of ruddy 
 beech lay like a bloodstain on the hillside. In 
 front a herd of pigs routed among the mast, 
 and grunted lazily ; and high above us a boy 
 lay watching them. "We part here," I said to 
 my companion. It was my plan to ride a little 
 way on the road to Auch so as to blind his eyes ; 
 then, leaving my horse in the forest, I would go 
 on foot to the Chateau. 
 
 " The sooner the better ! " he answered, with a 
 snarl. " And I hope I may never see your face 
 again, Monsieur!" 
 
 But when we came to the wooden cross at the 
 fork of the roads, and were about to part, the boy 
 we had seen leapt out of the fern and came to 
 meet us. "Hollo! " he cried, in a sing-song tone. 
 
 " Well ! " my companion answered, drawing 
 rein impatiently. " What is it ? "
 
 UNDER THE PIC DU MfDI. 1 49 
 
 " There are soldiers in the village." 
 
 "Soldiers?" Antoine cried incredulously. 
 
 "Ay, devils on horseback!" the lad answered, 
 spitting on the ground. " Three score of them ! 
 From Audi!" 
 
 Antoine turned to me, his face transformed 
 with fury. " Curse you ! " he cried. " This is 
 some of your work ! Now we are all undone ! 
 And my mistresses! Sacrt '! if I had that gun 
 I would shoot you like a rat ! " 
 
 " Steady, fool ! " I answered roughly. " I 
 know no more of this than you do ! " 
 
 This was so true that my surprise was as great 
 as his. The Cardinal, who rarely made a change 
 of front, had sent me hither that he might not 
 be forced to send soldiers, and run the risk of 
 all that might arise from such a movement. 
 What of this invasion, then, than which nothing 
 could be less consistent with his plans ? I won- 
 dered. It was possible, of course, that the trav- 
 elling merchants, before whom I had played at 
 treason, had reported the facts ; and that on 
 this the Commandant at Auch had acted. But 
 it seemed unlikely. He had had his orders, too I
 
 150 UNDER THE RED ROBE. 
 
 and, under the Cardinal's rule, there was small 
 place for individual enterprise. I could not 
 understand it. 
 
 One thing was clear, however. I might now 
 enter the village as I pleased. " I am going on 
 to look into this," I said to Antoine. " Come, 
 my man." 
 
 He shrugged his shoulders, and stood still. 
 " Not I ! " he answered, with an oath. " No 
 soldiers for me! I have lain out one night, and 
 I can He out another ! " 
 
 I nodded indifferently, for I no longer wanted 
 him ; and we parted. After this, twenty minutes' 
 riding brought me to the entrance of the village ; 
 and here the change was great indeed. Not 
 one of the ordinary dwellers in the place was 
 to be seen : either they had shut themselves up 
 in their hovels, or, like Antoine, they had fled to 
 the woods. Their doors were closed, their win- 
 dows shuttered. But lounging about the street 
 were a score of dragoons, in boots and breast- 
 plates, whose short-barrelled muskets, with pouches 
 and bandoliers attached, were piled near the inn 
 door. In an open space where there was a gap
 
 UNDER THE PIC DU MIDI. I$I 
 
 in the street, a long row of horses, linked head 
 to head, stood bending their muzzles over bundles 
 of rough forage, and. on all sides the cheerful 
 jingle of chains and bridles and the sound of 
 coarse jokes and laughter filled the air. 
 
 As I rode up to the inn door an old sergeant, 
 with squinting eyes and his tongue in his cheeks, 
 eyed me inquisitively, and started to cross the 
 street to challenge me. Fortunately, at that 
 moment the two knaves whom I had brought 
 from Paris with me, and whom I had left at 
 Auch to await my orders, came up. I made 
 them a sign not to speak to me, and they passed 
 on ; but I suppose that they told the sergeant 
 that I was not the man he wanted, for I saw no 
 more of him. 
 
 After picketing my horse behind the inn I 
 could find no better stable, every place being 
 full I pushed my way through the group at 
 the door, and entered. The old room, with the 
 low grimy roof and the reeking floor, was half 
 full of strange figures, and for a few minutes I 
 stood unseen in the smoke and confusion. Then 
 the landlord came my way, and as he passed
 
 152 UNDER THE RED ROBE. 
 
 me I caught his eye. He uttered a low curse, 
 dropped the pitcher he was carrying, and stood 
 glaring at me, like a man possessed. 
 
 The soldier whose wine he was carrying flung 
 a crust in his face, with, " Now, greasy fingers ! 
 What are you staring at?" 
 
 " The devil ! " the landlord muttered, beginning 
 to tremble. 
 
 " Then let me look at him ! " the man retorted 
 and he turned on his stool. 
 
 He started, finding me standing over him. 
 " At your service ! " I said grimly. " A little 
 time and it will be the other way, my friend."
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 A MASTER STROKE. 
 
 I HAVE a way with me which commonly com- 
 mands respect ; and when the landlord's first 
 terror was over and he would serve me, I managed 
 to get my supper the first good meal I had 
 had in two days pretty comfortably in spite 
 of the soldiers' presence. The crowd, too, which 
 filled the room, soon began to melt. The men 
 strayed off in groups to water their horses, or 
 went to hunt up their quarters, until only two 
 or three were left. Dusk had fallen outside ; 
 the noise in the street grew less. The firelight 
 began to glow and flicker on the walls, and the 
 wretched room to look as homely as it was in 
 its nature to look. I was pondering for the 
 twentieth time what step I should take next 
 under these new circumstances and why the 
 soldiers were here, and whether I should let 
 
 tI
 
 154 UNDER THE RED ROBE. 
 
 the night pass before I moved, when the door, 
 which had been turning on its hinges almost 
 without pause for an hour, opened again, and a 
 woman came in. 
 
 She paused a moment on the threshold look- 
 ing round, and I saw that she had a shawl on 
 her head and a milk-pitcher in her hand, and 
 that her feet and ankles were bare. There was 
 a great rent in her coarse stuff petticoat, and 
 the hand which held the shawl together was 
 brown and dirty. More I did not see ; supposing 
 her to be a neighbour stolen in now that the 
 house was quiet to get some milk for her child 
 or the like, I took no further heed of her. I 
 turned to the fire again and plunged into my 
 thoughts. 
 
 But to get to the hearth where the goodwife 
 was fidgeting, the woman had to pass in front 
 of me ; and as she passed I suppose she stole a 
 look at me from under her shawl. For just 
 when she came between me and the blaze she 
 uttered a low cry and shrank aside so quickly 
 that she almost stepped on the hearth. The 
 next moment she turned her back to me and
 
 A MASTER STROKE. 155 
 
 was stooping, whispering in the housewife's ear. 
 A stranger might have thought that she had 
 merely trodden on a hot ember. 
 
 But another idea, and a very sharp one, came 
 into my mind; and I stood up silently. The 
 woman's back was towards me, but something 
 in her height, her shape, the pose of her head, 
 hidden as it was by her shawl, seemed famil- 
 iar. I waited while she hung over the fire 
 whispering, and while the goodwife slowly filled 
 her pitcher out of the great black pot. But when 
 she turned to go, I took a step forward so as 
 to bar her way. And our eyes met. 
 
 I could not see her features; they were lost 
 in the shadow of the hood. But I saw a shiver 
 run through her from head to foot. And I 
 knew then that I had made no mistake. 
 
 " That is too heavy for you, my girl," I said 
 familiarly, as I might have spoken to a village 
 wench. " I will carry it for you." 
 
 One of the men, who remained lolling at the 
 table, laughed, and the other began to sing a 
 low song. The woman trembled in rage or fear, 
 but she kept silence and let me take the jug
 
 1 56 UNDER THE RED ROBE. 
 
 from her hands. And when I went to the door 
 and opened it, she followed mechanically. An 
 instant, and the door fell to behind us, shutting 
 off the light and glow, and we two stood together 
 in the growing dusk. 
 
 " It is late for you to be out, Mademoiselle," 
 I said politely. " You might meet with some 
 rudeness, dressed as you are. Permit me to see 
 you home." 
 
 She shuddered, and I thought I heard her sob, 
 but she did not answer. Instead, she turned and 
 walked quickly through the village in the direc- 
 tion of the Chateau, keeping in the shadow of the 
 houses. I carried the pitcher and walked beside 
 her; and in the dark I smiled. I knew how 
 shame and impotent rage were working in her. 
 This was something like revenge ! 
 
 Presently I spoke. " Well, Mademoiselle," I 
 said. " Where are your grooms ? " 
 
 She gave me one look, her eyes blazing with 
 anger, her face like hate itself ; and after that 
 I said no more, but left her in peace, and con- 
 tented myself with walking at her shoulder until 
 we came to the end of the village, where the
 
 A MASTER STROKE. 1 57 
 
 track to the great house plunged into the wood. 
 There she stopped, and turned on me like a 
 wild creature at bay. " What do you want ? " 
 she cried hoarsely, breathing as if she had been 
 running. 
 
 " To see you safe to the house," I answered 
 coolly. 
 
 "And if I will not?" she retorted. 
 
 " The choice does not lie with you, Mademoi- 
 selle," I answered sternly. " You will go to the 
 house with me, and on the way you will give 
 me an interview ; but not here. Here we are not 
 private enough. We may be interrupted at any 
 moment, and I wish to speak to you at length." 
 
 I saw her shiver. " What if I will not ? " 
 she said again. 
 
 " I might call to the nearest soldiers and tell 
 them who you are," I answered coolly. " I 
 might, but I should not. That were a clumsy 
 way of punishing you, and I know a better way. 
 I should go to the captain, Mademoiselle, and 
 tell him whose horse is locked up in the inn 
 stable. A trooper told me as some one had 
 told him that it belonged to one of his officers;
 
 158 UNDER THE RED ROBE. 
 
 but I looked through the crack, and I knew the 
 horse again." 
 
 She could not repress a groan. I waited. Still 
 she did not speak. " Shall I go to the captain ? " 
 I said ruthlessly. 
 
 She shook the hood back from her face, and 
 looked at me. "Oh, you coward! you coward!" 
 she hissed through her teeth. " If I had a 
 knife ! " 
 
 " But you have not, Mademoiselle," I answered, 
 unmoved. " Be good enough, therefore, to make up 
 your mind which it is to be. Am I to go with my 
 news to the captain, or am I to come with you ? " 
 
 " Give me the pitcher! " she said harshly. 
 
 I did so, wondering. In a moment she flung 
 it with a savage gesture far into the bushes. 
 "Come!" she said, "if you will. But some day 
 God will punish you ! " 
 
 Without another word she turned and entered 
 the path through the trees, and I followed her. 
 I suppose every turn in its course, every hollow 
 and broken place in it had been known to her 
 from childhood, for she followed it swiftly and 
 unerringly, barefoot as she was. I had to walk
 
 A MASTER STROKE. 159 
 
 fast through the darkness to keep up with her. 
 The wood was quiet, but the frogs were beginning 
 to croak in the pool, and their persistent chorus 
 reminded me of the night when I had come to 
 the house-door hurt and worn out, and Clon had 
 admitted me, and she had stood under the gallery 
 in the hall. Things had looked dark then. I had 
 seen but a very little way ahead. Now all was 
 plain. The Commandant might be here with all 
 his soldiers, but it was I who held the strings. 
 
 We came to the little wooden bridge and saw 
 beyond the dark meadows the lights of the house. 
 All the windows were bright. Doubtless the 
 troopers were making merry. " Now, Made- 
 moiselle," I said quietly. " I must trouble you 
 to stop here, and give me your attention for a 
 few minutes. Afterwards you may go your way." 
 
 " Speak ! " she said defiantly. " And be quick ! 
 I cannot breathe the air where you are ! It poi- 
 sons me !" 
 
 " Ah ! " I said slowly. " Do you think you 
 make things better by such speeches as those ? " 
 
 " Oh ! " she cried and I heard her teeth click 
 together. " Would you have me fawn on you ? "
 
 160 UNDER THE RED ROBE. 
 
 " Perhaps not," I answered. " Still you make 
 one mistake." 
 
 "What is it?" she panted. 
 
 " You forget that I am to be feared as well 
 as loathed!" I answered grimly. "Ay, Made- 
 moiselle, to be feared ! " I continued. " Do you 
 think that I do not know why you are here in this 
 guise ? Do you think that I do not know for 
 whom that pitcher of broth was intended ? Or 
 who will now have to fast to-night? I tell you 
 I know all these things. Your house is full of 
 soldiers ; your servants were watched and could 
 not leave. You had to come yourself and get 
 food for him ! " 
 
 She clutched at the hand-rail of the bridge, and 
 for an instant clung to it for support. Her face, 
 from which the shawl had fallen, glimmered 
 white in the shadow of the trees. At last I had 
 shaken her pride. At last ! " What is your 
 price ? " she murmured faintly. 
 
 " I am going to tell you," I replied, speaking 
 so that every word might fall distinctly on her 
 ears, and sating my eyes on her proud face. I 
 had never dreamed of such revenge as this !
 
 A MASTER STROKE. l6l 
 
 "About a fortnight ago, M. de Cochefore't left 
 here at night with a little orange-coloured sachet 
 in his possession." 
 
 She uttered a stifled cry, and drew herself 
 stiffly erect. 
 
 " It contained but there, Mademoiselle, you 
 know its contents," I went on. "Whatever they 
 were, M. de Cocheforet lost it and them at start- 
 ing. A week ago he came back unfortunately 
 for himself to seek them." 
 
 She was looking full in my face now. She 
 seemed scarcely to breathe in the intensity of her 
 surprise and expectation. "You had a search 
 made, Mademoiselle," I continued quietly. " Your 
 servants left no place unexplored. The paths, 
 the roads, the very woods were ransacked. But 
 in vain, because all the while the orange sachet 
 lay whole and unopened in my pocket." 
 
 " No ! " she cried impetuously. " You lie, Sir ! 
 The sachet was found, torn open, many leagues 
 from this place ! " 
 
 "Where I threw it, Mademoiselle," I replied, 
 "that I might mislead your rascals and be free 
 to return. Oh ! believe me," I continued, letting
 
 1 62 UNDER THE RED ROBE. 
 
 something of myself, something of my triumph, 
 appear at last in my voice. " You have made 
 a mistake ! You would have done better had 
 you trusted me. I am no bundle of sawdust, 
 Mademoiselle, but a man : a man with an arm 
 to shield and a brain to serve, and as I am 
 going to teach you a heart also ! " 
 
 She shivered. 
 
 " In the orange-coloured sachet that you lost I 
 believe there were eighteen stones of great value?" 
 
 She made no answer, but she looked at me 
 as if I fascinated her. Her very breath seemed 
 to pause and wait on my words. She was so 
 little conscious of anything else, of anything 
 outside ourselves, that a score of men might 
 have come up behind her unseen and unnoticed. 
 
 I took from my breast a little packet wrapped 
 in soft leather, and held it towards her. "Will 
 you open this ? " I said. " I believe it contains 
 what you lost. That it contains all I will not 
 answer, Mademoiselle, because I spilled the 
 stones on the floor of my room, and I may have 
 failed to find some. But the others can be re- 
 covered I know where they are."
 
 A MASTER STROKE. 163 
 
 She took the packet slowly and began to 
 unroll it, her fingers shaking. A few turns and 
 the mild lustre of the stones made a kind of 
 moonlight in her hands such a shimmering 
 glory of imprisoned light as has ruined many a 
 woman and robbed many a man of his honour. 
 Morbleu ! as I looked at them and as she 
 stood looking at them in dull, entranced per- 
 plexity I wondered how I had come to resist 
 the temptation. 
 
 While I gazed her hands began to waver. " I 
 cannot count," she muttered helplessly. "How 
 many are there ? " 
 
 " In all, eighteen.' 
 
 "They should be eighteen," she said. 
 
 She closed her hand on them with that, and 
 opened it again, and did so twice, as if to re- 
 assure herself that the stones were real and that 
 she was not dreaming. Then she turned to 
 me with sudden fierceness, and I saw that her 
 beautiful face, sharpened by the greed of pos- 
 session, was grown as keen and vicious as before. 
 "Well?" she muttered between her teeth. "Your 
 price, man? Your price ? " 
 
 M 2
 
 1 64 UNDER THE RED ROBE. 
 
 " I am coming to it now, Mademoiselle," 1 
 said gravely. " It is a simple matter. You re- 
 member the afternoon when I followed you 
 clumsily and thoughtlessly perhaps through 
 the wood to restore these things ? It seems 
 about a month ago. I believe it happened the 
 day before yesterday. You called me then some 
 very harsh names, which I will not hurt you 
 by repeating. The only price I ask for restor- 
 ing your jewels is that you recall those names 
 
 " How ? " she muttered. " I do not understand.' 
 
 I repeated my words very slowly. "The only 
 price or reward I ask, Mademoiselle, is that you 
 take back those names, and say that they were 
 not deserved." 
 
 "And the jewels?" she exclaimed hoarsely. 
 
 "They are yours. They are nothing to me. 
 Take them, and say that you do not think of 
 me Nay, I cannot say the words, Made- 
 moiselle." 
 
 "But there is something else! What else?" 
 she cried, her head thrown back, her eyes, bright 
 as any wild animal's, searching mine. "Ha! my 
 brother? What of him? What of him, Sir?"
 
 A MASTER STROKE. l6$ 
 
 "For him, Mademoiselle I would prefer that 
 you should tell me no more than I know al- 
 ready," I answered in a low voice. " I do not 
 wish to be in that affair. But yes, there is one 
 thing I have not mentioned. You are right" 
 
 She sighed so deeply that I caught the sound. 
 
 " It is," I continued slowly, " that you will 
 permit me to remain at Cocheforet for a few 
 days, while the soldiers are here. I am told 
 that there are twenty men and two officers quar- 
 tered in your house. Your brother is away. I 
 ask to be permitted, Mademoiselle, to take his 
 place for the time, and to be privileged to protect 
 your sister and yourself from insult. That is all." 
 
 She raised her hand to her head. After a 
 long pause : " The frogs ! " she muttered, " they 
 croak! I cannot hear." 
 
 And then, to my surprise, she turned suddenly 
 on her heel, and walked over the bridge, leaving 
 me there. For a moment I stood aghast, peering 
 after her shadowy figure, and wondering what had 
 taken her. Then, in a minute or less, she came 
 quickly back to me, and I understood. She was 
 crying.
 
 166 UNDER THE RED ROBE. 
 
 " M. de Barthe," she said, in a trembling voice, 
 which told me that the victory was won. " Is there 
 nothing else ? Have you no other penance for me ? " 
 
 " None, Mademoiselle." 
 
 She had drawn the shawl over her head, and I 
 no longer saw her face. "That is all you ask?" 
 she murmured. 
 
 " That is all I ask now," I answered. 
 
 " It is granted," she said slowly and firmly. 
 " Forgive me if I seem to speak lightly if I 
 seem to make little of your generosity or my 
 shame; but I can say no rnore now. I am so 
 deep in trouble and so gnawed by terror that I 
 cannot feel anything much to-night, either shame 
 or gratitude. I am in a dream ; God grant it 
 may pass as a dream ! We are sunk in trouble. 
 But for you and what you have done, M. de 
 Barthe I " she paused and I heard her 
 fighting with the sobs which choked her "for- 
 give me. ... I am overwrought. And my 
 my feet are cold," she added suddenly and irrel& 
 vantly. " Will you take me home ? " 
 
 "Ah, Mademoiselle," I cried remorsefully, "I 
 have been a beast ! You are barefoot, and I 
 have kept you here."
 
 A MASTER STROKE. 167 
 
 " It is nothing," she said in a voice which 
 thrilled me. "My heart is warm, Monsieur 
 thanks to you. It is many hours since it has 
 been as warm." 
 
 She stepped out of the shadow as she spoke 
 and there, the thing was done. As I had 
 planned, so it had come about. Once more I 
 was crossing the meadow in the dark to be re> 
 ceived at Cocheforet a welcome guest. The 
 frogs croaked in the pool and a bat swooped 
 round us in circles ; and surely never never, 
 I thought, with a kind of exultation in my 
 breast had man been placed in a stranger 
 position. 
 
 Somewhere in the black wood behind us 
 probably in the outskirts of the village lurked 
 M. de Cocheforet. In the great house before 
 us, outlined by a score of lighted windows, were 
 the soldiers come from Auch to take him. Be- 
 tween the two, moving side by side in the dark- 
 ness, in a silence which each found to be eloquent, 
 were Mademoiselle and I : she who knew so much, 
 I who knew all all but one little thing! 
 
 We reached the house, and I suggested that
 
 1 68 UNDER THE RED ROBE. 
 
 she should steal in first by the way she had come 
 out, and that I should wait a little and knock at 
 the door when she had had time to explain mat- 
 ters to Clon. 
 
 " They do not let me see Clon," she answered 
 slowly. 
 
 " Then your woman must tell him," I rejoined. 
 " Or he may say something and betray me." 
 
 " They will not let our woman come to us." 
 
 " What ? " I cried, astonished. " But this is 
 infamous. You are not prisoners ! " 
 
 Mademoiselle laughed harshly. "Are we not? 
 Well, I suppose not; for if we wanted company, 
 Captain Larolle said he would be delighted to 
 see us in the parlour." 
 
 "He has taken your parlour?" I said. 
 
 " He and his lieutenant sit there. But I sup- 
 pose we should be thankful," she added bitterly. 
 " We have still our bed-rooms left to us." 
 
 "Very well," I said. "Then I must deal with 
 Clon as I can. But I have still a favour to 
 ask, Mademoiselle. It is only that you and your 
 sister will descend to-morrow at your usual time. 
 I shall be in the parlour."
 
 A MASTER STROKE. 169 
 
 " I would rather not," she said, pausing and 
 speaking in a troubled voice. 
 
 " Are you afraid ? " 
 
 "No, Monsieur; I am not afraid," she an- 
 swered proudly. " But " 
 
 " You will come ? " I said. 
 
 She sighed before she spoke. At length, " Yes, 
 I will come if you wish it," she answered; and 
 the next moment she was gone round the corner 
 of the house, while I laughed to think of the 
 excellent watch these gallant gentlemen were 
 keeping. M. de Cocheforet might have been 
 with her in the garden, might have talked with 
 her as I had talked, might have entered the house 
 even, and passed under their noses scot-free. But 
 that is the way of soldiers. They are always 
 ready for the enemy, with drums beating and 
 flags flying at ten o'clock in the morning. 
 But he does not always come at that hour. 
 
 I waited a little, and then I groped my way to 
 the door, and knocked on it with the hilt of my 
 sword. The dogs began to bark at the back, and 
 the chorus of a drinking-song, which came fitfully 
 from the east wing, ceased altogether. An inner
 
 I/O UNDER THE RED ROBE. 
 
 door opened, and an angry voice, apparently ar, 
 officer's, began to rate some one for not coming. 
 Another moment, and a clamour of voices and 
 footsteps seemed to pour into the hall, and fill 
 it. I heard the bar jerked away, the door was 
 flung open, and in a twinkling a lanthorn, behind 
 which a dozen flushed visages were dimly seen, 
 was thrust into my face. 
 
 " Why, who the fiend is this ? " cried one, glar. 
 ing at me in astonishment. 
 
 " Morbleu ! It is the man!" another shrieked. 
 " Seize him ! " 
 
 In a moment half a dozen hands were laid on 
 my shoulders, but I only bowed politely. " The 
 officer, my friends," I said, " M. le Capitaine 
 Larolle. Where is he ? " 
 
 " Diable ! but who are you, first ? " the lanthorn- 
 bearer retorted bluntly. He was a tall, lanky 
 sergeant, with a sinister face. 
 
 "Well, I am not M. de Cocheforet," I replied; 
 "and that must satisfy you, my man. For the 
 rest, if you do not fetch Captain Larolle at once 
 and admit me, you will find the consequences 
 inconvenient"
 
 A MASTER STROKE. 17 1 
 
 "Ho! ho!" he said, with a sneer. "You can 
 crow, it seems. Well, come in." 
 
 They made way, and I walked into the hall, 
 keeping my hat on. On the great hearth a fire 
 had been kindled, but it had gone out. Three 
 or four carbines stood against one wall, and beside 
 them lay a heap of haversacks and some straw. 
 A shattered stool, broken in a frolic, and half 
 a dozen empty wine-skins strewed the floor, and 
 helped to give the place an air of untidiness and 
 disorder. I looked round with eyes of disgust, 
 and my gorge rose. They had spilled oil, and 
 the place reeked foully. 
 
 " Ventre bleu!" I said. "Is this conduct in 
 a gentleman's house, you rascals ? Ma vie ! If 
 I had you, I would send half of you to the 
 wooden horse ! " 
 
 They gazed at me open-mouthed. My arro- 
 gance startled them. The sergeant alone scowled. 
 When he could find his voice for rage 
 
 " This way ! " he said. " We did not know 
 a general officer was coming, or we would have 
 been better prepared ! " And muttering oaths 
 under his breath, he led me down the well-known
 
 1/2 UNDER THE RED ROBE. 
 
 passage. At the door of the parlour he stopped. 
 "Introduce yourself!" he said rudely. "And if 
 you find the air warm, don't blame me ! " 
 
 I raised the latch and went in. At a table in 
 front of the hearth, half covered with glasses and 
 bottles, sat two men playing hazard. The dice 
 rang sharply as I entered, and he who had just 
 thrown kept the box over them while he turned, 
 scowling, to see who came in. He was a fair- 
 haired, blonde man, large-framed and florid. He 
 had put off his cuirass and boots, and his doublet 
 showed frayed and stained where the armour had 
 pressed on it. But otherwise he was in the 
 extreme of last year's fashion. His deep cravat, 
 folded over so that the laced ends drooped a little 
 in front, was of the finest ; his great sash of blue 
 and silver was a foot wide. He had a little jewel 
 in one ear, and his tiny beard was peaked a F Es- 
 pagnole. Probably when he turned he expected 
 to see the sergeant, for at sight of me he rose 
 slowly, leaving the dice still covered. 
 
 " What folly is this ? " he cried wrathfully. 
 " Here, Sergeant ! Sergeant ! without there f 
 What the ! Who are you, Sir ? "
 
 A MASTER STROKE. 
 
 "Captain Larolle," I said, uncovering politely, 
 "I believe?" 
 
 " Yes, I am Captain Larolle," he retorted. 
 " But who, in the fiend's name, are you ? You 
 are not the man we are after ! " 
 
 " I am not M. Cocheforet," I said coolly. " I 
 am merely a guest in the house, M. le Capitaine. 
 I have been enjoying Madame de Cocheforet's 
 hospitality for some time, but by an evil chance 
 I was away when you arrived." And with that 
 I .walked to the hearth, and, gently pushing aside 
 his great boots which stood there drying, kicked 
 the logs into a blaze. 
 
 " Mille diables!" he whispered. And never 
 did I see a man more confounded. But I affected 
 to be taken up with his companion, a sturdy, 
 white-mustachioed old veteran, who sat back in 
 his chair, eyeing me, with swollen cheeks and 
 eyes surcharged with surprise. 
 
 " Good evening, M. le Lieutenant," I said, bow- 
 ing gravely. " It is a fine night" 
 
 Then the storm burst. 
 
 " Fine night ! " the captain shrieked, finding 
 his voice again. " Mille diables ! Are you aware.
 
 1/4 UNDER THE RED ROBE, 
 
 Sir, that I am in possession of this house, and 
 that no one harbours here without my permis- 
 sion ? Guest! Hospitality! Lieutenant call the 
 guard ! Call the guard ! " he continued passion- 
 ately. " Where is that ape of a sergeant ? " 
 
 The lieutenant rose to obey, but I lifted my hand. 
 
 " Gently, gently, Captain," I said. " Not so 
 fast ! You seem surprised to see me here. Be- 
 lieve me, I am much more surprised to see you." 
 
 " SacrSf" he cried, recoiling at this fresh imper- 
 tinence, while the lieutenant's eyes almost jumped 
 out of his head. 
 
 But nothing moved me. 
 
 "Is the door closed?" I said sweetly. "Thank 
 you ; it is, I see. Then permit me to say again, 
 gentlemen, that I am much more surprised to see 
 you than you can be to see me. When Mon- 
 seigneur the Cardinal honoured me by sending 
 me from Paris to conduct this matter, he gave 
 me the fullest the fullest powers, M. le Capi- 
 taine to see the affair to an end. I was not 
 led to expect that my plans would be spoiled on 
 the eve of success by the intrusion of half the 
 garrison from Auch ! "
 
 A MASTER STROKE. l?$ 
 
 " O ho ! " the captain said softly in a very 
 different tone and with a very different face. " So 
 you are the gentleman I heard of at Auch ? " 
 
 "Very likely," I said drily. "But I am from 
 Paris, not Auch." 
 
 " To be sure," he answered thoughtfully. " Eh, 
 Lieutenant?" 
 
 "Yes, M. le Capitaine, no doubt," the inferior 
 replied. And they both looked at one another, 
 and then at me, in a way I did not understand. 
 
 "I think," said I, to clinch the matter, "that 
 you have made a mistake, Captain; or the Com- 
 mandant has. And it occurs to me that the 
 Cardinal will not be best pleased." 
 
 " I hold the King's commission," he answered 
 rather stiffly. 
 
 "To be sure," I replied. "But you see the 
 Cardinal " 
 
 "Ah, but the Cardinal " he rejoined quickly; 
 and then he stopped and shrugged his shoulders. 
 And they both looked at me. 
 
 "Well?" I said. 
 
 "The King," he answered slowly. 
 
 " Tut-tut ! " I exclaimed, spreading out my
 
 UNDER THE RED ROBE. 
 
 hands. "The Cardinal. Let us stick to him. 
 You were saying ? " 
 
 "Well, the Cardinal, you see " And then 
 again, after the same words, he stopped stopped 
 abruptly and shrugged his shoulders. 
 
 I began to suspect something. " If you have 
 anything to say against Monseigneur," I answered, 
 watching him narrowly, " say it. But take a word 
 of advice. Don't let it go beyond the door of 
 this room, my friend, and it will do you no 
 harm." 
 
 " Neither here nor outside," he retorted, look- 
 ing for a moment at his comrade. " Only I hold 
 the King's commission. That is all. And I 
 think enough. For the rest, will you throw a 
 main ? Good ! Lieutenant, find a glass, and the 
 gentleman a seat. And here, for my part, I will 
 give you a toast. The Cardinal whatever be- 
 tide ! " 
 
 I drank it, and sat down to play with him; 
 I had not heard the music of the dice for a 
 month, and the temptation was irresistible. But 
 I was not satisfied. I called the mains and 
 won his crowns, he was a mere baby at the
 
 A MASTER STROKE. 177 
 
 game, but half my mind was elsewhere. There 
 was something here I did not understand ; some 
 influence at work on which I had not counted ; 
 something moving under the surface as unintel- 
 ligible to me as the soldiers' presence. Had the 
 captain repudiated my commission altogether, and 
 put me to the door or sent me to the guard-house, 
 I could have followed that. But these dubious 
 hints, this passive resistance, puzzled me. Had 
 they news from Paris, I wondered. Was the 
 King dead? or the Cardinal ill? I asked them. 
 But they said no, no, no to all, and gave me 
 guarded answers. And midnight found us still 
 playing ; and still fencing.
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 THE QUESTION. 
 
 " SWEEP the room, Monsieur ? And remove 
 this medley ? But, M. le Capitaine " 
 
 "The captain is at the village," I replied 
 sternly. " And do you move ! move, man, and 
 the thing will be done while you are talking about 
 it. Set the door into the garden open so ! '' 
 
 " Certainly, it is a fine morning. And the 
 tobacco of M. le Lieutenant But M. le Capi- 
 taine did not " 
 
 " Give orders ? Well, I give them ! " I an- 
 swered. " First of all, remove these beds. And 
 bustle, man, bustle, or I will find something to 
 quicken you." 
 
 In a moment "And M. le Capitaine's riding- 
 boots?" 
 
 " Place them in the passage," I replied. 
 178
 
 THE QUESTION. 179 
 
 " Oht! In the passage ? " He paused, look- 
 ing at them in doubt. 
 
 " Yes, booby ; in the passage'." 
 
 "And the cloaks, Monsieur?" 
 
 "There is a bush handy outside the window. 
 Let them air." 
 
 " O/i<f, the bush ? Well, to be sure they are 
 damp. But yes, yes, Monsieur, it is done. 
 And the holsters ? " 
 
 " There also ! " I said harshly. " Throw them 
 out. Faugh ! The place reeks of leather. Now, 
 a clean hearth. And set the table before the open 
 door, so that we may see the garden. So. And 
 tell the cook that we shall dine at eleven, and 
 that Madame and Mademoiselle will descend." 
 
 "OhJ / But M. le Capitaine ordered the dinner 
 for half past eleven ? " 
 
 " It must be advanced, then ; and, mark you, 
 my friend, if it is not ready when Madame comes 
 down, you will suffer, and the cook too." 
 
 When he was gone on his errand, I looked 
 round. What else was lacking ? The sun shone 
 cheerily on the polished floor; the air, freshened 
 by the rain which had fallen in the night, entered 
 
 N 2
 
 180 UNDER THE RED ROBE. 
 
 freely through the open doorway. A few bees 
 lingering with the summer hummed outside. The 
 fire crackled bravely; an old hound, blind and 
 past work, lay warming its hide on the hearth. 
 I could think of nothing more, and I stood and 
 watched the man set out the table and spread 
 the cloth. " For how many, Monsieur ? " he 
 asked, in a scared tone. 
 
 " For five," I answered ; and I could not help 
 'jmiling at myself. What would Zaton's say could 
 it see Berault turned housewife ? There was a 
 white glazed cup an old-fashioned piece of the 
 second Henry's time standing on a shelf. I 
 took it down and put some late flowers in it, and 
 set it in the middle of the table, and stood off 
 myself to look at it. But a moment later, think- 
 ing I heard them coming, I hurried it away in a 
 kind of panic, feeling on a sudden ashamed of 
 the thing. The alarm proved to be false, how- 
 ever; and then again, taking another turn, I set 
 the piece back. I had done nothing so foolish 
 for for more years than I liked to count. 
 
 But when Madame and Mademoiselle came, 
 they had eyes neither for the flowers nor the
 
 THE QUESTION. l8l 
 
 room. They had heard that the captain was out 
 beating the village and the woods for the fugitive, 
 and where I had looked for a comedy I found 
 a tragedy. Madame's face was so red with weep- 
 ing that all her beauty was gone. She started 
 and shook at the slightest sound, and, unable 
 to find any words to answer my greeting, could 
 only sink into a chair and sit crying silently. 
 
 Mademoiselle was in a mood scarcely more 
 cheerful. She did not weep, but her manner 
 was hard and fierce. She spoke absently and 
 answered fretfully. Her eyes glittered, and she 
 had the air of straining her ears continually to 
 catch' some dreaded sound. " There is no news, 
 Monsieur ? " she said, as she took her seat. And 
 she shot a swift look at me. 
 
 " None, Mademoiselle." 
 
 " They are searching the village ? " 
 
 " I believe so." 
 
 " Where is Clon ? " This in a lower voice, 
 and with a kind of shrinking in her face. 
 
 I shook my head. " I believe they have him 
 confined somewhere. And Louis, too," I said, 
 " But I have not seen either of them."
 
 1 82 UNDER THE RED ROBE. 
 
 " And where are ? I thought these people 
 would be here," she muttered. And she glanced 
 askance at the two vacant places. The servant 
 had brought in the meal. 
 
 " They will be here presently," I said coolly. 
 "Let us make the most of the time. A little 
 wine and food will do Madame good." 
 
 She smiled rather sadly. " I think we have 
 changed places," she said ; " and that you have- 
 turned host, and we guests." 
 
 " Let it be so," I said cheerfully. " I recom- 
 mend some of this ragout. Come, Mademoiselle ; 
 fasting can aid no one. A full meal has saved 
 many a man's life." 
 
 It was clumsily said perhaps, for she shud- 
 dered and looked at me with a ghastly smile. 
 But she persuaded her sister to taste something ; 
 and she took something on her own plate and 
 raised her fork to her lips. But in a moment 
 she laid it down again. "I cannot," she mur- 
 mured. " I cannot swallow. Oh, my God, at 
 this moment they may be taking him ! " 
 
 I thought that she was about to burst into 
 a passion of tears, and I repented that I had
 
 THE QUESTION. 183 
 
 induced her to descend. But her self-control 
 was not yet exhausted. By an effort painful 
 to see, she recovered her composure. She took 
 up her fork, and ate a few mouthfuls. Then 
 she looked at me with a fierce under-look. " I 
 want to see Clon," she whispered feverishly. 
 The man who waited on us had left the room. 
 
 " He knows ? " I said. 
 
 She nodded, her beautiful face strangely dis- 
 figured. Her closed teeth showed between her 
 lips. Two red spots burned in her white cheeks, 
 and she breathed quickly. I felt, as I looked 
 at her, a sudden pain at my heart; and a shud- 
 dering fear, such as a man awaking to find him- 
 self falling over a precipice, might feel. How 
 these women loved the man ! 
 
 For a moment I could not speak. When I 
 found my voice it sounded dry and husky. " He 
 is a safe confidant," I muttered. " He can 
 neither speak nor write, Mademoiselle." 
 
 "No, but " and then her face became fixed. 
 "They are coming," she whispered. "Hush!" 
 She rose stiffly, and stood supporting herself by 
 the table. " Have they have they found
 
 1 84 UNDER THE RED ROBE. 
 
 him ? " she muttered. The woman by her side 
 wept on, unconscious what was impending. 
 
 I heard the captain stumble far down the 
 passage, and swear loudly; and I touched 
 Mademoiselle's hand. " They have not ! " I 
 whispered. "All is well, Mademoiselle. Pray, 
 pray calm yourself. Sit down, and meet them 
 as if nothing were the matter. And your sister! 
 Madame, Madame," I cried, almost harshly, 
 "compose yourself. Remember that you have 
 a part to play." 
 
 My appeal did something. Madame stifled 
 her sobs. Mademoiselle drew a deep breath 
 and sat down ; and though she was still pale 
 and still trembled, the worst was past. 
 
 And just in time. The door flew open with 
 a crash. The captain stumbled into the room, 
 swearing afresh. " Sacrt now du Diable ! " he 
 cried, his face crimson with rage. " What fool 
 placed these things here? My boots? My " 
 
 His jaw fell. He stopped on the word, 
 stricken silent by the new aspect of the room, 
 by the sight of the little party at the table, 
 by all the changes I had worked. " Saint
 
 THE QUESTION. 185 
 
 Siege!' 1 he muttered. "What is this?" The 
 lieutenant's grizzled face peering over his shoul- 
 der completed the picture. 
 
 "You are rather late, M. le Capitaine," I said 
 cheerfully. " Madame's hour is eleven. But 
 come, here are your seats waiting for you." 
 
 " Mille tonnerres ! " he muttered, advancing 
 into the room, and glaring at us. 
 
 " I am afraid the ragout is cold," I continued, 
 peering into the dish and affecting to see noth- 
 ing. " The soup, however, has been kept hot by 
 che fire. But I think you do not see Madame." 
 
 He opened his mouth to swear, but for the 
 moment thought better of it. " Who who put 
 my boots in the passage ? " he asked, his voice 
 thick with rage. He did not bow to the ladies, 
 or take any notice of their presence. 
 
 " One of the men, I suppose," I said indiffer- 
 ently. "Is anything missing?" 
 
 He' glared at me. Then his cloak, spread 
 outside, caught his eye He strode through the 
 door, saw his holsters lying on the grass, and 
 other things strewn about. He came back. 
 "Whose monkey game is this?" he snarled, and
 
 1 86 UNDER THE RED ROBE. 
 
 his face was very ugly. " Who is at the bottom 
 of this? Speak, Sir, or I" 
 
 " Tut-tut ! the ladies ! " I said. " You forget 
 yourself, Monsieur." 
 
 " Forget myself ? " he hissed, and this time 
 he did not check his oath. " Don't talk to me 
 of the ladies ! Madame ? Bah ! Do you think, 
 fool, that we are put into rebels' houses to bow 
 and smile and take dancing lessons ? " 
 
 " In this case a lesson in politeness were more 
 to the point, Monsieur," I said sternly. And I 
 rose. 
 
 " Was it by your orders that this was done ? " 
 he retorted, his brow black with passion. "An- 
 swer, will you ? " 
 
 " It was ! " I replied outright. 
 
 " Then take that ! " he cried, dashing his hat 
 violently in my face. "And come outside." 
 
 "With pleasure, Monsieur," I answered, bow- 
 ing. " In one moment. Permit me to find my 
 sword. I think it is in the passage." 
 
 I went thither to get it. When I returned I 
 found that the two men were waiting for me in 
 the garden, while the ladies had risen from the
 
 THE QUESTION. 1 87 
 
 table and were standing near it with blanched 
 faces. " You had better take your sister upstairs, 
 Mademoiselle," I said gently, pausing a moment 
 beside them. " Have no fear. All will be well." 
 
 " But what is it ? '' she answered, looking 
 troubled. " It was so sudden. I am I did not 
 understand. You quarrelled so quickly." 
 
 " It is very simple," I answered, smiling. 
 " M. le Capitaine insulted you yesterday ; he will 
 pay for it to-day. That is all. Or, not quite all," 
 I continued, dropping my voice and speaking in 
 a different tone. " His removal may help you, 
 Mademoiselle. Do you understand ? I think 
 that there will be no more searching to-day." 
 
 She uttered an exclamation, grasping my arm 
 and peering into my face. " You will kill him ? " 
 she muttered. 
 
 I nodded. "Why not?" I said. 
 
 She caught her breath and stood with one hand 
 clasped to her bosom, gazing at me with parted 
 lips, the blood mounting to her cheeks. Gradually 
 the flush melted into a fierce smile. " Yes, yes, 
 why not?" she repeated, between her teeth. 
 "Why not?" She had her hand on my arm.
 
 1 88 UNDER THE RED ROBE. 
 
 and I felt her fingers tighten until I could have 
 winced. " Why not ? So you planned this for 
 us, Monsieur?" 
 
 I nodded. 
 
 " But can you ? " 
 
 " Safely," I said ; then, muttering to her to take 
 her sister upstairs, I turned towards the garden. 
 My foot was already on the threshold, and I was 
 composing my face to meet the enemy, when I 
 heard a movement behind me. The next mo- 
 ment her hand was on my arm. " Wait ! Wait 
 a moment ! Come back ! " she panted. I turned. 
 The smile and flush had vanished ; her face was 
 pale. " No ! " she said abruptly. " I was wrong ! 
 I will not have it. I will have no part in it ! 
 You planned it last night, M. de Barthe. It is 
 murder." 
 
 " Mademoiselle ! " I exclaimed, wondering. 
 "Murder? Why? It is a duel." 
 
 " It is murder," she answered persistently. 
 " You planned it last night. You said so." 
 
 " But I risk my own life," I replied sharply. 
 
 " Nevertheless I will have no part in it," 
 she answered more faintly. " It will bring no
 
 THE QUESTION". 189 
 
 good." She was trembling with agitation. Her 
 eyes avoided mine. 
 
 "On my shoulders be it then!" ; -I replied 
 stoutly. " It is too late, Mademoiselle, to go 
 back. They are waiting for me. Only, before 
 I go, let me beg of you to retire." 
 
 And I turned from her, and went out, won- 
 dering and thinking. First, that women were 
 strange things. Secondly murder? Merely 
 because I had planned the duel and provoked 
 the quarrel ! Never had I heard anything so 
 preposterous. Grant it, and dub every man who 
 kept his honour with his hands a Cain and a 
 good many branded faces would be seen in some 
 streets. I laughed at the fancy, as I strode down 
 the garden walk. 
 
 And yet, perhaps, I was going to do a foolish 
 thing. The lieutenant would still be here : a hard, 
 bitter man, of stiffer stuff than his captain. And 
 the troopers. What if,- when I had killed their 
 leader, they made the place too hot for me, Mon- 
 seigneur's commission notwithstanding ? I should 
 look silly, indeed, if on the eve of success I T ::cre 
 driven from the place by a parcel of jack-boots.
 
 190 UNDER THE RED ROBE. 
 
 I liked the thought so little that I hesitated 
 Yet it seemed too late to retreat. The captain 
 and the lieutenant were waiting in a little open 
 space fhv'y yards from the house, where a nar- 
 rower path crossed the broad walk, down which 
 I had first seen Mademoiselle and her sister pac- 
 ing. The captain had removed his doublet, and 
 stood in his shirt leaning against the sundial, his 
 head bare and his sinewy throat uncovered. He 
 had drawn his rapier and stood pricking the 
 ground impatiently. I marked his strong and 
 nervous frame and his sanguine air : and twenty 
 years earlier the sight might have damped me. 
 But no thought of the kind entered my head now, 
 and though I felt with each moment greater 
 reluctance to engage, doubt of the issue had no 
 place in my calculations. 
 
 I made ready slowly, and would gladly, to gain 
 time, have found some fault with the place. But 
 the sun was sufficiently high to give no advantage 
 to either. The ground was good, the spot well 
 chosen. I could find no excuse to put off the 
 man. and I was about to salute him and fall to 
 vork, when a thought crossed my mind.
 
 THE QUESTION 1 . IQI 
 
 " One moment ! " I said. " Supposing I kill 
 you, M. le Capitaine, what becomes of your 
 errand here?" 
 
 " Don't trouble yourself," he answered, with a 
 sneer he had misread my slowness and hesita- 
 tion. " It will not happen, Monsieur. And in 
 any case the thought need not harass you. I 
 have a lieutenant." 
 
 " Yes, but what of my mission ? " I replied 
 bluntly. " I have no lieutenant." 
 
 "You should have thought of that before you 
 interfered with my boots," he retorted, with con- 
 tempt. 
 
 " True," I said, overlooking his manner. " But 
 better late than never. I am not sure, now I 
 think of it, that my duty to Monseigneur will let 
 me fight." 
 
 "You will swallow the blow?" he cried, spit- 
 ting on the ground offensively. " Diable /" And 
 the lieutenant, standing on one side with his hands 
 behind him and his shoulders squared, laughed 
 grimly. 
 
 " I have not made up my mind," I answered 
 irresolutely.
 
 UNDER THE RED ROBE. 
 
 "Well, nom de Dieu ! make it up," the captain 
 replied, with an ugly sneer. He took a swagger- 
 ing step this way and that, playing his weapon. 
 " I am afraid, Lieutenant, there will be no sport 
 to-day," he continued, in a loud aside. " Our cock 
 has but a chicken heart." 
 
 " Well ! " I said coolly, " I do not know what to 
 do. Certainly it is a fine day, and a fair piece of 
 ground. And the sun stands well. But I have 
 not much to gain by killing you, M. le Capitaine, 
 and it might get me into an awkward fix. On 
 the other hand, it would not hurt me to let you 
 
 go-" 
 
 " Indeed ? " he said contemptuously, looking at 
 me as I should look at a lacquey. 
 
 " No ! " I replied. " For if you were to say 
 that you had struck Gil de Berault, and left the 
 ground with a whole skin, no one would believe 
 you." 
 
 " Gil de Berault ! " he exclaimed, frowning. 
 
 " Yes, Monsieur," I replied suavely. " At your 
 service. You did not know my name ? " 
 
 " I thought your name was De Barthe," he 
 said. His voice sounded queerly ; and he waited
 
 J-HE QUESTION. IQ3 
 
 for the answer with parted lips, and a shadow in 
 his eyes which I had seen in men's eyes before. 
 
 "No," I said. "That was my mother's name, 
 I took it for this occasion only." 
 
 His florid cheek lost a shade of its colour, and 
 he bit his lips as he glanced at the lieutenant, 
 trouble in his eyes. I had seen these signs before, 
 and knew them, and I might have cried " Chicken- 
 heart ! " in my turn ; but I had not made a way 
 of escape for him before I declared myself 
 for nothing, and I held to my purpose. " I think 
 you will allow now," I said grimly, "that it will 
 not harm me even if I put up with a blow ! " 
 
 " M. de Berault's courage is known," he mut- 
 tered. 
 
 "And with reason," I said. "That being so, 
 suppose we say this day three months, M. le Capi- 
 taine ? The postponement to be for my conven- 
 ience." 
 
 He caught the lieutenant's eye, and looked 
 down sullenly, the conflict in his mind as plain as 
 daylight. He had only to insist, and I must fight; 
 and if by luck or skill he could master me, his 
 fame as a duellist would run, like a ripple over
 
 194 UNDER THE RED ROBE. 
 
 water, through every garrison town in France and 
 make him a name even in Paris. On the other 
 side were the imminent peril of death, the gleam 
 of cold steel already in fancy at his breast, the 
 loss of life and sunshine, and the possibility of a 
 retreat with honour, if without glory. I read his 
 face, and knew before he spoke what he would 
 do. 
 
 " It appears to me that the burden is with 
 you," he said huskily ; " but for my part, I am 
 satisfied." 
 
 "Very well," I said, "I take the burden. Per- 
 mit me to apologize for having caused you to strip 
 unnecessarily. Fortunately the sun is shining." 
 
 " Yes," he said gloomily. And he took his 
 clothes from the sundial, and began to put them 
 on. He had expressed himself satisfied ; but I 
 knew that he was feeling very ill-satisfied with 
 himself, and I was not surprised when he pres- 
 ently said abruptly and almost rudely, " There is 
 one thing I think we must settle here." 
 
 "What is that?" I asked. 
 
 " Our positions," he blurted out. " Or we shalJ 
 cross one another again within the hour."
 
 THE QUESTION. 195 
 
 " Umph ! I am not quite sure that I under- 
 stand," I said. 
 
 " That is precisely what I don't do under- 
 stand ! " he retorted, in a tone of surly triumph. 
 " Before I came on this duty, I was told that 
 there was a gentleman here, bearing sealed orders 
 from the Cardinal to arrest M. de Cocheforet ; 
 and I was instructed to avoid collision with him 
 so far as might be possible. At first I took 
 you for the gentleman. But the plague take 
 me if I understand the matter now." 
 
 "Why not?" I said coldly. 
 
 "Because well, the matter is in a nutshell!" 
 he answered impetuously. " Are you here on 
 behalf of Madame de Cocheforet to shield her 
 husband ? Or are you here to arrest him ? That 
 is what I don't understand, M. de Berault." 
 
 "If you mean, am I the Cardinal's agent 
 I am ! " I answered sternly. 
 
 "To arrest M. de Cocheforet?" 
 
 "To arrest M. de Cocheforet." 
 
 " Well you surprise me," he said. 
 
 Only that; but he spoke so drily that I felt 
 the blood rush to my face. "Take care, Mon- 
 
 o 2
 
 196 UNDER THE RED ROBE. 
 
 sieur," I said severely. " Do not presume too 
 far on the inconvenience to which your death 
 might put me." 
 
 He shrugged his shoulders. " No offence ! " 
 he said. " But you do not seem, M. de Berault, 
 to comprehend the difficulty. If we do not set- 
 tle things now, we shall be bickering twenty 
 times a day ! " 
 
 " Well, what do you want ? " I asked impa- 
 tiently. 
 
 " Simply to know how you are going to pro- 
 ceed. So that our plans may not clash." 
 
 " But surely, M. le Capitaine, that is my 
 affair ! " I replied. 
 
 " The clashing ? " he answered bitterly. Then 
 he waved aside my wrath. " Pardon," he said, 
 " the point is simply this : How do you propose 
 to find him if he is here ? " 
 
 "That again is my affair," I answered. 
 
 He threw up his hands in despair; but in a 
 moment his place was taken by an unexpected 
 disputant. The lieutenant, who had stood by 
 all the time, listening and tugging at his grey 
 moustache, suddenly spoke. " Look here, M.
 
 THE QUESTION, 197 
 
 de Berault," he said, confronting me roughly, 
 "I do not fight duels. I am from the ranks. I 
 proved my courage at Montauban in '21, and 
 my honour is good enough to take care of itself. 
 So I say what I like, and I ask you plainly 
 what M. le Capitaine doubtless has in his mind 
 but does not ask : Are you running with the 
 hare and hunting with the hounds in this mat- 
 ter? In other words, have you thrown up Mon- 
 seigneur's commission in all but name and become 
 Madame's ally ; or it is the only other alter- 
 native are you getting at the man through the 
 women ? " 
 
 " You villain ! " I cried, glaring at him in such 
 a rage and fury I could scarcely get the words 
 out. This was plain speaking with a vengeance ! 
 "How dare you ! How dare you say that I am 
 false to the hand that pays me ? " 
 
 I thought he would blench, but he did not. 
 He stood up stiff as a poker. " I do not say ; 
 I ask ! " he replied, facing me squarely, and 
 slapping his fist into his open hand to drive 
 home his words the better. " I ask you whether 
 you are playing the traitor to the Cardinal?
 
 198 UNDER THE RED ROBE. 
 
 Or to these two women ? It is a simple ques- 
 tion." 
 
 I fairly choked. " You impudent scoundrel," 
 I said. 
 
 " Steady, steady ! " he replied. " Pitch sticks 
 where it belongs. But that is enough. I see 
 which it is, M. le Capitaine ; this way a moment, 
 by your leave." 
 
 And in a very cavalier way he took his officer 
 by the arm, and drew him into a side-walk, 
 leaving me to stand in the sun, bursting with 
 anger and spleen. The gutter-bred rascal ! That 
 such a man should insult me, and with impunity! 
 In Paris I might have made him fight, but here 
 it was impossible. I was still foaming with rage 
 when they returned. 
 
 "We have come to a determination," the lieu- 
 tenant said, tugging his grey mustachios and 
 standing like a ramrod. " We shall leave you 
 the house and Madame, and you can take your 
 line to find the man. For ourselves, we shall 
 draw off our men to the village, and we shall 
 take our line. That is all, M. le Capitaine, is 
 it not?"
 
 THE QUESTION. 199 
 
 " I think so," the captain muttered, looking 
 anywhere but at me. 
 
 " Then we bid you good-day, Monsieur,' the 
 lieutenant added. And in a moment he turned 
 his companion round, and the two retired up the 
 walk to the house, leaving me to look after them 
 in a black fit of rage and incredulity. -At the 
 first flush there was something so offensive in 
 the manner of their going that anger had the 
 upper hand. I thought of the lieutenant's words, 
 and I cursed him to hell with a sickening con- 
 sciousness that I should not forget them in a 
 hurry : " Was I playing the traitor to the Car- 
 dinal or to these women which ? " Mon Dieu ! 
 if ever question but .there ! some day I would 
 punish him. And the captain ? I could put 
 an end to his amusement, at any rate ; and I 
 would. Doubtless among the country bucks of 
 Auch he lorded it as a chief provincial bully, 
 but I would cut his comb for him some fine 
 morning behind the barracks. 
 
 And then, as I grew cooler I began to wondev 
 why they were going, and what they were going 
 to d<?- They might be already on the track, or
 
 200, UNDER THE RED ROBE, 
 
 have the information they required under hand ; 
 in that case I could understand the movement. 
 But if they were still searching vaguely, uncer- 
 tain whether their quarry were in the neighbour- 
 hood or not, and uncertain how long they might 
 have to stay, it seemed incredible that soldiers 
 should move from good quarters to bad without 
 motive. 
 
 I wandered down the garden thinking sullenly 
 of this, and pettishly cutting off the heads of the 
 flowers with my sheathed sword. After all, if 
 they found and arrested the man, what then ? 
 I should have to make my peace with the Cardi- 
 nal as I best might. He would have gained his 
 point, but not through me, and I should have to 
 look to myself. On the other hand, if I antici- 
 pated them and, as a fact, I felt that I could 
 lay my hand on the fugitive within a few hours 
 there would come a time when I must face 
 Mademoiselle. 
 
 A little while back that had not seemed so 
 difficult a thing. From the day of our first 
 meeting and in a higher degree since that 
 afternoon when she had lashed me with her
 
 THE QUESTION. 2OI 
 
 scorn my views of her, and my feelings towards 
 her, had been strangely made up of antagonism 
 and sympathy ; of repulsion, because in her past 
 and present she was so different from me; of 
 yearning, because she was a woman and friend- 
 less. Then I had duped her and bought her 
 confidence by returning the jewels, and in a 
 measure I had sated my vengeance ; and then, 
 as a consequence, sympathy had again begun to 
 get the better, until now I hardly knew my own 
 mind or what I intended. / did not know, in fact, 
 what I intended. I stood there in the garden 
 with that conviction suddenly new-born in my 
 mind ; and then, in a moment, I heard her step 
 and turned to find her behind me. 
 
 Her face was like April, smiles breaking 
 through her tears. As she stood' with a tall 
 hedge of sunflowers behind her, I started to see 
 how beautiful she was. " I am here in search of 
 you, M. de Barthe," she said, colouring slightly, 
 perhaps because my eyes betrayed my thought, 
 "to thank you. You have not fought, and yet 
 you have conquered. My woman has just been 
 with me, and she tells me that they are going ! "
 
 202 UNDER THE RED ROBE, 
 
 "Going?" I. said. "Yes, Mademoiselle, they 
 are leaving the house." 
 
 She did not understand my reservation. 
 " What magic have you used ? " she said, almost 
 gaily it was wonderful how hope had changed 
 her. " Moreover, I am curious to learn how 
 you managed to avoid fighting." 
 
 "After taking a blow?" I said bitterly. 
 
 " Monsieur, I did not mean that," she said re- 
 proachfully. But her face clouded. I saw that, 
 viewed in this light in which I suppose she had 
 not seen it the matter perplexed her still more. 
 
 I took a sudden resolution. " Have you ever 
 heard, Mademoiselle," I said gravely, plucking 
 off while I spoke the dead leaves from a plant 
 beside me, " of a gentleman by name De Berault ? 
 Known in Paris, so I have heard, by the sobri- 
 quet of the Black Death?" 
 
 " The duellist ? " she answered, in wonder. 
 "Yes, I have heard of him. He killed a young 
 gentleman of this province at Nancy two years 
 back. It was a sad story," she continued, shud- 
 dering, "of a dreadful man. God keep our 
 friends from such ! "
 
 THE QUESTION: 203 
 
 " Amen ! " I said quietly. But, in spite of 
 myself, I could not meet her eyes. 
 
 " Why ? " she answered, quickly taking alarm 
 at my silence. " What of him, M. de Barthe ? 
 Why have you mentioned him ? " 
 
 " Because he is here, Mademoiselle." 
 
 ' Here ? " she exclaimed. 
 
 "Yes, Mademoiselle," I answered soberly. 
 " I am he. '
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 CLON. 
 
 " You ! " she cried, in a voice which pierced me, 
 " You M. de Berault ? Impossible ! " But, 
 glancing askance at her. I could not face her, 
 
 I saw that the blood had left her cheeks, 
 "yes, Mademoiselle," I answered, in a low 
 
 voice. " De Barthe was my mother's name. 
 When I came here, a stranger, I took it that I 
 might not be known; that I might again speak 
 to a good woman and not see her shrink. That 
 
 but why trouble you with all this ? " I con- 
 tinued proudly, rebelling against her silence, her 
 turned shoulder, her averted face. " You asked 
 me, Mademoiselle, how 1 could take a blow and 
 let the striker go. I have answered. It is the 
 one privilege M. de Berault possesses." 
 
 "Then," she replied quickly, but almost in a 
 
 20A
 
 CLON. 205 
 
 whisper, " if I were M. de Berault, I would use it, 
 and never fight again." 
 
 " In that event, Mademoiselle," I answered cyni- 
 cally, " I should lose my men friends as well as 
 my women friends. Like Monseigneur, the Cardi- 
 nal, I rule by fe^r " 
 
 She shuddered, either at the name or at the 
 idea my words called up, and, for a moment, we 
 stood awkwardly silent. The shadow of the 
 sundial fell between us ; the garden was still ; 
 here and there a leaf fluttered slowly down, 
 or a seed fell. With each instant of silence I 
 felt the gulf between us growing wider, I felt 
 myself growing harder ; I mocked at her past, 
 which was so unlike mine; I mocked at mine, 
 and called it fate. I was on the point of turn- 
 ing from her with a bow and a furnace in my 
 breast when she spoke. 
 
 " There is a late rose lingering there," she 
 said, a slight tremor in her voice. " I cannot 
 reach it. Will you pluck it for me, M. de 
 Berault?" 
 
 I obeyed her, my hand trembling, my face 
 ^n fire. She took the rose from me, and placed
 
 206 UNDER THE RED ROBE. 
 
 it in the bosom of her dress. And I saw that 
 her hand trembled too, and that her cheek was 
 dark with blushes. 
 
 She turned at once, and began to walk toward.' 
 the house. Presently she spoke. " Heaven for- 
 bid that I should misjudge you a second time i '' 
 she said, in a low voice. " And, after all, who 
 am I that I should judge you at all ? An hour 
 ago, I would have killed that man had I pos- 
 sessed the power." 
 
 " You repented, Mademoiselle," I said huskily 
 I could scarcely speak. 
 
 " Do you never repent ? '' 
 
 "Yes. But too late, Mademoiselle." 
 
 " Perhaps it is never too late," she answered 
 softly. 
 
 "Alas, when a man is dead " 
 
 " You may rob a man of more than life ! " she 
 replied with energy, stopping me by a gesture. 
 " If you have never robbed a man or a woman- 
 of honour ! If you have never ruined boy or 
 girl, M. de Berault ! If you have never pushed 
 another into the pit and gone by it yourself ! 
 If but for murder ? Listen. You may be a
 
 CLOW. 207 
 
 Romanist, but I am a Huguenot, and have read. 
 ' Thou shalt not kill ! ' it is written ; and the pen- 
 alty, 'By man shall thy blood be shed!' But, 
 ' If you cause one of these little ones to offend, it 
 were better for you that a mill-stone were hanged 
 about your neck, and that you were cast into the 
 depths of the sea.' ' 
 
 " Mademoiselle, you are too merciful," I 
 muttered. 
 
 " I need mercy myself," she answered, sighing. 
 "And I have had few temptations. How do I 
 know what you have suffered ? " 
 
 " Or done ! " I said, almost rudely. 
 
 " Where a man has not lied, nor betrayed, nor 
 sold himself or others," she answered firmly, but 
 in a low tone, " I think I can forgive all else. 
 I can better put up with force," she added, 
 smiling sadly, " than with fraud." 
 
 Ah, Dieu ! I turned away my face that she 
 might not see how it paled, how I winced ; that 
 she might not guess how her words, meant in 
 mercy, stabbed me to the heart. And yet, then, 
 for the first time, while viewing in all its depth 
 and width the gulf which separated us, I was
 
 208 UNDER THE RED ROBE. 
 
 not hardened ; I was not cast back on myself. 
 Her gentleness, her pity, her humility, softened 
 me, while they convicted me. My God ! How 
 could I do that which I had come to do ? 
 How could I stab her in the tenderest part, how 
 could I inflict on her that rending pang, how 
 could I meet her eyes, and stand before her, 
 a Caliban, a Judas, the vilest, lowest, basest 
 thing she could conceive ? 
 
 I stood, a moment, speechless and disordered ; 
 stunned by her words, by my thoughts as I 
 have seen a man stand when he has lost his 
 all, his last, at the tables. Then I turned to 
 her; and for an instant I thought that my tale 
 was told already. I thought that she had pierced 
 my disguise, for her face was aghast, stricken 
 with sudden fear. Then I saw that she was not 
 looking at me, but beyond me, and I turned 
 quickly and saw a servant hurrying from the 
 house to us. It was Louis. His face, it was, 
 had frightened her. His eyes were staring, his 
 hair waved, his cheeks were flabby with dismay. 
 He breathed as if he had been running. 
 
 "What is it?" Mademoiselle cried, while he
 
 CLOW. 209 
 
 was still some way off. " Speak, man. My 
 sister? Is she " 
 
 "Clon," he gasped. 
 
 The name changed her to stone. " Clon ? " 
 she muttered. "What of him?" 
 
 " In the village ! " Louis panted, his tongue 
 stuttering with terror. " They are flogging him ! 
 They are killing him, Mademoiselle! To make 
 him tell ! " 
 
 Mademoiselle grasped the sundial and leant 
 against it, her face colourless, and, for an in- 
 stant, I thought that she was fainting. "Tell?" 
 I said mechanically. " But he cannot tell. He 
 is dumb, man." 
 
 "They will make him guide them," Louis 
 groaned, covering his ears with his shaking 
 hands, his face like paper. " And his cries ! 
 Oh, Monsieur, go ! " he continued, suddenly ap- 
 pealing to me, in a thrilling tone. " Save him. 
 All through the wood I heard them. It was 
 horrible! horrible!" 
 
 Mademoiselle uttered a low moan, and I turned 
 to support her, thinking each second to see her 
 fall. But with a sudden movement she straight-
 
 210 UNDER THE RED ROBE. 
 
 ened herself, and, slipping by me, with eyes 
 which seemed to see nothing, she started swiftly 
 down the walk towards the meadow gate. 
 
 I ran after her, but, taken by surprise as I 
 was, it was only by a great effort I reached the 
 gate before her, and, thrusting myself in the road, 
 barred the way. " Let me pass ! " she panted 
 fiercely, striving to thrust me on one side. " Out 
 of my way, Sir ! I am going to the village." 
 
 "You are not going to the village," I said 
 sternly. " Go back to the house, Mademoiselle, 
 and at once." ' 
 
 " My servant! " she wailed. " Let me go ! Oh, 
 let me go ! Do you think I can rest here while 
 they torture him ? He cannot speak, and they 
 they " 
 
 " Go back, Mademoiselle," I said, cutting her 
 short, with decision. " You would only make 
 matters worse ! I will go myself, and what one 
 man can do against many, I will ! Louis, give 
 your mistress your arm and take her to the 
 house. Take her to Madame." 
 
 " But you will go ? " she cried. Before I could 
 stay her I swear I would have done so if I
 
 CLON. 211 
 
 could she raised my hand and carried it to 
 her trembling lips. "You will go! Go and stop 
 them! Stop them," she continued, in a tone 
 which stirred my heart, " and Heaven reward 
 you, Monsieur ! " 
 
 I did not answer; nor did I once look back, 
 as I crossed the meadow ; but I did not look 
 forward either. Doubtless it was grass I trod ; 
 doubtless the wood was before me with the sun 
 shining aslant on it, and behind me the house 
 with a flame here and there on the windows. But 
 I went in a dream, among shadows ; with a racing 
 pulse, in a glow from head to heel ; conscious of 
 nothing but the touch of Mademoiselle's warm 
 lips, seeing neither meadows nor house, nor even 
 the dark fringe of wood before me, but only 
 Mademoiselle's passionate face. For the moment 
 I was drunk : drunk with that to which I had 
 been so long a stranger, with that which a man may 
 scorn for years, to find it at last beyond his reach 
 drunk with the touch of a good woman's lips. 
 
 I passed the bridge in this state ; and my feet 
 were among the brushwood before the heat and 
 fervour in which I moved found on a sudden
 
 212 UNDER THE RED ROBE. 
 
 their direction. Something began to penetrate 
 to my veiled senses a hoarse inarticulate cry, 
 now deep, now shrilling horribly, which seemed 
 to fill the wood. It came at intervals of half a 
 minute or so, and made the flesh creep, it was 
 so full of dumb pain, of impotent wrestling, of 
 unspeakable agony. I am a man and have seen 
 things. I saw the Concini beheaded, and Chalais 
 ten years later they gave him thirty-four blows ; 
 and when I was a boy I escaped from the college 
 and viewed from a great distance Ravaillac torn 
 by horses that was in the year ten. But the 
 horrible cries I now heard filled me, perhaps be- 
 cause I was alone and fresh from the sight of 
 Mademoiselle, with loathing that was intense. The 
 very wood, though the sun wanted an hour of set- 
 ting, seemed to grow dark. I ran on through it, 
 cursing, until the hovels of the village at length 
 came in sight. Again the shriek rose, a pulsing 
 horror, and this time I could hear the lash fall 
 on the sodden flesh, I could see in fancy the 
 strong man, trembling, quivering, straining against 
 his bonds. And then, in a moment, I was in 
 the street, and, as the scream once more tore
 
 CLON. 213 
 
 the air, I dashed round the corner by the inn, 
 and came upon them. 
 
 I did not look at him. I saw Captain Larolle 
 and the lieutenant, and a ring of troopers, and 
 one man, bare-armed, teasing out with his fingers 
 the thongs of a whip. The thongs dripped blood, 
 and the sight fired the mine. The rage I had 
 suppressed when the lieutenant bearded me ear- 
 lier in the afternoon, the passion with which 
 Mademoiselle's distress had filled my breast, at 
 last found vent. I sprang through the line of 
 soldiers, and striking the man with the whip a 
 buffet between the shoulders, which hurled him 
 breathless to the ground, I turned on the leaders. 
 " You devils ! " I cried. " Shame on you ! The 
 man , is dumb ! I tell you, if I had ten men with 
 me, I would sweep you and your scum out of the 
 village with broomsticks. Lay on another lash," 
 I continued recklessly, "and I will see if you or 
 the Cardinal be the stronger." 
 
 The lieutenant glared at me, his grey moustache 
 bristling, his eyes almost starting from his head. 
 Some of the troopers laid their hands on their 
 swords, but no one moved, and only the captain
 
 214 UNDER THE RED ROBE. 
 
 spoke. " Mille diables!" he swore. "What is 
 all this about ? Are you mad, Sir ? " 
 
 " Mad or sane ! " I cried, still in a fury. " Lay 
 on another lash, and you shall repent it" 
 
 " I ? " 
 
 " Yes, you ! " 
 
 For an instant there was a pause of astonish- 
 ment. Then to my surprise the captain laughed 
 laughed loudly. "Very heroic!" he said. 
 "Quite magnificent, M. le Chevalier-errant. But 
 you see, unfortunately, you come too late ! " 
 
 " Too late ! " I said incredulously. 
 
 "Yes, too late," he replied, with a mocking 
 smile. And the lieutenant grinned too. "You 
 see the man has just confessed. We have only 
 been giving him an extra touch or two, to impress 
 his memory, and save us the trouble of tying him 
 up again." 
 
 " I don't believe it," I said bluntly but I felt 
 the check, and fell to earth. "The man cannot 
 speak." 
 
 " No, but he has managed to tell us that he 
 will guide us to the place we want," the captain 
 answered drily. "The whip, if it cannot find a
 
 CLON", 215 
 
 man a tongue, can find him wits. What is more, 
 I think, he will keep his word," he continued, with 
 a hideous smile. " For I warn him that if he does 
 not, all your heroics shall not save him ! He is a 
 rebel dog, and known to us of old, and I will flay 
 his back to the bones ay, until we can see his 
 heart beating through his ribs but I will have 
 what I want in your teeth, too, you d d med- 
 dler." 
 
 " Steady, steady ! " I said, somewhat sobered. 
 I saw that he was telling me the truth. "He is 
 going to take you to M. de Cocheforet's hiding- 
 place, is he ? " 
 
 " Yes, he is ! " the captain retorted offensively. 
 " Have you any objection to make to that, Master 
 Spy?" 
 
 " None," I replied. " But I shall go with you. 
 And if you live three months, I shall kill you for 
 that name behind the barracks at Auch, M. le 
 Capitaine." 
 
 He changed colour, but he answered me boldly 
 enough. " I don't know that you will go with us 
 That is as we please," he continued, with a snarl. 
 
 " I have the Cardinal's orders," I said sternly.
 
 2l6 UNDER THE RED ROBE, 
 
 " The Cardinal ? " he exclaimed, stung to fury 
 by this repetition of the name. "The Cardinal 
 be " 
 
 But the lieutenant laid his hands on his lips, 
 and stopped him. " Hush ! " he said. Then more 
 quietly, " Your pardon, M. le Capitaine. Shall I 
 give orders to the men to fall in ? " 
 
 The captain nodded sullenly. 
 
 " Take him down ! " the lieutenant ordered, in 
 his harsh, monotonous voice. "Throw his blouse 
 over him, and tie his hands. And do you two, 
 Paul and Lebrun, guard him. Michel, bring the 
 whip, or he may forget how it tastes. Sergeant, 
 choose four good men and dismiss the rest to their 
 quarters." 
 
 " Shall we need the horses ? " the sergeant 
 asked. 
 
 " I don't know," the captain answered peev- 
 ishly. " What does the rogue say ? " 
 
 The lieutenant stepped up to him. " Listen ! " 
 he said grimly. " Nod if you mean yes, and shake 
 your head if you mean no. And have a care you 
 answer truly. Is it more than a mile to this 
 place ? The place you know of? "
 
 CLOW. 21? 
 
 They had loosened the poor wretch's fasten- 
 ings, and covered his back. He stood leaning 
 against the wall, his mouth still panting, the 
 sweat running down his hollow cheeks ; his 
 sunken eyes were closed ; a quiver now and 
 again ran through his frame. The lieutenant 
 repeated his question, and, getting no answer, 
 looked round for orders. The captain met the 
 look, and crying savagely, " Answer, will you, you 
 mute!" struck the half -swooning miserable across 
 the back with his switch. The effect was magi- 
 cal. Covered, as his shoulders were, the man 
 sprang erect with a shriek of pain, raising his 
 chin, and hollowing his back ; and in that attitude 
 stood an instant with starting eyes, gasping for 
 breath. Then he sank back against the wall, 
 moving his mouth spasmodically. His face was 
 the colour of lead. 
 
 " Diable / I think we have gone too far with 
 him ! " the captain muttered. 
 
 " Bring some wine ! " the lieutenant replied. 
 " Quick with it ! " 
 
 I looked on, burning with indignation, and 
 wondering besides what would come of this. If
 
 2l8 UNDER THE RED ROBE. 
 
 the man took them to the place, and they suc- 
 ceeded in seizing, Cocheforet, there was an end 
 of the matter as far as I was concerned. It was 
 off my shoulders, and I might leave the village 
 when I pleased ; nor was it likely since he 
 would have his man, though not through me 
 that the Cardinal would refuse me an amnesty. 
 On the whole, I thought that I would prefer that 
 things should take that course ; and assuming the 
 issue, I began to wonder whether in that event it 
 would be necessary that Madame should know the 
 truth. I had a kind of a vision of a reformed 
 Berault, dead to play and purging himself at a 
 distance from Zaton's, winning, perhaps, a name 
 In the Italian war, and finally but, pshaw ! I 
 was a fool. 
 
 However, be that as it might, it was essential 
 that I should see the arrest made ; and I waited 
 patiently while they revived the tortured man, 
 and made their dispositions. These took some 
 time ; so that the sun was down, and it was grow- 
 ing dusk, when we marched out, Clon going first, 
 supported by his two guards, the captain and I 
 following, abreast, and eyeing one another sus-
 
 CLON. 219 
 
 pidously, the lieutenant, with the sergeant and 
 five troopers, bringing up the rear. Clon moved 
 slowly, moaning from time to time, and but for 
 the aid given him by the two men with him, 
 must have sunk down again and again. 
 
 He went out between two houses close to the 
 inn, and struck a narrow track, scarcely discern- 
 ible, which ran benind other houses, and then 
 plunged into the thickest part of the wood. A 
 single person, traversing the covert, might have 
 made such a track ; or pigs, or children. But it 
 was the first idea that occurred to us, and it put 
 us all on the alert. The captain carried a cocked 
 pistol, I held my sword drawn, and kept a watch- 
 ful eye on him ; and the deeper the dusk fell 
 in the wood, the more cautiously we went, until 
 at last we came out with a sort of jump into a 
 wider and lighter path. 
 
 I looked up and down it, and saw before me 
 a wooden bridge, and an open meadow, lying 
 cold and grey in the twilight; and I stood in 
 astonishment. It was the old path to the Cha- 
 teau ! I shivered at the thought that he was 
 going to take us there, to the house to Made- 
 moiselle !
 
 220 UNDER THE RED ROBE. 
 
 The captain also recognised the place, and 
 swore aloud. But the dumb man went on un- 
 heeding, until he reached the wooden bridge. 
 There he paused as if in doubt, and looked 
 towards the dark outline of the building, which 
 was just visible, one faint light twinkling sadly in 
 the west wing. As the captain and I pressed up 
 behind him, he raised his hands and seemed to 
 wring them towards the house. 
 
 " Have a care ! " the captain growled. " Play 
 me no tricks, or " But he did not finish the 
 sentence ; for Clon turned back from the bridge, 
 and, entering the wood on the left hand, began 
 to ascend the bank of the stream. We had not 
 gone a hundred yards before the ground grew 
 rough, and the undergrowth thick; and yet 
 through all ran a kind of path which enabled 
 us to advance, dark as it was growing. Very 
 soon the bank on which we moved began to 
 rise above the water, and grew steep and rugged. 
 We turned a shoulder, where the stream swept 
 round a curve, and saw we were in the mouth 
 of a small ravine, dark and steep-walled. The 
 water brawled along the bottom, over boulders
 
 CLON. 221 
 
 and through chasms. In front, the slope on 
 which we stood shaped itself into a low cliff; 
 but half-way between its summit and the water, 
 a ledge, or narrow terrace, running along the 
 face, was dimly visible. 
 
 " Ten to one, a cave ! " the captain muttered. 
 "It is a likely place." 
 
 " And an ugly one ! " I sneered. " Which one 
 to ten might safely hold for hours ! " 
 
 " If the ten had no pistols yes ! " he 
 answered viciously. " But you see we have. 
 Is he going that way?" 
 
 He was. " Lieutenant," Larolle said, turning 
 and speaking in a low voice, though the chafing 
 of the stream below us covered ordinary sounds, 
 " shall we light the lanthorns, or press on while 
 there is still a glimmering of day ? " 
 
 " On, I should say, M. le Capitaine," the lieu- 
 tenant answered. " Prick him in the back if he 
 falters. I will warrant he has a tender place or 
 two ! " the brute added, with a chuckle. 
 
 The captain gave the word, and we moved 
 forward ; it being very evident now that the 
 cliff-path was our destination. It was possible
 
 222 UNDER THE RED ROBE. 
 
 for the eye to follow the track all the way to it 
 through rough stones and brushwood ; and though 
 Clon climbed feebly and with many groans, two 
 minutes saw us step on to it. It did not turn 
 out to be the perilous place it looked at a dis- 
 tance. The ledge, grassy and terrace-like, sloped 
 slightly downwards and outwards, and in parts 
 was slippery ; but it was as wide as a highway, 
 and the fall to the water did not exceed thirty 
 feet. Even in such a dim light as now displayed 
 it to us, and by increasing the depth and unseen 
 dangers of the gorge, gave a kind of impressive- 
 ness to our movements, a nervous woman need 
 not have feared to breast it. I wondered how 
 often Mademoiselle had passed along it with her 
 milk-pitcher. 
 
 " I think we have him now ! " Captain Larolle 
 muttered, twisting his mustachios, and looking 
 round to make his last dispositions. " Paul and 
 Lebrun, see that your man makes no noise. Ser- 
 geant, come forward with your carbine, but do 
 not fire without orders. Now, silence, all, and 
 close up, Lieutenant. Forward ! " 
 
 We advanced about a hundred paces, keeping
 
 CLON. 223 
 
 the cliff on our left, then turned a shoulder, and 
 saw, a few paces in front of us, a black blotch 
 standing out from the grey duskiness of the cliff- 
 side. The prisoner stopped, and raising his 
 bound hands pointed to it. 
 
 " There ? " the captain whispered, pressing for- 
 ward. "Is that the place?" 
 
 Clon nodded. The captain's voice shook with 
 excitement. " You two remain here with him ! " 
 he muttered, in a low tone. " Sergeant, come 
 forward with me. Now, are you ready? For. 
 ward ! " 
 
 He and the sergeant passed quickly, one on 
 either side of Clon and his guards. The path 
 was narrow here, and the captain passed outside. 
 The eyes of all but one were on the black 
 blotch, the hollow in the cliff-side, and no one 
 saw exactly what happened. But somehow, as 
 the captain passed abreast of him, the prisoner 
 thrust back his guards, and springing sideways, 
 flung his unbound arms round Larolle's body, 
 and in an instant swept him, shouting, to the 
 verge of the precipice. 
 
 It was done in a moment. By the time the
 
 224 UNDER THE RED ROBE. 
 
 lieutenant's startled wits and eyes were back, 
 the two were already tottering on the edge, look' 
 ing in the gloom like one dark form. The ser- 
 geant, who was the first to find his head, levelled 
 his carbine ; but as the wrestlers twirled and 
 twisted, the captain shrieking out oaths and 
 threats, the mute silent as death, it was impos- 
 sible to see which was which ; and the sergeant 
 lowered his gun again, while the men held back 
 nervously. The ledge sloped steeply there ; the 
 edge was vague ; already the two seemed to be 
 wrestling in mid-air, and the mute was a man 
 beyond hope or fear. 
 
 That moment of hesitation was fatal. Clon's 
 long arms were round the other's arms, crushing 
 them into his ribs ; Clon's skull-like face grinned 
 hate into the other's eyes ; his long limbs curled 
 round him like the folds of a snake. Suddenly 
 Larolle's strength gave way. " Damn you all ! 
 Why don't you Mercy ! mercy ! " came in a 
 last scream from his lips ; and then, as the lieu- 
 tenant, taken aback before, sprang forward to 
 his aid, the two toppled over the edge, and in a 
 second hurtled out of sight.
 
 CLON. 225 
 
 " Mon Dieu!" the lieutenant cried, in horror. 
 The answer was a dull splash in the depths 
 below. 
 
 He flung up his arms. " Water ! " he said. 
 " Quick, men, get down ! We may save him yet ! 
 They have fallen into water ! " 
 
 But there was no path, and night was come, 
 and the men's nerves were shaken. The Ian- 
 thorns had to be lit, and the way to be retraced ; 
 and by the time we reached the dark pool which 
 lay below, the last bubbles were gone from the 
 surface, the last ripples had beaten themselves 
 out against the banks. True, the pool still rocked 
 sullenly, and the yellow light showed a man's 
 hat floating, and near it a glove three parts 
 submerged. But that was all. The mute's dying 
 grip had known no loosening, nor his hate any 
 fear. Later, I heard that when they dragged 
 the two out next day, his fingers were in the 
 other's eye-sockets, his teeth in his throat. If 
 ever man found death sweet, it was he. 
 
 As we turned slowly from the black water, 
 some shuddering, some crossing themselves, the 
 lieutenant looked vengefully at me. "Curse 
 
 r
 
 226 UNDER THE RED ROBE. 
 
 you ! " he said, in sudden fury. " I believe you 
 are glad ! " 
 
 " He deserved his fate," I answered coldly. 
 " Why should I pretend to be sorry ? It was 
 now or in three months. And for the other poor 
 devil's sake I am glad." 
 
 He glared at me a moment, in speechless anger. 
 At last, " I should like to have you tied up ! " 
 he said, between his teeth. 
 
 " I should have thought that you had had 
 enough of tying up for one day ! " I retorted. 
 " But there ; it comes of making officers out of 
 the canaille. Dogs love blood. The teamster 
 must still lash something, if he can no longer 
 lash his horses." 
 
 We were back, a sombre little procession, at 
 the wooden bridge, when I said this. He stopped 
 suddenly. " Very well," he replied, nodding 
 viciously, " That decides me. Sergeant, light 
 me this way with a lanthorn. The rest of you 
 to the village. Now, Master Spy," he continued, 
 glancing at me with gloomy spite, " your road is 
 my road. I think I know how to cook your goose." 
 
 I shrugged my shoulders in disdain, and to-
 
 CLOW. 227 
 
 gether, the sergeant leading the way with the 
 light, we crossed the meadow, and passed through 
 the gate where Mademoiselle had kissed my 
 hand, and up the ghostly walk between the rose- 
 bushes. I wondered uneasily what the lieu- 
 tenant would be at, and what he intended ; but 
 the lanthorn light which now fell on the ground 
 at our feet, and now showed one of us to the 
 other, high-lit in a frame of blackness, discov- 
 ered nothing in his grizzled face but settled hos- 
 tility. He wheeled at the end of the walk to 
 go to the main door; but as he did so, I saw 
 the flutter of a white skirt by the stone seat 
 against the house, and I stepped that way. 
 " Mademoiselle," I said softly, " is it you ? " 
 
 " Clon ? " she muttered, her voice quivering. 
 "What of him?" 
 
 " He is past pain," I answered gently. " He 
 is dead, but in his own way. Take comfort, 
 Mademoiselle." And then before I could say 
 more, the lieutenant with his sergeant and light 
 were at my elbow. He saluted Mademoiselle 
 roughly. She looked at him with shuddering 
 abhorrence.
 
 228 UNDER THE RED ROBE. 
 
 " Are you come to flog me, Sir ? " she said 
 icily. " Is it not enough that you have murdered 
 my servant ? " 
 
 " On the contrary, it was he killed my captain," 
 the lieutenant answered, in another tone than 
 I had expected. " If your servant is dead, so 
 is my comrade." 
 
 She looked with startled eyes, not at him, but 
 at me. "What! Captain Larolle ?" she muttered. 
 
 I nodded. 
 
 " How ? " she asked. 
 
 " Clon flung the captain and himself into the 
 river-pool," I explained, in a low voice. " The 
 pool above the bridge." 
 
 She uttered an exclamation of awe, and stood 
 silent. But her lips moved ; I think she was 
 praying for Clon, though she was a Huguenot. 
 Meanwhile I had a fright. The lanthorn, swing- 
 ing in the sergeant's hand, and now throwing its 
 smoky light on the stone seat, now on the rough 
 wall above it, showed me something else. On 
 the seat, doubtless where Mademoiselle's hand 
 had lain, as she sat in the dark, listening and 
 watching, stood a pitcher of food. Beside her, in
 
 CLON. 229 
 
 that place, it was damning evidence. I trembled 
 lest the lieutenant's eye should fall upon it, 
 lest the sergeant should see it; I thought what 
 I could do to hide it; and then in a moment 
 I forgot all about it. The lieutenant was speak- 
 ing, and his voice was like doom. My throat 
 grew dry as I listened. My tongue stuck to my 
 mouth; I tried to look at Mademoiselle, but I 
 could not. 
 
 " It is true, the captain is gone," he said stiffly. 
 " But others are alive, and about one of them, a 
 word with you, by your leave, Mademoiselle. 
 I have listened to a good deal of talk from this 
 fine gentleman friend of yours. He has spent 
 the last twenty-four hours saying, ' You shall ! ' 
 and ' You shall not ! ' He came from you, and 
 took a very high tone because we laid a little 
 whip-lash about that dumb devil of yours. He 
 called us brutes and beasts, and but for him 
 I am not sure that my friend would not be 
 alive. But when he said a few minutes ago 
 that he was glad, glad of it, damn him ! then 
 I fixed it in my mind that I would be even with 
 him. And I am going to be ! "
 
 230 UNDER THE RED ROBE. 
 
 "What do you mean?" Mademoiselle asked, 
 wearily interrupting him. " If you think you 
 can prejudice me against that gentleman " 
 
 " That is precisely what I do think ! And I 
 am going to do it. And a little more than 
 that ! " 
 
 "You will be. only wasting your breath!" she 
 answered proudly. 
 
 " Wait ! wait, Mademoiselle, until you have 
 heard ! " he said. " If ever a black-hearted 
 scoundrel, a dastardly, sneaking spy, trod the 
 earth, it is this fellow ! This friend of yours ! 
 And I am going to expose him. Your own eyes 
 and your own ears shall persuade you. Why, 
 I would not eat, I would not drink, I would not 
 sit down with him ! I would not ! I would 
 rather be beholden to the meanest trooper in 
 my squadron than to him ! Ay, I would, so 
 help me Heaven ! " And the lieutenant, turning 
 squarely on his heels, spat on the ground.
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 THE ARREST. 
 
 So it had come ! And come in such a fashion 
 that I saw no way of escape. The sergeant was 
 between us, and I could not strike him. And 
 I found no words. A score of times I had 
 thought with shrinking how I should reveal my 
 secret to Mademoiselle, what I should say, and 
 how she would take it. But in my mind it had 
 always been a voluntary act, this disclosure. It 
 had been always I who had unmasked myself, 
 and she who listened alone ; and in this volun- 
 tariness and this privacy there had been some- 
 thing which seemed to take from the shame 
 of anticipation. But here here was no volun- 
 tary act on my part, no privacy, nothing but 
 shame. I stood mute, convicted, speechless 
 like the thing I was. 
 
 Vet if anything could have braced me, it was 
 231
 
 232 UNDER THE RED ROBE. 
 
 Mademoiselle's voice, when she answered him. 
 " Go on, Monsieur," she said, with the perfect 
 calmness of scorn. "You will have done the 
 sooner." 
 
 " You do not believe me ? " he replied hotly. 
 " Then, I say, look at him ! Look at him ! If 
 ever shame " 
 
 " Monsieur ! " she said abruptly she did not 
 look at me. " I am ashamed myself ! " 
 
 " Why, his very name is not his own ! " the 
 lieutenant rejoined jerkily. " He is no Barthe at 
 all. He is Berault the gambler, the duellist, the 
 bully " 
 
 Again she interrupted him. " I know it," she 
 said coldly. " I know it all. And if you have 
 nothing more to tell me, go, Monsieur. Go ! " 
 she continued, in a tone of infinite scorn. 
 " Enough that you have earned my contempt as 
 well as my abhorrence ! " 
 
 He looked for a moment taken aback. Then, 
 " Ay, but I have more ! " he cried, his voice 
 stubbornly triumphant. " I forgot that you would 
 think little of that ! I forgot that a swordsman 
 has always the ladies' hearts. But I have more.
 
 THE ARREST. 233 
 
 Do you knoiv, too, that he is in the Cardinal's 
 pay ? Do you know that he is here on the 
 same errand which brings us here, to arrest 
 M. de Cocheforet ? Do you know that while we 
 go about the business openly and in soldier 
 fashion, it is his part to worm himself into your 
 confidence, to sneak into Madame's intimacy, to 
 listen at your door, to follow your footsteps, to 
 hang on your lips, to track you track you 
 until you betray yourselves and the man ? Do 
 you know this, and that all his sympathy is a 
 lie, Mademoiselle ? His help, so much bait to 
 catch the secret ? His aim, blood-money blood- 
 money ? Why, morbleu!" the lieutenant con- 
 tinued, pointing his finger at me, and so carried 
 away by passion, so lifted out of himself by 
 wrath and indignation, that in spite of myself 
 I shrank before him, " you talk, lady, of con- 
 tempt and abhorrence in the same breath with 
 me ! But what have you for him ? What have 
 you for him, the spy, the informer, the hired 
 traitor? And if you doubt, if you want evi- 
 dence, look at him. Only look at him, I say!' 
 And he might well say it ! For I stood silent
 
 234 UNDER THE RED ROBE. 
 
 still ; cowering and despairing, white with rage 
 and hate. But Mademoiselle did not look. She 
 gazed straight at the lieutenant. " Have you 
 done ? " she said. 
 
 " Done ? " he stammered. Her words, her air, 
 brought him to earth again. " Done ? Yes, if 
 you believe me." 
 
 " I do not," she answered proudly. " If that be 
 all, be satisfied, Monsieur. I do not believe you." 
 
 "Then tell me," he retorted, after a moment of 
 stunned surprise, " why, if he was not on our 
 side, do you think we let him remain here ? 
 Why did we suffer him to stay in a suspected 
 house bullying us, and taking your part from 
 hour to hour ? " 
 
 " He has a sword, Monsieur," she answered, 
 with fine contempt. 
 
 " Mille diables ! " he cried, snapping his fingers 
 in a rage. " That for his sword ! No. It was 
 because he held the Cardinal's commission ; be- 
 cause he had equal authority with us ; because 
 we had no choice." 
 
 "And that being so, Monsieur, why are you 
 now betraying him ? " she asked keenly.
 
 THE ARREST. 23$ 
 
 He swore at that, feeling the stroke go home. 
 "You must be mad," he said, glaring at her. 
 ' Mad, if you cannot see that the man is what 
 I tell you he is. Look at him ! Listen to him \ 
 Has he a word to say for himself ? " 
 
 Still she did not look. "It is late," she 
 replied, coldly and irrelevantly. " And I am 
 not very well. If you have quite done, perhaps 
 you will leave me, Monsieur." 
 
 " Mon Dieu / " he exclaimed, shrugging his 
 shoulders ; " you are mad ! I have told you the 
 truth, and you will not believe it. Well, on 
 your head be it then, Mademoiselle. I have no 
 more to say. But you will see." 
 
 He looked at her for a moment as if he 
 thought that she might still give way; then he 
 saluted her roughly, gave the word to the ser- 
 geant, turned, and went down the path. The 
 sergeant went after him, the lanthorn swaying 
 in his hand. We two were left alone in the 
 gloom. The frogs were croaking in the pool; 
 the house, the garden, the wood, all lay quiet 
 under the darkness, as on the night when I 
 first came to the Chateau.
 
 236 UNDER THE RED ROBE. 
 
 And would to Heaven I had never come I 
 That was the cry in my heart. Would to Heaven 
 I had never seen this woman, whose nobility 
 and faith and singleness were a continual 
 shame to me ; a reproach, branding me every 
 hour I stood in her presence, with all vile and 
 hateful names. The man just gone, coarse, low- 
 bred, brutal soldier as he was, man-flogger, and 
 drilling-block, had yet found heart to feel my 
 baseness, and words in which to denounce it 
 What, then, would she say when the truth some 
 day came home to her? What shape should I 
 take in her eyes then ? How should I be remem- 
 bered through all the years then ? 
 
 Then ? But now ? What was she thinking, 
 now, as she stood, silent and absorbed, by the 
 stone seat, a shadowy figure with face turned 
 from me ? Was she recalling the man's words, 
 fitting them to the facts and the past, adding 
 this and that circumstance ? Was she, though 
 she had rebuffed him in the body, collating, now 
 he was gone, all he had said, and out of these 
 scraps piecing together the damning truth ? 
 The thought ,t irtured me. I could brook un~
 
 THE ARREST. 
 
 certainty no longer. I went nearer to her and 
 touched her sleeve. " Mademoiselle," I said, in 
 a voice which sounded hoarse and forced even 
 in my own ears, " do you believe this of me ? " 
 
 She started violently and turned. " Pardon, 
 Monsieur," she answered. " I had forgotten 
 that you were here. Do I believe what?" 
 
 "What that man said of me," I muttered. 
 
 " That ! " she exclaimed ; and she stood a 
 moment gazing at me in a strange fashion. 
 " Do I believe what he said, Monsieur ! But 
 come, come," she continued, "and I will show 
 you if I believe it. But not here." 
 
 She led the way on the instant into the house, 
 going in through the parlour door, which stood 
 half open. The room inside was pitch dark, 
 but she took me fearlessly by the hand, and led 
 me quickly through it, and along the passage, 
 until we came to the cheerful lighted hall, where 
 a great fire burned on the hearth. All traces 
 of the soldiers' occupation had been swept away. 
 But the room was empty. 
 
 She led me to the fire, and there, in the full 
 light, no longer a shadowy creature, but red-
 
 238 UNDER THE RED ROBE. 
 
 lipped, brilliant, throbbing with life, she stood 
 opposite me, her eyes shining, her colour high, 
 her breast heaving. " Do I believe it ? " she said. 
 " I will tell you. M. de Cocheforet's hiding-place 
 is in the hut behind the fern-stack, two furlongs 
 beyond the village, on the road to Auch. You 
 know now what no one else knows, he and I and 
 Madame excepted. You hold in your hands his 
 life and my honour ; and you know also, M. de 
 Berault, whether I believed that tale." 
 
 " My God ! " I cried. And I stood looking 
 at her, until something of the horror in my eyes 
 crept into hers, and she shuddered and stepped 
 back. 
 
 "What is it? What is it?" she whispered, 
 clasping her hands. And with all the colour 
 gone from her cheeks she peered trembling into 
 the corners and towards the door. " There is 
 no one here. Is there any one listening?" 
 
 I forced myself to speak, though I shook all 
 over, like a man in an ague. " No, Mademoiselle, 
 there is no one here," I muttered. And then I 
 let my head fall on my breast, and I stood before 
 her, the statue of despair. Had she felt a
 
 THE ARREST. 239 
 
 grain of suspicion, a grain of doubt, my bearing 
 must have opened her eyes. But her mind was 
 cast in so noble a mould, that having once 
 thought ill of me and been converted, she could 
 feel no doubt again. It was her nature to trust 
 all in all. So, a little recovered from her fright, 
 she stood looking at me in great wonder ; and 
 at last she had a thought. 
 
 "You are not well?" she said suddenly.- "It 
 is your old wound, Monsieur." 
 
 " Yes, Mademoiselle," I muttered faintly. " It 
 is my old wound." 
 
 " I will call Clon ! " she cried impetuously. 
 And then, with a sob, " Ah. ! poor Clon ! He 
 is gone. But there is Louis. I will call him, 
 and he will get you something." 
 
 She was gone from the room before I could 
 stop her; and I was left leaning against the 
 table, possessor at last of the great secret which 
 I had come so far to win. Possessor of that 
 secret, and able in a momen' to open the door, 
 and go out into the night, and make use of it 
 and yet the most unhappy of men. The sweat 
 stood on my brow, my eyes wandered round the
 
 240 UNDER THE RED ROBE. 
 
 room ; I even turned towards the door, with some 
 mad thought of flight flight from her, from 
 the house, from everything. And God knows 
 if I might not have chosen that course ; for I still 
 stood doubting, when on the door, that door, 
 there came a sudden hurried knocking which 
 jarred every nerve in my body. I started. I 
 stood in the middle of the floor, gazing at the 
 door, as at a ghost. Then glad of action, glad 
 of anything that might relieve the tension of 
 my feelings, I strode to it, and pulled it sharply 
 open. 
 
 On the threshold, his flushed face lit up by 
 the light behind me, stood one of the knaves I 
 had brought with me to Auch. He had been 
 running, and panted heavily, but he had kept his 
 wits. He grasped my sleeve instantly. " Ah ! 
 Monsieur, the very man ! " he cried, tugging at 
 me. " Quick ! come this instant, and you may yet 
 be first. They have the secret. They have 
 found Monsieur." 
 
 "Found whom?' I echoed. " M. de Coche- 
 foret?" 
 
 " No ; but the place where he lies. It was
 
 THE ARREST. 241 
 
 found by accident. The lieutenant was gather- 
 ing his men to go to it when I came away. 
 If we are quick, we may be there first" 
 
 " But the place ? " I said. 
 
 " I could not hear where it was," he answered 
 bluntly. "We can hang on their skirts, and at 
 the last moment strike in." 
 
 The pair of pistols I had taken from the 
 shock-headed man lay on a chest by the door. 
 I snatched them up, and my hat, and joined him 
 without another word ; and in a moment we were 
 running down the garden. I looked back once 
 before we passed the gate, and I saw the light 
 streaming out through the door which I had 
 left open ; and I fancied that for an instant a 
 figure darkened the gap. But the fancy only 
 strengthened the one single iron purpose which 
 had taken possession of me and all my thoughts. 
 I must be first. I must anticipate the lieu- 
 tenant, and make the arrest myself. I ran on 
 only the faster. 
 
 We seemed to be across the meadow and in 
 the wood in a moment. There, instead of keep- 
 ing along the common path, I boldly singled out
 
 242 UNDER THE RED ROBE. 
 
 my senses seemed preternaturally keen the 
 smaller track by which Clon had brought us, and 
 ran unfaltering along it, avoiding logs and pitfalls 
 as by instinct, and following all its turns and 
 twists, until it brought us to the back of the inn, 
 and we could hear the murmur of subdued voices 
 in the village street, the sharp low words of com- 
 mand, and even the clink of weapons ; and could 
 see, above and between the houses, the dull glare 
 of lanthorns and torches. 
 
 I grasped my man's arm and crouched down, 
 listening. " Where is your mate ? " I said, in his 
 ear. 
 
 "With them," he muttered. 
 
 "Then come," I whispered, rising. "I have 
 seen enough. Let us go." 
 
 But he caught me by the arm and detained 
 me. " You don't know the way ! " he hissed. 
 " Steady, steady, Monsieur. You go too fast. 
 They are just moving. Let us join them, and 
 strike in when the time comes. We must let 
 them guide us." 
 
 " Fool ! " I said, shaking off his hand. " 1 
 tell you, I know where he is ! I know where
 
 THE ARREST. 243 
 
 they are going. Come ; lose not a moment, and 
 we will pluck the fruit while they are on the 
 road to it." 
 
 His only answer was an exclamation of sur- 
 prise; at that moment the lights began to move. 
 The lieutenant was starting. The moon was not 
 yet up ; the sky was grey and cloudy ; to advance 
 where we were was to step into a wall of black- 
 ness. But we had lost too much time already, 
 and I did not hesitate. Bidding my companion 
 follow me, and use his legs, I sprang through 
 a low fence which rose before us, and stumbling 
 blindly over some broken ground in the rear of 
 the houses, came, with a fall or two, *t> a little 
 watercourse with steep sides. Through this I 
 plunged recklessly, and up the farther side, and, 
 breathless and panting, gained the road just be- 
 yond the village, and fifty yards in advance of 
 the lieutenant's troop. 
 
 They had only two lanthorns burning now, and 
 we were beyond the circle of light these cast ; 
 while the steady tramp of so many footsteps 
 covered the noise we made. We were unnoticed. 
 In a twinkling we turned our backs, and as fast 
 
 B ?
 
 244 UNDER THE RED ROBE. 
 
 as we could ran down the road. Fortunately, 
 they were thinking more of secrecy than speed, 
 and in a minute we had doubled the distance 
 between us ; in two minutes their lights were 
 mere sparks shining in the gloom behind us. We 
 lost, at last, even the tramp of their feet. Then 
 I began to look out and go more slowly ; peering 
 into the shadows on either side for the fern-stack. 
 
 On one hand the hill rose steeply; on the 
 other it fell away to the stream. On neither side 
 was close wood, or my difficulties had been im- 
 mensely increased, but scattered oak-trees stood 
 here and there among gorse and bracken. This 
 helped me, and in a moment, on the upper side, I 
 came upon the dense substance of the stack loom- 
 ing black against the lighter hill. 
 
 My heart beat fast, but it was no time for 
 thought. Bidding the man in a whisper to follow 
 me and be ready to back me up, I climbed the 
 bank softly, and with a pistol in my hand, felt 
 my way to the rear of the stack ; thinking to find 
 a hut there, set against the fern, and M. de Coche- 
 fordt in it. But I found no hut. There was 
 none; and all was so dark that it came upon r\e
 
 THE ARREST. 245 
 
 suddenly as I stood between the hill and the stack 
 that I had undertaken a very difficult thing. The 
 hut behind the fern-stack ? But how far behind ? 
 How far from it? The dark slope stretched 
 above us, infinite, immeasurable, shrouded in night. 
 To begin to climb it in search of a tiny hut, 
 probably well-hidden and hard to find in day- 
 light, seemed a task as impossible as to meet 
 with the needle in the hay! And now, while I 
 stood, chilled and doubting, the steps of the 
 troop in the road began to grow audible, began 
 to come nearer. 
 
 " Well, M. le Capitaine ? " the man beside me 
 muttered in wonder why I stood. " Which 
 way ? Or they will be before us yet." 
 
 I tried to think, to reason it out; to consider 
 where the hut would be ; while the wind sighed 
 through the oaks, and here and there I could 
 hear an acorn fall. But the thing pressed too 
 close on me : my thoughts would not be hur- 
 ried, and at last I said at a venture, " Up the 
 hill! Straight from the stack." 
 
 He did not demur, and we plunged at the 
 ascent, knee deep in bracken and furze, sweat-
 
 246 UNDER THE RED ROBE. 
 
 ing at every pore with our exertions, and hearing 
 the troop come every moment nearer on the 
 road below. Doubtless they knew exactly whither 
 to go ! Forced to stop and take breath when 
 we had scrambled up fifty yards or so, I saw 
 their lanthorns shining like moving glow-worms ; 
 and could even hear the clink of steel. For all 
 I could tell, the hut might be down there, and 
 we two be moving from it! But it was too late 
 to go back now ; they were close to the fern- 
 stack : and in despair I turned to the hill again. 
 A dozen steps, and I stumbled. I rose and 
 plunged on again ; again I stumbled. Then I 
 found that I was no longer ascending. I was 
 treading level earth. And was it water I saw 
 before me, below me, a little in front of my feet, 
 or some mirage of the sky ? 
 
 Neither ; and I gripped my fellow's arm, as he 
 came abreast of me, and stopped him sharply. 
 Below us, in the centre of a steep hollow, a pit 
 in the hill-side, a light shone out through some 
 aperture and quivered on the mist, like the pale 
 lamp of a moorland hobgoblin. It made itself 
 visible, displaying nothing else ; a wisp of light 
 in the bottom of a bla^k bowl.
 
 THE ARREST. 247 
 
 Yet my spirits rose with a great bound at sight 
 of it, for I knew that I had stumbled on the place 
 I sought. In the common run of things I should 
 have weighed my next step carefully, and gone 
 about it slowly. But here was no place for 
 thought, nor room for delay, and I slid down 
 the side of the hollow, and the moment my feet 
 touched the bottom, sprang to the door of the 
 little hut whence the light issued. A stone 
 turned under my foot in my rush, and I fell on my 
 knees on the threshold ; but the fall only brought 
 'ny face to a level with the startled eyes of the 
 man who lay inside on a bed of fern. He had 
 been reading. At the sound I made he dropped 
 his book, and stretched out his hand for a 
 weapon. But the muzzle of my pistol covered 
 him before he could reach his; he was not in a 
 posture from which he could spring, and at a 
 sharp word from me he dropped his hand. The 
 tigerish glare which had flickered for an instant 
 in his eyes, gave place to a languid smile ; and 
 he shrugged his shoulders. "Eh, bien?" he 
 said, with marvellous composure. "Taken at 
 last! Well, I was tired of it."
 
 248 UNDER THE RED ROBE. 
 
 " You are my prisoner, M. de Cocheforet," I 
 answered. 
 
 " It seems so," he said. 
 
 " Move a hand, and I kill you," I answered. 
 " But you have still a choice." 
 
 " Truly ? " he said, raising his eyebrows. 
 
 "Yes. My orders are to take you to Paris 
 alive or dead. Give me your parole that you 
 will make no attempt to escape, and you shall 
 go thither at your ease and as a gentleman. 
 Refuse, and I shall disarm and bind you, and 
 you will go as a prisoner." 
 
 " What force have you ? " he asked curtly. 
 He had not moved. He still lay on his elbow, 
 his cloak covering him, the little Marot in which 
 he had been reading close to his hand. But his 
 quick, black eyes, which looked the keener for 
 the pallor and thinness of his face, roved cease- 
 lessly over me, probed the darkness behind me, 
 took note of everything. 
 
 " Enough to compel you, Monsieur," I replied 
 sternly. " But that is not all. There are thirty 
 dragoons coming up the hill to secure you, and 
 they will make you no such offer. Surrender
 
 THE ARREST. 249 
 
 to me before they come and give me your parole, 
 and I will do all for your comfort. Delay, and 
 you will fall into their hands. There can be 
 no escape." 
 
 "You will take my word," he said slowly. 
 
 " Give it, and you may keep your pistols, M. de 
 Cocheforet," I replied. 
 
 " Tell me at least that you are not alone." 
 
 " I am not alone." 
 
 " Then I give it," he said, with a sigh. " And 
 for Heaven's sake get me something to eat and 
 a bed. I am tired of this pig-sty and this life 
 Arnidieu ! it is a fortnight since I slept between 
 sheets." 
 
 " You shall sleep to-night in your own house 
 if you please," I answered hurriedly. " But 
 here they come. Be good enough to stay where 
 you are a moment, and I will meet them." 
 
 I stepped out into the darkness, in the nick 
 of time. The lieutenant, after posting his men 
 round the hollow, had just slid down with a 
 couple of sergeants to make the arrest. The 
 place round the open door was pitch dark. 
 He had not espied my knave, who had lodged
 
 250 UNDER THE RED ROBE. 
 
 himself in the deepest shadow of the hut; and 
 when he saw me come out across the light, he 
 took me for Cocheforet In a twinkling he 
 thrust a pistol into my face, and cried trium- 
 phantly, " You are my prisoner ! " At the same 
 instant one of the sergeants raised a lanthorn 
 and threw its light into my eyes. 
 
 " What folly is this ? " I said savagely. 
 
 The lieutenant's jaw fell, and he stood for 
 half a minute, paralyzed with astonishment. 
 Less than an hour before he had left me at 
 the Chateau. Thence he had come hither with 
 the briefest delay ; and yet he found me here be- 
 fore him ! He swore fearfully, his face dark, his 
 mustachios stiff with rage. " What is this ? What 
 is it?" he cried at last. "Where is the man?" 
 
 " What man ? " I said. 
 
 " This Cocheforet ! " he roared, carried away 
 by his passion. " Don't lie to me ! He is here, 
 and I will have him ! " 
 
 "You will not. You are too late!" I said, 
 watching him heedfully. " M. de Cocheforet is 
 here, but he has already surrendered to me, and 
 he is my prisoner."
 
 THE ARREST. 25 1 
 
 " Your prisoner ? " 
 
 " Yes, my prisoner ! " I answered facing the 
 man with all the harshness I could muster. " I 
 have arrested him by virtue of the Cardinal's 
 special commission granted to me. And by 
 virtue of the same I shall keep him ! " 
 
 He glared at me for a moment in utter rage 
 and perplexity. Then on a sudden I saw his face 
 lighten. " It is a d d ruse ! " he shouted, bran- 
 dishing his pistol like a madman. " It is a cheat 
 and a fraud ! And by G d you have no commis- 
 sion ! I see through it ! I see through it all ! 
 You have come here, and you have hocussed us ! 
 You are of their side, and this is your last shift 
 to save him ! " 
 
 " What folly is this ? " I exclaimed. 
 
 " No folly at all ! " he answered, conviction in 
 his tone. " You have played upon us ! You 
 have fooled us ! But I see through it now ! 
 An hour ago I exposed you to that fine Madame 
 at the house there, and I thought it a marvel 
 that she did not believe me. I thought it a 
 marvel that she did not see through you, when 
 you stood there before her, confounded, tongue-
 
 2$2 UNDER THE RED ROBE. 
 
 tied, a rogue convicted ! But I understand it 
 
 now. She knew you ! By , she knew you ! 
 
 She was in the plot, and you were in the plot; 
 and I, who thought I was opening her eyes, 
 was the only one fooled ! But it is my turn 
 now. You have played a bold part, and a clever 
 one, and I congratulate you ! But," he continued, 
 a sinister light in his little eyes, "it is at an 
 end now, Monsieur ! You took us in finely with 
 your tale of Monseigneur, and his commission, 
 and your commission, and the rest. But I am 
 not to be blinded any longer, or bullied ! You 
 have arrested him, have you ? You have arrested 
 him ! Well, by G d, I shall arrest him, and I 
 shall arrest you too ! " 
 
 "You are mad!" I said, staggered as much 
 by this new view of the matter as by his perfect 
 conviction of its truth. "Mad, Lieutenant!" 
 
 " I was ! " he snarled drily. "But I am sane 
 now. I was mad when you imposed upon us ; 
 when you persuaded me that you were fooling the 
 women to get the secret out of them, while all 
 the time you were sheltering them, protecting 
 them, aiding them, and hiding him then I was
 
 THE ARREST. 253 
 
 mad ! But not now. However, I ask your par- 
 don, M. de Barthe, or M. de Berault, or whatever 
 your name really is. I ask your pardon. I 
 thought you the cleverest sneak and the dirtiest 
 hound heaven ever made, or hell refused ! I find 
 that you were cleverer than I thought, and an 
 honest traitor. Your pardon." 
 
 One of the men who stood about the rim of 
 the bowl above us laughed. I looked at the 
 lieutenant, and could willingly have killed him. 
 " Mon Dieu ! " I said, so furious in my turn that 
 I could scarcely speak. " Do you say that I am 
 an impostor that I do not hold the Cardinal's 
 commission ? " 
 
 " I do say that ! " he answered coolly. " And 
 shall abide by it." 
 
 "And that I belong to the rebel party?" 
 
 " I do," he replied, in the same tone. " In 
 fact," with a grin, " I say that you are an honest 
 man on the wrong side, M. de Berault. And you 
 say that you are a scoundrel on the right. The 
 advantage, however, is with me, and I shall back 
 my opinion by arresting you." 
 
 A ripple of coarse laughter ran round the
 
 254 UNDER THE RED ROBE. 
 
 hollow.. The sergeant who held the lanthorn 
 grinned, and a trooper at a distance called out 
 of the darkness, "A bon chat bon rat 1 '" This 
 brought a fresh burst of laughter, while I stood 
 speechless, confounded by the stubbornness, the 
 crassness, the insolence, of the man. "You fool!" 
 I cried at last, " you fool ! " And then M. de 
 Cocheforet, who had come out of the hut, and 
 taken his stand at my elbow, interrupted me. 
 
 " Pardon me one moment," he said airily, look- 
 ing at the lieutenant, with raised eyebrows, and 
 pointing to me with his thumb. " But I am 
 puzzled between you. This gentleman's name? 
 Is it de Berault or de Barthe ? " 
 
 "I am M. de Berault," I said brusquely, 
 answering for myself. 
 
 "Of Paris?" 
 
 " Yes, Monsieur, of Paris." 
 
 " You are not then the gentleman who has been 
 honouring my poor house with his presence? " 
 
 " Oh, yes ! " the lieutenant struck in, grinning. 
 " He is that gentleman, too ! " 
 
 " But I thought I understood that that was 
 M. de Barthe."
 
 THE ARREST. 2$$ 
 
 "I am M. de Barthe, also," I retorted impa- 
 tiently. "What of that, Monsieur? It was my 
 mother's name. I took it when I came down 
 here." 
 
 " To er, to arrest me, may I ask ? " 
 
 " Yes," I answered doggedly. " To arrest you. 
 What of that?" 
 
 " Nothing," he replied slowly and with a steady 
 look at me, a look I could not meet. " Except 
 that, had I known this before, M. de Berault, I 
 should have thought long before I surrendered 
 to you." 
 
 The lieutenant laughed, and I felt my cheek 
 burn. But I affected to see nothing, and turned 
 to him again. " Now, Monsieur," I said sternly, 
 "are you satisfied?" 
 
 " No ! " he answered point blank. " I am not. 
 You two gentlemen may have rehearsed this 
 pretty scene a dozen times. The only word it 
 seems to me, is, Quick March, back to Quarters." 
 
 I found myself driven to play my last card 
 much against my will. " Not so," I said ; " I 
 have my commission." 
 
 " Produce it ! " he replied brusquely.
 
 256 UNDER THE RED ROBE. 
 
 "Do you think that I carry it with me?" I 
 said, in scorn. " Do you think that when I came 
 here, alone, and not with fifty dragoons at my 
 back, I carried the Cardinal's seal in my pocket 
 for the first lackey to find ? But you shall have 
 it. Where is that knave of mine ? " 
 
 The words were scarcely out of my mouth 
 before his ready hand thrust a paper into my 
 fingers. I opened it slowly, glanced at it, and 
 amid a pause of surprise gave it to the lieuten- 
 ant. He looked for a moment confounded. He 
 stared at it, with his jaw fallen. Then with a 
 last instinct of suspicion he bade the sergeant 
 hold up the lanthorn, and by its light proceeded 
 to spell out the document. 
 
 " Umph ! " he ejaculated, after a moment's 
 silence ; and he cast an ugly look at me. " I 
 see." And he read it aloud. 
 
 "By these presents I command and empower Gilles de 
 Berault, sieitr de Berault, to seek for, hold, arrest, and deliver 
 to the Governor of the Bastile the body of Henri de Cocheforet, 
 and to do all such acts and things as shall be necessary to 
 effect such arrest and delivery, for which these shall be his 
 warrant. 
 
 " (Signed} RICHELIEU, Lieut.-Gen."
 
 THE ARREST. 
 
 When he had done, and he read the signature 
 with a peculiar intonation, some one said softly, 
 " Vive le roi ! " and there was a moment's silence. 
 The sergeant lowered his lanthorn. " Is it 
 enough ? " I said hoarsely, glaring from face 
 to face. 
 
 The lieutenant bowed stiffly. "For me?" 
 he said. " Quite, Monsieur. I beg your pardon 
 again. I find that my first impressions were the- 
 correct ones. Sergeant, give the gentleman his 
 paper." And turning his shoulder rudely, he 
 tossed the commission towards the sergeant, who 
 picked it up, and gave it to me, grinning. 
 
 I knew that the clown would not fight, and 
 he had his men round him; and I had no choice 
 but to swallow the insult. As I put the paper 
 in my breast, with as much indifference as I 
 could assume, he gave a sharp order. The 
 troopers began to form on the edge above, the 
 men who had descended, to climb the bank. As 
 the group behind him began to open and melt 
 away, I caught sight of a white robe in the 
 middle of it. The next moment, appearing with 
 a suddenness which was like a blow on the cheek
 
 258 UNDER THE RED ROBE. 
 
 to me, Mademoiselle de Cocheforet glided for- 
 ward, and came towards me. She had a hood 
 on her head, drawn low ; and for a moment I 
 could not see her face. I forgot her brother's 
 presence at my elbow ; from habit and impulse 
 rather than calculation, I took a step forward 
 to meet her- though my tongue cleaved to the 
 roof of my mouth, and I was dumb and trem- 
 bling. 
 
 But she recoiled with such a look of white 
 hate, of staring, frozen-eyed loathing, that I 
 stepped back as if she had indeed struck me. It 
 did not need the words which accompanied the 
 look, the " Do not touch me ! " which she hissed 
 at me as she drew her skirts together, to drive 
 me to the farther edge of the hollow ; there to 
 stand with clenched teeth and nails driven into 
 the flesh while she hung, sobbing tearless sobs, 
 on her brother's neck.
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 THE ROAD TO PARIS. 
 
 2 REMEMBER hearing Marshal Bassompierre, 
 who, of all men within my knowledge, had the 
 widest experience, say that not dangers, but disr 
 comforts, prove a man, and show what he is; 
 and that the worst sores in life are caused by 
 crumpled rose-leaves and not by thorns. 
 
 I am inclined to agree with this. For I remem- 
 ber that when I came from my room on the 
 morning after the arrest, and found hall and 
 parlour and passage empty, and all the common 
 rooms of the house deserted, and no meal laid, 
 and when I divined anew from this discovery 
 the feeling of the house towards me, however 
 natural and to be expected, I felt as sharp a 
 pang as when, the night before, I had had to 
 face discovery and open rage and scorn. I stood 
 in the silent, empty parlour, and looked round 
 259 f j
 
 260 UNDER THE RED ROBE. 
 
 me with a sense of desolation ; of something lost 
 and gone, which I could not replace. The morn- 
 ing was grey and cloudy, the air sharp ; a shower 
 was falling. The rose-bushes at the window 
 swayed in the wind, and where I could remember 
 the hot sunshine lying on floor and table, the 
 rain beat in and stained the boards. The main 
 door flapped and creaked to and fro. I thought 
 of other days and meals I had taken there, and 
 of the scent of flowers, and I fled to the hall 
 in despair. 
 
 But here, too, was no sign of life or company, 
 no comfort, no attendance. The ashes of the 
 logs, by whose blaze Mademoiselle had told me 
 the secret, lay on the hearth white and cold ; 
 and now and then a drop of moisture, sliding 
 down the great chimney, pattered among them. 
 The great door stood open as if the house had 
 no longer anything to guard. The only living 
 thing to be seen was a hound which roamed 
 about restlessly, now gazing at the empty hearth, 
 now lying down with pricked ears and watchful 
 eyes. Some leaves which had been blown in 
 rustled in a corner.
 
 THE ROAD TO PARIS. 26 1 
 
 I went out moodily into the garden, and wan- 
 dered down one path, and up another, looking 
 at the dripping woods and remembering things, 
 until I came to the stone seat. On it, against 
 the wall, trickling with rain-drops, arid with a dead 
 leaf half filling its narrow neck, stood the pitcher 
 of food. I thought how much had happened 
 since Mademoiselle took her hand off it and 
 the sergeant's lanthorn disclosed it to me. And 
 sighing grimly, I went in again through the par- 
 lour door. 
 
 A woman was on her knees, kindling the be- 
 lated fire. I stood a moment, looking at her 
 doubtfully, wondering how she would bear her- 
 self, and what she would say to me: and then 
 she turned, an.d I cried out her name in horror ; 
 for it was Madame ! 
 
 She was very plainly dressed ; her childish 
 face was wan, and piteous with weeping. But 
 either the night had worn out her passion and 
 drained her tears, or this great exigency gave 
 her temporary calmness; for she was perfectly 
 composed. She shivered as her eyes met mine, 
 and she blinked as if a light had been suddenly
 
 262 UNDER THE RED ROBE. 
 
 thrust before her. But she turned again to her 
 task, without speaking. 
 
 " Madame ! Madame ! " I cried, in a frenzy of 
 distress. " What is this ? " 
 
 "The servants would not do it," she answered, 
 in a low but steady voice. "You are still our 
 guest, Monsieur, and it must be done.' 5 
 
 "But I cannot suffer it!" I cried, in misery. 
 " Madame de Cocheforet, I will I would 
 rather do it myself! " 
 
 She raised her hand, with a strange, patient 
 expression on her face. " Hush, please," she 
 said. " Hush ! you trouble me." 
 
 The fire took light and blazed up as she spoke, 
 and she rose slowly from it, and, with a lingering 
 look at it, went out ; leaving me to stand and 
 stare and listen in the middle of the floor. Pres- 
 ently I heard her coming back along the pas- 
 sage, and she entered, bearing a tray with wine 
 and meat and bread. She set it down on the 
 table, and with the same wan face, trembling 
 always on the verge of tears, she began to lay 
 out the things. The glasses clinked pitifully 
 against the plates as she handled them; the
 
 THE ROAD TO PARIS. 263 
 
 knives jarred with one another; and I stood by, 
 trembling myself, and endured this strange, this 
 awful penance. 
 
 She signed to me at last to sit down and eat; 
 and she went herself, and stood in the garden 
 doorway, with her back to me. I obeyed. I sat 
 down ; but though I had eaten nothing since the 
 afternoon of the day before, and a little earlier 
 had had appetite enough, I could not swallow. 
 I fumbled with my knife, and munched and 
 drank; and grew hot and angry at this farce; 
 and then looked through the window at the drip- 
 ping bushes, and the rain, and the distant sun- 
 dial, and grew cold again. 
 
 Suddenly she turned round and came to my 
 side. "You do not eat," she said. 
 
 I threw down my knife, and sprang up in a 
 frenzy of passion. " Mon Dieu ! Madame!" I 
 cried. " Do you think I have no heart ? " 
 
 And then in a moment I knew what I had 
 done. In a moment she was on her knees on 
 the floor, clasping my knees, pressing her wet 
 cheeks to my rough clothes, crying to me for 
 mercy for life! life! life! his life! Oh, it
 
 264 UNDER THE RED ROBE. 
 
 was horrible ! It was horrible to see her fair 
 hair falling over my mud-stained boots, to see 
 her slender little form convulsed with sobs, to 
 feel that this was a woman, a gentlewoman, who 
 thus abased herself at my feet. 
 
 " Oh, Madame ! Madame ! " I cried, in my agony. 
 " I beg you to rise. Rise, or I must go ! You 
 will drive me out ! " 
 
 " Grant me his life ! " she moaned passionately. 
 " Only his life ! What had he done to you, that 
 you should hunt him down ? What had we done 
 to you, that you should slay us ? Ah, Sir, have 
 mercy ! Let him go, and we will pray for you ; I 
 and my sister will pray for you every morning and 
 night of our lives." 
 
 I was in terror lest some one should come and 
 see her lying there, and I stooped and tried to 
 raise her. But she would not rise ; she only sank 
 the lower until her tender hands clasped my spurs, 
 and I dared not move. Then I took a sudden 
 resolution. " Listen then, Madame," I said, almost 
 sternly, " if you will not rise. When you ask what 
 you do, you forget how I stand, and how small my 
 power is ! You forget that were I to release your
 
 THE ROAD TO PARIS, 26$ 
 
 husband to-day, he would be seized within the 
 hour by those who are still in the village, and who 
 are watching every road who have not ceased 
 to suspect my movements and my intentions. 
 You forget, I say, my circumstances " 
 
 She cut me short on that word. She sprang 
 abruptly to her feet and faced me. One moment, 
 and I should have said something to the purpose. 
 But at that word she was before me, white, breath- 
 less, dishevelled, struggling for speech. " Oh 
 yes, yes," she panted eagerly, "I know! I under- 
 stand ! " And she thrust her hand into her bosom 
 and plucked something out and gave it to me 
 forced it upon me into my hands. " I know ! I 
 know ! " she said again. " Take it, and God re- 
 ward you, Monsieur! We give it freely freely 
 and thankfully ! And may God bless you ! " 
 
 I stood and looked at her, and looked at it, and 
 slowly froze. She had given me the packet the 
 packet I had restored to Mademoiselle, the parcel 
 of jewels. I weighed it in my hands, and my 
 heart grew hard again, for I knew that this was 
 Mademoiselle's doing ; that it was she who, mis- 
 trusting the effect of Madame's tears and prayers,
 
 266 UNDER THE RED ROBE. 
 
 had armed her with this last weapon this dirty 
 bribe, I flung it down on the table among the 
 plates, all my pity changed to anger. "Madame," 
 I cried ruthlessly, "you mistake me altogether. 
 I have heard hard words enough in the last 
 twenty-four hours, and I know what you think 
 of me ! But you have yet to learn that I have 
 never turned traitor to the hand that employed 
 me, nor sold my own side ! When I do so for a 
 treasure ten times the worth of that, may my hand 
 rot off!" 
 
 She sank into a seat, with a moan of despair, 
 and at that moment the door opened, and M. de 
 Cocheforet came in. Over his shoulder I had a 
 glimpse of Mademoiselle's proud face, a little 
 whiter to-day, with dark marks under the eyes. 
 but still firm and cold. " What is this ? " he said, 
 frowning and stopping short as his eyes lighted 
 on Madame. 
 
 "It is that we start at eleven o'clock, Mon- 
 sieur," I answered, bowing curtly. " Those, I 
 fancy, are your property." And pointing to the 
 jewels, I went out by the other door.
 
 THE ROAD TO PARIS. 267 
 
 That I might not be present at their parting, I 
 remained in the garden until the hour I had ap- 
 pointed was well passed ; then without entering 
 the house I went to the stable entrance. Here I 
 found all ready, the two troopers (whose company 
 I had requisitioned as far as Auch) already in the 
 saddle, my own two knaves waiting with my sorrel 
 and M. de Cocheforet's chestnut. Another horse 
 was being led up and down by Louis, and, alas, 
 my heart winced at the sight. For it bore a lady's 
 saddle, and I saw that we were to have company. 
 Was it Madame who meant to come with us ? or 
 Mademoiselle? And how far? To Auch? or 
 farther ? 
 
 I suppose that they had set some kind of a 
 watch on me ; for, as I walked up, M. de Coche- 
 foret and his sister came out of the house, he 
 looking white, with bright eyes and a twitching 
 in his cheek, though through all he affected a 
 jaunty bearing ; she wearing a black mask. 
 
 "Mademoiselle accompanies us?" I said for- 
 mally. 
 
 "With your permission, Monsieur," he an- 
 swered, with grim politeness. But I saw that
 
 268 UNDER THE RED ROBE. 
 
 he was choking with emotion. I guessed that he 
 had just parted from his wife, and I turned away. 
 
 When we were all mounted, he looked at me. 
 " Perhaps, as you have my parole, you will permit 
 me to ride alone," he said, with a little hesitation, 
 "and " 
 
 " Without me! " I rejoined keenly. " Assuredly, 
 so far as is possible." I directed the troopers 
 to ride in front and keep out of ear-shot; my 
 two men followed the prisoner at a like distance, 
 with their carbines on their knees. Last of all 
 I rode myself, with my eyes open and a pisto 1 
 loose in my holster. M. de Cocheforet, I saw, 
 was inclined to sneer at so many precautions, 
 and the mountain made of his request; but I 
 had not done so much and come so far, I had 
 not faced scorn and insults, to be cheated of my 
 prize at last. Aware that until we were beyond 
 Auch there must be hourly and pressing danger 
 of a rescue, I was determined that he who would 
 wrest my prisoner from me should pay dearly 
 for it. Only pride, and, perhaps, in a degree 
 also, appetite for a fight, had prevented me 
 borrowing ten troopers instead of two.
 
 THE ROAD TO PARIS. 26$ 
 
 We started, and I looked with a lingering eye 
 and many memories at the little bridge, the nar- 
 row woodland path, the first roofs of the village, ; 
 all now familiar, all seen for the last time. Up 
 the brook a party of soldiers were dragging for 
 the captain's body. A furlong farther on, a 
 cottage, burned by some carelessness in the 
 night, lay a heap of black ashes. Louis ran 
 beside us, weeping ; the last brown leaves flut- 
 tered down in showers. And between my eyes 
 and all, the slow, steady rain fell and fell and 
 fell. And so I left Cocheforet 
 
 Louis went with us to a point a mile beyond 
 the village, and there stood and saw us go, curs- 
 ing me furiously as I passed. Looking back 
 when we had ridden on, I still saw him standing ; 
 and after a moment's hesitation I rode back 1o 
 him. "Listen, fool," I said, cutting him shoil 
 in the midst of his mowing and snarling, "and 
 give this message to your mistress. Tell her 
 from me that it will be with her husband as 
 it was with M. de Regnier, when he fell into 
 the hands of his enemy no better and no 
 worse."
 
 270 UNDER THE RED ROBE. 
 
 "You want to kill her, too, I suppose?" he 
 answered, glowering at me. 
 
 " No, fool ! I want to save her ! " I retorted 
 wrathfully. "Tell her that, just that and no 
 more, and you will see the result." 
 
 " I shall not," he said sullenly. " I shall not 
 tell her. A message from you, indeed ! " And 
 he spat on the ground. 
 
 "Then on your head be it!" I answered sol- 
 emnly. And I turned my horse's head and gal- 
 loped fast after the others. For, in spite of his 
 refusal, I felt sure that he would report what I 
 had said if it were only out of curiosity; and 
 it would be strange if Madame did not understand 
 the reference. 
 
 And so we began our journey; sadly, under 
 dripping trees and a leaden sky. The country 
 we had to traverse was the same I had trodden 
 on the last day of my march southwards, but the 
 passage of a month had changed the face of 
 everything. Green dells, where springs welling 
 out of the chalk had made of the leafy bottom 
 a fairies' home, strewn with delicate ferns and 
 hung with mosses these were now swamps into
 
 THE ROAD TO PARIS. 2? I 
 
 which our horses sank to the fetlock. Sunny 
 brows, whence I had viewed the champaign and 
 traced my forward path, had become bare, wind- 
 swept ridges. The beech woods, which had 
 glowed with ruddy light, were naked now ; mere 
 black trunks and rigid arms pointing to heaven. 
 An earthy smell filled the air; a hundred paces 
 away a wall of mist closed the view. We plodded 
 on sadly, up hill and down hill ; now fording 
 brooks already stained with flood-water, now 
 crossing barren heaths. 
 
 But up hill or down hill, whatever the outlook, 
 I was never permitted to forget that I was the 
 jailer, the ogre, the villain ; that I, riding behind 
 in my loneliness, was the blight on all, the death- 
 spot. True, I was behind the others ; I escaped 
 their eyes. But there was not a line of Mademoi- 
 selle's drooping figure that did not speak scorn to 
 me, not a turn of her head that did not seem to 
 say, " Oh God, that such a thing should breathe ! " 
 
 I had only speech with her once during the 
 day, and that was on the last ridge before we 
 went down into the valley to climb up again to 
 Auch. The rain had ceased; the sun, near its
 
 2/2 UNDER THE RED ROBE. 
 
 setting, shone faintly ; and for a few moments we 
 stood on the brow and looked southwards while 
 we breathed the horses. The mist lay like a 
 pall on all the country we had traversed; but 
 beyond it and above it, gleaming pearl-like in 
 the level rays, the line of the mountains stood 
 up like a land of enchantment, soft, radiant, won- 
 derful, or like one of those castles on the Hill 
 of Glass of which the old romances tell us. 
 I forgot, for an instant, how we were placed, 
 and I cried to my neighbour that it was the 
 fairest pageant I had ever seen. 
 
 She it was Mademoiselle, and she had taken 
 off her mask cast one look at me; only one, 
 but it conveyed disgust and loathing so unspeak- 
 able that scorn beside them would have been 
 a gift. I reined in my horse as if she had struck 
 me, and felt myself go first hot and then cold 
 under her eyes. Then she looked another way. 
 
 I did not forget the lesson ; after that I avoided 
 her more sedulously than before. We lay that 
 night at Auch, and I gave M. de Cocheforet the 
 utmost liberty ; even permitting him to go out 
 and return at his will. In the morning, believing
 
 THE ROAD TO PARIS. 273 
 
 that on the farther side of Auch we ran less risk 
 of attack, I dismissed the two dragoons, and 
 an hour after sunrise we set out again. The 
 day was dry and cold, the weather more prom- 
 ising. I planned to go by way of Lectoure, 
 crossing the Garonne at Agen ; and I thought 
 with roads continually improving as we moved 
 northwards, we should be able to make good 
 progress before night. My two men rode first ; 
 I came last by myself. 
 
 Our way lay for some hours down the valley 
 of the Gers, under poplars and by long rows of 
 willows ; and presently the sun came out and 
 warmed us. Unfortunately, the rain of the day 
 before had swollen the brooks which crossed our 
 path, and we more than once had a difficulty 
 in fording them. Noon, therefore, found us lit- 
 tle more than half-way to Lectoure, and I was 
 growing each minute more impatient, when our 
 road, which had for a little while left the river 
 bank, dropped down to it again, and I saw before 
 us another crossing, half ford, half slough. My 
 men tried it gingerly, and gave back, and tried 
 it again in another place and finally, just as
 
 274 UNDER THE RED ROBE. 
 
 Mademoiselle and Monsieur came up to them, 
 floundered through and sprang slantwise up the 
 farther bank. 
 
 The delay had been long enough to bring me, 
 with no good will of my own, close up to the 
 Cocheforets. Mademoiselle's horse made a little 
 business of the place; this delayed them still 
 longer, and in the result, we entered the water 
 almost together, and I crossed close on her heels. 
 The bank on either side was steep ; while cross- 
 ing we could see neither before nor behind. At 
 the moment, however, I thought nothing of this, 
 nor of her delay, and I was following her quite 
 at my leisure, when the sudden report of a car- 
 bine, a second report, and a yell of alarm in 
 front, thrilled me through. 
 
 On the instant, while the sound was still in my 
 ears, I saw it all. Like a hot iron piercing my 
 brain, the truth flashed into my mind. We were 
 attacked ! We were attacked, ana I was here 
 helpless in this pit, this trap ! The loss of a 
 second while I fumbled here, Mademoiselle's 
 horse barring the way, might be fatal. 
 
 There was but one way. I turned my horse
 
 THE ROAD TO PARIS. 275 
 
 straight at the steep bank, and he breasted it. 
 One moment he hung as if he must fall back. 
 Then, with a snort of terror and a desperate 
 bound, he topped it, and gained the level, trem- 
 bling and snorting. 
 
 It was as I had guessed. Seventy paces away 
 on the road lay one of my men. He had fallen, 
 horse and man, and lay still. Near him, with 
 his back against a bank, stood his fellow, on foot, 
 pressed by four horsemen, and shouting. As 
 my eye lighted on the scene, he let fly with a 
 carbine and dropped one. 
 
 I snatched a pistol from my holster, cocked it, 
 and seized my horse by the head I might save 
 the man yet. I shouted to encourage him, and 
 in another second should have charged into the 
 fight, when a sudden vicious blow, swift and 
 unexpected, struck the pistol from my hand. 
 
 I made a snatch at it as it fell, but missed it ; 
 and before I could recover myself, Mademoiselle 
 thrust her horse furiously against mine, and with 
 her riding-whip, lashed the sorrel across the ears. 
 As my horse reared madly up, I had a glimpse 
 of her eyes flashing hate through her mask; of 
 
 T 2
 
 276 UNDER THE RED ROBE. 
 
 her hand again uplifted ; the next moment, I was 
 down in the road, ingloriously unhorsed, the 
 sorrel was galloping away, and her horse, scared 
 in its turn, was plunging unmanageably a score 
 of paces from me. 
 
 I don't doubt that but for that she would have 
 trampled on me. As it was, I was free to draw ; 
 and in a twinkling I was running towards the 
 fighters. All I have described had happened in 
 a few seconds. My man was still defending 
 himself; the smoke of the carbine had scarcely 
 risen. I sprang with a shout across a fallen tree 
 that intervened ; at the same moment, two of the 
 men detached themselves, and rode to meet me. 
 One, whom I took to be the leader, was masked. 
 He came furiously at me, trying to ride me down; 
 but I leaped aside nimbly, and evading him, 
 rushed at the other, and scaring his horse, so 
 that he dropped his point, cut him across the 
 shoulder before he could guard himself. He 
 plunged away, cursing, and trying to hold in his 
 horse, and I turned to meet the masked man. 
 
 " You double-dyed villain ! : ' he cried, riding al. 
 me again. And this time he manoeuvred hi>i
 
 THE ROAD TO PARIS. 277 
 
 horse so skilfully that I was hard put to it to 
 prevent him knocking me down ; and could not 
 with all my efforts reach him to hurt him. " Sur- 
 render, will you ! " he continued, " you blood- 
 hound ! " 
 
 I wounded him slightly in the knee for answer; 
 but before I could do more his companion came 
 back, and the two set upon me with a will, slash- 
 ing at my head so furiously and towering above 
 me with so great an advantage that it was all I 
 could do to guard myself. I was soon glad to 
 fall back against the bank as my man had 
 done before me. In such a conflict my rapier 
 would have been of little use, but fortunately I 
 had armed myself before I left Paris with a cut- 
 and-thrust sword for the road ; and though my 
 mastery of the weapon was not on a par with 
 my rapier-play, I was able to fend off their cuts, 
 and by an occasional prick keep the horses at a 
 distance. Still they swore and cut at me, trying 
 to wear me out ; and it was trying work. A little 
 delay, the least accident, might enable the other 
 man to come to their help, or Mademoiselle, for 
 all I knew, might shoot me with my own pistol;
 
 2/8 UNDER THE RED ROBE. 
 
 and I confess, I was unfeignedly glad when a 
 lucky parade sent the masked man's sword flying 
 across the road. He was no coward ; for unarmed 
 as he was, he pushed his horse at me, spurring 
 it recklessly ; but the animal, which I had several 
 times touched, reared up instead and threw him 
 at the very moment that I wounded his compan- 
 ion a second time in the arm, and made him 
 give back. 
 
 This quite changed the scene. The man in the 
 mask staggered to his feet, and felt stupidly for 
 a pistol. But he could not find one, and was, I 
 saw, in no state to use it if he had. He reeled 
 helplessly to the bank, and leaned against it. He 
 would give no further trouble. The man I had 
 wounded was in scarcely better condition. He 
 retreated before me for some paces, but then 
 losing courage, he dropped his sword, and, wheel- 
 ing round, cantered off down the road, clinging to 
 his pommel. There remained only the fellow 
 engaged with my man, and I turned to see how 
 they were getting on. They were standing to 
 take breath, so I ran towards them; but, seeing 
 me coming, this rascal, too, whipped round his
 
 THE ROAD TO PARIS. 279 
 
 horse, and disappeared in the wood, and left us 
 masters of the field. The first thing I did and 
 I remember it to this day with pleasure was to 
 plunge my hand into my pocket, take out half the 
 money I had in the world, and press it on the man 
 who had fought for me so stoutly, and who had 
 certainly saved me from disaster. In my joy I 
 could have kissed him ! It was not only that I had 
 escaped defeat by the skin of my teeth, and his 
 good sword, but I knew, and thrilled with the 
 knowledge, that the fight had altered the whole 
 position. He was wounded in two places, and I 
 had a scratch or two, and had lost my horse ; and 
 my other poor fellow was dead as a herring. But 
 speaking for myself, I would have spent half the 
 blood in my body to purchase the feeling with 
 which I turned back to speak to M. de Cocheforet 
 and his sister. / had fought before them. 
 
 Mademoiselle had dismounted, and with her 
 face averted and her mask pushed on one side, was 
 openly weeping. Her brother, who had scrupu- 
 lously kept his place by the ford from the begin- 
 ning of the fight to the end, met me with raised 
 eyebrows and a peculiar smile. "Acknowledge
 
 280 UNDER THE RED ROBE. 
 
 my virtue," he said airily. " I am here, M. d4 
 Berault which is more than can be said of the 
 two gentlemen who have just ridden off." 
 
 " Yes," I answered, with a touch of bitterness. 
 " I wish they had not shot my poor man before 
 they went." 
 
 He shrugged his shoulders. "They were my 
 friends," he said. " You must not expect me to 
 blame them. But that is not all." 
 
 " No," I said, wiping my sword. " There i? 
 this gentleman in the mask." And I turned to go 
 towards him. 
 
 " M. de Berault ! " There was something abrupt 
 in the way in which Cocheforet called my name 
 after me. 
 
 I stood. " Pardon ? " I said, turning. 
 
 " That gentleman ? " he answered, hesitating, 
 and looking at me doubtfully. " Have you con- 
 sidered what will happen to him, if you give 
 him up to the authorities ? " 
 
 " Who is he ? " I said sharply. 
 
 " That is rather a delicate question," he 
 answered, frowning, and still looking at me 
 fixedly.
 
 THE ROAD TO PARIS. 281 
 
 " Not from me," I replied brutally, " since he 
 is in my power. If he will take off his mask, 
 I shall know better what I intend to do with 
 him." 
 
 The stranger had lost his hat in his fall, and 
 his fair hair, stained with dust, hung in curls 
 on his shoulders. He was a tall man, of a slen- 
 der, handsome presence, and though his dress 
 was plain and almost rough, I espied a splendid 
 jewel on his hand, and fancied I detected other 
 signs of high quality. He still lay against the 
 bank in a half-swooning condition, and seemed 
 unconscious of my scrutiny. " Should I know 
 him if he unmasked ? " I said suddenly, a new 
 idea in my head. 
 
 "You would," M. de Cocheforet answered 
 simply. 
 
 "And?" 
 
 " It would be bad for every one." 
 
 " Ho, ho ! " I said softly, looking hard, first 
 at my old prisoner, and then at my new one. 
 " Then, what do you wish me to do ? " 
 
 '' Leave him here," M. de Cocheforet answered 
 glibly, his face flushed, the pulse in his cheek
 
 282 UNDER THE RED ROBE. 
 
 beating. I had known him for a man of perfect 
 honour before, and trusted him. But this evident 
 earnest anxiety on behalf of his friend touched 
 me. Besides, I knew that I was treading on 
 slippery ground ; that it behoved me to be care- 
 ful. " I will do it," I said, after a moment's 
 reflection. " He will play me no tricks, I sup- 
 pose ? A letter of " 
 
 " Mon Dieti, no ! He will understand," Coche- 
 foret answered eagerly. "You will not repent 
 it, I swear. Let us be going." 
 
 " Well, but my horse ? " I said, somewhat 
 taken aback by this extreme haste. 
 
 "We shall overtake it," he replied urgently. 
 " It will have kept to the road. Lectoure is 
 no more than a league from here, and we can 
 give orders there to have these two fetched in 
 and buried." 
 
 I had nothing to gain by demurring, and so 
 it was arranged. After that we did not linger. 
 We picked up what we had dropped, M. de Coche- 
 foret mounted his sister, and within five minutes 
 we were gone. Casting a glance back from the 
 skirts of the wood, as we entered it, I fancied
 
 THE ROAD TO PARIS. 283 
 
 chat I saw the masked man straighten himself 
 and turn to look after us ; but the leaves were 
 beginning to intervene, the distance was great 
 and perhaps cheated me. And yet I was not 
 disinclined to think the unknown a little less 
 severely injured and a trifle more observant 
 thaii he seemed.
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 AT THE FINGER-POST. 
 
 THROUGH all, it will have been noticed, Mad- 
 emoiselle had not spoken to me, nor said one word, 
 good or bad. She had played her part grimly; 
 had taken her defeat in silence, if with tears ; had 
 tried neither prayer, nor defence, nor apology. 
 And the fact that the fight was now over, the 
 scene left behind, made no difference in her con- 
 duct to my surprise and discomfiture. She 
 kept her face averted from me ; she rode as 
 before ; she affected to ignore my presence. I 
 caught my horse feeding by the road-side, a fur- 
 long forward, and mounted, and fell into place 
 behind the two, as in the morning. And just as 
 we had plodded on then in silence, we plodded on 
 now, while I wondered at the unfathomable ways 
 of women, and knowing that I had borne myself 
 well, marvelled that she could take part in such an 
 incident and remain unchanged.
 
 AT THE FINGER-POST. 285 
 
 Yet it had made a change in her. Though her 
 mask screened her well, it could not entirely hide 
 her emotions, and by-and-bye I marked that her 
 head drooped, that she rode sadly and listlessly, 
 that the lines of her figure were altered. I noticed 
 that she had flung away, or furtively dropped, her 
 riding-whip, and I understood that to the old 
 hatred of me were now added shame and vexa- 
 tion ; shame that she had so lowered herself, even 
 to save her brother, vexation that defeat had been 
 her only reward. 
 
 Of this I saw a sign at Lectoure, where the inn 
 had bui one common room, and we must all dine 
 in company. I secured for them a table by the 
 fire, and leaving them standing by it, retired my- 
 self to a smaller one, near the door. There were 
 no other guests, and this made the separation 
 between us more marked. M. de Cocheforet 
 seemed to feel this. He shrugged his shoulders 
 and looked at me with a smile half sad, half 
 comical. But Mademoiselle was implacable. She 
 had taken off her mask, and he/ face was like 
 stone. Once, only once, during the meal I saw a 
 change come over her. She coloured, I suppose
 
 286 UNDER THE RED ROBE. 
 
 at her thoughts, until her face flamed from brow 
 to chin. I watched the blush spread and spread, 
 and then she slowly and proudly turned her 
 shoulder to me, and looked through the window 
 at the shabby street. 
 
 I suppose that she and her brother had both 
 built on this attempt, Which must have been 
 arranged at Auch. For when we went on in the 
 afternoon, I saw a more marked change. They 
 rode now like people resigned to the worst. The 
 grey realities of the brother's position, the dreary, 
 hopeless future, began to hang like a mist before 
 their eyes ; began to tinge the landscape with sad- 
 ness ; robbed even the sunset of its colours. With 
 each hour their spirits flagged and their speech 
 became less frequent, until presently, when the 
 light was nearly gone and the dusk was round us, 
 the brother and sister rode hand in hand, silent, 
 gloomy, one at least of them weeping. The cold 
 shadow of the Cardinal, of Paris, of the scaffold, 
 was beginning to make itself felt ; was beginning 
 to chill them. As the mountains which they had 
 known all their lives sank and faded behind us, and 
 we entered on the wide, low valley of the Garonne*
 
 AT THE FINGER-POST. 287 
 
 their hopes sank and faded also sank to the 
 dead-level of despair. Surrounded by guards, a 
 mark for curious glances, with pride for a com- 
 panion, M. de Cocheforet could doubtless have 
 borne himself bravely ; doubtless he would bear 
 himself bravely still when the end came. But 
 almost alone, moving forward through the grey 
 evening to a prison, with so many measured days 
 before him, and nothing to exhilarate or anger, 
 in this condition it was little wonder if he felt, and 
 betrayed that he felt, the blood run slow in his 
 veins ; if he thought more of the weeping wife 
 and ruined home, which he left behind him, than 
 of the cause in which he had spent himself. 
 
 But God knows, they had no monopoly of gloom. 
 I felt almost as sad myself. Long before sunset 
 the flush of triumph, the heat of the battle, which 
 had warmed my heart at noon, were gone ; giving 
 place to a chill dissatisfaction, a nausea, a de- 
 spondency, such as I have known follow a long 
 night at the tables. Hitherto there had been 
 difficulties to be overcome, risks to be run, doubts 
 about the end. Now the end was certain, and 
 very near ; so near that it filled all the prospect
 
 288 UNDER THE RED ROBE. 
 
 One hour of triumph I might still have ; I hugged 
 the thought of it as a gambler hugs his last stake. 
 I planned the place and time and mode, and tried 
 to occupy myself wholly with it. But the price ? 
 Alas, that would intrude too, and more as the 
 evening waned ; so that as I passed this or that 
 thing by the road, which I could recall passing 
 on my journey south, with thoughts so different, 
 with plans that now seemed so very, very old, I 
 asked myself grimly if this were really I, if this 
 were Gil de Berault, known as Zaton's premier 
 joueur ; or some Don Quichotte from Castile, 
 tilting at windmills, and taking barbers' bowls 
 for gold. 
 
 We reached Agen very late in the evening, 
 after groping through a by-way near the river, 
 set with holes and willow-stools and frog-spawns 
 a place no better than a slough. After it 
 the great fire and the lights at the Blue Maid 
 seemed like a glimpse of a new world, and in a 
 twinkling put something of life and spirits into 
 two at least of us. There was queer talk round 
 the hearth here of doings in Paris, of a stir 
 against the Cardinal, with the Queen-mother at
 
 AT THE FINGER-POST. 289 
 
 bottom, and of grounded expectations that some- 
 thing might this time come of it. But the land^ 
 lord pooh-poohed the idea, and I more than 
 agreed with him. Even M. de Cocheforet, who 
 was for a moment inclined to build on it, gave 
 up hope when he heard that it came only by way 
 of Montauban ; whence, since its reduction the 
 year before, all sorts of canards against the Car- 
 dinal were always on the wing. 
 
 "They kill him about once a month," our 
 host said, with a grin. "Sometimes it is Mon- 
 sieur who is to prove a match for him, sometimes 
 Char Monsieur the Duke of Venddme, you 
 understand, and sometimes the Queen-mother. 
 But since M. de Chalais and the Marshal made 
 a mess of it, and paid forfeit, I pin my faith to 
 His Eminence that is his new title, they tell 
 me." 
 
 " Things are quiet round here ? " I asked. 
 
 " Perfectly. Since the Languedoc business 
 came to an end, all goes well," he answered. 
 
 Mademoiselle had retired on our arrival, so 
 that her brother and I were for an hour or two 
 thrown together. I left him at liberty to separate
 
 290 UNDER THE RED ROBE. 
 
 himself if he pleased, but he did not use the 
 opportunity. A kind of comradeship, rendered 
 piquant by our peculiar relations, had begun to 
 spring up between us. He seemed to take pleas- 
 ure in my company, more than once rallied me 
 on my post of jailer, would ask humorously if 
 he might do this or that, and once even inquired 
 what I should do if he broke his parole. 
 
 " Or take it this way," he continued flippantly 
 " Suppose I had stuck you in the back this even- 
 ing, in that cursed swamp by the river, M. de 
 Berault ? What then ? Pardieu ! I am astonished 
 at myself that I did not do it. I could have 
 been in Montauban within twenty-four hours, and 
 found fifty hiding-places, and no one the wiser." 
 
 " Except your sister," I said quietly. 
 
 He laughed and shrugged his shoulders. 
 " Yes," he said, " I am afraid I must have put 
 her out of the way too, to preserve my self- 
 respect. You are right." And on that he fell 
 into a reverie which held him for a few minutes. 
 Then I found him looking at me with a kind of 
 frank perplexity that invited question. 
 
 "What is it?" I said.
 
 AT THE FINGER-POST. 29 1 
 
 " You have fought a great many duels ? " 
 
 "Yes," I said. 
 
 " Did you never strike a foul blow in one of 
 them ? " 
 
 " Never. Why do you ask ? " 
 
 " Well, I wanted to confirm an impression," 
 he said. "To be frank, M. de Berault, I seem to 
 see in you two men." 
 
 " Two men ? " 
 
 " Yes, two men," he answered. " One, the 
 man who captured me ; the other, the man who 
 let my friend go free to-day." 
 
 " It surprised you that I let him go ? That 
 was prudence, M. de Cocheforet," I replied, 
 "nothing more. I am an old gambler I 
 know when the stakes are too high for me. The 
 man who caught a lion in his wolf-pit had no 
 great catch." 
 
 " No, that is true," he answered, smiling. 
 "And yet I find two men in your skin." 
 
 " I dare say that there are two in most men's 
 skins," I answered, with a sigh, " but not always 
 together. Sometimes one is there, and sometimes 
 the other."
 
 292 UNDER THE RED ROSE. 
 
 " How does the one like taking up the other's 
 work ? " he asked keenly. 
 
 I shrugged my shoulders. "That is as may 
 be," I said. " You do not take an estate with- 
 out the debts." 
 
 He did not answer for a moment, and I fancied 
 that his thoughts had reverted to his own case. 
 But on a sudden he looked at me again. " Will 
 you answer me a question, M. de Berault ? " he 
 said, with a winning smile. 
 
 "Perhaps," I said. 
 
 " Then tell me it is a tale that is, I am sure, 
 worth the telling. What was it that, in a very 
 evil hour for me, sent you in search of me ? " 
 
 " The Cardinal," I answered. 
 
 " I did not ask who," he replied drily. " I 
 asked, what. You had no grudge against me ? " 
 
 " No." 
 
 " No knowledge of me ? " 
 
 "No." 
 
 " Then what on earth induced you to do it ? 
 Heavens, man," he continued bluntly, rising and 
 speaking with greater freedom than he had 
 before used, "nature never intended you for a tip 
 staff! What was it, then?"
 
 AT THE FINGER-POST. 293 
 
 I rose too. It was very late, and the room 
 was empty, the fire low. " I will tell you to- 
 morrow ! " I said. " I shall have something to 
 say to you then, of which that will be part." 
 
 He looked at me in great astonishment ; with 
 a little suspicion, too. But I put him off, and 
 called for a light, and by going at once to bed, 
 cut short his questions. 
 
 Those who know the great south road to Agen, 
 and how the vineyards rise in terraces north of 
 the town, one level of red earth above another, 
 green in summer, but in late autumn bare and 
 stony, will remember a particular place where 
 the road two leagues from the town runs up a 
 long hill. At the top of the hill four ways 
 meet; and there, plain to be seen against the 
 sky is a finger-post, indicating which way leads 
 to Bordeaux, and which to Montauban, and which 
 to Perigueux. 
 
 This hill had impressed me on my journey 
 down; perhaps, because I had from it my first 
 view of the Garonne valley, and there felt myself 
 on the verge of the south country where my 
 mission lay. It had taken root in my memory ;
 
 294 UNDER THE RED ROBE. 
 
 I had come to look upon its bare, bleak brow, 
 with the finger-post and the four roads, as the 
 first outpost of Paris, as the first sign of return 
 to the old life. 
 
 Now for two days I had been looking forward 
 to seeing it again. That long stretch of road 
 would do admirably for something I had in my 
 mind. That sign-post, with the roads pointing 
 north, south, east, and west, could there be a 
 better place for meetings and partings ? 
 
 We came to the bottom of the ascent about 
 an hour before noon M. de Cocheforet, Made- 
 moiselle, and I. We had reversed the order of 
 yesterday, and I rode ahead. They came after 
 me at their leisure. At the foot of the hill, how- 
 ever, I stopped and, letting Mademoiselle pass 
 on, detained M. de Cocheforet by a gesture. 
 " Pardon me, one moment," I said. " I want to 
 ask a favour." 
 
 He looked at me somewhat fretfully, with a 
 gleam of wildness in his eyes that betrayed how 
 the iron was eating into his heart. He had 
 started after breakfast as gaily as a bridegroom, 
 but gradually he had sunk below himself ; and
 
 AT THE FINGER-POST. 295 
 
 now he had much ado to curb his impatience. 
 The bonhomie of last night was quite gone. " Of 
 me ? " he said. " What is it ? " 
 
 " I wish to have a few words with Mademoi- 
 selle alone," I explained. 
 
 " Alone ? " he answered, frowning. 
 
 "Yes," I replied, without blenching, though 
 his face grew dark. " For the matter of that, 
 you can be within call all the time, if you 
 please. But I have a reason for wishing to ride 
 a little way with her." 
 
 " To tell her something ? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 "Then you can tell it to me," he retorted 
 suspiciously. " Mademoiselle, I will answer for 
 it, has no desire to " 
 
 " See me, or speak to me ! " I said, taking 
 him up. " I can understand that Yet I want 
 to speak to her." 
 
 "Very well, you can speak to her before me," 
 he answered rudely. " Let us ride on and join 
 her." And he made a movement as if to do 
 so. 
 
 "That will not do, M. de Cocheforet," I said
 
 296 UNDER THE RED ROBE. 
 
 firmly, stopping him with my hand. " Let me 
 beg you to be more complaisant. It is a small 
 thing I ask ; but I swear to you, if Mademoiselle 
 does not grant it, she will repent it all her 
 life." 
 
 He looked at me, his face growing darker 
 and darker. "Fine words!" he said presently, 
 with a sneer. " Yet I fancy I understand them." 
 Then with a passionate oath he broke out in 
 a fresh tone. " But I will not have it. I have 
 not been blind, M. de Berault, and I understand. 
 But I will not have it! I will have no such 
 Judas bargain made. Pardien ! do you think 
 I could suffer it and show my face again ? " 
 
 " I don't know what you mean ! " I said, re- 
 straining myself with difficulty. I could have 
 struck the fool. 
 
 " But I know what you mean," he replied, in 
 ?. tone of repressed rage. "You would have 
 her sell herself : sell herself body and soul to 
 you to save me ! And you would have me stand 
 by and see the thing done ! Well, my answer 
 is never! though I go to the wheel! I wil/ 
 die a gentleman, if I have lived a fool ! "
 
 AT THE FINGER-POST. 297 
 
 " I think you will do the one as certainly as 
 you have done the other," I retorted, in my 
 exasperation. And yet I admired him. 
 
 " Oh, I am not such a fool," he cried, scowl- 
 ing at me, " as you have perhaps thought. I 
 have used my eyes." 
 
 " Then be good enough now to favour me with 
 your ears," I answered drily. " And listen when 
 I say that no such bargain has ever crossed my 
 mind. You were kind enough to think well of 
 me last night, M. de Cocheforet. Why should 
 the mention of Mademoiselle in a moment change 
 your opinion ? I wish simply to speak to her. 
 I have nothing to ask from her; neither favour 
 nor anything else. And what I say she will 
 doubtless tell you afterwards. del, man ! " I 
 continued angrily, "what harm can I do to 
 her, in the road, in your sight ? " 
 
 He looked at me sullenly, his face still flushed, 
 his eyes suspicious. " What do you want to say 
 to her?" he asked jealously. He was quite 
 unlike himself. His airy nonchalance, his care- 
 less gaiety, were gone. 
 
 " You know what I do not want to say to her,
 
 298 UNDER THE RED ROBE. 
 
 M. de Cocheforet," I answered. " That should 
 be enough." 
 
 He glowered at me for a moment, still ill con- 
 tent. Then, without a word, he made me a ges- 
 ture to go to her. 
 
 She had halted a score of paces away, won- 
 dering doubtless what was on foot. I rode 
 towards her. She wore her mask, so that I lost 
 the expression of her face as I approached, but 
 the manner in which she turned her horse's 
 head uncompromisingly towards her brother, and 
 looked past me as if I were merely a log in 
 the road was full of meaning. I felt the ground 
 suddenly cut from under me. I saluted her, trem- 
 bling. " Mademoiselle," I said, " will you grant 
 me the privilege of your company for a few min- 
 utes, as we ride." 
 
 "To what purpose, Sir?" she answered, in the 
 coldest voice in which I think a woman ever 
 spoke to a man. 
 
 " That I may explain to you a great many 
 things you do not understand," I murmured. 
 
 " I prefer to be in the dark," she replied. And 
 her manner said more than her words.
 
 AT THE FINGER-POST. 299 
 
 ' But, Mademoiselle," I pleaded, I would not 
 be discouraged, " you told me one day that you 
 would never judge me hastily again." 
 
 " Facts judge you, not I, Sir," she answered 
 icily. " I am not sufficiently on a level with you 
 to be able to judge you I thank God." 
 
 I shivered though the sun was on me, and the 
 hollow where we stood was warm. " Still once 
 before you thought the same ! " I exclaimed. 
 "Afterwards you found that you had been wrong. 
 It may be so again, Mademoiselle." 
 
 " Impossible," she said. 
 
 That stung me. " No ! " I said fiercely. " It 
 is not impossible. It is you who are impossible ! 
 It is you who are heartless, Mademoiselle. I 
 have done much, very much, in the last three 
 days to make things lighter for you. I ask you 
 now to do something for me which can cost you 
 nothing." 
 
 " Nothing ? " she answered slowly ; and her 
 scornful voice cut me as if it had been a knife. 
 ' Do you think, Monsieur, it costs me nothing 
 to lose my self-respect, as I do with every word 
 ( speak to you ? Do you think it costs me noth-
 
 300 UNDER THE RED ROBE. 
 
 ing to be here, where I feel every look you cast 
 on me an insult, every breath I take in your 
 presence a contamination. Nothing, Monsieur ? " 
 She laughed in bitter irony. " Oh, be sure, some- 
 thing ! But something which I despair of making 
 clear to you." 
 
 I sat for a moment in my saddle, shaken and 
 quivering with pain. It had been one thing to 
 feel that she hated and scorned me, to know 
 that the trust and confidence which she had 
 begun to place in me were changed to loathing. 
 It was another to listen to her hard, pitiless words, 
 to change colour under the lash of her gibing 
 tongue. For a moment I could not find voice 
 to answer her. Then I pointed to M. de Coche- 
 foret. " Do you love him ? " I said, hoarsely, 
 roughly. The gibing tone had passed from her 
 voice to mine. 
 
 She did not answer. 
 
 " Because, if you do," I continued, " you will 
 let me tell my tale. Say no but once more, 
 Mademoiselle, I am only human, and I go. 
 And you will repent it all your life." 
 
 I had done better had I taken that tone from
 
 AT THE FINGER-POST. 3OI 
 
 the beginning. She winced, her head drooped, 
 she seemed to grow smaller. All in a moment, 
 as it were, her pride collapsed. " I will hear 
 you," she answered feebly. 
 
 "Then we will ride on, if you please," I said, 
 keeping the advantage I had gained. " You 
 need not fear. Your brother will follow." 
 
 I caught hold of her rein and turned her 
 horse, and she suffered it without demur. In a 
 moment we were pacing side by side, the long, 
 straight road before us. At the end where it 
 topped the hill, I could see the finger-post, two 
 faint black lines against the sky. When we 
 reached that, involuntarily I checked my horse 
 and made it move more slowly. 
 
 "Well, Sir," she said impatiently. And her 
 figure shook as if with cold. 
 
 " It is a tale I desire to tell you, Made- 
 moiselle," I answered, speaking with effort. 
 " Perhaps I may seem to begin a long way off, 
 but before I end, I promise to interest you. Two 
 months ago there was living in Paris a man, 
 perhaps a bad man, at any rate, by commor 
 report, a hard man."
 
 302 UNDER THE RED ROBE. 
 
 She turned to me suddenly, her eyes gleaming 
 through her mask. " Oh, Monsieur, spare me 
 this ! " she said, quietly scornful. " I will take 
 it for granted." 
 
 "Very well," I replied steadfastly. "Good 
 or bad, this man, one day, in defiance of the 
 Cardinal's edict against duelling, fought with a 
 young Englishman behind St. Jacques Church. 
 The Englishman had influence, the person of 
 whom I speak had none, and an indifferent 
 name ; he was arrested, thrown into the Chatelet, 
 cast for death, left for days to face death. At 
 the last an offer was made to him. If he 
 would seek out and deliver up another man, an 
 outlaw with a price upon his head, he should 
 himself go free." 
 
 I paused and drew a deep breath. Then I 
 continued, looking not at her, but into the dis- 
 tance : " Mademoiselle, it seems easy now to say 
 what course he should have chosen. It seems 
 hard now to find excuses for him. But there 
 was one thing which I plead for him. The task 
 he was asked to undertake was a dangerous 
 one. He risked, he knew he must risk, and the
 
 AT THE FINGER-POST. 303 
 
 event proved him right, his life against the life 
 of this unknown man. And one thing more 
 there was time before him. The outlaw might 
 be taken by another, might be killed, might die, 
 might . But there, Mademoiselle, we know 
 what answer this person made. He took the 
 baser course, and on his honour, on his parole, 
 with money supplied to him, went free, free 
 on the condition that he delivered up this other 
 man." 
 
 I paused again, but I did not dare to look 
 at her, and after a moment of silence I resumed. 
 " Some portion of the second half of this story 
 you know, Mademoiselle ; but not all. Suffice 
 it that this man came down to a remote village, 
 and there at a risk, but Heaven knows, basely 
 enough, found his way into his victim's home. 
 Once there, his heart began to fail him. Had 
 he found the house garrisoned by men, he 
 might have pressed on to his end with little 
 remorse. But he found there only two helpless, 
 loyal women ; and I say again that from the 
 first hour of his entrance he sickened of the 
 work he had in hand. Still he pursued it. He
 
 304 UNDER THE RED ROBE. 
 
 had given his word, and if there was one tradi- 
 tion of his race which this man had never broken, 
 it was that of fidelity to his side ; to the man 
 that paid him. But he pursued it with only 
 half his mind, in great misery sometimes, if 
 you will believe me, in agonies of shame. Grad- 
 ually, however, almost against his will, the drama 
 worked itself out before him, until he needed 
 only one thing." 
 
 I looked at Mademoiselle. But her head was 
 averted ; I could gather nothing from the out- 
 lines of her form. And I went on. " Do not 
 misunderstand me," I said, in a lower voice. " Do 
 not misunderstand what I am going to say next. 
 This is no love story, and can have no ending 
 such as romancers love to set to their tales. But 
 I am bound to mention, Mademoiselle, that this 
 man, who had lived about inns and eating-houses, 
 and at the gaming-tables almost all his days, met 
 here for the first time for years a good woman ; 
 and learned by the light of her loyalty and 
 devotion to see what his life had been, and 
 what was the real nature of the work he was 
 doing. I think, nay, I know that it added a
 
 AT THE FINGER-POST. 305 
 
 hundredfold to his misery, that when J he learned 
 at last the secret he had come to surprise, he 
 learned it from her lips, and in such a way 
 that had he felt no shame, hell could have 
 been no place for him. But in one thing she 
 misjudged him. She thought, and had reason 
 to think, that the moment he knew her secret 
 he went out, not even closing the door, and used 
 it. But the truth was that, while her words 
 were still in his ears, news came to him that 
 others had the secret; and had he not gone 
 out on the instant, and done what he did, and 
 forestalled them, M. de Cocheforet would have 
 been taken, but by others." 
 
 Mademoiselle broke her long silence so sud- 
 denly that her horse sprang forward. " Would 
 to Heaven he had ! " she wailed. 
 
 " Been taken by others ? " I exclaimed, startled 
 out of my false composure. 
 
 " Oh, yes, yes ! " she answered passionately. 
 " Why did you not tell me ? Why did you not 
 confess to me even then ? I oh, no more ! 
 No more ! " she continued, in a piteous voice. 
 " I have heard enough. You are racking my
 
 306 UNDER THE RED ROBE. 
 
 heart, M. de Berault. Some day I will ask God 
 to give me strength to forgive you." 
 
 " But you have not heard me out," I replied. 
 
 " I want to hear no more," she answered, in 
 a voice she vainly strove to render steady. " To 
 what end ? Can I say more than I have said ? 
 Did you think I could forgive you now with 
 him behind us going to his death ? Oh, no, 
 no ! " she continued. " Leave me ! I implore you 
 to leave me. I am not well." 
 
 She drooped over her horse's neck as she 
 spoke and began to weep so passionately that 
 the tears ran down her cheeks under her mask, 
 and fell and sparkled like dew on the mane before 
 her; while her sobs shook her so painfully that 
 I thought she must fall. I stretched out my 
 hand instinctively to give her help ; but she 
 shrank from me. " No ! " she gasped, between 
 her sobs. " Do not touch me. There is too 
 much between us." 
 
 "Yet there must be one thing more between 
 us," I answered firmly. "You must listen to 
 me a little longer, whether you will or no, Mad- 
 emoiselle, for the love you bear to your brother.
 
 AT THE FINGER-POST. 307 
 
 There is one course still open to me by which 
 I may redeem my honour; it has been in my 
 mind for some time back to take that course. 
 To-day, I am thankful to say, I can take it 
 cheerfully, if not without regret; with a stead- 
 fast heart, if with no light one. Mademoiselle," 
 I continued earnestly, feeling none of the tri- 
 umph, none of the vanity, I had foreseen, but 
 only joy in the joy I could give her, " I thank 
 God that it is still in my power to undo what 
 I have done; that it is still in my power to go 
 back to him who sent me, and telling him that 
 I have changed my mind and will bear my own 
 burdens, to pay the penalty." 
 
 We were within a hundred paces of the brow 
 of the hill and the finger-post now. She cried 
 out wildly that she did not understand. " What 
 is it you have just said?" she murmured. "I 
 cannot hear." And she began to fumble with 
 the ribbon of her mask. 
 
 " Only this, Mademoiselle," I answered gently. 
 " I give back to your brother his word and his 
 parole. From this moment he is free to go 
 whither he pleases. You shall tell him so from 
 
 X 2
 
 308 UNDER THE RED ROBE. 
 
 me. Here, where we stand, four roads meet. 
 That to the right goes to Montauban, where you 
 have doubtless friends, and can lie hid for a time ; 
 or that to the left leads to Bordeaux, where you 
 can take ship if you please. And in a word 
 Mademoiselle," I continued, ending a little feebly, 
 " I hope that your troubles are now over." 
 
 She turned her face to me we had both 
 come to a standstill and plucked at the fasten- 
 ings of her mask. But her trembling fingers 
 had knotted the string, and in a moment she 
 dropped her hands with a cry of despair. " And 
 you ? You ? " she said, in a voice so changed I 
 should not have known it for hers. "What will 
 you do ? I do not understand. This mask ! I 
 cannot hear." 
 
 " There is a third road," I answered. " It leads 
 to Paris. That is my road, Mademoiselle. We 
 part here." 
 
 "But why? Why?" she cried wildly. 
 
 " Because from to-day I would fain begin to be 
 honourable," I answered, in a low voice. " Be- 
 cause I dare not be generous at another's cost 
 I must go back to the Chatelet."
 
 AT THE FINGER-POST. 3O9 
 
 She tried feverishly to raise her mask with 
 her hand. "I am not well," she stammered. 
 " I cannot breathe." 
 
 She swayed so violently in her saddle as she 
 spoke, that I sprang down, and running round 
 her horse's head, was just in time to catch her 
 as she fell. She was not quite unconscious then, 
 for, as I supported her, she murmured, " Leave 
 me ! Leave me ! I am not worthy that you 
 should touch me." 
 
 Those words made me happy. I carried her 
 to the bank, my heart on fire, and laid her against 
 it just as M. de Cocheforet rode up. He sprang 
 from his horse, his eyes blazing with anger. 
 " What is this ? " he cried harshly. " What have 
 you been saying to her, man ? " 
 
 " She will tell you," I answered drily, my com- 
 posure returning under his eye, " amongst othei 
 things, that you are free. From this moment, 
 M. de Cocheforet, I give you back your parole, 
 and I take my own honour. Farewell." 
 
 He cried out something as I mounted, but I 
 did not stay to hear or answer. I dashed the 
 spurs into my horse, and rode away past the cross-
 
 310 UNDER THE RED ROBE. 
 
 roads, past the finger-post ; away with the level 
 upland stretching before me, dry, bare, almost 
 treeless and behind me all I loved. Once, when 
 I had gone a hundred yards, I looked back and 
 saw him standing upright against the sky, staring 
 after me across her body. And again I looked 
 back. This time I saw only the slender wooden 
 cross, and below it a dark blurred mass.
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 ST. MARTIN'S EVE. 
 
 IT was late evening on the last day but one 
 of November, when I rode into Paris through 
 the Orleans gate. The wind was in the north- 
 east, and a great cloud of vapour hung in the 
 eye of an angry sunset. The air seemed to be 
 full of wood smoke, the kennels reeked, my 
 gorge rose at the city's smell ; and with all my 
 heart I envied the man who had gone out of it 
 by the same gate nearly two months before, with 
 his face to the south, and the prospect of riding 
 Jay after day across heath and moor and pasture. 
 At least he had had some weeks of life before 
 him, and freedom, and the open air, and hope and 
 uncertainty, while I came back under doom ; and 
 in the pall of smoke that hung over the huddle 
 of innumerable roofs, saw a gloomy shadowing 
 of my own fate. 
 
 3"
 
 312 UNDER THE RED ROBE. 
 
 For make no mistake. A man in middle life 
 does not strip himself of the worldly habit with 
 which experience has clothed him, does not run 
 counter to all the cynical saws and instances by 
 which he has governed his course so long, with- 
 out shiverings and doubts and horrible misgiv- 
 ings and struggles of heart. At least a dozen 
 times between the Loire and Paris, I asked my- 
 self what honour was; and what good it would 
 do me when I lay rotting and forgotten ; if I 
 was not a fool following a Jack-o'-lanthorn ; and 
 whether, of all the men in the world, the relent- 
 less man to whom I was. returning, would not be 
 the first to gibe at my folly. 
 
 However, shame kept me straight; shame and 
 the memory of Mademoiselle's looks and words. 
 I dared not be false to her again ; I could not, 
 after speaking so loftily, fall so low. And there- 
 fore though not without many a secret struggle 
 and quaking I came, on this last evening but 
 one of November, to the Orleans gate, and rode 
 slowly and sadly through the streets by the Lux- 
 embourg, on my way to the Pont au Change. 
 
 The struggle had sapped my last strength,
 
 ST. MARTINIS EVE. 313 
 
 however; and with the first whiff of the gutters, 
 the first rush of barefooted gamins under my 
 horse's hoofs, the first babel of street cries, the 
 first breath, in a word, of Paris, there came a 
 new temptation to go for one last night to 
 Zaton's to see the tables again and the faces of 
 surprise ; to be, for an hour or two, the old Berault. 
 That could be no breach of honour; for in any 
 case I could not reach the Cardinal before to- 
 morrow. And it could do no harm. It could 
 make no change in anything. It would not have 
 been a thing worth struggling about only I 
 had in my inmost heart suspicions that the stout- 
 est resolutions might lose their force in that 
 atmosphere ; that even such a talisman as the 
 memory of a woman's looks and words might 
 lose its virtue there. 
 
 Still I think I should have succumbed in the 
 end, if I had not received at the corner of the 
 Luxembourg a shock which sobered me effec- 
 tually. As I passed the gates, a coach followed 
 by two outriders swept out of the palace court- 
 yard ; it was going at a great pace, and I reined 
 my jaded horse on one side to give it room. As
 
 314 UNDER THE RED ROBE. 
 
 it whirled by me, one of the leather curtains 
 flapped back, and I saw for a second, by the 
 waning light, the nearer wheels were no more 
 than two feet from my boot, a face ir^ide. 
 
 A face, and no more, and that only for a sec- 
 ond! But it froze me. It was Richelieu's, the 
 Cardinal's ; but not as I had been wont to see it, 
 keen, cold, acute, with intellect and indomitable 
 will in every feature. This face was distorted 
 with rage and impatience ; with the fever of haste 
 and the fear of death. The eyes burned under 
 the pale brow, the mustachios bristled, the teeth 
 showed through the beard ; I could fancy the 
 man crying "Faster! Faster!" and gnawing 
 his nails in the impatience of passion ; and I 
 shrank back as if I had been struck. The next 
 moment the galloping outriders splashed me, the 
 coach was a hundred paces ahead, and I was 
 left chilled and wondering, foreseeing the worst, 
 and no longer in any mood for the gaming-table. 
 
 Such a revelation of such a man was enough to 
 appall me. Conscience cried out that he must have 
 heard that Cocheforet had escaped, and through 
 me ! But I dismissed the idea as soon as formed.
 
 ST. MARTINA EVE. 315 
 
 In the vast meshes of the Cardinal's schemes, 
 Cocheforet could be only a small fish ; and to 
 account for the face in the coach I needed a 
 cataclysm, a catastrophe, a misfortune, as far 
 above ordinary mishaps, as this man's intellect 
 rose above the common run of minds. 
 
 It was almost dark when I crossed the bridges, 
 and crept despondently to the Rue Savonnerie. 
 After stabling my horse, I took my bag and 
 holsters, and climbing the stairs to my old lanu- 
 lord's, the place seemed to have grown strangely 
 mean and small and ill-smelling in my absence, 
 I knocked at the door. It was opened by the 
 little tailor himself, who threw up his arms at 
 the sight of me. " By St. Genevieve ! " he said. 
 "If it is not M. de Berault!" 
 
 " No other," I said. It touched me a little, 
 after my lonely journey, to find him so glad to 
 see me though I had never done him a greater 
 benefit than sometimes to unbend with him and 
 borrow his money. " You look surprised, little 
 man ! " I continued, as he made way for me to 
 enter. " I'll be sworn you have been pawning 
 my goods and letting my room, you knave ! "
 
 316 UNDER THE RED ROBE. 
 
 " Never, your excellency ! " he answered, beam- 
 ing on me. " On the contrary, I have been 
 expecting you." 
 
 " How ? " I said. "To-day?" 
 
 " To-day or to-morrow," he answered, following 
 me in and closing the door. "The first thing I 
 said, when I heard the news this morning, was, 
 Now we shall have M. de Berault back again. 
 Your excellency will pardon the children," he 
 continued, as I took the old seat on the three- 
 legged stool before the hearth. " The night is 
 cold, and there is no fire in your room." 
 
 While he ran to and fro with my cloak and 
 bags, little Gil, to whom I had stood at St. Sul- 
 pice's borrowing ten crowns the same day, I 
 remember came shyly to play with my sword- 
 hilt " So you expected me back when you heard 
 the news, Frison, did you?" I said, taking the 
 lad on my knee. 
 
 "To be sure, your excellency," he answered, 
 peeping into the black pot before he lifted it to 
 the hook. 
 
 "Very good. Then, now, let us hear what the 
 news was," I said drily.
 
 ST. MARTINIS EVE. 3 1/ 
 
 " Of the Cardinal, M. de Berault." 
 
 " Ah ? And what ? " 
 
 He looked at me, holding the heavy pot sus- 
 pended in his hands. "You have not heard?" 
 he exclaimed, his jaw falling. 
 
 " Not a tittle. Tell it me, my good fellow." 
 
 "You have not heard that His Eminence is 
 disgraced ? " 
 
 I stared at him. "Not a word," I said. 
 
 He set down the pot. " Your excellency must 
 have made a very long journey indeed, then," he 
 said, with conviction. " For it has been in the air 
 a week or more, and I thought it had brought you 
 back. A week? A month, I dare say. They 
 whisper that it is the old Queen's doing. At any 
 rate, it is certain that they have cancelled his 
 commissions and displaced his officers. There 
 are rumours of immediate peace with Spain. His 
 enemies are lifting up their heads, and I hear 
 that he has relays of horses set all the way to the 
 coast, that he may fly at any moment For what 
 I know he may be gone already." 
 
 " But, man," I said " the King ! You forget 
 the King. Let the Cardinal once pipe to him, and
 
 3l8 UNDER THE RED ROBE. 
 
 he will dance. And they will dance, too ! " I 
 added grimly. 
 
 "Yes," Prison answered eagerly. ''True, your 
 excellency, but the King will not see him. Three 
 times to-day, as I am told, the Cardinal has driven 
 to the Luxembourg, and stood like any common 
 man in the ante-chamber, so that I hear it was 
 pitiful to see him. But His Majesty would not 
 admit him. And when he went away the last 
 time, I am told that his face was like death ! 
 Well, he was a great man, and we may be worse 
 ruled, M. de Berault, saving your presence. If 
 the nobles did not like him, he was good to the 
 traders, and the bourgeoisie, and equal to all." 
 
 " Silence, man ! Silence, and let me think," I 
 said, much excited. And while he bustled to and 
 fro, getting my supper, and the firelight played 
 about the snug, sorry little room, and the child 
 toyed with his plaything, I fell to digesting this 
 great news, and pondering how I stood now and 
 what I ought to do. At first sight, 1 know, it 
 seemed that I had nothing to do but sit still. In 
 a few hours the man who held my bond would be 
 powerless, and I should be free. In a few hours
 
 ST. MARTINIS EVE. 319 
 
 I might smile at him. To all appearance, the 
 dice had fallen well for me. I had done a great 
 thing, run a great risk, won a woman's love, and 
 after all was not to pay the penalty ! 
 
 But a word which fell from Prison as he flut- 
 tered round me, pouring out the broth, and cutting 
 the bread, dropped into my mind and spoiled my 
 satisfaction. "Yes, your excellency," he ex- 
 claimed, confirming something he had said before, 
 and which I had missed, " and I am told that the 
 last time he came into the gallery, there was not 
 a man of all the scores who attended his levte 
 last Monday would speak to him. They fell off 
 like rats, just like rats, until he was left standing 
 all alone. And I have seen him ! " Prison lifted 
 up his eyes and his hands and drew in his breath. 
 "Ah, I have seen the King look shabby beside 
 him ! And his eye ! I would not like to meet it 
 now." 
 
 " Pish ! " I growled. " Some one has fooled 
 you. Men are wiser than that." 
 
 " So ? Well, your excellency understands. But 
 there are no cats on a cold hearth." 
 
 I told' him again that he was a fool. But withal
 
 320 UNDER THE RED ROBE. 
 
 I felt uncomfortable. This was a great man 
 if ever a great man lived, and they were all leav- 
 ing him ; and I well, I had no cause to love him. 
 But I had taken his money, I had accepted his 
 commission, and I had betrayed him. Those 
 three things being so, if he fell before I could 
 with the best will in the world set myself right 
 with him, so much the better for me. That was 
 my gain, the fortune of war. But if I lay hid, 
 and took time for my ally, and being here while 
 he stood still, though tottering, waited until he 
 fell, what of my honour then ? What of the 
 grand words I had said to Mademoiselle at Agen? 
 I should be like the recreant in the old romance, 
 who, lying in the ditch while the battle raged, 
 came out afterwards and boasted of his courage. 
 And yet the flesh was weak. A day, twenty- 
 four hours, two days, might make the difference 
 between life and death. At last I settled what 
 I would do. At noon the next day, the time 
 at which I should have presented myself, if I 
 had not heard this news, at that time I would 
 still present myself. Not earlier ; I owed myself 
 the chance. Not later; that was due to him.
 
 ST. MARTINIS EVE. 321 
 
 Having so settled it, I thought to rest in 
 peace. But with the first light I was awake ; 
 and it was all I could do to keep myself quiet 
 until I heard Prison stirring. I called to him 
 then to know if there was any news, and lay 
 waiting and listening while he went down to the 
 street to learn. It seemed an endless time before 
 he came back; an age, after he came back, 
 before he spoke. 
 
 "Well, he has not set off?" I cried at last, 
 unable to control my eagerness. 
 
 Of course he had not At nine o'clock I sent 
 Prison out again ; and at ten, and at eleven 
 always with the same result. I was like a man 
 waiting, and looking, and, above all, listening 
 for a reprieve, and as sick as any craven. But 
 when he came back at eleven, I gave up hope, 
 and dressed myself carefully. I suppose I still 
 had an odd look, however ; for Prison stopped 
 me at the door and asked me, with evident alarm, 
 whither I was going. 
 
 I put the little man aside gently. " To the 
 tables," I said. "To make a big throw, my 
 friend."
 
 322 UNDER THE RED ROBE. 
 
 It was a fine morning; sunny, keen, pleasant. 
 Even the streets smelled fresh. But I scarcely 
 noticed it. All my thoughts were where I was 
 going. It seemed but a step from my threshold 
 to the Hotel Richelieu. I was no sooner gone 
 from the one than I found myself at the other. 
 As on the memorable evening, when I had 
 crossed the street in a drizzling rain, and looked 
 that way with foreboding, there were two or 
 three guards in the Cardinal's livery, loitering 
 before the gates. But this was not all. Coming 
 nearer, I found the opposite pavement under the 
 Louvre thronged with people; not moving about 
 their business, but standing all silent, all look- 
 ing across furtively, all with the air of persons 
 who wished to be thought passing by. Their 
 silence and their keen looks had in some way 
 an air of menace. Looking back after I had 
 turned in towards the gates, I found them devour- 
 ing me with their eyes. 
 
 Certainly they had little else to look at. In 
 the courtyard, where some mornings when the 
 court was in Paris I had seen a score of coaches 
 waiting and thrice as many servants, were now
 
 ST. MARTIN'S EVE. 323 
 
 emptiness and sunshine and stillness. The offi- 
 cer, who stood twisting his mustachios, on guard, 
 looked at me in wonder as I passed. The lack- 
 eys lounging in the portico, and all too much 
 taken up with whispering to make a pretence 
 of being of service, grinned at my appearance. 
 But that which happened when I had mounted 
 the stairs, and come to the door of the ante- 
 chamber, outdid all. The man on guard there 
 would have opened the door ; but when I went 
 to take advantage of the offer, and enter, a major- 
 domo, who was standing near, muttering with 
 two or three of his kind, hastened forward and 
 stopped me. 
 
 " Your business, Monsieur, if you please ? " 
 he said inquisitively. And I wondered why the 
 others looked at me so strangely. 
 
 " I am M. de Berault," I answered sharply. 
 " I have the entrte." 
 
 He bowed politely enough. " Yes, M. de 
 Berault, I have the honour to know your face," 
 he said. " But pardon me. Have you business 
 with His Eminence ? " 
 
 "I have the common business," I answered 
 
 v 2
 
 324 UNDER THE RED ROBE. 
 
 bluntly, "by which many of us live, sirrah! to 
 wait on him." 
 
 "But by appointment, Monsieur?" he per- 
 sisted. 
 
 "No," I said, astonished. "It is the usual 
 hour. For the matter of that, however, I have 
 business with him." 
 
 The man looked at me for a moment, in 
 apparent embarrassment. Then he stood reluct- 
 antly aside, and signed to the door-keeper to 
 open the door. I passed in, uncovering, with an 
 assured face, ready to meet all eyes. Then in a 
 moment, on the threshold, the mystery was 
 explained. 
 
 The room was empty.
 
 CHAPTER XIV, 
 sr, MARTIN'S SUMMER. 
 
 YES, at the great Cardinal's levte I was the 
 only client. I stared round the room, a long 
 narrow gallery, through which it was his custom 
 to walk every morning, after receiving his more 
 important visitors. I stared, I say, round this 
 room, in a state of stupefaction. The seats 
 against either wall were empty, the recesses of 
 the windows empty too. The hat, sculptured 
 and painted here and there, the staring R, the 
 blazoned arms, looked down on a vacant floor. 
 Only, on a little stool by the main door, sat a 
 quiet-faced man in black, who read, or pretended 
 to read, in a little book, and never looked up. 
 One of those men, blind, deaf, secretive, who fatten 
 in the shadow of the great 
 
 At length, while I stood confounded and full 
 of shamed thought, for I had seen the ante- 
 
 325
 
 326 UNDER THE RED ROBE. 
 
 chamber of Richelieu's old hotel so crowded that 
 he could not walk through it, this man closed 
 his book, rose, and came noiselessly towards me. 
 " M. de Berault ? " he said. 
 
 "Yes," I answered. 
 
 " His Eminence awaits you. Be good enough 
 to follow me." 
 
 I did so, in a deeper stupor than before. For 
 how could the Cardinal know that I was here ? 
 How could he have known when he gave the 
 order? But I had short time to think of these 
 things. We passed through two rooms, in one 
 of which some secretaries were writing ; we 
 stopped at a third door. Over all brooded a 
 silence which could be felt. The usher knocked, 
 opened, and with his finger on his lip, pushed 
 aside a curtain, and signed to me to enter. I did 
 so, and found myself standing behind a screen. 
 
 " Is that M. de Berault ? " asked a thin, high- 
 pitched voice. 
 
 "Yes, Monseigneur," I answered, trembjing. 
 
 "Then come, my friend, and talk to me." 
 
 I went round the screen ; and I know not how 
 it was, the watching crowd outside, the vacant
 
 ST. MARTINIS SUMMER. 327 
 
 antechamber in which I had stood, the stillness, 
 all seemed concentrated here, and gave to the 
 man I saw before me, a dignity which he had 
 never possessed for me when the world passed 
 through his doors, and the proudest fawned on 
 him for a smile. He sat in a great chair on the 
 farther side of the hearth, a little red skull-cap on 
 his head, his fine hands lying motionless in his lap. 
 The collar of lawn which fell over his red cape 
 was quite plain, but the skirts of his red robe 
 were covered with rich lace, and the order of the 
 Holy Ghost shone on his breast. Among the 
 multitudinous papers on the great table near him 
 I saw a sword and pistols lying ; and some tapes- 
 try that covered a little table behind him failed 
 to hide a pair of spurred riding-boots. But he 
 in spite of these signs of trouble looked 
 towards me as I advanced, with a face mild and 
 almost benign; a face in which I strove in vain 
 to find traces of last night's passion. So that it 
 flashed across me that if this man really stood 
 and afterwards I knew he did on the thin 
 razor-edge between life and death, between the 
 supreme of earthly power, lord of France, and
 
 328 UNDER THE RED ROBE. 
 
 arbiter of Europe, and the nothingness of the 
 clod, he justified his fame. He gave weaker 
 natures no room for triumph. 
 
 The thought was no sooner entertained than 
 it was gone. "And so you are back at last, 
 M. de Berault?" he said, gently. "I have been 
 expecting to see you since nine this morning." 
 
 "Your Eminence knew then " I muttered. 
 
 "That you returned to Paris by the Orleans 
 gate last evening, alone?" He fitted together 
 the ends of his fingers, and looked at me over 
 them with inscrutable eyes. " Yes, I knew all 
 that last night. And now of your mission ? You 
 have been faithful, and dDigent, I am sure. 
 Where is he ? " 
 
 I stared at him, and was dumb. Somehow the 
 strange things I had seen since I left my lodg- 
 ing, the surprises I had found awaiting me here, 
 had driven my own fortunes, my own peril, out 
 of my head, until this moment Now, at his 
 question, all returned with a rush. My heart 
 heaved suddenly in my breast. I strove for a 
 savour of the old hardihood ; but for the moment 
 I could not find a word.
 
 ST. MARTINIS SUMMER. 329 
 
 "Well?" he said lightly, a faint smile lifting 
 his mustache. "* You do not speak. You left 
 Auch with him on the twenty-fourth, M. de 
 Berault. So much I know. And you reached 
 Paris without him last night. He has not given 
 you the slip ? " with sudden animation. 
 
 "No, Monseigneur," I muttered. 
 
 '" Hal That is good," he answered, sinking 
 back again in his chair. " For the moment 
 but I knew I could depend on you. And now 
 where is he ? " he continued. " What have you 
 done with him ? He knows much, and the sooner 
 I know it, the better. Are your people bringing 
 him, M. de Berault?" 
 
 " No, Monseigneur," I stammered, with dry 
 lips. His very good humour, his benignity, 
 appalled me. I knew how terrible would be the 
 change, how fearful his rage, when I should tell 
 him the truth. And yet that I, Gii de Berault, 
 should tremble before any man ! I spurred my- 
 self, as it were, to the task. "No, Your Emi* 
 nence," I said, with the courage of <?e$rjiir. "1 
 have not brought him, because I have $*- bin? 
 free."
 
 330 UNDER THE RED ROBE. 
 
 "Because you have what?" he exclaimed. 
 He leaned forward, his hands on the arm of his 
 chair; and his glittering eyes, growing each 
 instant smaller, seemed to read my soul. 
 
 " Because I have let him go," I repeated. 
 
 " And why ? " he said, in a voice like the 
 rasping of a file. 
 
 " Because I took him unfairly," I answered 
 desperately. " Because, Monseigneur, I am a 
 gentleman, and this task should have been given 
 to one who was not. I took him, if you must 
 know," I continued impatiently, the fence once 
 crossed, I was growing bolder, " by dogging a 
 woman's steps, and winning her confidence, and 
 betraying it. And, whatever I have done ill in 
 my life, of which you were good enough to 
 throw something in my teeth when I was last 
 here, I have never done that, and I will not ! " 
 
 " And so you set him free ? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " After you had brought him to Auch ? " 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "And in point of fact saved him from falling 
 into the hands of the commandant at Auch?"
 
 ST. MARTINIS SUMMER. 331 
 
 "Yes," I answered desperately. 
 
 " Then what of the trust I placed in you, 
 sirrah ? " he rejoined, in a terrible voice ; and 
 stooping still farther forward, he probed me 
 with his eyes. "You who prate of trust and 
 confidence, who received your life on parole, 
 and but for your promise to me would have been 
 carrion this month past, answer me that ! What 
 of the trust I placed in you ? " 
 
 " The answer is simple," I said, shrugging my 
 shoulders with a touch of my old self. " I am 
 here to pay the penalty." 
 
 " And do you think that I do not know why ? " 
 he retorted, striking his one hand on the arm 
 of the chair with a force which startled me. 
 " Because you have heard, Sir, that my power 
 is gone ! That I, who was yesterday the King's 
 right hand, am to-day dried up, withered, and 
 paralyzed ! Because but have a care ! Have 
 a care ! " he continued not loudly, but in a voice 
 like a dog's snarl. "You, and those others! 
 Have a care I say, or you may find yourselves 
 mistaken yet ! " 
 
 " As Heaven shall judge me," I answered
 
 332 UNDER THE RED ROBE. 
 
 solemnly, "that is not true. Until I reached 
 Paris last night I knew nothing of this report. 
 I came here with a single mind, to redeem my 
 honour by placing again in Your Eminence's 
 hands that which you ga\e me on trust" 
 
 For a moment he remained in the same atti- 
 tude, staring at me fixedly. Then his face some- 
 what relaxed. " Be good enough to ring that 
 bell," he said. 
 
 It stood on a table near me. I rang it, and 
 a velvet-footed man in black came in, and gliding 
 up to the Cardinal placed a paper in his hand. 
 The Cardinal looked at it while the man stood 
 with his head obsequiously bent ; my heart beat 
 furiously. "Very good," the Cardinal said, after 
 a pause, which seemed to me to be endless. 
 " Let the doors be thrown open." 
 
 The man bowed low, and retired behind the 
 screen. I heard a little bell ring, somewhere in 
 the silence, and in a moment the Cardinal stood 
 up. " Follow me 1 " he said, with a strange flash 
 of his keen eyes. 
 
 Astonished, I stood aside while he passed to 
 the screen; then I followed him. Outside the
 
 ST. MARTIN'S SUMMER. 333 
 
 first door, which stood open, we found eight 
 or nine persons, pages, a monk, the major-domo, 
 and several guards waiting like mutes. These 
 signed to me to precede them, and fell in behind 
 us, and in that order we passed through the first 
 room and the second, where the clerks stood 
 with bent heads to receive us. The last door, 
 the door of the antechamber, flew open as we 
 approached ; a score of voices cried, " Place ! 
 Place for His Eminence ! " We passed without 
 pause through two lines of bowing lackeys, and 
 entered an empty room ! 
 
 The ushers did not know how to look at one 
 another. The lackeys trembled in their shoes. 
 But the Cardinal walked on, apparently unmoved, 
 until he had passed slowly half the^length of 
 the chamber. Then he turned himself about, 
 looking first to one side; and then to another, 
 with a low laugh of derision. " Father," he said, 
 in his thin voice, "what does the psalmist say? 
 ' I am become like a pelican in the wilderness, 
 and like an owl that is in the desert ! ' " 
 
 The monk mumbled assent. 
 
 "And later, in the same psalm is it not writ-
 
 334 UNDER THE RED ROBL. 
 
 ten, ' They shall perish, but thou shalt en- 
 dure!'" 
 
 "It is so," the father answered. "Amen." 
 
 " Doubtless that refers to another life," the 
 Cardinal continued, with his slow, wintry smile. 
 " In the meantime we will go back to our book? 
 and our prayers, and serve God and the King 
 in small things, if not in great. Come, father, 
 this is no longer a place for us. Vanitas vani- 
 tatum ; omnia vanitas ! We will retire." 
 
 So, as solemnly as we had come, we marched 
 back through the first and second and third 
 doors, until we stood again in the silence of the 
 Cardinal's chamber; he and I and the velvet- 
 footed man in black. For a while Richelieu 
 seemed to forget me. He stood brooding on 
 the hearth, with his eye's on the embers. Once 
 I heard him laugh; and twice he uttered in a 
 tone of bitter mockery, the words, " Fools ! 
 Fools! Fools!" 
 
 At last he looked up, saw me, and started. 
 "Ah!" he said. "I had forgotten you. Well, 
 you are fortunate, M. de Berault. Yesterday 
 I had a hundred clients. To-day I have only
 
 ST. MARTINIS SUMMER, 335 
 
 one, and I cannot afford to hang him. But for 
 your liberty that is another matter." 
 
 I would have said something, but he turned 
 abruptly to the table, and sitting down wrote a 
 few lines on a piece of paper. Then he rang 
 his bell, while I stood waiting and confounded. 
 
 The man in black came from behind the screen. 
 "Take that letter and this gentleman to the 
 upper guard-room," His Eminence said sharply. 
 " I can hear no more," he continued wearily, 
 raising his hand to forbid interruption. "The 
 matter is ended, M. de Berault. Be thankful." 
 
 And in a moment I was outside the door, my 
 head in a whirl, my heart divided between grati- 
 tude and resentment. Along several passages 
 I followed my guide ; everywhere finding the 
 same silence, the same monastic stillness. At 
 length, when I had begun to consider whether 
 the Bastile or the Chatelet would be my fate, 
 he stopped at a door, gave me the letter, and, 
 lifting the latch, signed to me to enter. 
 
 I went in in amazement, and stopped in con- 
 fusion. Before me, alone, just risen from a 
 chair, with her face one moment pale, the next
 
 336 UNDER THE RED ROBE. 
 
 red with blushes, stood Mademoiselle de Coche* 
 foret. I cried out her name. 
 
 " M. de Berault ! " she said, visibly trembling. 
 " You did not expect to see me ? " 
 
 " I expected to see no one so little, Made- 
 moiselle," I answered, striving to recover my 
 composure. 
 
 "Yet you might have thought that we should 
 not utterly desert you," she replied, with a 
 reproachful humility which went to my heart. 
 "We should have been base indeed, if we had 
 not made some attempt to save you. I thank 
 Heaven that it has so far succeeded that that 
 strange man has promised me your life. You 
 have seen him ? " she continued eagerly, and in 
 another tone, while her eyes grew suddenly large 
 with fear. 
 
 " Yes, Mademoiselle, I have seen him," I said. 
 "And he has given me my life." 
 
 " And ? " 
 
 "And sent me to imprisonment." 
 
 41 For how long ? " she whispered. 
 
 " I do not know," I answered. " I expect, dur= 
 ing the King's pleasure."
 
 ST. MARTINS SUMMER. 337 
 
 She shuddered. " I may have done more harm 
 than good," she murmured, looking at me pite- 
 ously. " But I did it for the best. I told him 
 all, and yes, perhaps I did harm." 
 
 But to hear her accuse herself thus, when she 
 had made this long and lonely journey to save 
 me ; when she had forced herself into her enemy's 
 presence, and had, as I was sure she had, abased 
 herself for me, was more than I could bear. 
 " Hush, Mademoiselle, hush ! " I said, almost 
 roughly. "You hurt me. You have made me 
 happy : and yet I wish that you were not here, 
 where I fear you have few friends, but back 
 at Cocheforet. You have done more than I 
 expected, and a hundred times more than I de- 
 served. But I was a ruined man before this 
 happened. I am no /more now, but I am still 
 that; and I would not have your name pinned 
 to mine on Paris lips. Therefore, good-bye. God 
 forbid I should say more to you, or let you stay 
 '.vhere foul tongues would scon malign you." 
 
 She looked at me in a kind of wonder; then 
 with a growing smile, "It is too late," she said 
 gently.
 
 338 UNDER THE RED ROBE. 
 
 " Too late ? " I exclaimed. " How, Mademoi- 
 selle?" 
 
 "Because do you remember, M. de Berault, 
 what you told me of your love story, by Agen ? 
 That it could have no happy ending ? For the 
 same reason I was not ashamed to tell mine to the 
 Cardinal. By this time it is common property." 
 
 I looked at her as she stood facing me. Her 
 eyes shone, but they were downcast. Her figure 
 drooped, and yet a smile trembled on her lips. 
 " What did you tell him, Mademoiselle ? " I 
 whispered, my breath coming quickly. 
 
 "That I loved," she answered boldly, raising 
 her clear eyes to mine. " And therefore that I 
 was not ashamed to beg, even on my knees. Nor 
 ashamed to be with my lover, even in prison." 
 
 I fell on my knees, and caught her hand before 
 the last word passed her lips. For the moment 
 I forgot King and Cardinal, prison and the future, 
 all all except that this woman, so pure and 
 so beautiful, so far above me in all things, loved 
 me. For the moment, I say. Then I remem 
 bered myself. I stood up and thrust her from 
 me, in a sudden revulsion of feeling. "You do
 
 .ST. MARTINIS SUMMER. 339 
 
 not know me," I said. "You do not know me. 
 You do not know what I have done." 
 
 " That is what I do know," she answered, look- 
 ing at me with a wondrous smile. 
 
 " Ah, but you do not," I cried. " And besides, 
 there is this this between us." And I picked 
 up the Cardinal's letter. It had fallen on the 
 floor. 
 
 She turned a shade paler. Then she said, 
 " Open it ! Open it ! It is not sealed, nor 
 closed." 
 
 I obeyed mechanically, dreading what I might 
 see. Even when I had it open I looked at the 
 finely scrawled characters with eyes askance. But 
 at last I made it out. 1'c^an thus: 
 
 "The King's pleasure is, that M. de Berault, having mixed 
 himself up with aftairs of state, retire forthwith to the manor 
 of Cocheforet, and confine himself within its limits, until 
 
 the King's pleasure be further known. 
 
 " RICHELIEU." 
 
 On the next day we were married. The same 
 evening we left Paris, and I retraced, in her com- 
 pany, the road which I had twice traversed alone 
 
 and in heaviness. 
 
 z 2
 
 340 UNDER THE RED ROBE. 
 
 A fortnight later we were at Cocheforet, in the 
 brown woods under the southern mountains ; and 
 the great Cardinal, once more triumphant over 
 his enemies, saw, with cold, smiling eyes, the 
 world pass through his chamber. The flood-tide, 
 which then set in, lasted thirteen years; in brief, 
 until his death. For the world had learned its 
 lesson, and was not to be deceived a second time. 
 To this hour they call that day, which saw me 
 stand for all his friends, "The day of Dupes.'' 
 
 THE END 

 
 . 
 COUNT HANNIBAL
 
 SORORI 
 
 SUA CAUSSX CARAE 
 
 PIO ERGA MATREM AMORE 
 
 ETIAM CARIORI 
 
 HOC PRATER
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTEk PAGE 
 
 I. URIMSON FAVOURS ... ... ... ... 1 
 
 II. HANNIBAL DE SAULX, COMTE DE TAVANNES 14 
 
 III. THE HOUSE NEXT THE GOLDEN MAID ... 28 
 
 IV. THE EVE OP THE FEAST ... ... 36 
 
 V. A ROUGH WOOING ... ... ... ... 47 
 
 VI. " WHO TOUCHES TAVANNES ?" ... ... 58 
 
 VII. IN THE AMPHITHEATRE ... ... ... 6y 
 
 VIII. Two HENS AND AN EGO 
 IX. UNSTABLE ... 
 X. MADAME ST. Lo 
 
 XI. A BARGAIN ... ... ... /.. 
 
 XII. IN THE HALL OP THE LOUVRE ... .../ 124 
 
 XIII. DIPLOMACY ... ... ... ... 138 
 
 XIV. Too SHORT A SPOON ... ... ... 152 
 
 XV. THE BROTHER OF ST. MAG LOIRE ... ... 163 
 
 XVI. AT CLOSE QUARTERS ... ... ... 173 
 
 XVII. THE DUEL ... ... ... 180 
 
 XVIII. ANDROMEDA, PERSEUS BEING ABSENT ... 194 
 
 XIX. IN THE ORLEANNAIS ... ... ... 205 
 
 XX. ON THE CASTLE HILL ... ... ... 216 
 
 XXI. SHE WOULD AND WOULD NOT ... .. 226
 
 vi CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 XXII. PLAYING WITH FIKE ... ... ... 236 
 
 XXIII. A MIND AND NOT A MIND ... ... 247 
 
 XXIV. AT THE KCNG'S INN ... 259 
 
 XXV. THE COMPANY OF THE BLEEDING HEART 271 
 
 XXVI. TEMPER ... ... 280 
 
 XXVII. THE BLACK TOWN 288 
 
 XXVIII. IN THE LITTLE CHAPTER HOUSE ... 304 
 
 XXIX. THE ESCAPE 315 
 
 XXX. SACRILEGE! ... ... ... ... 330 
 
 XXXI. THE FLIGHT FROM ANGERS ... ... ... 338 
 
 XXXII. ORDEAL BY STEEL ... ... ... 350 
 
 XXXIII. THE AMBUSH 357 
 
 XXXIV. "WHICH 'WILL YOU, MADAME?" 372 
 
 XXXV. AGAINST THE WALL ... ... ... 384 
 
 XXXVI. His KINGDOM 396
 
 COUNT HANNIBAL. 
 
 CHAPTEE L 
 
 CRIMSON FAVOURS. 
 
 M. DE TAVANTSTES smiled. Mademoiselle averted her 
 eyes, and shivered; as if the air, even of that close 
 summer night, entering by the door at her elbow, 
 chilled her. And then came a welcome interrup- 
 tion. 
 
 "Tavannes!" 
 
 "Sire!" 
 
 Count Hannibal rose slowly. The King had called, 
 and he had no choice but to obey and go. Yet he 
 hung a last moment over his companion, his hateful 
 breath stirring her hair. "Our pleasure is cut short 
 too soon, Mademoiselle," he said, in the tone and 
 with the look she loathed. "But for a few hours 
 only. We shall meet to-morrow. Or, it may be 
 earlier." 
 
 She did not answer, and "Tavannes!" the King 
 repeated with violence. " Tavannes ! Mordieu ! " his 
 Majesty continued, looking round furiously. "Will 
 no one fetch him? Sacre nom, am I King, or a dog 
 of a " 
 
 " I come, sire ! " Count Hannibal cried in haste. 
 1
 
 2 COUNT HANKTBAL. 
 
 For Charles, King of France, Xinth of the name, was 
 none of the most patient ; and scarce another in the 
 Court would have ventured to keep him waiting so 
 long. "I come, sire; I come!" Tavaunes repeated, 
 as he moved from her side. 
 
 He shouldered his way through the circle of cour- 
 tiers, who barred the road to the presence, and in 
 part hid Mademoiselle from observation. He pushed 
 past the table at which Charles and the Comte de 
 Kochefoucauld had been playing primero, and at 
 which the latter still sat, trifling idly with the cards. 
 Three more paces, and he reached the King, who 
 stood in the ruellc with Kambouillet and the Italian 
 Marshal. It was the latter who, a moment before, 
 had summoned his Majesty from his game. 
 
 Mademoiselle, watching him go, saw so much ; so 
 much, and the King's roving eyes and haggard face, 
 and the four figures, posed apart in the fuller light of 
 the upper half of the Chamber. Then the circle 01 
 courtiers came together before her, and she sat back 
 on her stool. A fluttering, long-drawn sigh escaped 
 her. Xow, if she could slip out and make her escape ! 
 Xow she looked round. She was not far from the 
 door; to withdraw seemed easy. But a staring, whis- 
 pering knot of gentlemen and pages blocked the way;" 
 and the girl, ignorant of the etiquette of the Court 
 and with no more than a week's experience of Paris, 
 had not the courage to rise and pass alone through 
 the group. 
 
 She had come to the Louvre this Saturday evening 
 under the wing of Madame d'Yverue, her fiance's 
 cousin. By ill hap Madame had been summoned to 
 the Princess Dowager's closet, and perforce had left 
 her. Still, Mademoiselle had her betrothed, and iu
 
 CRIMSON FAVOURS. 3 
 
 his charge had sat herself down to wait, uoihing loth, 
 in the great gallery, where all was bustle and gaiety 
 and entertainment. For this, the seventh day of the 
 fetes, held to celebrate the marriage of the King of 
 Navarre and Charles's sister a marriage which was 
 to reconcile the two factions of the Huguenots and the 
 Catholics, so long at war saw the Louvre as gay, as 
 full, and as lively as the first of the fete days had 
 found it ; and in the humours of the throng, in the 
 ceaseless passage of masks and maids of honour, 
 guards and bishops, Swiss in the black, white and 
 green of Anjou, and Huguenot nobles in more som- 
 bre habits, the country -bred girl had found recreation 
 and to spare. Until gradually the evening had worn 
 away and she had begun to feel nervous ; and IVLde- 
 Tignonville, her betrothed, placing her in the emora- 
 sure of a wii;dow, had gone to seek Madame, i 
 
 She had waited for a time without much misgiyin| 
 expecting each moment to see him return. He would 
 be back before she could count a hundred ; he would 
 be back before she could u unite, 1 the leagues that 
 separated her from her beloved province, and the 
 home by the Biscay Sea, to which even in that bril- 
 liant scene her thoughts turned fondly. But the min- 
 utes had passed, and passed, and he had not returned. 
 Worse, in his place Tavannes not the Marshal, but 
 his brother Count Hannibal had found her; he, 
 whose odious court, at once a menace and an insult, 
 had subtly enveloped her for a week past. He had 
 sat down beside her, he had taken possession of her, 
 and, profiting by her inexperience, had played on her 
 fears and smiled at her dislike. Finally, whether she 
 would or no, he had swept her with him into the 
 Chamber. The rest had been an obsession, a night-
 
 4 COUNT HANNIBAL. 
 
 mare, from which only the King's voice summoning 
 Tavannes to his side had relieved her. 
 
 Her aim now was to escape before he returned, 
 and before another, seeing her alone, adopted his rdle 
 and was rude to her. Already the courtiers about 
 her were beginning to stare, the pages to turn and 
 titter and whisper. Direct her gaze as she might, 
 she met some eye watching her, some couple enjoying 
 her confusion. To make matters worse, she presently 
 discovered that she was the only woman in the Cham- 
 ber; and she conceived the notion that she had no 
 right to be there at that hour. At the thought her 
 cheeks burned, her eyes dropped ; the room seemed 
 to buzz with her name, with gross words and jests, 
 and gibes at her expense. 
 
 At last, when the situation had grown nearly un- 
 bearable, the group before the door parted, and Tig- 
 nonville appeared. The girl rose with a cry of relief, 
 and he came to her. The courtiers glanced at the 
 two and smiled. 
 
 He did not conceal his astonishment at finding her 
 there. "But, Mademoiselle, how is this?" he asked 
 in a low voice. He was as conscious of the attention 
 they attracted as she was, and as uncertain on the 
 point of her right to be there. "I left you in the gal- 
 lery. I came back, missed you, and " 
 
 She stopped him by a gesture. " Not here ! " she 
 muttered, with suppressed impatience. "I will tell 
 you outside. Take me take me out, if you please, 
 Monsieur, at once ! " 
 
 He was as glad to be gone as she was to go. The 
 group by the doorway parted ; she passed through it, 
 he followed. In a moment the two stood in the great 
 gallery, above the Salle des Caryatides. The crowd
 
 CEIMSON FAVOURS. 5 
 
 which had paraded here an hour before was gone, 
 and the vast echoing apartment, used at that date as 
 a guard-room, was well-nigh empty. Only at rare 
 intervals, in the embrasure of a window or the recess 
 of a door, a couple talked softly. At the farther end, 
 near the head of the staircase which led to the hall 
 below, and the courtyard, a group of armed Swiss 
 lounged on guard. Mademoiselle shot a keen glance 
 up and down, then she turned to her lover, her face 
 hot with indignation. 
 
 "Why did you leave me?" she asked. "Why did 
 you leave me, if you could not come back at once ? 
 Do you understand, sir," she continued, "that it was 
 at your instance I came to Paris, that I came to this 
 Court, and that I look to you for protection!? " 
 
 " Surely, " he said. " And " 
 
 "And do you think Carlat and his wife fit guar- 
 dians for me? Should I have come or thought of 
 coming to this wedding, but for your promise, liml 
 Madame your cousin's? If I had not deemed myself 
 almost your wife," she continued warmly, "and se- 
 cure of your protection, should I have come within 
 a hundred miles of this dreadful city? To which, 
 had I my will, none of our people should have come. " 
 
 "Dreadful? Pardieu, not so dreadful," he an- 
 swered, smiling, and striving to give the dispute a 
 playful turn. "You have seen more in a week than 
 you would have seen at Vrillac in a lifetime, Made- 
 moiselle. " 
 
 "And I choke!" she retorted; "I choke! Do you 
 not see how they look at us, at us Huguenots, in the 
 street? How they, who live here, point at us and 
 eurse us ? How the very dogs scent us out and snarl 
 at our heels, and the babes cross themselves when we
 
 6 COUNT HANNIBAL. 
 
 go by? Can you see the Place des Gastines arid not 
 think what stood there? Can you pass the Greve at 
 night and not fill the air above the river with screams 
 and wailings aud horrible cries the cries of our peo- 
 ple murdered on that spot ? " She paused for breath, 
 recovered herself a little, and in a lower tone, "For 
 me," she said, "I think of Philippine de Lims by day 
 and by night ! The eaves are a threat to me ; the tiles 
 would fall on us had they their will ; the houses nod 
 to to " 
 
 "To what, Mademoiselle? " he asked, shrugging his 
 shoulders and assuming a tone of cynicism. 
 
 "To crush us! Yes, Monsieur, to crush us!" 
 
 "And all this because I left you for a moment? " 
 
 "For an hour or well-nigh an hour," she answered 
 more soberly. 
 
 "But if I could not help it? " 
 
 "You should have thought of that before you 
 brought me to Paris, Monsieur. In these troublous 
 times. " 
 
 He coloured warmly. "You are unjust, Mademoi- 
 selle," he said. " There are things you forget; in a 
 Court one is not always master of oneself. " 
 
 "I know it," she answered drily, thinking of that 
 through which she had gone. 
 
 "But you do not know what happened!" he re- 
 turned with impatience. "You do not understand 
 that I am not to blame. Madame d'Yverne, when I 
 reached the Princess Dowager's closet, had left to go 
 to the Queen of Navarre. I hurried after her, and 
 found a score of gentlemen in the King of Navarre's 
 chamber. They were holding a council, and they 
 begged, nay, they compelled me to remain." 
 
 "And it was that which detained you so long?"
 
 CKIMSON FAVOURS. 7 
 
 "To be sure, Mademoiselle." 
 
 "And not Madame St. Lo? " 
 
 M. de Tiguonville's face turned scarlet. The thrust 
 in tierce was unexpected. This then was the key to 
 Mademoiselle's spirt of temper. "I do not under- 
 stand you," he stammered. 
 
 "How long were you in the King of Navarre's 
 chamber, and how long with Madame St. Lo ? " she 
 asked with fine irony. "Or no, I will not tempt 
 you," she went on quickly, seeing him hesitate. "I 
 heard you talking to Madame St. Lo in the gallery 
 while I sat within. And I know how long you were 
 with her." 
 
 "I met Madame as I returned," he stammered, his 
 face still hot, "and I asked her where you were. I 
 did not know, Mademoiselle, that I was, not to speak 
 to ladies of my acquaintance. " 
 
 "I was alone, and I was waiting." 
 
 "I could not know that for certain," he answered, 
 making the best of it. " You were not where I left 
 you. I thought, I confess that you had gone. That 
 you had gone home." 
 
 "With whom? With whom?" she repeated piti- 
 lessly. "Was it likely? With whom was I to go? 
 And yet it is true, I might have gone home had I 
 pleased with M. de Tavannes ! Yes, " she continued, 
 in a tone of keen reproach and with the blood mount- 
 ing to her forehead, "it is to that, Monsieur, you ex- 
 pose me! To be pursued, molested, harassed by a 
 man whose look terrifies me, and whose touch I I 
 detest! To be addressed wherever I go by a man 
 whose every word proves that he thinks me game for 
 the hunter, and you a thing he may neglect. You 
 are a man and you do not know, you cannot know
 
 8 COUNT HANNIBAL. 
 
 what I suffer ! What I have suffered this week past 
 whenever you have left my side ! " 
 
 Tignonville looked gloomy. " What has he said to 
 you 1 ? " he asked, between his teeth. 
 
 "Nothing I can tell you," she answered with a 
 shudder. "It was he who took me into the Cham- 
 ber." 
 
 "Why did you go?" 
 
 "Wait until he bids you do something," she an- 
 swered. "His manner, his smile, his tone, all fright- 
 en me. And to-night, in all these there was a some- 
 thing worse, a hundred times worse than when I saw 
 him last on Thursday ! He seemed to to gloat on 
 me," the girl stammered, with a flush of shame, "as 
 if I were his ! Oh, Monsieur, I wish we had not left 
 our Poitou ! Shall we ever see Vrillac again, and the 
 fishers' huts about the port, and the sea beating blue 
 against the long brown causeway ? " 
 
 He had listened darkly, almost sullenly; but at 
 this, seeing the tears gather in her eyes, he forced a 
 laugh. "Why, you are as bad as M. de Rosny and 
 the Vidame ! " he said. " And they are as full of 
 fears as an egg is of meat ! Since the Admiral was 
 wounded by that scoundrel on Friday, they think all 
 Paris is in a league against us." 
 
 "And why not! " she asked, her cheek grown pale, 
 her eyes reading his eyes. 
 
 "Why not? Why, because it is a monstrous thing 
 even to think of ! " Tignonville answered, with the 
 confidence of one who did not use the argument for 
 the first time. "Could they insult the King more 
 deeply than by such a suspicion ? A Borgia may kill 
 his guests, but it was never a practice of the Kings of 
 France! Pardieu, I have no patience with them!
 
 CRIMSON FAVOURS. 9 
 
 They may lodge where they please, across th^ river, 
 or without the walls if they choose, the Rue de 
 1'Arbre Sec is good enough for me, and the King's 
 name sufficient surety ! " 
 
 "I know you are not apt to be fearful, " she an- 
 swered, smiling ; and she looked at him with a wo- 
 man's pride in her lover. "All the same, you will 
 not desert me again, sir, will you ? " 
 
 He vowed he would not, kissed her hand, looked 
 into her eyes ; then melting to her, stammering, blun- 
 dering, he named Madame St. Lo. She stopped him. 
 
 "There is no need," she said, answering his look\ 
 with kind eyes, and refusing to hear his protestations. 
 "In a fortnight will you not be my husband? How 
 should I distrust you? It was only that while she 
 talked, I waited I waited; and and that Madame 
 St. Lo is Count Hannibal's cousin. For a moment/I 
 was mad enough to dream that she held you oirpui- 
 pose. You do not think it was so ? " 
 
 " She ! " he cried sharply ; and he winced, as if the 
 thought hurt him. "Absurd! The truth is, Made- 
 moiselle, " he continued with a little heat, " you are 
 like so many of our people ! You think a Catholic 
 capable of the worst." 
 
 "We have long thought so at Vrillac," she an- 
 swered gravely. 
 
 "That's over now, if people would only under- 
 stand. This wedding has put an end to all that. 
 But I'm harking back," he continued awkwardly; 
 and he stopped. "Instead, let me take you home." 
 
 "If you please. Carlat and the servants should 
 be below." 
 
 He took her left hand in his right after the wont 
 of the day, and with his other hand touching his
 
 10 COUNT HANNIBAL. 
 
 sword-hilt, lie led her down the staircase, that by a 
 single turn reached the courtyard of the palace. 
 Here a mob of armed servants, of lacqueys, and 
 foot-boys, some bearing torches, and some carrying 
 their masters' cloaks and galoshes, loitered to and fro. 
 Had M. de Tignonville been a little more observant, 
 or a trifle less occupied with his own importance, he 
 might have noted more than one face which looked 
 darkly on him ; he might have caught more than one 
 overt sneer at his expense. But in the business of 
 summoning Carlat Mademoiselle de Vrillac's stew- 
 ard and major-domo he lost the contemptuous 
 " Christaudins ! " that hissed from a footboy's lips, 
 and the "Southern dogs!" that died in the rnous- 
 tachios of a bully in the livery of the King's brother. 
 He was engaged in finding the steward, and in aiding 
 him to cloak his mistress ; then with a ruffling air, a 
 new acquirement, which he had picked up since he 
 came to Paris, he made a way for her through the 
 crowd. A moment, and the three, followed by half 
 a dozen armed servants, bearing pikes and torches, 
 detached themselves from the throng, and crossing 
 the courtyard, with its rows of lighted windows, 
 passed out by the gate between the Tennis Courts, 
 and so into the Eue des Fosses de St. Germain. 
 
 Before them, against a sky in which the last faint 
 glow of evening still contended with the stars, the 
 spire and pointed arches of the church of St. Germain 
 rose darkly graceful. It was something after nine ; 
 the heat of the August day brooded over the crowded 
 city, and dulled the faint distant ring of arms and 
 armour that yet would make itself heard above the 
 hush; a hush which was not silence so much as a sub- 
 dued hum. As Mademoiselle passed the closed house
 
 CRIMSON FAVOURS. 11 
 
 beside the Cloister of St. Germain where only the day 
 before Admiral Coligny, the leader of the Huguenots, 
 had been wounded, she pressed her escort's hand, and 
 involuntarily drew nearer to him. But he laughed at 
 her. 
 
 "It was a private blow," lie said, answering her 
 unspoken thought. "It is like enough the Guises 
 sped it. But they know now what is the King's 
 will, and they have taken the hint and withdrawn 
 themselves. It will not happen again, Mademoiselle. 
 For proof, see the guards" they were passing the 
 end of the Rue Bethizy, in the corner house of which, 
 abutting on the Rue de 1'Arbre Sec, Coligny had his 
 lodgings "whom the King has placed for his secu- 
 rity. Fifty pikes under Cosseins." 
 
 "Cosseins 1 ?" she repeated. "But I thought Cos- 
 seins " 
 
 " Was not wont to love us ! " Tignonville answered 
 with a confident chuckle. " He was not. But the 
 dogs lick where the master wills, Mademoiselle. He 
 was not, but he does. This marriage has altered all." 
 
 "I hope it may not prove an unlucky one!" she 
 murmured. She felt impelled to say it. 
 
 "Xot it! " he answered confidently. "Why should 
 it?" 
 
 They stopped, as he spoke, before the last house, 
 at the corner of the Rue St. Houore opposite the 
 Croix du Tiroir ; which rose shadowy in the middle of 
 the four ways. He hammered on the door. 
 
 "But," she said softly, looking in his face, "the 
 change is sudden, is it not 1 The King was not wont 
 to be so good to us ! " 
 
 "The King was not King until now," he answered 
 " That is what I am trying to persuade our
 
 12 COUNT HANNIBAL. 
 
 people. Believe me, Mademoiselle, you may sleep 
 without fear ; and early in the morning I will be with 
 you. Carlat, have a care of your mistress until morn- 
 ing, and let Madame lie in her chamber. She is ner- 
 vous to-night. There, sweet, until morning! God 
 keep you, and pleasant dreams ! " 
 
 He uncovered, and bowing over her hand, kissed 
 it ; and the door being open he would have turned 
 away. But she lingered as if unwilling to enter. 
 "There is do you hear it a stir in that quarter?" 
 she said, pointing across the Rue St. Honore". "What 
 lies there ? " 
 
 "Northward? The markets," he answered. "'Tis 
 nothing. They say, you know, that Paris never 
 sleeps. Good-night, sweet, and a fair awakening ! " 
 
 She shivered as she had shivered under Tavannes' 
 eye. And still she lingered, keeping him. "Are 
 you going to your lodging at once ? " she asked for 
 the sake, it seemed, of saying something. 
 
 "'I?" he answered a little hurriedly. "No, I was 
 thinking of paying Eochefoucauld the compliment 
 of seeing him home. He has taken a new lodging to 
 be near the Admiral ; a horrid bare place in the Eue 
 Bethizy, without furniture, but he would go into it 
 to-day. And he has a sort of claim on my family, 
 you know. " 
 
 "Yes," she said simply. "Of course. Then I 
 must not detain you. God keep you safe, " she con- 
 tinued, with a faint quiver in her tone ; and her lip 
 trembled. "Good-night, and fair dreams, Monsieur." 
 
 He echoed the words gallantly. " Of you, sweet ! " 
 he cried ; and turning away with a gesture of fare- 
 well, he set off on his return. 
 
 He walked briskly, nor did he look back, though
 
 CRIMSON FAYOUES. 13 
 
 she stood awhile gazing after him. She was not 
 aware that she gave thought to this ; nor that it hurt 
 her. Yet when bolt and bar had shot behind her, 
 and she had mounted the cold, bare staircase of that 
 day when she had heard the dull echoing footsteps 
 of her attendants as they withdrew to their lairs and 
 sleeping-places, and still more when she had crossed 
 the threshold of her chamber, and signed to Madame 
 Carlat and her woman to listen it is certain she felt 
 a lack of something. 
 
 Perhaps the chill that possessed her came of that 
 lack, which she neither defined nor acknowledged. 
 Or possibly it came of the night air, August though 
 it was; or of sheer nervousness, or of the remem- 
 brance of Count Hannibal's smile. Whatever its 
 origin, she took it to bed with her ; and long after the 
 house slept round her, long after the crowded quarter 
 of the Halles had begun to heave and the Sorbonne t6 
 vomit a black-frocked band, long after the tall houses^ 
 in the gabled streets, from St. Antoine to Montmartre V 
 and from St. Denis on the north to St. Jacques on the 
 south, had burst into rows of twinkling lights nay, 
 long after the Quarter of the Louvre alone remained 
 dark, girdled by this strange midnight brightness she 
 lay awake. At length she too slept, and dreamed of 
 home and the wide skies of Poitou, and her castle of 
 Vrillac washed day and night by the Biscay tides.
 
 CHAPTEE II. 
 
 HANNIBAL DE SAULX, COMTE DE TAVANNES. 
 
 "TAVANNES!" 
 
 "Sire." 
 
 Tavannes, we know, had been slow to obey the 
 summons. Emerging from the crowd he found that 
 the King, with Eetz and Eambouillet, his Marshal 
 des Logis, had retired to the farther end of the 
 Chamber; apparently Charles had forgotten that he 
 had called. His head a littls bent he was tall and 
 had a natural stoop the King seemed to be listening 
 to a low but continuous murmur of voices which pro- 
 ceeded from the door of his closet. One voice fre- 
 quently raised was beyond doubt a woman's ; a foreign 
 accent, smooth and silky, marked another; a third, 
 that from time to time broke in, wilful and impetuous, 
 was the voice of Monsieur, the King's brother, Cathe- 
 rine de Medicis' favourite son. Tavannes, waiting 
 respectfully two paces behind the King, could catch 
 little that was said; but Charles, something more, 
 it seemed, for on a sudden he laughed, a violent, 
 mirthless laugh. And he clapped Eambouillet on the 
 shoulder. 
 
 -There! "he said, with one of his horrible oaths, 
 "'tis settled! 'Tis settled! Go, man, and take your 
 orders ! And you, M. de Eetz, " he continued, in a tone 
 of savage mockery, "go, my lord, and give them!" 
 
 "I, sire*" the Italian Marshal answered in accents
 
 HANNIBAL DE SAULX. 15 
 
 of deprecation. There were times when the young 
 King would show his impatience of the Italian ring, 
 the Retzs and Biragues, the Strozzis and Gondys, with 
 whom his mother surrounded him. 
 
 "Yes, you!" Charles answered. "You and my 
 lady mother ! And in God's name answer for it at the 
 day! " he continued vehemently. "You will have it! 
 You will not let me rest till you have it ! Then have 
 it, only see to it, it be done thoroughly! There shall 
 not be one left to cast it in the King's teeth and cry, 
 ' Et tu, Carole! ' Swim, swim in blood if you will," 
 he continued with growing wildness. "Oh, 'twall be 
 a merry night ! And it's true so far, you may kill 
 fleas all day, but burn the coat, and there's an end. 
 
 So burn it, burn it, and " He broke off with a 
 
 start as he discovered Tavannes at his elbow. " God's 
 death, man! " he cried roughly, "who sent for you? " 
 
 "Your Majesty called me," Tavannes answered; 
 while, partly urged by the King's hand, and pa; 
 anxious to escape, the others slipped into the closet 
 and left them together. 
 
 " I sent for you ? I called your brother, the Mar- 
 shal ! " 
 
 "He is within, sire," Tavannes answered, indicat- 
 ing the closet. "A moment ago I heard his voice." 
 
 Charles passed his shaking hand across his eyes. 
 "Is he?" he muttered. "So he is! I heard it too. 
 And and a man cannot be in two places^at once ! " 
 Then while his haggard gaze, passing by ' Tavauues, 
 roved round the Chamber, he laid his hand on Count 
 Hannibal's breast. "They give me no peace, Ma- 
 dame and the Guises, " he whispered, his face hectic 
 with excitement. "They will have it. They say that 
 Coliguy ~ they say that he beards me in my own pa-
 
 16 COUNT HANNIBAL. 
 
 lace. And and, mordieu," with sudden violence, 
 "it's true! It's true enough! It was but to-day he 
 was for making terms with me ! With me, the King ! 
 Making terms! So it shall be, by God and Devil, 
 it shall ! But not six or seven ! No, no. All ! All ! 
 There shall not be one left to say to me, 'You did 
 it!'" 
 
 "Softly, sire," Tavannes answered; for Charles 
 had gradually raised his voice. "You will be ob- 
 served. " 
 
 For the first time the young King he was but 
 twenty-two years old, God pity him! looked at his 
 companion. "To be sure," he whispered; and his 
 eyes grew cunning. "Besides, and after all, there's 
 another way, if I choose. Oh, I've thought and 
 thought, I'd have you know." And shrugging his 
 shoulders, almost to his ears, he raised and lowered his 
 open hands alternately, while his back hid the move- 
 ment from the Chamber. "See-saw! See-saw!" he 
 muttered. "And the King between the two, you see. 
 That's Madame's king-craft. She's shown me that a 
 hundred times. But look you, it is as easy to lower 
 the one as the other, " with a cunning glance at Tavan- 
 nes' face, " or to cut off the right as the left. And 
 and the Admiral's an old man and will pass; and for 
 the matter of that I like to hear him talk. He talks 
 well. "While the others, Guise and his kind, are young, 
 and I've thought, oh, yes, I've thought but there," 
 with a sudden harsh laugh, "my lady mother will 
 have it her own way. And for this time she shall, 
 but, All! All! Even Foucauld, there! Do you 
 mark him? He's sorting the cards. Do you see him 
 as he will be to-morrow, with the slit in his throat 
 and his teeth showing 1 Why, God ! " his voice rising
 
 HASTOTBAL DE SAULX. 17 
 
 almost to a scream, "the candles by him are burning 
 blue ! " And with a shaking hand, his face con- 
 vulsed, the young King clutched his companion's 
 arm, and pinched it. 
 
 Count Hannibal shrugged his shoulders, but an- 
 swered nothing. 
 
 "D'you think we shall see them afterwards?" 
 Charles resumed, in a sharp, eager whisper. "In our 
 dreams, man 1 ? Or when the watchman cries, and we 
 awake, and the monks are singing lauds at St. Ger- 
 main, and and the taper is low ? " 
 
 Tavannes' lip curled. "I don't dream, sire, "he 
 answered coldly, "and I seldom wake. For the rest, 
 I fear my enemies neither alive nor dead." 
 
 "Don't you? By G d, I wish I didn't," the young 
 man exclaimed. His brow was wet with sweat. "I 
 wish I didn't. But there, it's settled. They've set- 
 tled it, and I would it were done! What do you 
 think of of it, man? What do you think of it, 
 yourself?" 
 
 Count Hannibal's face was inscrutable. "I think 
 nothing, sire," he said drily. "It is for your Majesty 
 and your council to think. It is enough for me that 
 it is the King's will." 
 
 "But you'll not flinch?" Charles muttered, with a 
 quick look of suspicion. "But there," with a mon- 
 strous oath, "I know you'll not! I believe you'd as 
 soon kill a monk though, thank God," and he 
 crossed himself devoutly, "there is no question of 
 that as a man. And sooner than a maiden." 
 
 "Much sooner, sire," Tavannes answered grimly. 
 
 " If you have any orders in the monkish direction 
 
 no ? Then your Majesty must not talk to me longer. 
 
 M. de Bochefoucauld is beginning to wonder what is 
 
 2
 
 18 COUNT HANNIBAL. 
 
 keeping your Majesty from your game. And others 
 are marking you, sire." 
 
 " By the Lord ! " Charles exclaimed, a ring of wonder 
 mingled with horror in his tone, " if they knew what 
 was in our minds they'd mark us more! Yet, see 
 Nangay there beside the door? He is unmoved. He 
 looks to-day as he looked yesterday. Yet he has 
 charge of the work in the palace " 
 
 For the first time Tavannes allowed a movement of 
 surprise to escape him. "In the palace?" he mut- 
 tered. "Is it to be done here, too, sire? " 
 
 " Would you let some escape, to return by-and-by 
 and cut our throats ? " the King retorted with a 
 strange spirt of fury; an incapacity to maintain 
 the same attitude of mind for two minutes together 
 was the most fatal weakness of his ill -balanced na- 
 ture. "No. All! All!" he repeated with vehe- 
 mence. "Didn't Noah people the earth with eight? 
 But I'll not leave eight! My cousins, for they are 
 blood-royal, shall live if they will recant. And my 
 old nurse whether or no. And Pare, for no one else 
 understands my complexion. And ' 
 
 " And llochef oucauld, doubtless, sire?" 
 
 The King, whose eye had sought his favourite 
 companion, withdrew it. He darted a glance at 
 Tavanues. "Foucauld? Who said so ?" he muttered 
 jealously. " Not I ! But we shall see. We shall see ! 
 And do you see that you spare no one, M. le Conite, 
 without an order. That is your business. " 
 
 "I understand, sire," Tavannes answered coolly. 
 And after a moment's silence, seeing that the King had 
 done with him, he bowed low and withdrew ; watched 
 by the circle, as all about a King were watched in the 
 days wheu a King's breath meant life or death, and
 
 HANNIBAL DE SAULX. 19 
 
 his smile made the fortunes of men. As he passed 
 Rochefoucauld, the latter looked up and nodded. 
 
 "What keeps brother Charles?" he muttered. 
 "He's madder than ever to-night. Is it a masque or 
 a murder he is planning ? " 
 
 "The vapours, " Tavanues answered with a sneer. 
 "Old tales his old nurse has stuffed him withal. 
 He'll come by-and-by, and 'twill be well if you can 
 divert him." 
 
 "I will if he come," Eochefoucauld answered, shuf- 
 fling the cards. "If not 'tis Chicot's business and he 
 should attend to it. I'm tired and shall to bed." 
 
 "He will come, " Tavannes answered, and moved, 
 as if to go on. Then he paused for a last word. 
 "He will come," he muttered, stooping and speaking 
 under his breath, his eyes on the other's face. "But 
 play him lightly. He is in an ugly mood. Please 
 him, if you can, and it may serve. " 
 
 The eyes of the two met an instant, and those of 
 Foucauld so the King called his Huguenot favourite 
 betrayed some surprise ; for Count Hannibal and he 
 were not intimate. But seeing that the other was in 
 earnest, he raised his brows in acknowledgment. Ta- 
 vanues nodded carelessly in return, looked an instant 
 at the cards on the table, and passed on, pushed his 
 way through the circle, and reached the door. He 
 was lifting the curtain to go out, when Kaucay, the 
 Captain of the Guard, plucked his sleeve. 
 
 " What have you been saying to Foucauld, M. de 
 Tavannes? " he muttered. 
 
 " j? " 
 
 "Yes," with a jealous glance., "you, M. le Cointe." 
 Count Hannibal looked at him with the sudden 
 ferocity that made the man a proverb at Court.
 
 20 COUNT HANNIBAL. 
 
 "What I chose, M. le Capitaine des Suissesi" he 
 hissed. And his hand closed like a vice on the 
 other's wrist. "What I chose, look you! And re- 
 member, another time, that I am not a Huguenot, 
 and say what I please. " 
 
 "But there is great need of care," Nancay pro- 
 tested, stammering and flinching. "And and I have 
 orders, M. le Comte." 
 
 " Your orders are not for me, " Tavannes answered, 
 releasing his arm with a contemptuous gesture. 
 " And look you, man, do not cross my path to-night. 
 You know our motto 1 ? Who touches my brother, 
 touches Tavannes ! Be warned by it. " 
 
 Nanyay scowled. "But the priests say, 'If your 
 hand offend you, cut it off ! ' " he muttered. 
 
 Tavannes laughed, a sinister laugh. "If you 
 offend me I'll cut your throat," he said; and with no 
 ceremony he went out, and dropped the curtain be- 
 hind him. 
 
 Nancay looked after him, his face pale with rage. 
 "Curse him! "he whispered, rubbing his wrist. "If 
 he were anyone else I would teach him! But he 
 would as soon run you through in the presence as in 
 the Pr6 anx Clercs ! And his brother, the Marshal, 
 has the King's ear! And Madame Catherine's too, 
 which is worse ! " 
 
 He was still fuming when an officer in the colours 
 of Monsieur, the King's brother, entered hurriedly, 
 and keeping his hand on the curtain, looked anxiously 
 round the Chamber. As soon as his eye found Nan- 
 gay, his face cleared. "Have you the reckoning?" 
 he muttered 
 
 "There are seventeen Huguenots in the palace be- 
 sides their Highnesses, " Nancay replied, in the same
 
 HANNIBAL DE SAULX. 21 
 
 cautious tone. " Not counting two or three who are 
 neither the one thing nor the other. In addition, 
 there are the two Montmorencies ; but they are to go 
 safe for fear of their brother, who is not in the trap. 
 He is too like his father, the old Bench -burner, to be 
 lightly wronged ! And besides, there is Pare, who is 
 to go to his Majesty's closet as soon as the gates are 
 shut. If the King decides to save anyone else, he 
 will send him to his closet. So 'tis all clear and ar- 
 ranged here. If you are as forward outside, it will be 
 well ! Who deals with the gentleman with the tooth- 
 pick?" 
 
 "The Admiral? Monsieur, Guise, and the Grand 
 Prior ; Cosseins and Besme have charge. 'Tis to be 
 done first. Then the Provost will raise the town. 
 He will have a body of stout fellows ready at three or 
 four rendezvous, so that the fire may blaze up every- 
 where at once. Marcel, the ex-provost, has the same 
 commission south of the river. Orders to light the 
 town as for a frolic have been given, and the Halles 
 will be ready." 
 
 Nancay nodded, reflected a moment, and then with 
 an involuntary shudder, " God ! " he exclaimed, " it 
 will shake the world ! " 
 
 "You think so?" 
 
 "Ay, will it not!" His next words showed that 
 he bore Tavannes' warning in mind. "Forme, my 
 friend, I go in mail to-night," he said. "There will 
 be many a score paid before morning, besides his 
 Majesty's. And many a left-handed blow will be 
 struck in the melee ! " 
 
 The other crossed himself. "Grant none light 
 here ! " he said devoutly. And with a last look he 
 nodded and went out.
 
 22 COUNT HANNIBAL. 
 
 In the doorway he jostled a person who was in the 
 act of entering. It was M. de Tignonville, who, see- 
 ing Nangay at his elbow, saluted him, and stood look- 
 ing round. The young man's face was flushed, his 
 eyes were bright with unwonted excitement. "M. de 
 Eochefoucauld ? " he asked eagerly. "He has not left 
 yet?" 
 
 Nauyay caught the thrill in his voice, and marked 
 the young man's flushed face, and altered bearing. 
 He noted, too, the crumpled paper he carried half- 
 hidden in his hand; and the Captain's countenance 
 grew dark. He drew a step nearer and his hand 
 reached softly for his dagger. But his voice when he 
 spoke was smooth as the surface of the pleasure-lov- 
 ing Court, smooth as the externals of all things in 
 Paris that summer evening. "He is here still," he 
 said. "Have you news, M. de Tiguonville? " 
 
 "News?" 
 
 "For M. de Eochefoucauld? " 
 
 Tignonville laughed. "No, "he said. "I am hero 
 to see him to his lodging, that is all. News, Cap 
 tain? What made you think so? " 
 
 "That which you have in your haud," Naucay an 
 swered, his fears relieved. 
 
 The young man blushed to the roots of his hail 
 "It is not for him," he said. 
 
 "I can see that, Monsieur," Nancay answered po 
 litely. "He has his successes, but all the billets-douM 
 do not go one way. " 
 
 The young man laughed, a conscious, flattered 
 laugh. He was handsome, with such a face as wo 
 men love, but there was a lack of ease in the way he 
 wore his Court suit. It was a trifle finer, too, than ac- 
 corded with Huguenot taste ; or it looked the finer for
 
 HANNIBAL DE SAULX. . 23 
 
 the way he wore it, even as Teliguy's and Foucanld's 
 velvet capes and stiff brocades lost their richness and 
 became but the adjuncts, fitting and graceful, of the 
 men. Odder still, as Tignonville laughed, half hid- 
 ing and half revealing the dainty, scented paper in 
 his hand, his' clothes seemed smarter and he more 
 awkward than usual. "It is from a lady," he admit- 
 ted. "But a bit of badinage, I assure you, nothing 
 more." 
 
 "Understood!" M. de Nancay murmured politely. 
 "I congratulate you." 
 
 "But " 
 
 " I say I congratulate you! " 
 
 " But it is nothing. " 
 
 "Oh, I understand. And see, the King is about to 
 rise. Go forward, Monsieur," he continued benevo- 
 lently. "A young man should show himself. Be- 
 sides his Majesty likes you well," he added with a 
 leer. He had an unpleasant sense of humour, had 
 his Majesty's Captain of the Guard ; and this evening 
 somewhat more than ordinary on which to exer- 
 cise it. 
 
 Tignonville held too good an opinion of himself to 
 suspect the other of badinage ; and thus encouraged 
 he pushed his way to the front of the circle. During 
 his absence with his betrothed, the crowd in the 
 Chamber had grown thin, the caudles had burned an 
 inch shorter in the sconces. But though many who 
 had been there, had left, the more select remained, and 
 the King's return to his seat had given the company a 
 fillip. An air of feverish gaiety, common in the un- 
 healthy life of the Court, prevailed. At a table 
 abreast of the King, Montpensier and Marshal Cosse 
 were dicing and disputing, with now a yell of glee,
 
 24 COUNT HANNIBAL. 
 
 and now an oath, that betrayed which way fortune 
 inclined. At the back of the King's chair, Chicot, 
 his gentleman -jester, hung over Charles's shoulder, 
 now scanning his cards, and now making hideous 
 faces that threw the onlookers into fits of laughter. 
 Farther up the Chamber, at the end of the alcove, 
 Marshal Tavannes our Hannibal's brother occupied 
 a low stool, which was set opposite the open door of 
 the closet. Through this doorway a slender foot, 
 silk-clad, shot now and again into sight; it came, it 
 vanished, it came again, the gallant Marshal striving 
 at each appearance to rob it of its slipper, a dainty 
 jewelled thing of crimson velvet. He failed thrice, a 
 peal of laughter greeting each failure. At the fourth 
 essay, he upset his stool and fell to the floor, but held 
 the slipper. And not the slipper only, but the foot. 
 Amid a flutter of silken skirts and dainty laces 
 while the hidden beauty shrilly protested he dragged 
 first the ankle, and then a shapely leg into sight. The 
 circle applauded ; the lady, feeling herself still drawn 
 on, screamed loudly and more loudly. All save the 
 King and his opponent turned to look. And then 
 the sport came to a sudden end. A sinewy hand 
 appeared, interposed, released; for an instant the 
 dark, handsome face of Guise looked through the 
 doorway. It was gone as soon as seen ; it was there a 
 second only. But more than one recognised it, and 
 wondered. For was not the young Duke in evil 
 odour with the King by reason of the attack on the 
 Admiral? And had he not been chased from Paris 
 only that morning and forbidden to return ? 
 
 They were still wondering, still gazing, when ab- 
 ruptly as he did all things Charles thrust back his 
 chair. "Foucauld, you owe me ten pieces! " he cried
 
 HANNIBAL DE SAULX. 25 
 
 with glee, and he slapped the table. "Pay, my 
 friend ; pay ! " 
 
 "To-morrow, little master; to-morrow!" Bochefou- 
 cauld answered in the same tone. And he rose to his 
 feet. 
 
 "To-morrow!" Charles repeated. "To-morrow?" 
 And on the word his jaw fell. He looked wildly 
 round. His face was ghastly. 
 
 "Well, sire, and why not?" Eochefoucauld an- 
 swered in astonishment. And in his turn he looked 
 round, wondering; and a chill fell on him. "Why 
 not ? " he repeated. 
 
 For a moment no one answered him : the silence in 
 the Chamber was intense. Where he looked, wher- 
 ever he looked, he met solemn, wondering eyes, such 
 eyes as gaze on men in their coffins. "What has 
 come to you all ? " he cried with an effort. " What is 
 the jest, for faith, sire, I don't see it? " 
 
 The King seemed incapable of speech, and it was 
 Chicot who filled the gap. "It is pretty apparent," 
 he said with a rude laugh. " The cock will lay and 
 Foucauld will pay to-morrow! " 
 
 The young nobleman's colour rose; between him 
 and the Gascon gentleman was no love lost. " There 
 are some debts I pay to-day," he cried haughtily. 
 " For the rest, farewell my little master ! When one 
 does not understand the jest it is time to be gone. " 
 
 He was half-way to the door, watched by all, when 
 the King spoke. " Foucauld ! " he cried in an odd, 
 strangled voice. " Foucauld ! " And the Huguenot 
 favourite turned back, wondering. 
 
 " One minute ! " the King continued in the same 
 forced voice. "Stay till morning in my closet. It 
 is late now. We'll play away the rest of the night! "
 
 26 COUNT HANNIBAL. 
 
 "Your Majesty must excuse me," Rochefoucauld 
 answered frankly. "I am dead asleep." 
 
 "You can sleep in the Garde-Robe," the King per- 
 sisted. 
 
 "Thank you. for nothing, sire!" was the gay an- 
 swer. "I know that bed! I shall sleep longer and 
 better in my own." 
 
 The King shuddered, but strove to hide the move- 
 ment under a shrug of his shoulders. He turned 
 away. "It is God's will! "he muttered. He was 
 white to the lips. 
 
 Rochefoucauld did not catch the words. "Good 
 night, sire," he cried. "Farewell, little master." 
 And with a nod here and there, he passed to the 
 door, followed by Mergey and Chamont, two gentle- 
 men of his suite. 
 
 Nancay raised the curtain with an obsequious ges- 
 ture. "Pardon me, M. le Comte," he said, "do you 
 go to his Highuess's? " 
 
 "For a few minutes, Nangay." 
 
 " Permit me to go with you. The guards may be 
 set." 
 
 "Do so, my friend," Rochefoucauld answered. 
 "Ah, Tiguouville, is it you! " 
 
 "I am come to attend you to your lodging," the 
 young man said. And he ranged up beside the other, 
 as, the curtain fallen behind them, they walked along 
 the gallery. 
 
 Rochefoucauld stopped and laid his hand on Tig- 
 uonville's sleeve. "Thanks, dear lad," he said, "but 
 I am going to the Princess Dowager's. Afterwards 
 to his Highuess's. I may be detained an hour or 
 more. You will not like to wait so long. " 
 
 M. de Tignonville's face fell ludicrously. "Well,
 
 HANNIBAL DE SAULX. 27 
 
 no," he said. "I I don't think I could wait so long 
 to-night." 
 
 "Then coine to-morrow night," Eochefoucauld an- 
 swered with good nature. 
 
 "With pleasure," the other cried heartily, his re- 
 lief evident. "Certainly. With pleasure." And, 
 nodding good-night, they parted. While Rochefou- 
 cauld, with Nancay at his side and his gentlemen 
 attending him, passed along the echoing and now 
 empty gallery, the younger man bounded down the 
 stairs to the great hall of the Caryatides, his face 
 radiant. He for one was not sleepy.
 
 CHAPTEE III. 
 
 THE HOUSE NEXT THE "GOLDEN MAID." 
 
 WE have it on record that before the Comte de la 
 Eochefoucauld left the Louvre that night he received 
 the strongest hints of the peril which threatened 
 him; and at least one written warning was handed 
 to him by a stranger in black, and by him in turn was 
 communicated to the King of Navarre. We are told 
 further that when he took his final leave, about the 
 hour of eleven, he found the courtyard brilliantly 
 lighted, and the three companies of guards Swiss, 
 Scotch, and French drawn up in ranked array from 
 the door of the great hall to the gate which opened on 
 the street. But, the chronicler adds, neither this pre- 
 caution, sinister as it appeared to some of his suite, 
 nor the grave farewell which Rambouillet, from his 
 post at the gate, took of one of his gentlemen, shook 
 that chivalrous soul or sapped its generous confidence. 
 M. de Tignonville was young and less versed in 
 danger than the Governor of Rochelle ; with him, had 
 he seen so much, it might have been different. But 
 he left the Louvre an hour earlier at a time when 
 the precincts of the palace, gloomy-seeming to us in 
 the light cast by coming events, wore their wonted 
 aspect. His thoughts, moreover, as he crossed the 
 courtyard, were otherwise employed. So much so, in- 
 deed, that though he signed to his two servants to 
 follow him, he seemed barely conscious what he was
 
 THE HOUSE NEXT THE "GOLDEN MAID." 29 
 
 doing ; nor did he shake off his reverie until he reached 
 the corner of the Eue Baillet. Here the voices of the 
 Swiss who stood on guard opposite Coligny's lodgings, 
 at the end of the Rue Bethizy, could be plainly heard. 
 They had kindled a fire in an iron basket set in the 
 middle of the road, and knots of them were visible in 
 the distance, moving to and fro about their piled 
 arms. 
 
 Tignonville paused before he came within the radius 
 of the firelight, and turning, bade his servants take 
 their way home. " I shall follow, but I have business 
 first," he added curtly. 
 
 The elder of the two demurred. "The streets are 
 not too safe," he said. "In two hours or less, my 
 lord, it will be midnight. And then " 
 
 "Go, booby; do you think I am a child? " his mas- 
 ter retorted angrily. "I've my sword and can use it. 
 I shall not be long. And do you hear, men, keep a 
 still tongue, will you ? " 
 
 The men, country fellows, obeyed reluctantly, and 
 with a full intention of sneaking after him the mo- 
 ment he had turned his back. But he suspected 
 them of this, and stood where he was until they 
 had passed the fire, and could no longer detect his 
 movements. Then he plunged quickly into the Hue 
 Baillet, gained through it the Eue du Eoule, and 
 traversing that also turned to the right into the Eue 
 Ferronerie, the main thoroughfare, east and west, of 
 Paris. Here he halted in front of the long, dark outer 
 wall of the Cemetery of the Innocents, in which, across 
 the tombstones and among the sepulchres of dead 
 Paris, the living Paris of that day, bought and sold, 
 walked, gossiped, and made love. 
 
 About him things were to be seen that would have
 
 30 COUNT HANNIBAL. 
 
 seemed stranger to him had he been less strange to 
 the city. From the quarter of the markets north of 
 him, a quarter whicn fenced in the cemetery on two 
 sides, the same dull murmur proceeded, which Ma- 
 demoiselle de Vrillac had remarked an hour earlier. 
 The sky above the cemetery glowed with reflected 
 light, the cause of which was not far to seek, for 
 every window of the tall houses that overlooked it, 
 and the huddle of booths about it, contributed a 
 share of the illumination. At an hour late even for 
 Paris, an hour when honest men should have been 
 sunk in slumber, this strange brilliance did for a mo- 
 ment perplex him; but the past week had been so 
 full of fetes, of masques and frolics, often devised on 
 the moment and dependent on the King's whim, that 
 he set this also down to such a cause, and wondered 
 and no more. 
 
 The lights in the houses flung their radiance high, 
 and did not serve his purpose ; but beside the closed 
 gate of the cemetery, between two stalls, was a votive 
 lamp burning before an image of the Mother and 
 Child. He crossed to this, and assuring himself by a 
 glance to right and left that he stood in no danger 
 from prowlers, he drew a note from his breast. It 
 had been slipped into his hand in the gallery before he 
 saw Mademoiselle to her lodging ; it had been in his 
 possession barely an hot./. But brief as its contents 
 were, and easily committed to memory, he had perused 
 it thrice already. 
 
 "At the house next the 'Golden Maid,' Eue Cinq 
 Diamauts, an hour before midnight, you may find 
 the door open should you desire to talk farther with 
 C. St. L." 
 
 As he read it for the fourth time the light of the
 
 THE HOUSE NEXT THE u GOLDEN MAID." 31 
 
 lamp fell athwart his face ; and even as his fine clothes 
 had never seemed to fit him worse than when he 
 faintly denied the imputations of gallantry launched 
 at him by Nangay, so his features had never looked 
 less handsome than they did now. The glow of vanity 
 which warmed his cheek as he read the message, the 
 smile of conceit which wreathed his lips, bespoke a 
 nature not of the most noble ; or the lamp did him 
 less than justice. Presently he kissed the note, and 
 hid it. He waited until the clock of St. Jacques struck 
 the hour before midnight ; and then moving forward 
 he turned to the right by way of the narrow neck lead- 
 ing to the Eue Lombard. He walked in the kennel 
 here, his sword in his hand and his eyes looking to 
 right and left ; for the place was notorious for robber- 
 ies. But though he saw more than one figure lurking 
 in a doorway or under the arch that led to a passage, 
 it vanished on his nearer approach. In less than a 
 minute he reached the southern end of the street that 
 bore the odd title of the Five Diamonds. 
 
 Situate in the crowded quarter of the butchers, and 
 almost in the shadow of their famous church, this 
 street which farther north was continued in the Eue 
 Quimcampoix presented in those days a not uncom- 
 mon mingling of poverty and wealth. On one side of 
 the street a row of lofty gabled houses built under 
 Francis the First, sheltered persons of good condition ; 
 on the other, divided from these by the width of the 
 road and a reeking kennel, a row of pent-houses, the 
 hovels of cobblers and sausage-makers, leaned against 
 shapeless timber houses which tottered upwards in a 
 medley of sagging roofs and bulging gutters. Tig- 
 nonville was strange to the place, and nine nights out 
 of tan he would have been at a disadvantage. But,
 
 32 COUNT HANNIBAL. 
 
 thanks to the tapers that to-night shone in many win- 
 dows, he made out enough to see that he need search 
 only the one side ; and with a beating heart he passed 
 along the row of newer houses, looking eagerly for 
 the sign of the " Golden Maid." 
 
 He found it at last ; and then for a moment he stood 
 puzzled. The note said, next door to the "Golden 
 Maid," but it did not say on which side. He scruti- 
 nised the nearer house, but he saw nothing to deter- 
 mine him; and he was proceeding to the farther, 
 when he caught sight of two men, who, ambushed be- 
 hind a horse-block on the opposite side of the road- 
 way, seemed to be watching his movements. Their 
 presence flurried him ; but much to his relief his next 
 glance at the houses showed him that the door of the 
 farther one was unlatched. It stood slightly ajar, 
 permitting a beam of light to escape into the street. 
 
 He stepped quickly to it the sooner he was within 
 the house the better pushed the door open and en- 
 tered. As soon as he was inside he tried to close 
 the entrance behind him, but he found he could not ; 
 the door would not shut. After a brief trial he aban- 
 doned the attempt and passed quickly on, through 
 a bare lighted passage which led to the foot of a stair- 
 case, equally bare. He stood at this point an instant 
 and listened, in the hope that Madame's maid would 
 come to him. At first he heard nothing save his own 
 breathing; then a gruff voice from above startled 
 him, "This way, Monsieur," it said. "You are 
 early, but not too soon ! " 
 
 So Madame trusted her footman! M. de Tignon- 
 ville shrugged his shoulders ; but after all, it was no 
 affair of his, and he went up. Half-way to the top, 
 however, he stood, an oath on his lips. Two men
 
 THE HOUSE NEXT THE "GOLDEN MAID." 33 
 
 had entered by the open door below even as he had 
 entered ! And as quietly ! 
 
 The imprudence of it ! The imprudence of leaving 
 the door so that it could not be closed ! He turned 
 and descended to meet them, his teeth set, his hand 
 on his sword, one conjecture after another whirling 
 in his brain. Was he beset ? Was it a trap ? Was it 
 a rival ? Was it chance ? Two steps he descended ; 
 and then the voice he had heard before cried again, 
 but more imperatively, "No, Monsieur, this way! 
 Did you not hear me? This way and be quick, if 
 you please. By-and-by there will be a crowd, and 
 then the more we have dealt with the better ! " 
 
 He knew now that he had made a mistake, that 
 he had entered the wrong house; and naturally his 
 impulse was to continue his descent and secure his 
 retreat. But the pause had brought the two men who 
 had entered face to face with him, and they showed 
 no signs of giving way. On the contrary. 
 
 "The room is above, Monsieur," the foremost said, 
 in a matter-of-fact tone, and with a slight salutation. 
 " After you, if you please, " and he signed to him to 
 return. 
 
 He was a burly man, grim and truculent in ap- 
 pearance, and his follower was like him. Tignonville 
 hesitated, then turned and ascended. But as soon as 
 he had reached the landing where they could pass 
 him, he turned again. 
 
 "I have made a mistake, I think," he said. 
 "I have entered the wrong house." 
 
 "Are you for the house next the 'Golden Maid,' 
 Monsieur? " 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 " Rue Cinq Diamants, Quarter of the Boucherie ? " 
 3
 
 34 COUNT HANNIBAL. 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "No mistake then," the stout man replied firmly. 
 "Yon are early, that is all. You have arms, I see. 
 Maillard ! " to the person whose voice Tignonville 
 had heard at the head of the stairs " A white sleeve, 
 and a cross for Monsieur's hat, and his name on the 
 register. Come, make a beginning! Make a begin- 
 ning, man." 
 
 "To be sure, Monsieur. All is ready." 
 
 "Then lose no time, I say. Here are others, also 
 early in the good cause. Gentlemen, welcome ! Wel- 
 come all who are for the true faith ! Death to the here- 
 tics! 'Kill, and no quarter! ' is the word to-night! *' 
 
 "Death to the heretics !" the last comers cried in 
 chorus. "Kill and no quarter! At what hour, M. 
 lePrevot?" 
 
 " At day-break, " the Provost answered important- 
 ly. "But have no fear, the tocsin will sound. The 
 King and our good man M. de Guise have all in hand. 
 A white sleeve, a white cross, and a sharp knife shall 
 rid Paris of the vermin ! Gentlemen of the quarter, 
 the word of the night is ' Kill, and no quarter ! 
 Death to the Huguenots ! ' " 
 
 "Death! Death to the Huguenots! Kill, and no 
 quarter ! " A dozen the room was beginning to fill 
 waved their weapons and echoed the cry. 
 
 Tignonville had been fortunate enough to appre- 
 hend the position and the peril in which he stood 
 before Maillard advanced to him bearing a white 
 linen sleeve. In the instant of discovery his heart 
 had stood a moment, the blood had left his cheeks ; 
 but with some faults, he was no coward, and he 
 managed to hide his emotion. He held out his left 
 arm, and suffered the beadle to pass the sleeve over
 
 THE HOUSE NEXT THE "GOLDEN MAID." 35 
 
 it and to secure the white linen above the elbow. 
 Then at a gesture he gave up his velvet cap, and saw 
 it decorated with a white cross of the same material. 
 "Now the register, Monsieur," Maillard continued 
 briskly ; and waving him in the direction of a clerk, 
 who sat at the end of the long table, having a book and 
 an ink-horn before him, he turned to the next comer. 
 
 Tignonville would fain have avoided the ordeal of 
 the register, but the clerk's eye was on him. He had 
 been fortunate so far, but he knew that the least 
 breath of suspicion would destroy him, and summon- 
 ing his wits together he gave his name in a steady 
 voice. "Anne Desmartins. " It was his mother's 
 maiden name, and the first that came into his mind. 
 
 "Of Paris?" 
 
 "Recently ; by birth, of the Limousin." 
 
 "Good, Monsieur," the clerk answered, writing in 
 the name. And he turned to the next. "And you, 
 my friend ? "
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE EVE OF THE FEAST. 
 
 IT was Tignonville's salvation that the men who 
 crowded the long white-walled room, and exchanged 
 vile boasts under the naked flaring lights, were of all 
 classes. There were butchers, natives of the sur- 
 rounding quarter whom the scent of blood had drawn 
 from their lairs ; and there were priests with hatchet 
 faces, who whispered in the butchers' ears. There 
 were gentlemen of the robe, and plain mechanics, rich 
 merchants in their gowns, and bare-armed ragpickers, 
 sleek choristers, and shabby led-captaius ; but differ as 
 they might in other points, in one thing all were alike. 
 From all, gentle or simple, rose the same cry for blood, 
 the same aspiration to be first equipped for the fray. 
 In one corner a man of rank stood silent and apart, his 
 hand on his sword, the working of his face alone be- 
 traying the storm that reigned within. In another, a 
 Gorman horse-dealer talked in low w r hispers with two 
 thieves. In a third, a gold- wire drawer addressed an 
 admiring group from the Sorbonne ; and meantime the 
 middle of the floor grew into a seething mass of mut- 
 tering, scowling men, through whom the last comers, 
 thrust as they might, had much ado to force their way. 
 And from all under the low ceiling rose a ceaseless 
 hum, though none spoke loud. " Kill ! kill ! kill ! " 
 was the burden ; the accompaniment such profanities 
 and blasphemies as had long disgraced the Paris pul-
 
 THE EVE OF THE FEAST. 37 
 
 pits, and day by day had fanned the bigotry already 
 at a white heat of the Parisian populace. Tignon- 
 ville turned sick as he listened, and would fain have 
 closed his ears. But for his life he dared not. And 
 presently a cripple in a beggar's garb, a dwarfish, 
 filthy creature with matted hair, twitched his sleeve, 
 and offered him a whetstone. 
 
 "Are you sharp, noble sir?" he asked with a leer. 
 "Are you sharp? It's surprising how the edge goes 
 on the bone. A cut and thrust? Well, every man 
 to his taste. But give me a broad butcher's knife 
 and I'll ask no help, be it man, woman, or child ! " 
 
 A bystander, a lean man in rusty black, chuckled 
 as he listened. "But the woman or the child for 
 choice, eh, Jehan? " he said. And he looked to Tig- 
 nonville to join in the jest. 
 
 "Ay, give me a white throat for choice! " the crip- 
 ple answered, with h'orrible zest. "And there'll be 
 delicate necks to prick to-night ! Lord, I think I hear 
 them squeal! You don't need it, sir?" he continued, 
 again proffering the whetstone. "No? Then I'll 
 give my blade another whet, in the name of our 
 Lady, the Saints, and good Father Pezelay ! " 
 
 " Ay, and give me a turn ! " the lean man cried, 
 proffering his weapon. "May I die if I do not kill 
 one of the accursed for every finger of my hands ! " 
 
 " And toe of my feet ! " the cripple answered, not 
 to be outdone. " And toe of my feet ! A full score ! " 
 
 " 'Tis according to your sins! " the other, who had 
 something of the air of a Churchman, answered. 
 "The more heretics killed, the more sins forgiven. 
 Remember that, brother, and spare not if your soul 
 be burdened! They blaspheme God and call Him 
 paste! In the paste of their own blood," he con-
 
 38 COUNT HANNIBAL. 
 
 tinned ferociously, "I will knead them and roll them 
 out, saith the good Father Pezelay, ray master ! " 
 
 The cripple crossed himself. "Whom God keep," 
 he said. "He is a good man. But you are looking 
 ill, noble sir ? " he continued, peering curiously at the 
 young Huguenot. 
 
 " 'Tis the heat," Tignonville muttered. "The night 
 is stifling, and the lights make it worse. I will go 
 nearer the door." 
 
 He hoped to escape them ; he had some hope even of 
 escaping from the room and giving the alarm. But 
 when he had forced his way to the threshold, he 
 found it guarded by two pikemen ; and glancing back 
 to see if his movements were observed for he knew 
 that his agitation might have awakened suspicion he 
 found that the taller of the two whom he had left, the 
 black -garbed man with the hungry face, was watching 
 him a-tiptoe, over the shoulders of the crowd. 
 
 With that, and the sense of his impotence, the 
 lights began to swim before his eyes. The catastro- 
 phe that overhung his party, the fate so treacherously 
 prepared for all whom he loved and all with whom 
 his fortunes were bound up, confused his brain al- 
 most to delirium. He strove to think, to calculate 
 chances, to imagine some way in which he might es- 
 cape from the room, or from a window might cry the 
 alarm. But he could not bring his mind to a point. 
 Instead, in lightning flashes he foresaw what must 
 happen : his betrothed in the hands of the murderers, 
 the fair face that had smiled on him frozen with 
 terror ; brave men, the fighters of Montauban, the de- 
 fenders of Angely, strewn dead through the dark 
 lanes of the city. And now a gust of passion, and 
 now a shudder of fear, seized him ; and in any other
 
 THE EVE OF THE FEAST. 39 
 
 assembly his agitation must have led to detection. 
 But in that room were many twitching faces and 
 trembling hands. Murder, cruel, midnight, and most 
 foul, wrung even from the murderers her toll of hor- 
 ror. While some, to hide the nervousness they felt, 
 babbled of what they would do, others betrayed by 
 the intentness with which they awaited the signal, the 
 dreadful anticipations that possessed their souls. 
 
 Before he had formed any plan, a movement took 
 place near the door. The stairs shook beneath the 
 sudden trampling of feet, a voice cried "De par le 
 Roi ! De par le Eoi ! " and the babel of the room 
 died down. The throng swayed and fell back on 
 either hand, and Marshal Tavanues entered, wearing 
 half armour, with a white sash ; he was followed by 
 six or eight gentlemen in like guise. Amid cries of 
 "Jarnac! Jarnac!" for to him the credit of that 
 famous fight, nominally won by the King's brother, 
 was popularly given he advanced up the room, met 
 the Provost of the merchants, and began to confer 
 with him. Apparently he asked the latter to select 
 some men who could be trusted on a special mission, 
 for the Provost looked round and beckoned to his side 
 one or two of higher rank than the herd, and then 
 one or two of the most truculent aspect. 
 
 Tignonville trembled lest he should be singled out. 
 He had hidden himself as well as he could at the rear 
 of the crowd by the door; but his dress, so much 
 above the common, rendered him conspicuous. He 
 fancied that the Provost's eye ranged the crowd for 
 him ; and to avoid it and efface himself he moved a 
 pace to his left. 
 
 The step was fatal. It saved him from the Provost, 
 but it brought him face to face and eye to eye with
 
 40 COUNT HANNIBAL. 
 
 Count Haimibal, who stood in the first rank at his 
 brother's elbow. Tavaimes stared an instant as if he 
 doubted his eyesight. Then, as doubt gave slow place 
 to certainty, and surprise to amazement, he smiled. 
 And after a moment he looked another way. 
 
 Tignouville's heart gave a great bump and seemed 
 to stand still. The lights whirled before his eyes, 
 there was a roaring in his ears. He waited for the 
 word that should denounce him. It did not come. 
 And still it did not come ; and Marshal Tavannes was 
 turning. Yes, turning, and going ; the Provost, bow- 
 ing low, was attending him to the door; his suite 
 were opening on either side to let him pass. And 
 Count HaunibaH Count Hannibal was following 
 also, as if nothing had occurred. As if he had seen 
 nothing ! 
 
 The young man caught his breath. Was it pos- 
 sible that he had imagined the start of recognition, 
 the steady scrutiny, the sinister smile? No; for as 
 Tavanues followed the others, he hung an instant on 
 his heel, their eyes met again, and once more he 
 smiled. In the next breath he was gone through the 
 doorway, his spurs rang on the stairs ; and the babel 
 pf the crowd, unchecked by the great man's presence, 
 broke out anew, and louder. 
 
 Tignonville shuddered. He was saved as by a mir- 
 acle, saved he did not know how. But the respite, 
 though its strangeness diverted his thoughts for a 
 while, brought short relief. The horrors which im- 
 pended over others surged afresh into his mind, and 
 filled him with a maddening sense of impotence. To 
 be one hour, only one short half -hour without! To 
 run through the sleeping streets, and scream in the 
 dull ears which a King's flatteries had stopped as
 
 THE EYE OF THE FEAST. 41 
 
 with wool ! To go up aiid down and shake into life the 
 guests whose royal lodgings daybreak would turn to a 
 shambles reeking with their blood! They slept, the 
 gentle Teligny, the brave Pardaillan, the gallant 
 Rochefoucauld, Piles the hero of St. Jean, while the 
 cruel city stirred rustling about them, and doom crept 
 whispering to the door. They slept, they and a thou- 
 sand others, gentle and simple, young and old ; while 
 the half-mad Valois shifted between two opinions, 
 and the Italian woman, accursed daughter of an ac- 
 cursed race, cried " Hark ! " at her window, and 
 looked eastwards for the dawn. 
 
 And the women ? The woman he was to marry ? 
 And the others? In an access of passion he thrust 
 aside those who stood between, he pushed his way, 
 disregarding complaints, disregarding opposition, to 
 the door. But the pikes lay across it, and he could 
 not utter a syllable to save his life. He would have 
 flung himself on the door-keepers, for he was losing 
 control of himself; but as he drew back for the 
 spring, a hand clutched his sleeve, and a voice he 
 loathed hummed in his ear. 
 
 "No, fair play, noble sir; fair play! "the cripple 
 Jehan muttered, forcibly drawing him aside. "All 
 start together, and it's no man's loss. But if there is 
 any little business, " he continued, lowering his tone 
 and peering with a cunning look into the other's face, 
 "of your own, noble sir, or your friends', anything 
 or anybody you want despatched, count on me. It 
 were better, perhaps, you didn't appear in it your- 
 self, and a man you can trust " 
 
 " What do you mean ? " the young man cried, re- 
 coiling from him. 
 
 " No need to look surprised, noble sir, " the lean
 
 42 COUNT HANNIBAL. 
 
 man, who had joined them, answered in a soothing 
 tone. "Who kills to-night does God service, and 
 who serves God much may serve himself a little. 
 'Thou shalt not muzzle the ox that treadeth out the 
 corn, ' says good Father Pezelay. " 
 
 " Hear, hear ! " the cripple chimed in eagerly, his 
 impatience such that he danced on his toes. "He 
 preaches as well as the good father his master ! So 
 frankly, noble sir, what is it? What is it? A wo- 
 man grown ugly? A rich man grown old, with per- 
 chance a will in his chest? Or a young heir that 
 stands in my lord's way? Whichever it be, or what- 
 ever it be, trust me and our friend here, and my 
 butcher's gully shall cut the knot." 
 
 Tignonville shook his head. 
 
 " But something there is," the lean man persisted 
 obstinately; and he cast a suspicious glance at Tig- 
 nonville 's clothes. It was evident that the two had 
 discussed him, and the motives of his presence there. 
 " Have the dice proved fickle, my lord, and are you 
 for the jewellers' shops on the bridge to fill your 
 purse again ? If so, take my word, it were better to 
 go three than one, and we'll enlist." 
 
 "Ay, we know shops on the bridge where you can 
 plunge your arm elbow-deep in gold," the cripple 
 muttered, his eyes sparkling greedily. "There's 
 Baillet's, noble sir! There's a shop for you! And 
 there's the man's shop who works for the King. 
 He's lame like me. And I know the way to all. Oh, 
 it will be a merry night if they ring before the dawn. 
 It must be near daybreak now. And what's that? " 
 
 Ay, what was it? A score of voices called for 
 silence; a breathless hush fell on the crowd. A mo- 
 ment the fiercest listened, with parted lips and
 
 THE EVE OF THE FEAST. 43 
 
 starting eyes. Then, " It was the bell ! " cried one, 
 "let us out!" "It was not!" cried, another. "It 
 was a pistol shot!" "Anyhow let us out!" the 
 crowd roared in chorus; "let us out!" And they 
 pressed in a furious mass towards the door, as if they 
 would force it, signal or no signal. 
 
 But the pikemen stood fast, and the throng, checked 
 in their first rush, turned on one another, and broke 
 into wrangling and disputing; boasting, and calling 
 Heaven and the saints to witness how thoroughly, 
 how pitilessly, how remorselessly they would purge 
 Paris of this leprosy when the signal did sound. Un- 
 til again above the babel a man cried "Silence! " and 
 again they lis.<3ned. And this time, dulled by walls 
 and distance, but unmistakable by the ears of fear 
 or hate, the heavy note of a bell came to them on the 
 hot night-air. It was the boom, sullen and menac- 
 ing, of the death signal. 
 
 The door-keepers lowered their pikes, and with a 
 wild rush as of wolves swarming on their prey, the 
 band stormed the door, and thrust and struggled 
 and battled a way down the narrow staircase, and 
 along the narrow passage. "A bas les Huguenots! 
 Mort aux Huguenots ! " they shouted ; and shrieking, 
 sweating, spurning with vile hands viler faces, they 
 poured pell-mell into the street, and added their 
 clamour to the boom of the tocsin that, as by magic 
 and in a moment, turned the streets of Paris into a 
 hell of blood and cruelty. For as it was here, so it 
 was in a dozen other quarters. 
 
 Quickly as they streamed out and to have issued 
 more quickly would have been impossible fiercely as 
 they pushed and fought and clove their way, Tignon- 
 ville was of the foremost. And for a moment, seeing
 
 44 COUNT HANNIBAL. 
 
 the street clear before him and almost empty, the 
 Huguenot thought that he might do something. He 
 might outstrip the stream of rapine, he might carry 
 the alarm ; at worst he might reach his betrothed be- 
 fore harm befel her. But when he had sped fifty yards, 
 his heart sank. True, none passed him ; but under the 
 spell of the alarm-bell the stones themselves seemed 
 to turn to men. Houses, courts, alleys, the very 
 churches vomited men. In a twinkling the street was 
 alive with men, roared with them as with a rushing 
 tide, gleamed with their lights and weapons, thundered 
 with the volume of their thousand voices. He was 
 no longer ahead, men were running before him, be- 
 hind him, on his right hand and on his left. In every 
 side-street, every passage, men were running ; and 
 not men only, but women, children, furious creatures 
 without age or sex. And all the time the bell tolled 
 overhead, tolled faster and faster, and louder and 
 louder ; and shots and screams, and the clash of arms, 
 and the fall of strong doors began to swell the mael- 
 strom of sound. 
 
 He was in the Eue St. Honore now, and speeding 
 westward. But the flood still rose with him, and 
 roared abreast of him. Nay, it outstripped him. 
 When he came, panting, within sight of his goal, and 
 lacked but a hundred paces of it, he found his pas- 
 sage barred by a dense mass of people moving slowly 
 to meet him. In the heart of the press the light of a 
 dozen torches shone on half as many riders mailed 
 and armed; whose eyes, as they moved on, and the 
 furious gleaming eyes of the rabble about them, never 
 left the gabled roofs on their right. On these from 
 time to time a white -clad figure showed itself, and 
 passed from chimney-stack to chimney-stack, or,
 
 THE EVE OF THE FEAST. 45 
 
 stooping low, ran along the parapet. Every time 
 that this happened, the men on horseback pointed 
 upwards and the mob foamed with rage. 
 
 Tiguonville groaned, but he could not help. Un- 
 able to go forward, he turned, and with others hurry- 
 ing, shouting, and brandishing weapons, he pressed 
 into the Eue du Eoule, passed through it, and gained 
 the Bethizy. But here, as he might have foreseen, 
 all passage was barred at the Hotel Pouthieu by a 
 horde of savages, who danced and yelled and sang 
 songs round the Admiral's body, which lay in the 
 middle of the way ; while to right and left men were 
 bursting into houses and forcing new victims into the 
 street. The worst had happened there, and he turned 
 panting, regained the Eue St. Honore and, crossing it 
 and turning left-handed, darted through side streets 
 until he came again into the main thoroughfare a lit- 
 tle beyond the Croix du Tiroir, that marked the cor- 
 ner of Mademoiselle's house. 
 
 Here his last hope left him. The street swarmed 
 with bands of men hurrying to and fro as in a sacked 
 city. The scum of the Halles, the rabble of the quar- 
 ter poured this way and that, here at random, there 
 swayed and directed by a few knots of men-at-arms, 
 whose corselets reflected the glare of a hundred 
 torches. At one time and within sight, three or four 
 houses were being stormed. On every side rose heart- 
 rending cries, mingled with brutal laughter, with sav- 
 age jests, with cries of "To the river!" The most 
 cruel of cities had burst its bounds and was not to be 
 stayed ; nor would be stayed until the Seine ran red 
 to the sea, and leagues below, in pleasant Normandy 
 hamlets, men, for fear of the pestilence, pushed the 
 corpses from the bridges with poles and boat-hooks.
 
 46 COUNT HANNIBAL. 
 
 All this Tiguouville saw, though his eyes, leaping 
 the turmoil, looked only to the door at which he had 
 left Mademoiselle a few hours earlier. There a 
 crowd of men pressed and struggled; but from the 
 spot where he stood he could see no more. That was 
 enough, however. Rage nerved him, and despair; 
 his world was dying round him. If he could not save 
 her he would avenge her. Eecklessly he plunged 
 into the tumult ; blade in hand, with vigorous blows 
 he thrust his way through, his white sleeve and the 
 white cross in his hat gaining him passage until he 
 reached the fringe of the band who beset the door. 
 Here his first attempt to pass failed ; and he might 
 have remained hampered by the crowd if a squad 
 of archers had not ridden up. As they spurred to 
 the spot, heedless over whom they rode, he clutched 
 a stirrup, and was borne with them into the heart of 
 the crowd. In a twinkling he stood on the threshold 
 of the house, face to face and foot to foot with Count 
 Hannibal, who stood also on the threshold, but with 
 his back to the door, which, unbarred and unbolted, 
 gaped open behind him.
 
 CHAPTER Y. 
 
 A ROUGH WOOING. 
 
 THE young man had caught the delirium that was 
 abroad that night. The rage of the trapped beast was 
 in his heart, his hand held a sword. To strike blind- 
 ly, to strike without question the first who withstood 
 him was the wild-beast instinct ; and if Count Hanni- 
 bal had not spoken on the instant, the Marshal's 
 brother had said his last word in the world. 
 
 Yet as he stood there, a head above the crowd, he 
 seemed unconscious alike of Tignonville and the point 
 that all but pricked his breast. Swart and grim- 
 visaged, his harsh features distorted by the glare 
 which shone upon him, he looked beyond the Hugue- 
 not to the sea of tossing arms and raging faces that 
 surged about the saddles of the horsemen. It was to 
 these he spoke. 
 
 "Begone, dogs!" he cried, in a voice that startled 
 the nearest, "or I will whip you away with my stir- 
 rup-leathers! Do you hear? Begone! This house is 
 not for you ! Burn, kill, plunder where you will, but 
 go hence ! " . 
 
 "But 'tis on the list!" one of the wretches yelled. 
 "'Tis on the list! " And he pushed forward until he 
 stood at Tignonville 's elbow. 
 
 " And has no cross ! " shrieked another, thrusting 
 himself forward in his turn. "See you, let us by,
 
 48 COUNT HANNIBAL. 
 
 whoever you are ! lu the King's name, kill ! It has 
 no cross ! " 
 
 "Then," Tavauues thundered, "will I nail you for 
 a cross to the front of it ! No cross, say you ? I will 
 make one of you, foul crow ! " 
 
 And as he spoke, his arm shot out; the man re- 
 coiled, his fellow likewise. But one of the mounted 
 archers took up the matter. 
 
 " Nay, but, my lord, " he said he knew Tavannes 
 "it is the King's will there be no favour shown 
 to-night to any, small or great. And this house is 
 registered, and is full of heretics. " 
 
 "And has no cross! " the rabble urged in chorus. 
 And they leapt up and down in their impatience, and 
 to see the better. " And has no cross ! " they per- 
 sisted. They could understand that. Of what use 
 crosses, if they were not to kill where there was no 
 cross? Daylight was not plainer. 
 
 Tavannes' face grew dark, and he shook his finger 
 at the archer who had spoken. "Rogue," he cried, 
 "does the King's will run here only? Are there no 
 other houses to sack or men to kill, that you must 
 beard me? And favour? You will have little of 
 mine, if you do not budge and take your vile tail with 
 you ! Off ! Or must I cry ' Tavannes ! ' and bid my 
 people sweep you from the streets? " 
 
 The foremost rank hesitated, awed by his manner 
 and his name ; while the rearmost, attracted by the 
 prospect'of easier pillage, had gone off already. The 
 rest wavered ; and another and another broke away. 
 The archer who had put himself forward saw which 
 way the wind was blowing, and he shrugged his 
 shoulders. "Well, my lord, as you will," he said 
 sullenly. "All the same I would advise you to close
 
 A EOUGH WOOING. 49 
 
 the door and bolt and bar. We shall not be the last 
 to call to-day." And he turned his horse in ill- 
 humour, and forced it, snorting and plunging, through 
 the crowd. 
 
 "Bolt and bar? " Tavannes cried after him in fury. 
 "See you my answer to that!" And turning on the 
 threshold, "Within there!" he cried. "Open the 
 shutters and set lights, and the table ! Light, I say ; 
 light ! And lay on quickly, if you value your lives ! 
 And throw open, for I sup with your mistress to- 
 night, if it rain blood without! Do you hear me, 
 rogues ? Set on ! " 
 
 He flung the last word at the quaking servants; 
 then he turned again to the street. He saw that the 
 crowd was melting, and, looking in Tignonville's 
 face, he laughed aloud. "Does Monsieur sup with 
 us?" he said. "To complete the party? Or will he 
 choose to sup with our friends yonder? It is for 
 him to say. I confess, for my part," with an awful 
 smile, "their hospitality seems a trifle crude, and 
 boisterous. " 
 
 Tiguonville looked behind him and shuddered. 
 The same horde which had so lately pressed about 
 the door had found a victim lower down the street, 
 and, as Tavaunes spoke, came driving back along 
 the roadway, a mass of tossing lights and leaping, 
 running figures, from the heart of which rose the 
 screams of a creature in torture. So terrible were 
 the sounds that Tignonville leant half swooning 
 against the door-post ; and even the iron heart of 
 Tavaunes seemed moved for a moment. 
 
 For a moment only : then he looked at his compan- 
 ion, and his lip curled. "You'll join us, I think?" 
 he said with an undisguised sneer. "Then, after 
 4
 
 50 COUNT HANNIBAL. 
 
 you, Monsieur. They are opening the shutters. 
 Doubtless the table is laid, and Mademoiselle is ex- 
 pecting us. After you, Monsieur, if you please. A 
 few hours ago I should have gone first, for you, in 
 this house" with a sinister smile "were at home! 
 Now, we have changed places." 
 
 Whatever he meant by the gibe and some smack 
 of an evil jest lurked in his tone he played the host 
 so far as to urge his bewildered companion along the 
 passage and into the living-chamber on the left, where 
 he had seen from without that his orders to light and 
 lay were being executed. A dozen candles shone on 
 the board, and lit up the apartment. What the house 
 contained of food and wine had been got together 
 and set on the table; from the low, wide window, 
 beetle-browed and diamond-paned, which extended 
 the whole length of the room and looked on the street 
 at the height of a man's head above the roadway, the 
 shutters had beeu removed doubtless by trembling 
 and reluctant fingers. To such eyes of passers-by as 
 looked in, from the inferno of driving crowds and 
 gleaming weapons which prevailed outside and not 
 outside only, but throughout Paris the brilliant 
 room and the laid table must have seemed strange 
 indeed ! 
 
 To Tignonville, all that had happened, all that was 
 happening, seemed a dream: a dream his entrance 
 under the gentle impulsion of this man who domi- 
 nated him; a dream Mademoiselle standing behind 
 the table with blanched face and stony eyes ; a dream 
 the cowering servants huddled in a corner beyond 
 her ; a dream his silence, her silence, the moment of 
 waiting before Count Hannibal spoke. 
 
 When he did speak it was to count the servants.
 
 A BOUGH WOOING. 51 
 
 "One, two, three, four, five," he said. "And two of 
 them women. Mademoiselle is but poorly attended. 
 Are there not "and he turned to her " some lack- 
 ing?" 
 
 The girl opened her lips twice, but no sound issued. 
 The third time, " Two went out, " she muttered in a 
 hoarse, strangled voice, "and have not returned." 
 
 "And have not returned?" he answered, raising 
 his eyebrows. " Then I fear we must not wait for 
 them. We might wait long ! " And turning sharply 
 to the panic-stricken servants, "Go you to your 
 places ! Do you not see that Mademoiselle waits to 
 be served ? " 
 
 The girl shuddered and spoke. 
 
 "Do you wish me," she muttered, in the same 
 strangled tone, "to play this farce to the end? " 
 
 "The end may be better, Mademoiselle, than you 
 think, " he answered, bowing. And then to the mis- 
 erable servants, who hung back afraid to leave the 
 shelter of their mistress's skirts, "To your places!" 
 he cried. "Set Mademoiselle's chair. Are you so 
 remiss on other days? If so," with a look of terrible 
 meaning, "you will be the less loss! Now, Mademoi- 
 selle, may I have the honour? And when we are at 
 table we can talk." 
 
 He extended his hand, and, obedient to his gesture, 
 she moved to the place at the head of the table, but 
 without letting her fingers come into contact with his. 
 He gave no sign that he noticed this, but he strode to 
 the place on her right, and signed to Tignonville to 
 take that on her left. " Will you not be seated ? " he 
 continued. For she kept her feet. 
 
 She turned her head stiffly, until for the first time 
 her eyes looked into his. A shudder more violent
 
 52 COUNT HANNIBAL. 
 
 than the last shook her. "Had you not better kill 
 us at once ? " she whispered. The blood had for- 
 saken even her lips. Her face was the face of a statue 
 white, beautiful, lifeless. 
 
 "I think not," he said gravely. "Be seated, and 
 let us hope for the best. And you, sir, " he contin- 
 ued, turning to Carlat, "serve your mistress with 
 wine. She needs it." 
 
 The steward filled for her, and then for each of the 
 men, his shaking hand spilling as much as it poured. 
 Nor was this strange. Above the din and uproar of 
 the street, above the crash of distant doors, above 
 the tocsin that still rang from the reeling steeple 
 of St. Germain's, the great bell of the Palais on the 
 island had just begun to hurl its note of doom upon 
 the town. A woman crouching at the end of the 
 chamber burst into hysterical weeping, but, at a 
 glance from Tavannes' terrible eye, was mute again. 
 
 Tiguonville found voice at last. "Have they 
 killed the Admiral?" he muttered, his eyes on the 
 table. 
 
 " M. Coligny ! An hour ago. " 
 
 "AndTeligny?" 
 
 "Him also." 
 
 "M. de Eochefoucauld?" 
 
 "They are dealing with M. le Comte now, I be- 
 lieve," Tavannes answered. "He had his chance, and 
 cast it away. " And he began to eat. 
 
 The man at the table shuddered. The woman con- 
 tinued to look before her, but her lips moved as if 
 she prayed. Suddenly a rush of feet, a roar of voices 
 surged past the window ; for a moment the glare of 
 the torches which danced ruddily on the walls of the 
 room, showed a severed head borne above the multi-
 
 A EOUGH WOOING. 53 
 
 tude on a pike. Mademoiselle, with a low cry, made 
 an effort to rise, but Count Hannibal grasped her 
 wrist and she sank back half fainting. Then the 
 nearer clamour sank a little, and the bells, unchal- 
 lenged, flung their iron tongues above the maddened 
 city. In the east the dawn was growing; soon its 
 grey light would fall on cold hearths, on battered 
 doors and shattered weapons, on hordes of wretches 
 drunk with greed and hate. 
 
 When he could be heard, "What are you going to 
 do with us? " the man asked hoarsely. 
 
 "That depends," Count Hannibal replied after a 
 moment's thought. 
 
 "On what ?" 
 
 "On Mademoiselle de Vrillac." 
 
 The other's eyes gleamed with passion. He leaned 
 forward. "What has she to do with it?" he cried. 
 And he stood up and sat down again in a breath. 
 
 Tavaunes raised his eyebrows with a blanduess 
 that seemed at odds with his harsh visage. " I will an- 
 swer that question by another question, " he replied. 
 "How many are there in the house, my friend?" 
 
 "You can count." 
 
 Tavaunes counted again. "Seven?" he said. 
 
 Tignonville nodded impatiently. 
 
 "Seven lives?" 
 
 "Well?" 
 
 "Well, Monsieur, you know the King's will?" 
 
 "I can guess it," the other replied furiously. And 
 he cursed the King, and the King's mother, calling 
 her Jezebel. 
 
 "You can guess it? " Tavannes answered; and then 
 with sudden heat, as if that which he had to say could 
 not be said even by him in cold blood, "Nay, you
 
 54 COUNT HANNIBAL. 
 
 know it ! You heard it from the archer at the door. 
 You heard him say, 'No favour, no quarter for man, 
 for woman, or for child. So says the King.' You 
 heard it, but you fence with me. Foucauld, with 
 whom his Majesty played to-night, hand to hand and 
 face to face Foucauld is dead ! And you think to 
 live ? You 1 " he continued, lashing himself into 
 passion. "I know not by what chance you came 
 where I saw you an hour gone, nor by what chance 
 you came by that and that " pointing with accusing 
 finger to the badges the Huguenot wore. "But this I 
 know! I have but to cry your name from yonder 
 casement, nay, Monsieur, I have but to stand aside 
 when the mob go their rounds from house to house, 
 as they will go presently, and you will perish as cer- 
 tainly as you have hitherto escaped ! " 
 
 For the second time Mademoiselle turned and 
 looked at him. "Then," she whispered, with white 
 lips, "to what end this mockery?" 
 
 "To the end that seven lives may be saved, Ma- 
 demoiselle," he answered, bowing. 
 
 "At a price? " she muttered. 
 
 "At a price," he answered. "A price which wo- 
 men do not find it hard to pay at Court. 'Tis paid 
 every day for pleasure or a whim, for rank or the 
 entree, for robes and gewgaws. Few, Mademoiselle, 
 are privileged to buy a life ; still fewer, seven ! " 
 
 She began to tremble. " I would rather die seven 
 times ! " she cried, her voice quivering. And she 
 tried to rise, but sat down again. 
 
 " And these ? " he said, indicating the servants. 
 
 "Far, far rather! " she repeated passionately. 
 
 " And Monsieur ? And Monsieur ! " he urged with 
 stern persistence, while his eyes passed lightly from
 
 A BOUGH WOOING. 55 
 
 her to Tignonville and back to her again, their depths 
 inscrutable. "If you love Monsieur, Mademoiselle, 
 and I believe you do - " 
 
 " I can die with him ! " she cried. 
 
 "And he with you! " 
 
 She writhed in her chair. 
 
 "And he with you?" Count Hannibal repeated, 
 with emphasis; and he thrust forward his head. 
 "For that is the question. Think, think, Mademoi- 
 .^lle. It is in my power to save from death him 
 whom you love ; to save you ; to save this canaille, if 
 it so please you. It is in my power to save him, to 
 save you, to save all ; and I will save all at a price ! 
 If, on the other hand, you deny me that price, I will 
 as certainly leave all to perish, as perish they will, 
 before the sun that is now rising sets to-night ! " 
 
 Mademoiselle looked straight before her, the nicker 
 of a dreadful prescience in her eyes. "And the 
 price? " she muttered. "The price? " 
 
 "You, Mademoiselle." 
 
 " Yes, you ! Nay. why fence with me ? " he con- 
 tinued gently. "You knew it, you have said it. You 
 have read it in my eyes these seven days." 
 
 She did not speak, move, or seem to breathe. As 
 he said, she had foreseen, she had known the answer. 
 But Tignonville, it seemed, had not. He sprang to 
 his feet. "M. de Tavannes," he cried, "you are a 
 villain ! " 
 
 "Monsieur?" 
 
 " You are a villain ! But you shall pay for this ! " 
 the young man continued vehemently. "You shall 
 not leave this room alive! You shall pay for this 
 insult!"
 
 56 COUNT HANNIBAL. 
 
 " Insult ? " Tavaunes answered in apparent sur- 
 prise; and then, as if comprehension broke upon 
 him, "Ah! Monsieur mistakes me," he said, with a 
 generous sweep of his hand. "And Mademoiselle 
 also, perhaps? Oh! be content, she shall have bell, 
 book, and candle ; she shall be tied as tight as Holy 
 Church can tie her ! Or, if she please, and one sur- 
 vive, she shall have a priest of her own church you 
 call it a church ? She shall have whichever of the two 
 will serve her better. "Pis one to me ! But for pay- 
 ing me, Monsieur," he continued with irony in voice 
 and manner ;" when, I pray you ? In Eternity! For 
 if you refuse my offer, you have done with time. 
 Now ? I have but to sound this whistle " he touched 
 a silver whistle which hung at his breast "and there 
 are those within hearing will do your business before 
 you make two passes. Dismiss the notion, sir, and 
 understand. You are in my power. Paris runs with 
 blood, as noble as yours, as innocent as hers. If you 
 would not perish with the rest, decide ! And quick- 
 ly ! For what you have seen are but the forerunners, 
 what you have heard are but the gentle whispers that 
 predict the gale. Do not parley too long; so long 
 that even I may no longer save you." 
 
 "I would rather die!" Mademoiselle moaned, her 
 face covered. " I would rather die ! " 
 
 "And see him die?" he answered quietly. "And 
 see these die? Think, think, child!" 
 
 "You will not do it!" she gasped. She shook 
 from head to foot. 
 
 "I shall do nothing," he answered firmly. "I shall 
 but leave you to your fate, and these to theirs. In 
 the King's teeth I dare save my wife and her people; 
 but no others. You must choose and quickly."
 
 A ROUGH WOOING. 57 
 
 One of the frightened women it was Mademoi- 
 selle's tiring-maid, a girl called Javette made a 
 movement, as if to throw herself at her mistress's 
 feet. Tignonville drove her to her place with a word. 
 He turned to Count Hannibal. "But, M. le Comte," 
 he said, " you must be mad ! Mad, to wish to marry 
 her in this way ! You do not love her. You do not 
 want her. What is she to you more than other wo- 
 men ? " 
 
 "What is she to you more than other women? " Ta- 
 vanues retorted in a tone so sharp and incisive that 
 Tignonville started, and a faint touch of colour crept 
 into the wan cheek of the girl, who sat between them, 
 the prize of the contest. " What is she more to you 
 than other women? Is she more? And yet you 
 want her ! " 
 
 "She is more to me," Tignonville answered. 
 
 " Is she ? " the other retorted, with a ring of keen 
 meaning. "Is she? But we bandy words and the 
 storm is rising, as I 'warned you it would rise. 
 Enough for you that I do want her. Enough for you 
 that I will have her. She shall be the wife, the will- 
 ing wife, of Hannibal de Tavannes or I leave her to 
 her fate, and you to yours ! " 
 
 " Ah, God ! " she moaned. " The willing wife ! " 
 
 "Ay, Mademoiselle, the willing wife," he answered 
 sternly. " Or no man's wife ! "
 
 CHAPTEE VI. 
 
 WHO TOUCHES TAVANNES? 
 
 IN saying that the storm was rising Count Hannibal had 
 said no more than the truth. A new mob had a min- 
 ute before burst from the eastward into the Rue St. 
 Honore ; and the roar of its thousand voices swelled 
 louder than the importunate clangour of the bells. 
 Behind its moving masses the dawn of a new day 
 Sunday, the 24th of August, the feast of St. Barthol- 
 omew was breaking over the Bastille, as if to aid the 
 crowd in its cruel work. The gabled streets, the lanes, 
 and gothic courts, the stifling wynds, where the work 
 awaited the workers, still lay in twilight; still the 
 gleam of the torches, falling On the house -fronts, her- 
 alded the coming of the crowd. But the dawn was 
 growing, the sun was about to rise. Soon the day 
 would be here, giving up the lurking fugitive whom 
 darkness, more pitiful, had spared, and stamping with 
 legality the horrors that night had striven to hide. 
 
 And with day, with the full light, killing would 
 grow more easy, escape more hard. Already they 
 were killing on the bridge where the rich goldsmiths 
 lived, on the wharves, on the river. They were kill- 
 ing at the Louvre, in the courtyard under the King's 
 eyes, and below the windows of the Medicis. They 
 were killing in St. Martin and St. Denis and St. An- 
 toine; wherever hate, or bigotry, or private malice 
 impelled the hand. From the whole city went up
 
 WHO TOUCHES TAVANNES ? 59 
 
 a din of lamentation, and wrath, and foreboding. 
 From the Cour des Miracles, from the markets, from 
 the Boucherie, from every haunt of crime and misery, 
 hordes of wretched creatures poured forth; some to 
 rob on their own account, and where they listed, none 
 gainsaying; more to join themselves to one of the 
 armed bands whose business it was to go from street 
 to street, and house to house, quelling resistance, and 
 executing through Paris the high justice of the King. 
 
 It was one of these swollen bands which had en- 
 tered the street while Tavannes spoke ; nor could he 
 have called to his aid a more powerful advocate. As 
 the deep "A bas! A bas!" rolled like thunder along 
 the fronts of the houses, as the more strident " Tuez ! 
 Tuez ! " drew nearer and nearer, and the lights of the 
 oncoming multitude began to flicker on the shut- 
 tered gables, the fortitude of the servants gave way. 
 Madame Carlat, shivering in every limb, burst into 
 moaning; the tiring-maid, Javette, flung herself in 
 terror at Mademoiselle's knees, and, writhing herself 
 about them, shrieked to her to save her, only to save 
 her! One of the men moved forward on impulse, as 
 if he would close the shutters ; and only old Carlat 
 remained silent, praying mutely with moving lips 
 and a stern, set face. 
 
 And Count Hannibal ? As the glare of the links in 
 the street grew brighter, and ousted the sickly day- 
 light, his form seemed to dilate. He stilled the 
 shrieking woman by a glance. " Choose ! Mademoi- 
 selle, and quickly ! " he said. " For I can only save 
 my wife and her people! Quick, for the pinch is 
 coming, and 'twill be no boy's play." 
 
 A shot, a scream from the street, a rush of racing 
 feet before the window seconded his words.
 
 60 COUNT HANNIBAL. 
 
 "Quick, Mademoiselle! " lie cried. And his breath 
 came a little faster. "Quick, before it be too late! 
 "Will you save life, or will you kill! " 
 
 She looked at her lover with eyes of agony, dumbly 
 questioning him. But he made no sign, and only Ta- 
 vannes marked the look. " Monsieur has done what 
 he can to save himself," he said with a sneer. "He 
 has donned the livery of the King's servants ; he has 
 said, 'Whoever perishes, I will live!' But " 
 
 " Curse you ! " the young man cried, and, stung 
 to madness, he tore the cross from his cap and flung 
 it on the ground. He seized his white sleeve and 
 ripped it from shoulder to elbow. Then, when it 
 hung by the string only, he held his hand. 
 
 "Curse you!" he cried furiously. "I will not at 
 your bidding ! I may save her yet ! I will save her ! " 
 
 "Fool!" Tavannes answered but his words were 
 barely audible above the deafening uproar. "Can 
 you fight a thousand? Look! Look!" and seiz- 
 ing the other's wrist he pointed to the window. 
 The street glowed like a furnace in the red light of 
 torches, raised on poles above a sea of heads ; an end- 
 less sea of heads, and gaping faces, and tossing arms 
 which swept on and on, and on and by. For a while 
 it seemed that the torrent would flow past them and 
 would leave them safe. Then came a check, a con- 
 fused outcry, a surging this way and that ; the torches 
 reeled to and fro, and finally with a dull roar of 
 " Open ! Open ! " the mob faced about to the house 
 and the lighted window. 
 
 For a second it seemed that even Count Hannibal's 
 iron nerves shook a little. He stood between the sul- 
 len group that surrounded the disordered table and 
 the maddened rabble, that gloated on the victims be-
 
 WHO TOUCHES TAVANNES ? 61 
 
 fore they tore them to pieces. "Open! Open!" the 
 inob howled : and a man dashed in the window with 
 his pike. 
 
 In that crisis Mademoiselle's eyes met Tavannes' 
 for the fraction of a second. She did not speak ; nor, 
 had she retained the power to frame the words, would 
 they have been audible. But something she must have 
 looked, and something of import, though no other than 
 he marked or understood it. For in a flash he was 
 at the window and his hand was raised for silence. 
 
 "Back!" he thundered. "Back, knaves!" And 
 he whistled shrilly. "Do what you will," he contin- 
 ued in the same tone, "but not here! Pass on! Pass 
 on ! do you hear ? " 
 
 But the crowd were not to be lightly diverted. With 
 a persistence brutal and unquestioning they con- 
 tinued to howl "Open! Open!" while the man who 
 had broken the window the moment before, Jehau, 
 the cripple with the hideous face, seized the lead- 
 work, and tore away a great piece of it. Then laying 
 hold of a bar, he tried to drag it out, setting one foot 
 against the wall below. 
 
 Tavannes saw what he did, and his frame seemed 
 to dilate with the fury and violence of his character. 
 "Dogs! " he shouted, "must I call out my riders and 
 scatter you? Must I flog you through the streets 
 with stirrup-leathers? I am Tavanues, beware of me ! 
 I have claws and teeth and I bite ! " he continued, 
 the scorn in his words exceeding even the rage of the 
 crowd, at which he flung them. "Kill where you 
 please, rob where you please, but not where I am ! 
 Or I will hang you by the heels on Montfaucou, man 
 by man! I will flay your backs. Go! go! I am 
 Tavannes ! "
 
 62 COUNT HANNIBAL. 
 
 But the mob, cowed for a moment by the thunder of 
 his voice, by his arrogance and recklessness, showed 
 at this that their patience was exhausted. With a 
 yell which drowned his tones they swayed for- 
 ward; a dozen thundered on the door, crying, "In 
 the King's name!" As many more tore out the re- 
 mainder of the casement, seized the bars of the win- 
 dow, and strove to pull them out or to climb between 
 them. Jehan, the cripple, with whom Tignonville had 
 rubbed elbows at the rendezvous, led the way. 
 
 Count Hannibal watched them a moment, his harsh 
 face bent down to them, his features plain in the 
 glare of the torches. But when the cripple, raised 
 on the others' shoulders, and emboldened by his ad- 
 versary's inactivity, began to squeeze himself through 
 the bars, Tavannes raised a pistol, which he had held 
 unseen behind him, cocked it at leisure, and levelled 
 it at the foul face which leered close to his. The dwarf 
 saw the weapon and tried to retreat ; but it was too 
 late. A flash, a scream, and the wretch, shot through 
 the throat, flung up his hands, and fell back into the 
 arms of a lean man in black who had lent him his 
 shoulder to ascend. 
 
 For a few seconds the smoke of the pistol filled the 
 window and the room. There was a cry that the Hu- 
 guenots were escaping, that the Huguenots were re- 
 sisting, that it was a plot ; and some shouted to guard 
 the back and some to watch the roof, and some to be 
 gone. But when the fumes cleared away, the mob 
 saw, with stupor, that all was as it had been. Count 
 Hannibal stood where he had stood before, a grim 
 smile on his lips. 
 
 "Who comes next! " he cried in a tone of mockery. 
 "I have more pistols!" And then with a sudden
 
 WHO TOUCHES TAVANNES ! 63 
 
 change to ferocity, "You dogs! " he went on. "Yon 
 scum of a filthy city, sweepings of the Halles ! Do 
 you think to beard me ? Do you think to frighten me 
 or murder me ? I am Tavannes, and this is my house, 
 and were there a score of Huguenots in it, you should 
 not touch one, nor harm a hair of his head ! Begone, 
 I say again, while you may ! Seek women and chil- 
 dren, and kill them. But not here ! " 
 
 For an instant the mingled scorn and brutality of 
 his words silenced them. Then from the rear of the 
 crowd came an answer the roar of an arquebuse. 
 The ball whizzed past Count Hannibal's head, and, 
 splashing the plaster from the wall within a pace of 
 Tignonville, dropped to the ground. 
 
 Tavannes laughed. "Bungler! " he cried. "Were 
 you in my troop I would dip your trigger-finger in 
 boiling oil to teach you to shoot ! But you weary me, 
 dogs. I must teach you a lesson, must I *? " And he 
 lifted a pistol and levelled it. The crowd did not 
 know whether it was the one he had discharged or 
 another, but they gave back with a sharp gasp. 
 "I must teach you, must I? " he continued with scorn. 
 "Here Bigot, Badelon, drive me these blusterers! 
 Rid the street of them ! A Tavaunes ! A Tavannes ! " 
 
 Not by word or look had he before this betrayed that 
 he had supports. But as he cried the name, a dozen 
 men armed to the teeth, who had stood motionless 
 under the Croix du Tiroir, fell in a line on the right 
 flank of the crowd. The surprise for those nearest 
 them was complete. With the flash of the pikes be- 
 fore their eyes, with the cold steel in fancy between 
 their ribs, they fled every way, uncertain how many 
 pursued, or if any pursuit there was. For a moment 
 the mob, which a few minutes before had seemed so
 
 64 COUKT HAKNTBAL. 
 
 formidable that a regiment might have quailed before 
 it, bade fair to be routed by a dozen pikes. 
 
 And so, had all in the crowd been what he termed 
 them, the rabble and sweepings of the streets, it 
 would have been. But in the heart of it, and felt 
 rather than seen, were a handful of another kidney ; 
 Sorbonne students and fierce-eyed priests, with three 
 or four mounted archers, the nucleus that, mov- 
 ing through the streets, had drawn together this 
 concourse. And these with threats and curses and 
 gleaming eyes stood fast, even Tavannes' dare-devils 
 recoiling before the tonsure. The check thus caused 
 allowed those who had budged a breathing space. 
 They rallied behind the black robes, and began to 
 stone the pikes; who in their turn withdrew until 
 they formed two groups, standing on their defence, 
 the one before the window the other before the door. 
 
 Count Hannibal had watched the attack and the 
 check, as a man watches a play ; with smiling inter- 
 est. In the panic, the torches had been dropped or 
 extinguished, and now between the house and the 
 sullen crowd which hung back, yet grew moment by 
 moment more dangerous, the daylight fell cold on the 
 littered street and the cripple's huddled form prone 
 in the gutter. A priest raised on the shoulders of the 
 lean man in black began to harangue the mob, and the 
 dull roar of assent, the brandished arms which greeted 
 his appeal, had their effect on Tavaunes' men. They 
 looked to the window, and muttered among them- 
 selves. It was plain that they had no stomach for 
 a fight with the Church, and were anxious for the 
 order to withdraw. 
 
 But Count Hannibal gave no order, and, much as 
 his people feared the cowls, they feared him more.
 
 WHO TOUCHES TAYANNES t 65 
 
 Meanwhile the speaker's eloquence rose higher; he 
 pointed with frenzied gestures to the house. The 
 mob groaned, and suddenly a volley of stones fell 
 among the pikemeu, whose corselets rattled under the 
 shower. The priest seized that moment. He sprang 
 to the ground, and to the front. He caught up his 
 robe and waved his hand, and the rabble, as if impelled 
 by a single will, rolled forward in a huge one-fronted 
 thundering wave, before which the two handfuls of 
 pikemen afraid to strike, yet afraid to fly were 
 swept away like straws upon the tide. 
 
 But against the solid walls and oak-barred door of 
 the house the wave beat, only to fall back again, a 
 broken, seething mass of brandished arms and raven- 
 ing faces. One point alone was vulnerable, the win- 
 dow, and there in the gap stood Tavannes. Quick as 
 thought he fired two pistols into the crowd; then, 
 while the smoke for a moment hid all, he whistled. 
 
 Whether the signal was a summons to his men to 
 fight their way back as they were doing to the best 
 of their power or he had resources still unseen, was 
 not to be known. For as the smoke began to rise, and 
 while the rabble before the window, cowed by the fall 
 of two of their number, were still pushing backward 
 instead of forward, there rose behind them strange 
 sounds yells, and the clatter of hoofs, mingled with 
 screams of alarm. A second, and into the loose skirts 
 of the crowd came charging helter-skelter, pell-mell, 
 a. score of galloping, shrieking, cursing horsemen, 
 attended by twice as many footmen, who clung to 
 their stirrups or to the tails of the horses, and yelled 
 and whooped, and struck in unison with the mad- 
 dened riders. 
 
 " On ! on ! " the foremost shrieked, rolling in his 
 5
 
 66 COUNT HANNIBAL. 
 
 saddle, and foaming at the mouth. "Bleed in Au- 
 gust, bleed in May ! Kill ! " And he fired a pistol 
 among the rabble, who fled every way to escape his 
 rearing, plunging charger. 
 
 "Kill! Kill!" cried his followers, cutting the air 
 with their swords, and rolling to and fro on their 
 horses in drunken emulation. "Bleed in August, 
 bleed in May ! " 
 
 " On ! On ! " cried the leader, as the crowd which 
 beset the house fled every way before his reckless 
 onset. " Bleed in August, bleed in May ! " 
 
 The rabble fled, but not so quickly but that one 
 or two were ridden down, and this for an instant 
 checked the riders. Before they could pass on, 
 " Ohe ! " cried Count Hannibal from his window. 
 "Ohe!" with a shout of laughter, "ride over them, 
 dear brother ! Make me a clean street for my wed- 
 ding ! " 
 
 Marshal Tavannes for he, the hero of Jarnac, was 
 the leader of this wild orgy turned that way, and 
 strove to rein in his horse. "What ails them?" he 
 cried, as the maddened animal reared upright, its 
 iron hoofs striking fire from the slippery pavement. 
 
 "They are rearing like thy Bayard!" Count Han- 
 nibal answered. "Whip them, whip them for me! 
 Tavannes ! Tavannes ! " 
 
 " What I This canaille ! " 
 
 " Ay, that canaille ! " 
 
 " Who touches my brother, touches Tavaunes ! " 
 the Marshal replied, and spurred his horse among the 
 rabble, who had fled to the sides of the street and 
 now strove hard to efface themselves against the 
 walls. "Begone, dogs; begone! " he cried, still hunt- 
 ing them. And then, "You would bite, would you? "
 
 WHO TOUCHES TAVAXFES 1 67 
 
 And snatching another pistol from his boot, he fired 
 it among them, careless whom he hit. "Ha! ha! 
 That stirs you, does it ! " he continued as the wretches 
 fled headlong. "Who touches my brother, touches 
 Tavannes! On! On!" 
 
 Suddenly, from a doorway near at hand, a sombre 
 figure darted into the roadway, caught the Marshal's 
 rein, and for a second checked his course. The priest 
 for a priest it was, Father Pezelay, the same who 
 had addressed the mob held up a warning hand. 
 "Halt!" he cried, with burning eyes. "Halt, my 
 lord ! It is written, thou shalt not spare the Canaan - 
 itish woman. 'Tis not to spare the King has given 
 command and a sword, but to kill ! 'Tis not to har- 
 bour, but to smite ! To smite ! " 
 
 "Then smite I will!" the Marshal retorted, and 
 with the butt of his pistol struck the zealot down. 
 Then, with as much indifference as he would have 
 treated a Huguenot, he spurred his horse over him, 
 with a mad laugh at his jest. "Who touches my 
 brother, touches Tavannes!" he yelled. "Touches 
 Tavanues! On! On! Bleed in August, bleed in 
 May!" 
 
 "On!" shouted his followers, striking about them 
 in the same desperate fashion. They were young no- 
 bles who had spent the night feasting at the Palace, 
 and, drunk with wine and mad with excitement, had 
 left the Louvre at daybreak to rouse the city. "A 
 Jarnac ! A Jarnac ! " they cried, and some saluted 
 Count Hannibal as they passed. And so, shouting 
 and spurring and following their leader, they swept 
 away down the now empty street, carrying terror and 
 a flame wherever their horses bore them that morn- 
 ing.
 
 68 COUNT HANNIBAL. 
 
 Tavannes, his hands on the ledge of the shattered 
 window, leaned out laughing, and followed them with 
 his eyes. A moment, and the mob was gone, the 
 street was empty; and one by one, with sheepish 
 faces, his pikemeu emerged from the doorways and 
 alleys in which they had taken refuge. They gath- 
 ered about the three huddled forms which lay prone 
 and still in the gutter: or, not three two. For 
 even as they approached them, one, the priest, rose 
 slowly and giddily to his feet. He turned a face 
 bleeding, lean, and relentless towards the window at 
 which Tavannes stood. Solemnly, with the sign of 
 the cross, and with uplifted hands, he cursed him in 
 bed and at board, by day and by night, in walking, 
 in riding, in standing, in the day of battle, and at the 
 hour of death. The pikejnen fell back appalled, and 
 hid their eyes; and those who were of the north 
 crossed themselves, and those who came from the 
 south bent two fingers horse-shoe fashion. But Han- 
 nibal de Tavannes laughed; laughed in his mous- 
 tache, his teeth showing, and bade them move that 
 carrion to a distance, for it would smell when the sun 
 was high. Then he turned his back on the street, 
 and looked into the room.
 
 CHAPTER VH. 
 
 IN THE AMPHITHEATRE. 
 
 THE movements of the women had overturned two 
 of the candles ; a third had guttered out. The three 
 which still burned, contending pallidly with the day- 
 light that each moment grew stronger, imparted to 
 the scene the air of a debauch too long sustained. 
 The disordered board, the wan faces of the servants 
 cowering in their corner, Mademoiselle's frozen look 
 of misery, all increased the likeness; which a com- 
 mon exhaustion so far strengthened that when Ta- 
 vannes turned from the window, and, flushed with his 
 triumph, met the others' eyes, his seemed the only 
 vigour, and he the only man in the company. True, 
 beneath the exhaustion, beneath the collapse of his 
 victims, there burned passions, hatreds, repulsions, as 
 fierce as the hidden fires of the volcano ; but for the 
 time they smouldered ash -choked and inert. 
 
 He flung the discharged pistols on the table. "If 
 yonder raven speak truth," he said, "I am like to 
 pay dearly for my wife, and have short time to call 
 her wife. The more need, Mademoiselle, for speed, 
 therefore. You know the old saying, ' Short signing, 
 long seisin' ? Shall it be my priest, or your minister ? " 
 
 M. de Tignouville started forward. "She prom- 
 ised nothing ! " he cried. And he struck his hand on 
 the table.
 
 70 COUNT HANNIBAL. 
 
 Count Hannibal smiled, his lip curling. "That," 
 he replied, "is for Mademoiselle to say." 
 
 "But if she says it? If she says it, Monsieur? 
 What then?" 
 
 Tavanues drew forth a comfit-box, such as it was the 
 fashion of the day to carry, as men of a later time 
 carried a snuff-box. He slowly chose a prune. "If 
 she says it? " he answered. "Then M. de Tignonville 
 has regained his sweetheart. And M. de Tavannes 
 has lost his bride." 
 
 " You say so ! " 
 
 "Yes. But " 
 
 "But what?" 
 
 "But she will not say it," Tavannes replied coolly. 
 
 "Why not?" 
 
 "Why not?" 
 
 "Yes, Monsieur, why not?" the younger man re- 
 peated trembling. 
 
 "Because, M. de Tignonville, it is not true." 
 
 " But she did not speak I " Tignonville retorted, 
 with passion the futile passion of the bird which 
 beats its wings against a cage. "She did not speak. 
 She could not promise, therefore. " 
 
 Tavannes ate the prune slowly, seemed to give a 
 little thought to its flavour, approved it a true Agen 
 plum, and at last spoke. "It is not for you to say 
 whether she promised," he returned drily, "nor for 
 me. It is for Mademoiselle." 
 
 " You leave it to her ? " 
 
 "I leave it to her to say whether she promised." 
 
 "Then she must say No!" Tignonville cried in a 
 tone of triumph and relief. "For she did not speak. 
 Mademoiselle, listen ! " he continued, turning with 
 outstretched hands and appealing to her with passion.
 
 IN THE AMPHITHEATEE. 71 
 
 "Do you hear? Do you understand? You have but 
 to speak to be free ! You have but to say the word, 
 and Monsieur lets you go! In God's name, speak! 
 Speak then, Clotilde ! Oh ! " with a gesture of de- 
 spair, as she did not answer, but continued to sit 
 stony and hopeless, looking straight before her, her 
 hands picking convulsively at. the fringe of her girdle. 
 "She does not understand! Fright has stunned her! 
 Be merciful, Monsieur. Give her time to recover, to 
 know what she does. Fright has turned her brain. " 
 
 Count Hannibal smiled. "I knew her father and 
 her uncle," he said, "and in their time the Vrillacs 
 were not wont to be cowards. Monsieur forgets, too," 
 he continued with fine irony, "that he speaks of my 
 betrothed. " 
 
 "It is a lie!" 
 
 Tavannes raised his eyebrows. "You are in my 
 power," he said. "For the rest, if it be a lie, Ma- 
 demoiselle has but to say so." 
 
 " You hear him ? " Tignouville cried. " Then speak, 
 Mademoiselle! Clotilde, speak! Say you never 
 spoke, you never promised him ! " 
 
 The young man's voice quivered with indignation, 
 with rage, with pain ; but most, if the truth be told, 
 with shame the shame of a position strange and un- 
 paralleled. For in proportion as the fear of death 
 instant and A T iolent was lifted from him, reflection 
 awoke, and the situation in which he stood took uglier 
 shape. It was not so much love that cried to her, 
 love that suffered, anguished by the prospect of love 
 lost; as in the highest natures it might have been. 
 Bather it was the man's pride which suffered; the 
 pride of a high spirit which found itself helpless be- 
 tween the hammer and the anvil, in a position so false
 
 72 COUNT HANNIBAL. 
 
 that hereafter men might say of the unfortunate that 
 he had bartered his mistress for his life. He had 
 not! But he had perforce to stand by; he had to 
 be passive under stress of circumstances, and by the 
 sacrifice, if she consummated it, he would in fact be 
 saved. 
 
 There was the pinch. No wonder that he cried to 
 her in a voice which roused even the servants from 
 their lethargy of fear. "Say it!" he cried. "Say 
 it, before it be too late. Say you did not promise ! " 
 
 Slowly she turned her face to him. "I cannot," she 
 whispered; "I cannot. Go," she continued, a spasm 
 distorting her features. "Go, Monsieur. Leave 
 me. It is over. " 
 
 "What?" he exclaimed. " You promised him ?" 
 
 She bowed her head. 
 
 "Then," the young man cried, in a transport of 
 resentment, "I will be no part of the price. See! 
 There ! And there ! " He tore the white sleeve 
 wholly from his arm, and, rending it in twain, flung 
 it on the floor and trampled on it. " It shall never 
 be said that I stood by and let you buy my life ! I 
 go into the street and I take my chance." And he 
 turned to the door. 
 
 But Tavauues was before him. "No!" he said; 
 " you will stay here, M. de Tignonville ! " And he set 
 his back against the door. 
 
 The young man looked at him, his face convulsed 
 with passion. " I shall stay here ?" he cried. "And 
 why, Monsieur? "What is it to you if I choose to per- 
 ish?" 
 
 "Only this," Tavannes retorted. "I am answerable 
 to Mademoiselle now, in an hour I shall be answer- 
 able to my wife for your life. Live, then, Monsieur ;
 
 IN THE AMPHITHEATKE. 73 
 
 you have no choice. In a month you will thank me 
 and her." 
 
 "I am your prisoner? " 
 
 "Precisely." 
 
 "And I must stay here to be tortured?" Tignou- 
 ville cried. 
 
 Count Hannibal's eyes sparkled. Sudden stormy 
 changes, from indifference to ferocity, from irony 
 to invective, were characteristic of the man. "Tor- 
 tured!" he repeated grimly. "You talk of torture 
 while Piles and Pardaillau, Teligny and Kochefou- 
 cauld lie dead in the street ! While your cause sinks 
 withered in a night, like a gourd ! While your ser- 
 vants fall butchered, and France rises round you in a 
 tide of blood ! Bah ! " with a gesture of disdain 
 "you make me also talk, and I have no love for talk, 
 and small time. Mademoiselle, you at least act and 
 do not talk. By your leave I return in an hour, and 
 I bring with me shall it be my priest, or your minis- 
 ter?" 
 
 She looked at him with the face of one who awakes 
 slowly to the full horror, the full dread, of her posi- 
 tion. For a moment she did not answer. Then, "A 
 minister," she murmured, her voice scarcely audible. 
 
 He nodded. "A minister?" he said lightly. 
 " Very well, if I can find one. " And walking to the 
 shattered, gaping casement through which the cool 
 morning air blew into the room and gently stirred 
 the hair of the unhappy girl he said some words to 
 the man on guard outside. Then he turned to the 
 door, but on the threshold he paused, looked with a 
 strange expression at the pair, and signed to Carlat 
 and the servants to go out before him. 
 
 "Up, and lie close above!" he growled. "Open a
 
 74 COUNT HANNIBAL. 
 
 window or look out, and you will pay dearly for it ! 
 Do you hear? Up! Up! You, too, old crop -ears. 
 What ! would you ? " with a sudden glare as Carlat 
 hesitated "that is better! Mademoiselle, until my 
 return. " 
 
 He saw them all out, followed them, and closed the 
 door on the two ; who, left together, alone with the 
 gaping window and the disordered feast, maintained 
 a strange silence. The girl, gripping one hand in the 
 other as if to quell her rising horror, sat looking be- 
 fore her, and seemed barely to breathe. The man, 
 leaning against the wall at a little distance, bent his 
 eyes not on her, but on the floor, his face gloomy and 
 distorted. 
 
 His first thought should have been of her and for 
 her ; his first impulse to console, if he could not save 
 her. His it should have been to soften, were that 
 possible, the fate before her; to prove to her by 
 words of farewell, the purest and most sacred, that 
 the sacrifice she was making, not to save her own life 
 but the lives of others, was appreciated by him who 
 paid with her the price. 
 
 And all these things, and more, may have been in 
 M. de Tignonville's mind; they may even have been 
 uppermost in it, but they found no expression. The 
 man remained sunk in a sombre reverie. He had the 
 appearance of thinking of himself, not of her ; of his 
 own position, not of hers. Otherwise he must have 
 looked at her, he must have turned to her ; he must 
 have owned the subtle attraction of her unspoken 
 appeal when she drew a deep breath and slowly 
 turned her eyes on him, mute, asking, waiting what 
 he should offer. 
 
 Surely he should have ! Yet it was long before he
 
 IN THE AMPHITHEATEB. 75 
 
 responded. He sat buried in thought of himself, and 
 his position, the vile, the unworthy position in which 
 her act had placed him. At length the constraint of 
 her gaze wrought on him, or his thoughts became 
 unbearable, and he looked up and met her eyes, and 
 with an oath he sprang to his feet. 
 
 "It shall not be!" he cried, in a tone low, but 
 full of fury. "You shall not do it! I will kill him 
 
 first! I will kill him with this hand! Or " a 
 
 step took him to the window, a step brought him 
 back ay, brought him back exultant, and with a 
 changed face. "Or better, we will thwart him yet. 
 See, Mademoiselle, do you see ? Heaven is merciful ! 
 For a moment the cage is open ! " His eyes shone 
 with excitement, the sweat of sudden hope stood on 
 his brow as he pointed to the unguarded casement. 
 " Come ! it is our one chance ! " And he caught her 
 by her arm, and strove to draw her to the window. 
 
 But she hung back, staring at him. "Oh, no, no! " 
 she cried. 
 
 "Yes, yes! I say!" he responded. "You do not 
 understand. The way is open! We can escape, Clo- 
 tilde, we can escape ! " 
 
 " I cannot ! I cannot ! " she wailed, still resisting him. 
 
 "You are afraid?" 
 
 " Afraid ? " she repeated the word in a tone of won- 
 der. "No, but I cannot. I promised him. I can- 
 not. And, O God ! " she continued, in a sudden out- 
 burst of grief, as the sense of general loss, of the 
 great common tragedy broke on her and whelmed for 
 the moment her private misery. "Why should we 
 think of ourselves? They are dead, they are dying, 
 who were ours, whom we loved! Why should we 
 think to live ? What does it matter how it fares with
 
 76 COUNT HANNIBAL. 
 
 us? We cannot be happy. Happy 1 ?" she continued 
 wildly. "Are any happy now? Or is the world all 
 changed in a night? No, we could not be happy. 
 And at least you will live, Tignonville. I have that 
 to console me." 
 
 "Live!" he responded vehemently. "I live? I 
 would rather die a thousand times. A thousand 
 times rather than live shamed! Thau see you sacri- 
 ficed to that devil ! Than go out with a brand on my 
 brow, for every man to point at me ! I would rather 
 die a thousand times! " 
 
 "And do you think that I would not?" she an- 
 swered, shivering. "Better, far better die than 
 than live with him ! " 
 
 "Then why not die? " 
 
 She stared at him, wide-eyed, and a sudden still- 
 ness possessed her. "How? " she whispered. "What 
 do you mean ? " 
 
 "That! " he said. As he spoke, he raised his hand 
 and signed to her to listen. A sullen murmur, dis- 
 tant as yet, but borne to the ear on the fresh morning 
 air, foretold the rising of another storm. The sound 
 grew in intensity, even while she listened ; and yet for 
 a moment she misunderstood him. "O God!" she 
 cried, out of the agony of nerves overwrought, "will 
 that bell never stop 1 Will it never stop ? Will no 
 one stop it?" 
 
 " 'Tis not the bell ! " he cried, seizing her hand as if 
 to focus her attention. "It is the mob you hear. 
 They are returning. We have but to stand a moment 
 at this open window, we have but to show ourselves 
 to them, and we need live no longer ! Mademoiselle ! 
 Clotilde! if you mean what you say, if you are in 
 earnest, the way is open ! "
 
 IN THE AMPHITHEATER 7? 
 
 "And we shall die together! " 
 
 "Yes, together. But have you the courage 1 ? " 
 
 " The courage !" she cried, a brave smile lighting 
 the whiteness of her face. "The courage were needed 
 to live. The courage were needed to do that. I am 
 ready, quite ready. It can be no sin ! To live with 
 that in front of me were the sin ! Come ! " For the 
 moment she had forgotten her people, her promise, 
 all ! It seemed to her that death would absolve her 
 from all. "Come!" 
 
 He moved with her under the impulse of her hand 
 until they stood at the gaping window. The mur- 
 mur, which he had heard indistinctly a moment be- 
 fore, had grown to a roar of voices. The mob, on 
 its return eastward along the Eue St. Honor6, was 
 nearing the house. He stood, his arm supporting 
 her, and they waited, a little within the window. 
 Suddenly he stooped, his face hardly less white than 
 hers ; their eyes met, and he would have kissed her. 
 
 She did not withdraw from his arm, but she drew 
 back her face, her eyes half shut. " No ! " she mur- 
 mured. " No ! While I live I am his. But we die 
 together, Tignonville ! We die together. It will not 
 last long, will it ? And afterwards " 
 
 She did not finish the sentence, but her lips moved 
 in prayer, and over her features came a far-away 
 look ; such a look as that which on the face of an- 
 other Huguenot lady, Philippine de Luns vilely 
 done to death in the Place Maubert fourteen years 
 before silenced the ribald jests of the lowest rabble 
 in the world. An hour or two earlier, awed by the 
 abruptness of the outburst, Mademoiselle had shrunk 
 from her fate ; she had known fear. Now that she 
 stood out voluntarily to meet it, she, like many a wo-
 
 78 COUNT HAXNIBAL. 
 
 man before and since, feared no longer. She was 
 lifted out of and above herself. 
 
 But death was long in coming. Some cause beyond 
 their knowledge stayed the onrush of the mob along 
 the street. The din, indeed, persisted, deafened, 
 shook them ; but the crowd seemed to be at a stand a 
 few doors down the Eue St. Honore". For a half- 
 minute, a long half-minute, which appeared an age, 
 it drew no nearer. -Would it draw nearer 1 ? Would 
 it come on? Or would it turn again? 
 
 The doubt, so much worse than despair, began to 
 sap that courage of the man which is always better 
 fitted to do than to suffer. The sweat rose on Tig- 
 nonville's brow as he stood listening, his arm round 
 the girl as he stood listening and waiting. It is pos- 
 sible that when he had said a minute or two earlier 
 that he would rather die a thousand times than live 
 thus shamed, he had spoken beyond the mark. Or 
 it is possible that he had meant his words to the full. 
 But in this case he had not pictured what was to come, 
 he had not gauged correctly his power of passive en- 
 durance. He was as brave as the ordinary man, as 
 the ordinary soldier; but martyrdom, the apotheosis 
 of resignation, comes more naturally to women than 
 to men, more hardly to men than to women. Yet 
 had the crisis come quickly he might have met it. 
 But he had to wait, and to wait with that howling 
 of wild beasts in his ears ; and for this he was not 
 prepared. A woman might be content to die after 
 this fashion ; but a man ? His colour went and came, 
 his eyes began to rove hither and thither. Was it 
 even now too late to escape ? Too late to avoid the 
 consequences of the girl's silly persistence"? Too late 
 to ? Her eyes were closed, she hung half lifeless
 
 IN THE AMPHITHEATER 79 
 
 on his arm. She would not know, she need not 
 know until afterwards. And afterwards she would 
 thank him ! Afterwards meantime the window was 
 open, the street was empty, and still the crowd hung 
 back and did not come. 
 
 He remembered that two doors away was a nar- 
 row passage, which leaving the Eue St. Honor6 turned 
 at right angles under a beetling archway, to emerge 
 in the Eue du Eoule. If he could gain that passage 
 unseen by the mob ! He would gain it. With a swift 
 movement, his mind made up, he took a step forward. 
 He tightened his grasp of the girl's waist, and, seiz- 
 ing with his left hand the end of the bar which the 
 assailants had torn from its setting in the window 
 jamb, he turned to lower himself. One long step 
 would land him in the street. 
 
 At that moment she awoke from the stupor of exal- 
 tation. She opened her eyes with a startled move- 
 ment ; and her eyes met his. 
 
 He was in the act of stepping backwards and down- 
 wards, dragging her after him. But it was not this 
 betrayed him. It was his face, which in an instant 
 told her all, and that he sought not death, but life ! 
 She struggled upright and strove to free herself. 
 But he had the purchase of the bar, and by this time 
 he was furious as well as determined. Whether she 
 would or no, he would save her, he would drag her 
 out. Then, as consciousness fully returned, she, too, 
 took fire. "No!" she cried, "I will not!" and she 
 struggled more violently. 
 
 "You shall ! " he retorted between his teeth. "You 
 shall not perish here." 
 
 But she had her hands free, and as he spoke she 
 thrust him from her passionately, desperately, with
 
 80 COUNT HANNIBAL. 
 
 all her strength. He had his one foot in the air 
 at the moment, and in a flash it was done. With a 
 cry of rage he lost his balance, and, still holding the 
 bar, reeled backwards through the window; while 
 Mademoiselle, panting and half fainting, recoiled 
 recoiled into the arms of Hannibal de Tavanues, who, 
 unseen by either, had entered the room a long minute 
 before. From the threshold, and with a smile, all his 
 own, he had watched the contest and the result.
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 TWO HENS AND AN EGG. 
 
 M. DE TIGNONVILLE was shaken by the fall, and in 
 the usual course of things he would have lain where he 
 was, and groaned. But when a man has once turned 
 his back on death he is apt to fancy it at his shoul- 
 der. He has small stomach for surprises, and is in 
 haste to set as great a distance as possible between 
 the ugly thing and himself. So it was with the Hu- 
 guenot. Shot suddenly into the full publicity of the 
 street, he knew that at any instant danger might take 
 him by the nape ; and he was on his legs and glancing 
 up and down before the clatter of his fall had trav- 
 elled the length of three houses. 
 
 The rabble were still a hundred paces away, piled 
 up and pressed about a house where men were being 
 hunted as men hunt rats. He saw that he was un- 
 noted, and apprehension gave place to rage. His 
 thoughts turned back hissing hot to the thing that 
 had happened, and in a paroxysm of shame he shook 
 his fist at the gaping casement and the sneering face 
 of his rival, dimly seen in the background. If a 
 look would have killed Tavanues and her it had 
 not been wanting. 
 
 For it was not only the man M. de Tignonville 
 
 hated at this moment ; he hated Mademoiselle also, 
 
 the unwitting agent of the other's triumph. She had 
 
 thrust him from her ; she had refused to be guided 
 
 6
 
 82 COUNT HANNIBAL. 
 
 by him; she had resisted, thwarted, shamed him. 
 Then let her take the consequences. She willed to 
 perish : let her perish ! 
 
 He did not acknowledge even to himself the real 
 cause of offence, the proof to which she had put 
 his courage, and the failure of that courage to stand 
 the test. Yet it was this, though he had himself 
 provoked the trial, which burned up his chivalry, as 
 the smuggler's fire burns up the dwarf heath upon 
 the Laudes. It was the discovery that in an heroic 
 hour he was no hero that gave force to his passion- 
 ate gesture, and next moment sent him storming 
 down the beetling passage to the Rue du Koule, his 
 heart a maelstrom of fierce vows and fiercer men- 
 aces. 
 
 He had reached the further end of the alley and 
 was on the point of entering the street before he re- 
 membered that he had nowhere to go. His lodgings 
 were no longer his, since his landlord knew him to be 
 a Huguenot, and would doubtless betray him. To 
 approach those of his faith whom he had frequented 
 was to expose them to danger ; and, beyond the reli- 
 gion, he had few acquaintances and those of the new- 
 est. Yet the streets were impossible. He walked 
 them on the utmost edge of peril ; he lurked in them 
 under the blade of an impending axe. And, whether 
 he walked or lurked, he went at the mercy of the first 
 comers bold enough to take his life. 
 
 The sweat stood on his brow as he paused under 
 the low arch of the alley-end, tasting the bitter for- 
 loruness of the dog banned and set for death in 
 that sunlit city. In every window of the gable 
 end which faced his hiding-place he fancied an eye 
 watching his movements; in every distant step he
 
 TWO HENS AND AN EGG. 83 
 
 heard the footfall of doom coming that way to his dis- 
 covery. And while he trembled, he had to reflect, to 
 think, to form some plan. 
 
 In the town was no place for him, and short of the 
 open country no safety. And how could he gain the 
 open country? If he succeeded in reaching one of 
 the gates St. Antoiue, or St. Denis, in itself a task 
 of difficulty it would only be to find the gate closed, 
 and the guard on the alert. At last it flashed on 
 him that he might cross the river; and at the no- 
 tion hope awoke. It was possible that the massacre 
 had not extended to the southern suburb; possible, 
 that if it had, the Huguenots who lay there Fronte- 
 nay, and Montgomery, and Chartres, with the men of 
 the North might be strong enough to check it, and 
 even to turn the tables on the Parisians. 
 
 His colour returned. He was no coward, as sol- 
 diers go; if it came to fighting he had courage 
 enough. He could not hope to cross the river by the 
 bridge, for there, where the goldsmiths lived, the 
 mob were like to be most busy. But if he could 
 reach the bank he might procure a boat at some 
 deserted point, or, at the worst, he might swim 
 across. 
 
 From the Louvre at his back came the sound of 
 gun-shots ; from every quarter the murmur of distant 
 crowds, or the faint lamentable cries of victims. But 
 the empty street before him promised an easy pas- 
 sage, and he ventured into it and passed quickly 
 through it. He met no one, and no one molested 
 him; but as he went he had glimpses of pale 
 faces that from behind the casements watched him 
 come and turned to watch him go ; and so heavy on 
 Ms nerves was the pressure of this silent ominous at-
 
 84 COUNT HANNIBAL. 
 
 teution, that lie blundered at the eiid of the street. 
 He should have taken the southerly turning ; instead 
 he held on, found himself in the Rue Ferronerie, and 
 a moment later was all but in the arms of a band of 
 city guards, who were making a house-to-house visi- 
 tation. 
 
 He owed his safety rather to the condition of the 
 street than to his presence of mind. The Eue Ferro- 
 nerie, narrow in itself, was so choked at this date by 
 stalls and bulkheads, that an edict directing the re- 
 moval of those which abutted on the cemetery had 
 been issued a little before. Nothing had been done 
 on it, however, and this neck of Paris, this main 
 thoroughfare between the east and the west, between 
 the fashionable quarter of the Marais and the fashion- 
 able quarter of the Louvre, was still a devious huddle 
 of sheds and pent-houses. Tignonville slid behind 
 one of these, found that it masked the mouth of an 
 alley, and, heedless whither the passage led, ran hur- 
 riedly along it. Every instant he expected to hear 
 the hue and cry behind him, and he did not halt or 
 draw breath until he had left the soldiers far in the 
 rear, and found himself astray at the junction of four 
 noisome lanes, over two of which the projecting ga- 
 bles fairly met. Above the two others a scrap of sky 
 appeared, but this was too small to indicate in which 
 direction the river lay. 
 
 Tiguonville hesitated, but not for long ; a burst of 
 voices heralded a new danger, and he shrank into a 
 doorway. Along one of the lanes a troop of chil- 
 dren, the biggest not twelve years old, came dancing 
 and leaping round something which they dragged by 
 a string. Now one of the hindmost would hurl it 
 onward with a kick, now another, amid screams of
 
 TWO HENS AND AN EGG. 85 
 
 / 
 
 childish laughter, tripped headlong over the cord; 
 now at the crossways they stopped to wrangle and 
 question which way they should go, or whose turn it 
 was to pull and whose to follow. At last they started 
 afresh with a whoop, the leader singing and all 
 plucking the string to the cadence of the air. Their 
 plaything leapt and dropped, sprang forward, and 
 lingered like a thing of life. But it was no thing of 
 life, as Tignonville saw with a shudder when they 
 passed him. The object of their sport was the naked 
 body of a child, an infant ! 
 
 His gorge rose at the sight. Fear such as he had 
 not before experienced chilled his marrow. This was 
 hate indeed, a hate before which the strong man 
 quailed ; the hate of which Mademoiselle had spoken 
 when she said that the babes crossed themselves, 
 at her passing, and the houses tottered to fall upon 
 her! 
 
 He paused a minute to recover himself, so deeply 
 had the sight moved him ; and as he stood, he won- 
 dered if that hate already had its cold eye fixed on 
 him. Instinctively his gaze searched the opposite 
 wall, but save for two small double-grated windows 
 it was blind ; time-stained and stone-built, dark with 
 the ordure of the city lane, it seemed but the back 
 of a house, which looked another way. The outer 
 gates of an arched doorway were open, and a loaded 
 hay-cart, touching either side and brushing the arch 
 above, blocked the passage. His gaze, leaving the 
 windows, dropped to this, he scanned it a moment; 
 and on a sudden he stiffened. Between the hay and 
 the arch a hand flickered an instant, then vanished. 
 
 Tignonville stared. At first he thought his eyes 
 had tricked him. Then the hand appeared again,
 
 86 COUNT HANNIBAL. 
 
 \ 
 
 and this time it conveyed an unmistakable invitation. 
 It is not from the unknown or the hidden that the 
 fugitive has aught to fear, and Tiguonville, after cast- 
 ing a glance down the lane which revealed a single 
 man standing with his face the other way slipped 
 across and pushed between the hay and the wall. He 
 coughed. 
 
 A voice whispered to him to climb up ; a friendly 
 hand clutched him in the act, and aided him. In a 
 second he was lying on his face, tight squeezed be- 
 tween the hay and the roof of the arch. Beside him 
 lay a man whose features his eyes, unaccustomed to 
 the gloom, could not discern. But the man knew 
 him and whispered his name. 
 
 "You know me?" Tignonville muttered in aston- 
 ishment. 
 
 " I marked you, M. de Tiguonville, at the preach- 
 ing last Sunday, " the stranger answered placidly. 
 
 "You were there? " 
 
 "I preached." 
 
 "Then you are M. la Tribe! " 
 
 "I am," the clergyman answered quietly. "They 
 seized me on my threshold, but I left my cloak in 
 their hands and fled. One tore my stocking with his 
 point, another my doublet, but not a hair of my head 
 was injured. They hunted me to the end of the next 
 street, but I lived and still live, and shall live to lift 
 up my voice against this wicked city. " 
 
 The sympathy between the Huguenot by faith and 
 the Huguenot by politics was imperfect. Tignon- 
 ville, like most men of rank of the younger genera- 
 tion, was a Huguenot by politics ; and he was in a 
 bitter humour. He felt, perhaps, that it was men 
 such as this who had driven the other side to excesses
 
 TWO HENS AND AN EGG. 87 
 
 snch as these ; and he hardly repressed a sneer. " I 
 wish I felt as sure!" he muttered bluntly. "You 
 know that all our people are dead? " 
 
 "He can save by few or by many," the preacher 
 answered devoutly. "We are of the few, blessed "be 
 God, and shall see Israel victorious, and our people 
 as a flock of sheep ! " 
 
 "I see small chance of it," Tignonville answered 
 contemptuously. 
 
 " I know it as certainly as I knew before you came, 
 M. de Tignonville, that you would come.! " 
 
 "That I should come?" 
 
 "That some one would come," La Tribe answered, 
 correcting himself. "I knew not who it would be 
 until you appeared and placed yourself in the door- 
 way over against me, even as Obadiah in the Holy 
 Book passed before the hiding-place of Elijah." 
 
 The two lay on their faces side by side, the rafters 
 of the archway low on their heads. Tignonville lifted 
 himself a little, and peered anew at the other. He 
 fancied that La Tribe's mind, shaken by the horrors 
 of the morning and his narrow escape, had given way. 
 "You rave, man," he said. "This is no time for 
 visions. " 
 
 "I said naught of visions," the other answered. 
 
 "Then why so sure that we shall escape? " 
 
 "I am certified of it," La Tribe replied. "And 
 more than that, I know that we shall lie here some 
 days. The time has not been revealed to me, but it 
 will be days and a day. Then we shall leave this 
 place unharmed, as we entered it, and, whatever be- 
 tide others, we shall live." 
 
 Tignonville shrugged his shoulders. "I tell you, 
 you rave, M. la Tribe," he said petulantly. "At any
 
 88 COUNT HANNIBAL. 
 
 moment we may be discovered. Even now I hear 
 footsteps. " 
 
 "They tracked me well-nigh to this place," the 
 minister answered placidly. 
 
 "The deuce they did!" Tiguonville muttered, with 
 irritation. He dared not raise his voice. "I would 
 you had told me that before I joined you, Monsieur, 
 and I had found some safer hiding-place ! When we 
 are discovered 
 
 "Then," the other continued calmly, "you will see." 
 
 "In any case we shall be better farther back," 
 Tignonville retorted. "Here, we are within an ace 
 of being seen from the lane." And he began to* 
 wriggle himself backwards. 
 
 The minister laid his hand on him. "Have a 
 care! " he muttered. "And do not move, but listen. 
 And you will understand. When I reached this 
 place it would be about five o'clock this morning 
 breathless, and expecting each minute to be dragged 
 forth to make my confession before men, I despaired 
 as you despair now. Like Elijah under the juniper 
 tree, I said 'It is enough, O Lord! Take my soul 
 also, for I am no better than my fellows ! ' All the 
 sky was black before my eyes, and my ears were filled 
 with the wailiugs of the little ones and the lamenta- 
 tions of women. 'O Lord, it is enough,' I prayed. 
 ' Take my soul, or, if it be Thy will, then, as the angel 
 was sent to take the cakes to Elijah, give me also a 
 sign that I shall live. ' " 
 
 For a moment he paused, struggling with overpow- 
 ering emotion. Even his impatient listener, hitherto 
 incredulous, caught the infection, and in a tone of 
 awe murmured, "Yes ? And then, M. la Tribe!" 
 
 "The sign was given me. The words were scarcely
 
 TWO HENS AND AN EGG. 89 
 
 out of my mouth when a lieu flew up, aud, scratching 
 a nest iu the hay at my feet, presently laid an egg. " 
 
 Tignonville stared. "It was timely, I admit," he 
 said. "But it is no uncommon thing. Probably it 
 has its nest here and lays daily. " 
 
 "Young man, this is new-mown hay," the minister 
 answered solemnly. "This cart was brought here no 
 further back than yesterday. It smells of the mead- 
 ow, and the flowers hold their colour. No, the fowl 
 was sent. To-morrow it will return, and the next, 
 and the next, until the plague be stayed and I go 
 hence. But that is not all. A while later a second 
 hen appeared, and I thought it would lay in the same 
 nest. But it made a new one, on the side on which 
 you lie 'and not far from your foot. Then I knew 
 that I was to have a companion, and that God had 
 laid also for him a table in the wilderness." 
 
 "It did lay, then?" 
 
 " It is still on the nest, beside your foot. " 
 
 Tignonville was about to reply when the preacher 
 grasped his arm and by a sign enjoined silence. He 
 did so not a moment too soon. Preoccupied by the 
 story, narrator and listener had paid no heed to what 
 was passing in the lane, aud the voices of men speak- 
 ing close at hand took them by surprise. From the 
 first words which reached them, it was clear that the 
 speakers were the same who had chased La Tribe as 
 far as the meeting of the four ways, and, losing him 
 there, had spent the morning in other business. Now 
 they had returned to hunt him down, and but for a 
 wrangle which arose among them and detained them, 
 they had stolen on their quarry before their coming 
 was suspected. 
 
 " 'Twas this way he ran ! " " No, 'twas the other ! "
 
 90 COUNT HANNIBAL. 
 
 they contended; and their words, winged with vile 
 threats and oaths, grew noisy and hot. The two lis- 
 teners dared scarcely to breathe. The danger was so 
 near, it was so certain that if the uieu came three 
 paces farther, they would observe and search the hay- 
 cart, that Tignonville fancied the steel already at his 
 throat. He felt the hay rustle under his slightest 
 movement, and gripped one hand with the other to 
 restrain the tremor of overpowering excitement. Yet 
 when he glanced at the minister he found him un- 
 moved, a smile on his face. And M. de Tiguonville 
 could have cursed him for his folly. 
 
 For the men were coming on! An instant, and 
 they perceived the cart, and the ruffian who had ad- 
 vised this route pounced on it in triumph. "There! 
 Did I not say so?" he cried. "He is curled up in 
 that hay, for the Satan's grub he is! That is where 
 he is, see you ! " 
 
 "Maybe," another answered grudgingly, as they 
 gathered before it. "And maybe not, Simon! " 
 
 "To hell with your maybe not!" the first replied. 
 And he drove his pike deep into the hay and turned 
 it viciously. 
 
 The two on the top controlled themselves. Tignon- 
 ville's face was livid; of himself he would have 
 slid down amongst them and taken his chance, prefer- 
 ring to die fighting, to die in the open, rather than to 
 perish like a rat in a stack. But La Tribe had 
 gripped his arm and held him fast. 
 
 The man whom the others called Simon thrust 
 again, but too low and without result. He was for 
 trying a third time, when one of his comrades who 
 had gone to the other side of the lane announced that 
 the men were on the top of the hay.
 
 TWO HENS AND AN EGG. 91 
 
 "Can you see them! " 
 
 "No, but there's room and to spare." 
 
 " Oh, a curse on your room ! " Simon retorted. 
 
 "Well, you can look." 
 
 "If that's all, I'll soon look!" was the answer. 
 And the rogue, forcing himself between the hay and 
 the side of the gateway, found the wheel of the cart, 
 and began to raise himself on it. Tiguonville, who 
 lay on that hand, heard, though he could not see his 
 movements. He knew what they meant, he knew 
 that in a twinkling he must be discovered ; and with 
 a last prayer he gathered himself for a spring. 
 
 It seemed an age before the intruder's head ap- 
 peared on a level with the hay ; and then the alarm 
 came from another quarter. The hen which had 
 made its nest at Tignonville's feet, disturbed by the 
 movement or by the newcomer's hand, flew out with 
 a rush and flutter as of a great firework. Upsetting 
 the startled Simon, who slipped swearing to the 
 ground, it swooped scolding and clucking over the 
 heads of the other men, and reaching the street in 
 safety scuttled off at speed, its outspread wings sweep- 
 ing the earth in its rage. 
 
 They laughed uproariously as Simon emerged, rub- 
 bing his elbow. "There's for you! There's your 
 preacher ! " his opponent jeered. 
 
 "D 11 her! she gives tongue as fast as any of 
 
 them!" gibed a second. "Will you try again, Si- 
 mon ? You may find another love-letter there ! " 
 
 "Have done!" a third cried impatiently. "He'll 
 not be where the hen is! Let's back! Let's back! 
 I said before that it wasn't this way he turned! 
 He's made for the river." 
 
 "The plague in his vitals!" Simon replied furi-
 
 92 COUNT HANNIBAL. 
 
 ously. "Wherever lie is, I'll find him!" And re- 
 luctant to confess himself wrong, he lingered, casting 
 vengeful glances at the hay. But one of the other 
 men cursed him for a fool ; and presently, forced to 
 accept his defeat or be left alone, he rejoined his 
 fellows. Slowly the footsteps and voices receded along 
 the lane ; slowly, until silence swallowed them, and on 
 the quivering strained senses of the two who re- 
 mained behind, descended the gentle influence of twi- 
 light and the sweet scent of the new-mown hay on 
 which they lay. 
 
 La Tribe turned to his companion, his eyes shin- 
 ing. "Our soul is escaped," he murmured, "even as 
 a bird out of the snare of the fowler. The snare is 
 broken and we are delivered ! " His voice shook as 
 he whispered the ancient words of triumph. 
 
 But when they came to look in the nest at Tignon- 
 ville's feet there was no egg!
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 UNSTABLE. 
 
 AND that troubled M. la Tribe no little, although 
 he did not impart his thoughts to his companion. In- 
 stead they talked in whispers of the things which 
 had happened ; of the Admiral, of Teligny, whom all 
 loved, of Eochefoucauld the accomplished, the King's 
 friend ; of the princes in the Louvre whom they gave 
 up for lost, and of the Huguenot nobles on the far- 
 ther side of the river, of whose safety there seemed 
 some hope. Tignonville he best knew why said 
 nothing of the fate of his betrothed, or of his own 
 adventures in that connection. But each told the 
 other how the alarm had reached him, and painted 
 in broken words his reluctance to believe in treach- 
 ery so black. Thence they passed to the future of 
 the cause, and of that took views as opposite as light 
 and darkness, as Papegot and Huguenot. The one 
 was confident, the other in despair. And some time 
 in the afternoon, worn out by the awful experiences 
 of the last twelve hours, they fell asleep, their heads 
 on their arms, the hay tickling their faces ; and, with 
 death stalking the lane beside them, slept soundly 
 until after sundown. 
 
 When they awoke hunger awoke with them, and 
 urged on La Tribe's mind the question of the missing 
 egg. It was not altogether the prick of appetite 
 which troubled him, but regarding the hiding-place in
 
 94 COUNT HANNIBAL. 
 
 which they lay as an ark of refuge providentially 
 supplied, protected and victualled, he could not 
 refrain from asking reverently what the deficiency 
 meant. It was not as if one hen only had appeared ; 
 as if no farther prospect had been extended. But 
 up to a certain point the message was clear. Then 
 when the Hand of Providence had shown itself most 
 plainly, and in a manner to melt the heart with 
 awe and thankfulness, the message had been blurred. 
 Seriously the Huguenot asked himself what it por- 
 tended. 
 
 To Tignonville, if he thought of it at all, the mat- 
 ter was the matter of an egg, and stopped there. An 
 egg might alleviate the growing pangs of hunger ; its 
 non-appearance was a disappointment, but he traced 
 the matter no farther. It must be confessed that the 
 hay-cart was to him only a hay-cart and not an ark ; 
 and the sooner he was safely away from it the better 
 he would be pleased. While La Tribe, lying snug 
 and warm beside him, thanked God for a lot so dif- 
 ferent from that of such of his fellows as had escaped 
 whom he pictured crouching in dank cellars, or 
 on roof -trees exposed to the heat by day and the 
 dews by night the young man grew more and more 
 restive. 
 
 Hunger pricked him, and the meanness of the part 
 he had played moved him to action. About mid- 
 night, resisting the dissuasions of his companion, he 
 would have sallied out in search of food if the pas- 
 sage of a turbulent crowd had not warned him that 
 the work of murder was still proceeding. He curbed 
 himself after that and lay until daylight. But, ill 
 content with his own conduct, on fire when he thought 
 of his betrothed, he was in no temper to bear hard-
 
 UNSTABLE. 95 
 
 ship cheerfully or long; and gradually there rose 
 before his mind the picture of Madame St. Lo's 
 smiling face, and the fair hair which curled low on 
 the white of her neck. 
 
 He would, and he would not. Death that had 
 stalked so near him preached its solemn sermon. But 
 death and pleasure are never far apart; and at no 
 time and nowhere have they jostled one another more 
 familiarly than in that age, wherever the influence 
 of Italy and Italian art and Italian hopelessness ex- 
 tended. Again, on the one side, La Tribe's example 
 went for something with his comrade in misfortune ; 
 but in the other scale hung relief from discomfort, 
 with the prospect of a woman's smiles and a woman's 
 flatteries, of dainty dishes, luxury, and passion. If 
 he went now, he went to her from the jaws of death, 
 with the glamour of adventure and peril about him ; 
 and the veiy going into her presence was a lure. 
 Moreover, if he had been willing while his betrothed 
 was still his, why not now when he had lost her? 
 
 It was this last reflection and one other thing 
 which came on a sudden into his mind which turned 
 the scale. About noon he sat up in the hay, and, 
 abruptly and sullenly, "I'll lie here no longer," 
 he said; and he dropped his legs over the side. "I 
 shall go." 
 
 The movement was so unexpected that La Tribe 
 stared at him in silence. Then, "You will run a 
 great risk, M. de Tiguonville, " he said gravely, "if 
 you do. You may go as far under cover of night as 
 the river, or you may reach one of the gates. But as 
 to crossing the one or passing the other, I reckon it a 
 thing impossible." 
 
 "I shall not wait until night," Tignonville answered
 
 96 COUNT HANNIBAL. 
 
 curtly, a ring of defiance in his tone. "I shall go 
 now ! I'll lie here no longer ! " 
 
 "Now?" 
 
 "Yes, now." 
 
 "You will be mad if you do, "the other replied. 
 He thought it the petulant outcry of youth tired of 
 inaction ; a protest, and nothing more. 
 
 He was speedily undeceived. "Mad or not, I am 
 going ! " Tignouville retorted. And he slid to the 
 ground, and from the covert of the hanging fringe of 
 hay looked warily up and down the lane. "It is 
 clear, I think," he said. "Good-bye." And with no 
 more, without one upward glance or a gesture of the 
 hand, with no further adieu or word of gratitude, he 
 walked out into the lane, turned briskly to the left, 
 and vanished. 
 
 The minister uttered a cry of astonishment, and 
 made as if he would descend also. "Come back, 
 sir ! " he called, as loudly as he dared. " M. de Tig- 
 nonville, come back ! This is folly or worse ! " 
 
 But M. de Tignouville was gone. 
 
 La Tribe listened a while, unable to believe it, 
 and still expecting his return. At last, hearing no- 
 thing, he slid, greatly excited, to the ground and 
 looked out. It was not until he had peered up and 
 down the lane and made sure that it was empty that 
 he could persuade himself that the other had gone for 
 good. Then he climbed slowly and seriously to his 
 place again, and sighed as he settled himself. "Un- 
 stable as water thou shalt not excel ! " he muttered. 
 "'Now I know why there was only one egg." 
 
 Meanwhile Tiguonville, after putting a hundred 
 yards between himself and his bedfellow, plunged 
 into the first dark entry which presented itself. Hur-
 
 UNSTABLE. 97 
 
 riedly, and with a frowning face, he cut off his left 
 sleeve from shoulder to wrist ; and this act, by dis- 
 closing his linen, put him in possession of the white 
 sleeve which he had once involuntarily donned, and 
 once discarded. The white cross on the cap he 
 could not assume, for he was bareheaded. But he 
 had little doubt that the sleeve would suffice, and 
 with a bold demeanour he made his way northward 
 until he reached again the Eue Ferrouerie. 
 
 Excited groups were wandering up and down the 
 street, and, fearing to traverse its crowded narrows, 
 he went by lanes parallel with it as far as the Rue St. 
 Denis, which he crossed. Everywhere he saw houses 
 gutted and doors burst in, and traces of a cruelty and 
 a fanaticism almost incredible. Near the Eue des 
 Lombards he saw a dead child, stripped stark and 
 hanged on the hook of a cobbler's shutter. A little 
 further on in the same street he stepped over the 
 body of a handsome young woman, distinguished by 
 the length and beauty of her hair. To obtain her 
 bracelets, her captors had cut off her hands ; after- 
 wards but God knows how long afterwards a 
 passer-by, more pitiful than his fellows, had put her 
 out of her misery with a spit, which still remained 
 plunged in her body. 
 
 M. de Tignonville shuddered at the sight, and at 
 others like it. He loathed the symbol he wore, and 
 himself for wearing it ; and more than once his better 
 nature bade him return and play the nobler part. 
 Once he did turn with that intention. But he had set 
 his mind on comfort and pleasure, and the value of 
 these things is raised, not lowered, by danger and 
 uncertainty. Quickly his stoicism oozed away; he 
 turned again. Barely avoiding the rush of a crowd 
 7
 
 98 COUNT HANNIBAL. 
 
 of wretches who were bearing a swooning victim to the 
 river, he hurried through the Rue des Lombards and 
 reached in safety the house beside the "Golden Maid." 
 
 He had no doubt now on which side of the "Maid " 
 Madame St. Lo lived; the house was plain before 
 him. He had only to knock. But in proportion as 
 he approached his haven, his anxiety grew. To lose 
 all, with all in his grasp, to fail upon the threshold, 
 was a thing which bore no looking at; and it was 
 with a nervous hand and eyes cast fearfully behind 
 him that he plied the heavy iron knocker which 
 adorned the door. 
 
 He could not turn his gaze from a knot of ruffians, 
 who were gathered under one of the tottering gables 
 on the farther side of the street. They seemed to be 
 watching him, and he fancied though the distance 
 rendered this impossible that he could see suspicion 
 growing in their eyes. At any moment they might 
 cross the roadway, they might approach, they might 
 challenge him. And at the thought he knocked and 
 knocked again. Why did not the porter come ? 
 
 Ay, why ? For now a score of contingencies came 
 into the young man's mind and tortured him. Had 
 Madame St. Lo withdrawn to safer quarters and closed 
 the house? Or, good Catholic as she was, had she 
 given way to panic, and determined to open to no one ? 
 Or was she ill? Or had she perished in the general 
 disorder? Or 
 
 And then, even as the men began to slink towards 
 him, his heart leapt. He heard a footstep heavy and 
 slow move through the house. It came nearer and 
 nearer. A moment, and an iron-grated Judas-hole in 
 the door slid open, and a servant, an elderly man, 
 sleek and respectable, looked out at him.
 
 UNSTABLE. 99 
 
 Tignonville could scarcely speak for excitement. 
 "Madame St. Lo"?" lie muttered tremulously. "I 
 come to her from her cousin the Comte de Tavannes. 
 Quick ! quick ! if you please. Open to me ! " 
 
 "Monsieur is alone? " 
 
 "Yes! Yes!" 
 
 The man nodded gravely and slid back the bolts. 
 He allowed M. de Tignonville to enter, then with care 
 he secured the door, and led the way across a small 
 square court, paved with red tiles and enclosed by 
 the house, but open above to the sunshine and the 
 blue sky. A gallery which ran round the upper floor 
 looked on this court, in which a great quiet reigned, 
 broken only by the music of a fountain. A vine 
 climbed on the wooden pillars which supported the 
 gallery, and, aspiring higher, embraced the wide 
 carved eaves, and even tapestried with green the 
 three gables that on each side of the court broke the 
 sky-line. The grapes hung nearly ripe, and amid 
 their clusters and the green lattice of their foliage 
 Tignonville's gaze sought eagerly but in vain the 
 laughing eyes and piquant face of his new mistress. 
 For with the closing of the door, and the passing from 
 him of the horrors of the streets, he had entered, as 
 by magic, a new and smiling world ; a world of tennis 
 and roses, of tinkling voices and women's wiles, a 
 world which smacked of Florence and the South, and 
 love and life ; a world which his late experiences had 
 set so far away from him, his memory of it seemed a 
 dream. Now, as he drank in its stillness and its fra- 
 grance, as he felt its safety and its luxury lap him 
 round once more, he sighed. And with that breath 
 he rid himself of much. 
 
 The servant led him to a parlour, a cool shady room
 
 100 COUNT HANNIBAL. 
 
 on the farther side of the tiny quadrangle, and, mut- 
 tering something inaudible, withdrew. A moment 
 later a frolicsome laugh, and the light flutter of a 
 woman's skirt as she tripped across the court, 
 brought the blood to his cheeks. He went a step 
 nearer to the door, and his eyes grew bright.
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 MADAME ST. LO. 
 
 So far excitement had supported Tignonville in his 
 escape. It was only when he knew himself safe, when 
 he heard Madame St. Lo's footstep in the courtyard 
 and knew that in a moment he would see her, that he 
 knew also that he was failing for want of food. The 
 room seemed to go round with him ; the window to 
 shift, the light to flicker. And then again, with 
 equal abruptness, he grew strong and steady and per- 
 fectly master of himself. Nay, never had he felt a 
 confidence in himself so overwhelming or a capacity 
 so complete. The triumph of that which he had 
 done, the knowledge that of so many he, almost 
 alone, had escaped, filled his brain with a delicious 
 and intoxicating vanity. When the door opened, and 
 Madame St. Lo appeared on the threshold, he ad- 
 vanced holding out his arms. He expected that she 
 would fall into them. 
 
 But Madame only backed and curtseyed, a mis- 
 chievous light in her eyes. "A thousand thanks, 
 Monsieur! 7 ' she said, "but you are more ready than 
 I ! " And she remained by the door. 
 
 "I have come to you through all! " he cried, speak- 
 ing loudly because of a humming in his ears. "They 
 are lying in the streets ! They are dying, are dead, 
 are hunted, are pursued, are perishing ! But I have 
 come through all to you ! "
 
 102 COUNT HANNIBAL. 
 
 She curtseyed anew. "So I see, Monsieur!" she 
 answered. "I am nattered!" But she did not ad- 
 vance, and gradually, light-headed as he was, he be- 
 gan to see that she looked at him with an odd close- 
 ness. And he took offence. 
 
 "I say, Madame, I have come to you!" he repeat- 
 ed. "And you do not seem pleased ! " 
 
 She came forward a step and looked at him still 
 more oddly. a Oh, yes," she said. "I am pleased, 
 M. de Tignonville. It is what I intended. But tell 
 me how you have fared. You are not hurt ? " 
 
 "Not a hair!" he cried boastfully. And he told 
 her in a dozen windy sentences of the adventure of 
 the hay-cart and his narrow escape. He wound up 
 with a foolish meaningless laugh. 
 
 " Then you have not eaten for thirty-six hours ? " 
 she said. And when he did not answer, "I under- 
 stand," she continued, nodding and speaking as to a 
 child. And she rang a silver handbell and gave an 
 order. She addressed the servant in her usual tone, 
 but to Tiguonville's ear her voice seemed to fall to a 
 whisper. Her figure she was small and fairy-like 
 began to sway before him ; and then in a moment, as 
 it seemed to him, she Avas gone, and he was seated at 
 a table, his trembling fingers grasping a cup of wine 
 which the elderly servant who had admitted him was 
 holding to his lips. On the table before him were a 
 spit of partridges and a cake of white bread. When 
 he had swallowed a second mouthful of wine which 
 cleared his eyes as by magic the man urged him to 
 eat. And he fell to with an appetite that grew as he 
 ate. 
 
 By and by, feeling himself again, he became aware 
 that two of Madame's women were peering at him
 
 MADAME ST. LO. 103 
 
 through the open doorway. He looked that way and 
 they fled giggling into the court; but in a moment 
 they were back again, and the sound of their tittering 
 drew his eyes anew to the door. It was the custom of 
 the day for ladies of rank to wait on their favourites 
 at table; and he wondered if Madame were with 
 them, and why she did not come and serve him 
 herself. 
 
 But for a while longer the savour of the roasted 
 game took up the major part of his thoughts; and 
 when prudence warned him to desist, and he sat 
 back, satisfied after his long fast, he was in no mood 
 to be critical. Perhaps for somewhere in the house 
 he heard a lute Madame was entertaining those 
 whom she could not leave ? Or deluding some who 
 might betray him if they discovered him 1 
 
 From that his mind turned back to the streets and 
 the horrors through which he had passed ; but for 
 a moment and no more. A shudder, an emotion of 
 prayerful pity, and he recalled his thoughts. In 
 the quiet of the cool room, looking on the sunny, 
 vine -clad court, with the tinkle of the lute and the 
 murmurous sound of women's voices in his ears, it 
 was hard to believe that the things from which he 
 had emerged were real. It was still more unpleasant, 
 and as futile, to dwell on them. A day of reckoning 
 would come, and, if La Tribe were right, the cause 
 would rally, bristling with pikes and snorting with 
 war-horses, and the blood spilled in this wicked city 
 would cry aloud for vengeance. But the hour was 
 not yet. He had lost his mistress, and for that atone- 
 ment must be exacted. But in the present another 
 mistress awaited him, and as a man could only die 
 once, and might die at any minute, so he could
 
 104 COUNT HANNIBAL. 
 
 only live once and in the present. Then vogue la 
 gcdere ! 
 
 As he roused himself from this brief reverie and 
 fell to wondering how long he was to be left to him- 
 self, a rosebud tossed by an unseen hand struck him 
 on the breast and dropped to his knees. To seize it 
 and kiss it gallantly, to spring to his feet and look 
 about him were instinctive movements. But he could 
 see no one ; and, in the hope of surprising the giver, 
 he stole to the window. The sound of the lute and 
 the distant tinkle of laughter persisted. The court, 
 save for a page, who lay asleep on a bench in the 
 gallery, was empty. Tignonville scanned the boy 
 suspiciously; a male disguise was often adopted by 
 the court ladies, and if Madame would play a prank 
 on him, this was a thing to be reckoned with. But 
 a boy it seemed to be, and after a while the young 
 man went back to his seat. 
 
 Even as he sat down, a second flower struck him 
 more sharply in the face, and this time he darted not 
 to the window but to the door. He opened it quickly 
 and looked out, but again he was too late. 
 
 "I shall catch you presently, ma rmie/"he mur- 
 mured tenderly, with intent to be heard. And he 
 closed the door. But, wiser this time, he waited with 
 his hand on the latch until he heard the rustling of a 
 skirt, and saw the line of light at the foot of the door 
 darkened by a shadow. That moment he flung the 
 door wide, and, clasping the wearer of the skirt in his 
 arms, kissed her lips before she had time to resist. 
 
 Then he fell back as if he had been shot! For 
 the wearer of the skirt, she whom he had kissed, was 
 Madame St. Lo's woman, and behind her stood Ma- 
 dame herself, laughing, laughing, laughing with all
 
 MADAME ST. LO. 105 
 
 the gay abandonment of her light little heart. "Oh, 
 the gallant gentleman!" she cried, and clapped her 
 hands effusively. "Was eA*er recovery so rapid ? 
 Or triumph so speedy? Suzanne, my child, you sur- 
 pass Venus. Your charms conquer before they are 
 seen ! " 
 
 M. de Tignonville had put poor Suzanne from him 
 as if she burned; and hot and embarrassed, cursing 
 his haste, he stood looking awkwardly at them. 
 "Madame," he stammered at last, "you know quite 
 well that I 
 
 "Seeing is believing! " 
 
 "That I thought it was you ! " 
 
 " Oh, what I have lost ! " she replied. And she 
 looked archly at Suzanne, who giggled and tossed her 
 head. 
 
 He was growing angry. "But, Madame," he pro- 
 tested, "you know " 
 
 "I know what I know, and I have seen what I 
 have seen ! " Madame answered merrily. And she 
 hummed, 
 
 "Ce fut le plus grand jour d'este 
 Que m'embrassa la belle Suzanne! 
 
 "Oh, yes, I know what I know!" she repeated. 
 And she fell again to laughing immoderately ; while 
 the pretty piece of mischief beside her hung her head, 
 and, putting a finger in her mouth, mocked him with 
 an affectation of modesty. 
 
 The young man glowered at them between rage and 
 embarrassment. This was not the reception, nor this 
 the hero's return to which he had looked forward. 
 And a doubt began to take form in his mind. The 
 mistress he had pictured would not laugh at kisses
 
 106 COUNT HANNIBAL. 
 
 given to another; nor forget in a twinkling the 
 straits through which he had come to her, the hell 
 from which he had plucked himself! Possibly the 
 court ladies held love as cheap as this, and lovers but 
 as playthings, butts for their wit, and pegs on which 
 to hang their laughter. But but he began to doubt, 
 and, perplexed and irritated, he showed his feelings. 
 
 "Madame," he said stiffly, "a jest is an excellent 
 thing. But pardon me if I say that it is ill played on 
 a fasting man." 
 
 Madame desisted from laughter that she might 
 speak. "A fasting man?" she cried. "And he has 
 eaten two partridges ! " 
 
 "Fasting from love, Madame." 
 
 Madame St. Lo held up her hands. "And it's not 
 two minutes since he took a kiss ! " 
 
 He winced, was silent a moment, and then seeing 
 that he got nothing by the tone he had adopted he 
 cried for quarter. "A little mercy, Madame, as you 
 are beautiful," he said, wooing her with his eyes. 
 "Do not plague me beyond what a man can bear. 
 Dismiss, I pray you, this good creature whose charms 
 do but set off yours as the star leads the eye to the 
 moon and make me the happiest man in the world 
 by so much of your company as you will vouchsafe to 
 give me." 
 
 "That may be but a very little," she answered, let- 
 ting her eyes fall coyly, and affecting to handle the 
 tucker of her low ruff. But he saw that her lip 
 twitched ; and he could have sworn that she mocked 
 him to Suzanne, for the girl giggled. 
 
 Still by an effort he controlled his feelings. " Why 
 so cruel ? " he murmured, in a tone meant for her 
 alone, and with a look to match. "You were not so
 
 MADAME ST. LO. 107 
 
 hard when I spoke with you in the gallery, two even- 
 ings ago, Madame." 
 
 "Was I not?" she asked. "Did I look like this? 
 And this?" And, languishing, she looked at him 
 very sweetly after two fashions. 
 
 "Something." 
 
 " Oh, then I meant nothing ! " she retorted with 
 sudden vivacity. And she made a face at him, 
 laughing under his nose. " I do that when I mean 
 nothing, Monsieur ! Do you see ? But you are Gas- 
 con, and given, I fear, to flatter yourself." 
 
 Then he saw clearly that she played with him : and 
 resentment, chagrin, pique got the better of his cour- 
 tesy. "I flatter myself?" he cried, his voice choked 
 with rage. " It may be I do now, Madame, but did I 
 flatter myself when you wrote me this note ? " And 
 he drew it out and flourished it in her face. "Did I 
 imagine when I read this? Or is it not in your hand? 
 It is a forgery, perhaps," he continued bitterly. "Or 
 it means nothing? Nothing, this note bidding me 
 be at Madame St. Lo's at an hour before midnight 
 it means nothing? At an hour before midnight, 
 Madame ! " 
 
 "On Saturday night? The night before last 
 night? " 
 
 "On Saturday night, the night before last night! 
 But Madame knows nothing of it? Nothing, I sup- 
 pose?" 
 
 She shrugged her shoulders and smiled cheerfully 
 on him. "Oh, yes, I wrote it," she said. "But what 
 of that, M. de Tignonville? " 
 
 "What of that?" 
 
 "Yes, Monsieur, what of that? Did you think it 
 was written out of love for you ? "
 
 108 COUNT HANNIBAL. 
 
 He was staggered for the moment by her coolness. 
 "Out of what, then?" he cried hoarsely. "Out of 
 what, then, if not out of love ? " 
 
 " Why, out of pity, my little gentleman ! " she an- 
 swered sharply. "And trouble thrown away it 
 seems. Love ! " And she laughed so merrily and 
 spontaneously it cut him to the heart. "No; but you 
 said a dainty thing or two, and smiled a smile ; and 
 like a fool, and like a woman, I was sorry for the in- 
 nocent calf that bleated so prettily on its way to the 
 butcher's! And I would lock you up and save your 
 life, I thought, until the blood-letting was over. 
 Now you have it, M. de Tignouville, and I hope you 
 like it." 
 
 Like it, when every word she uttered stripped him 
 of the selfish illusions in which he had wrapped him- 
 self against the blasts of ill-fortune 1 ? Like it, when 
 the prospect of her charms had bribed him from the 
 path of fortitude, when for her sake he had been false 
 to his mistress, to his friends, to his faith, to his 
 cause ? Like it, when he knew as he listened that all 
 was lost, and nothing gained not even this poor, 
 unworthy, shameful compensation 1 ? Like it? No 
 wonder that words failed him, and he glared at her in 
 rage, in misery, in shame. 
 
 "Oh, if you don't like it," she continued, tossing 
 her head after a momentary pause, "then you should 
 not have come ! It is of no profit to glower at me, 
 Monsieur. You do not frighten me." 
 
 "I would I would to God I had not come!" he 
 groaned. 
 
 "And, I dare say, that you had never seen me 
 since you cannot win me ! " 
 
 "That too," he exclaimed.
 
 MADAME ST. LO. 109 
 
 She was of an extraordinary levity, and at that 
 after staring at him a moment she broke into shrill 
 laughter. "A little more, and I'll send you to my 
 cousin Hannibal ! " she said. "You do not know how 
 anxious he is to see you. Have you a mind, " with a 
 waggish look, "to play bride's man, M. de Tignon- 
 ville? Or will you give away the bride? It is not 
 too late, though soon it will be ! " 
 
 He winced, and from red grew pale. "What do 
 you mean ? " he stammered. And, averting his eyes 
 in shame, seeing now all the littleness, all the base- 
 ness of his position, "Has he married her?" he 
 continued. 
 
 "Ho, ho!" she cried in triumph. "I've hit you 
 now, have I, Monsieur? I've hit you! " And mock- 
 ing him, "Has he married her?" she lisped. "No; 
 but he will marry her, have no fear of that ! He will 
 marry her. He waits but to get a priest. "Would you 
 like to see what he says?" she continued, playing 
 with him as a cat plays with a mouse. " I had a note 
 from him yesterday. Would you like to see how wel- 
 come you'll be at the wedding? " And she flaunted a 
 piece of paper before his eyes. 
 
 " Give it me, " he said. 
 
 She let him seize it the while she shrugged her 
 shoulders. "It's your affair, not mine," she said. 
 "See it if you like, and keep it if you like. Cousin 
 Hannibal wastes few words." 
 
 That was true, for the paper contained but a dozen 
 or fifteen words, and an initial by way of signa- 
 ture. "I may need your shaveling to-morrow after- 
 noon. Send him, and Tignonville in safeguard if he 
 come. H." 
 
 "I can guess what use he has for a priest," she
 
 110 COUNT HANNIBAL. 
 
 said. "It is not to confess him, I warrant. It's 
 long, I fear, since Hannibal told his beads." 
 
 M. de Tignonville swore. "I would I had the con- 
 fessing of him ! " he said between his teeth. 
 
 She clapped her hands in glee. "Why should you 
 not?" she cried. "Why should you not? 'Tis time 
 yet, since I am to send to-day and have not sent. 
 Will you be the shaveling to go confess or marry 
 him?" And she laughed recklessly. "Will you, M. 
 de Tiguonville? The cowl will mask you as well as 
 another, and pass you through the streets better than 
 a cut sleeve. He will have both his wishes, lover and 
 clerk in one then. And it will be pull monk, pull 
 Hannibal with a vengeance." 
 
 Tiguonville gazed at her, and as he gazed courage 
 and hope awoke in his eyes. What if, after all, he 
 could undo the past? What if, after all, he could 
 retrace the false step he had taken, and place him- 
 self again where he had been by Tier side? "If you 
 meant it ! " he exclaimed, his breath coming fast. "If 
 you only meant what you say, Madame." 
 
 "If?" she answered, opening her eyes. "And 
 why should I not mean it ? " 
 
 "Because," he replied slowly, "cowl or no cowl, 
 when I meet your cousin 
 
 "'Twill go hard with him?" she cried, with a 
 mocking laugh. "And you think I fear for him. 
 That is it, is it?" 
 
 He nodded. 
 
 "I fear just so much for him!" she retorted with 
 contempt. "Just so much!" And coming a step 
 nearer to Tignouville she snapped her small white fin- 
 gers under his nose. "Do you see? No, M. de Tig- 
 nonville," she continued, "you do not know Count
 
 MADAME ST. LO. Ill 
 
 Hannibal if you think that he fears, or that any fear 
 for him. If you will beard the lion in his den, the 
 risk will be yours, not his! " 
 
 The young man's face glowed. "I take the risk! " 
 he cried. "And I thank you for the chance; that, 
 Madame, whatever betide. But " 
 
 "But what?" she asked, seeing that he hesitated 
 and that his face fell. 
 
 "If he afterwards learn that you have played him 
 a trick," he said, "will he not punish you? " 
 
 "Punish me?" 
 
 He nodded. 
 
 Madame laughed her high disdain. "You do not 
 yet know Hannibal de Tavannes," she said. "He 
 does not war with women. "
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 A BARGAIN. 
 
 IT is the wont of the sex to snatch at an ell where 
 an inch is offered, and to press an advantage in cir- 
 cumstances in which a man, acknowledging the claims 
 of generosity, scruples to ask for more. The habit, 
 now ingrained, may have sprung from long depend- 
 ence on the male, and is one which a hundred in- 
 stances, from the time of Judith downward, prove to 
 be at its strongest where the need is greatest. 
 
 When Mademoiselle de Vrillac came out of the 
 hour-long swoon into which her lover's defection had 
 cast her, the expectation of the worst was so strong 
 upon her that she could not at once credit the re- 
 spite which Madame Carlat hastened to announce. 
 She could not believe that she still lay safe, in her 
 own room above stairs ; that she was in the care of 
 her own servants, and that the chamber held no pres- 
 ence more hateful than that of the good woman who 
 sat weeping beside her. 
 
 As was to be expected, she came to herself sighing 
 and shuddering, trembling with nervous exhaustion. 
 She looked for Mm, as soon as she looked for any; 
 and even when she had seen the door locked and 
 double-locked, she doubted doubted, and shook and 
 hid herself in the hangings of the bed. The noise of 
 the riot and rapine which prevailed in the city, and 
 which reached the ear even in that locked room
 
 A BABGAIK 113 
 
 and although the window, of paper, with an upper 
 pane of glass, looked into a courtyard was enough 
 to drive the blood from a woman's cheeks. But it 
 was fear of the house, not of the street, fear from 
 within, not from without, which impelled the girl into 
 the darkest corner and shook her wits. She could 
 not believe that even this short respite was hers, until 
 she had repeatedly heard the fact confirmed at Madame 
 Carlat's mouth. 
 
 "You are deceiving me ! " she cried more than once. 
 And each time she started up in fresh terror. "He 
 never said that he would not return until to-mor- 
 row ! " 
 
 "He did, my lamb, he did!" the old woman an- 
 swered with tears. "Would I deceive you? " 
 
 "He said he would not return? " 
 
 "He said he would not return until to-morrow. 
 You had until to-morrow, he said." 
 
 "And then f " 
 
 "He would come and bring the priest with him," 
 Madame Carlat replied sorrowfully. 
 
 " The priest ? To-morrow ! " Mademoiselle cried. 
 "The priest!" and she crouched anew with hot eyes 
 behind the hangings of the bed, and, shivering, hid 
 her face. 
 
 But this for a time only. As soon as she had made 
 certain of the respite, and that she had until the mor- 
 row, her courage rose, and with it the instinct of 
 which mention has been made. Count Hannibal had 
 granted a respite ; short as it was, and no more than 
 the barest humanity required, to grant one at all was 
 not the act of the mere butcher who holds the trem- 
 bling lamb, unresisting, in his hands. It was an act 
 no more, again be it said, than humanity required
 
 114 COUNT HANNIBAL. 
 
 and yet au act which bespoke an expectation of 
 some return, of some correlative advantage. It was 
 not in the part of the mere brigand. Something had 
 been granted. Something short of the utmost in the 
 captor's power had been exacted. He had shown that 
 there were things he would not do. 
 
 Then might not something more be won from him? 
 A further delay, another point ; something, no matter 
 what, which could be turned to advantage. With 
 the brigand it is not possible to bargain. But who 
 gives a little may give more ; who gives a day may 
 give a week ; who gives a week may give a month. 
 And a mouth? Her heart leapt up. A month 
 seemed a lifetime, an eternity, to her who had but 
 until to-morrow ! 
 
 Yet there was one consideration which might have 
 daunted a spirit less brave. To obtain aught from 
 Tavannes it was needful to ask him, and to ask him 
 it was needful to see him ; and to see him before that 
 to-morrow which meant so much to her. It w r as nec- 
 essary, in a word, to run some risk ; but without risk 
 the card could not be played, and she did not hesi- 
 tate. It might turn out that she was wrong, that the 
 man was not only pitiless and without bowels of 
 mercy, but lacked also the shred of decency for which 
 she gave him credit, and on which she counted. In 
 that case, if she sent for him but she would not con- 
 sider that case. 
 
 The position of the window, while it increased the 
 women's safety, debarred them from all knowledge 
 of what was going forward, except that which their 
 ears afforded them. They had no means of judging 
 whether Tavannes remained in the house or had sal- 
 lied forth to play his part in the work of murder.
 
 A BABGAIK 115 
 
 Madame Carlat, indeed, had no desire to know any- 
 thing. In that room above stairs, with the door 
 double-locked, lay a hope of safety in the present, and 
 of ultimate deliverance ; there she had a respite from 
 terror, as long as she kept the world outside. To 
 her, therefore, the notion of sending for Tavannes, or 
 communicating with him, came as a thunderbolt. 
 "Was her mistress mad? Did she wish to court her 
 fate ? To reach Tavaunes they must apply to his rid- 
 ers, for Carlat and the men-servants were confined 
 above. Those riders were grim, brutal men, who 
 might resort to rudeness on their own account. And 
 Madame, clinging in a paroxysm of terror to her mis- 
 tress, suggested all manner of horrors, one on top of 
 the other, until she increased her own terror tenfold. 
 And yet, to do her justice, nothing that even her 
 frenzied imagination suggested exceeded the things 
 which the streets of Paris, fruitful mother of horrors, 
 were witnessing at that very hour. As we now know. 
 For it was noon or a little more of Sunday, Au- 
 gust the twenty-fourth, "a holiday, and therefore the 
 people could more conveniently find leisure to kill 
 and plunder." From the bridges, and particularly 
 from the stone bridge of Notre Dame while they lay 
 safe in that locked room, and Tignonville crouched in 
 his haymow Huguenots less fortunate were being 
 cast, bound hand and foot, into the Seine. On the 
 river bank Spire Niquet, the bookman, was being 
 burnt over a slow fire, fed with his own books. In 
 their houses, Eamus the scholar and Goujon the sculp- 
 tor than whom Paris has neither seen nor deserved 
 a greater were being butchered like sheep ; and in 
 the Valley of Misery, now the Quai de la Megisserie, 
 seven hundred persons who had sought refuge in the
 
 116 COUNT HANNIBAL. 
 
 prisons were being beaten to death with bludgeons. 
 Nay, at this hour a little sooner or a little later, 
 what matters it? M. Tignonville's own cousin, Ma- 
 dame d'Yverne, the darling of the Louvre the day 
 before, perished in the hands of the mob; and the 
 sister of M. de Taverny, equally ill-fated, died in the 
 same fashion, after being dragged through the streets. 
 
 Madame Carlat, then, went not a whit beyond the 
 mark in her argument. But Mademoiselle had made 
 up her mind, and was not to be dissuaded. 
 
 "If I am to be Monsieur's wife," she said with 
 quivering nostrils, "shall I fear his servants? " 
 
 And opening the door herself, for the others would 
 not, she called. The man who answered was a Nor- 
 man; and short of stature, and wrinkled and low- 
 browed of feature, with a thatch of hair and a full 
 beard, he seemed the embodiment of the women's ap- 
 prehensions. Moreover, his patois of the cider-land 
 was little better than German to them ; their southern, 
 softer tongue was sheer Italian to him. But he 
 seemed not ill-disposed, or Mademoiselle's air over- 
 awed him ; and presently she made him understand, 
 and with a nod he descended to carry her message. 
 
 Then Mademoiselle's heart began to beat; and beat 
 more quickly when she heard his step alas! she 
 knew it already, knew it from all others on the 
 stairs. The table was set, the card must be played, 
 to win or lose. It might be that with the low, opinion 
 he held of women he would think her reconciled to 
 her lot ; he would think this an overture, a step to- 
 wards kinder treatment, one more proof of the incon- 
 stancy of the lower and the weaker sex, made to be 
 men's playthings. And at that thought her eyes grew 
 hot with rage. But if it were so, she must still put
 
 A BARGAIN. 117 
 
 tip with it. She must still put up with it ! She had 
 sent for him, and he was coming he was at the door ! 
 
 He entered, and she breathed more freely. For 
 once his face lacked the sneer, the look of smiling 
 possession, which she had come to know and hate. 
 It was grave, expectant, even suspicious ; still harsh 
 and dark, akin, as she now observed, to the low- 
 browed, furrowed face of the rider who had sum- 
 moned him. But the offensive look was gone, and 
 she could breathe. 
 
 He closed the door behind him, but he did not 
 advance into the room. "At your pleasure, Ma- 
 demoiselle?" he said simply. "You sent for me, I 
 think." 
 
 She was on her feet, standing before him with 
 something of the subinissiveness of Eoxana before her 
 conqueror. "I did," she said; and stopped at that, 
 her hand to her side as if she could not continue. 
 But presently in a low voice, "I have heard," she 
 went on, "what you said, Monsieur, after I lost con- 
 sciousness." 
 
 "Yes?" he said; and was silent. Nor did he lose 
 his watchful look. 
 
 " I am obliged to you for your thought of me, " she 
 continued in a faint voice, "and I shall be still fur- 
 ther obliged I speak to you thus quickly and thus 
 early if you will grant me a somewhat longer time." 
 
 "Do you mean if I will postpone our marriage? " 
 
 "Yes, Monsieur." 
 
 " It is impossible ! " 
 
 " Do not say that, " she cried, raising her voice im- 
 pulsively. " I appeal to your generosity. And for a 
 short, a very short, time only." 
 
 "It is impossible," he answered quietly. "And
 
 118 COUNT HANNIBAL. 
 
 for reasons, Mademoiselle. In the first place I can 
 more easily protect my wife. In the second, I am 
 even now summoned to the Louvre, and should be on 
 my way thither. By to-morrow evening, unless I am 
 mistaken in the business on which I am required, I 
 shall be on my way to a distant province with royal 
 letters. It is essential that our marriage take place 
 before I go." 
 
 " Why ? " she asked stubbornly. 
 
 He shrugged his shoulders. " Why? " he repeated. 
 " Can you ask, Mademoiselle, after the events of last 
 night? Because, if you please, I do not wish to share 
 the fate of M. de Tignonville. Because in these days 
 life is uncertain, and death too certain. Because it 
 was our turn last night, and it may be the turn of 
 your friends to-morrow night ! " 
 
 "Then some have escaped? " she cried. 
 
 He smiled. "I am glad to find you so shrewd," he 
 replied. " In an honest wife it is an excellent qual- 
 ity. Yes, Mademoiselle; one or two." 
 
 "Who? Who? I pray you tell me." 
 
 "M. de Montgomery, who slept beyond the river, 
 for one; and the Vidame, and some wdth him. M. 
 de Birou, whom I count a Huguenot, and who holds 
 the Arsenal in the King's teeth, for another. And a 
 few more. Enough, in a word. Mademoiselle, to keep 
 us wakeful. It is impossible, therefore, for me to 
 postpone the fulfilment of your promise." 
 
 "A promise on conditions!" she retorted, in rage 
 that she could win no more. And every line of her 
 splendid figure, every tone of her voice flamed sud- 
 den, hot rebellion. "I do not go for nothing! You 
 gave me the lives of all in the house, Monsieur ! Of 
 all!" she repeated with passion. "And all are not
 
 A BABGAIN. 119 
 
 here ! Before I marry you, you must show me M. de 
 Tignoiiville alive and safe ! " 
 
 He shrugged his shoulders. "He has taken himself 
 off, "he said. "It is naught to me what happens to 
 him now." 
 
 " It is all to me ! " she retorted. 
 
 At that he glared at her, the veins of his forehead 
 swelling suddenly. But after a seeming struggle with 
 himself he put the insult by, perhaps for future reck- 
 oning and account. "I did what I could," he said 
 sullenly. "Had I willed it he had died there and 
 then in the room below. I gave him his life. If he 
 has risked it anew and lost it, it is naught to me. " 
 
 "It was his life you gave me," she repeated stub- 
 bornly. "His life and the others. But that is not 
 all," she continued; "you promised me a minister." 
 
 He nodded, smiling sourly to himself, as if this 
 confirmed a suspicion he had entertained. "Or a 
 priest," he said. 
 
 "No, a minister." 
 
 "If one could be obtained. , If not, a priest." 
 
 "No, it was to be at my will ; and I will a minister! 
 I will a minister ! " she cried passionately. "Show me 
 M. Tiguonville alive, and bring me a minister of my 
 faith, and I will keep my promise, M. de Tavannes. 
 Have no fear of that. But otherwise, I will not. " 
 
 "You will not? " he cried. "You will not? " 
 
 "No!" 
 
 "You will not marry me? " 
 
 "No!" 
 
 The moment she had said it fear seized her, and she 
 could have fled from him, screaming. The flash of 
 his eyes, the sudden passion of his face, burned them- 
 selves into her memory. She thought for a second
 
 120 COUNT HANNIBAL. 
 
 that he would spring on her and strike her down. 
 Yet though the women behind her held their breath, 
 she faced him, and did not quail ; and to that, she 
 fancied, she owed it that he controlled himself. 
 "You will not?" he repeated, as if he could not un- 
 derstand such resistance to his will as if he could 
 not credit his ears. "You will not? " But after that, 
 when he had said it three times, he laughed ; a laugh, 
 however, with a snarl in it that chilled her blood. 
 
 "You bargain, do you?" he said. "You will have 
 the ^ast tittle of the price, will you? And have 
 thought of this and that to put me off, and to gain 
 time until your lover, who is all to you, come to save 
 you ? Oh, clever girl ! clever ! But have you thought 
 where you stand woman? Do you know that if I 
 gave the word to my people they would treat you as 
 the commonest baggage that tramps the Froidmantel ? 
 Do you know that it rests with me to save you, or to 
 throw you to the wolves whose ravening you hear ? " 
 And he pointed to the window. l i Minister ? Priest ? " 
 he continued. " Mon Dieu, Mademoiselle, I stand as- 
 tonished at my moderation. You chatter to me of 
 ministers and priests, and the one or the other, when 
 it might be neither ! When you are as much and as 
 hopelessly in my power to-day as the wench in my 
 kitchen ! You ! You flout me, and make terms with 
 me ! You ! " 
 
 And he came so near her with his dark harsh face, 
 his tone rose so menacing on the last word, that her 
 nerves, shattered before, gave way, and, unable to 
 control herself, she flinched with a low cry, thinking 
 he would strike her. 
 
 He did not follow, nor move to follow; but he 
 laughed a low laugh of content. And his eyes de-
 
 A BAKGAIK 121 
 
 voured her. "Ho! ho!" he said. "We are not so 
 brave as we pretend to be, it seems. And yet you 
 dared to chaffer with me? You thought to thwart 
 me Tavannes! Mon Dieu, Mademoiselle, to what 
 did you trust? To what did you trust? Ay, and to 
 what do you trust? " 
 
 She knew that by the movement, which fear had 
 forced from her, she had jeopardised everything. 
 That she stood to lose all and more than all which she 
 had thought to win by a bold front. A woman less 
 brave, of a spirit less firm, would have given up the 
 contest, and have been glad to escape so. But this 
 woman, though her bloodless face showed that she 
 knew what cause she had for fear, and though her 
 heart was, indeed, sick with sheer terror, held her 
 ground at the point to which she had retreated. She 
 played her last card. "To what do I trust?" she 
 muttered with trembling lips. 
 
 "Yes, Mademoiselle," he answered, between his 
 teeth. "To what do you trust that you play with 
 Tavannes?" 
 
 "To his honour, Monsieur," she answered faintly. 
 "And to your promise." 
 
 He looked at her with his mocking smile. "And 
 yet," he sneered, "you thought a moment ago that I 
 was going to strike you. You thought that I should 
 beat you ! And now it is my honour and my promise ! 
 Oh, clever, clever, Mademoiselle ! 'Tis so that women 
 make fools of men. I knew that something of this 
 kind was on foot when you sent for me, for I know 
 women and their ways. But, let me tell you, it is an 
 ill time to speak of honour when the streets are red ! 
 And of promises when the King's word is 'No faith 
 with a heretic ! ' "
 
 122 COUNT HANNIBAL. 
 
 "Yet you will keep yours," she said bravely. 
 
 He did not answer at once, and hope which was al- 
 most dead in her breast began to recover ; nay, pres- 
 ently sprang up erect. For the man hesitated, it was 
 evident; he brooded with a puckered brow and gloomy 
 eyes ; an observer might have fancied that he traced 
 pain as well as doubt in his face. At last: "There 
 is a thing, " he said slowly and with a sort of glare 
 at her, "which, it may be, you have not reckoned. 
 You press me now, and will stand on your terms and 
 your conditions, your -ifs and your unlesses ! You will 
 have the most from me, and the bargain and a little 
 beside the bargain ! But I would have you think if 
 you are wise. Bethink you how it will be between 
 us when you are my wife if you press me so now, 
 Mademoiselle. How will it sweeten things then? 
 How will it soften them ? And to what, I pray you, 
 will you trust for fair treatment then, if you will be 
 so against me now ? " 
 
 She shuddered. "To the mercy of my husband," 
 she said in a low voice. And her chin sank on her 
 breast. 
 
 " You will be content to trust to that ? " he answered 
 grimly. And his tone and the lifting of his brow 
 promised little clemency. "Bethink you! 'Tis your 
 rights now, and your terms, Mademoiselle ! And then 
 it will be only my mercy Madame." 
 
 "I am content," she muttered faintly. 
 
 "And the Lord have mercy on my soul, is what 
 you would add," he retorted, "so much trust have 
 you in my mercy! And you are right! You are 
 right, since you have played this trick on me. But 
 as you will. If you will have it so, have it so ! You 
 shall stand on your conditions now ; you shall have
 
 A BABGAIK 123 
 
 your pennyweight and full advantage, and the rigour 
 of the pact. But afterwards afterwards, Madame 
 de Tavannes " 
 
 He did not finish his sentence, for at the first word 
 which granted her petition, Mademoiselle had sunk 
 down on the low wooden window-seat beside which 
 she stood, and, cowering into its farthest corner, her 
 face hidden on her arms, had burst into violent weep- 
 ing. Her hair, hastily knotted up in the hurry of the 
 previous night, hung in a thick plait to the curve of 
 her waist ; the nape of her neck showed beside it milk- 
 white. The man stood awhile contemplating her in 
 silence, his gloomy eyes watching the pitiful move- 
 ment of her shoulders, the convulsive heaving of her 
 figure. But he did not offer to touch her, and at 
 length he turned about. First one and then the other 
 of her women quailed and shrank under his gaze ; he 
 seemed about to add something. But he did not 
 speak. The sentence he had left unfinished, the long 
 look he bent on the weeping girl as he turned from 
 her, spoke more eloquently of the future than a score 
 of orations. 
 
 " Afterwards, Madame de Tavannes I "
 
 CIIAPTEB XII. 
 
 IN THE HALL OF THE LOUYRE. 
 
 IT is a strange thing that love or passion, if the 
 sudden fancy for Mademoiselle which had seized 
 Count Hannibal be deemed unworthy of the higher 
 name should so entirely possess the souls of those 
 who harbour it that the greatest events and the most 
 astounding catastrophes, even measures which set 
 their mark for all time on a nation, are to them of 
 importance only so far as they affect the pursuit of 
 the fair one. 
 
 As Tavannes, after leaving Mademoiselle, rode 
 through the paved lanes, beneath the gabled houses, 
 and under the shadow of the Gothic spires of his day, 
 he saw a score of sights, moving to pity, or wrath, or 
 wonder. He saw Paris as a city sacked ; a slaughter- 
 house, where for a week a masque had moved to 
 stately music; blood on the nailed doors and the 
 close-set window bars ; and at the corners of the ways 
 strewn garments, broken weapons, the livid dead in 
 heaps. But he saw all with eyes which in all and 
 everywhere, among living and dead, sought only 
 Tignonville; Tignonville first, and next a heretic 
 minister, with enough of life in him to do his office. 
 
 Probably it was to this that one man hunted 
 through Paris owed his escape that day. He sprang 
 from a narrow passage full in Tavannes' view, and, 
 hair on end, his eyes starting from his head, ran 
 blindly as a hare will run when chased along the
 
 IN THE HALL OF THE LOUYEE. 125 
 
 street to meet Count Hannibal's company. The 
 man's face was wet with the dews of death, his lungs 
 seemed cracking, his breath hissed from him as he 
 ran. His pursuers were hard on him, and, seeing 
 him headed by Count Hannibal's party, yelled in 
 triumph, holding him for dead. And dead he would 
 have been within thirty seconds had Tavannes played 
 his part. But his thoughts were elsewhere. Either 
 he took the poor wretch for Tignonville, or for the 
 minister on whom his mind was running ; at any rate 
 he suffered him to slip under the belly of his horse ; 
 then, to make matters worse, he wheeled to follow 
 him in so untimely and clumsy a fashion that his 
 horse blocked the way and stopped the pursuers in 
 their tracks. The quarry slipped into an alley and 
 vanished. The hunters stood and blasphemed, and 
 even for a moment seemed inclined to resent the mis- 
 take. But Tavannes smiled; a broader smile light- 
 ened the faces of the six iron-clad men behind him ; 
 and for some reason the gang of ruffians thought bet- 
 ter of it and slunk aside. 
 
 There are hard men, who feel scorn of the things 
 which in the breasts of others excite pity. Tavannes' 
 lip curled as he rode on through the streets, looking 
 this way and that, and seeing what a King twenty- 
 two years old had made of his capital. His lip curled 
 most of all when he came, passing between the two 
 tennis-courts, to the east gate of the Louvre, and 
 found the entrance locked and guarded, and all com- 
 munication between city and palace cut off. Such a 
 proof of unkingly panic, in a crisis wrought by the 
 King himself, astonished him less a few minutes later, 
 when, the keys having been brought and the door 
 opened, he entered the courtyard of the fortress.
 
 126 COUNT HANNIBAL. 
 
 Within and about the door of the gatehouse some 
 three-score archers and arquebusiers stood to their 
 arms; not in array, but in disorderly groups, from 
 which the babble of voices, of feverish laughter, and 
 strained jests rose without ceasing. The westering 
 sun, of which the beams just topped the farther side 
 of the quadrangle, fell slantwise on their armour, 
 and heightened their exaggerated and restless move- 
 ments. To a calm eye they seemed like men acting 
 in a nightmare. Their fitful talk and disjointed ges- 
 tures, their sweating brows and damp hair, no less than 
 the sullen, brooding silence of one here and there, 
 bespoke the abnormal and the terrible. There were 
 livid faces among them, and twitching cheeks, and 
 some who swallowed much; and some again vho 
 bared their crimson arms and bragged insanely of the 
 part they had played. But perhaps the most striking 
 thing was the thirst, the desire, the demand for news, 
 and for fresh excitement. In the space of time it 
 took him to pass through them, Count Hannibal 
 heard a dozen rumours of what was passing in the 
 city; that Montgomery and the gentlemen who had 
 slept beyond the river had escaped on horseback in 
 their shirts ; that Guise had been shot in the pursuit ; 
 that he had captured the Vidame de Chartres and all 
 the fugitives ; that he had never left the city ; that he 
 was even then entering by the Porte de Bucy. Again 
 that Biron had surrendered the Arsenal, that he had 
 threatened to fire on the city, that he was dead, that 
 with the Huguenots who had escaped he was march- 
 ing on the Louvre, that 
 
 And then Tavaunes passed out of the blinding sun- 
 shine, and out of earshot of their babble, and had 
 plain in his sight across the quadrangle, the new
 
 IN THE HALL OF THE LOUVKE. 127 
 
 facade, Italian, graceful, of the Eenaissance; which 
 rose in smiling contrast with the three dark Gothic 
 sides that now, the central tower removed, frowned 
 unimpeded at one another. But what was this which 
 lay along the foot of the new Italian wall? This, 
 round which some stood, gazing curiously, while 
 others strewed fresh sand about it, or after long 
 downward-looking glanced up to answer the question 
 of a person at a window? 
 
 Death ; and over death death in its most cruel as- 
 pect a cloud of buzzing, whirling flies, and the 
 smell, never to be forgotten, of much spilled blood. 
 From a doorway hard by came shrill bursts of hyster- 
 ical laughter; and with the laughter plumped out, 
 even as Tavannes crossed the court, a young girl, 
 thrust forth it seemed by her fellows, for she turned 
 about and struggled as she came. Once outside she 
 hung back, giggling and protesting, half willing, half 
 unwilling ; and meeting Tavannes' eye thrust her way 
 in again with a whirl of her petticoats, and a shriek. 
 But before he had taken four paces she was out again. 
 
 He paused to see who she was, and his thoughts 
 involuntarily went back to the woman he had left 
 weeping in the upper room. Then he turned about 
 again and stood to count the dead. He identified 
 Piles, identified Pardaillan, identified Soubise whose 
 corpse the murderers had robbed of the last rag and 
 Touchet and St. Galais. He made his reckoning with 
 an unmoved face, and with the same face stopped and 
 stared, and moved from one to another ; had he not 
 seen the slaughter about il le petit homme" at Jarnac, 
 and the dead of three pitched fields ? But when a by- 
 stander, smirking obsequiously, passed him a jest on 
 Soubise, and with his finger pointed the jest, he had
 
 128 COUNT HANNIBAL. 
 
 the same hard unmoved face for the gibe as for the 
 dead. Arid the jester shrank away, abashed and per- 
 plexed by his stare and his reticence. 
 
 Half way up the staircase to the great gallery or 
 guardroom above, Count Hannibal found his brother, 
 the Marshal, huddled together in drunken slumber 
 on a seat in a recess. In the gallery to which he 
 passed ^n without awakening him, a crowd of cour- 
 tiers and ladies, with arquebusiers and captains of the 
 quarters, walked to and fro, talking in whispers ; or 
 peeped over shoulders towards the inner end of the 
 hall, where the querulous voice of the King rose now 
 and again above the hum. As Tavannes moved that 
 way, Nangay, in the act of passing out, booted and 
 armed for the road, met him and almost jostled him. 
 
 "Ah, well met, M. le Comte," he sneered, with as 
 much hostility as he dared betray. " The King has 
 asked for you twice." 
 
 "I am going to him. And you? Whither in such 
 a hurry, M. Nangay ? " 
 
 "To Chatillon." 
 
 "On pleasant business?" 
 
 "Enough that it is on the King's!" Nangay re- 
 plied with unexpected temper. "I hope that you 
 may find yours as pleasant ! " he added with a grin. 
 And he went on. 
 
 The gleam of malice in the man's eye warned Ta- 
 vannes to pause. He looked round for someone who 
 might be in the secret, saw the Provost of the Mer- 
 chants and approached him. "What's amiss, M. le 
 Charron?" he asked. "Is not the affair going as it 
 should?" 
 
 " 'Tis about the Arsenal, M. le Comte, " the Provost 
 answered busily. "M. de Biron is harbouring the
 
 IN THE HALL OF THE LOUVEE. 129 
 
 vermin there. He has lowered the portcullis and 
 pointed his culverins over the gate and will not yield 
 it or listen to reason. The King would bring him to 
 terms, but no one will venture himself inside with the 
 message. Eats in a trap, you know, bite hard, and 
 care little whom they bite." 
 
 " I begin to understand. " 
 
 "Precisely, M. le Comte. His Majesty would have 
 sent M. de Nangay. But he elected to go to Chatil- 
 lon, to seize the young brood there. The Admiral's 
 children, you comprehend." 
 
 "Whose teeth are not yet grown! He was wise." 
 
 "To be sure, M. de Tavannes, to be sure. But the 
 King was annoyed, and on top of that came a priest 
 with complaints, and if I may make so bold as to ad- 
 vise you, you will not " 
 
 But Tavannes fancied that he had caught the gist 
 of the difficulty, and with a nod he moved on ; and 
 so he missed the point of the warning which the other 
 had it in his mind to give. A moment and he 
 reached the inner circle, and there halted, discon- 
 certed, nay, taken aback. For as soon as he showed 
 his face, the King, who was pacing to and fro like a 
 caged beast, before a table at which three clerks knelt 
 on cushions, espied him and stood still. "With a 
 glare of something like madness in his eyes, Charles 
 raised his hand with a shaking finger and singled him 
 out. 
 
 "So, by G d, you are there!" he cried, with a 
 volley of blasphemy. And he signed to those about 
 Count Hannibal to stand away from him. "You are 
 there, are you f And you are not afraid to show your 
 face ? I tell you, it's you and such as you bring us 
 into contempt! so that it is said everywhere Guise 
 9
 
 130 COUNT HANNIBAL. 
 
 does all and serves God, and we follow because we 
 must! It's you, and such as you, are stumbling- 
 blocks to our good folk of Paris! Are you traitor, 
 sirrah?" he continued with passion, "or are you of 
 our brother Alencon's opinions, that you traverse our 
 orders to the damnation of your soul and our dis- 
 credit? Are you traitor? Or are you heretic? Or 
 what are you? God in heaven, will you answer me, 
 man, or shall I send you where you will find your 
 tongue ? " 
 
 "I know not of what your Majesty accuses me," 
 Count Hannibal answered, with a scarcely perceptible 
 shrug of the shoulders. 
 
 "I? 'Tis not I," the King retorted. His hair 
 hung damp on his brow, and he dried his hands con- 
 tinually ; while his gestures had the ill-measured and 
 eccentric violence of an epileptic. "Here, you ! Speak, 
 father, and confound him ! " 
 
 Then Tavaunes discovered on the farther side of 
 the circle the priest whom his brother had ridden 
 down that morning. Father Pezelay's pale hatchet- 
 face gleamed paler than ordinary ; and a great band- 
 age hid one temple and part of his face. But, below 
 the bandage, the flame of his eyes was not lessened, 
 nor the venom of his tongue. To the King he had 
 come for no other would deal with his violent oppo- 
 nent; to the King's presence! and, as he prepared to 
 blast his adversary, now his chance was come, his 
 long lean frame, in its narrow black cassock, seemed 
 to grow longer, leaner, more baleful, more snake- 
 like. He stood there a fitting representative of the 
 dark fanaticism of Paris, which Charles and his suc- 
 cessor the last of a doomed line alternately used as 
 tool or feared as master ; and to which the most de-
 
 IN THE HALL OF THE LOUVRE. 131 
 
 based and the most immoral of courts paid, in its 
 sober hours, a vile and slavish homage. Even in 
 the midst of the drunken, shameless courtiers who 
 stood, if they stood for anything, for that other in- 
 fluence of the day, the Renaissance he was to be 
 reckoned with; and Count Hannibal knew it. He 
 knew that in the eyes not of Charles only, but of nine 
 out of ten who listened to him, a priest was more 
 sacred than a virgin, and a tonsure than all the 
 virtues of spotless innocence. 
 
 " Shall the King give with one hand and withdraw 
 with the other ? " the priest began, in a voice hoarse 
 yet strident, a voice borne high above the crowd on 
 the wings of passion. "Shall he spare of the best of 
 the men and the maidens whom God hath doomed, 
 whom the Church hath devoted, whom the King hath 
 given 1 Is the King's hand shortened or his word an- 
 nulled that a man does as he forbiddeth and leaves 
 undone what he cornmandeth ? Is God mocked ? 
 Woe, woe unto you," he continued, turning swiftly, 
 arms uplifted, towards Tavannes, "who please your- 
 self with the red and white of their maidens and take 
 of the best of the spoil, sparing where the King's 
 word is 'Spare not!' Who strike at Holy Church 
 with the sword ! Who " 
 
 "Answer, sirrah!" Charles cried, spurning the 
 floor in his fury. He could not listen long to any 
 man. "Is it so? Is it so? Do you do these things? " 
 
 Count Hannibal shrugged his shoulders and was 
 about to answer, when a thick, drunken voice rose 
 from the crowd behind him. "Is it what? Eh! Is 
 it what?" it droned. And a figure with bloodshot 
 eyes, disordered beard, and rich clothes awry, forced 
 its way through the obsequious circle. It was Marshal
 
 132 COUNT HANNIBAL. 
 
 Tavannes. "Eh, what? You'd beard the King, 
 would you ? " he hiccoughed truculently, his eyes on 
 Father Pezelay, his hand on his sword. " Were you 
 a priest teu times 
 
 "Silence!" Charles cried, almost foaming with 
 rage at this fresh interruption. "It's not he, fool! 
 'Tis your pestilent brother." 
 
 "Who touches my brother touches Tavannes! " the 
 Marshal answered with a menacing gesture. He was 
 sober enough, it appeared, to hear what was said, but 
 not to comprehend its drift ; and this caused a titter, 
 which immediately excited his rage. He turned and 
 seized the nearest laugher by the ear. " Insolent! 7 ' 
 he cried. " I will teach you to laugh when the King 
 speaks! Puppy! Who laughs at his Majesty or 
 touches my brother has to do with Tavannes ! " 
 
 The King, in a rage that almost deprived him of 
 speech, stamped the floor twice. "Idiot!" he cried. 
 " Imbecile ! Let the man go ! 'Tis not he ! ' Tis your 
 heretic brother, I tell you ! By all the Saints ! By 
 the body of " and he poured forth a flood of 
 oaths. "Will you listen to me and be silent! Will 
 you your brother " 
 
 " If he be not your Majesty's servant, I will kill 
 him with this sword ! " the irrepressible Marshal 
 struck in. "As I have killed ten to-day! Ten!" 
 And, staggering back, he only saved himself from 
 falling by clutching Chicot about the neck. 
 
 "Steady, my pretty Mar6chale !" the jester cried, 
 chucking him under the chin with one hand, while 
 with some difficulty he supported him with the other 
 f or he, too, was far from sober 
 
 " Pretty Margot, toy with me, 
 Maiden bashful "
 
 IN THE HALL OF THE LOUYEE. 133 
 
 "Silence!" Charles cried, darting forth his long 
 arms in a fury of impatience. "God, have I killed 
 every man of sense? Are you all gone mad? Si- 
 lence! Do you hear? Silence! And let me hear 
 what he has to say, " with a movement towards Count 
 Hannibal. "And look you, sirrah," he continued 
 with a curse, "see that it be to the purpose ! " 
 
 "If it be a question of your Majesty's service," 
 Tavauues answered. "And obedience to your Ma- 
 jesty's orders, I am deeper in it than he who stands 
 there!" with a sign towards the priest. "I give my 
 word for that. And I will prove it." 
 
 "How, sir?" Charles cried. "How, how, how? 
 How will you prove it ? " 
 
 "By doing for you, sire, what he will not do!" 
 Tavannes answered scornfully. "Let him stand out, 
 and if he will serve his Church as I will serve my 
 King 
 
 " Blaspheme not ! " cried the priest. 
 
 "Chatter not!" Tavannes retorted hardily, "but 
 do! Better is he," he continued, "who takes a city 
 than he who slays women ! Nay, sire, " he went on 
 hurriedly, seeing the King start, " be not angry, but 
 hear me ! You would send to Biron, to the Arsenal ? 
 You seek a messenger, sire ? Then let the good father 
 be the man. Let him take your Majesty's will to 
 Biron, and let him see the Grand Master face to face, 
 and bring him to reason. Or, if he will not, I will ! 
 Let that be the test!" 
 
 "Ay, ay!" cried Marshal de Tavannes, "you say 
 well, brother ! Let him ! " 
 
 "And if he will not, I will!" Tavannes repeated. 
 "Let that be the test, sire." 
 
 The King wheeled suddenly to Father Pezelay.
 
 134 COUNT HANNIBAL. 
 
 "You hear, father? " he said. "What say you! " 
 
 The priest's face grew sallow, and more sallow. 
 He knew that the walls of the Arsenal sheltered men 
 whose hands no convention and no order of Birou's 
 would keep from his throat, were the grim gate and 
 frowning culverins once passed; men who had seen 
 their women and children, their wives and sisters im- 
 molated at his word, and now asked naught but to 
 stand face to face and eye to eye with him and tear 
 him limb from limb before they died! The chal- 
 lenge, therefore, was one-sided and unfair; but for 
 that very reason it shook him. The astuteness of the 
 man who, taken by surprise, had conceived this snare 
 filled him with dread. He dared not accept, and he 
 scarcely dared to refuse the offer. And meantime 
 the eyes of the courtiers, who grinned in their beards, 
 were on him. At length he spoke, but it was in a 
 voice which had lost its boldness and assurance. 
 
 "It is not for me to clear myself," he cried, shrill 
 and violent, "but for those who are accused, for those 
 who have belied the King's word, and set at naught 
 his Christian orders. For you, Count Hannibal, 
 heretic, or no better than heretic, it is easy to say ' I 
 go. ' For you go but to your own, and your own will 
 receive you ! " 
 
 "Then you will not go? " with a jeer. 
 
 " At your command ? No ! " the priest shrieked 
 with passion. " His Majesty knows whether I serve 
 him." 
 
 "I know," Charles cried, stamping his foot in a 
 fury, "'that you all serve me when it pleases you! 
 That you are all sticks of the same faggot, wood of 
 the same bundle, hell -babes in your own business, and 
 sluggards in mine ! You kill to-day and you'll lay it
 
 IN THE HALL OF THE LOUVEE. 135 
 
 tome to-morrow! Ay, you will! you will!" he re- 
 peated frantically, and drove home the asseveration 
 with a fearful oath. " The dead are as good servants 
 as you! Foucauld was better! Foucauld? Fou- 
 cauld? Ah, my God!" 
 
 And abruptly in presence of them all, with the 
 sacred name, which he so often defiled, on his lips, 
 Charles turned, and covering his face burst into 
 childish weeping ; while a great silence fell on all 
 on Bussy with the blood of his cousin Kesiiel on his 
 point, on Fervacques, the betrayer of his friend, on 
 Chicot, the slayer of his rival, on Cocconnas the cruel 
 on men with hands unwashed from the slaughter, 
 and on the shameless women who lined the walls ; on 
 all who used this sobbing man for their stepping- 
 stone, and, to attain their ends and gain their pur- 
 poses, trampled his dull soul in blood and mire. 
 
 One looked at another in consternation. Fear grew 
 in eyes that a moment before were bold; cheeks 
 turned pale that a moment before were hectic. If he 
 changed as rapidly as this, if so little dependence 
 could be placed on his moods or his resolutions, who 
 was safe 1 ? Whose turn might it not be to-morrow 1 ? 
 Or who might not be held accountable for the deeds 
 done this day? Many, from whom remorse had 
 seemed far distant a while before, shuddered and 
 glanced behind them. It was as if the dead who lay 
 stark without the doors, ay, and the countless dead of 
 Paris, with whose shrieks the air was laden, had 
 flocked in shadowy shape into the hall ; and there, 
 standing beside their murderers, had whispered with 
 their cold breath in the living ears, "A reckoning! 
 A reckoning ! As I am, thou shalt be ! " 
 
 It v.'as Count Hannibal who broke the spell and the
 
 136 COUNT HANNIBAL. 
 
 silence, and with his hand on his brother's shoulder 
 stood forward. "Nay, sire," he cried, in a voice 
 which rang defiant in the roof, and seemed to chal- 
 lenge alike the living and the dead, "if all deny the 
 deed, yet will not I ! What we have done we have 
 done! So be it! The dead are dead! So be it! 
 For the rest, your Majesty has still one servant who 
 will do your will, one soldier whose life is at your 
 disposition! I have said I will go, and I go, sire. 
 And you, churchman," he continued, turning in bit- 
 ter scorn to the priest, "do you go too to church! 
 To church, shaveling ! Go, watch and pray for us ! 
 Fast and flog for us! Whip those shoulders, whip 
 them till the blood runs down ! For it is all, it seems, 
 you will do for your King ! " 
 
 Charles turned. "Silence, railer!" he said in a 
 broken voice. " Sow no more troubles ! Already," a 
 shudder shook his tall ungainly form, "I see blood, 
 blood, blood everywhere ! Blood ! Ah, God, shall I 
 'from this time see anything else? But there is no 
 turning back. There is no undoing. So, do you go 
 to Biron. And do you," he went on, sullenly ad- 
 dressing Marshal Tavannes, "take him and tell him 
 what it is needful he should know." 
 
 "'Tis done, sire!" the Marshal cried with a hic- 
 cough. "Come, brother!" 
 
 But when the two, the courtiers making quick way 
 for them, had passed down the hall to the door, the 
 Marshal tapped Hannibal's sleeve. "It was touch 
 and go, " he muttered ; it was plain he had been more 
 sober than he seemed. "Mind you, it does not do 
 to thwart our little master in his fits! Eemember 
 that another time, or worse will come of it, brother. 
 As it is, you came out of it finely and tripped that
 
 IN THE HALL OF THE LOUVEE. 137 
 
 black devil's heels to a marvel ! But you won't be so 
 mad as to go to Biron ? " 
 
 "Yes/' Count Hannibal answered coldly. "I shall 
 go." 
 
 "Better not! Better not!" the Marshal answered. 
 " 'Twill be easier to go in than to come out with a 
 whole throat! Have you taken wild cats in the 
 hollow of a tree? The young first, and then the 
 she-cat? Well, it will be that! Take my advice, 
 brother. Have after Montgomery, if you please, ride 
 with Nancay to Chatillon he is mounting now go 
 where you please out of Paris, but don't go there! 
 Biron hates us, hates me. And for the King, if he 
 do not see you for a few days, 'twill blow over in a 
 week. " 
 
 Count Hannibal shrugged his shoulders. "~No," he 
 said, "I shall go. ;; 
 
 The Marshal stared a moment. "Morbleu!" he 
 said, "why? 'Tis not to please the King, I know. 
 What do you think to find there, brother? " 
 
 "A minister," Hannibal answered gently. "I want 
 one with life in him, and they are scarce in the 
 open. So I must to covert after him. " And, twitch- 
 ing his sword-belt a little nearer to his hand, he 
 passed across the court to the gate, and to his horses. 
 The Marshal went back laughing, and, slapping his 
 thigh as he entered the hall, jostled by accident a 
 gentleman who was passing out. 
 
 "What is it?" the Gascon cried hotly; for it was 
 Chicot he had jostled. 
 
 " Who touches my brother touches Tavannes ! " the 
 Marshal hiccoughed. And, smiting his thigh anew, 
 he went off into another fit of laughter.
 
 CHAPTEE XIII. 
 
 DIPLOMACY. 
 
 WHERE the old wall of Paris, of which no vestige 
 remains, ran down on the east to the north bank of 
 the river, the space in the angle between the Seine 
 and the ramparts beyond the Rue St. Pol wore at 
 this date an aspect typical of the troubles of the time. 
 Along the waterside the gloomy old Palace of St. Pol, 
 once the residence of the mad King Charles the Sixth 
 and his wife, the abandoned Isabeau de Baviere 
 sprawled its maze of mouldering courts and ruined 
 galleries, a dreary monument of the Gothic days 
 which were passing from France. Its spacious curti- 
 lage and dark pleasaunces covered all the ground be- 
 tween the river and the Rue St. Antoine ; and north 
 of this, under the shadow of the eight great towers of 
 the Bastille, which looked, four outward to check the 
 stranger, four inward to bridle the town, a second 
 palace, beginning where St. Pol ended, carried the 
 realm of decay to.the city wall. 
 
 This second palace was the Hotel des Touruelles, 
 a fantastic medley of turrets, spires, and gables, that 
 equally with its neighbour recalled the days of the 
 English domination ; it had been the abode of the Re- 
 gent Bedford. From his time it had remained for a 
 hundred years the town residence of the kings of 
 France; but the death of Henry II., slain in its lists 
 by the lance of the same Montgomery who was this
 
 DIPLOMACY. 139 
 
 day fleeing for his life before Guise, had given his 
 widow a distaste for it. Catherine de Medicis, her 
 sons, and the Court had abandoned it; already its 
 gardens lay a tangled wilderness, its roofs let in the 
 rain, rats played where kings had slept; and in "our 
 palace of the Tournelles" reigned only silence and 
 decay. Unless, indeed, as was whispered abroad, the 
 grim shade of the eleventh Louis sometimes walked 
 in its desolate precincts. 
 
 In the innermost angle between the ramparts and 
 the river, shut off from the rest of Paris by the de- 
 caying courts and enceintes of these forsaken palaces, 
 stood the Arsenal. Destroyed in great part by the 
 explosion of a powder-mill a few years earlier, it was 
 in the main new ; and by reason of its river frontage, 
 which terminated at the ruined tower of Billy, and 
 its proximity to the Bastille, it was esteemed one of 
 the keys of Paris. It was the appanage of the Mas- 
 ter of the Ordnance, and within its walls M. de Bi- 
 ron, a Huguenot in politics, if not in creed, who held 
 the office at this time, had secured himself on the first 
 alarm. During the day he had admitted a number of 
 refugees, whose courage or good luck had led them to 
 his gate ; and as night fell on such a carnage as the 
 hapless city had not beheld since the great slaughter 
 of the Armaguacs, one hundred and fifty-four years 
 earlier the glow of his matches through the dusk, 
 and the sullen tramp of his watchmen as they paced 
 the walls, indicated that there was still one place in 
 Paris where the King's will did not run. 
 
 In comparison of the disorder which prevailed in 
 the city, a deadly quiet reigned here; a stillness so 
 chill that a timid man must have stood and hesitated 
 to approach. But a stranger who about nightfall rode
 
 140 COUNT HA15TNIBAL. 
 
 down the street towards the entrance, a single foot- 
 man running at his stirrup, only nodded a stern ap- 
 proval of the preparations. As he drew nearer he cast 
 an attentive eye this way and that ; nor stayed until 
 a hoarse challenge brought him up when he had come 
 within six horses' lengths of the Arsenal gate. He 
 reined up then, and raising his voice, asked in clear 
 tones for M. de Biron. 
 
 "Go," he continued boldly, "tell the Grand Master 
 that one from the King is here, and would speak with 
 him." 
 
 "From the King of France? " the officer on the gate 
 asked. 
 
 "Surely! Is there more than one King in France?" 
 
 A curse and a bitter cry of "King? King Herod! " 
 were followed by a muttered discussion that, in the 
 ears of one of the two who waited in the gloom below, 
 boded little good. The two could descry figures mov- 
 ing to and fro before the faint red light of the smoul- 
 dering matches; and presently a man on the gate 
 kindled a torch, and held it so as to fling its light 
 downward. The stranger's attendant cowered behind 
 the horse. "Have a care, my lord!" he whispered. 
 "They are aiming at us! " 
 
 If so the rider's bold front and unmoved demeanour 
 gave them pause. Presently, "I will send for the 
 Grand Master " the man who had spoken before an- 
 nounced. "In whose name, monsieur? " 
 
 "No matter," the stranger answered. "Say, one 
 from the King." 
 
 "You are alone? " 
 
 "I shall enter alone." 
 
 The assurance seemed to be satisfactory, for the 
 man answered "Good!" and after a brief delay a
 
 DIPLOMACY. 141 
 
 wicket in the gate was opened, the portcullis creaked 
 upward, and a plank was thrust across the ditch. The 
 horseman waited until the preparations were com- 
 plete ; then he slid to the ground, threw his rein to 
 the servant, and boldly walked across. In an instant 
 he left behind him the dark street, the river, and 
 the sounds of outrage, which the night breeze bore 
 from the farther bank, and found himself within the 
 vaulted gateway, in a bright glare of light, the centre 
 of a ring of gleaming eyes and angry faces. 
 
 The light blinded him for a few seconds ; but the 
 guards, on their side, were in no better case. For the 
 stranger was masked ; and in their ignorance who it 
 was looked at them through the slits in the black vel- 
 vet they stared, disconcerted, and at a loss. There 
 were some there with naked weapons in their hands 
 who would have struck him through had they known 
 who he was ; and more who would have stood aside 
 while the deed was done. But the uncertainty that 
 and the masked man's tone paralysed them. For 
 they reflected that he might be any one. Conde, 
 indeed, stood too small, but Navarre, if he lived, 
 might fill that cloak ; or Guise, or Anjou, or the King 
 himself. And while some would not have scrupled 
 to strike the blood royal, more would have been 
 quick to protect and avenge it. And so before the 
 dark uncertainty of the mask, before the riddle of the 
 smiling eyes which glittered through the slits, they 
 stared irresolute ; until a hand, the hand of one bolder 
 than his fellows, was raised to pluck away the screen. 
 
 The unknown dealt the fellow a buffet with his 
 fist. "Down, rascal!" he said hoarsely. "And 
 you" to the officer "show me instantly to M. de 
 Biron!"
 
 142 COUNT HANNIBAL. 
 
 But the lieutenant, who stood iu fear of his men, 
 looked at him doubtfully. "Nay," he said, "not so 
 fast ! " And one of the others, taking the lead, cried, 
 "No! We may have no need of M. de Biron. Your 
 name, monsieur, first." 
 
 With a quick movement the stranger gripped the 
 officer's wrist. "Tell your master," he said, "that 
 he who clasped his wrist thus on the night of Pente- 
 cost is here, and would speak with him ! And say, 
 mark you, that I will come to him, not he to me ! " 
 
 The sign and the tone imposed upon the boldest. 
 Two-thirds of the watch were Huguenots, who burned 
 to avenge the blood of their fellows ; and these, over- 
 riding their officer, had agreed to deal with the intru- 
 der, if a Papegot, without recourse to the Grand Mas- 
 ter, whose moderation they dreaded. A knife-thrust 
 in the ribs, and another body in the ditch why not, 
 when such things were done outside ? But even these 
 doubted now; and M. Peridol, the lieutenant, read- 
 ing in the eyes of his men the suspicions which he 
 had himself conceived, was only anxious to obey, if 
 they would let him. So gravely was he impressed, 
 indeed, by the bearing of the unknown that he 
 turned when he had withdrawn, and came back to 
 assure himself that the men meditated no harm in his 
 absence ; nor until he had exchanged a whisper with 
 one of them would he leave them and go. 
 
 While he was gone on his errand the envoy leaned 
 against the wall of the gateway, and, with his chin 
 sunk on his breast and his mind fallen into reverie, 
 seemed unconscious of the dark glances of which he 
 was the target. He remained in this position until 
 the officer came back, followed by a man with a lan- 
 tern. Their coming roused the unknown, who, in-
 
 DIPLOMACY. 143 
 
 vited to follow Peridol, traversed two courts without 
 remark, and in the same silence entered a building in 
 the extreme eastern corner of the enceinte abutting 
 on the ruined Tour de Billy. Here, in an upper 
 floor, the Governor of the Arsenal had established his 
 temporary lodging. 
 
 The chamber into which the stranger was intro- 
 duced betrayed the haste in which it had been pre- 
 pared for its occupant. Two silver lamps which 
 hung from the beams of the unceiled roof shed light 
 on a medley of arms and inlaid armour, of parch- 
 ments, books, and steel caskets, which encumbered 
 not the tables only, but the stools and chests that, 
 after the fashion of that day, stood formally along 
 the arras. In the midst of the disorder, on the bare 
 floor, walked the man who, more than any other, had 
 been instrumental in drawing the Huguenots to Paris 
 and to their doom. It was not wonderful that the 
 events of the day, the surprise and horror still rode 
 his mind ; nor that even he who passed for a model of 
 stiffness and reticence betrayed for once the indigna- 
 tion which filled his breast. Until the officer had 
 withdrawn and closed the door he did, indeed, keep 
 silence ; standing beside the table and eyeing his vis- 
 itor with a lofty port and a stern glance. But the 
 moment he was assured that they were alone he 
 spoke. 
 
 " Your Highness may unmask now, " he said, mak- 
 ing no effort to hide his contempt. "Yet were you 
 well advised to take the precaution, since you had 
 hardly come at me in safety without it. Had those 
 who keep the gate seen you, I would not have an- 
 swered for your Highness's life! The more shame," 
 he continued vehemently, " on the deeds of this day
 
 144 COUNT HANNIBAL. 
 
 which have compelled the brother of a King of France 
 to hide his face in his own capital and in his own for- 
 tress. For I dare to say, Monsieur, what no other 
 will say, now the Admiral is dead. You have 
 brought back the days of the Armagnacs. You have 
 brought bloody days and an evil name on France, 
 and I pray God that you may not pay in your turn 
 what you have exacted. But if you continue to be 
 advised by M. de Guise, this I will say, Monsieur " 
 and his voice fell low and stern. "Burgundy slew 
 Orleans, indeed; but he came in his turn to the 
 Bridge of Moutereau. " 
 
 "You take me for Monsieur? " the unknown asked. 
 And it was plain that he smiled under his mask. 
 
 Biron's face altered. "I take you," he answered 
 sharply, "for him whose sign you sent me." 
 
 "The wisest are sometimes astray," the other an- 
 swered with a low laugh. And he took off his mask. 
 
 The Grand Master started back, his eyes sparkling 
 with anger. "M. de Tavannes?" he cried, and for a 
 moment he was silent in sheer astonishment. Then, 
 striking his hand on the table, "What means this 
 trickery ! " he asked. 
 
 " It is of the simplest, " Tavannes answered coolly. 
 "And yet, as you just now said, I had hardly come 
 at you without it. And I had to come at you. No, 
 M. de Biron," he added quickly, as Biron in a rage 
 laid his hand on a bell which stood beside him on the 
 table, "you cannot that way undo what is done." 
 
 "I can at least deliver you," the Grand Master 
 answered, in heat, "to those who will deal with you 
 as you have dealt with us and ours. " 
 
 "It will avail you nothing," Count Hannibal re- 
 plied soberly. "For see here, Grand Master, I come
 
 DIPLOMACY. 145 
 
 from the King. If you are at war with him, and 
 hold his fortress in his teeth, I am his ambassador 
 and sacrosanct. If you are at peace with him. and 
 hold it at his will, I am his servant, and safe also." 
 
 "At peace and safe?" Biroii cried, his voice trem- 
 bling with indignation. "And are those safe or at 
 peace who came here trusting to his word, who lay in 
 his palace and slept in his beds? Where are they, 
 and how have they fared, that you dare appeal to the 
 law of nations, or he to the loyalty of Biron ? And 
 for you to beard me, whose brother to-day hounded 
 the dogs of this vile city on the noblest in France, 
 who have leagued yourself with a crew of foreigners 
 to do a deed which will make our country stink in the 
 nostrils of the world when we are dust! You, to 
 come here and talk of peace and safety ! M. de Ta- 
 vannes " and he struck his hand on the table "you 
 are a bold man. I know why the King had a will to 
 send you, but I know not why you had the will to 
 come. " 
 
 "That I will tell you later," Count Hannibal an- 
 swered coolly. "For the King, first. My message is 
 brief, M. de Biron. Have you a mind to hold the 
 scales in France ? " 
 
 "Between?" Biron asked contemptuously. 
 
 " Between the Lorraiuers and the Huguenots. " 
 
 The Grand Master scowled fiercely. "I have 
 played the go-between once too often," he growled. 
 
 "It is no question of going between, it is a question 
 of holding between, " Tavannes answered coolly. " It 
 is a question but, in a word, have you a mind, M. 
 de Biron, to be Governor of Eochelle? The King, 
 having dealt the blow that has been struck to-day, 
 looks to follow up severity, as a wise ruler should, 
 10
 
 146 COUNT HANNIBAL. 
 
 with indulgence. And to quiet the minds of the 
 Eochellois he would set over them a ruler at once ac- 
 ceptable to them or war must come of it and faith- 
 ful to his Majesty. Such a man, M. de Biron, will in 
 such a post be Master of the Kingdom ; for he will 
 hold the doors of Janus, and as he bridles his sea- 
 dogs, or unchains them, there will be peace or war in 
 France. " 
 
 "Is all that from the King's mouth? " Biron asked 
 with sarcasm. But his passion had died down. He 
 was grown thoughtful, suspicious ; he eyed the other 
 intently as if he would read his heart. 
 
 "The offer is his, and the reflections are mine," 
 Tavaunes answered drily. "Let me add one more. 
 The Admiral is dead. The King of Navarre and the 
 Prince of Conde are prisoners. Who is now to bal- 
 ance the Italians and the Guises'? The Grand Master 
 if he be wise and content to give the law to France 
 from the citadel of Eochelle." 
 
 Biron stared at the speaker in astonishment at his 
 frankness. "You are a bold man," he cried at last. 
 "But timeo Danaos et dona ferentes," he continued bit- 
 terly. "You offer, sir, too much." 
 
 "The offer is the King's." 
 
 "And the conditions'? The price? " 
 
 "That you remain quiet, M. de Biron." 
 
 " In the Arsenal ? " 
 
 "In the Arsenal. And do not too openly counter- 
 act the King's will. That is all." 
 
 The Grand Master looked puzzled. "I will give 
 up no one," he said. "No one! Let that be under- 
 stood. " 
 
 "The King requires no one." 
 
 A pause. Then, "Does M. de Guise know of the
 
 DIPLOMACY. 147 
 
 offer ? " Biron inquired ; and his eye grew bright. 
 He hated the Guises and was hated by them. It was 
 there he was a Huguenot. 
 
 "He has gone far to-day," Count Hannibal an- 
 swered drily. "And if no worse come of it should 
 be content. Madame Catherine knows of it. " 
 
 The Grand Master was aware that Marshal Ta- 
 vannes depended on the Queen-mother; and he 
 shrugged his shoulders. "Ay, 'tis like her policy," 
 he muttered. "'Tis like her!" And pointing his 
 guest to a cushioned chest which stood against the 
 wall, he sat down in a chair beside the table and 
 thought awhile, his brow wrinkled, his eyes dream- 
 ing. By-and-by he laughed sourly. "You have 
 lighted the fire, "he said, " and would fain I put it 
 out," 
 
 " We would have you hinder it spreading." 
 
 "You have done the deed and are loth to pay the 
 blood-money. That is it, is it? " 
 
 "We prefer to pay it to M. de Biron," Count Han- 
 nibal answered civilly. 
 
 Again the Grand Master was silent awhile. At 
 length he looked up and fixed Tavannes with eyes 
 keen as steel. "What is behind?" he growled. 
 "Say, man, what is it? What is behind? " 
 
 "If there be aught behind, I do not know it," Ta- 
 vannes answered steadfastly. 
 
 M. de Biron relaxed the fixity of his gaze. "But 
 you said that you bad an object? " he returned. 
 
 "I had in being the bearer of the message." 
 
 "What was it?" 
 
 "My object? To learn two things." 
 
 "The first, if it please you? " The Grand Master's 
 chin stuck out a little, as he spoke.
 
 148 COUNT HANNIBAL. 
 
 " Have you in the Arsenal a M. de Tignonville, a 
 gentleman of Poitou ? " 
 
 "I have not," Biron answered curtly. "The sec- 
 ond?" 
 
 "Have you here a Huguenot minister f " 
 
 " I have not. And if I had I should not give him 
 up," he added firmly. 
 
 Tavannes shrugged his shoulders. "I have a use 
 for one," he said carelessly. "But it need not harm 
 him." 
 
 "For what, then, do you need him 1" 
 
 "To marry me." 
 
 The other stared. "But you are a Catholic," he 
 said. 
 
 "But she is a Huguenot," Tavannes answered. 
 
 The Grand Master did not attempt to hide his 
 astonishment. "And she sticks on that?" he ex- 
 claimed. "To-day?" 
 
 " She sticks on that. To-day. " 
 
 "To-day? NomdeDieu! To-day! Well," brush- 
 ing the matter aside after a pause of bewilderment, 
 "any way, I cannot help her. I have no minister 
 here. If there be aught else I can do for her " 
 
 "Nothing, I thank you," Tavannes answered. 
 "Then it only remains for me to take your answer to 
 the King ? " And he rose politely, and taking his 
 mask from the table prepared to assume it. 
 
 M. de Biron gazed at him a moment without speak- 
 ing, as if he pondered on the answer he should give. 
 At length he nodded, and rang the bell which stood 
 beside him. 
 
 " The mask ! " he muttered in a low voice as foot- 
 steps sounded without. And, obedient to the hint, 
 Tavannes disguised himself. A second later the offl-
 
 DIPLOMACY. 149 
 
 cer who had introduced him opened the door and 
 entered. 
 
 ^Peridol," M. de Biron said he had risen to his 
 feet "I have received a message which needs confir- 
 mation ; and to obtain this I must leave the Arsenal. 
 I am going to the house you will remember this 
 of Marshal Tavannes, who will be responsible for my 
 person ; in the meantime this gentleman will remain 
 under strict guard in the south chamber upstairs. 
 You will treat him as a hostage, with all respect, and 
 will allow him to preserve his incognito. But if I do 
 not return by noon to-morrow, you will deliver him 
 to the men below, who will know how to deal with 
 him." 
 
 Count Hannibal made no attempt to interrupt him, 
 nor did he betray the discomfiture which he undoubt- 
 edly felt. But as the Grand Master paused, " M. de 
 Biron, " he said, in a voice harsh and low, " you will 
 answer to me for this ! " And his eyes glittered 
 through the slits in the mask. 
 
 " Possibly, but not to-day or to-morrow!" Biron 
 replied, shrugging his shoulders contemptuously. 
 " Peridol ! see the gentleman bestowed as I have or- 
 dered, and then return to me. Monsieur," with a 
 bow, half courteous, half ironical, "let me commend 
 to you the advantages of silence and your mask." 
 And he waved his hand in the direction of the door. 
 
 A moment Count Hannibal hesitated. He was in 
 the heart of a hostile fortress where the resistance of 
 a single man armed to the teeth must have been fu- 
 tile ; and he was unarmed, save for a poniard. Nev- 
 ertheless, for a moment the impulse to spring on Bi- 
 ron, and with the dagger at his throat to make his 
 life the price of a safe passage, was strong. Then
 
 150 COUNT HANNIBAL. 
 
 for with the warp of a harsh and passionate character 
 were interwrought an odd shrewdness and some things 
 little suspected he resigned himself. Bowing grave- 
 ly, he turned with dignity, and in silence followed the 
 officer from the room. 
 
 Peridol had two men with lanterns in waiting at 
 the door. From one of these the lieutenant took the 
 light, and, with an air at once sullen and deferential, 
 led the way up the stone staircase to the floor over 
 that in which M. de Biron had his lodging. Ta- 
 vannes followed ; the two guards came last, carrying 
 the second lantern. At the head of the staircase, 
 whence a bare passage ran north and south, the pro- 
 cession turned right-handed, and, passing two doors, 
 halted before the third and last, which faced them at 
 the end of the passage. The lieutenant unlocked it 
 with a key which he took from a hook beside the 
 doorpost. Then, holding .up his light, he invited his 
 charge to enter. 
 
 The room was not small, but it was low in the roof, 
 and prison-like, it had bare walls and sinoke-niarks 
 on the ceiling. The window, set in a deep recess, the 
 floor of which rose a foot above that of the room, was 
 unglazed ; and through the gloomy orifice the night 
 wind blew in, laden even on that August evening 
 with the dank mist of the river flats. A table, two 
 stools, and a truckle bed without straw or covering 
 made up the furniture; but Peridol, after glancing 
 round, ordered one of the men to fetch a truss of 
 straw and the other to bring up a pitcher of wine. 
 While they were gone Tavannes and he stood silently 
 waiting, until, observing that the captive's eyes 
 sought the window, the lieutenant laughed. 
 
 "No bars?" he said. "No, monsieur, and no need
 
 DIPLOMACY. 151 
 
 of them. You will not go by that road, bars or no 
 bars. " 
 
 " What is below?" Count Hannibal asked careless- 
 ly. "The river?" 
 
 "Yes, monsieur," with a grin, "but not water. 
 Mud, and six feet of it, soft as Christmas porridge, 
 but not so sweet. I've known two puppies thrown in 
 under this window that did not weigh more than a fat 
 pullet apiece. One was gone before you could count 
 fifty, and the other did not live thrice as long nor 
 would have lasted that time, but that it fell on the 
 first and clung to it. " 
 
 Tavannes dismissed the matter with a shrug, and, 
 drawing his cloak about him, set a stool against the 
 wall and sat down. The men who brought in the 
 wine and the bundle of straw were inquisitive, and 
 would have loitered, scanning him stealthily; but 
 Peridol hurried them away. The lieutenant himself 
 stayed only to cast a glance round the room and to 
 mutter that he would return when his lord returned ; 
 then, with a "Good night" which said more for his 
 manners than his good will, he followed them out. 
 A moment later the grating of the key in the lock and 
 the sound of the bolts as they sped home told Tavan- 
 nes that he was a prisoner.
 
 CHAPTEE XIV. 
 
 TOO SHORT A SPOON. 
 
 COUNT HANNIBAL remained seated, his chin sunk on 
 his breast, until his ear assured him that the three 
 men had descended the stairs to the floor below. 
 Then he rose, and, taking the lantern from the table, 
 on which Peridol had placed it, he went softly to the 
 door, which, like the window, stood in a recess in 
 this case the prolongation of the passage. A brief 
 scrutiny satisfied him that escape that way was im- 
 possible, and he turned, after a cursory glance at the 
 floor and ceiling, to the dark, windy aperture which 
 yawned at the end of the apartment. Placing the 
 lantern on the table, and covering it with his cloak, 
 he mounted the window recess, and, stepping to the 
 unguarded edge, looked out. 
 
 He knew, rather than saw, that Peridol had told 
 the truth. The smell of the aguish flats which 
 fringed that part of Paris rose strong in his nostrils. 
 He guessed that the sluggish arm of the Seine which 
 divided the Arsenal from the lie des Louviers crawled 
 below ; but the night was dark, and it was impossible 
 to discern land from water. He fancied that he could 
 trace the outline of the island an uninhabited place, 
 given up to wood piles ; but the lights of the college 
 quarter beyond it, which rose feebly twinkling, to 
 the crown of St. Genevieve, confused his sight and 
 rendered the nearer gloom more opaque. From that
 
 TOO SHORT A SPOON. 153 
 
 direction and from the Cit6 to his right came sounds 
 which told of a city still heaving in its blood-stained 
 sleep, and even in its dreams planning further ex- 
 cesses. Now a distant shot, and now a faint murmur 
 on one of the bridges, or a far-off cry, raucous, sud- 
 den, curdled the blood. But even of what was pass- 
 ing under cover of the darkness, he could leam little ; 
 and after standing awhile with a hand on either side 
 of the window he found the night air chill. He 
 stepped back, and, descending to the floor, uncovered 
 the lantern and set it on the table. His thoughts 
 travelled back to the preparations he had made the 
 night before with a view to securing Mademoiselle's 
 person, and he considered, with a grim smile, how lit- 
 tle he had foreseen that within twenty-four hours he 
 would himself be a prisoner. Presently, finding his 
 mask oppressive, he removed it, and, laying it on the 
 table before him, sat scowling at the light. 
 
 Biron had jockeyed him cleverly. Well, the worse 
 for Armand de Gontaut de Biron if after this adven- 
 ture the luck went against him ! But in the mean- 
 time 1 In the meantime his fate was sealed if harm 
 befell Biron. And what the King's real mind in 
 Birou's case was, and what the Queen -Mother's, he 
 could not say ; just as it was impossible to predict 
 how far, when they had the Grand Master at their 
 mercy, they would resist the temptation to add him 
 to the victims. If Biron placed himself at once in 
 Marshal Tavannes' hands, all might be well. But if 
 he ventured within the long arm of the Guises, or 
 went directly to the Louvre, the fact that with the 
 Grand Master's fate Count Hannibal's was bound up, 
 would not weigh a straw. In such crises the great 
 sacrificed the less great, the less great the small, with-
 
 154 COUNT HANNIBAL. 
 
 out a scruple. And the Guises did not love Count 
 Hannibal; he was not loved by many. Even the 
 strength of his brother the Marshal stood rather in 
 the favour of the King's heir, for whom he had won 
 the battle of Jariiac, than intrinsically ; and, durable 
 in ordinary times, might snap in the clash of forces 
 and interests which the desperate madness of this day 
 had let loose on Paris. 
 
 It was not the peril in which he stood, however 
 though, with the cold clear eye of the man who had 
 often faced peril, he appreciated it to a nicety that 
 Count Hannibal found least bearable, but his enforced 
 inactivity. He had thought to ride the whirlwind 
 and direct the storm, and out of the danger of others 
 to compact his own success. Instead he lay here, not 
 only powerless to guide his destiny, which hung on 
 the discretion of another, but unable to stretch forth 
 a finger to further his plans. 
 
 As he sat looking darkly at the lantern, his mind 
 followed Biron and his riders through the midnight 
 streets : along St. Autoine and La Verrerie, through 
 the gloomy narrows of the Eue la Ferronerie, and so 
 past the house in the Eue St. Honore where Made- 
 moiselle sat awaiting the morrow sat awaiting Tig- 
 nouville, the minister, the marriage ! Doubtless there 
 were still bands of plunderers roaming to and fro ; at 
 the barriers troops of archers stopping the suspected ; 
 at the windows pale faces gazing down; at the gates 
 of the Temple, and of the walled enclosures which 
 largely made up the city, strong guards set to prevent 
 invasion. Biron would go with sufficient to secure 
 himself; and unless he encountered with the body- 
 guard of Guise his passage would quiet the town. 
 But was it so certain that she was safe ? He knew his
 
 TOO SHOET A SPOOK. 155 
 
 men, and while he had been free he had not hesitated 
 to leave her in their care. But now that he could not 
 go, now that he could not raise a hand to help, the 
 confidence which had not failed him in straits more 
 dangerous grew weak. He pictured the things which 
 might happen, at which, in his normal frame of mind, 
 he would have laughed. Now they troubled him so 
 that he started at a shadow, so that he quailed at a 
 thought. He, who last night, when free to act, had 
 timed his coming and her rescue to a minute ! Who 
 had rejoiced in the peril, since with the glamour of 
 such things foolish women were taken ! Who had not 
 flinched when the crowd roared most fiercely for her 
 blood ! 
 
 Why had he suffered himself to be trapped! Why 
 indeed? And thrice in passion he paced the room. 
 Long ago the famous Nostradamus had told him that 
 he would live to be a king, but of the smallest king- 
 dom in the world. "Every man is a king in his 
 coffin," he had answered. "The grave is cold and 
 your kingdom shall be warm," the wizard had re- 
 joined. On which the courtiers had laughed, prom- 
 ising him a Moorish island and a black queen. And 
 he had gibed with the rest, but secretly had taken 
 note of the sovereign counties of France, their rulers 
 and their heirs. Now he held the thought in horror, 
 foreseeing no county, but the cage under the stifling 
 tiles at Loches, in which Cardinal Balue and many 
 another had worn out their hearts. 
 
 He came to that thought not by way of his own 
 peril, but of Mademoiselle's ; which affected him in 
 so novel a fashion that he wondered at his folly. 
 At last, tired of watching the shadows which the 
 draught set dancing on the wall, he drew his cloak
 
 156 COUNT HANNIBAL. 
 
 about him and lay down on the straw. He had kept 
 vigil the previous night, and in a few minutes, with a 
 campaigner's ease, he was asleep. 
 
 Midnight had struck. About two the light in the 
 lantern burned low in the socket, and with a soft 
 sputtering went out. For an hour after that the room 
 lay still, silent, dark; then slowly the grey dawn, 
 the greyer for the river mist which wrapped the 
 neighbourhood in a clammy shroud, began to creep 
 into the room and discover the vague shapes of things. 
 Again an hour passed, and the sun was rising above 
 Montreuil, and here and there the river began to 
 shimmer through the fog. But in the room it was 
 barely daylight when the sleeper awoke, and sat up, 
 his face expectant. Something had roused him. He 
 listened. 
 
 His ear, and the habit of vigilance which a life 
 of danger instils, had not deceived him. There were 
 men moving in the passage ; men who shuffled their 
 feet impatiently. Had Biron returned! Or had 
 aught happened to him, and were these men come to 
 avenge him? Count Hannibal rose and stole across 
 the boards to the door, and, setting his ear to it, lis- 
 tened. 
 
 He listened while a man might count a hundred 
 and fifty, counting slowly. Then, for the third part 
 of a second, he turned his head, and his eyes travelled 
 the room. He stooped again and listened more close- 
 ly, scarcely breathing. There were voices as well as 
 feet to be heard now ; one voice he thought it was 
 Peridol's which held on long, now low, now rising 
 into violence. Others were audible at intervals, but 
 only in a growl or a bitter exclamation, that told of 
 minds made up and hands which would not be re-
 
 TOO SHOET A SPOON. 157 
 
 strained. He caught his own name, Tavannes the 
 mask was useless then ! And once a noisy movement 
 which came to nothing, foiled, he fancied, by Peridol. 
 
 He knew enough. He rose to his full height, and 
 his eyes seemed a little closer together ; an ugly smile 
 curved his lips. His gaze travelled over the objects 
 in the room, the bare stools and table, the lantern, the 
 wine pitcher; beyond these, in a corner, the cloak 
 and straw on the low bed. The light, cold and grey, 
 fell cheerlessly on the dull chamber, and showed it in 
 harmony with the ominous whisper which grew in the 
 gallery ; with the stern-faced listener who stood, his 
 one hand on the door. He looked, but he found 
 nothing to his purpose, nothing to serve his end, 
 whatever his end was ; and with a quick light step he 
 left the door, mounted the window recess, and, poised 
 on the very edge, looked down. 
 
 If he thought to escape that way his hope was des- 
 perate. The depth to the water-level was not, he 
 judged, twelve feet. But Peridol had told the truth. 
 Below lay not water, but a smooth surface of viscid 
 slime, here luminous with the florescence of rotten- 
 ness, there furrowed by a tiny runnel of moisture 
 which sluggishly crept across it to the slow stream 
 beyond. This quicksand, vile and treacherous, 
 lapped the wall below the window, and more than ac- 
 coitnted for the absence of bars or fastenings. But, 
 leaning far out, he saw that it ended at the angle of 
 the building, at a point twenty feet or so to the right 
 of his position. 
 
 He sprang to the floor again, and listened an in- 
 stant ; then, with guarded movements for there was 
 fear in the air, fear in the silent room, and at any 
 moment the rush might be made, the door burst in
 
 158 COUNT HANNIBAL. 
 
 lie set the lantern and wine pitcher on the floor, and 
 took up the table in his arms. He began to carry it 
 to the window, but, halfway thither, his eye told him 
 that it would not pass through the opening, and he 
 set it down again and glided to the bed. Again he 
 was thwarted ; the bed was screwed to the floor. An- 
 other might have despaired at that, but he rose with 
 no sign of dismay, and listening, always listening, he 
 spread his cloak on the floor, and deftly, with as lit- 
 tle noise and rustling as might be, he piled the straw 
 in it, compressed the bundle, and, cutting the bed- 
 cords with his dagger, bound all together with them. 
 In three steps he was in the embrasure of the win- 
 dow, and, even as the men in the passage thrust the 
 lieutenant aside and with a sudden uproar came down 
 to the door, he flung the bundle lightly and carefully 
 to the right so lightly and carefully, and with so 
 nice and deliberate a calculation, that it seemed odd 
 it fell beyond the reach of an ordinary leap. 
 
 An instant and he was on the floor again. The 
 men had to unlock, to draw back the bolts, to draw 
 back the door which opened outwards; their num- 
 bers, as well as their savage haste, impeded them. 
 When they burst in at last, with a roar of "To the 
 river! To the river! " burst in a rush of struggling 
 shoulders and lowered pikes, they found him stand- 
 ing, a solitary figure, on the further side of the table, 
 his arms folded. And the sight of the passive figure 
 for a moment stayed them. 
 
 "Say your prayers, child of Satan ! " cried the lead- 
 er, waving his weapon. "We give you one minute! " 
 
 "Ay, one minute!" his followers chimed in. "Be 
 ready ! " 
 
 "You would murder me?" he said with dignity.
 
 TOO SHOET A SPOOK 159 
 
 And when they shouted assent, "Good ! " he answered. 
 "It is between you and M. de Biroii, whose guest I 
 am. But" with a glance which passed round the 
 ring of glaring eyes and working features "I would 
 leave a last word for some one. Is there any one 
 here who values a safe-conduct from the King? 'Tis 
 for two men coming and going for a fortnight. " And 
 he held up a slip of paper. 
 
 The leader cried "To hell with his safe-conduct! 
 Say your prayers ! " 
 
 But all were not of his mind; on one or two of the 
 crimson savage faces the faces, for the most part, of 
 honest men maddened by their wrongs flashed an 
 avaricious gleam. A safe-conduct? To avenge, to 
 slay, to kill and to go safe ! For some minds such a 
 thing has an invincible fascination. A man thrust 
 himself forward. "Ay, I'll have it!" he cried. 
 "Give it here!" 
 
 "It is yours," Count Hannibal answered, "if you 
 will carry ten words to Marshal Tavannes when I 
 am gone." 
 
 The man's neighbour laid a restraining hand on his 
 shoulder. "And Marshal Tavannes will pay you 
 finely," he said. 
 
 But Maudron, the man who had offered, shook off 
 the hand. "If I take the message! " he muttered in 
 a grim aside. "Do you think me mad? " And then 
 aloud he cried, "Ay, I'll take your message! Give 
 me the paper." 
 
 "You swear you will take it? " 
 
 The man had no intention of taking it, but he per- 
 jured himself and went forward. The others would 
 have pressed round too, half in envy, half in scorn ; 
 but Tavannes by a gesture stayed them. "Gentle-
 
 160 COUNT HANNIBAL. 
 
 men, I ask a minute only, "he said. "A minute for 
 a dying man is not much. Your friends had as 
 much." And the fellows, acknowledging the claim 
 and assured that their victim could not escape, let 
 Maudron go round the table to him. 
 
 The man was in haste and ill at ease, conscious of 
 his evil intentions and the fraud he was practising ; 
 and at once greedy to have, yet ashamed of the 
 bargain he was making. His attention was divided 
 between the slip of paper, on which his eyes fixed 
 themselves, and the attitude of his comrades ; he paid 
 little heed to Count Hannibal, whom he knew to be 
 unarmed. Only when Tavannes seemed to ponder 
 on his message, and to be fain to delay, " Go on, " he 
 muttered with brutal frankness; "your time is up! " 
 
 Tavannes started, the paper slipped from his fin- 
 gers. Maudron saw a chance of getting it without 
 committing himself, and quick as the thought leapt 
 up in his mind he stooped, and grasped the paper, 
 and would have leapt back with it ! But quick as he, 
 and quicker, Tavauues too stooped, gripped him by 
 the waist, and with a prodigious effort, and a yell in 
 which all the man's stormy nature, restrained to a 
 part during the last few minutes, broke forth, he 
 flung the ill-fated wretch head first through the win- 
 dow. 
 
 The movement carried Tavannes himself even 
 while his victim's scream rang through the chamber 
 into the embrasure. An instant he hung on the 
 verge; then, as the men, a moment thunderstruck, 
 sprang forward to avenge their comrade, he leapt out, 
 jumping for the struggling body that had struck the 
 mud, and now lay in it face downwards. 
 
 He alighted on it, and drove it deep into the quak-
 
 TOO SHORT A SPOOK 161 
 
 ing slime ; but he himself bounded off right-handed. 
 The peril was appalling, the possibility untried, the 
 chance one which only a doomed man would have 
 taken. But he reached the straw-bale, and it gave 
 him a momentary, a precarious footing. He could 
 not regain his balance, he could not even for an in- 
 stant stand upright on it. But from its support he 
 leapt on convulsively, and as a pike, flung from above, 
 wounded him in the shoulder, he fell his length in the 
 slough but forward, with his outstretched hands 
 resting on soil of a harder nature. They sank, it is 
 true, to the elbow, but he dragged his body forward 
 on them, and forward, and freeing one by a last effort 
 of strength he could not free both, and, as it was, 
 half his face was submerged he reached out another 
 yard, and gripped a balk of wood, which projected 
 from the corner of the building for the purpose of 
 fending off the stream in flood-time. 
 
 The men at the window shrieked with rage as he 
 slowly drew himself from the slough, and stood from 
 head to foot a pillar of mud. Shout as they might, 
 they had no firearms, and, crowded together in the 
 narrow embrasure, they could take no aim with their 
 pikes. They could only look on in furious impo- 
 tence, flinging curses at him until he passed from 
 their view, behind the angle of the building. 
 
 Here for a score of yards a strip of hard foreshore 
 ran between mud and wall. He struggled along it 
 until he reached the end of the wall ; then with a 
 shuddering glance at the black heaving pit from 
 which he had escaped, and which yet gurgled above 
 the body of the hapless Maudron a tribute to horror 
 which even his fierce nature could not withhold he 
 turned and painfully climbed the river-bank. The 
 11
 
 162 COUNT HANNIBAL. 
 
 pike-wound in his shoulder was slight, but the effort 
 had been supreme ; the sweat poured from his brow, 
 his visage was grey and drawn. Nevertheless, when 
 he had put fifty paces between himself and the build- 
 ings of the Arsenal he paused, and turned. He saw 
 that the men had run to other windows which looked 
 that way ; and his face lightened and his form dilated 
 with triumph. 
 
 He shook his fist at them. "Ho, fools! " he cried, 
 "you kill not Tavannes so! Till our next meeting at 
 Montf aucon, fare you well 1 "
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 THE BROTHER OF ST. MAGLOIRE. 
 
 As the exertion of power is for the most part pleas- 
 ing, so the exercise of that which a woman possesses 
 over a man is especially pleasant. "When in addition 
 a risk of no ordinary kind has been run, and the 
 happy issue has been barely expected above all 
 when the momentary gain seems an augury of final 
 victory it is impossible that a feeling akin to exul- 
 tation should not arise in the mind., however black 
 the horizon, and however distant the fair haven. 
 
 The situation in which Count Hannibal left Made- 
 moiselle de Vrillac will be remembered. She had pre- 
 vailed on him ; but in return he had bowed her to the 
 earth, partly by subtle threats, and partly by sheer 
 savagery. He had left her weeping, with the words 
 "Madame de Tavannes" ringing doom in her ears, 
 and the dark phantom of his will pointing onward to 
 an inevitable future. Had she abandoned hope, it 
 would have been natural 
 
 But the girl was of a spirit not long nor easily 
 cowed; and Tavannes had not left her half an hour 
 before the reflection, that so far the honours of the 
 day were hers, rose up to console her. In spite of his 
 power and her impotence, she had imposed her will 
 upon his ; she had established an influence over him, 
 she had discovered a scruple which stayed him, and a 
 limit beyond which he would not pass. In the result
 
 164 COUNT HANNIBAL. 
 
 she might escape ; for the conditions which he had 
 accepted with an ill grace, might prove beyond his 
 fulfilling. She might escape! True, many in her 
 place would have feared a worse fate and harsher 
 handling. But there lay half the merit of her vic- 
 tory. It had left her not only in a better position, but 
 with a new confidence in her power over her adver- 
 sary. He would insist on the bargain struck between 
 them ; within its four corners she could look for no 
 indulgence. But if the conditions proved to be be- 
 yond his power, she believed that he would spare her: 
 with an ill grace, indeed, w r ith such ferocity and 
 coarse reviling as her woman's pride might scarcely 
 support. But he would spare her. 
 
 And if the worst befell her ? She would still have 
 the consolation of knowing that from the cataclysm 
 which had overwhelmed her friends she had ransomed 
 those most dear to her. Owing to the position of her 
 chamber, she saw nothing of the excesses to which 
 Paris gave itself up during the remainder of that day, 
 and to w r hich it returned with unabated zest on the 
 following morning. But the Carlats and her women 
 learned from the guards below what was passing ; and 
 quaking and cowering in their corners fixed fright- 
 ened eyes on her, who was their stay and hope. 
 How could she prove false to them? How doom 
 them to perish, had there been no question of her 
 lover? 
 
 Of him she sat thinking by the hour together. She 
 recalled with solemn tenderness the moment in which 
 he had devoted himself to the death w r hich came but 
 halfway to seize them ; nor was she slow to forgive 
 his subsequent withdrawal, and his attempt to rescue 
 her in spite of herself. She found the impulse to die
 
 THE BEOTHEE OF ST. MAGLOIEE. 165 
 
 glorious ; the withdrawal for the actor was her lover 
 a thing done for her, which he would not have done 
 for himself, and which she quickly forgave him. The 
 revulsion of feeling which had conquered her at the 
 time, and led her to tear herself from him, no longer 
 moved her much ; while all in his action that might 
 have seemed in other eyes less than heroic, all in his 
 conduct in a crisis demanding the highest that 
 smacked of common or mean, vanished, for she still 
 clung to him. Clung to him, not so much with the 
 passion of the mature woman, as with the maiden and 
 sentimental affection of one who has now no hope of 
 possessing, and for whom love no longer spells life 
 but sacrifice. 
 
 She had leisure for these musings, for she was left 
 to herself all that day, and until late on the following 
 day. Her own servants waited on hei, ard it was 
 known that below stairs Count Hannibal's riders kept 
 sullen ward behind barred doors and shuttered win- 
 dows, refusing admission to all who came. Now and 
 again echoes of the riot which filled the streets with 
 bloodshed reached her ears: or word of the more 
 striking occurrences was brought to her by Madame 
 Carlat. And early on this second day, Monday, it 
 was whispered that M. de Tavannes had not returned, 
 and that the men below were growing uneasy. 
 
 At last, when the suspense below and above was 
 growing tense, it was broken. Footsteps and voices 
 were heard ascending the stairs, the trampling and 
 hubbub were followed by a heavy knock ; perforce 
 the door was opened. While Mademoiselle, who had 
 risen, awaited with a beating heart she knew not 
 what, a cowled father, in the dress of the monks of 
 St. Magloire, stoo4 on the threshold, and, crossing
 
 166 COUNT HANNIBAL. 
 
 himself, muttered the words of benediction. He en- 
 tered slowly. 
 
 No sight could have been more dreadful to Made- 
 moiselle; for it set at naught the conditions which 
 she had so hardly exacted. What if Count Hannibal 
 were behind, were even now mounting the stairs, 
 prepared to force her to a marriage before this shave- 
 ling? Or ready to proceed, if she refused, to the last 
 extremity'? Sudden terror taking her by the throat 
 choked her; her colour fled, her hand flew to her 
 breast. Yet, before the door had closed on Bigot, 
 she had recovered herself. 
 
 "This intrusion is not by M. de Tavannes' orders! " 
 she cried, stepping forward haughtily. "This person 
 has no business here. How dare you admit him ? " 
 
 The Norman showed his bearded visage a moment 
 at the door. "My lord's orders," he muttered sul- 
 lenly. And he closed the door on them. 
 
 She had a Huguenot's hatred of a cowl ; and, in 
 this crisis, her reasons for fearing it. Her eyes 
 blazed with indignation. " Enough ! " she cried, 
 pointing with a gesture of dismissal to the door. 
 "Go back to him who sent you ! If he will insult me, 
 let him do it to my face! If he will perjure himself, 
 let him forswear himself in person. Or, if you come 
 on your own account," she continued, flinging pru- 
 dence to the winds, " as your brethren came to Phil- 
 ippa de Luns, to offer me the choice you offered her, 
 I give you her answer ! If I had thought of myself 
 only, I had not lived so long ! And rather than bear 
 your presence or hear your arguments ' 
 
 She came to a sudden, odd, quavering pause on the 
 word; her lips remained parted, she swayed an in- 
 stant on her feet. The next moment Madame Carlat,
 
 THE BROTHER OF ST. MAGLOIRE. 167 
 
 to whom the visitor had turned his shoulder, doubted 
 her eyes, for Mademoiselle was in the monk's arms! 
 
 "Clotilde! Clotilde!" he cried, and held her to 
 him. 
 
 For the monk was M. de Tignonville! Under 
 the owl was the lover with whom Mademoiselle's 
 thoughts had been engaged. In this disguise, and 
 armed with Tavanues' note to Madame St. Lo which 
 the guards below knew for Count Hannibal's hand, 
 though they were unable to decipher the contents 
 he had found no difficulty in making his way to 
 her. 
 
 He had learned before he entered that Tavannes 
 was abroad, and was aware therefore that he ran lit- 
 tle risk. His betrothed, on the other hand, who 
 knew nothing of his adventures in the interval, saw 
 in him one who came to her at the greatest risk, 
 across unnumbered perils, through streets swimming 
 with blood. And though she had never embraced 
 him save in the crisis of the massacre, though she had 
 never called him by his Christian name, in the joy of 
 this meeting she abandoned herself to him, she clung 
 to him weeping, she forgot for the time his defection, 
 and thought only of him who had returned to her so 
 gallantly, who brought into the room a breath of Poi- 
 tou, and the sea, and the old days, and the old life ; 
 and at the sight of whom the horrors of the last two 
 days fell from her for the moment. 
 
 And Madame Carlat wept also, and in the room 
 was a sound of weeping. The least moved was, for 
 a certainty, M. de Tignonville himself, who, as we 
 know, had gone through much that day. But even 
 his heart swelled, partly with pride, partly with 
 thankfulness that he had returned to one who loved
 
 168 COUNT HANNIBAL. 
 
 him so well. Fate had been kinder to him than he 
 deserved ; but he need not confess that now. When 
 he had brought off the coup which he had in his mind, 
 he would hasten to forget that he had entertained 
 other ideas. 
 
 Mademoiselle had been the first to be carood away ; 
 she was also the first to recover herself. "I had for- 
 gotten," she cried suddenly. "I had forgotten," and 
 she wrested herself from his embrace with violence, 
 and stood panting, her face white, her eyes aff righted. 
 "I must not! And you I had forgotten that too! 
 To be here, monsieur, is the worst office you can do 
 me. You must go! Go, monsieur, in mercy I beg of 
 you, while it is possible. Every moment you are 
 here, every moment you spend in this house, I shud- 
 der." 
 
 "You need not fear for me," he said, in a tone of 
 bravado. He did not understand. 
 
 "I fear for myself!" she answered. And then, 
 wringing her hands, divided between her love for him 
 and her fear for herself, " Oh, forgive me ! " she said. 
 "You do not know that he has promised to spare me, 
 if he cannot produce you, and and a minister! 
 He has granted me that; but I thought when you 
 entered that he had gone back on his word, and sent 
 a priest, and it maddened me ! I could not bear to 
 think that I had gained nothing. Now you under- 
 stand, and you will pardon me, monsieur 1 ? If he 
 cannot produce you I am saved. Go then, leave me, 
 I beg, without a moment's delay." 
 
 He laughed derisively as he turned back his cowl 
 and squared his shoulders. "All that is over!" he 
 said, "over and done with, sweet! M. de Tavaunes 
 is at this moment a prisoner in the Arsenal. On my
 
 THE BEOTHEE OF ST. MAGLOIEE. 169 
 
 way hither I fell in with M. de Biron, and he told me. 
 The Grand Master, who would have had me join his 
 company, had been all night at Marshal Tavannes' 
 hotel, where he had been detained longer than he 
 expected. He stood pledged to release Count Han- 
 nibal on his return, but at iny request he consented 
 to hold him one hour, and to do also a little thing 
 for me." 
 
 The glow of hope which had transfigured her face 
 faded slowly. "It will not help," she said, "if he 
 find you here." 
 
 "He will not! Nor you!" 
 
 "How, monsieur?" 
 
 "In a few minutes," he explained he couid not 
 hide his exultation, "a message will come from the 
 Arsenal in the name of Tavanues, bidding the monk 
 he sent to you bring you to him. A spoken message, 
 corroborated by my presence, should suffice: 'Bid the 
 monk who is now with Mademoiselle, ' it will run, 'bring 
 her to me at the Arsenal, and let four pikes guard them 
 hither.'' When I begged M. de Biron to do this, he 
 laughed. 'I can do better,' he said. ' They shall 
 bring one of Count Hannibal's gloves, which he left 
 on my table. Always supposing my rascals have 
 done him no harm, which God forbid, for I am an- 
 swerable. ' ; 
 
 Tignonville, delighted with the stratagem which the 
 meeting with Biron had suggested, could see 110 flaw 
 in it. She could, and though she heard him to the 
 end, no second glow of hope softened the lines of her 
 features. With a gesture full of dignity, which took 
 in not only Madame Carlat and the waiting-woman 
 who stood at the door but the absent servants, "And 
 what of these?" she said. "What of these? You
 
 170 COUNT HANNIBAL. 
 
 forgot them, monsieur. You do not think, you can- 
 not have thought, that I would abandon them ? That 
 I would leave them to such mercy as he, defeated, 
 might extend to them ? No, you forgot them. " 
 
 He did not know what to answer, for the jealous 
 eyes of the frightened waiting-woman, fierce with the 
 fierceness of a hunted animal, were on him. The 
 Caiiat and she had heard, could hear. At last, " Bet- 
 ter one than none ! " he muttered, in a voice so low 
 that if the servants caught his meaning it was but in- 
 distinctly. "I have to think of you." 
 
 "And I of them," she answered firmly. ".Nor is 
 that all. Were they not here, it could not be. My 
 word is passed though a moment ago, monsieur, in 
 the joy of seeing you I forgot it. And how," she 
 continued, "if I keep not my word, can I expect him 
 to keep his? Or how, if I am ready to break the 
 bond, on this happening which I never expected, can 
 I hold him to conditions which he loves as little as 
 little as I love him?" 
 
 Her voice dropped piteously on the last words; 
 her eyes, craving her lover's pardon, sought his. But 
 rage, not pity or admiration, was the feeling roused 
 in Tignonville's breast. He stood staring at her, 
 struck dumb by folly so immense. At last, "You 
 cannot mean this," he blurted out. "You cannot 
 mean, Mademoiselle, that you intend to stand on that ! 
 To keep a promise wrung from you by force, by 
 treachery, in the midst of such horrors as he and his 
 have brought upon us ! It is inconceivable ! " 
 
 She shook her head. "I promised," she said. 
 
 "You were forced to it." 
 
 "But the promise saved our lives." 
 
 "From murderers! From assassins! " he protested.
 
 THE BEOTHEE OF ST. MAGLOIEE. 171 
 
 She shook her head. "I cannot go back," she said 
 firmly; "I cannot.-" 
 
 "Then you are willing to marry him," he cried in 
 ignoble anger. "That is it! Nay, you must wish to 
 marry him! For, as for his conditions, Mademoi- 
 selle," the young man continued, with an insulting- 
 laugh, "you cannot think seriously of them. He 
 keep conditions and you in his power! He, Count 
 Hannibal! But for the matter of that, and were he 
 in the mind to keep them, what are they I There axe 
 plenty of ministers. I left one only this morning. I 
 could lay my hand on one in five minutes. He has 
 only to find one therefore and to find me ! " 
 
 "Yes, monsieur," she cried, trembling with wound- 
 ed pride, "it is for that reason I implore you to go. 
 The sooner you leave me, the sooner you place your- 
 self in a position of security, the happier for me ! 
 Every moment that you spend here, you endanger 
 both yourself and me ! " 
 
 " If you will not be persuaded 
 
 "I shall not be persuaded," she answered firmly, 
 "and you do but" alas! her pride began to break 
 down, her voice to quiver, she looked piteously at 
 him "by staying here make it harder for me to 
 to " 
 
 "Hush!" cried Madame Carlat, "Hush!" And 
 as they started and turned towards her she was at the 
 end of the chamber by the door, almost out of earshot 
 she raised a warning hand. "Listen!" she mut- 
 tered, "some one has entered the house." 
 
 "'Tis my messenger from Biron," Tignonville an- 
 swered sullenly. And he drew his cowl over his face, 
 and, hiding his hands in his sleeves, moved towards 
 the door. But on the threshold he turned and
 
 172 . COUNT HANNIBAL. 
 
 held out his arms. He could not go thus. "Made- 
 moiselle! Clotilde!" he cried with passion, "for 
 the last time, listen to me, come with me. Be per- 
 suaded ! " 
 
 "Hush!" Madame Carlat interposed again, and 
 turned a scared face on them. "It is no messenger! 
 It is Tavannes himself: I know his voice." And she 
 wrung her hands. " Oh, mon Dieu, mon Dieu, what 
 are we to do ? " she continued, panic-stricken. And 
 she looked all ways about the room.
 
 CHAPTEE XVI. 
 
 AT CLOSE QUARTERS. 
 
 FEAR leapt into Mademoiselle's eyes, but she com- 
 manded herself. She signed to Madame Carlat to be 
 silent, and they listened, gazing at one another, hop- 
 ing against hope that the woman was mistaken. A 
 long moment they waited, and some were beginning 
 to breathe again, when the strident tones of Count 
 Hannibal's voice rolled up the staircase, and put an 
 end to doubt. Mademoiselle grasped the table and 
 stood supporting herself by it. "What are we to 
 do? " she muttered. "What are we to do? " and she 
 turned distractedly towards the women. The cour- 
 age which had supported her in her lover's absence 
 had abandoned her now. "If he finds him here I am 
 lost! I am lost!" 
 
 "He will not know me," Tignonville muttered. 
 But he spoke uncertainly; and his gaze, shifting hith- 
 er and thither, belied the boldness of his words. 
 
 Madame Carlat's eyes flew round the room ; on her 
 for once the burden seemed to rest. Alas ! the room 
 had no second door, and the windows looked on a 
 courtyard guarded by Tavannes' people. And even 
 now Count Hannibal's step rang on the stair! his 
 hand was almost on the latch. The woman wrung 
 her hands ; then, a thought striking her, she darted 
 to a corner where Mademoiselle's robes hung on pegs 
 against the wall.
 
 174 COUNT HANNIBAL. 
 
 "Here!" she cried, raising them. "Behind these! 
 He may not be seen here ! Quick, monsieur, quick ! 
 Hide yourself ! " 
 
 It was a forlorn hope the suggestion of one 
 who had not thought out the position; and, what- 
 ever its promise, Mademoiselle's pride revolted 
 against it. 
 
 "No," she cried. "Not there! " while Tiguonville, 
 who knew that the step was useless, since Count Han- 
 nibal must have learned that a monk had entered, 
 held his ground. 
 
 "You could not deny yourself! " he muttered hur- 
 riedly. 
 
 "And a priest with me?" she answered; and she 
 shook her head. 
 
 There was no time for more, and even as Mademoi- 
 selle spoke Count Hannibal's knuckles tapped the 
 door. She cast a last look at her lover. He had 
 turned his back on the window ; the light no longer 
 fell on his face. It was possible that he might pass 
 unrecognised, if Tavannes' stay was brief; at any 
 rate the risk must be run. In a half -stifled voice she 
 bade her woman, Javette, open the door. 
 
 Count Hannibal bowed low as he entered ; and he 
 deceived the others. But he did not deceive her. 
 He had not crossed the threshold before she repented 
 that she had not acted on Tignonville's suggestion, 
 and denied herself. For what could escape those 
 hard keen eyes, which swept the room, saw all, and 
 seemed to see nothing those eyes in which there 
 dwelt even now a glint of cruel humour ? He might 
 deceive others, but she who panted within his grasp, 
 as the wild bird palpitates in the hand of the fowler, 
 was not deceived! He saw, he knew! although, a
 
 AT CLOSE QUAETEES. 175 
 
 he bowed, and smiling, stood upright, he looked only 
 at her. 
 
 "I expected to be with you before this," he said 
 courteously, "but I have been detained. First, Ma- 
 demoiselle, by some of your friends, who were re- 
 luctant to part with me ; then by some of your ene- 
 mies, who, finding me in no handsome case, took me 
 for a Huguenot escaped from the river, and drove me 
 to shifts to get clear of them. However, now I am 
 come, I have news." 
 
 "News?" she muttered with dry lips. It could 
 hardly be good news. 
 
 "Yes, Mademoiselle, of M. de Tignonville, " he an- 
 swered. " I have little doubt that I shall be able to 
 produce him this evening, and so to satisfy one of 
 your scruples. And as I trust that this good father, " 
 he went on, turning to the ecclesiastic, and speaking 
 with the sneer from which he seldom refrained, Cath- 
 olic as he was, when he mentioned a priest, "has by 
 this time succeeded in removing the other, and per- 
 suading you to accept his ministrations " 
 
 "No! " she cried impulsively. 
 
 "No?" with a dubious smile, and a glance from 
 one to the other. "Oh, I had hoped better things. 
 But he still may? He still may. I am sure he may. 
 In which case, Mademoiselle, your modesty must par- 
 don me if I plead urgency, and fix the hour after sup- 
 per this evening for the fulfilment of your promise." 
 
 She turned white to the lips. "After supper?" 
 she gasped. 
 
 "Yes, Mademoiselle, this evening. Shall I say 
 at eight o'clock? " 
 
 In horror of the thing which menaced her, of the 
 thing from which only two hours separated her, she
 
 176 COUNT HANNIBAL. 
 
 could find no words but those which she had already 
 used. The worst was upon her; worse than the 
 worst could not befall her. "But he has not per- 
 suaded me ! " she cried, clenching her hands in pas- 
 sion. " He has not persuaded me ! " 
 
 " Still he may, Mademoiselle." 
 
 "He will not! " she cried wildly. "He will not! " 
 
 The room was going round with her. The preci- 
 pice yawned at her feet ; its naked terrors turned her 
 brain. She had been pushed nearer, and nearer, and 
 nearer ; struggle as she might she was on the verge. 
 A mist rose before her eyes, and though they thought 
 she listened she understood nothing of what was pass- 
 ing. When she came to herself after the lapse of a 
 minute, Count Hannibal was speaking. 
 
 "Permit him another trial, "he was saying in a tone 
 of bland irony. " A short time longer, Mademoiselle ! 
 One more assault, father! The weapons of the 
 Church could not be better directed or to a more 
 worthy object; and, successful, shall not fail of due 
 recognition and an earthly reward." 
 
 And while she listened, half fainting, with a hum- 
 ming in her ears, he was gone. The door closed on 
 him, and the three Mademoiselle's woman had with- 
 drawn when she opened to him looked at one an- 
 other. The girl parted her lips to speak, but she 
 only smiled piteously ; and it was M. de Tignonville 
 who broke the silence, in a tone which betrayed rather 
 relief than any other feeling. 
 
 "Come, all is not lost yet," he said briskly. "If I 
 can escape from the house " 
 
 "He knows you," she answered. 
 
 "What?" 
 
 "He knows you," Mademoiselle repeated in a tone
 
 AT CLOSE QUAETEES. 177 
 
 almost apathetic. "I read it in his eyes. He knew 
 you at once: and knew, too," she added bitterly, 
 "that he had here under his hand one of the two 
 things he required." 
 
 "Then why did he hide his knowledge?" the 
 young man retorted sharply. 
 
 "Why?" she answered. "To induce me to waive 
 the other condition in the hope of saving you. Oh ! " 
 she continued in a tone of bitter raillery, "he has the 
 cunning of hell, of the priests! You are no match 
 for him, monsieur. Kor I ; nor any of us. And " 
 with a gesture of despair "he will be my master! 
 He will break me to his will and to his hand ! I shall 
 be his! His, body and soul, body and soul!" she 
 continued drearily, as she sank into a chair and, 
 rocking herself to and fro, covered her face. "I 
 shall be his ! His till I die ! " 
 
 The man's eyes burned, and the pulse in his tem- 
 ples beat wildly. "But you shall not," he exclaimed. 
 "I may be no match for him in cunning, you say 
 well. But I can kill him. And I will ! " He paced 
 up and down. "I will ! " 
 
 "You should have done it when he was here," she 
 answered, half in scorn, half in earnest. 
 
 "It is not too late," he cried; and then he stopped, 
 silenced by the opening door. It was Javette who 
 entered. 
 
 They looked at her, and before she spoke were on 
 their feet. Her face, white and eager, marking some- 
 thing besides fear, announced that she brought news. 
 She closed the door behind her, and in a moment it 
 was told. 
 
 "Monsieur can escape, if he is quick," she cried in 
 a low tone ; and they saw that she trembled with ex- 
 12
 
 178 COUNT HANNIBAL. 
 
 citemeut. "They are at supper. But he must be 
 quick ! He must be quick ! " 
 
 "Is not the door guarded!" 
 
 "It is, but " 
 
 "And he knows! Your mistress says that he 
 knows that I am here. " 
 
 For a moment Javette looked startled. "It is pos- 
 sible," she muttered. "But he has gone out." 
 
 Madame Carlat clapped her hands. "I heard the 
 door close," she said, "three minutes ago." 
 
 "And if monsieur can reach the room in which he 
 supped last night, the window that was broken is 
 only blocked " she swallowed once or twice in her 
 excitement " with something he can move. And 
 then monsieur is in the street, where his cowl will 
 protect him." 
 
 "But Count Hannibal r s men? " he asked eagerly. 
 
 "They are eating in the lodge by the door." 
 
 "Ha! And they cannot see the other room from 
 there?" 
 
 Javette nodded. Her tale told, she seemed to be 
 unable to add a word. Mademoiselle, who knew her 
 for a craven, wondered that she had found courage 
 either to note what she had or to bring the news. 
 But as Providence had been so good to them as to put 
 it into this woman's head to act as she had, it behoved 
 them to use the opportunity the last, the very last 
 opportunity they might have. 
 
 She turned to Tignonville. "Oh, go!" she cried 
 feverishly. "Go, I beg! Go now, monsieur! The 
 greatest kindness you can do me is to place yourself 
 as quickly as possible beyond his reach." A faint 
 colour, the flush of hope, had returned to her cheeks. 
 Her eyes glittered.
 
 AT CLOSE QTJAETEES. 179 
 
 "Eight, Mademoiselle!" he cried, obedient for 
 once. "I go! And do you be of good courage." He 
 held her hand an instant, then, moving to the door, 
 he opened it and listened. They all pressed behind 
 him to hear. A murmur of voices, low and distant, 
 mounted the staircase and bore out the girl's tale; 
 apart from this the house was silent. Tignonville 
 cast a last look at Mademoiselle, and, with a gesture 
 of farewell, glided a-tiptoe to the stairs and began to 
 descend, his face hidden in his cowl. They watched 
 him reach the angle of the staircase, they watched 
 him vanish beyond it ; and still they listened, looking 
 at one another when a board creaked or the voices 
 below were hushed for a moment.
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 THE DUEL. 
 
 AT the foot of the staircase Tignonville paused. 
 The droning Norman voices of the men on guard 
 issued from an open door a few paces before him on 
 the left. He caught a jest, the coarse chuckling 
 laughter which attended it, and the gurgle of ap- 
 plause which followed ; and he knew that at any mo- 
 ment one of the men might step out and discover 
 him. Fortunately the door of the room with the 
 shattered window was almost within reach of his 
 hand on the right side of the passage, and he stepped 
 softly to it. He stood an instant hesitating, his hand 
 on the latch ; then, alarmed by a movement in the 
 guard-room, as if some were rising, he pushed the 
 door in a panic, slid into the room, and shut the door 
 behind him. He was safe, and he had made no noise ; 
 but at the table, at supper, with his back to him and 
 his face to the partly closed window, sat Count Han- 
 nibal ! 
 
 The young man's heart stood still. For a long 
 minute he gazed at the Count's back, spellbound and 
 unable to stir. Then, as Tavannes ate on without 
 looking round, he began to take courage. Possibly 
 he had entered so quietly that he had not been heard, 
 or possibly his entrance was taken for that of a ser- 
 vant. In either case, there was a chance that he
 
 THE DUEL. 181 
 
 might retire after the same fashion ; arid he had actu- 
 ally raised the latch, and was drawing the door to 
 him with infinite precaution, when Tavanues' voice 
 struck him, as it were, in the face. 
 
 "Pray do not admit the draught, M. de Tignon- 
 ville," he said, without looking round. "In your 
 cowl you do not feel it, but it is otherwise with me. " 
 
 The unfortunate Tignouville stood transfixed, glar- 
 ing at the back of the other's head. For an instant 
 he could not find his voice. At last "Curse you! " he 
 hissed in a transport of rage. "Curse you ! You did 
 know, then? And she was right." 
 
 "If you mean that I expected you, to be sure, mon- 
 sieur," Count Hannibal answered. "See, your place 
 is laid. You will not feel the air from without there. 
 The very becoming dress which you have adopted se- 
 cures you from cold. But do you not find it some- 
 what oppressive this summer weather? " 
 
 "Curse you! " the young man cried, trembling. 
 
 Tavannes turned and looked at him with a dark 
 smile. "The curse may fall," he said, "but I fancy 
 it will not be in consequence of your petitions, mon- 
 sieur. And now, were it not better you played the 
 man?" 
 
 "If I were armed," the other cried passionately, 
 "you would not insult me ! " 
 
 "Sit down, sir, sit down," Count Hannibal an- 
 swered sternly. "We will talk of that presently. In 
 the meantime I have something to say to you. Will 
 you not eat?" 
 
 But Tiguonville would not. 
 
 "Very well," Count Hannibal answered; and he 
 went on with Ms supper, "I am indifferent whether 
 you eat or not. It is enough for me that you are one
 
 182 COUNT HANNIBAL. 
 
 of the two things I lacked an hour ago ; and that I 
 have you, M. de Tignonville. And through you I 
 look to obtain the other." 
 
 "What other?" Tignonville cried. 
 
 "A minister," Tavannes answered, smiling. "A 
 minister. There are not many left in Paris of your 
 faith. But you met one this morning, I know ! " 
 
 "II I met one?" 
 
 " Yes, monsieur, you ! And can lay your hand on 
 him in five minutes, you know. " 
 
 M. de Tignonville gasped. His face turned a shade 
 paler. "You have a spy," he cried. "You have a 
 spy upstairs ! " 
 
 Tavannes raised his cup to his lips, and drank. 
 When he had set it down, "It may be," he said, and 
 he shrugged his shoulders. "I know, it boots not 
 how I know. It is my business to make the most of 
 my knowledge and of yours ! " 
 
 M. de Tignonville laughed rudely. "Make the 
 most of your own," he said; "you will have none of 
 mine. " 
 
 "That remains to be seen," Count Hannibal an- 
 swered. u Carry your mind back two days, M. de 
 Tignonville. Had I gone to Mademoiselle de Vrillac 
 last Saturday and said to her ' Marry me, or promise 
 to marry me, ' what answer would she have given ? " 
 
 "She would have called you an insolent!" the 
 young man replied hotly. "And I " 
 
 "No matter what you would have done!" Tavan- 
 nes said. "Suffice it that she would have answered 
 as you suggest. Yet to-day she has given me her 
 promise." 
 
 "Yes, "the young man retorted, "in circumstances 
 in which no man of honour "
 
 THE DUEL. 183 
 
 "Let us say in peculiar circumstances." 
 
 "Well?" 
 
 "Which still exist! Mark me, M. de Tignonville, " 
 Count Hannibal continued, leaning forward and eye- 
 ing the young man with meaning, "which still exist! 
 And may have the same effect on another's will as on 
 hers! Listen! Do you hear?" And rising from his 
 seat with a darkening face, he pointed to the partly 
 shuttered window, through which the measured tramp 
 of a body of men came heavily to the ear. "Do you 
 hear, monsieur? Do you understand? As it was 
 yesterday it is to-day ! They killed the President La 
 Place this morning ! And they are searching ! They 
 are still searching ! The river is not yet full, nor the 
 gibbet glutted! I have but to open that window 
 and denounce you, and your life would hang by no 
 stronger thread than the life of a mad dog which they 
 chase through the streets ! " 
 
 The younger man had risen also. He stood con- 
 fronting Tavannes, the cowl fallen back from his face, 
 his eyes dilated. "You think to frighten me! " he 
 cried. "You think that I am craven enough to sac- 
 rifice her to save myself. You " 
 
 "You were craven enough to draw back yester- 
 day, when you stood at this window and waited for 
 death!" Count Hannibal answered brutally. "You 
 flinched then, and may flinch again ! " 
 
 "Try me!" Tignonville retorted, trembling with 
 passiou. "Try me!" And then, as the other stared 
 at him and made no movement, "But you dare not!" 
 lie cried. " Yon dare not ! " 
 
 "No?" 
 
 "No! For if I die you lose her! " Tiguouville re- 
 plied in a voice of triumph. "Ha, ha! I touch you
 
 184 COUNT HANNIBAL. 
 
 there! " he continued. "You dare not, for my safety 
 is part of the price, and is more to you than it is to 
 myself! You may threaten, M. de Tavannes, you 
 may bluster, and shout and point to the window" 
 and he mocked, with a disdainful mimicry, the 
 other's gesture "but my safety is more to you than 
 to me ! And 'twill end there ! " 
 
 "You believe that?" 
 
 "I know it!" 
 
 In two strides Count Hannibal was at the window. 
 He seized a great piece of the boarding which closed 
 one half of the opening ; he wrenched it away. A 
 flood of evening light burst in through the aperture, 
 and fell on and heightened the flushed passion of his 
 features, as he turned again to his opponent. "Then 
 if you know it," he cried vehemently, "in God's 
 name act upon it ! " And he pointed to the window. 
 
 "Act upon it?" 
 
 " Ay, act upon it ! " Tavannes repeated, with a 
 glance of flame. "The road is open! If you would 
 save your mistress, behold the way ! If you would 
 save her from the embrace she abhors, from the eyes 
 under which she trembles, from the hand of a master, 
 there lies the way ! And it is not her glove only you 
 will save, but herself, her soul, her body! So," he 
 continued with a certain wildness and in a tone 
 wherein contempt and bitterness were mingled, "to 
 the lions, brave lover! Will you your life for her 
 honour ? Will you death that she may live a maid ? 
 Will you your head to save her finger? Then, leap 
 down! leap down! The lists are open, the sand is 
 strewed ! Out of your own mouth I have it that if 
 you perish she is saved! Then out, monsieur! Cry 
 'I am a Huguenot! ' And God's will be done! "
 
 THE DUEL. 185 
 
 Tignonville was livid. "Rather, your will!" he 
 panted. " Your will, you devil ! Nevertheless " 
 
 " You will go ! Ha ! ha ! You will go ! " 
 
 For an instant it seemed that he would go. Stung 
 by the challenge, wrought on by the contempt in 
 which Tavannes held him, he shot a look of hate at 
 the tempter ; he caught his breath, and laid his hand 
 on the edge of the shuttering as if he would leap out. 
 
 But it goes hard with him who has once turned 
 back from the foe. The evening light, glancing cold 
 on the burnished pike-points of a group of archers 
 who stood near, caught his eye and went chill to his 
 heart. Death, not in the arena, not in the sight of 
 shouting thousands, but in this darkening street, with 
 an enemy laughing from the window, death with no 
 revenge to follow, with no certainty that after all she 
 would be safe, such a death could be compassed only 
 by pure love the love of a child for a parent, of a 
 parent for a child, of a man for the one woman in the 
 world ! 
 
 He recoiled. "You would not spare her!" he 
 cried, his face damp with sweat for he knew now 
 that he would not go. "You want to be rid of me! 
 You would fool me, and then " 
 
 "Out of your own mouth you are convict!" Count 
 Hannibal retorted gravely. "It was you who said it! 
 But still I swear it ! Shall I swear it to you ? " 
 
 But Tignonville recoiled another step and was 
 silent. 
 
 "No? O preux chevalier, O gallant knight! I 
 knew it! Do you think that I did not know with 
 whom I had to deal?" And Count Hannibal burst 
 into harsh laughter, turning his back on the other, 
 as if he no longer counted. "You will neither die
 
 186 COUNT HANNIBAL. 
 
 with her nor for her ! You were better in her petti- 
 coats and she in your breeches ! Or no, you are best 
 as you are, good father! Take my advice, M. de Tig- 
 nonville, have done with arms ; and with a string of 
 beads, and soft words, and talk of Holy Mother 
 Church, you will fool the women as surely as the best 
 of them ! They are not all like my cousin, a flouting, 
 gibing, jeering woman you had poor fortune there, 
 I fear?" 
 
 "If I had a sword!" Tignonville hissed, his face 
 livid "with rage. "You call me coward, because I 
 will not die to please you. But give me a sword, and 
 I will show you if I aru a coward ! " 
 
 Tavannes stood still. "You are there, are you?" 
 he said in an altered tone. " I " 
 
 "Give me a sword," Tignonville repeated, hold- 
 ing out his open trembling hands. "A sword! A 
 sword! 'Tis easy taunting an unarmed man, but " 
 
 "You wish to fight?" 
 
 "I ask no more ! No more ! Give me a sword," he 
 urged, his voice quivering with eagerness. "It is 
 you who are the coward ! " 
 
 Count Hannibal stared at him. "And what am I 
 to get by fighting you ?" he reasoned slowly. "You 
 are in iny power. I can do with you as I please. I 
 can call from this window and denounce you, or I 
 can summon my men ' 
 
 * ' Coward ! Coward ! " 
 
 "Ay? Well, I will tell you what I will do," with 
 a subtle smile. "I will give you a sword, M. de Tig- 
 nonville, and I will meet you foot to foot here, in 
 this room, on a condition." 
 
 "What is it? What is it?" the young man cried 
 with incredible eagerness. "Name your condition ! "
 
 THE DUEL. 187 
 
 "That if I get the better of you, you find me a min- 
 ister. " 
 
 "I find you a " 
 
 "A minister. Yes, that is it. Or tell me where I 
 can find one." 
 
 The young man recoiled. "Never! " he said. 
 
 "You know where to find one." 
 
 "Never! Never!" 
 
 "You can lay your hand on one in five minutes, 
 you know." 
 
 "I wiU not." 
 
 "Then I shall not fight you! " Count Hannibal an- 
 swered coolly; and he turned from him, and back 
 again. "You will pardon me if I say, M. de Tignon- 
 ville, that you are in as many minds about fighting as 
 about dying! I do not think that you would have 
 made your fortune at Court. Moreover, there is a 
 thing which I fancy you have not considered. If we 
 fight you may kill me, in which case the condition 
 will not help me much. Or I which is more like- 
 ly " he added with a harsh smile, "may kill you, and 
 again I am no better placed. " 
 
 The young man's, pallid features betrayed the con- 
 flict in his breast. To do him justice, his hand itched 
 for the sword-hilt he was brave enough for that ; he 
 hated, and only so could he avenge himself. But the 
 penalty if he had the worse! And yet what of it? 
 He was in hell now, in a hell of humiliation, shame, 
 defeat, tormented by this fiend ! 'Twas only to risk 
 a lower hell. 
 
 At last, "I will do it!" he cried hoarsely. "Give 
 me a sword and look to yourself." 
 
 " You promise ? " 
 
 "Yes, yes, I promise!"
 
 188 COUNT HANNIBAL. 
 
 "Good," Count Hannibal answered suavely; "but 
 we cannot fight so, we must have more light," and 
 striding to the door he opened it, and calling the Nor- 
 man bade him move the table and bring caudles a 
 dozen candles ; for in the narrow streets the light was 
 waning, and in the half -shuttered room it was grow- 
 ing dusk. Tignonville, listening with a throbbing 
 brain, wondered that the attendant expressed no sur- 
 prise and said no word until Tavannes added to his 
 orders one for a pair of swords. 
 
 Then, "Monsieur's sword is here," Bigot answered 
 in his half-intelligible patois. " He left it here yes- 
 ter morning." 
 
 "You are a good fellow, Bigot," Tavannes an- 
 swered, with a gaiety and good-humour which aston- 
 ished Tiguouville. "And one of these days you shall 
 marry Suzanne." 
 
 The Norinau smiled sourly and went in search of 
 the weapon. 
 
 "You have a poniard? " Count Hannibal continued 
 in the same tone of unusual good temper, which had 
 already struck Tignonville. "Excellent! Will you 
 strip, then, or as we are ? Very good, monsieur ; in 
 the unlikely evthit of fortune declaring for you, you 
 will be in a better condition to take care of yourself. 
 A man running through the streets in his shirt is ex- 
 posed to inconveniences ! " And he laughed gaily. 
 
 "While he laughed the other listened ; and his rage 
 began to give place to wonder. A man who regarded 
 as a pastime a sword and dagger conflict between four 
 walls, who, having his adversary in his power, was 
 ready to discard the advantage, to descend into the 
 lists, and to risk life for a whim, a fancy such a 
 man was outside his experience, though in Poitou in
 
 THE DUEL. 189 
 
 those days of war were men reckoned brave. For 
 what, he asked himself as he waited, had Tavaunes to 
 gain by fighting? The possession of Mademoiselle 1 ? 
 But Mademoiselle, if his passion for her overwhelmed 
 him, was in his power; and if his promise were a bar- 
 rier which seemed inconceivable in the light of his 
 reputation he had only to wait, and to-morrow, or 
 the next day, or the next, a minister would be found, 
 and without risk he could gain that for which he was 
 now risking all. 
 
 Tignonville did not know that it was in the other's 
 nature to find pleasure in such utmost ventures. 
 Nevertheless the recklessness to which Tavannes' ac- 
 tion bore witness had its effect upon him. By the 
 time the young man's sword arrived something of his 
 passion for the conflict had evaporated ; and though 
 the touch of the hilt restored his determination, the 
 locked door, the confined space, and the unaccus- 
 tomed light went a certain distance towards substitut- 
 ing despair for courage. 
 
 The use of the dagger in the duels of that day, 
 however, rendered despair itself formidable. And 
 Tignonville, when he took his place, appeared any- 
 thing but a mean antagonist. He had removed his 
 robe and cowl, and lithe and active as a cat he stood 
 as it were on springs, throwing his weight now on 
 this foot and now on that, and was continually in 
 motion. The table bearing the caudles had been 
 pushed against the window, the boarding of which 
 had been replaced by Bigot before he left the room. 
 Tignonville had this, and consequently the lights, on 
 his dagger hand; and he plumed himself on the 
 advantage, considering his point the more difficult to 
 follow.
 
 190 COUNT HANNIBAL. 
 
 Count Hannibal did not seem to notice this, how- 
 ever. " Are you ready 1" he asked. And then, 
 
 "On guard! " he cried, and he stamped the echo to 
 the word. But, that done, instead of bearing the 
 other down with a headlong rush characteristic of 
 the man as Tiguouville feared he held off warily, 
 stooping low ; and when his slow opening was met by 
 one as cautious, he began to taunt his antagonist. 
 
 "Come!" he cried, and feinted half-heartedly. 
 " Come, monsieur, are we going to fight, or play at 
 fighting?" 
 
 "Fight yourself, then!" Tignonville answered, his 
 breath quickened by excitement and growing hope. 
 " 'Tis not I hold back ! " And he lunged, but was put 
 aside. 
 
 "Ca! ca!" Tavannes retorted; and he lunged and 
 parried in his turn, but loosely and at a distance. 
 Aftei which the two moved nearer the door, their 
 eyes glittering as they watched one another, their 
 knees bent, the sinews of their backs straining for the 
 leap. Suddenly Tavannes thrust, and leapt away, 
 and as his antagonist thrust in return the Count 
 swept the blade aside with a strong parry, and for a 
 moment seemed to be on the point of falling on Tig- 
 nonville with the poniard. But Tignonville retired 
 his right foot nimbly, which brought them front to 
 front again. And the younger man laughed. 
 
 "Try again, M. le Comte!" he said. And, with 
 the word, he dashed in himself quick as light ; for a 
 second the blades ground on one another, the daggers 
 hovered, the two suffused faces glared into one anoth- 
 er ; then the pair disengaged again. The blood trick- 
 led from a scratch on Count Hannibal's neck; half an 
 inch to the right and the point had found his throat.
 
 THE DUEL. 191 
 
 And Tignonville, elated, laughed anew, and swaying 
 from side to side on his hips, watched with growing 
 confidence for a second chance. Lithe as one of the 
 leopards Charles kept at the Louvre, he stooped lower 
 and lower, and more and more with each moment 
 took the attitude of the assailant, watching for an 
 opening; while Count Hannibal, his face dark and 
 his eyes vigilant, stood increasingly on the defence. 
 The light was waning a little, the wicks of the caudles 
 were burning long ; bnt neither noticed it or dared to 
 remove his eyes from the other's. Their laboured 
 breathing found an echo on the farther side of the 
 door, but this again neither observed. 
 
 "Well?" Count Hannibal said at last. "Are you 
 coming ? " 
 
 "When I please," Tignonville answered; and he 
 feinted but drew back. The other did the same, and 
 again they watched one another, their eyes seeming 
 to grow smaller and smaller. Gradually a smile had 
 birth on Tiguonville's lips. He thrust ! It was par- 
 ried! He thrust again parried! Tavannes r grown 
 still more cautious, gave a yard. Tignonville pushed 
 on, but did not allow confidence to master caution. 
 He began, indeed, to taunt his adversary ; to flout and 
 jeer him. But it was with a motive. 
 
 For suddenly, in the middle of a sentence, he re- 
 peated the peculiar thrust which had been successful 
 before. This time, however, Tavannes was ready. 
 He put aside the blade with a quick parade, and in- 
 stead of making a riposte sprang within the other's 
 guard. The two came face to face and breast to 
 shoulder, and struck furiously with their daggers. 
 Count Hannibal was outside his opponent's sword 
 and had the advantage. Tignonville' s dagger fell,
 
 192 COUNT HANNIBAL. 
 
 but glanced off the metalwork of the other's hilt ; Ta- 
 vaimes' fell swift and hard between the young man's 
 eyes. The Huguenot flung up his hands and stag- 
 gered back, falling his length on the floor. 
 
 In an instant Count Hannibal was on his breast, 
 and had knocked away his dagger. Then, "You own 
 yourself vanquished?" he cried. 
 
 The young man, blinded by the blood which trick- 
 led down his face, made a sign with his hands. 
 Count Hannibal rose to his feet again, and stood a 
 moment looking at his foe without speaking. Pres- 
 ently he seemed to be satisfied. He nodded, and 
 going to the table dipped a napkin in water. He 
 brought it, and carefully supporting Tignonville's 
 head, laved his brow. "It is as I thought," he said, 
 when he had stanched the blood. "You are not hurt, 
 man. You are stunned. It is no more than a 
 bruise. " 
 
 The young man was coming to himself. "But I 
 
 thought " he muttered, and broke off to pass his 
 
 hand over his face. Then he got up slowly, reeling a 
 little, "I thought it was the point," he muttered. 
 
 "No, it was the pommel," Tavannes answered 
 drily. "It would not have served me to kill you. 
 I could have done that ten times." 
 
 Tignouville groaned, and, sitting down at the table, 
 held the napkin to his aching head. One of the can- 
 dles had been overturned in the struggle and lay on 
 the floor, flaring in a little pool of grease. Tavannes 
 set his heel upon it ; then, striding to the farther end 
 of the room, he picked up Tignonville's dagger and 
 placed it beside his sword on the table. He looked 
 about to see if aught else remained to do, and, finding 
 nothing, he returned to Tignonville's side.
 
 THE DUEL. 193 
 
 "Now, monsieur," he said in a voice hard and con- 
 strained, " I must ask you to perform your part of 
 the bargain. " 
 
 A groan of anguish broke from the unhappy man. 
 And yet he had set his life on the cast ; what more 
 could he have done? "You will not harm him?" he 
 muttered. 
 
 "He shall go safe," Count Hannibal replied 
 gravely. 
 
 "And " he fought a moment with his pride, 
 
 then blurted out the words, "you will not tell her 
 that it was through me you found him? " 
 
 "I will not," Tavannes answered in the same tone. 
 He stooped and picked up the other's robe and cowl, 
 which had fallen from a chair so that as he spoke 
 his eyes were averted. "She shall never know 
 through me," he said. 
 
 And Tignonville, his face hidden in his hands, told 
 him. 
 
 13
 
 CHAPTER XVIH. 
 
 ANDKOMEDA, PERSEUS BEING ABSENT. 
 
 LITTLE by little while they fought below the 
 gloom had thickened, and night had fallen in the 
 room above. But Mademoiselle would not have can- 
 dles brought. Seated in the darkness, on the upper- 
 most step of the stairs, her hands clasped about her 
 knees, she listened and listened, as if by that action 
 she could avert misfortune ; or as if, by going so far 
 forward to meet it, she could turn aside the worst. 
 The women shivering in the darkness about her 
 would fain have struck a light and drawn her back 
 into the room, for they felt safer there. But she was 
 not to be moved. The laughter and chatter of the 
 men in the guard-room, the coming and going of 
 Bigot as he passed, below but out of sight, had no 
 terrors for her ; nay, she breathed more freely on the 
 bare open landing of the staircase than in the close 
 confines of a room which her fears made hateful to 
 her. Here at least she could listen, her face unseen ; 
 and listening she bore the suspense more easily. 
 
 A turn in the staircase, with the noise which pro- 
 ceeded from the guard-room, rendered it difficult to 
 hear what happened in the closed room below. But 
 she thought that if an alarm were raised there she 
 must hear it ; and as the moments passed and nothing 
 happened, she began to feel confident that her lover 
 had made good his escape by the window.
 
 ANDEOMEDA, PEESEUS BEING ABSENT. 195 
 
 Presently she got a fright. Three or four men came 
 from the guard-room and went, as it seemed to her, 
 to the door of the room with the shattered easement. 
 She told herself that she had rejoiced too soon, and 
 her heart stood still. She waited for a rush of feet, 
 a cry, a struggle. But except an uncertain muffled 
 sound which lasted for some minutes, and was fol- 
 lowed by a dull shock, she heard nothing more. And 
 presently the men went back whispering, the noise in 
 the guard-room which had been partially hushed 
 broke forth anew, and perplexed but relieved she 
 breathed again. Surely he had escaped by this time. 
 Surely by this time he was far away, in the Arsenal, 
 or in some place of refuge! And she might take 
 courage, and feel that for this day the peril was over- 
 past. 
 
 "Mademoiselle will have the lights now?" one of 
 the women ventured. 
 
 "No! no!" she answered feverishly, and she con- 
 tinued to crouch where she was on the stairs, bathing 
 herself and her burning face in the darkness and cool- 
 ness of the stairway. The air entered freely through 
 a window at her elbow and the place was fresher, 
 were that all, than the room she had left. Javette 
 began to whimper, but she paid no heed to her; a 
 man came and went along the passage below, and she 
 heard the outer door unbarred, and the jarring tread 
 of three or four men who passed through it. Biit all 
 without disturbance; aaad afterwards the house was 
 quiet again. And as on this Monday evening the 
 prime virulence of the massacre had begun to abate 
 though it held after a fashion to the end of the 
 week Paris without was quiet also. The sounds 
 which had chilled her heart at intervals during two
 
 196 COUNT HANNIBAL. 
 
 days were no longer heard. A feeling almost of 
 peace, almost of comfort a drowsy feeling, that was 
 three parts a reaction from excitement took posses- 
 sion of her. In the darkness her head sank lower 
 and lower on her knees. And half an hour passed, 
 while Javette whimpered, 'and Madame Carlat slum- 
 bered, her broad back propped against the wall. 
 
 Suddenly Mademoiselle opened her eyes, and saw, 
 three steps below her, a strange man whose upward 
 way she barred. Behind him came Carlat, and be- 
 hind him Bigot, lighting both ; and in the confusion 
 of her thoughts as she rose to her feet the three, all 
 staring at her in a common amazement, seemed a 
 company. The air entering through the open win- 
 dow beside her blew the flame of the caudle this way 
 and that, and added to the nightmare character of the 
 scene ; for by the shifting light the men seemed to 
 laugh one moment and scowl the next, and their 
 shadows were now high and now low on the wall. In 
 truth they were as much amazed at coming on her in 
 that place as she at their appearance ; but they were 
 awake, and she newly roused from sleep ; and the ad- 
 vantage was with them. 
 
 " What is it? " she cried in a panic. " What is it? " 
 
 "If Mademoiselle will return to her room? " one of 
 the men said courteously. 
 
 "But what is it? " She was frightened. 
 
 "If Mademoiselle " 
 
 Then she turned without more and went back into 
 the room, and the three followed, and her woman and 
 Madame Carlat. She stood resting one hand on the 
 table while Javette with shaking fingers lighted the 
 caudles. Then, "Now, monsieur," she said in a hard 
 voice, "if you will tell me your business? "
 
 ANDROMEDA, PERSEUS BEING ABSENT. 197 
 
 "You do not know me?" The stranger's eyes 
 dwelt kindly and pitifully on her. 
 
 She looked at him steadily, crushing down the 
 fears which knocked at her heart. "No," she said. 
 "And yet I think I have seen you." 
 
 "You saw me a week last Sunday," the stranger 
 answered sorrowfully. "My name is La Tribe. I 
 preached that day, Mademoiselle, before the King of 
 Navarre. I believe that you were there." 
 
 For a moment she stared at him in silence, her lips 
 parted. Then she laughed, a laugh which set the 
 teeth on edge. "Oh, he is clever!" she cried. "He 
 has the wit of the priests ! Or the devil ! But you 
 come too late, monsieur ! You come too late ! The 
 bird has flown. " 
 
 "Mademoiselle " 
 
 " I tell you the bird has flown ! " she repeated ve- 
 hemently. And her laugh of joyless triumph rang 
 through the room. "He is clever, but I have out- 
 witted him ! I have " 
 
 She paused and stared about her wildly, struck by 
 the silence ; struck, too, by something solemn, some- 
 thing pitiful in the faces that were turned on her. 
 And her lip began to quiver. "'What?" she mut- 
 tered. "Why do you look at me so? He has not" 
 she turned from one to another "he has not been 
 taken?" 
 
 "M. Tignonville?" 
 
 She nodded. 
 
 "He is below." 
 
 "Ah!" she said. 
 
 They expected to see her break down, perhaps to 
 see her fall. But she only groped blindly for a chair 
 and sat. And for a moment there was silence in the
 
 198 COUNT HANNIBAL. 
 
 room. It was the Huguenot minister who broke it in 
 a tone formal and solemn. 
 
 "Listen, all present! " he said slowly. "The ways 
 of God are past finding out. For two days in the 
 midst of great perils I have been preserved by His 
 hand and fed by His bounty, and I am told that I 
 shall live if, in this matter, I do the will of those who 
 hold me in their power. But be assured and heark- 
 en all, " he continued, lowering his voice to a sterner 
 note. "Bather than marry this woman to this man 
 against her will if indeed in His sight such marriage 
 can be rather than save my life by such base com- 
 pliance, I will die not once but ten times ! See. I 
 am ready ! I will make no defence ! " And he 
 opened his arms as if to welcome the stroke. "If 
 there be trickery here, if there has been practising 
 below, where they told me this and tyiat, it shall not 
 avail ! Until I hear from Mademoiselle's own lips 
 that she is willing, I will not say over her so much as 
 Yea, yea, or Nay, nay ! " 
 
 "She is willing!" ' 
 
 La Tribe turned sharply, and beheld the speaker. 
 It was Count Hannibal, who had entered a few sec- 
 onds earlier, and had taken his stand within the 
 door. 
 
 "She is willing! " Tavannes repeated quietly. And 
 if, in this moment of the fruition of his schemes, he 
 felt his triumph, he masked it under a face of sombre 
 purpose. "Do you doubt me, man? " 
 
 "From her own lips! " the other replied, undaunted 
 and few could say as much by that harsh pres- 
 ence. " From no other's !" 
 
 "Sirrah, you " 
 
 "I can die. And you can no more, my lord!" the
 
 ANDROMEDA, PERSEUS BEING ABSENT. 199 
 
 minister answered bravely. "You have no threat 
 can move me." 
 
 "I am not sure of that," Tavannes answered, more 
 blandly. " But had you listened to me and been less 
 anxious to be brave, M. La Tribe, where no danger 
 is, you had learned that here is no call for heroics! 
 Mademoiselle is willing, and will tell you so." 
 
 "With her own lips?" 
 
 Count Hannibal raised his eyebrows. " With her 
 own lips, if you will, " he said. And then, advanc- 
 ing a step and addressing her, with unusual gravity, 
 "Mademoiselle de Vriltoc," he said, "you hear what 
 this gentleman requires. Will you be pleased to con- 
 firm what I have said ? " 
 
 She did not answer, and in the intense silence 
 which held the room in its freezing grasp a woman 
 choked, another broke into weeping. The colour 
 ebbed from the cheeks of more than one; the men 
 fidgeted on their feet. 
 
 Count Hannibal looked round, his head high. 
 "There is no call for tears," he said; and whether he 
 spoke in irony or in a strange obtuseness was known 
 only to himself. " Mademoiselle is in no hurry and 
 rightly to answer a question so momentous. Under 
 the pressure of utmost peril, she passed her word; 
 the more reason that, now the time has come to re- 
 deem it, she should do so at leisure and after thought. 
 Since she gave her promise, monsieur, she has had 
 more than one opportunity of evading its fulfilment. 
 But she is a Vrillac, and I know that nothing is far- 
 ther from her thoughts. " 
 
 He was silent a moment; and then "Mademoi- 
 selle," he said, "I would not hurry you." 
 
 Her eyes were closed, but at that her lips moved.
 
 20u COUNT HANNIBAL. 
 
 "I am willing," she whispered. And a fluttering 
 sigh, of relief, of pity, of God knows what, filled the 
 room. 
 
 "You are satisfied, M. La Tribe? " 
 
 "I do not " 
 
 "Man! " With a growl as of a tiger, Count Hanni- 
 bal dropped the mask. In two strides he was at the 
 minister's side, his hand gripped his shoulder; his 
 face, flushed with passion, glared into his. "Will 
 you play with lives!" he hissed. "If you do not 
 value your own, have you no thought of others'? Of 
 these? Look and count! Have you no bowels? If 
 she will save them, will not you? " 
 
 "My own I do not value." 
 
 "Curse your own!" Tavauues cried in furious 
 scorn. And he shook the other to and fro. "Who 
 thought of your life? Will you doom these? Will 
 you give them to the butcher? " 
 
 "My lord," La Tribe answered, shaken in spite of 
 himself, "if she be willing " 
 
 "She is willing." 
 
 "I have nought to say. But I caught her words 
 indistinctly. And without her consent 
 
 " She shall speak more plainly. Mademoiselle 
 
 She anticipated him. She had risen, and stood 
 looking straight before her, seeing nothing. "I am 
 willing," she muttered with a strange gesture, "if it 
 must be." 
 
 He did not answer. 
 
 "If it must be," she repeated slowly, and with a 
 heavy sigh. And her chin dropped on her breast. 
 Then, abruptly, suddenly it was a strange thing to 
 see she looked up. A change as complete as the 
 change which had come over Count Hannibal a min-
 
 ANDROMEDA, PERSEUS BEIXG ABSENT. 201 
 
 ute before came over her. She sprang to his side; 
 she clutched his arm and devoured his face with 
 her eyes. "You are not deceiving me"? " she cried. 
 "You have Tignonville below? You oh, no, no!" 
 And she fell back from him, her eyes distended, her 
 voice grown suddenly shrill and defiant, "You have 
 not! You are deceiving me! He has escaped, and 
 you have lied to me ! " 
 If 
 
 "Yes, you have lied to me! " It was the last fierce 
 flicker of hope when hope seemed dead: the last 
 clutch of the drowning at the straw that floated be- 
 fore the eyes. 
 
 He laughed harshly. "You will be my wife in 
 five minutes," he said, "and you give me the lie? A 
 week, and you will know me better ! A month, and 
 but we will talk of that another time. For the 
 present," he continued, turning to La Tribe, "do you, 
 sir, tell her that the gentleman is below. Perhaps 
 she will believe you. For you know him." 
 
 La Tribe looked at her sorrowfully; his heart bled 
 for her. "I have seen M. de Tignonville," he said. 
 "And M. le COrnte says truly. He is in the same 
 case with ourselves, a prisoner." 
 
 "You have seen him 1 ? " she wailed. 
 
 "I left him in the room below, when I mounted the 
 stairs." 
 
 Count Hannibal laughed, the grim mocking laugh 
 which seemed to revel in the pain it inflicted. " Will 
 you have him for a witness?" he cried. "There 
 could not be a better, for he will not forget. Shall I 
 fetch him?" 
 
 She bowed her head, shivering. "Spare me that," 
 she said. And she pressed her hands to her eyes
 
 202 COUNT HANNIBAL. 
 
 while an uncontrollable shudder passed over her 
 frame. Then she stepped forward: "I am ready," 
 she whispered. "Do with me as you will ! " 
 
 When they had all gone out and closed the door 
 behind them, and the two whom the minister had 
 joined were left together, Count Hannibal continued 
 for a time to pace the room, his hands clasped at his 
 back, and his head sunk somewhat on his chest. His 
 thoughts appeared to run in a new channel, and one, 
 strange to say, widely diverted from his bride and 
 from that which he had just done. For he did not 
 look her way, or, for a time, speak to her. He stood 
 once to snuff a candle, doing it with an absent face ; 
 and once to look, but still absently, as if he read no 
 word of it, at the marriage writing which lay, the ink 
 still wet, upon the table. After each of these inter- 
 ruptions he resumed his steady pacing to and fro, to 
 and fro, nor did his eye wander once in the direction 
 of her chair. 
 
 And she waited. The conflict of emotions, the 
 strife between hope and fear, the final defeat had 
 stunned her; had left her exhausted, almost apa- 
 thetic. Yet not quite, nor wholly. For when in his 
 walk he came a little nearer to her, a chill perspira- 
 tion broke out on her brow, and shudderings crept 
 over her ; and when he passed farther from her and 
 then only, it seemed she breathed again. But the 
 change lay beneath the surface, and cheated the eye. 
 Into her attitude, as she sat, her hands clasped on 
 her lap, her eyes fixed, came no apparent change or 
 shadow of movement. 
 
 Suddenly, with a dull shock, she became aware 
 that he was speaking.
 
 ANDBOMEDA, PEESEUS BEING ABSENT. 203 
 
 " There was need of haste, " he said, his tone 
 strangely low and free from emotion, "for I am under 
 bond to leave Paris to-morrow for Angers, whither 
 I bear letters from the Bang. And as matters stood, 
 there was no one with whom I could leave you. I 
 trust Bigot ; he is faithful, and you may trust him, 
 Madame, fair or foul ! But he is not quick-witted. 
 Badelon also you may trust. Bear it in mind. Your 
 woman Javette is not faithful ; but as her life is guar- 
 anteed she must stay with us until she can be securely 
 placed. Indeed, I must take all with me with one 
 exception for the priests and monks rule Paris, and 
 they do not love me, nor would spare aught at my 
 word. " 
 
 He was silent a few moments. Then he resumed in 
 the same tone, "You ought to know how we, Tavan- 
 nes, stand. It is by Monsieur and the Queen -Mother ; 
 and contra the Guises. We have all been in this mat- 
 ter ; but the latter push and we are pushed, and the 
 old crack will reopen. As it is, I cannot answer for 
 much beyond the reach of my arm. Therefore, we 
 take all with us except M. Tignonville, who desires 
 to be conducted to the Arsenal." 
 
 She had begun to listen with averted eyes. But as 
 he continued to speak surprise awoke in her, and 
 something stronger than surprise amazement, stupe- 
 faction. Slowly her eyes came to him, and when he 
 ceased to speak, "Why do you tell me these things! " 
 she muttered, her dry lips framing the words with 
 difficulty. 
 
 "Because it behoves you to know them," he an- 
 swered, thoughtfully tapping the table. "I have no 
 one, save my brother, whom I can trust." 
 
 She would not ask him why he trusted her, nor why
 
 204 COUNT HANNIBAL. 
 
 he thought he could trust her. For a moment or two 
 she watched him, while he, with his eyes lowered, 
 stood in deep thought. At last he looked up and his 
 eyes met hers. "Come!" he said abruptly and in a 
 different tone, "we must end this! Is it to be a kiss 
 or a blow between us ? " 
 
 She rose, though her knees shook under her ; and 
 they stood face to face, her face white as paper. 
 "What do you mean? " she whispered. 
 
 "Is it to be a kiss or a blow? " he repeated. "A 
 husband must be a lover, Madame, or a master, or 
 both! I am content to be the one or the other, or 
 both, as it shall please you. But the one I will be." 
 
 "Then, a thousand times, a blow," she cried, her 
 eyes flaming, "from you! " 
 
 He wondered at her courage, but he hid his won- 
 der. "So be it!" he answered. And before she 
 knew what he would be at, he struck her sharply 
 across the cheek with the glove which he held in his 
 hand. She recoiled with a low cry, and her cheek 
 blazed scarlet where he had struck it. "So be it!" 
 he continued sombrely. "The choice shall be yours, 
 but you will come to me daily for the one or the 
 other. If I cannot be lover, Madame, I will be mas- 
 ter. And by this sign I will have you know it, daily, 
 and daily remember it." 
 
 She stared at him, her bosom rising and falling, 
 in an astonishment too deep for words. But he did 
 not heed her. He did not look at her again. He 
 had already turned to the door, and while she looked 
 he passed through it, he closed it behind him. And 
 she was alone.
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 IN THE ORLEANNAIS. 
 
 "BUT you fear him? " 
 
 "Fear him?" Madame St. Lo answered; and, to 
 the surprise of the Countess, she made a little face of 
 contempt. "No; why should I fear him'? I fear him 
 no v more than the puppy leaping at old Sancho's 
 bridle fears his tall playfellow ! Or than the cloud 
 you see above us fears the wind before which it 
 flies ! " She pointed to a white patch, the size of a 
 man's hand, which hung above the hill on their left 
 hand and formed the only speck in the blue summer 
 sky. "Fear him! Not I!" And, laughing gaily, 
 she put her horse at a narrow rivulet which crossed 
 the grassy track on which they rode. 
 
 "But he is hard!" the Countess murmured in a 
 low voice, as she regained her companion's side. 
 
 "Hard!" Madame St. Lo rejoined with a gesture 
 of pride. "Ay, hard as the stones in my jewelled 
 ring ! Hard as flint, or the nether millstone to his 
 enemies! But to women! Bah! Who ever heard 
 that he hurt a woman ! " 
 
 "Why then is he so feared!" the Countess asked, 
 her eyes on the subject of their discussion ; a solitary 
 figure, riding some fifty paces in front of them. 
 
 "Because he counts no cost!" her companion an- 
 swered. "Because he killed Savillon in the court of 
 the Louvre, though he knew his life the forfeit. He
 
 206 COUNT HANNIBAL. 
 
 would have paid the forfeit too, or lost his right 
 hand, if Monsieur, for his brother the Marshal's sake, 
 had not intervened. But Savillon had whipped his 
 dog, you see. Then he killed the Chevalier de Mil- 
 laud, but 'twas in fair fight, in the snow, in their 
 shirts. For that, Millaud's sou lay in wait for him 
 with two, in the passage under the Chatelet; but 
 Hannibal wounded one, and the others saved them- 
 selves. Undoubtedly he is feared ! " she added with 
 the same note of pride in her voice. 
 
 The two, who talked, rode at the rear of the little 
 company which had left Paris at daybreak two days 
 before, by the Porte St. Jacques. Moving steadily 
 south-westward by the lesser roads and bridle-tracks 
 for Count Hannibal seemed averse from the great 
 road they had lain the second night in a village 
 three leagues from Bonueval. A journey of two 
 days on fresh horses is apt to change scenery and eye 
 alike; but seldom has an alteration in themselves 
 and all about them as great as that which blessed 
 this little company, been wrought in so short a time. 
 From the stifling wyuds and evil-smelling lanes of 
 Paris, they had passed to the green uplands, the 
 breezy woods and babbling streams of the upper Or- 
 leannais ; from sights and sounds the most appalling, 
 to the solitude of the sandy heath, haunt of the great 
 bustard, or the sunshine of the hillside, vibrating 
 with the songs of larks ; from an atmosphere of terror 
 and gloom to the freedom of God's earth and sky. 
 Numerous enough they numbered a score of armed 
 men to defy the lawless bands which had their lairs 
 in the huge forest of Orleans, they halted where they 
 pleased : at mid-day under a grove of chestnut-trees, 
 or among the willows beside a brook; at night, if
 
 IN THE OBL^ANNAIS. 207 
 
 they willed it, under God's heaven. Far, not only 
 from Paris, but from the great road, with its gibbets 
 and pillories the great road which at that date ran 
 through a waste, no peasant living willingly within 
 sight of it they rode in the morning and in the even- 
 ing, resting in the heat of the day. And though they 
 had left Paris with much talk of haste, they rode 
 more at leisure with every league. 
 
 For whatever Tavannes' motive, it was plain that 
 he was iu no hurry to reach his destination. ISTor for 
 that matter were any of his company. Madame St. 
 Lo, who had seized the opportunity of escaping from 
 the capital under her cousin's escort, was in an ill- 
 humour with cities, and declaimed much on the joys 
 of a cell in the woods. For the time the coarsest na- 
 ture and the dullest rider had had enough of alarums 
 and conflicts. 
 
 The whole company, indeed, though it moved in 
 some fashion of array with an avant and a rear- 
 guard, the ladies riding together, and Count Hanni- 
 bal proceeding solitary in the midst, formed as peace- 
 ful a band, and one as innocently diverted, as if no 
 man of them had ever grasped pike or blown a 
 match. There was an old rider among them who had 
 seen the sack of Kt>ine, and the dead face of the great 
 Constable, the idol of the Free Companies. But he 
 had a taste for simples and much skill in them ; and 
 when Madame had once seen Badelon on his knees in 
 the grass searching for plants, she lost her fear of 
 him. Bigot, with his low brow and matted hair, was 
 the abject slave of Suzanne, Madame St. Lo's woman, 
 who twitted him mercilessly on his Gorman patois, 
 and poured the vials of her scorn on him a dozen 
 times a day. In all, with La Tribe and the Carlats,
 
 208 COUNT HANNIBAL. 
 
 Madame St. Lo's servants, and the Countess's follow- 
 ing, they numbered not far short of two score ; and 
 when they halted at noon, and under the shadow of 
 some leafy tree, ate their mid-day meal, or drowsed 
 to the tinkle of Madame St. Lo's lute, it was diffi- 
 cult to believe that Paris existed, or that these same 
 people had so lately left its blood-stained pavements. 
 
 They halted this morning a little earlier than 
 usual. Madame St. Lo had barely answered her com- 
 panion's question before the subject of their discus- 
 sion swung himself from old Sancho's back, and stood 
 waiting to assist them to dismount. Behind him, 
 where the green valley through which the road passed 
 narrowed to a rocky gate, an old mill stood among 
 willows at the foot of a mound. On the mound be- 
 hind it a ruined castle which had stood siege in the 
 Hundred Years' War raised its grey walls; and be- 
 yond this the stream which turned the mill poured 
 over rocks with a cool rushing sound that proved 
 irresistible. The men, their 4 horses watered and hob- 
 bled, went off, shouting like boys, to bathe below the 
 falls; and after a moment's hesitation Count Hanni- 
 bal rose from the grass on which he had flung himself. 
 
 "Guard that for me, Madame, "lie said. And he 
 dropped a packet, bravely sealed and tied with a silk 
 thread, into the Countess's lap. "'Twill be safer 
 than leaving it in my clothes. Ohe ! " And he 
 turned to Madame St. Lo. "Would you fancy a life 
 that was all gipsyiug, cousin ? " And if there was 
 irony in his voice, there was desire in his eyes. 
 
 "There is only one happy man in the world," she 
 answered, with conviction. 
 
 "By name?" 
 
 "The hermit of Compiegne."
 
 IN THE OKLEANNAIS. 209 
 
 "And in a week you would be wild for a masque ! " 
 he said cynically. And turning on his heel he fol- 
 lowed the men. 
 
 Madame St. Lo sighed complacently. "Heigho!" 
 she said. "He's right! We are never content, ma 
 mie ! When I am trifling in the Gallery my heart is 
 in the greenwood. And when I have eaten black 
 bread and drunk spring water for a fortnight I do 
 nothing but dream of Zainet's, and white mulberry 
 tarts! And you are in the same case. You have 
 saved your round white neck, or it has been saved 
 for you, by not so much as the thickness of Zamet's 
 pie-crust I declare my mouth is beginning ;o water 
 for it! and instead of being thankful and making 
 the best of things, you are thinking of poor Madame 
 d'Yverne, or dreaming of your calf-love! " 
 
 The girl's face for a girl she was, though they 
 called her Madame began to work. She struggled 
 a moment with her emotion, and then broke down, 
 and fell to weeping silently. For two days she had 
 sat in public and not given way. But the reference 
 to her lover was too much for her strength. 
 
 Madame St. Lo looked at her with eyes which were 
 not unkindly. "Sits the wind in that quarter!" she 
 murmured. "I thought so! But there, my dear, if 
 you don't put that packet in your gown you'll wash 
 out the address! Moreover, if you ask me, I don't 
 think the young man is worth it. It is only that 
 which we have not got we want! " 
 
 But the young Countess had borne to the limit of 
 her powers. With an incoherent word she rose to 
 her feet, and walked hurriedly away. The thought 
 of what was and of what might have been, the 
 thought of the lover who still though he no longer 
 14
 
 210 COUNT HANNIBAL. 
 
 seemed, even to her, the perfect hero held a place 
 in her heart, filled her breast to overflowing. She 
 longed for some spot where she could weep unseen, 
 where the sunshine and the blue sky would not mock 
 her grief; and seeing in front of her a little clump of 
 alders, which grew beside the stream, in a bend that 
 in winter was marshy, she hastened towards it. 
 
 Madame St. Lo saw her figure blend with the 
 shadow of the trees " Quite a la Ronsard, I give my 
 word!" she murmured. "And now she is out of 
 sight ! La, la ! I could play at the game myself, and 
 carve sweet sorrow on the barks of trees, if it were 
 not so lonesome ! And if I had a man ! " 
 
 And gazing pensively at the stream and the wil- 
 lows, my lady tried to work herself into a proper 
 frame of mind; now murmuring the name of one 
 gallant, and now, finding it unsuited, the name of 
 another. But the soft inflection would break into a 
 giggle, and finally into a yawn ; and, tired of the at- 
 tempt, she began to pluck grass and throw it from 
 her. By-aud-by she discovered that Mad? me Carlat 
 and the women, who had their place a Lctle apart, 
 had disappeared ; and affrighted by the solitude and 
 silence for neither of which she was made she 
 sprang up and stared about her, hoping to discern 
 them. Eight and left, however, the sweep of hillside 
 curved upward to the skyline, lonely and untenauted ; 
 behind her tho castled rock frowned down on the 
 rugged gorge and filled it with dispiriting shadow. 
 Madame St. Lo stamped her foot on the turf. 
 
 "The little fool! " she murmured, pettishly. "Does 
 she think that I am to be murdered that she may fat- 
 ten on sighs? Oh, come up, Madame, you must be 
 dragged out of this!" And she started briskly to-
 
 IN THE OKLEANNAIS. 211 
 
 wards the alders, intent on gaining company as quick- 
 ly as possible. 
 
 She had gone abont fifty yards, and had as many 
 more to traverse when she halted. A man, bent 
 double, was moving stealthily along the farther side 
 of the brook a little in front of him. Now she saw 
 him, now she lost him ; now she caught a glimpse of 
 him again, through a screen of willow branches. He 
 moved with the utmost caution, as a man moves 
 who is pursued or in danger ; and for a moment she 
 deemed him a peasant whom the bathers had dis- 
 turbed and who was bent on escaping. But when he 
 came opposite to the alder-bed she saw that that was 
 his point, for he crouched down, sheltered by a wil- 
 low, and gazed eagerly among the trees, always with 
 his back to her ; and then he waved his hand to some- 
 one in the wood. 
 
 Madame St. Lo drew in her breath. As if he had 
 heard the sound which was impossible the man 
 dropped down where he stood, crawled a yard or two 
 on his face, and disappeared. 
 
 Madame stared a moment, expecting to see him or 
 hear him. Then, as nothing happened, she screamed. 
 She was a woman of quick impulses, essentially femi- 
 nine ; and she screamed three or four times, standing 
 where she was, her eyes on the edge of the wood. 
 "If that does not bring her out, nothing will!" she 
 thought. 
 
 It brought her. An instant, and the Countess ap- 
 peared, and hurried in dismay to her- side. "What 
 is it?" the younger woman asked, glancing over 
 her shoulder; for all the valley, all the hills were 
 peaceful, and behind Madame St. Lo but the lady 
 had not discovered it the servants who had re-
 
 212 COUNT HANNIBAL. 
 
 turned were laying the meal. "What is it?" she re- 
 peated anxiously. 
 
 " Who was it? " Madame St. Lo asked curtly. She 
 was quite calm now. 
 
 "Who was who?" 
 
 "The mau in the wood? " 
 
 The Countess stared a moment, then laughed. 
 "Only the old soldier they call Badelou, gathering 
 simples. Did you think that he would harm me? " 
 
 " It was not old Badelou whom I saw ! " Madame 
 St. Lo retorted. "It was a younger man, who crept 
 along the other side of the brook, keeping under 
 cover. When I first saw him he was there," she con- 
 tinued, pointing to the place. "And he crept on and 
 on until he came opposite to you. Then he waved 
 his hand. " 
 
 "To me!" 
 
 Madame nodded. 
 
 "But if you saw him, who was he?" the Countess 
 asked. 
 
 "I did not see his face," Madame St. Lp answered. 
 "But he waved to you. That I saw." 
 
 The Countess had a thought which slowly flooded 
 her face with crimson. Madame St. Lo saw the 
 change, saw the tender light which on a sudden soft- 
 ened the other's eyes ; and the same thought occurred 
 to her. And having a mind to punish her companion 
 for her reticence for she did not doubt that the girl 
 knew more than she acknowledged she proposed 
 that they should return and find Badelou, and learn 
 if he had .seen the man. 
 
 " Why ? " Madame Tavannes asked. And she stood 
 stubbornly, her head high. " Why should we? " 
 
 "To clear it up," the elder woman answered mis-
 
 IN THE OBLEANNAIS. 213 
 
 chievously. "But perhaps, it were better to tell 
 your husband and let his nieii search the coppice. " 
 
 The colour left the Countess's face as quickly as 
 it had come. For a moment she was tongue-tied. 
 Then, "Have we not had enough of seeking and being 
 sought?" she cried; more bitterly than befitted the 
 occasion. "Why should we hunt him? I am not 
 timid, and he did me no harm. I beg, Madame, that 
 you will do me the favour of being silent on the 
 matter. " 
 
 "Oh, if you insist? But what a pother 
 
 "I did not see him, and he did not see me," Madame 
 de Tavanues answered vehemently. "I fail, there- 
 fore, to understand why we should harass him, who- 
 ever he be. Besides, M. de Tavannes is waiting for 
 us." 
 
 "And M. de Tignonville is following us!" 
 Madame St. Lo muttered under her breath. And 
 she made a face at the other's back. 
 
 She was silent, however; they returned to the 
 others; and nothing of import, it would seem, had 
 happened. The soft summer air played ou the meal 
 laid under the willows as it had played on the meal 
 of yesterday laid under the chestnut -trees. The 
 horses grazed within sight, moving now and again, 
 with a jingle of trappings or a jealous neigh ; the 
 women's chatter vied with the unceasing sound of the 
 mill-stream. After dinner, Madame St. Lo touched 
 the lute, and Badelon Badelou who had seen the 
 sack of the Colonua's Palace, and been served by 
 cardinals on the knee fed a water-rat, which had its 
 home in one of the willow-stumps, with carrot -par- 
 ings. One by one the men laid themselves to sleep 
 with their faces on their arms ; and to the eyes all
 
 214 COUNT HANNIBAL. 
 
 was as all had been yesterday iu this camp of armed 
 men living peacefully. 
 
 But not to the Countess! She had accepted her 
 life, she had resigned herself, she had marvelled that 
 it was no worse. After the horrors of Paris the calm 
 of the last two days had fallen on her as balm on a 
 wound. . Worn out in body and mind, she had rested, 
 and only rested; without thought, almost without 
 emotion, save for the feeling, half fear, half curi- 
 osity, which stirred her in regard to the strange 
 man, her husband. Who on his side left her alone. 
 
 But the last hour had wrought a change. Her eyes 
 were grown restless, her colour came and went. The 
 past stirred in its shallow ah, so shallow grave; 
 and dead hopes and dead forebodings, strive as she 
 might, thrust out hands to plague and torment her. 
 If the man who sought to speak with her by stealth, 
 who dogged her footsteps and hung on the skirts of 
 her party, were Tignonville her lover, who at his 
 own request had been escorted to the Arsenal before 
 their departure from Paris then her plight was a 
 sorry one. For what woman, wedded as she had 
 been wedded, could think otherwise than indulgently 
 of his persistence 1 ? And yet, lover and husband! 
 What peril, what shame the words had often spelled I 
 At the thought only she trembled and her colour 
 ebbed. She saw, as one who stands on the brink of 
 a precipice, the depth which yawned before her. 
 She asked herself, shivering, if she would ever sink 
 to that. 
 
 All the loyalty of a strong nature, all the virtue of 
 a good woman revolted against the thought. True, 
 her husband husband she must call him had not 
 deserved her love ; but his bizarre magnanimity, the
 
 IN THE OBLEANNAIS. 215 
 
 gloomy, disdainful kindness with which he had 
 crowned possession, even the unity of their interests, 
 which he had impressed upon her in so strange a 
 fashion, claimed a return in honour. 
 
 To be paid how ? how 1 That was the crux which 
 perplexed, which frightened, which harassed her. 
 For, if she told her suspicions, she exposed her lover 
 to capture by one who had no longer a reason to be 
 merciful. And if she sought occasion to see Tignon- 
 ville and so to dissuade him, she did it at deadly risk 
 to herself. Yet what other course lay open to her if 
 she would not stand by ? If she would not play the 
 traitor? If she 
 
 "Madame," it washer husband, and he spoke to 
 her suddenly, "are you not well?" And, looking 
 up guiltily, she found his eyes fixed curiously on hers. 
 
 Her face turned red and white and red again, and 
 she faltered something and looked from him, but only 
 to meet Madame St. Lo's eyes. My lady laughed 
 softly in sheer mischief. 
 
 "What is it? " Count Hannibal asked sharply. 
 
 But Madame St. Lo's answer was a line of Eonsard.
 
 CHAPTEE XX. 
 
 ON THE CASTLE HILL. 
 
 THRICE she hummed it, bland and smiling. Then 
 from the neighbouring group came an interruption. 
 The wine he had drunk had put it into Bigot's head 
 to snatch a kiss from Suzanne ; and Suzanne's mod- 
 esty, which was very nice in company, obliged her to 
 squeal. The uproar which ensued, the men backing 
 the man and the women the woman, brought Ta- 
 vauues to his feet. He did not speak, but a glance 
 from his eyes was enough. There was not one who 
 failed to see that something was amiss with him, and 
 a sudden silence fell on the party. 
 
 He turned to the Countess. "You wished to see 
 the castle?" he said. "You had better go now, but 
 uot alone. " He cast his eyes over the company, and 
 summoned La Tribe, who was seated with the Carlats. 
 "Go with Madame," he said curtly. "She has a 
 mind to climb the hill. Bear in mind, we start at 
 three, and do not venture out of hearing. " 
 
 "I understand, M. le Comte," the minister an- 
 swered. He spoke quietly, but there was a strange 
 light in his face as he turned to go with her. 
 
 None the less he was silent until Madame's lagging 
 feet for all her interest in the expedition was gone 
 had borne her a hundred paces from the company. 
 Then, "Who knoweth our thoughts and forerun- 
 neth all our desires," he murmured. And when she
 
 ON THE CASTLE HILL. 217 
 
 turned to him, astonished, "Madame," he continued, 
 "I have prayed, ah, how I have prayed, for this op- 
 portunity of speaking to you ! And it has come. I 
 would it had come this morning, but it has come. 
 Do not start or look round ; many eyes are on us, and 
 alas ! I have that to say to you which it will move you 
 to hear, and that to ask of you which it must task 
 your courage to perform." 
 
 She began to tremble, and stood, looking up the 
 green slope to the broken grey wall which crowned 
 its summit. "What is it?" she whispered, com- 
 manding herself with an effort. "What is if? If it 
 have aught to do with M. Tignonville " 
 
 "It has not!" 
 
 In her surprise for although she had put the ques- 
 tion she had felt no doubt of the answer she started 
 and turned to him. "It has not?" she exclaimed 
 almost incredulously. 
 
 "No." 
 
 "Then what is it, monsieur?" she replied, a little 
 haughtily. "What can there be that should move 
 me so ? " 
 
 "Life or death, Madame," he answered solemnly. 
 "Nay, more; for since Providence has given me this 
 chance of speaking to you, a thing of which, I de- 
 spaired, I know that the burden is laid on us, and 
 that it is guilt or it is innocence, according as we re- 
 fuse the burden or bear it." 
 
 " What is it then ? " she cried impatiently. " What 
 is it?" 
 
 " I tried to speak to you this morning. " 
 
 "Was it you then, whom Madame St. Lo saw stalk- 
 ing me before dinner? " 
 
 "It was."
 
 218 COUNT HANNIBAL. 
 
 She clasped her hands arid heaved a sigh of relief. 
 " Thank God, monsieur!" she replied. "You have 
 lifted a weight from me. I fear nothing in compari- 
 son of that. Nothing ! " 
 
 11 Alas," he answered sombrely, "there is much to 
 fear, for others if not for ourselves! Do you know 
 what that is which M. de Tavaunes bears always in 
 his belt? What it is he carries with such care? 
 What it was he handed to you to keep while he 
 bathed to-day?" 
 
 "Letters from the King." 
 
 "Yes, but the import of those letters? " 
 
 "No." 
 
 "And yet should they be written in letters of 
 blood ! " the minister exclaimed, his face kindling. 
 "They should scorch the hands that hold them and 
 blister the eyes that read them. They are the fire and 
 the sword ! They are the King's order to do at An- 
 gers as they have done in Paris. To slay all of the 
 religion who are found there and they are many! 
 To spare none, to have mercy neither on the old man 
 nor the unborn child ! See yonder hawk ! " he con- 
 tinued, pointing with a shaking hand to a falcon 
 which hung light and graceful above the valley, the 
 movement of its wings invisible. "How it disports 
 itself in the face of the sun ! How easy its way, how 
 smooth its flight ! But see, it drops upon ite prey in 
 the rushes beside the brook, and the end of its beauty 
 is slaughter ! So is it with yonder company ! " His 
 finger sank until it indicated the little camp seated 
 toy-like in the green meadow four hundred feet below 
 them, with every man and horse, and the very camp- 
 kettle, clear-cut and visible, though diminished by 
 distance to fairy-like proportions. "So it is with
 
 ON THE CASTLE HILL. 219 
 
 yonder company! " he repeated sternly. "They play 
 and are merry, and one fishes and another sleeps! 
 But at the end of the journey is death. Death for 
 their victims, and for them the judgment! " 
 
 She stood, as he spoke, in the ruined gateway, a 
 walled grass-plot behind her and at her feet the 
 stream, the smiling valley, the alders, and the little 
 camp. The sky was cloudless, the scene drowsy with 
 the stillness of an August afternoon. But his words 
 went home so truly that the sunlit landscape before 
 the eyes added one more horror to the picture he 
 called up before the mind. 
 
 The Countess turned white and sick. "Are you 
 sure? " she whispered at last. 
 
 "Quite sure." 
 
 "Ah, God!" she cried, "are we never to have 
 peace ? " And turning from the valley, she walked 
 some distance into the grass court, and stood. After 
 a time, she turned to him ; he had followed her 
 doggedly, pace for pace. "What do you want me 
 to do?" she cried, despair in her voice. "What 
 can I do ? " 
 
 "Were the letters he bears destroyed " 
 
 "The letters?" 
 
 "Yes, were the letters destroyed," La Tribe an- 
 swered relentlessly, " he could do nothing ! Nothing! 
 Without that authority the magistrates of Angers 
 would not move. He could do nothing. And men 
 and women and children men and women and chil- 
 dren whose blood will otherwise cry for vengeance, 
 perhaps for vengeance on us who might have saved 
 them will live ! Will live ! " he repeated with a soft- 
 ening eye. And with an all-embracing gesture he 
 seemed to call to witness the open heavens, the sun-
 
 220 COUNT HANNIBAL. 
 
 shine and the summer breeze which wrapped them 
 round. "Will live!" 
 
 She drew a deep breath. " And you have brought 
 me here," she said, "to ask me to do this? " 
 
 "I was sent here to ask you to do this." 
 
 "Why me? Why me!" she wailed, and she held 
 out her open hands to him, her face wan and colour- 
 less. " You come to me, a woman ! Why to me ? " 
 
 "You are his wife! " 
 
 "And he is my husband! " 
 
 "Therefore he trusts you," was the unyielding, the 
 pitiless answer. " You, and you alone, have the op- 
 portunity of doing this." 
 
 She gazed at him in astonishment. "And it is you 
 who say that?" she faltered, after a pause. "You 
 who made us one, who now bid me betray him, whom 
 I have sworn to love? To ruin him whom I have 
 sworn to honour? " 
 
 "I do!" he answered solemnly. "On my head be 
 the guilt, and on yours the merit." 
 
 "Nay, but " she cried quickly, and her eyes glit- 
 tered with passion "do you take both guilt and 
 merit! You are a man," she continued, her words 
 coming quickly in her excitement, "he is but a man! 
 Why do you not call him aside, trick him apart on 
 some pretence or other, and when there are but you 
 two, man to man, wrench the warrant from him? 
 Staking your life against his, with all those lives for 
 prize? And save them or perish? Why I, even I, a 
 woman, could find it in my heart to do that, were he 
 not my husband ! Surely you, you who are a man, 
 and young " 
 
 "Am no match for him in strength or arms," the 
 minister answered sadly. "Else would I do it.'
 
 ON THE CASTLE HILL. 221 
 
 Else would I stake my life, Heaven knows, as gladly 
 to save their lives as I sit down to meat! But I 
 should fail, and if I failed all were lost. Moreover," 
 he continued solemnly, "I am certified that this task 
 has been set for you. It was not for nothing, Ma- 
 dame, nor to save one poor household that you were 
 joined to this man ; but to ransom all these lives and 
 this great city. To be the Judith of our faith, the 
 saviour of Augers, the " 
 
 " Fool ! Fool ! " she cried. " Will you be silent ? " 
 And she stamped the turf passionately, while her eyes 
 blazed in her white face. "I am no Judith, and no 
 madwoman as you are fain to make me. Mad ? " she 
 continued, overwhelmed with agitation. "My God, 
 I would I were, and I should be free from this ! " 
 And, turning, she walked a little way from him with 
 the gesture of one under a crushing burden. 
 
 He waited a minute, two minutes, three minutes, 
 and still she did not * return. At length she came 
 back, her bearing more composed ; she looked at him 
 and her eyes seized his and seemed as if they would 
 read his soul. "Are you sure," she said, "of what 
 you have told me ? Will you swear that the contents 
 of these letters are as you say 1 " 
 
 "As I live," he answered gravely. "As God 
 lives." 
 
 "And you know of no other way, monsieur? Of 
 no other way ? " she repeated slowly and piteously. 
 
 "Of none, Madame, of none, I swear." 
 
 She sighed deeply, and stood sunk in thought. 
 Then, "When do we reach Augers?" she asked 
 heavily. 
 
 "The day after to-morrow." 
 
 "I have until the day after to-morrow? "
 
 222 COUNT HANNIBAL. 
 
 "Yes. To-night we lie near Vend6me." 
 
 "And to-morrow night?" 
 
 "Near a place called La Fleche. It is possible," he 
 went on with hesitation for he did not understand 
 her "that he may bathe to-morrow, and may hand 
 the packet to you, as he did to-day when I vainly 
 sought speech with you. If he does that " 
 
 "Yes'? " she said, her eyes on his face. 
 
 "The taking will be easy. But when he finds you 
 have it not " he faltered anew "it may go hard 
 with you." 
 
 She did not speak. 
 
 " And there, I think, I can help you. If you will 
 stray from the party, I will meet you and destroy the 
 letter. That done and would God it were done al- 
 ready I will take to flight as best I can, and you 
 will raise the alarm and say that I robbed you of it! 
 And if you tear your dress " 
 
 "No," she said. 
 
 He looked a question. 
 
 "No!" she repeated in a low voice. "If I betray 
 him I will not lie to him ! And no other shall pay 
 the price ! If I ruin him it shall be between him and 
 me, and no other shall have part in it ! " 
 
 He shook his head. "I do not know," he mur- 
 mured, "what he may do to you! " 
 
 "Nor I," she said proudly. "That will be for 
 him." 
 
 Curious eyes had watched the two as they climbed 
 the hill. For the path ran up the slope to the gap 
 which served for gate, much as the path leads up to 
 the Castle Beautiful in old prints of the Pilgrim's 
 journey; and Madame St. Lo had marked the first
 
 ON THE CASTLE HILL. 223 
 
 halt and the second, and, noting every gesture, had 
 lost nothing of the interview save the words. But 
 until the two, after pausing a moment, passed out of 
 sight she made no sign. Then she laughed. And as 
 Count Hannibal, at whom the laugh was aimed, did 
 not heed her, she laughed again. And she hummed 
 the line of Eonsard. 
 
 Still he would not be roused, and, piqued, she had 
 recourse to words. '"I wonder what you would do," 
 she said, "if the old lover followed us, and she went 
 off with him ! " 
 
 "She would not go," he answered coldly, and with- 
 out looking up. 
 
 " But if he rode off with her? " 
 
 "She would come back on her feet! " 
 
 Madame St. Lo's prudence was not proof against 
 that. She had the woman's inclination to hide a 
 woman's secret; and she had not intended, when she 
 laughed, to do more than play with the formidable 
 man with whom so few dared to play. Now, stung 
 by his tone and his assurance, she must needs show 
 him that his trustfulness had no base. And, as so 
 often happens in the circumstances, she went a little 
 farther than the facts bore her. "Any way, he has 
 followed us so far ! " she cried viciously. 
 
 "M. deTignonville?" 
 
 "Yes. I saw him this morning while you were 
 bathing. She left me and went into the little cop- 
 pice. He came down the other side of the brook, 
 stooping and running, and went to join her." 
 
 " How did he cross the brook ? " 
 
 Madame St. Lo blushed. "Old Badelon was there, 
 gathering simples," she said. "He scared him. 
 And he crawled away."
 
 224 COUNT HANNIBAL. 
 
 "Then he did not cross? " 
 
 "No. I did not say he did! " 
 
 "Nor speak to her? " 
 
 "No. But if you think it will pass so next time 
 you do not know much of women ! " 
 
 "Of women generally, not much," he answered, 
 grimly polite. " Of this woman a great deal ! " 
 
 " Yon looked in her big eyes, I suppose ! " Madame 
 St. Lo cried with heat. "And straightway fell down 
 and worshipped her ! " She liked rather than dis- 
 liked the Countess ; but she was of the lightest, and 
 the least opposition drove her out of her course. 
 "And you think you know her! And she, if she 
 could save you from death by opening an eye, would 
 go with a patch on it till her dying day ! Take my 
 word for it, monsieur, between her and her lover you 
 will come to harm. " 
 
 Count Hannibal's swarthy face darkened a tone, 
 and his eyes grew a very little smaller. "I fancy 
 that he runs the greater risk, " he muttered. 
 
 "You may deal with him, but, for her " 
 
 "I can deal with her. You deal with some women 
 with a whip " 
 
 "You would whip me, I suppose? " 
 
 "Y"es," he said quietly. "It would do you good, 
 Madame. And with other women otherwise. There 
 are women who, if they are well frightened, will not 
 deceive you. And there are others who will not de- 
 ceive you though they are frightened. Madame de 
 Tavannes is of the latter kind." 
 
 "Wait! Wait and see! " Madame cried in scorn. 
 
 "I am waiting." 
 
 "Yes! And whereas if you had come to me I could 
 have told her that about M. Tignouville which would
 
 ON THE CASTLE HILL. 225 
 
 have surprised her, you will go on waiting and wait- 
 ing and waiting until one fine day you'll wake up and 
 find Madame gone, and 
 
 "Then I'll take a wife I can whip! " he answered, 
 with a look which apprised her how far she had car- 
 ried it. " But it will not be you, sweet cousin. For 
 I have no whip heavy enough for your case." 
 15
 
 CHAPTEE XXI. 
 
 WOULD, AND WOULD NOT. 
 
 WE noted some way back the ease with which women 
 use one concession as a stepping-stone to a second; 
 and the lack of magnanimity, amounting almost to 
 unscrupulousness, which the best display in their 
 dealings with a retiring foe. But there are conces- 
 sions which touch even a good woman's conscience; 
 and Madame de Tavannes, free by the tenure of a 
 blow, and with that exception treated from hour to 
 hour with rugged courtesy, shrank appalled before 
 the task which confronted her. 
 
 To ignore what La Tribe had told her, to remain 
 passive when a movement on her part might save 
 men, women, and children from death, and a whole 
 city from massacre this was a line of conduct so 
 craven, so selfish that from the first she knew herself 
 incapable of it. But to take the only other course 
 open to her, to betray her husband and rob him of 
 that, the loss of which might ruin him, this needed 
 not courage only, not devotion only, but a hardness 
 proof against reproaches as well as against punish- 
 ment. And the Countess was no fanatic. No haze 
 of bigotry glorified the thing she contemplated, or 
 dressed it in colours other than its own. Even while 
 she acknowledged the necessity of the act and its 
 ultimate righteousness, even while she owned the ob- 
 ligation which lay upon her to perform it, she saw it
 
 SHE WOULD, AND WOULD NOT. 227 
 
 as he would see it, and saw herself as he would see 
 her. 
 
 True, he had done her a great wrong ; and this in 
 the eyes of some might pass for punishment. But he 
 had saved her life where many had perished; and, 
 the wrong done, he had behaved to her with fantastic 
 generosity. In return for which she was to ruin him ! 
 It was not hard to imagine what he would say of her, 
 and of the reward with which she had requited him. 
 
 She pondered over it as they rode that evening, 
 with the westering sun in their eyes and the lengthen- 
 ing shadows of the oaks falling athwart the bracken 
 which fringed the track. Across breezy heaths and 
 over downs, through green bottoms and by hamlets, 
 from which every human creature fled at their ap- 
 proach, they ambled on by twos and threes ; riding in 
 a world of their own, so remote, so different from 
 the real world from which they came and to which 
 they must return that she could have wept in an- 
 guish, cursing God for the wickedness of man which 
 lay so heavy on creation. The gaunt troopers riding 
 at ease with swinging legs and swaying stirrups and 
 singing now a refrain from Eonsard, and now one of 
 those verses of Marot's psalms which all the world 
 had sung three decades before wore their most lamb- 
 like aspect. Behind them Madame St. Lo chattered 
 to Suzanne of a riding mask which had not been 
 brought, or planned expedients, if nothing sufficiently 
 in the mode could be found at Angers. And the 
 other women talked and giggled, screamed when they 
 came to fords, and made much of steep places, where 
 the men must help them. In time of war death's 
 shadow covers but a day, and sorrow out of sight is 
 out of mind. Of all the troop whom the sinking sun
 
 228 COUNT HANNIBAL. 
 
 left within sight of the lofty towers and vine-clad 
 hills of Vendome, three only wore faces attuned 
 to the cruel August week just ending; three only, 
 like dark beads strung far apart on a gay nun's ros- 
 ary, rode, brooding and silent, in their places. The 
 Countess was one ; the others were k_3 two men whose 
 thoughts she filled, and whose eyes now and again 
 sought her, La Tribe's with sombre fire in their 
 depths, Count Hannibal's fraught with a gloomy 
 speculation, which belied his brave words to Madame 
 St. Lo. 
 
 He, moreover, as he rode, had other thoughts; 
 dark ones, which did not touch her. And she, too, 
 had other thoughts at times, dreams of her young 
 lover, spasms of regret, a wild revolt of heart, a cry 
 out of the darkness which had suddenly whelmed her. 
 So that of the three only La Tribe was single-minded. 
 
 This day they rode a long league after sunset, 
 through a scattered oak-wood, where the rabbits 
 sprang up under their horses' heads and the squirrels 
 made angry faces at them from the lower branches. 
 Night was hard upon them when they reached the 
 southern edge of the forest, and looked across the 
 dusky open slopes to a distant light or two which 
 marked where Vendorne stood. "Another league," 
 Count Hannibal muttered ; and he bade the men light 
 fires where they were, and unload the packhorses. 
 "'Tis pure and dry here," he said. "Set a watch, 
 Bigot, and let two men go down for water. I hear 
 frogs below. You do not fear to be moonstruck, 
 Madame ! " 
 
 "I prefer this," she answered in a low voice. 
 
 "Houses are for monks and nuns!" he rejoined 
 heartily. "Give me God's heaven."
 
 SHE WOULD, AND WOULD NOT. 229 
 
 "The earth is His, but we deface it," she murmured, 
 reverting to her thoughts, and unconscious that it was 
 to him she spoke. 
 
 He looked at her sharply, but the fire was not yet 
 kindled ; and in the gloaming her face was a pale blot 
 undecipherable. He stood a moment, but she did not 
 speak again; and Madame St. Lo bustling up, he 
 moved away to give an order. By-and-by the fires 
 burned up, and showed the pillared aisle in which, 
 they sat, small groups dotted here and there on the 
 floor of Nature's cathedral. Through the shadowy 
 Gothic vaulting, the groining of many boughs which 
 met overhead, a rare star twinkled, as through some 
 clerestory window ; and from the dell below rose in 
 the night, now the monotonous chanting of the frogs, 
 and now, as some great bull-frog took the note, a 
 diapason worthy of a Brescian organ. The darkness 
 walled all in ; the night was still ; a falling caterpillar 
 sounded. Even the rude men at the farthest fire 
 stilled their voices at times; awed, they knew not 
 why, by the silence and vastness of the night. 
 
 The Countess long remembered that vigil for she 
 lay late awake ; the cool gloom, the faint wood-rus- 
 tlings, the distant cry of fox or wolf, the soft glow of 
 the expiring fires that at last left the world to dark- 
 ness and the stars ; above all, the silent wheeling of 
 the planets, which spoke indeed of a supreme Euler, 
 but crushed the heart under a sense of its insignifi- 
 cance, and of the insignificance of all human revo- 
 lutions. "Yet, I believe!" she cried, wrestling up- 
 wards, wrestling with herself. "Though I have seen 
 what I have seen, yet I believe! " 
 
 And though she had to bear what she had to bear, 
 and do that from which her soul shrank ! The wo-
 
 230 COUNT HANNIBAL. 
 
 man, indeed, within her continued to cry out against 
 this tragedy ever renewed in her path, against this 
 necessity for choosing evil or good, ease for herself or 
 life for others. But the moving heavens, pointing 
 onward to a time when good and evil alike should be 
 past, strengthened a nature essentially noble ; and be- 
 fore she slept no shame and no suffering seemed for 
 the moment at least too great a price to pay for the 
 lives of little children. Love had been taken from 
 her life ; the pride which would fain answer generos- 
 ity with generosity that must go, too ! 
 
 She felt no otherwise when the day came, and the 
 bustle of the start and the common round of the jour- 
 ney put to flight the ideals of the night. But things 
 fell out in a manner she had not pictured. They 
 halted before noon on the north bank of the Loir, in 
 a level meadow with lines of poplars running this 
 way and that, and filling all the place with the soft 
 shimmer of leaves. Blue succory, tiny mirrors of the 
 summer sky, flecked the long grass, and the women 
 picked bunches of them, or, Italian fashion, twined 
 the blossoms in their hair. A road ran across the 
 meadow to a ferry, but the ferryman, alarmed by 
 the aspect of the party, had conveyed his boat to the 
 other side and hidden himself. 
 
 Presently Madame St. Lo espied the boat, clapped 
 her hands and must have it. The poplars threw no 
 shade, the flies teased her, the life of a hermit in a 
 meadow was no longer to her taste. "Let us go on 
 the water!" she cried. "Presently you will go to 
 bathe, monsieur, and leave us to grill ! " 
 
 "Two livres to the man who will fetch the boat .! " 
 Count Hannibal cried. In less than half a minute 
 three men had thrown off their boots, and were swim-
 
 SHE WOULD, AND WOULD NOT. 231 
 
 ming across, amid the laughter and shouts of their 
 fellows. Iii five minutes the boat was brought. 
 
 It was not large and would hold no more than four. 
 Tavannes' eye fell on Carlat. "You understand a 
 boat," he said. "Go with Madame St. Lo. And 
 you, M. La Tribe." 
 
 "But you are coming 1 ?" Madame St. Lo cried, 
 turning to the Countess. "Oh, Madame," with a 
 curtsey, "you are not? You " 
 
 "Yes, I will come," the Countess answered. 
 
 "I shall bathe a short distance up the stream," 
 Count Hannibal said. He took from his belt the 
 packet of letters, and as Carlat held the boat for 
 Madame St. Lo to enter, he gave it to the Countess, 
 as he had given it to her yesterday. "Have a care of 
 it, Madame," he said in a low voice, "and do not let 
 it pass out of your hands. To lose it may be to lose 
 my head. " 
 
 The colour ebbed from her cheeks. In spite of 
 herself her shaking hand put back the packet. " Had 
 you not better then give it to Bigot?" she fal- 
 tered. 
 
 "He is bathing." 
 
 "Let him bathe afterwards." 
 
 "No," he answered almost harshly; he found a 
 species of pleasure in showing her that, strange as 
 their relations were, he trusted her. "No; take it, 
 Madame. Only have a care of it. " 
 
 She took it then, hid it in her dress, and he turned 
 away; and she turned towards the boat. La Tribe 
 stood beside the stern, holding it for her to enter, and 
 as her fingers rested an instant on his arm their eyes 
 met. His were alight, his arm even quivered; and 
 she shuddered.
 
 232 COUNT HANNIBAL. 
 
 She avoided looking at him a second time, and 
 this was easy, since he took his seat in the bows be- 
 yond Carlat, who handled the oars. Silently the boat 
 glided out on the surface of the stream, and floated 
 downwards, Carlat now and again touching an oar, 
 and Madame St. Lo chattering gaily in a voice which 
 carried far on the water. Now it was a flowering 
 rush she must have, now a green bough to shield her 
 face from the sun's reflection ; and now they must lie 
 in some cool, shadowy pool under fern-clad banks, 
 where the fish rose heavily, and the trickle of a rivu- 
 let fell down over stones. 
 
 It was idyllic. But not to the Countess. Her face 
 burned, her temples throbbed, her fingers gripped 
 the side of the boat in the vain attempt to steady her 
 pulses. The packet within her dress scorched her. 
 The great city and its danger, Tavannes and his faith 
 in her, the need of action, the irrevocableness of ac- 
 tion hurried through her brain. The knowledge that 
 she must act now or never pressed upon her with 
 distracting force. Her hand felt the packet, and fell 
 again nerveless. 
 
 "The sun has caught you, ma mie," Madame St. Lo 
 said. "You should ride in a mask as I do." 
 
 "I have not one with me," she muttered, her eyes 
 on the water. 
 
 " And I but an old one. But at Angers " 
 
 The Countess heard no more; on that word she 
 caught La Tribe's eye. He was beckoning to her be- 
 hind Carlat's back, pointing imperiously to the water, 
 making signs to her to drop the packet over the side. 
 When she did not obey she felt sick and faint she 
 saw through a mist his brow grow dark. He men- 
 aced her secretly. And still the packet scorched her ;
 
 SHE WOULD, BJSD WOULD NOT. 233 
 
 and twice her hand went to it, and dropped again 
 empty. 
 
 On a sudden Madame St. Lo cried out. The bank 
 on one side of the stream was beginning to rise more 
 boldly above the water, and at the head of the steep 
 thus formed she had espied a late rose-bush in bloom ; 
 nothing would now serve but she must land at once 
 and plunder it. The boat was put in therefore, she 
 jumped ashore, and began to scale the bank. 
 
 "Go with Madame ! " La Tribe cried, roughly nudg- 
 ing Carlat in the back. "Do you not see that she 
 cannot climb the bank! Up, man r up! " 
 
 The Countess opened her mouth to cry "No!" but 
 the word died half -born on her lips; and when the 
 steward looked at her, uncertain what she had said, 
 she nodded. " Yes, go ! " she muttered. She was 
 pale. 
 
 "Yes, man, go!" cried the minister, his eyes burn- 
 ing. And he almost pushed the other out of the boat. 
 
 The next second the craft floated from the bank r and 
 began to drift downwards. La Tribe waited until a 
 tree interposed and hid them from the two whom they 
 had left; then he leaned forward. "Now, Madame! " 
 he cried imperiously. " In God's name, now ! " 
 
 " Oh ! " she cried. " Wait ! Wait I I want to think. " 
 
 "To think?" 
 
 " He trusted me ! " she wailed. " He trusted me ! 
 How can I do it?" Nevertheless, and even while 
 she spoke, she drew forth the packet. 
 
 "Heaven has given you the opportunity! " 
 
 " If I could have stolen it ! " she answered. 
 
 "Fool!" he returned rocking himself to and fro 
 and fairly beside himself with impatience. "Why 
 steal it? It is in your hands! You have it! It i*
 
 234 COUNT HANNIBAL. 
 
 Heaven's own opportunity, it is God's opportunity 
 given to you ! " 
 
 For he could not read her mind nor comprehend 
 the scruple which held her hand. He was single- 
 minded. He had but one aim, one object. He saw 
 the haggard faces of brave men hopeless; he heard 
 the dying cries of women and children. Such an 
 opportunity of saving God's elect, of redeeming the 
 innocent, was in his eyes a gift from Heaven. And 
 having these thoughts and seeing her hesitate hesi- 
 tate when every movement caused him agony, so 
 imperative was haste, so precious the opportunity 
 he could bear the suspense no longer. When she 
 did not answer he stooped forward, until his knees 
 touched the thwart on which Carlat had sat; then 
 without a word he flung himself forward, and, with 
 one hand far extended, grasped the packet. 
 
 Had he not moved, she would have done his will ; 
 almost certainly she would have done it. But, thus 
 attacked, she resisted instinctively ; she clung to the 
 letters. " No ! " she cried. "No! Let go, monsieur I." 
 And she tried to drag the packet from him. 
 
 "Give it me!" 
 
 "Let go, monsieur! Do you hear!" she repeated. 
 And with a vigorous jerk she forced it from him he 
 had caught it by the edge only and held it behind 
 her. "Go back, and " 
 
 " Give it me ! " he panted. 
 
 "I will not!" 
 
 "Then throw it overboard! " 
 
 "I will not! " she cried again, though his face, dark 
 with passion, glared into hers, and it was clear that 
 the man, possessed by one idea only, was no longer 
 master of himself. "Go back to your place ! "
 
 SHE WOULD, AND WOULD JS T OT. 235 
 
 "Give it me," he gasped, "or I will upset the 
 boat ! " And seizing her by the shoulder he reached 
 over her, striving to take hold of the packet which 
 she held behind her. The boat rocked ; and as much 
 in rage as fear she screamed. 
 
 A cry uttered wholly in rage answered hers; it 
 came from Carlat. La Tribe, however, whose whole 
 mind was fixed on the packet, did not heed, nor would 
 have heeded, the steward. But the next moment a 
 second cry, fierce as that of a wild beast, clove the air 
 from the lower and farther bank ; and the Huguenot, 
 recognising Count Hannibal's voice, involuntarily de- 
 sisted and stood erect. A moment the boat rocked 
 perilously under him; then for unheeded it had 
 been drifting that way it softly touched the bank on 
 which Carlat stood staring and aghast. 
 
 La Tribe's chance was gone; he saw that the 
 steward must reach him before he could succeed in 
 a second attempt. On the other hand, the under- 
 growth on the bank was thick, he could touch it with 
 his hand, and if he fled at once he might escape. 
 
 He hung an instant irresolute; then, with a look 
 which went to the Countess's heart, he sprang ashore, 
 plunged among the alders, and in a moment was gone. 
 
 "After him! After him!" thundered Count Han- 
 nibal. "After him, man!" and Carlat, stumbling 
 down the steep slope and through the rough briars, 
 did his best to obey. But in vain. Before he reached 
 the water's edge, the noise of the fugitive's retreat had 
 grown faint. A few seconds and it died away.
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 PLAYING WITH FIEE. 
 
 THE impulse of La Tribe's foot as lie landed liad 
 driven the boat into the stream. It drifted slowly 
 downward, and if naught intervened would take the 
 ground on Count Hannibal's side, a hundred and 
 fifty yards below him. He saw this, and walked 
 along the bank, keeping pace with it, while the 
 Countess sat motionless, crouching in the stern of the 
 craft, her fingers strained about the fatal packet. 
 The slow glide of the boat, as almost imperceptibly it 
 approached the low bank ; the stillness of the mirror- 
 like surface on which it moved, leaving only the 
 faintest ripple behind it ; the silence for under the 
 influence of emotion Count Hannibal too was mute 
 all were in tremendous contrast with the storm which 
 raged in her breast. 
 
 Should she should she even now, with his eyes on 
 her, drop the letters over the side ? It needed but a 
 movement. She had only to extend her hand, to re- 
 lax the tension of her fingers, and the deed was done. 
 Ft needed only that ; but the golden sands of oppor- 
 tunity were running out were running out fast. 
 Slowly and more slowly, silently and more silently, 
 the boat slid in towards the bank on which he stood, 
 and still she hesitated. The stillness, and the waiting 
 figure, and the watching eyes now but a few feet dis- 
 tant, weighed on her and seemed to paralyse her will.
 
 PLAYING WITH FIEE. 237 
 
 A foot, another foot ! A moment and it would be too 
 late, the last of the sands would hare run out. The 
 bow of the boat rustled softly through the rushes; 
 it kissed the bank. And her hand still held the 
 letters. 
 
 "You are not hurt? " he asked curtly. 
 
 "No." 
 
 "The scoundrel might have drowned you. Was he 
 mad?" 
 
 She was silent. He held out his hand, and she 
 gave him the packet. "I owe you much," he said, 
 a ring of gaiety, almost of triumph, in his tone. 
 " More than you guess, Madame. God made you for 
 a soldier's wife, and a mother of soldiers. What? 
 You are not well, I am afraid ? " 
 
 "If I could sit down a minute," she faltered. She 
 was swaying on her feet. 
 
 He supported her across the belt of meadow which 
 fringed the bank, and made her recline against a 
 tree. Then as his men began to come up for the 
 alarm had reached them he would have sent two of 
 them in the boat to fetch Madame St. Lo to her. 
 But she would not let him. "Your maid, then?" he 
 said. 
 
 "No, monsieur, I need only to be alone a little! 
 Only to be alone," she repeated, her face averted; 
 and believing this he sent the men away, and, taking 
 the boat himself, he crossed over, took in Madame St. 
 Lo and Carlat, and rowed them to the ferry. Here 
 the wildest rumours were current. One held that the 
 Huguenot had gone out of his senses ; another, that 
 he had watched for this opportunity of avenging his 
 brethren; a third, that his intention had been to 
 carry off the Countess and hold her to ransom.
 
 238 COUNT HANNIBAL. 
 
 Tavanues himself, from his position on the farther 
 bank, had seen the packet of letters, and the hand 
 which withheld them; and he said nothing. Nay, 
 when some of the men would have crossed to search 
 for the fugitive, he forbade them, he scarcely knew 
 why, save that it might please her; and when the 
 women would have hurried to join her and hear the 
 tale from her lips he forbade them also. 
 
 "She wishes to be alone," he said curtly. 
 
 "Alone?" Madame St. Lo cried, in a fever of cu- 
 riosity. "You'll find her dead, or worse! What? 
 Leave a woman alone after such a fright as that ! " 
 
 "She wishes it." 
 
 Madame laughed cynically ; and the laugh brought 
 a tinge of colour to his brow. "Oh, does she?" she 
 sneered. " Then I understand ! Have a care, have 
 a care, or one of these days, monsieur, when you 
 leave her alone, you'll find them together! " 
 
 "Be silent!" 
 
 "With pleasure," she returned. "Only when it 
 happens don't say that you were not warned. You 
 think that she does not hear from him " 
 
 " How can she hear? " The words were wrung from 
 him. 
 
 Madame St. Lo's contempt passed all limits. 
 "How can she!" she retorted. "You trail a woman 
 across France, and let her sit by herself, and lie 
 by herself, and all but drown by herself, and you ask 
 how she hears from her lover? You leave her old 
 servants about her, and you ask how she communi- 
 cates with him?" 
 
 "You know nothing! " he snarled. 
 
 "I know this," she retorted. "I saw her sitting 
 this morning, and smiling and weeping at the same
 
 PLAYING WITH FIEE. 239 
 
 time! "Was she thinking of you, monsieur? Or of 
 him I She was looking at the hills through tears ; a 
 blue mist hung over them, and I'll wager she saw 
 some one's eyes gazing and some one's hand beckon- 
 ing out of the blue! " 
 
 "Curse you! " he cried, tormented in spite of him- 
 self. "You love to make mischief! " 
 
 "No!" she answered swiftly. "For 'twas not I 
 made the match. But go your way, go your way, 
 monsieur, and see what kind of a welcome you'll 
 get!" 
 
 "I will," Count Hannibal growled. And he started 
 along the bank to rejoin his wife. 
 
 The light in his eyes had died down. Yet would 
 they have been more sombre, and his face more harsh, 
 had he known the mind of the woman to whom he 
 was hastening. The Countess had begged to be left 
 alone; alone, she found the solitude she had craved 
 a cruel gift. She had saved the packet. She had 
 fulfilled her trust. But only to experience, the mo- 
 ment it was too late, the full poignancy of remorse. 
 Before the act, while the choice had lain with her, the 
 betrayal of her husband had loomed large ; now she 
 saw that to treat him as she had treated him was the 
 true betrayal, and that even for his own sake, and to 
 save him from a fearful sin, it had become her to 
 destroy the letters. 
 
 Now, it was no longer her duty to him which 
 loomed large, but her duty to the innocent, to the 
 victims of the massacre which she might have stayed, 
 to the people of her faith whom she had abandoned, 
 to the women and children whose death-warrant she 
 had preserved. Now, she perceived that a part more 
 divine had never fallen to woman, nor a responsibil-
 
 240 COUNT HANNIBAL. 
 
 ity so heavy been laid upon woman. Nor guilt more 
 dread! 
 
 She writhed in misery, thinking of it. What had 
 she done I She could hear afar off the sounds of the 
 camp; an occasional outcry, a snatch of laughter. 
 And the cry and the laughter rang in her ears, a bit- 
 ter mockery. This summer camp, to what was it the 
 prelude? This forbearance on her husband's part, in 
 what would it end? Were not the one and the other 
 cruel make-believes ? Two days, and the men who 
 laughed beside the water would slay and torture with 
 equal zest. A little, and the husband who now chose 
 to be generous would show himself in his true colours. 
 And it was for the sake of such as these that she had 
 played the coward. That she had laid up for herself 
 endless remorse. That henceforth the cries of the 
 innocent would haunt her dreams. 
 
 Racked by such thoughts she did not hear his step, 
 and it was his shadow falling across her feet which 
 first warned her of his presence. She looked up, saw 
 him, and involuntarily recoiled. Then, seeing the 
 change in his face, "Oh! monsieur," she stammered 
 affrighted, her hand pressed to her side, "I ask your 
 pardon ! You startled me ! " 
 
 "So it seems," he answered. And he stood over 
 her regarding her drily. 
 
 "I am not quite myself yet," she murmured. His 
 look told her that her start had betrayed her feelings. 
 
 Alas, the plan of taking a woman by force has 
 drawbacks, and among others this one : that he must 
 be a sanguine husband who deems her heart his, and 
 a husband without jealousy, whose suspicions are not 
 aroused by the faintest flush or the lightest word. 
 He knows that she is his unwillingly, a victim, not a
 
 PLAYING WITH FIEE. 241 
 
 mistress ; and behind every bnsh beside the road and 
 behind every mask in the crowd be espies a rival. 
 
 Moreover, where women are in question, who is 
 always strong 1 ? Or who can say how long he will 
 pursue this plan or that"? A man of sternest temper, 
 Count Hannibal had set out on a path of conduct 
 carefully and deliberately chosen ; knowing and he 
 still knew that if he abandoned it he had little to 
 hope, if the less to fear. But the proof of fidelity 
 which the Countess had just given him had blown to 
 a white heat the smouldering flame in his heart, and 
 Madame St. Lo's gibes, which should have fallen as 
 cold water alike on his hopes and his passion, had 
 but fed the desire to know the best. For all that, he 
 might not have spoken now, if be had not caught her 
 look of affright; strange as it sounds, that look, 
 which of all things should have silenced him and 
 warned him that the time was not yet, stung him out 
 of patience. Suddenly the man in him carried him 
 away. 
 
 "You still fear me, then!" he said, in a voice 
 hoarse and unnatural. "Is it for what I do or for 
 what I leave undone that yon hate me, Madame? 
 Tell me, I beg, for " 
 
 "For neither!" she said, trembling. His eyes, 
 hot and passionate, were on her, and the blood had 
 mounted to his brow. "For neither! I do not hate 
 you, monsieur ! " 
 
 "You fear me then! I am right in that." 
 
 "I fear that which you carry with you," she stam- 
 mered, speaking on impulse and scarcely knowing 
 what she said. 
 
 He started, and his expression changed. "So?" he 
 exclaimed. "So? You know what I carry, do you?
 
 242 COUNT HANNIBAL. 
 
 And from whom 1 From whom ? " he continued in a 
 tone of menace, "if you please, did you get that 
 knowledge ? " 
 
 "From M. La Tribe," she muttered. She had not 
 meant to tell him. Why had she told him ? 
 
 He nodded. "I might have known it," he said. 
 "I more than suspected it. Therefore I should be 
 the more beholden to you for saving the letters. 
 But" he paused and laughed harshly "it was out 
 of no love for me you saved them. That, too, I 
 know. " 
 
 She did not answer or protest ; and when he had 
 waited a moment in vain expectation of her protest, 
 a cruel look crept into his eyes. "Madame," he said 
 slowly, "do you never reflect that you may push the 
 part you play too far? That the patience, even of 
 the worst of men, does not endure for ever ? " 
 
 " I have your word ! " she answered. 
 
 " And you do not fear ? " 
 
 "I have your word," she repeated. And now she 
 looked him bravely in the face, her eyes full of the 
 courage of her race. 
 
 The lines of his mouth hardened as he met her look. 
 "And what have I of yours? " he said in a low voice. 
 " What have I of yours? " 
 
 Her face began to burn at that, her eyes fell and 
 she faltered. "My gratitude," she murmured, with 
 an upward look that craved for pity. "God knows, 
 monsieur, you have that ! " 
 
 "God knows I do not want it!" he answered. 
 And he laughed derisively. "Your gratitude!" 
 And he mocked her tone rudely and coarsely. 
 "Your gratitude?" Then for a minute for so long 
 a time that she began to wonder and to quake he
 
 PLAYING WITH FIEE. 243 
 
 was silent. At last, "A fig for your gratitude," 
 he said. "I want your love! I suppose cold as 
 you are, and a Huguenot you can love like other 
 women ! " 
 
 It was the first, the very first time he had used the 
 word to her ; and though it fell from his lips like a 
 threat, though he used it as a man presents a pistol, 
 she flushed anew from throat to brow. But she did 
 not quail. "It is not mine to give," she said. 
 
 "It is his!" 
 
 " Yes, monsieur, " she answered, wondering at her 
 courage, at her audacity, her madness. "It is his." 
 
 "And it cannot be mine at any time? " 
 
 She shook her head, trembling. 
 
 "Never?" And, suddenly reaching forward, he 
 gripped her wrist in an iron grasp. There was pas- 
 sion in his tone. His eyes burned her. 
 
 Whether it was that set her on another track, or 
 pure despair, or the cry in her ears of little children 
 and of helpless women, something in a moment in- 
 spired her, flashed in her eyes and altered her voice. 
 She raised her head and looked him firmly in the 
 face. "What," she said, "do you mean by love? " 
 
 "You! " he answered brutally. 
 
 "Then it may be, monsieur," she returned. 
 "There is a way if you will." 
 
 "Away!" 
 
 "If you will!" As she spoke she rose slowly to 
 her feet ; for in his surprise he had released her wrist. 
 He rose with her, and they stood confronting one an- 
 other on the strip of grass between the river and the 
 poplars. 
 
 "If I will? " His form seemed to dilate, his eyes 
 devoured her. " If I will ? "
 
 244 COUNT HANNIBAL. 
 
 "Yes>" she replied. "If you will give me the let- 
 ters that are in your belt, the packet which I saved 
 to-day that I may destroy them I will be yours 
 freely and willingly." 
 
 He drew a deep breath, still devouring her with his 
 eyes. " You mean it 1 " he said at last. 
 
 "I do." She looked him in the face as she spoke, 
 and her cheeks were white, not red. "Only the 
 letters ! Give me the letters. " 
 
 " And for them you will give me your love ? " 
 
 Her eyes flickered, and involuntarily she shivered. 
 A faint blush rose and dyed her cheeks. "Only God 
 can give love, " she said, her tone lower. 
 
 "And yours is given?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "To another?" 
 
 "I have said it." 
 
 "It is his. And yet for these letters " 
 
 "For these lives!" she cried proudly. 
 
 "You will give yourself?" 
 
 "I swear it," she answered, "if you will give them 
 to me ! If you will give them to me, " she repeated. 
 And she held out her hands ; her face, full of passion, 
 was bright with a strange light. A close observer 
 might have thought her distraught ; still excited by 
 the struggle in the boat, and barely mistress of herself. 
 
 But the man whom she tempted, the man who held 
 her price at his belt, after one searching look at her 
 turned from her ; perhaps because he could not trust 
 himself to gaze on her. Count Hannibal walked a 
 dozen paces from her and returned, and again a dozen 
 paces and returned; and again a third time, with 
 something fieree and passionate in his gait. At last 
 he stopped before her.
 
 PLAYING WITH FIRE. 245 
 
 "You have nothing to offer for them," he said, in a 
 cold, hard tone. " Nothing that is not mine already, 
 nothing that is not my right, nothing that I cannot 
 take at my will. My word ? " he continued, seeing 
 her about to interrupt him. "True, Madame, you 
 have it, you had it. But why need I keep my word 
 to you, who tempt me to break my word to the 
 King?" 
 
 She made a weak gesture with her hands. Her 
 head had sunk on her breast she seemed dazed by 
 the shock of his contempt, dazed by his reception of 
 her offer. 
 
 "You saved the letters?" he continued, interpret- 
 ing her action. " True, but the letters are mine, and 
 that which you offer for them is mine also. You 
 have nothing to offer. For the rest, Madame," he 
 went on, eyeing her cynically, "you surprise me! 
 You, whose modesty and virtue are so great, would 
 corrupt your husband, would sell yourself, would 
 dishonour the love of which you boast so loudly, the 
 love that only God gives ! " He laughed derisively as 
 he quoted her words. "Ay, and, after showing at 
 how low a price you hold yourself, you still look, I 
 doubt not, to me to respect you, and to keep my 
 word. Madame ! " in a terrible voice, " do not play 
 with fire! You saved my letters, it is true! And 
 for that, for this time, you shall go free, if God will 
 help me to let you go ! But tempt me not ! Tempt 
 me not ! " he repeated, turning from her and turning 
 back again with a gesture of despair, as if he mis- 
 trusted the strength of the restraint which he put 
 upon himself. "I am no more than other men! 
 Perhaps I am less. And you you who prate of love, 
 and know not what love is could love ! could love ! "
 
 246 COUNT HANNIBAL. 
 
 He stopped on that word as if the word choked him 
 stopped, struggling with his passion. At last, with 
 a half -stifled oath, he flung away from her, halted 
 and hung a moment, then, with a swing of rage, went 
 off again violently. His feet as he strode along the 
 river-bank trampled the flowers, and slew the pale 
 water forget-me-not, which grew among the grasses.
 
 CHAPTEE XXIII. 
 
 A MIND, AND NOT A MIND. 
 
 LA TRIBE tore through the thicket, imagining Car- 
 lat and Count Hannibal hot on his heels. He dared 
 not pause even to listen. The underwood tripped 
 him, the lissom branches of the alders whipped 
 his face and blinded him; once he fell headlong 
 over a moss-grown stone, and picked himself up 
 groaning. But the hare hard-pushed takes no ac- 
 count of the briars, nor does the fox heed the mud 
 through which it draws itself into covert. And for 
 the time he was naught but a hunted beast. With 
 elbows pinned to his sides, or with hands extended to 
 ward off the boughs, with bursting lungs and crimson 
 face, he plunged through the tangle, now slipping 
 downwards, now leaping upwards, now all but pros- 
 trate, now breasting a mass of thorns. On and on he 
 ran, until he came to the verge of the wood, saw be- 
 fore him an open meadow devoid of shelter or hiding- 
 place, and with a groan of despair cast himself flat. 
 He listened. How far were they behind him ? 
 
 He heard nothing. Nothing, save the common 
 noises of the wood, the angry chatter of a disturbed 
 blackbird as it flew low into hiding, or the harsh 
 notes of a flock of starlings as they rose from the 
 meadow. The hum of bees filled the air, and the 
 August flies buzzed about his sweating brow, for he
 
 248 COUNT HANNIBAL. 
 
 had lost his cap. But behind him nothing. Al- 
 ready the stillness of the wood had closed upon his 
 track. 
 
 He was not the less panic-stricken. He supposed 
 that Tavannes' people were getting to horse, and cal- 
 culated that if they surrounded and beat the wood, 
 he must be taken. At the thought, though he had 
 barely got his breath, he rose, and keeping within the 
 coppice crawled down the slope towards the river. 
 Gently, when he reached it, he slipped into the wa- 
 ter, and stooping below the level of the bank, his 
 head and shoulders hidden by the bushes, he waded 
 down stream until he had put another hundred and 
 fifty yards between himself and pursuit. Then he 
 paused and listened. Still he heard nothing, and he 
 waded on again, until the water grew deep. At this 
 point he marked a little below him a clump of trees 
 on the farther side ; and reflecting that that side if 
 he could reach it unseen would be less suspect, he 
 swam across, aiming for a thorn bush which grew 
 low to the water. Under its shelter he crawled out, 
 and, worming himself like a snake across the few 
 yards of grass which intervened, he stood at length 
 within the shadow of the trees. A moment he 
 paused to shake himself, and then, remembering that 
 he was still within a mile of the camp, he set off, 
 now walking, and now running in the direction of 
 the hills which his party had crossed that morning. 
 
 For a time he hurried on, thinking only of escape. 
 But when he had covered a mile or two, and escape 
 seemed probable, there began to mingle with his 
 thankfulness a bitter a something which grew more 
 bitter with each moment. Why had he fled and left 
 the work undone? Why had he given way to un-
 
 A MIND, ATO NOT A Mim). 249 
 
 worthy fear, when the letters were within his grasp f 
 True, if he had lingered a few seconds longer, he 
 would have failed to make good his escape ; but what 
 of that if in those seconds he had destroyed the let- 
 ters, he had saved Angers, he had saved his brethren? 
 Alas ! he had played the coward. The terror of Ta- 
 vannes' voice had unmanned him. He had saved 
 himself and left the flock to perish ; he, whom God 
 had set apart by many and great signs for this work! 
 
 He had commonly courage enough. He could 
 have died at the stake . for his convictions. But he 
 had not the presence of mind which is proof against a 
 shock, nor the cool judgment which, in the face of 
 death, sees to the end of two roads. He was no 
 coward, but now he deemed himself one, and in an 
 agony of remorse he flung himself on his face in the 
 long grass. He had known trials and temptations, 
 but hitherto he had held himself erect; now, like 
 Peter, he had betrayed his Lord. 
 
 He lay an hour groaning in the misery of his heart, 
 and then he fell on the text u Thou art Peter, and on 
 
 this rock " and he sat up. Peter had betrayed 
 
 his trust through cowardice as he had. But Peter 
 had not been held unworthy. Might it not be so 
 with him 1 ? He rose to his feet, a new light in his 
 eyes. He would return! He would return, and at 
 all costs, even at the cost of surrendering himself, he 
 would obtain access to the letters. And then not 
 the fear of Count Hannibal, not the fear of instant 
 death, should turn him from his duty. 
 
 He had east himself down in a woodland glade 
 which lay near the path along which he had ridden 
 that morning. But the mental conflict from which 
 he rose had shaken him so violently that he could not
 
 250 COUNT HANNIBAL. 
 
 recall the side on which he had entered the clearing, 
 and he turned himself about, endeavouring to re- 
 member. At that moment the light jingle of a bridle 
 struck his ear ; he caught through the green bushes 
 the flash and sparkle of harness. They had tracked 
 him then, they were here! So had he clear proof 
 that this second chance was to be his. In a happy 
 fervour he stood forward where the pursuers could 
 not fail to see him. 
 
 Or so he thought. Yet the first horseman, riding 
 carelessly with his face averted and his feet dangling, 
 would have gone by and seen nothing if his horse, 
 more watchful, had not shied. The man turned then ; 
 and for a moment the two stared at one another be- 
 tween the pricked ears of the horse. At last, 
 
 "M. de Tignonville ! " the minister ejaculated. 
 
 "La Tribe!" 
 
 "It is truly you?" 
 
 "Well I think so," the young man answered. 
 
 The minister lifted up his eyes and seemed to call 
 the trees and the clouds and the birds to witness. 
 "Now," he cried, "I know that I am chosen! And 
 that we were instruments to do this thing from the 
 day when the hen saved us in the hay-cart in Paris ! 
 Now I know that all is forgiven and all is ordained, 
 and that the faithful of Angers shall to-morrow live 
 and not die ! " And with a face radiant, yet solemn, 
 he walked to the young man's stirrup. 
 
 An instant Tignonville looked sharply before him. 
 "How far ahead are they?" he asked. His tone, 
 hard and matter-of-fact, was little in harmony with 
 the other's enthusiasm. 
 
 "They are resting a league before you, at the ferry. 
 You are in pursuit of them f "
 
 A MIND, AND NOT A MIND. 251 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "Not alone?" 
 
 "No." The young man's look as he spoke was 
 grim. "I have five behind me of your kidney, 
 M. La Tribe. They are from the Arsenal. They 
 have lost one his wife, and one his son. The three 
 others " 
 
 "Yes?" 
 
 "Sweethearts," Tignonville answered drily. And 
 he east a singular look at the minister. 
 
 But La Tribe's mind was so full of one matter, he 
 could think only of that. "How did you hear of the 
 letters?" he asked. 
 
 "The letters?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "I do not know what you mean." 
 
 La Tribe stared. "Then why are you following 
 him ? " he asked. 
 
 "Why?" Tignouville echoed, a look of hate dark- 
 ening his face. "Do you ask why we follow " 
 
 But on the name he seemed to choke and was si- 
 lent. 
 
 By this time his men had come up, and one an- 
 swered for him. "Why are we following Hannibal 
 de Tavanues? " he said sternly. "To do to him as he 
 has done to us! To rob him as he has robbed us 
 of more than gold ! To kill him as he has killed 
 ours, foully and by surprise ! In his bed if we can ! 
 In the arms of his wife if God wills it ! " 
 
 The speaker's face was haggard from brooding and 
 lack of sleep, but his eyes glowed and burned, as his 
 fellows growled assent. 
 
 "'Tis simple why we follow," a second put in. 
 "Is there a man of our faith who will not, when he
 
 252 COUNT HANNIBAL. 
 
 hears the tale, rise up and stab the nearest of this 
 black brood though it be his brother? If so, God's 
 curse on him ! " 
 
 " Amen t Amen ! " 
 
 "So, and so only," cried the first, "shall there be 
 faith in our land ! And our children, our little maids, 
 shall lie safe in their beds ! " 
 
 " Amen ! Amen ! " 
 
 The speaker's chin sank on his breast, and with his 
 last word the light died out of his eyes. La Tribe 
 looked at him curiously, then at the others. Last of 
 all at Tignonville, on whose face he fancied that he 
 surprised a faint smile. Yet Tiguonville's tone when 
 he spoke was grave enough. "You have heard/' he 
 said. "Do you blame us? " 
 
 "I cannot," the minister answered, shivering. "I 
 can not. " He had been for a while beyond the range 
 of these feelings ; and in the greenwood, under God's 
 heaven, with the sunshine about him, they jarred on 
 him. Yet he could not blame men who had suffered 
 as these had suffered ; who were maddened, as these 
 were maddened, by the gravest wrongs which it is 
 possible for one man to inflict on another. "I dare 
 not," he continued sorrowfully. "But in God's name 
 I offer you a higher and a nobler errand. " 
 
 " We need none, " Tignonville muttered impatiently. 
 
 "Yet may others need you," La Tribe answered in 
 a tone of rebuke. "You are not aware that the man 
 you follow bears a packet from the King for the 
 hands of the magistrates of Angers ? " 
 
 "Ha! Does he?" 
 
 "Bidding them do at Angers as his Majesty has 
 done in Paris'?" 
 
 The men broke into cries of execration. "But he
 
 A MIND, AND NOT A MIND. 253 
 
 shall not see Angers! " they swore. "The blood that 
 he has shed shall choke him by the way ! And as he 
 would do to others it shall be done to him. " 
 
 La Tribe shuddered as he listened, as he looked. 
 Try as he would, the thirst of these men for ven- 
 geance appalled him. "How 1 ? " he said. "He has a 
 score and more with him : and you are only six. " 
 
 "Seven now," Tignonville answered with a smile. 
 
 "True, but " 
 
 "And he lies to-night at La Fleche? That is so! " 
 
 "It was his intention this morning." 
 
 "At the old King's Inn at the meeting of the great 
 roads ? " 
 
 " It was mentioned, " La Tribe admitted, with a re- 
 luctance he did not comprehend. "But if the night 
 be fair he is as like as not to lie in the fields. " 
 
 One of the men pointed to the sky. A dark bank 
 of cloud fresh risen from the ocean, and big with 
 tempest, hung low in the west. "See! God will de- 
 liver him into our hands ! " he cried. 
 
 Tignonville nodded. "If he lie there," he said, 
 "He will." And then to one of his followers, as he 
 dismounted, "Do you ride on," he said, "and stand 
 guard that we be not surprised. And do you, Perrot, 
 tell monsieur. Perrot here, as God wills it, " he added 
 with a faint smile which did not escape the minister's 
 eye, "married his wife from the great inn at La 
 Fleche, and he knows the place." 
 
 "None better," the man growled. He was a sullen, 
 brooding knave, whose eyes when he looked up sur- 
 prised by their savage fire. 
 
 La Tribe shook his head. "I know it, too," he 
 said. " 'Tis strong as a fortress, with a walled court, 
 and all the windows look inwards. The gates are
 
 254 COUNT HANNIBAL. 
 
 closed an hour after sunset, no matter who is with- 
 out. If you think, M. de Tignonville, to take him 
 there " 
 
 "Patience, monsieur, you have not heard me," 
 Perrot interposed. "I know it after another fashion. 
 Do you remember a rill of water which runs through 
 the great yard and the stabies? " 
 
 La Tribe nodded. 
 
 " Grated with iron at either end, and no passage for 
 so much as a dog I You do I Well, monsieur, I have 
 hunted rats there, and where the water passes under 
 the wall is a culvert, a man's height in length. In it 
 is a stone, one of those which frame the grating at the 
 entrance, which a strong man can remove and the 
 man is in ! " 
 
 "Ay, in! But where!" La Tribe asked, his eye- 
 brows drawn together. 
 
 "Well said, monsieur, where?" Perrot rejoined in 
 a tone of triumph. "There lies the point. In the 
 stables, where will be sleeping men, and a snorer on 
 every truss 1 ? No, but in a fairway between two 
 stables where the water at its entrance runs clear in 
 a stone channel ; a channel deepened in one place 
 that they may draw for the chambers above w r ith a 
 rope and a bucket. The rooms above are the best in 
 the house, four in one row, opening all on the gallery ; 
 which was uncovered, in the common fashion, until 
 Queen-Mother Jezebel, passing that way to Nantes, 
 two years back, found the chambers draughty; and 
 that end of the gallery was closed in against her re- 
 turn. Now, monsieur, he and his madame will lie 
 there ; and he will feel safe, for there is but one way 
 to those four rooms -through the door which shuts off 
 the covered gallery from the open part. But "
 
 A MIND, AND NOT A MIND. 255 
 
 he glanced up an instant and La Tribe caught the 
 smouldering fire in his eyes "we shall not go in by 
 the door." 
 
 "The bucket rises through a trap 1 ? " 
 
 "In the gallery? To be sure, monsieur. In the 
 corner beyond the fourth door. There shall he fall 
 into the pit which he dug for others, and the evil that 
 he planned rebound on his own head ! " 
 
 La Tribe was silent. "What think you of it?" 
 Tignonville asked. 
 
 "That it is cleverly planned," the minister an- 
 swered. 
 
 "No more than that! " 
 
 "No more until I have eaten." 
 
 "Get him something!" Tignonville replied in a 
 surly tone. "And we may as well eat, ourselves. 
 Lead the horses into the wood. And do you, Perrot, 
 call Tuez-les-Moines, who is forward. Two hours' 
 riding should bring us to La Fleche. We need not 
 leave here, therefore, until the sun is low. To din- 
 ner! To dinner!" 
 
 Probably he did not feel the indifference he affected, 
 for his face as he ate grew darker, and from time to 
 time he shot a glance, barbed with suspicion, at the 
 minister. La Tribe on his side remained silent, al- 
 though the men ate apart. He was in doubt, indeed, 
 as to his own feelings. His instinct and his reason 
 were at odds. Through all, however, a single pur- 
 pose, the rescue of Angers, held good, and gradually 
 other things fell into their places. When the meal 
 was at an end, and Tignonville challenged him, he 
 was ready. 
 
 "Your enthusiasm seems to have waned," the 
 younger man said with a sneer, "since we met, mon-
 
 266 COUNT HANNIBAL. 
 
 sieur ! May I ask now if you find any fault with the 
 plan?" 
 
 "With the plan, none." 
 
 "If it was Providence brought us together, was it 
 not Providence furnished me with Perrot who knows 
 La Fldche ? If it was Providence brought the danger 
 of the faithful in Angers to your knowledge, was it 
 not Providence set us on the road without whom 
 you had been powerless?" 
 
 "I believe it!" 
 
 "Then, in His name, what is the matter? " Tignon- 
 ville rejoined with a passion of which the other's 
 manner seemed an inadequate cause. "What will 
 you? What is it?" 
 
 "I would take your place," La Tribe answered 
 quietly. 
 
 "My place?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 " What, are we too many ? " 
 
 " We are enough without you, M. Tignonville, " the 
 minister answered. "These men, who have wrongs 
 to avenge, God will justify them." 
 
 Tignonville 's eyes sparkled with anger. "And 
 have I no wrongs to avenge? " he cried. " Is it noth- 
 ing to lose my mistress, to be robbed of my wife, to 
 see the woman I love dragged off to be a slave and a. 
 toy ? Are these no wrongs I " 
 
 "He spared your life, if he did not save it," the 
 minister said solemnly. "And hers. And her ser- 
 vants. " 
 
 "To suit himself." 
 
 La Tribe spread out his hands. 
 
 "To suit himself ! And for that you wish him to 
 go free?" Tignonville cried in a voice half -choked
 
 A MIND, AND NOT A MIND. 257 
 
 with rage. "Do you know that this man, and this 
 man alone, stood forth in the great Hall of the 
 Louvre, and when even the King flinched, justified 
 the murder of our people? After that is he to go 
 free?" 
 
 "At your hands," La Tribe answered quietly. 
 "You alone of our people must not pursue him." 
 He would have added more, but Tignonville would 
 not listen. 
 
 Brooding on his wrongs behind the wall of the 
 Arsenal, he had let hatred eat away his more gener- 
 ous instincts. Vain and conceited, he fancied that 
 the world laughed at the poor figure he had cut ; and 
 the wound in his vanity festered until nothing would 
 serve but to see the downfall of his enemy. Instant 
 pursuit, instant vengeance only these, he fancied, 
 could restore him in his fellows' eyes. 
 
 In his heart he knew what would become him bet- 
 ter. But vanity is a potent motive: and his con- 
 science, even when supported by La Tribe, struggled 
 but weakly. From neither would he hear more. 
 "You have travelled with him, until you side with 
 him!" he cried violently. "Have a care, monsieur, 
 have a care lest we think you papist ! " And walking 
 over to the men he bade them saddle ; adding a sour 
 word which tulned their eyes, in no friendly gaze, on 
 the minister. 
 
 After that La Tribe said no more. Of what use 
 would it have been ? 
 
 But as darkness came on and cloaked the little 
 troop, and the storm which the men had foreseen be- 
 gan to rumble in the west, his distaste for the busi- 
 ness waxed. The summer lightning which presently 
 began to play across the sky revealed not only the 
 17
 
 258 COUNT HANNIBAL. 
 
 broad gleaming stream, between which and a wooded 
 hill their road ran, but the faces of his companions ; 
 and these in their turn shed a grisly light on the 
 bloody enterprise towards which they were set. Ner- 
 vous and ill at ease, the minister's mind dwelt on 
 the stages of that enterprise; the stealthy entrance 
 through the waterway, the ascent through the trap, 
 the surprise, the slaughter in the sleeping-chamber. 
 And either because he had lived for days in the vic- 
 tim's company, or was swayed by the arguments he 
 had addressed to another, the prospect shook his soul. 
 
 In vain he told himself that this was the oppressor ; 
 he saw only the man, fresh roused from sleep, with 
 the horror of impending dissolution in his eyes. And 
 when the rider, behind whom he sat, pointed to a 
 faint spark of light, at no great distance before them, 
 and whispered that it was St. Agnes 's Chapel, hard 
 by the inn, he could have cried with the best Catholic 
 of them all, " Inter pontem et fontem, Domine!" 
 Nay, some such words did pass his lips. 
 
 For the man before him turned half-way in his 
 saddle. " What ?" he asked. 
 
 But the Huguenot did not explain.
 
 CHAPTEE XXIV. 
 
 AT THE KING'S INN. 
 
 THE Countess sat up in the darkness of the chamber. 
 She had writhed since noon under the stings of re- 
 morse; she could bear them no longer. The slow 
 declension of the day, the evening light, the signs of 
 coming tempest which had driven her company to the 
 shelter of the inn at the cross-roads, all had racked 
 her, by reminding her that the hours were flying, and 
 that soon the fault she had committed would be irrep- 
 arable. One impulsive attempt to redeem it she had 
 made, we know; but it had failed, and, by render- 
 ing her suspect, had made reparation more difficult. 
 Still, by daylight it had seemed possible to rest con- 
 tent with the trial made ; not so now, when night had 
 fallen, and the cries of little children and the hag- 
 gard eyes of mothers peopled the darkness of her 
 chamber. She sat up, and listened with throbbing 
 temples. 
 
 To shut out the lightning which played at intervals 
 across the heavens, Madame St. Lo, who shared the 
 room, had covered the window with a cloak; and 
 the place was dark. To exclude the dull roll of the 
 thunder was less easy, for the night was oppressively 
 hot, and behind the cloak the casement was open. 
 Gradually, too, another sound, the hissing fall of 
 heavy rain, began to make itself heard, and to min-
 
 260 COUNT HANNIBAL. 
 
 gle with the regular breathing which proved that 
 Madame St. Lo slept. 
 
 Assured of this fact, the Countess presently heaved 
 a sigh, and slipped from the bed. She groped in the 
 darkness for her cloak, found it, and donned it over 
 her night-gear. Then, taking her bearings by her 
 bed, which stood with its head to the window and 
 its foot to the entrance, she felt her way across the 
 floor to the door, and after passing her hands a dozen 
 times over every part of it, she found the latch, and 
 raised it. The door creaked, as she pulled it open, 
 and she stood arrested; but the sound went no far- 
 ther, for the roofed gallery outside, which looked by 
 two windows on the courtyard, was full of outdoor 
 noises, the rushing of rain and the running of spouts 
 and eaves. One of the windows stood wide, admit- 
 ting the rain and wind, and as she paused, holding 
 the door open, the draught blew the cloak from her. 
 She stepped out quickly and shut the door behind 
 her. On her left was the blind end of the passage ; 
 she turned to the right. She took one step into the 
 darkness and stood motionless. Beside her, within 
 a few feet of her, some one had moved, with a dull 
 sound as of a boot on wood ; a sound so near her that 
 she held her breath, and pressed herself against the 
 wall. 
 
 She listened. Perhaps some of the servants it 
 was a common usage had made their beds on the 
 floor. Perhaps one of the women had stirred in the 
 room against the wall of which she crouched. Per- 
 haps but, even while she reassured herself, the 
 sound rose anew at her feet. 
 
 Fortunately at the same instant the glare of the 
 lightning flooded all, and showed the passage, and
 
 AT THE KING'S INN. 261 
 
 showed it empty. It lit up the row of doors on her 
 right and the small windows on her left ; and discov- 
 ered facing her, the door which shut off the rest of 
 the house. She could have thanked nay, she did 
 thank God for that light. If the sound she had 
 heard recurred she did not hear it; for, as the 
 thunder which followed hard on the flash, crashed 
 overhead and rolled heavily eastwards, she felt her 
 way boldly along the passage, touching first one door, 
 and then a second, and then a third. 
 
 She groped for the latch of the last, and found it, 
 but, with her hand on it, paused. In order to summon 
 up her courage, she strove to hear again the cries of 
 misery and to see again the haggard eyes which had 
 driven her hither. And if she did not wholly suc- 
 ceed, other reflections came to her aid. This storm, 
 which covered all smaller noises, and opened, now 
 and again, God's lantern for her use, did it not prove 
 that He was on her side, and that she might count on 
 His protection? The thought at least was timely, 
 and with a better heart she gathered her wits. Wait- 
 ing until the thunder burst over her head, she opened 
 the door, slid within it, and closed it. She would 
 fain have left it ajar, that in case of need she might 
 escape the more easily. But the wind, which beat into 
 the passage through the open window, rendered the 
 precaution too perilous. 
 
 She went forward two paces into the room, and as 
 the roll of the thunder died away she stooped for- 
 ward and listened with painful intensity for the sound 
 of Count Hannibal's breathing. But the window was 
 open, and the hiss of the rain persisted; she could 
 hear nothing through it, and fearfully she took an- 
 other step forward. The window should be before
 
 262 COUNT HANNIBAL. 
 
 her ; the bed in the corner to the left. But nothing of 
 either could she make out. She must wait for the 
 lightning. 
 
 It came, and for a second or more the room shone. 
 The window, the low truckle-bed, the sleeper, she 
 saw all with dazzling clearness, and before the flash 
 had well passed she was crouching low, with the hood 
 of her cloak dragged about her face. For the glare 
 had revealed Count Hannibal; but not asleep! He 
 lay on his side, his face towards her ; lay with open 
 eyes, staring at her. 
 
 Or had the light tricked her ? The light must have 
 tricked her, for in the interval between the flash and 
 the thunder, while she crouched quaking, he did not 
 move or call. The light must have deceived her. 
 She felt so certain of it that she found courage to re- 
 main where she was until another flash came and 
 showed him sleeping with closed eyes. 
 
 She drew a breath of relief at that, and rose slowly to 
 her feet. But she dared not go forward until a third 
 flash had confirmed the second. Then, while the 
 thunder burst overhead and rolled away, she crept on 
 until she stood beside the pillow, and stooping, could 
 hear the sleeper's breathing. 
 
 Alas ! the worst remained to be done. The packet, 
 she was sure of it, lay under his pillow. How was 
 she to find it, how remove it without rousing him? 
 A touch might awaken him. And yet, if she would 
 not return empty-handed, if she would not go back to 
 the harrowing thoughts which had tortured her 
 through the long hours of the day, it must be done, 
 and done now. 
 
 Slie knew this, yet she hung irresolute a while, 
 blenching before the manual act, listening to the
 
 AT THE KING'S INN. 263 
 
 persistent rush and downpour of the rain. Then a 
 second time she drew courage from the storm. How 
 timely had it broken! How signally had it aided 
 her! How slight had been her chance without it! 
 And so at last, resolutely but with a deft touch, she 
 slid her fingers between the pillow and the bed, 
 slightly pressing down the latter with her other hand. 
 For an instant she fancied that the sleeper's breathing 
 stopped, and her heart gave a great bound. But the 
 breathing went on the next instant if it had stopped 
 and dreading the return of the lightning, shrinking 
 from being revealed so near him, and in that act 
 for which the darkness seemed more fitting she 
 groped farther, and touched something. And then, 
 as her fingers closed upon it and grasped it, and his 
 breath rose hot to her burning cheek, she knew that 
 the real danger lay in the withdrawal. 
 
 At the first attempt he uttered a kind of grunt and 
 moved, throwing out his hand. She thought that he 
 was going to awake, and had hard work to keep her- 
 self where she was ; but he did not move, and she 
 began again with so infinite a precaution that the 
 perspiration ran down her face and her hair within 
 the hood hung dank on her neck. Slowly, oh so 
 slowly, she drew back the hand, and with it the 
 packet ; so slowly, and yet so resolutely, being put to 
 it, that when the dreaded flash surprised her, and she 
 saw his harsh swarthy face, steeped in the mysterious 
 aloofness of sleep, within a hand's breadth of hers, 
 not a muscle of her arm moved, nor did her hand 
 quiver. 
 
 It was done at last ! With a burst of gratitude, 
 of triumph, of exultation, she stood erect. She 
 realised that it was done, and that here in her hand
 
 264 COUNT HANNIBAL. 
 
 she held the packet. A deep gasp of relief, of joy, 
 of thankfulness, and she glided towards the door. 
 
 She groped for the lateh, and in the act fancied 
 his breathing was changed. She paused and bent 
 her head to listen. But the patter of the rain, 
 drowning all sounds save those of the nearest origin, 
 persuaded her that she was mistaken, and, finding the 
 latch, she raised it, slipped like a shadow into the 
 passage, and closed the door behind her. 
 
 That done she stood arrested, all the blood in 
 her body running to her heart. She must be dream- 
 ing! The passage in which she stood the passage 
 which she had left in black darkness was alight; 
 was so far lighted, at least, that to eyes fresh from 
 the night, the figures of three men, grouped at the 
 farther end, stood out against the glow of the lantern 
 which they appeared to be trimming for the two 
 nearest were stooping over it. These two had their 
 backs to her, the third his face ; and it was the sight 
 of this third man which had driven the blood to her 
 heart. He ended at the waist ! It was only after a 
 few seconds, it was only when she had gazed at him 
 awhile in speechless horror, that he rose another foot 
 from the floor, and she saw that he had paused in 
 the act of ascending through a trapdoor. What the 
 scene meant, who these men were, or what their en- 
 trance portended, with these questions her brain re- 
 fused at the moment to grapple. It was much that 
 still remembering who might hear her, and what she 
 held- -she did not shriek aloud. 
 
 Instead, she stood in the gloom at her end of the 
 passage, gazing with all her eyes until she had seen 
 the third man step clear of the trap. She could see 
 Mm; but the light intervened and blurred his view
 
 AT THE KING'S INN. 265 
 
 of her. He stooped, almost as soon as lie had cleared 
 himself, to help up a fourth man, who rose with a 
 naked knife between his teeth. She saw then that all 
 were armed, and something stealthy in their bearing, 
 something cruel in their eyes as the light of the lan- 
 tern fell now on one dark face and now on another, 
 went to her heart and chilled it. Who were they, 
 and why were they here 1 What was their purpose I 
 As her reason awoke, as she asked herself these ques- 
 tions, the fourth man stooped in his turn, and gave 
 his hand to a fifth. And on that she lost her self- 
 control and cried out. For the last man to ascend 
 was La Tribe ! La Tribe, from whom she had parted 
 that morning ! 
 
 The sound she uttered was low, but it reached the 
 men's ears, and the two whose backs were towards her 
 turned as if they had been pricked. He who held the 
 lantern raised it, and the five glared at her and she at 
 them. Then a second cry, louder and more full of 
 surprise, burst from her lips. The nearest man, he 
 who held the lantern high that he might view her, was 
 Tignonville, was her lover 1 
 
 " Mon Dieu .'" she whispered. "What is it? What 
 is it? " 
 
 Then, not till then, did he know her. Until then 
 the light of the lantern had revealed only a cloaked 
 and cowled figure, a gloomy phantom which shook 
 the heart of more than one with superstitious terror. 
 But they knew her now two of them ; and slowly, 
 as in a dream, Tignonville came forward. 
 
 The mind has its moments of crisis, in which it 
 acts upon instinct rather than upon reason. The girl 
 never knew why she acted as she did; why she 
 asked no questions, why she uttered no exclama-
 
 266 COUNT HANNIBAL. 
 
 tions, no remonstrances. Why, with a finger on 
 her lips and her eyes on his, she put the packet into 
 his hands. 
 
 He took it from her, too, as mechanically as she 
 gave it with the hand which held his bare blade. 
 That done, silent as she, with his eyes set hard, he 
 would have gone by her. The sight of her there, 
 guarding the door of him who had stolen her from 
 him, exasperated his worst passions. 
 
 But she moved to hinder him, and barred the way. 
 With her hand raised she pointed to the trapdoor. 
 " Go now ! " she whispered, her tone stern and low, 
 " you have what you want ! Go ! " 
 
 "No ! " And he tried to pass her. 
 
 "Go! " she repeated in the same tone. "You have 
 what you need." And still she held her hand ex- 
 tended ; still without faltering she faced the five men, 
 while the thunder, growing more distant, rolled sul- 
 lenly eastward, and the midnight rain, pouring from 
 every spout and dripping eave about the house, 
 wrapped the passage in its sibilant hush. Gradually 
 her eyes dominated his, gradually her nobler nature 
 and nobler aim subdued his weaker parts. For she 
 understood now ; and he saw that she did, and had he 
 been alone he would have slunk away, and said no 
 word in his defence. 
 
 But one of the men, savage and out of patience, 
 thrust himself between them. "Where is he?" he 
 muttered. "What is the use of this? Where is he? " 
 And his bloodshot eyes it was Tuez-les-Moines 
 questioned the doors, while his hand, trembling 
 and shaking on the haft of his knife, bespoke hiS 
 eagerness. "Where is he? Where is he, woman? 
 Quick, or "
 
 AT THE KING'S INK 267 
 
 "I shall not tell you," she answered. 
 
 "You lie," he cried, grinning like a dog. "You 
 will tell us! Or we will kill you, too! Where is he? 
 Where is he?" 
 
 "I shall not tell you," she repeated, standing before 
 him in the fearlessness of scorn. "Another step and 
 I rouse the house! M. de Tignonville, to you who 
 know me, I swear that if this man does not retire- - " 
 
 "He is in one of these rooms?" was Tignonville 's 
 answer. "In which? In which?" 
 
 "Search them!" she answered, her voice low, but 
 biting in its contempt. "'Try them. Eouse my 
 women, alarm the house ! And when you have his 
 people at your throats five as they will be to one of 
 you thank your own mad folly ! " 
 
 Tuez-les-Moines' eyes glittered. "You will not tell 
 us ? " he cried. 
 
 "No!" 
 
 "Then -- 
 
 But as the fanatic sprang on her, La Tribe flung his 
 arms round him and dragged him back. " It would 
 be madness," he cried. "Are you mad, fool? Have 
 done ! " he panted, struggling with him. "If niada:ne 
 gives the alarm and he may be in any one of these 
 four rooms, you cannot be sure which we are un- 
 done." He looked for support to Tignonville, whose 
 movement to protect the girl he had anticipated, and 
 who had since listened sullenly. " We have obtained 
 what we need. Will you requite niadame, who has 
 gained it for us at her own risk - " 
 
 is monsieur I would requite," Tignonville mut- 
 tered grimly. 
 
 "By using violence to her?" the minister retorted 
 passionately. He and Tuez were still gripping one
 
 268 COUNT HAKNTBAL. 
 
 another. "I tell you, to go on is to risk what we have 
 got ! And I for one " 
 
 "Am chicken-hearted!" the young man sneered. 
 "Madame " he seemed to choke on the word. " Will 
 yon swear that he is not here ? " 
 
 "I swear that if yon do not go I will raise the 
 alarm ! " she hissed all their words were sunk to that 
 stealthy note. "Go! if you have not stayed too long 
 already. Go ! Or see ! " And she pointed to the 
 trapdoor, from which the face and arms of a sixth 
 man had that moment risen the face dark with per- 
 turbation, so that her woman's wit told her at once 
 that something was amiss. "See what has come of 
 your delay already ! " 
 
 "The water is rising," the man muttered ear- 
 nestly. 4 "Iii God's name come, whether you have 
 done it or not, or we cannot pass out again. It is 
 within a foot of the crown of the culvert now, and it 
 is rising." 
 
 "Curse on the water T" Tuez-les-Moines answered 
 in a frenzied whisper. "And on this Jezebel. Let 
 us kill her and him! What matter afterwards?" 
 And he tried to shake off La Tribe's grasp. 
 
 But the minister held him desperately. "Are you 
 mad ? Are you mad ? " he answered. " What can we 
 do against thirty ? Let us be gone while we can. Let 
 ws be gone ! Come. " 
 
 "Ay, come," Perrot cried, assenting reluctantly. 
 He had taken no side hitherto. "The luck is against 
 us! 'Tis no use to-night, man!" And he turned 
 with an air of sullen resignation. Letting his legs 
 drop through the trap he followed the bearer of the 
 tidings out of sight. Another made up his mind to 
 go, and went. Then only Tignonville holding the
 
 AT THE KING'S INN. 269 
 
 lantern, and La Tribe, who feared to release Tuez- 
 les-Moines, remained with the fanatic. 
 
 The Countess's eyes met her old lover's, and 
 whether old memories overcame her, or, now that the 
 danger was nearly past, she began to give way, she 
 swayed a little on her feet. But he did not notice it. 
 He was sunk in black rage: rage against her, rage 
 against himself. "Take the light," she muttered 
 unsteadily. "And and he must follow! " 
 
 "And you?" 
 
 But she could bear it no longer. "Oh, go," she 
 wailed. "Go! Will you never go I If you love me, 
 if you ever loved me, I implore you to go. " 
 
 He had betrayed little of a lover's feeling. But 
 he could not resist that appeal, and he turned si- 
 lently. Seizing Tuez-les-Moines by the other arm, he 
 drew him by force to the trap. "Quiet, fool," he 
 muttered savagely when the man would have resisted, 
 "and go down! If we stay to kill him, we shall have 
 no way of escape, and his life will be dearly bought. 
 Down, man, downl " And between them, in a strug- 
 gling silence, with now and then an audible rap, or a 
 ring of metal, the two forced the desperado to de- 
 scend. 
 
 La Tribe followed hastily. Tignonville was the last 
 to go. In the act of disappearing he raised his lantern 
 for a last glimpse of the Countess. To his astonish- 
 ment the passage was empty ; she was gone. Hard by 
 him a door stood an inch or two ajar, and he guessed 
 that it was hers, and swore under his breath, hating 
 her at that moment. But he did not guess how nicely 
 she had calculated her strength ; how nearly exhaus- 
 tion had overcome her ; or that even while he paused 
 a fatal pause had he known it eyeing the dark open-
 
 270 COUNT HANNIBAL. 
 
 ing of the door, she lay as one dead, on the bed within. 
 She had fallen in a swoon, from which she did not 
 recover until the sun had risen, and marched across 
 one quarter of the heavens. 
 
 Nor did he see another thing, or he might have 
 hastened his steps. Before the yellow light of his 
 lantern faded from the ceiling of the passage, the door 
 of the room farthest from the trap slid open. A 
 man, whose eyes, until darkness swallowed him, shone 
 strangely in a face extraordinarily softened, came out 
 on tip-toe. This man stood awhile, listening. At 
 length, hearing those below utter a cry of dismay, 
 he awoke to sudden activity. He opened with a 
 turn of the key the door which stood at his elbow, 
 the door which led to the other part of the house. 
 He vanished through it. A second later a sharp 
 whistle pierced the darkness of the courtyard and 
 brought a dozen sleepers to their senses and their 
 feet. A moment, and the courtyard hummed with 
 voices, above which one voice rang clear and insis- 
 tent. With a startled cry the inn awoke.
 
 CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 THE COMPANY OF THE BLEEDING HEART. 
 
 "BUT why," Madame. St. Lo asked, sticking her 
 arms akimbo, " why stay in this forsaken place a day 
 and a night, when six hours in the saddle would set 
 us in Angers ? " 
 
 "Because," Tavannes replied coldly he and his 
 cousin were walking before the gateway of the inn 
 "the Countess is not well, and will be the better, I 
 think, for staying a day." 
 
 "She slept soundly enough ! I'll answer for that! " 
 
 He shrugged his shoulders. 
 
 "She never raised her head this morning, though 
 my women were shrieking ' Murder ! ' next door, and 
 
 Name of Heaven ! " rnadame resumed, after 
 
 breaking off abruptly, and shading her eyes with her 
 hand, "what comes here? Is it a funeral? Or a pil- 
 grimage? If all the priests about here are as black, 
 no wonder M. Eabelais fell out with them ! " 
 
 The inn stood without the walls for the conven- 
 ience of those who wished to take the road early : a 
 little also, perhaps, because food and forage were 
 cheaper, and the wine paid no town-dues. Four great 
 roads met before the house, along the most easterly of 
 which the sombre company which had caught Madame 
 St. Lo's attention could be seen approaching. At 
 first Count Hannibal supposed with his companion that 
 the travellers were conveying to the grave the corpse
 
 272 COUNT HANNIBAL. 
 
 of some person of distinction ; for the cortege consisted 
 mainly of priests and the like mounted on mules, and 
 clothed for the most part in black. Black also was 
 the small banner which waved above them, and bore 
 in place of arms the emblem of the Bleeding Heart. 
 But a second glance failed to discover either litter 
 or bier; and a nearer approach showed that the 
 travellers, whether they wore the tonsure or not, bore 
 weapons of one kind or another about them. 
 
 Suddenly Madame St. Lo clapped her hands, and 
 proclaimed in great astonishment that she knew them. 
 " Why, there is Father Boucher, the Cur6 of St. Be- 
 noist ! " she said, " and Father Pezelay of St. Magloire. 
 And there is another I know, though I cannot remem- 
 ber his name ! They are preachers from Paris ! That 
 is who they are ! But what can they be doing here ? 
 Is it a pilgrimage, think you ? " 
 
 " Ay, a pilgrimage of Blood ! " Count Hannibal an- 
 swered between his teeth. And, turning to him to 
 learn what moved him, she saw the look in his eyes 
 which portended a storm. Before she could ask a 
 question, however, the gloomy company, which had 
 first appeared in the distance, moving, an inky blot, 
 through the hot sunshine of the summer morning, had 
 drawn near and was almost abreast of them. Stepping 
 from her side, he raised his hand and arrested the 
 march. 
 
 "Who is master here? " he asked haughtily. 
 
 "I am the leader," answered a stout pompous 
 Churchman, whose small malevolent eyes belied the 
 sallow fatuity of his face. "I, M. de Tavanues, by 
 your leave. " 
 
 "And you, by your leave," Tavannes sneered, 
 "are
 
 COMPANY OF THE BLEEDING HEAET. 273 
 
 "Archdeacon and Vicar of the Bishop of Angers 
 and Prior of the Lesser Brethren of St. Germain, 
 M. le Comte. Visitor also of the Diocese of Augers, " 
 the dignitary continued, puffing out his cheeks, "and 
 Chaplain to the Lieutenant -Governor of Saumur, 
 whose unworthy brother I am." 
 
 "A handsome glove, and well embroidered!" Ta- 
 vannes retorted in a tone of disdain. "The hand I 
 see yonder ! " He pointed to the lean parchment 
 mask of Father Pezelay, who coloured ever so faintly, 
 but held his peace under the sneer. " You are bound 
 for Angers! " Count Hannibal continued. "For what 
 purpose, Sir Prior!" 
 
 "His Grace the Bishop is absent, and in his ab- 
 sence " 
 
 "You go to fill his city with strife! I know 
 you! Not you!" he continued, contemptuously turn- 
 ing from the Prior, and regarding the third of the 
 principal figures of the party. "But you! You were 
 the Cure who got the mob together last All Souls'." 
 
 " I speak the words of Him Who sent me ! " an- 
 swered the third Churchman, whose brooding face 
 and dull curtained eyes gave no promise of the fits of 
 frenzied eloquence which had made his pulpit famous 
 in Paris. 
 
 " Then Kill and Burn are His alphabet ! " Tavannes 
 retorted, and heedless of the start of horror which a 
 saying so near blasphemy excited among the Church- 
 men, he turned to Father Pezelay. "And you! 
 You, too, I know!" he continued. "And you know 
 me! And take this from me. Turn, father! Turn! 
 Or worse than a broken head you bear the scar I see 
 will befall you. These good persons, whom you 
 have moved, unless I am in error, to take this jour- 
 18
 
 274 COUNT HANNIBAL. 
 
 uey, may not know me; but you do, and can tell 
 them. If they will to Angers, they must to Angers. 
 But if I find trouble in Angers when I come, I will 
 hang some one high. Don't scowl at me, man! " in 
 truth, the look of hate in Father Pezelay's eyes was 
 enough to provoke the exclamation. "Some one, and 
 it shall not be a bare patch on the crown will save his 
 windpipe from squeezing ! " 
 
 A murmur of indignation broke from the preach- 
 ers' attendants ; one or two made a show of drawing 
 their weapons. But Count Hannibal paid no heed to 
 them, and had already turned on his heel when 
 Father Pezelay spurred his mule a pace or two for- 
 ward. Snatching a heavy brass cross from one of the 
 acolytes, he raised it aloft, and in the voice which 
 had often thrilled the heated congregation of St. 
 Magloire, he called on Tavannes to pause. 
 
 "Stand, my lord!" he cried. "And take warning! 
 Stand, reckless and profane, whose face is set hard as 
 a stone, and his heart as a flint, against High Heaven 
 and Holy Church! Stand and hear! Behold the 
 word of the Lord is gone out against this city, even 
 against Augers, for the unbelief thereof! Her place 
 shall be left unto her desolate, and her children shall 
 be dashed against the stones ! Woe unto you, there- 
 fore, if you gainsay it, or fall short of that which is 
 commanded ! You shall perish as Achan, the sou of 
 Charmi, and as Saul ! The curse that has gone out 
 against you shall not tarry, nor your days continue ! 
 For the Canaanitish woman that is in your house, and 
 for the thought that is in your heart, the place that 
 was yours is given to another! Yea, the sword is 
 even now drawn that shall pierce your side ! " 
 
 "You are more like to split my ears!" Count
 
 COMPANY OF THE BLEEDING HEART. 275 
 
 Hannibal answered sternly. "And now mark me! 
 Preach as you please here. But a word in Augers, 
 and though you be shaven twice over, I will have you 
 silenced after a fashion which will not please you! 
 
 If you value your tongue therefore, father oh, 
 
 you shake off the dust, do you? Well, pass on! 'Tis 
 wise, perhaps." 
 
 And undismayed by the scowling brows, and the 
 cross ostentatiously lifted to -heaven, he gazed after 
 the procession as it moved on under its swaying ban- 
 ner, now one and now another of the acolytes looking 
 back and raising his hands to invoke the bolt of 
 Heaven on the blasphemer. As the cortege passed 
 the huge watering-troughs, and the open gateway of 
 the inn, the knot of persons congregated there fell on 
 their knees. In answer the Churchmen raised their 
 banner higher, and began to sing the Eripe me, 
 Domine ! and to its strains, now vengeful, now de- 
 spairing, now rising on a wave of menace, they passed 
 slowly into the distance, slowly towards Angers and 
 the Loire. 
 
 Suddenly Madame St. Lo twitched his sleeve. 
 "Enough for me! " she cried passionately. "I go no 
 farther with you ! " 
 
 "Ah?" 
 
 "No farther!" she repeated. She was pale, she 
 shivered. "Many thanks, my cousin, but we part 
 company here. I do not go to Angers. I have seen 
 horrors enough. I will take my people, and go to my 
 aunt by Tours and the east road. For you, I foresee 
 what will happen. You will perish between the ham- 
 mer and the anvil." 
 
 "Ah?" 
 
 "You play too fine a game," she continued, her
 
 276 COUNT HANNIBAL. 
 
 face quivering. " Give over the girl to her lover, and 
 send away lier people with her. And wash your 
 hands of her and hers. Or you will see her fall, and 
 fall beside her ! Give her to him, I say give her to 
 him!" 
 
 "My wife?" 
 
 "Wife?" she echoed, for, fickle, and at all times 
 swept away by the emotions of the moment, she was 
 in earnest now. "Is there a tie," and she pointed 
 after the vanishing procession, "that they cannot un- 
 loose? That they will not unloose? Is there a life 
 which escapes if they doom it? Did the Admiral 
 escape? Or Rochefoucauld I Or Madame de Luns in 
 old days? I tell you they go to rouse Angers against 
 you, and I see beforehand what will happen. She 
 will perish, and you with her. Wife? A pretty 
 wife, at whose door you took her lover last night. " 
 
 "And at your door!" he answered quietly, un- 
 moved by the gibe. 
 
 But she did not heed. "I warned you of that!" 
 she cried. "And you would not believe me. I told 
 you he was following. And I warn you of this. 
 You are between the hammer and the anvil, M. le 
 Comte ! If Tignonville does not murder you in your 
 bed " 
 
 " 'Tis not likely while I hold him in my power." 
 
 "Then Holy Church will fall on you and crush you. 
 For me, I have seen enough and more than enough. 
 I go to Tours by the east road. " 
 
 He shrugged his shoulders. "As you please, "he 
 said. 
 
 She flung away in disgust with him. She could not 
 understand a man who played fast and loose at such 
 a time. The game was too fine for her, its danger too
 
 COMPANY OF THE BLEEDING HEAET. 277 
 
 apparent, the gain too small. She had, too, a wo- 
 man's dread of the Church, a woman's belief in the 
 power of the dead hand to punish. And in half an 
 hour her orders were given. In two hours her peo- 
 ple were gathered, and she departed by the eastward 
 road, three of Tavannes' riders reinforcing her ser- 
 vants for a part of the way. Count Hannibal stood 
 to watch them start, and noticed Bigot riding by the 
 side of Suzanne's mule. He smiled ; and presently, 
 as he turned away, he did a thing rare with him he 
 laughed outright. 
 
 A laugh which reflected a mood rare as itself. 
 Few had seen Count Hannibal's eye sparkle as it 
 sparkled now ; few had seen him laugh as he laughed, 
 walking to and fro in the sunshine before the inn. 
 His men watched him, and wondered, and liked it lit- 
 tle, for one or two who had overheard his altercation 
 with the Churchmen had reported it, and there was 
 shaking of heads over it. The man who had singed 
 the Pope's beard and chucked Cardinals under the 
 chin was growing old, and the most daring of the 
 others had no mind to fight with foes whose weapons 
 were not of this world. 
 
 Count Hannibal's gaiety, however, was well 
 grounded, had they known it. He was gay, not be- 
 cause he foresaw peril, and it was his nature to love 
 peril; nor in the main, though a little, perhaps 
 because he knew that the woman whose heart he de- 
 sired to win had that night stood between him and 
 death; nor, though again a little, perhaps, because 
 she had confirmed his choice by conduct which a 
 small man might have deprecated, but which a great 
 man loved; but chiefly, because the events of the 
 night had placed in his grasp two weapons by the aid
 
 278 COUNT HANNIBAL. 
 
 of which he looked to recover all the ground he had 
 lost lost by his impulsive departure from the path of 
 conduct on which he had started. 
 
 Those weapons were Tignonville, taken like a rat 
 in a trap by the rising of the water; and the knowl- 
 edge that the Countess had stolen the precious packet 
 from his pillow. The knowledge for he had lain 
 and felt her breath upon his cheek, he had lain and 
 felt her hand beneath his pillow, he had lain while 
 the impulse to fling his arms about her had been al- 
 most more than he could tame! He had lain and 
 suffered her to go, to pass out safely as she had 
 passed in. And then he had received his reward in 
 the knowledge that, if she robbed him, she robbed 
 him not for herself ; and that where it was a question 
 of his life she did not fear to risk her own. 
 
 When he came, indeed, to that point, he trembled. 
 How narrowly had he been saved from misjudging 
 her ! Had he not lain and waited, had he not pos- 
 sessed himself in patience, he might have been led to 
 think her in collusion with the old lover whom he 
 found at her door, and with those who came to slay 
 him. Either he might have perished unwarned ; or 
 escaping that danger, he might have detected her 
 with Tignouville and lost for all time the ideal of a 
 noble woman. 
 
 He had escaped that peril. More, he had gained 
 the weapons we have indicated; and the sense of 
 power, in regard to her, almost intoxicated him. 
 Surely if he wielded those weapons to the best advan- 
 tage, if he strained generosity to the uttermost, the 
 citadel of her heart must yield at last. 
 
 He had the defect of his courage and his nature, 
 a tendency to do things after a flamboyant fashion.
 
 COMPANY OF THE BLEEDING HEAET. 279 
 
 He knew that her act would plunge him in perils 
 which he had not foreseen. If the preachers roused 
 the Papists of Angers, if he arrived to find men's 
 swords whetted for the massacre and the men them- 
 selves awaiting the signal, then if he did not give that 
 signal there would be trouble. There would be trou- 
 ble of the kind in which the soul of Hannibal de Ta- 
 vaunes revelled, trouble about the ancient cathedral 
 and under the black walls of the Angevin castle, 
 trouble amid which the hearts of common men would 
 be as water. 
 
 Then, when things seemed at their worst, he would 
 reveal his knowledge. Then, when forgiveness must 
 seem impossible, he would forgive. With the flood 
 of peril which she had unloosed rising round them, 
 he would say, "Go! " to the man who had aimed at 
 his life ; he would say to her, " I know, and I for- 
 give ! " That, that only, would fitly crown the policy 
 on which he had decided from the first, though he 
 had not hoped to conduct it on lines so splendid as 
 those which now dazzled hiiii.
 
 CHAPTEE XXVI. 
 
 TEMPER. 
 
 IT was his gaiety, that strauge unusual gaiety, still 
 continuing, which on the following day began by per- 
 plexing and ended by terrifying the Countess. She 
 could not doubt that he had missed the packet on 
 which so much hung and of which he had indicated 
 the importance. But if he had missed it, why, she 
 asked herself, did he not speak? Why did he not 
 cry the alarm, search and question and pursue? 
 Why did he not give her the opening to tell the truth, 
 without which even her courage failed, her resolution 
 died within her? 
 
 Above all, what was tfee secret of his strange mer- 
 riment? Of the snatches of song which broke from 
 him, only to be hushed by her look of astonishment? 
 Of the parades which his horse, catching the infec- 
 tion, made under him, as he tossed his riding-cane 
 high in the air and caught it? 
 
 Ay, what ? Why, when he had suffered so great a 
 loss, when he had been robbed of that of which he 
 must give account why did he cast off his melancholy 
 and ride like the youngest? She wondered what 
 the men thought, and looking, saw them stare, saw 
 that they watched him stealthily, saw that they laid 
 their heads together. What were they thinking of 
 it? She could not tell; and slowly a terror, more in-
 
 TEMPEE. 281 
 
 sistent than any to which the extremity of violence 
 would have reduced her, began to grip her heart. 
 
 Twenty hours of rest had lifted her from the state 
 of collapse into which the events of the night had 
 cast her ; still her linibs at starting had shaken under 
 her. But the cool freshness of the early summer 
 morning, and the sight of the green landscape and 
 the winding Loir, beside which their road ran, had 
 not failed to revive her spirits ; and if he had shown 
 himself merely gloomy, merely sunk in revengeful 
 thoughts, or darting hither and thither the glance of 
 suspicion, she felt that she could have faced him, and 
 on the first opportunity could have told him the 
 truth. 
 
 But this strange mood veiled she knew not what. 
 It seemed, if she comprehended it at all, the herald 
 of some bizarre, some dreadful vengeance, in har- 
 mony with his fierce and mocking spirit. Before it 
 her heart became as water. Even her colour little 
 by little left her cheeks. She knew that he had only 
 to look at her now to read the truth ; that it was writ- 
 ten in her face, in her shrinking figure, in the eyes 
 which now guiltily sought and now avoided his. 
 And feeling sure that he did read it and know it, she 
 fancied that he licked his lips, as the cat which plays 
 with the mouse; she fancied that he gloated on her 
 terror and her perplexity. 
 
 This, though the day and the road were warrants 
 for all cheerful thoughts. On one side vineyards 
 clothed the warm red slopes, and rose in steps from 
 the river to the white buildings of a convent. On the 
 other the stream wound through green flats where 
 the black cattle stood knee-deep in grass, watched by 
 wild-eyed and half-Baked youths. Again the travel-
 
 282 COUNT HANNIBAL, 
 
 lers lost sight of the Loir, and crossing a shoulder, 
 rode through the dim aisles of a beech-forest, through 
 deep rustling drifts of last year's leaves. And out 
 again and down again they passed, and turning aside 
 from the gateway, trailed along beneath the brown 
 machicolated wall of an old town, from the crumbling 
 battlements of which faces half -sleepy, half -suspi- 
 cious, watched them as they moved below through 
 the glare and heat. Down to the river-level again, 
 where a squalid anchorite, seated at the mouth of a 
 cave dug in the bank, begged of them, and the bell of 
 a monastery on the farther bank tolled slumberously 
 the hour of Nones. 
 
 And still he said nothing, and she, cowed by his 
 mysterious gaiety, yet spurning herself for her cow- 
 ardice, was silent also. He hoped to arrive at Augers 
 before nightfall. What, she wondered, shivering, 
 would happen there? What was he planning to do 
 to her? How would he punish her? Brave as she 
 was, she was a woman, with a woman's nerves ; and 
 fear and anticipation got upon them ; and his silence 
 his silence which must mean a thing worse than 
 words ! 
 
 And then on a sudden, piercing all, a new thought. 
 Was it possible that he had other letters? If his 
 bearing were consistent with anything, it was consis- 
 tent with that. Had he other genuine letters, or had 
 he duplicate letters, so that he had lost nothing, but 
 instead had gained the right to rack and torture her, 
 to taunt and despise her? 
 
 That thought stung her into sudden self-betrayal. 
 They were riding along a broad dusty track which 
 bordered a stone causey raised above the level of win- 
 ter floods; impulsively she turned to him. "You
 
 TEMPER. 283 
 
 have other letters! " she cried. "You have other let- 
 ters ! " And freed for the moment from her terror, 
 she fixed her eyes on his and strove to read his face. 
 
 He looked at her, his mouth grown hard. "What 
 do you mean, inadame ? " he asked. 
 
 "You have other letters?" 
 
 "For whom?" 
 
 "From the King, for Augers! " 
 
 He saw that she was going to confess, that she was 
 going to derange his cherished plan ; and unreasona- 
 ble anger awoke in the man who had been more 
 than willing to forgive a real injury. "Will you 
 explain 1 " he said between his teeth. And his eyes 
 glittered unpleasantly. "What do you mean? " 
 
 "You have other letters," she persisted, "besides 
 those which I stole." 
 
 "Which you stole? " He repeated the words with- 
 out passion. Enraged by this unexpected turn, he 
 hardly knew how to take it. 
 
 "Yes, I! " she cried. "I! I took them from under 
 your pillow ! " 
 
 He was silent a minute. Then he laughed and 
 shook his head. "It will not do, madame," he said, 
 his lip curling. "You are clever, but you do not de- 
 ceive me. " 
 
 "Deceive you?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "You do not believe that I took the letters? " she 
 cried in great amazement. 
 
 "No," he answered; "and for a good reason." He 
 had hardened his heart now. He had chosen his 
 line, and he would not spare her. 
 
 "Why, then ? " she cried. " Why ? " 
 
 "For the best of all reasons," he answered. "Be-
 
 284 COUNT HANNIBAL. 
 
 cause the person who stole the letters was seized in 
 the act of making his escape, and is now in my 
 power." 
 
 "The person who stole the letters? " she faltered. 
 
 "Yes, madame." 
 
 "Do you mean M. de Tignonville ? " 
 
 " You have said it. " 
 
 She turned white to the lips, and trembling could 
 with difficulty sit her horse. With an effort she 
 pulled it up, and he stopped also. Their attendants 
 were some way ahead. "And you have the letters'? " 
 she whispered, her eyes meeting his. "You have the 
 letters?" 
 
 "No, but I have the thief!" Count Hannibal an- 
 swered with sinister meaning. "As I think you 
 knew, madame," he continued ironically, "a while 
 back before you spoke." 
 
 "I? Oh, no, no!" and she swayed in her saddle. 
 "What what are you going to do ?" she muttered 
 after a moment's stricken silence. 
 
 "To him I" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "The magistrates will decide, at Angers." 
 
 "But he did not do it! I swear he did not." 
 
 Count Hannibal shook his head coldly. 
 
 "I swear, monsieur, I took the letters!" she re- 
 peated piteously. "Punish me!" Her figure, bowed 
 like an old woman's over the neck of her horse, 
 seemed to crave his mercy. 
 
 Count Hannibal smiled. 
 
 " You do not believe me ? " 
 
 "No," he said. And then, in a tone which chilled 
 her, "If I did believe you," he continued, "I should 
 still punish him ! " She was broken ; but he would
 
 TEMPBE. 285 
 
 see if he could not break her farther. He would try 
 if there were no weak spot in her armour. He would 
 rack her now, since in the end she must go free. 
 "Understand, madame," he continued in his harshest 
 tone, "I have had enough of your lover. He has 
 crossed my path too often. You are my wife, I am 
 your husband. In a day or two there shall be an end 
 of this farce and of him." 
 
 " He did not take them ! " she wailed, her face sink- 
 ing lower on her breast. "He did not take them! 
 Have mercy ! " 
 
 "Any way, madame, they are gone!" Tavannes 
 answered. "You have taken them between you; and 
 as I do not choose that you should pay, he will pay 
 the price." 
 
 If the discovery that Tignonville had fallen into 
 her husband's hands had not sufficed to crush her, 
 Count Hannibal's tone must have done so. The 
 shoot of new life which had raised its head after 
 those dreadful days in Paris, and for she was young 
 had supported her under the weight which the 
 peril of Angers had cast on her shoulders, died, 
 bruised under the heel of his brutality. The pride 
 which had supported her, which had won Tavannes' 
 admiration and exacted his respect, sank, as she sank 
 herself, bowed to her horse's neck, weeping bitter 
 tears before him. She abandoned herself to her mis- 
 ery, as she had once abandoned herself in the upper 
 room in Paris. 
 
 And he looked at her. He had willed to crush 
 her ; he had his will, and he was not satisfied. He 
 had bowed her so low that his magnanimity would 
 now have its full effect, would shine as the sun into 
 a dark world ; and yet he was not happy. He could
 
 286 COUNT HANNIBAL. 
 
 look forward to the morrow, and say, "She will un- 
 derstand me, she will know me ! " and lo, the thought 
 that she wept for her lover stabbed him, and stabbed 
 him anew ; and he thought, " Bather would she death 
 from him, than life from me! Though I give her 
 creation, it will not alter her! Though I strike the 
 stars with my head, it is he who fills her world. " 
 
 The thought spurred him to farther cruelty, im- 
 pelled him to try if, prostrate as she was, he could 
 not draw a prayer from her? "You don't ask after 
 him?" he scoffed. "He may be before or behind? 
 Or wounded or well? Would you not know, ma- 
 dame ? And what message he sent you ? And what 
 he fears, and what hope he has? And his last 
 wishes? And for while there is life there is hope 
 would you not learn where the key of his prison 
 lies to-night? How much for the key to-night, 
 madame ? " 
 
 Each question fell on her like the lash of a whip ; 
 but as one who has been flogged into insensibility, 
 she did not wince. That drove him on: he felt a 
 mad desire to hear her prayers, to force her lower, to 
 bring her to her knees. And he sought about for 
 a keener taunt. Their attendants were almost out 
 of sight before them ; the sun, declining apace, was in 
 their eyes. "In two hours we shall be in Angers," 
 he said. "Mon Dieu, madame, it was a pity, when 
 you two were taking letters, you did not go a step 
 farther. You were surprised, or I doubt if I should 
 be alive to-day ! " 
 
 Then she did look up. She raised her head and 
 met his gaze with such wonder in her eyes, such re- 
 proach in her tear-stained face, that his voice sank on 
 the last word. "You mean that I would have mur-
 
 TEMPER 287 
 
 dered you?" she said. "I would have cut off my 
 hand first. What I did " and now her voice was as 
 firm as it was low " what I did, I did to save my 
 people. And if it were to be done again, I would do 
 it again ! " 
 
 "You dare to teil me that to my face?" he cried, 
 hiding feelings which almost choked him. "You 
 would do it again, would you? Mon Dieu, madame, 
 you need to be taught a lesson ! " 
 
 And by chance, meaning only to make the horses 
 move on again, he raised his whip. She thought 
 that he was going to strike her, and she flinched at 
 last. The whip fell smartly on her horse's quarters, 
 and it sprang forward. Count Hannibal swore be- 
 tween his teeth. 
 
 He had turned pale, she red as fire. "Get on! 
 Get on!" he cried harshly. "We are falling be- 
 hind ! " And riding at her heels, flipping her horse 
 now and then, he forced her to trot on until they 
 overtook the servants.
 
 CHAPTER XXYTL 
 
 THE BLACK TOWN. 
 
 IT was late evening when, riding wearily on jaded 
 horses, they came to the outskirts of Angers, and saw 
 before them the term of their journey. The glow of 
 sunset had faded, but the sky was still warm with the 
 last hues of day ; and against its opal light the huge 
 mass of the Angevin castle, which even in sunshine 
 rises dark aud forbidding above the Mayenne, stood 
 up black and sharply defined. Below it, on both 
 banks of the river, the towers and spires of the city 
 soared up from a sombre huddle of ridge-roofs, 
 broken here by a round-headed gateway, crumbling 
 and pigeon-haunted, that dated from St. Louis, and 
 there by the gaunt arms of a windmill. 
 
 The city lay dark under a light sky, keeping well 
 its secrets. Thousands were out of doors enjoying 
 the evening coolness in alley and court, yet it be- 
 trayed the life which pulsed in its arteries only by 
 the low murmur which rose from it. Nevertheless, 
 the Countess at sight of its roofs tasted the first mo- 
 ment of happiness which had been hers that day. 
 She might suffer, but she had saved. Those roofs 
 would thank her! In that murmur were the voices 
 of women and children she had redeemed! At the 
 sight and at the thought a wave of love and tender- 
 ness swept all bitterness from her breast. A pro- 
 found humility, a boundless thankfulness took pos-
 
 THE BLACK TOWtf. 289 
 
 session of her. Her head sank lower above her 
 horse's inane ; but it sank in reverence, not; in shame. 
 
 Could she have known what was passing beneath 
 those roofs which night was blending in a common 
 gloom could she have read the thoughts which at 
 that moment paled the cheeks of many a stout burgh- 
 er, whose gabled house looked on the great square, 
 she had been still more thankful. For in attics and 
 back rooms women were on their knees at that hour, 
 praying with feverish eyes ; and in the streets men 
 on whom their fellows, seeing the winding-sheet al- 
 ready at the chin, gazed askance smiled, and showed 
 brave looks abroad, while their hearts were sick with 
 fear. 
 
 For darkly, no man knew how, the news had come 
 to Angers. It had been known, more or less, for 
 three days. Men had read it in other men's eyes. 
 The tongue of a scold, the sneer of an injured woman 
 had spread it, the birds of the air had carried it. 
 From garret window to garret window across the 
 narrow lanes of the old town it had been whispered 
 at dead of night ; at convent grilles, and in the tim- 
 ber-yards beside the river. Ten thousand, fifty thou- 
 sand, a hundred thousand, it was rumoured, had per- 
 ished in Paris. In Orleans, all. In Tours this man's 
 sister; at Saumurthat man's son. Through France 
 the word had gone forth that the Huguenots must 
 die; and in the busy town the same roof -tree shel- 
 tered fear and hate, rage and cupidity. On one side 
 of the party- wall murder lurked fierce-eyed; on the 
 other, the victim lay watching the latch, and shaking 
 at a step. Strong men tasted the bitterness of death, 
 and women clasping their babes to their breasts 
 smiled sickly into children's eyes. 
 19
 
 290 COUNT HANNIBAL. 
 
 The signal only was lacking. It would come, said 
 some, from Saumur, where Montsoreau, the Duke of 
 Aujou's Lieutenant- Governor and a Papist, had his 
 quarters. From Paris, said others, directly from the 
 King. It might come at any hour now, in the day or 
 in the night ; the magistrates, it was whispered, were 
 in continuous session, awaiting its coming. No won- 
 der that from, lofty gable windows, and from dormers 
 set high above the tiles, haggard faces looked north- 
 ward and eastward, and ears sharpened by fear imag- 
 ined above the noises of the city the ring of the iron 
 shoes that carried doom. 
 
 Doubtless the majority desired as the majority in 
 France have always desired peace. But in the 
 purlieus about the cathedral and in the lanes where 
 the sacristans lived, in convent parlours and college 
 courts, among all whose livelihood the new faith 
 threatened, was a stir as of a hive deranged. Here 
 was grumbling against the magistrates why wait? 
 There, stealthy plauuings and arrangements; every- 
 where a grinding of weapons and casting of slugs. 
 Old grudges, new rivalries, a scholar's venom, a 
 priest's dislike, here was final vent for all. None 
 need leave this feast unsated ! 
 
 It was a man of this class, sent out for the pur- 
 pose, who first espied Count Hannibal's company 
 approaching. He bore the news into the town, and 
 by the time the travellers reached the city gate, the 
 dusky street within, on which lights were beginning 
 to twinkle from booths and casements, was alive with 
 figures running to meet them and crying the news 
 as they ran. The travellers, weary and road-stained, 
 had no sooner passed under the arch than they found 
 themselves the core of a great crowd which moved
 
 THE BLACK TOWN. 291 
 
 with them and pressed about them ; now unbonnet- 
 ing, and now calling out questions, and now shouting 
 "Vive le Eoi! ViveleBoi!" Above the press, win- 
 dows burst into light ; and over all, the quaint lean- 
 ing gables of the old timbered houses looked down on 
 the hurry and tumult. 
 
 They passed along a narrow street in which the 
 rabble, hurrying at Count Hannibal's bridle, and 
 often looking back to read his face r had much ado to 
 escape harm ; along this street and before the yawn - 
 ing doors of a great church, whence a hot breath 
 heavy with incense and burning wax issued to meet 
 them. A portion of the congregation had heard the 
 tumult and struggled out, and now stood close-packed 
 on the steps under the double vault of the portal. 
 Among them the Countess's eyes, as she rode by, a 
 sturdy man-at-arms on either hand, caught and held 
 one face. It was the face of a tall, lean man in 
 dusty black ; and though she did not know him she 
 seemed to have an equal attraction for him ; for as 
 their eyes met he seized the shoulder of the man next 
 him and pointed her out. And something in the 
 energy of the gesture, or in the thin lips and malevo- 
 lent eyes of the man who pointed, chilled the Coun- 
 tess's blood and shook her, she knew not why. 
 
 Until then, she had known no fear save of her 
 husband. But at that a sense of the force and 
 pressure of the crowd as well as of the fierce pas- 
 sions, straining about her, which a word might nn- 
 loose broke upon her ; and looking to the stern men 
 on either side she fancied that she read anxiety in 
 their faces. 
 
 She glanced behind. Bridle to bridle the Count's 
 men came on, pressing round her women and shield-
 
 292 COUNT HANNIBAL. 
 
 ing them from the exuberance of the throng. In 
 their faces too she thought that she traced uneasi- 
 ness. 
 
 What wonder if the scenes through which she had 
 passed in Paris began to recur to her mind, and shook 
 nerves already overwrought? 
 
 She began to tremble. "Is there danger?" she 
 muttered, speaking in a low voice to Bigot, who rode 
 on her right hand. "Will they do anything? " 
 
 The Norman snorted. "Not while he is in the sad- 
 dle, "he said, nodding towards his master, who rode 
 a pace in front of them, his reins loose. "There be 
 some here know him ! " Bigot continued, in his 
 drawling tone. "And more will know him if they 
 break line. Have no fear, niadame, he will bring 
 you safe to the inn. Down with the Huguenots ? " he 
 continued, turning from her and addressing a rogue 
 who, holding his stirrup, was shouting the cry till he 
 was crimson. "Then why not away, and " 
 
 "The King! The King's word and leave!" the 
 man answered. 
 
 "Ay, tell us!" shrieked another, looking upward, 
 while he waved his cap; "have we the King's 
 leave ? " 
 
 "You'll bide his leave!" the Norman retorted, in- 
 dicating the Count with his thumb. "Or 'twill be 
 up with you ou the three-legged horse ! " 
 
 "But he comes from the King! " the man panted. 
 
 " To be sure. To be sure ! " 
 
 "Then " 
 
 "You'll bide his time! That's all!" Bigot an- 
 swered, rather it seemed for his own satisfaction than 
 the other's enlightenment. "You'll all bide it, you 
 dogs ! " he continued in his beard, as he cast his eye
 
 THE BLACK TOWN. 293 
 
 over the weltering crowd. "Ha! so we are here, are 
 we ? And not too sooii, either. " 
 
 He fell silent as they entered an open space, over- 
 looked on one side by the dark facade of the cathe- 
 dral, on the other three sides by houses more or less 
 illumined. The rabble swept into this open space 
 with them and before them, filled much of it in an 
 instant, and for a while eddied and swirled this way 
 and that, thrust onward by the worshippers who had 
 issued from the church and backwards by those who 
 had been first in the square, and had no mind to be 
 hustled out of hearing. A stranger, confused by the 
 sea of excited faces, and deafened by the clamour of 
 "Vive le Roi!" "Vive Anjou!" mingled with cries 
 against the Huguenots, might have fancied that the 
 whole city was arrayed before him. But he would 
 have been wide of the mark. The scum, indeed 
 and a dangerous scum frothed and foamed and spat 
 under Tavannes' bridle-hand; and here and there 
 among them, but not of them, the dark-robed figure 
 of a priest moved to and fro ; or a Benedictine, or 
 some smooth-faced acolyte egged on to the work he 
 dared not do. But the decent burghers were not 
 there. They lay bolted in their houses; while the 
 magistrates, with little heart to do aught except bow 
 to the mob or other their masters for the time being 
 shook in their council chamber. 
 
 There is not a city of France which has not seen it ; 
 which has not known the moment when the mass im- 
 pended, and it lay with one man to start it or stay its 
 course. Angers within its houses heard the clamour, 
 and from the child, clinging to its mother's skirt, and 
 wondering why she wept, to the Provost, trembled, 
 believing that the hour had come. The Countess
 
 294 COUNT HANNIBAL. 
 
 heard it too, and understood it. She caught the sav- 
 age note in the voice of the mob that note which 
 means danger and her heart beating wildly she 
 looked to her husband. Then, fortunately for her, 
 fortunately for Angers, it was given to all to see that 
 in Count Hannibal's saddle sat a man. 
 
 He raised his hand for silence, and in a minute or 
 two not at once, for the square was dusky it was 
 obtained. He rose in his stirrups, and bared his 
 head. 
 
 " I am from the King ! " he cried, throwing his 
 voice to all parts of the crowd. "And this is his 
 Majesty's pleasure and good will ! That every man 
 hold his hand until to-morrow on pain of death, or 
 worse! And at noon his further pleasure will be 
 known ! Vive le Roi ! " 
 
 And he covered his head again. 
 
 "Vive le Boi!" cried a number of the foremost. 
 But their shouts were feeble and half-hearted, and 
 were quickly drowned in a rising murmur of discon- 
 tent and ill-humour, which, mingled with cries of "Is 
 that all ? Is there no more ? Down with the Hugue- 
 nots ! " rose from all parts. Presently these cries be- 
 came merged in a persistent call, which had its ori- 
 gin, as far as could be discovered, in the darkest 
 corner of the square. A call for "Montsoreau! 
 Montsoreau ! Give us Moutsoreau ! " 
 
 With another man, or had Tavannes turned or 
 withdrawn, or betrayed the least anxiety, words had 
 become actions, disorder a riot; and that in the 
 twinkling of an eye. But Count Hannibal, sitting 
 his horse, with his handful of riders behind him, 
 watched the crowd, as little moved by it as the 
 Armed Knight of Notre Dame. Only once did he
 
 THE BLACK TOWN. 295 
 
 say a word. Then, raising his hand as before to gain 
 a hearing, "You ask for Montsoreau?" he thun- 
 dered. "You will have Montfaucon if you do not 
 quickly go to your homes ! " 
 
 At which, and at the glare of his eye, the more 
 timid took fright. Feeling his gaze upon them, see- 
 tug that he had no intention of withdrawing, they 
 began to sneak away by ones and twos. Soon others 
 missed them and took the alarm, and followed. A 
 moment and scores were streaming away through 
 lanes and alleys and along the main street. At last 
 the bolder and more turbulent found themselves a 
 remnant. They glanced uneasily at one another and 
 at Tavannes, took fright in their turn, and plunging 
 into the current hastened away, raising now and then 
 as they passed through the streets a cry of "Vive 
 Montsoreau ! Montsoreau ! "- which was not without 
 its menace for the morrow. 
 
 Count Hannibal waited motionless until no more 
 than half a dozen groups remained in the open. Then 
 he gave the word to dismount ; so far, even the Coun- 
 tess and her women had kept their saddles, lest the 
 movement which their retreat into the inn must have 
 caused should be misread by the mob. Last of all he 
 dismounted himself, and with lights going before htm 
 and behind, and preceded by Bigot, bearing his cloak 
 and pistols, he escorted the Countess into the house. 
 Not many minutes had elapsed since he called for 
 silence; but long before he reached the chamber 
 looking over the square from the first floor, in which 
 supper was being set for them, the news had flown 
 through the length and breadth of Angers that for 
 this night the danger was past. The hawk had come 
 to Angers, and lo ! it was a dove.
 
 296 COUNT HANNIBAL. 
 
 Count Hannibal strode to one of the open windows 
 and looked out. In the room, which was well lighted, 
 were people of the house, going to and fro, set- 
 ting out the table; to Madame, standing beside the 
 hearth which held its summer dressing of green 
 boughs while her woman held water for her to wash, 
 the scene recalled with painful vividness the meal at 
 which she had been present ou the morning of the St. 
 Bartholomew the meal which had ushered in her 
 troubles. Naturally her eyes went to her husband, 
 her mind to the horror in which she had held him 
 then ; and with a kind of shock, perhaps because the 
 last few minutes had shown him in a new light, she 
 compared her old opinion of him with that which, 
 much as she feared him, she now entertained. 
 
 This afternoon, if ever, within the last few hours, 
 if at all, he had acted in a way to justify that horror 
 and that opinion. He had treated her brutally ; he 
 had insulted and threatened her, had almost struck 
 her. And yet and yet Madame felt that she had 
 moved so far from the point which she had once oc- 
 cupied that the old attitude was hard to understand. 
 Hardly could she believe that it was on this man, 
 much as she still dreaded him, that she had looked 
 with those feelings of repulsion. 
 
 She was still gazing at him with eyes which strove 
 to see two men in one, when he turned from the win- 
 dow. Absorbed in thought she had forgotten her 
 occupation, and stood, the towel suspended in her 
 half-dried hands. Before she knew what he was do- 
 ing he was at her side ; he bade the woman hold the 
 bowl, and he rinsed his hands. Then he turned, and 
 without looking at the Countess, he dried his hands on 
 the farther end of the towel which she was still using. ,
 
 THE BLACK TOWN. 297 
 
 She blushed faintly. A something in the act, more 
 intimate and more familiar than had ever marked 
 their intercourse, set her blood running strangely. 
 When he turned away and bade Bigot unbuckle his 
 spur-leathers, she stepped forward. 
 
 "I will do it!" she murmured, acting on a sudden 
 and unaccountable impulse. And as she knelt, she 
 shook her hair about her face to hide its colour. 
 
 " Nay, madame, but you will soil your fingers ! " he 
 said coldly. 
 
 "Permit me," she muttered half coherently. And 
 though her fingers shook, she pursued and performed 
 her task. 
 
 When she rose he thanked her ; and then the devil 
 in the man, or the Nemesis he had provoked when he 
 took her by force from another the Nemesis of jeal- 
 ousy, drove him to spoil all. "And for whose sake, 
 madame?" he added with a jeer "mine or M. de 
 Tignouville's? " And with a glance between jest and 
 earnest, he tried to read her thoughts. 
 
 She winced as if he had indeed struck her, and 
 the hot colour fled her cheeks. "For his sake! " she 
 said, with a shiver of pain. "That his life may be 
 spared ! " And she stood back humbly, like a beaten 
 dog. Though, indeed, it was for the sake of Angers, 
 in thankfulness for the past rather than in any des- 
 perate hope of propitiating her husband, that she had 
 done it! 
 
 Perhaps he would have withdrawn his words. But 
 before he could answer, the host, bowing to the floor, 
 came to announce that all was ready, and that the 
 Provost of the City, for whom M. le Comte had sent, 
 was in waiting below. "Let him come up!" Ta- 
 vanues answered, grave and frowning. " And see you,
 
 298 COUNT HANNIBAL. 
 
 close the room, sirrah! My people will wait on us. 
 Ah ! " as the Provost, a burly mau with a face framed 
 for jollity, but now pale and long, entered and ap- 
 proached him with many salutations. "How comes 
 it, M. le Prevot you are the Prevot, are you not? " 
 
 "Yes, M. le Comte." 
 
 "How comes it that so great a crowd is permitted 
 to meet in the streets'? And that at my entrance, 
 though I come unannounced, I find half of the city 
 gathered together ? " 
 
 The Provost stared. "Kespect, M. le Comte," he 
 said, "for His Majesty's letters, of which you are the 
 bearer, no doubt induced some to come together " 
 
 " Who said I brought letters? " 
 
 "Who " 
 
 "Who said I brought letters?" Count Hannibal 
 repeated in a strenuous voice. And he ground his 
 chair half about and faced the astonished magistrate. 
 "Who said I brought letters'? " 
 
 "Why, my lord," the Provost stammered, "it was 
 everywhere yesterday " 
 
 "Yesterday?" 
 
 "Last night, at latest that letters were coming 
 from the King." 
 
 "By my hand?" 
 
 "By your lordship's hand whose name is so well 
 known here," the magistrate added, in the hope of 
 clearing the great man's brow. 
 
 Count Hannibal laughed darkly. "My hand will 
 be better known by-and-by," he said. "See you, 
 sirrah, there is some practice here. What is this cry 
 of Montsoreau that I hear? " 
 
 "Your lordship knows that he is His Grace's Lieu- 
 tenant-Go vernor in Saumur."
 
 THE BLACK TOWN. 299 
 
 "I know that, man. But is he here? " 
 
 "He was at Saumur yesterday, and 'twas rumoured 
 three days back that he was coming here to extirpate 
 the Huguenots. Then word came of your lordship 
 and of His Majesty's letters, and 'twas thought that 
 M. de Montsoreau would not come, his authority be- 
 ing superseded." 
 
 "I see. And now your rabble think that they 
 would prefer M. Montsoreau. That is it, is it? " 
 
 The magistrate shrugged his shoulders and opened 
 his hands. "Pigs!" he said. And having spat on 
 the floor he looked apologetically at the lady. "True 
 pigs ! " 
 
 "What connections has he here? " Tavannes asked. 
 
 "He is a brother of my lord the Bishop's Vicar, 
 who arrived yesterday." 
 
 "With a rout of shaven heads who have been 
 preaching and stirring up the town ! " Count Hanni- 
 bal cried, his face growing red. "Speak, man, is it 
 so 1 ? But I'll be sworn it is! " 
 
 "There has been preaching," the Provost answered 
 reluctantly. 
 
 " Montsoreau may count his brother, then, for one. 
 He is a fool, but with a knave behind him, and a 
 knave who has no cause to love us! And the Castle? 
 'Tis held by one of M. de Montsoreau's creatures, I 
 take it?" 
 
 "Yes, my lord." 
 
 "With what force?" 
 
 The magistrate shrugged his shoulders, and looked 
 doubtfully at Badelon, who was keeping the door. 
 
 Tavannes followed the glance with his usual impa- 
 tience. "Mon Dieu, you need not look at him!" he 
 cried. "He has sacked St. Peter's and singed the
 
 300 COUNT HANNIBAL. 
 
 Pope's beard with a holy caudle! He has been 
 served on the knee by Cardinals; and is Turk or 
 Jew, or monk or Huguenot as I please. And ma- 
 dauie " for the Provost's astonished eyes, after rest- 
 ing awhile on the old soldier's iron visage, had passed 
 to her "is Huguenot, so you need have no fear of 
 her! There, speak, man," with impatience, "and 
 cease to think of your own skin ! " 
 
 The Provost drew a deep breath, and fixed his 
 small eyes on Count Hannibal. 
 
 "If I knew, my lord, what you why, my own sis- 
 ter's sou" he paused, his face began to work, his 
 voice shook "is a Huguenot! Ay, my lord, a Hu- 
 guenot ! And they know it ! " he continued, a flush 
 of rage augmenting the emotion which his counte- 
 nance betrayed. "Ay, they know it! And they 
 push me on at the Council, and grin behind my back ; 
 Lescot, who was Provost two years back and would 
 match his son with my daughter ; and Thuriot who 
 prints for the University ! They nudge one another, 
 and egg me on, till half the city thinks it is I who 
 would kill the Huguenots ! I ! " Again his voice 
 broke. "And my own sister's son a Huguenot! 
 And my girl at home white- faced for for his sake." 
 
 Tavannes scanned the man shrewdly. "Perhaps 
 she is of the same way of thinking ? " he said. 
 
 The Provost started, and lost one-half of his colour. 
 "God forbid' " he cried, "saving madame's presence! 
 Who says so, my lord, lies ! " 
 
 "Ay, lies not far from the truth." 
 
 "My lord!" 
 
 "Pish, man, Lescot has said it and will act on it. 
 And Thuriot, who prints for the University ! Would 
 you 'scape them ? You would ? Then listen to me.
 
 THE BLACK TOWK 301 
 
 I want but two things. First, how many men has 
 Moiitsoreau's fellow in the Castle? Few, I know, for 
 he is a niggard, and if he spends, he spends the 
 Duke's pay." 
 
 "Twelve. But five can hold it. " 
 
 "Ay, but twelve dare not leave it! Let them stew 
 in their own broth ! And now for the other matter. 
 See, man, that before daybreak three gibbets, with a 
 ladder and two ropes apiece, are set up in the square. 
 And let one be before this door. You understand ? 
 Then let it be done! The rest," he added with a 
 ferocious smile, "you may leave to me." 
 
 The magistrate nodded rather feebly. "Doubt- 
 less," he said, his eye wandering here and there, 
 "there are rogues in Angers. And for rogues the 
 gibbet! But saving your presence, my lord, it is a 
 question whether " 
 
 But M. de Tavannes' patience was exhausted. 
 "Will you do it 1 ? " he roared. "That is the question. 
 And the only question." 
 
 The Provost jumped, he was so startled. "Cer- 
 tainly, my lord, certainly ! " he muttered humbly. 
 " Certainly, I will ! " And bowing frequently, but 
 saying no more, he backed himself out of the room. 
 
 Count Hannibal laughed grimly after his fashion, 
 and doubtless thought that he had seen the last of 
 the magistrate for that night. Great was his wrath 
 therefore, when, less than a minute later and before 
 Bigot had carved for him the door opened and the 
 Provost appeared again. He slid in, and without 
 giving the courage he had gained on the stairs time to 
 cool, plunged into his trouble. 
 
 "It stands this way, M. le Comte," he bleated. "If 
 I put up the gibbets and a man is hanged, and you
 
 302 COUNT HANNIBAL. 
 
 have letters from the King, 'tis a rogue the less and 
 no harm done. But if you have no letters from His 
 Majesty, then it is on my shoulders they will put it, 
 ind 'twill be odd if they do not find a way to hang 
 me to right him. " 
 
 Count Hannibal smiled grimly. "And your sis- 
 ter's sou?" he sneered. "And your girl who is 
 white-faced for his sake, and may burn on the same 
 bonfire with him? And " 
 
 "Mercy! Mercy!" the wretched Provost cried. 
 And he wrung his hands. "Lescot a*id Thuriot n 
 
 "Perhaps we may hang Lescot and Thuriot " 
 
 "But I see no way out," the Provost babbled. "No 
 way ! No way ! " 
 
 "I am going to show you one," Tavannes retorted. 
 "If the gibbets are not in place by sunrise, I shall 
 hang you from this window. That is one way out ; 
 and you'll be wise to take the other! For the rest 
 and for your comfort, if I have no letters, it is not 
 always to paper that the King commits his inmost 
 heart." 
 
 The magistrate bowed. He quaked, he doubted, 
 but he had no choice. "My lord," he said, "I put 
 myself in your hands. It shall be done, certainly it 
 
 shall be done. But, but " and shaking his head 
 
 in foreboding he turned to the door. 
 
 At the last moment, when he was within a pace of 
 it, the Countess rose impulsively to her feet. She 
 called to him. "M. le Prevot, a minute, if you 
 please, " she said. "There may be trouble to morrow ; 
 your daughter may be in some peril. You will do well 
 to send her to me. My lord " and on the word her 
 voice, timid before, grew full and steady "will see 
 that I am safe. And she will be safe with me."
 
 THE BLACK TOWK 303 
 
 The Provost saw before him only a gracious lady, 
 moved by a thoughtfulness unusual in persons of her 
 rank. He was at no pains to explain the flame in 
 her cheek, or the soft light which glowed in her 
 eyes, as she looked at him, across her formidable hus- 
 band. He was only profoundly grateful moved 
 even to tears. Humbly thanking her he accepted her 
 offer for his child, and withdrew wiping his eyes. 
 
 When he was gone, and the door had closed behind 
 him, Tavaunes turned to the Countess, who still kept 
 her feet. "You are very confident this evening," he 
 sneered. "Gibbets d r not frighten you, it seems, 
 madame. Perhaps if you knew for whom the one be- 
 fore the door is intended *? " 
 
 She met his look with a searching gaze, and spoke 
 with a ring of defiance in her tone. "I do not be- 
 lieve it ! " she said. "I do not believe it ! You who 
 save Angers will not destroy him ! " And then her 
 woman's mood changing, with courage and colour 
 ebbing together, "Oh, no, you will not! You will 
 not ! " she wailed. And she dropped on her knees 
 before him, and holding up her clasped hands, "God 
 will put it in your heart to spare him and me ! " 
 
 He rose with a stifled oath, took two steps from 
 her, and in a tone hoarse and constrained, "Go! 7 ' he 
 said. "Go, or sit! Do you hear, madame ? You try 
 my patience too far ! " 
 
 But when she had gone his face was radiant. He 
 had brought her, he had brought all, to the point at 
 which he aimed. To-morrow his triumph awaited 
 him. To-morrow he who had cast her down would 
 raise her up. 
 
 He did not foresee what a day would bring forth.
 
 CHAPTER XXVIII. 
 
 IN THE LITTLE CHAPTEE-HOTJSuJ. 
 
 THE sun was an hour high, and in Angers the shops 
 and booths, after the early fashion of the day, were 
 open or opening. Through all the gates country folk 
 were pressing into the gloomy streets of the Black 
 Town with milk and fruit ; and at doors and windows 
 housewives cheapened fish, or chaffered over the fowl 
 for the pot. For men must eat, though there be gib- 
 bets in the Place Ste.-Croix: gaunt gibbets, high and 
 black and twofold, each, with its dangling ropes, like 
 a double note of interrogation. 
 
 But gibbets must eat also ; and between ground and 
 noose was so small a space in those days that a man 
 dangled almost before he knew it. The sooner, then, 
 the paniers were empty, and the clown, who pays 
 for all, was beyond the gates, the better he, for one, 
 would be pleased. In the market, therefore, was 
 hurrying. Men cried their wares in lowered voices, 
 and tarried but a 1 ittle for the oldest customer. The 
 bargain struck, the more timid among the buyers hast- 
 ened to shut themselves into their houses again ; the 
 bolder, who ventured to the Place to confirm the ru- 
 mour with their eyes, talked in corners and in lanes, 
 avoided the open, and eyed the sinister preparations 
 from afar. The shadow of the things which stood 
 before the cathedral affronting the sunlight with their 
 gaunt black shapes lay across the length and breadth
 
 IN THE LITTLE CHAPTER-HOUSE. 305 
 
 of Augers. Even in the corners where men whis- 
 pered, even in the cloisters where men bit their 
 nails in impotent auger, the stillness of fear ruled 
 all. Whatever Count Hannibal had it in his mind 
 to tell the city, it seemed unlikely and hour by 
 hour it seemed less likely that any would contra- 
 dict him. 
 
 He knew this as he walked in the sunlight before 
 the inn, his spurs ringing on the stones as he made- 
 each turn, his movements watched by a hundred peer- 
 ing eyes. After all, it was not hard to rule, nor to 
 have one's way in this world. But then, he went on 
 to remember, not everyone had his self-control, or 
 that contempt for the weak and unsuccessful which 
 lightly took the form of mercy. He held Augers 
 safe, curbed by his gibbets. With M. de Montsoreau 
 he might have trouble; but the trouble would be 
 slight, for he knew Montsorean, and what it was the 
 Lientenant-Governor valued above profitless blood- 
 shed. 
 
 He might have felt less confident had he known 
 what was passing at that moment in a room off the 
 small cloister of the Abbey of St. Aubin, a room 
 known at Angers as the Little Chapter-House. It 
 was a long chamber with a groined roof and stone 
 walls, panelled as high as a tall man might reach with 
 dark chestnut wood. Gloomily lighted by three 
 grated windows, which looked on a small inner green, 
 the last resting-place of the Benedictines, the room 
 itself seemed at first sight no more than the last rest- 
 ing-place of worn-out odds and ends. Piles of thin 
 sheepskin folios, dog's-eared and dirty, the rejected 
 of the choir, stood against the walls ; here and there 
 among them lay a large brass-bound tome on which 
 20
 
 306 COUNT HANNIBAL. 
 
 the chains that had fettered it to desk or lectern still 
 rusted. A broken altar cumbered one corner: a 
 stand bearing a curious and rotting map filled 
 another. In the other two corners a medley of faded 
 scutcheons and banners, which had seen their last 
 Toussaint procession, mouldered slowly into dust 
 into much dust. The air of the room was full of it. 
 
 In spite of which the long oak table that filled 
 the middle of the chamber shone with use : so did the 
 great metal standish which it bore. And though the 
 seven men who sat about the table seemed, at a first 
 glance and in that gloomy light, as rusty and faded 
 as the rubbish behind them, it needed but a second 
 look at their lean jaws and hungry eyes to be sure of 
 their vitality. 
 
 He who sat in the great chair at the end of the 
 table was indeed rather plump than thin. His white 
 hands, gay with rings, were well cared for ; his peev- 
 ish chin rested on a falling-collar of lace worthy 
 of a Cardinal. But though the Bishop's Vicar was 
 heard with deference, it was noticeable that when he 
 had ceased to speak his hearers looked to the priest 
 on his left, to Father Pezelay, and waited to hear his 
 opinion before they gave their own. The Father's 
 energy, indeed, had dominated the Angevins, clerks 
 and townsfolk alike, as it had dominated the Parisian 
 devotes who knew him well. The vigour which hate 
 inspires passes often for solid strength ; and he who 
 had seen with his own eyes the things done in Paris 
 spoke with an authority to which the more timid 
 quickly and easily succumbed. 
 
 Yet gibbets are ugly things ; and Thuriot, the print- 
 er, whose pride had been tickled by a summons to 
 the conclave, began to wonder if he had done wisely
 
 IN THE LITTLE CHAPTEB-HOUSE. 307 
 
 in coming. Lescot, too, who presently ventured a 
 word. " But if M. de Tavannes' order be to do noth- 
 ing," he began doubtfully, "you would not, reverend 
 Father, have us resist His Majesty's will? " 
 
 "God forbid, my friend!" Father Pezelay an- 
 swered with unction. "But His Majesty's will is to 
 do to do for the glory of God and the saints and His 
 Holy Church! How? Is that which was lawful at 
 Saumur unlawful here ? Is that which was lawful at 
 Tours unlawful here 1 Is that which the King did in 
 Paris to the utter extermination of the unbelieving 
 and the purging of that Sacred City against his will 
 here? Nay, his will is to do to do as they have 
 done in Paris and in Tours and in Saumur ! But his 
 Minister is unfaithful! The woman whom he has 
 taken to his bosom has bewildered him with her 
 charms and her sorceries, and put it in his mind to 
 deny the mission he bears." 
 
 "You are sure, beyond chance of error, that he 
 bears letters to that effect, good Father? " the printer 
 ventured. 
 
 "Ask my lord's Vicar! He knows the letters and 
 the import of them ! " 
 
 "They are to that effect," the Archdeacon an- 
 swered, drumming on the table with his fingers and 
 speaking somewhat sullenly. "I was in the Chancel- 
 lery and I saw them. They are duplicates of those 
 sent to Bordeaux." 
 
 "Then the preparations he has made must be 
 against the Huguenots," Lescot, the ex-Provost, said 
 with a sigh of relief. And Thuriot's face lightened 
 also. "He must intend to hang one or two of the 
 ringleaders, before he deals with the herd." 
 
 "Think it not!" Father Pezelay cried in his high
 
 308 COUNT HANNIBAL. 
 
 shrill voice. "I tell you the woman has bewitched 
 him, and he will deny his letters ! " 
 
 For a moment there was silence. Then, "But dare 
 he do that, reverend Father?" Lescot asked slowly 
 and incredulously. "What? Suppress the King's 
 letters?" 
 
 "There is nothing he will not dare! There is noth- 
 ing he has not dared ! " the priest answered vehe- 
 mently; the recollection of the scene in the great 
 guard-room of the Louvre, when Tavannes had so 
 skilfully turned the tables on him, instilling venom 
 into his tone. "She who lives with him is the devil's. 
 She has bewitched him with her spells and her Sab- 
 baths ! She bears the mark of the Beast on her bo- 
 som, and for her the fire is even now kindling ! " 
 
 The laymen who were present shuddered. The two 
 canons who faced them crossed themselves, muttering 
 "Avaunt, Satan!" 
 
 "It is for you to decide," the priest continued, gaz- 
 ing on them passionately, "whether you will side 
 with him or with the Angel of God ! For I tell you 
 it was none other executed the divine judgments at 
 Paris! It was none other but the Angel of God held 
 the sword at Tours! It is none other holds the sword 
 here! Are you for him or against him? Are you 
 for him, or for the woman with the mark of the 
 Beast? Are you for God or against God? For the 
 hour draws near ! The time is at hand ! You must 
 choose ! You must choose ! " And, striking the table 
 with his hand, he leaned forward, and with glittering 
 eyes fixed each of them in turn, as he cried, "You 
 must choose ! You must choose ! " He came to the 
 Archdeacon last. 
 
 The Bishop's Vicar fidgeted in his chair, his face a
 
 IN THE LITTLE CHAPTER HOUSE. 309 
 
 shade more sallow, his cheeks hanging a trifle more 
 loosely, than ordinary. "If my brother were here!" 
 he muttered. "If M. de Moutsoreau had arrived! " 
 
 But Father Pezelay knew whose will would prevail 
 if Montsoreau met Tavannes at his leisure. To force 
 Montsoreau's hand, to surround him on his first en- 
 trance with a howling mob already committed to vio- 
 lence, to set him at their head and pledge him before 
 he knew with whom he had to do this had been, this 
 still was, the priest's design. 
 
 But how was he to pursue it while those gibbets 
 stood ? While their shadows lay even on the chapter 
 table, and darkened the faces of his most forward 
 associates ? That for a moment staggered the priest ; 
 and had not private hatred, ever renewed by the 
 touch of the scar on his brow, fed the fire of bigotry 
 he had yielded, as the rabble of Augers were yield- 
 ing, reluctant and scowling, to the hand which held 
 the city in its grip. But to have come so far on the 
 wings of hate, and to do nothing! To have come 
 avowedly to preach a crusade, and to sneak away 
 cowed! To have dragged the Bishop's Vicar hither, 
 and fawned and cajoled and threatened by turns 
 and for nothing ! These things were passing bitter 
 passing bitter, when the morsel of vengeance he had 
 foreseen smacked so sweet on the tongue. 
 
 For it was no common vengeance, no layman's ven- 
 geance, coarse and clumsy, which the priest had 
 imagined in the dark hours of the night, when his 
 feverish brain kept him wakeful. To see Count 
 Hannibal roll in the dust had gone but a little way 
 towards satisfying him. No ! But to drag from his 
 arms the woman for whom he had sinned, to subject 
 her to shame and torture in the depths of some con-
 
 310 COUNT HANNIBAL. 
 
 vent, and finally to burn her as a witch it was that 
 which had seemed to the priest in the night hours a 
 vengeance sweet in the mouth. 
 
 But the thing seemed unattainable in the circum- 
 stances. The city was cowed ; the priest knew that 
 no dependence was to be placed on Montsoreau, 
 whose vice was avarice and whose object was plunder. 
 To the Archdeacon's feeble words, therefore, "We 
 must look," the priest retorted sternly, "not to M. 
 de Montsoreau, reverend Father, but to the pious of 
 Augers ! We must cry in the streets, ' They do vio- 
 lence to God ! They wound God and His Mother ! > 
 And so, and so only, shall the unholy thing be rooted 
 out!" 
 
 " Amen ! " the Cure of St. -Benoist muttered, lifting 
 his head; and his dull eyes glowed awhile. "Amen! 
 Amen ! " Then his chin sank again upon his breast. 
 
 But the canons of Angers looked doubtfully at 
 one another, and timidly at the speakers; the meat 
 was too strong for them. And Lescot and Thuriot 
 shuffled in their seats. At length, "I do not know," 
 Lescot muttered timidly. 
 
 "You do not know?" 
 
 " What can be done ! " 
 
 "The people will know!" Father Pezelay retorted. 
 "Trust them!" 
 
 "But the people will not rise without a leader." 
 
 "Then will I lead them! " 
 
 "Even so, reverend Father I doubt," Lescot fal- 
 tered. And Thuriot nodded assent. Gibbets were 
 erected in those days rather for laymen than for the 
 Church. 
 
 "You doubt!" the priest cried. "You doubt!" 
 His baleful eyes passed from one to the other ; from
 
 IN THE LITTLE CHAPTER -HOUSE. 311 
 
 them to the rest of the company. He saw that with 
 the exception of the Cure of St. -Benoist all were of a 
 mind. "You doubt! Nay, but I see what it is! It 
 is this," he continued slowly and in a different tone, 
 "the King's will goes for nothing in Angers! His 
 writ runs not here. And Holy Church cries in vain 
 for help against the oppressor. I tell you, the sorcer- 
 ess who has bewitched him has bewitched you also. 
 Beware! beware, therefore, lest it be with you as 
 with him! And the fire that shall consume her, 
 spare not your houses ! " 
 
 The two citizens crossed themselves, grew pale and 
 shuddered. The fear of witchcraft was great in An- 
 gers, the peril, if accused of it, enormous. Even the 
 canons looked startled. "If if my brother were 
 here," the Archdeacon repeated feebly, "something 
 might be done ! " 
 
 "Vain is the help of man!" the priest retorted 
 sternly, and with a gesture of sublime dismissal. "I 
 turn from you to a mightier than you ! " And, lean- 
 ing his head on his hands, he covered his face. 
 
 The Archdeacon and the churchmen looked at him, 
 and from him their scared eyes passed to one another. 
 Their one desire now was to be quit of the matter, to 
 have done with it, to escape; and one by one with 
 the air of whipped curs they rose to their feet, and in 
 a hurry to be gone muttered a word of excuse shame- 
 facedly and got themselves out of the room. Lescot 
 and the printer were not slow to follow, and in less 
 than a minute the two strange preachers, the men 
 from Paris, remained the only occupants of the 
 chamber; save, to be precise, a lean official in rusty 
 black, who throughout the conference had sat by the 
 door.
 
 312 COUNT HANNIBAL. 
 
 Until the last shuffling footstep had ceased to 
 sound in the still cloister no one spoke. Then Father 
 Pezelay looked up, and the eyes of the two priests 
 met iu a long gaze. "What think you 1 ?" Pezelay 
 muttered at last. 
 
 "Wet hay," the other answered dreamily, "is slow 
 to kindle, yet burns if the fire be big enough. At 
 what hour does he state his will ? " 
 
 "At noon." 
 
 "In the Council Chamber! " 
 
 "It is so given out." 
 
 "It is three hundred yards from the Place Ste.- 
 Croix and he must go guarded," the Cure of St. - 
 Benoist continued in the same dull fashion. "He 
 cannot leave many in the house with the woman. If 
 it were attacked in his absence " 
 
 "He would return, and " Father Pezelay shook 
 
 his head, his cheek turned a shade paler. Clearly, 
 he saw with his mind's eye more than he expressed. 
 
 "Hoc est corpus," the other muttered, his dreamy 
 gaze on the table. "If he met us then, 011 his way to 
 the house, and we had bell, book, and candle, would 
 he stop ? " 
 
 "He would not stop! " Father Pezelay rejoined. 
 
 "He would not?" 
 
 " I know the man ! " 
 
 "Then " but the rest St.-Beuoist whispered, his 
 
 head drooping forward ; whispered so low that even 
 the lean man behind him, listening with greedy ears, 
 failed to follow the meaning of his superior's words. 
 But that he spoke plainly enough for his hearer 
 Father Pezelay 's face was witness. Astonishment, 
 fear, hope, triumph, the lean pale face reflected all in 
 turn; and, underlying all, a subtle malignant mis-
 
 IN THE LITTLE CHAPTER- HOUSE. 313 
 
 chief, as if a devil's eyes peeped through the holes 
 in an opera mask. 
 
 When the other was at last silent Pezelay drew a 
 deep breath. "'Tis bold! Bold! Bold!" he mut- 
 tered. "But have you thought? He who bears 
 the " 
 
 "Brunt 1 ?" the other whispered with a chuckle. 
 "He may suffer? Yes, but it will not be you or I! 
 No, he who was last here shall be first there ! The 
 Archdeacon- Vicar if we can persuade him who 
 knows but that even for him the crown of martyrdom 
 is reserved ? " The dull eyes flickered with unholy 
 amusement. 
 
 "And the alarm that brings him from the Council 
 Chamber?" 
 
 "Need not of necessity be real. The pinch will be 
 to make use of it. Make use of it and the hay will 
 burn ! " 
 
 "You think it will?" 
 
 "What can one man do against a thousand? His 
 own people dare not support him." 
 
 Father Pezelay turned to the lean man who kept 
 the door, and, beckoning to him, conferred a while 
 with him in a low voice. 
 
 "A score or so I might get," the man answered 
 presently after some debate. "And well posted, 
 something might be done. But we are not in Paris, 
 good father, where the Quarter of the Butchers is to 
 be counted on, and men know that to kill Huguenots 
 is to do God service ! Here " he shrugged his shoul- 
 ders contemptuously " they are sheep. " 
 
 "It is the King's will," the priest answered, frown- 
 ing on him darkly. 
 
 "Ay, but it is not Tavannes'," the man in black
 
 314 COUNT HANNIBAL. 
 
 answered with a grimace. "And he rules here to- 
 day." 
 
 "Fool!" Pezelay retorted. "He has not twenty 
 with him. Do you do as I say, and leave the rest to 
 heaven ! " 
 
 "And to you, good master?" the other answered. 
 "For it is not all you are going to do," he continued 
 with a grin, "that you have told me. Well, so be it! 
 I'll do my part, but I wish we were in Paris. Ste. 
 Genevieve is ever kind to her servants."
 
 CHAPTEE XXIX. 
 
 THE ESCAPE. 
 
 IN a small back room on the second floor of the inn at 
 Angers, a mean, dingy room which looked into a nar- 
 row lane, and commanded no prospect more informing 
 than a blind wall, two men sat, fretting ; or, rather, 
 one man sat, his chin resting on his hand, while his 
 companion, less patient or more sanguine, strode 
 ceaselessly to and fro. In the first despair of capture 
 for they were prisoners they had made up their 
 minds to the worst, and the slow hours of two days 
 had passed over their heads without kindling more 
 than a faint spark of hope in their breasts. But 
 when they had been taken out and forced to mount 
 and ride at first with feet tied to the horses' girths 
 they had let the change, the movement, and the 
 open air fan the flame. They had muttered a word 
 to one another, they had wondered, they had rea- 
 soned. And though the silence of their guards 
 from whose sour vigilance the keenest question drew 
 no response seemed of ill-omen, and, taken with 
 their knowledge of the man into whose hands they 
 had fallen, should have quenched the spark, these 
 two, having special reasons, the one the buoyancy of 
 youth, the other the faith of an enthusiast, cherished 
 the flame. In the breast of one indeed it had blazed 
 into a confidence so arrogant that he now took all for 
 granted, and was not content.
 
 316 COUNT HANNIBAL. 
 
 "It is easy for you to say, ' Patience! ' " he cried, 
 as he walked the floor iii a fever. "You stand to lose 
 no more than your life, and if you escape go free at 
 all points ! But he has robbed me of more than life ! 
 Of my love, and my self-respect, curse him ! He has 
 worsted me not once, but twice and thrice ! And if 
 he lets me go now, dismissing me with my life, I shall 
 I shall kill him ! " he concluded, through his teeth. 
 
 " You are hard to please ! " 
 
 "I shall kill him!" 
 
 "That were to fall still lower!" the minister an- 
 swered, gravely regarding him. "I would, M. de 
 Tiguonville, you remembered that you are not yet out 
 of jeopardy. Such a frame of mind as yours is no 
 good preparation for death, let me tell you ! " 
 
 " He will not kill us ! " Tignonville cried. " He 
 knows better than most men how to avenge himself ! " 
 
 "Then he is above most! " La Tribe retorted. "For 
 my part I wish I were sure of the fact, and I should 
 sit here more at ease." 
 
 "If we could escape, now, of ourselves!" Tignon- 
 ville cried. "Then we should save not only life, but 
 honour ! Man, think of it ! If we could escape, not 
 by his leave but against it ! Are you sure that this is 
 Angers ! " 
 
 "As sure as a man can be who has only seen the 
 Black Town once or twice ! " La Tribe answered, 
 moving to the casement which was not glazed and 
 peering through the rough wooden lattice. "But if 
 we could escape we are strangers here. We know not 
 which way to go, nor where to find shelter. And for 
 the matter of that," he continued, turning from the 
 window with a shrug of resignation, " 'tis no use 
 to talk of it while yonder foot goes up and down
 
 THE ESCAPE. 317 
 
 the passage, and its owner bears the key in his 
 pocket." 
 
 " If we could get out of his power as we came into 
 it ! " Tiguonville cried. 
 
 " Ay, if ! But it is not every floor has a trap ! " 
 
 "We could take up a board." 
 
 The minister raised his eyebrows. 
 
 " We could take up a board ! " the younger man 
 repeated ; and he stepped the mean chamber from end 
 to end, his eyes on the floor. " Or yes, mon Dieu ! " 
 with a change of attitude, "we might break through 
 the roof ! " And, throwing back his head, he scanned 
 the cobwebbed surface of laths which rested on the 
 unceiled joists. 
 
 "Umph!" 
 
 "Well, why not, monsieur? Why not break 
 through the ceiling?" Tignonville repeated, and in 
 a fit of energy he seized his companion's shoulder 
 and shook him. "Stand on the bed, and you can 
 reach it." 
 
 " And the floor which rests on it ! " 
 
 " Par Dieu, there is no floor ! 'Tis a cockloft above 
 us ! See there ! And there ! " And the young man 
 sprang on the bed, and thrust the rowel of a spur 
 through the laths. 
 
 La Tribe's expression changed. He rose slowly to 
 his feet. "Try again! " he said. 
 
 Tiguonville, his face red, drove the spur again be- 
 tween the laths, and worked it to and fro until he 
 could pass his fingers into the hole he had made. 
 Then he gripped and bent down a length of one of 
 the laths, and, passing his arm as far as the elbow 
 through the hole, moved it this way and that. His 
 eyes, as he looked down at his companion through the
 
 318 COUNT HANNIBAL. 
 
 lolling rubbish, gleamed with triumph. "Where is 
 your flooi now 1 " he asked. 
 
 "You can touch nothing?" 
 
 "Nothing. It's 6pen. A little more and I might 
 touch the tiles. " And he strove to reach higher. 
 
 For answer La Tribe gripped him. "Down! 
 Down, monsieur," he muttered. "They are bringing 
 our dinner. " 
 
 Tignonville thrust back the lath as well as he could, 
 and slipped to the floor ; and hastily the two swept 
 the rubbish from the bed. When Badelon, attended 
 by two men, came in with the meal he found La Tribe 
 at the window blocking much of the light, and Tig- 
 nonville laid sullenly on the bed. Even a suspicious 
 eye must have failed to detect what had been done ; 
 the three who looked in suspected nothing and saw 
 nothing. They went out, the key was turned again 
 on the prisoners, and the footsteps of two of the men 
 were heard descending the stairs. 
 
 "We have an hour, now!" Tignouville cried; and 
 leaping, with flaming eyes, on the bed, he fell to 
 hacking and jabbing and tearing at the laths amid a 
 rain of dust and rubbish. Fortunately the stuif, fall- 
 ing on the bed, made little noise ; and in five minutes, 
 working half -choked and in a frenzy of impatience, 
 he had made a hole through which he could thrust his 
 arms, a hole which extended almost from one joist to 
 its neighbour. By this time the air was thick with 
 floating lime ; the two could scarcely breathe, yet they 
 dared not pause. Mounting on La Tribe's shoulders 
 who took his stand on the bed the young man 
 thrust his head and arms through the hole, and, rest- 
 ing his elbows on the joists, dragged himself up, and 
 with a final effort of strength landed nose and knees
 
 THE ESCAPE. 319 
 
 on the timbers, which formed his supports. A mo- 
 ment to take breath, and press his torn and bleeding 
 fingers to his lips; then, reaching down, he gave a 
 hand to his companion and dragged him to the same 
 place of vantage. 
 
 They found themselves in a long narrow cockloft, 
 not more than six feet high at the highest, and insuf- 
 ferably hot. Between the tiles, which sloped steeply 
 on either hand, a faint light filtered in, disclosing the 
 giant rooftree running the length of the house, and at 
 the farther end of the loft the main tie-beam, from 
 which a network of knees and struts rose to the roof- 
 tree. 
 
 Tignonville, who seemed possessed by unnatural 
 energy, stayed only to put off his boots. Then 
 "Courage!" he panted, "all goes well!" and, carry- 
 ing his boots in his hands, he led the way, stepping 
 gingerly from joist to joist until he reached the tie- 
 beam. He climbed on it, and, squeezing himself 
 between the struts, entered a second loft similar 
 to the first. At the farther end of this a rough 
 wall of bricks in a timber-frame lowered his hopes ; 
 but as he approached it, joy! Low down in the 
 corner where the roof descended, a small door, 
 square, and not more than two feet high, disclosed 
 itself. 
 
 The two crept to it on hands and knees and listened. 
 "It will lead to the leads, I doubt?" La Tribe whis- 
 pered. They dared not raise their voices. 
 
 "As well that way as another!" Tignonville an- 
 swered recklessly. He was the more eager, for there 
 is a fear which transcends the fear of death. His 
 eyes shone through the mask of dust, the sweat ran 
 down to his chin, his breath came and went noisily.
 
 320 COUNT HANNIBAL. 
 
 "Naught matters if we can escape him!" he panted. 
 And he pushed the door recklessly. It flew open, the 
 two drew back their faces with a cry of alarm. 
 
 They were looking, not into the sunlight, but into 
 a grey dingy garret open to the roof, and occupying 
 the upper part of a gable-end somewhat higher than 
 the wing in which they had been confined. Filthy 
 truckle-beds and ragged pallets covered the floor, 
 and, eked out by old saddles and threadbare horse- 
 rugs, marked the sleeping quarters either of the ser- 
 vants or of travellers of the meaner sort. But the 
 dingiuess was naught to the two who knelt looking 
 into it, afraid to move. Was the place empty ? That 
 was the point ; the question which had first stayed, 
 and then set their pulses at the gallop. 
 
 Painfully their eyes searched each huddle of cloth- 
 ing, scanned each dubious shape. And slowly, as the 
 silence persisted, their heads came forward until the 
 whole floor lay within the field of sight. And still 
 no sound ! At last Tignouville stirred, crept through 
 the doorway, and rose up, peering round him. He 
 nodded, and, satisfied that all was safe, the minister 
 followed him. 
 
 They found themselves a pace or so from the head 
 of a narrow staircase, leading downwards. Without 
 moving they could see the door which closed it below. 
 Tignonville signed to La Tribe to wait, and himself 
 crept down the stairs. He reached the door, and, 
 stooping, set his eye to the hole through which the 
 string of the latch passed. A moment he looked, and 
 then, turning on tiptoe, he stole up again, his face 
 fallen. 
 
 " You may throw the handle after the hatchet ! " he 
 muttered. "The man on guard is within four yards
 
 THE ESCAPE. 321 
 
 of the door." And iu the rage of disappointment he 
 struck the air with his hand. 
 
 "Is he looking this way ? " 
 
 "No. He is looking down the passage towards our 
 room. But it is impossible to pass him." 
 
 La Tribe nodded, and moved softly to one of the 
 lattices which lighted the room. It might be possi- 
 ble to escape that way, by the parapet and the tiles. 
 But he found that the casement was set high in the 
 roof, which sloped steeply from its sill to the eaves. 
 He passed to the other window, in which a little wick- 
 et in the lattice stood open. He looked through it. 
 In the giddy void white pigeons were wheeling in the 
 dazzling sunshine, and gazing down he saw far below 
 him, in the hot square, a row of booths, and troops of 
 people moving to and fro like pigmies ; and and a 
 strange thing, in the middle of all! Involuntarily, 
 as if the persons below could have seen his face at 
 the tiny dormer, lie drew back. 
 
 He beckoned to M. Tignonville to come to him; 
 and when the young man complied, he bade him in a 
 whisper look down. "See! " he muttered. " There ! " 
 
 The younger man saw and drew in his breath. 
 Even under the coating of dust his face turned a 
 shade greyer. 
 
 " You had no need to fear that he would let us go ! " 
 the minister muttered, with half-conscious irony. 
 
 "No." 
 
 "Nor I! There are two ropes." And La Tribe 
 breathed a few words of prayer. The object which 
 had fixed his gaze was a gibbet : the only one of the 
 three which could be seen from their eyrie. 
 
 Tignonville, on the other hand, turned sharply 
 away, and with haggard eyes stared about the room. 
 21
 
 322 COUNT HANNIBAL. 
 
 "We might defend the staircase," he muttered. 
 "Two men might hold it for a time." 
 
 "We have no food." 
 
 "No." And then he gripped La Tribe's arm. "I 
 have it ! " he cried. " And it may do ! It must do ! " 
 he continued, his face working. "See! " And lifting 
 from the floor one of the ragged pallets, from which 
 the straw protruded in a dozen places, he set it flat 
 on his head. It drooped at each corner it had seen 
 much wear and while it almost hid his face, it re- 
 vealed his grimy chin and mortar-stained shoulders. 
 He turned to his companion. 
 
 La Tribe's face glowed as he looked. " It may do ! " 
 he cried. "It's a chance! But you are right! It- 
 may do ! " 
 
 Tignonville dropped the ragged mattress, and tore 
 off his coat ; then he rent his breeches at the knee, so 
 that they hung loose about his calves. " Do you the 
 same!" he cried. "And quick, man, quick! Leave 
 your boots ! Once outside we must pass through the 
 streets under these " he took up his burden again 
 and set it on his head "until we reach a quiet part, 
 and there we " 
 
 " Can hide ! Or swim the river ! " the minister said. 
 He had followed his companion's example, and now 
 stood under a similar burden. With breeches rent 
 and whitened, and his upper garments in no better 
 case, he looked a sorry figure. 
 
 Tignonville eyed him with satisfaction, and turned 
 to the staircase. "Come, "he cried, "there is not a 
 moment to be lost. At any minute they may enter 
 our room and find it empty ! You are ready ? Then, 
 not too softly, or it may rouse suspicion ! And mum- 
 ble something at the door."
 
 THE ESCAPE. 32S 
 
 He began himself to scold, and, muttering incohe- 
 rently, stumbled down the staircase, the pallet on his. 
 head rustling against the wall on each side. Arrived 
 at the door he fumbled clumsily with the latch, and, 
 when the door gave way, plumped out with an oath 
 as if the awkward burden he bore were the only 
 thing on his mind. Badelou he was on duty 
 stared at the apparition; but the next moment he 
 sniffed the pallet, which was none of the freshest, 
 and, turning up his nose, he retreated a pace. He 
 had no suspicion ; the men did not come from the 
 part of the house where the prisoners lay, and he 
 stood aside to let them pass. In a moment, stagger- 
 ing, and going a little unsteadily, as if they scarcely 
 saw their way, they had passed by him, and were de- 
 scending the staircase. 
 
 So far well! Unfortunately, when they reached 
 the foot of that flight they came on the main passage 
 of the first-floor. It ran right and left, and Tignon- 
 ville did not know which way he must turn to reach 
 the lower staircase. Yet he dared not hesitate; in 
 the passage, waiting about the doors, were four or 
 five servants, and in the distance he caught sight of 
 three men belonging to Tavannes' company. At any 
 moment, too, an upper servant might meet them, ask 
 what they were doing, and detect the fraud. He 
 turned at random, therefore to the left as it chanced 
 and marched along bravely, until the very thing 
 happened which he had feared. A man came from 
 a room plump upon them, saw them, and held up his 
 hands in horror. 
 
 "What are you doing!" he cried in a rage and 
 with an oath. "Who set you an this? " 
 
 Tignonville's. tongue clave to the roof of his
 
 324 COUNT HANNIBAL. 
 
 mouth. La Tribe from behind muttered something 
 about the stable. 
 
 "And time too!" the man said. "Faugh! But 
 how come you this way ! Are you drunk ? Here ! " 
 He opened the door of a musty closet beside him, 
 "Pitch them in here, do you hear! And take them 
 down when it is dark ! Faugh ! I wonder you did 
 not carry the things through her ladyship's room at 
 once ! If my lord had been in and met you ! Now 
 then, do as I tell you ! Are you drunk ! " 
 
 With a sullen air Tignouville threw in his mattress. 
 La Tribe did the same. Fortunately the passage was 
 ill -lighted, and there were many helpers and strange 
 servants in the inn. The butler only thought them 
 ill-looking fellows who knew no better. "Now be 
 off!" he continued irascibly, "This is no place for 
 your sort. Be off!" And, as they moved, "Com- 
 ing! Cominjj!" he cried in answer to a distant sum- 
 mons; and he hurried away on the errand which 
 their appearance had interrupted. 
 
 Tignonville would have gone to work to recover the 
 pallets, for the man had left the key in the door. 
 But as he went to do so the butler looked back, and 
 the two were obliged to make a pretence of following 
 him. A moment, however, and he was gone; and 
 Tignonville turned anew to regain them. A second 
 time fortune was adverse ; a door within a pace of 
 him opened, a woman came out. She recoiled from 
 the strange figure ; her eyes met his. Unluckily the 
 light from the room behind her fell on his face, and 
 with a shrill cry she named him. 
 
 One second and all had been lost, for the crowd of 
 idlers at the other end of the passage had caught her 
 cry, and were looking that way. With presence of
 
 THE ESCAPE. 325 
 
 rnind Tignonville clapped his hand on her inouth, 
 and, huddling her by force into the room, followed 
 her, with La Tribe at his heels. 
 
 It was a large room, in which seven or eight peo- 
 ple, who had been at prayers when the cry startled 
 them, were rising from their knees. The first thing 
 they saw was Javette on the threshold, struggling in 
 the grasp of a wild man, ragged and begrimed ; they 
 deemed the city risen and the massacre upon them. 
 Carlat threw himself before his mistress, the Countess 
 in her turn sheltered a young girl, who stood beside 
 her and from whose face the last trace of colour 
 had fled. Madame Carlat and a waiting-woman ran 
 shrieking to the window; another instant and the 
 alarm would have gone abroad. 
 
 Tignonville's voice stopped it. "Don't you know 
 me?" he cried. "Madame! you at least! Carlat! 
 Are you all mad ? " 
 
 The words stayed them where they stood in an 
 astonishment scarce less than their alarm. The Coun- 
 tess tried twice to speak ; the third time, " Have you 
 escaped I " she muttered. 
 
 Tignonville nodded, his eyes bright with triumph. 
 "So far," he said. "But they may be on our heels at 
 any moment ! Where can we hide t " 
 
 The Countess, her hand pressed to her side, looked 
 at Javette. "The door, girl!" she whispered. 
 "Lock it!" 
 
 "Ay, lock it! And they can go by the back- 
 stairs," Madame Carlat answered, awaking suddenly 
 to the situation. " Through my closet ! Once in the 
 yard they may pass out through the stables." 
 
 "Which way?" Tignonville asked impatiently. 
 "Don't stand looking at me, but "
 
 326 COUNT HANNIBAL. 
 
 "Through this door!" Madame Carlat answered, 
 hurrying to it. 
 
 He was following when the Countess stepped 
 forward and interposed between him and the door. 
 "Stay!" she cried; and there was not one who did 
 not notice a new decision in her voice, a new dignity 
 in her bearing. "Stay, monsieur, we may be going 
 too fast. To go out now and in that guise may it 
 not be to incur greater peril than you incur here ? I 
 feel sure that you are in no danger of your life at 
 present. Therefore, why run the risk " 
 
 "In no danger, madame!" he cried, interrupting 
 her in astonishment. " Have you seen the gibbet in 
 the Square ? Do you call that no danger ? " 
 
 "It is not erected for you." 
 
 "No?" 
 
 "No, monsieur," she answered firmly, "I swear it 
 is not. And I know of reasons, urgent reasons, why 
 you should not go. M. de Tavanues" she named 
 her husband nervously, as conscious of the weak spot 
 "before he rode abroad laid strict orders on all to 
 keep within, since the smallest matter might kindle 
 the city. Therefore, M. de Tignonville, I request, 
 nay I entreat, " she continued with greater urgency, 
 as she saw his gesture of denial, "you to stay here 
 until he returns." 
 
 "And you, madame, will answer for my life! " 
 
 She faltered. For a moment, a moment only, her 
 colour ebbed. What if she deceived herself ! What 
 if she surrendered her old lover to death ? What if 
 but the doubt was of a moment only. Her duty 
 was plain. " I will answer for it, " she said, with pale 
 lips, "if you remain here. And I beg, I implore you 
 by the love you once had for me, M. Tiguouville, "
 
 THE ESCAPE. 327 
 
 she added desperately, seeing that he was about to 
 refuse, "to remain here." 
 
 "Once!" he retorted, lashing himself into ignoble 
 rage. "By the love I once had! Say, rather, the 
 love I have, madaine for I ani no woman -weather- 
 cock to wed the winner, and hold or not hold, stay or 
 go, as he commands ! You, it seems, " he continued 
 with a sneer, "have learned the wife's lesson well! 
 You would practise on me now, as you practised on 
 ine the other night when you stood between him and 
 me ! I yielded then, I spared him. And what did I 
 get by it? Bonds and a prison! And what shall I 
 get now! The same! No, inadame," he continued 
 bitterly, addressing himself as much to the Carlate 
 and the others as to his old mistress. "I do not 
 change! I loved! I love! I was going and I go! 
 If death lay beyond that door " and he pointed to it 
 "and life at his will were certain here, I would pass 
 the threshold rather than take my life of him!" 
 And, dragging La Tribe with him, with a passionate 
 gesture he rushed by her, opened the door, and dis- 
 appeared in the next room. 
 
 The Countess took one pace forward, as if she 
 would have followed him, as if she would have tried 
 farther persuasion. But as she moved a cry rooted 
 her to the spot. A rush of feet and the babel of 
 many voices filled the passage with a tide of sound, 
 which drew rapidly nearer. The escape was known ! 
 "Would the fugitives have time to slip out below? 
 
 Someone knocked at the door, tried it, pushed and 
 beat on it. But the Countess and all in the room had 
 run to the windows and were looking out. 
 
 If the two had not yet made their escape they must 
 be taken. Yet no ; as the Countess leaned from the
 
 328 COUNT HANNIBAL. 
 
 window, first one dusty figure and then a second 
 dartwl from a door below, and made for the nearest 
 turning out of the Place Ste.-Croix. Before they 
 gained it, four men, of whom Badelou, his grey locks 
 flying, was first, dashed out in pursuit, and the street 
 rang with cries of "Stop him! Seize him! Seize 
 him ! " Someone one of the pursuers or another 
 to add to the alarm let off a musket, and in a mo- 
 ment, as if the report had been a signal, the Place 
 was in a hubbub, people flocked into it with mys- 
 terious quickness, and from a neighbouring roof 
 whence, precisely, it was impossible to say the 
 crackling fire of a dozen arquebuses alarmed the city 
 far and wide. 
 
 Unfortunately, the fugitives had been baulked at 
 the first turning. Making for a second, they found it 
 choked, and, swerving, darted across the Place to- 
 wards St. -Maurice, seeking to lose themselves in the 
 gathering crowd. But the pursuers clung desperately 
 to their skirts, overturning here a man and there a 
 child ; and then in a twinkling, Tignonville, as he ran 
 round a booth, tripped over a peg and fell, and La 
 Tribe stumbled over him and fell also. The four 
 riders flung themselves fiercely on their prey, secured 
 them, and began to drag them with oaths and curses 
 towards the door of the inn. 
 
 The Countess had seen all from her window ; had 
 held her breath while they ran, had drawn it sharply 
 when they fell. Now "They have them!" she mut- 
 tered, a sob choking her, " They have them !" And 
 she clasped her hands. If he had followed her ad- 
 vice! If he had only followed her advice! 
 
 But the issue proved less certain than she deemed 
 it. The crowd, which grew each moment, knew
 
 THE ESCAPE. 329 
 
 nothing of pursuers or pursued. On the contrary, a 
 cry went up that the riders were Huguenots, and 
 that the Huguenots were rising and slaying the Cath- 
 olics ; and as no story was too improbable for those 
 days, and this was one constantly set about, first one 
 stone flew, and then another, and another. A man 
 with a staff darted forward and struck Badelon on 
 the shoulder, two or three others pressed in and jos- 
 tled the riders; and if three of Tavannes' following 
 had not run out on the instant and faced the mob 
 with their pikes, and for a moment forced them to 
 give back, the prisoners would have been rescued 
 at the very door of the inn. As it was they were 
 dragged in, and the gates were flung to and barred in 
 the nick of time. Another moment, almost another 
 second, and the mob had seized them. As it was, a 
 hail of stones poured on the front of the inn, and 
 amid the rising yells of the rabble there presently 
 floated heavy and slow over the city the tolling of the 
 great bell of St. Maurice.
 
 CHAPTER XXX. 
 
 SACRILEGE ! 
 
 M. DE MONTSOREAU, Lieutenant-Governor of Sau- 
 mur, almost rose from his seat in his astonishment. 
 " What! No letters? " he cried, a hand on either arm 
 of his chair. 
 
 The Magistrates stared, one and all. "No letters? " 
 they muttered. 
 
 And "No letters?" the Provost chimed in more 
 faintly. 
 
 Count Hannibal looked smiling round the Council 
 table. He alone was unmoved. " No, " he said. "I 
 bear none." 
 
 M. de Montsoreau, who, travel -stained and in his 
 corselet, had the second place of honour at the foot 
 of the table, frowned. "But but, M. le Comte," he 
 said, "my instructions from Monsieur were to pro- 
 ceed to carry out his Majesty's will in co-operation 
 with you, who, I understood, would bring letters de 
 par le Roi." 
 
 "I had letters," Count Hannibal answered, negli- 
 gently. "But on the way I mislaid them." 
 
 "Mislaid them?" Montsoreau cried, unable to be- 
 lieve his ears; while the smaller dignitaries of the 
 city, the magistrates and churchmen, who sat on 
 either side of the table, gaped open-mouthed. It was 
 incredible ! It was unbelievable ! Mislay the King's 
 letters! Who had ever heard of such a thing?
 
 SACRILEGE! 331 
 
 "Yes, I mislaid them. Lost them, if you like it 
 better." 
 
 "But you jest! " the Lieutenant-Governor retorted, 
 moving uneasily in his chair. He was a man more 
 highly named for address than courage; and, like 
 most men skilled in finesse, he was prone to suspect a 
 trap. "You jest, surely, monsieur! Men do not 
 lose his Majesty's letters, by the way." 
 
 "When they contain his Majesty's will, no," Ta- 
 vanues answered, with a peculiar smile. 
 
 "You imply, then?" 
 
 Count Hannibal shrugged his shoulders but had not 
 answered when Bigot entered and handed him his 
 sweetmeat box; he paused to open it and select a 
 prune. He was long in selecting ; but no change of 
 countenance led any of those at the table to suspect 
 that inside the lid of the box was a message a scrap 
 of paper informing him that Montsoreau had left fifty 
 spears in the suburb without the Saumur gate, besides 
 those whom he had brought openly into the town. 
 Tavannes read the note slowly while he seemed to 
 be choosing his fruit. And then, "Imply?" he 
 answered. "I imply nothing, M. de Montsoreau." 
 
 "But " 
 
 "But that sometimes his Majesty finds it prudent to 
 give orders which he does not mean to be carried out. 
 There are things which start up before the eye, " Ta- 
 vannes continued, negligently tapping the box on the 
 table, "and there are things which do not; some- 
 times the latter are the more important. You, better 
 than I, M. de Montsoreau, know that the King in the 
 Gallery at the Louvre is one, and in his closet is 
 another. " 
 
 "Yes."
 
 332 COUNT HANNIBAL. 
 
 "And that being so " 
 
 "You do not mean to carry the letters into effect? " 
 
 "Had I the letters, certainly, my friend. I should 
 be bound by them. But I took good care to lose 
 them," Tavannes added naively. "I ani no fool." 
 
 "Umph!" 
 
 "However," Count Hannibal continued, with an 
 airy gesture, "that is my affair. If you, M. de Mont- 
 soreau, feel inclined, in spite of the absence of my 
 letters, to carry yours into effect, by all means do so 
 after midnight of to-day." 
 
 M. de Montsoreau breathed hard. "And why," 
 he askef 1 , half sulkily and half ponderously, "after 
 midnight only, M. le Comte?" 
 
 "Merely that I may be clear of all suspicion of 
 having lot or part in the matter," Count Hannibal 
 answered pleasantly. "After midnight of to-night 
 by all means, do as you please. Until midnight, by 
 your leave, we will be quiet." 
 
 The Lieutenaut-Goveruor moved doubtfully in his 
 chair, the fear which Tavanues had shrewdly in- 
 stilled into his mind that he might be disowned if 
 he carried out his instructions, struggling with his 
 avarice and his self-importance. He was rather 
 crafty than bold ; and such things had been, he knew. 
 Little by little, and while he sat gloomily debating, 
 the notion of dealing wit h one or two and holding the 
 body of the Huguenots to ransom a notion which, in 
 spite of everything, was to bear good fruit for Au- 
 gers began to form in his mind. The plan suited 
 him : it left him free to face either way, and it would 
 fill his pockets more genteelly than would open rob- 
 bery. On the other hand, he would offend his 
 brother and the fanatical party, with whom he com-
 
 SACKILEGE! 333 
 
 monly acted. They were looking to see him assert 
 himself. They were looking to hear him declare him- 
 self. And 
 
 Harshly Count Hannibal's voice broke in on his 
 thoughts; harshly, a something sinister in its tone. 
 "Where is your brother?" he said. And it was 
 evident that he had not noted his absence until then. 
 "My lord's Vicar of all people should be here!" he 
 continued, leaning forward and looking round the 
 table. His brow was stormy. 
 
 Lescot squirmed under his eye, Thuriot turned pale 
 and trembled. It was one of the canons of St. -Mau- 
 rice who at length took on himself to answer. " His 
 Lordship requested, M. le Comte," he ventured, "that 
 you would excuse him. His duties " 
 
 "Is he ill?" 
 
 "He " 
 
 "Is he ill, sirrah?" Tavaunes roared. And while 
 all bowed before the lightning of his eye, no man at 
 the table knew what had roused the sudden tempest. 
 But Bigot knew, who stood by the door, and whose 
 ear, keen as his master's, had caught the distant re- 
 port of a musket shot. "If he be not ill," Tavannes 
 continued, rising and looking round the table in 
 search of signs of guilt, "and there be foul play here, 
 and he the player, the Bishop's own hand shall not 
 saveliim! By heaven it shall not! Nor yours!" he 
 continued, looking fiercely at Montsoreau. "Nor 
 your master's!" 
 
 The Lieutenant-Governor sprang to his feet. "M. 
 le Comte," he stammered, "I do not understand this 
 language! Nor this heat, which may be real or not! 
 All I say is, if there be foul play here " 
 
 "If!" Tavauues retorted. "At least, if there be,
 
 334 COUNT HANNIBAL. 
 
 there be gibbets too ! And I see necks ! " he add- 
 ed, leaning forward. "Necks!" And then, with a 
 look of flame, "Let no man leave this table until I 
 return," he cried, "or he will have to deal with me. 
 Nay," he continued, changing his tone abruptly, as 
 the prudence which never entirely left him and per- 
 haps the remembrance of the other's fifty spearmen 
 sobered him in the midst of his rage, " I am hasty. 
 I mean not you, M. de Montsoreau ! Ride where you 
 will, ride with me if you will and I will thank you. 
 Only remember, until midnight Angers is mine ! " 
 
 He was still speaking when he moved from the 
 table, and, leaving all staring after him, strode down 
 the room. An instant he paused on the threshold 
 and looked back ; then he passed out, and clattered 
 down the stone stairs. His horse and riders were 
 waiting, but, his foot in the stirrup, he stayed for a 
 word with Bigot. "Is it so? " he growled. 
 
 The Norman did not speak, but pointed towards 
 the Place Ste. -Croix, whence an occasional shot made 
 answer for him. 
 
 In those days the streets of the Black City were 
 narrow and crooked, overhung by timber houses and 
 hampered by booths; nor could Tavannes from the 
 old Town Hall now abandoned see the Place Ste. - 
 Croix. But that he could cure. He struck spurs to 
 his horse, and, followed by his ten horsemen, he clat- 
 tered noisily down the paved street. A dozen groups 
 hurrying the same way sprang panic-stricken to the 
 walls, or saved themselves in doorways. He was up 
 with them, he was beyond them ! Another hundred 
 yards, and he would see the Place. 
 
 And then, with a cry of rage, he drew rein a little, 
 discovering what was before him. In the narrow gut
 
 SACRILEGE! 335 
 
 of the way a great black banner, borne on two poles, 
 was lurching towards him. It was moving in the 
 van of a dark procession of priests, who, with their 
 attendants and a crowd of devout, filled the street 
 from wall to wall. They were chanting one of the 
 penitential psalms, but not so loudly as to drown the 
 uproar in the Place beyond them. 
 
 They made no way, and Count Hannibal swore fu- 
 riously, suspecting treachery. But he was no mad- 
 man, and at the moment the least reflection would 
 have sent him about to seek another road. Unfortu- 
 nately, as he hesitated a man sprang with a gesture of 
 warning to his horse's head and seized it; and Ta- 
 vaunes, mistaking the motive of the act, lost his self- 
 control. He struck the fellow down, and with a 
 reckless word rode headlong into the procession, shout- 
 ing to the black robes to make way, make way ! A cry, 
 nay, a very shriek of horror, answered him and rent 
 the air. And in a minute the thing was done. Too 
 late, as the Bishop's Vicar, struck by his horse, fell 
 screaming under its hoofs too late, as the conse- 
 crated vessels which he had been bearing rolled in 
 the mud, Tavannes saw that they bore the canopy 
 and the Host ! 
 
 He knew what he had done, then. Before his 
 horse's iron shoes struck the ground again, his face 
 even his face had lost its colour. But he knew also 
 that to hesitate now, to pause now, was to be torn in 
 pieces; for his riders, seeing that which the banner 
 had veiled from him, had not followed him, and he 
 was alone, in the middle of brandished fists and 
 weapons. He hesitated not a moment. Drawing a 
 pistol he spurred onwards, his horse plunging wildly 
 among the shrieking priests; and though a hundred
 
 330 COUNT HANNIBAL. 
 
 bands, hands of acolytes, hands of shaven monks, 
 clutched at his bridle or gripped his boot, he got clear 
 of them. Clear, carrying with him the memory of 
 one face seen an instant amid the crowd, one face 
 seen, to be ever remembered the face of Father 
 Pezelay, white, evil, scarred, distorted by wicked 
 triumph. 
 
 Behind him, the thunder of "Sacrilege! Sacri- 
 lege ! " rose to heaven, and men were gathering. In 
 front the crowd which skirmished about the inn was 
 less dense, and, ignorant of the thing that had hap- 
 pened in the narrow street, made ready way for him, 
 the boldest recoiling before the look on his face. 
 Some who stood nearest to the inn, and had begun to 
 hurl stones at the window and to beat on the doors 
 which had only the minute before closed on Badelon 
 and his prisoners supposed that he had his riders 
 behind him ; and these fled apace. But he knew bet- 
 ter even than they the value of time ; he pushed his 
 horse up to the gates, and hammered them with his 
 boot while he kept his pistol-hand towards the Place 
 and the cathedral, watching for the transformation 
 which he knew would come ! 
 
 And come it did ; on a sudden, in a twinkling ! A 
 white-faced monk, frenzy in his eyes, appeared in the 
 midst of the crowd. He stood and tore his garments 
 before the people, and, stooping, threw dust on his 
 head. A second and a third followed his example ; 
 then from a thousand throats the cry of "Sacrilege! 
 Sacrilege! " rolled up, while clerks flew wildly hither 
 and thither shrieking the tale, and priests denied the 
 Sacraments to Angers until it should purge itself of 
 the evil thing. 
 
 By that time Count Hannibal had saved himself
 
 SACRILEGE! 337 
 
 behind the great gates, by the skin of his teeth. The 
 gates had opened to him in time. But none knew 
 better than he that Angers had no gates thick enough, 
 nor walls of a height, to save him for many hours 
 from the storm he had let loose ! 
 22
 
 CHAPTEE XXXI. 
 
 THE FLIGHT FROM ANGEKS. 
 
 that only the more roused the devil in the man ; 
 that, and the knowledge that he had his own head- 
 strong act to thank for the position. He looked on 
 the panic-stricken people who, scared by the turmoil 
 without, had come together in the courtyard, wring- 
 ing their hands and chattering ; and his face was so 
 dark and forbidding that fear of him took the place 
 of all other fear, aud the nearest shrank from contact 
 with him. On any other entering as he had entered, 
 they would have hailed questions ; they would have 
 asked what was amiss and if the city were rising, 
 and where were Bigot and his men. But Count Han- 
 nibal's eye struck curiosity dumb. When he cried 
 from his saddle, " Bring me the landlord ! " the trem- 
 bling man was found, and brought, and thrust for- 
 ward almost without a word. 
 
 "You have a back gate? " Tavannes said, while the 
 crowd leaned forward to catch his words. 
 
 "Yes, my lord," the man faltered. 
 
 "Into the street which leads to the ramparts'? " 
 
 "Ye yes, my lord." 
 
 "Then" to Badelon "saddle! You have five 
 minutes. Saddle as you never saddled before," he 
 
 continued in a low tone, " or " His tongue did 
 
 not finish the threat, but his hand waved the man
 
 THE FLIGHT FROM ANGERS. 339 
 
 away. "For you," he held Tignonville an instant 
 with his lowering eye, " and the preaching fool with 
 you, get arms and mount! You have never played 
 aught but the woman yet ; but play me false now, or 
 look aside bnt a foot from the path I bid you take, 
 and you thwart me no more, monsieur! And you, 
 madame, " he continued, turning to the Countess, who 
 stood bewildered at one of the doors, the Provost's 
 daughter clinging and weeping about her, "you have 
 three minutes to get your women to horse ! See you, 
 if you please, that they take no longer ! " 
 
 She found her voice with difficulty. "And this 
 child? " she said. "She is in my care." 
 
 "Bring her," he muttered with a scowl of impa- 
 tience. And then, raising his voice as he turned on 
 the terrified gang of hostlers and inn servants who 
 stood gaping round him, "Go help!" he thundered. 
 "Go help! And quickly!" he added, his face grow- 
 ing a shade darker as a second bell began to toll from 
 a neighbouring tower, and the confused babel in the 
 Place Ste.-Croix settled into a dull roar of "Sacrilege! 
 sacrilege ! " " Hasten ! " 
 
 Fortunately it had been his first intention to go to 
 the Council attended by the whole of his troop ; and 
 eight horses stood saddled in the stalls. Others were 
 hastily pulled out and bridled, and the women were 
 mounted. La Tribe, at a look from Tavanues, took 
 behind him the Provost's daughter, who was helpless 
 with terror. Between the suddenness of the alarm, 
 the uproar without, and the panic within, none but a 
 man whose people served him at a nod and dreaded 
 his very gesture could have got hisi party mounted in 
 time. Javette would fain have swooned, but she 
 dared not. Tignonville would fain have questioned,
 
 340 COUNT HANXIBAL. 
 
 but he shrank from the venture. The Countess 
 would fain have said something, but she forced her- 
 self to obey and no more. Even so the confusion in 
 the courtyard, the mingling of horses and men and 
 trappings and saddle-bags, would have made another 
 despair; but wherever Count Hannibal, seated in his 
 saddle in the middle, turned his face, chaos settled 
 into a kind of order, servants, ceasing to listen to the 
 yells and cries outside, ran to fetch, women dropped 
 cloaks from the gallery, and men loaded muskets and 
 strapped on bandoliers. 
 
 Until at last but none knew what those minutes of 
 suspense cost him he saw all mounted, and, pistol in 
 hand, shepherded them to the back gates. As he did 
 so he stooped for a few scowling words with Badelon, 
 whom he sent to the van of the party : then he gave 
 the word to open. It was done ; and even as Montso- 
 reau's horsemen, borne on the bosom of a second 
 and more formidable throng, swept raging into the 
 already crowded square, and the cry went up for "a 
 ram ! a ram ! " to batter in the gates, Tavauues, hurl- 
 ing his little party before him, dashed out at the back, 
 and putting to flight a handful of rascals who had 
 wandered to that side, cantered unmolested down the 
 lane to the ramparts. Turning eastward at the foot 
 of the frowning Castle, he followed the inner side of 
 the wall in the direction of the gate by which he had 
 entered the preceding evening. 
 
 To gain this his party had to pass the end of the 
 Eue Toussaiut, which issues from the Place Ste.- 
 Croix and runs so straight that the mob seething in 
 front of the inn had only to turn their heads to see 
 them. The danger incurred at this point was great ; 
 for a party as small as Tavaunes' and encumbered
 
 THE FLIGHT FEOM ANGERS. 341 
 
 with women would have had no chance if attacked 
 within the walls. 
 
 Count Hannibal knew it. But he knew also that 
 the act which he had committed rendered the north 
 bank of the Loire impossible for him. Neither King 
 nor Marshal, neither Charles of Valois nor Gaspard of 
 Tavannes, would dare to shield him from an infu- 
 riated Church, a Church^ too wise to forgive certain 
 offences. His one chance lay in reaching the south- 
 ern bank of the Loire roughly speaking, the Hugue- 
 not bank and taking refuge in some town, Rochelle 
 or St. Jean d'Angely, where the Huguenots were 
 strong, and whence he might take steps to set himself 
 right with his own side. 
 
 But to cross the great river which divides France 
 into two lands widely differing he must leave the city 
 by the east gate ; for the only bridge over the Loire 
 within forty miles of Angers lay eastward from the 
 town, at Fonts de Ce, four miles away. To this gate, 
 therefore, past the Rue Toussaint, he whirled his 
 party daringly ; and though the women grew pale as 
 the sounds of riot broke louder on the ear, and they 
 discovered that they were approaching instead of 
 leaving the danger and though Tignouville for an 
 instant thought him mad, and snatched at the Coun- 
 tess's rein Jiis men-at-arms, who knew him, gal- 
 loped stolidly on, passed like clockwork the end of 
 the street, and, reckless of the stream of persons hur- 
 rying in the direction of the alarm, heedless of the 
 fright and anger their passage excited, pressed stead- 
 ily on. A moment and the gate through which they 
 had entered the previous evening appeared before 
 them. Aud a sight welcome to one of them it was 
 open.
 
 342 COUNT HANNIBAL. 
 
 They were fortunate indeed, for a few seconds later 
 they had been too late. The alarm had preceded 
 them ; as they dashed up, a man ran to the chains of 
 the portcullis and tried to lower it. He failed to do 
 so at the first touch, and quailing, fled from Badelon's 
 levelled pistol. A watchman on one of the bastions 
 of the wall shouted to them to halt or he would fire : 
 but the riders yelled in derision, and thundering 
 through the echoing archway, emerged into the open, 
 and saw, extended before them, in place of the 
 gloomy vistas of the Black Town, the glory of the 
 open country and the vine-clad hills, and the fields 
 about the Loire yellow with late harvest. 
 
 The women gasped their relief, and one or two who 
 were most out of breath would have pulled up their 
 hoi-ses and let them trot, thinking the danger at an 
 end. But a curt savage word from the rear set them 
 flying again, and down and up and on again they gal- 
 loped, driven forward by the iron hand which never 
 relaxed its grip of theni. Silent and pitiless he 
 whirled them before him until they were within a 
 mile of the long Fonts de Ce a series of bridges 
 rather than one bridge and the broad shallow Loire 
 lay plain before them, its sandbanks grilling in the 
 sun, and grey lines of willows marking its eyots. By 
 this time some of the women, white with fatigue, 
 could only cling to their saddles with their hands ; 
 while others were red-hot, their hair unrolled, and 
 the perspiration mingled with the dust on their faces. 
 But he who drove them had no pity for weakness in 
 an emergency. He looked back and saw, a half-mile 
 behind them, the glitter of steel following hard on 
 their heels: and "Faster! faster!" he cried, regard- 
 less of their prayers : and he beat the rearmost of the
 
 THE FLIGHT FROM ANGERS. 343 
 
 horses with his scabbard. A waiting-woman shrieked 
 that she should fall, but he answered ruthlessly, " Fall 
 then, fool!" and the instinct of self -preservation 
 coming to her aid, she clung and bumped and toiled on 
 with the rest until they reached the first houses of the 
 town about the bridges, and Badelon raised his hand 
 as a signal that they might slacken speed. 
 
 The bewilderment of the start had been so great 
 that it was then only, when they found their feet on 
 the first link of the bridge, that two of the party, the 
 Countess and Tignoiiville, awoke to the fact that their 
 faces were set southwards. To cross the Loire in 
 those days meant -much to all : to a Huguenot very 
 much. It chanced that these two rode on to the 
 bridge side by side, and the memory of their last 
 crossing the remembrance that, on their journey 
 north a month before, they had crossed it hand-in- 
 hand with the prospect of passing their lives together, 
 and with no faintest thought of the events which 
 were to ensue, flashed into the mind of each of them. 
 It deepened the flush which exertion had brought to 
 the woman's cheek, then left it paler than before. A 
 minute earlier she had been wroth with her old lover ; 
 she had held him accountable for the outbreak in the 
 town and this hasty retreat ; now her anger died as 
 she looked and she remembered. In the man, shal- 
 lower of feeling and more alive to present contingen- 
 cies, the uppermost emotion as he trod the bridge was 
 one of surprise and congratulation. 
 
 He could not at first believe in their good fortune. 
 " Mon Dieu ! " he cried, " we are crossing ! " And 
 then again in a lower tone, " We are crossing ! We 
 are crossing ! " And he looked at her. 
 
 It was impossible that she should not look back ;
 
 344 COUNT HANNIBAL. 
 
 that she who had ceased to be angry should not feel 
 arid remember; impossible that her answering glance 
 should not speak to his heart. Below them, as on 
 that day a month earlier, when they had crossed the 
 bridges going northward, the broad shallow river ran 
 its course in the sunshine, its turbid currents gleam- 
 ing and flashing about the sandbanks and osier-beds. 
 To the eye, the landscape, save that the vintage was 
 farther advanced and the harvest in part gathered in, 
 was the same. But how changed were their relations, 
 their prospects, their hopes, who had then crossed the 
 river hand-in-hand, planning a life to be passed to- 
 gether. 
 
 The young man's rage boiled up at the thought. 
 Too vividly, too sharply it showed him the wrongs 
 which he had suffered at the hands of the man who 
 rode behind him, the man who even now drove him 
 on and ordered him and insulted him. He forgot that 
 he might have perished in the general massacre if 
 Count Hannibal had not intervened. He forgot that 
 Count Hannibal had spared him once and twice. He 
 laid 011 his enemy's shoulders the guilt of all, the 
 blood of all : and as, quick on the thought of his 
 wrongs and his fellows' wrongs followed the reflection 
 that with every league they rode southwards the 
 chance of requital grew, he cried again, and this time 
 joyously, "We are crossing! A little, and we shall 
 be in our own land ! " 
 
 The tears filled the Countess's eyes as she looked 
 westwards and southwards. " Vrillac is there ! " she 
 cried; and she pointed. "I smell the sea! " 
 
 " Ay ! " he answered, almost under his breath. "It 
 lies there! And no more than thirty leagues from 
 us ! With fresh horses we might see it in two days ! "
 
 THE FLIGHT FEOM ANGERS. 345 
 
 Badelon's voice broke in on them. "Forward!" 
 he cried as they reached the southern bank. "En 
 avant ! " And, obedient to the word, the little party, 
 refreshed by the short respite, took the road out of 
 Pouts de Ce at a steady trot. Nor was the Countess 
 the only one whose face glowed, being set southwards, 
 or whose heart pulsed to the rhythm of the horses' 
 hoofs that beat out "Home! " Carlat's and Madame 
 Carlat's also. Javette even, hearing from her neigh- 
 bour that they were over the Loire, plucked up 
 courage; while La Tribe, gazing before him with 
 moistened ej'es, cried "Comfort" to the scared and 
 weeping girl who clung to his belt. It was singular 
 to see how all sniffed the air as if already it smacked 
 of the sea and of the south ; and how they of Poitou 
 sat their horses as if they asked nothing better than to 
 ride on and on and on until the scenes of home arose 
 about them. For them the sky had already a deeper 
 blue, the air a softer fragrance, the sunshine a purity 
 long unknown ! 
 
 Was it wonderful, when they had suffered so much 
 on that northern bank ? When their experience dur- 
 ing the month had been comparable only with the dir- 
 est nightmare? Yet one among them, after the first 
 impulse of relief and satisfaction, felt differently. 
 Tiguonville's gorge rose against the sense of compul- 
 sion, of inferiority. To be driven forward after this 
 fashion, whether he would or no, to be placed at the 
 beck of every base-born man-at-arms, to have no 
 clearer knowledge of what had happened or of what 
 was passing, or of the peril from which they fled, 
 than the women among whom he rode these things 
 kindled anew the sullen fire of hate. North of the 
 Loire there had been some excuse for his inaction mi-
 
 346 COUNT HANNIBAL. 
 
 der insult; he had been in the man's country and 
 power. But south of the Loire, within forty leagues 
 of Huguenot Niort, must he still suffer, still be 
 supine ? 
 
 His rage was inflamed by a disappointment he pres- 
 ently underwent. Looking back as they rode clear of 
 the wooden houses of Fonts de Ce, he missed Ta- 
 vaunes and several of his men; and he wondered 
 if Count Hannibal had remained on his own side 
 of the river. It seemed possible; and in that 
 event La Tribe and he and Carlat might deal with 
 Badelon and the four who still escorted them. But 
 when he looked back a minute later, Tavauues 
 was within sight, following the party with a stern 
 face; and not Tavannes only. Bigot, with two of 
 the ten men who hitherto had been missing, was 
 with him. 
 
 It was clear, however, that they brought no good 
 news, for they had scarcely ridden up before Count 
 Hannibal cried " Faster! faster!" in his harshest 
 voice, and Bigot urged the horses to a quicker trot. 
 Their course lay almost parallel with the Loire in the 
 direction of Beaupre'au; and Tignonville began to 
 fear that Count Hannibal intended to recross the 
 river at Nantes, w r here the only bridge below Angers 
 spa/nned the stream. With this in view it was easy 
 to comprehend his wish to distance his pursuers be- 
 fore he reerossed. 
 
 The Countess had no such thought. "They must 
 be close upon us ! " she murmured, as she urged her 
 horse in obedience to the order. 
 
 " Whoever they are ! " Tignonville muttered bitter- 
 ly. "If we knew what had happened, or who fol- 
 lowed, we should know more about it, madame. For
 
 THE FLIGHT FEOM A^GEKS. 347 
 
 that matter, I know what I wish he would do. And 
 our heads are set for it." 
 
 "What?" 
 
 "Make for VriUac!" he answered, a savage gleam 
 in his eyes. 
 
 "For Vrillac?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 " Ah, if he would ! " she cried, her face turn- 
 ing pale. "If he would. He would be safe 
 there ! " 
 
 "Ay, quite safe! " he answered with a peculiar in- 
 tonation. And he looked at her askance. 
 
 He fancied that his thought, the thought which had 
 just flashed into his brain, was her thought; that she 
 had the same notion in reserve, and that they were in 
 sympathy. And Tavanues, seeing them talking to- 
 gether, and noting her look and the fervour of her 
 gesture, formed the same opinion, and retired more 
 darkly into himself. The downfall of his plan for 
 dazzling her by a magnanimity unparalleled and be- 
 yond compare, a plan dependent on the submission of 
 Augers his disappointment in this might have roused 
 the worst passions of a better man. But there was in 
 this man a pride on a level at least with his other pas- 
 sions : and to bear himself in this hour of defeat and 
 flight so that if she could not love him she must ad- 
 mire him, checked in a strange degree the current of 
 his rage. When Tignonville presently looked back 
 he found that Count Hannibal and six of his riders 
 had pulled up and were walking their horses far in 
 the rear. On which he would have done the same 
 himself; but Badelon called over his shoulder the 
 eternal "Forward, monsieur, en avant!" and sullenly, 
 hating the man and his master more deeply every
 
 348 COUNT HANNIBAL. 
 
 hour, Tignonville was forced to push on, with 
 thoughts of vengeance in his heart. 
 
 Trot, trot ! Trot, trot ! Through a country which 
 had lost its smiling wooded character and grew more 
 sombre and less fertile the farther they left the Loire 
 behind them. Trot, trot! Trot, trot! for ever, it 
 seemed to some. Javette wept with fatigue, and the 
 other women were little better. The Countess herself 
 spoke seldom except to cheer the Provost's daughter ; 
 who, poor girl, flung suddenly out of the round of 
 her life and cast among strangers, showed a better 
 spirit than might have been expected. At length, on 
 the slopes of some low hills, which they had long seen 
 before them, a cluster of houses and a church ap- 
 peared; and Badelon, drawing rein, cried, "Beau- 
 preau, madame ! We stay an hour ! " 
 
 It was six o'clock. They had ridden some hours 
 without a break. With sighs and cries of pain the 
 women dropped from their clumsy saddles, while the 
 men laid out such food it was little as had been 
 brought, and hobbled the horses that they might 
 feed. The hour passed rapidly, and when it had 
 passed Badelou was inexorable. There was wailing 
 when he gave the word to mount again ; and Tignon- 
 ville, fiercely resenting this dumb, reasonless flight, 
 was at heart one of the mutineers. But Badelou said 
 grimly that they might go on and live, or stay and 
 die, as it pleased them ; and once more they climbed 
 painfully to their saddles, and jogged steadily on 
 through the sunset, through the gloaming, through 
 the darkness, across a weird, mysterious country of 
 low hills and narrow plains which grew more wild 
 and less cultivated as they advanced. Fortunately 
 the horses had been well saved during the long lei-
 
 THE FLIGHT PEOM AXGEKS. 349 
 
 surely journey to Angers, and now went well and 
 strongly. When they at last unsaddled for the night 
 in a little dismal wood within a mile of Clisson, they 
 had placed some forty miles between themselves and 
 Angers.
 
 CHAPTER XXXII. 
 
 THE OKDEAL, BY STEEL. 
 
 THE women for the most part fell like sacks and slept 
 where they alighted, dead weary. The men, when 
 they had cared for the horses, followed the example ; 
 for Badelon would suffer no fire. In less than half 
 an hour, a sentry who stood on guard at the edge of 
 the wood, and Tignonville and La Tribe, who talked 
 in low voices with their backs against a tree, were 
 the only persons who remained awake, with the ex- 
 ception of the Countess. Carlat had made a couch 
 for her, and screened it with cloaks from the wind 
 and the eye ; for the moon had risen, and where the 
 trees stood sparsest its light flooded the soil with 
 pools of white. But Madame had not yet retired to 
 her bed. The two men, whose voices reached her, 
 saw her from time to time moving restlessly to and 
 fro between the road and the little encampment. 
 Presently she came and stood over them. 
 
 "He led His people out of the wilderness," La 
 Tribe was saying ; " out of the trouble of Paris, out 
 of the trouble of Angers, and always, always south- 
 ward. If you do not in this, monsieur, see His 
 finger " 
 
 "And Angers? " Tignonville struck in, with a faint 
 sneer. "Has He led that out of trouble? A day or 
 two ago you would risk all to save it, my friend.
 
 THE OEDEAL BY STEEL. 351 
 
 Now, with your back safely turned on it, you think 
 all for the best." 
 
 "We did our best," the minister answered humbly. 
 " From the day we met in Paris we have been but 
 instruments. " 
 
 "To save Angers 1 " 
 
 "To save a remnant." 
 
 On a sudden the Countess raised her hand. "Do 
 you not hear horses, monsieur ? " she cried. She had 
 been listening to the noises of the night, and had paid 
 little heed to what the two were saying. 
 
 "One of ours moved," Tignonville answered list- 
 lessly. " Why do you not lie down, madame ? " 
 
 Instead of answering, "Whither is he going?" she 
 asked. "Do you know? " 
 
 "I wish I did know," the young man answered 
 peevishly. "To Mort, it may be. Or presently he 
 will double back and recross the Loire." 
 
 "He would have gone by Cholet to Niort," La 
 Tribe said. " The direction is rather that of Eochelle. 
 God grant we be bound thither ! " 
 
 "Or to Vrillac," the Countess cried, clasping her 
 hands in the darkness. "Can it be to Vrillac he is 
 going ? " 
 
 The minister shook his head. 
 
 " Ah, let it be to Vrillac ! " she cried, a thrill in her 
 voice. "We should be safe there. And he would be 
 safe." 
 
 " Safe ? " echoed a fourth and deeper voice. And 
 out of the darkness beside them loomed a tall fig- 
 ure. 
 
 The minister looked and leapt to his feet. Tignon- 
 ville rose more slowly. 
 
 The voice was Tavannes'. "And where am I to be
 
 352 COUNT HANNIBAL. 
 
 safe?" he repeated slowly, a faint ring of saturnine 
 amusement in his tone. 
 
 "At Vrillac," she cried. "In nay house, mon- 
 sieur." 
 
 lie was silent a moment. Then, "Your house, 
 madame ? In which direction is it, from here ? " 
 
 "Westwards," she answered impulsively, her voice 
 quivering with eagerness and emotion and hope. 
 "Westwards, monsieur on the sea. The causeway 
 from the land is long, and ten can hold it against ten 
 hundred." 
 
 " Westwards? And how far westwards? " 
 
 Tignonville answered for her ; in his tone throbbed 
 the same eagerness, the same anxiety, which spoke 
 in hers. Nor was Count Hannibal's ear deaf to it. 
 "Through Challaus," he said, "thirteen leagues." 
 
 "From Clisson?" 
 
 "Yes, Monsieur le Comte." 
 
 "And by Commequiers less," the Countess cried. 
 
 "No, it is a worse road," Tignonville answered 
 quickly ; " and longer in time. " 
 
 "But we came " 
 
 " At our leisure, madame. The road is by Chal- 
 laus, if we wish to be there quickly." 
 
 "Ah!" Count Hannibal said. In the darkness it 
 was impossible to see his face or mark how he took 
 it. "But being there, I have few men." 
 
 "I have forty will come at call," she cried with 
 pride. "A word to them, and in four hours or a lit- 
 tle more " 
 
 "They would outnumber mine by four to one," 
 Count Hannibal answered coldly, drily, in a voice 
 like ice-water flung in their faces. "Thank you, 
 madame ; I understand. To Vrillac is no long ride ;
 
 THE OEDEAL BY STEEL. 
 
 but we will not ride it at present. " And he turned 
 sharply on his heel aud strode from them. 
 
 He had not covered thirty paces before she over- 
 took him in the middle of a broad patch of moonlight 
 and touched his arm. He wheeled swiftly, his hand 
 half-way to his hilt. Then he saw who it was. 
 "Ah," he said, "I had forgotten, madaine. You 
 have come " 
 
 "Jfo!" she cried passionately; and standing before 
 him she shook back the hood of her cloak that he 
 might look into her eyes. "You owe me no blow 
 to-day. You have paid me, monsieur. You have 
 struck me already, and foully, like a coward. Do 
 you remember," she continued rapidly, "the hour 
 after our marriage, and what you said to me? Do 
 you remember what you told me? And whom to 
 trust and whom to suspect, where lay our interest 
 and where our foes' ? You trusted me then ! What 
 have I done that you now dare ay, dare, monsieur, " 
 she repeated fearlessly, her face pale and her eyes 
 glittering with excitement, "to insult me? That you 
 treat me as Javette? That you deem me capable of 
 that? Of luring you into a trap, and in my own 
 house, or the house that was mine, of " 
 
 " Treating me as I have treated others. " 
 
 "You have said it ! " she cried. She could not her- 
 self understand why his distrust had wounded her 
 so sharply, so home, that all fear of him was gone. 
 11 You have said it, and put that between us which 
 will not be removed. I could have forgiven blows," 
 she continued, breathless in her excitement, "so you 
 had thought me what I am. But now you will do 
 well to watch me! You will do well to leave Vrillac 
 on one side. For were you there, and raised your 
 23
 
 354 COUNT HANNIBAL. 
 
 hand against me not that that touches me, but it 
 will do and there are those, I tell you, would fling 
 you from the tower at my word." 
 
 "Indeed?" 
 
 "Ay, indeed 1 And indeed, monsieur!" 
 
 Her face was in moonlight, his was in shadow. 
 
 "And this is your new tone, madame, is it I" he 
 said, slowly and after a pregnant pause. "The cross- 
 ing of a river has wrought so great a change in 
 you?" 
 
 "No! " she cried. 
 
 "Yes, "he said. And despite herself she flinched 
 before the grimness of his tone. "You have yet to 
 learn one thing, however: that I do not change. 
 That, north or south, I am the same to those who are 
 the same to me. That what I have won on the one 
 bank I will hold on the other, in the teeth of all, and 
 though God's Church be thundering on my heels! 
 I go to Vrillac " 
 
 "You go? " she cried. "You go? " 
 
 "I go," he repeated, "to-morrow. And among 
 your own people I will see what language you will 
 hold. While you were in my power I spared you. 
 Now that you are in your own land, now that you lift 
 your hand against me, I will show you of what make 
 I am. If blows will not tame you, I will try that will 
 suit you less. Ay, you wince, madame! You had 
 done well had you thought twice before you threat- 
 ened, and thrice before you took in hand to scare 
 Tavanues with a parcel of clowns and fisherfolk. To- 
 morrow, to Vrillac and your duty! And one word 
 more, madame," he continued, turning back to her 
 truculently when he had gone some paces from her. 
 " If I find you plotting with your lover by the way I
 
 THE ORDEAL BY STEEL. 355 
 
 will hang not you, but him. I have spared him a 
 score of times ; but I know him, and I do not trust 
 him." 
 
 "Nor me," she said, and with a white, set face she 
 looked at him in the moonlight. "Had you not bet- 
 ter hang me now 1 ? " 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 " Lest I do you an injury ! " she cried with passion ; 
 and she raised her hand and pointed northward. 
 "Lest I kill you some night, monsieur! I tell you, a 
 thousand men on your heels are less dangerous than 
 the woman at your side if she hate you." 
 
 "Is it so?" he cried. His hand flew to his hilt; 
 his dagger flashed out. But she did not move, did 
 not flinch, only she set her teeth ; and her eyes, fasci- 
 nated by the steel, grew wider. 
 
 His hand sank slowly. He held the weapon to her, 
 hilt foremost ; she took it mschanically. "You think 
 yourself brave enough to kill me, do you ? " he 
 sneered. "Then take this, and strike, if you dare. 
 Take it strike, madame ! It is sharp, and my arms 
 are open." And he flung them wide, standing within 
 a pace of her. "Here, above the collar-b^ne, is the 
 surest for a weak hand. What, afraid?" he contin- 
 ued, as, stiffly clutching the weapon which he had 
 put into her hand, she glared at him, trembling and 
 astonished. "Afraid, and a Vrillac! Afraid, and 
 'tis but one blow! See, my arms are open. One 
 blow home, and you will never lie in them. Think 
 of that. One blow home, and you may lie in his. 
 Think of that! Strike, then, madame," he went on, 
 piling taunt on taunt, "if you dare, and if you hate 
 me. What, still afraid! How shall I give yor 
 heart? Shall I strike you? It will not be the first
 
 356 COUNT HANNIBAL. 
 
 time by ten. I keep count, you see," he continued 
 mockingly. "Or shall I kiss you? Ay, that may do. 
 And it will not be against your will, either, for you 
 have that in your hand will save you in an instant. 
 
 Even" he drew a foot nearer "now! Even " 
 
 And he stooped until his lips almost touched hers. 
 
 She sprang back. "Oh, do not!" she cried. "Oh, 
 do not ! " And, dropping the dagger, she covered her 
 face with her hands, and burst into weeping. 
 
 He stooped coolly, and, after groping some time 
 for the poniard, drew it from the leaves among which 
 it had fallen. He put it into the sheath, and not 
 until he had done that did he speak. Then it was 
 with a sneer. "I have no need to fear overmuch," 
 he said. "You are a poor hater, madame. And 
 poor haters make poor lovers. 'Tis his loss! If you 
 will not strike a blow for him, there is but one thing 
 left. Go, dream of him ! " 
 
 And shrugging his shoulders contemptuously he 
 turned on his heel.
 
 CHAPTER XXXIII. 
 
 THE AMBUSH. 
 
 THE start they made at daybreak was gloomy and ill- 
 omened, through one of those white mists which are 
 blown from the Atlantic over the flat lands of Western 
 Poitou. The horses, looming gigantic through the 
 fog, winced as the cold harness was girded on them. 
 The men hurried to and fro with saddles on their 
 heads, and stumbled over other saddles, and swore 
 savagely. The women turned mutinous and would 
 not rise; or, being dragged up by force, shrieked 
 wild unfitting words, as they were driven to the 
 horses. The Countess looked on and listened, and 
 shuddered, waiting for Carlat to set her on her horse. 
 She had gone during the last three weeks through 
 much that was dreary, much that was hopeless ; but 
 the chill discomfort of this forced start, with tired 
 horses and wailing women, would have darkened the 
 prospect of home had there been no fear or threat to 
 cloud it. 
 
 He whose will compelled all stood a little apart and 
 watched all, silent and gloomy. When Badelon, af- 
 ter taking his orders and distributing some slices of 
 black bread to be eaten in the saddle, moved off at 
 the head of his troop, Count Hannibal remained be- 
 hind, attended by Bigot and the eight riders who had 
 formed the rearguard so far. He had not approached
 
 358 COUNT HANNIBAL. 
 
 the Countess since rising, and she had been thankful 
 for it. But now, as she moved away, she looked back 
 and saw him still standing ; she marked that he wore 
 his corselet, and in one of those revulsions of feeling 
 which outrun man's reason she who had tossed on 
 her couch through half the night, in passionate revolt 
 against the fate before her, took fire at his neglect 
 and his silence ; she resented on a sudden the distance 
 he kept, and his scorn of her. Her breast heaved, 
 her colour came, involuntarily she checked her horse, 
 as if she would return to him, and speak to him. 
 Then the Carlats and the others closed up behind 
 her, Badelon's monotonous "Forward, madanie, en 
 avant ! " proclaimed the day's journey begun, and she 
 saw him no more. 
 
 Nevertheless, the motionless figure, looming Ho- 
 meric through the fog, with gleams of wet light re- 
 flected from the steel about it, dwelt long in her 
 mind. The road which Badelon followed, slowly at 
 first, and with greater speed as the horses warmed to 
 their work, and the women, sore and battered, re- 
 signed themselves to suffering, wound across a flat 
 expanse broken by a few hills. These were little 
 more than mounds, and for the most part were veiled 
 from sight by the low-lying sea-mist, through which 
 gnarled and stunted oaks rose mysterious, to fade as 
 strangely. Weird trees they were, with branches un- 
 like those of this world's trees, rising in a grey land 
 without horizon or limit, through which our travel- 
 lers moved, jaded phantoms in a clinging nightmare. 
 At a walk, at a trot, more often at a weary jog, 
 they pushed on behind Badelon's humped shoulders. 
 Sometimes the fog hung so thick about them that they 
 saw only those who rose and fell in the saddles iuime-
 
 THE AMBUSH. 359 
 
 diately before them ; sometimes the air cleared a lit- 
 tle, the curtain rolled up a space, and for a minute or 
 two they discerned stretches of unfertile fields, half- 
 tilled and stony, or long tracts of gorse and broom, 
 with here and there a thicket of dwarf shrubs or a 
 wood of wind-swept pines. Some looked and saw 
 these things ; more rode on sulky and unseeing, sup- 
 porting impatiently the toils of a flight from they 
 knew not what. 
 
 To do Tignonville justice, he was not of these. On 
 the contrary, he seemed to be in a better temper on 
 this day ; and, where so many took things unheroieal- 
 ly, he showed to advantage. Avoiding the Countess 
 and riding with Carlat, he talked and laughed with 
 marked cheerfulness ; nor did he ever fail, when the 
 mist rose, to note this or that landmark, and confirm 
 Badelon in the way he was going. 
 
 " We shall be at Lege by noon ! " he cried more 
 than once, "and if M. le Cornte persists in his 
 plan, may reach Vrillac by late sunset. By way of 
 Challaus!" 
 
 And always Carlat answered, "Ay, by Challans, 
 monsieur, so be it ! " 
 
 He proved, too, so far right in his prediction that 
 noon saw them drag, a weary train, into the hamlet 
 of Le"ge, where the road from Nantes to Olonne runs 
 southward over the level of Poitou. An hour later 
 Count Hannibal rode in with six of his eight men, 
 and, after a few minutes' parley with Badelou, who 
 was scanning the horses, he called Carlat to him. 
 The old man came. 
 
 "Can we reach Vrillac to-night? " Count Hannibal 
 asked curtly. 
 
 "By Challans, my lord," the steward answered, "I
 
 360 COUNT HANNIBAL. 
 
 think we can. We call it seven hours' riding from 
 here. " 
 
 "And that route is the shortest 1 ? " 
 
 " In time, M. le Comte, the road being better. " 
 
 Count Hannibal bent his brows. " And the othet 
 way ? " he said. 
 
 " Is by Commequiers, my lord. It is shorter in dis- 
 tance. " 
 
 "By how much!" 
 
 "Two leagues. But there are fordings and a salt 
 marsli ; and with Madame and the women " 
 
 "It would be longer? " 
 
 The steward hesitated. "I think so," he said 
 slowly, his eyes wandering to the grey misty land- 
 scape, against which the poor hovels of the village 
 stood out naked and comfortless. A low thicket of 
 oaks sheltered the place from southwesterly gales. 
 On the other three sides it lay open. 
 
 "Very good," Tavannes said curtly. "Be ready to 
 start in ten minutes. You will guide us. " 
 
 But when the ten minutes had elapsed and the 
 party were ready to start, to the astonishment of all 
 the steward was not to be found. To peremptory 
 calls for him no answer came ; and a hurried search 
 through the hamlet proved equally fruitless. The 
 orP v person who had seen him since his interview 
 with Tavannes turned out to be M. de Tiguonville ; 
 and he had seen him mount his horse five minutes be- 
 fore, and move off as he believed by the Challans 
 road. 
 
 "Ahead of us!" 
 
 "Yes, M. le Comte," Tignonville answered, shading 
 his eyes and gazing in the direction of the fringe of 
 trees. " I did not see him take the road, but he was
 
 THE AMBUSH. 361 
 
 beside the north end of the wood when I saw him 
 last. Thereabouts!" and he pointed to a place where 
 the Challans road wound round the flank of the wood. 
 "When we are beyond that point, I think we shall 
 see him. " 
 
 Count Hannibal growled a word in his beard, and, 
 turning in his saddle, looked back the way he had 
 come. Half a mile away, two or three dots could be 
 seen approaching across the plain. He turned again. 
 "You know the road? " he said, curtly addressing the 
 young man. 
 
 "Perfectly. As well as Carlat." 
 
 "Then lead the way, monsieur, with Badelon. 
 And spare neither whip nor spur. There will be 
 need of both, if we would lie warm to-night." 
 
 Tiguonville nodded assent and, wheeling his horse, 
 rode to the head of the party, a faint smile playing 
 about his mouth. A moment, and the main body 
 moved off behind him, leaving Count Hannibal and 
 six men to cover the rear. The mist, which at noon 
 had risen for an hour or two, was closing down again, 
 and they had no sooner passed clear of the wood than 
 the trees faded out of sight behind them. It was not 
 wonderful that they could not see Carlat. Objects 
 a hundred paces from them were completely hidden. 
 
 Trot, trot! Trot, trot! through a. grey world so 
 featureless, so unreal that the riders, now dozing in 
 the saddle, and now awaking, seemed to themselves 
 to stand still, as in a nightmare. A trot and then a 
 walk, and then a trot again; and all a dozen times 
 repeated, while the women bumped along in their 
 wretched saddles, and the horses stumbled, and the 
 men swore at them. 
 
 Ha ! La Garnache at last, and a sharp turn south-
 
 362 COUNT HANNIBAL. 
 
 ward to Challaus. The Countess raised her head, 
 and began to look about her. There, should be a 
 church, she knew; and there, the old ruined tower 
 built by wizards, or the Carthaginians, so old tradi- 
 tion ran ; and there, to the westward, the great salt 
 marshes towards Noirmoutier. The mist hid all, but 
 the knowledge that they were there set her heart beat- 
 ing, brought tears to her eyes, and lightened the long 
 road to Challans. 
 
 At Challans they halted half-an-hour, and washed 
 out the horses' mouths with water and a little guigno- 
 let the spirit of the country. A dose of the cordial 
 was administered to the women ; and a little after 
 seven they began the last stage of the journey, 
 through a landscape which even the mist could not 
 veil from the eyes of love. There rose the windmill 
 of Soullans ! There the old dolmen, beneath which 
 the grey wolf that ate the two children of Tornic had 
 its lair. For a mile back they had been treading my 
 lady's laud ; they had only two more leagues to ride, 
 and one of those was crumbling under each dogged 
 footfall. The salt flavour, which is new life to the 
 shore-born, was in the fleecy reek which floated by 
 them, now thinner, now more opaque; and almost 
 they could hear the dull thunder of the Biscay waves 
 falling on the rocks. 
 
 Tignonville looked back at her and smiled. She 
 caught the look ; she fancied that she understood it 
 and his thoughts. But her own eyes were moist at 
 the moment with tears, and what his said, and what 
 there was of strangeness in his glance, half -warning, 
 half -exultant, escaped her. For there, not a mile be- 
 fore them, where the low hills about the fishing vil- 
 lage began to rise from the dull inland level hills
 
 THE AMBUSH. 363 
 
 green on the laud side, bare and scarped towards the 
 sea and the island she espied the wayside chapel at 
 which the nurse of her early childhood had told her 
 beads. Where it stood, the road from Commequiers 
 and the road she travelled became one : a short mile 
 thence, after winding among the hillocks, it ran 
 down to the beach and the causeway and to her 
 home. 
 
 At the sight she bethought herself of Carlat, and 
 calling to M. de Tiguouville she asked him what he 
 thought of the steward's continued absence. 
 
 "He must have outpaced us! " he answered with an 
 odd laugh. 
 
 " But he must have ridden hard to do that. " 
 
 He reined back to her. " Say nothing ! " he mut- 
 tered under his breath. "But look ahead, madame, 
 and see if we are expected ! " 
 
 "Expected? How can we be expected? " she cried. 
 The colour rushed into her face. 
 
 He put his finger to his lip, and looked warningly 
 at Badelon's humped shoulders, jogging up and down 
 in front of them. Then, stooping towards her, in a 
 lower tone, "If Carlat has arrived before us, he will 
 have told then:, " he said. 
 
 " Have told them ! " she exclaimed. 
 
 "He came by the other road, and it is quicker." 
 
 She gazed at him in astonishment, her lips parted ; 
 and slowly she comprehended, and her eyes grew 
 hard. "Then why," she said, "did you say it was 
 longer? Had we been overtaken, monsieur, we had 
 had you to thank for it, it seems ! " 
 
 He bit his lip. "But we have not been overtaken, " 
 he rejoined. "On the contrary, you have me to 
 thank for something quite different."
 
 364 COUNT HANNIBAL. 
 
 "As unwelcome, perhaps!" she retorted. "For 
 what?" 
 
 "Softly, madame." 
 
 "For what?" she repeated, refusing to lower her 
 voice. "Speak, monsieur, if you please." He had 
 never seen her look at him in that way. 
 
 "For the fact," he answered, stung by her look 
 and tone, " that when you arrive you will find your- 
 self mistress in your own house ! Is that nothing ? " 
 
 " You have called in my people ? " 
 
 " Carlat has done so, or should have, " he answered. 
 "Henceforth," he continued, a ring of exultation in 
 his voice, "it will go hard with M. le Comte, if he 
 does not treat you better than he has treated you 
 hitherto. That is all ! " 
 
 "You mean that it will go hard with him in any 
 case ? " she cried, her bosom rising and falling. 
 
 "I mean, madame But there they are! Good 
 
 Carlat ! Brave Carlat ! He has done well. " 
 
 "Carlat?" 
 
 "Ay, there they are! And you are mistress in 
 your own land! At last you are mistress, and you 
 have me to thank for it! See ! " And heedless in his 
 exultation whether Badelon understood or not, he 
 pointed to a place before them where the road wound 
 between two low hills. Over the green shoulder of 
 one of these, a dozen bright points caught and reflect- 
 ed the last evening light; while as he spoke a man 
 rose to his feet on the hill-side above, and began to 
 make signs to persons below. A pennon, too, showed 
 an instant over the shoulder, fluttered, and was gone. 
 
 Badelou looked as they looked. The next instant 
 he uttered a low oath, and dragged his horse across 
 the front of the party. "Pierre!" he cried to the
 
 THE AMBUSH. 365 
 
 man on his left, "Bide for your life! To my lord, 
 and tell him we are ambushed ! " And as the trained 
 soldier wheeled about and spurred away, the sacker 
 of Eome turned a dark scowling face on Tignonville. 
 "If this be your work," he hissed, "we shall thank 
 you for it in hell ! For it is where most of us will lie 
 to-night! They are Montsoreau's spears, and they 
 have those with them are worse to deal with than 
 themselves ! " Then in a different tone, and throwing 
 off all disguise, "Men to the front!" he shouted. 
 "And you, madame, to the rear quickly, and the 
 women with you! Now, men, forward, and draw! 
 Steady ! Steady ! They are coming ! " 
 
 There was an instant of confusion, disorder, panic ; 
 horses jostling one another, women screaming and 
 clutching at men, men shaking them off and forcing 
 their way to the van. Fortunately the enemy did not 
 fall on at once, as Badelon expected, but after show- 
 ing themselves in the mouth of the valley, at a dis- 
 tance of three hundred paces, hung for some reason 
 irresolute. This gave Badelon time to array his seven 
 swords in front ; but real resistance was out of the 
 question, as he knew. And to none seemed less in 
 question than to Tignonville. 
 
 When the truth, and what he had done, broke on 
 the young man, he sat a moment motionless with hor- 
 ror. It was only when Badelon had twice summoned 
 him with opprobrious words that he awoke to the re- 
 lief of action. Even after that he hung an instant 
 trying to meet the Countess's eyes, despair in his 
 own ; but it was not to be. She had turned her head, 
 and was looking back, as if thence only and not from 
 him could help come. It was not to him she turned ; 
 and he saw it, and the justice of it. And silent,
 
 366 COUNT HANNIBAL. 
 
 grim, more formidable even than old Badelon, the 
 veteran tighter, who knew all the tricks and shifts of 
 the melee, he spurred to the flank of the line. 
 
 "Now, steady!" Badelon cried again, seeing that 
 the enemy were beginning to move. "Steady! Ha! 
 Thank God, my lord! My lord is coming! Stand! 
 Stand!" 
 
 The distant sound of galloping hoofs had reached 
 his ear in the nick of time. He stood in his stirrups 
 and looked back. Yes, Count Hannibal was coming, 
 riding a dozen paces in front of his men. The odds 
 were still desperate for he brought but six the ene- 
 my were still three to one. But the thunder of his 
 hoofs as he came up checked for a moment the ene- 
 my's onset; and before Moutsoreau's people got start- 
 ed again Count Hannibal had ridden up abreast of 
 the women, and the Countess, looking at him, knew 
 that, desperate as was their strait, she had not looked 
 behind in vain. The glow of battle, the stress of the 
 moment, had displaced the cloud from his face ; the 
 joy of the born fighter lightened in his eye. His 
 voice rang clear and loud above the press. 
 
 " Badelon ! wait you and two with madame ! " he 
 cried. "Follow at fifty paces' distance, and, when 
 we have broken them, ride through! The others with 
 me! Now forward, men, and show your teeth! A 
 Tavannes! A Tavanues! A Tavannes! We carry 
 it yet ! " 
 
 And he dashed forward, leading them on, leaving 
 the women behind ; and down the sward to meet him, 
 thundering in double line, came Moutsoreau's men- 
 at-arms, and with the men-at-arms, a dozen pale, 
 fierce eyed men in the Church's black, yelling the 
 Church's curses. Madame's heart grew sick as she
 
 THE AMBUSH. 36? 
 
 heard, as she waited, as she judged him by the fast- 
 failing light a horse's length before his men with 
 only Tignouville beside him. 
 
 She held her breath would the shock never come? 
 If Badelou had not seized her rein and forced her 
 forward, she would not have moved. And then, 
 even as she moved, they met ! With yells and wild 
 cries and a mare's savage scream, the two bands 
 crashed together in a huddle of fallen or rearing 
 horses, of flickering weapons, of thrusting men, of 
 grapples hand-to-hand. What happened, what was 
 happening to anyone, who it was fell, stabbed 
 through and through by four, or who were those who 
 still fought single combats, twisting round one an- 
 other's horses, those on her right and on her left, she 
 could not tell. For Badelou dragged her on with 
 whip and spur, and two horsemen who obscured her 
 view galloped in front of her, and rode down bodily 
 the only man who undertook to bar her passage. She 
 had a glimpse of that man's face, as his horse, struck 
 in the act of turning, fell sideways on him ; and she 
 knew it, in its agony of terror, though she had seen it 
 but once. It was the face of the man whose eyes had 
 sought hers from the steps of the church in Augers ; 
 the lean man in black, who had turned soldier of the 
 Church to his misfortune. 
 
 Through ? Yes, through, the way was clear before 
 them! The fight with its screams and curses died 
 away behind them. The horses swayed and all but 
 sank under them. But Badelou knew it no time for 
 mercy ; iron-shod hoofs rang on the road behind, and 
 at any moment the pursuers might be on their heels. 
 He flogged on until the cots of the hamlet appeared 
 on either side of the way ; on, until the road forked
 
 368 COUNT HANNIBAL. 
 
 and the Countess with strange readiness cried "The 
 left ! " on, until the beach appeared below them at 
 the foot of a sharp pitch, and beyond the beach the 
 slow heaving grey of the ocean. 
 
 The tide was high. The causeway ran through it, 
 a mere thread lipped by the darkling waves, and at 
 the sight a grunt of relief broke from Badelou. For 
 at the end of the causeway, black against the western 
 sky, rose the gateway and towers of Vrillac ; and he 
 saw that, as the Countess had said, it was a place ten 
 men could hold against ten hundred ! 
 
 They stumbled down the beach, reached the cause- 
 way and trotted along it ; more slowly now, and look- 
 ing back. The other women had followed by hook 
 or by crook, some crying hysterically, yet clinging to 
 their horses aud even urging them ; and in a medley, 
 the causeway clear behind them and no one following, 
 they reached the drawbridge, and passed under the 
 arch of the gate beyond. 
 
 There friendly hands, Carlat's foremost, welcomed 
 them and aided them to alight, and the Countess saw, 
 as in a dream, the familiar scene, all unfamiliar: the 
 gate, where she had played, a child, aglow with lan- 
 tern-light and arms. Men, whose rugged faces she 
 had known in infancy, stood at the drawbridge chains 
 and at the winches. Others blew matches and han- 
 dled primers, while old servants crowded round her, 
 and women looked at her, scared and weeping. She 
 saw it all at a glance the lights, the black shadows, 
 the sudden glow of a match on the groining of the 
 arch above. She saw it, and turning swiftly, looked 
 back the way she had come ; along the dusky cause- 
 way to the low, dark shore, which night was stealing 
 quickly from their eyes. She clasped her hands.
 
 THE AMBUSH. 360 
 
 "Where is Badelon? " she cried. "Where is hel " 
 Where is he?" 
 
 One of the men who had ridden before her an- 
 swered that he had turned back. 
 
 "Turned back! " she repeated. And then, shading 
 her eyes, "Who is coming 1 ?" she asked, her voice in- 
 sistent. "There is someone coming. Who is it? 
 Who is it?" 
 
 Two were coming out of the gloom, travelling 
 slowly and painfully along the causeway. One was 
 La Tribe, limping ; the other a rider, slashed across 
 the forehead, and sobbing curses. 
 
 "No more ! " she muttered. "Are there no more? " 
 
 The minister shook his head. The rider wiped the 
 blood from his eyes, and turned up his face that he 
 might see the better. But he seemed to be dazed, 
 and only babbled strange words in a strange patois. 
 
 She stamped her foot in passion. "More lights!" 
 she cried. "Lights! How can they find their way? 
 And let six men go down the digue, and meet them. 
 Will you let them be butchered between the shore 
 and this?" 
 
 But Carlat, who had not been able to collect more 
 than a dozen men, shook his head; and before she 
 could repeat the order, sounds of battle, shrill, faint, 
 like cries of hungry seagulls, pierced the darkness 
 which shrouded the farther end of the causeway. 
 The women shrank inward over the threshold, while 
 Carlat cried to the men at the chains to be ready, and 
 to some who stood at loopholes above, to blow up 
 their matches and let fly at his word. And then they 
 all waited, the Countess foremost, peering eagerly 
 into the growing darkness. They could see nothing. 
 
 A distant scuffle, an oath, a cry, silence I The 
 24
 
 370 COUNT HANNIBAL. 
 
 same, a little nearer, a little louder, followed this 
 time, not by silence, but by the slow tread of a limp- 
 ing horse. Again a rush of feet, the clash of steel, a 
 scream, a laugh, all weird and unreal, issuing from 
 the night; then out of the darkness into the light, 
 stepping slowly with hanging head, moved a horse, 
 bearing on its back a man or was it a man ! bend- 
 ing low in the saddle, his feet swinging loose. For 
 an instant the horse and the man seemed to be alone, 
 a ghostly pair ; then at their heels came into view two 
 figures, skirmishing this way and that ; and now com- 
 ing nearer, and now darting back into the gloom. 
 One, a squat figure, stooping low, wielded a sword 
 with two hands ; the other covered him with a half - 
 pike. And then beyond these abruptly as it seemed 
 the night gave up to sight a swarm of dark figures 
 pressing on them and after them, driving them before 
 them. 
 
 Carlat had an inspiration. " Fire ! " he cried ; and 
 four arquebuses poured a score of slugs into the knot 
 of pursuers. A man fell, another shrieked and stum- 
 bled, the rest gave back. Only the horse came on 
 spectrally, with hanging head and shining eyeballs, 
 until a man ran out and seized its head, and dragged 
 it, more by his strength than its own, over the draw- 
 bridge. After it Badelon, with a gaping wound in 
 his knee, and Bigot, bleeding from a dozen hurts, 
 walked over the bridge, and stood on either side of 
 the saddle, smiling foolishly at the man on the horse. 
 
 "Leave me!" he muttered. "Leave me!" He 
 made a feeble movement with his hand, as if it held 
 a weapon ; then his head sank lower. It was Count 
 Hannibal. His thigh was broken, and there was a 
 lance-head in his arm.
 
 THE AMBUSH. 371 
 
 The Countess looked at him, then beyond him, past 
 him into the darkness. " Are there no more ? " she 
 whispered tremulously. "No more? Tignonville 
 my 
 
 Badelon shook his head. The Countess covered 
 her face and
 
 CHAPTER XXXI v. 
 
 WHICH WILL YOU, MADAME? 
 
 IT was in the grey dawning of the next day, at the 
 hour before the sun rose, that word of M. de Tignon- 
 ville's fate came to them in the castle. The fog 
 which had masked the van and coming of night hung 
 thick on its retreating skirts, and only reluctantly 
 and little by little gave up to sight and daylight a 
 certain thing which night had left at the end of the 
 causeway. The first man to see it was Carlat, from 
 the roof of the gateway ; and he rubbed eyes weary 
 with watching, and peered anew at it through the 
 mist, fancying himself back in the Place Ste. -Croix 
 at Angers, supposing for a wild moment the journey 
 a dream, and the return a nightmare. But rub as he 
 might, and stare as he might, the ugly outlines of the 
 thing he had seen persisted nay, grew sharper as the 
 haze began to lift from the grey, slow-heaving floor 
 of sea. He called another man and bade him look. 
 "What is it?" he said. "D'you see, there? Below 
 the village?" 
 
 "'Tisa gibbet," the man answered, with a foolish 
 laugh; they had watched all night. "God keep us 
 from it." 
 
 "A gibbet?" 
 
 "Ay!" 
 
 "But what is it for? What is it doing there? "
 
 WHICH WILL YOU, MADAME? 373 
 
 " It is there to hang those they have taken, very 
 like," the man answered, stupidly practical. And 
 then other men came up, and stared at it and growled 
 in their beards. Presently there were eight or ten on 
 the roof of the gateway looking towards the laud and 
 discussing the thing ; and by-and-by a man was de- 
 scried approaching along the causeway with a white 
 flag in his hand. 
 
 At that Carlat bade one fetch the minister. "He 
 understands things," he muttered, "and I misdoubt 
 this. And see, " he cried after the messenger, " that 
 no word of it come to Mademoiselle ! " Instinctively 
 in the maiden home he reverted to the maiden title. 
 
 The messenger went, and came again bringing La 
 Tribe, whose head rose above the staircase at the mo- 
 ment the envoy below came to a halt before the gate. 
 Carlat signed to the minister to come forward ; and 
 La Tribe, after sniffing the salt air, and glancing at 
 the long, low, misty shore and the stiff ugly shape 
 which stood at the end of the causeway, looked down 
 and met the envoy's eyes. For a moment no one 
 spoke. Only the men who had remained on the 
 gateway, and had watched the stranger's corning, 
 breathed hard. 
 
 At last, "I bear a message," the man announced 
 loudly and clearly, "for the lady of Vrillac. Is she 
 present ? " 
 
 "Give your message! " La Tribe replied. 
 
 "It is for her ears only." 
 
 "Do you want to enter? " 
 
 " No ! " The man answered so hurriedly that more 
 than one smiled. He had the bearing of a lay clerk 
 of some precinct, a verger or sacristan ; and after a 
 fashion the dress of one also, for he was in dusty
 
 374 COUNT HANNIBAL. 
 
 black arid wore no sword, though he was girded with 
 a belt. "No!" he repeated, "but if Madame will 
 come to the gate, and speak to me 
 
 "Madame has other fish to fry," Carlat blurted out. 
 " Do you think that she has naught to do but listen to 
 messages from a gang of bandits ? " 
 
 "If she does not listen she will repent it all her 
 life ! " the fellow answered hardily. "That is part of 
 my message." 
 
 There was a pause while La Tribe considered the 
 matter. In the end, "From whom do you come? " he 
 asked. 
 
 "From His Excellency the Lieutenant-Governor of 
 Saunmr, " the envoy answered glibly, "and from my 
 lord Bishop of Angers, him assisting by his Vicar; 
 and from others gathered lawfully, who will as law- 
 fully depart if their terms are accepted. Also from 
 M. de Tiguonville, a gentleman, I am told, of these 
 parts, now in their hands and adjudged to die at sun- 
 set this day if the terms I bring be not accepted. " 
 
 There was a long silence on the gate. The men 
 looked down fixedly; not a feature of one of them 
 moved, for no one was surprised. "Wherefore is he 
 to die ! " La Tribe asked at last. 
 
 "For good cause shown." 
 
 "Wherefore?" 
 
 "He is a Huguenot." 
 
 The minister nodded. "And the terms!" Carlat 
 muttered. 
 
 "Ay, the terms!" La Tribe repeated, nodding 
 afresh. " What are they ? " 
 
 "They are for rnadame's ear only," the messenger 
 made answer. 
 
 "Then they will not reach it! " Carlat broke forth
 
 WHICH WILL YOU, MADAME? 375 
 
 in wrath. "So much for that! And for yourself, 
 see you go quickly before we make a target of you ! " 
 
 "Very well, I go," the envoy answered sullenly. 
 "But 
 
 "But what?" La Tribe cried, gripping Carlat's 
 shoulder to quiet him. "But what! Say what you 
 have to say, man! Speak out, and have done with 
 it!" 
 
 "I will say it to her and to no other." 
 
 "Then you will not say it!" Carlat cried again. 
 "For you will not see her. So you may go. And 
 the black fever in your vitals. " 
 
 " Ay, go ! " La Tribe added more quietly. 
 
 The man turned away with a shrug of the shoul- 
 ders, and moved off a dozen paces, watched by all on 
 the gate with the same fixed attention. But present- 
 ly he paused; he returned. "Very well," he said, 
 looking up with an ill grace. " I will do my office 
 here, if I cannot come to her. But I hold also a let- 
 ter from M. de Tignpnville, and that I can deliver to 
 no other hands than hers ! " He held it up as he 
 spoke, a thin scrap of greyish paper, the fly-leaf of a 
 missal perhaps. " See ! " he continued, " and take no- 
 tice ! If she does not get this, and learns when it is 
 too late that it was offered 
 
 "The terms," Carlat growled impatiently. "The 
 terms ! Come to them ! " 
 
 "You will have them?" the man answered, ner- 
 vously passing his tongue over his lips. "You will 
 not let me see her, or speak to her privately? " 
 
 "No." 
 
 "Then hear them. His Excellency is informed 
 that one Hannibal de Tavannes, guilty of the detesta- 
 ble crime of sacrilege and of other gross crimes, has
 
 376 COUNT HANNIBAL. 
 
 taken refuge here. He requires that the said Hanni- 
 bal de Tavannes be handed to him for punishment, 
 and, this being done before sunset this evening, he 
 will yield to you free and uninjured the said M. de 
 Tignonyille, and will retire from the lands of Vrillac. 
 But if you refuse " the man passed his eye along the 
 line of attentive faces which fringed the battlement 
 "he will at sunset hang the said Tignonville on the 
 gallows raised for Tavannes, and will harry the de- 
 mesne of Vrillac to its farthest border ! " 
 
 There was a long silence on the gate. Some, their 
 gaze still fixed on him, moved their lips as if they 
 chewed. Others looked aside, met their fellows' eyes 
 in a pregnant glance, and slowly returned to him. 
 But no one spoke. At his back the flush of dawn 
 was flooding the east, and spreading and waxing 
 brighter. The air was growing warm ; the shore be- 
 low, from grey, was turning green. In a minute or 
 two the sun, whose glowing marge already peeped 
 above the low hills of France, would top the horizon. 
 
 The man, getting no answer, shifted his feet uneas- 
 ily. ',' Well," he cried, "what answer am I to take? " 
 
 Still no one moved. 
 
 "I've done my part. Will no one give her the let- 
 ter ? " he cried. And he held it up. " Give me my 
 answer, for I am going. " 
 
 " Take the letter ! " The words came from the rear 
 of the group in a voice that startled all. They 
 turned as though some one had struck them, and saw 
 the Countess standing beside the wooden hood which 
 covered the stairs. They guessed that she had heard 
 all or nearly all ; but the glory of the sunrise, shining 
 full on her at that moment, lent a false warmth to 
 her face, and life to eyes wofully and tragically set.
 
 WHICH WILL YOU, MADAME? 377 
 
 It was not easy to say whether she had heard or not. 
 "Take the letter," she repeated. 
 
 Carlat looked helplessly over the parapet. 
 
 "Go down!" 
 
 He cast a glance at La Tribe, but he got none in 
 return, and he was preparing to do her bidding when 
 a cry of dismay broke from those who still had their 
 eyes bent downwards. The messenger, waving the 
 letter in a last appeal, had held it too loosely ; a light 
 air, as treacherous as unexpected, had snatched it 
 from his hand, and bore it even as the Countess, 
 drawn by the cry, sprang to the parapet fifty paces 
 from him. A moment it floated in the air, eddying, 
 rising, falling ; then, light as thistle-down, it touched 
 the water and began to sink. 
 
 The messenger uttered frantic lamentations, and 
 stamped the causeway in his rage. The Countess 
 only looked, and looked, until the rippling crest of a 
 baby wave broke over the tiny venture, and with its 
 freight of tidings it sank from sight. 
 
 The man, silent now, stared a moment, then 
 shrugged his shoulders. " Well, 'tis fortunate it was 
 his, "he cried brutally, "and not His Excellency's, 
 or my back had suffered! And now," he added im- 
 patiently, "by your leave, what answer?" 
 
 What answer? Ah, God, what answer? The men 
 who leant on the parapet, rude and coarse as they 
 were, felt the tragedy of the question and the dilem- 
 ma, guessed what they meant to her, and looked 
 everywhere save at her. What answer? Which of 
 the two was to live? Which die shamefully! 
 Which? Which? 
 
 "Tell him to come back an hour before sunset, n 
 she muttered.
 
 378 COUNT HANNIBAL. 
 
 They told him and lie went ; and one by one the 
 men began to go too, and stole from the roof, leaving 
 her standing alone, her face to the shore, her hands 
 resting on the parapet. The light breeze which blew 
 off the laud stirred loose ringlets of her hair, and flat- 
 tened the thin robe against her sunlit figure. So had 
 she stood a thousand times in old days, in her youth, 
 in her maidenhood. So in her father's time had she 
 stood to see her lover come riding along the sands to 
 woo her ! So had she stood to welcome him on the 
 eve of that fatal journey to Paris! Thence had oth- 
 ers watched her go with him. The men remembered 
 remembered all ; and one by one they stole shame- 
 facedly away, fearing lest she should speak or turn 
 tragic eyes on them. 
 
 True, in their pity for her was no doubt of the 
 end, or thought of the victim who must suffer of 
 Tavannes. They, of Poitou, who had not been with 
 him, knew nothing of him ; they cared as little. He 
 was a northern man, a stranger, a man of the sword, 
 who had seized her so they heard by the sword. 
 But they saw that the burden of choice was laid on 
 her ; there, in her sight and in theirs, rose the gibbet ; 
 and, clowns as they were, they discerned the tragedy 
 of her role, play it as she might, and though her act 
 gave life to her lover. 
 
 When all had retired save three or four, she turned 
 and saw these gathered at the head of the stairs in a 
 ring about Carlat, who was addressing them in a low 
 eager voice. She could not catch a syllable, but a 
 look hard, and almost cruel, flashed into her eyes as 
 she gazed; and raising her voice she called the stew- 
 ard to her. "The bridge is up," she said, her tone 
 hard, "but the gates'? Are they locked? "
 
 WHICH WILL YOU, MADAME? 379 
 
 "Yes, Madame." 
 
 "The wicket?" 
 
 " Xo, not the wicket. " And Carlat looked another 
 way. 
 
 "Then go, lock it, and bring the keys to me!" she 
 replied. " Or stay ! " Her voice grew harder, her 
 eyes spiteful as a cat's. "Stay, and be warned that 
 you play me no tricks! Do you hear? Do you un- 
 derstand ? Or old as you are, and long as you have 
 served us, I will have you thrown from this tower, 
 with as little pity as Isabeau flung her gallants to the 
 fishes. I am still mistress here, never more mistress 
 than this day. Woe to you if you forget it." 
 
 He blenched and cringed before her, muttering in- 
 coherently. 
 
 "I know," she said, "I read you! And now the 
 keys. Go, bring them to me ! And if by chance I 
 find the wicket unlocked when I come down, pray, 
 Carlat, pray! For you will have need of prayers." 
 
 He slunk away, the men with him ; and she fell to 
 pacing the roof feverishly. Kow and then she ex- 
 tended her arms, and low cries broke from her, as 
 from a dumb creature in pain. Wherever she looked, 
 old memories rose up to torment her and redouble 
 her misery. A thing she could have borne in the 
 outer world, a thing which might have seemed tolera- 
 ble in the reeking air of Paris or in the gloomy streets 
 of Angers, wore here its most appalling aspect. 
 Henceforth, whatever choice she made, this home, 
 where even in those troublous times she had known 
 naught but peace, must bear a damning stain! 
 Henceforth this day and this hour must come be- 
 tween her and happiness, must brand her brow, and 
 fix her with a deed of which men and women would
 
 380 COUNT HANNIBAL. 
 
 tell while she lived! Oh, God pray? Who said, 
 pray? 
 
 "I! " And La Tribe with tears in his eyes held out 
 the keys to her. "I, madame," he continued solemn- 
 ly, his voice broken with emotion. "For in man is 
 no help. The strongest man, he who rode yesterday 
 a master of men, a very man of war in his pride and 
 his valour see him now, and " 
 
 " Don't I" she cried, sharp pain in her voice. 
 "Don't! " And she stopped him with her hand, her 
 face averted. After an interval, "You come from 
 him ? " she muttered faintly. 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "Is he hurt to death, think you?" She spoke 
 .low, and kept her face hidden from him. 
 
 " Alas, no ! " he answered, speaking the thought in 
 his heart. "The men who are with him seem confi- 
 dent of his recovery." 
 
 "Do they know?" 
 
 " Badelon has had experience. " 
 
 "No, no. Do they know of this?" she cried. "Of 
 this ! " And she pointed with a gesture of loathing to 
 the black gibbet on the farther strand. 
 
 He shook his head. "I think not," he muttered. 
 And after a moment, "God help you!" he added fer- 
 vently. "God help and guide you, madame! " 
 
 She turned on him suddenly, fiercely. "Is that all 
 you can do?" she cried. "Is that all the help you 
 can give 1 You are a man. Go down, lead them out ; 
 drive off these cowards who drain our life's blood, 
 who trade on a woman's heart ! On them ! Do some- 
 thing, anything, rather than lie in safety here 
 here!" 
 
 The minister shook his head sadly. "Alas, ma-
 
 WHICH WILL YOU, MADAME! 381 
 
 dame!" he said, "to sally were to waste life. They 
 outnumber us three to one. If Count Hannibal could 
 do no more than break through last night, with 
 scarce a man unwouuded " 
 
 "He had the women! " 
 
 "And we have not him ! " 
 
 "He would not have left us!" she cried hysteri- 
 cally. 
 
 "I believe it." 
 
 "Had they taken me, do you think he would have 
 lain behind walls ? Or skulked in safety here, while 
 while " Her voice failed her. 
 
 He shook his head despondently. 
 
 "And that is all you can do?" she cried, and 
 turned from him, and to him again, extending her 
 arms, in bitter scorn. "All you will do 1 ? Do you 
 forget that twice he spared your life ? That in Paris 
 once, and once in Angers, he held his hand? That 
 always, whether he stood or whether he fled, he held 
 himself between us and harm? Ay, always? And 
 who will now raise a hand for him ? Who ? " 
 
 "Madame!" 
 
 "Who? Who? Had he died in the field," she 
 continued, her voice shaking with grief, her hands 
 beating the parapet for she had turned from him 
 " had he fallen where he rode last night, in the front, 
 with his face to the foe, I had viewed him tearless, I 
 had deemed him happy ! I had prayed dry-eyed for 
 him who who spared me all these days and weeks ! 
 Whom I robbed and he forgave me ! Whom I tempt- 
 ed, and he forbore me! Ay, and who spared not 
 once or twice him for whom he must now he must 
 
 now " And unable to finish the sentence she 
 
 beat her hands again and passionately on the stones.
 
 382 COUNT HANNIBAL. 
 
 "Heaven knows, madaine," the minister cried 
 vehemently, " Heaven knows, I would advise you if 
 I could." 
 
 " Why did he wear his corselet ? " she wailed, as if 
 she had nob heard him. " Was there no spear could 
 reach his breast, that he must come to this? No foe 
 so gentle he would spare him this? Or why did lie 
 not die with me in Paris when we waited 1 ? In another 
 minute death might have come and saved us this. " 
 
 With the tears running down his face he tried to 
 comfort her. "Man that is a shadow," he said, 
 "passethaway what matter how? A little while, a 
 very little while, and we shall pass ! " 
 
 " With his curse upon us ! " she cried. And, 
 shuddering, she pressed her hands to her eyes to shut 
 out the sight her fancy pictured. 
 
 He left her for a while, hoping that in solitude she 
 might regain control of herself. When he returned 
 he found her seated, and outwardly more composed, 
 her arms resting on the parapet-wall, her eyes bent 
 steadily on the long stretch of hard sand which ran 
 northward from the village. By that route her lover 
 had many a time come to her ; there she had ridden 
 with him in the early days ; and that way they had 
 started for Paris on such a morning and at such an 
 hour as this, with sunshine about them, and larks 
 singing hope above the sand-dunes, and warm wave- 
 lets creaming to the horses' hoofs ! 
 
 Of all which, La Tribe, a stranger, knew nothing. 
 The rapt gaze, the unchanging attitude only con- 
 firmed his opinion of the course she would adopt. 
 He was thankful to find her more composed ; and in 
 fear of such a scene as had already passed between 
 them he stole away again. He returned by-and-by,
 
 WHICH WILL YOU, MADAME? 383 
 
 but with the greatest reluctance, and only because 
 Carlat's urgency would take no refusal. 
 
 He came this time to crave the key of the wicket, 
 explaining that rather to satisfy his own conscience 
 and the men than with any hope of success he pro- 
 posed to go half-way along the causeway, and thence 
 by signs invite a conference. "It is just possible," 
 he added, hesitating he feared nothing so much as 
 to raise hopes in her "that by the offer of a money 
 ransom, Madame " 
 
 "Go," she said, without turning her head. "Offer 
 what you please. But" bitterly "have a care of 
 them! Montsoreau is very like Montereau! Be- 
 ware of the bridge ! " 
 
 He went and came again in half-an-hour. Then, 
 indeed, though she had spoken as if hope was dead in 
 her, she was on her feet at the first sound of his tread 
 on the stairs ; her parted lips and her white face ques- 
 tioned him. He shook his head. 
 
 "There is a priest," he said iu broken tones, "with 
 them, whom God will judge. It is his plan, and he 
 is without mercy or pity." 
 
 " You bring nothing from him ? " 
 
 "They will not suffer him to write again." 
 
 "You did not see him? " 
 
 "No."
 
 CHAPTEE XXXV. 
 
 AGAINST THE WALL. 
 
 IN a room beside the gateway, into which, as the 
 nearest and most convenient place, Count Hannibal 
 had been carried from his saddle, a man sat sideways 
 in the narrow embrasure of a loophole, to which his 
 eyes seemed glued. The room, which formed part of 
 the oldest block of the chateau, and was ordinarily 
 the quarters of the Carlats, possessed two other win- 
 dows, deep -set indeed, yet superior to that through 
 which Bigot for he it was peered so persistently. 
 But the larger windows looked southwards, across the 
 bay at this moment the noon-high sun was pouring 
 his radiance through them; while the object which 
 held Bigot's gaze and fixed him to his irksome seat, 
 lay elsewhere. The loophole commanded the cause- 
 way leading shorewards; through it the Norman 
 could see who came and went, and even the cross- 
 beam of the ugly object which rose where the cause- 
 way touched the land. 
 
 On a flat truckle-bed behind the door lay Count 
 Hannibal, his injured leg protected from the coverlid 
 by a kind of cage. His eyes were bright with fever, 
 and his untended beard and straggling hair height- 
 ened the wildness of his aspect. But he was in pos- 
 session of his senses; and as his gaze passed from 
 Bigot at the window to the old Free Companion,
 
 AGAINST THE WALL. 385 
 
 who sat on a stool beside him, engaged in shaping a 
 piece of wood into a splint, an expression almost soft 
 crept into his harsh face. 
 
 "Old fool!" he said. And his voice, though 
 changed, had not lost all its strength and harshness. 
 "Did the Constable need a splint when you laid him 
 under the tower at Gaeta "I " 
 
 The old man lifted his eyes from his task, and 
 glanced through the nearest window. "It is long 
 from noon to night," he said quietly, "and far from 
 cup to lip, my lord ! " 
 
 "It would be if I had two legs," Tavannes an- 
 swered, with a grimace, half -snarl, half -smile. "As 
 it is where is that dagger ? It leaves me every min- 
 ute." 
 
 It had slipped from the coverlid to the ground. 
 Badelon took it up, and set it on the bed within reach 
 of his master's hand. 
 
 Bigot swore fiercely. "It would be farther still," 
 he growled, "if you would be guided by me, my lord. 
 Give me leave to bar the door, and 'twill be long be- 
 fore these fisher clowns force it. Badelon and I " 
 
 "Being in your full strength," Count Hannibal 
 murmured cynically. 
 
 "Could hold it. We have strength enough for 
 that," the Norman boasted, though his livid face and 
 his bandages gave the lie to his words. He could not 
 move without pain; and for Badelon, his knee was 
 as big as two with plaisters of his own placing. 
 
 Count Hannibal stared at the ceiling. "You could 
 not strike two blows!" he said. "Don't lie to me] 
 And Badelon cannot walk two yards! Fine fight- 
 ers!" he continued with bitterness, not all bitter. 
 "Fine bars 'twixt a man and death! No, it is time 
 25
 
 386 COUNT HANNIBAL. 
 
 to turn the face to the wall. And, since go I must, 
 it shall not be said Count Hannibal dared not go 
 alone ! Besides " 
 
 Bigot stopped him with an oath that was in part 
 a cry of pain. "D n her!" he exclaimed in fury, 
 "'tis she is that besides! I know it. 'Tis she has 
 been our ruin from the day we saw her first, ay, to 
 this day! 'Tis she has bewitched you until your 
 blood, my lord, has turned to water. Or you would 
 never, to save the hand that betrayed us, never to 
 save a man 
 
 "Silence!" Count Hannibal cried, in a terrible 
 voice. And rising on his elbow, he poised the dag- 
 ger as if he would hurl it. "Silence, or I will spit 
 you like the vermin you are! Silence, and listen! 
 And you, old ban-dog, listen too, for I know you ob- 
 stinate ! It is not to save him. It is because I will 
 die as I have lived, fearing nothing and asking noth- 
 ing ! It were easy to bar the door as you would have 
 me, and die in the corner here like a wolf at bay, 
 biting to the last. That were easy, old wolf-hound! 
 Pleasant and good sport ! " 
 
 " Ay ! That were a death ! " the veteran cried, his 
 eyes brightening. "So I would fain die! " 
 
 " And I ! " Count Hannibal returned, showing his 
 teeth in a grim smile. "I too! Yet I will not! I 
 will not ! Because so to die were to die unwillingly, 
 and give them triumph. Be dragged to death? No, 
 old dog, if die we must, we will go to death ! We 
 will die grandly, highly, as becomes Tavannes ! That 
 when we are gone they may say, ' There died a 
 man ! ' " 
 
 "She may say! " Bigot muttered scowling. 
 
 Count Hannibal heard and glared at him, but pres-
 
 AGAINST THE WALL. 387 
 
 ently thought better of it, and after a pause, " Ay, she 
 too ! " he said. " Why not ? As we have played the 
 game for her so, though we lose, we will play it to 
 the end ; nor because we lose throw down the cards ! 
 Besides, man, die in the corner, die biting, and he 
 dies too ! " 
 
 "And why not?" Bigot asked, rising in a fury. 
 "Why not? Whose work is it we lie here, snared by 
 these clowns of fisherfolk? Who led us wrong and 
 betrayed us? He die? Would the devil had taken 
 him a year ago! Would he were within my reach 
 now! I would kill him with my bare fingers! He 
 die? And why not?" 
 
 "Why, because, fool, his death would not save 
 me ! " Count Hannibal answered coolly. " If it 
 would, he would die ! But it will not ; and we must 
 even do again as we have done. I have spared him 
 he's a white-livered hound! both once and twice, 
 and we must go to the end with it since no better can 
 be ! I have thought it out, and it must be. Only see 
 you, old dog, that I have the dagger hid in the splint 
 where I can reach it. And then, when the exchange 
 has been made, and my lady has her silk glove again 
 to put in her bosom ! " with a grimace and a 
 sudden reddening of his harsh features "if master 
 priest come within reach of my arm, I'll send him be- 
 fore me, where I go." 
 
 "Ay, ay!" said Badelon. "And if you fail of 
 your stroke I will not fail of mine ! I shall be there, 
 and I will see to it he goes ! I shall be there ! " 
 
 "You?" 
 
 "Ay, why not?" the old man answered quietly. 
 "I may halt on this leg for aught I know, and come 
 to starve on crutches like old Claude Boiteux who
 
 388 COUNT HANNIBAL. 
 
 was at the taking of Milan and now begs in the pas- 
 sage under the Chatelet." 
 
 "Bah, man, you will get a new lord! " 
 
 Badelon nodded. "Ay, a new lord with new 
 ways! " he answered slowly and thoughtfully. "And 
 I am tired. They are of another sort, lords now, 
 than they were when I was young. It was a word 
 and a blow then. Now I am old, with most it is 
 ' Old hog, your distance 1 You scent my lady ! ' 
 Then they rode, and hunted, and tilted year in and 
 year out, and summer or winter heard the lark sing. 
 'Now they are curled, and paint themselves, and lie in 
 silk and toy with ladies who shamed to be seen at 
 Court or board when I was a boy and love better to 
 hear the mouse squeak than the lark sing." 
 
 "Still, if I give you my gold chain," Count Hanni- 
 bal answered quietly, " 'twill keep you from that." 
 
 "'Give it to Bigot," the old man answered. The 
 splint he was fashioning had fallen on his knees, and 
 his eyes were fixed on the distance of his youth. 
 "For me, my lord, I am tired, and I go with you. I 
 go with you. It is a good death to die biting before 
 the strength be quite gone. Have the dagger too, if 
 you please, and I'll fit it within the splint right neat- 
 ly. But I shall be there " 
 
 "And you'll strike home? " Tavannes cried eagerly. 
 He raised himself on his elbow, a gleam of joy in his 
 gloomy eyes. 
 
 "Have no fear, my lord. See, does it tremble?" 
 He held out his hand. "And when you are sped, I 
 will try the Spanish stroke upwards with a turn ere 
 you withdraw, that I learned from Euiz on the 
 skaven-pate. I see them about me now ! " the old 
 man continued, his face flushing, his form dilating.
 
 AGAINST THE WALL. 389 
 
 "It will be odd if I cannot snatch a sword and hew 
 down three to go with Tavannes ! And Bigot, he will 
 see my lord the Marshal by-and-by ; and as I do to 
 the priest, the Marshal will do to Montsoreau. Ho ! 
 ho! He will teach him the coup de Jarnac, never 
 fear!" And the old man's moustaches curled up 
 ferociously. 
 
 Count Hannibal's eyes sparkled with joy. "Old 
 dog ! " he cried and he held his hand to the veteran, 
 who brushed it reverently with his lips "we will go 
 together then! Who touches my brother, touches 
 Tavannes ! " 
 
 "Touches Tavannes!" Badelon cried, the glow of 
 battle lighting his bloodshot eyes. He rose to his 
 feet. "Touches Tavannes! You mind at Jar- 
 nac " 
 
 "Ah! At Jarnac!" 
 
 " When we charged their horse, was my boot a foot 
 from yours, my lord? " 
 
 "Not a foot!" 
 
 "And at Dreux," the old man continued with a 
 proud, elated gesture, "when we rode down the Ger- 
 man pikemeu they were grass before us, leaves on 
 the wind, thistle-down was it not I who covered 
 your bridle hand, and swerved not in the meUe f " 
 
 "It was! It was!" 
 
 "And at St. Quentin, when we fled before the 
 Spaniard it was his day, you remember, and cost us 
 dear " 
 
 " Ay, I was young then, " Tavannes cried in turn, 
 his eyes glistening. "St. Quentin! It was the tenth 
 of August. And you were new with me, and seized 
 my rein " 
 
 "And we rode off together, my lord of the last,
 
 390 COUNT HANNIBAL. 
 
 of the last, as God sees me! And striking as we 
 went, so that they left us for easier game. " 
 
 "It was so, good sword! I remember it as if it had 
 been yesterday ! " 
 
 "And at Cerisoles, the Battle of the Plain, in the 
 old Spanish wars, that Avas most like a joust of all 
 the pitched fields I ever saw at Cerisoles, where I 
 caught your horse ? You mind me ? It was in the 
 shock when we broke Guasto's line " 
 
 " At Cerisoles 1" Count Hannibal muttered slowly. 
 "Why, man, I " 
 
 "I caught your horse, and mounted you afresh? 
 You remember, my lord? And at Landriano, where 
 Leyva turned the tables on us again." 
 
 Count Hannibal stared. "Landriauo? " he mut- 
 tered bluntly. " 'Twos in '29, forty years ago and 
 more! My father, indeed 
 
 "And at Rome at Rome, my lord? Mon Dieu ! 
 in the old days at Eome ! When the Spanish com- 
 pany scaled the wall Ruiz was first, I next was it 
 not my foot you held? And was it not I who 
 dragged you up, while the devils of Swiss pressed us 
 hard ? Ah, those were days, my lord ! I was young 
 then, and you, my lord, young too, and handsome as 
 the morning '' 
 
 "You rave!" Tavannes cried, finding his tongue 
 at last. "Rome? You rave, old man ! Why, I was 
 not born in those days. My father even was a boy ! 
 It was in '27 you sacked it five-and-forty years 
 ago ! " 
 
 The old man passed his hands over his heated face, 
 and, as a man roused suddenly from sleep looks, he 
 looked round the room. The light died out of his 
 eyes as a light blown out in a room; his form
 
 AGAINST THE WALL. 391 
 
 seemed to shrink, even while the others gazed at him, 
 and he sat down. "No, I remember," he muttered 
 slowly. "It was Prince Philibert of Chalons, my 
 lord of Orange." 
 
 "Dead these forty years! " 
 
 "Ay, dead these forty years! All dead!" the old 
 man whispered, gazing at his gnarled hand, and 
 opening and shutting it by turns. "And I grow 
 childish! 'Tis time, high time, I followed them! 
 It trembles now ; but have no fear, my lord, this hand 
 will not tremble then. All dead ! Ay, all dead ! " 
 
 He sank into a mournful silence ; and Tavannes, 
 after gazing at him awhile in rough pity, fell to his 
 own meditations, which were gloomy enough. The 
 day was beginning to wane, and with the downward 
 turn, though the sun still shone brightly through the 
 southern windows, a shadow seemed to fall across his 
 thoughts. They no longer rioted in a turmoil of defi- 
 ance as in the forenoon. In its turn, sober reflection 
 marshalled the past before his eyes. The hopes of a 
 life, the ambitious of a life, moved in sombre proces- 
 sion, and things done and things left undone, the sov- 
 ereignty which Nostradamus had promised, the faces 
 of men he had spared and of men he had not spared 
 and the face of one woman. 
 
 She would not now be his. He had played highly, 
 and he would lose highly, playing the game to the 
 end, that to-morrow she might think of him highly. 
 Had she begun to think of him at all I In the cham- 
 ber of the inn at Augers he had fancied a change in 
 her, an awakening to life and warmth, a shadow of 
 turning to him. It had pleased him to think so, at 
 any rate. It pleased him still to imagine of this he 
 was more confident that in the time to come, when
 
 392 COUNT HANNIBAL. 
 
 she was Tignonville's, she would think of him secret- 
 ly and kindly. She would remember him, and in her 
 thoughts and in her memory he would grow to the 
 heroic, even as the man she had chosen would shrink 
 as she learned to know him. 
 
 It pleased him, that. It was almost all that was 
 left to please him that, and to die proudly as he had 
 lived. But as the day wore on, and the room grew 
 hot and close, and the pain in his thigh became more 
 grievous, the frame of his mind altered. A sombre 
 rage was born and grew in him, and a passion fierce 
 and ill-suppressed. To end thus, with nothing done, 
 nothing accomplished of all his hopes and ambitions ! 
 To die thus, crushed in a corner by a mean priest and 
 a rabble of spearmen, he who had seen Dreux and 
 Jarnac, had defied the King, and dared to turn the 
 St. Bartholomew to his ends ! To die thus, and leave 
 her to that puppet! Strong man as he was, of a 
 strength of will surpassed by few, it taxed him to the 
 utmost to lie and make no sign. Once, indeed, he 
 raised himself on his elbow with something between 
 an oath and a snarl, and he seemed about to speak. 
 So that Bigot came hurriedly to him. 
 
 "My lord?" 
 
 " Water I" he said. " Water, fool !" And, having 
 drank, he turned his face to the wall, lest he should 
 name her or ask for her. For the desire to see her 
 before he died, to look into her eyes, to touch her 
 hand once, only once, assailed his mind and all but 
 whelmed his will. She had been with him, he knew 
 it, in the night ; she had left him only at daybreak. 
 But then, in his state of collapse, he had been hardly 
 conscious of her presence. Now to ask for her or to 
 see her would stamp him coward, say what he might
 
 AGAINST THE WALL. 393 
 
 to her. The proverb, that the King's face gives 
 grace, applied to her; and an overture on his side 
 could mean but one thing, that he sought her grace. 
 And that he would not do though the cold waters of 
 death covered him more and more, and the coming of 
 the end in that quiet chamber, while the September 
 sun sank to the appointed place awoke wild long- 
 ings and a wild rebellion in his breast. His thoughts 
 were very bitter, as he lay, his loneliness of the utter- 
 most. He turned his face to the wall. 
 
 In that posture he slept after a time, watched over 
 by Bigot with looks of rage and pity. And on the 
 room fell a long silence. The sun had lacked three 
 hours of setting when he fell asleep. When he re- 
 opened his eyes, and, after lying for a few minutes 
 between sleep and waking, became conscious of his 
 position, of the day, of the things which had hap- 
 pened, and his helplessness an awakening which 
 wrung from him an involuntary groan the light in 
 the room was still strong, and even bright. He fan- 
 cied for a moment that he had merely dozed off and 
 awaked again ; and he continued to lie with his face 
 to the wall, courting a return of slumber. 
 
 But sleep did not come, and little by little, as he 
 lay listening and thinking and growing more restless, 
 he got the fancy that he was alone. The light fell 
 brightly on the wall to which his face was turned ; 
 how could that be if Bigot's broad shoulders still 
 blocked the loophole? Presently, to assure himself, 
 he called the man by name. 
 
 He got no answer. 
 
 " Badelon ! " he muttered. " Badelon ! " 
 
 Had he gone, too, the old and faithful 1 It seemed 
 so, for again no answer came.
 
 394 COUNT HANNIBAL. 
 
 He had been accustomed all his life to instant ser- 
 vice; to see the act follow the word ere the word 
 ceased to sound. And nothing which had gone be- 
 fore, nothing which he had suffered since his defeat 
 at Angers, had brought him to feel his impotence and 
 his position and that the end of his power was in- 
 deed come as sharply as this. The blood rushed to 
 his head; almost the tears to eyes which had not 
 shed them since boyhood, and would not shed them 
 now, weak as he was! He rose on his elbow and 
 looked with a full heart; it was as he had fancied. 
 Badelon's stool was empty ; the embrasure that was 
 empty too. Through its narrow outlet he had a tiny 
 view of the shore and the low rocky hill, of which 
 the summit shone warm in the last rays of the set- 
 ting sun. 
 
 The setting sun ! Ay, for the lower part of the hill 
 was growing cold; the shore at its foot was grey. 
 Then he had slept long, and the time was come. He 
 drew a deep breath and listened. But on all within 
 and without lay silence, a silence marked, rather 
 than broken, by the dull fall of a wave on the cause- 
 way. The day had been calm, but with the sunset a 
 light breeze was rising. 
 
 He set his teeth hard, and continued to listen. An 
 hour before sunset was the time they had named for 
 the exchange. What did it mean? In five minutes 
 the sun would be below the horizon; already the zone 
 of warmth on the hillside was moving and retreating 
 upwards. And Bigot and old Badelon? Why had 
 they left him while he slept? An hour before sun- 
 set! Why, the room was growing grey, grey and 
 dark in the corners, and what was that? 
 
 He started, so violently that he jarred his leg, and
 
 AGAINST THE WALL. 395 
 
 the pain wrung a groan from him. At the foot of 
 the bed, overlooked until then, a woman lay prone on 
 the floor, her face resting on her outstretched arms. 
 She lay without motion, her head and her clasped 
 hands towards the loophole, her thick, clubbed hair 
 hiding her neck. A woman! Count Hanuiba 1 
 stared, and, fancying he dreamed, closed his eyes, 
 then looked again. It was no phantasm. It was the 
 Countess ; it was his wife ! 
 
 He drew a deep breath, but he did not speak, 
 though the colour rose slowly to his cheek. And 
 slowly his eyes devoured her from head to foot, from 
 the hands lying white in the light below the window 
 to the shod feet ; unchecked he took his fill, of that 
 which he had so much desired the seeing her ! A 
 woman prone, with all of her hidden but her hands: 
 a hundred acquainted with her would not have 
 known her. But he knew her, and would have 
 known her from a hundred, nay from a thousand, by 
 her hands alone. 
 
 What was she doing here, and in this guise I He 
 pondered; then he looked from her for an instant 
 and saw that while he had gazed at her the sun had 
 set, the light had passed from the top of the hill ; the 
 world without and the room within were growing 
 cold. Was that the cause she no longer lay quiet? 
 He saw a shudder run through her, and a second; 
 then it seemed to him or was he going mad ? that 
 she moaned, and prayed in half -heard words, and, 
 wrestling with herself, beat her forehead on her 
 arms, and then was still again, as still as death. By 
 the time the paroxysm had passed, the last flush of 
 sunset had faded from the sky, and the hills were 
 growing dark.
 
 CHAPTER XXXVL 
 
 HIS KINGDOM. 
 
 COUNT HANNIBAL conld not have said why he did 
 not speak to her at once. Warned by an instinct 
 vague and ill -understood, he remained silent, his 
 eyes riveted on her, until she rose from the floor. A 
 moment later she met his gaze, and he looked to see 
 her start. Instead she stood quiet and thoughtful, 
 regarding him with a kind of sad solemnity, as if 
 she saw not him only, but the dead ; while first one 
 tremor and then a second shook her frame. 
 
 At length, "It is over!" she whispered. "Pa- 
 tience, monsieur; have no fear, I will be brave. 
 But I must give a little to him. " 
 
 " To him ! " Count Hannibal muttered, his face ex- 
 traordinarily pale. 
 
 She smiled with an odd passionateness. "Who was 
 my lover! " she cried, her voice a- thrill. "Who will 
 ever be my lover, though I have denied him, though 
 I have left him to die! It was just. He who has so 
 tried me knows it was just! He whom I have sacri- 
 ficed he knows it too, now! But it is hard to be 
 just," with a quavering smile. "You who take all 
 may give him a little, may pardon me a little, may 
 have patience ! " 
 
 Count Hannibal uttered a strangled cry, between a 
 noan and a roar. A moment he beat the coverlid
 
 HIS KINGDOM. 397 
 
 with his hands in impotence. Then he sank back on 
 the bed. " Water ! " he muttered. " Water ! " 
 
 She fetched it hurriedly, and, raising his head on 
 her arm, held it to his lips. He drank, and lay back 
 again with closed eyes. He lay so still and so long 
 that she thought that he had fainted; but after a 
 pause he spoke. "You have done that?" he whis- 
 pered, "you have done that?" 
 
 "Yes," she answered, shuddering. "God forgive 
 me ! I have done that ! I had to do that, or " 
 
 "And is it too late to undo it? " 
 
 " It is too late. " A sob choked her voice. 
 
 Tears tears incredible, unnatural welled from 
 under Count Hannibal's closed eyelids, and rolled 
 sluggishly down his harsh cheek to the edge of his 
 beard. " I would have gone, " he muttered. "If you 
 had spoken, I would have spared you this." 
 
 "I know," she answered unsteadily; "the men told 
 me." 
 
 "And yet " 
 
 "It was just. And you are my husband," she re- 
 plied. "More, I am the captive of your sword, and 
 as you spared me in your strength, my lord, I spared 
 you in your weakness. " 
 
 "Mon Dieu! Mon Dieu, madame!" he cried, "at 
 what a cost ! " 
 
 And that arrested, that touched her in the depths 
 of her grief and her horror ; even while the gibbet on 
 the causeway, which had burned itself into her eye- 
 balls, hung before her. For she knew that it was the 
 cost to her he was counting. She knew that for him- 
 self he had ever held life cheap, that he could have 
 seen Tignonville suffer without a qualm. And the 
 thoughtf ulness for her, the value he placed on a thing
 
 398 COUNT HANNIBAL. 
 
 even on a rival's life because it was dear to her, 
 touched her home, moved her as few things could 
 have moved her at that moment. She saw it of a 
 piece with all that had gone before, with all that had 
 passed between them, since that fatal Sunday in 
 Paris. But she made no sign. More than she had 
 said she would not say ; words of love, even of recon- 
 ciliation, had no place on her lips while he whom she 
 Jiad sacrificed awaited his burial. 
 
 And meantime the man beside her lay and found it 
 incredible. "It was just," she had said. And he 
 knew it; Tignouville's folly that and that only had 
 led them into the snare and caused his own capture. 
 But what had justice to do with the things of this 
 world? In his experience, the strong hand that 
 was justice, in France; and possession that was law. 
 By the strong hand he had taken her, and by the 
 strong hand she might have freed herself. 
 
 And she had not. There was the incredible thing. 
 She had chosen instead to do justice! It passed be- 
 lief. Opening his eyes on a silence which had lasted 
 some minutes, a silence rendered more solemn by the 
 lapping water without, Tavannes saw her kneeling in 
 the dusk of the chamber, her head bowed over his 
 couch, her face hidden in her hands. He knew that 
 she prayed, and feebly he deemed the whole a dream. 
 No scene akin to it had had place in his life ; and, 
 weakened and in pain, he prayed that the vision 
 might last for ever, that he might never awake. 
 
 But by-and-by, wrestling with the dread thought 
 of what she had done, and the horror which would 
 return upon her by fits and spasms, she flung out a 
 hand, and it fell 011 him. He started, and the move- 
 ment, jarring the broken limb, wrung from him a cry
 
 HIS KINGDOM. 399 
 
 of pain. She looked up and was going to speak, 
 when a scuffling of feet under the gateway arch, and 
 a confused sound of several voices raised at once, 
 arrested the words 011 her lips. She rose to her feet 
 and listened. Dimly he could see her face through 
 the dusk. Her eyes were on the door, and she 
 breathed quickly. 
 
 A moment or two passed in this way, and then 
 from the hurly-burly in the gateway the footsteps of 
 two men one limped detached themselves and 
 came nearer and nearer. They stopped without. A 
 gleam of light shone under the door, and someone 
 knocked. 
 
 She went to the door, and, withdrawing the bar, 
 stepped quickly back to the bedside, where for an in- 
 stant the light borne by those who entered blinded 
 her. Then, above the lantern, the faces of La Tribe 
 and Bigot broke upon her, and their shining eyes told 
 her that they bore good news. It was well, for the 
 men seemed tongue-tied. The minister's fluency was 
 gone ; he was very pale, and it was Bigot who in the 
 end spoke for both. He stepped forward, and, kneel- 
 ing, kissed her cold hand. 
 
 "My lady," he said, "you have gained all, and lost 
 nothing. Blessed be God ! " 
 
 " Blessed be God ! " the minister wept. And from 
 the passage without came the sound of laughter and 
 weeping and many voices, with a flutter of lights and 
 flying skirts, and women's feet. 
 
 She stared at him wildly, doubtfully, her hand at 
 her throat. "What? " she said, "he is not dead M. 
 de Tiguouville ? " 
 
 "No, he is alive," La Tribe answered, "he is alive." 
 And he lifted up his hands as if he gave thanks.
 
 400 COUNT HANNIBAL. 
 
 "Alive?" she cried. "Alive! Oh, heaven is 
 merciful ! You are sure ! You are sure ? " 
 
 "Sure, Madame, sure. He was not in their hands. 
 He was dismounted in the first shock, it seems, and, 
 coming to himself after a time, crept away and 
 reached St. Gilles, and came hither in a boat. But 
 the enemy learned that he had not entered with us, 
 and of this the priest wove his snare. Blessed be 
 God, who put it into your heart to escape it ! " 
 
 The Countess stood motionless and, with closed 
 eyes, pressed her hands to her temples. Once she 
 swayed as if she would fall her length, and Bigot 
 sprang forward to support and save her. But she 
 opened her eyes at that, sighed very deeply, and 
 seemed to recover herself. 
 
 "You are sure?" she said faintly. "It is no 
 trick? " 
 
 "No, madame, it is no trick," La Tribe answered. 
 "M. de Tignonville is alive, and here." 
 
 "Here!" She started at the word. The colour 
 fluttered in her cheek. "But the keys," she mur- 
 mured. And she passed her hand across her brow. 
 "I thought that I had them." 
 
 "He has not entered," the minister answered, "for 
 that reason. He is waiting at the postern, where he 
 landed. He came, hoping to be of use to you. " 
 
 She paused a moment, and when she spoke again 
 her aspect had undergone a subtle change. Her head 
 was high, a flush had risen to her cheeks, her eyes 
 were bright. "Then," she said, addressing La Tribe, 
 "do you, monsieur, go to him, and pray him in my 
 name to retire to St. Gilles, if he can do so without 
 peril. He has no place here now ; and if he can go 
 safely to his home it will be well that he do so.
 
 HIS KINGDOM. 401 
 
 Add, if you please, that Madame de Tavannes thanks 
 him for his offer of aid, but in her husband's house 
 she needs no other protection." 
 
 Bigot's eyes sparkled with joy. 
 
 The minister hesitated. " No more, madame ? " he 
 faltered. He was tender-hearted, and Tigiionville 
 was of hL people. 
 
 "No more," she said gravely, bowing her head. 
 "It is not M. de Tignonville I have to thank, but 
 Heaven's mercy, that I do not stand here at this mo- 
 ment unhappy as I entered a woman accursed, to be 
 pointed at while I live. And the dead " she pointed 
 solemnly through the dark casement to the shore 
 "the dead lie there." 
 
 La Tribe went. 
 
 She stood a moment in thought, and then took the 
 keys from the rough stone window-ledge on which 
 she had laid them when she entered. As the cold 
 iron touched her fingers she shuddered. The contact 
 awoke again the horror and misery in which she had 
 groped, a lost thing, when she last felt that chill. 
 
 "Take them," she said; and she gave them to Bi- 
 got. " Until my lord can leave his couch they will re- 
 main in your charge, and you will answer for all to 
 him. Go, now, take the light ; and in half -an-hour 
 send Madame Carlat to me." 
 
 A wave broke heavily on the causeway and ran 
 down seething to the sea ; and another and another, 
 filling the room with rhythmical thunders. But tlie 
 voice of the sea was no longer the same in the dark- 
 ness, where the Countess knelt in silence beside the 
 bed knelt, her head bowed on her clasped hands, as 
 she had knelt before, but with a mind how different, 
 with what different thoughts! Count Hannibal could 
 26
 
 402 COUNT HANNIBAL. 
 
 see her head but dimly, for the light shed upwards by 
 the spume of the sea fell only on the rafters. But he 
 knew she was there, arid he would fain, for his heart 
 was full, have laid his hand on her hair. 
 
 And yet he would not. He would not, out of 
 pride. Instead he bit on his harsh beard, and lay 
 looking upward to the rafters, waiting what would 
 come. He who had held her at his will now lay at 
 hers, and waited. He who had spared her life at a 
 price now took his own a gift at her hands, and 
 bore it. 
 
 "Afterwards, Madame de Tavannes " 
 
 His mind went back by some chance to those words 
 the words he had neither meant nor fulfilled. It 
 passed from them to the marriage and the blow ; to 
 the scene in the meadow beside the river ; to the last 
 ride between La Fleche and Angers the ride during 
 which he had played with her fears and hugged him- 
 self on the figure he would make on the morrow. 
 The figure! Alas! of all his plans for dazzling her 
 had come this ! Angers had defeated him, a priest 
 had worsted him. In place of releasing Tignonville 
 after the fashion of Bayard and the Paladins, and in 
 the teeth of snarling thousands, he had come near to 
 releasing him after another fashion and at his own 
 expense. Instead of dazzling her by his mastery and 
 winning her by his magnanimity, he lay here, owing 
 her his life, and so weak, so broken, that the tears of 
 childhood welled up in his eyes. 
 
 Out of the darkness a hand, cool and firm, slid into 
 his, clasped it tightly, drew it to warm lips, carried 
 it to a woman's bosom. "My lord," she murmured, 
 "I was the captive of your sword, and you spared 
 me. Him I loved you took and spared him too not
 
 HIS KINGDOM. 403 
 
 once or twice. Augers, also, and my people you 
 would have saved for my sake. And you thought I 
 could do this ! Oh ! shame, shame ! " But her hand 
 held his always. 
 
 "You loved him," he muttered. 
 
 "Yes, I loved him," she answered slowly and 
 thoughtfully. " I loved him. " And she fell silent a 
 minute. Then, "And I feared you," she added, her 
 voice low. " Oh, how I feared you and hated you ! " 
 
 "And now?" 
 
 " I do not fear him, " she answered, smiling in the 
 darkness. "Nor hate him. And for you, my lord, 
 I am your wife and must do your bidding, whether I 
 will or no. I have no choice." 
 
 He was silent. 
 
 "Is that not so? " she asked. 
 
 He tried weakly to withdraw his hand. 
 
 But she clung to it. "I must bear your blows or 
 your kisses. I must be as you will and do as you 
 will, and go happy or sad, lonely or with you, as you 
 will! As you will, my lord! For I am your chat- 
 tel, your property, your own. Have you not told 
 me so 1 " 
 
 "But your heart," he cried fiercely, "is his! Your 
 heart, which you told me in the meadow could never 
 be mine ! " 
 
 "I lied," she murmured, laughing tearfully, and 
 her hands hovered over him. "It has come back! 
 And it is on my lips. " 
 
 And she leant over and kissed him. And Count 
 Hannibal knew that he had entered into his kingdom, 
 the sovereignty of a woman's heart.
 
 404 COUNT HANNIBAL. 
 
 An hour later there was a stir in the village on the 
 mainland. Lanterns began to flit to and fro. Sulk- 
 ily men were saddling and preparing for the road. 
 It was far to Challans, farther to Lege more than 
 one day, and many a weary league to Fonts de C6 
 and the Loire. The men who had ridden gaily south- 
 wards on the scent of spoil and revenge turned their 
 backs on the castle with many a sullen oath and 
 word. They burned a hovel or two, and stripped 
 such as they spared, after the fashion of the day; 
 and it had gone ill with the peasant woman who fell 
 into their hands. Fortunately, under cover of the 
 previous night every soul had escaped from the vil- 
 lage, some to sea, and the rest to take shelter among 
 the sand dunes ; a,nd as the troopers rode up the path 
 from the beach, and through the green valley, where 
 their horses shied from the bodies of the men they 
 had slain, there was not an eye to see them go. 
 
 Or to mark the man who rode last, the man of the 
 white face scarred on the temple and the burning 
 eyes, who paused on the brow of the hill, and, before 
 he passed beyond, cursed with quivering lips the foe 
 who had escaped him. The words were lost, as soon 
 as spoken, in the murmur of the sea on the causeway ; 
 the sea, fit emblem of the Eternal, which rolled its 
 tide regardless of blessing or cursing, good or ill will, 
 nor spared one jot of ebb or flow because a puny 
 creature had spoken to the night. 
 
 THE END.
 
 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 I. THE SPORT OF FOOLS 1 
 
 II. THE KING OF NAVARRE 13 
 
 III. BOOT AXD SADDLE . 25 
 
 IV. MADEMOISELLE DE LA VIHE ..... 37 
 V. THE ROAD TO BLOIS 53 
 
 VI. MY MOTHER'S LODGING 64 
 
 VII. SIMON FLEIX 73 
 
 VIII. AN EMPTY ROOM 82 
 
 IX. THE HOUSE IN THE RDELLE D'ARCY ... 96 
 
 X. THE FIGHT ON THE STAIRS 106 
 
 XI. THE MAN AT THE DOOR ...... 117 
 
 XII. MAXIMILIAN DE BETHDNE, BARON DE ROSNY . . 125 
 
 XIII. AT ROSNY 138 
 
 XIV. M. DE RAMBOUILLET ....... 148 
 
 XV. VILAIN HERODES . 160 
 
 XVL IN THE KING'S CHAMBER 173 
 
 XVII. THE JACOBIN MONK . . . ' . . . .188 
 
 XVIII. THE OFFER OF THE LEAGUE . . . . . 198 
 
 XIX. MEN CALL IT CHANCE . . . . . . : . 206 
 
 XX. THE KING'S FACE . . . .'". . . 219 
 
 XXI. Two WOMEN . . . . . . ... 235 
 
 XXII. ' LA FEMME DISPOSE ' . . . ' ... 241 
 
 XXIII. THE LAST VALOIS . . . ... .250 
 
 XXIV. A ROYAL PERIL. 262
 
 VI 
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER 
 
 XXV. TERMS OF SURRENDER 
 
 XXVI. MEDITATIONS 
 
 XXVII. To ME, MY FRIENDS ! 
 
 XXVIII. THE CASTLE ON THE HILL 
 
 XXIX. PESTILENCE AND FAMINE . 
 
 XXX. STRICKEN . 
 
 XXXI. UNDER THE GREENWOOD . 
 
 XXXII. A TAVERN BRAWL . 
 
 XXXIII. AT MEUDON 
 
 XXXIV. ' 'Tis AN ILL WIND ' . 
 XXXV. <L,E KOI EST MORT' . 
 
 XXXVI. ' VIVE LE Roi ! ' 
 
 PAGB 
 
 272 
 282 
 288 
 306 
 319 
 330 
 339 
 350 
 363 
 375 
 388 
 401
 
 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE SPORT OF FOOLS. 
 
 THE death of the Prince of Conde, which occurred in the 
 spring of 1588, by depriving me of my only patron, reduced 
 me to such straits that the winter of that year, which saw 
 the King of Navarre come to spend his Christmas at St. 
 Jean d'Angely, saw also the nadir of my fortunes. I did 
 not know at this time I may confess it to-day without 
 shame whither to turn for a gold crown or a new scabbard, 
 and neither had nor discerned any hope of employment. 
 The peace lately patched up at Blois between the King of 
 France and the League persuaded many of the Huguenots 
 that their final ruin was at hand; but it could not fill their 
 exhausted treasury or enable them to put fresh troops into 
 the field. 
 
 The death of the Prince had left the King of Navarre 
 without a rival in the affections of the Huguenots; the 
 Vicomte de Turenne, whose turbulent ambition already be- 
 gan to make itself felt, and M. de Chatillon, ranking next 
 to him. It was my ill-fortune, however, to be equally 
 unknown to all three leaders, and as the month of December 
 which saw me thus miserably straitened saw me reach the 
 age of forty, which I regard, differing in that from many, as 
 the grand climacteric of a man's life, it will be believed that
 
 2 A GENTLEMAN" OF FRANCE 
 
 I had need of all the courage which religion and a cam- 
 paigner's life could supply. 
 
 I had been compelled some time before to sell all my 
 horses except the black Sardinian with the white spot on 
 its forehead; and I now found myself obliged to part also 
 with my valet de chambre and groom, whom I dismissed 
 on the same day, paying them their wages with the last 
 links of gold chain left to me. It was not without grief 
 and dismay that I saw myself thus stripped of the appur- 
 tenances of a man of birth, and driven to groom my own 
 horse under cover of night. But this was not the worst. 
 My dress, which suffered inevitably from this menial em- 
 ployment, began in no long time to bear witness to the 
 change in my circumstances ; so that on the day of the King 
 of Navarre's entrance into St. Jean I dared not face the 
 crowd, always quick to remark the poverty of those above 
 them, but was fain to keep within doors and wear out my 
 pacience in the garret of the cutler's house in the Rue de la 
 Goutellerie, which was all the lodging I could now afford. 
 
 Pardieu, 'tis a strange world! Strange that time seems 
 to me; more strange compared with this. My reflections 
 on that day, I remember, were of the most melancholy. 
 Look at it how I would, I could not but see that my life's 
 spring was over. The crows'-feet were gathering about my 
 eyes, and my moustachios, which seemed with each day of 
 ill-fortune to stand out more fiercely in proportion as my 
 face grew leaner, were already grey. I was out at elbows, 
 with empty pockets, and a sword which peered through the 
 sheath. The meanest ruffler who, with broken feather and 
 tarnished lace, swaggered at the heels of Turenne, was 
 scarcely to be distinguished from me. I had still, it is true, 
 a rock and a few barren acres in Brittany, the last remains 
 of the family property; but the small sums which the peas- 
 ants could afford to pay were sent annually to Paris, to my 
 mother, who had no other dower. And this I would not 
 touch, being minded to die a gentleman, even if I could not 
 live in that estate.
 
 THE SPORT OF FOOLS 3 
 
 Small as were my expectations of success, since I had no 
 one at the king's side to push my business, nor any friend 
 at Court, I nevertheless did all I could, in the only way that 
 occurred to me. I drew up a petition, and lying in wait 
 one day for M. Forget, the King of Navarre's secretary, 
 placed it in his hand, begging him to lay it before that 
 prince. He took it, and promised to do so, smoothly, and 
 with as much lip-civility as I had a right to expect. But 
 the careless manner in which he doubled up and thrust away 
 the paper on which I had spent so much labour, no less than 
 the covert sneer of his valet, who ran after me to get the 
 customary present and ran, as I still blush to remember, 
 in vain warned me to refrain from hope. 
 
 In this, however, having little save hope left, I failed so 
 signally as to spend the next day and the day after in a 
 fever of alternate confidence and despair, the cold fit fol- 
 lowing the hot with perfect regularity. At length, on the 
 morning of the third day I remember it lacked but three 
 of Christmas I heard a step on the stairs. My landlord 
 living in his shop, and the two intervening floors being 
 empty, I had no doubt the message was for me, and went 
 outside the door to receive it, my first glance at the messenger 
 confirming me in my highest hopes, as well as in all I had 
 ever heard of the generosity of the King of Navarre. For by 
 chance I knew the youth to be one of the royal pages ; a saucy 
 fellow who had a day or two before cried 'Old Clothes' 
 after me in the street. I was very far from resenting this 
 now, however, nor did he appear to recall it ; so that I drew 
 the happiest augury as to the contents of the note he bore 
 from the politeness with which he presented it to me. 
 
 I would not, however, run the risk of a mistake, and 
 before holding out my hand, I asked him directly and with 
 formality if it was for me. 
 
 He answered, with the utmost respect, that it was for the 
 Sieur de Marsac, and for me if I were he. 
 
 'There is an answer, perhaps?' I said, seeing that he 
 lingered.
 
 4 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE 
 
 'The King of Navarre, sir,' he replied, with a low bow, 
 'will receive your answer in person, I believe.' And with 
 that, replacing the hat which he had doffed out of respect to 
 me, he turned and went down the stairs. 
 
 Returning to my room, and locking the door, I hastily 
 opened the missive, which was sealed with a large seal, and 
 wore every appearance of importance. I found its contents 
 to exceed all my expectations. The King of Navarre desired 
 me to wait on him at noon on the following day, and the 
 letter concluded with such expressions of kindness and good- 
 will as left me in no doubt of the Prince's intentions. I 
 read it, I confess, with emotions of joy and gratitude which 
 would better have become a younger man, and then cheer- 
 fully sat down to spend the rest of the day in making such 
 improvements in my dress as seemed possible. With a 
 thankful heart I concluded that I had now escaped from 
 poverty, at any rate from such poverty as is disgraceful to 
 a gentleman ; and consoled myself for the meanness of the 
 appearance I must make at Court with the reflection that a 
 day or two would mend both habit and fortune. 
 
 Accordingly, it was with a stout heart that I left my lodg- 
 ings a few minutes before noon next morning, and walked 
 towards the castle. It was some time since I had made so 
 public an appearance in the streets, which the visit of the 
 King of Navarre's Court had filled with an unusual crowd, 
 and I could not help fancying as I passed that some of the 
 loiterers eyed me with a covert smile; and, indeed, I was 
 shabby enough. But finding that a frown more than sufficed. 
 to restore the gravity of these gentry, I set down the ap- 
 pearance to my own self-consciousness, and, stroking my 
 moustachios, strode along boldly until I saw before me, and 
 coming to meet me, the same page who had delivered the note. 
 
 He stopped in front of me with an air of consequence, and 
 making me a low bow whereat I saw the bystanders stare, 
 for he was as gay a young spark as maid-of -honour could 
 desire he begged me to hasten, as the king awaited me in 
 his closet.
 
 THE SPORT OF FOOLS 5 
 
 'He has asked for you twice, sir,' he continued impor- 
 tantly, the feather of his cap almost sweeping the ground. 
 
 'I think,' I answered, quickening my steps, 'that the 
 king's letter says noon, young sir. If I am late on such an 
 occasion, he has indeed cause to complain of me. ' 
 
 'Tut, tut! ' he rejoined, waving his hand with a dandified 
 air. 'It is no matter. One man may steal a horse when 
 another may not look over the wall, you know. ' 
 
 A man may be gray-haired, he may be sad-complexioned, 
 and yet he may retain some of the freshness of youth. On 
 receiving this indication of a favour exceeding all expecta- 
 tion, I remember I felt the blood rise to my face, and ex- 
 perienced the most lively gratitude. I wondered who had 
 spoken in my behalf, who had befriended me ; and conclud- 
 ing at last that my part in the affair at Brouage had come 
 to the king's ears, though I could not conceive through 
 whom, I passed through the castle gates with an air of 
 confidence and elation which was not unnatural, I think, 
 under the circumstances. Thence, following my guide, I 
 mounted the ramp and entered the courtyard. 
 
 A number of grooms and valets were lounging here, some 
 leading horses to and fro, others exchanging jokes with the 
 wenches who leaned from the windows, while their fellows 
 again stamped up and down to keep their feet warm, or 
 played ball against the wall in imitation of their masters. 
 Such knaves are ever more insolent than their betters ; but 
 I remarked that they made way for me with respect, and 
 with rising spirits, yet a little irony, I reminded myself as 
 I mounted the stairs of the words, 'whom the king de- 
 lighteth to honour! ' 
 
 Reaching the head of the flight, where was a soldier on 
 guard, the page opened the door of the antechamber, and 
 standing aside bade me enter. I did so, and heard the 
 door close behind me. 
 
 For a moment I stood still, bashful and confused. It 
 seemed to me that there were a hundred people in the room, 
 and that half the eyes which met mine were women's.
 
 6 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE 
 
 Though I was not altogether a stranger to such state as the 
 Prince of Conde had maintained, this crowded anteroom 
 filled me with surprise, and even with a degree of awe, of 
 which I was the next moment ashamed. True, the flutter 
 of silk and gleam of jewels surpassed anything I had 
 then seen, for my fortunes had never led me to the king's 
 Court; but an instant's reflection reminded me that my 
 fathers had held their own in such scenes, and with a bow 
 regulated rather by this thought than by the shabbiness of 
 my dress, I advanced amid a sudden silence. 
 
 'M. de Marsac!' the page announced, in a tone which 
 sounded a little odd in my ears ; so much so, that I turned 
 quickly to look at him. He was gone, however, and when 
 I turned again the eyes which met mine were full of smiles. 
 A young girl who stood near me tittered. Put out of 
 countenance by this, I looked round in embarrassment to 
 find someone to whom I might apply. 
 
 The room was long and narrow, panelled in chestnut, 
 with a row of windows on the one hand, and two fireplaces, 
 now heaped with glowing logs, on the other. Between the 
 fireplaces stood a rack of arms. Round the nearer hearth 
 lounged a group of pages, the exact counterparts of the 
 young blade who had brought me hither ; and talking with 
 these were as many young gentlewomen. Two great hounds 
 lay basking in the heat, and coiled between them, with her 
 head on the back of the larger, was a figure so strange that 
 at another time I should have doubted my eyes. It wore the 
 fool's motley and cap and bells, but a second glance showed 
 me the features were a woman's. A torrent of black hair 
 flowed loose about her neck, her eyes shone with wild mer- 
 riment, and her face, keen, thin, and hectic, glared at me 
 from the dog's back. Beyond her, round the farther fire- 
 place, clustered more than a score of gallants and ladies, of 
 whom one presently advanced to me. 
 
 'Sir,' he said politely and I wished I could match his 
 bow 'you wished to see ? ' 
 
 ' The King of Navarre, ' I answered, doing my best.
 
 THE SPORT OF FOOLS 7 
 
 He turned to the group behind him, and said, in a pecu- 
 liarly even, placid tone, 'He wishes to see the King of 
 Navarre.' Then in solemn silence he bowed to me again 
 and went back to his fellows. 
 
 Upon the instant, and before I could make up my mind 
 how to take this, a second tripped forward, and saluting 
 me, said, 'M. de Marsac, I think?' 
 
 'At your service, sir,' I rejoined. In my eagerness to 
 escape the gaze of all those eyes, and the tittering which 
 was audible behind me, I took a step forward to be in readi- 
 ness to follow him. But he gave no sign. 'M. de Marsac 
 to see the King of Navarre ' was all he said, speaking as 
 the other had done to those behind. And with that he too 
 wheeled round and went back to the fire. 
 
 I stared, a first faint suspicion of the truth aroused in my 
 mind. Before I could act upon it, however in such a sit- 
 uation it was no easy task to decide how to act a third 
 advanced with the same measured steps. 'By appointment 
 I think, sir? ' he said, bowing lower than the others. 
 
 'Yes,' I replied sharply, beginning to grow warm, 'by 
 appointment at noon.' 
 
 'M. de Marsac,' he announced in a sing-song tone to those 
 behind him, 'to see the King of Navarre by appointment at 
 noon.' And with a second bow while I grew scarlet with 
 mortification he too wheeled gravely round and returned 
 to the fireplace. 
 
 I saw another preparing to advance, but he came too late. 
 Whether my face of anger and bewilderment was too much 
 for them, or some among them lacked patience to see the 
 end, a sudden uncontrollable shout of laughter, in which 
 all the room joined, cut short the farce. God knows it hurt 
 me : I winced, I looked this way and that, hoping here or 
 there to find sympathy and help. But it seemed to me that 
 the place rang with gibes, that every panel framed, how- 
 ever I turned myself, a cruel, sneering face. One behind 
 me cried 'Old Clothes,' and when I turned the other hearth 
 whispered the taunt. It added a thousandfold to my em-
 
 8 A GENTLEMAAT OF FRANCE 
 
 barrassment that there was in all a certain orderliness, so 
 that while no one moved, and none, while I looked at them, 
 raised their voices, I seemed the more singled out, and 
 placed as a butt in the midst. 
 
 One face amid the pyramid of countenances which hid 
 the farther fireplace so burned itself into my recollection in 
 that miserable moment, that I never thereafter forgot it; a 
 small, delicate woman's face, belonging to a young girl who 
 stood boldly in front of her companions. It was a face full 
 of pride, and, as I saw it then, of scorn scorn that scarcely 
 deigned to laugh; while the girl's graceful figure, slight 
 and maidenly, yet perfectly proportioned, seemed instinct 
 with the same feeling of contemptuous amusement. 
 
 The play, which seemed long enough to me, might have 
 lasted longer, seeing that no one there had pity on me, had 
 I not, in my desperation, espied a door at the farther end of 
 the room, and concluded, seeing no other, that it was the 
 door of the king's bedchamber. The mortification I was 
 suffering was so great that I did not hesitate, but advanced 
 with boldness towards it. On the instant there was a lull 
 in the laughter round me, and half a dozen voices called on 
 me to stop. 
 
 'I have come to see the king,' I answered, turning on 
 them fiercely, for I was by this time in no mood for brow-? 
 beating, 'and I will see him! ' 
 
 'He is out hunting,' cried all with one accord; and 
 they signed imperiously to me to go back the way I had 
 come. 
 
 But having the king's appointment safe in my pouch, I 
 thought I had good reason to disbelieve them; and taking 
 advantage of their surprise for they had not expected so 
 bold a step on my part I was at the door before they could 
 prevent me. I heard Mathurine, the fool, who had sprung 
 to her feet, cry 'Pardieu! he will take the Kingdom of 
 Heaven by force! ' And those were the last words I heard; 
 for, as I lifted the latch there was no one on guard there 
 a sudden swift silence fell upon the room behind me.
 
 THE SPORT OF FOOLS 9 
 
 I pushed the door gently open and went in. There were 
 two men sitting in one of the windows, who turned and 
 looked angrily towards me. For the rest the room was 
 empty. The king's walking-shoes lay by his chair, and 
 beside them the boot-hooks and jack. A dog before the fire 
 got up slowly and growled, and one of the men, rising from 
 the trunk on which he had been sitting, came towards me 
 and asked me, with every sign of irritation, what I wanted 
 there, and who had given me leave to enter. 
 
 I was beginning to explain, with some diffidence the 
 stillness of the room sobering me that I wished to see the 
 king, when he who had advanced took me up sharply with, 
 'The king? the king? He is not here, man. He is hunting 
 at St. Valery. Did they not tell you so outside? ' 
 
 I thought I recognised the speaker, than whom I have 
 seldom seen a man more grave and thoughtful for his years, 
 which were something less than mine, more striking in pres- 
 ence, or more soberly dressed. And being desirous to 
 evade his question, I asked him if I had not the honour to 
 address M. du Plessis Mornay; for that wise and courtly 
 statesman, now a pillar of Henry's counsels, it was. 
 
 'The same, sir,' he replied abruptly, and without taking 
 his eyes from me. 'I am Mornay. What of that? ' 
 
 'I am M. de Marsac,' I explained. And there I stopped, 
 supposing that, as he was in the king's confidence, this 
 would make my errand clear to him. 
 
 But I was disappointed. 'Well, sir?' he said, and 
 waited impatiently. 
 
 So cold a reception, following such treatment as I had 
 suffered outside, would have sufficed to have dashed my 
 spirits utterly had I not felt the king's letter in my pocket. 
 Being pretty confident, however, that a single glance at 
 this would alter M. du Mornay 's bearing for the better, I 
 hastened, looking on it as a kind of talisman, to draw it out 
 and present it to him. 
 
 He took it, and looked at it, and opened it, but with so 
 cold and immovable an aspect as made my heart sink more
 
 10 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE 
 
 than all that had gone before. 'What is amiss?' I oried, 
 unable to keep silence. "Tis from the king, sir.' 
 
 'A king in motley! ' he answered, his lip curling. 
 
 The sense of his words did not at once strike home to me, 
 and I murmured, in great disorder, that the king had sent 
 for me. 
 
 'The king knows nothing of it,' was his blunt answer, 
 bluntly given. And he thrust the paper back into my 
 hands. 'It is a trick,' he continued, speaking with the 
 same abruptness, 'for which you have doubtless to thank 
 some of those idle young rascals without. You had sent an 
 application to the king, I suppose? Just so. No doubt 
 they got hold of it, and this is the result. They ought to 
 be whipped.' 
 
 It was not possible for me to doubt any longer that what 
 he said was true. I saw in a moment all my hopes vanish, 
 all my plans flung to the winds ; and in the first shock of 
 the discovery I could neither find voice to answer him nor 
 strength to withdraw. In a kind of vision I seemed to see 
 my own lean, haggard face looking at me as in a glass, and, 
 reading despair in my eyes, could have pitied myself. 
 
 My disorder was so great that M. du Mornay observed it. 
 Looking more closely at me, he two or three times muttered 
 my name, and at last said, 'M. de Mar sac? Ha! I remem- 
 ber. You were in the affair of Brouage, were you not? ' 
 
 I nodded my head in token of assent, being unable at the 
 moment to speak, and so shaken that perforce I leaned 
 against the wall, my head sunk on my breast. The memory 
 of my age, my forty years, and my poverty, pressed hard 
 upon me, filling me with despair and bitterness. I could 
 have wept, but no tears came. 
 
 M. du Mornay, averting his eyes from me, took two or 
 three short, impatient turns up and dowu the chamber. 
 When he addressed me again his tone was full of respect, 
 mingled with such petulance as one brave man might feel, 
 seeing another so hard pressed. 'M. de Marsac,' he said, 
 'you have my sympathy. It is a shame that men who have
 
 THE SPORT OF FOOLS 1 1 
 
 served the cause should be reduced to such straits. Were 
 it possible for me to increase my own train at present, I 
 should consider it an honour to have you with me. But 
 I am hard put to it myself, and so are we all, and the King 
 of Navarre not least among us. He has lived for a month 
 upon a wood which M. de Rosny has cut down. I will 
 mention your name to him, but I should be cruel rather 
 than kind were I not to warn you that nothing can come 
 of it.' 
 
 With that he offered me his hand, and, cheered as much 
 by this mark of consideration as by the kindness of his ex- 
 pressions, I rallied my spirits. True, I wanted comfort 
 more substantial, but it was not to be had. I thanked him 
 therefore as becomingly as I could, and seeing there was no 
 help for it, took my leave of him, and slowly and sorrow- 
 fully withdrew from the room. 
 
 Alas ! to escape I had to face the outside world, for which 
 his kind words were an ill preparation. I had to run the 
 gauntlet of the antechamber. The moment I appeared, 
 or rather the moment the door closed behind me, I was 
 hailed with a shout of derision. While one cried, 'Way! 
 way for the gentleman who has seen the king ! ' another 
 hailed me uproariously as Governor of Guyenne, and a third 
 requested a commission in my regiment. 
 . I heard these taunts with a heart full almost to bursting. 
 It seemed to me an unworthy thing that, merely by reason 
 of my poverty, I should be derided by youths who had still 
 all their battles before them ; but to stop or reproach them 
 would only, as I well knew, make matters worse, and, 
 moreover, I was so sore stricken that I had little spirit left 
 even to speak. Accordingly, I made my way through them 
 with what speed I might, my head bent, and my counte- 
 nance heavy with shame and depression. In this way I 
 wonder there were not among them some generous enough 
 to pity me I had nearly gained the door, and was begin- 
 ning to breathe, when I found my path stopped by that par- 
 ticular young lady of the Court whom I have described
 
 12 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE 
 
 above. Something had for the moment diverted her atten- 
 tion from me, and it required a word from her companions 
 to apprise her of my near neighbourhood. She turned 
 then, as one taken by surprise, and finding me so close to 
 her that my feet all but touched her gown, she stepped 
 quickly aside, and with a glance as cruel as her act, drew 
 her skirts away from contact with me. 
 
 The insult stung me, I know not why, more than all the 
 gibes which were being flung at me from every side, and 
 moved by a sudden impulse I stopped, and in the bitter- 
 ness of my heart spoke to her. 'Mademoiselle,' I said, 
 bowing low for, as I have stated, she was small, and more 
 like a fairy than a woman, though her face expressed both 
 pride and self-will 'Mademoiselle,' I said sternly, 'such 
 as I am, I have fought for France! Some day you may 
 learn that there are viler things in the world and have to 
 bear them than a poor gentleman ! ' 
 
 The words were scarcely out of my mouth before I re- 
 pented of them, for Mathurine, the fool, who was at my 
 elbow, was quick to turn them into ridicule. Raising her 
 hands above our heads, as in act to bless us, she cried out 
 that Monsieur, having gained so rich an office, desired a 
 bride to grace it; and this, bringing down upon us a coarse 
 shout of laughter and some coarser gibes, I saw the young 
 girl's face flush hotly. 
 
 The next moment a voice in the crowd cried roughly, 
 'Out upon his wedding suit! ' and with that a sweetmeat 
 struck me in the face. Another and another followed, cov- 
 ering me with flour and comfits. This was the last straw. 
 For a moment, forgetting where I was, I turned upon them, 
 red and furious, every hair in my moustachios bristling. 
 The next, the full sense of my impotence and of the folly 
 of resentment prevailed with me, and, dropping my head 
 upon my breast, I rushed from the room. 
 
 I believe that the younger among them followed me, and 
 that the cry of ' Old Clothes ! ' pursued me evea to the door 
 of my lodgings in the Rue de la Coutellerie. But in the
 
 THE KING OF NAVARRE 13 
 
 misery of the moment, and my strong desire to be within 
 doors and alone, I barely noticed this, and am not certain 
 whether it was so or not. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE KING OF NAVARRE. 
 
 I HAVE already referred to the danger with which the 
 alliance between Henry the Third and the League menaced 
 us, an alliance whereof the news, it was said, had blanched 
 the King of Navarre's moustache in a single night. Not- 
 withstanding this, the Court had never shown itself more 
 frolicsome or more free from care than at the time of which 
 I am speaking; even the lack of money seemed for the 
 moment forgotten. One amusement followed another, and 
 though, without doubt, something was doing under the sur- 
 face for the wiser of his foes held our prince in particular 
 dread when he seemed most deeply sunk in pleasure to 
 the outward eye St. Jean d'Angely appeared to be given 
 over to enjoyment from one end to the other. 
 
 The stir and bustle of the Court reached me even in my 
 garret, and contributed to make that Christmas, which fell 
 on a Sunday, a trial almost beyond sufferance. All day 
 long the rattle of hoofs on the pavement, and the laughter 
 of riders bent on diversion, came up to me, making the 
 hard stool seem harder, the bare walls more bare, and in- 
 creasing a hundredfold the solitarj 1 - gloom in which I sat. 
 For as sunshine deepens the shadows which fall athwart it, 
 and no silence is like that which follows the explosion of 
 a mine, so sadness and poverty are never more intolerable 
 than when hope and wealth rub elbows with them. 
 
 True, the great sermon which M. d' Amours preached in 
 the market-house on the morning of Christmas-day cheered 
 me, as it cheered all the more sober spirits. I was present
 
 14 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE 
 
 myself, sitting in an obscure corner of the building, and 
 heard the famous prediction, which was so soon to be ful- 
 filled. 'Sire,' said the preacher, turning to the King, of 
 Navarre, and referring, with the boldness that ever charac- 
 terised that great man and noble Christian, to the attempt 
 then being made to exclude the prince from the succession 
 'Sire, what God at your birth gave you man cannot take 
 away. A little while, a little patience, and you shall cause 
 us to preach beyond the Loire! With you for our Joshua 
 we shall cross the Jordan, and in the Promised Land the 
 Church shall be set up.' 
 
 Words so brave, and so well adapted to encourage the 
 Huguenots in the crisis through which their affairs were 
 then passing, charmed all hearers ; save indeed, those and 
 they were few who, being devoted to the Vicomte de Tu- 
 renne, disliked, though they could not controvert, this pub- 
 lic acknowledgment of the King of Navarre as the Huguenot 
 leader. The pleasure of those present was evinced in a 
 hundred ways, and to such an extent that even I returned 
 to my chamber soothed and exalted, and found, in dream- 
 ing of the speedy triumph of the cause, some compensation 
 for my own ill-fortune. 
 
 As the day wore on, however, and the evening brought 
 no change, but presented to me the same dreary prospect 
 with which morning had made me familiar, I .confess with- 
 out shame that my heart sank once more, particularly as I 
 saw that I should be forced in a day or two to sell either 
 my remaining horse or some part of my equipment as 
 essential; a step which I could not contemplate without 
 feelings of the utmost despair. In this state of mind I was 
 adding up by the light of a solitary candle the few coins I 
 had left, when I heard footsteps ascending the stairs. 1 
 made them out to be the steps of two persons, and was still 
 lost in conjectures who they might be, when a hand knocked 
 gently at my door. 
 
 Fearing another trick, I did not at once open, the more 
 as there was something stealthy and insinuating in the
 
 THE KING OF NAVARRE 15 
 
 knock. Thereupon my visitors held a whispered consulta- 
 tion; then they, knocked again. I asked loudly who was 
 there, but to this they did not choose to give any answer, 
 while I, on my part, determined not to open until they did. 
 The door was strong, and I smiled grimly at the thought 
 that this time they would have their trouble for their pains. 
 
 To my surprise, however, they did not desist, and go 
 away, as I expected, but continued to knock at intervals 
 and whisper much between times. More than once they 
 called me softly by name and bade me open, but as they 
 steadily refrained from saying who they were, I sat still. 
 Occasionally I heard them laugh, but under their breath as 
 it were ; and persuaded by this that they were bent on a 
 frolic, I might have persisted in my silence until midnight, 
 which was not more than two hours off, had not a slight 
 sound, as of a rat gnawing behind the wainscot, drawn my 
 attention to the door. Eaising my candle and shading my 
 eyes I espied something small and bright protruding be- 
 neath it, and sprang up, thinking they were about to prise 
 it in. To my surprise, however, I could discover, on tak- 
 ing the candle to the threshold, nothing more threatening 
 than a couple of gold livres, which had been thrust through 
 the crevice between the door and the floor. 
 
 My astonishment may be conceived. I stood for full a 
 minute staring at the coins, the candle in my hand. Then, 
 reflecting that the young sparks at the Court would be very 
 unlikely to spend such a sum on a jest, I hesitated no 
 longer, but putting down the candle, drew the bolt of the 
 door, purposing to confer with my visitors outside. In 
 this, however, I was disappointed, for the moment the 
 door was open they pushed forcibly past me and, entering the 
 room pell-mell, bade me by signs to close the door again. 
 
 I did so suspiciously, and without averting my eyes from 
 my visitors. Great were my embarrassment and confusion, 
 therefore, when, the door being shut, they dropped their 
 cloaks one after the other, and I saw before me M. du Mor- 
 nay and the well-known figure of the King of Navarre.
 
 16 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE 
 
 They seemed so much diverted, looking at one another 
 and laughing, that for a moment I thought some chance 
 resemblance deceived me, and that here were my jokers 
 again. Hence while a man might count ten I stood staring; 
 and the king was the first to speak. 'We have made no 
 mistake, Du Mornay, have we? ' he said, casting a laughing 
 glance at me. 
 
 'No, sire,' Da Mornay answered. 'This is the Sieur de 
 Marsac, the gentleman whom I mentioned to you.' 
 
 I hastened, confused, wondering, and with a hundred 
 apologies, to pay my respects to the king. He speedily 
 cut me short, however, saying, with an air of much kind- 
 ness, 'Of Marsac, in Brittany, I think, sir?' 
 
 'The same, sire.' 
 
 'Then you are of the family of Bonne? ' 
 
 'I am the last survivor of that family, sire,' I answered 
 respectfully. 
 
 'It has played its pa.rt,' he rejoined. And therewith he 
 took his seat on my stool with an easy grace which charmed 
 me. 'Your motto is " Bonne foi," is it not? And Marsac, 
 if I remember rightly, is not far from Kennes, on the 
 Vilaine? ' 
 
 I answered that it Was, adding, with a full heart, that it 
 grieved me to be compelled to receive so great a prince in 
 so poor a lodging. 
 
 'Well, I confess,' Du Mornay struck in, looking care- 
 lessly round him, 'you have a queer taste, M. de Marsac, 
 in the arrangement of your furniture. You ' 
 
 'Mornay! ' the king cried sharply. 
 
 'Sire?' 
 
 'Chut! your elbow is in the candle. Beware of it! ' 
 
 But I well understood him. If my heart had been full 
 before, it overflowed now. Poverty is not so shameful as 
 the shifts to which it drives men. I had been compelled 
 some days before, in order to make as good a show as possi- 
 ble since it is the undoubted duty of a gentleman to hide 
 his nakedness from impertinent eyes, and especially from
 
 THE KING OF NAVARRE 17 
 
 the eyes of the canaille, who are wont to judge from exter- 
 nals to remove such of my furniture and equipage as re- 
 mained to that side of the room, which was visible from 
 without when the door was open. This left the farther side 
 of the room vacant and bare. To anyone within doors the 
 artitice was, of course, apparent, and I am bound to say 
 that M. du Mornay's words brought the blood to my brow. 
 
 I rejoiced, however, a moment later that he had uttered 
 them; for without them I might never have known, or 
 known so early, the kindness of heart and singular quick- 
 ness of apprehension which ever distinguished the king, my 
 master. So, in my heart, I began to call him from that 
 hour. 
 
 The King of Navarre was at this time thirty-five years 
 old, his hair brown, his complexion ruddy, his moustache, 
 on one side at least, beginning to turn grey. His features, 
 which Nature had cast in a harsh and imperious mould, 
 were relieved by a constant sparkle and animation such as 
 I have never seen in any other man, but in him became 
 ever more conspicuous in gloomy and perilous times. In- 
 ured to danger from his earliest youth, he had come to 
 enjoy it as others a festival, hailing its advent with a reck- 
 less gaiety which astonished even brave men, and led others 
 to think him the least prudent of mankind. Yet such he 
 was not: nay, he was the opposite of this. Never did 
 Marshal of France make more careful dispositions for a 
 battle albeit once in it he bore himself like any captain of 
 horse nor ever did Du Mornay himself sit down to a con- 
 ference with a more accurate knowledge of affairs. His 
 prodigious wit and the affability of his manners, while they 
 endeared him to his servants, again and again blinded his 
 adversaries; who, thinking that so much brilliance could 
 arise only from a shallow nature, found when it was too 
 late that they had been outwitted by him whom they con- 
 temptuously styled the Prince of Beam, a man a hundred- 
 fold more astute than themselves, and master alike of pen 
 and sword.
 
 1 8 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE 
 
 Much of this, which all the world now knows, I learned 
 afterwards. At the moment I could think of little save the 
 king's kindness; to which he added by insisting that I 
 should sit on the bed while we talked. 'You wonder, M. 
 de Marsac,' he said, 'what brings me here, and why 1 have 
 come to you instead of sending for you? Still more, per- 
 haps, why I have come to you at night and with such pre- 
 cautions? I will tell you. But first, that my coming may 
 not fill you with false hopes, let me say frankly, that 
 though I may relieve your present necessities, whether you 
 fall into the plan I am going to mention, or not, I cannot 
 take you into my service; wherein, indeed, every post is 
 doubly filled. Du Mornay mentioned your name to me, 
 but in fairness to others I had to answer that I could do 
 nothing.' 
 
 I am bound to confess that this strange exordium dashed 
 hopes which had already risen to a high pitch. Recover- 
 ing myself as quickly as possible, however, I murmured 
 that the honour of a visit from the King of Navarre was 
 sufficient happiness for me. 
 
 'Nay, but that honour I must take from you' he replied, 
 smiling; 'though I see that you would make an excellent 
 courtier far better than Du Mornay here, who never in 
 his life made so pretty a speech. For I must lay my 
 commands on you to keep this visit a secret, M. de Marsac. 
 Should but the slightest whisper of it get abroad, your use- 
 fulness, as far as I am concerned, would be gone, and gone 
 for good! ' 
 
 So remarkable a statement filled me with wonder I 
 could scarcely disguise. It was with difficulty I found 
 words to assure the king that his commands should be 
 faithfully obeyed. 
 
 'Of that I am sure,' he answered with the utmost kind- 
 ness. 'Were I not, and sure, too, from what I am told of 
 your gallantry when my cousin took Brouage, that you are 
 a man of deeds rather than words, I should not be here 
 with the proposition I am going to lay before you. It is
 
 THE KING OF NAVARRE 19 
 
 tbV I can give you no hope of public employment, M. de 
 Mar-sac, but I can offer you an adventure if adventures be 
 to your taste as dangerous and as thankless as any Amadis 
 ever undertook.' 
 
 'As thankless, sire?' I stammered, doubting if I had 
 heard aright, the expression was so strange. 
 
 'As thankless,' he answered, his keen eyes seeming to 
 read my soul. 'I am frank with you, you see, sir,' he con- 
 tinued, carelessly. 'I can suggest this adventure it is for 
 the good of the State I can do no more. The King of 
 Navarre cannot appear in it, nor can he protect you. 
 Succeed or fail in it, you stand alone. The only promise I 
 make is, that if it ever be safe for me to acknowledge the 
 act, I will reward the doer.' 
 
 He paused, and for a few moments I stared at him in 
 sheer amazement. What did he mean? Were he and the 
 other real figures, or was I dreaming? 
 
 'Do you understand?' he asked at length, with a touch 
 of impatience. 
 
 'Yes, sire, I think I do,' I murmured, very certain in 
 truth and reality that I did not. 
 
 'What do you say, then yes or no? ' he rejoined. 'Will 
 you undertake the adventure, or would you hear more be- 
 fore you make up your mind? ' 
 
 I hesitated. Had I been a younger man by ten years I 
 should doubtless have cried assent there and then, having 
 been all my life ready enough to embark on such enterprises 
 as offered a chance of distinction. But something in the 
 strangeness of the king's preface, although I had it in my 
 heart to die for him, gave me check, and I answered, with 
 an air of great humility, 'You will think me but a poor 
 courtier now, sire, yet he is a fool who jumps into a ditch 
 without measuring the depth. I would fain, if I may say 
 it without disrespect, hear all that you can tell me.' 
 
 'Then I fear,' he answered quickly, 'if you would have 
 more light on the matter, my friend, you must get another 
 candle.' 
 
 c2
 
 2O 
 
 I started, he spoke so abruptly; but perceiving that the 
 candle had indeed burned down to the socket, I rose, with 
 many apologies, and fetched another from the cupboard. It 
 did not occur to me at the moment, though it did later, that 
 the king had purposely sought this opportunity of consult- 
 ing with his companion. I merely remarked, when I re- 
 turned to my place on the bed, that they were sitting a little 
 nearer one another, and that the king eyed me before he 
 spoke though he still swung one foot carelessly in the ai) 
 with close attention. 
 
 ' I speak to you, of course, sir, ' he presently went on, ' in 
 confidence, believing you to be an honourable as well as a 
 brave man. That which I wish you to do is briefly, and in 
 a word, to carry off a lady. Nay, ' he added quickly, with 
 a laughing grimace, 'have no fear! She is no sweetheart of 
 mine, nor should I go to my grave friend here did I need 
 assistance of that kind. Henry of Bourbon, I pray God, 
 will always be able to free his own lady-love. This is a 
 State affair, and a matter of quite another character, 
 though we cannot at present entrust you with the meaning 
 of it.' 
 
 I bowed in silence, feeling somewhat chilled and per- 
 plexed, as who would not, having such an invitation before 
 him? I had anticipated an affair with men only a secret 
 assault or a petard expedition. But seeing the bareness of 
 my room, and the honour the king was doing me, I felt I 
 had no choice, and I answered, 'That being the case, sire, 
 I am wholly at your service.' 
 
 'That is well,' he answered briskly, though methought he 
 looked at Du Mornay reproachfully, as doubting his com- 
 mendation of me. 'But will yoxi say the same,' he contin- 
 ued, removing his eyes to me, and speaking slowly, as 
 though he would try me, 'when I tell you that the lady to 
 be carried off is the ward of the Vicomte de Turenne, whose 
 arm is well-nigh as long as my own, and who would fain 
 make it longer; who never travels, as he told me yester- 
 day, with less than fifty gentlemen, and has a thousand
 
 THE KING OF NAVARRE 21 
 
 arquebusiers in his pay? Is the adventure still to your 
 liking, M. de Marsac, now that you knew that? ' 
 
 'It is more to my liking, sire,' 1 answered stoutly. 
 
 'Understand this too,' he rejoined. 'It is essential that 
 this lady, who is at present confined in the Vicouite's house 
 at Chize, should be released; but it is equally essential that 
 there should be no breach between the Vicomte and myself. 
 Therefore the affair must be the work of an independent 
 man, who has never been in my service, nor in any way 
 connected with me. If captured, you pay the penalty with- 
 out recourse to me. ' 
 
 'I fully understand, sire,' I answered. 
 
 'Ventre Saint Gris! ' he cried, breaking into a low laugh. 
 'I swear the man is more afraid of the lady than he is of 
 the Vicomte ! That is not the way of most of our Court. ' 
 
 Du Mornay, wlio had been sitting nursing his knee in 
 silence, pursed up his lips, though it was easy to see that 
 he was well content with the king's approbation. He now 
 intervened. 'With your permission, sire,' he said, 'I will 
 let this gentleman know the details.' 
 
 'Do, my friend,' the king answered. 'And be short, for 
 if we are here much longer I shall be missed, and in a 
 twinkling the Court will have found me a new mistress.' 
 
 He spoke in jest and with a laugh, but I saw Du Mornay 
 start at the words, as though they were little to his liking; 
 and I learned afterwards that the Court was really much 
 exercised at this time with the question who would be the 
 next favourite, the king's passion for the Countess de 
 la Guiche being evidently on the wane, and that which he 
 presently evinced for Madame de Guercheville being as yet 
 a matter of conjecture. 
 
 Du Mornay took no overt notice of the king's words, 
 however, but proceeded to give me my directions. 'Chize, 
 which you know by name,' he said, 'is six leagues from 
 here. Mademoiselle de la Vire is confined in the north- 
 west room, on the first-floor, overlooking the park. More 
 I cannot tell you, except that her woman' r- name is Fan-
 
 22 A GENTLEMAN" OF FRANCE 
 
 chette, and that she is to be trusted. The house is welj. 
 guarded, and you will need four or five men. There are 
 plenty of cut-throats to be hired, only see, M. de Marsac, 
 that they are such as you can manage, and that Mademoi- 
 selle takes no hurt among them. Have horses in waiting, 
 and the moment you have released the lady ride north with 
 her as fast as her strength will permit. Indeed, you must 
 not spare her, if Turenne be on your heels. You should 
 be across the Loire in sixty hours after leaving Chize.' 
 
 'Across the Loire?' I exclaimed in astonishment. 
 
 'Yes, sir, across the Loire,' he replied, with some stern- 
 ness. 'Your task, be good enough to understand, is to con- 
 voy Mademoiselle de la Vire with all speed to Blois. There, 
 attracting as little notice as may be, you will inquire for 
 the Baron de Eosny at the Bleeding Heart, in the Rue de 
 St. Denys. He will take charge of the lady, or direct you 
 how to dispose of her, and your task will then be accom- 
 plished. You follow me? ' 
 
 'Perfectly,' I answered, speaking in my turn with some 
 dryness. 'But Mademoiselle I understand is young. What 
 if she will not accompany me, a stranger, entering her room 
 at night, and by the window? ' 
 
 'That has been thought of was the answer. He turned 
 to the King of Navarre, who, after a moment's search, pro- 
 duced a small object from his pouch. This he gave to his 
 companion, and the latter transferred it to me. I took it 
 with curiosity. It was the half of a gold carolus, the broken 
 edge of the coin being rough and jagged. 'Show that to 
 Mademoiselle, my friend,' Du Mornay continued, 'and she 
 will accompany you. She has the other half.' 
 
 'But be careful,' Henry added eagerly, 'to make no men- 
 tion, even to her, of the King of Navarre. You mark me, 
 M. de Marsac! If you have at any time occasion to speak 
 of me, you may have the honour of calling me your friend, 
 and referring to me always in the same manner. ' 
 
 This he said with so gracious an air that I was charmed, 
 and thought myself happy indeed to be addressed in this
 
 THE KING OF NAVARRE 23 
 
 wise by a prince whose name was already so glorious. Nor 
 was my satisfaction diminished when his companion drew 
 out a bag containing, as he told me, three hundred crowns 
 in gold, and placed it in my hands, bidding me defray there- 
 from the cost of the journey. 'Be careful, however,' he 
 added earnestly, 'to avoid, in hiring your men, any appear- 
 ance of wealth, lest the adventure seem to be suggested by 
 some outside person; instead of being dictated by the des- 
 perate state of your own fortunes. Promise rather than give, 
 so far as that will avail. And for what you must give, let 
 each livre seem to be the last in your pouch. ' 
 
 Henry nodded assent. 'Excellent advice! ' he muttered, 
 rising and drawing on his cloak, 'such as you ever give me, 
 Mornay, and I as seldom take more's the pity! But, after 
 all, of little avail without this.' He lifted my sword from 
 the table as he spoke, and weighed it in his hand. 'A 
 pretty tool, ' he continued, turning suddenly and looking me 
 very closely in the face. 'A very pretty tool. Were I in 
 your place, M. de Marsac, I would see that it hung loose 
 in the scabbard. Ay, and more, man, use it ! ' he added, 
 sinking his voice and sticking out his chin, while his grey 
 eyes, looking ever closer into mine, seemed to grow cold 
 and hard as steel. 'Use it to the last, for if you fall into 
 Turenne's hands, God help you! I cannot! ' 
 
 'If I am taken, sire,' I answered, trembling, but not with 
 fear, 'my fate be on my own head.' 
 
 I saw the king's eyes soften at that, and his face change 
 so swiftly that I scarce knew him for the same man. He 
 let the weapon drop with a clash on the table. 'Ventre 
 Saint Gris ! ' he exclaimed with a strange thrill of yearning 
 in his tone. 'I swear by God, I would I were in your 
 shoes, sir. To strike a blow or two with no care what 
 came of it. To take the road with a good horse a^d a good 
 sword, and see what fortune would send. To be rid of all 
 this statecraft and protocolling, and never to issue another 
 declaration in this world, but just to be for once a Gentle- 
 man of France, with all to win and nothing to lose save the
 
 24 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE 
 
 love of my lady ! Ah ! Mornay, would it not be sweet to 
 leave all this fret and fume, and ride away to the green 
 woods by Coarraze? ' 
 
 'Certainly, if you prefer them to the Louvre, sire,' Du 
 Mornay answered drily; while I stpod, silent and amazed, 
 before this strange man, who could so suddenly change 
 from grave to gay, and one moment spoke so sagely, and 
 the next like any wild lad in his teens. 'Certainly,' he 
 answered, 'if that be your choice, sire; and if you think 
 that even there the Duke of Guise will leave you in peace. 
 Turenne, I am sure, will be glad to hear of your decision. 
 Doubtless he will be elected Protector of the Churches. 
 Nay, sire, for shame! ' Du Mornay continued, almost with 
 sternness. 'Would you leave France, which at odd times I 
 have heard you say you loved, to shift for herself? Would 
 you deprive her of the only man who does love her for her 
 own sake? ' 
 
 'Well, well, but she is such a fickle sweetheart, my friend, ' 
 the king answered, laughing, the side glance of his eye on 
 me. 'Never was one so coy or so hard to clip! And, be- 
 sides, has not the Pope divorced us? ' 
 
 'The Pope! A fig for the Pope! ' Du Mornay rejoined 
 with impatient heat. 'What has he to do with France? 
 An impertinent meddler, and an Italian to boot! I would 
 he and all the brood of them were sunk a hundred fathoms 
 deep in the sea. But, meantime, I would send him a text 
 to digest.' 
 
 'Exemplum ? ' said the king. 
 
 'Whom God has joined together let no man put asunder.' 
 
 'Amen! ' quoth Henry softly. 'And France is a fair and 
 comely bride.' 
 
 After that he kept such a silence, falling as it seemed to 
 me into a brown study, that he went away without so much 
 as bidding me farewell, or being conscious, as far as I could 
 tell, of my presence. Du Mornay exchanged a few words 
 with me, to assure himself that I understood what I had to 
 do, and then, with many kind expressions, which I did not
 
 BOOT AND SADDLE 25 
 
 fail to treasure up and con over in the times that were 
 coming, hastened downstairs after his master. 
 
 My joy when I found myself alone may be conceived. 
 Yet was it no ecstasy, but a sober exhilaration; such as 
 stirred my pulses indeed, and bade me once more face the 
 world with a firm eye and an assured brow, but was far 
 from holding out before me a troubadour's palace or any 
 dazzling prospect. The longer I dwelt on the interview, 
 the more clearly I saw the truth. As the glamour which 
 Henry's presence and singular kindness had cast over me 
 began to lose some of its power, I recognised more and more 
 surely why he had come to me. It was not out of any 
 special favour for one whom he knew by report only, if at 
 all by name ; but because he had need of a man poor, and 
 therefore reckless, middle-aged (of which comes discretion), 
 obscure therefore a safe instrument ; to crown all, a gen- 
 tleman, seeing that both a secret and a woman were in 
 question. 
 
 Withal I wondered too. Looking from the bag of money 
 on the table to the broken coin in my hand, I scarcely knew 
 which to admire more : the confidence which entrusted the 
 one to a man broken and beggared, or the courage of the 
 gentlewoman who should accompany me on the faith of 
 the other. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 BOOT AND SADDLE. 
 
 As was natural, I meditated deeply and far into the night 
 on the difficulties of the task entrusted to me. I saw that 
 it fell into two parts : the release of the lady, and her safe 
 conduct to Blois, a distance of sixty leagues. The release 
 I thought it probable I could effect single-handed, or with 
 one companion only; but in the troubled condition of the 
 country at this time, more particularly on both sides of the
 
 26 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE 
 
 Loire, I scarcely saw how I could ensure a lady's safety on 
 the road northwards unless I had with me at least five 
 swords. 
 
 To get these together at a few hours' notice promised to 
 be no easy task; although the presence of the Court of 
 Navarre had filled St. Jean with a crowd of adventurers. 
 Yet the king's command was urgent, and at some sacrifice, 
 even at some risk, must be obeyed. Pressed by these con- 
 siderations, I could think of no better man to begin with 
 than Fresnoy. 
 
 His character was bad, and he had long forfeited such 
 claim as he had ever possessed I believe it was a misty 
 one ? on the distaff side to gentility. But the same cause 
 which had rendered me destitute I mean the death of the 
 Prince of Conde had stripped him to the last rag; and 
 this, perhaps, inclining me to serve him, I was the more 
 quick to see his merits. I knew him already for a hardy, 
 reckless man, very capable of striking a shrewd blow. I 
 gave him credit for being trusty, as long as his duty jumped 
 with his interest. 
 
 Accordingly, as soon as it was light, having fed and 
 groomed the Cid, which was always the first employment 
 of my day, I set out in search of Fresnoy, and was pres- 
 ently lucky enough to find him taking his morning draught 
 outside the 'Three Pigeons,' a little inn not far from the 
 north gate. It was more than a fortnight since I had set 
 eyes on him, and the lapse of time had worked so great a 
 change for the worse in him that, forgetting my own shab- 
 biness, I looked at him askance, as doubting the wisdom of 
 enlisting one who bore so plainly the marks of poverty and 
 dissipation. His great face he was a large man had 
 suffered recent ill-usage, and was swollen and discoloured, 
 one eye being as good as closed. He was unshaven, his 
 hair was ill-kempt, his doublet unfastened at the throat, 
 and torn and stained besides. Despite the cold for the 
 morning was sharp and frosty, though free from wind 
 there were half a dozen packmen drinking and squabbling
 
 BOOT AND SADDLE 27 
 
 before the inn, while the beasts they drove quenched their 
 thirst at the trough. But these men seemed with one 
 accord to leave him in possession of the bench at which he 
 sat; nor did I wonder much at this when I saw the morose 
 and savage glance which he shot at me as I approached. 
 Whether he read my first impressions in my face, or for 
 some other reason felt distaste for my company, I could not 
 determine. But, undeterred by his behaviour, I sat down 
 beside him and called for wine. 
 
 He nodded sulkily in answer to my greeting, and cast a 
 half-shamed, half-angry look at me out of the corners of 
 his eyes. 'You need not look at me as though I were a 
 dog,' he muttered presently. 'You are not so very spruce 
 yourself, my friend. But I suppose you have grown proud 
 since you got that fat appointment at Court!' And he 
 laughed out loud, so that I confess I was in two minds 
 whether I should not force the jest down his ugly throat. 
 
 However I restrained myself, though my cheeks burned. 
 'You have heard about it, then,' I said, striving to speak 
 indifferently. 
 
 'Who has not?' he said, laughing with his lips, though 
 his eyes were far from merry. 'The Sieur de Marsac's ap- 
 pointment! Ha! ha! Why, man ' 
 
 'Enough of it now!' I exclaimed. And I dare say I 
 writhed on my seat. 'As far as I am concerned the jest is 
 a stale one, sir, and does not amuse me.' 
 
 'But it amuses me,' he rejoined with a grin. 
 
 'Let it be, nevertheless,' I said; and I think he read a 
 warning in my eyes. 'I have come to speak to you upon 
 another matter.' 
 
 He did not refuse to listen, but threw one leg over the 
 other, and looking up at the inn-sign began to whistle in a 
 rude, offensive manner. Still, having an object in view, I 
 controlled myself and continued. 'It is this, my friend: 
 money is not very plentiful at present with either of us.' 
 
 Before I could say any more he turned on me savagely, 
 and with a loud oath thrust his bloated face, flushed with
 
 28 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE 
 
 passion, close to mine. 'Now look here, M. de Marsacl 
 he cried violently, 'once for all, it is no good! I have not 
 got the money, and I cannot pay it. I said a fortnight ago, 
 when you lent it, that you should have it this week. Well, ' 
 slapping his hand on the bench, 'I have not got it, and it 
 is no good beginning upon me. You cannot have it, and 
 that is flat! ' 
 
 'Damn the money! ' I cried. 
 
 'What? ' he exclaimed, scarcely believing his ears. 
 
 'Let the money be! ' I repeated fiercely. 'Do you hear? 
 I have not come about it. I am here to offer you work 
 good, well-paid work if you will enlist with me and play 
 me fair, Fresnoy.' 
 
 'Play fair! ' he cried with an oath. 
 
 'There, there,' I said, 'I am willing to let bygones be by- 
 gones if you are. The point is, that I have an adventure 
 on hand, and, wanting help, can pay you for it.' 
 
 He looked at me cunningly, his eye travelling over each 
 rent and darn in my doublet. 'I will help you fast enough,' 
 he said at last. 'But I should like to see the money first.' 
 
 'You shall,' I answered. 
 
 'Then I am with you, my friend. Count on me til? 
 death! ' he cried, rising and laying his hand in mine with a 
 boisterous frankness which did not deceive me into trusting 
 him far. 'And now, whose is the affair, and what is it? ' 
 
 'The affair is mine,' I said coldly. 'It is to carry off a 
 lady.' 
 
 He whistled and looked me over again, an impudent leer 
 in his eyes. 'A lady?' he exclaimed. 'Umph! I could 
 understand a young spark going in for such but that's 
 your affair. Who is it? ' 
 
 'That is my affair, too,' I ansAvered coolly, disgusted by 
 the man's venality and meanness, and fully persuaded that 
 I must trust him no farther than the length of my sword. 
 'All I want you to do, M. Fresnoy,' I continued stiffly, 'is 
 to place yourself at my disposal and under my orders for 
 ten days. I will find you a horse and pay you the enter
 
 BOOT AND SADDLE 29 
 
 prise is a hazardous one, and 1 take that into account two 
 gold crowns a day, and ten more if we succeed in reaching 
 a place of safety.' 
 
 'Such a place as ' 
 
 'Never mind that,' I replied. 'The question is, do you 
 accept? ' 
 
 He looked down sullenly, and I could see he was greatly 
 angered by my determination to keep the matter to myself. 
 'Am I to know no more than that? ' he asked, digging the 
 point of his scabbard again and again into the ground. 
 
 'No more,' I answered firmly. 'I am bent on a desperate 
 attempt to mend my fortunes before they fall as low as 
 yours; and that is as much as I mean to tell living man. 
 Tf you are loth to risk your life with your eyes shut, say 
 , and I will go to someone else.' 
 
 But he was not in a position, as I well knew, to refuse 
 such an offer, and presently he accepted it with a fresh 
 semblance of heartiness. I told him I should want four 
 troopers to escort us, and these he offered to procure, say- 
 ing that he knew just the knaves to suit me. I bade him 
 hire two only, however, being too wise to put myself alto- 
 gether in his hands; and then, having given him money to 
 buy himself a horse I made it a term that the men should 
 bring their own and named a rendezvous for the firsi; hour 
 after noon, I parted from him and went rather sadly away. 
 
 For I began to see that the king had not underrated the 
 dangers of an enterprise on which none but desperate men 
 and such as were down in the world could be expected to 
 embark. Seeing this, and also a thing which followed 
 clearly from it that I should have as much to fear from 
 my own company as from the enemy I looked forward 
 with little hope to a journey during every day and every 
 hour of which I must bear a growing weight of fear and 
 responsibility. 
 
 It was too late to turn back, however, and I went about 
 my preparations, if with little cheerfulness, at least with 
 steadfast purpose. I had my sword ground and my pistols
 
 30 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE 
 
 put in order by the cutler over whom I lodged, and who 
 performed this last office for me with the same goodwill 
 which had characterised all his dealings with me. I sought 
 out and hired a couple of stout fellows whom I believed to 
 be indifferently honest, but who possessed the advantage of 
 having horses; and besides bought two led horses myself 
 for mademoiselle and her woman. Such other equipments 
 as were absolutely necessary I purchased, reducing my stock 
 of money in this way to two hundred and ten crowns. How 
 to dispose of this sum so that it might be safe and yet at 
 my command was a question which greatly exercised me. 
 In the end I had recourse to my friend the cutler, who sug- 
 gested hiding a hundred crowns of it in my cap, and deftly 
 contrived a place for the purpose. This, the cap being 
 lined with steel, was a matter of no great difficulty. A 
 second hundred I sewed up in the stuffing of my saddle, 
 placing the remainder in my pouch for present necessities. 
 
 A small rain was falling in the streets when, a little 
 after noon, I started with my two knaves behind me and 
 made for the north gate. So many were moving this way 
 and the other that we passed unnoticed, ana might have 
 done so had we numbered six swords instead of three. 
 When we reached the rendezvous, a mile beyond the gate, 
 we found Fresnoy already there, taking shelter in the lee 
 of a big holly-tree. He had four horsemen with him, and 
 on our appearance rode forward to meet us, crying heartily, 
 'Welcome, M. le Capitaine ! ' 
 
 'Welcome, certainly,' I answered, pulling the Cid up 
 sharply, and holding off from him. 'But who are these, 
 M. Fresnoy?' and I pointed with my riding-cane to his 
 four companions. 
 
 He tried to pass the matter off with a laugh. 'Oh! 
 these?' he said. 'That is soon explained. The Evangel- 
 ists would not be divided, so I brought them all Matthew, 
 Mark, Luke, and John thinking it Hkely you might fail 
 to secure your men. And I will warrant them for four as 
 gallant boys as you will ever find behind you! '
 
 BOOT AND SADDLE 31 
 
 They were certainly four as arrant ruffians as I had ever 
 seen before me, and I saw I must not hesitate. 'Two or 
 none, M. Fresnoy, ' I said firmly. 'I gave you a commis- 
 sion for two, and two I will take Matthew o,nd Mark, or 
 Luke and John, as you please.' 
 
 "Tis a pity to break the party,' said he, scowling. 
 
 'If that be all,' I retorted, 'one of my men is called John. 
 And we will dub the other Luke, if that will mend the 
 matter.' 
 
 'The Prince of Conde,' he muttered sullenly, 'employed 
 these men.' 
 
 'The Prince of Conde employed some queer people some- 
 times, M. Fresnoy,' I answered, looking him straight be- 
 tween the eyes, 'as we all must. A truce to this, if you 
 please. We will take Matthew and Mark. The other two 
 be good enough to dismiss.' 
 
 He seemed to waver for a moment, as if he had a mind 
 to disobey, but in the end, thinking better of it, he bade 
 the men return; and as I complimented each of them with 
 a piece of silver, they went off, after some swearing, in 
 tolerably good humour. Thereon Fresnoy was for taking 
 the road at once, but having no mind to be followed, I gave 
 the word to wait until the two were out of sight. 
 
 I think, as we sat our horses in the rain, the holly-bush 
 not being large enough to shelter us all, we were as sorry a 
 band as ever set out to rescue a lady; nor was it without 
 pain that I looked round and saw myself reduced to com- 
 mand such people. There was scarcely one whole un- 
 patched garment among us, and three of my squires had 
 but a spur apiece. To make up for this deficiency we mus- 
 tered two black eyes, Fresnoy's included, and a broken 
 nose. Matthew's nag lacked a tail, and, more remarkable 
 still, its rider, as I presently discovered, was stone-deaf; 
 while Mark's sword was innocent of a scabbard, and his 
 bridle was plain rope. One thing, indeed, I observed with 
 pleasure. The two men who had come with me looked 
 askance at the two who had come with Fresnoy, and these
 
 32 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE 
 
 returned the stare with interest. On this division and on 
 the length of my sword I based all my hopes of safety and 
 of something more. On it I was about to stake, not my 
 own life only which was no great thing, seeing what my 
 prospects were but the life and honour of a woman, 
 young, helpless, and as yet unknown to me. 
 
 Weighed down as I was by these considerations, I had to 
 bear the additional burden of hiding my fears and suspi- 
 cions under a cheerful demeanour. I made a short speech 
 to my following, who one and all responded by swearing to 
 stand by me to the death. I then gave the word, and we 
 started, Fresnoy and I leading the way, Luke and John 
 with the led horses following, and the other two bringing 
 up the rear. 
 
 The rain continuing to fall and the country in this part 
 being dreary and monotonous, even in fair weather, I felt 
 my spirits sink still lower as the day advanced. The re- 
 sponsibility I was going to incur assumed more serious pro- 
 portions each time I scanned my following; while Fresnoy, 
 plying me with perpetual questions respecting my plans, 
 was as uneasy a companion as my worst enemy could have 
 wished me. 
 
 'Come!' he grumbled presently, when we had covered 
 four leagues or so, 'you have not told me yet, sieur, where 
 we stay to-night. You are travelling so slowly that ' 
 
 'I am saving the horses,' I answered shortly. 'We shall 
 do a long day to-morrow.' 
 
 'Yours looks fit for a week of days,' he sneered, with an 
 evil look at my Sardinian, which was, indeed, in better case 
 than its master. 'It is sleek enough, any way!' 
 
 'It is as good as it looks,' I answered, a little nettL-.l 
 by his tone. 
 
 'There is a better here,' he responded. 
 
 'I don't see it,' I said. I had already eyed the nags all 
 round, and assured myself that, ugly and blemished as they 
 were, they were up to their work. But I had discerned no 
 special merit among them. I looked them over again now,
 
 BOOT AND SADDLE 33 
 
 and carne to the same conclusion that, except the led 
 horses, which I had chosen with some care, there was noth- 
 ing among them to vie with the Cid, either in speed or 
 looks. I told Fresnoy so. 
 
 'Would you like to try? ' he said tauntingly. 
 
 I laughed, adding, 'If you think I am going to tire our 
 horses by racing them, with such work as we have before 
 us, you are mistaken, Fresnoy. I am not a boy, you 
 know. ' 
 
 'There need be no question of racing,' he answered more 
 quietly. 'You have only to get on that rat-tailed bay of 
 Matthew's to feel its paces and say I am right.' 
 
 I looked at the bay, a bald-faced, fiddle-headed horse, 
 and saw that, with no signs of breeding, it was still a big- 
 boned animal with good shoulders and powerful hips. I 
 thought it possible Fresnoy might be right, and if so, and 
 the bay's manners were tolerable, it might do for mademoi- 
 selle better than the horse I had chosen. At any rate, if 
 we had a fast horse among us, it was well to know the fact, 
 so bidding Matthew change with me, and be careful of the 
 Cid, I mounted the bay, and soon discovered that its paces 
 were easy and promised speed, while its manners seemed 
 as good as even a timid rider could desire. 
 
 Our road at the- time lay across a flat desolate heath, 
 dotted here and there with thorn-bushes; the track being 
 broken and stony, extended more than a score of yards in 
 width, through travellers straying to this side and that to 
 escape the worst places. Fresnoy and I, in making the 
 change, had fallen slightly behind the other three, and 
 were riding abreast of Matthew on the Cid. 
 
 'Well,' he said, 'was I not right?' 
 
 'In part,' I answered. 'The horse is better than its 
 looks.' 
 
 'Like many others,' he rejoined, a spark of resentment 
 in his tone 'men as well as horses, M. de Marsac. But 
 what do you say? Shall we canter on a little and overtake 
 the others?'
 
 34 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE 
 
 Thinking it well to do so, I assented readily, and we 
 started together. We had ridden, however, no more than 
 a hundred yards, and I was only beginning to extend the 
 bay, when Fresnoy, slightly drawing rein, turned in his 
 saddle and looked back. The next moment he cried, 
 'Hallo! what is this? Those fellows are not following us, 
 are they? ' 
 
 I turned sharply to look. At that moment, without 
 falter or warning, the bay horse went down under me as if 
 shot dead, throwing me half a dozen yards over its head; 
 and that so suddenly that I had no time to raise my arms, 
 but, falling heavily on my head and shoulder, lost con- 
 sciousness. 
 
 I have had many falls, but no other to vie with that in 
 utter unexpectedness. When I recovered my senses I found 
 myself leaning, giddy and sick, against the bole of an old 
 thorn-tree. Fresnoy and Matthew supported me on either 
 side, and asked me how I found myself; while the other 
 three men, their forms black against the stormy evening 
 sky, sat their horses a few paces in front of me. I was too 
 much dazed at first to see more, and this only in a mechani- 
 cal fashion; but gradually, my brain grew clearer, and I 
 advanced from wondering who the strangers round me were 
 to recognising them, and finally to remembering what had 
 happened to me. 
 
 'Is the horse hurt?' I muttered as soon as I could speak. 
 
 'Not a whit,' Fresnoy answered, chuckling, or I was 
 much mistaken. 'I am afraid you came off the worse of 
 the two, captain.' 
 
 He exchanged a look with the men on horseback as he 
 spoke, and in a dull fashion I fancied I saw them smile. 
 One even laughed, and another turned in his saddle as if to 
 hide his face. I had a vague general sense that there was 
 some joke on foot in which I had no part. But I was too 
 much shaken at the moment to be curious, and gratefully 
 accepted the offer of one of the men to fetch me a little 
 water. While he was away the rest stood round me, the
 
 BOOT AND SADDLE 35 
 
 same look of ill-concealed drollery on their faces. Fresnoy 
 alone talked, speaking volubly of the accident, pouring out 
 expressions of sympathy and cursing the road, the horse, 
 and the wintry light until the water came; when, much 
 refreshed by the draught, I managed to climb to the Cid's 
 saddle and plod slowly onwards with them. 
 
 'A bad beginning,' Fresnoy said presently, stealing a sly 
 glance at me as we jogged along side by side, Chize half a 
 league before us, and darkness not far off. 
 
 By this time, however, I was myself again, save for a 
 little humming in the head, and, shrugging my shoulders, 
 I told him so. 'All's well that ends well,' I added. 'Not 
 that it was a pleasant fall, or that I wish to have such 
 another. ' 
 
 'No, I should think not,' he answered. His face was 
 turned from me, but I fancied I heard him snigger. 
 
 Something, which may have been a vague suspicion, led 
 me a moment later to put my hand into my pouch. Then 
 I understood. I understood too well. The sharp surprise 
 of fche discovery was such that involuntarily I drove my 
 spurs into the Cid, and the horse sprang forward. 
 
 'What is the matter?' Fresnoy asked. 
 
 'The matter? ' I echoed, my hand still at my belt, feeling 
 feeling hopelessly. 
 
 'Yes, what is it?' he asked, a brazen smile on his ras- 
 cally face. 
 
 I looked at him, my brow as red as fire. 'Oh! nothing 
 nothing,' I said. 'Let us trot on.' 
 
 In truth I had discovered that, taking advantage of my 
 helplessness, the scoundrels had robbed me, while I lay 
 insensible, of every gold crown in my purse ! Nor was this 
 all, or the worst, for I saw at once that in doing so they 
 had effected something which was a thousandfold more 
 ominous and formidable established against me that secret 
 understanding which it was my especial aim to prevent, and 
 on the absence of which I had been counting. Nay, I saw 
 that for my very life I had only my friend the cutler and 
 
 D2
 
 36 A GENTLEMAN- OF FRANCE 
 
 my own prudence to thank, seeing that these rogues would 
 certainly have murdered me without scruple had they suc- 
 ceeded in finding the bulk of my money. Baffled in this, 
 while still persuaded that I had other resources, they had 
 stopped short of that villany or this memoir had never 
 been written. They had kindly permitted me to live until 
 a more favourable opportunity of enriching themselves at 
 my expense should put them in possession of my last crown ! 
 
 Though I was sufficiently master of myself to refrain 
 from complaints which I felt must be useless, and from 
 menaces which it has never been my habit to utter unless 
 I had also the power to put them into execution, it must 
 not be imagined that I did not, as I rode on by Fresnoy's 
 side, feel my position acutely or see how absurd a figure I 
 cut in my dual character of leader and dupe. Indeed, the 
 reflection that, being in this perilous position, I was about 
 to stake another's safety as well as my own, made me feel 
 the need of a few minutes' thought so urgent that I deter- 
 mined to gain them, even at the risk of leaving my men at 
 liberty to plot further mischief. Coming almost immedi- 
 ately afterwards within sight of the turrets of the Chateau 
 of Chize, I told Fresnoy that we should lie the night at the 
 village; and bade him take the men on and secure quartern 
 at the inn. Attacked instantly by suspicion and curiosity, 
 he demurred stoutly to leaving me, and might have per- 
 sisted in his refusal had I not pulled up, and clearly shown 
 him that I would have my own way in this case or come to 
 an open breach. He shrank, as I expected, from the latter 
 alternative, and, bidding me a sullen adieu, trotted on with 
 his troop. I waited until they were out of sight, and then, 
 turning the Cid's head, crossed a small brook which divided 
 the road from the chase, and choosing a ride which seemed 
 to pierce the wood in the direction of the Chateau, pro- 
 ceeded down it, keeping a sharp look-out on either hand. 
 
 It was then, my thoughts turning to the lady who was 
 now so near, and who, noble, rich, and a stranger, seemed, 
 as I approached her, not the least formidable of the embar-
 
 MADEMOISELLE DE LA VIRE 37 
 
 rassments before me it was then that I made a discovery 
 which sent a cold shiver through my frame, and in a 
 moment swept all memory of my paltry ten crowns from 
 my head. Ten crowns! Alas! I had lost that which was 
 worth all my crowns put together the broken coin which 
 the King of Navarre had entrusted to me, and which formed 
 my sole credential, my only means of persuading Mademoi- 
 selle de la Vire that I came from him. I had put it in my 
 pouch, and of course, though the loss of it only came home 
 to my mind now, it had disappeared with the rest. 
 
 I drew rein and sat for some time motionless, the image 
 of despair. The wind which stirred the naked boughs over- 
 head, and whirled the dead leaves in volleys past my feet, 
 and died away at last among the whispering bracken, met 
 nowhere with wretchedness greater, I believe, than was mine 
 at that moment. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 MADEMOISELLE DE LA VIRE. 
 
 MY first desperate impulse on discovering the magnitude 
 of my loss was to ride after the knaves and demand the 
 token at the sword's point. The certainty, however, of 
 finding them united, and the difficulty of saying which of 
 the five possessed what I wanted, led me to reject this plan 
 as I grew cooler; and since I did not dream, even in this 
 dilemma, of abandoning the expedition, the only alternative 
 seemed to be to act as if I still had the broken coin, and 
 essay what a frank explanation might effect when the time 
 came. 
 
 After some wretched, very wretched, moments of debate, 
 I resolved to adopt this course; and, for the present, think- 
 ing I might gain some knowledge of the surroundings while 
 the light lasted, I pushed cautiously forward through the
 
 38 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE 
 
 trees and came in less than five minutes within sight of a 
 corner of the chateau, which I found to be a modern build- 
 ing of the time of Henry II., raised, like the houses of that 
 time, for pleasure rather than defence, and decorated with 
 many handsome casements and tourelles. Despite this, it 
 wore, as I saw it, a grey and desolate air, due in part to 
 the loneliness of the situation and the lateness of the hour; 
 and in part, I think, to the smallness of the household 
 maintained, for no one was visible on the terrace or at the 
 windows. The rain dripped from the trees, which on two 
 aides pressed so closely on the house as almost to darken 
 the rooms, and everything I saw encouraged me to hope 
 that mademoiselle's wishes would second my entreaties, 
 and incline her to lend a ready ear to my story. 
 
 The appearance of the house, indeed, was a strong in- 
 ducement to me to proceed, for it was impossible to believe 
 that a young lady, a kinswoman of the gay and vivacious 
 Turenne, and already introduced to the pleasures of the 
 Court, would elect of her own free will to spend the winter 
 in so dreary a solitude. 
 
 Taking advantage of the last moments of daylight, I rode 
 cautiously round the house, and, keeping in the shadow of 
 the trees, had no difficulty in discovering at the north-east 
 corner the balcony of which I had been told. It was semi- 
 circular in shape, with a stone balustrade, and hung some 
 fifteen feet above a terraced walk which ran below it, and 
 was separated from the chase by a low sunk fence. 
 
 I was surprised to observe that, notwithstanding the rain 
 and the coldness of the evening, the window which gave 
 upon this balcony was open. Nor was this all. Luck was 
 in store for me at last. I had not gazed at the window 
 more than a minute, calculating its height and other partic- 
 ulars, when, to my great joy, a female figure, closely 
 hooded, stepped out and stood looking up at the sky. I 
 was too far off to be able to discern by that uncertain light 
 tvhether this was Mademoiselle de la Vire or her woman; 
 but the attitude was so clearly one of dejection and despon-
 
 MADEMOISELLE DE LA VIRE 39 
 
 dency, that I felt sure it was either one or the other. De- 
 termined not to let the opportunity slip, I dismounted has- 
 tily and, leaving the Cid loose, advanced on foot until I 
 stood within half-a-dozen paces of the window. 
 
 At that point the watcher became aware of me. She 
 started back, but did not withdraw. Still peering down at 
 me, she called softly to some one inside the chamber, and 
 immediately a second figure, taller and stouter, appeared. 
 I had already doffed my cap, and I now, in a low voice, 
 begged to know if I had the honour of speaking to Made- 
 moiselle de la Vire. In the growing darkness it was im- 
 possible to distinguish faces. 
 
 'Hush! ' the stouter figure muttered in a tone of warning. 
 'Speak lower. Who are you, and what do you here? ' 
 
 'I am here,' I answered respectfully, 'commissioned by a 
 friend of the lady I have named, to convey her to a place 
 of safety. ' 
 
 'Mondieu! ' was the sharp answer. 'Now? It is impos- 
 sible.' 
 
 'No,' I murmured, 'not now, but to-night. The moon 
 rises at half -past two. My horses need rest and food. At 
 three I will be below this window with the means of escape, 
 if mademoiselle choose to use them. ' 
 
 I felt that they were staring at me through the dusk, as 
 though they would read my breast. 'Your name, sir?' the 
 shorter figure murmured at last, after a pause which was 
 full of suspense and excitement. 
 
 'I do not think my name of much import at present, 
 Mademoiselle, ' I answered, reluctant to proclaim myself a 
 stranger. ' When ' 
 
 ' Your name, your name, sir ! ' she repeated imperiously, 
 and I heard her little heel rap upon the stone floor of the 
 balcony. 
 
 'Gaston de Marsac,' I answered unwillingly. 
 
 They both started, and cried out together. 'Impossible! ' 
 the last speaker exclaimed, amazement and anger in her 
 tone. 'This is a jest, sir. This '
 
 40 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE 
 
 What more she would have said I was left to guess, foi 
 at that moment her attendant I had no doubt now which 
 was mademoiselle and which Fanchette suddenly laid her 
 hand on her mistress's mouth and pointed to the room 
 behind them. A second's suspense, and with a warning 
 gesture the two turned and disappeared through the 
 window. 
 
 I lost no time in regaining the shelter of the trees ; and 
 concluding, though I was far from satisfied with the inter- 
 view, that I could do nothing more now, but might rather, 
 by loitering in the neighbourhood, awaken suspicion, I re- 
 mounted and made for the highway and the village, where 
 I found my men in noisy occupation of the inn, a poor 
 place, with unglazed windows, and a fire in the middle of 
 the earthen floor. My first care was to stable the Cid in a 
 shed at the back, where I provided for its wants as far as 
 I could with the aid of a half -naked boy, who seemed to be 
 in hiding there. 
 
 This done, I returned to the front of the house, having 
 pretty well made up my mind how I would set about the 
 task before me. As I passed one of the windows, which 
 was partially closed by a rude curtain made of old sacks, I 
 stopped to look in. Fresnoy and his four rascals were 
 seated on blocks of wood round the hearth, talking loudly 
 and fiercely, and ruffling it as if the fire and the room were 
 their own. A pedlar, seated on his goods in one corner, 
 was eyeing them with evident fear and suspicion ; in an- 
 other corner two children had taken refuge under a donkey, 
 which some fowls had chosen as a roosting-pole. The inn- 
 keeper, a sturdy fellow, with a great club in his fist, sat 
 moodily at the foot of a ladder which led to the loft above, 
 while a slatternly woman, who was going to and fro getting 
 supper, seemed in equal terror of her guests and her good 
 man. 
 
 Confirmed by what I saw, and assured that the villains 
 were ripe for any mischief, and, if not checked, would 
 speedily be beyond my control, I noisily flung the door
 
 MADEMOISELLE DE LA VIRE 41 
 
 open and entered. Fresnoy looked up with a sneer as I 
 did so, and one of the men laughed. The others became 
 silent; but no one moved or greeted me. Without a 
 moment's hesitation I stepped to the nearest fellow and, 
 with a sturdy kick, sent his log from under him. 'Kise, 
 you rascal, when I enter ! ' I cried, giving vent to the anger 
 I had long felt. 'And you, too! ' and with a second kick I 
 sent his neighbour's stool flying also, and administered a 
 couple of cuts with my riding-cane across the man's shoul- 
 ders. 'Have you no manners, sirrah? Across with you, 
 and leave this side to your betters.' 
 
 The two rose, snarling and feeling for their weapons, and 
 for a moment stood facing me, looking now at me and now 
 askance at Fresnoy. But as he gave no sign, and their 
 comrades only laughed, the men's courage failed them at 
 the pinch, and with a very poor grace they sneaked over to 
 the other side of the fire and sat there scowling. 
 
 I seated myself beside their leader. 'This gentleman 
 and I will eat here,' I cried to the man at the foot of the 
 ladder. 'Bid your wife lay for us, and of the best you 
 have; and do you give those knaves their provender where 
 the smell of their greasy jackets will not come between us 
 and our victuals.' 
 
 The man came forward, glad enough, as I saw, to discover 
 any one in authority, and very civilly began to draw wine 
 and place a board for us, while his wife filled our platters 
 from the black pot which hung over the fire. Fresnoy's 
 face meanwhile wore the amused smile of one who compre- 
 hended my motives, but felt sufficiently sure of his position 
 and influence with his followers to be indifferent to my 
 proceedings. I presently showed him, however, that I 
 had not yet done with him. Our table was laid in obedi- 
 ence to my orders at such a distance from the men that they 
 could not overhear our talk, and by-and-by I leant over to 
 him. 
 
 'M. Fresnoy,' I said, 'you are in danger of forgetting 
 one thing, I fancy, which it behoves you to remember- '
 
 42 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE 
 
 'What? ' he muttered, scarcely deigning to look up at me. 
 
 'That you have to do with Gaston de Marsac,' I answered 
 quietly. 'I am making, as I told you this morning, a last 
 attempt to recruit my fortunes, and I will let no man no 
 man, do you understand, M. Fresnoy? thwart me and go 
 harmless.' 
 
 'Who wishes to thwart you? ' he asked impudently. 
 
 'You,' I answered unmoved, helping myself, as I spoke, 
 from the roll of black bread which lay beside me. 'You 
 robbed me this afternoon; I passed it over. You encour- 
 aged those men to be insolent ; I passed it over. But let 
 me tell you this. If you fail me to-night, on the honour 
 of a gentleman, M. Fresnoy, I will run you through as I 
 would spit a lark.' 
 
 'Will you? But two can play at that game,' he cried, 
 rising nimbly from his stool. 'Still better six! Don't you 
 think, M. de Marsac, you had better have waited ? ' 
 
 'I think you had better hear one word more,' I answered 
 coolly, keeping my seat, 'before you appeal to your fellows 
 there.' 
 
 'Well,' he said, still standing, 'what is it?' 
 
 'Nay,' I replied, after once more pointing to his stool in 
 vain, 'if you prefer to take my orders standing, well and 
 good. ' 
 
 'Your orders?' he shrieked, growing suddenly excited. 
 
 'Yes, my orders!' I retorted, rising as suddenly to my 
 feet and hitching forward my sword. 'My orders, sir,' I 
 repeated fiercely, 'or, if you dispute my right to command 
 as well as to pay this party, let us decide the question here 
 and now you and I, foot to foot, M. Fresnoy. ' 
 
 The quarrel flashed up so suddenly, though I had been 
 preparing it all along, that no one moved. The woman, 
 indeed, fell back to her children, but the rest looked on 
 open-mouthed. Had they stirred, or had a moment's 
 hurly-burly heated his blood, I doubt not Fresnoy would 
 have taken up my challenge, for he did not lack hardihood. 
 But as it was, face to face with me in the silence, his cour-
 
 MADEMOISELLE DE LA VIRE 43 
 
 age failed him. He paused, glowering at me uncertainly, 
 and did not speak. 
 
 'Well,' I said, 'don't you think that if I pay I ought to 
 give orders, sir? ' 
 
 'Who wishes to oppose your orders? ' he muttered, drink- 
 ing off a bumper, and sitting down with an air of impudent 
 bravado, assumed to hide his discomfiture. 
 
 'If you don't, no one else does,' I answered. 'So that is 
 settled. Landlord, some more wine.' 
 
 He was very sulky with me for a while, fingering his 
 glass in silence and scowling at the table. He had enough 
 gentility to feel the humiliation to which he had exposed 
 himself, and a sufficiency of wit to understand that that 
 .moment's hesitation had cost him the allegiance of his 
 fellow-ruffians. I hastened, therefore, to set him at his 
 ease by explaining my plans for the night, and presently 
 succeeded beyond my hopes; for when he heard who the 
 lady was whom I proposed to carry off, and that she was 
 lying that evening at the Chateau de Chize, his surprise 
 swept away the last trace of resentment. He stared at me 
 as at a maniac. 
 
 'Mon Dieu! ' he exclaimed. 'Do you know what you are 
 doing, Sieur? ' 
 
 'I think so,' I answered. 
 
 'Do you know to whom the chateau belongs? ' 
 
 'To the Vicomte de Turenne.' 
 
 'And that Mademoiselle de la Vire is his relation? ' 
 
 'Yes,' I said. 
 
 'Mon Dieu! ' he exclaimed again. And he looked at me 
 open-mouthed. 
 
 'What is the matter? ' I asked, though I had an uneasy 
 consciousness that I knew that I knew very well. 
 
 'Man, he will crush you as I crush this hat! ' he answered 
 in great excitement. 'As easily. Who do you think will 
 protect you from him in a private quarrel of this kind? 
 Navarre? France? our good man? Not one of them. 
 You had better steal the king's crown jewels he is weak;
 
 44 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE 
 
 or Guise's last plot he is generous at times ; or Navarre's 
 last sweetheart he is as easy as an old shoe. You had 
 better have to do with all these together, I tell you, than 
 touch Turenne's ewe-lambs, unless your aim be to be broken 
 on the wheel ! Mon Dieu, yes ! ' 
 
 'I am much obliged to you for your advice,' I said stiffly, 
 'but the die is cast. My mind is made up. On the other 
 hand, if you are afraid, M. Fresnoy ' 
 
 'I am afraid; very much afraid,' he answered frankly. 
 
 'Still your name need not be brought into the matter,' I 
 replied, 'I will take the responsibility. I will let them 
 know my name here at the inn, where, doubtless, inquiries 
 will be made.' 
 
 'To be sure, that is something,' he answered thoughtfully. 
 'Well, it is an ugly business, but I am in for it. You want 
 me to go with you a little after two, do you? and the others 
 to be in the saddle at three? Is that it? ' 
 
 I assented, pleased to find him so far acquiescent ; and in 
 this way, talking the details over more than once, we set- 
 tled our course, arranging to fly by way of Poitiers and 
 Tours. Of course I did not tell him why I selected Blois as 
 our refuge, nor what was my purpose there; though he 
 pressed me more than once on the point, and grew thought- 
 ful and somewhat gloomy when I continually evaded it. 
 A little after eight we retired to the loft to sleep; our men 
 remaining below round the fire and snoring so merrily as 
 almost to shake the crazy old building. The host was 
 charged to sit up and call us as soon as the moon rose, but, 
 as it turned out, I might as well have taken this office on 
 myself, for between excitement and distrust I slept little, 
 and was wide awake when I heard his step on the ladder 
 and knew it was time to rise. 
 
 I was up in a moment, and Fresnoy was little behind me; 
 so that, losing no time in talk, we were mounted and on the 
 road, each with a spare horse at his knee, before the moon 
 was well above the trees. Once in the Chase we found it 
 necessary to proceed on foot, but, the distance being short,
 
 MADEMOISELLE DE LA VIRE 45 
 
 we presently emerged without misadventure and stood op- 
 posite to the chateau, the upper part of which shone cold 
 and white in the moon's rays. 
 
 There was something so solemn in the aspect of the 
 place, the night being fine and the sky without a cloud, 
 that I stood for a minute awed and impressed, the sense of 
 the responsibility I was here to accept strong upon me. In 
 that short space of time all the dangers before me, as well 
 the common risks of the road as the vengeance of Turenne 
 and the turbulence of my own men, presented themselves 
 to my mind, and made a last appeal to me to turn back from 
 an enterprise so foolhardy. The blood in a man's veins 
 runs low and slow at that hour, and mine was chilled by 
 lack of sleep and the wintry air. It needed the remem- 
 brance of my solitary condition, of my past spent in straits 
 and failure, of the grey hairs which swept my cheek, of 
 the sword which I had long used honourably, if with little 
 profit to myself; it needed the thought of all these things 
 to restore me to courage and myself. 
 
 I judged at a later period that my companion was affected 
 in somewhat the same way; for, as I stooped to press home 
 the pegs which I had brought to tether the horses, he laid 
 his hand on my arm. Glancing up to see what he wanted, 
 I Avas struck by the wild look in his face (which the moon- 
 light invested with a peculiar mottled pallor), and partic- 
 ularly in his eyes, which glittered like a madman's. He 
 tried to speak, but seemed to find a difficulty in doing so; 
 and I had to question him roughly before he found his 
 tongue. When he did speak, it was only to implore me 
 in an odd, excited manner to give up the expedition and 
 return. 
 
 'What, now?' I said, surprised. 'Now we are here, 
 Fresnoy ? ' 
 
 'Ay, give it up! ' he cried, shaking me almost fiercely by 
 the arm. 'Give it up, man! It will end badly, I tell you! 
 In God's name, give it up, and go home before worse comes 
 of it.'
 
 46 A GENTLEMAN- OF FRANCE 
 
 'Whatever comes of it,' I answered coldly, shaking his 
 grasp from my arm, and wondering much at this sudden tit 
 of cowardice, 'I go on. You, M. Fresnoy, may do as you 
 please ! ' 
 
 He started and drew back from me ; but he did not reply, 
 nor did he speak again. When I presently went off to 
 fetch a ladder, of the position of which I had made a note 
 during the afternoon, he accompanied me, and followed me 
 back in the same dull silence to the walk below the balcony. 
 I had looked more than once and eagerly at mademoiselle's 
 window without any light or movement in that quarter 
 rewarding my vigilance; but, undeterred by this, which 
 might mean either that my plot was known, or that Made- 
 moiselle de la Vire distrusted me, I set the ladder softly 
 against the balcony, which was in deep shadow, and paused 
 only to give Fresnoy his last instructions. These were 
 simply to stand on guard at the foot of the ladder and 
 defend it in case of surprise; so that, whatever happened 
 inside the chateau, my retreat by the window might not 
 be cut off. 
 
 Then I went cautiously up the ladder, and, with my 
 sheathed sword in my left hand, stepped over the balus- 
 trade. Taking one pace forward, with fingers outstretched, 
 I felt the leaded panes of the window and tapped softly. 
 
 As softly the casement gave way, and I .followed it. A 
 hand which I could see but not feel was laid on mine. All 
 was darkness in the room, and before me, but the hand 
 guided me two paces forward, then by a sudden pressure 
 bade me stand. I heard the sound of a curtain being drawn 
 behind me, and the next moment the cover of a rushlight was 
 removed, and a feeble but sufficient light filled the chamber. 
 
 I comprehended that the drawing of that curtain over the 
 window had cut off my retreat as effectually as if a door had 
 been closed behind me. But distrust and suspicion gave 
 way the next moment to .the natural embarrassment of the 
 man who finds himself in a false position and knows he 
 can escape from it only by an awkward explanation.
 
 MADEMOISELLE DE LA VIRE 47 
 
 The room in which I found myself was long, narrow, and 
 low in the ceiling; and being hung with some dark stuff 
 which swallowed up the light, terminated funereally at the 
 farther end in the still deeper gloom of an alcove. Two or 
 three huge chests, one bearing the remnants of a meal, stood 
 against the walls. The middle of the floor was covered 
 with a strip of coarse matting, on which a small table, a 
 chair and foot-rest, and a couple of stools had place, with 
 some smaller articles which lay scattered round a pair of 
 half-filled saddle-bags. The slighter and smaller of the 
 two figures I had seen stood beside the table, wearing a 
 mask and riding cloak; and by her silent manner of gazing 
 at me, as well as by a cold, disdainful bearing, which 
 neither her mask nor cloak could hide, did more to chill 
 and discomfit me than even my own knowledge that I had 
 lost the pass-key which should have admitted me to her 
 confidence. 
 
 The stouter figure of the afternoon turned out to be a 
 red-cheeked, sturdy woman of thirty, with bright black 
 eyes and a manner which lost nothing of its fierce impa- 
 tience when she came a little later to address me. All my 
 ideas of Fanchette were upset by the appearance of this 
 woman, who, rustic in her speech and ways, seemed more 
 like a duenna than the waiting-maid of a court beauty, and 
 better fitted to guard a wayward damsel than to aid her in 
 such an escapade as we had in hand. 
 
 She stood slightly behind her mistress, her coarse red 
 hand resting on the back of the chair from which mademoi- 
 selle had apparently risen on my entrance. For a few 
 seconds, which seemed minutes to me, we stood gazing at 
 one another in silence, mademoiselle acknowledging my bow 
 by a slight movement of the head. Then, seeing that they 
 waited for me to speak, I did so. 
 
 'Mademoiselle de la Vire? ' I murmured doubtfully. 
 
 She bent her head again; that was all. 
 
 I strove to speak with confidence. 'You will pardon me, 
 mademoiselle,' I said, 'if I seem to be abrupt, but time is
 
 48 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE 
 
 everything. The horses are standing within a Imndred 
 yards of the house, and all the preparations for your night 
 are made. If we leave now, we can do so without opposi- 
 tion. The delay even of an hour may lead to discovery.' 
 
 For answer she laughed behind her mask laughed coldly 
 and ironically. 'You go too fast, sir,' she said, her low 
 clear voice matching the laugh and rousing a feeling almost 
 of anger in my heart. 'I do not know you; or, rather, 
 I know nothing of you which should entitle you to interfere 
 in iny affairs. You are too quick to presume, sir. Y"ou 
 say you come from a friend. From whom? ' 
 
 'From one whom I am proud to call by that title,' I an- 
 swered with what patience I might. 
 
 'His name! ' 
 
 I answered firmly that I could not give it. And I eyed 
 her steadily as I did so. 
 
 This for the moment seemed to baffle and confuse her, 
 but after a pause she continued: 'Where do you propose to 
 take me, sir? ' 
 
 'To Blois; to the lodging of a friend of my friend.' 
 
 'You speak bravely,' she replied with a faint sneer. 
 'You have made some great friends lately it seems! But 
 you bring me some letter, no doubt; at least some sign, 
 some token, some warranty, that you are the person you 
 pretend to be, M. de Marsac? ' 
 
 'The truth is, mademoiselle,' I stammered, 'I must ex- 
 plain. I should tell you ' 
 
 'Nay, sir,' she cried impetuously, 'there is no need of 
 telling. If you have what I say, show it me! It is you 
 who lose time. Let us have no more words ! ' 
 
 I had used very few words, and, God knows, was not in 
 the mind to use many; but, being in the wrong, I had no 
 answer to make except the truth, and that humbly. 'I had 
 such a token as you mention, mademoiselle,' I said, 'no 
 farther back than this afternoon, in the shape of half a gold 
 coin, entrusted to me by my friend. But, to my shame I 
 say it, it was stolen from me a few hours back.'
 
 MADEMOISELLE DE LA VIRE 49 
 
 'Stolen from you! ' she exclaimed. 
 
 'Yes, mademoiselle; and for that reason I cannot show 
 it,' I answered. 
 
 'You cannot show it? And you dare to come to me with- 
 out it! ' she cried, speaking with a vehemence which fairly 
 startled me, prepared as I was for reproaches. 'You come 
 to me ! You ! ' she continued. And with that, scarcely 
 stopping to take breath, she loaded me with abuse; calling 
 me impertinent, a meddler, and a hundred other things, 
 which I now blush to recall, and displaying in all a passion 
 which even in her attendant would have surprised me, but 
 in one so slight and seemingly delicate, overwhelmed and 
 confounded me. In fault as I was, I could not understand 
 the peculiar bitterness she displayed, or the contemptuous 
 force of her language, and I stared at her in silent wonder 
 until, of her own accord, she supplied the key to her feel- 
 ings. In a fresh outburst of rage she snatched off her mask, 
 and to my astonishment I saw before me the young maid 
 of honour whom I had encountered in the King of Navarre's 
 ante-chamber, and whom I had been so unfortunate as to 
 expose to the raillery of Mathurine. 
 
 'Who has paid you, sir,' she continued, clenching her 
 small hands and speaking with tears of anger in her eyes, 
 'to make me the laughing-stock of the Court? It was bad 
 enough when I thought you the proper agent of those to 
 whom I have a right to look for aid! It was bad enough 
 when I thought myself forced, through their inconsiderate 
 choice, to decide between an odious imprisonment and the 
 ridicule to which your intervention must expose me! But 
 that you should have dared, of your own notion, to follow 
 me, you, the butt of the Court ' 
 
 'Mademoiselle! ' I cried. 
 
 'A needy, out-at-elbows adventurer!' she persisted, 
 triumphing in her cruelty. 'It exceeds all bearing! It is 
 not to be suffered ! It ' 
 
 'Nay, mademoiselle; you shall hear me! ' I cried, with a 
 sternness which at last stopped her. 'Granted I am poor,
 
 So A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE 
 
 I am still a gentleman; yes, mademoiselle,' I continued, 
 firmly, 'a gentleman, and the last of a family which has 
 spoken with yours on equal terms. And 1 claim to be 
 heard. I swear that when I came here to-night I believed 
 you to be a perfect stranger! I was unaware that I had 
 ever seen you, unaware that I had ever met you before.' 
 
 'Then why did you come? ' she said viciously. 
 
 'I was engaged to come by those whom you have men- 
 tioned, and there, and there only am I in fault. They 
 entrusted to me a token which I have lost. For that I 
 crave your pardon.' 
 
 'You have need to,' she answered bitterly, yet with a 
 changed countenance, or I was mistaken, 'if your story be 
 true, sir.' 
 
 'Ay, that you have!' the woman beside her echoed. 
 'Hoity toity, indeed! Here is a fuss about nothing. You 
 call yourself a gentleman, and wear such a doublet as ' 
 
 'Peace, Fanchette!' mademoiselle said imperiously. 
 And then for a moment she stood silent, eyeing me intently, 
 her lips trembling with excitement and two red spots burn- 
 ing in her cheeks. It was clear from her dress and other 
 things that she had made up her mind to fly had the token 
 been forthcoming; and seeing this, and knowing how un- 
 willing a young girl is to forego her own way, I still had 
 some hopes that she might not persevere in her distrust 
 and refusal. And so it turned out. 
 
 Her manner had changed to one of quiet scorn when she 
 next spoke. 'You defend yourself skilfully, sir,' she said, 
 drumming with her fingers on the table and eyeing me 
 steadfastly. 'But can you give me any reason for the per- 
 son you name making choice of such a messenger? ' 
 
 'Yes, ' I answered, boldly. 'That he may not be suspected 
 of conniving at your escape. ' 
 
 ' Oh ! ' she cried, with a spark of her former passion. 
 'Then it is to be put about that Mademoiselle de la Vire 
 had fled from Chize with M. de Marsac, is it? I thought 
 that! '
 
 MADEMOISELLE DE LA VI RE 51 
 
 'Through the assistance of M. de Marsac,' I retorted, 
 correcting her coldly. 'It is for you, mademoiselle,' I con- 
 tinued, 'to weigh that disadvantage against the unpleasant- 
 ness of remaining here. It only remains for me to ask you 
 to decide quickly. Time presses, and I have stayed here 
 too long already.' 
 
 The words had barely passed my lips when they received 
 unwelcome confirmation in the shape of a distant soiind 
 the noisy closing of a door, which, clanging through the 
 house at such an hour I judged it to be after three o'clock 
 could scarcely mean anything but mischief. This noise 
 was followed immediately, even while we stood listening 
 with raised fingers, by other sounds a muffled cry, and 
 the tramp of heavy footsteps in a distant passage. Made- 
 moiselle looked at me, and I at her woman. 'The door! ' I 
 muttered. 'Is it locked? ' 
 
 'And bolted! ' Fanchette answered; 'and a great chest set 
 against it. Let them ramp; they will do no harm for a bit.' 
 
 'Then you have still time, mademoiselle,' I whispered, 
 retreating a step and laying my hand on the curtain before 
 the window. Perhaps I affected greater coolness than I 
 felt. 'It is not too late. If you choose to remain, well 
 and good. I cannot help it. If, on the other hand, you 
 decide to trust yourself to me, I swear, on the honour of 
 a gentleman, to be worthy of the trust to serve you truly 
 and protect you to the last! I can say no more.' 
 
 She trembled, looking from me to the door, on which 
 some one had just begun to knock loudly. That seemed to 
 decide her. Her lips apart, her eyes full of excitement, 
 she turned hastity to Fanchette. 
 
 'Ay, go if you like,' the woman answered doggedly, 
 reading the meaning of her look. 'There cannot be a 
 greater villain than the one we know of. But once started, 
 heaven help us, for if he overtakes us we'll pay dearly 
 for it!' 
 
 The girl did not speak herself, bur it was enough. 
 The noise at the door increased each second, and began to 
 
 2
 
 52 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE 
 
 be mingled with angry appeals to Fanchette to open, and 
 with threats in casa she delayed. I cut the matter short 
 by snatching up one of the saddle-bags the other we left 
 behind and flung back the curtain which covered the win- 
 dow. At the same time the woman dashed out the light 
 a timely precaution and throwing open the casement I 
 stepped on to the balcony, the others following me closely. 
 
 The moon had risen high, and flooding with light the 
 small open space about the house enabled me to see clearly 
 all round the foot of the ladder. To my surprise Fresnoy 
 was not at his post, nor was he to be seen anywhere; but 
 as, at the moment I observed this, an outcry away to my 
 left, at the rear of the chateau, came to my ears, and an- 
 nounced that the danger was no longer confined to the inte- 
 rior of the house, I concluded that he had gone that way to 
 intercept the attack. Without more, therefore, I began to 
 descend as quickly as I could, my sword under one arm and 
 the bag under the other. 
 
 I was half-way down, and mademoiselle was already 
 stepping on to the ladder to follow, when I heard footsteps 
 below, and saw him run up, his sword in his hand. 
 
 'Quick, Fresnoy! ' I cried. 'To the horses and unfasten 
 them ! Quick ! ' 
 
 I slid down the rest of the way, thinking he had gone to 
 do my bidding. But my feet were scarcely on the ground 
 when a tremendous blow in the side sent me staggering 
 three paces from the ladder. The attack was so sudden, 
 so unexpected, that but for the sight of Fresnoy's scowling 
 face, wild with rage, at my shoulder, and the sound of his 
 iierce breathing as he strove to release his sword, which had 
 passed through my saddle-bag, I might never have known 
 who struck the blow, or how narrow had been my escape. 
 
 Fortunately the knowledge did come to me in time, and 
 before he freed his blade; and it nerved my hand. To 
 draw my blade at such close quarters was impossible, but, 
 dropping the bag which had saved my life, I dashed my 
 hilt twice in his face with such violence that he fell back'
 
 THE ROAD TO BLO1S 53 
 
 wards and lay on the turf, a dark stain growing and spread- 
 ing on his upturned face. 
 
 It was scarcely done before the women reached the foot 
 of the ladder and stood beside me. 'Quick!' I cried to 
 them, 'or they will be upon us.' Seizing mademoiselle's 
 hand, just as half-a-dozen men came running round the 
 corner of the house, I jumped with her down the haha, and, 
 urging her to her utmost speed, dashed across the open 
 ground which lay between us and the belt of trees. Once 
 in the shelter of the latter, where our movements were 
 hidden from view, I had still to free the horses and mount 
 mademoiselle arid her woman, and this in haste. But my 
 companions' admirable coolness and presence of mind, and 
 the objection which our pursuers, who did not know our 
 numbers, felt to leaving the open ground, enabled us to do 
 all with comparative ease. I sprang on the Cid (it has 
 always been my habit to teach my horse to stand for me, 
 nor do I know any accomplishment more serviceable at a 
 pinch), and giving Fresnoy's grey a cut over the flanks 
 which despatched it ahead, led the way down the ride by 
 which I had gained the chateau in the afternoon. I knew 
 it to be level and clear of trees, and the fact that we chose 
 it might throw our pursuers off the track for a time, by 
 leading them to think we had taken the south road instead 
 of that through the village. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE ROAD TO BLOIS. 
 
 WE gained the road without let or hindrance, whence a 
 sharp burst in the moonlight soon brought us to the village. 
 Through this we swept on to the inn, almost running over 
 the four evangelists, whom we found standing at the door 
 ready for the saddle. I bade them, in a quick peremptory
 
 54 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE 
 
 tone, to get to horse, and was overjoyed to see them obey 
 without demur or word of Fresnoy. In another minute, 
 with a great clatter of hoofs, we sprang clear of the hamlet, 
 and were well on the road to Melle, with Poitiers some 
 thirteen leagues before us. I looked back, and thought I 
 discerned lights moving in the direction of the chateau; 
 but the dawn was still two hours off, and the moonlight left 
 me in doubt whether these were real or the creatures of my 
 own fearful fancy. 
 
 I remember, three years before this time, on the occasion 
 of the famous retreat from Angers when the Prince of 
 Conde had involved his army beyond the Loire, and saw 
 himself, in the impossibility of recrossing the river, com- 
 pelled to take ship for England, leaving every one to shift 
 for himself I well remember on that occasion riding, 
 alone and pistol in hand, through more than thirty miles 
 of the enemy's country without drawing rein. But my 
 anxieties were then confined to the four shoes of my horse. 
 The dangers to which I was exposed at every ford and cross 
 road were such as are inseparable from a campaign, and 
 breed in generous hearts only a fierce pleasure, rarely to 
 be otherwise enjoyed. And though I then rode warily, and 
 where I could not carry terror, had all to fear myself, there 
 was nothing secret or underhand in my business. 
 
 It was very different now. During the first few hours of 
 our flight from Chize I experienced a painful excitement, 
 an alarm, a feverish anxiety to get forward, which was new 
 to me; which oppressed my spirits to the very ground; 
 which led me to take every sound borne to us on the wind 
 for the sound of pursuit, transforming the clang of a ham- 
 mer on the anvil into the ring of swords, and the voices of 
 my own men into those of the pursuers. It was in vain 
 mademoiselle rode with a free hand, and leaping such 
 obstacles as lay in our way, gave promise of courage and 
 endurance beyond my expectations. I could think of noth- 
 ing but the three long days before us, with twenty-four 
 hours to every day, and each hour fraught with a hundred 
 chances of disaster and ruin.
 
 THE ROAD TO tfLOIS 55 
 
 In fact, the longer I considered our position and as we 
 pounded along, now splashing through a founderous hollow, 
 now stumbling as we wound over a stony shoulder, I had 
 ample time to reflect upon it the greater seemed the diffi- 
 culties before us. The loss of Fresnoy, while it freed me 
 from some embarrassment, meant also the loss of a good 
 sword, and we had mustered only too few before. The 
 country which lay between us and the Loire, being the 
 borderland between our party and the League, had been 
 laid desolate so often as to be abandoned to pillage and dis- 
 order of every kind. The peasants had flocked into the 
 towns. Their places had been taken by bands of robbers 
 and deserters from both parties, who haunted the ruined 
 villages about Poitiers, and preyed upon all who dared to 
 pass. To add to our perils, the royal army under the Duke 
 of Nevers was reported to be moving slowly southward, not 
 very far to the left of our road; while a Huguenot expedi- 
 tion against Niort was also in progress within a few 
 leagues of us. 
 
 With four staunch and trustworthy comrades at my back, 
 I might have faced even this situation with a smile and a 
 light heart; but the knowledge that my four knaves might 
 mutiny at any moment, or, worse still, rid themselves of 
 me and all restraint by a single treacherous blow such as 
 Fresnoy had aimed at me, filled me with an ever-present 
 dread; which it taxed my utmost energies to hide from 
 them, and which I strove in vain to conceal from mademoi- 
 selle's keener vision. 
 
 Whether it was this had an effect upon her, giving her a 
 meaner opinion of me than that which I had for a while 
 hoped she entertained, or that she began, now it was too 
 late, to regret her flight and resent my part in it, I scarcely 
 know; but from daybreak onwards she assumed an attitude 
 of cold suspicion towards me, which was only less unpleas- 
 ant than the scornful distance of her manner when she 
 deigned, which was seldom, to address me. 
 
 Not once did she allow me to forget that I was in ier
 
 56 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE 
 
 eyes a needy adventurer, paid by her friends to escort laer 
 to a place of safety, but without any claim to the smallest 
 privilege of intimacy or equality. When I would have 
 adjusted her saddle, she bade her woman come and hold up 
 her skirt, that my hands might not touch its hem even by 
 accident. And when I would have brought wine to her at 
 Melle, where we stayed for twenty minutes, she called 
 Fanchette to hand it to her. She rode for the most part in 
 her mask ; and with her woman. One good effect only her 
 pride and reserve had; they impressed our men with a 
 strong sense of her importance, and the danger to which 
 any interference with her might expose them. 
 
 The two men whom Fresnoy had enlisted I directed to 
 ride a score of paces in advance. Luke and John I placed 
 in the rear. In this manner I thought to keep them some- 
 what apart. For myself, I proposed to ride abreast of 
 mademoiselle, but she made it so clear that my neighbour- 
 hood displeased her that I fell back, leaving her to ride 
 with Fanchette; and contented myself with plodding at 
 their heels, and striving to attach the later evangelists to 
 my interests. 
 
 We were so fortunate, despite my fears, as to find the 
 road nearly deserted as, alas, was much of the country on 
 either side and to meet none but small parties travelling 
 along it ; who were glad enough, seeing the villainous looks 
 of our outriders, to give us a wide berth, and be quit of us 
 for the fright. We skirted Lusignan, shunning the streets, 
 but passing near enough for me to point out to mademoi- 
 selle the site of the famous tower built, according to tradi- 
 tion, by the fairy Melusina, and rased thirteen years back 
 by the Leaguers. She received my information so frigidly, 
 however, that I offered no more, but fell back shrugging 
 my shoulders, and rode in silence, until, some two hours 
 after noon, the city of Poitiers came into sight, lying with- 
 in its circle of walls and towers on a low hill in the middle 
 of a country clothed in summer with rich vineyards, but 
 now brown and bare and cheerless to the eye.
 
 THE ROAD TO BLOfS 57 
 
 Fanchette turned and asked me abruptly if that were 
 Poitiers. 
 
 I answered that it was, but added that for certain reasons 
 I proposed not to halt, but to lie at a village a league be- 
 yond the city, where there was a tolerable inn. 
 
 'We shall do very well here,' the woman answered rudely. 
 'Any way, my lady will go no farther. She is tired and 
 cold, and wet besides, and has gone far enough.' 
 
 'Still,' I answered, nettled by the woman's familiarity, 
 'I think mademoiselle will change her mind when she hears 
 my reasons for going farther.' 
 
 'Mademoiselle does not wish to hear them, sir,' the lady 
 replied herself, and very sharply. 
 
 'Nevertheless, I think you had better hear them,' I per- 
 sisted, turning to her respectfully. 'You see, mademoi- 
 selle ' 
 
 'I see only one thing, sir,' she exclaimed, snatching off 
 her mask and displaying a countenance beautiful indeed, 
 but flushed for the moment with anger and impatience, 
 'that, whatever betides, I stay at Poitiers to-night.' 
 
 'If it would content you to rest an hour?' I suggested 
 gently. 
 
 'It will not content me! ' she rejoined with spirit. 'And 
 let me tell you, sir,' she went on impetuously, 'once for 
 all, that you take too much upon yourself. You are here 
 to escort me, and to give orders to these ragamuffins, for 
 they are nothing better, with whom you have thought fit to 
 disgrace our company; but not to give orders to me or to 
 control my movements. Confine yourself for the future, 
 sir, to your duties, if you please.' 
 
 'I desire only to obey you,' I answered, suppressing the 
 angry feelings which rose in my breast, and speaking as 
 coolly as lay in my power. 'But, as the first of my duties 
 is to provide for your safety, I am determined to omit 
 nothing whidh can conduce to that end. You have not con- 
 sidered that, if a party in pursuit of us reaches Poitiers 
 to-night, search will be made for us in the city, and we
 
 58 A GENTLEMAN- OF FRANCE 
 
 shall be taken. If, on the other hand, we are known to 
 have passed through, the hunt may go no farther ; certainly 
 will go no farther to-night. Therefore we must not, made- 
 moiselle, ' I added firmly, 'lie in Poitiers to-night.' 
 
 'Si ',' she exclaimed, looking at me, her face crimson 
 with wonder and indignation, 'do you dare to ?' 
 
 'I dare do my duty, mademoiselle,' I answered, plucking 
 up a spirit, though my heart was sore. 'I am a man old 
 enough to be your father, and with little to lose, or I had 
 not been here. I care nothing what you think or what 
 you say of me, provided I can do what I have undertaken 
 to do and place you safely in the hands of your friends. 
 But enough, mademoiselle, we are at the gate. If you will 
 permit me, I will ride through the streets beside you. We 
 shall so attract less attention.' 
 
 Without waiting for a permission which she was very 
 unlikely to give, I pushed my horse forward, and took my 
 place beside her, signing to Fanchette to fall back. The 
 maid obeyed, speechless with indignation; while mademoi- 
 selle flashed a scathing glance at me and looked round in 
 helpless anger, as though it was in her mind to appeal 
 against me even to the passers-by. But she thought better 
 of it, and contenting herself with muttering the word 'Im- 
 pertinent ' put on her mask with fingers which trembled, I 
 fancy, not a little. 
 
 A small rain was falling and the afternoon was well 
 advanced when we entered the town, but I noticed that, 
 notwithstanding this, the streets presented a busy and ani- 
 mated appearance, being full of knots of people engaged in 
 earnest talk. A bell was tolling somewhere, and near the 
 cathedral a crowd of no little size was standing, listening 
 to a man who seemed to be reading a placard or manifesto 
 attached to the wall. In another place a soldier, wearing 
 the crimson colours of the League, but splashed and stained 
 as with recent travel, was holding forth to a breathless 
 circle who seemed to hang upon his lips. A neighbouring 
 corner sheltered a handful of priests who whispered to-
 
 THE ROAD TO BLO1S 59 
 
 gether with gloomy faces. Many stared at us as we passed, 
 and some would have spoken; but I rode steadily on, in- 
 viting no converse. Nevertheless at the north gate I got 
 a rare fright ; for, though it wanted a full half-hour of sun- 
 set, the porter was in the act of closing it. Seeing us, he 
 waited grumbling until we came up, and then muttered, in 
 answer to my remonstrance, something about queer times 
 and wilful people having their way. I took little notice 
 of what he said, however, being anxious only to get 
 through the gate and leave as few traces of our passage 
 as might be. 
 
 As soon as we were outside the town I fell back, permit 
 ting Fanchette to take my place. For another league, 
 a long and dreary one, we plodded on in silence, horses and 
 men alike jaded and sullen, and the women scarcely able 
 to keep their saddles for fatigue. At last, much to my 
 relief, seeing that I began to fear I had taxed mademoi- 
 selle's strength too far, the long low buildings of the inn 
 at which I proposed to stay came in sight, at the crossing 
 of the road and river. The place looked blank and cheer- 
 less, for the dusk was thickening; but as we trailed one by 
 one into the courtyard a stream of firelight burst on us 
 from doors and windows, and a dozen sounds of life and 
 comfort greeted our ears. 
 
 Noticing that mademoiselle was benumbed and cramped 
 with long sitting, I would have helped her to dismount; 
 but she fiercely rejected my aid, and I had to content my- 
 self with requesting the landlord to assign the best accom- 
 modation he had to the lady and her attendant, and secure 
 as much privacy for them as possible. The man assented 
 very civilly and said all should be done; but I noticed that 
 his eyes wandered while I talked, and that he seemed to 
 have something on his mind. When he returned, after 
 disposing of them, it came out. 
 
 'Did you ever happen to see him, sir?' he asked with a 
 sigh; yet was there a smug air of pleasure mingled with 
 his melancholy.
 
 60 A GENTLEMAN. OF FRANCE 
 
 'See whom?' I answered, staring at him, for neither of 
 us had mentioned any one. 
 
 'The Duke, sir.' 
 
 I stared again between wonder and suspicion. 'The Duke 
 of Nevers is not in this part, is he? ' I said slowly. 'I heard 
 he was on the Brittany border, away to the westward.' 
 
 'Mon Dieu!' my host exclaimed, raising his hands in 
 astonishment. 'You have not heard, sir? ' 
 
 'I have heard nothing,' I answered impatiently. 
 
 'You have not heard, sir, that the most puissant and 
 illustrious lord the Duke of Guise is dead?' 
 
 'M. de Guise dead? It is not true! ' I cried astonished. 
 
 He nodded, however, several times with an air of great 
 importance, and seemed as if he would have gone on to 
 give me some particulars. But, remembering, as I fancied, 
 that he spoke in the hearing of half-a-dozen guests who sat 
 about the great fire behind me, and had both eyes and ears 
 open, he contented himself with shifting his towel to his 
 other arm and adding only, 'Yes, sir, dead as any nail. 
 The news came through here yesterday, and made a pretty 
 stir. It happened at Blois the day but one before Christ- 
 mas, if all be true.' 
 
 I was thunderstruck. This was news which might change 
 the face of France. 'How did it happen? ' I asked. 
 
 My host covered his mouth with his hand and coughed, 
 and, privily twitching my sleeve, gave me to understand 
 with some shamefacedness that he could not say more in 
 public. I was about to make some excuse to retire with 
 him, when a harsh voice, addressed apparently to me, 
 caused me to turn sharply. I found at my "elbow a tall 
 thin-faced monk in the habit of the Jacobin order. He had 
 risen from his seat beside the fire, and seemed to be labour- 
 ing under great excitement. 
 
 'Who asked how it happened?' he cried, rolling his eyes 
 in a kind of frenzy, while still observant, or I was much 
 mistaken, of his listeners. Is there a man J ''\ France to 
 whom the tale has not been told? Is there?'
 
 THE ROAD TO BLOIS 61 
 
 'I will answer for one,' I replied, regarding him with 
 little favour. 'I have heard nothing. 5 
 
 'Then you shall! Listen!' he exclaimed, raising his right 
 hand and brandishing it as though he denounced a person then 
 present. 'Hear my accusation, made in the name of Mother 
 Church and the saints against the arch hypocrite, the per- 
 jurer and assassin sitting in high places ! He shall_be An- 
 athema Maranatha, for he has shed the blood of the holy 
 and the pure, the chosen of Heaven ! He shall go down to 
 the pit, and that soon. The blood that he has shed shall 
 be required of him, and that before he is one year older.' 
 
 'Tut-tut. All that sounds very fine, good father/ I said, 
 taxing impatient, and a little scornful; for I saw that he 
 was one of those wandering and often crazy monks in 
 whom the League found their most useful emissaries. 'But 
 I should profit more by your gentle words, if I knew whom 
 you were cursing.' 
 
 'The man of blood!' he cried; 'through whom the last 
 but not the least of God's saints and martyrs entered into 
 glory on the Friday before Christmas.' 
 
 Moved by such profanity, and judging him, notwithstand- 
 ing the extravagance of his words and gestures, to be less 
 mad than he seemed, and at least as much knave as ft )\, I 
 bade Lira sternly have done with his cursing, and proceed 
 to his story if he had one. 
 
 He glowered at me for a moment, as though he were 
 minded to launch his spiritual weapons at my head; but 
 as I returned his glare with an unmoved eye and my four 
 rascals, who were as impatient as myself to learn the news, 
 and had scarce more reverence for a shaven crown, began 
 to murmur he thought better of it, and cooling as sud- 
 denly as he had flamed up, lost no more time in satisfying 
 our curiosity. 
 
 It would ill become me, however, to set down the ex- 
 travagant and often blasphemous harangue in which, styl- 
 ing M. de Guise the martyr of God, he told the story now 
 so familiar the story of that dark wintry morning at Blois,
 
 62 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE 
 
 when the king's messenger, knocking early at the duke's 
 door, bade him hurry, for the king wanted him. The story 
 is trite enough now. When I heard it first in the inn on 
 the Clain, it was all new and all marvellous. 
 
 The monk, too, telling the story as if he had seen the 
 events with his own eyes, omitted nothing which might 
 impress his hearers. He told us hqw the duke received 
 warning after warning, and answered in the very ante- 
 chamber, 'He dare not! ' How his blood, mysteriously 
 advised of coming dissolution, grew chill, and his eye, 
 wounded at Chateau Thierry, began to run, so that he had 
 to send for the handkerchief he had forgotten to bring. He 
 told us, even, how the duke drew his assassins up and down 
 the chamber, how he cried for mercy, and how he died at 
 last at the foot of the king's bed, and how the king, who had 
 never dared to face him living, came and spurned him dead ! 
 
 There were pale faces round the fire when he ceased, and 
 bent brows and lips hard pressed together. When he stood 
 and cursed the King of France cursing him openly by the 
 name of Henry of Valois, a thing I had never looked to 
 hear in France though no one said 'Amen/ and all glanced 
 over their shoulders, and our host pattered from the room 
 as if he had seen a ghost, it seemed to be no man's duty to 
 gainsay him. 
 
 For myself, I was full of thoughts which it would have 
 been unsafe to utter in that company or so near the Loire. 
 I looked back sixteen years. Who but Henry of Guise 
 had spurned the corpse of Coligny? And who but Henry 
 of Valois had backed him in the act? Who but Henry of 
 Guise had drenched Paris with blood, and who but Henry 
 of Valois had ridden by his side? One 23rd of the month 
 a day never to be erased from France's annals had pur- 
 chased for him a term of greatness. A second 23rd saw 
 him pay the price saw his ashes cast secretly and by night 
 no man knows where ! 
 
 Moved by such thoughts, and observing that the priest 
 was going the round of the company collecting money for
 
 THE ROAD TO BLOIS 63 
 
 masses for the duke's soul, to which object I could neither 
 give with a good conscience nor refuse without exciting 
 suspicion, I slipped out ; and finding a man of decent ap- 
 pearance talking with the landlord in a small room beside 
 the kitchen, I called for a flask of the best wine, and by 
 means of that introduction obtained my supper in their 
 company. 
 
 The stranger was a Norman horsedealer, returning home 
 after disposing of his string. He seemed to be in a large 
 way of business, and being of a bluff, independent spirit, 
 as many of those Norman townsmen are, was inclined at 
 first to treat me with more familiarity than respect; the 
 fact of my nag, for which he would have chaffered, excel- 
 ling my coat in quality, leading him to set me down as a 
 steward or intendant. The pursuit of his trade, however, 
 had brought him into connection with all classes of men, 
 and he quickly perceived his mistake; and as he knew the 
 provinces between the Seine and Loire to perfection, and 
 made it part of his business to foresee the chances of peace 
 and war, I obtained a great amount of information from 
 him, and indeed conceived no little liking for him. He 
 believed that the assassination of M. de Guise would alien- 
 ate so much of France from the king that his majesty would 
 have little left save the towns on the Loire, and some other 
 places lying within easy reach of his court at Blois. 
 
 'But,' I said, 'things seem quiet now. Here, for in- 
 stance.' 
 
 'It is the calm before the storm,' he answered. 'There 
 is a monk in there. Have you heard him? ' 
 
 I nodded. 
 
 : He is only one among a hundred a thousand,' the 
 horsedealer continued, looking at me and nodding with 
 meaning. He was a brown-haired man with shrewd grey 
 eyes, such as many Normans have. 'They will get their 
 way too, you will see,' he went on. 'Well, horses will go 
 up, so I have no cause to grumble; but, if I were on my 
 way to Blois with women or gear of that kind, I should
 
 64 A GENTLEMAN- OF FRANCE 
 
 not choose this time for picking posies on the road. I 
 should see the inside of the gates as soon as possible.' 
 
 I thought there was much in what he said; and when he 
 went on to maintain that the king would find himself be- 
 tween the hammer and the anvil between the League hold- 
 ing all the north and the Huguenots holding all the south 
 and must needs in time come to terms with the latter, 
 seeing that the former would rest content with nothing 
 short of his deposition, I began to agree with him that we 
 should shortly see great changes and very stirring times. 
 
 'Still if they depose the king,' I said, 'the King of Na- 
 varre must succeed him. He is the heir of France.' 
 
 'Bah! ' my companion replied somewhat contemptuously. 
 'The League will see to that. He goes with the other.' 
 
 'Then the kings are in one cry, and you are right,' I said 
 with conviction. 'They must unite.' 
 
 'So they will. It is only a question of time,' he said. 
 
 In the morning, having only one man with him, and, as 
 I guessed, a considerable sum of money, he volunteered to 
 join our party as far as Blois. I assented gladly, and he 
 did so, this addition to our numbers ridding me at once of 
 the greater part of my fears. I did not expect any oppo- 
 sition on the part of mademoiselle, who would gain in con- 
 sequence as well as in safety. Nor did she offer any. She 
 was content, I think, to welcome any addition to our party 
 which would save her from the necessity of riding in the 
 company of my old cloak. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 MY MOTHER'S LODGING. 
 
 TRAVELLING by way of Chatelherault and Tours, we 
 reached the neighbourhood of Blois a little after noon on 
 the third day without misadventure or any intimation of
 
 MY MOTHER'S LODGING 65 
 
 pursuit. The Norman proved himself a cheerful compan- 
 ion on the road, as I already knew him to be a man of sense 
 and shrewdness; while his presence rendered the task of 
 keeping my men in order an easy one. I began to consider 
 the adventure as practically achieved; and regarding Mad- 
 emoiselle de la Vire as already in effect transferred to the 
 care of M. de Rosny, I ventured to turn my thoughts to the 
 development of my own plans and the choice of a haven in 
 which I might rest secure from the vengeance of M. de 
 Turenne. 
 
 For the moment I had evaded his pursuit, and, assisted 
 by the confusion caused everywhere by the death of Guise, 
 had succeeded in thwarting his plans and affronting his 
 authority with seeming ease. But I knew too much of 
 his power and had heard too many instances of his fierce 
 temper and resolute will to presume on short impunity or 
 to expect the future with anything but diffidence and 
 dismay. 
 
 The exclamations of my companions on coming within 
 sight of Blois aroused me from these reflections. I joined 
 them, and fully shared their emotion as I gazed on the 
 stately towers which had witnessed so many royal festivi- 
 ties, and, alas! one royal tragedy; which had sheltered 
 Louis the Well-beloved and Francis the Great, and rung 
 with the laughter of Diana of Poitiers and the second 
 Henry. The play of fancy wreathed the sombre building 
 with a hundred memories grave and gay. But, though the 
 rich plain of the Loire still swelled upward as of old in 
 gentle homage at the feet of the gillant town, the shadow 
 of crime seemed to darken all, and dim even the glories of 
 the royal standard which hung idly in the air. 
 
 We had heard so many reports of the fear and suspicion 
 which reigned in the city and of the strict supervision which 
 was exercised over all who entered the king dreading a 
 repetition of the day of the Barricades that we halted at a 
 little inn a mile short of the gate and broke up our com- 
 pany. I parted from my Norman friend with mutual ex-
 
 66 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE 
 
 pressions of esteem, and from my own men, whom I had 
 paid off in the morning, complimenting each of them with 
 a handsome present, with a feeling of relief equally sin- 
 cere. I hoped but the hope was not fated to be gratified 
 that I might never see the knaves again. 
 
 It wanted less than an hour of sunset when I rode up to 
 the gate, a few paces in front of mademoiselle and her 
 woman ; as if I had really been the intendant for whom the 
 horse-dealer had mistaken me. We found the guardhouse 
 lined with soldiers, who scanned us very narrowly as we 
 approached, and whose stern features and ordered weapons 
 showed that they were not there for mere effect. The fact, 
 however, that we came from Tours, a city still in the king's 
 hands, served to allay suspicion, and we passed without 
 accident. 
 
 Once in the streets, and riding in single file between the 
 houses, to the windows of which the townsfolk seemed to 
 be attracted by the slightest commotion, so full of terror 
 was the air, I experienced a moment of huge relief. This 
 was Blois Blois at last. We were within a few score 
 yards of the Bleeding Heart. In a few minutes I should 
 receive a quittance, and be free to think only of myself. 
 ISTor was my pleasure much lessened by the fact that I was 
 so soon to part from Mademoiselle de la Vire. Frankly, 
 I was far from liking her. Exposure to the air of a court 
 had spoiled, it seemed to me, whatever graces of disposi- 
 tion the young lady had ever possessed. She still main- 
 tained, and had maintained throughout the journey, the 
 cold and suspicious attitude assumed at starting; nor had 
 she ever expressed the least solicitude on my behalf, or the 
 slightest sense that we were incurring danger in her ser- 
 vice. She had not scrupled constantly to prefer her whims 
 to the common advantage, and even safety ; while her sense 
 of self-importance had come to be so great, that she seemed 
 to hold herself exempt from the duty of thanking any 
 human creature. I could not deny that she was beautiful 
 indeed, I often thought, when watching her, of the day
 
 MY MOTHER'S LODGING 67 
 
 when I had seen her in the King of ^Navarre's antechamber 
 in all the glory of her charms. But I felt none the less 
 that I could turn my back on her leaving her in safety 
 without regret; and be thankful that her path would never 
 again cross mine. 
 
 With such thoughts in my breast I turned the corner of 
 the Rue de St. Denys and came at once upon the Bleeding 
 Heart, a small but decent-looking hostelry situate near the 
 end of the street and opposite a church. A bluff, grey- 
 haired man, who was standing in the doorway, came for- 
 ward as we halted, and looking curiously at mademoiselle 
 asked what I lacked; adding civilly that the house was 
 full and they had no sleeping room, the late events having 
 drawn a great assemblage to Blois. 
 
 'I want only an address,' I answered, leaning from the 
 saddle and speaking in a low voice that I might not be 
 overheard by the passers-by. 'The Baron de Rosny is in 
 Blois, is he not? ' 
 
 The man started at the name of the Huguenot leader, 
 and looked round him nervously. But, seeing that no one 
 was very near us, he answered: 'He was, sir; but he left 
 town a week ago and more. There have been strange 
 doings here, and M. de Rosny thought that the climate 
 suited him ill.' 
 
 He said this with so much meaning, as well as concern 
 that he should not be overheard, that, though I was taken 
 aback and bitterly disappointed, I succeeded in restraining 
 all exclamations and even show of feeling. After a pause 
 of dismay, I asked whither M. de Eosny had gone. 
 
 'To Rosny,' was the answer. 
 
 'And Rosny? ' 
 
 'Is beyond Chartres, pretty well all the way to Mantes/ 
 the man answered, stroking my horse's neck. 'Say thirty 
 leagues. ' 
 
 I turned my horse, and hurriedly communicated what he 
 said to mademoiselle, who was waiting a few paces away. 
 Unwelcome to me, the news was still less welcome to her. 
 
 F2
 
 68 A GENTLEMAN" OF FRANCE 
 
 Her chagrin and indignation knew no bounds. For a 
 moment words failed her, but her flashing eyes said more 
 than her tongue as she cried to me: 'Well, sir, and what 
 now? Is this the end of your fine promises? Where is 
 your Rosny, if all be not a lying invention of your own?' 
 
 Feeling that she had some excuse I suppressed my 
 choler, and humbly repeating that Kosny was at his house, 
 two days farther on, and that I could see nothing for it but 
 to go to him, I asked the landlord where we could find a 
 lodging for the night. 
 
 'Indeed, sir, that is more than I can say,' he answered, 
 looking curiously at us, and thinking, I doubt not, that 
 with my shabby cloak and fine horse, and mademoiselle's 
 mask and spattered riding-coat, we were an odd couple. 
 'There is not an inn which is not full to the garrets nay, 
 and the stables ; and, what is more, people are chary of 
 taking strangers in. These are strange times. They say,' 
 he continued in a lower tone, 'that the old queen is dying 
 up there, and will not last the night.' 
 
 I nodded. 'We must go somewhere,' I said. 
 
 'I would help you if I could,' he answered, shrug- 
 ging his shoulders. 'But there it is! Blois is full from 
 the tiles to the cellars.' 
 
 My horse shivered under me, and mademoiselle, whose 
 patience was gone, cried harshly to me to do something. 
 ' We cannot spend the night in the streets, ' she said fiercely. 
 
 I saw that she was worn out and scarcely mistress of her- 
 selt'. The light was falling, and with it some rain. The 
 reek of the kennels and the close air from the houses seemed 
 to stifle us. The bell at the church behind us was jangling 
 out vespers. A few people, attracted by the sight of our 
 horses standing before the inn, had gathered round and 
 were watching us. 
 
 Something I saw must be done, and done quickly. In 
 despair, and seeing no other resort, I broached a proposal 
 of which I had not hitherto even dreamed. 'Mademoiselle,' 
 I said bluntly, 'I must take you to my mother's.'
 
 69 
 
 'To your mother's, sir?' she cried, rousing herself. Her 
 voice rang with haughty surprise. 
 
 'Yes,' I replied brusquely; 'since, as you say, we cannot 
 spend the night in the streets, and I do not know where 
 else I can dispose of you. From the last advices I had I 
 believe her to have followed the court hither. My friend,' 
 I continued, turning to the landlord, 'do you know by name 
 a Madame de Bonne, who should be in Blois? ' 
 
 'A Madame de Bonne?' he muttered, reflecting. 'I have 
 heard the name lately. Wait a moment.' Disappearing 
 into the house, he returned almost immediately, followed 
 by a lanky pale-faced youth wearing a tattered black sou- 
 tane. 'Yes,' he said nodding, 'there is a worthy lady of 
 that name lodging in the next street, I am told. As it 
 happens, this young man lives in the same house, and will 
 guide you, if you like.' 
 
 I assented, and, thanking him for his information, turned 
 my horse and requested the youth to lead the way. We 
 had scarcely passed the corner of the street, however, and 
 entered one somewhat more narrow and less frequented, 
 when mademoiselle, vho was riding behind me, stopped and 
 railed jo jne. I drew rein, and, turning, asked what it was. 
 
 'I am not coming,' she said, her voice trembling slightly, 
 but whether with alarm or anger I could not determine. 'I 
 know nothing of you, and I I demand to be taken to M. 
 de Rosnj 7 .' 
 
 ' If you cry that name aloud in the streets of Blois, made- 
 moiselle,' I retorted, 'you are like enough to be taken 
 whither you will not care to go! As for M. de Eosny, I 
 have told you that he is not here. He has gone to his seat 
 at Mantes.' 
 
 ' Then take me to him ! ' 
 
 'At this hour of the night? ' I said drily. 'It is two 
 days' journey from here.' 
 
 'Then I will go to an inn,' she replied sullenly. 
 
 'You have heard that there is no room in the inns,' 1 re- 
 joined with what patience I could. 'And to go from inn to
 
 70 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE 
 
 inn at this hour might lead us into trouble. I can assure 
 you that I am as much taken aback by M. de Rosny's ab- 
 sence as you are. For the present, we are close to my 
 mother's lodging, and ' 
 
 'I know nothing of your mother! ' she exclaimed passion- 
 ately, her voice raised. 'You have enticed me hither by 
 false pretences, sir, and I will endure it no longer. I 
 will ' 
 
 'What you will do, I do not know then, mademoiselle,' I 
 replied, quite at my Avits' end; for what with the rain and 
 the darkness, the unknown streets in which our tarrying 
 might at any moment collect a crowd and this stubborn 
 girl's opposition, I knew not whither to turn. 'For my 
 part I can suggest nothing else. It does not become me to 
 speak of my mother,' I continued, 'or I might say that even 
 Mademoiselle de la Vire need not be ashamed to accept the 
 hospitality of Madame de Bonne. Nor are my mother's 
 circumstances,' I added proudly, 'though narrow, so mean 
 as to deprive her of the privileges of her birth.' 
 
 My last words appeared to make some impression upon 
 my companion. She turned and spoke to her woman, who 
 replied in a low voice, tossing her head the while and glar- 
 ing at me in speechless indignation. Had there been any- 
 thing else for it, they would doubtless have flouted my offer 
 still; but apparently Fanchette could suggest nothing, and 
 presently mademoiselle, with a sullen air, bade me lead on. 
 
 Taking this for permission, the lanky youth in the black 
 soutane, who had remained at my bridle throughout the dis- 
 cussion, now listening and now staring, nodded and resumed 
 his way; and I followed. After proceeding a little more 
 than fifty yards he stopped before a mean-looking doorway, 
 flanked by grated windows, and fronted by a lofty wall 
 which I took to be the back of some nobleman's garden. 
 The street at this point was unlighted, and little better 
 than an alley; nor was the appearance of the house, which 
 was narrow and ill-looking, though lofty, calculated, as far 
 as I could make it out in the darkness, to allay mademoi-
 
 MY MOTHER'S LODGING 71 
 
 selle's suspicions. Knowing, however, that people of posi- 
 tion are often obliged in towns to lodge in poor houses, I 
 thought nothing of this, and only strove to get mademoiselle 
 dismounted as quickly as possible. The lad groped about 
 and found two rings beside the door, and to these I tied up 
 the horses. Then, bidding him lead the way, and begging 
 mademoiselle to follow, I plunged into the darkness of the 
 passage and felt my way to the foot of the staircase, which 
 was entirely unlighted, and smelled close and unpleasant. 
 
 'Which floor? ' I asked my guide. 
 
 'The fourth,' he answered quietly. 
 
 'Morbleu! ' I muttered, as I began to ascend, my hand 
 on the wall. 'What is the meaning of this? ' 
 
 For I was perplexed. The revenues of Marsac, though 
 small, should have kept my mother, whom I had last seen 
 in Paris before the Nemours edict, in tolerable comfort 
 such modest comfort, at any rate, as could scarcely be 
 looked for in such a house as this obscure, ill-tended, un- 
 lighted. To my perplexity was added, before I reached 
 the top of the stairs, disquietude disquietude on her 
 account as well as on mademoiselle's. I felt that some- 
 thing was wrong, and would have given much to recall the 
 invitation I had pressed on the latter. 
 
 What the young lady thought herself I could pretty well 
 guess, as I listened to her hurried breathing at my shoulder. 
 With every step I expected her to refuse to go farther. 
 But, having once made up her mind, she followed me stub- 
 bornly, though the darkness was such that involuntarily I 
 loosened my dagger, and prepared to defend myself should 
 this turn out to be a trap. 
 
 We reached the top, however, without accident. Our 
 guide knocked softly at a door and immediately opened it 
 without waiting for an answer. A feeble light shone out 
 on the stair-head, and bending my head, for the lintel was 
 low, I stepped into the room. 
 
 I advanced two paces and stood looking about me in 
 angry bewilderment. The bareness of extreme poveny
 
 72 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE 
 
 marked everything on which my eyes rested. A cracked 
 earthenware lamp smoked and sputtered on a stool in the 
 middle of the rotting floor. An old black cloak nailed to 
 the wall, and flapping to and fro in the draught like some 
 dead gallowsbird, hung in front of the unglazed window. 
 A jar in a corner caught the drippings from a hole in the 
 roof. An iron pot and a second stool the latter casting a 
 long shadow across the floor stood beside the handful of 
 wood ashes, which smouldered on the hearth. And that 
 was all the furniture I saAV, except a bed which filled the 
 farther end of the long narrow room, and was curtained off 
 so as to form a kind of miserable alcove. 
 
 A glance sufficed to show me all this, and that the room 
 was empty, or apparently empty. Yet I looked again and 
 again, stupefied. At last finding my voice, I turned to the 
 young man who had brought us hither, and with a fierce 
 oath demanded of him what he meant. 
 
 He shrank back behind the open door, and yet answered 
 with a kind of sullen surprise that I had asked for Madame 
 de Bonne's, and this was it. 
 
 'Madame de Bonne's!' I muttered. 'This Madame de 
 Bonne's! ' 
 
 He nodded. 
 
 'Of course it is! And you know it!' mademoiselle 
 hissed in my ear, her voice, as she interposed, hoarse with 
 passion. 'Don't think that you can deceive us any longer. 
 We know all! This,' she continued, looking round, her 
 cheeks scarlet, her eyes ablaze with scorn, 'is your 
 mother's, is it! Your mother who has followed the court 
 hither whose means are narrow, but not so small as to 
 deprive her of the privileges of her rank! This is your 
 mother's hospitality, is it? You are a cheat, sir! and a 
 detected cheat! Let us begone! Let me go, sir, I say! ' 
 
 Twice I had tried to stop the current of her words; but 
 in vain. Now with anger which surpassed hers a hundred- 
 fold for who, being a man, would hear himself misnamed 
 before his mother? I succeeded. 'Silence, mademoiselle ! '
 
 SIMON FLEIX 73 
 
 I cried, my grasp on her wrist. ' Silence, I say ! This is 
 my mother ! ' 
 
 And running forward to the bed, I fell on my knees 
 beside it. A feeble hand had half withdrawn the curtain, 
 and through the gap my mother's stricken face looked out, 
 a great fear stamped upon it. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 SIMON FLEIX. 
 
 FOK some minutes I forgot mademoiselle in paying those 
 assiduous attentions to my mother which her state and my 
 duty demanded ; and which I offered the more anxiously 
 that I recognised, with a sinking heart, the changes which 
 age and illness had made in her since my last visit. The 
 shock of mademoiselle's words had thrown her into a syn- 
 cope, from which she did not recover for some time ; and 
 then rather through the assistance of our strange guide, 
 who seemed well aware what to do, than through my 
 efforts. Anxious as I was to learn what had reduced her 
 to such straits and such a place, this was not the time to 
 satisfy my curiosity, and I prepared myself instead for the 
 task of effacing the painful impression which mademoiselle's 
 words had made on her mind. 
 
 On first coming to herself she did not remember them, 
 but, content to find me by her side for there is something 
 so alchemic in a mother's love that I doubt not my presence 
 changed her garret to a palace she spent herself in feeble 
 caresses and broken words. Presently, however, her eye fall- 
 ing on mademoiselle and her maid, who remained standing 
 by the hearth, looking darkly at us from time to time, she 
 recalled, first the shock which had prostrated her, and then 
 its cause, and raising herself on her elbow, looked about 
 her wildly. ' Gaston ! ' she cried, clutching my hand with
 
 74 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE 
 
 her thin fingers, * what was it I heard ? It was of you 
 someone spoke a woman ! She called you or did I dream 
 it? a cheat ! You ! ' 
 
 ' Madame, madame,' I said, striving to speak carelessly, 
 though the sight of her grey hair, straggling and dishev- 
 elled, moved me strangely, ' was it likely ? Would anyone 
 dare to use such expressions of me in your presence ? 
 You must indeed have dreamed it ! ' 
 
 The words, however, returning more and more vividly to 
 her mind, she looked at me very pitifully, and in great agi- 
 tation laid her arm on my neck, as though she would shelter 
 me with the puny strength which just enabled her to rise 
 in bed. 'But someone,' she muttered, her eyes on the 
 strangers, 'said it, Gaston ? I heard it. What did it 
 mean ? ' 
 
 ' What you heard, madame,' I answered, with an attempt 
 at gaiety, though the tears stood in my eyes, * was, doubt- 
 less, mademoiselle here scolding our guide from Tours, who 
 demanded three times the proper pourboire. The impudent 
 rascal deserved all that was said to him, I assure you.' 
 
 ' Was that it ? ' she murmured doubtfully. 
 
 'That must have been what you heard, madame,' I an- 
 swered, as if I felt no doubt. 
 
 She fell back with a sigh of relief, and a little colour 
 came into her wan face. But her eyes still dwelt curiously, 
 and with apprehension, on mademoiselle, who stood looking 
 sullenly into the fire ; and seeing this my heart misgave me 
 sorely that I had done a foolish thing in bringing the girl 
 there. I foresaw a hundred questions which would be 
 asked, and a hundred complications which must ensue, 
 and felt already the blush of shame mounting to my 
 cheek. 
 
 ' Who is that ? ' my mother asked softly. ' I am ill. 
 She must excuse me.' She pointed with her fragile finger 
 to my companions. 
 
 I rose, and still keeping her hand in mine, turned so as 
 to face the hearth. ' This, madame/ I answered formally,
 
 SIMON FLEIX 75 
 
 ' is Mademoiselle , but her name I will commit to you 
 
 later, and in private. Suffice it to say that she is a lady 
 of rank, who has been committed to my charge by a high 
 personage.' 
 
 ' A high personage ? ' my mother repeated gently, glanc- 
 ing at me with a smile of gratification. 
 
 ' One of the highest,' I said. ' Such a charge being a 
 great honour to me, I felt that I could not better execute 
 it, madame, since we must lie in Blois one night, than by 
 requesting your hospitality on her behalf.' 
 
 I dared mademoiselle as I spoke I dared her with my 
 eye to contradict or interrupt me. For answer, she looked 
 at me once, inclining her head a little, and gazing at us 
 from under her long eyelashes. Then she turned back to 
 the fire, and her foot resumed its angry tapping on the floor. 
 
 ' I regret that I cannot receive her better,' my mother 
 answered feebly. ' I have had losses of late. I but I 
 will speak of that at another time. Mademoiselle doubt- 
 less knows,' she continued with dignity, 'you and your 
 position in the South too well to think ill of the momentary 
 straits to which she finds me reduced.' 
 
 I saw mademoiselle start, and I writhed under the glance 
 of covert scorn, of amazed indignation, which she shot at 
 me. But my mother gently patting my hand, I answered 
 patiently, ' Mademoiselle will think only what is kind, 
 madame of that I am assured. And lodgings are scarce 
 to-night in Blois.' 
 
 ' But tell me of yourself, Gaston,' my mother cried 
 eagerly; and I had not the heart, with her touch on my 
 hand, her eyes on my face, to tear myself away, much as 
 I dreaded what was coming, and longed to end the scene. 
 ' Tell me of yourself. You are still in favour with the king 
 of I will not name him here ? ' 
 
 ' Still, madame,' I answered, looking steadily at made- 
 moiselle, though my face burned. 
 
 1 You are still he consults you, Gaston ? " 
 
 * Still, madame.'
 
 76 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE 
 
 My mother heaved a happy sigh, and sank lower in the 
 bed. 'And your employments ? ' she murmured, her voice 
 trembling with gratification. ' They have not been re- 
 duced ? You still retain them, Gaston ? " 
 
 f Still, madame,' I answered, the perspiration standing on 
 my brow, my shame almost more than I could bear. 
 
 1 Twelve thousand livres a year, I think ? ' 
 
 ' The same, madame.' 
 
 ' And your establishment ? How many do you keep 
 now ? Your valet, of course ? And lackeys how many 
 at present ? ' She glanced, with an eye of pride, while she 
 waited for my answer, first at the two silent figures by the 
 fire, then at the poverty-stricken room ; as if the sight of 
 its bareness heightened for her the joy of my prosperity. 
 
 She had no suspicion of my trouble, my misery, or that 
 the last question almost filled the cup too full. Hitherto 
 all had been easy, but this seemed to choke me. I stam- 
 mered and lost my voice. Mademoiselle, her head bowed, 
 was gazing into the fire. Fanchette was staring at me, her 
 black eyes round as saucers, her mouth half-open. ' Well, 
 madame,' I muttered at length, ' to tell you the truth, at 
 present, you must understand, I have been forced to ' 
 
 ' What, Gaston ? ' Madame de Bonne half rose in bed. 
 Her voice was sharp with disappointment and apprehen- 
 sion ; the grasp of her fingers on my hand grew closer. 
 
 I could not resist that appeal. I flung away the last rag 
 of shame. ' To reduce my establishment somewhat,' I an- 
 swered, looking a miserable defiance at mademoiselle's 
 averted figure. She had called me a liar and a cheat here 
 in the room ! I must stand before her a liar and a cheat 
 confessed. ' I keep but three lackeys now, madame.' 
 
 ' Still it is creditable,' my mother muttered thoughtfully, 
 her eyes shining. ' Your dress, however, Gaston only my 
 eyes are weak seems to me ' 
 
 ' Tut, tut ! It is but a disguise,' I answered quickly. 
 
 ' I might have known that,' she rejoined, sinking back 
 with a smile and a sigh of content. f But when I first saw
 
 SIMON FLEIX 77 
 
 you I was almost afraid that something had happened to 
 you. And I have been uneasy lately,' she went on, releas- 
 ing my hand, and beginning to play with the coverlet, as 
 though the remembrance troubled her. ' There was a man 
 here a while ago a friend of Simon Meix there who had 
 been south to Pau and Nerac, and he said there was no 
 M. de Marsac about the Court.' 
 
 ' He probably knew less of the Court than the wine- 
 tavern,' I answered with a ghastly smile. 
 
 ' That was just what I told him,' my mother responded 
 quickly and eagerly. ' I warrant you I sent him away ill- 
 satisfied.' 
 
 ' Of course,' I said ; ' there will always be people of that 
 kind. But now, if you will permit me, madame, I will 
 make such arrangements for mademoiselle as are necessary.' 
 
 Begging her accordingly to lie down and compose her- 
 self for even so short a conversation, following on the 
 excitement of our arrival, had exhausted her to a painful 
 degree I took the youth, who had just returned from 
 stabling our horses, a little aside, and learning that he 
 lodged in a smaller chamber on the farther side of the 
 landing, secured it for the use of mademoiselle and her 
 woman. In spite of a certain excitability which marked 
 him at times, he seemed to be a quick, ready fellow, and he 
 willingly undertook to go out, late as it was, and procure 
 some provisions and a few other things which were sadly 
 needed, as well for my mother's comfort as for our own. 
 I directed Fanchette to aid him in the preparation of the 
 other chamber, and thus for a while I was left alone with 
 mademoiselle. She had taken one of the stools, and sat 
 cowering over the fire, the hood of her cloak drawn about 
 her head ; in such a manner that even when she looked at 
 me, which she did from time to time, I saw little more than 
 her eyes, bright with contemptuous anger. 
 
 ' So, sir,' she presently began, speaking in a low voice, 
 and turning slightly towards me, 'you practise lying even 
 here ? '
 
 78 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE 
 
 I felt so strongly the futility of denial or explanation that 
 I shrugged my shoulders and remained silent under the 
 sneer. Two more days two more days would take us to 
 Rosny, and my task would be done, and mademoiselle and 
 I would part for good and all. What would it matter then 
 what she thought of me ? What did it matter now ? 
 
 For the first time in our intercourse my silence seemed to 
 disconcert and displease her. 'Have you nothing to say for 
 yourself ? ' she muttered sharply, crushing a fragment of 
 charcoal under her foot, and stooping to peer at the ashes. 
 ' Have you not another lie in your quiver, M. de Marsac ? 
 De Marsac ! ' And she repeated the title, with a scornful 
 laugh, as if she put no faith in my claim to it. 
 
 But I would answer nothing nothing ; and we remained 
 silent until Fanchette, coming in to say that the chamber 
 was ready, held the light for her mistress to pass out. I 
 told the woman to come back and fetch mademoiselle's sup- 
 per, and then, being left alone with my mother, who had 
 fallen asleep, with a smile on her thin, worn face, I began 
 to wonder what had happened to reduce her to such dire 
 poverty. 
 
 I feared to agitate her by referring to it ; but later in the 
 evening, when her curtains were drawn and Simon Fleix and 
 I were left together, eyeing one another across the embers 
 like dogs of different breeds with a certain strangeness 
 and suspicion my thoughts recurred to the question ; and 
 determining first to learn something about my companion, 
 whose pale, eager face and tattered, black dress gave him 
 a certain individuality, I asked him whether he had come 
 from Paris with Madame de Bonne. 
 
 He nodded without speaking. 
 
 I asked him if he had known her long. 
 
 * Twelve months,' he answered. ' I lodged on the fifth, 
 madame on the second, floor of the same house in Paris.' 
 
 I leaned forward and plucked the hem of his black robe. 
 'What is this?' I said, with a little contempt. 'You are 
 not a priest, man.'
 
 SIMON FLEIX 79 
 
 ' No,' he answered, fingering the stuff himself, and gazing 
 at me in a curious, vacant fashion. ' I am a student of the 
 Sorbonne.' 
 
 I drew off from him with a muttered oath, wondering 
 while I looked at him with suspicious eyes how he came 
 to be here, and particularly how he came to be in attendance 
 on my mother, who had been educated from childhood in 
 the Eeligion, and had professed it in private all her life. I 
 could think of no one who, in old days, would have been 
 less welcome in her house than a Sorbonnist, and began 
 to fancy that here should lie the secret of her miserable 
 condition. 
 
 'You don't like the Sorbonne?' he said, reading my 
 thoughts ; which were, indeed, plain enough. 
 
 ' No more than I love the devil ! ' I said bluntly. 
 
 He leaned forward and, stretching out a thin, nervous 
 hand, laid it on my knee. 'What if they are right, though ?' 
 he muttered, his voice hoarse. 'What if they are right, M. 
 de Marsac?' 
 
 ' Who right ? ' I asked roughly, drawing back afresh. 
 
 'The Sorbonue,' he repeated, his face red with excite- 
 ment, his eyes peering uncannily into mine. ' Don't you 
 see,' he continued, pinching my knee in his earnestness, and 
 thrusting his face nearer and nearer to mine, ' it all turns 
 on that? It all turns on that salvation or damnation! 
 Are they right ? Are you right ? You say yes to this, no 
 to that, you white-coats; and you say it lightly, but are you 
 right ? Are you right ? Mon Dieu ! ' he continued, draw- 
 ing back abruptly and clawing the air with impatience, ' I 
 have read, read, read ! I have listened to sermons, theses, 
 disputations, and I know nothing. I know no more than 
 when I began.' 
 
 He sprang up and began to pace the floor, while I gazed 
 at him with a feeling of pity. A very learned person once 
 told me that the troubles of these times bred four kinds of 
 men, who were much to be compassionated : fanatics on the 
 one side or the other, who lost sight of all else in the
 
 80 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE 
 
 intensity of their faith ; men who, like Simon Fleix, sought 
 desperately after something to believe, and found it not; 
 and lastly, scoffers, who, believing in nothing, looked on all 
 religion as a mockery. 
 
 He presently stopped walking in his utmost excitement 
 I remarked that he never forgot my mother, but trod more 
 lightly when he drew near the alcove and spoke again. 
 
 ' You are a Huguenot ? ' he said. 
 
 'Yes/ I replied. 
 
 'So is she,' he rejoined, pointing towards the bed. 'But 
 do you feel no doubts ? ' 
 
 ' None,' I said quietly. 
 
 * Nor does she,' he answered again, stopping opposite me. 
 You made up your mind how ? ' 
 
 ' I was born in the Religion,' I said. 
 
 'And you have never questioned it ?' 
 
 'Never.' 
 
 'Nor thought much about it? J 
 
 ' Not a great deal,' I answered. 
 
 'Saint Gris !' he exclaimed in a low tone. ' And do you 
 never think of hell-fire of the worm which dieth not, and 
 the fire which shall not be quenched ? Do you never think 
 of that, M. de Marsac ? ' 
 
 'No, my friend, never!' I answered, rising impatiently ; 
 for at that hour, and in that silent, gloomy room I found 
 his conversation dispiriting. 'I believe what I was taught 
 to believe, and I strive to hurt no one but the enemy. I 
 think little ; and if I were you I would think less. ' I would 
 do something, man fight, play, work, anything but think ! 
 Leave that to clerks.' 
 
 ' I am a clerk,' he answered. 
 
 'A poor one, it seems,' I retorted, with a little scorn 
 in my tone. ' Leave it, man. Work ! Fight ! Do some- 
 thing ! ' 
 
 ' Fight ? ' he said, as if the idea were a novel one. 
 ' Fight ? But there, I might be kill ed ; and then hell-fire- 
 you see ! '
 
 SIMON FLEIX 8 1 
 
 * Zounds, man ! ' I cried, out of patience with a folly 
 which, to tell the truth, the lamp burning low, and the 
 rain pattering on the roof, made the skin of my back feel 
 cold and creepy. 'Enough of this! Keep your doubts 
 and your tire to yourself ! And answer me/ I continued, 
 sternly. 'How came Madame de Bonne so poor? How 
 did she come down to this place ? ' 
 
 He sat down on his stool, the excitement dying quickly 
 out of his fare. ' She gave away all her money,' he said 
 slowly and reluctantly. It may be imagined that this 
 answer surprised me. ' Gave it away? ' I exclaimed. 'To 
 whom ? And when ?' 
 
 He moved uneasily on his seat and avoided my eye, his 
 altered manner tilling me with saspicions which the insight 
 I had just obtained into his character did not altogether 
 preclude. At last he said, ' I had nothing to do with it, if 
 you mean that ; nothing. On the contrary, I have done all 
 I could to make it up to her. I followed her here. I swear 
 that is so, M. de Marsac/ 
 
 'You have not told me yet to whom she gave it/ I said 
 sternly. 
 
 ' She gave it,' he muttered, ' to a priest. 3 
 
 'To what priest?' 
 
 ' I do not know his name. He is a Jacobin.' 
 
 'And why?' I asked, gazing incredulously at the stu- 
 dent. ' Why did she give it to him ? Come, come ! have 
 a care. Let me have none of your Sorbonne inventions ! ' 
 
 He hesitated a moment, looking at me timidly, and then 
 seemed to make up his mind to tell me. ' He found out 
 it was when we lived in Paris, you understand, last June 
 that she was a Huguenot. It was about the time they 
 burned the Foucards, and he frightened her with that, and 
 made her pay him money, a little at first, and then more 
 and more, to keep her secret. When the king came to Blois 
 she followed his Majesty, thinking to be safer here; but 
 the priest came too, and got more money, and more, until 
 he left her this.'
 
 82 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE 
 
 ' This ! ' I said. And I set my teeth together. 
 
 Simon Fleix nodded. 
 
 I looked round the wretched garret to which my mother 
 had been reduced, and pictured the days and hours of fear 
 and suspense through which she had lived ; through which 
 she must have lived with that caitiff's threat hanging over 
 her grey head ! I thought of her birth and her humiliation , 
 of her frail form and patient, undying love for me ; and sol- 
 emnly, and before heaven, I swore that night to punish the 
 man. My anger was too great for words, and for tears I 
 was too old. I asked Simon Fleix no more questions, save 
 when the priest might be looked for again which he could 
 not tell me and whether he would know him again to 
 which he answered, 'Yes.' But, wrapping myself in my 
 cloak, I lay down by the fire and pondered long and sadly. 
 
 So, while I had been pinching there, my mother had been 
 starving here. She had deceived me, and I her. The lamp 
 flickered, throwing uncertain shadows as the draught tossed 
 the strange window-curtain to and fro. The leakage from 
 the roof fell drop by drop, and now and again the wind 
 shook the crazy building, as though it would lift it up 
 bodily and carry it away. 
 
 CHAPTER VIIL 
 
 AN EMPTY KOOM. 
 
 DESIRING to start as early as possible, that we might 
 reach Rosny on the second evening, I roused Simon Fleix 
 before it was light, and learning from him where the horses 
 were stabled, went out to attend to them ; preferring to do 
 this myself, that I might have an opportunity of seeking 
 out a tailor, and providing myself with clothes better suited 
 to my rank than those to which I had been reduced of late. 
 I found that I still had ninety crowns left of the sum which
 
 AN EMPTY ROOM 83 
 
 the King of Navarre had given me, and twelve of these I 
 laid out on a doublet of black cloth with russet points and 
 ribands, a dark cloak lined with the same sober colour, and 
 a new cap and feather. The tradesman would fain have 
 provided me with a new scabbard also, seeing my old one 
 was worn-out at the heel; but this I declined, having a 
 fancy to go with my point bare until I should have pun- 
 ished the scoundrel who had made my mother's failing days 
 a misery to her ; a business which, the King of Navarre's 
 once done, I promised myself to pursue with energy and at 
 all costs. 
 
 The choice of my clothes, and a few alterations which it 
 was necessary to make in them, detained me some time, so 
 that it was later than I could have wished when I turned 
 my face towards the house again, bent on getting my party 
 to horse as speedily as possible. The morning, I remember, 
 was bright, frosty, and cold; the kennels were dry, the 
 streets comparatively clean. Here and there a ray of early 
 sunshine, darting between the overhanging eaves, gave 
 promise of glorious travelling-weather. But the faces, I 
 remarked in my walk, did not reflect the surrounding cheer- 
 fulness. Moody looks met me everywhere and on every 
 side ; and while courier after courier galloped by me bound 
 for the castle, the townsfolk stood aloof in doorways listless 
 and inactive, or, gathering in groups in corners, talked what 
 I took to be treason under the breath. The queen-mother 
 still lived, but Orleans had revolted, and Sens and Mans, 
 Chartres and Melun. Rouen was said to be wavering, Lyons 
 in arms, while Paris had deposed her king, and cursed him 
 daily from a hundred altars. In fine, the great rebellion 
 which followed the death of Guise, and lasted so many 
 years, was already in progress ; so that on this first day of 
 the new year the king's writ scarce ran farther than he could 
 see, peering anxiously out from the towers above my head. 
 
 Beaching the house, I climbed the long staircase hastily, 
 abusing its darkness and foulness, and planning as I went 
 how my mother might most easily and quickly be moved to 
 
 o2
 
 84 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE 
 
 a better lodging. Gaining the top of the last flight, I saw 
 that mademoiselle's door on the left of the landing was 
 open, and concluding from this that she was up, and ready 
 to start, I entered my mother's room with a brisk step and 
 spirits reinforced by the crisp morning air. 
 
 But on the threshold. I stopped, and stood silent and 
 amazed. At first I thought the room was empty. Then, 
 at a second glance, I saw the student. He was on his knees 
 beside the bed in the alcove, from which the curtain had 
 been partially dragged away. The curtain before the win- 
 dow had been torn down also, and the cold light of day, 
 pouring in on the unsightly bareness of the room, struck a 
 chill to rny heart. A stool lay overturned by the fire, and 
 above it a grey cat, which I had not hitherto noticed, 
 crouched on a beam and eyed me with stealthy fierceness. 
 Mademoiselle was not to be seen, nor was Fanchette, and 
 Simon Fleix did not hear me. He was doing something at 
 the bed for my mother it seemed. 
 
 * What is it, man ? ' I cried softly, advancing on tiptoe 
 to the bedside. 'Where are the others ?' 
 
 The student looked round and saw me. His face was 
 pale and gloomy. His eyes burned, and yet there were 
 tears in them, and on his cheeks. He did not speak, but 
 the chilliness, the bareness, the emptiness of the room 
 spoke for him, and my heart sank. 
 
 I took him by the shoulders. ' Find your tongue, man ! ' 
 I said angrily. ' Where are they ? ' 
 
 He rose from his knees and stood staring at me. ' They 
 are gone ! * he said stupidly. 
 
 ( Gone ? } I exclaimed. * Impossible ! When ? Whither ?' 
 
 ' Half an hour ago. Whither I do not know.' 
 
 Confounded and amazed, I glared at him between fear 
 and rage. ' You do not know ? 3 I cried. ' They are gone, 
 and you do not know ? ' 
 
 He turned suddenly on me and gripped my arm. 'No, I 
 do not know ! I do not know ! ' he cried, with a complete 
 change of manner and in a tone of fierce excitement.
 
 AN EMPTY ROOM 85 
 
 *Only, may the fiend go with them ! But I do know this. 
 I know this, M. de Marsac, with whom they went, these 
 friends of yours I A fop came, a dolt, a fine spark, and 
 gave them line words and fine speeches and a gold token, 
 and, hey presto ! they went, and forgot yon ! ' 
 
 1 What ! ' I cri&d, beginning to understand, and snatching 
 fiercely at the one clue in his speech. ' A gold token ? They 
 have been decoyed away then ! There is no time to be lost. 
 I must follow.* 
 
 'No, for that is not all!* he replied, interrupting me 
 sternly, while his grasp on my arm grew tighter and his 
 eyes flashed as they looked into mine. 'You have not 
 heard all. They have gone with one who called you an 
 impostor, and a thief, and a beggar, and that to your 
 mother's face and killed her ! Killed her as surely as 
 if he had taken a sword to her, M. de Marsac 1 Will you, 
 after that, leave her for them ? ' 
 
 He spoke plainly. And yet> God forgive me, it was some 
 time before I understood him : before I took in the meaning 
 of his words, or could transfer my thoughts from the absent 
 to my mother lying on the bed before me. When I did do so, 
 and turned to her, and saw her still face and thin hair strag- 
 gling over the coarse pillow, then, indeed, the sight over- 
 came me. I thought no more of others for I thought her 
 dead ; and with a great and bitter cry I fell on my knees 
 beside her and hid my face. What, after all, was this head- 
 strong girl to me ? what were even kings and king's com- 
 missions to me beside her beside the one human being who 
 loved me still, the one being of my blood and name left, the 
 one ever-patient, ever-constant heart which for years had 
 beaten only for me ? For a while, for a few moments, I 
 was worthy of her- for I forgot all others. 
 
 Simon Fleix roused me at last from iny stupor, making 
 me understand that she was not dead, but in a deep swoon, 
 the result of the shock she had undergone. A leech, for 
 whom he had despatched a neighbour, came in as I rose, 
 and taking my place, presently restored her to conscious-
 
 86 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE 
 
 ness. But her extreme feebleness warned me not to hope 
 for more than a temporary recovery ; nor had I sat by her 
 long before I discerned that this last blow, following on so 
 many fears and privations, had reached a vital part, and that 
 she was even now dying. 
 
 She lay for a while with her hand in mine and her eyes 
 closed, but about noon, the student, contriving to give her 
 some broth, she revived, and, recognising me, lay for more 
 than an hour gazing at me with unspeakable content and 
 satisfaction. At the end of that time, and when I thought 
 she was past speaking, she signed to me to bend over her, 
 and whispered something, which at first I could not catch. 
 Presently I made it out to be, i She is gone The girl you 
 brought ? ' 
 
 Much troubled, I answered yes, begging her not to think 
 about the matter. I need not have feared, however, for 
 when she spoke again she did so without emotion, and 
 rather as one seeing clearly something before her. 
 
 ' When you find her, Gaston,' she murmured, ' do not be 
 angry with her. It was not her fault. She he deceived 
 her. See ! ' 
 
 I followed the direction rather of her eyes than her hand, 
 and found beneath the pillow a length of gold chain. ' She 
 left that ? ' I murmured, a strange tumult of emotions in my 
 breast. 
 
 ' She laid it there,' my mother whispered. ' And she 
 would have stopped him saying what he did ' a shudder 
 ran through my mother's frame at the remembrance of the 
 man's words, though her eyes still gazed into mine with 
 faith and confidence ' she would have stopped him, but she 
 could not, Gaston. And then he hurried her away.' 
 
 ' He showed her a token, madame, did he not ? ' I could 
 not for my life repress the question, so much seemed to 
 turn on the point. 
 
 1 A bit of gold,' my mother whispered, smiling faintly. 
 'Now let me sleep.' And, clinging always to my hand, 
 she closed her eyes.
 
 AN EMPTY ROOM 87 
 
 The student came back soon afterwards with some com- 
 forts for which I had despatched him, and we sat by her 
 until the evening fell, and far into the night. It was a 
 relief to me to learn from the leech that she had been ailing 
 for some time, and that in any case the end must have come 
 soon. She suffered no pain and felt no fears, but meeting 
 my eyes whenever she opened her own, or came out of the 
 drowsiness which possessed her, thanked God, I think, and 
 was content. As for me, I remember that room became, 
 for the time, the world. Its stillness swallowed up all the 
 tumults which filled the cities of France, and its one inter- 
 est the coming and going of a feeble breath eclipsed the 
 ambitions and hopes of a lifetime. 
 
 Before it grew light Simon Fleix stole out to attend to 
 the horses. When he returned he came to me and whis- 
 pered in my ear that he had something to tell me ; and my 
 mother lying in a quiet sleep at the time, I disengaged my 
 hand, and, rising softly, went with him to the hearth. 
 
 Instead of speaking, he held his fist before me and sud- 
 denly unclosed the fingers. ' Do you know it ? ' he said, 
 glancing at me abruptly. 
 
 I took what he held, and looking at it, nodded. It was a 
 knot of velvet of a peculiar dark red colour, and had formed, 
 as I knew the moment I set eyes on it, part of the fastening 
 of mademoiselle's mask. ' Where did you find it ? ' I mut- 
 tered, supposing that he had picked it up on the stairs. 
 
 ' Look at it ! ' he answered impatiently. ' You have not 
 looked.' 
 
 I turned it over, and then saw something which had 
 escaped me at first that the wider part of the velvet was 
 disfigured by a fantastic stitching, done very roughly and 
 rudely with a thread of white silk. The stitches formed 
 letters, the letters words. With a start I read, ' A moi I ' 
 and saw in a corner, in smaller stitches, the initials 
 < C. d. 1. V.' 
 
 I looked eagerly at the student. f Where did you find 
 this ? ' I said.
 
 88 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE 
 
 'I picked it up in the street/ he answered quietly, 'not 
 three hundred paces from here.' 
 
 I thought a moment. ' In the gutter, or near the wall ? ' 
 I asked. 
 
 ' Near the wall, to be sure,' 
 
 ' Under a window ? ' 
 
 1 Precisely,' he said. ' You may be easy ; I am not a fooL 
 I marked the place, M. de Marsac, and shall not forget it.' 
 
 Even the sorrow and solicitude I felt on my mother's be- 
 half feelings which had seemed a minute before to secure 
 me against all other cares or anxieties whatever were not 
 proof against this discovery. For I found myself placed 
 in a strait so cruel I must suffer either way. On the one 
 hand, I could not leave my mother ; I were a heartless 
 ingrate to do that. On the other, I could not, without 
 grievous pain, stand still and inactive while Mademoiselle 
 de la Vire, whom I had sworn to protect, and who was now 
 suffering through my laches and mischance, appealed to me 
 for help. For I could not doubt that this was what the 
 bow of velvet meant ; still less that it was intended for me, 
 since few save myself would be likely to recognise it, and she 
 would naturally expect me to make some attempt at pursuit. 
 
 And I could not think little of the sign. Remembering 
 mademoiselle's proud and fearless spirit, and the light in 
 which she had always regarded me, I augured the worst 
 from it. I felt assured that no imaginary danger and no 
 emergency save the last would have induced her to stoop so 
 low ; and this consideration, taken with the fear I felt that 
 she had fallen into the hands of Fresnoy, whom I believed 
 to be the person who had robbed me of the gold coin, filled 
 me with a horrible doubt which way my duty lay. I was 
 pulled, as it were, both ways. I felt my honour engaged 
 both to go and to stay, and while my hand went to my hilt, 
 and my feet trembled to be gone, my eyes sought my 
 mother, and my ears listened for her gentle breathing. 
 
 Perplexed and distracted, I looked at the student, and he 
 at me. ' You saw the man who took her away/ I muttered.
 
 Afi EMPTY ROOM 89 
 
 Hitherto, in my absorption on my mother's account, I had 
 put few questions, and let the matter pass as though it 
 moved me little and concerned me less. ' What was he 
 like ? Was he a big, bloated man, Simon, with his head 
 bandaged, or perhaps a wound on his face ? ' 
 
 'The gentleman who went away with mademoiselle, do 
 you mean ? ' he asked. 
 
 ' Yes, yes, gentleman if you like ! ' 
 
 c Not at all,' the student answered. e He was a tall young 
 gallant, very gaily dressed, dark-haired, and with a rich 
 complexion. I heard him tell her that he came from a 
 friend of hers too high to be named in public or in Blois. 
 He added that he brought a token from him ; and when 
 mademoiselle mentioned you she had just entered ma- 
 dame's room with her woman when he appeared ' 
 
 < He had watched me out, of course.' 
 
 ( Just so. Well, when she mentioned you, he swore you 
 were an adventurer, and a beggarly impostor, and what not, 
 and bade her say whether she thought it likely that her 
 friend would have entrusted such a mission, to such a man.' 
 
 ' And then she went with him ? ' 
 
 The student nodded. 
 
 ' Readily ? Of her own free-will ? ' 
 
 ' Certainly,' he answered. ' It seemed so to me. She 
 tried to prevent him speaking before your mother, but that 
 was all.' 
 
 On the impulse of the moment I took a step towards the 
 door ; recollecting my position, I turned back with a groan. 
 Almost beside myself, and longing for any vent for my 
 feelings, I caught the lad by the shoulder, where he stood 
 on the hearth, and sJiook him to and fro. 
 
 ' Tell me, man, what am I to do ?' I said between my 
 teeth. 'Speak! think! invent something !' 
 
 But he shook his head. 
 
 I let him go with a muttered oath, and sat down on a 
 stool by the bed and took my head between my hands* At 
 that very moment, however, relief came came from an un-
 
 90 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE 
 
 expected quarter. The door opened and the leech entered. 
 He was a skilful man, and, though much employed about 
 the Court, a Huguenot a fact which had emboldened 
 Simon Fleix to apply to him through the landlord of the 
 ' Bleeding Heart/ the secret rendezvous of the Religion in 
 Blois. When he had made his examination he was for 
 leaving, being a grave and silent man, and full of business, 
 but at the door I stopped him. 
 
 ' Well, sir ? ' I said in a low tone, my hand on his cloak. 
 
 ' She has rallied, and may live three days,' he answered 
 quietly. 'Four, it may be, and as many more as God 
 wills.' 
 
 Pressing two crowns into his hand, I begged him to call 
 daily, which he promised to do ; and then he went. My 
 mother was still dozing peacefully, and I turned to Simon 
 Fleix, my doubts resolved and my mind made up. 
 
 'Listen,' I said, 'and answer me shortly. We cannot 
 both leave ; that is certain. Yet I must go, and at once, to 
 the place where you found the velvet knot. Do you describe 
 the spot exactly, so that I may find it, and make no 
 mistake.' 
 
 He nodded, and after a moment's reflection answered, 
 
 ' You know the Rue St. Denys, M. de Mar sac ? Well, go 
 down it, keeping the "Bleeding Heart" on your left. Take 
 the second turning on the same side after passing the inn. 
 The third house from the corner, on the left again, consists 
 of a gateway leading to the Hospital of the Holy Cross. 
 Above the gateway are two windows in the lower story, and 
 above them two more. The knot lay below the first win- 
 dow you come to. Do you understand ? ' 
 
 'Perfectly,' I said. 'It is something to be a clerk, 
 Simon.' 
 
 He looked at me thoughtfully, but added nothing ; and I 
 was busy tightening my sword-hilt, and disposing my cloak 
 about the lower part of my face. When I had arranged 
 this to my satisfaction, I took out and counted over the 
 sum of thirty -five crowns, which I gave to him, impressing
 
 AN EMPTY ROOM 91 
 
 on him the necessity of staying beside my mother should I 
 not return ; for though I proposed to reconnoitre only, and 
 learn if possible whether mademoiselle was still in Blois, 
 the future was uncertain, and whereas I was known to my 
 enemies, they were strangers to me. 
 
 Having enjoined this duty upon him, I bade my mother a 
 silent farewell, and, leaving the room, went slowly down 
 the stairs, the picture of her worn and patient face going 
 with me, and seeming, I remember, to hallow the purpose I 
 had in my mind. 
 
 The clocks were striking the hour before noon as I 
 stepped from the doorway, and, standing a moment in the 
 lane, looked this way and that for any sign of espionage. 
 I could detect none, however. The lane was deserted ; and 
 feeling assured that any attempt to mislead my opponents, 
 who probably knew Blois better than I did, must fail, I 
 made none, but deliberately took my way towards the 
 'Bleeding Heart,' in the Eue St. Denys. The streets pre- 
 sented the same appearance of gloomy suspense which I 
 had noticed on the previous day. The same groups stood 
 about in the same corners, the same suspicious glances 
 met me in common with all other strangers who showed 
 themselves; the same listless inaction characterised the 
 townsfolk, the same anxious hurry those who came and 
 went with news. I saw that even here, under the walls of 
 the palace, the bonds of law and order were strained almost 
 to bursting, and judged that if there ever was a time in 
 France when right counted for little, and the strong hand 
 for much, it was this. Such a state of things was not 
 unfavourable to my present design, and caring little for 
 suspicious looks, I went resolutely on my way. 
 
 I had no difficulty in finding the gateway of which Simon 
 had spoken, or in identifying the window beneath which 
 he had picked up the velvet knot. An alley opening almost 
 opposite, I took advantage of this to examine the house at 
 my leisure, and remarked at once, that whereas the lower 
 window was guarded only by strong shutters, now open,
 
 92 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE 
 
 that in the story above was heavily barred. Naturally 1 
 concentrated my attention on the latter. The house, an 
 old building of stone, seemed sufficiently reputable, nor 
 could I discern anything about it which would have aroused 
 my distrust had the knot been found elsewhere. It bore 
 the arms of a religious brotherhood, and had probably at 
 one time formed the principal entrance to the hospital, 
 which still stood behind it, but it had now come, as I 
 judged, to be used as a dwelling of the better class. 
 Whether the two floors were separately inhabited or not I 
 failed to decide. 
 
 After watching it for some time without seeing anyone 
 pass in or out, or anything occurring to enlighten me one 
 way or the other, I resolved to venture in, the street being 
 quiet and the house giving no sign of being strongly garri- 
 soned. The entrance lay under the archway, through a 
 door on the right side. I judged from what I saw that 
 the porter was probably absent, busying himself with his 
 gossips in matters of State. 
 
 And this proved to be the case, for when I had made the 
 passage of the street with success, and slipped quietly in 
 through the half-open door, I found only his staff and 
 charcoal-pan there to represent him. A single look satisfied 
 me on that point; forthwith, without hesitation, I turned to 
 the stairs and began to mount, assured that if I would 
 effect anything single-handed I must trust to audacity and 
 surprise rather than to caution or forethought. 
 
 The staircase was poorly lighted by loopholes looking 
 towards the rear, but it was clean and well-kept. Silence, 
 broken only by the sound of my footsteps, prevailed through- 
 out the house,, and all seemed so regular and decent and 
 orderly that the higher I rose the lower fell my hopes of 
 success. Still, I held resolutely on until I reached the -eefr- 
 ond floor and stood before a closed door. The moment had 
 come to put all to the touch. I listened for a few seconds, 
 but hearing nothing, cautiously lifted the latch. Somewhat 
 to my surprise the door yielded to my hand, and I entered.
 
 AN EMPTY ROOM 93 
 
 A high settle stood inside, interrupting my view of the 
 room, which seemed to be spacious and full of rich stuffs 
 and furniture, but low in the roof, and somewhat dimly 
 lighted by two windows rather wide than high. The warm 
 glow of a fire shone on the woodwork of the ceiling, and as 
 I softly closed the door a log on the hearth gave way, with 
 a crackling of sparks, which pleasantly broke the luxurious 
 silence. The next moment a low, sweet voice asked, ' Al- 
 phonse, is that you ? ' 
 
 I walked round the settle and came face to face with a 
 beautiful woman reclining on a couch. On hearing the door 
 open she had raised herself on her elbow. Now, seeing a 
 stranger before her, she sprang up with a low cry, and stood 
 gazing at me, her face expressing both astonishment and 
 anger. She was of middling height, her features regular 
 though somewhat childlike, her complexion singularly fair. 
 A profusion of golden hair hung in disorder about her neck, 
 and matched the deep blue of her eyes, wherein it seemed 
 to me, there lurked more spirit and fire than the general cast 
 of her features led one to expect. 
 
 After a moment's silence, during which she scanned me 
 from head to foot with great haughtiness and I her with 
 curiosity and wonder she spoke, < Sir ! ' she said slowly, 
 'to what am I to attribute this visit ?' 
 
 For the moment I was so taken aback by her appearance 
 and extraordinary beauty, as well as by the absence of any 
 sign of those I sought, that I could not gather my thoughts 
 to reply, but stood looking vaguely at her. I had expected, 
 when I entered the room, something so different from this ! 
 
 ' Well, sir? ' she said again, speaking sharply, and tapping 
 her foot on the floor. 
 
 1 This visit, madame ? ' I stammered. 
 
 ' Call it intrusion, sir, if you please ! ' she cried imperi- 
 ously. * Only explain it, or begone.' 
 
 *I crave leave to do both, madame,' I answered, collecting 
 myself by an effort. ' I ascended these stairs and opened 
 your door in error that is the simple fact hoping to find
 
 94 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE 
 
 a friend of mine here. I was mistaken, it seems, and it only 
 remains for me to withdraw, offering at the same time the 
 humblest apologies.' And as I spoke I bowed low and pre- 
 pared to retire. 
 
 1 One moment, sir ! ' she said quickly, and in an altered 
 tone. { You are, perhaps, a friend of M. de Bruhl of my 
 husband. In that case, if you desire to leave any message 
 I will I shall be glad to deliver it.' 
 
 She looked so charming that, despite the tumult of my 
 feelings, I could not but regard her with admiration. 'Alas ! 
 madame, I cannot plead that excuse,' I answered. 'I regret 
 that I have not the honour of his acquaintance.' 
 
 She eyed me with some surprise. ' Yet still, sir,' she 
 answered, smiling a little, and toying with a gold brooch 
 which clasped her habit, ' you must have had some ground, 
 some reason, for supposing you would find a friend here ?' 
 
 ' True, madame,' I answered, ' but I was mistaken.' 
 
 I saw her colour suddenly. With a smile and a faint 
 twinkle of the eye she said, ' It is not possible, sir, I sup- 
 pose you have not come here, I mean, out of any reason 
 connected with a a knot of velvet, for instance ? ' 
 
 I started, and involuntarily advanced a step towards her. 
 ' A knot of velvet ! ' I exclaimed, with emotion. ' Mon Dieu ! 
 Then I was not mistaken ! I have come to the right house, 
 and you you know something of this ! Madame,' I con- 
 tinued impulsively, ' that knot of velvet ? Tell me what it 
 means, I implore you ! ' 
 
 She seemed alarmed by my violence, retreating a step or 
 two, and looking at me haughtily, yet with a kind of shame- 
 facedness. 'Believe me, it means nothing,' she said hur- 
 riedly. ' I beg you to understand that, sir. It was a foolish 
 jest.' 
 
 'A jest?' I said. 'It fell from this window.' 
 
 ' It was a jest, sir/ she answered stubbornly. But I could 
 see that, with all her pride, she was alarmed; her face was 
 troubled, and there were tears in her eyes. And this ren- 
 dered me under the circumstances only the more persistent.
 
 AN EMPTY ROOM 95 
 
 'I have the velvet here, madame,' I said. ' You must tell 
 me more about it.' 
 
 She looked at me with a weightier imp ulse of anger than 
 she had yet exhibited. ' I do not think 3 ou know to whom 
 you are speaking,' she said, breathing fast. 'Leave the 
 room, sir, and at once ! I have told you it was a jest. If 
 you are a gentleman you will believe me, and go.' And she 
 pointed to the door. 
 
 But I held my ground, with an obstinate determination 
 to pierce the mystery. 'I am a gentleman, madame,' I 
 said, ' and yet I must know more. Until I know more I 
 cannot go.' 
 
 ' Oh, this is insufferable ! ' she cried, looking round as if 
 for a way of escape ; but; I was between her and the only 
 door. ' This is unbearable ! The knot was never intended 
 for you, sir. And what is more, if M. de Bruhl come and 
 find you here, you will repent it bitterly.' 
 
 I saw that she was at least as much concerned on her 
 own account as on mine, and thought myself justified under 
 the circumstances in taking advantage of her fears. I 
 deliberately laid my cap on the table which stood beside 
 me. 'I will go, madame,' I said, looking at her fixedly, 
 ' when I know all that you know about this knot I hold, 
 and not before. If you are unwilling to tell me, I must 
 wait for M. de Bruhl, and ask him.' 
 
 She cried out ' Insolent ! ' and looked at me as if in her 
 rage and dismay she would gladly have killed me ; being, I 
 could see, a passionate woman. But I held my ground, 
 and after a moment she spoke. 'What do you want to 
 know ? ' she said, frowning darkly. 
 
 ' This knot how did it come to lie in the street below 
 your window ? I want to know that first.' 
 
 'I dropped it,' she answered sullenly. 
 
 'Why?' I said. 
 
 ' Because ' And then she stopped and looked at me, 
 
 and then again looked down, her face crimson. ' Because, 
 if you must know,' she continued hurriedly, tracing a
 
 96 A GENTLEMAN- OF FRANCE 
 
 pattern on the table with her finger, 'I saw it bore the 
 words "A moi." I have been married only two months, 
 and I thought my husband might find it and bring it to 
 me. It was a silly fancy/ 
 
 ' But where did you get it ? * I asked, and I stared at her 
 in growing wonder and perplexity. For the more questions 
 I put, the further, it seemed to me, I strayed from my object. 
 
 'I picked it up in the Ruelle d'Arcy,' she answeredj 
 lapping her foot on the floor resentfully. ' It was the silly 
 thing put it into my head to to do what I did. And now, 
 have you any more questions, sir ? ' 
 
 'One only,' I said, seeing it all clearly enough. 'Will 
 you tell me, please, exactly where you found it ? ' 
 
 ' I have told you. In the Ruelle d'Arcy, ten paces from 
 the Rue de Valois. Now, sir, will you go ? ' 
 
 'One word, madam e. Did ' 
 
 But she cried, ' Go, sir, go I go ! ' so violently, that after 
 making one more attempt to express my thanks, I thought 
 it better to obey her. I had learned all she knew ; I had 
 solved the puzzle. But, solving it, I found myself no 
 nearer to the end I had in view, no nearer to mademoiselle. 
 I closed the door with a silent bow, and began to descend 
 the stairs, my mind full of anxious doubts and calculations. 
 The velvet knot was the only clue I possessed, but was I 
 right in placing any dependence on it ? I knew now that, 
 wherever it had originally lain, it had been removed once. 
 If once, why not twice ? why not three times ? 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 THE HOUSE IW THE RTJELLE 
 
 I HAD not gone down half a dozen steps before I heard 
 a man enter the staircase from the street, and begin to 
 ascend. It struck me at once that this might be M. de
 
 THE HOUSE IN THE RUELLE D^ARCY 97 
 
 Bruhl ; and I realised that. I had not left madame's apart- 
 ment a moment too soon. The last thing I desired, having 
 so much on my hands, was to embroil myself with a 
 stranger, and accordingly I quickened my pace, hoping to 
 meet him so near the foot of the stairs as to leave him in 
 doubt whether I had been visiting the upper or lower part 
 of the house. The staircase was dark, however, and being 
 familiar with it, he had the advantage over me. He came 
 leaping up two steps at a time, and turning the angle 
 abruptly, surprised me before I was clear of the upper flight. 
 
 On seeing ine, he stopped short and stared ; thinking at 
 first, I fancy, that he ought to recognise me. When he did 
 not, he stood back a pace. ' Umph ! ' he said. ' Have you 
 been have you any message for me, sir ? ' 
 
 'No/ I said, <I have not.' 
 
 He frowned. * I am M. de Bruhl,' he said. 
 
 ' Indeed ? ' I muttered, not knowing what else to say. 
 
 { You have been ' 
 
 ' Up your stairs, sir ? Yes. In error,' I answered bluntly. 
 
 He gave a kind of grunt at that, and stood aside, incred- 
 ulous and dissatisfied, yet uncertain how to proceed. I met 
 his black looks with a steady countenance, and passed by 
 him, becoming aware, however, as I went on down the stairs 
 that he had turned and was looking after me. He was a tall, 
 handsome man, dark, and somewhat ruddy of complexion, 
 and was dressed in the extreme of Court fashion, in a suit 
 of myrtle-green trimmed with sable. He carried also a 
 cloak lined with the same on his arm. Beyond looking 
 back when I reached the street, to see that he did not fol- 
 low me, I thought no more of him. But we were to meet 
 again, and often. Nay, had I then known all that was to 
 
 be known I would have gone back and But of that in 
 
 another place. 
 
 The Eue de Valois, to which a tradesman, who was peer- 
 ing cautiously out of his shop, directed ine, proved to be 
 one of the main streets of the city, narrow and dirty, and 
 darkened by overhanging eaves and signboards, but full of
 
 98 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE 
 
 noise and bustle. One end of it opened on the parvis of 
 the Cathedral ; the other and quieter end appeared to abut 
 on the west gate of the town. Feeling the importance of 
 avoiding notice in the neighbourhood of the house I sought, 
 I strolled into the open space in front of the Cathedral, and 
 accosting two men who stood talking there, learned that the 
 Euelle d'Arcy was the third lane on the right of the Rue 
 de Valois, and some little distance along it. Armed with 
 this information I left them, and with my head bent down, 
 and my cloak drawn about the lowor part of my face, as if 
 I felt the east wind, I proceeded down the street until I 
 reached the opening of the lane. Without looking up I 
 turned briskly into it. 
 
 When I had gone ten paces past the turning, however, I 
 stopped and, gazing about me, began to take in my sur- 
 roundings as fast as I could. The lane, which seemed little 
 frequented, was eight or nine feet wide, unpaved, and full 
 of ruts. The high blank wall of a garden rose on one side 
 of it, on the other the still higher wall of a house ; and 
 both were completely devoid of windows, a feature which I 
 recognised with the utmost dismay. For it completely 
 upset all my calculations. In vain '.[ measured with my eye 
 the ten paces I had come ; in vain I looked up, looked this 
 way and that. I was nonplussed. No window opened on 
 the lane at that point, nor, indeed, throughout its length. 
 For it was bounded to the end, as far as I could see, by 
 dead-walls as of gardens. 
 
 Recognising, with a sinking heart, what this meant, I saw 
 in a moment that all the hopes I had raised on Simon Fleix's 
 discovery were baseless. Mademoiselle had dropped the 
 velvet bow, no doubt, but not from a window. It was still 
 a clue, but one so slight and vague as to be virtually useless, 
 proving only that she was in trouble and in need of help ; 
 perhaps that she had passed through this lane on her way 
 from one place of confinement to another. 
 
 Thoroughly baffled and dispirited, I leant for awhile 
 against the wall, brooding over the ill-luck which seemed
 
 THE HOUSE IN THE RUELLE D^ARCY 99 
 
 to attend me in this, as in so many previous adventures. 
 Nor was the low voice of conscience, suggesting that such 
 failures arose from mismanagement rather than from ill- 
 luck, slow to make itself heard. I reflected that if I had 
 not allowed myself to be robbed of the gold token, made- 
 moiselle would have trusted me ; that if I had not brought 
 her to so poor an abode as my mother's, she would not have 
 been cajoled into following a stranger; finally, that if I 
 had remained with her, and sent Simon to attend to the 
 horses in my place, no stranger would have gained access 
 to her. 
 
 But it has never been my way to accept defeat at the 
 first offer, and though I felt these self-reproaches to be well 
 deserved, a moment's reflection persuaded me that in the 
 singular and especial providence which had brought the 
 velvet knot safe to my hands I ought to find encour- 
 agement. Had Madame de Bruhl not picked it up it would 
 have continued to lie in this by-path, through which neither 
 I nor Simon Fleix would have been likely to pass. Again, 
 had madame not dropped it in her turn, we should have 
 sought in vain for any, even the slightest, clue to Made- 
 moiselle de la Vire's fate or position. 
 
 Cheered afresh by this thought, I determined to walk to 
 the end of the lane ; and forthwith did so, looking sharply 
 about me as I went, but meeting no one. The bare upper 
 branches of a tree rose here and there above the walls, 
 which were pierced at intervals by low, strong doors. These 
 doors I carefully examined, but without making any dis- 
 covery ; all were securely fastened, and many seemed to 
 have been rarely opened. Emerging at last and without 
 result on the inner side of the city ramparts, I turned, and 
 moodily retraced my steps through the lane, proceeding more 
 slowly as I drew near to the Rue de Valois. This time, 
 being a little farther from the street, I made a discovery. 
 
 The corner house, which had its front on the Rue Valois, 
 presented, as I have said, a dead, windowless wall to the 
 lane ; but from my present standpoint I could see the upper 
 
 H 2
 
 ioo A GENTLEMAN' OF FRANCE 
 
 part of the back of this house that part of the back, I mean, 
 which rose above the lower garden-wall that abutted on it 
 and in this there were several windows. The whole of 
 two and a part of a third were within the range of my eyes ; 
 and suddenly in one of these I discovered something which 
 made iny heart beat high with hope and expectation. The 
 window in question was heavily grated ; that which I saw 
 was tied to one of the bars. It was a small knot of some 
 white stuff linen apparently and it seemed a trifle to the 
 eye ; but it was looped, as far as I could see from a dis- 
 tance, after the same fashion as the scrap of velvet I had in 
 my pouch. 
 
 The conclusion was obvious, at the same time that it in- 
 spired me with the liveliest admiration of mademoiselle's 
 wit and resources. She was confined in that room; the 
 odds were that she was behind those bars. A bow dropped 
 thence would fall, the wind being favourable, into the lane, 
 not ten, but twenty paces from the street. I ought to have 
 been prepared for a slight inaccuracy in a woman's estimate 
 of distance. 
 
 It may be imagined with what eagerness I now scanned 
 the house, with what minuteness I sought for a weak place. 
 The longer I looked, however, the less comfort I derived 
 from my inspection. I saw before me a gloomy stronghold 
 of brick, four-square, and built in the old Italian manner, 
 with battlements at the top, and a small machicolation, 
 little more than a string-course, above each story ; this 
 serving at once to lessen the monotony of the dead-walls, 
 and to add to the frowning weight of the upper part. The 
 windows were few and small, and the house looked damp 
 and mouldy ; lichens clotted the bricks, and moss filled the 
 string-courses. A low door opening from the lane into the 
 garden naturally attracted my attention - ; but it proved to be 
 of abnormal strength, and bolted both at the top and bottom. 
 
 Assured that nothing could be done on that side, and 
 being unwilling to remain longer in the neighbourhood, lest 
 I should attract attention, I returned to the street, and
 
 THE HOUSE IN THE RUELLE D^ARCY 101 
 
 twice walked past the front of the house, seeing all I could 
 with as little appearance of seeing anything as I could 
 compass. The front retreated, somewhat from the line of 
 the street, and was flanked on the farther side by stables. 
 Only one chimney smoked, and that sparely. Three steps 
 led up to imposing double doors, which stood half open, and 
 afforded a glimpse of a spacious hall and a state staircase. 
 Two men, apparently servants, lounged on the steps, eating 
 chestnuts, and jesting with one another; and above the 
 door were three shields blazoned in colours. I saw with 
 satisfaction, as I passed the second time, that the middle 
 coat was that of Turenne impaling one which I could not 
 read which thoroughly satisfied me that the bow of velvet 
 had not lied; so that, without more ado, I turned home- 
 wards, formulating my plans as I went. 
 
 I found all as I had left it ; and my mother still lying in 
 a half-conscious state, I was spared the pain of making 
 excuses for past absence, or explaining that which I de- 
 signed. I communicated the plan I had formed to Simon 
 Fleix, who saw no difficulty in procuring a respectable 
 person to stay with Madame de Bonne. But for some 
 time he would come no farther into the business. He 
 listened, his mouth open and his eyes glittering, to my plan 
 until I came to his share in it ; and then he fell into a 
 violent fit of trembling. 
 
 < You want me to fight, monsieur,' he cried reproachfully, 
 shaking all over like one in the palsy. 'You said so the 
 other night. You want to get me killed ! That's it.' 
 
 ' Nonsense ! ' I answered sharply. ' I want you to hold 
 the horses 1 ' 
 
 He looked at me wildly, with a kind of resentment in his 
 face, and yet as if he were fascinated. 
 
 * You will drag me into it ! ' he persisted. ' You will ! ' 
 
 ' I won't,' I said. 
 
 'You will! You will! And the end I know. I shall 
 have no chance. I am a clerk, and not bred to fighting. 
 You want to be the death of me ! ' he cried excitedly.
 
 102 A GENTLEMAN- OF FRANCE 
 
 'I don't want you to fight,' I answered with some con- 
 tempt. 'I would rather that you kept out of it for my 
 mother's sake. I only want you to stay in the lane and 
 hold the horses. You will run little more risk than you do 
 sitting by the hearth here.' 
 
 And in the end I persuaded him to do what I wished ; 
 though still, whenever he thought of what was in front of 
 him, he fell a-trembling again, and many times during the 
 afternoon got up and walked to and fro between the window 
 and the hearth, his face working and his hands clenched 
 like those of a man in a fever. 1 put this down at first to 
 sheer chicken-heartedness, and thought it augured ill for 
 my enterprise ; but presently remarking that he made no 
 attempt to draw back, and that though the sweat stood on 
 his brow he set about such preparations as were necessary 
 remembering also how long and kindly, and without pay 
 or guerdon, he had served my mother, I began to see that 
 here was something phenomenal ; a man strange and beyond 
 the ordinary, of whom it was impossible to predicate what 
 he would do when he came to be tried. 
 
 For myself, I passed the afternoon in a state almost of 
 apathy. I thought it my duty to make this attempt to free 
 mademoiselle, and to make it at once, since it was impossi- 
 ble to say what harm might come of delay, were she in such 
 hands as Fresnoy's ; but I had so little hope of success that 
 I regarded the enterprise as desperate. The certain loss of 
 my mother, however, and the low ebb of my fortunes, with 
 the ever-present sense of failure, contributed to render me 
 indifferent to r-sks ; and even when we were on our way, 
 through by-streets known to Simon, to the farther end of 
 the Kuelle d'Arcy, and the red and frosty sunset shone in 
 our faces, and gilded for a moment the dull eaves and grey 
 towers above us, I felt no softening. Whatever the end, 
 there was but one in the world whom I should regret, or 
 who would regret me ; and she hung, herself, on the verge 
 of eternity. 
 
 So that I was able to give Simon Fleix his last directions
 
 THE HOUSE. IN THE RUELLE D^ARCY 103 
 
 with as much coolness as I ever felt in my life. I stationed 
 him with the three horses in the lane which seemed as 
 quiet and little frequented as in the morning near the end 
 of it, and about a hundred paces or more from the house. 
 
 ' Turn their heads towards the ramparts/ I said, wheeling 
 them round myself, ' and then they will be ready to start. 
 They are all quiet enough. You can let the Cid loose. And 
 now listen to me, Simon,' I continued. ' Wait here until you 
 see me return, or until you see you are going to be attacked. 
 In the first case, stay for me, of course ; in the second, save 
 yourself as you please. Lastly, if neither event occurs be- 
 fore half-past five you will hear the convent-bell yonder 
 ring at ,the half-hour begone, and take the horses ; they 
 are yours. And one word more,' I added hurriedly. 'If 
 you can only get away with one horse, Simon, take the Cid. 
 It is worth more than most men, and will not fail you at a 
 pinch.' 
 
 As I turned away, I gave him one look to see if he under- 
 stood. It was not without hesitation that after that look I 
 left him. The lad's face was flushed, he was breathing hard, 
 his eyes seemed to be almost starting from his head. He 
 sat his horse shaking in every limb, and had all the air of a 
 man in a fit. I expected him to call me back ; but he did 
 not, and reflecting that I must trust him, or give up the at- 
 tempt, I went up the lane with my sword under my arm, 
 and my cloak loose on my shoulders. I met a man driving 
 a donkey laden with faggots. I saw no one else. It was 
 already dusk between the walls, though light enough in the 
 open country ; but that was in my favour, my only regret 
 being that as the town gates closed shortly after half-past 
 five, I could not defer my attempt until a still later hour. 
 
 Pausing in the shadow of the house while a man might 
 count ten, I impressed on my memory the position of the 
 particular window which bore the knot ; then I passed 
 quickly into the street, which was still full of movement, 
 and for a second, feeling myself safe from observation in 
 the crowd, I stood looking at the front of the house. The
 
 104 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE 
 
 door was shut. My heart sank when I saw this, for I had 
 looked to find it still open. 
 
 The feeling, however, that I could not wait, though time 
 might present more than one opportunity, spurred me on. 
 What I could do I must do now, at once. The sense that 
 this was so being heavy upon me, I saw nothing for it but 
 to use the knocker and gain admission, by fraud if I could, 
 and if not, by force. Accordingly I stepped briskly across 
 the kennel, and made for the entrance. 
 
 When I was within two paces of the steps, however, 
 someone abruptly threw the door open and stepped out. 
 The man did not notice me, and I stood quickly aside, hoping 
 that at the last minute my chance had come. Two men, 
 who had apparently attended this first person downstairs, 
 stood respectfully behind him, holding lights. He paused 
 a moment on the steps to adjust his cioak, and with more 
 than a little surprise I recognised my acquaintance of the 
 morning, M. de Bruhl. 
 
 I had scarcely time to identify him before he walked 
 down the steps swinging his cane, brushed carelessly past 
 me, and was gone. The two men looked after him. awhile, 
 shading their lights from the wind, and one saying some- 
 thing, the other laughed coarsely. The next moment they 
 threw the door to and went, as I saw by the passage of 
 their light, into the room on the left of the hall. 
 
 Now was my time. I could have hoped for, prayed for,, 
 expected no better fortune than this. The door had re- 
 bounded slightly from the jamb, and stood open an inch or 
 more. In a second I pushed it from me gently, slid into the 
 hall, and closed it behind me. 
 
 The door of the room on the left was wide open, and the 
 light which shone through the doorway otherwise the hall 
 was dark as well as the voices of the two men I had seen, 
 warned me to be careful. I stood, scarcely daring to breathe, 
 and looked about me. There was no matting on the floor, 
 no fire on the hearth. The hall felt cold, damp, and unin- 
 habited. The state staircase rose in front of me, and pres-
 
 THE HOUSE IN THE RUELLE D^ARCY 105 
 
 ently bifurcating, formed a gallery round the place. I 
 looked up, and up, and far above me, in the dim heights of the 
 second floor, I espied a faint light perhaps, the reflection 
 of a light. 
 
 A movement in the room on my left warned me that I 
 had no time to lose, if I meant to act. At any minute one 
 of the men might come out and discover me. With the 
 utmost care I started on my journey. I stole across the 
 stone floor of the hall easily and quietly enough, but I 
 found the real difficulty begin when I came to the stairs. 
 They were of wood, and creaked and groaned under me to 
 such an extent that, with each step I trod, I expected the 
 men to take the alarm. Fortunately all went well until I 
 passed the first corner I chose, of course, the left-hand 
 flight then a board jumped under my foot with a crack 
 which sounded in the empty hall, and to my excited ears, 
 as loud as a pistol-shot. I was in two minds whether I 
 should not on the instant make a rush for it, but happily 
 I stood still. One of the men came out and listened, and I 
 heard the other ask, with an oath, what it was. I leant 
 against the wall, holding my breath. 
 
 < Only that wench in one of her tantrums ! ' the man who 
 had come out answered, applying an epithet to her which 
 I will not set down, but which I carried to his account in 
 the event of our coming face to face presently. ' She is 
 quiet now. She may hammer and hammer, but ' 
 
 The rest I lost, as he passed through the doorway and 
 went back to his place by the fire. But in one way his 
 words were of advantage to me. I concluded that I need 
 not be so very cautious now, seeing that they would set 
 down anything they heard to the same cause ; and I sped 
 on more quickly. I had just gained the second floor land- 
 ing when a loud noise below the opening of the street 
 door and the heavy tread of feet in the hall brought me 
 to a temporary standstill. I looked cautiously over the 
 balustrade, and saw two men go across to the room on the 
 left. One of them spoke as he entered, chiding the other
 
 io6 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE 
 
 knaves, I fancied, for leaving the door unbarred ; and the 
 tone, though not the words, echoing sullenly up the stair- 
 case, struck a familiar chord in my memory. The voice was 
 Fresnoy's 1 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 THE FIGHT ON THE STAIKS. 
 
 THE certainty, which this sound gave me, that I was in 
 the right house, and that it held also the villain to whom 
 I owed all my misfortunes for who but Fresnoy could 
 have furnished the broken coin which had deceived made- 
 moiselle ? had a singularly inspiriting effect upon me. 
 I felt every muscle in my body grow on the instant hard as 
 steel, my eyes more keen, my ears sharper all my senses 
 more apt and vigorous. I stole off like a cat from the 
 balustrade, over which I had been looking, and without a 
 second's delay began the search for mademoiselle's room ; 
 reflecting that though the garrison now amounted to four, 
 I had no need to despair. If I could release the prisoners 
 without noise which would be easy were the key in the 
 lock we might hope to pass through the hall by a tour de 
 force of one kind or another. And a church-clock at this 
 moment striking Five, and reminding me that we had only 
 half an hour in which to do all and reach the horses, I was 
 the more inclined to risk something. 
 
 The light which I had seen from below hung in a flat- 
 bottomed lantern just beyond the head of the stairs, and 
 outside the entrance to one of two passages which appeared 
 to lead to the back part of the house. Suspecting that 
 M. de Bruhl's business had lain with mademoiselle, I 
 guessed that the light had been placed for his convenience. 
 With this clue and the position of the window to guide me, 
 I fixed on a door on the right of this passage, and scarcely 
 four paces from the head of the stairs. Before I made any
 
 THE FIGHT ON THE STAIRS 107 
 
 sign, however, I knelt down and ascertained that there was 
 a light in the room, and also that the key was not in the 
 lock. 
 
 So far satisfied, I scratched 011 the door with my finger- 
 nails, at first softly, then with greater force, and presently 
 I heard someone in the room rise. I felt sure that the per- 
 son, whoever it was, had taken the alarm and was listening, 
 and putting my lips to the keyhole I whispered made- 
 moiselle's name. 
 
 A footstep crossed the room sharply, and I heard mut- 
 tering just within the door. I thought I detected two 
 voices. But I was impatient, and, getting no answer, whis- 
 pered in the same manner as before, < Mademoiselle de la 
 Vire, are you there ? ' 
 
 Still no answer. The muttering, too, had stopped, and 
 all was still in the room, and in the silent house. I tried 
 again. ' It is I, Gaston de Marsac,' I said. ' Do you hear ? 
 I am come to release you.' I spoke as loudly as I dared, 
 but most of the sound seemed to come back on me and 
 wander in suspicious murmurings down the staircase. 
 
 This time, however, an exclamation of surprise rewarded 
 me, and a voice, which I recognised at once as made- 
 moiselle's, answered softly: 
 
 ' What is it ? Who is there ? ' 
 
 ' Gaston de Marsac/ I answered. * Do you need my 
 help ? ' 
 
 The very brevity of her reply ; the joyful sob which 
 accompanied it, and which I detected even through the 
 door: the wild cry of thankfulness almost an oath of 
 her companion all these assured me at once that I was 
 welcome welcome as I had never been before and, so 
 assuring me, braced me to the height of any occasion which 
 might befall. 
 
 ' Can you open the door ? ' I muttered. All the time I 
 was on my knees, my attention divided between the inside 
 of the room and the stray sounds which now and then came 
 up to me from the hall below. ' Have you the key ? '
 
 jo8 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE 
 
 ' No ; we are locked in,' mademoiselle answered. 
 
 I expected this. ' If the door is bolted inside,' I whis- 
 pered, ' unfasten it, if you please.' 
 
 They answered that it was not, so bidding them stand 
 back a little from it, I rose and set my shoulder against it. 
 I hoped to be able to burst it in with only one crash, which 
 by itself, a single sound, might not alarm the men down- 
 stairs. But my weight made no impression upon the lock, 
 and the opposite wall being too far distant to allow me to 
 get any purchase for my feet, I presently desisted. The 
 closeness of the door to the jambs warned me that an 
 attempt to prise it open would be equally futile ; and for 
 a moment I stood gazing in perplexity at the solid planks, 
 which bid fair to baffle me to the end. 
 
 The position was, indeed, one of great difficulty, nor can 
 I now think of any way out of it better or other than that 
 which I adopted. Against the wall near the head of the 
 stairs I had noticed, as I came up, a stout wooden stool. 
 I stole out and fetched this, and setting it against the 
 opposite wall, endeavoured in this way to get sufficient 
 purchase for my feet. The lock still held ; but, as I threw 
 my whole weight on the door, the panel against which 
 I leaned gave way and broke inwards Avith a loud, crashing 
 sound, which echoed through the empty house, and might 
 almost have been heard in the street outside. 
 
 It reached the ears, at any rate, of the men sitting below, 
 and I heard them troop noisily out and stand in the hall, 
 now talking loudly, and now listening. A minute of breath- 
 less suspense followed it seemed a long minute ; and then, 
 to my relief, they tramped back again, and I was free to 
 return to my task. Another thrust, directed a little lower, 
 would, I hoped, do the business ; but to make this the more 
 certain I knelt down and secured the stool firmly against 
 the wall. As I rose after settling it, something else, with- 
 out sound or warning, rose also, taking me completely by 
 surprise a man's head above the top stair, which, as it 
 happened, faced me. His eyes met mine, and I knew I was 
 discovered.
 
 THE FIGHT ON THE STAIRS 109 
 
 He turned and bundled downstairs again with a scared 
 face, going so quickly that I could not have caught him if 
 I would, or had had the wit to try. Of silence there was 
 no longer need. In a few seconds the alarm would be 
 raised. I had small time for thought. Laying myself 
 bodily against the door, I heaved and pressed with all my 
 strength ; but whether I was careless in my haste, or the 
 cause was other, the lock did not give. Instead the stool 
 slipped, and I fell with a crash on the floor at the very 
 moment the alarm reached the men below. 
 
 I remember that the crash of my unlucky fall seemed to 
 release all the prisoned noises of the house. A faint scream 
 within the room was but a prelude, lost the next moment 
 in the roar of dismay, the clatter of weapons, and volley of 
 oaths and cries and curses which, rolling up from below, 
 echoed hollowly about me, as the startled knaves rushed to 
 their weapons, and charged across the flags and up the stair- 
 case. I had space for one desperate effort. Picking my- 
 self up, I seized the stool by two of its legs and dashed it 
 twice against the door, driving in the panel I had before 
 splintered. But that was all. The lock held, and I had 
 no time for a third blow. The men were already halfway 
 up the stairs. In a breath almost they would be upon me. 
 I flung down the useless stool and snatched up my sword, 
 which lay unsheathed beside me. So far the matter had 
 gone against us, but it was time for a change of weapons 
 now, and the end was not yet. I sprang to the head of the 
 stairs and stood there, my arm by my side and my point 
 resting on the floor, in such an attitude of preparedness as 
 I could compass at the moment. 
 
 For I had not been in the house all this time, as may 
 well be supposed, without deciding what I would do in 
 ease of surprise, and exactly where I could best stand on 
 the defensive. The flat bottom of the lamp which hung 
 outside the passage threw a deep shadow on the spot im- 
 mediately below it, while the light fell brightly on the steps 
 beyond. Standing in the shadow I could reach the edge of
 
 1 10 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE 
 
 the stairs with my point, and swing the blade freely, with- 
 out fear of the balustrade ; and here I posted myself with a 
 certain grim satisfaction as Fresnoy, with his three com- 
 rades behind him, came bounding up the last flight. 
 
 They were four to one, but I laughed to see how, not 
 abruptly, but shamefacedly and by degrees, they came to a 
 stand halfway up the flight, and looked at me, measuring 
 the steps and the advantage which the light shining in 
 their eyes gave me. Fresnoy's ugly face was rendered 
 uglier by a great strip of plaister which marked the place 
 where the hilt of my sword had struck him in our last en- 
 counter at Chize ; and this and the hatred he bore to me 
 gave a peculiar malevolence to his look. The deaf man, 
 Matthew, whose savage stolidity had more than once ex- 
 cited my anger on our journey, came next to him. the two 
 strangers whom I had seen in the hall bringing up the 
 rear. Of the four, these last seemed the most anxious to 
 come to blows, and had Fresnoy not barred the way with 
 his hand we should have crossed swords without parley. 
 
 ' Halt, will you ! ' iie cried, with an oath, thrusting one of 
 them back. And then to me he said, ' So, so, my friend ! 
 It is you, is it ? ' 
 
 I looked at him in silence, with a scorn which knew no 
 bounds, and did not so much as honour him by raising my 
 sword, though I watched him needfully. 
 
 ' What are you doing here ? ' he continued, with an 
 attempt at bluster. 
 
 Still I would not answer him, or move, but stood looking 
 down at him. After a moment of this, he grew restive, his 
 temper being churlish and impatient at the best. Besides, 
 I think he retained just so much of a gentleman's feelings 
 as enabled him to understand my contempt and smart under 
 it. He moved a step upward, his brow dark with passion. 
 
 'You beggarly son of a scarecrow!' he broke out on a 
 sudden, adding a string of foul imprecations, 'will you 
 speak, or are you going to wait to be spitted where you 
 stand ? If we once begin, my bantam, we shall not stop
 
 THE FIGHT ON THE STAIRS ill 
 
 until we have done your business ! If you have anything 
 
 to say, say it, and ' But I omit the rest of his speech, 
 
 which was foul beyond the ordinary. 
 
 Still I did not move or speak, but looked at him unwaver- 
 ing, though it pained me to think the women heard. He 
 made a last attempt. ' Come, old friend,' he said, swallowing 
 his anger again, or pretending to do so, and speaking with 
 a vile bonhomie which I knew to be treacherous, 'if we 
 come to blows we shall give you no quarter. But one 
 chance you shall have, for the sake of old days when we 
 followed Conde. Go ! Take the chance, and go. We will 
 let you pass, and that broken door shall be the worst of it. 
 That is more,' he added with a curse, ' than I would do for 
 any other man in your place, M. de Marsac.' 
 
 A sudden movement and a low exclamation in the room 
 behind me showed that his words were heard there; and 
 these sounds being followed immediately by a noise as of 
 riving wood, mingled with the quick breathing of someone 
 hard at work, I judged that the women were striving with 
 the door enlarging the opening it might be. I dared not 
 look round, however, to see what progress they made, nor 
 did I answer Fresnoy, save by the same silent contempt, 
 but stood watching the men before me with the eye of a 
 fencer about to engage. And I know nothing more keen, 
 more vigilant, more steadfast than that. 
 
 It was well I did, for without signal or warning the 
 group wavered a moment, as though retreating, and the 
 next instant precipitated itself upon me. Fortunately, 
 only two could engage me at once, and Fresnoy, I noticed, 
 was not of the two who dashed forward up the steps. . One 
 of the strangers forced himself to the front, and, taking the 
 lead, pressed me briskly, Matthew seconding him. in 
 appearance, while really watching for an opportunity ot 
 running in and stabbing me at close quarters, a manoeuvre 
 I was not slow to detect. 
 
 That first bout lasted half a minute only. A fierce exult- 
 ant joy ran through me as the steel rang and grated, and I
 
 112 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE 
 
 found that I had not mistaken the strength of wrist or 
 position. The men were mine. They hampered one 
 another on the stairs, and fought in fetters, being unable 
 to advance or retreat, to lunge with freedom, or give back 
 without fear. I apprehended greater danger from Matthew 
 than from my actual opponent, and presently, watching my 
 opportunity, disarmed the latter by a strong parade, and 
 sweeping Matthew's sword aside by the same movement, 
 slashed him across the forehead ; then, drawing back a step, 
 gave my first opponent the point. He fell in a heap on the 
 floor, as good as dead, and Matthew, dropping his sword, 
 staggered backwards and downwards into Fresnoy's arms. 
 
 ' Bonne Foi ! France et Bonne Foi ! ' It seemed to me 
 that I had not spoken, that I had plied steel in grimmest 
 silence ; and yet the cry still rang and echoed in the roof 
 as I lowered my point, and stood looking grimly down at 
 them. Fresnoy's face was disfigured with rage and 
 chagrin. They were now but two to one, for Matthew, 
 though his wound was slight, was disabled by the blood 
 which ran down into his eyes and blinded him. ' France et 
 Bonne Foi ! ' 
 
 ' Bonne Foi and good sword ! ' cried a voice behind me. 
 And looking swiftly round, I saw mademoiselle's face thrust 
 through the hole in the door. Her eyes sparkled with a 
 fierce light, her lips were red beyond the ordinary, and her 
 hair, loosened and thrown into disorder by her exertions, 
 fell in thick masses about her white cheeks, and gave her 
 the aspect of a war-witch, such as they tell of in my country 
 of Brittany. ' Good sword ! ' she cried again, and clapped 
 her hands. 
 
 ' But better board, mademoiselle ! ' I answered gaily. 
 Like most of the men of my province, I am commonly melan- 
 cholic, but I have the habit of growing witty at such times as 
 these. ' Now, M. Fresnoy,' I continued, ' I am waiting your 
 convenience. Must I put on my cloak to keep myself warm ? ' 
 
 He answered by a curse, and stood looking at me irreso- 
 lutely. ' If you will come down,' he said.
 
 THE FIGHT ON THE STAIRS 113 
 
 'Send your man away and I will come/ I answered 
 briskly. ' There is space on the landing, and a moderate 
 light. But I must be quick. Mademoiselle and I are due 
 elsewhere, and we are late already.' 
 
 Still he hesitated. Still he looked at the man lying at 
 his feet who had stretched himself out and passed, quietly 
 enough, a minute before and stood dubious, the most pitia- 
 ble picture of cowardice and malice he being ordinarily a 
 stout man I ever saw. I called him poltroon and white- 
 feather, and was considering whether I had not better go 
 down to him, seeing that our time must be up, and Simon 
 would be quitting his post, when a cry behind me caused 
 me to turn, and I saw that mademoiselle was no longer 
 looking through the opening in the door. 
 
 Alarmed on her behalf, as I reflected thai tKert might be 
 other doors to the room, and the men have other accom- 
 plices in the house, I sprang to the door to see, but had 
 barely time to send a single glance round the interior 
 which showed me only that the room was still occupied 
 before Fresnoy, taking advantage of my movement and of 
 my back being turned, dashed up the stairs, with his com- 
 rade at his heels, and succeeded in penning me into the 
 narrow passage where I stood. 
 
 I had scarcely time, indeed, to turn and put myself on 
 guard before he thrust at me. Nor was that all. The supe- 
 riority in position no longer lay with me. I found myself 
 fighting between walls close to the opening in. the door, 
 through which the light fell athwart my eyes, baffling and 
 perplexing me. Fresnoy was not slow to see the aid this 
 gave him, and pressed me hard and desperately ; so that 
 we played for a full minute at close quarters, thrusting and 
 parrying, neither of us having room to use the edge, or time 
 to utter word or prayer. 
 
 At this game we were so evenly matched that for a time 
 the end was hard to tell. Presently, however, there came 
 a change. My opponent's habit of wild living suited ill 
 with a prolonged bout, and as his strength and breath failed
 
 114 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE 
 
 and he began to give ground I discerned I had only to wear 
 him out to have him at my mercy. He felt this himself, 
 and even by that light I saw the sweat spring in great drops 
 to his forehead, saw the terror grow in his eyes. Already 
 I was counting him a dead man and the victory mine, when 
 something flashed behind his blade, and his comrade's pon- 
 iard, whizzing past his shoulder, struck me fairly on the 
 chin, staggering me and hurling me back dizzy and half- 
 stunned, uncertain what had happened to me. 
 
 Sped an inch lower it would have done its work and fin- 
 ished mine. Even as it was, my hand going up as I reeled 
 back gave Fresnoy an opening, of which he was not slow to 
 avail himself. He sprang forward, lunging at me furiously, 
 and would have run me through there and then, and ended 
 the matter, had not his foot, as he advanced, caught in the 
 stool, which still lay against the wall. He stumbled, his 
 point missed my hip by a hair's breadth, and he himself 
 fell all his length on the floor, his rapier breaking off short 
 at the hilt. 
 
 His one remaining backer stayed to cast a look at him, 
 and that was all. The man fled, and I chased him as far as 
 the head of the stairs ; where I left him, assured by the 
 speed and agility he displayed in clearing flight after flight 
 that I had nothing to fear from him. Fresnoy lay, ap- 
 parently stunned, and completely at my mercy. I stood 
 an instant looking down at him, in two minds whether I 
 should not run him through. But the memory of old days, 
 when he had played his part in more honourable fashion and 
 shown a coarse good-fellowship in the field, held my hand; 
 and flinging a curse at him, I turned in anxious haste to the 
 door, the centre of all this bloodshed and commotion. The 
 light still shone through the breach in the panel, but for 
 some minutes since Fresnoy' s rush up the stairs, indeed 
 I had heard no sound from this quarter. Now, looking in 
 with apprehensions which grew with the continuing silence, 
 I learned the reason. The room was empty! 
 
 Such a disappointment in the moment of triumph was
 
 THE FIGHT ON THE STAIRS 115 
 
 hard to bear. I saw myself, after all done and won, on the 
 point of being again outwitted, distanced, it might be fooled. 
 In frantic haste and excitement I snatched up the stool be- 
 side me, and, dashing it twice against the lock, forced it at 
 last to yield. The door swung open, and I rushed into the 
 room, which, abandoned by those who had so lately occupied 
 it, presented nothing to detain me. I cast a single glance 
 round, saw that it was squalid, low-roofed, unfurnished, a 
 mere prison; then swiftly crossing the floor, I made for 
 a door at the farther end, which my eye had marked from 
 the first. A candle stood flaring and guttering on a stool, 
 and as I passed I took it up. 
 
 Somewhat to my surprise the door yielded to my touch. 
 In trembling haste for what might not befall the women 
 while I fumbled with doors or wandered in passages? I 
 flung it wide, and passing through it, found myself at the 
 head of a narrow, mean staircase, leading, doubtless, to the 
 servants' offices. At this, and seeing no hindrance before 
 me, I took heart of grace, reflecting that mademoiselle might 
 have escaped from the house this way. Though it would 
 now be too late to quit the city, I might still overtake her, 
 and all end well. Accordingly I hurried down the stairs, 
 shading my candle as I went from a cold draught of air 
 which met me, and grew stronger as I descended; until 
 reaching the bottom at last, I came abruptly upon an open 
 door, and an old, wrinkled, shrivelled woman. 
 
 The hag screamed at sight of me, and crouched down on 
 the floor ; and doubtless, with my drawn sword, and the 
 blood dripping from my chin and staining all the front of 
 my doublet, I looked tierce and uncanny enough. But I 
 felt it was no time for sensibility I was panting to be 
 away and I demanded of her sternly where they were. 
 She seemed to have lost her voice through fear, perhaps 
 and for answer only stared at me stupidly ; but on my 
 handling my weapon with some readiness she so far 
 recovered her senses as to utter two loud screams, one after 
 the other, and point to the door beside her. I doubted her ; 
 
 T2
 
 n6 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE 
 
 and yet I thought in her terror she must be telling the 
 truth, the more as I saw no other door. In any case I must 
 risk it, so, setting the candle down on the step beside her, 
 I passed out. 
 
 For a moment the darkness was so intense that I felt my 
 way with my sword before me, in absolute ignorance where 
 I was or on what my foot might next rest. I was at the 
 mercy of anyone who chanced to be lying in wait for me ; 
 and I shivered as the cold damp wind struck my cheek and 
 stirred my hair. But by-and-by, when I had taken two or 
 three steps, my eyes grew accustomed to the gloom, and I 
 made out the naked boughs of trees between myself and 
 the sky, and guessed that I was in a garden. My left hand, 
 touching a shrub, confirmed me in this belief, and in an- 
 other moment I distinguished something like the outline of 
 a path stretching away before me. Following it rapidly 
 as rapidly as I dared I came to a corner, as it seemed to 
 me, turned it blindly, and stopped short, peering into a 
 curtain of solid blackness which barred my path, and 
 overhead mingled confusedly with the dark shapes of trees. 
 But this, too, after a brief hesitation, I made out to be a 
 wall. Advancing to it with outstretched hands, I felt the 
 woodwork of a door, and, groping about, lit presently on a 
 loop of cord. I pulled at this, the door yielded, and I went 
 out. 
 
 I found myself in a narrow, dark lane, and looking up 
 and down discovered, what I might have guessed before, 
 that it was the Ruelle d'Arcy. But mademoiselle ? 
 Fanchette ? Simon ? Where were they ? Xo one was to 
 be seen. Tormented by doubts, I lifted up my voice and 
 called on them in turn ; first on mademoiselle, then on 
 Simon Fleix. In vain ; I got no answer. High up above 
 me I saw, as I stood back a little, lights moving in the 
 house I had left; and the suspicion that, after all, the 
 enemy had foiled me grew upon me. Somehow they had 
 decoyed mademoiselle to another part of the house, and 
 then the old woman had misled me !
 
 THE MAN AT THE DOOR 117 
 
 I turned fiercely to the door, which I had left ajar, 
 resolved to re-enter by the way I had come, and have an 
 explanation whether or no. To my surprise for I had 
 not moved six paces from the door nor heard the slightest 
 sound I found it not only closed but bolted bolted both 
 at top and bottom, as I discovered on trying it. 
 
 I fell on that to kicking it furiously, desperately ; partly 
 in a tempest of rage and chagrin, partly in the hope that I 
 might frighten the old woman, if it was she who had closed 
 it, into opening it again. In vain, of course ; and presently 
 I saw this and desisted, and, still in a whirl of haste and 
 excitement, set off running towards the place where I had 
 left Simon Fleix and the horses. It was fully six o'clock 
 as I judged ; but some faint hope that I might find him 
 there with mademoiselle and her woman still lingered in 
 my mind. I reached the end of the lane, I ran to the very 
 foot of the ramparts, I looked right and left. In vain. 
 The place was dark, silent, deserted. 
 
 I called ' Simon ! Simon ! Simon Fleix ! ' but my only 
 answer was the soughing of the wind in the eaves, and the 
 slow tones of the convent-bell striking Six. 
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 THE MAN AT THE DOOB. 
 
 THERE are some things, not shameful in themselves, 
 which it shames one to remember, and among these I count 
 the succeeding hurry and perturbation of that night : the 
 vain search, without hope or clue, to which passion im- 
 pelled me, and the stubborn persistence with which I rushed 
 frantically from place to place long after the soberness of 
 reason would have had me desist. There was not, it 
 seems to me, looking back now, one street or alley, lane or 
 court, in Blois which I did not visit again and again in my
 
 u8 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE 
 
 frantic wanderings ; not a beggar skulking on foot that 
 night whom I did not hunt down and question ; not a 
 wretched woman sleeping in arch or doorway whom I did 
 not see and scrutinise. I returned to my mother's lodging 
 again and again, always fruitlessly. I rushed to the stables 
 and rushed away again, or stood and listened in the dark, 
 empty stalls, wondering what had happened, and torturing 
 myself with suggestions of this or that. And everywhere, 
 not only at the North-gate, where I interrogated the porters 
 and found that no party resembling that which I sought 
 had passed out, but on the parvis of the Cathedral, where 
 a guard was drawn up, and in the common streets, where I 
 burst in on one group and another with my queries, I ran 
 the risk of suspicion and arrest, and all that might follow 
 thereon. 
 
 It was strange indeed that I escaped arrest. The wound 
 in my chin still bled at intervals, staining my doublet ; and 
 as I was without my cloak, which I had left in the house in 
 the Rue Valois, I had nothing to cover my disordered dress. 
 I was keenly, fiercely anxious. Stray passers meeting me 
 in the glare of a torch, or seeing me hurry by the great 
 braziers which burned where four streets met, looked 
 askance at me and gave me the wall ; while men in authority 
 cried to me to stay and answer their questions. I ran from 
 the one and the other with the same savage impatience, dis- 
 regarding everything in the feverish anxiety which spurred 
 me on and impelled me to a hundred imprudences, such as 
 at my age I should have blushed to commit. Much of this 
 feeling was due, no doubt, to the glimpse I had had of 
 mademoiselle, and the fiery words she had spoken ; more, I 
 fancy, to chagrin and anger at the manner in which the 
 cup of success had been dashed at the last moment from 
 my lips. 
 
 For four hours I wandered through the streets, now hot 
 with purpose, now seeking aimlessly. It was ten o'clock 
 when at length I gave up the search, and, worn out both in 
 body ' *id mind, climbed the stairs at my mother's lodgings
 
 THE MAN AT THE DOOR 119 
 
 and entered her room. An old woman sat by the fire, 
 crooning softly to herself, while she stirred something in a 
 black pot. My mother lay in the same heavy, deep sleep 
 in which I had left her. I sat down opposite the nurse 
 (who cried out at my appearance) and asked her dully for 
 some food. When I had eaten it, sitting in a kind of 
 stupor the while, the result partly of my late exertions, 
 and partly of the silence which prevailed round me, I 
 bade the woman call me if any change took place; and then 
 going heavily across to the garret Simon had occupied, I 
 lay down on his pallet, and fell into a sound, dreamless sleep. 
 The next day and the next night I spent beside my 
 mother, watching the life ebb fast away, and thinking with 
 grave sorrow of her past and my future. It pained me 
 beyond measure to see her die thus, in a garret, without 
 proper attendance or any but bare comforts ; the existence 
 which had once been bright and prosperous ending in pen- 
 ury and gloom, such as my mother's love and hope and 
 self-sacrifice little deserved. Her state grieved me sharply 
 on my own account too, seeing that I had formed none of 
 those familiar relations which men of my age have com- 
 monly formed, and which console them for the loss of 
 parents and forbears ; Nature so ordering it, as I have taken 
 note, that men look forward rather than backward, and 
 find in the ties they form with the future full compensation 
 for the parting strands behind them. I was alone, poverty- 
 stricken, and in middle life, seeing nothing before me ex- 
 cept danger and hardship, and these unrelieved by hope or 
 affection. This last adventure, too, despite all my efforts, 
 had sunk me deeper in the mire ; by increasing my enemies 
 and alienating from me some to whom I might have turned 
 at the worst. In one other respect also it had added to my 
 troubles not a little ; for the image of mademoiselle wan- 
 dering alone and unguarded through the streets, or vainly 
 calling on me for help, persisted in thrusting itself on my 
 imagination when I least wanted it, and came even between 
 my mother's patient face and me.
 
 120 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE 
 
 I was sitting beside Madame de Bonne a little after 
 sunset on the second day, the woman who attended her 
 oeing absent 011 an errand, when I remarked that the lamp, 
 which had been recently lit, and stood on a stool in the 
 middle of the room, was burning low and needed snuffing. 
 I went to it softly, and while stooping over it, trying to 
 improve the light, heard a slow, heavy step ascending the 
 stairs. The house was quiet, and the sound attracted my 
 full attention. I raised myself and stood listening, hoping 
 that this might be the doctor, who had not been that day. 
 
 The footsteps passed the landing below, but at the first 
 stair of the next flight the person, whoever it was, stumbled, 
 and made a considerable noise. At that, or it might be a 
 moment later, the step still ascending, I heard a sudden 
 rustling behind me, and, turning quickly with a start, saw 
 my mother sitting up in bed. Her eyes were open, and she 
 seemed fully conscious ; which she had not been for days, 
 nor indeed since the last conversation I have recorded. 
 But her face, though it was now sensible, was pinched and 
 white, and so drawn with mortal fear that I believed her 
 dying, and sprang to her, unable to construe otherwise the 
 pitiful look in her straining eyes. 
 
 ' Madame,' I said, hastily passing my arm round her, and 
 speaking with as much encouragement as I could infuse 
 into my voice, ' take comfort. I am here. Your son.' 
 
 ' Hush ! ' she muttered in answer, laying her feeble hand 
 on my wrist and continuing to look, not at me, but at the 
 door. 'Listen, Gaston ! Don't you hear? There it is 
 again. Again ! ' 
 
 For a moment I thought her mind still wandered, and I 
 shivered, having no fondness for hearing such things. 
 Then 1 saw she was listening intently to the sound which 
 had attracted my notice. The step had reached the land- 
 ing by this time. The visitor, whoever it was, paused 
 there a moment, being in darkness, and uncertain, perhaps, 
 of the position of the door ; but in a little while I heard 
 him move forward again, my mother's fragile form, clasped
 
 THE MAN AT THE DOOR 121 
 
 as it was in my embrace, quivering with each step he took, 
 as though his weight stirred the house. He tapped at the 
 door. 
 
 I had thought, while I listened and wondered, of more 
 than one whom this might be : the leech, Simon Fleix, 
 Madame Bruhl, Fresnoy even. But as the tap came, and I 
 felt my mother tremble in my arms, enlightenment came 
 with it, and I pondered no more. I knew as well as if she 
 had spoken and told me. There could be only one man 
 whose presence had such power to terrify her, only one 
 whose mere step, sounding through the veil, could drag her 
 back to consciousness and fear ! And that was the man 
 who had beggared her, who had traded so long on her terrors. 
 
 I moved a little, intending to cross the floor softly, that 
 when he opened the door he might find rne face to face with 
 him; but she detected the movement, and, love giving her 
 strength, she clung to my wrist so fiercely that I had not 
 the heart, knowing how slender was her hold on life and 
 how near the brink she stood, to break from her. I con- 
 strained myself to stand still, though every muscle grew 
 tense as a drawn bowstring, and I felt the strong rage rising 
 in my throat and choking me as I waited for him to enter. 
 
 A log on the hearth gave way with a dull sound startling 
 in the silence. The man tapped again, and getting no 
 answer, for neither of us spoke, pushed the door slowly 
 open, uttering before he showed himself the words, 'Dieu 
 vous benisse ! ' in a voice so low and smooth I shuddered at 
 the sound. The next moment he came in and saw me, and, 
 starting, stood at gaze, his head thrust slightly forward, 
 his shoulders bent, his hand still on the latch, amazement 
 and frowning spite in turn distorting his lean face. He 
 had looked to find a weak, defenceless woman, whom he 
 could torture and rob at his will ; he saw instead a strong 
 man armed, whose righteous anger he must have been blind 
 indeed had he failed to read. 
 
 Strangest thing of all, we had met before ! I knew him 
 a* once he me. He was the same Jacobin monk whom I
 
 122 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE 
 
 had seen at the inn on the Claine, and who had told me the 
 news of Guise's death ! 
 
 I uttered an exclamation of surprise on making this dis- 
 covery, and my mother, freed suddenly, as it seemed, from 
 the spell of fear, which had given her unnatural strength, 
 sank back on the bed. Her grasp relaxed, and her breath 
 came and went with so loud a rattle that I removed my 
 gaze from him, and bent over her, full of concern and 
 solicitude. Our eyes met. She tried to speak, and at last 
 gasped, ' Not now, G-aston ! Let him let him ' 
 
 Her lips framed the word ' go,' but she could not give it 
 sound. I understood, however, and in impotent wrath I 
 waved my hand to him to begone. When I looked up he 
 had already obeyed me. He had seized the first oppor- 
 tunity to escape. The door was closed, the lamp burned 
 steadily, and we were alone. 
 
 I gave her a little Armagnac, which stood beside the bed 
 for such an occasion, and she revived, and presently opened 
 her eyes. But I saw at once a great change in her. The 
 look of fear had passed altogether from her face, and one of 
 sorrow, yet content, had taken its place. She laid her hand 
 in mine, and looked up at me, being too weak, as I thought, 
 to speak. But by-and-by, when the strong spirit had done 
 its work, she signed to me to lower my head to her mouth. 
 
 'The King of Navarre/ she murmured 'you are sure, 
 Gaston he will retain you in your employments ? ' 
 
 Her pleading eyes were so close to mine, I felt no scru- 
 ples such as some might have felt, seeing her so near death ; 
 but I answered firmly and cheerfully, 'Madame, I am 
 assured of it. There is no prince in Europe so trustworthy 
 or so good to his servants.' 
 
 She sighed with infinite content, and blessed him in a 
 feeble whisper. ' And if you live,' she went on, ' you will 
 rebuild the old house, Gaston. The walls are sound yet. 
 And the oak in the hall was not burned. There is a chest 
 of linen at Gil's, and a chest with your father's gold lace 
 but that is pledged,' she added dreamily. ' I forgot.'
 
 THE MAN AT THE DOOR 123 
 
 'Madame/ I answered solemnly, 'it shall be done it 
 shall be done as you wish, if the power lie with me.' 
 
 She lay for some time after that murmuring prayers, her 
 head supported on my shoulder. I longed impatiently for 
 the nurse to return, that I might despatch her for the 
 leech ; not that I thought anything could be done, but for 
 my own comfort and greater satisfaction afterwards, and 
 that my mother might not die without some fitting attend- 
 ance. The house remained quiet, however, with that im- 
 pressive quietness which sobers the heart at such times, 
 and I could not do this. And about six o'clock my mother 
 opened her eyes again. 
 
 ' This is not Marsac,' she murmured abruptly, her eyes 
 roving from the ceiling to the wall at the foot of the bed. 
 
 ' No, Madame,' I answered, leaning over her, ' you are in 
 Blois. But I am here Gaston, your son.' 
 
 She looked at me, a faint smile of pleasure stealing over 
 her pinched face. 'Twelve thousand livres a year,' she 
 whispered, rather to herself than to me, ' and an establish- 
 ment, reduced a little, yet creditable, very creditable.' For 
 a moment she seemed to be dying in my arms, but again 
 opened her eyes quickly and looked me in the face. ' Gas- 
 ton ?' she said, suddenly and strangely. 'Who said Gaston? 
 He is with the King I have blessed him; and his days 
 shall be long in the land ! ' Then, raising herself in my arms 
 with a last effort of strength, she cried loudly, ' Way there ! 
 Way for my son, the Sieur de Marsac ! ' 
 
 They were her last words. When I laid her down on the 
 bed a moment later, she was dead, and I was alone. 
 
 Madame de Bonne, my mother, was seventy at the time 
 of her death, having survived my father eighteen years. 
 She was Marie de Roche de Loheac, third daughter of 
 Raoul, Sieur de Loheac, on the Vilaine, and by her great- 
 grandmother, a daughter of Jean de Laval, was descended 
 from the ducal family of Rohan, a relationship which in 
 after-times, and under greatly altered circumstances, Henry 
 Duke of Rohan condescended to acknowledge, honouring
 
 124 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE 
 
 me with his friendship on more occasions than one. Her 
 death, which I have here recorded, took place on the fourth 
 of January, the Queen-Mother of France, Catherine de 
 Medicis, dying a little after noon on the following day. 
 
 In Blois, as in every other town, even Paris itself, the 
 Huguenots possessed at this time a powerful organisation ; 
 and with the aid of the surgeon, who showed me much re- 
 spect in my bereavement, and exercised in my behalf all the 
 influence which skilful and honest men of his craft invaria- 
 bly possess, I was able to arrange for my mother's burial in 
 a private ground about a league beyond the walls and near 
 the village of Chaverny. At the time of her death I had 
 only thirty crowns in gold remaining, Simon Fleix, to whose 
 fate I could obtain no clue, having carried off thirty-five 
 with the horses. The whole of this residue, however, with 
 the exception of a handsome gratuity to the nurse and a 
 trifle spent on my clothes, I expended on the funeral, desiring 
 that no stain should rest on my mother's birth or my affection. 
 Accordingly, though the ceremony was of necessity private, 
 and indeed secret, and the mourners were few, it lacked 
 nothing, I think, of the decency and propriety which my 
 mother loved ; and which she preferred, I have often heard 
 her say, to the vulgar show that is equally at the command 
 of the noble and the farmer of taxes. 
 
 Until she was laid in her quiet resting-place I stood in 
 constant fear of some interruption on the part either of 
 Bruhl, whose connection with Fresnoy and the abduction I 
 did not doubt, or of the Jacobin monk. But none came ; 
 and nothing happening to enlighten me as to the fate of 
 Mademoiselle de la Vire, I saw my duty clear before me. I 
 disposed of the furniture of my mother's room, and indeed 
 of everything which was saleable, and raised in this way 
 enough money to buy myself a new cloak without which 
 I could not travel in che wintry weather and to hire a 
 horse. Sorry as the animal was, the dealer required secur- 
 ity, and I had none to offer. It was only at the last moment 
 I bethought me of the fragment of gold chain which made*
 
 MAXIMILIAN DE BETHUNE, BARON DE ROSNY 125 
 
 moiselle had left behind her, and which, as well as my moth- 
 er's rings and vinaigrette, I had kept back from the sale. 
 This I was forced to lodge with him. Having thus, with 
 some pain and more humiliation, provided means for the 
 journey, I lost not an hour in beginning it. On the eighth 
 of January I set out for Rosny, to carry the news of my ill- 
 success and of mademoiselle's position whither I had looked 
 a week before to carry herself. 
 
 CHAPTEK XII. 
 
 MAXIMILIAN DE BETHUNE, BAEON DE KOSNT. 
 
 I LOOKED to make the journey to Rosny in two days. 
 But the heaviness of the roads and the sorry condition of 
 my hackney hindered me so greatly that I lay the second 
 night at Dreux, and, hearing the way was still worse be- 
 tween that place and my destination, began to think that I 
 should be fortunate if I reached Rosny by the following 
 noon. The country in this part seemed devoted to the 
 League, the feeling increasing in violence as I approached 
 the Seine. I heard nothing save abuse of the King of 
 France and praise of the Guise princes, and had much ado. 
 keeping a still tongue and riding modestly, to pass without 
 molestation or inquiry. 
 
 Drawing near to Rosny, on the third morning, through a 
 low marshy country covered with woods and alive with 
 game of all kinds, I began to occupy myself with thoughts 
 of the reception I was likely to encounter; which, I con- 
 jectured, would be none of the most pleasant. The daring 
 and vigour of the Baron de Rosny, who had at this time 
 the reputation of being in all parts of France at once, and 
 the familiar terms on which he was known to live with the 
 King of Navarre, gave me small reason to hope that he 
 would listen with indulgence to such a tale as I had to tell
 
 126 A GENTLEMAN' OF FRANCE 
 
 The nearer I came to the hour of telling it, indeed, the 
 more improbable seemed some of its parts, and the more 
 glaring my own carelessness in losing the token, and in 
 letting mademoiselle out of my sight in such a place as 
 Blois. I saw this so clearly now, and more clearly as the 
 morning advanced, that I do not know that I ever antici- 
 pated anything with more fear than this explanation ; which 
 it yet seemed my duty to offer with all reasonable speed. 
 The morning was warm, I remember; cloudy, yet not dark; 
 the air near at hand full of moisture and very clear, with a 
 circle of mist rising some way off, and filling the woods 
 with blue distances. The road was deep and foundrous, 
 and as I was obliged to leave it from time to time in order- 
 to pass the worst places, I presently began to fear that I 
 had strayed into a by-road. After advancing some distance, 
 in doubt whethev I should persevere or turn back, I was 
 glad to see before me a small house placed at the junction 
 of se\eral woodland paths. From the bush which hung 
 over the door, and a water-trough which stood beside it, I 
 judged the place to be an inn ; and determining to get my 
 horse fed before I went farther, I rode up to the door and 
 rapped on it with my riding-switch. 
 
 The position of the house was so remote that I was sur- 
 prised to see three or four heads thrust immediately out of 
 a window. For a moment I thought I should have done 
 better to have passed by ; but the landlord coming out very 
 civilly, and leading the way to a shed beside the house, I 
 reflected that I had little to lose, and followed him. I 
 found, as I expected, four horses tied up in the shed, the 
 bits hanging round their necks and their girths loosed; 
 while my surprise was not lessened by the arrival, before I 
 had fastened up my own horse, of a sixth rider, who, seeing 
 us by the shed, rode up to us, and saluted me as he dis- 
 mounted. 
 
 He was a tall, strong man in the prime of youth, wearing 
 a plain, almost mean suit of dust-coloured leather, and 
 carrying no weapons except a hunting-knife, which hung in
 
 MAXIMILIAN DE BETHUNE, BARON DE ROSNY 127 
 
 a sheath at his girdle. He rode a powerful silver-roan 
 horse, and was splashed to the top of his high untanned 
 boots, as if he had come by the worst of paths, if by any. 
 
 He cast a shrewd glance at the landlord as he led his 
 horse into the shed; and I judged from his brown complex- 
 ion and quick eyes that he had seen much weather and 
 lived an out-of-door life. 
 
 He watched me somewhat curiously while I mixed the 
 fodder for my horse ; and when I went into the house and 
 sat down in the first room I came to, to eat a little bread- 
 and-cheese which I had in my pouch, he joined me almost 
 immediately. Apparently he could not stomach my poor 
 fare, however, for after watching me for a time in silence, 
 switching his boot with his Avhip the while, he called the 
 landlord, and asked him, in a masterful way, what fresh 
 meat he had, and particularly if he had any lean collops, or 
 a fowl. 
 
 The fellow answered that there was nothing. His honour 
 could have some Lisieux cheese, he added, or some stewed 
 lentils. 
 
 'His honour does not want cheese,' the stranger answered 
 peevishly, 'nor lentil porridge. And what is this I smell, 
 my friend ?' he continued, beginning suddenly to sniff with 
 vigour. 'I swear I smell cooking.' 
 
 ' It is the hind-quarter of a buck, which is cooking for 
 the four gentlemen of the Robe ; with a collop or two to 
 follow,' the landlord explained ; and humbly excused him- 
 self on the ground that the gentlemen had strictly engaged 
 it for their own eating. 
 
 ' What ? A whole quarter ! and a collop or two to follow ! ' 
 the stranger retorted, smacking his lips. ' Who are they ? ' 
 
 ' Two advocates and their clerks from the Parliament of 
 Paris. They have been viewing a boundary near here, and 
 are returning this afternoon,' the landlord answered. 
 
 'No reason why they should cause a famine ! ' ejaculated 
 the stranger with energy. ' Go to them and say a gentle- 
 man, who has ridden far, and fasted since seven this morn-
 
 128 A GENTLEMAN" OF FRANCE 
 
 ing, requests permission to sit at their table. A quarter of 
 venison and a collop or two among four ! ' he continued, in 
 atone of extreme disgust. 'It is intolerable! And advo- 
 cates ! Why, at that rate, the King of France should eat a 
 whole buck, and rise hungry ! Don't you agree with me, 
 sir ?' he continued, turning on me and putting the question 
 abruptly. 
 
 He was so comically and yet so seriously angry, and 
 looked so closely at me as he spoke, that I hastened to 
 say I agreed with him perfectly. 
 
 ' Yet you eat cheese, sir ! ' he retorted irritably. 
 
 I saw that, not withstanding the simplicity of his dress, 
 he was a gentleman, and so, forbearing to take offence, I 
 told him plainly that my purse being light I travelled 
 rather as I could than as I would. 
 
 ' Is it so ? ' he answered hastily. ' Had I known that, I 
 would have joined you in the cheese ! After all, I would 
 rather fast with a gentleman, than feast with a churl. But 
 it is too late now. Seeing you mix the fodder, I thought 
 your pockets were full.' 
 
 ' The nag is tired, and has done its best,' I answered. 
 
 He looked at me curiously, and as though he would say 
 more. But the landlord returning at that moment, he 
 turned to him instead. 
 
 < Well ! ' he said briskly. ' Is it all right ? ' 
 
 'I am sorry, your honour,' the man answered, reluctantly, 
 and with a very downcast air, ' but the gentlemen beg to 
 be excused.' 
 
 ' Zounds ! ' cried my companion roundly. ' They do, do 
 they ? ' 
 
 ' They say they have no more, sir,' the landlord continued, 
 faltering, ' than enough for themselves and a little dog they 
 have with them.' 
 
 A shout of laughter which issued at that moment from 
 the other room seemed to show that the quartette were 
 making merry over my companion's request. I saw his 
 cheek redden, and looked for an explosion of anger on his
 
 MAXIMILIAN DE BETHUNE, BARON DE ROSNY 129 
 
 part; but instead he stood a moment in thought in the 
 middle of the floor, and then, much to the innkeeper's 
 relief, pushed a stool towards me, and called for a bottle of 
 the best wine. He pleasantly begged leave to eat a little 
 of my cheese, which he said looked better than the Lisieux, 
 and, filling my glass with wine, fell to as merrily as if he 
 had never heard of the party in the other room. 
 
 I was more than a little surprised, I remember; for I 
 had taken him to be a passionate man, and not one to sit 
 down under an affront. Still I said nothing, and we con- 
 versed very well together. I noticed, however, that he 
 stopped speaking more than once, as though to listen ; but 
 conceiving that he was merely reverting to the party in the 
 other room, who grew each moment more uproarious, I said 
 nothing, and was completely taken by surprise when he 
 rose on a sudden, and, going to the open window, leaned 
 out, shading his eyes with his hand. 
 
 ' What is it ? ' I said, preparing to follow him. 
 
 He answered by a quiet chuckle. 'You shall see/ he 
 added the next instant. 
 
 I rose, and going to the window looked out over his shoul- 
 der. Three men were approaching the inn on horseback. 
 The first, a great burly, dark-complexioned man with fierce 
 black eyes and a feathered cap, had pistols in his holsters 
 and a short sword by his side. The other two, with the 
 air of servants, were stout fellows, wearing green doublets 
 and leather breeches. All three rode good horses, while a 
 footman led two hounds after them in a leash. On seeing 
 us they cantered forward, the leader waving his bonnet. 
 
 ' Halt, there ! ' cried my companion, lifting up his voice 
 when they were within a stone's throw of us. * Maignan ! ' 
 
 ' My lord ? ' answered he of the feather, pulling up on 
 the instant. 
 
 ' You will find six horses in the shed there,' the stranger 
 cried in a voice of command. ' Turn out the four to the 
 left as you go in. Give each a cut, and send it about its 
 business ! ' 
 
 j
 
 130 A GENTLEMAAT OF FRANCE 
 
 The man wheeled his horse before the words were well 
 uttered, and crying obsequiously ' that it was done/ flung his 
 reins to one of the other riders and disappeared in the shed, 
 as if the order given him were the most commonplace one 
 in the world. 
 
 The party in the other room, however, by whom, all 
 could be heard, were not slow to take the alarm. They 
 broke into a shout of remonstrance, and one of their num- 
 ber, leaping from the window, asked with a very fierce air 
 what the devil we meant. The others thrust out their 
 faces, swollen and flushed with the wine they had drunk, 
 and with many oaths backed up his question. Not feeling 
 myself called upon to interfere, I prepared to see something 
 diverting. 
 
 My companion, whose coolness surprised me, had all the 
 air of being as little concerned as myself. He even per- 
 sisted for a time in ignoring the angry lawyer, and, turning 
 a deaf ear to all the threats and abuse with which the others 
 assailed him, continued to look calmly at the prospect. 
 Seeing this, and that nothing could move him, the man 
 who had jumped through the window, and who seemed the 
 most enterprising of the party, left us at last and ran 
 towards the stalls. The aspect of the two serving-men, 
 however, who rode up grinning, and made as if they would 
 ride him down, determined him to return ; which he did, 
 pale with fury, as the last of the four horses clattered out, 
 and after a puzzled look round trotted off at its leisure into 
 the forest. 
 
 On this, the man grew more violent, as I have remarked 
 frightened men do; so that at last the stranger conde- 
 scended to notice him. ' My good sir/ he said coolly, look- 
 ing at him through the window as if he had not seen him 
 before, ' you annoy me. What is the matter ? ' 
 
 The fellow retorted with a vast amount of bluster, asking 
 what the devil we meant by turning out his horses. 
 
 'Only to give you and the gentlemen with you a little exer- 
 cise/ my companion answered, with grim humour, and in a
 
 MAXIMILIAN DE BETHUNE, BARON DE ROSNY 131 
 
 severe tone strange in one so young 'than which, nothing is 
 more wholesome after a full meal. That, and a lesson in 
 good manners. Maignan,' he continued, raising his voice, 'if 
 this person has anything more to say, answer him. He is 
 nearer your degree than mine.' 
 
 And leaving the man to slink away like a whipped dog 
 for the mean are ever the first to cringe my friend turned 
 from the window. Meeting my eyes as he went back to his 
 seat, he laughed. 'Well,' he said, 'what do you think?' 
 
 ' That the ass in the lion's skin is very well till it meets 
 the lion,' I answered. 
 
 He laughed again, and seemed pleased, as I doubt not he 
 was. ' Pooh, pooh ! ' he said. ' It passed the time, and I 
 think I am quits with my gentlemen now. But I must be 
 riding. Possibly our roads may lie for a while in the same 
 direction, sir ? ' And he looked at me irresolutely. 
 
 I answered cautiously that I was going to the town of 
 Kosny. 
 
 'You are not from Paris ? ' he continued, still looking at 
 me. 
 
 ' No,' I answered. ' I am from the south.' 
 
 'From Blois, perhaps ?' 
 
 I nodded. 
 
 ' Ah ! ' he said, making no comment, which somewhat sur- 
 prised me, all men at this time desiring news, and looking 
 to Blois for it. ' I am riding towards Kosny also. Let us 
 be going.' 
 
 But I noticed that as we got to horse, the man he called 
 Maignan holding his stirrup with much formality, he turned 
 and looked at me more than once with an expression in his 
 eye which I could not interpret ; so that, being in an ene- 
 my's country, where curiosity was a thing to be deprecated, 
 I began to feel somewhat uneasy. However, as he presently 
 gave way to a fit of laughter, and seemed to be digesting 
 his late diversion at the inn, I thought no more of it, 
 finding him excellent company and a man of surprising 
 information.
 
 132 A GENTLEMAN- OF FRANCE 
 
 Notwithstanding this my spirits began to flag as I ap- 
 proached Rosny ; and as on such occasions nothing is more 
 trying than the well-meant rallying of a companion igno- 
 rant of our trouble, I felt rather relief than regret when he 
 drew rein at four cross-roads a mile or so short of the town, 
 and, announcing that here our paths separated, took a civil 
 leave of me, and went his way with his servants. 
 
 I dismounted at an inn at the extremity of the town, and, 
 stopping only to arrange my dress and drink a cup of wine, 
 asked the way to the Chateau, which was situate, I learned, 
 no more than a third of a mile away. I went thither on 
 foot by way of an avenue of trees leading up to a draw- 
 bridge and gateway. The former was down, but the gates 
 were closed, and all the formalities of a fortress in time of 
 war were observed on my admission, though the garrison 
 appeared to consist only of two or three serving-men and 
 as many foresters. I had leisure after sending in my name 
 to observe that the house was old and partly ruinous, but of 
 great strength, covered in places with ivy, and closely sur- 
 rounded by woods. A staid-looking page came presently 
 to me, and led me up a narrow staircase to a parlour lighted 
 by two windows, looking, one into the courtyard, the other 
 towards the town. Here a tall man was waiting to re- 
 ceive me, who rose on my entrance and came forward. 
 Judge of my surprise when I recognised my acquaintance of 
 the afternoon ! * M. de Rosny ? ' I exclaimed, standing still 
 and looking at him in confusion. 
 
 'The same, sir,' he answered, with a quiet smile. 'You 
 come from the King of Navarre, I believe, and on an errand 
 to me. You may speak openly. The king has no secrets 
 from me.' 
 
 There was something in the gravity of his demeanour as 
 he waited for me to speak which strongly impressed me; 
 notwithstanding that he was ten years younger than my- 
 self, arid I had seen him so lately in a lighter mood. I felt 
 that his reputation had not belied him that here was a 
 great man ; and reflecting with despair on the inadequacy
 
 MAXIMILIAN DE BETHUNE, BARON DE ROSNY 133 
 
 of the tale I had to tell him, I paused to consider in what 
 terms I should begin. He soon put an end to this, however. 
 ' Come, sir/ he said with impatience. ' I have told you that 
 you may speak out. You should have been here four days 
 ago, as I take it. Now you are here, where is the lady ? ' 
 
 ' Mademoiselle de la Vire ? ' I stammered, rather to gain 
 time than with any other object. 
 
 ' Tut, tut ! ' he rejoined, frowning. ( Is there any other 
 lady in the question ? Come, sir, speak out. Where have 
 you left her ? This is no affair of gallantry,' he continued, 
 the harshness of his demeanour disagreeably surprising me, 
 1 that you need beat about the bush. The king entrusted 
 to you a lady, who, I have no hesitation in telling you now, 
 was in possession of certain State secrets. It is known 
 that she escaped safely from Chize and arrived safely at 
 Blois. Where is she ? ' 
 
 ' I would to Heaven I knew, sir ! ' I exclaimed in despair, 
 feeling the painfulness of my position increased a hundred- 
 fold by his manner. ' I wish to God I did.' 
 
 ' What is this ? ' he cried in a raised voice. ' You do not 
 know where she is ? You jest, M. de Marsac.' 
 
 ' It were a sorry jest,' I answered, summoning up a rueful 
 smile. And on that, plunging desperately into the story 
 which I have here set down, I narrated the difficulties 
 under which I had raised my escort, the manner in which I 
 came to be robbed of the gold token, how mademoiselle was 
 trepanned, the lucky chance by which I found her again, 
 and the final disappointment. He listened, but listened 
 throughout with no word of sympathy rather with im- 
 patience, which grew at last into derisive^ incredulity. 
 When I had done he asked me bluntly what I called 
 myself. 
 
 Scarcely understanding what he meant, I repeated my name. 
 
 He answered, rudely and flatly, that it was impossible. 
 ' I do not believe it, sir ! ' he repeated, his brow dark. ' You 
 are not the man. You bring neither the lady nor the token, 
 nor anything else by which I can test your story. Nay.
 
 134 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE 
 
 sir, do not scowl at ine,' he continued sharply. ' I am the 
 mouthpiece of the King of Navarre, to whom this matter is 
 of the highest importance. I cannot believe that the man 
 whom he would choose would act so. This house you prate 
 of in Blois, for instance, and the room with the two doors ? 
 What were you doing while mademoiselle was being re- 
 moved ? ' 
 
 ' I was engaged with the men of the house,' I answered, 
 striving to swallow the anger which all but choked me. ' I 
 did what I could. Had the door given way, all would have 
 been well.' 
 
 He looked at me darkly. ' That is fine talking ! ' he said 
 with a sneer. Then he dropped his eyes and seemed for a 
 time to fall into a brown study, while I stood before him, 
 confounded by this new view of the case, furious, yet not 
 knowing how to vent my fury, cut to the heart by his 
 insults, yet without hope or prospect of redress. 
 
 1 Come ! ' he said harshly, after two or three minutes of 
 gloomy reflection on his part and burning humiliation on 
 mine, 'is there anyone here who can identify you, or in 
 any other way confirm your story, sir ? Until I know how 
 the matter stands I can do nothing.' 
 
 I shook my head in sullen shame. I might protest 
 against his brutality and this judgment of me, but to what 
 purpose while he sheltered himself behind his master ? 
 
 ' Stay ! ' he said presently, with an abrupt gesture of 
 remembrance. ' I had nearly forgotten. I have some here 
 who have been lately at the King of Navarre's Court at St. 
 Jean d'Angely. If you still maintain that you are the 
 M. de Marsac to whom this commission was entrusted, you 
 will doubtless have no objection to seeing them ? ' 
 
 On this I felt myself placed in a most cruel dilemma. If 
 I refused to submit my case to the proposed ordeal, I stood 
 an impostor confessed. If I consented to see these strangers, 
 it was probable they would not recognise me, and possible 
 that they might deny me in terms calculated to make my 
 position even worse, if that might be. I hesitated ; but,
 
 MAXIMILIAN DE BETHUNE, BARON DE ROSNY 135 
 
 Kosny standing inexorable before me awaiting an answer, I 
 finally consented. 
 
 ' Good ! ' he said curtly. ' This way, if you please. They 
 are here. The latch is tricky. Nay, sir, it is my house.' 
 
 Obeying the stern motion of his hand, I passed before 
 him into the next room, feeling myself more humiliated 
 than I can tell by this reference to strangers. For a mo- 
 ment I could see no one. The day was waning, the room I 
 entered was long and narrow, and illuminated only by a 
 glowing fire. Besides I was myself, perhaps, in some 
 embarrassment. I believed that my conductor had made a 
 mistake, or that his guests had departed, and I turned 
 towards him to ask for an explanation. He merely pointed 
 onwards, however, and I advanced ; whereupon a young and 
 handsome lady, who had been seated in the shadow of the 
 great fireplace, rose suddenly, as if startled, and stood 
 looking at me, the glow of the burning wood falling on one 
 side of her face and turning her hair to gold. 
 
 ' Well ! ' M. de Rosny said, in a voice which sounded a 
 little odd in my ears. ' You do not know madame, I 
 think ? ' 
 
 I saw that she was a complete stranger to me, and bowed 
 to her without speaking. The lady saluted me in turn 
 ceremoniously and in silence. 
 
 * Is there no one else here who should know you ? ' M. 
 de Kosny continued, in a tone almost of persiflage, and 
 with the same change in his voice which had struck me 
 before; but now it was more marked. 'If not, M. de Mar- 
 sac, I am afraid But first look round, look round, sir ; 
 
 I would not judge any man hastily.' 
 
 He laid his hand on my shoulder as he finished in a 
 manner so familiar and so utterly at variance with his 
 former bearing that I doubted if I heard or felt aright. 
 Yet I looked mechanically at the lady, and seeing that her 
 eyes glistened in the firelight, and that she gazed at me 
 very kindly, I wondered still more ; falling, indeed, into a 
 very confusion of amazement. This was not lessened but
 
 136 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE 
 
 augmented a hundredfold when, turning in obedience to the 
 pressure of de Rosny's hand, I saw beside me, as if she had 
 risen from the floor, another lady no other than Mademoi- 
 selle de la Vire herself ! She had that moment stepped out 
 of the shadow of the great fireplace, which had hitherto 
 hidden her, and stood before me curtseying prettily, with 
 the same look on her face and in her eyes which madame's 
 wore. 
 
 'Mademoiselle ! ' I muttered, unable to take my eyes from 
 her. 
 
 'Mais oui, monsieur, mademoiselle,' she answered, curt- 
 seying lower, with the air of a child rather than a woman. 
 
 'Here?' I stammered, my mouth open, my eyes staring. 
 
 'Here, sir thanks to the valour of a brave man,' she 
 answered, speaking in a voice so low I scarcely heard her. 
 And then, dropping her eyes, she stepped back into the 
 shadow, as if either she had said too much already, or 
 doubted her composure were she to say more. She was so 
 radiantly dressed, she looked in the firelight more like a 
 fairy than a woman, being of small and delicate propor- 
 tions ; and she seemed in my eyes so different a person, 
 particularly in respect of the softened expression of her 
 features, from the Mademoiselle de la Vire whom I had 
 known and seen plunged in sloughs and bent to the saddle 
 with fatigue, that I doubted still if I had seen aright, and 
 was as far from enlightenment as before. 
 
 It was M. de Rosny himself who relieved me from the 
 embarrassment I was suffering. He embraced me in the 
 most kind and obliging manner, and this more than once ; 
 begging me to pardon the deception he had practised upon 
 me, and to which he had been impelled partly by the odd 
 nature of our introduction at the inn, and partly by his 
 desire to enhance the joyful surprise he had in store for 
 me. ' Come,' he said presently, drawing me to the window, 
 'let me show you some more of your old friends.' 
 
 I looked out, and saw below me in the courtyard my 
 three horses drawn up in a row, the Cid being bestridden by
 
 MAXIMILIAN DE BETHUNE, BARON DE ROSNY 137 
 
 Simon Fleix, who, seeing me, waved a triumphant greeting. 
 A groom stood at the head of each horse, and on either side 
 was a man with a torch. My companion laughed gleefully. 
 <Jt was Maignan's arrangement/ he said. 'He has a quaint 
 taste in such things.' 
 
 After greeting Simon Fleix a hundred times, I turned 
 back into the room, and, my heart overflowing with grati- 
 tude and wonder, I begged M. de Rosny to acquaint me 
 with the details of mademoiselle's escape. 
 
 'It was the most simple thing in the world,' he said, 
 taking me by the hand and leading me back to the hearth. 
 'While you were engaged with the rascals, the old woman 
 who daily brought mademoiselle's food grew alarmed at the 
 uproar, and came into the room to learn what it was. 
 Mademoiselle, unable to help you, and uncertain of your 
 success, thought the opportunity too good to be lost. She 
 forced the old woman to show her and her maid the way out 
 through the garden. This done, they ran down a lane, as 
 I understand, and came immediately upon the lad with the 
 horses, who recognised them and helped them to mount. 
 They waited some minutes for you, and then rode off. ' 
 
 'But I inquired at the gate,' I said. 
 
 'At which gate?' inquired M. de Rosny, smiling. 
 
 'The North-gate, of course,' I answered. 
 
 'Just so,' he rejoined with a nod. 'But they went out 
 through the West-gate and made a circuit. He is a strange 
 lad, that of yours below there. He has a head on his 
 shoulder, M. de Marsac. Well, two leagues outside the 
 town they halted, scarcely knowing how to proceed. By 
 good fortune, hoAvever, a horse-dealer of my acquaintance 
 was at the inn. He knew Mademoiselle de la Vire, and, 
 hearing whither she was bound, brought her hither with- 
 out let or hindrance.' 
 
 'Was he a Norman? ' I asked. 
 
 M. de Rosny nodded, smiling at me shrewdly. 'Yes,' 
 he said, 'he told me much about you. And now let me 
 introduce you to my wife, Madame de Rosny. '
 
 138 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE 
 
 He led me up to the lady who had risen at my entrance, 
 and who now welcomed me as kindly as she had before 
 looked on me, paying me many pleasant compliments. I 
 gazed at her with interest, having heard much of her beauty 
 and of the strange manner in which M. de Eosny, being 
 enamoured of two young ladies, and chancing upon both 
 while lodging in different apartments at an inn, had decided 
 which he should visit and make his wife. He appeared to 
 read what was in my mind, for as I bowed before her, 
 thanking her for the obliging things which she had uttered, 
 and which for ever bound me to her service, he gaily 
 pinched her ear, and said, 'When you want a good wife, M. 
 de Marsac, be sure you turn to the right. ' 
 
 He spoke in jest, and having his own case only in his 
 mind. But I, looking mechanically in the direction he 
 indicated, saw mademoiselle standing a pace or two to my 
 right in the shadow of the great chimney-piece. I know 
 not whether she frowned more or blushed more; but this 
 for certain, that she answered my look with one of sharp 
 displeasure, and, turning her back on me, swept quickly 
 from the room, with no trace in her bearing of that late 
 tenderness and gratitude which I had remarked. 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 AT BOSNY. 
 
 THE morning brought only fresh proofs of the kindness 
 which M. de Rosny had conceived for me. Awaking early I 
 found on a stool beside my clothes, a purse of gold contain- 
 ing a hundred crowns ; and a youth presently entering to 
 ask me if I lacked anything, I had at first some difficulty 
 in recognising Simon Fleix, so sprucely was the lad dressed, 
 in a mode resembling Maignan's. I looked at the student 
 more than once before I addressed him by his name;
 
 AT ROSNY 139 
 
 was as much surprised by the strange change I observed in 
 him for it was not confined to his clothes as by anything 
 which had happened since I entered the house. I rubbed 
 my eyes, and asked him what he had done with his soutane. 
 
 'Burned it, M. de Marsac,' he answered briefly. 
 
 I saw that he had burned much, metaphorically speaking, 
 besides his soutane. He was less pale, less lank, less wo- 
 begone than formerly, and went more briskly. He had lost 
 the air of crack-brained disorder which had distinguished 
 him, and was smart, sedate, and stooped less. Only the 
 odd sparkle remained in his eyes, and bore witness to the 
 same nervous, eager spirit within. 
 
 '"What are you going to do, then, Simon?' I asked, not- 
 ing these changes curiously. 
 
 'I am a soldier,' he answered, 'and follow M. de Marsac.' 
 
 I laughed. 'You have chosen a poor service, I am afraid, ' 
 I said, beginning to rise; 'and one, too, Simon, in which it 
 is possible you may be killed. I thought that would not 
 suit you, ' I continued, to see what he would say. But he 
 answered nothing, and 1 looked at him in great surprise. 
 'You have made up your mind, then, at last? ' I said. 
 
 * Perfectly,' he answered. 
 
 'And solved all your doubts? ' 
 
 'I have no doubts.' 
 
 'You are a Huguenot? ' 
 
 'That is the only true and pure religion,' he replied 
 gravely. And with apparent sincerity and devotion he 
 repeated Beza's Confession of Faith. 
 
 This filled me with profound astonishment, but I said no 
 more at the time, though I had my doubts. I waited until 
 I was alone with M. de Rosny, and then I unbosomed my- 
 self on the matter ; expressing my surprise at the sudden- 
 ness of the conversion, and at such a man, as I had found 
 the student to be, stating his views so firmly and stead- 
 fastly, and with so little excitement. Observing that M. 
 de Rosny smiled but answered nothing, I explained myself 
 farther.
 
 140 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE 
 
 'I am surprised,' I said, 'because I have always heard it 
 maintained that clerkly men, becoming lost in the mazes 
 of theology, seldom find any sure footing; that not one in 
 a hundred returns to his old faith, or finds grace to accept 
 a new one. I am speaking only of such, of course, as I be- 
 lieve this lad to be eager, excitable brains, learning much, 
 and without judgment to digest what they learn.' 
 
 'Of such I also believe it to be true,' M. de Eosny an- 
 swered, still smiling. 'But even on them a little influence, 
 applied at the right moment, has much effect, M. de 
 Marsac.' 
 
 'I allow that,' I said. 'But my mother, of whom I have 
 spoken to you, saw much of this youth. His fidelity to 
 her was beyond praise. Yet her faith, though grounded 
 on a rock, had no weight with him.' 
 
 M. de Rosny shook his head, still smiling. 
 
 'It is not our mothers who convert us,' he said. 
 
 'What!' I cried, my eyes opened. 'Do you mean do 
 you mean that Mademoiselle has done this?' 
 
 'I fancy so,' he answered, nodding. 'I think my lady 
 cast her spell over him by the way. The lad left Blois with 
 her, if what you say be true, Avithout faith in the world. 
 He came to my hands two days later the stoutest of Hugue- 
 nots. It is not hard to read this riddle.' 
 
 'Such conversions are seldom lasting,' I said. 
 
 He looked at me queerly; and, the smile still hovering 
 about his lips, answered 'Tush, man! Why so serious? 
 Theodore Beza himself could not look dryer. The lad is 
 in earnest, and there is no harm done.' 
 
 And, Heaven knows, I was in no mood to suspect harm ; 
 nor inclined just then to look at the dark side of things. It 
 may be conceived how delightful it was to me to be re- 
 ceived as an equal and honoured guest by a man, even then 
 famous, and now so grown in reputation as to overshadow 
 all Frenchmen save his master; how pleasant to enjoy the 
 comforts and amiabilities of home, from which I had been 
 long estranged; to pour my mother's story into Madame's
 
 AT ROSNY 141 
 
 ears and find comfort in her sympathy ; to feel myself, in fine, 
 once more a gentleman with an acknowledged place in the 
 world. Our days we spent in hunting, or excursions of some 
 kind, our evenings in long conversations, which impressed 
 me with an ever-growing respect for my lord's powers. 
 
 For there seemed to be no end either to his knowledge of 
 France, or to the plans for its development, which even 
 then filled his brain, and have since turned wildernesses 
 into fruitful lands, and squalid towns into great cities. 
 Grave and formal, he could yet unbend; the most sagacious 
 of counsellors, he was a soldier also, and loved the seclusion 
 in which we lived the more that it was not devoid of dan- 
 ger; the neighbouring towns being devoted to the League, 
 and the general disorder alone making it possible for him 
 to lie unsuspected in his own house. 
 
 One thing only rendered my ease and comfort imperfect, 
 and that was the attitude which Mademoiselle de la Vire 
 assumed towards rne. Of her gratitude in the first blush 
 of the thing I felt no doubt, for not only had she thanked 
 me very prettily, though with reserve, on the evening of 
 my arrival, but the warmth of M. de Rosny's kindness left 
 me no choice, save to believe that she had given him an 
 exaggerated idea of my merits and services. I asked no 
 more than this. Such good offices left me nothing to expect 
 or desire ; my age and ill-fortune placing me at so great a 
 disadvantage that, far from dreaming of friendship or 
 intimacy with her, I did not even assume the equality in 
 our daily intercourse to which my birth, taken by itself, 
 entitled me. Knowing that I must appear in her eyes old, 
 poor, and ill-dressed, and satisfied with having asserted my 
 conduct and honour, I was careful not to trespass on her 
 gratitude; and while forward in such courtesies as could 
 not weary her, I avoided with equal care every appearance 
 of pursuing her, or inflicting my company upon her. I 
 addressed her formally and upon formal topics only, such, 
 I mean, as we shared with the rest of our company; and 
 reminded myself often that though we now met in the same
 
 142 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE 
 
 house and at the same table, she was still the Mademoi- 
 selle de la Vire who had borne herself so loftily in the 
 King of Navarre's ante-chamber. This I did, not oat of 
 pique or wounded pride, which I no more, God knows, har- 
 boured against her than against a bird; but that I might 
 not in my new prosperity forget the light in which such a 
 woman, young, spoiled, and beautiful, must still regard me. 
 
 Keeping to this inoffensive posture, I was the more hurt 
 when I found her gratitude fade with the hour. After the 
 first two days, during which I remarked that she was very 
 silent, seldom speaking to me or looking at me, she resumed 
 much of her old air of disdain. For that I cared little; 
 but she presently went farther, and began to rake up the 
 incidents which had happened at St. Jean d'Angely, and in 
 which I had taken part. She continually adverted to my 
 poverty while there, to the odd figure I had cut, and the 
 many jests her friends had made at my expense. She 
 seemed to take a pleasure positively savage in these, gibing 
 at me sometimes so bitterly as to shame and pain me, and 
 bring the colour to Madame de Kosny's cheeks. 
 
 To the time we had spent together, on the other hand, 
 she never or rarely referred. One afternoon, however, a 
 week after my arrival at Rosny, I found her sitting alone 
 in the parlour. I had not known she was there, and I wa& 
 for withdrawing at once with a bow and a muttered apol- 
 ogy. But she stopped me with an angry gesture. 'I do 
 not bite, ' she said, rising from her stool and meeting my 
 eyes, a red spot in each cheek. 'Why do you look at me 
 like that? Do you know, M. de Marsac, that I have no 
 patience with you.' And she stamped her foot on the 
 floor. 
 
 'But, mademoiselle,' I stammered humbly, wondering 
 what in the world she meant, 'what have I done? ' 
 
 'Done?' she repeated angrily. 'Done? It is not what 
 you have done, it is what you are. I have no patience 
 with you. Why are you so dull, sir ? Why are you 
 so dowdy? Why do you go about with your doublet awry,
 
 AT ROSNY 143 
 
 and your hair lank? Why do you speak to Maignan as if 
 he were a gentleman? Why do you look always solemn 
 and polite, and as if all the world were a preche? Why? 
 Why? Why, I say?' 
 
 She stopped from sheer lack of breath, leaving me as 
 much astonished as ever in my life. She looked so beau- 
 tiful in her fury and fierceness too, that I could only stare 
 at her and wonder dumbly what it all meant. 
 
 'Well! ' she cried impatiently, after bearing this as long 
 as she could, 'have you not a word to say for yourself? 
 Have you no tongue? Have you no will of your own at all, 
 M. de Marsac?' 
 
 'But, mademoiselle,' I began, trying to explain. 
 
 'Chut!' she exclaimed, cutting me short before I could 
 get farther, as the way of women is. And then she added, 
 in a changed tone, and very abruptly, 'You have a velvet 
 knot of mine, sir. Give it me. ' 
 
 'It is in my room,' I answered, astonished beyond meas- 
 ure at this sudden change of subject, and equally sudden 
 demand. 
 
 'Then fetch it, sir, if you please,' she replied, her eyes 
 flashing afresh. 'Fetch it. Fetch it, I say! It has served 
 its turn, and I prefer to have it. Who knows but that 
 some day you may be showing it for a love-knot? ' 
 
 'Mademoiselle!' I cried, hotly. And I think that for 
 the moment I was as angry as she was. 
 
 'Still, I prefer to have it,' she answered sullenly, casting 
 down her eyes. 
 
 I was so much enraged, I went without a word and 
 fetched it, and, bringing it to her where she stood, in the 
 same place, put it into her hands. When she saw it some 
 recollection, I fancy, of the day when she had traced the 
 cry for help on it, came to her in her anger; for she took 
 it from me with all her bearing altered. She trembled, 
 and held it for a moment in her hands, as if she did not 
 know what to do with it. She was thinking, doubtless, of 
 the house in Blois and the peril she had run there ; and,
 
 144 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE 
 
 being for my part quite willing that she should think and 
 feel how badly she had acted, I stood looking at her, spar- 
 ing her no whit of my glance. 
 
 'The gold chain you left on my mother's pillow,' I saicl 
 coldly, seeing she continued silent, ' I cannot return to you at 
 once, for I have pledged it. But I will do so as soon as I can. ' 
 
 'You have pledged it?' she muttered, with her eyes 
 averted. 
 
 'Yes, mademoiselle, to procure a horse to bring me here,' 
 I replied drily. 'However, it shall be redeemed. In re- 
 turn, there is something I too would ask.' 
 
 'What?' she murmured, recovering herself with an 
 effort, and looking at me with something of her old pride 
 and defiance. 
 
 'The broken coin you have,' I said. 'The token, I mean. 
 It is of no use to you, for your enemies hold the other half. 
 It might be of service to me.' 
 
 'How?' she asked curtly. 
 
 'Because some day I may find its fellow, mademoiselle.' 
 
 'And then?' she cried. She looked at me, her lips 
 parted, her eyes flashing. 'What then, when you have 
 found its fellow, M. de Marsac? ' 
 
 I shrugged my shoulders. 
 
 'Bah!' she exclaimed, clenching her little hand, and 
 stamping her foot on the floor in a passion I could not un- 
 derstand. 'That is you! That is M. de Marsac all over. 
 You say nothing, and men think nothing of you. You go 
 with your hat in your hand, and they tread on you. They 
 speak, and you are silent ! Why, if I could use a sword as 
 you can, I would keep silence before no man, nor let any 
 man save the King of France cock his hat in my presence! 
 But you! There! go, leave me. Here is your coin. Take it 
 and go. Send me that lad of yours to keep me awake. At 
 any rate he has brains, he is young, he is a man, he has a 
 soul, he can feel if he were anything but a clerk. ' 
 
 She waved me off in such a wind of passion as might 
 have amused me in another, but in her smacked so strongly
 
 AT ROSWY 145 
 
 of ingratitude as to pain me not a little. I went, however, 
 and sent Simon to her; though I liked the errand very ill, 
 and no better when I saw the lad's face light up at the men- 
 tion of her name. But apparently she had not recovered 
 her temper when he reached her, for he fared no better than I 
 had done; coming away presently with the air of a whipped 
 dog, as I saw from the yew-tree walk where I was strolling. 
 
 Still, after that she made it a habit to talk to him more 
 and more; and, Monsieur and Madame de Rosny being 
 much taken up with one another, there was no one to check 
 her fancy or speak a word of advice. Knowing her pride, 
 I had no fears for her; but it grieved me to think that the 
 lad's head should be turned. A dozen times I made up my 
 mind to speak to her on his behalf; but for one thing it 
 was not my business, and for another I soon discovered that 
 she was aware of my displeasure, and valued it not a jot. 
 For venturing one morning, when she was in a pleasant 
 humour, to hint that she treated those beneath her too in- 
 humanly, and with an unkindness as little becoming noble 
 blood as familiarity, she asked me scornfully if I did not 
 think she treated Simon Fleix well enough. To which I 
 had nothing to answer. 
 
 I might here remark on the system of secret intelligence 
 by means of which M. de Rosny, even in this remote place, 
 received news of all that was passing in France. But it is 
 common fame. There was no coming or going of messen- 
 gers, which would quickly have aroused suspicion in the 
 neighbouring town, nor was it possible even for me to say 
 exactly by what channels news came. But come it did, 
 and at all hours of the day. In this way we heard of the 
 danger of La Ganache and of the effort contemplated by 
 the King of Navarre for its relief. M. de Eosny not only 
 communicated these matters to me without reserve, but 
 engaged my affections by farther proofs of confidence such 
 as might well have flattered a man of greater importance. 
 
 I have said that, as a rule, there was no coming or going 
 of messengers. But one evening:, returning from the chase
 
 146 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE 
 
 with one of the keepers, who had prayed my assistance in 
 hunting down a crippled doe, I was surprised to find a 
 strange horse, which had evidently been ridden hard and 
 far, standing smoking in the yard. Inquiring whose it was, 
 I learned that a man believed by the grooms to be from 
 Blois had just arrived and was closeted with the baron. 
 An event so far out of the ordinary course of things natu- 
 rally aroused my wonder ; but desiring to avoid any appear- 
 ance of curiosity, which, if indulged, is apt to become the 
 most vulgar of vices, I refrained from entering the house, 
 and repaired instead to the yew- walk. I had scarcely, 
 however, heated my blood, a little chilled with riding, be- 
 fore the page came to me to fetch me to his master. 
 
 I found M. de Rosny striding up and down his room, his 
 manner so disordered and his face disfigured by so much 
 grief and horror that I started on seeing him. My heart 
 sinking in a moment, I did not need to look at Madame, 
 who sat weeping silently in a chair, to assure myself that 
 something dreadful had happened. The light was failing, 
 and a lamp had been brought into the room. M. de Rosny 
 pointed abruptly to a small piece of paper which lay on the 
 table beside it, and, obeying his gesture, I took this up and 
 read its contents, which consisted of less than a score of 
 words. 
 
 'He is ill and like to die/ the message ran, 'twenty 
 leagues south of La Ganache. Come at all costs. P. M.' 
 
 'Who?' I said stupidly stupidly, for already I began 
 to understand. 'Who is ill and like to die? ' 
 
 M. de Rosny turned to me, and I saw that the tears were 
 trickling unbidden down his cheeks. 'There is but one he 
 for me,' he cried. 'May God spare that one! May He 
 spare him to France, which needs him, to the Church, 
 which hangs on him, and to me, who love him! Let him 
 not fall in the hour of fruition. Lord, let him not fall ! ' 
 And he sank on to a stool, and remained in that posture 
 with his face in his hands, his broad shoulders shaken with 
 grief
 
 AT ROSNY 14? 
 
 'Come, sir,' I said, after a pause sacred to sorrow and 
 dismay; 'let me remind you that while there is life there 
 is hope.' 
 
 'Hope?' 
 
 'Yes, M. de Rosny, hope,' I replied more cheerfully. 
 He has work to do. He is elected, called, and chosen; 
 the Joshua of his people, as M. d' Amours rightly called 
 him. God will not take him yet. You shall see him and 
 be embraced by him, as has happened a hundred times. 
 Remember, sir. the King of Navarre is strong, hardy, and 
 young, and no doubt in good hands.' 
 
 'Mornay's,' M. de Rosny cried, looking up with contempt 
 in his eye. 
 
 Yet from that moment he rallied, spurred, I think, by 
 the thought that the King of Navarre's recovery depended 
 under God on M. de Mornay; whom he was ever inclined 
 to regard as his rival. He began to make instant prepara- 
 tions for departure from Rosny, and bade me do so also, 
 telling me, somewhat curtly and without explanation, that 
 he had need of me. The danger of so speedy a return to 
 the South, where the full weight of the Vicomte de Tu- 
 renne's vengeance awaited me, occurred to me strongly; and 
 I ventured, though with a little shame, to mention it. But 
 M. de Rosny, after gazing at me a moment in apparent 
 doubt, put the objection aside with a degree of peevishness 
 unusual in him, and continued to press on his arrangements 
 as earnestly as though they did not include separation from 
 a wife equally loving and beloved. 
 
 Having few things to look to myself, I was at leisure, 
 when the hour of departure came, to observe both the cour- 
 age with which Madame de Rosny supported her sorrow, 
 'for the sake of France,' and the unwonted tenderness which 
 Mademoiselle de la Vire, lifted for once above herself, lav- 
 ished on her. I seemed to stand happily in one light, 
 and yet the feeling was fraught with pain outside their 
 familiar relations; yet, having made my adieux as short 
 and formal as possible, that I might not encroach on other 
 
 si
 
 148 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE 
 
 and more sacred ones, I found at the last moment some- 
 thing in waiting for me. I was surprised as I rode under 
 the gateway a little ahead of the others, by something small 
 and light falling on the saddle-bow before me. Catching 
 it before it could slide to the ground, I saw, with infinite 
 astonishment, that I held in my hand a tiny velvet bow. 
 
 To look up at the window of the parlour, which I have 
 said was over the archway, was my first impulse. I did so, 
 and met mademoiselle's eyes for a second, and a second 
 only. The next moment she was gone. M. de Rosny clat- 
 tered through the gate at my heels, the servants behind 
 him. And we were on the road. 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 M. DE KAMBOUILLET. 
 
 FOB a while we were but a melancholy party. The inci- 
 dent I have last related which seemed to admit of more 
 explanations than one left me in a state of the greatest 
 perplexity; and this prevailed with me for a time, and was 
 only dissipated at length by my seeing my own face, as it 
 were, in a glass. For, chancing presently to look behind 
 me, I observed that Simon Fleix was riding, notwithstand- 
 ing his fine hat and feather and his new sword, in a pos- 
 ture and with an air of dejection difficult to exaggerate; 
 whereon the reflection that master and man had the same 
 object in their minds nay, the thought that possibly he 
 bore in his bosom a like token to that which lay warm in 
 mine occurring to me, I roused myself as from some de- 
 grading dream, and, shaking up the Cid, cantered forward 
 to join Rosny, who, in no cheerful mood himself, was rid- 
 ing steadily forward, wrapped to his eyes in his cloak. 
 
 The news of the King of Navarre's illness had fallen on 
 him, indeed, in the midst of his sanguine scheming with
 
 M. DE RAMBOUILLET 14$ 
 
 the force of a thunderbolt. He saw himself in danger of 
 losing at once the master he loved and the brilliant future 
 to which he looked forward; and amid the imminent crash 
 of his hopes and the destruction of the system in which he 
 lived, he had scarcely time to regret the wife he was leav- 
 ing at Rosny or the quiet from which he was so suddenly 
 called. His heart was in the South, at La Ganache, by 
 Henry's couch. His main idea was to get there quickly at 
 all risks. The name of the King of Navarre's physician 
 was constantly on his lips. 'Dortoman is a good man. If 
 anyone can save him, Dortoman will,' was his perpetual 
 cry. And whenever he met anyone who had the least ap- 
 pearance of bearing news, he would have me stop and 
 interrogate him, and by no means let the traveller go until 
 he had given us the last rumour from Blois the channel 
 through which all the news from the South reached us. 
 
 An incident which occurred at the inn that evening 
 cheered him somewhat; the most powerful minds being 
 prone, I have observed, to snatch at omens in times of 
 uncertainty. An elderly man, of strange appearance, and 
 dressed in an affected and bizarre fashion, was seated at 
 table when we arrived. Though I entered first in my 
 assumed capacity of leader of the party, he let me pass be- 
 fore him without comment, but rose and solemnly saluted 
 M. de Bosny, albeit the latter walked behind me and was 
 much more plainly dressed. Rosny returned his greeting 
 and would have passed on; but the stranger, interposing 
 with a still lower bow, invited him to take his seat, which 
 was near the fire and sheltered from the draught, at the 
 same time making as if he would himself remove to another 
 place. 
 
 'Nay,' said my companion, surprised by such an excess 
 of courtesy, 'I do not see why I should take your place, 
 sir. ' 
 
 'Not mine only,' the old man rejoined, looking at him 
 with a particularity and speaking with an emphasis which 
 attracted our attention, 'but those of many others, who I
 
 150 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE 
 
 can assure you will very shortly yield them up to you, 
 whether they will or not. ' 
 
 M. de Kosny shrugged his shoulders and passed on, affect- 
 ing to suppose the old man wandered. But privately he 
 thought much of his words, and more when he learned that 
 he was an astrologer from Paris, who had the name, at any 
 rate in this country, of having studied under Nostradamus. 
 And whether he drew fresh hopes from this, or turned his 
 attention more particularly as we approached Blois to pres- 
 ent matters, certainly he grew more cheerful, and began 
 again to discuss the future, as though assured of his master's 
 recovery. 
 
 'You have never been to the King's Court? ' he said 
 presently, following up, as I judged, a train of thought in 
 his own mind. 'At Blois, I mean.' 
 
 'No; nor do I feel anxious to visit it,' I answered. 'To 
 tell you the truth, M. le Baron,' I continued with some 
 warmth, 'the sooner we are beyond Blois, the better I shall 
 be pleased. I think we run some risk there, and, besides, 
 I do not fancy a shambles. I do not think I could see the 
 king without thinking of the Bartholomew, nor his cham- 
 ber without thinking of Guise.' 
 
 'Tut, tut! ' he said, 'you have killed a man before now.' 
 
 'Many,' I answered. 
 
 'Do they trouble you? ' 
 
 'No, but they were killed in fair fight,' I replied. 'That 
 makes a difference.' 
 
 'To you,' he said drily. 'But you are not the King of 
 France, you see. Should you ever come acros him, he 
 continued, flicking his horse's ears, a faint smile on his 
 lips, 'I will give you a hint. Talk to him of the battles 
 at Jarnac and Moncontour, and praise your Conde's father! 
 As Conde lost the fight and he won it, the compliment 
 comes home to him. The more hopelessly a man has lost his 
 powers, my friend, the more fondly he regards them, and 
 the more highly he prizes the victories he can no longer gain.' 
 
 'Ugh!' I muttered.
 
 M. DE RAMBOUILLET 15? 
 
 'Of the two parties at Court,' Rosny continued, calmly 
 overlooking my ill-humour, 'trust D'Aumont and Biron 
 and the French clique. They are true to France at any 
 rate. But whomsoever you see consort with the two Retzs 
 the King of Spain's jackals as men name them avoid 
 him for a Spaniard and a traitor. ' 
 
 'But the Retzs are Italians, ' I objected peevishly. 
 
 'The same thing,' he answered curtly. 'They cry, "Vive 
 le Roi!" but privately they are for the League, or for 
 Spain, or for whatever may most hurt us ; who are better 
 Frenchmen than themselves, and whose leader will some 
 day, if God spare his life, be King of France.' 
 
 'Well, the less I have to do with the one or the other 
 of them, save at the sword's point, the better I shall be 
 pleased,' I rejoined. 
 
 On that he looked at me with a queer smile; as was his 
 way when he had more in his mind than appeared. And 
 this, and something special in the tone of his conversation, 
 as well, perhaps, as my own doubts about my future and 
 his intentions regarding me, gave me an uneasy feeling; 
 which lasted through the day, and left me only when more 
 immediate peril presently rose to threaten us. 
 
 It happened in this way. We had reached the outskirts 
 of Blois, and were just approaching the gate, hoping to pass 
 through it without attracting attention, when two travellers 
 rode slowly out of a lane, the mouth of which we were 
 passing. They eyed us closely as they reined in to let us 
 go by; and M. de Rosny, who was riding with his horse's 
 head at my stirrup, whispered me to press on. Before I 
 could comply, however, the strangers cantered by us, and 
 turning in the saddle when abreast of us looked us in the 
 face. A moment later one of them cried loudly, 'It is he! ; 
 and both pulled their horses across the road, and waited 
 for us to come up. 
 
 Aware that if M. de Rosny were discovered he would be 
 happy if he escaped with imprisonment, the king being too 
 jealous of his Catholic ^*eputation to venture to protect a
 
 152 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE 
 
 Huguenot, however illustrious, I saw that the situation was 
 desperate; for, though we were five to two, the neighbour- 
 hood of the city the gate being scarcely a bow-shot off 
 rendered flight or resistance equally hopeless. I could 
 think of nothing for it save to put a bold face on the mat- 
 ter, and, M. de Rosny doing the same, we advanced in the 
 most innocent way possible. 
 
 'Halt, there! ' cried one of the strangers sharply. 'And 
 let me tell you, sir, you are known.' 
 
 'What if lam?' I answered impatiently, still pressing 
 on. 'Are you highwaymen, that you stop the way? ' 
 
 The speaker on the other side looked at me keenly, but 
 in a moment retorted, 'Enough trifling, sir! Who you are 
 I do not know. But the person riding at your rein is M. de 
 Kosny. Him I do know, and I warn him to stop.' 
 
 I thought the game was lost, but to my surprise my com- 
 panion answered at once and almost in the same words I 
 had used. 'Well, sir, and what of that?' he said. 
 
 'What of that?' the stranger exclaimed, spurring his 
 horse so as still to bar the way. 'Why, only this, that you 
 must be a madman to show yourself on this side of the 
 Loire.' 
 
 'It is long since I have seen the other,' was my compan- 
 ion's unmoved answer. 
 
 'You are M. de Rosny? You do not deny it?' the man 
 cried in astonishment. 
 
 'Certainly I do not deny it,' M. de Eosny answered 
 bluntly. 'And more, the day has been, sir,' he continued 
 with sudden fire, 'when few at his Majesty's Court would 
 have dared to chop words with Solomon de Bethune, much 
 less to stop him on the highway within a mile of the pal- 
 ace. But times are changed with me, sir, and it would 
 seem with others also, if true men rallying to his Majesty 
 in his need are to be challenged by every passer on the road. ' 
 
 'What! Are you Solomon de Bethune?' the man cried 
 incredulously. Incredulously, but his countenance fell, 
 and his voice was full of chagrin and disappointment.
 
 M. DE RAMBOUILLET 153 
 
 'Who else, sir?' M. de Eosny replied haughtily. 'I am, 
 and, as far as I know, I have as much right on this side of 
 the Loire as any other man. ' 
 
 'A thousand pardons.' 
 
 'If you are not satisfied ' 
 
 'Nay, M. de Rosny, I am perfectly satisfied.' 
 
 The stranger repeated this with a very crestfallen air, 
 adding, 'A thousand pardons'; and fell to making other 
 apologies, doffing his hat with great respect. 'I took you, 
 if you will pardon me saying so, for your Huguenot brother, 
 M. Maximilian,' he explained. 'The saying goes that he is 
 at Rosny.' 
 
 'I can answer for that being false,' M. de Rosny answered 
 peremptorily, 'for I have just come from there, and I will 
 answer for it he is not within ten leagues of the place. 
 And now, sir, as we desire to enter before the gates shut, 
 perhaps you will excuse us.' With which he bowed, and 
 I bowed, and they bowed, and we separated. They gave 
 us the road, which M. de Rosny took with a great air, and 
 we trotted to the gate, and passed through it without mis- 
 adventure. 
 
 The first street we entered was a wide one, and my com- 
 panion took advantage of this to ride up abreast of me. 
 'That is the kind of adventure our little prince is fond of,' 
 he muttered. 'But for my part, M. de Marsac, the sweat 
 is running down my forehead. I have played the trick 
 more than once before, for my brother and I are as like as 
 two peas. And yet it would have gone ill with us if the 
 fool had been one of his friends.' 
 
 'All's well that ends well,' I answered in a low voice, 
 thinking it an ill time for compliments. As it was, the 
 remark was unfortunate, for M. de Rosny was still in the 
 act of reining back when Maignan called out to us to say 
 we were being followed. 
 
 I looked behind, but could see nothing except gloom and 
 rain and overhanging eaves and a few figures cowering in 
 doorways. The servant?, however, continued to maintain
 
 154 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE 
 
 that it was so, and we held, without actually stopping, a 
 council of war. If detected, we were caught in a trap, 
 without hope of escape; and for the moment I am sure M. 
 de Rosny regretted that he had chosen this route by Blois 
 that he had thrust himself, in his haste and his desire to 
 take with him the latest news, into a snare so patent. The 
 castle huge, dark, and grim loomed before us at the end 
 of the street in which we were, and, chilled as I was my- 
 self by the sight, I cculd imagine how much more appalling 
 it must appear to him, the chosen counsellor of his master, 
 and the steadfast opponent of all which it represented. 
 
 Our consultation came to nothing, for no better course 
 suggested itself than to go as we had intended to the lodg- 
 ing commonly used by my companion. We did so, looking 
 behind us often, and saying more than once that Maignan 
 must be mistaken. As soon as we had dismounted, how- 
 ever, and gone in, he showed us from the window a man 
 loitering near; and this confirmation of our alarm sending 
 as to our expedients again, while Maignan remained watch- 
 ing in a room without a light, I suggested that I might 
 pass myself off, though ten years older, for, my companion. 
 
 'Alas! ' he said, drumming with his fingers on the table, 
 'there are too many here who know me to make that possi- 
 ble. I thank you all the same.' 
 
 'Could you escape on foot? Or pass the wall anywhere, 
 or slip through the gates early? ' I suggested. 
 
 'They might tell us at the Bleeding Heart,' he answered. 
 'But I doubt it. I was a fool, sir, to put my neck into 
 Mendoza's halter, and that is a fact. But here is Maignan. 
 What is it, man? ' he continued eagerly. 
 
 'The watcher is gone, my lord,' the equerry answered. 
 
 'And has left no one? ' 
 
 'No one that I can see.' 
 
 We both went into the next room and looked from the 
 windows. The man was certainly not where we had seen 
 him before. But the rain was falling heavily, the eaves 
 were dripping, the street was a dark cavern with only here
 
 M. DE RAMBOUILLET 155 
 
 and there a spark of light, and the fellow might be lurking 
 elsewhere. Maignan, being questioned, however, believed 
 he had gone off of set purpose. 
 
 'Which may be read half a dozen ways,'- 1 remarked. 
 
 'At any rate, we are fasting,' M. de Rosny answered. 
 'Give me a full man in a fight. Let us sit down and eat. 
 It is no good jumping in the dark, or meeting troubles half 
 way.' 
 
 We were not through our meal, however, Simon Fleix 
 waiting on us with a pale face, when Maignan came in again 
 from the dark room. 'My lord,' he said quietly, 'three 
 men have appeared. Two of them remain twenty paces 
 away. The third has come to the door.' 
 
 As he spoke we heard a cautious summons below. Mai- 
 gnan was for going down, but his master bade him stand. 
 'Let the woman of the house go,' he said. 
 
 I remarked and long remembered M. de Kosny's sangfroid 
 on this occasion. His pistols he had already laid on a 
 chair beside him, throwing his cloak over them; and now, 
 while we waited, listening in breathless silence, I saw him 
 hand a large slice of bread-and-meat to his equerry, who, 
 standing behind his chair, began eating it with the same 
 coolness. Simon Fleix, on the other hand, stood gazing at 
 the door, trembling in every limb, and with so much of 
 excitement and surprise in his attitude that I took the pre- 
 caution of bidding him, in a low voice, do nothing without 
 orders. At the same moment it occurred to me to extin- 
 guish two of the four candles which had been lighted; and 
 I did so, M. de Rosny nodding assent, just as the muttered 
 conversation which was being carried on below ceased, and 
 a man's tread sounded on the stairs. 
 
 It was followed immediately by a knock on the outside of 
 our door. Obeying my companion's look, I cried, 'Enter! ' 
 
 A slender man of middle height, booted and wrapped up, 
 with his face almost entirely hidden by a fold of his cloak, 
 came in quickly, and, closing the door behind him, advanced 
 towards the table. 'Which is M. de Rosny? ' he said.
 
 156 A GENTLEMAN' OF FRANCE 
 
 Eosny had carefully turned his face from the light, but 
 at the sound of the other's voice he sprang up with a cry of 
 relief. He was about to speak, when the new-comer, rais- 
 ing his hand peremptorily, 'continued, 'No names, I beg. 
 Yours, I suppose, is known here. Mine is not, nor do I 
 desire it should be. I want speech of you, that is all.' 
 
 'I am greatly honoured/ M. de Rosny replied, gazing at 
 him eagerly. 'Yet, who told you I was here? ' 
 
 'I saw you pass under a lamp in the street,' the stranger 
 answered. 'I knew your horse first, and you afterwards, 
 and bade a groom follow you. Believe me,' he added, with 
 a gesture of the hand, 'you have nothing to fear from me.' 
 
 'I accept the assurance in the spirit in which it is 
 offered,' my companion answered with a graceful bow, 'and 
 think myself fortunate in being recognised ' he paused 
 a moment and then continued 'by a Frenchman and a man 
 of honour. ' 
 
 The stranger shrugged his shoulders. 'Your pardon, 
 then,' he said, 'if I seem abrupt. My time is short. I 
 want to do the best with it I can. Will you favour me? ' 
 
 I was for withdrawing, but M. de Rosny ordered Mai- 
 gnan to place lights in the next room, and, apologising to 
 me very graciously, retired thither with the stranger; leav- 
 ing me relieved indeed by these peaceful appearances, but 
 full of wonder and conjectures who this might be, and what 
 the visit portended. At one moment I was inclined to 
 identify the stranger with M. de Rosny 's brother; at an- 
 other with the English ambassador ; and then, again, a wild 
 idea that he might be M. de Bruhl occurred to me. The 
 two remained together about a quarter of an hour and then 
 came out, the stranger leading the way, and saluting me 
 politely as he passed through the room. At the door he 
 turned to say, 'At nine o'clock, then?' 
 
 'At nine o'clock,' M. de Rosny replied, holding the door 
 open. 'You will excuse me if I do not descend, Marquis?' 
 
 'Yes, go back, my friend,' the stranger answered. And, 
 lighted by Maignan, whose face on such occasions could
 
 M. DE RAMBOUILLEJ 157 
 
 assume the most stolid air in the world, he disappeared 
 down the stairs, and I heard him go out. 
 
 M. de Rosny turned to me, his eyes sparkling with joy, 
 his face and mien full of animation. 'The King of 
 Navarre is better,' he said. 'He is said to be out of 
 danger. What do you think of that, my friend? ' 
 
 'That is the best news I have heard for many a day,' I 
 answered. And I hastened to add, that France and the 
 Religion had reason to thank God for His mercy. 
 
 'Amen to that,' my patron replied reverently. 'But that 
 is not all that is not all.' And he began to walk up and 
 down the room humming the 118th Psalm a little above his 
 
 breath 
 
 La voici 1'heureuse join-ne'e 
 
 Que Dieu a faite a pleiu dtisir ; 
 Par nous soit joie dfimenee, 
 
 Et preuons en elle plaisir. 
 
 He continued, indeed, to walk up and down the floor so 
 long, and with so joyful a countenance and demeanour, 
 that I ventured at last to remind him of my presence, 
 which he had clearly forgotten. 'Ha! to be sure,' he said, 
 stopping short and looking at me with the utmost good- 
 humour. 'What time is it? Seven. Then until nine 
 o'clock, my friend, I crave your indulgence. In fine, until 
 that time I must keep counsel. Come, I am hungry still. 
 Let us sit down, and this time I hope we may not be inter- 
 rupted. Simon, set us on a fresh bottle. Ha! ha! Vivent 
 le Roi et le Roi de Navarre ! ' And again he fell to hum 
 ming the same psalm 
 
 O Dier 6ternel, je te prie, 
 
 Je te prie, ton roi maintiens: 
 O Dieu, je te prie et reprie, 
 
 Sauve ton roi et 1'entretiens ! 
 
 doing so with a light in his eyes and a joyous emphasis, 
 which impressed me the more in a man ordinarily so calm 
 and self-contained. I saw that something had occurred to
 
 158 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE 
 
 gratify him beyond measure, and, believing his statement 
 that this was not the good news from La Ganache only, I 
 waited with the utmost interest and anxiety for the hour of 
 nine, which had no sooner struck than oar former visitor 
 appeared with the same air of mystery and disguise which 
 had attended him before. 
 
 M. de Rosny, who had risen on hearing his step and had 
 taken up his cloak, paused with it half on and half off, to 
 cry anxiously, 'All is well, is it not?' 
 
 'Perfectly,' the stranger replied, with a nod. 
 
 'And my friend?' 
 
 'Yes, on condition that you answer for his discretion and 
 fidelity.' And the stranger glanced involuntarily at me, 
 who stood uncertain, whether to hold my ground or retire. 
 
 'Good,' M. de Rosny cried. Then he turned to me with 
 a mingled air of dignity and kindness, and continued : ' This 
 is the gentleman. M. de Marsac, I am honoured with per- 
 mission to present you to the Marquis de Rambouillet, 
 whose interest and protection I beg you to deserve, for he 
 is a true Frenchman and a patriot whom I respect.' 
 
 M. de Rambouillet saluted me politely. ' Of a Brittany 
 family, I think? > he said. 
 
 I assented; and he replied with something compliment- 
 ary. But afterwards he continued to look at me in silence 
 with a keenness and curiosity I did not understand. At 
 last, when M. de Rosny's impatience had reached a high 
 pitch, the marquis seemed impelled to add something. 
 'You quite understand, M. de Rosny?' he said. 'Without 
 saying anything disparaging of M. de Marsac, who is, no 
 doubt, a man of honour ' and he bowed to me very low 
 'this is a delicate matter, and you will introduce no one 
 into it, I am sure, whom you cannot trust as yourself.' 
 
 'Precisely,' M. de Rosny replied, speaking drily, yet with 
 a grand air which fully matched his companion's. 'I am 
 prepared to trust this gentleman not only with my life but 
 with my honour.' 
 
 'Nothing more remains to be said then,' the marquis re 4
 
 M. DE RAMBOUILLET 159 
 
 joined, bowing to me again. 'I am glad to have been the 
 occasion of a declaration so nattering to you, sir. ' 
 
 I returned his salute in silence, and obeying M. de 
 Rosny's muttered direction put on my cloak and sword. 
 M. de Rosny took up his pistols. 
 
 'You will have no need of those,' the marquis said with 
 a high glance. 
 
 'Where we are going, no,' my companion answered, 
 calmly continuing to dispose them about him. 'But the 
 streets are dark and not too safe.' 
 
 M. de Rambouillet laughed. 'That is the worst of yon 
 Huguenots,' he said. 'You never know when to lay sus- 
 picion aside.' 
 
 A hundred retorts sprang to my lips. I thought of the 
 Bartholomew, of the French fury of Antwerp, of half a 
 dozen things which make my blood boil to this day. But 
 M. de Rosny's answer was the finest of all. 'That is true, 
 I am afraid,' he said quietly. 'On the other hand, you 
 Catholics take the late M. de Guise for instance have 
 the habit of erring on the other side, I think, and some- 
 times trust too far.' 
 
 The marquis, without making any answer to this home- 
 thrust, led the way out, and we followed, being joined at 
 the door of the house by a couple of armed lackeys, who 
 fell in behind us. We went on foot. The night was dark, 
 and the prospect out of doors was not cheering. The 
 streets were wet and dirty, and notwithstanding all our care 
 we fell continually into pitfalls or over unseen obstacles. 
 Crossing the parvis of the cathedral, which I remembered, 
 we plunged in silence into an obscure street near the river, 
 and so narrow that the decrepit houses shut out almost all 
 view of the sky. The gloom of our surroundings, no less 
 than my ignorance of the errand on which we were bound, 
 filled me with anxiety and foreboding. My companions 
 keeping strict silence, however, and taking every precau- 
 tion to avoid being recognised, I had no choice but to do 
 likewise.
 
 160 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE 
 
 I could think, and no more. I felt myself borne along 
 by an irresistible current, whither and for what purpose I 
 could not tell ; an experience to an extent strange at my age 
 the influence of the night and the weather. Twice we 
 stood aside to let a party of roisterers go by, and the exces- 
 sive care M. de Eambouillet evinced on these occasions to 
 avoid recognition did not tend to reassure me or make me 
 think more lightly of the unknown business on which I was 
 bound. 
 
 Reaching at last an open space, our leader bade us in a 
 low voice be careful and follow him closely. We did so, 
 and crossed in this way and in single file a narrow plank or 
 wooden bridge; but whether water ran below or a dry 
 ditch only, I could not determine. My mind was taken up 
 at the moment with the discovery which I had just made, 
 that the dark building, looming huge and black before us 
 with a single light twinkling here and there at great 
 heights, was the Castle of Blois. 
 
 CHAPTEE XV. 
 
 VILAIN HERODES. 
 
 ALL the distaste and misliking I had expressed earlier 
 in the day for the Court of Blois recurred with fresh force 
 in the darkness and gloom ; and though, booted and travel- 
 stained as we were, I did not conceive it likely that we 
 should be obtruded on the circle about the king, I felt none 
 the less an oppressive desire to be through with our adven- 
 ture, and away from the ill-omened precincts in which I 
 found myself. The darkness prevented me seeing the faces 
 of my companions ; but on M. de Eosny, who was not quite 
 free himself, I think, from the influences of the time and 
 place, twitching my sleeve to enforce vigilance, I noted 
 that the lackeys had ceased to follow us, and that we three
 
 Vi 'LAIN" HERODES 161 
 
 were beginning to ascend a rough staircase cut in the rock. 
 I gathered, though the darkness limited my view behind as 
 well as in front to a few twinkling lights, that we were 
 mounting the scarp from the moat to the side wall of the 
 castle; and I was not surprised when the marquis muttered 
 to us to stop, and knocked softly on the wood of a door. 
 
 M. de Rosny might have spared the touch he had laid on 
 my sleeve, for by this time I was fully and painfully sen- 
 sible of the critical position in which we stood, and was 
 very little likely to commit an indiscretion. I trusted he 
 had not done so already ! No doubt it flashed across me 
 while we waited he had taken care to safeguard himself. 
 But how often, I reflected, had all safeguards been set aside 
 and all precautions eluded by those to whom he was com- 
 mitting himself! Guise had thought himself secure in this 
 very building, which we were about to enter. Coligny had 
 received the most absolute of safe-conducts from those to 
 whom we were apparently bound. The end in either case 
 had been the same the confidence of the one proving of no 
 more avail than the wisdom of the other. What if the 
 King of France thought to make his peace with his Catho- 
 lic subjects offended by the murder of Guise by a second 
 murder of one as obnoxious to them as he was precious to 
 their arch-enemy in the South? Eosny was sagacious in- 
 deed ; but then I reflected with sudden misgiving that he 
 was young, ambitious, and bold. 
 
 The opening of the door interrupted without putting an 
 end to this train of apprehension. A faint light shone out ; 
 so feebly as to illumine little more than the stairs at our 
 feet. The marquis entered at once, M. de Eosny followed, 
 I brought up the rear; and the door was closed by a man 
 who stood behind it. We found ourselves crowded together 
 at the foot of a very narrow staircase, which the doorkeeper 
 a stolid pikeman in a grey uniform, with a small lanthorn 
 swinging from the crosspiece of his halberd signed to us 
 to ascend. I said a word to him, but he only stared in 
 answer, and M. de Eambouillet, looking back and seeing 
 
 ii
 
 162 A GENTLEMAN- OF FRANCE 
 
 what I was about, called to me that it was useless, as the 
 man was a Swiss and spoke no French. 
 
 ' This did not tend to reassure me ; any more than did the 
 chill roughness of the wall which my hand touched as I 
 groped upwards, or the smell of bats which invaded my 
 nostrils and suggested that the staircase was little used and 
 belonged to a part of the castle fitted for dark and secret 
 doings. 
 
 We stumbled in the blackness up the steps, passing one 
 door and then a second before M. de Rambouillet whispered 
 to us to stand, and knocked gently at a third. 
 
 The secrecy, the darkness, and above all the strange ar- 
 rangements made to receive us, filled me with the wildest 
 conjectures. But when the door opened and we passed one 
 by one into a bare, unfurnished, draughty gallery, immedi- 
 ately, as I judged, under the tiles, the reality agreed with 
 no one of my anticipations. The place was a mere garret, 
 without a hearth, without a single stool. Three windows, 
 of which one was roughly glazed, while the others were 
 filled with oiled paper, were set in one wall; the others 
 displaying the stones and mortar without disguise or orna- 
 ment. Beside the door through which we had entered 
 stood a silent figure in the grey uniform I had seen below, 
 his lanthorn on the floor at his feet. A second door at the 
 farther end of the gallery, which was full twenty paces 
 long, was guarded in like manner. A couple of lanthorns 
 stood in the middle of the floor, and that was all. 
 
 Inside the door, M. de Rambouillet with his finger on hit 
 lip stopped us, and we stood a little group of three a pace 
 in front of the sentry, and with the empty room before us. 
 I looked at M. de Rosny, but he was looking at Rambouil- 
 let. The marquis had his back towards me, the sentry was 
 gazing into vacancy; so that baffled in my attempt to learn 
 anything from the looks of the other actors in the scene, I 
 fell back on my ears. The rain dripped outside and the 
 moaning wind rattled the casements; but mingled with 
 these melancholy sounds which gained force, as such
 
 VILAfN HERODES 163 
 
 things always do, from the circumstances in which we were 
 placed and our own silence I fancied I caught the distant 
 hum of voices and music and laughter. And that, I know 
 not why, brought M. de Guise again to my mind. 
 
 The story of his death, as I had heard it from that 
 accursed monk in the inn on the Claine, rose up in all its 
 freshness, with all its details. I started when M. de Ram- 
 bouillet coughed. I shivered when Rosny shifted- his feet. 
 The silence grew oppressive. Only the stolid men in grey 
 seemed unmoved, unexpectant; so that I remember won- 
 dering whether it was their nightly duty to keep guard over 
 an empty garret, the floor strewn with scraps of mortar and 
 ends of tiles. 
 
 The interruption, when it came at last, came suddenly. 
 The sentry at the farther end of the gallery started and fell 
 back a pace. Instantly the door beside him opened and a 
 man came in, and closing it quickly behind him, advanced 
 up the room with an air of dignity, which even his strange 
 appearance and attire could not wholly destroy. 
 
 He was of good stature and bearing, about forty years 
 old as I judged, his wear a dress of violet velvet with black 
 points cut in the extreme of the fashion. He carried a sword 
 but no ruff, and had a cup and ball of ivory a strange toy 
 much in vogue among the idle suspended from his wrist 
 by a ribbon. He was lean and somewhat narrow, but so 
 far I found little fault with him. It was only when my 
 eye reached his face, and saw it rouged like a woman's and 
 surmounted by a little turban, that a feeling of scarcely 
 understood disgust seized me, and I said to myself, 'This 
 is the stuff of which kings' minions are made ! ' 
 
 To my surprise, however, M. de Rambouillet went to 
 meet him with the utmost respect, sweeping the dirty floor 
 with his bonnet, and bowing to the very ground. The new- 
 comer acknowledged his salute with negligent kindness. 
 Remarking pleasantly 'You have brought a friend, I think? ' 
 he looked towards us with a smile. 
 
 'Yes, sire, he is here,' the marquis answered, stepping
 
 164 A GENTLEMAN- OF FRANCE 
 
 aside a little. And with the word I understood that this 
 was no minion, but the king himself: Henry, the Third of 
 the name, and the last of the great House of Valois, which 
 had ruled France by the grace of God for two centuries and 
 a half! I stared at him, and stared at him, scarcely believ- 
 ing what I saw. For the first time in my life I was in the 
 presence of the king! 
 
 Meanwhile M. de Eosny, to whom he was, of course, no 
 marvel, had gone forward and knelt on one knee. The 
 king raised him graciously, and with an action which, 
 viewed apart from his woman's face and silly turban, 
 seemed royal and fitting. 'This is good of you, Eosny,' 
 he said. 'But it is only what I expected of ye;i.' 
 
 'Sire,' my companion answered, 'your Majesty has no 
 more devoted servant than myself, unless it be the king my 
 master. ' 
 
 'By my faith,' Henry answered with energy 'and if I 
 am not a good churchman, whatever those rascally Paris- 
 ians say, I am nothing by my faith, I think I believe- 
 you!' ' 
 
 ' If your Majesty would believe me in that and in some 
 other things also,' M. de Eosny answered, 'it would be 
 very well for France.' Though he spoke courteously, he 
 threw so much weight and independence into his words 
 that I thought of the old proverb, 'A good master, a bold 
 servant. ' 
 
 'Well, that is what we are here to see,' the king replied. 
 'But one tells me one thing,' he went on fretfully, 'and 
 one another, and which am I to believe?' 
 
 'I know nothing of others, sire,' Eosny answered with 
 the same spirit. 'But my master has every claim to be 
 believed. His interest in the royalty of France is second 
 only to your Majesty's. He is also a king and a kinsman, 
 and it irks him to see rebels beard you, as has happened 
 of late.' 
 
 'Ay, but the chief of them?' Henry exclaimed, giving 
 way to sudden excitement and stamping furiously on the
 
 VILAIN H ERODES 165 
 
 floor. 'He will trouble me no more. Has my brother 
 heard of that? Tell me, sir, has that news reached him? ' 
 
 'He has heard it, sire.' 
 
 'And he approved? He approved, of course?' 
 
 'Beyond doubt the man was a traitor,' M. de Rosny 
 answered delicately. 'His life was forfeit, sire. Who 
 can question it? ' 
 
 'And he has paid the forfeit,' the king rejoined, looking 
 down at the floor and immediately falling into a moodiness 
 as sudden as his excitement. His lips moved. He mut- 
 tered something inaudible, and began to play absently with 
 his cup and ball, his mind occupied apparently with a 
 gloomy retrospect. 'M. de Guise, M. de Guise,' he mur- 
 mured at last, with a sneer and an accent of hate which 
 told of old humiliations long remembered. 'Well, damn 
 him, he is dead now. He is dead. But being dead he yet 
 troubles us. Is not that the verse, father? Ha!' with a 
 start, 'I was forgetting. But that is the worst wrong he 
 has done me, ' he continued, looking up and growing excited 
 again. 'He has cut me off from Mother Church. There 
 is hardly a priest comes near me now, and presently they 
 will excommunicate me. And, as I hope for salvation, the 
 Church has no more faithful son than me.' 
 
 I believe he was on the point, forgetting M. de Rosny 's 
 presence there and his errand, of giving way to unmanly 
 tears, when M. de Rambouillet, as if by accident, let the 
 heel of his scabbard fall heavily on the floor. The king 
 started, and passing his hand once or twice across his brow, 
 seemed to recover himself. 'Well,' he said, 'no doubt we 
 shall find a way out of our difficulties.' 
 
 'If your Majesty,' Eosny answered respectfully, 'would 
 accept the aid my master proffers, I venture to think that 
 they would vanish the quicker.' 
 
 ' You think so,' Henry rejoined. ' Well, give me your 
 shoulder. Let us walk a little.' And, signing to E.am- 
 bouillet to leave him, he began to walk up and down with 
 M. de Rosny, talking familiarly with him in an undertone.
 
 1 66 A GENTLEMAN- OF FRANCE 
 
 Only such scraps of the conversation as fell from them when 
 they turned at my end of the gallery now reached me. 
 Patching these together, however, I managed to understand 
 somewhat. At one turn I heard the king say, 'But then 
 
 Turenne offers ' At the next, 'Trust him? Well, I 
 
 do not know why I should not. He promises ' Then 
 
 'A Eepublic, Rosny? That his plan? Pooh! he dare not. 
 He could not. France is a kingdom by the ordinance of 
 God in my family.' 
 
 I gathered from these and other chance words, which I 
 have since forgotten, that M. de Rosny was pressing the 
 king to accept the help of the King of Navarre, and warn- 
 ing him against the insidious offers of the Vicomte de Tu- 
 renne. The mention of a Eepublic, however, seemed to 
 excite his Majesty's wrath rather against Kosny for pre- 
 suming to refer to such a thing than against Turenne, to 
 whom he refused to credit it. He paused near my end of 
 the promenade. 
 
 'Prove it!' he said angrily. 'But can you prove it? 
 Can you prove it? Mind you, I will take no hearsay evi- 
 dence, sir. Now, there is Turenne's agent here you did 
 not know, I dare say, that he had an agent here? ' 
 
 'You refer, sire, to M. de Bruhl,' Rosny answered, with- 
 out hesitation. 'I know him, sire.' 
 
 'I think you are the devil,' Henry answered, looking 
 curiously at him. 'You seem to know most things. But 
 mind you, my friend, he speaks me fairly, and I will not 
 take this on hearsay even from your master. Though, ' he 
 added after pausing a moment, 'I love him.' 
 
 'And he, your Majesty. He desires only to prove it.' 
 
 'Yes, I know, I know,' the king answered fretfully. 'I 
 believe he does. I believe he does wish me well. But 
 there will be a devil of an outcry among my people. And 
 Turenne gives fair words too. And I do not know,' he 
 continued, fidgeting with his cup and ball, 'that it might 
 not suit me better to agree with him, you see. ' 
 
 I saw M. de Kosny draw himself up. 'Dare I speak
 
 VILAIN HERODES 167 
 
 openly to you, sire,' he said, with less respect and more 
 energy than he had hitherto used. 'As I should to my 
 master? ' 
 
 'Ay, say what you like,' Henry answered. But he spoke 
 sullenly, and it seemed to me that he looked less pleasantly 
 at his companion. 
 
 'Then I will venture to utter what is in your Majesty's 
 mind,' my patron answered steadfastly. 'You fear, sire, 
 lest, having accepted my master's offer and conquered your 
 enemies, you should not be easily rid of him.' 
 
 Henry looked relieved! 'Do you call that diplomacy?' 
 he said with a smile. 'However, what if it be so? What 
 do you say to it? Methinks I have heard an idle tale about 
 a horse which would hunt a stag; and for the purpose set 
 a man upon its back.' 
 
 'This I say, sire, first,' Rosny answered very earnestly. 
 'That the King of Navarre is popular only with one-third 
 of the kingdom, and is only powerful when united with 
 you. Secondly, sire, it is his interest to support the royal 
 power, to which he is heir. And, thirdly, it must be more 
 to your Majesty's honour to accept help from a near kins- 
 man than from an ordinary subject, and one who, I still 
 maintain, sire, has no good designs in his mind.' 
 
 'The proof? ' Henry said sharply. 'Give me that! ' 
 
 'I can give it in a week from this day.' 
 
 'It must be no idle tale, mind you,' the king continued 
 suspiciously. 
 
 'You shall have Turenne's designs, sire, from one who 
 had them from his own mouth. ' 
 
 The king looked startled, but after a pause turned and 
 resumed his walk. 'Well,' he said, 'if you do that, I on 
 my part ' 
 
 The rest I lost, for the two passing to the farther end of 
 the gallery, came to a standstill there, balking my curiosity 
 and Rambouillet's also. The marquis, indeed, began to 
 betray his impatience, and the great clock immediately 
 over our heads presently striking the half -hour after ten
 
 1 68 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE 
 
 he started and made as if he would have approached the 
 king. He checked the impulse, however, but still contin- 
 ued to fidget uneasily, losing his reserve by-and-by so far as 
 to whisper to me that his Majesty would be missed. 
 
 I had been, up to this point, a silent and inactive specta- 
 tor of a scene which appealed to my keenest interests and 
 aroused my most ardent curiosity. Surprise following 
 surprise, I had begun to doubt my own identity; so little 
 had I expected to find myself first in the presence of the 
 Most Christian King and that under circumstances as 
 strange and bizarre as could well be imagined and then an 
 authorised witness at a negotiation upon which the future 
 of all the great land of France stretching for so many hun- 
 dred leagues on every side of us, depended. I say I could 
 scarcely believe in my own identity; or that I was the same 
 Gaston de Marsac who had slunk, shabby and out-at-elbows, 
 about St. Jean d'Angely. I tasted the first sweetness of 
 secret power, which men say is the sweetest of all and the 
 last relinquished; and, the hum of distant voices and 
 laughter still reaching me at intervals, I began to under- 
 stand why we had been admitted with so much precaution, 
 and to comprehend the gratification of M. de Kosny when 
 the promise of this interview first presented to him the 
 hope of effecting so much for his master and for France. 
 
 Now I was to be drawn into the whirlpool itself. I was 
 still travelling back over the different stages of the adven- 
 ture which had brought me to this point, when I was rudely 
 awakened by M. de K-osny calling my name in a raised 
 voice. Seeing, somewhat late, that he was beckoning to 
 me to approach, I went forward in a confused and hasty 
 fashion ; kneeling before the king as I had seen him kneel, 
 and then rising to give ear to his Majesty's commands. 
 Albeit, having expected nothing less than to be called 
 upon, I was not in the clearest mood to receive them. Nor 
 was my bearing such as I could have wished it to be. 
 
 'M. de Eosny tells me that you desire a commission at 
 Court, sir, ' the king said quickly.
 
 VILAIN HERODES 169 
 
 'I, sire?' I stammered, scarcely able to believe my ears. 
 I was so completely taken aback that I could say no more, 
 and I stopped there with my mouth open. 
 
 'There are few things I can deny M. de Bosny,' Henry 
 continued, speaking very rapidly, 'and I am told that you 
 are a gentleman of birth and ability. Out of kindness to 
 him, therefore, I grant you a commission to raise twenty 
 men for my service. Rambouillet, ' he continued, raising his 
 voice slightly, 'you will introduce this gentleman to me pub- 
 licly to-morrow, that I may carry into effect my intention 
 on his behalf. You may go now, sir. No thanks. And 
 M. de Rosny,' he added, turning to my companion and 
 speaking with energy, 'have a care for my sake that you 
 are not recognised as you go. Kambouillet must contrive 
 something to enable you to leave without peril. I should 
 be desolated if anything happened to you, my friend, for I 
 could not protect you. I give you my word if Mendoza or 
 Retz found you in Blois I could not save you from them 
 unless you recanted. ' 
 
 'I will not trouble either your Majesty or my conscience,' 
 M. de Rosiiy replied, bowing low, 'if my wits can help me.' 
 
 'Well, the saints keep you,' the king answered piously, 
 going towards the door by which he had entered; 'for your 
 master and I have both need of you. Rambouillet, take 
 care of him as you love me. And come early in the morn- 
 ing to my closet and tell me how it has fared with him. ' 
 
 We all stood bowing while he withdrew, and only turned 
 to retire when the door closed behind him. Burning with 
 indignation and chagrin as I was at finding myself disposed 
 of in the way I have described, and pitchforked, whether I 
 would or no, into a service I neither fancied nor desired, I 
 still managed for the present to restrain myself; and, per- 
 mitting my companions to precede me, followed in silence, 
 listening sullenly to their jubilations. The marquis seemed 
 scarcely less pleased than M. de Rosny; and as the latter 
 evinced a strong desire to lessen any jealousy the former 
 might feel, and a generous inclination to attribute to him a
 
 i;o A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE 
 
 full share of the credit gained, I remained the only person 
 dissatisfied with the evening's events. We retired from 
 the chateau with the same precautions which had marked 
 our entrance, and parting with M. de Eambouillet at the 
 door of our lodging not without many protestations of 
 esteem on his part and of gratitude on that of M. de Kosny 
 mounted to the first-floor in single file and in silence, 
 which I was determined not to be the first to break. 
 
 Doubtless M. de Rosny knew my thoughts, for, speedily 
 dismissing Maignan and Simon, who were in waiting, he 
 turned to me without preface. 'Come, my friend,' he said, 
 laying his hand on my shoulder and looking me in the face 
 in a way which all but disarmed me at once, 'do not let us 
 misunderstand one another. You think you have cause to be 
 angry with me. I cannot suffer that, for the King of Navarre 
 had never greater need of your services than now.' 
 
 'You have played me an unworthy trick, sir,' I answered, 
 thinking he would cozen me with fair speeches. 
 
 'Tut, tut! ' he replied. 'You do not understand.' 
 
 'I understand well enough,' I answered, with bitterness, 
 'that, having done the King of Navarre's work, he would 
 now be rid of me.' 
 
 'Have I not told you,' M. de Rosny replied, betraying 
 for the first time some irritation, 'that he has greater need 
 of your services than ever? Come, man, be reasonable, or, 
 better still, listen to me.' And turning from me, he began 
 to walk up and down the room, his hands behind him. 
 'The King of France I want to make it as clear to you as 
 possible ' he said, 'cannot make head against the League 
 without help, and, willy-nilly, must look for it to the 
 Huguenots whom he has so long persecuted. The King of 
 Navarre, their acknowledged leader, has offered that help; 
 and so, to spite my master, and prevent a combination so 
 happy for France, has M. de Turenne, who would fain raise 
 the faction he commands to eminence, and knows well how 
 to make his profit out of the dissensions of his country. 
 Are you clear so far, sirt '
 
 VILAIN HERODES 171 
 
 I assented. I was becoming absorbed in spite of myself. 
 
 'Very well,' lie resumed. 'This evening never did any- 
 thing fall out more happily than Rambouillet's meeting 
 with me he is a good man! I have brought the king to 
 this : that if proof of the selfish nature of Turenne's designs 
 be laid before him he will hesitate no longer. That proof 
 exists. A fortnight ago it was here; but it is not here 
 now.' 
 
 'That is unlucky!' I exclaimed. I was so much inter- 
 ested in his story, as well as flattered by the confidence he 
 was placing in me, that my ill-humour vanished. I went 
 and stood with my shoulder against the mantelpiece, and 
 ne, passing to and fro between me and the light, continued 
 his tale. 
 
 'A word about this proof,' he said. 'It came into the 
 King of Navarre's hands before its full value was known 
 to us, for that only accrued to it on M. de Guise's death. 
 A month ago it this piece of evidence I mean was at 
 Chize. A fortnight or so ago it was here in Blois. It is 
 now, M. de Marsac,' he continued, facing me suddenly as 
 he came opposite me, 'in my house at Eosny.' 
 
 I started. 'You mean Mademoiselle de la Vire? ' I cried. 
 
 'I mean Mademoiselle de la Vire!' he answered, 'who, 
 some month or two ago, overheard M. de Turenne's plans, 
 and contrived to communicate with the King of Navarre. 
 Before the latter could arrange a private interview, how- 
 ever, M. de Turenne got wind of her dangerous knowledge, 
 and swept her off to Chize. The rest you know, M. de 
 Marsac, if any man knows it.' 
 
 'But what will you do ? ' I asked. 'She is at Rosny.' 
 
 'Maignan, whom 1 trust implicitly, as far as his lights 
 go, will start to fetch her to-morrow. At the same hour I 
 start southwards. You, M. de Marsac, will remain here as 
 my agent, to watch over my interests, to receive Mademoi- 
 selle on her arrival, to secure for her a secret interview with 
 the king, to guard her while she remains here. Do you 
 anderstand? '
 
 172 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE 
 
 Did I understand? I could not find words in which to 
 thank him. My remorse and gratitude, my sense of the 
 wrong I had done him, and of the honour he was doing me, 
 were such that I stood mute before him as I had stood 
 before the king. 'You accept, then?' he said, smiling. 
 'You do not deem the adventure beneath you, my friend? ' 
 
 'I deserve your confidence so little, sir,' I answered, 
 stricken to the ground, 'that I beg you to speak, while I 
 listen. By attending exactly to your instructions I may 
 prove worthy of th.3 trust reposed in me. And only so.' 
 
 He embraced me again and again, with a kindness which 
 moved me almost to tears. 'You are a man after my own 
 heart,' he said, 'and if God wills I will make your fortune. 
 Now listen, my friend. To-inorrow at Court, as a stranger 
 and a man introduced by Eambouillet, you will be the 
 cynosure of all eyes. Bear yourself bravely. Pay court 
 to the women, but attach yourself to no one in particular. 
 Keep aloof from Retz and the Spanish faction, but beware 
 especially of Bruhl. He alone will have your secret, and 
 may suspect your design. Mademoiselle should be here 
 in a week; while she is with you, and until she has seen 
 the king, trust no one, suspect everyone, fear all things. 
 Consider the battle won only when the king says, "1 am 
 satisfied." ' 
 
 Much more he told me, which served its purpose and has 
 been forgotten. Finally he honoured me by bidding me 
 share his pallet with him, that we might talk without re- 
 straint, and that if anything occurred to him in the night 
 he might communicate it to me. 
 
 'But will not Bruhl denounce me as a Huguenot?' I 
 asked him. 
 
 'He will not dare to do so,' M. de Kosny answered, 'both 
 as a Huguenot himself, and as his master's representa- 
 tive; and, further, because it would displease the king. 
 No, but whatever secret harm one man can do another, that 
 you have to fear. Maignan, when he returns with made- 
 moiselle, will leave two men. with you; until they come I
 
 IN THE KING^S CHAMBER 173 
 
 should borrow a couple of stout fellows from Rambouillet, 
 Do not go out alone after dark, and beware of doorways, 
 especially your own.' 
 
 A little later, when I thought him asleep, I heard him 
 chuckle; and rising on my elbow I asked him what it was. 
 'Oh, it is your affair,' he answered, still laughing silently, 
 so that I felt the mattress shake under him. 'I don't envy 
 you one part of your task, my friend. ' 
 
 'What is that?' I said suspiciously. 
 
 'Mademoiselle,' he answered, stilling with difficulty a 
 burst of laughter. And after that he would not say an- 
 other word, bad, good, or indifferent, though I felt the 
 bed shake more than once, and knew that he was digesting 
 his pleasantry. 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 IN THE KING'S CHAMBER. 
 
 M. DE ROSNY had risen from my side and started on hi& 
 journey when I opened my eyes in the morning, and awoke 
 to the memory of the task which had been so strangely 
 imposed upon me ; and which might, according as the events 
 of the next fortnight shaped themselves, raise me to high 
 position or put an end to my career. He had not forgotten 
 to leave a souvenir behind him, for I found beside my 
 pillow a handsome silver-mounted pistol, bearing the letter 
 ' R.' and a coronet ; nor had I more than discovered this 
 instance of his kindness before Simon Fleix came in to 
 tell me that M. de Rosny had left two hundred crowns in 
 his hands for me. 
 
 1 Any message with it ? ' I asked the lad. 
 
 ' Only that he had taken a keepsake in exchange,' Simon 
 answered, opening the window as he spoke. 
 
 In some wonder I began to search, but I could not dis- 
 cover that anything was missing until I came to put on my
 
 174 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE 
 
 doublet, when I found that the knot of ribbon which 
 mademoiselle had flung to me at my departure from Rosny 
 was gone from the inside of the breast, where I had pinned 
 it for safety with a long thorn. The discovery that M. de 
 Rosny had taken this was displeasing to me on more than 
 one account. In the first place, whether mademoiselle had 
 merely wished to plague me (as was most probable) or not, 
 I was loth to lose it, my day for ladies' favours being past 
 and gone ; in the second, I misdoubted the motive which 
 had led him to purloin it, and tormented myself with think- 
 ing of the different constructions he might put upon it, and 
 the disparaging view of my trustworthiness which it might 
 lead him to take. I blamed myself much for my carelessness 
 in leaving it where a chance eye might rest upon it ; and 
 more when, questioning Simon further, I learned that M. de 
 Rosny had added, while mounting at the door, ' Tell your 
 master, safe bind, safe find ; and a careless lover makes a 
 loose mistress.' 
 
 I felt my cheek burn in a manner unbecoming my years 
 while Simon with some touch of malice repeated this ; and 
 I made a vow on the spot, which I kept until I was tempted 
 to break it, to have no more to do with such trifles. Mean- 
 while, I had to make the best of it ; and brisking up, and bid- 
 ding Simon, who seemed depressed by the baron's departure, 
 brisk up also, I set about my preparations for making such 
 a figure at Court as became me : procuring a black velvet 
 suit, and a cap and feather to match ; item, a jewelled clasp 
 to secure the feather ; with a yard or two of lace and two 
 changes of fine linen. 
 
 Simon had grown sleek at Kosny, and losing something 
 of the wildness which had marked him, presented in the 
 dress M. de Rosny had given him a very creditable appear- 
 ance ; being also, I fancy, the only equerry in Blois who 
 could write. A groom I engaged on the recommendation of 
 M. de Rambouillet's master of the horse ; and 1 gave out 
 also that I required a couple of valets. It needed only an 
 hour under the barber's hands and a set of new trappings
 
 IN THE KING^S CHAMBER 175 
 
 for the Cid to enable me to make a fair show, such as 
 might be taken to indicate a man of ten or twelve thousand 
 livres a year. 
 
 In this way I expended a hundred and fifteen crowns. 
 Reflecting that this was a large sum, and that I must 
 keep some money for play, I was glad to learn that in the 
 crowded state of the city even men with high rank were 
 putting up with poor lodging; I determined, therefore, to 
 combine economy with a scheme which I had in my head 
 by taking the rooms in which my mother died, with one 
 room below them. This I did, hiring such furniture as I 
 needed, which was not a great deal. To Simon Fleix, 
 whose assistance in these matters was invaluable, I passed 
 on much of M. de Rosny's advice, bidding him ruffle it 
 with the best in his station, and inciting him to labour for 
 my advancement by promising to make his fortune when- 
 ever my own should be assured. I hoped, indeed, to derive 
 no little advantage from the quickness oi wit which had 
 attracted M. de Rosny's attention ; although I did not fail 
 to take into account at the same time that the lad was 
 wayward and fitful, prone at one time to depression, and 
 at another to giddiness, and equally uncertain in either 
 mood. 
 
 M. de Rambouillet being unable to attend the levte, had 
 appointed me to wait upon him at six in the evening; at 
 which hour I presented myself at his lodgings, attended by 
 Simon Fleix. I found him in the midst of half a dozen 
 gentlemen whose habit it was to attend him upon all public 
 occasions ; and these gallants, greeting me with the same 
 curious and suspicious glances which I have seen hounds 
 bestow on a strange dog introduced into their kennel, I was 
 speedily made to feel that it is one thing to have business 
 at Court, and another to be well received there. 
 
 M. de Rambouillet, somewhat to my surprise, did nothing 
 to remove this impression. On all ordinary occasions a 
 man oi' stiff and haughty bearing, and thoroughly disliking, 
 though he could not prevent, the intrusion of a third party
 
 I ;6 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE 
 
 into a transaction which promised an infinity of credit, he 
 received me so coldly and with so much reserve as for the 
 moment to dash my spirits and throw me back on myself. 
 
 During the journey to the castle, however, which we per- 
 formed on foot, attended by half a dozen armed servants 
 bearing torches, I had time to recall M. de Rosny's advice, 
 and to bethink me of the intimacy which that great man 
 had permitted me ; with so much effect in the way of heart- 
 ening me, that as we crossed the courtyard of the castle I 
 advanced myself, not without some murmuring on the part 
 of others, to Rambouillet's elbow, considering that as I was 
 attached to him by the king's command, this was my proper 
 place. I had no desire to quarrel, however, and persisted 
 for some time in disregarding the nudges and muttered 
 words which were exchanged round me, and even the efforts 
 which were made as we mounted the stairs to oust me from 
 my position. But a young gentleman, who showed himself 
 very forward in these attempts, presently stumbling against 
 me, I found it necessary to look at him. 
 
 ' Sir,' he said, in a small and lisping voice, ' you trod on 
 my toe.' 
 
 Though I had not done so, I begged his parddn very 
 politely. But as his only acknowledgment of this courtesy 
 consisted in an attempt to get his knee in front of mine 
 we were mounting very slowly, the stairs being cumbered 
 with a multitude of servants, who stood on either hand I 
 did tread on his toe, with a force and directness which 
 made him cry out. 
 
 1 What is the matter ? ' Eambouillet asked, looking back 
 hastily. 
 
 'Nothing, M. le Marquis,' I answered, pressing on stead- 
 fastly. 
 
 ' Sir,' my young friend said again, in the same lisping 
 voice, ' you trod on my toe.' 
 
 ' I believe I did, sir,' I answered. 
 
 'You have not yet apologised,' he murmured gently in 
 my ear.
 
 IN THE KING^S CHAMBER 177 
 
 , there you are wrong,' I rejoined bluntly, 'for it is 
 always my habit to apologise first and tread afterwards.' 
 
 He smiled as at a pleasant joke ; and I am bound to say 
 that his bearing was so admirable that if he had been my 
 son I could have hugged him. 'Good!' he answered. 'No 
 doubt your sword is as sharp as your wits, sir. I see,' he 
 continued, glancing naively at my old scabbard he was 
 himself the very gem of a courtier, a slender youth with a 
 pink-and- white complexion, a dark line for a moustache, 
 and a pearl-drop in his ear ' it is longing to be out. Per- 
 haps you will take a turn in the tennis-court to-morrow ? ' 
 
 ' With pleasure, sir,' I answered, ' if you have a father, 
 or your elder brother is grown up.' 
 
 What answer he would have made to this gibe I do not 
 know, for at that moment we reached the door of the ante- 
 chamber ; and this being narrow, and a sentry in the grey 
 uniform of the Swiss Guard compelling all to enter in 
 single file, my young friend was forced to fall back, leaving 
 me free to enter alone, and admire at my leisure a scene at 
 once brilliant and sombre. 
 
 The Court being in mourning for the Queen-mother, black 
 predominated in the dresses of those present, and set off 
 very finely the gleaming jewels and gemmed sword-hilts 
 which were worn by the more important personages. The 
 room was spacious and lofty, hung with arras, and lit by 
 candles burning in silver sconces ; it rang as we entered 
 with the shrill screaming of a parrot, which was being 
 teased by a group occupying the farther of the two hearths. 
 Near them play was going on at one table, and primero at 
 a second. In a corner were three or four ladies, in a circle 
 about a red-faced, plebeian-looking man, who was playing 
 at forfeits with one of their number ; while the middle of 
 the room seemed dominated by a middle-sized man with a 
 peculiarly inflamed and passionate countenance, who, seated 
 on a table, was inveighing against someone or something in 
 the most violent terms, his language being interlarded with 
 all kinds of strange and forcible oaths. Two or three gen-
 
 178 A GENTLEMAN- OF FRANCE 
 
 tlemen, who had the air of being his followers, stood about 
 him, listening between submission and embarrassment ; 
 while beside the nearer fireplace, but at some distance from 
 him, lounged a nobleman, very richly dressed, and wearing 
 on his breast the Cross of the Holy Ghost ; who seemed to 
 be the object of his invective, but affecting to ignore it was 
 engaged in conversation with a companion. A bystander 
 muttering that Crillon had been drinking, I discovered with 
 immense surprise that the declaimer on the table was that 
 famous soldier; and I was still looking at him in wonder 
 for I had been accustomed all my life to associate courage 
 with modesty -when, the door of the chamber suddenly 
 opening, a general movement in that direction took place. 
 Crillon, disregarding all precedency, sprang from his table 
 and hurried first to the threshold. The Baron de Biron, on 
 the other hand for the gentleman by the fire was no other 
 waited, in apparent ignorance of the slight which was 
 being put upon him, until M. de Rambouillet came up ; 
 then he went forward with him. Keeping close to my 
 patron's elbow, I entered the chamber immediately behind 
 him. 
 
 Crillon had already seized upon the king, and, when we 
 entered, was stating his grievance in a voice not much 
 lower than that which he had used outside. M. de Biron, 
 seeing this, parted from the marquis, and, going aside 
 with his former companion, sat down on a trunk against 
 the wall; while Rambouillet, followed by myself and 
 three or four gentlemen of his train, advanced to the king, 
 who was standing near the alcove. His Majesty see- 
 ing him, and thankful, I think, for the excuse, waved 
 Crillon off. ' Tut, tut ! . You told me all that this morning/ 
 he said good-naturedly. 'And here is Rambouillet, who 
 has, I hope, something fresh to tell. Let him speak to me. 
 Sanctus ! Don't look at me as if you would run me through, 
 man. Go and quarrel with someone of your own size.' 
 
 Crillon at this retired grumbling, and Henry, who had 
 just risen from primero with the Duke of Nevers, nodded
 
 IN THE KIKG^S CHAMBER 179 
 
 to Rambouillet. ' Well, my friend, anything fresh ? ' he 
 cried. He was more at his ease and looked more cheerful 
 than at our former interview ; yet still care and suspicion 
 lurked about his peevish mouth, and in the hollows under 
 his gloomy eyes. 'A new guest, a new face, or a new game 
 which have you brought ? ' 
 
 'In a sense, sire, a new face,' the marquis answered, 
 bowing, and standing somewhat aside that I might have 
 place. 
 
 ' Well, I cannot say much for the pretty baggage,' quoth 
 the king quickly. And amid a general titter he extended 
 his hand to me. ' I'll be sworn, though,' he continued, as 
 I rose from my knee, 'that you want something, my 
 friend ? ' 
 
 'Nay, sire,' I answered, holding up my head boldly 
 for Oillon's behaviour had been a further lesson to me 
 ' I have, by your leave, the advantage. For your Majesty 
 has supplied me with a new jest. I see many new faces 
 round me, and I have need only of a new game. If your 
 Majesty would be pleased to grant me ' 
 
 1 There ! Said I not so ? ' cried the king, raising his 
 hand with a laugh. 'He does want something. But he 
 seems not undeserving. What does he pray, Rambouillet ?' 
 
 ' A small command,' M. de Rambouillet answered, readily 
 playing his part. 'And your Majesty would oblige me if 
 you could grant the Sieur de Marsac's petition. I will 
 answer for it he is a man of experience. 5 
 
 ' Chut ! A small command ? ' Henry ejaculated, sitting 
 down suddenly in apparent ill-humour. ' It is what every- 
 one wants when they do not want big ones. Still, I 
 suppose,' he continued, taking up a comfit-box, which lay 
 beside him, and opening it, 'if you do not get what you 
 want for him you will sulk like the rest, my friend.' 
 
 ' Your Majesty has never had cause to complain of me,' 
 quoth the marquis, forgetting his rdle, or too proud to 
 play it. 
 
 ' Tut, tut, tut, tut ! Take it, and trouble me no more/ 
 
 M?
 
 the king rejoined. ' Will pay for twenty men do for him ? 
 Very well then. There, M. de Marsac,' he continued, 
 nodding at me and yawning, 'your request is granted. You 
 will find some other pretty baggages over there. Go to 
 them. And now, Rambouillet,' he went on, resuming his 
 spirits as he turned to matters of more importance, ' here is 
 a new sweetmeat Zamet has sent me. I have made Zizi 
 sick with it. Will you try it ? It is flavoured with white 
 mulberries.' 
 
 Thus dismissed, I fell back ; and stood for a moment, at 
 a loss whither to turn, in the absence of either friends or 
 acquaintances. His Majesty, it is true, had bidden me go 
 to certain pretty baggages, meaning, apparently, five ladies 
 who were seated at the farther end of the room, diverting 
 themselves with as many cavaliers ; but the compactness 
 of this party, the beauty of the ladies, and the merry peals 
 of laughter which proceeded from them, telling of a wit 
 and vivacity beyond the ordinary, sapped the resolution 
 which had borne me well hitherto. I felt that to attack 
 such a phalanx, even with a king's good will, was bey on \ 
 the daring of a Crillon, and I looked round to see whether 
 I could not amuse myself in some more modest fashion. 
 
 The material was not lacking. Crillon, still mouthing 
 out his anger, strode up and down in front of the trunk on 
 which M. de Biron was seated; but the latter was, or 
 affected to be, asleep. 'Crillon is for ever going into rages 
 now,' a courtier beside me whispered. 
 
 'Yes,' his fellow answered, with a shrug of the shoulder; 
 'it is a pity there is no one to tame him. But he has such 
 a long reach, morbleu ! ' 
 
 'It is not that so much as the fellow's fury,' the first 
 speaker rejoined under his breath. ' He fights like a mad 
 thing; fencing is no use against him.' 
 
 The other nodded. For a moment the wild idea of win- 
 ning renown by taming M. de Crillon occurred to me as I 
 stood alone in the middle of the floor ; but it had not more 
 than passed through my brain when I felt my elbow
 
 IN THE KING'S CHAMBER 181 
 
 touched, and turned to find the young gentleman whom I 
 had encountered on the stairs standing by my side. 
 
 'Sir,' he lisped, in the same small voice, 'I think you 
 trod on my toe a while ago ? ' 
 
 I stared at him, wondering what he meant by this ab- 
 surd repetition. 'Well, sir,' I answered drily, 'and if I 
 did?' 
 
 'Perhaps,' he said, stroking his chin with his jewelled 
 fingers, 'pending our meeting to-morrow, you would allow 
 me to consider it as a kind of introduction ? ' 
 
 'If it please you,' I answered, bowing stiffly, and wonder- 
 ing what he would be at. 
 
 'Thank you/ he answered. 'It does please me, under 
 the circumstances ; for there is a lady here who desires a 
 word with you. I took up her challenge. Will you follow 
 me?' 
 
 He bowed, and turned in his languid fashion. I, turning 
 too, saw, with secret dismay, that the five ladies, referred to 
 above, were all now gazing at me, as expecting my ap- 
 proach; and this with such sportive glances as told only 
 too certainly of some plot already in progress or some trick 
 to be presently played me. Yet I could not see that I had 
 any choice save to obey, and, following my leader with as 
 much dignity as I could compass, I presently found myself 
 bowing before the lady who sat nearest, and who seemed to 
 be the leader of these nymphs. 
 
 'Kay, sir,' she said, eyeing me curiously, yet with a 
 merry face, ' I do not need you ; I do not look so high ! ' 
 
 Turning in confusion to the next, I was surprised to see 
 before me the lady whose lodging I had invaded in my 
 search for Mademoiselle de la Vire she, I mean, who, 
 having picked up the velvet knot, had dropped it so provi- 
 dentially where Simon Fleix found it. She looked at me, 
 blushing and laughing, and the young gentleman, who had 
 done her errand, presenting me by name, she asked me, 
 while the others listened, whether I had found my mistress. 
 
 Before I could answer, the lady to whom I had first ad-
 
 1 82 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE 
 
 dressed myself interposed. 'Stop, sir!' she cried. <What 
 is this a tale, a jest, a game, or a forfeit ? ' 
 
 v An adventure, madam/ I answered, bowing low. 
 
 'Of gallantry, I'll be bound/ she exclaimed. 'Fie, 
 Madame de Bruhl, and you but six months married ! ' 
 
 Madame de Bruhl protested, laughing, that she had no 
 more to do with it than Mercury. 'At the worst/ she said, 
 'I carried the poulets! But I can assure you, duchess, this 
 gentleman should be able to tell us a very fine stovy, if he 
 would.' 
 
 The duchess and all the other ladies clapping their 
 hands at this, and crying out that the story must and 
 should be told, I found myself in a prodigious quandary; 
 and one wherein my wits derived as little assistance as 
 possible from the bright eyes and saucy looks which en- 
 vironed me. Moreover, the commotion attracting other 
 listeners, I found my position, while I tried to extricate 
 myself, growing each moment worse, so that I began to 
 fear that as I had little imagination I should perforce have 
 to tell the truth. The mere thought of this threw me into 
 a cold perspiration, lest I should let slip something of conse- 
 quence, and prove myself unworthy of the trust which M. 
 de Rosny had reposed in me. 
 
 At the moment when, despairing of extricating myself, I 
 was stooping over Madame de Bruhl begging her to assist 
 me, I heard, amid the babel of laughter and raillery which 
 surrounded me certain of the courtiers having already 
 formed hands in a circle and sworn I should not depart 
 without satisfying the ladies a voice which struck a chord 
 in my memory. I turned to see who the speaker was, and 
 encountered no other than M. de Bruhl himself ; who, with 
 a flushed and angry face, was listening to the explanation 
 which a friend was pouring into his ear. Standing at the 
 moment with my knee on Madame de Bruhl's stool, and 
 remembering very well the meeting on the stairs, I coii- 
 ceived in a flash that the man was jealous ; but whether 
 he had yet heard my name, or had any clew to link me with
 
 IN THE KING^S CHAMBER 183 
 
 the person who had rescued Mademoiselle de la Vire from 
 his clutches, I could not tell. Nevertheless his presence 
 led my thoughts into a new channel. The determination 
 to punish him began to take form in my mind, and very 
 quickly I regained my composure. Still I was for giving him 
 one chance. Accordingly I stooped once more to Madame 
 de Bruhl's ear, and begged her to spare me the embarrass- 
 ment of telling my tale. But then, finding her pitiless, as 
 I expected, and the rest of the company growing more and 
 more insistent, I hardened my heart to go through with t>he 
 fantastic notion which had occurred to me. 
 
 Indicating by a gesture that I was prepared to obey, and 
 the duchess crying for a hearing, this was presently ob- 
 tained, the sudden silence adding the king himself to my 
 audience. 'What is it?' he asked, coming up effusively, 
 with a lap-dog in his arms. ' A new scandal, eh ? ' 
 
 ' No, sire, a new tale-teller, 3 the duchess answered pertly. 
 ' If your Majesty will sit, we shall hear him the sooner.' 
 
 He pinched her ear and sat down in the chair which a 
 page presented. 'What? is it Eambouillet's grison again?' 
 he said with some surprise. 'Well, fire away, man. But 
 who brought you forward as a Rabelais ? ' 
 
 There was a general cry of ' Madame de Bruhl ! ' whereat 
 that lady shook her fair hair about her face, and cried out 
 for someone to bring her a mask. 
 
 ' Ha, I see ! ' said the king drily, looking pointedly at M. 
 de Bruhl, who was as black as thunder. ' But go on, man.' 
 
 The king's advent, by affording me a brief respite, had 
 enabled me to collect my thoughts, and, disregarding the 
 ribald interruptions, which at first were frequent, I began as 
 follows: 'I am no Rabelais, sire,' I said, 'but droll things 
 happen to the most unlikely. Once upon a time it was the 
 fortune of a certain swain, whom I will call Dromio, to 
 arrive in a town not a hundred miles from Blois, having in 
 his company a nymph of great beauty, who had been en- 
 trusted to his care by her parents. He had not more than 
 lodged her in his apartments, however, before she was
 
 1 84 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE 
 
 decoyed away by a trick, and borne off against her will by 
 a young gallant, who had seen her and been smitten by her 
 charms. Dromio, returning, and finding his mistress gone, 
 gave way to the most poignant grief. He ran up and down 
 the city, seeking her in every place, and filling all places 
 with his lamentations ; but for a time in vain, until chance 
 led him to a certain street, where, in an almost incredible 
 manner, he found a clew to her by discovering underfoot a 
 knot of velvet, bearing Phyllida's name wrought 011 it in 
 deMcate needlework, with the words, "A moi!" : 
 
 ' Sanctus ! ' cried the king, amid a general murmur of sur- 
 prise, ' that is well devised ! Proceed, sir. Go on like that, 
 and we will make your twenty men twenty-five.' 
 
 'Dromio,' I continued, -'at sight of this trifle experienced 
 the most diverse emotions, for while he possessed in it a 
 clew to his mistress's fate, he had still to use it so as to dis- 
 cover the place whither she had been hurried. It occurred 
 to him at last to begin his search with the house before 
 which the knot had lain. Ascending accordingly to the 
 second-floor, he found there a fair lady reclining on a couch, 
 who started up in affright at his appearance. He hastened 
 to reassure her, and to explain the purpose of his coming, 
 and learned after a conversation with which I will not 
 trouble your Majesty, though it was sufficiently diverting, 
 that the lady had found the velvet knot in another part of 
 the town, and had herself dropped it again in front of her 
 own house.' 
 
 ' Pourquoi ? ' the king asked, interrupting me. 
 
 ' The swain, sire,' I answered, ' was too much taken up 
 with his own troubles to bear that in mind, even if he 
 learned it. But this delicacy did not save him from mis- 
 conception, for as he descended from the lady's apartment 
 he met her husband on the stairs.' 
 
 'Good!' the king exclaimed, rubbing his hands in glee. 
 1 The husband ! ' And under cover of the gibe and the 
 courtly laugh which followed it M. de Bruhl's start of sur- 
 prise passed unnoticed save by me.
 
 IN THE KING^S CHAMBER 185 
 
 ' The husband,' I resumed, ' seeing a stranger descending 
 his staircase, was for stopping him .and learning the reason 
 of his presence; but Dromio, whose mind was with Phyllida, 
 refused to stop, and, evading his questions, hurried to the 
 part of the town where the lady had told him she found the 
 velvet knot. Here, sire, at the corner of a lane running 
 between garden-walls, he found a great house, barred and 
 gloomy, and well adapted to the abductor's purpose. More- 
 over, scanning it on every side, he presently discovered, tied 
 about the bars of an upper window, a knot of white linen, 
 the very counterpart of that velvet one which he bore in 
 his breast. Thus he knew that the nymph was imprisoned 
 in that room ! ' 
 
 ' I will make, it twenty-five, as I am a good Churchman ! ' 
 his Majesty exclaimed, dropping the little dog he was 
 nursing into the duchess's lap, and taking out his comfit- 
 box. ' Rambouillet,' he added languidly, ' your friend is a 
 treasure ! ' 
 
 I bowed my acknowledgments, and took occasion as I did 
 so to step a pace aside, so as to command a view of 
 Madame de Bruhl, as well as her husband. Hitherto 
 madame, willing to be accounted a part in so pretty a 
 romance, and ready enough also, unless I was mistaken, to 
 cause her husband a little mild jealousy, had listened to the 
 story with a certain sly demureness. But this I foresaw 
 would not last long ; and I felt something like compunction 
 as the moment for striking the blow approached. But I 
 had now no choice. ' The best is yet to come, sire,' I went 
 on, 'as I think you will acknowledge in a moment. 
 Dromio, though he had discovered his mistress, was still in 
 the depths of despair. He wandered round and round the 
 house, seeking ingress and finding none, until at length, 
 sunset approaching, and darkness redoubling his fears for 
 the nymph, fortune took pity on him. As he stood in 
 front of the house he saw the abductor come out, lighted 
 by two servants. Judge of his surprise, sire,' I continued, 
 looking round and speaking slowly, to give full effect to my
 
 1 86 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE 
 
 words, ' when he recognised in him no other than the 
 husband of the lady who, by picking up and again 
 dropping the velvet knot, had contributed so much to the 
 success of his search ! ' 
 
 ' Ha ! these husbands ! ' cried the king. And slapping his 
 knee in an ecstasy at his own acuteness, he laughed in his seat 
 till he rolled again. ' These husbands ! Did I not say so ? ' 
 
 The whole Court gave way to like applause, and clapped 
 their hands as well, so that few save those who stood 
 nearest took notice of Madame de Bruhl's faint cry, and 
 still fewer understood why she rose up suddenly from her 
 stool and stood gazing at her husband with burning cheeks 
 and clenched hands. She took no heed of me, much less of 
 the laughing crowd round her, but looked only at him with 
 her soul in her eyes. He, after uttering one hoarse curse, 
 seemed to have no thought for any but me. To have the 
 knowledge that his own wife had baulked him brought 
 home to him in this mocking fashion, to find how little a 
 thing had tripped him that day, to learn how blindly he 
 had played into the hands of fate, above all to be exposed 
 at once to his wife's resentment and the ridicule of the 
 Court for he could not be sure that I should not the next 
 moment disclose his name all so wrought on him that fcr 
 a moment I thought he would strike me in the presence. 
 
 His rage, indeed, did what I had not meant to do. For 
 the king, catching sight of his face, and remembering that 
 Madame de Bruhl had elicited the story, screamed suddenly, 
 * Haro ! 5 and pointed ruthlessly at him with his tinger. 
 After that I had no need to speak, the story leaping from 
 eye to eye, and every eye settling on Bruhl, who sought in 
 vain to compose his features. Madame, who surpassed him, 
 as women commonly do surpass men, in self-control, was the 
 first to recover herself, and sitting down as quickly as she 
 had risen, confronted alike her husband and her rivals with 
 a pale smile. 
 
 For a moment curiosity and excitement kept all breath' 
 less, the eye alone busy. Then the king laughed mia-
 
 IN THE KING^S CHAMBER 187 
 
 chievously. ' Come, M. de Bruhl/ he cried, ' perhaps you 
 will finish the tale for us ? : And he threw himself back 
 in his chair, a sneer on his lips. 
 
 1 Or why not Madame de Bruhl ? ' said the duchess, with 
 her head on one side and her eyes glittering over her fan. 
 ' Madame would, I am sure, tell it so well.' 
 
 But madame only shook her head, smiling always that 
 forced smile. For Bruhl himself, glaring from face to face 
 like a bull about to charge, I have never seen a man more 
 out of countenance, or more completely brought to bay. 
 His discomposure, exposed as he was to the ridicule of all 
 present, was such that the presence in which he stood 
 scarcely hindered him from some violent attack; and his 
 eyes, which had wandered from me at the king's word, 
 presently returning to me again, he so far forgot himself as 
 to raise his hand furiously, uttering at the same time a 
 savage oath. 
 
 The king cried out angrily, ' Have a care, sir ! ' But 
 Bruhl only heeded this so far as to thrust aside those who 
 stood round him and push his way hurriedly through the 
 eii jle. 
 
 ' Arnidieu ! ' cried the king, when he was gone. ' This is 
 fine conduct ! I have half a mind to send after him and 
 have him put where his hot blood would cool a little. 
 Or' 
 
 He stopped abruptly, his eyes resting on me. The 
 relative positions of Bruhl and myself as the agents of Rosny 
 and Turenne occurred to him for the first time, I think, 
 and suggested the idea, perhaps, that I had laid a trap for 
 him, and that he had fallen into it. At any rate his face 
 grew darker and darker, and at last, ' A nice kettle of fish 
 this is you have prepared for us, sir ! ' he muttered, gazing 
 at me gloomily. 
 
 The sudden change in his humour took even courtiers by 
 surprise. Faces a moment before broad with smiles grew 
 long again. The less important personages looked uncom- 
 fortably at one another, and with one accord frowned on
 
 1 88 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE 
 
 me. ' If your Majesty would please to hear the end of the 
 story at another time?' I suggested humbly, beginning to 
 wish with all my heart that I had never said a word. 
 
 ( Chut ! ' he answered, rising, his face still betraying his 
 perturbation. ' Well, be it so. For the present you may 
 go, sir. Duchess, give me Zizi, and come to my closet. I 
 want you to see my puppies. Retz, my good friend, do you 
 come too. I have something to say to you. Gentlemen, 
 you need not wait. It is likely I shall be late.' 
 
 And, with the utmost abruptness, he broke up the circle. 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 THE JACOBIN MONK. 
 
 HAD I needed any reminder of the uncertainty of Court 
 favour, or an instance whence I might learn the lesson of 
 modesty, and so stand in less danger of presuming on my 
 new and precarious prosperity, I had it in this episode, and 
 in the demeanour of the company round me. On the circle 
 breaking up in confusion, I found myself the centre of 
 general regard, but regard of so dubious a character, the 
 persons who would have been the first to compliment me 
 had the king retired earlier, standing farthest aloof now, 
 that I felt myself rather insulted than honoured by it. 
 One or two, indeed, of the more cautious spirits did ap- 
 proach me ; but it was with the air of men providing against 
 a danger particularly remote, their half-hearted speeches 
 serving only to fix them in my memory as belonging to a 
 class, especially abhorrent to me the class, I mean, of 
 those who would run at once with the hare and the hounds. 
 
 I was rejoiced to find that on one person, and that the one 
 whose disposition towards me was, next to the king's, of 
 first importance, this episode had produced a different im- 
 pression. Feeling, as I made for the door, a touch on my
 
 THE JACOBIN MONK 189 
 
 arm, I turned to find M. de Eambouillet at my elbow, re- 
 garding me with a glance of mingled esteem and amuse- 
 ment; in fine, with a very different look from that which 
 had been my welcome earlier in the evening. I was driven 
 to suppose that he was too great a man, or too sure of his 
 favour with the king, to be swayed by the petty motives 
 which actuated the Court generally, for he laid his hand 
 familiarly on my shoulder, and walked on beside me. 
 
 'Well, my friend,' he said/ you have distinguished your- 
 self finely ! I do not know that I ever remember a pretty 
 woman making more stir in one evening. But if you are 
 wise you will not go home alone to-night.' 
 
 'I have my sword, M. le Marquis,' I answered, some- 
 what proudly. 
 
 'Which will avail you little against a knife in the back! ' 
 he retorted drily. 'What attendance have you? ' 
 
 'My equerry, Simon Fleix, is on the stairs.' 
 
 'Good, so far, but not enough,' he replied, as we reached 
 the head of the staircase. 'You had better come home with 
 me now, and two or three of my fellows shall go on to your 
 lodging with you. Do you know, my friend,' he continued, 
 looking at me keenly, 'you are either a very clever or a 
 very foolish man? ' 
 
 I made answer modestly. 'Neither the one, I fear, nor 
 the other, I hope, sir,' I said. 
 
 'Well, you have done a very pertinent thing,' he replied, 
 'for good or evil. You have let the enemy know what he 
 has to expect, and he is not one, I warn you, to be despised. 
 But whether you have been very wise or very foolish in 
 declaring open war remains to be seen.' 
 
 'A week will show,' I answered. 
 
 He turned and looked at me. 'You take it coolly,' he 
 said. 
 
 'I have been knocking about the world for forty years, 
 marquis,' I rejoined. 
 
 He muttered something about Rosny having a good eye, 
 and then stopped to adjust his cloak. We were by this
 
 190 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE 
 
 time in the street. Making me go hand in hand with him, 
 he requested the other gentlemen to draw their swords; 
 and the servants being likewise armed and numbering half 
 a- score or more, with pikes and torches, we made up a very 
 formidable party, and caused, I think, more alarm as we 
 passed, through the streets to Rambouillet's lodging than 
 we had any reason to feel. Not that we had it all to our- 
 selves, for the attendance at Court that evening being large, 
 and the circle breaking up as I have described more abruptly 
 than usual, the vicinity of the castle was in a ferment, and. 
 the streets leading from it were alive with the lights and 
 laughter of parties similar to our own. 
 
 At the door of the marquis's lodging I prepared to take 
 leave of him with many expressions of gratitude, but he 
 would have me enter and sit down with him to a light 
 refection, which it was his habit to take before retiring. 
 Two of his gentlemen sat down with us, and a valet, who 
 was in his confidence, waiting on us, we made very merry 
 over the scene in the presence. I learned that M. de Bruhl 
 was far from popular at Court ; but being known to possess 
 some kind of hold over the king, and enjoying besides a 
 great reputation for recklessness and skill with the sword, 
 he had played a high part for a length of time, and attached 
 to himself, especially since the death of Guise, a considera- 
 ble number of followers. 
 
 'The truth is,' one of the marquis's gentlemen, who was 
 a little heated with wine, observed, 'there is nothing at this 
 moment which a bold and unscrupulous man may not win 
 in France! ' 
 
 'Nor a bold and Christian gentleman for France ! ' replied 
 M. de Rambouillet with some asperity. 'By the way r ' he 
 continued, turning abruptly to the servant, 'where is M. 
 Francpis? ' 
 
 The valet answered that he had not returned with us from 
 the castle. The Marquis expressed himself annoyed at this, 
 and I gathered, firstly, that the missing man was his near 
 kinsman, and, secondly, that he was also the young spark
 
 THE JACOBIN MONK 191 
 
 who had been so forward to quarrel with me earlier in the 
 evening. Determining to refer the matter, should it be- 
 come pressing, to Eambouillet for adjustment, I took leave 
 of him, and attended by two of his servants, whom he 
 kindly transferred to my service for the present, I started 
 towards my lodging a little before midnight. 
 
 The moon had risen while we were at supper, and its 
 light, which whitened the gables on one side of the street, 
 diffused a glimmer below sufficient to enable us to avoid the 
 kennel. Seeing this, I bade the men put out our torch. 
 Frost had set in, and a keen wind was blowing, so that we 
 were glad to hurry on at a good pace ; and the streets being 
 quite deserted at this late hour, or haunted only by those 
 who had come to dread the town marshal, we -met no one 
 and saw no lights. I fell to thinking, for my part, of the 
 evening I had spent searching Blois for Mademoiselle, and 
 of the difference between then and now. Nor did I fail 
 while on this track to retrace it still farther to the evening 
 of our arrival at my mother's; whence, as a source, such 
 kindly and gentle thoughts welled up in my mind as were 
 natural, and the unfailing affection of that gracious woman 
 required. These, taking the place for the moment of the 
 anxious calculations and stern purposes which had of late 
 engrossed me, were only ousted by something which, hap- 
 pening under my eyes, brought me violently and abruptly 
 to myself. 
 
 This was the sudden appearance of three men, who 
 issued one by one from an alley a score of yards in front of 
 us, and after pausing a second to look back the way they 
 had conie, flitted on in single file along the street, disap- 
 pearing, as far as the darkness permitted me to judge, round 
 a second corner. I by no means liked their appearance, 
 and as a scream and the clash of arms rang out next 
 moment from the direction in which they had gone, I cried 
 lustily to Simon Fleix to follow, and ran on, believing from 
 the rascals' movements that they were after no good, but 
 that rather some honest man was like to be sore beset.
 
 192 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE 
 
 On reaching the lane down which they had plunged, how- 
 ever, I paused a moment, considering not so much its black- 
 ness, which was intense, the eaves nearly meeting overhead, 
 as the small chance I had of distinguishing between attack- 
 ers and attacked. But Simon and the men overtaking me, 
 and the sounds of a sharp tussle still continuing, I decided 
 to venture, and plunged into the alley, my left arm well 
 advanced, with the skirt of my cloak thrown over it, and 
 my sword drawn back. I shouted as I ran, thinking that 
 the knaves might desist on hearing me; and this was what 
 happened, for as I arrived on the scene of action the far- 
 ther end of the alley two men took to their heels, while 
 of two who remained, one lay at length in the kennel, and 
 another rose slowly from his knees. 
 
 'You are just in time, sir,' the latter said, breathing 
 hard, but speaking with a preciseness which sounded famil- 
 iar. 'I am obliged to you, sir, whoever you are. The 
 villains had got me down, and in a few minutes more 
 would have made my mother childless. By the way, 
 you have no light, have you? ' he continued, lisping like 
 a woman. 
 
 One of M. de Rambouillet's men, who had by this time 
 come up, cried out that it was Monsieur Franqois. 
 
 'Yes, blockhead! ' the young gentleman answered with 
 the utmost coolness. 'But I asked for a light, not for my 
 name. ' 
 
 'I trust you are not hurt, sir? ' I said, putting up my 
 sword. 
 
 ' Scratched only , ' he answered, betraying no surprise on 
 learning who it was had come up so opportunely; as he no 
 doubt did learn from my voice, for he continued with a 
 bow, 'A slight price to pay for the knowledge that M. de 
 Marsac is as forward on the field as on the stairs.' 
 
 I bowed my acknowledgments. 
 
 'This fellow,' I said, 'is he much hurt?' 
 
 'Tut, tut! I thought I had saved the marshal all trouble/ 
 M. FranQois replied. 'Is he not dead, Gil? '
 
 THE JACOBIN MONK 193 
 
 The poor wretch made answer for himself, crying out 
 piteously and in a choking voice, for a priest to shrive him. 
 At that moment Simon Fleix returned with our torch, 
 which he had lighted at the nearest cross-streets, where 
 there was a brazier, and we saw by this light that the man 
 wa.s coughing up blood, and might live perhaps half an 
 hour. 
 
 'Mordieu! That comes of thrusting too high!' M. 
 Francois muttered, regretfully. 'An. inch lower, and there 
 would have been none of this trouble! I suppose some- 
 body must fetch one. Gil,' he continued, 'run, man, to the 
 sacristy in the Rue St. Denys, and get a Father. Or stay ! 
 Help to lift him under the lee of the wall there. The wind 
 cuts like a knife here. ' 
 
 The street being on the slope of the hill, the lower part 
 of the house nearest us stood a few feet from the ground, 
 on wooden piles, and the space underneath it, being en- 
 closed at the back and sides, was used as a cart-house. The 
 servants moved the dying man into this rude shelter, and I. 
 accompanied them, being unwilling to leave the young 
 gentleman alone. Not wishing, however, to seem to inter- 
 fere, I walked to the farther end, and sat down on the shaft 
 of a cart, whence I idly admired the strange aspect of the 
 group I had left, as the glare of the torch brought now one 
 and now another into prominence, and sometimes shone 
 on M. Franqois' jewelled fingers toying with his tiny 
 moustache, and sometimes on the writhing features of the 
 man at his feet. 
 
 On a sudden, and before Gil had started on his errand, I 
 saw there was a priest among them. I had not seen him 
 enter, nor had I any idea whence he came. My first im- 
 pression was only that here was a priest, and that he was 
 looking at me not at the man craving his assistance on the 
 floor, or at those who stood round him, but at me, who sat 
 away in the shadow beyond the ring of light ! 
 
 This was surprising; but a second glance explained it, 
 for then I saw that he was the Jacobin monk who had
 
 194 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE 
 
 haunted my mother's dying hours. And, amazed as much 
 at this strange rencontre, as at the man's boldness, I sprang 
 up and strode forwards, forgetting, in an impulse of right- 
 eous anger, the office he came to do. And this the more as 
 his face, still turned to me, seemed instinct to my eyes 
 with triumphant malice. As I moved towards him, how- 
 ever, with a fierce exclamation on my lips, he suddenly 
 dropped his eyes and knelt. Immediately M. Franqois 
 cried 'Hush! ' and the men turned to me with scandalised 
 faces. I fell back. Yet even then, whispering on his 
 knees by the dying man, the knave was thinking, I felt 
 sure, of me, glorying at once in his immunity and the 
 power it gave him to tantalise me without fear. 
 
 I determined, whatever the result, to intercept him when 
 all was over; and on the man dying a few minutes later, 
 I walked resolutely to the open side of the shed, thinking 
 it likely he might try to slip away as mysteriously as he 
 had come. He stood a moment speaking to M. Francois, 
 however, and then, accompanied by him, advanced boldly 
 to meet me, a lean smile on his face. 
 
 'Father Antoine,'M. d'Agen said politely, 'tells me that 
 he knows you, M. de Marsac, and desires to speak to you, 
 mal-d,-propos as is the occasion.' 
 
 'And I to him,' I answered, trembling with rage, and 
 only restraining by an effort the impulse which would have 
 had me dash my hand in the priest's pale, smirking face. 
 'I have waited 1 long for this moment,' I continued, eyeing 
 him steadily, as M. Frangois withdrew out of hearing, 'and 
 had you tried to avoid me, I would have dragged you back, 
 though all your tribe were here to protect you. ' 
 
 His presence so maddened me that I scarcely knew what I 
 said. I felt my breath come quickly, I felt the blood surge 
 to my head, and it was with difficulty I restrained myself 
 when he answered with well-affected sanctity, 'Like mother, 
 like son, I fear, 'sir. Huguenots both.' 
 
 I choked with rage. 'What! ' I said, 'you dare t& 
 threaten me as you threatened my mother? Fool! know
 
 THE JACOBIN MONK 195 
 
 that only to-day for the purpose of discovering and punish- 
 ing you I took the rooms in which my mother died. ' 
 
 'I know it,' he answered quietly. And then in a second, 
 as by magic, he altered his demeanour completely, raising 
 his head and looking me in the face. 'That, and so much 
 besides, I know,' he continued, giving me, to my astonish- 
 ment, frown for frown, 'that if you will listen to me for a 
 moment, M. de Marsac, and listen quietly, 1 will convince 
 you that the folly is not on my side.' 
 
 Amazed at his new manner, in which there was none of 
 the madness that had marked him at our first meeting, but 
 a strange air of authority, unlike anything I had associated 
 with him before, I signed to him to proceed. 
 
 'You think that I am in your power? ' he said, smiling. 
 
 'I think,' I retorted swiftly, 'that, escaping me now, you 
 will have at your heels henceforth a worse enemy than even 
 your own sins.' 
 
 'Just so,' he answered, nodding. 'Well, I am going to 
 show you that the reverse is the case ; and that you are as 
 completely in my hands, to spare or to break, as this straw. 
 In the first place, you are here in Blois, a Huguenot ! ' 
 
 'Chut! ' I exclaimed contemptuously, affecting a confi- 
 dence I was far from feeling. 'A little while back that 
 might have availed you. But we are in Blois, not Paris. 
 It is not far to the Loire, and you have to deal with a man 
 now, not with a woman. It is you who have cause to trem- 
 ble, not I.' 
 
 'You think to be protected,' he answered with a sour 
 smile, 'even on this side of the Loire, I see. But one word 
 to the Pope's Legate, or to the Duke of Nevers, and you 
 would see the inside of a dungeon, if not worse. For the 
 king ' 
 
 'King or no king! ' I answered, interrupting him with 
 more assurance than I felt, seeing that I remembered only 
 too well Henry's remark that Rosny must not look to him 
 for protection, 'I fear you not a whit! And that reminds 
 me. I have heard you talk treason rank, black treason, 
 
 N2
 
 196 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE 
 
 priest, as ever sent man to rope, and I will give you up. 
 By heaven I will ! ' I cried, my rage increasing, as I dis- 
 cerned, more and more clearly, the dangerous hold he had 
 over me. 'You have threatened me! One word, and I will 
 send you to the gallows ! ' 
 
 'Sh!' he answered, indicating M. Francois by a gesture 
 of the hand. 'For your own sake, not mine. This is tine 
 talking, but you have not yet heard all I know. Would 
 you like to hear how you have spent the last month? Two 
 days after Christmas, M. de Marsac, you left Chize with a 
 young lady I can give you her name, if you please. Four 
 days afterwards you reached Blois, and took her to your 
 mother's lodging. Next morning she left you for M. de 
 Bruhl. Two days later you tracked her to a house in the 
 Ruelle d'Arcy, and freed her, but lost her in the moment of 
 victory. Then you stayed in Blois until your mother's death, 
 going a day or two later to M. de Eosny's house by Mantes, 
 where mademoiselle still is. Yesterday you arrived in 
 Blois with M. de Rosny ; you went to his lodging; you ' 
 
 'Proceed, sir,' I muttered, leaning forward. Under 
 cover of my cloak I drew my dagger half-way from its 
 sheath. 'Proceed, sir, I pray,' I repeated with dry lips. 
 
 'You slept there,' he continued, holding his ground, but 
 shuddering slightly, either from cold or because he per- 
 ceived my movement and read my design in my eyes. 
 'This morning you remained here in attendance on M. de 
 Eambouillet. ' 
 
 For the moment I breathed freely again, perceiving that 
 though he knew much, the one thing on which M. de Rosny's 
 design turned had escaped him. The secret interview with 
 the king, which compromised alike Henry himself and M. 
 de Eambouillet, had apparently passed unnoticed and un- 
 suspected. With a sigh of intense relief I slid back the 
 dagger, which I had fully made up my mind to use had he 
 known all, and drew my cloak round me with a shrug of 
 feigned indifference. I sweated to think what he did know, 
 but our interview with the king having escaped him, I 
 breathed again.
 
 THE JACOBIN MONK 197 
 
 'Well, sir,' I said curtly, 'I liave listened. And now, 
 what is the purpose of all this? ' 
 
 'My purpose?' he answered, his eyes glittering. 'To 
 show you that you are in my power. You are the agent of 
 M. de Rosiiy. I, the agent, however humble, of the Holy 
 Catholic League. Of your movements I know all. What 
 do you know of mine? ' 
 
 'Knowledge,' I made grim answer, f is not everything, sir 
 priest.' 
 
 'It is more than it was,' he said, smiling his thin-lipped 
 smile. 'It is going to be more than it is. And I know 
 much about you, M. de Marsac.' 
 
 'You know too much!' I retorted, feeling his covert 
 threats close round me like the folds of some great serpent. 
 'But you are imprudent, I think. Will you tell me what 
 is to prevent me striking you through where you stand, 
 and ridding myself at a blow of so much knowledge? ' 
 
 'The presence of three men, M. de Marsac,' he answered 
 lightly, waving his hand towards M. Francois and the 
 others, 'every one of whom would give you up to justice. 
 You forget that you are north of the Loire, and that priests 
 are not to be massacred here with impunity, as in your 
 lawless south-country. However, enough. The night is 
 cold, and M. d'Agen grows suspicious as well as impatient. 
 We have, perhaps, spoken too long already. Permit me' 
 he bowed and drew back a step 'to resume this discus- 
 sion to-morrow.' 
 
 Despite his politeness and the hollow civility with which 
 he thus sought to close the interview, the light of triumph 
 which shone in his eyes, as the glare of the torch fell 
 athwart them, no less than the assured tone of his voice, 
 told me clearly that he knew his pow^r. He seemed, in- 
 deed, transformed: no longer a slinking, peaceful clerk, 
 preying on a woman's fears, but a bold and crafty schemer, 
 skilled and unscrupulous, possessed of hidden knowledge 
 and hidden resources; the personification of evil intellect. 
 For a moment, knowing all I knew, and particularly the
 
 198 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE 
 
 responsibilities which lay before me, and the interests com- 
 mitted to my hands, I quailed, confessing myself unequal 
 to him. I forgot the righteous vengeance I owed him; I 
 cried out helplessly against the ill-fortune which had 
 brought him across my path. I saw myself enmeshed and 
 fettered beyond hope of escape, and by an effort only con- 
 trolled the despair I felt. 
 
 'To-morrow? ' I muttered hoarsely. 'At what time? ' 
 He shook his head with a cunning smile. 'A thousand 
 thanks, but I will settle that myself I' lie answered. 'Au 
 revoir! ' And muttering a word of leave-taking to M. 
 Francois d'Agen, he blessed the two servants, and went out 
 into the night. 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 THE OFFER, OF THE LEAGUE. 
 
 WHEN the last sound of his footsteps died away, I awoke 
 as from an evil dream, and becoming conscious of the pres- 
 ence of M. Franqois and the servants, recollected mechani- 
 cally that I owed the former an apology for my discourtesy 
 in keeping him standing in the cold. I began to offer it ; 
 but my distress and confusion of mind were such that in 
 the middle of a set phrase I broke off, and stood looking 
 fixedly at him, my trouble so plain that he asked me civilly 
 if anything ailed me. 
 
 'No,' I answered, turning from him impatiently; 'noth- 
 ing, nothing, sir. Or tell me, ' I continued, with an abrupt 
 change of mind, 'who is that who has just left us?' 
 
 'Father Antoine, do you mean?' 
 
 'Ay, Father Antoine, Father Judas, call him what you 
 like,' I rejoined bitterly 
 
 'Then if you leave the choice to me,' M. Francois an- 
 swered with grave politeness, 'I would rather call him 
 something more pleasant, M. de Marsac James or John,
 
 THE OFFER OF THE LEAGUE 199 
 
 let us say. For there is little said here which does not 
 come back to him. If walls have ears, the walls of Blois 
 are in his pay. But I thought you knew him/ he contin- 
 ued. 'He is secretary, confidant, chaplain, what you will, 
 to Cardinal Retz, and one of those whom in your ear 
 greater men court and more powerful men lean on. If I had 
 to choose between them, I would rather cross M. de Crillon.' 
 
 'I am obliged to you,' I muttered, checked as much by 
 his manner as his words. 
 
 'Not at all,' he answered more lightly. 'Any informa- 
 tion I have is at your disposal. ' 
 
 However, I saw the imprudence of venturing farther, and 
 hastened to take leave of him, persuading him to allow one 
 of M. de Rambouillet's servants to accompany him home. 
 He said that he should call on me in the morning; and 
 forcing myself to answer him in a suitable manner, I saw 
 him depart one way, and myself, accompanied by Simon 
 Fleix, went off another. My feet were frozen with long 
 standing I think the corpse we left was scarce colder but 
 niy head was hot with feverish doubts and fears. The moon 
 had sunk and the streets were dark. Our torch had burned 
 out, and we had no light. But where my followers saw 
 only blackness and vacancy, I saw an evil smile and a lean 
 visage fraught with menace and exultation. 
 
 For the more closely I directed my mind to the position 
 in which I stood, the graver it seemed. Pitted against 
 Bruhl alone, amid strange surroundings and in an atmos- 
 phere of Court intrigue, I had thought my task sufficiently 
 difficult and the disadvantages under which I laboured suffi- 
 ciently serious before this interview. Conscious of a cer- 
 tain rustiness and a distaste for finesse, with resources so 
 inferior to BruhPs that even M. de Eosny's liberality had 
 not done much to make up the difference, I had accepted 
 the post offered me rather readily than sanguinely; with 
 joy, seeing that it held out the hope of high reward, but 
 with no certain expectation of success. Still, matched 
 with a man of violent and headstrong character, I had seen
 
 200 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE 
 
 no reason to despair; nor any why I might not arrange the 
 secret meeting between the king and mademoiselle with 
 safety, and conduct to its end an intrigue simple and unsus- 
 pected, and requiring for its execution rather courage and 
 caution than address or experience. 
 
 Now, however, I found that Bruhl was not my only or 
 my most dangerous antagonist. Another was in the field 
 or, to speak more correctly, was waiting outside the arena, 
 ready to snatch the prize when we should have disabled 
 one another. From a dream of Bruhl and myself as en- 
 gaged in a competition for the king's favour, wherein 
 neither could expose the other nor appeal even in the last 
 resort to the joint-enemies of his Majesty and ourselves, I 
 awoke to a very different state of things; I awoke to find 
 those enemies the masters of the situation, possessed of 
 the clue to our plans, and permitting them only as long as 
 they seemed to threaten no serious peril to themselves. 
 
 No discovery could be more mortifying or more fraught 
 with terror. The perspiration stood on my brow as I re- 
 called the warning which M. de Rosny had uttered against 
 Cardinal Retz, or noted down the various points of knowl- 
 edge which were in Father Antoine's possession. He knew 
 every event of the last month, with one exception, and 
 could tell, I verily believed, how many crowns I had in my ' 
 pouch. Conceding this, and the secret sources of informa- 
 tion he must possess, what hope had I of keeping my 
 future movements from him? Mademoiselle's arrival would 
 be known to him before she had well passed the gates ; nor 
 was it likely, or even possible, that I should again succeed 
 in reaching the king's presence untraced and unsuspected. 
 In fine, I saw myself, equally with Bruhl, a puppet in this 
 man's hands, my goings out and my coinings in watched 
 and reported to him, his mercy the only bar between my- 
 self and destruction. At any moment I might be arrested 
 as a Huguenot, the enterprise in which I was engaged 
 ruined, and Mademoiselle de la Vire exposed to the violence 
 of Bruhl or the equally dangerous intrigues of the League.
 
 THE OFFER OF THE LEAGUE 201 
 
 Under these circumstances I fancied sleep impossible; 
 but habit and weariness are strong persuaders, and when I 
 reached my lodging I slept long and soundly, as became a 
 man who had looked danger in the face more than once. 
 The morning light too brought an accession both of courage 
 and hope. I reflected on the misery of my condition at St. 
 Jean d'Angely, without friends or resources, and driven to 
 herd with such a man as Fresnoy. And telling myself that 
 the gold crowns which M. de Rosny had lavished upon me 
 were not for nothing, nor the more precious friendship with 
 which he had honoured me a gift that called for no return, 
 I rose with .new spirit and a countenance which threw 
 Simon Fleix who had seen me lie down the picture of 
 despair into the utmost astonishment. 
 
 'You have had good dreams,' he said, eyeing me jealously 
 and with a disturbed air. 
 
 'I had a very evil one last night,' I answered lightly, 
 wondering a little why he looked at me so, and why he 
 seemed to resent my return to hopefulness and courage. I 
 might have followed this train of thought farther with 
 advantage, since I possessed a clue to his state of mind; 
 but at that moment a summons at the door called him away 
 to it, and he presently ushered in M. d'Agen, who, salut- 
 ing me with punctilious politeness, had not said fifty words 
 before he introduced the subject of his toe no longer, how- 
 -ever, in a hostile spirit, but as the happy medium which 
 had led him to recognise the worth and sterling qualities 
 -so he was pleased to say of his preserver. 
 
 I was delighted to find him in this frame of mind, and 
 told him frankly that the friendship with which his kins- 
 man, M. de Eambouillet, honoured me would prevent me 
 giving him satisfaction save in the last resort. He replied 
 that the service I had done him was such as to render this 
 immaterial, unless I had myself cause of offence; which 1 
 was forward to deny. 
 
 We were paying one another compliments after this 
 fashion, while I regarded him with the interest which the
 
 202 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE 
 
 middle-aged bestow on the yoxxng and gallant in whom 
 they see their own youth and hopes mirrored, when the 
 door was again opened, and after a moment's pause ad- 
 mitted, equally, I think, to the disgust of M. Francois and 
 myself, the form of Father Antoine. 
 
 Seldom have two men more diverse stood, I believe, in a 
 room together; seldom has any greater contrast been pre- 
 sented to a man's eyes than that opened to mine on this 
 occasion. On the one side the gay young spark, with his 
 short cloak, his fine suit of black-and-silver, his trim limbs 
 and jewelled hilt and chased comfit-box; on the other, the 
 tall, stooping monk, lean-jawed and bright-eyed, whose 
 gown hung about him in coarse, ungainly folds. And M. 
 Franqois' sentiment on first seeing the other was certainly 
 dislike. In spite of this, however, he bestowed a greeting 
 on the new-comer which evidenced a secret awe, and in 
 other ways showed so plain a desire to please that I felt my 
 fears of the priest return in force. I reflected that the 
 talents which in such a garb could win the respect of M. 
 Franqois d'Agen a brilliant star among the younger court- 
 iers, and one of a class much given to thinking scorn of 
 their fathers' roughness must be both great and formida- 
 ble; and, so considering, I received the monk with a dis- 
 tant courtesy which I had once little thought to extend to 
 him. I put aside for the moment the private grudge I 
 bore him with so much justice, and remembered only the 
 burden which lay on me in my contest with him. 
 
 I conjectured without difficulty that he chose to come at 
 this time, when M. Francois was with me, out of a cunning 
 regard to his own safety; and I was not surprised when M. 
 Franqois, beginning to make his adieux, Father Antoine 
 begged him to wait below, adding that he had something of 
 importance to communicate. He advanced his request in 
 terms of politeness bordering on humility; but I could 
 clearly see that, in assenting to it, M. d'Agen bowed to a 
 will stronger than his own, and would, had he dared to 
 follow his own bent, have given a very different answer.
 
 THE OFFER OF THE LEAGUE 203 
 
 As it was he retired nominally to give an order to his 
 lackey with a species of impatient self-restraint which it 
 was not difficult to construe. 
 
 Left alone with me, and assured that we had no listeners, 
 the monk was not slow in coming to the point. 
 
 'You have thought over what I told you last night? ' he 
 said brusquely, dropping in a moment the suave manner 
 which he had maintained in M. Francois's presence. 
 
 I replied coldly that I had. 
 
 'And you understand the position? ' he continued quickly, 
 looking at me from under his brows as he stood before me, 
 with one clenched fist on the table. 'Or shall I tell you 
 more? Shall I tell you how poor and despised you were 
 some weeks ago, M. de Marsac you who now go in velvet, 
 and have three men at your back? Or whose gold it is has 
 brought you here, and made you this? Chut! Do not let 
 us trifle. You are here as the secret agent of the King of 
 Navarre. It is my business to learn your plans and his 
 intentions, and I propose to do so.' 
 
 'Well? ' I said. 
 
 'I am prepared to buy them,' he answered; and his eyes 
 sparkled as he spoke, with a greed which set me yet more 
 on my guard. 
 
 Tor whom? ' I asked. Having made up my mind that 
 I must use the same weapons as my adversary, I reflected 
 that to express indignation, such as might become a you ^g 
 man new to the world, could help me not a whit. 'Foi 
 whom? ' I repeated, seeing that he hesitated. 
 
 'That is my business,' he replied slowly. 
 
 'You want to know too much and tell too little,' I re- 
 torted, yawning. 
 
 'And you are playing with me,' he cried, looking at me 
 suddenly, with so piercing a gaze and so dark a counte- 
 nance that I checked a shudder with difficulty. ' So much 
 the worse for you, so much the worse for you! ' he contin- 
 ued fiercely. 'I am here to buy the information you hold, 
 but if you will not sell, there is another way. At an hour's
 
 204 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE 
 
 notice I can ruin your plans, and send you to a dungeon! 
 You are like a fish caught in a net not yet drawn. It 
 thrusts its nose this way and that, and touches the mesh, 
 but is slow to take the alarm until the net is drawn and 
 then it is too late. So it is with you, and so it is,' he 
 added, falling into the ecstatic mood which marked him at 
 times, and left me in doubt whether he were all knave or 
 in part enthusiast, 'with all those who set themselves 
 against St. Peter and his Church ! ' 
 
 'I have heard you say much the same of the King of 
 France,' I said derisively. 
 
 'You trust in him?' he retorted, his eyes gleaming. 
 'You have been up there, and seen his crowded chamber, 
 and counted his forty-five gentlemen and his grey-coated 
 Swiss? I tell you the splendour you saw was a dream, 
 and will vanish as a dream. The man's strength and his 
 glory shall go from him, and that soon. Have you no eyes 
 to see that he is beside the question? There are but two 
 powers in France the Holy Union, which still prevails, 
 and the accursed Huguenot ; and between them is the battle.' 
 
 'Now you are telling me more,' I said. 
 
 He grew sober in a moment, looking at me with a vicious 
 anger hard to describe. 
 
 'Tut tut,' he said, showing his yellow teeth, 'the dead 
 tell no tales. And for Henry of Valois, he so loves a monk 
 that you might better accuse his mistress. But for you, I 
 have only to cry " Ho ! a Huguenot and a sp3 T ! " and though 
 he loved you more than he loved Quelus or Maugiron, he 
 dare not stretch out a finger to save you ! ' 
 
 I knew that he spoke the truth, and with difficulty main- 
 tained the air of indifference with which I had entered on 
 the interview. 
 
 'But what if I leave Blois?' I ventured, merely to see 
 what he would say. 
 
 He laughed. 'You cannot,' he answered. 'The net is 
 round you, M. de Marsac, and there are those at every gate 
 who know you and have their instructions. I can destroy
 
 THE OFFER OF THE LEAGUE 205 
 
 you, but I would fain have your information, and for that 
 I will pay you five hundred crowns and let you go.' 
 
 'To fall into the hands of the King of Navarre? ' 
 
 'He will disown you, in any case,' he answered eagerly. 
 'He had that in his mind, my friend, when he selected an 
 agent so obscure. He will disown you. Ah, mon Dieul 
 had I been an hour quicker I had caught Rosny Rosny 
 himself! ' 
 
 'There is one thing lacking still,' 1. replied. 'How am I 
 to be sure that, when I have told you what I know, you 
 will pay me the money or let me go? ' 
 
 'I will swear to it! ' he answered earnestly, deceived into 
 thinking I was about to surrender. 'I will give you my 
 oath, M. de Marsac! ' 
 
 'I would as soon have your shoe-lace! ' I exclaimed, the 
 indignation I could not entirely repress finding vent in that 
 phrase. 'A Churchman's vow is worth a candle or a can- 
 dle and a half, is it? ' I continued ironically. 'I must have 
 some security a great deal more substantial than that, 
 father. ' 
 
 'What?' he asked, looking at me gloomily. 
 
 Seeing an opening, I cudgelled my brains to think of any 
 condition which, being fulfilled, might turn the table on 
 him and place him in my power. But his position was so 
 strong, or my wits so weak, that nothing occurred to me 
 at the time, and I sat looking at him, my mind gradually 
 passing from the possibility of escape to the actual danger 
 in which I stood, and which encompassed also Simon Fleix, 
 and, in a degree, doubtless, M. de Rambouillet. In four or 
 five days, too, Mademoiselle de la Vire would arrive. I won- 
 dered if I could send any warning to her ; and then, again, 
 I doubted the wisdom of interfering with M. de Rosny's 
 plans, the more as Maignan, who had gone to fetch made- 
 moiselle, was of a kind to disregard any orders save his 
 master's. 
 
 'Well! ' said the monk, impatiently recalling me to my- 
 self, 'what security do you want?'
 
 206 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE 
 
 'I am not quite sure at this moment,' I made answer 
 slowly. 'I am in a difficult position. I must have some 
 time to consider.' 
 
 'And to rid yourself of me, if it be possible,' he said with 
 irony. 'I quite understand. But I warn you that you are 
 watched; and that wherever you go and whatever you do, 
 eyes which are mine are upon you. ' 
 
 'I, too, understand,' I said coolly. 
 
 He stood awhile uncertain, regarding me with mingled 
 doubt and malevolence, tortured on the one hand by fear 
 of losing the prize if he granted delay, on the other of fail- 
 ing as utterly if he exerted his power and did not succeed in 
 subduing my resolution. I watched him, too, and gauging 
 his eagerness and the value of the stake for which he was 
 striving by the strength of his emotions, drew small com- 
 fort from the sight. More than once it had occurred to me, 
 and now it occurred to me again, to extricate myself by a 
 blow. But a natural reluctance to strike an unarmed man, 
 however vile and knavish, and the belief that he had not 
 trusted himself in my power without taking the fullest pre- 
 cautions, withheld me. When he grudgingly, and with 
 many dark threats, proposed to wait three days and not an 
 hour more for my answer, I accepted; for I saw no other 
 alternative open. And on these terms, but not without 
 some short discussion, we parted, and I heard his stealthy 
 footstep go sneaking down the stairs. 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 MEN CALL IT CHANCE. 
 
 IF I were telling more than the truth, or had it in my 
 mind to embellish my adventures, I could, doubtless, by the 
 exercise of a little ingenuity make it appear that I owed 
 my escape from Father Antoine's meshes to my own craft ;
 
 MEN CALL IT CHANCE 207 
 
 and tell, in fine, as pretty a story of plots and counterplots 
 as' M. de Brantome has ever woven. Having no desire, 
 however, to magnify myself, and, at this time of day, 
 scarcely any reason, I am fain to confess that the reverse 
 was the case ; and that while no man ever did less to free 
 himself than I did, my adversary retained his grasp to the 
 end, and had surely, but for a strange interposition, effected 
 my ruin. How relief came, and from what quarter, I might 
 defy the most ingenious person, after reading my memoirs 
 to this point, to say ; and this not so much by reason of any 
 subtle device, as because the hand of Providence was for 
 once directly manifest. 
 
 The three days of grace which the priest had granted I 
 passed in anxious but futile search for some means of escape, 
 every plan I conceived dying stillborn, and not the least of 
 my miseries lying in the fact that I could discern no better 
 course than still to sit and think, and seemed doomed to 
 perpetual inaction. M. de Rambouillet being a strict 
 Catholic, though in all other respects a patriotic man, I 
 knew better than to have recourse to him; and the priest's 
 influence over M. d'Agen I had myself witnessed. For 
 similar reasons I rejected the idea of applying to the king ; 
 and this exhausting the list of those on whom I had any 
 claim, I found myself thrown on my own resources, which ' 
 seemed limited my wits failing me at this pinch to rny 
 sword and Simon Fleix. 
 
 Assured that I must break out of Blois if I would save, 
 not myself only, but others more precious because entrusted 
 to my charge, I thought it no disgrace to appeal to Simon ; 
 describing in a lively fashion the danger which threatened 
 us, and inciting the lad by every argument which I thought 
 likely to have weight with him to devise some way of 
 escape. 
 
 'Now is the time, my friend,' I said, 'to show your wits, 
 and prove that M. de Rosuy, who said you had a cunning 
 above the ordinary, was right. If your brain can ever save 
 your head, now is the time ! For I tell you plainly, if you
 
 208 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE 
 
 cannot find some way to outmanoauvre this villain before 
 to-morrow, I am spent. You can judge for yourself what 
 chance you will have of going free.' 
 
 I paused at that, waiting for him to make some sugges- 
 tion. To my chagrin he remained silent, leaning his head 
 on his hand, and studying the table with his eyes in a 
 sullen fashion ; so that I began to regret the condescension 
 I had evinced in letting him be seated, and found it neces- 
 sary to remind him that he had taken service with me, and 
 must do my bidding. 
 
 ' Well,' he said morosely, and without looking up, ' I am 
 ready to do it. But I do not like priests, and this one least 
 of all. I know him, and I will not meddle with him ! ' 
 
 'You will not meddle with him ?' I cried, almost beside 
 myself with dismay. 
 
 'No, I won't,' he replied, retaining his listless attitude. 
 'I know him, and I am afraid of him. I am no match for 
 him.' 
 
 ' Then M. de Rosny was wrong, was he ? ' I said, giving 
 way to my anger. 
 
 ' If it please you,' he answered pertly. 
 
 This was too much for me. My riding-switch lay handy, 
 and I snatched it up. Before he knew what I would be at, 
 ' I fell upon him, and gave him such a sound wholesome drub- 
 bing as speedily brought him to his senses. When he cried 
 for mercy which he did not for a good space, being still 
 possessed by the peevish devil which had ridden him ever 
 since his departure from Eosny I put it to him again 
 whether M. de Rosny was not right. When he at last 
 admitted this, but not till then, I threw the whip away and 
 let him go, but did not cease to reproach him as he deserved. 
 
 'Did you think,' I said, 'that I was going to be ruined 
 because you would not use your lazy brains ? That I was 
 going to sit still, and let you sulk, while mademoiselle 
 walked blindfold into the toils ? Not at all, my friend ! ' 
 
 ' Mademoiselle ! ' he exclaimed, looking at me with a 
 sudden change of countenance, and ceasing to rub himself
 
 MEN CALL IT CHANCE 209 
 
 and scowl, as he had been doing. ' She is not here, and 
 is in no danger.' 
 
 ' She will be here to-morrow, or the next day,' I said. 
 
 ' You did not tell me that ! ' he replied, his eyes glittering. 
 ( Does Father Antoine know it ? ' 
 
 ' He will know it the moment she enters the town,' I 
 answered. 
 
 Noting the change which the introduction of mademoi- 
 selle's name into the affair had wrought in him, I felt 
 something like humiliation. But at the moment I had no 
 choice ; it was my business to use such instruments as came 
 to my hand, and not, mademoiselle's safety being at stake, to 
 pick and choose too nicely. In a few minutes our posi- 
 tions were reversed. The lad had grown as hot as I cold, 
 as keenly excited as I critical. When he .presently came 
 to a stand in front of me, I saw a strange likeness between 
 his face and the priest's ; nor was I astonished when he 
 presently made just such a proposal as I should have ex- 
 pected from Father Antoine himself. 
 
 ' There is only one thing for it/ he muttered, trembling 
 all over. ' He must be got rid of ! ' 
 
 ' Fine talking ! ' I said, contemptuously. ( If he were a 
 soldier he might be brought to it. But he is a priest, my 
 friend, and does not fight.' 
 
 ' Fight ? Who wants him to fight ? ' the lad answered, 
 his face dark, his hands moving restlessly. ' It is the 
 easier done. A blow in the back, and he will trouble us no 
 more.' 
 
 ' Who is to strike it ? ' I asked drily. 
 
 Simon trembled and hesitated ; but presently, heaving a 
 deep si;?h, he said, ' I will.' 
 
 ' It might not be difficult,' I muttered, thinking it over. 
 
 ' It would be easy,' he answered under his breath. His 
 eyes shone, his lips were white, and his long dark hair 
 hung wet over his forehead. 
 
 I reflected ; and the longer I did so the more feasible 
 seemed the suggestion. A single word t and I might sweep
 
 210 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE 
 
 from my path the man whose existence threatened mine; 
 who would not meet me fairly, but, working against me 
 darkly and treacherously, deserved no better treatment at 
 my hands than that which a detected spy receives. He had 
 wronged my mother ; he would fain destroy my friends ! 
 
 And, doubtless, I shall be blamed by some and ridiculed 
 by more for indulging in scruples at such a time. But I 
 have all my life long been prejudiced against that form of 
 underhand violence which I have heard old men contend 
 came into fashion in our country in modern times, and 
 which certainly seems to be alien from the French charac- 
 ter. Without judging others too harshly, or saying that 
 the poniard is never excusable for then might some 
 wrongs done to women and the helpless go without remedy 
 I have set my face against its use as unworthy of a 
 soldier. At the time, moreover, of which I am now writ- 
 ing the extent to which our enemies had lately resorted to 
 it tended to fix this feeling with peculiar firmness in my 
 mind ; and, but for the very desperate dilemma in which I 
 stood at the moment and not I alone I do not think that 
 I should have entertained Simon's proposal for a minute. 
 
 As it was, I presently answered him in a way which left 
 him in no doubt of my sentiments. ' Simon, my friend,' I 
 said and I remember I was a little moved 'you have 
 something still to learn, both as a soldier and a Huguenot. 
 Neither the one nor the other strikes at the back.' 
 
 ' But if he will not tight ? ' the lad retorted rebelliously. 
 ' What then ? ' 
 
 It was so clear that our adversary gained an unfair advan- 
 tage in this way that I could not answer the question. I 
 let it pass, therefore, and merely repeating my former 
 injunction, bade Simon think out another way. 
 
 He promised reluctantly to do so, and, after spending 
 some moments in thought, went out to learn whether the 
 house was being watched. 
 
 When he returned, his countenance wore so new an expres- 
 sion that I saw at once that something had happened. He did
 
 MEN CALL IT CHANCE 21 1 
 
 not meet my eye, however, and did not explain, but made as if 
 he would go out again, with something of confusion in his 
 manner. Before finally disappearing, however, he seemed to 
 change his mind once more ; for, inarching up to me where I 
 stood eyeing him with the utmost astonishment, he stopped 
 before me, and suddenly drawing out his hand, thrust some- 
 thing into mine. 
 
 ' What is it, man ? ' I said mechanically. 
 
 ' Look ! ' he answered rudely, breaking silence for the first 
 time. ' You should know. Why ask me ? What have I to 
 do with it ? ' 
 
 I looked then, and saw that he had given me a knot of 
 velvet precisely similar in shape, size, and material to that 
 well-remembered one which had aided me so opportunely in 
 my search for mademoiselle. This differed from that a lit- 
 tle in colour, but in nothing else, the fashion of the bow 
 being the same, and one lappet bearing the initials ' C. d. 1. 
 V.,' while the other had the words, ' A moi.' I gazed at it 
 in wonder. 'But, Simon,' I said, 'what does it mean? 
 Where did you get it?' 
 
 ' Where should I get it ? ' he answered jealously. Then, 
 seeming to recollect himself, he changed his tone. 'A 
 woman gave it to me in the street,' he said. 
 
 I asked him what woman. 
 
 ' How should I know ? ' he answered, his eyes gleaming 
 with anger. ' It Avas a woman in a mask.' 
 
 'Was it Fanchette ?' I said sternly. 
 
 ' It might have been. I do not know,* he responded. 
 
 I concluded at first that mademoiselle and her escort had 
 arrived in the outskirts of the city, and that Maignan had 
 justified his reputation for discretion by sending in to learn 
 from me whether the way was clear before he entered. In 
 this notion I was partly confirmed and partly shaken by the 
 accompanying message ; which Simon, from whom every 
 scrap of information had to be dragged as blood from a 
 tone, presently delivered. 
 
 ' You are to meet the sender half an hour after sunset 
 
 o2
 
 212 A GENTLEMAN" OF FRANCE 
 
 to-morrow evening/ he said, 'on the Parvis at the north-east 
 corner of the cathedral.' 
 
 ' To-morrow evening ? ' 
 
 ' Yes, when else ? ' the lad answered ungraciously. ' I 
 said to-morrow evening.' 
 
 I thought this strange. I could understand why Maignan 
 should prefer to keep his charge outside the walls until he 
 heard from me, but not why he should postpone a meeting 
 so long. The message, too, seemed unnecessarily meagre, and 
 I began to think Simon was still withholding something. 
 
 ' Was that all ? ' I asked him. 
 
 ' Yes, all,' he answered, ' except ' 
 
 ' Except what ? ' I said sternly. 
 
 ' Except that the woman showed me the gold token Made- 
 moiselle de la Vire used to carry,' he answered reluctantly, 
 'and said, if you wanted further assurance that would sat- 
 isfy you.' 
 
 ' Did you see the coin ? ' I cried eagerly. 
 
 1 To be sure,' he answered. 
 
 ' Then, mon dieu ! ' I retorted, ' either you are deceiving 
 me, or the woman you saw deceived you. For mademoiselle 
 has not got the token ! I have it ; here, in my possession ! 
 Now, do you still say you saw it, man ? ' 
 
 ' I saw one like it,' he answered, trembling, his face damp. 
 ' That I will swear. And the woman told me what I have 
 told you. And no more.' 
 
 'Then it is clear,' I answered, 'that mademoiselle has 
 nothing to do with this, and is doubtless many a league 
 away. This is one of M. de Bruhl's tricks. Fresnoy gave 
 him the token he stole from me. And I told him the story 
 of the velvet knot myself. This is a trap ; and had I fallen 
 into it, and gone to the Parvis to-morrow evening, I had 
 never kept another assignation, my lad.' 
 
 Simon looked thoughtful. Presently he said, with a 
 crestfallen air, ' You were to go alone. The woman said that.' 
 
 Though I knew well why he had suppressed this item, I 
 forbore to blame him. ' What was the woman like ? ' I said.
 
 MEN CALL IT CHANCE 213 
 
 ' She had very much of Fanchette's ^gure,' he answered 
 He could not go beyond that. Blinded by the idea that the 
 woman was mademoiselle's attendant, and no one else, he 
 had taken little heed of her, and could not even say for 
 certain that she was not a man in woman's clothes. 
 
 I thought the matter over and discussed it with him ; and 
 was heartily minded to punish M. de Bruhl, if I could dis- 
 cover a way of turning his treacherous plot against him- 
 self. But the lack of any precise knowledge of his plans 
 prevented me stirring in the matter ; the more as I felt no 
 certainty that I should be master of my actions when the 
 time came. 
 
 Strange to say the discovery of this movement on the 
 part of Bruhl, who had sedulously kept himself in the back- 
 ground since the scene in the king's presence, far from in- 
 creasing my anxieties, had the effect of administering a 
 fillip to my spirits; which the cold and unyielding pressure 
 of the Jacobin had reduced to a low point. Here was some- 
 thing I could understand, resist, and guard against. The 
 feeling that I had once more to do with a man of like 
 aims and passions with myself quickly restored me to the 
 use of my faculties ; as I have heard that a swordsman 
 opposed to the powers of evil regains his vigour on finding 
 himself engaged with a mortal foe. Though I knew that 
 the hours of grace were fast running to a close, and that on 
 the morrow the priest would call for an answer, I experi- 
 enced that evening an unreasonable lightness and cheerful- 
 ness. I retired to rest with confidence, and slept in comfort, 
 supported in part, perhaps, by the assurance that in that 
 room where my mother died her persecutor could have no 
 power to harm me. 
 
 Upon Simon Fleix, on the other hand, the discovery that 
 Bruhl was moving, and that consequently peril threatened 
 us from a new quarter, had a different effect. He fell into 
 a state of extreme excitement, and spent the evening and a 
 great part of the night in walking restlessly up and down 
 the room, wrestling with the fears and anxieties which beset
 
 214 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE 
 
 us, and now talking fast to himself, now biting his nails in 
 an agony of impatience. In vain I adjured him not to meet 
 troubles halfway ; or, pointing to the pallet which he occu- 
 pied at the foot of my couch, bade him, if he could not 
 devise a way of escape, at least to let the matter rest until 
 morning. He had no power to obey, but, tortured by the 
 vivid anticipations which it was his nature to entertain, he 
 continued to ramble to and fro in a fever of the nerves, and 
 had no sooner lain down than he was up again. Remem- 
 bering, however, how well he had borne himself on the 
 night of mademoiselle's escape from Blois, I refrained from 
 calling him a coward ; and contented myself instead with 
 the reflection that nothing sits worse on a fighting-man than 
 too much knowledge except, perhaps, a lively imagination. 
 
 I thought it possible that mademoiselle n.ight arrive next 
 day before Father Antoine called to receive his answer. In 
 this event I hoped to have the support of Maignan's ex- 
 perience. But the party did not arrive. I had to rely on 
 myself and my own resources, and, this being so, determined 
 to refuse the priest's offer, but in all other things to be 
 guided by circumstances. 
 
 About noon he came, attended, as was his practice, by two 
 friends, whom he left outside. He looked paler and more 
 shadowy than before, I thought, his hands thinner, and his 
 cheeks more transparent. I could draw no good augury, 
 however, from these signs of frailty, for the brightness of 
 his eyes and the unusual elation of his manner told plainly 
 of a spirit assured of the mastery. He entered the room 
 with an air of confidence, and addressed me in a tone of 
 patronage which left me in no doubt of his intentions ; the 
 frankness with which he now laid bare his plans going far 
 to prove that already he considered me no better than his 
 tool. 
 
 I did not at once undeceive him, but allowed him to pro- 
 ceed, and even to bring out the five hundred crowns which 
 he had promised me, and the sight of which he doubtless 
 supposed would clench the matter.
 
 MEN CALL IT CHANCE 215 
 
 Seeing this he became still less reticent, and spoke so 
 largely that I presently felt myself impelled to ask him if 
 he would answer a question. 
 
 ' That is as may be, M. de Marsac,' he answered lightly. 
 'You may ask it.' 
 
 'You hint at great schemes which you have in hand, 
 father,' I said. ' You speak of France and Spain and Na- 
 varre, and kings and Leagues and cardinals ! You talk of 
 secret strings, and would have me believe that if I comply 
 with your wishes I shall find you as powerful a patron as 
 M. de Rosny. But one moment, if you please/ I contin- 
 ued hastily, seeing that he was about to interrupt me with 
 such eager assurances as I had already heard; 'tell me 
 this. With so many irons in the fire, why did you interfere 
 with one old gentlewoman for the sake of a few crowns ? ' 
 
 ' I will tell you even that,' he answered, his face flushing 
 at my tone. ' Have you ever heard of an elephant ? Yes. 
 Well, it has a trunk, you know, with which it can either 
 drag an oak from the earth or lift a groat from the ground. 
 It is so with me. But again you ask,' he continued with an 
 airy grimace, ' why I wanted a few crowns. Enough that 
 I did. There are going to be two things in the world, and 
 two only, M. de Marsac : brains and money. The former I 
 have, and had : the latter I needed and toolL' 
 
 ' Money and brains ? ' I said, looking at him thought- 
 fully. 
 
 ' Yes,' he answered, his eyes sparkling, his thin nostrils 
 beginning to dilate. ' Give me these two, and I will rule 
 France ! ' 
 
 ' You will rule France ? ' I exclaimed, amazed beyond 
 measure by his audacity. ' You, man ? ' 
 
 'Yes, I,' he answered, with abominable coolness. 'I, 
 priest, monk, Churchman, clerk. You look surprised, but 
 mark you, sir, there is a change going on. Our time is 
 coming, and yours is going. What hampers our lord the 
 king and shuts him up in Blois, while rebellions stalk 
 through France ? Lack of men ? No ; but lack of money;
 
 216 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE 
 
 Who can get the money for him you the soldier, or I the 
 clerk ? A thousand times, I ! Therefore, my time is coin- 
 ing, and before you die you will see a priest rule France.' 
 
 'God forbid it should be you,' I answered scornfully. 
 
 'As you please/ he answered, shrugging his shoulders, 
 and assuming in a breath a mask of humility which sat as 
 ill on his monstrous conceit as ever nun's veil on a trooper. 
 ' Yet it may even be I ; by the favour of the Holy Catholic 
 Church, whose humble minister I am.' 
 
 I sprang up with a great oath at that, having no stomach 
 for more of the strange transformations, in which this man 
 delighted, and whereof the last had ever the air of being 
 the most hateful. 'You villain!' I cried, twisting my 
 moustaches, a habit I have when enraged. ' And so you 
 would make me a stepping-stone to your greatness. You 
 would bribe me a soldier and a gentleman. Go, before I 
 do you a mischief. That is all I have to say to you. Go ! 
 You have your answer. I will tell you nothing not a jot 
 or a tittle. Begone from my room ! ' 
 
 He fell back a step in his surprise, and stood against the 
 table biting his nails and scowling at me, fear and chagrin 
 contending with half a dozen devils for the possession of 
 his face. ' So you have been deceiving me,' he said slowly, 
 and at last. * 
 
 ' I have let you deceive yourself,' I answered, looking at 
 him with scorn, but with none of the fear with which he 
 had for a while inspired me. ' Begone, and do your 
 worst.' 
 
 ' You know what you are doing,' he said. ' I have that 
 will hang you, M. de Marsac or worse.' 
 
 ' Go ! ' I cried. 
 
 'You have thought of your friends,' he continued 
 mockingly. 
 
 ' Go ! ' I said. 
 
 ' Of Mademoiselle de la Vire, if by any chance she fall 
 into my hands ? It will not be hanging for her. You 
 remember the two Foucauds ? ' and he laughed.
 
 MEN- CALL IT CHANCE 217 
 
 The vile threat, which I knew he had used to my mother, 
 so worked upon me that I strode forward unable to control 
 myself longer. In another moment I had certainly taken 
 him by the throat and squeezed the life out of his miserable 
 carcase, had not Providence in its goodness intervened to 
 save me. The door, on which he had already laid his hand 
 in terror, opened suddenly. It admitted Simon, who, 
 closing it behind him, stood looking from one to the other 
 of us in nervous doubt ; divided between that respect for 
 the priest which a training at the Sorbonne had instilled 
 into him, and the rage which despair arouses in the 
 weakest. 
 
 His presence, while it checked me in my purpose, seemed 
 to give Father Antoine courage, for the priest stood his 
 ground, and even turned to me a second time, his face dark 
 with spite and disappointment. ' Good,' he said hoarsely. 
 ' Destroy yourself if you will ! I advise you to bar your 
 door, for in an hour the guards will be here to fetch you to 
 the question.' 
 
 Simon cried out at the threat, so that I turned and 
 looked at the lad. His knees were shaking, his hair stood 
 on end. 
 
 The priest saw his terror and his own opportunity. ' Ay, 
 in an hour,' he continued slowly, looking at him with cruel 
 eyes. ' In an hour, lad ! You must be fond of pain to 
 court it, and out of humour with life to throw it away. 
 Or stay,' he continued abruptly, after considering Simon's 
 agony for a moment, and doubtless deducing from it a last 
 hope, ' I will be merciful. I will give you one more 
 chance.' 
 
 'And yourself ? ' I said with a sneer. 
 
 'As you please,' he answered, declining to be diverted 
 from the trembling lad, whom his gaze seemed to fascinate. 
 ' I will give you until half an hour after sunset this 
 evening to reconsider the matter. If you make up your 
 minds to accept my terms, meet me then. I leave to-night 
 for Paris, and I will give yo \intil the last moment. But,'
 
 218 A GENTLEMAN OF FKANCE 
 
 he continued grimly, ' if you do not meet me, or, meeting 
 me, remain obstinate God do so to me, and more also, if 
 you see the sun rise thrice.' 
 
 Some impulse, I know not what, seeing that I had no 
 thought of accepting his terms or meeting him, led me to 
 ask briefly, ' Where ? ' 
 
 'On the Parvis of the Cathedral,' he answered after a 
 moment's calculation. 'At the north-east corner, half an 
 hour after sunset. It is a quiet spot.' 
 
 Simon uttered a stifled exclamation. And then for a 
 moment there was silence in the room, while the lad 
 breathed hard and irregularly, and I stood rooted to the 
 spot, looking so long and so strangely at the priest that 
 Father Antoine laid his hand again on the door and glanced 
 uneasily behind him. Nor was he content until he had hit 
 on, as he fancied, the cause of my strange regard. 
 
 ' Ha ! ' he said, his thin lip curling in conceit at his 
 astuteness, ' I understand. You think to kill me to-night ? 
 Let me tell you, this house is watched. If you leave here 
 to meet me with any companion unless it be M. d'Agen, 
 whom I can trust I shall be warned, and be gone before 
 you reach the rendezvous. And gone, mind you,' he added, 
 with a grim smile, ' to sign your death-warrant.' 
 
 He went out with that, closing the door behind him ; and 
 we heard his step go softly down the staircase. I gazed at 
 Simon, and he at me, with all the astonishment and awe 
 which it was natural we should feel in presence of so 
 remarkable a coincidence. 
 
 For by a marvel the priest had named the same spot and 
 the same time as the sender of the velvet knot ! 
 
 'He will go,' Simon said, his face flushed and his voice 
 trembling, 'and they will go.' 
 
 'And in the dark t^ey will not know him,' I muttered. 
 'He is about my height. They will take him for me!' 
 
 'And kill him!' Simon cried hysterically. 'They will 
 kill him ! He goes to his death, monsieur. It is the finger 
 of God.'
 
 THE KING^S FACE 219 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 THE KING'S FACE. 
 
 IT seemed so necessary to bring home the crime to Bruhl 
 should the priest really perish in the trap laid for me, that 
 I came near to falling into one of those mistakes to which 
 men of action are prone. For my first impulse was to follow 
 the priest to the Parvis, closely enough, if possible, to detect 
 the assassins in the act, and with sufficient force, if I could 
 muster it, to arrest them. The credit of dissuading me 
 from this course lies with Simon, who pointed out its dan- 
 gers in so convincing a manner that I was brought with 
 little difficulty to relinquish it. 
 
 Instead, acting on his advice, I sent him to M. d'Agen's 
 lodging, to beg that young gentleman to call upon me before 
 evening. After searching the lodging and other places in 
 vain, Simon found M. d'Agen in the tennis-court at the 
 Castle, and, inventing a crafty excuse, brought him to my 
 lodging a full hour before the time. 
 
 My visitor was naturally surprised to find that I had 
 nothing particular to say to him. I dared not tell him 
 what occupied my thoughts, and for the rest invention 
 failed me. But his gaiety and those pretty affectations on 
 which he spent an infinity of pains, for the purpose, appar- 
 ently, of hiding the sterling worth of a character deficient 
 neither in courage nor backbone, were united to much good 
 nature. Believing at last that I had sent for him in a fit of 
 the vapours, he devoted himself to amusing me and abusing 
 Bruhl a very favourite pastime with him. And in this 
 way he made out a call of two hours. 
 
 I had not long to wait for proof of Simon's wisdom in 
 taking this precaution. We thought it prudent to keep 
 within doors after our guest's departure, and so passed the 
 night in ignorance whether anything had happened or not. 
 But about seven next morning one of the Marquis's servants,
 
 220 A GENTLEMAN" OF FRANCE 
 
 despatched by M. d'Agen, burst in upon us with the news 
 which was no news from the moment his hurried footstep 
 sounded on the stairs that Father Antoine had been set 
 upon and killed the previous evening ! 
 
 I heard this confirmation of my hopes with grave thank- 
 fulness ; Simon with so much emotion that when the mes- 
 senger was gone he sat down on a stool and began to sob 
 and tremble as if he had lost his mother, instead of a mortal 
 foe. I took advantage of the occasion to read him a sermon 
 on the end of crooked courses; nor could I myself recall 
 without a shudder the man's last words to me ; or the law- 
 less and evil designs in which he had rejoiced, while standing 
 Gin the very brink of the pit which was to swallow up both 
 him and them in everlasting darkness. 
 
 Naturally, the uppermost feeling in my mind was relief. 
 1 was free once more. In all probability the priest had 
 kept his knowledge to himself, and without him his agents 
 would be powerless. Simon, it is true, heard that the town 
 yas much excited by the event ; and that many attributed 
 ifc to the Huguenots. But we did not suffer ourselves to be 
 depressed by this, nor had I any foreboding until the sound 
 of a second hurried footstep mounting the stairs reached 
 our ears. 
 
 I knew the step in a moment for M. d'Agen's, and some- 
 thing ominous in its ring brought me to my feet before he 
 opened the door. Significant 'as was his first hasty look 
 round the room, he recovered at sight of me all his habitual 
 sang-froid. He saluted me, and spoke coolly, though rapidly. 
 But he panted, and I noticed in a moment that he had lost 
 his lisp. 
 
 <I am happy in finding you,' he said, closing the door 
 carefully behind him, 'for I am the bearer of ill news, and 
 there is not a moment to be lost. The king has signed an 
 order for your instant consignment to prison, M. de Marsac, 
 and, once there, it is difficult to say what may not happen.' 
 
 ' My consignment ? ' I exclaimed. I may be pardoned 
 if the news for a moment found me unprepared.
 
 THE KfNG^S FACE 221 
 
 * Yes,' he replied quickly. ' The king has signed it at 
 the instance of Marshal Retz.' 
 
 * But for what ? ' I cried in amazement. 
 
 ' The murder of Father Antoine. You will pardon me/ 
 he continued urgently, 'but this is no time for words. The 
 Provost-Marshal is even now on- his way to arrest you. 
 Your only hope is to evade him, and gain an audience of 
 the king. I have persuaded my uncle to go with you, and 
 he is waiting at his lodgings. There is not a moment to be 
 lost, however, if you would reach the king's presence before 
 you are arrested.' 
 
 'But I am innocent ! ' I cried. 
 
 ' I know it,' M. d'Agen answered, ' and can prove it. 
 But if you cannot get speech of the king innocence will 
 avail you nothing. You have powerful enemies. Come 
 without more ado, M. de Marsac, I pray,' he added. 
 
 His manner, even more than his words, impressed me 
 with a sense of urgency ; and postponing for a time my own 
 judgment, I hurriedly thanked him for his friendly offices. 
 Snatching up my sword, which lay on a chair, I buckled 
 it on ; for Simon's fingers trembled so violently he could 
 give me no help. This done I nodded to M. d'Agen to go 
 first, and followed him from the room, Simon attending us 
 of his own motion. It would be then about eleven o'clock 
 in the forenoon. 
 
 My companion ran down the stairs without ceremony, 
 and so quickly it was all I could do to keep up with him. 
 At the outer door he signed me to stand, and darting him- 
 self into the street, he looked anxiously in the direction of 
 the Rue St. Denys. Fortunately the coast was still clear, 
 and he beckoned to me to follow him. I did so and start- 
 ing to walk in the opposite direction as fast as we could, in 
 less than a minute we had put a corner between us and the 
 house. 
 
 Our hopes of escaping unseen, however, were promptly 
 dashed. The house, I have said, stood in a quiet by-street, 
 which was bounded on the farther side by a garden-wall but-
 
 222 A GENTLEMAAT OF FRANCE 
 
 tressed at intervals. We had scarcely gone a dozen paces 
 from my door when a man slipped from the shelter of one of 
 these buttresses, and after a single glance at us, set off to 
 run towards the Hue St. Denys. 
 
 M. d'Agen looked back and nodded. 'There goes the 
 news,' he said. ' They will try to cut us off, but I think we 
 have the start of them.' 
 
 I made no reply, feeling that I had resigned myself 
 entirely into his hands. But as we passed through the Hue 
 de Valois, in part of which a market was held at this hour, 
 attracting a considerable concourse of peasants and others, 
 I fancied I detected signs of unusual bustle and excitement. 
 It seemed unlikely that news of the priest's murder should 
 affect so many people and to such a degree, and I asked 
 M. d'Agen what it meant. 
 
 ' There is a rumour abroad,' he answered, without slack- 
 ening speed, ' that the king intends to move south to Tours 
 at once.' 
 
 I muttered my surprise and satisfaction. ' He will come 
 to terms with the Huguenots then ? ' I said. 
 
 ' It looks like it,' M. d'Agen rejoined. ' Retz's party are 
 in an ill-humour on that account, and will wreak it on you if 
 they get a chance. On guard ! ' he added abruptly. ' Here 
 are two of them ! ' 
 
 As he spoke we emerged from the crowd, and I saw, hah' 
 a dozen paces in front of us, and coming to meet us, a 
 couple of Court gallants, attended by as many servants, 
 They espied us at the same moment, and came across thf* 
 street, which was tolerably wide at that part, with the 
 evident intention of stopping us. Simultaneously, however, 
 we crossed to take their side, and so met them face to face 
 in the middle of the way. 
 
 ' M. d'Agen,' the foremost exclaimed, speaking in a haughty 
 tone, and with a dark side glance at me, ' I am sorry to see 
 you in such company ! Doubtless you are not aware that 
 this gentleman is the subject of an order which has even 
 now been issued to the Provost-Marshal.'
 
 THE KING^S FACE 223 
 
 < And if so, sir ? What of that ? ' my companion lisped 
 in his silkiest tone. 
 
 ' What of that ? ' the other cried, frowning, and pushing 
 slightly forward. 
 
 ' Precisely,' M. d'Agen repeated, laying his hand on his 
 hilt and declining to give back. ' I am not aware that his 
 Majesty has appointed you Provost-Marshal, or that you 
 have any warrant, M. Villequier, empowering you to stop 
 gentlemen in the public streets.' 
 
 M. Villequier reddened with anger. ' You are young, 
 M. d'Agen,' he said, his voice quivering, ' or I would make 
 you pay dearly for that ! ' 
 
 'My friend is not young,' M. d'Agen retorted, bowing. 
 He is a gentleman of birth, M. Villequier; by repute, as I 
 learned yesterday, one of the best swordsmen in France, 
 and no Gascon. If you feel inclined to arrest him, do so, 
 I pray. And I will have the honour of engaging your son.' 
 
 As we had all by this time our hands on our swords, there 
 needed but a blow to bring about one of those street brawls 
 which were more common then than now. A number of 
 market-people, drawn to the spot by our raised voices, had 
 gathered round, and were waiting eagerly to see what would 
 happen. But Villequier, as rny companion perhaps knew, 
 was a Gascon in heart as well as by birth, and seeing our 
 determined aspects, thought better of it. Shrugging his 
 shoulders with an affectation of disdain which imposed on 
 no one, he signalled to his servants to go on, and himself 
 stood aside. 
 
 ' I thank you for your polite offer,' he said with an evil 
 smile, ' and will remember it. But as you say, sir, I am not 
 the Provost-Marshal.' 
 
 Paying little heed to his words, we bowed, passed him, 
 and hurried on. But the peril was not over. Not only had 
 the rencontre cost us some precious minutes, but the Gascon, 
 after letting us proceed a little way, followed us. And 
 word being passed by his servants, as we supposed, that 
 one of us was the murderer of Father Antoine, the rumour
 
 224 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE 
 
 spread through the crowd like wildfire, and in a few mo- 
 ments we found ourselves attended by a troop of canaille 
 who, hanging on our skirts, caused Simon Meix no little 
 apprehension. Notwithstanding the contempt which M. 
 d'Agen, whose bearing throughout was admirable, expressed 
 for them, we might have found it necessary to turn and 
 teach them a lesson had we not reached M. de Eambouillet's 
 in the nick of time ; where we found the door surrounded 
 by half a dozen armed servants, at sight of whom our per- 
 secutors fell back with the cowardice which is usually found 
 in that class. 
 
 If I had been tempted of late to think M. de Rambouillet 
 fickle, I had no reason to complain now ; whether his atti- 
 tude was due to M. d'Agen's representations, or to the 
 reflection that without me the plans he had at heart must 
 miscarry. I found him waiting within, attended by three 
 gentlemen, all cloaked and ready for the road ; while the air 
 of purpose which sat on his brow indicated that he thought 
 the crisis no common one. Not a moment was lost, even in 
 explanations. Waving me to the door again, and exchang 
 ing a few sentences with his nephew, he gave the word to 
 start, and we issued from the house in a body. Doubtless 
 the fact that those who sought to ruin me were his political 
 enemies had some weight with him ; for I saw his face 
 harden as his eyes met those of M. de Villequier, who 
 passed slowly before the door as we came out. The Gascon, 
 however, was not the man to interfere with so large a party, 
 and dropped back ; while M. de Rambouillet, after exchang- 
 ing a cold salute with him, led the way towards the Castle 
 at a round pace. His nephew and I walked one on either 
 side of him, and the others, to the number of ten or eleven, 
 pressed on behind in a compact body, our cortege presenting 
 so determined a front that the crowd, which had remained 
 hanging about the door, fled every way. Even some peace- 
 able folk who found themselves in our road took the pre- 
 caution of slipping into doorways, or stood aside to give us 
 the full width of the street.
 
 THE KING^S FACE 225 
 
 I remarked and I think it increased my anxiety that 
 our leader was dressed with more than usual care and rich- 
 ness, but, unlike his attendants, wore no arms. He took 
 occasion, as we hurried along, to give me a word of advice. 
 <M. de Marsac,' he said, looking at me suddenly, 'my 
 nephew has given me to understand that you place yourself 
 entirely in my hands.' 
 
 I replied that I asked for no better fortune, and, whatever 
 the event, thanked him from the bottom of my heart. 
 
 ' Be pleased then to keep silence until I bid you speak,' 
 he replied sharply, for he was one of those whom a sudden 
 stress hours and exacerbates. ' And, above all, no violence 
 without my orders. We are about to fight a battle, and a 
 critical one, but it must be won with our heads. If we can 
 we will keep you out of the Provost-Marshal's hands.' 
 
 And if not ? I remembered the threats Father Antoine 
 had used, and in a moment I lost sight of the street with 
 all its light and life and movement. I felt no longer the 
 wholesome stinging of the wind. I tasted instead a fetid 
 air, and saw round me a narrow cell and masked figures, and 
 in particular a swatby man in a leather apron leaning over 
 a brazier, from whim came lurid flames. And I was bound. 
 I experienced that atter helplessness which is the last test 
 of courage. The r .an came forward, and then then, thank 
 God ! the vision passed away. An exclamation to which 
 M. d'Agen gave vent, brought me back to the present, and 
 to the blessed knowledge that the fight was not yet over. 
 
 We were within a score of paces, I found, of the Castle 
 gates : but so were also a second party, who had just de- 
 bouched from a side-street, and now hurried on, pace for 
 pace, with us, with the evident intention of forestalling us. 
 The race ended in both companies reaching the entrance at 
 the same time, with the consequence of some jostling taking 
 place amongst the servants. This must have led to blows 
 but for the strenuous commands which M. de Rambouillet 
 had laid upon his followers. I found myself in a moment 
 confronted by a row of scowling faces, while a dozen threat-
 
 226 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE 
 
 erring hands were stretched out towards me, and. as many 
 voices, among which I recognised Fresnoy's, cried out 
 tumultuously, ' That is he ! That is the one ! ' 
 
 An elderly man in a quaint dress stepped forward, a paper 
 in his hand, and, backed as he w?~ by half a dozen halber- 
 diers, would in a moment have laid hands on me if M. de 
 Rambouillet had not intervened with a negligent air of 
 authority, which sat on him the more gracefully as he held 
 nothing but a riding-switch in his hands. 'Tut, tut ! What 
 is this?' he said lightly. 'I am not wont to have my people 
 interfered with, M. Provost, without my leave. You know 
 me, I suppose?' 
 
 ' Perfectly, M. le Marquis,' the man answered with dogged 
 respect ; ' but this is by the king's special command.' 
 
 ' Very good,' my patron answered, quietly eyeing the faces 
 behind the Provost-Marshal, as if he were making a note of 
 them ; which caused some of the gentlemen manifest uneasi- 
 ness. ' That is soon seen, for we are even now about to seek 
 speech with his Majesty.' 
 
 'Not this gentleman,' the Provost-Marshal answered 
 firmly, raising his hand again. 'I car not let him pass.' 
 
 'Yes, this gentleman too, by your leave,' the Marquis 
 retorted, lightly putting the hand aside with his carie. 
 
 ' Sir,' said the other, retreating a step and speaking Avith 
 some heat, 'this is no jest with all respect. I hold the 
 king's own order, and it may not be resisted.' 
 
 The nobleman tapped his silver comfit-box and smiled. 
 'I shall be the last to resist it if you have it,' he said 
 languidly. 
 
 'You may read it for yourself,' the Provost-Marshal 
 answered, his patience exhaiisted. 
 
 M. de Rambouillet took the parchment with the ends of 
 his fingers, glanced at it, and gave it back. 'As I thought,' 
 he said, ' a manifest forgery.' 
 
 ' A forgery ! ' cried the officer, crimson with indignation. 
 ' And I had it from the hands of the king's own secretary ! ' 
 At this those behind murmured, some 'shame,' and some
 
 THE KING^S FACE 227 
 
 one thing, and some another all with an air so threatening 
 that the Marquis's gentlemen closed up behind him, and 
 M. d'Agen laughed rudely. 
 
 But M. de Rambouillet remained unmoved. 'You may 
 have had it from whom you please, sir,' he said. ' It is a 
 forgery, and I shall resist its execution. If you choose to 
 await me here, I will give you my word to render this 
 gentleman to you within an hour, should the order hold 
 good. If you will not wait, I shall command my servants 
 to clear the way, and if ill happen, then the responsibility 
 will lie with you.' 
 
 He spoke in so resolute a manner it was not difficult to 
 see that something more was at stake than the arrest of a 
 single man. This was so ; the real issue was whether the 
 king, with whose instability it was difficult to cope, should 
 fall back into the hands of his old advisers or not. My 
 arrest was a move in the game intended as a counterblast 
 to the victory which M. de Rambouillet had gained when 
 he persuaded the king to move to Tours ; a city in the 
 neighbourhood of the Huguenots, and a place of arms 
 whence union with them would be easy. 
 
 The Provost-Marshal could, no doubt, make a shrewd 
 guess at these things. He knew that the order he had 
 would be held valid or not according as one party or the 
 other gained the mastery ; and, seeing M. de Rambouillet's 
 resolute demeanour, he gave way. Rudely interrupted more 
 than once by his attendants, among whom were some of 
 Bruhl's men, he muttered an ungracious assent to our pro- 
 posal ; on which, and without a moment's delay, the Marquis 
 took me by the arm and hurried me across the courtyard. 
 
 And so far, well. My heart began to rise. But, for the 
 Marquis, as we mounted the staircase the anxiety he had 
 dissembled while we faced the Provost-Marshal, broke out 
 in angry mutterings ; from which I gathered that the crisis 
 was yet to come. I was not surprised, therefore, when an 
 usher rose on our appearance in the antechamber, and, 
 quickly crossing the floor, interposed between us and the
 
 228 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE 
 
 door of the chamber, informing the Marquis with a low 
 obeisance that his Majesty was engaged. 
 
 ' He will see me,' M. de Rambouillet cried, looking 
 haughtily round on the sneering pages and lounging court- 
 iers, who grew civil under his eye. 
 
 * I have particular orders, sir, to admit no one,' the man 
 answered. 
 
 'Tut, tut, they do not apply to me,' my companion 
 retorted, nothing daunted. 'I know the business on which 
 the king is engaged, and I am here to assist him.' And 
 raising his hand he thrust the startled official aside, and 
 hardily pushed the doors of the chamber open. 
 
 The king, surrounded by half a dozen persons, was in the 
 a,ct of putting on his riding-boots. On hearing us, he 
 turned his head with a startled air, and dropped in his con- 
 fusion one of the ivory cylinders he was using ; while his 
 aspect, and that of the persons who stood round him, re- 
 minded me irresistibly of a party of schoolboys detected in 
 a fault. 
 
 He recovered himself, it is true, almost immediately ; and 
 turning his back to us, continued to talk to the persons 
 round him on such trifling subjects as commonly engaged 
 him. He carried on this conversation in a very free way, 
 studiously ignoring our presence; but it was plain he re- 
 mained aware of it, and even that he was uneasy under the 
 cold and severe gaze which the Marquis, who seemed in 
 nowise affrighted by his reception, bent upon him. 
 
 I, for my part, had no longer any confidence. Nay, I 
 came near to regretting that I had persevered in an attempt 
 so useless. The warrant which awaited 'me at the gates 
 seemed less formidable than his Majesty's gi-o wing displeas- 
 ure ; which I saw I was incurring by remaining where I 
 was. It needed not the insolent glance of Marshal Retz, 
 who lounged smiling by the king's hand, or the laughter of 
 a couple of pages who stood at the head of the chamber, to 
 deprive me of my last hope ; while some things which 
 might have cheered me the uneasiness of some about the
 
 THE KING^S FACE 229 
 
 king, and the disquietude which underlay Marshal Retz's 
 manner escaped my notice altogether. 
 
 What I did see clearly was that the king's embarrassment 
 was fast changing to anger. The paint which reddened his 
 cheeks prevented any alteration in his colour being visible, 
 but his frown and the nervous manner in which he kept 
 taking off and putting on his jewelled cap betrayed him. 
 At length, signing to one of his companions to follow, 
 lie moved a little aside to a window, whence, after a few 
 moments, the gentleman came to us. 
 
 ' M. de Rambouillet,' he said, speaking coldly and for- 
 mally, ' his Majesty is displeased by this gentleman's pres- 
 ence, and requires him to withdraw forthwith.' 
 
 ' His Majesty's word is law,' my patron answered, bowing 
 low, and speaking in a clear voice audible throughout the 
 chamber, 'but the matter which brings this gentleman here 
 is of the utmost importance, and touches his Majesty's 
 person.' 
 
 M. de Retz laughed jeeringly. The other courtiers looked 
 grave. The king shrugged his shoulders with a peevish 
 gesture, but after a moment's hesitation, during which he 
 looked first at Retz and then at M. de Rambouillet, he 
 signed to the Marquis to approach. 
 
 ' Why have you brought him here ? ' he muttered sharply, 
 looking askance at me. 'He should have been bestowed 
 according to my orders.' 
 
 ' He has information for your Majesty's private ear,' 
 Rambouillet answered. And he looked so meaningly at 
 the king that Henry, I think, remembered on a sudden his 
 compact with Rosny, and my part in it ; for he started with 
 the air of a man suddenly awakened. ' To prevent that in- 
 formation reaching you, sire,' my patron continued, 'his 
 enemies have practised on your Majesty's well-known sense 
 of justice.' 
 
 ' Oh, but stay, stay ! ' the king cried, hitching forward the 
 scanty cloak he wore, which barely came down to his waist. 
 'The man has killed a priest ! He has killed a priest, man !'
 
 230 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE 
 
 he repeated with confidence, as if he had now got hold of 
 the right argument. 
 
 ' That is not so, sire, craving your Majesty's pardon,' M. 
 de Rambouillet replied with the utmost coolness. 
 
 'Tut! Tut! The evidence is clear,' the king said pee- 
 vishly. 
 
 'As to that, sire,' my companion rejoined, 'if it is of the 
 murder of Father Antoine he is accused, I say boldly that 
 there is none.' 
 
 'Then there you are mistaken!' the king answered. 'I 
 heard it with my own ears this morning.' 
 
 ' Will you deign, sire, to tell me its nature ? ' M. de 
 Rambouillet persisted. 
 
 But on that Marshal Retz thought it necessary to inter- 
 vene. 'Need we turn his Majesty's chamber into a court of 
 justice?' he said smoothly. Hitherto he had not spoken; 
 trusting, perhaps, to the impression he had already made 
 upon the king. 
 
 M. de Rambouillet took no notice of him. 
 
 ' But Bruhl,' said the king, ' you see, Bruhl says ' 
 
 'Bruhl !' my companion replied, with so much contempt 
 that Henry started. l Surely your Majesty has not taken 
 his word against this gentleman, of all people ? ' 
 
 Thus reminded, a second time, of the interests entrusted 
 to me, and of the advantage which Bruhl would gain by my 
 disappearance, the king looked first confused, and then an- 
 gry. He vented his passion in one or two profane oaths, 
 with the childish addition that we were all a set of traitors, 
 and that he had no one whom he could trust. But my 
 companion had touched the right chord at last; for when the 
 king grew more composed, he waved aside Marshal Retz's 
 protestations, and sullenly bade Rambouillet say what he 
 had to say. 
 
 'The monk was killed, sire, about sunset,' he answered. 
 ' Now my nephew, M. d'Agen, is without, and will tell your 
 Majesty that he was with this gentleman at his lodgings 
 from about an hour before sunset last evening until a full
 
 THE KING^S FACE 231 
 
 hour after. Consequently, M. de Marsac can hardly be the 
 assassin, and M. le Marechal must look elsewhere if he 
 wants vengeance.' 
 
 'Justice, sir, not vengeance,' Marshal Retz said with a 
 dark glance. His keen Italian face hid his trouble well, 
 but a little pulse of passion beating in his olive cheek be- 
 trayed the secret to those who knew him. He had a harder 
 part to play than his opponent; for while Rambouillet's 
 hands were clean, Retz knew himself a traitor, and liable 
 at any moment to discovery and punishment. 
 
 ' Let M. d'Agen be called,' Henry said curtly. 
 
 'And if your Majesty pleases,' Retz added, 'M. de Bruhl 
 also. If you really intend, sire, that is, to reopen a matter 
 which I thought had been settled.' 
 
 The king nodded obstinately, his face furrowed with ill- 
 temper. He kept his shifty eyes, which seldom met those 
 of the person he addressed, on the floor ; and this accentu- 
 ated the awkward stooping carriage which was natural to 
 him. There were seven or eight dogs of exceeding small- 
 ness in the room, and while we waited for the persons who 
 had been summoned, he kicked, now one and now another 
 of the baskets which held them, as if he found in this some 
 vent for his ill-humour. 
 
 The witnesses presently appeared, followed by several 
 persons, among whom were the Dukes of Nevers and 
 Merco3ur, who came to ride out with the king, and M. 
 de Crillon ; so that the chamber grew passably full. The 
 two dukes nodded formally to the Marquis, as they passed 
 him, but entered into a muttered conversation with Retz, 
 who appeared to be urging them to press his cause. They 
 seemed to decline, however, shrugging their short cloaks as 
 if the matter were too insignificant. Crillon on his part 
 cried audibly, and with an oath, to know what the matter 
 was ; and being informed, asked whether all this fuss was 
 being made about a damned shaveling monk. 
 
 Henry, whose tenderness for the cowl was well known, 
 darted an angry glance at him, but contented himself with
 
 232 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE 
 
 saying sharply to M. d'Agen, 'Now, sir, what do you know 
 about the matter?' 
 
 ' One moment, sire,' M. Rambouillet cried, interposing 
 before Francois could answer. f Craving your Majesty's 
 pardon, you have heard M. de Bruhl's account. May I, as 
 a favour to myself, beg you, sire, to permit us also to hear 
 it?' 
 
 1 What ? ' Marshal Retz exclaimed angrily, ' are we to be 
 the judges, then, or his Majesty ? Arnidieu ! ' he contin- 
 ued hotly, ' what, in the fiend's name, have we to do with 
 it ? I protest 'fore Heaven ' 
 
 1 Ay, sir, and what do you protest ? ' my champion re- 
 torted, turning to him with stern disdain. 
 
 'Silence!' cried the king, who had listened almost be- 
 wildered. ' Silence ! By God, gentlemen,' he continued, 
 his eye travelling round the circle with a sparkle of royal 
 anger in it not unworthy of his crown, 'you forget your- 
 selves. I will have none of this quarrelling in my presence 
 or out of it. I lost Quelus and Maugiron that way, and loss 
 enough, and I will have none of it, I say ! M. de Bruhl,' 
 he added, standing erect, and looking for the moment, with 
 all his paint and frippery, a king, l M. de Bruhl, repeat 
 your story.' 
 
 The feelings with which I listened to this controversy 
 may be imagined. Devoured in turn by hope and fear as 
 now one side and now the other seemed likely to prevail, I 
 confronted at one moment the gloom of the dungeon, and 
 at another tasted the air of freedom, which had never 
 seemed so sweet before. Strong as these feelings were, 
 however, they gave way to curiosity at this point ; when I 
 heard Bruhl called, and saw him come forward at the king's 
 command. Knowing this man to be himself guilty, I mar- 
 velled with what face he would present himself before all 
 those eyes, and from what depths of impudence he could 
 draw supplies in such an emergency. 
 
 I need not have troubled myself, however, for he was 
 fully equal to the occasion. His high colour and piercing
 
 THE KING^S FACE 233 
 
 black eyes met the gaze of friend and foe alike without 
 flinching. Dressed well and elegantly, he wore his raven 
 hair curled in the mode, and looked alike gay, handsome, 
 and imperturbable. If there was a suspicion of coarseness 
 about his bulkier figure, as he stood beside M. d'Agen, who 
 was the courtier perfect and point devise, it went to the 
 scale of sincerity, seeing that men naturally associate truth 
 with strength. 
 
 'I know no more than this, sire,' he said easily; 'that, 
 happening to cross the Parvis at the moment of the mur- 
 der, I heard Father Antoine scream. He uttered four words 
 only, in the tone of a man in mortal peril. They were ' 
 and here the speaker looked for an instant at me ' Ha I 
 Marsac ! A moi ! ' 
 
 'Indeed ! ' M. de Rambouillet said, after looking to the king 
 for permission. ' And that was all ? You saw nothing ? ' 
 
 Bruhl shook his head. ' It was too dark,' he said. 
 
 ' And heard no more ? ' 
 
 'No.' 
 
 'Do I understand, then,' the Marquis continued slowly, 
 'that M. de Marsac is arrested because the priest God 
 rest his soul ! cried to him for help ? ' 
 
 ' For help ? ' M. de Retz exclaimed fiercely. 
 
 ' For help ? ' said the king, surprised. And at that the 
 most ludicrous change fell upon the faces of all. The king 
 looked puzzled, the Duke of Nevers smiled, the Duke of 
 Mercosur laughed aloud. Crillon cried boisterously, ' Good 
 hit!' and the majority, who wished no better than to 
 divine the winning party, grinned broadly, whether they 
 would or no. 
 
 To Marshal Retz, however, and Bruhl, that which to 
 everyone else seemed an amusing retort had a totally 
 different aspect; while the former turned yellow with 
 chagrin and came near to choking, the latter looked as 
 chapfallen and startled as if his guilt had been 'that 
 moment brought home to him. Assured by the tone of the 
 monk's voice which must, indeed, have thundered in his
 
 234 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE 
 
 ears that my name was uttered in denunciation by one 
 who thought me his assailant, he had chosen to tell the 
 truth without reflecting that words, so plain to him, might 
 bear a different construction when repeated. 
 
 ' Certainly the words seem ambiguous/ Henry muttered. 
 
 'But it was Marsac killed him/ Retz cried in a rage. 
 
 ' It is for some evidence of that we are waiting/ my 
 champion answered suavely. 
 
 The Marshal looked helplessly at Nevers and Mercosur, 
 who commonly took part with him ; but apparently those 
 noblemen had not been primed for this occasion. They 
 merely shook their heads and smiled. In the momentary 
 silence which followed, while all looked curiously at Bruhl, 
 who could not conceal his mortification, M. d'Ageu stepped 
 forward. 
 
 'If your Majesty will permit me/ he said, a malicious 
 simper crossing his handsome face I had often remarked 
 his extreme dislike for Bruhl without understanding it ' I 
 think I can furnish some evidence more to the point than 
 that to which M. de Bruhl has with so much fairness 
 restricted himself.' He then went on to state that he had 
 had the honour of being in my company at the time of the 
 murder; and he added, besides, so many details as to 
 exculpate me to the satisfaction of any candid person. 
 
 The king nodded. 'That settles the matter/ he said, 
 with a sigh of relief. ' You think so, Mercosur, do you 
 not ? Precisely. Villequier, see that the order respecting 
 M. de Marsac is cancelled.' 
 
 M. de Eetz could not control his wrath on hearing this 
 direction given. 'At this rate/ he cried recklessly, 'we 
 shall have few priests left here ! We have got a bad name 
 at Blois, as it is !' 
 
 For a moment all in the circle held their breath, while 
 the king's eyes flashed fire at this daring allusion to the 
 murder of the Duke de Guise, and his brother the Cardinal. 
 But it was Henry's misfortune to be ever indulgent in the 
 wrong place, and severe when severity was either unjust or
 
 TWO WOMEN 235 
 
 impolitic. He recovered himself with an effort, and 
 revenged himself only by omitting to invite the Marshal, 
 who was now trembling in his shoes, to join his riding-party. 
 
 The circle broke up amid some excitement. I stood on 
 one side with M. d'A.gen, while the king and his immediate 
 following passed out, and, greatly embarrassed as I was by 
 the civil congratulating of many who would have seen me 
 hang with equal goodwill, I was sharp enough to see that 
 something was brewing between Bruhl and Marshal Retz, 
 who stood back conversing in low tones. I was not 
 surprised, therefore, when the former made his way 
 towards me through the press which filled the antechamber, 
 and with a lowering brow requested a word with me. 
 
 'Certainly,' I said, watching him narrowly, for I knew 
 him to be both treacherous and a bully. ' Speak on, sir.' 
 
 ' You have baulked me once and again,' he rejoined, in a 
 voice which shook a little, as did the fingers with which he 
 stroked his waxed moustache. ' There is no need of words 
 between us. I, with one sword besides, will to-morrow at 
 noon keep the bridge at Chaverny, a league from here. It 
 is an open country. Possibly your pleasure may lead you 
 to ride that way with a friend ? ' 
 
 ' You may depend upon me, sir,' I answered, bowing low, 
 and feeling thankful that the matter was at length to be 
 brought to a fair and open arbitration. ' I will be there and 
 in person. For my deputy last night,' I added, searching 
 his face with a steadfast eye, ' seems to have been some- 
 what unlucky.' 
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 TWO WOMEN. 
 
 OUT of compliment, and to show my gratitude, I attended 
 M. de Rambouillet home to his lodging, and found him as 
 much pleased with himself, and consequently with me, as I
 
 236 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE 
 
 was with him. For the time, indeed, I came near to lov- 
 ing him ; and, certainly, he was a man of high and patriotic 
 feeling, and of skill and conduct to match. But he lacked 
 that touch of nature and that power of sympathising with 
 others which gave to such men as M. de Rosny and the 
 king, my master, their peculiar charm ; though after what I 
 have related of him in the last chapter it does not lie in my 
 mouth to speak ill of him. And, indeed, he was a good man. 
 
 When I at last reached my lodging, I found a surprise 
 awaiting me in the shape of a note which had just arrived 
 no one knew how. If the manner of its delivery was 
 mysterious, however, its contents were brief and sufficiently 
 explicit; for it ran thus: 'Sir, by meeting me three hours 
 after noon in the square before the House of the Little Sisters 
 you will do a service at once to yourself and to the under- 
 signed, Marie de BruhU 
 
 That was all, written in a feminine character, yet it was 
 enough to perplex me. Simon, who had manifested the 
 liveliest joy at my escape, would have had me treat it as I 
 had treated the invitation to the Parvis of the Cathedral ; 
 ignore it altogether I mean. But I was of a different 
 mind, and this for three reasons, among others : that the 
 request was straightforward, the time early, and the place 
 sufficiently public to be an unlikely theatre for violence, 
 though well fitted for an interview to which the world at 
 large was not invited. Then, too, the square lay little 
 more than a bowshot from my lodging, though on the 
 farther side of the Hue St. Denys. 
 
 Besides, I could conceive many grounds which Madame de 
 Bruhl might have for seeing me ; of which some touched 
 me nearly. I disregarded Simon's warnings, therefore, and 
 repaired at the time appointed to the place a clean, paved 
 square a little off the Rue St. Denys, and entered from the 
 latter by a narrow passage. It was a spot pleasantly con- 
 venient for meditation, but overlooked on one side by the 
 House of the Little Sisters ; in which, as I guessed after- 
 wards, madame must have awaited ms, for the square when
 
 TWO WOMEN 23> 
 
 I entered it was empty, yet in a moment, though no one 
 came in from the street, she stood beside me. She wore a 
 mask and long cloak. The beautiful hair and perfect 
 complexion, which had filled me with so much admiration 
 at our first meeting in her house, were hidden, but I saw 
 enough of her figure and carriage to be sure that it was 
 Madame de Bruhl and no other. 
 
 She began by addressing me in a tone of bitterness, for 
 which I was not altogether unprepared. 
 
 ' Well, sir,' she exclaimed, her voice trembling with 
 anger, ' you are satisfied, I hope, with your work ? ' 
 
 I expected this and had my answer ready. 'I am not 
 aware, madame,' I said, 'that I have cause to reproach 
 myself. But, however that may be, I trust you have sum- 
 moned me for some better purpose than to chide me for 
 another's fault; though it was my voice which brought 
 it to light.' 
 
 ' Why did you shame me publicly ? ' she retorted, thrust- 
 ing her handkerchief to her lips and withdrawing it again 
 with a passionate gesture. 
 
 'Madame,' I answered patiently I was full of pity for 
 her, 'consider for a moment the wrong your husband did 
 me, and how small and inadequate was the thing I did to 
 him in return.' 
 
 ' To him ! ' she ejaculated so fiercely that I started. ' It 
 was to me to me you did it ! What had I done that you 
 should expose me to the ridicule of those who know no 
 pity, and the anger of one as merciless ? What had I done, 
 sir?' 
 
 I shook my head sorrowfully. 'So far, madame,' I 
 answered, ' I allow I owe you reparation, and I will make it 
 should it ever be in my power. Nay, I will say more,' I 
 continued, for the tone in which she spoke had wrung my 
 heart. ' In one point I strained the case against your 
 husband. To the best of my belief he abducted the lady 
 who was in my charge, not for the love of her, but for polit- 
 ical reasons, and as the agent of another.'
 
 238 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE 
 
 She gasped. ' What ? ' she cried. ' Say that again! * 
 
 As I complied she tore off her mask and gazed into my 
 face with straining eyes and parted lips. I saw then how- 
 much she was changed, even in these few days how pale 
 and worn were her cheeks, how dark the circles round her 
 eyes. 'Will -you swear to it?' she said at last, speaking 
 with uncontrollable eagerness, while she laid a hand which 
 shook with excitement on my arm. ' Will you swear to it, 
 sir?' 
 
 'It is true,' I answered steadfastly. I might have added 
 that after the event her husband had so treated mademoi- 
 selle as to lead her to fear the worst. But I refrained, 
 feeling that it was no part of my duty to come between 
 husband and wife. 
 
 She clasped her hands, and for a moment looked passion- 
 ately upwards, as though she were giving thanks to Heaven j 
 while the flush of health and loveliness which I had so 
 much admired returned, and illumined her face in a won- 
 derful manner. She seemed, in truth and for the moment, 
 transformed. Her blue eyes filled with tears, her lips 
 moved ; nor have I ever seen anything bear so near a 
 resemblance to those pictures of the Virgin Mary which 
 Romans worship as madame did then. 
 
 The change, however, was as evanescent as it was admi- 
 rable. In an instant she seemed to collapse. She struck 
 her hands to her face and moaned, and I saw tears, which 
 she vainly strove to restrain, dropping through her fingers. 
 1 Too late ! ' she murmured, in a tone of anguish which 
 wrung my heart. ' Alas, you robbed me of one man, you 
 give me back another. I know him now for what he is. 
 If he did not love her then, he doe? now. It is too late ! ' 
 
 She seemed so much overcome thau I assisted her to reach 
 a bench which stood against the wall a few paces away ; 
 nor, I confess, was it without difficulty and much self- 
 reproach that I limited myself to those prudent offices only 
 which her state and my duty required. To console her on 
 the subject of her husband was impossible ; to ignore him,
 
 TWO WOMEff 239 
 
 and so to console her, a task which neither my discretion 
 nor my sense of honour, though sorely tried, permitted me to 
 undertake. 
 
 She presently recovered and, putting on her mask again, 
 said hurriedly that she had still a word to say to me. 'You 
 have treated me honestly,' she continued, 'and, though I 
 have no cause to do anything but hate you, I say in return, 
 look to yourself ! You escaped last night I know all, for 
 it was my velvet knot which I had made thinking to send 
 it to you to procure this meeting that he used as a lure. 
 But he is not yet at the end of his resources. Look to 
 yourself, therefore.' 
 
 I thought of the appointment I had made with him for 
 the morrow, but I confined myself to thanking her, merely 
 saying, as I bowed over the hand she resigned to me in 
 token of farewell, l Madame, I am grateful. I am obliged 
 to you both for your warning and your forgiveness.' 
 
 Bending her head coldly she drew away her hand. At 
 that moment, as I lifted my eyes, I saw something which 
 for an instant rooted me to the spot with astonishment. 
 In the entrance of the passage which led to the Rue St. 
 Denys two people were standing, watching us. The one 
 was Simon Fleix, and the other, a masked woman, a trifle 
 below the middle height, and clad in a riding-coat, was 
 Mademoiselle de la Vire ! 
 
 I knew her in a moment. But the relief I experienced 
 on seeing her safe and in Blois was not unmixed with an- 
 noyance that Simon Fleix should have been so imprudent 
 as to parade her unnecessarily in the street. I felt some- 
 thing of confusion also on my own account ; for I could 
 not tell how long she and her escort had been watching me. 
 And these two feelings were augmented when, after turning 
 to pay a final salute to Madame de Bruhl, I looked again 
 towards the passage and discovered that mademoiselle and 
 her squire were gone. 
 
 Impatient as I was, I would not seem to leave madame 
 rudely or without feeling, after the consideration she had
 
 240 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE 
 
 shown me in her own sorrow ; and accordingly I waited 
 uncovered until she disappeared within the ' Little Sisters.' 
 Then I started eagerly towards my lodging, thinking I 
 might yet overtake mademoiselle before she entered. I 
 was destined to meet, however, with another though very 
 pertinent hindrance. As I passed from the Rue St. Denys 
 into the quiet of my street I heard a voice calling my 
 name, and, looking back, saw M. de Rambouillet's equerry, 
 a man deep in his confidence, running after me. He 
 brought a message from his master, which he begged me to 
 consider of the first importance. 
 
 ' The Marquis would not trust it to writing, sir,' he con- 
 tinued, drawing me aside into a corner where we were 
 conveniently retired, ' but he made me learn it by heart. 
 " Tell M. de Marsac," said he, " that that which he was left 
 in Blois to do must be done quickly, or not at all. There 
 is something afoot in the other camp, I am not sure what. 
 But now is the time to knock in the nail. I know his zeal, 
 and I depend upon him." ; 
 
 An hour before I should have listened to this message 
 with serious doubts and misgivings. Now, acquainted with 
 mademoiselle's arrival, I returned M. de Rambouillet an 
 answer in the same strain, and parting civilly from Bertram, 
 who was a man I much esteemed, I hastened on to my lodg- 
 ings, exulting in the thought that the hour and the woman 
 were come at last, and that before the dawn of another day 
 I might hope, all being well, to accomplish with honour to 
 myself and advantage to others the commission which M. 
 de Rosny had entrusted to me. 
 
 I must not deny that, mingled with this, was some ex- 
 citement at the prospect of seeing mademoiselle again. I 
 strove to conjure up before me as I mounted the stairs the 
 exact expression of her face as I had last seen it bending 
 from the window at Rosny ; to the end that I might have 
 some guide for my future conduct, and might be less likely 
 to fall into the snare of a young girl's coquetry. But I 
 could come now, as then, to no satisfactory or safe con-
 
 LA FEMME DISPOSED 241 
 
 elusion, and only felt anew the vexation I had experienced 
 on losing the velvet knot, which she had given me on that 
 occasion. 
 
 I knocked at the door of the rooms which I had reserved 
 for her, and which were on the floor below my own ; but I 
 got no answer. Supposing that Simon had taken her up- 
 stairs, I mounted quickly, not doubting I should find her 
 there. Judge of my surprise and dismay when I found 
 that room also empty, save for the lackey, whom M. de 
 Eainbouillet had lent me ! 
 
 'Where are they?' I asked the man, speaking sharply, 
 and standing with my hand on the door. 
 
 'The lady and her woman, sir?' he answered, coming 
 forward. 
 
 ' Yes, yes ! ' I cried impatiently, a sudden fear at my 
 heart. 
 
 ' She went out immediately after her arrival with Simon 
 Fleix, sir, and has not yet returned,' he answered. 
 
 The words were scarcely out of his mouth before I heard 
 several persons enter the passage below and begin to ascend 
 the stairs. I did not doubt that mademoiselle and the lad 
 had come home another way and been somehow detained ; 
 and I turned with a sigh of relief to receive them. But 
 when the persons whose steps I had heard appeared, they 
 proved to be only M. de Eosny's equerry, stout, burly, and 
 bright-eyed as ever, and two armed servants. 
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 'LA FEMME DISPOSE.' 
 
 THE moment the equerry's foot touched the uppermost 
 stair I advanced upon him. 'Where is your mistress, 
 man ? ' I said. ' Where is Mademoiselle de la Vire ? Be 
 quick, tell me what you have done with her.' 
 
 Q
 
 242 A GENTLEMAAT OF FRANCE 
 
 His face fell amazingly. l Where is she?' he answered, 
 faltering between surprise and alarm at my sudden on- 
 slaught. 'Here, she should be. I left her here not an 
 hour ago. Mon Dieu ! Is she not here now ? ' 
 
 His alarm increased mine tenfold. ' No ! ' I retorted, ( she 
 is not ! She is gone ! And you what business had you, 
 in the fiend's name, to leave her here, alone and unpro- 
 tected ? Tell me that ! ' 
 
 He leaned against the balustrade, making no attempt to 
 defend himself, and seemed, in his sudden terror, anything 
 but the bold, alert fellow who had ascended the stairs two 
 minutes before. 'I was a fool,' he groaned. 'I saw your 
 man Simon here ; and Fauchette, who is as good as a man, 
 was with her mistress. And I went to stable the horses. 
 I thought no evil. And now My God!' he added, sud- 
 denly straightening himself, while his face grew hard and 
 grim, ' I am undone ! My master will never forgive me ! ' 
 
 ' Did you come straight here ? ' I said, considering that, 
 after all, he was no more in fault than I had been on a 
 former occasion. 
 
 'We went first to M. de Rosny's lodging,' he answered, 
 'where we found your message telling us to come here. 
 We came on without dismounting.' 
 
 'Mademoiselle may have gone back, and be there,' I said. 
 ' It is possible. Do you stay here and keep a good look-out, 
 and I will go and see. Let one of your men come with me/ 
 
 He uttered a brief assent ; being a man as ready to take 
 as to give orders, and thankful now for any suggestion 
 which held out a hope of mademoiselle's safety. Followed 
 by the servant he selected, I ran down the stairs, and in a 
 moment was hurrying along the Rue St. Denys. The day 
 was waning. The narrow streets and alleys were already 
 dark, but the air of excitement which I had noticed in the 
 morning still marked the townsfolk, of whom a great num- 
 ber were strolling abroad, or standing in doorways talking 
 to their gossips. Feverishly anxious as I was, 1 remarked 
 the gloom which dwelt on all faces ; but as I set it down
 
 <LA FEMME DISPOSED 243 
 
 to the king's approaching departure, and besides was intent 
 on seeing that those we sought did not by any chance pass 
 us in the crowd, I thought little of it. Five minutes' walk- 
 ing brought us to M. de Eosny's lodging. There I knocked 
 at the door ; impatiently, I confess, and with little hope of 
 success. But, to my surprise, barely an instant elapsed 
 before the door opened, and I saw before me Simon Fleix ! 
 
 Discovering who it was, he cowered back, with a terrified 
 face, and retreated to the wall with his arm raised. 
 
 ' You scoundrel ! ' I exclaimed, restraining myself with 
 difficulty. 'Tell me this moment where Mademoiselle de 
 la Vire is ! Or, by Heaven, I shall forget what my mother 
 owed to you, and do you a mischief ! ' 
 
 For an instant he glared at me viciously, with all his 
 teeth exposed, as though he meant to refuse aiid more. 
 Then he thought better of it, and, raising his hand, pointed 
 sulkily upwards. 
 
 ' Go before me and knock at the door/ I said, tapping the 
 hilt of ray dagger with meaning. 
 
 Cowed by my manner, he obeyed, and led the way to the 
 room in which M. de Rambouillet had surprised us on a 
 former occasion. Here he stopped at the door and knocked 
 gently ; on which a sharp voice inside bade us enter. I 
 raised the latch and did so, closing the door behind me. 
 
 Mademoiselle, still wearing her riding-coat, sat in a chair 
 before the hearth, on which a newly kindled fire sputtered 
 and smoked. She had her back to me, and did not turn on 
 my entrance, but continued to toy in an absent manner 
 with the strings of the mask which lay in her lap. Fan- 
 chette stood bolt upright behind her, with her elbows 
 squared and her hands clasped ; in such an attitude that I 
 guessed the maid had been expressing her strong dissatis- 
 faction with this latest whim of her mistress, and particu- 
 larly with mademoiselle's imprudence in wantonly exposing 
 herself, with so inadequate a guard as Simon, in a place 
 where she had already suffered so much. I was confirmed 
 in this notion on seeing the woman's harsh countenance 
 
 Q2
 
 244 A GENTLEMAN- OF FRANCE 
 
 clear at sight of me; though the churlish nod, which was 
 all the greeting she bestowed on me, seemed to betoken 
 anything but favour or good-will. She touched her mistress 
 on the shoulder, however, and said, ' M. de Marsac is here.' 
 
 Mademoiselle turned her head and looked at me lan- 
 guidly, without stirring in her chair or removing the foot 
 she was warming. ' Good evening,' she said. 
 
 The greeting seemed so brief and so commonplace, ignor- 
 ing, as it did, both the pains and anxiety to which she had 
 just put me and the great purpose for which we were here 
 to say nothing of that ambiguous parting which she must 
 surely remember as well as I that the words I had pre- 
 pared died on my lips, and I looked at her in honest con- 
 fusion. All her small face was pale except her lips. Her 
 brow was dark, her eyes were hard as well as weary. And 
 not words only failed me as I looked at her, but anger ; 
 having mounted the stairs hot foot to chide, I felt on a 
 sudden despite my new cloak and scabbard, my appoint- 
 ment, and the name I had made at Court the same con- 
 sciousness of age and shabbiness and poverty which had 
 possessed me in her presence from the beginning. I mut- 
 tered, 'Good evening, mademoiselle,' and that was all I 
 could say I who had frightened the burly Maignan a few 
 minutes before ! 
 
 Seeing, I have no doubt, the effect she produced on me, 
 she maintained for some time an embarrassing silence. At 
 length she said, frigidly, ' Perhaps M. de Marsac will sit, 
 Fanchette. Place a chair for him. I am afraid, however, 
 that after his successes at Court he may find our reception 
 somewhat cold. But we are only from the country,' she 
 added, looking at me askance, with a gleam of anger in her 
 eyes. 
 
 I thanked her huskily, saying that I would not sit, as I 
 could not stay. < Simon lleix,' I continued, finding my 
 voice with difficulty, 'has, I am afraid, caused you some 
 trouble by bringing you to this house instead of telling you 
 that I had made preparation for you at my lodgings.'
 
 *LA FEMME DISPOSE"* 245 
 
 * It was not Simon Fleix's fault,' she replied curtly. ' I 
 prefer these rooms. They are more convenient.' 
 
 ' They are, perhaps, more convenient,' I rejoined humbly, 
 'but I have to think of safety, mademoiselle, as you know. 
 At my house I have a competent guard, and can answer for 
 your being unmolested.' 
 
 ' You can send your guard here/ she said with a royal 
 air. 
 
 'But, mademoiselle ' 
 
 'Is it not enough that I have said that I prefer these 
 rooms ? ' she replied sharply, dropping her mask on her lap 
 and looking round at me in undisguised displeasure. ' Are 
 you deaf, sir ? Let me tell you, I am. in no mood for argu- 
 ment. I am tired with riding. I prefer these rooms, and 
 that is enough ! ' 
 
 Nothing could exceed the determination with which she 
 said these words, unless it were the malicious pleasure in 
 thwarting my wishes which made itself seen through the 
 veil of assumed indifference. I felt myself brought up with 
 a vengeance, and in a manner the most provoking that could 
 be conceived. But opposition so childish, so utterly wanton, 
 by exciting my indignation, had presently the effect of 
 banishing the peculiar bashfulness I felt in her presence, 
 and recalling me to my duty. 
 
 ' Mademoiselle,' I said firmly, looking at her with a fixed 
 countenance, 'pardon me if I speak plainly. This is no 
 time for playing with straws. The men from whom you 
 escaped once are as determined and more desperate now. 
 By this time they probably know of your arrival. Do, 
 then, as I ask, I pray and beseech you. Or this time I may 
 lack the power, though never the will, to save you.' 
 
 Wholly ignoring my appeal, she looked into my face for 
 by this time I had advanced to her side with a whimsical 
 smile. ' You are really much improved in manner since I 
 last saw you,' she said. 
 
 ' Mademoiselle ! ' I replied, baffled and repelled. ' Whal 
 do you mean ? ;
 
 246 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE 
 
 ' What I say,' she answered, flippantly. ' But it was to 
 be expected.' 
 
 ' For shame ! ' I cried, provoked almost beyond bearing 
 by her ill-timed raillery, 'will you never be serious until 
 you have ruined us and yourself ? I tell you this house is 
 not safe for you ! It is not safe for me ! I cannot bring 
 my men to it, for there is not room for them. If you have 
 any spark of consideration, of gratitude, therefore ' 
 
 'Gratitude!' she exclaimed, swinging her mask slowly to 
 and fro by a ribbon, while she looked up at me as though 
 my excitement amused her. ' Gratitude 'tis a very pretty 
 phrase, and means much; but it is for those who serve us 
 faithfully, M. de Marsac, and not for others. You receive 
 so many favours, I am told, and are so successful at Court, 
 that I should not be justified in monopolising your services.' 
 
 'But, mademoiselle ' I said in a low tone. And there I 
 stopped. I dared not proceed. 
 
 ' Well, sir,' she answered, looking up at me after a mo- 
 ment's silence, and ceasing on a sudden to play with her toy, 
 'what is it?' 
 
 'You spoke of favours,' I continued, with an effort. 'I 
 never received but one from a lady. That was at Rosny, 
 and from your hand.' 
 
 ' From iny hand ? ' she answered, with an air of cold sur- 
 prise. 
 
 ' It was so, mademoiselle.' 
 
 'You have fallen into some strange mistake, sir,' she 
 replied, rousing herself, and looking at me indifferently. 
 ' I never gave you a favour.' 
 
 I bowed low. ' If you say you did not, mademoiselle, that 
 is enough,' I answered. 
 
 ' Nay, but do not let me do you an injustice, M. de Mar- 
 sac,' she rejoined, speaking more quickly and in an altered 
 tone. ' If you can show me the favour I gave you, I shall, 
 of course, be convinced. Seeing is believing, you know,' 
 she added, wfth a light nervous laugh, and a gesture of 
 something like shyness,
 
 <LA FEMME DISPOSE" 1 247 
 
 If I had not sufficiently regretted my carelessness, and 
 loss of the bow at the time, I did so now. I looked at her 
 in silence, and saw her face, that had for a moment shown 
 signs of feeling, almost of shame, grow slowly hard again. 
 
 1 Well, sir ? ' she said impatiently. ' The proof is easy.' 
 
 ' It was taken from me ; I believe, by M. de Rosny,' I 
 answered lamely, wondering what ill-luck had led her to 
 put the question and press it to this point. 
 
 1 It was taken from you ! ' she exclaimed, rising and con- 
 fronting me with the utmost suddenness, while her eyes 
 flashed, and her little hand crumpled the mask beyond 
 future usefulness. ' It was taken from you, sir ! ' she re- 
 peated, her voice and her whole frame trembling with anger 
 and disdain. 'Then I thank you, I prefer my version. 
 Yours is impossible. For let me tell you, when Made- 
 moiselle de la Vire does confer a favour, it will be on a man 
 with the power and the wit and the constancy, to keep it, 
 even from M. de Rosny ! ' 
 
 Her scorn hurt, though it did not anger me. I felt it to 
 be in a measure deserved, and raged against myself rather 
 than against her. But aware through all of the supreme 
 importance of placing her in safety, I subjected my imme- 
 diate feelings to the exigencies of the moment and stooped 
 to an argument which would, I thought, have weight though 
 private pleading failed. 
 
 'Putting myself aside, mademoiselle,' I said, with more 
 formality than I had yet used, ' there is one consideration 
 which must weigh with you. The king ' 
 
 'The king!' she cried, interrupting me violently, her face 
 hot with passion and her whole person instinct with stub- 
 born self-will. ' I shall not see the king ! ' 
 
 'You will not see the king ? ' I repeated in amazement. 
 
 ' No, I will not ! ' she answered, in a whirl of anger, scorn, 
 and impetuosity. ' There ! I will not ! I have been made 
 a toy and a tool long enough, M. de Marsac,' she continued, 
 ' and I will serve others' ends no more. I have made up 
 my mind. Do not talk to me ; you will do no good, sir. I
 
 248 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE 
 
 would to Heaven/ she added bitterly, 'I had stayed at Chize 
 and never seen this place ! ' 
 
 'But, mademoiselle,' I said, 'you have not thought ' 
 
 1 Thought ! ' she exclaimed, shutting her small white teeth 
 so viciously I all but recoiled. 'I have thought enough. 
 I am. sick of thought. I am going to act now. I will be a 
 puppet no longer. You may take me to the castle by force 
 if you will ; but you cannot make me speak.' 
 
 I looked at her in the utmost dismay and astonishment ; 
 being unable at first to believe that a woman who had gone 
 through so much, had run so many risks, and ridden so many 
 miles for a purpose, would, when all was done and the hour 
 come, decline to carry out her plan. I could not believe it, 
 I say, at first ; and I tried arguments and entreaties without 
 stint, thinking that she only asked to be entreated or 
 coaxed. 
 
 But I found prayers and even threats breath wasted upon 
 her ; and beyond these I would not go. I know I have been 
 blamed by some and ridiculed by others for not pushing the 
 matter farther ; but those who hav stood face to face with 
 a woman of spirit a woman whose very frailty and weak- 
 ness fought for her will better understand the difficulties 
 with which I had to contend and the manner in which con- 
 viction was at last borne in on my mind. I had never 
 before confronted stubbornness of this kind. As made- 
 moiselle said again and again, I might force her to Court, 
 but I could not make her speak. 
 
 When I had tried every means of persuasion, and still 
 found no way of overcoming her resolution the while 
 Fanchette looked on with a face of wood, neither aiding 
 me nor taking part against me I lost, I confess, in the 
 chagrin of the moment that sense of duty which hac? 
 hitherto animated me ; and though my relation to made' 
 moiselle should have made me as careful as ever of he/ 
 safety, even in her own despite, I left her at last in anger 
 and went out without saying another word about removing 
 her a thing which was still in my power. I believe a
 
 'LA FEMME DISPOSED 249 
 
 very brief reflection would have recalled me to myself and 
 my duty ; but the opportunity was not given me, for I had 
 scarcely reached the head of the stairs before Fanchette 
 came after me, and called to me in a whisper to stop. 
 
 She held a taper in her hand, and this she raised to my 
 face, smiling at the disorder which she doubtless read 
 there. ' Do you say that this house is not safe ? ' she 
 asked abruptly, lowering the light as she spoke. 
 
 ' You have tried a house in Blois before ? ' I replied with 
 the same bluntness. 'You should know as well as I, 
 woman.' 
 
 ' She must be taken from here, then,' she answered, 
 nodding her head, cunningly. 'I can persuade her. Do 
 you send for your people, and be here in half an hour. It 
 may take me that time to wheedle her. But I shall do it.' 
 ' Then listen,' I said eagerly, seizing the opportunity and 
 her sleeve and drawing her farther from the door. ' If you 
 can persuade her to that, you can persuade to all I wish. 
 Listen, my friend,' I continued, sinking niy voice still 
 lower. ' If she will see the king for only ten minutes, and 
 
 tell him what she knows, I will give you ' 
 
 ' What ? ' the woman asked suddenly and harshly, 
 drawing at the same time her sleeve from my hand. 
 
 'Fifty crowns,' I replied, naming in my desperation a 
 sum which would seem a fortune to a person in her 
 position. ' Fifty crowns down, the moment the interview 
 is over.' 
 
 ' And for that you would have me sell her ! ' the woman 
 cried with a rude intensity of passion which struck me like 
 a blow. ' For shame ! For shame, man ! You persuaded 
 her to leave her home and her friends, and the country 
 where she was known ; and now you would have me sell 
 her! Shame on you! Go!' she added scornfully. 'Go 
 this instant and get your men. The king, say you ? The 
 king ! I tell you I would not have her finger ache to save 
 all your kings ! ' 
 
 She flounced away with that, and I retired crestfallen ;
 
 250 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE 
 
 wondering much at the fidelity which Providence, doubtless 
 for the well-being of the gentle, possibly for the good of 
 all, has implanted in the humble. Finding Simon, to 
 whom I had scarce patience to speak, waiting on the stairs 
 below, I despatched him to Maignan, to bid him come to 
 me with his men. Meanwhile I watched the house myself 
 until their arrival, and then, going up, found that Fanchette 
 had been as good as her word. Mademoiselle, with a 
 sullen mien, and a red spot on either cheek, consented to 
 descend, and, preceded by a couple of links, which Maignan 
 had thoughtfully provided, was escorted safely to my 
 lodgings ; where I bestowed her in the rooms below my 
 own, which I had designed for her. 
 
 At the door she turned and bowed to me, her face on 
 fire. 
 
 ' So far, sir, you have got your way,' she said, breathing 
 quickly. 'Do not flatter yourself, however, that you will 
 get it farther even by bribing my woman ! ' 
 
 CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 THE LAST VALOIS. 
 
 I STOOD for a few moments on the stairs, wondering 
 what I should do in an emergency to which the Marquis's 
 message of the afternoon attached so pressing a character. 
 Had it not been for that I might have waited until morning, 
 and felt tolerably certain of finding mademoiselle in a more 
 reasonable mood then. But as it was I dared not wait. I 
 dared not risk the delay, and I came quickly to the 
 conclusion that the only course open to me was to go at 
 once to M. de Eambouillet, and tell him frankly how the 
 matter stood. 
 
 Maignan had posted one of his men at the open doorway 
 leading into the street, and fixed his own quarters on the
 
 THE LAST V ALOIS 251 
 
 landing at the top, whence he could overlook an intruder 
 without being seen himself. Satisfied with the arrange- 
 ment, I left Rambouillet's man to reinforce him, and took 
 with me Simon Fleix, of whose conduct in regard to 
 mademoiselle I entertained the gravest doubts. 
 
 The night, I found on reaching the street, was cold, the 
 sky where it was visible between the eaves being bright 
 with stars. A sharp wind was blowing, too, compelling us 
 to wrap our cloaks round U3 and hurry on at a pace which 
 agreed well with the excitement of my thoughts. Assured 
 that had mademoiselle been complaisant I might have seen 
 my mission accomplished within the hour, it was impossible 
 I should not feel impatient with one who, to gratify a 
 whim, played with the secrets of a kingdom as if they were 
 counters, and risked in passing ill-humour the results of 
 weeks of preparation. And I was impatient, and with her. 
 But my resentment fell so far short of the occasion that 
 I wondered uneasily at my own easiness, and felt more 
 annoyed with myself for failing to be properly annoyed 
 with her, than inclined to lay the blame where it was due. 
 It was in vain I told myself contemptuously that she was a 
 woman, and that women were not accountable. I felt that 
 the real secret and motive of my indulgence lay, not in 
 this, but in the suspicion, which her reference to the 
 favour given me on my departure from Eosny had 
 converted almost into a certainty, that I was myself the 
 cause of her sudden ill-humour. 
 
 I might have followed this train of thought farther, and 
 to very pertinent conclusions. But on reaching M. de 
 Eambouillet's lodging I was diverted from it by the abnor- 
 mally quiet aspect of the house, on the steps of which half 
 a dozen servants might commonly be seen lounging. Now 
 the doors were closed, no lights shone through the windows, 
 and the hall sounded empty and desolate when I knocked. 
 Not a lackey hurried to receive me even then ; but the slip- 
 shod tread of .the old porter, as he came with a lantern to 
 open, alone broke the silence. I waited eagerly wondering
 
 252 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE 
 
 what all this could mean ; and when the man at last opened, 
 and, recognising my face, begged my pardon if he had kept 
 me waiting I asked him impatiently what was the matter. 
 
 'And where is the Marquis ?' I added, stepping inside to 
 be out of the wind, and loosening my cloak. 
 
 ' Have you not heard, sir ? ' the man asked, holding up 
 his lantern to my face. He was an old, wizened, lean fellow. 
 'It is a break-up, sir, I am afraid, this time.' 
 
 'A break-up?' I rejoined, peevishly. 'Speak out, man! 
 What is the matter ? I hate mysteries.' 
 
 ' You have not heard the news, sir ? That the Duke of 
 Mercosur and Marshal Retz, with all their people, left Blois 
 this afternoon ? ' 
 
 ' No ? ' I answered, somewhat startled. ' Whither are 
 they gone ? ' 
 
 ' To Paris, it is said, sir, to join the League.' 
 
 ' But do you mean that they have deserted the king ? ' I 
 asked. 
 
 ' For certain, sir ! ' he answered. 
 
 'Not the Duke of Mercosur ? ' I exclaimed. ' Why, man, 
 he is the king's brother-in-law. He owes everything to him.' 
 
 'Well, he is gone, sir,' the old man answered positively. 
 'The news was brought to M. le Marquis about four o'clock 
 or a little after. He got his people together, and started 
 after them to try and persuade them to return. Or, so it is 
 said.' 
 
 As. quickly as I could, I reviewed the situation in my 
 mind. If this strange news were true, and men like Mer- 
 coeur, who had every reason to stand by the king, as well as 
 men like Retz, who had long been suspected of disaffection, 
 were abandoning the Court, the danger must be coming close 
 indeed. The king must feel his throne already tottering, 
 and be eager to grasp at any means of supporting it. Under 
 such circumstances it seemed to be my paramount duty to 
 reach him ; to gain his ear if possible, and at all risks ; that 
 I and not Bruhl, Navarre not Turenne, might profit by the 
 first impulse of self-preservation.
 
 THE LAST VALOIS 253 
 
 Bidding the porter shut his door and keep close, I hurried 
 to the Castle, and was presently more than confirmed in my 
 resolution. For to my surprise I found the Court in much 
 the same state as M. de Rambouillet's house. There were 
 double guards indeed at the gates, who let ine pass after 
 scrutinising me narrowly ; but the courtyard, which should 
 have been at this hour ablaze with torches and crowded with 
 lackeys and grooms, was a dark wilderness, in which half 
 a dozen links trembled mournfully. Passing through the 
 doors I found things within in the same state: the hall 
 ill lit and desolate; the staircase manned only by a few 
 whispering groups, who scanned me as I passed ; the ante- 
 chambers almost empty, or occupied by the grey uniforms 
 of the Svvitzer guards. Where I had looked to see courtiers 
 assembling to meet their sovereign and assure him of theisr 
 fidelity, I found only gloomy faces, watchful eyes, andi 
 mouths ominously closed. An air of constraint and fore, 
 boding rested on all. A single footstep sounded hollowly. 
 The long corridors, which had so lately rung with laughter 
 and the rattle of dice, seemed already devoted to the silence 
 and desolation which awaited them when the Court should 
 depart. Where any spoke I caught the name of Guise ; 
 and I could have fancied that his mighty shadow lay upon 
 the place and cursed it. 
 
 Entering the chamber, I found matters little better there. 
 His Majesty was not present, nor were any of the Court 
 ladies ; but half a dozen gentlemen, among whom I recog- 
 nised Revol, one of the king's secretaries, stood near the 
 alcove. They looked up on my entrance, as though expect- 
 ing news, and then, seeing who it was, looked away again 
 impatiently. The Duke of Nevers was Balking moodily to 
 and fro before one of the windows, his hands clasped behind 
 his back : while Biron and Crillon, reconciled by the com- 
 mon peril, talked loudly on the hearth. I hesitated a mo- 
 ment, uncertain how to proceed, for I was not yet so 
 old at Court as to feel at home there. But, at last mak- 
 ing up my mind, I walked boldly up to Crillon and re-
 
 254 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE 
 
 quested his good offices to procure me an immediate audience 
 of the king. 
 
 ' An audience ? Do you mean you want to see him 
 alone?' he said, raising his eyebrows and looking whimsi- 
 cally at Biron. 
 
 ' That is my petition, M. de Crillon,' I answered firmly, 
 though my heart sank. ' I am here on M. de Kambouillet's 
 business, and I need to see his Majesty forthwith.' 
 
 ' Well, that is straightforward,' he replied, clapping me 
 on the shoulder. ' And you shall see him. In coming to 
 Crillon you have come to the right man. Revol,' he con- 
 tinued, turning to the secretary, 'this gentleman bears a 
 message from M. de Kambouillet to the king. Take him 
 to the closet without delay, my friend, and announce him. 
 I will be answerable for him.' 
 
 But the secretary shrugged his shoulders up to his ears. 
 'It is quite impossible, M. de Crillon,' he said gravely. 
 'Quite impossible at present.' 
 
 ' Impossible ! Chut ! I do not know the word,' Crillon 
 retorted rudely. ' Come, take him at once, and blame me 
 if ill comes of it. Do you hear ? ' 
 
 'But his Majesty ' 
 
 'Well?' 
 
 'Is at his devotions,' the secretary said stiffly. 
 
 'His Majesty's devotions be hanged!' Crillon rejoined 
 so loudly that there was a general titter, and M. de Nevers 
 laughed grimly. 'Do you hear?' the Avennais continued, 
 his face growing redder and his voice higher, ' or must I 
 pull your ears, my friend ? Take this gentleman to the 
 closet, I say, and if his Majesty be angry, tell him it was by 
 my order. I tell you he comes from Rambouillet.' 
 
 I do not know whether it was the threat, or the mention 
 of M. de Rambouillet's name, which convinced the secretary. 
 But at any rate, after a moment's hesitation, he acquiesced. 
 
 He nodded sullenly to me to follow him, and led the way 
 to a curtain which masked the door of the closet. I fol- 
 lowed him across the chamber, after muttering a hasty word
 
 THE LAST VALOIS 255 
 
 of acknowledgment to Crillon ; and I had as nearly as pos- 
 sible reached the door when the bustle of some one entering 
 the chamber caught my ear. I had just time to turn and 
 see that this was Bruhl, just time to intercept the dark look 
 of chagrin and surprise which he fixed on me, and then 
 Kevol, holding up the curtain, signed to me to enter. 
 
 I expected to pass at once into the presence o^ the king, 
 and had my reverence ready. Instead, I found myself to 
 my surprise in a small chamber, or rather passage, curtained 
 at both ends, and occupied by a couple of guardsmen mem- 
 bers, doubtless, of the Band of the Forty-Five who rose at 
 my entrance and looked at me dubiously. Their guard-room, 
 dimly illumined by a lamp of red glass, seemed to me, in 
 spite of its curtains and velvet bench, and the thick tapes- 
 try which kept out every breath of wholesome air, the most 
 sombre I could imagine. And the most ill-omened. But I 
 had no time to make any long observation ; for Kevol, pass- 
 ing me brusquely, raised the curtain at the other end, and, 
 with his finger on his lip, bade me by signs to enter. 
 
 I did so as silently, the heavy scent of perfumes striking 
 me in the face as I raised a second curtain, and stopped 
 short a pace beyond it ; partly in reverence because kings 
 love their subjects best at a distance and partly in sur- 
 prise. For the room, or rather that portion of it in which I 
 stood, was in darkness; only the farther end being illumined 
 by a cold pale flood of moonlight, which, passing through a 
 high, straight window, lay in a silvery sheet on the floor. 
 For an instant I thought I was alone ; then I saw, resting 
 against this window, with a hand on either mullion, a tall 
 figure, having something strange about the head. This 
 peculiarity presently resolved itself into the turban in 
 which I had once before seen his Majesty. The king for 
 he it was was talking to himself. He had not heard me 
 enter, and having his back to me remained unconscious 
 of my presence. 
 
 I paused in doubt, afraid to advance, anxious to withdraw; 
 yet uncertain whether I could move again unheard. At this
 
 256 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE 
 
 moment while I stood hesitating, he raised his voice, and 
 his words, reaching my ears, riveted my attention, so 
 strange and eerie were both they and his tone. ' They say 
 there is ill-luck in thirteen,' he muttered. 'Thirteen Valois 
 and last ! ' He paused to laugh a wicked, mirthless laugh. 
 'Ay, Thirteenth! And it is thirteen years since I entered 
 Paris, a crowned King ! There were Quelus and Maugiron 
 and St. Megrin and I and lie, I remember. Ah, those days, 
 those nights ! I would sell my soul to live them again ; had 
 I not sold it long ago in the living them once ! We were 
 young then, and rich, and I was king ; and Quelus was an 
 Apollo ! He died calling on me to save him. And Mau- 
 giron died, blaspheming God and the saints. And St. 
 Megrin, he had thirty-four wounds. And he he is dead 
 too, curse him ! They are all dead, all dead, and it is all 
 over ! My God ! it is all over, it is all over, it is all over ! ' 
 
 He repeated the last four words more than a dozen times, 
 rocking himself to and fro by his hold on the niullione I 
 trembled as I listened, partly through fear on my owu 
 account should I be discovered, and partly by reason of the 
 horror of despair and remorse no, not remorse, regret 
 which spoke in his monotonous voice. I guessed that some 
 impulse had led him to draw the curtain from the window 
 and shade the lamp ; and that then, as he looked down on 
 the moonlit country, the contrast between it and the vicious, 
 heated atmosphere, heavy with intrigue and worse, in 
 which he had spent his strength, had forced itself upon his 
 mind. For he presently went on. 
 
 ' France ! There it lies ! And what will they do with 
 it? Will they cut it up into pieces, as it was before 
 old Louis XI.? Will Mercosur curse him ! be the most 
 Christian Duke of Brittany ? And Mayenne, by the grace 
 of God, Prince of Paris and the Upper Seine ? Or will the 
 little Prince of Beam beat them, and be Henry IV., King 
 of France and Navarre, Protector of the Churches ? Curse 
 him too ! He is thirty-six. He is my age. But he is 
 young and strong, and has all before him. While I I
 
 THE LAST VALOIS 257 
 
 oh, my God, have mercy on me \ Have mercy on me, 
 God in Heaven ! ' 
 
 With the last word he fell on his knees on the step 
 before the window, and burst into such an agony of unmanly 
 tears and sobbings as I had never dreamed of or imagined, 
 and least of all in the King of France. Hardly knowing 
 whether to be more ashamed or terrified, I turned at all risks, 
 and stealthily lifting the curtain, crept out with infinite 
 care ; and happily with so much good fortune as to escape 
 detection. There was space enough between the two 
 curtains to admit my body and no more; and here I stood 
 a short while to collect my thoughts. Then, striking my 
 scabbard against the wall, as though by accident, and 
 coughing loudly at the same moment, I twitched the cur- 
 tain aside with some violence and re-entered, thinking that 
 by these means I had given him warning enough. 
 
 But I had not reckoned on the darkness in which the 
 room lay, or the excitable state in which I had left him. 
 He heard me, indeed, but being able to see only a tall, in- 
 distinct figure approaching him, he took fright, and falling 
 back against the moonlit window, as though he saw a ghost, 
 thrust out his hand, gasping at the same time two words, 
 which sounded to me like ' Ha ! Guise ! -' 
 
 The next instant, discerning that I fell on my knee 
 where I stood, and came no nearer, he recovered himself. 
 With an effort, which his breathing made very apparent, 
 he asked in an unsteady voice who it was. 
 
 'One of your Majesty's most faithful servants/ I an- 
 swered, remaining on my knee, and affecting to see nothing. 
 
 Keeping his face towards me, he sidled to the lamp and 
 strove to withdraw the shade. But his fingers trembled so 
 violently that it was some time before he succeeded, and 
 set free the cheerful beams, which, suddenly filling the room 
 with radiance, disclosed to my wondering eyes, instead of 
 darkness and the cold gleam of the moon, a profusion of 
 riches, of red stuffs and gemmed trifles and gilded arms 
 crowded together in reckless disorder. A monkey chained
 
 258 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE 
 
 in one corner began to gibber and mow at me. A cloak of 
 strange cut, strekhed .on a wooden stand, deceived me for 
 an instant into thinking that there was a third person 
 present; while the table, heaped with dolls r.nd powder- 
 puffs, dog-collars and sweet-meats, a mask, a woman's slip- 
 per, a pair of pistols, some potions, a scourge, and an 
 immense quantity of like litter, had as melancholy an 
 appearance in my eyes as the king himself, whose disorder 
 the light disclosed without mercy. His turban was awry, 
 and betrayed the premature baldness of his scalp. The 
 paint on his cheeks was cracked and stained, and had soiled 
 the gloves he \wore. He looked fifty years old; and in his 
 excitement he had tugged his sword to the front, whence it 
 refused to be thrust back. 
 
 ' Who sent you here ? ' he asked, when he had so far 
 recovered his senses as to recognise me, which he did with 
 great surprise. 
 
 ' I am here, sire,' I answered evasively, ' to place myself 
 at your Majesty's service.' 
 
 ' Such loyalty is rare,' he answered, with a bitter sneer. 
 'But stand up, sir. I suppose I must be thankful for 
 small mercies, and, losing a Mercosur, be glad to receive 
 a Marsac.' 
 
 1 By your leave, sire,' I rejoined hardily, ' the exchange 
 is not so adverse. Your Majesty may make another duke 
 when you will. But honest men are not so easily come by.' 
 
 1 So ! so ! ' he answered, looking at me with a fierce light 
 in his eyes. ' You remind me in season. I may still make 
 and unmake ! I am still King of France ? That is so, 
 sirrah, is it not ? ' 
 
 ' God forbid that it should be otherwise ! ' I answered 
 earnestly. ' It is to lay before yonr Majesty certain means 
 by which you may give fuller effect to your wishes that I 
 am here. The King of Navarre desires only, sire ' 
 
 'Tut, tut!' he exclaimed impatiently, and with some 
 displeasure, ' I know his will better than you, man. But 
 you see,' he continued cunningly, forgetting my inferior
 
 THE LAST VALOIS 259 
 
 position as quickly as he had remembered it, 'Turenne 
 promises well, too. And Turenne it is true he may play 
 the Lorrainer. But if I trust Henry of Navarre, and he 
 prove false to me ' 
 
 He did not complete the sentence, but strode to and fro 
 a time or two, his mind, which had a natural inclination 
 towards crooked courses, bent on some scheme by which he 
 might play off the one party against the other. Apparently 
 he was not very successful in finding one, however ; or 
 else the ill-luck with which he had supported the League 
 against the Huguenots recurred to his mind. For he pres- 
 ently stopped, with a sigh, and came back to the point. 
 
 ' If I knew that Turenne were lying,' he muttered, ' then 
 
 indeed . But Kosny promised evidence, and he has 
 
 sent me none.' 
 
 'It is at hand, sire,' I answered, my heart beginning to 
 beat. 'Your Majesty will remember that M. de Eosny 
 honoured me with the task of introducing it to you.' 
 
 'To be sure,' he replied, awaking as from a dream, and 
 looking and speaking eagerly. ' Matters to-day have driven 
 everything out of my head. Where is your witness, man ? 
 Convince me, and we will act promptly. We will give them. 
 Jarnac and Moncontour over again. Is he outside ? ' 
 
 'It is a woman, sire,' I made answer, dashed somewhat 
 by his sudden and feverish alacrity. 
 
 ' A woman, eh ? You have her here ? ' 
 
 ' No, sire,' I replied, wondering what he would say to my 
 next piece of information. ' She is in Blois, she has arrived, 
 but the truth is I humbly crave your Majesty's indulgence 
 she refuses to come or speak. I cannot well bring her 
 here by force, and I have sought you, sire, for the purpose 
 of taking your commands in the matter.' 
 
 He stared at me in the utmost astonishment. 
 
 ' Is she young ?' he asked after a long pause. 
 
 ' Yes, sire,' I answered. ' She is maid of honour to the 
 Princess of Navarre, and a ward also of the Vicomte de 
 Turenne.' 
 
 B2
 
 260 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE 
 
 'Gad! then she is worth hearing, the little rebel!' he 
 replied. ' A ward of Turenne's is she ? Ho ! ho ! And 
 now she will not speak ? My cousin of Navarre now would 
 know how to bring her to her senses, but I have eschewed 
 these vanities. I might send and have her brought, it 
 is true; but a very little thing would cause a barricade 
 to-night.' 
 
 ' And besides, sire,' I ventured to add, ( she is known to 
 Turenne's people here, who have once stolen her away. 
 Were she brought to your Majesty with any degree of open- 
 ness, they would learn it, and know that the game was 
 lost.' 
 
 ' Which would not suit me,' he answered, nodding and 
 looking at me gloomily. ' They might anticipate our 
 Jarnac ; and until we have settled matters with one or the 
 other our person is not too secure. You must go and fetch 
 her. She is at your lodging. She must be brought, man.' 
 
 ' I will do what you command, sire,' I answered. ' But 
 I am greatly afraid that she will not come.' 
 
 He lost his temper at that. ' Then why, in the devil's 
 name, have you troubled me with the matter ? ' he cried 
 savagely. 'God knows I don't why Rosny employed 
 such a man and such a woman. He might have seen from 
 the cut of your cloak, sir, which is full six months behind 
 the fashion, that you could not manage a woman ! Was 
 ever such damnable folly heard of in this world ? But 
 it is Navarre's loss, not mine. It is his loss. And I hope 
 to Heaven it may be yours too ! ' he added fiercely. 
 
 There was so much in what he said that I bent before 
 the storm, and accepted with humility blame which was as 
 natural on his part as it was undeserved on mine. Indeed 
 I could not wonder at his Majesty's anger; nor should I 
 have wondered at it in a greater man. I knew that but for 
 reasons, on which I did not wish to dwell, I should have 
 shared it to the full, and spoken quite as strongly of the 
 caprice which ruined hopes and lives for a whim. 
 
 The king continued for some time to say to me all the
 
 THE LAST VALOIS 261 
 
 hard things lie could think of. Wearied at last by my 
 patience, he paused, and cried angrily. 'Well, hrve you 
 nothing to say for yourself ? Can you suggest nothing ? ' 
 
 'I dare not mention to your Majesty,' I said humbly, 
 ' what seems to me to be the only alternative.' 
 
 ' You mean that I should go to the wench ! ' he answered 
 for he did not lack quickness. '"Se no va el otero a 
 Malwma, vaya Malioma al otero," as Mendoza says. But 
 the saucy quean, to force me to go to her ! Did my wife 
 guess but there, I will go. By God I will go ! ' he added 
 abruptly and fiercely. ' I will live to ruin Retz yet ! 
 Where is your lodging ? ' 
 
 I told him, wondering much at this flash of the old 
 spirit, which twenty years before had won him a reputa- 
 tion his later life did nothing to sustain. 
 
 1 Do you know,' he asked, speaking with sustained energy 
 and clearness, ' the door by which M. de Rosny entered to 
 talk with me ? Can you find it in the dark ? ' 
 
 ' Yes, sire,' I answered, my heart beating high. 
 
 'Then be in waiting there two hours before midnight,' 
 he replied. ' Be well armed, but alone. I shall know how 
 to make the girl speak. I can trust you, I suppose ? ' he 
 added suddenly, stepping nearer to me and looking fixedly 
 into my eyes. 
 
 'I will answer for your Majesty's life with my own/ I 
 replied, sinking on one knee. 
 
 <I believe you, sir,' he answered gravely, giving me his 
 hand to kiss, and then turning away. ' So be it. Now 
 leave me. You have been here too long already. Not a 
 word to any one as you value your life.' 
 
 I made fitting answer and was leaving him ; but when I 
 had my hand already on the curtain, he called me back. ' In 
 Heaven's name get a new cloak ! ' he said peevishly, eyeing 
 me all over with his face puckered up. ' Get a new cloak, 
 man, the first thing in the morning. It is worse seen from 
 the side than the front. It would ruin the cleverest courtier 
 of them all ! '
 
 262 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE 
 
 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 A ROYAL PERIL. 
 
 THE elation with which I had heard the king announce 
 his resolution quickly diminished on cooler reflection. It 
 stood in particular at a very low ebb as I waited, an hour 
 later, at the little north postern of the Castle, and, cowering 
 within the shelter of the arch to escape the wind, debated 
 whether his Majesty's energy would sustain him to the 
 point of action, or whether he might not, in one of those 
 fits of treacherous vacillation which had again and again 
 marred his plans, send those to keep the appointment who 
 would give a final account of me. The longer I considered 
 his character the moiv dubious I grew. The loneliness cf 
 the situation, the darkness, the black front, unbroken by 
 any glimmer of light, which the Castle presented on this 
 side, and the unusual and gloomy stillness which lay upon 
 the town, all contributed to increase my uneasiness. It 
 was with apprehension as well as relief that I caught at 
 last the sound of footsteps on the stone staircase, and, 
 standing a little to one side, saw a streak of light appear 
 at the foot of the door. 
 
 On the latter being partially opened a voice cried my 
 name. I advanced with caution and showed myself. A 
 brief conversation ensued between two or three persons who 
 stood within; but in the end, a masked figure, which I had 
 no difficulty in identifying as the king, stepped briskly out. 
 
 'You are armed? ' he said, pausing a second opposite me. 
 
 I put back my cloak and showed him, by the light which 
 streamed from the doorway, that I carried pistols as well 
 as a sword. 
 
 'Good!' he answered briefly; 'then let us go. Do you 
 walk on my left hand, my friend. It is a dark night, is it 
 not? ' 
 
 'Very dark, sire,' I said.
 
 A ROYAL PERIL 263 
 
 He made no answer to this, and we started, proceeding 
 with caution until we had crossed the narrow bridge, and 
 then with greater freedom and at a better pace. The slen- 
 derness of the attendance at Court that evening, and the 
 cold wind, which swept even the narrowest streets and 
 drove roisterers indoors, rendered it unlikely that we should 
 be stopped or molested by any except professed thieves; 
 and for these I was prepared. The king showed no incli- 
 nation to talk; and keeping silence myself out of respect, 
 I had time to calculate the chances and to consider whether 
 his Majesty would succeed where I had failed. 
 
 This calculation, which was not inconsistent with the 
 keenest watchfulness on my part whenever we turned a 
 corner or passed the mouth of an alley, was brought to an 
 end by our safe arrival at the house. Briefly apologising 
 to the king for the meanness and darkness of the staircase, 
 I begged leave to precede him, and rapidly mounted until 
 I met Maignan. Whispering to him that all was well, I 
 did not wait to hear his answer, but, bidding him be on the 
 watch, I led the king on with as much deference as was 
 possible until we stood at the door of mademoiselle's apart- 
 ment, which I have elsewhere stated to consist of an outer 
 and inner room. The door was opened by Simon Fleix, 
 and him I promptly sent out. Then, standing aside and 
 uncovering, I begged the king to enter. 
 
 He did so, still wearing his hat and mask, and I followed 
 and secured the door. A lamp hanging from the ceiling 
 diffused an imperfect light through the room, which was 
 smaller but more comfortable in appearance than that which 
 I rented overhead. I observed that Fanchette, whose 
 harsh countenance looked more forbidding than usual, occu- 
 pied a stool which she had set in a strange fashion against 
 the inner door; but I thought no more of this at the 
 moment, my attention passing quickly to mademoiselle, 
 who sat crouching before the fire, enveloped in a large out- 
 door cloak, as if she felt the cold. Her back was towards 
 us, and she was, or pretended to be, still ignorant of our
 
 264 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE 
 
 presence, \7ith a muttered word I pointed ner out to the 
 king, and went towards her with lum. 
 
 'Mademoiselle/ I said in a low voice, 'Mademoiselle de 
 la Vire! I have the honour ' 
 
 She would not turn, and I stopped. Clearly she heard, 
 but she betrayed that she did so only by drawing her cloak 
 more closely round her. Primed by my respect for the 
 king, I touched her lightly on the shoulder. 'Mademoi- 
 selle!' I said impatiently, 'you are not aware of it, 
 but ' 
 
 She shook herself free from my hand with so rude a gest- 
 ure that I broke off, and stood gaping foolishly at her. 
 The king smiled, and nodding to me to step back a pace, 
 took the task on himself. 'Mademoiselle,' he said with 
 dignity, 'I am not accustomed ' 
 
 His voice had a magical effect. Before he could add 
 another word she sprang up as if she had been struck, and 
 faced us, a cry of alarm on her lips. Simultaneously we 
 both cried out too, for it was not mademoiselle at all. The 
 woman who confronted us, her hand on her mask, her eyes 
 glittering through the slits, was of a taller and fuller fig- 
 ure. We stared at her. Then a lock of bright golden hair 
 which had escaped from the hood of her cloak gave us the 
 clue. 'Madame!' the king cried. 
 
 'Madame de Bruhl! ' I echoed, my astonishment greater 
 than his. 
 
 Seeing herself known, she began with trembling fingers 
 to undo the fastenings of her mask; but the king, who had 
 hitherto displayed a trustfulness I had not expected in him, 
 had taken alarm at sight of her, as at a thing unlocked 
 for, and of which I had not warned him. 'How is this?' 
 he said harshly, drawing back a pace from her and regard- 
 ing me with anger and distrust. 'Is this some pretty 
 arrangement of yours, sir? Am I an intruder at an assigna- 
 tion, or is this a trap with M. de Bruhl in the background? 
 Answer, sirrah!' he continued, working himself rapidly 
 into a passion. 'Which am I to understand is the case? '
 
 A ROYAL PERIL 265 
 
 'Neither, sire,' I answered with as much dignity as I 
 could assume, utterly surprised and mystified as I was by 
 Madame's presence. 'Your Majesty wrongs Madame de 
 Bruhl as much by the one suspicion as you injure me by 
 the other. I am equally in the dark with you, sire, and as 
 little expected to see madame here.' 
 
 'I came, sire,' she said proudly, addressing herself to the 
 king, and ignoring me, 'out of no love to M. de Marsac, 
 but as any person bearing a message to him might come. 
 Nor can you, sire,' she added with spirit, 'feel half as much 
 surprise at seeing me here, as I at seeing your Majesty.' 
 
 'I can believe that,' the king answered drily. 'I would 
 you had not seen me.' 
 
 'The King of France is seen only when he chooses,' she 
 replied, curtseying to the ground. 
 
 'Good,' he answered. 'Let it be so, and you will oblige 
 the King of France, madame. But enough,' he continued, 
 turning from her to me; 'since this is not the lady I came 
 to see, M. de Marsac, where is she? ' 
 
 'In the inner room, sire, I opine,' I said, advancing to 
 Fanchette with more misgiving at heart than my manner 
 evinced. 'Your mistress is here, is she not?' I continued, 
 addressing the woman sharply. 
 
 'Ay, and will not come out,' she rejoined, sturdily keep- 
 ing her place. 
 
 'Nonsense!' I said. 'Tell her ' 
 
 'You may tell her what you please,' she replied, refusing 
 to budge an inch. ' She can hear. ' 
 
 'But, woman!' I cried impatiently, 'you do not under- 
 stand. I must speak with her. I must speak with her at 
 once! On business of the highest importance.' 
 
 'As you please,' she said rudely, still keeping her seat. 
 'I have told you you can speak.' 
 
 Perhaps I felt as foolish on this occasion as ever in my 
 life; and surely never was man placed in a more ridiculous 
 position. After overcoming numberless obstacles, and 
 escaping as many perils, I had brought the king here, a
 
 266 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE 
 
 feat beyond my highest hopes only to be baffled and 
 defeated by a waiting- woman ! I stood irresolute ; witless 
 and confused; while the king waited half angry and half 
 amused, and madame kept her place by the entrance, to 
 which she had retreated. 
 
 I was delivered from my dilemma by the curiosity which 
 is, providentially perhaps, a part of woman's character, 
 and which led mademoiselle to interfere herself. Keenly 
 on the watch inside, she had heard part of what passed 
 between us, and been rendered inquisitive by the sound of 
 a strange man's voice, and by the deference which she 
 could discern I paid to the visitor. At this moment, she 
 cried out, accordingly, to know who was there; and Fan- 
 chette, seeming to take this as a command, rose and dragged 
 her stool aside, saying peevishly and without any increase 
 of respect, 'There, I told you she could hear.' 
 
 'Who is it? ' mademoiselle asked again, in a raised voice. 
 
 I was about to answer when the king signed to me to 
 stand back, and, advancing himself, knocked gently on the 
 door. 'Open, I pray you, mademoiselle,' he said courte- 
 ously. 
 
 'Who is there?' she cried again, her voice trembling. 
 
 'It is I, the king,' he answered softly; but in that tone 
 of majesty which belongs not to the man, but to the descend- 
 ant, and seems to be the outcome of centuries of command. 
 
 She uttered an exclamation and slowly, and with seeming 
 reluctance, turned the key in the lock. It grated, and the 
 door opened. I caught a glimpse for an instant of her pale 
 face and bright eyes, and then his Majesty, removing his 
 hat, passed in and closed the door; and I withdrew to the 
 farther end of the room, where madame continued to stand 
 by the entrance. 
 
 I entertained a suspicion, I remember, and not unnatu- 
 rally, that she had come to my lodging as her husband's 
 spy ; but her first words when I joined her dispelled this. 
 'Quick! ' she said with an imperious gesture. 'Hear me 
 and let me go! I have waited long enough for you, and
 
 A ROYAL PERIL 267 
 
 suffered enough through you. As for that woman in there, 
 she is niad, and her servant too! Now, listen to me. You 
 spoke to me honestly to-day, and I have come to repay you. 
 You have an appointment with my husband to-morrow at 
 Chaverny. Is it not so? ' she added impatiently. 
 
 I replied that it was so. 
 
 'You are to go with one friend,' she went on, tearing the 
 glove she had taken off, to strips in her excitement. 'He 
 is to meet you with one also? ' 
 
 'Yes,' I assented reluctantly, 'at the bridge, madame.' 
 
 'Then do not go,' she rejoined emphatically. 'Shame on 
 me that I should betray my husband; but it were worse to 
 send an innocent man to his death. He will meet you with 
 one sword only, according to his challenge, but there will 
 be those under the bridge who will make certain work. 
 There, I have betrayed him now ! ' she continued bitterly. 
 'It is done. Let me go!' 
 
 'Xay, but, madame,' I said, feeling more concerned for 
 her, on whom from the first moment of meeting her I had 
 brought nothing but misfortune, than surprised by this new 
 treachery on his part, 'will you not run some risk in return- 
 ing to him? Is there nothing I can do for you no step I 
 can take for your protection? ' 
 
 'None!' she said repellently and almost rudely, 'except 
 to speed my going.' 
 
 'But you will not pass through the streets alone?' 
 
 She laughed so bitterly my heart ached for her. 'The 
 unhappy are always safe,' she said. 
 
 Remembering how short a time it was since I had sur- 
 prised her in the first happiness of wedded love, I felt for 
 her all the pity it was natural I should feel. But the re- 
 sponsibility under which his Majesty's presence and the 
 charge of mademoiselle laid me forbade me to indulge in 
 the luxury of evincing my gratitude. Gladly would I have 
 escorted her back to her home even if I could not make 
 that home again what it had been, or restore her husband 
 to the pinnacle from which I had dashed him but I dared
 
 268 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE 
 
 not do this. I was forced to content myself with less, and 
 was about to offer to send one of my men with her, when a 
 hurried knocking at the outer door arrested the words on 
 my lips. 
 
 Signing to her to stand still, I listened. The knocking 
 was repeated, and grew each moment more urgent. There 
 was a little grille, strongly wired, in the upper part of the 
 door, and this I was about to open in order to learn what 
 was amiss, when Simon's voice reached me from the far- 
 ther side imploring me to open the door quickly. Doubt- 
 ing the lad's prudence, yet afraid to refuse lest I should 
 lose some warning he had to give, I paused a second, and 
 then undid the fastenings. The moment the door gave way 
 he fell in bodily, crying out to me to bar it behind him. I 
 caught a glimpse through the gap of a glare as of torches, 
 and saw by this light half a dozen flushed faces in the act 
 of rising above the edge of the landing. The men who 
 owned them raised a shout of triumph at sight of me, and, 
 clearing the upper steps at a bound, made a rush for the 
 door. But in vain. We had just time to close it and drop 
 the two stout bars. In a moment, in a second, the fierce 
 outcry fell to a dull roar; and safe for the time, we had 
 leisure to look in one another's faces and learn the different 
 aspects of alarm. Madame was white to the lips, while 
 Simon's eyes seemed starting from his head, and he shook 
 in every limb with terror. 
 
 At first, on my asking him what it meant, he could not 
 speak. But that would not do, and I was in the act of seiz- 
 ing him by the collar to force an answer from him when the 
 inner door opened, and the king came out, his face wearing 
 an air of so much cheerfulness as proved both his satisfac- 
 tion with mademoiselle's story and his ignorance of all we 
 were about. In a word he had not yet taken the least 
 alarm; but seeing Simon in my hands, and madame leaning 
 against the wall by the door like one deprived of life, he 
 stood and cried out in surprise to know what it was. 
 
 'I fear we are besieged, sire/ I answered desperately,
 
 A ROYAL PERIL 269 
 
 feeling my anxieties increased a hundredfold by his appear- 
 ance 'but by whom I cannot say. This lad knows, how- 
 ever,' I continued, giving Simon a vicious shake, 'and he 
 shall speak. Now, trembler,' I said to him, 'tell your 
 tale?' 
 
 'The Provost-Marshal!' he stammered, terrified afresh 
 by the king's presence: for Henry had removed his mask. 
 'I was on guard below. I had come up a few steps to be 
 out of the cold, when I heard them enter. There are a 
 round score of them. ' 
 
 I cried out a great oath, asking him why he had not gone 
 up and warned Maignan, who with his men was now cut off 
 from us in the rooms above. ' You fool ! ' I continued, 
 almost beside myself with rage, 'if you had not come to 
 this door they would have mounted to my rooms and beset 
 them! What is this folly about the Provost-Marshal? ' 
 
 'He is there,' Simon answered, cowering away from me, 
 his face working. 
 
 I thought he was lying, and had merely fancied this in 
 his fright. But the assailants at this moment began to 
 hail blows on the door, calling on us to open, and using 
 such volleys of threats as penetrated even the thickness of 
 the oak; driving the blood from the women's cheeks, and 
 arresting the king's step in a manner which did not escape 
 me. Among their cries I could plainly distinguish the 
 words, 'In the king's name! ' which bore out Simon's state- 
 ment. 
 
 At the moment I drew comfort from this ; for if we had 
 merely to deal with the law we had that on our side which 
 was above it. And I speedily made up my mind what to 
 do. 'I think the lad speaks the truth, sire,' I said coolly. 
 'This is only your Majesty's Provost-Marshal. The worst 
 to be feared, therefore, is that he may learn your presence 
 here before you would have it known. It should not be a 
 matter of great difficulty, however, to bind him to silence, 
 and if you will please to mask, I will open the grille and 
 speak with him.'
 
 270 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE 
 
 The king, who had taken his stand in the middle of the 
 room, and seemed dazed and confused by the suddenness of 
 the alarm and the uproar, assented with a brief word. Ac- 
 cordingly I was preparing to open the grille when Madame 
 de Bruhl seized my arm, and forcibly pushed me back 
 from it. 
 
 'What would you do? ' she cried, her face full of terror. 
 'Do you not hear? He is there.' 
 
 'Who is there?' I said, startled more by her manner 
 than her words. 
 
 'Who?' she answered; 'who should be there? My hus- 
 band! I hear his voice, I tell you! He has tracked me 
 here ! He has found me, and will kill me ! ' 
 
 'God forbid! ' I said, doubting if she had really heard his 
 voice. To make sure, I asked Simon if he had seen him; 
 and my heart sank when I heard from him too that Bruhl 
 was of the party. For the first time I became fully sensi- 
 ble of the danger which threatened us. For the first time, 
 looking round the ill-lit room on the women's terrified faces, 
 and the king's masked figure instinct with ill-repressed 
 nervousness, I recognised how hopelessly we were en- 
 meshed. Fortune had served Bruhl so well that, whether 
 he knew it or not, he had us all trapped alike the king 
 whom he desired to compromise, and his wife whom he 
 hated, mademoiselle who had once escaped him, and me who 
 had twice thwarted him. It was little to be wondered at 
 if my courage sank as I looked from one to another, and 
 listened fco the ominous creaking of the door, as the stout 
 panels complained under the blows rained upon them. 
 For my first duty, and that which took the^os of all others, 
 was to the king to save him harmless. How, then, was I 
 to be answerable for mademoiselle, how protect Madame de 
 Bruhl? how, in a word, redeem all those pledges in which 
 my honour was concerned? 
 
 It was the thought of the Provost-Marshal which at this 
 moment rallied my failing spirits. I remembered that 
 until the mystery of his presence here in alliance with
 
 A ROYAL PERIL 271 
 
 Bruhl was explained there was no need to despair; and 
 turning briskly to the king I begged him to favour me by 
 standing with the women in a corner which was not visible 
 from the door. lie complied mechanically, and in a manner 
 which I did not like; but lacking time to weigh trifles, I 
 turned to the grille and opened it without more ado. 
 
 The appearance of my face at the trap was greeted with a 
 savage cry of recognition, which subsided as quickly into 
 silence. It was followed by a momentary pushing to and 
 fro among the crowd outside, which in its turn ended in the 
 Provost-Marshal coming to the front. 'In the king's 
 name ! ' he said fussily. 
 
 ' What is it? ' I replied, eyeing rather the flushed, eager 
 faces which scowled over his shoulders than himself. The 
 light of two links, borne by some of the party, shone rud- 
 dily on the heads of the halberds, and, flaring up from time 
 to time, filled all the place with wavering, smoky light. 
 'What do you want? ' I continued, 'rousing my lodging at 
 this time of night? ' 
 
 'I hold a warrant for your arrest,' he replied bluntly. 
 'Resistance will be vain. If you do not surrender I shall 
 send for a ram to break in the door.' 
 
 'Where is your order?' I said sharply. 'The one you 
 held this morning was cancelled by the king himself.' 
 
 'Suspended only,' he answered. 'Suspended only. It 
 was given out to me again this evening for instant execu- 
 tion. And I am here in pursuance of it, and call on you to 
 surrender. ' 
 
 'Who delivered it to you? ' I retorted. 
 
 'M. de Villeqtiier, ' he answered readily. 'And here it 
 is. Now, come, sir,' he continued, 'you are only making 
 matters worse. Open to us.' 
 
 'Before I do so,' I said drily, 'I should like to know what 
 part in the pageant my friend M. de Bruhl, whom I see on 
 the stairs yonder, proposes to play. Arid there is my old 
 friend Fresnoy,' I added. 'And I see one or two others 
 whom I know, M. Provost. Before I surrender I must
 
 272 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE 
 
 know among other things what M. de Bruhl's business is 
 here.' 
 
 'It is the business of every loyal man to execute the 
 king's warrant,' the Provost answered evasively. 'It is 
 yours to surrender, and mine to lodge you in the Castle. 
 But I am loth to have a disturbance. I will give you until 
 that torch goes out, if you like, to make up your mind. 
 At the end of that time, if you do not surrender, I shall 
 batter down the door. ' 
 
 'You will give the torch fair play?' I said, noting its 
 condition. 
 
 He assented; and thanking him sternly for this indul- 
 gence, I closed the grille. 
 
 CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 TERMS OF SURRENDER. 
 
 I STILL had my hand on the trap when a touch on the 
 shoulder caused me to turn, and in a moment apprised me 
 of the imminence of a new peril; a peril of such a kind 
 that, summoning all my resolution, I could scarcely hope 
 to cope with it. Henry was at my elbow. He had taken 
 off his mask, and a single glance at his countenance warned 
 me that that had happened of which I had already felt 
 some fear. The glitter of intense excitement shone in his 
 eyes. His face, darkly-flushed and wet with sweat, be- 
 trayed overmastering emotion, while his teeth, tight 
 clenched in the effort to restrain the fit of trembling which 
 possessed him, showed between his lips like those of a 
 corpse. The novelty of the danger which menaced him, 
 the absence of his gentlemen, and of all the familiar faces 
 and surroundings without which he never moved, the hour, 
 the mean house, and his isolation among strangers, had 
 roved too much for nerves long weakened by his course of
 
 TERMS OF SURRENDER 273 
 
 living, and for a courage, proved indeed in the field, but 
 unequal to a sudden stress. Though he still strove to pre- 
 serve his dignity, it was alarmingly plain to my eyes that 
 he was on the point of losing, if he had not already lost, 
 all self-command. 
 
 'Open!' he muttered between his teeth, pointing impa- 
 tiently to the trap with the hand with which he had already 
 touched me. 'Open, I say, sir! ' 
 
 I stared at him, startled and confounded. 'But your 
 Majesty,' I ventured to stammer, 'forgets that I have not 
 yet ' 
 
 'Open, I say!' he repeated passionately. 'Do you hear 
 me, sir? I desire that this door be opened.' His lean 
 hand shook as with the palsy, so that the gems on it 
 twinkled in the light and rattled as he spoke. 
 
 I looked helplessly from him to the women and back 
 again, seeing in a flash all the dangers which might 
 follow from the discovery of his presence there dangers 
 which I had not before formulated to myself, but which 
 seemed in a moment to range themselves with the utmost 
 clearness before my eyes. At the same time I saw what 
 seemed to me to be a way of escape ; and emboldened by 
 the one and the other, I kept my hand on the trap and 
 strove to parley with him. 
 
 'Nay, but, sire,' I said hurriedly, yet still with as much 
 deference as I could command, 'I beg you to permit me 
 first to repeat what I have seen. M. de Bruhl is without, 
 and I counted six men whom I believe to be his following. 
 They are ruffians ripe for any crime; and I implore your 
 Majesty rather to submit to a short imprisonment ' 
 
 I paused struck dumb on that word, confounded by the 
 passion which lightened in the king's face. My ill-chosen 
 expression had indeed applied the spark to his wrath. 
 Predisposed to suspicion by a hundred treacheries, he 
 forgot the perils outside in the one idea which on the 
 instant possessed his mind; that I would confine his person, 
 and had brought him hither for no other purpose. He
 
 274 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE 
 
 glared round him with eyes full of rage and fear, and his 
 trembling lips breathed rather than spoke the word 'Im- 
 prison? ' 
 
 Unluckily, a trifling occurrence added at this moment to 
 his disorder, and converted it into frenzy. Someone out- 
 side fell heavily against the door; this, causing madame to 
 utter a low shriek, seemed to shatter the last remnant of the 
 king's self-control. Stamping his foot on the floor, he 
 cried to me with the utmost wildness to open the door \>y 
 which I had hitherto kept my place. 
 
 But, wrongly or rightly, I was still determined to put off 
 opening it; and I raised my hands with the intention of 
 making a last appeal to him. He misread the gesture, and 
 retreating a step, with the greatest suddenness whipped 
 out his sword, and in a moment had the point at my breast, 
 and his wrist drawn back to thrust. 
 
 It has always been my belief that he would not have dealt 
 the blow, but that the mere touch of the hilt, awaking the 
 courage which he undoubtedly possessed, and which did not 
 desert him in his last moments, would have recalled him to 
 himself. But the opportunity was not given him, for while 
 the blade yet quivered, and I stood motionless, controlling 
 myself by an effort, my knee half bent and my eyes on his, 
 Mademoiselle de la Vire sprang forward at his back, and 
 with a loud scream clutched his elbow. The king, sur- 
 prised, and ignorant who held him, flung up his point 
 wildly, and striking the lamp above his head with his 
 blade, shattered it in an instant, bringing down the pottery 
 with a crash and reducing the room to darkness; while the 
 screams of the women, and the knowledge that we had ?- 
 madman among us, peopled the blackness with a hundred 
 horrors. 
 
 Fearing above all for mademoiselle, I made my way a? 
 soon as I could recover my wits to the embers of the fire, 
 and regardless of the king's sword, which I had a vague 
 idea was darting about in the darkness, I searched for and 
 found a half-burnt stick, Avhich I blew into a blaze. With
 
 TERMS OF SURRENDER 275 
 
 this, still keeping my back to the room, I contrived to 
 light a taper that I had noticed standing by the hearth; and 
 then, and then only, I turned to see what I had to confront. 
 
 Mademoiselle de la Vire stood in a corner, half-fierce, 
 half-terrified, and wholly flushed. She had her hand 
 wrapped up in a 'kerchief already stained with blood; and 
 from this I gathered that the king in his frenzy had 
 wounded her slightly. Standing before her mistress, with 
 her hair bristling, like a wild-cat's fur, and her arms 
 akimbo, was Fanchette, her harsh face and square form 
 instinct with fury and defiance. Madame de Bruhl and 
 Simon cowered against the wall not far from them ; and in 
 a chair, into which he had apparently just thrown himself, 
 sat the king, huddled up and collapsed, the point of his 
 sword trailing on the ground beside him, and his nerveless 
 hand scarce retaining force to grip the pommel. 
 
 In a moment I made up my mind what to do, and going 
 to him in silence, I laid my pistols, sword, and dagger on 
 a stool by his side. Then I knelt. 
 
 'The door, sire,' I said, 'is there. It is for your Majesty 
 to open it when you please. Here, too, sire, are my weap- 
 ons. I am your prisoner, the Provost-Marshal is outside, 
 and you can at a word deliver me to him. Only one thing 
 I beg, sire,' I continued earnestly, 'that your Majesty will 
 treat as a delusion the idea that I meditated for a moment 
 disrespect or violence to your person.' 
 
 He looked at me dully, his face pale, his eyes fish-like. 
 'Sanctus, man ! ' he muttered, 'why did you raise your hand? ' 
 
 'Only to implore your Majesty to pause a moment,' I an- 
 swered, watching the intelligence return slowly to his face. 
 'If you will deign to listen I can explain in half a dozen 
 words, sire. M. de Bruhl's men are six or seven, the Pro- 
 vost has eight or nine; but the former are the wilder 
 blades, and if M. de Bruhl find your Majesty in my lodg- 
 ing, and infer his own defeat, he will be capable of any 
 desperate stroke. Your person would hardly be safe in 
 his company through the streets. And there is another 
 
 82
 
 276 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE 
 
 consideration,' I went on, observing with joy that the 
 king listened, and was gradually regaining his composure. 
 'That is, the secrecy you desired to preserve, sire, until this 
 matter should be well advanced. M. de Rosny laid the 
 strictest injunctions on me in that respect, fearing an 
 dmeute in Blois should your Majesty's plans become known.' 
 
 'You speak fairly,' the king answered with returning 
 energy, though he avoided looking at the women. 'Bruhl 
 is likely enough to raise one. But how am I to get out, 
 sir?' he continued, querulously. 'I cannot remain here. 
 I shall be missed, man! I am not a hedge-captain, neither 
 sought nor wanted! ' 
 
 'If your Majesty would trust me?' I said slowly and 
 with hesitation. 
 
 'Trust you! ' he retorted peevishly, holding up his hands 
 and gazing intently at his nails, of the shape and white- 
 ness of which he was prouder than any woman. 'Have I 
 not trusted you? If I had not trusted you, should I have 
 been here? But that you were a Huguenot God forgive 
 me for saying it! I would have seen you in hell before I 
 would have come here with you ! ' 
 
 I confess to having heard this testimony to the Eeligion 
 with a pride which made me forget for a moment the im- 
 mediate circumstances the peril in which we stood, the 
 gloomy room darkly lighted by a single candle, the scared 
 faces in the background, even the king's huddled figure, in 
 which dejection and pride struggled for expression. For a 
 moment only; then I hastened to reply, saying that I 
 doubted not I could still extricate his Majesty without dis- 
 covery. 
 
 'In Heaven's name do it, then! ' he answered sharply. 
 'Do what you like, man! Only get me back into the castle, 
 and it shall not be a Huguenot will entice me out again. I 
 am over old for these adventures ! ' 
 
 A fresh attack on the door taking place as he said this 
 induced me to lose no time in explaining my plan, which 
 he was good enough to approve, after again upbraiding me
 
 TERMS OF SURRENDER 277 
 
 for bringing him into such a dilemma. Fearing lest the 
 door should give way prematurely, notwithstanding the 
 bars I had provided for it, and goaded on by Madame de 
 Bruhl's face, which evinced the utmost terror, I took the 
 candle and attended his Majesty into the inner room; where 
 I placed my pistols beside him, but silently resumed my 
 sword and dagger. I then returned for the women, and 
 indicating by signs that they were to enter, held the door 
 open for them. 
 
 Mademoiselle, whose bandaged hand I could not regard 
 without emotion, though the king's presence and the respect 
 I owed him forbade me to utter so much as a word, ad- 
 vanced readily until she reached the doorway abreast of me. 
 There, however, looking back, and seeing Madame de Bruhl 
 following her, she stopped short, and darting a haughty 
 glance at me, muttered, 'And that lady? Are we to be 
 shut up together, sir? ' 
 
 'Mademoiselle,' I answered quickly in the low tone she 
 had used herself, 'have I ever asked anything dishonoura- 
 ble of you? ' 
 
 She seemed by a slight movement of the head to answer 
 in the negative. 
 
 'Nor do I now,' I replied with earnestness. 'I entrust 
 to your care a lady who has risked great peril for us; and 
 the rest I leave to you. ' 
 
 She looked me very keenly in the face for a second, and 
 then, without answering, she passed on, Madame and Fan- 
 chette following her in that order. I closed the door and 
 turned to Simon; who by my direction had blown the 
 embers of the fire into a blaze so as to partially illumine 
 the room, in which only he and I now remained. The lad 
 seemed afraid to meet my eye, and owing to the scene at 
 which he had just assisted, or to the onslaught on the door, 
 which grew each moment more furious, betrayed greater 
 restlessness than I had lately observed in him. I did not 
 doubt his fidelity, however, or his devotion to mademoi- 
 selle ; and the orders I had to give him were simple enough.
 
 ^, 7 8 A GENTLEMAN" OF FRANCE 
 
 'This is what you have got to do,' I said, my hand already 
 on the bars. 'The moment I am outside secure this door. 
 After that, open to no one except Maignan. AVhen he 
 applies, let him in with caution, and bid him, as he loves 
 M. de Kosny, take his men as soon as the coast is clear, 
 and guard the King of France to the castle. Charge him to 
 be brave and wary, for his life will answer for the king's. 7 
 
 Twice I repeated this; then fearing lest the Provost- 
 Marshal should make good his word and apply a ram to the 
 door, I opened the trap. A dozen angry voices hailed my 
 appearance, and this with so much violence and impatience 
 that it was some time before I could get a hearing; the 
 knaves threatening me if I would not instantly open, and 
 persisting that I should do so without more words. Their 
 leader at length quieted them, but it was plain that his 
 patience too was worn out. 'Do you surrender or do you 
 aot?' he said. 'I am not going to stay out of my bed all 
 night for you ! ' 
 
 'I warn you,' I answered, 'that the order you have there 
 has been cancelled by the king! ' 
 
 'That is not my business,' he rejoined hardily. 
 
 'No, but it will be when the king sends for you to-morrow 
 morning, ' I retorted ; at which he looked somewhat moved. 
 'However, I will surrender to you on two conditions,' I 
 continued, keenly observing the coarse faces of his follow- 
 ing. 'First, that you let me keep my arms until we reach 
 the gate-house, I giving you my parole to come with you 
 quietly. That is number one.' 
 
 'Well,' the Provost-Marshal said more civilly, 'I have 
 no objection to that.' 
 
 'Secondly, that you do not allow your men to break into 
 my lodgings. I will come out quietly, and so an end. 
 Your order does not direct you to sack my goods.' 
 
 ^Tut, tut! ' he replied; 'I want you to come out. I do 
 not want to go in.' 
 
 'Then draw your men back to the stairs,' I said. 'And 
 if you keep terms with me, I will uphold you to-morrow.
 
 TERMS OF SURRENDER 279 
 
 For your orders' will certainly bring you into tro\ ble. M. 
 de Retz, who procured it this morning, is away, you know. 
 M. de Villequier may be gone to-morrow. But depend 
 upon it, M. de Rambouillet will be here! ' 
 
 The remark was well timed and to the point. It startled 
 the man as much as I had hoped it would. Without rais- 
 ing any objection he ordered his men to fall back and guard 
 the stairs ; and I on my side began to undo the fastenings 
 of the door. 
 
 The matter was not to be so easily concluded, however; 
 for Bruhl's rascals, in obedience, no doubt, to a sign given 
 by their leader, who stood with Fresnoy on the upper flight 
 of stairs, refused to withdraw ; and even hustled the Pro- 
 vost-Marshal's men when the latter would have obeyed the 
 order. The officer, already heated by delay, replied by lay- 
 ing about him with his staff, and in a twinkling there 
 seemed to be every prospect of a very pretty mlee, the end 
 of which it was impossible to foresee. 
 
 Reflecting, however, that if Bruhl's men routed their 
 opponents our position might be made worse rather than 
 better, I did not act on my first impulse, which was to see 
 the matter out where I was. Instead, I seized the oppor- 
 tunity to let myself out, while Simon fastened the door be- 
 hind me. The Provost-Marshal was engaged at the moment 
 in a wordy dispute with Fresnoy; whose villainous coun- 
 tenance, scarred by the wound which I had given him at 
 Chize, and flushed with passion, looked its worst by the 
 light of the single torch which remained. In one respect 
 the villain had profited by his present patronage, for he 
 was decked out in a style of tawdry magnificence. But I 
 have always remarked this about dress, that while a shabby 
 exterior does not entirely obscure a gentleman, the extreme 
 of fashion is powerless to gild a knave. 
 
 Seeing me on a sudden at the Provost's elbow, he recoiled 
 with a change of countenance so ludicrous that that officer 
 was himself startled, and only held his ground on my 
 saluting him civilly and declaring myself his prisoner. I
 
 280 A GENTLEMAN- OF FRANCE 
 
 added a, warning that he should look to the torch which 
 remained; seeing that if it failed we were both like to 
 have our throats cut in the confusion. 
 
 He took the hint promptly, and calling the link-man to 
 his side prepared to descend, bidding Fresnoy and his men, 
 who remained clumped at the head of the stairs, make way 
 for us without ado. They seemed much inclined, however, 
 to dispute our passage, and replying to his invectives with 
 rough taunts, displayed so hostile a demeanour that the 
 Provost, between regard for his own importance and respect 
 for Bruhl, appeared for a moment at a loss what to do ; and 
 seemed rather relieved than annoyed when I begged leave 
 to say a word to M. de Bruhl. 
 
 'If you can bring his men to reason,' he replied testily, 
 'speak your fill to him! ' 
 
 Stepping to the foot of the upper flight, on which Bruhl 
 retained his position, I saluted him formally. He returned 
 my greeting with a surly, watchful look only, and draw- 
 ing his cloak more tightly round him affected to gaze down 
 at me with disdain ; which ill concealed, however, both the 
 triumph he felt and the hopes of vengeance he entertained. 
 I was especially anxious to learn whether he had tracked 
 his wife hither, or was merely here in pursuance of his 
 general schemes against me, and to this end I asked him 
 with as much irony as I could compass to what I was to 
 attribute his presence. 'I am afraid I cannot stay to offer 
 you hospitality,' I continued; 'but for that you have only 
 your friend M. Villequier to thank ! ' 
 
 'I am greatly obliged to you,' he answered with a devil- 
 ish smile, 'but do not let that affect you. When you are 
 gone I propose to help myself, my friend, to whatever takes 
 my taste.' 
 
 'Do you?' I retorted coolly not that I was unaffected 
 by the threat and the villainous hint which underlay the 
 words, but that, fully expecting them, I was ready with my 
 answer. 'We will see about that.' And therewith I 
 raised my fingers to my lips, and, whistling shrilly, criea 
 'Maignan! Maignan! ' in a clear voice.
 
 . TERMS OF SURRENDER 281 
 
 1 had no need to cry the name a third time, for before 
 the Provost-Marshal could do more than start at this unex- 
 pected action, the landing above us rang under a heavy 
 tread, and the man I called, descending the stairs swiftly, 
 appeared on a sudden within arm's length of M. de Bruhl ; 
 who, turning with an oath, saw him, and involuntarily 
 recoiled. At all times Maignan's hardy and confident 
 bearing was of a kind to impress the strong; but on this 
 occasion there was an added dash of recklessness in his 
 manner which was not without its effect on the spectators. 
 As he stood there smiling darkly over Bruhl's head, while 
 his hand toyed carelessly with his dagger, and the torch 
 shone ruddily on his burly figure, he was so clearly an 
 antagonist in a thousand that, had I sought through Blois, 
 I might not have found his fellow for strength and sang- 
 froid. He let his black eyes rove from one to the other, 
 but took heed of me only, saluting me with effusion and 
 a touch of the Gascon which was in place here, if ever. 
 
 I knew how M. de Eosny dealt with him, and followed 
 the pattern as far as I could. 'Maignan! ' I said curtly, 'I 
 have taken a lodging for to-night elsewhere. When I am 
 gone you will call out your men and watch this door. If 
 anyone tries to force an entrance you will do your duty.' 
 
 'You may consider it done,' he replied. 
 
 'Even if the person be M. de Bruhl here,' I continued. 
 
 'Precisely.' 
 
 'You will remain on guard,' I went on, 'until to-morrow 
 morning if M. de Bruhl remains here; but whenever he 
 leaves you will take your orders from the persons inside, 
 and follow them implicitly. ' 
 
 'Your Excellency's mind may be easy,' he answered, 
 handling his dagger. 
 
 Dismissing him with a nod, I turned with a smile to M. 
 de Bruhl, and saw that between rage at this unexpected 
 check and chagrin at the insult put upon him, his discom- 
 fiture was as complete as I could wish. As for Eresnoy, 
 if he had seriously intended to dispute our passage, he was
 
 282 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE 
 
 no longer in the mood for the attempt. Yet I did not let 
 his master off without one more prick. 'That being set- 
 tled, M. de Bruhl,' I said pleasantly, 'I may bid you good 
 evening. You will doubtless honour me at Chaverny to- 
 morrow. But we will first let Maignan look under the 
 bridge ! ' 
 
 CHAPTER XXVI. 
 
 MEDITATIONS. 
 
 EITHER the small respect I had paid M. de Bruhl, or the 
 words I had let fall respecting the possible disappearance 
 of M. Villequier, had had so admirable an effect on the 
 Provost-Marshal's mind that from the moment of leaving 
 my lodgings he treated me with the utmost civility; per- 
 mitting me even to retain my sword, and assigning me a 
 sleeping-place for the night in his own apartments at the 
 Gate-house. 
 
 Late as it was, I could not allow so much politeness to 
 pass unacknowledged. I begged leave, therefore, to dis- 
 tribute a small gratuity among his attendants, and re- 
 quested him to do me the honour of drinking a bottle of 
 wine with me. This being speedily procured, at such an 
 expense as is usual in these places, where prisoners pay, 
 according as they are rich or poor, in purse or person, 
 kept us sitting for an hour, and finally sent us to our pal- 
 lets perfectly satisfied with one another. 
 
 The events of the day, however, and particularly one 
 matter, on which 1 have not dwelt at length, proved as 
 effectual to prevent my sleeping as if I had been placed in 
 the dampest cell below the castle. So much had been 
 crowded into a time so short that it seemed as if I had had 
 until now no opportunity of considering whither I was 
 being hurried, or what fortune awaited me at the end of 
 this turmoil. From the first appearance of M. d'Agen in
 
 MED IT A TIONS 283 
 
 the morning, with the startling news that the Provost- 
 Marshal was seeking me, to my final surrender and encoun- 
 ter with Bruhl on the stairs, the chain of events had run 
 out so swiftly that I had scarcely had time at any particu- 
 lar period to consider how I stood, or the full import of the 
 latest check or victory. Now that I had leisure I lived the 
 day over again, and, recalling its dangers and disappoint- 
 ments, felt thankful that all had ended so fairly. 
 
 I had the most perfect confidence in Maignan, and did 
 not doubt that Bruhl would soon weary, if he had not 
 already wearied, of a profitless siege. In an hour at most 
 and it was not yet midnight the king would be free to 
 go home; and with that would end, as far as he was con- 
 cerned, the mission with which M. de Rosny had honoured 
 me. The task of communicating his Majesty's decision to 
 the King of Navarre would doubtless be entrusted to M. de 
 Rambouillet, or some person of similar position and influ- 
 ence; and in the same hands would rest the honour and 
 responsibility of the treaty which, as we all know now, 
 gave after a brief interval and some bloodshed, and one 
 great providence, a lasting peace to France. But it must 
 ever be and I recognised this that night with a bounding 
 heart, which told of some store of youth yet unexhausted 
 a matter of lasting pride to me that I, whose career but 
 now seemed closed in failure, had proved the means of 
 conferring so especial a benefit on my country and religion. 
 
 Remembering, however, the King of Navarre's warning 
 that I must not look to him for reward, I felt greatly doubt- 
 ful in what direction the scene would next open to me; my 
 main dependence being upon M. de Rosny's promise that 
 he would make my fortune his own care. Tired of the 
 Court at Blois, and the atmosphere of intrigue and treach- 
 ery which pervaded it, and with which I hoped I had now 
 done, I was still at a loss to see how I could recross the 
 Loire in face of the Vicomte de Turenne's enmity. I 
 might have troubled myself much more with speculating 
 upon this point had I not found in close connection with
 
 284 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE 
 
 it other and more engrossing food for thought in the 
 capricious behaviour of Mademoiselle de la Vire. 
 
 To that behaviour it seemed to me that I now held the 
 clue. I suspected with as much surprise as pleasure that 
 only one construction could be placed upon it a construc- 
 tion which had strongly occurred to me on catching sight 
 of her face when she intervened between me and the king. 
 
 Tracing the matter back to the moment of our meeting in 
 the antechamber at St. Jean d'Angely, I remembered the 
 jest which Mathurine had uttered at our joint expense. 
 Doubtless it had dwelt in mademoiselle's mind, and excit- 
 ing her animosity against me had prepared her to treat me 
 with contumely when, contrary to all probability, we met 
 again, and she found herself placed in a manner in my 
 hands. It had inspired her harsh words and harsher looks 
 on our journey northwards, and contributed with her native 
 pride to the low opinion I had formed of her when I con- 
 trasted her with my honoured mother. 
 
 But I began to think it possible that the jest had worked 
 in another way as well, by keeping me before her mind and 
 impressing upon her the idea after my re-appearance at 
 Chize more particularly that our fates were in some way 
 linked. Assuming this, it was not hard to understand her 
 manner at Rosny when, apprised that I was no impostor, 
 and regretting her former treatment of me, she still re- 
 coiled from the feelings which she began to recognise in 
 her own breast. From that time, and with this clue, I had 
 no difficulty in tracing her motives, always supposing that 
 this suspicion, upon which I dwelt with feelings of wonder 
 and delight, were well founded. 
 
 Middle-aged and grizzled, with the best of my life behind 
 me, I had never dared to think of her in this way before. 
 Poor and comparatively obscure, I had never raised my 
 eyes to the wide possessions said to be hers. Even now I 
 felt myself dazzled and bewildered by the prospect so sud- 
 denly unveiled. I could scarcely, without vertigo, recall 
 her as I had last seen her, with her hand wounded in my
 
 MEDITATIONS 285 
 
 defence; nor, without emotions painful in their intensity, 
 fancy myself restored to the youth of which I had taken 
 leave, and to the rosy hopes and plannings which visit most 
 men once only, and then in early years. Hitherto I had 
 deemed such things the lot of others. 
 
 Daylight found me and no wonder -still diverting my- 
 self with these charming speculations; which had for me, 
 be it remembered, all the force of novelty. The sun chanced 
 to rise that morning in a clear sky, and brilliantly for the 
 time of year; and words fail me when I look back, and try 
 to describe how delicately this simple fact enhanced my 
 pleasure ! I sunned myself in the beams, which penetrated 
 my barred window; and tasting the early freshness with a 
 keen and insatiable appetite, I experienced to the full that 
 peculiar aspiration after goodness which Providence allows 
 such moments to awaken in us in youth; but rarely when 
 time and the camp have blunted the sensibilities. 
 
 I had not yet arrived at the stage at which difficulties 
 have to be reckoned up, and the chief drawback to the 
 tumult of joy I felt took the shape of regret that my mother 
 no longer lived to feel the emotions proper to the time, and 
 to share in the prosperity which she had so often and so 
 fondly imagined. Nevertheless, I felt myself drawn closer 
 to her. I recalled with the most tender feelings, and at 
 greater leisure than had before been the case, her last days 
 and words, and particularly the appeal she had uttered on 
 mademoiselle's behalf. And I vowed, if it were possible, to 
 pay a visit to her grave before leaving the neighbourhood, 
 that I might there devote a few moments to the thought of 
 the affection which had consecrated all women in my eyes. 
 
 I was presently interrupted in these reflections by a cir- 
 cumstance which proved in the end diverting enough, though 
 far from reassuring at the first blush. It began in a dism? 1 
 rattling of chains in the passage below and on the stairs 
 outside my room; which were paved, like the rest of the 
 building, with stone. I waited with impatience and some 
 uneasiness to see what would come of this; and my sur-
 
 286 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE 
 
 prise may be imagined when, the door being unlocked, 
 gave entrance to a man in whom I recognised on the in- 
 stant deaf Matthew the villain whom I had last seen with 
 Fresnoy in the house in the Rue Valois. Amazed at seeing 
 him here, I sprang to my feet in fear of some treachery, 
 and for a moment 'apprehended that the Provost-Marshal 
 had basely given me over to Bruhl's custody. But a 
 second glance informing me that the man was in irons 
 hence the noise I had heard I sat down again to see what 
 would happen. 
 
 It then appeared that he merely brought me my break- 
 fast, and was a prisoner in less fortunate circumstances 
 than myself; but as he pretended not to recognise me, and 
 placed the things before me in obdurate silence, and I had 
 no power to make him hear, I failed to learn how he came 
 to be in durance. The Provost-Marshal, however, came 
 presently to visit me, and brought me in token that the 
 good-fellowship of the evening still existed a pouch of the 
 Queen's herb; which I accepted for politeness' sake rather 
 than from any virtue I found in it. And from him I 
 learned how the rascal came to be in his charge. 
 
 It appeared that Fresnoy, having no mind to be hampered 
 with a wounded man, had deposited him on the night of our 
 m&l6e at the door of a hospital attached to a religious house 
 in that part or the town. The Fathers had opened to him, 
 but before taking him in put, according to their custom, 
 certain questions. Matthew had been primed with the 
 right answers to these questions, which were commonly a 
 form; but, unhappily for him, the Superior by chance or 
 mistake began with the wrong one. 
 
 'You are not a Huguenot, my son? ' he said. 
 
 'In God's name, I am! ' Matthew replied with simplicity, 
 believing he was asked if he was a Catholic. 
 
 'What?' the scandalised Prior ejaculated, crossing him- 
 self in doubt, 'are you not a true son of the Church? ' 
 
 'Never! ' quoth our deaf friend thinking all went well 
 
 'A heretic ! ' cried the monk.
 
 MEDITATIONS 287 
 
 'Amen to that!' replied Matthew innocently; never 
 doubting but that he was asked the third question, which 
 was, commonly, whether he needed aid. 
 
 Naturally after this there was a very pretty commotion, 
 and Matthew, vainly protesting that he was deaf, was hur- 
 ried off to the Provost-Marshal's custody. Asked how he 
 communicated with him, the Provost answered that he 
 could not, but that his little godchild, a girl only eight 
 years old, had taken a strange fancy to the rogue, and was 
 never so happy as when talking to him by means of signs, 
 of which she had invented a great number. I thought this 
 strange at the time, but I had proof before the morning 
 was out that it was true enough, and that the two were 
 seldom apart, the little child governing this grim cut-throat 
 with unquestioned authority. 
 
 After the Provost was gone I heard the man's fetters 
 clanking again. This time he entered to remove my cup 
 and plate, and surprised me by speaking to me. Maintain- 
 ing his former sullenness, and scarcely looking at me, he 
 said abruptly: 'You are going out again? ' 
 
 I nodded assent. 
 
 'Do you remember a bald-faced bay horse that fell with 
 you? ' he muttered, keeping his dogged glance on the floor. 
 
 I nodded again. 
 
 'I want to sell the horse,' he said. 'There is not such 
 another in Blois, no, nor in Paris ! Touch it on the near 
 hip with the whip and it will go down as if shot. At other 
 times a child might ride it. It is in a stable, the third 
 from the Three Pigeons, in the Ruelle Amancy. Fresnoy 
 does not know where it is. He sent to ask yesterday, but 
 I would not tell him.' 
 
 Some spark of human feeling which appeared in his low- 
 ering, brutal visage as he spoke of the horse led me to 
 desire further information. Fortunately the little girl 
 appeared at that moment at the door in search of her play- 
 fellow; and through her I learned that the man's motive 
 for seeking to sell the horse was fear lest the dealer in
 
 288 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE 
 
 whose charge it stood should dispose of it to repay himself 
 for its keep, and he, Matthew, lose it without return. 
 
 Still I did not understand why he applied to me, but I 
 was well pleased when I learned the truth. Base as the 
 knave was, he had an affection for the bay, which had been 
 his only property for six years. Having this in his mind, 
 he had conceived the idea that I should treat it well, and 
 should not, because he was in prison and powerless, cheat 
 him of the price. 
 
 In the end I agreed to buy the horse for ten crowns, pay- 
 ing as well what was due at the stable. I had it in my 
 head to do something also for the man, being moved to this 
 partly by an idea that there was good in him, and partly 
 by the confidence he had seen fit to place in me, which 
 seemed to deserve some return. But a noise below stairs 
 diverted my attention. I heard myself named, and for the 
 moment forgot the matter. 
 
 CHAPTER XXVII. 
 TO ME, MY FRIENDS! 
 
 I WAS impatient to learn who had come, and what was 
 their errand with me; and being still in that state of ex- 
 altation in which we seem to hear and see more than at 
 other times, I remarked a peculiar lagging in the ascending 
 footsteps, and a lack of buoyancy, which was quick to com- 
 municate itself to my mind. A vague dread fell upon me 
 as I stood listening. Before the door opened I had already 
 conceived a score of disasters. 1 wondered that I had not 
 inquired earlier concerning the king's safety, and in fine I 
 experienced in a moment that complete reaction of the 
 spirits which is too frequently consequent upon an exces- 
 sive flow of gaiety.
 
 TO ME, MY FRIENDS! 289 
 
 I was prepared, therefore, for heavy looks, but not for 
 the persons who wore them nor the strange bearing the 
 latter displayed on entering. My visitors proved to be M. 
 d'Agen and Simon Fleix. And so far well. But the 
 former, instead of coming forward to greet me with the 
 punctilious politeness which always characterised him, and 
 which I had thought to be proof against every kind of sur- 
 prise and peril, met me with downcast eyes and a counte- 
 nance so gloomy as to augment my fears a hundredfold; 
 since it suggested all those vague and formidable pains 
 which M. de Rambouillet had hinted might await me in a 
 prison. I thought nothing more probable than the en- 
 trance after them of a gaoler laden with gyves and hand- 
 cuffs ; and saluting M. Franqois with a face which, do what 
 I would, fashioned itself upon his, I had scarce composure 
 sufficient to place the poor accommodation of my room at 
 his disposal. 
 
 He thanked me ; but he did it with so much gloom and 
 so little naturalness that I grew more impatient with each 
 laboured syllable. Simon Fleix had slunk to the window 
 and turned his back on us. Neither seemed to have any- 
 thing to say. But a state of suspense was one which I 
 could least endure to suffer; and impatient of the con- 
 straint which my friend's manner was fast imparting to 
 mine, I asked him at once and abruptly if his uncle had 
 returned. 
 
 'He rode in about midnight,' he answered, tracing a pat- 
 tern on the floor with the point of his riding-switch. 
 
 I felt some surprise on hearing this, since d'Agen was 
 still dressed and armed for the road, and was without all 
 those prettinesses which commonly marked his attire. But 
 as he volunteered no further information, and did not even 
 refer to the place in which he found me, or question me as 
 to the adventures which had lodged me there, I let it pass, 
 and asked him if his party had overtaken the deserters. 
 
 'Yes/ he answered, 'with no result.' 
 
 'And the king? '
 
 290 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE 
 
 'M. de Rambouillet is with him now,' he rejoined, still 
 bending over his tracing. 
 
 This answer relieved the worst of my anxieties, but the 
 manner of the speaker was so distrait and so rnnch at vari- 
 ance with the studied insouciance which he usually affected, 
 that I only grew more alarmed. I glanced at Simon Fleix, 
 but he kept his face averted, and I could gather nothing 
 from it; though I observed that he, too, was dressed for 
 the road, and wore his arms. I listened, but I could hear 
 no sounds which indicated that the Provost -Marshal was 
 approaching. Then on a sudden I thought of Mademoiselle 
 de la Vire. Could it be that Maignan had proved unequal 
 to his task? 
 
 I started impetuously from my stool under the influence 
 of the emotion which this thought naturally aroused, and 
 seized M. d'Ageii by the arm. 'What has happened?' I 
 exclaimed. 'Is it Bruhl? Did he break into my lodgings 
 last night? What! ' I continued, staggering back as I read 
 the confirmation of my fears in his face. 'He did? ' 
 
 M. d'Agen, who had risen also, pressed my hand with 
 convulsive energy. Gazing into my face, he held me a 
 moment thus embraced, his manner a strange mixture of 
 fierceness and emotion. 'Alas, yes,' he answered, 'he did, 
 and took away those whom he found there ! Those whom 
 he found there, you understand ! But M. de Rambouillet 
 is on his way here, and in a few minutes you will be free. 
 We will follow together. If wa overtake them well. If 
 not, it will be time to talk.' 
 
 He broke off, and I stood looking at him, stunned by the 
 blow, yet in the midst of my own horror and surprise re- 
 taining sense enough to wonder at the gloom on his brow 
 and the passion which trembled in his words. What had 
 this to do with him? 'But Bruhl? ' I said at last, recover- 
 ing myself with an effort 'how did he gain access to the 
 room? I left it guarded.' 
 
 'By a ruse, while Maignan and his men were away,' was 
 the answer. 'Only this lad of yours was there. Bruhl's 
 men overpowered him.'
 
 TO ME, MY FRIENDS! 291 
 
 'Which way has Bruhl gone?' I muttered, my throat 
 dry, my heart beating wildly. 
 
 He shook his head. 'All we know is that he passed 
 through the south gate with eleven horsemen, two women, 
 and six led horses, at daybreak this morning,' he answered. 
 'Maignan came to my uncle with the news, and M. de Ram- 
 bouillet went at once, early as it was, to the king to pro- 
 cure your release. He should be here now.' 
 
 I looked at the barred window, the most horrible fears at 
 my heart; from it to Simon Fleix, who stood beside it, his 
 attitude expressing the utmost dejection. I went towards 
 him. 'You hound!' I said in a low voice, 'how did it 
 happen?' 
 
 To my surprise he fell in a moment on his knees, and 
 raised his arm as though to ward off a blow. 'They imi- 
 tated Maignan's voice,' he muttered hoarsely. 'We 
 opened. ' 
 
 'And you dare to come here and tell me! ' I cried, scarcely 
 restraining my passion. 'You, to whom I. entrusted her. 
 You, whom I thought devoted to her. You have destroyed 
 her, man! ' 
 
 He rose as suddenly as he had cowered down. His thin, 
 nervous face underwent a startling change; growing on a 
 sudden hard and rigid, while his eyes began to glitter with 
 excitement. ' I I have destroyed her ? Ay, mon dieu ! I 
 have, ' he cried, speaking to my face, and no longer flinch- 
 ing or avoiding my eye. 'You may kill me, if you like. 
 You do not know all. It was I who stole the favour she 
 gave you from your doublet, and then said M. de Rosny 
 had taken it ! It was I who told her you had given it away ! 
 It was I who brought her to the Little Sisters', that she 
 might see you with Madame de Bruhl ! It was I who did 
 all, and destroyed her! Now you know! Do with me 
 what you like ! ' 
 
 He opened his arms as though to receive a blow, while I 
 stood before him astounded beyond measure by a disclosure 
 so unexpected; full of righteous wrath and indignation, 
 
 T2
 
 292 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE 
 
 and yet uncertain what I ought to do. 'Did you also let 
 Bruhl into the room on purpose? ' I cried at last. 
 
 'I?' he exclaimed, with a sudden flash of rage in his 
 eyes. 'I would have died first! ' 
 
 I do not know how I might have taken this confession ; 
 but at the moment there was a trampling of horses outside, 
 and before I could answer him I heard M. de Kambouillet 
 speaking in haughty tones, at the door below. The Pro- 
 vost-Marshal was with him, but his lower notes were lost 
 in the ring of bridles and the stamping of impatient hoofs. 
 I looked towards the door of my room, which stood ajar, 
 and presently the two entered, the Marquis listening with 
 an air of contemptuous indifference to the apologies which 
 the other, who attended at his elbow, was pouring forth. 
 M. de Rambouillet's face reflected none of the gloom and 
 despondency which M. d'Agen's exhibited in so marked a 
 degree. He seemed, on the contrary, full of gaiety and 
 good-humour, and, coming forward and seeing me, embraced 
 me with the utmost kindness and condescension. 
 
 'Ha! my friend,' he said cheerfully, 'so I find you here 
 after all! But never fear. I am this moment from the 
 king with an order for your release. His Majesty has 
 told me all, making me thereby your lasting friend and 
 debtor. As for this gentleman, ' he continued, turning with 
 a cold smile to the Provost-Marshal, who seemed to be 
 trembling in his boots, 'he may expect an immediate order 
 also. M. de Villequier has wisely gone a-hunting, and will 
 not be back for a day or two.' 
 
 Racked as I was by suspense and anxiety, I could not 
 assail him with immediate petitions. It behoved me first 
 to thank him for his prompt intervention, and this in terms 
 as warm as I could invent. Nor could I in justice fail to 
 commend the Provost to him, representing the officer's 
 conduct to me, and lauding his ability. All this, though 
 my heart was sick with thought and fear and disappoint- 
 ment, and every minute seemed an age. 
 
 'Well, well/ the Marquis said with stately good-nature,
 
 TO ME, MY FRIENDS! 293 
 
 f we will lay the blame on Villequier then. He is an old 
 fox, however, and ten to one he will go scot-free. It is not 
 the first time he has played this trick. But I have not yet 
 come to the end of my commission, ' he continued pleasantly. 
 'His Majesty sends you this, M. de Marsac, and bade me say 
 that he had loaded it for you. ' 
 
 He drew from under his cloak as he spoke the pistol 
 which I had left with the king, and which happened to be 
 the same M. de Eosny had given me. I took it, marvel- 
 ling impatiently at the careful manner in which he handled 
 it; but in a moment I understood, for I found it loaded to 
 the muzzle with gold-pieces, of which two or three fell and 
 rolled upon the floor. Much moved by this substantial 
 mark of the king's gratitude, I was nevertheless for pocket- 
 ing them in haste ; but the Marquis, to satisfy a little curi- 
 osity on his part, would have me count them, and brought 
 the tale to a little over two thousand livres, without count- 
 ing a ring set with precious stones which I found among 
 them. This handsome present diverted my thoughts from 
 Simon Fleix, but could not relieve the anxiety I felt on 
 mademoiselle's account. The thought of her position so 
 tortured me that M. de Rambouillet began to perceive my 
 state of mind, and hastened to assure me that before going 
 to the Court he had already issued orders calculated to 
 assist me. 
 
 'You desire to follow this lady, I understand?' he said. 
 'What with the king, who is enraged beyond the ordinary 
 by this outrage, and Franqois there, who seemed beside 
 himself when he heard the news, I have not got any very 
 clear idea of the position.' 
 
 'She was entrusted to me by by one, sir, well known to 
 you,' I answered hoarsely. 'My honour is engaged to him 
 and to her. If I follow on my feet and alone, I must fol- 
 low. If I cannot save her, I can at least punish the villains 
 who have wronged her. ' 
 
 'But the man's wife is with them,' he said in some 
 wonder.
 
 294 A GENTLEMAN- OF FRANCE 
 
 
 'That goes for nothing,' I answered. 
 
 He saw the strong emotion under which I laboured, and 
 which scarcely suffered me to answer him with patience; 
 and he looked at me curiously, but not unkindly. 'The 
 sooner you are off, the better then,' he said, nodding. 'I 
 gathered as much. The man Maignan will have his fellows 
 at the south gate an hour before noon, I understand. 
 Franqois has two lackeys, and he is wild to go. With your- 
 self and the lad there you will muster nine swords. I will 
 lend you two. I can spare no more, for we may have an 
 6meute at any moment. You will take the road, therefore, 
 eleven in all, and should overtake them some time to-night 
 if your horses are in condition. ' 
 
 I thanked him warmly, without regarding his kindly 
 statement that my conduct on the previous day had laid 
 him under lasting obligations to me. We went down to- 
 gether, and he transferred two of his fellows to me there 
 and then, bidding them change their horses for fresh ones 
 and meet me at the south gate. He sent also a man to my 
 stable Simon Fleix having disappeared in the confusion 
 for the Cid, and was in the act of inquiring whether I 
 needed anything else, when a woman slipped through the 
 knot of horsemen who surrounded us as we stood in the 
 doorway of the house, and, throwing herself upon me, 
 grasped me by the arm. It was Fanchette. Her harsh 
 features were distorted with grief, her cheeks were mottled 
 with the violent weeping in which such persons vent their 
 sorrow. Her hair hung in long wisps on her neck. Her 
 dress was torn and draggled, and there was a great bruise 
 over her eye. She had the air of one frantic with despair 
 and misery. 
 
 She caught me by the cloak, and shook me so that I stag- 
 gered. 'I have found you at last! ' she cried joyfully. 
 'You will take me with you! You will take me to her! ' 
 
 Though her words tried my composure, and my heart 
 went out to her, I strove to answer her according to tn, 
 sense of the matter. 'It is impossible,' I said sternly,
 
 TO ME, MY FRIENDS \ 295 
 
 'This is a man's errand. We shall have to ride day and 
 night, my good woman. ' 
 
 'But I will ride day and night too! ' she replied passion- 
 ately, flinging the hair from her eyes, and looking wildly 
 from me to M. de Rambouillet. 'What would I not do for 
 her? I am as strong as a man, and stronger. Take me, 
 take me, I say, and when I meet that villain I will tear 
 him limb from limb ! ' 
 
 I shuddered, listening to her; but remembering that, 
 being country bred, she was really as strong as she said, 
 and that likely enough some advantage might accrue to us 
 from her perfect fidelity and devotion to her mistress, I 
 gave a reluctant consent. I sent one of M. de Rambouil- 
 let's men to the stable where the deaf man's bay was stand- 
 ing, bidding him pay whatever was due to the dealer, and 
 bring the horse to the south gate; my intention being to 
 mount one of my men on it, and furnish the woman with a 
 less tricky steed. 
 
 The briskness of these and the like preparations, which 
 even for one of my age and in my state of anxiety were 
 not devoid of pleasure, prevented my thoughts dwelling on 
 the future. Content to have M. Francois' assistance with- 
 out following up too keenly the train of ideas which his 
 readiness suggested, I was satisfied also to make use of 
 Simon without calling him to instant account for his 
 treachery. The bustle of the streets, which the confirma- 
 tion of the king's speedy departure had filled with surly, 
 murmuring crowds, tended still further to keep my fears 
 at bay; while the contrast between my present circum- 
 stances, as I rode through them well-appointed and well- 
 attended, with the Marquis by my side, and the poor appear- 
 ance I had exhibited on my first arrival in Blois, could not 
 fail to inspire me with hope that I might surmount this 
 danger also, and in the event find Mademoiselle safe and 
 uninjured. I took leave of M. de Rambouillet with many 
 expressions of esteem on both sides, and a few minutes 
 before eleven reached the rendezvous outside the south gate.
 
 296 A GENTLEMAN" OF FRANCE 
 
 M. d'Agen and Maignan advanced to meet me, the 
 former still presenting an exterior so stern and grave that 
 I wondered to see him, and could scarcely believe he was 
 the same gay spark whose elegant affectations had more 
 than once caused me to smile. He saluted me in silence; 
 Maignan with a sheepish air, which ill-concealed the savage 
 temper defeat had roused in him. Counting my men, I 
 found we mustered ten only, but the equerry explained that 
 he had despatched a rider ahead to make inquiries and leave 
 word for us at convenient points ; to the end that we might 
 follow the trail with as few delays as possible. Highly 
 commending Maignan for his forethought in this, I gave 
 the word to start, and crossing the river by the St. Gervais 
 Bridge, we took the road for Selles at a smart trot. 
 
 The weather had changed much in the last twenty-four 
 hours. The sun shone brightly, with a warm west wind, 
 and the country already showed signs of the early spring 
 which marked that year. If, the first hurry of departure 
 over, I had now leisure to feel the gnawing of anxiety and 
 the tortures inflicted by an imagination which, far outstrip- 
 ping us, rode with those whom we pursued and shared their 
 perils, I found two sources of comfort still open to me. No 
 man who has seen service can look on a little band of well- 
 appointed horsemen without pleasure. I reviewed the 
 stalwart forms and stern faces which moved beside me, 
 and comparing their decent order and sound equipments 
 with the scurvy foulness of the men who had ridden north 
 with me, thanked God, and ceased to wonder at the indig- 
 nation which Matthew and his fellows had aroused in 
 mademoiselle's mind. My other source of satisfaction, 
 the regular beat of hoofs and ring of bridles continually 
 augmented. Every step took us farther from Blois farther 
 from the close town and reeking streets and the Court; 
 which, if it no longer seemed to me a shambles, befouled 
 by one great deed of blood experience had removed that 
 impression retained an appearance infinitely mean and 
 miserable in my eyes. I hated and loathed its intrigues
 
 TO ME, MY FRIENDS I 297 
 
 and its jealousies, the folly which trifled in a closet while 
 rebellion mastered France, and the pettiness which recog- 
 nised no wisdom save that of balancing party and party. I 
 thanked God that my work there was done, and could have 
 welcomed any other occasion that forced me to turn my 
 back on it, and sent me at large over the pure heaths, 
 through the woods, and under the wide heaven, speckled 
 with moving clouds. 
 
 But such springs of comfort soon ran dry. M. d'Agen's 
 gloomy rage and the fiery gleam in Maignan's eye would 
 have reminded me, had I been in any danger of forgetting 
 the errand on which we were bound, and the need, exceed- 
 ing all other needs, which compelled us to lose no moment 
 that might be used. Those whom we followed had five 
 hours' start. The thought of what might happen in those 
 five hours to the two helpless women whom I had sworn to 
 protect burned itself into my mind; so that to refrain from 
 putting spurs to my horse and riding recklessly forward 
 taxed at times all my self-control. The horses seemed to 
 crawl. The men rising and falling listlessly in their sad- 
 dles maddened me. Though I could not hope to come upon 
 any trace of our quarry for many hours, perhaps for days, 
 I scanned the long, flat heaths unceasingly, searched eveiy 
 marshy bottom before we descended into it, and panted for 
 the moment when the next low ridge should expose to our 
 view a fresh track of wood and waste. The rosy visions of 
 the past night, and those fancies in particular which had 
 made the dawn memorable, recurred to me, as his deeds in 
 the body (so men say) to a hopeless drowning wretch. I 
 grew to think of nothing but Bruhl and revenge. Even 
 the absurd care with which Simon avoided the neighbour- 
 hood of Fanchette, riding anywhere so long as he might 
 ride at a distance from the angry woman's tongue and 
 hand which provoked many a laugh from the men, and 
 came to be the joke of the company failed to draw a smile 
 from me. 
 
 We passed through Centres, four leagues from Blois, an
 
 298 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE 
 
 hour after noon, and three hours later crossed the Cher at 
 Selles, where we stayed awhile to bait our horses. Here 
 we had news of the party before us, and henceforth had 
 little doubt that Bruhl was making for the Limousin; a 
 district in which he might rest secure under the protection 
 of Turenne, and safely defy alike the King of France and 
 the King of Navarre. The greater the necessity, it was 
 plain, for speed ; but the roads in that neighbourhood, and 
 forward as far as Valancy, proved heavy and foundrous, 
 and it was all we could do to reach Levroux with jaded 
 horses three hours after sunset. The probability that Bruhl 
 would lie at Chateauroux, five leagues farther on for I 
 could not conceive that under the circumstances he would 
 spare the women, would have led me to push forward had 
 it been possible; but the darkness and the difficulty of find- 
 ing a guide who would venture deterred me from the hope- 
 less attempt, and we stayed the night where we were. 
 
 Here we first heard of the plague; which was said to be 
 ravaging Chateauroux and all the country farther south. 
 The landlord of the inn would have regaled us with many 
 stories of it, and particularly of the swiftness with which 
 men and even cattle succumbed to its attacks. But we had 
 other things to think of, and between anxiety and weariness 
 had clean forgotten the matter when we rose next morning. 
 
 We started shortly after daybreak, and for three leagues 
 pressed on at tolerable speed. Then, for no reason stated, 
 our guide gave us the slip as we passed through a wood, 
 and was seen no more. We lost the road, and had to 
 retrace our steps. We strayed into a slough, and extracted 
 ourselves with difficulty. The man who was riding the bay 
 I had purchased forgot the secret which I had imparted to 
 him, and got an ugly fall. In fine, after all these mishaps 
 it wanted little of noon, and less to exhaust our patience, 
 when at length we came in sight of Chateauroux. 
 
 Before entering the town we had still an adventure ; for 
 we came at a turn in the road 011 a scene as surprising as 
 it was at first inexplicable. A little north of the town, in
 
 TO ME, M.Y FRIENDS! 
 
 a' coppice of box facing ; the south; and west, we happed 
 suddenly on; a rude encampment, consisting; of a dozen huts 
 and booths, set back from the :road and .'formed, some of 
 branches of evergreen trees laid clumsily together, and 
 some df sacking stretched aver poles. A number of men 
 and women of decent appearance ;lay on; the. short grass be- 
 fore the booths, idly .sunning themselves; .or moved about, 
 cooking and /tending rfires, .while a ; seore of children raced 
 to and fro with .noisy shouts and .laughter. The ; appear- 
 ance of our paity on .the scene caused : an instant panic. 
 The women and 'children fled screaming .into the wood, 
 spreading the sound of breaking 'branches farther. and far- 
 ther as they retreated; while the .men,. a miserable pale- 
 faced f set, ; drew i together, : and seeming half T inclined to fly 
 also, -regarded us with glances of :f ear. and suspicion. 
 
 Remarking that their appearance and dressiwere not those 
 of vagrants, while .'the booths -seemed to indicate little : skill 
 ior: experience in 'the .builders, I bade i my i companions halt, 
 and advanced alone. 
 
 'What;is the meaning of this, my men?' "I said, address- 
 ing 'the first <group I reached. ''You .seem to ha/ve come 
 a-Maying before' the time. Whenee are you? ' 
 
 '.I^rom Chateauroux, 1 ' - the iforemost answered sullerily. 
 His dress, now I: saw him nearer, seemed 'to ,be .that i of : a 
 :respectable rtownsman. 
 
 ' Why ? ' I replied. 'Have you .no rhomes ? ; ' 
 
 "'Ay^werhave homes, Mie answered with '.the: same brevity. 
 
 'Then why, 'in God's name, ; are you :here? ' I retorted, 
 /marking .the gloomy air and 'downcast faces of the .group. 
 'Have you ! been ;hairied? ' 
 
 'Ay/harried.byrthjeiPlague! ' he answered :bittefly. IDo 
 -.you :mean .to :say ".you have not heard? In c Ch,teauroux 
 ! there is 'one man dead in -three. Take my advice, ;sir 
 \you arera:brave eompany 4urn, 'and go home;again^' 
 
 ''Is .it as ;bad asrfchat? ' I exclaimed. :lJhad forgotten the 
 .landlord's gossip, :and;the ^explanation struck me'with.<;fche 
 ;foree of surprise.
 
 300 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE 
 
 'Ay, is it! Do you see the blue haze?' he continued, 
 pointing with a sudden gesture to the lower ground before 
 us, over which a light pall of summery vapour hung still 
 and motionless. 'Do you see it? Well, under that there 
 is death! You may find food in Chateauroux, and stalls 
 for your horses, and a man to take money; for there are 
 still men there. But cross the Indre, and you will see 
 sights worse than a battle-field a week old! You will find 
 no living soul in house or stable or church, but corpses 
 plenty. The land is cursed! cursed for heresy, some say! 
 Half are dead, and half are fled to the woods ! And if you 
 do not die of the plague, you Avill starve. ' 
 
 'God forbid!' I muttered, thinking with a shudder of 
 those before us. This led me to ask him if a party resem- 
 bling ours in number, and including two women, had passed 
 that way. He answered, Yes, after sunset the evening 
 before; that their horses were stumbling with fatigue and 
 the men swearing in pure weariness. He believed that 
 they had not entered the town, but had made a rude encamp- 
 ment half a mile beyond it; and had again broken this up, 
 and ridden southwards two or three hours before our arrival. 
 
 'Then we may overtake them to-day?' I said. 
 
 'By your leave, sir,' he answered, with grave meaning. 
 'I think you are more likely to meet them.' 
 
 Shrugging my shoulders, I thanked him shortly and left 
 him; the full importance of preventing my men hearing 
 what I had heard lest the panic which possessed these 
 townspeople should seize on them also being already in 
 my mind. Nevertheless the thought came too late, for on 
 turning my horse I found one of the foremost, a long, 
 solemn-faced man, had already found his way to Maignan's 
 stirrup; where he was dilating so eloquently upon the 
 enemy which awaited us southwards that the countenances 
 of half the troopers were as long as his own, and I saw 
 nothing for it but to interrupt his oration by a smart ap- 
 plication of my switch to his shoulders. Having thus 
 stopped him, and rated him back to his fellows, I gave the
 
 TO ME, MY FRIENDS 1 . 301 
 
 word to march. The men obeyed mechanically, we swung 
 into a canter, and for a moment the danger was over. 
 
 But I knew that it would recur again and again. Stealth- 
 ily marking the faces round me, and listening to the whis- 
 pered talk which went on, I saw the terror spread from one 
 to another. Voices which earlier in the day had been 
 raised in song and jest grew silent. Great reckless fellows 
 of Maiguan's following, who had an oath and a blow for all 
 coiners, and to whom the deepest ford seemed to be child's 
 play, rode with drooping heads and knitted brows; or 
 scanned with ill-concealed anxiety the strange haze before 
 us, through which the roofs of the town, and here and there 
 a low hill or line of poplars, rose to plainer view. Mai- 
 gnan himself, the stoutest of the stout, looked grave, and 
 had lost his swaggering air. Only three persons preserved 
 their sang-froid entire. Of these, M. d'Agen rode as if he 
 had heard nothing, and Simon Fleix as if he feared noth- 
 ing; while Fanchette, gazing eagerly forward, saw, it was 
 plain, only one object in the mist, and that was her mis- 
 tress's face. 
 
 We found the gates of the town open, and this, which 
 proved to be the herald of stranger sights, daunted the 
 hearts of my men more than the most hostile reception. 
 As we entered, our horses' hoofs, clattering loudly on the 
 pavement, awoke a hundred echoes in the empty houses 
 to right and left. The main street, flooded with sunshine, 
 which made its desolation seem a hundred times more formi- 
 dable, stretched away before us, bare and empty ; or haunted 
 only by a few slinking dogs, and prowling wretches, who 
 fled, affrighted at the unaccustomed sounds, or stood and 
 eyed us listlessly as we passed. A bell tolled ; in the dis- 
 tance we heard the wailing of women. The silent Avays, 
 the black cross which marked every second door, the fright- 
 ful faces which once or twice looked out from upper win- 
 dows and blasted our sight, infected my men with terror so 
 profound and so ungovernable that at last discipline was for- 
 gotten ; and one shoving his horse before another in narrow
 
 302. A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE 
 
 places, there was a scuffle to be first; One, and then a sec- 
 ond, began to trot. The trot grew into a shuffling canter;. 
 The gates of the inn lay open, nay seemed to invite us to 
 enter; but no one turned or halted. Moved by a single- 
 impulse we pushed breathlessly on and on^. until the open 
 country was reached, and we who had entered the streets 
 in silent awe, swept out and over the bridge as if the fiend 
 were at our heels. 
 
 That I shared in this flight causes me no shame even 
 now, for my men were at the time ungovernable, as the 
 best-trained troops are when seized by such panics ; and, 
 moreover, I could have done no good by remaining in the 
 town, where the strength of the contagion was probably 
 greater and the inn larder like to be as bare as the hillside. 
 Few towns -are without a hostelry outside the gates for: the: 
 convenience of knights of the road or those who would; 
 avoid: the dues, and Chateauroux proved no exception to 
 this rule. A- short half-mile from the walls we drew rein 
 befoxe a second encampment raised about a wayside house. 
 It scarcely needed the sound of music mingled with: brawl- 
 ing voices to inform us that: the wilder spirits of the town 
 had taken refuge here, and were seeking to drown in riot 
 and debauchery, as I have seen happen. in a besieged place, 
 the remembrance of the enemy which stalked; abroad in 
 the sunshine. Our sudden appearance, while it. put a stop 
 to 'the mimicry of mirth, brought, out a score of men and 
 women in 'every stage oi drunkenness and dishevelment r of 
 whom some, with hiccoughs and doose gestures, cried to us 
 to join them, while others ;s wore horridly, at being recalled 
 to the present, which, with the future, they were endeavour- 
 ing to forget; 
 
 I cursed^ them' in return for a pack of 'craven wretches, 
 and threatening to ride down those who obstructed; us, 
 ordered my men forward ; halting eventually a quarter of 
 a mile farther on, where a wood of groundling oaks which 
 still wore last year's leaves afforded . fair, shelter. Afraid 
 to leave my men! myself, lest some should stray to. the inn
 
 TO ME, .MY FRIEND SI 303 
 
 and others desert altogether, J requested M. rd'Agan. tto 
 return thither with Maignan and Simon, and bring us what 
 forage and food we required. This he did 'with perfect 
 success, though not until after a scuffle, in which Maignan 
 showed himself a match for a 'hundred. We watered -the 
 horses at a neighbouring brook, and assigning two hours :to 
 rest and : refreshment a great :part of -which 'M. d'Agen 
 and I spent walking up and down in moody silence, each 
 immersed in his own thoughts we presently took the road 
 again with renewed spirits. 
 
 But a panic is not easily shaken off, nor is any fear so 
 difficult to combat and defeat as the fear of the invisible. 
 The terrors which food and drink ; had for a time thrust out 
 presently returned with sevenfold force. Men looked un- 
 easily in one another's faces, and from them to the j haze 
 which veiled all distant objects. They miittered of the 
 heat, which was sudden, strange, and abnormal at that r time 
 of the year. And by-and-by they had other things to speak 
 of. We met a man, who ran beside its and begged of us, 
 crying out in a dreadful voice that his wife and four chil- 
 dren lay un buried in the house. A little farther on, beside 
 a well, the corpse of a woman with a child at her breast lay 
 -poisoning the water ; she had crawled 'to it to appease -her 
 thirst, and 'died of the draught. Last of all, in a beech- 
 'wood near Lotier we came upon, a lady I living in .her coach, 
 with one or two panic-stricken women for her only: attend- 
 ants. 'Her 'husbaad was in Paris, she told nte; half her 
 'servants were dead, the rest had'.fled. Still she rretained; in 
 a remarkable 'degree both courage and courtesy, and accept- 
 ing with fortitude my reasons and excuses' for perforce, leav- 
 ing her in such; a- plight, gave me a clear account of -Bruhl 
 and his party, who i had passed her some 'hours before. The 
 picture <df 'this lady -gazing after us 'with ; perfect good- 
 breeding, as we xode away at speed, followed by .the 
 (lamentations of her women, remains with me .to '.this day; 
 'filling-my mind. at once with admiration and melancholy. 
 ;For, as I learned later, : she fell ill of the plague where we
 
 304 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE 
 
 left her in the beech-wood, and died in a night with both 
 her servants. 
 
 The intelligence we had from her inspired us to push 
 forward, sparing neither spur nor horseflesh, in the hope 
 that we might overtake Bruhl before night should expose 
 his captives to fresh hardships and dangers. But the pitch 
 to which the dismal sights and sounds I have mentioned, 
 and a hundred like them, had raised the fears of my follow- 
 ing did much to balk my endeavours. For a while, indeed, 
 under the influence of momentary excitement, they spurred 
 their horses to the gallop, as if their minds were made up 
 to face the worst ; but presently they checked them despite 
 all my efforts, and, lagging slowly and more slowly, seemed 
 to lose all spirit and energy. The desolation which met 
 our eyes on every side, no less than the death-like stillness 
 which prevailed, even the birds, as it seemed to us, being 
 silent, chilled the most reckless to the heart. Maignan's 
 face lost its colour, his voice its ring. As for the rest, start- 
 ing at a sound and wincing if a leather galled them, they 
 glanced backwards twice for once they looked forwards, 
 and held themselves ready to take to their heels and be 
 gone at the least alarm. 
 
 Noting these signs, and doubting if I could trust even 
 Maignan, I thought it prudent to change my place, and fall- 
 ing to the rear, rode there with a grim face and a pistol 
 ready to my hand. It was not the least of my annoyances 
 that M. d'Agen appeared to be ignorant of any cause for 
 apprehension save such as lay before us, and riding on in 
 the same gloomy fit which had possessed him from the 
 moment of starting, neither sought my opinion nor gave 
 his own, but seemed to have undergone so complete and 
 mysterious a change that I could think of one thing only 
 that could have power to effect so marvellous a transforma- 
 tion. I felt his presence a trial rather than a help, and 
 reviewing the course of our short friendship, which a day 
 or two before had been so great a delight to me as the 
 friendship of a young man commonly is to one growing
 
 TO ME, MY FRIENDS! 305 
 
 old I puzzled myself with much wondering whether there 
 could be rivalry between us. 
 
 Sunset, which was welcome to my company, since it 
 removed the haze, which they regarded with superstitious 
 dread, found us still plodding through a country of low 
 ridges and shallow valleys, both clothed in oak-woods. Its 
 short brightness died away, and with it my last hope of 
 surprising Bruhl before I slept. Darkness fell upon us as 
 we wended our way slowly down a steep hillside where the 
 path was so narrow and difficult as to permit only one to 
 descend at a time. A stream of some size, if we might 
 judge from the noise it made, poured through the ravine 
 below us, and presently, at the point where we believed the 
 crossing to be, we espied a solitary light shining in the black- 
 ness. To proceed farther was impossible, for the ground 
 grew more and more precipitous ; and, seeing this, I bade 
 Maignan dismount, and leaving us where we were, go for a 
 guide to the house from which the light issued. 
 
 He obeyed, and plunging into the night, which in that 
 pit between the hills was of an inky darkness, presently 
 returned with a peasant and a lanthorn. I was about to 
 bid the man guide us to the ford, or to some level ground 
 where we could picket the horses, when Maignan gleefully 
 cried out that he had neAvs. I asked what news. 
 
 'Speak up, manant !' he said, holding up his lanthorn so 
 that the light fell on the man's haggard face and unkempt 
 hair. ' Tell his Excellency what you have told me, or I will 
 skin you alive, little man ! ' 
 
 ' Your other party came to the ford an hour before sun- 
 set,' the peasant answered, staring dully at us. 'I saw 
 them coming, and hid myself. They quarrelled by the ford. 
 Some were for crossing, and some not.' 
 
 'They had ladies with them?' M. d'Agen said sudden^. 
 
 'Ay, two, your Excellency,' the clown answered, 'riding 
 like men. In the end they did not cross for fear of the 
 plague, but turned up the river, and rode westwards towards 
 St. Gaultier.' n
 
 306 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE 
 
 'St. Gaultierl'I said. 'Where is that? Where does' 
 the road to it go to besides ? ' 
 
 But the peasant's knowledge was confined to his own 
 neighbourhood. He knew no world beyond St; G-aultier, 
 and could not answer ray question. I was about to bid 
 him show us the way down, when Maignan cried out that 
 he knew more. 
 
 'What?' I asked. 
 
 ' Arnidieu ! he heard them say where they were going to 
 spend the night !'' 
 
 'Ha! 'I cried: ''Where?' 
 
 ' In an old ruined castle two leagues from this-, and be- 
 tween here and St. Gaultier,' the equerry answered, for-' 
 getting in his triumph both plague and panic. ' What' do 
 you 1 say to that, your Excellency ?' It is so, sirrah, is it 
 not ? ' he continued; turning to the peasant. ' Speak, 
 Master Jacques, or I will roast : you before a slow fire !' 
 
 But I did not wait to hear the answer. Leaping to the 
 ground^ I took the Cid's rein on my arm, and cried impa 
 tiently to the man to lead us down. 
 
 CHAPTER XXVIII. 
 
 THE certainty that Bruhl and his captives were not fav 
 off, and the likelihood that we might be engaged within th? 
 hour, expelled from the minds of even the most, timorous 
 among us the vapourish fears- which had before haunted 7 
 them. In the hurried scramble which presently landed us 
 on the bank of the stream, men who had ridden-for hours 
 in sulky silence found their voices, and from cursing'their 
 horses- blunders soon advanced to swearing 'and singing 
 after the -fashion of their kineL This change^ by relieving 
 me of a great fear, left me at leisure to consider our posi-
 
 THE CASTLE <ON THE HILL 307 
 
 tion, and estimate more -clearly than I 'might have done 'the 
 advantages of hastening, or postponing, ;an attack. We 
 numbered eleven; the enemy, to the best of my belief, 
 twelve. Of this slight superiority I should have recked 
 little in the daytime; nor, perhaps, counting Maignan as 
 two, have allowed that it existed. -But the result of a 
 night attack is more difficult to 'forecast; and I had'also to 
 take into account 'the perils : to which the two ladies would 
 be exposed, between the darkness and tumult, in the event 
 of the issue remaining for a time in doubt. 
 
 These considerations, and particularly the last, weighed 
 so power fully 'with me, that before : I 'reached the'bottom of 
 the gorge 'I had decided to : postpone 1 the attack iintil mom- 
 ing. The answers to -some questions 'whicli I put to 'the 
 inhabitant of the house by the ford as soon as I reached 
 Jevel ground only confirmed : me in this resolution. The 
 Toad Bruhl had 'taken ran for -a distance by the river- 
 side,-' and along the 'bottom of the gorge; and, difficult >by 
 day, -was repotted 'to be impracticable 'for horses by night. 
 The castle he had mentioned lay full two leagues away, 
 and on the farther edge of a tract of rough rsvoodland. 
 iFinally, I doubted .whether, .in the .absence of any other 
 reason "for delay, II ( could have marched my men, , weary . as 
 they .were, .to~ the plaice ' before > day break. 
 
 When I came 'to announce this decision, rhowever, and to 
 inquire what. accommodation the peasant rcould afford us, I 
 found myselfiin trouble. .'Fauchette, mademoiselle's woman, 
 suddenly confronted me r her face scarlet with rage. Thrust- 
 ing ;herself forward into the circle of 'light cast by : the Ian- 
 thorn/ she 'assailed rme> with; a virulence and -fierceness. which 
 said; more /for 'her devotion rto -her imistress 'thanlher respect 
 for : me. Her - wild gesticulation s, hex ihreats, rand the ap- 
 peals which yshe ;made now^.toianejcand now to" the men who 
 stood in a circle round us, their faces in shadow, discomfited 
 as much as they : surprised;nve. 
 
 f What f ' : she ciied .violently, ^you -call .yourself a gentle- 
 man, and lie .here :uad Jlet jny imistress be murdered, of 
 
 u2
 
 308 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE 
 
 worse, within a league of you ! Two leagues ? A groat 
 for your two leagues ! I would walk them barefoot if that 
 would shame you. And you, you call yourselves men, and 
 suffer it ! It is God's truth you are a set of cravens and 
 sluggards. Give me as many women, and I would ' 
 
 ' Peace, woman ! ' Maignan said in his deep voice. ' You 
 had your way and came with us, and you will obey orders 
 as well as another ! Be off, and see to the victuals before 
 worse happen to you ! ' 
 
 ' Ay, see to the victuals ! ' she retorted. ( See to the 
 victuals, forsooth ! That is all you think of to lie warm 
 and eat your fill ! A set of dastardly, drinking, droning 
 guzzlers you are ! You are ! ' she retorted, her voice rising 
 to a shriek. ' May the plague take you ! ' 
 
 ' Silence ! ' Maignan growled fiercely, ' or have a care to 
 yourself ! For a copper-piece I would send you to cool your 
 heels in the water below for that last word ! Begone, do 
 you hear,' he continued, seizing her by the shoulder and 
 thrusting her towards the house, ' or worse may happen to 
 you. We are rough customers, as you will find if you do 
 not lock up your tongue ! ' 
 
 I heard her go wailing into the darkness ; and Heaven 
 knows it was not without compunction I forced myself to 
 remain inactive in the face of a devotion which seemed so 
 much greater than mine. The men fell away one by one to 
 look to their horses and choose sleeping-quarters for the 
 night; and presently M. d'Agen and I were left alone 
 standing beside the lanthorn, which the man had hung on 
 a bush before his door. The brawling of the water as it 
 poured between the banks, a score of paces from us, and 
 the black darkness which hid everything beyond the little 
 ring of light in which we stood so that for all we could 
 see we were in a pit had the air of isolating us from all 
 the world. 
 
 I looked at the young man, who had not once lisped that 
 day ; and I plainly read in his attitude his disapproval of 
 my caution. Though he declined to meet my eye, he stood
 
 THE CASTLE ON THE HILL 309 
 
 with his arms folded and his head thrown back, making no 
 attempt to disguise the scorn and ill-temper which his face 
 expressed. Hurt by the woman's taunts, and ^ssibly 
 shaken in my opinion, I grew restive under his silence, and 
 unwisely gave way to my feelings. 
 
 ' You do not appear to approve of my decision, M. 
 d'Agen ? ' I said. 
 
 ' It is yours to command, sir,' he answered proudly. 
 
 There are truisms which have more power to annoy than 
 the veriest reproaches. I should have borne in mind the 
 suspense and anxiety he was suffering, and which had so 
 changed him that I scarcely knew him for the gay young 
 spark on whose toe I had trodden. I should have remem- 
 bered that he was young arid I old, and that it behoved me 
 to be patient. But on my side also there was anxiety, and 
 responsibility as well ; and, above all, a rankling soreness, 
 to which I refrain from giving the name of jealousy, though 
 it came as near to that feeling as the difference in our ages 
 and personal advantages (whereof the balance was all on 
 his side) would permit. This, no doubt, it was which im- 
 pelled me to continue the argument. 
 
 'You would go on?' I said persistently. 
 
 1 It is idle to say what I would do/ he answered with a 
 flash of anger. 
 
 <I asked for your opinion, sir,' I rejoined stiffly. 
 
 ' To what purpose ? ' he retorted, stroking his small mous- 
 tache haughtily. ' We look at the thing from opposite 
 points. You are going about your business, which appears 
 to be the rescuing of ladies who are may I venture to say 
 it ? so unfortunate as to entrust themselves to your charge. 
 I, M. de Marsac, am more deeply interested. More deeply 
 interested,' he repeated lamely. ' I in a word, I am pre- 
 pared, sir, to do what others only talk of and if I cannot/ 
 follow otherwise, would follow on my feet ! ' 
 
 ' Whom ? ' I asked curtly, stung by this repetition of my 
 own words. 
 
 He laughed harshly and bitterly. ' Why explain ? or
 
 ;jnr A, GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE 
 
 why quarrel?.' he replied cynically. ' God knows, if I could 
 afford to quarrel with you, I should ; have done so fifty hours 
 ago. 3"Ut I need your help ; and, needing iti, I am prepared 1 
 to do tM>t which must seem to a person of your calm pas- 
 nions and perfect judgment alike futile and incredible pay 
 <,he full price for it.' 
 
 ' The full price for it ! ' I muttered, understanding noth- 
 ing, except that I did 'not understand. 
 
 ' A;y , tlie full price for it ! ' he repeated. And as- he spoke 
 he looked at me with an expression of rage so fierce -that I' 
 recoiled a step.. That seemed to restore him in' some de-> 
 gree to himself, for without giving me 'an opportunity of' 
 answering he turned hastily from me, and, striding away, 
 was in a moment lost in the darkness; 
 
 He left. me amazed ; beyond measure: I 1 stood repeating 
 his phrase about .-' the full price ' a* hundred times over, but' 
 &till found, it and his passion inexplicable. To cut the mat- 
 ter short, L could come to no other conclusion than that he 
 desired to insult me, and aware of my poverty and the 
 equivocal position in which I stood towards mademoiselle, 
 chose his words accordingly. This seemed a-thing unworthy 
 of one of whom I' had before thought highly ; but calmer 
 reflection enabling me to see 'something of youthful bombast 
 in the tirade he had delivered, I smiled a little sadly, and 1 
 determined to think no more -of the matter for the present, 
 but to persist firmly- in that which seemed tb me to be 'the 
 right' course. 
 
 Having settled this^ I ; was about to enter the house, wheni 
 Maignan stopped me, telling me that' the plague had 'killed 
 five people in it, leaving only the man we' had seen; 
 who had, indeed, been seized, but recovered. This ghastly 
 news had 1 scared my company to such a degree that they 
 had gone as far from the house as the level ground per-- 
 mitted, and there lighted a fire, round' which they were 
 going 'to pass the night: Eanchette had taken up her quar- 
 ters in the stable, and the equerry announced that ; he had 
 kept 1 , a shed full of sweet hay for M". d'Agen and myself.
 
 THE CASTLE ON THE HILL %n 
 
 1 assented to this arrangement, and after supping off soup 
 and black bread, which was all we could procure, bade the 
 peasant rouse us two hours before sunrise; and. so, being 
 too weary and old in service to remain awake -'thinking, I 
 fell asleep, and slept soundly till a little after four. 
 
 My first business on'rising was to see that the men before 
 mounting made a meal, for it is ill work fighting empty. I 
 went 'round also and saw that all had their arms, and that 
 such as carried pistols had them loaded and primed. M. 
 "Francois did not put in an appearance until this wor-k was 
 done, and then showed a very pale and gloomy countenance. 
 I took no heed of him, however, and with the first -streak 
 .of daylight we started in single file and at. a snail's pace up 
 the valley, the peasant, whom I placed in MaignanV charge, 
 going before to guide' us, and M. d'Agen.'and I ridingln the 
 rear. By the time the sun rose and warmed our chilled;and 
 shivering frames we'were over the ; worst of the; ground, and 
 were able to advance at some speed along, a track cut; through 
 a dense forest of oak-trees. 
 
 Though we had now risen out of the valley, the close-set 
 trunks and the undergrowth 'round 'them prevented our see- 
 ing in any direction. 'For a mile- ormore we rode: on blindly, 
 and presently started on 'finding 'ourselves on the brow of; a 
 hill, looking down into a valley, the nearer ' end of which 
 was clothed in woods, while the farther 'widened into green 
 ; sloping pastures. From the midst, of "these a hill or: mount 
 rose sharply up, until it ended in walls of grey stone scarce 
 'to be distinguished. at that distance 'from the native rock 
 on which they stood. 
 
 ' See ! ' cried- our guide. '/There is the^castle ! ' 
 
 Bidding the men dismount in haste, that the chance of 
 our being seen by the enemy which was not great might 
 ! be farther lessened, I 'began 'to inspect the position at leis- 
 ure.; my first feeling while doing -so .be ing one of thankful- 
 ness that I had not attempted a night attack, which must 
 inevitably hare 'miscarried, possibly with iloss . to: ourselves, 
 and certainly twith the 'result of informing the enemy- of tour
 
 312 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE 
 
 presence. The castle, of which we had a tolerable view, was 
 long and narrow in shape, consisting of two towers connected 
 by walls. The nearer tower, through which lay the en- 
 trance, was roofless, and in every way seemed to be more 
 ruinous than the inner one, which appeared to be perfect in 
 both its stories. This defect notwithstanding, the place was 
 so strong that my heart sank lower the longer I looked ; and 
 a glance at Maignan's face assured me that his experience 
 was also at fault. For M. d'Agen, I clearly saw, when I 
 turned to him, that he had never until this moment realised 
 what we had to expect, but, regarding our pursuit in the 
 light of a hunting-party, had looked to see it end in like 
 easy fashion. His blank, surprised face, as he stood eyeing 
 the stout grey walls, said as much as this. 
 
 * Arnidieu ! ' Maignan muttered, ' give me ten men, and I 
 would hold it against a hundred ! ' 
 
 * Tut, man, there is more than one way to Borne ! ' I an- 
 swered oracularly, though I was far from feeling as confident 
 as I seemed. ' Come, let us descend and view this nut a little 
 nearer.' 
 
 We began to trail downwards in silence, ana as tne path 
 led us for a while out of sight of the castle, we were able 
 to proceed with less caution. We had nearly reached with- 
 out adventure the farther skirts of the wood, between which 
 and the ruin lay an interval of open ground, when we came 
 suddenly, at the edge of a little clearing, on an old hag ; 
 who was so intent upon tying up faggots that she did not 
 see us until Maignan's hand was on her shoulder. When 
 she did, she screamed out, and escaping from him with an 
 activity wonderful in a woman of her age, ran with great 
 swiftness to the side of an old man who lay at the foot of a 
 tree half a bowshot off; and whom we had not before seen. 
 Snatching up an axe, she put herself in a posture of defence 
 before him with gestures and in a manner as touching in 
 the eyes of some among us as they were ludicrous in those 
 of others ; who cried to Maignan that he had met his match at 
 last, with other gibes of the kind that pass current in camps.
 
 THE CASTLE ON THE HILL 313 
 
 I called to him to let her be, and went forward myself to 
 the old man, who lay on a rude bed of leaves, and seemed 
 unable to rise. Appealing to me with a face of agony not 
 to hurt his wife, he bade her again and again lay down her 
 axe ; but she would not do this until I had assured her that 
 we meant him no harm, and that my men should molest 
 neither the one nor the other. 
 
 * We only want to know this,' I said, speaking slowly, in 
 fear lest my language should be little more intelligible to 
 them than their patois to me. ' There are a dozen horsemen 
 in the old castle there, are there not ? ' 
 
 The man stilled his wife, who continued to chatter and 
 mow at us, and answered eagerly that there were ; adding, 
 with a trembling oath, that the robbers had beaten him, 
 robbed him of his small store of meal, and when he would 
 have protested, thrown him out, breaking his leg. 
 
 'Then how came you here ? ' I said. 
 
 'She brought me on her back,' he answered feebly. 
 
 Doubtless there were men in my train who would have 
 done all that these others had done ; but hearing the simple 
 story told, they stamped and swore great oaths of indigna- 
 nation ; and one, the roughest of the party, took out some 
 black bread and gave it to the woman, whom under other 
 circumstances he would not have hesitated to rob. Mai- 
 gnan, who knew all arts appertaining to war, examined the 
 man's leg and made a kind of cradle for it, while I ques- 
 tioned the woman. 
 
 ' They are there still ? ' I said. ' I saw their horses 
 tethered under the walls.' 
 
 ' Yes, God requite them ! ' she answered, trembling 
 violently. 
 
 ' Tell me about the castle, my good woman,' I said. 'How 
 many roads into it are there ? ' 
 
 ' Only one.' 
 
 ' Through the nearer tower ? ' 
 
 She said yes, and finding that she understood me, and 
 was less dull of intellect than her wretched appearance led
 
 314 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE 
 
 me to expect,. ! put a series, of questions to her which it 
 wo.uld. be tedious to detail. Suffice it-, that L learned that it 
 was impossible to enter or leave the ruin except through 
 the nearer tower; that a rickety temporary, gate barred the 
 entrance, and that from this tower^, which was a mere shell 
 of four walls, a; narrow square-headed doorway without a 
 door led into the court, beyond, which rose the habitable 
 tower of two stories.. 
 
 'Do. you know if they intend to stay there? ' I asked. 
 
 'Oh, ay, they bade me bring them faggots for their fire 
 this morning, and I should have a handful of my own: meal 
 back/, she answered bitterly;; and. fell thereon into a ,passion 
 of impotent rage, shaking both her 'clenched; hands in, the 
 direction of the. castle,. and; screaming frenzied: maledictions 
 in. her cracked- and: quavering voice.. 
 
 I pondered: awhile over' what, she had said; liking very 
 little the thought of that: narrow squareJieaded doorway 
 through which we must, pass- before: we could; effect any- 
 thing. And the gate, tooy troubled me. It might not be ? 
 strong, one, .but. we had: neither powder, nor; guns, nor any. 
 siege implements, and, could not pull down stone walls with 
 our naked; hands.. By. seizing the horses we could: indeed 
 cut off. B mill's retreat.; but. he might still escape in the 
 night; and in any case our pains would only increase the 
 women's hardships while, adding fuel to his rage. We must 
 have some. other plan; 
 
 The sun was high by this time; the edge of the wood 
 scarcely a hundred paces from us. By advancing a . few 
 yards through the trees I could see the horses feeding 
 peacefully at the foot of the: sunny slope, and even follow 
 with my eyes the faint track which zigzagged up the hill to 
 the. closed gate. No one appeared- doubtless they were 
 sleeping off the fatigue of the journey and I drew no in* 
 spiration thence ; but as I turned to consult Maignan my 
 eye lit on the faggots, and I saw in a flash that here: was a 
 chance: of putting: into practice a stratagem as old; as : the 
 hills, yet ever fresh, and not seldom successful!.
 
 THE. CASTLE QN THE HILL 315 
 
 It: was: no time for. over-refinenxent. My knaves were 
 beginning to stray forward out of curiosity, and: at any 
 moment one of our horses, scenting those of the enemy, 
 might neigh and give the alarm.. Hastily calling ML d'Agen 
 and Maignan to me, I laid my plan before them, and satis- 
 fied myself that it had their approval ; the fact that I had 
 reserved a special part for the former serving to thaw the 
 reserve which had succeeded to his outbreak, of the night 
 before. After some debate Maignan. persuaded me that the 
 old woman had not sufficient nerve to play the part L pro- 
 posed for her,, and named Fanchette ; who being called into 
 council, did' not belie the opinion we had formed of her 
 courage. In a few moments our preparations were com- 
 plete: I had donned the old charcoal-burner's outer rags> 
 Eanchette had assumed those of the woman, while M. 
 d'Agen, who was for a time' at. a lossy and betrayed less 
 taste for this part of- the plan than for any other, ended by 
 putting on the jerkin and hose of the man who had served 
 us as guide;. 
 
 When all was- ready I commended the troop to Maignan?s 
 discretion, charging him in the event of anything happening 
 to us to continue the most persistent efforts for mademoi-- 
 selle's release, and on.no account to abandon her. Having 
 received his promise' to.' this effect, and being satisfied; that 
 lie would, keep it,, we took up each of us a great faggot, 
 which being borne on the head and: shoulders served to hide 
 the features very, effectually -, and thus disguised we boldly 
 left the shelter of the trees. Eanchette and I went first, 
 tottering in a most natural fashion under the weight of our 
 burdens, while M. d' Agen followed 1 a hundred yards behind 
 Lhad.given Maignan orders to make a dash for the gate the 
 moment he saw the last named start to run. 
 
 The perfect stillness of the valley, the clearness of the 
 air, and the absence of any sign of life in the castle before 
 us which might have been that? of the 1 Sleeping Princess, 
 so fairy-like: it :laokedi against: the; sky. with, the suspense 
 and excitement in our own breasts, which these peculiarities
 
 316 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE 
 
 seemed to increase a hundred-fold, made the tnne that i'ol- 
 lowed one of the strangest in my experience. It was nearly 
 ten o'clock, and the warm sunshine flooding everything 
 about us rendered the ascent, laden as we were, laborious 
 in the extreme. The crisp, short turf, which had scarcely 
 got its spring growth, was slippery and treacherous. We 
 dared not hasten, for we knew not what eyes Avere upon us, 
 and we dared as little after we had gone half-way lay 
 our faggots down, lest the action should disclose too much 
 of our features. 
 
 When we had reached a point within a hundred paces of 
 the gate, which still remained obstinately closed, we stood 
 to breathe ourselves, and balancing my bundle on my head, 
 I turned to make sure that all was right behind us. I found 
 that M. d'Agen, intent on keeping his distance, had chosen 
 the same moment for rest, and was sitting in a very natural 
 manner on his faggot, mopping his face with the sleeve of 
 his jerkin. I scanned the brown leafless wood, in which we 
 had left Maignan and our men ; but I could detect no glitter 
 among the trees nor any appearance likely to betray us. 
 Satisfied on these points, I muttered a few words of encour- 
 agement to Fanchette, whose face was sti-eaining with per- 
 spiration ; and together we turned and addressed ourselves 
 to our task, fatigue for we had had no practice in carrying 
 burdens on the head enabling us to counterfeit the decrepi- 
 tude of age almost to the life. 
 
 The same silence prevailing as we drew nearer inspired 
 me with not a few doubts and misgivings. Even the bleat 
 of a sheep would have been welcome in the midst of a still- 
 ness which seemed ominous. But no sheep bleated, no voice 
 hailed us. The gate, ill-hung and full of fissures, remained 
 closed. Step by step we staggered up to it, and at length 
 reached it. Afraid to speak lest my accent should betray 
 me, I struck the forepart of my faggot against it and waited : 
 doubting whether our whole stratagem had not been per- 
 ceived from the beginning, and a pistol-shot might not be 
 the retort.
 
 THE CASTLE ON THE HILL 317 
 
 Nothing of the kind happened, however. The sound of 
 the blow, which echoed dully through the building, died 
 away, and the old silence resumed its sway. We knocked 
 again, but fully two minutes elapsed before a grumbling 
 voice, as of a man aroused from sleep, was heard drawing 
 near, and footsteps came slowly and heavily to the gate. 
 Probably the fellow inspected us through a loophole, for he 
 paused a moment, and my heart sank ; but the next, seeing 
 nothing suspicious, he unbarred the gate with a querulous 
 oath, and, pushing it open, bade vis enter and be quick 
 about it. 
 
 I stumbled forward into the cool, dark shadow, and the 
 woman followed me, while the man, stepping out with a 
 yawn, stood in the entrance, stretching himself in the sun- 
 shine. The roofless tower, which smelled dank and un- 
 wholesome, was empty, or cumbered only with rubbish and 
 heaps of stones ; but looking through the inner door I saw 
 in the courtyard a smouldering fire and half a dozen men in 
 the act of rousing themselves from sleep. I stood a second 
 balancing my faggot, as if in doubt where to lay it down ; 
 and then assuring myself by a swift glance that the man 
 who had let us in still had his back towards us, I dropped 
 it across the inner doorway. Fanchette, as she had been 
 instructed, plumped hers upon it, and at the same moment 
 I sprang to the door, and taking the man there by surprise, 
 dealt him a violent blow between the shoulders, which sent 
 him headlong down the slope. 
 
 A cry behind me, followed by an oath of alarm, told me 
 that the action was observed and that now was the pinch. 
 In a second I was back at the faggots, and drawing a pistol 
 from under my blouse was in time to meet the rush of the 
 nearest man, who, comprehending all, sprang up, and made 
 for me, with his sheathed sword. I shot him in the chest 
 as he cleared the faggots which, standing nearly as high 
 as a man's waist, formed a tolerable obstacle and he pitched 
 forward at my feet. 
 
 This balked his companions, who drew back ; but unfor-
 
 3i8 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE 
 
 tunately it was necessary for me to stoop to get my sword, 
 which was hidden in the faggot I had carried. The: fore- 
 most of the rascals took advantage of this. Rushing at me 
 with a long knife, he failed to stab me for I caught his 
 wrist but he succeeded in bringing me to the ground. J 
 thought /I was undone. I looked to have the others swarm 
 over upon us : and so it would doubtless. 'have happened had 
 not Fanchette, with rare courage, dealt the first who 'followed 
 alusty blow on the body with a great stick she snatched up. 
 The 'man collapsed on the faggots, and this 'hampered the 
 rest. The check was enough. It enabled M. d'Agen to 
 eome up, who, dashing in through the gate, shot 'down the 
 first he saw before him,; and running at the doorway with 
 his sword with incredible fury and the courage which I had 
 always known him to possess, cleared it in a twinkling. The 
 man with whom I was engaged on the ground, seeing what 
 had happened, wrested himself free with : the strength' of 
 despair, and dashing through the outer door, > narrowly es- 
 caped being ridden down by my followers as they swept up 
 to the gate at a gallop, and dismounted amid a whirlwind 
 of cries. 
 
 In a moment they ihronged in on us pell-mell, and. as 
 soon as I could 'lay ;my hand on imy -sword I led them 
 through the doorway -with a cheer, hoping to be;able to 
 .enter the farther tower with the enemy. <Butfthe latter had 
 taken the alarm .too early and too thoroughly. The court 
 was empty. We were barely/' in time to see the last man 
 dart up a flight of outside stairs, which led ;to the first 
 story, and disappear, closing a heavy door behind him. I 
 Crushed to the 'foot ; of 'the steps and would have ascended 
 also, hoping against hope :to find the door unsecured; but 
 a shot which .was fired through a loop hole and (narrowly 
 missed my head, and another which :brought down one idf 
 my men, made;me pause. Discerning all rfche advantage to 
 be on B ruhl's -side, since he could shoot us down '.from. his 
 cover, I cried a retreat; the issue of the matter leaving'. us 
 masters of 'the entrance-tower, -while :fchey retained the dnner
 
 PESTILENCE AND FAMINE 319. 
 
 and stronger tower, the narrow court between the two being 
 neutral ground unsafe for 'either party: 
 
 Two of their men had : fled outwards and were gone, and 
 two lay dead; while, the loss on our side was- confined to 
 the man who was shot, and Fanohette, who had received a 
 blow on the head in the m&lee, and was found, when we 
 retreated, lying sick and dazed against the wall. 
 
 It surprised me much, when I came to 'think upon it, that 
 I had seen nothing of Brulil, though the skirmish had : 
 lasted two or three minutes from the first outcry, and been' 
 attended by an abundance of noise; Of Fresnoy, too, I 
 now remembered that I had caught a glimpse only. These 
 two facts seemed so strange that I 1 was beginning- to 'augur 
 the worst, though I scarcely know why, when my spirits 
 were marvellously raised and my fears relieved by a thing 
 which Maignan; who was the first to notice it, pointed' out 
 to me. This was the appearance at an upper window of a 1 
 white 'kerchief, which was waved several times towards us. 
 The window was little more than an arrow-slit, and so nar- 
 row and high besides that it was impossible to see who gave 
 the signal ; but my experience of mademoiselle's coolness 
 and resource left me in no doubt on the point. With high 
 hopes and a lighter heart than I had worn for some time I 
 bestirred myself to take every precaution, and began by 
 bidding Maignan select two men and ride round the hill, 
 to make sure that the enemy had no way of retreat open to 
 him. 
 
 CHAPTER XXIX. 
 
 PESTIEENCE AND FAMINE. 
 
 WHILE Maignan was : away about' this business I- de- 
 spatched two men to catoh our horses, which were 'running: 
 loose in the valley, and to remove those of Bruhl's party ' 
 kr a safe distance from the castle. I also blocked up the-
 
 320 A GENTLEMAN Of FRANCE 
 
 lower part of the door leading into the courtyard, and 
 named four men to remain under arms beside it, that we 
 might not be taken by surprise ; an event of which I had 
 the less fear, however, since the enemy were now reduced 
 to eight swords, and could only escape, as we could only 
 enter, through this doorway. I was still busied with these 
 arrangements when M. d ; Agen joined me, and I broke off 
 to compliment him oil his courage, acknowledging in par- 
 ticular the service he had done me personally. The heat 
 of the conflict had melted the young man's reserve, and 
 flushed his face with pride ; but as he listened to me he 
 gradually froze again, and when I ended he regarded me 
 with the same cold hostility. 
 
 ' I am obliged to you/ he said, bowing. ' But may I ask 
 what next, M. de Marsac?' 
 
 ' We have no choice,' I answered. ( We can dnly starve 
 them out.' 
 
 'But the ladies?' he said, starting slightly. 'What of 
 them?' 
 
 ' They Avill suffer less than the men,' I replied. ' Trust 
 me, the latter will not bear starving long.' 
 
 He seemed surprised, but I explained that with our small 
 numbers we could not hope to storm the tower, and might 
 think ourselves fortunate that we now had the enemy 
 cooped up where he could not escape, and must eventually 
 surrender. 
 
 'Ay, but in the meantime how will you ensure the women 
 against violence?' he asked, with an air which showed he 
 was far from satisfied. 
 
 1 I will see to that when Maignan comes back,' I answered 
 pretty confidently. 
 
 The equerry appeared in a moment with the assurance 
 that egress from the farther side of the tower was impos- 
 sible. I bade him nevertheless keep a horseman moving 
 round the hill, that we might have intelligence of any 
 attempt. The order was scarcely given when a man one 
 of those I had left on guard at the door of the courtyard
 
 PESTILENCE AND FAMINE 321 
 
 came to tell me that Fresnoy desired to speak with me on 
 behalf of M. de Bruhl. 
 
 ' Where is he ? ' I asked. 
 
 ' At the inner door with a flag of truce/ was the answer. 
 
 ' Tell him, then,' I said, without ottering to move, ' that 
 I will communicate with no one except his leader, M. de 
 Bruhl. And add this, my friend,' I continued. ' Say it 
 aloud : that if the ladies whom he has in charge are injured 
 by so much as a hair, I will hang every man within these 
 walls, from M. de Bruhl to the youngest lackey.' And I 
 added a solemn oath to that effect. 
 
 The man nodded, and went on his errand, while I and M. 
 d'Agen, with Maignan, remained standing outside the gate, 
 looking idly over the valley and the brown woods through 
 which we had ridden in the early morning. My eyes rested 
 chiefly on the latter, Maignan's as it proved on the former. 
 Doubtless we all had our own thoughts. Certainly I had, 
 and for a while, in my satisfaction at the result of the 
 attack and the manner in which we had Bruhl confined, I 
 did not remark the gravity which was gradually overspread- 
 ing the equerry's countenance. When I did I took the 
 alarm, and asked him sharply what was the matter. 
 
 1 1 don't like that, your Excellency,' he answered, point- 
 Ing into the valley. 
 
 I looked anxiously, and looked, and saw nothing. 
 
 'What ? ' I said in astonishment. 
 
 'The blue mist,' he muttered, with a shiver. 'I have 
 been watching it this half-hour, your Excellency. It is 
 rising fast.' 
 
 I cried out on him for a maudlin fool, and M. d'Agen 
 swore impatiently; but for all that, and despite the con- 
 tempt I strove to exhibit, I felt a sudden chill at my heart 
 as I recognised in the valley below the same blue haze 
 which had attended us through yesterday's ride, and left us 
 only at nightfall. Involuntarily we both fell to watching 
 it as it rose slowly and more slowly, first enveloping the 
 lower woods, and then spreading itself abroad in the sun-
 
 322 A GENTLEMAN - OF FRANCE 
 
 dhine. It is hard to witness -a bold 'man's terror and 
 remain unaff ected by it ; and I confess 'I 'trembled. Here, 
 in the moment of our seeming 'success, 'was something 
 which 'I 'had -not taken into account, something against 
 which T could not' guard either 'myself or others' ! 
 
 'See!' Maignan whispered hoarsely, pointing: again with 
 his finger. 'It is the Angel of Death, your 'Excellency : ! 
 Where he kills by ones and twos,' he is invisible. But when 
 he slays by-hundreds and 'by 'thousands, men see the shadow 
 of his wings ! ' 
 
 'Chut, fool!' I retorte'd with anger, 1 which was secretlv 
 proportioned to the impression his weird saying made or 
 me. 'You "have -been in battles ! Did you ever see him 
 there ? or at a -sack'? A truce to this folly,' I continued. 
 1 And do you go and : inquire what food we have with us. It 
 may be necessary to send : for some.' 
 
 I watched him go doggedly' off, and 'knowing the stout 
 nature of the man and 'his devotion 'to his master, I had iu> 
 fear that he would fail us ; but there were others, almost as 
 necessary to us, in whom I could . not -place the same confi- 
 dence. And these had also taken the alarm. When I 
 turned I found groups 'ofpalerfaeed' men, standingly twos 
 and ; threes at 'my 'back j who, 'pointing anff muttering and 
 telling one another what Maignan had told us,'looked where 
 we had looked. As one spoke and another listened, I saw 
 the old panic revive in their eyes. Men who an hour or 
 two 'before had crossed 'the court under fire with 1 the utmost 
 resolution, and dared 'instant death without a thought, grew 
 pale, and looking from this side of the valley to that with 
 faltering eyes, seemed to be seeking, like hunted animals, a 
 place of refuge. Fear, once aroused, hung in the air. Men 
 talked 'in whispers of the 'abnormal heat, and, gazing at the 
 cloudless sky, fled from the sunshine to the shadow ; or, 
 looking over the expanse of woods, longed 'to be undercover 
 and away from 'this lofty eyrie, which to their morbid eyes 
 seemed a 'target 'for 'air the shafts of death. 
 
 I was not slow to perceive the peril with which these
 
 PESTILENCE AND FAMINE 333 
 
 fears and. apprehensions, which rapidly became general^ 
 threatened my plans. I strove to keep the mem employed, 
 and to occupy their thoughts as far as possible with: the 
 enemy and his proceedings; but I soon found that even 
 here a danger lurked ; : for Maignan, coining to me by-and-by 
 with a^ grave face, told me that, one of Bruhl's men had 
 ventured out, and was parleying with the guard on our side 
 of the court. I went, at once and broke the matter off, 
 threatening to shoot. the fellow if he was not under cover 
 before I counted ten.. But the scared, sulky faces he left 
 'behind- him told me that the. mischief was 'done, and I could 
 think of no better remedy for it than, to give M. d'Agen a 
 hint, and station- him at the outer gate 1 with; his pistols 
 ready. 
 
 The question o provisions, too, .threatened to become a 
 serious 7 one; I ; dared not leave to procure- them myself, nor 
 could;! trust any of' my men, with the mission; In fact, the 
 besiegers were rapidly becoming the besieged. Intent .on 
 the rising haze and their own terrors, they forgot all else. 
 Vigilance and caution were thrown to the winds. The still- 
 ness of the valley,, its- isolation; , the: distant, woods that 
 encircled us and hung quivering in the heated air, .all 'added 
 to the panic. Despite all my efforts and threats, the men 
 gradually left their posts, and getting, together, in little 
 parties, at the gate, worked themselves up to such . a pitch 
 of dread that by, two, hours after noon they were fit for any 
 folly; and at the mere cry of 'plague ! ' would, have rushed 
 to their horses, and ridden in every direction, 
 
 It was plain that; I could depend for useful service: on 
 myself and three others only of whom^to his credit be it 
 said, Simon Eleix was- one. Seeing this, I was. immensely 
 relieved when I presently, heard that Eresnoy was again 
 seeking to speak with . me. L was no longer, it will be 
 belie vedj, for standing- on .formalities; but glad to waive in 
 silence the punctilio on which, I had before insisted, and 
 anxious to jafford him. no opportunity of marking the slack- 
 ness which prevailed among my men, I hastened to meet 
 
 v2
 
 324 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE 
 
 him at the door of the courtyard, where Maignan had 
 detained him. 
 
 I might have spared my pains, however. I had no more 
 than saluted him and exchanged the merest preliminaries 
 before I saw that he was in a state of panic far exceeding 
 that of my following. His coarse face, which had never 
 been prepossessing, Avas mottled and bedabbled with sweat ; 
 his bloodshot eyes, when they met mine, wore the fierce yet 
 terrified expression of an animal caught in a trap. Though 
 his first word was an oath, sworn for the purpose of raising 
 his courage, the bully's bluster was gone. He spoke in a 
 low voice, and his hands shook; and for a penny-piece I 
 saw he would have bolted past me and taken his chance in 
 open flight. 
 
 I judged from his first words, uttered, as I have said, with 
 an oath, that he was aware of his state. 'M. de Marsac,' 
 he said, whining like a cur, 'you know me to be a man of 
 courage.' 
 
 I needed nothing after this to assure me that he meditated 
 something of the basest; and I took care how I answered 
 him. 'I have known you stiff enough upon occasions,' I 
 replied drily. ' And then, again, I have known you not so 
 stiff, M. Fresnoy.' 
 
 ' Only when you were in question,' he muttered with an- 
 other oath. ' But flesh and blood cannot stand this. You 
 could not yourself. Between him and them I am fairly 
 worn out. Give me good terms good terms, you under- 
 stand, M. de Marsac ? ' he whispered eagerly, sinking his 
 voice still lower, ' and you shall have all you want.' 
 
 'Your lives, arid liberty to go where you please,' I an- 
 swered coldly. 'The two ladies to be first given up to me 
 uninjured. Those are the terms.' 
 
 ' But for me ? ' he said anxiously. 
 
 ' For you ? The same as the others,' I retorted. ' Or I 
 will make a distinction for old acquaintance sake, M. Fres- 
 noy; and if the ladies have aught to complain of, I will 
 hang you first.'
 
 PESTILENCE AND FAMINE 325 
 
 He tried to bluster and hold out for a sum of money. 01 
 at least for his horse to be given up to him. But I had 
 made up my mind to reward my followers with a present of 
 a horse apiece ; and I was besides well aware that this was 
 only an afterthought on his part, and that he had fully 
 decided to yield. I stood fast, therefore. The result justi- 
 fied my firmness, for he presently agreed to surrender on 
 those terms. 
 
 1 Ay, but M. de Bruhl ? ' I said, desiring to learn clearly 
 whether he had authority to treat for all. ' What of him ? ' 
 
 He looked at me impatiently. ' Come and see ! ' he said, 
 with an ugly sneer. 
 
 'No, no, my friend,' I answered, shaking my head warily. 
 'That is not according to rule. You are the surrendering 
 party, and it is for you to trust us. Bring out the ladies, 
 that I may have speech with them, and then I will draw off 
 my men.' 
 
 'Norn de Dieu ! ' he cried hoarsely, with so much fear and 
 rage in his face that I recoiled from him. 'That is just 
 what I cannot do.' 
 
 ' You cannot ? ' I rejoined with a sudden thrill of horror. 
 'Why not ? why not, man ? ' And in the excitement of the 
 moment, conceiving the idea that the worst had happened 
 to the women, I pushed him back with so much fury that he 
 laid his hand on his sword. 
 
 ' Confound you ! ' he stuttered, ' stand back ! It is not 
 that, I tell you ! Mademoiselle is safe and sound, and 
 madame, if she had her senses, would be sound too. It is 
 not our fault if she is not. But I have not got the key of 
 the rooms. It is in Bruhl's pocket, I tell you ! ' 
 
 ' Oh ! ' I made answer drily. ' And Bruhl ? ' 
 
 'Hush, man,' Fresnoy replied, wiping the perspiration 
 from his brow, and bringing his pallid, ugly face, near to 
 mine, ' he has got the plague ! ' 
 
 I stared at him for a moment in silence ; which he was 
 the first to break. ' Hush ! ' he muttered again, laying a 
 trembling hand on my arm, ' if the men knew it and not
 
 seeing him they are beginniag to: suspect it they would 
 rise -.on us. .The* devil himself could not keep them here. 
 JBetween him and them J am on a razor's edge. Madame is 
 with him, iand .the door is locked. 'Mademoiselle is in a 
 room ; upstairs, and .the door is locked. And he has the 
 -keys. What can I do ? What can I do, .man?' he cried, 
 his voice hoarse with terror and dismay. 
 
 ' Get the keys/ I said instinctively. 
 
 'What? Prom him?' he muttered, with an irrepressible 
 shudder, which shook his .bloated cheeks. 'God 'forbid . I 
 should, see him ! It takes stout . men infallibly . I should 
 be dead by night ! By God, I should ! ' he continued, 
 .whining. ; Now you are not stout, M. de Marsac. If you 
 "will come'with me I will draw off the men < from that part; 
 and you may go in and get the key from him.' 
 
 His terror, which surpassed air feigning, and' satisfied me 
 without doubt that he was in earnest, was so intense that 
 it could not fail to infect me. I : felt my sfaee, as I looked 
 into his, grow to the same hue. I trembled as he did and 
 grew sick. For if there is a word which blanches the: sol- 
 dier^ che^k and tries his heart more than another, it is the 
 .name of the disease which. travels in; the hot noonday, and, 
 tainting the strongest as he rides in his ; pride, leaves him 
 in a few hours a poor mass of corruption. .The stoutest 
 and the most reckless fear it ; nor could I, more than an- 
 other, boast myself indifferent to.it, or think of its 'presence 
 without shrinking. But the respect in which. a mantaf 
 ;brjfth holds himself saves him from the unreasoning fear 
 /"which 'masters the vulgar; and .in a moment I .recovered 
 myself, and made: up my mind what it behoved me: to do. 
 
 'Wait awhile,' I -said 1 sternly, '. and I wilL come with you.' 
 
 Me waited accordingly, :though with .manifest! impatience, 
 'while:! sent for M. d'Agen, and eommunicated'to him, what 
 I was about to do. I did not think it 'necessary to enter 
 ;into .details, or 'to mention 'Bruhl's state, :for some of !the 
 mien were .well in hearing. I Observed that the young gen- 
 tleman received nay directions with a gloomy and dissatis-
 
 PESTILENCE AND FAMINE 327, 
 
 lied' air. But \ had become by this time so used to his- 
 moods, and found myself so much mistaken in Ms char- 
 acter, that I scarcely gave the matter a second thought; I 
 crossed the court with Fresnoy, and in a moment had 1 
 mounted the outside staircase and' passed through .the heavy^ 
 doorway. 
 
 The moment I entered, I was forced 'to do Fresnoy the* 
 justice of admitting that he -had not : come to me before he 
 was obliged. The three men who were on guard inside 
 tossed down their weapons at sight of me, while a fourth, 
 who -was posted at a neighbouring window, hailed ; me with 
 a cry of relief. From the moment I crossed the threshold 
 the defence was practically at an end. I might, had I 
 chosen or found it consistent with honour, have called in 
 my following and secured the entrance. Without pausing, 
 however, I passed on to 'the foot of 'a gloomy stone staircase 
 winding up between 1 walls of rough masonry; and ! here 
 Fresnoy stood' on one side and stopped. He pointed 'up- 
 wards with a pale face and muttered, 1 'The door on the left.' 
 
 Leaving him there watching me as- 1 went upwards, L 
 mounted ; slowly to the- landing, and by the light of an 
 arrow-slit which dimly lifr the ruinous place found the door 
 he had described,' and tried' it with' my hand. It 1 was 
 lacked, but: I heard someone moan in the room, and a step 
 crossed the floor, as if he or another came to the door and 
 listened. I knocked, hearmg : iny heart beat in the silence. 
 
 At last a< voice quite strange to >me -cried, 'Who is it? ' 
 
 'A friend,' I muttered, striving to dull my voice that' 
 they might not hear me 'below. 
 
 ' A friend ! ' ' the bitter answer camev ' Go ! You have- 
 made a mistake I We 'have no friends- ' 
 
 'It is I, M. de Marsac,' L rejoined,: knocking: more imper- 
 atively: <I would see M. de Bruhl; I must see him.' 
 
 The person inside, at whose identity I' could now make a 
 guess, uttered a- low exclamation, and -still seemed to hesjU 
 tate. But' on my repeating my demand I heard a rusty bolt 
 withdrawn, and Madame de- Bruhl, opening the door, a few
 
 328 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE 
 
 inches, showed her face in the gap. 'What do you want?' 
 she murmured jealously. 
 
 Prepared as I was to see her, I was shocked by the 
 change in her appearance, a change which even that im- 
 perfect light failed to hide. Her blue eyes had grown 
 larger and harder, and there were dark marks under them. 
 Her face, once so brilliant, was grey and pinched ; her hair 
 had lost its golden lustre. ' What do you want ? ' she re- 
 peated, eyeing me fiercely. 
 
 1 To see him,' I answered. 
 
 ' You know ? ' she muttered. ' You know that he ' 
 
 I nodded. 
 
 ' And you still want to come in ? My God ! Swear you 
 will not hurt him ? ' 
 
 ' Heaven forbid ! ' I said ; and on that she held the door 
 open that I might enter. But I was not half-way across 
 the room before she had passed me, and was again between 
 me and the wretched makeshift pallet. ^STay, when I stood 
 and looked down at him, as he moaned and rolled in sense- 
 less agony, with livid face and distorted features (which 
 the cold grey light of that miserable room rendered doubly 
 appalling), she hung over him and fenced him from me : so 
 that looking on him and her, and remembering how he had 
 treated her, and why he came to be in this place, I. felt 
 unmanly tears rise to my eyes. The room was still a 
 prison, a prison with broken mortar covering the floor and 
 loopholes for windows ; but the captive was held by other 
 chains than those of force. When she might have gone 
 free, her woman's love surviving all that he had done to 
 kill it, chained her to his side with fetters which old wrongs 
 and present danger were powerless to break. 
 
 It was impossible that I could view a scene so strange 
 without feel ; ngs of admiration as well as pity ; or without 
 forgetting for a while, in my respect for Madame de Bruhl's 
 devotion, the risk which had seemed so great to me on the 
 stairs. I had come simply for a purpose of my own, and 
 with no thought of aiding him who lay here. But so great,
 
 PESTILENCE AND FAMINE 329 
 
 as I have noticed on other occasions, is the power of a noble 
 example, that, before I knew it, I found myself wondering 
 what I could do to help this man, and how I could relieve 
 madaine in the discharge of offices which her husband had 
 as little right to expect at her hands as at mine. At the 
 mere sound of the word Plague I knew she would be de- 
 serted in this wilderness by all, or nearly all ; a reflection 
 which suggested to me that I should first remove mademoi- 
 selle to a distance, and then consider what help I could 
 afford here. 
 
 I was about to tell her the purpose with which I had 
 come when a paroxysm more than ordinarily violent, and 
 induced perhaps by the excitement of my presence though 
 he seemed beside himself seized him, and threatened to 
 tax her powers to the utmost. I could not look on and see 
 her spend herself in vain ; and almost before I knew what I 
 was doing I had laid my hands on him and after a brief 
 struggle thrust him back exhausted on the couch. 
 
 She looked at me so strangely after that that in the half- 
 light which the loopholes afforded I tried in vain to read 
 her meaning. ' Why did you come ? ' she cried at length, 
 breathing quickly. ' You, of all men ? Why did you 
 come ? He was no friend of yours, Heaven knows ! ' 
 
 ' No, madaine, nor I of his/ I answered bitterly, with a 
 sudden revulsion of feeling. 
 
 ' Then why are you here ? ' she retorted. 
 
 I 1 could not send one of my men,' I answered. ' And I 
 want the key of the room above.' 
 
 At the mention of that the room above she flinched as 
 if I had struck her, and looked as strangely at Bruhl as she 
 had before looked at me. No doubt the reference to Made- 
 moiselle de la Vire recalled to her mind her husband's wild 
 passion for the girl, which for the moment she had forgot- 
 ten. Nevertheless she did not speak, though her face 
 turned very pale. She stooped over the couch, such as it 
 was, and searching his clothes, presently stood up, and 
 held out the key to me. 'Take it, and let her out,' she
 
 A GENTLEMAN DF FRANCE 
 
 said -with a forced smile. 'Take it up yourself, and do -it, 
 You have done ;so much for her.it is right 'that you should 
 do this.' 
 
 I took the key, thanking her "with -more haste than 
 thought, and turned towards the door, intending to go 
 straight .up to the floor above and release mademoiselle. 
 iMy hand was already on the door, which ; madame, I found, 
 .had left ajar in the excitement df my \ entrance, when .1 
 heard .her step .behind me. .The next instant she touched 
 me on the shoulder. 'You fool!' she exclaimed, 'her eyes 
 'flashing, ' would -you, kill: her ? Would'you go from him to 
 her, and take the plague .to her? -God forgive me, it was 
 in .-my mind to send you. And men are such puppets you 
 would have gone ! ' 
 
 I trembled with horror, as much at my stupidity as sat 
 her craft. ;Eor she was .right : . in. another moment I should 
 have gone, .and comprehension -and remorse would have 
 come too late. As lit was, in my longing at once to re- 
 .proach her:for her wickedness and to :thank her for her 
 timely repentance, il ifound no words ; but I -turned away in 
 silence and went out with a full heart. 
 
 CHAPTER XXX. 
 
 STBIO-KEN. 
 
 OUTSIDE the door, standing in the dimness* of the landing, 
 I found M. d'Agen. At any other time. I should have been 
 the first to ask him why .he had left 'the post which ! had 
 assigned to him. But at the (moment I was off my balance, 
 and his presence suggested nothing : more 'than that here was 
 the very person who could best execute my wishes. I held 
 out the key to him at arm's length, and bade him release 
 Mademoiselle de la Vire, who was in the: room above, and 
 escort her out of the castle. !Do not let her! linger; here, 'il
 
 STRICKEN 331 
 
 continued urgently. 'Take her to the place where we found 
 the wood-cutters. You need fear no resistance.' 
 
 'But Bruhl? ' he said, as he took the key mechanically 
 from me. 
 
 'He is out of the question,' I answered in a low voice. 
 'We have done with him. He has the plague.' 
 
 He uttered a sharp exclamation. 'What of madame, 
 then ? ' he muttered. 
 
 'She is with him,' I said. 
 
 He cried out suddenly at that, sucking in his breath, as 
 I have known men do in pain. And but that I drew back 
 he would have laid his hand on my sleeve. 'With him? ' 
 he stammered. 'How is that?' 
 
 'Why, man, where else should she be? ' I answered, 
 forgetting that the sight of those two together had at first 
 surprised me also, as well as moved me. 'Or who else 
 should be with him? He is her husband.' 
 
 He stared at me for a moment at that, and then he turned 
 slowly away and began to go up; while I looked after him, 
 gradually thinking out the clue to his conduct. Could it 
 be that it was not mademoiselle attracted him, but Madame 
 de Bruhl? 
 
 And with that hint I understood it all. I saw in a 
 moment the conclusion to which he had come on hearing 
 of the presence of madame in my room. In my room at 
 night ! The change had dated from that time ; instead of a 
 careless, light-spirited youth he had become in a moment 
 a morose and restive churl, as difficult to manage as an 
 unbroken colt. Quite clearly I saw now the meaning of 
 the change ; why he had shrunk from me, and why all in- 
 tercourse between us had been so difficult and so constrained. 
 
 I laughed to think how he had deceived himself, and how 
 nearly I had come to deceiving myself also. And what 
 more I might have thought I do not know, for my medita- 
 tions were cut short at this point by a loud outcry below, 
 which, beginning in one or two sharp cries of alarm and 
 warning, culminated quickly in a roar of anger and dismay.
 
 332 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE 
 
 Fancying I recognised Maignan's voice, I ran down the 
 stairs, seeking a loophole whence I could command the 
 scene; but rinding none, and becoming more and more 
 alarmed, I descended to the court, which 1 found, to my 
 great surprise, as empty and silent as an old battle-field. 
 Neither on the enemy's side nor on ours was a single man 
 to be seen. With growing dismay 1 sprang across the 
 court and darted through the outer tower, only to find that 
 and the gateway equally unguarded. Nor was it until 1 
 had passed through the latter, and stood on the brow of the 
 slope, which we had had to clamber with so much toil, that 
 I learned what was amiss. 
 
 Far below me a string of men, bounding and running at 
 speed, streamed down the hill towards the horses. Some 
 were shouting, some running silently, with their elbows at 
 their sides and their scabbards leaping against their calves. 
 The horses stood tethered in a ring near the edge of the 
 wood, and by some oversight had been left unguarded. The 
 foremost runner I made out to be Fresnoy; but a number 
 of his men were close upon him, and then after an inter- 
 val came Maignan, waving his blade and emitting frantic 
 threats with every stride. Comprehending at once that 
 Fresnoy and his following, rendered desperate by panic and 
 the prospective loss of their horses, had taken advantage of 
 my absence and given Maignan the slip, 1 saw 1 could do 
 nothing save watch the result of the struggle. 
 
 This was not long delayed. Maignan's threats, which 
 seemed to me mere waste of breath, were not without effect 
 on those he followed. There is nothing which demoralises 
 men like flight. Troopers who have stood charge after 
 charge while victory was possible will fly like sheep, and 
 like sheep allow themselves to be butchered, when they 
 have once turned the back. So it was here. Many of 
 Fresnoy's men were stout fellows, but having started to 
 run they had no stomach for fighting. Their fears caused 
 Maignan to appear near, while the horses seemed distant; 
 and one after another they turned aside and made like rab-
 
 STRICKEN 333 
 
 bits for the \vuod. Only Fresnoy, who had taken care to 
 have the start of all, kept on, and, reaching the horses, cut 
 the rope which tethered the nearest, and vaulted nimbly 
 on. its back. Safely seated there, he tried to frighten the 
 others into breaking loose ; but not succeeding at the first 
 attempt, and seeing Maignan, breathing vengeance, coining 
 up with him, he started his horse, a bright bay, and rode 
 off laughing along the edge of the wood. 
 
 Fully content with the result for our carelessness, might 
 have cost us very dearly I was about to turn away when 
 I saw that Maignan had mounted and was preparing to 
 follow. I stayed accordingly to see the end, and from my 
 elevated position enjoyed a first-rate view of the race which 
 ensued. Both were heavy weights, and at first Maignan 
 gained no ground. But when a couple of hundred yards 
 had been covered Fresnoy had the ill-luck to blunder into 
 some heavy ground, and this enabling his pursuer, \rho had 
 time to avoid it, to get within two-score paces of him, the 
 race became as exciting as I could wish. Slowly and surely 
 Maignan, who had chosen the Cid, reduced the distance 
 between them to a score of paces to fifteen to ten. Then 
 Fresnoy, becoming alarmed, began to look over his shoul- 
 der and ride in earnest. He had no whip, and I saw him 
 raise his sheathed sword, and strike his beast on the flank. 
 It sprang forward, and appeared for a few strides to be 
 holding its own. Again he repeated the blow but this 
 time with a different result. While his hand was still in 
 the air, his horse stumbled, as it seemed to me, made a 
 desperate effort to recover itself, fell headlong and rolled 
 over and over. 
 
 Something in the fashion of the fall, which reminded me 
 of the mishap I had suffered on the way to Chize, led me 
 to look more particularly at the horse as it rose trembling 
 to its feet, and stood with drooping head. Sure enough, a 
 careful glance enabled me, even at that distance, to identify 
 it as Matthew's bay the trick-horse. Shading my eyes, 
 and gazing on the scene with increased interest, I saw
 
 334 A GENTLEMAN- OF FRANCE 
 
 Maignan, who had dismounted, stoop over something on the 
 ground, and again after an interval stand upright. 
 
 But Fresnoy did not rise. Nor was it without awe that, 
 guessing what had happened to him, I remembered how he 
 had used this very horse to befool me; how heartlessly he 
 had abandoned Matthew, its owner; and by what marvel- 
 lous haps which men call chances Providence had brought 
 it to this place, and put it in his heart to choose it out of a 
 score which stood ready to his hand! 
 
 I was right. The man's neck was broken. He was quite 
 dead. Maignan passed the word to one, and he to another, 
 and so it reached me on the hill. It did not fail to awaken 
 memories both grave and wholesome. I thought of St. 
 Jean d'Angely, of Chiz6, of the house in the Ruelle d'Arcy ; 
 then in the midst of these reflections I heard voices, and 
 turned to find mademoiselle, with M. d'Agen behind me. 
 
 Her hand was still bandaged, and her dress, which she 
 had not changed since leaving Blois, was torn and stained 
 with mud. Her hair was in disorder; she walked with a 
 limp. Fatigue and apprehension had stolen the colour 
 from her cheeks, and in a word she looked, when I turned, 
 so wan and miserable that for a moment I feared the plague 
 had seized her. 
 
 The instant, however, that she caught sight of me a wave 
 of colour invaded, not her cheeks only, but her brow and 
 neck. From her hair to the collar of her gown she was 
 all crimson. For a second she stood gazing at me, and 
 then, as I saluted her, she sprang forward. Had I not 
 stepped back she would have taken my hands. 
 
 My heart so overflowed with joy at this sight, that in 
 the certainty her blush gave me I was fain to toy with my 
 happiness. All jealousy of M. d'Agen Avas forgotten; only 
 I thought it well not to alarm her by telling her what I 
 knew of the Bruhls. 'Mademoiselle,' I said earnestly, 
 bowing, but retreating from her, 'I thank God for your 
 escape. One of your enemies lies helpless here, and 
 another is dead yonder.'
 
 STRICKEN 335 
 
 ^ is not of iny enemies I am thinking,' she answered 
 quickly, 'but of God, of whom you rightly remind me 5 and 
 then of iny friends. ' 
 
 'Nevertheless,' I answered as quickly, 'I beg you will 
 not stay to thank them now, but go down to the wood with 
 M. d'Agen, who will do all that may be possible to make 
 you comfortable.' 
 
 'And you, sir?' she said, with a charming air of confu- 
 sion. 
 
 'I must stay here,' I answered, 'for a while.' 
 
 'Why? ' she asked with a slight frown. 
 
 I did not know how to tell her, and I began lamely. 
 'Someone must stop with madame,' I said without thought. 
 
 'Madame? ' she exclaimed. 'Does she require assistance? 
 I will stop.' 
 
 'God forbid!' I cried. 
 
 I do not know how she understood the words, but her 
 face, which had been full of softness, grew hard. She 
 moved quickly towards me; but, mindful of the danger I 
 carried about me, I drew farther back. 'No nearer, made- 
 moiselle,' I murmured, 'if you please.' 
 
 She looked puzzled, and finally angry, turning away with 
 a sarcastic bow. 'So be it, then, sir,' she said proudly, 
 'if you desire it. M. d'Agen, if you are not afraid of me, 
 will you lead me down? ' 
 
 I stood and watched them go down the hill, comforting 
 myself with the reflection that to-morrow, or the next day, 
 or within a few days at most, all would be well. Scanning 
 her figure as she moved, I fancied that she went with less 
 spirit as the space increased between us. And I pleased 
 myself with the notion. A few days, a few hours, I 
 thought, and all would be well. The sunset which blazed 
 in the west was no more than a faint reflection of the glow 
 which for a few minutes pervaded my mind, long accus- 
 tomed to cold prospects and the chill of neglect. 
 
 A term was put to these pleasant imaginings by the arri- 
 val of Maignan ; who, panting: from the ascent of the hill,
 
 336 A GENTLEMAN- OF FRANCE 
 
 informed me with a shamefaced air that the tale of horses 
 was complete, but that four of our men were missing, and 
 had doubtless gone off with the fugitives. These proved 
 to be M. d'Agen's two lackeys and the two varlets M. de 
 Rambouillet had lent us. There remained besides Simon 
 Fleix only Maignan's three men from Rosny; but the state 
 in which our affairs now stood enabled us to make light of 
 this. I informed the equerry who visibly paled at the 
 news that M. de Bruhl lay ill of the plague, and like to 
 die ; and I bade him form a camp in the wood below, and, 
 sending for food to the house where we had slept the night 
 before, make mademoiselle as comfortable as circumstances 
 permitted. 
 
 He listened with surprise, and when I had done asked 
 with concern what I intended to do myself. 
 
 'Someone must remain with Madame de Bruhl,' I an- 
 swered. 'I have already been to the bedside to procure the 
 key of mademoiselle's room, and I run no farther risk. 
 All I ask is that you will remain in the neighbourhood, and 
 furnish us with supplies should it be necessary.' 
 
 He looked at me with emotion, which, strongly in con- 
 flict with his fears as it was, touched me not a little. 'But 
 morbleu! M. de Marsac, ' he said, 'you will take the plague 
 and die.' 
 
 'If God wills,' I answered, very lugubriously I confess, 
 for pale looks in one commonly so fearless could not but 
 depress me. 'But if not, I shall escape. Any way, my 
 friend,' I continued, 'I owe you a quittance. Simon Fleix 
 has an inkhorn and paper. Bid him bring them to this 
 stone and leave them, and I will write that Maignan, the 
 equerry of the Baron de Rosny, served me to the end as a 
 brave soldier and an honest friend. What, mon ami?' I 
 continued, for I saw that he was overcome by this, which 
 was, indeed, a happy thought of mine. 'Why not? It 
 is true, and will aquit you with the Baron. Do it, and go. 
 Advise M. d'Agen, and be to him what you have been 
 to me.'
 
 STRICKEN 337 
 
 He swore two or three great oaths, such as men of his 
 kind use to hide an excess of feeling, and after some fur- 
 ther remonstrance went away to carry out my orders ; leav- 
 ing me to stand on the brow in a strange kind of solitude, 
 and watch horses and men withdraw to the wood, until the 
 whole valley seemed left to me and stillness and the grey 
 evening. For a time I stood in thought. Then reminding 
 myself, for a fillip to my spirits, that I had been far more 
 alone when I walked the streets of St. Jean friendless and 
 threadbare (than I was now), I turned, and swinging my 
 scabbard against my boots for company, stumbled through 
 the dark, silent courtyard, and mounted as cheerfully as I 
 could to madame's room. 
 
 To detail all that passed during the next five days would 
 be tedious and in indifferent taste, seeing that I am writing 
 this memoir for the perusal of men of honour; for though 
 I consider the offices which the whole can perform for the 
 sick to be worthy of the attention of every man, however 
 well born, who proposes to see service, they seem to be 
 more honourable in the doing than the telling. One epi- 
 sode, however, which marked those days filled me then, as 
 it does now, with the most lively pleasure; and that was 
 the unexpected devotion displayed by Simon Fleix, who, 
 coming to me, refused to leave, and showed himself at this 
 pinch to be possessed of such sterling qualities that I freely 
 forgave him the deceit he had formerly practised on me. 
 The fits of moody silence into which he still fell at times 
 and an occasional irascibility seemed to show that he had 
 not altogether conquered his insane fancy; but the mere 
 fact that he had come to me in a situation of hazard, and 
 voluntarily removed himself from mademoiselle's neigh- 
 bourhood, gave me good hope for the future. 
 
 M. de Bruhl died early on the morning of the second day, 
 and Simon and I buried him at noon. He was a man of 
 courage and address, lacking only principles. In spite of 
 madame's grief and prostration, which were as great as 
 though she had lost the best husband in the world, we r-
 
 338 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE 
 
 moved before night to a separate camp in the woods ; and 
 left with the utmost relief the grey ruin on the hill, in 
 which, it seemed to me, we had lived an age. In our new 
 bivouac, where, game being abundant, and the weather 
 warm, we lacked no comfort, except the society of our 
 friends, we remained four days longer. On the fifth morn- 
 ing we met the others of our company by appointment on 
 the north road, and commenced the return journey. 
 
 Thankful that we had escaped contagion, we nevertheless 
 still proposed to observe for a time such precautions in 
 regard to the others as seemed necessary; riding in the 
 rear and having no communication with them, though they 
 showed by signs the pleasure they felt at seeing us. From 
 the frequency with which mademoiselle turned and looked 
 behind her, I judged she had overcome her pique at my 
 strange conduct; which the others should by this time have 
 explained to her. Content, therefore, with the present, 
 and full of confidence in the future, I rode along in a rare 
 state of satisfaction ; at one moment planning what I would 
 do, and at another reviewing what I had done. 
 
 The brightness and softness of the day, and the beauty of 
 the woods, which in some places, I remember, were burst- 
 ing into leaf, contributed much to establish me in this 
 frame of mind. The hateful mist, which had so greatly 
 depressed us, had disappeared; leaving the face of the 
 country visible in all the brilliance of early spring. The 
 men who rode before us, cheered by the happy omen, 
 laughed and talked as they rode, or tried the paces of their 
 horses, where the trees grew sparsely; and their jests and 
 laughter coming pleasantly to our ears as we followed, 
 warmed even madame's sad face to a semblance of happi- 
 ness. 
 
 I was riding along in this state of contentment when a 
 feeling of fatigue, which the distance we had come did not 
 seem to justify, led me to spur the Cid into a brisker pace. 
 The sensation of lassitude still continued, however, and 
 indeed grew worse ; so that I wondered idly whether I had
 
 UNDER THE GREENWOOD 339 
 
 over-eaten myself at my last meal. Then the thing passed 
 for a while from, my mind, which the descent of a steep 
 hill sufficiently occupied. 
 
 But a few minutes later, happening to turn in the saddle, 
 I experienced a strange and sudden dizziness; so excessive 
 as to force me to grasp the cantle, and cling to it, while 
 trees and hills appeared to dance round me. A quick, hot 
 pain in the side followed, almost before I recovered the 
 power of thought; and this increased so rapidly, and was 
 from the first so definite, that, with a dreadful apprehen- 
 sion already formed in my mind, I thrust my hand inside 
 my clothes, and found that swelling which is the most sure 
 and deadly symptom of the plague. 
 
 The horror of that moment in which I saw all those 
 things on the possession of which I had just been congratu- 
 lating myself, pass hopelessly from me, leaving me in 
 dreadful gloom I will not attempt to describe in this place. 
 Let it suffice that the world lost in a moment its joyous- 
 ness, the sunshine its warmth. The greenness and beauty 
 round me, which an instant before had filled me with 
 pleasure, seemed on a sudden no more than a grim and cruel 
 jest at my expense, and I an atom perishing unmarked 
 and unnoticed. Yes, an atom, a mote; the bitterness of 
 that feeling I well remember. Then, in no long time 
 being a soldier I recovered my coolness, and, retaining 
 the power to think, decided what it behoved me to do. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXI. 
 
 UNDER THE GREENWOOD. 
 
 To escape from my companions on some pretext, which 
 should enable me to ensure their safety without arousing 
 their fears, was the one thought which possessed me on 
 
 w2
 
 340 A GENTLEMAN' OF FRANCE 
 
 the subsidence of my first alarm. Probably it answered to 
 that instinct in animals which bids them get away alone 
 when wounded or attacked by disease ; and with me it had 
 the fuller play as the pain prevailed rather by paroxysms 
 than in permanence, and, coming and going, allowed inter- 
 vals of ease, in which I was able to think clearly and con- 
 secutively, and even to sit firmly in the saddle. 
 
 The moment one of these intervals enabled me to control 
 myself, I used it to think where I might go without danger 
 to others ; and at once and naturally my thoughts turned to 
 the last place we had passed; which happened to be the 
 house in the gorge where we had received news of Bruhl's 
 divergence from the road. The man who lived there alone 
 had had the plague ; therefore he did not fear it. The place 
 itself was solitary, and I could reach it, riding slowly, in 
 half an hour. On the instant and without more delay I 
 determined on this course. I would return, and, commit- 
 ting myself to the fellow's good offices, bid him deny me 
 to others, and especially to my friends should they seek me. 
 
 Aware that I had no time to lose if I would put this plan 
 into execution before the pains returned to sap my courage, 
 I drew bridle at once, and muttered some excuse to madame ; 
 if I remember rightly, that I had dropped my gauntlet. 
 Whatever the pretext and my dread was great lest she 
 should observe any strangeness in my manner it passed 
 with her; by reason, chiefly, I think, of the grief which 
 monopolised her. She let me go, and before anyone else 
 could mark or miss me I was a hundred yards away on the 
 back-track, and already sheltered from observation by a 
 turn in the road. 
 
 The excitement of my evasion supported me for a while 
 after leaving her; and then for another while, a paroxysm 
 of pain deprived me of the power of thought. But when 
 this last was over, leaving me weak and shaken, yet clear 
 in my mind, the most miserable sadness and depression 
 that can be conceived came upon me; and, accompanying 
 me through the wood, filled its avenues (which doubtless
 
 UNDER THE GREENWOOD 341 
 
 i 
 
 were fair enough to others' eyes) with the blackness of 
 despair. I saw but the charnel-house, and that every- 
 where. It was not only that the horrors of the first discov- 
 ery returned upon me and almost unmanned me; nor only 
 that regrets and memories, pictures of the past and plans 
 for the future, crowded thick upon my mind, so that I 
 could have wept at the thought of all ending here. But in 
 my weakness mademoiselle's face shone where the wood was 
 darkest, and, tempting and provoking me to return were 
 it only to tell her that, grim and dull as I seemed, I loved 
 her tried me with a subtle temptation almost beyond my 
 strength to resist. All that was mean in me rose in arms, 
 all that was selfish clamoured to know why I must die in 
 the ditch while others rode in the sunshine; why I must 
 go to the pit, while others loved and lived ! 
 
 And so hard was I pressed that I think I should have 
 given way had the ride been longer or my horse less smooth 
 and nimble. But in the midst of my misery, which bodily 
 pain was beginning to augment to such a degree that I 
 could scarcely see, and had to ride gripping the saddle 
 with both hands, I reached the mill. My horse stopped of 
 its own accord. The man we had seen before came out. I 
 had just strength left to tell him what was the matter, and 
 what I wanted; and then a fresh attack came on, with 
 sickness, and overcome by vertigo I fell to the ground. 
 
 I have but an indistinct idea what happened after that; 
 until I found myself inside the house, clinging to the man's 
 arm. He pointed to a box-bed in one corner of the room 
 (which was, or seemed to my sick eyes, gloomy and dark- 
 some in the extreme), and would have had me lie down in 
 it. But something inside me revolted against the bed, and 
 despite the force he used, I broke away, and threw myself 
 on a heap of straw which I saw in another corner. 
 
 'Is not the bed good enough for you? ' he grumbled. 
 
 I strove to tell him it was not that. 
 
 'It should be good enough to die on,' he continued bru- 
 tally. 'There's five have died on that bed, I'd have you
 
 342 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE 
 
 know! My wife one, and my son another, and my daugh- 
 ter another; and then my son again, and a daughter again. 
 Five! Ay, five in that bed! ' 
 
 Brooding in the gloom of the chimney-corner, where he 
 was busied about a black pot, he continued to mutter and 
 glance at me askance; but after a while I swooned away 
 with pain. 
 
 When I opened my eyes again the room was darker. 
 The man still sat where I had last seen him, but a noise, 
 the same, perhaps, which had roused me, drew him as I 
 looked to the unglazed window. A voice outside, the tones 
 of which I seemed to know, inquired if he had seen me; 
 and so carried away was I by the excitement of the moment 
 that I rose on my elbow to hear the answer. But the man 
 was staunch. I heard him deny all knowledge of me, and 
 presently the sound of retreating hoofs and the echo of 
 voices dying in the distance assured me I was left. 
 
 Then, at that instant, a doubt of the man on whose com- 
 passion I had thrown myself entered my mind. Plague- 
 stricken, hopeless as I was, it chilled me to the very heart; 
 staying in a moment the feeble tears I was about to shed, 
 and curing even the vertigo, which forced me to clutch at 
 the straw on which I lay. Whether the thought arose from 
 a sickly sense of my own impotence, or was based on the 
 fellow's morose air and the stealthy glances he continued 
 to cast at me, I am as unable to say as I am to decide 
 whether it was well-founded, or the fruit of my own fancy. 
 Possibly the gloom of the room and the man's surly words 
 inclined me to suspicion ; possibly his secret thoughts por- 
 trayed themselves in his hang-dog visage. Afterwards it 
 appeared that he had stripped me, while I lay, of every- 
 thing of value; but he may have done this in the belief 
 that I should die. 
 
 All I know is that I knew nothing certain, because the 
 fear died almost as soon as it was born. The man had 
 scarcely seated himself again, or I conceived the thought, 
 when a second alarm outside caused him to spring to his
 
 UNDER THE GREENWOOD 343 
 
 feet. Scowling and muttering as he went, he hurried to 
 the window. But before he reached it the door was dashed 
 violently open, and Simon Fleix stood in the entrance. 
 
 There came in with him so blessed a rush of light and 
 life as in a moment dispelled the horror of the room, and 
 stripped me at one and the same time of fear and manhood. 
 For whether I would or no, at sight of the familiar face, 
 which I had fled so lately, I burst into tears ; and, stretch- 
 ing out my hands to him, as a frightened child might have 
 done, called on him by name. I suppose the plague was by 
 this time so plainly written on my face that all who looked 
 might read; for he stood at gaze, staring at me, and was 
 still so standing when a hand put him aside and a slighter, 
 smaller figure, pale-faced and hooded, stood for a moment 
 between me and the sunshine. It was mademoiselle ! 
 
 That, I thank God, restored me to myself, or I had been 
 for ever shamed. I cried to them with all the voice I had 
 left to take her away; and calling out frantically again and 
 again that I had the plague and she would die, I bade the 
 man close the door. iSTay, regaining something of strength in 
 my fear for her, I rose up, half -dressed as I was, and would 
 have fled into some corner to avoid her, still calling out to 
 them to take her away, to take her away if a fresh par- 
 oxysm had not seized me, so that I fell blind and helpless 
 where I was. 
 
 For a time after that I knew nothing; until someone held 
 water to my lips, and I drank greedily, and presently awoke 
 to the fact that the entrance was dark with faces and fig- 
 ures all gazing at me as I lay. But I could not see her; 
 and I had sense enough to know and be thankful that she 
 was no longer among them. I would fain have bidden 
 Maignan begone too, for I read the consternation in his 
 face. But I could not muster strength or voice for the pur- 
 pose, and when I turned my head to see who held me 
 ah me ! it comes back to me still in dreams it was made- 
 moiselle's hair that swept my forehead and her hand that 
 ministered to me; while *ears she did not try to hide or
 
 344 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE 
 
 wipe away fell on my hot cheek. I could have pushed her 
 away even then, for she was slight and small; but the 
 pains came upon me, and with a sob choking my voice I 
 lost all knowledge. 
 
 I am told that I lay for more than a month between life 
 and death, now burning with fever and now in the cold fit ; 
 and that but for the tendance which never failed nor fal- 
 tered, nor could have been outdone had my malady been the 
 least infectious in the world, I must have died a hundred 
 times, as hundreds round me did die week by week in that 
 year. From the first they took me out of the house (where 
 I think I should have perished quickly, so impregnated was 
 it with the plague poison) and laid me under a screen of 
 boughs in the forest, with a vast quantity of cloaks and 
 horse-cloths cunningly disposed to windward. Here I ran 
 some risk from cold and exposure and the fall of heavy 
 dews ; but, on the other hand, had all the airs of heaven to 
 clear away the humours and expel the fever from my brain. 
 
 Hence it was that when the first feeble beginnings of 
 consciousness awoke in me again, they and the light stole 
 in on me through green leaves, and overhanging boughs, 
 and the freshness and verdure of the spring woods. The 
 sunshine which reached my watery eyes was softened by 
 its passage through great trees, which grew and expanded 
 as I gazed up into them, until each became a verdant world, 
 with all a world's diversity of life. Grown tired of this, I 
 had still long avenues of shade, carpeted with flowers, to 
 peer into; or a little wooded bottom where the ground 
 fell away on one side that blazed and burned with red- 
 thorn. Ay, and hence it was that the first sounds I heard, 
 when the fever left me at last, and I knew morning from 
 evening, and man from woman, were the songs of birds 
 calling to their mates. 
 
 Mademoiselle and Madame de Bruhl, with Fanchette and 
 Simon Fleix, lay all this time in such shelter as could be 
 raised for them where I lay; M. Franqois and three stout 
 fellows, whom Maignan left to guard us, living in a hut
 
 UNDER THE GREENWOOD 345 
 
 within hail. Maignan himself, after seeing out a week of 
 my illness, had perforce returned to his master, and no 
 news had since been received from him. Thanks to the 
 timely move into the woods, no other of the party fell ill, 
 and by the time I was able to stand and speak the ravages of 
 the disease had so greatly decreased that fear was at an end. 
 
 I should waste words were I to try to describe how the 
 peace and quietude of the life we led in the forest during 
 the time of my recovery sank into my heart; which had 
 known, save by my mother's bedside, little of such joys. 
 To awake in the morning to sweet sounds and scents, to eat 
 with reviving appetite and feel the slow growth of strength, 
 to lie all day in shade or sunshine as it pleased me, and 
 hear women's voices and tinkling laughter, to have no 
 thought of the world and no knowledge of it, so that we 
 might have been, for anything we saw, in another sphere 
 these things might have sufficed for happiness without that 
 which added to each and every one of them a sweeter and 
 deeper and more lasting joy. Of which next. 
 
 I had not begun to take notice long before I saw that M. 
 Franqois and madame had come to an understanding; such 
 an one, at least, as permitted him to do all for her comfort 
 and entertainment without committing her to more than 
 was becoming at such a season. Naturally this left made- 
 moiselle much in my company; a circumstance which would 
 have ripened into passion the affection I before entertained 
 for her, had not gratitude and a nearer observance of her 
 merits already elevated the feeling into the most ardent 
 worship that even the youngest lover ever felt for his mis- 
 tress. 
 
 In proportion, however, as I and my love grew stronger, 
 and mademoiselle's presence grew more necessary to my 
 happiness so that were she away but an hour I fell 
 a-moping she began to draw off from me, and absenting 
 herself more and more on long walks in the woods, by-and- 
 by reduced me to such a pitch of misery as bid fair to com- 
 plete what the fever had left undone.
 
 346 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE 
 
 If this had happened in the world I think it likely that 
 I should have suffered in silence. But here, under the 
 greenwood, in common enjoyment of God's air and earth, 
 we seemed more nearly equal. She was scarce better 
 dressed than a sutler's wife; while recollections of her 
 wealth and station, though they assailed me nightly, lost 
 much of their point in presence of her youth and of that 
 fair and patient gentleness which forest life and the duties 
 of a nurse had fostered. 
 
 So it happened that one day, when she had been absent 
 longer than usual, I took my courage in my hand and went 
 to meet her as far as the stream which ran through the 
 bottom by the redthorn. Here, at a place where there 
 were three stepping-stones, I waited for her; first taking 
 away the stepping-stones, that she might have to pause, and, 
 being at a loss, might be glad to see me. 
 
 She came presently, tripping through an alley in the low 
 wood, with her eyes on the ground, and her whole carriage 
 full of a sweet pensiveness which it did me good to see. 
 I turned my back on the stream before she saw me, and 
 made a pretence of being taken up with something in an- 
 other direction. Doubtless she espied me soon, and before 
 she came very near ; but she made no sign until she reached 
 the brink, and found the stepping-stones were gone. 
 
 Then, whether she suspected me or not, she called out to 
 me, not once, but several times. For, partly to tantalise 
 her, as lovers will, and partly because it charmed me to 
 hear her use my name, I would not turn at once. 
 
 When I did, and discovered her standing with one small 
 foot dallying with the water, I cried out with well-affected 
 concern; and in a great hurry ran towards her, paying no 
 attention to her chiding or the pettish haughtiness with 
 which she spoke to me. 
 
 'The stepping-stones are all on your side,' she said im- 
 periously. 'Who has moved them? ' 
 
 I looked about without answering, and at last pretended 
 to find them; while she stood watching me, tapping the
 
 UNDER THE GREENWOOD 347 
 
 ground with one foot the while. Despite her impatience, 
 the stone which was nearest to her I took care to bring last 
 that she might not cross without my assistance. But 
 after all she stepped over so lightly and quickly that the 
 hand she placed in mine seemed scarcely to rest there a 
 second. Yet when she was over I managed to retain it; 
 nor did she resist, though her cheek, which had been red 
 before, turned crimson and her eyes fell, and bound to me 
 by the link of her little hand, she stood beside me with her 
 whole figure drooping. 
 
 'Mademoiselle,' I said gravely, summoning all my reso- 
 lution to my aid, 'do you know of what that stream with 
 its stepping-stones reminds me? ' 
 
 She shook her head but did not answer. 
 
 'Of the stream which has flowed between us from the day 
 when I first saw you at St. Jean,' I said in a low voice. 
 'It has flowed between us, and it still does separating us.' 
 
 'What stream? ' she murmured, with her eyes cast down, 
 and her foot playing with the moss. 'You speak in rid- 
 dles, sir.' 
 
 'You understand this one only too well, mademoiselle,' I 
 answered. 'Are you not young and gay and beautiful, 
 while I am old, or almost old, and dull and grave? You 
 are rich and well-thought-of at Court, and I a soldier of 
 fortune, not too successful. What did you think of me 
 when you first saw me at St. Jean? What when I came to 
 Rosny? That, mademoiselle,' I continued with fervour, 
 'is the stream which flows between us and separates us; 
 and I know of but one stepping-stone that can bridge it.' 
 
 She looked aside, toying with a piece of thorn-blossom 
 she had picked. It was not redder than her cheeks. 
 
 'That one stepping-stone,' I said, after waiting vainly 
 for any word or sign from her, 'is Love. Many weeks ago, 
 mademoiselle, when I had little cause to like you, I loved 
 you; I loved you whether I would or not, and without 
 thought or hope of return. I should have been mad had I 
 spoken to you then. Mad, and worse than mad. But now,
 
 348 A GENTLEMAN- OF FRANCE 
 
 now that I owe you my life, now that I have drunk from 
 your hand in fever, and, awaking early and late, have 
 found you by my pillow now that, seeing you come in and 
 out in the midst of fear and hardship, I have learned to 
 regard you as a woman kind and gentle as my mother 
 now that I love you, so that to be with you is joy, and 
 away from you grief, is it presumption in me now, made- 
 moiselle, to think that that stream may be bridged? ' 
 
 I stopped, out of breath, and saw that she was trembling. 
 But she spoke presently. 'You said one stepping-stone?' 
 she murmured. 
 
 'Yes, ' I answered hoarsely, trying in vain to look at her 
 face, which she kept averted from me. 
 
 'There should be two,' she said, almost in a whisper. 
 'Your love, sir, and and mine. You have said much of the 
 one, and nothing of the other. In that you are wrong, for 
 I am proud still. And I would not cross the stream you 
 speak of for any love of yours 1 ' 
 
 'Ah! ' I cried in sharpest pain. 
 
 'But,' she continued, looking up at me on a sudden with 
 eyes that told me all, 'because I love you I am willing to 
 cross it to cross it once for ever, and live beyond it all my 
 life if I may live my life with you.' 
 
 I fell on my knee and kissed her hand again and again in 
 a rapture of joy and gratitude. By-and-by she pulled it 
 from me. 'If you will, sir,' she said, 'you may kiss my 
 lips. If you do not, no man ever will.' 
 
 After that, as may be guessed, we walked every day in 
 the forest, making longer and longer excursions as my 
 strength came back to me, and the nearer parts grew famil- 
 iar. From early dawn, when I brought my love a posy of 
 flowers, to late evening, when Fanchette hurried her from 
 me, our days were passed in a long round of delight; being 
 filled full of all beautiful things love, and sunshine, and 
 rippling streams, and green banks, on which we sat to- 
 gether under scented limes, telling one another all we had 
 ever thought, and especially all we had ever thought of
 
 UNDER THE GREENWOOD 349 
 
 one another. Sometimes when the light was low in the 
 evening we spoke of my mother; and once but that was 
 in the sunshine, when the bees were humming and my 
 blood had begun to run strongly in my veins I spoke of 
 my great and distant kinsman, Rohan. But mademoiselle 
 would hear nothing of him, murmuring again and again in 
 my ear, 'I have crossed, my love, I have crossed.' 
 
 Truly the sands of that hour-glass were of gold. But in 
 time they ran out. First M. Francois, spurred by the rest- 
 lessness of youth, and convinced that madame would for a 
 while yield no farther, left us, and went back to the world. 
 Then news came of great events that could not fail to move 
 us. The King of France and the King of Navarre had met 
 at Tours, and embracing in the sight of an immense multi- 
 tude, had repulsed the League with slaughter in the suburb 
 of St. Symphorien. Fast on this followed the tidings of 
 their march northwards with an overwhelming army of 
 fifty-thousand men of both religions, bent, rumour had it, 
 on the signal punishment of Paris. 
 
 I grew shame that I should say it to think more and 
 more of these things ; until mademoiselle, reading the signs, 
 told me one day that we must go. 'Though never again,' 
 she added with a sigh, 'shall we be so happy.' 
 
 'Then why go? ' I asked foolishly. 
 
 'Because you are a man,' she answered with a wise 
 smile, 'as I would have you be, and you need something 
 besides love. To-morrow we will go.' 
 
 'Whither? ' I said in amazement. 
 
 'To the camp before Paris,' she answered. 'We will go 
 back in the light of day seeing that we have done noth- 
 ing of which to be ashamed and throw ourselves on the 
 justice of the King of Navarre. You shall place me with 
 Madame Catherine, who will not refuse to protect me; and 
 so, s.weet, you will have only yourself to think of. Come, 
 sir,' she continued, laying her little hand in mine, and 
 looking into my eyes, 'you are not afraid? ' 
 
 'I am more afraid than ever I used to be, J I said trembling.
 
 35 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE 
 
 'So I would have it,' she whispered, hiding her face on 
 my shoulder. 'Nevertheless we Avill go.' 
 
 And go we did. The audacity of such a return in the 
 face of Turenne, who was doubtless in the King of Na- 
 varre's suite, almost took my breath away ; nevertheless, I 
 saw that it possessed one advantage which no other course 
 promised that, I mean, of setting us right in the eyes of 
 the world, and enabling me to meet in a straightforward 
 manner such as maligned us. After some considera- 
 tion I gave my assent, merely conditioning that until we 
 reached the Court we should ride masked, and shun as far 
 as possible encounters by the road. 
 
 CHAPTEE XXXII. 
 
 A TAVERN" BRAWL. 
 
 ON the following day, accordingly, we started. But the 
 news of the two kings' successes, and particularly the cer- 
 tainty which these had bred in many minds that nothing 
 short of a miracle could save Paris, had moved so many 
 gentlemen to take the road that we found the inns crowded 
 beyond example, and were frequently forced into meetings 
 which made the task of concealing our identity more difficult- 
 and hazardous than I had expected. Sometimes shelter 
 was not to be obtained on any terms, and then we had to lie 
 in the fields or in any convenient shed. Moreover, the pas- 
 sage of the army had swept the country so bare both of food 
 and forage, that these commanded astonishing prices; and 
 a long day's ride more than once brought us to our destina- 
 tion without securing for us the ample meal we had earned, 
 and required. 
 
 Under these circumstances, it was with joy little short of 
 transport that I recognised the marvellous change which 
 had come over my mistress. Bearing all without a rnur-
 
 A TAVERN BRAWL 
 
 351 
 
 mur, or a frown, or so much as one complaining word, she 
 acted on numberless occasions so as to convince me that she 
 spoke truly albeit I scarcely dared to believe it when 
 she said that she had but one trouble in the world, and that 
 was the prospect of our coming separation. 
 
 For my part, and despite some gloomy moments, when 
 fear of the future overcame me, I rode in Paradise riding 
 by my mistress. It was her presence which glorified alike 
 'She first freshness of the morning, when we started with all 
 the day before us, and the coolness of the late evening, when 
 we rode hand-in-hand. Nor could I believe without an 
 effort that I was the same Gaston de Marsac whom she had 
 once spurned and disdained. God knows I was thankful for 
 her love. A thousand times, thinking of my grey hairs, I 
 asked her if she did not repent ; and a thousand times she 
 answered No, with so much happiness in her eyes that I 
 was fain to thank God again and believe her. 
 
 Notwithstanding the inconvenience of the practice, we 
 made it a rule to wear our masks whenever we appeared in 
 public ; and this rule we kept more strictly as we approached 
 Paris. It exposed us to some comment and more curiosity, 
 but led to no serious trouble until we reached Etampes, 
 twelve leagues from the capital ; where we found the prin- 
 cipal inn so noisy and crowded, and so much disturbed by 
 the constant coming and going of couriers, that it required 
 no experience to predicate the neighbourhood of the army. 
 The great courtyard seemed to be choked with a confused 
 mass of men and horses, through which we made our way 
 with difficulty. The windows of the house were all open, 
 and offered us a view of tables surrounded by men eating 
 and drinking hastily, as the manner of travellers is. The 
 gateway and the steps of the house were lined with troop- 
 ers and servants and sturdy rogues; who scanned all who 
 passed in or out, and not unfrequently followed them with 
 ribald jests and nicknames. Songs and oaths, brawling 
 and laughter, with the neighing of horses and the huzzas 
 of the beggars, who shouted whenever a fresh party arrived,
 
 352 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE 
 
 rose above all, and increased the reluctance with which I 
 assisted madame and mademoiselle to dismount 
 
 Simon was no match for such an occasion as this; but 
 the stalwart aspect of the three men whom Maignan had 
 left with me commanded respect, and attended by two of 
 these I made a way for the ladies not without some oppo- 
 sition and a few oaths to enter the house. The landlord, 
 whom we found crushed into a corner inside, and entirely 
 overborne by the crowd which had invaded his dwelling, 
 assured me that he had not the smallest garret he could 
 place at my disposal; but I presently succeeded in finding 
 a small room at the top, which I purchased from the four 
 men who had taken possession of it. As it was impossible 
 to get anything to eat there, I left a man on guard, and 
 myself descended with madame and mademoiselle to the 
 eating-room, a large chamber set with long boards, and 
 filled with a rough and noisy crew. Under a running fire 
 of observations we entered, and found with difficulty three 
 seats in an inner corner of the room. 
 
 I ran my eye over the company, and noticed among them, 
 besides a dozen travelling parties like our own, specimens 
 of all those classes which are to be found in the rear o^ 
 an army. There were some officers and more horse-dealers; 
 half a dozen forage-agents and a few priests ; with a large 
 sprinkling of adventurers, bravos, and led-captains, and 
 here and there two or three whose dress and the deference 
 paid to them by their neighbours seemed to indicate a 
 higher rank. Conspicuous among these last were a party of 
 four who occupied a small table by the door. An attempt 
 had been made to secure some degree of privacy for them 
 by interposing a settle between them and the room; and 
 their attendants, who seemed to be numerous, did what 
 they could to add to this by filling the gap with their per- 
 sons. One of the four, a man of handsome dress and bear- 
 ing, who sat in the place of honour, was masked, as we were. 
 The gentleman at his right hand I could not see. The 
 others, whom I could see, were strangers to me.
 
 A TAVERN BRAWL 353 
 
 Some time elapsed before our people succeeded in pro- 
 curing us any food, and during the interval we were exposed 
 to an amount of comment on the part of those round us 
 which I found very little to my liking. There were not 
 half a dozen women present, and this and our masks ren- 
 dered my companions unpleasantly conspicuous. Aware, 
 however, of the importance of avoiding an altercation which 
 might possibly detain us, and would be certain to add to 
 our notoriety, I remained quiet ; and presently the entrance 
 of a tall, dark-complexioned man, who carried himself with 
 a peculiar swagger, and seemed to be famous for something 
 or other, diverted the attention of the company from us. 
 
 The new-comer was somewhat of Maignan's figure. He 
 wore a back and breast over a green doublet, and had an 
 orange feather in his cap and an orange-lined cloak on his 
 shoulder. On entering he stood a moment in the doorway, 
 letting his bold black eyes rove round the room, the while 
 he talked in a loud braggart fashion to his companions. 
 There was a lack of breeding in the man's air, and some- 
 thing offensive in his look ; which I noticed produced wher- 
 ever it rested a momentary silence and constraint. When 
 he moved farther into the room I saw that he wore a 
 very long sword, the point of which trailed a foot behind 
 him. 
 
 He chose out for his first attentions the party of four 
 whom I have mentioned; going up to them and accosting 
 them with a ruffling air, directed especially to the gentle- 
 man in the mask. The latter lifted his head haughtily on 
 finding himself addressed by a stranger, but did not offer to 
 answer. Someone else did, however, for a sudden bellow 
 like that of an enraged bull proceeded from behind the 
 settle. The words were lost in noise, the unseen speaker's 
 anger seeming so overpowering that he could not articulate ; 
 but the tone and voice, which were in some way familiar 
 to me, proved enough for the bully, who, covering his 
 retreat with a profound bow, backed out rapidly, muttering 
 what was doubtless an apology. Cocking his hat more
 
 354 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE 
 
 fiercely to make up for this repulse, he next proceeded to 
 patrol the room, scowling from side to side as lie went, with 
 the evident intention of picking a quarrel with someone 
 less formidable. 
 
 By ill-chance his eye lit, as he turned, on our masks. He 
 said something to his companions; and encouraged, no 
 doubt, by the position of our seats at the board, which led 
 him to think us people of small consequence, he came to 
 a stop opposite us. 
 
 'What! more dukes here?' he cried scoffingly. 'Hallo, 
 you sir! ' he continued to me, 'will you not unmask and 
 drink a glass with me? ' 
 
 I thanked him civilly, but declined. 
 
 His insolent eyes were busy, while I spoke, with madame's 
 fair hair and handsome figure, which her mask failed to 
 hide. 'Perhaps the ladies will have better taste, sir,' he 
 said rudely. 'Will they not honour us with a sight of their 
 pretty faces ? ' 
 
 Knowing the importance of keeping my temper I put 
 constraint on myself, and answered, still with civility, that 
 they were greatly fatigued and were about to retire. 
 
 'Zounds! ' he cried, 'that is not to be borne. If we are 
 to lose them so soon, the more reason we should enjoy their 
 beaux yeux while we can. A short life and a merry one, 
 sir. This is not a nunnery, nor, I dare swear, are your 
 fair friends nuns.' 
 
 Though I longed to chastise him for this insult, I feigned 
 deafness, and went on witli my meal- as if I had not heard 
 him ; and the table being between us prevented him going 
 beyond words. After he had uttered one or two coarse 
 jests of a similar character, which cost us less as we were 
 masked, and our emotions could only be guessed, the crowd 
 about us, seeing I took the thing quietly, began to applaud 
 him; but more as it seemed to me out of fear than love. 
 In this opinion I was presently confirmed on hearing from 
 Simon who whispered the information in my ear as he 
 handed a dish that the fellow was an Italian captain in
 
 A TAVERN BRAWL 355 
 
 the king's pay, famous for his skill with the sword and the 
 many duels in which he had displayed it. 
 
 Mademoiselle, though she did not know this, bore with 
 his insolence with a patience which astonished me; while 
 madame appeared unconscious of it. Nevertheless, I was 
 glad when he retired and left us in peace. I seized the 
 moment of his absence to escort the ladies through the 
 room and upstairs to their apartment, the door of which 
 I saw locked and secured. That done I breathed more 
 freely; and feeling thankful that I had been able to keep 
 my temper, took the episode to be at an end. 
 
 But in this I was mistaken, as I found when I returned 
 to the room in which we had supped, my intention being 
 to go through it to the stables. I had not taken two paces 
 across the floor before I found my road blocked by the 
 Italian, and read alike in his eyes and in the faces of the 
 company of whom many hastened to climb the tables to 
 see what passed that the meeting was premeditated. The 
 man's face was flushed with wine; proud of his many 
 victories, he eyed me with a boastful contempt my patience 
 had perhaps given him the right to feel. 
 
 'Ha! well met, sir,' he said, sweeping the floor with his 
 cap in an exaggeration of respect, 'now, perhaps, your high- 
 mightiness will condescend to unmask? The table is no 
 longer between us, nor are your fair triends here to protect 
 their cher ami ! ' 
 
 'If 1 still refuse, sir,' I said civilly, wavering between 
 anger and prudence, and hoping still to avoid a quarrel 
 which might endanger us all, 'be good enough to attribute 
 it to private motives, and to no desire to disoblige you.' 
 
 'No, I do not think you wish to disoblige me,' he an- 
 swered, laughing scornfully and a dozen voices echoed 
 the gibe. 'But for your private motives, the devil take 
 them! Is that plain enough, sir? ' 
 
 'It is plain enough to show me that you are an ill-bred 
 man! ' I answered, choler getting the better of me. 'Let 
 me pass, sir.'
 
 35 6 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE 
 
 'Unmask! ' he retorted, moving so as still to detain me, 
 'or shall I call in the grooms to perform the office for you? ' 
 
 Seeing at last that all my attempts to evade the man 
 only fed his vanity, and encouraged him to further ex- 
 cesses, and that the motley crowd, who filled the room and 
 already formed a circle round us, had made up their minds 
 to see sport, I would no longer balk them; I could no 
 longer do it, indeed, with honour. I looked round, there- 
 fore, for someone whom I might enlist as my second, but I 
 saw no one with whom I had the least acquaintance. The 
 room was lined from table to ceiling with mocking faces 
 and scornful eyes all turned to me. 
 
 My opponent saw the look, and misread it; being much 
 accustomed, I imagine, to a one-sided battle. He laughed 
 contemptuously. 'No, my friend, there is no way out of 
 it,' he said. 'Let me see your pretty face, or fight.' 
 
 'So be it,' I said quietly. 'If I have no other choice, I 
 will fight.' 
 
 'In your mask? ' he cried incredulously. 
 
 'Yes,' I said sternly, feeling every nerve tingle with long- 
 suppressed rage. 'I will fight as I am. Off with your 
 back and breast, if you are a man. And I will so deal with 
 you that if you see to-morrow's sun you shall need a mask 
 for the rest of your duys ! ' 
 
 'Ho! ho! ' he answered, scowling at me in surprise, 'you 
 sing in a different key now. But I will put a term to it. 
 There is space enough between these tables, if you can use 
 your weapon; and much more than you will need to- 
 morrow. ' 
 
 'To-morrow will show,' I retorted. 
 
 Without more ado he unfastened the buckles of his breast- 
 piece, and relieving himself of it, stepped back a pace. 
 Those of the bystanders who occupied the part of the room 
 he indicated a space bounded by four tables, and not unfit 
 for the purpose, though somewhat confined hastened to 
 get out of it, and seize instead upon neighbouring posts of 
 'vantage. The man's reputation was such, and his fame so
 
 A TAVERN BRAWL 357 
 
 great, that on all sides I heard naught but wagers offered 
 against nie at odds; but this circumstance, which might 
 have flurried a younger man and numbed his arm, served 
 only to set me on making the most of such -openings as the 
 fellow's presumption and certainty of success would be sure 
 to afford. 
 
 The news of the challenge running through the house had 
 brought together by this time so many people as to fill the 
 room from end to end, and even to obscure the light, which 
 was beginning to wane. At the last moment, when we were 
 on the point of engaging, a slight commotion marked the 
 admission to the front of three or four persons, whose con- 
 sequence or attendants gained them this advantage. I 
 believed them to be the party of four I have mentioned, 
 but at the time I could not be certain. 
 
 In the few seconds of waiting while this went forward I 
 examined our relative positions with the fullest intention 
 of killing the man whose glittering eyes and fierce smile 
 filled me with a loathing which was very nearly hatred 
 if I could. The line of windows lay to my right and his 
 left. The evening light fell across us, whitening the row 
 of faces on my left, but leaving those on my right in 
 shadow. It occurred to me on the instant that my mask 
 was actually an advantage, seeing that it protected my 
 sight from the side-light, and enabled me to watch his eyes 
 and point with more concentration. 
 
 'You will be the twenty -third man I have killed!' he 
 said boastfully, as we crossed swords and stood an instant 
 on guard. 
 
 'Take care!' I answered. 'You have twenty -three 
 against you ! ' 
 
 A swift lunge was his only answer. I parried it, and 
 thrust, and we fell to work. We had not exchanged half 
 a dozen blows, however, before I saw that I should need all 
 the advantage which my mask and greater caution gave me. 
 I had met my match, and it might be something more; but 
 that for a time it was impossible to tell. He had the longer
 
 358 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE 
 
 weapon, and I the longer reach. He preferred the point, 
 after the new Italian fashion, and I the blade. He was 
 somewhat flushed with wine, while my arm had scarcely 
 recovered the strength of which illness had deprived me. 
 On the other hand, excited at the first by the cries of his 
 backers, he played rather wildly; while I held myself pre- 
 pared, and keeping up a strong guard, waited cautiously 
 for any opening or mistake on his part. 
 
 The crowd round us, which had hailed our first passes 
 with noisy cries of derision and triumph, fell silent after 
 a while, surprised and taken aback by their champion's 
 failure to spit me at the first onslaught. My reluctance to 
 engage had led them to predict a short fight and an easy 
 victory. 
 
 Convinced of the contrary, they began to watch each 
 stroke with bated breath; or now and again, muttering 
 the name of Jarnac, broke into brief exclamations as a blo\v 
 more savage than usual drew sparks from our blades, and 
 made the rafters ring with the harsh grinding of steel on steel. 
 
 The surprise of the crowd, however, was a small thing 
 compared with that of my adversary. Impatience, disgust, 
 rage, and doubt chased one another in turn across his 
 flushed features. Apprised that he had to do with a 
 swordsman, he put forth all his power. With spite in his 
 eyes he laboured blow on blow, he tried one form of attack 
 after another, he found me equal, if barely equal, to all. 
 And then at last there came a change. The perspiration 
 gathered on his brow, the silence disconcerted him; he felt 
 his strength failing under the strain, and suddenly, I think, 
 the possibility of defeat and death, unthought of before, 
 burst upon him. I heard him groan, and for a moment he 
 fenced wildly. Then he again recovered himself. But 
 now I read terror in his eyes, and knew that the moment 
 of retribution was at hand. With his back to the table, 
 and my point threatening his breast, he knew at last what 
 those others had felt! 
 
 He would fain have stopped to breathe, but I would not
 
 A TAVERN BRAWL 359 
 
 let him though my blows also were growing feeble, and my 
 guard weaker; for I knew that if I gave him time to re- 
 cover himself he would have recourse to other tricks, and 
 might out-manoeuvre me in the end. As it was, my black 
 unchanging mask, which always confronted him, which hid 
 all emotions and veiled even fatigue, had grown to be full 
 of terror to him full of blank, passionless menace. He 
 could not tell how I fared, or what I thought, or how 
 my strength stood. A superstitious dread was on him, 
 and threatened to overpower him. Ignorant who I was or 
 whence I came, he feared and doubted, grappling with mon- 
 strous suspicions, which the fading light encouraged. His 
 face broke out in blotches, his breath came and went in 
 gasps, his eyes began to protrude. Once or twice they 
 quitted mine for a part of a second to steal a despairing 
 glance at the rows of onlookers that ran to right and left of 
 us. But he read no pity there. 
 
 At last the end came more suddenly than I had looked 
 for it, but I think he was unnerved. His hand lost its grip 
 of the hilt, and a parry which I dealt a little more briskly 
 than usual sent the weapon flying among the crowd, as 
 much to my astonishment as to that of the spectators. A 
 volley of oaths and exclamations hailed the event; and for 
 a moment I stood at gaze, eyeing him watchfully. He 
 shrank back ; then he made for a moment as if he would 
 fling himself upon me dagger in hand. But seeing my 
 point steady, he recoiled a second time, his face distorted 
 with rage and fear. 
 
 'Go!' I said sternly.' 'Begone! Follow your sword! 
 But spare the next man you conquer. ' 
 
 He stared at me, fingering his dagger as if he did not 
 understand, or as if in the bitterness of his shame at being 
 so defeated even life were unwelcome. I was about to re- 
 peat my words when a heavy hand fell on my shoulder. 
 
 'Fool!' a harsh growling voice muttered in my ear. 'Do 
 you want him to serve you as Achon served Matas? This 
 is the way to deal with him. '
 
 360 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE 
 
 And before I knew who spoke or what to expect a man 
 vaulted over the table beside me. Seizing the Italian by 
 the neck and waist, he flung him bodily without paying 
 the least regard to his dagger into the crowd. 'There! ' 
 the new-comer cried, stretching his arms as if the effort 
 had relieved him, 'so much for him! And do you breathe 
 yourself. Breathe yourself, my friend, ' he continued with 
 a vain-glorious air of generosity. 'When you are rested 
 and ready, you and I will have a bout. Mon dieu ! what a 
 thing it is to see a man ! And by my faith you are a man ! ' 
 
 'But, sir,' I said, staring at him in the utmost bewilder- 
 ment, 'we have no quarrel.' 
 
 'Quarrel? ' he cried in his loud, ringing voice. 'Heaven 
 forbid! Why should we? I love a man, however, and 
 when I see one I say to him, " I am Crillon ! Fight me ! " 
 But I see you are not yet rested. Patience ! There is no 
 hurry. Berthon de Crillon is proud to wait your conven- 
 ience. In the meantime, gentlemen,' he continued, turn- 
 ing with a grand air to the spectators, who viewed this 
 sudden bouleversement with unbounded surprise, 'let us do 
 what we can. Take the word from me, and cry all, " Vive 
 le Roi, et vive Vlnconnu!" 
 
 Like people awaking from a dream so great was their 
 astonishment the company complied and with the utmost 
 heartiness. When the shout died away, someone cried 
 in turn, 'Vive Crillon!' and this was honoured with a 
 fervour which brought the tears to the eyes of that remark- 
 able man, in whom bombast was so strangely combined 
 with the firmest and most reckless courage. He bowed 
 again and again, turning himself about in the small space 
 between the tables, while his face shone with pleasure 
 and enthusiasm. Meanwhile I viewed him with per- 
 plexity. I comprehended that it was his voice I had heard 
 behind the settle; but I had neither the desire to fight 
 him nor so great a reserve of strength after my illness 
 as to be able to enter on a fresh contest with equanimity. 
 W r hen he turned to me, therefore, and again asked, 'Well,
 
 A TAVERN BRAWL 361 
 
 sir, are you ready? ' I could think of no better answer than 
 that I had already made to him, 'But, sir, I have no quarrel 
 with you.' 
 
 'Tut, tut! ' he answered querulously, 'if that is all, let 
 us engage.' 
 
 'That is not all, however,' I said, resolutely putting up 
 my sword. 'I have not only no quarrel with M. de Cril- 
 lon, but I received at his hands when I last saw him a 
 considerable service. ' 
 
 'Then now is the time to return it,' he answered briskly, 
 and as if that settled the matter. 
 
 I could not refrain from laughing. 'Nay, but I have 
 still an excuse,' I said. 'I am barely recovered from an 
 illness, and am weak. Even so, I should be loth to decline 
 a combat with some ; but a better man than I may give the 
 wall to M. de Crillon and suffer no disgrace.' 
 
 'Oh, if you put it that way enough said,' he answered 
 in a tone of disappointment. 'And, to be sure, the light 
 is almost gone. That is a comfort. But you will not 
 refuse to drink a cup of wine with me? Your voice I 
 remember, though I cannot say who you are or what ser- 
 vice I did you. For the future, however, count on me. I 
 love a man who is brave as well as modest, and know no 
 better friend than a stout swordsman.' 
 
 I was answering him in fitting terms while the fickle 
 crowd, which a few minutes earlier had been ready to tear 
 me, viewed us from a distance with respectful homage 
 when the masked gentleman who had before been in his 
 company drew near and saluted me with much stateliness. 
 
 'I congratulate you, sir,' he said, in the easy tone of a 
 great man condescending. ' You use the sword as few use it, 
 and fight with your head as well as your hands. Should you 
 need a friend or employment, you will honour me by remem- 
 bering that you are known to the Vicomte de Turenne. ' 
 
 I bowed low to hide the start which the mention of his 
 name caused me. For had I tried, ay, and possessed to aid 
 me all the wit of M. de Brantome, I could have imagined
 
 362 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE 
 
 nothing more fantastic than this meeting; or more enter- 
 taining than that I, masked, should talk with the Vicomte 
 de Turenrie masked, and hear in place of reproaches and 
 threats of vengeance a civil offer of protection. Scarcely 
 knowing whether I should laugh or tremble, or which 
 should occupy me more, the diverting thing that had. 
 happened or the peril we had barely escaped, I made shift 
 to answer him, craving his indulgence if I still preserved 
 my incognito. Even while I spoke a fresh fear assailed 
 me: lest M. de Crillon, recognising my voice or figure, 
 should cry my name on the spot, and explode in a moment 
 the mine on which we stood. 
 
 This rendered me extremely impatient to be gone. But 
 M. le Vicomte had still something to say, and I could not 
 withdraw myself without rudeness. 
 
 'You are travelling north like everyone else?' he said, 
 gazing at me curiously. 'May I ask whether you are for 
 Meudori, where the King of Navarre lies, or for the Court 
 at St. Cloud? ' 
 
 I muttered, moving restlessly under his keen eyes, that 
 I was for Meudon. 
 
 'Then, if you care to travel with a larger company,' he 
 rejoined, bowing with negligent courtesy, 'pray command 
 me. I am for Meudon also, and shall leave here three 
 hours before noon.' 
 
 Fortunately he took my assent to his gracious invitation 
 for granted, and turned away before I had well begun to 
 thank him. From Crillon I found it more difficult to 
 escape. He apppeared to have conceived a great fancy for 
 me, and felt also, I imagine, some curiosity as to my iden- 
 tity. But I did even this at last, and, evading the obse- 
 quious offers which were made me on all sides, escaped to 
 the stables, where I sought out the Cid's stall, and lying 
 down in the straw beside him, began to review the past, 
 and plan the future. Under cover of the darkness sleep 
 soon came to me ; my last waking thoughts being divided 
 between thankfulness for my escape and a steady purpose
 
 AT MEUDON 363 
 
 to reach Meudon before the Vicomte, so that I might make 
 good my tale in his absence. For that seemed to be 
 my only chance of evading the dangers I had chosen to 
 encounter. 
 
 CHAPTEE XXXIII. 
 
 AT MEUDON. 
 
 MAKING so early a start from Etampes that the inn, which 
 had continued in an uproar till long after midnight, lay 
 sunk in sleep when we rode out of the yard, we reached 
 Meudon about noon next day. I should be tedious were I 
 to detail what thoughts my mistress and I had during that 
 day's journey the last, it might be, which we should take 
 together; or what assurances we gave one another, or how 
 often we repented the impatience which had impelled us to 
 put all to the touch. Madame, with kindly forethought, 
 detached herself from us, and rode the greater part of the 
 distance with Fanchette; but the opportunities she gave us 
 went for little; for, to be plain, the separation we dreaded 
 seemed to overshadow us already. We uttered iew words, 
 though those few were to the purpose, but riding hand-in- 
 hand, with full hearts, and eyes which seldom quitted one 
 another, looked forward to Meudon and its perils with such 
 gloomy forebodings as our love and my precarious position 
 suggested. 
 
 Long before we reached the town, or could see more of it 
 than the Chateau, over which the Lilies of France and the 
 broad white banner of the Bourbons floated in company, 
 we found ourselves swept into the whirlpool which sur- 
 rounds an army. Crowds stood at all the cross-roads, 
 wagons and sumpter-mules encumbered the bridges; each 
 moment a horseman passed us at a gallop, or a troop of 
 disorderly rogues, soldiers only in name, reeled, shouting 
 and singing, along the road. Here and there, for a warn-
 
 364 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE 
 
 ing to the latter sort, a man dangled on a rude gallows; 
 under which sportsmen returning from the chase and ladies 
 who had been for an airing rode laughing on their way. 
 
 Amid the multitude entering the town we passed unno- 
 ticed. A little way within the walls we halted to inquire 
 where the Princess of Navarre had her lodging. Hearing 
 that she occupied a house in the town, while her brother 
 had his quarters in the Chateau, and the King of France 
 at St. Cloud, I stayed my party in a by-road, a hundred 
 paces farther on, and, springing from the Cid, went to my 
 mistress's knee. 
 
 'Mademoiselle,' I said formally, and so loudly that all 
 my men might hear, 'the time is come. I dare not go 
 farther with you. I beg you, therefore, to bear me witness 
 that as I took you so I have brought you back, and both 
 with your good-will. I beg that you will give me this 
 quittance, for it may serve me.' 
 
 She bowed her head and laid her ungloved hand on mine, 
 which I had placed on the pommel of her saddle. 'Sir,' 
 she answered in a broken voice, 'I will not give you this 
 quittance, nor any quittance from me while I live.' With 
 that she took off her mask before them all, and I saw the 
 tears running down her white face. 'May God protect you, 
 M. de Marsac,' she continued, stooping until her face 
 almost touched mine, 'and bring you to the thing you 
 desire. If not, sir, and you pay too dearly for what you 
 have done for me, I will live a maiden all my days. And, 
 if I do not, these men may shame me ! ' 
 
 My heart was too full for words, but I took the glove 
 she held out to me, and kissed her hand with my knee 
 bent. Then I waved for I could not speak to madame 
 to proceed; and with Simon Fleix and Maignan's men to 
 guard them they went on their way. Mademoiselle's white 
 face looked back to me until a bend in the road hid them, 
 and I saw them no more. 
 
 I turned when all were gone, and going heavily to where 
 my Sard stood with his head drooping, I climbed to the
 
 AT MEUDON 365 
 
 saddle, and rode at a foot-pace towards the Chateau. The 
 way was short and easy, for the next turning showed me 
 the open gateway and a crowd about it. A vast number of 
 people were entering and leaving, while others rested in the 
 shade of the wall, and a dozen grooms led horses up and 
 down. The sunshine fell hotly on the road and the court- 
 yard, and flashed back by the cuirasses of the men on guard, 
 seized the eye and dazzled it with gleams of infinite bright- 
 ness. I was advancing alone, gazing at all this with a 
 species of dull indifference which masked for the moment 
 the suspense I felt at heart, when a man, coming on foot 
 along the street, crossed quickly to me and looked me in 
 the face. 
 
 I returned his look, and seeing he was a stranger to me, 
 was for passing on without pausing. But he wheeled be- 
 side me and uttered my name in a low voice. 
 
 I checked the Cid and looked down at him. 'Yes,' I 
 said mechanically, 'I am M. de Marsac. But I do not 
 know you.' 
 
 'Nevertheless I have been watching for you for three 
 days,' he replied. 'M. de Eosny received your message. 
 This is for you. ' 
 
 He handed me a scrap of paper. 'From whom?' Tasked. 
 
 'Maignan,' he answered briefly. And with that, and a 
 stealthy look round, he left me, and went the way he had 
 been going before. 
 
 I tore open the note, and knowing that Maignan could 
 not write, was not surprised to find that it lacked any signa- 
 ture. The brevity of its contents vied with the curtness of 
 its bearer. ' In Heaven's name go back and wait,' it ran. 
 'Your enemy is here, and those who wish you well are 
 powerless.' 
 
 A warning so explicit, and delivered under such circum- 
 stances, might have been expected to make me pause even 
 then. But I read the message with the same dull indiffer- 
 ence, the same dogged resolve with which the sight of the 
 crowded gateway before me had inspired me. I had not
 
 366 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE 
 
 come so far and baffled Turenne by an hour to fail in my 
 purpose at the last; nor given such pledges to another to 
 prove false to myself. Moreover, the distant rattle of 
 musketry, which went to show that a skirmish was taking 
 place on the farther side of the Castle, seemed an invitation 
 to me to proceed; for now, if ever, my sword might earn 
 protection and a pardon. Only in regard to M. de Rosny, 
 from whom I had no doubt that the message came, I resolved 
 to act with prudence ; neither making any appeal to him in 
 public nor mentioning his name to others in private. 
 
 The Cid had borne me by this time into the middle of 
 the throng about the gateway, who, wondering to see a 
 stranger of my appearance arrive without attendants, eyed 
 me with a mixture of civility and forwardness. I recog- 
 nised more than one man whom I had seen about the Court 
 at St. Jean d'Angely six months before; but so great is the 
 disguising power of handsome clothes and equipments that 
 none of these knew me. I beckoned to the nearest, and 
 asked him if the King of Navarre was in the Chateau. 
 
 'He has gone to see the King of France at St. Cloud,' the 
 man answered, with something of wonder that anyone 
 should be ignorant of so important a fact. 'He is expected 
 here in an hour.' 
 
 I thanked him, and calculating that I should still have 
 time and to spare before the arrival of M. de Turenne, I 
 dismounted, and taking the rein over my arm, began to 
 walk up and down in the shade of the wall. Meanwhile 
 the loiterers increased in numbers as the minutes passed. 
 Men of better standing rode up, and, leaving their horses 
 in charge of their lackeys, went into the Chateau. Officers 
 in shining corslets, or with boots and scabbards dulled with 
 dust, arrived and clattered in through the gates. A mes- 
 senger galloped up with letters, and was instantly sur- 
 rounded by a curious throng of questioners; who left him 
 only to gather about the next comers, a knot of townsfolk, 
 whose downcast visages and glances of apprehension seemed 
 to betoken no pleasant or easy mission.
 
 AT MEUDOK 367 
 
 Watching many of these enter and disappear, while only 
 the humbler sort remained to swell the crowd at the gate, 
 I began to experience the discomfort and impatience which 
 are the lot of the man who finds himself placed in a false 
 position. I foresaw with clearness the injury I was about 
 to do my cause by presenting myself to the king among the 
 common herd; and yet I had no choice saveo do this, for I 
 dared not run the risk of entering, lest I should be required 
 to give my name, and fail to see the King of Navarre at all. 
 
 As it was I came very near to being foiled in this way; 
 for I presently recognised, and was recognised in turn, by 
 a gentleman who rode up to the gates and, throwing his 
 reins to a groom, dismounted with an air of immense 
 gravity. This was M. Forget, the king's secretary, and the 
 person to whom I had on a former occasion presented a 
 petition. He looked at me with eyes of profound astonish- 
 ment, and saluting me stiffly from a distance, seemed in 
 two minds whether he should pass in or speak to me. On 
 second thoughts, however, he came towards me, and again 
 saluted me with a peculiarly dry and austere aspect. 
 
 'I believe, sir, I am speaking to M. de Marsac?' he said 
 in a low voice, but not impolitely. 
 
 I replied in the affirmative. 
 
 'And that, I conclude, is your horse?' he continued, 
 raising his cane, and pointing to the Cid, which I had fas- 
 tened to a hook in the wall. 
 
 I replied again in the affirmative. 
 
 'Then take a word of advice,' he answered, screwing up 
 his features, and speaking in a dry sort of way. 'Get upon 
 its back without an instant's delay, and put as many 
 leagues between yourself and Meudon as horse and man 
 may.' 
 
 'I am obliged to you,' I said, though I was greatly 
 startled by his words. 'And what if I do not take your 
 advice? ' 
 
 He shrugged his shoulders. 'In that case look to your- 
 self ! ' he retorted. 'But you will look in vain ! '
 
 368 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE 
 
 He turned on his heel as he spoke, and in a moment was 
 gone. I watched him enter the Chateau, and in the uncer- 
 tainty which possessed me whether he was not gone after 
 salving his conscience by giving me warning to order my 
 instant arrest, I felt, and I doubt not I looked, as ill at 
 ease for the time being as the group of trembling townsfolk 
 who stood near me. Reflecting that he should know his 
 master's mind, I recalled with depressing clearness the 
 repeated warnings the King of Navarre had given me that 
 I must not look to him for reward or protection. I be- 
 thought me that I was here against his express orders: 
 presuming on those very services which he had given me 
 notice he should repudiate. I remembered that Eosny had 
 always been in the same tale. And in fine I began to see 
 that mademoiselle and I had together decided on a step 
 which I should never have presumed to take on my own 
 motion. 
 
 I had barely arrived at this conclusion when the tramp- 
 ling of hoofs and a sudden closing in of the crowd round 
 the gate announced the King of Navarre's approach. With 
 a sick heart I drew nearer, feeling that the crisis was at 
 hand; and in a moment he came in sight, riding beside an 
 elderly man, plainly dressed and mounted, with whom he 
 was carrying on an earnest conversation. A train of nobles 
 and gentlemen, whose martial air and equipments made up 
 for the absence of the gewgaws and glitter, to which my 
 eyes had become accustomed at Blois, followed close on his 
 heels. Henry himself wore a suit of white velvet, frayed 
 in places and soiled by his armour; but his quick eye and 
 eager, almost fierce, countenance could not fail to win and 
 keep the attention of the least observant. He kept glan- 
 cing from side to side as he came on; and that with so 
 cheerful an air and a carriage so full at once of dignity and 
 good-humour that no one could look on him and fail to see 
 that here was a leader and a prince of men, temperate in 
 victory and unsurpassed in defeat. 
 
 The crowd raising a cry of ' Vive Navarre I ' as he drew
 
 AT MEUDON 369 
 
 near, he bowed, with a sparkle in his eye. But when a 
 few by the gate cried ' Vivent les Rois ! ' he held up his 
 hand for silence, and said in a loud, clear voice, 'Not that, 
 my friends. There is but one king in France. Let us say 
 instead, "Vive leEoi!"' 
 
 The spokesman of the little group of townsfolk, who, 
 I learned, were from Arcueil, and had come to complain of 
 the excessive number of troops quartered upon them, took 
 advantage of the pause to approach him. Henry received 
 the old man with a kindly look, and bent from his saddle 
 to hear what he had to say. While they were talking I 
 pressed forward, the emotion I felt on my own account 
 heightened by my recognition of the man who rode by the 
 King of Navarre who was no other than M. de la Noue. 
 No Huguenot worthy of the name could look on the veteran 
 who had done and suffered more for the cause than any 
 living man without catching something of his stern enthu- 
 siasm; and the sight, while it shamed me, who a moment 
 before had been inclined to prefer my safety to the assist- 
 ance I owed my country, gave me courage to step to the 
 king's rein, so that I heard his last words to the men of 
 Arcueil. 
 
 'Patience, my friends,' he said kindly. 'The burden is 
 heavy, but the journey is a short one. The Seine is ours; 
 the circle is complete. In a week Paris must surrender. 
 The king, my cousin, will enter, and you will be rid of us. 
 For France's sake one week, my friends.' 
 
 The men fell back with low obeisances, charmed by his 
 good-nature, and Henry, looking up, saw me before him. 
 On the instant his jaw fell. His brow, suddenly contract- 
 ing above eyes, which flashed with surprise and displeasure, 
 altered in a moment the whole aspect of his face; which 
 grew dark and stern as night. His first impulse was to pass 
 by me; but seeing that I held my ground, he hesitated, so 
 completely chagrined by my appearance that he did not 
 know how to act, or in what way to deal with me. I seized 
 the occasion, and bending my knee with as much respect
 
 370 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE 
 
 as I had ever used to the King of France, begged to bring 
 myself to his notice, and to crave his protection and 
 favour. 
 
 'This is no time to trouble me, sir,' he retorted, eyeing 
 me with an angry side-glance. 'I do not know you. You 
 are unknown to me, sir. You must go to M. de Rosny.' 
 
 'It would be useless sire,' I answered, in desperate per- 
 sistence. 
 
 'Then I can do nothing for you/ he rejoined peevishly. 
 'Stand on one side, sir.' 
 
 But I was desperate. I knew that I had risked all on 
 the event, and must establish my footing before M. de 
 Turenne's return, or run the risk of certain recognition 
 and vengeance. I cried out, caring nothing who heard, 
 that I was M. de Marsac, that I had come back to meet 
 whatever my enemies could allege against me. 
 
 ' Venire Saint Gris ! ' Henry exclaimed, starting in his 
 saddle with well-feigned surprise. 'Are you that man? ' 
 
 'I am, sire,' I answered. 
 
 ' Then you must be mad ! ' he retorted, appealing to those 
 behind him. 'Stark, staring mad to show your face here! 
 Ventre Saint Gris ! Are we to have all the ravishers and 
 plunderers in the country come to us? ' 
 
 'I am neither the one nor the other! ' I answered, looking 
 with indignation from him to the gaping train behind him. 
 
 'That you will have to settle with M. de Turenne! ' he 
 retorted, frowning down at me with his whole face turned 
 gloomy and fierce. 'I know you well, sir, now. Com- 
 plaint has been made that you abducted a lady from his 
 Castle of Chize some time back.' 
 
 'The lady, sire, is now in charge of the Princess of 
 Navarre. ' 
 
 'She is? ' he exclaimed, quite taken aback. 
 
 'And if she has aught of complaint against me,' I con- 
 tinued with pride, 'I will submit to whatever punishment 
 you order or M. de Turenne demands. But if she has no 
 complaint to make, and vows that she accompanied me of
 
 AT MEUDON 371 
 
 her own free-will and accord, and has suffered neither 
 wrong nor displeasure at my hands, then, sire, I claim that 
 this is a private matter between myself and M. de Turenne.' 
 
 'Even so I think you will have your hands full,' he an- 
 swered grimly. At the same time he stopped by a gesture 
 those who would have cried out upon me, and looked at me 
 himself with an altered countenance. 'Do I understand 
 that you assert that the lady went of her own accord? ' he 
 asked. 
 
 'She went and has returned, sire,' I answered. 
 
 'Strange! ' he ejaculated. 'Have you married her? ' 
 
 'No, sire,' I answered. 'I desire leave to do so.' 
 
 'Mon dieu! she is M. de Turenne's ward,' he rejoined, 
 almost dumbfounded by my audacity. 
 
 'I do not despair of obtaining his assent, sire,' I said 
 patiently. 
 
 ' Saint Gris! the man is mad!' he cried, wheeling his 
 horse and facing his train with a gesture of the utmost 
 wonder. . 'It is the strangest story I ever heard.' 
 
 'But somewhat more to the gentleman's credit than the 
 lady's ! ' one said with a smirk and a smile. 
 
 'A lie! ' I cried, springing forward on the instant with a 
 boldness which astonished myself. 'She is as pure as your 
 Highness's sister! I swear it. That man lies in his teeth, 
 and I will maintain it.' 
 
 'Sir!' the King of Navarre cried, turning on me with 
 the utmost sternness, 'you forget yourself in my presence! 
 Silence, and beware another time how you let your tongue 
 run on those above you. You have enough trouble, let me 
 tell you, on your hands already.' 
 
 'Yet the man lies!' I answered doggedly, remembering 
 Crillon and his ways. 'And if he will do me the honour 
 of stepping aside with me, I will convince him of it ! ' 
 
 ' Venire Saint Gris ! ' Henry replied, frowning, and dwell- 
 ing on each syllable of his favourite oath. 'Will you be 
 silent, sir, and let me think? Or must I order your instant 
 artrest? '
 
 372 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE 
 
 'Surely that at least, sire,' a suave voice interjected. 
 And with that a gentleman pressed forward from the rest, 
 and gaming a place of 'vantage by the King's side, shot at 
 me a look of extreme malevolence. 'My lord of Turenne 
 will expect no less at your Highness's hands,' he contin- 
 ued warmly. 'I beg you will give the order on the spot, 
 and hold this person to answer for his misdeeds. M. de 
 Turenne returns to-day. He should be here now. I say 
 again, sire, he will expect no less than this.' 
 
 The king, gazing at me with gloomy eyes, tugged at his 
 moustaches. Someone had motioned the common herd to 
 stand back out of hearing; at the same time the suite had 
 moved up out of curiosity and formed a half-circle ; in the 
 midst of which I stood fronting the king, who had La Noiie 
 and the last speaker on either hand. Perplexity and an- 
 noyance struggled for the mastery in his face as he looked 
 darkly down at me, his teeth showing through his beard. 
 Profoundly angered by my appearance, which he had taken 
 at first to be the prelude to disclosures which must detach 
 Turenne at a time when union was all-important, he had 
 now ceased to fear for himself; and perhaps saw some- 
 thing in the attitude I adopted which appealed to hii 
 nature and sympathies. 
 
 'If the girl is really back,' he said at last, 'M. d'Arem- 
 burg, I do not see any reason why I should interfere. At 
 present, at any rate. 
 
 'I think, sire, M. de Turenne will see reason,' the gentle- 
 man answered drily. 
 
 The king coloured. 'M. de Turenne,' he began, 
 
 'Has made many sacrifices at your request, sire,' the 
 other said with meaning. 'And buried some wrongs, or 
 fancied wrongs, in connection with this very matter. This 
 person has outraged him in the grossest manner, and in M. 
 le Vicomte's name I ask, nay I press upon you, that he be 
 instantly arrested, and held to answer for it. ' 
 
 'I am ready to answer for it now! ' I retorted, looking 
 from face to face for sympathy, and finding none save in M.
 
 AT MEUDON 373 
 
 de la Nou'e's, who appeared to regard me with grave ap- 
 probation. 'To the Vicomte de Turenne, or the person he 
 may appoint to represent him.' 
 
 'Enough! ' Henry said, raising his hand and speaking in 
 the tone of authority he knew so well how to adopt. ' For 
 you, M. d'Aremburg, I thank you. Turenne is happy in 
 his friend. But this gentleman came to me of his own free 
 will and I do not think it consistent with my honour to de- 
 tain him without warning given. I grant him an hour to 
 remove himself from my neighbourhood. If he be found 
 after that time has elapsed,' he continued solemnly, 'his 
 fate be on his own head. Gentlemen, we are late already. 
 Let us on.' 
 
 I looked at him as he pronounced this sentence, and 
 strove to find words in which to make a final appeal to him. 
 But no words came ; and when he bade me stand aside, I 
 did so mechanically, remaining with my head bared to the 
 sunshine while the troop rode by. Some looked back at 
 me with curiosity, as at a man of whom they had heard a 
 tale, and some with a jeer on their lips ; a few with dark 
 looks of menace. When they were all gone, and the ser- 
 vants who followed them had disappeared also, and I was 
 left to the inquisitive glances of the rabble who stood gap- 
 ing after the sight, I turned and went to the Cid, and 
 loosed the horse with a feeling of bitter disappointment. 
 
 The plan which mademoiselle had proposed and I had 
 adopted in the forest by St. Gaultier when it seemed 
 to us that our long absence and the great events of 
 which we heard must have changed the world and 
 opened a path for our return had failed utterly. Things 
 were as they had been ; the strong were still strong, 
 and friendship under bond to fear. Plainly we should 
 have shewn ourselves wiser had we taken the lowlier 
 course, and, obeying the warnings given us, waited the 
 King of Navarre's pleasure or the tardy recollection of 
 Eosny. I had not then stood, as I now stood, in instant 
 jeopardy, nor felt the keen, pangs of a separation which
 
 374 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE 
 
 bade fair to be lasting. She ,vas safe, and that was much; 
 but I, after long service and brief happiness, must go out 
 again alone, with only memories to comfort me. 
 
 It was Simon Fleix's voice which awakened me from 
 this unworthy lethargy as selfish as it was useless and, 
 recalling me to myself, reminded me that precious time 
 was passing while I stood inactive. To get at me he had 
 forced his way through the curious crowd, and his face was 
 flushed. He plucked me by the sleeve, regarding the 
 varlets round him with a mixture of anger and fear. 
 
 'Norn de Dieu! do they take you for a rope-dancer?' he 
 muttered in my ear. 'Mount, sir, and come. There is 
 not a moment to be lost. ' 
 
 'You left her at Madame Catherine's? ' I said. 
 
 'To be sure,' he answered impatiently. 'Trouble not 
 about her. Save yourself, M. de Marsac. That is the 
 thing to be done now.' 
 
 I mounted mechanically, and felt my courage return as 
 the horse moved under me. I trotted through the crowd, 
 and without thought took the road by which we had come. 
 When we had ridden a hundred yards, however, I pulled 
 up. 'An hour is a short start, ' I said sullenly. 'Whither? ' 
 
 'To St. Cloud,' he answered promptly. 'The protection 
 of the King of France may avail for a day or two. After 
 that, there will still be the League, if Paris have not fallen. ' 
 
 I saw there was nothing else for it, and assented, and we 
 set off. The distance which separates Meudon from St. 
 Cloud we might have ridden under the hour, but the direct 
 road runs across the Scholars' Meadow, a wide plain north 
 of Meudon. This lay exposed to the enemy's fire, and was, 
 besides, the scene of hoiirly conflicts between the horse of 
 both parties, so that to cross it without an adequate force 
 was impossible. Driven to make a circuit, we took longer 
 to reach our destination, yet did so without mishap; find- 
 ing the little town, when we came in sight of it, given up 
 to all the bustle and commotion which properly belong to 
 the Court and camp.
 
 "T/S AN ILL WIND^ 375 
 
 It was, indeed, as full as it could be, for the surrender of 
 Paris being momentarily expected, St. Cloud had become 
 the rendezvous as well of the few who had long followed a 
 principle as of the many who wait upon success. The' 
 streets, crowded in every part, shone with glancing colours, 
 with steel and velvet, the garb of fashion and the plumes 
 of war. Long lines of flags obscured the eaves and broke 
 the sunshine, while, above all, the bells of half a dozen 
 churches rang merry answer to the distant crash of guns. 
 Everywhere on flag and arch and streamer I read the motto, 
 'Vive le Hoi!' words written, God knew then, and we 
 know now, in what a mockery of doom ! 
 
 CHAPTER XXXir 
 
 "TIS AN ILL WIND.* 
 
 WE had made our way slowly and with much jostling as 
 far as the principal street, finding the press increase as we 
 advanced, when I heard, as I turned a corner, my name 
 called, and, looking up, saw at a window the face of which 
 I was in search. After that half a minute sufficed to bring 
 M. d' Agen flying to my side, when nothing, as I had expected, 
 would do but I must dismount where I was and share his 
 lodging. He made no secret of his joy and surprise at sight 
 of me, but pausing only to tell Simon where the stable was, 
 haled me through the crowd and up his stairs with a fervour 
 and heartiness which brought the tears to my eyes, and 
 served to impress the company whom I found above with a 
 more than sufficient sense of my importance. 
 
 Seeing him again in the highest feather and in the full 
 employment of all those little arts and graces which served 
 as a foil to his real worth, I took it as a great honour that 
 he laid them aside for the nonce ; and introduced me to the 
 seat of honour and gaade me known to his companions with
 
 376 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE 
 
 a boyish directness and a simple thought for my comfort 
 which infinitely pleased me. He bade his landlord, without 
 a moment's delay, bring wine and meat and everything which 
 could refresh a traveller, and was himself up and down a 
 hundred times in a minute, calling to his servants for this 
 or that, or railing at them for their failure to bring me a 
 score of things I did not need. I hastened to make my 
 excuses to the company for interrupting them in the midst 
 of their talk ; and these they were kind enough to accept 
 in good part. At the same time, reading clearly in M. 
 d'Agen's excited face and shining eyes that he longed to be 
 alone with me, they took the hint, and presently left us 
 together. 
 
 ' Well,' he said, coming back from the door, to which he 
 had conducted them, ' what have you to tell me, my friend ? 
 She is not with you ? ' 
 
 1 She is with Mademoiselle de la Vire at Meudon,' I an- 
 swered, smiling. ' And for the rest, she is well and in better 
 spirits.' 
 
 ' She sent me some message ? ' he asked. 
 
 I shook my head. ' She did not know I should see you,' 
 I answered. 
 
 ' But she she has spoken of me lately ? ' he continued, 
 his face falling. 
 
 ' I do not think she has named your name for a fortnight,' 
 I answered, laughing. ' There's for you ! Why, man/ I 
 continued, adopting a different tone, and laying my hand on. 
 his shoulder in a manner which reassured him at least as 
 much as my words, 'are you so young a lover as to be igno- 
 rant that a woman says least of that of which she thinks 
 most ? Pluck up courage ! Unless I am mistaken, you have 
 little to be afraid of except the past. Only have patience.' 
 
 ' You think so ? ' he said gratefully. 
 
 I assured him that I had no doubt of it ; and on that he 
 fell into a reverie, and I to watching him. Alas for the 
 littleness of our natures ! He had received me with open 
 arms, yet at sight of the happiness which took possession of
 
 "77.9 AN ILL WIND' 377 
 
 his handsome face I gave way to the pettiest feeling which 
 can harbour in a man's breast. I looked at him with eyes 
 of envy, bitterly comparing my lot with that which fate had 
 reserved for him. He had fortune, good looks, and success 
 on his side, great relations, and high hopes ; I stood in 
 instant jeopardy, my future dark, and every path which 
 presented itself so hazardous that I knew not which to 
 adopt. He was young, and I past my prime ; he in favour, 
 and I a fugitive. 
 
 To such reflections he put an end in a way which made 
 me blush for my churlishness. For, suddenly awaking out 
 of his pleasant dream, he asked me about myself and my 
 fortunes, inquiring eagerly how I came to be in St. Cloud, 
 and listening to the story of my adventures with a generous 
 anxiety which endeared him to me more and more. When 
 I had done and by that time Simon had joined us, and was 
 waiting at the lower end of the room he pronounced that 
 I must see the king. 
 
 ' "^here is nothing else for it,' he said. 
 
 ( t have come to see him,' I answered. 
 
 ' Mon dieu, yes ! ' he continued, rising from his seat and 
 looking at me with a face of concern. ' No one else can 
 help you.' 
 
 I nodded. 
 
 ' Turenne has four thousand men here. You can do noth- 
 ing against so many? ' 
 
 'Nothing,' I said. 'The question is, Will the king protect 
 me?' 
 
 ' It is he or no one,' M. d'Agen answered warmly. ' You 
 cannot see him to-night : he has a Council. To-morrow at 
 daybreak you may. You must lie here to-night, and I will 
 set my fellows to watch, and I think you will be safe. I 
 will away now and see if my uncle will help. Can you 
 think of anyone else who would speak for you ? ' 
 
 I 'considered, and was about to answer in the negative, 
 when Simon, who had listened with a scared face, suggested 
 M. de Crillon.
 
 378 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE 
 
 'Yes, if he would,' M. d'Agen exclaimed, looking at the 
 lad with approbation. ' He has weight with the king.' 
 
 ' I think he might,' I replied slowly. ' I had a curious 
 encounter with him last night.' And with that I told M. 
 d'Agen of the duel I fought at the inn. 
 
 1 Good ! ' he said, his eyes sparkling. ( I wish I had been 
 there to see. At any rate we will try him. Crillon fears 
 no one, not even the king.' 
 
 So it was settled. For that night I was to keep close in 
 my friend's lodging, showing not even my nose at the 
 window. 
 
 When he had gone on his errand, and I found myself 
 alone in the room, I am fain to confess that I fell very low 
 in my spirits. M. d'Agen's travelling equipment lay about 
 the apartment, but failed to give any but an untidy air to 
 its roomy bareness. The light was beginning to wane, the 
 sun was gone. Outside, the ringing of bells and the distant 
 muttering of guns, with the tumult of sounds which rose 
 from the crowded street, seemed to tell of joyous life and 
 freedom, and all the hopes and ambitions from which I was 
 cut off. 
 
 Having no other employment, I watched the street, and 
 keeping myself well retired from the window, saw knots of 
 gay riders pass this way and that through the crowd, their 
 corslets shining and their voices high. Monks and ladies, 
 a cardinal and an ambassador, passed under my eyes these 
 and an endless procession of townsmen and beggars, sol- 
 diers and courtiers, Gascons, Normans and Picards. Never 
 had I seen such a sight or so many people gathered to- 
 gether. It seemed as if half Paris had come out to make 
 submission, so that while my gorge rose against my own 
 imprisonment, the sight gradually diverted my mind from 
 my private distresses, by bidding ine find compensation for. 
 them in the speedy and glorious triumph of the cause. 
 
 Even when the light failed the pageant did not cease,-but, 
 torches and lanthorns springing into life, turned night into 
 day. From every side came sounds of revelry or strife. The
 
 "77S AN ILL WIND^ 379 
 
 crowd continued to perambulate the streets until a late hour, 
 with cries of ' Vive le Roi ! ' and ' Vive Navarre ! ' while now 
 and again the passage of a great noble with his suite called 
 forth a fresh outburst of enthusiasm. Nothing seemed more 
 certain, more inevitable, more clearly predestinated than that 
 twenty-four hours must see the fall of Paris. 
 
 Yet Paris did not fall. 
 
 When M. d'Agen returned a little before midnight, he 
 found me still sitting in the dark looking from the window. 
 I heard him call roughly for lights, and apprised by the 
 sound of his voice that something was wrong, I rose to meet 
 him. He stood silent awhile, twirling his small moustaches, 
 and then broke into a passionate tirade, from which I was 
 not slow to gather that M. de Rambouillet declined to serve 
 me. 
 
 ' Well,' I said, feeling for the young man's distress and 
 embarrassment, ' perhaps he is right.' 
 
 ' He says that word respecting you came this evening', 
 my friend answered, his cheeks red with shame, ' and that 
 to countenance you after that would only be to court cer- 
 tain humiliation. I did not let him off too easily, I assure 
 you,' M. d'Agen continued, turning away to evade my gaze; 
 ' but I got no satisfaction. He said you had his good-will, 
 and that to help you he would risk something, but that 
 to do so under these circumstances would be only to injure 
 himself.' 
 
 1 There is still Crillon,' I said, with as much cheerfulness 
 as I could assume. ' Pray Heaven he be there early ! Did 
 M. de Kambouillet say anything else ? ' 
 
 ' That your only chance was to fly as quickly and secretly 
 as possible.' 
 
 ' He thought my situation desperate, then ? ' 
 
 My friend nodded; and scarcely less depressed on my 
 account than ashamed on his own, evinced so much feeling 
 that it was all I could do to comfort him ; which I succeeded 
 in doing only when I diverted the conversation to Madame 
 de Bruhl. We passed the short night together, sharing the
 
 380 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE 
 
 same room and the same bed, and talking more than we 
 slept of madame and mademoiselle, the castle on the hill, 
 and the camp in the woods, of all old days in fine, but little 
 of the future. Soon after dawn Simon, who lay on a pallet 
 across the threshold, roused me from a fitful sleep into 
 which I had just fallen, and a few minutes later I stood up 
 dressed and armed, ready to try the last chance left to me. 
 
 M. d'Agen had dressed stage for stage with me, and I had 
 kept silence. But when he took up his cap, and showed 
 clearly that he had it in his mind to go with me, I withstood 
 him. ' No/ I said, ' you can lo me little good, and may do 
 yourself much harm.' 
 
 ' You shall not go without one friend,' he cried fiercely. 
 
 < Tut, tut ! ' I said. ' 1 shall have Simon.' 
 
 But Simon, when I turned to speak to him, was gone. 
 Few men are at their bravest in the early hours of the day, 
 and it did not surprise me that the lad's courage had failed 
 him. The defection only strengthened, however, the reso- 
 lution I had formed that I would not injure M. d'Agen; 
 though it was some time before I could persuade him that 
 I was in earnest, and would go alone or not at all. In the 
 end he had to content himself with lending me his back and 
 breast, which I gladly put on, thinking it likely enough that 
 I might be set upon before I reached the castle. And then, 
 the time being about seven, I parted from him with many 
 embraces and kindly words, and went into the street with 
 my sword under my cloak. 
 
 The town, late in rising after its orgy, lay very still and 
 quiet. The morning was grey and warm, with a cloudy sky. 
 The flags, which had made so gay a show yesterday, hung 
 close to the poles, or flapped idly and fell dead again. I 
 walked slowly along beneath them, keeping a sharp look-out 
 on every side ; but there were few persons moving in the 
 streets, and I reached the Castle gates without misadven- 
 ture. Here was something of life ; a bustle of officers and 
 soldiers passing in and out, of courtiers whose office made 
 their presence necessary, of beggars who had flocked hither
 
 AN ILL WIND 381 
 
 in the night for company. In the middle of these I recog- 
 nised on a sudden and with great surprise Simon Fleix walk- 
 ing my horse up and down. On seeing me he handed it to 
 a boy, and came up to speak to me with a red face, muttering 
 that four legs were better than two. I did not say much to 
 him, my heart being full and my thoughts occupied with 
 the presence chamber and what I should say there ; but I 
 nodded kindly to him, and he fell in behind me as the sen- 
 tries challenged me. I answered them that I sought M. de 
 Crillon, and so getting by, fell into the rear of a party of 
 three who seemed bent on the same errand as myself. 
 
 One of these was a Jacobin monk, whose black and white 
 robes, by reminding me of Father Antoine, sent a chill to 
 my heart. The second, whose eye I avoided, I knew to be 
 M. la Guesle, the king's Solicitor-General. The third was a 
 stranger to me. Enabled by M. la Guesle's presence to pass 
 the main guards without challenge, the party proceeded 
 through a maze of passages and corridors, conversing to- 
 gether in a low tone ; while I, keeping in their train with 
 my face cunningly muffled, got as far by this means as the 
 ante-chamber, which I found almost empty. Here I inquired 
 of the usher for M. de Crillou, and learned with the utmost 
 consternation that he was not present. 
 
 This blow, which almost stunned me, opened my eyes to 
 the precarious nature of my position, which only the early 
 hour and small attendance rendered possible for a moment. 
 At any minute I might be recognised and questioned, or my 
 name be required ; while the guarded doors of the chamber 
 shut me off as effectually from the king's face and grace as 
 though I were in Paris, or a hundred leagues away. Endeav- 
 ouring to the best of my power to conceal the chagrin and 
 alarm, which possessed me as this conviction took hold of 
 me, I walked to the window ; and to hide my face more 
 completely and at the same time gain a moment to collect 
 my thoughts, affected to be engaged in looking through it. 
 
 Nothing which passed in the room, however, escaped me. 
 I marked everything and everyone, though all my thought
 
 382 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE 
 
 was how I might get to the king. The barber came out of 
 the chamber with a silver basin, and stood a moment, and 
 went in again with an air of vast importance. The guards 
 yawned, and an officer entered, looked round, and retired. 
 M. la Guesle, who had gone in to the presence, came out 
 again and stood near me talking with the Jacobin, whose 
 pale nervous face and hasty movements reminded me some- 
 how of Simon Fleix. The monk held a letter or petition 
 in his hand, and appeared to be getting it by heart, for his 
 lips moved continually. The light which fell on his face 
 from the window showed it to be of a peculiar sweaty pal- 
 lor, and distorted besides. But supposing him to be de- 
 voted, like many of his kind, to an unwholesome life, I 
 thought nothing of this ; though I liked him little, and 
 would have shifted my place but for the convenience of his 
 neighbourhood. 
 
 Presently, while I was cudgelling my brains, a person 
 came out and spoke to La Guesle ; who called in his turn 
 to the monk, and started hastily towards the door. The 
 Jacobin followed. The third person who had entered in 
 their company had his attention directed elsewhere at the 
 moment ; and though La Guesle called to him, took no heed. 
 On the instant I grasped the situation. Taking my courage 
 in my hands, I crossed the floor behind the monk; who, hear- 
 ing me, or feeling his robe come in contact with me, presently 
 started and looked round suspiciously, his face wearing a 
 scowl so black and ugly that I almost recoiled from him, 
 dreaming for a moment that I saw before me the very spirit 
 of Father Antoine. But as the man said nothing, and the 
 next instant averted his gaze, I hardened my heart and 
 pushed on behind him, and passing the usher, found myself 
 as by magic in the presence which had seemed a while ago as 
 unattainable by my wits as it was necessary to my safety. 
 
 It was not this success alone, however, which caused my 
 heart to beat more hopefully. The king was speaking as I 
 entered, and the gay tones of his voice seemed to promise 
 a favourable reception. His Majesty sat half-dressed on a
 
 "TYS AN ILL WIND^ 383 
 
 stool at the farther end of the apartment, surrounded by five 
 or six noblemen, while as many attendants, among whom 
 I hastened to mingle, waited near the door. 
 
 La Guesle made as if he would advance, and then, seeing 
 the king's attention was not on him, held back. But in a 
 moment the king saw him and called to him. ' Ha, Guesle ! ' 
 he said with good-temper, ' is it you ? Is your friend with 
 you?' 
 
 The Solicitor went forward with the monk at his elbow, 
 and I had leisure to remark the favourable change which 
 had taken place in the king, who spoke more strongly and 
 seemed in better health than of old. His face looked less 
 cadaverous under the paint, his form a trifle less emaciated. 
 That which struck me more than anything, however, was 
 the improvement in his spirits. His eyes sparkled from 
 time to time, and he laughed continually, so that I could 
 scarcely believe that he was the same man whom I had seen 
 overwhelmed with despair and tortured by his conscience. 
 
 Letting his attention slip from La Guesle, he began tc 
 bandy words with the nobleman who stood nearest to him ; 
 looking up at him with a roguish eye, and making bets or. 
 the fall of Paris. 
 
 ' Morbleu ! ' I heard him cry gaily, ' I would give a thous- 
 and pounds to see the Montpensier this morning! She may 
 keep her third crown for herself. Or, peste ! we might put 
 her in a convent. That would be a fine vengeance ! ' 
 
 ' The veil for the tonsure,' the nobleman said with a 
 smirk. 
 
 ' Ay. Why not ? She would have made a monk of me,' 
 the king rejoined smartly. 'She must be ready to hang 
 herself with her garters this morning, if she is not dead of 
 ^pite already. Or, stay, I had forgotten her golden scissors. 
 Let her open a vein with them. Well, what does your 
 friend want, La Guesle ? ' 
 
 I did not hear the answer, but it was apparently satis- 
 factory, for in a minute all except the Jacobin fell back, 
 leaving the monk standing before the king ; who, stretching
 
 384 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE 
 
 out his hand, took from him a letter. The Jacobin, trem- 
 bling visibly, seemed scarcely able to support the honour 
 done him, and the king, seeing this, said in a voice audible 
 to all, ' Stand up, man. You are welcome. I love a cowl 
 as some love a lady's hood. And now, what is this ? ' 
 
 He read a part of the letter and rose. As he did so the 
 monk leaned forward as though to receive the paper back 
 again, and then so swiftly, so suddenly, with so unexpected 
 a movement that no one stirred until all was over, struck 
 the king in the body with a knife ! As the blade flashed 
 and was hidden, and His Majesty with a deep sob fell back on 
 the stool, then, and not till then, I knew that I had missed 
 a providential chance of earning pardon and protection. 
 For had I only marked the Jacobin as we passed the door 
 together, and read his evil face aright, a word, one word, 
 had done for me more than the pleading of a score of 
 Crillons ! 
 
 Too late a dozen sprang forward to the king's assistance ; 
 but before they reached him he had himself drawn the 
 knife from, the wound and struck the assassin with it on 
 the head. While some, with cries of grief, ran to support 
 Henry, from whose body the blood was already flowing fast, 
 others seized and struck down the wretched monk. As 
 they gathered round him I saw him raise himself for a 
 moment on his knees and look upward ; the blood which 
 ran down his face, no less than the mingled triumph and 
 horror of his features, impressed the sight on my recollec- 
 tion. The next instant three swords were plunged into his 
 breast, and his writhing body, plucked up from the floor 
 amid a transport of curses, was forced headlong through 
 the casement and flung down to make sport for the grooms 
 and scullions who stood below. 
 
 A scene of indescribable confusion followed, some crying 
 that the king was dead, while others called for a doctor, and 
 some by name for Dortoman. I expected to see the doors 
 closed and all within secured, that if the man had confeder- 
 ates they might be taken. But there was no one to give the
 
 "775" AN ILL WIND^ 385 
 
 order. Instead, many who had neither the entr&e nor any- 
 business in the chamber forced their way in, and by their 
 cries and pressure rendered the hub-bub and tumult a 
 hundred times worse. In the midst of this, while I stood 
 stunned and dumbfounded, my own risks and concerns 
 forgotten, I felt my sleeve furiously plucked, and, looking 
 round, found Simon at my elbow. The lad's face was 
 crimson, his eyes seemed starting from his head. 
 
 ' Come,' he muttered, seizing my arm. ' Come ! ' And 
 without further ceremony or explanation he dragged me 
 towards the door, while his face and manner evinced as much 
 heat and impatience as if he had been himself the assassin. 
 'Come, there is not a moment to be lost/ he panted, continu- 
 ing his exertions without the least intermission. 
 
 < Whither ? ' I said, in amazement, as I reluctantly per- 
 mitted him to force me along the passage and through the 
 gaping crowd on the stairs. ' Whither, man ? ' 
 
 1 Mount and ride ! ' was the answer he hissed in my ear. 
 ' Bide for your life to the' King of Navarre to the King of 
 France it may be ! Ride as you have never ridden before, 
 and tell him the news, and bid him look to himself ! Be 
 the firs,t, and, Heaven helping us, Turenne may do his 
 worst ! ' 
 
 I felt every nerve in my body tingle as I awoke to his 
 meaning. Without a word I left his arm, and flung myself 
 into the crowd which filled the lower passage to suffocation. 
 As I struggled fiercely with them Simon aided me by crying 
 1 A doctor ! a doctor ! make way there ! ' and this induced 
 many to give place to me under the idea that I was an 
 accredited messenger. Eventually I succeeded in forcing 
 my way through and reaching the courtyard; being, as it 
 turned out, the first person to issue from the Chateau. A 
 dozen people sprang towards me with anxious eyes and ques- 
 tions on their lips, but I ran past them and, catching the 
 Cid, which was fortunately at hand, by the rein, bounded 
 into the saddle. 
 
 As I turned the horse to the gate I heard Simon cry after
 
 386 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE 
 
 me, ' The Scholars' Meadow ! Go that way ! ' and then I 
 heard no more. I was out of the yard and galloping bare- 
 headed down the pitched street, while women snatched their 
 infants up and ran aside, and men came startled to the 
 doors, crying that the League was upon us. As the good 
 horse flung up his head and bounded forward, hurling the 
 gravel behind him with hoofs which slid and clattered on 
 the pavement, as the wind began to whistle by me, and I 
 seized the reins in a shorter grip, I felt my heart bound with 
 exultation. I experienced such a blessed relief and elation 
 as the prisoner long fettered and confined feels when restored 
 to the air of heaven. 
 
 Down one street and through a narrow lane we thundered, 
 until a broken gateway stopped with fascines through 
 which the Cid blundered and stumbled brought us at a 
 bound into the Scholars' Meadow just as the tardy sun broke 
 through the clouds and flooded the low, wide plain with 
 brightness. Half a league in front of us the towers of 
 Meudon rose to view on a hill. In the distance, to the left, 
 lay the walls of Paris, and nearer, on the same side, a dozen 
 forts and batteries ; while here and there, in that quarter, a 
 shining clump of spears or a dense mass of infantry betrayed 
 the enemy's presence. 
 
 I heeded none of these things, however, nor anything 
 except the towers of Meudon, setting the Cid's head straight 
 for these and riding on at the top of his speed. Swiftly 
 ditch and dyke came into view before us and flashed away 
 beneath us. Men lying in pits rose up and aimed at us ; or 
 ran with cries to intercept us. A cannon-shot fired from 
 the fort by Issy tore up the earth to one side ; a knot of 
 lancers sped from the shelter of an earthwork in the same 
 quarter, and raced us for half a mile, with frantic shouts 
 and threats of vengeance. But all such efforts were vanity. 
 The Cid, fired by this sudden call upon his speed, and feeling 
 himself loosed rarest of events to do his best, shook the 
 foam from his bit, and opening his blood-red nostrils to 
 the wind, crouched lower and lower: until his long neck,
 
 "775" AN ILL WIND 11 387 
 
 stretched out before him, seemed, as the sward swept by, 
 like the point of an arrow speeding resistless to its aim. 
 
 God knows, as the air rushed by me and the sun shone in 
 my face, I cried aloud like a boy, and though I sat still and 
 stirred neither hand nor foot, last I should break the good 
 Sard's stride, I prayed wildly that the horse which I had 
 groomed with my own hands and fed with my last crown 
 might hold on unfaltering to the end. For I dreamed that 
 the fate of a nation rode in my saddle ; and mindful alike 
 of Simon's words, ' Bid him look to himself,' and of my own 
 notion that the League would not be so foolish as to remove 
 one enemy to exalt another, I thought nothing more likely 
 than that, with all my fury, I should arrive too late, and 
 find the King of Navarre as I had left the King of France. 
 
 In this strenuous haste I covered a mile as a mile has 
 seldom been covered before ; and I was growing -under the 
 influence of the breeze which whipped my temples some- 
 what more cool and hopeful, when I saw on a' sudden right 
 before me, and between me and Meudon, a handful of men 
 engaged in a m&l6e. There were red and white jackets in 
 it Leaguers and Huguenots and the red coats seemed to 
 be having the wornt of it. Still, while I watched, they 
 came off in order, and unfortunately in such a way and at 
 such a speed that I saw they must meet me face to face 
 whether I tried to avoid the encounter or not. I had 
 barely time to take in the danger and its nearness, and 
 discern beyond both parties the main-guard of the Hugue- 
 nots, enlivened by a score of pennons, when the Leaguers 
 were upon me. 
 
 I suppose they knew that no friend would ride for Meu- 
 don at that pace, for they dashed at me six abreast with a 
 shout of triumph ; and before I could count a score we met. 
 The Cid was still running strongly, and I had not thought 
 to stay him, so that I had no time to use my pistols. My 
 sword I had out, but the sun dazzled me and the men wore 
 corslets, and I made but poor play with it ; though I 
 struck out savagely, as we crashed together, in my rage at
 
 388 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE 
 
 this sudden crossing of my hopes when all seemed done and 
 gained. The Cid faced them bravely I heard the distant 
 huzza of the Huguenots and I put aside one point which 
 threatened my throat. But the sun was in my eyes and 
 something struck me on the head. Another second, and a 
 blow in the breast forced me fairly from the saddle. Grip- 
 ping furiously at the air I went down, stunned and dizzy, 
 my last thought as I struck the ground being of mademoi- 
 selle, and the little brook with the stepping-stones. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXV. 
 *LE EOI EST MOBT! ' 
 
 IT was M. d'Agen's breastpiece saved my life by ward- 
 ing off the point of the varlet's sword, so that the worst 
 injury I got was the loss of my breath for five minutes, 
 with a swimming in the head and a kind of syncope. 
 These being past, I found myself on my back on the ground, 
 with a man's knee on my breast and a dozen horsemen 
 standing round me. The sky reeled dizzily before my eyes 
 and the men's figures loomed gigantic; yet I had sense 
 enough to know what had happened to me, and that matters 
 might well be worse. 
 
 Resigning myself to the prospect of captivity, I prepared 
 to ask for quarter ; which I did not doubt I should receive, 
 since they had taken me in an open skirmish, and honestly, 
 and in the daylight. But the man whose knee already 
 incommoded me sufficiently, seeing me about to speak, 
 squeezed me on a sudden so fiercely, bidding me at the 
 same time in a gruff whisper be silent, that I thought 1 
 could not do better than obey. 
 
 Accordingly I lay still, and as in a dream, for my brain 
 was still clouded, heard someone say, 'Dead! Is he? I
 
 *LE ROI EST MORT\"> 389 
 
 hoped we had come in time. Well, he deserved a better 
 fate. Who is he, Rosny? ' 
 
 'Do you know him, Maignan?' said a voice which 
 sounded strangely familiar. 
 
 The man who knelt upon me answered, 'No, my lord. 
 He is a stranger to me. He has the look of a Norman.' 
 
 'Like enough!' replied a high-pitched voice I had not 
 heard before. 'For he rode a good horse. Give me a hun- 
 dred like it, and a hundred men to ride as straight, and I 
 would not envy the King of France.' 
 
 'Much less his poor cousin of Navarre,' the first speaker 
 rejoined in a laughing tone, 'without a whole shirt to his 
 back or a doublet that is decently new. Come, Turenne, 
 acknowledge that you are not so badly off after all ! ' 
 
 At that word the cloud which had darkened my faculties 
 swept on a sudden aside. I saw that the men into whose 
 hands I had fallen wore white favours, their leader a white 
 plume; and comprehended without more that the King of 
 Navarre had come to my rescue, and beaten off the Leaguers 
 who had dismounted me. At the same moment the remem- 
 brance of all that had gone before, and especially of the 
 scene I had witnessed in the king's chamber, rushed upon 
 my mind with such overwhelming force that I fell into a 
 fury of impatience at the thought of the time I had wasted ; 
 and rising up suddenly I threw off Maignan with all my 
 force, crying out that I was alive that I was alive, and 
 had news. 
 
 The equerry did his best to restrain me, cursing me under 
 his breath for a fool, and almost squeezing the life out of 
 me. But in vain, for the King of Navarre, riding nearer, 
 saw me struggling. 'Hallo! hallo! 'tis a strange dead 
 man,' he cried, interposing. 'What is the meaning of this? 
 Let him go! Do you hear, sirrah? Let him go! ' 
 
 The equerry obeyed and stood back sullenly, and I stag- 
 gered to my feet, and looked round with eyes which still 
 swam and watered. On the instant a cry of recognition 
 greeted me, with a hundred exclamations of astonishment.
 
 390 A GENTLEMAN OF FR4NCE 
 
 While I heard my name uttered on every side in a dozen 
 different tones, I remarked that M. de Kosny, upon whom 
 my eyes first fell, alone stood silent, regarding me with a 
 face of sorrowful surprise. 
 
 'By heavens, sir, I knew nothing of this!' I heard the 
 King of Navarre declare, addressing himself to the 
 Vicomte de Turenne. 'The man is here by no connivance 
 of mine. Interrogate him yourself, if you will. Or I will. 
 Speak, sir,' he continued, turning to me with his counte- 
 nance hard and forbidding. 'You heard me yesterday, 
 what I promised you? Why, in God's name, are you here 
 to-day? ' 
 
 I tried to answer, but Maignan had so handled me that I 
 had not breath enough, and stood panting. 
 
 'Your Highness's clemency in this matter,' M. de Tu- 
 renne said, with a sneer, 'has been so great he trusted to its 
 continuance. And doubtless he thought to find you alone. 
 I fear I am in the way.' 
 
 I knew him by his figure and his grand air, which in any 
 other company would have marked him for master; and 
 forgetting the impatience which a moment before had 
 consumed me doubtless I was still light-headed I an- 
 swered him. 'Yet I had once the promise of your lord- 
 ship's protection,' I gasped. 
 
 'My protection, sir? ' he exclaimed, his eyes gleaming 
 angrily. 
 
 'Even so, ' I answered. 'At the inn at Etampes, where M. 
 de Crillon would have fought me.' 
 
 He was visibly taken aback. 'Are you that man?' he cried. 
 
 'I am. But I am not here to prate of myself,' I replied. 
 And with that the remembrance of my neglected errand 
 flashing on me again I staggered to the King of Navarre's 
 side, and, falling on my knees, seized his stirrup. 'Sire, 
 I bring you news! great news! dreadful news!' I cried, 
 clinging to it. 'His Majesty was but a quarter of an hour 
 ago stabbed in the body in his chamber by a villain monk. 
 And is dying, or, it may be, dead. '
 
 'LE ROI EST MORTr 39 1 
 
 'Dead? The King! ' Turenne cried with an oatu. 'Im- 
 possible ! ' 
 
 Vaguely I heard others crying, some this, some that, as 
 surprise and consternation, or anger, or incredulity moved 
 them. But I did not answer them, for Henry, remaining 
 silent, held me spellbound and awed by the marvellous 
 change which I saw fall on his face. His eyes became 
 on a sudden suffused with blood, and seemed to retreat 
 under his heavy brows; his cheeks turned of a brick-red 
 colour; his half -open lips showed his teeth gleaming through 
 his beard; while his great nose, which seemed to curve and 
 curve until it well-nigh met his chin, gave to his mobile 
 countenance an aspect as strange as it was terrifying. 
 Withal he uttered for a time no word, though I saw his 
 hand grip the riding-whip he held in a convulsive grasp, 
 as though his thought were "Tis mine! Mine! Wrest it 
 away who dares ! ' 
 
 'Bethink you, sir,' he said at last, fixing his piercing eyes 
 on me, and speaking in a harsh, low tone, like the growling of 
 a great dog, 'this is no jesting- time. Nor will you save your 
 skin by a ruse. Tell me, on your peril, is this a trick? ' 
 
 'Heaven forbid, sire! ' I answered with passion. 'I was 
 iii the chamber, and saw it with my own eyes. I mounted 
 on the instant, and rode hither by the shortest route to 
 warn your Highness to look to yourself. Monks are many, 
 and the Holy Union is not apt to stop half-way.' 
 
 I saw he believed me, for his face relaxed. His breath 
 seemed to come and go again, and for the tenth part of a 
 second his eyes sought M. de Rosny's. Then he looked at 
 me again. 'I thank you, sir,' he said, bowing gravely and 
 courteously, 'for your care for me not for your tidings, 
 which are of the sorriest. God grant my good cousin and 
 king may be hurt only. Now tell us exactly for these 
 gentlemen are equally interested with myself had a sur- 
 geon seen him?' 
 
 I replied in the negative, but added that the wound was 
 in the groin, and bled much.
 
 392 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE 
 
 'You said a few minutes ago, "dying or already dead! " * 
 the King of Navarre rejoined. 'Why? ' 
 
 'His Majesty's face was sunken,' I stammered. 
 
 He nodded. 'You may be mistaken,' he said. 'I pray 
 that you are. But here comes Mornay. He may know 
 more.' 
 
 In a moment I was abandoned, even by M. de Turenne, 
 so great was the anxiety which possessed all to learn the 
 truth. Maignan alone, under pretence of adjusting a stir- 
 rup, remained beside me, and entreated me in a low voice 
 to begone. 'Take this horse, M. de Marsac, if you will, ' 
 he urged, 'and ride back the way you came. You have 
 done what you came to do. Go back, and be thankful.' 
 
 'Chut! ' I said, 'there is no danger.' 
 
 'You will see,' he replied darkly, 'if you stay here. 
 Come, come, take my advice and the horse,' he persisted, 
 'and begone! Believe me, it will be for the best.' 
 
 I laughed outright at his earnestness and his face of per- 
 plexity. 'I see you have M. de Rosny's orders to get rid 
 of me,' I said. 'But I am not going, my friend. He must 
 find some other way out of his embarrassment, for here I 
 stay. ' 
 
 'Well, your blood be on your own head,' Maignan re- 
 torted, swinging himself into the saddle with a gloomy face. 
 'I have done my best to save you! ' 
 
 'And your master!' I answered, laughing. 
 
 For flight was the last thing I had in my mind. I had 
 ridden this ride with a clear perception that the one thing I 
 needed was a footing at Court. By the special kindness of 
 Providence I had now gained this ; and I was not the man to 
 resign it because it proved to be scanty and perilous. It was 
 something that I had spoken to the great Vicomte face to 
 face and not been consumed, that I had given him look for 
 look and still survived, that I had put in practice Crillon's 
 lessons and come to no harm. 
 
 Nor was this all. I had never in the worst times blamed 
 the King of Navarre for ^is denial of me. I had been fool-
 
 <LE ROI EST MORTr 393 
 
 ish, indeed, seeing that it was in the bargain, had I done 
 so; nor had I ever doubted his good-will or his readiness to 
 reward me should occasion arise. Now, I flattered myself, 
 I had given him that which he needed, and had hitherto 
 lacked an excuse, I mean, for interference in my behalf. 
 
 Whether I was right or wrong in this notion I was soon 
 to learn, for at this moment Henry's cavalcade, which had 
 left me a hundred paces behind, came to a stop, and while 
 some of the number waved to me to come on, one spurred 
 back to summon me to the king. I hastened to obey the 
 order as fast as I could, but I saw on approaching that 
 though all was at a standstill till I came up, neither the 
 King of Navarre nor M. de Turenne was thinking princi- 
 pally of me. Every face, from Henry's to that of his least 
 important courtier, wore an air of grave preoccupation; 
 which I had no difficulty in ascribing to the doubt present 
 in every mind, and outweighing every interest, whether the 
 King of France was dead, or dying, or merely wounded. 
 
 'Quick, sir!' Henry said with impatience, as soon as I 
 came within hearing. 'Do not detain me with your affairs 
 longer than is necessary. M. de Turenne presses me to 
 carry into effect the order I gave yesterday. But as you 
 have placed yourself in jeopardy on my account I feel that 
 something is due to you. You will be good enough, there- 
 fore, to present yourself at once at M. la Varenne's lodg- 
 ing, and give me your parole to remain there without 
 stirring abroad until your affair is concluded. ' 
 
 Aware that I owed this respite, which at once secured 
 my present safety and promised well for the future, to the 
 great event that, even in M. de Turenne 's mind, had over- 
 shadowed all others, I bowed in silence. Henry, however, 
 was not content with this. 'Come, sir,' he said sharply, 
 and with every appearance of anger, 'do you agree to that? ' 
 
 I replied humbly that I thanked him for his clemency. 
 
 'There is no need of thanks,' he replied coldly. 'What I 
 have done is without prejudice to M. de Turjenne's com- 
 plaint. He must have justice.'
 
 394 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE 
 
 I bowed again, and in a moment the troop were gone at 
 a gallop towards Meudon, whence, as I afterwards learned, 
 the King of Navarre, attended by a select body of hve-and- 
 twenty horsemen, wearing private arms, rode on at full 
 speed to St. Cloud to present himself at His Majesty's bed- 
 side. A groom who had caught the Cid, which had escaped 
 into the town with no other injury than a slight wound in 
 the shoulder, by-and-by met me with the horse ; and in this 
 way I was enabled to render myself with some decency at 
 Varenne's lodging, a small house at the foot of the hill, 
 not far from the Castle-gate. 
 
 Here I found myself under no greater constraint than 
 that which my own parole laid upon me; and my room 
 having the conveniency of a window looking upon the pub- 
 lic street, I was enabled from hour to hour to comprehend 
 and enter into the various alarms and surprises which made 
 that day remarkable. The manifold reports which flew 
 from mouth to mouth on the occasion, as well as the over- 
 mastering excitement which seized all, are so well remem- 
 bered, however, that I forbear to dwell upon them, though 
 they served to distract my mind from my own position. 
 Suffice it that at one moment we heard that His Majesty 
 was dead, at another that the wound was skin deep, and 
 again that we might expect him at Meudon before sunset. 
 The rumour that the Duchess de Montpensier had taken 
 poison was no sooner believed than we were asked to listen 
 to the guns of Paris firing feux de joie in honour of the 
 King's death. 
 
 The streets were so closely packed with persons telling 
 and hearing these tales that I seemed from my window to 
 be looking on a fair. Xor was all my amusement without - 
 doors ; for a number of the gentlemen of the Court, hearing 
 that I had been at St. Cloud in the morning, and in the 
 very chamber, a thing which made me for the moment the 
 most desirable companion in the world, remembered on a 
 sudden that they had a slight acquaintance with me, and 
 honoured me by calling upon me and sitting a great part ol
 
 'LE ROf EST MORTr 
 
 395 
 
 the day with me. From which circumstance I confess 1 
 derived as much hope as they di version ; knowing that 
 courtiers are the best weather-prophets in the world, who 
 hate nothing so much as to be discovered in the company 
 of those on whom the sun does not shine. 
 
 The return of the King of Navarre, which happened about 
 the middle of the afternoon, while it dissipated the fears of 
 some and dashed the hopes of others, put an end to this 
 state of uncertainty by confirming, to the surprise of many, 
 that His Majesty was in no danger. We learned with 
 varying emotions that the first appearances, which had de- 
 ceived, not myself only, but experienced leeches, had been 
 themselves belied by subsequent conditions; and that, in a 
 word, Paris had as much to fear, and loyal men as much to 
 hope, as before this wicked and audacious attempt. 
 
 I had no more than stomached this surprising informa- 
 tion, which was less welcome to me, I confess, than it 
 should have been, when the arrival of M. d'Agen, who 
 greeted me with the affection which he never failed to show 
 me, distracted my thoughts for a time. Immediately on 
 learning where I was and the strange adventures which had 
 befallen me he had ridden off; stopping only once, when 
 he had nearly reached me, for the purpose of waiting on 
 Madame de Bruhl. I asked him how she had received hire- 
 
 'Like herself,' he replied with an ingenuous blush. 
 'More kindly than. I had a right to expect, if not as warmly 
 as I had the courage to hope.' 
 
 'That will come with time,' I said, laughing. 'And 
 Mademoiselle de la Vire? ' 
 
 'I did not see her,' he answered, *but I heard she was 
 well. And a hundred fathoms deeper in love/ he added, 
 eyeing me roguishly, 'than when I saw her last.' 
 
 It was my turn to colour now, and I did so, feeling all 
 the pleasure and delight such a statement was calculated 
 to afford me. Picturing mademoiselle as I had seen her 
 last, leaning from her horse with love written so plainly 
 on her weeping face that all wlio ran might read, I sank
 
 396 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE 
 
 into so delicious a reverie that M. la Varenne, entering 
 suddenly, surprised us both before another word passed on 
 either side. 
 
 His look and tone were as abrupt as it was in his nature, 
 which was soft and compliant, to make them. 'M. de 
 Marsac,' he said, 'I am sorry to put any constraint upon 
 you, but I am directed to forbid you to your friends. And 
 I must request this gentleman to withdraw.' 
 
 'But all day my friends have come in and out/ I said 
 with surprise. 'Is this a new order? ' 
 
 'A written order, which reached me no farther back than 
 two minutes ago,' he answered plainly. 'I am also directed 
 to remove you to a room at the back of the house, that you 
 may not overlook the street.' 
 
 'But my parole was taken,' I cried, with a natural feel- 
 ing of indignation. 
 
 He shrugged his shoulders. 'I am sorry to say that I have 
 nothing to do with that,' he answered. 'I can only obey 
 orders. I must ask this gentleman, therefore, to withdraw.' 
 
 Of course M. d'Agen had no option but to leave me; 
 which he did, I could see, notwithstanding his easy and 
 confident expressions, with a good deal of mistrust and 
 apprehension. When he was gone, La Varenne lost no 
 time in carrying out the remainder of his orders. As a 
 consequence I found myself confined to a small and gloomy 
 apartment which looked, at a distance of three paces, upon 
 the smooth face of the rock on which the Castle stood. This 
 change, from a window which commanded all the life of 
 the town, and intercepted every breath of popular fancy, to 
 a closet whither no sounds penetrated, and where the very 
 transition from noon to evening scarcely made itself known, 
 could not fail to depress my spirits sensibly ; the more as 
 I took it to be significant of a change in my fortunes fully 
 as grave. Reflecting that I must now appear to the King of 
 Navarre in the light of a bearer of false tidings, I associated 
 the order to confine me more closely Avith his return from 
 St. Cloud; and comprehending that M. de Turenne was once
 
 <LE ROI EST MORTr 397 
 
 more at liberty to attend to my affairs, I began to 
 about me with forebodings which were none the less pain- 
 ful because the parole I had given debarred me from any 
 attempt to escape. 
 
 Sleep and habit enabled me, nevertheless, to pass the 
 night in comfort. Very early in the morning a great firing 
 of guns, which made itself heard even in my quarters, led 
 me to suppose that Paris had surrendered; but the servant 
 who brought me my breakfast declined in a surly fashion 
 to give me any information. In the end, I spent the whole 
 day alone, my thoughts divided between my mistress and 
 my own prospects, which seemed to grow more and more 
 gloomy as the hours succeeded one another. No one came 
 near me, no step broke the silence of the house ; and for a 
 while I thought my guardians had forgotten even that I 
 needed food. This omission, it is true, was made good 
 about sunset, but still M. la Varenne did not appear, the 
 servant seemed to be dumb, and I heard no sounds in the 
 house. 
 
 I had finished my meal an hour or more, and the room 
 was growing dark, when the silence was at last broken by 
 quick steps passing along the entrance. They paused, and 
 seemed to hesitate at the foot of the stairs, but the next 
 moment they came on again, and stopped at my door. I 
 rose from my seat on hearing the key turned in the lock, 
 and my astonishment may be conceived when I saw no 
 other than M. de Turenne enter, and close the door behind 
 him. 
 
 He saluted me in a haughty manner as he advanced to 
 the table, raising his cap for an instant and then replacing 
 it. This done he stood looking at me, and I at him, in a 
 silence which on my side was the result of pure astonish- 
 ment; on his, of contempt and a kind of wonder. The 
 evening light, which was fast failing, lent a sombre white- 
 ness to his face, causing it to stand out from the shadows 
 behind him in a way which was not without its influence 
 on me.
 
 398 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE 
 
 'Well! * he said at last, speaking slowly and with un- 
 imaginable insolence, *I am here to look at you. I 5 
 
 I felt my anger rise, and gave him back look for look. 
 'At your will,' I said, shrugging my shoulders, 
 
 'And to solve a question,. 3 he continued in the same tone. 
 'To learn whether the man who was mad enough to insult 
 and defy me was the old penniless dullard some called him, 
 or the dare-devil others painted him,* 
 
 'You are satisfied now? ' I said. 
 
 He eyed me for a moment closely; then with sudden 
 heat he cried, 'Curse me if I am! Nor whether I have to 
 do with a man very deep or very shallow, a fool or a 
 knave! ' 
 
 'You may say what you please to a prisoner,' I retorted 
 coldly. 
 
 'Turenne commonly does to whom he pleases ! ' he an- 
 swered. The next moment he made me start by saying, as 
 he drew out a comfit -box and opened it, 'I am just from 
 the little fool you have bewitched. If she were in my 
 power I would have her whipped and put on bread and 
 water till she came to her senses.. As she is not, I must 
 take another way. Have you any idea, may I ask, ' he con- 
 tinued in his cynical tone, 'what is going to become of you, 
 M. de Marsac? ' 
 
 I replied, my heart inexpressibly lightened by what he 
 had said of mademoiselle, that I placed the fullest confi- 
 dence in the justice of the King of Navarre. 
 
 He repeated the name in a tone I did not understand. 
 
 'Yes, sir, the King of Navarre,' I answered firmly. 
 
 'Well, I daresay you have good reason to do so,' he res- 
 joined with a sneer. 'Unless I am mistaken he knew a 
 little more of this affair than he acknowledges.' 
 
 'Indeed? The King of Navarre?' I said, staring- stolidly 
 at him. 
 
 'Yes, indeed, indeed, the King of Navarre ! ' he retorted, 
 mimicking me, with a nearer approach to anger than I had 
 yet witnessed in him. 'But let him be a moment, sirrah! '
 
 *LE ROI EST MORTr 
 
 399 
 
 he continued, 'and do you listen to me. Or first look at 
 that. Seeing is believing.' 
 
 He drew out as lie spoke a paper, or, to speak more 
 correctly, a parchment, vvhich he thrust with a kind of 
 savage scorn into my hand. Repressing tor the moment 
 the surprise I felt, I took it to the window, and reading it 
 with difficulty, found it to be a royal patent drawn, as far 
 as I could judge, in due form, and appointing some person 
 unknown for the name was left blank to the post of 
 Lieutenant-Governor of the Armagnac, with a salary of 
 twelve thousand livres a year ! 
 
 'Well, sir?' he said impatiently. 
 
 'Well?' I answered mechanically. For my brain reeled ; 
 die exhibition of such a paper in such a way raised ex- 
 traordinary thoughts in my mind. 
 
 'Can you read it? ' he asked. 
 
 'Certainly,' I answered, telling myself that he wo-uld 
 fain play a trick on me. 
 
 'Very well,' he replied, 'then listen. I am going to con- 
 descend ; to make you an offer, M. de Marsac. I will pro- 
 cure you your freedom, and fill up the blank, which you 
 see there, with your name upon one condition. ' 
 
 I stared at him with all the astonishment it was natural 
 for me to feel in the face of such a proposition, 'You will 
 confer this office on me? ' I muttered incredulously. 
 
 'The king having placed it at my disposal,' lie answered, 
 'I will. But first let me remind you,' he went on proudly, 
 'that the affair has another side. On the one hand I offer 
 you such employment, M. de Marsac, as should satisfy your 
 highest ambition. On the other, I warn you that my 
 power to avenge myself is no less to-day than it was yester- 
 day,; and that if I condescend to buy you, it is because that 
 course commends itself to me for reasons, not because it is 
 the only one open.' 
 
 I bowed, 'The condition, M. le Vicomte?' I said 
 huskily, beginning to understand him. 
 
 'That you give up all claim and suit to the ihand of my
 
 400 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE 
 
 kinswoman,' he answered lightly. 'That is all. It is a 
 simple and easy condition.' 
 
 I looked at him in renewed astonishment, in wonder, in 
 stupefaction; asking myself a hundred questions. Why 
 did he stoop to bargain, who could command? Why did 
 he condescend to treat, who held me at his mercy? Why 
 did he gravely discuss my aspirations, to whom they must 
 seem the rankest presumption? Why? but I could not 
 follow it. I stood looking at him in silence; in perplexity 
 as great as if he had offered me the Crown of France; in 
 amazement and doubt and suspicion that knew no bounds. 
 
 'Well!' he said at last, misreading the emotion which 
 appeared in my face. 'You consent, sir?' 
 
 'Never! ' I answered firmly. 
 
 He started. ' I think I cannot have heard you aright, ' he 
 said, speaking slowly and almost courteously. 'I offer you 
 a great place and my patronage, M. de Marsac. Do I un- 
 derstand that you prefer a prison and my enmity? ' 
 
 'On those conditions,' I answered. 
 
 'Think, think! ' he said harshly. 
 
 'I have thought,' I answered. 
 
 'Ay, but have you thought where you are?' he retorted. 
 'Have you thought how many obstacles lie between you and 
 this little fool? How many persons you must win over, 
 how many friends you must gain? Have you thought what 
 it will be to have me against you in this, or which of us is 
 more likely to win in the end? ' 
 
 'I have thought,' I rejoined. 
 
 But my voice shook, my lips were dry. The room had 
 grown dark. The rock outside, intercepting the light, 
 gave it already the air of a dungeon. Though I did not 
 dream of yielding to him, though I even felt that in this 
 interview he had descended to my level, and I had had the 
 better of him, I felt my heart sink. For I remembered how 
 men immured in prisons drag out their lives always petition- 
 ing, always forgotten; how wearily the days go, that to 
 free men are bright with hope and ambition. And I saw in
 
 'VIVE LE ROIl"* 401 
 
 a flash what it would be to remain here, or in some such 
 place; never to cross horse again, or breathe the free air of 
 heaven, never to hear the clink of sword against stirrup, or 
 the rich tones of M. d'Agen's voice calling for his friend! 
 
 I expected M. de Turenne to go when I had made my an- 
 swer, or else to fall into such a rage as opposition is apt to 
 cause in those who seldom encounter it. To my surprise, 
 however, he restrained himself. 'Come,' he said, with pa- 
 tience which fairly astonished me, and so much the more as 
 chagrin was clearly marked in his voice, 'I know where you 
 put your trust. You think the King of Navarre will pro- 
 tect you. Well, I pledge you the honour of Turenne that 
 he will not; that the King of Navarre will do nothing to 
 save you. Now, what do you say? ' 
 
 'As I said before,' I answered doggedly. 
 
 He took up the parchment from the table with a grim 
 laugh. 'So much the worse for you then! ' he said, shrug- 
 ging his shoulders. 'So much the worse for you! I took 
 you for a rogue! It seems you are a fool! ' 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVI. 
 'VIVE LE KOI! ' 
 
 HE took his leave with those words. But his departure, 
 which I should have hailed a few minutes before with joy, 
 as a relief from embarrassment and humiliation, found me 
 indifferent. The statement to which he had solemnly 
 pledged himself in regard to the King of Navarre, that I 
 could expect no further help from him, had prostrated me ; 
 dashing my hopes and spirits so completely that I remained 
 rooted to the spot long after his step had ceased to sound 
 on the stairs. If what he said was true, in the gloom 
 which darkened alike my room and my prospects I could 
 descry no glimmer of light. I knew His Majesty's weak-
 
 402 A GENTLEMAN QF FRANCE 
 
 ness and vacillation too well to repose any confidence in 
 him; if the King of Navarre also abandoned me, I was 
 indeed without hope, as without resource. 
 
 I had stood some time with my mind painfully employed 
 upon this problem, which my knowledge of M. de Turenne's 
 strict honour in private matters did not allow me to dismiss 
 lightly, when I heard another step on the stairs, and in a 
 moment M. la Varenne opened the door. Finding me in 
 the dark he muttered an apology for the remissness of the 
 servants; which I accepted, seeing nothing else for it, in 
 good part. 
 
 'We have been at sixes-and-sevens all day, and you have 
 been forgotten/ he continued. 'But you will have no rea- 
 son to complain now. I am ordered to conduct you to His 
 Majesty without delay.' 
 
 'To St. Cloud ! 3 I exclaimed, greatly astonished. 
 
 'No, the king of France is here,' he answered. 
 
 'AtMeudon?* 
 
 'To be sure. Why not?' 
 
 I expressed my wonder at his Majesty's rapid recovery. 
 
 'Pooh! ' he answered roughly. 'He is as well as he ever 
 was. I will leave you my light. Be good enough to de- 
 scend as soon as you are ready, for it is ill work keeping 
 kings waiting. Oh! and I had forgotten one thing,' he 
 continued, returning when he had already reached the 
 door. 'My orders are to see that you do not hold converse 
 with anyone until you have seen the king, M. de Marsac. 
 You will kindly remember this if we are kept waiting in 
 the antechamber. 5 
 
 'Am I to be transported to other custody? ' I asked, my 
 mind full of apprehension. 
 
 He shrugged his shoulders. 'Possibly,' he replied. 'I 
 do not know. ' 
 
 Of course there was nothing for it but to murmur that I 
 was at the king's disposition; after which La Varenne 
 retired, leaving me to put the best face on the matter I 
 could. Naturally I augured anything but well of an inter-
 
 < VIVE LE ROIi ' 403 
 
 view weighted with such a condition ; and this contributed 
 still further to depress my spirits, already lowered by the 
 long solitude in which I had passed the day. Peaking 
 nothing, however, so much as suspense, I hastened to do 
 what I could to repair my costume, and then descended to 
 the foot of the stairs, where I found my custodian await- 
 ing me with a couple of servants, of whom one bore 
 a link. 
 
 We went out side by side, and having barely a hundred 
 yards to go, seemed in a moment to be passing through the 
 gate of the Castle. I noticed that the entrance was very 
 strongly guarded, but an instant's reflection served to re- 
 iniud me that this was not surprising after what had hap- 
 pened at St. Cloud. I remarked to M. la Varenne as we 
 crossed the courtyard that I supposed Paris had surren- 
 dered j but he replied in the negative so curtly, and with so 
 little consideration, that I forebore to ask any other ques- 
 tions ; and the Chateau being small, we found ourselves 
 almost at once in a long, narrow corridor, which appeared 
 to serve as the antechamber. 
 
 It was brilliantly lighted and crowded from end to end, 
 and almost from wall to wall, with a mob of courtiers; 
 whose silence, no less than feheir keen and anxious looks, 
 took me by surprise. Here and there two or three, who 
 had seized upon the embrasure of a window, talked to- 
 gether in a low tonej or a couple, who thought themselves 
 sufficiently important to pace the narrow passage between 
 the waiting lines, conversed in whispers as they walked. 
 But even these "were swift to take alarm, and continually 
 looked askance; while the general company stood at gaze, 
 starting and looking up eagerly whenever the door swung 
 open or a newcomer was announced. The strange silence 
 which prevailed reminded me of nothing so much as of the 
 Court at Blois on the night of the Duke of Mercosur's de- 
 sertion ; but that stillness had brooded over empty chambers, 
 this gave a peculiar air of strangeness to a room thronged 
 in every part.
 
 404 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE 
 
 M. la Varenne, who was received by those about the 
 door with silent politeness, drew me into the recess of a 
 window ; whence I was able to remark, among other things, 
 that the Huguenots present almost outnumbered the king's 
 immediate following. Still, among those who were walk- 
 ing up and down, I noticed M. de Eambouillet, to whom at 
 another time I should have hastened to pay my respects; 
 with Marshal d'Aumont, Sancy, and Humieres. Nor had 
 I more than noted the presence of these before the door of 
 the chamber opened and added to their number Marshal 
 Biron, who came out leaning on the arm of Crillon. The 
 sight of these old enemies in combination was sufficient of 
 itself to apprise me that some serious crisis was at hand; 
 particularly as their progress through the crowd was watched, 
 I observed, by a hundred curious and attentive eyes. 
 
 They disappeared at last through the outer door, and the 
 assemblage turned as with one accord to see who came 
 next. But nearly half an hour elapsed before the Chamber 
 door, which all watched so studiously, again opened. This 
 time it was to give passage to my late visitor, Turenne, 
 who came out smiling, and leaning, to my great surprise, 
 on the arm of M. de Rosny. 
 
 As the two walked down the room, greeting here and 
 there an obsequious friend, and followed in their progress 
 by all eyes, I felt my heart sink indeed; both at sight of 
 Turenne 's good-humour, and of the company in which I 
 found him. Aware that in proportion as he was pleased I 
 was like to, meet with displeasure, I still might have had 
 hope left had I had Rosny left. Losing him, however 
 and I could not doubt, seeing him as I saw him, that I had 
 lost him and counting the King of Navarre as gone already, 
 I felt such a failure of courage as I had never known before. 
 I told myself with shame that I was not made for Courts, 
 or for such scenes as these; and recalling with new and 
 keen mortification the poor figure I had cut in the King of 
 Navarre's antechamber at St. Jean, I experienced so strange 
 a gush of pity for my mistress that nothing could exceed
 
 ' VIVE LE ROI! ' 405 
 
 the tenderness I felt for her. I had won her under false 
 colours, I was not worthy of her. I felt that my mere 
 presence in her company in such a place as this, and among 
 these people, must cover her with shame and humiliation. 
 
 To my great relief, since I knew my face was on fire, 
 neither of the two, as they walked down the passage, looked 
 my way or seemed conscious of my neighbourhood. At 
 the door they stood a moment talking earnestly, and it 
 seemed as if M. de Eosny would have accompanied the 
 Vicomte farther. The latter would not suffer it, however, 
 but took his leave there; and this with so many polite ges- 
 tures that my last hope based on M. de Kosny vanished. 
 
 Nevertheless, that gentleman was not so wholly changed 
 that on his turning to re-traverse the room I did not see a 
 smile flicker for an instant on his features as the two lines 
 of bowing courtiers opened before him. The next moment 
 his look fell on me, and though his face scarcely altered, 
 he stopped opposite me. 
 
 'M. de Marsac is waiting to see His Majesty? ' he asked 
 aloud, speaking to M. la Varenne. 
 
 My companion remaining silent, I bowed. 
 
 'In five minutes,' M. de Eosny replied quietly, yet with 
 a distant air, which made me doubt whether I had not 
 dreamed all I remembered of this man. 'Ah! M. de Paul, 
 what can I do for you? ' he continued. And he bent his 
 head to listen to the application which a gentleman who 
 stood next me poured into his ear. 'I will see,' I heard 
 him answer. 'In any case you shall know to-morrow.' 
 
 'But you will be my friend?' M. Paul urged, detaining 
 him by the sleeve. 
 
 'I will put only one before you,' he answered. 
 
 My neighbour seemed to shrink into himself with disap- 
 pointment. 'Who is it? ' he murmured piteously. 
 
 'The king and his service, my friend,' M. de Rosny 
 replied drily. And with that he walked away. But half 
 a dozen times at least before he reached the upper end of 
 the room I saw the scene repeated.
 
 406 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE 
 
 I looked on at all this in the utmost astonishment, un- 
 able to guess or conceive what had happened to give M. de 
 Bosny so* much importance^ For it did not escape me that 
 the few words he had stopped to speak to me had invested 
 me with interest in the eyes of all who stood near. They 
 gave me more room and a wider breathing-space, and look- 
 ing at me askance, muttered my name in whispers. In my 
 uncertainty, however, what this portended I drew no com- 
 fort from it; and before I had found time to weigh it thor- 
 oughly the door through which Turenne and Rosiiy had 
 entered opened again. The pages and gentlemen who stood 
 about it hastened to range themselves, on either side. 
 An usher carrying a white wand came rapidly down the 
 room, here and there requesting the courtiers to stand back 
 where the passage was narrow. Then a loud voice with- 
 out cried, 'The King, gentlemen! the King!' and one in 
 every two of us stood a-tiptoe to see him enter. 
 
 But there came in only Henry of Navarre, wearing a 
 violet cloak and cap. 
 
 I turned to La Varenne and with my head full of confu- 
 sion, muttered impatiently, 'But the king, man! Where is 
 tide king? 
 
 He grinned at me, with his hand before his mouth. 
 'Hush!' he whispered. "Twas a jest we played on you! 
 His late Majesty died at daybreak this morning. This is 
 the king. ' 
 
 'ThisF the King of Navarre?' I cried; so loudly that 
 some round ras called 'Silence! ' 
 
 'No, the King of France, fool! ' he replied. 'Your sword 
 must be sharper than your wits, or I have been told some 
 lies ! ' 
 
 I let the gibe pass and the jest, for my heart was beating 
 so fast and painfully that I could scarcely preserve my 
 outward composure. There was a mist before my eyes, 
 and a darkness which set the lights at defiance. It was in 
 vain I tried to think what this might mean to me. I 
 could not put two thoughts together, and while I still ques-
 
 - VIVE LE ROI! ' 407 
 
 tioned what reception I might expect, and who in this new 
 state of things were my friejttls 3 the king stopped before 
 me. 
 
 'Ha, M. de Marsac! ' he cried cheerfully, signing to those 
 who stood before me to give place. 'You are the gentle- 
 man who rode so fast to warn me the other morning. I 
 hare spoken to M. de Turenne about you, and he is willing 
 to overlook the complaint he had against you. For the 
 rest,, go to my closet, my friend. Go!. Bosny knows my 
 will respecting you.' 
 
 I had sense enough left to kneel and kiss his hand; but 
 it was in silence, whieh he knew how to interpret. He had 
 moved on and was speaking to another before I recovered 
 the use of my tongue, or the wits which his gracious words 
 had scattered. Whea I did so, and got. on my feet again 
 I found myself the centre of so much observation and the 
 object of so many congratulations that I was: glad to act 
 upon the hint which La,"Vareane gave me,, and hurry away 
 to the closet. 
 
 Here, though I had now an inkling of what I had to ex- 
 pect, I found myself received with a kindness which bade 
 iair to overwhelm me.. Only M. de Eosny was in the 
 room, and he took me by both hands in a manner which told 
 me without a word that the Rosny of old days was back, 
 and that for the embarrassment I had caused him of late I 
 was more than forgiven. When I tried to thank him for 
 the good offices, which I knew he had done me with the 
 king he would have none of it; reminding me with a, smile 
 that he had eaten of my cheese when the choice lay between 
 that and Lisieux. 
 
 'And besides, my friend,' he continued, his eyes twin- 
 kling,. 'You have made me richer by five hundred crowns.' 
 
 'How sx>?' I asked, wondering more and more. 
 
 'I wagered that sum with Turenne that he could not 
 bribe you,' he answered,, smiling. 'And see,' he continued, 
 selecting from some on the table the same parchment I had 
 sieen before, 'here is the bribe. Take it; it is yours. I
 
 408 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE 
 
 have given a score to-day, but none with the same pleasure. 
 Let me be the first to congratulate the Lieutenant-Governor 
 of the Armagnac. ' 
 
 For a while I could not believe that he was in earnest; 
 which pleased him mightily, I remember. When I was 
 brought at last to see that the king had meant this for me 
 from the first, and had merely lent the patent to Turenne 
 that the latter might make trial of me, my pleasure and 
 gratification were such that I could no more express them 
 then than I can now describe them. For they knew no 
 bounds. I stood before Rosny silent and confused, with 
 long-forgotten tears welling up to my eyes, and one regret 
 only in my heart that my dear mother had not lived to 
 see the fond illusions with which I had so often amused 
 her turned to sober fact. Not then, but afterwards, I 
 remarked that the salary of my office amounted to the exact 
 sum which I had been in the habit of naming to her ; and I 
 learned that Kosny had himself fixed it on information 
 given him by Mademoiselle de la Vire. 
 
 As my transports grew more moderate, and I found voice 
 to thank my benefactor, he had still an ansAver. 'Do not 
 deceive yourself, my friend,' he said gravely, 'or think 
 this an idle reward. My master is King of France, but he 
 is a king without a kingdom, and a captain without money. 
 To-day, to gain his rights, he has parted with half his 
 powers. Before he win all back there will be blows 
 blows, my friend. And to that end I have bought your 
 sword. ' 
 
 I told him that if no other left its scabbard for the king, 
 mine should be drawn. 
 
 'I believe you,' he answered kindly, laying his hand on 
 my shoulder. 'Not by reason of your words Heaven 
 knows I have heard vows enough to-day! but because 
 I have proved you. And now, ' he continued, speaking in 
 an altered tone and looking at me with a queer smile, 'now 
 I suppose you are perfectly satisfied? You have nothing 
 more to wish for, my friend? '
 
 1 VIVE LE ROI!^ 409 
 
 I looked aside in a guilty fashion, not daring to prefer 
 on the top of all his kindness a further petition. More- 
 over, His Majesty might have other views; or on this point 
 Turenne might have proved obstinate. In a word, there 
 was nothing in what had happened, or on M. de Kosny's 
 communication, to inform me whether the wish of my 
 heart was to be gratified or not. 
 
 But I should have known that great man better than to 
 suppose that he was one to promise without performing, or 
 to wound a friend when lie could not salve the. hurt. After 
 enjoying my confusion for a time he burst into a great 
 shout of laughter, and taking me familiarly by the shoul- 
 ders, turned me towards the door. 'There, go!' he said. 
 'Go up the passage. You will find a door on the right, and 
 a door on the left. You will know which to open. ' 
 
 Forbidding me to utter a syllable, he put me out. In 
 the passage, where I fain would have stood awhile to col- 
 lect my thoughts, I was affrighted by sounds which warned 
 me that the king was returning that way. Fearing to be 
 surprised by him in such a state of perturbation, I hurried 
 to the end of the passage, where I discovered, as I had been 
 told, two doors. 
 
 They were both closed, and there was nothing about 
 either of them to direct my choice. But M. de Rosny was 
 correct in supposing that I had not forgotten the advice he 
 had offered me on the day when he gave me so fine a sur- 
 prise in his own house 'When you want a good wife, M. 
 de Marsac, turn to the right ! ' I remembered the words, 
 and without a moment's hesitation for the king and his 
 suite were already entering the passage I knocked boldly, 
 and scarcely waiting for an invitation, went in. 
 
 Fanchette was by the door, but stood aside with a grim 
 smile, which I was at liberty to accept as a welcome or not. 
 Mademoiselle, who had been seated on the farther side of 
 the table, rose as I entered, and we stood looking at one 
 another. Doubtless she waited for me to speak first ; while 
 I on my side was so greatly taken aback by the change
 
 4io A GENTLEMAN GF FRANCE 
 
 wrought in her by the Court dress she was wearing and the 
 air of dignity with which she wore it, that I stood gasping. 
 I turned coward after all that had passed between us. This 
 was not the girl I had wooed in the greenwoods by St. 
 Gaultier; nor the pale-faced woman I had lifted to the 
 saddle a score of times in the journey Paris- wards. The 
 sense of unworthiness which I had experienced a few min- 
 utes before in the crowded antechamber returned in full 
 force in presence of her grace and beauty, and onoe more 
 I stood tongue-tied before her, as I had stood in the lodg- 
 ings at Blois. All the later time, all that had passed be- 
 tween us was forgotten. 
 
 She, for her part, looked at me wondering at my silence. 
 Her face, which had grown rosy red at my entrance, turned 
 pale again. Her eyes grew large with alarm; she began 
 to beat her foot on the floor in a manner I knew. 'Is any- 
 thing the matter, SIT? ' she muttered at last. 
 
 'On the contrary, mademoiselle,' I answered hoarsely, 
 looking every way, and grasping at the first thing I could 
 think of, ' I am just from M. de Eosny. ' 
 
 'And he?' 
 
 'He has made me Lieutenant-Governor of the Ai-magnac. ' 
 
 She curtseyed to me in a wonderful fashion. 'It pleases 
 me to congratulate you, sir,' she said, in a voice between 
 laughing and crying. 'It is not more than equal to your 
 deserts.' 
 
 I tried to thank her becomingly, feeling at the same time ' 
 more foolish than I had ever ielt in my life 5 for I knew 
 that this was neither what I had come to tell nor she to 
 hear. Yet I could not muster up courage nor find words 
 to go farther, and stood by the table in a state of miserable 
 discomposure. 
 
 'Is that all, sir? ' she said at last, losing patience. 
 
 Certainly it was now or never, and I knew it. I made 
 the effort. ''Ho, mademoiselle/ I said in a low voice, 
 'Far from it. But I do not see here the lady to whom I 
 came to address myself, and whom I have seen a hundred
 
 'VIVE LE ROI^ 411 
 
 times in far other garb than yours } wet and weary and dis- 
 hevelled, in danger and in flight. Her I have served and 
 loved; and for her I hare lived, I have had no thought 
 for months that has not been hers, nor care save for her. 
 I and all that I have by the king's bounty are hers, and I 
 came to lay them at her feet. But I do not see her here. ' 
 
 'No, sir? 1 she answered in a whisper, with her face 
 averted. 
 
 'No, mademoiselle.' 
 
 With a sudden brightness and quickness which set my 
 heart beating she turned, and looked at me. 'Indeed! 3 she 
 said. 'I am sorry for that. It is a pity your love should 
 be given elsewhere, M. de Marsac since it is the king's 
 will that you should marry me.' 
 
 'Ah, mademoiselle 1 ' I cried, kneeling before her for she 
 had come round the table and stood beside me 'But you? ' 
 
 'It is my will too, sir,' she answered, smiling through 
 her tears. 
 
 On the following day Mademoiselle de la Vire became 
 my wife; the king's retreat from Paris, which was rendered 
 necessary by the desertion of many who were ill-affected 
 'o the Huguenots, compelling the instant performance of 
 the marriage, if we would have it read by M. d'Amours. 
 This haste notwithstanding, I was enabled by the kindness 
 of M. d'Agen to make such an appearance, in respect both 
 of servants and equipment, as became rather my future 
 prospects than my past distresses. It is true that His 
 Majesty, out of a desire to do nothing which might offend 
 Turenne, did not honour us with his presence ; but Madame 
 Catherine attended on his behalf, and herself gave me my 
 bride. M. de Sully and M. Crillon, with the Marquis de 
 Rambouillet and his nephew, and my distant connection, 
 the Duke de Rohan, who first acknowledged me on that 
 day, were among those who earned my gratitude by attend- 
 ing me upon the occasion.
 
 412 A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE 
 
 The marriage of M. Franqois d'Agen with the widow of 
 my old rival and opponent did not take place until some- 
 thing more than a year later, a delay which was less dis- 
 pleasing to me than to the bridegroom, inasmuch as it left 
 madame at liberty to bear my wife company during my 
 absence on the campaign of Arques and Ivry. In the latter 
 battle, which added vastly to the renown of M. de Rosny, 
 who captured the enemy's standard with his own hand, 1 
 had the misfortune to be wounded in the second of the two 
 charges led by the king; and being attacked by two foot 
 soldiers, as I lay entangled I must inevitably have perished 
 but for the aid afforded me by Simon Fleix, who flew to 
 the rescue with the courage of a veteran. His action was 
 observed by the king, who begged him from me, and 
 attaching him to his own person in the capacity of clerk, 
 started him so fairly on the road to fortune that he has 
 since risen beyond hope or expectation. 
 
 The means by which Henry won for a time the support of 
 Turenne (and incidentally procured his consent to my mar- 
 riage) are now too notorious to require explanation. Never- 
 theless, it was not until the Vicomte's union a year later 
 with Mademoiselle de la Marck, who brought him the 
 Duchy of Bouillon, that I thoroughly understood the mat- 
 ter; or the kindness peculiar to the king, my master, which 
 impelled that great monarch, in the arrangement of affairs 
 so vast, to remember the interests of the least of his 
 servants. 
 
 THE END.