Historical Romances: Under the Red Robe, Count Hannibal, A Gentleman of France

by Stanley John Weyman · English · Gutenberg #39136 · 1,767,688 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: Historical Romances: Under the Red Robe, Count Hannibal, A Gentleman of France

Author: Stanley John Weyman

Release date: March 14, 2012 [eBook #39136]

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/39136

Credits: Produced by Charles Bowen, from page scans provided by the Web Archive

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HISTORICAL ROMANCES: UNDER THE RED ROBE, COUNT HANNIBAL, A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE ***

Produced by Charles Bowen, from page scans provided by the Web Archive

Transcriber's Notes:

1. Page scan source:
http://www.archive.org/details/historicalromanc00weymiala

2. The diphthong oe is represented by [oe].

HISTORICAL ROMANCES

_UNDER THE RED ROBE_

_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_

_A Gentleman of France_

STANLEY J. WEYMAN

LONGMANS, GREEN AND CO.
55 FIFTH AVENUE NEW YORK

HISTORICAL ROMANCES

UNDER THE RED ROBE * COUNT HANNIBAL
A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

UNDER THE RED ROBE

CONTENTS

I. At Zaton's.

II. At the Green Pillar.

III. The House in the Wood.

IV. Madam and Mademoiselle.

V. Revenge.

VI. Under the Pic du Midi.

VII. A Master Stroke.

VIII. The Question.

IX. Clon.

X. The Arrest.

XI. The Road to Paris.

XII. At the Finger-Post

XIII. St. Martin's Eve.

XIV. St. Martin's Summer.

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.

"Marked cards, M. l'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
entrance, I pointed gravely to the door. "There is a little space
behind the church of St. Jacques, M. l'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!"

I thought the matter arranged, when the Marquis 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 shoulders negligently. "I know
you, and I do not fight with men of your stamp. Nor need this
gentleman."

"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
advice," he continued. "The Cardinal has forbidden 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 no 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 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 triangle 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 Hotel Richelieu; and the sight of the
uniform 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
preparing 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 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. "Afterwards, 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 gentlemen'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 impudence 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?"

Frison 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 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 Englishman as heavy and
awkward as himself. But that was all. He made a few wild, clumsy
rushes, 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 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, pressing 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
confronted by a ring of angry faces--of men who, keeping at a
distance, hissed and threatened me.

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, calling 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 furiously. "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_. 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!"

"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.

"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, 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 company 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.

"Why, rascal?" I asked.

"To wash with," he answered.

"I asked for some yesterday, and you would not 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 something 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 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 fellow enough, and in debt to me! I am glad he
remembered. But when am I to go, friend?"

"In an hour," he answered sullenly. Doubtless 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 myself 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 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 hundred
leagues away.

The Palais Richelieu was at this time in building, 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 uncomfortably 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 confidence 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 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 before he
had crushed the great insurrection in Languedoc: 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 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 warrant for flying at higher game."

"Monseigneur has handled a sword himself," I blurted out. The very
room seemed to be growing 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."

"He shall suffer no more than a rich one," he replied suavely, as he
stroked the cat. "Enjoy that satisfaction, M. de Berault. Is that
all?"

"Once I was of service to your Eminence," I 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 lieutenant 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 have a favour to ask," I
stammered desperately, "if your Eminence would give me a moment
alone."

"To what end?" he answered, turning and eyeing 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."

"Once I saved your Eminence's life," I faltered 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, shaking 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 trembling. The man whose pulses danger has no
power to quicken, is seldom proof against suspense; and the sudden
hope his words awakened 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 Bearn? It is not far from Auch."

"No, your Eminence."

"Nor M. de Cocheforet?"

"No, your Eminence."

"So much the better," he retorted. "But you 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 Cocheforet if a soldier 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 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!" I said recklessly. "If I
do not bring M. de Cocheforet 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!"

CHAPTER II.

AT THE GREEN PILLAR.

Cocheforet lies in a billowy land of oak and beech and chestnut--a
land of deep, leafy bottoms, 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--with wolves and 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 Bearn. 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 I come from Brittany and love the smell of the salt wind, I
have seen few sights that outdo this.

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
melancholy; 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 directed at Auch, and, thundering on the door 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 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, stepping 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 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 never 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.

The man led me into the common room of the tavern--a low-roofed, poor
place, lacking a chimney 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 husband was present. While she moved about, getting my
meal, he took his place against the doorpost 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 Quatre; 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 suspicious gleam in his eyes that bade me
abstain from questions; and as the darkness deepened behind him, and
the firelight played more and more 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 warning 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 myself that he was really what he seemed to be. But
by and by two or three men--rough, uncouth fellows--dropped in to
reinforce the landlord, 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--I 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 as sharply as they
watched mine; and all the time I was racking my wits for some mode of
disarming their suspicions--or failing that, of learning something
more of the position, which, it was clear, far exceeded in difficulty
and danger anything 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
saddlebags. 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 when I came to the subject of my visit
to Cocheforet I kept a mysterious silence, hinting darkly at business
in Spain and friends across the border, and this and that, and giving
the peasants to understand, 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 commit myself and be found
out. I stopped, therefore, 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
presently led to my acquiring a curious piece of 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
thousands of good horses--not such ponies as you breed here. At the
horse fair at Fecamp 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 I 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 vainglory. His wife and the others, I saw, looked at him
dumbfounded; but, without paying any heed to them, he took up a
lanthorn, and, assuming 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 baldfaced 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," I 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 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 Cocheforet'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
surprised 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--anything 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 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.

In such a position some men might have given 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 Cocheforet 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.

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 gentleman'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 interruption. 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.

"You called, did you not?" he asked. He 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-night! 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 continued 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." And then, at last, he slowly let down the trapdoor,
and I heard him chuckle as he 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 contemptuous
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 instructions 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 lived, in great retirement. To seize her husband 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 outer 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
I 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 detected 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-coloured 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, on one pretence or another, until noon.
Moreover, his manner grew each moment more churlish, 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 asking 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 clatter of hoofs broke the sleepy quiet of the
village 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, 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 Chateau. 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
terrace, pressed upon on three sides by thick woods, stood a grey
mansion, with the corner tourelles, 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 between 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 chattered 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 rude and
churlish only, had grown perplexed and almost timid. One of the
strangers, I soon found, supplied him with wine; the others were
travelling merchants, who rode in the first one's company 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.

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 merchants, 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 engaged 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
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. For 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 companions. "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,
turning 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 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 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 peddling,
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, 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
travellers only jeered at me, and the landlord, coming 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 clothes
and bleeding face, hatless and covered with 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 strayed from the path, and fell over roots, and
tore my 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 heard 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, 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 my 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
terrifying, that, shaken as I was by fatigue, I recoiled a step.

He was a tall and very thin man, meanly dressed in a short scanty
jacket and well-darned hose. Unable, for some reason, to bend his
neck, 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 creature 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 swallow up the light. I stood within the
entrance (as it seemed to me) of a huge cave; the skull-headed 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 uncertainly 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 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, speaking to the man beside
her, "and see this gentleman 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
circumstances do not permit us to welcome you more 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 goodnight."

"Good-night, Madame," I stammered, trembling. 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 something 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,
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."

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 bedding?" 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 minute 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
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 carried 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 continued 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 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 see 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--"

"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 Clon. 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 Monsieur must
overlook much, if he stays. Madame lives retired, and the roads are
ill-made and visitors 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 questioned him discreetly, and
learned that he and Clon and an older man who lived over the stables
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 Cocheforet 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.

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 trimming. 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 s[oe]ur_--a slender
woman and petite, with a beautiful face and a fair complexion. She
walked with dignity, but beside Madame's stately figure she seemed
almost childish. And it was characteristic 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?"

"I am M. de Barthe, a gentleman of Normandy," 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 disgrace 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 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 answered, 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 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 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; 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 anger.
"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
yonder in the great city. A boy might wreck himself 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
horrible."

"Quick, Louis! the cognac, if you have any there!" Mademoiselle
exclaimed. "I am sure you are--still feeling ill, Monsieur."

"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 forgotten for a moment--how great was the chasm which
separated me from these women; how impossible 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: 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 sunshine 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 ortolans. 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 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 remoteness of the place and
the peculiar circumstances in which the ladies stood, I felt a strange
weakness. The loneliness of the woods that encircled 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 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 appearance;
while Clon and Louis stood at a little distance with downcast faces
and perplexed looks.

I had tune to see all this, and then my entrance 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 Mademoiselle'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.

I wondered what all this meant; and I wondered more when, after the
meal, the two walked in the garden for an hour with Clon. Mademoiselle
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 stillness 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--suspicious; 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 underwood, and stood gazing at the windows,
trying to unriddle the matter. It was not likely that 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
determined 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 privileged 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.

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 behind a trunk, and was not to be seen; and after a brief
interval he went back to his task, stooping 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 make a guess at that. I only knew that the plot was
thickening, and began to feel the eagerness 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 anything 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 improved 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 expecting 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 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
Cocheforet, 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, speaking 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."

"I think he does not like me," I replied.

"He is less trustful than we are," she answered naively. "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 you 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 moment 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 side of my face.
For I knew that it altered. Over my 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 continued, 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 knowledge 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 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 Cocheforet mean by returning so
soon, if M. de Cocheforet 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 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
stables. 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 left, and said to
myself that this was the lamest of all conclusions. I was sure that
she had exchanged 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 so well. After a lonely meal, therefore--I
missed them more than I should have supposed--I retired 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 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 stirring. 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.

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 advantage, 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 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 detested 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, 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 I 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 enter 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 moderation 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 man[oe]uvre. 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, sometimes to the left. The maze seemed to be endless. 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
carpeted 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 white with scorn, her eyes blazed; her figure, as
she confronted me, trembled with anger and infinite 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 reckoning 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," 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 Mouchard--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 do not all lie easily--that I never said I was. 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 character, 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 forbid!" she cried, her eyes sparkling, "do not presume 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 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 reproached 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 all--for what she had said--it was this
man's life or mine. What had I done that another man would not do?
_Mon 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 fancied I heard her laughing on the farther
side of the brake; and the ignominy of this chance punishment, the
check which the confinement placed on my rage, almost maddened me. In
the darkness, 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 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
advanced 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."

He grinned as he spoke, and it was with difficulty I suppressed my
wrath "Mademoiselle de Cocheforet told you," I said, affecting
indifference, "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 retorted 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 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. Leaning with both his hands on
the table, he thrust his rugged face and blood-shot eyes close to
mine. His mustachios bristled; his beard trembled. "Hark ye, Sirrah!"
he muttered, with sullen emphasis--"be content! I have my suspicions.
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 my shoulders and began to eat, affecting to
forget 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 parlour 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 manners!"
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 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 miserable.
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, between 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 rushlight 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;
shaking and sifting each article as she passed it across, and then
taking up another and repeating 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, perhaps; 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."

"Pig of a spy!" he cried, foaming with rage.

I was angry enough at bottom, but I had nothing to gain by quarrelling
with the fellow; and I curtly bade him remember himself. "Your
mistress gave you your orders," I said contemptuously. "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 wondering 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.

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. Vengeance 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.

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 pungent 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 flashing
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 another;
each as large as a fair-sized pea. I took 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 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 fragments 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 flickering 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! 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 powdered 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 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, considering 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 treasure 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 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 solution; and all that night
I sat wakeful in the darkness, pondering what I should do. The stones,
unset as they were, could never be identified, never be claimed. The
channel by which they had come to my hands could never be traced. 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 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
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 opportunity 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 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 malicious 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. 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.

"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."

He rose. "After you, Monsieur," he said.

I could not restrain a slight shiver. His newborn 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 waiting 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 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, Clon 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
particular I augured the worst from Clon's appearance. His lean
malevolent face and sunken eyes, his very dumbness chilled me. Mercy
had no place there.

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 innkeeper
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.

"You will see presently," he replied, with an ugly smile.

"Yes, but I will know now!" I retorted, passion 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 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 galere!_ 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 credentials 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 what would happen. A single nod of
meaning, one muttered word, dropped among the savage men with whom I
should be left, and the diamonds 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 recrossing 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 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.

Still, before I could move in it, I had to wait until 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 managed to secure
unseen a handful of pebbles, slipping 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 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 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 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. "_Mon Dieu!_"

But Clon's excitement surpassed even his. The dumb man no sooner saw
what had attracted his comrade's attention, than he uttered an
inarticulate 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 jealousy 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 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 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 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 placing both it and the gun in the shock-headed
man's hands. "There!" he said, addressing the latter, "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 of 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 shoulders again and desisted.

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--at the end of the pass, as it seemed to the
eye--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
communication; 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, 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 approaching the summit of the
ridge. On all sides were silence and desolation.

_Mon Dieu!_ And the ruffians on whose tender mercies I was to be
thrown might come to meet us! They might appear at any moment. 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 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 jumble 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 suddenly 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 forward 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 getting 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 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
Godforsaken 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, plucking at
my arm. "It is not safe here after sunset. 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 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 imperatively. "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 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 covering 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
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 torrent 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 unseen waters boiled and surged, the absence of 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. Presently 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!

* * * * *

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?"

"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 Auch!"

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! _Sacre!_ 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 wondered. It was
possible, of course, that the travelling 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; 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 lie
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 windows shuttered. But lounging about
the street were a score of dragoons, in boots and breastplates, whose
short-barrelled muskets, with pouches and bandoliers attached, were
piled near the inn door. In an open space where there was a gap 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 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 commands 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 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 looking 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 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 familiar. 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 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
direction 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
contented myself with walking at her shoulder until we came to the end
of the village, where the 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, Mademoiselle," 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; 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 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, Mademoiselle," 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 poisons 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?"

"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, Mademoiselle, 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! "About a fortnight ago, M.
de Cocheforet 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
starting. 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 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 recovered--I
know where they are."

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 perplexity--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 reassure 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
possession, was grown as keen and vicious as before. "Well?" she
muttered between her teeth. "Your price, man? Your price?"

"I am coming to it now, Mademoiselle," I said gravely. "It is a simple
matter. You remember 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 restoring 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, Mademoiselle."

"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?"

"For him, Mademoiselle--I would prefer that you should tell me no more
than I know already," 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 quartered 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.

"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 more 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--"forgive me.... I am overwrought. And my--my feet are
cold," she added suddenly and irrelevantly. "Will you take me home?"

"Ah, Mademoiselle," I cried remorsefully, "I have been a beast! You
are barefoot, and I have kept you here."

"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 received 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. Between the two, moving side by side in the
darkness, 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 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 matters 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 suppose 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."

"I would rather not," she said, pausing and speaking in a troubled
voice.

"Are you afraid?"

"No, Monsieur; I am not afraid," she answered 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 door opened, and an angry voice,
apparently an 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, glaring 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."

"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 arrogance 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 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 l'Espagnole_. 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! What the--! Who are you, Sir?"

"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, bowing gravely. "It is a
fine night."

Then the storm burst.

"Fine night!" the captain shrieked, finding his voice again. "_Mille
diables!_ Are you aware, Sir, that I am in possession of this house,
and that no one harbours here without my permission? Guest!
Hospitality! Lieutenant--call the guard! Call the guard!" he continued
passionately. "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. Believe me, I am much more surprised to see you."

"_Sacre!_" he cried, recoiling at this fresh impertinence, 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 Monseigneur the Cardinal
honoured me by sending me from Paris to conduct this matter, he gave
me the fullest--the fullest powers, M. le Capitaine--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!"

"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 Commandant 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 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, looking 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 betide!"

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 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 unintelligible
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 Capitaine did not--"

"Give orders? Well, I give them!" I answered. "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.

"_Ohe!_ In the passage?" He paused, looking at them in doubt.

"Yes, booby; in the passage."

"And the cloaks, Monsieur?"

"There is a bush handy outside the window. Let them air."

"_Ohe_, 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."

"_Ohe!_ 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 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 smiling 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, thinking 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, however; 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 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 weeping 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."

"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 recommend 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 shuddered 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 murmured. "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 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 disfigured. 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 shuddering fear, such as a man awaking to find himself
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 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. "_Sacre nom 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 Siege!_" I he muttered. "What is
this?" The lieutenant's grizzled face peering over his shoulder
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 nothing. "The soup, however, has been kept hot by
the 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 indifferently. "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 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. "Answer, 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, bowing. "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
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, 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 moment 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 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, wondering 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, Monseigneur's commission
notwithstanding? I should look silly, indeed, if on the eve of success
I were driven from the place by a parcel of jack-boots.

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 fifty yards from the house, where a narrower path crossed
the broad walk, down which I had first seen Mademoiselle and her
sister pacing. 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 work, when a thought crossed my mind.

"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 hesitation. "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 contempt.

"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, spitting 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.

"Well, _nom de Dieu!_ make it up," the captain replied, with an ugly
sneer. He took a swaggering 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 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 muttered.

"And with reason," I said. "That being so, suppose we say this day
three months, M. le Capitaine? The postponement to be for my
convenience."

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 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. Permit 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 presently 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 shall cross one another again
within the hour."

"Umph! I am not quite sure that I understand," I said.

"That is precisely what I don't do--understand!" 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, Monsieur," I said severely. "Do not pr

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