initial commit of ebook 2640HEADmain

1 files changed, 10612 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/2640-0.txt b/2640-0.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..be78bee
--- /dev/null
+++ b/2640-0.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,10612 @@
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of St. Martin’s Summer, by Rafael Sabatini
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost
+no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use
+it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this
+eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: St. Martin’s Summer
+
+Author: Rafael Sabatini
+
+Release Date: January 2, 2009 [EBook #2640]
+Last Updated: October 13, 2016
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ST. MARTIN’S SUMMER ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by An Anonymous Project Gutenberg Volunteer, and David Widger
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+ST. MARTIN’S SUMMER
+
+By Rafael Sabatini
+
+
+Originally published in 1921
+
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+CHAPTER I.   THE SENESCHAL OF DAUPHINY
+
+CHAPTER II.   MONSIEUR DE GARNACHE
+
+CHAPTER III.   THE DOWAGER’S COMPLIANCE
+
+CHAPTER IV.   THE CHATEAU DE CONDILLAC
+
+CHAPTER V.   MONSIEUR DE GARNACHE LOSES HIS TEMPER
+
+CHAPTER VI.   MONSIEUR DE GARNACHE KEEPS HIS TEMPER
+
+CHAPTER VII.   THE OPENING OF THE TRAP
+
+CHAPTER VIII.   THE CLOSING OF THE TRAP
+
+CHAPTER IX.   THE SENESCHAL’S ADVICE
+
+CHAPTER X.   THE RECRUIT
+
+CHAPTER XI.   VALERIE’S GAOLER
+
+CHAPTER XII.   A MATTER OF CONSCIENCE
+
+CHAPTER XIII.   THE COURIER
+
+CHAPTER XIV.   FLORIMOND’S LETTER
+
+CHAPTER XV.   THE CONFERENCE
+
+CHAPTER XVI.   THE UNEXPECTED
+
+CHAPTER XVII.   HOW MONSIEUR DE GARNACHE LEFT CONDILLAC
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.   IN THE MOAT
+
+CHAPTER XIX.   THROUGH THE NIGHT
+
+CHAPTER XX.   FLORIMOND DE CONDILLAC
+
+CHAPTER XXI.   THE GHOST IN THE CUPBOARD
+
+CHAPTER XXII.   THE OFFICES OF MOTHER CHURCH
+
+CHAPTER XXIII.     THE JUDGMENT OF GARNACHE
+
+CHAPTER XXIV.   SAINT MARTIN’S EVE
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+SAINT MARTIN’S SUMMER
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I. THE SENESCHAL OF DAUPHINY
+
+My Lord of Tressan, His Majesty’s Seneschal of Dauphiny, sat at his
+ease, his purple doublet all undone, to yield greater freedom to his
+vast bulk, a yellow silken undergarment visible through the gap, as is
+visible the flesh of some fruit that, swollen with over-ripeness, has
+burst its skin.
+
+His wig--imposed upon him by necessity, not fashion--lay on the table
+amid a confusion of dusty papers, and on his little fat nose, round
+and red as a cherry at its end, rested the bridge of his horn-rimmed
+spectacles. His bald head--so bald and shining that it conveyed an
+unpleasant sense of nakedness, suggesting that its uncovering had been
+an act of indelicacy on the owner’s part--rested on the back of his
+great chair, and hid from sight the gaudy escutcheon wrought upon the
+crimson leather. His eyes were closed, his mouth open, and whether from
+that mouth or from his nose--or, perhaps, conflicting for issue between
+both--there came a snorting, rumbling sound to proclaim that my Lord the
+Seneschal was hard at work upon the King’s business.
+
+Yonder, at a meaner table, in an angle between two windows, a pale-faced
+thread-bare secretary was performing for a yearly pittance the
+duties for which my Lord the Seneschal was rewarded by emoluments
+disproportionately large.
+
+The air of that vast apartment was disturbed by the sounds of Monsieur
+de Tressan’s slumbers, the scratch and splutter of the secretary’s
+pen, and the occasional hiss and crackle of the logs that burned in the
+great, cavern-like fireplace. Suddenly to these another sound was added.
+With a rasp and rattle the heavy curtains of blue velvet flecked with
+silver fleurs-de-lys were swept from the doorway, and the master of
+Monsieur de Tressan’s household, in a well filled suit of black relieved
+by his heavy chain of office, stepped pompously forward.
+
+The secretary dropped his pen, and shot a frightened glance at his
+slumbering master; then raised his hands above his head, and shook them
+wildly at the head lackey.
+
+“Sh!” he whispered tragically. “Doucement, Monsieur Anselme.”
+
+Anselme paused. He appreciated the gravity of the situation. His bearing
+lost some of its dignity; his face underwent a change. Then with a
+recovery of some part of his erstwhile resolution:
+
+“Nevertheless, he must be awakened,” he announced, but in an undertone,
+as if afraid to do the thing he said must needs be done.
+
+The horror in the secretary’s eyes increased, but Anselme’s reflected
+none of it. It was a grave thing, he knew by former experience, to
+arouse His Majesty’s Seneschal of Dauphiny from his after-dinner
+nap; but it was an almost graver thing to fail in obedience to that
+black-eyed woman below who was demanding an audience.
+
+Anselme realized that he was between the sword and the wall. He was,
+however, a man of a deliberate habit that was begotten of inherent
+indolence and nurtured among the good things that fell to his share as
+master of the Tressan household. Thoughtfully he caressed his tuft of
+red beard, puffed out his cheeks, and raised his eyes to the ceiling
+in appeal or denunciation to the heaven which he believed was somewhere
+beyond it.
+
+“Nevertheless, he must be awakened,” he repeated.
+
+And then Fate came to his assistance. Somewhere in the house a door
+banged like a cannon-shot. Perspiration broke upon the secretary’s brow.
+He sank limply back in his chair, giving himself up for lost. Anselme
+started and bit the knuckle of his forefinger in a manner suggesting an
+inarticulate imprecation.
+
+My Lord the Seneschal moved. The noise of his slumbers culminated in a
+sudden, choking grunt, and abruptly ceased. His eyelids rolled slowly
+back, like an owl’s, revealing pale blue eyes, which fixed themselves
+first upon the ceiling, then upon Anselme. Instantly he sat up, puffing
+and scowling, his hands shuffling his papers.
+
+“A thousand devils! Anselme, why am I interrupted?” he grumbled
+querulously, still half-asleep. “What the plague do you want? Have you
+no thought for the King’s affairs? Babylas”--this to his secretary--“did
+I not tell you that I had much to do; that I must not be disturbed?”
+
+It was the great vanity of the life of this man, who did nothing, to
+appear the busiest fellow in all France, and no audience--not even that
+of his own lackeys--was too mean for him to take the stage to in that
+predilect role.
+
+“Monsieur le Comte,” said Anselme, in tones of abject self-effacement,
+“I had never dared intrude had the matter been of less urgency.
+But Madame the Dowager of Condillac is below. She begs to see Your
+Excellency instantly.”
+
+At once there was a change. Tressan became wide-awake upon the instant.
+His first act was to pass one hand over the wax-like surface of his
+bald head, whilst his other snatched at his wig. Then he heaved himself
+ponderously out of his great chair. He donned his wig, awry in his
+haste, and lurched forward towards Anselme, his fat fingers straining at
+his open doublet and drawing it together.
+
+“Madame la Douairiere here?” he cried. “Make fast these buttons, rascal!
+Quick! Am I to receive a lady thus? Am I--? Babylas,” he snapped,
+interrupting himself and turning aside even as Anselme put forth hands
+to do his bidding. “A mirror, from my closet! Dispatch!”
+
+The secretary was gone in a flash, and in a flash returned, even as
+Anselme completed his master’s toilet. But clearly Monsieur de Tressan
+had awakened in a peevish humour, for no sooner were the buttons of
+his doublet secured than with his own fingers he tore them loose again,
+cursing his majordomo the while with vigour.
+
+“You dog, Anselme, have you no sense of fitness, no discrimination? Am
+I to appear in this garment of the mode of a half-century ago before
+Madame la Marquise? Take it off; take it off, man! Get me the coat that
+came last month from Paris--the yellow one with the hanging sleeves and
+the gold buttons, and a sash--the crimson sash I had from Taillemant.
+Can you move no quicker, animal? Are you still here?”
+
+Anselme, thus enjoined, lent an unwonted alacrity to his movements,
+waddling grotesquely like a hastening waterfowl. Between him and the
+secretary they dressed my Lord the Seneschal, and decked him out till he
+was fit to compare with a bird of paradise for gorgeousness of colouring
+if not for harmony of hues and elegance of outline.
+
+Babylas held the mirror, and Anselme adjusted the Seneschal’s wig,
+whilst Tressan himself twisted his black mustachios--how they kept their
+colour was a mystery to his acquaintance--and combed the tuft of beard
+that sprouted from one of his several chins.
+
+He took a last look at his reflection, rehearsed a smile, and bade
+Anselme introduce his visitor. He desired his secretary to go to the
+devil, but, thinking better of it, he recalled him as he reached the
+door. His cherished vanity craved expression.
+
+“Wait!” said he. “There is a letter must be written. The King’s business
+may not suffer postponement--not for all the dowagers in France. Sit
+down.”
+
+Babylas obeyed him. Tressan stood with his back to the open door. His
+ears, strained to listen, had caught the swish of a woman’s gown. He
+cleared his throat, and began to dictate:
+
+“To Her Majesty the Queen-Regent--” He paused, and stood with knitted
+brows, deep in thought. Then he ponderously repeated--“To Her Majesty
+the Queen Regent--Have you got that?”
+
+“Yes, Monsieur le Comte. ‘To Her Majesty the Queen Regent.’”
+
+There was a step, and a throat-clearing cough behind him.
+
+“Monsieur de Tressan,” said a woman’s voice, a rich, melodious voice, if
+haughty and arrogant of intonation.
+
+On the instant he turned, advanced a step, and bowed.
+
+“Your humblest servant, madame,” said he, his hand upon his heart. “This
+is an honour which--”
+
+“Which necessity thrusts upon you,” she broke in imperiously. “Dismiss
+that fellow.”
+
+The secretary, pale and shy, had risen. His eyes dilated at the woman’s
+speech. He looked for a catastrophe as the natural result of her taking
+such a tone with this man who was the terror of his household and of
+all Grenoble. Instead, the Lord Seneschal’s meekness left him breathless
+with surprise.
+
+“He is my secretary, madame. We were at work as you came. I was on the
+point of inditing a letter to Her Majesty. The office of Seneschal in
+a province such as Dauphiny is helas!--no sinecure.” He sighed like
+one whose brain is weary. “It leaves a man little time even to eat or
+sleep.”
+
+“You will be needing a holiday, then,” said she, with cool insolence.
+“Take one for once, and let the King’s business give place for half an
+hour to mine.”
+
+The secretary’s horror grew by leaps and bounds.
+
+Surely the storm would burst at last about this audacious woman’s head.
+But the Lord Seneschal--usually so fiery and tempestuous--did no more
+than make her another of his absurd bows.
+
+“You anticipate, madame, the very words I was about to utter. Babylas,
+vanish!” And he waved the scribbler doorwards with a contemptuous hand.
+“Take your papers with you--into my closet there. We will resume that
+letter to Her Majesty when madame shall have left me.”
+
+The secretary gathered up his papers, his quills, and his inkhorn, and
+went his way, accounting the end of the world at hand.
+
+When the door had closed upon him, the Seneschal, with another bow and
+a simper, placed a chair at his visitor’s disposal. She looked at the
+chair, then looked at the man much as she had looked at the chair,
+and turning her back contemptuously on both, she sauntered towards the
+fireplace. She stood before the blaze, with her whip tucked under her
+arm, drawing off her stout riding-gloves. She was a tall, splendidly
+proportioned woman, of a superb beauty of countenance, for all that she
+was well past the spring of life.
+
+In the waning light of that October afternoon none would have guessed
+her age to be so much as thirty, though in the sunlight you might have
+set it at a little more. But in no light at all would you have guessed
+the truth, that her next would be her forty-second birthday. Her face
+was pale, of an ivory pallor that gleamed in sharp contrast with the
+ebony of her lustrous hair. Under the long lashes of low lids a pair of
+eyes black and insolent set off the haughty lines of her scarlet lips.
+Her nose was thin and straight, her neck an ivory pillar splendidly
+upright upon her handsome shoulders.
+
+She was dressed for riding, in a gown of sapphire velvet, handsomely
+laced in gold across the stomacher, and surmounted at the neck, where
+it was cut low and square, by the starched band of fine linen which in
+France was already replacing the more elaborate ruff. On her head, over
+a linen coif, she wore a tall-crowned grey beaver, swathed with a scarf
+of blue and gold.
+
+Standing by the hearth, one foot on the stone kerb, one elbow leaning
+lightly on the overmantel, she proceeded leisurely to remove her gloves.
+
+The Seneschal observed her with eyes that held an odd mixture of
+furtiveness and admiration, his fingers--plump, indolent-looking
+stumps--plucking at his beard.
+
+“Did you but know, Marquise, with what joy, with what a--”
+
+“I will imagine it, whatever it may be,” she broke in, with that brusque
+arrogance that marked her bearing. “The time for flowers of rhetoric is
+not now. There is trouble coming, man; trouble, dire trouble.”
+
+Up went the Seneschal’s brows; his eyes grew wider.
+
+“Trouble?” quoth he. And, having opened his mouth to give exit to that
+single word, open he left it.
+
+She laughed lazily, her lip curling, her face twisting oddly, and
+mechanically she began to draw on again the glove she had drawn off.
+
+“By your face I see how well you understand me,” she sneered. “The
+trouble concerns Mademoiselle de La Vauvraye.”
+
+“From Paris--does it come from Court?” His voice was sunk.
+
+She nodded. “You are a miracle of intuition today, Tressan.”
+
+He thrust his tiny tuft of beard between his teeth--a trick he had when
+perplexed or thoughtful. “Ah!” he exclaimed at last, and it sounded like
+an indrawn breath of apprehension. “Tell me more.”
+
+“What more is there to tell? You have the epitome of the story.”
+
+“But what is the nature of the trouble? What form does it take, and by
+whom are you advised of it?”
+
+“A friend in Paris sent me word, and his messenger did his work well,
+else had Monsieur de Garnache been here before him, and I had not so
+much as had the mercy of this forewarning.”
+
+“Garnache?” quoth the Count. “Who is Garnache?”
+
+“The emissary of the Queen-Regent. He has been dispatched hither by her
+to see that Mademoiselle de La Vauvraye has justice and enlargement.”
+
+Tressan fell suddenly to groaning and wringing his hands a pathetic
+figure had it been less absurd.
+
+“I warned you, madame! I warned you how it would end,” he cried. “I told
+you--”
+
+“Oh, I remember the things you told me,” she cut in, scorn in her voice.
+“You may spare yourself their repetition. What is done is done, and I’ll
+not--I would not--have it undone. Queen-Regent or no Queen-Regent, I
+am mistress at Condillac; my word is the only law we know, and I intend
+that so it shall continue.”
+
+Tressan looked at her in surprise. This unreasoning, feminine obstinacy
+so wrought upon him that he permitted himself a smile and a lapse into
+irony and banter.
+
+“Parfaitement,” said he, spreading his hands, and bowing. “Why speak of
+trouble, then?”
+
+She beat her whip impatiently against her gown, her eyes staring into
+the fire. “Because, my attitude being such as it is, trouble will there
+be.”
+
+The Seneschal shrugged his shoulders, and moved a step towards her. He
+was cast down to think that he might have spared himself the trouble
+of donning his beautiful yellow doublet from Paris. She had eyes for no
+finery that afternoon. He was cast down, too, to think how things might
+go with him when this trouble came. It entered his thoughts that he had
+lain long on a bed of roses in this pleasant corner of Dauphiny, and
+he was smitten now with fear lest of the roses he should find nothing
+remaining but the thorns.
+
+“How came the Queen-Regent to hear of--of
+mademoiselle’s--ah--situation?” he inquired.
+
+The Marquise swung round upon him in a passion.
+
+“The girl found a dog of a traitor to bear a letter for her. That is
+enough. If ever chance or fate should bring him my way, by God! he shall
+hang without shrift.”
+
+Then she put her anger from her; put from her, too, the insolence and
+scorn with which so lavishly she had addressed him hitherto. Instead she
+assumed a suppliant air, her beautiful eyes meltingly set upon his face.
+
+“Tressan,” said she in her altered voice, “I am beset by enemies. But
+you will not forsake me? You will stand by me to the end--will you not,
+my friend? I can count upon you, at least?”
+
+“In all things, madame,” he answered, under the spell of her gaze. “What
+force does this man Garnache bring with him? Have you ascertained?”
+
+“He brings none,” she answered, triumph in her glance.
+
+“None?” he echoed, horror in his. “None? Then--then--”
+
+He tossed his arms to heaven, and stood a limp and shaken thing. She
+leaned forward, and regarded him stricken in surprise.
+
+“Diable! What ails you?” she snapped. “Could I have given you better
+news?”
+
+“If you could have given me worse, I cannot think what it might have
+been,” he groaned. Then, as if smitten by a sudden notion that flashed a
+gleam of hope into this terrifying darkness that was settling down upon
+him, he suddenly looked up. “You mean to resist him?” he inquired.
+
+She stared at him a second, then laughed, a thought unpleasantly.
+
+“Pish! But you are mad,” she scorned him. “Do you need ask if I intend
+to resist--I, with the strongest castle in Dauphiny? By God! sir, if you
+need to hear me say it, hear me then say that I shall resist him and
+as many as the Queen may send after him, for as long as one stone of
+Condillac shall stand upon another.”
+
+The Seneschal blew out his lips, and fell once more to the chewing of
+his beard.
+
+“What did you mean when you said I could have given you no worse news
+than that of his coming alone?” she questioned suddenly.
+
+“Madame,” said he, “if this man comes without force, and you resist the
+orders of which he is the bearer, what think you will betide?”
+
+“He will appeal to you for the men he needs that he may batter down my
+walls,” she answered calmly.
+
+He looked at her incredulously. “You realize it?” he ejaculated. “You
+realize it?”
+
+“What is there in it that should puzzle a babe?”
+
+Her callousness was like a gust of wind upon the living embers of his
+fears. It blew them into a blaze of wrath, sudden and terrific as that
+of such a man at bay could be. He advanced upon her with the rolling
+gait of the obese, his cheeks purple, his arms waving wildly, his dyed
+mustachios bristling.
+
+“And what of me, madame?” he spluttered. “What of me? Am I to be ruined,
+gaoled, and hanged, maybe, for refusing him men?--for that is what is
+in your mind. Am I to make myself an outlaw? Am I, who have been Lord
+Seneschal of Dauphiny these fifteen years, to end my days in degradation
+in the cause of a woman’s matrimonial projects for a simpering
+school-girl? Seigneur du Ciel!” he roared, “I think you are gone
+mad--mad, mad! over this affair. You would not think it too much to set
+the whole province in flames so that you could have your way with this
+wretched child. But, Ventregris! to ruin me--to--to--”
+
+He fell silent for very want of words; just gaped and gasped, and then,
+with hands folded upon his paunch, he set himself to pace the chamber.
+
+Madame de Condillac stood watching him, her face composed, her glance
+cold. She was like some stalwart oak, weathering with unshaken front
+a hurricane. When he had done, she moved away from the fireplace, and,
+beating her side gently with her whip, she stepped to the door.
+
+“Au revoir, Monsieur de Tressan,” said she, mighty cool, her back
+towards him.
+
+At that he halted in his feverish stride, stood still and threw up his
+head. His anger went out, as a candle is extinguished by a puff of wind.
+And in its place a new fear crept into his heart.
+
+“Madame, madame!” he cried. “Wait! Hear me.”
+
+She paused, half-turned, and looked at him over her shoulder, scorn in
+her glance, a sneer on her scarlet mouth, insolence in every line of
+her.
+
+“I think, monsieur, that I have heard a little more than enough,” said
+she. “I am assured, at least, that in you I have but a fair-weather
+friend, a poor lipserver.”
+
+“Ah, not that, madame,” he cried, and his voice was stricken. “Say not
+that. I would serve you as would none other in all this world--you know
+it, Marquise; you know it.”
+
+She faced about, and confronted him, her smile a trifle broader, as if
+amusement were now blending with her scorn.
+
+“It is easy to protest. Easy to say, ‘I will die for you,’ so long as
+the need for such a sacrifice be remote. But let me do no more than
+ask a favour, and it is, ‘What of my good name, madame? What of my
+seneschalship? Am I to be gaoled or hanged to pleasure you?’ Faugh!” she
+ended, with a toss of her splendid head. “The world is peopled with your
+kind, and I--alas! for a woman’s intuitions--had held you different from
+the rest.”
+
+Her words were to his soul as a sword of fire might have been to his
+flesh. They scorched and shrivelled it. He saw himself as she would have
+him see himself--a mean, contemptible craven; a coward who made big talk
+in times of peace, but faced about and vanished into hiding at the first
+sign of danger. He felt himself the meanest, vilest thing a-crawl upon
+this sinful earth, and she--dear God!--had thought him different from
+the ruck. She had held him in high esteem, and behold, how short had he
+not fallen of all her expectations! Shame and vanity combined to work a
+sudden, sharp revulsion in his feelings.
+
+“Marquise,” he cried, “you say no more than what is just. But punish
+me no further. I meant not what I said. I was beside myself. Let me
+atone--let my future actions make amends for that odious departure from
+my true self.”
+
+There was no scorn now in her smile; only an ineffable tenderness,
+beholding which he felt it in his heart to hang if need be that he might
+continue high in her regard. He sprang forward, and took the hand she
+extended to him.
+
+“I knew, Tressan,” said she, “that you were not yourself, and that when
+you bethought you of what you had said, my valiant, faithful friend
+would not desert me.”
+
+He stooped over her hand, and slobbered kisses upon her unresponsive
+glove.
+
+“Madame,” said he, “you may count upon me. This fellow out of Paris
+shall have no men from me, depend upon it.”
+
+She caught him by the shoulders, and held him so, before her. Her face
+was radiant, alluring; and her eyes dwelt on his with a kindness he had
+never seen there save in some wild daydream of his.
+
+“I will not refuse a service you offer me so gallantly,” said she. “It
+were an ill thing to wound you by so refusing it.”
+
+“Marquise,” he cried, “it is as nothing to what I would do did the
+occasion serve. But when this thing ‘tis done; when you have had your
+way with Mademoiselle de La Vauvraye, and the nuptials shall have been
+celebrated, then--dare I hope--?”
+
+He said no more in words, but his little blue eyes had an eloquence that
+left nothing to mere speech.
+
+Their glances met, she holding him always at arm’s length by that grip
+upon his shoulders, a grip that was firm and nervous.
+
+In the Seneschal of Dauphiny, as she now gazed upon him, she beheld a
+very toad of a man, and the soul of her shuddered at the sight of him
+combining with the thing that he suggested. But her glance was steady
+and her lips maintained their smile, just as if that ugliness of his
+had been invested with some abstract beauty existing only to her gaze; a
+little colour crept into her cheeks, and red being the colour of love’s
+livery, Tressan misread its meaning.
+
+She nodded to him across the little distance of her outstretched arms,
+then smothered a laugh that drove him crazed with hope, and breaking
+from him she sped swiftly, shyly it almost seemed to him, to the door.
+
+There she paused a moment looking back at him with a coyness that might
+have become a girl of half her years, yet which her splendid beauty
+saved from being unbecoming even in her.
+
+One adorable smile she gave him, and before he could advance to hold the
+door for her, she had opened it and passed out.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II. MONSIEUR DE GARNACHE
+
+To promise rashly, particularly where a woman is the suppliant, and
+afterwards, if not positively to repent the promise, at least to regret
+that one did not hedge it with a few conditions, is a proceeding
+not uncommon to youth. In a man of advanced age, such as Monsieur de
+Tressan, it never should have place; and, indeed, it seldom has, unless
+that man has come again under the sway of the influences by which youth,
+for good or ill, is governed.
+
+Whilst the flush of his adoration was upon him, hot from the contact
+of her presence, he knew no repentance, found room in his mind for no
+regrets. He crossed to the window, and pressed his huge round face to
+the pane, in a futile effort to watch her mount and ride out of the
+courtyard with her little troop of attendants. Finding that he might
+not--the window being placed too high--gratify his wishes in that
+connection, he dropped into his chair, and sat in the fast-deepening
+gloom, reviewing, fondly here, hurriedly there, the interview that had
+but ended.
+
+Thus night fell, and darkness settled down about him, relieved only
+by the red glow of the logs smouldering on the hearth. In the gloom
+inspiration visited him. He called for lights and Babylas. Both came,
+and he dispatched the lackey that lighted the tapers to summon Monsieur
+d’Aubran, the commander of the garrison of Grenoble.
+
+In the interval before the soldier’s coming he conferred with Babylas
+concerning what he had in mind, but he found his secretary singularly
+dull and unimaginative. So that, perforce, he must fall back upon
+himself. He sat glum and thoughtful, his mind in unproductive travail,
+until the captain was announced.
+
+Still without any definite plan, he blundered headlong, nevertheless,
+into the necessary first step towards the fulfilment of his purpose.
+
+“Captain,” said he, looking mighty grave, “I have cause to believe that
+all is not as it should be in the hills in the district of Montelimar.”
+
+“Is there trouble, monsieur?” inquired the captain, startled.
+
+“Maybe there is, maybe there is not,” returned the Seneschal
+mysteriously. “You shall have your full orders in the morning.
+Meanwhile, make ready to repair to the neighbourhood of Montelimar
+to-morrow with a couple of hundred men.”
+
+“A couple of hundred, monsieur!” exclaimed d’Aubran. “But that will be
+to empty Grenoble of soldiers.”
+
+“What of it? We are not likely to require them here. Let your orders for
+preparation go round tonight, so that your knaves may be ready to set
+out betimes to-morrow. If you will be so good as to wait upon me early
+you shall have your instructions.”
+
+Mystified, Monsieur d’Aubran departed on his errand, and my Lord
+Seneschal went down to supper well pleased with the cunning device by
+which he was to leave Grenoble without a garrison. It was an astute way
+of escape from the awkward situation into which his attachment to the
+interests of the dowager of Condillac was likely to place him.
+
+But when the morning came he was less pleased with the idea, chiefly
+because he had been unable to invent any details that should lend it the
+necessary colour, and d’Aubran--worse luck--was an intelligent officer
+who might evince a pardonable but embarrassing curiosity. A leader of
+soldiers has a right to know something at least of the enterprise upon
+which he leads them. By morning, too, Tressan found that the intervening
+space of the night, since he had seen Madame de Condillac, had cooled
+his ardour very considerably.
+
+He had reached the incipient stages of regret of his rash promise.
+
+When Captain d’Aubran was announced to him, he bade them ask him to come
+again in an hour’s time. From mere regrets he was passing now, through
+dismay, into utter repentance of his promise. He sat in his study,
+at his littered writing-table, his head in his hands, a confusion of
+thoughts, a wild, frenzied striving after invention in his brain.
+
+Thus Anselme found him when he thrust aside the portiere to announce
+that a Monsieur de Garnache, from Paris, was below, demanding to see the
+Lord Seneschal at once upon an affair of State.
+
+Tressan’s flesh trembled and his heart fainted. Then, suddenly,
+desperately, he took his courage in both hands. He remembered who he was
+and what he was the King’s Lord Seneschal of the Province of Dauphiny.
+Throughout that province, from the Rhone to the Alps, his word was law,
+his name a terror to evildoers--and to some others besides. Was he to
+blench and tremble at the mention of the name of a Court lackey out of
+Paris, who brought him a message from the Queen-Regent? Body of God! not
+he.
+
+He heaved himself to his feet, warmed and heartened by the thought; his
+eye sparkled, and there was a deeper flush than usual upon his cheek.
+
+“Admit this Monsieur de Garnache,” said he with a fine loftiness, and in
+his heart he pondered what he would say and how he should say it; how he
+should stand, how move, and how look. His roving eye caught sight of his
+secretary. He remembered something--the cherished pose of being a man
+plunged fathoms-deep in business. Sharply he uttered his secretary’s
+name.
+
+Babylas raised his pale face; he knew what was coming; it had come so
+many times before. But there was no vestige of a smile on his drooping
+lips, no gleam of amusement in his patient eye. He thrust aside the
+papers on which he was at work, and drew towards him a fresh sheet on
+which to pen the letter which, he knew by experience, Tressan was
+about to indite to the Queen-mother. For these purposes Her Majesty was
+Tressan’s only correspondent.
+
+Then the door opened, the portiere was swept aside, and Anselme
+announced “Monsieur de Garnache.”
+
+Tressan turned as the newcomer stepped briskly into the room, and
+bowed, hat in hand, its long crimson feather sweeping the ground, then
+straightened himself and permitted the Seneschal to take his measure.
+
+Tressan beheld a man of a good height, broad to the waist and spare
+thence to the ground, who at first glance appeared to be mainly clad in
+leather. A buff jerkin fitted his body; below it there was a glimpse of
+wine-coloured trunks, and hose of a slightly deeper hue, which vanished
+immediately into a pair of huge thighboots of untanned leather. A
+leather swordbelt, gold-embroidered at the edges, carried a long
+steel-halted rapier in a leather scabbard chaped with steel. The sleeves
+of his doublet which protruded from his leather casing were of the same
+colour and material as his trunks. In one hand he carried his broad
+black hat with its crimson feather, in the other a little roll of
+parchment; and when he moved the creak of leather and jingle of his
+spurs made pleasant music for a martial spirit.
+
+Above all, this man’s head, well set upon his shoulders, claimed some
+attention. His nose was hooked and rather large, his eyes were blue,
+bright as steel, and set a trifle wide. Above a thin-lapped, delicate
+mouth his reddish mustachios, slightly streaked with grey, stood out,
+bristling like a cat’s. His hair was darker--almost brown save at the
+temples, where age had faded it to an ashen colour. In general his
+aspect was one of rugged strength.
+
+The Seneschal, measuring him with an adversary’s eye, misliked his
+looks. But he bowed urbanely, washing his hands in the air, and
+murmuring:
+
+“Your servant, Monsieur de--?”
+
+“Garnache,” came the other’s crisp, metallic voice, and the name had a
+sound as of an oath on his lips. “Martin Marie Rigobert de Garnache.
+I come to you on an errand of Her Majesty’s, as this my warrant will
+apprise you.” And he proffered the paper he held, which Tressan accepted
+from his hand.
+
+A change was visible in the wily Seneschal’s fat countenance. Its round
+expanse had expressed interrogation until now; but at the Parisian’s
+announcement that he was an emissary of the Queen’s, Tressan insinuated
+into it just that look of surprise and of increased deference which
+would have been natural had he not already been forewarned of Monsieur
+de Garnache’s mission and identity.
+
+He placed a chair at his visitor’s disposal, himself resuming his seat
+at his writing-table, and unfolding the paper Garnache had given him.
+The newcomer seated himself, hitched his sword-belt round so that he
+could lean both hands upon the hilt, and sat, stiff and immovable,
+awaiting the Lord Seneschal’s pleasure. From his desk across the room
+the secretary, idly chewing the feathered end of his goose-quill, took
+silent stock of the man from Paris, and wondered.
+
+Tressan folded the paper carefully, and returned it to its owner. It
+was no more than a formal credential, setting forth that Garnache was
+travelling into Dauphiny on a State affair, and commanding Monsieur de
+Tressan to give him every assistance he might require in the performance
+of his errand.
+
+“Parfaitement,” purred the Lord Seneschal. “And now, monsieur, if you
+will communicate to me the nature of your affair, you shall find me
+entirely at your service.”
+
+“It goes without saying that you are acquainted with the Chateau de
+Condillac?” began Garnache, plunging straight into business.
+
+“Perfectly.” The Seneschal leaned back, and was concerned to feel his
+pulses throbbing a shade too quickly. But he controlled his features,
+and maintained a placid, bland expression.
+
+“You are perhaps acquainted with its inhabitants?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“Intimate with them?”
+
+The Seneschal pursed his lips, arched his brows, and slowly waved his
+podgy hands, a combination of grimace and gesture that said much or
+nothing. But reflecting that Monsieur de Tressan had a tongue, Garnache
+apparently did not opine it worth his while to set a strain upon his own
+imagination, for--
+
+“Intimate with them?” he repeated, and this time there was a sharper
+note in his voice.
+
+Tressan leaned forward and brought his finger-tips together. His voice
+was as urbane as it lay within its power to be.
+
+“I understood that monsieur was proposing to state his business, not to
+question mine.”
+
+Garnache sat back in his chair, and his eyes narrowed. He scented
+opposition, and the greatest stumbling-block in Garnache’s career had
+been that he could never learn to brook opposition from any man. That
+characteristic, evinced early in life, had all but been the ruin of him.
+He was a man of high intellectual gifts, of military skill and great
+resource; out of consideration for which had he been chosen by Marie de
+Medicis to come upon this errand. But he marred it all by a temper so
+ungovernable that in Paris there was current a byword, “Explosive as
+Garnache.”
+
+Little did Tressan dream to what a cask of gunpowder he was applying the
+match of his smug pertness. Nor did Garnache let him dream it just yet.
+He controlled himself betimes, bethinking him that, after all, there
+might be some reason in what this fat fellow said.
+
+“You misapprehend my purpose, sir,” said he, his lean brown hand
+stroking his long chin. “I but sought to learn how far already you may
+be informed of what is taking place up there, to the end that I may
+spare myself the pains of citing facts with which already you are
+acquainted. Still, monsieur, I am willing to proceed upon the lines
+which would appear to be more agreeable to yourself.
+
+“This, then, is the sum of the affair that brings me: The late Marquis
+de Condillac left two sons. The elder, Florimond--who is the present
+marquis, and who has been and still continues absent, warring in Italy,
+since before his father’s death--is the stepson of the present Dowager,
+she being the mother of the younger son, Marius de Condillac.
+
+“Should you observe me to be anywhere at error, I beg, monsieur, that
+you will have the complaisance to correct me.”
+
+The Seneschal bowed gravely, and Monsieur de Garnache continued:
+
+“Now this younger son--I believe that he is in his twenty-first year at
+present--has been something of a scapegrace.”
+
+“A scapegrace? Bon Dieu, no. That is a harsh name to give him. A little
+indiscreet at times, a little rash, as is the way of youth.”
+
+He would have said more, but the man from Paris was of no mind to waste
+time on quibbles.
+
+“Very well,” he snapped, cutting in. “We will say, a little indiscreet.
+My errand is not concerned with Monsieur Marius’s morals or with his
+lack of them. These indiscretions which you belittle appear to have been
+enough to have estranged him from his father, a circumstance which but
+served the more to endear him to his mother. I am told that she is a
+very handsome woman, and that the boy favours her surprisingly.”
+
+“Ah!” sighed the Seneschal in a rapture. “A beautiful woman--a noble,
+splendid woman.’
+
+“Hum!” Garnache observed the ecstatic simper with a grim eye. Then he
+proceeded with his story.
+
+“The late marquis possessed in his neighbour, the also deceased Monsieur
+de La Vauvraye, a very dear and valued friend. Monsieur de La Vauvraye
+had an only child, a daughter, to inherit his very considerable estates
+probably the wealthiest in all Dauphiny, so I am informed. It was
+the dearest wish of his heart to transform what had been a lifelong
+friendship in his own generation into a closer relationship in the
+next--a wish that found a very ready echo in the heart of Monsieur de
+Condillac. Florimond de Condillac was sixteen years of age at the time,
+and Valerie de La Vauvraye fourteen. For all their tender years, they
+were betrothed, and they grew up to love each other and to look forward
+to the consummation of the plans their fathers had laid for them.”
+
+“Monsieur, monsieur,” the Seneschal protested, “how can you possibly
+infer so much? How can you say that they loved each other? What
+authority can you have for pretending to know what was in their inmost
+hearts?”
+
+“The authority of Mademoiselle de La Vauvraye,” was the unanswerable
+rejoinder. “I am telling you, more or less, what she herself wrote to
+the Queen.”
+
+“Ah! Well, well--proceed, monsieur.”
+
+“This marriage should render Florimond de Condillac the wealthiest and
+most powerful gentleman in Dauphiny--one of the wealthiest in France;
+and the idea of it pleased the old marquis, inasmuch as the disparity
+there would be between the worldly possessions of his two sons would
+serve to mark his disapproval of the younger. But before settling down,
+Florimond signified a desire to see the world, as was fit and proper
+and becoming in a young man who was later to assume such wide
+responsibilities. His father, realizing the wisdom of such a step, made
+but slight objection, and at the age of twenty Florimond set out for the
+Italian wars. Two years afterwards, a little over six months ago, his
+father died, and was followed to the grave some weeks later by Monsieur
+de La Vauvraye. The latter, with a want of foresight which has given
+rise to the present trouble, misjudging the character of the Dowager
+of Condillac, entrusted to her care his daughter Valerie pending
+Florimond’s return, when the nuptials would naturally be immediately
+celebrated. I am probably telling you no more than you already know.
+But you owe the infliction to your own unwillingness to answer my
+questions.”
+
+“No, no, monsieur; I assure you that in what you say there is much that
+is entirely new to me.”
+
+“I rejoice to hear it, Monsieur de Tressan,” said Garnache very
+seriously, “for had you been in possession of all these facts, Her
+Majesty might have a right to learn how it chanced that you had nowise
+interfered in what is toward at Condillac.
+
+“But to proceed: Madame de Condillac and her precious Benjamin--this
+Marius--finding themselves, in Florimond’s absence, masters of the
+situation, have set about turning it to their own best advantage.
+Mademoiselle de La Vauvraye, whilst being nominally under their
+guardianship, finds herself practically gaoled by them, and odious plans
+are set before her to marry Marius. Could the Dowager but accomplish
+this, it would seem that she would not only be assuring a future of
+ease and dignity for her son, but also be giving vent to all her pent-up
+hatred of her stepson.
+
+“Mademoiselle, however, withstands them, and in this she is aided by
+a fortuitous circumstance which has arisen out of the overbearing
+arrogance that appears to be madame’s chief characteristic. Condillac
+after the marquis’s death had refused to pay tithes to Mother Church
+and has flouted and insulted the Bishop. This prelate, after finding
+remonstrance vain, has retorted by placing Condillac under an Interdict,
+depriving all within it of the benefit of clergy. Thus, they have been
+unable to find a priest to venture thither, so that even had they willed
+to marry mademoiselle by force to Marius, they lacked the actual means
+of doing so.
+
+“Florimond continues absent. We have every reason to believe that he has
+been left in ignorance of his father’s death. Letters coming from him
+from time to time prove that he was alive and well at least until three
+months ago. A messenger has been dispatched to find him and urge him to
+return home at once. But pending his arrival the Queen has determined
+to take the necessary steps to ensure that Mademoiselle de La Vauvraye
+shall be released from her captivity, that she shall suffer no further
+molestation at the hands of Madame de Condillac and her son--enfin, that
+she shall run no further risks.
+
+“My errand, monsieur, is to acquaint you with these facts, and to
+request you to proceed to Condillac and deliver thence Mademoiselle de
+La Vauvraye, whom I am subsequently to escort to Paris and place under
+Her Majesty’s protection until such time as the new marquis shall return
+to claim her.”
+
+Having concluded, Monsieur de Garnache sat back in his chair, and threw
+one leg over the other, fixing his eyes upon the Seneschal’s face and
+awaiting his reply.
+
+On that gross countenance before him he saw fall the shadow of
+perplexity. Tressan was monstrous ill-at-ease, and his face lost a good
+deal of its habitual plethora of colour. He sought to temporize.
+
+“Does it not occur to you, monsieur, that perhaps too much importance
+may have been attached to the word of this child--this Mademoiselle de
+La Vauvraye?”
+
+“Does it occur to you that such has been the case, that she has
+overstated it?” counter-questioned Monsieur de Garnache.
+
+“No, no. I do not say that. But--but--would it not be
+better--more--ah--satisfactory to all concerned, if you yourself were
+to go to Condillac, and deliver your message in person, demanding
+mademoiselle?”
+
+The man from Paris looked at him a moment, then stood up suddenly, and
+shifted the carriages of his sword back to their normal position. His
+brows came together in a frown, from which the Seneschal argued that his
+suggestion was not well received.
+
+“Monsieur,” said the Parisian very coldly, like a man who contains a
+rising anger, “let me tell you that this is the first time in my life
+that I have been concerned in anything that had to do with women and I
+am close upon forty years of age. The task, I can assure you, was little
+to my taste. I embarked upon it because, being a soldier and having
+received my orders, I was in the unfortunate position of being unable to
+help myself. But I intend, monsieur, to adhere rigidly to the letter of
+these commands. Already I have endured more than enough in the interests
+of this damsel. I have ridden from Paris, and that means close upon a
+week in the saddle--no little thing to a man who has acquired certain
+habits of life and developed a taste for certain minor comforts which he
+is very reluctant to forgo. I have fed and slept at inns, living on the
+worst of fares and sleeping on the hardest, and hardly the cleanest, of
+beds. Ventregris! Figure to yourself that last night we lay at Luzan,
+in the only inn the place contained--a hovel, Monsieur le Seneschal, a
+hovel in which I would not kennel a dog I loved.”
+
+His face flushed, and his voice rose as he dwelt upon the things he had
+undergone.
+
+“My servant and I slept in a dormitory’--a thousand devils! monsieur, in
+a dormitory! Do you realize it? We had for company a drunken vintner,
+a pedlar, a pilgrim on his way to Rome, and two peasant women; and
+they sent us to bed without candles, for modesty’s sake. I ask you to
+conceive my feelings in such a case as that. I could tell you more; but
+that as a sample of what I have undergone could scarcely be surpassed.”
+
+“Truly-truly outrageous,” sympathized the Seneschal; yet he grinned.
+
+“I ask you--have I not suffered inconvenience enough already in the
+service of Mademoiselle de La Vauvraye that you can blame me if I refuse
+to go a single step further than my orders bid me?”
+
+The Seneschal stared at him now in increasing dismay. Had his own
+interests been less at issue he could have indulged his mirth at the
+other’s fiery indignation at the inconveniences he recited. As it was,
+he had nothing to say; no thought or feeling other than what concerned
+finding a way of escape from the net that seemed to be closing in about
+him--how to seem to serve the Queen without turning against the Dowager
+of Condillac; how to seem to serve the Dowager without opposing the
+wishes of the Queen.
+
+“A plague on the girl!” he growled, unconsciously uttering his thoughts
+aloud. “The devil take her!”
+
+Garnache smiled grimly. “That is a bond of sympathy between us,” said
+he. “I have said those very words a hundred times--a thousand times,
+indeed--between Paris and Grenoble. Yet I scarcely see that you can damn
+her with as much justice as can I.
+
+“But there, monsieur; all this is unprofitable. You have my message. I
+shall spend the day at Grenoble, and take a well-earned rest. By this
+time to-morrow I shall be ready to start upon my return journey. I
+shall have then the honour to wait upon you again, to the end that I
+may receive from you the charge of Mademoiselle de La Vauvraye. I shall
+count upon your having her here, in readiness to set out with me, by
+noon to-morrow.”
+
+He bowed, with a flourish of his plumed hat, and would with that have
+taken his departure but that the Seneschal stayed him.
+
+“Monsieur, monsieur,” he cried, in piteous affright, “you do not know
+the Dowager of Condillac.”
+
+“Why, no. What of it?”
+
+“What of it? Did you know her, you would understand that she is not the
+woman to be driven. I may order her in the Queen’s name to deliver up
+Mademoiselle de La Vauvraye. But she will withstand me.”
+
+“Withstand you?” echoed Garnache, frowning into the face of this fat
+man, who had risen also, brought to his feet by excitement. “Withstand
+you--you, the Lord Seneschal of Dauphiny? You are amusing yourself at my
+expense.”
+
+“But I tell you that she will,” the other insisted in a passion. “You
+may look for the girl in vain tomorrow unless you go to Condillac
+yourself and take her.”
+
+Garnache drew himself up and delivered his answer in a tone that was
+final.
+
+“You are the governor of the province, monsieur, and in this matter you
+have in addition the Queen’s particular authority--nay, her commands are
+imposed upon you. Those commands, as interpreted by me, you will execute
+in the manner I have indicated.”
+
+The Seneschal shrugged his shoulders, and chewed a second at his beard.
+
+“It is an easy thing for you to tell me what to do. Tell me, rather, how
+to do it, how to overcome her opposition.”
+
+“You are very sure of opposition--strangely sure, monsieur,” said
+Garnache, looking him between the eyes. “In any case, you have
+soldiers.”
+
+“And so has she, and the strongest castle in southern France--to say
+nothing of the most cursed obstinacy in the world. What she says, she
+does.”
+
+“And what the Queen says her loyal servants do,” was Garnache’s
+rejoinder, in a withering tone. “I think there is nothing more to be
+said, monsieur,” he added. “By this time to-morrow I shall expect to
+receive from you, here, the charge of Mademoiselle de La Vauvraye. A
+demain, donc, Monsieur le Seneschal.”
+
+And with another bow the man from Paris drew himself erect, turned on
+his heel, and went jingling and creaking from the room.
+
+The Lord Seneschal sank back in his chair, and wondered to himself
+whether to die might not prove an easy way out of the horrid situation
+into which chance and his ill-starred tenderness for the Dowager of
+Condillac had thrust him.
+
+At his desk sat his secretary, who had been a witness of the interview,
+lost in wonder almost as great as the Seneschal’s own.
+
+For an hour Tressan remained where he was, deep in thought and gnawing
+at his beard. Then with a sudden burst of passion, expressed in a round
+oath or two, he rose, and called for his horse that he might ride to
+Condillac.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III. THE DOWAGER’S COMPLIANCE
+
+Promptly at noon on the morrow Monsieur de Garnache presented himself
+once more at the Seneschal’s palace, and with him went Rabecque, his
+body-servant, a lean, swarthy, sharp-faced man, a trifle younger than
+his master.
+
+Anselme, the obese master of the household, received them with profound
+respect, and at once conducted Garnache to Monsieur de Tressan’s
+presence.
+
+On the stairs they met Captain d’Aubran, who was descending. The captain
+was not in the best of humours. For four-and-twenty hours he had kept
+two hundred of his men under arms, ready to march as soon as he should
+receive his orders from the Lord Seneschal, yet those instructions were
+not forthcoming. He had been to seek them again that morning, only to be
+again put off.
+
+Monsieur de Garnache had considerable doubt, born of his yesterday’s
+interview with the Seneschal, that Mademoiselle de La Vauvraye would
+be delivered into his charge as he had stipulated. His relief was,
+therefore, considerable, upon being ushered into Tressan’s presence,
+to find a lady in cloak and hat, dressed as for a journey, seated in a
+chair by the great fireplace.
+
+Tressan advanced to meet him, a smile of cordial welcome on his lips,
+and they bowed to each other in formal greeting.
+
+“You see, monsieur,” said the Seneschal, waving a plump hand in the
+direction of the lady, “that you have been obeyed. Here is your charge.”
+
+Then to the lady: “This is Monsieur de Garnache,” he announced, “of whom
+I have already told you, who is to conduct you to Paris by order of Her
+Majesty.
+
+“And now, my good friends, however great the pleasure I derive from your
+company, I care not how soon you set out, for I have some prodigious
+arrears of work upon my hands.”
+
+Garnache bowed to the lady, who returned his greeting by an inclination
+of the head, and his keen eyes played briskly over her. She was a
+plump-faced, insipid child, with fair hair and pale blue eyes, stolid
+and bovine in their expressionlessness.
+
+“I am quite ready, monsieur,” said she, rising as she spoke, and
+gathering her cloak about her; and Garnache remarked that her voice had
+the southern drawl, her words the faintest suggestion of a patois. It
+was amazing how a lady born and bred could degenerate in the rusticity
+of Dauphiny. Pigs and cows, he made no doubt, had been her chief
+objectives. Yet, even so, he thought he might have expected that she
+would have had more to say to him than just those five words expressing
+her readiness to depart. He had looked for some acknowledgment of
+satisfaction at his presence, some utterances of gratitude either to
+himself or to the Queen-Regent for the promptness with which she had
+been succoured. He was disappointed, but he showed nothing of it, as
+with a simple inclination of the head--
+
+“Good!” said he. “Since you are ready and Monsieur le Seneschal is
+anxious to be rid of us, let us by all means be moving. You have a long
+and tedious journey before you, mademoiselle.”
+
+“I--I am prepared for that,” she faltered.
+
+He stood aside, and bending from the waist he made a sweeping gesture
+towards the door with the hand that held his hat. To the invitation to
+precede him she readily responded, and, with a bow to the Seneschal, she
+began to walk across the apartment.
+
+Garnache’s eyes, narrowing slightly, followed her, like points of steel.
+Suddenly he shot a disturbing glance at Tressan’s face, and the corner
+of his wild-cat mustachios twitched. He stood erect, and called her very
+sharply.
+
+“Mademoiselle!”
+
+She stopped, and turned to face him, an incredible shyness seeming to
+cause her to avoid his gaze.
+
+“You have, no doubt, Monsieur le Seneschal’s word for my identity. But
+I think it is as well that you should satisfy yourself. Before placing
+yourself entirely in my care, as you are about to do, you would be well
+advised to assure yourself, that I am indeed Her Majesty’s emissary.
+Will you be good enough to glance at this?”
+
+He drew forth as he spoke the letter in the queen’s own hand, turned
+it upside down, and so presented it to her. The Seneschal looked on
+stolidly, a few paces distant.
+
+“But certainly, mademoiselle, assure yourself that this gentleman is no
+other than I have told you.”
+
+Thus enjoined, she took the letter; for a second her eyes met Garnache’s
+glittering gaze, and she shivered. Then she bent her glance to the
+writing, and studied it a moment, what time the man from Paris watched
+her closely.
+
+Presently she handed it back to him.
+
+“Thank you, monsieur,” was all she said.
+
+“You are satisfied that it is in order, mademoiselle?” he inquired, and
+a note of mockery too subtle for her or the Seneschal ran through his
+question.
+
+“I am quite satisfied.”
+
+Garnache turned to Tressan. His eyes were smiling, but unpleasantly,
+and in his voice when he spoke there was something akin to the distant
+rumble that heralds an approaching storm.
+
+“Mademoiselle,” said he, “has received an eccentric education.”
+
+“Eh?” quoth Tressan, perplexed.
+
+“I have heard tell, monsieur, of a people somewhere in the East who
+read and write from right to left; but never yet have I heard tell of
+any--particularly in France--so oddly schooled as to do their reading
+upside down.”
+
+Tressan caught the drift of the other’s meaning. He paled a little,
+and sucked his lip, his eyes wandering to the girl, who stood in stolid
+inapprehension of what was being said.
+
+“Did she do that?” said he, and he scarcely knew what he was saying;
+all that he realized was that it urged him to explain this thing.
+“Mademoiselle’s education has been neglected--a by no means uncommon
+happening in these parts. She is sensitive of it; she seeks to hide the
+fact.”
+
+Then the storm broke about their heads. And it crashed and thundered
+awfully in the next few minutes.
+
+“O liar! O damned, audacious liar,” roared Garnache uncompromisingly,
+advancing a step upon the Seneschal, and shaking the parchment
+threateningly in his very face, as though it were become a weapon of
+offence. “Was it to hide the fact that she had not been taught to write
+that she sent the Queen a letter pages-long? Who is this woman?” And the
+finger he pointed at the girl quivered with the rage that filled him at
+this trick they had thought to put upon him.
+
+Tressan sought refuge in offended dignity. He drew himself up, threw
+back his head, and looked the Parisian fiercely in the eye.
+
+“Since you take this tone with me, monsieur--”
+
+“I take with you--as with any man--the tone that to me seems best. You
+miserable fool! As sure as you’re a rogue this affair shall cost you
+your position. You have waxed fat and sleek in your seneschalship; this
+easy life in Dauphiny appears to have been well suited to your health.
+But as your paunch has grown, so, of a truth, have your brains dwindled,
+else had you never thought to cheat me quite so easily.
+
+“Am I some lout who has spent his days herding swine, think you, that
+you could trick me into believing this creature to be Mademoiselle de
+La Vauvraye--this creature with the mien of a peasant, with a breath
+reeking of garlic like a third-rate eating-house, and the walk of a
+woman who has never known footgear until this moment? Tell me, sir, for
+what manner of fool did you take me?”
+
+The Seneschal stood with blanched face and gaping mouth, his fire all
+turned to ashes before the passion of this gaunt man.
+
+Garnache paid no heed to him. He stepped to the girl, and roughly raised
+her chin with his hand so that she was forced to look him in the face.
+
+“What is your name, wench?” he asked her.
+
+“Margot,” she blubbered, bursting into tears.
+
+He dropped her chin, and turned away with a gesture of disgust.
+
+“Get you gone,” he bade her harshly. “Get you back to the kitchen or the
+onion-field from which they took you.”
+
+And the girl, scarce believing her good fortune, departed with a speed
+that bordered on the ludicrous. Tressan had naught to say, no word to
+stay her with; pretence, he realized, was vain.
+
+“Now, my Lord Seneschal,” quoth Garnache, arms akimbo, feet planted
+wide, and eyes upon the wretched man’s countenance, “what may you have
+to say to me?”
+
+Tressan shifted his position; he avoided the other’s glance; he was
+visibly trembling, and when presently he spoke it was in faltering
+accents.
+
+“It--it--seems, monsieur, that--ah--that I have been the victim of some
+imposture.”
+
+“It had rather seemed to me that the victim chosen was myself.”
+
+“Clearly we were both victims,” the Seneschal rejoined. Then he
+proceeded to explain. “I went to Condillac yesterday as you desired me,
+and after a stormy interview with the Marquise I obtained from her--as
+I believed--the person of Mademoiselle de La Vauvraye. You see I was not
+myself acquainted with the lady.”
+
+Garnache looked at him. He did not believe him. He regretted almost that
+he had not further questioned the girl. But, after all, perhaps it
+might be easier and more expedient if he were to appear to accept the
+Seneschal’s statement. But he must provide against further fraud.
+
+“Monsieur le Seneschal,” said he in calmer tones, putting his anger
+from him, “at the best you are a blunderer and an ass, at the worst
+a traitor. I will inquire no further at present; I’ll not seek to
+discriminate too finely.”
+
+“Monsieur, these insults--” began the Seneschal, summoning dignity to
+his aid. But Garnache broke in:
+
+“La, la! I speak in the Queen’s name. If you have thought to aid the
+Dowager of Condillac in this resistance of Her Majesty’s mandate, let
+me enjoin you, as you value your seneschalship--as you value your very
+neck--to harbour that thought no longer.
+
+“It seems that, after all, I must deal myself with the situation. I must
+go myself to Condillac. If they should resist me, I shall look to you
+for the necessary means to overcome that resistance.
+
+“And bear you this in mind: I have chosen to leave it an open question
+whether you were a party to the trick it has been sought to put upon the
+Queen, through me, her representative. But it is a question that I have
+it in my power to resolve at any moment--to resolve as I choose.
+Unless, monsieur, I find you hereafter--as I trust--actuated by the most
+unswerving loyalty, I shall resolve that question by proclaiming you
+a traitor; and as a traitor I shall arrest you and carry you to Paris.
+Monsieur le Seneschal, I have the honour to give you good-day!”
+
+When he was gone, Monsieur de Tressan flung off his wig, and mopped the
+perspiration from his brow. He went white as snow and red as fire by
+turns, as he paced the apartment in a frenzy. Never in the fifteen
+years that were sped since he had been raised to the governorship of
+the province had any man taken such a tone with him and harangued him in
+such terms.
+
+A liar and a traitor had he been called that morning, a knave and a
+fool; he had been browbeaten and threatened; and he had swallowed it
+all, and almost turned to lick the hand that administered the dose.
+Dame! What manner of cur was he become? And the man who had done
+all this--a vulgar upstart out of Paris, reeking of leather and the
+barrack-room still lived!
+
+Bloodshed was in his mind; murder beckoned him alluringly to take her as
+his ally. But he put the thought from him, frenzied though he might be.
+He must fight this knave with other weapons; frustrate his mission, and
+send him back to Paris and the Queen’s scorn, beaten and empty-handed.
+
+“Babylas!” he shouted.
+
+Immediately the secretary appeared.
+
+“Have you given thought to the matter of Captain d’Aubran?” he asked,
+his voice an impatient snarl.
+
+“Yes, monsieur, I have pondered it all morning.”
+
+“Well? And what have you concluded?”
+
+“Helas! monsieur, nothing.”
+
+Tressan smote the table before him a blow that shook some of the dust
+out of the papers that cumbered it. “Ventregris! How am I served? For
+what do I pay you, and feed you, and house you, good-for-naught, if you
+are to fail me whenever I need the things you call your brains? Have you
+no intelligence, no thought, no imagination? Can you invent no plausible
+business, no likely rising, no possible disturbances that shall justify
+my sending Aubran and his men to Montelimar--to the very devil, if need
+be.”
+
+The secretary trembled in his every limb; his eyes shunned his master’s
+as his master’s had shunned Garnache’s awhile ago. The Seneschal was
+enjoying himself. If he had been bullied and browbeaten, here, at least,
+was one upon whom he, in his turn, might taste the joys of bullying and
+browbeating.
+
+“You lazy, miserable calf,” he stormed, “I might be better served by
+a wooden image. Go! It seems I must rely upon myself. It is always so.
+Wait!” he thundered; for the secretary, only too glad to obey his last
+order, had already reached the door. “Tell Anselme to bid the Captain
+attend me here at once.”
+
+Babylas’s bowed and went his errand.
+
+A certain amount of his ill-humour vented, Tressan made an effort to
+regain his self-control. He passed his handkerchief for the last time
+over face and head, and resumed his wig.
+
+When d’Aubran entered, the Seneschal was composed and in his wonted
+habit of ponderous dignity. “Ah, d’Aubran,” said he, “your men are
+ready?”
+
+“They have been ready these four-and-twenty hours, monsieur.”
+
+“Good. You are a brisk soldier, d’Aubran. You are a man to be relied
+upon.”
+
+D’Aubran bowed. He was a tall, active young fellow with a pleasant face
+and a pair of fine black eyes.
+
+“Monsieur le Seneschal is very good.”
+
+With a wave of the hand the Seneschal belittled his own goodness.
+
+“You will march out of Grenoble within the hour, Captain, and you will
+lead your men to Montelimar. There you will quarter them, and await
+my further orders. Babylas will give you a letter to the authorities,
+charging them to find you suitable quarters. While there, d’Aubran, and
+until my further orders reach you, you will employ your time in probing
+the feeling in the hill district. You understand?”
+
+“Imperfectly,” d’Aubran confessed.
+
+“You will understand better when you have been in Montelimar a week or
+so. It may, of course, be a false alarm. Still, we must safeguard the
+King’s interests and be prepared. Perhaps we may afterwards be charged
+with starting at shadows; but it is better to be on the alert from the
+moment the shadow is perceived than to wait until the substance itself
+has overwhelmed us.”
+
+It sounded so very much as if the Seneschal’s words really had some
+hidden meaning, that d’Aubran, if not content with going upon an errand
+of which he knew so little, was, at least, reconciled to obey the orders
+he received. He uttered words that conveyed some such idea to Tressan’s
+mind, and within a half-hour he was marching out of Grenoble with
+beating drums, on his two days’ journey to Montelimar.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV. THE CHATEAU DE CONDILLAC
+
+As Captain d’Aubran and his troop were speeding westwards from Grenoble,
+Monsieur de Garnache, ever attended by his man, rode briskly in the
+opposite direction, towards the grey towers of Condillac, that reared
+themselves towards the greyer sky above the valley of the Isere. It was
+a chill, dull, autumnal day, with a raw wind blowing from the Alps; its
+breath was damp, and foretold of the rain that was likely to come anon,
+the rain with which the clouds hanging low about the distant hills were
+pregnant.
+
+But Monsieur de Garnache was totally insensible to his surroundings; his
+mind was very busy with the interview from which he had come, and
+the interview to which he was speeding. Once he permitted himself a
+digression, that he might point a moral for the benefit of his servant.
+
+“You see, Rebecque, what a plague it is to have to do with women. Are
+you sufficiently grateful to me for having quelled your matrimonial
+ardour of two months ago? No, you are not. Grateful you may be;
+sufficiently grateful, never; it would be impossible. No gratitude could
+be commensurate with the benefit I conferred upon you. Yet if you had
+married, and discovered for yourself the troubles that come from too
+close an association with that sex which some wag of old ironically
+called the weaker, and of which contemporary fools with no sense of
+irony continue so to speak in good faith, you could have blamed only
+yourself. You would have shrugged your shoulders and made the best of
+it, realizing that no other man had put this wrong upon you. But with
+me--thousand devils!--it is very different. I am a man who, in one
+particular at least, has chosen his way of life with care; I have seen
+to it that I should walk a road unencumbered by any petticoat. What
+happens? What comes of all my careful plans?
+
+“Fate sends an infernal cut-throat to murder our good king--whose soul
+God rest eternally! And since his son is of an age too tender to wield
+the sceptre, the boy’s mother does it in his name. Thus, I, a soldier,
+being subject to the head of the State, find myself, by no devising of
+my own, subject to a woman.
+
+“In itself that is bad enough. Too bad, indeed--Ventregris!--too bad.
+Yet Fate is not content. It must occur to this woman to select me--me
+of all men--to journey into Dauphiny, and release another woman from
+the clutches of yet a third. And to what shifts are we not put, to what
+discomforts not subjected? You know them, Rabecque, for you have shared
+them with me. But it begins to break upon my mind that what we have
+endured may be as nothing to what may lie before us. It is an ill thing
+to have to do with women. Yet you, Rabecque, would have deserted me for
+one of them!”
+
+Rabecque was silent. Maybe he was ashamed of himself; or maybe that,
+not agreeing with his master, he had yet sufficient appreciation of
+his position to be discreetly silent where his opinions might be at
+variance. Thus Garnache was encouraged to continue.
+
+“And what is all this trouble about, which they have sent me to set
+right? About a marriage. There is a girl wants to marry one man, and
+a woman who wants to marry her to another. Ponder the possibilities of
+tragedy in such a situation. Half this world’s upheavals have had their
+source in less. Yet you, Rabecque, would have married!”
+
+Necessity at last turned his discourse to other matters.
+
+“Tell me, now,” said he abruptly, in a different tone, “is there
+hereabouts a ford?”
+
+“There is a bridge up yonder, monsieur,” returned the servant, thankful
+to have the conversation changed.
+
+They rode towards it in silence, Garnache’s eyes set now upon the grey
+pile that crowned the hillock, a half-mile away, on the opposite bank of
+the stream. They crossed the bridge and rode up the gently rising, bare,
+and rugged ground towards Condillac. The place wore an entirely peaceful
+air, strong and massive though it appeared. It was encircled by a ditch,
+but the drawbridge was down, and the rust on its chains argued that long
+had it been so.
+
+None coming to challenge them, the pair rode across the planks, and
+the dull thud of their hooves started into activity some one in the
+gatehouse.
+
+A fellow rudely clad--a hybrid between man-at-arms and lackey--lounged
+on a musket to confront them in the gateway. Monsieur de Garnache
+announced his name, adding that he came to crave an audience of Madame
+la Marquise, and the man stood aside to admit him. Thus he and Rabecque
+rode forward into the roughly paved courtyard.
+
+From several doorways other men emerged, some of martial bearing,
+showing that the place was garrisoned to some extent. Garnache took
+little heed of them. He flung his reins to the man whom he had first
+addressed--the fellow had kept pace beside him--and leapt nimbly to the
+ground, bidding Rabecque await him there.
+
+The soldier lackey resigned the reins to Rabecque, and requested
+Monsieur de Garnache to follow him. He led the way through a door on
+the left, down a passage and across an anteroom, and ushered the visitor
+finally into a spacious, gloomy hall, panelled in black oak and lighted
+as much by the piled-up fire that flared on the noble hearth as by the
+grey daylight that filtered through the tall mullioned windows.
+
+As they entered, a liver-coloured hound that lay stretched before the
+fire growled lazily, and showed the whites of his eyes. Paying little
+attention to the dog, Garnache looked about him. The apartment was
+handsome beyond praise, in a sombre, noble fashion. It was hung
+with pictures of departed Condillacs--some of them rudely wrought
+enough--with trophies of ancient armour, and with implements of the
+chase. In the centre stood an oblong table of black oak, very richly
+carved about its massive legs, and in a china bowl, on this, an armful
+of late roses filled the room with their sweet fragrance.
+
+Then Garnache espied a page on the window-seat, industriously burnishing
+a cuirass. He pursued his task, indifferent to the newcomer’s advent,
+until the knave who had conducted thither the Parisian called the boy
+and bade him go tell the Marquise that a Monsieur de Garnache, with a
+message from the Queen-Regent, begged an audience.
+
+The boy rose, and simultaneously, out of a great chair by the hearth,
+whose tall back had hitherto concealed him, there rose another figure.
+This was a stripling of some twenty summers--twenty-one, in fact--of
+a pale, beautifully featured face, black hair and fine black eyes, and
+very sumptuously clad in a suit of shimmering silk whose colour shifted
+from green to purple as he moved.
+
+Monsieur de Garnache assumed that he was in the presence of Marius de
+Condillac. He bowed a trifle stiffly, and was surprised to have his bow
+returned with a graciousness that amounted almost to cordiality.
+
+“You are from Paris, monsieur?” said the young man, in a gentle,
+pleasant voice. “I fear you have had indifferent weather for your
+journey.”
+
+Garnache thought of other things besides the weather that he had found
+indifferent, and he felt warmed almost to the point of anger at the very
+recollection. But he bowed again, and answered amiably enough.
+
+The young man offered him a seat, assuring him that his mother would not
+keep him waiting long. The page had already gone upon his errand.
+
+Garnache took the proffered chair, and sank down with creak and jingle
+to warm himself at the fire.
+
+“From what you have said, I gather that you are Monsieur Marius de
+Condillac,” said he. “I, as you may have heard me announced by your
+servant, am Martin Marie Rigobert de Garnache--at your service.”
+
+“We have heard of you, Monsieur de Garnache,” said the youth as he
+crossed his shapely legs of silken violet, and fingered the great pearl
+that depended from his ear. “But we had thought that by now you would be
+on your way to Paris.”
+
+“No doubt--with Margot,” was the grim rejoinder.
+
+But Marius either gathered no suggestion from its grimness, or did not
+know the name Garnache uttered, for he continued:
+
+“We understood that you were to escort Mademoiselle de La Vauvraye to
+Paris, to place her under the tutelage of the Queen-Regent. I will not
+conceal from you that we were chagrined at the reflection cast upon
+Condillac; nevertheless, Her Majesty’s word is law in Dauphiny as much
+as it is in Paris.”
+
+“Quite as much, and I am relieved to hear you confess it,” said Garnache
+drily, and he scanned more closely the face of this young man. He found
+cause to modify the excellent impression he had received at first.
+Marius’s eyebrows were finely pencilled, but they arched a shade too
+much, and his eyes were set a trifle too closely; the mouth, which
+had seemed beautiful at first, looked, in addition, on this closer
+inspection, weak, sensual, and cruel.
+
+There fell upon the momentary silence the sound of an opening door, and
+both men rose simultaneously to their feet.
+
+In the splendid woman that entered, Monsieur de Garnache saw a wonderful
+likeness to the boy who stood beside him. She received the emissary very
+graciously. Marius set a chair for her between the two they had been
+occupying, and thus interchanging phrases of agreeable greeting the
+three sat down about the hearth with every show of the greatest amity.
+
+A younger man might have been put out of countenance; the woman’s
+surpassing beauty, her charm of manner, her melodious voice, falling
+on the ear soft and gentle as a caress, might have turned a man of less
+firmness a little from his purpose, a little perhaps from his loyalty
+and the duty that had brought him all the way from Paris. But Monsieur
+de Garnache was to her thousand graces as insensible as a man of stone.
+And he came to business briskly. He had no mind to spend the day at her
+fireside in pleasant, meaningless talk.
+
+“Madame,” said he, “monsieur your son informs me that you have heard of
+me and of the business that brings me into Dauphiny. I had not looked
+for the honour of journeying quite so far as Condillac; but since
+Monsieur de Tressan, whom I made my ambassador, appears to have failed
+so signally, I am constrained to inflict my presence upon you.”
+
+“Inflict?” quoth she, with a pretty look of make-believe dismay. “How
+harsh a word, monsieur!”
+
+The smoothness of the implied compliment annoyed him.
+
+“I will use any word you think more adequate, madame, if you will
+suggest it,” he answered tartly.
+
+“There are a dozen I might suggest that would better fit the case--and
+with more justice to yourself,” she answered, with a smile that revealed
+a gleam of white teeth behind her scarlet lips. “Marcus, bid Benoit
+bring wine. Monsieur de Garnache will no doubt be thirsting after his
+ride.”
+
+Garnache said nothing. Acknowledge the courtesy he would not; refuse it
+he could not. So he sat, and waited for her to speak, his eyes upon the
+fire.
+
+Madame had already set herself a course. Keener witted than her son, she
+had readily understood, upon Garnache’s being announced to her, that his
+visit meant the failure of the imposture by which she had sought to be
+rid of him.
+
+“I think, monsieur,” she said presently, watching him from under her
+lids, “that we have, all of us who are concerned in Mademoiselle de
+La Vauvraye’s affairs, been at cross-purposes. She is an impetuous,
+impulsive child, and it happened that some little time ago we had
+words--such things will happen in the most united families. Whilst the
+heat of her foolish anger was upon her, she wrote a letter to the
+Queen, in which she desired to be removed from my tutelage. Since then,
+monsieur, she has come to repent her of it. You, who no doubt understand
+a woman’s mind--”
+
+“Set out upon no such presumption, madame,” he interrupted. “I know as
+little of a woman’s mind as any man who thinks he knows a deal--and that
+is nothing.”
+
+She laughed as at an excellent jest, and Marius, overhearing Garnache’s
+retort as he was returning to resume his seat, joined in her laugh.
+
+“Paris is a fine whetstone for a man’s wits,” said he.
+
+Garnache shrugged his shoulders.
+
+“I take it, madame, that you wish me to understand that Mademoiselle
+de La Vauvraye, repenting of her letter, desires no longer to repair to
+Paris; desires, in fact, to remain here at Condillac in your excellent
+care.”
+
+“You apprehend the position exactly, monsieur.”
+
+“To my mind,” said he, “it presents few features difficult of
+apprehension.”
+
+Marius’s eyes flashed his mother a look of relief; but the Marquise, who
+had an ear more finely trained, caught the vibration of a second meaning
+in the emissary’s words.
+
+“All being as you say, madame,” he continued, “will you tell me why,
+instead of some message to this purport, you sent Monsieur de Tressan
+back to me with a girl taken from some kitchen or barnyard, whom it was
+sought to pass off upon me as Mademoiselle de La Vauvraye?”
+
+The Marquise laughed, and her son, who had shown signs of perturbation,
+taking his cue from her, laughed too.
+
+“It was a jest, monsieur”--she told him, miserably conscious that the
+explanation could sound no lamer.
+
+“My compliments, madame, upon the humour that prevails in Dauphiny. But
+your jest failed of its purpose. It did not amuse me, nor, so far as I
+could discern, was Monsieur de Tressan greatly taken with it. But all
+this is of little moment, madame,” he continued. “Since you tell me that
+Mademoiselle de La Vauvraye is content to remain here, I am satisfied
+that it is so.”
+
+They were the very words that she desired to hear from him; yet his
+manner of uttering them gave her little reassurance. The smile on her
+lips was forced; her watchful eyes smiled not at all.
+
+“Still,” he continued, “you will be so good as to remember that I am not
+my own master in this affair. Were that so, I should not fail to relieve
+you at once of my unbidden presence.”
+
+“Oh, monsieur--”
+
+“But, being the Queen’s emissary, I have her orders to obey, and those
+orders are to convey Mademoiselle de La Vauvraye to Paris. They make
+no allowance for any change that may have occurred in mademoiselle’s
+inclinations. If the journey is now distasteful to her, she has but her
+own rashness to blame in having sought it herself. What imports is that
+she is bidden by the Queen to repair to Paris; as a loyal subject she
+must obey the Queen’s commands; you, as a loyal subject, must see to
+it that she obeys them. So, madame, I count upon your influence with
+mademoiselle to see that she is ready to set out by noon to-morrow.
+One day already has been wasted me by your--ah--jest, madame. The Queen
+likes her ambassadors to be brisk.”
+
+The Dowager reclined in her chair, and bit her lip. This man was too
+keen for her. She had no illusions. He had seen through her as if she
+had been made of glass; he had penetrated her artifices and detected
+her falsehoods. Yet feigning to believe her and them, he had first
+neutralized her only weapons--other than offensive--then used them for
+her own defeat. Marius it was who took up the conversation.
+
+“Monsieur,” he cried--and there was a frown drawing together his fine
+brows--“what you suggest amounts to a tyranny on the Queen’s part.”
+
+Garnache was on his feet, his chair grating the polished floor.
+
+“Monsieur says?” quoth he, his glittering eye challenging the rash boy
+to repeat his words.
+
+But the Dowager intervened with a little trill of laughter.
+
+“Bon Dieu! Marius, what are you saying? Foolish boy! And you, Monsieur
+de Garnache, do not heed him, I beg you. We are so far from Court in
+this little corner of Dauphiny, and my son has been reared in so free
+an atmosphere that he is sometimes betrayed into expressions whose
+impropriety he does not realize.”
+
+Garnache bowed in token of his perfect satisfaction, and at that moment
+two servants entered bearing flagons and beakers, fruits and sweetmeats,
+which they placed upon the table. The Dowager rose, and went to do the
+honours of the board. The servants withdrew.
+
+“You will taste our wine of Condillac, monsieur?”
+
+He acquiesced, expressing thanks, and watched her fill a beaker for him,
+one for herself, and another for her son. She brought him the cup in
+her hands. He took it with a grave inclination of the head. Then she
+proffered him the sweetmeats. To take one, he set down the cup on the
+table, by which he had also come to stand. His left hand was gloved and
+held his beaver and whip.
+
+She nibbled, herself, at one of the comfits, and he followed her
+example. The boy, a trifle sullen since the last words, stood on the
+hearth with his back to the fire, his hands clasped behind him.
+
+“Monsieur,” she said, “do you think it would enable you to comply
+with what I have signified to be not only our own wishes, but those of
+Mademoiselle de La Vauvraye herself, if she were to state them to you?”
+
+He looked up sharply, his lips parting in a smile that revealed his
+strong white teeth.
+
+“Are you proposing another of your jests, madame?”
+
+She laughed outright. A wonderful assurance was hers, thought Monsieur
+de Garnache. “Mon Dieu! no, monsieur,” she cried. “If you will, you may
+see the lady herself.”
+
+He took a turn in the apartment, idly, as does a man in thought.
+
+“Very well,” said he, at last. “I do not say that it will alter my
+determination. But perhaps--yes, I should be glad of an opportunity of
+the honour of making Mademoiselle de La Vauvraye’s acquaintance. But no
+impersonations, I beg, madame!” He said it half-laughingly, taking his
+cue from her.
+
+“You need have no fear of any.”
+
+She walked to the door, opened it, and called “Gaston!” In answer came
+the page whom Garnache had found in the room when he was admitted.
+
+“Desire Mademoiselle de La Vauvraye to come to us here at once,” she
+bade the boy, and closed the door.
+
+Garnache had been all eyes for some furtive sign, some whispered word;
+but he had surprised neither.
+
+His pacing had brought him to the opposite end of the board, where stood
+the cup of wine madame had poured for Marius. His own, Garnache had left
+untouched. As if abstractedly, he now took up the beaker, pledged madame
+with his glance, and drank. She watched him, and suddenly a suspicion
+darted through her mind--a suspicion that he suspected them.
+
+Dieu! What a man was this! He took no chances. Madame reflected that
+this augured ill for the success of the last resource upon which, should
+all else fail, she was counting to keep mademoiselle at Condillac. It
+seemed incredible that one so wary and watchful should have committed
+the rashness of venturing alone into Condillac without taking his
+precautions to ensure his ability to retreat.
+
+In her heart she felt daunted by him. But in the matter of that
+wine--the faintest of smiles hovered on her lips, her eyebrows went up
+a shade. Then she took up the cup that had been poured for the Parisian,
+and bore it to her son.
+
+“Marius, you are not drinking,” said she. And seeing a command in her
+eyes; he took the beaker from her hand and bore it to his lips, emptying
+the half of it, whilst with the faintest smile of scorn the Dowager
+swept Garnache a glance of protest, as of one repudiating an unworthy
+challenge.
+
+Then the door opened, and the eyes of all three were centred upon the
+girl that entered.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V. MONSIEUR DE GARNACHE LOSES HIS TEMPER
+
+“You sent for me, madame,” said the girl, seeming to hesitate upon the
+threshold of the room, and her voice--a pleasant, boyish contralto--was
+very cold and conveyed a suggestion of disdain.
+
+The Marquise detected that inauspicious note, and was moved by it to
+regret her already of having embarked upon so bold a game as to confront
+Monsieur de Garnache with Valerie. It was a step she had decided upon
+as a last means of convincing the Parisian of the truth of her statement
+touching the change that had taken place in mademoiselle’s inclinations.
+And she had provided for it as soon as she heard of Garnache’s arrival
+by informing mademoiselle that should she be sent for, she must tell
+the gentleman from Paris that it was her wish to remain at Condillac.
+Mademoiselle had incontinently refused, and madame, to win her
+compliance, had resorted to threats.
+
+“You will do as you consider best, of course,” she had said, in a voice
+that was ominously sweet. “But I promise you that if you do otherwise
+than as I tell you, you shall be married before sunset to Marius,
+whether you be willing or not. Monsieur de Garnache comes alone, and if
+I so will it alone he shall depart or not at all. I have men enough at
+Condillac to see my orders carried out, no matter what they be.
+
+“You may tell yourself that this fellow will return to help you. Perhaps
+he will; but when he does, it will be too late so far as you shall be
+concerned.”
+
+Terrified by that threat, Valerie had blenched, and had felt her spirit
+deserting her.
+
+“And if I comply, madame?” she had asked. “If I do as you wish, if I
+tell this gentleman that I no longer desire to go to Paris--what then?”
+
+The Dowager’s manner had become more affectionate. She had patted the
+shrinking girl upon the shoulder. “In that case, Valerie, you shall
+suffer no constraint; you shall continue here as you have done.”
+
+“And has there been no constraint hitherto?” had been the girl’s
+indignant rejoinder.
+
+“Hardly, child,” the Dowager had returned. “We have sought to guide you
+to a wise choice--no more than that. Nor shall we do more hereafter if
+you do my pleasure now and give this Monsieur de Garnache the answer
+that I bid you. But if you fail me, remember--you marry Marius before
+nightfall.”
+
+She had not waited for the girl to promise her compliance. She was too
+clever a woman to show anxiety on that score. She left her with that
+threat vibrating in her mind, confident that she would scare the girl
+into obedience by the very assurance she exhibited that Valerie would
+not dare to disobey.
+
+But now, at the sound of that chill voice, at the sight of that calm,
+resolved countenance, madame was regretting that she had not stayed
+to receive the girl’s promise before she made so very sure of her
+pliability.
+
+She glanced anxiously at Garnache. His eyes were upon the girl. He was
+remarking the slender, supple figure, moderately tall and looking taller
+in its black gown of mourning; the oval face, a trifle pale now from the
+agitation that stirred her, with its fine level brows, its clear,
+hazel eyes, and its crown of lustrous brown hair rolled back under the
+daintiest of white coifs. His glance dwelt appreciatively on the slender
+nose, with its delicate nostrils, the charming line of mouth and chin,
+the dazzling whiteness of her skin, conspicuous not only in neck and
+face but in the long, slender hands that were clasped before her.
+
+These signs of breeding, everywhere proclaimed, left him content that
+here was no imposture; the girl before him was, indeed, Valerie de La
+Vauvraye.
+
+At madame’s invitation she came forward. Marius hastened to close the
+door and to set a chair for her, his manner an admirable suggestion of
+ardour restrained by deference.
+
+She sat down with an outward calm under which none would have suspected
+the full extent of her agitation, and she bent her eyes upon the man
+whom the Queen had sent for her deliverance.
+
+After all, Garnache’s appearance was hardly suggestive of the role of
+Perseus which had been thrust upon him. She saw a tall, spare man,
+with prominent cheek-bones, a gaunt, high-bridged nose, very fierce
+mustachios, and a pair of eyes that were as keen as sword-blades and
+felt to her glance as penetrating. There was little about him like
+to take a woman’s fancy or claim more than a moderate share of her
+attention, even when circumstances rendered her as interested in him as
+was now Mademoiselle de La Vauvraye.
+
+There fell a silence, broken at last by Marius, who leaned, a supple,
+graceful figure, his elbow resting upon the summit of Valerie’s chair.
+
+“Monsieur de Garnache does us the injustice to find a difficulty in
+believing that you no longer wish to leave us.”
+
+That was by no means what Garnache had implied; still, since it really
+expressed his mind, he did not trouble to correct Marius.
+
+Valerie said nothing, but her eyes travelled to madame’s countenance,
+where she found a frown. Garnache observed the silence, and drew his own
+conclusions.
+
+“So we have sent for you, Valerie,” said the Dowager, taking up her
+son’s sentence, “that you may yourself assure Monsieur de Garnache that
+it is so.”
+
+Her voice was stern; it bore to the girl’s ears a subtle, unworded
+repetition of the threat the Marquise had already voiced. Mademoiselle
+caught it, and Garnache caught it too, although he failed to interpret
+it as precisely as he would have liked.
+
+The girl seemed to experience a difficulty in answering. Her eyes roved
+to Garnache’s, and fell away in affright before their glitter. That
+man’s glance seemed to read her very mind, she thought; and suddenly
+the reflection that had terrified her became her hope. If it were as she
+deemed it, what matter what she said? He would know the truth, in spite
+of all.
+
+“Yes, madame,” she said at last, and her voice was wholly void of
+expression. “Yes, monsieur, it is as madame says. It is my wish to
+remain at Condillac.”
+
+From the Dowager, standing a pace or two away from Garnache, came the
+sound of a half-sigh. Garnache missed nothing. He caught the sound,
+and accepted it as an expression of relief. The Marquise stepped back a
+pace; idly, one might have thought; not so thought Garnache. It had this
+advantage: that it enabled her to stand where he might not watch her
+face without turning his head. He was content that such was her motive.
+To defeat her object, to show her that he had guessed it, he stepped
+back, too, also with that same idleness of air, so that he was once more
+in line with her. And then he spoke, addressing Valerie.
+
+“Mademoiselle, that you should have written to the Queen in haste is
+deplorable now that your views have undergone this change. I am a stupid
+man, mademoiselle, just a blunt soldier with orders to obey and no
+authority to think. My orders are to conduct you to Paris. Your will
+was not taken into consideration. I know not how the Queen would have me
+act, seeing your reluctance; it may be that she would elect to leave you
+here, as you desire. But it is not for me to arrogate to determine the
+Queen’s mind. I can but be guided by her orders, and those orders
+leave me no course but one--to ask you, mademoiselle, to make ready
+immediately to go with me.”
+
+The look of relief that swept into Valerie’s face, the little flush
+of colour that warmed her cheeks, hitherto so pale, were all the
+confirmation that he needed of what he suspected.
+
+“But, monsieur,” said Marius, “it must be plain to you that since the
+Queen’s orders are but a compliance with mademoiselle’s wishes, now that
+mademoiselle’s wishes have altered, so too would Her Majesty’s commands
+alter to comply with them once more.”
+
+“That may be plain to you, monsieur; for me, unfortunately, there are
+my orders for only guide,” Garnache persisted. “Does not mademoiselle
+herself agree with me?”
+
+She was about to speak; her glance had looked eager, her lips had
+parted. Then, of a sudden, the little colour faded from her cheeks
+again, and she seemed stricken with a silence. Garnache’s eyes, directed
+in a sidelong glance to the Marquise’s face, surprised there a frown
+that had prompted that sudden change.
+
+He half-turned, his manner changing suddenly to a freezing civility.
+
+“Madame la Marquise,” said he, “I beg with all deference to suggest that
+I am not allowed the interview you promised me with Mademoiselle de La
+Vauvraye.”
+
+The ominous coldness with which he had begun to speak had had a
+disturbing effect upon the Dowager; the words he uttered, when she had
+weighed them, brought an immense relief. It seemed, then, that he but
+needed convincing that this was Mademoiselle de La Vauvraye. This argued
+that for the rest he was satisfied.
+
+“There, monsieur, you are at fault,” she cried, and she was smiling into
+his grave eyes. “Because once I put that jest upon you, you imagine--”
+
+“No, no,” he broke in. “You misapprehend me. I do not say that this is
+not Mademoiselle de La Vauvraye; I do not say that--”
+
+He paused; he was at the end of his resources. He did not know how
+to put the thing without giving offence, and it had been his
+resolve--realizing the necessity for it--to conduct this matter with a
+grave courtesy.
+
+To feel that after having carried the affair so far with a for
+him--commendable lightness of touch, he should be at a loss for a
+delicate word to convey a harsh accusation began to anger him. And once
+Garnache began to be angered, the rest followed quickly. It was just
+that flaw in his character that had been the ruin of him, that had
+blighted what otherwise might have been a brilliant career. Astute and
+wily as a fox, brave as a lion, and active as a panther, gifted with
+intelligence, insight and resource, he had carried a dozen enterprises
+up to the very threshold of success, there to have ruined them all by
+giving way to some sudden excess of choler.
+
+So was it now. His pause was but momentary. Yet in that moment, from
+calm and freezing that he had been, he became ruffled and hot. The
+change was visible in his heightened colour, in his flashing eyes, and
+in his twitching mustachios. For just a second he sought to smother
+his wrath; he had a glimmer of remembrance of the need for caution and
+diplomacy in the darkness of anger that was descending over him. Then,
+without further warning, he exploded.
+
+His nervous, sinewy hand clenched itself and fell with a crash upon the
+table, overturning a flagon and sending a lake of wine across the board,
+to trickle over at a dozen points and form in puddles at the feet of
+Valerie. Startled, they all watched him, mademoiselle the most startled
+of the three.
+
+“Madame,” he thundered, “I have been receiving dancing-lessons at your
+hands for long enough. It is time, I think, we did a little ordinary
+walking, else shall we get no farther along the road I mean to go and
+that is the road to Paris with mademoiselle for company.”
+
+“Monsieur, monsieur!” cried the startled Marquise, placing herself
+intrepidly before him; and Marius trembled for her, for so wild did the
+man seem that he almost feared he might strike her.
+
+“I have heard enough,” he blazed. “Not another word from any here in
+Condillac! I’ll take this lady with me now, at once; and if any here
+raises a finger to resist me, as Heaven is my witness, it will be the
+last resistance he will ever offer any man. Let a hand be laid upon me,
+or a sword bared before my eyes, and I swear, madame, that I’ll come
+back and burn this dunghill of rebellion to the ground.”
+
+In the blindness of his passion all his fine keenness was cast to the
+wind, his all-observing watchfulness was smothered in the cloud of anger
+that oppressed his brain. He never saw the sign that madame made to her
+son, never so much as noticed Marius’s stealthy progress towards the
+door.
+
+“Oh,” he continued, a satirical note running now through his tempestuous
+voice, “it is a fine thing to cozen each other with honeyed words,
+with smirks and with grimaces. But we have done with that, madame.” He
+towered grimly above her, shaking a threatening finger in her very face.
+“We have done with that. We shall resort to deeds, instead.”
+
+“Aye, monsieur,” she answered very coldly, sneering upon his red-hot
+fury, “there shall be deeds enough to satisfy even your outrageous
+thirst for them.”
+
+That cold, sneering voice, with its note of threat, was like a hand
+of ice upon his overheated brain. It cooled him on the instant. He
+stiffened, and looked about him. He saw that Marius had disappeared,
+and that mademoiselle had risen and was regarding him with singularly
+imploring eyes.
+
+He bit his lip in mortified chagrin. He cursed himself inwardly for a
+fool and a dolt--the more pitiable because he accounted himself cunning
+above others. Had he but kept his temper, had he done no more than
+maintain the happy pretence that he was a slave to the orders he
+had received--a mere machine--he might have gained his ends by sheer
+audacity. At least, his way of retreat would have remained open, and he
+might have gone, to return another day with force at his heels.
+
+As it was, that pretty whelp, her son, had been sent, no doubt, for men.
+He stepped up to Valerie.
+
+“Are you ready, mademoiselle?” said he; for little hope though he might
+still have of winning through, yet he must do the best to repair the
+damage that was of his making.
+
+She saw that the storm of passion had passed, and she was infected by
+the sudden, desperate daring that prompted that question of his.
+
+“I am ready, monsieur,” said she, and her boyish voice had an intrepid
+ring. “I will come with you as I am.”
+
+“Then, in God’s name, let us be going.”
+
+They moved together towards the door, with never another glance for the
+Dowager where she stood, patting the head of the hound that had risen
+and come to stand beside her. In silence she watched them, a sinister
+smile upon her beautiful, ivory face.
+
+Then came a sound of feet and voices in the anteroom. The door was flung
+violently open, and a half-dozen men with naked swords came blundering
+into the room, Marius bringing up the rear.
+
+With a cry of fear Valerie shrank back against the panelled wall, her
+little hands to her cheeks, her eyes dilating with alarm.
+
+Garnache’s sword rasped out, an oath rattled from his clenched teeth,
+and he fell on guard. The men paused, and took his measure. Marius urged
+them on, as if they had been a pack of dogs.
+
+“At him!” he snapped, his finger pointing, his handsome eyes flashing
+angrily. “Cut him down!”
+
+They moved; but mademoiselle moved at the same moment. She sprang before
+them, between their swords and their prey.
+
+“You shall not do it; you shall not do it!” she cried, and her face
+looked drawn, her eyes distraught. “It is murder--murder, you curs!” And
+the memory of how that dainty little lady stood undaunted before so much
+bared steel, to shield him from those assassins, was one that abode ever
+after with Garnache.
+
+“Mademoiselle,” said he, in a quiet voice, “if you will but stand aside
+there will be some murder done among them first.”
+
+But she did not move. Marius clenched his hands, fretted by the delay.
+The Dowager looked on and smiled and patted her dog’s head. To her
+mademoiselle now turned in appeal.
+
+“Madame,” she exclaimed, “you’ll not allow it. You’ll not let them
+do this thing. Bid them put up their swords, madame. Bethink you that
+Monsieur de Garnache is here in the Queen’s name.”
+
+Too well did madame bethink her of it. Garnache need not plague himself
+with vexation that his rash temper alone had wrought his ruin now. It
+had but accelerated it. It was just possible, perhaps, that suavity
+might have offered him opportunities; but, for the rest, from the moment
+that he showed himself firm in his resolve to carry mademoiselle to
+Paris, his doom was sealed. Madame would never willingly have allowed
+him to leave Condillac alive, for she realized that did she do so he
+would stir up trouble enough to have them outlawed. He must perish here,
+and be forgotten. If questions came to be asked later, Condillac would
+know nothing of him.
+
+“Monsieur de Garnache promised us some fine deeds on his own account,”
+ she mocked him. “We but afford him the opportunity to perform them. If
+these be not enough for his exceeding valour, there are more men without
+whom we can summon.”
+
+A feeling of pity for mademoiselle--perhaps of no more than decency--now
+overcame Marius. He stepped forward.
+
+“Valerie,” he said, “it is not fitting you should remain.”
+
+“Aye, take her hence,” the Dowager bade him, with a smile. “Her presence
+is unmanning our fine Parisian.”
+
+Eager to do so, over-eager, Marius came forward, past his men-at-arms,
+until he was but some three paces from the girl and just out of reach of
+a sudden dart of Garnache’s sword.
+
+Softly, very warily, Garnache slipped his right foot a little farther to
+the right. Suddenly he threw his weight upon it, so that he was clear of
+the girl. Before they understood what he was about, the thing had taken
+place. He had leaped forward, caught the young man by the breast of his
+shimmering doublet, leaped back to shelter beyond mademoiselle, hurled
+Marius to the ground, and planted his foot, shod as it was in his
+thickly mudded riding-boot, full upon the boy’s long, shapely neck.
+
+“Move so much as a finger, my pretty fellow,” he snapped at him, “and
+I’ll crush the life from you as from a toad.”
+
+There was a sudden forward movement on the part of the men; but if
+Garnache was vicious, he was calm. Were he again to lose his temper now,
+there would indeed be a speedy end to him. That much he knew, and kept
+repeating to himself, lest he should be tempted to forget it.
+
+“Back!” he bade them in a voice so imperative that they stopped, and
+looked on with gaping mouths. “Back, or he perishes!” And dropping the
+point of his sword, he lightly rested it upon the young man’s breast.
+
+In dismay they looked to the Dowager for instruction. She craned
+forward, the smile gone from her lips, a horror in her eyes, her bosom
+heaving. A moment ago she had smiled upon mademoiselle’s outward signs
+of fear; had mademoiselle been so minded, she might in her turn have
+smiled now at the terror written large upon the Dowager’s own face.
+But her attention was all absorbed by the swiftly executed act by which
+Garnache had gained at least a temporary advantage.
+
+She had turned and looked at the strange spectacle of that dauntless
+man, erect, his foot upon Marius’s neck, like some fantastic figure of
+a contemporary Saint George and a contemporary dragon. She pressed her
+hands tighter upon her bosom; her eyes sparkled with an odd approval of
+that brisk deed.
+
+But Garnache’s watchful eyes were upon the Dowager. He read the anxious
+fear that marred the beauty of her face, and he took heart at the sight,
+for he was dependent upon the extent to which he might work upon her
+feelings.
+
+“You smiled just now, madame, when it was intended to butcher a man
+before your eyes. You smile no longer, I observe, at this the first of
+the fine deeds I promised you.”
+
+“Let him go,” she said, and her voice was scarce louder than a whisper,
+horror-laden. “Let him go, monsieur, if you would save your own neck.”
+
+“At that price, yes--though, believe me, you are paying too much for so
+poor a life as this. Still, you value the thing, and I hold it; and so
+you’ll forgive me if I am extortionate.”
+
+“Release him, and, in God’s name, go your ways. None shall stay you,”
+ she promised him.
+
+He smiled. “I’ll need some security for that. I do not choose to take
+your word for it, Madame de Condillac.”
+
+“What security can I give you?” she cried, wringing her hands, her eyes
+on the boy’s ashen face ashen from mingling fear and rage--where it
+showed beyond Garnache’s heavy boot.
+
+“Bid one of your knaves summon my servant. I left him awaiting me in the
+courtyard.”
+
+The order was given, and one of the cut-throats departed.
+
+In a tense and anxious silence they awaited his return, though he kept
+them but an instant.
+
+Rabecque’s eyes took on a startled look when he had viewed the
+situation. Garnache called to him to deprive those present of their
+weapons.
+
+“And let none refuse, or offer him violence,” he added, “or your
+master’s life shall pay the price of it.”
+
+The Dowager with a ready anxiety repeated to them his commands.
+Rabecque, understanding nothing, went from man to man, and received from
+each his weapons. He placed the armful on the windowseat, at the far
+end of the apartment, as Garnache bade him. At the other end of the long
+room, Garnache ordered the disarmed men to range themselves. When that
+was done, the Parisian removed his foot from his victim’s neck.
+
+“Stand up,” he commanded, and Marius very readily obeyed him.
+
+Garnache placed himself immediately behind the boy. “Madame,” said he,
+“no harm shall come to your son if he is but wise. Let him disobey me,
+or let any man in Condillac lift a hand against us, and that shall be
+the signal for Monsieur de Condillac’s death. Mademoiselle, it is your
+wish to accompany me to Paris?”
+
+“Yes, monsieur,” she answered fearlessly, her eyes sparkling now.
+
+“We will be going then. Place yourself alongside of Monsieur de
+Condillac. Rabecque, follow me. Forward, Monsieur de Condillac. You will
+be so good as to conduct us to our horses in the courtyard.”
+
+They made an odd procession as they marched out of the hall, under
+the sullen eyes of the baulked cut-throats and their mistress. On the
+threshold Garnache paused, and looked over his shoulder.
+
+“Are you content, madame? Have you seen fine deeds enough for one
+day?” he asked her, laughing. But, white to the lips with chagrin, she
+returned no answer.
+
+Garnache and his party crossed the anteroom, after having taken
+the precaution to lock the door upon the Marquise and her men, and
+proceeding down a gloomy passage they gained the courtyard. Here Marius
+was consoled to find some men of the garrison of Condillac a half-score,
+or so--all more or less armed, surrounding the horses of Garnache and
+his lackey. At sight of the odd group that now appeared those ruffians
+stood at gaze, surprised, and with suspicions aroused by Garnache’s
+naked sword, ready for anything their master might demand of them.
+
+Marius had in that instant a gleam of hope. Thus far, Garnache had been
+master of the situation. But surely the position would be reversed
+when Garnache and his man came to mount their horses, particularly
+considering how hampered they must be by Valerie. This danger Garnache,
+however, was no less quick to perceive, and with a dismaying promptness
+did he take his measures.
+
+“Remember,” he threatened Monsieur de Condillac, “if any of your men
+show their teeth it will be the worse for you.” They had come to a halt
+on the threshold of the courtyard. “You will be so good as to bid them
+retreat through that doorway across the yard yonder.”
+
+Marius hesitated. “And if I refuse?” he demanded hardily, but keeping
+his back to Garnache. The men stirred, and stray words of mingling
+wonder and anger reached the Parisian.
+
+“You will not,” said Garnache, with quiet confidence.
+
+“I think you make too sure,” Marius replied, and dissembled his
+misgivings in a short laugh. Garnache became impatient. His position was
+not being improved by delay.
+
+“Monsieur de Condillac,” said he, speaking quickly and yet with an
+incisiveness of tone that made his words sound deliberate, “I am a
+desperate man in a desperate position. Every moment that I tarry here
+increases my danger and shortens my temper. If you think to temporize
+in the hope of gaining an opportunity of turning the tables upon me, you
+must be mad to dream that I shall permit it. Monsieur, you will at once
+order those men to leave the courtyard by that doorway, or I give you my
+word of honour that I shall run you through as you stand.”
+
+“That would be to destroy yourself,” said Marius with an attempted note
+of confidence.
+
+“I should be no less destroyed by delay,” answered Garnache; and added
+more sharply, “Give the word, monsieur, or I will make an end.”
+
+From the movement behind him Marius guessed almost by instinct that
+Garnache had drawn back for a lunge. At his side Valerie looked over her
+shoulder, with eyes that were startled but unafraid. For a second Marius
+considered whether he might not attempt to elude Garnache by a wild and
+sudden dash towards his men. But the consequences of failure were too
+fearful.
+
+He shrugged his shoulders, and gave the order. The men hesitated a
+moment, then shuffled away in the direction indicated. But they went
+slowly, with much half-whispered, sullen conferring and many a backward
+glance at Marius and those with him.
+
+“Bid them go faster,” snapped Garnache. Marius obeyed him, and the men
+obeyed Marius, and vanished into the gloom of the archway. After
+all, thought Monsieur de Condillac, they need go no farther than that
+doorway; they must have appreciated the situation by now; and he was
+confident they would have the sense to hold themselves in readiness for
+a rush in the moment of Garnache’s mounting.
+
+But Garnache’s next order shattered that last hope.
+
+“Rebecque,” said he, without turning his head, “go and lock them in.”
+ Before bidding the men go that way, he had satisfied himself that
+there was a key on the outside of the door. “Monsieur de Condillac,”
+ he resumed to Marius, “you will order your men in no way to hinder my
+servant. I shall act upon any menace of danger to my lackey precisely as
+I should were I, myself, in danger.”
+
+Marius’s heart sank within him, as sinks a stone through water. He
+realized, as his mother had realized a little while before, that in
+Garnache they had an opponent who took no chances. In a voice thick with
+the torturing rage of impotence he gave the order upon which the grim
+Parisian insisted. There followed a silence broken by the fall of
+Rabecque’s heavily shod feet upon the stones of the yard, as he crossed
+it to do his master’s bidding. The door creaked on its hinges; the key
+grated screaming in its lock, and Rabecque returned to Garnache’s side
+even as Garnache tapped Marius on the shoulder.
+
+“This way, Monsieur de Condillac, if you please,” said he, and as Marius
+turned at last to face him, he stood aside and waved his left hand
+towards the door through which they had lately emerged. A moment stood
+the youth facing his stern conqueror; his hands were clenched until the
+knuckles showed white; his face was a dull crimson. Vainly he sought
+for words in which to vent some of the malicious chagrin that filled
+his soul almost to bursting-point. Then, despairing, with a shrug and an
+inarticulate mutter, he flung past the Parisian, obeying him as the cur
+obeys, with pendant tail and teeth-revealing snarl.
+
+Garnache closed the door upon him with a bang, and smiled quietly as he
+turned to Valerie.
+
+“I think we have won through, mademoiselle,” said he, with pardonable
+vanity. “The rest is easy, though you may be subjected to some slight
+discomfort between this and Grenoble.”
+
+She smiled back at him, a pale, timid smile, like a gleam of sunshine
+from a wintry sky. “That matters nothing,” she assured him, and strove
+to make her voice sound brave.
+
+There was need for speed, and compliments were set aside by Garnache,
+who, at his best, was not felicitous with them. Valerie felt herself
+caught by the wrist, a trifle roughly she remembered afterwards, and
+hurried across the cobbles to the tethered horses, with which Rabecque
+was already busy. She saw Garnache raise his foot to the stirrup and
+hoist himself to the saddle. Then he held down a hand to her, bade her
+set her foot on his, and called with an oath to Rabecque to lend her his
+assistance. A moment later she was perched in front of Garnache, almost
+on the withers of his horse. The cobbles rattled under its hooves, the
+timbers of the drawbridge sent up a booming sound, they were across--out
+of Condillac--and speeding at a gallop down the white road that led to
+the river; after them pounded Rabecque, bumping horribly in his
+saddle, and attempting wildly, and with awful objurgations, to find his
+stirrups.
+
+They crossed the bridge that spans the Isere and took the road to
+Grenoble at a sharp pace, with scarce a backward glance at the grey
+towers of Condillac. Valerie experienced an overwhelming inclination to
+weep and laugh, to cry and sing at one and the same time; but whether
+this odd emotion sprang from the happenings in which she had had her
+part, or from the exhilaration of that mad ride, she could not tell. No
+doubt it sprang from both, owing a part to each. She controlled herself,
+however. A shy, upward glance at the stern, set face of the man whose
+arm encircled and held her fast had a curiously sobering effect upon
+her. Their eyes met, and he smiled a friendly, reassuring smile, such as
+a father might have bestowed upon a daughter.
+
+“I do not think that they will charge me with blundering this time,” he
+said.
+
+“Charge you with blundering?” she echoed; and the inflection of the
+pronoun might have flattered him had he not reflected that it was
+impossible she could have understood his allusion. And now she bethought
+her that she had not thanked him--and the debt was a heavy one. He
+had come to her aid in an hour when hope seemed dead. He had come
+single-handed--save for his man Rabecque; and in a manner that was
+worthy of being made the subject of an epic, he had carried her out
+of Condillac, away from the terrible Dowager and her cut-throats. The
+thought of them sent a shiver through her.
+
+“Do you feel the cold?” he asked concernedly; and that the wind might
+cut her less, he slackened speed.
+
+“No, no,” she cried, her alarm waking again at the thought of the
+folk of Condillac. “Make haste! Go on, go on! Mon Dieu! if they should
+overtake us!”
+
+He looked over his shoulder. The road ran straight for over a half-mile
+behind them, and not a living thing showed upon it.
+
+“You need have no alarm,” he smiled. “We are not pursued. They must
+have realized the futility of attempting to overtake us. Courage,
+mademoiselle. We shall be in Grenoble presently, and once there, you
+will have nothing more to fear.”
+
+“You are sure of that?” she asked, and there was doubt in her voice.
+
+He smiled reassuringly again. “The Lord Seneschal shall supply us with
+an escort,” he promised confidently.
+
+“Still,” she said, “we shall not stay there, I hope, monsieur.”
+
+“No longer than may be necessary to procure a coach for you.”
+
+“I am glad of that,” said she. “I shall know no peace until Grenoble is
+a good ten leagues behind us. The Marquise and her son are too powerful
+there.”
+
+“Yet their might shall not prevail against the Queen’s,” he made reply.
+And as now they rode amain she fell to thanking him, shyly at first,
+then, as she gathered confidence in her subject, with a greater fervour.
+But he interrupted her ere she had gone far, “Mademoiselle de La
+Vauvraye,” said he, “you overstate the matter.” His tone was chilling
+almost; and she felt as she had been rebuked. “I am no more than the
+emissary of Her Majesty--it is to her that your thanks are due.”
+
+“Ah, but, monsieur,” she returned to the assault, “I owe some thanks
+to you as well. What other in your place would have done what you have
+done?”
+
+“I know not that, nor do I greatly care,” said he, and laughed, but
+with a laugh that jarred on her. “That which I did I must have done, no
+matter whom it was a question of saving. I am but an instrument in this
+matter, mademoiselle.”
+
+His thought was to do no more than belittle the service he had rendered
+her, to stem her flow of gratitude, since, indeed, he felt, as he said,
+that it was to the Queen-Regent her thanks were due. All unwitting was
+it--out of his ignorance of the ways of thought of a sex with which he
+held the view that it is an ill thing to meddle--that he wounded her by
+his disclaimer, in which her sensitive maiden fancy imagined a something
+that was almost contemptuous.
+
+They rode in silence for a little spell, broken at last by Garnache in
+expression of the thoughts that had come to him as a consequence of what
+she had said.
+
+“On this same subject of thanks,” said he--and as she raised her eyes
+again she found him smiling almost tenderly--“if any are due between us
+they are surely due from me to you.”
+
+“From you to me?” she asked in wonder.
+
+“Assuredly,” said he. “Had you not come between me and the Dowager’s
+assassins there had been an end to me in the hall of Condillac.”
+
+Her hazel eyes were very round for a moment, then they narrowed, and
+little humorous lines formed at the corners of her lips.
+
+“Monsieur de Garnache,” said she, with a mock coldness that was a faint
+echo of his own recent manner, “you overstate the case. That which I did
+I must have done, no matter whom it was a question of saving. I was but
+an instrument in this matter, monsieur.”
+
+His brows went up. He stared at her a moment, gathering instruction from
+the shy mockery of her glance. Then he laughed with genuine amusement.
+
+“True,” he said. “An instrument you were; but an instrument of Heaven,
+whereas in me you but behold the instrument of an earthly power. We are
+not quite quits, you see.”
+
+But she felt, at least, that she was quits with him in the matter of his
+repudiation of her own thanks, and the feeling bridged the unfriendly
+gap that she had felt was opening out between them; and for no reason in
+the world that she could think of, she was glad that this was so.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI. MONSIEUR DE GARNACHE KEEPS HIS TEMPER
+
+Night had fallen and it had begun to rain when Garnache and Valerie
+reached Grenoble. They entered the town afoot, the Parisian not desiring
+to attract attention by being seen in the streets with a lady on the
+withers of his horse.
+
+With thought for her comfort, Monsieur de Garnache had divested himself
+of his heavy horseman’s cloak and insisted upon her assuming it, so
+setting it about her that her head was covered as by a wimple. Thus
+was she protected not only from the rain, but from the gaze of the
+inquisitive.
+
+They made their way in the drizzle, through the greasy, slippery
+streets ashine with the lights that fell from door and window, Rabecque
+following closely with the horses. Garnache made straight for his
+inn--the Auberge du Veau qui Tete--which enjoyed the advantage of facing
+the Palais Seneschal.
+
+The ostler took charge of the nags, and the landlord conducted them to
+a room above-stairs, which he placed at mademoiselle’s disposal.
+That done, Garnache left Rabecque on guard, and proceeded to make the
+necessary arrangements for the journey that lay before them. He began by
+what he conceived to be the more urgent measure, and stepping across to
+the Palais Seneschal, he demanded to see Monsieur de Tressan at once.
+
+Ushered into the Lord Seneschal’s presence, he startled that obese
+gentleman by the announcement that he had returned from Condillac with
+Mademoiselle de La Vauvraye, and that he would require an escort to
+accompany them to Paris.
+
+“For I am by no means minded to be exposed to such measures as the
+tigress of Condillac and her cub may take to recover their victim,” he
+explained with a grim smile.
+
+The Seneschal combed his beard and screwed up his pale eyes until they
+vanished in the cushions of his cheeks. He was lost in amazement.
+He could only imagine that the Queen’s emissary had been duped more
+successfully this time.
+
+“I am to gather, then,” said he, dissembling what was passing through
+his mind, “that you delivered the lady by force or strategy.”
+
+“By both, monsieur,” was the short answer.
+
+Tressan continued to comb his beard, and pondered the situation. If
+things were so, indeed, they could not have fallen out more to his
+taste. He had had no hand in it, one way or the other. He had run with
+the hare and hunted with the hounds, and neither party could charge him
+with any lack of loyalty. His admiration and respect for Monsieur de
+Garnache grew enormously. When the rash Parisian had left him that
+afternoon for the purpose of carrying his message himself to Condillac,
+Tressan had entertained little hope of ever again seeing him alive.
+Yet there he stood, as calm and composed as ever, announcing that
+singlehanded he had carried out what another might well have hesitated
+to attempt with a regiment at his heels.
+
+Tressan’s curiosity urged him to beg for the details of this marvel, and
+Garnache entertained him with a brief recital of what had taken
+place, whereat, realizing that Garnache had indeed outwitted them, the
+Seneschal’s wonder increased.
+
+“But we are not out of the quagmire yet,” cried Garnache; “and that is
+why I want an escort.”
+
+Tressan became uneasy. “How many men shall you require?” he asked,
+thinking that the Parisian would demand at least the half of a company.
+
+“A half-dozen and a sergeant to command them.”
+
+Tressan’s uneasiness was dissipated, and he found himself despising
+Garnache more for his rashness in being content with so small a number
+than he respected him for the boldness and courage he had so lately
+displayed. It was not for him to suggest that the force might prove
+insufficient; rather was it for him to be thankful that Garnache had not
+asked for more. An escort Tressan dared not refuse him, and yet refuse
+it him he must have done--or broken with the Condillacs--had he asked
+for a greater number. But six men! Pooh! they would be of little
+account. So he very readily consented, inquiring how soon Garnache would
+require them.
+
+“At once,” was the Parisian’s answer. “I leave Grenoble to-night. I hope
+to set out in an hour’s time. Meanwhile I’ll have the troopers form a
+guard of honour. I am lodged over the way.”
+
+Tressan, but too glad to be quit of him, rose there and then to give
+the necessary orders, and within ten minutes Garnache was back at the
+Sucking Calf with six troopers and a sergeant, who had left their horses
+in the Seneschal’s stables until the time for setting out. Meanwhile
+Garnache placed them on duty in the common-room of the inn.
+
+He called for refreshment for them, and bade them remain there at the
+orders of his man Rabecque. His reason for this step was that it became
+necessary that he should absent himself for a while to find a carriage
+suitable for the journey; for as the Sucking Calf was not a post-house
+he must seek one elsewhere--at the Auberge de France, in fact, which was
+situate on the eastern side of the town by the Porte de Savoie--and
+he was not minded to leave the person of Valerie unguarded during his
+absence. The half-dozen troopers he considered ample, as indeed they
+were.
+
+On this errand he departed, wrapped tightly in his cloak, walking
+briskly through the now heavier rain.
+
+But at the Auberge de France a disappointment awaited him. The host
+had no horses and no carriage, nor would he have until the following
+morning. He was sorrow-stricken that the circumstance should discompose
+Monsieur de Garnache; he was elaborate in his explanations of how
+it happened that he could place no vehicle at Monsieur de Garnache’s
+disposal--so elaborate that it is surprising Monsieur de Garnache’s
+suspicions should not have been aroused. For the truth of the matter
+was that the folk of Condillac had been at the Auberge de France before
+him--as they had been elsewhere in the town wherever a conveyance might
+be procurable--and by promises of reward for obedience and threats of
+punishment for disobedience, they had contrived that Garnache should
+hear this same story on every hand. His mistake had lain in his
+eagerness to obtain a guard from the Seneschal. Had he begun by making
+sure of a conveyance, anticipating, as he should have done, this move on
+the part of the Condillacs--a move which he did not even now suspect--it
+is possible that he might have been spared much of the trouble that was
+to follow.
+
+An hour or so later, after having vainly ransacked the town for the
+thing he needed, he returned wet and annoyed to the Veau qui Tote. In a
+corner of the spacious common-room--a corner by the door leading to the
+interior of the inn--he saw the six troopers at table, waxing a trifle
+noisy over cards. Their sergeant sat a little apart, in conversation
+with the landlord’s wife, eyes upturned adoringly, oblivious of the
+increasing scowl that gathered about her watchful husband’s brow.
+
+At another table sat four gentlemen--seemingly travellers, by their air
+and garb--in a conversation that was hushed at Garnache’s entrance.
+But he paid no heed to them as he stalked with ringing step across the
+rushstrewn floor, nor observed how covertly and watchfully their glances
+followed him as returning, in passing the sergeant’s prompt salute he
+vanished through the doorway leading to the stairs.
+
+He reappeared again a moment later, to call the host, and give him
+orders for the preparing of his own and Rabecque’s supper.
+
+On the landing above he found Rabecque awaiting him.
+
+“Is all well?” he asked, and received from his lackey a reassuring
+answer.
+
+Mademoiselle welcomed him gladly. His long absence, it appeared, had
+been giving her concern. He told her on what errand he had been, and
+alarm overspread her face upon hearing its result.
+
+“But, monsieur,” she cried, “you are not proposing that I should remain
+a night in Grenoble.”
+
+“What alternative have we?” he asked, and his brows met, impatient at
+what he accounted no more than feminine whimsey.
+
+“It is not safe,” she exclaimed, her fears increasing. “You do not know
+how powerful are the Condillacs.”
+
+He strode to the fire, and the logs hissed under the pressure of his wet
+boot. He set his back to the blaze, and smiled down upon her.
+
+“Nor do you know how powerful are we,” he answered easily. “I have below
+six troopers and a sergeant of the Seneschal’s regiment; with myself
+and Rabecque we are nine men in all. That should be a sufficient guard,
+mademoiselle. Nor do I think that with all their power the Condillacs
+will venture here to claim you at the sword point.”
+
+“And yet,” she answered, for all that she was plainly reassured, at
+least in part, “I would rather you had got me a horse, that we might
+have ridden to Saint Marcellin, where no doubt a carriage might be
+obtained.”
+
+“I did not see the need to put you to so much discomfort,” he returned.
+“It is raining heavily.”
+
+“Oh, what of that?” she flung back impatiently.
+
+“Besides,” he added, “it seems there are no horses at the post-house. A
+benighted place this Dauphiny of yours, mademoiselle.”
+
+But she never heeded the gibe at her native province. “No horses?” she
+echoed, and her hazel eyes looked up sharply, the alarm returning to her
+face. She rose, and approached him. “Surely that is impossible.”
+
+“I assure you that it is as I say--neither at the post-house nor at any
+of the inns I visited could I find me a spare horse.”
+
+“Monsieur,” she cried, “I see the hand of Condillac in this.”
+
+“As how?” he inquired, and his tone again was quickened by impatience.
+
+“They have anticipated you. They seek to keep you here--to keep us in
+Grenoble.”
+
+“But to what end?” he asked, his impatience growing. “The Auberge de
+France has promised me a carriage in the morning. What shall it avail
+them at Condillac to keep us here to-night?”
+
+“They may have some project. Oh, monsieur! I am full of fears.”
+
+“Dismiss them,” he answered lightly; and to reassure her he added,
+smiling: “Rest assured we shall keep good watch over you, Rabecque and
+I and the troopers. A guard shall remain in the passage throughout the
+night. Rabecque and I will take turn about at sentry-go. Will that give
+you peace?”
+
+“You are very good,” she said, her voice quivering with feeling and real
+gratitude, and as he was departing she called after him. “You will be
+careful of yourself,” she said.
+
+He paused under the lintel, and turned, surprised. “It is a habit of
+mine,” said he, with a glint of humour in his eye.
+
+But there was no answering smile from her. Her face was all anxiety.
+
+“Beware of pitfalls,” she bade him. “Go warily; they are cruelly
+cunning, those folk of Condillac. And if evil should befall you...”
+
+“There would still remain Rabecque and the troopers,” he concluded.
+
+She shrugged her shoulders. “I implore you to be careful,” she insisted.
+
+“You may depend upon me,” he said, and closed the door.
+
+Outside he called Rabecque, and together they went below. But mindful of
+her fears, he dispatched one of the troopers to stand sentry outside her
+door whilst he and his lackey supped. That done, he called the host, and
+set himself at table, Rabecque at his elbow in attendance to hand him
+the dishes and pour his wine.
+
+Across the low-ceilinged room the four travellers still sat in talk, and
+as Garnache seated himself, one of them shouted for the host and asked
+in an impatient tone to know if his supper was soon to come.
+
+“In a moment, sir,” answered the landlord respectfully, and he turned
+again to the Parisian. He went out to bring the latter’s meal, and
+whilst he was gone Rabecque heard from his master the reason of their
+remaining that night in Grenoble. The inference drawn by the astute
+lackey--and freely expressed by him--from the lack of horses or
+carriages in Grenoble that night, coincided oddly with Valerie’s. He
+too gave it as his opinion that his master had been forestalled by
+the Dowager’s people, and without presuming to advise Garnache to go
+warily--a piece of advice that Garnache would have resented, to the
+extent perhaps of boxing the fellow’s ears--he determined, there and
+then, to keep a close watch upon his master, and under no circumstances,
+if possible, permit him to leave the Sucking Calf that night.
+
+The host returned, bearing a platter on which there steamed a ragout
+that gave out an appetizing odour; his wife followed with other dishes
+and a bottle of Armagnac under her arm. Rabecque busied himself at
+once, and his hungry master disposed himself to satisfy the healthiest
+appetite in France, when suddenly a shadow fell across the table. A man
+had come to stand beside it, his body screening the light of one of the
+lamps that hung from a rafter of the ceiling.
+
+“At last!” he exclaimed, and his voice was harsh with ill-humour.
+
+Garnache looked up, pausing in the very act of helping himself to
+that ragout. Rabecque looked up from behind his master, and his lips
+tightened. The host looked up from the act of drawing the cork of the
+flagon he had taken from his wife, and his eyes grew big as in his mind
+he prepared a judicious blend of apology and remonstrance wherewith
+to soothe this very impatient gentleman. But before he could speak,
+Garnache’s voice cut sharply into the silence. An interruption at such a
+moment vexed him sorely.
+
+“Monsieur says?” quoth he.
+
+“To you, sir--nothing,” answered the fellow impudently, and looked him
+straight between the eyes.
+
+With a flush mounting to his cheeks, and his brows drawn together in
+perplexity, Garnache surveyed him. He was that same traveller who had
+lately clamoured to know when he might sup, a man of rather more than
+middle height, lithe and active of frame, yet with a breadth of shoulder
+and depth of chest that argued strength and endurance as well. He had
+fair, wavy hair, which he wore rather longer than was the mode, brown
+eyes, and a face which, without being handsome, was yet more than
+ordinarily engaging by virtue of its strength and frank ingenuousness.
+His dress was his worst feature. It was flamboyant and showy; cheap, and
+tawdrily pretentious. Yet he bore himself with the easy dignity of a man
+who counts more inferiors than superiors.
+
+Despite the arrogant manner of his address, Garnache felt prepossessed
+in the newcomer’s favour. But before he could answer him, the host was
+speaking.
+
+“Monsieur mistakes...” he began.
+
+“Mistakes?” thundered the other in an accent slightly foreign. “It is
+you who mistake if you propose to tell me that this is not my supper.
+Am I to wait all night, while every jackanapes who follows me into your
+pigsty is to be served before me?”
+
+“Jackanapes?” said Garnache thoughtfully, and looked the man in the face
+again. Behind the stranger pressed his three companions now, whilst the
+troopers across the room forgot their card-play to watch the altercation
+that seemed to impend.
+
+The foreigner--for such, indeed, his French proclaimed him--turned
+half-contemptuously to the host, ignoring Garnache with an air that was
+studiously offensive.
+
+“Jackanapes?” murmured Garnache again, and he, too, turned to the host.
+“Tell me, Monsieur l’Hote,” said he, “where do the jackanapes bury their
+dead in Grenoble? I may need the information.”
+
+Before the distressed landlord could utter a word, the stranger had
+wheeled about again to face Garnache. “What shall that mean?” he asked
+sharply, a great fierceness in his glance.
+
+“That Grenoble may be witnessing the funeral of a foreign bully by
+to-morrow, Monsieur l’Etranger,” said Garnache, showing his teeth in a
+pleasant smile. He became conscious in that moment of a pressure on his
+shoulder blade, but paid no heed to it, intent on watching the other’s
+countenance. It expressed surprise a moment, then grew dark with anger.
+
+“Do you mean that for me, sir?” he growled.
+
+Garnache spread his hands. “If monsieur feels that the cap fits him, I
+shall not stay him in the act of donning it.”
+
+The stranger set one hand upon the table, and leaned forward towards
+Garnache. “May I ask monsieur to be a little more definite?” he begged.
+
+Garnache sat back in his chair and surveyed the man, smiling. Quick
+though his temper usually might be, it was checked at present by
+amusement. He had seen in his time many quarrels spring from the
+flimsiest of motives, but surely never had he seen one quite so
+self-begotten. It was almost as if the fellow had come there of set
+purpose to pick it with him.
+
+A suspicion flashed across his mind. He remembered the warning
+mademoiselle had given him. And he wondered. Was this a trick to lure
+him to some guet-apens? He surveyed his man more closely; but the
+inspection lent no colour to his suspicions. The stranger looked so
+frank and honest; then again his accent was foreign. It might very well
+be that he was some Savoyard lordling unused to being kept waiting,
+and that his hunger made him irritable and impatient. If that were so,
+assuredly the fellow deserved a lesson that should show him he was now
+in France, where different manners obtained to those that he displayed;
+yet, lest he should be something else, Garnache determined to pursue a
+policy of conciliation. It would be a madness to embroil himself just
+then, whether this fellow were of Condillac or not.
+
+“I have asked you, monsieur,” the stranger insisted, “to be a little
+more definite.”
+
+Garnache’s smile broadened and grew more friendly. “Frankly,” said he,
+“I experience difficulty. My remark was vague. I meant it so to be.”
+
+“But it offended me, monsieur,” the other answered sharply.
+
+The Parisian raised his eyebrows, and pursed his lips. “Then I deplore
+it,” said he. And now he had to endure the hardest trial of all. The
+stranger’s expression changed to one of wondering scorn.
+
+“Do I understand that monsieur apologizes?”
+
+Garnache felt himself crimsoning; his self-control was slipping from
+him; the pressure against his shoulder blade was renewed, and in time he
+became aware of it and knew it for a warning from Rabecque.
+
+“I cannot conceive, sir, that I have offended,” said he at length,
+keeping a tight hand upon his every instinct--which was to knock this
+impertinent stranger down. “But if I have, I beg that you will believe
+that I have done so unwittingly. I had no such intent.”
+
+The stranger removed his hand from the table and drew himself erect.
+
+“So much for that, then,” said he, provokingly contemptuous. “If you
+will be as amiable in the matter of the supper I shall be glad to
+terminate an acquaintance which I can see no honour to myself in
+pursuing.”
+
+This, Garnache felt, was more than he could endure. A spasm of passion
+crossed his face, another instant and despite Rabecque’s frantic
+proddings he might have flung the ragout in the gentleman’s face; when
+suddenly came the landlord unexpectedly to the rescue.
+
+“Monsieur, here comes your supper now,” he announced, as his wife
+reentered from the kitchen with a laden tray.
+
+For a moment the stranger seemed out of countenance. Then he looked with
+cold insolence from the dishes set before Garnache to those which were
+being set for himself.
+
+“Ah,” said he, and his tone was an insult unsurpassable, “perhaps it is
+to be preferred. This ragout grows cold, I think.”
+
+He sniffed, and turning on his heel, without word or sign of salutation
+to Garnache, he passed to the next table, and sat down with his
+companions. The Parisian’s eyes followed him, and they blazed
+with suppressed wrath. Never in all his life had he exercised such
+self-control as he was exercising then--which was the reason why he had
+failed to achieve greatness--and he was exercising it for the sake of
+that child above-stairs, and because he kept ever-present in his mind
+the thought that she must come to grievous harm if ill befell himself.
+But he controlled his passion at the cost of his appetite. He could not
+eat, so enraged was he. And so he pushed the platter from him, and rose.
+
+He turned to Rabecque, and the sight of his face sent the lackey back a
+pace or two in very fear. He waved his hand to the table.
+
+“Sup, Rabecque,” said he. “Then come to me above.”
+
+And followed, as before, by the eyes of the stranger and his companions,
+Garnache strode out of the room, and mounting the stairs went to find
+solace in talk with Valerie. But however impossible he might find it to
+digest the affront he had swallowed, no word of the matter did he utter
+to the girl, lest it should cause her fears to reawaken.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII. THE OPENING OF THE TRAP
+
+Garnache spent a sleepless night at Grenoble, on guard throughout the
+greater part of it since nothing short of that would appease the fears
+of Valerie. Yet it passed without any bellicose manifestation on the
+part of the Condillacs such as Valerie feared and such as Garnache was
+satisfied would not--could not, indeed--take place.
+
+Betimes next morning he dispatched Rabecque to the Auberge de France for
+the promised carriage, and broke his fast in the common-room what time
+he awaited his man’s return. The chamber was again occupied by the
+stranger of yesternight, who sat apart, however, and seemed no longer
+disposed to interfere with the Parisian. Garnache wondered idly, might
+this be due to the circumstance that that same stranger was supported
+now by one single companion, and was therefore less valorous than when
+he had been in the company of three.
+
+At another table were two gentlemen, sprung he knew not whence, quiet
+in dress and orderly in manner, to whom he paid little heed until one of
+them a slender, swarthy, hawk-faced fellow--looking up suddenly, started
+slightly at sight of the Parisian and addressed him instantly by name.
+Garnache paused in the act of rising from table, half-turned, and
+sharply scrutinized the swarthy gentleman, but failed to recognize him.
+He advanced towards him.
+
+“I have the honour to be known to you, monsieur?” he half-stated,
+half-inquired.
+
+“Parbleu, Monsieur de Garnache!” exclaimed the other with a ready
+smile, the more winning since it lighted up a face that at rest was very
+sombre. “Lives there a Parisian to whom you are not known? I have seen
+you often at the Hotel de Bourgogne.”
+
+Garnache acknowledged the courtesy by a slight inclination of the head.
+
+“And once,” continued the other, “I had the honour to be presented to
+you by Monsieur le Duc himself. My name is Gaubert--Fabre Gaubert.” And
+as he introduced himself he rose out of respect for Garnache, who had
+remained standing. Garnache knew him not at all, yet never doubted that
+his tale was true; the fellow had a very courtly, winning air; moreover,
+Garnache was beginning to feel lonely in the wilds of Dauphiny, so that
+it rejoiced him to come into the company of one whom he might regard as
+something of a fellow-creature. He held out his hand.
+
+“I am honoured in that you should have borne me in your memory,
+monsieur,” said he. He was about to add that he would be overjoyed if
+it should happen that Monsieur Gaubert was travelling to Paris, since he
+might give himself the pleasure of his company on that tedious journey;
+but he checked himself betimes. He had no reason to suspect this
+gentleman; and yet, all things considered, he bethought him suddenly
+that he would do well to observe the greatest circumspection. So with a
+pleasant but meaningless civility touching Monsieur Gaubert’s presence
+in those parts, Garnache passed on and gained the door. He paused in the
+porch, above which the rebus-like sign of the Sucking Calf creaked and
+grated in each gust of the chill wind that was blowing from the Alps.
+The rain had ceased, but the sky was dark and heavy with great banks of
+scudding clouds. In the street the men of his escort sat their horses,
+having mounted at his bidding in readiness for the journey. A word or
+two he exchanged with the sergeant, and then with a great rumble the
+clumsy carriage from the Auberge de France heralded its approach. It
+rolled up the street, a vast machine of wood and leather, drawn by three
+horses, and drew up at the door of the inn. Out sprang Rabecque, to be
+immediately sent by his master to summon mademoiselle. They would set
+out upon the instant.
+
+Rabecque turned to obey; but in that same moment he was thrust rudely
+aside by a man with the air of a servant, who issued from he inn
+carrying a valise; after him, following close upon his heels, with head
+held high and eyes that looked straight before him and took no heed of
+Garnache, came the foreigner of yesternight.
+
+Rabecque, his shoulders touching the timbers of the porch, against which
+he had been thrust, remained at gaze, following with resentful eye the
+fellow who had so rudely used him. Garnache, on the other side, watched
+with some wonder the advent of the ingenuous-looking stranger, but as
+yet with no suspicion of his intent.
+
+Not until the servant had thrown open the door of the coach and
+deposited within the valise he carried, did Garnache stir. Not, indeed,
+until the foreigner’s foot was on the step preparatory to mounting did
+Garnache speak.
+
+“Hi! monsieur,” he called to him, “what is your pleasure with my
+carriage?”
+
+The stranger turned, and stared at Garnache with a look of wonder that
+artfully changed to one of disdainful recognition.
+
+“Ah?” said he, and his eyebrows went up. “The apologetic gentleman! You
+said?”
+
+Garnache approached him, followed a step not only by Rabecque, but also
+by Monsieur Gaubert, who had sauntered out a second earlier. Behind
+them, in the porch, lounged now the foreigner’s friend, and behind him
+again was to be seen the great face and staring, somewhat startled eyes
+of the landlord.
+
+“I asked you, monsieur,” said Garnache, already at grips with that quick
+temper of his, “what might be your pleasure with my coach?”
+
+“With your coach?” echoed the other, his superciliousness waxing more
+and more offensive. “Voyons! on! my apologetic friend, do all things
+in Grenoble belong to you?” He turned to the post-boy, who looked on
+stolidly. “You are from the Auberge de France, are you not?” quoth he.
+
+“I am, monsieur,” replied the man. “This carriage was ordered last night
+by a gentleman lodging at the Veau qui Tete?”
+
+“Perfectly,” replied the stranger, in a tone of finality. “It was
+ordered by me.” And he was about to turn away, when Garnache approached
+him by yet another step.
+
+“I will ask you to observe, monsieur,” said he and for all that his tone
+and words were civil, that they were forcedly so was obvious from their
+quiver--“I will ask you to observe that the carriage was fetched by my
+own man there, who rode hither in it.”
+
+The stranger looked him up and down with a curling lip.
+
+“It seems, sir,” said he, with a broad sneer, “that you are one of
+those impertinent fellows who will be for ever thrusting themselves upon
+gentlemen with an eye to such profit as they can make.” He produced
+a purse and opened it. “Last night it was my supper you usurped. I
+suffered that. Now you would do the same by my coach, and that I
+shall not suffer. But there is for your pains, and to be quit of your
+company.” And he tossed a silver coin at the Parisian.
+
+There was an exclamation of horror in the background, and Monsieur de
+Gaubert thrust himself forward.
+
+“Sir, sir,” he exclaimed in an agitated voice, “you cannot know whom
+you are addressing. This is Monsieur Martin Marie Rigobert de Garnache,
+Mestre-de-Champ in the army of the King.”
+
+“Of all those names the one I should opine might fit him best, but for
+his ugliness, is that of Marie,” answered the foreigner, leering, and
+with a contemptuous shrug he turned again to mount the carriage.
+
+At that all Garnache’s self-control deserted him, and he did a thing
+deplorable. In one of his blind excesses of fury, heedless of the
+faithful and watchful Rabecque’s arresting tug at his sleeve, he stepped
+forward, and brought a heavy hand down upon the supercilious gentleman’s
+shoulder. He took him in the instant in which, with one foot off the
+ground and the other on the step of the carriage, the foreigner was
+easily thrown’ off his balance; he dragged him violently backward, span
+him round and dropped him floundering in the mire of the street-kennel.
+
+That done, there fell a pause--a hush that was ominous of things
+impending. A little crowd of idlers that had gathered was quickly
+augmenting now, and from some there came a cry of “Shame!” at Garnache’s
+act of violence.
+
+This is no moment at which to pause to moralize. And yet, how often is
+it not so? How often does not public sympathy go out to the man who has
+been assaulted without thought of the extent to which that man may have
+provoked and goaded his assailant.
+
+That cry of “Shame!” did no more than increase the anger that was
+mastering Garnache. His mission in Grenoble was forgotten; mademoiselle
+above-stairs was forgotten; the need for caution and the fear of the
+Condillacs were forgotten; everything was thrust from his mind but the
+situation of the moment.
+
+Amid the hush that followed, the stranger picked himself slowly up, and
+sought to wipe the filth from his face and garments. His servant and his
+friend flew to his aid, but he waved them aside, and advanced towards
+Garnache, eyes blazing, lips sneering.
+
+“Perhaps,” said he, in that soft, foreign tone of his, laden now with
+fierce mock-politeness, “perhaps monsieur proposes to apologize again.”
+
+“Sir, you are mad,” interposed Gaubert. “You are a foreigner, I
+perceive, else you would--”
+
+But Garnache thrust him quietly aside. “You are very kind, Monsieur
+Gaubert,” said he, and his manner now was one of frozen calm--a manner
+that betrayed none of the frenzy of seething passion underneath.
+“I think, sir,” said he to the stranger, adopting something of that
+gentleman’s sardonic manner, “that it will be a more peaceful world
+without you. It is that consideration restrains me from apologizing. And
+yet, if monsieur will express regret for having sought, and with such
+lack of manners, to appropriate my carriage--”
+
+“Enough!” broke in the other. “We are wasting time, and I have a long
+journey before me. Courthon,” said he, addressing his friend, “will you
+bring me the length of this gentleman’s sword? My name, sir,” he added
+to Garnache, “is Sanguinetti.”
+
+“Faith,” said Garnache, “it sorts well with your bloody spirit.”
+
+“And will sort well, no doubt, with his condition presently,” put in
+hawk-faced Gaubert. “Monsieur de Garnache, if you have no friend at hand
+to act for you, I shall esteem myself honoured.” And he bowed.
+
+“Why, thanks, sir. You are most opportunely met. You should be a
+gentleman since you frequent the Hotel de Bourgogne. My thanks.”
+
+Gaubert went aside to confer with Monsieur Courthon. Sanguinetti stood
+apart, his manner haughty and impressive, his eye roaming scornfully
+through the ranks of what had by now become a crowd. Windows were
+opening in the street, and heads appearing, and across the way Garnache
+might have beheld the flabby face of Monsieur de Tressan among the
+spectators of that little scene.
+
+Rabecque drew near his master.
+
+“Have a care, monsieur,” he implored him. “If this should be a trap.”
+
+Garnache started. The remark sobered him, and brought to his mind his
+own suspicions of yesternight, which his present anger had for the
+moment lulled. Still, he conceived that he had gone too far to extricate
+himself. But he could at least see to it that he was not drawn away
+from the place that sheltered mademoiselle. And so he stepped forward,
+joining Courthon and Gaubert, to insist that the combat should take
+place in the inn--either in the common room or in the yard. But the
+landlord, overhearing this, protested loudly that he could not consent
+to it. He had his house to think of. He swore that they should not fight
+on his premises, and implored them in the same breath not to attempt it.
+
+At that Garnache, now thoroughly on his guard, was for putting off the
+encounter.
+
+“Monsieur Courthon,” said he--and he felt a flush of shame mounting
+to his brow, and realized that it may need more courage to avoid an
+encounter than to engage in one--“there is something that in the heat
+of passion I forgot; something that renders it difficult for me to meet
+your friend at present.”
+
+Courthon looked at him as he might look at an impertinent lackey.
+
+“And what may that be?” he inquired, mightily contemptuous. There was
+a snigger from some in the crowd that pressed about them, and even
+Monsieur Gaubert looked askance.
+
+“Surely, sir,” he began, “if I did not know you for Monsieur de
+Garnache--”
+
+But Garnache did not let him finish.
+
+“Give me air,” he cried, and cuffed out to right and left of him at the
+grinning spectators, who fell back and grinned less broadly. “My reason,
+Monsieur de Courthon,” said he, “is that I do not belong to my self at
+present. I am in Grenoble on business of the State, as the emissary of
+the Queen-Regent, and so it would hardly become me to engage in private
+quarrels.”
+
+Courthon raised his brows.
+
+“You should have thought of that before you rolled Monsieur Sanguinetti
+in the mud,” he answered coldly.
+
+“I will tender him my apologies for that,” Garnache promised, swallowing
+hard, “and if he still insists upon a meeting he shall have it in, say,
+a month’s time.”
+
+“I cannot permit--” began Courthon, very fiercely.
+
+“You will be so good as to inform your friend of what I have said,”
+ Garnache insisted, interrupting him.
+
+Cowed, Courthon shrugged and went apart to confer with his friend.
+
+“Ah!” came Sanguinetti’s soft voice, yet loud enough to be heard by
+all present. “He shall have a caning then for his impertinence.” And
+he called loudly to the post-boy for his whip. But at that insult
+Garnache’s brain seemed to take fire, and his cautious resolutions were
+reduced to ashes by the conflagration. He stepped forward, and,
+virulent of tone and terrific of mien, he announced that since Monsieur
+Sanguinetti took that tone with him, he would cut his throat for him at
+once and wherever they should please.
+
+At last it was arranged that they should proceed there and then to the
+Champs aux Capuchins, a half-mile away behind the Franciscan convent.
+
+Accordingly they set out, Sanguinetti and Courthon going first, and
+Garnache following with Gaubert; the rear being brought up by a regiment
+of rabble, idlers and citizens, that must have represented a very
+considerable proportion of the population of Grenoble. This audience
+heartened Garnache, to whom some measure of reflection had again
+returned. Before such numbers it was unthinkable that these
+gentlemen--assuming them to be acting on behalf of Condillac--should
+dare to attempt foul measures with him. For the rest he had taken the
+precaution of leaving Rabecque at the Sucking Calf, and he had given the
+sergeant strict injunctions that he was not to allow any of his men to
+leave their posts during his absence, and that the troopers were to
+hold themselves entirely at the orders of Rabecque. Comparatively easy
+therefore in his mind, and but little exercised by any thought of the
+coming encounter, Garnache walked briskly along.
+
+They came at last to the Champs aux Capuchins--a pleasant stretch
+of verdure covering perhaps half an acre and set about by a belt of
+beech-trees.
+
+The crowd disposed itself on the fringe of the sward, and the duellists
+went forward, and set about the preparations. Principals and seconds
+threw off cloak and doublet, and Sanguinetti, Courthon, and Gaubert
+removed their heavy boots, whilst Garnache did no more than detach the
+spurs from his.
+
+Sanguinetti, observing this, drew the attention of the others to it, and
+an altercation arose. It was Gaubert who came to beg Garnache that he
+should follow the example they had set him in that respect. But Garnache
+shook his head.
+
+“The turf is sodden.”
+
+“But it is precisely on that account, sir,” protested Gaubert very
+earnestly. “In your boots you will be unable to stand firm; you will run
+the risk of slipping every time that you break ground.”
+
+“I venture to think, sir, that that is my affair,” said Garnache
+stiffly.
+
+“But it is not,” the other cried. “If you fight in your boots, we must
+all do the same, and for myself--well, I have not come here to commit
+suicide.”
+
+“Look you, Monsieur Gaubert,” said Garnache quietly, “your opponent will
+be Monsieur Courthon, and since he is in his stockinged feet, there is
+no reason why you yourself should not remain so too. As for me, I retain
+my boots, and Monsieur Sanguinetti may have all the advantage that may
+give him. Since I am content, in Heaven’s name let the fight go forward.
+I am in haste.”
+
+Gaubert bowed in submission; but Sanguinetti, who had overheard, turned
+with an oath.
+
+“By God, no!” said he. “I need no such advantage, sir. Courthon, be so
+good as to help me on with my boots again.” And there was a fresh delay
+whilst he resumed them.
+
+At last, however, the four men came together, and proceeded to the
+measurement of swords. It was found that Sanguinetti’s was two inches
+longer than any of the other three.
+
+“It is the usual length in Italy,” said Sanguinetti with a shrug.
+
+“If monsieur had realized that he was no longer in Italy, we might
+perhaps have been spared this very foolish business,” answered Garnache
+testily.
+
+“But what are we to do?” cried the perplexed Gaubert.
+
+“Fight,” said Garnache impatiently. “Is there never to be an end to
+these preliminaries?”
+
+“But I cannot permit you to oppose yourself to a sword two inches longer
+than your own,” cried Gaubert, almost in a temper.
+
+“Why not, if I am satisfied?” asked Garnache. “Mine is the longer reach;
+thus matters will stand equal.”
+
+“Equal?” roared Gaubert. “Your longer reach is an advantage that you
+had from God, his longer sword is one he had from an armourer. Is that
+equality?”
+
+“He may have my sword, and I’ll take his,” cut in the Italian, also
+showing impatience. “I too am in haste.”
+
+“In haste to die, then,” snapped Gaubert.
+
+“Monsieur, this is not seemly,” Courthon reproved him.
+
+“You shall teach me manners when we engage,” snapped the hawk-faced
+gentleman.
+
+“Sirs, sirs,” Garnache implored them, “are we to waste the day in words?
+Monsieur Gaubert, there are several gentlemen yonder wearing swords; I
+make no doubt that you will find one whose blade is of the same length
+as your own, sufficiently obliging to lend it to Monsieur Sanguinetti.”
+
+“That is an office that my friend can do for me,” interposed
+Sanguinetti, and thereupon Courthon departed, to return presently with a
+borrowed weapon of the proper length.
+
+At last it seemed that they might proceed with the business upon which
+they were come; but Garnache was wrong in so supposing. A discussion now
+arose between Gaubert and Courthon as to the choice of spot. The turf
+was drenched and slippery, and for all that they moved from place to
+place testing the ground, their principals following, nowhere could they
+find the conditions sufficiently improved to decide upon engaging.
+To Garnache the utility of this was apparent from the first. If these
+gentlemen had thought to avoid slippery ground, they should have elected
+to appoint the meeting elsewhere. But having chosen the Champs aux
+Capuchins, it was idle to expect that one stretch of turf would prove
+firmer than another.
+
+Wearied at last by this delay, he gave expression to his thoughts.
+
+“You are quite right, monsieur,” said Courthon. “But your second is
+over-fastidious. It would simplify matters so much if you would remove
+your boots.”
+
+“Look you, sirs,” said Garnache, taking a firm stand, “I will engage in
+my boots and on this very spot or not at all. I have told you that I am
+in haste. As for the slipperiness of the ground, my opponent will run
+no greater risks than I. I am not the only impatient one. The spectators
+are beginning to jeer at us. We shall have every scullion in Grenoble
+presently saying that we are afraid of one another. Besides which, sirs,
+I think I am taking cold.”
+
+“I am quite of monsieur’s mind, myself,” drawled Sanguinetti.
+
+“You hear, sir,” exclaimed Courthon, turning to Gaubert. “You can scarce
+persist in finding objections now.”
+
+“Why, since all are satisfied, so be it,” said Gaubert, with a shrug. “I
+sought to do the best for my principal. As it is, I wash my hands of all
+responsibility, and by all means let us engage, sirs.”
+
+They disposed themselves accordingly, Gaubert engaging Courthon, on
+Garnache’s right hand, and Garnache himself falling on guard to receive
+the attack of Sanguinetti. The jeers and murmurs that had been rising
+from the ever-growing crowd that swarmed about the outskirts of the
+place fell silent as the clatter of meeting swords rang out at last. And
+then, scarce were they engaged when a voice arose, calling angrily:
+
+“Hold, Sanguinetti! Wait!”
+
+A big, broad-shouldered man, in a suit of homespun and a featherless
+hat, thrust his way rudely trough the crowd and broke into the space
+within the belt of trees. The combatants had fallen apart at this
+commanding cry, and the newcomer now dashed forward, flushed and out of
+breath as if with running.
+
+“_Vertudieu_! Sanguinetti,” he swore, and his manner was half-angry,
+half-bantering; “do you call this friendship?”
+
+“My dear Francois” returned the foreigner, “you arrive most
+inopportunely.”
+
+“And is that all the greeting you have for me?”
+
+Looking more closely, Garnache thought that he recognized in him one of
+Sanguinetti’s companions of yesternight.
+
+“But do you not see that I am engaged?”
+
+“Ay; and that is my grievance that you should be engaged upon such an
+affair, and that I should have no share in it. It is to treat me like
+a lackey, and have the right to feel offended. Enfin! It seems I am not
+come too late.”
+
+Garnache cut in. He saw the drift of the fellow’s intentions, and he was
+not minded to submit to fresh delays; already more than half an hour was
+sped since he had left the Sucking Calf. He put it plainly to them that
+more than enough delay had there been already and he begged the newcomer
+to stand aside and allow them to terminate the business on which they
+were met. But Monsieur Francois--as Sanguinetti had called him--would
+not hear of it. He proved, indeed, a very testy fellow, and he had,
+moreover, the support of the others, including even Monsieur Gaubert.
+
+“Let me implore you not to spoil sport, sir,” the latter begged
+Garnache. “I have a friend at the inn who would never forgive me if I
+permitted him to miss such a morning’s diversion as this gentleman is
+willing to afford him. Suffer me to go for him.”
+
+“Look you, sir,” answered Garnache sharply, “however you may view this
+meeting, it is not with me an affair of jest or sport. I am in a quarrel
+that has been forced upon me, and--”
+
+“Surely not, sir,” Courthon interrupted sweetly. “You forget that you
+rolled Monsieur Sanguinetti in the mud. That is hardly to have a quarrel
+forced upon you.”
+
+Garnache bit his lip to the blood in his vexation.
+
+“However the quarrel may have originated,” said Francois, with a great
+laugh, “I swear that it goes not forward until I am accommodated, too.”
+
+“You had better accede, monsieur,” murmured Gaubert. “I shall not be
+gone five minutes, and it will save time in the end.”
+
+“Oh, very well,” cried poor Garnache in his despair. “Anything to save
+time; anything! In God’s name fetch your friend, and I hope you and he
+and every man here will get his fill of fighting for once.”
+
+Gaubert departed on his errand, and there were fresh murmurs in the mob
+until the reason of his going was understood. Five minutes sped; ten
+minutes, and yet he returned not. Grouped together were Sanguinetti
+and his two friends, in easy, whispered talk. At a little distance from
+them, Garnache paced up and down to keep himself warm. He had thrown his
+cloak over his shoulders again, and with sword tucked under arm and head
+thrust forward, he stamped backwards and forwards, the very picture
+of ill-humour. Fifteen minutes passed; twelve o’clock boomed from the
+Church of Saint Francois d’Assisi and still Monsieur Gaubert returned
+not. Garnache stood still a moment, in angry thought. This must not go
+on. There must be an end, and at once. The tastes and inclinations
+of brawlers were no concern of his. He had business of State--however
+unworthy--to dispatch. He turned, intending to demand of Monsieur
+Sanguinetti that they should engage at once and be done, when suddenly
+a fellow roughly dressed, with dirty face and a shock head of fair
+hair, pushed his way through the throng and advanced towards Monsieur
+Sanguinetti and his friends. Garnache checked in his movement to look
+at the fellow, for he recognized in him the ostler of the Auberge de
+France: He spoke at that moment, and Garnache overheard the words he
+uttered.
+
+“Monsieur Sanguinetti,” said he, addressing that gentleman, “my master
+sends to inquire if you shall want the carriage you ordered for to-day.
+It has been standing for an hour at the door of the Auberge de France,
+awaiting you, and if you don’t want it--”
+
+“Standing where?” asked Sanguinetti harshly.
+
+“At the door of the Auberge de France.”
+
+“Peste, fool!” cried the foreigner, “why is it there, when I bade it be
+sent to the Sucking Calf?”
+
+“I don’t know, sir. I know no more than Monsieur l’Hote told me.”
+
+“Now, a plague on Monsieur l’Hote,” swore Sanguinetti, and in that
+moment his eye fell upon Garnache, standing there, attentive. At sight
+of the Parisian he seemed lost in confusion. He dropped his glance and
+appeared on the point of turning aside. Then to the ostler: “I shall
+want the carriage, and I shall come for it anon. Carry that message
+to your master.” And with that he turned and advanced to Garnache. His
+whilom arrogance was all fallen from him; he wore instead an air of
+extreme contrition.
+
+“Monsieur, what shall I say to you?” he asked in a voice that was rather
+small. “It seems there has been an error. I am deeply grieved, believe
+me--”
+
+“Say no more, I beg,” cried Garnache, immensely relieved that at last
+there should be a conclusion to an affair which had threatened to be
+interminable. “Let me but express my regrets for the treatment you
+received at my hands.”
+
+“I accept your expressions, and I admire their generosity,” returned the
+other as courteous now as subservient, indeed, in his courtesy--as
+he had been erstwhile fierce and intractable. “As for the treatment I
+received, I confess that my mistake and my opinionativeness deserved it
+me. I deplore to deprive these gentlemen of the entertainment to which
+they were looking forward, but unless you should prove of an excessive
+amiability I am afraid they must suffer with me the consequences of my
+error.”
+
+Garnache assured him very briefly, and none too politely that he did not
+intend to prove of any excessive amiability. He spoke whilst struggling
+into his doublet. He felt that he could cheerfully have caned the fellow
+for the inconvenience he had caused him, and yet he realized that he had
+other more pressing matters to attend to. He sheathed his sword, took up
+his cloak and hat, made those gentlemen the compliments that became the
+occasion, in terms a trifle more brief, perhaps, than were usual, and,
+still wondering why Monsieur de Gaubert had not yet returned, he stalked
+briskly away. Followed by the booings of the disappointed crowd, he set
+out for the Sucking Calf at a sharp pace, taking the shorter way behind
+the Church and across the graveyard of Saint Francois.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII. THE CLOSING OF THE TRAP
+
+Upon leaving the Champs aux Capuchins, hawk-faced Monsieur Gaubert had
+run every foot of the way to the Sucking Calf, and he had arrived there
+within some five minutes, out of breath and wearing every appearance of
+distress--of a distress rather greater than his haste to find his friend
+should warrant.
+
+At the door of the inn he found the carriage still waiting; the
+post-boy, however, was in the porch, leaning in talk with one of the
+drawers. The troopers sat their horses in stolid patience, keeping
+guard, and awaiting, as they had been bidden, the return of Monsieur de
+Garnache. Rabecque, very watchful, lounged in the doorway, betraying in
+his air none of the anxiety and impatience with which he looked for his
+master.
+
+At sight of Monsieur Gaubert, running so breathlessly, he started
+forward, wondering and uneasy. Across the street, from the Palais
+Seneschal, came at that same moment Monsieur de Tressan with rolling
+gait. He reached the door of the inn together with Monsieur Gaubert.
+
+Full of evil forebodings, Rabecque hailed the runner.
+
+“What has happened?” he cried. “Where is Monsieur de Garnache?”
+
+Gaubert came to a staggering halt; he groaned and wrung his hands.
+
+“Killed!” he panted, rocking himself in a passion of distress. “He has
+been butchered! Oh! it was horrible!”
+
+Rabecque gripped him by the shoulder, and steadied him with a hand that
+hurt. “What do you say?” he gasped, his face white to the lips.
+
+Tressan halted, too, and turned upon Gaubert, a look of incredulity in
+his fat countenance. “Who has been killed?” he asked. “Not Monsieur de
+Garnache?”
+
+“Helas! yes,” groaned the other. “It was a snare, a guet-apens to which
+they led us. Four of them set upon us in the Champs aux Capuchins. As
+long as he lived, I stood beside him. But seeing him fallen, I come for
+help.”
+
+“My God!” sobbed Rabecque, and loosed his grasp of Monsieur Gaubert’s
+shoulder.
+
+“Who did it?” inquired Tressan, and his voice rumbled fiercely.
+
+“I know not who they were. The man who picked the quarrel with Monsieur
+de Garnache called himself Sanguinetti. There is a riot down there at
+present. There was a crowd to witness the combat, and they have fallen
+to fighting among themselves. Would to Heaven they had stirred in time
+to save that poor gentleman from being murdered.”
+
+“A riot, did you say?” cried Tressan, the official seeming to awaken in
+him.
+
+“Aye,” answered the other indifferently; “they are cutting one another’s
+throats.”
+
+“But... But... Are you sure that he is dead, monsieur?” inquired
+Rabecque; and his tone was one that implored contradiction.
+
+Gaubert looked and paused, seeming to give the matter a second’s
+thought. “I saw him fall,” said he. “It may be that he was no more than
+wounded.”
+
+“And you left him there?” roared the servant. “You left him there?”
+
+Gaubert shrugged his shoulders. “What could I do against four? Besides,
+the crowd was interfering already, and it seemed best to me to come for
+help. These soldiers, now--”
+
+“Aye,” cut in Tressan, and he turned about and called the sergeant.
+“This becomes my affair.” And he announced his quality to Monsieur
+Gaubert. “I am the Lord Seneschal of Dauphiny.”
+
+“I am fortunate in finding you,” returned Gaubert, and bowed. “I could
+place the matter in no better hand.”
+
+But Tressan, without heeding him, was already ordering the sergeant
+to ride hard with his troopers for the Champs aux Capuchins. Rabecque,
+however, thrust himself suddenly forward.
+
+“Not so, Monsieur le Seneschal,” he interposed in fresh alarm, and
+mindful of his charge. “These men are here to guard Mademoiselle de La
+Vauvraye. Let them remain. I will go to Monsieur de Garnache.”
+
+The Seneschal stared at him with contemptuously pouting underlip. “You
+will go?” said he. “And what can you do alone? Who are you?” he asked.
+
+“I am Monsieur de Garnache’s servant.”
+
+“A lackey? Ah!” And Tressan turned aside and resumed his orders as
+if Rabecque did not exist or had never spoken. “To the Champs aux
+Capuchins!” said he. “At the gallop, Pommier! I will send others after
+you.”
+
+The sergeant rose in his stirrups and growled an order. The troopers
+wheeled about; another order, and they were off, their cantering hoofs
+thundering down the narrow street.
+
+Rabecque clutched at the Lord Seneschal’s arm.
+
+“Stop them, monsieur!” he almost screamed in his excitement. “Stop them!
+There is some snare, some trick in this.”
+
+“Stop them?” quoth the Seneschal. “Are you mad?” He shook off Rabecque’s
+detaining hand, and left him, to cross the street again with ponderous
+and sluggish haste, no doubt to carry out his purpose of sending more
+troopers to the scene of the disturbance.
+
+Rabecque swore angrily and bitterly, and his vexation had two entirely
+separate sources. On the one hand his anxiety and affection for his
+master urged him to run at once to his assistance, whilst Tressan’s
+removal of the troopers rendered it impossible for him to leave
+Mademoiselle de La Vauvraye unguarded--though what he should do with
+her if Garnache came not back at all, he did not at this stage pause
+to consider. On the other hand, an instinctive and growing suspicion of
+this Monsieur Gaubert--who was now entering the inn--inspired him with
+the opinion that the fat Seneschal had been duped by a wild tale to
+send the troopers from the spot where they might presently become very
+necessary.
+
+Full of fears, anxiety, and mistrust, it was a very dispirited Rabecque
+that now slowly followed Monsieur Gaubert into the inn. But as he set
+his foot across the threshold of the common-room, a sight met his eyes
+that brought him to a momentary standstill, and turned to certainty all
+his rising suspicions. He found it tenanted by a half-dozen fellows of
+very rude aspect, all armed and bearing an odd resemblance in air and
+accoutrements to the braves he had seen at Condillac the day before.
+As to how they came there, he could only surmise that they had entered
+through the stable-yard, as otherwise he must have observed their
+approach. They were grouped now at the other end of the long, low
+chamber, by the door leading to the interior of the inn. A few paces
+distant the landlord watched them with uneasy eyes.
+
+But what dismayed Garnache’s servant most of all was to see the man who
+called himself Gaubert standing in talk with a slender, handsome youth,
+magnificently arrayed, in whom he recognized Marius de Condillac.
+
+Rabecque checked in his advance, and caught in that moment from Marius
+the words: “Let her be told that it is Monsieur de Garnache wishes her
+to descend.”
+
+At that Rabecque stepped towards them, very purposeful of mien. Gaubert
+turned at his approach, and smiled. Marius looked up quickly; then
+made a sign to the men. Instantly two of them went out by the door they
+guarded, and ere it swung back again Rabecque saw that they were
+making for the stairs. The remaining four ranged themselves shoulder
+to shoulder across the doorway, plainly with intent to bar the way.
+Gaubert, followed immediately by Marius, stepped aside and approached
+the landlord with arms akimbo and a truculent smile on his pale hawk
+face. What he and Marius said, Rabecque could not make out, but he
+distinctly heard the landlord’s answer delivered with a respectful bow
+to Marius:
+
+“Bien, Monsieur de Condillac. I would not interfere in your
+concerns--not for the world. I will be blind and deaf.”
+
+Marius acknowledged the servile protestation by a sneer, and Rabecque,
+stirring at last, went forward boldly towards the doorway and its ugly,
+human barrier.
+
+“By your leave, sirs,” said he--and he made to thrust one of them aside.
+
+“You cannot pass this way, sir,” he was answered, respectfully but
+firmly.
+
+Rabecque stood still, clenching and unclenching his hands and quivering
+with anger. It was in that moment that he most fervently cursed Tressan
+and his stupid meddling. Had the troopers still been there, they could
+have made short work of these tatter-demalions. As it was, and with
+Monsieur de Garnache dead, or at least absent, everything seemed at an
+end. He might have contended that, his master being slain, it was no
+great matter what he did, for in the end the Condillacs must surely have
+their way with Mademoiselle de La Vauvraye. But he never paused to think
+of that just then. His sense of trust was strong; his duty to his master
+plain. He stepped back, and drew his sword.
+
+“Let me pass!” he roared. But at the same instant there came the soft
+slither of another weapon drawn, and Rabecque was forced to turn to meet
+the onslaught of Monsieur Gaubert.
+
+“You dirty traitor,” cried the angry lackey, and that was all they left
+him breath to say. Strong arms gripped him from behind. The sword was
+wrenched from his hand. He was flung down heavily, and pinned prone in a
+corner by one of those bullies who knelt on his spine. And then the door
+opened again, and poor Rabecque groaned in impotent anguish to behold
+Mademoiselle de La Vauvraye pause white-faced and wide-eyed on, the
+threshold at sight of Monsieur de Condillac bowing low before her.
+
+She stood there a moment between the two ruffians who had been sent to
+fetch her, and her eyes travelling round that room discovered Rabecque
+in his undignified and half; strangled condition.
+
+“Where... Where is Monsieur de Garnache?” she faltered.
+
+“He is where all those who cross the will of Condillac must sooner or
+later find themselves,” said Marius airily. “He is... disposed of.”
+
+“Do you mean that he is dead?” she cried.
+
+“I think it very probable by now,” he smiled. “So you see, mademoiselle,
+since the guardian the Queen appointed you has... deserted you, you
+would do well to return to my mother’s roof. Let me assure you that we
+shall very gladly welcome your return. We blame none but Garnache for
+your departure, and he has paid for the brutality of his abduction of
+you.”
+
+She turned in despair from that mocking gentleman, and attempted to make
+appeal to the landlord, as though he could help her who could not help
+himself.
+
+“Monsieur l’Hote--” she began, but Marius cut in sharply.
+
+“Take her out that way,” he said, and pointed back down the passage by
+the stairs. “To the coach. Make haste.”
+
+She sought to resist them now; but they dragged her back, and there
+was a rush of the others following through the doorway, the rear being
+brought up by Gaubert.
+
+“Follow presently,” was his parting command to the man who still knelt
+upon Rabecque, and with that he vanished too.
+
+Their steps died away in the passage; a door banged in the distance.
+There followed a silence, disturbed only by the sound of Rabecque’s
+laboured breathing; then came a stir outside the door of the inn; some
+one shouted an order. There was a movement of hoofs, a creak and crunch
+of wheels, and presently the rumble of a heavy carriage being driven
+rapidly away. But too well did Rabecque surmise what had taken place.
+
+The ruffian released him at last, and, leaping to his feet, was gone
+before Rabecque could rise. Once up, however, the lackey darted to the
+door. In the distance he saw his late assailant running hard; the
+coach had disappeared. He turned, and his smouldering eye fell upon the
+landlord.
+
+“O pig!” he apostrophized him, snarling at him to vent some of his
+pent-up rage. “O cowardly pig.”
+
+“What would you?” expostulated the frightened taverner. “They had cut my
+throat if I resisted them.”
+
+Rabecque poured abuse upon him, until for very lack of words he was
+forced to cease, then, with a final bark of contempt, he went to recover
+his sword, which had been flung into a corner of the room. He was
+stooping in the act, when a quick step rang behind him on the threshold,
+an angry voice harsh and metallic pronounced his name:
+
+“Rebecque!”
+
+The sword clattered from Rabecque’s hand suddenly gone
+nerveless--nerveless with sheer joy, all else forgotten in the
+perception that there, safe and sound, stood his beloved master.
+
+“Monsieur!” he cried, and the tears welled up to the rough servant’s
+eyes. “Monsieur!” he cried again, and then with the tears streaming
+down his cheeks, sallow and wrinkled as parchment, “Oh, thank God!” he
+blubbered. “Thank God!”
+
+“For what?” asked Garnache, coming forward, a scowl like a thunder-cloud
+upon his brow. “Where is the coach, where the troopers? Where is
+mademoiselle? Answer me!”
+
+He caught Rabecque’s wrist in a grip that threatened to snap it. His
+face was livid, his eyes aflame.
+
+“They--they--” stammered Rabecque. He had not the courage to tell the
+thing that had happened. He feared Garnache would strike him dead.
+
+And then out of his terror he gathered an odd daring. He spoke to
+Garnache as never he had dreamt to speak to him, and it may well be that
+by his tone and by what he said he saved his life just then.
+
+“You fool,” he cried to him. “I told you to be on your guard. I warned
+you to go warily. But you would not heed me. You know better than
+Rabecque. You would have your way. You must go a-brawling. And they
+duped you, they fooled you to the very top of their bent, monsieur.”
+
+Garnache dropped the servant’s hand and stood back a pace. That
+counter-blast of passion and that plain speaking from a quarter so
+unexpected served, in part at least, to sober him. He understood the
+thing that had happened, the thing that already he suspected must have
+happened; but he understood too that he alone was to blame for it--he
+and his cursed temper.
+
+“Who--who fooled me?” he stammered.
+
+“Gaubert--the fellow that calls himself Gaubert. He and his friends.
+They fooled you away. Then Gaubert returned with a tale that you
+had been killed and that there was a disturbance in the Champs aux
+Capuchins. Monsieur de Tressan was here, as ill-luck would have it,
+and Gaubert implored him to send soldiers thither to quell the riot.
+He dispatched the escort. I sought in vain to stay them. He would not
+listen to me. The troopers went, and then Monsieur Gaubert entered
+the inn, to join Monsieur de Condillac and six of his braves who were
+waiting there. They overpowered me, and carried mademoiselle off in the
+coach. I did what I could, but--”
+
+“How long have they been gone?” Garnache interrupted him to inquire.
+
+“But few minutes before you came.”
+
+“It would be, then, the coach that passed me near the Porte de Savoie.
+We must go after them, Rabecque. I made a short cut across the graveyard
+of Saint Francis, or I must have met the escort. Oh, perdition!” he
+cried, smiting his clenched right hand into his open left. “To have so
+much good work undone by a moment’s unguardedness.” Then abruptly he
+turned on his heels. “I am going to Monsieur de Tressan,” said he over
+his shoulder, and went out.
+
+As he reached the threshold of the porch, the escort rode up the street,
+returned at last. At sight of him the sergeant broke into a cry of
+surprise.
+
+“At least you are safe, monsieur,” he said. “We had heard that you were
+dead, and I feared it must be so, for all that the rest of the story
+that was told us was clearly part of a very foolish jest.”
+
+“Jest? It was no jest, _Vertudieu_!” said Garnache grimly. “You had best
+return to the Palais Seneschal. I have no further need of an escort,” he
+added bitterly. “I shall require a larger force.”
+
+And he stepped out into the rain, which had begun again a few minutes
+earlier, and was now falling in a steady downpour.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX. THE SENESCHAL’S ADVICE
+
+Straight across to the Palais Seneschal went Garnache. And sorely though
+his temper might already have been tried that day, tempestuously though
+it had been vented, there were fresh trials in store for him, fresh
+storms for Tressan.
+
+“May I ask, Monsieur le Seneschal,” he demanded arrogantly, “to what end
+it was that you permitted yourself to order from its post the escort you
+had placed under my command?”
+
+“To what end?” returned the Seneschal, between sorrow and indignation.
+“Why, to the end that it might succour you if still in time. I had heard
+that if not dead already, you were in danger of your life.”
+
+The answer was one that disarmed Garnache, in spite of his mistrust
+of Tressan, and followed as it now was by the Seneschal’s profuse
+expressions of joy at seeing Garnache safe and well, it left him
+clearly unable to pursue the subject of his grievance in this particular
+connection. Instead, he passed on to entertain Tressan with the recital
+of the thing that had been done; and in reciting it his anger revived
+again, nor did the outward signs of sympathetic perturbation which
+the Seneschal thought it judicious to display do aught to mollify his
+feelings.
+
+“And now, monsieur,” he concluded, “there remains but one course to
+be pursued--to return in force, and compel them at the sword-point to
+surrender me mademoiselle. That accomplished, I shall arrest the Dowager
+and her son and every jackanapes within that castle. Her men can lie
+in Grenoble gaol to be dealt with by yourself for supporting her in an
+attempt to resist the Queen’s authority. Madame and her son shall go
+with me to Paris to answer there for their offence.”
+
+The Seneschal looked grave. He thoughtfully combed his beard with his
+forefinger, and his little eyes peered a shade fearfully at Garnache
+through his horn-rimmed spectacles--Garnache had found him at his
+never-failing pretence of work.
+
+“Why, yes,” he agreed, speaking slowly, “that way lies your duty.”
+
+“I rejoice, monsieur, to hear you say so. For I shall need your aid.”
+
+“My aid?” The Seneschal’s face assumed a startled look.
+
+“I shall require of you the necessary force to reduce that garrison.”
+
+The Seneschal blew out his cheeks almost to bursting point, then wagged
+his head and smiled wistfully.
+
+“And where,” he asked, “am I to find such a force?”
+
+“You have upwards of ten score men in quarters at Grenoble.”
+
+“If I had those men--which I have not--what, think you, could they do
+against a fortress such as Condillac? Monsieur deludes himself. If they
+resist, you’ll need ten times that number to bring them to their senses.
+They are well victualled; they have an excellent water-supply. My
+friend, they would just draw up the bridge, and laugh at you and your
+soldiers from the ramparts.”
+
+Garnache looked at him from under lowering brows. But for all his
+mistrust of the man--a mistrust most excellently founded--he was forced
+to confess that there was wisdom in what Tressan said.
+
+“I’ll sit down and besiege them if need be,” he announced.
+
+Again the Seneschal wagged his head. “You would have to be prepared to
+spend your winter there in that case, and it can be cold in the valley
+of Isere. Their garrison is small--some twenty men at most; but it is
+sufficient for their defence, and not too many mouths to feed. No, no,
+monsieur, if you would win your way by force you must count upon more
+than ten score men.”
+
+And now a flash of inspiration helped Tressan. It was his aim, as we
+know, to run with the hare and hunt with the hounds. Break with Madame
+de Condillac his foolish hopeful heart would not permit him. Break with
+this man, who personified authority and the King, he dared not. He
+had sought--and it had given him much to do--to steer a middle course,
+serving the Dowager and appearing not to withstand the Parisian. Now it
+almost seemed to him as if he were come to an impasse beyond which he
+could no longer pursue that course, but must halt and declare his side.
+But the notion that now occurred to him helped him to win through
+this difficulty. For Madame de Condillac’s schemes he cared not a jot;
+whether they came safe to harbour or suffered shipwreck on the way
+was all one to him; whether Valerie de La Vauvraye married Marius de
+Condillac or the meanest cobbler in Grenoble was, similarly, a matter
+that never disturbed his mind. He would not even be concerned if he,
+himself, were to help the Dowager’s schemes to frustration, so long as
+she were to remain in ignorance of his defection, so long as outwardly
+he were to appear faithful to her interests.
+
+“Monsieur,” said he gravely, “the only course that promises you success
+is to return to Paris, and, raising sufficient men, with guns and other
+modern siege appliances such as we possess not here, come back and
+batter down the walls of Condillac.”
+
+There the Seneschal spoke good sense. Garnache realized it, so much
+so that he almost began to doubt whether he had not done the man an
+injustice in believing him allied to the other party. But, however fully
+he might perceive the wisdom of the advice, such a step was one that
+must wound his pride, must be an acknowledgment that his own resources,
+upon which the Queen had relied when she sent him single-handed to deal
+with this situation, had proved insufficient.
+
+He took a turn in the apartment without answering, tugging at his
+mustachios and pondering the situation what time the Seneschal
+furtively watched him in the candle-light. At last he came abruptly to
+a standstill by the Seneschal’s writing-table, immediately opposite
+Tressan. His hand fell to his side, his eyes took on a look of
+determination.
+
+“As a last resource your good advice may guide me, Monsieur le
+Seneschal,” said he. “But first I’ll see what can be done with such men
+as you have here.”
+
+“But I have no men,” answered Tressan, dismayed to see the failure of
+his effort.
+
+Garnache stared at him in an unbelief that was fast growing to
+suspicion. “No men?” he echoed dully. “No men?”
+
+“I might muster a score--no more than that.”
+
+“But, monsieur, it is within my knowledge that you have at least two
+hundred. I saw at least some fifty drawn up in the courtyard below here
+yesterday morning.”
+
+“I had them, monsieur,” the Seneschal made haste to cry, his hands
+upheld, his body leaning forward over his table. “I had them. But,
+unfortunately, certain disturbances in the neighbourhood of Montelimar
+have forced me to part with them. They were on the point of setting out
+when you saw them.”
+
+Garnache looked at him a moment without speaking. Then, sharply:
+
+“They must be recalled, monsieur,” said he.
+
+And now the Seneschal took refuge in a fine pretence of indignation.
+
+“Recalled?” he cried, and besides indignation there was some horror
+in his voice. “Recalled? And for what? That they may assist you in
+obtaining charge of a wretched girl who is so headstrong as to wish to
+marry other than her guardians have determined. A pretty affair that, as
+God’s my life! And for the adjustment of such a family dispute as this,
+a whole province is to go to ruin, a conflagration of rebellion is to
+spread unquenched? On my soul, sir, I begin to think that this mission
+of yours has served to turn your head. You begin to see it out of all
+proportion to its size.”
+
+“Monsieur, it may have turned my head, or it may not; but I shall not be
+amazed if in the end it be the means of losing you yours. Tell me now:
+What is the disturbance you speak of in Montelimar?” That was a question
+all Tressan’s ingenuity could not answer.
+
+“What affair is it of yours?” he demanded. “Are you Seneschal of
+Dauphiny, or am I? If I tell you that there is a disturbance, let that
+suffice. In quelling it I do but attend to my own business. Do you
+attend to yours--which seems to be that of meddling in women’s matters.”
+
+This was too much. There was such odious truth in it that the iron sank
+deep into Garnache’s soul. The very reflection that such a business
+should indeed be his, was of itself enough to put him in a rage, without
+having it cast in his teeth as Tressan had none too delicately done.
+
+He stormed and raged; he waved his arms and thumped the table, and
+talked of cutting men to ribbons--among which men no doubt he counted my
+Lord the Seneschal of Dauphiny. But from the storm of fierce invective,
+of threats and promises with which he filled the air, the Seneschal
+gathered with satisfaction the one clear statement that he would take
+his advice.
+
+“I’ll do as you say,” Garnache had ended. “I’ll get me back to Paris as
+fast as horse can carry me. When I return woe betide Condillac! And I
+shall send my emissaries into the district of Montelimar to inquire into
+these disturbances you tell of. Woe betide you if they find the country
+quiet. You shall pay a heavy price for having dispatched your soldiers
+thither to the end that they might not be here to further the Queen’s
+business.”
+
+With that he caught up his rain-sodden hat, flung it on his head, and
+stalked out of the room, and, so, out of the Palace.
+
+He left Grenoble next morning, and it was a very tame and crestfallen
+Garnache who quitted the Auberge du Veau qui Tete and rode out of the
+town to take the road to Paris. How they would laugh at him at the
+Luxembourg! Not even an affair of this kind was he fit to carry
+through; not even as a meddler in women’s matters as Tressan had
+called him--could he achieve success. Rabecque, reflecting his master’s
+mood--as becomes a good lackey--rode silent and gloomy a pace or two in
+the rear.
+
+By noon they had reached Voiron, and here, at a quiet hostelry, they
+descended to pause awhile for rest and refreshment. It was a chill,
+blustering day, and although the rain held off, the heavens were black
+with the promise of more to come. There was a fire burning in the
+general-room of the hostelry, and Garnache went to warm him at its
+cheerful blaze. Moodily he stood there, one hand on the high mantel
+shelf, one foot upon an andiron, his eyes upon the flames.
+
+He was disconsolately considering his position; considering how utterly,
+how irrevocably he had failed; pondering the gibes he would have to
+stomach on his return to Paris, the ridicule it would incumb him to live
+down. It had been a fine thing to breathe fire and blood and vengeance
+to Tressan yesterday, to tell him of the great deeds he would perform on
+his return. It was odds he never would return. They would send another
+in his place, if indeed they sent at all. For, after all, before he
+could reach Paris and the force required be in Dauphiny, a fortnight
+must elapse, let them travel never so quickly. By that time they must be
+singularly sluggish at Condillac if they did not so contrive that no
+aid that came should come in time for mademoiselle, now that they were
+warned that the Queen was stirring in the matter.
+
+Oh! he had blundered it all most cursedly. Had he but kept his temper
+yesterday at Grenoble; had he but had the wit to thwart their plans, by
+preserving an unruffled front to insult, he might have won through and
+carried mademoiselle out of their hands. As it was--! he let his arms
+fall to his sides in his miserable despair.
+
+“Your wine, monsieur,” said Rabecque at his elbow. He turned, and took
+the cup of mulled drink from his servant. The beverage warmed him in
+body; but it would need a butt of it to thaw the misery from his soul.
+
+“Rabecque,” he said with a pathetic grimness, “I think I am the most
+cursed blunderer that ever was entrusted with an errand.”
+
+The thing so obsessed his mind that he must speak of it, if it be only
+to his lackey. Rabecque’s sharp face assumed a chastened look. He sighed
+most dutifully. He sought for words of consolation. At last:
+
+“At least, monsieur has made them fear him up there at Condillac,” said
+he.
+
+“Fear me?” laughed Garnache. “Pish! Deride me, you would say.”
+
+“Fear you, I repeat, monsieur. Else why are they at such pains to
+strengthen the garrison?”
+
+“Eh?” he questioned. But his tone was not greatly interested. “Are they
+doing that? Are they strengthening it? How know you?”
+
+“I had it from the ostler at the Veau qui Tete that a certain Captain
+Fortunio--an Italian soldier of fortune who commands the men at
+Condillac--was at the Auberge de France last night, offering wine to
+whomsoever would drink with him, and paying for it out of Madame la
+Marquise’s purse. To such as accepted his hospitality he talked of the
+glory of a military career, particularly a free-lance’s; and to those
+who showed interest in what he said he offered a pike in his company.”
+
+“Enrolled he many, did you learn?”
+
+“Not one, monsieur, the ostler told me; and it seems he spent the
+evening watching him weave his spider’s web. But the flies were
+over-wary. They knew whence he came; they knew the business for which he
+desired to enrol them--for a rumour had gone round that Condillac was in
+rebellion against the Queen’s commands--and there were none so desperate
+at the Auberge de France as to risk their necks by enlisting, no matter
+what the wage he offered.”
+
+Garnache shrugged his shoulders. “No matter,” said he. “Get me another
+cup of wine.” But as Rabecque turned away to obey him there came a
+sudden gleam into the eye of Monsieur de Garnache which lightened the
+depression of his countenance.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X. THE RECRUIT
+
+In the great hall of the Chateau de Condillac sat the Dowager, her son,
+and the Lord Seneschal, in conference.
+
+It was early in the afternoon of the last Thursday in October, exactly a
+week since Monsieur de Garnache all but broken-hearted at the failure of
+his mission--had departed from Grenoble. They had dined, and the table
+was still strewn with vessels and the fragments of their meal, for
+the cloth had not yet been raised. But the three of them had left the
+board--the Seneschal with all that reluctance with which he was wont to
+part company with the table, no matter how perturbed in spirit he
+might be--and they had come to group themselves about the great open
+fireplace.
+
+A shaft of pale October sunshine entering through the gules of an
+escutcheon on the mullioned windows struck a scarlet light into silver
+and glass upon the forsaken board.
+
+Madame was speaking. She was repeating words that she had uttered at
+least twenty times a day during the past week.
+
+“It was a madness to let that fellow go. Had we but put him and his
+servant out of the way, we should be able now to sleep tranquil in our
+beds. I know their ways at Court. They might have marvelled a little at
+first that he should tarry so long upon his errand, that he should send
+them no word of its progress; but presently, seeing him no more, he
+would little by little have been forgotten, and with him the affair in
+which the Queen has been so cursedly ready to meddle.
+
+“As it is, the fellow will go back hot with the outrage put upon him;
+there will be some fine talk of it in Paris; it will be spoken of as
+treason, as defiance of the King’s Majesty, as rebellion. The Parliament
+may be moved to make outlaws of us, and the end of it all--who shall
+foresee?”
+
+“It is a long distance from Condillac to Paris, madame,” said her son,
+with a shrug.
+
+“And you will find them none so ready to send soldiers all this way,
+Marquise,” the Seneschal comforted her.
+
+“Bah! You make too sure of your security. You make too sure of what they
+will do, what leave undone. Time will show, my friends; and, mor-dieu! I
+am much at fault if you come not both to echo my regret that we did not
+dispose of Monsieur de Garnache and his lackey when we had them in our
+power.”
+
+Her eye fell with sinister promise upon Tressan, who shivered slightly
+and spread his hands to the blaze, as though his shiver had been of
+cold. But Marius did not so readily grow afraid.
+
+“Madame,” he said, “at the worst we can shut our gates and fling
+defiance at them. We are well-manned, and Fortunio is seeking fresh
+recruits.”
+
+“Seeking them, yes,” she sneered. “For a week has the fellow been
+spending money like water, addling the brains of half Grenoble with the
+best wine at the Auberge de France, yet not a single recruit has come
+in, so far.”
+
+Marius laughed. “Your pessimism leads you into rash conclusions,” he
+cried. “You are wrong. One recruit has come in.”
+
+“One!” she echoed. “A thousand devils! A brave number that! A fine
+return for the river of wine with which we have washed the stomachs of
+Grenoble.”
+
+“Still, it is a beginning,” ventured the Seneschal.
+
+“Aye, and, no doubt, an ending,” she flashed back at him. “And what
+manner of fool may this one be, whose fortunes were so desperate that he
+could throw them in with ours?”
+
+“He is an Italian--a Piedmontese who has tramped across Savoy and was on
+his way to Paris to make his fortune, when Fortunio caught him and made
+it clear to him that his fortune was made for him at Condillac. He is
+a lusty, stalwart fellow, speaking no word of French, who was drawn to
+Fortunio by discovering in him a fellow-countryman.”
+
+Mockery flashed from the Dowager’s beautiful eyes.
+
+“In that you have the reason of his enrolling himself. He knew no word
+of French, poor devil, so could not learn how rash his venture was.
+Could we find more such men as this one it might be well. But where
+shall we find them? Pish! my dear Marius, matters are little mended,
+nor ever will be, for the mistake we made in allowing Garnache to go his
+ways.”
+
+“Madame;” again ventured Tressan, “I think that you want for
+hopefulness.”
+
+“At least, I do not want for courage, Monsieur le Comte,” she answered
+him; “and I promise you that while I live--to handle a sword if need
+be--no Paris men shall set foot in Condillac.”
+
+“Aye,” grumbled Marius, “you can contemplate that, and it is all you
+do contemplate. You will not see, madame that our position is far from
+desperate; that, after all, there may be no need to resist the King. It
+is three months since we had news of Florimond. Much may happen in three
+months when a man is warring. It may well be that he is dead.”
+
+“I wish I knew he was--and damned,” she snapped, with a tightening of
+her scarlet lips.
+
+“Yes,” agreed Marius, with a sigh, “that were an end to all our
+troubles.”
+
+“I’m none so sure. There is still mademoiselle, with her new-formed
+friends in Paris--may a pestilence blight them all! There are still the
+lands of La Vauvraye to lose. The only true end to our troubles as they
+stand at present lies in your marrying this headstrong baggage.”
+
+“That the step should be rendered impossible, you can but blame
+yourself,” Marius reminded her.
+
+“How so?” she cried, turning sharply upon him.
+
+“Had you kept friends with the Church, had you paid tithes and saved
+us from this cursed Interdict, we should have no difficulty in getting
+hither a priest, and settling the matter out of hand, be Valerie willing
+or not.”
+
+She looked at him, scorn kindling in her glance. Then she swung round to
+appeal to Tressan.
+
+“You hear him, Count,” said she. “There is a lover for you! He would wed
+his mistress whether she love him or not--and he has sworn to me that he
+loves the girl.”
+
+“How else should the thing be done since she opposes it?” asked Marius,
+sulkily.
+
+“How else? Do you ask me how else? God! Were I a man, and had I your
+shape and face, there is no woman in the world should withstand me if
+I set my heart on her. It is address you lack. You are clumsy as a lout
+where a woman is concerned. Were I in your place, I had taken her by
+storm three months ago, when first she came to us. I had carried her out
+of Condillac, out of France, over the border into Savoy, where there are
+no Interdicts to plague you, and there I would have married her.”
+
+Marius frowned darkly, but before he could speak, Tressan was
+insinuating a compliment to the Marquise.
+
+“True, Marius,” he said, with pursed lips. “Nature has been very good to
+you in that she has made you the very counterpart of your lady mother.
+You are as comely a gentleman as is to be found in France--or out of
+it.”
+
+“Pish!” snapped Marius, too angered by the reflection cast upon his
+address, to be flattered by their praises of his beauty. “It is an easy
+thing to talk; an easy thing to set up arguments when we consider but
+the half of a question. You forget, madame, that Valerie is betrothed to
+Florimond and that she clings faithfully to her betrothal.”
+
+“_Vertudieu_!” swore the Marquise, “and what is this betrothal, what
+this faithfulness? She has not seen her betrothed for three years. She
+was a child at the time of their fiancailles. Think you her faithfulness
+to him is the constancy of a woman to her lover? Go your ways, you
+foolish boy. It is but the constancy to a word, to the wishes of her
+father. Think you constancy that has no other base than that would stand
+between her and any man who--as you might do, had you the address--could
+make her love him?”
+
+“I do say so,” answered Marius firmly.
+
+She smiled the pitying smile of one equipped with superior knowledge
+when confronted with an obstinate, uninformed mind.
+
+“There is a droll arrogance about you, Marius,” she told him, quietly.
+“You, a fledgling, would teach me, a woman, the ways of a woman’s heart!
+It is a thing you may live to regret.”
+
+“As how?” he asked.
+
+“Once already has mademoiselle contrived to corrupt one of our men,
+and send him to Paris with a letter. Out of that has sprung our present
+trouble. Another time she may do better. When she shall have bribed
+another to assist her to escape; when she, herself, shall have made
+off to the shelter of the Queen-mother, perhaps you will regret that my
+counsel should have fallen upon barren ground.”
+
+“It is to prevent any such attempt that we have placed her under guard,”
+ said he. “You are forgetting that.”
+
+“Forgetting it? Not I. But what assurance have you that she will not
+bribe her guard?”
+
+Marius laughed, rose, and pushed back his chair.
+
+“Madame,” said he, “you are back at your contemplation of the worst side
+of this affair; you are persisting in considering only how we may be
+thwarted. But set your mind at rest. Gilles is her sentinel. Every night
+he sleeps in her anteroom. He is Fortunio’s most trusted man. She will
+not corrupt him.”
+
+The Dowager smiled pensively, her eyes upon the fire. Suddenly she
+raised them to his face. “Berthaud was none the less trusted. Yet, with
+no more than a promise of reward at some future time should she succeed
+in escaping from us, did she bribe him to carry her letter to the Queen.
+What happened to Berthaud that may not happen to Gilles?”
+
+“You might change her sentry nightly,” put in the Seneschal.
+
+“Yes, if we knew whom we could trust; who would be above corruption.
+As it is”--she shrugged her shoulders “that would be but to afford her
+opportunities to bribe them one by one until they were all ready to act
+in concert.”
+
+“Why need she any sentinel at all?” asked Tressan, with some show of
+sense.
+
+“To ward off possible traitors,” she told him, and Marius smiled and
+wagged his head.
+
+“Madame is never done foreseeing the worst, monsieur.”
+
+“Which shows my wisdom. The men in our garrison are mercenaries, all
+attached to us only because we pay them. They all know who she is and
+what her wealth.”
+
+“Pity you have not a man who is deaf and dumb,” said Tressan, half in
+jest. But Marius looked up suddenly, his eyes serious.
+
+“We have as good,” said he. “There is the Italian knave Fortunio
+enrolled yesterday, as I have told you. He knows neither her wealth nor
+her identity; nor if he did could he enter into traffic with her, for he
+knows no French, and she no Italian.”
+
+The Dowager clapped her hands. “The very man!” she cried.
+
+But Marius, either from sheer perverseness, or because he did not share
+her enthusiasm, made answer: “I have faith in Gilles.”
+
+“Yes,” she mocked him, “and you had faith in Berthaud. Oh, if you have
+faith in Gilles, let him remain; let no more be said.”
+
+The obstinate boy took her advice, and shifted the subject, speaking to
+Tressan of some trivial business connected with the Seneschalship.
+
+But madame, woman-like, returned to the matter whose abandoning she had
+herself suggested. Marius, for all his affected disdain of it, viewed it
+with a certain respect. And so in the end they sent for the recruit.
+
+Fortunio--who was no other than the man Garnache had known as
+“Sanguinetti”--brought him, still clad in the clothes in which he had
+come. He was a tall, limber fellow, with a very swarthy skin and black,
+oily-looking hair that fell in short ringlets about his ears and neck,
+and a black, drooping mustache which gave him a rather hang-dog look.
+There was a thick stubble of beard of several days’ growth about his
+chin and face; his eyes were furtive in their glances, but of a deep
+blue that contrasted oddly with his blackness when he momentarily raised
+them.
+
+He wore a tattered jerkin, and his legs, in default of stockings, were
+swathed in soiled bandages and cross-gartered from ankle to knee. He
+stood in a pair of wooden shoes, from one of which peeped forth some
+wisps of straw, introduced, no doubt, to make the footgear fit. He
+slouched and shuffled in his walk, and he was unspeakably dirty.
+Nevertheless, he was girt with a sword in a ragged scabbard hanging from
+a frayed and shabby belt of leather.
+
+Madame scanned him with interest. The fastidious Marius eyed him with
+disgust. The Seneschal peered at him curiously through shortsighted
+eyes.
+
+“I do not think I have ever seen a dirtier ruffian,” said he.
+
+“I like his nose,” said madame quietly. “It is the nose of an intrepid
+man.”
+
+“It reminds me of Garnache’s,” laughed the Seneschal.
+
+“You flatter the Parisian,” commented Marius.
+
+The mercenary, meanwhile, stood blandly smiling at the party, showing at
+least a fine array of teeth, and wearing the patient, attentive air of
+one who realizes himself to be under discussion, yet does not understand
+what is being said.
+
+“A countryman of yours, Fortunio?” sneered Marius.
+
+The captain, whose open, ingenuous countenance dissembled as
+villainous a heart as ever beat in the breast of any man, disowned the
+compatriotism with a smile.
+
+“Hardly, monsieur,” said he. “‘Battista’ is a Piedmontese.” Fortunio
+himself was a Venetian.
+
+“Is he to be relied upon, think you?” asked madame. Fortunio shrugged
+his shoulders and spread his hands. It was not his habit to trust any
+man inordinately.
+
+“He is an old soldier,” said he. “He has trailed a pike in the
+Neapolitan wars. I have cross-questioned him, and found his answers bore
+out the truth of what he said.”
+
+“And what brings him to France?” asked Tressan. The captain smiled
+again, and there came again that expressive shrug of his. “A little
+over-ready with the steel,” said he.
+
+They told Fortunio that they proposed to place him sentry over
+mademoiselle instead of Gilles, as the Italian’s absolute lack of French
+would ensure against corruption. The captain readily agreed with them.
+It would be a wise step. The Italian fingered his tattered hat, his eyes
+on the ground.
+
+Suddenly madame spoke to him. She asked him for some account of himself
+and whence he came, using the Italian tongue, of which she had a passing
+knowledge. He followed her questions very attentively, at times with
+apparent difficulty, his eyes on her face, his head craned a little
+forward.
+
+Now and then Fortunio had to intervene, to make plainer to this ignorant
+Piedmontese mind the Marquise’s questions. His answers came in a
+deep, hoarse voice, slurred by the accent of Piedmont, and madame--her
+knowledge of Italian being imperfect--had frequently to have recourse to
+Fortunio to discover the meaning of what he said.
+
+At last she dismissed the pair of them, bidding the captain see that he
+was washed and more fittingly clothed.
+
+An hour later, after the Seneschal had taken his departure to ride home
+to Grenoble, it was madame herself, accompanied by Marius and Fortunio,
+who conducted Battista--such was the name the Italian had given--to
+the apartments above, where mademoiselle was now confined practically a
+prisoner.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI. VALERIE’S GAOLER
+
+My child, said the Dowager, and her eyes dwelt on Valerie with a look of
+studied gentleness, “why will you not be reasonable?”
+
+The constant reflection that Garnache was at large, making his way back
+to Paris to stir up vengeance for the outrage put upon him, was not
+without a certain chastening effect upon the Dowager. She had a way of
+saying that she had as good a stomach for a fight as any man in France,
+and a fight there should be if it came to it and Garnache should return
+to assail Condillac. Yet a certain pondering of the consequences, a
+certain counting of the cost--ordinarily unusual to her nature led her
+to have recourse to persuasion and to a gentleness no less unusual.
+
+Valerie’s eyes were raised to hers with a look that held more scorn than
+wonder. They were standing in the antechamber of Valerie’s room. Yonder
+at his post lounged the recruit “Battista,” looking a trifle cleaner
+than when first he had been presented to the Marquise, but still not
+clean enough for a lady’s antechamber. He was leaning stolidly against
+the sill of the window, his eyes on the distant waters of the Isere,
+which shone a dull copper colour in the afterglow of the October sunset.
+His face was vacant, his eyes pensive, as he stood there undisturbed by
+the flow of a language he did not understand.
+
+Fortunio and Marius had departed, and the Marquise--played upon by her
+unusual tremors--had remained behind for a last word with the obstinate
+girl.
+
+“In what, madame,” asked Valerie, “does my conduct fall short of
+reasonableness?”
+
+The Dowager made a movement of impatience. If at every step she were
+to be confronted by these questions, which had in them a savour of
+challenge, she was wasting time in remaining.
+
+“You are unreasonable, in this foolish clinging to a promise given for
+you.”
+
+“Given by me, madame,” the girl amended, knowing well to what promise
+the Dowager referred.
+
+“Given by you, then; but given at an age when you could not understand
+the nature of it. They had no right to bind you so.”
+
+“If it is for any to question that right, it is for me,” Valerie made
+answer, her eyes ever meeting the Dowager’s unflinchingly. “And I am
+content to leave that right unquestioned. I am content to fill the
+promise given. In honour I could not do less.”
+
+“Ah! In honour!” The Dowager sighed. Then she came a step nearer, and
+her face grew sweetly wistful. “But your heart, child; what of your
+heart?”
+
+“My heart concerns myself. I am the betrothed of Florimond--that is all
+that concerns the world and you. I respect and admire him more than any
+living man, and I shall be proud to become his wife when he returns, as
+his wife I shall become in spite of all that you and your son may do.”
+
+The Dowager laughed softly, as if to herself.
+
+“And if I tell you that Florimond is dead?”
+
+“When you give me proof of that, I shall believe it,” the girl replied.
+The Marquise looked at her, her face manifesting no offence at the
+almost insulting words.
+
+“And if I were to lay that proof before you?” she inquired, sadly
+almost.
+
+Valerie’s eyes opened a trifle wider, as if in apprehension. But her
+answer was prompt and her voice steady. “It still could have no effect
+upon my attitude towards your son.”
+
+“This is foolishness, Valerie--”
+
+“In you it is, madame,” the girl broke in; “a foolishness to think you
+can constrain a girl, compel her affections, command her love, by such
+means as you have employed towards me. You think that it predisposes me
+to be wooed, that it opens my heart to your son, to see myself gaoled
+that he may pay me his court.”
+
+“Gaoled, child? Who gaols you?” the Dowager cried, as if the most
+surprising utterance had fallen from Valerie’s lips.
+
+Mademoiselle smiled in sorrow and some scorn.
+
+“Am I not gaoled, then?” she asked. “What call you this? What does that
+fellow there? He is to lie outside my door at nights to see that none
+holds communication with me. He is to go with me each morning to the
+garden, when, by your gracious charity I take the air. Sleeping and
+waking the man is ever within hearing of any word that I may utter--”
+
+“But he has no French!” the Dowager protested.
+
+“To ensure, no doubt, against any attempt of mine to win him to my side,
+to induce him to aid me escape from this prison. Oh, madame, I tell you
+you do but waste time, and you punish me and harass yourself to little
+purpose. Had Marius been such a man as I might have felt it in my nature
+to love--which Heaven forbid!--these means by which you have sought to
+bring that thing about could but have resulted in making me hate him as
+I do.”
+
+The Dowager’s fears were banished from her mind at that, and with them
+went all thought of conciliating Valerie. Anger gleamed in her eyes; the
+set of her lips grew suddenly sneering and cruel, so that the beauty of
+her face but served to render it hateful the more.
+
+“So that you hate him, ma mie?” a ripple of mockery on the current of
+her voice, “and he a man such as any girl in France might be proud
+to wed. Well, well, you are not to be constrained, you say.” And
+the Marquise’s laugh was menacing and unpleasant. “Be not so sure,
+mademoiselle. Be not so sure of that. It may well betide that you shall
+come to beg upon your knees for this alliance with a man whom you tell
+me that you hate. Be not so sure you cannot be constrained.”
+
+Their eyes met; both women were white to the lips, but it was curbed
+passion in the one, and deadly fear in the other; for what the Dowager’s
+words left unsaid her eyes most eloquently conveyed. The girl shrank
+back, her hands clenched, her lip caught in her teeth.
+
+“There is a God in heaven, madame,” she reminded the Marquise.
+
+“Aye--in heaven,” laughed the Marquise, turning to depart. She paused by
+the door, which the Italian had sprung forward to open for her.
+
+“Marius shall take the air with you in the morning if it is fine. Ponder
+meanwhile what I have said.”
+
+“Does this man remain here, madame?” inquired the girl, vainly seeking
+to render her voice steady.
+
+“In the outer anteroom is his place: but as the key of this room is on
+his side of the door, he may enter here when he so pleases, or when he
+thinks that he has reason to. If the sight of him displeases you, you
+may lock yourself from it in your own chamber yonder.”
+
+The same she said in Italian to the man, who bowed impassively,
+and followed the Dowager into the outer room, closing the door upon
+mademoiselle. It was a chamber almost bare of furniture, save for a
+table and chair which had been placed there, so that the gaoler might
+take his meals.
+
+The man followed the Marquise across the bare floor, their steps
+resounding as they went, and he held the outer door for her.
+
+Without another word she left him, and where he stood he could hear her
+steps as she tripped down the winding staircase of stone. At last the
+door of the courtyard closed with a bang, and the grating of a key
+announced to the mercenary that he and his charge were both imprisoned
+in that tower of the Chateau de Condillac.
+
+Left alone in the anteroom, mademoiselle crossed to the window and
+dropped limply into a chair. Her face was still very white, her heart
+beating tumultuously, for the horrid threat that had been conveyed in
+the Dowager’s words had brought her her first thrill of real fear since
+the beginning of this wooing-by-force three months ago, a wooing which
+had become more insistent and less like a wooing day by day, until it
+had culminated in her present helpless position.
+
+She was a strong-souled, high-spirited girl, but tonight hope seemed
+extinguished in her breast. Florimond, too, seemed to have abandoned
+her. Either he had forgotten her, or he was dead, as the Dowager said.
+Which might be the true state of things she did not greatly care. The
+realization of how utterly she was in the power of Madame de Condillac
+and her son, and the sudden chance discovery of how unscrupulously that
+power might be wielded, filled her mind to the exclusion of all else.
+
+By the window she sat, watching, without heeding them, the fading
+colours in the sky. She was abandoned to these monsters, and it seemed
+they would devour her. She could hope for no help from outside since
+they had as she believed--slain Monsieur de Garnache. Her mind dwelt for
+a moment on that glimpse of rescue that had been hers a week ago, upon
+the few hours of liberty which she had enjoyed, but which only seemed
+now to increase the dark hopelessness of her imprisonment.
+
+Again with the eyes of her mind she beheld that grim, stalwart figure,
+saw his great nose, his greying hair, his fierce mustachios and his
+stern, quick eyes. Again she heard the rasp of his metallic voice with
+its brisk derision. She saw him in the hall below, his foot upon the
+neck of that popinjay of Condillac daring them all to draw a breath,
+should he forbid it; again in fancy she rode on the withers of his horse
+at the gallop towards Grenoble. A sigh escaped her. Surely that was the
+first man who was indeed a man she had ever set eyes on since her father
+died. Had Garnache been spared, she would have felt courage and she
+would have hoped, for there was something about him that suggested
+energy and resource such as it is good to lean upon in times of stress.
+Again she heard that brisk, metallic voice: “Are you content, madame?
+Have you had fine deeds enough for one day?”
+
+And then, breaking in upon her musings came the very voice of her
+day-dream, so suddenly, sounding so natural and lifelike that she almost
+screamed, so startled was she.
+
+“Mademoiselle,” it said, “I beg that you’ll not utterly lose heart. I
+have come back to the thing Her Majesty bade me do, and I’ll do it, in
+spite of that tigress and her cub.”
+
+She sat still as a statue, scarce breathing, her eyes fixed upon the
+violet sky. The voice had ceased, but still she sat on. Then it was
+slowly borne in upon her that that was no dream-voice, no trick of her
+overburdened mind. A voice, a living, actual voice had uttered those
+words in this room, here at her elbow.
+
+She turned, and again she almost screamed; for there, just behind her,
+his glittering eyes fixed upon her with singular intentness, stood the
+swarthy, black-haired Italian gaoler they had given her because he had
+no French.
+
+He had come up so quietly behind her that she had not heard his
+approach, and he was leaning forward now, with an odd suggestion of
+crouching in his attitude, like a beast about to spring. Yet his gaze
+riveted hers as with a fascination. And so, while she looked, his lips
+moved, and from them, in that same voice of her dreams, came from this
+man who had no French, the words:
+
+“Be not afraid, mademoiselle. I am that blunderer, Garnache, that
+unworthy fool whose temper ruined what chance of saving you he had a
+week ago.”
+
+She stared like one going mad.
+
+“Garnache!” said she, in a husky whisper. “You Garnache?”
+
+Yet the voice, she knew, was Garnache’s and none other. It was a voice
+not easily mistaken. And now, as she looked and looked, she saw that the
+man’s nose was Garnache’s, though oddly stained, and those keen eyes,
+they were Garnache’s too. But the hair that had been brown and flecked
+with grey was black; the reddish mustachios that had bristled like a
+mountain cat’s were black, too, and they hung limp and hid from sight
+the fine lines of his mouth. A hideous stubble of unshorn beard defaced
+his chin and face, and altered its sharp outline; and the clear, healthy
+skin that she remembered was now a dirty brown.
+
+Suddenly the face smiled, and it was a smile that reassured her and
+drove away the last doubt that she had. She was on her feet in an
+instant.
+
+“Monsieur, monsieur,” was all that she could say; but her longing was to
+fling her arms about the neck of this man, as she might have flung them
+about the neck of a brother or a father, and sob out upon his shoulder
+the sudden relief and revulsion that his presence brought.
+
+Garnache saw something of her agitation, and to relieve it he smiled and
+began to tell her the circumstances of his return and his presentation
+to Madame as a knave who had no French.
+
+“Fortune was very good to me, mademoiselle,” said he. “I had little hope
+that such a face as mine could be disguised, but I take no pride in what
+you see. It is the handiwork of Rabecque, the most ingenious lackey that
+ever served a foolish master. It helped me that having been ten years in
+Italy when I was younger, I acquired the language so well as to be able
+to impose even upon Fortunio. In that lay a circumstance which at once
+disarmed suspicion, and if I stay not so long as it shall take the dye
+to wear from my hair and beard and the staining from my face, I shall
+have little to fear.”
+
+“But, monsieur,” she cried, “you have everything to fear!” And alarm
+grew in her eyes.
+
+But he laughed again for answer. “I have faith in my luck, mademoiselle,
+and I think I am on the tide of it at present. I little hoped when I
+made my way into Condillac in this array that I should end, by virtue
+of my pretended ignorance of French, in being appointed gaoler to you. I
+had some ado to keep the joy from my eyes when I heard them planning it.
+It is a thing that has made all else easy.”
+
+“But what can you do alone, monsieur?” she asked him; and there was a
+note almost of petulance in her voice.
+
+He moved to the window, and leaned his elbow on the sill. The light was
+fast fading. “I know not yet. But I am here to contrive a means. I shall
+think and watch.”
+
+“You know in what hourly peril I am placed,” she cried, and suddenly
+remembering that he must have overheard and understood the Dowager’s
+words, a sudden heat came to her cheeks to recede again and leave them
+marble-pale. And she thanked Heaven that in the dusk and in the shadow
+where she stood he could but ill make out her face.
+
+“If you think that I have been rash in returning--”
+
+“No, no, not rash, monsieur; noble and brave above all praise. I would
+indeed I could tell you how noble and brave I account your action.”
+
+“It is as nothing to the bravery required to let Rabecque do this
+hideous work upon a face for which I have ever entertained some measure
+of respect.”
+
+He jested, sooner than enlighten her that it was his egregious pride
+had fetched him back when he was but a few hours upon his journey
+Pariswards, his inability to brook the ridicule that would be his when
+he announced at the Luxembourg that failure had attended him.
+
+“Ah, but what can you do alone?” she repeated.
+
+“Give me at least a day or two to devise some means; let me look round
+and take the measure of this gaol. Some way there must be. I have not
+come so far and so successfully to be beaten now. Still,” he continued,
+“if you think that I overrate my strength or my resource, if you
+would sooner that I sought men and made an assault upon Condillac,
+endeavouring to carry it and to let the Queen’s will prevail by force of
+arms, tell me so, and I am gone tomorrow.”
+
+“Whither would you go?” she cried, her voice strained with sudden
+affright.
+
+“I might seek help at Lyons or Moulins. I might find loyal soldiers who
+would be willing to follow me by virtue of my warrant to levy such help
+as I may require, if I but tell them that the help was refused me in
+Grenoble. I am not sure that it would be so, for, unfortunately, my
+warrant is for the Seneschal of Dauphiny only. Still, I might make the
+attempt.”
+
+“No, no,” she implored him, and in her eagerness to have him put all
+thought of leaving her from his mind, she caught him by the arm and
+raised a pleading face to his. “Do not leave me here, monsieur; of your
+pity do not leave me alone amongst them. Think me a coward if you will,
+monsieur: I am no less. They have made a coward of me.”
+
+He understood the thing she dreaded, and a great pity welled up from
+his generous heart for this poor unfriended girl at the mercy of the
+beautiful witch of Condillac and her beautiful rascally son. He patted
+the hand that clutched his arm.
+
+“I think, myself, that it will be best if I remain, now that I have come
+so far,” he said. “Let me ponder things. It may well be that I shall
+devise some way.”
+
+“May Heaven inspire you, monsieur. I shall spend the night in prayer, I
+think, imploring God and His saints to show you the way you seek.”
+
+“Heaven, I think, should hear your prayers, mademoiselle,” he answered
+musingly, his glance upon the white, saintly face that seemed to shine
+in the deepening gloom. Then, suddenly he stirred and bent to listen.
+
+“Sh! Some one is coming,” he whispered. And he sped quickly from her
+side and into the outer room, where he sank noiselessly on to his chair
+as the steps ascended the stone staircase and a glow of yellow light
+grew gradually in the doorway that opened on to it.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII. A MATTER OF CONSCIENCE
+
+That he might inspire the more confidence in the Dowager and her son
+Garnache organized and performed a little comedy at Condillac a couple
+of nights after his appointment as mademoiselle’s gaoler. He gave an
+alarm at dead midnight, and when half-clad men, followed presently
+by madame and Marian, rushed into the anteroom where he stood, a very
+picture of the wildest excitement, he drew their attention to two
+twisted sheets, tied end to end, hanging from the window which
+overlooked the moat; and in answer to the marquise’s questions he
+informed her that he had been disturbed by sounds of movements and
+upon entering the chamber he had discovered mademoiselle making these
+preparations for departure.
+
+Valerie, locked in the inner chamber, refused to come forth as the
+Marquise bade her, but her voice reassured Madame de Condillac of her
+presence, and so, since her attempt had failed, madame was content to
+let her be.
+
+“The little fool,” she said, peering down from the window into the
+night; “she would have been killed for certain. Her rope of sheets does
+not reach more than a third of the way down. She would have had over
+thirty feet to fall, and if that had not been enough to finish her, she
+would of a certainty have, been drowned in the moat.”
+
+She signified her satisfaction with the faithful “Battista’s” vigilance
+by a present of some gold pieces in the morning, and since the height of
+the window and the moat beneath it did not appear sufficient obstacles
+to mademoiselle’s attempts at effecting her escape, the Dowager had the
+window nailed down. Thus, only by breaking it could egress be obtained,
+and the breaking of it could not be effected without such a noise as
+must arouse “Battista.”
+
+Under Garnache’s instructions the comedy was carried a little further.
+Mademoiselle affected for her gaoler a most unconquerable aversion, and
+this she took pains to proclaim.
+
+One morning, three days after her attempted escape, she was taking the
+air in the garden of Condillac, “Battista,” ever watchful, a few paces
+behind her, when suddenly she was joined by Marius--a splendid, graceful
+figure in a riding-suit of brown velvet and biscuit-coloured hose, his
+points tipped with gold, his long boots of the finest marroquin leather,
+his liver-coloured hound at his heels. It was the last day of October,
+but the weather, from cold and wet that it had been for the past
+fortnight, had taken on a sudden improvement. The sun shone, the air
+was still and warm, and but for the strewn leaves and the faint smell
+of decay with which the breath of autumn is ever laden, one might have
+fancied it a day of early spring.
+
+It was not Valerie’s wont to pause when Marius approached. Since she
+might not prevent him from walking where he listed, she had long since
+abandoned the futility of bidding him begone when he came near her. But,
+at least, she had never stopped in her walk, never altered its pace; she
+had suffered what she might not avoid, but she had worn the outward air
+of suffering it with indifference. This morning, however, she made a
+departure from her long habit. Not only did she pause upon observing his
+approach, but she called to him as if she would have him hasten to her
+side. And hasten he did, a new light in his eyes that was mostly of
+surprise, but a little, also, of hope.
+
+She was gracious to him for once, and gave him good morning in a manner
+that bordered upon the pleasant. Wondering, he fell into step beside
+her, and they paced together the yew-bordered terrace, the ever-vigilant
+but discreet “Battista” following them, though keeping now a few paces
+farther in the rear.
+
+For a little while they appeared constrained, and their talk was of the
+falling leaves and the grateful change that had so suddenly come upon
+the weather. Suddenly she stopped and faced him.
+
+“Will you do me a favour, Marius?” she asked. He halted too, and turned
+to her, studying her gentle face, seeking to guess her mind in the
+clear hazel eyes she raised to his. His eyebrows lifted slightly with
+surprise. Nevertheless--
+
+“There is in all the world, Valerie, nothing you could ask me that I
+would not do,” he protested.
+
+She smiled wistfully. “How easy it is to utter words!” she sighed.
+
+“Marry me,” he answered, leaning towards her, his eyes devouring her
+now, “and you shall find my words very quickly turned to deeds.”
+
+“Ah,” said she, and her smile broadened and took on a scornful twist,
+“you make conditions now. If I will marry you, there is nothing you will
+not do for me; so that, conversely, I may take it that if I do not marry
+you, there is nothing you will do. But in the meantime, Marius, until
+I resolve me whether I will marry you or not, would you not do a little
+thing that I might ask of you?”
+
+“Until you resolve?” he cried, and his face flushed with the sudden hope
+he gathered from those words. Hitherto there had been no suggestion of
+a possible modification of attitude towards his suit. It had been
+repulsion, definite and uncompromising. Again he studied her face.
+Was she fooling him, this girl with the angel-innocence of glance? The
+thought of such a possibility cooled him instantly. “What is it you want
+of me?” he asked, his voice ungracious.
+
+“Only a little thing, Marius.” Her glance travelled back over her
+shoulder to the tall, limber fellow in leather jerkin and with
+cross-gartered legs who lounged a dozen steps behind them. “Rid me of
+that ruffian’s company,” said she.
+
+Marius looked back at “Battista,” and from him to Valerie. Then he
+smiled and made a slight movement with his shoulders.
+
+“But to what end?” he asked, as one who pleadingly opposes an argument
+that is unreasonable. “Another would replace him, and there is little to
+choose among the men that garrison Condillac.”
+
+“Little, perhaps; but that little matters.” Sure of her ground, and
+gathering from his tone and manner that the more ardently she begged
+this thing the less likely would it be that she should prevail, she
+pursued her intercessions with a greater heat. “Oh,” she cried, in a
+pretended rage, “it is to insult me to give me that unclean knave for
+perpetual company. I loathe and detest him. The very sight of him is too
+much to endure.”
+
+“You exaggerate,” said he coldly.
+
+“I do not; indeed I do not,” she rejoined, looking frankly, pleadingly
+into his face. “You do not realize what it is to suffer the insolent
+vigilance of such as he; to feel that your every step is under
+surveillance; to feel his eyes ever upon you when you are within his
+sight. Oh, it is insufferable!”
+
+Suddenly he gripped her arm, his face within a hand’s breadth of her
+own, his words falling hot and quickly on her ear.
+
+“It is yours to end it when you will, Valerie,” he passionately reminded
+her. “Give yourself into my keeping. Let it be mine to watch over you
+henceforth. Let me--”
+
+Abruptly he ceased. She had drawn back her head, her face was white to
+the lips, and in her eyes, as they dwelt on his at such close quarters,
+there appeared a look of terror, of loathing unutterable. He saw it, and
+releasing her arm he fell back as if she had struck him. The colour left
+his face too.
+
+“Or is it,” he muttered thickly, “that I inspire you, with much the same
+feeling as does he?”
+
+She stood before him with lowered eyelids, her bosom heaving still from
+the agitation of fear his closeness had aroused in her. He studied her
+in silence a moment, with narrowing eyes and tightening lips. Then
+anger stirred in him, and quenched the sorrow with which at first he had
+marked the signs of her repulsion. But anger in Marius de Condillac was
+a cold and deadly emotion that vented itself in no rantings, uttered
+no loud-voiced threats or denunciations, prompted no waving of arms or
+plucking forth of weapons.
+
+He stooped towards her again from his stately, graceful height.
+The cruelty hidden in the beautiful lines of his mouth took instant
+prominence in the smile that flickered round it.
+
+“I think that Battista makes a very excellent watchdog,” he said, and
+you would have thought him amused, as if at the foolish subterfuge of
+some little child. “You may be right to dislike him. He knows no French,
+so that it may not be yours to pervert and bribe him with promises of
+what you will do if he assists you to escape; but you will see that this
+very quality which renders him detestable to you renders him invaluable
+to us.”
+
+He laughed softly, as one well pleased with his own astuteness, doffed
+his hat with a politeness almost exaggerated, and whistling his dog he
+abruptly left her.
+
+Thus were Marius and his mother--to whom he bore the tale of Valerie’s
+request--tricked further into reposing the very fullest trust in the
+watchful, incorruptible “Battista.” Realizing that this would be so,
+Garnache now applied himself more unreservedly to putting into effect
+the plans he had been maturing. And he went about it with a zest that
+knew no flagging, with a relish that nothing could impair. Not that it
+was other than usual for Garnache to fling himself whole-heartedly into
+the conduct of any enterprise he might have upon his hands; but he
+had come into this affair at Condillac against his will; stress of
+circumstances it was had driven him on, step by step, to take a personal
+hand in the actual deliverance of Valerie.
+
+It was vanity and pride that had turned him back when already he was on
+the road to Paris; not without yet a further struggle would he accept
+defeat. To this end had he been driven, for the first time in his life,
+to the indignity of his foul disguise; and he, whose methods had ever
+been direct, had been forced to have recourse to the commonest of
+subterfuges. It was with anger in his heart that he had proceeded to
+play the part he had assumed. He felt it to be a thing unworthy of
+him, a thing that derogated from his self-respect. Had he but had the
+justification of some high political aim, he might have endured it
+with a better resignation; the momentous end to be served might have
+sanctioned the ignoble means adopted. But here was a task in itself
+almost as unworthy of him as the methods by which he now set about
+accomplishing it. He was to black his face and dye his beard and hair,
+stain his skin and garb himself in filthy rags, for no better end than
+that he might compass the enlargement of a girl from the captivity into
+which she had been forced by a designing lady of Dauphiny. Was that a
+task to set a soldier, a man of his years and birth and name? He had
+revolted at it; yet that stubborn pride of his that would not brook his
+return to Paris to confess himself defeated by a woman over this woman’s
+business, held him relentlessly to his distasteful course.
+
+And gradually the distaste of it had melted. It had begun to fall
+away five nights ago, when he had heard what passed between Madame de
+Condillac and Valerie. A great pity for this girl, a great indignation
+against those who would account no means too base to achieve their ends
+with her, a proper realization of the indignities she was suffering,
+caused him to shed some of his reluctance, some of his sense of injury
+to himself.
+
+His innate chivalry, that fine spirit of his which had ever prompted him
+to defend the weak against the oppressor, stirred him now, and stirred
+him to such purpose that, in the end, from taking up the burden of his
+task reluctantly, he came to bear it zestfully and almost gladly. He was
+rejoiced to discover himself equipped with histrionic gifts of which
+he had had no suspicion hitherto, and it delighted him to set them into
+activity.
+
+Now it happened that at Condillac there was a fellow countryman of
+“Battista’s,” a mercenary from Northern Italy, a rascal named Arsenio,
+whom Fortunio had enlisted when first he began to increase the garrison
+a month ago. Upon this fellow’s honesty Garnache had formed designs.
+He had closely observed him, and in Arsenio’s countenance he thought he
+detected a sufficiency of villainy to augur well for the prosperity
+of any scheme of treachery that might be suggested to him provided the
+reward were adequate.
+
+Garnache went about sounding the man with a wiliness peculiarly his own.
+Arsenio being his only compatriot at Condillac it was not wonderful
+that in his few daily hours of relief from his gaoler’s duty “Battista”
+ should seek out the fellow and sit in talk with him. The pair became
+intimate, and intercourse between them grew more free and unrestrained.
+Garnache waited, wishing to risk nothing by precipitancy, and watched
+for his opportunity. It came on the morrow of All Saints. On that Day of
+the Dead, Arsenio, whose rearing had been that of a true son of Mother
+Church, was stirred by the memory of his earthly mother, who had died
+some three years before. He was silent and moody, and showed little
+responsiveness to Garnache’s jesting humour. Garnache, wondering what
+might be toward in the fellow’s mind, watched him closely.
+
+Suddenly the little man--he was a short, bowlegged, sinewy
+fellow--heaved a great sigh as he plucked idly at a weed that grew
+between two stones of the inner courtyard, where they were seated on the
+chapel steps.
+
+“You are a dull comrade to-day, compatriot,” said Garnache, clapping him
+on the shoulder.
+
+“It is the Day of the Dead,” the fellow answered him, as though that
+were an ample explanation. Garnache laughed.
+
+“To those that are dead it no doubt is; so was yesterday, so will
+to-morrow be. But to us who sit here it is the day of the living.”
+
+“You are a scoffer,” the other reproached him, and his rascally face was
+oddly grave. “You don’t understand.”
+
+“Enlighten me, then. Convert me.”
+
+“It is the day when our thoughts turn naturally to the dead, and mine
+are with my mother, who has lain in her grave these three years. I am
+thinking of what she reared me and of what I am.”
+
+Garnache made a grimace which the other did not observe. He stared at
+the little cut-throat, and there was some dismay in his glance. What
+ailed the rogue? Was he about to repent him of his sins, and to have
+done with villainy and treachery; was he minded to slit no more gullets
+in the future, be faithful to the hand that paid him, and lead a
+godlier life? Peste! That was a thing that would nowise suit Monsieur
+de Garnache’s ends just then. If Arsenio had a mind to reform, let him
+postpone that reformation until Garnache should have done with him. So
+he opened his lips and let out a deep guffaw of mockery.
+
+“We shall have you turning monk,” said he, “a candidate for canonization
+going barefoot, with flagellated back and shaven head. No more wine, no
+more dice, no more wenches, no more--”
+
+“Peace!” snapped the other.
+
+“Say ‘Pax,”’ suggested Garnache, “‘Pax tecum,’ or ‘vobiscum.’ It is thus
+you will be saying it later.”
+
+“If my conscience pricks me, is it aught to you? Have you no conscience
+of your own?”
+
+“None. Men wax lean on it in this vale of tears. It is a thing invented
+by the great to enable them to pursue the grinding and oppression of the
+small. If your master pays you ill for the dirty work you do for him
+and another comes along to offer you some rich reward for an omission in
+that same service, you are warned that if you let yourself be tempted,
+your conscience will plague you afterwards. Pish! A clumsy, childish
+device that, to keep you faithful.”
+
+Arsenio looked up. Words that defamed the great were ever welcome to
+him; arguments that showed him he was oppressed and imposed upon sounded
+ever gratefully in his ears. He nodded his approval of “Battista’s”
+ dictum.
+
+“Body of Bacchus!” he swore, “you are right in that, compatriot. But my
+case is different. I am thinking of the curse that Mother Church has
+put upon this house. Yesterday was All Saints, and never a Mass heard I.
+To-day is All Souls, and never a prayer may I offer up in this place of
+sin for the rest of my mother’s soul.”
+
+“How so?” quoth Garnache, looking in wonder at this religiously minded
+cut-throat.
+
+“How so? Is not the House of Condillac under excommunication, and every
+man who stays in it of his own free will? Prayers and Sacraments are
+alike forbidden here.”
+
+Garnache received a sudden inspiration. He leapt to his feet, his face
+convulsed as if at the horror of learning of a hitherto undreamt-of
+state of things. He never paused to give a moment’s consideration to the
+cut-throat’s mind, so wonderfully constituted as to enable him to break
+with impunity every one of the commandments every day of the week for
+the matter of a louis d’or or two, and yet be afflicted by qualms of
+conscience at living under a roof upon which the Church had hurled her
+malediction.
+
+“What are you saying, compatriot? What is it that you tell me?”
+
+“The truth,” said Arsenio, with a shrug. “Any man who wilfully abides in
+the services of Condillac”--and instinctively he lowered his voice
+lest the Captain or the Marquise should be within earshot--, “is
+excommunicate.”
+
+“By the Host!” swore the false Piedmontese. “I am a Christian man
+myself, Arsenio, and I have lived in ignorance of this thing?”
+
+“That ignorance may be your excuse. But now that you know--” Arsenio
+shrugged his shoulders.
+
+“Now that I know, I had best have a care of my soul and look about me
+for other employment.”
+
+“Alas!” sighed Arsenio; “it is none so easy to find.”
+
+Garnache looked at him. Garnache began to have in his luck a still
+greater faith than hitherto. He glanced stealthily around; then he sat
+down again, so that his mouth was close to Arsenio’s ear.
+
+“The pay is beggarly here, yet I have refused a fortune offered me by
+another that I might remain loyal to my masters at Condillac. But this
+thing that you tell me alters everything. By the Host! yes.”
+
+“A fortune?” sneered Arsenio.
+
+“Aye, a fortune--at least, fifty pistoles. That is a fortune to some of
+us.”
+
+Arsenio whistled. “Tell me more,” said he.
+
+Garnache rose with the air of one about to depart.
+
+“I must think of it,” said he, and he made shift to go. But the other’s
+hand fell with a clenching grip upon his arm.
+
+“Of what must you think, fool?” said he. “Tell me this service you have
+been offered. I have a conscience that upbraids me. If you refuse these
+fifty pistoles, why should not I profit by your folly?”
+
+“There would not be the need. Two men are required for the thing I speak
+of, and there are fifty pistoles for each. If I decide to undertake the
+task, I’ll speak of you as a likely second.”
+
+He nodded gloomily to his companion, and shaking off his hold he set out
+to cross the yard. But Arsenio was after him and had fastened again upon
+his arm, detaining him.
+
+“You fool!” said he; “you’d not refuse this fortune?”
+
+“It would mean treachery,” whispered Garnache.
+
+“That is bad,” the other agreed, and his face fell. But remembering what
+Garnache had said, he was quick to brighten again. “Is it to these
+folk here at Condillac?” he asked. Garnache nodded. “And they would
+pay--these people that seek our service would pay you fifty pistoles?”
+
+“They seek my service only, as yet. They might seek yours were I to
+speak for you.”
+
+“And you will, compatriot. You will, will you not? We are comrades, we
+are friends, and we are fellow-countrymen in a strange land. There is
+nothing I would not do for you, Battista. Look, I would die for you if
+there should come the need! Body of Bacchus! I would. I am like that
+when I love a man.”
+
+Garnache patted his shoulder. “You are a good fellow, Arsenio.”
+
+“And you will speak for me?”
+
+“But you do not know the nature of the service,” said Garnache. “You may
+refuse it when it is definitely offered you.”
+
+“Refuse fifty pistoles? I should deserve to be the pauper that I am
+if such had been my habits. Be the service what it may, my conscience
+pricks me for serving Condillac. Tell me how the fifty pistoles are to
+be earned, and you may count upon me to put my hand to anything.”
+
+Garnache was satisfied. But he told Arsenio no more that day, beyond
+assuring him he would speak for him and let him know upon the morrow.
+Nor on the morrow, when they returned to the subject at Arsenio’s
+eager demand, did Garnache tell him all, or even that the service was
+mademoiselle’s. Instead he pretended that it was some one in Grenoble
+who needed two such men as they.
+
+“Word has been brought me,” he said mysteriously. “You must not ask me
+how.”
+
+“But how the devil are we to reach Grenoble? The Captain will never let
+us go,” said Arsenio, in an ill-humour.
+
+“On the night that you are of the watch, Arsenio, we will depart
+together without asking the Captain’s leave. You shall open the postern
+when I come to join you here in the courtyard.”
+
+“But what of the man at the door yonder?” And he jerked his thumb
+towards the tower where mademoiselle was a captive, and where at night
+“Battista” was locked in with her. At the door leading to the courtyard
+a sentry was always posted for greater security. That door and that
+sentry were obstacles which Garnache saw the futility of attempting
+to overcome without aid. That was why he had been forced to enlist
+Arsenio’s assistance.
+
+“You must account for him, Arsenio,” said he.
+
+“Thus?” inquired Arsenio coolly, and he passed the edge of his hand
+significantly across his throat. Garnache shook his head.
+
+“No,” said he; “there will be no need for that. A blow over the head
+will suffice. Besides, it may be quieter. You will find the key of the
+tower in his belt. When you have felled him, get it and unlock the door;
+then whistle for me. The rest will be easy.”
+
+“You are sure he has the key?”
+
+“I have it from madame herself. They were forced to leave it with him to
+provide for emergencies. Mademoiselle’s attempted escape by the window
+showed them the necessity for it.” He did not add that it was the
+implicit confidence they reposed in “Battista” himself that had overcome
+their reluctance to leave the key with the sentry.
+
+To seal the bargain, and in earnest of all the gold to come, Garnache
+gave Arsenio a couple of gold louis as a loan to be repaid him when
+their nameless employer should pay him his fifty pistoles in Grenoble.
+
+The sight and touch of the gold convinced Arsenio that the thing was no
+dream. He told Garnache that he believed he would be on guard-duty
+on the night of the following Wednesday--this was Friday--and so for
+Wednesday next they left the execution of their plans unless, meantime,
+a change should be effected in the disposition of the sentries.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII. THE COURIER
+
+Monsieur de Garnache was pleased with the issue of his little affair
+with Arsenio.
+
+“Mademoiselle,” he told Valerie that evening, “I was right to have faith
+in my luck, right to believe that the tide of it is flowing. All we need
+now is a little patience; everything has become easy.”
+
+It was the hour of supper. Valerie was at table in her anteroom, and
+“Battista” was in attendance. It was an added duty they had imposed upon
+him, for, since her attempt to escape, mademoiselle’s imprisonment had
+been rendered more rigorous than ever. No servant of the chateau was
+allowed past the door of the outer anteroom, now commonly spoken of as
+the guardroom of the tower. Valerie dined daily in the salon with Madame
+de Condillac and Marius, but her other meals were served her in her
+own apartments. The servants who brought the meals from the kitchen
+delivered them to “Battista” in the guardroom, and he it was who laid
+the cloth and waited upon mademoiselle. At first this added duty had
+irritated him more than all that he had so far endured. Had he Martin
+Marie Rigobert de Garnache lived to discharge the duties of a lackey,
+to bear dishes to a lady’s table and to remain at hand to serve her?
+The very thought had all but set him in a rage. But presently he grew
+reconciled to it. It afforded him particular opportunities of being in
+mademoiselle’s presence and of conferring with her; and for the sake
+of such an advantage he might well belittle the unsavoury part of the
+affair.
+
+A half-dozen candles burned in two gleaming silver sconces on the table;
+in her tall-backed leather chair mademoiselle sat, and ate and drank but
+little, while Garnache told her of the preparations he had made.
+
+“If my luck but holds until Wednesday next,” he concluded, “you may
+count upon being well out of Condillac. Arsenio does not dream that you
+come with us, so that even should he change his mind, at least we
+have no cause to fear a betrayal. But he will not change his mind. The
+prospect of fifty pistoles has rendered it immutable.”
+
+She looked up at him with eyes brightened by hope and by the
+encouragement to count upon success which she gathered from his
+optimism.
+
+“You have contrived it marvellously well,” she praised him. “If we
+succeed--”
+
+“Say when we succeed, mademoiselle,” he laughingly corrected her.
+
+“Very well, then--when we shall have succeeded in leaving Condillac,
+whither am I to go?”
+
+“Why, with me, to Paris, as was determined. My man awaits me at Voiron
+with money and horses. No further obstacle shall rise to hamper us once
+our backs are turned upon the ugly walls of Condillac. The Queen shall
+make you welcome and keep you safe until Monsieur Florimond comes to
+claim his bride.”
+
+She sipped her wine, then set down the glass and leaned her elbow on the
+table, taking her chin in her fine white hand. “Madame tells me that he
+is dead,” said she, and Garnache was shocked at the comparative calmness
+with which she said it. He looked at her sharply from under his sooted
+brows. Was she, after all, he wondered, no different from other women?
+Was she cold and calculating, and had she as little heart as he had come
+to believe was usual with her sex, that she could contemplate so calmly
+the possibility of her lover being dead? He had thought her better, more
+natural, more large-hearted and more pure. That had encouraged him to
+stand by her in these straits of hers, no matter at what loss of dignity
+to himself. It began to seem that his conclusions had been wrong.
+
+His silence caused her to look up, and in his face she read something of
+what was passing in his thoughts. She smiled rather wanly.
+
+“You are thinking me heartless, Monsieur de Garnache?”
+
+“I am thinking you--womanly.”
+
+“The same thing, then, to your mind. Tell me, monsieur, do you know much
+of women?”
+
+“God forbid! I have found trouble enough in my life.”
+
+“And you pass judgment thus upon a sex with which you have no
+acquaintance?”
+
+“Not by acquaintance only is it that we come to knowledge. There are
+ways of learning other than by the road of experience. One may learn of
+dangers by watching others perish. It is the fool who will be satisfied
+alone with the knowledge that comes to him from what he undergoes
+himself.”
+
+“You are very wise, monsieur,” said she demurely, so demurely that he
+suspected her of laughing at him. “You were never wed?”
+
+“Never, mademoiselle,” he answered stiffly, “nor ever in any danger of
+it.”
+
+“Must you, indeed, account it a danger?”
+
+“A deadly peril, mademoiselle,” said he; whereupon they both laughed.
+
+She pushed back her chair and rose slowly. Slowly she passed from the
+table and stepped towards the window. Turning she set her back to it,
+and faced him.
+
+“Monsieur de Garnache,” said she, “you are a good man, a true and noble
+gentleman. I would that you thought a little better of us. All women are
+not contemptible, believe me. I will pray that you may yet mate with one
+who will prove to you the truth of what I say.”
+
+He smiled gently, and shook his head.
+
+“My child,” said he, “I am not half the noble fellow you account me. I
+have a stubborn pride that stands me at times in the stead of virtue.
+It was pride brought me back here, for instance. I could not brook the
+laughter that would greet me in Paris did I confess that I was beaten by
+the Dowager of Condillac. I tell you this to the end that, thinking
+less well of me, you may spare me prayers which I should dread to see
+fulfilled. I have told you before, mademoiselle, Heaven is likely to
+answer the prayers of such a heart as yours.”
+
+“Yet but a moment back you deemed me heartless,” she reminded him.
+
+“You seemed so indifferent to the fate of Florimond de Condillac.”
+
+“I must have seemed, then, what I am not,” she told him, “for I am far
+from indifferent to Florimond’s fate. The truth is, monsieur, I do
+not believe Madame de Condillac. Knowing me to be under a promise that
+naught can prevail upon me to break, she would have me believe that
+nature has dissolved the obligation for me. She thinks that were I
+persuaded of Florimond’s death, I might turn an ear to the wooing
+of Marius. But she is mistaken, utterly mistaken; and so I sought to
+convince her. My father willed that I should wed Florimond. Florimond’s
+father had been his dearest friend. I promised him that I would do his
+will, and by that promise I am bound. But were Florimond indeed dead,
+and were I free to choose, I should not choose Marius were he the only
+man in all the world.”
+
+Garnache moved nearer to her.
+
+“You speak,” said he, “as if you were indifferent in the matter of
+wedding Florimond, whilst I understand that your letter to the Queen
+professed you eager for the alliance. I may be impertinent, but,
+frankly, your attitude puzzles me.”
+
+“I am not indifferent,” she answered him, but calmly, without
+enthusiasm. “Florimond and I were playmates, and as a little child I
+loved him and admired him as I might have loved and admired a brother
+perhaps. He is comely, honourable, and true. I believe he would be the
+kindest husband ever woman had, and so I am content to give my life into
+his keeping. What more can be needed?”
+
+“Never ask me, mademoiselle; I am by no means an authority,” said
+he. “But you appear to have been well schooled in a most excellent
+philosophy.” And he laughed outright. She reddened under his amusement.
+
+“It was thus my father taught me,” said she, in quieter tones; “and
+he was the wisest man I ever knew, just as he was the noblest and the
+bravest.”
+
+Garnache bowed his head. “God rest his soul!” said he with respectful
+fervour.
+
+“Amen,” the girl replied, and they fell silent.
+
+Presently she returned to the subject of her betrothed.
+
+“If Florimond is living, this prolonged absence, this lack of news
+is very strange. It is three months since last we heard of him--four
+months, indeed. Yet he must have been apprised of his father’s death,
+and that should have occasioned his return.”
+
+“Was he indeed apprised of it?” inquired Garnache. “Did you, yourself,
+communicate the news to him?”
+
+“I?” she cried. “But no, monsieur. We do not correspond.”
+
+“That is a pity,” said Garnache, “for I believe that the knowledge of
+the Marquis’s death was kept from him by his stepmother.”
+
+“Mon Dieu!” she exclaimed, in horror. “Do you mean that he may still be
+in ignorance of it?”
+
+“Not that. A month ago a courier was dispatched to him by the
+Queen-Mother. The last news of him some four months old, as you have
+said--reported him at Milan in the service of Spain. Thither was the
+courier sent to find him and to deliver him letters setting forth what
+was toward at Condillac.”
+
+“A month ago?” she said. “And still we have no word. I am full of fears
+for him, monsieur.”
+
+“And I,” said Garnache, “am full of hope that we shall have news of him
+at any moment.”
+
+That he was well justified of his hope was to be proven before they were
+many days older. Meanwhile Garnache continued to play his part of gaoler
+to the entire satisfaction and increased confidence of the Condillacs,
+what time he waited patiently for the appointed night when it should be
+his friend Arsenio’s turn to take the guard.
+
+On that fateful Wednesday “Battista” sought out--as had now become his
+invariable custom--his compatriot as soon as the time of his noontide
+rest was come, the hour at which they dined at Condillac. He found
+Arsenio sunning himself in the outer courtyard, for it seemed that year
+that as the winter approached the warmth increased. Never could man
+remember such a Saint Martin’s Summer as was this.
+
+In so far as the matter of their impending flight was concerned,
+“Battista” was as brief as he could be.
+
+“Is all well?” he asked. “Shall you be on guard to-night?”
+
+“Yes. It is my watch from sunset till dawn. At what hour shall we be
+stirring?”
+
+Garnache pondered a moment, stroking that firm chin of his, on which the
+erstwhile stubble had now grown into a straggling, unkempt beard--and
+it plagued him not a little, for a close observer might have discovered
+that it was of a lighter colour at the roots. His hair, too, was
+beginning to lose its glossy blackness. It was turning dull, and
+presently, no doubt, it would begin to pale, so that it was high time he
+spread his wings and took flight from Condillac.
+
+“We had best wait until midnight. It will give them time to be soundly
+in their slumbers. Though, should there be signs of any one stirring
+even then, you had better wait till later. It were foolish to risk
+having our going prevented for the sake of leaving a half-hour earlier.”
+
+“Depend upon me,” Arsenio answered him. “When I open the door of your
+tower I shall whistle to you. The key of the postern hangs on the
+guardroom wall. I shall possess myself of that before I come.”
+
+“Good,” said Garnache, “we understand each other.”
+
+And on that they might have parted there and then, but that there
+happened in that moment a commotion at the gate. Men hurried from the
+guardhouse, and Fortunio’s voice sounded loud in command. A horseman had
+galloped up to Condillac, walked his horse across the bridge--which
+was raised only at night--and was knocking with the butt of his whip an
+imperative summons upon the timbers of the gate.
+
+By Fortunio’s orders it was opened, and a man covered with dust, astride
+a weary, foam-flecked horse, rode under the archway of the keep into the
+first courtyard of the chateau.
+
+Garnache eyed him in surprise and inquiry, and he read in the man’s
+appearance that he was a courier. The horseman had halted within a few
+paces of the spot where “Battista” and his companion stood, and seeing
+in the vilely clad Garnache a member of the Condillac household, he
+flung him his reins, then got down stiffly from his horse.
+
+Fortunio, bristling with importance, his left hand on the hilt of his
+rapier, the fingers of his right twirling at his long fair mustachios,
+at once confronted him and craved his business.
+
+“I am the bearer of letters for Madame the Dowager Marquise de
+Condillac,” was the reply; whereupon, with an arrogant nod, Fortunio
+bade the fellow go with him, and issued an order that his horse should
+be cared for.
+
+Arsenio was speaking in Garnache’s ear. The man’s nature was
+inquisitive, and he was indulging idle conjectures as to what might
+be the news this courier brought. Garnache’s mind, actuated by very
+different motives, was engaged upon the same task, so much so that not
+a word heard he of what his supposed compatriot was whispering. Whence
+came this courier? Why had not that fool Fortunio asked him, so that
+Garnache might have overheard his answer? Was he from Paris and the
+Queen, or was he, perchance, from Italy and Florimond? These were
+questions to which it imported him to have the answers. He must know
+what letters the fellow brought. The knowledge might guide him now;
+might even cause him to alter the plans he had formed.
+
+He stood in thought whilst, unheeded by him, Arsenio prattled at his
+elbow. He bethought him of the old minstrel’s gallery at the end of the
+hall in which the Condillacs were dining and whither the courier would
+be conducted. He knew the way to that gallery, for he had made a very
+close study of the chateau against the time when he might find himself
+in need of the knowledge.
+
+With a hurried excuse to Arsenio he moved away, and, looking round to
+see that he was unobserved, he was on the point of making his way to the
+gallery when suddenly he checked himself. What went he there to do? To
+play the spy? To become fellow to the lackey who listens at keyholes?
+Ah, no! That was something no service could demand of him. He might owe
+a duty to the Queen, but there was also a duty that he owed himself, and
+this duty forbade him from going to such extremes. Thus spake his Pride,
+and he mistook its voice for that of Honour. Betide what might, it was
+not for Garnache to play the eavesdropper. Not that, Pardieu!
+
+And so he turned away, his desires in conflict with that pride of his,
+and gloomily he paced the courtyard, Arsenio marvelling what might have
+come to him. And well was it for him that pride should have detained
+him; well would it seem as if his luck were indeed in the ascendant and
+had prompted his pride to save him from a deadly peril. For suddenly
+some one called “Battista!”
+
+He heard, but for the moment, absorbed as he was in his own musings,
+he overlooked the fact that it was the name to which he answered at
+Condillac.
+
+Not until it was repeated more loudly, and imperatively, did he turn to
+see Fortunio beckoning him. With a sudden dread anxiety, he stepped
+to the captain’s side. Was he discovered? But Fortunio’s words set his
+doubts to rest at once.
+
+“You are to re-conduct Mademoiselle de La Vauvraye to her apartments at
+once.”
+
+Garnache bowed and followed the captain up the steps and into the
+chateau that he might carry out the order; and as he went he shrewdly
+guessed that it was the arrival of that courier had occasioned the
+sudden removal of mademoiselle.
+
+When they were alone together--he and she--in her anteroom in the
+Northern Tower, she turned to him before he had time to question her as
+he was intending.
+
+“A courier has arrived,” said she.
+
+“I know; I saw him in the courtyard. Whence is he? Did you learn it?”
+
+“From Florimond.” She was white with agitation.
+
+“From the Marquis de Condillac?” he cried, and he knew not whether to
+hope or fear. “From Italy?”
+
+“No, monsieur. I do not think from Italy. From what was said I gathered
+that Florimond is already on his way to Condillac. Oh, it made a fine
+stir. It left them no more appetite for dinner, and they seem to have
+thought it could have left me none for mine, for they ordered my instant
+return to my apartments.”
+
+“Then you know nothing--save that the courier is from the Marquis?”
+
+“Nothing; nor am I likely to,” she answered, and her arms dropped limply
+to her sides, her eyes looked entreatingly up into his gloomy face.
+
+But Garnache could do no more than rap out an oath. Then he stood still
+a moment, his eyes on the window, his chin in his hand, brooding.
+His pride and his desire to know more of that courier’s message were
+fighting it out again in his mind, just as they fought it out in the
+courtyard below. Suddenly his glance fell on her, standing there, so
+sweet, so frail, and so disconsolate. For her sake he must do the thing,
+repulsive though it might be.
+
+“I must know more,” he exclaimed. “I must learn Florimond’s whereabouts,
+if only that we may go to meet him when we leave Condillac to-night.”
+
+“You have arranged definitely for that?” she asked, her face lighting.
+
+“All is in readiness,” he assured her. Then, lowering his voice without
+apparent reason, and speaking quickly and intently, “I must go find out
+what I can,” he said. “There may be a risk, but it is as nothing to
+the risk we run of blundering matters through ignorance of what may be
+afoot. Should any one come--which is unlikely, for all those interested
+will be in the hall until the courier is dealt with--and should they
+inquire into my absence, you are to know nothing of it since you have no
+Italian and I no French. All that you will know will be that you believe
+I went but a moment since to fetch water. You understand?”
+
+She nodded.
+
+“Then lock yourself in your chamber till I return.”
+
+He caught up a large earthenware vessel in which water was kept for his
+own and mademoiselle’s use, emptied it through the guard-room window
+into the moat below, then left the room and made his way down the steps
+to the courtyard.
+
+He peered out. Not a soul was in sight. This inner courtyard was little
+tenanted at that time of day, and the sentry at the door of the tower
+was only placed there at nightfall. Alongside this there stood another
+door, opening into a passage from which access might be gained to any
+part of the chateau. Thrusting behind that door the earthenware
+vessel that he carried, Garnache sped swiftly down the corridor on his
+eavesdropping errand. Still his mind was in conflict. At times he cursed
+his slowness, at times his haste and readiness to undertake so dirty a
+business, wishing all women at the devil since by the work of women was
+he put to such a shift as this.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV. FLORIMOND’S LETTER
+
+In the great hall of Condillac, where the Marquise, her son, and
+Mademoiselle de La Vauvraye had been at dinner, a sudden confusion had
+been spread by the arrival of that courier so soon as it was known that
+he bore letters from Florimond, Marquis de Condillac.
+
+Madame had risen hastily, fear and defiance blending in her face,
+and she had at once commanded mademoiselle’s withdrawal. Valerie had
+wondered might there not be letters--or, leastways, messages--for
+herself from her betrothed. But her pride had suppressed the eager
+question that welled up to her lips. She would, too, have questioned the
+courier concerning Florimond’s health; she would have asked him how the
+Marquis looked, and where the messenger had left him. But of all this
+that she craved to know, nothing could she bring herself to ask before
+the Marquise.
+
+She rose in silence upon hearing the Dowager order Fortunio to summon
+Battista that he might re-conduct mademoiselle to her apartments,
+and she moved a few paces down the hall, towards the door, in proud,
+submissive readiness to depart. Yet she could not keep her eyes from the
+dust-stained courier, who, having flung his hat and whip upon the floor,
+was now opening his wallet, the Dowager standing before him to receive
+his papers.
+
+Marius, affecting an insouciance he did not feel, remained at table,
+his page behind his chair, his hound stretched at his feet; and he now
+sipped his wine, now held it to the light that he might observe the
+beauty of its deep red colour.
+
+At last Fortunio returned, and mademoiselle took her departure, head in
+the air and outwardly seeming nowise concerned in what was taking place.
+With her went Fortunio. And the Marquise, who now held the package she
+had received from the courier, bade the page depart also.
+
+When the three were at last alone, she paused before opening the letter
+and turned again to the messenger. She made a brave figure in the
+flood of sunlight that poured through the gules and azures of the long
+blazoned windows, her tall, lissome figure clad in a close-fitting robe
+of black velvet, her abundant glossy black hair rolled back under its
+white coif, her black eyes and scarlet lips detaching from the ivory of
+her face, in which no trace of emotion showed, for all the anxiety that
+consumed her.
+
+“Where left you the Marquis de Condillac?” she asked the fellow.
+
+“At La Rochette, madame,” the courier answered,’ and his answer brought
+Marius to his feet with an oath.
+
+“So near?” he cried out. But the Dowager’s glance remained calm and
+untroubled.
+
+“How does it happen that he did not hasten himself, to Condillac?” she
+asked.
+
+“I do not know, madame. I did not see Monsieur le Marquis. It was his
+servant brought me that letter with orders to ride hither.”
+
+Marius approached his mother, his brow clouded.
+
+“Let us see what he says,” he suggested anxiously. But his mother did
+not heed him. She stood balancing the package in her hand.
+
+“Can you tell us, then, nothing of Monsieur le Marquis?”
+
+“Nothing more than I have told you, madame.”
+
+She bade Marius call Fortunio, and then dismissed the courier, bidding
+her captain see to his refreshment.
+
+Then, alone at last with her son, she hastily tore the covering from
+the letter, unfolded it and read. And Marius, moved by anxiety, came to
+stand beside and just behind her, where he too might read. The letter
+ran:
+
+“MY VERY DEAR MARQUISE,--I do not doubt but that it will pleasure you
+to hear that I am on my way home, and that but for a touch of fever that
+has detained us here at La Rochette, I should be at Condillac as soon as
+the messenger who is the bearer of these presents. A courier from Paris
+found me a fortnight since in Milan, with letters setting forth that my
+father had been dead six months, and that it was considered expedient at
+Court that I should return home forthwith to assume the administration
+of Condillac. I am lost in wonder that a communication of this nature
+should have been addressed to me from Paris instead of from you, as
+surely it must have been your duty to advise me of my father’s decease
+at the time of that untoward event. I am cast down by grief at this evil
+news, and the summons from Court has brought me in all haste from Milan.
+The lack of news from Condillac has been for months a matter of surprise
+to me. My father’s death may be some explanation of this, but scarcely
+explanation enough. However, madame, I count upon it that you will be
+able to dispel such doubts as I am fostering. I count too, upon being
+at Condillac by the end of week, but I beg that neither you nor my
+dear Marius will allow this circumstance to make any difference to
+yourselves, just as, although I am returning to assume the government of
+Condillac as the Court has suggested to me, I hope that yourself and my
+dear brother will continue to make it your home for as long as it shall
+pleasure you. So long shall it pleasure me.
+
+“I am, my dear marquise, your very humble and very affectionate servant
+and stepson,
+
+“FLORIMOND”
+
+When she had read to the end, the Dowager turned back and read aloud
+the passage: “However, madame, I count upon it that you will be able to
+dispel such doubts as I am fostering.” She looked at her son, who had
+shifted his position, so that he was now confronting her.
+
+“He has his suspicions that all is not as it should be,” sneered Marius.
+
+“Yet his tone is amiable throughout. It cannot be that they said too
+much in that letter from Paris.” A little trill of bitter laughter
+escaped her. “We are to continue to make this our home for as long as it
+shall pleasure us. So long shall it pleasure him!”
+
+Then, with a sudden seriousness, she folded the letter and, putting her
+hands behind her, looked up into her son’s face.
+
+“Well?” she asked. “What are you going to do?”
+
+“Strange that he makes no mention of Valerie” said Marius pensively.
+
+“Pooh! A Condillac thinks lightly of his women. What are you going to
+do?”
+
+His handsome countenance, so marvellously like her own, was overcast. He
+looked gloomily at his mother for a moment; then with a slight twitch
+of the shoulders he turned and moved past her slowly in the direction
+of the hearth. He leaned his elbow on the overmantel and rested his brow
+against his clenched right hand, and stood so awhile in moody thought.
+She watched him, a frown between her arrogant eyes.
+
+“Aye, ponder it,” said she. “He is at La Rochette, within a day’s ride,
+and only detained there by a touch of fever. In any case he promises to
+be here by the end of the week. By Saturday, then, Condillac will have
+passed out of our power; it will be lost to you irretrievably. Will you
+lose La Vauvraye as well?”
+
+He let his hand fall to his side, and turned, fully to face her.
+
+“What can I do? What can we do?” he asked, a shade of petulance in his
+question.
+
+She stepped close up to him and rested her hand lightly upon his
+shoulder.
+
+“You have had three months in which to woo that girl, and you have
+tarried sadly over it, Marius. You have now at most three days in which
+to accomplish it. What will you do?”
+
+“I have been maladroit perhaps,” he said, with bitterness. “I have
+been over-patient with her. I have counted too much upon the chance of
+Florimond’s being dead, as seemed from the utter lack of news of him.
+Yet what could I do? Carry her off by force and compel at the dagger’s
+point some priest to marry us?”
+
+She moved her hand from his shoulder and smiled, as if she derided him
+and his heat.
+
+“You want for invention, Marius,” said she. “And yet I beg that you will
+exert your mind, or Sunday next shall find us well-nigh homeless. I’ll
+take no charity from the Marquis de Condillac, nor, I think, will you.”
+
+“If all fails,” said he, “we have still your house in Touraine.”
+
+“My house?” she echoed, her voice shrill with scorn. “My hovel, you
+would say. Could you abide there--in such a sty?”
+
+“_Vertudieu_! If all else failed, we might be glad of it.”
+
+“Glad of it? Not I, for one. Yet all else will fail unless you bestir
+yourself in the next three days. Condillac is as good as lost to
+you already, since Florimond is upon the threshold. La Vauvraye most
+certainly will be lost to you as well unless you make haste to snatch it
+in the little moment that is left you.”
+
+“Can I achieve the impossible, madame?” he cried, and his impatience
+waxed beneath this unreasonable insistence of his mother’s.
+
+“Who asks it of you?”
+
+“Do not you, madame?”
+
+“I? Pish! All that I urge is that you take Valerie across the border
+into Savoy where you can find a priest to marry you, and get it done
+this side of Saturday.”
+
+“And is not that the impossible? She will not go with me, as you well
+know, madame.”
+
+There was a moment’s silence. The Dowager shot him a glance; then her
+eyes fell. Her bosom stirred as if some strange excitement moved
+her. Fear and shame were her emotions; for a way she knew by which
+mademoiselle might be induced to go with him--not only willingly, but
+eagerly, she thought--to the altar. But she was his mother, and even her
+harsh nature shuddered before the task of instructing him in this vile
+thing. Why had the fool not wit enough to see it for himself?
+
+Observing her silence Marius smiled sardonically.
+
+“You may well ponder it,” said he. “It is an easy matter to tell me what
+I should do. Tell me, rather, how it should be done.”
+
+His blindness stirred her anger, and her anger whelmed her hesitation.
+
+“Were I in your place, Marius, I should find a way,” said she, in a
+voice utterly expressionless, her eyes averted ever from his own.
+
+He scanned her curiously. Her agitation was plain to him, and it puzzled
+him, as did the downcast glance of eyes usually so bold and insolent in
+their gaze. Then he pondered her tone, so laden with expression by its
+very expressionlessness, and suddenly a flood of light broke upon his
+mind, revealing very clearly and hideously her meaning. He caught his
+breath with a sudden gasp and blenched a little. Then his lips tightened
+suddenly.
+
+“In that case, madame,” he said, after a pause, and speaking as if he
+were still without revelation of her meaning, “I can but regret that you
+are not in my place. For, as it is, I am thinking we shall have to make
+the best of the hovel in Touraine.”
+
+She bit her lip in the intensity of her chagrin and shame. She was no
+fool, nor did she imagine from his words that her meaning had been lost
+upon him. She knew that he had understood, and that he chose to pretend
+that he had not. She looked up suddenly, her dark eyes blazing, a splash
+of colour in either cheek.
+
+“Fool!” she snapped at him; “you lily-livered fool! Are you indeed
+my son? Are you--by God!--that you talk so lightly of yielding?” She
+advanced a step in his direction. “Through your cowardice you may be
+content to spend your days in beggary; not so am I; nor shall I be,
+so long as I have an arm and a voice. You may go hence if your courage
+fails you outright; but I’ll throw up the bridge and entrench myself
+within these walls. Florimond de Condillac sets no foot in here while I
+live; and if he should come within range of musket-shot, it will be the
+worse for him.”
+
+“I think you are mad, madame--mad so to talk of resisting him, as you
+are mad to call me coward. I’ll leave you till you are come to a more
+tranquil frame of mind.” And turning upon his heel, his face on fire
+from the lash of her contempt, he strode down the hall and passed out,
+leaving her alone.
+
+White again, with heaving bosom and clenched hands, she stood a moment
+where he had left her, then dropped into a chair, and taking her chin
+in her hand she rested her elbow on her knee. Thus she remained, the
+firelight tinting her perfect profile, on which little might be read of
+the storm that was raging in her soul. Another woman in her place would
+have sought relief in tears, but tears came rarely to the beautiful eyes
+of the Marquise de Condillac.
+
+She sat there until the sun had passed from the windows behind her and
+the corners of the room were lost in the quickening shadows. At last she
+was disturbed by the entrance of a lackey, who announced that Monsieur
+le Comte de Tressan, Lord Seneschal of Dauphiny, was come to Condillac.
+
+She bade the fellow call help to clear the board, where still was set
+their interrupted noontide meal, and then to admit the Seneschal.
+With her back to the stirring, bustling servants she stood, pensively
+regarding the flames, and a smile that was mocking rather than aught
+else spread upon her face.
+
+If all else failed her, she told herself, there would be no Touraine
+hovel for her. She could always be Comtesse de Tressan. Let Marius work
+out alone the punishment of his cowardice.
+
+Away in the Northern Tower, where mademoiselle was lodged, she sat in
+eager talk with Garnache, who had returned unobserved and successful
+from his journey of espionage.
+
+He had told her what from the conversation of Marius and his mother he
+had learned touching the contents of that letter. Florimond lay as near
+as La Rochette, detained there by a touch of fever, but promising to be
+at Condillac by the end of the week. Since that was so, Valerie opined
+there was no longer the need to put themselves to the trouble of the
+escape they had planned. Let them wait until Florimond came.
+
+But Garnache shook his head. He had heard more; and for all that he
+accounted her at present safe from Marius, yet he made no false estimate
+of that supple gentleman’s character, was not deluded by his momentary
+show of niceness. As the time of Florimond’s arrival grew nearer, he
+thought it very possible that Marius might be rendered desperate. There
+was grave danger in remaining. He said naught of this, yet he convinced
+mademoiselle that it were best to go.
+
+“Though there will no longer be the need of a toilsome journey as far
+as Paris,” he concluded. “A four hours’ ride to La Rochette, and you may
+embrace your betrothed.”
+
+“Did he speak of me in his letter, know you, monsieur?” she inquired.
+
+“I heard them say that he did not,” Garnache replied. “But it may well
+be that he had good reason. He may suspect more than he has written.”
+
+“In that case,” she asked--and there was a wounded note in her
+voice--“Why should a touch of fever keep him at La Rochette? Would a
+touch of fever keep you from the woman you loved, monsieur, if you knew,
+or even suspected, that she was in durance?”
+
+“I do not know, mademoiselle. I am an old man who has never loved, and
+so it would be unfair of me to pass judgment upon lovers. That they
+think not as other folk is notorious; their minds are for the time
+disordered.”
+
+Nevertheless he looked at her where she sat by the window, so gentle, so
+lissome, so sweet, and so frail, and he had a shrewd notion that were he
+Florimond de Condillac, whether he feared her in durance or not, not the
+fever, nor the plague itself should keep him for the best part of a week
+at La Rochette within easy ride of her.
+
+She smiled gently at his words, and turned the conversation to the
+matter that imported most.
+
+“Tonight then, it is determined that we are to go?”
+
+“At midnight or a little after. Be in readiness, mademoiselle, and
+do not keep me waiting when I rap upon your door. Haste may be of
+importance.”
+
+“You may count upon me, my friend,” she answered him, and stirred by a
+sudden impulse she held out her hand. “You have been very good to me,
+Monsieur de Garnache. You have made life very different for me since
+your coming. I had it in my mind to blame you once for your rashness in
+returning alone. I was a little fool. You can never know the peace that
+has come to me from having you at hand. The fears, the terrors that
+possessed me before you came have all been dispelled in this last week
+that you have been my sentry in two senses.”
+
+He took the hand she held out to him, and looked down at her out of his
+grimy, disfigured face, an odd tenderness stirring him. He felt as might
+have felt a father towards his daughter--at least, so thought he then.
+
+“Child,” he answered her, “you overrate it. I have done no less than I
+could do, no more than any other would have done.”
+
+“Yet more than Florimond has done--and he my betrothed. A touch of fever
+was excuse enough to keep him at La Rochette, whilst the peril of death
+did not suffice to deter you from coming hither.”
+
+“You forget, mademoiselle, that, maybe, he does not know your
+circumstances.”
+
+“Maybe he does not,” said she, with a half-sigh. Then she looked up
+into his face again. “I am sad at the thought of going, monsieur,” she
+surprised him by saying.
+
+“Sad?” he cried. Then he laughed. “But what can there be to sadden you?”
+
+“This, monsieur: that after to-night it is odds I shall never see you
+more.” She said it without hesitation and without coquetry, for her
+upbringing had been simple and natural in an atmosphere different far
+from that in which had been reared the courtly women he had known. “You
+will return to Paris and the great world, and I shall live out my life
+in this, little corner of Dauphiny. You will forget me in the bustle of
+your career, monsieur; but I shall always hold your memory very dear
+and very gratefully. You are the only friend I have ever known since my
+father died excepting Florimond, though it is so long since I have seen
+him, and he never came to me in times of stress as you have done.”
+
+“Mademoiselle,” he answered, touched despite himself more touched than
+he could have believed possible to his callous, world-worn nature--“you
+make me very proud; you make me feel a little better than I am, for if
+I have earned your regard and friendship, there must be some good in old
+Garnache. Believe me, mademoiselle, I too shall not forget.”
+
+And thereafter they remained a spell in silence, she sitting by the
+window, gazing out into the bright October sky, he standing by her
+chair, thoughtfully considering her brown head so gracefully set upon
+her little shoulders. A feeling came to him that was odd and unusual; he
+sought to interpret it, and he supposed it to mean that he wished that
+at some time in the dim past he might have married some woman who would
+have borne him for daughter such a one as this.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV. THE CONFERENCE
+
+The matter that brought Monsieur de Tressan to Condillac--and brought
+him in most fearful haste--was the matter of the courier who had that
+day arrived at the chateau.
+
+News of it had reached the ears of my Lord Seneschal. His mind had been
+a prey to uneasiness concerning this business of rebellion in which he
+had so rashly lent a hand, and he was anxious to know whence came
+this courier and what news he brought. But for all his haste he had
+paused--remembering it was the Marquise he went to visit--to don the
+gorgeous yellow suit with the hanging sleeves which he had had from
+Paris, and the crimson sash he had bought at Taillemant’s, all in the
+very latest mode.
+
+Thus arrayed, his wig well curled and a clump of it caught in ribbon of
+flame-coloured silk on the left side, his sword hanging from belt and
+carriages richly wrought with gold, and the general courtier-like effect
+rather marred by the heavy riding-boots which he would have liked to
+leave behind yet was constrained to wear, he presented himself before
+the Dowager, hiding his anxiety in a melting smile, and the latter in
+the profoundest of bows.
+
+The graciousness of his reception overwhelmed him almost, for in his
+supreme vanity he lacked the wit to see that this cordiality might be
+dictated by no more than the need they had of him at Condillac. A lackey
+placed a great chair for him by the fire that he might warm himself
+after his evening ride, and the Dowager, having ordered lights, sat
+herself opposite him with the hearth between them.
+
+He simpered awhile and toyed with trivialities of speech before he gave
+utterance to the matter that absorbed him. Then, at last, when they were
+alone, he loosed the question that was bubbling on his lips.
+
+“I hear a courier came to Condillac to-day.”
+
+For answer she told him what he sought to learn, whence came that
+courier, and what the message that he brought.
+
+“And so, Monsieur de Tressan,” she ended, “my days at Condillac are
+numbered.”
+
+“Why so?” he asked, “since you say that Florimond has adopted towards
+you a friendly tone. Surely he would not drive his father’s widow
+hence?”
+
+She smiled at the fire in a dreamy, pensive manner.
+
+“No,” said she, “he would not drive me hence. He has offered me the
+shelter of Condillac for as long as it may pleasure me to make it my
+home.”
+
+“Excellent!” he exclaimed, rubbing his little fat hands and screwing the
+little features of his huge red face into the grotesque semblance of a
+smile. “What need to talk of going, then?”
+
+“What need?” she echoed, in a voice dull and concentrated. “Do you ask
+that, Tressan? Do you think I should elect to live upon the charity of
+this man?”
+
+For all that the Lord Seneschal may have been dull-witted, yet he had
+wit enough to penetrate to the very marrow of her meaning.
+
+“You must hate Florimond very bitterly,” said he. She shrugged her
+shoulders.
+
+“I possess, I think, the faculty of feeling strongly. I can love well,
+monsieur, and I can hate well. It is one or the other with me. And as
+cordially as I love my own son Marius, as cordially do I detest this
+coxcomb Florimond.”
+
+She expressed no reasons for her hatred of her late husband’s elder son.
+Hers were not reasons that could easily be put into words. They were
+little reasons, trivial grains of offence which through long years had
+accumulated into a mountain. They had their beginning in the foolish
+grievance that had its birth with her own son, when she had realized
+that but for that rosy-cheeked, well-grown boy borne to the Marquis by
+his first wife, Marius would have been heir to Condillac. Her love of
+her own child and her ambitions for him, her keen desire to see him fill
+an exalted position in the world, caused her a thousand times a day to
+wish his half-brother dead. Yet Florimond had flourished and grown, and
+as he grew he manifested a character which, with all its imperfections,
+was more lovable than the nature of her own offspring. And their common
+father had never seen aught but the faults of Marius and the virtues
+of Florimond. She had resented this, and Marius had resented it; and
+Marius, having inherited with his mother’s beauty his mother’s arrogant,
+dominant spirit, had returned with insolence such admonitions as from
+time to time his father gave him, and thus the breach had grown. Later,
+since he could not be heir to Condillac, the Marquise’s eyes, greedy of
+advancement for him, had fallen covetously upon the richer La Vauvraye,
+whose lord had then no son, whose heiress was a little girl.
+
+By an alliance easy to compass, since the lords of Condillac and La
+Vauvraye were lifelong friends, Marius’s fortunes might handsomely
+have been mended. Yet when she herself bore the suggestion of it to
+the Marquis, he had seized upon it, approved it, but adopted it for
+Florimond’s benefit instead.
+
+Thereafter war had raged fiercely in the family of Condillac--a war
+between the Marquis and Florimond on the one side, and the Marquise and
+Marius on the other. And so bitterly was it waged that it was by the old
+Marquis’s suggestion that at last Florimond had gone upon his travels to
+see the world and carry arms in foreign service.
+
+Her hopes that he would take his death, as was a common thing when
+warring, rose high--so high as to become almost assurance, a thing to be
+reckoned with. Florimond would return no more, and her son should fill
+the place to which he was entitled by his beauty of person and the high
+mental gifts his doting mother saw in him.
+
+Yet the months grew into years, and at long intervals full of hope for
+the Marquise news came of Florimond, and the news was ever that he was
+well and thriving, gathering honours and drinking deep of life.
+
+And now, at last, when matters seemed to have been tumbled into her lap
+that she might dispose of them as she listed; now, when in her anxiety
+to see her son supplant his step-brother in the possession of La
+Vauvraye--if not, perhaps, in that of Condillac as well she had done
+a rashness which might end in making her and Marius outlaws, news
+came that this hated Florimond was at the door; tardily returned, yet
+returned in time to overthrow her schemes and to make her son the pauper
+that her husband’s will had seemed to aim at rendering him.
+
+Her mind skimmed lightly over all these matters, seeking somewhere some
+wrong that should stand out stark and glaring, upon which she might
+seize, and offer it to the Seneschal as an explanation of her hatred.
+But nowhere could she find the thing she sought. Her hatred had for
+foundation a material too impalpable to be fashioned into words.
+Tressan’s voice aroused her from her thoughts.
+
+“Have you laid no plans, madame?” he asked her. “It were surely a
+madness now to attempt to withstand the Marquis.”
+
+“The Marquis? Ah yes--Florimond.” She sat forward out of the shadows in
+which her great chair enveloped her, and let candle and firelight play
+about the matchless beauty of her perfect face. There was a flush upon
+it, the flush of battle; and she was about to tell the Seneschal that
+not while one stone of Condillac should stand upon another, not while a
+gasp of breath remained in her frail body, would she surrender. But
+she checked her rashness. Well might it be that in the end she should
+abandon such a purpose. Tressan was ugly as a toad, the most absurd,
+ridiculous bridegroom that ever led woman to the altar. Yet rumour
+ran that he was rich, and as a last resource, for the sake of his
+possessions she might bring herself to endure his signal shortcomings.
+
+“I have taken no resolve as yet,” said she, in a wistful voice. “I
+founded hopes upon Marius which Marius threatens to frustrate. I think I
+had best resign myself to the poverty of my Touraine home.”
+
+And then the Seneschal realized that the time was now. The opportunity
+he might have sought in vain was almost thrust upon him. In the spirit
+he blessed Florimond for returning so opportunely; in the flesh he rose
+from the chair and, without more ado, he cast himself upon his knees
+before the Dowager. He cast himself down, and the Dowager experienced
+a faint stirring of surprise that she heard no flop such as must attend
+the violent falling of so fat a body. But the next instant, realizing
+the purpose of his absurd posture, she shrank back with a faint gasp,
+and her face was mercifully blurred to his sight once more amid the
+shadows of her chair. Thus was he spared the look of utter loathing, of
+unconquerable, irrepressible disgust that leapt into her countenance.
+
+His voice quivered with ridiculous emotion, his little fat red fingers
+trembled as he outheld them in a theatrical gesture of supplication.
+
+“Never contemplate poverty, madame, until you have discarded me,” he
+implored her. “Say but that you will, and you shall be lady of Tressan.
+All that I have would prove but poor adornment to a beauty such as
+yours, and I should shrink from offering it you, were it not that, with
+it all, I can offer you the fondest heart in France. Marquise--Clotilde,
+I cast myself humbly at your feet. Do with me as you will. I love you.”
+
+By an effort she crushed down her loathing of him--a loathing that grew
+a hundredfold as she beheld him now transformed by his amorousness into
+the semblance almost of a satyr--and listened to his foolish rantings.
+
+As Marquise de Condillac it hurt her pride to listen and not have him
+whipped for his audacity; as a woman it insulted her. Yet the Marquise
+and the woman she alike repressed. She would give him no answer--she
+could not, so near was she to fainting with disdain of him--yet must
+she give him hope against the time when, should all else fail, she might
+have to swallow the bitter draught he was now holding to her lips. So
+she temporized.
+
+She controlled her voice into a tone of gentle sadness; she set a mask
+of sorrow upon her insolent face.
+
+“Monsieur, monsieur,” she sighed, and so far overcame her nausea as for
+an instant to touch his hand in a little gesture of caress, “you must
+not speak so to a widow of six months, nor must I listen.”
+
+The quivering grew in his hands and voice; but no longer did they shake
+through fear of a rebuff: they trembled now in the eager strength of the
+hope he gathered from her words. She was so beautiful, so peerless, so
+noble, so proud--and he so utterly unworthy--that naught but her plight
+had given him courage to utter his proposal. And she answered him in
+such terms!
+
+“You give me hope, Marquise? If I come again--?”
+
+She sighed, and her face, which was once more within the light, showed a
+look of sad inquiry.
+
+“If I thought that what you have said, you have said out of pity,
+because you fear lest my necessities should hurt me, I could give you
+no hope at all. I have my pride, mon ami. But if what you have said
+you would still have said though I had continued mistress of Condillac,
+then, Tressan, you may repeat it to me hereafter, at a season when I may
+listen.”
+
+His joy welled up and overflowed in him as overflows a river in time of
+spate.
+
+He bent forward, caught her hand, and bore it to his lips.
+
+“Clotilde!” he cried, in a smothered voice; then the door opened, and
+Marius stepped into the long chamber.
+
+At the creaking sound of the opening door the Seneschal bestirred
+himself to rise. Even the very young care not so to be surprised,
+how much less, then, a man well past the prime of life? He came up
+laboriously--the more laboriously by virtue of his very efforts to show
+himself still nimble in his mistress’s eyes. Upon the intruder he turned
+a crimson, furious face, perspiration gleaming like varnish on brow and
+nose. At sight of Marius, who stood arrested, scowling villainously upon
+the pair, the fire died suddenly from his glance.
+
+“Ah, my dear Marius,” said he, with a flourish and an air of being
+mightily at his ease. But the young man’s eyes went over and beyond him
+to rest in a look of scrutiny upon his mother. She had risen too, and he
+had been in time to see the startled manner of her rising. In her cheeks
+there was a guilty flush, but her eyes boldly met and threw back her
+son’s regard.
+
+Marius came slowly down the room, and no word was spoken. The Seneschal
+cleared his throat with noisy nervousness. Madame stood hand on hip, the
+flush fading slowly, her glance resuming its habitual lazy insolence. By
+the fire Marius paused and kicked the logs into a blaze, regardless of
+the delicate fabric of his rosetted shoes.
+
+“Monsieur le Seneschal,” said madame calmly, “came to see us in the
+matter of the courier.”
+
+“Ah!” said Marius, with an insolent lifting of his brows and a sidelong
+look at Tressan; and Tressan registered in his heart a vow that when he
+should have come to wed the mother, he would not forget to take payment
+for that glance from her pert son.
+
+“Monsieur le Comte will remain and sup with us before riding back to
+Grenoble,” she added.
+
+“Ah!” said he again, in the same tone. And that for the moment was all
+he said. He remained by the fire, standing between them where he
+had planted himself in the flesh, as if to symbolize the attitude he
+intended in the spirit.
+
+But one chance he had, before supper was laid, of a word alone with his
+mother, in her own closet.
+
+“Madame,” he said, his sternness mingling with alarm, “are you mad that
+you encourage the suit of this hedgehog Tressan?”
+
+She looked him up and down with a deliberate eye, her lip curling a
+little.
+
+“Surely, Marius, it is my own concern.”
+
+“Not so,” he answered her, and his grasp fastened almost viciously on
+her wrist. “I think that it is mine as well. Mother, bethink you,” and
+his tone changed to an imploring key, “bethink you what you would do!
+Would you--you--mate with such a thing as that?”
+
+His emphasis of the pronoun was very eloquent. Not in all the words of
+the French language could he have told her better how high he placed her
+in his thoughts, how utterly she must fall, how unutterably be soiled by
+an alliance with Tressan.
+
+“I had hoped you would have saved me from it, Marius,” she answered him,
+her eyes seeming to gaze down into the depths of his. “At La Vauvraye I
+had hoped to live out my widowhood in tranquil dignity. But--” She let
+her arms fall sharply to her sides, and uttered a little sneering laugh.
+
+“But, mother,” he cried, “between the dignity of La Vauvraye and the
+indignity of Tressan, surely there is some middle course?”
+
+“Aye,” she answered scornfully, “starvation on a dunghill in
+Touraine--or something near akin to it, for which I have no stomach.”
+
+He released her wrist and stood with bent head, clenching and
+unclenching his long white hands, and she watched him, watching in him
+the working of his proud and stubborn spirit.
+
+“Mother,” he cried at last, and the word sounded absurd between them, by
+so little did he seem the younger of the twain, “mother, you shall not
+do it you must not!”
+
+“You leave me little alternative--alas!” sighed she. “Had you been more
+adroit you had been wed by now, Marius, and the future would give us no
+concern. As it is, Florimond comes home, and we--” She spread her hands
+and thrust out her nether lip in a grimace that was almost ugly. Then:
+“Come,” she said briskly. “Supper is laid, and my Lord Seneschal will be
+awaiting us.”
+
+And before he could reply she had swept past him and taken her way
+below. He followed gloomily, and in gloom sat he at table, never
+heeding the reckless gaiety of the Seneschal and the forced mirth of the
+Marquise. He well understood the sort of tacit bargain that his mother
+had made with him. She had seen her advantage in his loathing of the
+proposed union with Tressan, and she had used it to the full. Either he
+must compel Valerie to wed him this side of Saturday or resign himself
+to see his mother--his beautiful, peerless mother--married to this skin
+of lard that called itself a man.
+
+Living, he had never entertained for his father a son’s respect, nor,
+dead, did he now reverence his memory as becomes a son. But in that
+hour, as he sat at table, facing this gross wooer of his mother’s, his
+eyes were raised to the portrait of the florid-visaged haughty Marquis
+de Condillac, where it looked down upon them from the panelled wall, and
+from his soul he offered up to that portrait of his dead sire an apology
+for the successor whom his widow destined him.
+
+He ate little, but drank great draughts, as men will when their mood
+is sullen and dejected, and the heat of the wine, warming his veins and
+lifting from him some of the gloom that had settled over him, lent him
+anon a certain recklessness very different from the manner of his sober
+moments.
+
+Chancing suddenly to raise his eyes from the cup into which he had been
+gazing, absorbed as gazes a seer into his crystal, he caught on the
+Seneschal’s lips so odious a smile, in the man’s eyes so greedy, hateful
+a leer as he bent them on the Marquise, that he had much ado not to
+alter the expression of that flabby face by hurling at it the cup he
+held.
+
+He curbed himself; he smiled sardonically upon the pair; and in that
+moment he swore that be the cost what it might, he would frustrate the
+union of those two. His thoughts flew to Valerie, and the road they took
+was fouled with the mud of ugly deeds. A despair, grim at first, then
+mocking, took possession of him. He loved Valerie to distraction. Loved
+her for herself, apart from all worldly advantages that must accrue to
+him from an alliance with her. His mother saw in that projected marriage
+no more than the acquisition of the lands of La Vauvraye, and she may
+even have thought that he himself saw no more. In that she was wrong;
+but because of it she may have been justified of her impatience with him
+at the tardiness, the very clumsiness with which he urged his suit. How
+was she to know that it was just the sincerity of his passion made
+him clumsy? For like many another, normally glib, self-assured, and
+graceful, Marius grew halting, shy, and clumsy only where he loved.
+
+But in the despair that took him now the quality of his passion seemed
+to change. Partly it was the wine, partly the sight of this other
+lover--of whom there must be an end--whose very glance seemed to him an
+insult to his mother. His imagination had taken fire that night, and it
+had ripened him for any villainy. The Seneschal and the wine, between
+them, had opened the floodgates of all that was evil in his nature, and
+that evil thundered out in a great torrent that bid fair to sweep all
+before it.
+
+And suddenly, unexpectedly for the others, who were by now resigned to
+his moody silence, the evil found expression. The Marquise had spoken
+of something--something of slight importance--that must be done before
+Florimond returned. Abruptly Marius swung round in his seat to face
+his mother. “Must this Florimond return?” he asked, and for all that he
+uttered no more words, so ample in their expression were those four that
+he had uttered and the tone of them, that his meaning left little work
+to the imagination.
+
+Madame turned to stare at him, surprise ineffable in her glance--not
+at the thing that he suggested, but at the abruptness with which the
+suggestion came. The cynical, sneering tone rang in her ears after the
+words were spoken, and she looked in his face for a confirmation of
+their full purport.
+
+She observed the wine-flush on his cheek, the wine-glitter in his eye,
+and she remarked the slight smile on his lips and the cynical assumption
+of nonchalance with which he fingered the jewel in his ear as he
+returned her gaze. She beheld now in her son a man more purposeful than
+she had ever known before.
+
+A tense silence had followed his words, and the Lord Seneschal gaped
+at him, some of the colour fading from his plethoric countenance,
+suspecting as he did the true drift of Marius’s suggestion. At last it
+was madame who spoke--very softly, with a narrowing of the eyes.
+
+“Call Fortunio,” was all she said, but Marius understood full well the
+purpose for which she would have Fortunio called.
+
+With a half-smile he rose, and going to the door he bade his page who
+was idling in the anteroom go summon the captain. Then he paced slowly
+back, not to the place he had lately occupied at table, but to the
+hearth, where he took his stand with his shoulders squared to the
+overmantel.
+
+Fortunio came, fair-haired and fresh-complexioned as a babe, his supple,
+not ungraceful figure tawdrily clad in showy clothes of poor material
+the worse for hard usage and spilt wine. The Countess bade him sit, and
+with her own hands she poured a cup of Anjou for him.
+
+In some wonder, and, for all his ordinary self-possession, with a little
+awkwardness, the captain did her bidding, and with an apologetic air he
+took the seat she offered him.
+
+He drank this wine, and here was a spell of silence till Marius, grown
+impatient, brutally put the thing for which the Marquise sought delicate
+words.
+
+“We have sent for you, Fortunio,” said he, in a blustering tone, “to
+inquire of you what price you’d ask to cut the throat of my brother, the
+Marquis de Condillac.”
+
+The Seneschal sank back in his chair with a gasp. The captain, a frown
+between his frank-seeming, wide-set eyes, started round to look at the
+boy. The business was by no means too strong for the ruffler’s stomach,
+but the words in which it was conveyed to him most emphatically were.
+
+“Monsieur de Condillac,” said he, with an odd assumption of dignity, “I
+think you have mistaken your man. I am a soldier, not a cut-throat.”
+
+“But yes,” the Marquise soothed him, throwing herself instantly into the
+breach, and laying a long, slender hand upon the frayed green velvet
+of the captain’s sleeve. “What my son means and what he says are vastly
+different things.”
+
+“It will sorely tax your wits, madame,” laughed Marius brutally, “to
+make clear that difference.”
+
+And then the Seneschal nervously cleared his throat and muttering that
+it waxed late and he must be riding home, made shift to rise. Him, too,
+the Marquise at once subdued. She was not minded that he should go just
+yet. It might be useful to her hereafter to have had him present at this
+conference, into which she meant to draw him until she should have made
+him one with them, a party to their guilt. For the task she needed not
+over many words: just one or two and a melting glance or so, and the
+rebellion in his bosom was quelled at once.
+
+But with the captain her wiles were not so readily successful. He had no
+hopes of winning her to wife--haply no desire, since he was not a man
+of very great ambitions. On the other hand, he had against him the
+very worst record in France, and for all that he might embark upon this
+business under the auspices of the Lord Seneschal himself, he knew not
+how far the Lord Seneschal might dare to go thereafter to save him from
+a hanging, should it come to that.
+
+He said as much in words. In a business of this kind, he knew from
+experience, the more difficulties he advanced, the better a bargain
+he drove in the end; and if he was to be persuaded to risk his neck in
+this, he should want good payment. But even for good payment on this
+occasion he was none too sure as yet that he would let himself be
+persuaded.
+
+“Monsieur Fortunio,” the Marquise said, very softly, “heed not Monsieur
+Marius’s words. Attend to me. The Marquis de Condillac, as no doubt you
+will have learned for yourself, is lying at La Rochette. Now it happens
+that he is noxious to us--let the reasons be what they may. We need a
+friend to put him out of our way. Will you be that friend?”
+
+“You will observe,” sneered Marius, “how wide a difference there is
+between what the Marquise suggests and my own frank question of what
+price you would take to cut my brother’s throat.”
+
+“I observe no difference, which is what you would say,” Fortunio
+answered truculently, his head well back, his brown eyes resentful
+of offence--for none can be so resentful of imputed villainy as your
+villain who is thorough-paced. “And,” he concluded, “I return you the
+same answer, madame--that I am no cut-throat.”
+
+She repressed her anger at Marius’s sneering interference, and made a
+little gesture of dismay with her eloquent white hands.
+
+“But we do not ask you to cut a throat.”
+
+“I have heard amiss, then,” said he, his insolence abating nothing.
+
+“You have heard aright, but you have understood amiss. There are other
+ways of doing these things. If it were but the cutting of a throat,
+should we have sent for you? There are a dozen in the garrison would
+have sufficed for our purpose.”
+
+“What is it, then, you need?” quoth he.
+
+“We want an affair contrived with all decency. The Marquis is at the
+Sanglier Noir at La Rochette. You can have no difficulty in finding
+him, and having found him, less difficulty still in giving or provoking
+insult.”
+
+“Excellent,” murmured Marius from the background. “It is such an
+enterprise as should please a ready swordsman of your calibre,
+Fortunio.”
+
+“A duel?” quoth the fellow, and his insolence went out of him, thrust
+out by sheer dismay; his mouth fell open. A duel was another affair
+altogether. “But, Sangdieu! what if he should slay me? Have you thought
+of that?”
+
+“Slay you?” cried the Marquise, her eyes resting on his face with an
+expression as of wonder at such a question. “You jest, Fortunio.”
+
+“And he with the fever,” put in Marius, sneering.
+
+“Ah!” muttered Fortunio. “He has the fever? The fever is something.
+But--but--accidents will happen.”
+
+“Florimond was ever an indifferent swordsman,” murmured Marius dreamily,
+as if communing with himself.
+
+The captain wheeled upon him once more.
+
+“Why, then, Monsieur Marius,” said he, “since that is so and you are
+skilled--as skilled as am I, or more--and he has a fever, where is the
+need to hire me to the task?”
+
+“Where?” echoed Marius. “What affair may that be of yours? We ask you
+to name a price on which you will do this thing. Have done with
+counter-questions.”
+
+Marius was skilled with the foils, as Fortunio said, but he cared not
+for unbaited steel, and he was conscious of it, so that the captain’s
+half-sneer had touched him on the raw. But he was foolish to take that
+tone in answer. There was a truculent, Southern pride in the ruffler
+which sprang immediately into life and which naught that they could say
+thereafter would stamp out.
+
+“Must I say again that you mistake your man?” was his retort, and as
+he spoke he rose, as though to signify that the subject wearied him and
+that his remaining to pursue it must be idle. “I am not of those to
+whom you can say: ‘I need such a one killed, name me the price at which
+you’ll be his butcher’.”
+
+The Marquise wrung her hands in pretty mimicry of despair, and poured
+out soothing words, as one might pour oil upon stormy waters. The
+Seneschal sat in stolid silence, a half-scared spectator of this odd
+scene, what time the Marquise talked and talked until she had brought
+Fortunio back to some measure of subjection.
+
+Such reasoning as she made use of she climaxed by an offer of no less a
+sum than a hundred pistoles. The captain licked his lips and pulled at
+his mustachios. For all his vaunted scorn of being a butcher at a price,
+now that he heard the price he seemed not half so scornful.
+
+“Tell me again the thing that you need doing and the manner of it,” said
+he, as one who was moved to reconsider. She told him, and when she had
+done he made a compromise.
+
+“If I go upon this business, madame, I go not alone.”
+
+“Oh, as for that,” said Marius, “it shall be as you will. Take what men
+you want with you.”
+
+“And hang with them afterwards, maybe,” he sneered, his insolence
+returning. “The hundred pistoles would avail me little then. Look you,
+Monsieur de Condillac, and you, madame, if I go, I’ll need to take with
+me a better hostage than the whole garrison of this place. I’ll need for
+shield some one who will see to it that he is not hurt himself, just as
+I shall see to it that he is hurt before I am.”
+
+“What do you mean? Speak out, Fortunio,” the Marquise bade him.
+
+“I mean, madame, that I will go, not to do this thing, but to stand by
+and render help if help be needed. Let Monsieur de Condillac go, and
+I will go with him, and I will undertake to see to it that he returns
+unhurt and that we leave the other stark.”
+
+Both started, and the Seneschal leaned heavily upon the table. He was
+not, with all his faults, a man of blood, and this talk of butchery
+turned him sick and faint.
+
+Vainly now did the Marquise seek to alter the captain’s resolution; but
+in this she received a sudden check from Marius himself. He cut in upon
+her arguments to ask the captain:
+
+“How can you promise so much? Do you mean that you and I must fall upon
+him? You forget that he will have men about him. A duel is one thing,
+a rough-and-tumble another, and we shall fare none so well in this, I’m
+thinking.”
+
+The captain closed one eye, and a leer of subtle cunning overspread his
+face.
+
+“I’ve thought of that,” said he. “Neither a duel nor a rough-and-tumble
+do I propose, but something between the two; something that shall seem a
+duel yet be a rough-and-tumble.”
+
+“Explain yourself.”
+
+“What further explanation does it ask? We come upon Monsieur le Marquis
+where his men are not. We penetrate, let us say, into his chamber. I
+turn the key in the door. We are alone with him and you provoke him. He
+is angry, and must fight you there and then. I am your friend; I must
+fill the office of second for both sides. You engage, and I stand aside
+and let you fight it out. You say he is indifferently skilled with the
+sword, and, in addition, that he has a fever. Thus you should contrive
+to put your steel through him, and a duel it will have been. But if by
+luck or skill he should have you in danger, I shall be at hand to flick
+in my sword at the right moment and make an opening through which you
+may send yours home.”
+
+“Believe me it were better--” began the Dowager. But Marius, who of a
+sudden was much taken with the notion, again broke in.
+
+“Are you to be depended upon to make no mistake, Fortunio?”
+
+“Per Bacco!” swore the ruffler. “A mistake must cost me a hundred
+pistoles. I think you may depend upon me there. If I err at all, it will
+be on the side of eagerness to see you make short work of him. You have
+my answer now, monsieur. If we talk all night, you shall not move me
+further. But if my proposal suits you, I am your man.”
+
+“And I yours, Fortunio,” answered Marius, and there was a ring almost of
+exultation in his voice.
+
+The Dowager looked from one to the other, as if she were weighing the
+men and satisfying herself that Marius ran no risk. She put a question
+or two to her son, another to the captain; then, seeming satisfied with
+what had been agreed, she nodded her head and told them they had best be
+stirring with the dawn.
+
+“You will have light enough by half-past six. Do not delay later in
+taking the road. And see that you are back here by nightfall; I shall be
+anxious till you are returned.”
+
+She poured wine again for the captain, and Marius coming up to the table
+filled himself a glass, which he tossed off. The Marquise was speaking
+to Tressan.
+
+“Will you not drink to the success of the venture?” she asked him, in a
+coaxing tone, her eyes upon his own. “I think we are like to see the
+end of our troubles now, monsieur, and Marius shall be lord both of
+Condillac and La Vauvraye.”
+
+And the gross, foolish Seneschal, under the spell of her magnificent
+eyes, slowly raised his cup to his lips and drank to the success of that
+murderous business. Marius stood still, a frown between his eyes haled
+thither by the mention of La Vauvraye. He might be winning it, as his
+mother said, but he would have preferred to have won it differently.
+Then the frown was smoothed away; a sardonic smile replaced it; another
+cup of wine he poured himself. Then, without word to any there, he
+turned on his heel and went from the room, a trifle unsteady in his
+gait, yet with such lines of purposefulness in the way he bore himself
+that the three of them stared after him in dull surprise.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI. THE UNEXPECTED
+
+In her apartments in the Northern Tower Valerie had supped, and--to
+spare Monsieur de Garnache the full indignity of that part of the
+offices he was charged with--she had herself removed the cloth and set
+the things in the guard-room, where they might lie till morning. When
+that was done--and despite her protests, Garnache had insisted upon
+lending a hand--the Parisian reminded her that it was already after
+nine, and urged her to make such preparations as incumbed her for their
+journey.
+
+“My preparations are soon made,” she assured him with a smile. “I need
+but what I may carry in a cloak.”
+
+They fell to talking of their impending flight, and they laughed
+together at the discomfiture that would be the Dowager’s and her son’s
+when, in the morning, they came to discover the empty cage. From that
+they passed on to talk of Valerie herself, of her earlier life at
+La Vauvraye, and later the conversation shifted to Garnache, and she
+questioned him touching the warring he had seen in early youth, and
+afterwards asked him for particulars of Paris--that wonderful city which
+to her mind was the only earthly parallel of Paradise--and of the life
+at Court.
+
+Thus in intimate talk did they while away the time of waiting, and in
+the hour that sped they came, perhaps, to know more of each other than
+they had done hitherto. Intimate, indeed, had they unconsciously become
+already. Their singular position, locked together in that tower--a
+position utterly impossible under any but the conditions that attended
+it--had conduced to that good-fellowship, whilst the girl’s trust and
+dependence upon the man, the man’s observance of that trust, and his
+determination to show her that it had not been misplaced, had done the
+rest.
+
+But to-night they seemed to have drawn nearer in spirit to each other,
+and that, maybe, it was that prompted Valerie to sigh, and in her sweet,
+unthinking innocence to say again:
+
+“I am truly sorry, Monsieur de Garnache, that our sojourn here is coming
+to an end.”
+
+He was no coxcomb, and he set no false value on the words. He laughed
+for answer, as he rejoined:
+
+“Not so am I, mademoiselle. Nor shall I know peace of mind again until
+this ill-omened chateau is a good three leagues or so behind us. Sh!
+What was that?”
+
+He came instantly to his feet, his face intent and serious. He had been
+sitting at his ease in an armchair, over the back of which he had tossed
+the baldric from which his sword depended. The clang of the heavy door
+below, striking the wall as it was pushed open, had reached his ears.
+
+“Can it be time already?” asked mademoiselle; yet a panic took her, and
+she blenched a little.
+
+He shook his head.
+
+“Impossible,” said he; “it is not more than ten o’clock. Unless that
+fool Arsenio has blundered--” He stopped. “Sh!” he whispered. “Some one
+is coming here.”
+
+And suddenly he realized the peril that might lie in being found thus in
+her company. It alarmed him more than did the visit itself, so unusual
+at this hour. He saw that he had not time to reach the guard-room;
+he would be caught in the act of coming forth, and that might be
+interpreted by the Dowager or her son--if it should happen to be one
+or the other of them--as a hurried act of flight such as guilt might
+prompt. Perhaps he exaggerated the risk; but their fortunes at Condillac
+had reached a point where they must not be jeopardized by any chance
+however slight.
+
+“To your chamber, mademoiselle,” he whispered fearfully, and he pointed
+to the door of the inner room. “Lock yourself in. Quick! Sh!” And he
+signed frantically to her to go silently.
+
+Swift and quietly as a mouse she glided from the room and softly closed
+the door of her chamber and turned the key in a lock, which Garnache had
+had the foresight to keep well oiled. He breathed more freely when it
+was done.
+
+A step sounded in the guard-room. He sank without a rustle into the
+chair from which he had risen, rested his head against the back of it,
+closed his eyes, opened his mouth, and dissembled sleep.
+
+The steps came swiftly across the guard-room floor, soft, as of one
+lightly shod; and Garnache wondered was it the mother or the son, just
+as he wondered what this ill-come visitor might be seeking.
+
+The door of the antechamber was pushed gently open--it had stood
+ajar--and under the lintel appeared the slender figure of Marius, still
+in his brown velvet suit as Garnache last had seen him. He paused a
+moment to peer into the chamber. Then he stepped forward, frowning to
+behold “Battista” so cosily ensconced.
+
+“Ola there!” he cried, and kicked the sentry’s outstretched legs, the
+more speedily to wake him. “Is this the watch you keep?”
+
+Garnache opened his eyes and stared a second dully at the disturber
+of his feigned slumbers. Then, as if being more fully awakened he
+recognized his master, he heaved himself suddenly to his feet and bowed.
+
+“Is this the watch you keep?” quoth Marius again, and Garnache, scanning
+the youth’s face with foolishly smiling eyes, noted the flush on his
+cheek, the odd glitter in his handsome eyes, and even caught a whiff
+of wine upon his breath. Alarm grew in Garnache’s mind, but his face
+maintained its foolish vacancy, its inane smile. He bowed again and,
+with a wave of the hands towards the inner chamber,
+
+“La damigella a la,” said he.
+
+For all that Marius had no Italian he understood the drift of the
+words, assisted as they were by the man’s expressive gesture. He sneered
+cruelly.
+
+“It would be an ugly thing for you, my ugly friend, if she were not,”
+ he answered. “Away with you. I shall call you when I need you.” And he
+pointed to the door.
+
+Garnache experienced some dismay, some fear even. He plied his wits,
+and he determined that he had best seem to apprehend from his gestures
+Marius’s meaning; but apprehend it in part only, and go no further than
+the other side of that door.
+
+He bowed, therefore, for the third time, and with another of his foolish
+grins he shuffled out of the chamber, pulling the door after him, so
+that Marius should not see how near at hand he stayed.
+
+Marius, without further heeding him, stepped to mademoiselle’s door and
+rapped on a panel with brisk knuckles.
+
+“Who is there?” she inquired from within.
+
+“It is I--Marius. Open, I have something I must say to you.”
+
+“Will it not keep till morning?”
+
+“I shall be gone by then,” he answered impatiently, “and much depends
+upon my seeing you ere I go. So open. Come!”
+
+There followed a pause, and Garnache in the outer room set his teeth and
+prayed she might not anger Marius. He must be handled skillfully, lest
+their flight should be frustrated at the last moment. He prayed, too,
+that there might be no need for his intervention. That would indeed be
+the end of all--a shipwreck within sight of harbour. He promised himself
+that he would not lightly intervene. For the rest this news of Marius’s
+intended departure filled him with a desire to know something of the
+journey on which he was bound:
+
+Slowly mademoiselle’s door opened. White and timid she appeared.
+
+“What do you want, Marius?”
+
+“Now and always and above all things the sight of you, Valerie,” said
+he, and the flushed cheek, the glittering eye, and wine-laden breath
+were as plain to her as they had been to Garnache, and they filled her
+with a deeper terror. Nevertheless she came forth at his bidding.
+
+“I see that you were not yet abed,” said he. “It is as well. We must
+have a talk.” He set a chair for her and begged her to be seated; then
+he perched himself on the table, his hands gripping the edges of it on
+either side of him, and he turned his eyes upon her.
+
+“Valerie,” he said slowly, “the Marquis de Condillac, my brother, is at
+La Rochette.”
+
+“He is coming home!” she cried, clasping her hands and feigning surprise
+in word and glance.
+
+Marius shook his head and smiled grimly.
+
+“No,” said he. “He is not coming home. That is--not unless you wish it.”
+
+“Not unless I wish it? But naturally I wish it!”
+
+“Then, Valerie, if you would have what you wish, so must I. If Florimond
+is ever to come to Condillac again, you must be my wife.”
+
+He leaned towards her now, supported by his elbow, so that his face was
+close to hers, a deeper flush upon it, a brighter glitter in his black
+eyes, his vinous breath enveloping and suffocating her. She shrank back,
+her hands locking themselves one in the other till the knuckles showed
+white.
+
+“What--what is it you mean?” she faltered.
+
+“No more than I have said; no less. If you love him well enough to
+sacrifice yourself,” and his lips curled sardonically at the word, “then
+marry me and save him from his doom.”
+
+“What doom?” Her voice came mechanically, her lips seeming scarce to
+move.
+
+He swung down from the table and stood before her.
+
+“I will tell you,” he said, in a voice very full of promise. “I love
+you, Valerie, above all else on earth or, I think, in heaven; and I’ll
+not yield you to him. Say ‘No’ to me now, and at daybreak I start for La
+Rochette to win you from him at point of sword.”
+
+Despite her fears she could not repress a little smile of scorn.
+
+“Is that all?” said she. “Why, if you are so rash, it is yourself,
+assuredly, will be slain.”
+
+He smiled tranquilly at that reflection upon his courage and his skill.
+
+“So might it befall if I went alone,” said he. She understood. Her eyes
+dilated with horror, with loathing of him. The angry words that sprang
+to her lips were not to be denied.
+
+“You cur, you cowardly assassin!” she blazed at him. “I might have
+guessed that in some such cutthroat manner would your vaunt of winning
+me at the sword-point be accomplished.”
+
+She watched the colour fade from his cheeks, and the ugly, livid hue
+that spread in its room to his very lips. Yet it did not daunt her. She
+was on her feet, confronting him ere he had time to speak again. Her
+eyes flashed, and her arm pointed quivering to the door.
+
+“Go!” she bade him, her voice harsh for once. “Out of my sight! Go! Do
+your worst, so that you leave me. I’ll hold no traffic with you.”
+
+“Will you not?” said he, through setting teeth, and suddenly he caught
+the wrist of that outstretched arm. But she saw nothing of immediate
+danger. The only danger that she knew was the danger that threatened
+Florimond, and little did that matter since at midnight she was to
+leave Condillac to reach La Rochette in time to warn her betrothed. The
+knowledge gave her confidence and an added courage.
+
+“You have offered me your bargain,” she told him. “You have named your
+price and you have heard my refusal. Now go.”
+
+“Not yet awhile,” said he, in a voice so odiously sweet that Garnache
+caught his breath.
+
+He drew her towards him. Despite her wild struggles he held her fast
+against his breast. Do what she would, he rained his hot kisses on her
+face and hair, till at last, freeing a hand, she smote him with all her
+might across the face.
+
+He let her go then. He fell back with an oath, a patch of fingermarks
+showing red on his white countenance.
+
+“That blow has killed Florimond de Condillac,” he told her viciously.
+“He dies at noon to-morrow. Ponder it, my pretty.”
+
+“I care not what you do so that you leave me,” she answered defiantly,
+restraining by a brave effort the tears of angry distress that welled
+up from her stricken heart. And no less stricken, no less angry was
+Garnache where he listened. It was by an effort that he had restrained
+himself from bursting in upon them when Marius had seized her. The
+reflection that were he to do so all would irretrievably be ruined alone
+had stayed him.
+
+Marius eyed the girl a moment, his face distorted by the rage that was
+in him.
+
+“By God!” he swore, “if I cannot have your love, I’ll give you cause
+enough to hate me.”
+
+“Already have you done that most thoroughly,” said she. And Garnache
+cursed this pertness of hers which was serving to dare him on.
+
+The next moment there broke from her a startled cry. Marius had seized
+her again and was crushing her frail body in his arms.
+
+“I shall kiss your lips before I go, ma mie,” said he, his voice thick
+now with a passion that was not all of anger. And then, while he still
+struggled to have his way with her, a pair of arms took him about the
+waist like hoops of steel.
+
+In his surprise he let her free, and in that moment he was swung back
+and round and cast a good six paces down the room.
+
+He came to a standstill by the table, at which he clutched to save
+himself from falling, and turned bewildered, furious eyes upon
+“Battista,” by whom he now dimly realized that he had been assailed.
+
+Garnache’s senses had all left him in that moment when Valerie had cried
+out. He cast discretion to the winds; reason went out of him, and only
+blind anger remained to drive him into immediate action. And as suddenly
+as that flood of rage had leaped, as suddenly did it ebb now that he
+found himself face to face with the outraged Condillac and began to
+understand the magnitude of the folly he had committed.
+
+Everything was lost now, utterly and irretrievably--lost as a dozen
+other fine emprises had been by his sudden and ungoverned frenzy. God!
+What a fool he was! What a cursed, drivelling fool! What, after all, was
+a kiss or two, compared with all the evil that might now result from his
+interference? Haply Marius would have taken them and departed, and at
+midnight they would have been free to go from Condillac.
+
+The future would not have been lacking in opportunities to seek out and
+kill Marius for that insult.
+
+Why could he not have left the matter to the future? But now, with
+Florimond to be murdered on the morrow at La Rochette, himself likely
+to be murdered within the hour at Condillac, Valerie was at their mercy
+utterly.
+
+Wildly and vainly did he strive even then to cover up the foolish thing
+that he had done. He bowed apologetically to Marius; he waved his hands
+and filled the air with Italian phrases, frenziedly uttered, as if by
+the very vigour of them he sought to drive explanation into his master’s
+brain. Marius watched and listened, but his rage nowise abated; it grew,
+instead, as if that farrago of a language he did not understand were
+but an added insult. An oath was all he uttered. Then he swung round
+and caught Garnache’s sword from the chair beside him, where it still
+rested, and Garnache in that moment cursed the oversight. Whipping
+the long, keen blade from its sheath, Marius bore down upon the rash
+meddler.
+
+“Par Dieu!” he swore between his teeth. “We’ll see the colour of your
+dirty blood, you that lay hands upon a gentleman.”
+
+But before he could send home the weapon, before Garnache could move to
+defend himself, Valerie had slipped between them. Marius looked into
+her white, determined face, and was smitten with surprise. What was this
+hind to her that she should interfere at the risk of taking the sword
+herself?
+
+Then a slow smile spread upon his face. He was smarting still under
+her disdain and resistance, as well as under a certain sense of the
+discomfiture this fellow had put upon him. He saw a way to hurt her, to
+abase her pride, and cut her to the very soul with shame.
+
+“You are singularly concerned in this man’s life,” said he, an odious
+undercurrent of meaning in his voice.
+
+“I would not have you murder him,” she answered, “for doing no more than
+madame your mother bade him.”
+
+“I make no doubt he has proved a very excellent guard,” he sneered.
+
+Even now all might have been well. With that insult Marius might
+consider that he had taken payment for the discomfiture he had suffered.
+He might have bethought him that, perhaps, as she said, “Battista”
+ had done no more than observe the orders he had received--a trifle
+excessively, maybe, yet faithfully nevertheless. Thinking thus, he might
+even have been content to go his ways and take his fill of vengeance by
+slaying Florimond upon the morrow. But Garnache’s rash temper, rising
+anew, tore that last flimsy chance to shreds.
+
+The insult that mademoiselle might overlook might even not have fully
+understood--set him afire with indignation for her sake. He forgot his
+role, forgot even that he had no French.
+
+“Mademoiselle,” he cried, and she gasped in her affright at this ruinous
+indiscretion, “I beg that you will stand aside.” His voice was low and
+threatening, but his words were woefully distinct.
+
+“Par la mort Dieu!” swore Marius, taken utterly aback. “What may your
+name be--you who hitherto have had no French?”
+
+Almost thrusting mademoiselle aside, Garnache stood out to face him, the
+flush of hot anger showing through the dye on his cheeks.
+
+“My name,” said he, “is Martin Marie Rigobert de Garnache, and my
+business now to make an end of one at least of this obscene brood of
+Condillac.”
+
+And, without more ado, he caught up a chair and held it before him in
+readiness to receive the other’s onslaught.
+
+But Marius hung back an instant--at first in sheer surprise, later in
+fear. He had some knowledge of the fellow’s methods. Even the sword he
+wielded gave him little confidence opposed to Garnache with a chair. He
+must have help. His eyes sought the door, measuring the distance. Ere he
+could reach it Garnache would cut him off. There was nothing for it
+but to attempt to drive the Parisian back. And so with a sudden rush he
+advanced to the attack. Garnache fell back and raised his chair, and in
+that instant mademoiselle once more intervened between them.
+
+“Stand aside, mademoiselle,” cried Garnache, who now, grown cool, as was
+his way when once he was engaged, saw clearly through the purpose formed
+by Marius. “Stand aside, or we shall have him giving the alarm.”
+
+He leapt clear of her to stop Marius’s sudden rush for the door. On the
+very threshold the young man was forced to turn and defend himself, lest
+his brains be dashed out by that ponderous weapon Garnache was handling
+with a rare facility. But the mischief was done, in that he had reached
+the threshold. Backing, he defended himself and gained the anteroom.
+Garnache followed, but the clumsy chair was defensive rather than
+offensive, and Marius’s sword meanwhile darted above it and below it,
+forcing him to keep a certain distance.
+
+And now Marius raised his voice and shouted with all the power of his
+lungs:
+
+“To me! To me! Fortunio! Abdon! To me, you dogs! I am beset.”
+
+From the courtyard below rose an echo of his words, repeated in a shout
+by the sentinel, who had overheard them, and they caught the swift fall
+of the fellow’s feet as he ran for help. Furious, picturing to himself
+how the alarm would spread like a conflagration through the chateau,
+cursing his headstrong folly yet determined that Marius at least should
+not escape him, Garnache put forth his energies to hinder him from
+gaining the door that opened on to the stairs. From the doorway of the
+antechamber mademoiselle, with a white face and terrified eyes, watched
+the unequal combat and heard the shouts for help. Anon despair might
+whelm her at the thought of how they had lost their opportunity of
+escaping; but for the present she had no thought save for the life of
+that brave man who was defending himself with an unwieldy chair.
+
+Garnache leapt suddenly aside to take his opponent in the flank and
+thus turn him from his backward progress towards the outer door. The
+manoeuvre succeeded, and gradually, always defending himself, Garnache
+circled farther round him until he was between Marius and the threshold.
+
+And now there came a sound of running feet on the uneven stones of the
+courtyard. Light gleamed on the staircase, and breathless voices were
+wafted up to the two men. Garnache bethought him that his last hour was
+assuredly at hand. Well, if he must take his death, he might as well
+take it here upon Marius’s sword as upon another’s. So he would risk
+it for the sake of leaving upon Marius some token by which he might
+remember him. He swung his chair aloft, uncovering himself for a second.
+The young man’s sword darted in like a shaft of light. Nimbly Garnache
+stepped aside to avoid it, and moved nearer his opponent. Down crashed
+the chair, and down went Marius, stunned and bleeding, under its
+terrific blow. The sword clattered from his hand and rolled, with a
+pendulum-like movement, to the feet of Garnache.
+
+The Parisian flung aside his chair and stooped to seize that very
+welcome blade. He rose, grasping the hilt and gathering confidence from
+the touch of that excellently balanced weapon, and he swung round even
+as Fortunio and two of his braves appeared in the doorway.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII. HOW MONSIEUR DE GARNACHE LEFT CONDILLAC
+
+Never was there a man with a better stomach for a fight than Martin de
+Garnache, nor did he stop to consider that here his appetite in that
+direction was likely to be indulged to a surfeit. The sight of those
+three men opposing him, swords drawn and Fortunio armed in addition
+with a dagger, drove from his mind every other thought, every other
+consideration but that of the impending battle.
+
+He fell on guard to receive their onslaught, his eyes alert, his lips
+tight set, his knees like springs of steel, slightly flexed to support
+his well-poised body.
+
+But they paused a moment in the extremity of their surprise, and
+Fortunio called to him in Italian to know the meaning of this attitude
+of his as well as that of Marius, who lay huddled where he had fallen.
+
+Garnache, reckless now, disdaining further subterfuge nor seeking to
+have recourse to subtleties that could avail him nothing, retorted in
+French with the announcement of his true name. At that, perceiving that
+here was some deep treachery at work, they hesitated no longer.
+
+Led by Fortunio they attacked him, and the din they made in the next few
+minutes with their heavy breathing, their frequent oaths, their stamping
+and springing this way and that, and, ringing above all, the clash and
+clatter of sword on sword, filled the chamber and could be heard in the
+courtyard below.
+
+Minutes sped, yet they gained no advantage on this single man; not one,
+but a dozen swords did he appear to wield, so rapid were his passes, so
+ubiquitous his point. Had he but stood his ground there might have been
+a speedy end to him, but he retreated slowly towards the door of the
+antechamber. Valerie still stood there, watching with fearful eyes and
+bated breath that tremendous struggle which at any moment she expected
+to see terminate in the death of her only friend.
+
+In her way she was helping Garnache, though she little realized it. The
+six tapers in the candle-branch she held aloft afforded the only light
+for that stormy scene, and that light was in the eyes of Garnache’s
+assailants, showing him their faces yet leaving his own in shadow.
+
+He fell back steadily towards that door. He could not see it; but there
+was not the need. He knew that it was in a direct line with the one
+that opened upon the stairs, and by the latter he steered his backward
+course. His aim was to gain the antechamber, although they guessed it
+not, thinking that he did but retreat through inability to stand his
+ground. His reasons were that here in this guardroom the best he could
+do would be to put his back to the wall, where he might pick off one or
+two before they made an end of him. The place was too bare to suit
+his urgent, fearful need. Within the inner room there was furniture to
+spare, with which he might contrive to hamper his opponents and give
+them such a lusty fight as would live in the memory of those who might
+survive it for as long as they should chance to live thereafter.
+
+He had no thought of perishing himself, although, to any less concerned,
+his death, sooner or later, must seem inevitable--the only possible
+conclusion to this affray, taken as he was. His mind was concerned only
+with this fight; his business to kill, and not himself to be slain. He
+knew that presently others would come to support these three. Already,
+perhaps, they were on their way, and he husbanded his strength against
+their coming. He was proudly conscious of his own superior skill, for
+he had studied the art of fence in Italy--its home--during his earlier
+years, and there was no trick of sword-play with which he was not
+acquainted, no ruse of service in a rough-and-tumble in which he was
+unversed. He was proudly conscious, too, of his supple strength, his
+endurance, and his great length of reach, and upon all these he counted
+to help him make a decent fight.
+
+Valerie, watching him, guessed his purpose to be the gaining of the
+inner chamber, the crossing of the threshold on which she was standing.
+She drew back a pace or two, almost mechanically, to give him room. The
+movement went near to costing him his life. The light no longer falling
+so pitilessly upon Fortunio’s eyes, the captain saw more clearly than
+hitherto, and shot a swift, deadly stroke straight at the region of
+Garnache’s heart. The Parisian leapt back when it was within an inch of
+his breast; one of the bravoes followed up, springing a pace in advance
+of his companions and lengthening his arm in a powerful lunge. Garnache
+caught the blade almost on his hilt, and by the slightest turn of
+the wrist made a simultaneous presentment of his point at the other’s
+outstretched throat. It took the fellow just above the Adam’s apple, and
+with a horrid, gurgling cry he sank, stretched as he still was in the
+attitude of that murderous lunge that had proved fatal only to himself.
+
+Garnache had come on guard again upon the instant. Yet in the briefest
+of seconds during which his sword had been about its work of death,
+Fortunio’s rapier came at him a second time. He beat the blade aside
+with his bare left hand and stopped with his point the rush of the
+other bravo. Then he leapt back again, and his leap brought him to
+the threshold of the anteroom. He retreated quickly a pace, and then
+another. He was a sword’s length within the chamber, and now he stood,
+firm as a rock and engaged Fortunio’s blade which had followed him
+through the doorway. But he was more at his ease. The doorway was
+narrow. Two men abreast could not beset him, since one must cumber the
+movements of the other. If they came at him one at a time, he felt that
+he could continue that fight till morning, should there still by then be
+any left to face him.
+
+A wild exultation took him, an insane desire to laugh. Surely
+was sword-play the merriest game that was ever devised for man’s
+entertainment. He straightened his arm, and his steel went out like a
+streak of lightning. But for the dagger on which he caught its edge,
+the blade had assuredly pierced the captain’s heart. And now, fighting
+still, Garnache called to Valerie. He had need of her assistance to make
+his preparations ere others came.
+
+“Set down your tapers, mademoiselle,” he bade her, “on the mantel shelf
+at my back. Place the other candle branch there too.”
+
+Swiftly, yet with half-swimming senses, everything dim to her as to one
+in a nightmare, she ran to do his bidding; and now the light placed so
+at his back, gave him over his opponents the same slight advantage that
+he had enjoyed before. In brisk tones he issued his fresh orders.
+
+“Can you move the table, mademoiselle?” he asked her. “Try to drag it
+here, to the wall on my left, as close to the door as you can bring it.”
+
+“I will try, monsieur,” she panted through dry lips; and again she moved
+to do his bidding. Quickened by the need there was, her limbs, which
+awhile ago had seemed on the point of refusing their office, appeared to
+gather more than ordinary strength. She was unconsciously sobbing in her
+passionate anxiety to render him what help was possible. Frenziedly she
+caught at the heavy oaken table, and began to drag it across the room as
+Garnache had begged her. And now, Fortunio seeing what was toward, and
+guessing Garnache’s intentions, sought by a rush to force his way into
+the Chamber. But Garnache was ready for him. There was a harsh grind of
+steel on steel, culminating in a resounding rush, and Fortunio was back
+in the guard-room, whither he had leapt to save his skin. A pause fell
+at that, and Garnache lowered his point to rest his arm until they
+should again come at him. From beyond the doorway the captain called
+upon him to yield. He took the summons as an insult, and flew into a
+momentary passion.
+
+“Yield?” he roared. “Yield to you, you cut-throat scum? You shall have
+my sword if you will come for it, but you shall have it in your throat.”
+
+Angered in his turn, Fortunio inclined his head to his companion’s ear,
+issuing an order. In obedience to it, it was the bravo now who advanced
+and engaged Garnache. Suddenly he dropped on to his knees, and over his
+head Garnache found his blade suddenly opposed by Fortunio’s. It was a
+clever trick, and it all but did Garnache’s business then. Yet together
+with the surprise of it there came to him the understanding of what was
+intended. Under his guard the kneeling man’s sword was to be thrust up
+into his vitals. As a cry of alarm broke from mademoiselle, he leapt
+aside and towards the wall, where he was covered from Fortunio’s weapon,
+and turning suddenly he passed his sword from side to side through the
+body of the kneeling mercenary.
+
+The whole thing he had performed mechanically, more by instinct than
+by reason; and when it was done, and the tables were thus effectively
+turned upon his assailants, he scarcely realized how he had accomplished
+it.
+
+The man’s body cumbered now the doorway, and behind him Fortunio stood,
+never daring to advance lest a thrust of that sword which he could not
+see--Garnache still standing close against the wall--should serve him
+likewise.
+
+Garnache leaned there, in that friendly shelter, to breathe, and he
+smiled grimly under cover of his mustache. So long as he had to deal
+with a single assailant he saw no need to move from so excellent a
+position. Close beside him, leaning heavily against the table she had
+dragged thus far, stood Valerie, her face livid as death, her heart
+sick within her at the horror inspired her by that thing lying on the
+threshold. She could not take her eyes from the crimson stain that
+spread slowly on the floor, coming from under that limply huddled mass
+of arms and legs.
+
+“Do not look, mademoiselle,” Garnache implored her softly. “Be brave,
+child; try to be brave.”
+
+She sought to brace her flagging courage, and by an effort she averted
+her eyes from that horrid heap and fixed them upon Garnache’s calm,
+intrepid face. The sight of his quietly watchful eyes, his grimly
+smiling lips, seemed to infuse courage into her anew.
+
+“I have the table, monsieur,” she told him. “I can bring it no nearer to
+the wall.”
+
+He understood that this was not because her courage or her strength
+might be exhausted, but because he now occupied the spot where he had
+bidden her place it. He motioned her away, and when she had moved he
+darted suddenly and swiftly aside and caught the table, his sword still
+fast in his two first fingers, which he had locked over the quillons.
+He had pushed its massive weight halfway across the door before Fortunio
+grasped the situation. Instantly the captain sought to take advantage of
+it, thinking to catch Garnache unawares. But no sooner did he show his
+nose inside the doorpost than Garnache’s sword flashed before his eyes,
+driving him back with a bloody furrow in his cheek.
+
+“Have a care, Monsieur le Capitaine,” Garnache mocked him. “Had you come
+an inch farther it might have been the death of you.”
+
+A clatter of steps sounded upon the stairs, and the Parisian bent once
+more to his task, and thrust the table across the open doorway. He had a
+moment’s respite now, for Fortunio stung--though lightly--was not likely
+to come again until he had others to support him. And while the others
+came, while the hum of their voices rose higher, and finally their steps
+clattered over the bare boards of the guard-room floor, Garnache had
+caught up and flung a chair under the table to protect him from an
+attack from below, while he had piled another on top to increase and
+further strengthen the barricade.
+
+Valerie watched him agonizedly, leaning now against the wall, her hands
+pressed across her bosom, as if to keep down its tempestuous heaving.
+Yet her anguish was tempered by a great wonder and a great admiration of
+this man who could keep such calm eyes and such smiling lips in the face
+of the dreadful odds by which he was beset, in the face of the certain
+death that must ultimately reach him before he was many minutes older.
+And in her imagination she conjured up a picture of him lying there torn
+by their angry swords and drenched in blood, his life gone out of him,
+his brave spirit, quenched for ever--and all for her unworthy sake.
+Because she-- little, worthless thing that she was--would not marry
+as they listed, this fine, chivalrous soul was to be driven from its
+stalwart body.
+
+An agony of grief took her now, and she fell once more to those awful
+sobs that awhile ago had shaken her. She had refused to marry Marius
+that Florimond’s life should be spared, knowing that before Marius could
+reach him she herself would have warned her betrothed. Yet even had that
+circumstance not existed, she was sure that still she would have refused
+to do the will of Marius. But equally sure was she that she would not so
+refuse him were he now to offer as the price of her compliance the life
+of Garnache, which she accounted irrevocably doomed.
+
+Suddenly his steady, soothing voice penetrated her anguished musings.
+
+“Calm yourself, mademoiselle; all is far from lost as yet.”
+
+She thought that he but spoke so to comfort her; she did not follow the
+working of his warlike mind, concentrated entirely upon the business
+of the moment, with little thought--or care, for that matter--for what
+might betide anon. Yet she made an effort to repress her sobs. She
+would be brave, if only to show herself worthy of the companionship and
+friendship of so brave a man.
+
+Across his barricade he peered into the outer room to ascertain with
+what fresh opponents he might have to reckon, and he was surprised to
+see but four men standing by Fortunio, whilst behind them among the
+thicker shadows, he dimly made out a woman’s figure and, beside her,
+another man who was short and squat.
+
+He bethought him that the hour, and the circumstance that most of the
+mercenaries would be in their beds, accounted for the reinforcement not
+being greater.
+
+The woman moved forward, and he saw as he had suspected, that it was the
+Dowager herself. The squat figure beside her, moving with her into the
+shaft of light that fell from the doorway Garnache defended, revealed
+to him the features of Monsieur de Tressan. If any doubt he had still
+entertained concerning the Seneschal’s loyalty, that doubt was now
+dispelled.
+
+And now the Dowager uttered a sudden cry of fear. She had caught sight
+of the fallen Marius, and she hurried to his side. Tressan sped after
+her and between them they raised the boy and helped him to a chair,
+where he now sat, passing a heavy hand across his no doubt aching brow.
+Clearly he was recovering, from which Garnache opined with regret that
+his blow had been too light. The Dowager turned to Fortunio, who had
+approached her, and her eyes seemed to take fire at something that he
+told her.
+
+“Garnache?” the Parisian heard her say, and he saw Fortunio jerk his
+thumb in the direction of the barricade.
+
+She appeared to forget her son; she stepped suddenly from his side, and
+peered through the doorway at the stalwart figure of Garnache, dimly to
+be seen through the pile of furniture that protected him to the height
+of his breast. No word said she to the Parisian. She stood regarding him
+a moment with lips compressed and a white, startled, angry face. Then:
+
+“It was by Marius’s contrivance that he was placed sentry over the
+girl,” he heard her tell Fortunio, and he thought she sneered.
+
+She looked at the two bodies on the floor, one almost at her feet, the
+other just inside the doorway, now almost hidden in the shadows of the
+table. Then she issued her commands to the men, and fiercely she bade
+them pull down that barricade and take the dog alive.
+
+But before they could move to do her bidding, Garnache’s voice rang
+imperatively through the chamber.
+
+“A word with you ere they begin, Monsieur de Tressan,” he shouted, and
+such was the note of command he assumed that the men stood arrested,
+looking to the Dowager for fresh orders. Tressan changed colour, for
+all that there was surely naught to fear, and he fingered his beard
+perplexedly, looking to the Marquise for direction. She flashed him a
+glance, lifted one shoulder disdainfully, and to the men:
+
+“Fetch him out,” said she, and she pointed to Garnache. But again
+Garnache stayed them.
+
+“Monsieur de Tressan,” he called impressively, “to your dying day--and
+that will be none so distant--shall you regret it if you do not hear
+me.”
+
+The Seneschal was stirred by those words and the half-threat,
+half-warning; they seemed to cover. He paused a moment, and this time
+his eyes avoided the Marquise’s. At last, taking a step forward,
+
+“Knave,” said he, “I do not know you.”
+
+“You know me well enough. You have heard my name. I am Martin Marie
+Rigobert de Garnache, Her Majesty’s emissary into Dauphiny to procure
+the enlargement of Mademoiselle de La Vauvraye from the Chateau de
+Condillac, where she is detained by force and for the serving of
+unscrupulous ends. Now you know me and my quality.”
+
+The Dowager stamped her foot.
+
+“Fetch him out!” she commanded harshly.
+
+“Hear me first, Monsieur le Seneschal, or it will be the worse for
+you.” And the Seneschal, moved by that confident promise of evil, threw
+himself before the men-at-arms.
+
+“A moment, I beseech you, Marquise,” he cried, and the men, seeing his
+earnestness and knowing his quality, stood undecided, buffeted as they
+were between his will and the Marquise’s. “What have you to say to me?”
+ Tressan demanded, seeking to render arrogant his tone.
+
+“This: That my servant knows where I am, and that should I fail within a
+very few days to come forth safe and sound from Condillac to rejoin
+him, he is to ride to Paris with certain letters I have given him. Those
+letters incriminate you to the full in this infamous matter here at
+Condillac. I have set forth in them how you refused me help, how you
+ignored the Queen’s commands of which I was the bearer; and should it be
+proved, in addition, that through your treachery and insubordination my
+life has been lost, I promise you that nothing in all this world will
+save you from a hanging.”
+
+“Never listen, monsieur,” cried the Dowager, seeing Tressan start back
+like a man in sudden fear. “It is no more than the ruse of a desperate
+man.”
+
+“Heed me or not, at your choice,” Garnache retorted, addressing himself
+ever to Tressan. “You have had your warning. I little thought to see you
+here to-night. But seeing you confirms my worst suspicions, and if I
+am to die, I can die easy in my conscience at the thought that in
+sacrificing you to Her Majesty’s wrath I have certainly not sacrificed
+an innocent man.”
+
+“Madame--” the Seneschal began, turning to the Dowager. But she broke in
+impatiently upon his intended words, upon the prayer that bubbled to his
+lips that she should pause a while ere she made an end of this Parisian.
+
+“Monsieur,” said she, “you may bargain with him when he is taken. We
+will have him alive. Go in,” she bade her men, her voice so resolute now
+that none dared tarry longer. “Fetch the knave out--alive.”
+
+Garnache smiled at mademoiselle as the words were uttered.
+
+“They want me alive,” said he. “That is a hopeful state of things. Bear
+up, child; I may need your help ere we are through.”
+
+“You shall find me ready, monsieur,” she assured him for all her
+tremors. He looked at the pale face, composed now by an effort of her
+will, and at the beautiful hazel eyes which strove to meet his with calm
+and to reflect his smile, and he marvelled at her courage as much as did
+she at his.
+
+Then the assault began, and he could have laughed at the way in which
+a couple of those cut-throats--neither wishing to have the honour of
+meeting him singly--hindered each other by seeking to attack him at
+once.
+
+At last the Dowager commanded one of them to go in. The fellow came,
+and he was driven back by the sword that darted at him from above the
+barricade.
+
+There matters might have come to a deadlock, but that Fortunio came
+forward with one of his men to repeat the tactics which had cost him
+a life already. His fellow went down on his knees, and drove his sword
+under the table and through the frame of the chair, seeking to prick
+Garnache in the legs. Simultaneously the captain laid hold of an arm
+of the chair above and sought to engage Garnache across it. The ruse
+succeeded to the extent of compelling the Parisian to retreat. The table
+seemed likely to be his undoing instead of helping him. He dropped like
+lightning to one knee, seeking to force the fellow out from underneath.
+But the obstacles which should have hindered his assailants hindered
+Garnache even more at this juncture. In that instant Fortunio whipped
+the chair from the table-top, and flung it forward. One of its legs
+caught Garnache on the sword arm, deadening it for a second. The sword
+fell from his hand, and Valerie shrieked aloud, thinking the battle
+at an end. But the next moment he was on his feet, his rapier firmly
+gripped once more, for all that his arm still felt a trifle numbed. As
+seconds passed the numbness wore away, but before that had taken place
+the table had been thrust forward, and the man beneath it had made it
+impossible for Garnache to hinder this. Suddenly he called to Valerie.
+
+“A cloak, mademoiselle! Get me a cloak!” he begged. And she, stemming
+her fears once more, ran to do his bidding.
+
+She caught up a cloak that lay on a chair by the door of her
+bed-chamber, and brought it to him. He twisted it twice round his left
+arm, letting its folds hang loose, and advanced again to try conclusions
+with the gentleman underneath. He cast the garment so that it enmeshed
+the sword when next it was advanced. Stepping briskly aside, he was up
+to the table, and his busy blade drove back the man who assailed him
+across it. He threw his weight against it, and thrust it back till it
+was jammed hard once more against the doorposts, leaving the chair at
+his very feet. The man beneath had recovered his sword by this, and
+again he sought to use it. That was the end of him. Again Garnache
+enmeshed it, kicked away the chair, or, rather, thrust it aside with his
+foot, stooped suddenly, and driving his blade under the table felt it
+sink into the body of his tormentor.
+
+There was a groan and a spluttering cough, and then before Garnache
+could recover he heard mademoiselle crying out to him to beware. The
+table was thrust suddenly forward almost on top of him; its edge caught
+his left shoulder, and sent him back a full yard, sprawling upon the
+ground.
+
+To rise again, gasping for air--for the fall had shaken him--was the
+work of an instant. But in that instant Fortunio had thrust the table
+clear of the doorway, and his men were pouring into the room.
+
+They came at Garnache in a body, with wild shouts and fierce mockery,
+and he hurriedly fell on guard and gave way before them until his
+shoulders were against the wainscot and he had at least the assurance
+that none could take him in the rear. Three blades engaged his own.
+Fortunio had come no farther than the doorway, where he stood his torn
+cheek drenched in blood, watching the scene the Marquise beside him, and
+Tressan standing just behind them, very pale and scared.
+
+Yet Garnache’s first thought even in that moment of dire peril was for
+Valerie. He would spare her the sight that must before many moments be
+spread to view within that shambles.
+
+“To your chamber, mademoiselle,” he cried to her. “You hinder me,” he
+added by way of compelling her obedience. She did his bidding, but only
+in part. No farther went she than the doorway of her room, where she
+remained standing, watching the fray as earlier she had stood and
+watched it from the door of the antechamber.
+
+Suddenly she was moved by inspiration. He had gained an advantage
+before, by retreating through a doorway into an inner room. Might he not
+do the same again, and be in better case if he were to retreat now to
+her own chamber? Impulsively she called to him.
+
+“In here, Monsieur de Garnache. In here.”
+
+The Marquise looked across at her, and smiled in mockery. Garnache was
+too well occupied, she thought, to attempt any such rashness. If he but
+dared remove his shoulders from the wall there would be a speedier end
+to him than as things were.
+
+Not so, however, thought Garnache. The cloak twisted about his left
+arm gave him some advantage, and he used it to the full. He flicked
+the slack of it in the face of one, and followed it up by stabbing the
+fellow in the stomach before he could recover guard, whilst with another
+wave of that cloak he enmeshed the sword that shot readily into the
+opening he had left.
+
+Madame cursed, and Fortunio echoed her imprecations. The Seneschal
+gasped, his fears lost in amazement at so much valour and dexterity.
+
+Garnache swung away from the wall now, and set his back to mademoiselle,
+determined to act upon her advice. But even in that moment he asked
+himself for the first time since the commencement of that carnage--to
+what purpose? His arms were growing heavy with fatigue, his mouth was
+parched, and great beads of perspiration stood upon his brow. Soon he
+would be spent, and they would not fail to take a very full advantage of
+it.
+
+Hitherto his mind had been taken up with the battle only, and if he
+had thought of retreating, it was but to the end that he might gain a
+position of some vantage. Now, conscious of his growing fatigue, his
+thoughts turned them at last to the consideration of flight. Was there
+no way out of it? Must he kill every man in Condillac before he could
+hope to escape?
+
+Whimsically, and almost mechanically, he set himself, in his mind,
+to count the men. There were twenty mercenaries all told, excluding
+Fortunio and himself. On Arsenio he might rely not to attack him,
+perhaps even to come to his assistance at the finish. That left
+nineteen. Four he had already either killed outright or effectively
+disabled; so that fifteen remained him. The task of dealing with those
+other fifteen was utterly beyond him. Presently, no doubt, the two now
+opposing him would be reinforced by others. So that if any possible way
+out existed, he had best set about finding it at once.
+
+He wondered could he cut down these two, make an end of Fortunio, and,
+running for it, attempt to escape through the postern before the rest of
+the garrison had time to come up with him or guess his purpose. But the
+notion was too wild, its accomplishment too impossible.
+
+He was fighting now with his back to mademoiselle and his face to the
+tall window, through the leaded panes of which he caught the distorted
+shape of a crescent moon. Suddenly the idea came to him. Through that
+window must lie his way. It was a good fifty feet above the moat, he
+knew, and if he essayed to leap it, it must be an even chance that he
+would be killed in leaping. But the chance of death was a certain one
+if he tarried where he was until others came to support his present
+opponents. And so he briskly determined upon the lesser risk.
+
+He remembered that the window was nailed down, as it had remained since
+mademoiselle’s pretended attempt at flight. But surely that should prove
+no formidable obstacle.
+
+And now that his resolve was taken his tactics abruptly changed.
+Hitherto he had been sparing of his movements, husbanding his strength
+against the long battle that seemed promised him. Suddenly he assumed
+the offensive where hitherto he had but acted in self-defence, and a
+most deadly offensive was it. He plied his cloak, untwisting it from his
+arm and flinging it over the head and body of one of his assailants, so
+that he was enmeshed and blinded by it. Leaping to the fellow’s flank,
+Garnache, with a terrific kick, knocked his legs from under him so that
+he fell heavily. Then, stooping suddenly, the Parisian ran his blade
+under the other brave’s guard and through the fellow’s thigh. The man
+cried out, staggered, and then went down utterly disabled.
+
+One swift downward thrust Garnache made at the mass that wriggled
+under his cloak. The activity of its wriggles increased in the next few
+seconds, then ceased altogether.
+
+Tressan felt wet from head to foot with a sweat provoked by horror of
+what he saw. The Dowager’s lips were pouring forth a horrid litany
+of guard-room oaths, and meanwhile Garnache had swung round to meet
+Fortunio, the last of all who had stood with him.
+
+The captain came on boldly, armed with sword and dagger, and in that
+moment, feeling himself spent, Garnache bitterly repented having
+relinquished his cloak. Yet he made a stubborn fight, and whilst
+they fenced and stamped about that room, Marius came to watch them,
+staggering to his mother’s side and leaning heavily upon Tressan’s
+shoulder. The Marquise turned to him, her face livid to the lips.
+
+“That man must be the very fiend,” Garnache heard her tell her son. “Run
+for help, Tressan, or, God knows, he may escape us yet. Go for men, or
+we shall have Fortunio killed as well. Bid them bring muskets.”
+
+Tressan, moving like one bereft of wits, went her errand, while the two
+men fought on, stamping and panting, circling and lunging, their breath
+coming in gasps, their swords grinding and clashing till sparks leapt
+from them.
+
+The dust rose up to envelop and almost choke them, and more than once
+they slipped in the blood with which the floor was spattered, whilst
+presently Garnache barely recovered and saved himself from stumbling
+over the body of one of his victims against which his swiftly moving
+feet had hurtled.
+
+And the Dowager, who watched the conflict and who knew something of
+sword-play, realized that, tired though Garnache might be, unless
+help came soon or some strange chance gave the captain the advantage,
+Fortunio would be laid low with the others.
+
+His circling had brought the Parisian round, so that his back was now to
+the window, his face to the door of the bedchamber, where mademoiselle
+still watched in ever-growing horror. His right shoulder was in line
+with the door of the antechamber, which madame occupied, and he never
+saw her quit Marius’s side and creep slyly into the room to speed
+swiftly round behind him.
+
+The only one from whom he thought that he might have cause to fear
+treachery was the man whom he had dropped with a thigh wound, and he was
+careful to keep beyond the reach of any sudden sword-thrust from that
+fellow.
+
+But if he did not see the woman’s movements, mademoiselle saw them,
+and the sight set her eyes dilating with a new fear. She guessed the
+Dowager’s treacherous purpose. And no sooner had she guessed it than,
+with a choking sob, she told herself that what madame could do that
+could she also.
+
+Suddenly Garnache saw an opening; Fortunio’s eyes, caught by the
+Dowager’s movements, strayed for a moment past his opponent, and the
+thing would have been fatal to the captain but that in that moment,
+as Garnache was on the point of lunging, he felt himself caught from
+behind, his arms pinioned to his sides by a pair of slender ones that
+twined themselves about him, and over his shoulder, the breath of it
+fanning his hot cheek, came a vicious voice--
+
+“Stab now, Fortunio!”
+
+The captain asked nothing better. He raised his weary sword-arm and
+brought his point to the level of Garnache’s breast, but in that instant
+its weight became leaden. Imitating the Marquise, Valerie had been in
+time. She seized Fortunio’s half-lifted arm and flung all her weight
+upon it.
+
+The captain cursed her horridly in a frenzy of fear, for he saw that
+did Garnache shake off the Marquise there would be an end of himself. He
+sought to wrench himself free of her detaining grasp, and the exertion
+brought him down, weary as he was, and with her weight hanging to him.
+He sank to his knees, and the girl, still clinging valiantly, sank with
+him, calling to Garnache that she held the captain fast.
+
+Putting forth all his remaining strength, the Parisian twisted from the
+Dowager’s encircling grasp and hurled her from him with a violence he
+nowise intended.
+
+“Yours, madame, are the first woman’s arms that ever Martin de Garnache
+has known,” said he. “And never could embrace of beauty have been less
+welcome.”
+
+Panting, he caught up one of the overturned chairs. Holding it by the
+back he made for the window. He had dropped his sword, and he called
+to mademoiselle to hold the captain yet an instant longer. He swung his
+chair aloft and dashed it against the window. There was a thundering
+crash of shivered glass and a cool draught of that November night came
+to sweeten the air that had been fouled by the stamping of the fighters.
+
+Again he swung up his chair and dashed it at the window, and yet again,
+until no window remained, but a great, gaping opening with a fringe of
+ragged glass and twisted leadwork.
+
+In that moment Fortunio struggled to his feet, free of the girl, who
+sank, almost in a swoon. He sprang towards Garnache. The Parisian turned
+and flung his now shattered chair toward the advancing captain. It
+dropped at his feet, and his flying shins struck against an edge of
+it, bringing him, hurt and sprawling, to the ground. Before he could
+recover, a figure was flying through the open gap that lately had been a
+window.
+
+Mademoiselle sat up and screamed.
+
+“You will be killed, Monsieur de Garnache! Dear God, you will be
+killed!” and the anguish in her voice was awful.
+
+It was the last thing that reached the ears of Monsieur de Garnache as
+he tumbled headlong through the darkness of the chill November night.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII. IN THE MOAT
+
+Fortunio and the Marquise reached the window side by side, and they were
+in time to hear a dull splash in the waters fifty feet below them. There
+was a cloud over the little sickle of moon, and to their eyes, fresh
+from the blaze of candle-light, the darkness was impenetrable.
+
+“He is in the moat,” cried the Marquise excitedly, and Valerie, who sat
+on the floor whither she had slipped when Fortunio shook her off, rocked
+herself in an agony of fear.
+
+To the horrors about her--the huddled bodies lying so still upon the
+floor, the bloody footprints everywhere, the shattered furniture,
+and the groans of the man with the wounded thigh--to all this she was
+insensible. Garnache was dead, she told herself; he was surely dead; and
+it seemed as if the very thought of it were killing, too, a part of her
+own self.
+
+Unconsciously she sobbed her fears aloud. “He is dead,” she moaned; “he
+is dead.”
+
+The Marquise overheard that piteous cry, and turned to survey the girl,
+her brows lifting, her lips parting in an astonishment that for a second
+effaced the horrors of that night. Suspicion spread like an oil stain
+in her evil mind. She stepped forward and caught the girl by one of her
+limp arms. Marius, paler than his stunning had left him, leaned more
+heavily against the door-post, and looked on with bloodshot eyes.
+If ever maiden avowed the secret of her heart, it seemed to him that
+Valerie avowed it then.
+
+The Marquise shook her angrily.
+
+“What was he to you, girl? What was he to you?” she demanded shrilly.
+
+And the girl, no more than half conscious of what she was saying, made
+answer:
+
+“The bravest gentleman, the noblest friend I have ever known.”
+
+Pah! The Dowager dropped her arm and turned to issue a command to
+Fortunio. But already the fellow had departed. His concern was not with
+women, but with the man who had escaped him. He must make certain that
+the fall had killed Garnache.
+
+Breathless and worn as he was, all spattered now with blood from the
+scratch in his cheek, which lent him a terrific aspect, he dashed
+from that shambles and across the guard-room. He snatched up a lighted
+lantern that had been left in the doorway and leapt down the stairs
+and into the courtyard. Here he came upon Monsieur de Tressan with a
+half-dozen fellows at his heels, all more or less half clad, but all
+very fully armed with swords and knives, and one or two with muskets.
+
+Roughly, with little thought for the dignity of his high office, he
+thrust the Lord Seneschal aside and turned the men. Some he ordered off
+to the stables to get horses, for if Garnache had survived his leap and
+swum the moat, they must give chase. Whatever betide, the Parisian must
+not get away. He feared the consequences of that as much for himself as
+for Condillac. Some five or six of the men he bade follow him, and never
+pausing to answer any of Tressan’s fearful questions, he sped across
+the courtyard, through the kitchens--which was the nearest way--into the
+outer quadrangle. Never pausing to draw breath, spent though he was, he
+pursued his flight under the great archway of the keep and across the
+drawbridge, the raising of which had been that night postponed to await
+the Lord Seneschal’s departure.
+
+Here on the bridge he paused and turned in a frenzy to scream to his
+followers that they should fetch more torches. Meanwhile he snatched the
+only one at hand from the man-at-arms that carried it.
+
+His men sprang into the guard-room of the keep, realizing from his
+almost hysterical manner the urgent need for haste. And while he waited
+for them, standing there on the bridge, his torch held high, he scanned
+by its lurid red light the water as far as eye could reach on either
+side of him.
+
+There was a faint movement on the dark, oily surface for all that no
+wind stirred. Not more than four or five minutes could have elapsed
+since Garnache’s leap, and it would seem as if the last ripple from the
+disturbance of his plunge had not yet rolled itself out. But otherwise
+there was nothing here, nor did Fortunio expect aught. The window of the
+Northern Tower abutted on to the other side of the chateau, and it was
+there he must look for traces of the fugitive or for his body.
+
+“Hasten!” he shouted over his shoulder. “Follow me!” And without waiting
+for them he ran across the bridge and darted round the building, his
+torch scattering a shower of sparks behind him on the night, and sending
+little rills of blood-red light down the sword which he still carried.
+
+He gained the spot where Garnache must have fallen, and he stood below
+the radiance that clove the night from the shattered window fifty feet
+above, casting the light of his torch this way and that over the
+black bosom of the moat. Not a ripple moved now upon that even, steely
+surface. Voices sounded behind him, and with them a great glare of
+ruddy light came to herald the arrival of his men. He turned to them and
+pointed with his sword away from the chateau.
+
+“Spread yourselves!” he shouted. “Make search yonder. He cannot have
+gone far.”
+
+And they, but dimly realizing whom they sought, yet realizing that they
+sought a man, dashed off and spread themselves as he had bidden them,
+to search the stretch of meadowland, where ill must betide any fugitive,
+since no cover offered.
+
+Fortunio remained where he was at the edge of the moat. He stooped,
+and waving his torch along the ground he moved to the far angle of the
+chateau, examining the soft, oozy clay. It was impossible that a man
+could have clambered out over that without leaving some impression. He
+reached the corner and found the clay intact; at least, nowhere could
+he discover a mark of hands or a footprint set as would be that of a man
+emerging from the water.
+
+He retraced his steps and went back until he had reached the eastern
+angle of the chateau, yet always with the same result. He straightened
+himself at last, and his manner was more calm; his frenzied haste was
+gone, and deliberately he now raised his torch and let its light shine
+again over the waters. He pondered them a moment, his dark eyes musing
+almost regretfully.
+
+“Drowned!” he said aloud, and sheathed his sword.
+
+From the window overhead a voice hailed him. He looked up and saw the
+Dowager, and, behind her, the figure of her son. Away in the meadows
+the lights of his men’s torches darted hither and thither like playful
+jack-o’-lanterns.
+
+“Have you got him, Fortunio?”
+
+“Yes, madame,” he answered with assurance. “You may have his body when
+you will. He is underneath here.” And he pointed to the water.
+
+They appeared to take his word for it, for they questioned him no
+further. The Marquise turned to mademoiselle, who was still sitting on
+the floor.
+
+“He is drowned, Valerie,” she said slowly, watching the girl’s face.
+
+Valerie looked up. Her eyes were very wide, and her lips moved for a
+second. Then she fell forward without a word. This last horror, treading
+on the heels of all those that already had assailed her, proved too
+great a strain for her brave spirit. She had swooned.
+
+Tressan entered at that moment, full of questions as to what might be
+toward, for he had understood nothing in the courtyard. The Marquise
+called to him to help her with the girl, Marius being still too faint,
+and between them they bore her to her chamber, laid her on the bed, and,
+withdrawing, closed the door upon her. Then she signed to Marius and the
+Seneschal.
+
+“Come,” she said; “let us go. The sight and smell of the place are
+turning me sick, although my stomach is strong enough to endure most
+horrors.”
+
+She took up one of the candle-branches to light them, and they went
+below and made their way to the hall, where they found Marius’s page,
+Gaston, looking very pale and scared at the din that had filled the
+chateau during the past half-hour or so. With him was Marius’s hound,
+which the poor boy had kept by him for company and protection in that
+dreadful time.
+
+The Marquise spoke to him kindly, and she stooped to pat the dog’s
+glossy head. Then she bade Gaston set wine for them, and when it was
+fetched the three of them drank in brooding, gloomy silence.
+
+The draught invigorated Marius, it cheered Tressan’s drooping spirits,
+and it quenched the Dowager’s thirst. The Seneschal turned to her
+again with his unanswered questions touching the end of that butchery
+above-stairs. She told him what Fortunio had said that Garnache was
+drowned as a consequence of his mad leap from the window.
+
+Into Tressan’s mind there sprang the memory of the thing Garnache had
+promised should befall him in such a case. It drove the colour from his
+cheeks and brought great lines of fearful care into sharp relief about
+his mouth and eyes.
+
+“Madame, we are ruined!” he groaned.
+
+“Tressan,” she answered him contemptuously, “you are chicken-hearted.
+Listen to me. Did he not say that he had left his man behind him when he
+came to Condillac? Where think you that he left his man?”
+
+“Maybe in Grenoble,” answered the Seneschal, staring.
+
+“Find out,” she told him impressively, her eyes on his, and calm as
+though they had never looked upon such sights as that very night had
+offered them. “If not in Grenoble, certainly, at least, somewhere in
+this Dauphiny of which you are the King’s Lord Seneschal. Turn the whole
+province inside out, man, but find the fellow. Yours is the power to
+do it. Do it, then, and you will have no consequences to fear. You have
+seen the man?”
+
+“Ay, I have seen him. I remember him; and his name, I bethink me, is
+Rabecque.”
+
+He took courage; his face looked less dejected.
+
+“You overlook nothing, madame,” he murmured. “You are truly wonderful.
+I will start the search this very night. My men are almost all at
+Montelimar awaiting my commands. I’ll dispatch a messenger with orders
+that they are to spread themselves throughout Dauphiny upon this quest.”
+
+The door opened, and Fortunio entered. He was still unwashed and
+terrible to look upon, all blood-bespattered. The sight of him drove a
+shudder through Tressan. The Marquise grew solicitous.
+
+“How is your wound, Fortunio?” was her first question.
+
+He made a gesture that dismissed the matter.
+
+“It is nothing. I am over full-blooded, and if I am scratched, I bleed,
+without perceiving it, enough to drain another man.”
+
+“Here, drink, mon capitaine,” she urged him, very friendly, filling
+him a cup with her own hands. “And you, Marius?” she asked. “Are you
+recovering strength?”
+
+“I am well,” answered Marius sullenly. His defeat that evening had
+left him glum and morose. He felt that he had cut a sorry figure in the
+affair, and his vanity was wounded. “I deplore I had so little share in
+the fight,” he muttered.
+
+“The lustiest fight ever I or any man beheld,” swore Fortunio. “Dieu!
+But he was a fighter, that Monsieur de Garnache, and he deserved a
+better end than drowning.”
+
+“You are quite sure that he is drowned?”
+
+Fortunio replied by giving his reasons for that conclusion, and they
+convinced both the Marquise and her son indeed they had never deemed
+it possible that the Parisian could have survived that awful leap. The
+Dowager looked at Marius, and from him to the captain.
+
+“Do you think, you two, that you will be fit for tomorrow’s business?”
+
+“For myself,” laughed Fortunio, “I am ready for it now.”
+
+“And I shall be when I have rested,” answered Marius grimly.
+
+“Then get you both to rest, you will be needing it,” she bade them.
+
+“And I, too, madame,” said the Seneschal, bending over the hand she held
+out to him. “Good-night to you all.” He would have added a word to wish
+them luck in the morrow’s venture; but for the life of him he dared not.
+He turned, made another of his bows, and rolled out of the room.
+
+Five minutes later the drawbridge was being raised after his departure,
+and Fortunio was issuing orders to the men he had recalled from their
+futile search to go clear the guard-room and antechamber of the Northern
+Tower, and to bear the dead to the chapel, which must serve as a
+mortuary for the time. That done he went off to bed, and soon after the
+lights were extinguished in Condillac; and save for Arsenio, who was, on
+guard, sorely perturbed by all that had befallen and marvelling at the
+rashness of his friend “Battista”--for he had no full particulars of the
+business--the place was wrapped in sleep.
+
+Had they been less sure that Garnache was drowned, maybe they had
+slumbered less tranquilly that night at Condillac. Fortunio had been
+shrewd in his conclusions, yet a trifle hasty; for whilst, as a matter
+of fact, he was correct in assuming that the Parisian had not
+crawled out of the moat--neither at the point he had searched, nor
+elsewhere--yet was he utterly wrong to assume him at the bottom of it.
+
+Garnache had gone through that window prepared to leap into
+another--and, he hoped, a better world. He had spun round twice in the
+air and shot feet foremost through the chill waters of the moat, and
+down until his toes came in contact with a less yielding substance, yet
+yielding nevertheless. Marvelling that he should have retained until now
+his senses, he realized betimes that he was touching mud--that he was
+really ankle deep in it. A vigorous, frantic kick with both legs at once
+released him, and he felt himself slowly re-ascending to the surface.
+
+It has been often said that a drowning man in his struggles sees his
+whole life mirrored before him. In the instants of Garnache’s ascent
+through the half stagnant waters of that moat he had reviewed the entire
+situation and determined upon the course he should pursue. When he
+reached the surface, he must see to it that he broke it gently, for at
+the window above were sure to be watchers, looking to see how he had
+fared. Madame, he remembered, had sent Tressan for muskets. If he had
+returned with them and they should perceive him from above, a bullet
+would be sent to dispose of him, and it were a pity to be shot now after
+having come through so much.
+
+His head broke the surface and emerged into the chill darkness of the
+night. He took a deep breath of cold but very welcome air, and moving
+his arms gently under water, he swam quietly, not to the edge of the
+moat but to the chateau wall, close under which he thought he would be
+secure from observation. He found by good fortune a crevice between two
+stones; he did not see it, his fingers found it for him as they groped
+along that granite surface. He clung there a moment and pondered the
+situation. He heard voices above, and looking up he saw the glare of
+light through the opening he had battered.
+
+And now he was surprised to feel new vigour running through him. He had
+hurled himself from that window with scarce the power to leap, bathed in
+perspiration and deeming his strength utterly spent. The ice-cold waters
+of the moat had served, it would seem, to brace him, to wash away his
+fatigue, and to renew his energies. His mind was singularly clear and
+his senses rendered superacute, and he set himself to consider what he
+had best do.
+
+Swim to the edge of the moat and, clambering out, take to his legs was
+naturally the first impulse. But, reflecting upon the open nature of the
+ground, he realized that that must mean his ruin. Presently they would
+come to see how he had fared, and failing to find him in the water they
+would search the country round about. He set himself in their place. He
+tried to think as they would think, the better that he might realize
+how they would act, and then an idea came to him that might be worth
+heeding. In any case his situation was still very desperate; on that
+score he allowed himself no illusions. That they would take his drowning
+for granted, and never come to satisfy themselves, he was not optimist
+enough to assume.
+
+He abandoned his grip of the wall and began to swim gently toward the
+eastern angle. If they came out, they must lower the bridge; he would
+place himself so that in falling it should cover him and screen him from
+their sight. He rounded the angle of the building, and now the friendly
+cloud that had hung across the moon moved by, and a faint, silver
+radiance was upon the water under his eyes. But yonder, ahead of him,
+something black lay athwart the moat. At once he knew it for the bridge.
+It was down. And he had the explanation in that he remembered that the
+Lord Seneschal had not yet left Condillac. It mattered little to him one
+way or the other. The bridge was there, and he made the best of it.
+
+A few swift, silent strokes brought him to it. He hesitated a moment
+before venturing into the darkness underneath; then, bethinking him that
+it was that or discovery, he passed under. He made for the wall, and as
+he groped along he found a chain depending and reaching down into the
+water. He caught at it with both hands and hung by it to await events.
+
+And now, for the first time that night, his pulses really quickened.
+There in the dark he waited, and the moments that sped seemed very long
+to him, and they were very anxious. He had no good sword wherewith to
+defend himself were he attacked, no good, solid ground on which to take
+his stand. If he were discovered, he was helpless, at their mercy, to
+shoot, or take, or beat to death as best they listed. And so he waited,
+his pulses throbbing, his breath coming short and fast. The cold water
+that had invigorated him some minutes ago was numbing him now, and
+seemed to be freezing his courage as it froze the blood in his veins,
+the very marrow in his bones.
+
+Presently his ears caught a rush of feet, a sound of voices, and
+Fortunio’s raised above the others. Heavy steps rang on the bridge
+over his head, and the thud of their fall was like thunder to the man
+beneath. A crimson splash of light fell on the moat on either side of
+him. The fellow on the bridge had halted. Then the steps went on. The
+light flared this way and that, and Garnache almost trembled, expecting
+at every moment that its rays would penetrate the spot where he was
+hanging and reveal him cowering there like a frightened water-rat. But
+the man moved on, and his light flared no longer.
+
+Then others followed him. Garnache heard the sounds of their search. So
+overwrought was he that there was a moment when he thought of swimming
+to the edge and making across the country to the north while they were
+hunting the meadows to the east; but he repressed the impulse and stayed
+on. An eternity did it seem before those men returned and marched once
+more over his head. A further eternity was it until the clatter of
+hoofs on the courtyard stones and their thunder on the planks above him
+brought him the news that Tressan was riding home. He heard the hoofs
+quicken, and their loud rattle on the road that led down to the Isere,
+a half-mile away; and then, when the hoof-beats grew more distant, there
+came again the echo of voices up above.
+
+Was it not over yet? Dear God! would it never end? He felt that a few
+moments more of this immersion and he should be done for utterly; his
+numbness must rob him of the power to cross the moat.
+
+Suddenly the first welcome sound he had heard that night came to his
+ears. Chains creaked, hinges groaned, and the great black pall above
+him began gradually to rise. Faster it went, till, at last, it fell back
+into position, flat with the wall of the chateau, and such little light
+as there was from the moon was beating down upon his frozen face.
+
+He let the chain go, and, with strokes swift and silent as he could
+contrive, he crossed the water. He clambered up the bank, almost bereft
+of strength. A moment he crouched there listening. Had he moved too
+soon? Had he been incautious?
+
+Nothing stirred behind him to confirm his fears. He crept softly
+across the hard ground of the road where he had landed. Then, when the
+yielding, silent turf was under his feet, he gave not another thought
+for his numbness, but started to run as a man runs in a nightmare, so
+little did the speed of his movements match the pace of his desire to
+set a distance between himself and Condillac.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX. THROUGH THE NIGHT
+
+It wanted something over an hour to midnight when Monsieur de Garnache
+started out in his sodden clothes to run from Condillac. He bore away to
+the north, and continued running until he had covered a mile or so, when
+perforce he must slacken his pace lest presently he should have to give
+way to utter exhaustion. He trudged on bravely thereafter, at a good,
+swinging pace, realizing that in moving briskly lay his salvation from
+such ill effects as might otherwise attend his too long immersion. His
+run had set a pleasant glow upon his skin and seemed to have thawed the
+frozen condition of his joints. Yet he could not disguise from himself
+that he was sorely worn by that night’s happenings, and that, if he
+would reach his goal, he must carefully husband such strength as yet
+remained him.
+
+That goal of his was Voiron, some four leagues distant to the north,
+where, at the inn of the Beau Paon, his man, Rabecque, should be lodged,
+ready for his coming at any time. Once already, when repairing to
+Condillac, he had travelled by that road, and it was so direct that
+there seemed scant fear of his mistaking it. On he plodded through the
+night, his way lighted for him by the crescent moon, the air so still
+that, despite his wet garments, being warmed as he was by his brisk
+movements, he never felt the cold of it.
+
+He had overheard enough of what had been said by Marius to Valerie to
+understand the business that was afoot for the morrow, and he doubted
+him that he had not sufficiently injured the Dowager’s son to make him
+refrain from or adjourn his murderous ride across the border into Savoy.
+
+Garnache’s purpose now was to reach Voiron, there to snatch a brief
+rest, and then, equipped anew to set out with his man for La Rochette
+and anticipate the fell plans of Marius and Fortunio.
+
+He might have experienced elation at his almost miraculous escape and at
+the circumstance that he was still at large to carry this duel with the
+Condillacs to a fitting finish, were it not for the reflection that but
+for his besetting sin of hastiness he might now be travelling in dry
+garments toward La Rochette, with mademoiselle beside him. Once again
+that rash temper of his had marred an enterprise that was on the point
+of succeeding. And yet, even as he regretted his rashness, rage stirred
+him again at the thought of Marius crushing that slender shape against
+him and seeking to force his odious kisses upon her pure, immaculate
+lips. And then the thought of her, left behind at Condillac at the
+mercy of Marius and that she-devil the Marquise, and the fears that of
+a sudden leapt up in his mind, brought him to a standstill, as though he
+were contemplating the incomparable folly of a return. He beat his hands
+together for a moment in a frenzy of anguish; he threw back his head
+and raised his eyes to the sky above with a burst of imprecations on his
+lips. And then reflection brought him peace. No, no; they dare offer
+her no hurt. To do so must irrevocably lose them La Vauvraye; and it was
+their covetousness had made them villains. Upon that covetousness did
+their villainy rest, and he need fear from them no wanton ruthlessness
+that should endanger their chance of profit.
+
+He trudged on, reassured. He had been a fool so to give way to fear; as
+great a fool as he had been when he had laid hands on Marius to quell
+his excessive amorousness. Dieu! Was he bewitched? What ailed him? Again
+he paused there in the night to think the situation out.
+
+A dozen thoughts, all centering about Valerie, came crowding in upon
+his brain, till in the end a great burst of laughter--the laughter of a
+madman almost, eerie and terrific as it rang upon the silent night broke
+from his parted lips. That brief moment of introspection had revealed
+him to himself, and the revelation had fetched that peal of mocking
+laughter from him.
+
+He realized now, at last, that not because the Queen had ordered him to
+procure Mademoiselle de La Vauvraye’s enlargement had he submitted
+to assume a filthy travesty, to set his neck in jeopardy, to play
+the lackey and the spy. It was because something in Valerie’s eyes,
+something in her pure, lily face had moved him to it; and simultaneously
+had come the thought of the relation in which she stood to that man at
+La Rochette whose life he now sought to save for her, and it had stabbed
+him with a bitterness no misfortune, no failure yet had brought him.
+
+He trudged on, knowing himself for what he was a fool who, after close
+upon forty years of a strenuous life in which no petticoat had played a
+part, was come under the spell of a pair of innocent eyes belonging to a
+child almost young enough to have been his daughter.
+
+He despised himself a little for his weakness; he despised himself for
+his apostasy from the faith that had governed his life--the faith to
+keep himself immune from the folly to which womanhood had driven so many
+a stout man.
+
+And yet, mock himself, despise himself as he would, a great tenderness,
+a great desire grew strong in his soul that night as he trudged on
+toward distant Voiron. Mile after mile her image kept him company, and
+once, when he had left Voreppe behind him, the greater portion of his
+journey done, some devil whispered in his ear that he was weary; that
+he would be over-weary on the morrow for any ride to La Rochette. He had
+done all that mortal man could do; let him rest to-morrow whilst Marius
+and Fortunio accomplished by Florimond what the fever had begun.
+
+A cold perspiration broke on him as he wrestled with that grim
+temptation. Valerie was his; she belonged to him by the right of dangers
+shared; never had mother in her labours been nearer death for the
+offspring’s sake than had he for Valerie during the days that were sped
+and the hours that were but gone. She belonged to him by the title of
+those dangers he had been through. What had Florimond done to establish
+his claim to her? He had remained absent during long years, a-warring in
+a foreign land. With how many banal loves might not the fellow in that
+time have strewn his soldier’s path! Garnache knew well how close does
+Cupid stalk in the wake of Mars, knew well the way of these gay soldiers
+and the lightness of their loves.
+
+Was, then, this fellow to come now and claim her, when perils were past,
+when there was naught left to do but lead her to the altar? Could he be
+worthy of such a pearl of womanhood, this laggard who, because a fever
+touched him, sat him down in an inn within a few hours’ ride of her to
+rest him, as though the world held no such woman as Valerie?
+
+And she, herself, by what ties was she bound to him? By the ties of an
+old promise, given at an age when she knew not what love meant. He
+had talked of it with her, and he knew how dispassionately she awaited
+Florimond’s return. Florimond might be betrothed to her--her father and
+his had encompassed that between them--but no lover of hers was he.
+
+Thus far did his thoughts journey, and temptation gripped him ever more
+and more strongly. And then his manhood and his honour awoke with a
+shudder, as awakens a man from an ugly dream. What manner of fool was
+he? he asked himself again. Upon what presumptions did he base his silly
+musings? Did he suppose that even were there no Florimond, it would be
+left for a harsh, war-worn old greybeard such as he to awaken tenderness
+in the bosom of that child? The tenderness of friendship perhaps--she
+had confessed to that; but the tenderness of her sweet love must be won
+by a younger, comelier man.
+
+If love had indeed touched him at last, let him be worthy of it and of
+her who inspired it. Let him strain every sinew in her service, asking
+no guerdon; let him save the life of the man to whom she was affianced;
+let him save her from the clutches of the Marquise de Condillac and her
+beautiful, unscrupulous son.
+
+He put his folly from him and-went on, seeking to hold his mind to the
+planning of his to-morrow’s journey and its business. He had no means to
+know that at that very hour Valerie was on her knees by her little white
+bed, in the Northern Tower of Condillac, praying for the repose of the
+soul of Monsieur de Garnache--the bravest gentleman, the noblest friend
+she had ever known. For she accounted him dead, and she thought with
+horror of his body lying in the slime under the cold waters of the moat
+beneath the window of her antechamber. A change seemed to have come upon
+her. Her soul was numb, her courage seemed dead, and little care had she
+in that hour of what might betide her now.
+
+Florimond was coming, she remembered: coming to wed her. Ah, well! It
+mattered little, since Monsieur de Garnache was dead--as though it could
+have mattered had he been living!
+
+Three hours of his long striding brought Garnache at last to Voiron, and
+the echo of his footsteps rang through the silent streets and scared a
+stray cat or two that were preying out of doors. There was no watch
+in the little township and no lights, but by the moon’s faint glimmer
+Garnache sought the inn of the Beau Paon, and found it at the end of a
+little wandering. A gaudy peacock, with tail spread wide, was the sign
+above the door on which he thumped and kicked as if he would have beaten
+it down.
+
+It opened after some delay, and a man, half clad, candle in hand, a
+night-cap on his hoary locks, showed an angry face at the opening.
+
+At sight of the gaunt, bedraggled figure that craved admittance, the
+landlord would have shut the door again, fearing that he had to do with
+some wild bandit from the hills. But Garnache thrust his foot in the
+way.
+
+“There is a man named Rabecque, from Paris, lodging here. I must have
+instant speech with him,” said he; and his words, together with the
+crisp, commanding tones in which they were uttered, had their effect
+upon the host.
+
+Rabecque had been playing the great lord during the week he had spent
+at Voiron, and had known how to command a certain deference and regard.
+That this tatterdemalion, with the haughty voice, should demand to see
+him at that hour of the night, with such scant unconcern of how far
+he might incommode the great Monsieur Rabecque, earned for him too a
+certain measure of regard, though still alloyed with some suspicion.
+
+The landlord bade him enter. He did not know whether Monsieur Rabecque
+would forgive him for being disturbed; he could not say whether Monsieur
+Rabecque would consent to see this visitor at such an hour; very
+probably he would not. Still, monsieur might enter.
+
+Garnache cut him short before he had half done, announced his name
+and bade him convey it to Rabecque. The alacrity with which the lackey
+stirred from his bed upon hearing who it was that had arrived impressed
+the host not a little, but not half so much as it impressed him
+presently to observe the deference with which this great Monsieur
+Rabecque of Paris confronted the scarecrow below stairs when he was
+brought into its presence.
+
+“You are safe and sound, monsieur?” he cried, in deferential joy.
+
+“Aye, by a miracle, mon fils,” Garnache answered him, with a short
+laugh. “Help me to bed; then bring me a cup of spiced wine. I have swum
+a moat and done other wonders in these clothes.”
+
+The host and Rabecque bustled now to minister to his wants between them,
+and when, jaded and worn, Garnache lay at last between good-smelling
+sheets with the feeling in him that he was like to sleep until the day
+of judgment, he issued his final orders.
+
+“Awake me at daybreak, Rabecque,” said he drowsily. “We must be stirring
+then. Have horse ready and clothes for me. I shall need you to wash me
+clean and shave me and make me what I was before your tricks and dyes
+turned me into what I have been this week and more. Take away the light.
+At daybreak! Don’t let me sleep beyond that as you value your place with
+me. We shall have brisk work to-morrow. At--daybreak--Rabecque!”
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX. FLORIMOND DE CONDILLAC
+
+It was noon of the next day when two horsemen gained the heights above
+La Rochette and paused to breathe their nags and take a survey of the
+little township in the plain at their feet. One of these was Monsieur
+de Garnache, the other was his man Rabecque. But it was no longer the
+travestied Garnache that Condillac had known as “Battista” during the
+past days, it was that gentleman as he had been when first he presented
+himself at the chateau. Rabecque had shaved him, and by means of certain
+unguents had cleansed his skin and hair of the dyes with which he had
+earlier overlaid them.
+
+That metamorphosis, of itself, was enough to set Garnache in a good
+humour; he felt himself again, and the feeling gave him confidence.
+His mustachios bristled as fiercely as of old, his skin was clear and
+healthy, and his dark brown hair showed ashen at the temples. He
+was becomingly arrayed in a suit of dark brown camlet, with rows of
+close-set gold buttons running up his hanging sleeves; a leather jerkin
+hid much of his finery, and his great boots encased his legs. He wore a
+brown hat, with a tallish crown and a red feather, and Rabecque carried
+his cloak for him, for the persistent Saint Martin’s summer rendered
+that day of November rather as one of early autumn.
+
+A flood of sunshine descended from a cloudless sky to drench the country
+at their feet, and all about them the trees preserved a green that was
+but little touched by autumnal browning.
+
+Awhile he paused there on the heights; then he gave his horse a touch
+of the spur, and they started down the winding road that led into La
+Rochette. A half-hour later they were riding under the porte cochere of
+the inn of the Black Boar. Of the ostler who hastened forward to take
+their reins Monsieur de Garnache inquired if the Marquis de Condillac
+were lodged there. He was answered in the affirmative, and he got down
+at once from his horse. Indeed, but for the formality of the thing, he
+might have spared himself the question, for lounging about the
+courtyard were a score of stalwart weather-tanned fellows, whose air and
+accoutrements proclaimed them soldiers. It required little shrewdness
+to guess in them the personal followers of the Marquis, the remainder of
+the little troop that had followed the young seigneur to the wars when,
+some three years ago, he had set out from Condillac.
+
+Garnache gave orders for the horses to be cared for, and bade Rabecque
+get himself fed in the common room. Heralded by the host, the Parisian
+then mounted the stairs to Monsieur de Condillac’s apartments.
+
+The landlord led the way to the inn’s best room, turned the handle, and,
+throwing wide the door, stood aside for Monsieur de Garnache to enter.
+
+From within the chamber came the sounds of a scuffle, a man’s soft
+laugh, and a girl’s softer intercession.
+
+“Let me go, monsieur. Of your pity, let me go. Some one is coming.”
+
+“And what care I who comes?” answered a voice that seemed oppressed by
+laughter.
+
+Garnache strode into the chamber--spacious and handsomely furnished as
+became the best room of the Auberge du Sanglier Noir--to find a meal
+spread on the table, steaming with an odour promising of good things,
+but neglected by the guest for the charms of the serving-wench, whose
+waist he had imprisoned. As Garnache’s tall figure loomed before him he
+let the girl go and turned a half-laughing, half-startled face upon the
+intruder.
+
+“Who the devil may you be?” he inquired, and a brown eye, rakish and
+roving in its glance, played briskly over the Parisian, whilst Garnache
+himself returned the compliment, and calmly surveyed this florid
+gentleman of middle height with the fair hair and regular features.
+
+The girl scurried by and darted from the room, dodging the smiting hand
+which the host raised as she flew past him. The Parisian felt his gorge
+rising. Was this the sort of fever that had kept Monsieur le Marquis at
+La Rochette, whilst mademoiselle was suffering in durance at Condillac?
+His last night’s jealous speculations touching a man he did not know had
+leastways led him into no exaggeration. He found just such a man as he
+had pictured--a lightly-loving, pleasure-taking roysterer, with never a
+thought beyond the amusement which the hour afforded him.
+
+With curling lip Garnache bowed stiffly, and in a cold, formal voice he
+announced himself.
+
+“My name is Martin Marie Rigobert de Garnache. I am an emissary
+dispatched from Paris by her Majesty the Queen-mother to procure the
+enlargement of Mademoiselle de La Vauvraye from the durance in which she
+is held by madame your stepmother.”
+
+The pleasant gentleman’s eyebrows went up; a smile that was almost
+insolent broke on his face.
+
+“That being so, monsieur, why the devil are you here?”
+
+“I am here, monsieur,” answered him Garnache, throwing back his head,
+his nostrils quivering, “because you are not at Condillac.”
+
+The tone was truculent to the point of defiance, for despite the firm
+resolve he had taken last night never again to let his temper overmaster
+him, already Garnache’s self-control was slipping away.
+
+The Marquis noted the tone, and observed the man. In their way he
+liked both; in their way he disliked both. But he clearly saw that this
+peppery gentleman must be treated less cavalierly, or trouble would come
+of it. So he waved him gracefully to the table, where a brace of flagons
+stood amid the steaming viands.
+
+“You will dine with me, monsieur,” said he, the utmost politeness
+marking his utterance now. “I take it that since you have come here in
+quest of me you have something to tell me. Shall we talk as we eat? I
+detest a lonely meal.”
+
+The florid gentleman’s tone and manner were mollifying in the extreme.
+Garnache had risen early and ridden far; the smell of the viands had
+quickened an appetite already very keen; moreover, since he and this
+gentleman were to be allies, it was as well they should not begin by
+quarrelling.
+
+He bowed less stiffly, expressed his willingness and his thanks, laid
+hat and whip and cloak aside, unbuckled and set down his sword, and,
+that done, took at table the place which his host himself prepared him.
+
+Garnache took more careful stock of the Marquis now. He found much to
+like in his countenance. It was frank and jovial; obviously that of
+a sensualist, but, leastways, an honest sensualist. He was dressed
+in black, as became a man who mourned his father, yet with a striking
+richness of material, whilst his broad collar of fine point and the lace
+cuffs of his doublet were worth a fortune.
+
+What time they ate Monsieur de Garnache told of his journey from Paris
+and of his dealings with Tressan and his subsequent adventures at
+Condillac. He dwelt passingly upon the manner in which they had treated
+him, and found it difficult to choose words to express the reason for
+his returning in disguise to play the knight-errant to Valerie. He
+passed on to speak of last night’s happenings and of his escape.
+Throughout, the Marquis heard him with a grave countenance and a sober,
+attentive glance, yet, when he had finished a smile crept round the
+sensual lips.
+
+“The letter that I had at Milan prepared me for some such trouble as
+this,” said he, and Garnache was amazed at the lightness of his tone,
+just as he had been amazed to see the fellow keep his countenance at
+the narrative of mademoiselle’s position. “I guessed that my beautiful
+stepmother intended me some such scurviness from the circumstance of her
+having kept me in ignorance of my father’s death. But frankly, sir, your
+tale by far outstrips my wildest imaginings. You have behaved very--very
+bravely in this affair. You seem, in fact, to have taken a greater
+interest in Mademoiselle de La Vauvraye’s enlargement than the Queen
+could have a right to expect of you.” And he smiled, a world of
+suggestion in his eyes. Garnache sat back in his chair and stared at the
+man.
+
+“This levity, monsieur, on such a subject, leaves me thunderstruck,” he
+said at last.
+
+“Diable!” laughed the other. “You are too prone, after your trials; to
+view its tragic rather than its comic side. Forgive me if I am smitten
+only with the humour of the thing.”
+
+“The humour of the thing!” gurgled Garnache, his eyes starting from his
+head. Then out leapt that temper of his like an eager hound that has
+been suddenly unleashed. He brought down his clenched hand upon the
+table, caught in passing a flagon, and sent it crashing to the floor. If
+there was a table near at hand when his temper went, he never failed to
+treat it so.
+
+“Par la mort Dieu! monsieur, you see but the humour of it, do you? And
+what of that poor child who is lying there, suffering this incarceration
+because of her fidelity to a promise given you?”
+
+The statement was hardly fully accurate. But it served its purpose. The
+other’s face became instantly, grave.
+
+“Calm yourself, I beg, monsieur,” he cried, raising a soothing hand. “I
+have offended you somewhere; that is plain. There is something here that
+I do not altogether understand. You say that Valerie has suffered on
+account of a promise given me? To what are you referring?”
+
+“They hold her a prisoner, monsieur, because they wish to wed her to
+Marius,” answered Garnache, striving hard to cool his anger.
+
+“Parfaitement! That much I understood.”
+
+“Well, then, monsieur, is the rest not plain? Because she is betrothed
+to you--” He paused. He saw, at last, that he was stating something not
+altogether accurate. But the other took his meaning there and then, lay
+back in his chair, and burst out laughing.
+
+The blood hummed through Garnache’s head as he tightened his lips and
+watched this gentleman indulge his inexplicable mirth. Surely Monsieur
+de Condillac was possessed of the keenest sense of humour in all France.
+He laughed with a will, and Garnache sent up a devout prayer that the
+laugh might choke him. The noise of it filled the hostelry.
+
+“Sir,” said Garnache, with an ever-increasing tartness, “there is a
+by-word has it ‘Much laughter, little wit.’ In confidence won, is that
+your case, monsieur?”
+
+The other looked at him soberly a moment, then went off again.
+
+“Monsieur, monsieur!” he gasped, “you’ll be the death of me. For the
+love of Heaven look less fierce. Is it my fault that I must laugh? The
+folly of it all is so colossal. Three years from home, yet there is
+a woman keeps faithful and holds to a promise given for her. Come,
+monsieur, you who have seen the world, you must agree that there is in
+this something that is passing singular, extravagantly amusing. My poor
+little Valerie!” he spluttered through his half-checked mirth, “does she
+wait for me still? does she count me still betrothed to her? And because
+of that, says ‘No’ to brother Marius! Death of my life! I shall die of
+it.”
+
+“I have a notion that you may, monsieur,” rasped Garnache’s voice, and
+with it rasped Garnache’s chair upon the boards. He had risen, and he
+was confronting his merry host very fiercely, white to the lips, his
+eyes aflame. There was no mistaking his attitude, no mistaking his
+words.
+
+“Eh?” gasped the other, recovering himself at last to envisage what
+appeared to develop into a serious situation.
+
+“Monsieur,” said Garnache, his voice very cold, “do I understand that
+you no longer intend to carry out your engagement and wed Mademoiselle
+de La Vauvraye?”
+
+A dull flush spread upon the Marquis’s face. He rose too, and across the
+table he confronted his guest, his mien haughty, his eyes imperious.
+
+“I thought, monsieur,” said he, with a great dignity, “I thought when
+I invited you to sit at my table that your business was to serve me,
+however little I might be conscious of having merited the honour. It
+seems instead that you are come hither to affront me. You are my guest,
+monsieur. Let me beg that you will depart before I resent a question on
+a matter which concerns myself alone.”
+
+The man was right, and Garnache was wrong. He had no title to take up
+the affairs of Mademoiselle de La Vauvraye. But he was past reason now,
+and he was not the man to brook haughtiness, however courteously it
+might be cloaked. He eyed the Marquis’s flushed ace across the board,
+and his lip curled.
+
+“Monsieur,” said he, “I take your meaning very fully. Half a word with
+me is as good as a whole sentence with another. You have dubbed me
+in polite phrases an impertinent. That I am not; and I resent the
+imputation.”
+
+“Oh, that!” said the Marquis, with a half-laugh and a shrug. “If you
+resent it--” His smile and his gesture made the rest plain.
+
+“Exactly, monsieur,” was Garnache’s answer. “But I do not fight sick
+men.”
+
+Florimond’s brows grew wrinkled, his eyes puzzled.
+
+“Sick men!” he echoed. “Awhile ago, monsieur, you appeared to cast a
+doubt upon my sanity. Is it a case of the drunkard who thinks all the
+world drunk but himself?”
+
+Garnache gazed at him. That doubt he had entertained grew now into
+something like assurance.
+
+“I know not whether it is the fever makes your tongue run so--” he
+began, when the other broke in, a sudden light of understanding in his
+eyes.
+
+“You are at fault,” he cried. “I have no fever.”
+
+“But then your letter to Condillac?” demanded Garnache, lost now in
+utter amazement.
+
+“What of it? I’ll swear I never said I had a fever.”
+
+“I’ll swear you did.”
+
+“You give me the lie, then?”
+
+But Garnache waved his hands as if he implored the other, to have
+done with giving and taking offence. There was some misunderstanding
+somewhere, he realized, and sheer astonishment had cooled his anger. His
+only aim now was to have this obscure thing made clear.
+
+“No, no,” he cried. “I am seeking enlightenment.”
+
+Florimond smiled.
+
+“I may have said that we were detained by a fever; but I never said the
+patient was myself.”
+
+“Who then? Who else?” cried Garnache.
+
+“Why, now I understand, monsieur. But it is my wife who has the fever.”
+
+“Your--!” Garnache dared not trust himself to utter the word.
+
+“My wife, monsieur,” the Marquis repeated. “The journey proved too much
+for her, travelling at the rate she did.”
+
+A silence fell. Garnache’s long chin sank on to his breast, and he stood
+there, his eyes upon the tablecloth, his thoughts with the poor innocent
+child who waited at Condillac, so full of trust and faith and loyalty to
+this betrothed of hers who had come home with a wife out of Italy.
+
+And then, while he stood so and Florimond was regarding him curiously,
+the door opened, and the host appeared.
+
+“Monsieur le Marquis,” said he, “there are two gentlemen below asking to
+see you. One of them is Monsieur Marius de Condillac.”
+
+“Marius?” cried the Marquis, and he started round with a frown.
+
+“Marius?” breathed Garnache, and then, realizing that the assassins
+had followed so close upon his heels, he put all thoughts from his mind
+other than that of the immediate business. He had, himself, a score
+to settle with them. The time was now. He swung round on his heel, and
+before he knew what he had said the words were out:
+
+“Bring them up, Monsieur l’Hote.”
+
+Florimond looked at him in surprise.
+
+“Oh, by all means, if monsieur wishes it,” said he, with a fine irony.
+
+Garnache looked at him, then back at the hesitating host.
+
+“You have heard,” said he coolly. “Bring them up.”
+
+“Bien, monsieur,” replied the host, withdrawing and closing the door
+after him.
+
+“Your interference in my affairs grows really droll, monsieur,” said the
+Marquis tartly.
+
+“When you shall have learned to what purpose I am interfering, you’ll
+find it, possibly, not quite so droll,” was the answer, no less tart.
+“We have but a moment, monsieur. Listen while I tell you the nature of
+their errand.”
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI. THE GHOST IN THE CUPBOARD
+
+Garnache had but a few minutes in which to unfold his story, and he
+needed, in addition, a second or two in which to ponder the situation as
+he now found it.
+
+His first reflection was that Florimond, since he was now married, might
+perhaps, instead of proving Valerie’s saviour from Marius, join forces
+with his brother in coercing her into this alliance with him. But
+from what Valerie herself had told him he was inclined to think more
+favourably of Florimond and to suppress such doubts as these. Still
+he could incur no risks; his business was to serve Valerie and Valerie
+only; to procure at all costs her permanent liberation from the power
+of the Condillacs. To make sure of this he must play upon Florimond’s
+anger, letting him know that Marius had journeyed to La Rochette for the
+purpose of murdering his half-brother. That he but sought to murder
+him to the end that he might be removed from his path to Valerie, was
+a circumstance that need not too prominently be presented. Still,
+presented it must be, for Florimond would require to know by what
+motive his brother was impelled ere he could credit him capable of such
+villainy.
+
+Succinctly, but tellingly, Garnache brought out the story of the plot
+that had been laid for Florimond’s assassination, and it joyed him to
+see the anger rising in the Marquis’s face and flashing from his eyes.
+
+“What reason have they for so damnable a deed?” he cried, between
+incredulity and indignation.
+
+“Their overweening ambition. Marius covets Mademoiselle de La Vauvraye’s
+estates.”
+
+“And to gain his ends he would not stop at murdering me? Is it, indeed,
+the truth you tell me?”
+
+“I pledge my honour for the truth of it,” answered Garnache, watching
+him closely. Florimond looked at him a moment. The steady glance of
+those blue eyes and the steady tone of that crisp voice scattered his
+last doubt.
+
+“The villains!” cried the Marquis. “The fools!” he added. “For me,
+Marius had been welcome to Valerie. He might have found in me an ally
+to aid him in the urging of his suit. But now--” He raised his clenched
+hand and shook it in the air, as if in promise of the battle he would
+deliver.
+
+“Good,” said Garnache, reassured. “I hear their steps upon the stairs.
+They must not find me with you.”
+
+A moment later the door opened, and Marius, very bravely arrayed,
+entered the room, followed closely by Fortunio. Neither showed much ill
+effects of last night’s happenings, save for a long dark-brown scar that
+ran athwart the captain’s cheek, where Garnache’s sword had ploughed it.
+
+They found Florimond seated quietly at table, and as they entered he
+rose and came forward with a friendly smile to greet his brother. His
+sense of humour was being excited; he was something of an actor, and the
+role he had adopted in the comedy to be played gave him a certain grim
+satisfaction. He would test for himself the truth of what Monsieur
+de Garnache had told him concerning his brother’s intentions. Marius
+received his advances very coolly. He took his brother’s hand, submitted
+to his brother’s kiss; but neither kiss nor hand-pressure did he return.
+Florimond affected not to notice this.
+
+“You are well, my dear Marius, I hope,” said he, and thrusting him
+out at arms’ length, he held him by the shoulders and regarded him
+critically. “Ma foi, but you are changed into a comely well-grown man.
+And your mother--she is well, too, I trust.”
+
+“I thank you, Florimond, she is well,” said Marius stiffly.
+
+The Marquis took his hands from his brother’s shoulders; his florid,
+good-natured face smiling ever, as if this were the happiest moment of
+his life.
+
+“It is good to see France again, my dear Marius,” he told his brother.
+“I was a fool to have remained away so long. I am pining to be at
+Condillac once more.”
+
+Marius eyeing him, looked in vain for signs of the fever. He had
+expected to find a debilitated, emaciated man; instead, he saw a very
+lusty, healthy, hearty fellow, full of good humour, and seemingly
+full of strength. He began to like his purpose less, despite such
+encouragement as he gathered from the support of Fortunio. Still, it
+must be gone through with.
+
+“You wrote us that you had the fever,” he said, half inquiringly.
+
+“Pooh! That is naught.” And Florimond snapped a strong finger against
+a stronger thumb. “But whom have you with you?” he asked, and his eyes
+took the measure of Fortunio, standing a pace or two behind his master.
+
+Marius presented his bravo.
+
+“This is Captain Fortunio, the commander of our garrison of Condillac.”
+
+The Marquis nodded good-humouredly towards the captain.
+
+“Captain Fortunio? He is well named for a soldier of fortune. My
+brother, no doubt, will have family matters to tell me of. If you will
+step below, Monsieur le Capitaine, and drink a health or so while you
+wait, I shall be honoured.”
+
+The captain, nonplussed, looked at Marius, and Florimond surprised the
+look. But Marius’s manner became still chillier.
+
+“Fortunio here,” said he, and he half turned and let his hand fall on
+the captain’s shoulder, “is my very good friend. I have no secrets from
+him.”
+
+The instant lift of Florimond’s eyebrows was full of insolent,
+supercilious disdain. Yet Marius did not fasten his quarrel upon that.
+He had come to La Rochette resolved that any pretext would serve his
+turn. But the sight of his brother so inflamed his jealousy that he had
+now determined that the quarrel should be picked on the actual ground in
+which it had its roots.
+
+“Oh, as you will,” said the Marquis coolly. “Perhaps your friend will
+be seated, and you, too, my dear Marius.” And he played the host to them
+with a brisk charm. Setting chairs, he forced them to sit, and pressed
+wine upon them.
+
+Marius cast his hat and cloak on the chair where Garnache’s had been
+left. The Parisian’s hat and cloak, he naturally assumed to belong to
+his brother. The smashed flagon and the mess of wine upon the floor
+he scarce observed, setting it down to some clumsiness, either his
+brother’s or a servant’s. They both drank, Marius in silence, the
+captain with a toast.
+
+“Your good return, Monsieur le Marquis,” said he, and Florimond thanked
+him by an inclination of the head. Then, turning to Marius:
+
+“And so,” he said, “you have a garrison at Condillac. What the devil
+has been taking place there? I have had some odd news of you. It would
+almost seem as if you were setting up as rebels in our quiet little
+corner of Dauphiny.”
+
+Marius shrugged his shoulders; his face suggested that he was
+ill-humoured.
+
+“Madame the Queen-Regent has seen fit to interfere in our concerns. We
+Condillacs do not lightly brook interference.”
+
+Florimond showed his teeth in a pleasant smile.
+
+“That is true, that is very true, Pardieu! But what warranted this
+action of Her Majesty’s?”
+
+Marius felt that the time for deeds was come. This fatuous conversation
+was but a futile waste of time. He set down his glass, and sitting back
+in his chair he fixed his sullen black eyes full upon his half-brother’s
+smiling brown ones.
+
+“I think we have exchanged compliments enough,” said he, and Fortunio
+wagged his head approvingly. There were too many men in the courtyard
+for his liking, and the more time they waited, the more likely were they
+to suffer interruption. Their aim must be to get the thing done quickly,
+and then quickly to depart before an alarm could be raised. “Our trouble
+at Condillac concerns Mademoiselle de La Vauvraye.”
+
+Florimond started forward, with a ready assumption of lover-like
+solicitude.
+
+“No harm has come to her?” he cried. “Tell me that no harm has come to
+her.”
+
+“Reassure yourself,” answered Marius, with a sneer, a greyness that
+was of jealous rage overspreading his face. “No harm has come to her
+whatever. The trouble was that I sought to wed her, and she, because
+she is betrothed to you, would have none of me. So we brought her to
+Condillac, hoping always to persuade her. You will remember that she was
+under my mother’s tutelage. The girl, however, could not be constrained.
+She suborned one of our men to bear a letter to Paris for her, and
+in answer to it the Queen sent a hot-headed, rash blunderer down to
+Dauphiny to procure her liberation. He lies now at the bottom of the
+moat of Condillac.”
+
+Florimond’s face had assumed a look of horror and indignation.
+
+“Do you dare tell me this?” he cried.
+
+“Dare?” answered Marius, with an ugly laugh. “Men enough have died over
+this affair already. That fellow Garnache left some bodies on our hands
+last night before he set out for another world himself. You little dream
+how far my daring goes in this matter. I’ll add as many more as need
+be to the death roll that we have already, before you set foot in
+Condillac.”
+
+“Ah!” said Florimond, as one upon whose mind a light breaks suddenly.
+“So, that is the business on which you come to me. I doubted your
+brotherliness, I must confess, my dear Marius. But tell me, brother
+mine, what of our father’s wishes in this matter? Have you no respect
+for those?”
+
+“What respect had you?” flashed back Marius, his voice now raised in
+anger. “Was it like a lover to remain away for three years--to let all
+that time go by without ever a word from you to your betrothed? What
+have you done to make good your claim to her?”
+
+“Nothing, I confess; yet--”
+
+“Well, you shall do something now,” exclaimed Marius, rising. “I am here
+to afford you the opportunity. If you would still win Mademoiselle de La
+Vauvraye, you shall win her from me--at point of sword. Fortunio, see to
+the door.”
+
+“Wait, Marius!” cried Florimond, and he looked genuinely aghast. “Do not
+forget that we are brothers, men of the same blood; that my father was
+your father.”
+
+“I choose to remember rather that we are rivals,” answered Marius, and
+he drew his rapier. Fortunio turned the key in the lock. Florimond gave
+his brother a long searching look, then with a sigh he picked up his
+sword where it lay ready to his hand and thoughtfully unsheathed it.
+Holding the hilt in one hand and the blade in the other he stood,
+bending the weapon like a whip, whilst again he searchingly regarded his
+brother.
+
+“Hear me a moment,” said he. “If you will force this unnatural quarrel
+upon me, at least let the thing be decently done. Not here, not in these
+cramped quarters, but out in the open let our meeting take place. If the
+captain, there, will act for you, I’ll find a friend to do me the like
+service.”
+
+“We settle this matter here and now,” Marius answered him, in a tone of
+calm finality.
+
+“But if I were to kill you--” Florimond began.
+
+“Reassure yourself,” said Marius with an ugly smile.
+
+“Very well, then; either alternative will suit the case I wish to put.
+If you were to kill me--it may be ranked as murder. The irregularity of
+it could not be overlooked.”
+
+“The captain, here, will act for both of us.”
+
+“I am entirely at your service, gentlemen,” replied Fortunio pleasantly,
+bowing to each in turn.
+
+Florimond considered him. “I do not like his looks,” he objected. “He
+may be the friend of your bosom, Marius; you may have no secrets from
+him; but for my part, frankly, I should prefer the presence of some
+friend of my own to keep his blade engaged.”
+
+The Marquis’s manner was affable in the extreme. Now that it was settled
+that they must fight, he appeared to have cast aside all scruples based
+upon their consanguinity, and he discussed the affair with the greatest
+bonhomie, as though he were disposing of a matter of how they should sit
+down to table.
+
+It gave them pause. The change was too abrupt. They did not like it.
+It was as the calm that screens some surprise. Yet it was impossible he
+should have been forewarned; impossible he could have had word of how
+they proposed to deal with him.
+
+Marius shrugged his shoulders.
+
+“There is reason in what you say,” he acknowledged; “but I am in haste.
+I cannot wait while you go in search of a friend.”
+
+“Why then,” he answered, with a careless laugh, “I must raise one from
+the dead.”
+
+Both stared at him. Was he mad? Had the fever touched his brain?
+Was that healthy colour but the brand of a malady that rendered him
+delirious?
+
+“Dieu! How you stare!” he continued, laughing in their faces. “You shall
+see something to compensate you for your journey, messieurs. I have
+learnt some odd tricks in Italy; they are a curious people beyond the
+Alps. What did you say was the name of the man the Queen had sent from
+Paris?--he who lies at the bottom of the moat of Condillac?”
+
+“Let there be an end to this jesting,” growled Marius. “On guard,
+Monsieur le Marquis!”
+
+“Patience! patience!” Florimond implored him. “You shall have your way
+with me, I promise you. But of your charity, messieurs, tell me first
+the name of that man.”
+
+“It was Garnache,” said Fortunio, “and if the information will serve
+you, it was I who slew him.”
+
+“You?” cried Florimond. “Tell me of it, I beg you.”
+
+“Do you fool us?” questioned Marius in a rage that overmastered his
+astonishment, his growing suspicion that here all was not quite as it
+seemed.
+
+“Fool you? But no. I do but wish to show you something that I learned in
+Italy. Tell me how you slew him, Monsieur le Capitaine.”
+
+“I think we are wasting time,” said the captain, angry too. He felt that
+this smiling gentleman was deriding the pair of them; it crossed his
+mind that for some purpose of his own the Marquis was seeking to gain
+time. He drew his sword.
+
+Florimond saw the act, watched it, and his eyes twinkled. Suddenly
+Marius’s sword shot out at him. He leapt back beyond the table, and
+threw himself on guard, his lips still wreathed in their mysterious
+smile.
+
+“The time has come, messieurs,” said he. “I should have preferred to
+know more of how you slew that Monsieur de Garnache; but since you deny
+me the information, I shall do my best without it. I’ll try to conjure
+up his ghost, to keep you entertained, Monsieur le Capitaine.” And then,
+raising his voice, his sword, engaging now his brother’s:
+
+“Ola, Monsieur de Garnache!” he cried. “To me!”
+
+And then it seemed to those assassins that the Marquis had been neither
+mad nor boastful when he had spoken of strange things he had
+learned beyond the Alps, or else it was they themselves were turned
+light-headed, for the doors of a cupboard at the far end of the room
+flew open suddenly, and from between them stepped the stalwart figure of
+Martin de Garnache, a grim smile lifting the corners of his mustachios,
+a naked sword in his hand flashing back the sunlight that flooded
+through the window.
+
+They paused, aghast, and they turned ashen; and then in the mind of each
+arose the same explanation of this phenomenon. This Garnache wore the
+appearance of the man who had announced himself by that name when he
+came to Condillac a fortnight ago. Then, the sallow, black-haired knave
+who had last night proclaimed himself as Garnache in disguise was some
+impostor. That was the conclusion they promptly arrived at, and however
+greatly they might be dismayed by the appearance of this ally of
+Florimond’s, yet the conclusion heartened them anew. But scarce had they
+arrived at it when Monsieur de Garnache’s crisp voice came swiftly to
+dispel it.
+
+“Monsieur le Capitaine,” it said, and Fortunio shivered at the sound,
+for it was the voice he had heard but a few hours ago, “I welcome the
+opportunity of resuming our last night’s interrupted sword-play.” And he
+advanced deliberately.
+
+Marius’s sword had fallen away from his brother’s, and the two
+combatants stood pausing. Fortunio without more ado made for the door.
+But Garnache crossed the intervening space in a bound.
+
+“Turn!” he cried. “Turn, or I’ll put my sword through your back. The
+door shall serve you presently, but it is odds that it will need a
+couple of men to bear you through it. Look to your dirty skin!”
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII. THE OFFICES OF MOTHER CHURCH
+
+A couple of hours after the engagement in the Marquis de Condillac’s
+apartments at the Sanglier Noir at La Rochette, Monsieur de Garnache,
+attended only by Rabecque, rode briskly into France once more and made
+for the little town of Cheylas, which is on the road that leads down to
+the valley of the Isere and to Condillac. But not as far as the township
+did he journey. On a hill, the slopes all cultivated into an opulent
+vineyard, some two miles east of Cheylas, stood the low, square grey
+building of the Convent of Saint Francis. Thither did Monsieur de
+Garnache bend his horse’s steps. Up the long white road that crept
+zigzag through the Franciscans’ vineyards rode the Parisian and his
+servant under the welcome sunshine of that November afternoon.
+
+Garnache’s face was gloomy and his eyes sad, for his thoughts were all
+of Valerie, and he was prey to a hundred anxieties regarding her.
+
+They gained the heights at last, and Rabecque got down to beat with his
+whip upon the convent gates.
+
+A lay-brother came to open, and in reply to Garnache’s request that he
+might have a word with the Father Abbot, invited him to enter.
+
+Through the cloisters about the great quadrangle, where a couple of
+monks, their habits girt high as their knees, were busy at gardeners’
+work, Garnache followed his conductor, and up the steps to the Abbot’s
+chamber.
+
+The master of the Convent of Saint Francis of Cheylas a tall, lean
+man with an ascetic face, prominent cheekbones, and a nose not unlike
+Garnache’s own--the nose of a man of action rather than of prayer--bowed
+gravely to this stalwart stranger, and in courteous accents begged to be
+informed in what he might serve him.
+
+Hat in hand, Garnache took a step forward in that bare, scantily
+furnished little room, permeated by the faint, waxlike odour that is
+peculiar to the abode of conventuals. Without hesitation he stated the
+reason of his visit.
+
+“Father,” said he, “a son of the house of Condillac met his end this
+morning at La Rochette.”
+
+The monk’s eyes seemed to quicken, as though his interest in the outer
+world had suddenly revived.
+
+“It is the Hand of God,” he cried. “Their evil ways have provoked at
+last the anger of Heaven. How did this unfortunate meet his death?”
+
+Garnache shrugged his shoulders.
+
+“De mortuis nil nisi bonum,” said he. His air was grave, his blue eyes
+solemn, and the Abbot had little cause to suspect the closeness with
+which that pair of eyes was watching him. He coloured faintly at
+the implied rebuke, but he inclined his head as if submissive to the
+correction, and waited for the other to proceed.
+
+“There is the need, Father, to give his body burial,” said Garnache
+gently.
+
+But at that the monk raised his head, and a deeper flush the flush of
+anger--spread now upon his sallow cheeks. Garnache observed it, and was
+glad.
+
+“Why do you come to me?” he asked.
+
+“Why?” echoed Garnache, and there was hesitancy now in his voice. “Is
+not the burial of the dead enjoined by Mother Church? Is it not a part
+of your sacred office?”
+
+“You ask me this as you would challenge my reply,” said the monk,
+shaking his head. “It is as you say, but it is not within our office to
+bury the impious dead, nor those who in life were excommunicate and died
+without repentance.”
+
+“How can you assume he died without repentance?”
+
+“I do not; but I assume he died without absolution, for there is no
+priest who, knowing his name, would dare to shrive him, and if one
+should do it in ignorance of his name and excommunication, why then it
+is not done at all. Bid others bury this son of the house of Condillac;
+it matters no more by what hands or in what ground he be buried than if
+he were the horse he rode or the hound that followed him.”
+
+“The Church is very harsh, Father,” said Garnache sternly.
+
+“The Church is very just,” the priest answered him, more sternly still,
+a holy wrath kindling his sombre eyes.
+
+“He was in life a powerful noble,” said Garnache thoughtfully. “It is
+but fitting that, being dead, honour and reverence should be shown his
+body.”
+
+“Then let those who have themselves been honoured by the Condillacs
+honour this dead Condillac now. The Church is not of that number,
+monsieur. Since the late Marquis’s death the house of Condillac has been
+in rebellion against us; our priests have been maltreated, our authority
+flouted; they paid no tithes, approached no sacraments. Weary of their
+ungodliness the Church placed its ban upon them; under this ban it seems
+they die. My heart grieves for them; but--”
+
+He spread his hands, long and almost transparent in their leanness, and
+on his face a cloud of sorrow rested.
+
+“Nevertheless, Father,” said Garnache, “twenty brothers of Saint Francis
+shall bear the body home to Condillac, and you yourself shall head this
+grim procession.”
+
+“I?” The monk shrank back before him, and his figure seemed to grow
+taller. “Who are you, sir, that say to me what I shall do, the Church’s
+law despite?”
+
+Garnache took the Abbot by the sleeve of his rough habit and drew him
+gently towards the window. There was a persuasive smile on his lips and
+in his keen eyes which the monk, almost unconsciously, obeyed.
+
+“I will tell you,” said Garnache, “and at the same time I shall seek to
+turn you from your harsh purpose.”
+
+At the hour at which Monsieur de Garnache was seeking to persuade the
+Abbot of Saint Francis of Cheylas to adopt a point of view more kindly
+towards a dead man, Madame de Condillac was at dinner, and with her
+was Valerie de La Vauvraye. Neither woman ate appreciably. The one was
+oppressed by sorrow, the other by anxiety, and the circumstance that
+they were both afflicted served perhaps to render the Dowager gentler in
+her manner towards the girl.
+
+She watched the pale face and troubled eyes of Valerie; she observed the
+almost lifeless manner in which she came and went as she was bidden, as
+though a part of her had ceased to exist, and that part the part that
+matters most. It did cross her mind that in this condition mademoiselle
+might the more readily be bent to their will, but she dwelt not overlong
+upon that reflection. Rather was her mood charitable, no doubt because
+she felt herself the need of charity, the want of sympathy.
+
+She was tormented by fears altogether disproportionate to their cause.
+A hundred times she told herself that no ill could befall Marius.
+Florimond was a sick man, and were he otherwise, there was still
+Fortunio to stand by and see to it that the right sword pierced the
+right heart, else would his pistoles be lost to him.
+
+Nevertheless she was fretted by anxiety, and she waited impatiently for
+news, fuming at the delay, yet knowing full well that news could not yet
+reach her.
+
+Once she reproved Valerie for her lack of appetite, and there was in
+her voice a kindness Valerie had not heard for months--not since the old
+Marquis died, nor did she hear it now, or, hearing it, she did not heed
+it.
+
+“You are not eating, child,” the Dowager said, and her eyes were gentle.
+
+Valerie looked up like one suddenly awakened; and in that moment her
+eyes filled with tears. It was as if the Dowager’s voice had opened the
+floodgates of her sorrow and let out the tears that hitherto had been
+repressed. The Marquise rose and waved the page and an attendant lackey
+from the room. She crossed to Valerie’s side and put her arm about the
+girl’s shoulder.
+
+“What ails you, child?” she asked. For a moment the girl suffered the
+caress; almost she seemed to nestle closer to the Dowager’s shoulder.
+Then, as if understanding had come to her suddenly, she drew back and
+quietly disengaged herself from the other’s arms. Her tears ceased; the
+quiver passed from her lip.
+
+“You are very good, madame,” she said, with a coldness that rendered the
+courteous words almost insulting, “but nothing ails me save a wish to be
+alone.”
+
+“You have been alone too much of late,” the Dowager answered, persisting
+in her wish to show kindness to Valerie; for all that, had she looked
+into her own heart, she might have been puzzled to find a reason for her
+mood--unless the reason lay in her own affliction of anxiety for Marius.
+
+“Perhaps I have,” said the girl, in the same cold, almost strained
+voice. “It was not by my own contriving.”
+
+“Ah, but it was, child; indeed it was. Had you been reasonable you had
+found us kinder. We had never treated you as we have done, never made a
+prisoner of you.”
+
+Valerie looked up into the beautiful ivory-white face, with its black
+eyes and singularly scarlet lips, and a wan smile raised the corners of
+her gentle mouth.
+
+“You had no right--none ever gave it you--to set constraint and
+restraint upon me.”
+
+“I had--indeed, indeed I had,” the Marquise answered her, in a tone of
+sad protest. “Your father gave me such a right when he gave me charge of
+you.”
+
+“Was it a part of your charge to seek to turn me from my loyalty to
+Florimond, and endeavour to compel me by means gentle or ungentle into
+marriage with Marius?”
+
+“We thought Florimond dead; or, if not dead, then certainly unworthy of
+you to leave you without news of him for years together. And if he was
+not dead then, it is odds he will be dead by now.” The words slipped
+out almost unconsciously, and the Marquise bit her lip and straightened
+herself, fearing an explosion. But none came. The girl looked across
+the table at the fire that smouldered on the hearth in need of being
+replenished.
+
+“What do you mean, madame?” she asked; but her tone was listless,
+apathetic, as of one who though uttering a question is incurious as to
+what the answer may be.
+
+“We had news some days ago that he was journeying homewards, but that he
+was detained by fever at La Rochette. We have since heard that his fever
+has grown so serious that there is little hope of his recovery.”
+
+“And it was to solace his last moments that Monsieur Marius left
+Condillac this morning?”
+
+The Dowager looked sharply at the girl; but Valerie’s face continued
+averted, her gaze resting on the fire. Her tone suggested nothing beyond
+a natural curiosity.
+
+“Yes,” said the Dowager.
+
+“And lest his own efforts to help his brother out of this world should
+prove insufficient he took Captain Fortunio with him?” said Valerie, in
+the same indifferent voice.
+
+“What do you mean?” the Marquise almost hissed into the girl’s ear.
+
+Valerie turned to her, a faint colour stirring in her white face.
+
+“Just what I have said, madame. Would you know what I have prayed?
+All night was I upon my knees from the moment that I recovered
+consciousness, and my prayers were that Heaven might see fit to let
+Florimond destroy your son. Not that I desire Florimond’s return, for
+I care not if I never set eyes on him again. There is a curse upon this
+house, madame,” the girl continued, rising from her chair and speaking
+now with a greater animation, whilst the Marquise recoiled a step, her
+face strangely altered and suddenly gone grey, “and I have prayed
+that that curse might be worked out upon that assassin, Marius. A fine
+husband, madame, you would thrust upon the daughter of Gaston de La
+Vauvraye.”
+
+And turning, without waiting for an answer, she moved slowly down
+the room, and took her way to her own desolate apartments, so full of
+memories of him she mourned--of him, it seemed to her, she must always
+mourn; of him who lay dead in the black waters of the moat beneath her
+window.
+
+Stricken with a sudden, inexplicable terror, the Dowager, who for
+all her spirit was not without a certain superstition, felt her knees
+loosen, and she sank limply into a chair. She was amazed at the extent
+of Valerie’s knowledge, and puzzled by it; she was amazed, too, at the
+seeming apathy of Valerie for the danger in which Florimond stood, and
+at her avowal that she did not care if she never again beheld him. But
+such amazement as came to her was whelmed fathoms-deep in her sudden
+fears for Marius. If he should die! She grew cold at the thought, and
+she sat there, her hands folded in her lap, her face grey. That mention
+of the curse the Church had put upon them had frozen her quick blood and
+turned her stout spirit to mere water.
+
+At last she rose and went out into the open to inquire if no messenger
+had yet arrived, for all that she knew there was not yet time for any
+messenger to have reached the chateau. She mounted the winding staircase
+of stone that led to the ramparts, and there alone, in the November
+sunshine, she paced to and fro for hours, waiting for news, straining
+her eyes to gaze up the valley of the Isere, watching for the horseman
+that must come that way. Then, as time sped on and the sun approached
+its setting and still no one came, she bethought her that if harm had
+befallen Marius, none would ride that night to Condillac. This very
+delay seemed pregnant with news of disaster. And then she shook off her
+fears and tried to comfort herself. There was not yet time. Besides,
+what had she to fear for Marius? He was strong and quick, and Fortunio
+was by his side. A man was surely dead by now at La Rochette; but that
+man could not be Marius.
+
+At last, in the distance, she espied a moving object, and down on the
+silent air of eventide came the far-off rattle of a horse’s hoofs. Some
+one was riding, galloping that way. He was returned at last. She leaned
+on the battlements, her breath coming in quick, short gasps, and watched
+the horseman growing larger with every stride of his horse.
+
+A mist was rising from the river, and it dimmed the figure; and she
+cursed the mist for heightening her anxiety, for straining further
+her impatience. Then a new fear was begotten in her mind. Why came one
+horseman only where two should have ridden? Who was it that returned,
+and what had befallen his companion? God send, at least, it might be
+Marius who rode thus, at such a breakneck pace.
+
+At last she could make him out. He was close to the chateau now, and she
+noticed that his right arm was bandaged and hanging in a sling. And then
+a scream broke from her, and she bit her lip hard to keep another in
+check, for she had seen the horseman’s face, and it was Fortunio’s.
+Fortunio--and wounded! Then, assuredly, Marius was dead!
+
+She swayed where she stood. She set her hand on her bosom, above her
+heart, as if she would have repressed the beating of the one, the
+heaving of the other; her soul sickened, and her mind seemed to turn
+numb, as she waited there for the news that should confirm her fears.
+
+The hoofs of his horse thundered over the planks of the drawbridge,
+and came clatteringly to halt as he harshly drew rein in the courtyard
+below. There was a sound of running feet and men sprang to his
+assistance. Madame would have gone below to meet him; but her limbs
+seemed to refuse their office. She leaned against one of the merlons of
+the embattled parapet, her eyes on the spot where he should emerge from
+the stairs, and thus she waited, her eyes haggard, her face drawn.
+
+He came at last, lurching in his walk, being overstiff from his long
+ride. She took a step forward to meet him. Her lips parted.
+
+“Well?” she asked him, and her voice sounded harsh and strained. “How
+has the venture sped?”
+
+“The only way it could,” he answered. “As you would wish it.”
+
+At that she thought that she must faint. Her lungs seemed to writhe for
+air, and she opened her lips and took long draughts of the rising mist,
+never speaking for a moment or two until she had sufficiently recovered
+from this tremendous revulsion from her fears.
+
+“Then, where is Marius?” she asked at last.
+
+“He has remained behind to accompany the body home. They are bringing it
+here.”
+
+“They?” she echoed. “Who are they?”
+
+“The monks of Saint Francis of Cheylas,” he answered.
+
+A something in his tone, a something in his shifty eyes, a cloud upon
+his fair and usually so ingenuous looking countenance aroused her
+suspicions and gave her resurrected courage pause.
+
+She caught him viciously by the arms, and forced his glance to meet her
+own in the fading daylight.
+
+“It is the truth you are telling me, Fortunio?” she snapped, and her
+voice was half-angry, half-fearful.
+
+He faced her now, his eyes bold. He raised a hand to lend emphasis to
+his words.
+
+“I swear, madame, by my salvation, that Monsieur Marius is sound and
+well.”
+
+She was satisfied. She released his arm.
+
+“Does he come to-night?” she asked.
+
+“They will be here to-morrow, madame. I rode on to tell you so.”
+
+“An odd fancy, this of his. But”--and a sudden smile overspread her
+face--“we may find a more useful purpose for one of these monks.”
+
+An hour ago she would willingly have set mademoiselle at liberty in
+exchange for the assurance that Marius had been successful in the
+business that had taken him over the border into Savoy. She would have
+done it gladly, content that Marius should be heir to Condillac. But
+now that Condillac was assured her son, she must have more for him; her
+insatiable greed for his advancement and prosperity was again upon
+her. Now, more than ever--now that Florimond was dead--must she have La
+Vauvraye for Marius, and she thought that mademoiselle would no longer
+be difficult to bend. The child had fallen in love with that mad
+Garnache, and when a woman is crossed in love, while her grief lasts
+it matters little to her where she weds. Did she not know it out of the
+fund of her own bitter experience? Was it not that--the compulsion her
+own father had employed to make her find a mate in a man so much older
+than herself as Condillac--that had warped her own nature, and done much
+to make her what she was?
+
+A lover she had had, and whilst he lived she had resisted them, and
+stood out against this odious marriage that for convenience’ sake they
+forced upon her. He was killed in Paris in a duel, and when the news of
+it came to her, she had folded her hands and let them wed her to whom
+they listed.
+
+Of just such a dejection of spirit had she observed the signs in
+Valerie; let them profit by it while it lasted. They had been long
+enough without Church ceremonies at Condillac. There should be two
+to-morrow to make up for the empty time--a wedding and a burial.
+
+She was going down the stairs, Fortunio a step behind her, when her mind
+reverted to the happening at La Rochette.
+
+“Was it well done?” she asked.
+
+“It made some stir,” said he. “The Marquis had men with him, and had the
+affair taken place in France ill might have come of it.”
+
+“You shall give me a full account of it,” said she, rightly thinking
+that there was still something to be explained. Then she laughed
+softly. “Yes, it was a lucky chance for us, his staying at La Rochette.
+Florimond was born under an unlucky star, I think, and you under a lucky
+one, Fortunio.”
+
+“I think so, too, as regards myself,” he answered grimly, and he thought
+of the sword that had ploughed his cheek last night and pierced his
+sword-arm that morning, and he thanked such gods as in his godlessness
+he owned for the luck that had kept that sword from finding out his
+heart.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII. THE JUDGMENT OF GARNACHE
+
+On the morrow, which was a Friday and the tenth of November--a date to
+be hereafter graven on the memory of all concerned in the affairs of
+Condillac--the Dowager rose betimes, and, for decency’s sake, having in
+mind the business of the day, she gowned herself in black.
+
+Betimes, too, the Lord Seneschal rode out of Grenoble, attended by
+a couple of grooms, and headed for Condillac, in doing which--little
+though he suspected it--he was serving nobody’s interests more
+thoroughly than Monsieur de Garnache’s.
+
+Madame received him courteously. She was in a blithe and happy mood that
+morning--the reaction from her yesterday’s distress of mind. The world
+was full of promise, and all things had prospered with her and Marius.
+Her boy was lord of Condillac; Florimond, whom she had hated and who had
+stood in the way of her boy’s advancement, was dead and on his way to
+burial; Garnache, the man from Paris who might have made trouble for
+them had he ridden home again with the tale of their resistance, was
+silenced for all time, and the carp in the moat would be feasting by
+now upon what was left of him; Valerie de La Vauvraye was in a dejected
+frame of mind that augured well for the success of the Dowager’s
+plans concerning her, and by noon at latest there would be priests at
+Condillac, and, if Marius still wished to marry the obstinate baggage,
+there would be no difficulty as to that.
+
+It was a glorious morning, mild and sunny as an April day, as though
+Nature took a hand in the Dowager’s triumph and wished to make the best
+of its wintry garb in honour of it.
+
+The presence of this gross suitor of hers afforded her another source
+of satisfaction. There would no longer be the necessity she once had
+dreaded of listening to his suit for longer than it should be her
+pleasure to be amused by him. But when Tressan spoke, he struck the
+first note of discord in the perfect harmony which the Dowager imagined
+existed.
+
+“Madame,” said he, “I am desolated that I am not a bearer of better
+tidings. But for all that we have made the most diligent search, the
+man Rabecque has not yet been apprehended. Still, we have not abandoned
+hope,” he added, by way of showing that there was a silver lining to his
+cloud of danger.
+
+For just a moment madame’s brows were knitted. She had forgotten
+Rabecque until now; but an instant’s reflection assured her that in
+forgetting him she had done him no more than such honour as he deserved.
+She laughed, as she led the way down the garden steps--the mildness of
+the day and the brightness of her mood had moved her there to receive
+the Seneschal.
+
+“From the sombreness of your tone one might fear your news to be of the
+nature of some catastrophe. What shall it signify that Rabecque eludes
+your men? He is but a lackey after all.”
+
+“True,” said the Seneschal, very soberly; “but do not forget, I beg,
+that he is the bearer of letters from one who is not a lackey.”
+
+The laughter went out of her face at that. Here was something that had
+been lost sight of in the all-absorbing joy of other things. In calling
+the forgotten Rabecque to mind she had but imagined that it was no more
+than a matter of the tale he might tell--a tale not difficult to refute,
+she thought. Her word should always weigh against a lackey’s. But that
+letter was a vastly different matter.
+
+“He must be found, Tressan,” she said sharply.
+
+Tressan smiled uneasily, and chewed at his beard.
+
+“No effort shall be spared,” he promised her. “Of that you may be very
+sure. The affairs of the province are at a standstill,” he added, that
+vanity of his for appearing a man of infinite business rising even in
+an hour of such anxiety, for to himself, no less than to her, was
+there danger should Rabecque ever reach his destination with the papers
+Garnache had said he carried.
+
+“The affairs of the province are at a standstill,” he repeated, “while
+all my energies are bent upon this quest. Should we fail to have news of
+his capture in Dauphiny, we need not, nevertheless, despond. I have
+sent men after him along the three roads that lead to Paris. They are to
+spare neither money nor horses in picking up his trail and effecting his
+capture. After all, I think we shall have him.”
+
+“He is our only danger now,” the Marquise answered, “for Florimond is
+dead--of the fever,” she added, with a sneering smile which gave Tressan
+sensations as of cold water on his spine. “It were an irony of fate if
+that miserable lackey were to reach Paris now and spoil the triumph for
+which we have worked so hard.”
+
+“It were, indeed,” Tressan agreed with her, “and we must see that he
+does not.”
+
+“But if he does,” she returned, “then we must stand together.” And with
+that she set her mind at ease once more, her mood that morning being
+very optimistic.
+
+“Always, I hope, Clotilde,” he answered, and his little eyes leered up
+out of the dimples of fat in which they were embedded. “I have stood by
+you like a true friend in this affair; is it not so?”
+
+“Indeed; do I deny it?” she answered half scornfully.
+
+“As I shall stand by you always when the need arises. You are a little
+in my debt concerning Monsieur de Garnache.”
+
+“I--I realize it,” said she, and she felt again as if the sunshine were
+gone from the day, the blitheness from her heart. She was moved to
+bid him cease leering at her and to take himself and his wooing to the
+devil. But she bethought her that the need for him might not yet
+utterly be passed. Not only in the affair of Garnache--in which he stood
+implicated as deeply as herself--might she require his loyalty, but also
+in the matter of what had befallen yesterday at La Rochette; for despite
+Fortunio’s assurances that things had gone smoothly, his tale hung none
+too convincingly together; and whilst she did not entertain any serious
+fear of subsequent trouble, yet it might be well not utterly to banish
+the consideration of such a possibility, and to keep the Seneschal her
+ally against it. So she told him now, with as much graciousness as she
+could command, that she fully realized her debt, and when, encouraged,
+he spoke of his reward, she smiled upon him as might a girl smile upon
+too impetuous a wooer whose impetuosity she deprecates yet cannot wholly
+withstand.
+
+“I am a widow of six months,” she reminded him, as she had reminded him
+once before. Her widowhood was proving a most convenient refuge. “It is
+not for me to listen to a suitor, however my foolish heart may incline.
+Come to me in another six months’ time.”
+
+“And you will wed me then?” he bleated.
+
+By an effort her eyes smiled down upon him, although her face was a
+trifle drawn.
+
+“Have I not said that I will listen to no suitor? and what is that but a
+suitor’s question?”
+
+He caught her hand; he would have fallen on his knees there and then, at
+her feet, on the grass still wet with the night’s mist, but that he in
+time bethought him of how sadly his fine apparel would be the sufferer.
+
+“Yet I shall not sleep, I shall know no rest, no peace until you have
+given me an answer. Just an answer is all I ask. I will set a curb upon
+my impatience afterwards, and go through my period of ah--probation
+without murmuring. Say that you, will marry me in six months’ time--at
+Easter, say.”
+
+She saw that an answer she must give, and so she gave him the answer
+that he craved. And he--poor fool!--never caught the ring of her voice,
+as false as the ring of a base coin; never guessed that in promising she
+told herself it would be safe to break that promise six months hence,
+when the need of him and his loyalty would be passed.
+
+A man approached them briskly from the chateau. He brought news that a
+numerous company of monks was descending the valley of the Isere towards
+Condillac. A faint excitement stirred her, and accompanied by Tressan
+she retraced her steps and made for the battlements, whence she might
+overlook their arrival.
+
+As they went Tressan asked for an explanation of this cortege, and she
+answered him with Fortunio’s story of how things had sped yesterday at
+La Rochette.
+
+Up the steps leading to the battlements she went ahead of him, with
+a youthful, eager haste that took no thought for the corpulence and
+short-windedness of the following Seneschal. From the heights she looked
+eastwards, shading her eyes from the light of the morning sun, and
+surveyed the procession which with slow dignity paced down the valley
+towards Condillac.
+
+At its head walked the tall, lean figure of the Abbot of Saint Francis
+of Cheylas, bearing on high a silvered crucifix that flashed and
+scintillated in the sunlight. His cowl was thrown back, revealing his
+pale, ascetic countenance and shaven head. Behind him came a coffin
+covered by a black pall, and borne on the shoulders of six black-robed,
+black cowled monks, and behind these again walked, two by two, some
+fourteen cowled brothers of the order of Saint Francis, their heads
+bowed, their arms folded, and their hands tucked away in their capacious
+sleeves.
+
+It was a numerous cortege, and as she watched its approach the Marquise
+was moved to wonder by what arguments had the proud Abbot been induced
+to do so much honour to a dead Condillac and bear his body home to this
+excommunicated roof.
+
+Behind the monks a closed carriage lumbered down the uneven mountain
+way, and behind this rode four mounted grooms in the livery of
+Condillac. Of Marius she saw nowhere any sign, and she inferred him to
+be travelling in that vehicle, the attendant servants being those of the
+dead Marquis.
+
+In silence, with the Seneschal at her elbow, she watched the procession
+advance until it was at the foot of the drawbridge. Then, while the
+solemn rhythm of their feet sounded across the planks that spanned the
+moat, she turned, and, signing to the Seneschal to follow her, she went
+below to meet them. But when she reached the courtyard she was surprised
+to find they had not paused, as surely would have been seemly. Unbidden,
+the Abbot had gone forward through the great doorway and down the
+gallery that led to the hall of Condillac. Already, when she arrived
+below, the coffin and its bearers had disappeared, and the last of the
+monks was passing from sight in its wake. Leaning against the doorway
+through which they were vanishing stood Fortunio, idly watching that
+procession and thoughtfully stroking his mustachios. About the yard
+lounged a dozen or so men-at-arms, practically all the garrison that was
+left them since the fight with Garnache two nights ago.
+
+After the last monk had disappeared, she still remained there,
+expectantly; and when she saw that neither the carriage nor the grooms
+made their appearance, she stepped up to Fortunio to inquire into the
+reason of it.
+
+“Surely Monsieur de Condillac rides in that coach,” said she.
+
+“Surely,” Fortunio answered, himself looking puzzled. “I will go seek
+the reason, madame. Meanwhile will you receive the Abbot? The monks will
+have deposited their burden.”
+
+She composed her features into a fitting solemnity, and passed briskly
+through to the hall, Tressan ever at her heels. Here she found
+the coffin deposited on the table, its great black pall of velvet,
+silver-edged, sweeping down to the floor. No fire had been lighted that
+morning nor had the sun yet reached the windows, so that the place wore
+a chill and gloomy air that was perhaps well attuned to the purpose that
+it was being made to serve.
+
+With a rare dignity, her head held high, she swept down the length of
+that noble chamber towards the Abbot, who stood erect as a pikestaff: at
+the tablehead, awaiting her. And well was it for him that he was a man
+of austere habit of mind, else might her majestic, incomparable beauty
+have softened his heart and melted the harshness of his purpose.
+
+He raised his hand when she was within a sword’s length of him, and
+with startling words, delivered in ringing tones, he broke the ponderous
+silence.
+
+“Wretched woman,” he denounced her, “your sins have found you out.
+Justice is to be done, and your neck shall be bent despite your stubborn
+pride. Derider of priests, despoiler of purity, mocker of Holy Church,
+your impious reign is at an end.”
+
+Tressan fell back aghast, his face blenching to the lips; for if justice
+was at hand for her, as the Abbot said, then was justice at hand for
+him as well. Where had their plans miscarried? What flaw was there that
+hitherto she had not perceived? Thus he questioned himself in his sudden
+panic.
+
+But the Marquise was no sharer in his tremors. Her eyes opened a trifle
+wider; a faint colour crept into her cheeks; but her only emotions were
+of amazement and indignation. Was he mad, this shaveling monk? That was
+the question that leapt into her mind, the very question with which she
+coldly answered his outburst.
+
+“For madness only,” she thought fit to add, “could excuse such rash
+temerity as yours.”
+
+“Not madness, madame,” he answered, with chill haughtiness--“not
+madness, but righteous indignation. You have defied the power of Holy
+Church as you have defied the power of our sovereign lady, and justice
+is upon you. We are here to present the reckoning, and see its payment
+made in full.”
+
+She fancied he alluded to the body in the coffin--the body of her
+stepson--and she could have laughed at his foolish conclusions that
+she must account Florimond’s death an act of justice upon her for her
+impiety. But her rising anger left her no room for laughter.
+
+“I thought, sir priest, you were come to bury the dead. But it rather
+seems you are come to talk.”
+
+He looked at her long and sternly. Then he shook his head, and the
+faintest shadow of a smile haunted his ascetic face.
+
+“Not to talk, madame; oh, not to talk,” he answered slowly. “But to act,
+I have come, madame, to liberate from this shambles the gentle lamb you
+hold here prisoned.”
+
+At that some of the colour left her cheeks; her eyes grew startled: at
+last she began to realize that all was not as she had thought--as she
+had been given to understand.--Still, she sought to hector it, from very
+instinct.
+
+“_Vertudieu_!” she thundered at him. “What mean you?”
+
+Behind her Tressan’s great plump knees were knocking one against the
+other. Fool that he had been to come to Condillac that day, and to be
+trapped thus in her company, a partner in her guilt. This proud Abbot
+who stood there uttering denunciations had some power behind him,
+else had he never dared to raise his voice in Condillac within call of
+desperate men who would give little thought to the sacredness, of his
+office.
+
+“What mean you?” she repeated--adding with a sinister smile, “in your
+zeal, Sir Abbot, you are forgetting that my men are within call.”
+
+“So, madame, are mine,” was his astounding answer, and he waved a hand
+towards the array of monks, all standing with bowed heads and folded
+arms.
+
+At that her laughter rang shrill through the chamber. “These poor
+shavelings?” she questioned.
+
+“Just these poor shavelings, madame,” he answered, and he raised his
+hand again and made a sign. And then an odd thing happened, and it
+struck a real terror into the heart of the Marquise and heightened that
+which was already afflicting her fat lover, Tressan.
+
+The monks drew themselves erect. It was as if a sudden gust of wind had
+swept through their ranks and set them all in motion. Cowls fell back
+and habits were swept aside, and where twenty monks had stood, there
+were standing now a score of nimble, stalwart men in the livery of
+Condillac, all fully armed, all grinning in enjoyment of her and
+Tressan’s dismay.
+
+One of them turned aside and locked the door of the chamber. But his
+movement went unheeded by the Dowager, whose beautiful eyes, starting
+with horror, were now back upon the grim figure of the Abbot, marvelling
+almost to see no transformation wrought in him.
+
+“Treachery!” she breathed, in an awful voice, that was no louder than
+a whisper, and again her eyes travelled round the company, and suddenly
+they fastened upon Fortunio, standing six paces from her to the right,
+pulling thoughtfully at his mustachios, and manifesting no surprise at
+what had taken place.
+
+In a sudden, blind choler, she swept round, plucked the dagger from
+Tressan’s belt and flung herself upon the treacherous captain. He had
+betrayed her in some way; he had delivered up Condillac--into whose
+power she had yet had no time to think. She caught him by the throat
+with a hand of such nervous strength as one would little have suspected
+from its white and delicate contour. Her dagger was poised in the air,
+and the captain, taken thus suddenly, was palsied with amazement and
+could raise no hand to defend himself from the blow impending.
+
+But the Abbot stepped suddenly to her side and caught her wrist in his
+thin, transparent hand.
+
+“Forbear,” he bade her. “The man is but a tool.”
+
+She fell back--dragged back almost by the Abbot--panting with rage and
+grief; and then she noticed that during the moment that her back had
+been turned the pall had been swept from the coffin. The sight of the
+bare deal box arrested her attention, and for the moment turned aside
+her anger. What fresh surprise did they prepare her?
+
+No sooner had she asked herself the question than herself she answered
+it, and an icy hand seemed to close about her heart. It was Marius who
+was dead. They had lied to her. Marius’s was the body they had borne to
+Condillac--those men in the livery of her stepson.
+
+With a sudden sob in her throat she took a step towards the coffin. She
+must see for herself. One way or the other she must at once dispel this
+torturing doubt. But ere she had taken three paces, she stood arrested
+again, her hands jerked suddenly to the height of her breast, her lips
+parting to let out a scream of terror. For the coffin-lid had slowly
+raised and clattered over. And as if to pile terror for her, a figure
+rose from the box, and, sitting up, looked round with a grim smile; and
+the figure was the figure of a man whom she knew to be dead, a man
+who had died by her contriving--it was the figure of Garnache. It
+was Garnache as he had been on the occasion of his first coming to
+Condillac, as he had been on the day they had sought his life in this
+very room. How well she knew that great hooked nose and the bright,
+steely blue eyes, the dark brown hair, ash-coloured at the temples where
+age had paled it, and the fierce, reddish mustachios, bristling above
+the firm mouth and long, square chin.
+
+She stared and stared, her beautiful face livid and distorted, till
+there was no beauty to be seen in it, what time the Abbot regarded her
+coldly and Tressan, behind her, turned almost sick with terror. But not
+the terror of ghosts was it afflicted him. He saw in Garnache a man who
+was still of the quick--a man who by some miracle had escaped the fate
+to which they supposed him to have succumbed; and his terror was the
+terror of the reckoning which that man would ask.
+
+After a moment’s pause, as if relishing the sensation he had created,
+Garnache rose to his feet and leapt briskly to the ground. There was
+nothing ghostly about the thud with which he alighted on his feet before
+her. A part of her terror left her; yet not quite all. She saw that she
+had but a man to deal with, yet she began to realize that this man was
+very terrible.
+
+“Garnache again!” she gasped.
+
+He bowed serenely, his lips smiling.
+
+“Aye, madame,” he told her pleasantly, “always Garnache. Tenacious as
+a leech, madame; and like a leech come hither to do a little work of
+purification.”
+
+Her eyes, now kindling again as she recovered from her recent fears,
+sought Fortunio’s shifty glance. Garnache followed it and read what was
+in her mind.
+
+“What Fortunio has done,” said he, “he has done by your son’s authority
+and sanction.”
+
+“Marius?” she inquired, and she was almost fearful lest she should hear
+that by her son he meant her stepson, and that Marius was dead.
+
+“Yes, Marius,” he answered her. “I bent him to my will. I threatened him
+that he and this fellow of his, this comrade in arms so worthy of his
+master, should be broken on the wheel together unless I were implicitly
+obeyed. If they would save their lives, this was their chance. They were
+wise, and they took it, and thus afforded me the means of penetrating
+into Condillac and rescuing Mademoiselle de La Vauvraye.”
+
+“Then Marius--?” She left her question unfinished, her hand clutching
+nervously at the bosom of her gown.
+
+“Is sound and well, as Fortunio truthfully will have told you. But he is
+not yet out of my grasp, nor will be until the affairs of Condillac are
+settled. For if I meet with further opposition here, broken on the wheel
+he shall be yet, I promise you.”
+
+Still she made a last attempt at hectoring it. The long habit of
+mastership dies hard. She threw back her head; her courage revived now
+that she knew Marius to be alive and sound.
+
+“Fine words,” she sneered. “But who are you that you can threaten so and
+promise so?”
+
+“I am the Queen-Regent’s humble mouthpiece, madame. What I threaten, I
+threaten in her name. Ruffle it no longer, I beseech you. It will prove
+little worth your while. You are deposed, madame, and you had best take
+your deposition with dignity and calm--in all friendliness do I advise
+it.”
+
+“I am not yet come so low that I need your advice,” she answered sourly.
+
+“You may before the sun sets,” he answered, with his quiet smile. “The
+Marquis de Condillac and his wife are still at La Rochette, waiting
+until my business here is done that they may come home.”
+
+“His wife?” she cried.
+
+“His wife, madame. He has brought home a wife from Italy.”
+
+“Then--then--Marius?” She said no more than that. Maybe she had no
+intention of muttering even so much of her thoughts aloud. But Garnache
+caught the trend of her mind, and he marvelled to see how strong a habit
+of thought can be. At once upon hearing of the Marquis’s marriage her
+mind had flown back to its wonted pondering of the possibilities of
+Marius’s wedding Valerie.
+
+But Garnache dispelled such speculations.
+
+“No, madame,” said he. “Marius looks elsewhere for a wife--unless
+mademoiselle of her own free will should elect to wed him--a thing
+unlikely.” Then, with a sudden change to sternness--“Mademoiselle de La
+Vauvraye is well, madame?” he asked.
+
+She nodded her head, but made no answer in words. He turned to Fortunio.
+
+“Go fetch her,” he bade the captain, and one of the men unlocked the
+door to let Fortunio out upon that errand.
+
+The Parisian took a turn in the apartment, and came close to Tressan.
+He nodded to the Seneschal with a friendliness that turned him sick with
+fright.
+
+“Well met, my dear Lord Seneschal. I am rejoiced to find you here. Had
+it been otherwise I must have sent for you. There is a little matter
+to be settled between us. You may depend upon me to settle it to your
+present satisfaction, if to your future grief.” And, with a smile, he
+passed on, leaving the Seneschal too palsied to answer him, too stricken
+to disclaim his share in what had taken place at Condillac.
+
+“You have terms to make with me?” the Marquise questioned proudly.
+
+“Certainly,” he answered, with his grim courtesy. “Upon your acceptance
+of those terms shall depend Marius’s life and your own future liberty.”
+
+“What are they?”
+
+“That within the hour all your people--to the last scullion--shall have
+laid down their arms and vacated Condillac.”
+
+It was beyond her power to refuse.
+
+“The Marquis will not drive me forth?” she half affirmed, half asked.
+
+“The Marquis, madame, has no power in this matter. It is for the Queen
+to deal with your insubordination--for me as the Queen’s emissary.”
+
+“If I consent, monsieur, what then?”
+
+He shrugged his shoulders, and smiled quietly.
+
+“There is no ‘if,’ madame. Consent you must, willingly or unwillingly.
+To make sure of that have I come back thus and with force. But should
+you deliver battle, you will be worsted--and it will be very ill for
+you. Bid your men depart, as I have told you, and you also shall have
+liberty to go hence.”
+
+“Aye, but whither?” she cried, in a sudden frenzy of anger.
+
+“I realize, madame, from what I know of your circumstances that you will
+be well-nigh homeless. You should have thought of how one day you might
+come to be dependent upon the Marquis de Condillac’s generosity before
+you set yourself to conspire against him, before you sought to encompass
+his death. You can hardly look for generosity at his hands now, and so
+you will be all but homeless, unless--” He paused, and his eyes strayed
+to Tressan and were laden with a sardonic look.
+
+“You take a very daring tone with me,” she told him. “You speak to me as
+no man has ever dared to speak.”
+
+“When the power was yours, madame, you dealt with me as none has ever
+dared to deal. The advantage now is mine. Behold how I use it in your
+own interests; observe how generously I shall deal with you who deal in
+murder. Monsieur de Tressan,” he called briskly. The Seneschal started
+forward as if some one had prodded him suddenly.
+
+“Mu--monsieur?” said he.
+
+“With you, too, will I return good for evil. Come hither.”
+
+The Seneschal approached, wondering what was about to take place. The
+Marquise watched his coming, a cold glitter in her eye, for--keener of
+mental vision than Tressan--she already knew the hideous purpose that
+was in Garnache’s mind.
+
+The soldiers grinned; the Abbot looked on with an impassive face.
+
+“The Marquise de Condillac is likely to be homeless henceforth,” said
+the Parisian, addressing the Seneschal. “Will you not be gallant enough
+to offer her a home, Monsieur de Tressan?”
+
+“Will I?” gasped Tressan, scarce daring to believe his own ears, his
+eyes staring with a look that was almost one of vacancy. “Madame well
+knows how readily.”
+
+“Oho?” crowed Garnache, who had been observing madame’s face. “She
+knows? Then do so, monsieur; and on that condition I will forget your
+indiscretions here. I pledge you my word that you shall not be called to
+further account for the lives that have been lost through your treachery
+and want of loyalty, provided that of your own free will you lay down
+your Seneschalship of Dauphiny--an office which I cannot consent to see
+you filling hereafter.”
+
+Tressan stared from the Dowager to Garnache and back to the Dowager. She
+stood there as if Garnache’s words had turned her into marble, bereft of
+speech through very rage. And then the door opened, and Mademoiselle de
+La Vauvraye entered, followed closely by Fortunio.
+
+At sight of Garnache she stood still, set her hand on her heart, and
+uttered a low cry. Was it indeed Garnache she saw--Garnache, her brave
+knight-errant? He looked no longer as he had looked during those days
+when he had been her gaoler; but he looked as she liked to think of him
+since she had accounted him dead. He advanced to meet her, a smile in
+his eyes that had something wistful in it. He held out both hands to
+her, and she took them, and there, under the eyes of all, before he
+could snatch them away, she had stooped and kissed them, whilst a murmur
+of “Thank God! Thank God!” escaped from her lips to heaven.
+
+“Mademoiselle, mademoiselle!” he remonstrated, when it was too late to
+stay her. “You must not; it is not seemly in me to allow it.”
+
+He saw in the act no more than an expression of the gratitude for what
+he had done to serve her, and for the risk in which his life had been
+so willingly placed in that service. Under the suasion of his words she
+grew calm again; then, suddenly, a fear stirred her once more in that
+place where she had known naught but fears.
+
+“Why are you here, monsieur? You have come into danger again?”
+
+“No, no,” he laughed. “These are my own men, at least for the time
+being. I am come in power this time, to administer justice. What shall
+be done with this lady, mademoiselle?” he asked; and knowing well the
+merciful sweetness of the girl’s soul, he added, “Speak, now. Her fate
+shall rest in your hands.”
+
+Valerie looked at her enemy, and then her eyes strayed round the room
+and took stock of the men standing there in silence, of the Abbot who
+still remained at the table-head, a pale, scarce-interested spectator of
+this odd scene.
+
+The change had come so abruptly. A few minutes ago she had been still a
+prisoner, suffering tortures at having heard that Marius was to return
+that day, and that, willy-nilly, she must wed him now. And now she was
+free it seemed: her champion was returned in power, and he stood bidding
+her decide the fate of her late oppressors.
+
+Madame’s face was ashen. She judged the girl by her own self; she had no
+knowledge of any such infinite sweetness as that of this child’s nature,
+a sweetness that could do no hurt to any. Death was what the Marquise
+expected, since she knew that death would she herself have pronounced
+had the positions been reversed. But--
+
+“Let her go in peace, monsieur,” she heard mademoiselle say, and she
+could not believe but that she was being mocked. And as if mockery were
+at issue, Garnache laughed.
+
+“We will let her go, mademoiselle--yet not quite her own way. You must
+not longer remain unrestrained, madame,” he told the Marquise. “Natures
+such as yours need a man’s guidance. I think you will be sufficiently
+punished if you wed this rash Monsieur de Tressan, just as he will be
+sufficiently punished later when disillusionment follows his present
+youthful ardour. Make each other happy, then,” and he waved his arms
+from one to the other. “Our good Father, here, will tie the knot at
+once, and then, my Lord Seneschal, you may bear home your bride. Her son
+shall follow you.”
+
+But the Marquise blazed out now. She stamped her foot, and her eyes
+seemed to have taken fire.
+
+“Never, sir! Never in life!” she cried. “I will not be so constrained. I
+am the Marquise de Condillac, monsieur. Do not forget it!”
+
+“I am hardly in danger of doing that. It is because I remember it that
+I urge you to change your estate with all dispatch; and cease to be the
+Marquise de Condillac. That same Marquise has a heavy score against
+her. Let her evade payment by this metamorphosis. I have opened for you,
+madame, a door through which you may escape.”
+
+“You are insolent,” she told him. “By God, sir! I am no baggage to be
+disposed of by the will of any man.”
+
+At that Garnache himself took fire. Her anger proved as the steel
+smiting the flint of his own nature, and one of his fierce bursts of
+blazing passion whirled about her head.
+
+“And what of this child, here?” he thundered. “What of her, madame? Was
+she a baggage to be disposed of by the will of any man or woman? Yet you
+sought to dispose of her against her heart, against her nature, against
+her plighted word. Enough said!” he barked, and so terrific was his mien
+and voice that the stout-spirited Dowager was cowed, and recoiled as he
+advanced a step in her direction. “Get you married. Take you this man
+to husband, you who with such calmness sought to drive others into
+unwilling wedlock. Do it, madame, and do it now, or by the Heaven above
+us, you shall come to Paris with me, and you’ll not find them nice
+there. It will avail you little to storm and shout at them that you are
+Marquise de Condillac. As a murderess and a rebel shall you be tried,
+and as both or either it is odds you will be broken on the wheel--and
+your son with you. So make your choice, madame.”
+
+He ceased. Valerie had caught him by the arm. At once his fury fell from
+him. He turned to her.
+
+“What is it, child?”
+
+“Do not compel her, if she will not wed him,” said she. “I
+know--and--she did not--how terrible a thing it is.”
+
+“Nay, patience, child,” he soothed her, smiling now, his smile as the
+sunshine that succeeds a thunderstorm.
+
+“It is none so bad with her. She is but coy. They had plighted their
+troth already, so it seems. Besides, I do not compel her. She shall
+marry him of her own free will--or else go to Paris and stand her trial
+and the consequences.”
+
+“They had plighted their troth, do you say?”
+
+“Well--had you not, Monsieur le Seneschal?”
+
+“We had, monsieur,” said Tressan, with conscious pride; “and for myself
+I am ready for these immediate nuptials.”
+
+“Then, in God’s name, let Madame give us her answer now. We have not the
+day to waste.”
+
+She stood looking at him, her toe tapping the ground, her eyes sullenly
+angry. And in the end, half-fainting in her great disdain, she consented
+to do his will. Paris and the wheel formed too horrible an alternative;
+besides, even if that were spared her, there was but a hovel in Touraine
+for her, and Tressan, for all his fat ugliness, was wealthy.
+
+So the Abbot, who had lent himself to the mummery of coming there to
+read a burial service, made ready now, by order of the Queen’s emissary,
+to solemnize a wedding.
+
+It was soon done. Fortunio stood sponsor for Tressan, and Garnache
+himself insisted upon handing the Lord Seneschal his bride, a stroke
+of irony which hurt the proud lady of Condillac more than all her
+sufferings of the past half-hour.
+
+When it was over and the Dowager Marquise de Condillac had been
+converted into the Comtesse de Tressan, Garnache bade them depart in
+peace and at once.
+
+“As I have promised, you shall be spared all prosecution, Monsieur de
+Tressan,” he assured the Seneschal at parting. “But you must resign at
+once the King’s Seneschalship of Dauphiny, else will you put me to the
+necessity of having you deprived of your office--and that might entail
+unpleasant consequences.”
+
+They went, madame with bowed head, her stubborn pride broken at last as
+the Abbot of Saint Francis had so confidently promised her. After them
+went the Abbot and the lackeys of Florimond, and Fortunio went with
+these to carry out Garnache’s orders that the men of the Dowager’s
+garrison be sent packing at once, leaving with the Parisian, in the
+great hall, just Mademoiselle de La Vauvraye.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV. SAINT MARTIN’S EVE
+
+Uneasy in his mind, seeking some way to tell the thing and acquit
+himself of the painful task before him, Garnache took a turn in the
+apartment.
+
+Mademoiselle leaned against the table, which was still burdened by the
+empty coffin, and observed him. His ponderings were vain; he could find
+no way to tell, his story. She had said that she did not exactly love
+this Florimond, that her loyalty to him was no more than her loyalty to
+her father’s wishes. Nevertheless, he thought, what manner of hurt must
+not her pride receive when she learned that Florimond had brought him
+home a wife? Garnache was full of pity for her and for the loneliness
+that must be hers hereafter, mistress of a vast estate in Dauphiny,
+alone and friendless. And he was a little sorry for himself and the
+loneliness which, he felt, would be his hereafter; but that was by the
+way.
+
+At last it was she herself who broke the silence.
+
+“Monsieur,” she asked him, and her voice was strained and husky, “were
+you in time to save Florimond?”
+
+“Yes, mademoiselle,” he answered readily, glad that by that question she
+should have introduced the subject. “I was in time.”
+
+“And Marius?” she inquired. “From what I heard you say, I take it that
+he has suffered no harm.”
+
+“He has suffered none. I have spared him that he might participate in
+the joy of his mother at her union with Monsieur de Tressan.”
+
+“I am glad it was so, monsieur. Tell me of it.” Her voice sounded formal
+and constrained.
+
+But either he did not hear or did not heed the question.
+
+“Mademoiselle,” he said slowly. “Florimond is coming--”
+
+“Florimond?” she broke in, and her voice went shrill, as if with a
+sudden fear, her cheeks turned white as chalk. The thing that for months
+she had hoped and prayed for was come at last, and it struck her almost
+dead with terror.
+
+He remarked the change, and set it down to a natural excitement. He
+paused a moment. Then:
+
+“He is still at La Rochette. But he does no more than wait until he
+shall have learned that his stepmother has departed from Condillac.”
+
+“But--why--why--? Was he then in no haste to come to me?” she inquired,
+her voice faltering.
+
+“He is--” He stopped and tugged at his mustachios, his eyes regarding
+her sombrely. He was close beside her now, where he had halted, and he
+set his hand gently upon her shoulder, looked down into that winsome
+little oval face she raised to his.
+
+“Mademoiselle,” he inquired, “would it afflict you very sorely if you
+were not destined, after all, to wed the Lord of Condillac?”
+
+“Afflict me?” she echoed. The very question set her gasping with hope.
+“No--no, monsieur; it would not afflict me.”
+
+“That is true? That is really, really true?” he cried, and his tone
+seemed less despondent.
+
+“Don’t you know how true it is?” she said, in such accents and with such
+a shy upward look that something seemed suddenly to take Garnache by the
+throat. The blood flew to his cheeks. He fancied an odd meaning in those
+words of hers--a meaning that set his pulses throbbing faster than joy
+or peril had ever set them yet. Then he checked himself, and deep down
+in his soul he seemed to hear a peal of mocking laughter--just such a
+burst of sardonic mirth as had broken from his lips two nights ago when
+on his way to Voiron. Then he went back to the business he had in hand.
+
+“I am glad it is so with you,” he said quietly. “Because Florimond has
+brought him home a wife.”
+
+The words were out, and he stood back as stands a man who, having cast
+an insult, prepares to ward the blow he expects in answer. He had looked
+for a storm, a wild, frantic outburst; the lightning of flashing, angry
+eyes; the thunder of outraged pride. Instead, here was a gentle calm, a
+wan smile overspreading her sweet, pale face, and then she hid that
+face in her hands, buried face and hands upon his shoulder and fell to
+weeping very quietly.
+
+This, he thought, was almost worse than the tempest he had looked for.
+How was he to know that these tears were the overflow of a heart that
+was on the point of bursting from sheer joy? He patted her shoulder; he
+soothed her.
+
+“Little child,” he whispered in her ear. “What does it matter? You did
+not really love him. He was all unworthy of you. Do not grieve, child.
+So, so, that is better.”
+
+She was looking up at him, smiling through the tears that suffused er
+eyes.
+
+“I am weeping for joy, monsieur,” said she.
+
+“For joy?” quoth he. “_Vertudieu_! There is no end to the things a woman
+weeps for!”
+
+Unconsciously, instinctively almost, she nestled closer to him, and
+again his pulses throbbed, again that flush came to overspread his lean
+countenance. Very softly he whispered in her ear:
+
+“Will you go to Paris with me, mademoiselle?”
+
+He meant by that question no more than to ask whether, now that here in
+Dauphiny she would be friendless and alone, it were not better for her
+to place herself under the care of the Queen-Regent. But what blame to
+her if she misunderstood the question, if she read in it the very words
+her heart was longing to hear from him? The very gentleness of his tone
+implied his meaning to be the one she desired. She raised her hazel eyes
+again to his, she nestled closer to him, and then, with a shy fluttering
+of her lids, a delicious red suffusing her virgin cheek, she answered
+very softly:
+
+“I will go anywhere with you, monsieur--anywhere.”
+
+With a cry he broke from her. There was no fancying now; no possibility
+of misunderstanding. He saw how she had misread his question, how she
+had delivered herself up to him in answer. His almost roughness startled
+her, and she stared at him as he stamped down the apartment and back
+to where she stood, seeking in vain to master the turbulence of his
+feelings. He stood still again. He took her by the shoulders and held
+her at arms’ length, before him, thus surveying her, and there was
+trouble in his keen eyes.
+
+“Mademoiselle, mademoiselle!” he cried. “Valerie, my child, what are you
+saying to me?”
+
+“What would you have me say?” she asked, her eyes upon the floor. “Was I
+too forward? It seemed to me there could not be question of such a thing
+between us now. I belong to you. What man has ever served a woman as
+you have served me? What better friend, what nobler lover did ever woman
+have? Why then need I take shame at confessing my devotion?”
+
+He swallowed hard, and there was a mist before his eyes--eyes that had
+looked unmoved on many a scene of carnage.
+
+“You know not what you do,” he cried out, and his voice was as the voice
+of one in pain. “I am old.”
+
+“Old?” she echoed in deep surprise, and she looked up at him, as if she
+sought evidence of what he stated.
+
+“Aye, old,” he assured her bitterly. “Look at the grey in my hair, the
+wrinkles in my face. I am no likely lover for you, child. You’ll need a
+lusty, comely young gallant.”
+
+She looked at him, and a faint smile flickered at the corners of her
+lips. She observed his straight, handsome figure; his fine air of
+dignity and of strength. Every inch a man was he; never lived there one
+who was more a man; and what more than such a man could any maid desire?
+
+“You are all that I would have you,” she answered him, and in his mind
+he almost cursed her stubbornness, her want of reason.
+
+“I am peevish and cross-grained,” he informed her, “and I have grown old
+in ignorance of woman’s ways. Love has never come to me until now. What
+manner of lover, think you, can I make?”
+
+Her eyes were on the windows at his back. The sunshine striking through
+them seemed to give her the reply she sought.
+
+“To-morrow will be Saint Martin’s Day,” she told him; “yet see with a
+warmth the sun is shining.”
+
+“A poor, make-believe Saint Martin’s Summer,” said he. “I am fitly
+answered by your allegory.”
+
+“Oh, not make-believe, not make-believe,” she exclaimed. “There is no
+make-believe in the sun’s brightness and its warmth. We see it and we
+feel it, and we are none the less glad of it because the time of year
+should be November; rather do we take the greater joy in it. And it is
+not yet November in your life, not yet by many months.”
+
+“What you say is apt, perhaps,” said he, “and may seem more apt than
+it is since my name is Martin, though I am no saint.” Then he shook off
+this mood that he accounted selfish; this mood that would take her--as
+the wolf takes the lamb--with no thought but for his own hunger.
+
+“No, no!” he cried out. “It were unworthy in me!”
+
+“When I love you, Martin?” she asked him gently.
+
+A moment he stared at her, as if through those clear eyes he would
+penetrate to the very depths of her maiden soul. Then he sank on to his
+knees before her as any stripling lover might have done, and kissed her
+hands in token of the fact that he was conquered.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of St. Martin’s Summer, by Rafael
+Sabatini
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ST. MARTIN’S SUMMER ***
+
+***** This file should be named 2640-0.htm or 2640-0.zip ***** This
+and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
+http://www.gutenberg.org/2/6/4/2640/
+
+Produced by An Anonymous Project Gutenberg Volunteer, and David Widger
+
+
+Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will be
+renamed.
+
+Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no one
+owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation (and
+you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without permission
+and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, set forth in
+the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to copying and
+distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to protect the
+PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project Gutenberg is a
+registered trademark, and may not be used if you charge for the eBooks,
+unless you receive specific permission. If you do not charge anything
+for copies of this eBook, complying with the rules is very easy. You
+may use this eBook for nearly any purpose such as creation of derivative
+works, reports, performances and research. They may be modified and
+printed and given away--you may do practically ANYTHING with public
+domain eBooks. Redistribution is subject to the trademark license,
+especially commercial redistribution.
+
+
+
+*** START: FULL LICENSE ***
+
+THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU
+DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK
+
+To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free
+distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
+(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase “Project
+Gutenberg”), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full
+Project Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at
+http://gutenberg.org/license).
+
+
+Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic works
+
+1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree
+to and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
+(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all the
+terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy all
+copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession.
+If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the
+terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or
+entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.
+
+1.B. “Project Gutenberg” is a registered trademark. It may only be used
+on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who agree
+to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few things that
+you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works even without
+complying with the full terms of this agreement. See paragraph 1.C
+below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement and help
+preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works.
+See paragraph 1.E below.
+
+1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation (“the Foundation”
+ or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in
+the collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an
+individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you
+are located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent
+you from copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating
+derivative works based on the work as long as all references to Project
+Gutenberg are removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the
+Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic
+works by freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with
+the terms of this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name
+associated with the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this
+agreement by keeping this work in the same format with its attached
+full Project Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with
+others.
+
+1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
+what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in
+a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check
+the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement
+before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing
+or creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project
+Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no representations concerning
+the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United
+States.
+
+1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:
+
+1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate
+access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently
+whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the
+phrase “Project Gutenberg” appears, or with which the phrase “Project
+Gutenberg” is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed,
+copied or distributed:
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost
+no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use
+it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this
+eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived
+from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is
+posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied
+and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees
+or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work with
+the phrase “Project Gutenberg” associated with or appearing on the work,
+you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 through
+1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the Project
+Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
+
+1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted
+with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
+must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional
+terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked
+to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the
+permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work.
+
+1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
+work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm.
+
+1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute
+this electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
+prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
+active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm License.
+
+1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
+compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any
+word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or
+distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other
+than “Plain Vanilla ASCII” or other format used in the official
+version posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site
+(www.gutenberg.org), you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense
+to the user, provide a copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means
+of obtaining a copy upon request, of the work in its original “Plain
+Vanilla ASCII” or other form. Any alternate format must include the full
+Project Gutenberg-tm License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.
+
+1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
+performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works
+unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
+
+1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing access
+to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided that
+
+- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
+the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method you
+already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is owed to the
+owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he has agreed to donate
+royalties under this paragraph to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
+Foundation. Royalty payments must be paid within 60 days following each
+date on which you prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your
+periodic tax returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such
+and sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the
+address specified in Section 4, “Information about donations to the
+Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation.”
+
+- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies you
+in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he does not
+agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm License. You
+must require such a user to return or destroy all copies of the works
+possessed in a physical medium and discontinue all use of and all access
+to other copies of Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of
+any money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
+electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days of
+receipt of the work.
+
+- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
+distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set forth
+in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from both the
+Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael Hart, the
+owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the Foundation as
+set forth in Section 3 below.
+
+1.F.
+
+1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
+effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
+public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm collection.
+Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works, and the
+medium on which they may be stored, may contain “Defects,” such as, but
+not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or corrupt data, transcription
+errors, a copyright or other intellectual property infringement, a
+defective or damaged disk or other medium, a computer virus, or computer
+codes that damage or cannot be read by your equipment.
+
+1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the “Right
+of Replacement or Refund” described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
+liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal fees.
+YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT LIABILITY,
+BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE PROVIDED IN
+PARAGRAPH F3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE TRADEMARK OWNER, AND
+ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE LIABLE TO YOU FOR
+ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR INCIDENTAL DAMAGES
+EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.
+
+1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a defect
+in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can receive
+a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a written
+explanation to the person you received the work from. If you received
+the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with your
+written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with the
+defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a
+refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or entity
+providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to
+receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy
+is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further
+opportunities to fix the problem.
+
+1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
+in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you ‘AS-IS’ WITH NO OTHER
+WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO
+WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.
+
+1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
+warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages.
+If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the
+law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be
+interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by
+the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any
+provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions.
+
+1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation,
+the trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
+providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance
+with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production,
+promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works,
+harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees,
+that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do
+or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm
+work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any
+Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause.
+
+
+Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of
+electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers
+including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists
+because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from
+people in all walks of life.
+
+Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
+assistance they need, is critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm’s
+goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will remain
+freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure and
+permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations. To
+learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and
+how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4 and the
+Foundation web page at http://www.pglaf.org.
+
+
+Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
+Foundation
+
+The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit
+501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the state
+of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal Revenue
+Service. The Foundation’s EIN or federal tax identification number
+is 64-6221541. Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at
+http://pglaf.org/fundraising. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent
+permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state’s laws.
+
+The Foundation’s principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S.
+Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered
+throughout numerous locations. Its business office is located at
+809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887,
+email business@pglaf.org. Email contact links and up to date contact
+information can be found at the Foundation’s web site and official page
+at http://pglaf.org
+
+For additional contact information: Dr. Gregory B. Newby Chief Executive
+and Director gbnewby@pglaf.org
+
+
+Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
+Archive Foundation
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide spread
+public support and donations to carry out its mission of increasing
+the number of public domain and licensed works that can be freely
+distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest array
+of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations ($1 to
+$5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt status with
+the IRS.
+
+The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
+charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
+States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
+considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
+with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations
+where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To SEND
+DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any particular state
+visit http://pglaf.org
+
+While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
+have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
+against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
+approach us with offers to donate.
+
+International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make any
+statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from outside
+the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.
+
+Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation
+methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other ways
+including checks, online payments and credit card donations. To donate,
+please visit: http://pglaf.org/donate
+
+
+Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.
+
+Professor Michael S. Hart is the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm
+concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared
+with anyone. For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project
+Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support.
+
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed
+editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S. unless
+a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily keep eBooks
+in compliance with any particular paper edition.
+
+
+Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility:
+
+http://www.gutenberg.org
+
+This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, including
+how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
+Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to subscribe to
+our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.
+
+
+