"We were not ready then. We are ready now," came from one of the men.
"Ready for what?" queried de Maurel. "What do you hope to gain by this senseless mutiny? To overpower the watchmen for one night and run riot through the factories? To-morrow must bring reprisals. Ye know that well enough."
"To-morrow you'll no longer be here, M. le Maréchal," sneered Leroux, who, though losing blood freely, had still sufficient strength left to maintain his position as ringleader of the gang. "To-morrow you'll not be here," he reiterated roughly, "to browbeat and threaten us."
"You mean to kill me, I know," rejoined de Maurel coolly. "But my death will avail you little. Reprisals will be all the more severe. Think you the law will let you escape? I am not a man who can be assassinated and then thrown into a ditch without causing some stir. Where will you hide when your Emperor himself will demand from you an account of what you have done with me?"
"Bah! when we have done with you, my fine Marshal of France," replied Leroux, with an insolent laugh, "there will be no Emperor. We are working for the King—not for Bonaparte ... and when we hold the factories and foundries in the name of the King ... why, there's little we'll have to fear from the Emperor; and, moreover...."
A terrific clash of thunder drowned the rest of his words, while the lightning literally tore the dark clouds asunder. Some of the men—more superstitious than the rest—instinctively crouched back, muttering blasphemies—pushing those behind them back, too, so that the entire human mass seemed suddenly to be heaving and then receding like the scum of sea-waves upon the ebbing tide; a gust of wind swept across the quadrangle, driving dust and dried leaves before it. Some of the men cursed, others hastily crossed themselves, with a vague remembrance of past devotions long buried beneath the dark mantle of crime.
The silence which ensued was absolute. It lasted less than ten seconds, perhaps, during which hardly a man dared to breathe—so absolute was it, that the click of every firearm striking against its neighbour was distinctly audible, as was the soughing of the wind in the silver birches on the wooded heights behind the factory. Something of a nameless terror had crept into the bones of these godless miscreants. By that vivid flash of lightning they had seen their master standing alone unflinching before them—against the background of the huge storehouse—his massive figure appearing preternaturally tall, his face pale and determined. His headwas bare to the winds and the storm, and it was turned full upon them, and neither in the dark, deep-set eyes nor round the firm mouth was there the slightest sign of fear. And they had caught sight of the slim silhouette of Fernande de Courson standing behind him, her graceful form seeming ethereal, like that of a protecting angel.
And for the space of those ten seconds de Maurel had just time to look on the situation squarely and with a clearer understanding than before. With his clumsy words, Leroux had in an instant revealed to him something of the dark treachery which had brought this mutinous crowd together—something of the murky undercurrent of intrigue which was driving the torrent of discontent to the flood of open rebellion. So this was the history of Leroux' defiance? this was the key to the riddle which had puzzled de Maurel when first he realized that these senseless brutes were actually not only in organized rebellion against him, but intent on murder—a stupid, purposeless and useless murder, which in itself would carry immediate discovery in its train, and with it the absolute certainty of terrible reprisals and penalties.
But now the whole thing became clear. It was his mother and her party who had engineered this trickery, and Heaven alone knew how near they were to succeed in the abominable project!
And in a flash he seemed to see every phase of the intrigue: his factories and foundries in the hands of these dastards, whilst the Royalist bands marched on La Frontenay. There were other details, of course—plots and counterplots—at which it was impossible to guess. Only the facts remained—the facts which confronted him now, together with this murderous pack of hungry wolves and the muskets which were levelled against him.
For his own life he cared less than nothing; many a time had he faced Prussian muskets as he faced those of a set of mutinous ruffians now. A few minutes ago he had felt one thrill of exultant happiness when Fernande's arms clung around his shoulders, and her sweetbody lay against his breast in her endeavour to shield him against his aggressors. He was more than content that that one supreme moment of delight should be the last which this world held for him—more than content to go to his eternal sleep with the sweet memory of her last caress to be his lullaby.
But his life had suddenly assumed an importance which he himself never granted it before. He alone, at this moment stood for the protection of these mighty engines of warfare around him, of the materials which his Emperor needed for overcoming the enemies of France. The very instant that he—Ronnay de Maurel—fell, they would become the prey of traitors, the prey of those who concerted with the foreigner against their country, who trafficked with Prussia, with Austria, with Russia, in order to force upon the people of France a government and a King whom they abhorred. At this very hour, perhaps, a band of Royalists was on its way to La Frontenay. It was all so simple—so absolutely, so perfectly, so hellishly simple! If he fell, they would reach the factories and the foundries, and these murderous traitors here would deliver his patrimony into their hands—the patrimony which he devoted to the service of France—the new guns, the small-arms, the explosives, the stores ... everything. If anon he lay with shattered head or breast on the threshold of this precious storehouse, which he had been powerless to protect, the cause of freedom, of the Emperor and of his armies, would receive a blow from which it could only recover after years more of fratricidal combat and more streams yet of bloodshed.
This he owed to his mother, to his brother, to his kindred, who had fanned the flame of hatred and rebellion against him, whose hands were raised against their country, whom they professed to love, and who had coolly and callously decreed his death because he stood in their way. With the very wealth which he had placed at his mother's disposal, she had paid these brutes to betray and to murder him.
And Fernande?
At Leroux' words he had felt her quivering behind him; he had heard the moan which escaped from her lips. Fernande knew of the treachery as she had known of his danger, and, knowing of his deadly peril, she had come here in order to share it with him. That thought, as it flashed before him, lent de Maurel's entire soul a courage and an exultation which was almost superhuman. As the thunder clashed above him, and the lightning tore the dark clouds asunder, it seemed to him as if God Himself, in His glory, had deigned to reveal Himself, to give him the strength and the power that he needed, the guidance which comes as a divine breath from Heaven in the supreme hour of a man's life, when Death and Duty and Love stand at the parting of the ways and beckon with unseen hands.
The silence that ensued had only lasted a moment. Already the men were recovering from their brief access of terror; some of them were shaking themselves like curs after a douche. They all drew nearer to one another, satisfied to feel one another's support and grasping their muskets more determinedly in their hands.
De Maurel had turned once more to Fernande.
"It means death, my beloved," he murmured.
"I know," she replied quietly.
"You are not afraid?"
"No."
Questions and answers came in rapid succession. His hand closed upon hers.
"In my heart," he said, "I kiss your exquisite hands, your feet, your hair, your lips. You forgive me?"
"Everything."
There was not a quiver in her voice; for one second her fingers rested in his, and they were firm and warm to his touch. They were made to understand one another,these two; their courage was equally undaunted; they both looked on death without a tremor. He would have given his life bit by bit for her, but at this hour, when the needs of France demanded a sacrifice so sublime that none but an heroic heart could have conceived it, not even the thought of his beloved came between him and his determination.
La Frontenay must be saved for the Emperor and for France at all costs—even at the cost of that one life which was more precious to him than his own, more precious than all the world, save France. And with one pressure of her slender hand she yielded up her will—her life to him. For this one supreme moment—a moment which held in it an infinity of love and passion—they met one another soul to soul. Hand in hand, in the face of death, this second was for them an eternity of ecstasy.
"You love me, Fernande!" he murmured.
"Until death," she replied.
"Then pray to God, dear heart," he whispered. "He alone can save us now."
Then he faced the crowd of cut-throats once more.
"Listen, my men," he said, speaking coolly and quietly. "For the last time let me tell you how you stand. As far as I can see, there are about fivescore of you standing there before me, and you think that you hold my life in the hollow of your hands. And so you do, in a measure. Your muskets are levelled against me, and even if I were to sell my life very dearly and blow out the brains of a few amongst you, you would have small work to lay me low in the end. You have been lured to this treachery by promises, and bribery; you have listened to insidious suggestions of treason. But let me tell you this. Others before you have listened to promises which came from that same quarter, and their bones lie mouldering now in forgotten graves. You think that if you delivered these works into the hands of M. de Puisaye and his followers you would be rendering such a service to the Royalist cause, that that effeteand obese creature who dares to call himself King of France will inevitably come to the throne which his forbears have forfeited, and that he will reward you handsomely for any service you may have rendered him. But, believe me, that even if this night a few bands of rebellious peasants took possession of La Frontenay and its works, their triumph and yours would be short-lived. No one in France at this hour wants a Bourbon king; the army worships the Emperor, the people adore him, and with the army and the people against you, what do you think that you can do? La Frontenay is not the only armament factory in France; think you that you will cripple the Emperor because you deliver our stores into the hands of his enemies? Take care, men, take care," he added more earnestly; "'tis you who have run your heads into a noose, and with every outrage which you commit this night that noose will become tighter round your necks, and you'll find that I—your master—will be more menacing and more fearsome to you dead—murdered foully by you—than ever I was in life."
His powerful, rugged voice rose above the murmur of the storm. Some of the men listened to him in sullen silence; the magnetic influence which "the General" had exercised over them in the past was not altogether gone; his powerful personality, his cool courage, the simplicity of his words, reacted upon their evil natures, and also upon their cowardice. There was a vast deal of common sense in what M. le Maréchal was saying, and they, after all, had only been promised a hundred francs apiece for an exceedingly risky piece of work. But there were some ringleaders among them who expected to get far more out of their treachery than a paltry hundred francs; they relied on de Puisaye's vague promises of freedom, on his assurance that unconditional pardon for past infractions against the law would be granted to them by a grateful King. They—and, above all, Leroux—felt also that they were committed too far now to dare to draw back, and even whilede Maurel spoke they broke in on his words with sneers and taunts, and, above all, with threats.
"You seem to think, M. le Maréchal," said Leroux in husky tones—for he was getting feeble with loss of blood—"you seem to think that I and my mates are here to murder you."
"Why else are you here?" rejoined de Maurel coolly. "You do not suppose, I imagine, that I am like to vacate the place and leave you to work your evil will with my property?"
"'Twere the wisest thing to do," retorted one of the men. "Eh, mates?"
"Yes! yes!" came with a volley of savage oaths from every side.
"Throw up your hands, M. le Maréchal," added a voice from the crowd, "and we'll see that neither you nor your sweetheart come to any harm!"
"Silence, you blackguard," thundered de Maurel fiercely, "or, by God, I'll pick you out of the crowd and shoot you like the dog that you are."
"Throw up your hands, M. le Maréchal," broke in Leroux roughly; "the men have no quarrel with you. But cease to defy and threaten them, or by Satan there'll be trouble."
"The trouble will come, my men, if you persist in this insensate mutiny. Throw down your muskets now at once, and go back to your compounds while there's yet time, and before the consequences of your own folly descend upon your heads."
A shout of derision greeted these words.
"The consequences of your folly will descend on your head, M. le Maréchal," sneered Leroux. "Get out of our way. We have parleyed enough. Eh, my mates?"
"Yes! yes! enough talk," some of them cried, whilst others added fiercely: "Put a bullet through him and silence his accursed tongue at last."
"Pierre Deprez, I know you," said de Maurel loudly. "Now then, all of you, for the last time—throw down your muskets—hands up!"
There came another shout of derision, wilder than the first.
"Hark at him!" cried Paul Leroux scornfully. "Even now he thinks that he can order us about—just as if we were a lot of craven curs."
"You are a lot of craven curs! And since you choose to be deaf to the voice of persuasion you shall listen to that of power. Down with your muskets! Hands up!... 'Tis the second time I've spoken."
"You may speak an hundred times, we'll not obey," retorted one of the men. "The days of obedience are past; the place is ours...."
"For the third and last time ..." began de Maurel.
Before the word was out of his mouth a shot was fired at him out of the crowd. The sound appeared as the signal for the breaking down of the last barrier which held these men's murderous passions in check.
"'Tis our turn to command," shouted Leroux excitedly. "Throw up your hands, M. le Maréchal, or...."
"Down with the muskets!" cried de Maurel in thunderous accents, that reached to the furthermost ends of the vast quadrangle, "or by the living God whom you have outraged, I'll bury myself and you and your dastardly crime in one common grave."
With a movement as rapid as that of the lightning above he swung the safety lanthorn against the wall behind him, and the protecting glass flew shattered in every direction, leaving a light naked and flaring, on which the storm immediately seized and tossed about in every direction. Above him towered the huge edifice which contained fifty thousand barrels of explosives. Immediately on his right was a narrow entrance into the building, to which a couple of stone steps gave access. In the space of a second he had run up those steps, his shoulder was against the door. The flame danced around him and lit up his stern face, which was set in a grim resolve.
"If one shout is uttered," he continued in a sonorousand resounding voice, "if another shot is fired, if one of you but dares to move, I break open this door, and within ten seconds, long before any man can find safety in flight, the first barrel of gunpowder will be aflame."
Overhead the thunder crashed—the storm raged in all its fury, and in the great quadrangle there was a sudden silence as in the city of the dead. Fivescore men were held paralysed with the horror of what they saw, spellbound by the might and power of a man who knew not fear; inert by the near sight of a hideous death. And while the crowd stood there, meek and obedient, quivering with terror like a pack of wild beasts under the lash of the tamer, he added with withering scorn:
"And you thought that you could filch from me that which I hold in trust for the Empire of France! You fools! You wretched, slinking, cowardly fools!"
"In God's name, M. le Maréchal!" came in an awed whisper from one or two men in the forefront of the crowd—"in God's name throw away that light!"
"Not until you have thrown down your muskets!"
A hundred muskets fell with a dull clatter to the ground.
"The light, M. le Maréchal! the light...!"
"Now one of you ring the alarm bell!"
"The light...!"
"Silence!" he called aloud, so that the night air rang with his sonorous voice. "The alarm bell, I said. Pierre Deprez—you! The others stand at attention. Hands up!"
One man slunk away from the rest, and, shrinking, walked slowly in the direction of the Lodge.
The naked light of the lanthorn flickered in the storm; every moment it seemed as if it must catch the edge of de Maurel's blouse or the woodwork round the door. One hundred pairs of eyes were fixed in frenzied terror upon him, yet so potent was the feeling of horror which held the men in thrall, that not one of them dared to move if only to stretch out his hand toward that light which threatened them all with such an appalling death.
A moment or so later the first clang of the alarm bellreverberated through the manifold sounds of the storm. It was followed almost immediately by the multisonous hooting of sirens in the distance and the peal of the alarm bell from the foundry half a kilomètre away.
And as the measured sounds of the bells and the sirens swelled to one majestic resonance, drowning now the roll of thunder and the soughing of the stormy blast, it seemed—for the space of one supreme second—that the men would repent them of their terror; for one second it seemed as if they would gather up their weapons again, and, throwing all prudence to the winds, rush and overcome that man who—single-handed—held them so completely in his power.
De Maurel, standing beside the door a step or two above them, saw the first sign of this reaction—the unmistakable oscillation of a crowd when it is moved by one common impulse. He felt the one weak spot in his armour—the possibility of his being struck even now by a chance musket-shot, so that not even with a dying gesture could he accomplish that which he was so grimly resolved to do. And without an instant's hesitation, even as like a wave the crowd swayed towards him, he lifted one corner of his linen blouse and held it to the flame; another second and the woodwork would most inevitably be ablaze.
A cry of horror rose from a hundred lips; the crowd swayed back—the supreme second had gone by; and coolly, with his free hand, de Maurel extinguished the flame on his blouse. Then he threw back his head and a loud laugh broke from his lips.
"And 'tis to such cowards," he said loudly, "that French men and women would entrust the destinies of France!"
Five minutes later the quadrangle was seething with men. Mathurin had been the first to reach the precincts of the factory with the armed watchmen fromthe foundries; he was the first to recognize his master still standing with his back against the wall of the powder-magazine, holding a naked, wind-tossed light in his hand. There was no time for puzzlement or surprise; something of what had actually happened rose as a swift yet vivid picture before the loyal overseer's mind. The crowd of mutineers was not difficult to overpower—surrounded by the watchmen, they gave in without a struggle. They were still dazed with the fright which they had had and made no attempt at resistance. At any rate, until they were well in hand, de Maurel did not move from his post. But he had put down the lanthorn and stamped out the light with his heel; after that, he stood quite still, only giving a few directions now and again in his resonant voice to Mathurin and his capable coadjutors. The watchmen of the factory, who had been surprised, overpowered and imprisoned in the Lodge before de Maurel's advent on the scene, were soon released, and their numbers added materially to the easiness of the task.
Soon the mutineers, in orderly array, were mustered up in the quadrangle preparatory to being marched back to their compound. Order reigned once more within the vast precincts of the factory. The excitement of a while ago, the shouts, the threats, the tumultuous cries of rage, of hatred and of fear, had given place to quick words of command, to brisk comings and goings, to measured tramps of feet and methodical click of arms. Overhead the thunder still rolled at intervals, and now and again the sky was rent by a flash of lightning; but the brunt of the storm had spent itself in the two terrific crashes which had proved de Maurel's most faithful allies in arousing the superstitious terror of those ignorant dastards. A warm, soft rain began to fall, further damping the ardour of the gang of rebels, as they filed past with hunched-up shoulders and shuffling footsteps—like whipped curs that feared more severe punishment yet to come.
Then at last de Maurel was able to turn to Fernande.
He came down the steps of the storehouse, and his eyes, so long dazed by the flicker of the naked light, searched for her in the gloom.
She had not moved from the spot which he had originally assigned to her, and he found her there, leaning against the wall, within the shelter of the recess formed by the framework and the steps of the doorway.
"Now I can carry you home, my beloved," he said simply.
After the nerve-rending emotion of a while ago, Fernande felt a sudden slackening of all her muscles, a numbness which invaded heart and brain. While de Maurel had stood facing the murderous crowd, with her life and his and that of all these men in his hand, while he was there resolved to annihilate his entire patrimony rather than to surrender it to the enemies of his Emperor, she had felt only conscious of one desperate longing, which was to be held tightly in his arms and to meet death with her lips touching his.
That she loved him with her whole heart, with every fibre of her body, and all the fervour of her soul, she had known since that day in the woods, when he had almost wrenched an admission of her love from her, and onlyLaurent's intervention had frozen the avowal on her lips. When—silent and cold—she had then been forced to part from him, she had done so believing that he would never forgive her for the shame which she had put on him, and that his love for her, tumultuous and passionate as was his whole nature, had quickly enough turned to hate. During the year that ensued, when she felt that never in life perhaps would she ever see him again, she had realized that, unknowing, she had loved him from the hour when first he lifted her in his strong arms and carried her through the woods, the while the birds twittered overhead, and she could watch his face and the play of emotion and of passion in his deep-set eyes through the cool veil of a sheaf of bluebells. She had loved him then, even though in the weeks that followed she often thought that she hated him; by the time that true knowledge came to her it was too late.
Since then the irrevocable had happened: she had become Laurent de Mortain's promised wife, and a gulf now lay between her and the man whom she loved, which nothing but death could have helped them to bridge over. In the hour of that deadly peril, the unspoken word of a year ago had come to her lips; it had come, now as then, in response to his own compelling will, to that triumphant possession of her which already a year ago had nearly thrown her in his arms. "You love me, Fernande?" he had asked, and, face to face with the actuality which she had thought lay buried deep down in her heart, she could not deny its truth without perjuring her soul. And when he whispered in her ear: "It means death, my beloved!" she had been ready to throw herself in his arms, to ask for that one last kiss which would have made death both welcome and sweet. She felt then as if she were being lifted up on a huge wave of light to a glorious empyrean above, where her body fell away from her, and soul and spirit swooned in the enchantment of a divine ecstasy. She felt then that she was no longer mortal, that she had reached a state which was akin to that of the angels. She felt thatsublime rapture which alone makes of Man a true child of God.
But now the danger was past; the tumultuous excitement of a while ago, the wild ecstasy of love in the face of death, had yielded to the sober reality of everyday life. It seemed almost as if, when de Maurel finally stamped out with his heel the naked light which threatened annihilation, he had, at the same time, extinguished the flame of passion which was searing Fernande's soul. With the last dying flicker of that light, exultation which had carried her to the giddy heights of bliss folded its wings, and she came down to earth once more. It had been a steep and vertiginous descent, and she felt sore, bruised and dazed, groping blindly for the light which had so suddenly gone out of her life and left her lonely and cold. The mystic veil wherewith love had enveloped her vision of reality in this past hour, was being slowly torn from before her eyes; and the world appeared before her, not as she had seen it a while ago, through the blinding light of an overmastering passion, but as it was now in its dull and grim positiveness.
Gradually the thought of Laurent first, then of her father, then of de Puisaye, of her cause, and of her King, penetrated into her brain.
Duty, honour, loyalty, began to whisper in her ear, and soon their voices succeeded in drowning the still insistent murmur of love.
Laurent!
All this while she had forgotten him; nay, not only him, but her father and her King, her kindred and her cause. While she allowed swift passion to course through her veins, while she yielded to the delight of Ronnay's voice, of his nearness, of the love-light which gleamed in his eyes, her father and Laurent were on the high road between Mortain and Domfront and Tinchebrai, still secure in the thought that the projected coup had been successful, and that de Puisaye was even now on his way to take possession of La Frontenay and its accumulated wealth of arms. She pictured them both—herfather and her betrothed—weary and footsore, risking their lives without a murmur, in order to accomplish the task which their chiefs had assigned to them to do; she pictured them defeated in their purpose—the garrisons of Domfront and Mortain on the qui vive—de Puisaye surprised with his force ... the rebel army surrounded ... scattered ... annihilated ... her father and Laurent fugitives or dead!... whilst she stood here oblivious of all save of the man whom she loved.
She dared not think of what would happen within the next few hours—she hardly dared to think of her father and of Laurent; but now that their loved image once more flitted across her mental vision, she endured the tortures of bitter self-abasement. God had manifested His will. He had stood by the brave man who, all alone and undaunted, had known how to defend his heritage and the cause of his Emperor and of France. And she—Fernande—seeing the pack of murdering wolves around him, had yielded to a moment of frenzied horror at a crime which was nigh to being committed before her eyes.
In her heart she had betrayed her people when that moment of madness wrung an avowal of love from her lips. She had betrayed her kindred when she interposed herself between their sworn enemy and the murderer's bullet which would have laid him low. And she still betrayed them now when, instead of flying back to them on the wings of loyalty and of love, she lingered here, if only for a few brief minutes, savouring the bitter-sweet delights of the inevitable farewell.
Was there ever blacker, more hideous treachery?
The light from the lamp above showed her Ronnay quite clearly, his brown hair taken back from the low, square forehead, the firm jaw and sensitive mouth, the toil-worn hands and linen blouse whereon the charred corner still bore mute and eloquent testimony to the unflinching heart that beat beneath its folds. And, above all, it revealed to her those eyes of his of a deep violet-blue, wherein passion and tenderness had kindledan all-compelling flame, and she knew that duty, loyalty, honour, compelled her to fly while there was yet time, and as far away as she could, lest the magnetism of his love drew her back to his arms once more.
Her place now was by the side of Laurent and of her father—in the midst of her friends at this hour, when black failure had dashed to naught all their dearest hopes. At La Frontenay, at Courson, at Mortain, there would be tears to quench and wounds to heal—God grant that a veil of mourning be not spread over all the land!—and she Fernande must be there to comfort and to soothe.
All these thoughts and emotions coursed so swiftly through heart and brain that they left her dazed, bewildered, with limbs icy cold and teeth chattering, the while her head felt as if it were on fire. Reaction had set in; the excitement had been so intense, when death and passion fought for mastery over her entire soul, that the sudden relaxation of her nerves nearly caused an utter collapse of every one of her faculties.
It required an almost superhuman effort to regain complete possession of herself, to collect her thoughts, to chase away the last shreds of the dream. It would require a greater effort still to wrench herself away from this spot where she felt that henceforward her heart would remain buried. For the moment it meant gaining power over her limbs, which seemed disinclined to render her service, and over her head wherein tumultuous thoughts still refused to be marshalled in orderly array it meant, in fact, waiting for an opportunity to slip away as soon as she could. She knew in which direction lay the postern gate, and she knew her way back to La Frontenay. If she only could reach the château within the next half-hour, some means might yet be found to acquaint de Puisaye of what had occurred.She wondered vaguely how much de Maurel knew at this hour of what was in preparation over by Mortain, or what he could do if he knew everything.
The sight of the crowd still moving or standing, compact and busy, all round the storehouse maddened her. These men were impeding her way to the postern gate; they stood in the way of her getting to La Frontenay in time to send a runner over, even at this hour, to de Puisaye. It was nearly two hours since she left home—an eternity!—over half an hour since the first hooting of the sirens must have roused the countryside; and she still was so shaken, so numbed, so bruised, that she hadn't it in her to make a dash through the crowd, to push her way through all these men who would intercept her and would draw de Maurel's attention to her movements.
If he captured her and brought her back, if he refused to let her go, would she have the physical strength to resist? Oh, for a moment's darkness, an instant of silence, which would cover her flight!
Then at last the opportunity came. The groups around the storehouse gradually dispersed; the way lay clear as far as the angle of the building beyond which was darkness and solitude. Mathurin was engaging de Maurel's attention, and he—Ronnay—was standing half turned away from her. She gave one last look round her—one last look at the man whom she loved, and whom mayhap she would never in life see again, and in her heart she spoke a last, fond farewell. But as surely as a magnet draws to itself a piece of steel, so did this look of love from her compel and draw his gaze. Before she had time to move, he was down the steps and standing in front of her, so that he barred the way.
"Now I can carry you home, my beloved," he said.
He put out his arms ready to take hold of her. The wild excitement of the past half-hour had left no impress upon his iron physique save in a certain pallor of the cheeks and a stiffening of the firm jaw.
"I would have given my life's blood, drop by drop,"he said simply, "to have spared you all that. You do believe me, Fernande, do you not?"
She could not reply. The instinct to fly, to run away, to close her ears to his voice, her eyes to his gaze, was so insistent, that she could have screamed with longing and a maddened feeling of impotence. By an impulsive gesture of self-protection she put up her hands.
"Yes, yes!" she said, trying to speak coldly, indifferently, even though her voice sounded hoarse and choked, and she could not control the nervous chattering of her teeth and the trembling of her limbs. "Yes, yes! of course I'll believe you,mon cousin!... You did what was right ... and I.... But now I entreat you to let me go home.... My aunt will be so anxious and...."
"And you are cold and overwrought," he said ruefully. "Curse those brutes," he added, with a sudden access of primitive savagery, "curse them for the evil their treachery has wrought!"
Then as he saw that she suddenly shrank away from him and drew her cloak closer round her, he chided himself for his roughness. "I am a brute," he said gently, "and am for ever begging your forgiveness. My beloved, will you not trust yourself to me? You must be so tired ... and the rain is coming down. We could be at La Frontenay in half an hour."
The events of the past fateful hour seemed to have faded from his ken. It seemed as if he had never stood there—a few paces away—that naked light in his hand, threatening destruction to a crowd of mutineers, destruction to himself, to his patrimony and to his beloved. He was just the same as he had always been—half clumsy, wholly compelling—whenever Fernande met him in the woods, and there was nothing between them save a still unavowed passion. She looked round her helplessly in vain search for a means of escape. She could not—dared not—speak for the moment. If she did, she knew that she must break down. She had gone through too much to have full power over her nerves; she felt unutterably weary, even though she knew that so muchstill lay before her, and though she was firmly resolved to play a loyal part to the end. In her heart she called out to him: "Yes! take me in your arms, my beloved; let me nestle against your shoulder; care for me, comfort me! The world is too difficult for my weak hands to grapple with!" And she had to close her eyes and to hold her lips tightly pressed together, or the heartrending cry would certainly have escaped them.
How long she remained standing thus silent and with eyes closed, she did not know—a minute perhaps—perhaps a cycle of ages. During that time she fought for mastery over her nerves and over her senses, and in the fight she felt herself growing strange and old, with every emotion in her dead, and only the determination subsisting that he, too, must be made to remember that she was tokened to his brother, and that never, never while all three of them lived must the past hour be recalled again.
And de Maurel, the while, remained beside her, waiting patiently.
That was his way! Vehement as were his passions, tumultuous when they broke through the barrier of self-restraint, he had with it all the supreme virtue of infinite patience; in wrath, as in love, he always knew how to bide his time. Perhaps he guessed something of what went on behind those blue-veined lids on which he was aching to imprint a kiss. He could not see her face clearly, only just the delicate outline of her against the dark background of the wall, and occasionally a glint of gold when the light from above caught the loose tendrils of her hair.
When at last her fight was won, and nerves and senses fell into line with her determination to be loyal to Laurent in the spirit as well as in the letter, she felt as if every emotion in her was dead—as if she never would again be able to laugh and make merry, to cry, to love, or to hate—as if she would henceforth be just a callous, heartless, unfeeling thing without even the capacity for sorrow.
She looked at Ronnay and endured his glance withouta tremor, and at last she was able to speak, knowing that there would be no quiver in her voice now to betray the agony of what she suffered.
"Of a truth,mon cousin," she said, with an indifferent little laugh, "it is passing kind of you to offer to be my beast of burden once again, but I assure you that I would not care to become quite so ludicrous a spectacle as you suggest before good old Mathurin and all your work-people. Believe me, I would far sooner go back to La Frontenay on my own feet. It would not be very dignified—would it?—for the future Marquise de Mortain to be carried along the road like a bundle of goods."
He said nothing for a moment or two, nor could she, by the dim light, read very clearly in his eyes whether her words had conveyed to him the full meaning which she intended, until he said quite simply: "Ah! I had forgotten."
A curious ashen colour overspread his face like that of a man suffering great physical pain.
And Fernande—poor Fernande!—with a forced laugh plunged the knife still more deeply into the gaping wound.
"Forgotten,mon cousin?" she said. "How could you have forgotten that I am your brother's promised wife? Did you not tender me your congratulations yesterday?"
"Of course, of course; I understand," he murmured vaguely, and he passed his hand once or twice mechanically across his brow. Then suddenly, with that rough directness which was so characteristic of him, he added simply: "But as long as life lasts, my beloved, I shall thank God on my knees for the one glimpse of Heaven which He gave me this night."
"There is a great deal,mon cousin," she rejoined coldly and firmly, "that both you and I must forget after this."
"Yes," he retorted. "I, for one, shall have to forget that my mother and my brother armed the hands of assassins against me."
Instinctively she called out: "It is false!"
"It is true, Fernande," he rejoined quietly, "and you know it. Some of my men who have just arrived from Domfront say that the woods beyond Mortain are alive with rebels. That murderous dastard Leroux has already betrayed the various threads of de Puisaye's latest intrigues. In order to try and save his own skin, which he will not succeed in doing," he continued grimly, "he has chosen to tell us all he knew—that my brother Laurent is on the high road at this hour with a gang of armed Chouans at his heels; so is M. de Courson. Another gang is on its way to these works in order to reap the fruits of Leroux' treachery. But our alarm bells have set the garrison of Domfront afoot; couriers are on their way to warn the commandants of Mortain and Tinchebrai. This comes of bribing a coward to become a traitor," he concluded harshly; "the disasters of this night will lie at the door of those who trafficked with assassins."
But Fernande no longer listened to him. Her dream had, indeed, vanished—vanished beyond recall, and she was back in the midst of all the calamity, the sorrow which would follow on the mistakes of this night. Indeed, the pitiless cowardice which had sent a brave man to face a band of murderers, alone and unwarned, had already received its awful punishment. Everything had been foreseen in de Puisaye's plans, everything had been thought out and arranged ... save this: that one man, single-handed, would cow and dominate a crowd of murderous rebels!
Now there was nothing left but to stand shoulder to shoulder, and trust to God that the small armies under de Puisaye, de Courson and Laurent de Mortain, escaped with their lives. There was nothing left to do but to tend the wounded and bury the dead. Fernande's very soul ached now with the longing to be back at La Frontenay, and the magnitude of her desire gave her just the strength which she needed. Swift as a hare, she took advantage of a slight movement on his part and managed to slip by him out of her corner. And she had startedto run towards the postern gate ere he succeeded in overtaking her at the angle of the storehouse and once more barring her way.
This time he seized her in his arms.
"Where are you going, Fernande?" he cried peremptorily.
"Home!" she retorted. "Let me go!"
"You cannot go alone. The roads are unsafe."
"Let me go!"
"Not without me."
"Let me go! My place is with those I love."
In a moment his arms dropped down to his side and she was free. But the violence with which he had seized hold of her had made her unsteady on her feet; she tottered back a little, and then had to stand still a moment while she recovered her balance. The spell of his arms round her was upon her still; the dream voices of a while ago called out to her from afar ... a last lingering farewell.
"Even so, an you will allow me," he said, after a moment or two, and his voice sounded cold and toneless; "even so I would like to escort you home. The sirens will by now have alarmed half the country-side—a vast number of men will be on their way hither—there will be a crowd upon the road—some of the men may be rough. Those who ... those whom you love," he added with a harsh laugh, "would not wish you to go to them alone."
Then he continued more gently, and his voice became full of tender yearning: "Think you, my dear, that I do not understand? Why, there is nothing that you might think, or feel, or say, to which my heart would not immediately respond. You want to be at this time with those ... with those whom you love; that is only natural, and in accordance with your sweetness and your kind and loyal soul. Your heart now is at La Frontenay. Let me take you thither. I swear to you that I will not come nigh you, that I will not speak to you unless you grant me leave. So I entreat you letme come with you.... I would not else know a moment's peace."
"You are very kind," she murmured, "but indeed, indeed, there is no cause for anxiety. Wrapped in my cloak I shall be quite safe, and the passers-by will be too busy to think of molesting me."
"Is my company, then, so distasteful to you, that you are so anxious to rid yourself of me?"
She felt her eyes filling with tears, but still she contrived to say firmly: "It were best that I went alone."
"As you will," he rejoined coldly.
He stood aside, and as she moved away from him, he called loudly: "Mathurin!"
"Here, M. le Maréchal," came from a distant corner of the quadrangle, and hurrying footsteps drew quickly near in answer to the master's call. Fernande, the while, busied herself with her cloak.
"Mathurin," said de Maurel curtly, as soon as the overseer was in sight. "Detail two of the men whom you can best trust—Henri Gresset and Michel Picart, if you can spare them—to escort Mademoiselle de Courson back to the château."
"Very good, M. le Maréchal," replied Mathurin.
"Tell them to await Mademoiselle at the postern gate."
"It shall be done, M. le Maréchal."
Then Mathurin saluted and turned on his heel. It was not his place to question or to show surprise. Even in the most remote cell of his brain there was not room for a rebellious or a disloyal thought. He had his orders and at once he set about to execute them, and a moment or two later his voice was heard calling to Gresset and to Picart.
"Will you at least allow me to walk with you as far as the gate?" asked de Maurel, after the man had gone.
"If you wish it," she replied. Then, with sudden unconquerable impulse, she added in a tone of agonized entreaty:
"My father ... and Laurent?"
"What can I do?" he said with an impatient sigh.
"You have influence," she pleaded; "you can save them if you have the will."
"From the consequences of their own treachery?" he retorted harshly.
"Treachery?" she protested hotly.
"Let us call it folly. If Leroux' coup had succeeded the heritage which I hold in trust for France would have been wrenched from me with the help of assassins and of traitors."
"My father ..." she pleaded.
"And my brother," he added grimly. "Both caught probably this night in arms against their country—condemned to be shot as traitors...."
"Oh!"
"As traitors," he reiterated firmly. "A year ago the Emperor granted an unconditional pardon and amnesty to M. le Comte de Courson and to M. le Marquis de Mortain ... and every day since then these loyal gentlemen have worked and plotted to hurl him from his throne."
"My father ..." she pleaded once again. And she added under her breath: "You said just now that you could understand ... everything. And M. de Courson is my father...."
"And M. de Mortain, your future husband," he broke in with a derisive laugh and a shrug of his broad shoulders. Then suddenly a swift wave of passion seemed to sweep right over him—a wave of rebellion against Fate, against his destiny, against all the misery, the sorrow, the endless desolation which that fact stood for. "Ah, Fernande!" he exclaimed hoarsely, "how can you trust me so completely, yet give your love to another man?"
She drew in her breath with a little moan of pain. He had hurt her by these words more surely than she had ever hurt him, for she, on her side, had never thought to doubt his love. She believed in it more than ever before, now that she knew that this parting must be for always. But she felt that she had his answer—his promise to help her father and Laurent if he could.Almost she was ashamed to have appeared before him in the end as a suppliant, yet proud in her heart that she had gained so much in the cause which she had pleaded; proud in the fact that Love held him so completely in its thrall, that no base thought, no mean desire for vengeance, had a place beside it in his heart.
Now there was nothing more to be said. The last word had been spoken between them, the last save the one which rose to their lips now ere they parted, but which must henceforth and for ever remain unsaid.
She pulled the hood of her cloak over her head, and then turned to go the way she had come just half an hour ago. The clock-tower was just striking eleven. At different points of the vast quadrangle small patrols of watchmen could be perceived making their rounds, seeing that everything now was well and safe. The last of the mutineers had been marched out through the main gates, the tramp of heavy feet was even now dying away in the distance.
The silence and quietude of a perfectly ordered organization was once more descending on Ronnay de Maurel's princely heritage, whilst in the heart of its owner there raged a tempest of sorrow and of longing which nothing on earth could ever still.
But he walked silently by her side, and though she was aching to get home as quickly as may be, she went along slowly, because she could hear him dragging his wounded leg more painfully than he had been wont to do.
It was a matter of two or three minutes only ere the postern gate, with its tiny light above, was in sight. Each side of it a man was standing at attention.
"Good-bye, dear cousin," she said, speaking as lightly as her aching heart would allow, "and thank you. I shall, indeed, feel quite safe under the protection of those stalwarts."
She paused, and for a moment it seemed as if she would hold her hand out to him. They were some twenty paces still from the gate—alone and with the darkness hiding them from every view.
"Fernande!" he called, in a voice which held a world of misery, of regret and of passion in its breaking tone.
"I must not tarry," she rejoined. "Laurent ... your brother ... will be anxious about me."
And with that she turned and ran quickly to the gate. The two men fell in behind her. Just for one brief second the tiny light from above glinted upon an aureole of gold. The hood had slipped down from her head, and she raised and slightly turned her face for one instant, just as she went through the gate.
And thus he saw her fair profile outlined by the flickering light, the line of nose and lips and the exquisite curve of her throat. A few drops of moisture clung to the loose tendrils of her hair and glistened like tiny diamonds in a setting of living gold.
Then she passed out of his sight into the darkness beyond.
Madame la Marquise de Mortain had spent the evening shut up in her own room. At seven o'clock, and then again at nine, Annette had brought her some food on a tray. She ate it mechanically, feeling neither hunger nor fatigue. She did not know that Fernande had gone out, nor did she inquire after her. Of a truth, all thought of the young girl, of her own household, of everything, in fact, save the momentous events which were to occur this night had faded from her mind. After the solemn warning which she had given Fernande she felt no anxiety as to what the latter might do. The girl was undoubtedly under the spell of an unexplainable infatuation; but Madame la Marquise, self-absorbed and as callous of anyone else's feelings as she was of her own, put it all down to childish exaltation and somewhat unhealthy romanticism; marriage with Laurent would, she was sure, soon effect a cure. In the meanwhile Fernande would certainly do nothing to jeopardize de Puisaye's plan of campaign, now that Madame had put it so clearly before her, that M. de Courson's own life would be seriously imperilled if Ronnay de Maurel got wind of what was in the air.
Thus did Madame la Marquise dismiss from her mind all thoughts of her niece.
But she strove in vain to do likewise with those of her son. His face haunted her during those hours of lonely vigil in the privacy of her own room, while she waited for the first breath of news which would come wafted on the wings of the storm from the foundries to the Château of La Frontenay. She had steeled her heart against Ronnay—her eldest born—the son of the man whom she had hated beyond every other human creature on this earth. She had hated Ronnay during all the years that he was kept away from her; she had hated him when first she saw him again—a stranger to herself and to her kindred, an enemy to her caste. And when something indefinable in his character compelled her admiration and respect, she shut her ears to the call of Nature, to the insistent call of child to mother—that sweet, imperative call, which was all the more potent in this case as it had remained unspoken.
Entirely against her will, she could not help but see herself—her own character—reflected in Ronnay far more truly than in Laurent; she saw in him her own unbendable will, her energy, her impatience of restraint: and, above all, she saw in him that same worship of a political ideal—even though the ideal differed from her own—and the same readiness to sacrifice everything at its shrine.
And because there was so much in him that was akin to her own temperament, she continued to hate Ronnay de Maurel even though she no longer could despise him. To-night she was able to envisage coldly the possibility of his falling a victim to political schemes in which she had a hand. There was no compunction in her heart, no pity. In Ronnay she saw only the enemy of her cause, the traitor to his King. She felt like the incorruptible justiciary of old, who condemned his own son to the gallows when that son had offended against the laws of God; and if at times in the silence and loneliness which encompassed her while she watched and prayed, a feeling of softness or a pang of remorse knocked at the portals of her heart, she dismissed them resolutely, andsoon both softness and remorse were consumed in the fire of her indomitable enthusiasm and energy.
And the hours went by leaden-footed. Madame, in her mind, was able to trace every movement of the Royalist army on its march from Mortain to Tinchebrai, to Domfront, to Sourdeval, to La Frontenay; she reckoned the hours and counted the minutes, ere she could assume with any certainty that Laurent had reached Domfront, M. de Courson, Mortain, and that de Puisaye had arrived at the factories. By that time Leroux would have reckoned with de Maurel, if, indeed, the latter had put his threat into execution and attempted to interfere in the defence of his own property, at the very hour when the blow for the seizure of the factories would have to be struck. By midnight de Puisaye's men should be at La Frontenay and in undisputed possession of all the armament works; an hour later two contingents of them would be on their way to Domfront and back to Mortain, to relieve Laurent and M. de Courson and help them to complete the capture of the garrisons there.
After ten o'clock the lonely watcher began to strain every nerve in a wild endeavour to catch the first sound of distant firing, or see the first lurid glow that would illumine the sky. The storm then was at its height and vivid flashes of lightning, accompanied by terrific crashes of thunder, lit up for a second at intervals the park of La Frontenay and the heights far away in the distance, with the dusty main road winding its way like a pale-coloured riband through the woods and the villages scattered on the plain.
Madame stood by the open window in her boudoir, and to her overwrought fancy it seemed that the whole landscape was peopled with the armies of the King; that from Domfront and Mortain, from the valleys and the hills, there poured down toward the factories a victorious horde of Royalists who already held half the country-side in their power. Her heart was filled with a great joy—she felt like intoning a triumphant hymn of praise.
She could no longer stand still, but started pacing up and down the room like a caged panther. She had twisted her handkerchief into a tight, damp ball, and now and again she put it to her lips, else she would have screamed aloud in the agony of her suspense.
She carried the lamp into her bedroom, which opened out of the boudoir, leaving the latter in complete darkness, so that she might see more clearly out of the window.
"De Puisaye should be nearing the factories by now," she thought, "and Laurent should be well on his way to Domfront at this hour. Oh, God!" she added, in a fever of passionate excitement, "for one brief moment of second sight!"
Just then there came a knock at her bedroom door.
Madame thought it might be Fernande, or else Annette bringing her more food which she did not want, and impatiently she called: "Come in!"
The door was thrown open; she could see it from where she stood, and she turned, thinking that it must be Annette. The next moment she gave a cry:
"Laurent!"
She ran into the next room, her heart and mind suddenly assailed with a horrible foreboding. Laurent was standing on the threshold, pale, haggard, trembling visibly. His clothes were soiled, his boots muddy, his eyes looked dazed and feverish.
"Laurent, in the name of God, what has happened?" queried Denise de Mortain as calmly as she could, after she had dragged Laurent into the room and closed the door behind him.
He staggered to a chair and threw himself into it, in an obvious state of physical exhaustion.
"Where is Fernande?" were the first words which came to his lips.
"Fernande?" queried Madame with a frown. "Idon't know. In her room, I think. But never mind about Fernande now. Tell me, in God's name, why you are here?"
"Fernande is not in her room," he retorted savagely, and, wearied though he so obviously was, he jumped up from his chair and stood facing his mother with hands clenched, eyes glowing and cheeks aflame. "Where is she?"
"I don't know," replied Madame as firmly and unconcernedly as she could. "She may be as impatient as I am and, unable to sit still, she may be wandering about somewhere in the house or round the gardens. I don't know, I tell you," she added fiercely. "Laurent, I insist upon knowing what your presence here means at this hour, when I thought you on the way to Domfront."
She tried to force him to look her squarely in the eyes. There was something so awful, so paralysing in the terror which was invading her whole being, that she dared not yet face the thoughts which at sight of Laurent had rushed wildly through her brain. She wanted to force an explanation from him, for she felt now that anything he said must be simpler, more intelligible than the horrible surmises which froze the very blood in her veins. But Laurent would not meet her searching gaze. Instead of this, he threw himself back into the chair, and, burying his head in his hands, he burst into a passionate flood of weeping.
He was weak, exhausted, footsore, his nerves were obviously strained to breaking point. Denise de Mortain's cold heart melted at the sight of his grief, but she made no movement to soothe him. The puzzled frown settled more deeply between her brows, and after a while, when Laurent's paroxysm had somewhat subsided, and he leaned his head in utter dejection and weariness against the back of the chair, she tapped her foot impatiently against the ground.
"Laurent," she said more quietly after a while, "you must tell me what all this means. You must try and collect yourself as quickly as you can and try to explainto me why you are here—and in this state—wildly calling for Fernande, when I, your mother, thought you at Domfront engaged in the execution of your duty."
"A man's first duty, Mother," he retorted fiercely, "is to watch over the treasure which God has placed in his hands. Something told me that a wolf was prowling round my fold, and I came to guard what was mine and to shoot the wolf ... if I could."
He spoke more coherently now. The violent paroxysm of weeping had eased the tension on his nerves. The look in his eyes was more full of anger, but less wild, and though heavy sobs still shook his frame from time to time, and a hot, feverish flush glowed on his cheeks and on his forehead, he was, on the whole, more master of himself.
"Will you explain more clearly what you mean?" queried Madame la Marquise coldly.
"I mean," he replied, "that ever since I parted from Fernande two days ago, torturing doubts have racked me till I thought my brain would burst. I have been on the threshold of frenzy, enduring torments of hell, the while de Puisaye and M. de Courson and all the others talked and manœuvred, and drilled and discussed plans, for the thousand thousandth time. Oh!" he continued vehemently, "I fought against my own thoughts, against my fears, against that lashing, flaying, maddening doubt. I fought against it till my head was in a whirl, and I began to marvel if, indeed, I was not insane."
"But why?" exclaimed Madame, in deeper perplexity than before. "In Heaven's name, why?"
"Will you deny, Mother," he riposted hotly, "that you, too, have felt doubts about Fernande?—that you, too, have watched the play of emotion on her face, the quiver of her mouth, the soft look in her eyes, the moment my brother Ronnay's name is mentioned?"
"Laurent!"
"Can you deny it?" he insisted.
Then, as she remained silent and merely shrugged her shoulders with well-affected indifference, he continued with the same vehemence: "Ah, you see, you cannotdeny it! You cannot! You know that my doubts and fears are not the outcome of feverish hallucinations! Oh, my God!" he exclaimed, and put his hand up to his throat as if he were choking, "if only I could kill him with mine own hands...."
"I'll deny nothing, Laurent," interposed Madame calmly, and her harsh, stern voice acted like an icy douche on the young man's fierce passion. "I think that Fernande is foolish, childishly romantic. Something about de Maurel's personality has stirred her imagination. But there's nothing more in it than that, and...."
"Then why is she not here to-night?" he broke in savagely.
"You say that she is not here. But how do you know?"
"Because," he began, speaking slowly and measuredly, and Denise de Mortain had no cause to complain now that her son did not look her squarely in the face—"because two hours ago I saw Fernande stealing out of the château, wrapped in a dark cloak and alone, and making her way across the park. I did not want her to see me, so I stole to the gates and there watched for her coming. I wished to know whither she was going and I was determined to follow her. I watched and I waited, marvelling why she tarried. She did not come, and then I realized what a fool I had been. Whilst I had been standing on guard outside the great gates, she had slipped out by the side door in the wall, and I did not know whither she had gone. I was ready to dash my head against the iron gates; and there I stood, stupid, semi-imbecile, marvelling what I should do. Suddenly a passer-by came along and I hailed him. I asked him if he had seen a lady on the high road walking unattended and closely wrapped in a dark cloak. He answered me yes, and pointed the way she went. I thanked him, and as soon as his back was turned I started to run in the wake, as I thought, of Fernande. Then I came to a cross-road, where there was a sign-post, one arm of which bore the legend:'La Frontenay,' and the other, 'La Vieuville.' La Vieuville, where my brother dwells! I spelt out every letter. I saw that it was distant five kilomètres. La Vieuville! Fernande had gone to La Vieuville to betray us all to Ronnay de Maurel!"
"That is false, I'll swear," exclaimed Madame, "and you, Laurent, are mad to imagine anything so monstrous against the girl whom you profess to love."
"Mad!" he riposted. "Of course I am mad! Did I not tell you that I had become mad?"
"What were you doing outside the gates of this château at nine o'clock to-night when...."
"When I should have been at Mortain," he broke in with a strident laugh, which seemed to go right through his mother's heart like a knife. "At Mortain, drilling a few oafs in the use of muskets which they haven't got. What was I doing here? Did I not say that I was watching over my property? I could not stay away, Mother," he cried wildly. "I could not! I suffered too much. I was going mad."
"So you—my son—Laurent Marquis de Mortain, preferred to turn deserter?" she asked coldly.
"Mother!"
"I have yet to learn how it comes that when my son is under orders from his chiefs, at the hour when the destinies of his King and his country are at stake, how it comes that he has deserted his post."
"I left my men in charge of young de Fleurot, my most able lieutenant. I only wanted to speak with Fernande—only to see her for five minutes. I was here—outside the gates at nine o'clock—I could have seen her and spoken with her and be back at my post long before now. Even so, there is no harm done. Our contingent was not due to start until midnight. I have arranged with de Fleurot—in case I was detained—that he shall start at the appointed hour, and I would pick up the company at the cross-roads less than a kilomètre from here and not more than three from Domfront. But I should have been back at Mortain long before now," hereiterated testily, "only when I saw Fernande stealing out of the park like a pert wench going to meet her gallant, I lost my head and I followed her."
"All the way to La Vieuville?"
"All the way."
"And you saw her?"
"No."
"Had she been to the château?"
"No one could tell me. The château was shut up and dark. I hammered on the door. No one replied. I would have broken in the door, but it resisted my every onslaught."
"Then what did you do?"
"I lay in wait for some time—my pistol in my hand. If I had seen him, I would have shot him ... him and Fernande too."
"How long did you wait?"
"I don't know ... half an hour perhaps—perhaps more. No one came. The château was deserted. Somewhere in it, no doubt, Gaston de Maurel, that old reprobate, lay dying. But I realized that Fernande was not there, so I came away."
"Well? And then?"
"I came back here," he replied savagely. "I am here now to ask you where is Fernande?"
"Yes, you are here, my son," rejoined Denise de Mortain harshly, "at the post of dishonour, while your father and kindred are fighting for France."
"Mother!"
But now at last she turned on him with all the fury of a tigress roused to wrath. She had interrogated him coolly, firmly, smothering the horror and the indignation which she felt. But the floodgates of her emotion would no longer be kept back; they broke into a torrent of unbridled vituperation.
"Traitor! deserter!" she cried. "How dare you remain here another minute? How dare you whine and fret before me, while every moment of the night is fraught with danger for your King and his cause? How dareyou run on the high roads after a wench, like a jealous, love-sick swain, while your King hath need of every ounce of energy, of courage which you possess. Out of my sight, craven deserter! and pray to God that He may grant you grace to atone for your treachery with your blood!"
"Mother ..." he protested firmly, as, stung by her words as with a lash, he had jumped to his feet and made a desperate effort to pull himself together.
"Not another word," she commanded. "When you have redeemed your cowardice by prodigies of valour, when you have held Domfront for your King in the face of overwhelming odds, you may come to me again ... but not before."
She turned her back on him without another look and swept out of the room, leaving him standing there miserable, dejected, a hot flush of shame on each cheek as if she had struck him there. Once in the darkened boudoir, she tottered as far as the open window. Her knees were giving way under her. She leaned against the window-frame and with her hand clung desperately to the heavy curtain. Not a breath of air came from outside; the storm was at its height—vivid flashes of lightning tore the heavens asunder and the thunder crashed continuously overhead. A great sob broke from Denise de Mortain's throat. She had suffered this night the keenest torture, the deadliest ignominy, which heart of woman can endure; she had seen her beloved son—the one cherished idol of her loveless heart—sunk to a level of degradation from which nothing could ever raise him again.