It is possible that Bonne did not herself know in what proportions pity and a warmer sentiment entered into her motives when she undertook to pass for the Countess and assume the girl's risks. Certainly her first thought was for the Countess; and, for the rest, she felt herself cleared from the reproach of unmaidenliness by the danger of the step which she was taking. Even so, as she rode across the camp in the dusk of the first evening, into the half pain, half pleasure that burned her cheeks under the disguising hood entered some heat of shame.
Not that it formed a part of her plan that des Ageaux should discover her. To be near him unknown, to share his peril whom she loved, while he remained unwitting, to give and take nothing--this was the essence of the mystery that charmed her fancy, this was the heart of the adventure on which her affection had settled. He, by whose side she rode, and near whom she must pass the dark hours in a solitude which only love could rob of its terrors, must never know what she had done for love of him; or know it only from her lips in a delicious future on which reason forbade her to count.
In supporting her disguise she was perfectly successful. No suspicion that the girl riding beside him in depressed silence was other than the Countess, the unwilling sharer of his exile, crossed his mind. Bonne, hooded to the eyes and muffled in her cloak, sat low-hunched on her horse. Fulbert, who was in the secret, and to whom nothing which any one could do for his adored mistress seemed odd or extraordinary, helped her to mount and dismount, and nightly lay grim and stark across the door of her hut repelling inquiry. Add the fact that the Lieutenant on his side had his delicacy. Fortune compelled the Countess into his company, forced her on his protection. It behoved him to take no advantage, and, short of an indifference that might appear brutal, to leave her as much as possible to herself.
Bonne therefore had her wish. He had no slightest suspicion who was with him. She had, too, if she needed it, proof of his honour; proof certain that if he loved the great lady, he respected her to the same extent. Love her he might, see in her a grand alliance he might; but had he been the adventurer the Abbess styled him, he had surely made more of this opportunity, more of her helplessness and her dependence. The Countess's fortune, the wide lands that had tempted Vlaye, what a chance of making them sure was his! No great lady was here, but a young girl helpless, terrified, hedged in by perils. Such an one would be ready at the first word, at a sign, to fling herself into the arms of her only friend, her only protector, and promise him all and everything if he would but save her scatheless.
Bonne had imagination enough, and perhaps jealousy enough, to picture the temptation. And finding him superior to it--so that in the sweetness of her secret nearness to him was mingled no gall--she whispered to herself that if he loved he did not love overmuch. Was it possible that he did not love--in that direction? Was it possible that he had no more feeling for the Countess than she had for him?
Perhaps for an hour Bonne was happy--happy in these thoughts. Happy while the tones of his even and courteous voice, telling her that she need fear nothing, dwelt in her ears. For that period the pleasures of fancy overcame the tremors of the real. Then--for sleep was in no haste to visit her--a chance rustle, caused by something moving in her neighbourhood, the passage it might be of a prowling dog, made her prick her ears, forced her against her will to listen, sent a creepy chill down her back. After that she was lost. She did not wish to think of such things, it was foolish to think of such things; but how flimsy were the walls of her hut! How defenceless she lay, in the midst of the savage, grisly horde, whose looks even in the daylight had paled her cheeks. How useless must two swords prove against a multitude!
She must divert her thoughts. Alas, when she tried to do so, she found it impossible. It was in vain that she chid herself, in vain that she asked herself what she was doing there, if des Ageaux' presence were no charm against fear, if with him at hand she was a coward! Always some sound, something that seemed the shuffle of feet or the whisper of murder, brought her to earth with quivering nerves; and as by the Lieutenant's desire she burned no light, she could not interpret the most innocent alarm or learn its origin. She was no coward. But to lie in the dark, expecting and trembling, and thrice in the hour to sit up bathed in perspiration--a short experience of this left her no right to despise the younger girl whose place she had taken. When at last the longed-for light pierced the thin walls, and she knew that the night was past, she knew also that she looked forward to a second with dread. And she hated herself for it.
Not that to escape a hundred such nights would she withdraw. If she suffered, what must the child have suffered? She was clear that the Countess must not go again. But during the day she was more grave than usual; more tender with her father, more affectionate to her sister. And when she rode across the camp in the evening, exciting as little suspicion as before, she carried with her, hidden in her dress, a thing that she touched now and again to assure herself of its safety. She took it with her to the rough pallet on which she lay in her clothes; and her hand clasped it under the pillow. Something of a link it seemed between her and des Ageaux, so near yet so unwitting; for as she held it her mind ran on him. It kept at bay, albeit it was a strange amulet for a woman's hand, the thought that had troubled her the previous night; and though more than once she raised herself on her elbow, fancying that she heard some one moving outside, the panic-terror that had bedewed her brow was absent. She lay down again on these occasions with her fingers on her treasure. And towards morning she slept--slept so soundly that when the light touched her eyelids and woke her, she sprang up in pleased confusion. They were calling her, the horses were waiting at the door. And in haste she wrapped herself in her travesty.
"I give you joy of your courage, Countess!" the Lieutenant said, as he came forward to assist her to mount. Fortunately Fulbert, with apparent clumsiness, interposed and did her the office. "You have slept?" des Ageaux continued, as he swung himself into his saddle and took his place by her side. "That's good," accepting her inarticulate murmur for assent. "Well, one more night will end it, I fancy. I greatly, very greatly regret," he continued, speaking with more warmth than usual, "that it has been necessary to expose you to this strain, Countess."
Again she muttered something through her closely drawn hood. Fortunately a chill, grey mist, through which the huts loomed gigantic, swathed the camp, and he thought that it was to guard herself from this that she kept her mouth covered. He suspected nothing, though, at dismounting, Fulbert interposed again. In two minutes from starting she was safe within the shelter of the Countess's hut, with the Countess's arms about her, and the child's grateful kisses warm on her cheek.
He had praised her courage! That was something; nay, it was much if he learned the truth. But he should never learn it from her, she was resolved. She had the loyalty which, if it gives, gives nobly; nor by telling robs the gift of half its virtue. She had saved the younger woman some hours of fear and misery, but at a price too high were she ever to speak and betray her confidence. No one saw that more clearly than Bonne, or was more firmly resolved to hide her share in the matter.
The third night she set out, not with indifference, since she rode by his side whose presence could never be indifferent to her, but with a heart comparatively light. If she took with her the charm which had served her so well, if it attended her to her couch and lay beneath her pillow, it was no longer the same thing to her; she smiled as she placed it there. And if her fingers closed on it in silence and darkness and she derived some comfort from it, she fell asleep with scarce a thought of the things its presence imported. For two nights she had slept little; now, worn-out, she was proof against all ordinary sounds, the rustle of a dog prowling in search of food, or the restless movements of a horse tethered near. Ay, and against other sounds as stealthy as these and more dangerous, that by-and-by crept rustling and whispering through the camp; sounds caused by a cloud of low stooping figures that moved and halted, lurked behind huts, and anon swept forward across an open space, and again lurking showed like some dark shadow of the night.
A shadow fraught, when it bared its face, with horror! For what was that cry, sharp, wild, stopped in mid-utterance?
Even as Bonne sprang up palpitating, and glared at the open doorway, the cry rose again--close by her; and the doorway melted into a press of dark forms that hurled themselves on her as soon as they were seen. She was borne back, choked, stifled; and desperately writhing, vainly striving to shriek, or to free mouth or hands from the folds of the coverlets that blinded her, she felt herself lifted up in a grasp against which it was vain to struggle. A moment, and with a shock that took away what breath was left in her, she was flung head and heels across something--across a horse; for the moment the thing felt her weight it moved under her.
Whoever rode it held her pitilessly, cruelly heedless of the pain her position caused her. She could hardly breathe, she could not see, the movement was torture; for her arms, pinned above her head, were caught in the folds of the thing that swathed her, and she could not use them to support herself. Her one thought, her only thought was to keep her senses; her one instinct to maintain her grip on the long sharp knife which had lain under her pillow; and which had become more valuable to her than the wealth of the world. The hand that had rested on it in her sleep had tightened on it in the moment of surprise. She had it, she felt it, her fingers, even while she groaned in pain, stiffened about its haft.
It was useless to struggle, but by a movement she managed at last to relieve the pressure on her side. The blood ceased to run so tumultuously to her head. And by-and-by, under the mufflings, she freed her hands, and by holding apart the edges of the stuff was able to breathe more easily, and even to learn something of what was happening about her. Abreast of her horse moved another horse, and on either side of the two ran and trotted a score of pattering naked feet, feet of the unkempt filthy Crocans from the hill-town, or of the more desperate spirits in the camp--feet of men from whom no ruth or mercy was to be expected.
Were they clear of the camp? Yes, for to one side the water of the stream glimmered between the pattering feet. As she made the discovery the other horse sidled against the one that bore her, and all but crushed her head and shoulders between their bodies. She only saved herself by lifting herself convulsively; on which the man who held her thrust her down brutally with an oath as savage as the action. She uttered a moan of pain, but it was wrung from her against her will. She would have suffered twice as much and gladly to learn what she knew now.
The horse beside her also carried double; and the after rider was a prisoner, a man with his hands bound behind him, and his feet roped under the horse's body. A prisoner? If so it could be no other than des Ageaux. As she swung, painfully, to the movement of the horse across whose withers she lay, her pendant hands lacked little of touching, under cover of the stuff, his bound wrists.
Little? Nay, nothing. For suddenly the footmen, for a reason which she did not immediately divine, fell away leftwards, and the horse that bore the other prisoner strove to turn with them. Being spurred it sidled once more against hers, and though she raised herself, her head rubbed the rider's leg. The man noticed it, patted her head, and made a jest upon it. "She wants to come to me," he said. "My burden for yours, Matthias!"
"Wait until we are through the ford and I'll talk," her captor answered. "What will you offer for her? But it is so cursed dark here"--with an oath--"I can see nothing! We had better have crossed with them at the stepping-stones and led over." As he spoke he turned his horse to the ford.
She knew then that the footmen had crossed by the stepping-stones, a hundred yards short of the ford. And she felt that Heaven itself had given her, weak as she was, this one opportunity. As the men urged their horses warily into the stream she stretched herself out stiffly, and gripping the bound hands that hung within her reach, she cut recklessly, heeding little whether she cut to the bone if she could only cut the cords. The man who held her felt her body writhing under his hand; for she knew that any instant the other horse might move out of reach. But he was thinking most of his steed's footing, he had no fear that she could wrest herself from him, and he contented himself for the moment with a curse and a threat.
"Burn the wench," he cried, "she won't be still!"
"Don't let her go!" the other answered.
"No fear! And when we have her on the hill she shall pay for this! When----"
It was his last word. The keen long knife had passed from her hands to des Ageaux', from her weak fingers to his practised grip. As the man who held her paused to peer before him--for the ford, shadowed by spreading trees, was dark as pitch--des Ageaux drove the point straight and sure into the throat above the collar-bone. The action was so sudden, so unexpected, that the man he struck had no time to cry out, but with a low gurgling moan fell forward on his burden.
His comrade who rode before the Lieutenant knew little more. Before he could turn, almost before he could give the alarm, the weapon was driven in between his shoulders, and the Lieutenant, availing himself of the purchase which his bound feet gave him, hurled him over the horse's head. Unfortunately the man had time to utter one shriek, and the cry with the splash, and the plunging of the terrified horse, bore the alarm to his comrades on the bank.
"What is it? What is the matter?" a voice asked. And a score of feet could be heard pounding hurriedly along the bank.
The Lieutenant had one moment only in which to make his choice. If he remained on the horse, which he could not restrain, for the reins had fallen, he might escape, but the girl must perish. He did not hesitate. As the frightened horse reared he cut his feet loose, and slid from it. He made one clutch at the floating reins but missed them. Before he could make a second the terrified animal was on the bank.
There remained the girl's horse. But Bonne, drenched by the dying man's blood, had flung herself off--somehow, anyhow, in irrepressible horror. As des Ageaux turned she rose, dripping and panting beside him, her nerve quite gone. "Oh, oh!" she cried. "Save me! Save me!" and she clung to him.
Alas, while she clung to him her horse floundered out of the stream, and trotted after its fellow.
The pursuers were no more than thirty yards away, and but for the deep shadow which lay on the ford must have seen them. The Lieutenant had no time to think. He caught the girl up, and as quickly as he could he waded with her to the bank from which they had entered the water. Once on dry land he set her on her feet, seized her wrist and gripped it firmly.
"Courage!" he said. "We must run! Run for your life, and if we can reach the wind-mill we may escape!"
He spoke harshly, but his words had the effect he intended. She straightened herself, caught up her wet skirt and set off with him across the road and up the bare hill-side. He knew that not far above them stood a wind-mill with a narrow doorway in which one man might make some defence against numbers. The chance was slight, the hope desperate; but he could see no other. Already the pursuers were splashing through the ford and scattering on the trail, some running up the stream, some down, some stooping cunningly to listen. To remain beside the water was to be hunted as otters are hunted.
His plan answered well at first. For a few precious instants their line of retreat escaped detection. They even increased their start, and had put fifty or sixty yards of slippery hill-side between themselves and danger before a man of sharper ears than his fellows caught the sound of a stone rolling down the slope, and drew the hue and cry in the right direction. By that time the dark form of the wind-mill was faintly visible sixty or eighty yards above the fugitives. And the race was not ill set.
But Bonne's skirt hung heavy, her knees shook; and nearer and nearer she heard the pursuers' feet. She could do no more! She must fall, her lungs were bursting! But des Ageaux dragged her on ruthlessly, and on; and now the wind-mill was not ten paces before them.
"In!" he cried. "In!" And loosing her hand, he turned, quick as a hare, the knife gleaming in his hand.
But the nearest man--the Lieutenant's ear had told him that only one was quite near--saw the action and the knife, and as quickly sheered off, to wait for his companions. The Lieutenant turned again, and in half a dozen bounds was through the low narrow doorway and in the mill tower.
He had no sword, he had only the knife, still reeking. But he made no complaint. Instead, "There were sheep penned here yesterday," he panted. "There are some bars somewhere. Grope for them and find them."
"Yes!" she said. And she groped bravely in the darkness, though her breath came in sobs. She found the bars. Before the half-dozen men who led the chase had squeezed their courage to the attacking point, the bars that meant so much to the fugitives were in their places. Then des Ageaux bade her keep on one side, while he crouched with his knife beside the opening.
The men outside were chattering and scolding furiously. At length they scattered, and instead of charging the doorway, fired a couple of shots into it and held off, waiting for reinforcements. "Courage, we have a fair chance now," the Lieutenant muttered. And then in a different tone, "Thanks to you! Thanks to you!" with deep emotion. "Never woman did braver thing!"
"Then do you one thing for me!" she answered, her voice shaking. "Promise that I shall not fall into their hands! Promise, sir, promise," she continued hysterically, "that you will kill me yourself! I have given you my knife. I have given you all I had. If you will not promise you must give it back to me."
"God forbid!" he said. And then, "Dear Lord, am I mad? Who was it I picked up at the ford? Am I mad or dreaming? You are not the Countess?"
"I took her place," she panted. "I am Bonne de Villeneuve." The place was so dark that neither could see the other's face, nor so much as the outline of the figure.
"I might have known it," he cried impulsively. And even in that moment of danger, of discomfort, of uncertainty, the girl's heart swelled at the inference she drew from his words. "I might have known it!" he repeated with emotion. "No other woman would have done it, sweet, would have done it' But how--I am as far from understanding as ever--how come you to be here? And not the Countess?"
"I took her place," Bonne repeated--the truth must out now. "She is very young and it was hurting her. She was ill."
"You took her place? To-night?"
"This is--the third night."
"And I"--in a tone of wonder that a second time brought the blood to her cheeks--"I never discovered you! You rode beside me all those nights--all those nights and I never knew you! Is it possible?"
She did not answer.
He was silent a moment. Then, "By Heaven, it was well for me that you did!" he murmured. "Very well! Very well! Without you where should I be now?" His eyes strove to pierce the darkness in which she crouched on the farther side of the opening, scarce out of reach of his hand. "Where should I be now? A handsome situation," he continued bitterly, "for the Governor of Périgord to be seized and hurried to a dog's death by a band of brigands! And to be rescued by a woman!"
"Is it so dreadful to you," she murmured, "to owe your life to a woman?"
"Is it so dreadful to me," he repeated in an altered tone, "to owe my life to you, do you mean? I am willing to owe all to you. You are the only woman----"
But there, even as her heart began to flutter, he stopped. He stopped and she fell to earth. "They are coming!" he muttered. "Keep yourself close! For God's sake, keep yourself close!"
"And you too!" she cried impulsively. "Your life is mine."
He did not answer: perhaps he did not hear. The Crocans who had spent some minutes in consultation had brought a beam up the hill. They were about to drive it against the stout wooden bars, of which they must have guessed the presence, since they could not see them. The plan was not unwise; and as they fell into a ragged line on either side of the ram, while three skirmished forward, with a view to leaping into the opening before the defenders could recover from the shock, the Lieutenant's heart sank. The form of attack was less simple than he had hoped. He had exulted too soon.
Whether Bonne knew this or not, she acted as if she knew it. As the leader of the assault shouted to his men to be ready, and the men lifted the beam hip high, she flitted across the opening, and des Ageaux felt her fingers close upon his arm.
He did not misunderstand her: he knew that she meant only to remind him of his promise. But at the touch a wave of feeling, as unexpected as it was irresistible, filled the breast of the case-hardened soldier; who, something cold by nature, had hitherto found in his career all that he craved. At that touch the admiration and interest which had been working within him since his talk with Bonne in the old garden at Villeneuve blossomed into a feeling infinitely more tender, infinitely stronger--into a love that craved return. The girl who had saved him, who had proved herself so brave, so true, so gentle, what a wife would she be! What a mother of brave and loyal and gentle children, meet sons and daughters of a loyal sire! And even as he thought that thought and was conscious of the love that pervaded his being, he felt her shiver against him, and before he knew it his arm was round her, he was clasping her to him, giving her assurance that until the end--until the end he would not let her go! He would never let her go.
And the end was not yet. For his lips in that moment which he thought might be their last found hers in the darkness, and she knew seconds of a great joy that seemed to her long as hours as she crouched against him unresisting; while the last orders of the men who sought their lives found strange echo in his words of love.
Crash! The splinters flew to right and left, the two upper bars were gone, dully the beam struck the back of the mill. But he had drawn her behind him, and was waiting with the tight-grasped knife for the man bold enough to leap through the opening. Woe betide the first, though he must keep his second blow for her. After that--if he had to strike her--there would be one moment of joy, while he fought them.
But the stormers, poor-hearted, deemed the breach insufficient. They drew back the beam, intending to break the lowest bar, which still held place. Once more they cried, "One! Two!" But not "Three!" In place of the word a yell of pain rang loud, down crashed the battering-ram, and high rose--as all fled headlong--a clamour of shrieks and curses. A moment and the thunder of hoofs followed, and mail-clad men, riding recklessly along the steep hill-side, fell on the poor naked creatures, and driving them pell-mell before them amid stern cries of vengeance, cut and hacked them without mercy.
Trembling violently, Bonne clung to her lover. "Oh, what is it? What is it?" she cried. "What is it?" Her spirits could endure no more.
"Safety!" he replied, the harder nature of the man asserting itself. "Safety, sweetheart! Hold up your head, brave! What, swooning now when all is well!"
Ay, swooning now. The word safety sufficed. She fell against him, her head dropped back.
As soon as he was assured of it, he lifted her in his arms with a new feeling of ownership. And climbing, not without difficulty, over the bar that remained, he emerged into something that, in comparison of the darkness within the mill, was light--for the day was coming. Before the door two horsemen, still in their saddles, awaited him. One was tall, the other stout and much shorter.
"Is that you, Roger?" he asked. It was not light enough to discern faces.
The shorter figure to which he addressed himself did not answer. The other, advancing a pace and reining up, spoke.
"No," he said, in a tone that at once veiled and exposed his triumph, "I am the Captain of Vlaye. And you are my prisoner."
The four who looked to the door of the Duke's hut, and waited for the news, were not relieved as quickly as they expected. When men return with no news they are apt to forget that others are less wise than themselves; and where, with something to impart, they had flown to relieve the anxious, they are prone to forget that the negative has its value for those who are in suspense.
Hence some minutes elapsed before Roger presented himself. And when he came and they cried breathlessly, "Well, what news?" his answer was a look of reproach.
"Should I not have come at once if there had been any?" he said. "Alas, there is none."
"But you must have some!" they cried.
"Nothing," he answered, almost sullenly. "All we know is that they quarrelled over their prisoners. The hill above the ford is a shambles."
The Vicomte repressed the first movement of horror. "Above the ford?" he said. "How came they there?"
Roger shrugged his shoulders. "We don't know," he said. And then reading a dreadful question in his sister's eyes, "No, there is no sign of them," he continued. "We crossed to the old town on the hill, but found it locked and barred. The brutes mopped and mowed at us from the wall, but we could get no word of Christian speech from them. They seemed to be in terror of us--which looks ill. But we had no ladders and no force sufficient to storm it, and the Bat sent me back with ten spears to make you safe here while he rode on with Charles towards Villeneuve."
"Villeneuve?" the Vicomte asked, raising his eyebrows. "Why?"
"There were tracks of a large body of horsemen moving in that direction. The Bat hopes that some of the wretches quarrelled with the others, and carried off the prisoners, and are holding them safe--with an eye to their own necks."
"God grant it!" Odette muttered in a low tone, and with so much feeling that all looked at her in wonder. Nor had the prayer passed her lips many seconds before it was answered. The sound of voices drew their looks to the door, a shadow fell across the threshold, the substance followed. As the little Countess sprang forward with a shriek of joy and the Abbess dropped back in speechless emotion, Bonne stood before them.
"He has granted her prayer," the Duke muttered in astonishment. "Laus Deo!" While Roger, scarcely less surprised than if a ghost had appeared before them, stared at his sister with all his eyes.
She barely looked at them. "I am tired," she said. "Bear with me a moment. Let me sit down." Then, as if she were not content with the surprise which her words caused, "Don't touch me!" she continued, recoiling before the Countess's approach. "Wait until you have heard all. You have little cause for joy. Wait!"
The Vicomte thought his worst fears justified. "But, my child," he faltered, "is that all you have to say to us?" And to the others, in a lower voice, "She is distraught! She is beside herself. Can those wretches----"
"I escaped them," she replied, in the same dull tones. "They have done me no harm. Let me rest a minute before I tell you."
Roger stayed the inquiry after the Lieutenant which was on his lips. It was evident to him and to all that something serious had happened: that the girl before them was not the girl who had ridden away yesterday with so brave a heart. But, freed from that fear of the worst which the Vicomte had entertained, they knew not what to think. Some signs of shock, some evidences of such an experience as she had passed through, were natural; but the reaction should have cast her into their arms, not withheld her--should have flung her weeping on her sister's shoulder, not frozen her in this strange apathy.
The Abbess, indeed, who had recovered from the paroxysm of gratitude into which Bonne's return had cast her, eyed her sister with the shadow of a terror. Conscience, which makes cowards of us all, suggested to her an explanation of her sister's condition, adequate and more than adequate. A secret alarm kept her silent therefore: while the young Countess, painfully aware that she had escaped all that Bonne had suffered, sank under new remorse. For the others, they did not know what to think: and stealthily reading one another's eyes, felt doubts that they dared not acknowledge. Was it possible, notwithstanding her denial, that she had suffered ill-treatment?
"Perhaps it were better," the Duke muttered, "if we left mademoiselle in the care of her sister?"
But low as he spoke, Bonne heard. She raised her head wearily. "This does not lie with her," she said.
The Abbess breathed more freely. The colour came back to her cheeks. She sat upright, relieved from the secret fear that had oppressed her. "With whom, then, child?" she asked in her natural voice. "And why this mystery? But we--have forgotten"--her voice faltered, "we have forgotten," she repeated hardily, "M. des Ageaux. Is he safe?"
"It is of him I am going to speak," Bonne replied heavily.
"He has not--he has not fallen."
"He is alive."
"Thank Heaven for that!" Roger cried with heartiness, his eyes sparkling. "Has he gone on with Charles and the Bat?"
"No."
"Then where is he?" She did not answer, and, startled, Roger looked at her, the others looked at her. All waited for the reply.
"He is in the Captain of Vlaye's hands," she said slowly. And a gentle spasm, the beginning of weeping which did not follow, convulsed her features. "He saved me," she continued in trembling tones, "from the peasants, only to fall into M. de Vlaye's hands."
"Well, that was better!" Roger answered.
Her lips quivered, but she did not reply. Perhaps she was afraid of losing that control over herself which it had cost her much to compass.
But the Vicomte's patience, never great, was at an end. He saw that this was going to prove a troublesome matter. Hence his sudden querulousness. "Come, come, girl," he said petulantly. "Tell us what has happened, and no nonsense! Come, an end, I say! Tell us what has happened from the beginning, and let us have no mysteries!"
She began. In a low voice, and with the same tokens of repressed feeling, she detailed what had happened from the moment of the invasion of her hut by the peasants to the release of des Ageaux and the struggle in the river-bed.
"He owes us a life there," the Vicomte exclaimed, while Roger's eyes beamed with pride.
She paid no heed to her father's interjection, but continued the story of the succeeding events--the assault on the mill, and the arrival of Vlaye and his men.
"Who in truth and fact saved your lives then," Roger said. "I forgive him much for that! It is the best thing I have heard of him."
"He saved my life," Bonne replied, with a faint but perceptible shudder. She kept her eyes down as if she dared not meet their looks.
"But the Lieutenant's too," the Vicomte objected. "You told us that he was alive."
"He is alive," she murmured. And the trembling began to overpower her. "Still alive."
"Then----"
"But to-morrow at sunrise--" her voice shook with the pent-up misery, the long-repressed pain of her three hours' ride from Vlaye--"to-morrow at sunrise, he--he must die!"
"What?"
The word came from one who so far had been silent. And the Duke rising from his place by the door stood upright, supporting his weakened form against the wall of the hut. "What?" he repeated in a voice that in spite of his weakness rang clear and loud with anger. "He will not dare!"
"M. de Vlaye?" the Vicomte muttered in a discomfited tone, "I am sure--I am sure he will not--dream of such a thing. Certainly not!"
"M. de Vlaye says that if--if----" Bonne paused as if she could not force her pallid lips to utter the words--"he says that at sunrise to-morrow he will hang him as the Lieutenant last week hung one of his men."
"For murder! Clear proved murder!" Roger cried in an agitated voice. "Before witnesses!"
"Then by my salvation I will hang him!" Joyeuse retorted in a voice which shook with rage; and one of those frantic, blasphemous passions to which all of his race were subject overcame him. "I will hang him high as Haman, and like a dog as he is!" He snatched a glove from a peg on the wall beside him, and flung it down with violence. "Give him that, the miserable upstart!" he shrieked, "and tell him that as surely as he keeps his word, I, Henry of Joyeuse, who for every spear he boasts can set down ten to that, will hang him though God and all His saints stand between! Give it him! Give it him! On foot or on horse, in mail or in shirt, alone or by fours, I am his and will drag his filthy life from him! Go!" he continued, turning, his eyes suffused with rage, on Roger. "Or bid them bring me my horse and arms! I will to him now, now, and pluck his beard! I----"
"My lord, my lord," Roger remonstrated. "You are not fit."
Joyeuse sank back exhausted on his stool. "For him and such as he more than fit," he muttered. "More than fit--coward as he is!" But his tone and evident weakness gave him the lie. He looked feebly at his hand, opening and closing it under his eyes. "Well, let him wait," he said. "Let him wait awhile. But if he does this, I will kill him as surely as I sit here!"
"Ay, to be sure!" the Vicomte chimed in. "But unless I mistake, my lord, we are on a false scent. There was something of a condition unless I am in error. This silly girl, who is more moved than is needful, said--if,if--that M. de Vlaye would hang him,unless---- What was it, child, you meant?"
She did not answer.
It was Roger whose wits saved her the necessity. His eyes were sharpened by affection; he knew what had gone before. He guessed that which held her tongue.
"We must give up the Countess!" he cried in generous scorn. "That is his condition. I guess it!"
Bonne bowed her head. She had felt that to state the condition to the helpless, terrified girl at whose expense it must be performed was a shame to her; that to state it as if she craved its performance, expected its performance, looked for its performance, was a thing still baser, a thing dishonouring to her family, not worthy a Villeneuve--a thing that must smirch them all and rob them of the only thing left to them, their good name.
Yet if she did not speak, if she did not make it known? If she did not do this for him who loved her and whom she loved? If he perished because she was too proud to crave his life, because she feared lest her cloak be stained ever so little? That, too, was--she could not face that.
She was between the hammer and the anvil. The question, what she should do, had bowed her to the ground. She had seen as she rode that she must choose between honour and life; her lover's life, her own honour!
Meanwhile, "Give up the Countess?" the Vicomte muttered, staring at his son in dull perplexity. "Give up the Countess? Why?"
"Unless she is surrendered," Roger explained in a low voice, "he will carry out his threat. He goes back, sir, to his old plan of strengthening himself. It is very clear. He thinks that with the Countess in his power he can make use of her resources, and by their means defy us."
"He is a villain!" the Vicomte cried, touched in his tenderest point.
"Villain or no villain, I will cut his throat!" Joyeuse exclaimed, his rage flaming up anew. "If he touch but a hair of des Ageaux' head--who was wounded striving to save my brother's life at Coutras, as all the world knows--I will never leave him nor forsake him till I have his life!"
"I fear that will not avail the Lieutenant," Roger muttered despondently.
"No. No, it may not," the Vicomte agreed, "but we cannot help that." He, in truth, was able to contemplate the Lieutenant's fate without too much vexation, or any overweening temptation to abandon the Countess. "We cannot help it, and that is all that remains to be said. If he will do this he must do it. And when his own time comes his blood be upon his own head!"
But the girl who shared with Bonne the tragedy of the moment had something to say. Slowly the Countess stood up. Timid she was, but she had the full pride of her race, and shame had been her portion since the discovery of the thing Bonne had done to save her. The smart of the Abbess's fingers still burned her cheek and seared her pride. Here, Heaven-sent, as it seemed, was the opportunity of redressing the wrong which she had done to Bonne and of setting herself right with the woman who had outraged her.
The price which she must pay, the costliness of the sacrifice did not weigh with her at this moment, as it would weigh with her when her blood was cool. To save Bonne's lover stood for something; to assert herself in the eyes of those who had seen her insulted and scorned stood for much.
"No," she said with simple dignity. "There is something more to be said, M. le Vicomte. If it be a question of M. des Ageaux' life, I will go to the Captain of Vlaye."
"You will go?" the Vicomte cried, astounded. "You, mademoiselle?"
"Yes," she replied slowly, and with a little hardening of her childish features. "I will go. Not willingly, God knows! But rather than M. des Ageaux should die, I will go."
They cried out upon her, those most loudly who were least interested in her decision. But the one for whose protest she listened--Roger--was silent. She marked that; for she was a woman, and Roger's timid attentions had not passed unnoticed, nor, it may be, unappreciated. And the Abbess was silent. She, whose heart this latest proof of her lover's infidelity served but to harden, she whose soul revolted from the possibility that the deed which she had done to separate Vlaye from the Countess might cast the girl into his arms, was silent in sheer rage. Into far different arms had she thought to cast the Countess! Now, if this were to be the end of her scheme, the devil had indeed mocked her!
Nor did Bonne speak, though her heart was full. For her feelings dragged her two ways, and she would not, nay, she could not speak. That much she owed to her lover. Yet the idea of sacrificing a woman to save a man shocked her deeply, shocked alike her womanliness and her courage; and not by a word, not by so much as the raising of a finger would she press the girl, whose very rank and power left her friendless among them, and made her for the time their sport. But neither--though her heart was racked with pity and shame--would she dissuade her. In any other circumstances which she could conceive, she had cast her arms about the child and withheld her by force. But her lover--her lover was at stake. How could she sacrifice him? How prefer another to him? And after all--she, too, acknowledged, she, too, felt the force of the argument--after all, the Countess would be only where she would have been but for her. But for her the young girl would be already in Vlaye's power; or worse, in the peasants' hands. If she went now she did but assume her own perils, take her own part, stand on her own feet.
"I shall go the rather," the Countess continued coldly, using that very argument, "since I should be already in his power had I gone myself to the peasants' camp!"
"You shall not go! You cannot go!" the Vicomte repeated with stupid iteration.
"M. le Vicomte," she answered, "I am the Countess of Rochechouart." And the little figure, the infantine face, assumed a sudden dignity.
"It is unbecoming!"
"It becomes me less to let a gallant gentleman die."
"But you will be in Vlaye's power."
"God willing," she replied, her spirit still sustaining her. Was not the Abbess, whom she was beginning to hate, looking at her?
Ay, looking at her with such eyes, with such thought, as would have overwhelmed her could she have read them. Bitter indeed, were Odette's reflections at this moment--bitter! She had stained her hands and the end was this. She had stooped to a vile plot, to an act that might have cost her sister her life, and with this for reward. The triumph was her rival's. Before her eyes and by her act this silly chit, with heroics on her lips, was being forced into his arms! And she, Odette, stood powerless to check the issue of her deed, impotent to interfere, unable even to vent the words of hatred that trembled on her lips.
For the Duke was listening, and she had still enough prudence, enough self-control, to remember that she must not expose her feelings in his presence. On him depended what remained: the possibility of vengeance, the chances of ambition. She knew that she could not speak without destroying the image of herself which she had wrought so patiently to form. And even when he added his remonstrances to her father's, and hot words imputing immodesty rose to the Abbess's lips--words that must have brought the blood to the Countess's cheeks and might have stung her to the renunciation of her project, she dared not utter them. She swallowed her passion, and showed only a cold mask of surprise.
Not that the Duke said much. For after a while, "Well, perhaps it is best," he said. "What if she pass into his power! It is better a woman marry than a man die. We can make the one a widow; whereas to bring the other to life would puzzle the best swordsman in France!"
The Vicomte persisted. "But there is no burden laid on the Countess to do this," he said. "And I for one will be no party to it! What? Have it said that I surrendered the Countess of Rochechouart who sought my protection?"
"Sir," the girl replied, trembling slightly, "no one surrenders the Countess save the Countess. But that the less may be said to your injury, my own people shall attend me thither, and----"
"They will avail you nothing!" the Vicomte replied with a frankness that verged on brutality. "You do not understand, mademoiselle. You are scarcely more than a child, and do not know to what you are going. You have been wont to be safe in your own resources, and now, were a fortnight given you to gather your power, you could perhaps make M. de Vlaye tremble. But you go from here, in three hours you will be there, and then you will be as much in his power, despite your thirty or forty spears, as my daughter was this morning!"
"I count on nothing else," she said. But her face burned. And Bonne, who suffered with her, Bonne who was dragged this way and that, and would and would not, in whom love struggled with pity and shame with joy, into her face, too, crept a faint colour. How cowardly, oh, how cowardly seemed her conduct! How base in her to buy her happiness at the price of this child's misery! To ransom her lover at a woman's cost! It was a bargain that in another's case she had repudiated with scorn, with pride, almost with loathing. But she loved, she loved. And who that loved could hesitate? One here and there perhaps, some woman of a rare and noble nature, cast in a higher mould than herself. But not Bonne de Villeneuve.
Yet the word she would not utter trembled on her tongue. And once, twice the thought of Roger shook her. He, too, loved, yet he bore in silence to see his mistress delivered, tied and bound, to his rival!
How, she asked herself, how could he do it, how could he suffer it? How could he stand by and see this innocent depart to such a fate, to such a lot!
That puzzled her. She could understand the acquiescence of the others; of her sister, whom M. de Vlaye's inconstancy must have alienated, of Joyeuse, who was under an obligation to des Ageaux, of the Vicomte, who, affecting to take the Countess's part, thought in truth only of himself. But Roger? In his place she felt that she must have spoken whatever came of it, that she must have acted whatever the issue.
Yet Roger, noble, generous Roger--for even while she blamed him with one half of her mind, she blessed him with the other--stood silent.
Silent, even when the Countess with a quivering lip and a fleeting glance in his direction--perhaps she, too, had looked for something else at his hands--went out, her surrender a settled thing; and it became necessary to give orders to her servants, to communicate with the Bat, and to make such preparations as the withdrawal of her men made necessary. The Duke's spears were expected that day or the next, but it needed no sharp eye to discern that Vlaye's capture of the Lieutenant had taken much of the spirit out of the attack. The Countess's men must now be counted on the Captain of Vlaye's side; while the peasants, weakened by the slaughter which Vlaye had inflicted on them at the mill, and by the distrust which their treachery must cause, no longer stood for much in the reckoning. It was possible that the Lieutenant's release might reanimate the forces of the law, that a second attempt to use the peasants might fare better than the first, that Joyeuse's aid might in time place des Ageaux in a position to cope with his opponent. But these were possibilities only, and the Vicomte for one put no faith in them.
He was utterly disgusted, indeed, with the turn which things were taking. Nor was his disgust at any time greater than when he stood an hour later and viewed the Countess and her escort marching out of the camp. If his life since Coutras had been obscure and ignoble, at least it had been safe. While his neighbours had suffered at the Captain of Vlaye's hands, he had been favoured. He had sunk something of his pride, and counted in return on an alliance for his daughter, solid if not splendid. Now, by the act of this meddling Lieutenant--for he ignored Vlaye's treatment both of his daughter and the Countess--all was changed. He had naught to expect now but Vlaye's enmity; Villeneuve would no longer be safe for him. He must go or he must humble himself to the ground. He had taken, he had been forced by his children to take, the wrong side in the struggle. And the time was fast approaching when he must pay for it, and smartly.