The report of the capture of the Black Seigneur spread from Mount to town; from rock to shore. Pilgrims repeated, peasants circulated it; many credited; a few disbelieved. Like shadows had his comrades and the escaped prisoners vanished, leaving no trace, save one—an over-turned car and severed rope at the foot of thepoulain, without the fortifications. And flocking to that point, of greater interest now than shrine or sanctuary, the pilgrims gazed around; down the rocks; up the almost perpendicular planking to what looked like a mere pigeon-hole in the side of the cliff. Then ominous grumblings escaped them; some shook their fists at the black wall; others scoffed at distant sounds of priestly hallelujahs. Had the soldiers that day appeared in the town or on the beach, serious trouble would have ensued. For the time, however, they remained discreetly housed, while supplies for pilgrims' needs were, by the commandant's orders, so curtailed, many of the indigent multitude, urged by pinched stomachs, began, ere night, to wend their way from strand to shore. But as they left the vicinity of the Mount, they turned last looks of hatred toward the rock.
His Excellency, the Governor, wasted no time considering the humor of the masses; their resentment, or displeasure, signified nothing; his own complacency left little room for speculation on that score. He was undeniably satisfied; even the escape of the prisoners and the loss of the soldiers at the guard-house, or in the wheel-room, was overshadowed by the single capture. This contentment, however, he kept to himself; instigated a rigorous inquiry, and prepared to punish certain offenders. But the principal of these he could not reach; when released from the iron cage, the hunchback, knowing he would be called upon to answer for his part in the night's work, had made the best use of his short legs to place a long distance between himself and the Mount.
The sentinel that allowed the Black Seigneur to pass through the entrance near the barracks; the watchman encountered on the stairway, and the soldier that had been overpowered in the stable, his Excellency could, however, lay hands on, and promptly ordered into custody to await his official attention. For this last culprit, the commandant—mindful, perhaps, of bolstering his own position—interceded; pointing out that the man had to get the gag from his mouth and give the alarm; also, that the mountebank's appearance and acting had been calculated to deceive even one of the Governor's discernment. Which remark his Excellency had received with sphinx-like, and not altogether reassuring, gravity; had reserved his verdict, and continued, after his own fashion, to collect the details of the affair.
This searching process should have led him almost at once to his daughter—a puzzling figure in the maze of events; but the Governor exhibited no haste in approaching that important witness. Only when he had marshaled his other testimony and put it in order did the scope of his sifting extend to the girl. And then had his manner been strictly judicial: maintaining an imperturbable mask, he professed not to notice the pallor of her face, the unnatural brightness of her glance.
"When you sent for the mountebank to come to your apartments, did you know who he was?" the Governor had asked.
"No."
"When did you find out?"
"When you entered the room."
"Why did you not give the alarm then?"
"Because," she hesitated; her face changed, "he would have killed you, I think—if I had!"
"Was that solicitude for me the only reason?"
"Why, what other could there be?"
"What other truly? And after he left with the commandant—why did you not, then, inform me?"
"You remember you had something important, from the King, to consider!" hastily.
"More important than this?"
"He was going to be locked up," was the best reply she could make.
"And in the morning set free!"
She did not answer.
"And yet, you gave the word that enabled us to capture him at the wheel-house! How, by the way, came you there—in the wheel-house?"
"I saw him from the abbot's bridge; heard him tell the watchman he had a message to deliver at your palace, and followed."
"Again feeling solicitude for me?"
"I did not know—he would dare much; and what does it matter now?" almost wildly. "You have captured him, shut him up somewhere in some terrible, deep dungeon, where—"
"He is safe? True; that is the main consideration."
Thereafter had the subject of the Black Seigneur been dropped between them; the pilgrimage over, the Mount resumed its normal aspect, but only for a little while! One day about a week later, a bright cortége whose appearance was in marked contrast to that of the beggarly multitude, late visitors to the rock, came riding down the road through the forest to the sea; at the verge of the sands, stopped for a first distant impression of the rock.
"Noble monument, I salute you!" Smiling, debonair, the Marquis de Beauvillers removed his hat.
"And the noble mistress thereof?" suggested one of his train.
"She, of course!" he said, still surveying a scene different from that final memory he had carried away with him. Then had the rock reared itself in all the glamour of a sunny day; now was the sky overcast, while through a sullen mist the Mount loomed like a shadow itself.
"A cold place for our gay Elise!" One or two who viewed the sight for the first time looked disappointed; even the Marquis appeared for the instant more sober; but immediately regained his lively demeanor.
"Wait until you have seen it at its best," he retorted carelessly, and set the pace across the sands.
Midway, where once on the sands the men of Brittany had engaged in fierce conflict the ancient abbot's forces, were the new-comers met by an imposing guard; escorted with due honor through the gates, and up the narrow street of the town.
As he climbed the winding highway, my lord, the Marquis, bestowed approving nod and smile this way and that; it may be that he already felt a nearer affiliation with these people; for his glance, gracious, condescending in passing, was that of a man armed with the knowledge that he, kinsman of the King, might some day be called upon to govern here. But to these advances, the townspeople responded ill, and the young noble's brow went delicately up, as if a little amused!Mon dieu!did not unfriendly eyes peer from every lurking place around the royal palaces and pleasure grounds near Paris; and had they not encountered them all the way to the sea? People were the same everywhere; must be treated like bad children, and, with relays of troops from the capital to the sea, from the strand to the Mount's high top, one could afford to smile at their petty humors. Above all, when one had more momentous matter for consideration! And my lord lifted his head higher, toward a rampart, where some one had once bid himau revoir, and where he might yet in fancy see a fluttering ribbon wave a bright adieu!
But to-day my lady, the Princess of the Rock, was not there; waited above, with her father, to receive him—then—in the great Hall of the Chevaliers. Until that morning she had not known of the coming of the Marquis, an impatient suitor, following the courier and the perfumed missive acquainting her with the noble's near approach. Certainly had she shown surprise; but whether she was pleased or not, his Excellency could not tell.
He was still uncertain; standing, near the raised gallery, in the ancientsalle des chevaliers, from time to time regarded her furtively! Often had she looked from one of the round windows, commanding a view of the shore and the sands; many times turned away. At first sight of the company on the beach, the Governor had seen the girl's face alter and noted the involuntary start she had given. Whereupon, moving toward one of the giant fireplaces, had he sought for the sake of diplomacy and the end in view, to turn their conversation into a channel that should have interested her; spoke of plans to be made; preparations for festivities and merrymaking commensurate with the circumstances. But to these suggestions of gaieties, the prelude to a stately ceremony, had she hardly listened; paused absently before the blazing logs; once or twice seemed about to say something and stopped.
She was silent now, a slender figure beneath that great canopy of stone designed for the shelter of a score of knights; nervously twining and intertwining her fingers, she looked out at the shadows moving between the columns, playing around the bases, or melting in the vaulting.
"They should be almost here now," observed his Excellency, again seeking to break that spell of constraint, when suddenly she stepped to him.
"Mon père," her voice sounded strained, unnatural, "it was you who wanted this marriage?"
"Yes," he had answered in some surprise; "yes."
"And I have not opposed you—the King—"
"Opposed? No! Of course not!"
"Then," more hurriedly, "must you do something in return for me! I do not want my—the wedding festivities—marred by anything unpleasant! Promise that nothing will happen to him, the Black Seigneur, until after—"
"Impossible!" The sudden virulence her unexpected request awoke could not be concealed.
"Very well!" Before the anger in his gaze, her own eyes flashed like steel. "In that case, you can send the Marquis back! For I will not see him—to-day, to-morrow or any time again!"
Long he looked at her; the white face; the tightly compressed lips; the eyes that would not flinch! They reminded him of another's—were of the same hue—so like, and yet so different! Unlike, in bespeaking a will he could not break! What he said, matters not; his face wore an ashy shade. She did not answer in words; but he felt, with strange bitterness, a revulsion; she seemed almost suddenly to have become hostile to him.
Gay voices sounded without; nearer; she walked to a door opposite the entrance their visitors were approaching. An instant, and she would have passed out, when the Governor spoke.
But the Marquis, stepping quickly in a few moments later, noted nothing amiss between them. "Your Excellency!" With filial respect he greeted the Governor. "My Lady!" Gaily, approvingly, his eye passed over her; then in that hall dedicated to chivalry, a graceful figure, he sank to his knee; raised a small cold hand, and pressed it to his lips.
A coterie of brilliant folk soon followed in the wake of my lord, the Marquis' retinue; holy-day banners were succeeded by holiday ribbons; themiserereof the multitude by pæans of merriment. Hymen, Io Hymen! In assuming the leading rôle to which circumstances now assigned her, the Governor's daughter brought to the task less energy than she had displayed on that other occasion when visitors had sojourned at the rock. Her manner was changed—first, lukewarm; then, almost indifferent; until, at length, one day she fairly waived the responsibility of planning amusements; laid before them the question: What, now, would they like to do?
"Devise a play," said one.
"With shepherds and shepherdesses!"
The Marquis, however, qualified the suggestion. "A masque! that is very good; but, for this morning—I have been talking with the commandant—and have another proposal—"
"Which is?"
"To visit the dungeons."
"The dungeons?" My lady's face changed.
"And incidentally inspect their latest guest! Some of you heard of him when we were here before—Le Seigneur Noir—the Black Seigneur!"
"Le Seigneur Noir!" They clapped their hands. "Yes, let us see him! Nothing could be better. What do you say, Elise?"
She started to speak, but for the instant her lips could frame no answer; with a faint, strained smile, confronted them, when some one anticipated her reply—
"Did she not leave it to us? It is we who decide."
And a merry party, they swept along, bearing her with them; up the broad stairway, cold, gray in the morn; beneath the abbot's bridge—black, spying span!—to the church, and thence to the isolated space before the guard-house to the dungeons. Here, at the sound of their voices, a man, carrying a bunch of keys—but outwardly the antithesis to the hunchback—peered from the entrance.
"Unless I am mistaken, the new jailer!" With a wave of his hand, the Marquis indicated this person. "The commandant was telling me his Excellency had engaged one—from Bicêtre, or Fort l'Evêque, I believe?"
"Bicêtre, my Lord!" said the man gravely. "And before that, the Bastille."
"Ah!" laughed the nobleman. "That pretty place some of the foolish people are grumbling about! As if we could do without prisons any more than without palaces! But we have come, my good fellow, to inspect this lower world of yours!"
The man's glance passed over the paper the Marquis handed him; then silently he moved aside, and unlocked the iron doors.
"Are you not coming?" At the threshold the Marquis looked back. When first they had approached the guard-house, involuntarily had the Governor's daughter drawn aside to the ramparts; now, with face half-averted, stood gazing off.
"Coming?" Surprised, the Marquis noted her expression; the fixed brightness of her eyes and her parted lips. "Oh, yes!" And turning abruptly, she hastened past him.
Wouldtheyhave to be locked in?—the half-apprehensive query of one of the ladies caused the jailer at first to hesitate and then to answer in the negative. He would leave the doors from the outer room open, and himself await there the visitors' return. With which reassuring promise, he distributed lights; called a guardsman, familiar with the intricate underground passages, and consigned them to his care.
One of the gay procession, the Lady Elise stepped slowly forward; the guide proved a talkative fellow, and seemed anxious to answer their many inquiries concerning the place. Thesalle de la question? Yes, it existed; but the ancient torture devices for the "interrogatory ordinary" and the "interrogatory extraordinary" were no longer pressed into service; the King had ordered them relegated to the shelves of the museum. The cabanons, or black holes? Louis XI built them; thecarceres duriandvade in pace, however, dated from Saint Mauritius, fourth abbot of the Mount.
"And the Black Seigneur? How have you accommodated him?"
"In thepetit exil; just to the left! We are going there now."
"I—am going back!" A hand touched the arm of the Marquis, last of the file of visitors, and, lifting his candle, he held it so that the yellow glimmer played on the face of the Governor's daughter. Her eyes looked deeper; full of dread, as if the very spirit of the subterranean abode had seized her. He started.
"Surelyyou, Elise, are not afraid?"
"I prefer the sunlight," she said hurriedly in a low tone. "It—it is not cheerful down here! No; do not call to the guide—or let the others know. I'll return alone, and—wait for you at the guard-house."
He, nevertheless, insisted upon accompanying her; but, indicating the not distant door through which they had come, she professed to make light of objections, and when he still clung to the point, replied with a flash of spirit, sudden and passionate. It compelled his acquiescence; left him surprised for a second time that day; a little hurt, too, perhaps, for heretofore had their intimacy been maintained on a strictly ethical and charming plane. But he had no time for analysis; the others were drawing away to the left, into a side passage; and, with a last backward glance toward the retreating figure, the Marquis reluctantly followed the majority.
Despite, however, her avowed repugnance for that under-world, my lady showed now no haste to quit it; for scarcely had the others vanished than she stopped; began slowly to retrace her way in the direction they had taken. When the narrow route to thepetit exilconnected with the main aisle, a sudden draft of air extinguished her light; yet still she went on, led by the voices, and a glimmer afar, until reaching a room, low, massive, as if hewn from the solid rock, again she paused. Drawing behind a heavy square pillar, she gazed at the lords and ladies assembled in the forbidding place; listened to a voice that ran on, as if discoursing about some anomalous thing. Again was she cognizant of their questions; a jest from my lord, the Marquis; she saw that several stole forward; peered, and started back, half afraid.
But, at length, they asked about the oubliettes, and, chatting gaily, left. Their garments almost touched the Governor's daughter; lights played about the gigantic pillars, and like will-o'-the-wisps whisked away. Now, staring straight ahead toward the chamber they had vacated, my lady's attention became fixed by a single dot of yellow—a candle placed in a niche by the jailer's assistant. It seemed to fascinate; to draw her forward; across the portals—into the room itself!
How long she stood there in the faint suggestion of light, she did not realize; nor when she approached the iron-barred aperture, and what she first said! Something eager, solicitous, with odd silences between her words, until the impression of a motionless form, and two steady, cynical eyes fastened on her, brought her to an abrupt pause. It was some time before she continued, more coherently, an explanation about her apprehension on account of her father, which had entirely left her when she had peered through the window of the guard-house.
"You thought me, then, but a common assassin?" a satirical voice interposed.
"My father hates you, and you—"
"My Lady has, perhaps, a standard of her own for judging!"
Unmindful of ironical incredulity, she related how she had been forced to take refuge in the wheel-house; how, when Sanchez had seen her, alarmed she had fled blindly down the passage; waited, then hearing them all coming, at a loss what else to do, had opened the wheel-house door; run into the store-room! What she had seen from there, disconnectedly, also she referred to; his rescue of the others; his remaining behind to bear the brunt—as brave an act as she knew of! Her tone became tremulous.
"Who betrayed me?" His voice, bold and scoffing, interrupted.
She answered. It was like speaking to some one in a tomb. "The soldier you bound gave the alarm."
From behind the bars came a mocking laugh.
"You don't believe me?" She caught her breath.
"Believe? Of course."
"You don't!" she said, and clung tighter to the iron grating. "And I can't make you!"
"Why should your Ladyship want to? What does it matter?"
"But it does matter!" wildly. "When your servant accused me that day in the cloister I did not answer nor deny; but now—"
"Your Ladyship would deny?"
"That I betrayed you at Casque? Here? Yes, yes!"
"Or at the wheel-house when you called to warn the soldiers?"
"You were about to—to throw yourself over!" she faltered.
"And your Ladyship was apprehensive lest the Black Seigneur should escape?"
"Escape?" she cried. "It was death!"
"And the alternative? My Lady preferred to see the outlaw taken—die like a felon on the gallows!"
"No; no! It was not that."
"What then?" His eyes gleamed bright; her own turned; shrank from them. A moment she strove to answer; could not. Within the black recess a faint light from the flickering candle played up and down. So complete the stillness, so dead the very air, the throbbings of her pulses filled the girl with a suffocating sense of her own vitality.
"I spoke to my father to try to get your cell changed," she at last found herself irrelevantly saying; "but could do nothing."
"I thank your Ladyship! But your Ladyship's friends will be far away. Your Ladyship may miss something amusing!"
"I did not bring them—did not want them to come!"
"No?"
Her figure straightened.
"Perhaps, even, they are not aware you are here?"
"They are not, unless—"
"Elise!" From afar a loud call interrupted; reverberating down the main passage, was caught up here and there. "Elise! Elise!" The whole under-world echoed to the name.
"I promised to meet them at the guard-house," she explained hurriedly. And hardly knowing what she did, put out her hand, through the bars, toward him. In the darkness a hand seized hers; she felt herself drawn; held against the bars. They bruised her shoulder; hurt her face. The chill of the iron sent a shudder through her; though the pain she did not feel; she was cognizant only of a closer view of a figure; the chains from him to the wall; the bare, damp floor—then, of a voice low, tense, that now was speaking:
"Your Ladyship, indeed, found means to punish a presumptuous fellow, who dared displease her. Butma foi!she should have confined her punishment to the offender. Those stripes inflicted on him, my old servant! Think you I knew not it was my Lady's answer to the outlaw, who had the temerity to speak words that offended—"
"You dream that! You imagine that!"
The warmth of his hand seemed to burn hers; her fingers, so closely imprisoned, to throb with the fierce beating of his pulses.
"I do not want you to think—I can't let you think," she began.
"Elise!" The searchers were drawing nearer.
She would have stepped back, but the fingers tightened on her hand.
"They will be here in a moment—"
Still he did not relinquish his hold; the dark face was next hers; the piercing, relentless eyes studied the agitated brown ones. The latter cleared; met his fully an instant. "Believe!" that imploring wild glance seemed to say. Did his waver for a moment; the harshness and mockery soften on his face?
"Elise!" From but a short distance came the voice of the Marquis.
A moment the Black Seigneur's hand gripped my lady's harder with a strength he was unaware of. A slight cry fell from her lips, and at once, almost roughly, he threw her hand from him.
"Bah!" again he laughed mockingly. "Go to your lover."
Released thus abruptly she wavered, straightened, but continued to stand before the dungeon as if incapable of further motion.
"Elise! Are you there?"
"There!" Caverns and caves called out.
"There!" gibed voices amid a labyrinth of pillars, and mechanically she caught up the candle; fled.
"Here she is!" Coming toward her quickly out of the darkness, the Marquis uttered a glad exclamation. "We have been looking for you everywhere. Did I not say you should not have attempted to return alone?Mon dieu!you must have been lost!"
Thrice had the old nurse, Marie, assisting her mistress that night for the banquet, sighed; a number of times striven to hold my lady's eye and attention, but in vain. Only when the adorning process was nearly completed and the nurse knelt with a white slipper, did she, by a distinctly detaining pressure, succeed in arresting, momentarily, the other's bright strained glance.
"Is anything the matter?" My lady's absent tone did not invite confidences.
"My Lady—" the woman hesitated; yet seemed anxious to speak. "I—my Lady," she began again; with sign of encouragement from the Governor's daughter, would have gone on; but the latter, after waiting a moment, abruptly withdrew the silken-shod foot.
"The banquet! It is past the hour!"
An instant she stood, not seeing the other or the expression of disappointment on the woman's countenance; then quickly walked to the door. Nor, as the Governor's daughter moved down the long corridor, with crimson lips set hard, was she cognizant of another face that looked out from one of the many passages of the palace after her—the face of a younger woman whose dark, spying eyes glowed and whose hands closed at sight of the vanishing figure!
The sound of gay voices, however, as she neared the banqueting hall, perforce recalled my lady to a sense of her surroundings; at the same time a figure in full court dress stepped from the widely opened doors. An adequate degree of expectancy on his handsome countenance, my lord, the Marquis, who had been waiting, lover-fashion, for the first glimpse of his mistress that evening, now gallantly tendered his greetings.
Seldom, perhaps, had the ancient banqueting hall presented a more festive appearance. Fruits and flowers made bright the tables; banners medieval, trophies of many victories, trailed from the ceiling; a hundred lights were reflected from ornaments of crystal and dishes of gold. On every hand an almost barbaric profusion impressed the guests with the opulence of the Mount; that few could sit in more state than this pale lord of the North, or few queens preside over a scene of greater splendor than their fair hostess, his daughter!
With feverish semblance of spirit, she took her place; beneath the keen eyes of his Excellency responded to sallies of wit, and only when between courses the music played, did her manner relax. Then, leaning on her elbow, with cheeks aflame and downcast eyes, she professed to listen to dainty strains—the sighing of the old troubadours, as imitated by a group of performers in costume on a balcony at one end of the hall.
"Charming!" The voice was the Marquis'; she looked at him, though her eyes conveyed but a shadowy impression. "You have quite recovered from your trip to the dungeons?"
"Quite!" With a sudden lift of the head.
"The dungeons?" His Excellency's gaze was on them. "I understand," looking at Elise, "you had a slight adventure?"
The glow on her cheek faded. "Yes." She seemed to speak with difficulty. "It—was too stupid!"
"To get lost? Say, rather, it was venturesome to have attempted to return alone."
"Just what I said to the Lady Elise!" broke in the Marquis. "And to have left us at a most interesting moment!"
"Interesting?" The Governor's steel-gray eyes regarded the speaker inquiringly.
"We were about to visit the Black Seigneur!"
"Ah!" A look flashed from his Excellency to his daughter; her glance failed to meet it.
Yet paler, she turned over-hurriedly to the Marquis. "What is that air they are playing now?" His response she heard not, was only conscious that, across the board, the eyes of her father still scrutinized; studied!
At length, however, the evening wore away; a signal from his Excellency, and of one accord they rose and crossed to the star-illumined cloister adjoining. There at the entrance, my lady, who toward the last had listened with an air of distraction, hardly concealed, to her noble suitor's graceful speeches, held back, and, as the others went in, quickly effected her escape and hastened to her own apartments.
"At last!" She threw back her arms; breathed deeper. "Ah,mon père, you are hard—unyielding as the iron doors and bars of your dungeons!" She pressed her hand to her forehead. "And I can do nothing—nothing!" she repeated; stood for a moment motionless and then mechanically moved toward the bell-rope at the other end of the chamber. But the hand she started to raise was arrested; through the slightly opened door to the adjoining apartment, she heard voices; words that caused her involuntarily to listen.
"I have made up my mind to tell her ladyship, Nanette!" The old nurse was speaking, in tones that betrayed excitement and anxiety. "It is, to say the least, embarrassing for me—your coming here! You, the daughter of Pierre Laroche, who emigrated to the English Isles! Who has always shown disloyalty for the monarchy at home!"
My lady, surprised, drew nearer; caught the answer, which came in tones, deep and strong.
"At least, aunt, you are frank!"
"I must be! Under ordinary circumstances, I should be glad; of course, the child of my dead sister ought to be welcome."
"So I thought," dryly, "when I stopped off a few days ago to see you, on my way to Paris."
"If you had let me know, it is I who would have gone somewhere, near by, to have seen you!" was the troubled reply. "His Excellency—what would he say if he knew? Pierre Laroche, who has been called friend of privateersmen, perhaps even of the Black Seigneur, himself! I should have gone to his Excellency at once and asked if he objected, only you begged me not, and—"
"Were you so anxious to be rid of me?" quickly.
"I shouldn't speak as I do now, perhaps, only—"
"Only?"
"Your conduct, since you have been here—"
"What do you mean?" The other's tone had a sudden defiant ring.
"It is not seemly for a girl of your age and condition to be out alone so late, nights!"
"I just went down into the town to get something," was the careless response, "and the sands looked so attractive—"
"That's no excuse! And now," the old nurse's voice showed a trace of embarrassment, "we've had our visit, and you had better carry out your plan of going to Paris."
"You want me to leave here—at once?" The girl drew her breath sharply.
"Perhaps it would be as well."
"You treat me as if—I were a spy!" angrily.
"I don't wish to do that," returned the woman in a constrained tone. "But now, after so many years of service with her ladyship! And her mother, the former lady of the Mount! If I should incur the Governor's displeasure—" the words died away. "If I can be of any help to you, if you need assistance—money—"
"Money!" Nanette's derisive laugh rang out; was suddenly hushed by the tinkling of a bell!
"Her ladyship!"
For a few moments the Governor's daughter, now standing in the center of her apartment, heard no sound from the other room; then a timid footstep approaching the door was followed by an indecisive rap.
"Your Ladyship rang?" inquired Marie, turning a half-guilty glance on her mistress.
"Yes! Did I hear voices, as I came in?"
"Did your Ladyship? I mean, I was going to speak to your Ladyship. It's my niece!" suddenly. "On her way to Paris!"
"Your niece!" The Governor's daughter looked at the other. "And you—are pleased?"
"Your Ladyship—" The woman flushed.
"Of course, though, you must be! She is out there? Show her in!" quickly.
"But—"
"At once!"
"Very well, my Lady!" Marie's manner, however, was depressed, as, stepping to the threshold, reluctantly she beckoned.
Erect, with mien almost antagonistic, Nanette entered and stood before the Lady Elise. The latter did not at once speak; for a few moments the observant brown eyes passed in quick scrutiny over her visitor; noting the aggressive brows; the broad, strong face; the self-assertive pose of the well-developed figure. A woman to do—to dare!—What?
"A woman to do--to dare!""A woman to do—to dare!"
"A woman to do--to dare!""A woman to do—to dare!"
"You wished to see me?" Nanette first spoke.
Marie lifted an expostulatory hand. What bad manners, thus to dare! But my lady did not seem to notice. "You are from one of the islands?" she began.
"Yes."
"Say 'my Lady'!" broke in the old nurse. "I trust your Ladyship will pardon—"
"Never mind, Marie!" with a quick gesture. "Your aunt tells me you are on your way to Paris?"
"Yes—my Lady!" with the slightest hesitation before the last two words. "To seek a situation as lady's maid!"
"When are you leaving?"
"To-morrow morning, your Ladyship!" interposed Marie quickly.
"So soon?" My lady continued to address the girl. "You have had experience?"
"No, my Lady!"
"Then how can you secure what you wish?"
"How? At least, I can try!"
"To be sure! You can try." My lady's eyes fell; she seemed to be thinking. "Still, it may be difficult; Paris is far away. And if you should fail," her fingers tapped nervously on the chair, "we are very busy at the Mount just now," she added suddenly, directing her glance full upon the other, "and there may be something here—"
"Here! Your Ladyship will keep me here!"
Marie made a movement as if to speak, but her niece intercepted her.
"I will do my best, my Lady!"
"Very well! Then shall you have a trial!"
"Your Ladyship!" interposed Marie.
The Governor's daughter got up quickly. "I am very tired, Marie, and wish now to be alone! You need not remain—I shall not want you again to-night."
The old nurse murmured a dejected response; turned away.
"I thank your Ladyship!" The girl's last look was one of indubitable satisfaction ere she followed her aunt from the room.
My lady stared after them. "'Daughter of Pierre Laroche! Friend of the Black Seigneur!'" Marie's words continued to ring in her ears. She threw herself into a chair; sat long very still, her eyes bent straight before her, on either cheek now a bright spot of color.
"You are in a hurry, Monsieur Beppo?" arms akimbo, Nanette, standing in an embrasure of the rampart, called out to the Governor's man as he passed by.
"Ah, Mistress Nanette," Beppo stopped readily enough, "I didn't see you at first."
"Because you have more important matters to think of," she laughed, showing her strong white teeth.
The fat old man looked pleased; a few days before, Nanette had flashed a radiant smile at him from her casement, and, ever since, he had been inclined to regard her with favor.
"Not more important, but duties that must be attended to! The wedding hour draws near." The island girl half turned her head; a shadow seemed to pass over the bold, sunburned features. "And her ladyship gives to-morrow a riding party for her guests—a last celebration before she is led to the altar. I am on my way now to arrange about the escort."
"A riding party!" Nanette spoke quickly. "You mean on horseback?"
"How else?" said Beppo. "It is a pastime her ladyship has always been very fond of, even as a child. In those days," not without an accent of self-importance, "it was my privilege—"
"Do they ride far?" interrupted Nanette with ill-suppressed eagerness.
"To the old Monastery St. Ranulphe; an imposing ruin of tenth century architecture, my dear," he added pompously.
"And where is it?"
"Off the Paris highway, some ten miles from the Mount."
"Ten miles? And the country is beautiful? Not open; sandy, like the shore?"
"It partakes of a rugged grandeur."
"With forests around?" quickly.
"Yes," indulgently. "You like forests, Mistress Nanette?"
"When they are thick and wild—"
"Then would you like these!"
The girl asked no further questions; yet still Beppo lingered, his glance seeming loath to withdraw from this exuberant specimen of vigorous young womanhood. "Which way were you going, good Mistress Nanette?" he asked finally. "On second thoughts, I have a little time to spare and will walk along."
Nanette, looking down from the rampart toward the sands and the shore, did not answer, and, more insinuatingly, Beppo repeated his proposal. Nanette started.
"La, Monsieur Beppo! I—I'm afraid it wouldn't do. There's my aunt," tossing her head, "that careful of me! Won't even let me go walking on the beach alone! Doyouever go walking on the beach, Monsieur Beppo?" she inquired suddenly, regarding him with an eloquent look.
"I—it has not been my custom," he murmured. "But," the fishy eyes growing brighter, "with you—if I might accompany you—"
"Oh, I didn't mean that! No; no! Of course not! And I couldn't think of it. My aunt—"
But when a few moments later, she turned, to walk quickly away, the round and shining face of Beppo, watching her disappear, wore not the look of a man who had allowed himself to be rebuffed.
Out of his sight, Nanette's expression changed to one of somber thoughtfulness; it lingered as she entered the palace, with free swing, mounted the steps to her mistress' apartments; was still there, when she took a bit of embroidery from a table, and seating herself at the window of an antechamber, bent over her task. Soon, however, she stopped, to sweep abruptly cloth and colored silks from her lap to the floor, and, leaning forward, her firm, brown hands clasped over her knees, she seemed to be asking herself questions, or weighing some problem.
"Yes; it is our only chance." In her eyes a steady glow replaced the varying lights, and, getting up with a sudden air of determination, Nanette crossed the room to where, near the door, stood a small desk. Glancing quickly around, she seated herself and, reaching for paper and pen, wrote carefully and somewhat laboriously a few words. She had finished and was contemplating the result of her eager efforts when a hand at the door caused her hurriedly to dash down the pen and spring to her feet. As her aunt entered, Nanette took a few steps forward, and, bending to pick up her work from the floor, turned partly away and thrust the paper into the bosom of her gown.
"I came to tell you supper is ready," said Marie quietly.
At the table with her aunt the girl's manner was subdued and deferential; she observed the nicest proprieties, and bestowed on the other's slightest word a meed of attention calculated to soften the old woman's attitude and suspicions. And possibly succeeded; or, it may be, Marie's own conscience had begun to reproach her; for a number of days had passed and nothing had as yet occurred to justify the early apprehensions she had entertained. Under the circumstances the meal was a little prolonged; the first shafts of twilight had entered the courtyard and had begun to steal into the narrow chamber with darkening effect, ere of an accord the two women pushed back their chairs.
"It gets dark early," said the girl, "or time has passed quicker than I thought. Perhaps it was what you were telling me of the former lady of the Mount. She must have been very beautiful!"
"She was," answered the woman; "and as good as beautiful!"
"Heigh-ho!" Nanette sighed; through the window watched the shadows that like dark, trailing figures seemed creeping up the ancient wall to caress and linger on green leaves of vines, bright flowers and other living things. "But I suppose she had everything she wanted." The girl stirred restlessly. "What sort of a man is Monsieur Beppo, aunt?"
"Beppo?" Recalled as from a long train of recollections, the woman did not seem to notice the abruptness of the inquiry. "Oh, he is an old and faithful servant. For almost as many years as I have been here," with an accent of pride, "has he served at the Mount!"
"And his moral character, aunt?" demurely.
"Monsieur Beppo has a reputation for piety, no doubt deserved!" returned the woman, with an accent of surprise. "At any rate, he seldom misses a mass. But why do you ask?"
"Because I met him to-day and he invited me to walk with him this evening."
"He did?" Marie's mouth grew firmer. "And you?"
"I didn't exactly know how to refuse; he—looked so old and respectable! I thought, too, you wouldn't mind and—I'm glad you think so well of him, aunt."
In the gathering gloom the listener's face seemed suddenly to grow graver; her eyes, which had returned to the girl's, expressed once more doubt and misgiving. With her glance lifted upward, however, Nanette did not seem to notice this quick change. A star—faint forerunner of a multitude of waiting orbs—peeping timorously down from above the gray, gaunt mass of stone, alone absorbed the girl's gaze and attention.
"Where were you thinking of going?" after a silence of some length the older woman asked.
"I don't recall that Monsieur Beppo mentioned," was the low-murmured response. "But, of course, aunt, if you object—"
"I do not know that I do," said the other slowly. "Only," as if the thought had suddenly come to her, "what were you writing at her ladyship's desk when I went to call you?"
"Writing?" Nanette regarded her blankly. "I don't understand you, aunt."
"Weren't you writing something that you hid in your dress when I came?"
"No!" The girl looked full at the other; denied point-blank the accusation. "Now that you speak of it, I believe I did step to the desk," she answered glibly, "to look at some ornament; but as for writing, or daring to, I should not have presumed."
A low discreet rap at the door interrupted, and, with a whispered "There he is now!" Nanette cut short further argument by rising.
"She is not telling the truth!" For some time the woman stood looking down in gloomy thought after the two had gone. "What does it mean?" Moving to a peg, she took down a shawl. "What can it mean?" she asked herself again, and, wrapping the garment about her head and shoulders, left the room.
Half an hour later, at Beppo's side, on the beach, Nanette measured her steps to his; listened to the old man's platitudes, and even turned a not unwilling ear to sundry hints and innuendos of a tenderer nature. The girl was in her most complaisant mood, and, in his rôle of discreet gallant to young and blooming womanhood, the fat factotum strove to make the most of the opportunity. He sighed; bethought him of a sentimental tale, and carped of the beauty of the moon, then gilding the edge of the Mount's high towers! She answered; looked; but soon her eloquent glance swerved to the sands, dotted by desultory seekers of cockles, or belated stragglers from the shore, and fastened itself on a jutting point of the Mount.
Near it, before a large rock of peculiar shape, a man was engaged in that common nocturnal labor of the locality, digging! As the couple drew near, quickly he raised his gaze; almost at once let it fall; engrossed in his work, continued to toss the sand and stoop over it searchingly. But when they had gone by, once more he straightened, and, at the same time, the girl looked back. Stalwart, black-bearded, a sailor by his dress, the fellow made a sign, and, apparently any doubt as to who he was vanished from Nanette's mind; for from the fingers of the free hand she held behind her, something fluttered to the beach.
Leaning to his implement, the man regarded the paper, but not until the girl's low laugh was heard, as she and Master Beppo vanished in the darkness, did he step forward and secure it.
"So! That was it!" Breathless, indignant, Marie, standing in the black shade of one of the Mount's projections, watched the fellow read and regard carefully the message in his hand; then tearing it, crumple the bits and thrust them toward his pocket as he walked off. "Brazen huzzy! But her ladyship shall know; and if she doesn't pack you off, bag and baggage—Eh? What is that?" And springing forward, the woman pounced upon something that lay on the sand.