ASthe hour of noon was sounding from the Trianon clock, Nicole ran in to tell Andrea that Captain Philip was at the door.
Surprised but glad, Andrea ran to meet the chevalier, who dismounted from his horse and was asking if his sister could be seen.
She opened the door herself to him, embraced him, and the pair went up into her rooms. It was only there that she perceived that he was sadder than usual, with sorrow in his smile. He was dressed in his stylish uniform with the utmost exactness and he had his horseman’s cloak rolled up under his left arm.
“What is the matter, Philip?” she asked, with the instinct of affectionate souls for which a glance is sufficient revelation.
“Sister, I am under orders to go and join my regiment at Rheims.”
“Oh, dear!” and Andrea exhaled in the exclamation part of her courage and her strength.
Natural as it was to hear of his departure, she felt so upset that she had to cling to his arm.
“Gracious, why are you afflicted to this decree?” he asked, as to shed. “It is a common thing in a soldier’s life. And the journey is nothing to speak of. They do say the regiment is to be sent back to Strasburg in all probability.”
“So you have come to bid me farewell?”
“That is it. Have you something particular to say?” he questioned, made uneasy by her grief, too exaggerated not to be founded.
Nicole was looking on at the scene with surprise for the leave-taking of an officer going to his garrison was not a catastrophe to be received by tears. Andrea understood this emotion, and she put on her lace mantilla to accompany her brother through the grounds to the outer gate.
“My only dear one,” said she, deadly pale and sobbing, “you are going to leave me all alone and you ask why I weep? You will say the Dauphiness is kind to me? so she is, perfect in my eyes, and I regard her as a divinity? but it is because she dwells in a superior sphere that I feel for her respect, not affection. Affection is so needful to my heart that the want of it makes it collapse. Father? Oh, heaven, I am telling you nothing new when I say that our father is not a friend or guardian to me. Sometimes he looks at me so that I am frightened. I am more afraid than ever of him since you go away. I cannot tell, but the birds know that a storm is coming when they take to flight while still it is calm?”
“What storm are you to be on your guard against? I admit that misfortune may await us. Have you some forewarning of it? Do you know whether you ought to run to meet it or flee to avoid it?”
“I do not, Philip, only that my life hangs on a thread. It seems to me that in my sleep I am rolled to the brink of a chasm, where I am awakened, too late for me to withstand the attraction which will drag me over. With you absent, and none to help me, I shall be crushed at the bottom of the chasm.”
“Dear sister, my good Andrea,” said the captain, moved despite himself by this genuine fright, “you make too much of affection for which I thank you. You lose a defender, it is true, but only for the time. I shall not be so far that I am not within call. Besides, apart from fancies, nothing threatens you.”
“Then, Philip, how is it that you, a man, feel as mournful as I do at this parting? explain this, brother?”
“It is easy, dear,” returned Philip. “We are not only brother and sister, but had a lonely life which kept us together. It is our habit to dwell in close communion and it is sad to break the chain. I am sad, but only temporarily. I do not believe in any misfortune, save our not seeing each other for some months, or it may be a year. I resign myself and say Good-bye till we meet again.”
“You are right,” she said, staying her tears, “and I am mad. See, I am smiling again. We shall meet soon again.”
She tenderly embraced him, while he regarded her with an affection which had some parental tenderness in it.
“Besides,” he said, “you will have a comfort, in our father coming here to live with you. He loves you, believe me, but it is in his own peculiar way.”
“You seem embarrassed, Philip—what is wrong?”
“Nothing, except that my horse is chafing at the gates because I ought to have been gone an hour ago.”
Andrea assumed a calm face and said in a tone too firm not to be affectation:
“God save you, brother!”
She watched him mount his horse and ride off, waving his hand to the last. She remained motionless as long as he was in sight.
Then she turned and ran at hazard in the wood like a wounded fawn, until she dropped on a bench under the trees where she let a sob burst from her bosom.
“Oh, Father of the motherless,” she exclaimed, “why am I left all alone upon earth?”
A slight sound in the thicket—a sigh, she took it to be, made her turn. She was startled to see a sad face rise before her. It was Gilbert’s, as pale and cast-down as her own.
At sight of a man, though he was not a stranger, Andrea hastened to dry her eyes, too proud to show her grief to another. She composed her features and smoothed her cheeks which had been quivering with despair.
Gilbert was longer than she in regaining his calm, and his countenance was still mournful when she looked on it.
“Ah, Master Gilbert again,” she said, with the light tone she always assumed when chance brought her and the young man together. “But what ails you that you should gaze on me with that dolorous air? Something must have saddened you—pray, what has saddened you?”
“If you really want to know,” he answered with the more sorrow as he perceived the irony in her words, “it is the sadness of seeing you in misery.”
“What tells you so? I am not in any grief,” replied Andrea, brushing her eyes for the second time with her handkerchief.
Feeling that the gale was rising, the lover thought to lull it with his humility.
“I beg pardon, but I heard you sobbing—— ”
“What, listening? you had better—— ”
“It was chance,” stammered the young man, who found it hard to tell her a lie.
“Chance? I am sorry that chance should help you to overhear my sobs, but I prithee tell me how does my distress concern you?”
“I cannot bear to hear a woman weep,” rejoined Gilbert in a tone sovereignly displeasing the patrician.
“Am I but a woman to you, Master Gilbert?” replied the haughty girl. “I do not crave the sympathy of any one, and least of all of Master Gilbert.”
“You are wrong to treat me to rudely,” persisted the ex-dependent of the Taverneys, “I saw you sad in affliction. I heard you say that you would be all alone in the world by the departure of Master Philip. But no, my young lady, for I am by you, and never did a heart beat more devoted to you. I repeat that never will you be alone while my brain can think, my heart throb, or my arm be stretched out.”
He was handsome with vigor, nobility and devotion while he uttered these words, although he put into them all the simplicity which the truest respect commands.
But it was decreed that everything he should say and do was to displease, offend and drive Andrea to make insulting retorts, as though each of his offers were an outrage and his supplications provocation.
She meant to rise to suit an action most harsh to words most stern; but a nervous shiver kept her in her seat. She thought, besides, that she would be more likely to be seen if erect, and she did not wish to be remarked talking with a Gilbert! She kept her seat, but she determined once for all to crush this tormenting little insect under foot.
“I thought I had already told you that you dreadfully displease me; your voice irritates me, and your Philosophical nonsense is repugnant to me. Why then, as I told you this much, are you obstinate in speaking to me?”
“Lady, no woman should be irritated by sympathy being expressed for her.” He was pale but constrained. “An honest man is the peer of any human creature, and perchance I, whom you so persistently ill-treat, deserve the sympathy which I regret you do not show for me.”
“Sympathy,” repeated Andrea at this reiteration of the word, fastening her eyes widely open with impertinence on him, “sympathy from me towards you? In truth, I have made a mistake about you. I took you for a pert fellow and you are a mad one.”
“I am neither pert nor mad,” returned the low-born lover, with an apparent calm which was costly to the pride we know he felt. “No, for nature made me your equal and chance made you my debtor.”
“Chance again, eh?” sneered the baron’s daughter.
“I ought to say, Providence. I should never have mentioned it but your insults bring it up in my mind.”
“Your debtor, I think you say—why do you say that?”
“I should be ashamed if you had ingratitude in your composition, for God only knows what other defects have been implanted in you to counterbalance your beauty.”
Andrea leaped to her feet at this.
“Forgive me,” said he, “but you gall me too much at times and I forget the interest you inspire.”
Andrea burst out into such hearty laughter that the lover ought to have been lifted to the height of wrath; but to her great astonishment, Gilbert did not kindle. He folded his arms on his breast, retaining his hostile expression and fiery look, and patiently waited for the end of her outraging merriment.
“Deign, young lady,” said he coldly, “to reply to one question. Do you respect your father?”
“It looks, sirrah, as if you took the liberty of putting questions to me,” she replied with the greatest haughtiness.
“Yes, you respect your father,” he went on, “not on account of any parts of his or virtues: but simply because he gave you life. For this same boon, you are bound to love the benefactor. This laid down as a principle,” said the loving philosopher, “why do you insult me—why repulse meand hate me—who have not given you life, but I prevented you losing it.”
“You—you saved my life?” cried Andrea.
“You have not thought of it—rather, you have forgotten it; it is quite natural, for it was a year ago. Therefore I must remind or inform you. Yes, I saved your life at the risk of losing my own.”
“I should like to learn where and when?” said Andrea.
“On that day when a hundred thousand people, crushing one another as they fled from masterless horses and flashing swords, strewed Louis XV. Place with dying and the dead.”
“The last day of May?”
Andrea lost and regained her ironical smile.
“Oh, you are Baron Balsamo, are you? I cry you pardon for I did not know this either, before!”
“No, I am not the baron,” replied Gilbert, with flaming eyes and tremulous lip; “I am the poor boy, offspring of the dregs of the Kingdom, whose folly, stupidity, and misfortune it is to be in love with you. It was because of this I followed you into that multitude. I am Gilbert who, separated from you by the crush, recognized you by the dreadful scream you raised. Gilbert, who fell near you but encompassed you with his arms so that twenty thousand hands tearing at them could not have relaxed the clasp. Gilbert, who placed himself between the stone post on which you would be smashed, to make a buffer of his breast. Gilbert, who seeing in the throng the strange man who seemed to command the other men, called out your name to the Baron Balsamo, so that he and his allied friends should come to your rescue. He yielded you up to a happier saver, did Gilbert, retaining of his prize only the flag—the scrap of your dress torn in the struggle with the thousands; I pressed that to my lips, in time to stop the blood which flew up from my shattered bosom. The rolling sea of the terrified and brutal overwhelmed me but you ascended, like the Angel of the Resurrection, to the abode of the blessed.”
Gilbert exhibited himself wholly in this outburst, wild, simple and sublime, the same in his determination as in his love. In spits of her contempt, Andrea could not view him withoutastonishment. He believed for an instant that his story had the irresistibility of love and truth. But the poor lad reckoned without unbelief, the want of faith which hate has. Hating Gilbert, Andrea let none of the arguments capture in this disdained lover.
“I see,” she said, “that the author Rousseau has taught you how to weave romances.”
“My love a romance?” he exclaimed, indignant.
“And one which you forced me to listen to.”
“Is this all your answer?” faltered he, with dulled eyes and his heart aching as in a vice.
“I do not honor with any answer at all,” responded Andrea, pushing him aside as she went by to meet Nicole who was seeking her.
On recognizing her former sweetheart, Nicole regretted that she had not gone round so as to approach unseen and listen. She came also to announce that the baron and the Duke of Richelieu were wishful to see her young lady.
Andrea departed, with Nicole following, who glanced behind ironically at Gilbert, who, rather livid than merely pale, mad than agitated, and frenzied than angered, shook his fists after the enemies, muttering between his grinding teeth:
“Oh, thou creature without a heart and body with no soul, I saved thy life and concentrated my love upon thee and silenced all sentiment which might offend what I deemed thy candor; for in my delirium I believed thee a virgin holy as the Madonna. Now that I closely see you, I behold but a woman, and I am a man who will be revenged some day on you, Andrea Taverney! Twice have you been under my hand and I spared you. Beware of the third time, Andrea—and we shall meet again!”
He bounded into the underwood like a wounded wolf-cub, turning round as it flies to show its tusks and bloodshot eyes.
ATthe end of the walk, Andrea perceived her father and the marshal, strolling before the vestibule as they awaited her. They seemed the happiest brace of friends in the world: they were arm in arm like a new Orestes and Pylades.
They seemed to brighten up still more at the sight of the girl, and made one another notice her beauty, enhanced by her vexation and the swiftness of her steps.
The marshal saluted the girl as he might have done were she the officially proclaimed royal mistress. This did not escape Taverney: it delighted him; but this mixture of gallantry and respect surprised the receiver. For the skilled courtier could put as much in one bow as the rogue in the comedy can put into one pretended Turkish word.
Andrea replied with a courtsey as ceremonious, and with charming grace invited them into her suite.
The duke admired the elegant daintiness which made the prim rooms not a palace but a fane. He and the baron took armchairs and the young hostess sat on a folding-chair, with one elbow on her harpsichord.
“Young lady,” began the marshal, “I bring you from his Majesty all the compliments which your enchanting voice and consummate musicianly skill won from the auditors yesterday. His Majesty feared to make jealous folk cry out if he praised you too publicly. So he charged me to express the pleasure you caused him.”
All blushes, the girl was so lovely that the marshal continued as though he were speaking for himself.
“The King affirmed that he had never seen any person in the court who so bountifully united gifts of the mind with those of the physique.”
“You forget the qualities of the heart, my lord; Andrea is the best of daughters,” added the baron, gushingly.
For a space the marshal feared that the old rogue was aboutto weep. Full of admiration for this effort of paternal sensitiveness, he exclaimed:
“The heart—Alas! you are the sole judge of what tenderness may be enclosed in that heart. Were I in my twenty-fifth year, I would lay my life and fortune at her feet.”
As Andrea did not yet know how to meet the courtier’ fulsome compliments, all the duke earned was a murmur.
“The King wishes to be allowed a testimonial of his satisfaction, and he charges your father, the baron, to transmit it to you. What am I to answer his Majesty on your behalf?”
“Your grace is to assure his Majesty of my entire gratitude,” replied Andrea who saw in the exaggeration only the respect of a subject to the sovereign. “Tell the King that I am overwhelmed with kindness at being thought of, and that I am unworthy the attention of so mighty a monarch.”
Richelieu appeared enthusiastic after this reply, uttered in a steady voice without any hesitation. He took her hand and kissed it respectfully, saying, as he gloated over her:
“A queenly hand, a fairy foot: wit, will and candor. Ah, my lord, what a treasure! It is not a lady you have there, but a queen.”
He took leave, while Taverney swelled with pride and hope. He was a trifle perplexed at being alone with his daughter, for her looks pierced him like a diver penetrating the sea with his electric lamp-ray.
“The Duke of Richelieu was saying, father, that the King had entrusted some token of his gratification to you—what is it, please?”
“Ha, she is interested,” uttered the old noble: “I would not have believed it. So much the better, Satan!”
Slowly he drew from his pocket the jewel-case given him by the marshal overnight, in the same way as fond papas produce the box of candies for the pet child.
“Jewels!” ejaculated Andrea.
“Do you like them?”
It was a string of pearls of great price; diamonds interlinked them: a diamond clasp, ear-rings, and a tiara for the headdress gave to the whole set the value of some thirty thousand crowns at the least.
“Heavens, father, the King must make some mistake,” cried Andrea, “it is too handsome. I should be ashamed to wear them. What dresses have I to go with such gems?”
“I like your finding fault with them for being too rich,” sneered the baron.
“You do not understand me, sir, I only say they are above my station.”
“The donor of these gems is able to give you a wardrobe in keeping.”
“But such bounty!”
“Do not my services warrant them?”
“Oh, I beg your pardon, I forgot them,” said Andrea, bending her head but unconvinced. She closed the case after a pause.
“I cannot wear such ornaments,” said she, “while you and my brother stand in need of the necessities of life; this superfluity would hurt my eyes in thinking of your wants.”
Taverney pressed her hand and smiled.
“Do not trouble yourself about that, my child,” he said. “The King does this more for me than you. We are in favor, darling. It would not be like a respectful subject or a grateful woman not to appear before our sovereign in the ornaments he kindly presented.”
“I shall obey, my lord.”
“And do it with pleasure. The set does not seem to be to your taste?”
“I am not a judge of such things.”
“Know then that those pearls are worth alone some fifty thousand livres.”
“It is strange,” said the girl, clasping her hands, “that his Majesty should make me such a present: only think!”
“I do not understand you, miss!” said Taverney in a dry tone.
“Everybody will be astounded if I wear such jewelry.”
“Jewels are made to astound the world. Why in your case?” said he in the same tone, with a cold and overbearing air which made her wince.
“A scruple.”
“This is strange, to hear you raise scruples where I do notsee any. It takes these candid girls to recognize evil and see the snake in the grass though so well hidden that no one else perceives it. Long live the maiden of sixteen who makes old grenadiers like me blush!”
Hiding her confusion in her pearly hands, Andrea moaned:
“Oh, brother, why are you so far?”
Did Taverney hear this or only guess it by the marvellous perspicacity which was his? He changed his tone, at all events, and taking both her hands, he asked:
“Am I not by you to counsel and love you? do you not feel proud to contribute to the welfare of your brother and myself?”
“Yes,” she answered.
He concentrated a look full of caresses upon her.
“You will be the queen of Taverney,” he said, “to take up Richelieu’s words. The King has distinguished you: the Dauphiness also,” he added quickly, “and in the family of these illustrious personages you are to build up your future, while making their lives the happier. Friend of the princess and the King, what bliss! Remember Agnes Sorel. She restored honor to the French crown. All good Frenchmen will venerate your name. You may be the staff in his old age to the ruler of France. Our glorious monarch will cherish you like a daughter, and you will reign over France by the right of beauty, courage and fidelity.”
“Why, how can I be all this?” demanded she, opening her astonished eyes.
“My dear, I have often told you that people in society must be taught to like virtue by its being made agreeable. Virtue, prudish, lugubrious, whining psalms, makes those flee who were ardently going up to it. Give yours all the lures of coquetry, and even of vice. Be so lovely that the court will speak of none but you: so loveable that the King cannot do without you; be so secret and reserved, save for our master, that they will attribute the power to you before you grasp it.”
“I do not follow you in this last point,” observed Andrea.
“Let me guide you: execute without understanding, which is the best course in a wise and generous creature like you. By the way, to begin with the first point, here is a hundredlouis to line your purse. Provide a wardrobe worthy of the rank to which you are summoned since the King has kindly distinguished us.”
He gave the gold to his daughter, kissed her hand and went out. He walked so briskly up the alley by which he came that he did not notice Nicole there, chatting with a nobleman who whispered in her ear.
ALWAYSbearer of good news, the Duke of Richelieu called on the Taverneys to announce that the King found a regiment for Captain Philip, not a company.
The conversation was the same as usual among the three at dinner; the duke spoke of his King, the baron of his daughter and Andrea of her brother. Richelieu preached on the same text as the baron, and enunciated his doctrine, so pagan, Parisian and courtier-like, that the girl had to confess that her kind of virtue could not be the true one if the nobles were to be the left-handed queens of the French monarchs whom the two tempters did not hesitate to cite.
At seven, the duke rose from the table as he had an appointment at Versailles, he said.
In going into the anteroom for his hat, he met Nicole who always had something to do there when the duke called.
“I wish you would come along with me, little lass,” he said; “I should like you to take a bouquet the Duchess of Noailles is getting ready for my daughter the Countess of Egmont.”
Nicole courtseyed as the shepherdesses did in Rousseau’s comic operas. Leaning on Nicole’s shoulder, he went down stairs, and when out on the lawn with her, said:
“Little maid, can you tell me the name of the sweetheart Nicole Legay has found—a well-turned gallant whom she used to welcome in Coq Heron Street, and receives herein Versailles. He is a French Guards corporal called—what do you say the name is?”
The girl was in hopes that the marshal did not know the name if he knew everything else.
“Faith, tell me, my lord, since you know so much,” she said saucily.
“Beausire,” said the marshal: “and he is a beau already; whether he will ever be a sire, I cannot say.”
Nicole clasped her hands in prudery which did not baffle the marshal.
“Pest take us!” he said: “making love appointments under the eaves of Trianon: if Lady Noailles catches a whiff of this she will have Nicole Legay sent to the Salpetriere House of Correction and Corporal Beausire will have a row in the royal galleys.”
“Not if I have your grace’s protection.”
“Oh, that is granted. You will not be imprisoned and driven from the place, but left free and enriched.”
“Oh, what must I do, my lord, tell me quick.”
“Mere child’s play.”
“Whom am I to do it for—my own good or your grace’s?”
“Zounds,” said the duke, eyeing her sharply, “what a sly puss you are!”
“Pray have done.”
“It is for your good,” he said plumply. “When Corporal Beausire comes to keep his tryst—— ”
“At seven o’clock—— ”
“Exactly. Say to him: We are discovered; but I have a patron who will save us both: you from the galleys, me from the jail. Let us be off.”
“Be off?”
“Since you love him, you will marry and be off,” said the duke.
“Love him, yes: but marry him? ha, ha, ha!” and the duke was stupefied by the laugh.
Even at court he had not met many hussies as shameless as this. Understanding the sly glance, he replied:
“In any case I will pay the expenses of this double journey.”
Nicole asked no more: as long as the excursion was paid for the rest mattered not a jot.
“Do you know what you are thinking of,” said he quickly, for he was beaten and he did not like to dwell at that point.
“Faith, I do not.”
“Why, the thought strikes you that your young mistress may wake up in the night and call you. This would raise the alarm before you got well away.”
“I never thought of that, but I do now, and that I had better stay.”
“Then Beausire will be caught and will expose you.”
“Never mind: Mdlle. Andrea is kind and will speak to the King, in whose good graces she is, and he will pardon me my offense.”
The marshal bit his lip.
“I tell you that Nicole is a fool. Mdlle. Andrea is not in the King’s good graces as deeply as you may suppose and I will have you locked up where good graces have no effect in softening the straw bed or shortening the whiplash.”
“Stay—How can my mistress be prevented from rising and ringing in the night for Nicole? She might be up a dozen times.”
“Oh, troubled with my complaint, insomnia. She ought to take the remedy I do: and if she would not, you could make her do it.”
“How could I make my mistress do anything, my lord?” inquired Nicole.
“It is the fashion to have an evening’s drink—orangeade or licorice water—— ”
“My young lady has a glass of water by her bedside, sometimes with a lump of sugar in it, or perfumed with orangewater, if her nerves are out of order.”
“Wonderful, just like me,” said Richelieu, taking out a handful of Exchequer notes. “If you were to put a couple of drops from my own bottle which I hand you, the young lady would sleep all the night.”
“Good: and I will lock her in so that nobody can disturb her till the morning.”
“No,” said Richelieu, quickly. “That is just what you must not do. Leave the door ajar.”
He understood that the girl saw all the plot.
“Money for the flight—the phial for the sleep—but they lock the gates and I have no key.”
“But I am a First Gentleman in Attendance on the King and have my master-key.”
“How timely all falls in,” said Nicole; “it seems a whole calendar of miracles. Adieu, my lord.”
Laughing in her sleeve, the traitress glided away in the dark.
“Again I succeed,” thought Richelieu: “but I must be getting old to be rebuffed by this little imp. Never mind, if I come out the winner.”
FROMhis garret, Gilbert was watching, or rather devouring Andrea’s room. It would be hard to tell whether his eyes now gazed with love or hatred. But the curtains were drawn and he could see nothing in that quarter; he turned to another.
Here he espied the plume of Corporal Beausire, as the soldier to beguile his waiting, whistled a tune. It was not till ten minutes had elapsed that Nicole appeared. She made her lover a sign which he understood, for he nodded and went towards a walk in a cutting leading to the Little Trianon.
Nicole ran back as lightly as a bird.
“Ha, ha,” thought Gilbert, “Nicole and her trooper have something to say to each other which will not bear witnesses. Good!”
He was no longer curious about Nicole’s flirtations, but he regarded her as a natural enemy and it was wise to know all her doings. In her immorality he wanted to find the weapon with which he might victoriously meet her in case she shouldattack him. He did not doubt that the campaign would open and he meant to have a good supply of weapons, like a true warrior.
So he nimbly came down from his loft, and reached the gardens by the chapel side-door. He had nothing to fear now as he knew all the coverts of the place like a fox at home. Thus he was able to reach the clump where he heard a strange sound for the woods—the chink of coin on a stone. Gliding like a serpent up to the terrace wall, hedged with lilacs, he saw Nicole at the grating, emptying a purse on a stone out of Beausire’s reach by being on her side of the railing. It was the purse given by Richelieu, or strictly speaking the cash for the Treasury notes which she had converted. The fat gold pieces clinked down, glittering, while the corporal, with kindled eye and trembling hand, attentively looked at Nicole and them without comprehending how they came into company.
“My dear Beausire, more than once you have wanted me to elope,” began Nicole.
“And to marry you,” added the soldier, quite enthusiastically.
“We will argue that point hereafter,” replied the girl; “at present, the main thing is to get away. Can we be off in a couple of hours?”
“In ten minutes, if you like.”
“No; I have some work to do first and a couple of hours will suit me. Take these fifty louis,” and she passed the amount between the bars; he pocketed them without counting, “and in an hour and a half be here with a coach.”
“I do not shrink: but I am fearful about you—when the money is spent you will regret the palace and—— ”
“Oh, how thoughtful you are! do not be alarmed: I am not one of the sort to become unfortunate. Have no scruples. We shall see what comes next after the fifty louis.”
She counted another fifty louis into her own purse: Beausire’s eyes became phosphorescent.
“I would jump into a blazing furnace for you,” he said.
“You are not asked to do so much,” she returned: “get the coach and in two hours we are off.”
“Agreed,” and he drew her to the rails to kiss her. “Oh, how are you going to get through the railings?”
“Stupid, I have the pass-key.”
Beausire uttered an Ah! full of admiration, and fled.
With brisk feet and thoughtful head, Nicole returned to her mistress, leaving Gilbert alone, to cogitate the questions which this interview excited. All he could guess of the puzzles was how the girl had obtained the money. This negation of his perspicacity was so goading to his natural curiosity or his acquired mistrust—have it either way—that he decided to pass the night in the open air, cold though it was, under the damp trees, to await the sequel to this scene.
A huge black cloud, coming out of the south, covered all the sky, so that beyond Versailles the sombre pall gradually lapped up all the stars which had been gleaming a while before in their azure canopy.
Nicole feared that some whim of her mistress would contravene her plan, and with that air of interest which the artful cat knew so well how to take, she said:
“I am afraid that you are not very well to-night; your eyes are red and swollen; I should think repose would do you good.”
“Do you think so? perhaps it would,” answered Andrea, without paying much heed, but extending her feet on a rug as she sat.
The girl accepted this reclining pose as a signal for her to take down her mistress’s headdress for the night; the unbuilding of a structure of ribbons, flowers and wire, which the most skillful “house-breaker” could not have demolished in an hour. Nicole was not a quarter of that time doing it.
The toilet for the night being completed, Andrea gave her orders for the coming day. The tuner was to come for her harpsichord and some books which Philip had sent to Versailles were to be fetched. Nicole tranquilly answered that if she were not roused in the night she would be up early, and would do everything before her mistress rose.
As Andrea, in her long night wrapper, was dreaming in her chair, Nicole put two drops of the draught Richelieu had given her, into the glass of drink on the night-table. Turbidfor a moment, the water took an opal tint which faded away gradually.
“Your night-drink is set out,” said the maid: “your dresses folded up and the night-light lit. As I must be up early, can I go to bed now?”
“Yes,” replied Andrea, absently.
Nicole went out and glided into the garden.
Gilbert was looking out for her as he promised himself he would do, and saw her go up to the gates where she passed the master key to Beausire, who was ready. The gate was opened and the girl slipped through. The gate was locked again and the key thrown over, where Gilbert noticed its place of falling on the sward.
He drew a long breath in relief for he was quit of Nicole, an enemy. Andrea was left alone, and he might penetrate to her room.
This idea set his blood boiling with all the fury of fear and disquiet, curiosity and desire.
But, as he placed his foot on the lowest stairs of the flight leading to Andrea’s corridor, he beheld her, garbed in white, at the top step, coming down.
So white and solemn was she that he recoiled, and buried himself in a copse.
Once before, at Taverney, he had seen her thus walking in her sleep, when she was, without his suspecting it, under the mesmeric influence of Balsamo, the Magician.
Andrea passed Gilbert, almost touched him but did not see him.
Bewildered and overwhelmed, he felt his knees crook beneath him: he was frightened.
Not knowing to what errand to ascribe this night roaming, he watched her: but his reason was confounded, and his blood beat with impetuosity in his temples, being nearer folly than the coolness which a good observer ought to possess. He viewed her as he had always done since this fatal passion had entered his heart.
All of a sudden he thought the mystery was revealed: Andrea was not wandering out of her mind, but going to keep an appointment, albeit her step was slow and sepulchral.
A lightning flash illumined the sky. By its bluish glare Gilbert caught sight of a man, hiding in the linden walk, with pale visage and clothes in disorder. He stretched out one hand towards the girl as though to beckon her to him.
Something like pincers nipped Gilbert’s heart and he half rose to see the better.
Another lightning stroke streaked the sky.
He recognized Baron Balsamo, covered with dust, who had by the aid of mysterious intelligence, entered the locked-up Trianon, and was as invincibly and fatally drawing Andrea to him as a snake may a bird. Not till within two steps of him did she stop, when he took her hand and she quivered all over her body.
“Do you see?” he asked.
“Yes,” was her reply, “but you have nearly been the death of me in bringing me out like this.”
“It cannot be helped,” returned Balsamo: “I am in a whirl, and am ready to die with the craze upon me.”
“You do indeed suffer,” said she, informed of his state by the contact of his hand alone.
“Yes, and I come to you for consolation. You alone can save me. Can you follow me—— ”
“Yes, if you conduct me with your mind.”
“Come!”
“Ah,” said Andrea, “we are in Paris—a street lit by a single lamp—we enter a house—we go up to the wall which opens to let us pass through. We are in so strange a chamber, with no doors and the windows are barred. How greatly in disorder is everything!”
“But it is empty? where is the person who was there last?”
“Give me some object of hers that I may be in touch.”
“This is a lock of her hair.”
Andrea laid the hair on her bosom.
“Oh, I know this woman, whom I have seen before—she is fleeing into the city.”
“Yes; but what was she doing these two hours before? Trace back.”
“Wait: she is lying on a sofa with a cut in the breast. She wakes from a sleep, and seeks round her. Taking a handkerchief she ties it to the window bars. Come down, poor woman! She weeps, she is in distress, she wrings her arms—ah! she is looking for a corner of the wall on which to dash out her brains. She springs towards the chimney-place where two lion heads in marble are embossed. On one of them she would beat out her brains when she sees a spot of blood on the lion’s eye. Blood, and yet she had not struck it?”
“It is mine,” said the mesmerist.
“Yes, yours. You cut your fingers with a dagger, the dagger with which she stabbed herself and you tried to get it away from her. Your bleeding fingers pressed the lion’s head.”
“It is true: how did she get out?”
“I see her examine the blood, reflect, and then lay her finger where yours was pressed. Oh, the lion’s head gives way—it is a spring which works: the chimney-plate opens.”
“Cursed imprudence of mine,” groaned the conspirator: “unhappy madman! I have betrayed myself through love. But she has gone out and flees?”
“The poor thing must be pardoned, she is so distressed.”
“Whither goes she, Andrea? follow, follow, I will it!”
“She stops in a room where are armor and furs: a safe is open but a casket usually kept in it is now on a table: she knows it again. She takes it.”
“What is in it?”
“Your papers. It is covered with blue velvet and studded with silver, the lock and bands are of the same metal.”
“Ha! was it she took the casket?” cried Balsamo, stamping his foot.
“Yes, she. Going down the stairs to the anteroom, she opens the door, draws the chain undoing the street door and is out in the street.”
“It is late?”
“It is nighttime. Once out, she runs like a mad thing up on the main street towards the Bastile. She knocks up against passengers and questions.”
“Lose not a word—what does she say?”
“She asks a man clad in black where she can find the Chief of Police.”
“So it was not a vain threat of hers. What does she do?”
“Having the address, she retraces her steps to cross a large square—— ”
“Royale Place—it is the right road. Read her intention.”
“Run, run quick! she is going to denounce you—if she arrives at Criminal Lieutenant Sartine’ before you, you are lost!”
Balsamo uttered a terrible yell, sprang into the hedges, burst a small door, and got upon the open ground. There an Arab horse was waiting, on which he leaped at a bound. It started off like an arrow towards Paris.
Andrea stood mute, pale, and cold. But as though the magnetiser carried life away with him, she collapsed and fell. In his eagerness to overtake Lorenza, Balsamo had forgotten to arouse Andrea from the mesmeric sleep.
She had barely touched the ground before Gilbert leaped out with the vigor and agility of the tiger. He seized her in his arms and without feeling what a burden he had undertaken, he carried her back to the room which she had left on the call of Balsamo.
All the doors had been left open by the girl, and the candle was still burning.
As he stumbled against the sofa when he blundered in, he naturally placed her upon it. All became enfevered in him, though the lifeless body was cold. His nerves shivered and his blood burned.
Yet his first idea was pure and chaste: it was to restore consciousness to this beautiful statue. He sprinkled her face with water from the decanter.
But at this period, as his trembling hand was encircling the narrow neck of the crystal bottle, he heard a firm but light step make the stairs of wood and brick squeak on the way to the chamber.
It could not be Nicole who was on the way with Beausire or Balsamo who was galloping to Paris.
Whoever it was, Gilbert would be caught and expelled from the palace.
He fully comprehended that he was out of his place here.He blew out the candle and dashed into Nicole’s room, timing his movement as the thunder boomed in the heavens.
Through its glazed door he could see into the room he quitted and the anteroom.
In this latter burnt a night-light on a small table. Gilbert would have put that out also if he had time, but the steps creaked now on the landing. A man appeared on the sill, timidly glided through the antechamber, and shut the door which he bolted.
Gilbert held his breath, glued his face to the glass and listened with all his might.
The storm growled solemnly in the skies, large raindrops spattered on the windows, and in the corridor, an unfastened shutter banged sinisterly against the wall from time to time.
But the tumult of nature, these exterior sounds, however alarming, were nothing to Gilbert: all his thought, mind and being were concentrated in his gaze, fastened on this man.
Passing within two paces, this intruder walked into the other room. Gilbert saw him grope his way up to the bed, and make a gesture of surprise at finding it untenanted. He almost knocked the candle off the table with his elbow; but it fell on the table where the glass save-all jingled on the marble top.
“Nicole,” the stranger called twice, in a guarded voice.
“Why, Nicole?” muttered Gilbert. “Why does this man call on Nicole when he ought to address her mistress?”
No voice replying, the man picked up the candle and went on tiptoe to light it at the night-lamp.
Then it was that Gilbert’s attention was so concentrated on this strange night visitor that his eyes would have pierced a wall.
Suddenly he started and drew back a step although he was in concealment.
By the light of the two flames he had recognized in the man holding the candle—the King! All was clear to him: the flight of Nicole, the money counted down between her and Beausire, and all the dark plot of Richelieu and Taverney of which Andrea was the object.
He understood why the King should call upon Nicole, the complaisant female Judas who had sold her mistress.
At the thought of what the royal villain had come to commit in this room, the blood rushing to the young man’s head blinded him.
He meant to call out; but the reflection that this was the Lord’s anointed, the being still full of awe as the King of France—that froze the tongue of Gilbert to his mouth-roof.
Meanwhile, Louis XV. entered the room once more, bearing the light. He perceived Andrea, in the white muslin wrapper, with her head thrown back on the sofa pillow, with one foot on another cushion and the other, cold and stiff, out of the slipper, on the carpet.
At this sight the King smiled. The candle lit up this evil smile; but almost instantly a smile as sinister lighted up Andrea’s face.
Louis uttered some words, probably of love; and placing the light on the table, he cast a glance out at the enflamed sky, before kneeling to the girl, whose hand he kissed.
This was so chilly that he took it between both his to warm it, and with his other arm enclasping the soft and so beautiful body, he bent over to murmur some of the loving nonsense fitted for sleeping maids. His face was so close to hers that it touched it.
Gilbert felt in his pocket for a knife with a long blade which he used in pruning trees.
The face was as cold as the hand, which made the royal lover rise; his eyes wandered to the Cinderella foot, which he took hold of—it was as cold as the hand and the cheek. He shuddered for all seemed a marble statue.
Gilbert gritted his teeth and opened the knife, as he beheld so much beauty and regarded the royal threat as a robbery intended on him.
But the King dropped the foot as he had the hand. Surprised at the sleep which he had thought to be feigned in prudery by a coquet, he prepared to learn the nature of this insensibility.
Gilbert crept half way out of the doorway, with set teeth, glittering eye and the knife bared in his grip to stab the King.
Suddenly a frightful flash of lightning lit up Andrea’s face with a vivid glare of violet and sulphur light while the thunder made every article of furniture dance in the room. Frightened by her pallor, immobility and silence, Louis XV. recoiled, muttering:
“Truly the girl is dead!”
The idea of having wooed a corpse sent a shudder through his veins. He took up the candle and looked at Andrea by its flickering flame. Seeing the brown-circled eyes, the violet lips, the disheveled tresses, the throat which no breath raised, he uttered a shriek, let the candlestick fall, and staggered out through the antechamber like a drunken man, knocking against the wainscotting in his alarm.
Knife still in hand, Gilbert came out of his covert. He advanced to the room door and for a space contemplated the lovely young maid still in the profound sleep.
The candle smouldering on the floor lit up the delicate foot and the pure lines above it of the adorable creature.
Gilbert trod on the wick and in sudden obscurity was blotted out the dreadful smile which was curling his lips.
“Andrea,” he muttered, “I swore that you should not escape me the third time that you fell into my hands as you did the other two. Andrea, a terrible end was needed to the romance which you mocked at me for composing!”
With extended arms he walked towards the sofa where the girl was still cold, motionless and deprived of all feeling.
THEmesmerist had galloped on the barb through Versailles in a few seconds and a league on the road to Paris when an idea came as comfort in the midst of his misery at the fear that all he did would be too late. He saw his brothers of the secret society at the mercy of his foes, and the woman who caused all this, through his infatuation for her, going free.
“Oh, if ever she returns into my power—— ”
He made a desperate gesture, as he pulled up the splendid horse short on its haunches.
“Let me see,” he said, frowning, “is silence a word or a fact? can it do or not do? let me try my will, again. Lorenza,” he said while making the passes to throw the magnetic fluid to a distance, “Lorenza, sleep, I will it! Wherever you are, sleep, I will it, and rely upon it. Cleave the air, oh, my supreme will! cross all the currents antipathetic or indifferent; go through the walls like a cannonball; strike her and annihilate her will. Lorenza, I will have you sleep—I will have you mute!”
After this mighty effort of animal magnetism, he resumed the race, but used neither whip nor spur and gave the Arab rein.
It appeared as if he wanted to make himself believe in the potency of the spell he exercised.
While he was apparently peacefully proceeding, he was framing a plan of action. It was finished as he reached the paving stones of Sevres. He stopped at the Park gates as if he expected somebody. Almost instantly a man emerged from a coach-doorway and came to him.
It was his German attendant Fritz.
“Have you gathered information?” asked the master.
“Yes, Lady Dubarry is in Paris.”
Balsamo raised a triumphant glance to heaven.
“How did you come?”
“On Sultan, now ready saddled in the inn stables here.”
He went for the horse and came back on its back.
Balsamo was writing under the lantern of the town tax-gatherer’s office door with a pen which was self-fed with ink.
“Ride back to town with this note,” said he, “to be given to Lady Dubarry herself. Do it in half an hour. Then get home to St. Claude street, where you will await Signora Lorenza, who will soon be coming home. Let her pass without staying her or saying anything.”
At the same time he said “He would!” Fritz laid spur and whip on Sultan, who sprang off, astonished at this unaccustomed aggression, with a painful neigh.
Balsamo rode on by the Paris Road, entering the capital inthree quarters of an hour, almost smooth of face and calm in eye—if not a little thoughtful.
The mesmerist had reasoned correctly: as rapid as Dejerrid the steed might be, it was not as swift as the will, and that alone could outstrip Lorenza escaped from her prison-house.
As Andrea—the other medium had clearly seen, the vengeful Italian had found her way to the residence of Lieutenant Sartines.
Questioned by an usher, she replied merely by these words:
“Are you Lord Sartines?”
The servant was surprised that this young and lovely woman, richly clothed and carrying a velvet-covered casket under her arm, should confuse his black coat and steel chain of office with the embroidered coat and perriwig of the Lieutenant of Police, though a foreigner. But as a lieutenant is never offended at being called a captain, and as the speaker’s eye was too steady and assured to be a lunatic’s, he was convinced that she brought something of value in the casket and showed her into the secretaries.
The upshot of all was that she was allowed to see the Minister of Police.
He sat in an octagonal room, lighted by a number of candles.
Sartines was a man of fifty, in a dressing gown, and enormous wig, limp with curling and powder; he sat before a desk with looking-glass panels enabling him to see any one coming into the study without having to turn and study their faces before arranging his own.
The lower part of the desk formed a secretary where were kept in drawers his papers and those in cipher which could not be read even after his death, unless in some still more secret drawer were found the key to the cipher. This piece of mechanism was built expressly for the Regent Duke of Orleans to keep his poisons in, and it came to Sartines from his Prime Minister Cardinal Dubois per the late Chief of Police. Rumor had it that it contained the famous contract called the “Compact of Famine,” the statutes of the Great Grain Ring among the directors of which figured Louis XV.
So the Police Chief saw in this mirror the pale and seriousface of Lorenza as she advanced with the casket under her arm.
“Who are you—what do you want?” he challenged without looking round.
“Am I in the presence of Lord Sartines, Head of the Police?”
“Yes,” he curtly answered.
“What proof have I of that?” she asked.
This made him turn round.
“Will it be good proof if I send you to prison?”
She did not reply but looked round for the seat which she expected to be offered her by right, as to any lady of her country. He was vanquished by that single look for Count Alby de Sartines was a well-bred gentleman.
“Take a chair,” he said brusquely.
Lorenza drew an armchair to her and sat down.
“Speak quick,” said the magistrate; “what do you want?”
“To place myself under your protection,” answered Lorenza.
“Ho, ho,” said he with a jeering look, peculiar to him.
“My lord, I have been abducted from my family and forced into a clandestine marriage by a man who has been ill-using me during three years and would be my death.”
He looked at the noble countenance and was moved by the voice so sweet that it seemed to sing.
“Where do you come from?” he asked.
“I am a Roman and my name is Lorenza Feliciani.”
“Are you a lady of rank, for I do not know the name?”
“I am a lady and I crave justice on the man who has incarcerated and sequestrated me.”
“This is not in my province, since you say you are his wife.”
“But the marriage was performed while I was asleep.”
“Plague on it! you must enjoy sound sleep! I mean to say that this is not in my way. Apply to a lawyer, for I never care to meddle in these matrimonial squabbles.” He waved his hand as much as to say “Be off!” but she did not stir.
“I have not finished;” she said “you will understand that I have not come here to speak of frivolities, but to haverevenge. The women of my country revenge and do not go to law.”
“This is different,” said Sartines: “but have despatch for my time is dear.”
“I told you that I come for protection against my oppressor. Can I have it?”
“Is he so powerful?”
“More so than any King.”
“Pray, explain, my dear lady: why should I accord you my protection against a man according to your statement more powerful than a king, for a deed which may not be a crime. If you want to be revenged, take revenge, only do not bring yourself under our laws; if you do a misdeed it will be you whom I must arrest. Then we shall see all about it. That is the bargain.”
“No, my lord, you will not arrest me, for my revenge is of great utility to you, the King and France. I revenge myself by revealing the secrets of this monster.”
“Ha, this man has secrets,” said Sartines interested perforce.
“Great political secrets, my lord. But will you shield me?”
“What kind of shield?” coldly asked the magistrate; “silver or official?”
“I want to enter a convent, to live buried there, forgotten. I want a living tomb which will never be violated by any one.”
“You are not asking much. You shall have the convent. Speak!”
“As I have your word, take this casket,” said Lorenza; “it contains mysteries which will make you tremble for the safety of the sovereign and the realm. I know them but superficially but they exist, and are terrible.”
“Political mysteries, you say?”
“Have you ever heard of the great secret society?”
“The Freemasons?”
“These are the Invisibles.”
“Yes; I do not believe in them, though.”
“When you open this box, you will.”
“Let us look into it then,” he said, taking the casket from her; but, reflecting, he placed it on his desk. “No, I wouldrather you opened it yourself,” he added with distrust.
“I have not the key,” she replied.
“Not got the key? you bring me a box containing the fate of an empire and you forget the key?”
“Is it so hard to open a lock?”
“Not when one knows the sort it is.”
He held out to her a bunch of keys in every shape. As she took it, he noticed that her hand was cold as stone.
“Why did you not bring the key with you?” he asked.
“Because the master of the casket never lets it go from him.”
“This is the man more powerful than the King?”
“Nobody can tell what he is; eternity alone knows how long he has lived. None but the God above can see the deeds he commits.”
“But his name, his name?’
“He has changed it to my knowledge a dozen times—I knew him as Acharat.”
“And he lives—— ”
“Saint—— ”
Suddenly Lorenza started, shuddered, let the casket and the keys fall from her hands. She made an effort to speak, but her mouth only was contorted in a painful convulsion; she clapped her hands to her throat as if the words about to issue were stopped and choked her. Then, lifting her arms to heaven, trembling and unable to articulate a word, she fell full length on the carpet.
“Poor dear!” muttered Sartines: “but what the devil is the matter with her? she is really very pretty. There is some jealousy in this talk of revenge.”
He rang for the servants while he lifted up the Italian, who seemed with her astonished eyes and motionless lips, to be dead and far detached from this world.
“Carry out this lady with care,” he commanded to the two valets; “and leave her in the next room. Try to bring her to, but mind, no roughness. Go!”
Left alone, Sartines examined the box like a man who could value fully the discovery. He tried the keys until convinced that the lock was only a sham. Thereupon with a cold chisel he cut it off bodily. Instead of the fulminating powder or thepoison which he perhaps expected, to deprive France of her most important magistrate, a packet of papers bounded up.
The first words which started up before his eyes were the following, traced in a disguised hand:
“It is time for the Grand Master to drop the name of Baron Balsamo.”
There was no signature other than the three letters “L. P. D.”
“Aha,” said the head of police, “though I do not know this writing I believe I know this name. Balsamo—let us look among the B’s.”
Opening one of the twenty-four drawers of the famous desk, he took out a little register on which was written in fine writing three or four hundred names, preceded, accompanied or followed by flourishes of the pen.
“Whew! we have a lot about this busy B,” he muttered.
He read several pages with non-equivocal tokens of discontent.
He replaced the register in the drawer to go on with inventorying the contents of the packet. He did not go far without being deeply impressed. Soon he came to a note full of names with the text in cipher. This appeared important to him; the edges were worn with fingering and pencil marks were made on the margin.
Sartines rang a bell for a servant to whom he said:
“Bring me the Chancellor’s cryptographist at once, going through the offices to gain time.”
Two minutes subsequently, a clerk presented himself, with pen in hand, his hat under one arm, and a large book under the other. Seeing him in the mirror, Sartines held out the paper to him over his shoulders, saying:
“Decipher that.”
This unriddler of secret writing was a little thin man, with puckered up lips, brows bent by searching study; his pale face was pointed up and down, and the chin quite sharp, while the deep moony eyes became bright at times.
Sartines called him his Ferret.
Ferret sat down modestly on a stool, drew his knees close together to be a table to write upon, and wrote, consulting hismemory and his lexicon with an impassible face. In five minutes time he had written:
“Order to gather 3000 Brothers in Paris.
“Order to compose three circles and six lodges.
“Order to select a guard for the Grand Copt, and to provide four residences for him, one to be in a royal domicile.
“Order to set aside five hundred thousand francs for his police department.
“Order to enroll in the first Parisian lodge all the cream of literature and philosophy.
“Order to bribe or in some way get a hold on the magistracy, and particularly make sure of the Chief of Police, by bribery, violence or trickery.”
Ferret stopped at this passage, not because the poor man reflected but because he had to wait for the page to dry before he could turn over.
Sartines, being impatient, snatched the sheet from his knees and read it. Such an expression of terror spread over his features at the final paragraph, that it made him turn pale to see himself in the glass. He did not hand this sheet back to the clerk but passed him a clean one.
The man went on with his work, accomplishing it with the amazing rapidity of decipherers when once they hold the key.
Sartines now read over his shoulder.
“Drop the name of Balsamo beginning to be too well known, to take that of Count Fe—— ”
A blot of ink eclipsed the rest of the name.
At the very time when the Police Chief was seeking the absent letters, the out-door bell rang and a servant came in to announce:
“His Lordship, Count Fenix!”
Sartines uttered an outcry, and clasped his hands above his wig at risk of demolishing that wonderful structure. He hastened to dismiss the writer by a side door, while, taking his place at his desk, he bade the usher show in the visitor.
In his mirror, a few seconds after, Sartines saw the stern profile of the count as he had seen him on the day when Lady Dubarry was presented at court.
Balsamo-Fenix entered without any hesitation whatever.
Sartines rose, made a cold bow, and sat himself ceremoniously down again, crossing his legs.
At the first glance he had seen what was the object of this interview. At a glance also Balsamo had seen the opened casket on the desk. His glance, however fleeting, had not escaped the magistrate.
“To what chance do I owe this visit, my lord?” inquired the Chief of Police.
“My Lord,” returned Balsamo with a smile full of amenity, “I have found introducers to all the sovereigns of Europe, all their ministers and ambassadors: but none to present me to your lordship; so I have presented myself.”
“You arrive most timely, my lord,” replied Sartines: “For I am inclined to think that if you had not called I should have had to send for you.”
“Indeed—how nicely this chimes in.”
Sartines bowed with a satirical smile.
“Am I happy enough to be useful to your lordship?” queried Balsamo.
These words were pronounced without a shade of emotion or disquiet clouding the smiling brow.
“You have travelled a good deal, count,” said the Police Chief.
“A great deal! I suppose you want for some geographical items. A man of your capacity is not cramped up in France but must embrace Europe and the world—— ”
“Not geographical, my lord, but personal—— ”
“Do not restrict yourself; in both, I am at your orders.”
“Well, count, just imagine that I am looking after a very dangerous man, in faith, who seems to be an atheist, conspirator, forger, adulterer, coiner, charlatan, and chief of a secret league; whose history I have on my records and in this casket, which your lordship sees.”
“I understand,” said Balsamo; “you have the story but not the man. Hang it, that seems to me the more important matter.”
“No doubt: but you will see presently how near he is to our hand. Certainly, Proct Proteon Proteus had not moreshapes, Jupiter more names: Acharat in Egypt, Balsamo in Italy, Somini in Sardinia, the Marquis of Anna in Malta, Marquis Pellegrini in Corsica, and lastly, Count Fe—this last name I have not been able to make out; but I am almost sure that you will help me to it for you must have met this man in the course of your travels in the countries I have mentioned. I suppose, though, you would want some kind of description?”