His sword in hand, he lifted with the other the heavy brocade that curtained off the passage from the hall, and, observing carefully the portion of it that was outside the great splash made by the moonbeams, went on through the deepest shadow towards the lowest stair. Then, keeping to the side of those stairs that was itself free of the rays, he mounted to the first floor.
"Now," he thought, "we are near close quarters, if it be not the wind that has played at tricks with me. Above this floor is nought but the servitors' quarters; short of being driven up by fear, Francbois will not attempt them."
At this moment Bevill saw that, suddenly, the great patch of moonlight below was fading, and also that the light was obscured on the side of the house that a moment before had been touched by it. Glancing up through the roof-window, he observed the rim of a dense black cloud passing beneath the moon.
"The house will be in utter darkness again ere long," he said to himself. "Ah, well! if I cannot thereby find my enemy, at least he cannot see me. And I can return and wait for him at the door I have but now made fast, if I find him not up here. There, he will not foil me."
As thus Bevill mused a step fell on his ear--a soft footfall, almost a shuffling, halting one--a step that, in its creeping oncoming, caused even creepiness to one so brave as he--a footfall that seemed ghostly in its lagging progress towards where he stood. Yet, as the sound of it approached nearer and nearer, he knew that, for the present, it was not to his interest to obstruct whoever it might be that drew near, but rather to watch, to follow, and at last bring to bay this nocturnal intruder.
The night itself aided him even as he drew back against the wall, for now the darkness was profound and, also, the rain beat down pitilessly on the great window; while the wind, risen once more, was again howling round the Weiss Haus. But ever still he heard--or did he feel?--that footfall drawing stealthily nearer and nearer to him.
At last Bevill heard something also--something he could not understand, something the meaning of which he could in no wise comprehend.
He heard a sliding noise upon the wall in a line with the spot where his face reached, and he fancied that it was varied now and again by something else which sounded like the light touch of fingers tapping on that wall.
"Whoe'er it is," he said to himself, suddenly recognising what that scraping sound, interrupted by an occasional touch on the wall, was, "he feels his way carefully. Let me be ready to greet him--ah!" he ejaculated, lunging out straight before him with his sword, though piercing nothing. "Ah!"
Fingers had passed across his face: an instant later something long and hairy had swept across his left hand, even as he lunged with his right: still a moment later the sound of a figure springing down the wide staircase fell on his ears; and, ere another moment had elapsed, he was springing after it.
But, even as he did go, he muttered to himself:
"This is not Francbois! He had no beard. Who, then, is it? Ah! Sparmann perchance!"
Some hours after the morning had broken grey and desolate, but with still a promise in the heavens that the storms of the night were past, Bevill Bracton arose from the great lounge in the hall on which he had laid himself down and on which he had been enabled to snatch some broken rest. For it was six o'clock ere he had deemed it prudent to attempt this, and he had not even then done so until he had satisfied himself that, whosoever the man might be whose hand had passed across his face and whose beard had swept over his disengaged hand, he was not present in the house now.
While, however, discovering this to be the case, he had made discovery of something else. He had found signs that this man had not been the only visitor to the Weiss Haus beside himself, but that there had been another. Also, he had arrived at the conclusion that each of the men had come here on some secret purpose unknown to the other, and that they had met in the dark and had fought with each other. What that purpose was might not be hard to discover, he thought, yet, even so, he could not resolve why, if both of these intruders were his enemies, they should have come into deadly contact with each other. But that this had been the case there was no room left for doubt.
After chasing down the great staircase the form of the man whose hand had crept over his face, he had, notwithstanding the fact of his having locked the door at the end of the lone passage, missed his quarry. In the darkness of the night that quarry had evaded him; in the coming of the dawn he knew that it had done so effectively. He made sure, in the grim light of the dayspring, that the house was absolutely empty of all human existence except his own, doing so by going into every apartment, large and small, that it contained.
Observing carefully the direction from which the man came, looking to see if his fingers had left any marks on the wall along which he had felt his way in the dark, regarding the sides of the passage that ran round the balcony over the hall, Bevill discovered some signs of that man's advance towards him. He saw that, before this midnight wanderer through the house had drawn close to him, he had come from the farther or northern part of it. He perceived, also, at twenty paces from the spot where he himself had stood listening to the approach of his footfall, a shred, a wisp, of black ribbon lying on the floor. Stooping to look at this, while doubting for the moment if it might not have been some ribbon that had fallen from Sylvia's black robe ere she quitted the Weiss Haus some ten days before, he understood that such was not the case. The piece of ribbon had at its end a little tag, showing that it came from some "point" or aglet of a man's dress, worn either at his wrist or knee. He noticed, too, that it was clean cut as though with a knife or other sharp weapon; while, picking it up, he discovered that it was damp and that the dampness left a red stain on the finger and thumb between which he held it.
Then Bevill understood.
"It is from the man's sleeve-point," he said to himself. "Another man's rapier has cut it asunder ere transfixing his arm. There has, indeed, been an encounter in this house."
Going still farther down the passage, he came to an open room, a little apartment that was more an alcove than a room in actual fact. Here there was no longer a possibility of doubt left as to what had taken place. A table of quaint Eastern make was half overturned and leant against a wall, two chairs were entirely so, a man's hat lay on the floor, and the carpet was splashed with blood. Also the window was open to the balcony, and against the balcony there stood a ladder reaching to it from the path below.
p699"A man's hat lay on thefloor."--p. 699.]
"So, so!" Bevill said to himself, interpreting these signs easily enough. "The one was here, the other came and found him, and--they fought. Yet, it may be, each thought the other someone else and thought me that someone. Whom else should they seek? 'Tis very well. I have been shrewdly watched. Yet who werethey?Is that far to discover? There can be but two in this land who thrust against my life and security--the one whose grudge is undying, the other who deems me his rival."
He took up now the hat lying on the floor, and, in the dim light of the rain-soaked dawn, turned it over and regarded the lining to see if that might tell him aught. Unhappily, however, it told him nothing. The day had not yet come for hat-makers to stamp their names inside their wares, and there was no private mark to testify to whom this hat belonged.
"'Tis but a poor, common thing," Bevill mused, regarding the coarse felt, the tawdry galloon and rough lining. "Doubtless 'tis Sparmann's. Francbois apparels himself bravely; he would not wear such headgear as this."
Still continuing his reflections, Bevill arrived at all, or almost all, that had happened. He concluded that in the darkness, and also in the noise of the storm, each of these men had decided thathewas the other man. Doubtless, therefore, Francbois considered he had thrust his rival from out his path; perhaps, indeed, thought he had killed him, while Sparmann, being wounded, probably deemed that his old enemy had again defeated him, and so would decide to try no more conclusions with such an invincible foe.
"Wherefore," said Bevill, "I shall be safer here to-night than last; neither victor nor vanquished will come again to molest me. Yet how has Sparmann escaped from out the house?" while, glancing next at the balcony and the head of the ladder resting against it, he added, "How the other both came and went when his work was done is easy enough to see."
Determined, nevertheless, to discover the method of Sparmann's evasion, he returned to the spot where he who was undoubtedly Sparmann had passed him, and whence he had sprung down the staircase. Arrived at this point, he saw that a sign, a clue, was ready to his eyes.
In the now almost broad daylight, though a daylight still somewhat retarded by the rain-charged clouds rolling away, he perceived that on the white marble foot of the stairway there was a blood-stain and still another to the left of it.
"To the left!" thought Bevill; "and the door I locked fast is to the right! 'Twas to that I returned. No great wonder that I lost him."
And now all became as clear as noontide.
"Doubtless when he came in he would leave the door open behind him," Bevill pondered, even as he proceeded to the left of the staircase, "thinking I was already in the house. Learning that he had not one but two enemies to contend with, he may have feared to return the way he came, not knowing but that a fourth might be awaiting him at the entrance. Has he found an exit to the left, or has he dropped dead before he did so? Here's to discover."
After which Bevill proceeded down the corridor on the left, which was a similar one to that on the right, though leading towards aplaisancewhich he and Sylvia had one day visited when the sun was on the other side of the house. But the door opening on to this was fast locked and bolted; whoever the man was who had escaped from him he had not done so that way.
Nevertheless, the mansion was empty of any other living creature than himself, as now he made sure of by visiting every room and cupboard that was open in the house. He could swear there was no human being but himself within it, and, thus resolved, lay down upon the lounge and slept--uneasily, as has been said.
He had slept all the same, and so awoke refreshed, while noticing that the ancient clock in the hall pointed to noon. To noon! And he remembered he had not gone near La Rose since he discovered that the place was deserted of its recent visitors. Chiding, reproaching himself for this neglect--above all, for seeking rest ere going to see his most precious possession, the one by which he hoped soon to put a long distance between himself and Liége when once Sylvia and the Comtesse were ready to set out with him, he now left the house by the door on the right and went toward the stable. As he put the key in the door while calling to the mare, his ears were greeted by her usual whinnying, and, going up to her, he at once discovered that all was well. No matter who or what those men were who had been able to track him to the Weiss Haus, and to themselves obtain admission to it within a few hours of the time when he had left the "Gouden Leeuw," they either had not known his steed was with him, or, had they done so and desired to harm her, had found no opportunity for harm. In that respect all was very well.
Filling La Rose's bucket for her now, and seeing that both rack and manger were still well provided with fodder, he determined to return to the house and there remain close until the evening came, at which time Sylvia had promised that she would make her way to him accompanied by Madame de Valorme. For then he was to learn what provision they had been able to make for leaving Liége, and the time when they would be prepared to depart.
Between the stables and the house itself--or, rather, between the stables and this back entrance to the house--there was a little copse of trees and shrubs which had doubtless been planted some long time ago with the intention of shutting off the view of the former from the latter, and more especially from the windows of the back rooms on the floor above, which, as Bevill had observed in his search through the house, were furnished as small sleeping apartments. Through the copse there ran a path straight to the door, one that was probably used by the stablemen and ostlers in their going to and fro, and, also, it would seem, as some little retreat in which the domestics might sit in their hours of leisure. This Bevill judged, since there was a bench built round the largest tree of all, and, also, there were some rude wooden chairs which seemed to suggest that, once, they might have occupied a more honourable position on the lawn or in the arbours of the front, but had afterwards been relegated to the back.
Walking slowly along this path when he had left La Rose, and doing so because not only did the shrubbery and trees partly shelter him from the fierce June sun, but likewise from any prying eyes that might be on the watch, Bevill stopped with a start as he drew near the bench.
For, seated on it, his bare head bent forward on his breast while his limbs presented an appearance which combined at one and the same time an extraordinary suggestion of extreme lassitude and extreme rigidity, was the figure of a man. The man's garments, even in the full noontide heat, looked as though they were soaked with wet; a man on whose breast there hung down a long, iron-grey beard.
"Who is that?" whispered Bevill, as he halted for an instant at this sight, and the next went swiftly forward. "It is Sparmann! Is he asleep--or dead?"
His closer approach determined for ever any doubts he might have entertained. One touch of his finger on the man's wrist--a wrist that was pierced through and through, and, in the sunshine that peeped through and danced on the quivering leaves, was as red as if painted--told him that he was already cold.
"Dead!" he whispered solemnly, fearfully, since, used as he had been to the sight of and acquaintance with death in his campaigns, that had at least been open death and not death dealt out in the darkness of midnight. "Dead! Yet, I thank thee, Heaven, not at my hands. But how has it come to him? How? That wound, bad as it is, would not slay, or, at least, not so soon."
Looking farther, however, at the dead man, he learnt whence his death had come. Beneath the rusty beard he saw that Sparmann's poor, common linen frills--doubtless he had been very poor of late--were all torn asunder as though in the agony of some mortal spasm, and in his chest he saw a great gaping wound that was enough to tell all.
"So," Bevill whispered as he stood there gazing on his dead foe and observing (as we so oft observe the most trivial matters in our most solemn moments) how a butterfly settled on the dead man's hand for an instant, as well as how the nether lip was caught between his teeth in some final paroxysm of pain, and how wet and soaked his poor, shabby garments were. "So this is the end of you--poor, broken soldier! Alas! whate'er your failings you were a brave man once; none knew it better than I who have crossed swords with you. Ah, well! you risked your life last night to slay me--as I must think--and lost it, though not by my hand, God be praised! Farewell. Death wipes out all bitterness."
As the young man stood before the poor, dead thing, while feeling naught but compassion for his end, there did spring to his mind the recollection that, with Sparmann gone, one of two bitter foes was swept from out his path. Yet, had he but known what a few hours were to bring forth, had he but been able to peer but a little way into the future, he would have recognised that Sparmann dead might work him even more ill than Sparmann alive and seeking to slay him in the deserted Weiss Haus in the darkness of the night.
Now, however, his thoughts turned to present things, and he was wondering, even as he still gazed on the dead man, what it was best for him to do.
If the body remained where it now was it might be probable that none would pass along this path in the copse until he and both the ladies were out of Liége and far off from it. But what if the opposite should happen? What if 'twere known that he who was being tracked by Sparmann had harboured here that night? What if---- Then, suddenly, he broke off in these cogitations, disturbed by a slow, heavy footfall that approached behind him.
Looking round to see who the advancing intruder might be, he observed old Karl coming towards him--old Karl, who, as he drew close to where the living and the dead men were, asked, "Who is he? Does he sleep, mynheer?"
"For ever," Bevill said, answering the second question first, while to the former one he made reply, "His name was Sparmann. He was a Hollander once----"
"Once, mynheer, once?" the old man's bleared, grey eyes glittering as they looked curiously into Bevill's. "Can a man be born of one land yet die the subject of its bitter foe?"
"This man did so. He sold himself to France. He was a spy of France."
"Himmel!Therefore the enemy of us, of the land that gave him birth. And yet, mynheer should be French--is French--and has slain him."
"Nay. He was slain by--another--Frenchman, as I believe."
"Here? In the garden?"
"In the house. He was my foe. He would have slain me, yet the other slew him. He, too, was foe to me, yet thinking that this one was I, took his life."
After which Bevill gave as much explanation as he considered safe to the more or less bewildered old man.
"Who was the other?" Karl asked, after he had grasped as much as Bevill cared to tell him.
"No friend of mine, I tell you; nor, which concerns you most, of the Jouffrouw."
"Ha! a traitor to his country, no friend to my young mistress. So be it. He is better dead than alive. What shall we do with him? He must not be found till you and the Jouffrouw are safely gone."
"I know not. I am no ghost believer, nor am I afeard of the dead; yet if I stay here another night or so I care not to have this man keeping his silent watch outside the house."
"Leave all to me. I have a tool-house near my cottage; to-night I will remove him there. When you and she and her friend are gone he shall have Christian burial."
"It will bring no harm to you?"
"Nay, nay. I have been a soldier. I can still wield a sword. Also, when the magistrates know of his treachery they will ask few questions. They will think 'twas I who found him in the darkened house and slew him for a robber. All will be well. But--you must go soon, very soon. That tale will only be good if told near to the hour of his death."
No matter though their conquerors lay around the city--for conquerors in one form the French and their auxiliaries were--and no matter whether their grasp would tighten more and more upon the beleaguered place, or be suddenly relieved and loosed by the English and their allies as they advanced near to Liége, the inhabitants did not cease to continue as far as might be their ordinary pursuits, and also their relaxations.
It is true, the business that they did was much curtailed: their silks and satins, spices, and other tropical wares could now no longer reach Liége either by water or land, or, having reached it, could not in many cases enter. Also, it was true, the burghers could neither feast nor drink as copiously as had once been their wont, since food was required for the investors inside and outside the city, who took care to be first served.
But some things there were that neither investment nor a reduction in rations, nor, which was the same thing, a tremendous increase in the price of all rations, could prevent them from enjoying. Such things, to wit, as their walks and promenades along the quays on either side of the river or in the public gardens and places of the city.
For which reason fathers and mothers still took their daughters out of evenings and gave them an airing, and treated them to the coffee drinking beloved of Dutch wives and maidens, while the men smoked solemnly their pipes, since the city was well provisioned with such things as coffee and tobacco, no matter how short it might fall of fresh bread and meat and fish and vegetables.
And, because the heart can ever remain light so long as the most terrible calamities have not yet befallen that can well befall, and can especially do so when the heart is young, the daughters and sons of the honest Liègois would laugh and talk and sip their coffee under the flowering acacias, while, through the eyelits of their masks, the former would cast many a glance of curiosity at those whom they were taught to hate and loathe.
For now that the city, as well as the country that lay around it, was filled with French soldiery, there would sometimes pass before their eyes handsomely accoutred mousquetaires and dragoons, or sometimes a fierce and swarthy Cravate, and sometimes a young cadet of the regiment of Royal-Condé or of the superbly decorated Garde de la Reine. And from the eyes that sparkled behind the half-masks would be shot glances that told of one of two things--or it may be of both!--namely, of hatred for the invader or of that admiration which scarlet or blue, or gold and silver lace, scarcely ever fail to extort.
Beneath the leafy branches of some acacia and ialanthus trees there sat this evening a group of four people watching all the promenaders, native and foreign, who passed before them. One, the chief of the group, was an elderly man who seemed more immersed in intricate thought than concerned in what met his eyes. By his side was a lady, herself no longer young, and, consequently, unmasked; a woman with a sweet, sad face, who might have given to any onlooker the idea that her thoughts were little enough occupied with the affairs of this world--an idea that would, perhaps, have been increased in the minds of those who should regard her by the appearance of delicate health which her face wore.
Next to her were two ladies, each masked and young, though one, if the lower and uncovered portion of the face was sufficient to judge by, was much younger than her companion. For surely the dark, chestnut hair of this latter, as it curled beneath the broad-brimmed, black-feathered hat she wore, while undisfigured by any wig or powder, belonged only to a woman in her first blush of early womanhood. So, too, must have done the tall, slight form clad outwardly in a long, dark-coloured satin cloak, and the slim hands from which the white gauntlets had been withdrawn. Also, the eyes that looked calmly through the eyelets of the mask, the sweet yet grave-set mouth beneath, and the white, smooth chin, would have told that here sat one who was young yet sedate, beautiful but grave.
As for the lady next to her, she too was grave and solemn, and, for the rest, clad much the same as her companion.
"And so," said the elderly gentleman, speaking now, though not until he had looked carefully round thebosquetin which they all sat to see that there was no one about to overhear his words, "and so you are resolved to go--both of you--and to inform your--your cavalier of your determination to-night?"
"Yes," the elder of the two masked ladies replied, "we are resolved. If for no other reason than for the one that, while we remain, he will not go himself. And, ah! he is too brave, too noble, to have his life sacrificed by us. Is it not so, Sylvia?"
"In very truth it is," the girl replied. "If he remains here he does so at imminent deadly peril to himself; and that must not be. I, at least, will not have it so."
"Nor I," said the Comtesse de Valorme.
"I do aver," Madame Van Ryk said now, with a half-smile upon her sad face, "that Mademoiselle de Scudéry and Madame de Lafayette might have drawn inspiration for one of their romances from you. And--how strange a working of chance is here! This cavalier sets forth to rescue a maiden who, in plain fact, needs no rescuer, but in her turn is forced to save the cavalier. Our Netherlanders have no romance. 'Tis pity! They should know this tale."
"Romance or no romance," Sylvia replied, "this gentleman shall throw away no chance of safety, and it rests with me to prevent him from doing so. Ah! ah!" she went on, "if evil should befall him through his hopes of succouring me how should I bear my life?"
Van Ryk shot a glance at his wife as Sylvia spoke thus--a glance that the lady well understood--then he said drily:
"At least he wins a rich reward, a rich guerdon"--and Sylvia started at the word, remembering how the Earl of Peterborough had himself used it, as well as in what sense he had used it--"in having gained your interest in his welfare."
"Should he not gain reward, does he not deserve it, remembering the interest he has testified in my welfare? And he will do so. If I should chance to stand face to face with my Lord Marlborough, he shall know how much 'Monsieur de Belleville' aspires to wear his sword for the Queen."
"And so shall he know it from me," the Comtesse said, "if I, too, find myself before this great commander."
"We go together," Sylvia said. "If I obtain the ear of his lordship so shall you."
"What must be must be," Van Ryk said. "Now, see, the twilight is at hand. Soon it will be dark. I will but call my wife's chair and send her home, and then escort you to your own house. Monsieur de Belleville will doubtless be awaiting your coming--your decision."
Half an hour later the three stood outside the wall of the Weiss Haus, by the side entrance that led past the stables and through the little copse in which, that morning, Bevill had found Sparmann seated dead.
705"Sylvia heard a soft, yetfirm footstep on the path."
Tapping on the door gently as she sought admission to her own house, Sylvia heard a soft, yet firm footstep on the path a moment later. Another instant and the door was opened, and Bevill stood before them.
Then, when they had all exchanged greetings and Sylvia had asked him how the previous night had passed, receiving for answer the information that, after the storm was over, he had been enabled to sleep, Bevill desired to know where they wished to retire to, there to confer on any plans that she and Madame de Valorme might have decided on.
"Let us remain outside," Sylvia replied, "in one of the arbours. The night is warm, and the sun to-day has dried the wet of last night. Come," she said, addressing the others, "to thebosqueton the lawn. There we can talk in comfort."
Upon which they proceeded along the path that ran through the copse--there was no silent figure now on the seat around the great tree, though Bevill could not refrain from casting one glance at the spot where it had been in the morning--and so reached the arbour the girl had spoken of.
One thing Bevill had determined on, and, in so doing, had also impressed on old Karl, and this was that no word should be uttered to Sylvia of all that had occurred in the house overnight. For he knew, or, at least, already understood, that, should she be made cognisant of these occurrences, no power on earth would prevent her from instantly deciding to set out with him from Liége, so as, thereby, to ensure, if possible, what she would believe to be his safety. Yet in doing this she might not be absolutely ensuring his safety, while, undoubtedly, she would be jeopardising her own. And he would not have that. If Sylvia desired to go, she should go with him in her train, but she should not go on his behalf. Never! He had come there to save her, not to force her to imperil herself by saving him. That must never be. While, for the rest, what mattered it to him now whether he stayed here in danger, or, if she desired it, courted additional danger by going with her? In either case he would be by her side unless disaster came; while, if it came, he would still be near to, it might be, shield and protect her, perhaps to save her. He would leave the decision in her hands, would abide by her determination. He was learning to love her--pshaw!waslearning! Nay, he did love her. Nothing should drive him from her. As she decided so it should be--short of her deciding to do aught that should part him from her.
Now that they were all seated in the arbour, Sylvia at once began to unfold her plans by saying:
"Mr. Bracton, the Comtesse and I have decided to quit Liége to-morrow night."
"Ah, yes," he answered, seeing that, beneath the stars now twinkling in the evening sky, another pair of stars, not less bright than those above, were looking into his eyes as though expectant of his reply. "Ah, yes. Yet are you well advised? Have you thought deeply on what you do? You told me but a few days past that you were safe here, being a woman."
"Safe--yes, perhaps. Yet desperately desirous of leaving this war-ridden land, of reaching my own; of imploring the assistance of the Captain-General of our forces to put me in the way of doing so. Also, I desire to snatch the chance of travelling with Madame de Valorme, who is herself resolved to implore Lord Marlborough to--to--ah! you know what her desires are."
"As all know here," the Comtesse said. "There is no need for silence. England has promised help to us poor Protestants in Languedoc, and, for the help that England can give, Lord Marlborough alone can decide. Today, he stands here as England, he is England; he is the one foe whom Louis fears, the one who may bring Louis to his demands. And the time is now. Environed east and west and north and south by his enemies, England's help given in the Cevennes may free us from our sufferings; may enable us at last to worship God in our own way, as his grandsire allowed our people to do. I must see Marlborough. I must! I must!"
"Being resolved," Bevill said, "doubtless your plans for leaving Liége are decided on. How have you determined to quit the city?"
"For our purpose," Sylvia answered, "we are all French. You are M. de Belleville, Madame is truly the Comtesse de Valorme, I am her maid."
"Yet her actual maid is old," Bevill said.
"They will not know that at the gate."
"'Tis best," Van Ryk said now, speaking for the first time, while remarking that the wind was rising and rustling the leaves behind the arbour, "that you leave at a fixed time. The east gate is the last left open, but even for the French themselves that is closed to them and all and every as the clock from St. Lambert's strikes eleven, after which none can enter or pass out. It will be well, therefore, that you should meet the ladies," he continued, addressing Bevill, "ere they reach the gate. If chance is with you all you should be outside in safety ere the hour has struck."
"Where and when shall it be?" Bevill asked.
"By the Prince's palace at ten of the night. Then are our townsmen in their houses and shortly after in their beds, and the streets are therefore well-nigh deserted. Also our invaders," he went on bitterly, "are all called in at sunset, the town is quiet. Beyond your questioning at the gate there will be naught to impede you."
"Is it agreed on?" Sylvia asked of Bevill.
"As you command," he answered, "it shall be. At ten of the night to-morrow I shall be outside the Prince's palace or no longer alive."
"Ah!" exclaimed Sylvia, shuddering at the very thought of Bevill's being no longer in existence twenty-four hours hence. "Never speak nor dream of it. If I thought there was danger of such horrors would I quit Liége?"
An instant after Bevill had spoken he knew that his words were ill-timed. He recognised that to alarm Sylvia at this moment--the moment when she had decided to set out on the road to England--was madness. Madness, because he knew--he could not help but know--that after the episodes of the last night in the now gloomy and deserted Weiss Haus his own life was in serious danger; not from any violence that Francbois might attempt against him--that, he doubted not, he could meet and overthrow--but from his treachery. And though, soldier-like, he thought but little of his life and was willing to freely set it against the prize that success and increase of honour would bring, he was not willing to set it against the sweet, new-born hopes that had sprung to his heart; against the desire to win this beautiful and stately woman for his wife.
"Yet," he mused, even as he heard Van Ryk telling her how he charged himself henceforth with all care of her property and affairs; how, in truth, he would regard himself as her steward and agent in Liége until brighter days should dawn, "yet, if I am betrayed, if I die here, I lose more than my life, more than that life is worth; while she--ah! no--I may not dream nor hope as yet to win what I desire. Though still--still I fain would hope that this life of mine may grow precious to her--that she would as little part from me as I from her. If it should be so! If it should!"
They had all risen now, and were once more making their way towards the thicket by the stables, Mynheer Van Ryk walking with Madame de Valorme and Bevill by Sylvia's side; and as they went, he said to her:
"There is one fear within my heart, one dread that I would have allayed. May I ask a question, hoping to receive an answer to it from you?"
"Ask," Sylvia replied, looking at him in the starlight, while, since she herself was tall, her eyes were not so far from his but that he could gaze easily into them.
"You do not set out upon this journey, do not leave Liége on my account alone!" he said now. "I could not bear to deem that you are going on a perilous journey--for perilous it may be--only to ensure the safety of one who, perhaps foolishly then, placed himself in a position of which there was no need."
"Then--And now?" Sylvia murmured.
"But who now regards the enterprise he undertook as--it may well be so--the happiest, the best determination he ever embarked upon. Ah! answer me, Sylvia."
"I set out to-morrow night," the girl replied, "because I fain would quit Liége--because I would be gone from out of it at once. The place thrusts against my desires, my wishes--ay, all my hopes of--happiness--to come. Ask me no more since I have answered you. Farewell," holding out her slim, white hand to him. "Farewell until to-morrow night. You will not fail, I know."
"I shall never fail you. Farewell. Goodnight."
The next night was already very quiet, although it still wanted some time ere ten should strike from St. Lambert's and all the other clocks of the city.
Van Ryk had spoken truly when he said that by this time most of the Liégois were in their homes, though some who had not yet retired to them were on the various bridges over the streams running through the city from the Meuse. For the night had grown almost insufferably hot, and the interiors of many of the houses, which were built of timber and stood in narrow, stuffy streets, were not inviting. Also, some few were strolling about or seated on the quays.
Outside the Prince's palace--which was that of the Prince-Bishop--there were, however, scarcely any persons about, and those only beggars, who sometimes at night crept into the outer cloisters to sleep.
In the darkest shadow cast by these cloisters Bevill Bracton sat on La Rose's back while endeavouring to keep her as quiet as was possible, though no efforts could prevent her from pawing the earth, or shaking her bridoon, or snorting impatiently.
His dress, in which at one time he had thought of making some alteration, he had, however, left as it was, since it was neither too handsome nor too conspicuous for a secretary of legation on his travels with a French lady of rank who, if necessity should call for such a declaration, would state that they were family connections.
He had arrived at this spot and taken up the position he now occupied some quarter of an hour ago, and during that time, while casting searching glances to right and left of him to see if there were as yet any signs of the approach of Madame de Valorme's carriage, his mind had been much occupied with all that had transpired since Mynheer Van Ryk had escorted the two ladies to the Weiss Haus.
Yet strange as had been one, or, at least, two, occurrences during the past twenty-four hours, another matter, the recollection of one other incident, dominated his mind more than aught else--the recollection that the last words Sylvia uttered had been almost an avowal of her regard--he dared not yet tell himself that it was an avowal of her love--for him.
"Her voice, her tone, her anxiety to depart from Liége," he had said to himself a hundred times since he parted from the girl, "scarce leaves me room to doubt her sentiments for me, while throwing open the door of a vast, a supreme hope. Ah, if it is so! If, when once we are free of this place, I may dare to speak, and, in speaking, win the reply I fain would receive, what happiness will be mine! With Sylvia for my love, my promised wife; with her safe in England, what may I not undertake in the future? Once more a soldier, as I hope to be, may I not follow where duty summons me, knowing that, if it pleases Providence to spare my life, it will be to find Sylvia awaiting me and ready to fulfil her promise to be my wife when I return."
As he had thought thus during the past hours so he thought again while, statue-like, he sat his steed in the deepest shadows of the palace cloisters and waited to hear the tread of the Comtesse's horses approaching, or to see the carriage emerging from one of the narrow streets that led into the great open space around the palace.
Still, however, he had those other things to occupy his mind--strange things that, had it not been for the overmastering thoughts of the woman he had learnt to love--the woman who, he dared to hope, had either come or was coming to love him--would have never left his mind. Things, occurrences, that now cast a strangely different light on all that had happened during the storm of the first night in the Weiss Haus, and that had raised oft-recurring doubts as to whether he had accurately understood all that had taken place in the darkness of that night.
When Sylvia and the Comtesse de Valorme had departed with Mynheer Van Ryk, Bevill--partly attracted by the beauty of the evening and partly because it was still early, and perhaps, also, because he knew full well that, after Sylvia's last words to him, there would be little likelihood of his sleeping at present--determined to remain outside the mansion for some time before attempting to obtain any rest.
Naturally--as, maybe, needs no telling--his steps were unconsciously directed back to the arbour in which their late conversation had taken place, and, as he approached the spot, the calm tranquillity of the night, the entire absence of the lightest breeze, forced itself upon his attention. Even, however, as this took place he recalled how Van Ryk had said that the wind was rising and rustling the bushes and long grasses; and, while doing so, Bevill wondered why the merchant should have given utterance to such a remark; for, as he thought upon the matter, he knew that no breath of wind had disturbed the air, that not the slightest breeze had blown that would have stirred a leaf.
His faculties aroused by all the necessities for caution which had formed part of his existence since he left England on the undertaking he was now about--faculties that had long since been trained and sharpened in his earlier campaigns--he stood gazing at the bushes and tall, wavy, Eastern grasses which surrounded the arbour, as though in them he might, dark as it was now, discover some natural cause that would have furnished Van Ryck with the supposition that the wind was rising.
Seeing nothing, however, that could suggest any such cause, he walked round those bushes and grasses to the back of the arbour and endeavoured to discover if the reason was to be found there.
At first he could perceive nothing in the darkness, while feeling gently about him with his hands and feet, as those feel to whom the aid of light is denied while they search for aught they may expect to discover.
But, at last, it seemed to Bevill that the grass behind the arbour was strangely flattened down longwise, and, pausing at this discovery, his sharpened instincts were soon at work wondering what this might mean.
"A large dog sleeping here might almost have made for itself a bed," he reflected, "yet there is no dog about the place, nor, even though there were, would it have lain so straight and long. What, therefore, may have done this? What? Perhaps a man."
After which he stooped again, and, placing his hand on the pressed-down grass, discovered that it was warm.
"Something has indeed lain here but recently," Bevill said to himself. "Some eavesdropper who has heard our plans, who knows them all by now, who has it in his power to foil us. Can it have been Francbois?"
Supposing this might well be the case, Bevill determined to search the grounds and afterwards the house as thoroughly as might be, while understanding that, no matter how much he might endeavour to make that search complete, it could by no possibility be so. The gardens were too vast, the house too extensive. As he approached one spot any person whom he sought might easily move to another; chance alone, the luckiest of all chances, could bring him into contact with any lurker who should be about.
Nevertheless, he decided to attempt the search, and, feeling for his pistols, which in no circumstances was he ever separated from, he began to make as thorough an inspection of the place as was possible. Yet, when all was concluded, and when he had been all about the grounds, and had peered into the other arbours andbosquetsand behind bushes, and had then once more wandered over the vast, lonely house, he had found nothing. After which, since still he felt sure there had been some listener crouching behind that arbour while the plans of himself and the others were being determined, he brought out a chair on to the lower verandah and, wrapping himself lightly in his cloak, since now the night was growing cool, determined to keep watch as long as possible.
The early summer dawn came, however, and Bevill was still awake, but had seen nothing, whereupon he at last decided that it must have been some animal that had been sleeping behind where they all sat.