"This shall be my revenge," she said, fixing him, with flame in her honey-coloured eyes; "long after, long—oh, so—so long after"—she waved her arm—"you will know! And you will see that, however much she has loved you, hers was the love which takes. But mine—ah, mine is different. Mine is the love which gives—the only true woman's love—without scant, without measure, without bounds of good or evil, without thought of recompense, or hope of reward. Love net, unselfish, boundless, encompassing as the sea, and like a fountain sealed within the heart of a woman. And then—then you shall remember that when ye might—ye would not—ah, ye would not!"
A sob tore her throat.
"But one day, or it may be through all eternity, you shall know which is the greater love, and you shall wish—no, you are a man, you will be content with the lesser, the more comprehensible, the goodwife warming her feet by the fire over against yours. There is your ideal. While I—I—would have carried you beyond the stars!"
The Abbé John took a step nearer her. He had some vague notion of comforting—not knowing.
But she thrust her arms out furiously as if to strike him.
"Go—go!" she cried, "you are breaking my heart every instant you remain. Is it not enough, that which you have done? I would be quiet. They are waiting for you to take you to Pilate's House. But tell me first where to find this—this Claire Agnew!"
She pronounced the name with difficulty.
"Ah," Valentine continued, when John had told her how she was safe in Provence, "that is no great way. I shall go and soon return. Then to Madrid is farther, but easier. But if I suffer—what I must suffer—you can well abide here a little season. The hope—the future is with you. For me there is neither—save to do the greatest thing for you that ever woman did for man! That shall be my revenge."
The mornings are fair—yes, very sweet and very clear at the Mas of the Mountain well-nigh all the year round. However hot the day, however mosquito-tormented the nights for those who do not protect themselves, the morn is ever fresh, with deep draughts of air cool as long-cellared wine, and everywhere the scent of springy, low-growing plants—the thyme, the romarin, the juniper—making an undergrowth which supports the foot of the wanderer, and carries him on league after league almost without his knowledge.
There was great peace on the Valley of the Rhone. It was at peace even from the drive of the eternal mistral, which, from horizon to horizon, turns all things greyish-white, the trees and herbage heavy with dust, and the heavens hiding themselves away under a dry steely pall.
"Avenio ventoso,Si non ventoso, venenoso,"
"Avenio ventoso,Si non ventoso, venenoso,"
muttered the Professor, as he looked at the black mass to the north, which was the Palace of the Popes. "But I thank God it is windy, this Rhone Valley of ours, with its one great, sweeping, cleansing wind, so that no poison can lurk anywhere."
He had a book in his hand, and he was looking abroad over the wide valley between the grey ridges of the Mountain of Barbentane and the little splintered peaks of the Alpilles. As on the landscape, great peace was upon the Professor.
But all suddenly, without noise of approach, Jean-aux-Choux stood before him—changed, indeed, from him who had been called "The Fool of the Three Henries." The fire of a strange passion glowed in his eye. His great figure was hollowed and ghastly. His regard seemed to burn like a torch that smokes. On the back of his huge hand the muscles stood out like whipcords. His arms, bare beneath his shepherd's cape, were burned to brick colour.
"Jean-aux-Choux!" cried the Professor, clapping his hands, "come and see my mother—how content she will be."
The ex-fool made a sign of negation.
"No, I cannot enter," he said; "there is a woman down in the valley there who would see Claire Agnew. She hath somewhat to say to her, which it concerns her greatly to know."
"Who is the woman?" demanded the Professor.
"I will vouch for her," said Jean-aux-Choux; "her name is nothing to you or to any man."
"But Claire Agnew's name and life concern me greatly," said the Professor hotly. "Had it been otherwise, I should even now have been in my class-room with my students at the Sorbonne!"
"In your grave more like—with Catherine and Guise and Henry of Valois!"
"Possibly," said the Professor tranquilly, "all the same I must know!"
"I vouch for the woman. She has come with me from Collioure," said Jean-aux-Choux. "Nevertheless, do you come also, and we will stand apart and watch while these two speak the thing which is in their hearts!"
"But she may be a messenger of the Inquisition," the Professor protested, whom hard experience had rendered suspicious in these latter days. "A dagger under the cloak is easy to carry!"
"Did I not tell you I would vouch for her?" thundered Jean-aux-Choux, the face of the slayer of Guise showing for the first time; "is not that enough?"
It was enough. Notwithstanding, the Professor armed himself with his sword-cane, and prepared to be of the company. They called Claire. She came forth to them with the flour of the bread-baking on her hands, gowned in white with the cook's apron and cap, which Madame Amélie had made for her—a fair, gracious, household figure.
She had no suspicions. Someone wanted to speak with her. There—down by the olive plant! A woman—a single woman—come from far with tidings! Well, Jean-aux-Choux was with her. Good Jean—dear Jean!
Then, all suddenly, there sprang a vivid red to her cheek.
Could it be? News of the Abbé John. Ah, but why this woman? Why could not Jean-aux-Choux have brought the message himself?
And Claire quickened her step down towards the olives in the valley.
The two met, the girl and the woman—Claire, slender and dark, but with eyes young, and with colour bright—Valentine la Niña fuller and taller, in the mid-most flower of a superb beauty. Claire, fresh from the kitchen, showed an abounding energy in every limb. Sweet, gracious, happy, born to make others happy, the Woman of the Interior went to meet her Sister of the Exterior—of the life without a home. Valentine la Niña had her plans ready. She had thought deeply over what to say and what to do before she met Claire Agnew. She must look into the depths of the girl's soul.
"I am called Valentine la Niña," she said, speaking with slow distinctness, yet softly, "and I have come from very far to tell you that I love the Prince Jean d'Albret. I am of his rank, and I demand that you release him from any hasty bond or promise he may have made to you!"
The colour flushed to the cheek of Claire Agnew, a deep sustained flood of crimson, which, standing a moment at the full, ebbed slowly away.
"Did he send you to ask me that question—to make that request?" she demanded, her voice equally low and firm.
"I have come of my own accord," Valentine la Niña answered, "I speak for his sake and for yours. The release, which it is not fitting that he should ask—I, who am a king's daughter, laying aside my dignity, may well require!"
It was curious that Claire never questioned the truth of these statements. Had not the lady come with Jean-aux-Choux? Nevertheless, when she spoke, it was clearly and to the main issue.
"Jean d'Albret has made me no promise—I have given none to him. True, I know that he loved me. If he loves me no more, let him come himself and tell me so!"
"He cannot," said Valentine la Niña, "he is in prison. He has been on the Spanish galleys. He has suffered much——"
"It was for my sake, I know—all for my sake!" cried Claire, a burst of gladness triumphing in her voice. Valentine la Niña stopped and looked at her. If there had been only a light woman's satisfaction in one more proof of her power, she would never have gone on with what she came to do. But Valentine saw clearly, being one of the few who can judge their own sex. She watched Claire from under her long lashes, and the smile which hovered about the corners of her mouth was tender, sweet, and pitiful. Valentine la Niña was making up her mind.
"Well, let us agree that it was 'for your sake,'" she said. "Now it is your turn to do something for his. He is ill, in prison. If he is sent back to the galleys he will soon die of exposure, of torture, and of fatigue. If he, a prince of the House of France, weds with me, a daughter of the King of Spain, there will be peace. Great good will be done through all the world."
"I do not care—I do not care," cried Claire, "let him first come and tell me himself."
"But he cannot, I tell you," said the other quietly; "he is in the prison of Tarragona!"
"Well, then, let him write!" said Claire, "why does he not write?"
Valentine la Niña produced a piece of paper, and handed it to Claire without a word. It was in John d'Albret's clear, clerkly hand. Claire and he had capped verses too often together by the light of Madame Granier's pine-cones for any mistake. She knew it instantly.
"Whatever this lady says is true, and if you have any feeling in your heart for your father, or love for me, do as she bids you!"Jean d'Albret de Bourbon."
"Whatever this lady says is true, and if you have any feeling in your heart for your father, or love for me, do as she bids you!
"Jean d'Albret de Bourbon."
Three times Claire read the message to make sure.
Then she spoke. "What do you wish me to do? I am ready!"
"You will give this man up to me?"
"He never was mine to give, but if he had been, he is free to go—because he wills it!"
"I put my life in danger for him now—every moment I stay here," said Valentine la Niña; "Jean-aux-Choux will tell you so. Will you walk to the gates of death with me to deliver him whom you love?"
"I will," said Claire, "I will obey you—that is, I will obey him through you!"
"This you do for the love you bear to the man whom you give up to me?"
"For what else?" cried Claire, the tears starting in her eyes. "Surely an honest girl may love a man? She may be ready even to give her life for him. But—she will not hold him against his will!"
"Then you will come with me to my father, the King of Spain?" Valentine persisted. "Perhaps—I do not know—he will pardon Jean d'Albret at our request—perhaps he will send us, all three, to the fires of the Inquisition. That also I do not know!"
"And I do not care!" cried Claire; "I will come!"
"For his sake alone?" queried Valentine, resolved to test the girl to the uttermost.
"For whose else?" cried Claire at last, exasperated; "not for yours, I suppose! Nor yet for mine own! I have been searched for by your Inquisition bloodhounds before now. He saved me from that!"
"And I—all of you!" said Valentine la Niña to herself. "But the price is somewhat heavy!"
Nevertheless, she had found Claire worthy.
Upon the high, black, slaty ledges of the Sierra of Guadarrama, winter descends early. Indeed, Peñalara, looking down on the Escorial, keeps his snow-cap all the year. From the Dome of Philip the King, one may see in mid-August the snow-swirls greying his flanks and foot-hills almost to the limits of the convent domain.
It was now October, and along the splendid road which joins the little village of San Ildefonso to the Escorial, a sturdy cavalcade of horses and mules took its way—a carriers' convoy this, a muleteers' troop, not by any means a raffle of gay cavaliers.
"Ho, the Maragatos! Out of the way—the Maragatos!" shouted any that met them, over their shoulders. For that strange race from the flat lands of Astorga has the right of the highway—or rather, of the high, the low, and the middle way—wherever these exist in Spain. They are the carriers of all of value in the peninsula—assurance agents rather—stout-built men, curiously arrayed in leathern jerkins, belted broadly about the middle, and wearing white linenbragas—a sort of cross between "breeks" and "kilt," coming a little above the knee. Even bandits think twice before meddling with one of these affiliated Maragatos. For the whole bees' byke of them would hunt down the robber band. The King's troops let them alone. The Maragatos have always had the favour of kings, and as often as not carry the King's own goods from port to capital far more safely than his own troopers. Only they do not hurry. They do not often ride their horses, which carry—carry—only carry, while their masters stride alongside, with quarter-staff, a two-foot spring-knife, and a pair of holster-pistols all ready primed for any emergency.
But in the midst of this particular cavalcade were two women riding upon mules. They were dressed, so far as the eye of the passer-by could observe, in the costume of all the Maragatas—dresses square-cut in the bodice, with chains and half-moons of silver tinkling on neck and forehead, while a long petticoat, padded in small diamond squares, fell to the points of their red Cordovan shoes. These Maragatas sat sideways on their mules and were completely silent.
It was not a warlike party to look at. Nevertheless, gay young cavaliers of the capital on duty at La Granja, who might have sought adventure had the ladies been protected only by guards in mail and plume, drew aside and whispered behind their hands as the Maragatas went by.
Now these women were probably the two fairest in Spain at that moment—being by denomination Claire Agnew and Valentine la Niña. In the rear a huge, vaguely misshapen giant in shepherd's dress—fleece-coat and cap of wolf-skin, with the ears sticking out quaintly on either side, herded the entire party. He seemed to be assuring himself that it was not followed or spied upon.
Beneath them, in the grey of the mist, as they turned a corner of the blue-black Sierra, there suddenly loomed up the snow-sprinkled roofs of a vast building—palace, monastery, tomb—what not. It was the Escorial, built by Philip of Spain to commemorate the famous victory of St. Quentain, and completed just in time to receive, as a cold water baptism, the news of the defeat of his Great Armada.
The pile of the Escorial seemed too huge to be wrought by man—a part of the mountain rather, hewn by giant hands into domes and doors and fantastic pinnacles. Indeed, the grey snow-showers, mere scufflings of sleet and hail, drifting low and ponderous, treated it as part of the Sierra, one moment whitening it—then, the sun coming out with Spanish fierceness for a few minutes, lo! vast roofs of blue slate would show through, glistening like polished steel.
And a king dwelt there—not discrowned, but still the mightiest on the earth. In spite of his defeats, in spite of his solitude, his broken purposes, his doubtful future, his empty exchequer, his ruined health, and the Valley of the Shadow of Death opening before him, there was nothing on earth—not pope nor prelate, not unscrupulous queen nor victorious fleet, not even the tempests which had blown his great Armada upon the inhospitable rocks of Ireland—that could subdue his stubborn will. He warred for Holy Church against the Pope. He claimed the throne of France from the son of Saint Louis. Once King of England, he held the title to the last, and in defence of it broke his power against the oaken bulwarks of that stiff-necked isle.
In his youth a man of as many marriages, secret and open, as Henry VIII. himself, he had been compelled to imprison and perhaps to suppress his son Don Carlos. The English ambassadors found him a man of domestic virtues. Yet the sole daughter who cherished him he sacrificed in a moment to his dynastic projects. And the other? Well, there is something to be said concerning that other.
Philip II. dwelt in the Escorial as in a fenced city. But Valentine la Niña had a master-key to unlock all doors. The next morning very early—for the King rose and donned his monk's robe in the twilight, stealing to his place in the stalls like any of his Jeronomite fellows—the two found their way along the vast corridors to the tiny royal chambers, bare of comfort as monastic cells, but loaded with petitions, reports, and letters from the four corners of the earth.
"Tell the King that Valentine la Niña, Countess of Astorga, would see him!"
And at that word the royal confessor, who had come to interview them, grew suddenly ashen pale in the scant light of a covered morning, as if the granite of the court in which they stood had been reflected in his face.
He made a low reverence and withdrew without a word.
At last the two girls were at the door of the King's chamber—a closet rather than a room. Philip was seated at his desk, his gouty foot on the eternal leg-rest, a ghastly picture of St. Lawrence over his head, and a great crucifix in ivory and silver nailed upon the wall, just where the King's eyes would rest upon it each time he lifted his head.
Claire took in the outward appearance of the mighty monarch who had been but a name to her up to this moment. He looked not at all like the "Demon of the South" of her imagination.
A little fair man, in appearance all a Flamand of the very race he despised, a Flamand of the Flamands His blue eyes were already rheumy and filmed with age, and when he wished to see anything very clearly he had a trick of covering the right eye with his hand, thrusting his head forward, and peering short-sightedly with the other. His hair, though white, retained some of the saffron bloom which once had marked him in a crowd as the whitepanacheserved the Bearnais. His beard, dirty white also, was straggling and tufted, as if in secret hours of sorrow it had been plucked out, Oriental fashion, by the roots.
"My father," said Valentine la Niña, looking at him straight and fearlessly, "I have come to bid you a good morning. My uncle of Astorga would have come too, but he prays in his canon's stall in the cathedral of Leon for his near and dear 'parent,' your Majesty."
The King rose slowly from his chair. His glabrous face showed no emotion.
"Aid me, my daughter," he said, "I would look in your face."
As he rose, his short-sighted eyes caught the dim silhouette of Claire standing behind. All a-tremble from head to foot, he stopped short in what he was about to say.
"And who may that be?" he demanded, in the thick, half-articulate mumble which so many ambassadors found a difficulty in understanding.
"A maid of Scotland, for whom I have come to ask a favour," answered Valentine la Niña.
"Ah," said the King, as one who all his life had had knowledge of such requests. But without further question he took Valentine la Niña by the hand and led her to the window, so that the grey light, half-reflected from the clay-muddy sky, and half from the snowy courtyard, might strike directly upon her face.
"Isabel Osorio's daughter—yes!" he said very low, "herself indeed!"
"The lawful daughter of your lawful wife," said the girl, "also an obedient daughter. For I have done ever what you wished me—save only in one thing. And that—that—I am now ready to do, on one condition."
"Ah," said the King again, pulling at his beard, "now aid me to sit down again, my daughter. We will talk."
"Aye," the girl answered, "we will talk—you and I. You and I have not talked much in my life. I have always obeyed—you—my uncle of Astorga—Mariana of the Gesù. For that reason I am alive—I am free—there is still a place for me in the world. But I know—you have told me—Isabel Osorio's brother himself has told me, that I too must sacrifice myself for your other and younger children, the sons and daughters of princesses. You have often asked me—indeed bidden me to enter a nunnery. The Jesuits have made me great promises. For what? That I might leave the way clear for others—I, the King's eldest-born—I, whom you dare not deny of blood as good as your own, a daughter of the Osorio who fought at Clavijo shoulder to shoulder with Santiago himself."
"I do not deny," said the King softly, "you have done a good work. But the Faith hath need of you. To it you consecrate your mother's beauty as I have consecrated my life——"
"Yes," said the girl, "but first you lived your life—you did not yield it up on the threshold—unlived."
Silently Philip crossed himself, raising his thick swollen fingers from the rosary which hung about his neck as low as his waist.
"Then why have you come," he said, again resuming the steady fingering of his beads, "when you have not thought it fitting to obey, save upon condition? One does not play the merchant with one's father."
"I have been too young—yes," she broke out, her voice hurrying in fear of interruption—"too like my mother—ah, even you cannot reproach me with that!—to bury myself under a veil, with eternal walls shutting me in on every side. I have served you well. I have served the Society—I have done your will, my father—save only in this."
"And now," said the King drily, "you have returned to a better mind?"
"I have," said Valentine, "on conditions!"
"Again I warn you I do not bargain," said the King, "my will is my will. Refuse or submit. I make no terms."
The girl flashed into fire at the word.
"Ah, but you must," she cried. "I am no daughter of Flanders—no Caterina de Lainez to be shut up with the Ursulines of Brussels against my will. I am an Osorio of the Osorios. The brother of my mother will protect me. And behind him all Astorga and Leon would rise to march upon Madrid if any harm befell me. I bargain because it is my right—because I can stand between your children and their princely thrones—because I can prove your marriage no marriage—because, without my consent and that of my brothers Pedro and Bernardino, you had never either been King of England nor left children to sit in the seat of Charles your father. But neither they nor I have asked for aught save life from your hands. We have effaced ourselves for the kingdom's good and yours. A king of Spain may not marry a subject, but you married my mother—your friend's sister. Now will you bargain or no?"
"I will listen," said Philip grimly; "place my foot-rest a little nearer me, my daughter."
The calmness of the King immediately reacted on Valentine la Niña.
"Listen, my father," she said, "there are in your galleys at Tarragona two men—one of them the father of this young Scottish girl—the other, her—her betrothed. Pardon them. Let them depart from the kingdom——"
"Their crime?" interrupted the King.
"They were delivered over by the fathers of the Inquisition," said Valentine, less certainly.
"Then it is heresy," said the King. "I can forgive anything but that!"
"For one and the other," said the girl, "their heresy consists in good honest fighting, outside of your Majesty's kingdom—against the Guisard League. They are not your subjects, and were found in your province of Roussillon only by chance."
"Ah, in Roussillon?" said Philip thoughtfully. And picking up a long pole like the butt of a fishing-rod furnished with a pair of steel nippers like a finger-and-thumb at the top, he turned half round to an open cabinet of many pigeon-holes, where were bundles innumerable of papers all arranged and neatly tied. The pincers clicked, and the King, with a smile of triumph at his little piece of dexterity, withdrew half-a-dozen folded sheets.
"Yes, I have heard," he said, "the men you commanded my Viceroy to remove from the galleys and to place in Pilate's House at Tarragona—a young Sorbonnist whom once before you allowed to escape at Perpignan, and the Scottish spy Francis Agnew."
"My father," began Claire, catching the name, but only imperfectly understanding the Castilian which they were speaking—"my father is——"
But Valentine la Niña stopped her with an imperious gesture of the hand. It was her affair, the movement said.
The King shook his head gravely and a little indulgently.
"My daughter," he said, "you have taken too much on yourself already. And my Viceroy in Catalonia is also to blame——"
"Pardon me," cried Valentine la Niña, "and listen. This is what I came to say. There is in your city of Madrid a convent of the Carmelites, the same which Theresa reformed. It is strictly cloistered, the rule serene, austere. Those who enter there have done with life. Give these two men their liberty, escort them to France, and I promise you I will enter it of my own free will. I will take the Black Veil, and trouble neither you nor your heirs more in this world."
The King did not answer immediately, but continued to turn over the sheaf of papers in his hand.
"And why," he said at last, "will you do for this maid—for the lives of these two men, what no persuasion of family or Church could previously persuade you to do?"
Valentine went hastily up to the King's side who, dwelling in perpetual fear of assassination, moved a little uneasily, watching her hand. But when she bent and whispered softly, none heard her words but himself. Yet they moved him.
"Yes, I loved her—the wife of my youth!" he answered aloud (and as if speaking involuntarily) the whispered question.
"And she loved you?" said Valentine la Niña.
"She loved me—yes—God be her judge!" said the King. "She died for me!"
"Then," continued Valentine la Niña slowly, "you understand why for this young man's sake I am willing to accept death in life! I desire that he shall wed the woman he loves—whom he has chosen—who loves him!"
But under her breath she added, "Though not as I!"
And Valentine la Niña took the King's hand in hers, and motioned to Claire to come near and kiss it.
But Claire, kneeling, kissed that of Valentine la Niña instead.
Then, for the first time in many years, a tear lay upon the cheek of the King of Spain, wondering mightily at itself.
Now this is the explanation of these things.
In his hot youth, Philip, son of the great Emperor, had wedded in secret his comrade's sister, that comrade being one of the richest and most ancient nobles of his kingdom, Osorio, Marquis of Astorga. But by a miracle of abnegation, Isabel Osorio had stood aside, her brother and the full family council approving her act, in order that her husband, and the father of her three children, should add Portugal, and afterwards England, to his Spanish domains.
Therefore, from the point of view of dynasty, the Osorios of Astorga held the succession of the kingdom of Spain in their hands. At the least they could have produced a bloody war, which would have rent Spain from one end to the other, on behalf of the succession of Isabel Osorio's children. Therefore it had been the main purpose of Philip to keep them all unmarried. The sons, Pierre and Bernardino, he had severally made priors of great Flemish and Italian monasteries. Only Valentine la Niña he had never been able to dispose of according to his will. Now he had her word. No wonder that the King slept more soundly that night.
After all, what did it matter to him if a couple of heretics escaped—if only Valentine la Niña were once safely cloistered within the house of the Carmelites of El Parral. It cannot be denied, however, that a thought of treachery passed across the royal—oh, so little royal—mind.
"Afterwards?" he murmured "But no—that would not do. I must keep my word—a painful necessity, but a necessity. The Osorios of Astorga are too powerful. To spite me, Valentine might return to the world. And the Pope would be glad enough to embroil the succession of Spain, in the interests of the Milanais and his own Italian provinces."
After all, better to keep his word! So, satiated with well-doing and well-intending, the King said a prayer, clicked his beads, and as he turned towards the slit in his bedroom through which he could see the high altar, he thanked God that he was not as other men. He could forgive. He could fulfil. Nay, he would go himself and witness the ceremony of the Black Veil—to make sure that his daughter really became the bride of Holy Church. And to this end he sent certain orders to Tarragona.
Philip II. had a natural eye for artistic effect. He would, indeed, have preferred to send the inconvenient Valentine willy-nilly to a convent. He would have delighted to arrange the details of the funeral pyre of these two dangerous heretics, John d'Albret and Francis the Scot. It would have cost him nothing, even, to permit the piquant young beauty of Claire Agnew to perish with the rest.
But Valentine la Niña had posed her conditions most carefully. The Marquis, her near kinsman, had come specially from Leon, with many gentlemen of the province in his train. For, though never insisted on, the nativity of Valentine was no secret for the grandees of her own province.
The chapel of the Convent of the Carmelites on the Parral of Madrid had been arranged by Philip's orders for a great ceremonial. He attended to the matter in person, for nothing was too great or too little for him.
A sweet sound of chanting was heard, and from behind the tall iron bars of thecorothe spectators, as they assembled, could dimly see the forms of the cloistered nuns—of that Carmelite Order, the most austere in Spain, no one of whom would ever again look upon the face of man.
There before an altar, dressed for the occasion, and in presence of the King, Claire and John d'Albret stood hand in hand. There they exchanged their vows, with many onlookers, but with one sole maid of honour. And when it was demanded, as is customary, "Who giveth this woman?" the tall figure of Francis Agnew, bent and bearded, took his daughter's hand and placed it in that of Valentine, who, herself arrayed like another bride, all in white, with lace and veil, stood by Claire's side. Valentine la Niña looked once, a long, holding look, into the eyes of John d'Albret. Then she took the hand of the bride and placed it in his. The officiating priest said no word.
For, indeed, it was she who had given this woman to this man—more, too, she had given him her own life.
King Philip looked on, sternly smiling, from the stall which, as a canon of Leon, was his right. Now, however, he had laid aside his monk's dress, and was arrayed royally, as became the first cavalier of Spain. What the King was really waiting for came later.
Valentine la Niña retired to a tiring-room where, the first ceremonies accomplished, her splendid hair was cut close, and she was attired in the white and brown of the Order of the Carmelites. Then the final black veil was thrown over her head. She came forth with her sponsors—two cardinal-archbishops in the splendid array of their rank as princes of the Church. The chant from the choir rose high and clear. Behind the black bars the cloistered nuns, their veils about their faces, clustered closer. The wedding-party had drawn back, John d'Albret standing in the midst, with Claire on his arm, clinging close and sobbing—for the debt which another had paid. The procession of priests passed slowly back down the aisle. Valentine was left kneeling before the altar with only her sponsors on either side.
"Sister Maria of the Renunciation!"
The Archbishop of Toledo proclaimed the new name of this latest bride of Holy Church. Claire whispered, "What is it? Oh, what does it mean? I do not understand!"
For the Protestant and foreigner can never understand the awfulness of that sacrifice. Even now it did not seem real to Claire. Surely, oh, surely she was walking in a vain show. Soon she must awake from this dream and find Valentine by her side, as she had been for weeks past.
But, in the midst of the solemn chant, the black gratings of iron opened. The nuns could be seen kneeling on either side, their heads bowed almost to the ground. Only the abbess came forward, a tall old woman, groping and tottering, her bony hand scarce able to find its way through the dense folds of her veil.
She stretched out her hand, feeling this way and that, like a creature of the dark blinded by the light. The two cardinals delivered the new sister of the Order into her charge. This was done silently. The sound of Claire's sobs could be heard distinctly.
But ere the tall iron gratings shut together, ere the interrupted chant lifted itself leisurely out of the silence, ere the groping hands of the old blind abbess could grasp hers, Valentine la Niña had turned once more to look her last on the world she was leaving.
Her eyes searched for and met those of John d'Albret. And if soul ever spoke to soul these were the words they said to him, "This I have done for you!"
The huge barred doors creaked and rasped their way back, shutting with a clank of jarring iron, not to be again opened till another sister entered that living tomb.
Dimly the files of phantom Carmelites could be seen receding farther and farther towards the high altar. The chant sank to a whisper. Valentine la Niña was no more for this world.
With a choking sob Claire fell into her husband's arms.
"God make me worthy!" she whispered, holding very close.
In the Mas of the Mountain the olive logs were piled high. The mistral of November made rage outside. But those who gathered round were well content. Claire sat by Dame Amélie's knee, her hand in her father's, her husband watching her proudly.
There were the three brothers, to all appearance not a day older—the Professor with a huge Pliny on his knee, the miller with the lines of farina-dust back again in the crow's feet about his eyes, and Don Jordy, who had taken up the succession of a notary's office in Avignon, which is a great city for matters and quarrels ecclesiastical, being Papal territory of the strictest: he also throve.
The three were telling each other for the thousandth time how glad they were to be free and bachelors. Thus they had none to consider but themselves. The world was open and easy before them. Nothing was more light than the heart of a woman—nothing heavier than that of a man saddled with a wife. In short, the vine having been swept clean, the grapes had become very, very sour.
All this in natural pleasantry, while Dame Amélie interrupted them with her ever-new rejoinder.
"They are slow—slow, my sons," she murmured, patting the head of Claire which touched her side—"slow, but good lads. Only—they will be dead before they are married!"
Into the quietly merry circle came Jean-aux-Choux. He brought great news.
"The Bearnais has beaten Mayenne and bought the others!" he cried; "France will be a quiet land for many days—no place for Jean-aux-Choux. So I will hie me to the Prince of Orange, and there seek some good fighting for the Religion! Will you come with me, Francis Agnew, as in the days before the Bartholomew?"
But the worn man shook his head.
"I have been too long at the oar, Jean-aux-Choux!" he said. "Moreover, I am too old. When I see these young folk settled in that which the Bearnais hath promised them, I have a thought to win back and lay this tired tickle of bones in good Wigtonshire mould—somewhere within sough of the Back Shore of the Solway, where the waves will sing me to sleep at nights! Come back with me, John Stirling, and we will eat oaten cakes and tell old tales!"
"Not I," cried Jean-aux-Choux, "I go where the fighting is—where the weapon-work is to be done. I shall die on a battle-field—or on the scaffold. But on the shore of mine own land will I not set a foot, unless"—he paused a moment as if the more surely to launch his phrase of denunciation—"unless the Woman-clad-in-Scarlet, Mother of Abominations, returns thither in her power! Then and then alone will John Stirling (called Jean-aux-Choux) tread Scottish earth."
So, without a good-bye, Jean-aux-Choux went out into the night and the storm, his great piked staff thrust before him, and the firelight from the sparkling olive-roots gleaming red on the brass-bound sheath of the dagger which had been wet with the blood of Guise.
Then the Professor, looking across at the lovers, who had drawn together in the semi-obscurity, murmured to himself, "Which is better—to love or to go lonely? Which is happier—John d'Albret—or I? Who hath better served the Lord—Valentine the cloistered Carmelite, or Jean-aux-Choux the Calvinist, gone forth into the world to fight after his fashion the fight of faith?"
Then aloud he said, speaking so suddenly that every one in the comfortable kitchen started, "Who art thou that judgest another man's servant? To his own master he standeth or falleth!"
Without, Jean-aux-Choux faced the storm and was happy. Within, the lovers sat hand in hand in a great peace, and were happy also. And in her narrow cell, who shall say that Valentine la Niña had not also some happiness? She had given her life for another.