CHAPTER VIII - THE LOVE OF WOMEN
"You must have been most miserableTo be so cruel."E. B. BROWNING,Aurora Leigh.
"You must have been most miserableTo be so cruel."E. B. BROWNING,Aurora Leigh.
"You must have been most miserable
To be so cruel."
E. B. BROWNING,Aurora Leigh.
How is it that the Fate who spins seems sometimes to take pleasure in falsifying, not only one's anticipations, but even one's apprehensions as to the pattern which her threads will weave? This reflection, or something like it, was Laurent de Courtomer's next afternoon at Sessignes, where he sat on the window-seat in Aymar's pleasant room. Things had proved so much less trying than he had feared; supper last night with the two ladies, for instance (Aymar was in his bed), had been punctuated only by questions such as he could answer. The ladies naturally wished to know the details of his friend's captivity and illness, but among these he had been able to exercise selection; and he was certainly not going to undeceive them when they jumped to the conclusion that it was on account of his health that Aymar had been "released." Details of the affair at Pont-aux-Rochers they could hardly expect from him, nor did Mme de la Rocheterie press for them, while her granddaughter, as he knew, had already been told enough by her cousin to avoid that subject, in public, like the plague.
In the second place, he and Aymar were not going to part immediately after all. Once again the Spinner had twisted the thread. The newspaper that morning, which confirmed the account of Napoleon's abdication, and told them that the King was on French soil again, apprised them also of the fact that Vendée had made peace two days before. There was, therefore, not the slightest need for Laurent to return thither, and he had yielded only too willingly to Aymar's solicitations to remain a little at Sessignes. Aymar himself had been examined that morning (considerably against his will) by the doctor whom Mme de la Rocheterie had summoned, and as a result, had been confined for the present to his room. Under a promise of secrecy he had also, to Laurent's relief, allowed the doctor to see and prescribe for the burnt arm.
He was lying at this moment on a chaise-longue, pulling the ears of the enraptured wolfhound, whose head lay on his breast.
"When are you going to ride Hirondelle, Laurent?" he asked, looking up. "She is at your disposal any time, you know. There are rods in the hall, and fish, though they are shy, in the stream; and if you want a gun, you have only to ask Célestin. And if this one-idea'd beast will go with you, perhaps you will take him for a walk some time?"
The word seemed to be familiar to Sarrasin, for he beat his tail upon the floor so vigorously that a light knock at the door was scarcely audible. A voice was then heard saying, "May I come in, Aymar?"
Laurent jumped up. It was Mme de la Rocheterie. L'Oiseleur also made instinctively to rise.
"Do not be foolish, Aymar; stay where you are," said his grandmother in her cold, gentle tones. "And do not let me disturb you, Monsieur de Courtomer. I have brought our invalid some peaches." She had indeed a shallow basket in her hand, and a scarf thrown over her brilliant white hair, as though she had been in the garden. "Ah, that incorrigible dog is up here again!"
"You mean that I am incorrigible, Grand'mère," said Aymar, good-humouredly, and he ordered Sarrasin to remove himself to a distance.
Meanwhile the Vicomtesse had accepted from Laurent a chair by the couch, and though she again besought the young man not to depart, he thereafter vanished, somewhat regretting that a gentleman could not listen at the keyhole.
Sitting there beside the chaise-longue Mme de la Rocheterie subjected its occupant to a long, quiet scrutiny. Little, however, of what she really felt or thought was to be seen on her face.
"Gellois does not give me a very good account of you, Aymar," she said at last. "But, from the look of you, I hardly expected it."
"You know that he is an alarmist, my dear grandmother," replied the invalid. "There is nothing the matter with me now except that I get tired rather easily."
"He says that your heart is impaired."
"Temporarily, I dare say. I suppose that is why he has condemned me to lie here in this ridiculous fashion."
"But, my dear boy, you have been very—by which I mean dangerously—ill, and you know it. It is of no use to deny it, for M. de Courtomer has admitted the fact."
"I hope that you are being very charming to M. de Courtomer," responded her grandson, shifting the ground a little. "If I have been as ill as you say, all the more credit and thanks to him that I am well now. He nursed me with a devotion for which there are no words."
"You consider, in short, that you owe your life to him?"
Aymar smiled a little. "If I cannot give him his due without making the admission which you are so anxious to wring out of me, Grand'mère yes, I do—to him and the doctor. So be kind to him—for he is not leaving us to-day after all, I am glad to say."
"No friend of yours shall have anything to complain of from me, Aymar," responded his grandmother, "particularly one to whom you are so much indebted. He seems a well-bred young man, for all his English upbringing. The name, of course, is good. I suppose he bearssinople, three lions argent?"
"I suppose so," said Aymar with a smile. "The one thing which I do know for certain that he bears is—a heart, or."
A smile flickered over Mme de la Rocheterie's face also. "What a pretty speech! M. de Courtomer ought to be here.—Now I will peel you a peach, and if it does not tire you to talk, you shall tell me of this unfortunate business of Pont-aux-Rochers. We have heard the most unpleasant rumours about it here."
The young man twisted a trifle in the chair. "Rumours of . . . treachery?"
"Yes," continued the Vicomtesse, selecting a peach from the basket. "And from all the details we could gather, from the completeness of the disaster—and from the fact that you were not there in person—it seems to me probable that they are true. But I should like to know." However, it was with a very undisturbed air that she began to peel the peach.
Aymar watched her for a moment. "I understand that the idea might have arisen," he said at last. "But it is a false one. There was no treachery over the business."
His grandmother raised her eyebrows. "My dear boy, what was there, then? A miracle, worked for the Bonapartists?"
"A miscalculation—a grave error of judgment."
"Ah, I think I can guess whose!"
"Can you? I fancy not!" He gave a rather wan, ironic smile. "It was my own, Grand'mère."
And at that Mme de la Rocheterie not only lifted her eyes from her occupation, but looked at him so piercingly that under her gaze the easily raised flush of convalescence ran across Aymar's own face for an instant.
"Your error in judgment, I suppose you imply, because you chose an incapable man for your subordinate," she remarked. "I warn you, mon fils, that I have no patience with that kind of quixotry. Our name, your reputation, shall not be used to shield a man who is a bungler, if no worse."
The flush came again, and deeper this time, but it left Aymar very pale. "If you mean M. de Fresne, he is in no need of shielding—shielding, my God!" he said under his breath. "I committed the . . . the mistake myself. But if you have no objection, we will not talk about it."
"As you please," said the Vicomtesse calmly. She had finished her task, and delicately wiped her fingers. "I have you back safe and comparatively sound, which is all I care about. The reputation of L'Oiseleur is strong enough to take care of itself. All the same, as I do not wish you to be under a misapprehension as to my intelligence, I must tell you that I do not believe you about M. de Fresne."
Her grandson gave almost a groan of irritation and anger. "You accuse me of lying, then?"
"I accuse you of having a bad memory. The evening that you were here in April—the evening before the ambuscade—you told me casually at supper that M. de Fresne, without awaiting your orders, was moving your men across the river next morning. I could see, though you did not say so, that you were a little annoyed. Late that evening you received news which made you rush off post-haste to them; the next thing we hear is that they have walked into a trap and been cut up. And then you say the blame is yours, and not your thick-headed lieutenant's! You see, my dear boy, that you cannot hoodwink me like that!"
Aymar, taken aback as he was for the moment, pulled himself higher on the couch. His eyes were bright, his mouth determined. "I absolutely refuse to have M. de Fresne made a scapegoat any more!" he said hotly. "I, and I alone, am responsible for what happened at Pont-aux-Rochers. I will not have another man's reputation sacrificed to save mine!"
"I was not aware," said his grandmother drily, "that M. de Fresne had any particular reputation to sacrifice. But if you are going to agitate yourself over it like this, you shall take all the blame you want. Lie down again, for Heaven's sake!" She got up and rearranged his cushions. "I begin to think that part of the reason why you look like a seven days' ghost is that you are taking this, your solitary reverse, so much au grand tragique. That comes, my dear Aymar, of being the favourite of fortune—and of being young. Well, time, unfortunately, will cure the latter——"
"And has already cured the first," finished Aymar with a queer little smile, shutting his eyes for a second. "Thank you, Bonne-maman." He opened them again and looked at her as she resumed her seat. "It is plain that you do not know how many men I lost over that affair."
"But what were your men for?" enquired the Vicomtesse. "I do not say that you exactly kept them in cotton-wool, but you have always been ridiculously sensitive about their welfare. One must break eggs to make an omelette, as the vulgar say.—Well, let us talk of something else. There is a much pleasanter subject to hand, is there not?" And her smile, though mischievous, was not unkind.
But Aymar looked away and said nothing.
"I have tired you so much that you cannot even talk abouther?" asked his grandmother after a moment. "I shall have the young gentleman with the heart of gold taking me to task." She got up, putting the peach near him. "Another time, then; just now you can lie here and reflect how true it is that everything comes to him who waits. . . . Only, my dearest boy"—she bent and kissed him tenderly—"do try to see your late reverse in its proper proportions! I should like to point out—if you will not take the consolation amiss—that now, owing to the signal victory of mid-June, it is of small consequence what happened to your little force at the end of April!"
Of small consequence! Oh, if only it were! As the door closed behind her Aymar turned and lay motionless, his face hidden in one of his cushions.
The wolfhound Sarrasin, who, having a soul above rabbits, usually disdained the investigation of hedges, paced soberly along at Laurent's heels one fine evening, four days later, on the return from the walk they had taken together. Their respective master and friend was not yet strong enough to accompany them, for he had only made his first appearance downstairs at déjeuner that day; moreover, he was closeted with Jacques Eveno, now become a kind of enquiry agent for him with regard to the victims of Pont-aux-Rochers.
It was nearly sunset, and Sessignes, as it came into sight, was bathed in a warm and flattering radiance. Already Laurent loved the place, which seemed to fit Aymar so well—old and noble and secure and unpretentious. Yet, much as he delighted in being here, and in feeling that he was of use to Aymar, both as his only real confidant and as an accomplice in diverting awkward questions, he was torn also with a desire to get back to his mother. But Paris was probably invested by this time; though a friend, he was not likely to succeed in getting through the English and Prussian lines. Directly, however, that there seemed to be a chance of penetrating to the capital, he would set off to her.
On the whole, these four days, like his first supper-party at Sessignes, had been less agitating than he had feared. There was strain, of course, for Aymar, and for him, and, presumably, for Madame de Villecresne up to a point, because of what she knew; but Mme de la Rocheterie had not added to the inevitable malaise the extra tension which he had anticipated. Her attitude at present was one of half-amused toleration of Aymar's concern for his unfortunate men, and of a disregard of the possibilities of blame which was sublime in its contempt. Laurent's only hope was that sleeping dogs might be left to lie. For, used as he was to the society of old ladies, and versed in the ways that pleased them, Mme de la Rocheterie inspired in him a latent terror which his own formidable great-aunts had never roused. With her, one felt very much in the presence of an intelligence. When she set that intelligence to finding out anything, he was sure that she would succeed. He could only pray that his might not be the unwary tongue to kindle this desire.
About Mme de Villecresne he had now quite made up his mind. More girlish than he had pictured her, the widow, the six years' nominal wife (no older, indeed, than himself) more beautiful even than he had thought at first, and with a nameless charm of glance and voice, he now found her bewitching. He was for ever on the watch for the fleeting, half-tantalizing resemblances to Aymar himself; these, indeed, completed his subjugation. So, except that in his heart of hearts he did not think any woman good enough for his friend, he approved his choice. And, fortunately, there was no shadow of doubt that she loved Aymar deeply. He had seen her with him in the chaise . . . and looking at him to-day at déjeuner. And now, if it were not for this horrible cloud over him, of whose full proportions she was not aware, their long-delayed happiness was at hand. He did hope that Aymar would have no hesitation about taking it quickly. From something which his friend had let fall the other day he was a little afraid. . . . Being cousins, they would of course have to get a dispensation first. . . .
The young man reflected on their cousinship as he swung along. Had they not been lovers they must almost, he thought, feel like brother and sister, brought up together as they had been from so tender an age. And his thoughts flew instantly to a picture in the salon of the château which had charmed and delighted him from the first—a pastel wherein a beautiful, serious boy of ten or thereabouts held by the hand a younger girl-child, bright-haired like himself and smiling rather roguishly at the spectator. The little Aymar had a kite on which his other hand rested, somewhat as if on a shield, but his attention, obviously, was concentrated on his companion with an effect of care and protection not usual at the kite-flying age. It came to Laurent, as he neared Sessignes, how deeply that same attitude was still Aymar's, and how, to shelter his cousin now from the knowledge of what she, all innocently, had brought upon him, he was running what his friend could not but consider a very grave risk indeed. But it was not for him to say, "Tell her everything!" Aymar knew what he was doing.
And the whole future? The nightmare idea of arrest by his own side still sometimes visited Laurent, since the morning when Aymar had referred to it. But such a blow was unlikely to fall on him because, having raised and equipped his Eperviers entirely by his own efforts, he was under the direct orders of no commander whatever, not even of Sol de Grisolles himself. Yet, in spite of that, suppose that one day heweredragged off from Sessignes to answer for what he had done. . . . That was the terrible part of it—for what hehaddone.
"Oh, Sarrasin," said Laurent with a shiver, "you wise dog, if only you could help your master!" But the wolfhound merely swayed his tail, and they came up the avenue to the château, and turned along the side of the house to the highest terrace. And here the sunset, already brightening behind the woods that flanked the pastures on the other side of the Aven, was seen in all its half-tragic splendour, like the death of a hero. It tinged the river and smote on the bright, uncovered head of her who had been the little girl in the picture, as she stood by the terrace wall gazing out into the distance.
Laurent caught sight of her face; it looked so exceedingly grave that he stopped before she had perhaps, even heard his step. But Sarrasin went up to her, so she turned, and Laurent, realizing that she wished to speak to him, approached her.
"Monsieur de Courtomer," she began rather abruptly, "I want to consult you about something rather terrible—something which I hope may be kept from my cousin's knowledge."
"I am at your service, Madame," replied Laurent. This was indeed turning the tables in the matter of concealment.
Mme de Villecresne moved a trifle away, and, looking down, fingered the warm lichened stone of the terrace wall for a moment. The little curls at the back of her neck glowed like burnished gold. "It is about Pont-aux-Rochers. My cousin warned me himself that I might hear it said that the supposed treachery there was—his own. I had not heard it, and till this afternoon I could have sworn that it was impossible so atrocious a slander should even be breathed in Brittany of L'Oiseleur! Yet this very afternoon I have just heard worse—if it were possible—and I do not know what to do about it."
Her breath seemed to fail her for an instant. Laurent looked at her in mute uneasiness.
"I pray that Aymar himself does not know. . . . I hardly like even to repeat it, but my maid tells me that she heard a man in the village saying he had heard a report that it was Aymar's own men who shot him, on account of the disaster at the bridge. If only he has not heard it himself—if only we can keep it from him!"
She raised her eyes at the last words. But what she saw on the candid visage of her cousin's confidant caused her to put a hand quickly to her heart.
"Merciful Heavens—it is nottrue!"
Laurent lowered his head. Mme de Villecresne gripped his arm, breathlessly repeating, "It is not true!—it cannot be!"
"Unfortunately . . . it is true," responded the young man, more than unwillingly.
His fair head and the sunset all reeled together, obviously, before the girl's eyes. She loosed his arm and sank down on the broad wall beside him, her face drained of colour; then, as Laurent, alarmed, took a step towards her, she made a gesture as if to ward him off, and covered it with her hands.
"It was only two or three of them," added Laurent hesitatingly.
She made no answer, and after another terrible silence, during which her informant rooted up an entire pink from between the stones of the wall, she rose, her face still hidden, and went from him.
Aymar, sitting at a table in his room with a pen between his fingers and fatigue on his face, heard from Laurent the account of what had just happened without comment or change of expression.
"Where is she now?" he asked, getting up.
"I do not know. Oh, Aymar, I cannot blame myself enough!"
"There is no need to blame yourself at all. It will be all over the place in a day or two. I have just had a terrible scene with Eveno. He had heard it in the village, too; and he was nearly demented. He wanted to go off and do murder."
"He will not, I hope?" exclaimed Laurent, startled.
"Not now. Besides, he does not know, since I would not tell him, whom to murder. Ninety men is rather a large order, single-handed." He gave a weary little laugh, and went to the door. "Really, I do not know which is more difficult to handle, the rebel or the fanatically faithful!"
For his friend's sake at least Laurent could not but be glad when he learnt later that he had not succeeded in getting speech with his cousin. She had gone to her room, whence she did not appear again that evening. She had a bad headache, it seemed. But the Vicomtesse was in great spirits at supper, and entertained Laurent with some witty but rather doubtful stories. "I wonder if she knows what heartache is," thought the young man . . . and then remembered her guillotined sons.
"I think that Mme la Comtesse has gone to the orchard for some flowers," said old Célestin next morning in answer to his young master's enquiry. And he added, looking at him affectionately, "It is good to see you about again, Monsieur Aymar!"
So, wishing that she were anywhere but in the apple-orchard, Aymar went towards it in the haze of heat which brooded over everything, and opened the gate, for he could not vault gates nowadays. And when he was among the trees he saw why Avoye should have come here for flowers, for where the grass had been left long it was starred with moon-daisies. Yet for a moment, with relief, he thought that she was not in the orchard at all. Then he saw her, an empty basket beside her, crouched at the foot of an apple tree, her head against the trunk, in the most forlorn attitude imaginable. He quickened his steps. "Avoye, what is the matter? Are you ill, my dear? Can I——"
On that he saw that she was crying as if her heart would break. He went down on one knee beside her. "Avoye, my darling . . ."
She turned to him instantly, and clung to him like a child. "It is . . . what M. de Courtomer told me yesterday. . . . I cried nearly all night . . . now again . . . Aymar, Aymar, I can't bear it for you!"
Holding her to him, he soothed her as one soothes a child; and indeed she seemed very small. "My little heart, it is not worth crying over. It all happened in a hurry—the Blues were on us. It was really one man's doing only, and he had a grudge against me. My darling, you never expected me always to come off scot-free?"
A long sob, shaking her there against his breast, seemed to say thatthatwas very different. He held her closer. And gradually comforted by his presence, she grew calmer, and finally ceased to sob.
And here he was, holding her in his arms again, he who had come out into the orchard to tell her why he could not marry her yet. And that had got to be done. This beginning had not made it easier to do. He would not have the fortitude to tell her at all while she clung to him. So, somehow, he got her to her feet, and then to a seat under one of the old apple trees, and, instead of sitting down, too, stood before her.
"Avoye, I came out here to tell you the story I promised you in the cottage—the story of how and why this happened to me. It is time that you knew."
"Since I know the end," she said pitifully, "need I know the beginning?"
Aymar hesitated. "If the . . . the end, then, will stand to you for sufficient reason why, as an honourable man, I cannot ask you to marry me at present, perhaps not. Will it, Avoye?"
She twisted her damp handkerchief into a ball. "Why should I not marry you, Aymar, because you have been nearly murdered for someone else's fault?"
So he was not to escape the ordeal of lying to her. For if the tale was told at all, it should be told in his way. On that point he never wavered. What, let her, heart-broken as she was already, let her know that she herself was the cause of what he had suffered? He drew a long breath.
"Very well," he said quietly. "I shall have to tell you whose the fault was, and then you will see things differently." He came and sat down beside her, under the tree, but not very near. "I will begin at the beginning."
To any one who knew how the story was going to end it would have been passably painful hearing, but when the hearer was a woman and the narrator was the man she loved it was nearly intolerable. Making the narrative as brief as possible, Aymar got without interruption or pause as far as his finding de Fresne's letter at Sessignes, and his thought of how he could still send it and bring off the move he had discussed at Keraven. All reference to Vaubernier and his tidings he naturally omitted, and merely said, "So, in order to lure the Imperialists to Pont-aux-Rochers, as we had talked of doing, I sent them de Fresne's letter. I will not tell you how I sent it, nor by whom, nor how I made it plausible . . . Yes, there was some risk, I grant you, but not much—or so I saw it then, fresh from my interview with Saint-Etienne. How deep my repentance was afterwards—but that you can guess."
Avoye's gaze was on him, smitten, horrified.
"You actually sent it—you yourself! Itwasreally your doing—Pont-aux-Rochers!"
"Yes," he returned, meeting the gaze. "But it was not treachery."
"Aymar, Aymar, as if I needed that saying to me! But it was hazardous beyond words, surely, and . . . and strange!"
Yes, he could see that there was something repugnant to her, even as there had been to him, in the act—not in the risk, but in the act itself.
"It was a ruse de guerre, Avoye—defensible, I think, from that standpoint. One cannot, unfortunately, be too particular sometimes as to the means one uses. And I, too, did not overmuch relish doing it."
"I see that it was a ruse. And no one, of course, would have blamed you for it if your real intention had been obvious. But, as it did not succeed, your men thought that you had sent information of their movements to the enemymeaningto betray them! . . . Oh, Aymar, I see it all—how terrible, how unspeakably terrible! . . . But go on, my darling; what happened next? Some dreadful misfortune, I know it!"
He went on, his hand shading his face lest it should betray him. But the agony point of the narrative was past; he hoped he need lie no more. Avoye did not interrupt again; indeed, when she heard of Keraven reached at dawn and empty, she put her hands over her face. Aymar mentioned his interview with de Fresne and his having given up his sword, laid as much stress as possible on Magloire's insubordination, let her see that, in a sense, he had had to sacrifice himself to save his lieutenant, and left, he hoped, in her mind a picture of a surprise, a scuffle, a chance shot or two . . . just enough, unfortunately, to give colour to the statement that the Eperviers had shot their own commander for treachery.
After that he leant back against the trunk of the tree in silence. It had been as much as he could do to get through. The tit which for some moments had been busy, perhaps eavesdropping, in the apple-boughs above them dislodged a tiny twig, which fell on to his knee. He took it up and fingered it absently. After all, he had not had to lie much. He had but told her a half-truth.
"I wish," said Avoye, breaking the silence at last, her eyes full of tears, "I wish you had never met M. de Saint-Etienne! It was his fault that all this happened to you, Aimé; it was he, or his friend, who gave you this fatal idea. I am sure it could not have been a plan of yours, to send information in that way, without any real necessity—not because you were in a difficult situation and had to extricate yourself, but just for the chance of snaring the Blues. If you had been in difficulties——"
Aymar threw away the little twig and roused himself. This was a dangerous line of thought. But he could think of nothing better with which to check it than, "I have regretted it enough since, my dear."
Avoye shivered a little. Then she put a hand on his. "But surely the Imperialists, who looked after you so well, did not think—that thing of you? They must have understood?"
"When my own men did not? No, Avoye, they did not . . . understand."
She caught her hands together and the tears brimmed over.
"Oh, why did you not make a better story—save your name somehow when you sent the letter? Why did you send it at all?"
And as he did not answer, but sat with downbent head, she went on, "But I do not mean to criticize, to scold! It sounds so cruel, when you have suffered so!"
Aymar lifted his eyes, and smiled at her out of his pain and fatigue. "No, little heart, I know you did not mean to do that." He put his hand over hers and they relapsed into momentary silence.
"Aymar," said his cousin suddenly, "to whom did you say you sent the letter?"
His hand loosed itself a little. "I did not mention any name, I think," he answered warily. "Why?"
"Because I wondered for a second whether it could have been to the Imperialists who stopped me at theCheval Blanc—under a Colonel Richard, I think the name was—for you remember, perhaps, that that was the very night I was detained. And it would have been a horrible coincidence, for I heard those men marching out early next morning. But of course, if it was not to him——"
There was no help for it if she questioned him. He withdrew his hand first. "No," he answered, sick at heart and quite composed, "I sent it to the commandant at Arzon."
There was a sigh of relief beside him. "I am so glad," said Avoye. "And I am so glad, too, that you did not know at the time that I was a sort of prisoner, because it would have distressed you unnecessarily. . . . You did not know, did you?" she asked, in a slightly different voice.
He shook his head. Hell must be like this. "I learnt of it first when I got your letter. Yes, I am glad I did not know.—As for that letter," he went on after a second or two, "I hope you understood, my darling, why, as a prisoner, I could not answer it as I should have done had I been free . . . and why, now, I must not ask you yet to take our name again."
"I see why you think you must not," she said gently. "But, Aymar, with a reputation like yours, you have only to tell the story as you have told it to me to clear yourself! Other Royalists might perhaps criticize you for taking too much risk, but as for thinking that you deliberately betrayed your own men——"
"No, Avoye," he broke in quickly, "other Royalists do think that—at least some of them." And as she stared at him incredulously he told her the story of M. de Lanascol, and of the acquaintance who had walked out of the inn at his entry.
"But, Aymar," she said indignantly, "they must be mad! You, with your past—you, L'Oiseleur!"
"Darling, you must face it; I have a different past now—a present, rather. You see, the very fact of what happened to me in the Bois des Fauvettes condemns me unheard. Royalists, even one's own acquaintances, are saying—unwillingly, in many cases, perhaps, and shocked as much as you like—'It must be true, because his own men shot him for it.'"
A quiver ran through her. "Then it rests with you—and with M. de Saint-Etienne—to show that it is not true!" And, looking at him with all her heart in her eyes, she put her hand in his. "If only we had the dispensation I would marry you to-morrow . . . to show how little I care for such evil tongues."
He bent his head over the hand. "You must leave me some pride, Avoye."
"No one will ever succeed in robbing you entirely of that, my dear. . . . But I have not left myself much, have I, to say such a thing?"
Somehow she was in his arms again. He kissed her hair, and they were both silent.
"Aymar, am I hurting you?" she asked suddenly. "Was it—this shoulder?"
"Hurting me!" he answered in a low voice. "You weigh about as much as a wren! And if it were not healed it would be from this moment. Don't move! . . . You can't!" he added with a little inflection of triumph.
Yet the next moment he had loosed her himself, and stood up. "I beg your pardon, Avoye. I have not . . . I must wait."
She saw that he meant it; she knew why he felt as he did. Unnecessary as she might think his scruples, she was not going to hurt his pride more than it had already been hurt by making self-control more difficult for him. She too got up, and gave him her hand. He was her lover, but he was almost her brother, too. "You shall do what you think best, Aymar. I can wait also."
He kissed her hand, and going with her to the orchard gate, opened it for her without a word. And after he had watched her go he went and leant against a tree, with his arms folded, in the very place and almost in the same posture as he had waited her coming with such dizzy rapture three months before, when she had not come, but instead of her—disgrace. And Aymar faced that reflection now, standing motionless as, nine weeks ago to this very day, he had stood against another tree. . . . What had been blossom above him here on that magic and hateful April night was fruit now, green and immature; but in his ruined life the fruit of what he had done had ripened much more quickly. He had said that he could not ask Avoye to marry him yet—but when could he? How was he ever going to wash away the stain?
He leant there long after she had gone, his eyes fixed on the blue line of woods beyond the sloping pasture, his thoughts entangled, like his whole existence now, in this dark forest where his own act had plunged him—leant there till the peacock's ugly note came, as once before, to rouse him, and he stood up, though this was morning and July, with a little start and shiver, and went from the apple-orchard which at last had seen the meeting of lovers.
Three more hot summer days slid past much as their seven predecessors had done. But Avoye de Villecresne's face had become shadowed in their passage. And as, on the third afternoon, Aymar, followed by Sarrasin, came over the sloping meadows towards the river, more than the now customary sadness looked from his eyes. Yet, when he caught sight of a fisherman sitting very much at his ease on the other bank, his face lightened.
"Don't jump in this time!" called out Laurent. "Though indeed it is pleasanter weather for a bathe than it was that day."
Aymar crossed by the little bridge. "One doesn't bathe, if one can avoid it, in the presence of Sarrasin," he said, as he came up to him. "He has a most unfortunate conviction that it is his duty to rescue you. My first experience of his zeal was exceedingly painful."
Sarrasin, aware that he was being talked about, sat down, panting vehemently, and self-consciously offered Laurent a paw.
"I wonder what would have happened if he had been with you beside the Dart," murmured Laurent. "Thank you, Sarrasin, once is sufficient honour! If you pant like that you will frighten the fish—not that there are any this afternoon, and no one but a fool would have brought a rod down."
Aymar threw himself at full length on the bank, and, pushing the big dog into a recumbent position, pillowed his head upon him, much to Sarrasin's gratification, and there was silence.
"Has Eveno gone?" asked Laurent presently.
"Yes. I shall soon be strong enough to ride and interview people myself. But I see already . . ." He stopped for a second or two. "Laurent, I am afraid that some day I may have to sell Sessignes."
"What!"
"I can see no other way to get the money I require for pensions and the rest. I can no doubt raise it by loan or mortgage on the place, and I should not dream of selling the estate while my grandmother lived, but as I am at a loss to know how I should repay the borrowed money otherwise——"
Laurent looked across the river at the fair domain, at the towers for which he himself had developed such a feeling. "Aymar, that would be a terrible thing to do!"
"Yes, it would," agreed the Vicomte de la Rocheterie in a hard, unnatural voice. "Seven hundred years has it sheltered us. But then the thing I have already done, unfortunately, is terrible."
There was another silence. Sarrasin snapped his great jaws at a fly. Laurent, thunderstruck, began to turn over with fresh hope a resolve which these last few days had been taking shape in his mind.
"May I say something?" he enquired at last in a somewhat stifled voice.
"You know that you can say anything you like," responded Aymar without moving.
"Even something thatyouwill not like?"
"Even that!"
Laurent fixed his eyes on a point across the river.
"Have you ever thought of digging for treasure in the old part of Sessignes?" he asked.
He was aware that Aymar smiled. "My dear Laurent!"
"If you did," went on Laurent, unperturbed, "you might find a hoard which you could devote to those families. . . . You might! Or I might find one for you!"
"I only wish you could!"
Laurent plucked at the grass. "You would not be very particular as to its date, in that case, would you, Aymar? I mean, you would not require it to be a very ancient treasure?"
"What do you mean?" demanded his friend. "You cannot have been so foolish—forgive me!—as really to have started explorations with that object?"
"No," said Laurent. "I have not, but if I did, I know I should find something. And, as I said, it would not matter for this purpose that it would be modern money, and that I . . . that I should have put it there myself." And as Aymar lifted himself on to his elbow and stared at him, he rushed at the fence. "I have never told you, Aymar, but the fact is that I have become rather absurdly rich since I first met you. Just before I went to Vendée my English grandfather died, and left me nearly all his money—about six thousand pounds a year—and besides that I——"
Aymar had sat up, suddenly paling. "Please don't say any more, Laurent. I am very sorry I ever mentioned the matter to you."
Laurent plucked more desperately than ever at the grass, but he stuck to his guns. "You must forgive me, but you gave me leave to say anything I liked."
"Well?" said Aymar, not encouragingly.
"You know that I should never presume to offer you money——"
"Then what are you doing now?"
Try as he would Laurent could not help wincing at the tone. He looked at the dancing water in silence for a moment.
"It is not for your own benefit, the money, Aymar! Am I to stand by and see you ruin yourself—see you break your heart—when I could so easily prevent it? Why, it would be less than one year's income of this fortune which I do not want and have not yet touched! And after all you have said—because I cannot forget your words, even though I never deserved them—after all that, I am so little to you that you will not let me do you this paltry service! It's"—he laughed with nervousness and anxiety—"on my soul, it's Arbelles over again!"
"You don't know what an impossible thing you are asking," replied Aymar, his head turned away.
"You have done more impossible," pleaded Laurent. "You went and asked a favour of your enemy . . . for the sake of another. Yet you will not take a gift from a friend—though that, too, is for the sake of others."
There was a long pause. Sarrasin had a fresh access of snapping, and in the Aven a fish actually jumped.
"Perhaps I might . . . take it as a loan," said Aymar at length with, it was clear, the utmost difficulty.
"And sell Sessignes to repay it!—Oh, Aymar, it's not for yourself! I . . . I think it's for me!"
Another silence. Aymar's head was still turned away; he was digging one hand into the grass farther than Laurent had ever done. Did it mean that he was going to accept? Oh, if only it might be!
And then Laurent became aware of someone approaching the stream.
"Here is your cousin!" he exclaimed in surprise. Aymar looked up, and they both scrambled to their feet.
"Eulalie de Morsan has just arrived, Aymar," Laurent heard Avoye say, as Aymar went over the bridge towards her. "She is going to stay the night. I came to tell you; Grand'mère is asking for you."
On this news Aymar made no comment; he merely thanked its bearer for her trouble. And as Laurent, inwardly cursing the moment chosen by Mme de Morsan for her arrival, went up to the house with the cousins, he learnt that the lady was on her way home from Aix-les-Bains or somewhere, and had elected to pay them a visit en passant. His annoyance was, however, a little dispelled on hearing that she had brought with her the news that Paris had capitulated to the Allies three days ago.
Mme de Morsan's start of surprise when she saw Aymar, her shocked "Mon cousin, how ill you look!" which pleased the "cousin" in question not at all, her raising of the eyebrows and her surveying of Avoye de Villecresne, presumably because she had the temerity not to be wearing mourning, were the first impressions which Laurent gathered at this his second encounter with the fair traveller, who was graciously pleased, for her part, to assert a vivid remembrance of their first meeting, and of their conversation. Later, at supper, she was pretty well occupied in answering Mme de la Rocheterie's questions about her own doings during the twelve months or so which had passed since the Vicomtesse and her nephew's widow had met. Laurent could easily see that Mme de la Rocheterie had a penchant for this lively, free-spoken, handsome kinswoman, but that Mme de Villecresne did not share it. Compared with that opulent beauty in her elegant "half-dress" of rosecoloured sarcenet embroidered with shaded chenille, she looked like an evening primrose by a tiger-lily. As for Aymar, he was courteous and attentive, but no more; indeed, he was somewhat silent in the salon afterwards, and so was Avoye.
But Mme de Morsan was talkative enough, and soon began to direct most of her conversation at the other guest, an attention with which he could well have dispensed, for the company was not numerous enough to make it private, and it developed uncomfortable elements. So he had been able to repay that romantic leap into the river! And had the hero been a good patient? She could fancy him being just a little exacting, but since they were such friends Laurent would hardly betray him. And was it true that it was because he had been so ill that the Imperialists had released him? Yes, said Laurent brazenly; and Mme de la Rocheterie here intimated her conviction that their commander, for all his politics, must have had a kind heart. On this the visitor introduced into the conversation a topic equally thorny and unforeseen, for she declared that she could not imagine how this Guitton (Aymar had been obliged to supply her with the detested name), whatever his humanity, could ever have allowed such a capture as L'Oiseleur to leave his hands without giving his parole. Or had he given it? And when Laurent evasively replied that it would have been ridiculous to insist upon parole with a man in M. de la Rocheterie's then state of health, Mme de Morsan, looking pensively at her sandal, opined that it was hardly a compliment to be released unconditionally. When she further added, even though with a smile at Aymar and the air of uttering a pleasantry, that it was obvious the Imperialists must have had some reason for wanting to get rid of him, a cold and curious suspicion was already worming its way into Laurent's mind that behind this rather sub-acid banter there was knowledge of some kind. Yet it was half dispelled by the way in which she then said, laughing outright, "I will again hazard the guess that he was a trying patient!"
"Well," put in Mme de la Rocheterie with the tiniest shade of impatience, perhaps even of displeasure, "we shall never find that out from M. de Courtomer, so we can abandon the subject. Tell us, Eulalie, more of the news about Paris."
But it appeared that their visitor knew no more than the bare fact of the capitulation. As she remarked, she did not come from the neighbourhood of the capital, quite the reverse.
"I think you said you had been at Aix, did you not?" asked Avoye, speaking for almost the first time since supper. "Did you chance to meet M. de Vaubernier there?"
Aymar's and Laurent's looks met for a second. "The Marquis de Vaubernier," repeated Mme de Morsan, in evident surprise. "Has he been at Aix? No, I did not meet him there. When did he go, and why?"
It was the Vicomtesse who supplied this information, adding that, if he had returned home, she would have invited the old gentleman over that evening; he was so fond of a game of whist. And she thereupon suggested that the four young people should play a rubber. Two of these—probably three—were profoundly grateful for the suggestion, and they played cards in peace till bedtime, Laurent only suffering one spasm of probably needless apprehension and dismay when he thought he discerned Mme de Morsan looking very fixedly at Aymar's wrists as he dealt. But he could see nothing there now.
By tacit consent he went with Aymar into his room when they were upstairs.
"Do you think that Mme de Morsan can possibly know anything?" was his first question.
"I am sure she does. What it is, exactly, I must find out to-morrow."
"Yet, surely," observed Laurent, looking bothered, "she could not have said those things to you . . . about you . . . intentionally, of set purpose!" (For how could a woman enjoy seeing the man of whom she was enamoured writhe—not that Aymar had writhed . . . outwardly.)
"Why not?"
"Well, because you—because she—because it would be unkind," responded Laurent, rather red.
"All the stronger incentive," observed Aymar drily. "I shall have it out with her to-morrow."
So Laurent left that subject and embarked, half regretfully, on the next. Paris having capitulated, he felt that he must go to his mother at once, premising, however, that the day after to-morrow would be early enough to start. If Aymar had no objection, he should like to outstay Mme de Morsan.
Aymar smiled at that. Laurent took up his candle again, went a few paces towards the door, and stopped. "I wish I could know to-night, Aymar," he said wistfully, "if you are going to agree to what I proposed this afternoon? It would be the best parting gift you could give me—the thing I want most in the world just now . . . except that you should be cleared."
For a very long minute Aymar stood looking down at the floor.
At last he raised his head. "I wish," he said, drawing a long breath, "that it were not so hard to give in to what is . . . happiness to me also." And he gave Laurent the most wonderful smile he had ever seen.
It was partly with the idea of leaving the field free for Aymar to have his explanation with Mme de Morsan that Laurent took himself off for a walk next morning, starting from the water-meadows below the château. He walked for a good hour and a half, steering himself by the towers of Sessignes on the rise, and accompanied all the time by the intense and quiet joy which had dwelt with him since last night—since Aymar had given him that overwhelming proof of his affection. For that acceptance of his was a greater happiness to Laurent than even the happiness of having something to offer him. . . .
Absorbed in this content, he was returning through the pastures, by the side of a hedge which divided one of the big fields from the next, when he was brought back to his surroundings by voices on the other side of it, a little ahead of him. He had advanced a few steps more before he realized that one was undoubtedly Aymar's. The other was a woman's—Mme de Morsan's?
If so, his manoeuvre had not been very successful. However, he need not interrupt the interview, for the hedge was too tall and too thick for them to see him, and if he passed swiftly and quietly they would probably not hear him either. Eavesdropping was naturally the last thought in his mind, since for one thing he knew the purpose of the meeting, and would certainly hear its result later from Aymar. He quickened his pace to get past, the grass muffling his footfall, when through the hedge there burst these startling words:
"Aymar, you cannot be as cold as you seem! Kiss me—kiss me only once, and you will know that you are not!"
The voicewasMme de Morsan's. And Aymar's quick "Eulalie, you are mad. Has the sun——" was swallowed up in the vehemence of her passion.
"The sun! It is you, with your pallor and your unapproachableness and your wounded honour! And you would be safe with me as you never will be withher!I do not care what you did! Aymar, Aymar! . . ."
Laurent heard no more. He had fled stealthily back on his tracks. Good Heavens! Poor Aymar! It was certain that the whole of this interview would never be related to him now!
He made a wide detour, but when he approached the river some half-hour later he pulled up again. A lady was leaning over the rail of the little bridge which he must traverse, staring into the water and swinging to and fro a tiny pink sunshade. It was Mme de Morsan. Well, it was unlikely that she would want to kisshim!Raising his hat, he courageously passed her, noticing that she was more than usually pale . . . whereas he thought that she ought to have been red. She gave him, however, a rather absent but quite unembarrassed smile.
It was Laurent himself who was embarrassed when, after search, he came on Aymar before déjeuner, in the hall. He had only just come in, and he had evidently been walking furiously, and was angry with something of the consuming anger of that penultimate day at Arbelles.
"Yes, she knows everything," he said curtly, as he went past Laurent to the stairs, "—everything but the cause, that is. But she will not tell what she knows."
"I wonder how you are sure of that?" thought Laurent, looking after his ascending figure—wondering, also, despite himself, how that one-sided love-scene had ended.
Déjeuner then followed, not favoured by the presence of Mme de la Rocheterie, who, being slightly indisposed, was keeping her room. It might have gone better had she been there, though to be sure there was nothing wrong with Mme de Morsan's self-possession. Aymar, who never addressed her, was steely, and, when the meal was over, became invisible. There seemed, however, no reason why Laurent should not go for a last ride on Hirondelle, and so, after bidding farewell to Mme de Morsan, who was leaving Sessignes at two o'clock, he departed.
It fell, therefore, to Avoye de Villecresne to entertain the guest for the last half-hour of her stay, after the latter had duly made her farewells to Mme de la Rocheterie upstairs. It was to be presumed that, whatever had taken place between them that morning (for Avoye could not be blind to his attitude at déjeuner) the master of the house would reappear in time to hand the departing visitor to her carriage. In the meantime, Mme de Morsan sat ready in the salon, arrayed in a Russian mantle of pale salmon-coloured cloth ornamented with a border of maroon velvet and white silk cord.
"He is indeed afidus Achates, that young man," she observed of Laurent de Courtomer when the latter had taken his leave. "Pylades, Patroclus, and Euryalus all rolled into one. (Did you know I had so much classical lore? I must have imbibed it from poor Edouard.) But I think I could better describe M. de Courtomer as Sarrasin on two legs. I have seen him looking at Aymar with very much the same expression."
"We owe him more than we can ever repay," said Avoye. She hated discussing anybody she liked with Eulalie de Morsan.
"Yes, indeed you do," agreed that lady. "Nevertheless, it is dreadful to see our poor Aymar so changed."
Worst of all was it to discuss Aymar with her. "He is getting stronger," replied Avoye briefly.
"But, mon Dieu, what he must have suffered . . . in his pride!"
Avoye winced. "Yes, Pont-aux-Rochers was a terrible blow."
"Oh, I was referring to the Bois des Fauvettes," said Mme de Morsan lazily.
"You mean his capture? Naturally he felt that, at such a time." Avoye got up, went quickly to her work-table, and opened a drawer. "What do you think of this new kind of embroidery, Eulalie? I have been wanting your opinion on it."
Mme de Morsan took the specimen brought to her, but she did not look at it. She looked up at the girl instead. "Something happened to him before his capture, did it not? . . . I see that you do not want to discuss it. Neither do I. But I must admit that I find it very interesting, the profound resemblance that there is at bottom between all men, however exceptional they seem to be. It is really something of a relief to know that our dear Aymar is human, after all—as human as any other man."
"I have no idea what you mean," returned Avoye frigidly, intensely disliking words and tone and smile.
The smile grew. "No? And yet it is wonderful to think that to-day, just as in the Middle Ages . . . You remember the legend of the original Oiseleur, and how he lost thejartierthrough a woman?"
"Yes."
"Well, history is only a series of repetitions. Forgive the truism!"
"As I say, I do not know what you are talking about," repeated Avoye, but more warmly this time.
"Has not Aymar lost thejartier? Well, if he did not exactly present that to a lady, he presented her with something more valuable—his good name."
Avoye lifted her proud little head. "Are you trying to inform me, Eulalie, that report has introduced a woman into this story?"
"No, ma chère. Report has left her out—fortunately for our cousin. But she was there all the same. I happen to know the true version, and I am willing to share it with you."
"I am not quite sure," said Avoye, considering her, "that you always know what truth is, Eulalie."
"You are frank—quite like Tante Athénaïs for once—merci! But I do know; it is others, you will find, who have tampered with it. Ah, my dear Avoye, with your little white ingénue's mind . . . if you knew!"
"Please drop these hints, Eulalie, and tell me straight out what you mean!"
"With pleasure," replied Mme de Morsan, arranging her mantle. "Ask Aymar, then, whether he did not really send his famous letter to the enemy as the price of a woman's life!"
"Absurd!" exclaimed Mme de Villecresne, now thoroughly roused. "I wonder you have not more sense!"
Eulalie smiled sweetly. "Oh, I know why you are angry. You think that there is only one woman in the world for whom Aymar would do such a thing."
"Aymar would not do a thing like that for any woman!"
"Again the ingénue! Ask him!"
"Indeed I shall not!" cried Avoye contemptuously.
"No, perhaps you are wiser. . . . When are you going to marry him?—Ah forgive my indiscretion! Yet, on the whole, I think I should get his confession out of him first if I were you."
"Confession! Aymar!"
"Yes, even Aymar! . . . Have I not said that he has proved himself human, after all? Listen; the Bonapartists had in their hands at the end of April a woman whom they were, apparently, going to shoot as a spy, because they suspected her of carrying information . . . as shehaddone, before the Restoration. To save her, Aymar made a bargain, took the fearful risk he did . . . and lost."
"Eulalie, you are dreaming!"
"It is you who are asleep, ma chère. I am trying to wake you, since you will have to come out of the trance some day. . . . Of course you think I am libelling L'Oiseleur. Well, you have only to ask him—though to be sure he may have become so much further human as to lie. . . . I suppose we shall see him before I go?" She looked at the clock. "I have not yet made him my adieux."
"Itis. . . a libel!" said Avoye, her breath coming short. "For no woman——"
Mme de Morsan leant forward. "For one woman, perhaps, Avoye . . . for one! Ought you not to be proud? Such a hecatomb . . . and his good name! You see it, do you not, for surely you remember in whose hands you were on the night of April the twenty-seventh?"
"But I . . ." faltered Avoye, staring at her. "I was in no danger . . . there was no talk of shooting . . ."
"Is that so? I can well believe it. But M. de Vaubernier, who brought the news to Aymar here, and acted as his intermediary, was crazed with fear for you."
Avoye had sprung to her feet. "Oh, it's impossible! It's . . . you are lying wickedly! . . . Iknowthat you are lying, for Aymar himself has told me all about the letter, and why he sent it—it was a plan he had already made. And it was not sent to where I was at all! He would have known that I would rather a thousand times . . . but no, it is too absurd to pretend that I was in danger of being shot when I was treated with such courtesy . . . and more than absurd, wicked," she added, as a fresh aspect dawned upon her, "to make out that I—I—was the cause of Pont-aux-Rochers!"
Eulalie shrugged her shoulders in the salmon-coloured mantle. "Well, I think I hear Aymar's step, so you can easily have me proved a liar . . . or rather, perhaps, learn that the Marquis de Vaubernier, from whom I had the story, is a romancer of the first order."
ItwasAymar's step. In a moment more he came in through the long window.
"Your carriage is at the door, Madame," he said coldly to Eulalie. "May I have the honour of conducting you to it?"
But Mme de Morsan was looking down, smiling and silent, contemplating her toe on the edge of the hearth. Avoye's eyes were fixed on her cousin; then she suddenly sat down as if her limbs would no longer sustain her. But it was she who broke the silence.
"Eulalie has been telling me something about you . . . which I do not believe."
"Something," completed Mme de Morsan in measured tones, "which I elicited from M. de Vaubernier—no, not at Aix. As I told you, I did not see him there. It was at Chambéry. You must not blame the old gentleman; in his horror at what had happened to you, Aymar, which he knew, and told me, he let outwhyit had happened. And now I have incautiously mentioned it to Avoye, since she is so deeply concerned in it, and find that you had decided—wisely, I dare say—to keep her in the dark. Need I say how much I regret——"
"No!" broke in Aymar, standing before her very tall and straight. "No, you need not add a lie to what you have done! Your carriage, as I said, is at the door," and he made a gesture towards the hall. His eyes were blazing.
Eulalie de Morsan looked up at him easily, admiringly. "What I have done, my dear Aymar—how well you look in a rage!—is merely to tell the truth . . . of which you have been sparing!"
"But it is not the truth!" repeated Avoye, in the voice of one who, having been mortally stabbed, denies the wound.
Mme de Morsan rose in an unconcerned manner, and gathered together her possessions. "Well, as Aymar does not seem anxious to have a witness of his answer to that statement, I will leave you together. Au revoir, ma chère."
Avoye took no notice. Aymar was already at the door, holding it open. Eulalie went slowly past him, and, looking him in the face as she did so, said, very low, "You would have done better to strike the bargain. And now you will see the quality ofherlove!" Yet suddenly her own face was convulsed, and she turned it aside.
He did not vouchsafe a word or a look, but, standing on the threshold, said to Célestin who, with her maid, was waiting in the hall, "Hand Mme de Morsan to her carriage," and went into the salon again, shutting the door behind him.
Avoye was standing before the great hearth, her back to him, her face buried in her hands. He stood a moment at the door, looking at her, then he crossed the room towards her. At his step she dropped her hands, and, clasping them hard in front of her, without turning towards him, without even glancing at him, said in an almost inaudible voice:
"Aymar, say that it is not true!"
No, to pile more lies on those the orchard had drawn from him—he could not do it. He had come to that hour which he had sacrificed so much to avert, when he must tell her of her innocent share in his ruin. He set his teeth for a moment as he took out the knife. If only it were destined for his breast and not hers!
"Will you tell me exactly what she said to you?"
Still not looking at him, very briefly, as one half stunned, she told him. The brutal manner in which she had herself been enlightened was clear enough. But Aymar had hardly a thought to spare for Eulalie, her perfidy, her bitter revenge. What mattered was this stricken, pitifully bewildered little Avoye, so pale in her grey gown, who would not look at him while she waited for the denial which he could not give, but only repeated again and again, in a voice that made his heart ache, "Aymar, say it is not true, say it is not true!" and then, "How can it be true? How could you have done it to save me? you did not know that I had been stopped—you said so!"
"I wanted to spare you all I could," he answered very sadly.
"To spare me? Why, what had I done?"
"Nothing—nothing! That was why."
"But I was in no danger—you did not even know that I was detained. And she says that Godfather was mixed up in it—yet you never said a word of it!" And now she was looking at him indeed. "Is it possible that down there in the orchard, when my heart was breaking about you, you took me in your arms and comforted me . . . withlies!"
The hated word stung him a little in the midst of everything else.
"How could I tell you the truth, my darling, when, as you say, your heart was breaking like that? And, although I sent the letter to save you, itwaspart of a ruse—a plan I had made beforehand. Can't you believe me, Avoye?"
"But it is all so crazy!" she exclaimed. "I in danger of being shot—I to whom they apologized! . . . And Godfather, what was he doing in it? He never came there! And you really thought,you——"
Poor child, poor lamb, so bewildered under the touch of the knife. Oh, to get through this barbarity quickly! "Dearest, I will tell you exactly what happened. But sit down, for pity's sake." He seized and swung forward a little gilt chair. "If only I had never given that woman the chance of springing it on you like this—if only I had guessed that she knew!"
But she recoiled from him. She would none of the chair. She went back as far as the carved stone of the hearth and put a hand to that. And then she faced him. "Be quick, Aymar, be quick! I'm . . . frightened!"
So, standing in front of her, and in front of the proud, indifferent swans of their blazon, he told her shortly the other, the true, complete story. But it had a strange sound in his own ears now.
There was fear indeed in her eyes when he had finished. And when he said, "Do you see, my dear, a little, why I wanted you never to know?" and tried to take her hand, she drew it away and shook her head.
"Howcanthey both be true—that you did it for a military reason, which you told me first, and that you did it to save me because you imagined—imagined—that I was in danger?"
Aymar looked down at her, full of a great pity. "Do you not see," he said again, "the plan was there, ready, and I used it, that was all."
Trembling visibly, and twisting her hands a little, she said, "No; I cannot. I cannot help feeling, which story am I to believe . . . or perhaps you have another?"
"Avoye!" he exclaimed, flushing scarlet.
"I wish you had! I wish you had! How am I to believe, first, that you sent the letter to the Imperialist commander at Arzon as a ruse, and then, that you sent it to Colonel Richard at Saint-Goazec, to save me, who was not in danger! You have told me both of those things. . . . Aymar, Aymar, you seem somebody I have never known! You—you—to do a disgraceful thing . . . to do it for me . . . and then, not daring to tell me, to lie about it!"
For a moment he knew dizziness. They were both drowning in a sea too strong for either of them. Yet surely there must be some raft to which one might cling. The love of years could not fail like this. . . . "Avoye, I swear to you that the two stories are not incompatible! The planwasa ruse—it remained a ruse, even though I used it as I did."
"But how am I to know that you did not make up the whole of what you told me in the orchard? So much of it was untrue—you admit that. What portions of it can I really feel safe in believing?" She suppressed a sob. "Did you ever meet M. de Saint-Etienne and make that plan at all?"
He gave her a look, but in words he did not answer—he could not. Who had the knife now?
"I cannot help hurting you!" cried Avoye desperately. "Do you think that it does not hurt me, too? For you never sent that letter to Arzon—that was a lie—and youdidknow that I was detained!"
Aymar had found his voice again. "Yes . . . unfortunately!" He turned away for a moment. The waves had grown mountains high; yet there was but one thing he would appeal to. "If you would only try to understand!" he said, facing her again; and he said it very quietly.
She was trembling and very pale; her eyes were full of tears as she answered, "I do understand—I do begin to. I understand now why you have taken no steps to clear yourself. The story that was good enough to dupe me with, in the orchard, is not good enough for the world! Yes, I do understand! You are not, as I had always dreamed, the living embodiment of our motto, the very soul of honour!"
He made a faint gesture. "Then nothing that I can say is of any use."
But she went on in her blind anguish, "If a saint—yes, if our Blessed Lady herself had come to tell me that you could do this . . . and then lie about it to me . . . I would not have believed it, Aymar! Icouldnot. . . . And yet, you have done it!"
"Yes, I have done it!" He looked at her steadily. "And you are not going to try to understand or to pardon?"
"It is not a thing one could ever pardon!" she flashed out. "You have sold your honour!"
With that the blade was full in his own heart, so keen that its stab was partly physical, and involuntarily he put his hand to his side. But he took it instantly away, and gripped the back of the little gilt chair near him. He was the colour of ashes. Yet his head was high.
"No, that I have not done! And there is only one part of it which needs pardon," he said firmly, "and that is, that to save you needless pain, I told you some things which were not true. For what IdidI do not ask your pardon."
"You can say that after Pont-aux-Rochers!"
"I can say that after Pont-aux-Rochers. What I deliberately slew, in the hope of saving you, was not my men, but my own . . . instincts. It is not in your power or any one's to pardon me forthatsacrifice."
The very look he gave her, at once proud, tender, unyielding and hurt to death, the very yearning of her heart for him, only met that other tide of horrified dismay in fiercer tumult and foam. Avoye de Villecresne burst into tears, and crying incoherently, "I cannot understand you . . . I never shall. . . . This will kill me, I think . . . but I cannot bear to see you . . . as you are now!" turned and went quickly out of the open window, leaving him alone.
And Aymar stood quite still, looking, not after her disappearing figure, but at the old Spanish leather screen, with its embossed border of pomegranates and its faded gold, which had for some minutes been to him the background to her slim body in its narrow gown, her aureole of burnished hair even, in a sense, to her passionate and bewildered voice—looking at it almost as if he did not realize that she was gone. Then he, too, went from the room.