She did fall asleep in the end. A slight sound woke her. Gaston, fully dressed, was kneeling by her side.
“O, my heart, is it time already?”
“It wants five minutes, beloved.”
In that black night Valentine had determined that, if it killed her, she would not fail him at the moment of parting. “I must get up, then, and give you your scarf,” she said, raising herself.
“You must fasten it on for me,” said he.
“No, Gaston, not over your uniform—and you without an escort! It is too conspicuous . . . I wish now that Ihad not worked the ends in gold. No; hide it in your breast, and put it on when you are back!” She had slipped out of bed, had found the symbol, and was holding it close to her.
“Very well, most dear,” said he, smiling. “I wanted your fingers to knot it round me, but perhaps you are right. It is from your hands that I receive it, which is all that matters.” He knelt and took it from her, kissed the folded silk, and opening the breast of his uniform, put it over his heart. She stooped over him suddenly.
“I am not worthy of you, my dearest, for last night . . . if I could have kept you back, I would. This morning I . . . I desire you to go. But I am weak, Gaston; only promise me that you will think of me as I wish to be in this, and not as I . . . as I am!”
Still kneeling, he caught her hands. “Have you then so little knowledge of what you are to me, Valentine—you, my star, my standard with the Lilies, my oriflamme itself!”
And now at last the West was really ablaze, and in a few days, as department after department lit up with the carefully prepared flame, the Republicans began to suffer more serious reverses than they had known since the days of thegrande guerre, the Vendée proper, six years before. For the Chouannerie which the dying Directory had to face was very different from what it had been in the days of Hoche and the Convention; it was no longer a swarm of small peasant uprisings led, sometimes, by nameless chiefs as uneducated as the men who followed them. The leaders of this war were gentlemen, returned émigrés, with enrolled levies at their disposal; with a system of requisition, a network of espionage and intelligence throughout the country districts; with, here and there, white-plumed staff officers wearing the cross of St. Louis, with uniforms, now and then with fifes and drums, and even, in one or two cases, with a little cavalry.
And their tactics were new and more formidable. No longer did they content themselves with overrunning the country districts, avoiding the neighbourhood of towns; on the contrary, as M. de Kersaint had told the ladies of La Vergne, they were in such force that they threatened—and did more than threaten—those centres of Republicanism.
At the voice of Cadoudal the country between Vannes and Auray had risen as one man. Not vainly had he boasted in the spring of his careful organisation. And while he himself successively took Landévant between Auray and Hennebont, Port Navalo at the outlet of the inland sea of the Morbihan, and other places between that and the mouth of the Vilaine, his lieutenant Sol de Grisolles raised the districts between the mouth of the Vilaine andthat of the Loire. To him fell La Roche-Bernard on the river itself, Pontchâteau and Guérande with its mediæval walls and towers, a formidable triangle of possessions above St. Nazaire and the Loire mouth. And these were only some of the Republican losses in Brittany.
Maine fought under the young Comte de Bourmont, seconded by the veteran Chevalier de Tercier, and Chappedelaine, and the Chevalier de Châteauneuf—who was “Achille le blond.” Another of Bourmont’s lieutenants, La Fregeolière, pushed as far as Le Lude and La Flèche on the borders of the Angoumois and Touraine. Anjou obeyed the old Comte de Châtillon, and, after the brilliant initial success of his chief of staff, d’Andigné, at Noyant in September, the Angevins made rapid incursions into the districts of Segré, Candé and Châteauneuf. Ingrandes, Varades on the Loire, garrisoned towns, were threatened. From the Loire right up to the Côtes-du-Nord the Republican cantonments and posts were submerged under a flood of insurgents.
But far more resounding than all these widespread successes were the audaciouscoups de maincarried out on large towns. St. Brieuc on its bay in the Côtes-du-Nord was not, it is true, a large town, but it was garrisoned; yet Mercier, Cadoudal’s young alter ego, and Saint-Régent took and held it for a night while General Casabianca barricaded himself in his hotel. The Chouans set free three hundred Royalists imprisoned there, and took muskets. But, ten days before this, a much more daring capture had been made—nothing less than the city of Le Mans which, at three o’clock on the morning of October 15, Bourmont’s forces entered at five points simultaneously. He held it for three days before he withdrew. Even more than Le Mans, Nantes, that great city, proud of its resistance to the Vendean army, might have seemed secure. But while Grigny, commanding there, went out in the wrong direction to encounter the Angevins, Châtillon and d’Andigné, under cover of a thick fog, slipped in at four o’clock in the morning of October 20 with no more than two thousand followers, of whom only half were accustomed to arms.
The taking of Nantes, though the place had to be evacuated before daylight, and though it did not give thecaptors any material advantage in the way of arms and powder, as did the seizure of Le Mans, had, equally with that exploit, exactly the effect on public opinion that the Royalists had hoped, creating such a terror in the large towns that they could not be left without adequate garrisons, and thus immobilising a number of Republican troops, and leaving the country districts freer for the operations of the Royalists. Before either of these feats, however, the example had been set in Finistère—and was not Valentine proud of it?—when her husband, with a smaller force than any, seized and held for two days and nights the pleasant cathedral city of Quimper, thechef-lieuof the department. Yet she could hardly have been prouder than ‘les jeunes,’ who played a most conspicuous part in the enterprise. To the Republicans of Quimper the sudden inroad of a hitherto unknown phenomenon, Chouan cavalry—not very wonderfully mounted, it is true, nor smartly equipped, but making a terrific noise on the cobbled streets—was little short of apocalyptic. The Chevalier de la Vergne, the commander of this small body, observed to his two intimates that they had a right to give themselves airs, since the capture of Quimper was undoubtedly due in the main to “Charlemagne’s Horse,” as he had christened his corps; but Roland reminded him that, if such were the case, it was really Mirabel which had taken the town, for Mirabel had mounted and armed those cavaliers, as it had armed the greater part of M. de Kersaint’sgars.
And, after leaving Quimper, before the troops sent in haste from the Morbihan could fall upon him, the Marquis de Kersaint was up threatening Châteaulin, while M. du Ménars with “Charlemagne’s Horse” marched rapidly towards Carhaix. A force was then ordered out of Brest in the hopes of catching the Royalists between two fires, but, nobody knew how, M. de Kersaint and his men slipped through, and, effecting a junction with his subordinate, plunged into the wild, broken country round Huelgoat, where the Blues did not dare to follow them. Finally, in retiring unsatisfied to Brest, the Republicans were fallen upon in the rear by a perfectly unexpected body of Chouans from the north, which they had believed quiet. Their leader was one “Sincère.” And the authorities, completelymisinformed as they had been about the supposed quiescence of Finistère, were at their wits’ end to know where the flame would next break out in the department.
But south of the Loire things did not go so well. There were no great generals left there; the majority even of the former officers were missing. Forestier, the most popular, was still recovering from his terrible wound of August, and his ill-success then made a new levy still more difficult. Yet d’Autichamp, Suzannet, and Grignon, who divided the three Vendean commands, did their best. The Republicans had few forces on the left bank of the Loire, and one brilliant success might have raised Vendée from ruins. The success did not come. Suzannet attacked Montaigu, was beaten off and severely wounded, a misfortune which led directly to the dispersal of his men. D’Autichamp, who had got together a rather larger force, fell in at Les Aubiers with two hundred and fifty Blues whose commander stationed some of them in the church tower, whence they killed and wounded some forty Royalists. It was proposed to burn them out, but this would have offended the religious scruples of the Vendeans, and they were besieged instead. After twenty-four hours without food or water they were still holding out. Meanwhile the Republicanchef de brigadeat Bressuire was on the march. D’Autichamp went to Nueil to defend the passage of the little river Argenton against him, left the command there to a peasant subordinate, and returned to Les Aubiers. He had better have stayed at Nueil. The Vendeans, according to their incorrigible habit, neglected to put sentries, the Blues from Bressuire surprised them, and they were put to flight.
The affair did not cost many men, but it had a most unfortunate moral effect. Five thousand Vendeans had allowed themselves to be surprised and routed by eight hundred Blues. “Where is Cathelineau?” was the universal cry. And in fact this miserable affray of Les Aubiers decided the fate of the whole campaign in Vendée, for after it d’Autichamp could only skirmish, and Grignon, in the centre, was never able to get together many men. Much, certainly, had hung on the valour of the Blues in the church tower and the religious scruples of their opponents.
But the failure of Vendée and the startling successes in Brittany alike paled before a much greater event. On the 9th of October, the very day that Gaston de Trélan had ridden away alone from La Vergne at sunrise, General Bonaparte, abandoning his army in Egypt, landed at Fréjus. On the 16th, the day after the taking of Le Mans, he was at Paris. In a month from the date of his landing, the 9th of November, the Directory lay in the dust, and he was acclaimed First Consul of the temporary Consulate, and the saviour of France. Across the path of the Bourbons there no longer sprawled a hydra-headed incompetence. One man of genius, with a vehement, implacable will stood there, armed.
The road to power had been made easy for him. France was only crying out for a deliverer to raise her from the state of mud and blood in which she lay. Attempts had already been made to find one in Joubert or Moreau. It was conceivable that even had a Bourbon appeared he might very well have been accepted. But it was too late now.
Yet this moment was the very apogee of the Royalist revival in the West. Never had they been better organised, better recognised as a military force. What they had taken or threatened in three weeks was amazing. In the Morbihan they were entirely masters of the countryside; in Ille-et-Vilaine they had strong detachments near Rennes, Fougères, and Vitré; Bourmont in Maine occupied the bourgs and even the little towns on the banks of the Sarthe and the Loire; and distant Finistère had become almost volcanic.
On account of these very successes, overtures of peace had already been made, from the side of the Directory, before the great change of Brumaire. With them was charged the Republican general-in-chief in the West, the Comte de Hédouville, a gentleman with the manners and predilections of his caste, and he, in his headquarters at Angers, was actually in conference with the chosen go-between—a Royalist lady, Mme Turpin de Crissé—on the day of thecoup d’étatitself, so that his success was announced to a Government already overthrown. For he naturally directed his powers of conciliation towards the least victorious wing of the Royalist forces. It was with aversion and amazement, therefore, that the leaders ofBrittany, Maine and Anjou heard that an armistice had been signed on November 25 for the left bank of the Loire. And during the cessation of hostilities the Comte de Grignon was surprised and killed by the Republicans, so that since d’Autichamp, who had always opposed the taking up of arms, was more than willing, and Suzannet washors de combat, there remained no obstacle to the pacification of Vendée. A conference for that object was imminent.
But a suspension of arms on the left bank of the Loire almost of necessity brought about one on the right also, whether the leaders were anxious for it or no. Châtillon indeed was of the former for he was old and ill. But Cadoudal and Mercier received it with great disfavour. Yet, whether it were to result in peace or no, the armistice for the purpose of treating of pacification was promulgated on December 9, and Pouancé in Anjou was appointed as the place of meeting.
The Marquis de Kersaint, away in unvanquished Finistère, was too bitterly disgusted to attend these conferences in person. But, unless he wished to lose touch with the other leaders, he was obliged to be represented there, and he sent to Pouancé two delegates, his chief of staff, the Chevalier du Ménars, and the Abbé Chassin.
From the Abbé Chassin’s Diary.
Pouancé, Christmas Eve, 1799.—A good occasion for reviewing, before I say my first Mass of the feast, these brief notes that I have been keeping since M. du Ménars and I came here a fortnight ago. Yet really all that I can say is that we are still here, discussing, discussing . . . The energy expended on these conferences might have launched a battle or a siege. Perhaps in its way it is as usefully spent.
The party for continuing the war is in a minority, that is clear. But it is a very strong minority—Cadoudal, our mainstay here, Mercier, the Comte de Bourmont, one or two minor chiefs, and, of course, through our voices, the “Marquis de Kersaint.” That the Vendean leaders cry for peace one cannot wonder, for Vendée is exhausted. They say they have not even enough munitions for a headquarters guard. But the war minority would more thanonce have liked to break off the conferences, and it was only after stormy discussions that M. de Bourmont was named as delegate to Hédouville at Angers. He has others with him now. I have hardly dared inform Gaston how things were tending, though I was sent here for that purpose.
There is this to be said, that we began with a moral victory, since we obtained that the Government should send no more troops into the West during the armistice. And our military position—except in Vendée—is so good that we have every right to hope to gain our points. Moreover the acts of the new Government, particularly the abrogation of the abominable Law of Hostages, have disposed many minds towards conciliation. Some of the more warlike leaders, even, are not opposed to a respite, provided that they can remain in arms, as they are doing. And then there is this widespread idea among them that Bonaparte intends to play the part of a Monk, and use his power for a restoration of royalty. I must confess I do not share it, but M. du Ménars does. At any rate time to penetrate the First Consul’s intentions is no loss—we sent the Chevalier d’Andigné to Paris on December 18 to sound him. Moreover we want to be certain of Monseigneur le Comte d’Artois’ wishes.
So time is really what we are playing for in these negotiations with Hédouville. The worst of it is that Hédouville is so accommodating that he makes this difficult! All our just demands are on the way to being accepted—complete freedom for religion, no oath or formal submission, no disarmament, oblivion of the past, and no conscription. If this is really so then we should lay down—but not give up—our arms on an honourable peace. But would the terms be observed afterwards by the Government? Georges, I know, doubts it. . . .
It is time to prepare for my Mass. I shall say all three in a disused church, with the leaders who are here and our Breton guard for congregation. The proper season for thoughts of peace. . . .
December 29.—All those dreams of peace are scattered. Yesterday, like a thunderbolt from a clear sky, without warning, without justification, appeared a most violent and provocative proclamation from the three Consuls to theinhabitants of the West, denouncing our chiefs—who at the very moment are in treaty with their representative—but professing a tenderness for those who had been “led astray” by them. The Government will pardon those who repent, but will strike down those who, after this warning, dare still to resist.
Everyone is burning with indignation. Most certainly the First Consul is not going to play Monk! One begins to see him, a menacing figure, behind the conciliatory form of General Hédouville, who wishes us well and has always acted as an honourable opponent—and who has written, evidently with regret, that if we cannot come to an agreement with him by the 15th (he means of their new-fangled Nivôse, of which to-day is the 8th) hostilities must begin again, as a result of orders he has received from Paris.
And, as if Fate had determined that they should, M. de Châtillon has this very day received a letter from Monseigneur le Comte d’Artois confirming the instructions he had already sent, not to make peace unless it were part of a plan for the general pacification of Europe, and saying that help is on the way, and that he himself will soon be here. Will he?
If he do come our forces will be doubled in the twinkling of an eye. Probably the First Consul knows that, and wishes to have done with us before he could arrive. Bonaparte must know, too, of our division of opinion, our want of arms and ammunition and artillery. I feel that he intends to have victory at any price, and that he would prefer to crush us rather than to placate—it would give him more advertisement.
So ends the conference of Pouancé. Georges has already left for the Morbihan; La Prévalaye and Bourmont have returned, or are returning, to their divisions. We hear that the victorious army of Holland, under the detestable Brune, is on the way to Brittany. M. du Ménars and I start back on our journey to Finistère in an hour’s time.
Quimperlé, January 4.—We have taken longer than I expected to reach the soil of Finistère, but we have gone slowly on purpose, not wishing to get out of touch withpossible developments, for we believe that the indefatigable Hédouville is trying to get together a new conference in spite of the shock which slew the first. Yet, if he does, M. du Ménars and I should not return without an authorisation which we know well enough Gaston will never give.
And now that we have seen with our own eyes to-day a copy of the far more violent manifesto, signed by the First Consul, to the Army of the West, we think that the sooner we are back at the Clos-aux-Grives the better, for that does not sound like conferences. “The majority of good citizens,” runs this proclamation, “have already laid down their arms; there remain only brigands, émigrés, men in the pay of England—Frenchmen in the pay of England! March against them; you will not be called upon to display much valour . . . Let me soon learn that the chiefs of the rebels have ceased to exist!”
Such are a few phrases culled from it. That “Frenchmen in the pay of England” is a clever and a galling touch. Indeed, it is the great misfortune of our party to be mixed up so inextricably with the foreigner. And yet it is not our fault; it is the fault of circumstances. England alone, with Austria, continues the struggle; she is rich; it is she who disposes of the persons of most of our princes, since they live under her protection. . . . Yet it pleases me to think that epithet does not apply to Gaston, at any rate. The promised English subsidy amounted to very little; it is his own gold, from his own house, which has made it possible for him to do the wonders he has done.
I do not like that “Let me learn that the chiefs of the rebels have ceased to exist”; it savours, somehow, of methods unworthy of a soldier.
January 6.—Back at Le Clos-aux-Grives. Gaston (as I thought I should find him) determined to continue the struggle, whatever the rest decide. He has the advantage of the remotest and wildest country, and Georges, his nearest neighbour, will certainly do as he is doing. But the forces of Finistère are pitifully small compared to the enemy’s. If only he could get help by sea from England!
January 7.—We hear that there is to be a new conference opened on the 10th at Candé. Gaston refusesto have anything to do with it, and indeed it would be impossible to get there in time now.
January 10.—Decidedly we are returning to the worst days of the Directory. A decree has just come down declaring the departments of the West outlawed.
January 15.—Negotiations were reopened two days ago at Candé.
January 18.—Nothing settled yet at Candé, we hear, but the rupture of the truce is postponed till January 22. Gaston speaks of sending me to England.
January 20.—Most disastrous news. Two days ago, at Montfaucon-sur-Moine, the officers of Vendée signed a separate peace. Alas for the glorious shades of La Roche-jaquelein and Lescure!
January 22.—The truce expires to-day. Anjou is disbanding.
January 24.—Brune’s army is getting nearer every day, and it is said that he is to replace Hédouville as general-in-chief. We hear that Bourmont was defeated two days ago by Chabot at Meslay; unless he can recover, that means that Maine, too, is gone. Brisk fighting is going on indeed in the Côtes-du-Nord, but our hopes rest on Cadoudal, the unbeaten and unyielding. Gaston has sent M. du Ménars with what men he can spare southwards.
January 25.—A report that yesterday or the day before Cadoudal fought an indecisive action with Harty, commanding the troops at Vannes, at Pont-du-Loc. Georges is not beaten, that is clear, but, if he is not victorious, it may menace his bold plan of pushing on, after crushing Harty, to the banks of the Vilaine, and joining hands with Sol de Grisolles, there to await Brune’s onset—and after that, perhaps, of joining hands with Gaston.
January 26.—Only too true. Georges has sent a courier to warn Gaston. His plan is hopeless. He fears, too, that Sol de Grisolles is not in a state to defend the passage of the Vilaine. And Bourmont has given in.
Doubtless thereissomething in race, and ancient blood. The prospect before us, once so bright, is hourly more gloomy, and I know, none better, what failure means to Gaston. Yet he keeps his profound discouragement wonderfully to himself, and his little army is still as well disciplined as it is possible for a Chouan force to be. It isalready unsafe for us to make the Clos-aux-Grives our permanent headquarters. We live dispersed in the forest, only meeting there occasionally by day, never by night. I write this, in fact, seated on a fallen stone of the dolmen where that memorable meeting—about which I have never been told—took place last August. I wonder what has become of that misguided madman, the Comte de Brencourt?
Gaston had a letter from the Duchesse to-day, sent by a stable-boy from La Vergne. I say to myself still, that whatever happens he can never be captured, in such proximity to the sea as he will be if we are forced to retire when Brune enters the Morbihan. He and she can always take ship for England at the eleventh hour.
January 27.—The garrison of Quimper has evidently been reinforced. A hot brush to-day on the Lanvennec road. We have lost forty-three killed and wounded, among them, alas, two of our few remaining officers. Roland has got a scratch of which he is rather proud. I have just been dressing it. Gaston, I could see, was on tenterhooks about it.
January 28.—Very bad news indeed. Cadoudal has had to disband his men, for fear of being crushed by Brune’s advance. These disastrous tidings, getting through by unknown channels as things do here, have caused some desertions. Rumours that M. du Ménars is killed. It is very cold in the forest.
January 29.—Brune entered Vannes yesterday, and made a great requisition of money, overcoats and shoes for his troops. Iamto go to England. Would I were not!
January 30.—Last night a party of Blues from Lanvennec sacked and burnt the Clos-aux-Grives. There was no one there, and it was not worth throwing away lives in its defence, as it was of little use to us. ‘Les jeunes’ of course wanted to defend their nursery. The night was red with the flames of it. Farewell, old house!
It is true about M. du Ménars. He was a brave man and a good officer. R.I.P. His men no longer exist as a force.
I want Gaston to make for La Vergne. But he will not, principally, I think, because all his desire is there. Butit would be an excellent headquarters—or more accurately, I fear, place of retreat—for a time.
February 4.—Cadoudal is reported to be actually treating with Brune, and the terms, alas, include disarmament. In a day or two Gaston will find himself literally alone, with his mere handful of men, against Brune’s whole army. He still hopes for help from England, and for some outcome of those ambitious plans which—too late—the Prince’s council have made, and says that so long as he can keep open a part of the coast of Finistère for that purpose, so long he is doing his duty and not sacrificing men uselessly; and that it will take Brune considerable time to advance across the Morbihan into Finistère. This is true. I start for England with his despatches to-morrow morning. My admiration for him knows no bounds; hehasbroken those “aspera fata.”
But this evening I had a letter from Paris, from “Paul Berry,” which has made me very uneasy. He says—and he should know, if anyone—that the First Consul is furious against the “Marquis de Kersaint,”—“that insolent without an army who still holds out”—and they say that he has sworn to make an example of one Chouan leader at least. A horrible fear possesses me that that example may be made of the last in arms, the highest in rank, and . . . his foe of Rivoli. Does Bonaparte remember that, I wonder?
Much troubled by this letter, which I received after seeing Gaston and getting my last instructions I went to him again. The Allée des Vieilles has such a bad reputation after dark in the district that we have been able to use it undisturbed as a bivouac. (It makes a detestable one, owing to the wind on the lande.) I found Gaston walking up and down in the darkness by the ghostly stones, muffled in his cloak. I told him what I had just heard from Paris. He laughed.
“Is the young man from Corsica a bugbear who has frightened even you, Pierre?” he asked. “I promise you he shall not have me to ‘make an example of,’ if that is his phrase, till the last possible moment. And when I have done all I can—what does it matter if he succeeds?”
Seeing him in that mood, and feeling that I was leaving him—with what a heavy heart!—to I know not whatimminent perils, I said, “You need never fall into his hands, Gaston, whatever of defeat happens. Here the door is always open behind you. The sea——”
He interrupted me, in that suddenly freezing voice he has when he is displeased. “I am surprised at you, Pierre,” he said, and turned his back on me.
I was a little hurt; of course I knew better than to insult him by suggesting that he should desert his men. I only meant to remind him that should it come to submission—and in my heart, I can see nothing else before him—once the formalities over, he can so easily take ship for England. I explained this, and, though I did not like using this weapon, I am so afraid of what I may be leaving him to—and most of all his own indomitable pride—that I added, “Gaston, remember that you would not sail alone!”
A little quiver went through him, almost as if I had struck him. He said never a word, but I saw his face for a second in the light of the camp fire. I presumed, I daresay, for there is perfect understanding between them on all things—yet, for all that, surely she should have some consideration shown her! In that thought lies my best hope.
But I wish to God I were not going to England. . . .
About midnight on the 14th of February—her name-day, which the ladies of La Vergne had celebrated, though with heavy hearts, by a little feast—Mme de Trélan was awakened by a commotion in the hall below. Many people seemed to be there, and she heard the jingle of accoutrements. For a moment she thought the invaders might be Republicans; then, with a leap of the heart, that it might conceivably be . . . someone else. She opened her door and listened, and, since sounds floated very clearly up the great staircase, she did catch the sound she craved for. She flung on a cloak and went out into the gallery.
Down in the hall, in the midst of his remaining staff, her husband was apologising with great courtesy for taking possession of Mme de la Vergne’s house without leave. Nothing, he declared, but necessity would have made him do so. As she must be aware, he had his back fairly to the wall now; there were only sixty men with him, but it was possible that by using La Vergne as a centre he might succeed in rallying the broken remnants of the late M. du Ménars’ force. On the morrow he would lay before the three ladies the arrangements he proposed for their conveyance to a place of safety—though he had no intention, he assured her, of allowing himself to be attacked in the château.
But Valentine heard Mme de la Vergne, a perfectly dignified figure, despite her hastily donneddéshabillé, in the little crowd of uniformed and booted and lantern-bearing men, reply quite calmly that there was no need to waste time over such a discussion. “My daughter and I shall have the honour to entertain you in our house, Monsieur le . . . Marquis, for as long as you require it. All we have is at your disposal. But we do not intend to leave it.”
Valentine did not wait for Gaston’s reply; she knew he would not argue the point then in front of his officers, including, as they did, his hostess’s son. Returning to her room, she began to rekindle the dying fire there, to warm him when he came. She felt a little stunned. She had not known that things were going as ill as this.
Half an hour later she heard his knock at her door. As he entered she saw how his air was changed—for it was not only that his uniform was worn and stained, his boots covered with mud, the scarf she had embroidered soiled—and the change went like a knife through her heart. But all he did, the first greetings over, was to apologise for his state—the gentleman of the great world ashamed for appearing so in the presence of a woman.
“I am not fit to be in your room, Valentine,” he said, looking down at himself with distaste. “I have not had my clothes off for the last week. You must forgive this unceremonious visit.”
She was sitting in her chair again now, and he stood by her in the firelight. Pride and anguish strove together in her as she looked up at him.
“Gaston, I heard what you said in the hall. Tell me the worst, my darling! We have heard that Cadoudal is treating with the Republicans, but we cannot believe it. But if it should be true, if he should submit, would there be no one left in arms at all—no one in the Côtes-du-Nord even——no one but you . . . no one?”
She could only see his profile. He was fingering a little Chinese figure that stood on her mantelpiece.
“Where does this mandarin come from, I wonder? It reminds me of one we had at Mirabel. We had several, I think . . .” Then he looked down at her. “Yes, Valentine, it is the last act. Cadoudalhassubmitted. He signed near Vannes yesterday . . . Iamalone in arms; there is no one else left. Unless help comes from England in the next few days——”
He broke off, turned back to the mandarin, and then, abruptly, his sword clanking against the floor as he did so, knelt down and buried his face on her knees. And, fighting back the sob that rose in her own throat, she folded her arms round his neck and kissed the wet, iron-grey hair.
“My darling, my darling, how tired you are!” Shesmoothed the bowed head as she would have smoothed a child’s, terribly conscious all the time of the restraint he was putting on himself not to break down altogether. For his hands were gripping the arms of her chair on either side of her, and every now and again a shudder went through him.
“I will never consent to the disarmament of Finistère, never—never—never!” he said in a smothered voice. “I will die first!”
Her hand stopped. “Is that what you fear, Gaston? Is that it? O my knight without reproach, you shall do what you think best. If it is necessary—if you must in honour—you shall . . . die.”
“I will not hold you back.” But she had no need to add that, and she did not. Her husband lifted his head, almost frightened at the sublimity of her self-forgetfulness.
“Valentine,” he exclaimed, “is it possible that you—a woman—understand?”
“I love you,” she said simply.
He knelt there staring at her, the firelight showing, on his sad and weary features, an expression that was almost awe. Then he made a movement and caught her to him.
“I said you were my oriflamme. I shall fight to the last as long as I have the means, and with how much more courage if you give me leave to die! . . . But I shall not let them attack La Vergne, though you, I know, would not fear it.”
“Nor would the others,” she answered. “Then will you not make it your headquarters?”
“I do not know yet. When Brune’s advance begins . . . But though I do not intend to stand a siege here, I fear I must send you and the other ladies away.”
Valentine said nothing, but a little shiver went through her in her turn.
“It is true,” said Gaston, feeling it, “that Mme de la Vergne has already refused to go. And you, my darling——”
“You must do as you think best,” she said again. She would not give open utterance to the wild prayer that was ringing through her.
He sighed, and loosing his hold of her hands, got to his feet, drawing her up with him.
“Gaston, you will sleep now?”
He shook his head. “I must go round the sentries again first. All my officers—all that are left, that is—are as weary as I. As for a bed, I have not seen one for weeks. Something harder will be more familiar. I shall sleep in the hall; there is a bearskin rug there that promises well.”
“Where did you sleep last night, Gaston?”
His voice changed. “In a very holy place, beloved—the place where you came back to me from the dead—the Allée des Vieilles.”
He kissed her on the brow and went out.
“I never thought,” said Artamène next day to Roland, with one of his old flashes of gaiety, not so frequent now as of yore. “I never thought that I should live to admire my own mother more than Cleopatra or la Grande Mademoiselle and other determined ladies! Imagine her standing up to M. le Duc like that—and routing him! It is for you to tremble, Roland, at these unsuspected qualities, since as your future mother-in-law . . .”
For before the unshakable determination of Mme de la Vergne not to be turned out of her own house, as evinced in a private interview with the friendly invader that morning, the determination—perhaps not quite so strong—of the Duc de Trélan to turn her out was baffled.
“I think,” said Lucien, “that there are disadvantages in being a gentleman. M. le Marquis is always grand seigneur; had he been one of these sans-culotte generals he would have bundled her out without ceremony—excuse the verb, mon cher.”
“There are compensations, too,” observed Roland. “Thanks to the admirable—or ominous—firmness of Mme de la Vergne, the Duchesse can remain also.”
“You pointedly omit the advantage to yourself, I notice,” said Marthe’s brother, “It will be my duty to call you out for that, Roland, to-morrow morning. There being no . . . no Moulin-aux-Fées handy, I suggest rakes, in the poultry-yard; but you shall be buried in the arbour of famous memory.”
“I wonder how long any of us will stay here,” observed Lucien thoughtfully. “And as to being buried—we may not have much choice in the matter of locality.”
The other two looked at him with equal thoughtfulness, for in this ebb of fortune the idea was not by now a new one.
“I make only one stipulation about my death,” announced the Chevalier de la Vergne with composure, “and that is, to fall at the same moment as M. le Duc. And you, Roland, have you chosen yours? You look as if you were selecting it.”
“No, I was thinking about Mme la Duchesse,” answered the young man rather unexpectedly.
It is a terrible hour when a man of superlative pride and self-will learns that Destiny—or another man—has a stronger will than he.
And this hour struck for Gaston de Trélan the very day after his arrival at La Vergne, when he received an ultimatum from General Brune giving him twenty-four hours in which to consent to an unconditional surrender, involving disarmament as well as disbandment. Otherwise the army of Holland, already on the march, would enter Finistère at several points—Finistère laid open to them not only by the capitulation of her more formidable neighbours, the Morbihan and the Côtes-du-Nord, but also by the dispersal of her own defenders. Never very numerous, they had quite forsaken the standard now, returning to their farms or going into hiding, and during the last few days it had become abundantly clear that all “M. de Kersaint’s” careful organisation was in ruins; despairing reports from subordinates, gentlemen or Chouans, in the outlying districts, each said that their little bands had melted away like snow. His own personal followers were, indeed, more than ever devoted, but the flame he had lit through Finistère was out, and he stood, a beaten man, among its ashes.
Yet though he might be overwhelmed by numbers and his men scattered, so long as the arms he had been at such pains to procure for them were not given up to the enemy but hidden (as was the case) he had not utterly failed, since Finistère would not be defenceless for the future. And to disarmament he had said that he would never consent—he would rather die. Now it was required of him to give the order for it immediately. More, withinless than ten days he was to surrender his own sword in person to the Republican commander-in-chief.
On this culminating humiliation Brune—or rather, that intense and vehement personality in Paris of whom Brune was but the mouthpiece—insisted absolutely. The Marquis de Kersaint, he wrote (following his instructions) must not only submit at once, and effectually disarm his men, but he must also be at Vannes on February 24 to give up his sword and ratify the whole transaction. If not, the preceding evidences of submission would go for nothing, and Finistère would be laid waste without the loss of a day: every man known to have fought under him would be shot, every fifth house burnt in the insurgent villages. Nothing would avail him unless he regularised the situation by giving up his own sword; and to that end Brune sent him, with the ultimatum, safe-conducts for himself and an escort of three or four persons.
There was no choice, no shadow of a possible alternative. It was not merely that Gaston de Trélan’s military situation was hopeless—almost ludicrously so—alone with a few score men not merely against Brune, but, since the submission of the other leaders, against La Barolière and Chabot as well; it was that if he refused the terms he was condemning Finistère to the fate that had been Vendée’s years ago under Turreau’scolonnes infernales. If he had any heart in him, any humanity, he must drink this bitter cup. The chance of dying had not been granted him; to kill himself was tantamount to refusing. No help, no word of help, had come from England; he did not even know whether the Abbé had reached his destination. Besides, no help could possibly come in time now.
Nothing, nothing was left save the desperate honour of having been the last to uphold the splendid hopes with which, in the autumn, this business had begun—that, and a woman’s love and admiration and succour. It was Valentine who saw the dark waters close above his head and went down with him to the depths; and, when the moment came that the words were wrenched from him, as from a man on the rack—“There is no way out of it—no possible way out; I must do it!” it was she who wrote at his dictation the letter to Brune saying that, for the sake of the lives of others, he agreed to the terms of surrender, wouldgive the necessary orders, and afterwards, availing himself of the safe-conduct, would reach Vannes by the day appointed to give up his sword in person to the General-in-chief.
The same night that this letter arrived at its destination, a young Republican officer was lying in his bed at the Hôtel de l’Epée at Vannes, not unmindful of his good fortune in having it to himself. The town was crammed with Republican troops, and was likely to be even fuller in a few days, when the draftsen routefor Finistère were recalled, as they presumably would be now that the Marquis de Kersaint had agreed to submit, which recent piece of news was known to the young officer—his name was Marcel Poulain—because he was on Brune’s staff.
He was nearly asleep when the door was suddenly opened, and the landlord’s apologetic voice informed him that an aide-de-camp of the First Consul’s had just come in dead-beat, and, having delivered his urgent despatches to the General, must be given a bed at once. Unfortunately there was not a bed in the place which had not two occupants already except——
“Yes there is,” interrupted the young man angrily, “Next door. Put him there!”
“I cannot, sir,” retorted the landlord. “The gentleman next door is indisposed, and is also, I think, a Royalist. And the aide-de-camp has scarcely drawn rein since leaving Paris. . . .”
“Oh, very well,” groaned Marcel resignedly, and almost immediately the heavy, stumbling steps of the exhausted courier could be heard along the corridor, and in another moment he staggered in and fell with a jangle of spurs and a groan on to a chair. Marcel, on his elbow, scrutinised him.
“Why,” he exclaimed, “I’m damned if it’s not Adolphe Bergeron!”
“I scarcely know who I am,” returned the other hoarsely. “I only know that I am absolutely in pieces. I killed one horse . . . and all for——” He did not say for what.
And presently, his friend having made room for him, he stretched himself out beside him with more groans, and complaints of the hardness of the bed.
“Poor devil!” said Marcel sympathetically. “And so you knew what was in your despatches. I hope it was worth flaying yourself for?”
“I did not know when I left Paris,” answered the rider, moving restlessly. “Nor when I got here. But Brune has just let it out.”
“Well, was it worth it?”
There was no reply. “Adolphe, you need not be so deuced discreet! I’m on the staff, you know.”
“Yes, the staff at least will know it to-morrow,” muttered Adolphe. “—Don’t let anyone guess that you have been told already, that’s all . . . You know that man who organised Finistère, de Kersaint?”
“I should think I did!” responded Marcel with animation. “The General has been getting furious despatches about him almost every day of late from the First Consul, saying that he must be finished with at once, by whatever means. His being the only one of the Royalist leaders who would have nothing to do with the idea of pacification—even Cadoudal came down to it in the end—has, I suppose, enraged Bonaparte. However, Brune has got him in a cleft stick at last, and he has agreed to all the terms, including the surrender of his sword. I saw the letter myself this afternoon—in a woman’s hand it was. Have your despatches to do with him?”
“They have,” said Adolphe. “Exclusively. He is coming under a safe-conduct, I take it?”
“Yes. The General sent it some days ago.”
“Well, it . . . it is to be withdrawn. That’s what I have flayed myself for.”
“What!O, but that’s a mistake; it can’t be withdrawn now. De Kersaint has accepted it; he is going to use it.”
“To be frank,” said Adolphe, gazing at the still-burning candle, “I only said ‘withdrawn’ to make it sound better. It really comes to this, that it will not be observed.”
The other bounded up in bed. “But, great God, man——”
“I know, I know! But I can’t help it—it is the First Consul’s orders. . . . The fact is, Bonaparte means to have this Marquis de Kersaint alive or dead—you have said as much yourself—and now, I suppose, he will get him.”
“My God!” said his friend, and lay down again in silence.
“If I had known what I was carrying,” said Adolphe after a little, “I might have had—an accident. But I had no idea, and it is done now. The order will be sent on to Auray and other places to-morrow.”
“Order!But it’s impossible—one can’t send an order like that! Surely a safe-conduct, once given, is the most sacred thing a soldier knows. If he does not observe it—O, it’s the dirtiest, most damnable treachery I ever heard of! Pah! is that the way they do things in Corsica?”
“Chut, mon ami, walls have ears,” said the aide-de-camp wearily. “But you are right; it is infamous. They say in Paris thathehas all along wanted someone of whom to make an example, for the sake of the impression. Yet all the other leaders submitted, as you say. But this man who has held out so, besides that he put Bonaparte to inconvenience at Rivoli—ah, I forgot, you were there—is also, it appears, a ci-devant of the ci-devants; no less than the Duc de Trélan, in fact. Brune let that out too; Fouché, it seems, discovered it. So he would be worth capturing, and Brune, not being troubled with scruples, will obey orders. . . . AndIbrought them!”
“I wish now you had not told me,” said Brune’s young staff-officer.
Another than he had been told also, for wallshaveears, and that by the side of their bed happened to be merely a cracked wooden partition. The officer of Bourmont’s disbanded army who lay ill in the next room had, therefore, heard every word of their conversation. He was Artus de Brencourt.
“Le vin est versé; il faut le boire.” The words of the old adage rang in Valentine’s head to-night. Not long ago Gaston had quoted them. She had never before so felt their inexorable quality—for to-morrow he must set out to Vannes to drink it. . . . He had said farewell to his very few remaining officers, disbanded, of his handful of men, all but a few sentries, and wanted to ride alone to his surrender, but ‘les jeunes’ had made such an outcry at this, and begged so hard to be his escort, that, as the other safe-conducts were blank, he consented.
It was past midnight, and he was still writing, by the light of a couple of candles, at a table in the embrasure of the large window in their room at La Vergne. Despite the cold, Valentine was sitting on the seat in the space between her husband and the heavily curtained window—the seat where, that October night, she had found and kissed his sword. Now, that same sword. . . . She looked between the candle-flames at his downbent face. One hand supported his head as he wrote, the fingers running up into the thick, rippling hair. The last three months of strain had aged him a little; but she saw nothing there that she did not love and honour.
The château was very still. Now and again, even through the closed window, Valentine could hear the footfall of the sentry on the flags below. But, after the recent armed occupation, this was like the last moments before death. To-morrow there would be no sentry—nothing to guard. It would all be over.
She pulled aside the curtain and looked out. There was a royal moon; she had forgotten it. The terrace sparkled with thinly fallen snow, and she could see how it powdered the bare, pleached boughs of the arbour where, in the spring, Roland and the son and daughter of the househad planned the invasion of Mirabel. And she saw, too, in the distance—or was it fancy?—a silver streak, the sea.
Ah, if they were there, embarking—if Gaston could but be spared the purgatory that lay before him first. She glanced at him again. He had death in his soul; she knew that.Le vin est versé. . .
It was not merely that he shrank, as any soldier might, from the personal humiliation of surrendering his sword; it was also that he had given to this enterprise, so nearly successful, not only his arm, but his heart. Only lately had she come to see what the overthrow of the cause meant to him; indeed she had not fully learnt it yet. Was he writing to the Comte d’Artois, she wondered now—to the Prince who, once again, had never come? Ifshehad held the pen there were words, burning words, that she would have written to that royal laggard! O, how could the man exist who knew that a whole population was sacrificing itself for him and his family, that for years they had been dying for him on the battlefield and the scaffold, that his appearance was the one thing they asked of life, and his presence would cause all that suffering and sacrifice to be forgotten—how could he know all this . . . and not come!
Valentine clenched her hands. He whom she loved was driven to this pass through Charles of Bourbon. He had fought to keep open a harbour for the sails that never came, and was now left, deserted and alone, to drink this bitter wine. . . . The tears began to creep down her face—tears of wrath. She did not want Gaston to see them, and turning away, her forehead against the cold glass, she swallowed them down, trying to fix her thoughts instead on that silver gleam of sea, which, when the surrender was consummated, would bear them both away from the land of the once more lost cause.
When she had regained her self-control she dropped the curtain and turned back into the room. Her husband had laid down his pen and was leaning back in his chair, his hands along the arms. His look was remote and very grave. She rose from the seat, knelt down beside him and took his right hand in both of hers. His gaze came from far off and rested on her—still very grave.
“Gaston, I believe I can see the sea—the moon is so bright.”
“Yes?” said he, with a note of enquiry.
“I wish we were down there now,” she went on rather unsteadily, “—where the yellow poppies bloomed last autumn. Do you remember?”
“Do I remember? Do I ever forget? I have them safe—what you gave me.” He touched his breast with his other hand.
“My darling, if they could only bring you forgetfulness—forgetfulness of to-morrow!”
He shook his head. “They will not easily do that.” From her his glance strayed to the sheathed sword lying on the table. She could not bear to see his face when he looked at it, and hid her own.
He seemed then to make an effort to turn his thoughts. “You were speaking of the sea, beloved. When this . . . this business is over, the sea shall take us away at last to happiness.”
Valentine raised her head quickly. “At last! Gaston, no happiness over the sea, in tranquillity, can ever have the taste of this I have known, in warfare, since last summer! It can never be better, even as this, come what may, can never be less. If it ended to-morrow, you know that I have lived to see all that I dreamt of—more than I dreamt of! O, my knight, when the utmost has been wrought, what matters the broken sword! Please God there are many more happy days before us . . . but not better, not happier days!”
Their lips met in silence. Then, as she knelt there, he bowed his head till it rested on her shoulder. Grief and love were one.
The promise of the serene moon of the night was not fulfilled. Flurries of sleet were sweeping over the countryside next morning; the strip of sea was the colour of slate, and the wind howled in all the tall chimneys.
In this tumult Gaston bade farewell to Valentine upstairs. He and his escort calculated to reach Quimperlé that night, and Vannes the next, so that, unless the roads were in very bad condition, she might hope to see him back on the fourth day.
Downstairs in the wide hall with the young men were Mme de la Vergne and Marthe, the former as if she clung to the fiction of speeding a parting guest. But they were all very quiet, looking silently at the staircase when the Duc de Trélan, pale and upright, came down it pulling on his gauntlets.
“You have your safe-conducts on you, gentlemen, I hope?” he said as he descended.
“Haveyouyour safe-conduct, Monsieur le Duc?” asked Marthe impulsively, coming to the foot of the stairs. Her little hands were clenched; she hated this business almost as much as he.
But Gaston reassured the impetuous girl, and saluted Mme de la Vergne while Artamène went down the steps to the horses, already there in charge of Lucien and a groom. Roland remained, the Duc’s riding cloak over his arm.
“I hate this day more than any God ever made!” said his betrothed to him under her breath. Her eyes looked as if she had not slept. Roland took her hands and drew her to him, but he could not give her any verbal comfort.
And then, just as M. de Trélan was bending in farewell over Mme de la Vergne’s fingers, there came with the cold wind through the open door the sound of a galloping horse stayed at the very perron, expostulatory voices at the bottom, and feet running up the steps. Next moment, breathing hard, a man burst into the hall with Artamène behind him.
“Thank God, I am in time!” he jerked out—pulled off his hat as he saw the ladies, and revealed the features of the Comte de Brencourt.
He was spattered with mud and half melted snow up to his very shoulders; his riding boots were one cake of it. But he went straight towards the Duc de Trélan, disregarding every one else.
“Don’t go to Vannes, de Kersaint!” (the old name was evidently still the more natural). “Don’t go, for God’s sake—there is treachery!”
Marthe gave a cry that went unheeded.
“Treachery!” ejaculated Gaston. His eyes lit up. “You dare to come and use that word in front of me—you!—But, perhaps, as an expert, you feel privileged?”
The Comte at that terrible rebuff stood a moment rigid, then he reeled a step backwards exactly as if he had been struck. Encountering a high-backed chair he gripped it with one hand, steadied himself, and said, in a voice that the air seemed to dissipate, “Your safe-conduct is waste paper.” His face was quite grey.
The Duc surveyed him pitilessly for a second or two; then he slightly shrugged his shoulders and turned away. “I am afraid that you have ridden very hard to no purpose, Monsieur,” he observed. “Roland, my cloak, please!”
The Comte flung out his free hand. “You are going to your death!” he said wildly. “You are mad—I have warned you . . . Where is Mme de Trélan, she might——”
“Leave my wife’s name out of your fabrications, if you please!” said Gaston like a rapier thrust, turning on his heel towards him for a brief instant. “Well, Roland?”
The thunderstruck young man approached with the cloak, and put it on his leader’s shoulders in the midst of an extraordinary silence which even Artamène did not dare to break. It was the messenger of destiny himself who broke it, with something between a sob and a laugh.
“You are all mad here, I think . . . Madame—or you, Mademoiselle, perhaps you have some influence? As there is a God above us, it is a matter of this gentleman’s life. Orders have come from the First Consul to Brune that his safe-conduct is not to be observed, and those orders have been transmitted at least as far as Auray, and probably further by this time. Can you not stop him?”
And at that Gaston flung his cloak back on to Roland’s arm, went up to Mme de la Vergne, said something to her in a low tone which caused her and Marthe to withdraw to the other end of the hall, motioned Roland and Artamène also away, and, going up to the Comte, looked him in the eyes and said in a voice vibrating with anger, “No man or woman living keeps me from doing what I intend to do—have you not learnt that yet, Monsieur de Brencourt? And, as for your story, I certainly put more faith in Brune’s honour than in yours!”
The Comte, livid, swallowed something in his throat. “Your safe-conduct is waste paper,” he repeated. “Iheard it with my own ears.” Then he broke out with some of his old vehemence, “Good God, de Trélan, why won’t you believe me?—If this were not true, why do you think I have ridden nearly eighty miles, ill as I am, in this mad haste?”
The man he had so treacherously used continued to look at him. He had not raised his own voice at all, and it was low now, unhurried, and colder than the wind from glaciers. “That is a question which only you can answer, Monsieur le Comte. I cannot pretend to fathom the motives of a man so utterly false as you. I can only suppose that having failed in the past to deprive me of my life . . . and more than my life . . . you are now trying to take from me something more precious than either, my honour. But I am not to be frightened by talk of treachery into breaking my pledged word. You have failed this time also, Monsieur de Brencourt.—Come, gentlemen, it is time to start.”
He had finally turned his back. The Comte, speechless, bowed his head against the high chair to which he was holding. What could he do against this attitude? He had anticipated contempt, hatred, but never disbelief. He lifted his head once more, tried to say, “For your wife’s sake!” but the words stuck in his throat, and besides, the Duc was at the door now with the young men—was descending the steps. All that came to his dry lips was the old tag, “Your blood be on your own head!” Then his limbs gave way beneath him, and he collapsed into the chair, hiding his face in his hands. Outside there were sounds of mounting and of riding away; then silence.
Marthe and her mother, with rather pale faces, looked at each other, and then at the mudstained figure huddled in the chair, the elder woman uneasily, Marthe with distaste. Since the Duc so disbelieved his story, they disbelieved it too. Then Mme de la Vergne, mindful as ever of the claims of hospitality, addressed the stranger.
“May I not order some refreshment for you after your ride, Monsieur?”
At her voice de Brencourt roused himself, and rose stiffly. But he responded by a question.
“This is your house, Madame, I think—not the Duc de Trélan’s?”
“Certainly it is my house,” responded Mme de la Vergne. The gentleman looked ghastly ill, as she now saw.
“Then I should be very glad of a glass of wine . . . before I ride away again. My mission . . . has been fruitless, but I am . . . I have . . .” His voice tailed off into nothing.
“Monsieur, sit down again—you are unwell!” cried Mme de la Vergne sharply. Whatever the subject of disagreement between him and M. de Trélan—and it must have been very acute—she did not want to have him fainting in her hall. “Marthe, go and order something to be brought at once—and pray give yourself the trouble to come to the fire, Monsieur; you must be frozen.”
M. de Brencourt obeyed, but with difficulty, and sank into a great chair that she pushed forward. “You do not object to my being in your house a little? The treachery—you heard that?—is not what you probably think. O, my God, my God, why did I come myself? He might have listened to someone else!”
But he found himself alone. He put his cold hand over his eyes and groaned aloud. Yes, the desperate fight he had had with himself to do this thing in person, after his failure to find a trustworthy messenger—and the result, the reward! Surely, in the few minutes that had passed, he had paid to the full. But he had paid in vain. . . .
His head was swimming; his body frozen. A tray appeared beside him, brought by that scornful girl herself. She vanished again. He seized and drained the glass of wine upon it, and a little warmth stole into him. He heard a footstep, the flow of a robe; the lady of the house back again, no doubt. But, when he looked round, there, gazing at him in astonishment, was the Duchesse de Trélan.
He got up and flung himself towards her.
“I did it for your sake,” he cried, hardly knowing what he said, “—and he repulsed me like a dog. I was told I should live to do you a service . . . and I thought the day had come. But he . . . he affected to think it was . . . false . . . and he has gone, despite my warning.”
“Warning!” stammered Valentine, blanching. “Warningof what? I was above—I did not know that you were here.”
“I imagine so,” he retorted bitterly. But she had no room in her mind for any emotion but one.
“You came to warn M. de Trélan?” she said, and he saw that she was twisting her fingers together. “That was . . . I thank you. But—what is the danger? . . .because he is gone!” The last four words came out with little less than terror behind them.
He could do her the immense, deliberate, though defeated wrong that he had done, but, face to face with her again, after all he had sinned and suffered, he shrank from dealing her the blow his undiluted knowledge must deal. And it was too late now for any benefit to come of it, for, as she had said, the Duc was gone.
He dropped his eyes. “I heard a rumour,” he said, “that there was a regiment of the soldiers from Holland somewhere on the Vannes road, and that they might not be too particular in the observance of a safe-conduct. That was all; and no doubt it was false . . . and at any rate,” he added, his bitterness getting the better of him again, “M. de Trélan saw fit not only to disregard my warning, but to insult me into the bargain.”
“Not to observe the safe-conduct!” exclaimed the Duchesse sharply. “But that is unthinkable!”
(Yes, anything buthisperil had passed her by; that was clear.)
“You are right, it is really unthinkable,” he answered wearily. “I was a fool to come, and I will relieve you of my presence.”
He meant, indeed, on that to walk straight out of the place. But he was not a young man; he had been ill; he had asked too much of his body. His head turned once more, and violently; he caught at the arm of the chair from which he had risen, and, not to fall altogether, slid back into it. And then the mud, the pallor, the deadly fatigue were all visible to Valentine, and she realised with a shock the thing he had done—for her. He saw it in her face as she came to him.
“You do believe me then, Valentine? It may not be true, but I believed it!” he said confusedly, forgetting that he had not revealed the heart of the peril. “And I triedto stop him—against my will, yes, against my will! But you do believe me,—in spite of the past?”
The hoarse words were torn out of him, and when she let him have her hand as she bent over him, he put his head down on it and broke into a moment’s strangled sobbing.