By very hard going the four riders got to Quimperlé that night, despite the state of the roads. They slept there entirely unmolested; a small detachment of troops indeed occupied the town, but the mere sight of Brune’s signature was enough. And the anxiety of ‘les jeunes’ at least—the Duc would not discuss the matter—‘les jeunes’ who had only half heard, was much allayed. It did not strike them that they were still within the confines of Finistère, and that possibly the disgraceful orders had not yet crossed the Scorff. Yet, all unknown to their leader, they took that night in the hôtel a certain precaution which might have remained unknown to him, had he not, waking in the dark of the early morning, and perplexed by a sound outside his door for which he could not account, lit a candle and softly opened it; and so come on his own son stretched out there asleep across the threshold, his pistols within reach of his hand, and his drawn sword beneath his head.
Gaston looked down, not a little moved, at that embodiment of his own youth guarding him, and, shading the light, contemplated the sleeping boy as he had done last year in the attic at Hennebont. Laure’s face, grown so shadowy now, came back for a moment to haunt him. “I wish I could tell him,” he said to himself. But there was his promise; and with a sigh he went in and closed the door again.
The Duc made no reference next morning to his discovery, and thus never learnt that they had all taken their turns in devotion. When they reached Pont-Scorff they were already in the Morbihan, but through Pont-Scorff they rode without even having to show their safe-conducts. As Auray was rather too long a stage before the mid-day meal, and as the horses, with the exception of Zéphyr, were nowgoing none too well, they decided to eat déjeuner at Hennebont, and about noon they drew rein before the chief inn in the little town which had seen them creep into it like thieves in the dusk, nearly a year ago. But though they came openly now they were incomparably heavier-hearted.
As they dismounted, Gaston desired two of them to look after the tired horses while he ordered the meal. Lucien and Artamène detached themselves for this duty, and disappeared down a dark entry with the four steeds. The Duc, followed by Roland, entered the inn.
Evidently Hennebont was full of soldiers; officers of all arms were lounging outside and inside the door of the hostelry, but, though they looked with extreme curiosity at the Royalists, no one seemed to find their presence unnatural, or made the faintest show of asking for some authorisation of it. Not even to Gaston did it occur that here, in the Morbihan, they were being taken for officers of Cadoudal’s disbanded army who had presumably not yet divested themselves of their uniforms, but who were none the less amnestied. To Roland it was an extraordinary experience to pass through these throngs of Blues as if they possessed some charm; they did not even need to show those safe-conducts. But of course they were safe with an honourable foe; were their enemies not fellow-countrymen?
The inn parlour, with its small round tables, was crowded with guests, both civil and military. As M. de Trélan came in, followed by the young man, not a few looked up at the two handsome Chouan officers, of whom Gaston’s high rank could only be guessed at by the air of distinction that never left him, for he was not openly wearing his scarf, and the little cross on his breast was too rare a decoration to be widely known. They sat down at the only unoccupied table, one in a corner opposite the door, and the Duc ordered four covers. The be-coiffed peasant girl who received his commands asked for indulgence if there were delay, for, as the gentlemen could see, they were very busy.
“Shall I go out then, and help the others with the horses, Sir?” suggested Roland. His leader nodded, and Roland got up, still thinking how odd it was to sit down placidly and eat in a room full of Blues. There were quite a dozenofficers there—hussars, dragoons and infantry. The eyes of some of these officers followed him as he threaded his way between the tables. Possibly they also found it piquant to see a former foe moving about unmolested.
Feminine eyes followed him, too, appreciative of his youth and looks, eyes set in the face of a youngish, buxom woman wearing an extravagant bonnet and luxurious furs of marten who sat—strangely enough, with her back to most of the company—at a table in one of the other corners. With her was a big florid man over whose air of importance, every time he looked at his companion, there passed a milder and obscuring gleam, even as a light cloud drifts over the face of the moon. Any guests who had noticed them decided that they were probably bride and bridegroom, and all the more sentimental because they were neither of them in their first youth. And newly wed in fact they were—M. and Mme Georges Camain, on their way to Lorient, at which port M. Camain had to inspect some warehouses for the Government. By taking his Rose with him he hoped to combine pleasure with business.
Mme Camain’s eyes, therefore, travelled after the young man, as he entered her sphere of vision just before going through the door. Her husband thereupon leant over the table and tapped her on the pretty, plump hand with the new wedding ring.
“Eyes right, please!” he said jocosely. “You are only allowed to look at me now.”
“He reminds me of someone, that child,” observed the lady reflectively. “A long time ago . . .”
“Eat your partridge, ma mie, and never mind about the days before the Flood,” commanded Camain, setting her the example. “Remember, too, that we have ordered the carriage to be at the door by one o’clock, and that time is getting on.”
Rose pouted. “I suppose you think you have a right to be jealous now, vieux monstre!”
“It is not only a right, but a duty!” returned the monster cheerfully, going on eating, however, with a very care-free appetite.
But Rose was intrigued by the passage of the young man. “I wonder if he was alone?” she murmured, and, between taking pecks at her partridge, continually turned her headand craned her neck towards that quarter of the room from which she divined that he had come. But it was in vain; for, short of getting up and turning round altogether, she could not see it.
And Gaston de Trélan, at that table in the corner, his head on his hand, his thoughts far away, sat waiting for the advent of the meal and the return of his aides-de-camp. The two nearest officers, dragoons, with their heads close together over their wine, alternately looked at him and whispered to one another. Meanwhile people ate steadily.
All at once Rose, whose curiosity, though almost motiveless, was proving too strong for her, saying to her astonished husband, “I think I must have dropped my handkerchief from my reticule as I came in,” got up from her place before he had time to protest, and walked, her eyes on the floor as though searching for something, till she came to a spot whence she could conveniently glance at that one table in the corner which she could not see when seated. Having arrived there, she sped a look at it—at the Royalist officer sitting there alone who, as she moved across the room, raised preoccupied eyes in her direction. . . .
Next moment the entire company was electrified to see the pretty little woman in the marten furs clasp her hands suddenly together, and give a tiny scream which penetrated through all the clatter of knives and the babel of conversation. And then, more or less of silence having descended, she broke out with a name—
“Monsieur de Trélan! Is it possible!”
And not to realise who was the object of this touching recognition was difficult, for the solitary Chouan officer in the corner, after staring a moment, rose slowly to his feet and bowed—as a man bows to an unknown lady. Yet Rose stood there, her face quite white under her preposterous bonnet, apparently oblivious that every eye was either on her, or on the man to whom she had drawn attention. Then the wave of mild universal surprise was broken into and flung aside by a billow of a much more menacing kind. For, with an exclamation, one of the neighbouring officers of dragoons leapt to his feet, his chair falling backwards behind him, and strode in front of the Royalist’s table.
“Monsieur de Trélan—or Monsieur de Kersaint, as you prefer—will you have the kindness to follow me?”
Gaston, coldly amused, surveyed him for a moment. “No, Monsieur, I must beg to decline,” he said. “Your zeal is admirable, but misplaced.” And he laid his hand on the back of his chair, with a view, evidently, to sitting down again.
“You deny then that you are de Kersaint, the general of Finistère?”
“Not for a moment!”
“Then,” said the officer with a gesture, “it is my unpleasant duty to arrest you. You will be wise, as you see, not to resist.”
The Duc de Trélan relinquished his hold of the chair and drew himself up. “You must be dreaming, Monsieur,” he retorted. “You have no power to arrest me. I am on my way to Vannes under General Brune’s safe-conduct. You must know that, since you know who I am.”
For all reply the officer turned and beckoned to the rest. But his companion was already there beside him, and from every quarter of the room the other Republicans were hurrying, between the tables, to that table in the corner behind which stood their quarry, alone.
“I have a safe-conduct,” repeated Gaston very haughtily. “Am I not speaking to Frenchmen?—I have this also!” He took a step or two backwards, and his sword sprang out.
“You had better come without resistance, Monsieur de Kersaint,” said the officer of dragoons menacingly. “I have a squadron of my men out there within hail, and these gentlemen, you can see, are in receipt of the same orders. As for your aide-de-camp——” He snapped his fingers.
But Camain, pushing his bulky form through the onlookers, here broke in. “Look here, gentlemen, this officer says he has a safe-conduct. Give him at least the chance of showing it!”
“Who are you?” asked the dragoon rudely over his shoulder. “A damned civilian! This is a matter for the military, thanks! The Chouan general de Kersaint is to be arrested, safe-conduct or no safe-conduct; those are the orders of the First Consul himself!”
Camain drew up his imposing figure. “I am deputy for the department of Maine-et-Loire,” he declared in his deepest voice. “(Be quiet, Rose!) What you are proposing to do is atrocious, and I protest!”
“Go back to your department then, and protest there!” retorted the officer insolently. “Now that Madame has so obligingly furnished the identification we wanted . . . Once more, Monsieur de Kersaint, will you come, or will you have a useless mêlée here?”
Gaston set his teeth. It was true after all, this incredible infamy! If he had listened to de Brencourt! . . . Valentine—should he ever see her again? The room, seething now with excitement, swam for a second. . . . No, they should not take him alive! This, the last, would be a good fight—one against how many . . . twelve, thirteen? He slipped a couple of feet further backwards still, till he was almost in the angle of the wall, the blade he had never thought to use again glittering in his hand. Then he smiled, not altogether scornfully. His intention was obvious.
In the ring now round him several other swords slid out. Most of the guests, vociferating, had already made a bolt for the door, but Rose was clinging to her husband in a frenzy. “Georges! Georges! don’t let them do it! It is the Duc, it is indeed! Tell them you had charge of Mirabel—tell them . . .” But her words, vain in any case, could not penetrate the uproar. And, even as she spoke, the officer of dragoons drew and cocked a pistol. “Now, for the last time, Monsieur de Kersaint! See, we do not want to harm your escort, if you have one—our business is not with them—but if you drive us to use force, you will certainly get them killed as well as yourself!”
His escort! that escort for the moment, mercifully, out of hearing. In the imminent prospect of combat Gaston had forgotten them. Good God, that was only too true—they would certainly get themselves cut to pieces for him! Roland—Roland!—and those other boys slaughtered for his sake . . . and uselessly! The idea was too horrible. He must let them take him—quickly. His face grew sombre, and he lowered his point a little.
“So this is the First Consul’s honour!” he said, but his voice cut like a sword, “—and yours, soldiers and Frenchmen!I was warned of this—but I would not believe such a thing possible!”
“It is orders!” a chorus answered him.
“Swear that you will let my escort go unharmed—no, how can I rely on your word?” he said, looking contemptuously round, and this time no one answered him. “At least I shall never give up my sword now, since there is no one left worthy to receive it.” And before anyone had moved he had put his left hand to the naked blade, and, bending his knee, snapped the weapon across. Then he threw the two halves at his feet and folded his arms. “I am at your disposal . . .gentlemen. . . only be quick about it!”
They had no desire to be other than speedy. There was a travelling carriage just drawn up at the inn door; small matter that it belonged to the Deputy who had tried to interfere. Five minutes later, with fifty dragoons round it, that carriage had started for Auray and Vannes, while the remaining officers, having thrust aside the doubly infuriated Camain, were dealing in the passage with the distracted young men of their prisoner’s escort, to whom news of the catastrophe had meanwhile penetrated. The short and furious mêlée was indeed none of the Republicans’ seeking, but its end was just as inevitable as if it had been. . . . For Artamène, his head laid open by a sabre, having stumbled, blinded with blood, into the eating-room, and fallen his length among the tables, lay there without stirring; while Lucien, his arm fractured, leant with shut eyes against the doorpost, his uniform torn on one side from shoulder to waist. And in the now emptied setting of the drama which she had unwittingly brought about, Rose Camain, kneeling by the bleeding and unconscious boy on the floor, but not trying in any way to succour him, her hands to the sides of her head in approved theatrical fashion, was sending forth shriek after shriek. . . .
But Roland, uninjured though almost crazy, was in the yard, his hands shaking so much as he re-saddled Zéphyr that he could hardly pull the girths. Even so, he had enough wits left to realise that the large stout man, himself greatly discomposed, who had, as far as he remembered,dragged him bodily out of the affray, was right when he said that it was perfectly useless to follow the vanished carriage along the Auray road. The best thing that he could do was to hasten back to Finistère and spread the news. Roland was conscious that his adviser was helping him now, keeping up, as he put on Zéphyr’s bridle, a running accompaniment of wrath—“Disgraceful . . . infamous . . . to purloin a carriage too. . . .”
“Look here, boy,” he said suddenly, throwing the reins over the Arab’s neck, “—by the way, I suppose you’re his son, are you not?”
Roland, too dazed and wretched to be surprised at the idea, shook his head, and put his foot in the stirrup.
“You’re devilish like him,” said Camain explanatorily. “Wait a minute—I want to say something. The Duchesse de Trélan—if you see her, tell her she can command my services. Camain, my name is; she knew me at Mirabel . . . I expect you have heard about that. Hôtel du Lion d’Or at Lorient will find me.”
Roland, in the saddle now, nodded.O God, O God, they had let him be taken!
“I’ll see that your comrades are looked after,” added the Deputy kindly, looking up at his young, desperate face. “I hope it is all a mistake—damn it all, it must be! and that they will release him when they get to Vannes. Yet it is best not to count on it. Good luck to you!”
Roland bent down and seized the hand of the ex-administrator of Mirabel, who so little divined in him the “marauder” of last April, and next moment was out of the courtyard.
But even as he passed under the tunnel leading to the street he heard this Camain calling after him, and impatiently reined up again.
“Look here, young man,” said the Deputy in a lowered tone, “as it was owing to my—as I feel a sort of interest in the Trélan family, I’m damned if I don’t follow those scoundrels to Vannes to-night, just to keep an eye on the business. Tell the Duchesse that—and should she come to Vannes in person, tell her to go to the Hôtel de l’Epée, and if I am not still there myself I will leave a message for her.”
“God bless you!” said Roland, with tears in his eyes.Then he was in the street, and a moment or two later, riding like mad back along the road to Finistère.
For some miles he galloped on almost without thought, he was so numb with misery and incredulity. Zéphyr, the incomparable, seemed quite fresh, despite the distance he had come since yesterday morning. That was why he had taken him. . . . A rescue—how was it to be brought about? It all seemed to rest on his shoulders. A terrible feeling of helplessness began to wrap him round as he pushed on through the cold rain which was now beating on him. Was he really acting for the best in returning like this, and what was to be done when he got back—the men all disbanded? If only the Abbé were there! And how should he ever tell the Duchesse? The clouds about him seemed thick with the shame and anguish in his heart. And Zéphyr was not so fresh after all.
What did they mean to do with the Duc? Hold him as a hostage? They dared do nothing worse, in the face of that full safe-conduct. Even the First Consul would not dare. It was a mistake; yes, a piece of bravado. Yet if only they had listened to M. de Brencourt!
He had covered many miles without drawing rein. The night was beginning, the early February night. And Zéphyr, the tireless and surefooted, had stumbled twice. “O Zéphyr, don’t you fail too, as we have failed!” cried his rider.
Over the border at last into Finistère, and through Quimperlé, where they had slept yesterday. It was dark now, and snowing a little. He meant to ride all night, but at Bannalec it was plain that it was an impossibility both for him and his gallant horse. He tried to get another; could not, and fell asleep from exhaustion even as he argued about it with the people of the inn. They carried him up and put him to bed. He had covered not quite half of the distance back.
It was afternoon of the next day when at last he got to La Vergne, and he could hardly get out of the saddle, hardly drag himself up the steps. No sentry now. He lifted the great knocker; the door swung open. Someone had heard the hoofs. It was Marthe. She caught at him as he stumbled into the hall. “Roland, what is it? O, what has happened?”
“Bad news,” said he, so weary he could scarcely frame the words. “The Duc——” A cold mist suddenly drove at him across the hall; when it cleared he saw Mme de la Vergne hurrying towards him, and that Marthe had her arms round him, half supporting him. And who was the man rising from a chair by the hearth? But he saw also the Duchesse de Trélan, who must have been coming down the great staircase, standing as if turned to marble in her descent, a few feet from the bottom. . . . And he broke away from Marthe, for he knew he must tell her at once.
“Madame, they have arrested the Duc at Hennebont—they have taken him to Vannes . . . it was true about the safe-conduct . . . the others are hurt—killed, perhaps . . .” And sobbing out, “How can we save him?” clutching at her dress, he sank forward exhausted on the stairs, his head against her very feet.
Two nights later, in the dark and the cold, they drove into Vannes—Valentine, Roland and the Comte de Brencourt—having left Mme de la Vergne at Hennebont as they passed through, to tend her son. All thought of raising in Finistère a force large enough for rescue had been abandoned. Indeed they could never have got together enough men to assault Vannes, held as it now was, and the mere attempt might be extremely prejudicial to M. de Trélan. Since Finistère had capitulated, it might indeed be the very consummation at which the First Consul was aiming, in order to have a good pretext for disposing of Finistère’s leader, now that he had him in his hands. It was better to hurry to Vannes and trust to organising a rescue by means of some of Cadoudal’s Chouans.
So M. de Brencourt had counselled when, the evening of Roland’s arrival, he had offered Valentine such assistance as a man still sick could give. That she could accept it as she had done, and could show herself willing, in this terrible hour, to rely whole-heartedly upon him, was balm to his scarified pride. But indeed, in contemplating her despair, he forgot, at moments, his reception by her husband. If Artus de Brencourt had never arrived at seeing his own past conduct in quite the same light as a dispassionate observer would have done, there was one episode on which he could not reflect without tingling shame and horror—that frenzied vigil in which he had come near to slaying in Valentine’s presence the man she loved. He had indeed recognised for months past that he had been practically out of his senses at the time—perhaps all the time since his return from Mirabel. . . . Not indeed that this knowledge had helped him much that night at Vannes, in the struggle he had had to bring himself to render a great service to the man he had so deeply injured—apprehensive as he waslest he should seem to be trying to make reparation, yet forced to do the service in person for lack of a trustworthy messenger. Well, it was certain that the Duc de Trélan had not suspected him ofthatmotive, when he had flung back in his face the warning which the Comte had only been driven to bring by the instinctive feeling that, despite the past, he could not let his former leader go to his death in such a shocking fashion. But the Duc had gone . . . and just because of the past.
There was no difficulty in obtaining news of “M. de Kersaint” at Vannes. The place was ringing with it—and it was stunning. He had been summarily tried the day before by a military court, and sentenced to death. The pretext was that he was an émigré a rebel taken in arms who had never meant to surrender. He was to have been shot that same afternoon, but at twelve o’clock had come a courier with orders for a respite and for his immediate transference to Paris. And, in half an hour from the arrival of the despatch, he had been taken away in a travelling-carriage under a strong escort. That was yesterday.
So much the Comte de Brencourt, quitting the conveyance, easily gathered before they got to the Hotel de l’Epée. He had to tell Valentine that her husband was gone, but he suppressed the fact that, had he not been removed, she would not have seen him alive; and hoped she would not hear it. The lamp that lit the interior of the carriage showed him, when he had finished his brief recital, the tragic face of the woman he loved, on whom, as if she had not known enough sorrow, this, too, was come. But she did not weep nor blench; she said, “Then we must follow to Paris to-morrow morning,” and he assented. It would take them between three and four days.
They rattled through the dark and tortuous streets and drew up at the hotel. Valentine put down her thick veil and Roland assisted her to alight. Just inside the door a large man was standing waiting—Georges Camain in person. He came forward with an air of profound deference.
“I have ventured to order a private room to be put at your disposal, Madame,” he said, “and if you will allow me, I will attend you there. I have a message for you.”
“You have seen him then?” she breathed. And Camain bent his head in assent.
“I will wait upon you afterwards,” murmured the Comte in her ear. Since the Deputy had not recognised him there was no point in giving him a further opportunity. But Roland, obeying his gesture, followed Mme de Trélan; yet after all, when the room was reached, remained outside the door. So the ex-administrator of Mirabel and the ex-concierge were once more alone together.
The moment that she was inside Valentine threw back her veil and turned to him. There was no need to utter her question.
“I succeeded in seeing M. de Trélan for three minutes yesterday,” said the Deputy gravely. “It was between noon and half-past, when he left for Paris. I had been trying in vain all morning to do so. And then, Madame, the interview took place on the stairs as they were conducting him to the carriage, so that it was not very satisfactory.”
“But at least you saw him!” said Valentine, and the emotion she was holding in check showed itself hungrily for a moment. “O, if only I had been in your place!”
“Indeed, I only wish you had, Madame,” returned Camain gently.
“And you found him——?”
“Quite well, Madame, and perfectly composed, though I think the respite was a great surprise to him. You know, I expect,” he went on, looking away for a second, “that the iniquitous sentence was to have been carried out yesterday afternoon?—Of course,” he added hastily, for her face told him that she had not known, “this respite has changed all that. . . . As I say, we had only a moment or two, and the letter which I understand M. le Duc would have written to you, had this change not occurred, he had not yet begun, so in that moment on the stairs he scribbled a line on a page from my pocketbook, which he did me the honour to commit to me, and I was to explain why it was so short. I was also charged to ask you to convey to a certain person who had brought a warning his profound regret for the way he had received it, and to his aides-de-camp an assurance that they were not to blame themselves in any way for what happened at Hennebont; that since his arrest was inevitable he wished it to take place withouttheir knowledge, and that he was only grieved to hear that in the end it had not done so. . . . Here is M. de Trélan’s note, Madame.”
He put a tiny piece of paper in her hand, and, clearing his throat, walked away to the fireplace.
Valentine opened the little torn-off twist. It contained only one word, and Gaston’s initials. The word was “Always.”
She pressed it to her lips. For a moment she seemed to feel his arms about her. Ah, never again, perhaps. . . . She murmured some words of thanks. The Deputy turned round.
“I wish to God I could have done more,” he said, surreptitiously pocketing his handkerchief. “It is abominable—beyond words—this affair! And to think that it was brought about . . .” he checked himself and looked at her strangely, but she did not seem to notice anything, and he went on, “Now, alas, I can do nothing further. I have no influence with the present Government. I must pursue my journey to Lorient.”
“If you had done nothing but bring me this,” replied Valentine, rousing herself, “a world of thanks would be no payment. But you have shown me besides, Monsieur Camain, the treasure of a kind and generous heart.”
“As long as you live, Duchesse,” said the bricklayer’s son, bending over the hand she gave him, “you will not lack that offering. It is your own heart that calls it out. . . .”
A little later the three travellers had made some pretence of eating the meal which had been brought up to them, and then, seeing that the two men were restless, Valentine begged them not to consider her but to leave her if they wished; and they, thinking on their side that she perhaps desired to be alone, obeyed.
Valentine did desire to be alone, but it was no solace. It seemed to her that she had touched the lowest depths of human despair. She had never dreamt that Gaston would be gone from Vannes. The word he had sent her was warm in her bosom, but that was not he. She felt that it was only the prospect of seeing him at the end of them, even though it must be as a captive, which had kept life in herthese two dreadful days. And what had the Deputy said—that if thesursishad not come . . . O no, no, that was not possible! She would not look at it. . . . But itwastrue that he was far away, alone, in the hands of his enemies. It was an effort to keep herself from calling his name aloud.
She sat in a chair by the fire, the wind howling outside, the tears dripping through her fingers, and did not hear the door open. Roland stood on the threshold again, looking at her with a great compassion and understanding in his young eyes—for if his heart was broken what must hers be? And half impulsively, half timidly, he went across the little room and knelt down by her.
“Madame, dear Madame!”
Still weeping, she put out her hand to him blindly, and he kissed it, kissed her tears on it. And then she turned wholly to him, and as he, kneeling there, took her tenderly and reverently into his arms, she shook with sobbing on his shoulder. It was really the first time that she had broken down since the arrest. Except that he felt he must comfort her—though he knew not by what means, for what means were there?—the boy would have liked to sob too.
He said something, and through her misery she thought, “His voice is getting like Gaston’s. There will be something of Gaston left in the world after all.”
It was at that moment that the impulse to tell him came to her overwhelmingly. She was so lonely; it would comfort her—if she could keep from thinking of Mme de Céligny. He ought to know now, too.
She mastered her sobs after a while, lifted her head from the boy’s shoulder, dried her eyes and leant back in her chair.
“Stay there, Roland, if you will,” she said, and he sat on the floor beside her chair, silently looking into the fire. What he saw there was always the same—the inn parlour at Hennebont; sometimes with his leader sitting there, as he had last seen him when he went out to the others on that thrice accursed errand of his own making, sometimes disordered and sickeningly empty, as it had appeared at his return. . . .
Valentine contemplated his face, quite haggard in the firelight for all its youth, and the tragedy in his eyes.
“Roland,” she said, putting her hand on his arm, “I want to tell you something. The Duc sent a message to you and the others through M. Camain. You were not, he said, to distress yourself about what happened at Hennebont, for as his arrest had to come he particularly wished it should take place as quickly as possible, before you could return. He knew quite well, you see, what you would all have done—what you did, alas—and he would not have you killed to no end.”
Roland turned that tragic gaze upon her. “In other words, M. le Duc got himself taken to save us. . . .I wish I were dead!”
The tears were in his voice, not in his eyes, which were quite dry. He turned them on the fire again.
“Do you then love him so much?” asked Valentine softly.
Roland gave her one look; he did not answer in words.
“O my child, my child!” said Mme de Trélan. Her beautiful and expressive voice held a world of meanings, but Roland was back in the coals and the inn parlour. He remembered they had not laid the four covers when he went out of the room; there were only three—or was it two? . . . If he had stayed, he could have died there at his feet before they took him.
“Roland,” said the Duchesse’s voice again, “I want to tell you something else. I did not mean to do so yet . . . but I feel I must.” She made a little pause. “You do not remember your mother, I think?”
He shook his head.
“A long time ago, Roland . . . she and the Duc met . . . and he loved her——”
The boy turned, startled, from his contemplation of the fire.
“—Too well,” finished Valentine, with a long breath.
He went white, then scarlet; then white again. “Madame—what do you mean?—I don’t understand. . . . You cannot mean——”
Unconsciously she was pressing her wet handkerchief into a ball. “M. de Trélan is your father, Roland.”
“You really wish to do this, Madame?” asked Suzon Tessier, looking at the piece of embroidery she had just laid before the Duchesse.
“I must do something, Suzon, to pass the time till I start for the Temple. I cannot go out; Paris hurts me. And, sewing once more in this room, I shall feel I am back in the old days.”
“I only wish you were!” thought Suzon as she left the room—a wish Valentine would never have echoed. Though these days were nothing but linked hours of anguish and suspense, she would not have changed. Heaven lay between that time and this.
The day before yesterday she had arrived with her escort in this new, gay, animated Paris which hurt her so—the Paris which, exhilarated by a slight frost, under a cheerful winter sky, seemed to have drunk in a new lease of life with its revivifying change of government. It was a fresh world to Valentine—and a cruel. So when, after one night at a hotel, she had sought out Suzon to see how she fared, that faithful soul had refused to let her face again the curious looks of the hostelry. Since there was no danger to Mme Tessier in housing her now—and Valentine had learnt long since that the threatened Mirabel enquiry had never come to anything—she let herself be persuaded without much difficulty, and she and Roland were staying in the Rue de Seine. M. de Brencourt was lodging at an obscure littlehôtel garniin the Rue du Vieux-Colombier. Mme de Trélan had hardly seen him since their arrival; he was too deeply occupied. For the whole weight of Royalist influence in Paris was at work to procure the release of “M. de Kersaint” from the prison of the Temple, where he was in close confinement awaiting the First Consul’spleasure. He was still under the sentence of death passed on him at Vannes, and all attempts, based on the disgraceful means taken for his capture, to get that sentence removed, or even commuted, had so far been vain, though Berthier, the Minister of War, was an officer of the ancien régime, and Lebrun, the Third Consul, actually in relations with the Royalist party. Protests and clamour having proved unavailing, there remained therefore nothing, if the prisoner was to be saved, but to carry him off.
And this was by no means a hopeless enterprise, for in Paris there existed a whole subterranean population of Chouans and émigrés, of conspirators and dubious characters. The heads of the secret Royalist agency, the Chevalier de Coigny and the Baron Hyde de Neuville, knew well where to put their hands on suitable instruments. Plans were in fact already well forward for a very promising scheme, to be put into force the following evening. There would arrive at the prison of the Temple a carefully forged order for M. de Trélan’s transference to some other place of confinement; it would be brought by an officer, and there would be a carriage and a considerable escort—enough to impose on any jailor in the world. And, once they had the captive out, they would make for the coast, along the road to which relays would be in waiting.
All this Valentine knew, and it had, till an hour or so ago, been the one thing which filled her mind. But the arrival of the order to see her husband, which after reiterated attempts had been procured for her, absorbed it now. The order was for three o’clock that afternoon.
There was more colour on Mme de Trélan’s face to-day than at Vannes—more colour and more signs of strain. And the sewing she had asked for was something of a pretence—as much a pretence, really, as was Roland’s book, now upside down on his knee where he sat on the window-seat, his chin on his hand, gazing immovably out of the window. She put down her needle and gazed at him in her turn.
How like his profile was to Gaston’s—and how unlike! Was she sorry that she had told him? It had changed him, between that news and the catastrophe of Hennebont he seemed a boy no longer. For a nature so open as his he had said extraordinarily little, but she had divinedeasily enough the tides of feeling that had met—were meeting still—in his young heart: the shock of knowing that he had no right to the name he bore (though since he had been so carefully recognised by the late M. de Céligny the world need never know that) the shock to his thoughts of the mother of whom, perhaps mercifully, he had no memory. On the other hand there was the fervour of his worship for M. de Trélan, which lent so much reality and poignancy to his frustrated desire to have died to save him. . . . She did not feel sure that she had not been selfish in the matter; she had even said so, later on, that dark evening at Vannes. But when he had cried bewildered, “How can you be so good to me, Madame? You ought to hate me!” she had answered that he must know she loved him and was leaning on him then, or she would never have told him. “But I think you ought to know,” she had ended, “in case he . . .”
Before she got further Roland had come back from the mantelpiece, where his head lay buried in his arms, and was at her feet, kissing the hands which were gripping each other in the effort to finish that sentence. And he said, in a smothered voice, “If it is dishonour . . . I do not feel dishonoured.—But I cannot grasp it yet; it seems too blinding . . .”
Valentine remembered all this, looking at him now after six days.
“Roland, my child,” she said suddenly, “I want to consult you about something. If to-morrow night’s scheme should fail——”
The young man turned his head at once. “Oh, it will not fail,” he asserted. “But I wish—O, how I wish—that I were in it!”
For, there being secret communication between the Royalist agency and the Temple, the prisoner had contrived to express a strong desire that the Vicomte de Céligny should take no active part in the plan of rescue.
“Poor boy, I know you do! But, Roland, I also have to be inactive. Yet I have a scheme of my own, in case the other fails . . . You know the Trélan rubies? We had designed them, M. de Trélan and I, for Marthe on your wedding day. Now I have the thought of giving—of offering—them to someone else . . . as a price.”
“To whom?” asked Roland, leaning forward as the Duchesse unclasped them from under her dress.
“To Mme Bonaparte.”
Roland, a little startled, considered. “Would it be of any use?”
“She is said to be rapacious for jewels—and of Royalist leanings.”
“But what could she do?”
“Use her influence with her husband. What do you think of it, Roland?”
The young man on the window seat reflected. “You should consult M. Hyde de Neuville, Madame, not me. I know nothing of Mme Bonaparte. But——” He stopped and coloured a little.
“What, Roland?”
“Forgive me, Madame, but would the Duc approve of such a step?”
Her own colour faded a little as she met his eyes. And then with courage, she answered, “No, Roland, I am afraid he might not. He is, as you know . . . very proud. But it is not as if he personally would have a hand in it. A wife’s mortal anxiety will excuse anything. I should go as one woman—as one wife—to another . . . an independent step.”
“Shall you tell M. de Trélan of it this afternoon?” asked Roland, with his eyes on the floor.
Valentine did not answer for a moment. “But in that case I could not say truthfully that he knew nothing of it—which I should wish to be able to say. Advise me, Roland!”
“O Madame, how can I presume to advise you in a matter that concerns only you and him. You know so much better what he would wish than I do!”
And Valentine sat silent, looking at him, her face drawn, the red rivulet of fire across her hands.
“Roland, what you really mean is that I know what he would not wish!”
“Yes, Madame,” answered the boy in a very low voice.
Valentine caught her underlip. “You have your father in you, there is no doubt,” she thought to herself, and as she bent over the stones a tear fell on to the possible price ofblood. For the worst of it was that she knew Roland was right.
She lifted her head again. “Then I shall speak of it to him—ask his permission. . . . And I think, Roland, that I will go and prepare now. It is very early to start, but it is a long way to the Temple, and we could walk part of it. It is so hard to sit still.”
As she came downstairs again, dressed for the street, she was thinking of the man who had put the rubies into her hands that strange day at Mirabel. Ah, that the Abbé Chassin were here now! he who had always been at hand in difficulties, and who now, at the most critical time of all, was over the sea. But even he, as she knew, could do no more than was being done.
In the parlour she found M. de Brencourt—the first time she had seen him that day.
“You are setting out already, Madame?” he asked, bending over her hand. She told him why, thinking how worn and ill he looked, and how possessed (as indeed he was) by a spirit of restless energy.
“I would beg leave to escort you part of the way,” he said, “but having missed Hyde de Neuville at his lodging, and hearing he had something of importance to say to me and was coming here, I must await him. Roland, I suppose, accompanies you?”
“Yes—but he will not be able to see M. de Trélan, I am afraid. Is there any message you wish conveyed about to-morrow night?”
M. de Brencourt shook his head. “Communications of that kind, Madame, go by their own channel. Besides, there is nothing fresh to say. The Duc knows the attempt is to be made; his part is merely passive.”
She said nothing for a moment. Then, flooding up from the depths, came the thing she had not yet allowed to escape her. “O, Monsieur de Brencourt, if only he had listened to you!”
The Comte shook his head. “No, Madame, say rather, If only the warning had come from other lips! I was the one man in the world who should not have carried it. . . . Duchesse, we cannot put off our past so easily; it clings, like the shirt of fable, and poisons everything. . . . You may tell the Duc, if you will, that I accept his apologyin the same spirit in which he sent it. I cannot blame him for disbelieving my veracity—however much, being only human, I resent it. But it was inevitable; and that he is where he is now is Nemesis—the Nemesis I have drawn down on both of us.”
She could find no words before the sadness of his tone. He opened the door for her.
When he had shut the door behind Mme de Trélan the Comte turned and threw himself down in a chair, his chin on his breast, staring into the fire. His brain was weary, for he had been up most of the night. He could not forget (even if Valentine did, as he sometimes suspected) that the Duc de Trélan was not only a prisoner but a condemned prisoner—not a man awaiting trial, but one already under sentence of death—and that his position was very precarious. Any hour might conceivably bring the tidings that the sentence had been carried out on him; for his own part he wished the rescue had been fixed for that evening, but it had not proved possible to have every thread in place so soon.
M. de Brencourt’s whole soul was so set on getting Gaston de Trélan out of the mortal peril in which he stood, that he did not analyse his motives over closely. He had entered on the attempt for Valentine’s sake—and a little, too, for the sake of his own self-respect. And the Duc had sent a message of regret; from him of all men that was no empty form of words. Yet Artus de Brencourt was under the impression that he cared very little about de Trélan’s fate in itself. But it is hard to know one’s own heart.
He went on staring into the coals. He wished he did not keep seeing that figure by the dolmen in the forest waiting with folded arms to receive his fire. It was so very possible . . . He shivered. “How much better it would be if I could take his place!”
A knock, and the expected visitor was shown in, and the Comte roused himself. Hyde de Neuville, the newcomer, was surprisingly young for the position he occupied—only three and twenty in fact—good-looking, alert, intelligent, well-dressed, a man of good family accustomed to the best society, and, in some of his activities, to theworst. He had some astonishingly audacious exploits to his name. When he wrote letters—as to M. Chassin—he signed himself “Paul Berry.”
“I had gone to see Bertin,” explained the young man, coming over to the fire. “I was fearing a hitch about the escort. But it is all right. The two dozen men he had laid his hand on are perfectly reliable, and I am now quite satisfied. Uniforms, indeed, are more difficult to procure than bodies to put them on. But we shall manage.”
“You have no doubts about the forged order?”
“Not the slightest. And none of the Temple officials will be surprised, I think, if M. de Trélan is transferred, the circumstances of his capture having been so exceptional.”
“So damnable!” interpolated the Comte.
“But I really wanted to speak to you about something quite different,” went on the young conspirator. “Late last night I had a communication from my compatriot Bourgoing, who is in relations with Talleyrand. It appears Talleyrand thinks that, partly owing to the outcry which has been made about this abominable violation of M. de Trélan’s safe-conduct, Bonaparte would, after all, be rather glad to get out of going to the extremity to which he most undoubtedly meant to go when he sent those infamous orders to Brune.”
De Brencourt stared at him rather incredulously. “I can hardly believe that of the First Consul. He is entirely without scruples, and very unlikely to be frightened into turning back once he has started on a course, however black that course may be. He cannot be magnanimous now; it is too late. It would only look like weakness.”
“I know that. But Bonaparte, besides getting rid of the odium this affair is raising in certain quarters in Paris, would demand some kind ofquid pro quo—that the Duc should personally ask for his life, and, I suppose, give an undertaking never to conspire against him. Talleyrand is almost convinced that in such a case he would be merciful—in fact that he would secretly be relieved. He could make at any rate some pretence of magnanimity; it might affect wavering supporters. But he has gone too far to set the Duc de Trélan free of his own motion; it would look too much like weakness, as you say. On the other handif it were publicly known that the Duc had asked for mercy——”
“I fear, in that case, that the First Consul will not obtain the relief which he desires,” observed M. de Brencourt drily. “Who that had had any acquaintance with him could imagine that the Duc de Trélan would, for any consideration, stoop to sue from Bonaparte—and by so doing serve Bonaparte’s purpose too! . . . I should scarcely like even to propose such an idea to him.—But of course it would be only proper to inform him—as I expect you have already done?”
Hyde de Neuville looked thoughtful. He nodded. “My note must have reached him, by the usual channel, three or four hours ago.—By the way, has the Duchesse started for the Temple? I think her interview was for three o’clock, was it not? I was wondering whether the ease with which, in the end, the order was obtained, was due to the idea that she might work on her husband if she knew.”
“Then I am thankful that she does not know,” replied the Comte rather hoarsely.
“You mean that it would be of no use? Well, we must then stake everything on to-morrow night’s affair, which promises excellently.” He brought out a paper. “Now, who of these do you think had best drive the carriage, and who play the officer commanding the escort? And I have not yet quite arranged about all the further relays.”
At that very moment Valentine, on Roland’s arm, had just emerged from the Rue du Roule into the Rue Saint-Honoré, whence they intended to take a fiacre to the Temple. In that animated and busy street Roland was looking round for a carriage when he suddenly exclaimed,
“See, Madame, what is coming. Is it—it must be the First Consul himself!”
Valentine followed his eyes. From the direction of the Tuileries was approaching, at a fast trot, a carriage with an escort of mounted grenadiers. It came onwards in a clatter of hoofs, and on its passage a roar of cheers went up and hats were waved. Valentine felt a momentary dizziness, and held Roland’s arm tightly. She was aboutto see the master of France, the great general, the great administrator, the genius with a marvellous brain, an indomitable will, and a petty soul—the man who had her husband’s life in his hand, to keep or to throw away. But when the carriage was almost abreast she involuntarily dropped Roland’s arm and drew herself up, the pride of a long line firing her blood.
And she saw, passing quickly, not, as she had expected, a young hero in uniform, but, in a grey civilian overcoat, the wide revers crossed closely over his chest, a little man whose hollow temples and cheeks, and pallid yellowish complexion, made him look at least ten years older than his thirty years. Sombre and preoccupied, his head sunk on his breast, he appeared almost indifferent to the plaudits of the crowd, but chance, or something in her attitude, drew his eyes in Valentine’s direction, and for one brief second the Duchesse de Trélan sustained—and returned—the singular and burning gaze of Napoleon Bonaparte. Then he was gone.
Trembling a little, Mme de Trélan took the young man’s arm again. She could not shake off the feeling that the First Consul knew who she was, and that it was the question of the Duc de Trélan’s fate which was absorbing his thoughts just then. And he did not look as if he could be turned from his purpose by any woman. . . .
“Let us get a carriage and go quickly, Roland,” she said in a faint voice.
The slow horse clanked dully along the interminable Rue du Temple, till at last Valentine and Roland found themselves standing before the columned entrance to the Palace of the Temple, once the habitation of the Comte d’Artois and, before him, of other princes of the blood, such as Conti of amorous memory. And soon, formalities over, they were walking, with a soldier as guide, across the great courtyard with its encircling row of leafless trees, towards the low façade. Except that this was day, and not night, they saw just what the Royal Family had seen when they were brought there captives on the 13th of August, 1792, for the palace itself had not changed its external aspect since, and the prison itself, the great Tower, stood at some distance behind. Following their guide they went through the building, emerging finallyon the flight of steps which led down from what had been the great salon to the palace garden, and saw then, at the end of the deserted pleasances, the great wall built round the Tower to isolate the royal captives, and over its bleak masonry the upper storeys and the pointed roof of the massive donjon of the Temple which was their goal.
Valentine had heard of this wall of Palloy’s at the time of its construction. It had served its purpose only too well then; it looked—God help her!—as if it would serve it well now. Yet M. de Brencourt had escaped—but that was by bribery, and he had not been in solitary confinement. . . . Now they were at the guardhouse in the wall, were passed civilly and quietly through, and found themselves facing the fortress itself, grey, massive, foursquare, with its small satellite round tower at each angle. Every window in the main building, except those at the very top, was blinded by a sloping board-work, a tabatière. And round it the encircling wall, supported on many buttresses, formed a complete square of desolation. In this were listlessly promenading a few prisoners.
“That is the entrance, Madame,” said their guide, pointing to the left-hand of the two smaller towers on that side. “The stairway runs up that tourelle; they will take you up from the greffe there. I see old Bernard awaiting you, in fact.”
And indeed, on the small semi-circular perron at the foot of the little tower was already standing an old gaoler with a bunch of keys.
“Madame de Trélan?” said this old man when they got there. “We were expecting you. If you will show me the pass there is no need to go into the greffe. Thank you, Monsieur . . . Madame will be obliged to mount a good many steps, since M. de Trélan, as she probably knows, is in solitary confinement, and therefore at the top of the Tower. I will go first; there are wickets to unfasten.”
The winding stairway of the turret was too narrow for Roland to give the Duchesse his arm. Light and gloom alternated with each other as they passed the slit-like windows in the six-foot masonry. And every step they mounted seemed to drive the blood further from Valentine’s heart. How could Gaston ever be rescued, even by guile, from a place like this? And she, who had beentwice in prison herself, and thought she knew all its bitterness, now found that she was tasting a cup incomparably sharper.
She was so pale when they got to the top that Roland put his arm about her for a moment.
“Trying, the ascent, Madame,” observed the melancholy gaoler. “One hundred and twenty-two steps.”
A couple of sentries with fixed bayonets stood before the thick, nail-studded door. The “Marquis de Kersaint” was well guarded indeed.
“The young gentleman will stay outside,” observed Bernard. “My orders, as you know, are only for the family. There is a bench yonder, Monsieur.”
Roland, his heart beating furiously, bent his head in acquiescence, and when the gaoler had unlocked the door and the sentries had stood aside Valentine passed in alone.
She had no time for thought of her surroundings. Gaston, warned by the opening of the door, was waiting just inside, and she was in his arms, strained to him, clinging to him, before ever it had finished closing behind her.
O, haven where she had thought these last dreadful days never to rest again! But no, how could God take it from her again so soon? He was too good! Just to be there once more, to feel Gaston’s lips on hers, to hold him—the agony of suspense drugged, if not dead—nothing else mattered, not even that he was a prisoner.
“Beloved, your cheek is cold,” he murmured. “Is it so cold in here?—and if I hold you all the time will you be warm enough?”
“I am not cold,” she answered in a whisper, “but hold me . . . hold me . . .” And consciousness of everything but that hold drifted away.
. . . Cold? Perhapshewas cold—neglected? What was this place like? To see it, in its relation to him, she lifted her head from his breast, and was conscious for the first time of the small, high room in which she stood, of the window ten feet up in the wall, so that no view was possible, and the light came down from it very cheerlessly. On the ancient walls, blackened in places by the smoke of many a bygone torch, names were scrawled. She saw a pallet, a table and chair—and a stove, which was burning.
Then she scrutinised him, with such eyes of anxiety for what she might discover in his appearance that Gaston smiled at it.
“Do you expect to find, my darling, that ten days of captivity can have changed me?” he asked. “I have everything I want—everything I can pay for, that is—except liberty for correspondence . . . and my personal liberty, bien entendu.”
Indeed he looked younger, less worn, than at her last sight of him. And his tone, assumed or natural, was so calm. But somehow that very fact made her a little uneasy.
He took her hands again. “Sit down, my heart. No, not on my solitary chair; I cannot recommend it. The bed is better; I can sit there too.”
She obeyed him. She did not like to think he slept on that!
“This place makes me shudder, Gaston.”
“Dearest, after La Force and your other prison! It seems to me, now that you are here, like a palace! And you, what roof in Paris has the happiness of sheltering you?”
She told him. And then, holding his hand as he sat by her on the little bed, and turning round and round on his finger, for which it was now too loose, his emerald ring, she approached the subject so near her lips.
“Gaston, you spoke just now—not seriously, I know—of paying for your liberty. Suppose this plan for your rescue fails, which God forbid, but suppose it fails . . . could your liberty be bought?”
He looked at her so hard, so questioningly, that her hopes for the scheme sank lower still.
“I fear not,” he said very gravely. And then, after another pause, “What did you imagine could buy it, my wife?”
And by his very intonation she knew that she would never, with his consent, kneel to Joséphine Bonaparte. Yet she would not give up.
“With the ruby necklace,” she answered, and went on. But he soon stopped her.
“Valentine, you cannot really be proposing that I should stoop to beg my life of Bonaparte!”
She winced, for the tone was almost hard, and hurt. “No, no,” she interposed hastily, “not thatyoushould! But I, your wife, approaching Mme Bonaparte, a wife herself, that is a very different thing. For me to do so is a most natural step, and when I point out to her what surely her husband cannot realise, the infamy of the means by which he took you, the violation of your safe-conduct——”
He had been staring at the floor, his mouth set. But again he broke in. “The First Consul has had plenty of time to reflect on that, Valentine. Believe me, he knows what he is doing.”
O, the place was cold, after all, deadly cold! And Gaston so inexorable——
“And you will not let me——” she began once more unsteadily.
“A thousand times no! I forbid it absolutely.”
Very low, Valentine said, “And what of me? Am I too to be sacrificed to the pride of your race? Can I not plead for myself, Gaston,—not with Bonaparte indeed, but with you, with you!”
He turned, he caught her quickly in his arms. “My darling, my very dear, don’t say that!” he exclaimed in a moved voice. “Don’t say that! It is not I indeed, nor pride——”
But she retorted, half sobbing, “Gaston, I almost think that if you were to be told you could have your life for the asking, you would not ask for it!”
Mercifully she could not guess that the sudden closer tension of his arms about her told how her shot had gone home, nor that her head almost rested at that moment on Hyde de Neuville’s letter. As for Gaston himself, who knew how truly, indeed, she had unwittingly spoken, he dared not take up her challenge. So he said, as calmly as he could, “My dearest, you are overwrought. And, Valentine, can you think that I should allow you to put yourself to a useless humiliation, you whom I love more than my life? For I do not think Mme Bonaparte would have any influence in the matter, and if she had, I dislike the idea of bribing her to use it, as much as you do, I am sure, in your heart. No, we will trust to that clever and audacious young man, Hyde de Neuville, with all the means he has at his disposal. To come and demand a prisoner with a forged order and a fictitious escort will be child’s play to him. And some day I will tell you the very good reason I have for not wishing my life to be begged by anyone. On the faith of a gentleman it is not merely pride. But for the present you must trust me.”
The present. He could speak of it like that! Then he really thought that there might be a future in which hewould be a free man? Did he,didhe? She looked hard at him, and suddenly out of the past shot the remembrance of that very different struggle which had ended their life at Mirabel. Then she had pleaded with him to do something worthy of himself; now . . . was it possible that she was urging him to consent to something unworthy? If that were so, thank God that he was, as before, unmoved. And as she studied the fine, rather worn profile she realised, too, how much less stern were the lines of his mouth. He had asked a little while ago, in jest, if she thought his brief captivity had changed him. But it was true; there was a deep change in him. The profound depression of those last days at La Vergne was gone. Why?
“Gaston,” she said on an impulse, “you are happier than when we parted.”
He turned his head, looked down into her eyes, and smiled. “You can guess why, my soul—you who know what was spared me. God was kind to me. The wine was poured, but I did not drink it. I never had to give up my sword; I never did consent to disarmament. And Finistère is saved all the same. Have I not reason to be happier?”
“And yet—O Gaston, Gaston, I must say it—if only you had listened to M. de Brencourt’s warning!”
He got up from the bed. “M. de Brencourt, I trust, has received the message I sent by M. Camain?”
“Yes,” said Valentine. “He sent one back by me to-day; that he accepted your apology. But he said—and it distressed me, Gaston—that he ought never to have brought the message himself. Your disbelief, he seemed to think, was his Nemesis.”
“That is true,” said her husband a little coldly. “To this hour I do not see how I could have believed in his good faith. But—I have been wanting to say this to you, my dearest—nothing could have made any difference. You think that if I had listened to his warning I should not be here to-day, nor those poor boys lying at Hennebont. But as far as I am concerned it would have been just the same. I must have gone to Vannes to give up my sword, even were I sure that I was walking into a snare. For if, scenting a trap, I had not gone, what would have happened? Brune would have stoutly denied the intendedtreachery, I should have been branded as failing to redeem my pledge, and Finistère would have been invaded after all. Do you not see that even if I had believed de Brencourt I could have done no differently?”
She looked up at him a moment, standing there with a prison wall for background. No,hecould have done no differently, whatever a man with less strict a sense of honour might have done.
“You are you!” she said proudly. “But I will point out that aspect to the Comte—for he has suffered, Gaston. . . . But, my darling, there is something else I want to ask you.” She paused a moment. “If you will not let me beg your life, and I”—she faltered a little—“I accept your wishes . . . what is to happen if the plan for to-morrow fails? Will Bonaparte keep you in prison for years, perhaps?”
And the human spirit has such strange recesses that it really seemed to her that by throwing out this suggestion in words she could make it real, avoid a worse. For at Vannes they had told her——
Gaston de Trélan went suddenly over to the stove, and held out his hands for a moment to its warmth. His back was towards her. Then, sitting down beside her on the bed again, he said lightly, “He is not likely to have the chance of doing that—unless he captures me a second time.”
She saw that he was evading her. “Yes,” she broke in, seizing his arm, “I know; we have spoken about that. But the best plans sometimes fail. What then? Gaston, as you love me . . . Gaston, answer me!”
He looked down at the little hand gripping his arm, and after a moment put his other hand over it. “My wife, can you not see that the First Consul, a soldier himself, would not incur the odium of an almost unparalleled piece of military treachery unless it were worth his while? . . . My dear, there is no braver woman than you. I do you the honour, therefore, of telling you the truth. No, he will not keep me in prison. If I am not rescued I shall undoubtedly be shot . . . as an—example.”
She was answered. Her hand relaxed upon his arm, and he hastily slipped the arm itself about her as she fell away from him. But Valentine pulled herself still further away.
“Then I am going to disregard your wishes, Gaston! You do not know what you are saying. I give you fair warning. I am going to Mme Bonaparte—to the First Consul himself! You expect me to stand by and see you murdered when I might save you! What is your pride—which you cannot deny—against your life . . . and Gaston, Gaston, against my love for you, which you treat so lightly!”
He slipped to his knees and caught her hands to his breast. “O, my more than dear, do not say that!” he implored. “Is not your love for me all the light I have in the world? But at this hour there is something that calls more insistently even than love—something that, if it has to do with pride, is not linked with personal pride. I mean—honour. And you could not gain me my life if you asked—I am sure of it—yet if you were to make the attempt——”