It will be believed that I looked on the city with no common emotions. I had heard enough at Villeraugues--and to that enough M. de Géol had added by the way a thousand details--to satisfy me that here and not in the north, here in the Gard, and the Bouches du Rhone, among the olive groves and white dust of the south, and not among the wheatfields and pastures of the north, the fate of the nation hung in the balance; and that not in Paris--where men would and yet would not, where Mirabeau and Lafayette, in fear of the mob, took one day a step towards the King, and the next, fearful lest restored he should punish, retraced it--could the convulsion be arrested, but here! Here, where the warm imagination of the Provençal still saw something holy in things once holy, and faction bound men to faith.
Hitherto the stream of revolution had met with no check. Obstacles apparently the strongest, the King, the nobles, had crumbled and sunk before it, almost without a struggle; it remained to be seen whether the third and last of the governing powers, the Church, would fare better. Clearly, if Froment were right, and faith must be met by faith, and bigotry of one kind be opposed by bigotry of another kind, here in the valley of the Rhone, where the Church still kept its hold, lay the materials nearest to the enthusiast's hand. In that case--and with this in my mind, I took my first long look at the city, and the wide low plain that lay beyond it, bathed in the sunset light--in that case, from this spot might fly a torch to kindle France! Hence might start within the next few days a conflagration as wide as the land; that taken up, and roaring ever higher and higher through all La Vendée, and Brittany, and the Côtes du Nord, might swiftly ring round Paris with a circle of flame.
Once get it fairly alight. But there lay the doubt; and I looked again, and looked with eager curiosity, at this city from which so much was expected; this far-stretching city of flat roofs and white houses, trending gently down from the last spurs of the Cevennes to the Rhone plain. North of it, in the outskirts rose three low hills, the midmost crowned with a tower, the eastern-most casting a shadow almost to the distant river; and from these, eastward and southward, the city sloped. And these hills, and the roads near us, and the plain already verdant, and the great workshops that here and there rose in the faubourgs, all, as we approached, seemed to teem with life and people; with people coming and going, alone and in groups, sauntering beyond the walls for pleasure, or hastening on business.
Of these, I noticed all wore a badge of some kind; many the tricolour, but more a red ribbon, a red tuft, a red cockade--emblems at sight of which my companions' faces grew darker, and ever darker. Another thing characteristic of the place, the tinkling of many bells, calling to vespers--though I found the sound fall pleasantly on the evening air--was as little to their taste. They growled together, and increased their pace; the result of which was that insensibly I fell to the rear. As we entered the streets, the traffic that met us, and the keenness with which I looked about me, increased the distance between us; presently, a long line of carts and a company of National Guards intervening, I found myself riding alone, a hundred paces behind them.
I was not sorry; the novelty of the shifting crowd, the changing faces, the southern patois, the moving string of soldiers, peasants, workmen, women, amused me. I was less sorry when by-and-by something--something which I had dimly imagined might happen when I reached Nîmes--took real shape, there, in the crooked street; and struck me, as it were, in the face. As I passed under a barred window a little above the roadway, a window on which my eyes alighted for an instant, a white hand waved a handkerchief--for an instant only, just long enough for me to take in the action and think of Denise! Then, as I jerked the reins, the handkerchief was gone, the window was empty, on either side of me the crowd chattered, and jostled on its way.
I pulled up mechanically, and looked round, my heart beating. I could see no one near me for whom the signal could be intended; and yet--it seemed odd. I could hardly believe in such good fortune; or that I had found Denise so soon. However, as my eyes returned doubtfully to the window, the handkerchief flickered in it again; and this time the signal was so unmistakably meant for me that, shamed out of my prudence, I pushed my horse through the crowd to the door, and hastily dismounting, threw the rein to an urchin who stood near. I was shy of asking him who lived in the house; and with a single glance at the dull white front, and the row of barred windows that ran below the balcony, I resigned myself to fortune, and knocked.
On the instant the door flew open, and a servant appeared. I had not considered what I would say, and for a moment I stared at him foolishly. Then, at a venture, on the spur of the moment, I asked if Madame received.
He answered very civilly that she did, and held the door open for me to enter.
I did so, confused and wondering; none the less when, having crossed a spacious hall, paved with black and white marble, and followed him up a staircase, I found everything I saw round me, from the man's quiet livery to the mouldings of the ceiling, wearing the stamp of elegance and refinement. Pedestals, supporting marble busts, stood in the angles of the staircase; there were orange trees in jars in the hall, and antique fragments adorned the walls. However, I saw these only in passing; in a moment I reached the head of the stairs, and the man opening a door, stood aside.
I entered the room, my eyes shining; in a dream, an impossible dream, that held possession of me for one moment, that Denise--not Mademoiselle de St. Alais, but Denise, the girl who loved me and with whom I had never been alone, might be there to receive me. Instead, a stranger rose slowly from a seat in one of the window bays, and, after a moment's hesitation, came forward to meet me; a strange lady, tall, grave, and very handsome, whose dark eyes scanned me seriously, while the blood rose a little to her pure olive cheek.
Seeing that she was a stranger, I began to stammer an apology for my intrusion. She curtsied. "Monsieur need not excuse himself," she said, smiling. "He was expected, and a meal is ready. If you will allow Gervais," she continued, "he will take you to a room, where you can remove the dust of the road."
"But, Madame," I stammered, still hesitating. "I am afraid that I am trespassing."
She shook her head, smiling. "Be so good," she said; and waved her hand towards the door.
"But my horse," I answered, standing bewildered. "I have left it in the street."
"It will be cared for," she said. "Will you be so kind?" And she pointed with a little imperious gesture to the door.
I went then in utter amazement. The man who had led me upstairs was outside. He preceded me along a wide airy passage to a bedroom, in which I found all that I needed to refresh my toilet. He took my coat and hat, and attended me with the skill of one trained to such offices; and in a state of desperate bewilderment, I suffered it. But when, recovering a little from my confusion, I opened my mouth to ask a question, he begged me to excuse him; Madame would explain.
"Madame----?" I said; and looked at him interrogatively, and waited for him to fill the blank.
"Yes, Monsieur, Madame will explain," he answered glibly, and without a smile; and then, seeing that I was ready, he led me back, not to the room I had left, but to another.
I went in, like a man in a dream; not doubting, however, that now I should have an answer to the riddle. But I found none. The room was spacious, and parquet-floored, with three high narrow windows, of which one, partly open, let in the murmur of the street. A small wood fire burned on a wide hearth between carved marble pillars; and in one corner of the room stood a harpsichord, harp, and music-stand. Nearer the fire a small round table, daintily laid for supper, and lighted by candles, placed in old silver sconces, presented a charming picture; and by it stood the lady I had seen.
"Are you cold?" she said, coming forward frankly, as I advanced.
"No, Madame."
"Then we will sit down at once," she answered. And she pointed to the table.
I took the seat she indicated, and saw with astonishment that covers were laid for two only. She caught the look, and blushed faintly, and her lip trembled as if with the effort to suppress a smile. But she said nothing, and any thought to her disadvantage which might have entered my mind was anticipated, not only by the sedate courtesy of her manner, but by the appearance of the room, the show of wealth and ease that surrounded her, and the very respectability of the butler who waited on us.
"Have you ridden far to-day?" she said, crumbling a roll with her fingers as if she were not quite free from nervousness; and looking now at the table and now again at me in a way almost appealing.
"From Sauve, Madame," I answered.
"Ah! And you propose to go?"
"No farther."
"I am glad to hear it," she said, with a charming smile. "You are a stranger in Nîmes?"
"I was. I do not feel so now."
"Thank you," she answered, her eyes meeting mine without reserve. "That you may feel more at home, I am going presently to tell you my name. Yours I do not ask."
"You do not know it?" I cried.
"No," she said, laughing; and I saw, as she laughed, that she was younger than I had thought; that she was little more than a girl. "Of course, you can tell it me if you please," she added lightly.
"Then, Madame, I do please," I answered gallantly. "I am the Vicomte de Saux, of Saux by Cahors, and am very much at your service."
She held her hand suspended, and stared at me a moment in undisguised astonishment. I even thought that I read something like terror in her eyes. Then she said: "Of Saux by Cahors?"
"Yes, Madame. And I am driven to fear," I continued, seeing the effect my words produced, "that I am here in the place of some one else."
"Oh, no!" she said. Then, her feelings seeming to find sudden vent, she laughed and clapped her hands. "No, Monsieur," she cried gaily, "there is no error, I assure you. On the contrary, now I know who you are, I will give you a toast. Alphonse! Fill M. le Vicomte's glass, and then leave us! So! Now, M. le Vicomte," she continued, "you must drink with me,à l'Anglaise, to----"
She paused and looked at me slily. "I am all attention, Madame," I said, bowing.
"Tola belleDenise!" she said.
It was my turn to start and stare now; in confusion as well as surprise. But she only laughed the more, and, clapping her hands with childish abandon, bade me, "Drink, Monsieur, drink!"
I did so bravely, though I coloured under her eyes.
"That is well," she said, as I set down the glass. "Now, Monsieur, I shall be able--in the proper quarter--to report you no recreant."
"But, Madame," I said, "how do you know the proper quarter?"
"How do I know?" she answered naïvely. "Ah, that is the question."
But she did not answer it; though I remarked that from this moment she took a different tone with me. She dropped much of the reserve which she had hitherto maintained, and began to pour upon me a fire of wit and badinage, merriment andplaisanterie, against which I defended myself as well as I could, where all the advantage of knowledge lay with her. Such a duel with so fair an antagonist had its charms, the more as Denise and my relations to her formed the main objects of her raillery: yet I was not sorry when a clock, striking eight, produced a sudden silence and a change in her, as great as that which had preceded it. Her face grew almost sombre, she sighed, and sat looking gravely before her. I ventured to ask if anything ailed her.
"Only this, Monsieur," she answered. "That I must now put you to the test; and you may fail me."
"You wish me to do something?"
"I wish you to give me your escort," she answered, "to a place and back again."
"I am ready," I cried, rising gaily. "If I were not I should be a recreant indeed. But I think, Madame, that you were going to tell me your name."
"I am Madame Catinot," she answered. And then--I do not know what she read in my face, "I am a widow," she added, blushing deeply. "For the rest you are no wiser."
"But always at your service, Madame."
"So be it," she answered quietly. "I will meet you, M. le Vicomte, in the hall, if you will presently descend thither."
I held the door for her to go out, and she went; and wondering, and inexpressibly puzzled by the strangeness of the adventure, I paced up and down the room a minute, and then followed her. A hanging lamp which lit the hall showed her to me standing at the foot of the stairs; her hair hidden by a black lace mantilla, her dress under a cloak of the same dark colour. The man who had admitted me gave me in silence my cloak and hat; and without a word Madame led the way along a passage.
Over a door at the end of the passage was a second light. It fell on my hat--as I was about to put it on--and I started and stood. Instead of the tricolour I had been wearing in the hat, I saw a small red cockade!
Madame heard me stop, and turning, discovered what was the matter. She laid her hand on my arm; and the hand trembled. "For an hour, Monsieur, only for an hour," she breathed in my ear. "Give me your arm."
Somewhat agitated--I began to scent danger and complications--I put on the hat and gave her my arm, and in a moment we stood in the open air in a dark, narrow passage between high walls. She turned at once to the left, and we walked in silence a hundred, or a hundred and fifty, paces, which brought us to a low-browed doorway on the same side, through which a light poured out. Madame guiding me by a slight pressure, we passed through this, and a narrow vestibule beyond it; and in a moment I found myself, to my astonishment, in a church, half full of silent worshippers.
Madame enjoined silence by laying her finger on her lip, and led the way along one of the dim aisles, until we came to a vacant chair beside a pillar. She signed to me to stand by the pillar, and herself knelt down.
Left at liberty to survey the scene, and form my conclusions, I looked about me like a man in a dream. The body of the church, faintly lit, was rendered more gloomy by the black cloaks and veils of the vast kneeling crowd that filled the nave and grew each moment more dense. The men for the most part stood beside pillars, or at the back of the church; and from these parts came now and then a low stern muttering, the only sound that broke the heavy silence. A red lamp burning before the altar added one touch of sombre colour to the scene.
I had not stood long before I felt the silence, and the crowd, and the empty vastnesses above us, begin to weigh me down; before my heart began to beat quickly in expectation of I knew not what. And then at last, when this feeling had grown almost intolerable, out of the silence about the altar came the first melancholy notes, the wailing refrain of the psalm,Miserere Domine!
It had a solemn and wondrous effect as it rose and fell, in the gloom, in the silence, above the heads of the kneeling multitude, who one moment were there and the next, as the lights sank, were gone, leaving only blackness and emptiness and space--and that spasmodic wailing. As the pleading, almost desperate notes, floated down the long aisles, borne on the palpitating hearts of the listeners, a hand seemed to grasp the throat, the eyes grew dim, strong men's heads bowed lower, and strong men's hands trembled.Miserere mei Deus! Miserere Domine!
At last it came to an end. The psalm died down, and on the darkness and dead silence that succeeded, a light flared up suddenly in one place, and showed a pale, keen face and eyes that burned, as they gazed, not at the dim crowd, but into the empty space above them, whence grim, carved visages peered vaguely out of fretted vaults. And the preacher began to preach.
In a low voice at first, and with little emotion, he spoke of the ways of God with His creatures, of the immensity of the past and the littleness of the present, of the Omnipotence before which time and space and men were nothing; of the certainty that as God, the Almighty, the Everlasting, the Ever-present decreed, itwas. And then, in fuller tones, he went on to speak of the Church, God's agent on earth, and of the work which it had done in past ages, converting, protecting, shielding the weak, staying the strong, baptising, marrying, burying. God's handmaid, God's vicegerent. "Of whom alone it comes," the preacher continued, raising his hand now, and speaking in a voice that throbbed louder and fuller through the spaces of the church, "that we are more than animals, that knowing who is behind the veil we fear not temporal things, nor think of death as the worst possible, as do the unbelieving; but having that on which we rest, outside and beyond the world, can view unmoved the worst that the world can do to us. We believe; therefore, we are strong. We believe in God; therefore, we are stronger than the world. We believe in God; therefore, we are of God, and not of the world. We are above the world! we are about the world, and in the strength of God, who is the God of Hosts, shall subdue the world."
He paused, holding the crowd breathless; then in a lower tone he continued: "Yet how do the heathen rage and the people imagine a vain thing? They trample on God! They say this exists, I see it. That exists, I hear it. The other exists, I touch it. And that is all--that is all. But does it come of what we see and hear and feel that a man will die for his brother? Does it come of what we see and hear and feel that a man will die for a thought? That he will die for a creed? That he will die for honour? That, withal, he will die for anything--for anything, while he may live? I trow not. It comes of God! Of God only.
"And they trample on Him. In the streets, in the senate, in high places. And He says, 'Who is on My side?' My children, my brethren, we have lived long in a time of ease and safety; we have been long untried by aught but the ordinary troubles of life, untrained by the imminent issues of life and death. Now, in these late years of the world, it has pleased the Almighty to try us; and who is on His side? Who is prepared to put the unseen before the seen, honour before life, God before man, chivalry before baseness, the Church before the world? Who is on His side? Spurned in this little corner of His creation, bruised and bleeding and trampled under foot, yet ruler of earth and heaven, life and death, judgment and eternity, ruler of all the countless worlds of space, He comes! He comes! He comes, God Almighty, which was, and is, and is to be! And who is on His side?"
As the last word fell from his lips, and the light above his head went suddenly out, and darkness fell on the breathless hush, the listening hundreds, an indescribable wave of emotion passed through the crowd. Men stirred their feet with a strange, stern sound, that spreading, passed in muttered thunder to the vaults; while women sobbed, and here and there shrieked and prayed aloud. From the altar a priest in a voice that shook with feeling blessed the congregation; then, even as I awoke from a trance of attention, Madame touched my arm, and signed to me to follow her, and gliding quickly from her place, led the way down the aisle. Before the preacher's last words had ceased to ring in my ears or my heart had forgotten to be moved, we were walking under the stars with the night air cooling our faces; a moment, and we were in the house and stood again in the lighted salon where I had first found Madame Catinot.
Before I knew what she was going to do, she turned to me with a swift movement, and laid both her bare hands on my arm; and I saw that the tears were running down her face. "Who is on My side?" she cried, in a voice that thrilled me to the soul, so that I started where I stood. "Who is on My side? Oh, surely you! Surely you, Monsieur, whose fathers' swords were drawn for God and the King! Who, born to guide, are surely on the side of light! Who, noble, will never leave the task of government to the base! O----" and there, breaking off before I could answer, she turned from me with her hands clasped to her face. "O God!" she cried with sobs, "give me this man for Thy service."
I stood inexpressibly troubled; moved by the sight of this woman in tears, shaken by the conflict in my own soul, somewhat unmanned, perhaps, by what I had seen. For a moment I could not speak; when I did, "Madame," I said unsteadily, "if I had known that it was for this! You have been kind to me, and I--I can make no return."
"Don't say it!" she cried, turning to me and pleading with me. "Don't say it!" And she laid her clasped hands on my arm and looked at me, and then in a moment smiled through her tears. "Forgive me," she said humbly, "forgive me. I went about it wrongly. I feel--too much. I asked too quickly. But you will? You will, Monsieur? You will be worthy of yourself?"
I groaned. "I hold their commission," I said.
"Return it!"
"But that will not acquit me!"
"Who is on My side?" she said softly. "Who is on My side?"
I drew a deep breath. In the silence of the room, the wood-ashes on the hearth settled down, and a clock ticked. "For God! For God and the King!" she said, looking up at me with shining eyes, with clasped hands.
I could have sworn in my pain. "To what purpose?" I cried almost rudely. "If I were to say, yes, to what purpose, Madame? What could I do that would help you? What could I do that would avail?"
"Everything! Everything! You are one man more!" she cried. "One man more for the right. Listen, Monsieur. You do not know what is afoot, or how we are pressed, or----"
She stopped suddenly, abruptly; and looked at me, listening; listening with a new expression on her face. The door was not closed, and the voice of a man, speaking in the hall below, came up the staircase; another instant, and a quick foot crossed the hall, and sounded on the stairs. The man was coming up.
Madame, face to face with me, dumb and listening with distended eyes, stood a moment, as if taken by surprise. At the last moment, warning me by a gesture to be silent, she swept to the door and went out, closing it--not quite closing it behind her.
I judged that the man had almost reached it, for I heard him exclaim in surprise at her sudden appearance; then he said something in a tone which did not reach me. I lost her answer too, but his next words were audible enough.
"You will not open the door?" he cried.
"Not of that room," she replied bravely. "You can see me in the other, my friend."
Then silence. I could almost hear them breathing. I could picture them looking defiance at one another. I grew hot.
"Oh, this is intolerable!" he cried at last. "This is not to be borne. Are you to receive every stranger that comes to town? Are you to be closeted with them, and sup with them, and sit with them, while I eat my heart out outside? Am I--Iwillgo in!"
"You shall not!" she cried; but I thought that the indignation in her voice rang false; that laughter underlay it. "It is enough that you insult me," she continued proudly. "But if you dare to touch me, or if you insult him----"
"Him!" he cried fiercely. "Him, indeed! Madame, I tell you at once, I have borne enough. I have suffered this more than once, but----"
But I had no longer any doubt, and before he could add the next word I was at the door--I had snatched it open, and stood before him. Madame fell back with a cry between tears and laughter, and we stood, looking at one another.
The man was Louis St. Alais.
I had not seen Louis since the day of the duel at Cahors, when, parting from him at the door in the passage by the Cathedral, I had refused to take his hand. Then I had been sorely angry with him. But time and old memories and crowding events had long softened the feeling; and in the joy of meeting him again, of finding him in this unexpected stranger, nothing was further from my thoughts than to rake up old grudges. I held out my hand, therefore, with a laughing word. "Voilà l'Inconnu, Monsieur!" I said with a bow. "I am here to find you, and I find you!"
He stared at me a moment in the utmost astonishment, and then impulsively grasping my hand he held it, and stood looking at me, with the old affection in his eyes. "Adrien! Adrien!" he said, much moved. "Is it really you?"
"Even so, Monsieur."
"And here?"
"Here," I said.
Then, to my astonishment, he slowly dropped my hand; and his manner and his face changed--as a house changes when the shutters are closed. "I am sorry for it," he said slowly, and after a long pause. And then, with an unmistakable flash of anger, "My God, Monsieur! Why have you come?" he cried.
"Why have I come?"
"Ay, why?" he repeated bitterly. "Why? Why have you come--to trouble us? You do not know what evil you are doing! You do not know, man!"
"I know at least what good I am seeking," I answered, purely astounded by this sudden and inexplicable change. "I have made no secret of that, and I make no secret of it now. No man was ever worse treated than I have been by your family. Your attitude now impels me to say that. But when I see Madame la Marquise, to-morrow, I shall tell her that it will take more than this to change me. I shall tell her----"
"You will not see her!" he answered.
"But I shall!"
"You will not!" he retorted.
Before I could answer, Madame Catinot interposed. "Oh, no more!" she cried in a voice which sufficiently evinced her distress. "I thought that you and he were friends, M. Louis? And now--now that fortune has brought you together again----"
"Would to heaven it had not!" he cried, dropping his hand like a man in despair. And he took a turn this way and that on the floor.
She looked at him. "I do not think that you have ever spoken to me in that tone before, Monsieur," she said in a tone of keen reproach. "If it is due--if, I mean," she continued quietly, but with a sparkling eye, "it is because you found M. le Vicomte with me, you infer something unworthy of us. You insult me as well as your friend!"
"Heaven forbid!" he exclaimed.
But she was roused. "That is not enough," she answered firmly and proudly. "For one week more, this is my house, M. Louis. After that it will be yours. Perhaps then--perhaps then," she continued, with a pitiful break in her voice, "I shall think of to-night, and wonder I took no warning! Perhaps then, Monsieur, a word of kindness from you may be as rare as a rough word now!"
He was not proof against that, and the sadness in her voice. He threw himself on his knees before her and seized her hands. "Madame! Catherine! forgive me!" he cried passionately, kissing her hands again and again, and taking no heed of me at all. "Forgive me!" he continued, "I am miserable! You are my only comfort, my only compensation. I do not know, since I saw him, what I am saying. Forgive me!"
"I do!" she said hastily. "Rise, Monsieur!" and she furtively wiped away a tear, then looked at me, blushing but happy. "I do," she continued. "But,mon cher, I do not understand you. The other day you spoke so kindly of M. de Saux; and of--pardon me--your sister, and of other things. To-day M. de Saux is here, and you are unhappy."
"I am!" he said, casting a haggard, miserable look at me.
I shrugged my shoulders and spoke up. "So be it," I said proudly. "But because I have lost a friend, Monsieur, it does not follow that I need lose a mistress. I have come to Nîmes to win Mademoiselle de St. Alais' hand. I shall not leave until I have won it."
"This is madness!" he said, with a groan. "Why?"
"Because you talk of the impossible," he answered. "Because Madame de St. Alais is not at Nîmes--for you."
"She is at Nîmes!"
"You will have to find her."
"That is childishness!" I said. "Do you mean to say that at the first hotel I enter I shall not be told where Madame has her lodging?"
"Neither at the first, nor at the last."
"She is in retreat?"
"I shall not tell you."
With that we stood facing one another; Madame Catinot watching us a little aside. Clearly the events of the last few months, which had so changed, so hardened Madame St. Alais, had not been lost on Louis. I could fancy, as I confronted him, that it was M. le Marquis, the elder, and not the younger brother, who withstood me; only--only from under Louis' mask of defiance, there peeped, I still fancied, the old Louis' face, doubting and miserable.
I tried that chord. "Come," I said, making an effort to swallow my wrath, and speak reasonably, "I think that you are not in earnest, M. le Comte, in what you say, and that we are both heated. Time was when we agreed well enough, and you were not unwilling to have me for your brother-in-law. Are we, because of these miserable differences----"
"Differences!" he cried, interrupting me harshly. "My mother's house in Cahors is an empty shell. My brother's house at St. Alais is a heap of ashes. And you talk of differences!"
"Well, call them what you like!"
"Besides," Madame Catinot interposed quickly, "pardon me, Monsieur--besides, M. St. Alais, you know our need of converts. M. le Vicomte is a gentleman, and a man of sense and religion. It needs but a little--a very little," she continued, smiling faintly at me, "to persuade him. And if your sister's hand would do that little, and Madame were agreeable?"
"He could not have it!" he answered sullenly, looking away from me.
"But a week ago," Madame Catinot answered in a startled tone, "you told me----"
"A week ago is not now," he said. "For the rest, I have only this to say. I am sorry to see you here, M. le Vicomte, and I beg you to return. You can do no good, and you may do and suffer harm. By no possibility can you gain what you seek."
"That remains to be seen," I answered stubbornly, roused in my turn. "To begin with, since you say that I cannot find Mademoiselle, I shall adopt a very simple plan. I shall wait here until you leave, Monsieur, and then accompany you home."
"You will not!" he said.
"You may depend upon it I shall!" I answered defiantly.
But Madame interposed. "No, M. de Saux," she said with dignity. "You will not do that; I am sure that you will not; it would be an abuse of my hospitality."
"If you forbid it?"
"I do," she answered.
"Then, Madame, I cannot," I replied. "But----"
"But nothing! Let there be a truce now, if you please," she said firmly. "If it is to be war between you, it shall not begin here. I think, too--I think that I had better ask you to retire," she continued, with an appealing glance at me.
I looked at Louis. But he had turned away, and affected to ignore me. And on that I succumbed. It was impossible to answer Madame, when she spoke to me in that way; and equally impossible to remain in the house, against her will. I bowed, therefore, in silence; and with the best grace I could, though I was sore and angry, I took my cloak and hat, which I had laid on a chair.
"I am sorry," Madame said kindly. And she held out her hand.
I raised it to my lips. "To-morrow--at twelve--here!" she breathed.
I started. I rather guessed than heard the words, so softly were they spoken; but her eyes made up for the lack of sound, and I understood. The next moment she turned from me, and with a last reluctant glance at Louis, who still had his back to me, I went out.
The man who had admitted me was in the hall. "You will find your horse at the Louvre, Monsieur," he said, as he opened the door.
I rewarded him, and going out, without a thought whither I was going, walked along the street, plunged in reflection; until marching on blindly I came against a man. That awoke me, and I looked round. I had been in the house little more than three hours, and in Nîmes scarcely longer; yet so much had happened in the time that it seemed strange to me to find the streets unfamiliar, to find myself alone in them, at a loss which way to turn. Though it was hard on ten o'clock, and only a swaying lantern here and there made a ring of smoky light at the meeting of four ways, there were numbers of people still abroad; a few standing, but the majority going one way, the men with cloaks about their necks, the women with muffled heads.
Feeling the necessity, since I must get myself a lodging, of putting away for the moment my one absorbing thought--the question of Louis' behaviour--I stopped a man who was not going with the stream, and asked him the way to the Hôtel de Louvre. I learned not only that but the cause of the concourse.
"There has been a procession," he answered gruffly. "I should have thought that you would know that!" he added, with a glance at my hat. And he turned on his heel.
I remembered the red cockade I wore, and before I went farther paused to take it out. As I moved on again, a man came quickly up behind me, and as he passed thrust a paper into my hand. Before I could speak he was gone; but the incident and the bustle of the streets, strange at this late hour, helped to divert my thoughts; and I was not surprised when, on reaching the inn, I was told that every room was full.
"My horse is here," I said, thinking that the landlord, seeing me walk in on foot, might distrust the weight of my purse.
"Yes, Monsieur; and if you like you can lie in the eating-room," he answered very civilly. "You are welcome, and you will do no better elsewhere. It is as if the fair were being held at Beaucaire. The city is full of strangers. Almost as full as it is of those things!" he continued querulously, and he pointed to the paper in my hand.
I looked at it, and saw that it was a manifesto headed "Sacrilege! Mary Weeps!" "It was thrust into my hand a minute ago," I said.
"To be sure," he answered. "One morning we got up and found the walls white with them. Another day they were flying loose about the streets."
"Do you know," I asked, seeing that he had been supping, and was inclined to talk, "where the Marquis de St. Alais is living?"
"No, Monsieur," he said. "I do not know the gentleman."
"But he is here with his family."
"Who is not here," he answered, shrugging his shoulders. Then in a lower tone, "Is he red, or--or the other thing, Monsieur?"
"Red," I said boldly.
"Ah! Well, there have been two or three gentlemen going to and fro between our M. Froment, and Turin and Montpellier. It is said that our Mayor would have arrested them long ago if he had done his duty. But he is red too, and most of the councillors. And I don't know, for I take no side. Perhaps the gentleman you want is one of these?"
"Very likely," I said. "So M. Froment is here?"
"Monsieur knows him?"
"Yes," I said drily, "a little."
"Well, he is here, or he is not," the landlord answered, shaking his head. "It is impossible to say."
"Why?" I asked. "Does he not live here?"
"Yes, he lives here; at the Port d'Auguste on the old wall near the Capuchins. But----" he looked round and then continued mysteriously, "he goes out, where he has never gone in, Monsieur! And he has a house in the Amphitheatre, and it is the same there. And some say that the Capuchins is only another house of his. And if you go to the Cabaret de la Vierge, and give his name--you pay nothing."
He said this with many nods, and then seemed on a sudden to think that he had said too much, and hurried away. Asking for them, I learned that M. de Géol and Buton, failing to get a room there, had gone to the Ecu de France; but I was not very sorry to be rid of them for the time, and accepting the host's offer, I went to the eating-room, and there made myself as comfortable as two hard chairs and the excitement of my thoughts permitted.
The one thing, the one subject that absorbed me was Louis' behaviour, and the strange and abrupt change I had marked in it. He had been glad to see me, his hand had leaped to meet mine, I had read the old affection in his eyes; and then--then on a sudden, in a moment he had frozen into surly, churlish antagonism, an antagonism that had taken Madame Catinot by surprise, and was not without a touch of remorse, almost of horror. It could not be that she was dead? It could not be that Denise--no, my mind failed to entertain it. But I rose, trembling at the thought, and paced the room until daylight; listening to the watchman's cry, and the mournful hours, and the occasional rush of hurrying feet, that spoke of the perturbed city. What to me were Froment, or the red or the white or the tricolour, veto or no veto, endowment or disendowment, in comparison to that?
The house stirred at last, but I had still to wait till noon before I could see Madame Catinot. I spent the interval in an aimless walk through the town. At another time the things I saw must have filled me with wonder; at another time the hoary, gloomy ring of the Arènes, rising in tiers of frowning arches, high above the squalid roofs that leaned against it--and choked within by a Ghetto of the like, huddled where prefects once sat, and the Emperor's colours flew victorious round the circle--must have won my admiration by its vastness; the Maison Carrée by its fair proportions; the streets by the teeming crowds that filled them, and stood about the cabarets, and read the placards on the walls. But I had only thought for Louis, and my love, and the lagging minutes. At the first stroke of twelve I knocked at Madame Catinot's door; the last saw me in her presence.
It needed but a look at her face, and my heart sank; the thanks I was preparing to utter died on my lips as I gazed at her. She on her part was agitated. For a moment we were both silent.
At last, "I see that you have bad news for me, Madame," I said, striving to smile, and bear myself bravely.
"The worst, I fear," she said pitifully, smoothing her skirt. "For I have none, Monsieur."
"Yet I have heard it said that no news is good news?" I said, wondering.
Her lip trembled, but she did not look at me.
"Come, Madame," I persisted, though I was sick at heart. "Surely you are going to tell me more than that? At least you can tell me where I can see Madame St. Alais."
"No, Monsieur, I cannot tell you," she said in a low voice.
"Nor why M. Louis has so suddenly become hostile to me?"
"No, Monsieur, nor that. And I beg--as you are a gentleman," she continued hurriedly, "that you will spare me questions! I thought that I could help you, and I asked you to see me to-day. I find that I can only give you pain."
"And that is all, Madame?"
"That is all," she said, with a gesture that told more than her words.
I looked round the silent room, I walked half way to the door. And then I turned back. I could not go. "No!" I cried vehemently, "I will not go so! What is it you have learned, that has closed your lips, Madame? What are they plotting against her--that you fear to tell me? Speak, Madame! You did not bring me here to hear this! That I know."
But she only looked at me, her face full of reproach. "Monsieur," she said, "I meant kindly. Is this my reward?"
And that was too much for me. I turned without a word, and went out--of the room and the house.
Outside I felt like a child in darkness, on whom the one door leading to life and liberty had closed, as his hand touched it. I felt a dead, numbing disappointment that at any moment might develop into sharp pain. This change in Madame Catinot, resembling so exactly the change in Louis St. Alais, what could be the cause of it? What had been revealed to her? What was the mystery, the plot, the danger that made them all turn from me, as if I had the plague?
For awhile I was in the depths of despair. Then the warm sunshine that filled the streets, and spoke of coming summer, kindled lighter thoughts. After all it could not be hard to find a person in Nîmes! I had soon found M. Louis. And this was the eighteenth century and not the sixteenth. Women were no longer exposed to the pressure that had once been brought to bear on them; nor men to the violence natural in old feuds.
And then--as I thought of that and strove to comfort myself with it--I heard a noise burst into the street behind me, a roar of voices and a sudden trampling of hundreds of feet; and turning I saw a dense press of men coming towards me, waving aloft blue banners, and crucifixes, and flags with the Five Wounds. Some were singing and some shouting, all were brandishing clubs and weapons. They came along at a good pace, filling the street from wall to wall; and to avoid them I stepped into an archway, that opportunely presented itself.
They came up in a moment, and swept past me with deafening shouts. It was difficult to see more than a forest of waving arms and staves over swart excited faces; but through a break in the ranks I caught a glimpse of three men walking in the heart of the crowd, quiet themselves, yet the cause and centre of all; and the middle man of the three was Froment. One of the others wore a cassock, and the third had a reckless air, and a hat cocked in the military fashion. So much I saw, then only rank upon rank of hurrying shouting men. After these again followed three or four hundred of the scum of the city, beggars and broken rascals and homeless men.
As I turned from staring after them I found a man at my elbow; by a strange coincidence the very same man who, the night before, had directed me to the Hôtel de Louvre. I asked him if that was not M. Froment.
"Yes," he said with a sneer. "And his brother."
"Oh, his brother! What is his name, Monsieur?"
"Bully Froment, some call him."
"And what are they going to do?"
"Groan outside a Protestant church to-day," he answered pithily. "To-morrow break the windows. The next day, or as soon as they can get their courage to the sticking point, fire on the worshippers, and call in the garrison from Montpellier. After that the refugees from Turin will come, we shall be in revolt, and there will be dragoonings. And then--if the Cevennols don't step in--Monsieur will see strange things."
"But the Mayor?" I said. "And the National Guards? Will they suffer it?"
"The first is red," the man answered curtly. "And two-thirds of the last. Monsieur will see."
And with a cool nod he went on his way; while I stood a moment looking idly after the procession. On a sudden, as I stood, it occurred to me that where Froment was, the St. Alais might be; and snatching at the idea, wondering hugely that I had not had it before, I started recklessly in pursuit of the mob. The last broken wave of the crowd was still visible, eddying round a distant corner; and even after that disappeared, it was easy to trace the course it had taken by closed shutters and scared faces peeping from windows. I heard the mob stop once, and groan and howl; but before I came up with it it was on again, and when I at last overtook it, where one of the streets, before narrowing to an old gateway, opened out into a little square--with high dingy buildings on this side and that, and a meshwork of alleys running into it--the nucleus of the crowd had vanished, and the fringe was melting this way and that.
My aim was Froment, and I had missed him. But I was at a loss only for a moment, for as I stood and scanned the people trooping back into the town, my eye alighted on a lean figure with stooping head and a scanty cassock, that, wishing to cross the street, paused a moment striving to pass athwart the crowd. It needed a glance only; then, with a cry of joy, I was through the press, and at the man's side.
It was Father Benôit! For a moment we could not speak. Then, as we looked at one another, the first hasty joyful words spoken, I saw the very expression of dismay and discomfiture, which I had read on Louis St. Alais' face, dawn on his! He muttered, "O mon Dieu! mon Dieu!" under his breath, and wrung his hands stealthily.
But I was sick of this mystery, and I said so in hot words. "You at any rate shall tell me, father!" I cried.
Two or three of the passers-by heard me, and looked at us curiously. He drew me, to escape these, into a doorway; but still a man stood peering in at us. "Come upstairs," the father muttered, "we shall be quiet there." And he led the way up a stone staircase, ancient and sordid, serving many and cleaned by none.
"Do you live here?" I said.
"Yes," he answered; and then stopped short, and turned to me with an air of confusion. "But it is a poor place, M. le Vicomte," he continued, and he even made as if he would descend again, "and perhaps we should be wise to go----"
"No, no!" I said, burning with impatience. "To your room, man! To your room, if you live here! I cannot wait. I have found you, and I will not let another minute pass before I have learned the truth."
He still hesitated, and even began to mutter another objection. But I had only mind for one thing, and giving way to me, he preceded me slowly to the top of the house; where under the tiles he had a little room with a mattress and a chair, two or three books and a crucifix. A small square dormer-window admitted the light--and something else; for as we entered a pigeon rose from the floor and flew out by it.
He uttered an exclamation of annoyance, and explained that he fed them sometimes. "They are company," he said sadly. "And I have found little here."
"Yet you came of your own accord," I retorted brutally. I was choking with anxiety, and it took that form.
"To lose one more illusion," he answered. "For years--you know it, M. le Vicomte--I looked forward to reform, to liberty, to freedom. And I taught others to look forward also. Well, we gained these--you know it, and the first use the people made of their liberty was to attack religion. Then I came here, because I was told that here the defenders of the Church would make a stand; that here the Church was strong, religion respected, faith still vigorous. I came to gain a little hope from others' hope. And I find pretended miracles, I find imposture, I find lies and trickery and chicanery used on one side and the other. And violence everywhere."
"Then in heaven's name, man, why did you not go home again?" I cried.
"I was going a week ago," he answered. "And then I did not go. And----"
"Never mind that now!" I cried harshly. "It is not that I want. I have seen Louis St. Alais, and I know that there is something amiss. He will not face me. He will not tell me where Madame is. He will have nothing to do with me. He looks at me as if I were a death's head! Now what is it? You know and I must know. Tell me."
"Mon Dieu!" he answered. And he looked at me with tears in his eyes. Then, "This is what I feared," he said.
"Feared? Feared what?" I cried.
"That your heart was in it, M. le Vicomte."
"In what? In what? Speak plainly, man."
"Mademoiselle de St. Alais'--engagement," he said.
I stood a moment staring at him. "Her engagement?" I whispered. "To whom?"
"To M. Froment," he answered.