The Wounded Name

(1)

The whole unhappy story, the substance of which was told that morning in the cave, began on the radiant April day when Aymar de la Rocheterie rode along the high bank of the river Aven on his way from the conference with du Tremblay and other Royalist chiefs at Saint-Pierre de Plesguen to his own house of Sessignes. He had left his men, some five hundred strong, under M. Nicolas de Fresne, his second-in-command, ensconced, very inconveniently for the Bonapartists, in the Bois des Fauvettes, a spur on the great forest of Armor. And now, well pleased with the scheme for which he and du Tremblay were chiefly responsible, and in which he and his "Eperviers" would presently play a part, he was intending for once to spend a night under his own roof, since by taking this particular route back to his little force he would pass the very gates of the château. And so he could pay his respects to his grandmother, who ruled it for him, and to his cousin, Mme de Villecresne, who dwelt there, neither widow nor wife.

And thus he came, about midday, to the village of Keraven, and found to his surprise that it was full of troops of the line—but Royalist, for they wore the white cockade—and just outside its pleasant inn, the Abeille d'Or, encountered their commanding officer, the Chevalier de Saint-Etienne, who was a friend of his. To him he expressed the hope that his officers had not eaten up everything in the hostelry, since he had been intending to get a meal there.

"Plenty to eat," replied M. de Saint-Etienne, as Aymar took the bridle of his horse to lead him off. "And I have a private room . . . at least . . ." he hesitated, "there is someone else in it, but——"

"Avow," said Aymar, laughing, "that the other person is Mme de Saint-Etienne, disguised as your youngest subaltern." For his friend was newly married, and much in love.

"No," said the young soldier seriously, "it is only a middle-aged gentleman of my acquaintance, who stopped here to bait, and who is going to share my meal. Will you not—-" He broke off, said rather hurriedly, "I'll see you when you have put up your horse," and vanished—to Aymar's considerable surprise, since he was plainly on the verge of asking him also to share this repast.

Aymar was going back to the inn door when, just in front of one of the open windows, a spur came loose, and, stooping to fasten it, he overheard a man's voice, with an authoritative but kindly ring about it, saying, "So that was L'Oiseleur you were talking to! I have always thought that I should like to make his acquaintance; here is the opportunity. Can you persuade him, do you think, to come in and share an omelette with a dull old country gentleman?"

"That is just what I—" his friend's voice was beginning, when Aymar hastily pulled off his spur altogether and walked out of earshot. By the time he had readjusted it on the doorstep the young Colonel emerged and said, smiling, "'Mme de Saint-Etienne' is anxious to make your acquaintance, La Rocheterie. I am afraid I have already told him who you are—needless to say, I can answer for his discretion and sentiments rather better than for my own."

"Your own discretion, my dear fellow, is as remarkable as if you really had a lady in there!" retorted Aymar, amused, and putting an arm through his. "But who is this veiled stranger?"

"Oh, nobody in particular," said the youthful commander, getting rather red. "But you know how peppery old gentlemen sometimes are if their convenience is not consulted."

Yet it was no "old gentleman" who was sitting at the window of the parlour into which Saint-Etienne now drew his friend, but a man of middle age with a distinguished and intelligent face—M. du Parc, to whom Aymar was duly introduced, and whose conversation, as the three sat at déjeuner together, he soon found anything but dull. M. du Parc might be a country squire, but he had a very pretty, mordant wit tempered by a great deal of natural bonhomie and humour; moreover, L'Oiseleur could not help feeling that he possessed a wide experience of life and of men, though exactly in what capacity he could not be sure. But M. du Parc did not obtrude himself unnecessarily into the talk; he rather listened with a sort of benevolent shrewdness to what the two young Royalists had to say to each other.

Saint-Etienne, it appeared, was much, to his disgust, under orders to remain at Keraven for three days, according to some plan of Sol de Grisolles, the general-in-chief of the Royalist forces in Brittany. "I would not object to waiting," he announced, "if there were only a chance of doing something meanwhile—and indeed I am rather expected to make myself unpleasant, if I can. But I find I am not strong enough to make an attack on the Imperialists over at Saint-Goazec, as I should like to do."

"Under a certain Colonel Richard, are they not?" enquired Aymar. "Is it impossible? How strong are they?"

"Too strong for me, and sure to be well disposed round Saint-Goazec, which is easily defended country. But it is deuced tempting, because I am pretty sure that they do not yet know I am here. But why indulge in these dreams? I could not bring off an attack."

"However, you ought to be able to dispose neatly of any parties that they send out in this direction," observed Aymar. "I drink to your luck in that respect."

"Why leave it to luck, gentlemen?" interposed M. du Parc suddenly. "Put a bit of cheese on the end of a string, and draw it along in front of the mouse's hole, and the mouse will come out . . . especially if he doesn't know that there is a cat in the neighbourhood."

"But we haven't got a bit of cheese, sir," replied Saint-Etienne, laughing rather ruefully, "and, moreover, if the whole mouse came out, this cat alone is not strong enough to deal with him, as I have said."

Aymar had fixed his eyes on M. du Parc. What wisdom and daring there was in that smiling, rather inscrutable visage! He turned them on his friend. "But if you had another cat to help you?"

"Whom do you mean?"

"Myself," replied L'Oiseleur, a gleam in his eyes. "My men are in the Bois des Fauvettes."

"But you could not move them over here rapidly enough, nor without the Imperialists getting wind of it!"

"No," agreed the young Chouan, "but I did not mean that. I meant that if one could only get Richard to march out in that direction, we could both leap on him simultaneously from our respective positions."

"Yes," said his friend, "but to march out in that direction is, I fancy, the last thing he is likely to do."

Aymar propped his chin on his fists. "Then he ought to have some inducement provided to make him march out—as M. du Parc has said, a bit of cheese.—Have you got a map here?"

Studying the two young men bent over it, M. du Parc himself here remarked serenely, "Your little problem, gentlemen, reminds me of an episode in the fighting in '95, when two Royalists of my acquaintance, commanding bodies of volunteers, were in exactly the same situation as you. They solved the problem rather neatly."

"How?" enquired the couple eagerly.

"By making one of the cats the cheese. My friend contrived to let the Blues know that he and his men would be passing a certain point at a certain time, meaning the Republicans in consequence to ambush him there——"

"And what happened?" asked Saint-Etienne.

"The Blues were ambushed themselves by the other party," responded M. du Parc, with a smile, "and the two Royalist bodies together accounted for them completely."

The light in L'Oiseleur's eyes grew, but Saint-Etienne said, "It was a very risky move, though, sir—since it depended, I suppose, upon the most exact cooperation."

"Certainly—but twenty years ago one had to take those risks, so I have been told." To which M. de Saint-Etienne, looking at the older man with a little smile, said, "Yes, those were days of giants."

Meanwhile, Aymar de la Rocheterie, returned to his study of the map, observed thoughtfully, "When I get my supplies of ammunition I shall be moving my men over the Aven. The bridge they call Pont-aux-Rochers, between these wooded heights here—the bridge which I shall in fact cross—would be an excellent spot for an ambush; but that ammunition, I am sorry to say, will not reach me before the end of the week, and I cannot leave the forest until I have it."

"What a pity!" commented Saint-Etienne regretfully. "The bridge is ideally situated for me, since, owing to this road here, I could actually start some hours after the Imperialists and still get there before them. And, as a matter of fact, an ambush would not be essential. Your men and mine together would be able to account for Colonel Richard, if only we could tempt him to come between us."

L'Oiseleur took his head in his hands and thought. The plan appealed to him very strongly. Could he not go back to the forest now and move his men without waiting for the supplies? But the probability was that he would then never receive these at all, and he was pledged to cooperation with du Tremblay in eight or nine days, and would need all the ammunition he could lay hands on. No, the idea must be abandoned. He explained to Saint-Etienne why.

"Besides," M. du Parc reminded them, "an indispensable part of the scheme is that one of you must inform the enemy of your intended movements, or of your ally's movements, if you will. And it is not, in practice, a very easy thing to send information purporting to come treacherously from your side in such a way that the enemy is ready to believe it. The best plan," he added with a fine smile, "is to appear to sell it."

Aymar de la Rocheterie made a movement. "I think I would rather forego a coup than do—or seem to do—a thing like that!"

The smile grew. "Oh, you don't do it, Monsieur de la Rocheterie," explained this astute old country gentleman. "That would be a trifle too suspicious; the enemy might not swallow the bait. One of your men who has a grudge against you 'sells' the information."

They all laughed, and the conversation passed to other matters; indeed, not long afterwards Aymar was again in the saddle, wishing Saint-Etienne, and being wished, good luck. And he rode off, thinking no more of that half-forged scheme for luring out the enemy, save with a moment's regret that it could not be. The same sun shone, he had before his eyes the same face—the only face in the world for him—and nothing warned him that in the Abeille d'Or at Keraven Fate had sat at table with him.

(2)

The road went for a while under larches, absorbed in their enchanted dream of spring; and L'Oiseleur rode beneath their green mist absorbed in his own dream. He was thinking neither of the "Eperviers" nor of the Emperor, but of the meeting full of pain and self-repression and happiness towards which he was riding.

Avoye de la Rocheterie—Avoye de Villecresne as she had been for the last six years—was Aymar's first cousin. Her father had gone to the guillotine with his parents; her mother, widowed at twenty-three, had adopted the little orphaned boy of five, and for two years had given him such care as her broken heart and delicate health could compass. Then she, too, died, and the two children passed into the guardianship of their paternal grandmother, the dowager Vicomtesse de la Rocheterie, and by that redoubtable lady they had been brought up as brother and sister. When Avoye was eighteen Mme de la Rocheterie, who was determined that Aymar should not marry her, brought about for her granddaughter what she considered a suitable match with a fashionable and wealthy man much older than herself, the Comte Frédéric de Villecresne. The inexperienced girl felt no objections to the marriage, was even rather flattered by the attentions of this man of the world, while Aymar, her almost brother, constituted so natural a part of her life that she hardly figured to herself how little he would fill it in the future. As for Aymar himself, the final arrangements were concluded when he was away, and without his knowledge. Moreover, he was still a minor. The marriage took place. Four months later Avoye left her husband and went to live with relatives of her mother's in Paris.

Over this outcome of Mme de la Rocheterie's schemes there took place at Sessignes a combat as fierce as any which the château could have witnessed since its foundation. Aymar, now of age, insisted that his cousin should be invited to make Sessignes once more her home if she wished. She had no other, and she refused to take her husband's money. His grandmother pointed out that M. de Villecresne's house was still open to her; on which the young man asked her whether even in the crusading days of their ancient race any lady of the line had consented to enter a harem. Plain speech was a luxury from which the Vicomtesse never shrank, and she joined battle. It was most undesirable that Avoye should return to live under the same roof as a young unmarried kinsman. Aymar replied that part of her objection was mere hypocrisy, and twofold at that; he knew that while, on the one hand, she cared not a snap of the fingers for other people's opinion, on the other she considered that no breath of scandal dare attach itself to a menage over which she ruled. The rest was an insult to Mme de Villecresne and to himself. Even apart from the fact, of which he professed himself fully aware, that Avoye had no feelings for him other than for a brother, as a Catholic she would never divorce her husband and marry again—for Mme de la Rocheterie, though herself at heart a free-thinker, was far too aristocratic not to have had her grand-children reared in the strict tenets of the Church. And if his grandmother placed so little reliance on his self-control, he would contrive to absent himself a good deal, to travel, as much as his means permitted, to go and fight abroad, perhaps. But Avoye should come back.

And Avoye, not being to her knowledge in love with her cousin, did come back, and in the end made Sessignes once more her home. Aymar carried out his programme; but perhaps it was his very absences from the house which was so full of the memories of their joint childhood which showed her at last her own heart. Yet, however much now in name only, she was still the wife of Frédéric de Villecresne, and as such she knew quite well that her cousin regarded her. She had made the mistake of her life; she must pay for it. But she did not realize how heavily Aymar was paying, too. And no doubt it was only because of the tenacious, self-denying Northern blood which the cousins shared that they were either of them able to stand the strain of a position which made such difficult demands, to go on waiting year after year, to face the prospect of waiting, most likely, for years longer, until death should remove the barrier to their happiness.

At times, indeed, it did seem as if they might not have to wait much longer. Last year, when Aymar had undertaken his self-imposed and repugnant mission to Bath, to interview M. de Villecresne on a money matter connected with his wife, he had found the profligate very much of an invalid. He had recovered, it was true, and returned to France, but he was ill again now—how seriously Aymar was not sure. Avoye would tell him when he got to Sessignes.

He had something to tell her, too—this new plan which he had just made with M. du Tremblay, for (except his love, of which he was very chary in speaking to her) there was little in his life that she did not share. She was, in thought, the comrade of all his hopes and enterprises—had once been a comrade in deed also. But for that he had scolded her.

(3)

The towers of Sessignes came at last into view—Sessignes, Sept-Cygnes, the castle of the Seven Swans emblazoned on the La Rocheterie shield. Little remained now of the feudal stronghold which the first Aymar de la Rocheterie had built in the days of Philip Augustus, yet the château's very position hinted at a warrior's eye. A later and softer generation would have planted it, not on the scarp, but lower down where the pastures sloped to the Aven, loitering here by banks of meadowsweet.

"Madame is well, Monsieur Aymar; but Mme la Comtesse was summoned away about four days ago to M. de Villecresne, who is very ill," said the old, tremulously smiling man-servant in response to his master's enquiries about the family.

Summoned away! She was not here! But the shock of that disappointment was succeeded by the thought, "De Villecresne must be at the point of death; she would never have gone to him else." Aymar's heart beat so fast that for the moment he hardly heard what the old man was saying further. But he mechanically took the letter which he was holding out, and saw that it was addressed in the hand of his second-in-command, M. de Fresne.

"How did this come here, Célestin?" he asked in some surprise.

"One of your gars brought it, Monsieur le Vicomte, this morning, from the Bois des Fauvettes."

"He is still here?"

"No, Monsieur Aymar. He went back at once."

L'Oiseleur tore open the missive all the more hastily that he was expecting nothing from that quarter. It contained a few words to say that as the looked-for ammunition had arrived earlier than was anticipated M. de Fresne was, in accordance with his leader's known intentions, going to move the "Eperviers" over the river at once, leaving their encampment in the Bois des Fauvettes at sunrise on Friday. He should expect in that case to be across the Pont-aux-Rochers by eight in the morning. It did not, he concluded, seem necessary or even prudent (having regard to the reinforcements just received by the Bonapartists at Arbelles) to wait for La Rocheterie's return in person, especially as its exact hour was uncertain; but, knowing that he intended to pass by Sessignes, he was sending this information there, so that his leader should not attempt to go all the way back to the Bois des Fauvettes, but could rejoin his force at some nearer point.

Portions of this brief epistle were in cipher, but Aymar knew his own cipher so well that he could read it off. The result rather annoyed him. To-morrow was Friday; why could not de Fresne wait for his return? . . . He was just going to put the letter in his pocket, when he stopped, and, frugal of gestures though he was, smote his forehead. "Dieu! why had I not this letter at noon at Keraven?" If only he had known then that the ammunition had arrived, and that he could, in consequence, safely move his men across the river, he would certainly have concluded that tempting arrangement with Saint-Etienne. There seemed a sort of grin of Fortune in sending the news now—just too late.

But was it too late? Letter in hand, he sat down under his young father's portrait and thought rapidly. He would have to ride back instantly to the Abeille d'Or, arrange with Saint-Etienne, send one of Saint-Etienne's men to warn de Fresne—or better still, go himself—and then somehow despatch information of de Fresne's movements to the Bonapartists at Saint-Goazec.

Yes, but how was he going to do that plausibly? There lay the difficulty as that shrewd old M. du Parc had pointed out. One of Saint-Etienne's men would have to play the supposed traitor. He might pretend, for instance, to have stolen this very letter, and to be desirous of selling it to the enemy . . . as M. du Parc had advised.

Sarrasin, the great wolfhound, stared up at him anxiously as he leant forward, his elbows on his knees. No, it would not do. The Imperialists could not be lured to Pont-aux-Rochers in the time. There would be two cats at the bridge, but no mouse. Because, even if he started this instant to ride back to Keraven he could not get there much before eleven at night, and, allowing an hour to thrash out the matter thoroughly with his friend, and to coach up the supposedly traitorous emissary, the latter could not reach Colonel Richard at Saint-Goazec before six in the morning, which would be too late.

L'Oiseleur got up rather sadly . . . and then stood still. For suppose the letter was sent to the enemy, not from Keraven at all, but directly and now from Sessignes itself, which was so much nearer—though he had small idea to whom to entrust it. It would reach the Imperialist commander this evening, in about two hours, in fact. Meanwhile, he himself would be halfway back to Saint-Etienne, who had ample time in any event to get to Pont-aux-Rochers before the enemy.

And by this plan Aymar was really tempted. It had just that spice of daring which appealed to him, and he began to walk up and down the hall considering it. But in a moment he saw that it would be difficult to make such a sending plausible—doubly, trebly so as in this case the letter must come directly from himself. And it was exactly that coming from himself which his keen sense of personal honour could not stomach. He had an innate aversion to even the semblance of treachery—to even the appearance of such a horrible thing as the betrayal of his own men.

He thrust de Fresne's letter resolutely into his pocket and went to find his grandmother. Had Avoye gone to her husband because release was near?

The silver swans of La Rocheterie, with the golden crowns round their necks, sailed without progress on the azure of the shield above his grandmother's head, where she sat by the hearth in the salon, slim and upright, a book on her knee. She had been a very pretty girl—and not, it really seemed, so long ago.

She exclaimed with surprise and pleasure as her grandson appeared at the door, since, though she had sometimes a very captious method of showing—or cloaking—her affection for him, and often took a malicious joy in combating him; at bottom she adored him—fiercely. For the victory which, at one-and-twenty, his will had won over hers in the matter of his cousin, she bore him no grudge. The grudge was against Avoye, who had "spoilt his life," keeping him, the last of his line, unmarried, when (especially since the Moulin Brûlé and the rest had added a romantic prestige to his personal attractions and the fact of his ancient lineage) he might, she felt, have carried off any heiress in France.

"So you have left your beloved Eperviers to see an old woman!" she said, as he kissed her unwrinkled and still delicately coloured cheek. "But more probably it was to see a young one. . . . She is away, though—as you have doubtless ascertained already."

"Célestin told me," replied Aymar, a trifle stonily. "He also told me where she had gone."

Mme de la Rocheterie looked at him, and then dropped her expressive eyes. "But, since he did not know it himself, he could not calm your agitation by telling you that I expect her back to-night. I almost thought she would have been here by now."

A flush rose in Aymar's cheek. Conscious of it, he turned away and rested his spurred foot on the hearthstone, his hand above him on the mantel. "And . . . de Villecresne?" he asked after a moment.

Mme de la Rocheterie breathed a decorous sigh. "Poor Avoye, poor child! She writes sad news."

"What, is he better?" exclaimed the young man.

"Aymar, think what you are saying!" But her mouth twitched with appreciation. "On the contrary, she was too late. The Comte de Villecresne died about three hours before she got there."

L'Oiseleur drew a sharp breath, and, putting his other hand on the high mantel, bowed his head between his arms. His face was quite invisible, but there was no superfluity of colour in it now. After a moment's complete silence he gave a sound which might or might not have been a laugh.

"What did you say?" demanded Mme de la Rocheterie.

"I? Nothing," he responded, without moving. "But what I should like to say is, For whom in the world is the news of de Villecresne's death bad news?"

"Possibly for his creditors," said his grandmother drily. "I suppose that you have some idea of their number, since your visit to him. . . . We sup in a quarter of an hour, Aymar."

No meal in his life had seemed so interminable to the young man as that of which he partook that evening with the old woman who had brought him up, whose jealous, half-tormenting affection was perfectly aware that his whole soul was full of the news she had just given him, the news he had waited years to hear, and that his ears were straining all the time for the sound of wheels . . . and who would not so much as glance at the subject of Avoye's release, nor make even the slightest further reference to her return.

But she talked of politics—and he had to attend and reply: of the coming struggle in the west—and he had to give his opinion of the small movements which had already taken place; of the shock given to the countryside by the Bonapartists' summary execution of a woman spy, a peasant, a few days ago. "A foolish shock," was Mme de la Rocheterie's comment. "Marie Lasserre knew what she was risking. And I do not approve, in any case, of women aping men and usurping their roles. If they do, they should at least be prepared to pay the same penalty."

No doubt she was hoping to get up an argument on the subject of Avoye's exploit at Chalais, which had been so much talked about since the Restoration. But Aymar did not accept the challenge. And, having endured various thrusts at his want of appetite (which he hoped he had disguised) he was able at last to escape from the table and the candles and the necessity of answering coherently, to the place where a lover should carry his rapture—under the open sky and the stars. And he went across the grass of the rose-garden where, late as it was, a peacock was parading, past the sundial and into the orchard, and leant against a tree there. Truly his happiness was almost more than he could bear. And he had waited so long for it—it seemed a lifetime. It was his lifetime. . . .

(4)

He raised his head at last. Through the apple-boughs the stars peered, laughing, and there was, as there should be, the fairy boat of the young moon low in the west. It was indeed a night for her to come to him, as any moment now she might come. She, too, should look at the stars between the lattice-roof of blossoms—blossom and star herself.

Nothing between them any more! that evil shadow which had made a mockery of her life gone for ever! Aymar could scarcely believe it yet, but his heart so ached with the almost intolerable joy of the thought that the strange, sweet pain seemed to seal it as true. He reached up to the tree under which he stood, and broke off a little bough with its pink-flushed blossoms, pale now in the starlight. The branch was tough; he had to tug at it, and as he tugged he felt something give round his left arm. He knew what it was—that absurd talisman of his.

He put the apple blossom to his face and kissed it, as he would kiss Avoye when he gave it to her. Perhaps these moments . . . and still more, those that were coming . . . were worth, after all, their heavy toll of endurance and restraint, the meetings that were only pain, the partings whose full sorrow might not be tasted, the enforced absences, the perpetual struggle to be content with a little for fear of losing all. But struggle was over now, and he could lay at her feet a heart as clean as his sword.

The peacock's jarring note roused him, and he remembered that the jartier was broken on his arm. Avoye should weave him a new one—but not to-night. Early in the morning he would get rushes from the river, and before he rode away she should plait him another bracelet and fasten it on . . . if indeed it were necessary to continue this farce nowadays. He never had to show that he carried on his person the earnest of his good fortune and his prestige. But he must not let the broken charm be found; and, putting down the apple blossom, he shook the twist of rushes down his sleeve and drew it out. Strange that it had broken like that, when it had survived much more strenuous doings!

He was fingering it when he became aware of galloping hoofs in the distance. His heart galloped, too—Avoye at last! No—it was a single horse, a saddle horse; and it was coming along the little-used bridle-path that led by the river and almost passed the orchard where he was. Who on earth could it be? He went across the orchard and vaulted the gate, and saw that the horseman, riding as a tired and heavy man rides, had abandoned the path, and was making for the same point. He must be coming to the château—must know the way well, too . . .

"Who is it?" Aymar called out.

"Is that you, La Rocheterie?" returned a voice full of relief. "Thank God, thank God! I did not know you were at Sessignes. I have brought the most terrible news!—Wait a moment."

He climbed stiffly out of the saddle. It was the Marquis de Vaubernier, a neighbour and old friend of the family—Avoye's godfather, in fact. He now came up to the young man, wrenched out of his ecstasy of a moment ago into what he imagined to be tidings of some military mishap, and said, "Your cousin Avoye is in the hands of the Bonapartists at Saint-Goazec, and—Oh, my God, I can hardly believe it yet—they intend to shoot her to-morrow morning!"

"Nonsense!" said Aymar sharply . . . but the world went black. "Impossible!" he repeated after a moment. "Marquis, you are dreaming! What, in Heaven's name, should they do that for?"

"Because you allowed her to obtain that information for you," retorted the old man, tears in his voice. "Because they suspect her—unjustly this time. They have her in custody at the Cheval Blanc just outside Saint-Goazec. And they will do it—I have seen their colonel. Have you not heard about Marie Lasserre?"

Aymar stood in the starlight as if he had been shot himself, so still that the old Marquis, wringing his hands, exclaimed, "Good God, man, can't you speak! There's no time to wool-gather! And find me some place to sit down—I'm dead with fatigue!"

"If what you tell me is true," said Aymar in a very quiet voice, "I will go and give myself up in her place, of course. But I must know a little more first." He opened the orchard gate. "Come up to the seat in the rose-garden. I will not take you into the house. There is no need to tell my grandmother."

And in the rose-garden, sitting on a stone bench, to the accompaniment of the discordant cries of the peacock, incoherently but convincingly the Marquis de Vaubernier told his tale.

He had been out riding when he heard that a lady travelling with her maid had been detained by the Imperialist troops near Saint-Goazec; the replies to his queries convinced him that the lady in question was Mme de Villecresne, of whose recent journey he was aware; and, becoming very uneasy, because, as he confessed, he could not help wondering if they knew of her former "exploit" at Chalais, he went to the Cheval Blanc, where she was detained, and succeeded in seeing the senior officer there. The Bonapartist's curtness and obvious unwillingness to speak of the matter alarmed the nervous old man still more, and when the officer began, in his turn, to question him about the lady, his chief desire was to get away, lest, as he said now, "I should let slip something indiscreet about her.

"And then, La Rocheterie, just as I was going to mount, a young officer who had been in the room came up to me and said, very gravely, 'It does not matter what questions you answer or do not answer, Monsieur, about that unfortunate lady—nothing can make any difference now.' When I asked him what, in Heaven's name, he meant, he said in a very low voice, looking, as I could see, as if he could hardly bring himself to tell me, 'Her fate is fixed; she cannot be allowed to go free. We know too much about her.' And when, God help me, I still did not take in the full horror of what he was saying to me, he whispered, 'Another Marie Lasserre!'

"Then, Aymar, I did understand, and I frantically caught his arm, and said I would go back instantly and see their commander again. The young man said, 'Useless! We, his officers, have all remonstrated. Yet we have not quite given up hope, though one must say that, but for a miracle, she will be shot to-morrow morning. A spy is a spy, even though she be of noble birth.' Then, hardly knowing what I did, I said I must see her at once; but he declared that it was out of the question, and that he himself would be cashiered if it was known that he had even told me about it; that all I could do now for her was to go home and pray. . . . So I did not see the child—I came straight here, riding as I have not ridden for twenty years. And at least you are here. . . ."

Aymar had stood rigid before him, his hands gripping each other behind his back. Now he said thickly, "Marquis, it must be a mistake."

"Whose mistake?" asked the old man. "Not mine! I wish it were! I tell you the colonel's manner was most sinister, and when that young officer held my stirrup for me I saw the tears in his eyes."

"But perhaps it is not Avoye at all?"

"They spoke of her by name. Besides, I saw her carriage in the yard—one of yours."

"But—but it is an incredible thing to do!" said Aymar, as one speaking in a nightmare.

"That is what everybody said about Marie Lasserre . . . but they did it. . . . Oh, Avoye, my little Avoye!" He began to break down. L'Oiseleur walked away to the sundial.

When, after a few moments, the old man followed him there, Aymar was slowly tracing out the figures on its metal plate, cold with dew. "What are you doing, La Rocheterie?" he exclaimed, seizing him by the shoulder. "It is your fault that she is in danger!—There's no time to lose. . . . Think of something, for pity's sake!"

"For pity's sake, be quiet then!" flashed out the young man. "Cannot you see that I am trying to think of some way? Do you suppose that I do not want to save her a thousand times more than you do—that I would not give every drop of blood in my body to spare her a pinprick—that I would not get on your horse this instant and ride to Saint-Goazec and give myself up . . . if I could!"

The passion in his voice silenced the Marquis de Vaubernier, and he went off to the other side of the lawn. And Avoye's lover, his elbows on the sundial, his clenched fists pressed to his head, was fighting hard against the almost overwhelming impulse to do what he had said—fighting because it did not seem to him consistent with his honour and his obligations. Was he not bound to du Tremblay by their joint scheme (more his, indeed, in conception than the other's), did he not know that his own men were useless for any enterprise requiring foresight without his leadership—that de Fresne knew nothing of the fresh arrangements, and that without seeing him it would be very difficult to ensure his grasping his part in them? No, if he surrendered himself to this Colonel Richard, as he longed to do, though for him it would only mean prison and inactivity (for of shooting him there could be no question) he was making the enemy a present not only of himself, but of his small yet valuable force as well, stultifying his comrade's plans—in short, deserting his post. And yet it would have been so sure, so easy; to have him, L'Oiseleur, in their hands, they would certainly open the door of the cage to any woman, were she ten times a spy.

But if honour forbade him to surrender himself, what could he do instead? Try to rescue her? Almost impossible, single-handed. None of the servants would be of any use. If he had Eveno, or a couple of his best men . . . but even the Chouan who had brought de Fresne's letter had gone back. . . .

The blood leapt to Aymar's face. Why, he had the way to save Avoye in his very hands after all! He had only to utilize the scheme almost completed that noon with Saint-Etienne—almost entered upon on his own initiative when he found de Fresne's news. He had only to strike a bargain before the information—the letter—was given up; and the very fact that he had now a bargain to strike lent infinitely more colour to the genuineness of the whole affair. In fact, Avoye's danger gave him the pretext which had been wanting. He might not only save her, but snatch also the military success which had so tempted him. Had he not already contemplated the sending of that letter with nothing but that success to gain by it? And, since Saint-Etienne and his regiment were so much nearer Pont-aux-Rochers than the Bonapartists were, there was no more risk than before: if he sent the letter at once, from Sessignes, he still had ample time to ride back to the Abeille d'Or and complete the arrangements.

He snatched his subordinate's letter out of his pocket. Vaubernier, of course, must take it; he could not. The striking of the bargain—no easy task—must be entrusted to that agitated old gentleman; but again there was no help for it. His very agitation ought at least to convince the Imperialist commander of the genuineness of the motive behind the sending of the information. And though the scheme was less sure than the one he longed to adopt—that of paying for his love's freedom with his own—yet, if this Colonel Richard should suspect the existence of a trap somewhere, so long as he was ignorant of Saint-Etienne's presence at Keraven he could not possibly know in what the trap consisted. And surely the chance—however much he recognized it to be merely a chance—of crushing a very obnoxious enemy was worth more than the gratification of shooting a woman.

With the letter in his hand L'Oiseleur looked across the dim garden at Vaubernier, considering what instructions he should give him in order to convince Colonel Richard. And then it slid into his mind, more than a little dizzied by the violent transition from rapture to horror, that he was going deliberately to commit the very act on account of which he had a few hours earlier rejected an alluring scheme. He was sending the letter himself. In other words, he was about to sell information—and information about his own men—in order to save a kinswoman's life. . . . At least, that was how his action would appear to Colonel Richard—how he must pray indeed that it would appear. . . .

The spring night seemed suddenly very cold. Was he really going to lay at an enemy's feet the most precious thing he had—his untarnished honour? For Avoye's sake, yes . . . till the day came. When the Imperialists fell into the joint trap prepared for them he would be abundantly cleared.

He went over the lawn.

"Monsieur de Vaubernier, do you mind what figure you cut in this business—not but what I am reserving the least reputable for myself?"

"With Avoye's life at stake!" said the Marquis tremulously. "No, you can make of me what you will."

Aymar looked hard at him. Obviously it would really be more convincing that Vaubernier should pretend to have stolen the letter from him, or something of the kind, and should affect to be the person really responsible. . . . No, in spite of his willingness, he could not let him brand himself as a traitor—an old man like that—for the ensuing military coup would hardly clear him, who had no part in it, as it would L'Oiseleur.

"I only want you to be an intermediary," he said firmly. "I propose, Marquis, that you shall strike a bargain with Colonel Richard for my cousin's safety with this letter, which contains important information about the movements of my force to-morrow. It is a letter which I have only just received from my second-in-command. You must assure Colonel Richard that it is genuine, that you have had it straight from me . . . and if he wishes to know how I could bring myself to do such a thing, you must lay stress on the fact that Mme de Villecresne is my cousin. You must not give him the letter till he promises to let Avoye go; it would be better if you could contrive not to interview him with it on you. . . . But I do not ask you to take any responsibility; all that rests on me. You are merely a go-between."

"I understand," said the old gentleman. "And I understand, also, of course, that you intend——"

"You had better understand nothing of the kind," put in Aymar quickly. "Colonel Richard will question you; you must know nothing—nothing—but that I am horribly concerned for Mme de Villecresne's safety—which God knows is true enough!—and you will be prepared to swear that the information is genuine, for I have told you so, on the word of a gentleman."

And, even as he said it, he wondered how much faith Colonel Richard, when he got that letter, would put in the word of a man who could send it.

"Perhaps you had better not know, even, what is in it," he went on, looking down at it. "Indeed, unless one strikes a light, you cannot see. I think that I will seal it up. I can get into the house without being seen."

He went through the open window of the dining-room and lit a candle on the writing-table there. But first he read the letter through again, and realized that place and time, and a little besides, were unintelligible, because they were in cipher. If the letter was to be of any use as a bribe, he must with his own hand decipher these passages. And Aymar hesitated, penetrated through and through with the horrible apparent significance of what he was doing. But it was only apparent; it was only a ruse. And, if he could help it, Avoye should never know the means he was employing to save her; no more than he himself would she like the sound of it. Vaubernier must, if possible, make it a part of the bargain that she should not be told the reason for her release; he must not even see her in person lest she should guess some connection with him, Aymar. And almost more than from Avoye must what he had done for Avoye be kept from his grandmother, who considered already, as he knew, that his cousin had spoilt his life. It was for that reason, not to spare Mme de la Rocheterie's sensibilities, that he hoped even Avoye's danger might not reach her ears. It was just conceivable that Avoye herself, on her return, might keep it from her. If she did not return. . . . But that was unthinkable!

Unthinkable or no, that nightmare thought had him in its grip as he hastily wrote in the words above the cipher. Then he sealed up the letter again with his own seal, and went back into the garden to deliver it to his messenger.

"Sans tache," he said to himself as he went. "Oh, Avoye, my darling!"

"Ah, here you are at last!" said his grandmother, laying down her book. "I was just thinking how delightful it must be to be young and not to dread the dew. But I fear that we shall not welcome Avoye to-night now."

"No, I do not think that she will come to-night," answered Aymar without looking at her. "And, if she does I shall not see her, for I must rejoin my men without a moment's delay. I have come to take leave of you, Grand'mère; Hirondelle is at the door."

"What!" exclaimed Mme de la Rocheterie. "Is there anything wrong?" But she saw in an instant that there was; at least, that he was holding down some very strong emotion. And he was in uniform again.

"I hope not. Not if I go back at once. Good-bye, Grand'mère." He took her hand and lifted it to his cold lips.

"But, Aymar," she said, roused to real concern, "you have been in the saddle all day—you ate no supper. You cannot ride straight back to the Bois des Fauvettes—you will kill yourself!"

"I trust not to go as far as that!" he answered. "When—when Avoye comes, tell her I had to go."

"That is a pity," said the old lady, suddenly moved with sympathy; he looked so horribly pale and drawn. "I hope, mon fils, that your bad news is unfounded?"

"I hope so, too," said Aymar, and was gone from the room.

And when his grandmother, her book on her knee, heard Sarrasin's dismal howling in the hall, she knew that he was gone from Sessignes altogether.

(5)

The April night, its scents and caressing breeze, meant little enough now to Aymar de la Rocheterie as Hirondelle carried him away at a smart pace from Sessignes—and farther from Avoye, too. That was the hardest thing of all, to ride off and leave his love's fate in the not very capable hands of the Marquis de Vaubernier—so hard that when the young man had gone a quarter of a mile along the road to Keraven, he suddenly reined up the bay mare and turned her half round. But no—it was done now; nothing, not even an appeal from Avoye herself, could make it other than infamous to go back. He had given the lives of his men into Colonel Richard's hands until such time as he himself completed his arrangements with Saint-Etienne. L'Oiseleur set his teeth and pushed the mare forward.

Waves of agonizing fear for Avoye broke over him every now and then; and if they ebbed, it was only to be succeeded by a cold tide of distaste at what he had done. Oh, if only he could have offered himself in exchange, instead of engaging on this tortuous and insecure path of outwitting the enemy! But to give himself up would not be honourable; it would not really be the beau geste of which it might perhaps wear the semblance . . . even as what he had done instead was not really vile, as it appeared. Yet he had branded his own stainless name, though it were but for a few hours. What if the blot did not wash off so easily as he had told himself? A ruse . . . yes, but one with a bargain involved. . . . Moreover, he was undoubtedly trying to trick the Imperialists into giving him something for nothing. It galled Aymar's fastidiousness, that idea. But surely Colonel Richard, a soldier himself, would recognize the proceeding as a move in a game. Aymar had not guaranteed that the "Eperviers" would be waiting at Pont-aux-Rochers for the Bonapartists to snap up; he had only guaranteed that that was what was planned. It was a contest as to which could outwit the other. If only so much did not depend on how Vaubernier conducted the negotiations!

To ride fast was a relief, yet it surprised Aymar to find how quickly he had covered half the distance back to Keraven. It was not yet one o'clock in the morning. All the better. He had met the river again, left it, and was going in the shadow of a wood when he heard a distant shot. And, as he pulled up to listen, the thought struck him for the first time, Suppose I fell into an enemy patrol and was captured—what of de Fresne at Pont-aux-Rochers then?

The idea turned him cold. How could he have been such a fool as to think that there was no risk about this business? Till he was actually at Keraven the whole scheme, all his men's lives, rested on his shoulders alone. Nervousness about his own personal safety was a feeling which Aymar de la Rocheterie had never tasted in his life; but he tasted it thenceforward all the way to Keraven, and it had not a pleasant savour.

The spire of the village church at last, standing up in the light of dawn. He was here, unmolested, and drew his breath more freely. Then he opened his cloak as he rode, to show his uniform for the benefit of Saint-Etienne's sentries.

But there were no sentries in Keraven.

So soundly did the village sleep that not a window was raised as Hirondelle's hoofs clattered on the cobbles of the place. And for centuries her rider sat her there, under the church tower, motionless and asleep himself—was he not?—in some cold and evil dream. Then the clock above him struck the hour of three, and he knew that he had not the fortune to be dreaming. Saint-Etienne's force, on which his whole plan turned, and which was to have been at Keraven till Sunday, had gone.

A few minutes later, bending from the saddle, L'Oiseleur was hammering frantically on the door of the Abeille d'Or. A nightcapped head—the host's—came forth from a window. "How long has M. de Saint-Etienne's regiment been gone?"

"They left about four o'clock yesterday afternoon, Monsieur; a despatch came ordering them off to Allonnes without delay. I will come down and open the door, Monsieur de la Rocheterie."

Allonnes! It was hopeless to contemplate their cooperation at that distance. They had been gone eleven hours—ordered off not long after his own departure yesterday. And Saint-Etienne had seemed so certain of remaining! Still a little stunned, Aymar watched Hirondelle trying to eat the honeysuckle on the trellis, and thought of the words used in this place only yesterday about the cats and the mouse. Who was going to be the mouse now?

He pulled himself together. Though there could be no triumphant coup for him, there need be no disaster. Having allowed plenty of time for Saint-Etienne's infantry to get to Pont-aux-Rochers before Colonel Richard could possibly reach it, he naturally had ample time to ride beyond it himself.

"Get me a glass of wine and a crust," he said hurriedly as the host emerged half dressed, "and tell me, have you that English horse of yours? I want him saddled at once, then—no, I'll do it myself while you fetch me the wine. I shall do better to have a fresh horse, for I must ride like the devil now to the cross-roads on the other side of Pont-aux-Rochers."

"Pont-aux-Rochers?" said the innkeeper. "Then you will be better advised, Monsieur le Vicomte, to make a detour by Plélan and cross at the ford, for the Blues' patrols may very well be out in strength on the other road. I am not sure of it, but there were rumours last night."

Aymar remembered the shot in the night. He could not afford to meet any patrols. "I will go round by Plélan then—but even so I can do it," he added to himself. "Quick, the stable key!"

Yes, he could easily do it, even by the longer route. He kept assuring himself of that over and over again, as the English horse carried him down the way by the ravine at a pace little short of dangerous.

Who could have foreseen this horrible trick of Fate? Or had he been incredibly rash in staking so much on Saint-Etienne's continued presence at Keraven? Surely not, since Saint-Etienne had his orders to remain there for three days, and on that assumption they had all but completed their joint plan against the Imperialists. And, good God, even had he known that there was a possibility of the regiment's being ordered off, could he have done otherwise? Could he have left Avoye to perish, even if this scheme were hazardous?

But it was not of Avoye now that he was thinking as he galloped on under the imminent sunrise. Despite the knowledge that, with a horse like this beneath him, he could get across the river and intercept de Fresne well before the latter reached Pont-aux-Rochers, his mind was obsessed with horrible little vignettes of what would happen if by any ultimate chance he failed to do it. He tried to shut them from his mental vision, encouraging his horse, but husbanding him as a good rider can, for almost everything depended on his staying power—himself unconscious of fatigue, though he had been in the saddle, without much intermission, since ten o'clock yesterday morning.

By five o'clock he was on the Lande of Languédias, a desolate heathy patch of country, riding very hard under clouds and wind. For time, it seemed to him, was going even faster than he—or perhaps it was only that the nervous strain was beginning to tell on him. And his thoughts went faster than either. He wondered what Avoye were doing if . . . O God, not if! . . . she were alive. Yes, she was alive . . . free . . . he was sure of it. . . . Rather, what were they saying of him, Colonel Richard and his officers, as they marched to lie in wait at Pont-aux-Rochers, unaware that he was racing them by the other road—racing to stop what he himself had set in motion?

Racing, yes! Why had he listened to rumours about patrols and gone round—why had he been prudent against his own inclination? And he would have done better in the end, perhaps, to have kept Hirondelle, though she was not fresh. Yet this horse was going gallantly enough, though the pace was beginning to distress him; there was foam on his nostrils, and he was sweating more than he should. But de Fresne would probably be rather after than before his time; he would not leave the Bois des Fauvettes before sunrise, and there was always delay about getting the men on the move. . . . It could not be that he should arrive too late; he had only about eight miles to the ford now, and three beyond, and he could still get that much out of the innkeeper's horse—at the cost perhaps of cruelty. He had not yet used the spur at all; he was keeping that for the end. . . . And what if at the end he found that the Imperialists were not at Pont-aux-Rochers at all, and his men in no danger? In that case Avoye . . . but his mind, shuddering, refused the alternative. No, his men were in danger . . . but only, please God, in such danger as he could avert.

Aymar never was to spur the English horse. It was not more than four or five minutes after this that it put its foot in a rabbit hole and came crashing down. Its rider had just time to know what had happened, then a curtain was drawn over everything.

Later, he gripped the heather and pulled himself to an elbow, sick and giddy. He had been flung clear. But a glance showed him that his horse's neck was broken. He sank back again; the fall had been so violent that probably only the springy heather in which he lay had saved him from broken limbs himself. For a moment or two he was not sure that it had saved him. But he sat up again, his throbbing head in his hands. His horse was dead; if not behind time already he had little to spare; he had just lost . . . how much? and, worst of all, there were no dwellings on the Lande, or at best only a miserable cottage where it would be out of the question to procure a horse. But somewhere, somehow, he must procure one! L'Oiseleur staggered to his feet, and, after standing a moment to steady himself and take his bearings, started to run stumblingly through the tangled heather towards a thread of smoke just visible about two miles away.

"A horse!" mumbled the old man. "No, my young gentleman, no horses here! A goat or two. Horses!" He emitted a high cracked sound of mirth. "Not if you were the King of France himself!"

A bundle of rags on the other side of the hearth disclosed itself in the dim and smoky light to be a human being. "Maturin over at the quarry-pit has a horse," it said, in the voice of a woman. "He uses it for drawing up the stones—a strong beast it is."

"Where is the quarry?" exclaimed Aymar. "Quick, it's life or death."

They told him, slowly. They were not sure of the distance—two miles, four miles? . . . He tossed them a piece of gold and ran out of the hut.

How long had he been in finding this place—out of his road as it was? He only knew that he had nearly missed it altogether. And now the quarryman was very unwilling to surrender his stocky grey steed—slow enough, as one could see, but still . . . a horse.

"I can't spare him, Monsieur, and he is not used to being ridden, and I have no saddle."

"That's not of the least consequence. Take off those traces quickly! I will give you twenty-five napoleons for him—about twice what he is worth—and if possible I will return him to you and not reclaim the money. If that does not content you, I shall take him whether you will or no."

The quarryman did not look content, but this pale, stern young officer frightened him, though he made no motion to use his arms. So he stood sulkily aside, while Aymar got on to the grey's back; only, as he rode off, he shouted Thief! after him, and threw a few stones before he sat down to recount the money.

Of all tortures, to ride a slow horse when the very heaven and earth depended on its speed! Once or twice Aymar thought of abandoning it and taking to his own legs again, but by spurring the grey without mercy he did get out of it a certain measure of progress. And there was his own bodily fatigue, which he could no longer disregard, to reckon with also. Oh, for half an hour of Hirondelle! But even Hirondelle could not get him there in time now.

The ford over the Aven at last! All that shining water had come down from Pont-aux-Rochers! What had it seen there?

The grey did not like it; he refused to enter. Twice Aymar lashed and spurred him; then, desperate, he jumped off, and, in water himself to mid-thigh, tugged him over. It had meant fresh delay, but nothing short of a miracle could save the Eperviers now. Ironically, the quarryman's horse went better after the contest. But all the last three miles his rider's mind seemed to revolve round one word. Nothing but a miracle . . . a miracle. . . . O God, send a miracle!

At the cross-roads, not a sign. Had they passed or no? A little way off in a field, a girl was herding goats. He called to her.

"Yes, Monsieur, some Chouans—a great many—went by about an hour ago. There has been firing since. They went along there—towards the bridge."

Without a word Aymar set spurs to his horse. There had been no miracle. But at least he might be in time to die with them.

Even that was denied him. A mile or so farther along the road turned sharply to the left; and here, where it was wide and tree-shadowed, and had a spacious grassy margin on one side, he saw the first fugitives of all. There were perhaps a dozen; they ran past him in twos and threes, panic-pursued. Not one had a visible wound. They had just run . . . his men.

He did not try to stay them, for even in that hasty passing he had seen that they were his newer, his least reliable recruits. Then he came on one fallen by the roadside, with another bending over him. For an instant he pulled up.

"What has happened at the bridge?" he asked, but his voice stuck in his throat, for he knew.

"It was a cursed trap!" answered the man, panting. He did not look up. "The Blues . . . ambushed there . . . they have made mincemeat of us. . . . See, Yannik, if I tie this round your leg you could get on farther."

"O God!" said L'Oiseleur, and rode on—rode on blindly to see more men running under the trees on either side, to hear himself at last called by name, to find himself then in the midst of a small body retreating with some semblance of order, and, clutching his bridle convulsively and looking up at him with wild eyes, his youngest officer, Clément de Soulanges, a boy of twenty—to hear him crying out of the clamour, "La Rocheterie, La Rocheterie, why were you not with us? It was awful . . . I have got away what I could . . . and I think Magloire Le Bihan has got more . . . he had the rearguard . . . but all the rest——"

"De Fresne?"

"Killed, I think. I saw him go down. The Imperialists were all posted there—they must have known!" And he half broke into a sob. "Oh, L'Oiseleur, L'Oiseleur . . . !"

"We will go back to the bridge," said Aymar, turning his ghastly face away. "My children——"

A man suddenly scrambled down the high bank into the road, a huge Breton, breathless and bloodstained. "I saw you, L'Oiseleur, from the field. We are making for the forest again. You have heard what happened? God's truth, if we could find the man who did it! My nephew lies there. . . ."

"We will go back and avenge him," said Aymar quickly. "How many men have you over there, Magloire? Bring them into the road. Have they all their muskets?"

"Go back!" ejaculated the giant. "You are mad, Monsieur le Vicomte! After the trouble we have had in getting away as many as we have! The place is a shambles, more or less!"

"Magloire is right," said young de Soulanges. "You were not there. Believe me, it is of no use! The front ranks were eaten up—those that were not killed. Besides," he added, sinking his voice and pulling with a bleeding hand at his leader's arm, so that L'Oiseleur bent his head, "besides, I doubt if you could get them to follow you!"

And looking round the men whose moods he knew so well L'Oiseleur saw that this was probably true. It would have been a terrible blow, had he been capable of feeling it.

"Very well," he said between his teeth, "then I shall go alone. Stand back, please!"

The boy clung all the tighter. "La Rocheterie, you are our only hope! Don't desert us! Oh, don't do that! It is suicide . . . and to what purpose?"

To what purpose, indeed! Aymar tried to loosen the bleeding fingers. De Soulanges clasped his boot.

"You will only get yourself captured, La Rocheterie," he sobbed, "and what good will that do?"

Captured! That was the last thing Aymar intended—and by Colonel Richard, too. . . . The fugitives, hearing the altercation, were pressing closely round his horse now, supplicating like children that he should not abandon them. And he saw Magloire's face of black amazement as he turned suddenly round and heard.

Well, he could always do it later on by his own hand. Aymar made a supreme effort, and, rallying all his faculties, began to issue orders as quickly and clearly as if, in the last few minutes, the whole of life had not gone sliding down to ruin.

And somehow he got them back, straggling and disheartened remnant that they were—ninety odd out of five hundred men—to their old quarters in the Bois des Fauvettes, where for the present they would be safe, and where (almost more important still) they felt that they were safe. And there they lifted him, stiff and spent, from his horse—L'Oiseleur, who had heard of the ambush and had nearly killed himself in riding to warn them of it, L'Oiseleur, who was so terribly distressed at what had befallen their comrades, but who, at least, was with them again. Could they do too much for him?

Their simple care for him was the final sword-thrust; and when, having dragged himself into the deserted little woodcutter's hut which was his own old headquarters, it became apparent that his right arm and shoulder were by this time temporarily useless from his fall, and Clément de Soulanges, wounded as he was himself, had insisted on rubbing them for him, it had been all Aymar could do to refrain from putting one of his pistols into the boy's hand and saying, "If you want to do something for me, use that!"

But soon he was too utterly exhausted for remorse or horror or any other emotion to play on him longer. He threw himself down on his couch of bracken and sleep descended like a pall. The long day was over.

(6)

But there was a waking—only too early. And by five o'clock next morning, when Aymar, very drawn but composed, was giving orders to young de Soulanges, he had already lived through years of torment. He was despatching Clément to warn du Tremblay of the disaster, and to tell him that in consequence he must not count on the support of the "Eperviers." And he had further ordered Clément—much to the latter's dismay—not to return to him, but to remain with du Tremblay.

"For I shall probably have to disband this remnant before you can get back," he said. "You see that, Clément, don't you?"

"Yes," said the boy miserably. And as he stood with bent head, fumbling with the bandage round his fingers, he added, "Am I to tell M. du Tremblay that there was probably treachery at the bridge?"

L'Oiseleur turned his head away. "You can tell him . . . that it looked like it," he answered after a moment.

When Clément was gone he sat down at the little table in the hut and covered his face. He had chosen de Soulanges to carry that bitter but unavoidable message because he was fond of him, and wanted to get him out of the way before he took his pistol in his own hand, or before the inevitable consequences of the disaster came on him from without. For, safe as his remaining men might consider themselves in the Bois des Fauvettes, Aymar knew better. In a day or two the Bonapartists at Arbelles, hearing of the affair at the bridge, would certainly follow up their comrades' success and clear out the relics of that nest of hornets in the wood. And, if he himself had not blown out his brains before that happened, he could then die sword in hand, which would be preferable. So either he must disband his men in time, or make a last stand.

Yet, now that he had heard fuller details, he knew that the affair had not been so actually bloody as he had at first been given to understand. The trap had been so well set that, after the first discharge from the hidden foe—and in particular after M. de Fresne had been seen to fall—the leaderless front ranks had been obliged to surrender. But they comprised his best, his oldest followers; it was the least devoted, the least trustworthy who, being in the rear, had escaped, and these would be all the harder to get in hand again. Moreover, worn out though he had been by the close of yesterday, it was clear to Aymar that the ambitious hopes of the big Breton, Magloire Le Bihan, which for some time he had suspected, had vastly grown during his few days' absence, and were likely to swell still more, now that he found himself virtually second-in-command. Aymar's very soul was sick as he got up and went out to inspect his men's depleted equipment—so sick that something whispered to him, "Why not tell them that it is you, and you alone, who brought about the catastrophe?" But in that case reorganization would be hopeless.

He did not sleep at all that night, and he knew that under the strain of his paralyzing secret he was beginning to lose his faculty of decision. Some of the men were slipping away already. On the other hand, there was no sign of an attack on the wood. He knew that the Imperialists had always credited him with more followers than he actually possessed. If they were hesitating on that score he could still keep their communications cut a little longer by stopping where he was. Magloire supported this idea.

So all Sunday he did his best to reorganize the handful that was left to him.

About nine o'clock a letter was brought to him. The handwriting was Avoye's . . . and Avoye seemed now to have receded into another world, and that hour in the orchard to belong to a life not this. Since his return to the wood the thought that he had saved her (as presumably he had) at the cost of other men's blood—men sent blindly to the slaughter—was so terrible that he had not been able to face it. Now here was a letter from her.

He went into the hut and opened it with unsteady hands. It was from Sessignes, and dated April 28th—Friday. So she was safe—had returned unharmed. But did he not know that by what had been paid for her return? He read:

"Oh, my dearest, to have missed you, and at such a time! And by so little, as it were! I could have arrived last night, though late, had I but known that you were at Sessignes. If only I had! For though I was stopped at the 'Cheval Blanc' at six o'clock yesterday evening by a body of Bonapartists, and detained there for a few hours (on account, I believe, of the movement of troops) at ten o'clock I was told, very civilly, that I could continue my journey if I wished."

Aymar stopped reading, and leant dizzily against the wall of the hut. Was he going crazy? She "would have arrived had she but known"! At ten o'clock, when Vaubernier was still in the rose-garden at Sessignes, she had been told "very civilly" that she was free to proceed—she who was to have been shot in the morning! . . . He read on to the end, the letters dancing before his eyes.

"As it was, seeing that it was already late, and that I was tired, and since I had Agathe with me, and was quite unmolested by the officers at the inn (having in fact kept my room all evening) I decided, unfortunately, to spend the night at the 'Cheval Blanc' and proceed early next morning. But this morning I was told with equal civility, but quite firmly, that I could not do so for the moment, and it was not till about four in the afternoon that I was allowed to go on. (I suppose that troops may have been on the march again, but what movement I did hear was at daybreak.)"

"And then I got home, and heard that you had been here last night and had gone again—gone suddenly, having received bad news. It seems as though Fate were determined that we should not meet yesterday, and that I should not tell you myself the news which (though I have prayed and do pray for him, Aymar) I am not hypocrite enough to pretend was anything of a grief to me. But I will not write any more about it; I cannot. Shall I not see you soon?

". . . That is, if all is well with you and your men? I do not like what Grand'mère told me of your departure. It seems to me that my anxiety for you weighs heavier—now. Send me a line to allay it! Oh, why could we not have met yesterday! God keep you!"

Why could we not have met! Aymar staggered over to a chair. She had never been within a hundred miles of danger—except perhaps through his own action, which appeared to have caused her a further detention. Vaubernier had then surrendered the letter without ever finding out that the peril was non-existent. No question of driving a shabby bargain with Colonel Richard; Colonel Richard had thoroughly outwitted them both—he had evidently kept Avoye until he was sure that her price had been paid. But there need never have been a price. . . . O God, there need never have been a price at all! Some mistake . . . some terrible misunderstanding—Vaubernier's—the young officer's . . . his brain reeled . . . Vaubernier's, probably. Did it matter whose? It had done its work. All the blood it had spilt was wasted; he had sent his men to death and ruined himself to no purpose whatsoever.

The shock was such that it almost deprived Aymar of the power to think, and he sat for hours at the table, the letter open before him, staring at the lantern which lit its quiet and shattering phrases, as near to madness as a healthy brain can be and yet not touch its border. When daylight came he put the letter and a pistol in his breast, and went out into the forest, so haggard that the men who saw him pass whispered that L'Oiseleur was getting stranger and stranger, that he was bewitched. . . . And this was May Day, too . . . when much magic was abroad.

But perhaps it was the May morning which joined hands with Aymar's own youth to pull him out of his pit of horror and despair. And he had a strong will; for years now he had been obliged to keep a tight hold on his emotions, only his hot temper sometimes escaping his control. He lay on the shore of a lake of bluebells, and, though he lay face downwards, their scent, their multitude and their incredible colour flooded his brain like strong music. Out of this miraculous blue swamp soared the old, steadfast trees, brilliant and tender with promise. And there, after a while, Aymar resolved that this should not be the end. At twenty-six, with his past, to die by his own hand or by a self-sought death—it was a confession of complete guilt. Open confession of his partial guilt was doubtless the easier way to deal with the burden of his secret, but it could avail no one; it would almost kill . . . two women. No, he must set his teeth, and though to be with his men, suspicious, indeed, but not suspicious of him, was little short of torment to a fastidious sense of honour, he must do it. If she had never been in danger it was going to be much easier also to keep from Avoye her central part in the tragedy . . . though Heaven alone knew how that part had been fastened on her. And who of his own party would believe a report of L'Oiseleur spread about by the enemy? More than all, in intention he was absolutely innocent. Never had he meant to sacrifice his men, even for Avoye. He was not a traitor, and, but for the most appalling ill-luck, he would not now be wearing the semblance of one.

On his way back he met Magloire Le Bihan, who asked to speak to him about the men's attitude. According to him, they were by this time demented over the question of the ambush, and were searching for a victim of their suspicions. And when Aymar observed that an ambush was within the laws of war Magloire retorted,