"He came here," she said, "five days ago—was brought here by me, for I saw him attacked and wounded to the death, as you know now. I was up there by—by him who swings upon that hellish gibbet; the dawn was at hand."

"The dawn," St. Georges whispered to himself. "The dawn of five days ago, when D'Arpajou's horse rode into the town. The day Dorine was lost."

"Then," the woman continued, "through the coming day I saw him advancing from the town upon this road, carrying a bundle under his arm."

"Ah!"

"Yet not so fast but that two others who had left the gate behind him came swifter than he. One, a man, young and supple, clad in the De Roquemaure russet—no need of that to tell me that devil had a hand in what was to be done; the other, a woman, all in sombre black, a mask upon her face."

"A woman in it!"

"Ho!" said the peasant, "doubt not! He has his women, too, at his beck and call. Easy enough to find one of the scourings of Troyes—perhaps an innocent girl once, before she knew him!—to do his bidding."

"Go on."

"Swiftly they came behind him, yet silently, too, the man ahead of the woman, each on different sides of the way, the former outstripping the latter, so fast did he come. Then, at last, the hunted one, this dead one here, knew that it was so; he turned and saw he was pursued. At first he made as though about to run for it; then, because, may be, the burden he bore was heavy, he paused. Next he placed the child upon the ground—for now I knew, I saw, what it was as he did so—and he drew his sword with one hand, took a pistol from his belt and held it in the other, and so awaited his pursuer."

Again St. Georges said beneath his breath, "Go on."

"The other came swiftly up, paused once himself—perhaps he feared the doubly armed man—then looked round at the masked woman, who seemed to say something. Doubtless she urged him on, and again he came forward until he and the fugitives were face to face."

"Yes," came from St. Georges's close-set lips.

"What they said I know not; I was too far away. But their action was swift. De Roquemaure's man made as though he would seize upon the child lying at the roadside—the disguised woman creeping ever nearer—when the other fired his pistol at him, and missed. I saw that as the smoke cleared away, for when it had done so they were closely engaged with their swords. Some passes they made; once it seemed as if the fugitive won upon the other, for I saw his blade go through his left sleeve; then, ere he could recover himself, the other had thrust his sword through his body—I heard him shriek; I saw him fall! A moment later the woman had snatched up the child and was hurrying back to the city, the man following after her, his left arm hanging straight by his side, as though still from pain. And I ran to this one here and saw that he had got his death. 'Tis strange he died not sooner than to-night. Strange he should linger so long."

"How got you him here?"

"My brother, who hates the De Roquemaures as I do—as God knows I have cause to do—works near here on his farm. I dragged that dead creature, all insensible as he was, into the copse, then fetched Jean, and so, together, we brought him. Say," the woman continued, leaning forward under the lamp to regard the soldier fixedly, "you are a gentleman, an officer of some regiment. You can tell me. Is not so foul a crime as this enough to doom De Roquemaure, if brought home to him?"

"If brought home to him, perhaps. But the nobles are powerful. You say that he is so, especially in this neighbourhood."

"Curse him, yes!" she replied, her livid lips drawn tight together. "Yet not forever. There are those who will set the snare and trap him yet."

"I pray God!" St. Georges replied. "He has wronged many; surely justice will yet be done."

CHAPTER XIV.

St. Georges had found it difficult to pick his way through the many obstacles with which the streets were encumbered from the time he left the Bastille and the Rue St. Antoine, and began to approach the more fashionable part of Paris, the vicinity of the Pont Neuf. Richly gilt carriages of the noblesse and the nouveaux riches passed each other frequently, the inmates of the former disdaining to notice the inmates of the other—human nature was the same then as now—and threw the January mud upon an extraordinary crowd of foot passengers—a crowd composed of ladies with mirrors in their hands; men with huge blonde or white wigs, who would stop suddenly to take a comb from their servants' hands and arrange their false locks; others of the commoner sort selling coffee and chocolate on the footway, another drawing teeth in the open street, two men fighting a duel with short swords, a woman and a child picking pockets.[5]

Because it was the Epiphany—the King's Fête—Louis and the court were at the Louvre this year, occupying the vast and stately palace on which the Grande Monarque had spent since 1664 the sum of ten million seven hundred thousand francs; and high festival was being kept. All the court had come with him, including the wife who was still suspected by some of being the mistress; the duchesses and countesses who had been mistresses if they were so no longer; the bishops who were not in disgrace and under the displeasure of De Maintenon; the numerous offspring by various mothers; the ministers and officials—including Louvois. And it was to present himself to the latter first, and afterward to seek audience with Louis, that St. Georges now rode toward the palace.

"Surely," he thought to himself as he directed his course through the heterogeneous mass in the streets, "surely when I relate my tale, tell of the terrible blow that has fallen upon me, I shall be forgiven for having halted on my route. I am more than a week behind, have lagged on my road, yet for what a cause—what a cause! Oh, my child, my little Dorine, that I should have had to come away and leave you behind! My child! My child!"

Never for a moment since he had left the peasant's hut had his thoughts been absent from that child, never had they ceased to dwell upon the conspiracy that existed without doubt against both him and her. Moreover, so intricate, so entangled did all appear that the mesh seemed incapable of being unravelled, and his brain whirled as he endeavoured to pierce the darkness of it all.

"Let me reflect," he had pondered to himself, as day by day he drew nearer to the capital, "let me try to think it all out, see it clearly. God give me power to do so!"

Then he had endeavoured, by going over his life from the commencement, to reduce matters to something short of chaos.

"That I am De Vannes's son—his heir—must be!" he thought; "it gives the cause, the reason for what follows. This is clear. Also the attack on me, the stealing of Dorine, proceeds from a like cause. And if all that was the duke's—his title, his wealth—is mine, and, after me, hers, in whose light can we stand, against whose interest thrust, but De Roquemaure's? All this is as clear as day; it is here the mystery begins. For, first, how does he know this? Next—which is more strange—how know that on a certain night I should be on the road between two such remote places as Pontarlier and Paris? How know, too, that I have my child with me, as he must have known, since he mentioned it to the myrmidons he enlisted at Recey? If I could discover this—should ever discover it, a light might break in upon what followed—more mysterious still."

When he had turned this over and over again in his thoughts as mile by mile and league by league he drew nearer the end of his journey, he endeavoured to arrange and piece together the further, the newer, and fresher mystery of all that had happened since the night he rested under the roof of the De Roquemaures' house. And here his perplexity was even greater than before.

"He acts alone," he reflected; "at least without assistance from his kinswomen—his stepmother and half-sister. For if such is not the case, then viler wretches than they never bore the shape of womanhood. The excitement of the marquise, the noble sympathy of that girl expressed in every glance of those pure eyes, were not, could not have been assumed—false! If so, perish all my belief in woman's truth and honour! Yet from that very manoir over which she, his mother, rules more than he, for the present at least, came forth two—one a man in his garb, the dress of his house—the other a woman. For her, though, it is not so difficult of explanation! The murdered peasant's wife spoke of him as having female instruments at his beck and call, and although her companion wore his livery she might be any creature in the city over whom he possessed influence."

And now, as he reflected, he knew that he had come to the most difficult of all knots to untie, the hardest of all the mystery to be solved. For, arrived so far in his endeavours to unwind the plot with which he was surrounded, he found himself at fault, groping helplessly in the dark, when he stood face to face with the memory of the man who had been assassinated by De Roquemaure's vassal—face to face with Pierre, the Bishop of Lodève's servant, who at the time he was set upon was in possession of Dorine!

One thought alone rose to his mind at first, one only which would have explained his presence on the scene, his possession of the child—the thought that the cynical Bishop of Lodève, the man of whom the whole of France spoke so ill, might in truth have known of some deep-laid scheme for kidnapping that child and have sent Pierre forward—or after him—to rescue it at all costs, thinking, perhaps, that if abstracted by him, it could be better kept in safety than even by its own father. A wild and visionary idea, in truth, to have entered St. Georges's mind, yet, perhaps, not too remote to suggest itself to an unhappy parent so bereft as he was. But, in a moment, another reflection chased it away.

"No!" he exclaimed to himself as the second thought arose. "No! no! More like that the fellow Pierre was the messenger from Dijon who put the ruffians on their guard; who warned them that I was accompanied by the Mousquetaire Noir; that they would have two soldiers to contend against instead of one. The fellow who had tracked us all day, then passed us, and who, masked like the others, had stood out of the fight in the graveyard. So! so! That vile bishop is in it, too. Fool that I am to have thought that that sneering, evil priest had ever a kindly thought in his heart. Yet why in it also? Why? why?"

He could follow his chain of reasoning no more—against all his thoughts a blacker wall of impenetrable mystery rose than ever. He was forced to desist from thinking, or go mad in doing so. For if this man Pierre was De Roquemaure's auxiliary—if, as was undoubted from the peasant woman's story, he had possessed himself of Dorine on behalf of De Roquemaure—why had two other of that villain's myrmidons slain him and possessed themselves of her? His mind could find no answer to this; his reasoning ceased; he could go no further through the maze.

"God, he knows," he muttered reverently. "In his good time, in his infinite mercy, it may be he will let me know all, too."

But even as he rode through the crowded streets and drew near the great courtyard of the Louvre he was still thinking—thinking always—of the web in which he was entangled and of his helpless little child alone, unhappy—perhaps ill treated—perhaps dead! There was that day no more heartbroken man in Paris than he.

As he drew rein at the courtyard door, vast as a cathedral's, there issued from it a great emblazoned carriage, with arms and crests upon its panels, the four horses drawing it being also richly apparelled with velvet and nodding plumes, and with at the back three footmen who, as was the custom of the time, stood each behind the other on a platform instead of side by side.

His eye, glancing into the interior of the vast fabric, saw within a woman, young and beautiful, yet with her fair face disfigured—as was indeed obligatory on all women who attended the court of Louis—with powder and paint, and with mouches, or patches, cut into the various forms of stars, half moons, and so forth. Her dress, too, was gorgeous, being of rich velvet of the colour then known as "pigeon breast," faced with silver brocade and slashed with seams to show the red and silver lace, while the whole was enriched with plain satin and watered ribbons, and deep full point lace at breast and sleeves. On her head, though not hiding her much-curled hair, was a rich escoffion of ruby velvet surmounted by pearls, and tied beneath her chin.

She saw him in a moment, the soft hazel eyes resting full on him—saw, too, that he hesitated as though about to draw his horse away out of her range of vision; then with a look she beckoned him to draw near her carriage door, while through the window at the back of the vehicle she made a sign to the first of the three footmen to have it stopped against the chaussée.

And he, scarce knowing what to do—whether, indeed, to content himself with coldly taking off his hat and avoiding her, or to obey her glance, yet instinctively did the latter, and drew up to the window. And in another moment the embroidered glove had been withdrawn from her white hand, which was resting in his, while her eyes scanned his sorrow-stricken face.

"Monsieur St. Georges honoured our poor house no more," she said, "ere he quitted Troyes. Yet, considering all, it was not strange he should not do so."

On his guard, since—believing though he did in her honour and in her mother's—he could not forget she was a De Roquemaure, the kinswoman of the devil who had already worked him so much ill, and might—nay, would, if not thwarted—work so much more, he replied cautiously: "'Considering all,' mademoiselle; you doubtless refer to——"

"Oh, monsieur," she said, "let there be no more cross purposes. I know—I know as though I could see deep into your heart, beneath your gorget, that—that—you couple us with my brother. And you know," while as she spoke she leaned forward so that her fair—yet, alas! painted—face almost bent over his sleeve, and her clear, starlike eyes gazed into his, "that he is your enemy; at least, you fear so."

"I know nothing," he replied, "except that all—all—in one case suspicion in the other certainty—points to him. I know that when one, whose part in the affair I cannot yet unravel, had my child"—he said "my child" with a sob in his voice—"in his keeping, a vassal of De Roquemaure's, clad in the russet livery of your house, and accompanied by one of his master's lemans, slew him and stole her. I know that."

"One of his lemans!" she whispered, while over her face there crept a blush deeper than the court-ordained paint—"one of his lemans! You know that?"

"I know it," he replied. "Masked, too, as though, foul as she might be, she still had some shame, dreaded to show her face in such proceeding."

She seemed to be endeavouring to tame some emotion within her; perhaps, as he thought, to prevent any sign of knowledge on her part escaping from her by accident. Then she said, in a faint voice:

"Since you know that, you must know more. Oh, my God!" she exclaimed suddenly—so suddenly that he started at her excitement. "I must speak! Yet, Monsieur St. Georges, remember; it is the man's sister, the child of the same father as himself, who speaks to you. Remember that, I say, and listen. Though he stole your child, though his vassal slew the man who had it in his keeping, though his leman—that I should pronounce the word!—assisted that vassal, yet De Roquemaure has not harmed it—will not harm it. Do you believe?"

"Tell me more. Where is it? It is mine, mine, mine!"

"Do you believe me, Monsieur St. Georges?—me, though I am his sister, a De Roquemaure myself?"

His eyes looked back into hers now—looked deep into those pure, clear, gray eyes; he hesitated no longer. She was his sister, was a De Roquemaure, yet he believed.

"Yes," he said, "mademoiselle, I believe. I do believe."

Beneath the hateful, necessary carmine he saw the true blood show itself as he spoke. He saw the honest, truthful eyes glisten—at least no rococo monarch could cause them to be made vile!—he knew that his words had satisfied her. He had an ally, a friend, here. And how powerful such an ally might be! Yet he continued, his anxiety overmastering all:

"But in pity, mademoiselle, not so much for me, her father, as her own innocent, helpless little self—think of her, poor little babe, in that man's—in any man's power!—tell me all you know. Tell me, I implore."

What she would have said, what answered, he could not know. At that moment there came forth from the inner court a troop of the mounted gendarmerie, followed by an enormous carriage, three times the size of that in which sat Mademoiselle de Roquemaure, covered with gilding. It was the carriage of Louis Quatorze, who was about to proceed to Marly for the night. Naturally, therefore, the vehicle in which Aurélie sat was forced to go forward; naturally, also, St. Georges had to back his horse to the side of the huge gateway, since no obstruction was allowed to impede the gracious sovereign's progress. With a bow they parted, therefore, she giving him one glance that might mean that later on they would meet again, while her carriage proceeded as fast as was possible in the direction of the already fashionable quarter of St.-Germain.

And he, drawing aside, witnessed the passage of Louis ere he himself proceeded to present himself to Louvois. He saw the king with his great carriage full of ladies, saw the table inside it covered with sweetmeats and fruit, saw the greatest monarch in Europe lolling back alone on one seat, a dog upon his knees. And, as he bowed low before his master, it seemed to him almost as if the king had distinguished him from among the heterogeneous mass of people who thronged the filthy footpath, and had looked at him an instant as though either gazing on a familiar face or wondering where he had seen one like it before.

Chapter XV.

"Perhaps when M. de Louvois has heard my explanation of the reason why I am late, have tarried on my road, he may be disposed to overlook my dilitoriness," St. Georges replied, regarding the back of the roturier minister as he spoke; and the well-bred tones in which he uttered the words caused Louvois to turn around and face him again.

They made a strange contrast as they stood there. Both men were more than ordinarily tall, yet both carried their height differently. Louvois's was decreased in appearance by the heaviness of his shoulders, his head being deep set between them. St. Georges was as erect as a dart; while, as he faced the man whom, by some innate perception, he regarded as an enemy—or, at least, not a friend—his head was thrown back, so that his height and uprightness seemed somehow increased. Moreover, the whole appearance of each was in extreme contrast, and that not a contrast in favour of the minister. The stained military jacket of the soldier, the long, brown leather boots, the large cavalry spurs, the great bowl-hilted sword, all gave him an appearance of advantage over the sombre, velvet-clad Louvois; the long, curling hair falling on his shoulders in a thick mass was more becoming than the wig à trois marteaux which Louvois wore outside state functions. And for the rest, the pale yet weather-exposed face of the one, with its long, deep, chestnut mustache, caused the cadaverous and coarse-cut features of the other—the thick, bulbous nose and full, sensual lips—to appear insignificant, if not ignoble.

Louvois had kept him waiting three hours in the anteroom—a thing which, however, he would have done in any case and to any one seeking an interview with him, excepting only some scion of royalty, legitimate or illegitimate, one of the king's marshals, or a relative of one of the king's mistresses—for he understood as well as any vulgar, important parvenu of to-day, or thought he understood, the value of administering such snubs. And, now that the visitor was admitted, his manner was as insulting and as would-be humiliating as he knew how to fashion it. Moreover, with another trait of vulgarity as common in those days as these, he had bidden him to no seat.

His behaviour was the ignoble spite of the man who believed he saw in the other the son of him who had consistently ignored his existence—the late Duc de Vannes.

"The explanation," he said, in answer to St Georges's remark, and speaking in a voice which he endeavoured to render cold and haughty, but which was, in truth, an angry, bitter one, "will have to be very full, very complete, to satisfy his Majesty. You quitted the garrison of Pontarlier on the last night of the last year, riding on special service in the king's name, and you have tarried long on the road in, I imagine, your own service. Beyond bringing one message—that from the Bishop of Lodève—you have failed in your duty, sir; indeed, failed so much that the Marquise de Roquemaure, from whom you were ordered to bring another message, has actually preceded your arrival here. Has passed you on the road and entered Paris before you, though you quitted her manoir before she did; has, indeed, been able to give an interesting account of you and your supposed adventures."

"Supposed!" exclaimed St. Georges quietly—"supposed! Does madame la marquise stigmatize them as 'supposed,' or does monsieur le ministre, Monsieur de Louvois, apply that epithet to them?" and as he spoke, with still his head thrown back and his left hand resting lightly in the cup of his sword hilt, he looked very straight into the eyes of Louvois.

"Madame la marquise is a woman; she believes—and tells—a story as she hears it."

St. Georges bent his head for a moment, then as quietly as he asked the previous question, but equally as clearly and distinctly as he had previously spoken, he said:

"Monsieur Louvois will remember he is speaking to a soldier."

"Et puis?"

"Who permits no one, not even the minister of the army, who is his superior, to question his veracity. What he told madame he told as it happened."

Louvois laughed somewhat sinisterly and wholly insultingly, yet for him quietly, after which he said:

"Monsieur St. Georges is also something else besides a soldier—as, indeed, his present manner proclaims. A little of—if I may say it without fear of being done to death on my own hearth—a bully."

"A bully!"

"I fear so, disguised in the uniform of the king. It was bully's work which you performed in the graveyard of Aignay-le-Duc—work which if done by others than soldiers would lead to the halter; work which, when done by soldiers, leads generally to a file of their brethren—to a platoon."

If St. Georges could have had his way, followed his own bent, it would have been his right hand instead of left which would have grasped his sword, and he would have bidden the minister unsheath his own weapon and answer for his words. Yet, since he was no fool, he saw at once that for some purpose of his own Louvois was endeavouring to anger him, to lead him into an outbreak of irritation, and he refused to be so led, so trapped. Instead, he replied, therefore:

"Monsieur is, I think, the father of children himself. A few words will, therefore, show him, prove to him, my excuse. I bore with me my child; I was set upon by hired ruffians, and in the defence of that child—by the aid of another stalwart arm—I resisted them, slew some, drove some away, disarmed others. Yet, monsieur, this was not the worst, not quite the worst, against which I had to contend."

The piercing eyes of the minister of war were resting fixedly on him as he spoke—almost, it seemed, as though he feared what might come next.

St. Georges proceeded:

"Not quite the worst. This gang of hired ruffians was led by one, a cowardly hound, who feared to show his face! by one who—so accurately had he been notified, forewarned, of my approach—must have received his intelligence from Paris, from some one who knew what my movements would be at the time. Strange, was it not, monsieur le ministre?"

Louvois's face seemed less empurpled than before—to have turned white; then, brusquely, as always, he said:

"You are here, sir, to answer questions, not to ask them. Proceed."

"From Paris alone," St. Georges continued, "could that intelligence have come, since he was there with his ruffians to meet and intercept me—though I should not omit to state that, from the time I left Dijon, there followed ever in my course another knave, who took to this craven assassin the news that I was not alone. Certain it is, he would have been of no avail, nor have been sent, had not the others known well of my intended journey. Monsieur le ministre, are you sure, do you think, that in your bureau here"—the words fell clear and distinct as he spoke—"there is any foul, crawling creature, say, a low-born clerk, say, some ignoble menial—it could have been none with the instincts of a true-born gentleman of France!—who would have set so deep and foul a plot as this to waylay an innocent man?"

He saw—and, seeing, knew where one of his enemies, at least, was—the slight wince which Louvois gave—above all, the minister hated to have it known that his origin had but one or two generations of gentility to it!—and he knew also that he had laid his finger on one knot in the net. Then Louvois spoke:

"It is impossible that such can be the case. And accusations against persons who have no existence will not save you. You have failed in your duty. Is this all the explanation you have to offer me?"

"It is all I have to offer you, monsieur. If it is not sufficient, I must address myself to the head of the army—to the king himself."

"I am afraid you will have little opportunity." Then turning like a tiger toward him, he said: "Your case has been considered during your procrastination; your easily made journey by extremely short and comfortable stages. Monsieur St. Georges, you are no longer in the army. The king has no further need of your valuable services."

"What! Dismissed without appeal—without——"

"Your appeal is heard and disapproved of—by me. Had it been made differently—your explanation couched in more respectful terms, had carried with it more conviction to my mind—this," and he handed him a paper, "would have been destroyed instead of being given to you. As it is, read it, and act on it. Otherwise the results will be unfortunate. Observe also the signatures to it. They are neither those of 'low-born clerks' nor 'ignoble menials';" and he stepped back to the fire and stood regarding his victim.

Certainly one signature came not under the category of the above terms, it being that of Louis himself; the other was that of Louvois, and, perhaps, was open to cavil. But St. Georges was immersed in the document itself: beyond the (to him) fatal signature of the king, the other was of scant importance for the moment.

The paper ran as follows:

"Written at Paris the 15th January, 1688.

"Signé Louis.

Soussigné Louvois."

Briefly St. Georges said to Louvois:

"And if I fail in this second behest, what then? What if I refuse to quit France?"

"That I leave you to imagine. Sir, our interview is at an end;" and he rang a bell as he spoke, and when it was answered by a gorgeous footman, said:

"Escort this gentleman to the courtyard."

St. Georges, however, made no sign of following the servant, but, instead, advanced a step closer to Louvois, so that when he stood nearer to him than he had hitherto done, the latter gave unmistakable signs of apprehension. Yet, seeing that there was no threatening appearance on the other's face and that his sword hung idle and untouched by his side, he said:

"You do not hear me, sir, it would seem. Our interview is at an end."

"Not yet," replied St. Georges, very calmly. "You have delivered your decision—I refuse to believe it is the king's. And until I receive it from his own lips, I shall neither quit Paris nor France."

"You will not?"

"I will not."

"So," replied Louvois in a harsh tone, "that is your decision." Then changing his tone to one which, perhaps, he thought more effective—a gentler, more subtle tone—he said: "You are, I think, unwise. The king will not see you; and—meanwhile—he can find means to exercise his authority, to have his orders executed."

"The king will see me, I think. Monsieur Louvois, I have a petition to present to his Majesty."

"A petition!"

"Against three of his subjects, all of whom, as I do believe before God, have been engaged in a most foul attempt against me and my child. Monsieur le ministre, shall I mention the names of those subjects of the king?" and his eye glanced at the servant as he spoke.

"No, be silent," replied Louvois; "also I bid you beware what you say, what do. Monsieur St. Georges," he continued, breaking out into one of those heats of rage which were usual with him, while, even as he did so, he roughly motioned the servant at the door to quit the room.—"Monsieur St. Georges, do you know the deadly peril in which you stand? Do you know, I say? If it pleases me I have enough authority to commit you to the Bastille to-night, to Vincennes, to Bicêtre—the power to arrest you here in this room. If I summon that servant again, a file of mousquetaires will be sent for; if I touch this bell"—and he pointed to another than the one which he had already rung—"they will appear. Monsieur St. Georges, will you quit Paris to-night and France directly afterward, or shall I call in the soldiers?"

"Call in the soldiers," the other replied, now thoroughly desperate, "or the servant, or as many of your following as you choose! Only—ere you do so hear me," and he raised his hand in so authoritative a manner that Louvois, who had made a step toward the bell, paused in astonishment. Then St. Georges continued: "I am resolved to obtain an audience of the king to-night, and can do so if not thwarted. My charger is fleeter than the horses of his state carriage; I can reach Marly as soon as he. To-day is Thursday, le jour des audiences iconnues; it is my chance. Now, monsieur, shall I see the king to-night unmolested, unprevented by you, or shall I be dragged before him an assassin to plead my cause? A murderer, but a righteous one?"

"An assassin—a murderer!" exclaimed Louvois, stepping back, while his face blanched. "Explain yourself."

"Then listen—and—abstain from that bell till you have heard me"—seeing that the other's eye roved toward it. "I intend," speaking rapidly, "to see the king to-night or in the morning at latest, and to tell him of the foul plot of which an officer of his chevaux-légers has been the victim; to ask him if, bearing this about me"—and he produced from his breast the letter ordering him to leave Pontarlier and travel to Paris—"he approves of the manner in which I have been spied upon, tracked, nigh done to death, and robbed of my most precious treasure, my child; to sue for permission to seek out those who have done this thing and bring them at last to justice. And, M. de Louvois, I tell you face to face and man to man that, if you approach that bell, summon your soldiers until I am outside this door, they shall find you a dead man when they open it! Once outside I can answer for myself. Now choose!"

And as he spoke his right hand went round to his sword-hilt, while his left raised the scabbard, so that the blade could easily be drawn.

CHAPTER XVI.

On quitting Louvois he made his way swiftly along the corridor leading from the chamber on the ground floor in which he had been received to the courtyard, no interruption being attempted, as was natural enough, considering that he was leaving instead of seeking to enter the building. The soldiers, gendarmerie and the Suisses as well as the Mousquetaires Gris—whose turn it was at the present moment to be in attendance at the Louvre—were lounging about the guard room and the great gateway, and they not only did not offer any opposition to his passage, but, instead, seeing about him the signs of a cavalry officer—the gorget, long cut-and-thrust sword, great boots, and gantlets—saluted him.

Therefore he passed out into the street—since known in the present century as the Rue de Rivoli—and regained his horse from the guet in whose custody he had left it.

That he recognised the danger—the awful danger—in which he had now placed himself, who can doubt? He was a soldier, and he had threatened the assassination of the chief—under the king—of the army. Moreover, he was a soldier who had just been dismissed from that army for failing in his duty, for allowing private affairs—harrowing as they were!—to come between him and that duty. Now he was cooler; he became more clear sighted; he knew that he had done a thing which would destroy any claim that he might make for the king's sympathy with him.

"I am ruined," he murmured, looking up and down the street, not knowing which way to direct his horse's steps; "have ruined myself. Louis will never forgive this when he hears Louvois's story—never see me nor hear me. Fool, fool that I am! I have destroyed everything—above all, my one chance of regaining Dorine!"

What was he to do? That was the question he asked himself. He had, it was true, avoided instant arrest within the precincts of the palace, but how long could he avoid arrest in whatever part of Paris he might endeavour to shelter himself now?

"What have other men done," he pondered, "placed as I am—as I have placed myself? What shall I, a broken, ruined soldier, do? What? what? Turn bully, as he accused me of being, and cutthroat, bravo, or thief—haunter of gambling hells and tripots? No! no! no! I am a gentleman, have always lived like one; so let me continue to the end. Yet, what to do now?"

He threaded his way through the streets, still filled with their crowds of saltimbanques and quacks, though the fashionable world, having seen Le Roi Soleil, had gone or was going home, for the wintry evening was setting in. And as he rode slowly, for his poor beast was now quite spent, he tried to think of what he should do—go to Marly at once, that evening, as he had said to Louvois (although with scarcely the intention of doing so, since he doubted seeing the king without preparation), or find a roof for himself and a stall for his horse for the night.

Then he decided suddenly, promptly, that the former was what he would do. If he could get the king's ear first, before Louvois, he might save himself. Louis was great of heart, in spite of his childish belief in his kingly attributes, of his love of splendour, and his vanity. Who could tell? A word with him—above all, a word breathed as to whom St. Georges believed himself to be—and he was safe. His father had been Louis's companion; he would not slay the son. Safe—even though dismissed the army and stripped of his commission—able to stay in France, to return to Troyes, to seek and find his darling again!

He was resolved; he would go to Marly that night.

Only—how to get there. Marly lay beyond Versailles, four leagues from Paris, and his horse could go no further. The marvel was that it had done so much, and it was only by the most assiduous care and merciful treatment—by sometimes walking mile after mile by its side, and by resting it hourly—that St. Georges had been able to assist it to reach Paris. Now it could do no more.

However, ere long he espied an écurie and found that the owner had horses for hire, while one, a red roan with a shifty eye and bright-blooded nostril, took St. Georges's fancy. He knew a good horse the moment he saw one, and read by this creature's points that it would be troublesome for the first mile, and then carry him swiftly for the remainder of his journey. So, leaving his own horse—though not before he had seen it attended to, fed, and rubbed down, and taken into a comfortable, fresh-littered stall—he set out once more, tired, worn, and travel-sore as he was, for his fresh destination. Yet he knew his object, if he could attain it, would be worth a hundred times the extra fatigue. And when it was attained he could rest. Time enough then.

The red roan behaved exactly as he expected it would: it first of all bounded half across the road when once he was in the saddle, knocking down a scaramouche and a toothdrawer in doing so—the latter, fortunately, having no customer in his hands at the moment; it next proceeded sideways up the street, and then, finding it had a master to deal with, danced along in a canter until the West Gate of Paris was reached, after which, and being now sure that its exuberance was useless, it settled down into a long, easy stride, and bore its rider as smoothly as a carriage might toward his goal.

The moon, which a few nights back had shown beneath its young rays the corpse hanging on the gibbet outside the city of Troyes, lit up now the road along which he passed, disturbing on his way sometimes a deer in a thicket, sometimes a scurrying rabbit—they disturbing, too, the fiery creature he bestrode, and frightening it into a swifter pace. Still, each moment brought him nearer to his destination, to the arbiter in whose hands his destiny was held; and, for the rest, he sat like a rock upon its back. Its gambades could not unseat him.

So the twelve English miles were nearly passed; he was on the new road that branched off to Marly—the strangest route that any man living in those days ever, perhaps, rode along. On either side it was bordered by small forests of enormous trees, mostly covered with dead branches, since these trees had died unnaturally long months ago, when transported from Compiègne to where they now stood. Also he saw beneath the moon's gleams fountains from which no water could be forced to flow—great basins to which water could not be brought, or only brought by depriving Versailles of its natural supply. Louis had thought that he could force Nature—uproot trees from one spot, where they had flourished for a hundred years and cause them to flourish equally well in another; had imagined that even the waters on which his gondolas, brought from Venice, might float, could be forced into existence at his command. It was a monstrous impertinence offered to Nature, and it cost him four million and a half of livres, with but little profit to any but the frogs and toads.

There rose now before his eyes—where the road branched off in different directions, on the right to Versailles, and, a little to the left, to Marly—the white-washed walls of an auberge known as Le Bon Pasteur, a place soon to be pulled down, since Louis had bought out the owner, and was about to build a pavilion upon it. But it stood up to this time untouched, as it had done since the days of Henri III—long, low, thatched, and weather-beaten, three old poplar trees in front of it, a mounting-block also, and, of course, the usual heap of filth by its side where the stables were.

Approaching it, he felt the roan stagger beneath him, halt in its strides, then falter; and, shrewd horseman as he was, knew that it had either cast a shoe, or had got a stone in one. And as he dismounted close by the inn, though still some twoscore yards from the mounting-block, he heard behind him the clatter of other hoofs coming on, and the light laugh of a woman, also the deeper tones of a man.

"Pasquedieu!" he heard the latter say—and started both at the exclamation and the voice—"you may laugh, ma mie, yet I tell you 'tis so. He will marry her, spend her money on other women as I spend mine on you—Morbleu! whom have we here?" and the man riding along the road with his female companion pulled up his own horse, as the woman did hers, on seeing another traveller dismounted by the side of, and examining, his animal.

"Whom?" exclaimed that traveller, looking up—"whom? One perhaps whom you know. One whose name is Georges St. Georges." Then, vaulting back into his saddle—not meaning to be taken at a disadvantage—he bent forward and looked into the newcomer's face. "Did you ever hear that name before, monsieur?" he asked.

The face into which he gazed was that of a young, good-looking man, close shaven and with gray eyes that looked at him, as he thought, with terror. He was well dressed, too, in a riding costume of the period, while the woman who sat her horse, peering at him out of the eyelets of her mask, was also smartly arrayed in a female riding coat of the day, her head covered with a hood.

"Answer, monsieur," said St. Georges.

"Never," the other replied. "How should I know the name of every—person—I meet on the road?"

St. Georges bent forward over his saddle so that his own face was now nearer by a foot to the man with the gray eyes; then he said:

"Monsieur de Roquemaure, you are a liar! And more, a thief, a kidnapper; also, a would-be assassin. I know you and this, your wanton, here. You have to answer to me to-night for all you have done against me and mine in the past two weeks."

"Mon Dieu!" he heard the woman hiss beneath her mask. "Kill him, Raoul, kill him! God! that you should let him live and utter such things!" And as she so hissed she leaned down and struck at his face with her riding whip.

"Hound!" she exclaimed, "you apply that word to me? To me?"

"The woman speaks well," St. Georges said, warding off the blow with his arm while his eye rested on her for a moment; "it is a matter of killing. Either you or I have to be killed. To-night! Do you hear, or are you struck dumb with fear?"

"No," the other replied, at last, with amazement. "Who are you who, under a name I know not, dare to assault me thus with such opprobrious words? Nay," turning to the masked woman, who was again muttering in his ear, "have no fear. I will have his blood for it. If he is a gentleman with whom I can cross swords, we fight ere another hour passes."

"Also," St. Georges broke in, "you are, I perceive, a coward, besides the other things I have charged you with. You know who I am well enough. If not—if your memory is as treacherous as your courage seems poor, let me remind you. I am the man whom you attacked with five others at Aignay-le-Duc; the man whose child you sought to slay; the father of the child whom your woman and your man-servant seized away from one who had it in his possession, and whom they slew also, you not appearing on the scene. You are careful of yourself, Monsieur de Roquemaure! In the first treacherous attack you shielded your head as none other's head was shielded; in the second you employed a woman and a man-servant to do that which, perhaps, you feared to do yourself."

Every word he uttered was studied insult, every word was weighed before it was delivered, substituted for any other which rose to his lips if not deemed by him sufficiently galling. He had sworn to kill this man if ever he encountered him again, and he meant to kill him to-night now he had met him. Therefore, since he was resolved he should have no loophole of escape from crossing swords with him, he so phrased his remarks that he must fight or acknowledge himself the veriest poltroon that breathed.

"But," he continued, "if you still value your hide so much that you dare not meet me, now at once, tell me where you and this woman—if it be the same, as I suppose—have hidden my child; lead me to her, and then you shall go free. Only choose, and choose at once."

He heard the woman mutter to De Roquemaure: "Who is the woman he speaks of, who, Raoul?" while also he saw her eyes glisten again through the mask; then, as he strove to catch her companion's reply, that companion turned on him, and said:

"Monsieur St. Georges, as you term yourself, be very sure I intend to slay you to-night. I do not know you, but your insults to me and to—this—lady, although the utterances of a madman, have to be wiped out at once. As to the child you mention, and its kidnapping by a servant of mine and a woman—bah!—I know not of what you speak."

"Do you deny that you are Monsieur de Roquemaure?"

"I neither deny nor assert. Under that name you have chosen to waylay and insult me. Under that name, since you will have it, I intend to have reparation."

"Do you deny the assault at Aignay-le-Duc?"

"I deny nothing, assert nothing."

"So be it," St. Georges said. "I have made no mistake. You are the man. Your voice, your expression condemn you. Your face, though you have shaved off your beard"—and he saw the other start as he mentioned this—"condemns, convicts you. Deny, therefore, these two things or draw your sword. We have wasted enough time."

"We have," the other answered, and as he spoke he dismounted from his horse, St. Georges doing the same.

CHAPTER XVII.

The duel was not, however, to take place in the road, since at that moment, and when both men were preparing to draw their swords, the inn door opened and two persons came forth—one evidently the landlord, the other a customer to whom he was saying "Good-night." Then, as he was about to re-enter his house, he saw under the rays of the moon the three others in the road—the two men close together and the woman still mounted—and came forward toward them, peering inquiringly in front of him.

"Do messieurs and madame require any refreshment?" he asked, noticing that two of the company were well and handsomely dressed, while the third looked like an officer. "My inn offers good accommodation for man and beast. Will monsieur and madame not enter?"

"Curse you, no!" De Roquemaure said; "may we not tarry a moment on the road without being pestered thus? Begone, fellow, and leave us!"

But St. Georges interposed, saying:

"On the contrary, if you have a good room where we can rest awhile and this noble lady," and he saw the woman's eyes sparkle—perhaps with hate!—as he spoke, "can be fittingly received, we will enter. My horse has cast a shoe; have you a farrier near the house who can reshoe it? It can be done while we drink a bottle."

"I am one myself," the innkeeper replied. "Monsieur may confide his horse to me. It is but a few moments' job, and the fire in the forge is still alive. As for the inn and the wine—hein! both are good; I have a large room, and a bottle of Brecquiny fit for a king."

"Lead us to it," said St. Georges, "then attend to the horse;" and as he spoke he threw the reins over the hook fixed in the tree by the mounting-block. "Come," he said, addressing De Roquemaure and the woman in a tone which would awaken no suspicion in the innkeeper's mind. "Shall I assist madame to alight or will you?"

Madame, however, slipped off the horse by herself lightly enough, brushing by St. Georges as she did so and whispering in his ear, "If I could help him to kill you, I would!" and so they entered the inn, St. Georges going last. He was a cautious man, this chevau-léger, and he had seen the little stiletto—or wedding-knife, as it was called then—in her girdle; he did not want the owner of those savage, glistening eyes to stab him in the back. She looked capable of doing it, he thought, judging by the sparkle they made behind the mask, and of stabbing the innkeeper afterward to hide her guilt.

The man led them into a long, low, white-washed room at the end of a corridor—all three noticing that it was some distance from the inhabited part of the house, so that interruption was unlikely—a room in which a fire burnt low.

"Bring the wine," St. Georges said to the man after he had lit the candles in their sconces, "and be quick about it. We have no time to tarry here."

Five minutes later the bottle of Brecquiny was on the table with three long tapering glasses by its side; the man had made up the fire so that it burnt brightly, and they were alone; and St. Georges, having bidden him not interrupt them until they called, walked to the door, locked it, and, coming back to the table, placed the key upon it.

"There will be two leave this room," he said quietly. "There is the key for those who will require it.—Madame is comfortable, I trust," glancing at the woman who was seated at the table, her elbows on it, and her face in her hands, while still the eyes glanced through the holes of the mask at him.—"Now, Monsieur de Roquemaure, we have sufficient space for our sword play here. I am at your service," and he unsheathed his weapon.

The table was close to the fire, a deep chair on either side of it; two smaller chairs, in one of which the woman sat, against the table; beyond it a space of twenty square feet of coarse tiled floor—enough for any pair of duellists to kill each other in!

"You force this on me," De Roquemaure said, rising and removing the cloak he wore, and speaking between thin, almost bloodless lips; "whether your blood or mine be shed, it is upon your own head," and he drew his sword too.

"Not so," St. Georges replied. "Deny that you led the attack on me, on my child and my comrade at Aignay-le-Duc; deny that it was your servant—that it was your livery he wore—accompanied by some woman, if not this one, who slew the Bishop of Lodève's servant"—once more the other started, as he had started when accused of having removed his beard—"deny this, I say, and I break my sword across my knee—I leave myself unarmed and defenceless, at your mercy to slay me here for the words I have spoken."

Again from the now absolutely livid lips there came the same words, or almost the same, he had previously uttered.

"I deny nothing—I assert nothing," and he advanced past the table to where St. Georges stood, weapon in hand.

"So be it! Yet, for the last time, ere it is too late, answer me one question and I will not force you to this encounter to-night. Tell me where my child is, let me regain possession of her, and a month hence, on my honour as a soldier, I meet you again, and, if you desire it, give you satisfaction."

"I do not know where your child is," De Roquemaure muttered hoarsely. "And for your honour as a soldier—you are a broken one. A man dismissed the army has no honour left."

"Enough!" said St. Georges; "you knew that—knew, not that I am broken, but that I was to be broken! Now I understand who two of my enemies are for sure. Thus I dispose of one. En garde!"

"Kill him!" he heard the woman hiss again as they commenced. "Kill him dead, Raoul!"

A moment later they were engaged, each seeking the other's life. And each knew that nothing but his death would satisfy his adversary.

Their weapons scarcely made any noise, so quietly the one stole upon the other, as point pressed point, and through the swords the power of their wrists made itself felt. Once De Roquemaure lunged savagely, but the thrust was parried and returned—dangerously so. The point of St. Georges's weapon slit his sleeve as, like an adder's tongue, it darted forth. Then the other drew back and fought more carefully, though the beads of sweat stood on his white forehead now. And St. Georges, observing them, knew that he held him safe. His nerve was gone already—the nearness of that thrust had shattered it!

The woman, looking on—her face also as white as a corpse's—was, perhaps, the strangest figure of the three. Her eyes shone like coals through the mask-holes now—her figure shook all over; one hand clutched the coarse cover on the table in a mass of folds; the other tremblingly played with the hilt of her little dagger. And the Brecquiny being near her, she more than once released the table cover to pour out a glass full, drain it a draught, throw down the glass, and glare at the combatants again.

Once, too, she shrieked aloud as a second time St. Georges's weapon, lunging full at the other's breast, was just caught by the hilt of De Roquemaure's sword and parried, though not without tearing from his breast a piece of the lace from his cravat. And she struck herself on the mouth with her clinched hand—so that her lips were bloody a moment after—as though in rage with herself for having done aught to alarm the house.

"You are doomed," St. Georges said to De Roquemaure in a low voice, driving him back toward the wall, so that now the latter faced up the room while the former's back was toward the table—"doomed! I have you fast. Acknowledge all, or by the God above us I slay you in the next pass!"

De Roquemaure made no answer; doggedly he fought—a horrible spectacle. Another thrust of St. Georges's was, however, also parried—the blade knocked nervously up by the affrighted man—bearing a piece of flesh from De Roquemaure's cheek, from which the blood ran down on to what was left of the cravat; the eyes glared like a hunted animal's; the mouth was half open.

It almost required St. Georges's memory of his lost Dorine, of the manner in which they had aimed under his arm at her—so appalled did his adversary appear—to prevent him from sparing the craven, from disarming him, and letting him go forth a whipped and beaten hound. But he remembered the wrong done him, the cruel, dastardly attempts on the child's life—and his blood was up. De Roquemaure should die. "The wolf was face to face with him"—at that moment he recalled the marquise's words—he would slay him.

Behind his back the other could see the woman—even as he endeavoured to shield himself from thrust after thrust, and thought: "God! when will it come? when shall I feel the steel through me?"—herself now a ghastly sight. Her upper lip was drawn back in her frenzy so that her teeth were bare as are a dog's that pauses ere it snaps; she was standing up trembling, as with a palsy, and her mask had fallen off. And, in what De Roquemaure felt were his last moments, he saw her suddenly rush at the sconces and knock the candles out of them on to the stone floor, where they lay guttering. He supposed that she had thought to disturb his dooms-man.

If she did so think she erred. St. Georges heard the crash of her arm against the metal, but never turned his head—to take his eye off the other's point would have been fatal!—instead, in the light given by the fire he crept one inch nearer the other.

"Now," he said, "now, De Roquemaure!" and as he spoke the other felt the iron muscles in the man's wrist forcing his blade down and down; the point was level to his adversary's thigh; an instant more, and St. Georges's sword would release his, would suddenly spring up and—a moment later—be through his breast.

In his agony he shrieked, "Au secours, au secours!" and in a last desperate effort leaped aside, the weapon that at that moment sought his heart with a tremendous lunge piercing his arm alone.

Another moment and St. Georges had disengaged it, drawn it forth, and was about to plunge it through the craven's heart—this time he would not fail!—when he heard the rustle of the woman's riding robe behind him, he felt a shock, and his arm instantly drop nerveless by his side; the weapon fell from his hand, and he sank back heavily on the stone floor, the room swimming before his eyes and all becoming rapidly dark.

Roused by her lover's cry and frenzied by the immediate death which she saw threatening him; driven almost mad also by the look of terror and mortal apprehension on his face, she had sprung up the room, reached St. Georges, and buried her dagger in his back. She had aimed under his left shoulder, where she knew the region of the heart was—it seemed her aim was true! As he fell to the ground she knew that she had saved De Roquemaure. Yet her frenzy was not calmed; in an instant she had seized the sword that still was grasped in her lover's nerveless right hand, placed it in his left, and muttered swiftly in a voice he did not recognise:

"Through his heart!—his heart, Raoul! That way. Otherwise it will seem murder and confound us."

"I—I dare not," the scared man muttered, shaking all over. "I cannot, I——"

"Lâche!" and as she hurled the epithet at him she seized the weapon herself in her own white jewelled hand and drew it back to plunge it through his breast so that it should meet the wound behind.

Yet that was not to be. Even as she raised the sword the door was burst violently open, and the innkeeper, with two other men and a waiting woman rushed into the room.

"Grand Dieu!" the landlord cried, shivering and shaking all over, as he saw the terrible spectacle which the place afforded—St. Georges stretched on the floor, the stones covered with blood, the other wounded man leaning against the wall, the maddened woman with the sword, which she had dropped at their entrance, lying at her feet, and the candles out—"Grand Dieu! what has been done in my house? Murder?"

At first neither De Roquemaure nor the panting creature by his side could answer; then the former found his tongue, while still the landlord and the other two men stared at them and the waiting woman hid her face in her apron, not to see the ghastly form on the floor, and said: "Not murder, but attempted murder. This man drew on me—with a lady present—would have assassinated me. You see my wound," and he held up his pierced arm.

"Attempted murder!" exclaimed one of the men, he looking of a very superior class to that of the landlord. "A strange attempt; you are young and strong as he; armed, too, your weapon drawn. Yet it seems it needed this also to aid you," and he stooped and picked up the woman's toy dagger. "This demands explanation——"

"And shall be given to those entitled to ask. I am the Marquis de Roquemaure, set upon and forced to defend myself by this fellow who entrapped us here.—You," turning to the landlord, "saw how he caused us to enter this house, though I told you we wanted nothing. He it was who gave all the orders. For the rest, he was a disgraced and ruined soldier, a common bravo and bully, who deemed me the cause of his punishment. I answer nothing further but to the king whom I serve, or his representative."

"He looks not like a bravo or bully," said the man who had spoken last, as he knelt down by St. Georges and took his wrist between his fingers. "He scarce seems that."

"Is he dead?" the woman asked hoarsely now, as she bent down over her victim.

"Not yet. There is still some pulse."

And even as he spoke, St. Georges opened his eyes, looked up at him, and muttered once, "Dorine!"

Then the eyes closed again and his head fell back on the other's arm.