We gained the road again and turned westward along it, walking for some time in silence. I confess I was in bad humor. I was not altruist enough to burden myself willingly with that hamper, and more than once I was tempted to fling it into the ditch at the roadside, especially as minute followed minute and no house appeared. But at last at a turn of the road we came upon a miserable hovel supported by a pile of stone, without which it must inevitably have collapsed. I thought for an instant that the hut was empty, but as we drew near a child’s thin wail came to us through the open door. I set the hamper down, knocked and passed on, and I doubt not that in that family there still survives the legend of a heavenly visitation.
My spirit cleared after that, perhaps as the reward of a good action, perhaps because I was rid of the hamper; at any rate, I could lift my head and look about me and take joy in the beauty of the night. There were only the stars to light us, for the moon had not yet risen. They looked down upon us from the high heavens, and it seemed to me that there was kindness and sympathy in their gaze—that they blessed us and wished us well. The road was much smoother than the one we had traversed the night before, and we got forward at a speed which warranted our reaching Coulonges in good time if nothing happened to delay us. We were both well rested and I already had good reason to know and wonder at my companion’s powers of endurance.
I glanced down at her and saw that she was staring straight ahead at the road unrolling before us. How near we were to the moment of parting! With every step we approached the place where I must leave her. Even should I survive my pilgrimage of vengeance, it seemed most unlikely that I should see her again—certainly we should never be thrown together in this sweet, intimate, personal relation. And would I wish to see her in any other way? To gaze at her from a distance, to find her fenced about, to stand silent while some other gallant whispered in her ear—would not all that be as the rubbing of salt into an open wound?
Indeed she had already applied that torture with that mocking invitation to Chambray. Why was it that I had so failed to touch a responsive chord in her? Or rather why, at the very moment I fancied I had touched it, should she draw back and deal me a cruel blow? Perhaps she fancied there was kindness in this cruelty; perhaps she was trying to save me from sinking too deeply into the quicksand which entangled me. Alas! I felt that I was already past all hope of rescue. So a real kindness would have been to make my last moments as happy as might be ere the sands closed over me and divided us forever!
I shook the thought away. Nothing on earth should so divide us. Honor compelled no man to wreck his life beyond redemption. But as I turned the problem over in my mind, I confess my heart sank. So long as Mlle. de Benseval lived, just so long was I bound to her. That was the final statement to which the tangle reduced itself, and I reflected bitterly upon the folly of parents who disposed of their children without asking their consent, or indeed before they were old enough to know to what they were consenting. A boy of ten will blithely promise to marry any one, or will bind himself indifferently with a vow of celibacy, for what does he know of either? Only when he comes to look at the world and the women in it with a man’s eyes does he understand.
“What is it, Sir Sorrowful?” asked my companion at last. “The old problem?”
“The old problem.”
“Why ponder it? You have already said that no man can escape his destiny.”
“I am going to escape mine if it be possible.”
“Is escape worth so much worry?”
“It is all the difference between hell and heaven!”
“Oh, fie! What would the betrothed think could she hear you?”
“I wish she could!” I retorted bitterly.
“Ah, M. de Tavernay,” and her voice had a note of sadness in it, “I thought you a gallant man. I thought you brave enough to approach your fate with a smile upon your lips. I thought you generous enough to make this girl who is waiting for you believe that you really loved her. Consider how much more difficult is her task. Perhaps she remembers you only as a thoughtless and unattractive boy; perhaps she also has seen some one whom she fancies she could love better; perhaps it is some one who is really better worth loving. Yet she is awaiting you, stifling her misgivings in her bosom, ready to keep her oath, although an oath is not the same thing to a woman as to a man. Nor is marriage the same thing. To a man it is an episode; to a woman it is her whole life. She belongs to the man she has married. Do you think the woman to whom you are betrothed does not realize all this? Be sure she does—and trembles at it. And you propose to make her task more difficult still. You will come to her with a sour and downcast face; you will say to her as plainly as if you spoke the words, ‘I do not love you; I take you because I must. If I were free I would not look at you a second time; I am making a martyr of myself by marrying you.’ Which do you think will be the greater martyr, monsieur, you or she? You are right in your estimate of yourself—you are wholly selfish.”
I had listened with bowed head and quivering nerves. Every word burnt into me as a white-hot iron.
“You are right,” I said hoarsely, when she had finished. “I am a coward—a cur. I am not really a man of honor.”
“You are only a boy,” she said; and her tone was more tender. “You have been too long in your mother’s leading-strings. But you have in you the making of a man, my friend, and I know that I shall live to be proud of you.”
I caught her hand and kissed it—a kiss not of love but of gratitude. I swear that at that moment passion was as dead in me as though it had never been.
We went on in silence after that. I had my bitter draught to swallow, and swallow it I did without flinching, for all pretty euphemism had been stripped away.
“Mademoiselle,” I said at last, “I hope that in time you will pardon me. And I thank you from the bottom of my heart that you had the courage to speak as you did just now. It was the only way to open my eyes to my real self. Believe me, I shall be brave enough to look at it steadily.”
She held out her hand with a quick gesture.
“I am sure you will,” she said very softly. “And let me tell you one thing more: I shall always be a better woman for having known you.”
Again I kissed her hand,—humbly as a slave might,—and again we went on in silence. The moon rose and threw our shadows far before us along the road. We came at last to the rough and uneven ground I had seen from the hillside and here we found the way more difficult, for the road grew narrow and uneven, with high untrimmed hedges closing it in on either hand and sometimes even meeting overhead, so that we seemed to be stumbling forward in a tunnel into which no ray of light could penetrate. I aided her as well as I could, but even then it was disheartening and exhausting work.
“We must rest,” I said; “we must rest;” and I led her to a seat in the shadow of the hedge.
“I shall recover in a moment,” she protested. “We must reach Coulonges to-night. I have set my heart on it. Remember, we burnt our ships behind us when we abandoned our provisions.”
“We shall reach Coulonges,” I said confidently. “At the next house I will inquire the way.”
“Come,” she said, starting to her feet. “Let us go. I am quite rested.”
She was a few paces ahead of me, and I let her keep the place for a moment that I might admire her erect and graceful figure, when suddenly she shrank back against me with a little cry of fright.
“What is it?” I asked. “You are not hurt?”
“No, no,” she whispered; “but yonder—creep forward and look.”
There was a sharp turn in the road and as I went forward cautiously and looked around it my heart stood still. For there, not two hundred yards distant, was encamped a regiment of infantry—the same perhaps that we had seen pass that afternoon. I contemplated the camp in silence for a moment, noting how it lay in the little valley, then I drew back and rejoined my comrade.
“There is no danger,” I said. “We must make a wide detour and avoid these fellows.”
I searched along the hedge until I found a place where I could break through, and in a moment we were together in the field on the other side. Cautiously we crept away up the hillside until the lights of the camp gleamed faint behind us; then we went forward past them. There was no danger of our being seen, despite the brightness of the moonlight, for the field was full of sheep—the same we had seen pass, no doubt—and at a distance, so low we crept, we could not be distinguished from them. We came to another hedge and broke a passage through it, and I was just turning back toward the road when a low moan behind me brought me sharp around.
“What is it?” I asked again, and stretched out my arms and caught her, or she would have fallen.
“My ankle,” she gasped, her lips white to the very edge. “I turned it back yonder. I thought I could walk on it but—oh!” and she shivered and hid her face against my shoulder.
I placed her gently on the ground and with trembling fingers undid the laces of her shoe. She shivered again with agony at my touch and closed her eyes. I felt that the ankle was already swelling, and the sweat poured down my face as I realized what anguish she was in.
“I must get aid,” I said thickly. “I must get you to some house.”
She was clutching wildly at my sleeve, her face convulsed, her eyes bright with suffering.
“Leave me,” she said, pulling me down to her. “Leave me. It is no more than I deserve. Save yourself. Only,” she added softly, “kiss me first.”
For answer, I bent and lifted her tenderly in my arms, pressed her close against my heart and kissed her quivering lips, her shining eyes, and fragrant hair.
“I love you,” I whispered—“more than ever I love you! Oh, I shall never be able to tell you how I love you!”
She clung to me desperately, and I held her close—close—trembling with a great happiness.
“Tell me,” I whispered; “I know it now—but tell me!”
She lifted her face to mine, no longer pinched with suffering, but radiant with joy.
“I love you!” she said. “Oh, why should I deny it?”
Again I kissed her; then I set off down the hill, while she dropped her head upon my shoulder and sobbed silently—but I knew that it was not with pain. She was mine—mine! Nothing could alter that! Not all the oaths of heaven and hell could alter that! Not the scorn of the living nor the memory of the dead could alter that! I had happiness within my hand and I would hold it fast; there should be no paltering with it, no looking back, no question of this or that. How foolish all such questions seemed, now that the die was cast!
At last I reached the road and for an instant hesitated, looking up and down. To ask aid of the Blues would be to court the guillotine, and yet I might blunder along the road for hours without coming to a house where help could be secured. Had I the right to condemn her to that suffering? Then I remembered Goujon. Better a sprained ankle than that infamy—better any suffering than that! And resolutely I set my face westward.
“It will not be long,” I whispered. “We shall find a house. Be brave! Remember only that I love you!”
She answered with a pressure of her arms about my neck, and I went on with new strength, my heart singing. At last, with a deep breath of thankfulness, I discerned the roof of a cottage rising above the hedge to the right. Was it occupied? There was no light at the window nor smoke rising from the chimney, but I hastened forward to its door and knocked. There was no response. I tried the door and found it barred, so I knocked again, or rather hammered savagely with my fist. This time a step approached.
“Be off!” cried a harsh voice. “No entrance here.”
“Citizen,” I said as mildly as I could, “I ask your aid—you will lose nothing by opening the door.”
“Be off!” he cried again. “I will not open.”
“Well then I shall kick it in,” I said, letting my wrath burst forth, “and shoot you down like the dog you are. Choose—a gold louis if you aid me, death if you refuse!” and I gave the door a premonitory kick which made the flimsy building tremble. “Come, is it war or peace?”
“What is it you require, citizen?” asked the voice after a moment in a milder tone.
“Some water boiling hot and cloth for a bandage.”
“And for these you will give a gold louis?”
“I promise it.”
“Very well, I will open the door.”
“You will make a light first,” I said; and placing my burden carefully on the ground in the shadow of the hedge I drew my pistol and assured myself that it was ready. “Come, make haste,” I added.
In a moment a light sprang up within and the door slowly opened. I crossed the threshold with a bound, to find myself face to face with as villainous a wretch as I had ever encountered. A great shock of yellow hair hung over a face so grimed and crusted with filth that the features were almost indecipherable. The head hung forward, and the great hands dangling below the knees showed that the man was deformed.
“Quick! stir up the fire,” I commanded, “and heat the water.”
“And the gold louis?” he asked, eyeing my dress.
I drew it forth and placed it on a rude table which stood in one corner.
“There it is,” I said; “but it is not yours yet.”
His eyes gleamed as he looked at it and he licked his lips as a dog might have done at sight of a savory bone; then he turned to the hearth, stirred the smoldering embers, threw some pieces of wood upon them, filled an earthenware pot from another vessel which stood on the hearth, and placed it in the midst of the flames.
“Your water will be ready in three winks, citizen,” he said.
“Good!” and I moved before the fire a bench which served as a chair. “Now I will bring in my companion.”
“Your companion?” he repeated, looking about with a snarl.
“Yes—and if you touch the gold-piece I will kill you. Sit down in yonder corner.”
He backed into the corner indicated and sat down, staring vacantly. In an instant I was outside, and lifting my comrade tenderly in my arms, bore her back into the cottage and closed and barred the door.
“Sit here, my love,” I said, and placed her on the bench. “Now, let us see the ankle.”
I knelt before her and with fingers which trembled so that I could scarcely guide them removed the shoe and cut away the stocking. The ankle,—which should have been so slim, so graceful,—was cruelly swollen.
“It will be better in a moment,” I said, and dipping the remnant of the stocking into the steaming water, held it close against the hurt.
“Oh, that is heavenly!” she murmured, and breathed a deep sigh of relief.
I bathed the ankle thoroughly, immersing it in water almost scalding, and every instant I joyed to see the lines of pain in her face soften and disappear.
“And now,” I said at last, “we will bandage it tightly and it will not pain you—only of course you cannot use it for some days.”
“For some days!” she echoed in dismay. “But we cannot stay here so long a time.”
“No,” I agreed, “certainly not—but first let us bandage the ankle.”
But my face fell as I glanced about the room.
“What do you require for a bandage?” she asked, following my eyes.
“A strip of clean cloth—the longer the better. But clean cloth in a hovel like this!”
She colored slightly as she looked down at me.
“If you will turn your back for a moment,” she said, “I think I can supply the bandage.”
I walked over to the corner where our involuntary host still squatted, cursing softly to himself, and stood before him. There was a sharp rip.
“How is this, doctor?” asked a voice; and I turned to see her holding out to me a strip of linen.
“Excellent!” I cried; and kneeling before her, I drew it tightly around the ankle. I rejoiced to see that the swelling had already decreased considerably, and I bent and kissed the little foot.
“Is that a portion of the treatment?” she asked, laughing.
“A very necessary portion—don’t you feel the improvement?”
“Yes,” she said, her eyes dancing, “I believe I do.”
“And now,” I added, standing up again, “we must get out of this. We are still too near that camp down yonder.”
“But I am such a burden!” she protested.
“A dear, delightful burden;” and I stooped to raise her. But at that instant a violent blow sounded on the door.
“Open!” cried a voice. “Open!”
There was no time to temporize; besides, I knew that to hesitate would be to double any suspicion we might awaken.
“At once!” I answered. “Be brave, my love!” I whispered, and kissed her lips. As I turned away I saw the brute in the corner spring upon the gold-piece and hide it among his rags.
“Open!” cried the voice again; and the door shook under a savage blow.
I strode to it and flung it wide.
A flash of arms greeted my eyes, a vision of fierce faces. In an instant a dozen men came crowding into the room, and I saw that they wore the uniform of the Republic.
I STRODE TO THE DOOR AND FLUNG IT WIDE