XXV

Bois-Doré wept copiously as he listened to this letter, which, being read by Mario, penetrated the more deeply into his heart.

"Alas!" he said, "I often accused him of neglect, and he thought of me on the very first day of his happiness and safety! He intended doubtless to bring his wife and child to me, and place them in my care, and I should not have passed my life alone, without a family! But rest in peace in God's bosom, my poor boy! your son shall be my son, and in my grief at having so cruelly lost you, I have at all events the consolation of embracing your living image! for it is his very manner and his charm, my dear Jovelin, and my heart was stirred at the first glance I cast upon the child. And now, Mario, let us embrace as uncle and nephew, which we are, or rather as father and son, which we are to be from this moment."

The marquis worried little about his wig this time, but embraced his adopted son with an affectionate warmth which changed to heartfelt joy the painful memories evoked by the letter.

Meanwhile Mercedes, heartbroken by Lucilio's suspicions, had resolved to make known the truth in all its details.

"Give them the ring," she said to Mario; "perhaps they will be able to open it, and you will learn your mother's name."

The marquis took the heavy gold ring and turned it in every direction; but, versed as he was in mechanical secrets, he could not succeed in opening it.

Neither Jovelin nor Adamas was more adroit, and they were obliged to abandon the project temporarily.

"Never mind!" said the marquis to Mario, "let us not worry about it. You are my brother's son, I can entertain no doubt of that. Judging from his letter, you descend from a family of higher rank than ours; but we have no need to know your Spanish ancestors to cherish you and rejoice in you!"

Meanwhile Mercedes continued to weep.

"What is the matter with that poor creature?" the marquis asked Adamas.

"I do not understand what she says to Master Jovelin, monsieur," was the reply; "but I see plainly enough that she is afraid that she will not be allowed to remain with her child."

"Who will prevent her, I wonder? Am I likely to do it, who owe her so much gratitude and am indebted to her for so much joy? Come hither, my excellent girl, and ask me whatever you will. If you want a house, lands, flocks and servants, aye, and a good husband to your taste, you shall have them all, or may I lose my name!"

The Moor, to whom Mario translated these words, replied that she desired nothing except to work for her living, but somewhere where she could see her dear Mario every day.

"Granted!" said the marquis, offering her both hands, which she covered with kisses; "you shall remain in my house, and, if you are willing to see my son every hour in the day, you will confer a great favor on me; for, since you love him so dearly, no other woman than you shall take care of him. And now, my friends, congratulate me on the great consolation which has come to me, and which, as you know, Jovelin, confirms in every point the gypsy's prediction."

Thereupon he embraced Lucilio, and also, for the first time in his life, the faithful Adamas, who wrote that glorious fact in letters of gold on his tablets.

Then the marquis took Mario in his arms, placed him on the table in the middle of the room, and, walking a few steps away, began to gaze at him as if he had not seen him at all as yet. He was his own, his heir, his son, the greatest joy of his whole life.

He examined him from head to foot, smiling, with a blending of affection, pride and childish delight, as if he were a superb picture or piece of furniture; and as he already had the feelings of a father and did not wish to make that noble child absurdly vain, he forced back his exclamations and contented himself by rolling his great black eyes, showing his great white teeth, and moving his head with a self-satisfied air to the right and left, as if to say to Adamas and Lucilio; "Just look! what a fine fellow, what a figure, what eyes, what a bearing, what pretty ways, what a son!"

His two friends shared his delight, and Mario endured their scrutinizing with a confident and affectionate air, which seemed to say to them: "You can look at me, you will find no evil in me." But he seemed to say more particularly to the old marquis: "You can love me with all your strength, I will pay you back."

And when the scrutiny was at an end, they embraced again, as if they would fain exchange in a kiss all the kisses of which the childhood of the one and the others old age had been deprived.

"You see, my dear friend," the marquis in his joy said to Lucilio, "that we must not make sport of soothsayers, when they predict our future by the stars. You shake your dear old head? Yet you surely believe that our planet——"

The worthy marquis would doubtless have attempted to elucidate some theory of his own invention, wherein astronomy, to which he was devoted, was in some measure confirmed by astrology, to which he was even more devoted, had not Lucilio interrupted him by handing him a note in which he urged a consultation as to the means of unmasking his brother's murderer.

"You are quite right," said Bois-Doré; "and yet, on this day of incomparable bliss, it hurts me to think of inflicting punishment. But I must do it, and, if you please, we will discuss the matter together.—Go, Adamas, and say to this Monsieur D'Alvimar that I beg him to excuse a slight delay in serving supper; and above all, let us not divulge a syllable of the great discovery we have made.—Go, my friend.—What are you doing there?" he added, as he saw Adamas looking into the great mirror, framed in gilt network, and making strange faces at himself.

"Nothing, monsieur," replied Adamas; "I am just studying my smile."

"For what purpose, I pray to know?"

"Is it not fitting, monsieur, that I should make up a treacherous expression to speak to that traitor?"

"No, my friend; for, before we adjudge him a traitor, we must examine into the affair more carefully, and that is what we are about to do."

At that moment Clindor knocked at the door. He announced that Monsieur de Villareal was indisposed and desired to keep his chamber.

"That is so much the better," said the marquis; "I will go to pay him a visit. After which we will have a preliminary hearing in his case among ourselves."

"You must not go alone, monsieur," said Adamas. "How can we be sure that this indisposition is not feigned, and that the knave has not laid some trap for you, being warned by his conscience?"

"You are talking nonsense, my dear Adamas. Even if he killed my brother, he certainly never knew his name, since he remains under my roof without uneasiness."

"But look at this dagger, my dear master! You have not yet looked at this proof."

"Alas!" said Bois-Doré, "do you think that I can examine it dispassionately?"

Lucilio advised the marquis to see his guest before pursuing his investigations, so that he might be sure of being calm enough to conceal his suspicions.

Adamas allowed the marquis to go; but he glided close on his heels to the door of the Spaniard's apartment.

D'Alvimar was really ill. He was subject to nervous sick-headaches of great violence, which were often brought on by paroxysms of anger, and he had had more than one of the latter in the course of the day.

He thanked the marquis for his solicitude and begged him not to put himself out on his account. He needed nothing more than careful diet, silence and rest until the following day.

Bois-Doré withdrew, telling Bellinde, without obtruding, to see to it that his guest lacked nothing; and he took advantage of this visit to examine the features of old Sancho, to whom he had previously paid no attention.

The former swineherd, tall, lean and sallow, but wiry and muscular, was sitting in a deep window-recess, reading by the last rays of daylight a religious book from which he never parted, and which he did not understand. To spell out with his lips the words in that book and to tell his beads mechanically, such was his principal occupation, and, apparently, his only pleasure!

Bois-Doré glanced furtively from the master lying stretched out on the bed, with an air of utter prostration, to the calm, stern, devout servant, whose monkish profile was outlined against the window.

"These are not highwaymen," he thought. "What the devil! this fair, slender young man, with an eye as soft as a girl's—To be sure, this morning when he was angry with the gypsies, and yesterday when he inveighed against the Moors, his expression was less benignant than usual. But this old esquire with the Capuchin's beard, who is so profoundly engrossed in his religious book—To be sure, there is nothing so like an honest man as a knave who knows his business! No, my penetration is insufficient in this matter, and we must weigh all the facts."

He returned to the pavilion, the whole of which was given over to his suite of apartments, each floor consisting of one large and one small room: on the ground floor, the dining-room with a serving-room; on the first floor, the salon and boudoir; on the second, the châtelain's bedroom and another boudoir; on the third, the large, so-called Salle des Verdures[21] which Adamas sometimes honored with the title of Salle de Justice; on the fourth, an unfinished, vacant room.

In the later building attached to the side of this pavilion, were the apartments of Adamas, Clindor and Jovelin, connecting with those in the grand'maison, as the marquis's little pavilion was ingenuously and in all seriousness called in the village.

He found his friends assembled in the Salle des Verdures, and not until then did he remember that in the general excitement the Moorish woman had been admitted to his chamber. He was grateful to Adamas for having transferred the session to some place other than his sanctuary. He saw that Jovelin was writing busily, and, not wishing to disturb him, he sat down and perused the letter written by Abbé Anjorrant to Monsieur de Sully, with the view of putting him on the track of Mario's family.

That letter was written very soon after Florimond's death, before Monsieur Anjorrant knew of the death of Henri IV. and Sully's fall from power; it had not reached its destination. This was a copy, which the abbé had retained and bequeathed to Mario with Florimond's unfinished letter. The abbé's letter—it was more properly a memorial—contained most precise details of the murder of the pretended peddler, as the abbé had received them from Mercedes, and as they had been confirmed by various incidents.

In it all there was nothing to fasten the guilt upon d'Alvimar and his valet. The assassins had not been discovered. Both, it is true, were minutely described in the Moorish woman's statement contained in the memorial; but, although she declared now that she recognized them, she might very well be mistaken, and her accusation was not sufficient to condemn them.

The Catalan dagger, the instrument of murder, being placed beside the one given by Lauriane to the marquis, was more convincing evidence. The two weapons were, if not identical, so nearly alike that at the first glance one had difficulty in distinguishing them. The initials and the device were made with the same instrument, and the blades were of the same make.

But Florimond might have been killed with a weapon stolen from Monsieur de Villareal, or lost by him.

Nor was there any proof that the one given by Lauriane to the marquis came from the Spaniard.

And, lastly, the initials seen by Mario, Mercedes and Adamas on his other weapons could not be his, for he had been introduced by Guillaume under the name of Antonio de Villareal.

XXVI

The fair-minded Bois-Doré was making these observations aloud to Adamas, when the mute handed him the sheet upon which he had just been writing.

It was a brief narrative of what had taken place at La Motte-Seuilly in the morning, between Lauriane, the Spaniard and himself: how Villareal had hurled the knife again and again to frighten him and interrupt his music, how he had plunged it into the entrails of the wolf, and lastly how he had given it to Madame de Beuvre as a token of submission and penitence before Jovelin's eyes.

"Oho! this is becoming serious!" said the marquis, lost in thought, "and I see that this Villareal is a very bad man. However, it may be that none of these weapons were in his possession ten years ago, and that he has received them since by gift or by inheritance. In that case he must have been the assassin's kinsman or friend; there are villains and cowards in the best families. Like yourself, Master Jovelin, I have a bad opinion of our guest; but I am certain that, like me, you still hesitate to condemn him on this evidence."

Lucilio nodded assent and advised the marquis to try to make him confess the truth by surprise or by stratagem.

"We will deliberate with care thereupon," replied Bois-Doré, "and you will assist us, my dear friend. For the moment, we must go to supper, and since we have no guests, we will give ourselves the pleasure of eating with our little marquis that is to be, who no more belongs in the servants' quarters than you do yourself."

"Still, monsieur, if you take my advice," said Adamas, "you will leave things as they are for to-day. Bellinde is a wicked creature and a plague, and to my mind she is on much too friendly terms with the rectory, which is a sink of slanderous remarks against all of us."

"Hoity-toity! Adamas, what in God's name is the trouble between you and the rectory?"

"The trouble is, monsieur, that I have been consulting a magician too. You had hardly gone away this morning, when a certain La Flèche, the same gypsy, doubtless, whom you saw later in the day at La Motte, came prowling around the château and offered to tell my fortune. I refused; I am too much afraid of prophecies, and I hold that any harm that is destined to happen to us happens twice over when we know it beforehand. I contented myself by asking him who had stolen the key of the wine closet, and he answered without hesitation:

"'The one you suspect!'

"'Tell me her name,' I replied, knowing well enough that it was Bellinde, but wishing to test the clever rascal's skill.

"'The stars forbid me,' he said; 'but I can tell what the person is doing at this moment. She is at the rector's, where she is chattering about you, saying that you put it into the head of the lord of this château to marry young Madame——"

"Hush, hush, Adamas!" cried the marquis modesty; "you should not repeat such nonsense."

"No, monsieur, no! I will say nothing; but, as I was determined to know whether the sorcerer told the truth, I went out as if for a walk, as soon as he had gone; and as I passed the rectory I saw Bellinde at a window with the housekeeper, and both of them began to laugh and to mock at me behind my back."

Jovelin asked if the gypsy had entered the château.

"He would have liked to right well," said Adamas, "but Mercedes, who watched him from the kitchen without letting him see her, begged me not to admit him, saying that he was likely to steal; so I did not let him into the courtyard. He gazed at the door with much emotion, and, when I asked him what he saw there, he answered:

"'I see great events about to take place in this house; so great and so surprising that it is my duty to warn your master. Let me speak to him.'

"'You cannot,' said, 'he is not within.'

"'I know where he is,' said he; 'he is at La Motte-Seuilly, where I will try to see him; but if I am not able to speak with him there without witnesses, I will come back here, and I assure you that if you refuse me admission again, you will live to regret it, for many destinies are in my hands.'"

"All this is very remarkable," said the marquis, artlessly. "It is a fact that he predicted all that has happened, and I regret now that I did not question him further. If he returns, Adamas, you must bring him to me. Did not you say, my dear Mario, that he was an intelligent fellow?"

"He is very amusing," replied Mario, "but my Mercedes doesn't like him. She thinks it was he who stole my father's seal. I don't think so, because he helped us to look for it and to ask the other gypsies about it. He seemed to be very fond of us, and he did all we asked him to."

"And what was there on the seal, my dear boy?"

"A crest. Wait! Monsieur l'Abbé Anjorrant looked at it with a glass and it looked big, for it was so small—so small that you couldn't make it out; and he said to me:

"'Remember this: Argent with a tree sinople.'"

"That is right," said the marquis; "that is my father's crest! It would be mine if King Henri had not composed another for me to suit himself."

"Both are carved on the courtyard door," wrote Lucilio. "Ask the child if he did not see them when he came here."

"How could he have seen them?" said Adamas, who read Lucilio's words simultaneously with his master. "The masons who were repairing the arch had their scaffolding in front of them."

"Could the gypsy see the escutcheons this morning," said Lucilio with his pencil, "when he looked at the gate?"

"Yes," replied Adamas, "the stagings had been taken down, and the masons were at work elsewhere. The escutcheons were made over—But now I think of it, Master Jovelin, this La Flèche must know something of our dear child's story, as they had travelled together?"

"I don't think so," said Mario. "We never mentioned it to anyone."

"But you and Mercedes talked about it?" wrote Lucilio. "Does La Flèche understand Arabic?"

"No, he understands Spanish; but I always talked Arabic with Mercedes."

"Were there no other Moors in that band of gypsies?"

"There was little Pilar, who understands Arabic because she is the child of a Moor and a gitana."

"In that case," wrote Lucilio to the marquis, "abandon your belief in the supernatural. La Flèche attempted to make money out of what he had learned. He knew Mario's story down to a certain point; he learned yours in the neighborhood, and the fact of your brother's having disappeared ten years ago. He had stolen the seal. He recognized the coat-of-arms on the door. He remembered the dates. He divined or imagined the whole truth. He hurried to La Motte to make his prediction, which he taught the little gitana by heart. To-night or to-morrow he will bring you the seal, expecting to solve for you the mystery which you have already solved, and to receive a handsome reward. He is a thief and a schemer; nothing more."

It cost the marquis a pang to assent to this reasonable and probable explanation. However, he did so.

Adamas still held out.

"How can you explain what he told me about Bellinde and the rectory?" he asked Lucilio.

Lucilio replied that that was very easy. Bellinde had listened at the door of the marquis's apartment the night before; La Flèche had listened in the morning at the door or under the windows of the rectory.

"You state the case very sensibly," cried the marquis, "and I see plainly enough that there is no other magic in all this than the magic of Divine Providence, which has brought truth and joy into my house with this child. Let us go to supper! our minds will be clearer afterward."

The marquis supped hastily and without enjoyment. He felt that he was being spied upon by Bellinde, who was no longer able to listen in the secret passages; for Adamas, while the masons were on the spot, had had that passage closed; but the prying and malevolent creature had observed the long interviews of the marquis and Jovelin with Mercedes and the child, behind closed doors, and, above all, the self-important and triumphant airs of Adamas, whose every glance seemed to say to her: "You shall know nothing!"

She was not intelligent enough to divine anything. She imagined that the marquis, following up the project of marriage, was arranging an entertainment for the young widow, with the assistance of the "Egyptians."

There was nothing in that which she could use against Adamas, her personal enemy; but she was consumed with a jealousy of him and of the Moorish woman which sought only an opportunity for revenge.

When Bois-Doré was alone with Jovelin, they concerted and agreed upon a plan of action for the following day with respect to D'Alvimar.

They reread Monsieur Anjorrant's letter carefully and analyzed it. Then, honest Sylvain, who was not fond of giving his mind to serious and depressing subjects, sent for his heir and passed the evening chatting and playing with him. Therein he showed a marked resemblance to his dear master, Henri IV., although he did not think of imitating him. He adored the charms of childhood, and, except for the stiffness of his old bones, would gladly have played horse for him around the room.

"Now," he said to Adamas, when he saw Mario's silky eyelashes drooping with sleep, "we must give him to the Moor, so that she may take care of him one night more. But to-morrow, when we have settled this Villareal business, there will be no further occasion to conceal the truth, and I propose that my heir shall have his bed in the boudoir adjoining my own bedroom.—See, my child," he said to Mario, "look at this little nest, all silk and gold, which has long been waiting for a noble fellow like you! Do you like the pink silk hangings, and this low furniture inlaid with mother-of-pearl? Doesn't it seem as if it were made for a young man of your height? We shall have to arrange a bed for him that will be a genuine chef-d'œuvre, Adamas. What say you to twisted columns of ivory, with a great bunch of red plumes at each corner?"

"As soon as our minds are at rest, monsieur," said Adamas, "I will turn my attention to the question, in order to gratify you, for nothing is too fine for your heir. We will consider the matter of clothes too, which must be suited to his rank."

"I will think about it, I will think about it, Adamas!" cried the marquis, "and I propose that his wardrobe shall be just like mine. You will send for the best tailors, linen-drapers, shoemakers, hatters and plumemakers in the province, and for a whole month, if necessary, they shall work day and night, under my eye, preparing my nephew's outfit."

"And my Mercedes," said Mario, leaping for joy, "will you give her beautiful dresses too, like Bellinde's?"

"Mercedes shall have beautiful dresses, dresses of gold and silver, if such is her whim. And that reminds me—Look you, my dear Jovelin, this woman is lovely, so it seems to me, and still young. Would you not think it well to allow her to resume the Moorish costume, which is very pretty, except the veil, which is altogether too Mohammedan? As the excellent creature is a sincere Christian now, and we live in a neighborhood where the common people never saw a Moor, that costume will offend nobody and will gratify our eyes. What is your wisdom's opinion?"

Lucilio's wisdom had much ado to reconcile the warm affection which the marquis really deserved with the feelings naturally aroused by his childishness. But, hopeless of correcting so old a child, reason advised him to make the best of him and to love him as he was.

The philosopher would have preferred that Mario should not be overwhelmed with splendor and finery at the outset of his new career, but rather that he should be told something of the new duties he had to fulfil. He found some consolation in the fact that the child was less intoxicated by the possession of all those things, than overjoyed and touched by the affection and endearments of which he found himself the object.

On the following day D'Alvimar, who had passed a sleepless night, requested through Bellinde, who obligingly acted as his nurse, permission to keep his room until afternoon.

The marquis paid him another brief visit, and was struck by the alteration of his features. He had had ghastly visions, under the spell of the sinister prophecies that had been hurled at him.

Daylight had finally revived hope in his heart, and he slept part of the day.

XXVII

The marquis took advantage of this respite to recur to the subject of dress.

He went up with Mario and Adamas to the vacant room on the fourth floor, that is to say, immediately over the Salle des Verdures.

That unfinished apartment was strewn with innumerable chests and cupboards; and Mario, as soon as the padlocks were removed, and the lids raised and doors thrown open, fancied that he was in fairyland. There was a bewildering mass of magnificent stuffs, dazzling gold lace, ribbons, laces, feathers and jewels, rich hangings, cordovan leather, furniture in parts, all new and ready to be put together, reliquaries heavy with precious stones, beautiful paintings on glass which needed only to be assembled, lovely enamelled mosaics, arranged in piles and numbered, whole pieces of fine linen, enormous guipure curtains, with gold and silver stripes; in a word, a hoard of plunder, which smelt of the partisan warrior a league away, and which the marquis considered to have been legally acquired at the sword's point.

This receptacle of rich spoil was known in the household as the store-room, the garret. It was supposed to contain spare articles of furniture, together with what was broken or discarded.

Adamas alone was aware of the contents of those wonderful chests, and under his breath he called that room the treasure or the abbey. There were no fashionable gewgaws, as in the marquis's apartments, but artistic objects and fabrics of great value and great beauty, some of great antiquity, and the more valuable on that account: stuffs manufactured by processes no longer known, weapons of all sizes and of all nations, many excellent pictures, valuable manuscripts, etc.

All this rarely saw the light, the marquis fearing lest he might arouse the cupidity of some of his neighbors, and producing his treasures only one at a time and in the guise of a recent purchase.

However, it was very rarely the case that the pillaging heroes of those days were compelled to make restitution; but it might well happen that some powerful individual, acting on his own account, but claiming to act in the name of the Church or the State, would calmly appropriate an article in dispute.

It was thus that Catherine de Médicis, to reward Jean de Hangest—called Capitaine d'Yvoi—for treacherously surrendering Bourges to her, seized the superb chalice, decorated with precious stones, which he had taken from the treasure-chest of Sainte-Chapelle in that city, and had put aside as his share of the plunder.

From all these marvels the marquis selected what was required for Mario's outfit, calling upon him to make known his taste with regard to the colors.

One would but imperfectly understand the manners of that period, who should assume that it was necessary, as it is to-day, to go to Paris to learn the fashions and to find skilled workmen in the art of dress and decoration. It was not until the reign of Louis XIV. that the civilization of luxury and fashion made of Paris the school of good taste and the arbiter of refinement. Richelieu began this work of centralization by destroying the power of the nobles. Before his time, the princes held court in the great provincial centres, and the artisans of the smallest places supplied the needs of the nobility with traditional skill. A rich châtelain had artisans among his vassals; and, even in bourgeois houses, furniture, clothes, boots and shoes were made at home.

Bois-Doré therefore had only to select the materials and order the articles that Adamas was to have made under his own eyes.

In the matter of dress Adamas was beyond praise. He could safely be trusted, and, at need, he could put his own hand to the work with success.

The ivory columns and cornices destined for the child's bed were found after some searching.

"I knew that there was something here like that," said the marquis smiling. "They are of beautiful workmanship; they came from a state canopy taken from the chapel of the Abbey of Fontgombaud, of which I was abbot, that is to say, lord by right of conquest, for a whole fortnight. When I took possession of it, I remember saying to myself: 'If the new Abbot of Fontgombaud could become a father soon, this would be a fitting canopy for his first-born son!'—But, alas! my friend, I did not inherit all the monkish virtues, and in order to have a son, I was obliged to find one by a miracle long after I came to maturity. Never mind! he will be none the less dear, and he will none the less sleep his angel's sleep under the canopy of the Virgin of Fontgombaud."

The marquis was interrupted in his reminiscences by the arrival of La Flèche, who asked to speak with him.

The chests and the door of the treasury were carefully locked, and the vagabond was received in the barnyard.

It was beautiful weather, and Jovelin was of opinion that a trickster of that sort should not be admitted to the house.

What he had foreseen actually happened. La Flèche brought with him the seal, which he claimed to have found in little Pilar's possession; he also assumed to reveal the mystery of Mario's birth and of the murder of Florimond by Monsieur de Villareal.

The marquis allowed him to say all that he had to say, then dismissed him, with a crown, for the trouble he had taken to bring back the seal; but he pretended not to understand the story he had told, to place no faith in it, and to be much shocked that he should dare to accuse Monsieur de Villareal, against whom he had no other proof than the Moorish woman's excitement and her exclamation when she thought that she recognized him on the moor of Champillé.

Herein the marquis, advised by Lucilio, acted wisely. If he had seemed to credit the accusation, La Flèche would have been quite capable of giving the Spaniard warning, in order to have two strings to his bow.

La Flèche, bitterly disappointed by his fiasco, sheepishly withdrew, and was walking along the outer wall of Galatée's garden, when he heard a soft voice calling his name.

It was Mario, whom the marquis had not chosen to admit to the interview, desiring that all relations between his heir and gypsydom should be severed irrevocably. But as he had not explained his wishes in that respect, the child did not know that he was acting in opposition to them when he glided through the labyrinth and watched for the gypsy to pass, through a little loophole looking toward the village.

"Who calls me?" he said, looking about him.

"I," said Mario. "I want you to tell me about Pilar."

"What will you give for that?"

"I can't give you anything. I haven't anything!"

"Idiot! steal something!"

"No, never! Will you answer me?"

"In a minute; answer me first. What do you do in this château?"

"Play music."

"What else?—Aha! you don't choose to speak? All right. Adieu!"

"And you won't tell me where Pilar is?"

"She is dead," replied the gypsy brutally, and he walked away whistling.

Mario tried in vain to recall him. When he could no longer hear him, he began to run about and play in the labyrinth, trying to convince himself that La Flèche had made sport of him. But the idea of his little companion's death caused a terrible shock to his vivid imagination.

"She used to say that La Flèche beat her," he thought; "but I didn't believe her. He never beat her before us. But perhaps she didn't lie; perhaps he beat her until he killed her."

And, as he reflected thus, the child shed a few tears. Pilar was not a very amiable creature; but there was something of the Bois-Doré in dear Mario; he was particularly sensitive to pity, and the Abbé Anjorrant had brought him up to abhor violence and cruelty. But he concealed his tears, fearing to pain his uncle, whom he already loved passionately.

D'Alvimar left his room at last.

The rest that he had taken, a lovely sunset and the joyous song of the thrushes dispelled the black presentiments by which he had been besieged for several days.

Having dressed and perfumed himself, he sought the marquis and thanked him for the interest he had shown and the care that had been taken of him. Bois-Doré could not make up his mind to accuse even inwardly a man, still so young, of a bearing so distinguished, and a countenance whose habitual melancholy seemed to him genuinely touching; but when they were seated at the supper table, Lucilio being there, as usual, to furnish music, Bois-Doré remembered their agreement, and collected what he called his siege-guns, to make a violent assault upon his guest's conscience.

He had seen too much fighting and had had too many perilous adventures not to be able to arrange his bearing and his features, without having, like Adamas, to make preparatory studies before a mirror. Although his life had long been so placid that he had not been obliged to depart from his natural mildness of manner, he was too much the man of his time not to be able to make his glance say, twenty times a day if need be:

"Vive le roi! Vive la Ligue!"

The sweet notes of the bagpipe relieved him from the necessity of carrying on a commonplace conversation which would have seemed to him very tedious.

The music which helped to produce the tranquillity that he needed, now caused a feverish excitement in D'Alvimar.

He really hated Lucilio. He knew his baptismal name, which the marquis had let fall in his presence, and Monsieur Poulain, who was thoroughly posted in contemporary heresy, had divined from that circumstance that Jovelin was a free translation of Giovellino. The fact of his mutilation confirmed him in that suspicion, and he was already deliberating upon the means of making perfectly sure, and of stirring up some new persecution against him.

D'Alvimar would readily have assisted him, if he had not been forced to keep out of sight for some time, and the poor philosopher was the more antipathetic to him because he could take no steps against him at present. His beautiful music, by which he had been charmed at the first hearing, seemed to him now intolerable bravado, and the ill-humor which took possession of him did not dispose him to undergo patiently the examination that was being prepared for him.

After the supper the marquis proposed a game of chess in the boudoir adjoining his salon.

"I agree," the Spaniard replied, "on condition that we have no music there. I cannot play with that to distract my attention."

"Nor I, most certainly," said the marquis.—"Put your sweet voice away in its box, good Master Jovelin, and come to watch our peaceful battle. I know that you enjoy a well-fought game."

They went into the boudoir, and found there a magnificent chess-board of crystal with gold mountings, comfortable chairs, and many lighted candles.

D'Alvimar had not as yet seen that small room, one of the most sumptuous in the grand'maison; he cast a distraught glance at the trinkets with which it was filled, then sat down, and the game began.

XXVIII

The marquis, exceedingly calm and courteous, seemed to give his whole attention to his game. Lucilio, standing behind him, was able to watch the slightest movement, the slightest change of expression on the Spaniard's face, which was in a bright light.

D'Alvimar played promptly and with resolution. Bois-Doré, more moderate in his play, made long pauses, during which the Spaniard gazed with some impatience at the objects that surrounded him. His eyes naturally rested more than once on a sort of what-not that stood against the wall at his left, quite near him. Gradually the object that was most prominent among the bibelots with which the little piece of furniture was covered, attracted and monopolized his attention, and Lucilio noticed that he smiled satirically and angrily every time that his eyes fell upon that object.

It was a naked, gleaming dagger, lying on a black velvet cushion with gold fringe, and protected by a glass globe.

"What is it?" said the marquis at last. "You seem distraught. You are in check, messire, and I do not wish to beat you so easily. Something disturbs or annoys you. Are we too near that piece of furniture, would you like to move the table away from it?"

"No," replied D'Alvimar, "I am very comfortable; but I confess that there is something in that pretty stand which distracts my mind. Will you answer a single question, if it be not impertinent?"

"You could ask no question which would be, messire. Speak, I beg you."

"Very well, I ask you, my dear marquis, how it happens that you have here reposing triumphantly on a cushion, under glass, your humble servant's travelling weapon?"

"Oh! you are mistaken, my guest! I did not obtain that knife from you."

"I know that I did not give it to you; but I know that it was given to you by the one to whom I gave it, of which fact, perhaps, you may not be ignorant. I understand that any gift from a fair hand is precious to you; but it seems to me very hard upon those less fortunate to exhibit thus the trophy of your victory before the eyes of a discarded rival."

"Your words are enigmas to me."

"What! surely my sight is not failing me! Will you allow me to raise the glass and obtain a closer view?"

"Look and touch, messire; after which I will tell you, if you desire, why this relic of love and sorrow is kept here among other souvenirs of the past."

D'Alvimar took up the knife, examined it closely, handled it, and said, suddenly replacing it on the cushion:

"I was mistaken, and I beg your pardon. It is not the weapon that I thought."

Lucilio, who was watching him attentively, fancied that he saw his mobile, delicate nostrils dilate with fear or surprise. But that slight facial contraction was noticeable in him on the slightest pretext, sometimes even without any pretext at all.

He resumed his game.

But Bois-Doré stopped him.

"Excuse me," he said; "but as you recognize that object it is my duty to question you; you may be able perhaps to throw some light upon a mysterious occurrence by which my life has been disturbed and made wretched for many years. Be kind enough to tell me, Monsieur de Villareal, if you know the device and initials engraved on this blade. Do you wish to look at it again?"

"It is useless, monsieur le marquis, I do not recognize the weapon; it never belonged to me."

"Do you feel any repugnance to making sure of that fact?"

"Repugnance? Why that question, messire?"

"I will explain. You may, perhaps, have recognized the weapon as having belonged to someone whose compatriot you blush to be, but whose name you would tell me none the less if I should appeal to your sense of honor."

"If you treat this as a serious matter," replied D'Alvimar, "although it is my turn not to understand you, I will examine it again."

He took up the dagger, scrutinized it very calmly, and said:

"This is of Spanish workmanship, a weapon in very common use among us. There is no man of noble birth—I may say no free man—who does not carry a similar one in his belt or his sleeve. The device is one of the most common and most widely used: I serve God, or I serve my master, or I serve honor. We find something of that sort on the majority of our arms, whether rapiers, pistols or cutlasses."

"Very good; but these two letters S. A., which seem to be a private cipher?"

"You can find them on my own weapons, as well as this device; they are the private marks of the Salamanca factory."

Bois-Doré felt his suspicions fade away in face of such a natural explanation.

Lucilio's suspicions, on the contrary, increased in force. He considered that D'Alvimar was altogether too eager to anticipate the explanation he might be asked to give concerning his own motto and his own initials, which they were supposed not to know.

He touched the marquis's knee while pretending to pat Fleurial, and thus warned him not to abandon his investigation.

D'Alvimar seemed desirous to forward it himself, for he asked with an air of wounded pride the reason of this interrogatory.

"You might also ask me," Bois-Doré replied, "for what reason an object which is horrible for me to look upon lies there before my eyes every hour. Let me tell you, monsieur, that that accursed weapon is the one that killed my brother, and I have made it a point of not putting it out of sight solely that I might constantly be reminded that I have to discover his murderer and avenge his death."

D'Alvimar's face expressed deep emotion, but it might well be sympathetic and magnanimous emotion.

"You do well to call it a relic of sorrow," he said, pushing the dagger away. "Was it your brother to whom you referred yesterday morning, when you consulted those gypsies as to the time and manner of some person's death?"

"Yes; I asked for something which I knew perfectly well, wishing to test their knowledge, and, upon my word, that little demon of a girl answered me so accurately that I had good reason to be astonished. Did you not notice, messire, that she gave me figures which fixed the date of the occurrence as the tenth day of May in the year 1610?"

"I did not follow the calculation. Was that actually the day when your brother was killed?"

"That was the day. I see that you are much surprised!"

"Surprised, I? Why should I be? I fancy that soothsayers reveal only so much of the past as they know. But tell me, I beg you, how that sad affair came to pass. Have you never known the authors of the crime?"

"You are right in saying the authors, for there were two of them—two men whom I would like right well to find. But you cannot help me, I see, since that accusing weapon bears no private mark."

"So there were no witnesses of the deed?"

"Pardon me, there were."

"Who could give you no information as to the perpetrators?"

"They could describe them, but not tell their names. If this painful story interests you, I can tell it to you in all its details."

"Most certainly I am interested in your sorrows, and I am pleased to listen."

"Very well," said the marquis, pushing the chessboard away and drawing his chair nearer to the table, "I will tell you all that I learned from an investigation communicated to me by the curé of Urdoz."

"Urdoz? Where is Urdoz? I do not remember."

"It is a place that you must have passed through, if you have ever been to Pau."

"No, I came into France by way of Toulouse."

"In that case you don't know it. I will describe it to you directly. First let me tell you that my brother, being a simple gentleman and only moderately rich, but of an honorable name, noble in feature, of an amiable disposition, and a fine fellow if ever there was one, while sojourning in some Spanish city, which I cannot name, won the heart of a lady or maiden of quality, whom he married secretly against the will of her family."

"Her name was——?"

"I do not know. All this was an affair of the heart, as to which I never received his full confidence, and which I could not afterwards unravel. I found out simply that he eloped with his wife, and that they made their way into France by way of the Urdoz road, disguised as poor people. The lady was near her time. They were travelling in a small vehicle of shabby aspect, a sort of peddler's cart, drawn by a single horse, purchased on the road, whose gait hardly kept time with their impatience. However, they reached without hindrance the last Spanish settlement, and, after passing the night in a wretched tavern, my brother was imprudent enough to try to exchange Spanish for French gold, and to ask a soi-disant nobleman who was in the house, attended by an old servant, and who offered to assist him, if he could procure French money for a thousand pistoles.

"The individual in question was able to offer him only a trifling sum, and when my brother mounted his wagon again with his cloaked and veiled companion, the people at the inn noticed that the two strangers, as they bade him farewell, gazed earnestly at the two boxes which he himself loaded, one containing his money, the other his wife's jewels, and that they started off at once on his track, although they had previously announced their purpose to go in the opposite direction. The villains were described in such a way as to leave no manner of doubt as to their identity when a description of my brother's murderers was furnished."

"Ah!" said D'Alvimar, "so you had a description of them?"

"Exact. One had a handsome face and was so young that he seemed little more than a boy. He was of medium height but well proportioned. His hand was as white and slender as a woman's, he had an incipient beard, very black, silky hair, a noble bearing, a rich travelling costume, but little else, for his valise weighed nothing; a good Andalusian horse, and yonder infernal knife, which he used for eating and killing. The other——"

"No matter, messire. Your brother——?"

"I must describe the other miscreant, as he was described to me. He was a man in middle life, who had something of the monk and something of the hired bravo in his appearance. A long nose overhanging a gray moustache, a shifty eye, a callous hand, and of a taciturn humor; a genuine Spanish brute——"

"I beg pardon, messire?"

"A brute of the sort that we find in all countries where men are taught that they can save their souls from hell by reciting paternosters. The brigands followed my poor brother as two fierce, cowardly wolves follow the victim they dare not attack, and pounced upon him—What is it, messire? Are you too warm in this small room?"

"Perhaps so, messire," replied D'Alvimar excitedly. "I feel difficulty in breathing the air of a house where the name of Spaniard seems to be held in such contempt as by yourself."

"Not at all, monsieur. Let me reassure you on that point. I do not hold your nation responsible for the degradation of a few. There are infamous villains everywhere. If I speak bitterly of those who robbed me of a brother, you must pardon me."

D'Alvimar apologized in his turn for his sensitiveness, and begged the marquis to continue his narrative.

"It was about a league from the hamlet of Urdoz that my brother and his wife found themselves entirely alone on a rocky road skirting a very deep precipice. The road was winding and the ascent so steep, that the horse balked for a moment, and my brother, fearing that he would back into the ravine, hastily alighted and lifted his wife out of the wagon. It was very warm, so he pointed out a grove of firs ahead of them where she could find shelter from the sun, and she walked thither slowly while he gave the horse an opportunity to breathe."

"Did the lady see her husband killed?"

"No! she had just turned a little shoulder of the mountain when the disaster occurred. It was God's will that the child she bore should be saved; for, if the assassins had seen her they would not have spared her."

"In that case who can say how your brother died?"

"Another woman whom chance had brought thither, who was hidden behind a rock, and who had no time to call for aid, the horrible crime was committed so quickly. My brother was trying to urge the horse forward when the assassins overtook him. The youngest dismounted, saying with hypocritical courtesy:

"'Why, your horse is foundered, my poor man! Don't you need help?'

"The old cutthroat who followed him also dismounted, and they both approached my brother as if they really intended to put their shoulders to the wheel; he had no suspicion of them, and at the same instant the witness whom heaven had placed there saw him totter and fall at full length between the wheels, without a cry to indicate that he had been struck. That dagger had been buried in his heart up to the hilt, by a hand too well skilled in its use."

"Then you do not know which of the two, whether the master or the servant, dealt the blow? You say that the master was very young; it is hardly conceivable that it was he."

"It matters little, messire. I deem them equally vile; for the gentleman behaved exactly as the servant did. He jumped into the wagon without taking time to remove the knife, he was in such frantic haste to steal the two boxes. He tossed them to his companion, who put them under his cloak, and they both fled, retracing their steps, spurred on, not by remorse and shame, human sentiments which they were incapable of feeling, but by fear of the scourge and the rack, which are the just reward and the end of such villainy!"

"You lie, monsieur!" cried D'Alvimar, springing to his feet, beside himself and deathly pale with rage. "The scourge and the rack—You lie in your throat! and you shall give me satisfaction!"

He fell back upon his chair, suffocated, strangled by the confession that wrath had extorted from him at last.

XXIX

The marquis was thunderstruck by this outbreak, for which he was entirely unprepared, the culprit had up to that moment put so bold a face on the matter, and made his frequent interruptions with so natural an air.

He recovered first, as may be imagined, and grasping D'Alvimar's convulsively twitching wrist with his long, sinewy hand:

"Miserable wretch!" he exclaimed with crushing contempt, "you should thank Heaven for making you my guest; for, were it not for the promise I have given to protect you, a promise which protects you from myself, I would beat out your brains against the wall of this room!"

Lucilio, fearing a struggle, had seized the knife which lay on the table. D'Alvimar saw his movement and was afraid. He threw off the marquis's hands and grasped the hilt of his sword.

"Let your mind be at rest, fear nothing in this house," said Bois-Doré, calmly. "We are not assassins!"

"Nor am I, monsieur," rejoined D'Alvimar, seemingly overcome by this dignified procedure, "and since you do not propose to disregard the laws of honor, I will attempt to justify myself."

"Justify yourself? Nonsense! you are convicted and doomed by your contradiction of me, and that is why I disdain to notice it!"

"Keep your disdain for those who endure insult in silence. If I had done so, you would not have suspected me! I repelled the insult! I repel it again!"

"Ah! you propose to deny the act now, do you?"

"No! I killed your brother—or somebody else. I do not know the name of the man I killed—or allowed to be killed! But what do you know of the reasons that impelled me to that murder? How do you know that I was not wreaking a just vengeance? How do you know that that woman—whose name you do not know—was not my sister, and that while avenging the honor of my family, I did not take back the gold and jewels stolen by a seducer?"

"Hold your peace, monsieur! do not insult my brother's memory."

"You have yourself admitted that he was not rich; where did he obtain a thousand pistoles with which to elope with a woman?"

Bois-Doré was shaken. His brother, because of the difference in their political opinions, would never consent to accept from him the smallest portion of a fortune which he rightly considered as derived from the despoiling of his own party. He was obliged to fall back on the allegation that his brother's wife was entitled to carry off what belonged to her. But D'Alvimar retorted that the family was entitled to consider that it belonged to it. Therefore he vehemently denied the charge of robbery.

"You are a traitor none the less," said the marquis, "for having stabbed a gentleman like a coward instead of demanding satisfaction from him."

"Charge it to your brother's disguise," retorted D'Alvimar, warmly. "Say to yourself that, seeing him in the garb of a serf, I may well have thought that I had the right to bid my servant kill him like a serf."

"Why did you not have him detained at that tavern, where you must have recognized your sister, instead of following and taking him in a trap?"

"Presumably," replied D'Alvimar, still proud and animated, "because I did not choose to create a scandal, and compromise my sister before the populace."

"And why, instead of hurrying after her to take her back to her family, did you leave her on that lonely road, where she died in agony an hour later, no one having come in search of her meanwhile?"

"How could I run after her, when I did not know that she was there, so near to me? Your witness could not hear all the questions I put to the seducer, I had no need to shout them at the top of my voice. How do you know that he did not tell me that my sister had remained at Urdoz, and that what the witness took for flight on my part was not simply eagerness to return to her?"

"And not finding her at Urdoz, you never learned of her deplorable death? You did not even try to find the place where she was buried?"

"How do you know, monsieur, that I am not more familiar than you with all the details of this painful story? Would you, in my place, being unable to remedy the evil that was done, have made an outcry in a country where no one could possibly divine your sister's name or the dishonor of your family?"

The marquis, crushed by the reasonableness of these explanations, made no reply.

He was so deeply absorbed in his reflections that he hardly heard the announcement of a visitor. Guillaume D'Ars was ushered into the adjoining salon.

Lucilio detected a gleam of joy in D'Alvimar's eyes, caused it may be by the pleasure of meeting a friend, or by the hope of finding a means of escape from a perilous situation.

D'Alvimar rushed from the boudoir, and the heavy folding door was closed for an instant between him and his host.

Lucilio, seeing that the marquis was buried in painful thoughts, touched him as if to question him.

"Ah! my friend!" cried Bois-Doré, "to think that I cannot make up my mind what to do, and that I am in all likelihood the dupe of the most infernal knave that ever lived! I have taken the wrong course. I have exposed the good Mooress, and perhaps my child as well, to the vengeance and the snares of a most dangerous foe; I have been clumsy; I have furnished him with his grounds of defence by admitting that I did not know the lady's name, and now, whether the murderer's excuse is false or true, I no longer have the right to take his life. O God, Lord God! is it possible that honest men are doomed to be gulled by knaves, and that, in all sorts of war, the wicked are the most adroit and the strongest!"

As he spoke, the marquis, wroth with himself, struck the table a violent blow with his fist; then he rose to go to receive Guillaume D'Ars, whose jovial and untroubled voice he could hear in the next room.

But the mute hastily seized his arm with an inarticulate exclamation. He had in his hand an object to which he called the other's attention with a murmur of surprise and delight.

It was the ring, which the marquis had placed on his little finger, the mysterious ring which he had been unable to open, and which, as a result of the blow he had dealt the table, had separated into two hoops, one within the other. There was nothing in the way of secret mechanism. The parts fitted very closely, and a violent blow was necessary to separate them—that was all.

To read the names engraved on the two circles was a matter of an instant. They were the names of Florimond and his wife. Instantly they realized that they held the key to the situation.

The marquis rapidly gave Lucilio his orders, and went, with a light heart and smiling face, to press Guillaume's hand.

D'Alvimar and D'Ars had had barely time to exchange a few words concerning the former's agreeable surprise and the latter's pleasant journey. Guillaume, however, had noticed some alteration in his friend's face, which the Spaniard attributed to his headache of the preceding day.

The marquis, after exchanging greetings with his young kinsman, was about to order supper for him.

"No, thanks!" said Guillaume; "I took a mouthful on the road, while my horses were resting, for I must start again at once. You see I am returning sooner than I intended. I was advised yesterday at Saint-Armand, whither I had gone with a party of the young men of the province, as an honorary escort to Monseigneur de Condé, that my steward was very ill in my house. Fearing that he was going to die, the honest fellow sent a messenger to me to urge me to return as soon as possible, so that he might inform me as to the condition of my most important affairs, of which I confess that I know nothing at all. I have come here, however, in the first place, to ascertain if it will be convenient for Monsieur D'Alvimar to accompany me to-night, or if he is so attached to your gardens of Astrée, that he desires to pass another night amid their fascinations."

"No!" replied D'Alvimar hastily; "I have imposed upon monsieur le marquis's civility long enough. I am not well, and I might become ill-humored. I prefer to go with you now, and I will go to order my horses to be prepared as quickly as possible."

"That is unnecessary," said the marquis; "I will ring; I shall have the pleasure of seeing you again soon, Monsieur de Villareal."

"I shall come to-morrow to learn your wishes, monsieur le marquis, and to give you whatever satisfaction you desire—touching the game we were playing just now."

"What game were you playing?" said Guillaume.

"A very scientific game of chess," replied the marquis.

Adamas answered the bell.

"Monsieur de Villareal's horses and luggage," said Bois-Doré.

While the order was being executed, the marquis, with a tranquillity which led D'Alvimar to hope that everything was adjusted between them, told Guillaume how they had employed their time at Briantes and La Motte-Seuilly during his absence. Then he questioned him about the splendid festivities at Bourges.

The young man asked nothing better than to talk about them: he described the excitement of the target-shooting, or rather, as they said in those days, "of the honorable sport of arquebus-shooting."

The targets had been set up in the Fichaux meadow's, and a great tent decorated with tapestry and green boughs for the ladies, young and old. The contestants were stationed on a stand, a hundred and fifty paces from the tent. Six hundred and fifty-three arquebusiers entered the competition. Triboudet of Sancerre alone had won the prize: but he w as obliged to divide it with Boiron of Bourges, because he had taken a false name in order to be nearer the head of the list; whereat the people of Sancerre had made a great outcry, for they were bent upon proving that their marksmen were the best in the kingdom, and they considered the division of the prize very unfair. The unjust decision had evidently been made to avoid displeasing the people of Bourges.

"After all," said Guillaume, telling his story with the fire of youth, "Triboudet either won or lost. If he won, he is entitled to all the honor and all the profit of the victory. I agree that he is blameworthy for having taken a false name. Very good; for that lapse let them punish him by a fine or a few days in prison, but let him none the less be declared the winner of the prize; for the honor due to skill is a sacred thing, and although we were not at all fond of the old Sancerre sorcerers, there was not a gentleman who did not protest against the trick played on Triboudet. But what can you expect? the large places always consume the small ones, and the fat pettifoggers of Bourges unceremoniously take precedence over all the bourgeoisie of the province. They would gladly take precedence over the nobility, if they were allowed! I am only surprised that Issoudun concurred. Argenton abstained from voting, saying that the prize was awarded beforehand and that no one except the champions of Bourges had any chance before the judges of Bourges."

"And do you not believe that the prince had a hand in this injustice?" asked the marquis.

"I would not dare swear that he did not! He is paying assiduous court to the people of his good city; witness the fact that he has incurred considerable expense, although he is not at all fond of spending his money for the entertainment of other people. He is supporting at this moment two troupes of players, one French, the other Italian, who perform in the tennis-courts, beautifully decorated for the purpose."

"What!" said Bois-Doré, "did you see Monsieur de Belleroze's tragic actors? They are as tiresome as forty days of rain!"

"No, no; this troupe is called Sieur de Lambour's French Comedians, and there are some very clever people in it. But time flies, and here comes the faithful Adamas to say that the horses are ready, does he not? So let us be off, my dear Villareal, and as you have promised the marquis to come to-morrow to thank him, I invite myself to come with you."

"I rely upon seeing you," rejoined Bois-Doré.

"And you can also rely upon my furnishing you with proofs of all that I have alleged," said D'Alvimar, bowing very low.

Bois-Doré replied only with a bow.

Guillaume, who was in great haste to start, did not notice that the marquis, despite his apparent courtesy, refrained from offering his hand to the Spaniard, who dared not ask leave to touch his.

XXX

No sooner were they in the saddle than the marquis, turning to Adamas, said with much excitement:

"Quickly, my gorget, my helmet, my weapons, my horse and two men!"

"Everything is ready, monsieur," Adamas replied. "Master Jovelin advised us to prepare everything, saying that if Monsieur d'Ars went away again to-night, you would escort him. But for what purpose?"

"You shall know when I return," said the marquis, going up to his chamber to don his armor. "Was care taken to saddle the horses in the small stable, so that only the men who are to accompany me will know of our departure?"