"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 pa.s.ses 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 s.n.a.t.c.hed 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 G.o.d 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 n.o.bles 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 G.o.d!" St. Georges replied. "He has wronged many; surely justice will yet be done."

CHAPTER XIV.

"I MUST SPEAK!"

The Epiphany--called in old France, under the Bourbons, _la Fete des Rois_--was drawing to a close, as St. Georges, his handsome face looking very dejected and his heart heavy as lead within him, rode into Paris by the Charenton gate.

Not so entirely over, however, but that the streets were still crowded with holiday makers of all kinds, with those who were there solely to enjoy and amuse themselves, and also with those who sought to make profit out of the others. Moreover, still from all the towers and steeples the bells rang in honour of those who had died during the past year, so that, as Boileau sneeringly remarked, "_Pour honorer les morts ils font mourir les vivants_," while from the dark, sombre-looking houses--of which the same writer observed that they must have been built by philosophers instead of architects, so filthy were they without and so brilliant within--were still hung paper lanterns, flags, banners, and all kinds of devices and decorations.

St. Georges had found it difficult to pick his way through the many obstacles with which the streets were enc.u.mbered 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 _n.o.blesse_ and the _nouveaux riches_ pa.s.sed 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 pa.s.sengers--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]

[Footnote 5: See engravings of Della Bella, done at the time and representing such scenes.]

Because it was the Epiphany--the King's Fete--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 d.u.c.h.esses 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 ma.s.s 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. G.o.d 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 t.i.tle, 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 a.s.sistance 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 n.o.ble sympathy of that girl expressed in every glance of those pure eyes, were not, could not have been a.s.sumed--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 a.s.sa.s.sinated by De Roquemaure's va.s.sal--face to face with Pierre, the Bishop of Lodeve'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 Lodeve, 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 pa.s.sed 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.

"G.o.d, 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 _chaussee_.

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 va.s.sal 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 G.o.d!" 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 va.s.sal slew the man who had it in his keeping, though his _leman_--that I should p.r.o.nounce the word!--a.s.sisted that va.s.sal, yet De Roquemaure has not harmed it--will not harm it. Do you believe?"