Briefly St. Georges said to Louvois:

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

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

"Escort this gentleman to the courtyard."

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

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

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

"You will not?"

"I will not."

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

"The king _will_ see me, I think. Monsieur Louvois, I have a pet.i.tion to present to his Majesty."

"A pet.i.tion!"

"Against three of his subjects, all of whom, as I do believe before G.o.d, have been engaged in a most foul attempt against me and my child.

Monsieur le ministre, shall I mention the names of those subjects of the king?" and his eye glanced at the servant as he spoke.

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

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

"An a.s.sa.s.sin--a murderer!" exclaimed Louvois, stepping back, while his face blanched. "Explain yourself."

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

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

CHAPTER XVI.

PASQUEDIEU!

St. Georges was not, however, destined to arrive at Marly on that night, nor to see Louis and lay his story before him.

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

Therefore he pa.s.sed out into the street--since known in the present century as the Rue de Rivoli--and regained his horse from the _guet_ in whose custody he had left it.

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

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

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

"What have other men done," he pondered, "placed as I am--as I have placed myself? What shall I, a broken, ruined soldier, do? What? what?

Turn bully, as he accused me of being, and cutthroat, bravo, or thief--haunter of gambling h.e.l.ls and tripots? No! no! no! I am a gentleman, have always lived like one; so let me continue to the end.

Yet, what to do now?"

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

Then he decided suddenly, promptly, that the former was what he would do. If he could get the king's ear first, before Louvois, he might save himself. Louis was great of heart, in spite of his childish belief in his kingly attributes, of his love of splendour, and his vanity. Who could tell? A word with him--above all, a word breathed as to whom St. Georges believed himself to be--and he was safe. His father had been Louis's companion; he would not slay the son.

Safe--even though dismissed the army and stripped of his commission--able to stay in France, to return to Troyes, to seek and find his darling again!

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

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

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

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

The moon, which a few nights back had shown beneath its young rays the corpse hanging on the gibbet outside the city of Troyes, lit up now the road along which he pa.s.sed, disturbing on his way sometimes a deer in a thicket, sometimes a scurrying rabbit--they disturbing, too, the fiery creature he bestrode, and frightening it into a swifter pace.

Still, each moment brought him nearer to his destination, to the arbiter in whose hands his destiny was held; and, for the rest, he sat like a rock upon its back. Its gambades could not unseat him.

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Answer, monsieur," said St. Georges.

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

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

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

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