CHAPTER XXIX.

FAREWELL HOPE!

"Madame," the waiting maid said to her the next afternoon, "the gentleman is desirous of setting forth upon his journey again. He is well now, he says, and he has far to ride."

"Well," said la baronne, glancing up from the lounge on which she lay in her _salon_ and speaking in her usual cold tones, "he may go. What is there to detain him? The surgeon says he is fit to travel, does he not? His was but a fit from long riding in the sun."

"Yes, my lady--but----"

"But what?"

"My lady, he _is_ a gentleman--none can doubt that. He--he is desirous to speak with you--to----"

"To speak with me?" and from her dark eyes there shot a gleam that the woman before her did not understand. Nor did she understand why her ladyship's colour left her face so suddenly. "To speak with me?"

"Yes, my lady. To, he says, thank you for your charity to him a stranger--for your hospitality."

"My hospitality!" and she drew a long breath. Then, and it seemed to the waiting maid as if her mistress had grown suddenly hoa.r.s.e, "He said that?"

"He said so, madame. He begged you would not refuse to let him make the only return that lay in his power."

"I will not see him."

"Madame!"

"I will not see him--go--tell him so. No! Yet, stay, on further consideration I will. Go. Bring him."

Left alone, she threw herself back once more on the cushions of her lounge, muttering to herself: "After all," she said, "it is best. He never saw my face on that night--the mask did not fall from it until his back was turned--I remember it all well--Raoul's cry for help--this one's determination--my blow. Ah, the blow! It should never have been struck--yet--yet--otherwise he had slain Raoul. And," she continued rapidly, for she knew that the man would be here in a moment, "and I may find out if he knows who and what he is. If he guesses also the fate in store for him."

Rapidly she went to a cabinet in this great _salon_, took out from it a little dagger, and dropped it in the folds of her dress, muttering: "It may be needed again. He may recognise me even after so long and in such different surroundings," and then turned and faced the door at which a knocking was now heard. A moment later St. Georges was in the room.

Pale from the loss of blood he had sustained both from his fall and at the surgeon's hands, and looking much worn by all he had suffered of late--to say nothing of the two years of slavery he had undergone--he still presented a figure that, to an ordinary woman, would have been interesting and have earned her sympathy. His long hair was now brushed carefully and fell in graceful folds behind; his face, if worn and sad, was as handsome as it had ever been. Even his travel-stained garments, now carefully cleaned and brushed, were not unbecoming to him. And she, regarding him fixedly, felt at last a spark of compunction rise in her bosom for all that she had done against him.

Yet it must be stifled, she knew. That very morning's work--a letter to the commandant at the castle--had been sufficient to make all regret unavailing now.

"Madame," he said, bending low before her with the courtesy of the period, "I could not leave your house without desiring first to thank you for the protection you have afforded me. And, poor and unknown as I am, I yet beseech you to believe that my grat.i.tude is very great.

You succoured me in my hour of need, madame; for that succour let me thank you." And stooping his knee he courteously endeavoured to take her hand.

But--none are all evil--even Nathalie de Louvigny would not suffer that. Drawing back from him, she exclaimed instead: "Sir, you have nothing to thank me for. I--I--what I did I should have done to any whom I had found as you were."

He raised his eyes and looked at her. A chord or tone in her voice seemed to recall something in the past, and she standing there divined that such was the case. Then he said, quietly:

"Madame, I can well believe it. Charity does not discriminate in its objects. Yet, since I so happened to be that object, I must thank you.

Madame, it is not probable that I shall ever visit Rambouillet again, nor, indeed, France after a little while; let an----"

"Not visit France again!" she exclaimed, staring open-eyed at him.

"Are you not a Frenchman?"

"Madame, I was a Frenchman. I am so no longer. I have parted with France forever. In another week, or as soon after that as possible, I intend to quit France and never to return to it."

She took a step back from him, amazed--terrified. What had she done!

This man had renounced France forever--would have crossed her and Raoul's path no more--have resigned all claim to all that was his. And she had taken a step that would lead to his being detained in France--that might, though his chance was remote, lead to his true position being known. Yet, was it too late to undo that which she had done? Was it?

She had bidden the officer in command at the _chateau_, who aspired to her regard, send to her house that night and arrest a man who, she had every reason to believe, had escaped from the galleys. Also she had warned him to let no man pa.s.s the gate without complete explanation as to who and what he was; and he had sent back word thanking her, and saying that, provided the person of whom she spoke did not endeavour to leave Rambouillet before sunset, he would have him arrested at her house. She had done this in early morning; now the sunset was at hand.

Ere long the soldiers would be here, and he would be detained--would speak--might be listened to. She had set the trap, and she herself was snared in it.

Yet, she remembered, she wanted one other thing--revenge for the opprobrious word he had applied to her long ago. If he quitted France she must forego that. But need she forego it? He had spoken of himself in lowly terms--was it possible he still did not know who he was, as De Roquemaure had told her long ago he did not know then? The revenge might still be hers if he knew nothing. She must find that out if she could.

"Monsieur must have very little in France that he deems of worth," she said, "since he is so desirous of quitting it. There are few of our countrymen who willingly exchange the land of their birth for another."

She had seated herself as she spoke before a table on which stood a tall, thin vase filled with roses; and she caught now in her hands the folds of the tablecloth, while he standing there before her saw these signs of emotion. Also he observed that her eyes sparkled with an unnatural light, and that her upper lip, owing to some nervous contraction, was drawn back a little, so that her small white teeth were very visible. And as he so observed her and noticed these things, the certainty came to him that they had met before. But where? He could not remember at first--could not recall where he had seen a woman seated at a table as she was now seated, clutching the folds of the cloth in her hands.

"My countrymen," he said, still vainly wondering, "have not often suffered as I have suffered--have not such reasons, perhaps, for quitting their native land forever."

"What reasons?" and as she spoke her nervousness was such that she released the folds of the cloth which her left hand grasped, and with that hand toyed with the slim vase before her which contained the roses.

And this further action stirred his memory still more. When had he seen a woman seated thus, her hand trifling first with a table cover, then with some object on the table itself? When?

"Reasons so deep, so profound," he said, "that scarce any who knew of them would be surprised at my resolve: a career cruelly blighted for no fault of my own; my life attempted secretly, murderously; my little child doomed to a.s.sa.s.sination; the wrongdoer in my power, a treacherous stab from behind--" He paused amazed.

The woman's right hand--the left now gathering up the folds of the cloth again in its small palm--had dropped to the side of her dress, was thrust into a pocket in that side, was feeling for, perhaps grasping, something within that pocket. That action aided remembrance and cleared away all wonder. Swift as the lightning flashes, there flashed to his recollection the woman who had sat at the table of the inn--the woman whom, as he and De Roquemaure had once changed places as they fought, he had seen seize the flask of wine with her left hand, her right grasping her small dagger. _And this was the woman!_ The drawn-back lip, the gla.s.sy stare with which she regarded him in the swift-coming darkness of the summer evening, all reproduced the scene of that night--a scene which, until now, he had almost forgotten amid the crowd of other events that had taken place since then.

Advancing a step nearer to her, so that he stood towering above, he said, his voice deep and solemn:

"It is strange, madame, how we stand face to face once more--alone together. Is it not? It was your hand dealt that stab!"

She could not answer him, could only regard him fixedly, her eyes glaring as they had glared four years ago, and as they had glared not four minutes since. Only now it was with the wild stare of fear added to hate and fury, and not with hate and fury alone; also she kept still her right hand in the fold of her dress.

"When last we met, madame," St. Georges continued, his voice low and solemn as before, "you interfered between me and my vengeance on one who had deeply wronged me. You had the power to do so, bore about you a concealed weapon, and--used it! Have you one now?" and he pointed with his finger to where her hand was.

Still she maintained silence--trembling all over and affrighted; even the arm hanging down by her side with the hand in the pocket was trembling too.

"Well," St. Georges said, "it matters not! I shall not give you a second opportunity--shall not turn my back on you."

Then she spoke, roused by the contempt of those last words.

"I would not have struck at you," she said, "even though I loved De Roquemaure--am his affianced wife when he returns from England----"

"When--he--returns--from England!" St. Georges repeated, astonished.

"Yes. His affianced wife." In her tremor she thought his disbelief of this was the cause of his astonishment, never dreaming of how he had last left her lover. "Not even for that love. But you had abused, insulted me, called me wanton, suggested it was I who stole your child. And you were very masterful, ordered us to follow you into the inn, carried all before you, treated him like a dog, would have slain him----"

"I have since learned I wronged you, at least; that it was another--woman--who stole my child. But enough. We have met again, madame, and--and--I must----"

"What!" she gasped, thinking he was about to slay her. "What will you do to me?"

"Do!" he replied. "Do! What should I do?"