All through that summer night they rode--resting their horses occasionally at country inns, then going on again, though slowly, and at dawn changing them for others and leaving them to rest until they should return that way. And so at last they neared Troyes, pa.s.sing through the little town of Nogent, and seeing, ten miles off, the spire of the cathedral glistening in the rays of the bright sun.

"She will not know me," St. Georges had said more than once, as he thought of Dorine. "She was a babe when I lost her, now she is a child possessing speech and intelligence. May G.o.d grant it is not too late; that she is not too old yet to learn to love me!"

"Courage! _mon ami_, courage!" exclaimed Boussac, repeating a formula he had adopted from the first; "all must be well."

But--it was natural--as they approached their destination, the goal from which St. Georges hoped so much, his nervousness increased terribly and he began to speculate as to whether the child might not after all be dead; if, perhaps, she might not have lain in her little grave for long. "And then how will it be with me, Boussac? Oh! if she is dead how shall I reckon with the woman who possessed herself of her?"

"Courage!" again repeated the mousquetaire, "I do not believe she is dead. And if mademoiselle did seize upon her--well, she is a woman! a better nurse than the bishop's servant."

"Ah! the bishop's servant! That too has to be explained. What was he doing with her? I have wondered all these years--De Roquemaure's dying words told nothing. 'He had got her safe,' he gasped at the last. But why he? Why he! Oh! shall I ever know all?"

"Ere long, I hope, my friend," said Boussac, "ere long now."

As he spoke, they mounted the last hill that guarded the capital of Champagne and approached the summit. When there, they would be able to look down upon the old city--nay, more, from there they would scarce be a musket shot from the manoir, surrounded now by its ripening vineyards and its woods. She, the kidnapper of his child, would be in his grasp, must answer his demand!

Upon the summit of that hill still stood the gibbet on which the peasant woman's husband had swung, but the body was gone--long since, doubtless--and the gallows tree was bare. "Perhaps," said St. Georges, "the poor thing obtained him decent burial at last. I hope so." Then, seeing a peasant coming along the road, he spoke to him, and asked him what had become of the corpse that hung there four years ago? The fellow looked up at him sullenly enough and stared hard for some moments; then he said:

"You are not De Roquemaure?"

"Nay."

"What affair is it then of yours?"

St. Georges explained briefly to him how he had met the dead man's wife and pitied her, and asked where she was.

"Mad," the man said. "Quite mad. Her brother keeps her." Then he muttered: "A curse on the De Roquemaures, and on him above all! His father was bad; he is worse."

"You need curse him no more," St. Georges answered; "he is dead!"

"Dead is he? Then he was the last; the woman counts not. Dead! Oh, that she whom he injured so could understand it! Dead, thank G.o.d! I would it were so with all aristocrats! France has suffered long."

A hundred years almost were to elapse ere the peasant's hopes were to be partly realized, and others like the De Roquemaures to meet their reward; but none foresaw it in those days. Later the clouds gathered, but even then the fury of the coming storm was not perceived.

"Give her this," said St. Georges, putting some of his few remaining pieces in his hand, he having provided himself with French gold for his English guineas.

"Or give it to the brother who has charge of her. I, too, have suffered at the hands of the De Roquemaures."

"And you forgive?" glancing up from the pistoles in his hand to the dark, stern face above him. "You forgive?"

"Not yet!"

Then he urged on his horse again, Boussac following him.

"But you will, my friend, you will," he said, as they rode down the slope. "In the name of the good G.o.d who forgives all, forgive her, I implore you!"

"Forgive her? I will never forgive her! I have forgiven that other who lies in a thousand pieces at the bottom of the sea, but her reckoning is yet to come. She stole my child from me, she lied to me in Paris, sympathized with me on my loss when, at the time, she knew where that child was; drove me to draw on Louvois, and thereby to my ruin. I will never forgive her! And if she now refuses to restore the child, then--But enough! Come," and shaking his horse's reins he rode down the vine-clad roads to the front of the manoir.

It frowned as before on the slope below it, presented on this bright summer morning as grim, impa.s.sable a front as on that winter night when first he drew rein outside it; beyond the huge hatchment now nailed on its front in memory of the late marquise nothing was changed. It looked to St. Georges's eyes a fitting place to enshroud the evil doings of the family he had hated so bitterly, and of the one representative now left whom he hated too.

Seizing the horn as he had seized it long ago in the murkiness of that winter night, he blew upon it and then waited to be answered. He had not long to do so; a moment later the old warder who had once before opened the small door under the _tourelle_ stood before him.

"Is Mademoiselle de Roquemaure in her house?" he asked sternly, while Boussac, sitting his horse behind him, uttered no word.

"She is in her house, monsieur."

"You know me. I have been here before. Say I have ridden express from Paris to see her and must do so at once."

"I will say so, monsieur. Be pleased to enter."

CHAPTER x.x.xV.

AT LAST.

It seemed almost as if he had been expected from his appearance being received in so matter-of-fact a way. Yet, he reflected, why should it be otherwise? Aurelie de Roquemaure could scarce know of all that had happened to him of late--above all could not be aware that he had become possessed of the information that she was the kidnapper of Dorine.

He had, however, but little time for reflection since Boussac was by his side, and, when they dismounted from their horses, had followed him into the large sombre hall to which the old servant had led the way. Yet, when the man had gone to seek his mistress, the latter took one more opportunity to plead that he should be gentle with her.

"Remember," he said, "remember, I beseech you, that you have but her brother's word for what you suspect her of; he was a villain, he might have lied in his last moments for some reason--perhaps did not even think those last moments were in truth at hand; might have hoped to escape after all and profit by the lie. Remember! Oh, remember!"

"I will remember," St. Georges said. Then, with one glance at Boussac, he added, "But the villain did not lie _then_!"

The domestic came back, and St. Georges learned that the hour for his explanation, long sought and meditated upon, was at hand. "His mistress would see monsieur," he said. He would conduct him to her.

In the same room where he had first set eyes on Aurelie de Roquemaure he saw her again--the old man ushering him in and then swiftly leaving the room. They were face to face at last! As it had been before, so it was now--her beauty as she rose on his entrance was strikingly apparent, compelled regard. And the four years that had pa.s.sed since that first meeting had done much to increase, to ripen that beauty; instead of the budding girl it was a stately woman who now met his eyes. And the contrast between them was great, was all to her advantage so far as exterior matters were concerned: he travel-stained, worn, and with now in his long hair some streaks of gray; she fresh and beautiful in the long black lace dress she wore, a rose in her bosom, her hair undisguised by any wig and swept back into a huge knot behind. "How beautiful she is!" he thought, as he gave her one glance, "yet how base and contemptible!"

With a swift movement she came toward him from the further end of the room, her hands extended and her eyes sparkling, exclaiming as she advanced: "You are free! you are free!" But her greeting met with no response from him. Could she have expected it, he wondered? Then he stepped back and coldly said:

"Yes, Mademoiselle de Roquemaure, I am free," while to himself he said: "So she knew that too. That I was trapped! G.o.d! That womankind can be so base!"

Staggered at the coldness of his first words, affronted at his refusal to take her outstretched hands, she drew back and looked at him calmly. Then she said, quietly, "I rejoice to know it," and, pausing, looked at him again.

"Mademoiselle de Roquemaure," he said, "I have not ridden here from Paris, from a prison which at one time I scarce thought to leave except for the wheel, to interchange idle compliments. I have come here with one set purpose, to learn what you have done with my child--the child you stole from the Bishop of Lodeve's servant on the morning that your servant gave that man his death wound."

His eyes were intent upon her as he spoke, watching her eagerly. Yet, to his surprise, she neither started nor paled at his accusation.

Instead, she said quietly:

"You know that?"

"Yes," he replied; "I know it."

"And your informant was----?"

"Your brother, or half-brother. With his dying words."

"He was slain at La Hogue; ah, yes! you were there! I remember. Was it you who slew him?"