Lagardere smiled wistfully. "How if you were no longer to be a poor girl, Gabrielle? How if this visit to Paris were to change our fortunes?"

Gabrielle looked at him curiously. "Why have we come to Paris, Henri? I thought there was danger in Paris?"

"There was danger in Paris," Lagardere said, slowly--"grave danger. But I have seen a great man, and the danger has vanished, and you and I are coming to the end of our pilgrimage."

"The end of our pilgrimage?" echoed Gabrielle. "What is going to happen to us?"

"Wonderful things," Lagardere said, lightly--"beautiful things. You shall know all about them soon enough." To himself he whispered: "Too soon for me." Then he addressed the girl again, blithely: "When I took you to Madrid you saw the color of the court, you heard the music of festivals.

Did you not feel that you were made for such a life?"

Gabrielle answered instantly: "Yes, for that life--or any life--with you."

Lagardere protested: "Ah, but without me."

Gabrielle's graceful being seemed to stiffen a little, and her words gave an absolute decision: "Nothing without you, Henri."

Lagardere seemed to tempt the girl with his next speech: "Those women you saw had palaces, had n.o.ble kinsfolk, had mothers--"

Gabrielle was not to be tempted from her faith. "A mother is the only treasure I envy them," she said, firmly.

Lagardere looked at her strangely, and again questioned her. "But suppose you had a mother, and suppose you had to choose between that mother and me?"

For a moment Gabrielle paused. The question seemed to have a distressing effect upon her. She echoed his last words: "Between my mother and you."

Then she paused, and her lips trembled, but she spoke very steadily: "Henri, you are the first in the world for me."

Lagardere sighed. "You have never known a mother, but there are graver rivals to a friendship such as ours than a mother's love."

"What rivals can there be to our friendship?" Gabrielle asked.

Lagardere answered her sadly enough, though he seemed to smile: "A girl's love for a boy, a maid's love for a man. That pretty gentleman who was here but now, and swore he adored you--if you were n.o.ble, could you love such a man as he?"

Gabrielle began to laugh, as if all the agitations of the past instants had been dissipated into nothingness by the jest of such a question. "I swear to you, Henri," she said, softly, "that the man I could love would not be at all like Monsieur de Chavernay."

In spite of himself, Lagardere gave a sigh of relief. It was something, at least, to know whom Gabrielle de Nevers could not love. He essayed to laugh, too.

"What would he be like," he asked--"the wonder whom you would consent to love?"

He spoke very merrily, but it racked his heart to speak thus lightly of the love of Gabrielle. He wished that he were a little boy again, that he might hide behind some tree and cry out his grief in bitter tears. But being, as he reminded himself, a weather-beaten soldier of fortune, it was his duty to screen his misery with a grin and to salute his doom with amus.e.m.e.nt. As for Gabrielle, she came a little nearer to Lagardere, and her eyes were shining very brightly, and her lips trembled a little, and she seemed a little pale in the clear air.

"I will try to paint you a picture," she said, hesitatingly, "of the man I"--she paused for a second, and then continued, hurriedly--"of the man I could love. He would be about your height, as I should think, to the very littlest of an inch; and he would be built as you are built, Henri; and his hair would be of your color, and his eyes would have your fire; and his voice would have the sound of your voice, the sweetest sound in the world; and the sweetest sound of that most sweet voice would be when it whispered to me that it loved me."

Lagardere looked at her with haggard, happy eyes. He could not misunderstand, and he was happy; he dared not understand, and he was sad.

"Gabrielle," he said, softly, "when you were a little maid I used to tell you tales to entertain you. Will you let me spin you a fable now?"

The girl said nothing; only she nodded, and she looked at him very fixedly. Lagardere went on:

"There was once a man, a soldier of fortune, an adventurous rogue, into whose hands a jesting destiny confided a great trust. That trust was the life of a child, of a girl, of a woman, whom it was his glory to defend for a while with his sword against many enemies."

"I think he defended her very well," Gabrielle interrupted, gently.

Lagardere held up a warning finger.

"Hush," he said. "What I am speaking of took place ages ago, when the world was ever so much younger, in the days of Charlemagne and Caesar and Achilles and other great princes long since withered, so you can know nothing at all about it. But this rogue of my story had a sacred duty to fulfil. He had to restore to this charge, this ward of his, the name, the greatness, that had been stolen from her. It was his mission to give her back the gifts which had been filched from her by treason. For seventeen years he had lived for this purpose, and only for this purpose, crushing all other thoughts, all other hopes, all other dreams. What would you say of such a man, so sternly dedicated to so great a faith, if he were to prove false to his trust, and to allow his own mad pa.s.sion to blind him to the light of loyalty, to deafen him to the call of honor?"

He was looking away from her as he spoke, but the girl came close to him and caught his hands, and made him turn his face to her, and each saw that the other's eyes were wet. Gabrielle spoke steadily, eagerly:

"You say that what you speak of happened very long ago. But we are to-day as those were yesterday, and if I were the maid of your tale I would say to the man that love is the best thing a true man can give to a true woman, and that a woman who wore my body could lose no wealth, no kingdom, to compare with the rich treasure of her lover's heart."

There was no mistaking the meaning of the girl, the meaning ringing in her words, shining in her eyes, appealing in her out-stretched arms. To Lagardere it seemed as if the kingdom of the world were offered to him.

He had but to keep silence, and his heart's desire was his. But he remembered the night in the moat of Caylus, he remembered the purpose of long years, he remembered his duty, he remembered his honor, and he grappled with the dragon of pa.s.sion, with the dragon of desire. Very calmly he touched for a moment, with caressing hand, the hair of Gabrielle. Very quietly he spoke.

"We are taking my fairy tale too gravely," he said. "It all happened long ago, and has nothing to do with us. Our story is very different, and our story is coming to a wonderful conclusion. This day is your last day of doubt and ignorance, of solitude and poverty." He turned a little away from her and murmured to himself: "It is also my last day of youth and joy and hope."

Gabrielle pressed her hands against her b.r.e.a.s.t.s for a moment, like one in great dismay. The tears welled into her eyes. Then she gave a little moan of wonder and protest, and sprang towards him with out-stretched hands.

"Do you not understand?" she cried. "Henri, Henri, I love you."

Lagardere grasped the out-stretched hands, and in another moment would have caught the girl in his arms, but a dry, crackling laugh arrested him. Gently restraining Gabrielle's advance, he turned his head and saw standing upon the bridge surveying him and Gabrielle a sinister figure.

It was aesop, returning from his stroll with Monsieur Peyrolles, who had paused on the bridge in cynical amus.e.m.e.nt of what he conceived to be a lovers' meeting between countryman and countrymaid, but whose face now flushed with a sudden interest as he recognized the face of the man in the gypsy habit.

Lagardere turned again to Gabrielle, and his face was calm and smiling.

"Go in-doors," he said, pleasantly, "I will join you by-and-by."

Gabrielle, in her turn, had glanced at the sinister figure on the bridge, and, seeing the malevolence of its att.i.tude, of its expression, had drawn back with a faint cry. "Henri," she said--"Henri, who is that watching us? He looks so evil."

Lagardere had recognized aesop as instantly as aesop had recognized Lagardere. aesop now came slowly towards them, addressing them mockingly: "Do not let me disturb you. Life is brief, but love is briefer."

Lagardere again commanded Gabrielle: "Go in, child, at once."

"Are you in danger?" Gabrielle asked, fearfully.

Lagardere shook his head and repeated his command: "No. Go in at once.

Wait in your room until I come for you."

aesop looked at him with raised eyebrows and a wicked grin. "Why banish the lady? She might find my tale entertaining."

At an imperative signal from Lagardere, Gabrielle entered the Inn.

Lagardere then advanced towards aesop, who watched him with folded arms and his familiar malevolent smile. When they were quite close, aesop greeted Lagardere:

"So the rat has come to the trap at last. Lagardere in Paris--ha, ha!"

Lagardere looked at him ponderingly. "The thought amuses you."

aesop's grin deepened. "Very much. Before nightfall you will be in prison."

Lagardere seemed to deny him. "I think not. You carry a sword and can use it. You shall fight for your life, like your fellow-a.s.sa.s.sins."

aesop looked about him. "I have but to raise my voice. There must be people within call even in this sleepy neighborhood."

Lagardere still smiled, and the smile was still provocative. "But if you raise your voice I shall be reluctantly compelled to stab you where you stand. Ah, coward, can you only fight in the dark when you are nine to one?"