"What?" I said.

"You come from Cahors, M. le Vicomte?"

"Well?"

"So do these women; or they say they do. The prisoners."

"From Cahors?"

"Yes. It is odd now," he continued, rubbing his chin, "but when I read your commission I did not think of that."

I shrugged my shoulders impatiently. "It does not follow that I am in the plot," I said. "For goodness sake, M. le Maire, do not let us open the case again. You have seen my papers, and----"

"Tut! tut!" he said. "That is not my meaning. But you may know these persons."

"Oh!" I said; and then I sat a moment, staring at him between the candles, my hand raised, a morsel on my fork. A wild extravagant thought had flashed into my mind. Two ladies from Cahors? From Cahors, of all places? "How do they call themselves?" I asked.

"Corvas," he answered.

"Oh! Corvas," I said, falling to eating again, and putting the morsel into my mouth. And I went on with my supper.

"Yes. A merchant's wife, she says she is. But you shall see her."

"I don't remember the name," I answered.

"Still, you may know them," he rejoined, with the dull persistence of a man of few ideas. "It is just possible that we have made a mistake, for we found no papers in the carriage, and only one thing that seemed suspicious."

"What was that?"

"A red c.o.c.kade."

"A red c.o.c.kade?"

"Yes," he answered. "The badge of the old Leaguers, you know."

"But," I said, "I have not heard of any party adopting that."

He rubbed his bald head a little doubtfully. "No," he said, "that is true. Still, it is a colour we don't like here. And two ladies travelling alone--alone, Monsieur! Then their driver, a half-witted fellow, who said that they had engaged him at Rodez, though he denied stoutly that he had seen the Capuchin, told two or three tales. However, if you will eat no more, M. le Vicomte, I will take you to see them. You may be able to speak for or against them."

"If you do not think that it is too late?" I said, shrinking somewhat from the interview.

"Prisoners must not be choosers," he answered, with an unpleasant chuckle. And he called from the door for a lantern and his cloak.

"The ladies are not here, then?" I said.

"No," he answered, with a wink. "Safe bind, safe find! But they have nothing to cry about. There are one or two rough fellows in the clink, so Babet, the jailer, has given them room in his house."

At this moment the lantern came, and the Mayor having wrapped his portly person in a cloak, we pa.s.sed out of the house. The square outside was utterly dark, such lights as had been burning when I arrived had been extinguished, perhaps by the wind, which was rising, and now blew keenly across the open s.p.a.ce. The yellow glare of the lantern was necessary, but though it showed us a few feet of the roadway, and enabled us to pick our steps, it redoubled the darkness beyond; I could not see even the line of the roofs, and had no idea in what direction we had gone or how far, when M. Flandre halted abruptly, and, raising the lantern, threw its light on a greasy stone wall, from which, set deep in the stone-work, a low iron-studded door frowned on us. About the middle of the door hung a huge knocker, and above it was a small grille.

"Safe bind, safe find!" the Mayor said again with a fat chuckle; but, instead of raising the knocker, he drew his stick sharply across the bars of the grille.

The summons was understood and quickly answered. A face peered a moment through the grating; then the door opened to us. The Mayor took the lead, and we pa.s.sed in, out of the night, into a close, warm air reeking of onions and foul tobacco, and a hundred like odours. The jailer silently locked the door behind us, and, taking the Mayor's lantern from him, led the way down a grimy, low-roofed pa.s.sage barely wide enough for one man. He halted at the first door on the left of the pa.s.sage, and threw it open.

M. Flandre entered first, and, standing while he removed his hat, for an instant filled the doorway. I had time to hear and note a burst of obscene singing, which came from a room farther down the pa.s.sage; and the frequent baying of a prison-dog, that, hearing us, flung itself against its chain, somewhere in the same direction. I noted, too, that the walls of the pa.s.sage in which I stood were dingy and trickling with moisture, and then a voice, speaking in answer to M. Flandre's salutation, caught my ear and held me motionless.

The voice was Madame's--Madame de St. Alais'!

It was fortunate that I had entertained, though but a second, the wild, extravagant thought that had occurred to me at supper; for in a measure it had prepared me. And I had little time for other preparation, for thought, or decision. Luckily the room was thick with vile tobacco smoke, and the steam from linen drying by the fire; and I took advantage of a fit of coughing, partly a.s.sumed, to linger an instant on the threshold after M. Flandre had gone in. Then I followed him.

There were four people in the room besides the Mayor, but I had no eyes for the frowsy man and woman who sat playing with a filthy pack of cards at a table in the middle of the floor. I had only eyes for Madame and Mademoiselle, and them I devoured. They sat on two stools on the farther side of the hearth; the girl with her head laid wearily back against the wall, and her eyes half-closed; the mother, erect and watchful, meeting the Mayor's look with a smile of contempt. Neither the prison-house, nor danger, nor the companionship of this squalid hole had had power to reduce her fine spirit; but as her eyes pa.s.sed from the Mayor and encountered mine, she started to her feet with a gasping cry, and stood staring at me.

It was not wonderful that for a second, peering through the reek, she doubted. But one there was there who did not doubt. Mademoiselle had sprung up in alarm at the sound of her mother's cry, and for the briefest moment we looked at one another. Then she sank back on her stool, and I heard her break into violent crying.

"Hallo!" said the Mayor. "What is this?"

"A mistake, I fear," I said hoa.r.s.ely, in words I had already composed. "I am thankful, Madame," I continued, bowing to her with distant ceremony, and as much indifference as I could a.s.sume, "that I am so fortunate as to be here."

She muttered something and leaned against the wall. She had not yet recovered herself.

"You know the ladies?" the Mayor said, turning to me and speaking roughly; even with a tinge of suspicion in his voice. And he looked from one to the other of us sharply.

"Perfectly," I said.

"They are from Cahors?"

"From that neighbourhood."

"But," he said, "I told you their names, and you said that you did not know them, M. le Vicomte?"

For a moment I held my breath; gazing into Madame's face and reading there anxiety, and something more--a sudden terror. I took the leap--I could do nothing else. "You told me Corvas--that the lady's name was Corvas," I muttered.

"Yes," he said.

"But Madame's name is Correas."

"Correas?" he repeated, his jaw falling.

"Yes, Correas. I dare say that the ladies," I continued with a.s.sumed politeness, "did not in their fright speak very clearly."

"And their name is Correas?"

"I told you that it was," Madame answered, speaking for the first time, "and also that I knew nothing of your Capuchin monk. And this last," she continued earnestly, her eyes fixed on mine in pa.s.sionate appeal--in appeal that this time could not be mistaken--"I say again, on my honour!"

I knew that she meant this for me; and I responded to the cry. "Yes, M. le Maire," I said, "I am afraid that you have made a mistake. I can answer for Madame as for myself."

The Mayor rubbed his head.

CHAPTER XVI.

THREE IN A CARRIAGE.

"Of course, if Madame--if Madame knows nothing of the monk," he said, looking vacantly about the dirty room, "it is clear that--it seems clear that there has been a mistake."

"And only one thing remains to be done," I suggested.

"But--but," he continued, with a resumption of his former importance, "there is still one point unexplained--that of the red c.o.c.kade, Monsieur? What of that, M. le Vicomte?"

"The red c.o.c.kade?" I said.

"Ay, what of that?" he asked briskly.

I had not expected this, and I looked desperately at Madame. Surely her woman's wit would find a way, whatever the c.o.c.kade meant. "Have you asked Madame Correas?" I said at last, feebly shifting the burden. "Have you asked her to explain it?"

"No," he answered.

"Then I would ask her," I said.

"Nay, do not ask me; ask M. le Vicomte," she answered lightly. "Ask him of what colour are the facings of the National Guards of Quercy?"

"Red!" I cried, in a burst of relief. "Red!" I knew, for had I not seen Buton's coat lying by the forge? But how Madame de St. Alais knew I have no idea.

"Ah!" M. Flandre said, with the air of one still a little doubtful. "And Madame wears the c.o.c.kade for that reason?"

"No, M. le Maire," she answered, with a roguish smile; I saw that it was her plan to humour him. "I do not--my daughter does. If you wish to ask further, or the reason, you must ask her."

M. Flandre had the curiosity of the true bourgeois, and the love of the s.e.x. He simpered. "If Mademoiselle would be so good," he said.

Denise had remained up to this point hidden behind her mother, but at the word she crept out, and reluctantly and like a prisoner brought to the bar, stood before us. It was only when she spoke, however, nay, it was not until she had spoken some words that I understood the full change that I saw in her; or why, instead of the picture of pallid weariness which she had presented a few minutes before, she now showed, as she stood forward, a face covered with blushes, and eyes shining and suffused.

"It is simple, Monsieur," she said in a low voice. "My fiance, M. le Maire, is in that regiment."

"And you wear it for that reason?" the Mayor cried, delighted.

"I love him," she said softly. And for a moment--for a moment her eyes met mine.

Then I know not which was the redder, she or I; or which found that vile and filthy room more like a palace, its tobacco-laden air more sweet! I had not dreamed what she was going to say, least of all had I dreamed what her eyes said, as for that instant they met mine and turned my blood to fire! I lost the Mayor's blunt answer and his chuckling laugh; and only returned to a sense of the present when Mademoiselle slipped back to hide her burning face behind her mother, and I saw in her place Madame, facing me, with her finger to her lip, and a glance of warning in her eyes.

It was a warning not superfluous, for in the flush of my first enthusiasm I might have said anything. And the Mayor was in better hands than mine. The little touch of romance and sentiment which Mademoiselle's avowal had imported into the matter, had removed his last suspicion and won his heart. He ogled Madame, he beamed on the girl with fatherly gallantry. He made a jest of the monk.

"A mistake, and yet one I cannot deplore, Madame," he protested, with clumsy civility. "For it has given me the pleasure of seeing you."

"Oh, M. le Maire!" Madame simpered.

"But the state of the country is really such," he continued, "that for the beautiful s.e.x to be travelling alone is not safe. It exposes them----"

"To worse rencontres than this, I fear," Madame said, darting a look from her fine eyes. "If this were the worst we poor women had to fear!" And she looked at him again.

"Ah, Madame!" he said, delighted.

"But, alas, we have no escort."

The fat Mayor sighed, I think that he was going to offer himself. Then a thought struck him. "Perhaps this gentleman," and he turned to me. "You go to Nimes, M. le Vicomte?"

"Yes," I said. "And, of course, if Madame Correas----"

"Oh, it would be troubling M. le Vicomte," Madame said; and she went a step farther from me and a step nearer to M. Flandre, as if he must understand her hesitation.

"I am sure it could be no trouble to any one!" he answered stoutly. "But for the matter of that, if M. le Vicomte perceives any difficulty," and he laid his hand on his heart, "I will find some one----"

"Some one?" Madame said archly.

"Myself," the Mayor answered.

"Ah!" she cried, "if you----"

But I thought that now I might safely step in. "No, no," I said. "M. le Maire is taking all against me. I can a.s.sure you, Madame, I shall be glad to be of service to you. And our roads lie together. If, therefore----"

"I shall be grateful," Madame answered with a delightful little courtesy. "That is, if M. le Maire will let out his poor prisoners. Who, as he now knows, have done nothing worse than sympathise with National Guards."

"I will take it on myself, Madame," M. Flandre said, with vast importance. He had been brought to the desired point. "The case is quite clear. But----" he paused and coughed slightly, "to avoid complications, you had better leave early. When you are gone, I shall know what explanations to give. And if you would not object to spending the night here," he continued, looking round him, with a touch of sheepishness, "I think that----"

"We shall mind it less than before," Madame said, with a look and a sigh. "I feel safe since you have been to see us." And she held out a hand that was still white and plump.

The Mayor kissed it.

As I walked, a few minutes later, across the square, picking my steps by the yellow light of M. Flandre's lantern, and at times enveloped in the flying skirt of his cloak--for the good man had his own visions and for a hundred yards together forgot his company--I could have thought all that had pa.s.sed a dream; so unreal seemed the squalid prison-lodging I had just left, so marvellous the ladies' presence in it, so incredible Mademoiselle's blushing avowal made to my face. But a wheezing clock overhead struck the hour before midnight, and I counted the strokes; a watchman, not far from me, cried, after the old fashion, that it was eleven o'clock and a fine night; and I stumbled over a stone. No, I was not dreaming.

But if I had to stumble then, to persuade myself that I was awake, how was it with me next morning, when, with the first glimmer of light, I walked beside the carriage from the inn to the prison, and saw, before I reached the gloomy door, Madame and Mademoiselle standing shivering under the wall beside it? How was it with me when I held Mademoiselle's hand in mine, as I helped her in, and then followed her in and sat opposite to her--sat opposite to her with the knowledge that I was so to sit for days, that I was to be her fellow-traveller, that we were to go to Nimes together?

Ah, how was it, indeed? But there is nothing quite perfect; there is no hour in which a man says that he is quite happy; and a shadow of fear and stealth darkened my bliss that morning. The Mayor was there to see us start, and I fancy that it was his face of apprehension that lay at the bottom of this feeling. A moment, however, and the face was gone from the window; another, and the carriage began to roll quickly through the dim streets, while we lay back, each in a corner, hidden by the darkness even from one another. Still, we had the gates to pa.s.s, and the guard; or the watch might stop us, or some early-rising townsman, or any one of a hundred accidents. My heart beat fast.

But all went well. Within five minutes we had pa.s.sed the gates and left them behind us, and were rolling in safety along the road. The dawn was no more than grey, the trees showed black against the sky, as we crossed the Tarn by the great bridge, and began to climb the valley of the Dourbie.

I have said that we could not see one another. But on a sudden Madame laughed out of the darkness of her corner. "O Richard, O mon Roi!" she hummed. Then "The fat fool!" she cried; and she laughed again.

I thought her cruel, and almost an ingrate; but she was Mademoiselle's mother, and I said nothing. Mademoiselle was opposite to me, and I was happy. I was happy, thinking what she would say to me, and how she would look at me, when the day came and she could no longer escape my eyes; when the day came and the dainty, half-shrouded face that already began to glimmer in the roomy corner of the old berlin should be mine to look on, to feast my eyes on, to question and read through long days and hours of a journey, a journey through heaven!

Already it was growing light; I had but a little longer to wait. A rosy flush began to tinge one half the sky; the other half, pale blue and flecked with golden clouds, lay behind us. A few seconds, and the mountain tips caught the first rays of the sun, and floated far over us, in golden ether. I cast one greedy glance at Mademoiselle's face, saw there the dawn out-blushed, I met for one second her eyes and saw the glory of the ether outshone--and then I looked away, trembling. It seemed sacrilege to look longer.