As for St. Auban, Vilmorin's flight left him unequal to the task of dragging the girl along. She dug her heels into the ground, and, tug as he might, for all that he set both hands to work, he could not move her.

In this plight I came upon him, and challenged him to stand and face me.

With a bunch of oaths he got out his sword, but in doing so he was forced to remove one of his hands from the girl's arm. Seizing the opportunity with a ready wit and courage seldom found in women of her quality, she twisted herself from the grip of his left hand, and came staggering towards me for protection, holding up her pinioned wrists.

With my blade I severed the cord, whereupon she plucked the gag from her mouth, and sank against my side, her struggles having left her weak indeed.

As I set my arm about her waist to support her, my heart seemed to swell within me, and strange melodies shaped themselves within my soul.

St. Auban bore down upon me with a raucous oath, but the glittering point of my rapier danced before his eyes and drove him back again.

"To me, Vilmorin, you cowardly cur!" he shouted. "To me, you dogs!"

He let fly at them a volley of blood-curdling oaths, then, without waiting to see if they obeyed him, he came at me again, and our swords met.

"Courage, Mademoiselle," I whispered, as a sigh that was almost a groan escaped her. "Have no fear."

But that fight was not destined to be fought, for, as again we engaged, there came the fall of running feet behind me. It flashed across my mind that Michelot had been worsted, and that my back was about to be a.s.sailed. But in St. Auban's face I saw, as in a mirror, that he who came was Michelot.

"Mort de Christ!" snarled the Marquis, springing back beyond my reach.

"What can a man do with naught but fools and poltroons to serve him? Faugh! We will continue our sword-play at St. Sulpice des Reaux to-night. Au revoir, M. de Luynes!"

Turning, he sheathed his sword, and, running down to the river, bounded into the boat, where I heard him reviling Vilmorin with every foul name he could call to mind.

My blood was aflame, and I was not minded to wait for our meeting at Reaux. Consigning Mademoiselle to the care of Michelot, who stood panting and bleeding from a wound in his shoulder, I turned back to my dead horse, and plucking the remaining pistol from the holster I ran down to the very edge of the water. The boat was not ten yards from sh.o.r.e, and my action had been unheeded by St. Auban, who was standing in the stern.

Kneeling I took careful aim at him, and as G.o.d lives, I would have saved much trouble that was to follow had I been allowed to fire. But at that moment a hand was laid upon my arm, and Yvonne's sweet voice murmured in my ear:

"You have fought a brave and gallant fight, M. de Luynes, and you have done a deed of which the knights of old might have been proud. Do not mar it by an act of murder."

"Murder, Mademoiselle!" I gasped, letting my hand fall. "Surely there is no murder in this!"

"A suspicion of it, I think, and so brave a man should have clean hands."

CHAPTER XIII. THE HAND OF YVONNE

We did not long remain upon the field of battle. Indeed, if we lingered at all it was but so that Mademoiselle might bandage Michelot's wound.

And whilst she did so, my stout henchman related to us how it had fared with him, and how, having taken the two ruffians separately, he had been wounded by the first, whom he repaid by splitting his skull, whereupon the second one had discharged his pistol without effect, then made off towards the road, whilst Michelot, remembering that I might need a.s.sistance, had let him go.

"There, good Michelot," quoth Mademoiselle, completing her task, "I have done what little I can. And now, M. de Luynes, let us go."

It was close upon seven o'clock, and night was at hand. Already the moon was showing her large, full face above the tree-tops by Chambord, and casting a silver streak athwart the stream. The plash of oars from the Marquis's boat was waxing indistinct despite the stillness, whilst by the eye the boat itself was no longer to be distinguished.

As I turned, my glance fell upon the bravo whom I had shot. He lay stiff and stark upon his back, his sightless eyes wide open and staring heavenwards, his face all blood-smeared and ghastly to behold.

Mademoiselle shuddered. "Let us go," she repeated in a faint whisper; her eye had also fallen on that thing, and her voice was full of awe.

She laid her hand upon my sleeve and 'neath the suasion of her touch I moved away.

To our surprise and joy we found St. Auban's coach where we had left it, with two saddled horses tethered close by. The others had doubtless been taken by the coachman and the bravo who had escaped Michelot, both of whom had fled. These animals we looked upon as the spoils of war, and accordingly when we set out in the coach,--Mademoiselle having desired me to ride beside her therein,--Michelot wielding the reins, it was with those two horses tethered behind.

"Monsieur de Luynes," said my companion softly, "I fear that I have done you a great injustice. Indeed, I know not how to crave your forgiveness, how to thank you, or how to hide my shame at those words I spoke to you this afternoon at Canaples."

"Not another word on that score, Mademoiselle!"

And to myself I thought of what recompense already had been mine. To me it had been given to have her lean trustingly upon me, my arm about her waist, whilst, sword in hand, I had fought for her. Dieu! Was that not something to have lived for?--aye, and to have died for, methought.

"I deserved, Monsieur," she continued presently, "that you should have left me to my fate for all the odious things I uttered when you warned me of my peril,--for the manner in which I have treated you since your coming to Blois."

"You have but treated me, Mademoiselle, in the only manner in which you could treat one so far beneath you, one who is utterly unworthy that you should bestow a single regret upon him."

"You are strangely humble to-night, Monsieur. It is unwonted in you, and for once you wrong yourself. You have not said that I am forgiven."

"I have naught to forgive."

"Helas! you have--indeed you have!"

"Eh, bien!" quoth I, with a return of my old tone of banter, "I forgive then."

Thereafter we travelled on in silence for some little while, my heart full of joy at being so near to her, and the friendliness which she evinced for me, and my mind casting o'er my joyous heart a cloud of some indefinable evil presage.

"You are a brave man, M. de Luynes," she murmured presently, "and I have been taught that brave men are ever honourable and true."

"Had they who taught you that known Gaston de Luynes, they would have told you instead that it is possible for a vile man to have the one redeeming virtue of courage, even as it is possible for a liar to have a countenance that is sweet and innocent."

"There speaks that humble mood you are affecting, and which sits upon you as my father's clothes might do. Nay, Monsieur, I shall believe in my first teaching, and be deaf to yours."

Again there was a spell of silence. At last--"I have been thinking, Monsieur," she said, "of that other occasion on which you rode with me.

I remember that you said you had killed a man, and when I asked you why, you said that you had done it because he sought to kill you. Was that the truth?"

"a.s.suredly, Mademoiselle. We fought a duel, and it is customary in a duel for each to seek to kill the other."

"But why was this duel fought?" she cried, with some petulance.

"I fear me, Mademoiselle, that I may not answer you," I said, recalling the exact motives, and thinking how futile appeared the quarrel which Eugene de Canaples had sought with Andrea when viewed in the light of what had since befallen.

"Was the quarrel of your seeking?"

"In a measure it was, Mademoiselle."

"In a measure!" she echoed. Then persisting, as women will--"Will you not tell me what this measure was?"

"Tenez, Mademoiselle," I answered in despair; "I will tell you just so much as I may. Your brother had occasion to be opposed to certain projects that were being formed in Paris by persons high in power around a beardless boy. Himself of too small importance to dare wage war against those powerful ones who would have crushed him, your brother sought to gain his ends by sending a challenge to this boy. The lad was high-spirited and consented to meet M. de Canaples, by whom he would a.s.suredly have been murdered--'t is the only word, Mademoiselle--had I not intervened as I did."

She was silent for a moment. Then--"I believe you, Monsieur," she said simply. "You fought, then, to shield another--but why?"

"For three reasons, Mademoiselle. Firstly, those persons high in power chose to think it my fault that the quarrel had arisen, and threatened to hang me if the duel took place and the boy were harmed. Secondly, I myself felt a kindness for the boy. Thirdly, because, whatever sins Heaven may record against me, it has at least ever been my way to side against men who, confident of their superiority, seek, with the cowardly courage of the strong, to harm the weak. It is, Mademoiselle, the courage of the man who knows no fear when he strikes a woman, yet who will shake with a palsy when another man but threatens him."