In The Day Of Adversity Part 31

"G.o.d knows! Yet in mercy spare me! I am a woman," and overcome with fear she cast herself at his feet. "Spare me--spare me."

"I do not understand you," St. Georges said, looking down disdainfully at her. "I think, too, you do not understand me. I wish to do only one thing now, to quit your presence and never set eyes on you again," and without offering to a.s.sist her to her feet he backed toward the door.

But now--perhaps, because of the discovery that this man meant her no harm, intended to exact no horrible atonement from her--a revulsion of feeling took place in the woman's breast.

"No, no!" she cried, springing to her feet. "No, no! Do not go--for G.o.d's sake do not attempt to quit the town yet! You will be lost--if you are seen--lost, lost! Ah, heavens!" she screamed, for at that moment there boomed a cannon from the _chateau_, "the sunset gun! The sunset gun! It is too late!"

"What is too late?" he asked advancing toward her. "What?" And as he spoke he seized her wrist. "Woman, what do you mean? Is this some fresh plot, some new treachery? Answer me. Am I trapped--and by you?"

"No, no!" she wailed, afraid to tell what she had done, afraid that even now, ere the soldiers should come, he would strangle the life out of her, or thrust the sword he carried by his side through her heart.

"No, no! But it is known--they know--that you have been a _galerien_--you will be arrested! The mark upon your shoulder is known to the commandant."

"How?" he said, again seizing her by the arm. "How? Who knows it? Who?

Outside this house none can have seen it."

"Come!" she replied, not daring to answer him; "come, hide. They will look for you here. Yet I can secrete you till the search is over. For a week--months--if need be. Come."

"They know I am here! Through _you_?"

"No, no! The mark was seen when you lay insensible--ah!" she screamed again. "See, see! it is too late! They are in the garden. It is too late!"

It was true. Along the garden path to which the windows of her _salon_ opened, six soldiers were advancing led by a young officer. Across their shoulders were slung their muskets; the officer carried his drawn sword. And St. Georges looking from her to them knew that he was snared, his freedom gone. Doubtless his life, too.

"Devil," he said to the woman as she reeled back to the lounge and fell heavily on it--"devil, I thanked you too soon. Had I known, dreamed of this, I would have slain you as you dreaded!"

CHAPTER x.x.x.

"IT IS TRUE."

The windows of the _salon_ giving on to the crushed-sh.e.l.l path of the Hotel de Louvigny had been open all day to let in the air, and the handsomely apparelled young officer of the Regiment de Grance, stationed at Rambouillet, was enabled therefore to at once enter the room, leaving his men outside. Yet as he did so he seemed bewildered and astonished at the sight which met his eyes.

Lying fainting, gasping, on her couch was Madame de Louvigny--_la belle Louvigny_ as they called her, and toasted her nightly in the guardroom--standing over her was a man, white to the lips, his hands clinched, his whole form and face expressing horror and contempt.

"_Pardie!_" the young fellow muttered between his lips, "I have interrupted a little scene, _un roman d'amour_! _Bon Dieu_ the lover has detected madame in some little infidelity, and--and--has had a moment of vivacity. Yet 'tis not my fault. _Devoir avant tout_," and as he muttered the motto of the n.o.ble house to which he belonged--perhaps as an aid in that _devoir_--he advanced into the room after bidding his men remain where he had stationed them.

"Madame la baronne will pardon my untimely appearance," he muttered in the most courtly manner, and with a comprehensive bow of much ease and grace which included St. Georges, "but my orders were--what--madame herself knows. Otherwise I should regret even more my presence here."

She, still on the lounge, her face buried in her Valenciennes handkerchief, was as yet unable to utter a word--_he_, standing before her, never removed his eyes from her. The officer's words had confirmed what he suspected--what he knew.

"But," continued the lieutenant, "madame will excuse. I have my orders to obey. The man she mentioned to the commandant has not yet endeavoured to pa.s.s the barrier--is it madame's desire that her house should be searched?"

She raised her head from the couch as he spoke, not daring to cast a glance at him whom she had betrayed to his doom. Then she said, her voice under no control and broken. "No. He is not here. He--has escaped."

"Escaped, madame? Impossible! Rambouillet is too small even for him to be in hiding--he----"

"Has not escaped," St. Georges said, turning suddenly on the officer.

"On the contrary, he has been betrayed. I am the man."

"You! Madame's----" and he left his sentence unfinished. "You! Here alone with her, and a _galerien_!"

"Yes--I."

It was useless, he knew, to do aught than give himself up. Escape was impossible. It was known, must be known in this small town, that he was the only stranger who had entered it lately; nor did he doubt that when the treacherous creature had informed against him she had described him thoroughly. Even though now she lied to save him, it would be of no avail. He could not remain in her house, hide in it as she had suggested, take shelter from her. From her! No! even the galleys--or the gallows--were better than that.

"I regret to hear it," the officer said, "since monsieur appears to be a friend of madame la baronne. Yet, under the circ.u.mstances, monsieur will not refuse to accompany me."

"I will accompany you."

Whatever the young fellow may have thought of the man who was now in his custody--and what he did think was that he was some old lover of la belle Louvigny who had either cast her off, or been cast off by her, and had reappeared at an awkward moment, so that she had taken an effectual manner of disposing of him--he at least did not show it. But for her he testified his contempt in a manner that was unmistakable.

He motioned to St. Georges to precede him to the open window where his men were, and, putting on his hat before he had quitted the room, he strode after his prisoner without casting a glance at the woman.

But as they neared the window, and were about to step on to the path, St. Georges stopped and, addressing him, said: "Sir, grant me one moment's further grace, I beg of you. Ere I go I have a word to say to madame."

Courteous as he had been all through--to him--the young fellow shrugged his shoulders good-naturedly, raised no objection, and lounged by the open window, while St. Georges returned to where she still crouched upon the lounge. Yet, as she heard his footsteps nearing her, she looked up with terror-stricken eye, and shrunk back even further into its ample depths. The officer had not demanded his sword, it hung still by his side; her craven heart feared that in his last moment allowed to him he might wrench it from its sheath and punish her for her treachery. But, as she learned a moment later, he had a worse punishment in store for her than that.

"You have sent me to my doom," he said, gazing down on her, "yet, ere I go, hear what has been the doom of another--as vile as you yourself----"

In an instant she had sprung to her feet, was standing panting before him, one hand upon her heart, the other by her side in the folds of her dress. "Vile as she herself," he had said. "Vile as she herself!"

To whom else but De Roquemaure could such words apply when issuing from that man's lips?

"The doom of another!" she hissed, repeating those words; "the doom of another--of whom?"

And again on her face there was now the look--the _canine_ look--that had been there before--the lip drawn back, the small teeth showing, the threatening glance in the eyes.

"Of whom but one! Who else but your vile partner"--the young officer, of n.o.ble race as he was, and steeped in good breeding, could scarce refrain from being startled at those words--"the man you say you love?

Well, love him! Only learn this, you have nothing but his memory to love. He is dead!----"

With a scream that rang not only through the _salon_, but the house also, and penetrated out into the cool garden beyond--a scream that caused the lieutenant to start toward them, and his men to peer into the room--she sprang at him, her right hand raised now, and in it the dagger she had so long concealed.

"Beware!" the officer cried. "Beware, she is dangerous!" And, even as he spoke, she struck full at St. Georges's breast with the knife.

"Bah!" he exclaimed, thrusting aside her upraised arm with the hand in which, all through the interview with her, he had held his hat--thrusting it aside with such force that she almost staggered and fell. "Bah! you mistake, woman. Did you think it was my _back_ again at which you struck?"

The room was full of servants now; her own waiting maid and one or two of the lackeys busy about the house, preparing a little supper madame had intended giving that night to a few admirers, had rushed in at her scream; and now the former stood behind and half supported her while she muttered incoherent sounds amid which the words only could be caught, "You slew him!--at last!"

"Nay," he said, standing still in front of her, calm and sinister; "such satisfaction was not granted me, nor so easy an ending to him.

The English who drove Tourville's fleet to its doom at La Hogue did their work effectively. Each ship, each transport, found by them was blown out of the water; in one of those transports, named the Vendome, he was blown up, too. I was there but a little while before it exploded; I saw its fragments and all within it hurled into s.p.a.ce. I think, madame, my doom is scarce worse than his."

With another shriek, as piercing as the first, she threw her arms above her head, then fell an insensible ma.s.s into the serving woman's arms. And St. Georges, turning to the young officer, said:

"Sir, I am at your service."

They took him that night to the Chateau de Rambouillet, he marching with three of the soldiers in front of and three behind him, the young officer by his side. And this scion of n.o.bility, one of the De Mortemarts, testified by his actions that night that the French good breeding of the great monarch's day was no mere outward show. He permitted his prisoner to still retain his sword, and he walked by his side instead of ahead of his men, because he did not desire that those whom in his mind he considered the _canaille_ should make any observations upon that prisoner as they pa.s.sed through the streets.