The False Chevalier Part 21

The irate Marquis rose from his chair and paced the room.

"Villain! The thought of him drives me beyond myself."

De Lery said little, but noted every word of his uncle's statement, and it slowly took shape in his mind in a steel-cold deadly contempt for Lecour.

The true Repentigny alone, his nature long purified of pride, felt no malice nor indignation against this usurper of his name.

CHAPTER XXII

THE SECRET OUT

Louis Rene Chaussegros de Lery, that model of blue-blooded elegance, was not the person to encourage any plebeian in basking in the smiles of aristocratic society. There was an inflexible honour in him, as well as pride, which was desperately shocked by the contrivings of Lecour. He therefore detailed the story, without any heat but without any mercy, to the mess-table of the company of Villeroy.

Two or three mornings later, Dominique came into Germain's sitting chamber at Troyes and taking up his Master's service sword looked closely at it as if to examine the polish on the goldwork. Such was his custom when he had something special to say. Dominique's pieces of information were invariably valuable. Germain therefore looked up from the comedy he was reading and gave attention. Dominique related briefly the rumour just come from Chalons: A Guardsman of the Noailles had related it to a comrade in the presence of his servant, and the servant had hurried to communicate it, with many questions, to Dominique.

Germain paled, yet only for an instant. He laughed at the Auvergnat, who snorted apologetically--

"As if Monsieur _looked_ like a pedlar!"

"This is a righteous punishment for being born far away, Dominique," he exclaimed; "all colonials must be either mulattoes or cheats; the next time I am born it shall be in Chalons."

There was no parade that day on account of a _fete_.

He dressed himself in exactly as leisurely fashion as he had previously intended and ordered a hack-horse to take him to Versailles. So far he was acting; the world and Dominique his imaginary audience.

Only when he got out of Troyes and, having left the beautiful old Gothic-cathedralled town some distance behind, was speeding along the high-road, did he, for the first time, feel himself sufficiently alone to face his thoughts. With a great rush of vision he seemed to see the whole world of mankind rising against him--in its centre the form and face of a scornful courtier--_the_ Repentigny, withering his pretensions by one contemptuous glance, to the applause of the Oeil de Boeuf. He saw the look of Madame l'Etiquette, the ribaldry of acquaintances at Versailles, the studious oblivion of the Princess de Poix, d'Estaing, Bellecour, and even Grancey; the mess-table derisive over the career of the pseudo-n.o.ble; Major Collinot striking his name from the list of the company; his arrest by Guardsmen disgusted at having to touch him; the stony visages of the court-martial; the Bastille; the oar and chain of the galleys. Truly they made no pleasant fate. Behind these, a white figure, veiled in a mist of tears, at whose face he dared not look--deceived by her knight, contaminated by his disgrace, her vision of honour shattered, heart-broken, desolate, forbidden to him for ever by the law which changeth not, of outraged caste.

"Alas! that it all should lead to such an end," he murmured.

By evening he was in Paris, and mechanically went to his old lodgings where he tried to compose himself. A supper was brought which he left unnoticed on the table. From time to time he would rise and walk about the room, feverishly revolving events and fears.

"And these people," he exclaimed, "will dare to say that I am of a lower nature than they. In what am I not n.o.ble? in what not their equal? Have they not, for an entire year, approved of me, deferred to me, imitated me? What is this miserable _n.o.blesse_? Have I not seen that it is the greatest boors that have the most claim to it. If it consists in antiquity, where are the ancient gentry?--a remnant of pauper ploughmen rotting on their driblets of land. If it lies in t.i.tle, what is so divine in the rewarded panderers to some unclean King? If it is genealogy and parchments, with what mutual truth do they not sneer away, and tell their tales upon, each other's lying pedigrees? In what sense am I less well-made, less brave, nay, less truthful, than that cringing rout at Versailles? Yes, all of you! the unbreakable word of my old father encloses more real n.o.bility than the entirety of your asinine struts and proclamations? We shall see, too, whether _n.o.blesse_ is necessary to courage, for here and now I defy you all and all your powers!"

A knock interrupted. It was the _concierge_, who handed him a card.

Without looking at it, Lecour replied--

"Tell him I am ill and cannot be seen."

The words upon the card might well have produced his answer. When the door was shut he glanced at it, started, and held it in his hands, fascinated by apprehension. It read--

"Le Marquis de Chartier de Lotbiniere."

In the name he recognised that of his father's patron.

"It is clear I must leave this place," thought he; and then it flashed upon him that de Lotbiniere must have intended to call on _the other Repentigny_.

"Yes, he would lodge here. Without doubt the reason this is de Bailleul's resort is that it is a meeting-place for Canadians."

Putting on his hat and cloak he went down to the entrance, and in pa.s.sing out said as if casually to the _concierge_--

"Has the Marquis de Repentigny entered yet?"

"Yes, sir," the man returned.

Germain started out into the night, not knowing where to go. It was about nine o'clock and dark overhead, but the narrow towering streets of old Paris possessed a rude system of lighting and the life at least of a great city, so that he felt less lonely than in his rooms, and walked on and on for several hours.

CHAPTER XXIII

THE EXECUTIONER OF DESTINY

Lorgnette in hand, Cyrene was sitting in the music chamber of the Hotel de Noailles, scanning the bars of a sheet of music sent her by her suitor. Near by was the harpsichord on which she was about to try it, when it seemed to her that a screen beside her trembled. Glancing for an instant at it she was rea.s.sured. Almost immediately, however, it again shook and fixed her attention, but after watching it for a few moments and seeing no repet.i.tion, she once more turned away, satisfied that she had been mistaken. Then suddenly she became aware that a man was standing beside her, sprang to her feet and would have screamed had his att.i.tude not been so deferential.

He was dressed entirely in black, of the best materials and Paris cut; his age was over fifty, and his features well made, but pinched and of an ashen tint. His expression of strange woe roused her sympathy and quieted her fears.

"Who are you?" she said.

He took no notice of her words.

"Are you la Montmorency," he asked, "the _fiancee_ of the Guardsman?"

"This is a strange question," she exclaimed. "How does it concern you, sir?"

"Deeply, deeply. These are matters of life and death."

"What do you mean?"

"Do not fear, your lover is safe. I could have killed him, but did not."

She became roused and agitated, and the thought flashed upon her that the man might be a maniac.

"You would not," she said, trying to reason with him, "have injured anyone so good and inoffensive as Monsieur de Repentigny?"

"Repentigny!" he cried. "It is because he bore that name that I tracked him to Troyes. It was a Repentigny who slew my father, and blessed was the light of the street lamp which showed me your lover was none of that brood."

"You would have killed him, you say?"

"I was to do so, but it was by mistake."

"Who are you, then?" she inquired with the greatest earnestness.

"The Instrument of Vengeance. Do you hear it?" he continued, as if listening. "The Voice of Vengeance in the distance, approaching, approaching, calling, calling? Nearer, year by year, month by month, day by day, hour by hour, moment by moment, until when it reaches my side I shall slay my enemy. When he fled to the farthest Indies, there he found me; now he is in Paris, and finds me here; wherever he goes he has found me. He knows his fate. He knows that I am the Instrument of Vengeance, that a day shall come that has not come, that this hand is the hand of heaven, and this sword the sword of the Almighty."