The Trampling of the Lilies Part 20

"Well?" demanded Madame de Bellecour severely. "Answer me, Suzanne. Are you in love with this La Boulaye?"

"Is there the need to answer?" quoth the girl scornfully. "Surely you forget that I am Mademoiselle de Bellecour, daughter of the Marquise de Bellecour, and that this man is of the canaille, else you had never asked the question."

With an expression of satisfaction the Marquise was sinking back in the carriage, when of a sudden she sat bolt upright.

"Someone is riding very desperately," she cried, a note of alarm ringing in her voice.

Above the thud of the coach-horses' hoofs and the rumble of their vehicle sounded now the clatter of someone galloping madly in their wake. Mademoiselle looked from the window into the gathering dusk.

"It will be some courier, Madame," she answered calmly. "None other would ride at such a pace."

"I shall know no rest until we are safely in a Christian country again,"

the Marquise complained.

The hoof-beats grew nearer, and the dark figure of a horseman dashed suddenly past the window. Simultaneously, a loud, harsh command to halt rang out upon the evening air.

The Marquise clutched at her daughter's arm with one hand, whilst with the other she crossed herself, as though their a.s.sailant were some emissary of the powers of evil.

"Mother in Heaven, deliver us!" she gasped, turning suddenly devout.

"Mon Dieu!" cried Mademoiselle, who had recognised the voice that was now haranguing the men on the box--their driver and the ostler of the 'Eagle Inn.' "It is La Boulaye himself."

"La Boulaye?" echoed the Marquise. Then, in a frenzy of terror: "There are the pistols there, Suzanne," she cried. "You can shoot. Kill him!

Kill him!"

The girl's lips came tightly together until her mouth seemed no more than a straight line. Her cheeks grew white as death, but her eyes were brave and resolute. She put forth her hand and seized one of the pistols as the carriage with a final jolt came to a standstill.

An instant later the door was dragged open, and La Boulaye stood bowing in the rain with mock ceremoniousness and a very contemptuous smile on his stern mouth. He had dismounted, and flung the reins of his horse over the bough of a tree by the roadside. The Marquise shuddered at sight of him, and sought to shrink farther back into the cushions of the carriage.

"Citoyenne," he was saying, very bitterly, "when I made my compact with you yesternight, I did not reckon upon being compelled to ride after you in this fashion. I have some knowledge of the ways of your people, of their full words and empty deeds; but you I was fool enough to trust. By experience we learn. I must ask you to alight, Citoyenne."

"To what purpose, Monsieur?" she asked, in a voice which she strove to render cold and steady.

"To the purpose that your part of the bargain be carried out. Your mother and your treasure were to find their way into Prussia upon condition that you return with me to France."

"It was a bargain of coercion, Monsieur," she answered attempting to brazen it out. "I was a woman in a desperate situation."

"Surely your memory is at fault, Citoyenne," he answered, with a politeness that was in itself a mockery.

"Your situation was so little desperate that I had offered to effect the rescue both of your mother and yourself without asking any guerdon.

Your miserable treasure alone it was that had to be sacrificed. You will recall that the bargain was of your own proposing."

There was a pause, during which he stood waiting for her reply. Her blue eyes made an attempt to meet his steady gaze, but failed. Her bosom rose and fell in the intensity of her agitation.

"I was a woman distraught, Monsieur. Surely you will not hold me to words uttered in an hour of madness. It was a bargain I had no right to make, for I am no longer free to dispose of myself. I am betrothed to the Vicomte Anatole d'Ombreval. The contract has already been signed, and the Vicomte will be meeting us at Treves."

It was as if she had struck him, and amazement left him silent a moment. In a dim, subconscious way he seemed to notice that the name she mentioned was that of the man he was bidden to arrest. Then, with an oath:

"I care naught for that," he cried. "As G.o.d lives, you shall fulfil your word to me."

"Monsieur, I refuse," she answered, with finality. "Let me request you to close the door and suffer us to proceed."

"Your mother and your treasure may proceed--it was thus we bargained.

But you shall come with me. I will be no girl's dupe, no woman's fool, Citoyenne."

When he said that he uttered the full truth. There was no love in his voice or in his heart at that moment. Than desire of her nothing was further from his mind. It was his pride that was up in arms, his wounded dignity that cried out to him to avenge himself upon her, and to punish her for having no miserably duped him. That she was unwilling to go with him only served to increase his purpose of taking her, since the more unwilling she was the more would she be punished.

"Citoyenne, I am waiting for you to alight," he said peremptorily.

"Monsieur, I am very well as I am," she answered him, and leaning slightly from the coach--"Drive on, Blaise," she commanded.

But La Boulaye c.o.c.ked a pistol.

"Drive so much as a yard," he threatened "and I'll drive you to the devil." Then, turning once more to Suzanne: "Never in my life, Citoyenne have I employed force to a woman," he said. "I trust that you will not put me to the pain of commencing now."

"Stand back, Monsieur," was her imperious answer. But heedless he advanced, and thrusting his head under the lintel of the carriage door he leaned forward, to seize her. Then, before he could so much as conjecture what she was about, her hand went up grasping a heavy horse-pistol by the barrel, and she brought the b.u.t.t of it down with a deadly precision between his brows.

He reeled backwards, threw up his arms, and measured his length in the thick grey mud of the road.

Her eyes had followed him with a look of horror, and until she saw him lying still on his back did she seem to realise what she had done.

"My dear, brave girl," murmured her mother's voice but she never heard it. With a sob she relaxed her grasp of the pistol and let it fall from the carriage.

"Shall I drive on, Mademoiselle?" inquired Blaise from the box.

But without answering him she had stepped down into the mud, and was standing bare-headed in the rain beside the body of Caron.

Silently, she stooped and groped for his heart. It was beating vigorously enough, she thought. She stooped lower and taking him under the arms, she half bore, half dragged him to the side of the road, as if the thin, bare hedge were capable of affording him shelter. There she stood a moment looking down at him. Then with a sob she suddenly stooped, and careless of the eyes observing her, she kissed him full upon the mouth.

A second later she fled like a frightened thing back to the carriage, and, closing the door, she called in a strangled voice too drive on.

She paid little heed to the praise that was being bestowed upon her by her mother--who had seen nothing of the kiss. But she lay back in her corner of the coach, and now her lashes were wet at the thought of Caron lying out there in the road. Now her cheeks grew red with shame at the thought that she, the n.o.bly-born Mademoiselle de Bellecour, should have allowed even pity to have so far overcome her as to have caused her to touch with her lips the lips of a low-bred revolutionist.

CHAPTER XIV. THE COURIER

It was well for La Boulaye that he had tethered his horse to a tree before approaching the coach. That solitary beast standing by the roadside in the deepening gloom attracted the attention of his followers, when--a half-hour or so later--they rode that way, making for Liege, as La Boulaye had bidden them.

At their approach the animal neighed, and Garin, hearing the sound, reined in and peered forward into the gloom, to descry the horse's head and back outlined above the blur of the hedge. His men halted behind him whilst he approached the riderless beast and made--as well as he could in the darkness--an examination of the saddle. One holster he found empty, at which he concluded that the rider, whoever he had been, had met with trouble; from the other he drew a heavy pistol, which, however, gave him no clue.

"Get down," he ordered his men, "and search the roads hereabouts. I'll wager a horse to a horseshoe that you will find a body somewhere."

He was obeyed, and presently a cry from one of the searchers announced a discovery. It was succeeded by another exclamation.

"Sacre nom!" swore the trooper. "It is the Citizen-deputy!"