CHAPTER XIII. AT THE FINGER-POST
Through all, it will have been noticed, Mademoiselle had not spoken tome, nor said one word, good or bad. She had played her part grimly,had taken defeat in silence if with tears, had tried neither prayer nordefence nor apology. And the fact that the fight was now over, and thescene left behind, made no difference in her conduct. She kept her facestudiously turned from me, and affected to ignore my presence. I caughtmy horse feeding by the roadside, a furlong forward, and mounted andfell into place behind the two, as in the morning. And just as we hadplodded on then in silence we plodded on now; almost as if nothinghad happened; while I wondered at the unfathomable ways of women,and marvelled that she could take part in such an incident and remainunchanged.
Yet, though she strove to hide it, it had made a change in her. Thoughher mask served her well it could not entirely hide her emotions; andby-and-by I marked that her head drooped, that she rode listlessly, thatthe lines of her figure were altered. I noticed that she had flung away,or furtively dropped, her riding-whip; and I began to understand that,far from the fight having set me in my former place, to the old hatredof me were now added shame and vexation on her own account; shame thatshe had so lowered herself, even to save her brother, vexation thatdefeat had been her only reward.
Of this I saw a sign at Lectoure, where the inn had but one common roomand we must all dine in company. I secured for them a table by the fire,and leaving them standing by it, retired myself to a smaller one nearthe door. There were no other guests; which made the separation betweenus more marked. M. de Cocheforet seemed to feel this. He shrugged hisshoulders and looked across the room at me with a smile half sad halfcomical. But Mademoiselle was implacable. She had taken off her mask,and her face was like stone. Once, only once during the meal, I saw achange come over her. She coloured, I suppose at her thoughts, until herface flamed from brow to chin. I watched the blush spread and spread;and then she slowly and proudly turned her shoulder to me and lookedthrough the window at the shabby street.
I suppose that she and her brother had both built on this attempt, whichmust have been arranged at Auch. For when we went on in the afternoon,I marked a change in them. They rode like people resigned to the worst.The grey realities of the position, the dreary future began to hang likea mist before their eyes, began to tinge the landscape with sadness,robbed even the sunset of its colours. With each hour Monsieur's spiritsflagged and his speech became less frequent; until presently when thelight was nearly gone and the dusk was round us the brother and sisterrode hand in hand, silent, gloomy, one at least of them weeping. Thecold shadow of the Cardinal, of Paris, of the scaffold fell on them, andchilled them. As the mountains which they had known all their livessank and faded behind us, and we entered on the wide, low valley ofthe Garonne, their hopes sank and faded also--sank to the dead level ofdespair. Surrounded by guards, a mark for curious glances, with pridefor a companion, M. de Cocheforet could have borne himself bravely;doubtless would bear himself bravely still when the end came. But almostalone, moving forward through the grey evening to a prison, with so manymeasured days before him, and nothing to exhilarate or anger--in thiscondition it was little wonder if he felt, and betrayed that he felt,the blood run slow in his veins; if he thought more of the weeping wifeand ruined home which he had left behind him than of the cause in whichhe had spent himself.
But God knows, they had no monopoly of gloom. I felt almost as sadmyself. Long before sunset the flush of triumph, the heat of battle,which had warmed my heart at noon, were gone, giving place to a chilldissatisfaction, a nausea, a despondency such as I have known followa long night at the tables. Hitherto there had been difficulties to beovercome, risks to be run, doubts about the end. Now the end was certainand very near; so near that it filled all the prospect. One hour oftriumph I might have, and would have, and I hugged the thought of it asa gambler hugs his last stake, planning the place and time and mode, andtrying to occupy myself wholly with it. But the price? Alas! that toowould intrude itself, and more frequently as the evening waned; so thatas I marked this or that thing by the road, which I could recall passingon my journey south with thoughts so different, with plans that nowseemed so very, very old, I asked myself grimly if this were really I;if this were Gil de Berault, known at Zaton's, PREMIER JOUEUR, or someDon Quichotte from Castille, tilting at windmills and taking barbers'bowls for gold.
We reached Agen very late that evening, after groping our way througha by-road near the river, set with holes and willow-stools andfrog-spawn--a place no better than a slough; so that after it the greatfires and lights at the Blue Maid seemed like a glimpse of a new world,and in a twinkling put something of life and spirits into two at leastof us. There was queer talk round the hearth here, of doings in Paris,of a stir against the Cardinal with the Queen-mother at bottom, and ofgrounded expectations that something might this time come of it. But thelandlord pooh-poohed the idea; and I more than agreed with him. Even M.de Cocheforet, who was at first inclined to build on it, gave up hopewhen he heard that it came only by way of Montauban; whence--since itsreduction the year before--all sort of CANARDS against the Cardinal werealways on the wing.
'They kill him about once a month,' our host said with a grin.'Sometimes it is MONSIEUR is to prove a match for him, sometimesCESAR MONSIEUR--the Duke of Vendome, you understand--and sometimes theQueen-mother. But since M. de Chalais and the Marshal made a mess of itand paid forfeit, I pin my faith to his Eminence--that is his new title,they tell me.'
'Things are quiet round here?' I asked.
'Perfectly. Since the Languedoc business came to an end, all goes well,'he answered.
Mademoiselle had retired on our arrival, so that her brother and I werefor an hour or two this evening thrown together. I left him at libertyto separate himself from me if he pleased, but he did not use theopportunity. A kind of comradeship, rendered piquant by our peculiarrelations, had begun to spring up between us. He seemed to take an oddpleasure in my company, more than once rallied me on my post of jailor,would ask humorously if he might do this or that; and once even inquiredwhat I should do if he broke his parole.
'Or take it this way,' he continued flippantly, 'Suppose I had struckyou in the back this evening in that cursed swamp by the river, M. deBerault? What then! PARDIEU, I am astonished at myself that I did not doit. I could have been in Montauban within twenty-four hours, and foundfifty hiding-places and no one the wiser.'
'Except your sister,' I said quietly.
He made a wry face. 'Yes,' he said, 'I am afraid that I must havestabbed her too, to preserve my self-respect. You are right.' And hefell into a reverie which held him for a few minutes. Then I found himlooking at me with a kind of frank perplexity that invited question.
'What is it?' I said.
'You have fought a great many duels?'
'Yes,' I said.
'Did you ever strike a foul blow in one?'
'Never,' I answered. 'Why do you ask?'
'Well, because I--wanted to confirm an impression. To be frank, M. deBerault, I seem to see in you two men.
'Two men?'
'Yes, two men. One, the man who captured me; the other, the man who letmy friend go free to-day.'
'It surprised you that I let him go? That was prudence, M. deCocheforet,' I replied. 'I am an old gambler. I know when the stakes aretoo high for me. The man who caught a lion in his wolf-pit had no greatcatch.'
'No, that is true,' he answered smiling, 'And yet--I find two men inyour skin.'
'I daresay that there are two in most men's skins,' I answered with asigh. 'But not always together. Sometimes one is there, and sometimesthe other.'
'How does the one like taking up the other's work?' he asked keenly.
I shrugged my shoulders. 'That is as may be,' I said. 'You do not takean estate without the debts.'
He did not answer for a moment, and I fancied that his thoughts hadreverted to his own case. But on a sudden he looked at me again. 'Willyou answer a question, M. de
Berault?' he said winningly.
'Perhaps,' I replied.
'Then tell me--it is a tale I am sure worth the telling. What was itthat, in a very evil hour for me, sent you in search of me?'
'My Lord Cardinal,' I answered
'I did not ask who,' he replied drily. 'I asked, what. You had no grudgeagainst me?'
'No.'
'No knowledge of me?'
'No.'
'Then what on earth induced you to do it? Heavens! man,' he continuedbluntly, and speaking with greater freedom than he had before used,'Nature never intended you for a tipstaff. What was it then?'
I rose. It was very late, and the room was empty, the fire low.
'I will tell you--to-morrow,' I said. 'I shall have something to say toyou then, of which that will be part.'
He looked at me in great astonishment, and with a little suspicion.But I called for a light, and by going at once to bed, cut short hisquestions. In the morning we did not meet until it was time to start.
Those who know the south road to Agen, and how the vineyards rise interraces north of the town, one level of red earth above another, greenin summer, but in late autumn bare and stony, may remember a particularplace where the road, two leagues from the town, runs up a steep hill.At the top of the hill four roads meet; and there, plain to be seenagainst the sky, is a finger-post indicating which way leads toBordeaux, and which to old tiled Montauban, and which to Perigueux.
This hill had impressed me greatly on my journey south; perhaps becauseI had enjoyed from it my first extended view of the Garonne Valley, andhad there felt myself on the verge of the south country where my missionlay. It had taken root in my memory, so that I had come to look upon itsbare rounded head, with the guide-post and the four roads, as the firstoutpost of Paris, as the first sign of return to the old life.
Now for two days I had been looking forward to seeing it again, Thatlong stretch of road would do admirably for something I had in mymind. That sign-post, with the roads pointing north, south, east, andwest--could there be a better place for meetings and partings?
We came to the bottom of the ascent about an hour before noon, M. deCocheforet, Mademoiselle, and I. We had reversed the order of yesterday,and I rode ahead; they came after at their leisure. Now, at the footof the hill I stopped, and letting Mademoiselle pass on, detained M. deCocheforet by a gesture.
'Pardon me, one moment,' I said. 'I want to ask a favour.'
He looked at me somewhat fretfully; with a gleam of wildness in his eyesthat betrayed how the iron was, little by little, eating into his heart.He had started after breakfast as gaily as a bridegroom, but graduallyhe had sunk below himself; and now he had much ado to curb hisimpatience.
'Of me?' he said bitterly. 'What is it?'
'I wish to have a few words with Mademoiselle--alone,' I said.
'Alone?' he exclaimed in astonishment.
'Yes,' I replied, without blenching, though his face grew dark. 'For thematter of that, you can be within call all the time, if you please. ButI have a reason for wishing to ride a little way with her.'
'To tell her something?'
'Yes.'
'Then you can tell it to me,' he retorted suspiciously. 'Mademoiselle, Iwill answer for it, has no desire to--'
'See me or speak to me? No,' I said. 'I can understand that. Yet I wantto speak to her.'
'Very well, you can speak in my presence,' he answered rudely. 'If thatbe all, let us ride on and join her.' And he made a movement as if to doso.
'That will not do, M. de Cocheforet,' I said firmly, stopping him withmy hand. 'Let me beg you to be more complaisant. It is a small thing Iask, a very small thing; but I swear to you that if Mademoiselle doesnot grant it, she will repent it all her life.'
He looked at me, his face growing darker and darker.
'Fine words,' he said, with a sneer. 'Yet I fancy I understand them.'And then with a passionate oath he broke out. 'But I will not have it!I have not been blind, M. de Berault, and I understand. But I will nothave it. I will have no such Judas bargain made. PARDIEU! do you think Icould suffer it and show my face again?'
'I don't know what you mean,' I said, restraining myself withdifficulty. I could have struck the fool.
'But I know what you mean,' he replied, in a tone of suppressed rage.'You would have her sell herself; sell herself to you to save me. Andyou would have me stand by and see the thing done. No, sir, never;never, though I go to the wheel. I will die a gentleman, if I have liveda fool.'
'I think that you will do the one as certainly as you have done theother,' I retorted in my exasperation. And yet I admired him.
'Oh, I am not quite a fool!' he cried, scowling at me. 'I have used myeyes.'
'Then be good enough to favour me with your ears!' I answered drily.'For just a moment. And listen when I say that no such bargain has evercrossed my mind. You were kind enough to think well of me last night, M.de Cocheforet. Why should the mention of Mademoiselle in a moment changeyour opinion? I wish simply to speak to her. I have nothing to ask fromher, nothing to expect from her, either favour or anything else. What Isay she will doubtless tell you. CIEL man! what harm can I do to her, inthe road in your sight?'
He looked at me sullenly, his face still flushed, his eyes suspicious.
'What do you want to say to her?' he asked jealously. He was quiteunlike himself. His airy nonchalance, his careless gaiety were gone.
'You know what I do not want to say to her, M. de Cocheforet,' Ianswered. 'That should be enough.'
He glowered at me a moment, still ill content. Then, without a word, hemade me a gesture to go to her.
She had halted a score of paces away; wondering, doubtless, what wason foot. I rode towards her. She wore her mask, so that I missed theexpression of her face as I approached; but the manner in which sheturned her horse's head uncompromisingly towards her brother and lookedpast me was full of meaning. I felt the ground suddenly cut from underme. I saluted her, trembling.
'Mademoiselle,' I said, 'will you grant me the privilege of your companyfor a few minutes as we ride?'
'To what purpose?' she answered; surely, in the coldest voice in which awoman ever spoke to a man.
'That I may explain to you a great many things you do not understand,' Imurmured.
'I prefer to be in the dark,' she replied. And her manner was more cruelthan her words.
'But, Mademoiselle,' I pleaded--I would not be discouraged--'you told meone day, not so long ago, that you would never judge me hastily again.'
'Facts judge you, not I,' she answered icily. 'I am not sufficiently ona level with you to be able to judge you--I thank God.'
I shivered though the sun was on me, and the hollow where we stood waswarm.
'Still, once before you thought the same,' I exclaimed after a pause,'and afterwards you found that you had been wrong. It may be so again,Mademoiselle.'
'Impossible,' she said.
That stung me.
'No,' I cried. 'It is not impossible. It is you who are impossible. Itis you who are heartless, Mademoiselle. I have done much in the lastthree days to make things lighter for you, much to make things moreeasy; now I ask you to do something in return which can cost younothing.'
'Nothing?' she answered slowly--and she looked at me; and her eyes andher voice cut me as if they had been knives. 'Nothing? Do you think,Monsieur, it costs me nothing to lose my self-respect, as I do withevery word I speak to you? Do you think it costs me nothing to be herewhen I feel every look you cast upon me an insult, every breath I takein your presence a contamination? Nothing, Monsieur?' she continued withbitter irony. 'Nay, something! But something which I could not hope tomake clear to you.'
I sat for a moment confounded, quivering with pain. It had been onething to feel that she hated and scorned me, to know that the trustand confidence which she had begun to place in me were transformedto loathing. It was another to listen to her hard, pitiless words, tochange colour under the lash of her gibing tongue. For a moment I c
ouldnot find voice to answer her. Then I pointed to M. de Cocheforet.
'Do you love him?' I said hoarsely, roughly. The gibing tone had passedfrom her voice to mine.
She did not answer.
'Because if you do you will let me tell my tale. Say no, but once more,Mademoiselle--I am only human--and I go. And you will repent it all yourlife.'
I had done better had I taken that tone from the beginning. She winced,her head dropped, she seemed to grow smaller. All in a moment, as itwere, her pride collapsed.
'I will hear you,' she murmured.
'Then we will ride on, if you please,' I said keeping the advantage Ihad gained. 'You need not fear. Your brother will follow.'
I caught hold of her rein and turned her horse, and she suffered itwithout demur; and in a moment we were pacing side by side, with thelong straight road before us. At the end where it topped the hill, Icould see the finger-post, two faint black lines against the sky. Whenwe reached that--involuntarily I checked my horse and made it move moreslowly.
'Well, sir?' she said impatiently. And her figure shook as with cold.
'It is a tale I desire to tell you, Mademoiselle,' I answered. 'PerhapsI may seem to begin a long way off, but before I end I promise tointerest you. Two months ago there was living in Paris a man--perhaps abad man--at any rate, by common report a hard man; a man with a peculiarreputation.'
She turned on me suddenly, her eyes gleaming through her mask.
'Oh, Monsieur, spare me this!' she said, quietly scornful. 'I will takeit for granted.'
'Very well,' I replied steadfastly. 'Good or bad, he one day, indefiance of the Cardinal's edict against duelling, fought with a youngEnglishman behind St Jacques' Church. The Englishman had influence,the person of whom I speak had none, and an indifferent name; he wasarrested, thrown into the Chatelet, cast for death, left for days toface death. At last an offer was made to him. If he would seek out anddeliver up another man, an outlaw with a price upon his head, he shouldhimself go free.'
I paused and drew a deep breath. Then I continued, looking not at her,but into the distance, and speaking slowly.
'Mademoiselle, it seems easy now to say what course he should havechosen. It seems hard now to find excuses for him. But there was onething which I plead for him. The task he was asked to undertake wasa dangerous one. He risked, he knew that he must risk, and the eventproved him to be right, his life against the life of this unknown man.And one thing more; time was before him. The outlaw might be taken byanother, might be killed, might die, might--But there, Mademoiselle, weknow what answer this person made. He took the baser course, and on hishonour, on his parole, with money supplied to him, he went free; free onthe condition that he delivered up this other man.'
I paused again, but I did not dare to look at her; and after a moment ofsilence I resumed.
'Some portion of the second half of the story you know, Mademoiselle;but not all. Suffice it that this man came down to a remote village, andthere at risk, but, Heaven knows, basely enough, found his way into hisvictim's home. Once there, however, his heart began to fail him. Had hefound the house garrisoned by men, he might have pressed to his end withlittle remorse. But he found there only two helpless loyal women; andI say again that from the first hour of his entrance he sickened at thework which he had in hand, the work which ill-fortune had laid uponhim. Still he pursued it. He had given his word; and if there was onetradition of his race which this man had never broken, it was that offidelity to his side--to the man who paid him. But he pursued it withonly half his mind, in great misery, if you will believe me; sometimesin agonies of shame. Gradually, however, almost against his will, thedrama worked itself out before him, until he needed only one thing.
I looked at Mademoiselle, trembling. But her head was averted: I couldgather nothing from the outlines of her form; and I went on.
'Do not misunderstand me,' I said in a lower voice. 'Do notmisunderstand what I am going to say next. This is no love-story; andcan have no ending such as romancers love to set to their tales. But Iam bound to mention, Mademoiselle, that this man who had lived almostall his life about inns and eating-houses and at the gaming-tables methere for the first time for years a good woman, and learned by the lightof her loyalty and devotion to see what his life had been, and whatwas the real nature of the work he was doing. I think--nay, I know,'I continued, 'that it added a hundredfold to his misery that when helearned at last the secret he had come to surprise, he learned it fromher lips, and in such a way that, had he felt no shame, Hell could havebeen no place for him. But in one thing I hope she misjudged him. Shethought, and had reason to think, that the moment he knew her secret hewent out, not even closing the door, and used it. But the truth was thatwhile her words were still in his ears news came to him that others hadthe secret; and had he not gone out on the instant and done what he did,and forestalled them, M. de Cocheforet would have been taken, but byothers.'
Mademoiselle broke her long silence so suddenly that her horse sprangforward.
'Would to Heaven he had!' she wailed.
'Been taken by others?' I exclaimed, startled out of my false composure.
'Oh, yes, yes!' she answered with a passionate gesture. 'Why did you nottell me? Why did you not confess to me, sir, even at the last moment?But, no more! No more!' she continued in a piteous voice; and she triedto urge her horse forward. 'I have heard enough. You are racking myheart, M. de Berault. Some day I will ask God to give me strength toforgive you.'
'But you have not heard me out,' I said.
'I will hear no more,' she answered in a voice she vainly strove torender steady. 'To what end? Can I say more than I have said? Or didyou think that I could forgive you now--with him behind us going to hisdeath? Oh, no, no!' she continued. 'Leave me! I implore you to leave me,sir. I am not well.'
She drooped over her horse's neck as she spoke, and began to weep sopassionately that the tears ran down her cheeks under her mask, and felland sparkled like dew on the mane; while her sobs shook her so that Ithought she must fall. I stretched out my hand instinctively to give herhelp, but she shrank from me. 'No!' she gasped, between her sobs. 'Donot touch me. There is too much between us.'
'Yet there must be one thing more between us,' I answered firmly. 'Youmust listen to me a little longer whether you will or no, Mademoiselle:for the love you bear to your brother. There is one course still open tome by which I may redeem my honour; and it has been in my mind for sometime back to take that course. 'To-day, I am thankful to say, I cantake it cheerfully, if not without regret; with a steadfast heart, ifno light one. Mademoiselle,' I continued earnestly, feeling none of thetriumph, none of the vanity, none of the elation I had foreseen, butonly simple joy in the joy I could give her, 'I thank God that it ISstill in my power to undo what I have done: that it is still in my powerto go back to him who sent me, and telling him that I have changed mymind, and will bear my own burdens, to pay the penalty.'
We were within a hundred paces of the top and the finger-post. She criedout wildly that she did not understand. 'What is it you--you--have justsaid?' she murmured. 'I cannot hear.' And she began to fumble with theribbon of her mask.
'Only this, Mademoiselle,' I answered gently. 'I give your brotherback his word, his parole. From this moment he is free to go whither hepleases. Here, where we stand, four roads meet. That to the right goesto Montauban, where you have doubtless friends, and can lie hid for atime. Or that to the left leads to Bordeaux, where you can take ship ifyou please. And in a word, Mademoiselle,' I continued, ending a littlefeebly, 'I hope that your troubles are now over.'
She turned her face to me--we had both come to a standstill--and pluckedat the fastenings of her mask. But her trembling fingers had knotted thestring, and in a moment she dropped her hand with a cry of despair. 'Butyou? You?' she wailed in a voice so changed that I should not have knownit for hers. 'What will you do? I do not understand, Monsieur.'
'There is a third road,' I answered. 'It leads to Paris. That is myroad, M
ademoiselle. We part here.'
'But why?' she cried wildly.
'Because from to-day I would fain begin to be honourable,' I answered ina low voice. 'Because I dare not be generous at another's cost. I mustgo back whence I came.'
'To the Chatelet?' she muttered.
'Yes, Mademoiselle, to the Chatelet.'
She tried feverishly to raise her mask with her hand.
'I am not well,' she stammered. 'I cannot breathe.'
And she began to sway so violently in her saddle that I sprang down,and, running round her horse's head, was just in time to catch her asshe fell. She was not quite unconscious then, for as I supported her,she cried out,--
'Do not touch me! Do not touch me! You kill me with shame!'
But as she spoke she clung to me; and I made no mistake. Those wordsmade me happy. I carried her to the bank, my heart on fire, and laid heragainst it just as M. de Cocheforet rode up. He sprang from his horse,his eyes blazing, 'What is this?' he cried. 'What have you been sayingto her, man?'
'She will tell you,' I answered drily, my composure returning under hiseye. 'Amongst other things, that you are free. From this moment, M.de Cocheforet, I give you back your parole, and I take my own honour.Farewell.'
He cried out something as I mounted, but I did not stay to heed oranswer. I dashed the spurs into my horse, and rode away past thecross-roads, past the finger-post; away with the level upland stretchingbefore me, dry, bare, almost treeless; and behind me, all I loved. Once,when I had gone a hundred yards, I looked back and saw him standingupright against the sky, staring after me across her body. And again aminute later I looked back. This time saw only the slender wooden cross,and below it a dark blurred mass.
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