I had well-nigh chosen to try the room at the left, when the door opposite me opened without noise, and a figure glided into the chamber, swiftly and silently. The movement was that of a person who rapidly traverses a place in search of some one.
"Mademoiselle!"
She heard me, saw me, stopped, and stood with parted lips, astounded face, and terror-stricken eyes.
So we stood, the width of the room between us, regarding each other.
CHAPTER XVI.
BEHIND THE CURTAINS
So we stood. Irresistible as had been my impulse to follow her, I now found myself held back, as if by the look in her eyes, from approaching nearer. So, while she gazed at me in wonder and terror, I regarded her with inexpressible scorn and love, horror and adoration.
Presently she spoke, in a terrified whisper:
"Why are you here?"
I answered in a low voice:
"Because you are here. Like a poisonous flower you lure me. A flower you are in outward beauty! Never was poison more sweetly concealed than is treachery in you!"
"You were mad to follow me!" she said, and then she cast a quick, apprehensive glance around the chamber, a glance that took in the different doors one after another.
I thought she meant that, as we were in the stronghold of my enemies and her friends, it would be madness in me to attempt to punish her treachery. So I replied:
"Seek not to fright me from vengeance, for I intend none! I did not come to punish. I do not know why it is, but where you are not I cannot rest.
I am drawn to you as by some power of magic. I would be with you even in h.e.l.l! Spy, traitress that you are, I love you! Your dupe that I am, I love you!" I went to where, with downcast eyes, she stood, and I caught her hand and pressed it to my lips. "I make myself a jest, a thing for laughter, do I not, kissing the hand that would slay me?"
She raised her eyes, and held out her hand towards the fire-place, saying:
"The hand that I would thrust into the flame to save you from the lightest harm!"
What? Now that I was here, now that my capture seemed certain, would she pretend that she had not acted for La Chatre against me? She did not know that I had met Pierre, and what he had confessed to me.
"Mock me as you will, mademoiselle!" said I.
"Mistrust me as _you_ will, monsieur! I tell you, I would not have you undergo the smallest harm!"
"You well sustain the jest!"
"Before G.o.d," she answered, "I do not jest!"
There was in her voice a ring of earnestness that seemed impossible to be counterfeit. Puzzled, I looked at her, trying to read her countenance.
"Yet," I said, presently, "you were a spy upon me!"
"I was, G.o.d pity me! Scourge me with rough words as you will; I merit every blow!"
"And you came here to see La Chatre," I went on, "perhaps because you feared discovery, perhaps because you thought your work of betrayal was done" (for I thought that she may have known of the midnight march of the governor"s troops), "perhaps to finish that work!"
"Now you wrong me at last!" she cried. "Thank G.o.d, I am not as bad as you can think me!"
"Then you did not come here to see La Chatre?"
"I came to see him, I admit! I was seeking him when I met you here. But it was not because I feared discovery that I left you, nor because I thought my miserable work was done, nor to finish it."
I saw now that she was in great agitation. She tottered forward to the table and put her hand on it, and leaned on it for support.
It seemed as if she were speaking the truth, as if there might be some explanation of all, but that her inward excitement was too great, her ideas too confused, for her to a.s.semble the facts and present them in proper order. It seemed that she could answer my accusations only as they came, that she acknowledged herself guilty in part towards me, and yet did not wish me harm.
"Mademoiselle," I said, dropping my harshness and irony, "to believe you true would make me as happy as I now am wretched. But why is your boy here, in the governor"s service? Why did he carry from you the secret of my hiding-place?"
Mademoiselle shuddered and gave a gesture of despair, as if there were indeed no defence for her.
"Why are the troops away, if not in quest of me?" I asked. "We saw them going towards Maury by the river road."
"I did not know that the troops had gone, or were going," she said. "I swear to you, monsieur, if troops have gone to Maury this night, I had nothing to do with their going!"
"But they knew what road to take, and how to find my hiding-place. La Chatre knew that."
"Alas, it is true!" she moaned, while tears ran down her face. "I sent him word!"
"You sent him word! You learned how to reach La Tournoire"s hiding-place from the man you thought his friend, and you sent the secret to the governor, whom you knew to be his enemy? And yet you are not as bad as I can think you!"
"I sent him word of your hiding-place; but he was not to seize you till I had arranged a meeting with you alone and informed him of it!"
"You confess this! Oh, mademoiselle!"
"Consider! Did I arrange that meeting?"
"You had not time. It was but this afternoon you learned La Chatre was at Clochonne."
"Yet, instead of coming here to-night I might have done it, monsieur. I ran no risk of discovery in staying at Maury. You would still have had faith in me had I remained there. And it was easy to do; it was all planned. You know the old tower by the spring, to which we walked the other day. I was to send Hugo at midnight to M. de la Chatre, with word to have his men hidden there to-morrow at sunset. To-morrow I was to go off into the forest with Jeannotte, and at sunset she was to come to you, saying that I was at the tower grievously injured. You would have gone, monsieur, without waiting to call any of your men; you would have come at my summons on the instant, to the end of the world--"
"You knew that? Truly, the heart of man is an open page to women!"
"It was easily to be done, monsieur. Hugo could have shown the troops the way. The place was well chosen. Neither your sentinels nor the inn people would have seen the troops. They would have hidden there in wait for you.
So we had planned it, I and Jeannotte; but I abandoned it. I gave no orders to Hugo. I came to Clochonne."
"Yes, knowing, perchance, that I would come after you. You thought to make of Clochonne a trap into which to lead me! You were careful to let it be known where you were coming, that I might find out and follow!"
"I told only my maid and Hugo, in a moment of excitement, when I scarce knew what I said. I no more desired you to follow than I desired myself to stay at Maury to call you to the ambush!"
"The ambush!" I echoed. "You forget one thing, mademoiselle, when you take credit for renouncing the ambush. The troops have gone already to Maury. Had they found me there, they would have made your ambush unnecessary or impossible."