"Why is that unfortunate?" I asked, still deprived of thought by the horror of having killed so honorable a gentleman, who had not harmed me.
"Because he can let the Duke of Guise know exactly on whom to seek vengeance for the death of De Noyard."
"The Duke of Guise will seek vengeance?" I asked, mechanically, as we emerged from that fatal house, and turned our backs upon it.
"a.s.suredly. He will demand your immediate punishment. You must bespeak the King"s pardon as soon as possible. That is necessary, to protect oneself, when one has killed one"s antagonist in a duel. The edicts still forbid duels, and one may be made to pay for a victory with one"s life, if the victim"s friends demand the enforcement of the law,--as in this case the Duke of Guise surely will demand."
"M. de Quelus can, doubtless, get me the King"s pardon," I said, turning my mind from the past to the future, from regret to apprehension. The necessity of considering my situation prevented me from contemplating, at that time, the perfidy of Mlle. d"Arency, the blindness with which I had let myself be deceived, or the tragic and humiliating termination of my great love affair.
"If M. de Quelus is with you, you are safe from the authorities. You will then have only to guard against a.s.sa.s.sination at the hands of Guise"s followers."
"I shall go to M. de Quelus early in the morning," I said.
"By all means. And you will not go near your lodgings until you have a.s.sured your safety against arrest. You must reach the King before the Duke can see him; for the Duke will not fail to hint that, in killing De Noyard, you were the instrument of the King or of the Queen-mother. To disprove that, the King would have to promise the Duke to give you over to the authorities. And now that I think of it, you must make yourself safe before the Queen-mother learns of this affair, for she will advise the King to act in such a way that the Duke cannot accuse him of protecting you. My friend, it suddenly occurs to me that you have got into a rather deep hole!"
"De Rilly," I asked, with great concern, "do you think that I was the instrument of Catherine de Medici in this?"
"Certainly not!" was the emphatic answer. "The fight was about a woman, was it not?"
"A woman was the cause of it," I answered, with a heavy sigh. "But how do you know?"
"To tell the truth," he said, "many people have been amused to see you make soft eyes at a certain lady, and to see De Noyard do likewise. Neither young men like you, nor older men like him, can conceal these things."
Thus I saw that even De Rilly did not suspect the real truth, and this showed me how deep was the design of which I had been the tool. Everybody would lay the quarrel to rivalry in love. The presence of so manifest a cause would prevent people from hitting on the truth. Mlle. d"Arency had trusted to my youth, agility, and supposed skill to give me the victory in that fight in the dark; and then to circ.u.mstances to disclose who had done the deed. "It was De Noyard"s jealous rival," everybody would say.
Having found a sufficient motive, no one would take the trouble to seek the real source,--to trace the affair to the instigation of Catherine de Medici. The alert mind of De Rilly, it is true, divining the equally keen mind of the Duke of Guise, had predicted that Guise might pretend a belief in such instigation, and so force the King to avenge De Noyard, in self-vindication. Mlle. d"Arency well knew that I would not incriminate a woman, even a perfidious one, and counted also on my natural unwillingness to reveal myself as the dupe that I had been.
Moreover, it would not be possible for me to tell the truth in such a way that it would appear probable. And what would I gain by telling the truth? The fact would remain that I was the slayer of De Noyard, and, by accusing the instigators, I would but compel them to demonstrate non-complicity; which they could do only by clamoring for my punishment.
And how could I prove that things were not exactly as they had appeared,--that the woman"s screams were not genuine: that she was not actually threatened by De Noyard? Clearly as I saw the truth, clearly as De Noyard had seen it in his last moments, it could never be established by evidence.
With bitter self-condemnation, and profound rancor against the woman whose tool I had been, I realized what an excellent instrument she had found for her purpose of ridding her mistress of an obstacle.
It was not certain that the King, himself, had been privy to his mother"s design of causing De Noyard"s death. In such matters she often acted without consulting him. Therefore, when De Quelus should present my case to him as merely that of a duel over a love affair, Henri would perhaps give me his a.s.surances of safety, at once, and would hold himself bound in honor to stand by them. All depended on securing these before Catherine or the Duke of Guise should have an opportunity to influence him to another course.
I felt, as I walked along with De Rilly, that, if I should obtain immunity from the punishment prescribed by edict, I could rely on myself for protection against any private revenge that the Duke of Guise might plan.
De Rilly took me to a lodging in the Rue de L"Autruche, not far from my own, which was in the Rue St. Honore. Letting myself be commanded entirely by him, I went to bed, but not to sleep. I was anxious for morning to come, that I might be off to the Louvre. I lay speculating on the chances of my seeing De Quelus, and of his undertaking to obtain the King"s protection for me. Though appalled at what I had done, I had no wish to die,--the youth in me cried for life; and the more I desired life, the more fearful I became of failing to get De Quelus"s intercession.
I grew many years older in that night. In a single flash, I had beheld things. .h.i.therto unknown to me: the perfidy of which a woman was capable, the falseness of that self-confidence and vanity which may delude a man into thinking himself the conqueror of a woman"s heart, the danger of going, carelessly, on in a suspicious matter without looking forward to possible consequences. I saw the folly of thoughtlessness, of blind self-confidence, of reckless trust in the honesty of others and the luck of oneself. I had learned the necessity of caution, of foresight, of suspicion; and perhaps I should have to pay for the lesson with my life.
Turning on the bed, watching the window for the dawn, giving in my mind a hundred different forms to the account with which I should make De Quelus acquainted with the matter, I pa.s.sed the most of that night. At last, I fell asleep, and dreamt that I had told De Quelus my story, and he had brought me the King"s pardon; again, that I was engaged in futile efforts to approach him; again, that De Noyard had come to life. When De Rilly awoke me, it was broad daylight.
I dressed, and so timed my movements as to reach the Louvre at the hour when De Quelus would be about to officiate at the King"s rising. De Rilly left me at the gate, wishing me good fortune. He had to go to oversee the labors of some grooms in the King"s stables. One of the guards of the gate sent De Quelus my message. I stood, in great suspense, awaiting the answer, fearing at every moment to see the Duke of Guise ride into the Place du Louvre on his way to crave an interview with the King.
At last a page came across the court with orders that I be admitted, and I was soon waiting in a gallery outside the apartments of the chamberlains. After a time that seemed very long, De Quelus came out to me, with a look of inquiry on his face.
Ignoring the speech I had prepared for the occasion, I broke abruptly into the matter.
"M. de Quelus," I said, "last night, in a sudden quarrel which arose out of a mistake, I was so unfortunate as to kill M. de Noyard. It was neither a duel nor a murder,--each of us seemed justified in attacking the other."
De Quelus did not seem displeased to hear of De Noyard"s death.
"What evidence is there against you?" he asked.
"That of M. de Noyard"s servant, to whom I acknowledged that I had killed his master. Other evidence may come up. What I have come to beg is your intercession with the King--"
"I understand," he said, without much interest. "I shall bring up the matter before the King leaves his bed."
"When may I expect to know?" I asked, not knowing whether to be rea.s.sured or alarmed at his indifference.
"Wait outside the King"s apartments. I am going there now," he replied.
I followed him, saw him pa.s.s into the King"s suite, and had another season of waiting. This was the longest and the most trying. I stood, now tapping the floor with my foot, now watching the halberdiers at the curtained door, while they glanced indifferently at me. Various officers of the court, whose duty or privilege it was to attend the King"s rising, pa.s.sed in, none heeding me or guessing that I waited there for the word on which my life depended. I examined the tapestry over and over again, noticing, particularly, the redoubtable expression of a horseman with lance in rest, and wondering how he had ever emerged from the tower behind him, of which the gateway was half his size.
A page came out of the doorway through which De Quelus had disappeared.
Did he bring word to me? No. He glanced at me casually, and pa.s.sed on, leaving the gallery at the other end. Presently he returned, preceding Marguerite, the Queen of Navarre, whom he had gone to summon.
"More trouble in the royal family," I said to myself. The King must have scented another plot, to have summoned his sister before the time for the _pet.i.te levee_. I feared that this would hinder his consideration of my case.
Suddenly a tall figure, wearing a doublet of cloth of silver, gray velvet breeches, gray mantle, and gray silk stockings, strode rapidly through the gallery, and curtly commanded the usher to announce him. While awaiting the usher"s return, he stood still, stroking now his light mustaches, and now his fine, curly blonde beard, which was little more than delicate down on his chin. As his glance roved over the gallery it fell for a moment on me, but he did not know me, and his splendid blue eyes turned quickly away. His face had a pride, a n.o.bility, a subtlety that I never saw united in another. He was four inches more than six feet high, slender, and of perfect proportion, erect, commanding, and in the flower of youth. How I admired him, though my heart sank at the sight of him; for I knew he had come to demand my death! It was the Duke of Guise.
Presently the curtains parted, he pa.s.sed in, and they fell behind him.
And now my heart beat like a hammer on an anvil. Had De Quelus forgotten me?
Again the curtains parted. Marguerite came out, but this time entirely alone. As soon as she had pa.s.sed the halberdiers, her eyes fell on me, but she gave no sign of recognition. When she came near me, she said, in a low tone, audible to me alone, and without seeming to be aware of my presence:
"Follow me. Make no sign,--your life depends on it!"
She pa.s.sed on, and turned out of the gallery towards her own apartments.
For a moment I stood motionless; then, with a kind of instinctive sense of what ought to be done, for all thought seemed paralyzed within me, I made as if to return to the chamberlains" apartments, from which I had come. Reaching the place where Marguerite"s corridor turned off, I pretended for an instant to be at a loss which way to go; then I turned in the direction taken by Marguerite. If the halberdiers, at the entrance to the King"s apartments, saw me do this, they could but think I had made a mistake, and it was not their duty to come after me. Should I seek to intrude whither I had no right of entrance, I should encounter guards to hinder me.
Marguerite had waited for me in the corridor, out of sight of the halberdiers.
"Quickly, monsieur!" she said, and glided rapidly on. She led me boldly to her own apartments and through two or three chambers, pa.s.sing, on the way, guards, pages, and ladies in waiting, before whom I had the wit to a.s.sume the mien of one who was about to do some service for her, and had come to receive instructions. So my entrance seemed to pa.s.s as nothing remarkable. At last we entered a cabinet, where I was alone with her. She opened the door of a small closet.
"Monsieur," she said, "conceal yourself in this closet until I return. I am going to be present at the _pet.i.te levee_ of the King. Do not stir, for they will soon be searching the palace, with orders for your arrest.
Had you not come after me, at once, two of the Scotch Guards would have found you where you waited. I slipped out while they were listening to the orders that my mother added to the King"s."
I fell on my knee, within the closet.
"Madame," I said, trembling with grat.i.tude, "you are more than a queen.
You are an angel of goodness."
"No; I am merely a woman who does not forget an obligation. I have heard, from one of my maids, who heard it from a friend of yours, how you knocked a too inquisitive person into the moat beneath my window. I had to burn the rope that was used that night, but I have since procured another, which may have to be put to a similar purpose!"
And, with a smile, she shut the closet door upon me.