The Countess long remembered that vigil--for she lay late awake; the cool gloom, the faint wood-rustlings, the distant cry of fox or wolf, the soft glow of the expiring fires that at last left the world to darkness and the stars; above all, the silent wheeling of the planets, which spoke indeed of a supreme Ruler, but crushed the heart under a sense of its insignificance, and of the insignificance of all human revolutions.
"Yet, I believe!" she cried, wrestling upwards, wrestling with herself.
"Though I have seen what I have seen, yet I believe!"
And though she had to bear what she had to bear, and do that from which her soul shrank! The woman, indeed, within her continued to cry out against this tragedy ever renewed in her path, against this necessity for choosing evil, or good, ease for herself or life for others. But the moving heavens, pointing onward to a time when good and evil alike should be past, strengthened a nature essentially n.o.ble; and before she slept no shame and no suffering seemed--for the moment at least--too great a price to pay for the lives of little children. Love had been taken from her life; the pride which would fain answer generosity with generosity--that must go, too!
She felt no otherwise when the day came, and the bustle of the start and the common round of the journey put to flight the ideals of the night.
But things fell out in a manner she had not pictured. They halted before noon on the north bank of the Loir, in a level meadow with lines of poplars running this way and that, and filling all the place with the soft shimmer of leaves. Blue succory, tiny mirrors of the summer sky, flecked the long gra.s.s, and the women picked bunches of them, or, Italian fashion, twined the blossoms in their hair. A road ran across the meadow to a ferry, but the ferryman, alarmed by the aspect of the party, had conveyed his boat to the other side and hidden himself.
Presently Madame St. Lo espied the boat, clapped her hands and must have it. The poplars threw no shade, the flies teased her, the life of a hermit--in a meadow--was no longer to her taste.
"Let us go on the water!" she cried. "Presently you will go to bathe, Monsieur, and leave us to grill!"
"Two livres to the man who will fetch the boat!" Count Hannibal cried.
In less than half a minute three men had thrown off their boots, and were swimming across, amid the laughter and shouts of their fellows. In five minutes the boat was brought.
It was not large and would hold no more than four. Tavannes" eye fell on Carlat.
"You understand a boat," he said. "Go with Madame St. Lo. And you, M.
La Tribe."
"But you are coming?" Madame St. Lo cried, turning to the Countess. "Oh, Madame," with a curtsey, "you are not? You--"
"Yes, I will come," the Countess answered.
"I shall bathe a short distance up the stream," Count Hannibal said. He took from his belt the packet of letters, and as Carlat held the boat for Madame St. Lo to enter, he gave it to the Countess, as he had given it to her yesterday. "Have a care of it, Madame," he said in a low voice, "and do not let it pa.s.s out of your hands. To lose it may be to lose my head."
The colour ebbed from her cheeks. In spite of herself her shaking hand put back the packet. "Had you not better then--give it to Bigot?" she faltered.
"He is bathing."
"Let him bathe afterwards."
"No," he answered almost harshly; he found a species of pleasure in showing her that, strange as their relations were, he trusted her. "No; take it, Madame. Only have a care of it."
She took it then, hid it in her dress, and he turned away; and she turned towards the boat. La Tribe stood beside the stern, holding it for her to enter, and as her fingers rested an instant on his arm their eyes met.
His were alight, his arm even quivered; and she shuddered.
She avoided looking at him a second time, and this was easy, since he took his seat in the bows beyond Carlat, who handled the oars. Silently the boat glided out on the surface of the stream, and floated downwards, Carlat now and again touching an oar, and Madame St. Lo chattering gaily in a voice which carried far on the water. Now it was a flowering rush she must have, now a green bough to shield her face from the sun"s reflection; and now they must lie in some cool, shadowy pool under fern- clad banks, where the fish rose heavily, and the trickle of a rivulet fell down over stones.
It was idyllic. But not to the Countess. Her face burned, her temples throbbed, her fingers gripped the side of the boat in the vain attempt to steady her pulses. The packet within her dress scorched her. The great city and its danger, Tavannes and his faith in her, the need of action, the irrevocableness of action hurried through her brain. The knowledge that she must act now--or never--pressed upon her with distracting force.
Her hand felt the packet, and fell again nerveless.
"The sun has caught you, _ma mie_," Madame St. Lo said. "You should ride in a mask as I do."
"I have not one with me," she muttered, her eyes on the water.
"And I but an old one. But at Angers--"
The Countess heard no more; on that word she caught La Tribe"s eye. He was beckoning to her behind Carlat"s back, pointing imperiously to the water, making signs to her to drop the packet over the side. When she did not obey--she felt sick and faint--she saw through a mist his brow grow dark. He menaced her secretly. And still the packet scorched her; and twice her hand went to it, and dropped again empty.
On a sudden Madame St. Lo cried out. The bank on one side of the stream was beginning to rise more boldly above the water, and at the head of the steep thus formed she had espied a late rosebush in bloom; nothing would now serve but she must land at once and plunder it. The boat was put in therefore, she jumped ash.o.r.e, and began to scale the bank.
"Go with Madame!" La Tribe cried, roughly nudging Carlat in the back. "Do you not see that she cannot climb the bank? Up, man, up!"
The Countess opened her mouth to cry "No!" but the word died half-born on her lips; and when the steward looked at her, uncertain what she had said, she nodded.
"Yes, go!" she muttered. She was pale.
"Yes, man, go!" cried the minister, his eyes burning. And he almost pushed the other out of the boat.
The next second the craft floated from the bank, and began to drift downwards. La Tribe waited until a tree interposed and hid them from the two whom they had left; then he leaned forward.
"Now, Madame!" he cried imperiously. "In G.o.d"s name, now!"
"Oh!" she cried. "Wait! Wait! I want to think."
"To think?"
"He trusted me!" she wailed. "He trusted me! How can I do it?"
Nevertheless, and even while she spoke, she drew forth the packet.
"Heaven has given you the opportunity!"
"If I could have stolen it!" she answered.
"Fool!" he returned, rocking himself to and fro, and fairly beside himself with impatience. "Why steal it? It is in your hands! You have it! It is Heaven"s own opportunity, it is G.o.d"s opportunity given to you!"
For he could not read her mind nor comprehend the scruple which held her hand. He was single-minded. He had but one aim, one object. He saw the haggard faces of brave men hopeless; he heard the dying cries of women and children. Such an opportunity of saving G.o.d"s elect, of redeeming the innocent, was in his eyes a gift from Heaven. And having these thoughts and seeing her hesitate--hesitate when every movement caused him agony, so imperative was haste, so precious the opportunity--he could bear the suspense no longer. When she did not answer he stooped forward, until his knees touched the thwart on which Carlat had sat; then, without a word, he flung himself forward, and, with one hand far extended, grasped the packet.
Had he not moved, she would have done his will; almost certainly she would have done it. But, thus attacked, she resisted instinctively; she clung to the letters.
"No!" she cried. "No! Let go, Monsieur!" And she tried to drag the packet from him.
"Give it me!"
"Let go, Monsieur! Do you hear?" she repeated. And, with a vigorous jerk, she forced it from him--he had caught it by the edge only--and held it behind her. "Go back, and--"
"Give it me!" he panted.
"I will not!"
"Then throw it overboard!"
"I will not!" she cried again, though his face, dark with pa.s.sion, glared into hers, and it was clear that the man, possessed by one idea only, was no longer master of himself. "Go back to your place!"
"Give it me," he gasped, "or I will upset the boat!" And, seizing her by the shoulder, he reached over her, striving to take hold of the packet which she held behind her. The boat rocked; and, as much in rage as fear, she screamed.