She tried feverishly to raise her mask with her hand. "I am--not well," she stammered. "I cannot breathe."
She swayed so violently in her saddle as she spoke, that I sprang down, and running round her horse"s head, was just in time to catch her as she fell. She was not quite unconscious then, for, as I supported her, she murmured, "Leave me! Leave me! I am not worthy that you should touch me."
Those words made me happy. I carried her to the bank, my heart on fire, and laid her against it just as M. de Cocheforet rode up. He sprang from his horse, his eyes blazing with anger. "What is this?" he cried harshly. "What have you been saying to her, man?"
"She will tell you," I answered drily, my composure returning under his eye,--"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 hear or answer. I dashed the spurs into my horse, and rode away past the crossroads, past the finger-post; away with the level upland stretching before 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 standing upright against the sky, staring after me across her body. And again I looked back. This time I saw only the slender wooden cross, and below it a dark blurred ma.s.s.
CHAPTER XIII.
ST. MARTIN"S EVE.
It was late evening on the last day but one of November, when I rode into Paris through the Orleans gate. The wind was in the northeast, and a great cloud of vapour hung in the eye of an angry sunset. The air seemed to be full of wood smoke, the kennels reeked, my gorge rose at the city"s smell; and with all my heart I envied the man who had gone out of it by the same gate nearly two months before, with his face to the south, and the prospect of riding day after day across heath and moor and pasture. At least he had had some weeks of life before him, and freedom, and the open air, and hope and uncertainty, while I came back under doom; and in the pall of smoke that hung over the huddle of innumerable roofs, saw a gloomy shadowing of my own fate.
For make no mistake. A man in middle life does not strip himself of the worldly habit with which experience has clothed him, does not run counter to all the cynical saws and instances by which he has governed his course so long, without shiverings and doubts and horrible misgivings and struggles of heart. At least a dozen times between the Loire and Paris, I asked myself what honour was; and what good it would do me when I lay rotting and forgotten; if I was not a fool following a Jack-o"-lanthorn; and whether, of all the men in the world, the relentless man to whom I was returning, would not be the first to gibe at my folly.
However, shame kept me straight; shame and the memory of Mademoiselle"s looks and words. I dared not be false to her again; I could not, after speaking so loftily, fall so low. And therefore--though not without many a secret struggle and quaking--I came, on this last evening but one of November, to the Orleans gate, and rode slowly and sadly through the streets by the Luxembourg, on my way to the Pont au Change.
The struggle had sapped my last strength, however; and with the first whiff of the gutters, the first rush of barefooted _gamins_ under my horse"s hoofs, the first babel of street cries, the first breath, in a word, of Paris, there came a new temptation--to go for one last night to Zaton"s to see the tables again and the faces of surprise; to be, for an hour or two, the old Berault. That could be no breach of honour; for in any case I could not reach the Cardinal before tomorrow. And it could do no harm. It could make no change in anything. It would not have been a thing worth struggling about--only I had in my inmost heart suspicions that the stoutest resolutions might lose their force in that atmosphere; that even such a talisman as the memory of a woman"s looks and words might lose its virtue there.
Still I think I should have succ.u.mbed in the end, if I had not received at the corner of the Luxembourg a shock which sobered me effectually. As I pa.s.sed the gates, a coach followed by two outriders swept out of the palace courtyard; it was going at a great pace, and I reined my jaded horse on one side to give it room. As it whirled by me, one of the leather curtains flapped back, and I saw for a second, by the waning light,--the nearer wheels were no more than two feet from my boot,--a face inside.
A face, and no more, and that only for a second! But it froze me. It was Richelieu"s, the Cardinal"s; but not as I had been wont to see it, keen, cold, acute, with intellect and indomitable will in every feature. This face was distorted with rage and impatience; with the fever of haste and the fear of death. The eyes burned under the pale brow, the mustachios bristled, the teeth showed through the beard; I could fancy the man crying "Faster! Faster!" and gnawing his nails in the impatience of pa.s.sion; and I shrank back as if I had been struck.
The next moment the galloping outriders splashed me, the coach was a hundred paces ahead, and I was left chilled and wondering, foreseeing the worst, and no longer in any mood for the gaming-table.
Such a revelation of such a man was enough to appall me. Conscience cried out that he must have heard that Cocheforet had escaped, and through me! But I dismissed the idea as soon as formed.
In the vast meshes of the Cardinal"s schemes, Cocheforet could be only a small fish; and to account for the face in the coach I needed a cataclysm, a catastrophe, a misfortune, as far above ordinary mishaps, as this man"s intellect rose above the common run of minds.
It was almost dark when I crossed the bridges, and crept despondently to the Rue Savonnerie. After stabling my horse, I took my bag and holsters, and climbing the stairs to my old landlord"s,--the place seemed to have grown strangely mean and small and ill-smelling in my absence,--I knocked at the door. It was opened by the little tailor himself, who threw up his arms at the sight of me. "By St. Genevieve!"
he said. "If it is not M. de Berault!"
"No other," I said. It touched me a little, after my lonely journey, to find him so glad to see me--though I had never done him a greater benefit than sometimes to unbend with him and borrow his money. "You look surprised, little man!" I continued, as he made way for me to enter. "I"ll be sworn you have been p.a.w.ning my goods and letting my room, you knave!"
"Never, your excellency!" he answered, beaming on me. "On the contrary, I have been expecting you."
"How?" I said. "To-day?"
"To-day or to-morrow," he answered, following me in and closing the door. "The first thing I said, when I heard the news this morning, was, Now we shall have M. de Berault back again. Your excellency will pardon the children," he continued, as I took the old seat on the three-legged stool before the hearth. "The night is cold, and there is no fire in your room."
While he ran to and fro with my cloak and bags, little Gil, to whom I had stood at St. Sulpice"s--borrowing ten crowns the same day, I remember--came shyly to play with my sword-hilt "So you expected me back when you heard the news, Frison, did you?" I said, taking the lad on my knee.
"To be sure, your excellency," he answered, peeping into the black pot before he lifted it to the hook.
"Very good. Then, now, let us hear what the news was," I said drily.
"Of the Cardinal, M. de Berault."
"Ah? And what?"
He looked at me, holding the heavy pot suspended in his hands. "You have not heard?" he exclaimed, his jaw falling.
"Not a t.i.ttle. Tell it me, my good fellow."
"You have not heard that His Eminence is disgraced?"
I stared at him. "Not a word," I said.
He set down the pot. "Your excellency must have made a very long journey indeed, then," he said, with conviction. "For it has been in the air a week or more, and I thought it had brought you back. A week?
A month, I dare say. They whisper that it is the old Queen"s doing. At any rate, it is certain that they have cancelled his commissions and displaced his officers. There are rumours of immediate peace with Spain. His enemies are lifting up their heads, and I hear that he has relays of horses set all the way to the coast, that he may fly at any moment For what I know he may be gone already."
"But, man," I said--"the King! You forget the King. Let the Cardinal once pipe to him, and he will dance. And they will dance, too!" I added grimly.
"Yes," Frison answered eagerly. "True, your excellency, but the King will not see him. Three times to-day, as I am told, the Cardinal has driven to the Luxembourg, and stood like any common man in the ante-chamber, so that I hear it was pitiful to see him. But His Majesty would not admit him. And when he went away the last time, I am told that his face was like death! Well, he was a great man, and we may be worse ruled, M. de Berault, saving your presence. If the n.o.bles did not like him, he was good to the traders, and the _bourgeoisie_, and equal to all."
"Silence, man! Silence, and let me think," I said, much excited. And while he bustled to and fro, getting my supper, and the firelight played about the snug, sorry little room, and the child toyed with his plaything, I fell to digesting this great news, and pondering how I stood now and what I ought to do. At first sight, I know, it seemed that I had nothing to do but sit still. In a few hours the man who held my bond would be powerless, and I should be free. In a few hours I might smile at him. To all appearance, the dice had fallen well for me. I had done a great thing, run a great risk, won a woman"s love, and after all was not to pay the penalty!
But a word which fell from Frison as he fluttered round me, pouring out the broth, and cutting the bread, dropped into my mind and spoiled my satisfaction. "Yes, your excellency," he exclaimed, confirming something he had said before, and which I had missed, "and I am told that the last time he came into the gallery, there was not a man of all the scores who attended his _levee_ last Monday would speak to him. They fell off like rats,--just like rats,--until he was left standing all alone. And I have seen him!" Frison lifted up his eyes and his hands and drew in his breath. "Ah, I have seen the King look shabby beside him! And his eye! I would not like to meet it now."
"Pish!" I growled. "Some one has fooled you. Men are wiser than that."
"So? Well, your excellency understands. But--there are no cats on a cold hearth."
I told him again that he was a fool. But withal I felt uncomfortable.
This was a great man if ever a great man lived, and they were all leaving him; and I--well, I had no cause to love him. But I had taken his money, I had accepted his commission, and I had betrayed him.
Those three things being so, if he fell before I could--with the best will in the world--set myself right with him, so much the better for me. That was my gain, the fortune of war. But if I lay hid, and took time for my ally, and being here while he stood still,--though tottering,--waited until he fell, what of my honour then? What of the grand words I had said to Mademoiselle at Agen? I should be like the recreant in the old romance, who, lying in the ditch while the battle raged, came out afterwards and boasted of his courage. And yet the flesh was weak. A day, twenty-four hours, two days, might make the difference between life and death. At last I settled what I would do.
At noon the next day, the time at which I should have presented myself, if I had not heard this news, at that time I would still present myself. Not earlier; I owed myself the chance. Not later; that was due to him.
Having so settled it, I thought to rest in peace. But with the first light I was awake; and it was all I could do to keep myself quiet until I heard Frison stirring. I called to him then to know if there was any news, and lay waiting and listening while he went down to the street to learn. It seemed an endless time before he came back; an age, after he came back, before he spoke.
"Well, he has not set off?" I cried at last, unable to control my eagerness.
Of course he had not. At nine o"clock I sent Frison out again; and at ten, and at eleven--always with the same result. I was like a man waiting, and looking, and, above all, listening for a reprieve, and as sick as any craven. But when he came back at eleven, I gave up hope, and dressed myself carefully. I suppose I still had an odd look, however; for Frison stopped me at the door and asked me, with evident alarm, whither I was going.
I put the little man aside gently. "To the tables," I said. "To make a big throw, my friend."
It was a fine morning; sunny, keen, pleasant. Even the streets smelled fresh. But I scarcely noticed it. All my thoughts were where I was going. It seemed but a step from my threshold to the Hotel Richelieu.
I was no sooner gone from the one than I found myself at the other. As on the memorable evening, when I had crossed the street in a drizzling rain, and looked that way with foreboding, there were two or three guards in the Cardinal"s livery, loitering before the gates. But this was not all. Coming nearer, I found the opposite pavement under the Louvre thronged with people; not moving about their business, but standing all silent, all looking across furtively, all with the air of persons who wished to be thought pa.s.sing by. Their silence and their keen looks had in some way an air of menace. Looking back after I had turned in towards the gates, I found them devouring me with their eyes.
Certainly they had little else to look at. In the courtyard, where some mornings when the court was in Paris I had seen a score of coaches waiting and thrice as many servants, were now emptiness and sunshine and stillness. The officer, who stood twisting his mustachios, on guard, looked at me in wonder as I pa.s.sed. The lackeys lounging in the portico, and all too much taken up with whispering to make a pretence of being of service, grinned at my appearance. But that which happened when I had mounted the stairs, and come to the door of the ante-chamber, outdid all. The man on guard there would have opened the door; but when I went to take advantage of the offer, and enter, a major-domo, who was standing near, muttering with two or three of his kind, hastened forward and stopped me.
"Your business, Monsieur, if you please?" he said inquisitively. And I wondered why the others looked at me so strangely.