"No, no; I trust--"
"Surmised, then!" said the girl. "She is one not easily deceived.
Clever is my lady! And you talk, she says nothing, but leads you on!
If there"s aught she wishes to learn that you know, be a.s.sured she"s found out from your lips."
"Nay; I"ll not believe--"tis true once or twice I"ve let a word slip.
But she noticed not--"
"No doubt!" The island girl"s voice expressed a fine scorn. "However, it matters little. Speaks she ever of the Black Seigneur?" suddenly.
"No. Why?"
"Why not?" Nanette"s tone was enigmatic.
"I don"t understand."
"At any rate, she is better off here than yonder in France, if tidings be true," said the other irrelevantly.
"Ah, _ma belle France_!" murmured the old man regretfully. "How she is torn within--threatened from without! But fortunately she has her defenders," his voice thrilled, "brave men who have thronged to her needs. I suppose," he continued abruptly, "it"s to arrange about the new ship that brings the Seigneur once more to the island?"
"I suppose so," a.s.sented the other briefly.
"A true Frenchman, Pierre Laroche, your father, has shown himself, in giving one of his best ships to the cause! Although perhaps he would not have been so ready," thoughtfully, "had not the Paris a.s.sembly seen fit to appoint Andre Desaurac in command of all the vessels to guard the coast against the intrigues of the French royalists with foreign powers and aliens! Well, well, he will find here many old friends!"
"Yourself, for example, Father, who helped him in the courts to establish his right to his name," said the young woman quickly.
"And you, Mistress Nanette," the kindly eyes lighting with a curious, indulgent look, "who went to the Mount alone, unaided, to--"
A frown gathered on the dark, handsome face of the girl. "Unaided?"
she said, staring at the sparkles on the waves before her.
"Oh, the people never weary of talking about it! and how you--"
"Yon"s a sail!" Abruptly the young woman rose; with skirts fluttering behind her, gazed out to sea.
Several hours later, just before dusk, a ship ran into the harbor, dropped anchor, and sent a boat to the sh.o.r.e. In the small craft sat a number of men, and the first of these to spring to the beach and mount the stone stairway to the inn, was met at the top; warmly greeted, by old Pierre himself! _Mon dieu_! To see the new-comer was like old times! Only now, the landlord observed jestingly, the profits would be small! But a fig to parsimony, in these days when men"s patriotism should be large; do what he, the Black Seigneur, would with the new ship, even if he sunk her, provided it was in good company, and he went not down with her himself! To which protestations the other answered; presented his companions, and greeted the a.s.sembled company within.
Busy at a great board, laden with comestibles interspersed with flagons of wines, Nanette welcomed him briefly, and again his glance--keen and a.s.sured, that of a man the horizon of whose vision had widened, since last he stood there--swept the gathering. But apparently, one he looked for was not present, and he had again turned to the young woman, a question on his lips, when on the garden side of the house a door opened. It revealed a flowering background, a plateau, yellow in the last rays of the sun; it framed, also, the slender, black-clad figure of a girl, above whose white brow the waving hair shone like threads of gold.
"An old friend of yours, my Lady!" called out blunt Pierre.
A moment the clear, brown eyes seemed to waver; then became steady, as schooled to some purpose. She came forward composedly; gave the Black Seigneur her hand.
"I--am always glad to see old friends!" said my lady, with a lift of the head, over-conscious, perhaps, of the concentrated gaze of the company.
He looked at her; made perfunctory answer; she seemed about to speak again, when the hand he let fall was caught by another.
"Elise!" From among those who had come ash.o.r.e, a man in fashionable attire sprang forward, a little thinner than when last she had seen him, and more cynical-looking, as slightly soured by world-contact and the new tendencies of society.
"My Lord!" Certainly was my lady taken unawares; a moment looked at the Marquis as if a little startled; then at the Black Seigneur:
"A pleasant surprise for you, my Lady!" said the latter. "But you owe me no thanks! An order from the chief of the Admiralty, properly signed and countersigned, directing me to transport the Marquis de Beauvillers. .h.i.ther, was not to be disregarded!"
"A somewhat singular dispensation of Providence, nevertheless!"
observed the n.o.bleman dryly. "After our--what shall we call it?--little pa.s.sage of arms? You must acknowledge, however, that in truth the Lady Elise and myself had some reason to discredit your a.s.surances that night--"
"Far be it from me to dispute it, my Lord," and the Black Seigneur turned, while the Marquis, slightly shrugging his shoulders, addressed my lady.
Half blithely, then half bitterly, relapsing occasionally from the old, debonair manner he had a.s.sumed, he spoke of his escape from the Mount; months of hiding in foul places, amid fields and forest, with no word of her; his success, at last, in reaching Paris, and, through rumor, learning where she was, and hastening to her--
A bluff voice interrupted further explanations and avowals; the steaming flesh-pots, it informed the company, awaited not soft words and honied phrases; monarch in his own dining-room, ostentatiously conscious, perhaps, of his own unwonted prodigality, Pierre Laroche waved them to their places--where they would!--so that they waited not!
Quizzically my lord lifted his brow; truly here was a Republican fellow who appreciated not an honor when it was bestowed upon him, nor saw anything unusual in a Marquis" presence beneath that humble roof.
Something of this he murmured to my lady, in a tone others might have heard; but she answered not; took her place, with red lips the firmer, as if to conceal some weakness to which they sought to give way.
Not without constraint the meal pa.s.sed; the host, desirous to learn the latest political news, looked at the Marquis and curbed a natural curiosity, until a more favorable moment when he and the Black Seigneur should be alone. My lady, although generally made to feel welcome and at home there, seemed now, perhaps, to herself, a little out of place, like a person that has wandered from a world of her own and strayed into another"s. Cross-currents, long at strife in her breast, surged and flowed fast; the while she seemed to listen to my lord, who appeared now in lighter, more airy humor. And as she sat thus, with fair head bent a little, she could but hear, at times, above the medley of tones and the sound of servants" footsteps in clattering wooden shoes, the voice of the Black Seigneur--now pledging a toast to old Pierre; anon discussing winds, tides, or ships! A free reckless voice, that seemed to vibrate from the past--to stir anew bright, terrible flames.
Daylight slowly waned; lights were brought in, and, the meal over, old Pierre pushed back in his chair. My lady rose quickly; looked a little constrainedly at the company, at the Marquis, then toward the door.
Antic.i.p.ating her desire, attributing to it, perhaps, a significance flattering to his vanity, the young n.o.bleman expressed a wish for a stroll; a sight of the garden. At once she a.s.sented; a slight tint now on her cheeks, she moved to the door, and my lord followed; as they disappeared, the Black Seigneur laughed--at one of Pierre"s jokes!
"Have I not told it before?" said the host.
"Have you?" murmured the Black Seigneur. "Well, a good jest, like an excellent dish, may well be served twice."
"Humph!" observed the landlord doubtfully.
After a pause: "I suppose he will be taking her away soon?"
"Her?" The young man rose.
"The Lady Elise!"
"I suppose so," shortly.
"We shall miss her!" grumbled the landlord as he, too, got up and walked over to the fireplace. "I, who never thought to care for any of the fine folk--I, bluff old Pierre Laroche!--say we shall miss her."
"Knows she how it fared with his Excellency"s--her father"s--estate?
That little, or nothing, is left?"
"Aye."
"And she will agree to the promise I wrote you about?" quickly.
"That you--now that the right to your name has been vindicated--are content to accept half the lands in dispute; her ladyship to retain the other half?"
"Yes; in consideration of that which his Excellency expended in taxes--no small sum!--and what it would cost to carry on vexatious litigation!"
"You are strangely faint-hearted to pursue your advantage," said old Pierre shrewdly. "But," as the other made a gesture, "I put it to her ladyship as you desired me to, and--"