the four who looked to the door of the duke's hut, and waited for the news, were not relieved as quickly as they expected. when men return with no news they are apt to forget that others are less wise than themselves; and where, with something to impart, they had flown to relieve the anxious, they are prone to forget that the negative has its value for those who are in suspense.
hence some minutes elapsed before roger presented himself. and when he came and they cried breathlessly, "well, what news?" his answer was a look of reproach.
"should i not have come at once if there had been any?" he said. "alas, there is none."
"but you must have some!" they cried.
"nothing," he answered, almost sullenly. "all we know is that they quarrelled over their prisoners. the hill above the ford is a shambles."
the vicomte repressed the first movement of horror. "above the ford?" he said. "how came they there?"
roger shrugged his shoulders. "we don't know," he said. and then reading a dreadful question in his sister's eyes, "no, there is no sign of them," he continued. "we crossed to the old town on the hill, but found it locked and barred. the brutes mopped and mowed at us from the wall, but we could get no word of christian speech from them. they seemed to be in terror of us--which looks ill. but we had no ladders and no force sufficient to storm it, and the bat sent me back with ten spears to make you safe here while he rode on with charles towards villeneuve."
"villeneuve?" the vicomte asked, raising his eyebrows. "why?"
"there were tracks of a large body of horsemen moving in that direction. the bat hopes that some of the wretches quarrelled with the others, and carried off the prisoners, and are holding them safe--with an eye to their own necks."
"god grant it!" odette muttered in a low tone, and with so much feeling that all looked at her in wonder. nor had the prayer passed her lips many seconds before it was answered. the sound of voices drew their looks to the door, a shadow fell across the threshold, the substance followed. as the little countess sprang forward with a shriek of joy and the abbess dropped back in speechless emotion, bonne stood before them.
"he has granted her prayer," the duke muttered in astonishment. "laus deo!" while roger, scarcely less surprised than if a ghost had appeared before them, stared at his sister with all his eyes.
she barely looked at them. "i am tired," she said. "bear with me a moment. let me sit down." then, as if she were not content with the surprise which her words caused, "don't touch me!" she continued, recoiling before the countess's approach. "wait until you have heard all. you have little cause for joy. wait!"
the vicomte thought his worst fears justified. "but, my child," he faltered, "is that all you have to say to us?" and to the others, in a lower voice, "she is distraught! she is beside herself. can those wretches----"
"i escaped them," she replied, in the same dull tones. "they have done me no harm. let me rest a minute before i tell you."
roger stayed the inquiry after the lieutenant which was on his lips. it was evident to him and to all that something serious had happened: that the girl before them was not the girl who had ridden away yesterday with so brave a heart. but, freed from that fear of the worst which the vicomte had entertained, they knew not what to think. some signs of shock, some evidences of such an experience as she had passed through, were natural; but the reaction should have cast her into their arms, not withheld her--should have flung her weeping on her sister's shoulder, not frozen her in this strange apathy.
the abbess, indeed, who had recovered from the paroxysm of gratitude into which bonne's return had cast her, eyed her sister with the shadow of a terror. conscience, which makes cowards of us all, suggested to her an explanation of her sister's condition, adequate and more than adequate. a secret alarm kept her silent therefore: while the young countess, painfully aware that she had escaped all that bonne had suffered, sank under new remorse. for the others, they did not know what to think: and stealthily reading one another's eyes, felt doubts that they dared not acknowledge. was it possible, notwithstanding her denial, that she had suffered ill-treatment?
"perhaps it were better," the duke muttered, "if we left mademoiselle in the care of her sister?"
but low as he spoke, bonne heard. she raised her head wearily. "this does not lie with her," she said.
the abbess breathed more freely. the colour came back to her cheeks. she sat upright, relieved from the secret fear that had oppressed her. "with whom, then, child?" she asked in her natural voice. "and why this mystery? but we--have forgotten"--her voice faltered, "we have forgotten," she repeated hardily, "m. des ageaux. is he safe?"
"it is of him i am going to speak," bonne replied heavily.
"he has not--he has not fallen."
"he is alive."
"thank heaven for that!" roger cried with heartiness, his eyes sparkling. "has he gone on with charles and the bat?"
"no."
"then where is he?" she did not answer, and, startled, roger looked at her, the others looked at her. all waited for the reply.
"he is in the captain of vlaye's hands," she said slowly. and a gentle spasm, the beginning of weeping which did not follow, convulsed her features. "he saved me," she continued in trembling tones, "from the peasants, only to fall into m. de vlaye's hands."
"well, that was better!" roger answered.
her lips quivered, but she did not reply. perhaps she was afraid of losing that control over herself which it had cost her much to compass.
but the vicomte's patience, never great, was at an end. he saw that this was going to prove a troublesome matter. hence his sudden querulousness. "come, come, girl," he said petulantly. "tell us what has happened, and no nonsense! come, an end, i say! tell us what has happened from the beginning, and let us have no mysteries!"
she began. in a low voice, and with the same tokens of repressed feeling, she detailed what had happened from the moment of the invasion of her hut by the peasants to the release of des ageaux and the struggle in the river-bed.
"he owes us a life there," the vicomte exclaimed, while roger's eyes beamed with pride.
she paid no heed to her father's interjection, but continued the story of the succeeding events--the assault on the mill, and the arrival of vlaye and his men.
"who in truth and fact saved your lives then," roger said. "i forgive him much for that! it is the best thing i have heard of him."
"he saved my life," bonne replied, with a faint but perceptible shudder. she kept her eyes down as if she dared not meet their looks.
"but the lieutenant's too," the vicomte objected. "you told us that he was alive."
"he is alive," she murmured. and the trembling began to overpower her. "still alive."
"then----"
"but to-morrow at sunrise--" her voice shook with the pent-up misery, the long-repressed pain of her three hours' ride from vlaye--"to-morrow at sunrise, he--he must die!"
"what?"
the word came from one who so far had been silent. and the duke rising from his place by the door stood upright, supporting his weakened form against the wall of the hut. "what?" he repeated in a voice that in spite of his weakness rang clear and loud with anger. "he will not dare!"
"m. de vlaye?" the vicomte muttered in a discomfited tone, "i am sure--i am sure he will not--dream of such a thing. certainly not!"
"m. de vlaye says that if--if----" bonne paused as if she could not force her pallid lips to utter the words--"he says that at sunrise to-morrow he will hang him as the lieutenant last week hung one of his men."
"for murder! clear proved murder!" roger cried in an agitated voice. "before witnesses!"
"then by my salvation i will hang him!" joyeuse retorted in a voice which shook with rage; and one of those frantic, blasphemous passions to which all of his race were subject overcame him. "i will hang him high as haman, and like a dog as he is!" he snatched a glove from a peg on the wall beside him, and flung it down with violence. "give him that, the miserable upstart!" he shrieked, "and tell him that as surely as he keeps his word, i, henry of joyeuse, who for every spear he boasts can set down ten to that, will hang him though god and all his saints stand between! give it him! give it him! on foot or on horse, in mail or in shirt, alone or by fours, i am his and will drag his filthy life from him! go!" he continued, turning, his eyes suffused with rage, on roger. "or bid them bring me my horse and arms! i will to him now, now, and pluck his beard! i----"
"my lord, my lord," roger remonstrated. "you are not fit."
joyeuse sank back exhausted on his stool. "for him and such as he more than fit," he muttered. "more than fit--coward as he is!" but his tone and evident weakness gave him the lie. he looked feebly at his hand, opening and closing it under his eyes. "well, let him wait," he said. "let him wait awhile. but if he does this, i will kill him as surely as i sit here!"
"ay, to be sure!" the vicomte chimed in. "but unless i mistake, my lord, we are on a false scent. there was something of a condition unless i am in error. this silly girl, who is more moved than is needful, said--if, if--that m. de vlaye would hang him, unless---- what was it, child, you meant?"
she did not answer.
it was roger whose wits saved her the necessity. his eyes were sharpened by affection; he knew what had gone before. he guessed that which held her tongue.
"we must give up the countess!" he cried in generous scorn. "that is his condition. i guess it!"
bonne bowed her head. she had felt that to state the condition to the helpless, terrified girl at whose expense it must be performed was a shame to her; that to state it as if she craved its performance, expected its performance, looked for its performance, was a thing still baser, a thing dishonouring to her family, not worthy a villeneuve--a thing that must smirch them all and rob them of the only thing left to them, their good name.
yet if she did not speak, if she did not make it known? if she did not do this for him who loved her and whom she loved? if he perished because she was too proud to crave his life, because she feared lest her cloak be stained ever so little? that, too, was--she could not face that.
she was between the hammer and the anvil. the question, what she should do, had bowed her to the ground. she had seen as she rode that she must choose between honour and life; her lover's life, her own honour!
meanwhile, "give up the countess?" the vicomte muttered, staring at his son in dull perplexity. "give up the countess? why?"
"unless she is surrendered," roger explained in a low voice, "he will carry out his threat. he goes back, sir, to his old plan of strengthening himself. it is very clear. he thinks that with the countess in his power he can make use of her resources, and by their means defy us."
"he is a villain!" the vicomte cried, touched in his tenderest point.
"villain or no villain, i will cut his throat!" joyeuse exclaimed, his rage flaming up anew. "if he touch but a hair of des ageaux' head--who was wounded striving to save my brother's life at coutras, as all the world knows--i will never leave him nor forsake him till i have his life!"
"i fear that will not avail the lieutenant," roger muttered despondently.
"no. no, it may not," the vicomte agreed, "but we cannot help that." he, in truth, was able to contemplate the lieutenant's fate without too much vexation, or any overweening temptation to abandon the countess. "we cannot help it, and that is all that remains to be said. if he will do this he must do it. and when his own time comes his blood be upon his own head!"
but the girl who shared with bonne the tragedy of the moment had something to say. slowly the countess stood up. timid she was, but she had the full pride of her race, and shame had been her portion since the discovery of the thing bonne had done to save her. the smart of the abbess's fingers still burned her cheek and seared her pride. here, heaven-sent, as it seemed, was the opportunity of redressing the wrong which she had done to bonne and of setting herself right with the woman who had outraged her.
the price which she must pay, the costliness of the sacrifice did not weigh with her at this moment, as it would weigh with her when her blood was cool. to save bonne's lover stood for something; to assert herself in the eyes of those who had seen her insulted and scorned stood for much.
"no," she said with simple dignity. "there is something more to be said, m. le vicomte. if it be a question of m. des ageaux' life, i will go to the captain of vlaye."
"you will go?" the vicomte cried, astounded. "you, mademoiselle?"
"yes," she replied slowly, and with a little hardening of her childish features. "i will go. not willingly, god knows! but rather than m. des ageaux should die, i will go."
they cried out upon her, those most loudly who were least interested in her decision. but the one for whose protest she listened--roger--was silent. she marked that; for she was a woman, and roger's timid attentions had not passed unnoticed, nor, it may be, unappreciated. and the abbess was silent. she, whose heart this latest proof of her lover's infidelity served but to harden, she whose soul revolted from the possibility that the deed which she had done to separate vlaye from the countess might cast the girl into his arms, was silent in sheer rage. into far different arms had she thought to cast the countess! now, if this were to be the end of her scheme, the devil had indeed mocked her!
nor did bonne speak, though her heart was full. for her feelings dragged her two ways, and she would not, nay, she could not speak. that much she owed to her lover. yet the idea of sacrificing a woman to save a man shocked her deeply, shocked alike her womanliness and her courage; and not by a word, not by so much as the raising of a finger would she press the girl, whose very rank and power left her friendless among them, and made her for the time their sport. but neither--though her heart was racked with pity and shame--would she dissuade her. in any other circumstances which she could conceive, she had cast her arms about the child and withheld her by force. but her lover--her lover was at stake. how could she sacrifice him? how prefer another to him? and after all--she, too, acknowledged, she, too, felt the force of the argument--after all, the countess would be only where she would have been but for her. but for her the young girl would be already in vlaye's power; or worse, in the peasants' hands. if she went now she did but assume her own perils, take her own part, stand on her own feet.
"i shall go the rather," the countess continued coldly, using that very argument, "since i should be already in his power had i gone myself to the peasants' camp!"
"you shall not go! you cannot go!" the vicomte repeated with stupid iteration.
"m. le vicomte," she answered, "i am the countess of rochechouart." and the little figure, the infantine face, assumed a sudden dignity.
"it is unbecoming!"
"it becomes me less to let a gallant gentleman die."
"but you will be in vlaye's power."
"god willing," she replied, her spirit still sustaining her. was not the abbess, whom she was beginning to hate, looking at her?
ay, looking at her with such eyes, with such thought, as would have overwhelmed her could she have read them. bitter indeed, were odette's reflections at this moment--bitter! she had stained her hands and the end was this. she had stooped to a vile plot, to an act that might have cost her sister her life, and with this for reward. the triumph was her rival's. before her eyes and by her act this silly chit, with heroics on her lips, was being forced into his arms! and she, odette, stood powerless to check the issue of her deed, impotent to interfere, unable even to vent the words of hatred that trembled on her lips.
for the duke was listening, and she had still enough prudence, enough self-control, to remember that she must not expose her feelings in his presence. on him depended what remained: the possibility of vengeance, the chances of ambition. she knew that she could not speak without destroying the image of herself which she had wrought so patiently to form. and even when he added his remonstrances to her father's, and hot words imputing immodesty rose to the abbess's lips--words that must have brought the blood to the countess's cheeks and might have stung her to the renunciation of her project, she dared not utter them. she swallowed her passion, and showed only a cold mask of surprise.
not that the duke said much. for after a while, "well, perhaps it is best," he said. "what if she pass into his power! it is better a woman marry than a man die. we can make the one a widow; whereas to bring the other to life would puzzle the best swordsman in france!"
the vicomte persisted. "but there is no burden laid on the countess to do this," he said. "and i for one will be no party to it! what? have it said that i surrendered the countess of rochechouart who sought my protection?"
"sir," the girl replied, trembling slightly, "no one surrenders the countess save the countess. but that the less may be said to your injury, my own people shall attend me thither, and----"
"they will avail you nothing!" the vicomte replied with a frankness that verged on brutality. "you do not understand, mademoiselle. you are scarcely more than a child, and do not know to what you are going. you have been wont to be safe in your own resources, and now, were a fortnight given you to gather your power, you could perhaps make m. de vlaye tremble. but you go from here, in three hours you will be there, and then you will be as much in his power, despite your thirty or forty spears, as my daughter was this morning!"
"i count on nothing else," she said. but her face burned. and bonne, who suffered with her, bonne who was dragged this way and that, and would and would not, in whom love struggled with pity and shame with joy, into her face, too, crept a faint colour. how cowardly, oh, how cowardly seemed her conduct! how base in her to buy her happiness at the price of this child's misery! to ransom her lover at a woman's cost! it was a bargain that in another's case she had repudiated with scorn, with pride, almost with loathing. but she loved, she loved. and who that loved could hesitate? one here and there perhaps, some woman of a rare and noble nature, cast in a higher mould than herself. but not bonne de villeneuve.
yet the word she would not utter trembled on her tongue. and once, twice the thought of roger shook her. he, too, loved, yet he bore in silence to see his mistress delivered, tied and bound, to his rival!
how, she asked herself, how could he do it, how could he suffer it? how could he stand by and see this innocent depart to such a fate, to such a lot!
that puzzled her. she could understand the acquiescence of the others; of her sister, whom m. de vlaye's inconstancy must have alienated, of joyeuse, who was under an obligation to des ageaux, of the vicomte, who, affecting to take the countess's part, thought in truth only of himself. but roger? in his place she felt that she must have spoken whatever came of it, that she must have acted whatever the issue.
yet roger, noble, generous roger--for even while she blamed him with one half of her mind, she blessed him with the other--stood silent.
silent, even when the countess with a quivering lip and a fleeting glance in his direction--perhaps she, too, had looked for something else at his hands--went out, her surrender a settled thing; and it became necessary to give orders to her servants, to communicate with the bat, and to make such preparations as the withdrawal of her men made necessary. the duke's spears were expected that day or the next, but it needed no sharp eye to discern that vlaye's capture of the lieutenant had taken much of the spirit out of the attack. the countess's men must now be counted on the captain of vlaye's side; while the peasants, weakened by the slaughter which vlaye had inflicted on them at the mill, and by the distrust which their treachery must cause, no longer stood for much in the reckoning. it was possible that the lieutenant's release might reanimate the forces of the law, that a second attempt to use the peasants might fare better than the first, that joyeuse's aid might in time place des ageaux in a position to cope with his opponent. but these were possibilities only, and the vicomte for one put no faith in them.
he was utterly disgusted, indeed, with the turn which things were taking. nor was his disgust at any time greater than when he stood an hour later and viewed the countess and her escort marching out of the camp. if his life since coutras had been obscure and ignoble, at least it had been safe. while his neighbours had suffered at the captain of vlaye's hands, he had been favoured. he had sunk something of his pride, and counted in return on an alliance for his daughter, solid if not splendid. now, by the act of this meddling lieutenant--for he ignored vlaye's treatment both of his daughter and the countess--all was changed. he had naught to expect now but vlaye's enmity; villeneuve would no longer be safe for him. he must go or he must humble himself to the ground. he had taken, he had been forced by his children to take, the wrong side in the struggle. and the time was fast approaching when he must pay for it, and smartly.
