two nights later, in the dark and the cold, they drove into vannes—valentine, roland and the comte de brencourt—having left mme de la vergne at hennebont as they passed through, to tend her son. all thought of raising in finistère a force large enough for rescue had been abandoned. indeed they could never have got together enough men to assault vannes, held as it now was, and the mere attempt might be extremely prejudicial to m. de trélan. since finistère had capitulated, it might indeed be the very consummation at which the first consul was aiming, in order to have a good pretext for disposing of finistère’s leader, now that he had him in his hands. it was better to hurry to vannes and trust to organising a rescue by means of some of cadoudal’s chouans.
so m. de brencourt had counselled when, the evening of roland’s arrival, he had offered valentine such assistance as a man still sick could give. that she could accept it as she had done, and could show herself willing, in this terrible hour, to rely whole-heartedly upon him, was balm to his scarified pride. but indeed, in contemplating her despair, he forgot, at moments, his reception by her husband. if artus de brencourt had never arrived at seeing his own past conduct in quite the same light as a dispassionate observer would have done, there was one episode on which he could not reflect without tingling shame and horror—that frenzied vigil in which he had come near to slaying in valentine’s presence the man she loved. he had indeed recognised for months past that he had been practically out of his senses at the time—perhaps all the time since his return from mirabel. . . . not indeed that this knowledge had helped him much that night at vannes, in the struggle he had had to bring himself to render a great service to the man he had so deeply injured—apprehensive as he was lest he should seem to be trying to make reparation, yet forced to do the service in person for lack of a trustworthy messenger. well, it was certain that the duc de trélan had not suspected him of that motive, when he had flung back in his face the warning which the comte had only been driven to bring by the instinctive feeling that, despite the past, he could not let his former leader go to his death in such a shocking fashion. but the duc had gone . . . and just because of the past.
there was no difficulty in obtaining news of “m. de kersaint” at vannes. the place was ringing with it—and it was stunning. he had been summarily tried the day before by a military court, and sentenced to death. the pretext was that he was an émigré a rebel taken in arms who had never meant to surrender. he was to have been shot that same afternoon, but at twelve o’clock had come a courier with orders for a respite and for his immediate transference to paris. and, in half an hour from the arrival of the despatch, he had been taken away in a travelling-carriage under a strong escort. that was yesterday.
so much the comte de brencourt, quitting the conveyance, easily gathered before they got to the hotel de l’epée. he had to tell valentine that her husband was gone, but he suppressed the fact that, had he not been removed, she would not have seen him alive; and hoped she would not hear it. the lamp that lit the interior of the carriage showed him, when he had finished his brief recital, the tragic face of the woman he loved, on whom, as if she had not known enough sorrow, this, too, was come. but she did not weep nor blench; she said, “then we must follow to paris to-morrow morning,” and he assented. it would take them between three and four days.
they rattled through the dark and tortuous streets and drew up at the hotel. valentine put down her thick veil and roland assisted her to alight. just inside the door a large man was standing waiting—georges camain in person. he came forward with an air of profound deference.
“i have ventured to order a private room to be put at your disposal, madame,” he said, “and if you will allow me, i will attend you there. i have a message for you.”
“you have seen him then?” she breathed. and camain bent his head in assent.
“i will wait upon you afterwards,” murmured the comte in her ear. since the deputy had not recognised him there was no point in giving him a further opportunity. but roland, obeying his gesture, followed mme de trélan; yet after all, when the room was reached, remained outside the door. so the ex-administrator of mirabel and the ex-concierge were once more alone together.
the moment that she was inside valentine threw back her veil and turned to him. there was no need to utter her question.
“i succeeded in seeing m. de trélan for three minutes yesterday,” said the deputy gravely. “it was between noon and half-past, when he left for paris. i had been trying in vain all morning to do so. and then, madame, the interview took place on the stairs as they were conducting him to the carriage, so that it was not very satisfactory.”
“but at least you saw him!” said valentine, and the emotion she was holding in check showed itself hungrily for a moment. “o, if only i had been in your place!”
“indeed, i only wish you had, madame,” returned camain gently.
“and you found him——?”
“quite well, madame, and perfectly composed, though i think the respite was a great surprise to him. you know, i expect,” he went on, looking away for a second, “that the iniquitous sentence was to have been carried out yesterday afternoon?—of course,” he added hastily, for her face told him that she had not known, “this respite has changed all that. . . . as i say, we had only a moment or two, and the letter which i understand m. le duc would have written to you, had this change not occurred, he had not yet begun, so in that moment on the stairs he scribbled a line on a page from my pocketbook, which he did me the honour to commit to me, and i was to explain why it was so short. i was also charged to ask you to convey to a certain person who had brought a warning his profound regret for the way he had received it, and to his aides-de-camp an assurance that they were not to blame themselves in any way for what happened at hennebont; that since his arrest was inevitable he wished it to take place without their knowledge, and that he was only grieved to hear that in the end it had not done so. . . . here is m. de trélan’s note, madame.”
he put a tiny piece of paper in her hand, and, clearing his throat, walked away to the fireplace.
valentine opened the little torn-off twist. it contained only one word, and gaston’s initials. the word was “always.”
she pressed it to her lips. for a moment she seemed to feel his arms about her. ah, never again, perhaps. . . . she murmured some words of thanks. the deputy turned round.
“i wish to god i could have done more,” he said, surreptitiously pocketing his handkerchief. “it is abominable—beyond words—this affair! and to think that it was brought about . . .” he checked himself and looked at her strangely, but she did not seem to notice anything, and he went on, “now, alas, i can do nothing further. i have no influence with the present government. i must pursue my journey to lorient.”
“if you had done nothing but bring me this,” replied valentine, rousing herself, “a world of thanks would be no payment. but you have shown me besides, monsieur camain, the treasure of a kind and generous heart.”
“as long as you live, duchesse,” said the bricklayer’s son, bending over the hand she gave him, “you will not lack that offering. it is your own heart that calls it out. . . .”
a little later the three travellers had made some pretence of eating the meal which had been brought up to them, and then, seeing that the two men were restless, valentine begged them not to consider her but to leave her if they wished; and they, thinking on their side that she perhaps desired to be alone, obeyed.
valentine did desire to be alone, but it was no solace. it seemed to her that she had touched the lowest depths of human despair. she had never dreamt that gaston would be gone from vannes. the word he had sent her was warm in her bosom, but that was not he. she felt that it was only the prospect of seeing him at the end of them, even though it must be as a captive, which had kept life in her these two dreadful days. and what had the deputy said—that if the sursis had not come . . . o no, no, that was not possible! she would not look at it. . . . but it was true that he was far away, alone, in the hands of his enemies. it was an effort to keep herself from calling his name aloud.
she sat in a chair by the fire, the wind howling outside, the tears dripping through her fingers, and did not hear the door open. roland stood on the threshold again, looking at her with a great compassion and understanding in his young eyes—for if his heart was broken what must hers be? and half impulsively, half timidly, he went across the little room and knelt down by her.
“madame, dear madame!”
still weeping, she put out her hand to him blindly, and he kissed it, kissed her tears on it. and then she turned wholly to him, and as he, kneeling there, took her tenderly and reverently into his arms, she shook with sobbing on his shoulder. it was really the first time that she had broken down since the arrest. except that he felt he must comfort her—though he knew not by what means, for what means were there?—the boy would have liked to sob too.
he said something, and through her misery she thought, “his voice is getting like gaston’s. there will be something of gaston left in the world after all.”
it was at that moment that the impulse to tell him came to her overwhelmingly. she was so lonely; it would comfort her—if she could keep from thinking of mme de céligny. he ought to know now, too.
she mastered her sobs after a while, lifted her head from the boy’s shoulder, dried her eyes and leant back in her chair.
“stay there, roland, if you will,” she said, and he sat on the floor beside her chair, silently looking into the fire. what he saw there was always the same—the inn parlour at hennebont; sometimes with his leader sitting there, as he had last seen him when he went out to the others on that thrice accursed errand of his own making, sometimes disordered and sickeningly empty, as it had appeared at his return. . . .
valentine contemplated his face, quite haggard in the firelight for all its youth, and the tragedy in his eyes.
“roland,” she said, putting her hand on his arm, “i want to tell you something. the duc sent a message to you and the others through m. camain. you were not, he said, to distress yourself about what happened at hennebont, for as his arrest had to come he particularly wished it should take place as quickly as possible, before you could return. he knew quite well, you see, what you would all have done—what you did, alas—and he would not have you killed to no end.”
roland turned that tragic gaze upon her. “in other words, m. le duc got himself taken to save us. . . . i wish i were dead!”
the tears were in his voice, not in his eyes, which were quite dry. he turned them on the fire again.
“do you then love him so much?” asked valentine softly.
roland gave her one look; he did not answer in words.
“o my child, my child!” said mme de trélan. her beautiful and expressive voice held a world of meanings, but roland was back in the coals and the inn parlour. he remembered they had not laid the four covers when he went out of the room; there were only three—or was it two? . . . if he had stayed, he could have died there at his feet before they took him.
“roland,” said the duchesse’s voice again, “i want to tell you something else. i did not mean to do so yet . . . but i feel i must.” she made a little pause. “you do not remember your mother, i think?”
he shook his head.
“a long time ago, roland . . . she and the duc met . . . and he loved her——”
the boy turned, startled, from his contemplation of the fire.
“—too well,” finished valentine, with a long breath.
he went white, then scarlet; then white again. “madame—what do you mean?—i don’t understand. . . . you cannot mean——”
unconsciously she was pressing her wet handkerchief into a ball. “m. de trélan is your father, roland.”
