It was close upon ten o'clock as we rode into the yard of the imposing
Hotel de la Couronne at Grenade.
Castelroux engaged a private room on the first floor--a handsome chamber
overlooking the courtyard--and in answer to the inquiries that I made
I was informed by the landlord that Monsieur de Marsac was not yet
arrived.
“My assignation was 'before noon,' Monsieur de Castelroux,” said I.
“With your permission, I would wait until noon.”
He made no difficulty. Two hours were of no account. We had all risen
very early, and he was, himself, he said, entitled to some rest.
Whilst I stood by the window it came to pass than a very tall,
indifferently apparelled gentleman issued from the hostelry and halted
for some moments in conversation with the ostler below. He walked with
an enfeebled step, and leaned heavily for support upon a stout cane. As
he turned to reenter the inn I had a glimpse of a face woefully pale,
about which, as about the man's whole figure, there was a something
that was familiar--a something that puzzled me, and on which my mind was
still dwelling when presently I sat down to breakfast with Castelroux.
It may have been a half-hour later, and, our meal being at an end, we
were sitting talking--I growing impatient the while that this Monsieur
de Marsac should keep me waiting so--when of a sudden the rattle
of hoofs drew me once more to the window. A gentleman, riding very
recklessly, had just dashed through the porte-cochere, and was in the
act of pulling up his horse. He was a lean, active man, very richly
dressed, and with a face that by its swarthiness of skin and the sable
hue of beard and hair looked almost black.
“Ah, you are there!” he cried, with something between a snarl and a
laugh, and addressing somebody within the shelter of the porch. “Par la
mort Dieu, I had hardly looked to find you!”
From the recess of the doorway I heard a gasp of amazement and a cry of
“Marsac! You here?”
So this was the gentleman I was to see! A stable boy had taken his
reins, and he leapt nimbly to the ground. Into my range of vision
hobbled now the enfeebled gentleman whom earlier I had noticed.
“My dear Stanislas!” he cried, “I cannot tell you how rejoiced I am to
see you!” and he approached Marsac with arms that were opened as if to
embrace him.
The newcomer surveyed him a moment in wonder, with eyes grown dull.
Then abruptly raising his hand, he struck the fellow on the breast, and
thrust him back so violently that but for the stable-boy's intervention
he had of a certainty fallen. With a look of startled amazement on his
haggard face, the invalid regarded his assailant.
As for Marsac, he stepped close up to him.
“What is this?” he cried harshly. “What is this make-believe feebleness?
That you are pale, poltroon, I do not wonder! But why these tottering
limbs? Why this assumption of weakness? Do you look to trick me by these
signs?”
“Have you taken leave of your senses?” exclaimed the other, a note of
responsive anger sounding in his voice. “Have you gone mad, Stanislas?”
“Abandon this pretence,” was the contemptuous answer. “Two days ago at
Lavedan, my friend, they informed me how complete was your recovery;
from what they told us, it was easy to guess why you tarried there
and left us without news of you. That was my reason, as you may have
surmised, for writing to you. My sister has mourned you for dead--was
mourning you for dead whilst you sat at the feet of your Roxalanne and
made love to her among the roses of Lavedan.”
“Lavedan?” echoed the other slowly. Then, raising his voice, “what the
devil are you saying?” he blazed. “What do I know of Lavedan?”
In a flash it had come to me who that enfeebled gentleman was. Rodenard,
the blunderer, had been at fault when he had said that Lesperon had
expired. Clearly he could have no more than swooned; for here, in the
flesh, was Lesperon himself, the man I had left for dead in that barn by
Mirepoix.
How or where he had recovered were things that at the moment did not
exercise my mind--nor have I since been at any pains to unravel the
mystery of it; but there he was, and for the moment that fact was
all-sufficing. What complications would come of his presence Heaven
alone could foretell.
“Put an end to this play-acting!” roared the savage Marsac. “It will
avail you nothing. My sister's tears may have weighed lightly with you,
but you shall pay the price of them, and of the slight you have put upon
her.”
“My God, Marsac!” cried the other, roused to an equal fierceness. “Will
you explain?”
“Aye,” snarled Marsac, and his sword flashed from his scabbard, “I'll
explain. As God lives, I'll explain--with this!” And he whirled his
blade under the eyes of the invalid. “Come, my master, the comedy's
played out. Cast aside that crutch and draw; draw, man, or, sangdieu,
I'll run you through as you stand!”
There was a commotion below. The landlord and a posse of his
satellites--waiters, ostlers, and stableboys--rushed between them, and
sought to restrain the bloodthirsty Marsac. But he shook them off as
a bull shakes off a pack of dogs, and like an angry bull, too, did he
stand his ground and bellow. In a moment his sweeping sword had cleared
a circle about him. In its lightning dartings hither and thither at
random, it had stung a waiter in the calf, and when the fellow saw the
blood staining his hose, he added to the general din his shrieks that
he was murdered. Marsac swore and threatened in a breath, and a kitchen
wench, from a point of vantage on the steps, called shame upon him and
abused him roundly for a cowardly assassin to assail a poor sufferer who
could hardly stand upright.
“Po' Cap de Dieu!” swore Castelroux at my elbow. “Saw you ever such an
ado? What has chanced?”
But I never stayed to answer him. Unless I acted quickly blood would
assuredly be shed. I was the one man who could explain matters, and it
was a mercy for Lesperon that I should have been at hand in the hour of
his meeting that fire-eater Marsac. I forgot the circumstances in which
I stood to Castelroux; I forgot everything but the imminent necessity
that I should intervene. Some seven feet below our window was the roof
of the porch; from that to the ground it might be some eight feet more.
Before my Gascon captain knew what I was about, I had swung myself down
from the window on to the projecting porch. A second later, I created
a diversion by landing in the midst of the courtyard fray, with the
alarmed Castelroux--who imagined that I was escaping--following by the
same unusual road, and shouting as he came “Monsieur de Lesperon!
Hi! Monsieur de Lesperon! Mordieu! Remember your parole, Monsieur de
Lesperon!”
Nothing could have been better calculated to stem Marsac's fury; nothing
could have so predisposed him to lend an ear to what I had to say, for
it was very evident that Castelroux's words were addressed to me, and
that it was I whom he called by the name of Lesperon. In an instant I
was at Marsac's side. But before I could utter a word, “What the devil
does this mean?” he asked, eyeing me with fierce suspicion.
“It means, monsieur, that there are more Lesperons than one in France. I
am the Lesperon who was at Lavedan. If you doubt me, ask this gentleman,
who arrested me there last night. Ask him, too, why we have halted here.
Ask him, if you will, to show you the letter that you left at Lavedan
making an assignation here before noon to-day, which letter I received.”
The suspicion faded from Marsac's eyes, and they grew round with wonder
as he listened to this prodigious array of evidence. Lesperon looked on
in no less amazement, yet I am sure from the manner of his glance that
he did not recognize in me the man that had succoured him at Mirepoix.
That, after all, was natural enough; for the minds of men in such
reduced conditions as had been his upon that night are not prone to
receive very clear impressions, and still less prone to retain such
impressions as they do receive.
Before Marsac could answer me, Castelroux was at my side.
“A thousand apologies!” he laughed. “A fool might have guessed the
errand that took you so quickly through that window, and none but a fool
would have suspected you of seeking to escape. It was unworthy in me,
Monsieur de Lesperon.”
I turned to him while those others still stood gaping, and led him
aside.
“Monsieur le Capitaine,” said I, “you find it troublesome enough to
reconcile your conscience with such arrests as you are charged to make,
is it not so.
“Mordieu!” he cried, by way of emphatically assenting.
“Now, if you should chance to overhear words betraying to you certain
people whom otherwise you would never suspect of being rebels, your
soldier's duty would, nevertheless, compel you to apprehend them, would
it not?”
“Why, true. I am afraid it would,” he answered, with a grimace.
“But, if forewarned that by being present in a certain place you should
overhear such words, what course would you pursue?”
“Avoid it like a pestilence, monsieur,” he answered promptly.
“Then, Monsieur le Capitaine, may I trespass upon your generosity to
beseech you to let me take these litigants to our room upstairs, and to
leave us alone there for a half-hour?”
Frankness was my best friend in dealing with Castelroux--frankness and
his distaste for the business they had charged him with. As for Marsac
and Lesperon, they were both eager enough to have the mystery explained,
and when Castelroux having consented--I invited them to my chamber, they
came readily enough.
Since Monsieur de Lesperon did not recognize me, there was no reason
why I should enlighten him touching my identity, and every reason why
I should not. As soon as they were seated, I went to the heart of the
matter at once and without preamble.
“A fortnight ago, gentlemen,” said I, “I was driven by a pack of
dragoons across the Garonne. I was wounded in the shoulder and very
exhausted, and I knocked at the gates of Lavedan to crave shelter. That
shelter, gentlemen, was afforded me, and when I had announced myself as
Monsieur de Lesperon, it was all the more cordially because one Monsieur
de Marsac, who was a friend of the Vicomte de Lavedan, and a partisan
in the lost cause of Orleans, happened often to have spoken of a
certain Monsieur de Lesperon as his very dear friend. I have no doubt,
gentlemen, that you will think harshly of me because I did not enlighten
the Vicomte. But there were reasons for which I trust you will not press
me, since I shall find it difficult to answer you with truth.”
“But is your name Lesperon?” cried Lesperon.
“That, monsieur, is a small matter. Whether my name is Lesperon or
not, I confess to having practised a duplicity upon the Vicomte and his
family, since I am certainly not the Lesperon whose identity I accepted.
But if I accepted that identity, monsieur, I also accepted your
liabilities, and so I think that you should find it in your heart to
extend me some measure of forgiveness. As Rene de Lesperon, of Lesperon
in Gascony, I was arrested last night at Lavedan, and, as you may
observe, I am being taken to Toulouse to stand the charge of high
treason. I have not demurred; I have not denied in the hour of trouble
the identity that served me in my hour of need. I am taking the
bitter with the sweet, and I assure you, gentlemen, that the bitter
predominates in a very marked degree.”
“But this must not be,” cried Lesperon, rising. “I know not what use
you may have made of my name, but I have no reason to think that you can
have brought discredit upon it, and so--”
“I thank you, monsieur, but--”
“And so I cannot submit that you shall go to Toulouse in my stead. Where
is this officer whose prisoner you are? Pray summon him, monsieur, and
let us set the matter right.”
“This is very generous,” I answered calmly. “But I have crimes enough
upon my head, and so, if the worst should befall me, I am simply atoning
in one person for the errors of two.”
“But that is no concern of mine!” he cried.
“It is so much your concern that if you commit so egregious a blunder as
to denounce yourself, you will have ruined yourself, without materially
benefitting me.”
He still objected, but in this strain I argued for some time, and to
such good purpose that in the end I made him realize that by betraying
himself he would not save me, but only join me on the journey to the
scaffold.
“Besides, gentlemen,” I pursued, “my case is far from hopeless. I have
every confidence that, as matters stand, by putting forth my hand at the
right moment, by announcing my identity at the proper season, I can, if
I am so inclined, save my neck from the headsman.”
“If you are so inclined?” they both cried, their looks charged with
inquiry.
“Let that be,” I answered; “it does not at present concern us. What
I desire you to understand, Monsieur de Lesperon, is that if I go to
Toulouse alone, when the time comes to proclaim myself, and it is found
that I am not Rene de Lesperon, of Lesperon in Gascony, they will assume
that you are dead, and there will be no count against me.
“But if you come with me, and thereby afford proof that you are alive,
my impersonation of you may cause me trouble. They may opine that I have
been an abettor of treason, that I have attempted to circumvent the
ends of justice, and that I may have impersonated you in order to render
possible your escape. For that, you may rest assured, they will punish
me.
“You will see, therefore, that my own safety rests on your passing
quietly out of France and leaving the belief behind you that you are
dead--a belief that will quickly spread once I shall have cast off your
identity. You apprehend me?”
“Vaguely, monsieur; and perhaps you are right. What do you say,
Stanislas?”
“Say?” cried the fiery Marsac. “I am weighed down with shame, my poor
Rene, for having so misjudged you.”
More he would have said in the same strain, but Lesperon cut him short
and bade him attend to the issue now before him. They discussed it
at some length, but always under the cloud in which my mysteriousness
enveloped it, and, in the end, encouraged by my renewed assurances that
I could best save myself if Lesperon were not taken with me, the Gascon
consented to my proposals.
Marsac was on his way to Spain. His sister, he told us, awaited him
at Carcassonne. Lesperon should set out with him at once, and in
forty-eight hours they would be beyond the reach of the King's anger.
“I have a favour to ask of you, Monsieur de Marsac,” said I, rising;
for our business was at an end. “It is that if you should have an
opportunity of communicating with Mademoiselle de Lavedan, you will
let her know that I am not--not the Lesperon that is betrothed to your
sister.”
“I will inform her of it, monsieur,” he answered readily; and then, of a
sudden, a look of understanding and of infinite pity came into his eyes.
“My God!” he cried.
“What is it, monsieur?” I asked, staggered by that sudden outcry.
“Do not ask me, monsieur, do not ask me. I had forgotten for the moment,
in the excitement of all these revelations. But--” He stopped short.
“Well, monsieur?”
He seemed to ponder a moment, then looking at me again with that same
compassionate glance, “You had better know,” said he. “And yet--it is a
difficult thing to tell you. I understand now much that I had not dreamt
of. You--you have no suspicion of how you came to be arrested?”
“For my alleged participation in the late rebellion?”
“Yes, yes. But who gave the information of your whereabouts? Who told
the Keeper of the Seals where you were to be found?”
“Oh, that?” I answered easily. “Why, I never doubted it. It was the
coxcomb Saint-Eustache. I whipped him--”
I stopped short. There was something in Marsac's black face, something
in his glance, that forced the unspoken truth upon my mind.
“Mother in heaven!” I cried. “Do you mean that it was Mademoiselle de
Lavedan?”
He bowed his head in silence. Did she hate me, then, so much as that?
Would nothing less than my death appease her, and had I utterly crushed
the love that for a little while she had borne me, that she could bring
herself to hand me over to the headsman?
God! What a stab was that! It turned me sick with grief--aye, and with
some rage not against her, oh, not against her; against the fates that
had brought such things to pass.
I controlled myself while their eyes were yet upon me. I went to the
door and held it open for them, and they, perceiving something of my
disorder, were courteous enough to omit the protracted leave-takings
that under other auspices there might have been. Marsac paused a moment
on the threshold as if he would have offered me some word of comfort.
Then, perceiving, perhaps, how banal must be all comfort that was of
words alone, and how it might but increase the anger of the wound it was
meant to balm, he sighed a simple “Adieu, monsieur!” and went his way.
When they were gone, I returned to the table, and, sitting down, I
buried my head in my arms, and there I lay, a prey to the most poignant
grief that in all my easy, fortunate life I had ever known. That she
should have done this thing! That the woman I loved, the pure, sweet,
innocent girl that I had wooed so ardently in my unworthiness at
Lavedan, should have stooped to such an act of betrayal! To what had I
not reduced her, since such things could be!
Then, out of my despair grew comfort, slowly at first, and more
vigorously anon. The sudden shock of the news had robbed me of some of
my wit, and had warped my reasoning. Later, as the pain of the blow grew
duller, I came to reflect that what she had done was but a proof--an
overwhelming proof--of how deeply she had cared. Such hatred as this
can be but born of a great love; reaction is ever to be measured by the
action that occasions it, and a great revulsion can only come of a great
affection. Had she been indifferent to me, or had she but entertained
for me a passing liking, she would not have suffered so.
And so I came to realize how cruel must have been the pang that had
driven her to this. But she had loved me; aye, and she loved me still,
for all that she thought she hated, and for all that she had acted as
if she hated. But even if I were wrong--even if she did hate me--what a
fresh revulsion would not be hers when anon she learnt that--whatever my
sins--I had not played lightly with her love; that I was not, as she had
imagined, the betrothed of another woman!
The thought fired me like wine. I was no longer listless--no longer
indifferent as to whether I lived or died. I must live. I must enlighten
the Keeper of the Seals and the judges at Toulouse concerning my
identity. Why, indeed, had I ever wavered? Bardelys the Magnificent must
come to life again, and then--What then?
As suddenly as I had been exalted was I cast down. There was a rumour
abroad that Bardelys was dead. In the wake of that rumour I shrewdly
guessed that the report of the wager that had brought him into Languedoc
would not be slow to follow. What then? Would she love me any the
better? Would she hate me any the less? If now she was wounded by the
belief that I had made sport of her love, would not that same belief be
with her again when she came to know the truth?
Aye, the tangle was a grievous one. Yet I took heart. My old resolve
returned to me, and I saw the need for urgency--in that alone could
lie now my redemption in her eyes. My wager must be paid before I again
repaired to her, for all that it should leave me poor indeed. In the
mean while, I prayed God that she might not hear of it ere I returned to
tell her.