He turned toward the Duardenez. A troop of horsemen was nearing. Now they
swept about the curve in the highway and at their head was de Puysange,
laughing terribly. The dragoons went by like a tumult in a sick man's
dream, and the Hugonet Wing had screened them.
"Then Bellegarde is relieved," said John Bulmer, "and your life, at least,
is saved."
The girl stormed. "You--you abominable trickster! You would not be content
with the keys of heaven if you had not got them by outwitting somebody! Do
you fancy I had never seen the Duke of Ormskirk's portrait? Gaston sent me
one six months ago."
"Ah!" said John Bulmer, very quietly. He took up the discarded scabbard,
and he sheathed his sword without speaking.
Presently he said, "You have been cognizant all along that I was the Duke
of Ormskirk?"
"Yes," she answered, promptly.
"And you married me, knowing that I was--God save the mark!--the great Duke
of Ormskirk? knowing that you made what we must grossly term a brilliant
match?"
"I married you because, in spite of Jean Bulmer, you had betrayed yourself
to be a daring and a gallant gentleman,--and because, for a moment, I
thought that I did not dislike the Duke of Ormskirk quite so much as I
ought to."
He digested this.
"O Jean Bulmer," the girl said, "they tell me you were ever a fortunate
man, but I consider you the unluckiest I know of. For always you are afraid
to be yourself. Sometimes you forget, and are just you--and then, ohé! you
remember, and are only a sulky, fat old gentleman who is not you at all,
somehow; so that at times I detest you, and at times I cannot thoroughly
detest you. So that I played out the comedy, Jean Bulmer. I meant in the
end to tell Louis who you were, of course, and not let them hang you; but I
never quite trusted you; and I never knew whether I detested you or no, at
bottom, until last night."
"Last night you left the safe Inner Tower to come to me--to save me at all
hazards, or else to die with me--And for what reason, did you do this?"
"You are bullying me!" she wailed.
"And for what reason, did you do this?" he repeated, without any change of
intonation.
"Can you not guess?" she asked. "Oh, because I am a fool!" she stated, very
happily, for his arms were about her.
"Eh, in that event--" said the Duke of Ormskirk. "Look!" said he, with a
deeper thrill of speech, "it is the dawn."
They turned hand in hand; and out of the east the sun came statelily, and a
new day was upon them.