Out of compliment, and to show my gratitude, I attended M. de
Rambouillet home to his lodging, and found him as much pleased with
himself, and consequently with me, as I was with him. For the time,
indeed, I came near to loving him; and, certainly, he was a man of high
and patriotic feeling, and of skill and conduct to match. But he lacked
that touch of nature and that power of sympathising with others which
gave to such men as M. de Rosny and the king, my master, their peculiar
charm; though after what I have related of him in the last chapter it
does not lie in my mouth to speak ill of him. And, indeed, he was a good
man.
When I at last reached my lodging, I found a surprise awaiting me in the
shape of a note which had just arrived no one knew how. If the manner
of its delivery was mysterious, however, its contents were brief and
sufficiently explicit; for it; ran thus: ‘SIR, BY MEETING ME THREE HOURS
AFTER NOON IN THE SQUARE BEFORE THE HOUSE OF THE LITTLE SISTERS YOU
WILL DO A SERVICE AT ONCE TO YOURSELF AND TO THE UNDERSIGNED, MARIE DE
BRUHL.’
That was all, written in a feminine character, yet it was enough to
perplex me. Simon, who had manifested the liveliest joy at my escape,
would have had me treat it as I had treated the invitation to the Parvis
of the Cathedral; ignore it altogether I mean. But I was of a different
mind, and this for three reasons, among others: that the request was
straightforward, the time early, and the place sufficiently public to be
an unlikely theatre for violence, though well fitted for an interview
to which the world at large was not invited. Then, too, the square lay
little more than a bowshot from my lodging, though on the farther side
of the Rue St. Denys.
Besides, I could conceive many grounds which Madame de Bruhl might have
for seeing me; of which some touched me nearly. I disregarded Simon’s
warnings, therefore, and repaired at the time appointed to the place--a
clean, paved square a little off the Rue St. Denys, and entered from
the latter by a narrow passage. It was a spot pleasantly convenient
for meditation, but overlooked on one side by the House of the Little
Sisters; in which, as I guessed afterwards, madame must have awaited me,
for the square when I entered it was empty, yet in a moment, though no
one came in from the street, she stood beside me. She wore a mask and
long cloak. The beautiful hair and perfect complexion, which had filled
me with so much admiration at our first meeting in her house, were
hidden, but I saw enough of her figure and carriage to be sure that it
was Madame de Bruhl and no other.
She began by addressing me in a tone of bitterness, for which I was not
altogether unprepared.
‘Well, sir,’ she exclaimed, her voice trembling with anger, ‘you are
satisfied, I hope, with your work?’
I expected this and had my answer ready. ‘I am not aware, Madame,’ I
said, ‘that I have cause to reproach myself. But, however that may be, I
trust you have summoned me for some better purpose than to chide me for
another’s fault; though it was my voice which brought it to light.’
‘Why did you shame me publicly?’ she retorted, thrusting her
handkerchief to her lips and withdrawing it again with a passionate
gesture.
‘Madame,’ I answered patiently--I was full of pity for her, ‘consider
for a moment the wrong your husband did me and how small and inadequate
was the thing I did to him in return.’
‘To him!’ she ejaculated so fiercely that I started. ‘It was to me--to
me you did it! What had I done that you should expose me to the ridicule
of those who know no pity, and the anger of one as merciless? What had I
done, sir?’
I shook my head sorrowfully. ‘So far, madame,’ I answered, ‘I allow I
owe you reparation, and I will make it should it ever be in my power.
Nay, I will say more,’ I continued, for the tone in which she spoke had
wrung my heart. ‘In one point I strained the case against your husband.
To the best of my belief he abducted the lady who was in my charge,
not for the love of her, but for political reasons, and as the agent of
another.’
She gasped. ‘What?’ she cried. ‘Say that again!’
As I complied she tore off her mask and gazed into my face with
straining eyes and parted lips. I saw then how much she was changed,
even in these few days--how pale and worn were her cheeks, how dark
the circles round her eyes. ‘Will you swear to it?’ she said at last,
speaking with uncontrollable eagerness, while she laid a hand which
shook with excitement on my arm. Will you swear to it, sir?’
‘It is true,’ I answered steadfastly. I might have added that after the
event her husband had so treated mademoiselle as to lead her to fear the
worst. But I refrained, feeling that it was no part of my duty to come
between husband and wife.
She clasped her hands, and for a moment looked passionately upwards, as
though she were giving thanks to Heaven; while the flesh of health and
loveliness which I had so much admired returned, and illumined her
face in a wonderful manner. She seemed, in truth and for the moment,
transformed. Her blue eyes filled with tears, her lips moved; nor have
I ever seen anything bear so near a resemblance to those pictures of the
Virgin Mary which Romans worship as madame did then.
The change, however, was as evanescent as it was admirable. In an
instant she seemed to collapse. She struck her hands to her face and
moaned, and I saw tears, which she vainly strove to restrain, dropping
through her fingers. ‘Too late!’ she murmured, in a tone of anguish
which wrung my heart. ‘Alas, you robbed me of one man, you give me back
another. I know him now for what he is. If he did not love her then, he
does now. It is too late!’
She seemed so much overcome that I assisted her to reach a bench which
stood against the wall a few paces away; nor, I confess, was it without
difficulty and much self-reproach that I limited myself to those prudent
offices only which her state and my duty required. To console her on the
subject of her husband was impossible; to ignore him, and so to console
her, a task which neither my discretion nor my sense of honour, though
sorely tried, permitted me to undertake.
She presently recovered and, putting on her mask again, said hurriedly
that she had still a word to say to me. ‘You have treated me honestly,’
she continued, ‘and, though I have no cause to do anything but hate you,
I say in return, look to yourself! You escaped last night--I know all,
for it was my velvet knot--which I had made thinking to send it to you
to procure this meeting--that he used as a lure. But he is not yet at
the end of his resources. Look to yourself, therefore.’
I thought of the appointment I had made with him for the morrow, but I
confined myself to thanking her, merely saying, as I bowed over the hand
she resigned to me in token of farewell, ‘Madame, I am grateful. I am
obliged to you both for your warning and your forgiveness.’
‘Bending her head coldly she drew away her hand. At that moment, as I
lifted my eyes, I saw something which for an instant rooted me to the
spot with astonishment. In the entrance of the passage which led to the
Rue St. Denys two people were standing, watching us. The one was Simon
Fleix, and the other, a masked woman, a trifle below the middle height,
and clad in a riding-coat, was Mademoiselle de la Vire!
I knew her in a moment. But the relief I experienced on seeing her safe
and in Blois was not unmixed with annoyance that Simon Fleix should have
been so imprudent as to parade her unnecessarily in the street. I felt
something of confusion also on my own account; for I could not tell how
long she and her escort had been watching me. And these two feelings
were augmented when, after turning to pay a final salute to Madame
de Bruhl, I looked again towards the passage and discovered that
mademoiselle and her squire were gone.
Impatient as I was, I would not seem to leave madame rudely or without
feeling, after the consideration she had shown me in her own sorrow; and
accordingly I waited uncovered until she disappeared within the ‘Little
Sisters.’ Then I started eagerly towards my lodging, thinking I might
yet overtake mademoiselle before she entered. I was destined to meet,
however, with another though very pertinent hindrance. As I passed from
the Rue St. Denys into the quiet of my street I heard a voice calling my
name, and, looking back, saw M. de Rambouillet’s equerry, a man deep in
his confidence, running after me. He brought a message from his master,
which he begged me to consider of the first importance.
‘The Marquis would not trust it to writing, sir,’ he continued, drawing
me aside into a corner where we were conveniently retired, ‘but he made
me learn it by heart. “Tell M. de Marsac,” said he, “that that which he
was left in Blois to do must be done quickly, or not at all. There is
something afoot in the other camp, I am not sure what. But now is the
time to knock in the nail. I know his zeal, and I depend upon him.”’
An hour before I should have listened to this message with serious
doubts and misgivings. Now, acquainted with mademoiselle’s arrival, I
returned M. de Rambouillet an answer in the same strain, and parting
civilly from Bertram, who was a man I much esteemed, I hastened on to my
lodgings, exulting in the thought that the hour and the woman were come
at last, and that before the dawn of another day I might hope, all being
well, to accomplish with honour to myself and advantage to others the
commission which M. de Rosny had entrusted to me.
I must not deny that, mingled with this, was some excitement at the
prospect of seeing mademoiselle again. I strove to conjure up before me
as I mounted the stairs the exact expression of her face as I had last
seen it bending from the window at Rosny; to the end that I might have
some guide for my future conduct, and might be less likely to fall into
the snare of a young girl’s coquetry. But I could come now, as then, to
no satisfactory or safe conclusion, and only felt anew the vexation I
had experienced on losing the velvet knot, which she had given me on
that occasion.
I knocked at the door of the rooms which I had reserved for her, and
which were on the floor below my own; but I got no answer. Supposing
that Simon had taken her upstairs, I mounted quickly, not doubting I
should find her there. Judge of my surprise and dismay when I found that
room also empty, save for the lackey whom M. de Rambouillet had lent me!
‘Where are they?’ I asked the man, speaking sharply, and standing with
my hand on the door.
‘The lady and her woman, sir?’ he answered, coming forward.
‘Yes, yes!’ I cried impatiently, a sudden fear at my heart.
She went out immediately after her arrival with Simon Fleix, sir, and
has not yet returned,’ he answered.
The words were scarcely out of his mouth before I heard several persons
enter the passage below and begin to ascend the stairs. I did not;
doubt that mademoiselle and the lad had come home another way and, been
somehow detained; and I turned with a sigh of relief to receive them.
But when the persons whose steps I had heard appeared, they proved to be
only M. de Rosny’s equerry, stout, burly, and bright-eyed as ever, and
two armed servants.