"La blessure intime et profonde qui assombrit une Ame noble,
qui la fait se redresser pleine d'orgueil et de haine . . ."
RENE BOYLESVE, _Mademoiselle Cloque_.
"Yea, twofold hosts of torment hast thou there,
The stain to think on, and the pain to bear."
_Oedipus Rex_ (Gilbert Murray's translation).
"I would not hear your enemy say so,
Nor shall you do my ear that violence
To make it truster of your own report
Against yourself . . ."
_Hamlet_, Act. 1, Sc. 2.
(1)
On Monday, the first of May, 1815, a fresh, cloudless afternoon, a young
man in the Vendean uniform, holding by the bridle a sorrel horse, stood
at the fork of a road not far from Locmélar in Brittany, and peered up
at a rough and almost illegible signpost. The young man was Laurent de
Courtomer, who, until about half an hour ago, had been in possession of
a happiness as unclouded as this May sunshine--and who was still
enjoying himself.
The misunderstandings and delays in Vendée, the fiasco of the Duc de
Bourbon's short sojourn in the west, his precipitate departure, first
from Angers and then from Beaupréau, because some of the leaders, M.
d'Autichamp himself chief among them, thought the time not ripe for a
rising, and were nervous for the safety of the old man's princely
person--all this had very much irked M. d'Autichamp's aide-de-camp,
Comte Laurent de Courtomer. And towards the end of April that
aide-de-camp became so restive that his general had to find him some
employment. He gave him, therefore, a despatch to carry to North
Brittany, to M. de Pontbriand and the rest of the Chouan leaders there,
not disguising his doubt whether Laurent would ever succeed in reaching
them, nor his conviction that he would fail to return across the Loire.
The young man was authorized, in that case, to join one of the Breton
chiefs if he pleased; "not," added M. d'Autichamp, "but that I should
prefer to have you back again with me, in the event of our moving later
on."
Laurent went off in high feather. Moreover, he succeeded in reaching his
destination, delivered his despatches, which did no more than set forth
a general desire on the part of the Vendean chiefs for such cooperation
as was possible with their comrades on the right bank of the Loire, and
was complimented on the address he had displayed. Elated by his good
fortune, and seeing that nothing but the merest skirmishes had as yet
taken place between the Royalists and the Imperialists, and that he was
now unencumbered with despatches, he determined to return by a
different and rather less secure route--through the Penescouët district
in fact, though he was warned against it. For that was L'Oiseleur's
country, and it might so well be that he should come up against him
somehow--the figure out of a fairy tale, with the hawk and the
mistletoe--in his real surroundings. If he got only a glimpse of him it
was well worth the risk . . . if there were extra risk, which he did
not believe when he set out.
However, he thought rather differently about that now, and quite
differently about his chance of meeting L'Oiseleur. For, having ridden
all morning happily and expectantly through the deep Breton lanes, he
came at noon to a solitary little inn which had been recommended to
him. It was kept by a very lame young man. His face had clouded over at
Laurent's enquiry as to L'Oiseleur's possible whereabouts.
"You have not heard, then, Monsieur? Alas, L'Oiseleur met with a great
disaster last week at the Pont-aux-Rochers, over Plumauden way. Three
days ago it was--last Friday morning. His men were ambushed by the
Blues, and nearly all captured or killed. It is terrible . . . he who
had so often entrapped them."
"Good God!" said Laurent, staring at him. It was the very last piece of
news for which he had been prepared.
"And L'Oiseleur himself?" he asked, his heart beating fast.
"Escaped, Monsieur, it is believed. He has the _jartier_, you know. But
he can have few men left now, and it is not known where he is. I wish I
could join him; I should have done so long ago but for this." He
pointed to his shrunken leg.
It was all the news he could give. Laurent rode very soberly away. He
had only been thinking of success for his friend--for sometimes he
ventured privately so to call him. And this--at the very outset of the
campaign! Still, if La Rocheterie himself had escaped, as was rumoured,
that was chiefly what he cared about. If he could only be sure of that;
for that he should meet him now was a thousand times more unlikely than
before. He must be in hiding--pursued perhaps. . . And the desire to
meet him, to share his danger, grew with every second that Laurent
frowned at the signpost.
As it was impossible to read it he stooped at last to do what he had in
reality dismounted for, take a stone out of the sorrel's shoe. He had
just dislodged the obstacle when he heard a sound that made him raise
himself sharply. Yes, not more than two hundred yards away, trotting up
the sloping road on his left towards the signpost, was a patrol of
Bonapartist cavalry--red and green hussars. And here he was,
dismounted, in uniform, full in their view!
He did not long remain so, at least--he was in the saddle and dashing
along the road in front of him as hard as he could go; and as he went
he thought, "This has solved the problem of the choice of road, anyhow!
What a fool I was . . . but it is rather good fun, all the same!" He
could not see the hussars yet over his shoulder, but from the sounds
and shouts they were certainly after him. However, he had a good horse,
and though there was nothing to take from him now save his liberty, he
was not going to make them a present of that if he could help it. And
what if he were to make across country? The bank here was no more than
an English hedgerow. He set the sorrel at it.
Laurent was staring up into the blue sky, and everything was going
round. The sensation having been his once before he knew of course what
had happened--a fall out hunting.
But why was someone kneeling on his chest and pinning his arms down? It
was a curious way of succouring an accident in the hunting-field; he
could not breathe.
"Damn you, get off me!" he said angrily and indistinctly in English.
"Tiens, c'est un Anglais!" exclaimed a surprised voice.
But Laurent was soon able to explain the falsity of this deduction. The
hussars helped him up, disarmed and searched him, finding little. The
officer said courteously, "You have a deep scratch on your forehead,
Monsieur, taken, no doubt, from the hedge when your horse fell with
you.--One of you tie it up, and then we must be getting on."
It appeared that no shot had been fired, no blade unsheathed. His horse
had fallen at the leap, and then they had come and sat on him; thus
ingloriously was Laurent de Courtomer made a prisoner. Even the blood
which was now trickling rather copiously down his cheek had been drawn
by nothing more lethal than a broken bough. He was a little savage, but
there was no profit in ill-temper. His captors were quite pleasant; one
of them tied up his forehead with his handkerchief, and then they
mounted, fastened his bridle to one of theirs and trotted back the way
they had come. It seemed that they were out scouting from a
considerable distance, and knew little of happenings in this
neighbourhood, beyond the bare fact that there had been a Royalist
defeat there a few days ago. And so, said Laurent to himself, ends my
dream of meeting with La Rocheterie. Seeing what it had brought about,
he almost regretted having indulged it.
As evening drew on, they entered a village to water the horses. The
officer went into the inn. M. de Courtomer was by now beginning to
revolve the chances of escape, but his captors were pretty wary. It was
best at least to appear resigned, so he sat most meekly on his slightly
lamed steed between his guards at the village trough, speculating as to
what the village was, and where, for he had lost his sense of
direction. And, thus engaged, he found himself all at once observing
the slow approach of a farm cart along the one street of the place--an
ordinary and rather small cart drawn by an old white horse, but driven,
oddly enough, by a soldier, and having another, with fixed bayonet,
seated sideways on the edge. That there was something unusual about
this conveyance was shown by the fact that everyone whom it passed in
its progress over the cobbles was straight away smitten with immobility
and remained staring after it. Laurent himself became curious to see
what was in it.
As the cart came within range, the hussars at the horse-trough began to
call out pleasantries to the grenadier driver: what was he taking to
market; it was true he looked better suited to a farm than the army,
and so on.
"_You_ look like a performing circus!" retorted the grenadier. "We have
a prisoner in here; that's what we've got." Yet he had his musket idly
between his knees and a straw in his mouth.
"We've got one, too!" replied the hussars. Then the cart came abreast.
On its tailboard, let down nearly level at the back, was visible an
inert head and shoulders. And the sun of the Mayday evening shone on
hair that Laurent knew, hair that fell back from a face like
death--like tragic death . . . Aymar de la Rocheterie's.
Laurent gave a sharp exclamation, and the sorrel responded to the
half-automatic pressure of his knees. A hussar at once seized his arm,
and a pistol was pressed into his ear, with an enquiry as to whether he
wished to join "that one" in the cart with a bullet in his head? He did
not answer; he was too stunned. But he made no further movement.
The cart rumbled slowly past with its burden. L'Oiseleur was plainly
quite unconscious, if not dead; his head rolled slightly with the
comfortless motion of the conveyance. On the mortal pallor of his face
there showed up a faint smear or two of blood, and the white dust of
the country road had drifted into his loosened hair, together with some
bits of the straw on which he had been laid. A dark green uniform coat
similar to that in which Laurent had last seen him was flung over him,
but his shirt had obviously been removed, and one shoulder at least was
swathed round with a bloody wrapping. And the sunlight showed how
deeply stained was the coat also.
Before Laurent had recovered from his stupefaction the cart had passed.
All the hussars turned in their saddles and looked after it, oddly
silent, except one irrepressible spirit who shouted out an enquiry as
to why they were going like a funeral.
"To avoid one, son of an idiot!" called back the man with the musket.
"We happen to want this parishioner alive. It's a damned nuisance,
going at this pace, but if we hurry--" He made an expressive gesture.
"Where are you taking him to?"
But either the soldier did not hear, or did not answer, because the
hussar officer came at that moment out of the inn shouting an order.
And hastily, with much jingling of accoutrements, the patrol began to
move off up the sunny street in the opposite direction, Laurent in the
midst.
He was feeling very dismal. Rumour was incorrect, and L'Oiseleur _had_
paid in person for his defeat--and paid heavily. He had fallen with his
men after all . . . no, hardly, because the affair at the bridge was
three days old, and the blood on him was fresh. He must have been
tracked down afterwards . . . horrible! But how strange that there was
no escort with the cart--for though L'Oiseleur himself was only too
obviously in no condition to escape from it, there must always be the
risk of a rescue so long as any of those devoted followers of his were
at large. Or did the absence of an adequate guard signify that the
whole of his remaining force had since been wiped out--and was that the
meaning of the look, almost of horror, which had persisted even in
unconsciousness? Laurent could not get that look out of his head, nor
the way the cart had jolted. Surely, if they wanted him kept alive,
that soldier might have held him in his arms; surely----
The young man gave an exclamation. Slow-witted dolt that he was! "I must
speak to your officer at once!" he said to the hussar who had command
of his reins.
But it took time, in that quickly trotting advance, before his demand
could be complied with, and already when he proffered his suggestion it
seemed absurd, seeing that by then the cart with its burden and he, who
was not a free agent, were a mile or more apart. So the officer not
unnaturally replied that it was out of the question to send him back
now to bear the other prisoner company.
(2)
To a young man deeply conscious of how unwelcome it is to be made a
captive it is not likely to occur that he may also be unwelcome to his
captors. This fact was nevertheless made plain to Laurent next morning
when the officer came into the barn where M. de Courtomer had spent the
night with the patrol, and told him frankly that he was becoming a
nuisance to them. They wished to return with all possible speed to
headquarters, yet the sergeant reported that the strain taken by the
prisoner's horse in its fall yesterday was much worse. The officer
really wished, he avowed, that he _had_ bestowed his captive in the
cart with the other; he proposed now, instead of dragging him further
with them on his lame beast, to hand him over to the care of the
garrison at Arbelles, which was still within a few hours' ride.
Laurent replied indifferently that he must do as he thought best. He had
passed a haunted night; had La Rocheterie lived to see this day break?
He doubted it.
The crux came over the question of parole, which was required of him
because only one hussar could be spared to take him to Arbelles; and in
the end Laurent agreed to give it until he was in the hands of his new
gaolers; and so, fettered by his word, he set out in a corporal's
charge. But he was feeling too much depressed this morning to care to
think of a dash for freedom. He had had his wish: he had seen
L'Oiseleur, and doubted if he should see him more in this life. And
about midday, riding slowly because of the sorrel's condition, he and
the corporal came in sight of their destination, the château of
Arbelles, a really fine and extensive Renaissance building, capable of
containing, as it then did, a considerable number of troops, though
plainly not designed for any warlike end. It belonged, Laurent
subsequently discovered, to a Royalist gentleman absent in Paris, and
during his progress up the avenue the prisoner wondered how long, under
military occupation, it would retain its general air of well-kept
luxury, almost that of a big English country house.
In the imposing hall, with its great oriel window and vast hearth, he
was delivered over to a tall major of the line of a lifeless and, as
Laurent privately thought, stupid visage. The hussar made his report
and handed over Laurent's papers. The officer was looking at them in a
slow, undecided way, when a quick step was heard and he turned round
and saluted a big, burly, hard-faced man in the green and yellow of the
dragoons--a man with a choleric eye and close-cut grizzled
side-whiskers coming to the level of the cheek-bone. To him Laurent was
presented as a prisoner on parole just sent in.
"But I take back my parole, sir, now that I am in your hands," put in
the captive quickly.
The dragoon colonel gave a mirthless smile. "As you please,
Monsieur"--he looked at the papers. "Lieutenant le Comte de Courtomer,
is it not? You have a report, corporal?"
The corporal made it, and the Colonel proceeded--quite civilly--to
question his prisoner. But the fact that Laurent, when captured, had
been coming from the north, as he readily acknowledged, appeared to
annoy the commander of Arbelles, whose preferences seemed to be for a
prisoner from the south-west. Could not M. le Comte give him any
inkling of what was going forward in the Plesguen district? Laurent
intimated that he was totally unable to do so, not having been there;
nor, he added coldly, did he see that he was called upon to present
such information to an enemy if he had had it. And the Colonel did not
press the point; he muttered something cryptic to the impassive Major
about having patience and waiting a little longer. After which, looking
at the handkerchief round Laurent's brow, he observed almost
solicitously, "You are wounded, I see, Monsieur le Comte. You must have
that attended to. Where is M. Perrelet?"
A young, loose-limbed lieutenant of _chasseurs à cheval_ standing by
said, with a significant lift of the eyebrows, "Still in that room,
sir."
"Ah," said his superior. "Well, I hope he is in it to some purpose. I
think that this officer then, had best go up there to M. Perrelet, to
have his hurt dressed, and meanwhile we can consider where to lodge
him.--We are rather full for the next few days; you must excuse us,
Monsieur le Comte."
"I am your prisoner," responded Laurent rather stiffly, disliking the
effect which his title appeared to be making on this certainly not
aristocratic foe.
"Rigault," said the latter to the young officer who had spoken, "take a
couple of men and conduct M. de Courtomer upstairs. I am to understand
that you definitely withdraw your parole now, Monsieur?"
"Definitely, Monsieur le Colonel."
But when the chasseur returned with two soldiers the Colonel announced
that he had changed his mind, and would go with the prisoner himself,
as he wished to speak to the doctor.
They mounted the noble staircase together. At the top they met an
orderly, of whom the Colonel asked if M. Perrelet were along _there_,
indicating a certain passage. The man replied that the surgeon had just
left the room for a moment, but would soon return; on which his
commanding officer told him to inform him that there was a captured
Royalist officer there awaiting his services. Then, followed by the two
soldiers, he went down the passage with his prisoner, talking as he
went.
"I must apologize, Monsieur de Courtomer, for asking you to see the
doctor in this particular room, but he is very much taken up with a
wounded prisoner who occupies it, and he has his dressings and so forth
there. But of course I shall have you put elsewhere when he has done
what is necessary for you."
"Oh," said Laurent cheerfully, "I am not averse to company, sir, if the
prisoner in question is not too ill for it."
The Colonel shrugged his shoulders. "It is not on his account that I
would not quarter you there, though he _is_ very ill, but on quite
another--that on which I really feel apologies are due to you for being
required to spend even a few minutes in his society." He broke off as
he stopped at a door on his right hand, and beckoned to the soldiers.
"One of you must stand sentry here while this officer is within, and
the door must be locked, now. . . . No," he resumed to Laurent, his
hand on the door knob, "I should not dream of leaving you with this
man, officer of your own side though he is, for I am sorry to say he
has just turned traitor--betrayed his own men into an ambush four days
ago, and was himself shot yesterday by those that were left." And
seeing Laurent's look of incredulity and aversion, he added, "Yes, he
was found tied up to a tree, all but dead, outside his own
headquarters. The doctor, at my request, has been doing his best for
him since yesterday evening, but it seems doubtful if he will live
. . . fortunately for himself, perhaps."
He turned the handle of the unlocked door and motioned the now reluctant
Laurent in. "With apologies!" he said once more.
The door shut again, the key turning. And on its inner side Laurent de
Courtomer, appalled, stood staring . . . staring . . . fighting with
all his mind against the evidence of his eyes. . . .
(3)
The bronze hair was scattered on the pillow. Except for brows and lashes
the only trace of colour in the upturned face that it surrounded was
the blue stain beneath the shut eyes, for the shut lips had none. But
the blood and dust which had disfigured that visage yesterday were
gone; it was now so utterly bloodless that it had become mere
sculpture, too fine-drawn for life--a little severe, almost disdainful.
Lying there so straight and motionless and low, Aymar de la Rocheterie,
in the hands of his enemies, had the aspect of a dead Crusader.
And it was of _him_ that vile thing had just been said, the other side
of the door!
Laurent stood petrified. He felt himself guilty, polluted, a party to
that terrible lie. His instant impulse was to cry to the still figure,
"Forgive me for having even heard it--for not having had time to deny
it for you . . . this idea of a madman! _You_ betray your men!" Then
the knowledge swamped him like a flood to what deaf ears he would cry.
L'Oiseleur was . . . surely . . . dying.
Oh, why had he not tried sooner to go with him yesterday? Now it was too
late. There was no visible lift of breathing under the bedclothes,
smoothly disposed as they were up to the very chin. And, pierced with
an even keener pain than yesterday's, Laurent went nearer to the bed,
drawn as by a magnet to something he was half afraid to approach,
remembering Devonshire and the bright salmon river, the stranger who
had so lightly risked his life for him, who had shown him the
amulet--the useless amulet--the brilliant friend he had reëncountered
in Paris, the lover he had guessed at in the Tuileries garden. Was this
to be the end of all that charm and vigour and young renown?
And at that moment, as if to answer him . . . but in what sense? . . .
Aymar de la Rocheterie opened his eyes and looked at him.
Laurent suffered a double shock, since, apart from their unmistakable
warm red-brown colour, they did not seem to be L'Oiseleur's eyes at
all. They were immensely large and even lustrous, but they had no life
in them, nor, as Laurent almost instantly realized, any power of
recognition worth the name. They might have seen something, but it
certainly was not he. For the space of ten heart-beats or so they
remained open; then the lashes fell again on to the blue circles and so
stayed. There was no other movement.
Thank God, he was still alive then. But why, in this extremity, had he
been left alone? The Colonel had said that they were doing their best
to save him. There seemed a quantity of objects to that end on the
table by the bed; the grey-panelled, well-furnished room with its two
windows--a sitting-room, evidently--was very pleasant; there was a
little fire burning; the bed itself, even if narrow, had fine linen
sheets and an embroidered counterpane. But for all that it was patent
that he who lay in it lay very near the brink of a swifter river than
the Dart. That indeed Laurent had guessed and feared yesterday; but the
other dark flood lapping at him--the atrocious calumny--how was that to
be stayed? Yet, if Aymar de la Rocheterie were dying, so long as _he_
had a tongue in his head he should not die sullied by so horrible a
charge.
And, with a rapidly beating heart, he found himself away from the
bedside staring through the window. How _dared_ they say such a thing?
As he asked himself the question the key turned in the lock. A sharp
voice outside said rapidly, "Sentry? nonsense! I won't have one here,
tell the Colonel!--Another prisoner waiting for me? Yes, I know." And
the speaker entered, a short, stout, more than middle-aged man in
civilian attire, with a pair of rather fierce eyes under shaggy
grizzled brows. He threw a quick glance at Laurent, said, "In a
moment!" and, crossing to the bed, bent over its occupant and slipped
his hand under the bedclothes.
He was there a full minute; then he came away compressing his lips and
frowning. "Now, Monsieur, I am at your service. It is your head, I see.
Sit down, please. A cut? Anything else?"
Laurent did not sit down. "For God's sake, Monsieur le Docteur, tell me
what is the meaning of that?" And he made a gesture towards the bed.
"Heart failure and collapse from excessive loss of blood is the meaning
of that, Monsieur," replied the doctor rather curtly. "If you will
kindly sit down and let me examine your head--"
"There's nothing there but a scratch," returned the young man, still
uncomplying. "And that is not exactly what I meant. It's this dreadful
story--they must all be lunatics in this place to think such a thing of
_him_!"
The surgeon looked at him keenly. "You know who he is, then?"
"I do; but surely the Bonapartists do not--that is their only excuse.
L'Oiseleur, the Vicomte de la Rocheterie, betray his own men! It's
. . . it's grotesque!"
"You speak very confidently, Monsieur. But they do know quite well who
he is, and I am afraid the story is only too true."
At that Monsieur de Courtomer, with almost a gesture of desperation,
took the handkerchief off his head and sat down in the chair. "That is
rank lunacy," he observed. "It was bad enough to come across him being
brought here in this state--as I did yesterday--but to hear this
slander in addition is like being in a nightmare. Even if I did not
know him personally----"
The surgeon's hands, which were pushing the hair away from the scratch,
stopped. "Ah, you know him personally," he said quickly. "You are a
friend of his, then?"
Laurent's eyes turned towards the effigy in the bed. "I should be proud
indeed if I could claim that distinction. An acquaintance would, I am
afraid, be nearer the mark."
"And a champion," supplied the doctor.
"L'Oiseleur needs no champion," retorted the young man.
The hand fell somewhat weightily on his shoulder. "Indeed he does,
Monsieur," returned its owner, and his voice was no longer sharp. "I
assure you he stands in need of one rather badly just now. . . . And,
for the moment, in need still more of something else."
Then he took his hand away, dropping all pretence of examining the hurt.
His round face was very grave, and the fierceness had quite gone out of
his little eyes. He looked at Laurent.
And Laurent stared back at him. "Something else," he repeated stupidly
after an instant; and then, abruptly, "Tell me, is he going to live?"
"I don't know," answered M. Perrelet. The three words were eloquent.
After a second or two he added, "He cannot hear; you need not be
afraid," and went on, "I have only kept him alive so far by unremitting
care and the constant use of stimulants. I have hardly left him for
five minutes since he came. I shall sit up with him again to-night, but
even if I succeed in pulling him through till to-morrow, I cannot go on
doing that, for I'm an old man, with my work to do in the day . . ." He
broke off and looked at Laurent again.
A certain dismayed realization of whither this was tending came over M.
de Courtomer. "But, good Heavens, I could not take your place! No one
in the world knows less of medicine, less of nursing, than I do. I
could not undertake the responsibility!"
"Then you are undertaking a heavier," responded the surgeon meaningly.
"Without the most incessant care these next few days, that young man
will just flicker out. It's a question whether he doesn't do it in any
case."
"But surely you could get someone----"
"Yes, some stupid orderly into whose head I could perhaps drum something
which he would do unwillingly and with contempt in his heart, because
it is not only for an enemy--that he could stomach--but for a renegade.
For this story, true or no, is known to every soul in the garrison."
And, as Laurent gave an exclamation, he went on, "The result of such
'nursing' would inevitably be that he would slip through my fingers.
And I cannot bring in a woman from the village; the Colonel would not
hear of it, and indeed it would not be much better. I'm no
sentimentalist, Monsieur, but, guilty or innocent, what that
unfortunate young man needs now as he never needed it, probably, in his
life before, is just what Providence seems to have sent him--a friend!
If it is a friend who still believes in him, so much the better. The
only friend he does not want is one who, having seen his necessity,
will pass him by on the other side."
How could he hesitate! He had wanted to meet L'Oiseleur, owed his
capture very likely to the indulgence of that desire, and was needing
to be urged to tend him now that he had thus tragically encountered
him! Laurent put out his hand, his eyes smarting rather uncomfortably.
"I'll do it. I'll do anything you want. But I shall probably kill him,"
he added miserably.
He who claimed to be no sentimentalist patted him on the shoulder.
"No, you will not. And I shall be here myself until to-morrow. Now I
will just wash that scratch of yours and put some more plaster on it,
and then I will make them bring a bed for you in here." He worked
quickly and deftly till Laurent's forehead was adorned with an
impressive star. "There, that will do for the present. I must get
something down his throat now--not very easy, but imperatively
necessary every hour or so. You had better watch me."
And Laurent watched, nervously realizing what he, so totally
inexperienced, was about to undertake.
"He is unconscious, you say," he whispered, looking at the paper-white
face on the surgeon's arm. "But he opened his eyes and looked at me a
little before you came in."
M. Perrelet laid the inert head with its dulled and tangled locks very
gently back on the pillow. "He is quite unconscious at this moment.
From time to time he comes to the surface, as it were. If he is going
to live he will do that oftener, until he stays there altogether." He
slipped his hand under the bedclothes again. "Yes, the pulse, fast as
it is, seems a trifle stronger. With your help, Monsieur, I have hopes
. . . I have great hopes. There is evidently much natural vitality."
And he left the bedside, adding briskly, "I will just run down and tell
Colonel Guitton that you have volunteered your services."
"I should like to see the Colonel myself as soon as possible," observed
Laurent. "I must disabuse his mind at once of this preposterous idea
about M. de la Rocheterie."
"I am afraid that you will not find it very easy to do that, Monsieur,"
said the doctor, shaking his head. "Facts stand in the way."
"Facts!" ejaculated Laurent with illimitable scorn.
"There was undoubtedly treachery at Pont-aux-Rochers. Colonel Richard,
commanding at Saint-Goazec, had definite information sent him that
L'Oiseleur's men would pass the bridge at a certain hour last Friday;
he acted on the information, which purported to come from L'Oiseleur
himself, ambushed the unprepared Chouans, and smashed them up."
"Well," said Laurent with a little grimace, "information _may_ have been
sent to this Colonel Richard, but that it should have been sent by La
Rocheterie himself, by their own commander, by L'Oiseleur, who for more
than a year before the Restoration kept the Imperialists at bay
single-handed is, as I said before, grotesque!"
M. Perrelet shrugged his shoulders. "I assure you I should prefer to
think so, too. But, in that case, why did his men shoot him?"
"That idea is equally grotesque, Monsieur le Docteur. They would be
incapable of such a thing. They did not shoot him, that's all.--What
are his wounds, by the way? Very serious, I suppose?"
"No, not in themselves, except that he has a bullet lodged in his left
shoulder which I rather dislike because I do not know how, in this
state of exhaustion, he is ever going to stand the extraction. He has
also had a ball through the right side, a little above the hipbone,
which, by some miracle, has touched nothing vital. And there is a
painful but superficial glancing wound across the chest.--But what did
the mischief was the haemorrhage; tied as he was in an upright position
to that tree, and abandoned there for goodness knows how long . . . and
he evidently struggled hard to get free . . . you can imagine----"
Laurent's face had slowly blanched as he stared at him.
"It is really _true_--about that tree!"
"I do not see what object the contingent who found him could have in
making up such a story. And when he was brought in he had a cut end of
rope dangling from either wrist. I saw them with my own eyes--and the
state of his wrists, too!"
Laurent could feel now that he had turned pale. _Could_ so unspeakable a
thing have been the prelude to that forlorn journey in the cart!
"Yes, you see, Monsieur," said the doctor rather sadly, "it's pretty
conclusive."
"Ah, not a bit!" retorted Laurent, recovering himself. "All it proves is
that an attempt was made to murder him. To put the attempt down to his
own men is the insanest of conjectures. He may have been captured by
some band of marauders, or by Fédérés from the nearest town--or even by
the Imperialists themselves . . . not these of Arbelles, but some other
force. Yes, how can you disprove that it was the Imperialists?"
"Well, for one thing," replied M. Perrelet drily, "because I imagine
that regulars would have made a more thorough job of it. But I am quite
open to conviction, for I don't mind telling you that--unsentimental
old curmudgeon though I am--I took a sort of fancy to the unhappy young
man from the moment I saw him yesterday. . . And now I will go and see
the Colonel. You are sure that you do not repent?"
"I am alarmed," replied Laurent with much truth, "but certainly I do not
repent.--By the way," he added, as the doctor was at the door, "does M.
de la Rocheterie himself know of the existence of this slander?"
M. Perrelet raised his eyebrows. "It all depends on what happened in the
wood--the Bois des Fauvettes, I believe it is called. If his men shot
him, it was presumably on account of the imputation that they did so;
therefore he must know of it."
"Well, I am confident that _that_ did not happen in the wood,"
proclaimed Laurent. "But has he learnt of the calumny since? Does he
even know where he is?"
"Almost certainly not," replied the doctor. "He has never been
sufficiently conscious. So he cannot have learnt of the charge since,
and if he is really quite ignorant of it--well, there's no need to tell
him yet awhile . . . if ever," he added under his breath. Then he
turned the useless handle of the door. "Peste! I forgot I was locked in
on _your_ account!"
When Laurent was once more alone he ventured over to the bed again, and
stood looking down at it in a tempest of pity and horror and
indignation. _That_ was L'Oiseleur . . . in need of a friend! And Fate
had chosen him for the part. Fate had been bringing them together all
the time! Ah, now he could repay that leap into the river--repay it
doubly, perhaps, not only by caring for La Rocheterie's hurt body, but
also for his honour, which seemed to have suffered so desperate and
inexplicable a wound. . . .
Yet how could he, a prisoner, discover of what disastrous occurrence in
the Bois des Fauvettes L'Oiseleur had been a victim, till L'Oiseleur
himself could tell him? And perhaps those pale lips would never speak
again. His own mouth twitched. "You shall live!" he said. "You _shall_
. . . you will!"
(4)
That night always seemed to Laurent like a bad dream, in which, however,
he was only a spectator, not an actor. There was nothing he could do,
beyond attending to the fire; indeed, M. Perrelet told him that he
might as well go to sleep. But, though he lay down on the bed which had
been brought in for him and placed at the other side of the room, he
scarcely closed his eyes.
About dawn, seeing the surgeon, who had never left his patient's side,
get up rather quickly and bend over him, he slipped off his bed and
tiptoed across the room. But after a moment M. Perrelet lifted his head
from L'Oiseleur's heart, and Laurent, prepared for the worst, could see
that he looked relieved.
"Distinctly stronger," he murmured. "We shall do it yet. Give me that
saucepan off the fire. I want some more hot bouillon and brandy."
His own face looked tired and haggard in the growing light, but there
was no fatigue in his manner. And after the brandy, his head still
lying in the crook of the doctor's arm, L'Oiseleur sighed, shut his
lips tight, and moved that head a little with a faint suggestion of
restlessness.
"Go round and turn the pillow over," commanded M. Perrelet in a low
voice.
Secretly terrified, Laurent obeyed. He was persuaded that La Rocheterie
would open his eyes just at that moment. But the dark lashes were down
now as if they meant to stay there for ever.
"That will do," said M. Perrelet. "Go back to bed and try to get a
little sleep. You will be wanted in the day--for there will be a day
for him now, I think."
About eight o'clock, indeed, M. Perrelet was so well satisfied with his
patient's condition that he left the room for a little. To Laurent's
surprise he returned with Colonel Guitton. The latter, taking no notice
of Laurent, went straight over to La Rocheterie's bed with the doctor,
and stood there in silence.
"You said that he was better," he remarked after a moment. "He looks no
better at all!" The disappointment in his tone almost amounted to
annoyance.
"I told you it would be slow," replied M. Perrelet rather shortly.
The Colonel stooped. "I suppose he's not shamming by any chance?"
Laurent gave a movement. So did M. Perrelet.
"Shamming!" he exclaimed. "Do you think I am a . . . a greengrocer,
Colonel? And I wish you would feel his pulse, and tell me how a man can
simulate one like that!"
Colonel Guitton gave a sort of laugh. "You need not be so peppery, my
dear Perrelet. I did not mean to cast any slur on your professional
acumen. And, as to your patient, the charge of malingering would be a
trifling one to bring against a man who has done what he has done.--Let
me have a report of his progress, please, twice a day without fail," he
finished curtly, and, turning on his heel, came in Laurent's direction.
"So you have elected to stay here, Monsieur le Comte, and play the Good
Samaritan? Please remember that it is not my wish, and that when you
change your mind you have only to ask to be moved."
Laurent had got the better of the strangling sensation which had
afflicted him while the Bonapartist stood over Aymar de la Rocheterie
(unhearing and unseeing though the latter was) and spoke of him like
that. He was on fire, but coherently so, and having decided in the
night exactly what he meant to say, he said it.
The Colonel heard him out. Then he shrugged his shoulders, remarked
calmly, "Ah, a champion! Well, Monsieur de Courtomer, I am sorry for
you!" and departed, M. Perrelet with him, leaving Laurent angry,
dumbfounded, and thoroughly bewildered, not by his incredulity but by
his inconsistency. How, if he was so concerned for La Rocheterie's
life, so anxious to hear of his progress, could he speak of him with
such utter contempt? If he had such an opinion of him why did he
trouble to have him kept alive at all? In M. Perrelet's case he could
see that he really cared, and he was, besides, a doctor, but the
Colonel . . .
Then M. Perrelet returned, looking rather grim, and Laurent was
immediately called upon to assist at the dressing of the patient's
wounds--his first experience of the kind. Of this proceeding, indeed,
L'Oiseleur himself betrayed little consciousness beyond moaning once or
twice; but there was one matter of which Laurent, for his part, was
even more acutely aware than of the injuries themselves. Each of M. de
la Rocheterie's wrists, now seen for the first time, was encircled by a
neat little bandage. After what the surgeon had said about ropes, it
was not difficult to guess the reason for their presence, and it turned
Laurent sick and cold. What ignominy had he suffered in that horrible
wood, he, a gentleman and a hero?
The rest of the slow day was not free from anxiety, but as it wore on La
Rocheterie's condition certainly improved and he became conscious for
increasingly longer intervals, till at last, by the end of the
afternoon, he was lying most of the time with his eyes open, though he
seemed quite unaware of Laurent's presence, possibly even of the
doctor's.
And when the night came which Laurent had been so dreading, he found
that the responsibility for L'Oiseleur's life was not to rest entirely
on his untried shoulders, since M. Perrelet was going to sleep in the
château, not in his house in the village, and could be summoned at need
by means of the sentry.
That was an immense relief. And Laurent did not have to summon him. The
little flame of life, so anxiously tended, showed no flicker. La
Rocheterie was very quiet, much as he had been during the day.
Occasionally he would stir feebly or sigh; part of the time he seemed
to be asleep. But even when his eyes were open they rested on his
candle-lit surroundings, on the screen which had now been placed at the
side of the bed, or on the watcher, with the same absence of interest,
and he took what was given him with a similar indifference.
Perhaps, drained of blood as he was, he had lost for the time his hold
on realities. And possibly, in the circumstances, this was as well. But
the human body seemed to the newly initiated student a terrifyingly
frail machine. What would Maman say if she could see M. de la
Rocheterie now . . . if she could have seen both of them, brought
together like this! Darling Maman! . . . and Laurent pondered at
intervals, during that long night, whether his gaolers would let him
send a letter to tell her that he was at least safe. Too safe, he would
have said, but for that helpless and calumniated head on the pillow
there!
(5)
At the conclusion of his vigil in the morning Laurent, heavy-eyed but
relieved, was rewarded with praise. A little later another milestone
was passed: Aymar de la Rocheterie spoke for the first time.
Laurent had already pricked up his ears when he heard M. Perrelet, on
the inner side of the screen, saying to him encouragingly, "Ah, now I
am beginning to be pleased with you!"
And to this a voice--more a breath than a voice, and broken at
that--said, slowly and with effort,
"You are the doctor, Monsieur? . . . Where am I?"
"In the château of Arbelles," responded M. Perrelet, "where we are going
to make you quite well again."
"How long . . ."
"Since Monday evening. This is Thursday morning."
"Arbelles," murmured the voice. There was a pause; then it said, "But
that Royalist officer . . . here sometimes . . . ?"
"He is a prisoner like you, Monsieur," responded M. Perrelet. There was
a moment's silence, and then the wounded man said,
"And it was the . . . Bonapartists then who . . . brought me here?"
To some sudden strand of anguish in the voice M. Perrelet replied
soothingly, "Well, it does not much matter who brought you. Yes, they
found you unconscious. Now you had better not talk any more. I am going
to do your dressings."
He was obeyed. Indeed it was obviously as much as La Rocheterie could do
to retain his hold on consciousness at all during the next half-hour.
But he made no shadow of protest or complaint, and when at last the
business was over, he lay motionless again, with his eyes shut, just a
little more nearly the hue of the sheets than before.
He seemed in fact to be in a drowse when M. Perrelet came back to the
bedside with a towel and the bandage scissors in his hand. "I meant to
have cut off this long hair before," he remarked to Laurent, still on
the farther side of the bed. "He will be much more comfortable with it
gone. Curious colour!" He touched a bronze ripple.
"You are going to cut it off!" exclaimed Laurent in a low tone. The
intention seemed almost sacrilege.
The surgeon nodded. "At least, you shall do it, while I hold his head
up."
"Oh, but . . ." said Laurent, hesitatingly accepting the scissors,
"perhaps he would not wish it. . . . Unless of course it is
necessary. . . ."
"I don't know that it is necessary," returned M. Perrelet, "but----"
Here, immensely to the surprise of both of them, he over whose body they
were holding this debate opened his eyes and faintly said something.
The old doctor bent down to catch it, but Laurent, whose hearing was
sharper, had no need to stoop. L'Oiseleur had whispered, "Cut it
off. . . . I shall not want it so . . . any more. . . ."
After that there was nothing to say. But Laurent had his teeth in his
underlip as he played the executioner, nervously clipping away at the
"tiresome stuff," as its owner had once so insouciantly called it, till
the shoulder-long locks, curling a little at the ends, lay like autumn
beech-leaves on the linen.
"Nous n'irons plus aux bois,
Les lauriers sont coupés,"
--that most haunting couplet came into his head meanwhile, to stay there
all the rest of the morning.
"That will be much better, thank you, Monsieur de Courtomer," said M.
Perrelet, settling the shorn head back again.
Was it only Laurent's fancy that a slight change passed over Aymar de la
Rocheterie's half-conscious face at the name?
And, waking that afternoon from a short doze himself, Laurent found his
charge's conscious gaze fixed full on him. As Laurent's glance met his
the very faintest tinge of colour mounted to his face--he was too
bloodless to show more. But he looked away, saying nothing.
Laurent felt certain, however, that he had recognized him. In his
present great prostration this was probably a shock; he must give him
time to get over it. He would obviously have to wait a little for the
story of the doings in the wood; La Rocheterie would not have the
strength to tell him yet.
Nor, perhaps, the inclination, it occurred to him later, when, having
asked the wounded man whether there was anything he could do to make
him more comfortable, he replied in the negative in a voice that seemed
to the enquirer, for all its weakness, to be so extremely glacial that
he felt a chill at the heart. Had La Rocheterie not recognized him,
after all? Should he recall himself to his memory? Better not: M.
Perrelet would probably disapprove.
But during the night he was faced with a new idea. Was it possible that
L'Oiseleur, even though he had recognized him (for the more Laurent
thought about that the more he felt sure that he had), did not want to
admit the fact? And if so, in Heaven's name why not? Was it possible
that--after all, he _did_ know something of the terrible imputation
under which he lay? But even then--Laurent was at a loss, and no amount
of studying his face, at moments during the vigil when La Rocheterie
was asleep, helped him to a solution. All he gained was a completer
impression of the extraordinary effect of candour, innocence, and
helplessness given to it in repose by the motionless lashes, as long
and curving as those of a boy.
Another morning brought a repetition of the morning before. M. Perrelet
seemed pleased, and, presumably of set purpose, he talked a little as
he did the dressings. But his patient did not respond to his
encouragement, and Laurent could not disguise from himself that he
himself was beginning to be a trifle . . . yes, disappointed in him. La
Rocheterie was very likely in pain from the wound in his chest with
every breath he drew, and, worse, was so drained of vitality that he
could not move or lift a hand to help himself, but somehow one would
have thought that, by this time, a man of his fibre would have rallied
a little in spirit, if not in body. On the contrary, in these last two
days Laurent had once or twice surprised on his increasingly haggard
face such an expression of utter hopelessness as to be shocked by it.
Yet it was puzzling how, despite his silence and inertia, La Rocheterie
would now and then turn on M. Perrelet a gaze that seemed pregnant with
some unspoken question.
Possibly the doctor himself had noticed this, or it was for some other
reason that he gave Laurent a warning before he left.
"In spite of the improvement, he must be kept absolutely quiet," he
said. "Whatever you do, don't go talking to him about Pont-aux-Rochers
or the wood. I would not answer for the consequences if he is agitated
in any way."
"To talk is the last thing he seems to want to do," observed his nurse.
"I am not so sure of that," returned M. Perrelet.
(6)
There seemed to be a great deal of movement going on at Arbelles that
afternoon, and Laurent, sitting sleepily by the open window, remembered
how M. Perrelet had said that a considerable part of the troops there
had been ordered off against the small Royalist bodies in the Plesguen
district who, under the leadership of a certain M. du Tremblay, were
understood to be meditating a coup, but in what direction was
uncertain. Colonel Guitton was going in command of the force from the
château, a piece of news which delighted M. de Courtomer. The name of
du Tremblay seemed familiar to him, but he was too lazy, or too tired,
to recover the connection.
La Rocheterie was asleep. Though the screen hid his body from Laurent,
it had not been drawn completely up to the head of the bed, and through
the gap the young man could see his face turned sideways on the pillow,
still and colourless as alabaster, and all the more colourless for the
lock of ruddy hair lying on the brow. He was tranquil enough now. But
when he was awake . . . Oh, that cursèd, cursèd wood!
Quick spurred steps were audible at this juncture outside, and in a
moment more, to Laurent's surprise, and by no means pleasure, there
entered Colonel Guitton, with the Major. The former was evidently ready
for the field, booted, sword-girt and polished, his tall brass helmet
with the horse-hair plume and the strip of leopard-skin giving him
additional height and truculence. Into the yellow plastron of his
uniform was stuck a folded paper. He took no notice of Laurent beyond
returning his salute, and, followed by the other officer, clanked
across the room to L'Oiseleur's bed and disappeared behind the screen.
This irruption had of course roused the sleeper, for Laurent saw him
stir and open his eyes.
"Ah, I am glad to see--as well as to hear--that you are better,
Monsieur," came Colonel Guitton's voice, quick and incisive, "because I
want a little conversation with you."
Laurent promptly walked to the farther edge of the screen. "If you will
excuse me, sir, M. Perrelet left particular orders that M. de la
Rocheterie was to be kept absolutely quiet."
The helmeted head turned. "I can't help that," said its owner, none too
agreeably. "This business is far too urgent to wait on M. Perrelet's
permission. Moreover, we shall not keep M. de la Rocheterie long."
He drew the chair by the bed still nearer and sat down, the Major
standing behind him, while Laurent, after a second or two's hesitation,
returned to his former place by the window. He was perturbed, but he
felt that if Colonel Guitton had the sense of a fly he would see that
L'Oiseleur was in no fit state for conversation.
"I want to ask you a question or two," he heard the Colonel reiterate,
in a much lower voice--but one which, whether he knew it or no, was
perfectly audible. "To go straight to the point, the district of St.
Pierre de Plesguen is moving." He waited a moment, and then added, "I
expect I am right in concluding that M. du Tremblay's real plans are
known to you?"
L'Oiseleur also waited a moment before replying. "If it interests you
. . . they are." His voice was slow and weak, but the reply had all the
effect of curtness.
"It does interest me, Monsieur de la Rocheterie," said the dragoon. "I
am going out now in the hope of countering those plans . . . when I
know a little more definitely what they are."
And there was another pause, which Laurent dimly felt to be charged with
something uncomfortable and threatening, though he could not as yet
divine the goal of this conversation. But it had suddenly come to him
where he had heard the name of du Tremblay before, where he had seen
the man who bore it--that officer at the Duc de Saint-Séverin's
reception who knew so much about La Rocheterie and had spoken of him so
warmly. They had probably concerted measures.
"Do you expect me to wish you success?" asked the faint voice at last.
"No, I expect something a little more concrete than good wishes,"
retorted Colonel Guitton. He gave a half-laugh and lowered his voice
still more, but not sufficiently. "Come, La Rocheterie, let us get this
business over as quickly as possible. I am sure that you understand
me!"
The faint, fugitive colour dyed L'Oiseleur's pallor to the roots of his
hair. "God! For what do you take me!"
"Well," sniggered the Imperialist, "I had really no intention of
pronouncing the word to your face, but if you want it . . . No, I take
you for a man who, like M. de Labédoyère, has seen the error of his
ways, a man who is aware, now that the Emperor is back, how things are
likely to go, and has acted accordingly . . . and wisely, in my view.
Only you cannot stop halfway, you know. So----"
Little shoots of incredulity and horror had been running up and down the
witness as he stood there rigid by the window, unseen and perhaps
already forgotten. Was it conceivable that they were expecting
L'Oiseleur, _L'Oiseleur_, to reveal the plans which he and du Tremblay
had no doubt made together, now that du Tremblay was on the verge of
carrying them out? It was so infamous that it could not be true; he
must be wronging the two officers. He restrained himself and listened.
As for L'Oiseleur himself, pinned there under their gaze, he had turned
his head away, his teeth set in his lip.
"Come, La Rocheterie, don't prolong this!" went on the Imperialist, and
his tone held a certain repellent bonhomie. "I am in a great hurry, and
you are ill. And, hang it all, you made Colonel Richard a present of
your own plans; all I'm asking for is a little light on du Tremblay's!"
Yes, they did expect it! And it was repeated to his very face, that vile
and terrible lie! Laurent took an instinctive step forward--and then
checked himself. La Rocheterie had turned his head back again on the
pillow; he was going at least to have the satisfaction of denying the
charge. But was it any wonder that he looked ghastly? "You can . . .
insult me . . ." he got out, struggling a little for breath, "but you
can never . . . make me do that!"
"_Make_ you, you fool!" snarled Colonel Guitton, all the false geniality
gone, "there's no question of 'making,' if you have any regard for your
own skin! Don't you realize that you stand to find a Royalist triumph a
cursed bad lookout for yourself after what you've done, if they get
hold of you!"
L'Oiseleur's lip curled. "I had rather their justice . . . than your
mercy."
The charge was beneath his contempt then; he had not even troubled to
deny it. But how long was this to go on? Was it of any use making
another appeal to them? No; a fellow-captive had no power to stop them,
and if he intervened again, La Rocheterie would inevitably realize his
presence, and he was beginning most devoutly to hope that he had
forgotten it.
The Colonel cleared his throat. From his now quite unmodulated voice it
was plain that he, at all events, had forgotten him. "Now, look here,
La Rocheterie, you are behaving insanely. I can't think what has come
to you! Your own side knows, or will soon know, what you have done,
while on the other hand ours is already in your debt--though I don't
doubt you got your _quid pro quo_ from Richard. Now here is a still
greater opportunity of putting us--I might almost say the
Emperor--under an obligation to you, and yet, after having so
thoroughly burned your boats, you hesitate to take it!"
"Hesitate!"
The Colonel swore softly. Then he smote himself on the leg. "Parbleu, I
am stupid! I . . . I apologize, La Rocheterie. But you were unlucky,
and you need have no fear of consequences this time, for, most
fortunately, I have a document here which will make the business quite
safe for you. I brought it to ask you about it." Something rustled. "I
assume that this paper which was found on you contains notes or what
not of du Tremblay's plans, since it is headed with his name. So if
ever you were accused of having communicated them you could safely
say--and I would support you--that the cipher notes were taken from you
and read." His voice was eager, explanatory, almost coaxing. "Do you
see? It is quite safe. I perfectly understand that in the event of
recapture you do not want to face a firing-party for the second time.
But no one could possibly prove that we did not contrive to decipher
these notes for ourselves."
A sound resembling a laugh came from the bed. "Try then!" said its
occupant.
"Aubert!" said the Colonel, and he and the Major whispered together.
Nevertheless, Laurent overheard the words "extraordinary obstinacy
. . . never anticipated . . . cannot understand. . . ." It seemed clear
now--only too clear--why they had been so anxious to keep L'Oiseleur
alive. . . . And meanwhile he lay, not looking at them, his mouth set
hard, and breathing rather fast, the disastrous effect of this
insulting interrogatory quite plain. And when Laurent saw the sweat on
his brow he hoped with a desperate hope that, as his inquisitors were
in a hurry and could, surely, see that they would elicit nothing, they
would desist. . . . But then, to his dismay, he heard the murmured
words, "going to have it out of him at whatever cost!"
And Colonel Guitton's chair scraped along the floor as he drew it
nearer. Laurent could now see part of his green sleeve and his strong,
blunt-fingered hand, in which was a piece of stained and crumpled
paper.
"Now, La Rocheterie," he said, in quite a different tone, "you'll answer
my questions, please! It's no good shamming faintness. You can have
brandy if you need it. Are these"--he tapped the paper--"your notes or
du Tremblay's?"
From his low pillow L'Oiseleur looked up at his interrogator steadily.
Laurent felt sure that the taunt about shamming had stung him, and that
he was going, to his own cost, to show that it was not that he could
not speak, but that he would not. He now said quietly, "They are my
own."
"Good! It is your private cipher then?"
"Yes."
"And the notes are concerned with this plan of du Tremblay's?"
"I shall not answer that."
"That shows they are. You have answered. Now I suppose you will pretend
that you cannot read your cipher without the key?"
"I can read it perfectly," said the weak, disdainful voice.
"The deuce you can! Well, that's honest, at all events. As I hold the
paper in front of you, you could read it off, then?"
"If I pleased."
"As a matter of fact," observed the Colonel over his shoulder to the
Major, "he probably knows by heart what is there--there is not very
much." He turned once more to his prisoner. "Now I daresay you think
that is what I am going to ask you to do, eh?--and that is why you are
so ready to admit that you can read it. Well, you are wrong. I am not
quite such a fool. What you are going to do, Monsieur L'Oiseleur, is to
give us the key of your cipher, and then, deciphering these notes
ourselves, we can be sure that we are not being tricked! Otherwise I
might just as well have asked you straight out for verbal information,
which I see now I could not rely on when I had it . . . though God
knows what game you are playing! You follow me?"
"Perfectly." But the sweat was running down his forehead.
"Well now! You are not strong enough to write, I fancy. The Major will
take it down for you. Is it a complicated cipher?"
There was a pause which seemed to Laurent endless. He stood there biting
his clenched hands, only keeping himself in with the greatest
difficulty. Surely, surely they could see what they were doing, and
would refrain! The pulsations of La Rocheterie's enfeebled and
overdriven heart seemed to be shaking him as he lay there with his eyes
half closed, and the silence was filled with the sound of his rapid,
sobbing breathing. But at last he said, with a supreme effort to speak
clearly,
"Do you really imagine . . . I am going . . . to give it to you?"
"I know you are," retorted Guitton coolly, "because I am going to sit
beside you and ask you for it till you do!"
"Then you are likely . . . to stay here till . . ." But, game as he
was, he could not finish the sentence. He made instead a slight
convulsive movement.
"Give me the pencil and paper, Aubert," said the Colonel, undisturbed.
"Now, La Rocheterie, we have had enough of this heroic pose. The Moulin
Brûlé is very much past history. The sooner you give in the better for
yourself. Do you think I am going to move against du Tremblay ignorant
of his plans when you, with your penchant for passing on information,
are aware of them? I don't enjoy sacrificing my men! . . . This is
mainly a number cipher, I see; but I fancy one or two of the words are
really cipher, too, eh?"
"I shall not . . ."
"Oh, yes, you will. Suppose you begin by telling me what this number
which occurs so frequently represents. You see the one I mean. Don't
shut your eyes like that! Two hundred and eighteen--what does two
hundred and eighteen represent?"
There was no answer. The face on the pillow was no longer alabaster; it
was ashen.
"What does two hundred and eighteen represent, La Rocheterie? I have
plenty of time yet; you'll have to tell me in the end. Is it
'river'--'Aven'?"
L'Oiseleur suddenly moved his head as if he could not bear much more,
and said sharply to himself, "O God!"
"Ah," commented Guitton in a tone of satisfaction. "You see! in a few
minutes you will find yourself telling me all I want to know, and then
I will go away and leave you in peace. Perhaps indeed you are already
prepared to . . . No? Very well, we will return to our friend two
hundred and eighteen. Once more, what does two hundred and eighteen
stand for?"
His victim looked up at him desperately and defiantly and shook his
head. It made no difference; the query was merely repeated: "What does
two hundred and eighteen stand for?"
L'Oiseleur made a last effort to speak, but no sound was audible. His
eyes closed. Something in his appearance caused Colonel Guitton to jump
up with an exclamation. "Look here, then, I will be contented with just
this--Does du Tremblay intend to cross the Aven or no? But, mind you,
the truth, or it will be the worse for you! Now, yes or no? Do you hear
me? . . . _Do_ you hear me? . . . What's that?"
"I think he means, sir," said the Major, who had slipped up to the other
side of the bed, and was also bending over its occupant, "that he hears
you, but that he will not tell you. I'm afraid it's no use; he's
collapsing."
"I was afraid so, damn him!" said Colonel Guitton with passionate
disgust. "Find some brandy then, Aubert. There must be some way to get
it out of him!"
But Laurent, like Aymar de la Rocheterie, had had more than he could
stand. Only those two considerations, his knowledge of his own
helplessness, and regard for L'Oiseleur's feelings, had kept him in
leash so long. Now it was not a question of L'Oiseleur's feelings but
of his very life--for Laurent had just had a full view of him as the
Colonel shifted his position. He snatched up the brandy, and sprang to
the other entrance of the screen just as Major Aubert came round it.
"Stop, stop, for God's sake!" he cried, seizing him by the arm. "You are
murdering him--can't you see it!--and he'll never tell! Here's the
brandy, but for pity's sake don't go on . . . it's quite useless!"
"What's this?" cut in Colonel Guitton's voice through the screen--or
rather, over it, for, turning suddenly and catching the end, he toppled
the whole structure over with a crash. "Is the other still
there?--Damnation, I had forgotten!"
"So I should imagine," retorted Laurent, facing him over the fallen
screen. "I can very well fancy that you did forget you had a witness of
your detestable proceedings! Let me go to him!" And he frantically
tried to push past the Colonel, but that officer as furiously pushed
him back. "Major Aubert, put this young meddler outside the door in
charge of the sentry! I was a damned fool ever to let him stay in the
room. Of course La Rocheterie won't speak while he is here! Out with
him!"
"I refuse!" began Laurent--and then saw that he had better go. If he
objected it would only lead to his being dragged out, and prolonging
this dreadful scene. Besides, La Rocheterie, lying there like death
itself, without any struggle for breath now, without the flicker of an
eyelid--La Rocheterie was palpably beyond hearing any more insults or
questions.
"You have killed him, you devil!" he cried with a passionate gesture.
But the executioner was more than deaf. Even as Laurent was pushed to
the door by the Major he heard the angry voice saying, "Perhaps the
initial mistake I made was in not offering this fellow here a price
first. How much, I wonder, did he get from----"
Then the door slammed and was locked behind him, and he found himself,
seething with fury, in the corridor with the bewildered sentry.
His first impulse, now that he was out, was to batter on the door to be
let in again; it was horrible to have to leave L'Oiseleur in the grip
of those vultures. But they could not do any more now. The question
was, had they finished him already? Tears of helpless rage were dimming
his eyes when suddenly, some way down the corridor, he saw a rotund
form making for the staircase--M. Perrelet. But he was not coming this
way; he had paid his afternoon visit . . . they knew that, probably. He
_should_ come, though . . . Despite his somewhat sturdy build, Laurent
was very quick and light on his feet, and was down the passage like a
flash, the sentry, when he had grasped his intention, pounding after
him.
"Hallo!" said M. Perrelet, turning round. "Here, young man, if you are
escaping, I----"
Laurent seized him by the arm. "For Heaven's sake, come! They are
killing him in there, the Colonel and----" Further revelations were cut
short by the sentry's throwing himself on their maker from behind and
putting an arm around his neck.
"It's all right," gasped Laurent, "I'm not escaping. Hurry, Monsieur
Perrelet--they've been questioning him till . . . I don't know if he's
breathing now!"
M. Perrelet let fly as full-blooded an oath as any soldier and trotted
down the corridor. "Come on!" said Laurent to the sentry, who still
held him. And the cortège arrived just as the door opened once more and
the two officers came out. The Colonel was in a towering rage.
"Ah, Doctor, you'd better go in to your patient. He needs you, I
fancy--not that it matters now. By the time I got this young meddler
out it was too late. . . . And to have the very notes in my hand!" He
crumpled the sheet of cipher into a ball, threw it violently down and
strode off down the corridor followed by the Major. M. Perrelet had
already shot in through the open door.
And in a moment or two Laurent, with a failing heart for what he should
find, said to the now dazed sentry, "I suppose I had better go back,"
and went.
"Is that you?" called out M. Perrelet. "Put the kettle on the fire,
quick!--and come and rub his hands and feet!"
He had L'Oiseleur, quite inanimate, in his arms; the bandages were
already severed, and he was rubbing him over the region of the heart
with brandy.
"He's gone!" exclaimed Laurent, terrified, when he saw the fixed,
half-open eyes and the head fallen aside.
"Not quite," replied M. Perrelet grimly. "But you must work harder than
that!"
(7)
It was nearly two o'clock in the morning--but not of the next morning,
the morning after that. Laurent rose from replenishing the little fire
which was always burning. In a few moments M. Perrelet would relieve
him and he could sleep.
Thanks to the old surgeon, L'Oiseleur had been saved--for the second
time--but it had been touch and go for some hours. Before nightfall on
Friday they had succeeded in pulling him back to a kind of
consciousness, and all yesterday he had lain quiescent, so exhausted
that it had been difficult to rouse him to take nourishment, but at
least in outward peace, as Laurent kept assuring himself, for the
brutality which had been practised on La Rocheterie in this room
haunted him, waking or sleeping. M. Perrelet indeed was amazed at the
rally, considering that the victim's heart was, and would long remain,
so much impaired.
Laurent stood now for a moment at the foot of the bed--and had a sudden
feeling that he should like to hang a laurel wreath there. Then M.
Perrelet entered in a dressing-gown, and waved him to his own couch.
He woke about five o'clock to find, to his surprise, a low-voiced
conversation going on behind the screen. Since his collapse La
Rocheterie had not uttered a word.
". . . kept me alive for that!" he caught the end of a sentence, in his
broken, trailing voice, suffused nevertheless with bitterness.
"Now, my boy," he heard M. Perrelet reply gently, "you cannot honestly
think that was my purpose, can you? If I could have Colonel Guitton
tried for attempted murder, I would willingly do so. But you must not
think of it any more; it is over now."
The voice said, "Till they try again!"
"No, no!" The old surgeon sounded genuinely shocked. "The Colonel has
left Arbelles. It shall never happen again, I swear it. And you did not
tell him anything; you know that, don't you?"
"Yes . . . but . . . he _asked_ me . . . he _dared_ to ask me!" gasped
L'Oiseleur ". . . and before M. de Courtomer!"
(Yes, he had recognized him--he had realized that he was there!)
"Come, come, my child, you must be quiet!" said the doctor. "I know that
you went through a dreadful time, but you kept your mouth shut--that's
really all you care about, isn't it? Now see if you cannot get to sleep
again--to please me!"
And to Laurent's relief there was silence for a little; then the ghost
of a voice began again. The question itself was inaudible.
"M. de Courtomer is here," answered M. Perrelet. "He is asleep just now.
He helps me to look after you, you know."
"He is here--in the room? Always?"
"Certainly. You cannot be left."
"But, my God," came desperately from the bed, "that is the one thing I
want . . . to be left alone. And instead of that he . . . who knew me
once . . . was in the room . . . and heard . . . _everything!_ Can't he
be put somewhere else . . . can't I be alone?" The voice was almost
sobbing in its entreaty.
Poor Laurent, in his bed, covered his face with his hand. So much for
his dreams of a grateful recognition! Yes, that was it, as he had felt
at the time--the intolerable humiliation, to a very proud and sensitive
spirit, of having had an acquaintance a witness of Friday's
proceedings.
There was a movement behind the screen. "Chut! mon enfant!" said the
doctor. "You must not agitate yourself like this! M. de Courtomer is
here of his own free will to nurse you, and he is so much your champion
that he has twice already fought your battle with the Colonel. And if
he had not fetched me in after that business on Friday----"
"I wish he had not!" broke in the faint, bitter voice. "You are kind,
Doctor . . . but if you would only let me die . . ."
This was becoming unbearable. Never had Laurent conceived of the La
Rocheterie he had known before, though he was young enough, than as a
man--even, by reason of his quiet self-possession and his prestige,
than as a man older, perhaps, than he really was. He sounded now like a
broken-hearted boy. The listener put his hands over his ears.
He kept them there till he was sure that the voices had ceased. A little
afterwards he heard M. Perrelet emerge very cautiously and tiptoe over
to his bed. The young man's instant pretence of being asleep did not
deceive the doctor. He bent over him till his mouth was almost at his
ear and whispered, "Did you by any chance hear what was said just now?"
"Yes," breathed Laurent with his eyes shut.
"You won't take any notice of it, my dear boy, will you?" pleaded the
surgeon in the same almost inaudible tone. "He's nearly crazy after
that damnable strain."
"That's obvious. And therefore--after what he said--I had better be
moved elsewhere."
"No, no, I can't spare you. He will get over this morbid feeling about
you as the effects of that scene wear off."
"But shall I get over his having had it?" thought Laurent. He said
nothing, but suddenly buried his face in the pillow.
"You will stay--and take no notice?" queried the voice in his ear; and
after a moment Laurent gave a smothered assent.
The grasp on his shoulder tightened. "Good boy!" whispered M. Perrelet,
and went away.
But it was not easy to carry out that promise. Already, by the time that
the hour for dressings arrived, L'Oiseleur had contrived, without the
aid of speech, to make his feelings about the unwilling witness so
clear that Laurent was constrained to help himself through that ordeal
by pretending that the set and frozen face below him belonged to
someone whom he had never seen before. And indeed it could not have
shown less sign of recognition had this really been the case.
At the conclusion M. Perrelet suddenly laid hold of his patient's arm.
"Time I had a look at these wrists again," he murmured, and began to
unfasten the little bandage.
The wrist jerked weakly in his hold. "No!" ejaculated the Vicomte de la
Rocheterie with a catch of the breath. "Leave them alone, please!"
Low as it was, the tone was a command, which the frown emphasized. M.
Perrelet just glanced at the speaker. "My dear boy," he said, almost
equally low, "it is necessary," and went on unwinding. But Laurent,
averting his face, slipped away from the bed, lest he should see the
marks of those accursed ropes, and L'Oiseleur have him again as an
unwilling witness of his humiliation.
He was not so to avoid it. "Will you please bring that fresh lint I left
on the table," came the surgeon's voice a moment later. For an instant
Laurent had the idea of saying that he could not find it--the next, he
snatched it angrily up and went round the barrier. La Rocheterie's head
was turned stiffly away, but Laurent had the impression that he was
grinding his teeth. And on the unbandaged wrist in M. Perrelet's hold
he saw just what he had guessed and feared. . . . Yes, he must have
struggled, indeed! Perhaps, still worse, he had been dragged
about. . . . Laurent silently put the lint on the bed and went away
again.
And there was more than one moment during that day--it was the
Sunday--when, despite his promise to M. Perrelet, Laurent found himself
saying, "I'll be hanged if I stay here!" For L'Oiseleur's demeanour
towards him continued to be of a politeness so stony that his guardian
would really much have preferred him to be rude. After that one
approach to a breakdown to which, in his precarious state, insults and
torture had brought him, La Rocheterie had evidently summoned up all
his pride and his endurance. There was nothing of that heartrending
boyishness about him now; he was a man again, and a desperately
unapproachable one. It was extraordinary that a person who was so
utterly helpless and dependent on another could contrive to keep that
other so freezingly at arm's length. Yet, directly Laurent had come to
the conclusion that next time M. Perrelet entered he must ask to be
moved elsewhere, he had only to look at his charge lying there to feel
that he could not bring himself to desert him. However much La
Rocheterie might not want him, he needed him terribly.
And always at the back of Laurent's mind was the instinctive knowledge
that, before he was brought to Arbelles, he must have been through some
terrible experience to be so completely changed. The very attractive,
courteous, self-contained young man of last year, with his modesty, his
easy and quiet gaiety, his consideration for others, was entirely gone,
and in his place was a phantom of that figure, sombre and tortured, too
sore in spirit to accept the most willing sympathy and service. His
very voice was changed. No; it was plain to Laurent that the slander
was at the back of all that had happened to him even before he came to
the château. And what exactly had happened? Every day, every hour, the
situation seemed to blossom into fresh horrible possibilities; and
before that agonized silence one was helpless. For that he would hear
now from the victim's own lips the story of what he had undergone
seemed so improbable that Laurent had given up considering it. The best
he could hope for was that he could continue to nurse him without being
asked point-blank to leave him. And though he would abstain from that
request now, directly L'Oiseleur was well enough to be left he should
ask to be moved--instantly.
It was a small but very wounding occurrence which fixed him in this
resolve. He noticed during the afternoon that a lock of the hair which
he had cut so badly, straggling over his forehead, was bothering the
helpless man. Laurent could not think at first why he was feebly moving
his head first to one side, then to the other, but when L'Oiseleur
began slowly to try to disengage a hand from beneath the bedclothes to
deal with the annoyance Laurent jumped up, murmuring, "Let me do that
for you!" But as he gently put aside the recalcitrant lock he felt La
Rocheterie shrink--most indubitably shrink--from his touch, flashing up
at him as he did so an extraordinary glance of hostility--it could be
nothing else. And Laurent had gone instantly away without a word.
He went to bed that night feeling almost desperate. His patient had
intimated in the most icy tones that he did not wish for anything
during the night, and that he would be extremely obliged if the light
might not be kept burning as hitherto. Laurent knew that he was doing
very wrong in acceding to these requests (which partook more of the
nature of commands), but he simply had not the courage to contravene
them.
(8)
At the end of his visit next morning M. Perrelet managed to whisper to
Laurent, under cover of washing his hands, "Is he being very
difficult?"
"A little," answered M. de Courtomer, colouring.
"I thought so! But you know, in some way or other he's going through
hell, that young man! I should know that as a doctor, if I had not
heard that dark story about him. So hold on, there's a good lad, and
one day he will realize what you are doing for him and thank you for
it."
"Going through hell." The phrase recurred to Laurent as he sat by the
window that afternoon. Yes, he looked as if he were. And the strain,
whatever it was, was not lessening but increasing. All the hours,
reflected Laurent, that he lies there motionless, he is thinking,
thinking . . . and of what? Why will he not tell me--tell me at least
something . . . tell me that he is in a great strait? For whatever he
is going through cannot be caused by his own misdoing; yet in this
horrible tale there is misdoing--someone else's, of which the blame has
fallen on him.
Then it came to him like a flash of lightning. _No, he has taken it on
himself!_
An immense cloud whose existence he had hardly acknowledged rolled away
from Laurent's mind. Of course that was it! How could he have been so
dense? That would fully account for La Rocheterie's not having denied
the imputation when the Colonel made it so brutally to his face. Some
other man had committed the traitorous act which had brought about
Pont-aux-Rochers, and L'Oiseleur, for some reason, had shouldered the
blame. He was enduring all this vicarious shame for someone else . . .
and suffering bitterly under it.
His mind full of this illumination, Laurent looked thoughtfully across
the room at the rococo clock on the mantelpiece, for at three o'clock
he was to take La Rocheterie's pulse, a task entrusted to him in M.
Perrelet's absence. As the timepiece had marked half-past two when last
he looked at it, it must have stopped. He went over to it to make sure,
and thus came into full view of the bed, and was aware that its
occupant was awake, and watching him as he put his ear to the glass. It
was unlikely that he would address him, for he hardly ever spoke.
Nothing could have surprised him more than to hear what he did.
"The clock stopped quite half an hour ago, Monsieur de Courtomer.--It is
Monsieur de Courtomer, is it not?"
Laurent turned round, hoping that he was not showing his amazement,
aware as he was that the real recognition had been made four days ago.
"Yes, Monsieur, I was taken prisoner a week since."
"And wounded, too, I see," observed M. de la Rocheterie gravely.
"Wounded?" queried Laurent, quite forgetting the plaster on his
forehead.
"Your head."
"Oh, that!" exclaimed the young man, putting up a hand to his adornment.
"That is nothing--a scratch from a hedge."
"But a scratch honourably come by."
Laurent winced at the tone, and hurriedly said, "If you will permit me,
Monsieur de la Rocheterie," he could bring out the name now, "I will
take your pulse--M. Perrelet's orders."
A tiny frown appeared between the slender eyebrows, and Laurent felt
instantly that he did not want one of his bandaged wrists exposed to
the light of day--for both his hands were under the bedclothes. "Do not
move your arm, pray," he remarked quickly. "I can get at your pulse
quite well as you are." And, watch in hand, he knelt down by the bed
and slipped his hand in at the side. His fingers nevertheless fumbled
about the wrappings as they sought for the artery.
"It will be more convenient for you when those bandages are off,"
observed the chilling voice.
Laurent was saved any reply to this remark by the fact that, his eyes
glued to his watch, he was counting, as he had recently been
instructed. Then he got up and went to the table to write down the
result of his computations.
"You saw yesterday why I have to have my wrists bandaged?" said
L'Oiseleur abruptly.
Laurent had his back to him. "I did not look particularly," he very
truthfully replied.
"Then I advise you to do so next time," said Aymar de la Rocheterie.
"You may not, then, perhaps, care to . . . continue your
ministrations."
Laurent was momentarily tempted to retort, "Would that please you?" but
he was too much afraid of the answer to risk it. Oh, why would he, with
the scrap of strength he had gained, use it in torturing himself and
his fellow-captive? Inspired by sheer desperation the guardian turned
round with an air of authority and said, "Monsieur de la Rocheterie, I
am under strict orders not to let you talk. If you will allow me, I
will try to arrange you more comfortably, and perhaps you could sleep a
little."
The bloodless lips almost twitched into a smile as the wounded man
looked up at him. "When last we met, Monsieur de Courtomer, under very
different circumstances----"
"Excuse me, but would you not like your pillow turned?"
"No, thank you. As I was saying----"
"If only you would not talk!" interjected Laurent.
"When last I had the pleasure of seeing you . . . at M. de
Saint-Séverin's reception . . . I little guessed that at our next
meeting you would be what you are . . . and I--" he drew a long breath
"--and I . . . what I am!"
"--Surgeon's assistant and patient," struck in Laurent gallantly. "No, I
little thought that myself!"
"It was not purely in that role . . . that I was considering myself,"
commented L'Oiseleur. He did smile this time, a rather terrible smile.
And then, spent by his unwonted effort at conversation--and such a
conversation, thought the unhappy Laurent--he shut his eyes, and
relapsed once more into complete silence and immobility.
M. Perrelet was not pleased with his patient that evening. He explained
to Laurent that what he had rather anticipated was happening--the
bullet in his shoulder was poisoning him. He thought that M. de la
Rocheterie could stand the extraction now; indeed there was no choice
in the matter. He would perform it next day; his victim need not know
of his intention till the morning.
Poor Laurent wished that the same reticence had been exercised with
regard to himself; he fancied that he needed it far more. He spent an
apprehensive and L'Oiseleur a restless night.
(9)
"Well, I am glad that is satisfactorily over," remarked M. Perrelet next
morning as he washed his instruments at the table in the middle of the
room. "All the same, as I told you, I have put him to sleep because
that shoulder will hurt for some time like the devil, and I am very
anxious to avoid unnecessary heroism--it's bad for his heart. We have
had quite enough of necessary this morning as it is."
For though it was out of his power to drug his patient for the operation
itself, he had given him a strong opiate immediately afterwards, and to
this La Rocheterie had very quickly succumbed.
"Yes, it has been worrying me," went on the old surgeon, "how to get
that ball out without too much shock. . . . _You_ look a bit white, my
boy. Are you all right?"
"I am very much all right, thank you, sir," returned Laurent, pallid but
smiling. For he, at any rate, had derived from the detestable business
something which made what he had gone through worth while.
"And in the process of becoming quite a useful assistant to me you have
not lost your zeal as a champion, eh?"
"Not a bit," said Laurent. "Though I admit that I would give a very
great deal to get to the bottom of the business."
M. Perrelet flashed a shrewd glance at him. "You still don't think you
would be sorry when you got there?"
Laurent drew himself up. "Not in the sense you mean, Monsieur. And
surely you yourself, who have saved his life----"
"That's my job, Monsieur de Courtomer. It's nothing to me that the
bullet I have just fished out of that young man's shoulder came from
some old Chouan musket of the year one--look at it--nor that that young
man was found lashed to a beech tree outside his own headquarters, nor
that he has, undoubtedly, something very grave on his mind--my business
is to set him on his legs again, if I can."
"Monsieur Perrelet," said Laurent earnestly, "I believe I can account
for everything. He is shielding someone else. I am positive of it. It
cannot be an agreeable thing to do; it has cost him terribly in the
past, it is costing him terribly now, and as for the future----" He
broke off rather abruptly.
M. Perrelet gave a little shake of the head; his smile was half amused,
but half touched, too. "My dear boy, excuse my saying so, but you are
very young! It is only in romances that men do that sort of thing. In
real life, when they see what it may lead to, they are not so quixotic.
And, in my opinion, M. de la Rocheterie's demeanour is not consistent
with innocence. He is in too much personal agony of mind--can you deny
it? Why, otherwise, when I warned him just now that I was going to hurt
him, should he have said to himself, _'So much the better?'_ If he were
merely playing the scapegoat a young man as sensitively organized as he
would hardly have welcomed my probe and scalpel because they gave him
something else to think about! No, I am afraid your theory won't hold
water." He put away his instruments, then suddenly walked back to the
bed and stood for some time with his hands behind him, studying the
unconscious face, with its strong, delicate features, much less as a
doctor studies a patient than as one man scrutinizes another to see
what of his character he can read on his visage. Then he bent over the
drugged sleeper, satisfied himself as to his condition, and came back
again.
"The best argument for your view of the case, my young friend," he
admitted, "lies, of course, on the pillow there. One can't, after all,
look at that face and believe him capable of anything infamous--it was
my thought when I first saw him, all blood and dust, on the floor in
the hall more than a week ago. . . . Yet, if he is innocent, he has no
right to my thinking, to have deprived his party of his services to
cover another man's misdoing. . . . Well, keep an eye on him. I will
look in again about the hour he should wake."
Slowly the sunlight moved down the bed from the side window as Laurent
sat by it, a book on his knee which he made no attempt to read. From
time to time he took out and fingered at leisure his own private
gain--the fall of the barrier which L'Oiseleur maintained between them
. . . for how could he interpret the episode otherwise when Aymar's
clenched right hand, suddenly and blindly putting itself forth, had
encountered his wrist where he bent over the bed ready for emergencies,
and had closed on it, gripping it hard. Moved by that significant act,
Laurent had grasped the bandaged wrist in return. So when, under
contracted brows, the red-brown eyes, unclosing, looked up desperately
for a moment into his, though they were alight with pain and he was
torn with concern, his heart had leapt to greet the moment. . . . Then
M. Perrelet's hand made a movement, the bullet tinkled into the basin,
and, the second after, with a deep sigh, Aymar's grip on the friendly
wrist relaxed and his head rolled sideways. . . . Yes, how could he
interpret otherwise that appeal in the hour of need?
As for M. Perrelet's arguments, Laurent was entirely unmoved by them. So
far from considering La Rocheterie's demeanour incompatible with
innocence, he thought it a marked proof of it. Would a man capable of
betraying his own troops be so bitter and sensitive about his own
subsequent position? Surely he would expect some measure of contumely
for his deed! But in Aymar's desolation of soul there was a fierce
resentment. "He _dared_ to ask me!" he had said. No, that theory of his
shielding another, once enunciated, gained immensely in probability. A
man like the Aymar de la Rocheterie he had known last year would have
done a thing like that without counting the terrible cost to himself,
even as he had jumped without hesitation into the flooded river. If
this Aymar, who had been so near death after paying part of it, found
what remained almost more than he could endure, who could wonder? For
whom had he done it--a friend, a comrade? He must love him
extraordinarily. But how could any one accept such a sacrifice, greater
than that of life itself? Perhaps the unknown was not aware of it.
Perhaps he was dead. It was to be hoped so, for then this immolation
could, surely, cease.
Not for the first time in his vigil, Laurent bent forward and felt
L'Oiseleur's pulse. This time the fingers of the sleeper suddenly
twined themselves round his wrist again. Laurent let his hand stay in
the unconscious clasp, and it was because it was there that he found
the hot words of protest forming on his lips, though they went
unuttered--_Why did you do it? It is killing you, L'Oiseleur. You are of
too fine stuff to stand the strain, the obloquy, the contempt of the
contemptible!_
The drugged sleep, however seemed to be breaking, for Laurent had not
long sat so, his hand a prisoner, when Aymar began to stir. A
contraction passed over his face. Another moment, and his eyes slowly
unclosed, and he was looking at the watcher, half dreamily.
"It is over," said Laurent gently.
"Over? What is over?"
"The extraction--your shoulder. You fainted at the end, then the doctor
gave you an opiate. You have slept for nearly four hours."
"I remember. Yes." His eyes fell on his own hand, and he immediately
loosed his clasp and moved the hand away. Laurent reddened; but the
next instant L'Oiseleur's lashes dropped again and he relapsed into
slumber.
A little later M. Perrelet came in, expressed himself satisfied, and
said that Laurent need not sit by him like a sentry unless he pleased.
So the young man went over to his own side of the room and threw
himself on his bed. Why had La Rocheterie moved his hand away like
that? Was he, after giving that glimpse of his necessity, going on as
before? Laurent was sore, disappointed, and beginning to realize that
the combined strain of anxiety, want of sleep, and his charge's
attitude was making him curiously tired.
He lay there some time till, hearing Aymar move, he jumped up and went
round the screen and found him fully sensible, staring up at the
ceiling with a rather set mouth.
"I did not know you were awake," said Laurent somewhat timidly. "Is the
pillow all right for your shoulder? Is there anything I can do?"
"If it is not troubling you too much, I should like a drink," was the
frigid reply.
Laurent lifted his head and gave him some water. To judge from the way
he drank it, he must have come out from under the opiate parched with
thirst. Why could he not have called for such a simple thing? Laurent
suppressed a desire to ask, and when he had finished merely enquired if
his shoulder were paining him much.
"Nothing out of the way, thank you." So Laurent, with an inward sigh,
went round the bed to replace the glass. He suspected that the reply
was far from the truth. When he got to the bottom of the bed Aymar de
la Rocheterie spoke again.
"I am quite at a loss to know why you should do all this for me,
Monsieur de Courtomer."
Laurent was goaded into replying, "All this! You do not give me much
chance of doing anything!"
But Aymar, disregarding him, went on in his weak, uneven voice, "You put
me under a very heavy obligation to you."
Laurent flushed. "I had much rather you did not look at it in that
light. To do anything for you--although I know I am clumsy and
inexperienced . . . I mean . . . you need not feel . . ." He stumbled;
the set, unsmiling visage disconcerted him.
"It is very good of you," repeated L'Oiseleur in the same unmoved tones.
"And you must not think that because I took advantage of your charity
this morning I do not realize, equally with yourself . . . especially
since Colonel Guitton's visit----"
But even he could get no further for the moment. Laurent removed his
eyes from his face; it was suddenly tortured.
"--that you are dealing with an outcast, a leper," finished the voice
inexorably.
"How can you talk like that!" broke out Laurent, half choking.
"I--_charity_--you think I--" But adequate expression of his feelings
was beyond him; besides, L'Oiseleur would not listen--merely overrode
him. What could it be that made him behave like this? Was it possible
that his brain was becoming affected by what he had been through, or
that the pain which he would not now acknowledge, or the drug, or both,
had flung him into a sort of delirium? But it was such a cold
purposeful delirium. . . . Laurent plucked feverishly at the coverlet,
and at last lifted his eyes for an instant. "I do not believe a word of
what that blackguard said. . . . I should have liked to kill him!" he
added between his teeth. "Of course," he went on after a second or two,
studying the floor again, "it is obvious that you have been shot. I
realize that it must have been done. . . ." But no reference, after
all, to trees and tying up was possible.
"Exactly," said L'Oiseleur with a horrible calm. "You realize how--do
you realize by whom it was done? . . . Yes, evidently you have been
told that it was my own men, though perhaps you did not believe it. But
. . . it is quite true!"
Laurent had the sensation that about five squares of the parquet
flooring flew up and hit him on the head. He could feel the blood
rushing to his face. _It was not true!_
He looked up, dazed, and saw Aymar de la Rocheterie scanning him in a
way he could not interpret. "I see, indeed, that you had not believed
it," came his voice, cool and faint. "Well, now I have convinced you.
But in justice to my . . . my executioners, I should like you to know
that they were not directly responsible for the state of my wrists. I
did that myself, trying to get free--afterwards. . . . Have you ever
been tied to a tree, Monsieur de Courtomer, and left there? Hardly, I
suppose."
This must be stopped somehow. "Monsieur de la Rocheterie," said Laurent
firmly, "I refuse to hear another word. But I am going to say just one
thing myself. Your men may have shot you--since you tell me so I
suppose I must believe you--but even you cannot make me think that they
did it otherwise than under a misapprehension. The sun must fall from
heaven before I can believe that you did--what rumour accuses you of!
Surely you know that!"
He spoke with passion. The Vicomte de la Rocheterie stared at him out of
his great sunken eyes, words visibly smitten from him. Then he dragged
up his right hand and covered them. "You are . . . very hard to
convince," he said with a catch of the breath. And at that moment, to
Laurent's intense relief, M. Perrelet came in.
He looked from one to the other. "You have been talking to him," he said
sharply to Laurent.
"No, I have been talking to him," put in his patient quickly.
"Then you will kindly not do it any more," grumbled the little doctor,
stooping over him. "A nice state you have got yourself into! M. de
Courtomer should have stopped you!"
Laurent had turned blindly away to the window. So it was true--his own
men!
(10)
For about the sixth time that night Laurent dragged himself out of his
bed and went over to his charge. The dawn was beginning. He was so
tired that he could hardly stand, his eyes kept closing from lack of
sleep, but his brain seemed to him unusually clear. Peering at the
clock he saw that there wanted twenty minutes yet before La
Rocheterie's bouillon was due. He dropped into the chair by the bed; it
was not worth returning to his own again. Even yet, after half a day
and a night, he could scarcely realize it, though he had tried hard to
face the reversal of what he had so stoutly upheld. That haggard young
man who lay there asleep before him had really been through the horrors
of execution at the hands of his own followers--and survived. His men,
his own men who followed him with passion, who would, as he once said,
have cut their hands off for him, had fastened him to a tree and
deliberately shot him--L'Oiseleur, their brilliant and adored leader!
Now he understood why he had said that he would never need his floating
locks again; the laurels were indeed cut down! Now he understood why he
was so sensitive about his lacerated wrists, so terribly bitter about
the whole affair, so unapproachable! Why, it was enough to have sent
him crazy--quite enough to make him beg to be allowed to die, as with
his own ears Laurent had heard him!
Yet, since their painful conversation of yesterday afternoon, La
Rocheterie's demeanour towards him had undergone a certain change. He
had not said the things that hurt so much, and, in the earlier part of
the night, when he had been restless and in pain after the operation,
he had even asked, and almost naturally, for such alleviation as
Laurent could give, and had not paid him in those frigid thanks to
which the young man would infinitely have preferred no thanks at all.
Somehow, then, they _were_ a little nearer to each other.
How thin he was getting to look--how increasingly transparent--worse
than when Laurent had first seen him lying there like . . . what was it
he had looked like? A Crusader. . . . Had a Crusader ever been shot by
his men? If so, they would have used bows and arrows . . . or was it
arquebuses? What exactly was an arquebus? . . . Arques. What had
happened at Arques . . .
He woke, to his dismay, to find his head down on his arm across the foot
of his patient's bed. The birds were singing, and the hour for bouillon
well past, but the wounded man was fortunately still asleep.
His own stolen slumber, however, had not refreshed Laurent, and, by the
time that M. Perrelet appeared, he was wondering how he should ever get
through the dressings. He always hated the business, and, now that he
knew for certain who had made those wounds. . . . Then he was ashamed
of what he termed his womanish feelings. It was not he who had to bear
the pain morning after morning--and without a murmur, as La Rocheterie
always did . . . as he wished sometimes he would not. But then all
along he had never uttered a syllable of complaint at any physical
stress. "I'll be as quick as I can," he heard M. Perrelet whisper to
his patient as he took up the forceps.
. . . At least Laurent supposed that he was whispering--or was it
because there was suddenly such a loud buzzing in his own ears? The
surgeon's figure swelled to a large size; then receded till it was
about the measure of a doll. But, not realizing in the least what was
happening to him, Laurent still stood at his post with a face, though
he did not know it, very similar in hue to that on the pillow.
The next thing of which he was fully conscious was that he was seated in
a chair right away from the bed, at the open window, and that M.
Perrelet, now restored to his everyday dimensions, was undoing the
collar of his uniform.
"What is the matter?" asked the young man in a dazed way. "Why am I
here?"
"Because I didn't want you fainting and falling across the bed,"
responded M. Perrelet briskly. "Luckily my patient called my attention
to you just in time. Drink this, and sit there quietly."
"But----" protested Laurent.
"Drink this!" repeated M. Perrelet firmly.
And so the brandy which was poured out ready for L'Oiseleur was drunk by
his nurse.
"Fainting?" murmured Laurent. "Was that it? But the dressing . . . ?" And
he tried to get up.
M. Perrelet pushed him back. "Sit there, I tell you. You are not
indispensable. I will deal with you afterwards."
He disappeared behind the screen. Laurent, his head feeling like a ball
of wool, sat there ashamed and confused, conscious that he had deserted
his post, and still not quite understanding what had happened to him.
Through the woolly mist he heard the murmur of Aymar's voice--it
sounded like an interrogation--and the doctor's reply, quite clear: "It
was a little too much for him this morning, I think. He was tired, I
expect. I ought to have noticed sooner. . . . Now we will proceed with
this shoulder of yours."
He proceeded, presumably, for there was no more conversation. Laurent
gazed out of the window.
After a considerable interval M. Perrelet emerged, washed his hands, and
came over to him.
"Now, young man, I want a few words with you. No, stay where you are. I
have settled M. de la Rocheterie quite comfortably. But I don't want a
second patient on my hands." He dropped his voice. "How much sleep did
you have last night?--I thought so. And the night before? You are
getting worn out. I am an old fool, but I never meant you to do without
sleep like this--no one, of course, could stand it. Why have you been
doing it?--it's not necessary now."
The answer was very simple--because his charge would not call him, so he
must be on the alert the whole time. But Laurent was not going to give
it.
M. Perrelet's little eyes scrutinized his downcast visage. "H'm, perhaps
I can guess! . . . And yet I fancy you would really rather have this
old butcher hurting you than him, eh?" (Laurent, aghast at his insight,
turned crimson.) "Well, it is clear that I have been very inconsiderate
of you. You are to lie down at once and have a nap; I will stay here
with him for a little." And, to ensure his commands being obeyed, he
stood over Laurent till he had stretched himself on the bed.
The young man himself was surprised to find how desirable that bed
was. . . . He floated away into slumber . . . delicious! Then he came
out of it again to find M. Perrelet almost in the same place, looking
at him.
"I fell asleep for a moment," he said apologetically.
The surgeon smiled. "Mon enfant, you have slept for an hour and ten
minutes. I should not wake you now but that your dinner is just coming
up and that I have something to tell you. You need fresh air and a
little change of scene, so I have arranged with Major Aubert that you
are to go out for a walk every day on the terrace. No, there is no
question of parole, and there is a sentry posted, so don't try to
escape and get yourself shot. You can take your first promenade this
afternoon."
Laurent gave Aymar his dinner and had his own. When the orderly had
removed it he approached his charge to settle him for the sleep which
he was supposed to have in the afternoon. No reference had yet been
made to his own morning's performance, and he hoped that none would be.
But he had been conscious for the last five minutes that L'Oiseleur's
eyes were following him very intently, and, as he now came round the
bed to pull the curtain over the window beside it, La Rocheterie
suddenly said, in a very different voice from any in which he had yet
addressed him--at Arbelles:
"Do you think, Monsieur de Courtomer, that you can ever forgive me?"
It was really less the words than the tone which surprised Laurent. He
half turned, his hand on the curtain.
"On the contrary, Monsieur de la Rocheterie," he said with an
embarrassed little laugh, "it is I who ought to make the most humble
apologies to you!"
"For what?" asked Aymar, looking up at him. "For having worn yourself
out with looking after me night and day? For having robbed yourself of
your sleep, endangered your health perhaps--at any rate, brought
yourself to this pass of fatigue . . . and all for a man who . . ." He
did not finished the sentence. "On my soul, I cannot think why you
should have done it, nor why I should have been possessed by such a
demon of ingratitude. . . . Monsieur de Courtomer, it was not wholly
ingratitude! Do you know what it is to resent pity? Yet I ought to be
on my knees in thankfulness that any one in the world should do
anything for me--now; and that any one should really care what happens
to me . . ."
His voice broke and he turned his head away; his hand on the coverlet
clenched and unclenched itself.
And Laurent, to his great comfort, was deserted at this crisis by his
British heritage. He abandoned the curtain, his rather constrained
attitude, everything. "Oh, La Rocheterie, how could you ever doubt it!
Don't you know that I would give a great deal more than a few nights'
rest to see you well again? Why, I came by way of Locmélar in the hopes
of meeting with you, and when, after I was captured, by an
extraordinary coincidence I saw you being brought here, unconscious, I
tried to get sent back with you--only I tried too late. _Pity_--no! You
surely do not think that I have looked after you for any other reason
than because I . . . wanted to!"
He had gripped the transparent, tell-tale hand. For the first time it
stayed in his grasp. And L'Oiseleur turned his head back again, and
looked at him, tears in his eyes.
"I suppose I must believe it! You have proved it, God knows! Do you know
I had a dream--at first I thought it was a dream--of your having fallen
asleep, tired out, against the foot of my bed early this morning? But
it was true! And you nearly collapsed just now. . . . It is I who ought
to be adjuring you not to talk! . . ." He gave a weak little laugh, and
his fingers moved in Laurent's. "And M. Perrelet tells me that you
choose to be in here when you might have had a room to yourself
elsewhere! I thought you were obliged to be here, and though you . . .
_though they had told you_ . . . you were humane--and you had met me
before, and felt perhaps that here was a means of repaying what you
insisted on calling a debt, and so----"
Laurent, inspired to rather a bold course, broke in: "If you will
forgive me for saying so, was not our having met before just why you
disliked my being here? Could you not either forget that fact, or--what
I should prefer--try to realize that to me you are, and always will be,
exactly what you were in England, or in Paris last year?"
"Oh, my God!" said Aymar to himself, and tried to take his hand away.
But Laurent would not let it go. He knelt down by the bed. "Yes, I know
that you feel there is a difference. But I knew--I knew about the slur
on you before I entered the room. Nothing that these people say has any
effect on me--if you would only believe that! Does not that make it
possible for you to take . . . anything I may have the good fortune to
do for you, as you would from any other . . . friend?"
He brought out the word rather low, for he felt that it was a little
presumptuous, after all.
"_Friend!_" Aymar caught him up unsteadily. "No, you must not call
yourself my friend, de Courtomer! You will not find me desirable, even
as an acquaintance, now. Do you forget that I have lost my good name
. . . and not only with the enemy?"
"I do not forget it," replied Laurent gravely. "But I know that you can
recover it when you wish."
A bitter astonishment dawned in the face on the pillow.
"After what happened to me in the Bois des Fauvettes? No; my reputation
is as much damaged by those bullets as my body."
He made himself say it, evidently, but he said it.
"But you cannot deny," urged Laurent, "that that horrible business was a
misapprehension. You must pardon my conjecture, but I fancy I know of
what kind it was."
Aymar de la Rocheterie shut his eyes and slightly shook his head.
"Impossible!" He lay so a moment without moving, his hand still in
Laurent's, and then, reopening his eyes, said in a rather exhausted
voice, "Some day, perhaps, I will tell you the story. But . . . just
now . . . there are things which I cannot tell any one. I have to ask
your forbearance for that, just as I most sincerely ask your pardon for
my behaviour, my want of consideration. I daresay unhappiness makes one
blind, and I have not been . . . very happy."
His hand stiffened. Laurent put his other over it. "There is nothing to
forgive. And I shall never ask you for an explanation. For I can guess
your secret, La Rocheterie You have taken someone else's guilt upon
your shoulders. How long you intend to shield this other person at such
a heavy cost to yourself is not my affair--but I hope it will not be
for long," he added ingenuously. "I am not going to ask you if my
theory is true, for to be quite consistent you would have to say that
it was not. . . . I shall leave you to sleep now."
"Monsieur de Courtomer, I assure you----" began L'Oiseleur in a very low
voice as his hand was loosed.
Laurent smiled as he got up and drew the curtain over the window. Of
course he _would_ deny it! But his smile died to concern as he looked
at the bed again.
"I have been tiring you," he said remorsefully. "It is a good thing that
I hear the guard coming to remove me. Just let me turn the pillow over,
and if there is nothing you want I will leave you in peace."
But peace was not the predominant expression on Aymar de la Rocheterie's
face as Laurent took a last look at it before leaving the room.
(11)
The terrace at Arbelles was wide, bounded at each end by a wall. It had
the house itself for frontier on one side; on the other it fell sharply
to a long bowling green, which in its turn gave way to meadow. Only one
flight of steps led down from it, and at the top of these paced an
armed sentry. But after eight days' confinement in one room, and that a
sick-room, merely to be in the open again gave Laurent an illusory
sense of freedom which was slightly intoxicating. And his mind was full
of a deep content--the barrier between him and L'Oiseleur was down
. . . at last!
Presently there sauntered out the tall young officer of _chasseurs à
cheval_ whom he had seen on the day of his arrival. They saluted each
other with much punctiliousness, and the young man, naming himself as
Lieutenant Rigault, asked if he might join him. So they walked up and
down together, commenting at first on nothing more significant than the
fine weather. Laurent yawned once or twice.
"I suppose I ought not to tell you," said the chasseur, flicking at the
gravel with his switch, "but we have just received bad news this
morning. Your party has had a thumping success."
"Ah!" said Laurent, brightening.
"Yes; du Tremblay has captured Chalais and effected his junction with
some other leaders; the far side of the Aven will be very uncomfortable
for us now unless we can dislodge them. I expect there's some language
flying about in our poor Colonel's vicinity to-day--especially as he
has got a nasty wound in the leg. He was so set on getting the better
of du Tremblay."
"He was indeed," answered Laurent meaningly. "And M. du Tremblay has got
the better of him! I am delighted!"
Opponent though he was, the young officer could not help smiling. "Yes,
your . . . your not very reputable room-mate upstairs played him a fine
trick when he refused to give him a hint of du Tremblay's plans! The
Colonel had been absolutely counting on his . . . cooperation. He is
rather a dark horse, that gentleman! By the way, since he is, I hear,
out of danger, you will be parting company, I suppose. As it is, I----"
"Shall we break off this conversation?" interposed Laurent very coldly.
"If you cannot speak in less offensive terms of my friend the Vicomte
de la Rocheterie----"
The most naked astonishment looked out at him from Lieutenant Rigault's
countenance. "What!" he exclaimed, "you call him friend--the man who
betrayed his own followers!"
"If he had done that I certainly should not call him friend," retorted
Laurent. "But that is, of course, the most outrageous slander. And
there he lies, helpless! . . . Would you mind telling me the exact form
in which this calumny reached you here? or did your commanding officer
first put it about?"
"Certainly not," responded the young chasseur rather stiffly. "What
happened was that Colonel Richard, over at Saint-Goazec, sent an
officer here last Saturday week to say that he had disposed of the bulk
of L'Oiseleur's force by an ambush at Pont-aux-Rochers. (It was
important for us to know this, because they had been a menace to us,
lying where they did.) The officer told us how it had occurred--in
fact, he was full of it. L'Oiseleur himself had sent the information!"
"How patently absurd!" said Laurent contemptuously. "As if a man would
run his own head into the lion's mouth in that manner!"
"But M. de la Rocheterie's head was quite safe," observed Rigault drily.
"He was not present at the affair of the bridge--you did not know that?
I assure you that it is true. . . And it is certain that Colonel
Richard did not invent the story about the information, for his officer
said he was rather distressed about it.--And indeed, if it was false,
why did La Rocheterie's men shoot him?"
"Why? Because the lie had already been well circulated," retorted
Laurent, who could not meet this thrust by the indignant denial of the
fact which he would have given yesterday.--"Now I will ask you a
question in my turn, Monsieur. Granting for a moment the possibility of
L'Oiseleur's ever doing such an incredible thing, what do you suppose
he did it for? He must have had some motive!"
Rigault shook his head. "Ah, there you have me. Nobody knows that
--except, presumably, Colonel Richard."
"And again," said Laurent eagerly, "do you think that a man who had sunk
to such a depth as that would be likely to resist, at the risk of his
life, the abominable inquisition about M. du Tremblay's plans to which
your Colonel subjected him last Friday, when he was scarcely able to
speak? Do you know that the proceeding all but killed him, and that by
a few words--one word--he could have saved himself? If, as you pretend
to believe, he betrayed his own men, why should he go to the last
extremity not to betray du Tremblay's?"
The Imperialist shrugged his shoulders. "Possibly because the necessary
inducement, whatever it was, was lacking in this case."
"What the devil do you mean by that, Monsieur?" asked Laurent, firing
up.
"I don't mean anything in particular," replied the young officer. "How
could I? But I think the Colonel was fully justified in expecting La
Rocheterie to make no difficulty about deciphering those notes, and
though perhaps he went rather far, you must remember that the knowledge
of their contents, could we have had it, might have----"
"Tell me," interrupted Laurent ruthlessly, "was it purely for the sake
of those cursed notes that your Colonel wanted M. de la Rocheterie kept
alive?"
Lieutenant Rigault looked uncomfortable. "Naturally the Colonel was
anxious for the information, and du Tremblay's name was at the top, and
as La Rocheterie had----"
"You admit it! Permit me to tell you then----"
"No, I can't permit it!" exclaimed Rigault, interrupting in his turn,
and somewhat heated. "I can't stand here and listen to abuse of my
commanding officer, and I can't call you to account for it because you
are a prisoner. I think, Monsieur, that you are rather taking advantage
of your immunity!"
This view did silence the critic, who made some kind of apology, on
which his companion observed that they had better not discuss
L'Oiseleur any more. So for the rest of the time they spoke of other
matters.
Nevertheless, Laurent reentered his place of captivity tingling with
exultation, for there was no doubt that the Royalists had scored
heavily. Also, it was heaven to know that Guitton was baffled--and
damaged.
"I hope you have enjoyed your walk, Monsieur de Courtomer," observed the
phantom of L'Oiseleur, who was not asleep, but lying just as he had
left him.
"Immensely, thank you. And I have brought you some very good news."
"Good news--for me!" The tone gave Laurent pause, but only for a moment.
With much enthusiasm he repeated the tidings.
For the first time the drawn face lit up. "Chalais! He has captured
Chalais! It is authentic, the news?"
"Evidently. And he has you to thank for his success!"
"Me to thank for his success!" La Rocheterie was obviously startled. "He
might have had me to thank for his failure.--But that, at least, has
been spared me," he added, as if to himself.
"But, La Rocheterie," exclaimed the herald, somewhat carried off his
feet, "do you not realize that you almost gave your life to keep his
secret inviolate? Perhaps I ought not to tell you, but it was touch and
go with you afterwards, you know! If M. Perrelet----"
But such a change had come over Aymar's face that Laurent was brought to
a standstill. The visible relief--the more than relief--was wiped out
in an instant, and without a word he put the back of his bandaged right
wrist across his eyes. Laurent had laid too rash a hand upon Friday's
bitter wound.
Yet, out of his abhorrence of its author, a thing came to his lips which
carried, in its unconscious boyishness and simplicity, a sort of balm
of its own. For when, standing there embarrassed and hesitating, he
suddenly blurted out, "That scoundrel has got a bullet or something in
his leg, thank God!" L'Oiseleur removed his screening arm and looked at
him. And, to Laurent's surprise, the mouth which seemed to have
forgotten how to smile relaxed after a moment into a semblance of
amusement.
"Monsieur de Courtomer," he said slowly, "I think you must have the gift
of . . . of partisanship _in excelsis!_"
And, whether he or the young man standing above him made the first
movement, their fingers certainly met.