“Go!” I said, with an imperious gesture; “insult me no more. Have I
not suffered wrong and outrage enough, but my heart must be made the
sport of every common”--
“Highty-tighty, miss!”
She rose in astonishment. For a moment she stood conning me, my
quivering lips and heaving bosom. Then of a sudden she smiled.
“Well, perhaps”--she said. “There, I’ve a way of letting my tongue run
away with me; but it’s no example for you to follow. I should have
remembered the glass houses in the sayin’ before I twitted you with
your past. Only for sure, Diana Please, it can never be said against
me that I betrayed my love that betrayed me.”
My rage was all gone. I dropped my head, with a sad little cry. The
sound of it brought her to my side.
“Was he not your love,” she whispered--“him that came with you?”
And I answered, “He was my love.”
“Was--was,” she repeated. “Well--I see. They take other fancies.”
“You was sold yourself--is it not true?” I muttered.
“Ay,” she answered, and sighed. “But it was for gold.”
“_You_ can forgive, then, and forget,” I said; “but not I--no, never.”
“You would ruin him?”
“Yes, and her.”
“Bring him to the gallows?”
“That is why I sent for you. You can trust me.”
“And in the meantime you fear for yourself?”
“I struck her. He tried to stab me. I cried, _Vive le Roi!_ You know
what that means.”
“Cry _Vive la Reine_ for the future. ’Tis the sweet saint who suffers
most. Well, it seems the truth at last; and you have your
provocation--by God, you have! Only for me, having one different, to
help myself by you?--it goes against my stomach somehow. I wish it was
your principles instead of your jealousy.”
“Help me in nothing but to some place of safety, where I can inform
and direct the court. _It_ will not be troubled with your ladyship’s
scruples.”
“How do you know? ’Tis so you have been taught to regard my sweet
queen, I suppose?”
“O, madam!” I cried, “you know what made me an ardent pupil.”
She stood musing upon me long and earnestly.
“Yes, perhaps,” she said at length, and sighed; “what a fool preacher
is Love, not to be able to keep his own faith! To drive woman for
refuge on woman--’tis like banishing your physician to the enemy’s
camp. Well”--she took my hands; I thought she was going to kiss me,
but she made no offer--“for myself, I don’t want to hear none of your
inculpations; but I’ll put you in train to satisfy your passions on
others that may. Will that suit you?”
She turned before I could answer, and was going.
“It must be soon,” I urged hoarsely, following her; “O, madam! don’t
you understand that it must be soon?”
“Within an hour or two,” she said, over her shoulder. “Have no fear.
You are already protected--and watched.”
I set myself, with what self-control I could, to await her return;
for, after our emotional confidences, I expected nothing less than
that she would come for me presently in person. But in that I was
mistaken, as was made evident in the ushering up to me by and by of a
very courtly young gentleman, of a shrewd, sallow visage, who informed
me, with a bow, that he was Love’s emissary.
“His Majesty, sir,” I said, with a faint smile, and some intentional
ambiguity, “is well represented. Do we go to the palace?”
“We go,” he said, “_to_ the palace. Will madam be pleased to accept my
escort?”
I took the arm he offered me. In view of some such contingency, I had
spent the interval in making my toilette agreeably to it.
He conducted me out by the back way to the stables, where, in a little
court, we found an ordinary post-chaise, with two horses, awaiting us.
“_Faire comme on le juge à propos_,” murmured my companion; and,
seeing my trunk (pregnant with damning evidence) well secured in
front, he handed me in, followed himself, pulled down the blinds, and
gave the word. In an instant we were rolling over the stones.
It was a very roundabout way, it seemed to me, that we took to the
palace; yet for long--so potent was my trust in myself as an emissary
of vengeance, and so engaging the chatter of my comrade--I suspected
no treachery. But at length, losing conscious sense, through the
thunder of the wheels, of a roar and racket which had once accompanied
it, I started as it were awake, and, in an immediate panic, peeped
from behind the blind nearest me. And then I saw that we had already
left the town, and were tearing along country roads.