CHAPTER XIV

IN THE CONVENT

Luc sat in the front room of the gardener’s cottage, looking out on

the whitewashed wall of the hospice.

He felt utterly weary; the exaltation and the ecstatic visions of the

morning had faded. In the next room the dead child lay waiting for her

coffin; a sound of sawing wood came harshly from a shed near by.

Luc rested his elbows on his knees and his face in his hands; he had

taken off his sword, and laid it across the wand-bottomed chair by the

window. As he sat motionless, he noticed the pale November sunlight

sparkling along the scabbard, the shell, and the quillons.

“A useless sword,” he found himself saying. He looked round the room,

at the bare walls, the rough furniture, the image of St. Joseph in

a corner niche. It seemed to him like a prison cell, though he had

often lodged more rudely. The plaster image and the faint stale scent

of incense filled him with disgust; he longed for Paris and the great

muddy river, or for Aix and his own home. The door that gave on to the

garden opened, and Luc rose stiffly to meet the person he expected,

the nun the lay sister had promised to send.

The Countess had not given him the name of the convent, but he

recalled that it was an order of Ursuline sisters. Since his

childhood, he had seen them walking in twos through the streets of Aix.

The nun closed the door, and looked at him with steady courtesy. Her

face, her hands, and her serge robe were all faded and worn; the line

of white that enclosed her face was vivid in contrast to her parched

and withered skin; her eyes were inscrutable, her whole expression

worldly and slightly amused.

“You will remain our guest, Monsieur?” she said.

“I have no right,” answered Luc. “I should have left before but that I

feared to carry the infection.”

“You did a reckless thing,” said the nun quietly. “The child died of

the black smallpox. I have nursed many cases.”

“And never been stricken yourself, sister?” asked Luc gently.

“No.”

“I may be as fortunate.”

The alert grey eyes glanced slowly over his graceful person, his

beautiful face. “You may, Monsieur de Vauvenargues. At least, you are

in good hands here. The house of de Clapiers has always been generous

to us. You do not remember the Great Plague? I worked with your father

then in Aix.”

Luc coloured and his eyes narrowed.

“I do not like to stay, my sister.”

She smiled.

“You think we are afraid, perhaps? Madame la Comtesse knew better. And

where would you go, Monsieur?”

He was indeed at a loss. He shook his head, and her smile deepened.

“If I stay, my sister, I must work. You have sick here?”

“Yes, Monsieur.”

“I can help you. I have learnt, in war, to do little services for the

sick.”

“If you wish, Monsieur. They are all very miserable, humble people.”

Luc looked at her quickly, and the colour flushed deeper into his

sensitive face.

“I must tell you one thing, my sister. I have no right to your

hospitality, as I said. I do not believe.”

“Ah?” she said gravely.

“I am a follower of M. de Voltaire.”

“And we are followers of Christ,” answered the nun serenely, “and in

His name we bid you welcome, whoever you are.”

Luc bent his head.

“May I remain here, in this cottage?”

“If you wish. But the Abbess would desire you to have the guest-house,

Monsieur.”

“I would rather be here, my sister.”

The nun smiled again.

“The man is old, and has had the plague,” she answered; “that is your

reason, I think. Very well; I will tell the Abbess. We have sent a

messenger to Monsieur your father. And that is all I have to say,

Monsieur.”

Luc thanked her reverently. He was glad when she again left him, for

her calm, expressionless presence oppressed him. He set his lips and

went to the window, where his sight was bounded by the white sunny

walls of the hospice; he longed to see a wide sweep of country, a

distant horizon.

The sawing ceased, and there was a sound of hammering in its place,

as of nails being knocked in. Luc began pacing up and down the narrow

room. He picked up his sword presently and strapped it on; as he drew

the thong through the last buckle, Carola entered. He looked over his

shoulder at her, moved his lips, but did not speak.

She had not changed her gown, but she wore no jewellery, and her hair

was drawn away from her face and fastened on her neck.

“I came to see the child,” she said. “I want this buried with her.”

She held out a narrow white hand on which lay a diamond ring with

sapphire points.

“M. de Richelieu told me its history,” she continued--“the bribe, the

wages, that you refused and that I took. This is the last of it.”

“You have a strange fancy,” said Luc.

She passed him and went into the inner room.

He waited for her return with a blank mind, listening to the even

blows of the coffin-maker.

After a few moments she came back and crossed to the wide hearth,

where a meagre fire burned. An iron saucepan of soup stood on the

tiles; she placed it on the fire, Luc the while looking at her. When

she rose from her knees, she was once more face to face with him.

“You are staying here?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“Probably I shall not see you again,” she said. “I put on the habit of

a novice to-morrow.”

“I wish,” answered Luc, “I found it so easy to leave the world, but

while I breathe I cannot. Even this confinement irks me. If I live, I

shall go back to my ambitions.”

“Something is wrong,” said Carola; “you or I--or God.”

“Why?” he answered, with a grave gentleness. “I thought you had found

happiness.”

“I have found an opiate, Monsieur.”

They were both silent; then she turned towards the door.

Her splendid dress was as incongruous here as it had been in the wet

fields; it jarred on Luc to see her in such surroundings.

He turned suddenly and followed her. “You beautiful, foolish woman,”

he cried, “what are you doing in a convent? Go back to Versailles.”

“Is that your advice to me?” she asked slowly.

“Advice! I know not--but this is death.”

“Yes, death,” answered Carola.

She lifted the latch of the door.

“Will you pray for me?” smiled Luc.

“Yes.”

“Then put your prayers this way--that if I am stricken I may die.”

“Death for both of us, then, it seems,” she replied. “How suddenly it

has come, Monsieur.”

Luc pressed his hands to his bosom.

“My God, my God!” he cried fiercely, “I want to _live_ or _die_--do

you not understand? I have seen them--half blind, crawling, hideous.”

“But your spirit would be always beautiful,” said Carola gently, “and

always triumphant.”

They stood looking at each other, the width of the room between them.

A bar of clear sunlight fell through the half-open door across her

gown and across the floor. The sounds from the carpenter’s shed came

distinctly, and then presently the cold call of the convent bell.

Luc remained in an attitude of arrested movement, with his hands at

his heart and his deep eyes on her. Unnatural beauty rested on his

absorbed face, which was flushed and quivering.

“Monsieur,” said Carola, “when you have attained--but words are

useless; and after all, I do not think that you will ever forget me.”

“No, Clémence,” he answered, with great sweetness.

“You will remember me for my name’s sake.”

She opened the door a little wider; she was a thing of gorgeous

colours and delicate shape against the whitewashed wall.

“Good-bye,” she said.

A great faintness came over Luc; he held himself erect with

difficulty; he felt that something was going out of his life that

would never come into it again, as he had felt last night that he

was riding away from a world he would never enter more. Ambition,

resolution, fear were all lost in a sudden anguish of regret.

“Good-bye,” repeated the woman.

“Good-bye,” answered Luc.

A sense of the inevitable held him passive. She went out quietly; the

latch clicked into place. He turned his head towards the window and

saw her pass the white wall of the hospice; she was looking down, and

he noticed that the black coil of hair at the nape of her neck had

become loosened and was slipping free in long ringlets. She passed

and was gone.

He stood for a while gazing at the blank window, then walked to the

inner door and leant against it heavily.

The wall seemed transparent; it was as if he could see the chamber

within, the pallet bed, the little corpse with the ring hidden in her

shroud.

The convent bell ceased.

The door through which Carola had gone opened, and the gardener and a

boy entered, carrying between them a rough wood coffin, of a ghastly

smallness.

“Eh, Monsieur, we are late for breakfast,” said the man.

The boy nodded towards the fire.

“But Monseigneur has put the soup on, and it is boiling over.”

PART III

THE QUEST TRIUMPHANT

“Quand je parle de vertu, je ne parle point de ces qualités

imaginaires qui n’appartiennent pas à la nature humaine:

je parle de cette force et de cette grandeur de l’âme, qui,

comparée aux sentiments des esprits faibles, méritent les

noms que je leur donne.”--_Discours sur le caractère des

différent siècles_, MARQUIS DE VAUVENARGUES.

“Insensés que nous sommes, nous craignons toujours d’être

dupes ou de l’activité, ou de la gloire, ou de la vertu!

Mais qui fait plus de dupes véritables que l’oubli de ces

mêmes choses? qui fait des promesses plus trompeures que

l’oisiveté?”--_Discours sur la gloire._

CHAPTER I

THE FATHER

“My son is coming home to-morrow,” said the old Marquis.

Mademoiselle de Séguy drew the white fur of her hood closer together

under her chin.

“Yes,” she answered; “it has seemed a long time.”

“Two months,” said M. de Vauvenargues, “two months. He saved Aix, you

know.”

“Oh yes,” replied the girl vaguely. “Oh yes.”

They were walking up and down the hard gravel paths of the garden of

Luc’s home in Aix; a faint film of frost lay over the water in the

fountain basin, but the air was clear and bright, and through the damp

rotting leaves on the flower-beds the first white and green of the

snowdrops showed.

“Why has he been away so long?” asked Clémence again. “He was out of

the plague in a few days.”

“He has been gaining strength,” returned the Marquis. “He was very,

very ill. The doctor told me that it was one of God’s marvels that he

has recovered at all. He has never been strong since the campaign in

Bohemia.”

The girl glanced covertly at the noble, proud, and haggard face of her

companion.

“There is something I want to ask you,” she said hurriedly.

“Yes, my child,” he answered gravely.

“Is he--will he be able to go to Madrid?”

A dark look clouded the old man’s eyes.

“Why do you want to know? Is it not enough that he is coming home

to-morrow?” he replied.

“Yes; ah, yes. But I wondered--his career.”

The Marquis flashed round on her.

“Do you think of his career when his life has only been spared by a

miracle?”

She shrank away from him.

“For his sake I think of it,” she answered piteously. “He was always

so ardent for--glory.”

An expression so terrible, so swiftly distorting, passed over the fine

features of the Marquis that Clémence stopped in her walk to stare at

him.

“Come into the house,” he said, gripping her arm. “_I_ wish to speak

to _you_.”

She murmured some awed response, and came obediently.

They entered the dark, heavy dining-room by the window where Luc had

stood the day of his return from the war, and watched his father, his

brother, and the bright dogs in the summer garden.

The Marquis closed the window. There was a great fire on the hearth,

and Clémence crouched close to it, mechanically loosening her furred

cloak and pulling off her doeskin gloves.

M. de Vauvenargues seated himself on the other side of the long black

polished table. His erect, massive figure; his old-fashioned, handsome

clothes; his aristocratic, proud, yet simple and kindly face, were

flooded with red light from the fire, which threw it up against the

sombre background of the dark chamber that always, even on the most

brilliant day, seemed filled with shadows.

He leant a little forward, and fixed his eyes on the rosy vision of

the young girl in her white fur, white silk, and gold laces.

“You love Luc, do you not?” he asked, in a terrible voice.

Her eyes widened, holding his in a full stare of terror.

“Take care what you commit yourself to,” he continued. “Think before

you answer. Do you love my son?”

“Yes,” answered Clémence. “How strange for you to ask me, Monseigneur!”

“You have never been to see him--not even when all fear of infection

was over.”

She flushed painfully.

“He did not wish me to--you told me so yourself.”

“Well, you will see him to-morrow, Clémence.” The strong voice was

touched with tenderness and sorrow. “And you love him? You know what

that means?--Love?”

“Yes, yes,” shivered Clémence.

For a while--a very little while--the Marquis was silent; then he

said--

“Luc will not be able to go to Madrid.”

“Ah!” she murmured.

“He wrote yesterday,” continued the Marquis, “to refuse the post. He

will never be able to do any work again.”

Clémence clenched her hands on her lap.

“He is--not strong enough?”

“No.”

“He has--no career?”

“No.”

“I do not quite understand.” She frowned over her words. “He is

recovered?”

“He will never completely recover.”

“Monseigneur, you frighten me. What has happened to Luc?”

“Whatever has happened it can make no difference to us who love him,”

answered the Marquis. His eyes held Clémence with a power before which

she blenched.

“No, of course not,” she said in a laboured way “But--I am sorry for

Luc,” she ended feebly.

“Mademoiselle,” replied M. de Vauvenargues proudly, “this is not a

thing one is _sorry_ for. It is a great tragedy.”

“A--tragedy?”

“The word frightens you? But remember that it is in your power to

soften it. Luc has lost everything--but you.”

“Oh!” she murmured again. “Yet if he is well----”

The Marquis lifted his head still higher, never taking his eyes from

her changing face.

“You have seen people who have had the plague?”

She gave some miserable little exclamation under her breath. He waited

for her to find words.

“He is changed?” she managed at last.

“Yes.”

She tried to smile.

“Well, I suppose--not much.”

“A great deal.”

Clémence rose, sat down, and rose again.

“Changed--very much?”

“So changed,” said the Marquis slowly, “that only those who love him

would know him.”

“Monseigneur, you try to frighten me!”

“You have to see him to-morrow.”

Her breast heaved and her soft eyes were rebellious.

“He was--beautiful,” she murmured. “I think he had no right. He did

not think of me.”

“He kept the plague from you--from Aix.”

She took no notice.

“For a vagabond’s child,” she continued--“for the sake of a thing of

nought!”

“No,” interrupted the Marquis sternly, “for the sake of his honour.”

Clémence dropped again into the great black chair by the fire.

“You will be here to welcome him to-morrow?” he added. “He speaks of

you so often.”

She did not reply.

“Why do you not answer?” he asked harshly.

“Oh, I shall be here,” she answered. “I was thinking of--how

differently--I dreamed it.”

She rose again, picked up her swansdown-edged muff, her gloves, her

cane, and fastened her cloak at the chin.

“Good-bye, Monseigneur,” she said timidly. “My father will bring

me to-morrow. I will go now--I think--the horses will be tired--of

waiting.”

She curtsied and was turning away when the Marquis rose suddenly and

stood between her and the door.

“Mademoiselle,” he said hoarsely.

She stopped and looked at him. He was no longer erect, no longer

haughty. He looked old and bitterly troubled. He stood in a

deprecating attitude before her delicate young loveliness.

“Forgive me if I was harsh,” he said thickly. “I have no right perhaps

to ask what I do.”

She shuddered violently.

“I entreat you not to forsake my son,” continued the old man

passionately--“I implore you.”

She closed her eyes.

“I will not deceive you, Mademoiselle. He is--to a woman’s eyes--you

may imagine.”

She shrank against the wall.

The Marquis continued, forcing the words out in almost incoherent

agitation--

“You know what I wish to say, Mademoiselle. You must see him

to-morrow. His strength has gone--and his comeliness. He could not

use--a sword--or ride a horse--he---- Oh, my God!”

He brought his hands to his grey hair with a gesture of agony.

Clémence quivered into a little sob; she opened her eyes fearfully.

“This is a great scourge,” continued the Marquis, struggling for

command over himself--“a great scourge. I want to tell you everything.

He is--almost--blind.”

His head sank as if he had confessed a crime. But this humiliation of

his fine nobility was lost on Clémence; his words alone impressed her.

“Why was I not told before?” she asked frantically.

“We had not the courage,” the old man confessed. “And if you love

him----”

“Oh, if I love him!” she interrupted. “I loved the Luc de Clapiers

that was!”

“He is still the same in spirit, still my son, still your lover. Why,

this is a chance for you.” He spoke with piteous eagerness. “You used

to say how you wished you could prove your love. Do you not remember?

Luc told me once--he spoke like a man who holds the Eucharist in his

hands when he told me that you had said you wished you could prove----

This is your chance.”

Her heaving bosom, her eyes, the rise and fall of colour in her cheeks

bespoke desperation.

“And you have told me again--just now, that you love him.”

“Monseigneur, give me time--let me think. This is very terrible. I

pity him--oh, how I pity him!”

“Pity him! You should be proud of him.”

“Yes, that too--but I am distracted--give me time.”

“There is no time. He is coming home to-morrow. There is your chance,

Mademoiselle; you must meet him--as if--he were _the same_.”

She put her hands before her eyes.

“I do not think--I can,” she whispered.

The Marquis flashed into wild anger.

“Then you never loved _him_! You were toying with youth and gallantry,

and his devotion was but like a brooch to your gown--and you vowed

constancy because it sounded pretty, and you liked to be with him

because he was a graceful cavalier--you did not love him for his noble

soul as it walked before God!”

She cowered and trembled under his fierce rush of words.

“But you pretended you did, Mademoiselle, and now you shall pay the

penalty of your pretence.”

She could not answer. He caught her wrist. Then his wrath died, and he

was old, and broken, and pitiful again.

“Mademoiselle--my son used to kiss you?”

She stared forlornly.

“Think of him when he used to kiss you.”

Her face flushed.

“Ah, Monseigneur!”

“Forgive an old man, very humble before your beauty. I think no one

else ever kissed you?”

“Never,” she said fiercely--“never--nor he often; I could not bear it,

for I loved him--too much.”

She drew her hand away, and as if her own words had loosened memories

of too sweet a rapture to be endured she began to weep hotly.

“You can never forsake him!” cried the Marquis. “No--no--and you will

make life so pleasant to him that he will not regret even--glory.”

He took the hem of her cloak and kissed it.

“Thank God for women like you.”

She looked up with wet and terrified eyes.

“Do not praise me--I do not know myself--I must have been very

young--a few months ago--I said things I did not understand. Let me

go, Monseigneur.”

She made an effort to pass him, but he arrested her.

“You will not leave me like this, Mademoiselle. He is not so

changed--I wanted to prepare you, that is all--his mother thought

there was very little difference.”

“Ah, his mother,” murmured Clémence. “I was to be his wife.”

“You will be. I will do anything for you--anything. You shall live in

Aix--we shall all worship you--and you will be happy.”

“But if I cannot make _him_ happy?” she asked mournfully.

“You will, you will, you must! He loves you--there will be nothing

else in the world for him.” The old man could not contain his anguish

of apprehension. “Do not tell me that you could forsake him!”

She dried her eyes on a little handkerchief she took from her muff;

after a few seconds of self-control she spoke gently--

“Monseigneur, I shall be here to-morrow. I am not going to break the

promise I gave Luc. I am quite--content--only a little shocked. Please

do not grieve so--he might have died, you know.” She smiled wistfully.

He kissed her hands, and she felt his hard wrung tears on them. When

he raised his head she leant forward and kissed his poor wrinkled

cheek, then left him swiftly with no backward look.

“_Might_ have died,” she wailed to herself as she shivered down

the hall; “he _ought_ to have died for every one’s sake--feeble,

disfigured, nearly--blind!”

Such a tumult of terror seized her as she fled from the house of the

de Clapiers that she was aware of nothing but the tremendous beating

of her heart that seemed to echo through her whole body.

CHAPTER II

RETURN TO LIFE!

Luc de Clapiers lay on the humble bed in the back room of the

gardener’s cottage; in the outer chamber his servant was packing and

gossiping with the convent porter.

Luc was fully dressed. His sword, hat, and cloak, sent yesterday from

Aix (since all his infected clothing had been burned), lay across a

chair beneath the window.

Outside the birds were singing, and their flying shadows crossed and

recrossed the white corner of the hospice wall. Presently Luc raised

himself on one elbow.

“Jean!” he called.

The man came instantly.

“What time is it, Jean?”

“About half-past two, Monseigneur.”

“Thank you. I am going into the chapel for a little while. I shall be

back when Monsieur, my father, comes.”

He rose stiffly and feebly, and stood leaning against the end of the

bed.

“What is that which continually goes past the window, Jean?”

“Birds, Monseigneur--only little birds.”

Luc smiled.

“Indeed, I cannot see them, Jean.”

The servant waited, not looking at his master. Presently Luc gave a

little nod of dismissal, and Jean returned to the outer room.

Luc decided not to go to the chapel. He had thought that the dark,

cool spaces, the nuns behind their grille, the subdued singing might

bring him fortitude and peace; but now he rejected that idea as

weakness.

He had also wished to inquire after Carola Koklinska before he left

the convent. Yet to what purpose? She was lost to the world, and

her name had not passed his lips once during the brief agony of his

illness and the long agony of his convalescence.

He recalled his last interview with her and his words, “If I am

stricken, pray that I may die.”

And now his worst horror had been realized, and he was cast back on

life to die slowly from day to day--an object of disgust and pity. He

knew, though no one else had been told, that he had not very long to

live. The doctor gave him a few years--five, or six, or seven.

Three days ago he had first seen himself in a mirror. Two days ago he

had written to M. Amelot saying that his health did not permit him to

take up the appointment at Madrid.

And to-day he had to see Clémence de Séguy.

He had gently told Jean to leave the mirror, and it hung against the

wall at the foot of his bed.

He turned to it now, took it down and brought it to the full light of

the window, held it between his hands, and gazed into it.

He could only see very imperfectly. Objects had lost their sharp

outlines, their true colours; things beyond the radius of his own

outstretched hand were dim and obscure. He peered into the mirror

with the stoop and concentration of gaze of an old man.

He saw, as behind a blur, his own face, chalk-white, scarred, and

seamed with a faint bluish colour; his eyes frayed, and swollen,

yet sunk; his mouth strained and distorted--a face without bloom,

or youth, or softness--a terrible face, from which all beauty, all

expression had been swept, for in the ruins of these pale features was

not one trace of the fair, mobile, spiritual countenance that had once

shown to the world the soul of Luc de Clapiers.

His fine hazel hair had gone. He wore a curled white peruke, which

further altered his appearance. He was so feeble he could not hold

himself erect; he stooped from the shoulders and was gauntly thin.

Presently he put the mirror on the bed, and two difficult tears forced

themselves out of his worn eyes and ran down his disfigured cheeks.

Outside the birds were flying to and fro, and the fragrant perfumes of

early spring swelled and receded on the full breeze.

The scent of earth, of flowers, of young trees came to Luc’s nostrils.

He shuddered like one struck on an open wound.

He went to the window, stood with his hands on the rough sill, looking

on to the little patch of herb garden and the whitewashed corner of

the building.

“Come, face it,” he said to himself. “You are young, full of energy,

of ardour, of ambition, of desire for glory; you can appreciate all

that is good and beautiful. Yet now, at the flower of your age,

you are deprived of everything that makes life desirable; you have

only a few more years to live, and they will be full of pain and

suffering--then--an obscure death. And all your gifts, your ardours,

your hopes, your ambitions will perish with you, leaving no glimmer

behind. Face that, Luc de Clapiers--face that!”

There was nothing left--nothing but the pitying love of those who

would smooth his way to death, and to a proud soldier’s soul such

tenderness was unendurable.

He picked up the sword he could never use again and buckled it on

slowly, then left the cottage and turned, after all, towards the

chapel attached to the convent. The service was nearly over. Luc

seated himself near the door in the shadows. The nuns were behind

their grille; in the body of the chapel were a few lay sisters.

Presently Luc went on his knees and prayed from a bitterly humbled

heart--prayed incoherently, passionately to the God of his

forefathers--

_“God! O God! what have I done? What offence armed your wrath against

me? You have filled my life with bitterness. Pleasure, health, youth

are robbed from me--glory that flattered so long the dream of an

ambitious soul--all is gone!_

“_I let my glance fall on the enchanting gifts of the world, and

suddenly they are all taken from me. Miseries, cares, regrets

overwhelm my soul!_”

The silent prayer beat in his brain. His heart swooned in his side.

He felt roof and walls vanish from about him and a sensation as if he

were surrounded by clear heavens and a multitude of swaying clouds.

But the murmur of the service was in his ears only a human thing. The

God he prayed to was foreign; he could not find help here.

“_O my soul, show thyself strong in these great trials, be patient,

trust in thyself; thy ills will end. Nothing is stable; the earth

itself and the skies vanish as a dream. The dawn of eternity will

light the bottom of the tomb, and death shall have no dark places

left!_”

The service was over; the nuns departed from behind the grille, the

lay sisters moved away, but Luc remained on his knees.

Yet his thoughts had swept swiftly far from the God to whom this

church was consecrated. Out of his own soul he had drawn strength and

sweetness.

“_How can there be a struggle with misfortune and evil when man is

stronger than either?_” he asked himself. And at one bound his heart

leapt to life and energy.

He rose to his feet.

“_I dedicated my life to virtue and glory. What prevents me from using

the few years left to me in the service of the best things I know? I

am stronger than Fate. There is nothing mightier in creation than the

soul lodged in me. I and God are one. I need not fear anything, for I

am the highest tribunal and the most powerful law, and I can satisfy

myself._”

His hand touched the smooth, cold pillar beside him. The feel of the

stone, the sting of the incense were repugnant to him. The heat and

glow in his heart warmed his frail body. He drew his thin, stooping

shoulders erect and left the chapel.

The image of Carola came fiercely to his mind. He trembled to think

that perhaps she had been one of those shrouded figures behind the

grille. Across the black gulf of his illness he beheld her figure

beneath the iron bell and the clusters of ash berries. He heard her

words, and felt her sobbing lips under his kiss and her cold hands in

his.

A sister was crossing the courtyard, carrying a basket filled with

herbs. Luc turned on his heel and saluted her.

“I am leaving to-day, my sister. Before I go, may I ask you a

question?”

“Yes, Monseigneur.”

“There was a lady came with me--Madame Koklinska.”

“Yes.”

“It was her intention to enter your order.”

“She became a novice, Monseigneur, and helped for a while in the

hospice.”

“For a while?” The scent of the bruised and fainting herbs was borne

on him overpoweringly.

“She took the smallpox, Monseigneur, within a few days of you. She

died, I think, a month ago. We had only one other death from the

plague.”

“Thank you, my sister,” answered Luc gravely.

The sister passed on, and Luc stood silent in the sunny courtyard.

Dead! In what faith, in what mood, in what repentance, remorse, or

fear? Dead without consolation, or love, among strangers--young and

beautiful, and, he knew, without fear.

For a moment he was shaken by a wild revulsion, a desperate revolt

against his own renewed triumphant exaltation and proud freedom.

In that moment he would have put on all the shackles of her creed

in return for the certain hope of seeing her again; he would have

embraced any faith that had promised him that they should meet once

more--even for a few minutes. A little while before and he had been

prepared to believe that he would never see her again--prepared even

not to think of her. Now he would have paid any price just to see her

tired face and listen to her low, precise voice. He went back to the

gardener’s cottage, and his eyes sought the little cheap plaster image

of St. Joseph in the corner. If one could _believe_. He shook off the

temptation, the delusion--she was gone. When he had seen her pass the

white wall of the hospice she had left him for ever--and he had known

it even then.

“I--suppose--I--loved--her,” he said to himself; but he had no

understanding of any emotion outside confusion and loneliness. He did

not see the room or the sunshine, but a white, sparkling expanse of

snow, a great silver fir, and a woman on a white horse who leant from

the saddle and looked at him.

He found his father standing where she had stood when he had seen her

for the last time.

“I have come for you, Luc.”

The old Marquis stood erect and proud, handsomely dressed, composed.

“Clémence is waiting for you,” he continued. “She would have

accompanied me, but I thought you would rather meet her at home.”

The name hurt and startled Luc. He made an effort to think coherently.

He forced his thoughts on to the coming moments.

“Monseigneur,” he asked, “Mademoiselle de Séguy--knows?”

“Knows what?” demanded the Marquis in a still voice.

Luc’s dim eyes filled with tenderness. He answered very gently--

“Knows that she is free, my father.”

The old man gallantly kept his pose, his calm.

“You must not speak like that, Luc. Mademoiselle de Séguy loves

you--nothing makes any difference to her. She is eager----”

“Ah, hush!” said Luc sadly, yet serenely. “Look at me,

Monseigneur--look at me--think of her--of any woman. I have known a

long while that it could never be. Surely neither you nor she think I

would ask this sacrifice?”

“This is not the language of love,” said the Marquis firmly. “Do you

not recall how she wished to prove herself? how she wished to show

what her affection meant?”

Luc did remember, with a swift, sharp sense of longing and regret, the

brief days he had spent with his promised wife--her vows--her devotion.

“God bless her for her brave loyalty,” he said unsteadily; “but my

life is too broken now ever to be joined to another. She is a sweet

woman. I hope she will find great happiness.”

“With you, Luc, with you,” cried the Marquis vehemently. “She is

waiting for you; she is constant to you. Do not cast away the best

thing left to you.”

“My father,” cried Luc, “do not you tempt me! I have faced it all. I

counted the cost that night I rode here. I knew then I had lost her.

Do not speak of it.”

Something in his quivering tone quelled the old man.

“You will at least see her?” he asked humbly, in the wild hope that

Clémence’s pity and generous tenderness might overcome his son’s

resolution. “She looks upon you as her future husband.”

“I will see her,” answered Luc, and his scarred face flushed dully. “I

fear I have given her some pain--and you, and my mother, Monseigneur.

I must adjust it all as best I may.”

And while he spoke he was thinking, “She left no message. I wonder if

she spoke of me, or thought of me at all?”

“Our home is at Aix,” said the old Marquis, “and you are my eldest

son. I, as you know, was never eager for you to go to Paris--but you

had then--ambitions--and I acceded to them. Now I shall be glad to

have you at home, and after a little while you also, Luc, will be glad

to be with your own people.”

Through Luc’s brain ran the weary question, “If I had known it was for

the last time, would it have made any difference? Yet I did know.”

Aloud he said--

“Mademoiselle must be free, my father. It was never in my mind that

she believed herself bound.”

“But you have promised me that you will see her.”

“Yes,” answered Luc sadly. “Poor child!”

The Marquis hesitated, looked on the ground, then raised his head

suddenly.

“Luc,” he said, “this alliance is an honour to M. de Séguy and to his

daughter.”

The bowed young man turned his disfigured eyes on his father with

another kind of pride.

“My God, look at me!” he said.

M. de Vauvenargues shivered, but the haughty expression of his face

did not relax.

“You are Luc de Clapiers, and my eldest son,” he answered.

“And for that reason I shall not marry Mademoiselle de Séguy,” said

Luc gently, “because it would be so--unworthy.”

A dark flush came over the Marquis’s face. He turned abruptly and

left the room. His heavy, proud tread echoed with a sound of authority

through the confined, silent spaces of the convent.

Luc remained for a moment with his dim gaze resting on the door

through which _she_ had passed for the last time. He could recall

every fold of her brocade gown, every line and shade in her face,

every curl and twist in the long, loose knot of her dark hair.

He wondered where her grave was, and how she had looked in her shroud.

His vivid fancy pictured her the thing of loathing into which the

hideous disease she died of had turned her--and shuddered back from

that image, and saw her again standing against the whitewashed walls

saying, “Good-bye.”

“Clémence,” he said under his breath, and saw two women--one forgone

and lost, one to forgo and lose.

CHAPTER III

THE BETROTHED

He met her in his father’s house that evening. He entered upon her

through the folding doors of the withdrawing-room, and saw her before

she saw him.

The sight of her filled him with an almost intolerable yearning and

longing for that happiness he must never enjoy. She was standing

by the fire-place. A lamp was on a low table beside her, and it

illuminated a gentle beauty that seemed divine to the man who had

crawled back mutilated from the embrace of death.

Her vows, her kisses, her joy in his presence, her tremulous hopes of

pleasing him rushed back to him. Her fair figure in its setting of

light, warmth, comfort, and luxury could not have been more alluring

to him. Yet he never hesitated for an instant in his resolution that

all the things she stood for were things that must be lost to him for

ever.

She was standing very erect, looking into the fire. Her gown was pink

and her bosom covered with lace. She held a prayer-book in her left

hand.

While Luc still waited, lightly holding the curtain apart, she moved

and lowered the lamp.

“Mademoiselle,” said Luc.

Her shaking hand shot the wick into darkness.

“Why, Luc,” she cried in a trembling voice, “the light has gone out!”

He noted the relief in her tone, and guessed something of the effort

to which she had nerved herself; it made him the stronger.

“Mademoiselle,” he said, “it is very gracious of you to permit me to

take this farewell of you.”

Her voice answered weakly out of the fire-flushed darkness--

“Farewell? Farewell?”

He came into the room cautiously and feeling his way by the furniture.

The darkness was darkness indeed to him. He could see nothing of her

but a rosy glimmer where her skirt caught the direct glow of the

flames.

He paused by the head of a sofa which had stood against the wall since

he was a child, and gripped the smooth, familiar curl of the back.

“You were never afraid that I should ask more of you than ‘farewell,’

were you, Mademoiselle?” he said sweetly in his tired, slightly hoarse

voice.

She fortified herself by memories, by the thought of the old Marquis,

of his mother, by her own ideals. She tried to stifle her fatal pity

that wished to weep over him, and to summon instead some ghost of last

summer’s love to help her.

“Luc,” she said, with surprising steadiness, “you must not assume that

I am inconstant, ignoble. You need me more than ever.”

He interrupted her, very gently.

“But you have no need of me.”

“Yes--ah, yes. This is a strange greeting for you to give me--Luc.”

Her voice rose desperately. “Everything is as it was before.”

“No,” he said; “everything is changed. You know it--you knew it when

you turned the lamp out.”

She was silent.

“God knows,” he continued slowly, “that it would be pleasant to

me to believe what you say--to deceive myself, to sweeten my

great loneliness by your loyal duty, by your tender service--by

all the gracious phantoms you would conjure from the grave of

your dead love--but I am not the coward who would take your sweet

self-sacrifice.”

“You make _me_ a coward!” came her voice, very low. “What am I to say?”

“Farewell,” he answered.

He heard her move and saw the blur of her pink skirt pass out of the

firelight.

“No,” she said, “I _will_ be true--I _will_ keep my vows--I have no

right----”

“Nor I,” he put in quickly. He paused a moment, then said quietly, “I

have no career before me. I shall always be my father’s pensioner, and

I shall always be an invalid--and, though no one knows it, the doctor

warned me that I have only a few years to live.”

“Oh!” shuddered Clémence.

He cautiously moved a little nearer to her, treading delicately and

feeling his way.

“There is nothing to grieve over--and nothing to regret,” he said,

“save that I ever entangled your life with mine, Mademoiselle. Yet

it has given me the very sweetest memories--and afterwards, in the

long years ahead of you, when you are honoured and loved as you are

worthy of being, it cannot lessen your happiness to remember that you

were the fairest, most sacred thing in the life of a man who did not

know--much joy.”

He paused and coughed. She was sobbing childishly.

“Your tears will be repaid you,” he added in a faltering voice. “You

weep for a man who worships you, and who blesses God for having known

you--and when you think afterwards of how much it meant to me to meet

this tenderness I could not take, you will not regret those tears,

Clémence.”

He heard her sobs lessen as she struggled to master her tears; he

heard her move towards him.

“Take me,” she muttered. “I wish it--I meant what I said--I am yours.

I could make you happier--let me--I _will_ keep my word.”

“Ah, hush!” he answered hoarsely; “you have not even seen me.”

“You take away my courage,” she interrupted. “I could have done

it--you would never have known.” She broke into sobs again. “Why did

you do it? Why was everything so cruel? I think I shall go mad. Luc,

Luc, I loved you--on my soul I did! I would have died for you. But why

did you go away and come back changed--changed to me? You do not want

my love! You refuse my faith! Who was that woman you went with? Where

is she now?”

“Dead--dead--dead.”

“Ah! Does it matter to you?”

Luc felt his way nearer to her. He moved into the dim circle of the

fire-glow; he could make out her misty shape.

“Do you not want me?” she asked, and her voice was steady now.

“Yes,” said Luc--“more than I ever wanted you. You asked about

the--Countess. She was brave and kind and, I think, had virtues I

know not of. I was never more than outside her life--she was not of

the same blood--she did not understand. You do--you know what I can

do--you will not tempt me.”

“Tempt you,” she repeated softly. “But if I _wanted_ it?”

“But you do not, Clémence,” he said gravely and sadly. “You are only

pretending for my sake, for my father’s sake, for the sake of your own

ideals. And presently you would come to hate me.”

She rose and moved restlessly.

“Do--you--not believe in love,” she asked hesitatingly “in love being

stronger than--anything?”

“Yes.”

“Then why cannot we--surmount this?”

Luc was silent.

“Why?” persisted Clémence.

He thought she was straining towards him through the darkness.

“Ah, my dear,” he cried brokenly, “if you loved me--how different! You

said just now, ‘I could have done it--you would never have known.’ Do

not try to deceive me.”

There was a long silence, then she answered in a muffled but steady

tone--

“You are right, Monsieur. I will not dare to force on you my ideas.

You must act by your own--I will not humiliate you by insisting on

your taking any sacrifice. I am speaking very coldly. Forgive me. My

heart is not cold. I see there was not in either of our affections

anything strong enough to weather storms--and you want the rest of

your life free. And I see that you cannot keep me to an old promise--a

de Clapiers, Monsieur, can only behave as you have behaved.”

She gave a great sigh, as if she was exhausted, and a chill sense of

desolation filled the room.

“Tell me,” said Luc--“you were afraid?”

“Yes,” she admitted lifelessly; “but I would have done it.”

“Mademoiselle, I never doubted your courage.”

“I--did not lie to you,” came her toneless voice, “when I vowed--I

meant----”

“I know,” he said--“I know.”

“And your father--your poor father----”

“He has courage too,” answered Luc, and he laughed. “Light the lamp

now, Mademoiselle,” he added.

“No--my eyes are too tired,” she replied hastily.

“Mademoiselle, I am going to strike a light; but first--may I kiss

your hand?”

He heard her rise. The fire was dying out and he saw the long gleam

of her gown in the faint beams, then her shape came between him and

the glow and her hand rested on his. He kissed her fingers, then

said, “You would have despised me if I had married you,”--his voice

strengthened--“but now you will think of me kindly.”

She drew away from him, and seemed to be absorbed and lost in the

unbearable darkness.

“I want to see you,” said Luc between his teeth.

He took the flint and tinder from his pocket and struck it with a

steady hand. As the flame flared up he strained his dim eyes across it

to gaze at her. He saw her in an atmosphere of fire--the air all about

her was red. Her face was more beautiful than he cared to realize; her

eyes looked straight at him across the flame, and they were strained,

wide, and dark with terror.

The still burning tinder fell from his fingers; he put his foot on it.

A voice he would not have recognized as hers came out of the obscurity.

“You--you are not--much changed.”

Luc laughed.

“Heaven bless you,” he said sweetly.

She seemed to move desperately; he heard her push a chair aside.

“Oh--God--_God_!” she cried on a note of fainting anguish.

He felt her skirts brush past him, the door opened, a shaft of light

penetrated the darkness for a second, then the door closed.

She was gone.

Luc fumbled his way to the sofa where she must have been seated; the

cushions were still warm where her face had rested, her tears fallen.

He spread his hands over them and shivered from head to foot.

He had never wanted her so much, in all the days of their summer

courtship, as he wanted her now.

Yet he was glad she was gone, glad it was over.

She was as lost now as that other Clémence who also had closed a door

on him and left him alone.

His grasp tightened on the silk cushions. Out of the depths of his

pain and regret flashed the alluring vision of the phantom he had

chased all his life.

“Glory!” he said under his breath, “still to be--achieved--not

with”--he rose, staggering like one intoxicated--“the body”--he

clutched the chimneypiece--“but--with--the soul!”

CHAPTER IV

THE CONFLICT

The elder Marquis de Vauvenargues put down the _Gazette_ in which

he had been reading of the opening of the spring campaign and the

progress of the Chevalier de St. George through Scotland, and looked

across the dining-room at his eldest son.

Luc stood before the window half concealed by the long folds of

the dark crimson curtains. It was late afternoon in March, and the

garden was grey, misty, and fragrant; beyond the trees, just blurred

with green, glowed the pale, clear blue of the fading sky, mournful,

remote, and calm.

“Mademoiselle de Séguy is leaving for Paris to-morrow,” said the

Marquis.

“Ah!” answered Luc, without moving his head.

M. de Vauvenargues paused a moment, then added in a low tone--

“It need not have been, Luc, it need not have been.”

The young man did not reply, and his father sighed.

“You were always obstinate, Luc,” he added with a sad tenderness,

“from the day you insisted on entering the army--which was Joseph’s

place--as the second son.”

Luc moved now; he turned his back to the window, facing now the long,

dark room, the table on which the fine cloth, cakes, and wine still

gleamed, facing the figure of his father in full peruke and black

velvet, brilliants and much Michelin lace.

“I am going to prove myself still further obstinate, Monseigneur,”

he said. He stifled a cough and braced his stooping figure. “I have

wished--for some weeks--since I returned from the convent--to speak

to you. I think this is my chance.”

The old man folded the paper across mechanically, and the great

ruffles round his wrists shook with the quivering of his fair hands.

“What can you have to say, Luc?” he asked quickly.

His son came slowly to the table with the hesitating and uncertain

step that was the accompaniment of his imperfect sight.

“I want to tell you, Monseigneur, what I mean to do.”

He seated himself on the old, high-backed walnut chair with the

fringed leather seat which had been his since the time he had sat

there, a stately child in skirts, murmuring grace or eating sugared

macaroons.

“What you mean to do?” repeated the Marquis.

Luc raised his face. In the cold light of the early year and the

shadows of the dark room this face looked like a mask of colourless

clay modelled in lines of perpetual pain. The white curls of his wig

fell either side on to his green coat, and his hands were again white,

one holding the back of the black chair, one resting on the lace cloth.

He looked at his father steadily, and the blood receded from the

Marquis’s strong features.

“What do you mean to do?” he asked. “Eh, Luc?”

“Monseigneur,”--though the voice was hoarse and broken by constant

coughing, there were in it the old sweet notes--“I fear to give you

pain. Yet I cannot think that you will not understand.”

“I am ready,” said his father, “to do anything you wish--you know

that--anything.”

Again Luc braced himself with an obvious effort; his bent shoulders

straightened and he held up his head.

“I want--I mean to--go to Paris.”

“To--Paris! You want to leave Aix!”

“Monseigneur, I must.”

“Luc,”--the Marquis also was endeavouring to remain calm,--“why do you

wish to leave your home? What do you intend to do in Paris?”

The young man answered swiftly--

“Give myself a chance--a last chance.”

“But you have refused your appointment.”

“Forgive me--I do not mean in that way--that is over. You know. Now

it is--my soul, unaided. I must satisfy myself before I die. Who knows

what is after? And if I leave my life at this I shall have been a

sluggard. _I shall not have expressed what was in me to express._”

He pressed his handkerchief to his lips and gave a little sigh, as if

what he had said and the force with which he had spoken exhausted him.

The Marquis stared at him with troubled eyes.

“Explain yourself, Luc. If you wish to go you shall--but----” he

paused, at a loss.

“I must go,” answered Luc. “I have not very long--not much time. Here

I merely let you watch me die.”

“Luc--Luc.”

“I must speak--forgive me again--you may think I go against my duty.”

The Marquis was crumpling the edge of the cloth in nervous fingers.

“What is the object of this resolution?” he demanded. “Tell me

clearly. I have a right to know.”

Luc answered steadily and sweetly--

“It is hard to pain you, Monseigneur, and before I speak I would

implore you to consider that I have not come to this resolution

without struggles--so intense, so bitter that I thought I could not

live and endure them.”

“You frighten me,” said the Marquis. “You always had a wild

heart--what has it prompted you to now?”

Luc bent his head.

“I know a man in Paris who is shaping the thought of France. I told

him once what I meant to do, what goal I set myself, and he gave me

advice that I rejected. Now other ways are closed to me I shall take

this. I think, after all, that he was right. I am going to Paris

to join this man and his friends--the people who are making the

future of France, of the world. They will help me to so live my last

years, to so express the thoughts that come to me that I may die not

utterly useless--perhaps even achieving that inward glory that is the

paradise of the soul.” His voice rose full and clear with emotion and

enthusiasm, and his marred eyes flashed with something of the old fire

the Luc of yester year had so often darted on the world.

The old Marquis sat very still. He looked grey, and hard, and massive;

his fine right hand clutched and unclutched on the table.

“Who is this man?” he asked.

Luc paused for a moment, then said, without fear or bravado--

“Voltaire.”

It was the first time that name had been mentioned in this house

without loathing or contempt; it was the first time M. de Vauvenargues

had heard it on the lips of his son. His face worked with passion: a

heavy flush stained his cheeks, and his eyes were almost hidden by his

over-hanging, frowning brows.

“You mean to leave Aix to become a follower of M. de Voltaire?” he

said in a low, trembling voice.

“Yes.”

“How--what do you mean to do?”

“I mean to collect my writings, to publish them--to write again.”

“How do you mean to live?”

“As they lived when they began.”

“And you will _write_?”

“Yes--I _must_.”

The Marquis rose, and his face was distorted.

“Have you forgotten that you are my son--my eldest son?”

“No.” Luc rose also, and stood fronting his father, the table between

them.

“And yet you propose to disgrace your blazon!”

“Better disgrace my blazon than my genius!” answered Luc. “I have been

fettered all my life--now I have no more time to waste. I am going to

answer at _my_ tribunal, remember, Monseigneur, not at yours--and _my_

judge is not pleased with the things that please Him who judges you.”

“You speak blasphemy!” thundered the Marquis. “This twice-damned

atheist has poisoned you! There is but one God--beware of Him!”

Luc did not move nor speak. There was no defiance nor anger in his

attitude, but a great stillness and sweetness in his air, terrible to

his father, who checked his passion as swiftly as he had given it rein

and said in a controlled, low, and baffled voice--

“We must speak of these things quietly, Luc. You cannot mean what you

say--no, it is not possible. Your whole life cannot have been a lie.”

“My life,” answered Luc quietly, “has borne witness to the truth as it

was revealed to me.”

“Yet, if you _do_ mean what you say, you have deceived me until this

moment.”

The young man brought his hands to his bosom.

“I never dared tell you what I really believed, Monseigneur,” he said.

“Besides, there was no need. I had resolved on the accepted path of

honour; I was going the way you had gone, your father before you; I

meant to pay all respect to your God; I meant to take a wife of your

rank, your faith, your choice--now Fate has ordered differently.” He

paused, then added in a deeply moved voice, “I have nothing left save

the _truth_ that is in _myself_.”

The old man turned and pointed haughtily to the shield carved above

the marble chimneypiece, the fasces of blue and silver, the golden

chief.

“You have that,” he answered with inexpressible pride. “You have your

name, me, your house.”

“It is not enough,” said Luc in the same tone. “I want, Monseigneur,

my own soul.”

“Leave that in God’s hands,” flashed the Marquis.

“It is in my own,” answered Luc. “Monseigneur, we have come to this

issue, and between us--now--it must be decided. I remember when I was

a boy you found me writing and reading. You burnt my books and papers;

you forbade me to make the acquaintance of men of literature; you

instilled into me ideas I am scarcely free of yet. But it is no use--I

belong to my age, I am one with those men in Paris.”

“With Voltaire, atheist, _canaille_.”

“With him, Monseigneur.”

“My son tells this to me!” cried the old man wildly. “If you want to

read books, read the history of your house; you will find them much

good company and not one pedant! You will be the first of your race

to so disgrace yourself!”

With equal fire and decision Luc answered--

“Nothing can move me. I am what I am. There is only that one thing

for me to do. I will not betray my inspiration because I am a man of

quality--I would sooner degrade my rank than degrade my spirit.”

The Marquis moved back and put out his hand against the chimneypiece.

The encroaching shadows began to strengthen in the long, dark chamber;

they were over the face of the old noble, these shadows, and gave it a

look of hardness, of dreariness, of implacable wrath--a terrible look

and a terrible face to be turned on that other marred face opposite, a

terrible glance for eyes to dart on those other eyes, half blind, but

valiant, that watched patiently.

“There is only one thing for _me_ to do,” he said, in bitter mockery

of his son’s words. “If you mean what you say, if you hold the beliefs

you avow, you leave at once and for ever the house of de Clapiers, you

will never look on me or your mother again, and you will not obtain

from me a single louis if you are starving--as you will starve in your

folly and wickedness.”

The old clock struck the half-hour. Those same bells had chimed when

Luc had first come into his father’s presence in his fine uniform and

been blessed with proud gladness by the man who was spurning him now.

Luc trembled a little, then sat down.

“I meant,” he replied, “all I said, Monseigneur.”

“And I also mean what I say.”

Luc was silent; his hands fell into his lap. His father remained

motionless, erect, hard, grey in the grey shadows.

“I must go--even on these terms I must go.” His voice was yearning,

full of regret, of sorrow, but not of weakness.

“Then go--at once.”

The young man got to his feet.

“Like--this?”

“At once.”

“Monseigneur!”--he held his hands out across the table--“is there

nothing in the past that can prevent you from parting so from

me--nothing?”

“The present kills the past. You choose to forget your blazon, your

quality, your name--you are then nothing to me. I shall forget my

eldest son as he has forgotten me.”

Luc answered feverishly, desperately--

“Take care, Monseigneur--you will never be able to undo what you do

now--never. Think of it--what a difference it would make to me if I

had a kind remembrance of you to take with me into the last endeavour

of my life.”

“Go--leave my presence. I do not wish to hear your voice.”

“My father!”

“Go!”

“Will you hear me?”

“Hear you! What do you think it is to me to hear _my son_ speak as you

have spoken?”

“Be merciful! Remember I shall never have a child to speak to me--I

have nothing but myself.”

The Marquis winced and his face quivered.

“You have boasted that before!” he cried.

“No boast,” said Luc steadily--“the truth.”

“Then on that truth we part. Go to Paris and never think of me again.”

Luc stood for a full minute silent.

“I think you mean it,” he said at last. “I know I might waste my

passion on you. I shall never trouble you any more, Monseigneur.”

The shadows gathered with steady swiftness. Luc was reminded of other

darknesses: of the retreat from Prague, his journey with Carola to the

convent, his parting with Clémence. He put his frail hand over his

eyes to shut out the pallid bitterness of his father’s face.

“I must see my mother,” he said. “I think she would wish to say

farewell.”

Without a word the Marquis pulled the long bell rope. Luc heard his

quick orders, when the servant appeared--“To beg Madame for her

presence.”

“Thank you, Monseigneur,” he said hoarsely. He seated himself and sank

his face in his hands. Were there still depths of anguish, of regret

to be sounded? Were there still delicate pangs of pain as yet unknown

to him?

He heard the door open. He looked up, to perceive the Marquise

entering the room--to perceive her, between his blurred sight and the

shadows, very dimly, a gleam of rose-coloured brocade, a flash of

brilliants in the fire-glow.

“Madame,” said M. de Vauvenargues, in a voice hard and bitter, “I have

brought you here to say farewell to your son.”

Luc was on his feet. He began to speak--he did not know what he was

saying.

“No,” interrupted the Marquis. “Hear me first, Madame.”

Madame de Vauvenargues laid her hand on his cuff.

“What has come between you two?” she asked. “Joseph, how is this

possible?”

“God and honour have come between us,” he answered. “Luc is going to

Paris--to--Voltaire--to earn his bread among mountebanks by writing

blasphemies. He--a de Clapiers!--he elects to go down into the gutter.”

“Hush, Monseigneur, hush!” she implored. “There is some mistake. Luc,

Luc--speak to me--tell me what you wish.”

His own voice sounded hollow and weary to him as he answered--

“I am a follower of M. de Voltaire, Madame. I choose to use what life

I have left in the profession of letters--I am going to Paris for that

purpose.”

“You hear!” cried the Marquis--“you hear!”

His wife held herself erect.

“Luc,” she said, “you will not persist in this wicked folly.”

“Alas!” he answered with great sweetness, “does it seem that to you,

my mother?”

“Voltaire!” she murmured.

“Say your farewells,” commanded the Marquis fiercely.

Luc came slowly round the table, feeling his way by the edge of it.

“You, at least, will not let me go with harsh words,” he said

unsteadily.

“Tell me one thing!” she flashed--“do you turn your back on God?”

He was beyond all subterfuge. Lies seemed then too flimsy to

handle--things that broke at a touch--only truth was strong enough for

his mood.

“On the God of the Gospels, yes,” he answered. “But what has that to

do with you and me?”

She crossed herself and shrank back against her husband.

“You deny Christ?” she asked, quivering.

“I am speaking to _you_, mother,” he answered passionately. “I am in

great need of you, I am very lonely and weak with regrets--give me a

kind farewell.”

“Do you deny Christ?” she repeated, and clutched her husband’s hand.

Luc lurched and caught hold of the back of the settle by the

fire-place.

“Shall a dead man come between us?” he asked, and his voice was faint.

“The Living God!” answered his mother.

Luc straightened himself.

“I deny Him--before my own soul I deny Him. If He is more to you than

your son--then I go--free--even of your love--free,” he laughed. “I

cannot see you. Shall I go like this? Mother, does your God let you

cast me off like this?”

She stood, taut and cold, at her husband’s side.

“I have no more to say to you,” she replied. “With great anguish I

shall pray for you.”

“Is it possible,” murmured Luc--“is it possible?”

The Marquis spoke now.

“Madame, you have heard for yourself what manner of son we have. I

have told him never to think or speak of us again. Was I right?”

She steadied herself against his shoulder.

“Quite--right.”

“I have bidden him go to Paris--to never set foot in Aix again. Again,

was I right?”

“Quite--right.”

“I tell him, before you, to look for no pity, no charity, no

recognition from us until he has made his peace with his outraged God.

Marguérite, am I right?”

She replied now in one word--

“Yes.”

Luc drew a little broken sigh.

“Farewell,” he said.

His father did not answer nor move from his haughty attitude, but his

mother said in an awful voice--

“Farewell, and Christ have mercy on you.”

He could not see either of them. In moving to the door he stumbled

several times against the furniture, for the deep twilight meant utter

darkness to his partial blindness.

The two before the fire heard his awkward steps, his fumbling for the

handle of the door, and never moved.

When he at last had gone from them utterly, the Marquis caught his

wife by the shoulders and looked down into her face.

“Never speak his name to me again,” he cried; “never! never!”

CHAPTER V

THE DEPARTURE FROM AIX

Luc sat in a corner of the Paris post-chaise which was driving through

the dark away from Aix. It was over now. He was free of everything;

his own master; on his own road to his own goal.

Though, knowing his father, he must have known this utter breach

would follow his confession of his faith and belief, yet no previous

preparation could soften the pang of the suddenness with which the

thing had happened. For years he had been aware that if he spoke what

was in his mind his father would be moved to terrible wrath; yet it

was none the less awful that he was riding away from Aix, from his

home, for ever.

His mother, too. She had let him go with less kindness than he had

often seen her show to poor beseechers of charity at her gate.

Jean, his own body-servant, had shrunk from him--he had packed his

portmanteaus himself; the other servants had kept out of his way. He

seemed to have left the house under a silent curse.

He roused himself; demanded of himself what he was doing brooding on

the past. His justification lay in the future. He looked round the

interior of the coach, which was full of mist, and shadow, and the

wavering light of an oil lamp that hung above the red upholstered worn

back of the seat opposite him.

It was a chilly night, the road rough, and progress slow. Luc’s weak

sight slowly made out the other passengers. His mental preoccupation

had been such that till now he had not noticed them.

One, who sat opposite him, under the lamp, was an ordinary middle-aged

citizen, wrapped in a frieze coat and wearing a grey wig. He was half

asleep, and his head shook to and fro on his breast with the rattling

of the coach. The remaining passenger was a woman, so muffled from

head to foot in a dark mantle that face, figure, hands, and feet were

hidden--probably she was asleep.

Luc had never been in a public coach before. The close smell, the worn

fittings, the near presence of strangers--it was all new to him, as

were the joltings and lurching in the heavy leathers. He reflected

that henceforth all his life would be as strange, as different as

this from what he had hitherto known; that from now on he would have

to consider things from another standpoint--the soldier, the noble

existed no longer. He was a man broken in health, with very little

longer to live, adventuring to Paris. He schooled himself to endure

the monotony of the cold, the dim light, the two silent figures, the

slow motion. He closed his eyes and endeavoured to sleep.

His senses were slipping into a languid, bitter-sweet confusion, when

a stinging blast of air roused him. He sat up, shivering and coughing.

The window farthest from him had been opened, and a thin curl of mist,

icy cold, entered the coach. The man opposite slept and nodded, and

the lady by the open window held her head turned away, and seemed to

be gazing out at the darkness.

Luc’s courtesy would not permit him to ask her to close the window,

though to have it wide to the night in such weather seemed folly.

The cold crept up to him, and clung to him. Recollections of all that

cold had meant in his life came to him: the cold in Bohemia; the cold

outside Aix; even the delicate chill of evening in the garden off the

Rue Deauville. And all these associations were with Carola Koklinska,

and he recalled that she had told him how she used to lie shivering

under the trees when she was a child--cold, cold, cold.

Wherever her soul might be, her body was cold now, stiff in the frosty

earth. He too, he shivered as he had not under the snows of Pürgitz.

Again he closed his eyes, yet soon opened them.

Now the window was shut.

He stared, for he had not heard the sound of closing. When he

reflected, he had not heard the sound of opening either, nor had the

lady changed her attitude--and it was not possible that she could have

pulled the thick strap, moved down or up the ponderous frame of wood,

the heavy sheet of glass, without some sound, and without disturbing

the folds of the cloak across her hands.

Luc admitted to himself, with a little quiver, that his sight was

more and more failing him. In these last few weeks he could not trust

himself about objects even so near as was this window, that could

never have been opened.

He wondered where the cold came from, for it was increasing till every

bone ached. Yet his fellow-travellers were quiet. Could it be his

fancy conjuring up the past, the snow, the chill--and Carola, Clémence

that was? His head sank sideways on his breast, and he fixed his

blurred vision on the silent figure of the woman in the corner. Since

he could not see her face, he might please himself by imagining it;

since he was free to picture her as he would, he might believe she had

black hair in long fine ringlets, dark eyes and hollowed cheeks, and a

fair throat softly shadowed.

The coach rattled on with cumbrous pace. The lantern flame flared and

dipped in the socket; the man in the frieze coat sank huddled together

in a deeper sleep; and the cold became more intense, more searching,

till Luc felt as if some creature of ice were embracing him.

Presently, and for the first time, the lady in the corner moved. She

did not turn her head from gazing at the darkness, but she drew her

hand from under her cloak (that Luc now perceived to be of purple

velvet) and laid it on the seat between them.

It was a bare hand, white, and thin, and long.

Luc stared down at this hand, leant forward to bridge the space

between them. On the second of the fingers was a diamond ring with

sapphire points. Luc had seen a child with such a ring in her shroud

buried in the convent graveyard. He drooped against the back of

the seat; the hand came nearer, and it seemed to him that his sight

suddenly became as perfect as it once had been, for he saw every

line and curve and shadow, every tint and crease in the delicate hand

creeping closer to him across the worn red velvet of the seat; saw the

blue and white sparkle of the stones in the lamplight, and the minute

details of their carved silver setting.

She still did not look round. Luc put out his own hand, and the long

fingers rested on his. The deep cold increased till he felt that every

drop of blood in his body was chilled.

The coach jolted, the lamp shook violently, and the flame sank out;

darkness joined the cold. The coach vanished from about Luc; he felt

himself being drawn by that icy hand through soft blackness. Cloudy

pictures of all he had lost oppressed him: he heard his father’s

voice, very far off; his mother’s last cruel dismissal, coming too

from a great distance. He thought he was under the earth, lying in

a grave with Carola Koklinska. His own hand was now so cold that he

did not know whether or no another was resting in it. A faint Eastern

perfume, luxurious and warm, pervaded the universal cold; a sense of

comfort, of delight, stayed the long ache of regret in Luc’s heart, as

if herbs had been placed on a wound.

He thought he was back in Bohemia, sleeping on the frozen ground, and

that presently the dawn would break like a frosty lily, and he would

look up to see a lady in a habit of Oriental gaudiness ride round a

tall silver fir, in the topmost boughs of which the sun would sparkle

among the snow crystals.

But it was another light that broke across the peaceful, grateful

darkness that surrounded Luc. He sat up shivering, to find himself

in the close, worn interior of a public coach, the door of which was

being held open by the guard, who carried a lantern that cast a strong

yellow glow.

The coach had stopped. Luc’s fellow-passenger was yawning and shaking

himself.

“Ah, Messieurs,” the guard was saying, “a thousand pardons--the light

has gone out!”

“Eh?” yawned the man in the frieze coat. “Well, I think we have both

been asleep, have we not, Monsieur?”

He smiled courteously at Luc.

“It would seem so,” shuddered the Marquis. Beyond the stout figure of

the guard, clumsy with heavy capes, he could see the misty lights of

an inn, and a group of men standing in front of the yellow square of

the door.

“The lady?” he asked. “Has the lady got out here?”

The fellow shook his head.

“There was no passenger save you two from Aix, Monsieur. Some others

join us at the next stage.”

Luc glanced at his fellow-traveller, who was chafing his hands

vigorously.

“Did you not think that there was a lady in that corner?” he asked

faintly.

When he saw the look turned on him, he repented having spoken.

“You have been dreaming, Monsieur,” was the brusque answer. “We have

been alone in the coach since Aix.”

Luc controlled himself.

“Forgive me,” he said simply. “My sight is not very good, and there

were so many shadows I thought I saw a lady in a dark mantle seated

in that corner.”

The little man laughed.

“Mon Dieu, no, Monsieur.” He spoke pleasantly, being affected, almost

unconsciously, by the sweetness and gentleness of the slight stooping

gentleman who was so terribly marked by the smallpox and seemed to

breathe with such an effort.

The guard entered to relight the lantern, and the two travellers

descended and stood in the strip of light outside the inn, where the

coachman, some peasants, and two starved-looking people, who had been

travelling outside, were drinking hot spiced wine with wolfish relish.

Luc felt the night wind touch his face. He walked out of the radius of

light, away from the sound of the talk, and stood facing the dark high

road.

_Can she, then, come back--has she, then, remembered? Did she mean to

comfort me?_

He breathed strongly and drew himself erect.

_Why should I fear sorrow and loss? Who am I that I should hope to be

free of grief and regret? I have not offended the Being who put me

here, and I fear nothing._

He stood motionless, for the wind was rising higher, and passed him

with a sound like the sweep of a woman’s skirt. He thought to feel a

touch, a breath, to hear a voice, a sigh.

But the wind passed, and a great stillness fell.

Luc returned to the coach.

“Will you not have a glass of wine, Monsieur?” asked the man in the

frieze coat. “It is a bitter night for spring.”

The Marquis declined pleasantly.

“I suppose we are near the dawn?” he added.

“I think it will be light before the next stage, Monsieur.”

They mounted the step, entered, and closed the door. A heavy smell of

oil hung in the air, and the lamp burnt raggedly. From without came

the clink of glasses and money, voices, and the stamp of feet.

Luc was roused from the exaltation of his inner thoughts by the

question--

“How far are you travelling, Monsieur?”

“To Paris.”

“Ah, a long way.”

“Yes, a long way.”

“A fine city, Paris,” said the other, pulling on his gloves.

“Fine, indeed, Monsieur.”

They took their seats, and the coach started with a noisy effort.

The elder traveller was soon asleep again, but Luc sat awake, alert,

watching the blurred misty glass turn a cold white as the dawn came

slowly.

CHAPTER VI

THE GARRET

When Luc looked from the window of his room across the Isle of St.

Louis he realized the great gulf he had set between himself and his

past.

The chamber was high up in a tall, straight-fronted house that had

once been of some pretensions to splendour, and a man with good vision

could have seen a strange array of twisted roofs and chimney-stacks

beneath the two dominant towers of Notre-Dame de Paris; and even Luc’s

ruined sight could discern a vast, if blurred, sweep of houses, sky,

and clouds.

Looking down into the street, he could dimly see the dirty

house-fronts; the kennels with their up-piled garbage; the poor

wine-shop; the people between poverty and draggled fashion, who came

and went in this heart of the city that was now so decayed, yet

retained still some remnants of splendour; a certain air of being

old and royal; a certain pretence of being prosperous and refined;

a poor enough pretence, and one fast wearing thin, still there, and

sometimes, as on Sundays, when the small lawyers and men of letters

with their ladies walked abroad, worn jauntily enough.

Newly polished swords, newly powdered wigs, gold lace, and hooped

petticoats would then grace the rambling streets. Sedan-chairs would

cross the cobbles, and sometimes a great man would dash past in a

coach and four to one of the hotels the Isle still boasted, where the

wit and learning of France gathered occasionally.

Often though, too, this romantic and brave pretence would be

abandoned, and the truth stick through, like sharp elbows through a

threadbare coat. And bitter penury, and coarse licence, and desperate

lawlessness showed openly enough in the narrow streets; and starved

faces would be common enough for those who liked to count them,

and rebellious talk common enough for those who cared to listen;

and people at squalid doorways would curse the war, and taxes, and

sometimes the nobles. Even the King did not seem so beloved in

these dark streets as he was at Versailles. But the priests, and

the tax-gatherers, and the little officials had the people well in

hand, and Luc had seen them go, obediently enough, to the church to

celebrate a victory--and victories came plentifully.

Maurice de Saxe was handing brilliant laurels to Louis, who wore

them gracefully, and pleased France, it seemed. For France endured

the Marquise de Pompadour and certain creatures of hers, such as the

brothers Paris, Devernay, and others who flourished and fattened,

and used the country like a pot of gold, into which they could dip

their fists and enrich themselves, under the cynical approval of the

melancholy King.

Luc saw France differently from this poor quarter. Paris had seemed

another city viewed from the Rue du Bac. The war had been different,

too, viewed in the light of the gala lamps of Versailles, or by the

camp fires of Bohemia.

There was no glory to gild these humble lives, no hope, no lure to

lead them on. Luc watched, and was troubled. Could France flower

from such a soil? Would the light of the coming age of freedom ever

overcome the dark windings of the religion of Pompadour and peasant,

ever dissipate the errors taught by the ignorant to the ignorant, by

dirty priests to sullen minds?

Luc watched the sky at evening. That was as pure, as remote, as golden

above the stale odours of the crooked streets as above the untouched

fields of Provence. And he dared to hope that the golden age was

coming.

For himself, he did not wince from the ignoble melancholy of his

surroundings. His poverty did not trouble him, nor had he once

regretted the impulse that had driven him from home. He was living

on about five francs a day. His money, that had come from the sale of

what was left of his personal property after the expenses of the war,

would, at this rate, last him three years, and he did not think to

live so long. Indeed, his weakness increased so on him, his attacks of

illness were so frequent and severe, that he often thought it might be

weeks only before the end.

Sometimes he would lie all day alone on his poor bed, gazing up at the

strip of sky, unable to move or sleep, smiling at the sunshine which,

towards evening (the hour he loved the most), would dazzle over his

bare boards like the skirts of Glory herself.

When his strength was with him, he wrote. Many of his papers were with

his brother Joseph, who had once shown a furtive interest in them. Luc

sent a noble letter asking for them, but received no reply. He smiled,

thinking of the furious Joseph casting the manuscripts into the fire.

Such as he had in his own possession, and those his solitary

meditations had produced, he collected, and sent to one of the great

booksellers.

The work was taken. For the sake of those who had disowned him, Luc

made the last sacrifice, and the modest little volume appeared without

any name on the title-page.

It made no success whatever, fell dead from its birth, and was

forgotten. No one made any remark upon it, for no one read it.

“They would say I was a complete failure,” smiled Luc.

He sent a copy of his book to M. de Voltaire, with some timidity,

for the great man was now historiographer to the Court and deep in

politics, being the acknowledged protégé of the Marquise; and then,

with the slow, painful effort of his infirmities, he commenced to

write another. He had so elevated himself that he was not even

disappointed by the failure of the book that contained the inmost

convictions of his soul. He saw now that glory was not only reached

by the road of success.

Six months after he had come to Paris, and a few days after he had

sent his book to Voltaire, one fair, clear afternoon in October,

he sat at his window, overlooking Paris. It seemed to him that he

overlooked the future too; that this window of his poor room was the

outlook of some watch-tower, from which he could see the doings of

posterity unfold into the distance.

Wars and ministries, kings and soldiers, shrank to the size of

puppet-shows viewed on the fringe of the changing future. Soon,

everything that agitated the world now would be a mere name. Soon

again--not even that--fresh creeds, fresh codes, would replace the

old; and through all the changing dynasties of thought that would

reign, nothing would count but the memory of the few men who had risen

above their age, and handed from one generation to another the pure

lamp of the truth as it had been revealed to them; of virtue, as it

had been permitted to them to practise; of heroism, as they had been

able to accomplish it.

It was easier on the battle-field or in the Cabinet, but it was

possible in a garret. It was easier with a body vigorous and healthy;

it was possible with a body broken and dying. It was easier when

surrounded by encouragement, attention, acclaim; but it was possible,

alone and unnoticed, to win a place in that galaxy of glory that

lights eternity.

Luc had on his window-sill an evergreen plant with gold leaves,

straight and tall in shape, like the silver fir of Bohemia, or the

poplars of the Rue Deauville.

He opened the window now, and moved the pot, and admired the glint

of the sun on the glossy leaves. The sight of this little plant, so

strong, so silent, gave him an extraordinary sensation—it was so noble

in its intense life, and yet so helpless. Luc sometimes felt abashed

before the gold foliage rising out of the common pot on the dirty sill.

He thought now that the soil felt dry, and turned to get water. In

that moment the door opened and a man stepped into the room.

“Who are you, Monsieur?” asked Luc pleasantly.

The other swept off his hat.

“Do you not know me, Monsieur le Marquis?”

Luc strained his eyes.

“Come a little nearer. Ah!”--as the other obeyed--“Monsieur de

Richelieu!”

“Yes.”

The Duke glanced round the plaster walls, the raftered ceiling, the

shabby furniture. Then his bold dark eyes rested on the meagre figure

of Luc, clothed in garments still too good for his surroundings, and

he flushed, and a shade came over his broad low brow.

“Do you live here?” he asked.

“Yes, Maréchal.”

Luc indicated a chair, and M. de Richelieu seated himself. The

splendour of his velvets, laces, brilliants, and all his extravagant

appointments, looked strange enough in this room. His charming face

was red between the flowing curls, and he gazed at Luc with an

expression of amazement.

“Yesterday,” he said, “M. de Voltaire brought your book to the Hôtel

d’Antin, and I was reading it last night. Good God—a man of your

quality! I wish you could have accepted the Spanish appointment.”

Luc seated himself on the low chair by the hearth, on which a few

sticks were burning.

“I wished so also,” he said quietly. “But you see for yourself,

Monseigneur, that my health would not permit.”

The Maréchal seemed unable to find words.

Luc leant forward and narrowed his weak eyes.

“Have you come to offer me patronage, Monsieur?” he asked.

The Duke answered with a noble air--

“It would not be possible for anyone to offer M. de Vauvenargues

patronage. I heard from M. de Voltaire that you were here, and I came

to be instructed in philosophy.”

“A Maréchal de France comes to be instructed in philosophy in a

garret!” smiled Luc; “and from one with whom he discovered long since

that he had nothing in common!”

The Duke looked down at his open hand, that he lightly struck with his

gauntlet, which was heavily embroidered with wreaths of roses, of gold

ribbon, and of violets.

“We have something in common,” he said--“Madame la Comtesse Koklinska.”

Luc rose and leant against the mean mantelshelf.

“Yes, we have that memory in common,” he answered calmly.

“When did you see her last?” asked the Duke.

“She is dead,” said Luc, looking at him.

M. de Richelieu glanced up swiftly. There was a curious sense of

stillness in the room. When the Duke spoke, his tone was also low.

“When did she die?”

“In a convent in Aix--nearly a year ago. So you did not know?”

“But I might have guessed that no other reason would have prevented

her from coming back.”

“If she had lived, M. de Maréchal, she would never have come back. She

died in the habit of a novice.”

“Ah--well, after all, that is what they all do. Did she speak of me?”

“She said, Monsieur, you had done--what they all do.”

M. de Richelieu laughed softly.

“She was a clever woman. I never knew her deceived. She was, in her

way, quite marvellous. But I did not come to speak of her.”

“No, Monsieur, but to look on a curiosity, I suppose?”

M. de Richelieu rose to his feet with a shimmer of his violet watered

silks, and said a curious thing.

“Are you--with the world forgone--happy?” he asked.

Luc looked over the house-tops at the setting sun that glittered over

the roofs of the Isle of St. Louis.

“Yes,” he answered. He coughed, put his hand to the plain linen

ruffles on his bosom, and sat down again in the worn chair.

“And yet you have lost everything!” exclaimed the Maréchal.

“I keep my soul,” smiled Luc; and his pallid, disfigured face glowed

for a second into its old likeness.

“I have _my_ soul,” said the Maréchal, “and all the world besides.

What have you that I have not?”

“Nothing, maybe,” replied Luc gravely.

“Ah,” insisted the Court favourite, “you have the power to come and

live--like this.” His superb gesture was as if he indicated a kennel.

“You have the power to sacrifice things that must be sweet to you.

What inspires you?”

“The love of glory, Monsieur,” smiled Luc. “Call it that. But what is

the use of words? My life marches to a different music from yours.”

“Do you despise me?” asked the Maréchal quickly, eagerly.

Luc considered a moment before he lifted his head and answered

quietly--

“I think I do.”

“So M. de Voltaire says sometimes; but he is not a man of quality. I

thought you despised me when we first met. Why?”

“You had such great opportunities,” answered Luc.

“I have made great use of them. There is no one more powerful in

France, except La Pompadour.”

“That is a proud boast,” said the Marquis. “I recommend it for your

epitaph, Monsieur le Maréchal.”

The Duke put his hand swiftly to the gold lace on his bosom.

“You hold me in contempt,” he said, with a fine smile, “but I can feel

no scorn for you. How do you do it?”

Luc lifted his head.

“Are you so discontented with your own life that you must come prying

into mine?” he said evenly. “You have what you wanted. Be satisfied,

as I am.”

M. de Richelieu’s face paled with a sudden passion.

“There is _nothing_ can satisfy me! I begin to find the world

very stale, so much of it is foolish. But _you_ seem to have found

something new. Tell me, for I no longer see anything gilded in all the

world. There is a tarnish over the gold pieces, and over the women’s

hair--and both were bright enough to me once.”

Luc leant forward, and with a bent poker stirred the fire into a

sparkle of embers.

“I fear, Monsieur le Maréchal,” he said, “that you begin to grow old.”

The Duke laughed.

“Old!” he repeated. “Old!” He rose. “My God! do you think I am _old_?

Look at me, Monsieur--am I _old_?”

Luc turned his head towards him.

“I can scarcely see you at all,” he said serenely. “I only see

something gold and purple. I am, Monsieur, half blind.”

The Duke stared at him.

“If I was stricken like you, I would fall on my sword!” he exclaimed

impulsively.

“Each has his own courage,” replied Luc.

“How long will you stay here?” asked the Maréchal abruptly.

“Until I die, Monsieur.”

“By Heaven, no. Come to the Hôtel d’Antin. You are a great man. Since

I am growing old I need a philosopher at my side, and--I always liked

you, Luc de Vauvenargues.”

The Marquis rose.

“I suppose it was you who obtained me the Spanish appointment after

all?” he asked suddenly.

“Do you bear me malice for that?”

“No,” said Luc, “no. But I am glad that I have chosen a way where I

can walk unaided.”

“Will you come to the Hôtel d’Antin?”

“Monseigneur, this time I have not come to Paris to become a pensioner

of the great.”

This answer, spoken with pride, but sweetly, caused the blood to flush

to M. de Richelieu’s side curls.

“So my philosopher rejects me!” he cried. “And I have prostrated

myself at the feet of the wise man without learning the secret of

perpetual youth or happiness! Farewell, Monsieur de Vauvenargues.”

He bowed and stepped towards the door. When he had opened it he paused

with the latch in his hand.

“Where is she buried?” he asked.

Luc did not answer.

“I mean La Koklinska,” insisted the resplendent Maréchal.

“In our hearts,” answered the Marquis swiftly. “Let her lie at peace.”

“Your pardon,” said M. de Richelieu. “I would have dedicated something

to her memory.”

“You can, Monsieur--your silence.”

The Duke bowed again.

“My silence, then, until we three meet in the Elysian Fields, when

we shall be able to have an interesting conversation. Again, and till

then, farewell.”

“Farewell, Monsieur le Maréchal.”

The door closed on the gorgeous courtier, and Luc was alone as usual

in the cold, darkening room, with the fire sinking on the hearth and

the sun fading without over the roofs of Paris.

CHAPTER VII

THE ROSES OF M. MARMONTEL

Luc stood again on the bridge, leaning on the parapet, and watching

the river and the people passing to and fro.

It was midsummer of the year ’46, and unusually hot. Most of the women

wore roses--red, white, and pink. There were many boats on the river,

and an air of gay carelessness over Paris; yet the war had not been

so brilliantly successful of late. The English mastery of the seas was

ruining commerce, and the Saxon troops were marching on Provence. The

taxes were heavier than ever, and starved faces and bitter tongues

more frequent in the poorer quarters where Luc lived.

If anyone had remarked a slim young noble, richly dressed, looking

with earnest eyes at the river from this old bridge of St. Germain

some three years ago, and had happened to pass this spot now, they

would not have recognized that graceful figure in the prematurely aged

man in the shabby clothes who leant heavily against the parapet, whose

face was so disfigured and expressionless, who wore no sword, but

helped himself with a black cane.

But Luc de Clapiers was happier than he had been when last he mused

above the Seine. As his body fell into decay and painful feebleness

his spirit seemed to mount more and more triumphantly. Sometimes he

felt as if he held all the thought of all the world in the hollow

of his hand; as if he soared above and beyond his age with the

great immortals who rule over eternity. In his dreams he beheld most

beautiful landscapes; when he lay down on his bed vistas opened up of

strange and gorgeous countries, exquisite almost beyond bearing, and

a path would run from the bare boards of his garret straight to the

heart of some woodland that dipped to uncharted seas of delight.

Music came from a boat that passed beneath the bridge; the sound of it

across the water was tremblingly sweet to Luc’s ears. He thought there

was something sublime and sad in the notes; that there was a message

in them that no human voice could convey.

He straightened himself against the parapet, then went on his way. At

the corner of the bridge he met a beggar woman dragging a child. She

cast an appealing glance at Luc, who paused, fumbled a silver coin

from his pocket, and gave it her. The action reminded him that he had

only a few gold pieces left in the world. He had planned his resources

to last twice as long, but it had been easy to deny himself everything

but charity. That it was not in his nature to forgo, nor were the

instincts of a life at a moment to be altered. He never chaffered,

and therefore paid double what every one else did in the Isle.

Last winter the man who lived in the room opposite his, a clarionet

player at the Opera, had been ill, and Luc had paid to prevent the

fellow being turned into the street, paid the expenses of his short

illness, and finally his humble funeral.

For his book he had received nothing. For the next edition that he

was revising, with the advice of M. de Voltaire, he also expected to

receive nothing. He had friends,--Voltaire himself, Saint Vincent,

and others,--but the noble blood in him prevented him from ever

considering their possible assistance. He could only think of writing

pamphlets, or doing translations; but he knew little Greek or Latin,

and only a scanty Italian.

As he returned home through the sunny streets he recalled his father’s

words: “Not a louis from me, if you are starving--as, in your folly

and wickedness, you will starve.”

He thought of his parents, of Joseph, and Aix, with great tenderness.

He was glad he had resisted the bookseller’s entreaty to put his name

to his book, even though by his refusal he had probably lost a good

chance of ensuring the success of his labour; for he had spared the

proud old aristocrat the shame of seeing his name on the title-page

of a work of philosophy; of hearing his name associated with Voltaire,

with literature, with poverty, with the ignominy of writing and

printing a book.

“He would say,” thought Luc, “how right he was--what an utter failure

I am.”

He opened the door of his room, and entered with great weariness. The

stairs, steep and dark, fatigued him immensely. The garret, being

directly under the roof, was suffocatingly hot. He felt his head ache

and his limbs tremble. The food placed for him on the table near the

window he turned from, though the little girl who waited on him had

arranged glass and plate, salad and meat, black bread, and thin wine

in a tall bottle, neatly enough.

On this same table lay a bundle of proofs tried round with a twist of

twine.

Luc took them up, balanced them in his hand, and put them down again.

He was only able to read them with great difficulty.

“After all,” he mused, with a melancholy smile, “perhaps they _are_

worth nothing--who knows?”

He sat very still, considering what he was to do for money. The people

he was dealing with were poor. He could not bear the thought of being

in their debt, or of asking them for any kindness that he could not

reward. He reflected that it cost something even to die decently,

and he might live some time longer. He smiled to think that he was

balancing the probable length of his life against the probable length

of his purse, and at the reflection that a hundred pistoles would put

him out of all anxiety. His sweet humour took the whole thing with a

laugh.

Presently he went to the window. A foul, stale smell was rising from

the old winding street. Dirty, sharp-faced children played in the

brilliant patch of sunshine that fell between two decayed houses and

stained the cobbles.

At the doorless entrances dishevelled women stood talking, and

gathered round the wine-shop were a few men of a better sort, with

their shirts open for the heat, who emptied their glasses silently,

then went about their business, silently also. Luc’s feeble sight

could make out none of this, nor did he look down, but across the

irregular roofs to the ineffable glory of the gold and purple August

sky.

He put his hands on the sill; the stinging heat of it was grateful to

his chill blood. He closed his eyes, and felt the sunshine like a red

sword across his lids. He leant his sick head against the mullions.

The clock of a church near by struck four; it reminded him that this

was the hour and the day when he was generally visited by Voltaire

or one of his friends--Diderot, d’Alembert, Saint Vincent. Luc loved

these men, as he could not fail to love those whose warm regard was

sweetening his closing years, but he would not live their lives. The

Pompadour was their patroness, and they lived on that corruption that

they secretly laughed at. Luc could not ever have brought himself

to kneel at the footstool of the Marquise; his pure integrity, his

absolute independence, and his complete obscurity divided him as

sharply as his birth from the group of brilliant men to whom by right

of genius he belonged.

All of these men had achieved success; combined, they made a power

equal to that of the ancient royalty itself. They were preparing--in

the _Encyclopædia_ to which they were devoting their enthusiasm, their

gifts of logic, of reason, of sarcasm, of eloquence--thunderbolts that

would shake God Himself. Yet they one and all agreed to honour the

unknown young aristocrat whose austere philosophy condemned half their

actions, but whose sweetness and heroism won their admiration and

respect.

M. de Voltaire came to Luc’s chamber this blazing afternoon, and not

alone. He brought with him a young man, very splendidly attired, with

a fine ardent face and bold eyes, full of an eager, joyous life. M. de

Voltaire presented him briefly--

“M. le Marquis--M. Marmontel.”

Luc caught the young man’s hand, and drew him gently into the

sunlight, straining his half-blind eyes to make out the person of his

visitor.

For Jean François Marmontel was the favourite of Paris, petted,

caressed, extolled; the incarnation of success; one young, vigorous,

and in the seat of glory; one physically what Luc had been before the

Bohemia war, and from the worldly point of view in that position Luc

had so yearned and longed for, so confidently hoped to attain.

Luc had failed in arms, in politics, in letters. He had lost love,

and health, and all hope of material triumph. He had even won hate

from those nearest to him in blood. He was dying, slowly, and in a

fashion humiliating. He was disfigured, feeble, half blind, bowed with

weakness and great pain.

M. de Voltaire thought of this as he watched him looking so earnestly

at the young man who was so crowned with gifts, with success,

strength, and vigour.

M. Marmontel wore roses like the women who had passed to and fro

the Pont St. Germain--sweet-smelling red roses, thrust into the

black velvet ribbon that fastened the long lace ends of his cravat.

His bright, sparkling brown hair was tied with a blue velvet knot;

his white waistcoat was flourished with wreaths of flowers in many

colours; his face was slightly flushed under the eyes that were fixed

on the man before him, with a look of mingled humility, apprehension,

and self-confidence, only to be seen in the faces of the very youthful

and very happy.

Luc, with painful, laboured searching, made out these details. His

grasp tightened on the straight young fingers.

“I congratulate M. Marmontel from the depths of my heart,” he said.

And his voice was so soft, so sweet, so sincere that the man to whom

he spoke gave a slight start. He was expecting another voice from this

frail, ill creature.

“What does it feel like,” continued Luc, in the same warm tones, “to

be _young_ and _famous_? To have achieved so soon?”

“Monseigneur, you overwhelm me,” answered the young author frankly.

Luc smiled. His scarred face--the delicate traits of which had been

so for ever ruined--changed with this smile in such a fashion--

inexpressible, but not to be ignored--that M. Marmontel, with a sense

of shock, knew he was in the presence of something very rare and

beautiful, and his own achievement seemed a crude thing.

“I have done nothing,” he said. “I hope some day--but at

present--nothing, Monsieur.”

He lowered his eyes, confused.

The low, sweet, aristocrat’s voice answered--

“You must not undervalue yourself, nor your great rewards. I am

grateful you found time to come here.” He gave a little gesture round

the miserable room, a gesture that was the man of quality’s dismissal

of his surroundings. And indeed M. Marmontel, though used to the most

splendid hotels of Paris, had forgotten the garret from the moment Luc

had spoken.

M. de Voltaire began to talk: of the great world; of the world of

letters; of the world beyond Paris, beyond France; of the future, and

the great changes that were coming with a swiftness almost terrible.

But for once Luc was not listening to the speech of M. de Voltaire; he

was looking tenderly, lovingly, at the favourite of fortune, the man

in the flush of his youth and fame, the man who had won glory at the

first effort.

He thought of d’Espagnac and de Seytres--of how beautiful and

ardent they had been, and how forgotten they were in their foreign

graves--and his soul rushed back to his own early youth and his

opening dreams. This man had realized his--this man had everything

gorgeous in the world before him; he was modest and fine, but his

extraordinary sense of triumph was betrayed in his clear laugh. He

laughed often at M. de Voltaire’s remarks. No shade of envy or even of

regret touched Luc. He did not think of himself at all; only he felt a

little wonder at the thought of the two young officers whom he had so

loved.

“Surely they too were worthy to be crowned,” he thought wistfully. And

his heart swelled as he recalled Hippolyte dying in the hospital, and

Georges in the snow.

When the two rose to take their leave, Luc, after his farewells to M.

de Voltaire, laid a wasted hand on the younger man’s soft satin sleeve.

“Monsieur,” he said, with his unconquerable air of the great

gentleman, “I have not held any roses in my hand since I came to

Paris--seeing yours reminded me. Might I ask them of you--to remember

you by, when you are gone?”

M. Marmontel unfastened the red blooms without a word, and held them

out.

“Thank you,” smiled Luc. “You have honoured me. I give you all my good

wishes--that your genius may make you happy as it has made you great.”

The young man did not answer. He seemed abashed.

When they had gone, Luc went to the table and put the flowers beside

the proofs of his book.

The sun was near the setting, but the room was still brilliant with

ruddy light.

Luc stood quite still, his hands resting on the edge of the table. He

closed his eyes and bent his head.

“Is there no charm to bring any of you back?” he asked, in a low

voice. “For a moment? You _know_ now. Come back to me, dear. There is

nothing in the way now, nothing. You know I am lonely, do you not?”

He swayed a little against the table, and set his teeth.

“Come back; come--_back_.”

He sank on his knees, and rested his face against the wand-bottomed

chair.

“I love you--is it not strong enough? Come--_back_.”

For a while he shivered in the summer silence of the dying afternoon,

and his blood ran passionately in his tired body.

Then he lifted his swimming head, and fumbled for the roses that

had been worn by the man who was happy, and loved, and young, and

famous,--the the man who had everything he had hoped to have, and

was everything that he had hoped to be,--and he laid the petals to

his lips, and presently wept into their hearts, because he too was

young, and some things that were dead could not be forgotten, and

some hopes that were unfulfilled and some desires that were

unsatisfied could not be for ever silenced.

CHAPTER VIII

THE END OF THE QUEST

On a pale, bitter day in the following spring, Luc de Clapiers made

his way with a steady, purposeful slowness to a certain house in the

Isle where there was a garden. It was the hotel of some nobleman,

neglected and shut up. The garden was neglected too, but there was

grass in it, green now, and two trees, just beginning to be flushed

with leaves that crossed their boughs before the shuttered windows and

closed doors.

In the centre of this garden was a fountain, broken and dried up. The

basin was grey with dead moss, and in the centre rose a defaced figure

with a pitying face and a bare bosom girdled beneath with drapery, in

the folds of which the little birds nested.

Luc, when he reached this spot, leant against the high rusty iron

railings, and stared at the grass and the two trees.

He was fatigued and hungry. A week ago his recent means of support

had been taken from him. During the winter he had earned his living as

a bookseller’s hack, by writing prefaces, by indexing, by correcting

proofs, even by copying letters and delivering books. The work

threatened him with utter blindness. He began to make many mistakes.

At last another man was put in his place, and Luc was at a loss indeed.

He had some time since taken a cheaper room, and he had sold

everything he could sell.

Yesterday, to pay the debt he owed for his poor lodging, he had parted

with what he would not have sold for bread--what he had hoarded

jealously so long--his sword: the sword his father had given him

before he went to the war; a beautiful weapon of Toledo steel, with

shell and quillons inlaid with gold.

Half the price of it lay in Luc’s pocket, and this money caused him

the first sensation of shame he had known in his life. He held on to

the railings to steady himself, and looked at the peaceful enclosure

of the ruined garden.

His great dread was that he might live long enough to become an object

of M. de Voltaire’s charity. He had winced from nothing yet, but he

did wince from that.

The second version of his book had been for long refused on account of

the ill success of the first. After many endeavours, a bookseller had

been at last persuaded to take it; but there remained a good deal to

be done before the sheets were ready for the press, and Luc was too

ill to write.

“I must finish that,” he kept saying to himself. “I must finish that.”

The fresh bare boughs, through which two little birds were flying, the

long blades of grass moving slightly to and fro in the wind, even the

noble lines of the empty house and the calm face of the broken statue,

soothed Luc.

“Why should I trouble about any of it?” he asked himself. “Once I am

dead, I shall so soon forget it all.”

He returned to the squalid little street, the miserable house where he

lodged, and climbed to his room, which was dark and scarcely furnished

at all. The narrow window looked blankly on the house opposite. There

was no view, even over roofs, and the sun only entered for a brief

while at early dawn.

Luc, coughing painfully, latched the door, and feebly made his way to

the table that stood beside the mattress on which he slept. He put his

hand in his pocket, took out the money, and laid it, a little pile of

silver pieces, on the table.

“Should I die to-night, I suppose that would be enough to bury me,” he

said to himself, with a little smile.

A cry filled the room as water fills a glass into which it is flung

suddenly--rang round and round walls and ceiling--

“Luc! Luc! _Luc!_”

The Marquis turned in slow bewilderment; he dimly saw the figure of a

man advancing from the window.

“I have been waiting for you,” said this person, in a terribly moved

voice.

“Who are you?” asked Luc. He knew nothing, save that this was not one

of his friends.

“Who am I? Do you not know me?”

“No--yet----”

“Can you not see me?”

“I can see very little--hardly at all. I know your voice.”

“I am Joseph de Clapiers.”

Luc made a step backward. His face, that had seemed utterly bloodless,

was suddenly stained with a great flush of colour.

“I am sorry you have come,” he said. His thought was that it would

have been better, far better, if he could have died before any of his

family, or indeed anyone connected with his old life, had seen him in

what must to them be degradation unspeakable.

“How did you find me?” he asked. He endeavoured, with the rising

yearning of old affection, to make out his brother’s face, but Joseph

stood too far from him. To Luc he was featureless.

“Some one I know heard a man called Marmontel speak of you. I traced

you through that. They told me here that this was your room, and I

waited for you.” He spoke in a controlled, though harsh and strained

voice. After that first fierce cry he had gained command of himself.

“I am sorry you came,” repeated Luc, with quiet sweetness. “We had no

farewell in Aix, but you would have kept a more pleasant memory of me

if you had not come. Will you not sit down?” he added. He himself sank

into the rough wood chair by the table; indeed, his limbs were shaking

so that he could not stand.

Joseph came near enough for Luc to see his fresh comeliness; near

enough for them to touch each other, and for the elder to divine the

wrath and horror in the face of the younger. He suddenly saw himself

as if a mirror hung before him, and the blood again swept his face.

“Why did you come?” he asked under his breath.

Joseph stared at him cruelly. Luc no longer bore any sign or mark of

a gentleman. He wore a clumsy grey coat, worn, and a little frayed

at the cuffs; his waistcoat, which was of a dingy yellow colour, was

stained with ink; his neckcloth was coarse, though newly washed and

folded neatly; his stockings were thick and woollen, his shoes heavy.

He wore no wig, and his hair was long again, and tied with a black

ribbon, but colourless and grey about the front, as if it had been

powdered. Joseph marked the absence of sword, watch, and ring. He did

not mark the fine freshness of the rough attire, nor reflect on the

effort this decent cleanliness meant to the man who lived alone, half

blind, and in such poverty.

“My father!” he murmured. “My father!”

“Did he send you?” asked Luc.

“No.”

“Has he ever spoken of me?”

“No.”

“Nor my mother?”

“No.”

“You--think they are right?”

“Yes.”

“Why are you here?” asked Luc patiently.

“Because,” was the fierce answer, “I cannot endure a de Clapiers to

die in a hospital, and be buried at the expense of public charity.”

The elder brother lifted his ruined face and smiled.

“What do you want of me?” he asked.

“You must come to my hotel----”

Luc interrupted.

“You cannot coax back when dying the man you have cast out,” he said

gently. “Nor would it soothe your pride if he should expire on your

hearth. You think I am disgraced, accursed. You perhaps even hate me.”

“I think I do,” breathed Joseph heavily.

Luc rose.

“Then leave me. I have so little time left for anything; none at all

for hate. I want to die alone. Go your way, Joseph. When I left Aix

something broke that is past mending.”

“I think the Devil possesses you,” cried Joseph. “But you are Luc de

Clapiers, and you shall not live in beggary among the scum of Paris.”

“I _am_ Luc de Clapiers,” replied the Marquis--“remember it. I am not

what I look, but what I was born: a gentleman of quality, who upholds

his own honour--as well here as in Aix, as well here as in Bohemia. Be

content; I shall not disgrace you.”

Joseph half laughed.

“Disgrace! I think you deny God?”

“And the Devil--and all you believe, perhaps, Joseph,”--his voice had

an exalted yet tender note,--“but maybe I shall sleep well just the

same in my unconsecrated grave.”

The younger man stepped back, clenched his strong right hand, and

struck his breast.

“For the honour of our nobility, for the respect you once bore our

mother, in the name of the God you outrage, I conjure you come with

me. Let a priest shrive you----”

Luc broke in with a sudden flash of vitality.

“Do you think I am going to be false to all I believe--now?

Now,”--he dropped into his chair again; his strength was slipping

from him, but he beat the words out with a great labour of his

breath,--“now--when--I have--so nearly won?”

“You! You who have failed in everything you have undertaken!”

Luc put a thin, trembling hand on the book--a small humble volume--and

the loose sheets of paper lying on the table.

“I have administered to the truth within me,” he said, and, still

keeping his hand on the book, he forced himself to raise his head,

that had sunk, through sheer bodily weakness, into his bosom, until he

looked his brother in the face.

“You have dishonoured a noble house,” said Joseph hoarsely; “and I

shall never forgive you, dead or living.”

“Ah!” answered Luc softly, regretfully. “The pity of such words

as those!” His head drooped a little again. “The pity,” he added

wistfully, “of all our fierce passions, our curses, our hatreds, our

wrongs to one another, when there is so little any of us can do, and

so little time to do it in. And we waste our few chances. Do not hate

me--Joseph. I shall always love you.”

The younger brother was silent. It might be his heart prompted him

to forgive; that old affection stirred. But the wrong against his

religion, his pride, his order was too strong; the offences he raged

against were unforgivable; the wrath, the disgust, the shame he had

nourished in his heart since Luc’s departure from Aix were rather

fanned than mollified by the sight of the dying man who had aroused

these emotions.

Luc took advantage of his silence to speak again.

“Since you _have_ come, Joseph,” he said, “let us part in friendship.

We are the two last of our family, and--after all--that is something.”

“Will you leave this?” demanded the younger man, not kindly, but with

a suppressed violence. “Will you come with me?”

“No,” replied Luc. “This is my place now. And it is easier for me to

refuse you, Joseph, because I know that pride, not love, asks this.”

“Pride!” echoed Joseph. “_You_ have the damnable pride of the

Devil. You prefer your garret--your accursed book”--he snatched

the thin volume from under Luc’s frail fingers, and cast it on the

ground--“your outcast friends--to your family, your honour, your home.”

The Marquis made a faint gesture of sorrow and protest. “This is not

needful,” he murmured. But Joseph’s vigorous voice overbore his feeble

tones.

“Very well, then,” he continued; “die in the miserable loft your

dishonourable conduct has brought you to, and leave us to endure your

disgrace--as we have endured it since you left Aix!”

Luc got to his feet again, and stood holding on to the edge of the

table.

“You will be able to blot me from your annals very completely soon,”

he said. “When I am dead, no one will speak of me, and you can forget.”

He lifted his hand and let it fall. The little pile of silver pieces

was knocked over by the gesture, and the money rolled across the floor

to the feet of the younger brother.

“Is this Voltaire’s charity?” he cried.

Luc lifted his head, and smiled.

“No. I sold my sword this morning. So you see I can pay for my own

coffin, Joseph.”

He sat down again and hid his face in his two hands, as if he was

greatly fatigued, and wished to compose his thoughts. There was a

dignity about this movement and pose, as if he had withdrawn himself

into final silence. Joseph had no more weapons; his wrath flared

impotently. He stared fiercely at his brother, and set his scarlet

heel on the book he had flung on the floor; then, in white haughtiness

and bitter speechlessness, left the garret.

“I am tired,” said Luc to himself; “tired--tired.”

He dropped his hands, and rose and looked round for the crushed volume

Joseph had spurned with his foot. As he stooped to pick it up he heard

a soft yet swelling crash of music.

“Soldiers,” he murmured, “going to the--war.”

The music gathered in strength until it culminated in an almost

intolerable crescendo of passionate exaltation. It seemed to be very

near, almost in the room. Luc found himself on his knees, quivering

in the sound of it. The music began to paint pictures in the garret,

and Luc’s blindness did not prevent his seeing them: gorgeous banners

draped the bare rafters, and a procession with flags, shields, and

drums crossed the humble floor, and broke away the mean walls, and let

in the great clouds and the strong sunbeams, and showed a vast span of

pure light that dazzled into the infinite distance.

A company with sublime tread was passing over this bridge, and they

smiled at Luc.

He felt the clouds closing round him and the light enveloping him. One

of the martial figures was a woman who looked at him with royal eyes.

Luc rose. He felt himself straight and strong. He held out his arms

towards the rolling golden clouds that entered through the broken

walls, towards the procession that crossed the arc of light.

“O God of mine, whom I have laboured not to offend, take me back

whence I came!” he cried.

As he spoke, he felt himself drawn into the company with the flags and

swords, and with immortal light on his face he set his foot on the end

of the dazzling arc.

* * * * *

M. de Voltaire, that evening, found him lying across the floor, with

his head on his book, his right hand where his sword should have been,

and the silver pieces scattered about him sparkling in the cold spring

moonlight that fell through the high, open garret window.

EPILOGUE

A girl in a straight white muslin gown, and a cap with green ribbons,

was seated on the brim of a fountain in the garden of a house in Aix,

listening dutifully to an old man, who, with the self-absorption

of extreme age, was talking of the past in a low, slightly fretful

voice. Clémence de Fortia disguised a wandering attention. She had a

letter in the bosom of her gown that she wished to read and re-read in

private--a letter from a young deputy in Paris, full of the wonders,

the scandals, the terrors of these last years of the century and first

years of the French Republic.

It was midsummer, and the garden was knee-deep in flowers, all

coloured by the sun and shaken by the warm breeze. The old man sat

on a wicker chair under the tree that shaded the fountain with a rug

about his knees. He must have been over eighty years of age, and he

was dressed in the fashion of that period that was now completely

over, and in the style of that aristocracy that had lately fallen,

terribly and for ever.

“Your grandmother was betrothed to my elder brother once, Mademoiselle

Clémence,” he said, taking up his broken talk after a pause.

“Why, I did not know that you ever had a brother, Monsieur,” she

answered, interested.

A look of distress and regret passed over the fine old face.

“He died fifty years ago,” he murmured, “in Paris--in the arms of M.

de Voltaire. Fifty years! I have lived too long.”

“Ah, no!” smiled the young girl brightly. “The times have been very

terrible, but I cannot help thinking that all is very new and glorious

now.”

“Your grandmother would never have said that.” The old Marquis de

Vauvenargues fixed her with sad eyes. “But you are a child of your

generation, despite the blood in your veins.”

“Things have changed so!” she said, humouring him.

“Ah, yes!--things have changed!” he repeated. And his chin sank on the

lace ruffles on his breast. “I meant that when I said I had lived too

long. I should have wished to die before I saw the things I have seen

in France.”

Clémence de Fortia laid her warm pink fingers over his dry white hands.

“I know,” she said. “But here we escaped the worst; and--somehow----”

She paused; she was thinking of the letter near her heart. What did

changing dynasties matter after all, was her reflection, when the

essential things were the same? Aloud she finished her sentence with a

smile: “It is so pleasant in the garden, Monsieur, that I cannot help

being happy!”

The old man smiled also, but his eyes were dim with memories.

“Here is my father!” cried Mademoiselle de Fortia, springing to her

feet. “And you will want to talk to him!”

She ran across the sunny grass to meet a man of middle age, dressed in

the fashion of the Revolution.

“M. de Vauvenargues is sad to-day,” she whispered. “I tried to comfort

him, but he is so very, very old. And I have heard from Paris.” She

blushed defiantly.

“What do they say in Paris?” asked the Marquis de Fortia.

“They _say_ General Bonaparte is going to marry Madame de Beauharnais.

But she is not young, and he is quite well thought of, is he not?”

“I will relieve you of your post,” smiled her father. “Go and read

your gossip, child.”

She laughed, and ran away into the rose garden with her hands at her

bosom.

M. de Fortia went to the old man, who was staring before him at the

water that dripped by the river deity into the basin of the fountain

from the mouth of the urn. He looked up as his friend approached, and

said abruptly, in his high voice--

“Do you think Voltaire, a great man?”

“Certainly--one of the greatest.”

“He thought my brother had genius.”

“Your brother?”

“My elder brother----” He paused, seemed to make an effort of memory.

“Luc--yes, his name was Luc I have not spoken that name for half a

hundred years. Luc--I believe we were fond of each other. He used

to--write.”

He nodded at the fountain.

“Well, I have his manuscripts and his book upstairs. I thought of them

last night. I am an old man, and the last of a family that has been

very proud, as you know, my friend, very proud.”

He paused again.

“But perhaps, when I am dead, our name will not suffer--in these

days--when things are so different, and who is to remember us?” His

voice sank, and an expression of profound melancholy clouded his face.

“What do you wish me to do?” asked M. de Fortia, bending over him.

The last of the de Clapiers drew a key from his pocket, and presented

it with a trembling hand.

“You will find the box in my desk. When I am dead, publish my brothers

writings--with his name. We used to think he had disgraced our blazon;

but now--perhaps--his book might even keep alive--in the new era

coming--the noble name”--pride lit the dim eyes--“of Vauvenargues.”

_Printed by_ MORRISON & GIBB LIMITED _Edinburgh_

Transcriber’s Notes

The following corrections have been made in the text:

Part 1, Chapter 8, paragraph 12

- ‘vived’ replaced with ‘vivid’

(he looked at the vivid fish)

Part 2, Chapter 8, paragraph 45

- ‘Monseiur’ replaced with ‘Monsieur’

(“Monsieur,” he answered,)

Part 2, Chapter 9, paragraph 20

- ‘Monsiegneur’ replaced with ‘Monseigneur’

(“I lost that in Bohemia, Monseigneur.”)

Part 2, Chapter 13, paragraph 42

- ‘Seguy’ replaced with ‘Séguy’

(For Mademoiselle de Séguy’s sake,)