"It was all Lucas--Lucas did it," Grammont muttered with stiffening
lips. "I am sorry for--it. I am dying--I cannot die--without a chance.
Say you--for--give--"
Still M. le Comte held back, silent. Treachery was no less treachery
though Grammont was dying. All the more that they were cousins,
bedfellows, was the injury great to forgive. M. le Comte said nothing.
How Grammont found the strength only God knows, who haply in his
goodness gave him a last chance of mercy. Suddenly he straightened his
sinking body, started from our hold, and tottered toward his cousin,
both hands outstretched in appeal.
M. le Comte's face was set like a flint. The dying man faltered forward.
Then M. Étienne, never changing his countenance, slowly, half
reluctantly, like a man in a dream, held out his hand.
But the old comrades, estranged by traitory, were never to clasp again.
As he reached M. le Comte, Grammont fell at his feet.
"He was a strong man," said Vigo. He turned Grammont's face up and added
the word, "Dead." Vigo adored the Duke of St. Quentin. Otherwise he had
no emotions.
But I was not case-hardened. And I--I myself--had slain this man, who
had died slowly and in great pain. Vigo's voice sounded to me far off as
he said bluntly:
"M. le Comte, I make you my prisoner."
"No, by Heaven!" cried M. Étienne, in a vibrating voice that brought me
back to reality; "no, Vigo! I am no murderer. Things may look black
against me but I am innocent. You have one villain at your feet and one
a prisoner, but I am not a third! I am a St. Quentin; I do not plot
against my father. I was to aid Grammont to set on Lucas, who would not
answer a challenge. I have been tricked. Gervais asked my
forgiveness--you heard him. Their dupe, yes--accomplice I was not.
Never have I lifted my hand against my father, nor would I, whatever
came. That I swear. Never have I laid eyes on Lucas since I left
Monsieur's presence, till now when he came out of that door side by side
with Grammont. Whatever the plot, I knew naught of it. I am a St.
Quentin--no parricide!"
The ringing voice ceased and M. le Comte stood silent, with haggard eyes
on Vigo. Had he been prisoner at the bar of judgment he could not have
waited in greater anxiety. For Vigo, the yeoman and servant, never
minced words to any man nor swerved from the stark truth.
I burned to seize Vigo's arm, to spur him on to speech. Of course he
believed M. Étienne; how dared he make his master wait for the
assurance? On his knees he should be, imploring M. le Comte's pardon.
But no thought of humbling himself troubled Vigo. Nor did he pronounce
judgment, but merely said:
"M. le Comte will go home with me now. To-morrow he can tell his story
to my master."
"I will tell it before this hour is out!"
"No. M. le Duc has left Paris. But it matters not, M. Étienne. Monsieur
suspects nothing against you. Félix kept your name from him. And by the
time I had screwed it out of Martin, Monsieur was gone."
"Gone out of Paris?" M. Étienne echoed blankly. To his eagerness it was
as if M. le Duc were out of France.
"Aye. He meant to go to-night--Monsieur, Lucas, and I. But when Monsieur
learned of this plot, he swore he'd go in open day. 'If the League must
kill me,' says he, 'they can do it in daylight, with all Paris
watching.' That's Monsieur!"
At this I understood how Vigo came to be in the Rue Coupejarrets.
Monsieur, in his distress and anxiety to be gone from that unhappy
house, had forgotten the spy. Left to his own devices, the equery,
struck with suspicion at Lucas's absence, laid instant hands on Martin
the clerk, with whom Lucas, disliked in the household, had had some
intimacy. It had not occurred to Vigo that M. le Comte, if guilty,
should be spared. At once he had sounded boots and saddles.
"I will return with you, Vigo," M. le Comte said. "Does the meanest
lackey in my father's house call me parricide, I must meet the charge.
My father and I have differed but if we are no longer friends we are
still noblemen. I could never plot his murder, nor could he for one
moment believe it of me."
I, guilty wretch, quailed. To take a flogging were easier than to
confess to him the truth. But I conceived I must.
"Monsieur," I said, "I told M. le Duc you were guilty. I went back a
second time and told him."
"And he?" cried M. Étienne.
"Yes, monsieur, he did believe it."
"Morbleu! that cannot be true," Vigo cried, "for when I saw him he gave
no sign."
"It is true. But he would not have M. le Comte touched. He said he could
not move in the matter; he could not punish his own kin."