yours, who lies asleep in there--brave, gentle, loving--a son of
mine, a De Nesville! Your bribed troops killed him--shot him to
death on the boulevards--him among the others--so that you could
sit safely in the Tuileries! I saw them--those piled corpses! I
saw little children stabbed to death with bayonets, I saw the
heaped slain lying before Tortoni's, where the whole street was
flooded crimson and the gutters rippled blood! And you? I saw you
ride with your lancers into the Rue Saint-Honoré, and when you
met the barricade you turned pale and rode back again! I saw you;
I was sitting with my dead boy on my knees--I saw you--"
With a furious cry the marquis tore a revolver from his pocket
and sprang on the Emperor, and at the same instant Jack seized
the crazy man by the shoulders and hurled him violently to the
floor.
Stunned, limp as a rag, the marquis lay at the Emperor's feet,
his clenched hands slowly relaxing.
The Emperor had not moved.
Scarcely knowing what he did, Jack stooped, drew the revolver
from the extended fingers, and laid it on the table. Then, with a
fearful glance at the Emperor, he dragged the marquis to the
door, opened it with a shove of his foot, and half closed it
again.
The aide-de-camp stood there, staring at the prostrate man.
"Here, help me with him to his carriage; he is ill," panted
Jack--"lift him!"
Together they carried him out to the terrace, and down the steps
to a coupé that stood waiting.
"The marquis is ill," said Jack again; "put him to bed at once.
Drive fast."
Before the sound of the wheels died away Jack hastened back to
the dining-room. Through the half-opened door he peered,
hesitated, turned away, and mounted the stairs slowly to his own
chamber.
In the dining-room the lamp still burned dimly. Beside it sat the
Emperor, head bent, picking absently at the table-cloth with
short, shrunken thumbs.
XV
THE INVASION OF LORRAINE
It was not yet dawn. Jack, sleeping with his head on his elbow,
shivered in his sleep, gasped, woke, and sat up in bed. There was
a quiet footfall by his bed, the scrape of a spur, then silence.
"Is that you, Mr. Grahame?" he asked.
"Yes; I didn't mean to wake you. I'm off. I was going to leave a
letter to thank you and Madame de Morteyn--"
"Are you dressed? What time is it?"
"Four o'clock--twenty minutes after. It's a shame to rouse you,
my dear fellow."
"Oh, that's all right," said Jack. "Will you strike a
light--there are candles on my dresser. Ah, that's better."
He sat blinking at Grahame, who, booted and spurred and buttoned
to the chin, looked at him quizzically.
"You were not going off without your coffee, were you?" asked
Jack. "Nonsense!--wait." He pulled a bell-rope dangling over his
head. "Now that means coffee and hot rolls in twenty minutes."
When Jack had bathed and shaved, operations he executed with
great rapidity, the coffee was brought, and he and Grahame fell
to by candle-light.
"I thought you were afoot?" said Jack, glancing at the older
man's spurs.
"I'm going to hunt up a horse; I'm tired of this eternal
tramping," replied Grahame. "Hello, is this package for me?"
"Yes, there's a cold chicken and some things, and a flask to keep
you until you find your Hohenzollern Regiment again."
Grahame rose and held out his hand. "Good-by. You've been very
kind, Marche. Will you say, for me, all that should be said to
Madame de Morteyn? Good-by once more, my dear fellow. Don't
forget me--I shall never forget you!"
"Wait," said Jack; "you are going off without a safe-conduct."
"Don't need it; there's not a French soldier in Morteyn."
"Gone?" stammered Jack--"the Emperor, General Frossard, the
army--"
"Every mother's son of them, and I must hurry--"
Their hands met again in a cordial grasp, then Grahame slipped
noiselessly into the hallway, and Jack turned to finish dressing
by the light of his clustered candles.
As he stood before the quaintly wrought mirror, fussing with
studs and buttons, he thought with a shudder of the scene of the
night before, the marquis and his murderous frenzy, the impassive
Emperor, the frantic man hurled to the polished floor, stunned,
white-cheeked, with hands slowly relaxing and fingers uncurling
from the glittering revolver.
Lorraine's father! And he had laid hands on him and had flung
him senseless at the feet of the Man of December! He could
scarcely button his collar, his fingers trembled so. Perhaps he
had killed the Marquis de Nesville. Sick at heart, he finished
dressing, buttoned his coat, flung a cap on his head, and stole
out into the darkness.
On the terrace below he saw a groom carrying a lantern, and he
went out hastily.
"Saddle Faust at once," he said. "Have the troops all gone?"
"All, monsieur; the last of the cavalry passed three hours ago;
the Emperor drove away half an hour later with Lulu--"
"Eh?"
"The prince--pardon, monsieur--they call him Lulu in Paris."
"Hurry," said Jack; "I want that horse at once."
Ten minutes later he was galloping furiously down the forest road
towards the Château de Nesville. The darkness was impenetrable,
so he let the horse find his own path, and gave himself up to a
profound dejection that at times amounted to blind fear. Before
his eyes he saw the pallid face of the Marquis de Nesville, he
saw the man stretched on the floor, horribly still; that was the
worst, the stillness of the body.
The sky was gray through the trees when he turned into the park
and skirted the wall to the wicket. The wicket was locked. He
rang repeatedly, he shook the grille and pounded on the iron
escutcheon with the butt of his riding-crop; and at length a
yawning servant appeared from the gate-lodge and sleepily dragged
open the wicket.
"The marquis was ill, have you heard anything?" asked Jack.
"The marquis is there on the porch," said the servant, with a
gesture towards the house.
Jack's heart leaped up. "Thank God!" he muttered, and dismounted,
throwing his bridle to the porter, who now appeared in the
doorway.
He could see the marquis walking to and fro, hands clasped behind
his strong, athletic back; his head was turned in Jack's
direction. "The marquis is crazy," thought Jack, hesitating. He
was convinced now that long brooding over ancient wrongs had
unsettled the man's mind. There had always been something in his
dazzling blue eyes that troubled Jack, and now he knew it was the
pale light of suppressed frenzy. Still, he would have to face him
sooner or later, and he did not recoil now that the hour and the
place and the man had come.
"I'll settle it once for all," he thought, and walked straight up
the path to the house. The marquis came down the steps to meet
him.
"I expected you," he said, without a trace of anger. "I have much
to say to you. Will you come in or shall we sit in the arbour
there? You will enter? Then come to the turret, Monsieur Marche."
Jack would have refused, but he had not the courage. He was not
at all pleased at the idea of mounting to a turret with a man
whom he had laid violent hands on the night before, a man whom he
had seen succumb to an access of insane fury in the presence of
the Emperor of France. But he went, cursing the cowardice that
prevented him from being cautious; and in a few moments he entered
the chamber where retorts and bottles and steel machinery littered
every corner, and the pale dawn broke through the window in ghastly
streams of light, changing the candle-flames to sickly greenish
blotches.
They sat opposite each other, neither speaking. Jack glanced at a
heavy steel rod on the floor beside him. It was just as well to
know it was there, in case of need.
"Monsieur," said the marquis, abruptly, "I owe you a great deal
more than my life, which is nothing; I owe you my family honour."
This was a new way of looking at the situation; Jack fidgeted in
his chair and eyed the marquis.
"Thanks to you," he continued, quietly, "I am not an assassin, I
am not a butcher of dogs. The De Nesvilles were never public
executioners--they left that to the Bonapartes and Monsieur de
Paris."
He rose hastily from his chair and held out a hand. Jack took it
warily and returned the nervous pressure. Then they both resumed
their seats.
"Let us clear matters up," said the marquis in a wonderfully
gentle voice, that would have been fascinating to more phlegmatic
men than Jack--"let us clear up everything and understand each
other. You, monsieur, dislike me; pardon--you dislike me for
reasons of your own. I, on the contrary, like you; I like you
better this moment than I ever did. Had you not come as I
expected, had you not entered, had you refused to mount to the
turret, I still should have liked you. Now I also respect you."
Jack twisted and turned in his chair, not knowing what to think
or say.
"Why do you dislike me?" asked the marquis, quietly.
"Because you are not kind to your daughter," said Jack, bluntly.
To his horror the man's eyes filled with tears, big, glittering
tears that rolled down his immovable face. Then a flush stained
his forehead; the fever in his cheeks dried the tears.
"Jack," he said, calling the young fellow by his name with a
peculiarly tender gesture, "I loved my son. My soul died within
me when René died, there on the muddy pavement of the Paris
boulevards. I sometimes think I am perhaps a little out of my
mind; I brood on it too much. That is why I flung myself into
this"--with a sweep of his arm towards the flasks and machinery
piled around. "Lorraine is a girl, sweet, lovable, loyal. But she
is not my daughter."
"Lorraine!" stammered Jack.
"Lorraine."
The young fellow sat up in his chair and studied the face of the
pale man before him.
"Not--your child?"
"No."
"Whose?"
"I cannot tell."
After a silence the marquis stood up, and walked to the window.
His face was haggard, his hair dishevelled.
"No," he said, "Lorraine is not my daughter. She is not even my
heiress. She was--she was--found, eighteen years ago."
The room was becoming lighter; the sky grew faintly luminous and
the mist from the stagnant fen curled up along the turret like
smoke.
Jack picked up his cap and riding-crop and rose; the marquis
turned from the window to confront him. His face was no longer
furrowed with pain, the cold light had crept back into his eyes.
"Monsieur," said Jack, "I ask your permission to address
Lorraine. I love her."
The marquis stood silent, scarcely breathing.
"You know who and what I am; you probably know what I have. It is
enough for me; it will be enough for us both. I shall work to
make it enough. I do not expect or wish for anything from you for
Lorraine; I do not give it a thought. Lorraine does not love me,
but," and here he spoke with humility, "I believe that she might.
If I win her, will you give her to me?"
"Win her?" repeated the marquis, with an ugly look. The man's
face was changing now, darkening in the morning light.
"Monsieur," he said, violently, "you may say to her what you
please!" and he opened the door and showed Jack the way out.
Dazed, completely mystified, Jack hurried away to find his horse
at the gate where he had left him. The marquis was crazy, that
was certain. These unaccountable moods and passions, following
each other so abruptly, were nothing else but reactions from a
life of silent suffering. All the way back to Morteyn he pondered
on the strange scene in the turret, the repudiation of Lorraine,
the sudden tenderness for himself, and then the apathy, the
suppressed anger, the indifference coupled with unexplainable
emotion.
"No sane man could act like that," he murmured, as he rode into
the Morteyn gate, and, with a smart slap of his hand on Faust's
withers, he sent that intelligent animal at a trot towards the
stables, where a groom awaited him with sponge and bucket.
The gardeners were cleaning up the litter in the roads and paths
left by the retreating army. The road by the gate was marked with
hoof and wheel, but the macadam had not suffered very much, and
already a roller was at work removing furrow and hoof-print.
He entered the dining-room. It was empty. So also was the
breakfast-room, for breakfast had been served an hour before.
He sent for coffee and muffins and made a hasty breakfast,
looking out of the window at times for signs of his aunt and
Lorraine. The maid said that Madame de Morteyn had driven to
Saint-Lys with the marquis, and that Mademoiselle de Nesville had
gone to her room. So he finished his coffee, went to his room,
changed his clothes, and sent a maid to inquire whether Lorraine
would receive him in the small library at the head of the stairs.
The maid returned presently, saying that Mademoiselle de Nesville
would be down in a moment or two, so Jack strolled into the
library and leaned out of the window to smoke.
When she came in he did not hear her until she spoke.
"Don't throw your cigarette away, monsieur; I permit you to
smoke--indeed, I command it. How do you do?" This in very timid
English. "I mean--good-morning--oh, dear, this terrible English
language! Now you may sit there, in that large leather arm-chair,
and you may tell me why you did not appear at breakfast. Is
Monsieur Grahame still sleeping? Gone? Oh, dear! And you have
been to the Château de Nesville? Is my father well? And contented?
There, I knew he would miss me. Did you give him my dearest love?
Thank you for remembering. Now tell me--"
"What?" laughed Jack.
"Everything, of course."
"Everything?"
She looked at him, but did not answer.
Then he deliberately sat down and made love to her, not actual,
open, unblushing love--but he started in to win her, and what his
tongue refused to tell, his eyes told until trepidation seized
her, and she sat back speechless, watching him with shy blue eyes
that always turned when they met his, but always returned when
his were lowered.
It is a pretty game, this first preliminary of love--like the
graceful sword-play and salute of two swordsmen before a duel.
There was no one to cry "Garde à vous!" no one to strike up the
weapons that were thrust at two unarmoured hearts, for the
weapons were words and glances, and Love, the umpire, alas! was
not impartial.
So the timid heart of Lorraine was threatened, and, before she
knew it, the invasion had begun. She did not repel it with
desperation; at times, even, she smiled at the invader, and that,
if not utter treachery, was giving aid and encouragement to the
enemy.
Besieged, threatened, she sat there in the arm-chair, half
frightened, half smiling, fearful yet contented, alarmed yet
secure, now resisting, now letting herself drift on, until the
result of the combination made Jack's head spin; and he felt
resentful in his heart, and he said to himself what all men under
such circumstances say to themselves--"Coquetry!"
One moment he was sure she loved him, the next he was certain she
did not. This oscillation between heaven and hell made him
unhappy, and, manlike, he thought the fault was hers. This is the
foundation for man's belief in the coquetry of women.
As for Lorraine, she thrilled with a gentle fear that was the
most delightful sensation she had ever known. She looked shyly at
the strong-limbed, sunburned young fellow opposite, and she began
to wonder why he was so fascinating. Every turn of his head,
every gesture, every change in his face she knew now--knew so
well that she blushed at her own knowledge.
But she would not permit him to come nearer; she could not,
although she saw his disappointment, under a laugh, when she
refused to let him read the lines of fate in her rosy palm. Then
she wished she had laid her hand in his when he asked it, then
she wondered whether he thought her stupid, then--But it is
always the same, the gamut run of shy alarm, of tenderness, of
fear, of sudden love looking unbidden from eyes that answer love.
So the morning wore away.
The old vicomte came back with his wife and sat in the library
with them, playing chess until luncheon was served; and after
that Lorraine went away to embroider something or other that
Madame de Morteyn had for her up-stairs. A little later the
vicomte also went to take a nap, and Jack was left alone lying on
the lounge, too lonely to read, too unhappy to smoke, too lazy
to sleep.
He had been lying there for an hour thinking about Lorraine and
wondering whether she would ever be told what her exact relation
to the Marquis de Nesville was, when a maid brought him two
letters, postmarked Paris. One he saw at a glance was from his
sister, and, like a brother, he opened the other first.
"DEAR JACK,--I am very unhappy. Sir Thorald has gone off
to St. Petersburg in a huff, and, if he stops at
Morteyn, tell him he's a fool and that I want him to
come back. You're the only person on earth I can write
this to.
"Faithfully yours, MOLLY HESKETH."
Jack laughed aloud, then sat silent, frowning at the dainty bit
of letter-paper, crested and delicately fragrant. Yes, he could
read between the lines--a man in love is less dense than when in
his normal state--and he was sorry for Molly Hesketh. He thought
of Sir Thorald as Archibald Grahame had described him, standing
amid a shower of bricks and bursting shells, staring at war
through a monocle.
"He's a beast," thought Jack, "but a plucky one. If he goes to
Cologne he's worse than a beast." A vision of little Alixe came
before him, blond, tearful, gazing trustingly at Sir Thorald's
drooping mustache. It made him angry; he wished, for a moment,
that he had Sir Thorald by the neck. This train of thought led
him to think of Rickerl, and from Rickerl he naturally came to
the 11th Uhlans.
"By jingo, it's unlucky I shot that fellow," he exclaimed, half
aloud; "I don't want to meet any of that picket again while this
war lasts."
Unpleasant visions of himself, spitted neatly upon a Uhlan's
lance, rose up and were hard to dispel. He wished Frossard's
troops had not been in such a hurry to quit Morteyn; he wondered
whether any other troops were between him and Saarbrück. The
truth was, he should have left the country, and he knew it. But
how could he leave until his aunt and uncle were ready to go? And
there was Lorraine. Could he go and leave her? Suppose the
Germans should pass that way; not at all likely--but suppose they
should? Suppose, even, there should be fighting near Morteyn? No,
he could never go away and leave Lorraine--that was out of the
question.
He lighted a match and moodily burned Molly's letter to ashes in
the fireplace. He also stirred the ashes up, for he was
honourable in little things--like Ricky--and also, alas!
apparently no novice.
Dorothy's letter lay on the table--her third since she had left
for Paris. He opened his knife and split the envelope carefully,
still thinking of Lorraine.
"MY OWN DEAR JACK,--There is something I have been
trying to tell you in the other three letters, but I
have not succeeded, and I am going to try again. I shall
tuck it away in some quiet little corner of my page; so
if you do not read carefully between every line, you may
not find it, after all.
"I have just seen Lady Hesketh. She looks pale and
ill--the excitement in the city and that horrid National
Guard keep our nerves on edge every moment. Sir Thorald
is away on business, she says--where, I forgot to ask
her. I saw the Empress driving in the Bois yesterday.
Some ragamuffins hissed her, and I felt sorry for her.
Oh, if men only knew what women suffer! But don't think
I am suffering. I am not, Jack; I am very well and very
cheerful. Betty Castlemaine is going to be engaged to
Cecil, and the announcement will be in all the English
papers. Oh, dear! I don't know why that should make me
sad, but it does. No, it doesn't, Jack, dear.
"The city is very noisy; the National Guard parade every
day; they seem to be all officers and drummers and no
men. Everybody says we gained a great victory on the 2d
of August. I wonder whether Rickerl was in it? Do you
know? His regiment is the 11th Uhlans. Were they there?
Were any hurt? Oh, Jack, I am so miserable! They speak
of a battle at Wissembourg and one at the Spicheren.
Were the 11th Uhlans there? Try to find out, dear, and
write me _at once_. Don't forget--the _11th Uhlans_. Oh,
Jack, darling! can't you understand?
Your loving sister, DOROTHY."
"Understand? What?" repeated Jack. He read the letter again
carefully.
"I can't see what the mischief is extraordinary in that," he
mused, "unless she's giving me a tip about Sir Thorald; but
no--she can't know anything in that direction. Now what is it
that she has hidden away? Oh, here's a postscript."
He turned the sheet and read:
"My love to aunt and uncle, Jack--don't forget. I am
writing them by this mail. Is the 11th Uhlan Regiment in
Prince Frederick Charles's Army? Be sure to find out.
There is absolutely nothing in the Paris papers about
the 11th Uhlans, and I am astonished. But what can one
expect from Paris journals? I tried to subscribe to the
_Berlin Post_ and the _Hamburger Nachrichten_ and the
_Munich Neueste Nachrichten_, but the horrid creature at
the kiosk said she wouldn't have a German sheet in her
place. I hope the _Herald_ will give particulars of
losses in both armies. Do you think it will? Oh, why on
earth do these two foolish nations fight each other?
"DORRIE.
"P. P. S.--Jack, for my sake, pay attention to what I
ask you and answer every question. And don't forget to
find out all about the 11th Uhlans. D."
"Now, what on earth interests Dorrie in all these battle
statistics?" he wondered; "and what in the name of common-sense
can she find to interest her in the 11th Uhlans? Ricky? Absurd!"
He repeated "absurd" two or three times, but he became more
thoughtful a moment later, and sat smoking and pondering. That
would be a nice muddle if she, the niece of a Frenchman--an
American, too--should fix her affections on a captain of Uhlans
whose regiment he, Jack Marche, would avoid as he would hope to
avoid the black small-pox.
"Absurd," he repeated for the fourth time, and tossed his
cigarette into the open fireplace. And as he rose to go up-stairs
something out on the road by the gate attracted his attention,
and he went to the window.
Three horsemen sat in their saddles on the lawn, lance on thigh,
eyes fixed on him.
They were Uhlans!
XVI
"IN THE HOLLOW OF THY HAND"
For a moment he recoiled as though he had received a blow between
the eyes.
There they sat, little glistening schapskas rakishly tilted over
one ear, black-and-white pennons drooping from the lance-points,
schabraques edged with yellow--aye, and tunics also, yellow and
blue--those were the colours--the colours of the 11th Uhlans.
Then, for the first time, he fully realized his position and what
it might mean. Death was the penalty for what he had done--death
even though the man he had shot were not dead--death though he
had not even hit him. That was not all; it meant death in its
most awful form--hanging! For this was the penalty: any civilian,
foreigner, franc-soldier, or other unrecognized combatant, firing
upon German troops, giving aid to French troops while within the
sphere of German influence, by aiding, abetting, signalling,
informing, or otherwise, was hung--sometimes with a drum-head
court-martial, sometimes without.
Every bit of blood and strength seemed to leave his limbs; he
leaned back against the table, cold with fear.
This was the young man who had sat sketching at Sadowa where the
needle-guns sent a shower of lead over his rocky observatory;
the same who had risked death by fearful mutilation in Oran when
he rode back and flung a half-dead Spahi over his own saddle, in
the face of a charging, howling hurricane of Kabyle horsemen.
Sabre and lance and bullets were things he understood, but he did
not understand ropes.
He could not tell whether the Uhlans had seen him or not; there
were lace curtains in the room, but the breeze blew them back
from the open window. Had they seen him?
All at once the horses jerked their heads, reared, and wheeled
like cattle shying at a passing train, and away went the Uhlans,
plunging out into the road. There was a flutter of pennants, a
fling or two of horses' heels, a glimmer of yellow, and they were
gone.