The declaration by Sylvia of her love for Bevill had caused so much
agitation among those assembled in that gloomy _salle d'armes_ that,
for the moment, all forgot there was another declaration to be
heard--namely, the denunciation of Francbois by the Comtesse de
Valorme. To him who was most principally concerned--to Bevill
Bracton--the proclamation of Sylvia's love came not, however, so much
as a surprise--since, had she not loved him, the words she had but
hitherto whispered would never have been uttered at all by one so
calmly dignified and self-contained as she--as a joy supreme. In the
joy, too, was merged an honest, manly pride in having won for himself
the love of a woman who nobly, before all present, had not hesitated
openly to avow that love.
And still, even now that the love was acknowledged, every action of
the girl as he drew close to her and, in his deepest murmur, whispered
his own love and pride in her, but tended to increase his reverence.
For as she--disdained all assumption of embarrassment, of having
uttered words before others which, in ordinary cases, should have been
whispered in his ears alone--now stood by his side with her hand still
clasped in his, and with her calm, clear eyes fixed on him, he
recognised more fully than ever he had done before how royally she was
clad with womanly dignity. It was given to him to understand how that
outspoken love for him had become her even as, oft-times, the murmured
confession of their love by other women becomes them.
"Sylvia," he said now, "what shall I say, how prove to you all that is
in my heart? How repay the love you have given me, the love I hoped so
dearly to win?"
"Repay! Is it not mine to repay? You might have left me here alone. It
was in your power to go, yet you resolved to stay. And," she said,
gazing at him, "I love you. The words you uttered last night told me
of your love for me; to-night I have avowed my own in return. Yet,
ah!" she almost gasped, "in what a place, in what a spot, to plight
our troth, to exchange vows!"
"Fear not, sweet one. The place matters nothing; the balm is
administered, is here," and he touched the lace above his heart. "Even
though they keep me prisoner for months, even though they slay me for
being that which, God knows, I am not----"
"No, no, no! Not that! Not that!" she murmured, losing momentarily her
self-control and clenching her under-lip between her teeth to hide its
trembling. "Not that. It cannot be." Then looking up at him more
firmly, though now he saw her eyes were welling over with tears, she
added, "We have not met thus to part thus. It cannot, cannot be."
"By Heaven's grace we will never part. Once free of this, once safe,
and--together--always together--we will never part on earth again.
Heart up, my sweet! Heart up!" While, as he spoke, the pressure of his
hand by hers told him that, as far as resolution could come to her
aid, she would never despair. Nay, more--if such a thing might
be--it conveyed in some subtle form to him the knowledge, the
assurance, that if there lay in her power any chance of saving him,
that chance would be exerted. Yet how, he asked himself, could she do
aught towards saving him?
What was there to be done? His presence in this city, his assumption
of being French while actually the subject of France's most determined
enemy, was enough.
Meanwhile, there were others present--one other at least, the
Comtesse--to whom this declaration of Sylvia had, if it came as a
surprise at all, only come as one by the manner in which it was made.
For she had seen enough, had observed enough to comprehend how, day by
day, this man and woman had been gradually drawing nearer and nearer
to one another; to discern how dear to each was the presence of the
other, and to perceive that, as so they were drawn closer and closer
together, the strands that drew them must tighten more and more until
they could never be unloosed.
But if this avowal carried, therefore, no surprise to Madame de
Valorme, to Francbois it brought an added agony to that which had gone
before, even if, to him also, it brought no surprise. For he could not
but ask himself what he had gained by his betrayal of this man--a
betrayal that alone would have been justified, alone might have
claimed extenuation, had it been the outcome of an honest,
straightforward desire to serve the country he belonged to by injuring
its enemies.
"Gained?" he reflected. He had gained nothing, while losing much,
perhaps everything. Sylvia Thorne loved this man; she was not the
woman to ever love another--above all, not him who had betrayed the
beloved one. And, yes he had given this rival into the hands of the
enemy. It might be, it doubtless was the case, that he had brought
about his doom; but there--there!--but a few paces from him was one,
his own connection, who was now about to send him also to his doom.
For she knew enough to do so; she had told him so that night in the
lane when, after the Englishman had disarmed him, she had taken him
apart, even as, in the same breath, she had told him that if harm came
to that other so it should come to him. And now--now--it had come to
that other. In a few more moments it would come to him. She was about
to speak. Gained! Out of his own mouth, by his own evil disposition,
he had brought about his own fate.
As his mind was tortured thus the Comtesse de Valorme commenced the
exposure which must lead to his undoing.
"Monsieur de Violaine," he heard her saying now, even as every fibre
in his body trembled and seemed to become relaxed and flaccid, while
the moisture stood in great drops on his cheeks and forehead, "you
have heard Mr. Bracton proclaimed a spy, though he is none, but only a
man who assumed a false name, a false nationality, to help a woman
whom," she added, "he loves. He is no spy; but, if he were, is a spy
worse than a traitor?"
De Violaine started as she uttered these words, since he remembered
how the same thought, the same question, had arisen in his own mind
that very day; then in reply he said:
"Each is an evil thing--contemned by all honourable men. Yet one man's
evil-doing does not justify that of another."
"That is undoubted. Yet listen. This man," her eyes on Bevill, "is no
spy; this one," and they fell with withering contempt on Francbois,
"is a traitor."
"Have you proof of your words?" De Violaine asked, his marvellous calm
always maintained.
"Proof? Ay, as much as you require. Le Maréchal de Boufflers comes
here ere long, it is said, to see that all is prepared, all ready to
resist the Allies; to, it is also said, resist Marlborough himself.
When he comes show him these, after you have read them yourself." As
she spoke thus the Comtesse de Valorme thrust her hand beneath the
great _houppelande_, or travelling cloak, she had set out in and still
wore; while, thrusting it next into the lace of her dress, she drew
forth a small bundle of papers. "There is enough matter there," she
said, "to hang a score of traitors." After which, turning to
Francbois, she added: "You should have burnt those long ago instead
of keeping them; or, keeping them, should have found sanctuary for
them in the college of your friends and patrons, the Jesuits. Van
Ryk's house, the house of a heretic," she said bitterly, "was a poor
depository for such things; the bureau in a room sometimes occupied by
a heretic woman the worst place of all."
But Francbois was now almost in a state of collapse; it was necessary
for the stalwart troopers of the Risbourg dragoons to support him. For
at last he knew that, whatever might be the fate of this Englishman
whom he had striven to ruin, there was no ray of doubt about his own
fate; while--and this was the bitterest of all--he had brought that
fate upon himself. She, this tigress in woman's form, as he called her
to himself, had warned him in the lane behind Van Ryk's house that it
would be so if he betrayed the other; she had said the very same words
that she had but just now uttered; had said that she had enough proof
against him to hang a score of traitors. Only--she had not told him
the exact nature of that proof. While he, who received so many letters
by channels so devious that he could scarce remember how each reached
his hands, had lost all memory of how once, when disturbed, he had
thrust a small packet of them into the topmost drawer of an old bureau
in a room that he generally occupied, except when other guests were in
the house. In absolute fact, he had forgotten that bundle of letters
until now.
For some moments Francbois could not speak; his breath seemed to have
failed him. Nay more, even though the breath had been there to give
utterance to his words, his mind was incapable of forming thoughts
that, in their turn, should be expressed in words. He could but gasp
and whine and raise his hand to his brow to wipe away the hot sweat
oozing from it; he was so prostrate that the sturdy dragoons holding
him thought that he would sink lifeless to the floor. Yet all the time
he knew that the eyes of the others were upon him, were fixed coldly
and contemptuously on him; the eyes of all except those of De
Violaine, who, beneath the greasy candle guttering in their sockets,
was reading the papers he had but now received. Yet, once Francbois
saw that the Governor turned over a letter again and re-read it, and
that--then he raised his eyes from the sheet and also looked at him
for an instant. In that instant Francbois anticipated, perhaps
experienced, the agonies of death a hundred times.
[Illustration: "Francbois saw that the Governor turned over a letter
again."]
At last, however, he found his voice: thoughts to utter by its aid
came to him. Struggling in the troopers' arms, he raised himself into
a firmer, a more upright position and was able to assume something
more of the attitude of a man. Then, freeing his right hand from the
grasp of one of the soldiers--the hand in which he held his
handkerchief, now a rolled-up ball--he lifted and pointed it towards
the Comtesse; after which he said, in a harsh, dry, raucous voice:
"Spies! You--you--both--have talked of these." It may be he forgot in
his frenzy that from him alone had such talk originated. "So be it.
Yet, besides this English bully, this swashbuckler who slays in dark
houses, those who would bring him to justice, are then no others
present? What is this woman who in her self-righteousness denounces me
as a traitor----"
"She has done more; she has proved you to be one," the Comtesse said.
"What is she?" Francbois went on. "What? Her husband died a traitor at
the galleys; if women could be punished thus, she would be in a fair
way to do so, too. Is she no traitor? She? She who is here to meet
with Marlborough, or Cutts, or Athlone; to throw herself in their
path, to intrigue with them for an invasion of the South--she who
would have escaped to-night with those others had I not warned you of
her. Warned you! There was no need of that! You who, like her, are of
the South--a Camisard, a Cévenole."
Again De Violaine looked at this man, and the look had in it more
terror for the abject creature than a thousand words might have
possessed; after which, addressing the soldiers, he said:
"Remove both prisoners--each to a cell. Each of you," addressing both
Bevill and Francbois, "will be subjected to a general court-martial
when a sufficiency of officers can be collected to form it, and after
the Maréchal de Boufflers and the Duc de Maine have been consulted.
Mesdames," addressing the Comtesse and Sylvia, "you must return whence
you set out. The Captain d'Aubenay and his men shall escort you."
Thus the expedition, the escape from Liége, had failed, since all who
were to have gone on it, as well as he who prevented its
accomplishment, were prisoners. For that the Comtesse de Valorme and
Sylvia were now in a way--though a different one--as much prisoners as
Bevill Bracton and Francbois they could not doubt. Except that they
would be free of Van Ryk's house and gardens--free, possibly, of the
city itself--instead of being confined in some room, or rooms, in the
citadel, all freedom was gone from them, and they knew and understood
that it was so.
But, still, in each of those women's hearts there had sprung up some
hope for the future, the reason whereof neither could have explained,
since whence hope was to come neither of them knew. From De Violaine
there was, of a certainty, nothing to be looked for. Though no
Camisard or Cévenole, as Francbois had stated, he was, nevertheless, a
Protestant serving a cruel King who oppressed those of his faith; yet,
being one, the Comtesse de Valorme knew well that nothing would turn
him from his loyalty. Neither his early love for her, nor any hope
that, now she was free, he might win her love, nor his belief--if such
were possible--that Bevill had done nothing to merit condemnation as a
spy, would weaken his fidelity so long as he bore the commission of
Louis. From him there was nothing to be looked for but a stern,
unflinching execution of his duty. And, if not from him, whence should
hope come? At present they could find no answer to this question that
they had each asked of their own hearts; they saw no glimmering ray to
give them confidence. And still--still each hoped already, and the
hope would never die within their hearts until the last chance was
gone.
"I love him I love him! I love him!" Sylvia was whispering to herself
now, even as preparations were being made to remove Bevill from this
old, dark, and weird hall that reeked of the memories of innumerable
cruelties; Francbois being already removed. "I love him. And--and he
thought to save me. He deemed I needed assistance, rescue. Now it is
he who needs earthly salvation, he whose impending lot cries for
prompt succour. Ah, well! help, succour, shall be forthcoming unless I
die in an attempt to obtain it. Oh!" she gasped, her hands to her
breast, "they are leading him away--from me!"
With one swift movement she was by Bevill's side; a moment later she
was clasped to his heart; another, and he was murmuring words of love
and farewell in her ears.
"Adieu! Adieu, Sylvia," he said. "Nay, my sweet!" he whispered, "let
fall no tears; weep not for me. I have won your love; the happiest
hours of my life have come. Since I may be no more by your side--as
yet--I have the thoughts of you to solace me; the thought, the pride
of knowing I have won your love, that I alone dwell in your heart."
While, seeing that De Violaine in his delicacy had turned his eyes
away, and was gazing into the great empty fireplace until this sad
parting should be made; seeing, too, that even the rough troopers had
turned their eyes from them, he embraced Sylvia for the first
time--the first time and, as he feared, the last.
"I love you," he whispered. "Whate'er betide, remember my last words
are these. Remember that, if the worst befalls, my last thought shall
be of you, my last prayer for you, your name the last word on my lips.
Farewell."