De Gonnor's white face rose up before me, and I felt my forehead burn. I could make no answer. Madame looked at me for a moment, and then dropped a stately little courtesy. 'Monsieur, you are very good to advise me, and I take your reproof. But surely what is sauce for the gander is sauce for the goose. Is not the Chevalier d'Auriac a little hasty? How is it that he is not at home at Auriac, instead of hastening to Paris as fast as he can – to the masques at the Louvre, and the salons of Zamet?'

'It is different,' I stammered.

'Ah, yes, it is different,' with a superb scorn; 'I saw you pull a half league of face as I talked at dinner. Monsieur can go here. Monsieur can go there. He may dance at a revel from curfew till cockcrow, he may stake his estates on a throw of the dice, he may run his friend through for a word spoken in jest – it is all comme il faut. But, Madame – she must sit at home with her distaff, her only relaxation a prêche, her amusement and joy to await Monsieur's return – is not that your idea, Chevalier?' She was laughing, but it was with a red spot on each cheek.

'Madame,' I replied, 'when I was but fifteen I joined the Cardinal de Joyeuse, and from that time to now my life has been passed in the field; I am therefore but a soldier, rough of speech, unused to argument, apt to say what is in my mind bluntly. I was wrong to make the remark I did, and ask your pardon; but, madame, brush away the idea that in this case the sauce for the gander is sauce for the goose – I use your own words – think what it would be if all womankind acted on what you have preached – think what would happen if the illusions that surround you, and which are now your strength, are dispelled. The worst of men have some memory of a home made happy by a woman, sister, mother, or wife, and the return to which was like a glimpse into heaven – the thought of which often made them better men – do not destroy this. And, madame, there is yet another thing – man is a fighting animal, and the final issues of an affair come to the sword – where would a struggle between this hand and mine end? – 'in my eagerness I took her small white fingers in mine as I spoke, and shut them within my palm – 'Madame,' I continued, 'rest assured that the glory and strength of a woman is in her weakness, and when she puts aside that armour she is lost. Think not that you have no mission – it is at a mother's knee that empires have been lost and won, that generations have, and will be, cursed or blessed.'

I stood over her as I spoke; I was a tall man then and strong, and whether it was my speech or what I know not, but I felt the hand I held tremble in mine, and her eyes were turned from me.

'Let me say good-bye now,' I continued, 'and thank you again for what you have done.'

She shook her head in deprecation.

'Very well, then, I will not recall it to you; but I can never forget – life is sweet of savour, and you gave it back to me. We will meet again in Paris – till then good-bye.'

'At the Louvre?' As she glanced up at me, trying to smile, I saw her eyes were moist with tears, and then – but the wide lands of Bidache were before me, and I held myself in somehow.

'Good-bye.'

I turned, and without another look passed out of the hall. As I went down the stairway I saw on the terrace to my right the figure of d'Ayen. He had changed his costume to the slashed and puffed dress which earned for the gay gentlemen of Henry's court the nickname of 'Bigarrets,' from M. de Savoye's caustic tongue, and his wizened face stood out of his snowy ruff in all the glow of its fresh paint. With one foot resting on the parapet, he was engaged in throwing crumbs to the peacocks that basked on the turf beneath him. I would have passed, but he called out.

'M. le Chevalier – a word.'

'A word then only, sir, I am in haste.'

'A bad thing, haste,' he said, staring at me from head to foot; 'these woods would fetch a good price, would they not?' and he waved his hand towards the wide-stretching forest.

'You mistake, M. d'Ayen, I am not a timber merchant.'

'Oh! a good price,' he went on, not heeding my reply. 'M. le Chevalier, I was going to say I will have them down when I am master here. They obstruct the view.'

I could have flung him from the terrace, but held myself in and turned on my heel.

'Adieu! Chevalier,' he called out after me, 'and remember what I have said.'

I took no notice. The man was old, and his gibing tongue his only weapon. I ran down the steps to where Jacques was, ready for me with the horses. Springing into the saddle, I put spurs to the beast, and we dashed down the avenue, but as I did so I yielded to an impulse, and glanced up to the window – it was empty.

CHAPTER V
A GOOD DEED COMES HOME TO ROOST

We dashed through the streets of Bidache, arousing the village dogs asleep in the yellow-sunlight to a chorus of disapprobation. About a dozen sought to revenge their disturbed slumbers, and, following the horses, snapped viciously at their heels; but we soon distanced them, and flinging a curse or so after us, in dog language, they gave up the pursuit, and returned to blink away the afternoon. It was my intention to keep to the right of Ivry, and after crossing the Eure, head straight for Paris, which I would enter either by way of Versailles or St. Germains; it mattered little what road, and there was plenty of time to decide.

I have, however, to confess here to a weakness, and that was my disappointment that Madame had not stayed to see the last of me. Looking back upon it, I am perfectly aware that I had no right to have any feeling in the matter whatsoever; but let any one who has been placed similarly to myself be asked to lay bare his heart – I would stake my peregrine, Etoile, to a hedge crow on the result.

Madame knew I loved her. She must have seen the hunger in my eyes, as I watched her come and go, in the days when I lay at Ste. Geneviève, wounded to death. She must have felt the words I crushed down, I know not how, when we parted. She knew it all. Every woman knows how a man stands towards her. I was going away. I might never see her again. It was little to have waved me Godspeed as I rode on my way, and yet that little was not given.

In this manner, like the fool I was, I rasped and fretted, easing my unhappy temper by letting the horse feel the rowels, and swearing at myself for a whining infant that wept for a slice of the moon.

For a league or so we galloped along the undulating ground which sloped towards the ford near Ezy; but as we began to approach the river, the country, studded with apple orchards, and trim with hedgerows of holly and hawthorn, broke into a wild and rugged moorland, intersected by ravines, whose depths were concealed by a tall undergrowth of Christ's Thorn and hornbeam, whilst beyond this, in russet, in sombre greens, and greys that faded into absolute blue, stretched the forests and woods of Anet and Croth-Sorel.

In the flood of the mellow sunlight the countless bells of heather enamelling the roadside were clothed in royal purple, and the brown tips of the bracken glistened like shafts of beaten gold. At times the track took its course over the edge of a steep bank, and here we slackened pace, picking our way over the crumbling earth, covered with grass, whose growth was choked by a network of twining cranesbill, gay with its crimson flowers, and listening to the dreamy humming of the restless bees, and the cheerful, if insistent, skirl of the grass crickets, from their snug retreats amidst the yarrow and sweet-scented thyme.

As we slid rather than rode down one of these banks, my horse cast a shoe, and this put a stop to any further hard riding until the mishap could be repaired.

'There is a smith at Ezy, monsieur,' said Jacques, 'where we can get what we want done, and then push on to Rouvres, where there is good accommodation at the Grand Cerf.'

'I suppose Ezy can give us nothing in that way?'

'I doubt much, monsieur, for the place sank to nothing when Monseigneur the Duc d'Aumale was exiled, and the King, as monsieur is aware, has given the castle to Madame Gabrielle, for her son, little César Monsieur– the Duc de Vendôme.'

'Morbleu! It is well that Madame de Beaufort has not set eyes on Auriac – eh, Jacques?' and I laughed as I saw the huge grey outlines of Anet rising in the foreground, and thought how secure my barren, stormbeaten rock was from the rapacity of the King's mistress.

Jacques came of a rugged race, and my words roused him.

'But M. le Chevalier would never let Auriac fall into the hands of the King or his Madame? We could man the tower with a hundred stout hearts and – '

'Swing on the gibbet at the castle gates in two weeks, Jacques. But remember, we are loyal subjects now, and are going to Paris to serve the King.'

'As for me,' answered Jacques, obstinately, 'I serve my master, the Chevalier de Breuil d'Auriac, and none besides.'

In this manner we jogged along, making but slow progress, and the sun was setting when we came in view of the willow-lined banks of the Eure, and entered the walnut groves of the outlying forest in which Ezy lay. As we approached we saw that the village was three parts deserted, and the ruined orchards and smokeless chimneys told their own tale. Turning a bend of the grass-grown road we came upon a few children shaking walnuts from a tree, about two hundred paces from us, whilst a man and a woman stood hard by observing them. At the sight of us the woman turned to the man with an alarmed gesture, and he half drew a sword – we saw the white flash, and then, changing his mind, ran off into the forest. The children followed suit, sliding down the trunk of the tree, and fleeing into the brushwood, looking for all the world like little brown rabbits as they dashed into the gaps in the thorn.

As for the woman, she turned slowly and began to walk towards the village.

'They are very bashful here, Jacques,' I said, quickening my pace.

'Except the lady, monsieur,' and then we trotted up alongside her.

Reining in, I asked if she could direct me to the blacksmith's, for there seemed no sign of a forge about. She made no answer but stopped and stared at us through her hair, which fell in thick masses over her forehead and neck. As she did this I saw that she appeared to be of the superior peasant class, but evidently sunk in poverty. She was young, and her features so correct that with circumstances a little altered she would have been more than ordinarily good-looking. At present, however, the face was wan with privation, and there was a frightened look in her eyes. I repeated my question in as gentle a tone as I could command, and she found tongue.

'There is none here, monsieur; but at Anet you will find everything. That is the way, see!' and she pointed down a winding glade, lit up here and there with bars of sunlight until it faded into a dark tunnel of over-arching trees. I felt convinced from her tone and manner that she was trying to put us off, and Jacques burst in.

'Nonsense, my girl, I know there is a smith at Ezy, for but two days back one of Madame of Bidache's horses was shod here. You don't know your own village – try and think.'

'There is none,' she said shortly.

'Very well,' said Jacques, 'we won't trouble you further, and we will find out for ourselves. It will not be difficult.'

We went on a pace or so, when she called out after us.

'Monsieur!'

'What is it?'

She stood twisting the ends of her apron between her fingers and then, suddenly,

'Monsieur, pardon, I will guide you.'

'Oh! that is all very well,' began Jacques; but I interrupted him, wondering a little to myself what this meant.

'Very well and thanks.'

She dropped a courtesy, and then asked with a timid eagerness,

'Monsieur does not come from the Blaisois?'

'Ma foi! No! This is hardly the way from the Orléannois; but lead on, please, it grows late.'

She glanced up again, a suspicion in her eyes, and then without another word went on before us. We followed her down the winding grass-grown lane, past a few straggling cottages where not a soul was visible, and up through the narrow street, where the sight of us drove the few wretched inhabitants into their tumble-down houses, as if we had the plague itself at our saddle bows. Finally we stopped before a cottage of some pretensions to size; but decayed and worn, as all else was in this village, which seemed but half alive. Over the entrance to the cottage hung a faded signboard, marking that it was the local hostelry, and to the right was a small shed, apparently used as a workshop; and here the smith was, seated on a rough bench, gazing into space.

He rose at our approach and made as if he would be off; but his daughter, as the young woman turned out to be, gave him a sign to stay, and he halted, muttering something I could not catch; and as I looked at the gloomy figure of the man, and the musty inn, I said out aloud, 'Morbleu! But it is well we have time to mend our trouble and make Rouvres; thanks, my girl, you might have told us at once instead of making all this fuss,' and bending from the saddle I offered our guide a coin. She fairly snatched at it, and then, colouring up, turned and ran into the inn. I threw another coin to the smith and bade him set about shoeing the horse.

He shuffled this way and that, and then answered dully that he would do the job willingly, but it would take time – two hours.

'But it will be night by then,' I expostulated, 'and I have to go on; I cannot stay here.'

'As monsieur chooses,' answered the clod; 'but, you see, I have nothing ready, and I am slow now; I cannot help it.'

'This is a devil of a place,' I exclaimed, resigning myself to circumstances, and, dismounting, handed the reins to Jacques. As I did so I heard voices from the inn, one apparently that of the girl, and the other that of a man, and it would seem that she was urging something; but what it was I could not catch, nor was I curious as to the point of discussion; but it struck me that as we had to wait here two hours it would be well to inquire if I could get some refreshment for ourselves and a feed for the beasts. For answer to my question I got a gruff 'Go and ask my daughter,' from the smith, who turned as he spoke and began to fumble with his tools. I felt my temper rising hotly, but stayed my arm, and bidding Jacques keep an eye on the horses, stepped towards the door of the inn. As I put my hand on it to press it open some one from within made an effort to keep it shut; but I was in no mood to be trifled with further, and, pushing back the door without further ceremony, stepped in. In doing so I thrust some one back a yard or so, and found that it was the girl who was trying to bar me out. Ashamed of the violence I had shown, I began to apologise, whilst she stood before me rubbing her elbow, and her face flushed and red. The room was bare and drear beyond description. There were a couple of rough tables, a chair or so, an iron pot simmering over a fire of green wood whose pungent odour filled the chamber. In a corner a man lay apparently asleep, a tattered cloak drawn over his features so as to entirely conceal them. I felt in a moment that this was the stranger who had fled on our approach, and that he was playing fox. Guessing there was more behind this than appeared, but not showing any suspicions in the least, I addressed the girl.

'I am truly sorry, and hope you are not hurt; had I known it was you I should have been gentler. I have but come to ask if I can get some wine for ourselves and food for the horses.'

'It is nothing,' she stammered, 'I am not hurt. There is but a little soup here, and for the horses – the grass that grows outside.'

'There is some wine there at any rate,' and I rested my eye on a horn cup, down whose side a red drop was trickling, and then let it fall on the still figure in the corner of the room. 'There is no fear,' I continued, 'you will be paid. I do not look like a gentleman of the road, I trust?'

She shrank back at my words, and it appeared as if a hand moved suddenly under the cloak of the man who lay feigning sleep in the room, and the quick movement was as if he had clutched the haft of a dagger. I was never a brawler or blusterer, and least of all did I wish to worry these poor people; but the times were such that a man's safety lay chiefly in himself, for the writ of the King ran weak in the outlying districts. The whole business, too, was so strange that I was determined to fathom it; and, unbuckling my sword, I placed it on a table so as to be ready on the instant, and then, seating myself on a stool beside it, said somewhat sharply,

'Enough, my girl; get me some wine and take out some to my servant. This will pay for it,' and I rang a fat crown piece on the table. 'Hurry your father if you can, and I will be gone the moment my horse is shod.'

My tone was one not to be denied, and taking up the money she turned to a cupboard and with shaking fingers drew a bottle therefrom and placed it before me. Filling a cup I asked her to bear it out to Jacques, and then leaning back against the wall took a pull at my own goblet, and judge of my surprise when I found I was tasting nothing short of d'Arbois of the '92 vintage!

As I sipped my wine, and speculated how it came there, the girl came back, and seeing that matters were as before began to attend to her cooking. Whatever she had said to the smith apparently had the effect of rousing him to greater activity, for through the open door I heard the puffing of his bellows, and very soon came the clang, clang of his hammer as he beat out a shoe.

It was getting dark now within the room, over which the flames of the fire occasionally blazed up and cast a fitful and uncertain light. Outside, however, there was a moon; and, in a few minutes at the most, my horse would be shod and I would have to continue my journey without having discovered what this little mystery meant. I could not help being a little amused at the manner in which my bashful friend, whose face was so well covered up, kept himself a prisoner in his corner. But at this moment the girl's cooking was finished, and the savoury odour of it was apparently more than he could endure, for he suddenly sprang to his feet exclaiming,

'Nom du diable! I am sick of this, and hungry as a wolf. Give me my supper, Marie, and if he wants to take me let him do so if he can; he will have to fight an old soldier first.'

As he spoke I distinctly saw his hand indicate me, and with an alarmed cry the girl sprang between us. It flashed upon me that my gentleman was, after all, only some one who was wanted, and that he regarded me with as much apprehension as I had regarded him with caution.

'Tush!' I said, 'you good people make a great fuss over nothing. I certainly do not want to take you, my man, and neither you nor your little sweetheart here need be in the least alarmed.'

I had hardly finished speaking when he rushed forward.

'It is the Chevalier! It is Monsieur d'Auriac! Idiot, turkey, pig that I am to have kept my eyes shut and not recognised you. Monsieur, do you not know me – Nicholas – your sergeant, whom you saved from the rope?'

'Where you appear likely to go again, Nicholas; but what are you skulking about here for?' The wood in the fireplace blazed up as I spoke, and I saw Nicholas shift uneasily and look at the girl, who had moved to his side, and stood with her hands holding on to his cloak.

'This place was my home once, monsieur,' he said bitterly, 'and I have come back to it.'

'I see you have, sergeant; but why in this way?'

'Monsieur, I was driven to straits and did a thing. Then they hunted me from Dreux to Rouvres, from Rouvres to Anet – '

'Where you appear to have made free with the duke's cellar, eh?'

'It is not so, monsieur,' burst in the girl; 'neither he nor we have done that. The wine you have drunk was a gift from madame the duchess.'

There was truth in every line of her features, in the fierce little gesture with which she turned upon me in defence of her lover. I was sorry to let my tongue bite so hard, and said so, and went on with my inquiries.

'And from Anet you came here?'

'It is but a stone-throw,' Nicholas answered, 'and I had a business in hand. After which we were going away.'

Whilst he was speaking Marie lit a lantern, and I saw that my ex-sergeant was evidently in the lowest water. He had been a smart soldier, but was now unkempt and dirty, and his eye had the shifty look of a hunted animal. He wore a rusty corselet and a rustier chain cap on his head, drawn over a bandage that covered his ears. As my eye fell on the bandage I called to mind the mutilation that had been inflicted on him, a brand that had cast him out of the pale of all honest men. Nicholas watched my glance, and ground his teeth with rage.

'I will kill him,' he hissed, 'kill him like the dog he is. Monsieur, that was my business!'

'Then de Gomeron – '

'Is but an hour's ride away, monsieur – at Anet.'

'At Anet! What does he do there?'

'Monsieur,' he answered hoarsely, taking me by the sleeve of my doublet, 'I know not; but a fortnight ago he came here with a score of lances at his back and the King's commission in his pocket, and he lords it as if he were the duke himself. Yesterday a great noble came up from the Blaisois, and another whose name I know not has come from Paris; and they hatch treason against the King. Monsieur, I can prove this. You saved my life once, and, beast as I am now, I am still grateful. Come with me. I will settle my score with him; and to-morrow you can bear news to the court that will make you a great man.'

It was one of those moments that require instant decision. I was certainly not going to assist Nicholas in committing a murder. Any such plan of his could be easily stopped, but if what the man said was true, then he had given me information that might be of the greatest value to me. If it was false – well then, I should have a fool's errand for my pains, but be otherwise none the worse off. There was no time to question him in detail; for a second I was silent, and Marie looked from one to another of us with wide-open eyes.

'You have a horse?' I asked.

'Yes, monsieur. It is hidden in the forest not three hundred toises from here.'

'We are ready. Monsieur le Chevalier,' and Jacques' voice broke in upon us, Jacques himself standing in the doorway. My mind was made up that instant, and I decided to take the chance.

'Jacques,' I said, 'I have business here to-night, which must be done alone. Ride on therefore yourself to Rouvres and await me at the Grand Cerf. If anyone tries to hinder you, say that you ride for your master in the King's name. If I am not at Rouvres by morning, make your way to Septeuil. If I do not arrive in two days, go home and do the best you can for yourself. You follow?

'Monsieur.'

'Adieu, then; and Marie, here is something as a wedding portion for you,' and I thrust a handful of gold pieces into her palm, and, being moved by many things, added: 'When this is over, you and Nicholas go to Auriac. I will arrange for you there.'

The girl stared blankly at me for a moment, then suddenly caught my hand and kissed it, and then with a rapid movement flung herself into her lover's arms.

'No,' she said, 'no; take back your gift, monsieur. He will not go.'

'Nonsense, Marie,' and Nicholas gently released her arms. 'I have come back to you to mend my ways, and must begin by paying my debts. Come, monsieur.'