Marguerite De Roberval Part 21

"They are dead then?" said De Roberval, still striving to speak calmly.

"Dead!"

De Roberval had taken a quick resolve. Mastering himself with a great effort, he said hurriedly: "We cannot speak of it now. Meet me to-night at this spot, and the darkest tale you have to tell I will listen to. If you desire my life, I am weary of it, and would gladly lay it down."

The man had aged greatly since Charles last saw him. His shoulders were bent; his hair was almost white; and his face was thin and worn.

Something in his voice made Charles believe that he was sincere, and for a moment a feeling almost akin to pity stirred in his heart.

"It is well," said he. "To-night, at eight o'clock, I will be here," and without so much as a word to the n.o.bleman's companions, he strode away.

He returned to Marguerite, and told her of the encounter with her uncle, and the meeting which had been arranged for the evening. The news evidently agitated her greatly.

"Have you told him of my presence here?" she asked. "Does he expect me to meet him?"

"He knows naught of your return," answered La Pommeraye. "I had no opportunity to tell him. He thinks you perished on the island."

"But you will tell him to-night?"

"I have been thinking of a plan," said Charles. "Would it not be well for you to wait within the Church of the Innocents, where I am to meet him, while I warn him of your return, and prepare him to meet you?"

Marguerite grasped at the idea. She dreaded, above all things, another quarrel between La Pommeraye and her uncle; and her presence would be a safeguard against bloodshed. As she prepared to accompany Charles, her thoughts went back to that other evening--nearly five years before--when she had been present at an encounter between these same two men. The object she now had in view was the same--to save her uncle's life; but the circ.u.mstances--how different! Could the veil have been lifted from the future on that first meeting, would she not have been tempted to leave him to the mercy of his enemy's sword? And now she was accompanying that enemy--who had proved himself her friend when she had no other in all the world--to keep him from avenging her wrongs upon the man who should have been her natural protector. Her brain swam as these thoughts crowded upon her; and she was glad to take refuge in the dimly-lighted church, and to quiet her distracted spirit in silent prayer before the altar.

La Pommeraye, outside, paced up and down, awaiting De Roberval's arrival. His hand was on his sword-hilt, and his watchful eye kept a sharp look-out on all sides; for in spite of the n.o.bleman's parting words to him in the afternoon, he had already had but too good reason to suspect him of treachery.

And in fact, De Roberval had resolved within himself to add yet one more brutal deed to the long list which had ruined his life, and changed him from a gentleman and a man of honour to a bully, a coward, and an a.s.sa.s.sin. La Pommeraye had returned to France. He had but to open his lips, and De Roberval's life was at his mercy. Nor could the n.o.bleman recover from the stinging indignity and humiliation which Charles had put upon him at their last meeting. From first to last, he had owed him a bitter grudge--all the more bitter, because, in a moment of cowardice, he had taken advantage of the n.o.ble fellow's generosity to s.h.i.+eld himself from defeat and dishonour. No, there was no alternative; La Pommeraye must die; and with that death all evidence of his crimes would be removed. He had no fear from the men who had accompanied Charles to America; he had made inquiries, and learned that they were none but fishermen and sailors; and any version of the story they might have brought back would be too garbled and exaggerated to be believed.

But he feared La Pommeraye's sword, and under his doublet he put on a s.h.i.+rt of mail. Seeking the quarters of a reckless cut-throat, who would have a.s.sa.s.sinated his own father for a few sous, he gave him a purse of gold, and letting him know the nature of the work before him, bade him strike sure and sharp, as soon as La Pommeraye was engaged in conversation; and instead of a purse, he would fill his cap with gold.

At the appointed hour he went to the rendezvous, where La Pommeraye was impatiently awaiting him.

The n.o.bleman's demeanour had entirely changed since he left Charles in the afternoon. He now a.s.sumed the dignity of a man who has been unjustly suspected, and is prepared to avenge an insult.

"So, Monsieur," he said, as Charles approached him, "you are still determined to harrow up the past, and to compel me to acknowledge once more the dishonour which has befallen my name."

"I am here," said Charles, his hot blood all aflame in an instant at the implied slur on Marguerite, "to call you to account for the death of Claude de Pontbriand, and for the foul wrong you did your innocent niece."

As he spoke he rested his hand on his sword. De Roberval saw the action, thought he meant to draw it, and his own weapon flashed from its sheath.

At this moment Marguerite appeared at the door of the church. She saw her uncle draw his sword, and thinking they were about to fight, rushed down the steps just as De Roberval made a pa.s.s at La Pommeraye, who, adroitly stepping aside, escaped being wounded, and drawing his own sword, stood on the defensive. As he did so, he heard a step behind him.

A sudden instinct warned him; leaping back, he barely escaped a treacherous thrust from behind. At the same instant, De Roberval caught sight of his niece's pale face in the uncertain light; and, striking wildly at La Pommeraye, fell forward at the latter's feet.

Charles heeded him not. His blood was roused, and turning on the would-be a.s.sa.s.sin, who was about to flee in terror, he ran him through the heart.

Then seeing that De Roberval made no attempt to rise, he stooped and turned him on his side, and saw that his hand clung in a death-grip to his sword-hilt, while the point of the weapon had pierced his brain. It was Bayard's sword; the sword the king had given him in the hour of his ambition. In his terror at the sudden apparition of what he believed to be his niece's spirit, his foot had slipped, and the stroke he had intended for La Pommeraye had ended his own life.

CHAPTER XIX

Next day all Paris knew the details of De Roberval's death. He had been set upon by an a.s.sa.s.sin, had struck his would-be murderer down, and slipping in the blood of his victim, had fallen on his own sword, thus ending the brightest career in France. So ran the report; and there was no one to contradict it.

La Pommeraye, when he had ascertained that Roberval was indeed dead, had had but one thought--to get Marguerite away from the spot before the crowd which, attracted by the scuffle, had already begun to gather, should become aware of her presence. He hastily drew her back into the church; hurried her by a side exit into another street; and so conveyed her, half-fainting, to her home. When she was able to listen she learned the truth from his own lips. Her mind went back over the terrible scene through which she had pa.s.sed; she saw her uncle lying side by side in death with a paid cut-throat; and suddenly there flashed across her brain the words which Claude had uttered as he stood on the deck of _L'Heureux_, the noose about his neck: "May you perish miserably by your own murderous hand."

Paris went into mourning. The court, the Church, the city, all laid aside their usual occupations to do honour to the remains of him who had upheld in two worlds the glory of France, who had been a devout son of the Church, and who had ever kept the name of his monarch as a talisman against his foes. His body, after lying in state for three days, was buried with all the pomp and ceremonial due to his rank and fame; and the real truth concerning his death remained a secret in the hearts of the two he had so cruelly wronged.

Marguerite's return to France could not be for ever kept unknown; and, indeed, since her uncle's death, there was no further need for concealment. Her story--or as much of it as she chose to make public--soon began to spread abroad. Many and garbled were the versions of it which were circulated at the court and in the city. But to most of those who looked upon that n.o.ble and beautiful face, with its traces of bitter suffering, suspicion of evil was impossible. The friends who had known and loved her before her departure would gladly have welcomed her back; but she shunned all society. Never again could she mingle in the world of Paris. She accepted the invitation of an old and dearly-loved companion, and went to stay at a villa on the banks of the Seine.

Here, after a time, La Pommeraye ventured to visit her. As the weeks went by, the beautiful air of her native land, the constant companions.h.i.+p of friends, the return of health and strength, had begun to restore to her something of her lost youth; though the old vivacity was for ever gone. She welcomed La Pommeraye with more cheerfulness and freedom than he had dared to expect; and gradually he began to think that distance from the scene of her sorrows, and the removal of her uncle--the cause of all her suffering--were making her feel the past less keenly. In spite of his conviction that she would never love him, he almost began to hope. The old yearning pain which had never died stirred at his heart more uncontrollably than ever. He struggled manfully to show no signs of it, fearing lest he should lose even the joy of seeing her, but daily he threw himself in Marguerite's way, and daily he could not but feel that he was growing more necessary to her.

And, indeed, to the lonely and saddened woman, his companions.h.i.+p was an unspeakable comfort. The steadfast, broad-shouldered, handsome giant had saved her from untold horrors, he had proved his devotion to her at a cost which might well have appalled the bravest. She knew that whatever might happen to her, his strong arm was ready to s.h.i.+eld her from evil for the rest of her life. Alone in the world as she was, she clung to him as her best and truest friend; she loved him indeed, with all the strength that was left her, though not in the way for which he longed.

Her woman's eye saw through the restraint he put upon himself; she knew that his heart was unalterably hers, and that, sooner or later, some day he would speak. She dreaded the inevitable parting, and sought to defer it by every means in her power.

It came sooner than she expected. A period of comparative peace had given La Pommeraye's sword an unwonted rest, but hostilities were once more commenced, and he could not remain idle. His post was on the field, but he was unable to go till he had learned from Marguerite's own lips whether life still held a chance of happiness for him.

He was in Paris when the news came. After a few hurried preparations he left the city and hastened to her side. His heart beat wildly as he paced with her in the moonlight up and down the terrace overlooking the river. It was early spring--just a year since her rescue from the island. Thronging memories surged in her heart, and kept her from noticing the silence of her companion, till at last he spoke.

"Marguerite," he said, for he now called her by her name, at her own request, "I have to leave Paris to-morrow. There is hot work awaiting my sword in the south, and I must delay no longer."

She turned to him in sudden alarm; the news was quite unexpected.

"My friend--my brother," she said impulsively, "do not leave me! Not yet, not yet!"

The moment had come. The love pent up in La Pommeraye's heart would be restrained no longer, and burst from him in a torrent of pa.s.sionate words. She could not stop him now; it was too late. She stood pale and silent as he poured forth all the love and longing of those weary years.

Her heart was moved with a great compa.s.sion for him; but when, encouraged by her silence, he touched her hand, she drew it suddenly from him. Before her rose the dead face of him who had been as truly her husband as if a priest had blessed their marriage; she felt once more the touch of her child's lips at her breast; she saw again that double grave on the lonely hillside so many thousand miles away. She had loved once, and her heart was dead and buried in that far-off grave. Life held no second love for her, henceforth there was nothing left her but the memory of that which once had been. But her friend, her only support and comfort, must she lose him too? Heaven was cruel indeed to her. She covered her face with her hands.

"G.o.d help me!" she said shudderingly. "It cannot be."

He thought she was relenting. In an instant he had taken her hands in his, while he pleaded pa.s.sionately for time, for hope; no promise, only permission to spend his life in her service, only a word to carry with him on his journey. But she had regained her self-control, and spoke now with a quiet, sad decision that was as a death-knell to his heart.

"My friend," she said, "I would have saved you this if I could. I have tried to spare you, and"--her voice trembled--"to spare myself. Hush,"

as he was about to interrupt, "it is because I do love you--though not in the way you wish--that I would have spared us both this parting. You are all I have left in the world--if I lose you, I am indeed alone."

She stopped a moment. There were no tears in the wide, dark eyes as she looked straight before her, over the gleaming river, but her face was white as death in the moonlight, and the lines about her mouth told of the hidden depths of feeling beneath that quiet exterior. Charles had sprung to his feet, an impetuous outburst on his lips, but she silenced him with uplifted hand.

"Come," she said, "let us continue our walk, and I will tell you what I have thought I should tell to no living being on earth."

And there, with tearless eyes and in a voice that never faltered, she told him the whole story of those three years on the island, omitting nothing, giving the outlines clearly and briefly, but with a vividness which burned the details on Charles' throbbing brain as if they had been branded with a hot iron.

"And now," she said, as she finished and turned to him, lifting her calm eyes to his pale and hopeless face, "now you will see why it is impossible that I should give you what you ask. My life was Claude's; I gave myself utterly to him. He suffered with me, he died for me; I have nothing left but his memory, but to that I shall be true till I die. My friend, do you understand _now_?"

He was on his knees before her. She gave him her hands unresistingly, and he laid his hot forehead against them for an instant. Then he looked up at her, and she saw that indeed he understood.

Her face, as she met his look, was full of an infinite tenderness and pity. Laying her hand gently on his head, she stooped and kissed him once upon the brow. The whole manner of the action was so austere, so full of the sadness and remoteness of one whom a vast, impa.s.sable gulf separates for ever from all human and familiar intercourse, that it told Charles more plainly than any words could have done, the hopelessness of his love. He bowed his head in silence a moment, then pressing his lips pa.s.sionately to her hand, he rose and left her.

She never saw him again. When she realised that he was indeed gone, that the last link which bound her to her past was broken, she began to feel bitterly the utter loneliness of her lot. Alone in the world, without kith or kin; alone, without the possibility of ever unburdening her heart to any human being, the old madness which had stared her in the face on the Isle of Demons seemed about to return.

But she was to have a n.o.ble salvation. Her uncle's estates were now hers. The wars had left them poor, untilled, in a wretched condition.

The peasants were starving, the ramparts of the castle were tumbling down, and robber bands were plundering what remained to her. A life of action was what she needed: her resolve was soon taken, and in less than a month she was on her way northward, taking with her a companion of her own rank who had consented to share her solitude.