The Helmet of Navarre Part 62

Mademoiselle was the first to stir; she raised her head and strove to break away from his locked arms.

"Monsieur! monsieur! This is madness! You must go!"

"Are you sorry I came?" he demanded vibrantly. "Are you sorry, Lorance?"

His eyes held hers; she threw pretence to the winds.

"No, monsieur; I am glad. For if we never meet again, we have had this."

"Aye. If I die to-night, I have had to-day."

Their voices were like the rune of the heart of the forest, like the music of deep streams. I turned away my head ashamed, and strove to think of nothing but the waking of Mme. de Nemours.

"I thought you dead," she moaned, her voice m.u.f.fled against his cheek.

"No one would tell me what happened last night. I could not devise any way of escape for you--"

"There is a tunnel from Ferou's house to the Rue de la Soierie. His mother--merciful angel--let me through."

"And you were not hurt?"

"Not a scratch, ma mie."

"But the wound before? Felix said--"

"I was put out of combat the night I got it," he explained earnestly, troubled even now because he had not obeyed her summons. "I was dizzy; I could not walk."

"But now, monsieur? Does it heal?"

"It is well--almost. 'Twas but a slash on the arm."

"Oh, then have I no anxiety," she murmured, with a smile that twinkled across her lips and was gone. "I cannot perceive you to be disabled, monsieur."

"My sweeting!" he laughed out. "If I cannot hold a sword yet, I can hold my love."

"But you must not, monsieur," she cried, fear, that had slept a moment, springing on her again. "You must go, and this instant, while the others are yet away. I knew you, Blanche knew you; some other will. Oh, go, go, I implore you!"

"If you will come with me."

She made no answer, save to look at him as at a madman.

"Nay, I mean not now, past the sentry. I am not so crazy as that. But you will slip out, you will find a way, and come to me."

Silently, sadly, she shook her head. His arms loosened, and she freed herself from him. But instantly he was close on her again.

"But you must! you will, you must! Ah, Lorance, my father is won over.

He bids me win you. He has sworn to welcome you; when he sees you he will be your slave."

"But my cousin Mayenne is not won over."

"Devil fly away with your cousin Mayenne!" M. etienne retorted with a vehemence that made me shudder, lest the walls have ears.

"Ah, you are free to say that, monsieur, but I am not. I am of his blood, and dwell in his house, and eat at his board."

He was looking at her with a pa.s.sionate ardour, grasping her actual words less than their import of refusal.

"Are you afraid?" he cried. "Are you frightened, heart-root of mine? You need not be, mignonne. You can contrive to slip from the house--Mlle. de Tavanne will help you. Once in the street, I will meet you; I will carry you home to hold you against all the world."

"It is not that," she answered.

"Am I your fear?" he cried quickly. "Ah, Lorance, my Lorance, you need not. I love you as I love the Queen of Heaven."

"Ah, hus.h.!.+"

"As I love the Queen of Heaven. I will as soon do sacrilege toward her as ill to you."

He dropped on his knees before her, kissing the hem of her gown. She stood looking down on his bowed head with a tenderness that seemed to infold him as with a mantle.

He raised his eyes to hers, still kneeling at her feet.

"Lorance, will you come with me?"

She was silent a moment, with heaving breast and face a-quiver.

"Monsieur, I am sworn. That night when Felix came, when I was in deadly terror for him and for you, etienne, I promised my lord, an he would lift his hand from you, to obey him in all things. He bade me never again to hold intercourse with you--alack, I am already forsworn! But I cannot--"

He leaped to his feet, crying out:

"Lorance, he was the first forsworn! For he did move against me--"

"He told you--the warning went through Felix--that if you tried to reach me he would crush you as a buzzing fly. Oh, monsieur, I implored you to leave Paris! You are not kind to me, you are cruel, when you venture here."

"You are cruel to me, Lorance."

Sighing, she turned from him, hiding her face in her hands.

"Mayenne has not kept faith with you!" monsieur went on vehemently. "He has broken his oath. I mean not last night. I had my warning; the attack was provoked. But yesterday in the afternoon, before I made the attempt to see you, he sent to arrest me for the murder of the lackey Pontou."

"Paul's deed!" she cried in white surprise. "He spoke of it--we heard, Felix and I. What, monsieur! sent to arrest you? But you are here."

"They missed me. They took by mistake Paul de Lorraine."

"He was not here last night!" she cried. "Mayenne was demanding him of me."

"Then he slept pleasantly in the Bastille. May he never look on the outside of its walls again!"

"But he will, he does. He must be free by this time; they cannot keep Mayenne's nephew in the Bastille. And oh, if he hated you before, how he will hate you now! Oh, etienne, if you love me, go! Go to your own camp, your own side, at St. Denis. There are you safe. Here in Paris you may not draw a tranquil breath."

"And shall I flee my dangers? Shall I run, in the face of my peril?"