"As before. There is no news, except that their trials are fixed. Yet all bear up well, the head of your house especially so. He jests ever-p'raps 'tis to cheer his wife more than for aught else. She is admitted to see him, and brings and takes our news, and he sends always, through her, his love to you. Also he bids you begone from out of England, you and Douglas both, since there can be no safety for you in it. The king is implacable, he will spare none."
"And the Prince, our Prince," asked Elphinston, "what of him; is he safe?"
"He is not taken," replied the other. "We know nought else. But in truth, it is partly to endorse Lord Balmerino's injunction that I am here to-night. Both of you must begone. London is no place for Jacobites of any degree; for those who have recently fought the peril is deadly. Already the whole town is searched from end to end. The Tower is full of prisoners. From noble lords down to the meanest, it is crammed with them. Gallows are already being put up on Kennington Common; soon the slaughter will begin. My boys, you must back to France."
"Douglas may go if he will," replied Elphinston, looking at his comrade. "I remain here. I have something to do." Then he said quietly, "Where is Lord Fordingbridge?"
"At present in London, but he leaves for his seat in Cheshire to-morrow. Bertie," the Jesuit exclaimed, "if what you have to do is with him it must be postponed. To seek out Fordingbridge now would be your undoing."
"And his wife-does-does she go too?"
"No," the other replied, "she stays in London. Bertie, I have brought you a letter from her."
"A letter from Kate-Lady Fordingbridge-to me! To me! What does it mean? What can have caused her to write to me?"
"Best read the letter," replied the other. "And as you read it think-try to think-kindly of her. Remember, too, that whatever she was to you once, she is now another man's wife. However great a villain he may be, remember that."
"Give me the letter," Elphinston said briefly.
Sholto took from his pocket the little packet; then, as he gave it to the other, he said, "Douglas and I will leave you to its perusal. The night is fine, he can walk with me to Battersea. Farewell."
"Farewell," returned Elphinston. "And-and-tell her ladyship if there is aught to answer such answer will be sent."
"Be careful of your messengers. Remember. Danger surrounds you."
"I shall remember."
When they were gone, his friend saying he would be back in an hour's time, the young man turned the letter over more than once ere he broke the seal-it bore no address upon it, perhaps for safety's sake-and then, at last, he opened it and commenced its perusal. And as he did so and saw the once familiar handwriting, he sighed profoundly more than once. Yet soon he was engrossed in the contents. They ran as follows:
"I hear you are in London and that at last is it possible for me to do what I have long desired-though hitherto no opportunity has arisen-namely, to explain that which in your eyes may seem to be my treachery to you.
"Mr. Elphinston, when you and I last parted, I was your affianced wife; I write to you now as the wife of another man to ask you for your pardon. If I set down all as it came to pass it may be that, at least, you will cease to hate my memory-the memory of my name. Nightly I pray that such may some day be the case. Thereby at last I may know ease, though never again happiness in this world.
"When you quitted Paris a year ago you went, as you said you were going, to Rome on a message to the Pope connected with the Cause. Alas! you and Father Sholto had not been sped a week ere very different tidings reached me. My father-God forgive him! – first poisoned my ears with rumours-which he said were spread not only over all Paris but also at St. Germains, Vincennes, and Marly-that it was on no political matter that you had departed. It was known-even I knew so much, I had jested with you about it, had even been sore on the subject-that Madeleine Baufremont, of the Queen's Chamber, admired you. Now, so said my unhappy father, with well-acted misery, it was whispered that she and you had gone away together. Moreover, he said there was no doubt that you and she were married. He even named the church at which the marriage had taken place at Moret, beyond Fontainebleau."
"So, so," muttered Bertie Elphinston, as he read. "I see. I begin to see. 'Tis as I thought, though I did not know this. Well, a better lie than one might have hoped."
"Next," the letter continued, "there came to me the man who is now my husband-then, as you know, the Honourable Simeon Larpent, his father being still alive. Needless to tell you, Mr. Elphinston, of how this man had ever sought my love; first, because of our poverty, in a manner alike disgraceful to both, and next, when that design failed, in a more honourable fashion. Yet, of no avail when you- But enough. You also know well how every plea of his was rejected by me.
"He, too, told the same tale. He protested to me that on the morning you left St. Germains Madeleine Baufremont set out on the same southern road, that your carriages met and joined at Étampes, and that thence you travelled together to Moret."
"The devil can indeed speak the truth," muttered Bertie, as he read thus far.
"Still, I would not-I could not-believe. Our last parting was fresh in my mind, ay! in my heart; our last vows and last farewells, our projects for the future, our hopes of days of happiness to come-forgive me if I remind you of them-they are wrecked now! I say I could not believe. Yet, wherever I looked, wherever I made inquiries, there was but one answer. The English, Scotch, and Irish gentlemen who frequented my father's house all gave the same answer, though none spake the words I feared. Some, I observed, regarded me with glances that were full of pity-for which I hated them-others preserved a silence that was worse tenfold than speech, some smiled in their sleeves. And Larpent was ever there-always, always, always. And one day he came to where I was sitting and said to me, 'Kitty, if you will indeed know the truth, there is a witness below who can give it to you. The curé of Moret has come to Paris with a petition to the king against the exactions of the Seigneur. Kitty, he it was who made Bertie Elphinston and Madeleine Baufremont man and wife."
"'So be it,' I replied. 'Yet, remember their marriage makes ours no nearer.' 'It will come,' he replied. 'I can not believe that my reward will never come.' Whereon he left the room and came back with the curé. Alas! he told so plain a tale, describing you with such precision and Madeleine Baufremont also, that there was, indeed, no room left for doubt. Yet still I could scarce believe; for even though you had not loved me, even though your burning words, your whispers of love had all been false, why, why, I asked again and again, should you have stooped to such duplicity? If you had tired of me, if that other had turned your heart from me to her, one word would have been enough; I must have let you go when you no longer desired to stay by my side. Mr. Elphinston, I wrote to you at Rome, to the address you had given me and to the English College there; I wrote to Father Sholto-alas! I so much forgot my pride, that I wrote to Douglas, who had then joined the squadron commanded by Monsieur de Roquefeuille for the invasion of England. I could not part from you yet" – these words were scored out by the writer, and, in their place, the sentence began-"I could not yet believe in your deceit, in your cold, cruel betrayal of a woman who had trusted in you as in a god; it seemed all too base and heartless. Yet neither from you nor the Sholtos came one line in answer to my prayer."
Elphinston groaned bitterly as he read the words. He knew now how easily the trap had been laid.
"Then, at last, I did believe. Then, at last, I renounced you and your love. I denied to my own heart that I had ever known a man named Bertie Elphinston, that I had ever been that man's promised wife. I tore you from my heart for ever. It was hard, yet I did it. Time passed, no intelligence came of you or Madeleine Baufremont. I even heard that the Duc de Baufremont had petitioned the king that, if you again entered French territory, you should be punished for abducting his daughter. Yet, as the days went on, I allowed Simeon Larpent to approach me no nearer on the subject. So he and my father concocted a fresh scheme by which I was at last led to consent to become his wife. We were, as you know, poor, horribly poor; the Cours d'Escrime hardly provided for our needs. Often, indeed,