“But if I get in on the stairs I can go down to the window over the yard and jump down a dozen feet where the trellis will help me to get into her garden. But if that worm-eaten wood should break and tumble me on the ground that would not be poetic, but shameful to think of! The baron will say I came to steal the fruit and he will have his man Labrie lug me out by the ear.
“No, I will twist these clotheslines into a rope to let me down straight and I will make the attempt to-night.”
From his window, at dark, Gilbert was scanning the enemy’s grounds, as he qualified Taverney’s house-lot, when he spied a stone coming over the garden-wall and slapping up against the house-wall. But though he leaned far out he could not discry the flinger of the pebble.
What he did see was a blind on the ground floor open warily and the wide-awake head of the maid Nicole show itself. After having scrutinized all the windows round, Nicole came out of doors and ran to the espalier on which some pieces of lace were drying.
The stone had rolled on this place and Gilbert had not lost sight of it. Nicole kicked it when she came to it and kept on playing football with it till she drove it under the trellis where she picked it up under cover of taking off the lace. Gilbert noticed that she shucked the stone of a piece of paper, and he concluded that the message was of importance.
It was a letter, which the sly wench opened, eagerly perused and put in her pocket without paying any more heed to the lace.
Nicole went back into the house, with her hand in her pocket. She returned with a key which she slipped under the garden gate, which would be out in the street beside the carriage-doorway.
“Good, I understand,” thought the young man: “it is a love letter. Nicole is not losing her time in town – she has a lover.”
He frowned with the vexation of a man who supposed that his loss had left an irreparable void in the heart of the girl he jilted, and discovered that she had filled it up.
“This bids fair to run counter to my plans,” thought he, trying to give another turn to his ill-humor. “I shall not be sorry to learn what happy mortal has succeeded me in the good graces of Nicole Legay.”
But Gilbert had a level mind in some things; he saw that the knowledge of this secret gave him an advantage over the girl, as she could not deny it, while she scarcely suspected his passion for the baron’s daughter, and had no clew to give body to her doubts.
The night was dark and sultry, stifling with heat as often in early spring. From the clouds it was a black gulf before Gilbert, through which he descended by the rope. He had no fear from his strength of will. So he reached the ground without a flutter. He climbed the garden wall but as he was about to descend, heard a step beneath him.
He clung fast and glanced at the intruder.
It was a man in the uniform of a corporal of the French Guards.
Almost at the same time, he saw Nicole open the house backdoor, spring across the garden, leaving it open, and light and rapid as a shepherdess, dart to the greenhouse, which was also the soldier’s destination. As neither showed any hesitation about proceeding to this point, it was likely that this was not the first appointment the pair had kept there.
“No, I can continue my road,” reasoned Gilbert; “Nicole would not be receiving her sweetheart unless she were sure of some time before her, and I may rely on finding Mdlle. Andrea alone. Andrea alone!”
No sound in the house was audible and only a faint light was to be seen.
Gilbert skirted the wall and reached the door left open by the maid. Screened by an immense creeper festooning the doorway, he could peer into an anteroom, with two doors; the open one he believed to be Nicole’s. He groped his way into it, for it had no light.
At the end of a lobby, a glazed door, with muslin curtains on the other side, showed a glimmer. On going up this passage, he heard a feeble voice.
It was Andrea’s.
All Gilbert’s blood flowed back to the heart.
CHAPTER V
SUSPICIONS
THE voice which made answer to the girl’s was her brother Philip’s. He was anxiously asking after her health.
Gilbert took a few steps guardedly and stood behind one of those half-columns carrying a bust which were the ornaments in pairs to doorways of the period. Thus in security, he looked and listened, so happy that his heart melted with delight; yet so frightened that it seemed to shrink up to a pin’s head.
He saw Andrea lounging on an invalid-chair, with her face turned towards the glazed door, a little on the jar. A small lamp with a large reflecting shade placed on a table heaped with books, showed the only recreation allowed the fair patient, and illumined only the lower part of her countenance.
Seated on the foot of the chair, Philip’s back was turned to the watcher; his arm was still in a sling.
This was the first time the lady sat up and that her brother was allowed out. They had not seen each other since the dreadful night; but both had been informed of the respective convalescence. They were chatting freely as they believed themselves alone and that Nicole would warn them if any one came.
“Then you are breathing freely,” said Philip.
“Yes, but with some pain.”
“Strength come back, my poor sister?”
“Far from it, but I have been able to get to the window two or three times. How nice the open air is – how sweet the flowers – with them it seems that one cannot die. But I am so weak from the shock having been so horrid. I can only walk by hanging on to the furniture; I should fall without support.”
“Cheer up, dear; the air and flowers will restore you. In a week you will be able to pay a visit to the Dauphiness who has kindly asked after you, I hear.”
“I hope so, for her Highness has been good to me; to you in promoting you to be captain in her guards, and to father, who was induced by her benevolence to leave our miserable country house.
“Speaking of your miraculous escape,” said Philip, “I should like to know more about the rescue.”
Andrea blushed and seemed ill at ease. Either he did not remark it or would not do so.
“I thought you knew all about it,” said she; “father was perfectly satisfied.
“Of course, dear Andrea, and it seemed to me that the gentleman behaved most delicately in the matter. But some points in the account seemed obscure – I do not mean suspicious.”
“Pray explain,” said the girl with a virgin’s candor.
“One point is very out of the way – how you were saved. Kindly relate it.”
“Oh, Philip,” she said with an effort, “I have almost forgotten – I was so frightened.”
“Never mind – tell me what you do remember.”
“You know, brother, that we were separated within twenty paces of the Royal Wardrobe Storehouse? I saw you dragged away towards the Tuileries Gardens, while I was hurled into Royale Street. Only for an instant did I see you, making desperate efforts to return to me. I held out my arms to you and was screaming, ‘Philip!’ when I was suddenly wrapped in a whirlwind, and whisked up towards the railings. I feared that the current would dash me up against the wall and shatter me. I heard the yells of those crushed against the iron palings; I foresaw my turn coming to be ground to rags. I could reckon how few instants I had to live, when – half dead, half crazed, as I lifted eyes and arms in a last prayer to heaven, I saw the eyes sparkle of a man who towered over the multitude and it seemed to obey him.”
“You mean Baron Balsamo, I suppose?”
“Yes,