To our surprise and joy we found St. Auban's coach where we had left it, with two saddled horses tethered close by. The others had doubtless been taken by the coachman and the bravo who had escaped Michelot, both of whom had fled. These animals we looked upon as the spoils of war, and accordingly when we set out in the coach—Mademoiselle having desired me to ride beside her therein—Michelot wielding the reins, it was with those two horses tethered behind.
“Monsieur de Luynes,” said my companion softly, “I fear that I have done you a great injustice. Indeed, I know not how to crave your forgiveness, how to thank you, or how to hide my shame at those words I spoke to you this afternoon at Canaples.”
“Not another word on that score, Mademoiselle!”
And to myself I thought of what recompense already had been mine. To me it had been given to have her lean trustingly upon me, my arm about her waist, whilst, sword in hand, I had fought for her. Dieu! Was that not something to have lived for?—aye, and to have died for, methought.
“I deserved, Monsieur,” she continued presently, “that you should have left me to my fate for all the odious things I uttered when you warned me of my peril—for the manner in which I have treated you since your coming to Blois.”
“You have but treated me, Mademoiselle, in the only manner in which you could treat one so far beneath you, one who is utterly unworthy that you should bestow a single regret upon him.”
“You are strangely humble to-night, Monsieur. It is unwonted in you, and for once you wrong yourself. You have not said that I am forgiven.”
“I have naught to forgive.”
“Hélas! you have—indeed you have!”
“Eh, bien!” quoth I, with a return of my old tone of banter, “I forgive then.”
Thereafter we travelled on in silence for some little while, my heart full of joy at being so near to her, and the friendliness which she evinced for me, and my mind casting o'er my joyous heart a cloud of some indefinable evil presage.
“You are a brave man, M. de Luynes,” she murmured presently, “and I have been taught that brave men are ever honourable and true.”
“Had they who taught you that known Gaston de Luynes, they would have told you instead that it is possible for a vile man to have the one redeeming virtue of courage, even as it is possible for a liar to have a countenance that is sweet and innocent.”
“There speaks that humble mood you are affecting, and which sits upon you as my father's clothes might do. Nay, Monsieur, I shall believe in my first teaching, and be deaf to yours.”
Again there was a spell of silence. At last—“I have been thinking, Monsieur,” she said, “of that other occasion on which you rode with me. I remember that you said you had killed a man, and when I asked you why, you said that you had done it because he sought to kill you. Was that the truth?”
“Assuredly, Mademoiselle. We fought a duel, and it is customary in a duel for each to seek to kill the other.”
“But why was this duel fought?” she cried, with some petulance.
“I fear me, Mademoiselle, that I may not answer you,” I said, recalling the exact motives, and thinking how futile appeared the quarrel which Eugène de Canaples had sought with Andrea when viewed in the light of what had since befallen.
“Was the quarrel of your seeking?”
“In a measure it was, Mademoiselle.”
“In a measure!” she echoed. Then persisting, as women will—“Will you not tell me what this measure was?”
“Tenez, Mademoiselle,” I answered in despair; “I will tell you just so much as I may. Your brother had occasion to be opposed to certain projects that were being formed in Paris by persons high in power around a beardless boy. Himself of too small importance to dare wage war against those powerful ones who would have crushed him, your brother sought to gain his ends by sending a challenge to this boy. The lad was high-spirited and consented to meet M. de Canaples, by whom he would assuredly have been murdered—'t is the only word, Mademoiselle—had I not intervened as I did.”
She was silent for a moment. Then—“I believe you, Monsieur,” she said simply. “You fought, then, to shield another—but why?”
“For three reasons, Mademoiselle. Firstly, those persons high in power chose to think it my fault that the quarrel had arisen, and threatened to hang me if the duel took place and the boy were harmed. Secondly, I myself felt a kindness for the boy. Thirdly, because, whatever sins Heaven may record against me, it has at least ever been my way to side against men who, confident of their superiority, seek, with the cowardly courage of the strong, to harm the weak. It is, Mademoiselle, the courage of the man who knows no fear when he strikes a woman, yet who will shake with a palsy when another man but threatens him.”
“Why did you not tell me all this before?” she whispered, after a pause. And methought I caught a quaver in her voice.
I laughed for answer, and she read my laugh aright; presently she pursued her questions and asked me the name of the boy I had defended. But I evaded her, telling her that she must need no further details to believe me.
“It is not that, Monsieur! I do believe you; I do indeed, but—”
“Hark, Mademoiselle!” I cried suddenly, as the clatter of many hoofs sounded near at hand. “What is that?”
A shout rang out at that moment. “Halt! Who goes there?”
“Mon Dieu!” exclaimed Mademoiselle, drawing close up to me, and again the voice sounded, this time more sinister.
“Halt, I say—in the King's name!”
The coach came to a standstill, and through the window I beheld the shadowy forms of several mounted men, and the feeble glare of a lantern.
“Who travels in the carriage, knave?” came the voice again.
“Mademoiselle de Canaples,” answered Michelot; then, like a fool, he must needs add: “Have a care whom you knave, my master, if you would grow old.”
“Pardieu! let us behold this Mademoiselle de Canaples who owns so fearful a warrior for a coachman.”
The door was flung rudely open, and the man bearing the lantern—whose rays shone upon a uniform of the Cardinal's guards—confronted us.
With a chuckle he flashed the light in my face, then suddenly grew serious.
“Peste! Is it indeed you, M. de Luynes?” quoth he; adding, with stern politeness, “It grieves me to disturb you, but I have a warrant for your arrest.”
He was fumbling in his doublet as he spoke, and during the time I had leisure to scan his countenance, recognising, to my surprise, a young lieutenant of the guards who had but recently served with me, and with whom I had been on terms almost of friendship. His words, “I have a warrant for your arrest,” came like a bolt from the blue to enlighten me, and to remind me of what St. Auban had that morning told me, and which for the nonce I had all but forgotten.
Upon hearing those same words, Yvonne, methought, grew pale, and her eyes were bent upon me with a look of surprise and pity.
“Upon what charge am I arrested?” I enquired, with forced composure.
“My warrant mentions none, M. de Luynes. It is here.” And he thrust before me a paper, whose purport I could have read in its shape and seals. Idly my eye ran along the words:
“By these presents I charge and empower my lieutenant, Jean de Montrésor, to seize where'er he may be found, hold, and conduct to Paris the Sieur Gaston de Luynes—”
And