it was after midnight, and the young moon had set when they came, a long procession of riders, to the ford in which des ageaux had laved his horse's legs on the evening of his arrival. but the night was starlight, and behind them the bonfire, which the men had rekindled that its blaze might aid their preparations, was reflected in a faint glow above the trees. as they splashed through the shallows the frogs fell silent, scared by the invasion, but an owl that was mousing on the slope of the downs between them and the dim lifted horizon continued its melancholy hooting. the women shivered as the cool air embraced them, and one here and there, as her horse, deceived by the waving weeds, set a foot wrong, shrieked low.
but no one hesitated, for the bat had put fear into them.
he had told them in the fewest possible words that in ninety minutes m. de vlaye would be knocking at the gate they left! and how long the pursuit would tarry after that he left to their imaginations. the result justified his course; the ford, that in daylight was a terror to the timid, was passed without demur. one by one their horses stepped from its dark smooth-sliding water, turned right-handed, and falling into line set their heads up-stream towards the broken hills and obscure winding valleys whence the river flowed.
hampered by the wounded man's litter and the night, they could not hope to make more than a league in the hour, and with the first morning light might expect to be overtaken. but des ageaux considered that the captain of vlaye, ignorant of his force, would not dare to follow at speed. and in the beginning all went well.
over smooth turf, they made for half a league good progress, the long bulk of the chalk hill accompanying them on the left, while on the right the vague gloom of the wooded valley, teeming with mysterious rustlings and shrill night cries, drew many a woman's eyes over her shoulder. but, as the bearers of the litter could only proceed at a walking pace, the long line of shadowy riders had not progressed far before a gap appeared in its ranks and insensibly grew wider. presently the two bodies were moving a hundred yards apart, and henceforward the rugged surface of the road, which was such as to hamper the litter without delaying the riders, quickly augmented the interval.
the vicomte was mounted on his own grizzled pony, and with his two daughters and roger rode at the head of the first party. they had not proceeded far before bonne remarked that her sister was missing. she was sure that the abbess had been at her side when she crossed the ford, and for a short time afterwards. why had she left them? and where was she?
not in front, for only the bat and charles, who had attached himself to the veteran, and was drinking in gruff tales of leaguer at his lips, were in front. behind, then?
bonne turned her head and strove to learn. but the light of the stars and the night--june nights are at no hour quite dark--allowed her to see only the persons who rode immediately behind her. they were roger and the countess. on their heels came two more--men for certain. the rest were shadows, bobbing vaguely along, dim one moment, lost the next.
presently charles, also, missed the abbess, and asked where she was.
roger could only answer: "to the rear somewhere."
"learn where she is," charles returned. "pass the word back, lad. ask who is with her."
presently, "she is not with us," roger passed back word. "she is with the litter, they say. and it has fallen behind. but the lieutenant is with it, so that she is safe there."
"she were better here," charles answered shortly. "she is not wanted there, i'll be sworn!"
wanted or not, the abbess had not put herself where she was without design. her passage of arms with des ageaux had not tended to soften her feelings. she was now bent on his punishment. the end she knew; the means were to seek. but with the confidence of a woman who knew herself beautiful, she doubted not that she would find or create them. bitterly, bitterly should he rue the day when he had forced her to take part against the man she loved. and if she could involve in his fall this child, this puling girl on whom the captain of vlaye had stooped an eye, not in love or adoration, but solely to escape the toils in which they were seeking to destroy him--so much the better! the two were linked inseparably in her mind. the guilt was theirs, the cunning was theirs, the bait was theirs; and m. de vlaye's the misfortune only. so women reason when they love.
if she could effect the ruin of these two, and at the same time save the man she adored, her triumph would be complete. if--but, alas, in that word lay the difficulty; nor as she rode with a dark face of offence had she a notion how to set about her task. but women's wits are better than their logic. men spoke in her hearing of the litter and of the delay it caused, and in a flash the abbess saw the means she lacked, and the man she must win. in the litter lay the one and the other.
for the motives that led des ageaux to bear it with him at the cost of trouble, of delay, of danger, were no secret to a quick mind. the man who lay in it was the key to the situation. she came near to divining the very phrase--a master-card--which des ageaux had used to the bat in the security of the locked room. a master-card he was; a card that at all costs must be kept in the lieutenant's hands, and out of vlaye's power.
therefore, even in this midnight flight they must burden themselves with his litter. a duke, a marshal of france, in favour at court, and lord of a fourth of languedoc, he had but to say the word, and vlaye was saved--for this time at any rate. the duke need but give some orders, speak to some in power, call on some of those to whom his will was law, and his protégé would not fall for lack of means. up to this point indeed, after a fashion which the abbess did not understand--for the man had fallen from the clouds--he was ranged against her friend. but if he could be put into vlaye's hands, or fairly or foully led to take vlaye's side, then the captain of vlaye would be saved. and if she could effect this, would be saved by her. by her!
the sweetness of such a revenge only a woman can understand. her lover had fancied the rochechouart's influence necessary to his safety, and to gain that influence he had been ready to repudiate his love. what a sweet savour of triumph if she--she whom he was ready to abandon--could save him by this greater influence, and in the act show him that a mightier than he was at her feet!
she had heard stories of the duke's character, which promised well for her schemes. at the time of her short sojourn at court, he had but lately left his cloister, drawn forth by the tragical death of his brother. he was then entering upon that career of extravagance, eccentricity, and vice which, along with his reputation for eloquence and for strange fits of repentance, astonished even the dissolute circles of the court. his name and his fame were in all mouths; a man quick to love, quick to hate, report had it; a man in whom remorse followed sharp on sin, and sin on remorse. a man easy to win, she supposed, if a woman were beautiful and knew how to go about it.
ay, if she knew; but there was the difficulty. for he was no common man, no man of narrow experience, and the ordinary bait of beauty might not by itself avail. the abbess, high as her opinion of her charm stood, perceived this. she recognised that in the circle; in which he had moved of late beauty was plentiful, and she bent her wits to the point. after that she might have been riding in daylight, for all she saw of her surroundings. she passed through the ford and in her deep thinking saw it not. the long, dark hill on her left, and the low woods on her right with their strange night noises, and their teeming evidences of that tragedy of death which fills the world, did not exist for her. the gleam of the star-lit river caught her eye, but failed to reach her brain. and if she fell back slowly and gradually until she found herself but a few paces before the litter and its convoy, it was not by design only, but in obedience to a subtle attraction at work within her.
when her women presently roused her by their complaints that she was being left behind with the litter, she took it for an omen, and smiled in the darkness. they, on the contrary, were frightened, nor without reason. the road they pursued followed the bank of the river; but the wide vale had been left behind. they had passed into a valley more strait and gloomy; a winding trough, close pressed by long, hog-shaped hills, between which the travellers became every moment more deeply engaged. the stars were fading from the sky, the darkness which comes before the dawn was on them, and with the darkness a chill.
this change alarmed the women. but it did not terrify them one half as much as the marked anxiety of the litter-party. more than once des ageaux' voice could be heard adjuring the bearers to move faster. more than once a rider passed between them and the main body, and on each of these occasions men fell back and took the places of the old carriers. but still the cry was "faster! faster!"
in truth the day was on the point of breaking, and the fugitives were still little more than two leagues from villeneuve. at any moment they might be overtaken, when the danger of an attack would be great, since the light must reveal the paucity of their numbers. in this pinch even the lieutenant's stoicism failed him, and moment by moment he trembled lest the sound of galloping horses reach his ear. less than an hour's riding at speed would place his charges in safety; yet for the sake of a wounded man he must risk all. no wonder that he cried again, "faster, men, faster!" and pressed the porters to their utmost speed.
soon out of the darkness ahead loomed the bat. "this will never do, my lord," he said, reining in his horse beside his leader. he spoke in a low voice, but the abbess, a dozen paces ahead, could hear his words, and even the heavy breathing of the carriers. "to go on at this pace is to hazard all."
"you must go forward with the main body!" des ageaux replied shortly. "let the women who are with us ride on and join the others, and do you--but, no, that will not do."
"for certain it will not do!" the bat answered. "it is i must stay, for the fault is mine. but for me you would have left him, my lord."
"do you think we could support him on a horse?"
"it would kill him!" the bat rejoined. "but it is not two hundred paces to the chapel by the ford that you remarked this morning. if we leave him there, and m. de vlaye finds him, he will be as anxious to keep life in him as we are. if, on the other hand, m. de vlaye overlooks him, we can bring him in to-morrow."
"if it must be," des ageaux answered reluctantly, "we must leave him. but we cannot leave him without some assistance. who will stay with him?"
"diable!" the bat muttered.
"i will not leave him without some one," des ageaux repeated firmly. "some one must stay."
out of the darkness came the answer. "i," the abbess said, "will stay with him!"
"you, mademoiselle?" in a tone of astonishment.
"i," she repeated, "and my women. i," she continued haughtily, "have nothing to fear from the captain of vlaye or his men."
"and mademoiselle's robe," the bat muttered with the faintest suspicion of irony in his tone, "protects her."
charles, who had joined them with the bat, thoughtlessly assented. "to be sure!" he cried. "let my sister stay! she can stay without danger."
alone of the three des ageaux remained silent--pondering. he had seen enough of the abbess to suspect that it was not humanity alone which dictated her offer. probably she desired to rejoin her admirer. in that case, did she know enough of the fugitives' plans and strength to render her defection formidable?
he thought not. at any rate it seemed well to take the chance. he was taking, he was beginning to see that he was taking a good many chances. "it seems a good plan, if mademoiselle be indeed willing," he said. he wished that he could see her face.
"i have said," she replied coldly, "that i am willing."
but her women showed forthwith that they were not. what? remain in this wilderness in the dark with a dying man? they would be eaten by wolves, they would be strangled by witches, they would be ravished by thieves! never! and in a trice one was in hysterics, deaf to her mistress's threats and to the bat's grim hints. the other, after a conflict, allowed herself to be browbeaten, and sullenly, and with tears, yielded. but not until the water of the ford rippled about their horses' hoofs, and the tiny spark of light that through the open door beaconed the shallows shone in their eyes.
had it been day they would have had before them a scene at once wild and peaceful. on their right, below the ford--which was formed by the passage of the stream from one side of the narrow valley to the other--a lofty bluff overhung a black pool. above the ford, on the level meadow, and a stone's-throw from the track--if track that could be called which was not used by a hundred persons in a year--stood a tiny chapel and cell, which some hermit in past ages had built with his own hands. the approach of the crocans had driven his latest successor from his post; but des ageaux, passing that way in the day, had noted the chapel, and with the forethought of the soldier who expected to return in the dark he had seen the earthen lamp relit. its light, he knew, would, in case of need, direct him to the ford.
at present that lamp, a tiny spark in the blackness, was all they saw. they made for it through the shallows and over a bed of shingle across which the horses clattered noisily. in haste they reached the door of the chapel, and there in a trice--for if the thing was to be done it must be done quickly--they aided the abbess and the lay sister to alight, bore in the litter with the wounded man, and closed the door on all; this last, that the light might no longer be visible from the ford. then they, the men, got themselves to horse again, and away at a round trot.
not without repugnance on the part of several; not without regret and misgiving. des ageaux's heart smote him as his horse's feet carried him farther and farther away; it seemed so cowardly a thing to leave women to bear in that wild and lonely place the brunt of whatever might befall. and charles, ready as he had been to acclaim the notion, wondered if he had erred in leaving his sister thus lightly. but in truth they were embarked in an enterprise whose full perils it lay with time to disclose. and other and more pressing anxieties soon had possession of their minds.
they had been less troubled had they been able to witness the abbess's demeanour in her solitude. while her companion, overcome by her fears, sank down in a fit of hysterical weeping, odette de villeneuve remained standing within the low doorway, and with head erect listened frowning until the last sound of the horses' hoofs died to the ear. then she drew a deep breath, and, turning slowly, she allowed her eyes to take stock of the place in which she so strangely found herself.
it was a tiny building of rough-hewn stones, with an altar and crucifix, also of stone, erected at the end remote from the door. along either wall ran a stone bench, on one or other of which the good fathers must have spent many a summer day watching the ford; for at a certain point the stone was polished and worn by friction. the litter and the wounded man filled half the open space, leaving visible only a floor of trodden earth foul with the droppings of birds and sheep, and betraying in other respects the results of neglect. here and there on some stone larger than its fellows, and particularly on the lintel, a prentice hand had carved symbols; but, this notwithstanding, the whole wore by the light of the smoky lamp an aspect far from sacred.
yet the prospect of spending several hours in so poor a place did not appear to depress the abbess. her inspection finished, she nodded an answer to her thoughts, and sitting down on the bench beside the litter, rested her elbow on her knee and her chin on her hand, and fixing her large dark eyes on the wounded man, gave herself up, as completely as if she had been in her own chamber, to her thoughts.
her woman, whose complaining, half fractious, half fearful, had sunk to an occasional sob, presently looked at her, and fascinated by that gloomy absorption--which might have dealt with the mysteries of the faith, but turned in fact on the faithlessness of man--she could not look away. and moments passed; the first pale glimmer of dawn appeared, and still the two women faced one another across the insensible man whose heavy breathing, broken from time to time by some obstruction, was the one sound that vied with the low murmur of the stream.
suddenly the abbess lifted her head. mingled with the water's chatter was a harsher sound--a sound of rattling stones, of jingling steel and, a second later, of men's voices. she rose slowly to her feet, and as the other woman, alarmed by the expression of her features, would have screamed, she silenced her by a fierce gesture. then she stood, her hand resting against the wall beside her, and listened.
she had no doubt that it was he. her parted lips her eyes, half fierce, half tender, told as much. it was he, and she had but to open the door, she had but to show herself in the lighted doorway, and he would come to her! as the voices of the riders grew, and the rattle of hoofs among the pebbles ceased, she pictured him abreast of the hermitage; she fancied, but it must have been fancy, that she could distinguish his voice. or no, he would not be speaking. he would be riding, silent, alone, his hand on his hip, the grey light of morning falling on his stern face. and at that, at that picture of him, his deeds and his career, his greatness who had made himself, his firmness whom no obstacle stayed, rose before her embodied in the solitary figure riding foremost through the dawn. her breast rose and fell tumultuously. the hand that rested on the wall shook. she had only to open the door, she had only to cry his name aloud, only to show herself, and he would be at her side! and she would be no longer against him but with him, no longer would be ranked with his foes--who were so many--but for him against the world!
the temptation was so strong that her form seemed to droop and sway as if a physical charm drew her in the direction of the man she loved, the man to whom, in spite of his faults, or by reason of them, she clung in the face of defection. but powerful as was the spell laid upon her, pride--pride and her will proved stronger. she stiffened herself; for an instant she did not seem to breathe. nor was it until the last faint clink of iron died away that she turned feverish eyes in search of some crevice, some loophole, some fissure, through which she might yet see him; yet see, if it were but the waving of his plume.
she found none. the only windows, two tiny arrow-slits that had never known glass, were in the wall remote from the track. on that she set her teeth to control the moan of disappointment that rose from her heart; and slowly she sank into her old seat.
but not into her old reverie. the eyes which she bent on the sick man were no longer dreamy. on the contrary, they were fixed in a gaze of eager scrutiny that sought to drag from the duke's pallid features the secret of his weakness and waywardness, of his strange nature and bizarre fame. and unconsciously as she gazed, she bent nearer and nearer to him; her look grew sharper and more imperious. all hung on him now--all! her mind was made up. fortune had not cast him so timely in her path, fate had not afforded her the opportunity of which she had dreamed, without intending her to profit by it, without proposing to crown the scheme with success. the spell of her lover's presence, the spell that had obsessed her so short a time before that the interval could be reckoned by seconds, was broken! never should it be hers to play that creeping part, to regain him that way, to return to him tamely, empty-handed, a suppliant for his love! no, not while it might be hers to return a conqueror, an equal, with a greater than the captain of vlaye in her toils!
she rose to her feet, and tasting triumph in advance, she smiled. with a firm hand, disregarding her woman's remonstrance, she extinguished the lamp. the pale light of early morning stole in through the narrow slits, and then for a brief instant the abbess held her breath; for the light falling on the duke's face so sharpened his thin temples and nervous features, showed him so livid and wan and death-like, that she thought him gone. he was not gone, but she acted upon the hint. if he died, where were her schemes and the clever combinations she had been forming? quickly she drew from the litter a flagon of broth that had been mixed with a cunning cordial; and first moistening his lips with the liquor, by-and-by she contrived to make him swallow some. in the act he opened his eyes, and they were clear and sensible; but it was only to close them again with a sigh, half of satisfaction, half of weakness. nevertheless, from this time his state was rather one of sleep, the sleep craved by exhausted nature, than of insensibility or fever, and with every hour the forces of his youth and constitution wrought at the task of restoration.
odette, brooding over him, watched with satisfaction the return of a more healthy colour to his cheeks. time passed, and presently, while the light was still cold and young, there came an interruption. a murmur of voices, and the jingle of spur and bit, warned her that m. de vlaye, baffled in his attempt to cut off the fugitives before they found refuge, was returning through the valley. this time, how different were her sensations. she started to her feet and listened, and her face grew hard, but under pressure of suspense, not of desire. suspense--for if they turned aside, if they entered the deserted chapel and discovered her, her plan--and her very soul was now set on its success--perished still-born.
it was a trying moment, but it passed. probably vlaye knew the chapel of old, and knew that the good father had fled from it. at any rate he passed by it, and rode on his way. she heard the trampling of the horses break the singing of the ford; and then she heard only the murmur of the water and the morning hymn of a lark that, startled by the passage of the riders, soared above the glen, and with the sunshine on its throbbing breast, hailed the warm rising of another day.
whether the lark's song appealed to the softer strain in her, or she began to hate the sordid interior with its grey half-light, the moment she was sure that the riders had gone on their way she opened the door and went out. the sun was peeping into the valley and all nature was astir. the laughing waters of the ford, the steep bluff, darksome by night, now clad in waving tree-tops, the floor of meadow emerald-green, all reflected the brightness of a sky in which not one but half a dozen songsters trilled forth the joy of life. after the gloom, the vigil, the danger of the night, the scene appealed to her strongly; and for a brief time, while she stood gazing on the vale unmarred by human works or human presence, she felt a compunction; such a feeling as in a similar scene invades the breast of the veteran hunter, and whispers to him that to carry death into the haunts of nature is but a sorry task.
a feeling as quickly suppressed in the one case as in the other. a few minutes later the abbess appeared in the doorway, and beckoned to the woman to join her outside.
"give me your hood and veil," she said in a tone that forestalled demur. "and i need your outer robe! don't stare, woman!" she continued fiercely. "is there any one to see you? can the hills hurt you? obey. it is my pleasure to wear the dress of the order, and i have it not with me!"
"but, madam----"
"obey, woman, and take my cloak!" the abbess retorted. "wrap yourself in that!" and when the change was made, and she had assumed over her dress the loose black and white robe of the order, "now wait for me here," she said. "and if he call, as is possible, do not go to him, but fetch me!"
she departed towards the pool below the ford, and, disappearing behind a clump of low willows, made, using the still water for a mirror, some further changes in her toilet.
not fruitlessly, for when she returned to the door of the chapel, the woman who awaited her stared, thinking that she had never seen her mistress show fairer in her silks than in this black and white, which she so seldom favoured. and soon there was another who thought--if not that thought, a similar one. the duke, opening on the glory of sunshine and summer warmth, the eyes that had so nearly closed for good, saw at the foot of his litter a wondrous figure kneeling before the altar.
the face of the figure was turned from him, and for a time, between sleeping and waking, he considered her idly, supposing her now an angel interceding for him in the other life on which he had entered, now a nun praying beside his bier; for he took it for certain he was dead. by-and-by he passed over to the theory of the angel, for the figure moved, and the sunlight passing in through a tiny window-slit formed a nimbus about her head. and then again, moving afresh, as in an ecstacy of devotion, she lifted her eyes to the crucifix, and the hood falling back with the movement revealed a profile of a beauty and purity almost unearthly.
the duke sighed. he had sighed before, but apparently, for the sigh had not changed her rapt expression, she had not heard. now she did hear. she rose, and with a deep genuflection turned from the altar, and glided with downcast eyes to his side. eyes softened to the meekness of a dove's looked into his, and found that he was awake. then, angel or saint, or whatever she was, she made a sign to him not to speak; and producing, by magic as it seemed, ambrosial food, she fed him, and with a finger on his lip bade him in gentle accents, "sleep!"
sleep? to think he could sleep when an angel--and while he laughed in ridicule of the notion he slept, that heavenly face framed in its nun's hood, that drooping form with the hands crossed upon the breast moving before him into the land of visions. he was back again in those earliest days of his cloistered existence, when to live in an atmosphere, pure and apart, innocent of the passions and desires of the world, had been his dream. he had learned--only too soon--that that atmosphere and that innocence were not to be maintained, though the walls of a monastery be ten feet through. for the nature which the thought of such a life had charmed was of all natures the one most open to worldly fascinations. he had fallen; and he had presently replaced the vision of being good by the enthusiasm of doing good. he had lifted his voice, and the preaching of père ange had moved half paris to a twenty-four hours' repentance. his own had lasted a little longer.
now, weak and unnerved, he reverted at sight of this beautiful nun's face to his old visions of a saintly life; and in innocent adoration he dreamt of naught but her countenance. when he awoke again and found her still at her devotions, though the sun was high, still at his service when she found him waking, still moving dovelike and silent about her ministrations--he watched her everywhere. several times he wished to speak, but she laid a finger on her lips, and covering her hands with her sleeves, sat on the bench beside him, reading her book of hours. and so during the hazy period of his return to consciousness he saw her. awake or drowsing, stung to life by the smart of his hurt or lulled to sleep by the music of the stream, he had her face always before him.
at length there came a time, a little before high noon, when he awoke with a clearer eye and a mind capable of feeling surprise at his position. he saw her sitting beside him, but he saw also the rough grey walls, the altar, the crucifix; and to wonder succeeded curiosity. what had happened, and how came he there? his eyes sought her face and remained riveted to it.
"where am i?" he whispered.
she marked that his eyes were clear and his strength greater, and, "you are in the chapel in the upper valley of the dronne," she answered.
"but i----" he stopped and closed his eyes, brought up by some confusion in his thoughts. at last, "i fancied i fought with some one," he whispered. "it was in a courtyard--at night? and there were lights? it was one of vlaye's men, and the place was----" he broke off in the painful effort to remember. his lips moved without sound.
"villeneuve," she said.
"villeneuve," he whispered gratefully. "but this is not villeneuve?"
"we are two leagues from villeneuve."
"how come i here?"
she told him, preserving the gentle placidity which, not without thought, she had adopted for her r?le. the repulse of vlaye's men and the lieutenant's decision to quit the chateau, that and the night retreat up to the arrival of the party at the ford--all were told. then she broke off.
"but des ageaux?" he murmured. "where is he?" and again, that he might look round him, he tried to rise. "where are they all?" he continued in wonder. "they have not left me?" with a querulous note in his voice.
"they are not here," she answered. and gently she induced him to lie back again. "be still, i pray," she said. "be still. you do yourself no good by moving."
he sighed. "where are they?" he persisted.
"we were hard pressed at the ford," she answered with feigned reluctance. "and your litter delayed them. it was necessary to leave you or all had been lost."
he lay in silence awhile with closed eyes, considering what she had told him. at last, "and you stayed?" he murmured in so low a voice that the words were barely audible. "you stayed!"
"it was necessary," she answered.
"and you have been beside me all night?"
she bowed her head.
his eyes filled with tears, and his lips trembled, for he was very weak. he groped for her hand, and would have carried it to his lips, but as men kiss relics or the hands of saints--if she had not withheld it from him. settling the thin coverings more comfortably round him, she gave him to drink again, softly chiding him and bidding him be silent--be silent and sleep.
but, "you have been beside me all night!" he repeated. "all night, alone here, and a woman! a woman!"
she did not tell him that she was not alone; that her woman was even then sitting outside, under strict orders not to show herself. for now she was assured that she was in the right path. she had had opportunities of studying his countenance while he slept, and she had traced in it those qualities of enthusiasm and weakness, of the libertine and the ascetic, which his career so remarkably displayed. the beauty which in ordinary circumstances his jaded eye, versed in woman's wiles, might neglect, would appeal with irresistible force in a garb of saintliness. nay, more; as he recovered his strength and returned to his common feelings, it would prove, she felt sure, more provocative than the most worldly lures. her resolve to carry the matter through was now fixed and immutable: and with her eye on the goal, she neglected no precaution that occurred to her mind.
