The False Chevalier

  CHAPTER XXXI

  ONE DEFENDER

  Cyrene passed down her favourite oleander path at sunset to the greatvinery in the Noailles garden. The oleanders were covered with theirroseate blooms, and their beauty and that of the garden in the softsunset light mysteriously deepened with an undefined regret the sadnessand fears which were hers of late.

  "Why do you not come to me, Germain? Why have you not at least writtenme a few words in reply to mine? Only a few words, my dear one--only theleast line," she murmured to herself.

  She passed on to the vinery, where sitting down under the interlacedgreen she became still more abstracted.

  "Oh Germain, some great danger is above you. Who are those enemies ofwhom the Instrument of Vengeance spoke? What is this web of murder andmadness in which they are involving you? I pray God to keep you safe, mylove. Ah, what bliss to have you mine, _mine_, and be yours. At last, atlast we shall have somewhere a sweet _chez nous_ to ourselves."

  The loveliness of the oleander blossoms and the sunset over the gardenmade a harmony with her dream. To the widow who had been no wife, thegirl who had seen no girlhood, the child who had never had a home, thelady who was losing her life in gilded servitude, that dream was dear.

  The sound of a silver bell broke in, the signal that she was in requestby old Madame l'Etiquette. A sigh escaped her, and she hastened to thehouse.

  To de Lotbiniere, to have effected his point had not been enough. Tohumiliate Lecour with the ladies with whom he had ingratiated himselfwas yet, in the opinion of this vindicator of public interests, demandedby justice to society, so he had wended his way that afternoon to theHotel de Noailles and applied at the portal of the Marechale. There hewas kept waiting while his name was sent in.

  "The person is not on my list," she said. "Present my regrets." Coveringhis irritation with a smiling face, as courtiers must ever learn to do,he asked for ink and paper and patiently wrote her on the spot arespectful and pointed warning on the danger to Cyrene. His missivestruck the dominant chord in the breast of Madame.

  "What," she cried on reading it "de Lincy a cheat! No questionableperson shall ally himself with the royal blood of the Noailles andMontmorencys! This is what comes of relaxing the old rules, the oldcustoms, and admitting new people. It is what comes of this AustrianQueen." Ah--she glanced around quickly to see that none but herlady-in-waiting heard those last words.

  "Show the man in," she added. The lady-in-waiting transmitted the order.De Lotbiniere appeared, and at Madame's request began his narrative.

  He had not proceeded far when the Marechale sent for Cyrene. It was thekind of opportunity in which de Lotbiniere gloried. As soon as hecommenced she scanned him with intense attention, saying to herself,"This is one of Germain's enemies." As he told his tale he too watchedher closely. The courage with which she listened to the development of astory so deeply affecting her honour and her heart, and her perfectdignity, unexpected by him, baffled him, from point to point of hiscareful narration, where he had expected to produce effects.

  "Of all women," he thought, "she is the strangest. Are my skill andeffort to be wasted on a girl?" But guessing correctly all at once andrightly attributing her reticence to preparation and distrust ofhimself, he stopped and said--

  "He has doubtless told Madame a very different version."

  "He has told me nothing of these things, sir," she answered quietly.

  De Lotbiniere was nonplussed, but he had not yet come to the duels. Henow mentioned them.

  "There have been two duels."

  "_Mon dieu!_"

  "I hope that your nephew punished him sharply," La Marechaleinterrupted.

  "The brute, unfortunately, has wounded my nephew, Madame."

  "Is your brother-in-law, the Marquis de Repentigny, whom you mentioned,he who killed a man named Philibert in Quebec?" now demanded Cyrene.

  It was as if a thunderbolt struck de Lotbiniere.

  "Who spoke to you of that?" he exclaimed hastily.

  "Do you hear?" Cyrene cried excitedly, turning to La Marechale. "Do youhear this admission of murder?"

  "It was no murder!" de Lotbiniere interrupted, trembling with feeling.

  "You apparently wish some finer term to describe it," she retorted."Sir, any charges made to me against my affianced must be supported byindividuals more free of terrible records. _I_ shall trust his innocencethrough eternity." And with these words, uttered frigidly, she left theroom, the Marechale looking after her astonished.

  Now Germain, having fled from Troyes, came to the hotel. He entered oneof the great salons, and, miserable and desperate, sent up his name toCyrene for a last interview. While he waited to be ushered up, to hissurprise, she herself appeared at the end of the salon, advancing with atearful expression. The sight of her, dragged down into his pit ofmisery, sent him distracted. All was forgotten for a few moments, as shetearfully clasped him in her arms and murmured--

  "Germain, you are no adventurer, no Sillon. Though all the world beagainst you, I shall die with you."

  Intoxicated with surprise that she did not repel him, yet overcome withthe belief that it was to be their last embrace, he lost himself for thetime in mingled remorse and mad bliss. They clung to each other as somany others have clung in those short moments which are the attar of alifetime. At length he grew more conscious, and the delirium of holdingthat face and golden hair to his breast triumphed over the pain ofguilt. At that moment they simultaneously perceived a shadow andstarted.

  "Baroness," said a severe voice, "you make me blush for my house."

  Cyrene and Germain sprang apart in alarm.

  "_You_," Madame l'Etiquette said, addressing Germain, "have dared toenact such a scene here. You, the apothecary's apprentice----"

  "Madame," Cyrene cried, her eyes flashing, "withdraw those words! Idemand it!"

  The situation aroused all his faculties.

  "Madame la Marechale," said he quite coolly, "has taken, I observe, theword of my enemies without asking for the facts. I shall not fatigue herwith arguments, as I am on my way to produce the proofs."

  With two profound bows, the first to Cyrene, the other to Madame deNoailles, he withdrew.