For the third time Armand read the letter through.
"But, Armand," he repeated, murmuring the words softly under hisbreath, "I know that you will."
Prompted by some indefinable instinct, moved by a force that compelled,he allowed himself to glide from the chair on to the floor, on to hisknees.
All the pent-up bitterness, the humiliation, the shame of the past fewdays, surged up from his heart to his lips in one great cry of pain.
"My God!" he whispered, "give me the chance of giving my life for him."
Alone and unwatched, he gave himself over for a few moments to thealmost voluptuous delight of giving free rein to his grief. The hotLatin blood in him, tempestuous in all its passions, was firing hisheart and brain now with the glow of devotion and of self-sacrifice.
The calm, self-centred Anglo-Saxon temperament--the almost fatalisticacceptance of failure without reproach yet without despair, whichPercy's letter to him had evidenced in so marked a manner--was, mayhap,somewhat beyond the comprehension of this young enthusiast, with pureGallic blood in his veins, who was ever wont to allow his mostelemental passions to sway his actions. But though he did not altogetherunderstand, Armand St. Just could fully appreciate. All that was nobleand loyal in him rose triumphant from beneath the devastating ashes ofhis own shame.
Soon his mood calmed down, his look grew less wan and haggard. HearingJeanne's discreet and mouselike steps in the next room, he rose quicklyand hid the letter in the pocket of his coat.
She came in and inquired anxiously about Marguerite; a hurriedlyexpressed excuse from him, however, satisfied her easily enough. Shewanted to be alone with Armand, happy to see that he held his head moreerect to-day, and that the look as of a hunted creature had entirelygone from his eyes.
She ascribed this happy change to Marguerite, finding it in her heart tobe grateful to the sister for having accomplished what the fiancee hadfailed to do.
For awhile they remained together, sitting side by side, speakingat times, but mostly silent, seeming to savour the return of truanthappiness. Armand felt like a sick man who has obtained a suddensurcease from pain. He looked round him with a kind of melancholydelight on this room which he had entered for the first time less than afortnight ago, and which already was so full of memories.
Those first hours spent at the feet of Jeanne Lange, how exquisite theyhad been, how fleeting in the perfection of their happiness! Now theyseemed to belong to a far distant past, evanescent like the perfumeof violets, swift in their flight like the winged steps of youth.Blakeney's letter had effectually taken the bitter sting from outhis remorse, but it had increased his already over-heavy load ofinconsolable sorrow.
Later in the day he turned his footsteps in the direction of the river,to the house in the Quai de la Ferraille above the saddler's shop.Marguerite had returned alone from the expedition to the Rue deCharonne. Whilst Sir Andrew took charge of the little party of fugitivesand escorted them out of Paris, she came back to her lodgings in orderto collect her belongings, preparatory to taking up her quarters in thehouse of Lucas, the old-clothes dealer. She returned also because shehoped to see Armand.
"If you care to impart the contents of the letter to me, come to mylodgings to-night," she had said.
All day a phantom had haunted her, the phantom of an agonisingsuspicion.
But now the phantom had vanished never to return. Armand was sittingclose beside her, and he told her that the chief had selected himamongst all the others to stand by him inside the walls of Paris untilthe last.
"I shall mayhap," thus closed that precious document, "have no meansof ascertaining definitely whether you will act in accordance with thisletter. But somehow, Armand, I know that you will."
"I know that you will, Armand," reiterated Marguerite fervently.
She had only been too eager to be convinced; the dread and darksuspicion which had been like a hideous poisoned sting had only vaguelytouched her soul; it had not gone in very deeply. How could it, when inits death-dealing passage it encountered the rampart of tender, almostmotherly love?
Armand, trying to read his sister's thoughts in the depths of her blueeyes, found the look in them limpid and clear. Percy's message to Armandhad reassured her just as he had intended that it should do. Fate haddealt over harshly with her as it was, and Blakeney's remorse for thesorrow which he had already caused her, was scarcely less keen thanArmand's. He did not wish her to bear the intolerable burden of hatredagainst her brother; and by binding St. Just close to him at thesupreme hour of danger he hoped to prove to the woman whom he loved sopassionately that Armand was worthy of trust.
PART III.