Historical Romances: Under the Red Robe, Count Hannibal, A Gentleman of France. Weyman Stanley John

THE FINGER-POST

      Through all, it will have been noticed, Mademoiselle had not spoken to me, nor said one word, good or bad. She had played her part grimly; had taken her defeat in silence, if with tears; had tried neither prayer, nor defence, nor apology. And the fact that the fight was now over, the scene left behind, made no difference in her conduct-to my surprise and discomfiture. She kept her face averted from me; she rode as before; she affected to ignore my presence. I caught my horse feeding by the road-side, a furlong forward, and mounted, and fell into place behind the two, as in the morning. And just as we had plodded on then in silence, we plodded on now, while I wondered at the unfathomable ways of women, and knowing that I had borne myself well, marvelled that she could take part in such an incident and remain unchanged.

      Yet it had made a change in her. Though her mask screened her well, it could not entirely hide her emotions, and by-and-bye I marked that her head drooped, that she rode sadly and listlessly, that the lines of her figure were altered. I noticed that she had flung away, or furtively dropped, her riding-whip, and I understood that to the old hatred of me were now added shame and vexation; shame that she had so lowered herself, even to save her brother, vexation that defeat had been her only reward.

      Of this I saw a sign at Lectoure, where the inn had but one common room, and we must all dine in company. I secured for them a table by the fire, and leaving them standing by it, retired myself to a smaller one, near the door. There were no other guests, and this made the separation between us more marked. M. de Cocheforêt seemed to feel this. He shrugged his shoulders and looked at me with a smile half sad, half comical. But Mademoiselle was implacable. She had taken off her mask, and her face was like stone. Once, only once, during the meal I saw a change come over her. She coloured, I suppose at her thoughts, until her face flamed from brow to chin. I watched the blush spread and spread, and then she slowly and proudly turned her shoulder to me, and looked through the window at the shabby street.

      I suppose that she and her brother had both built on this attempt, Which must have been arranged at Auch. For when we went on in the afternoon, I saw a more marked change. They rode now like people resigned to the worst. The grey realities of the brother's position, the dreary, hopeless future, began to hang like a mist before their eyes; began to tinge the landscape with sadness; robbed even the sunset of its colours. With each hour their spirits flagged and their speech became less frequent, until presently, when the light was nearly gone and the dusk was round us, the brother and sister rode hand in hand, silent, gloomy, one at least of them weeping. The cold shadow of the Cardinal, of Paris, of the scaffold, was beginning to make itself felt; was beginning to chill them. As the mountains which they had known all their lives sank and faded behind us, and we entered on the wide, low valley of the Garonne, their hopes sank and faded also-sank to the dead-level of despair. Surrounded by guards, a mark for curious glances, with pride for a companion, M. de Cocheforêt could doubtless have borne himself bravely; doubtless he would bear himself bravely still when the end came. But almost alone, moving forward through the grey evening to a prison, with so many measured days before him, and nothing to exhilarate or anger, – in this condition it was little wonder if he felt, and betrayed that he felt, the blood run slow in his veins; if he thought more of the weeping wife and ruined home, which he left behind him, than of the cause in which he had spent himself.

      But God knows, they had no monopoly of gloom. I felt almost as sad myself. Long before sunset the flush of triumph, the heat of the battle, which had warmed my heart at noon, were gone; giving place to a chill dissatisfaction, a nausea, a despondency, such as I have known follow a long night at the tables. Hitherto there had been difficulties to be overcome, risks to be run, doubts about the end. Now the end was certain, and very near; so near that it filled all the prospect. One hour of triumph I might still have; I hugged the thought of it as a gambler hugs his last stake. I planned the place and time and mode, and tried to occupy myself wholly with it. But the price? Alas, that would intrude too, and more as the evening waned; so that as I passed this or that thing by the road, which I could recall passing on my journey south, – with thoughts so different, with plans that now seemed so very, very old, – I asked myself grimly if this were really I, if this were Gil de Berault, known as Zaton's premier joueur; or some Don Quichotte from Castile, tilting at windmills, and taking barbers' bowls for gold.

      We reached Agen very late in the evening, after groping through a by-way near the river, set with holes and willow-stools and frog-spawns-a place no better than a slough. After it the great fire and the lights at the Blue Maid seemed like a glimpse of a new world, and in a twinkling put something of life and spirits into two at least of us. There was queer talk round the hearth here of doings in Paris, – of a stir against the Cardinal, with the Queen-mother at bottom, and of grounded expectations that something might this time come of it. But the landlord pooh-poohed the idea, and I more than agreed with him. Even M. de Cocheforêt, who was for a moment inclined to build on it, gave up hope when he heard that it came only by way of Montauban; whence, since its reduction the year before, all sorts of canards against the Cardinal were always on the wing.

      "They kill him about once a month," our host said, with a grin. "Sometimes it is Monsieur who is to prove a match for him, sometimes César Monsieur-the Duke of Vendôme, you understand, – and sometimes the Queen-mother. But since M. de Chalais and the Marshal made a mess of it, and paid forfeit, I pin my faith to His Eminence-that is his new title, they tell me."

      "Things are quiet round here?" I asked.

      "Perfectly. Since the Languedoc business came to an end, all goes well," he answered.

      Mademoiselle had retired on our arrival, so that her brother and I were for an hour or two thrown together. I left him at liberty to separate himself if he pleased, but he did not use the opportunity. A kind of comradeship, rendered piquant by our peculiar relations, had begun to spring up between us. He seemed to take pleasure in my company, more than once rallied me on my post of jailer, would ask humorously if he might do this or that, and once even inquired what I should do if he broke his parole.

      "Or take it this way," he continued flippantly "Suppose I had stuck you in the back this evening, in that cursed swamp by the river, M. de Berault? What then? Pardieu! I am astonished at myself that I did not do it. I could have been in Montauban within twenty-four hours, and found fifty hiding-places, and no one the wiser."

      "Except your sister," I said quietly.

      He laughed and shrugged his shoulders. "Yes," he said, "I am afraid I must have put her out of the way too, to preserve my self-respect. You are right." And on that he fell into a reverie which held him for a few minutes. Then I found him looking at me with a kind of frank perplexity that invited question.

      "What is it?" I said.

      "You have fought a great many duels?"

      "Yes," I said.

      "Did you never strike a foul blow in one of them?"

      "Never. Why do you ask?"

      "Well, – I wanted to confirm an impression," he said. "To be frank, M. de Berault, I seem to see in you two men."

      "Two men?"

      "Yes, two men," he answered. "One, the man who captured me; the other, the man who let my friend go free to-day."

      "It surprised you that I let him go? That was prudence, M. de Cocheforêt," I replied, "nothing more. I am an old gambler-I know when the stakes are too high for me. The man who caught a lion in his wolf-pit had no great catch."

      "No, that is true," he answered, smiling. "And yet-I find two men in your skin."

      "I dare say that there are two in most men's skins," I answered, with a sigh, "but not always together. Sometimes one is there, and sometimes the other."

      "How does the one like taking up the other's work?" he asked keenly.

      I shrugged my shoulders. "That is as may be," I said. "You do not take an estate without the debts."

      He did not answer for a moment, and I fancied that his thoughts had reverted to his own case. But on a sudden he looked at me again. "Will you answer me a question, M. de Berault?" he said, with a winning smile.

      "Perhaps," I said.

      "Then