Traitor and True. John Bloundelle-Burton

because-"

      "Madame, you have guessed aright, or perhaps you know the service I would demand."

      "It is not hard to guess. The great lady," Emérance said, in a tone more of sorrow than bitterness, "she who is so great and might, had she so chosen, have been greater, quits France for Italy. Her journey is to be well protected. Even Monsieur le Prince will escort her outside the gates. The guards he commands; the other soldiery to whom he can issue commands that must be obeyed; the watch, the police, will be prevented from interfering with her. Ah! it is well to be Madame la Duchesse de-"

      "Silence, I beg. Do not mention her name. Should it ever become known that I have lent her assistance in her escape from Paris, I should not be safe from the King's wrath. And, at present, that wrath is a thing that even I must fear since, should it fall on me, it might, nay must, prevent our venture from progressing. The Bastille, Vincennes, some gloomy fortress far from Paris are not places where plots can well be carried on."

      "The Bastille, Vincennes-for you!" Emérance exclaimed again, her eyes fixed on the other. "Ah! That must never be." Then, suddenly, she leant forward across the table towards De Beaurepaire. "What is it I am to do? What?"

      "Listen, Emérance-madame," the man replied, correcting himself as he observed the flush that overcame her features as he mentioned her name: a flush that, he observed almost with surprise, transformed her from a pale, careworn woman to a beautiful one. "Listen. There sets out with madame a party of four, not one of whom I dare trust entirely. Two of this party are Fleur de Mai and Boisfleury, Normans like yourself-"

      "You may trust them both. They are too deeply embarked in our scheme to betray any other."

      "It may be so. Yet the former is a babbler, especially in his cups. The other is morose and melancholy; one who may possess that inconvenient thing called a conscience. If this conscience pricks him, or he should become alarmed as to discovery being made of the Attempt, he may tell all."

      "Not 'twixt here and Basle. Still, if it is to watch those men until they are safe in Switzerland that I am being sent, it shall be done."

      "Not that more than to watch the others."

      "The Duchess!" Emérance exclaimed, astonished. "She would not betray you!"

      "She knows somewhat of the scheme and disbelieves in its chance of success. Above all, she fears for me and my probable ruin."

      "Therefore, she loves you."

      "Nay. But we have been friends since almost childhood. If by betraying the scheme to the King, by causing all others who are concerned in it to be betrayed so that, thereby, she might save me, I do think she would do it."

      "If she will do it nought can prevent her. In Italy-in Basle-in Geneva-in Nancy-she can do it. Who can control the posts? One letter to Louis will be enough."

      "Let her but reach Italy, be once across the Alps, and she may send a thousand letters if she will. For, by the time they can reach Louis' hands, he should be powerless. The Dutch fleet will be off Quillebeuf, the men who are to seize on him will be riding in small troops and companies, by divers routes towards Versailles or Fontainebleau or wherever the Court may chance to be. Before a letter can cross the Alps and reach him there-well! he will be neither at Fontainebleau nor Versailles to receive it."

      "They will not murder him!" the woman exclaimed, a look of terror in her face. "That must never be. No Norman would consent to that. He must not go the way of his grandsire."

      "Fear not. None dream of such a thing, nor, if it were so, would I be party to any such compact. Instead, he will go at first on the way he has sent many others. To Pignerol perhaps, or out of France. To England." After which De Beaurepaire returned to the subject which was the real object of his interview with Emérance.

      "Besides Fleur de Mai and Boisfleury," he went on now, "two others go with her. One is Mademoiselle d'Angelis, the daughter of a French father and English mother, the other is an Englishman named Humphrey West, the son of an English father and a French mother. They are lovers. Have you ever heard speak of them?"

      "Of him, never. Of her, yes. Is she not the demoiselle de compagnie of Madame la Duchesse?"

      "She is."

      "What can they know, or knowing, what harm do?"

      "Listen, Emérance," De Beaurepaire said now, while no longer taking pains to correct himself since he knew, felt sure, that the unhappy woman secretly loved him, and, consequently, that this familiar style of address would be far from displeasing to her. "Listen. The Duchess is une folle, a chatterer. She may talk of, hint at, what she knows. And a word dropped in the ears of her followers, a hint, would be the spark that would explode the magazine."

      "What could they do, what should they do? They will be in Italy, too; if a letter from across the Alps will take so long in reaching Louis; if, when it reaches Fontainebleau, or Versailles, he shall be no longer there, how can either this man or the woman he loves travel back to France faster than it? And why should either do anything?"

      "His Majesty was good to Humphrey West's mother when his father, an old cavalier, died, and he put pressure on Charles after his restoration to at last make good to them the money and estate Cromwell had seized on during his protectorate. D'Angelis, the girl's late father, was one of Louis' earliest tutors, and Louis loved him and has also been good to his widow and the girl. If either Humphrey West or Jacquette d'Angelis should learn that an untoward breath of wind was like to blow against him, the former, at least, would take horse and ride back as fast as one steed after another could carry him to divulge all."

      "What power shall I have to stop them? What can I do?"

      "Follow them, watch them, until they leave Nancy together. If Humphrey West still forms one of the cortége we are safe until they reach Basle. At Basle watch them again and again, while, if all leave that place, either for the St. Gothard or for Geneva, thereby to make the passage of the St. Bernard-why, then, let them go. Once out of Basle and on the road to Italy and we are entirely safe. You will have done your work and," he added with that smile which so stirred the heart of the unhappy woman, "your friends in Paris will be awaiting you eagerly."

      "'My friends,'" said Emérance sadly. "I have none. Not one." But, seeing a look on De Beaurepaire's face that partly made her feel delirious with delight and partly caused her to feel as though her heart had turned to ice within her, so wide was the gulf between this man and her, she quickly returned to the matter in question: "And if I discover aught that you should know at once? If one or other of the men sets out for, returns to Paris; if a letter should by chance be sent-what then?"

      "Then," said De Beaurepaire, "fly back more swiftly than they, if you can accomplish it. Spare neither pains nor money-to-morrow you shall be furnished with ample for your needs from the funds Spain has sent. Outstrip post or horseman, or, failing the possibility of that, follow as swiftly as may be. Thus, Emérance, my friend, my co-plotter, my sweet Norman ally, shall you win the deepest gratitude of Louis de Beaurepaire. Thus, too, if he wins in this great cause, will you make him your debtor for ever. You will make him one who will never forget the services Emérance de Villiers-Bordéville has rendered him."

      CHAPTER V

      Three nights after the conversation between De Beaurepaire and Emérance, the clock of St. Germain-l'Auxerrois was striking ten and the couvre-feu was sounding from the steeples of many other church towers, as a large, substantial travelling carriage drawn by six horses passed slowly out of the Rue Richelieu and took its way through the great open Place du Louvre towards where the Bastille stood, and, beyond that, the Porte St. Antoine.

      A few minutes, perhaps a quarter of an hour, before this time, that carriage had been stationed in one of the narrow streets running out of the Rue Richelieu and, to it, there had advanced two young men dressed in the height of the fashion of the period. But their velvet and lace, their silk stockings and high red-heeled shoes, and also their rapiers, were all hidden, since they were covered up by the large furred houppelandes with which these young gallants were enveloped from their throats to their heels. So much enveloped that the patches on their faces were even more invisible than were their remarkably bright eyes and, indeed, the greater part of their features.

      Behind