Fire of Ashes

Fire of Ashes

The fire I deemed so long extinct
Lo! in my bosom newly glows,
And flickers in that cold precinct
As it would flame in Alpine snows.

I quenched the embers with my tears,
What time its light burned near to dying;
Nor ever guessed that all these years
One smouldering brand unslaked was lying.

The thousand thousand tears I shed
Are naught—a tongue of flame upflashes!
Ah! when I thought my love was dead
I should have trampled on its ashes.

After Petrarch[1]

I.

Hélène de Rosmadec, Comtesse de Vaudricourt, sat alone by the fire in the only occupied wing of her empty Breton chateau on a December night of 1794 so still that she could almost, in fancy, hear the steady fall of the snow outside.[2] A little heap of papers lay on the table at her elbow, and the Comtesse supposed herself to be busy in their arrangement or destruction, in preparation for her departure of the morrow to the bedside of a dying kinswoman.[3] At the moment, however, with her head on her hand, she had fallen into a reverie. Her other hand, lying loosely on her lap, held an open letter, a trifle[4] rubbed and worn.

The room, large and uncarpeted, held little furniture beyond a few chairs, a round table, a long deep settle against the wall, and a press of Breton workmanship. But the great highbacked chair wherein Madame de Vaudricourt sat before the fire was antique and beautifully carved, and the shining floor almost reflected, where it touched it, the grey silk of her gown. On her left hand heavy curtains of Lyons tapestry shut out the night, while beyond them and behind her a similar curtain hung half drawn across the panels of a little garden door. Nothing else, except the door of the room itself and a few old portraits broke the panelled walls. In this simplicity the figure of Madame de Vaudricourt drew the eye at once as the object there most worthy of attention—a claim however that it would have made in any surroundings. Yet Hélène de Vaudricourt was not young, and of her past great beauty she had kept only the relics,[5] touched by the chisel of time and sorrow to something more significant and serene.[6]

As she sat, with her eyes on the fire, Madame de Vaudricourt was thinking, not of her cloistered childhood, not of her early marriage to a man whom she had hardly seen, and of whom a fuller acquaintance inclined her to see less, but of the brief six years which had been all her life to her. For Hélène de Rosmadec, despite all her gracious serenity, had been a victim to one of “those deadly passions that are like snakes, like magic”[7]—and not to a passion unrequited. At twenty-six one of the most beautiful and coldest women in Paris, Fate had thrown in her way the man to melt her. In two weeks she was his body and soul, but not more his than the Marquis de Leymarie was hers. They loved so recklessly, so absorbingly, that the affair was never at least degraded by the shackles of subterfuge, but soared at once into a different atmosphere, and became one of those rare and almost consecrated unions of which even that century witnessed a few. M. de Vaudricourt, fully occupied in the pursuit of the newest Opera favourite, shrugged his shoulders; his wife’s infatuation was nothing to him, and indeed they scarcely ever met. So Hélène de Vaudricourt was swept for four years down the stream, untouched by any thought which was not also his with whom she voyaged.

....And the end, how insignificant and impalpable! Perhaps the torrent had indeed spent its force, the fire[8] burnt itself out. Yet had it not been at its fiercest when, on the news of her lover’s appointment to a coveted diplomatic mission he had talked, for a delirious hour, of refusing to accept it, of resigning all his prospects, of leaving France for ever, with her. So he had talked, and she had said that the sacrifice which he offered was impossible, and[9] had bidden him go to his post. That parting had been the crown of her life, more scorchingly sweet than all the months of passion which had preceded it.

And then? When he was gone, she sat down and thought a great deal, and it seemed to her that in her love she was ruining his career. After a little while this thought became a veritable obsession.[10] If he had been there, the idea would have been strangled; but he was not there, and his letters, the more frequent and the more tender that they were, only fed the notion which she was nursing. So at last she wrote him a letter, and in it she spoke of his career—of the lightning flash of revelation that his attempt to give it up had been to her. She suggested nothing—she merely wrote to him the fruit of several weeks of brooding.

For a long time he did not answer. Then he wrote—a letter which stunned her....and it was the only one of all that she had kept. He reproached her; he said that her love was not, then, what it had been, if it could turn to balancing and weighing.

“There is to me, Hélène,” he wrote, “something of the ember about a love which gives so clear and mild and prudent a light. ’Tis not, at any rate, the flame I took at your lips when[11] we parted. Are you changed?”

......Is it not strange, she thought this evening, with that very letter on her lap, that the imputation of change has power to bring its justification with it! Her heart had leapt angrily to meet the accusation—and had fallen back before it. Was he right after all? The days when prudence and honour and reputation were of no account, when they had shrivelled up in the flame and she had been glad to see them go, were those really the days when her love had been at its highest and best? She was willing to think them so. She said no more of careers and renunciations; she was frightened.

But the mischief was never undone. In the end, who was to blame—he who so wounded her by suggesting that her love was lessening, or she who finished by acknowledging that he was right? Neither of them indeed could blame[12] the other. Most certainly, as she told herself, had she no cause of complaint against him; the most scrupulous delicacy and consideration had always been his. They continued their correspondence during the remaining eighteen months of his absence, but she was sure that he felt, as she did, that the pen was a vain instrument to heal the wound which the pen had inflicted. When he came back to find her a widow he implored her to marry him. Hélène had a smile, not wholly bitter, for the memory of that interview. She had refused—and had striven in vain to surprise a tone of relief in his voice. “It is finished,” she had said. “You have had the best, and I think my heart is burnt out. Let me keep the cinders myself.” She would not cloud the memory of her four years.

What could he do but acquiesce? So they said farewell as very good friends; there was no quarrel, no abrupt slaying of love,[13] no scenes, no discoveries, no jealousies, But it was just as final an end as any of these might have brought about, and much more hopeless. The Comtesse de Vaudricourt remained that winter in Paris (it was that of 1785) and when the spring came she retired to her dower-house in Brittany. The Marquis de Leymarie threw himself violently into politics; finally, after emigration, into civil[14] war. Hélène believed him to be fighting even now with Charette in Vendée, or with Frotté in Normandy. She had told herself more than once how fortunate she held herself to be able to think of his probable fate with equanimity. How agonised she would have been if things were as they once were, and she had not a heart of ashes in her breast. But to-night, singularly fortunate as she was, she looked bitterly at the letter in her lap. She had not even the consolation of feeling herself forsaken, nor was it comfort to know that if he were at her feet in that moment she could not love him again....Did she wish to do so? No, no!..But those had been all the days of her life...

A piece of wood dropped from the fire and disturbed the background of visions. Hélène roused herself from her reverie, and once more took up the letter. Suppose that he had said those words instead of writing them—suppose that she had not[15] communicated to him her scruples. “Folly!” she exclaimed half aloud. “It was bound to end some day.” And with as resolute an air as if her action were the end she spoke of she took the letter to tear it across.

As the paper began to part there came a gentle knock at the door which led into the garden.

She had said “Come in!” before she was aware of it; she knew the knock so well, so well! But in another existence...not in this...Her nerves were playing her a trick, and a cruel one...The knock was repeated a little more loudly, and Madame de Vaudricourt sprang from her seat and faced the door. The thought that sped through her brain was “He is dead, and he has come to tell me so.” But she was a woman of great courage, and she merely raised her voice a little and said again “Entrez!”

With the opened door she saw a tall dark figure on the threshold, and heard a voice which was certainly not that of a ghost saying, “May I come in, Hélène?”

A faint “Yes” fluttered out of her lips, for after all her shaking body responded but indifferently to the call of her spirit, and she found herself sunk down again in her chair, with one hand at her breast and eyes that had never moved from him. The Marquis de Leymarie, too, with snowflakes on his shoulders, stood for a moment looking at her. Then he took off his broad-brimmed Breton hat and came forward.

“I have frightened you!”

“No,” she said, struggling desperately for her natural voice. “no..I knew—Will you not shut the door?”

He obeyed, and locked and bolted it to boot, the snowflakes slipping out of existence on his cloak.

The Comtesse rose to her feet.

“Come to the fire,” she said—“you must be cold and wet.” Now that she had regained mastery over herself she would carry herself as to any other man who sought her hospitality—erring, as was inevitable in the circumstances, on the further side of indifference. M. de Leymarie, however, appeared perfectly well able to reach this standard of conventionality, and followed her to the fire saying evenly, “A thousand thanks. I will take off my cloak if you will permit so.”

He unwrapped the wet folds as he spoke, and laid it across a chair. It was fifteen years since he had become her lover, nine[16] since she had last seen him, and Hélène’s gaze, running rapidly over the[17] features as he turned to face her, found him astonishingly little changed. He looked worn, stern, a little sardonic, and very tired, but scarcely older. How much older did she look?

“Will you not sit down?” she asked, pointing to a chair. Did her voice, she wondered, sound as strange to him as it did to herself?

“Let me tell you first why I am here—I should have done so before—and then you must tell me, Comtesse, whether it is safe for you to shelter me for an hour or two.”

“You are not a fugitive?” she asked quickly. Was she hurt or relieved at the use of her title?

The Marquis shook his head smiling. “Not yet. I am a messenger only. I have an important despatch from Normandy[18] for Charette. My horse came down and broke a leg about an hour ago, the snow is getting deep, I must confess to being nearly starving, and finding myself unexpectedly near Rosmadec I thought I would cast myself on your generosity for a meal and, perhaps, another horse. Can you safely give me your hospitality?”

“Perfectly,” answered Hélène coldly. “There is no one here at all but old Jacqueline and Clément, and they are faithfulness itself. I know of no Blues nearer than Ploërmel,[19] and the château has never been molested even when they have passed closer. As far as I can tell, you will be absolutely safe here, and I think I could find you another horse.”

M. de Leymarie bowed. “You reassure me. I must apologise for enquiries which must seem both contemptible and ungracious. I wish to endanger neither you nor my mission. Believe me, if I could have gone further I would not have intruded upon you.”

His tone was as formal as her own, and much more ironical. She was uneasily conscious that it was due to his perception of the weapon which[19] she had picked up, and relaxed her hold of it to ask him again with more cordiality to be seated. She went very steadily, and with her accustomed grace of carriage from the room, but how blurred to her sight were the painted panels of the door, and how she looked or stood on its further side were things not given to her guest to know. Over his shoulder he watched her go, and then, sitting down wearily in the big carved chair, leant his head against the back and closed his eyes. His face had become so drawn and white as to suggest actual pain rather than fatigue, and he put his hand once quickly to his side.

“I should not have come here.[21] C’était une bétise,” he said slowly to himself, as though there had been any alternative in the matter, knowing well that there was not. But perhaps Hélène had not understood that. And it would scarcely be courteous to press the point.

Presently in came old Jacqueline with a cloth and Clément with a tray. The Marquis remembered Clément but took no notice of him. The two set a supper on the round table in front of the fire at his elbow—a cold chicken and a bottle of Burgundy—and withdrew. There was only one cover. He wondered whether Hélène would return. How cold it was; how cold she was—snow on the grave of dead memories. It was a great mistake to visit graveyards.....

The door at the end of the long room opened, and he heard the sweep of her dress and rose. And the room was suddenly warmer, since[22] this—for some reason undivinable—was the old Hélène, or a very plausible imitation. There was a smile and a flush on her face as she came to him, and she had between her hands, carrying it carefully, a steaming bowl.

“Jacqueline and I have made you some soup,” she said. “Sit down, Marquis, and drink it at once!” She put the bowl on the table, and looked at him with another smile, almost maternal.

II.

There is nothing very sentimental in a bowl of hot soup, and even less, perhaps, in the fact that one can be very glad of it. When M. de Leymarie had finished her preparation his hostess carved the chicken and poured out the wine, attending to his needs with the same little air of smiling protection, and forbidding him to talk. She would not join him in his repast,[23] but sat watching. At the end she got up and going to the window looked out into the night.

“It is still snowing, I think,” she observed, coming back and sitting down again beside the little table. “Let me give you some more wine.”

The Marquis declined. “It is long since I had so good a meal. I shall ride the better for your hospitality.”

“And how soon,” asked Hélène, “must you start?”

M. de Leymarie glanced at the clock upon the mantelpiece. “In half an hour at latest. But what of a horse?”

“You shall have one of mine. I have given orders to have him saddled in readiness. You—you are very anxious to be gone!” added Hélène.

“My business will not wait,” returned the Marquis gravely. Suddenly he looked straight at her between the two candles. “Will you drink a glass of wine with me before I go?”

“Why, surely,” said Mme de Vaudricourt with a smile. She reached for the decanter and filled his own and an empty glass. “I will drink to the success of your errand.”

“No, don’t do that!” interposed the Marquis quickly. “The future needs no pledging.” He got up. “Will you drink, as I do, to the past?” His eyes questioned her as she sat there, with one beautiful arm, bare to the elbow, on the table, and the stem of the glass between her slender fingers.

“I drink,” said the Marquis de Leymarie, half smiling, half grave, “to the fairest past that ever a man had.” He took off the wine without waiting for her, and the glass, flying over his shoulder, splintered to fragments on the hearthstone.

But Hélène had not drunk. “I...I can’t!” she gasped. The smile had slid from her face. “You ask...too much!” She had fallen back in her chair, and her eyes avoided the figure standing in front of her.

“Hélène!” said her lover in an altered voice, and, kneeling on one knee beside her, he gently took the hand which had fallen from the wineglass. “Why is it too much to ask? I drink in gratitude. But you—do you then hate the memory?”

She had the look of a netted creature as she lay in the chair with her eyes closed, drawing rapid difficult breaths. Many memories thronged de Leymarie’s mind as he knelt and gazed at her, memories sweet and bitter, memories long head, still living. And for some reason he pressed her no more, but putting a long kiss on the cold hand, he released it and rose to his feet.

He was still looking at her, however, when with a little shiver she roused herself and opened her eyes. All her courage and determination could not give her strength or will to reassume either of her masks again, and she seemed what she was, rather old and weary, with a beauty faded and a life without an aim.

“I don’t like ghosts,” she said with a sad little smile, as she rose. “Who does?...Ah well!....Your cloak has not been dried.”

He moved to take it from her. “It is well enough,” he said, and immediately threw it on another chair. “I will not go without good-bye, Hélène,” he added.

A mad desire to reply “Then I shall not say it!” surged up within her. For a moment her head whirled, and she wondered if indeed the words had not passed her lips. She looked blindly at him instead, and said nothing. The Marquis was very pale, paler, in spite of food and rest, than he had been when he entered. His mouth was set in the way she remembered well, but the lines around it were much more deeply graven than of old.

“Of course I will bid you good-bye,” she said dully. She put out both hands, and then drew them back, glancing at the clock. “But not yet...Has the snow stopped, I wonder?”

M. de Leymarie went slowly to the window and pulled aside the curtain. The Comtesse clenched her hands tightly in front of her. The pitiful barrier that she was keeping between them was of sand; every moment the tide swept away a little more, so that every moment she must pile on more...The ticks of the clock above her head, measuring out the minutes of her last sight of him, asked her why they should not part as once they had used to do, not in this travesty of civility or friendship. She could not answer. So the best thing was to end it as quickly as possible, since whatever filled her heart it was not ashes, but something that at least was alive, and burnt with a horrible pain.

“Is it still snowing?” she asked. (He was long at the window. Was he sorry to go? But she would die rather than try to keep him.)

Instead of an answer Hélène heard the heavy rings of the curtain rattle suddenly and violently on the pole. She turned her head and gazed at the window in astonishment. The Marquis de Leymarie was grasping the thick folds with one hand as if he were finding in them a support, and as she looked at him he swung half round in a dizzy way with his other hand at his side.

“What do you see?” cried the Comtesse in sudden alarm. “Not the Blues!”[24]

“Nothing,” said the Marquis, and then he took his hand from his side and looked at it. “Peste!” he ejaculated angrily. He loosed his hold of the curtain and dropped into the nearest chair.

“Would you have the goodness, Madame, to send Clément with a bandage of some sort? I cannot tell you how much I regret—”

Madame de Vaudricourt was at his side in an instant.

“Honoré! what in God’s name is it?”

The Marquis seized her hand and imprinted on it a light but deliberate salute. “Nothing to alarm you,” he said cheerfully, seeing how pale she had become. “A little trifle of an old hurt that has broken out—the result of my fall, no doubt—and turned me faint for a moment. It wants nothing but a fresh bandage, I assure you!”

Hélène, momentarily stupefied, stared for a second or two at his white and smiling face, before she comprehended how urgent was the need of haste. She turned to the table, and snatching up her glass, filled for the toast she would not drink, put it into Leymarie’s hand and flew from the room.

III.

Of what passed during the next quarter of an hour the Marquis de Leymarie had, obviously, small knowledge. He never entirely lost consciousness, but he was so near losing it that when Madame de Vaudricourt was once more left alone with him, and stood, brandy in hand, looking down at him as he lay on the settle to which, with the help of the servants, she had steered him, and where they had rebandaged his side, she was surprised that[25] he opened his eyes and looked up at her quite collectedly.[26]

“Hélène,” he said, “it was unpardonable of me to frighten you. I can never forgive myself.”

“There is no need to try,” she answered softly. “Thank God that it did not happen out there in the snow. You...you would have bled to death,” she added to herself almost inaudibly.

Honoré de Leymarie lay still and said nothing, not looking at her, but at the firelight dancing on the panelled walls.

“What is the time?” he asked suddenly.

Hélène went out of his vision, towards the fire. “Nearly ten o’clock,” came her voice.

The Marquis seemed to make calculation. “Is your horse a good goer?”

There was a silence. “If that is why you ask, it is impossible for you to proceed[27] any further to-night,” said Hélène in a dry tone.

For answer the Marquis brought his legs off the couch and pulled himself into a sitting posture, beginning the adventure rashly, and concluding it with a catch at his underlip and a good deal more caution. “May I have my coat and waistcoat?” he asked, smiling over at her with a little air of amused defiance.

Madame de Vaudricourt came over to him, but she was not smiling.

“Marquis,[28] not all the despatches in the world can enable you to sit a horse with a hurt like yours. It is absolute folly to attempt it.”

The Marquis instantly became grave too. “Madame, it may be so, but the attempt will have to be made. I have great faith in your bandaging. Would you have the extreme goodness to lend me your arm?”

“You are mad!” whispered Hélène, but she held out her strong, shapely hand. The Marquis got to his feet. That the room instantly whirled round him Madame de Vaudricourt knew from the way he staggered against the high back of the settle, loosing her arm for fear of throwing too much weight upon her. Half terrified she watched him, for that he meant to go was very obvious, and equally obvious was the deduction that he could not long keep his saddle if ever he succeeded in getting into it. However, there he stood against the settle, smiling and horribly pale, and repeated his request for his coat. She brought it, stained and still wet as it was, and helped him to put it on, since remonstrances were of no avail.

“Shall I tell Clément to bring round your horse to this door?” she asked desperately.

“It would be kind,” replied M. de Leymarie, and as she left the room she saw him go unsteadily towards the hearth for his cloak.

When she returned he was lying in the big chair in front of the fire, with his head resting against the carved woodland beasts of the back. She was bending over him before he noticed her.

“I believe, Hélène,” he said dreamily, “that you are right...and that I shall not ride any further to-night....”

IV.

The shaded candles threw strange, soft shadows on Hélène de Vaudricourt’s face where she sat in her own dismantled room. It was three o’clock in the morning. In the great bare bed, after hours of feverish tossing, Honoré de Leymarie slept quietly, while the faint firelight leapt on the walls, and Madame de Vaudricourt counted over again the beads of that strange, strange evening.

She sat there with her hands idle on her lap, and sometimes she was looking at the face on the pillow, and sometimes at the past. She was far enough from consciously analysing her feelings, but she knew for all that, how below the pang of memory, the deep regret at reopening the door that hid so much of joy and sorrow, there was gladness in her heart, for after all he had not gone away, and she had him here now, and would not pause to think how long had been his absence, how involuntary his coming, and how near his departure......

Towards sunrise the sleeper stirred and woke. The fire was low, the candles nearly burnt out; a few grey shafts slipped between the window curtains. And Hélène, almost dozing in her chair, opened her momentarily shut eyes with a start to find the Marquis looking up at her intently.

“Have you been here all night?” he asked softly.

Hélène did not answer. “You have slept,” she said, bending forward, “and now it is morning.” And, without knowing why, she left her seat and going to the window pulled aside the curtain. “It is morning,” she repeated. Outside the country was white and new under the snow. De Leymarie’s eyes followed her. She came slowly back to her place and took up the candle snuffers.

“Hélène,” said the Marquis’s voice, “I have been dreaming.”

“I have not slept,” said the Comtesse, without looking at him, for his tone said “—And you!”

“Shall I tell you my dream?”

“No,” answered she. “I have done with dreams long ago.”

“Have you?” asked the well-remembered voice. “Have you?....Hélène, look at me!”

She would not turn her head, but with hands that shook a little went on with her snuffing of the candles. Another moment, and she felt his fingers close on the hanging lace of her sleeve. “Look at me, Hélène!” he repeated.

The clash of emotions and her long vigil had unstrung her, and she pulled away her sleeve almost violently. “I can put out the candles now,” she said......Then slowly she turned her head and looked full at him, and as she met his gaze the nine[29] years were wiped out, the barrier of sand crumbled to ruin at her feet.

“Honoré! Honoré!” she cried, and slipping to her knees, fell against the bed with bowed head and arms outstretched in a passion of weeping.

V.

“Must you light the lamp?”

“I can’t see you,” said Hélène simply, and got up from her chair.

Lying on the couch to which his own physical weakness, even more than Hélène’s entreaties, had fettered him since he had left his bed at mid-day, the Marquis de Leymarie watched her in the mingled dusk and firelight. The room had so gently faded as she sat by him, his hand in hers, saying little, while the fire too died down, and ghosts began to come out of the corners. But Hélène at least had no eyes for them; she would not think of them, for with every faculty of her will she was clinging to these few perfect hours, so strangely born....[30]The flame leapt up between her fingers.

“I will shut out the night,” she said. “It gets dark so soon.”

She spoke in commonplaces because of the tumult in her heart, and heard her words echoing in the room like the foolish words of another. She waited till the lamp flame had a little steadied, and went to the windows of the bedroom. The fold of one curtain was already in her hand when, just like her guest in the previous evening, she suddenly stopped, clutching it.

“My God! my God!” she whispered under her breath.

The Marquis heard her. “The Blues?” he said instantly. She gave no answer; she was[31] frozen by what she saw, looking down from the window. De Leymarie turned his head and saw this. He went a shade paler,[32] silently, with difficulty, pulled himself from the couch, and, supporting himself by the mantelpiece, drew a thin sealed paper from his breast, glancing from it for an instant to the fire. The next moment Hélène had dropped the curtain and was hurrying towards him. She looked an old woman, and though her lips moved nothing audible came from them.

“You must hide me at once,” said de Leymarie a little hoarsely. “God forgive me, but if I am taken—”

She looked at him in dumb anguish.

“It is not that,” he said quickly, understanding what she thought of, “but the fate of this.” He held up the packet. “If Charette does not get it in days—”

“I had forgotten there was a despatch,” said Hélène dully. She put her hand over her eyes, and then, brave woman as she was, her presence of mind was hers again.

“I know a place where they will never find you,” she exclaimed. “Come!” She put out her hand quickly and resolutely and took his.

On the threshold they met Clément, out of breath.

“The house is surrounded, Madame!” he gasped out. “They will be demanding entrance in a moment.”

“Then go and open directly,” said the Comtesse. “There is nobody here, you understand, but you and Jacqueline and I—see that Jacqueline understands that too—and I shall welcome the soldiers of the Republic to my poor house.”

The old man gave a glance of shrewd comprehension. Madame de Vaudricourt hurried down the corridor, almost dragging de Leymarie after her. “You need have no fear of Clément and Jacqueline,” she said over her shoulder. “We must seem to welcome the soldiers, and trust that it is only a passing visit. Fortunately I am not a suspect here. I shall put you in the little room between the walls.”

VI.

Hélène had welcomed the soldiers; she had entertained their officers; she had found out that no suspicion of a Royalist’s presence—apparently—had brought them to Rosmadec. But she had also discovered that their visit was not likely to be brief. The commandant informed her almost at once that the departmental authorities had chosen the château as a temporary military post, that he much deplored the inconvenience to which his own presence and that of his men must put her, but that he was acting under orders. He understood too that she was on the eve of making a journey; he was sorry to detain her, but...All this in the politest manner possible.

Not till she gained her own room that night could Madame de Vaudricourt abandon herself to the anxiety which was rending her. What if they found the door of the hiding-place[33] before dawn—it was a long way from her bedchamber—she would not know of it perhaps till they had...till they had shot him. God could not be so cruel! But perhaps He could; perhaps this was expiation. But why, why! it was not she, it was Fate which had brought Honoré back; it was not she, it was Fate who had kept him. She fell on her knees, choking...

Next day she rose early, to slip away to the secret room. But the soldiers were up earlier still. She could not get out of their sight. Fortunately there was food enough in the cachette; she was not afraid that the Marquis would starve. All morning she had to play hostess to[34] the officers, to present that she had no wish in the world but to get away on her journey—she was afraid to seem to acquiesce too readily in the veto set upon it, though indeed had they pressed her to go she would have been in an even worse position. Again the commandant was polite, respectful, considerate; she could have felt a liking for him in other circumstances. Yet sometimes she thought that he must know about de Leymarie’s presence, and was waiting either till she should betray herself or till he should be starved out. At other times she was sure that he was innocent of any such sinister intention. Besides, she was not personally watched, though the house was so closely guarded that it was impossible for a soul to get out unobserved.

Only a life-long habit of self-command and a courage beyond the ordinary carried her through the forenoon. After dinner she escaped to her room under pretence of fatigue. There she put into an embroidered bag, such as might contain needlework, the bread and meat which Jacqueline had placed ready,[35] and stepped with a beating heart into the long corridor. And this time her own footfalls were the only sound she heard, until she stood at last in front of her goal,[36] slipped under the old hangings, and pressed the spring of the panel.

The tiny, airless, unwindowed place smote prisonlike on her senses. By the light of a lantern hanging on a nail she saw de Leymarie sitting, his head bowed between his hands, on a bench against the wall. He raised at her entrance a face cruelly[37] altered.

“Have they gone?”

“No,” answered[38] Hélène. “No; I do not know when...”

He made a gesture of despair and his head fell into his hands again. Madame de Vaudricourt stood a moment looking at him with a new terror tightening round her heart. If he gave way thus!—Ah, he was ill, he was not himself. She went to him and flung herself on her knees beside him.

“Honoré, Honoré, they shall never find out! I will die first! See, here is more food. I could not come before—”

He lifted his head and caught her hands in a grip that hurt. “Is it possible that you think I am afraid for my own miserable life? Don’t you realise why it is worse than death to be here?”

“If you are thinking of the risk to me—” she began, but he cut her short.

“No, Hélène, I am not thinking of that either. I am thinking of this despatch, which I swore to give into Charette’s hands by Thursday.[39] My God! my God! Thy judgments are cruel!”

It was her own thought. She put her arms round him; to her mind they were two helpless children leagued together against Omnipotence.[40]

“I must take the despatch for you,” she whispered.

A thrill went through de Leymarie, and he caught at her clasping hands. “You! You are free to leave Rosmadec then?”

Alas, she had forgotten. “No, they will not let me go. No one can leave the house; it is too closely watched.”

“They suspect that I am here?”

“No,” answered Hélène slowly. “I have thought much of that, and now I am persuaded that they do not suspect it. They are not here, I think, for any other reason but the reason they give, that the Directory has ordered the house to be occupied. The commandant is perfectly civil, and, except that he will not let me go, he does not seem to mistrust me.”

“But if you could go,” said the Marquis, looking at her with a devouring gaze, “you would take it?”

“Honoré, even to die would be a small thing to spare you the torture.”

A sudden and curious smile crossed de Leymarie’s white lips. He looked at her inscrutably a moment; then he released her entirely, and getting up took a turn or two about the tiny chamber.

“This requires careful thinking on,” he said in a voice more like his own. “Get up, my dear, and let us consider it.” He gave her his hand, indicated the bench, and sat down beside her. The profound dejection of a few moments ago seemed to have dropped from him.

“Now tell me, Hélène,” he said quietly, “what have your relations been with the authorities? Very good, I imagine, else you, a ci-devant, could not have lived here so long unmolested.”

“They do not consider me a ci-devant,” said she. “I believe that I am rather celebrated for my civisme—I do not know why, except that I live very simple, and give away a good deal in charity.”

“Then, if this is so, and they have no suspicion that you are harbouring a Royalist, why do they not let you go? You have, I suppose, your passport?”

“I showed it to the commandant to prove that it was in order. I cannot think why he insists on my remaining.”

“He wants, perhaps, some additional proof of your devotion to the Republic?”

“Perhaps,” said Hélène doubtfully, and there was a moment’s silence.

“And this commandant, what sort of a man is he?” resumed de Leymarie. “Could you rely, do you think, on his word, on his oath, on his fulfilling his part in a bargain?”

Madame de Vaudricourt turned this question carefully in her mind. “Yes...I think...I believe one might. He has an honest look. But why, Honoré?”

The Marquis hesitated; then he took her hand.

“Hélène,” he said in a lower tone, “if they are here much longer they are bound to find out my presence.”

She gave him a quick look of alarm. “Oh no—I do not think so!”

“I disagree with you,” replied de Leymarie calmly. “I think that it will be a question of a day or two—of a few hours perhaps. What if they had a fancy to look for you now? If once they should take to watching your movements more closely they could not fail to discover me. Then, while it will be too late to warn Charette—for this despatch is a warning—when he and his men[41] will rush on perhaps irretrievable disaster, we shall both of us...”

The Comtesse put her other hand over his. “I shall not mind,” she said almost inaudibly.

Honoré de Leymarie sighed and fell silent for a moment; then he put his lips nearer to her ear, for her head was on his shoulder.

“Is it not a pity—a crime—Hélène, to sacrifice so many when one might suffice?”

He felt her suddenly rigid against him. Then she lifted her head and drew as far away from him as her imprisoned hands would permit.

“In God’s name, Honoré, what do you mean?”

“My dear,” said the Marquis gently, “I think you understand. Don’t make it so hard for me to say.”

Hélène looked at him with a gaze of ineffable horror. She did understand.

“Don’t you see,” went on de Leymarie, still holding her hands tightly, “that it is the only chance left? You must strike a bargain with the commandant; tell him that your journey is a matter of life and death—you must lay great stress on that—tell him that if he lets you proceed you will give him a piece of information that he will find valuable. If you can drive this bargain with him and if he is a man of his word the rest is...simple. You must say that you were unaware till this moment of my presence, that I had bribed your servants to hide me. But you suspect me, and so you inform the commandant.[42] Surely, with this proof of your goodwill, and with his pledged word, he[43] will let you leave Rosmadec. I can give you plain directions—”

She broke in, tearing away her hands and springing to her feet. “Honoré, how do you think flesh and blood can bear this! Dear Heaven! I did not know a man could be so cruel!”

The Marquis followed her, and put a hand on her shoulder. “Do you think, Hélène,” he said, very gravely and almost sternly, “that if you were not the bravest woman in the world I should dare to propose such a thing to you? And, as God is my witness, I am not playing with an idea. I mean what I have said, and I think you will help me.”

She was a captive under his grasp, twisting her hands. “You expect too much,” she said wildly. “Too much..too much..O God! what a thought!”

“You have given me much encouragement to think it, Hélène. You said it would be a small thing to die for me—I do not ask that.”

“No,” said Madame de Vaudricourt with a terrible little laugh, “not that—only much more! You only ask me to dig your grave with your own hands...a small thing, surely! and you can pretend that you are asking less than if you asked for my life, here and now!” She began to laugh again softly, swaying a little where she stood.

The Marquis took her into his arms.

“Hélène,” he said, and his voice was very tender, “I know exactly what I am asking. And I have a right to ask it, have I not, Hélène?”

She clung to him. “Not now, not now,” she whispered in an agony. “Not now when the past—”

“Yes, that is just why,” he answered. “My dear, my dear, don’t you see that this is the best end—the best thing that could happen to us? We have had, by Fate’s kindness, after all these estranging years, a few hours of a forgotten happiness. What more can we ask? If the Blues were not here, I should ride away this evening—and what are the chances that we should ever meet again? You know as well as I do that in this war no leader survives. In a month or two I should fall in some obscure skirmish, like Henri de la Rochejaquelein, or under the balls of a Republican firing-party, like d’Elbée. You would hear of it in time, and you would remember just a haphazard meeting, and a sorry farewell. But now you have the chance of doing for the cause a thing so splendid that every woman should envy you—”

“Envy!” exclaimed the Comtesse. “And what of those who will execrate...” She could not finish.

De Leymarie held her closer. “Will that matter very greatly, dear? But yes, it is so too, for I am asking you to give your name to save mine. I am asking the greatest sacrifice that could be imagined—I know it. You cannot think that I believe it easy for you; it is hard enough for me to ask it. But we must redeem my having stayed here. If I am taken with this despatch—if it does not get through in time—oh! I know what you will say, that I was physically incapable that night of going on, that I had no choice, and it is true—but Charette, who is as hard as steel, will not believe it when by my failure he has fallen into the trap which is being laid for him. But if he gets the letter by your hand, and learns how we planned its sending together, no one can say anything.”

She lay in his arms, dominated by his will, and shaking with dreadful tearless sobs. “Yes,” she said, like a child repeating a lesson, “no one can say anything.” Then suddenly she saw the defect[44] in the plan. “But the commandant will not do it! You will have thrown away your life to no purpose—I shall have betrayed you to death for nothing! They will shoot you and will not let me go!”

“That is the risk,” said the Marquis quietly. “We have to take it...”

And after that he stood a long time silent, holding her. At last he drew her back to the bench and began to tell her very simply what she must do when she left Rosmadec, if indeed she succeeded in getting away. She said nothing, and her face was hidden, but he knew that she was listening. Finally he took the despatch out of his breast, and closed her fingers round it. At the touch of the paper she shivered and sat up.

“Ah! not yet, Honoré! I cannot do it yet!”

“Half an hour’s delay, Hélène, and all this anguish will perhaps have been fruitless. And the end will be the same—for me, save that my honour will die with me. They will say that I betrayed a trust for—”

“For the love of a woman,” finished the Comtesse slowly. “And the worst of it is, that it will not be true.”

“Would you have it true, Hélène?”

She gave no answer, looking at him.

“Have I not always known that I should be fatal to you! I knew it years ago—it was that thought of mine which broke our love...Honoré, Honoré, why did you ever come here!”

“So Charette is but warned,” said the Marquis gravely, “I will thank God with my last breath that I did!...Tell me, Hélène, that I have not vainly leant on you...and say Goodbye—”

He had got to his feet, and held out his arms, smiling. His face, behind its pallor, its anxiety, and its faintly cynical air, had on it the light of the last great renunciation. And the something of noble and divine that breathes only in the atmosphere of sacrifice came at that moment on Hélène also, whose oblation was supremer still.

She pushed the letter into her bosom, and coming within the circle of her lover’s arms, held up her face quietly for the seal of his last kiss.

A little later the commandant, who was knocking the snow off his long boots against the hearthstone in the hall, looked up quickly at the sound of a footstep in the corridor above. Madame de Vaudricourt was standing at the top of the stairs, with one hand on the balustrade. He snatched off his plumed hat, and took a few steps towards her.

Hélène came down the staircase.