CHAPTER XXXII.

MORE LIGHT

"Yes," Debrasques said, after Andrew told him of Marion's death and also of all that, in the delirium of her end, she had revealed. "I knew something of what she informed you. Knew that he had brought her to France, had run away with her from an Englishman of your name. Thought at first, when we met in Paris--after you helped me with those vagabonds--that you were he. You remember my agitation?"

"Yes. I remember." Then, reflectively--putting the fire logs together with the toe of his boot--he went on: "Yet--yet--do not be hurt with me, Valentin--but--such an affair as that is deemed in France only one of gallantry--deemed so, too, in England now, since Charles has returned. Why, therefore, was the agitation of which you speak so great? He was a good swordsman, could hold his own well--in our encounter 'twas chance as much as skill gave me the advantage. Was it fear for his life--of my vengeance--that unnerved you so?"

"Nay. Nay," the other said. "Nay! Rather the fear of disgrace to our family if he were exposed--the fear of the punishment Louis would mete out to him for his deception. For his lie."

"His deception! His lie! To whom--Louis?"

"Ay," Debrasques answered. "Ay. And to Turenne. Barillon, our Minister to your Court, sent over a complaint that had been made by her father--it reached Louis' ears--he sent it on to the Marshal--to Turenne. Then--then--De Bois-Vallée had to give an explanation and--nothing short of his word that he and the lady were married would have saved him from disgrace--from expulsion from Turenne's bodyguard."

"And," said Andrew quickly, "he gave that word?"

"Heaven help him! Yes. So, also, did I."

"You, Valentin?"

"Yes. Believing him. He told me--told my mother--in our own house, that she came from England with him willingly enough--that they were married when they landed at Ambleteuse."

"And every word was a lie!"

"So we knew later--so I found out. And in a marvellous way."

"How?"

"From the woman now in this house--the woman who watches ever upstairs by that poor girl's body----"

"Clemence?"

"Ay, Clemence! You know her history?"

"Something of it. Also I know--heaven grant I may never forget!--that to her it is owing that I am not lying choked to death in that garret. By a chance only that I am not also lying a mass of charred ashes. As well might that wing have caught fire as the others while I still lay shackled in it, and then farewell to Andrew Vause and his opportunity for saving Marion from that death, if no other. And 'tis to Clemence that all is owing. Yet--how ever to have believed it!"

"She is the strangest creature," Debrasques said; "a vast combination of good and evil promptings. Half woman--sometimes half tigress--demoniac! She thought his father loved her--cherished the belief that he would marry her for her wild beauty--I have heard my mother say that in her youth she was as beautiful as the Queen of Night--went mad for a time when he did marry--thought my cousin was her own son. Then--for she would never quit the house--she passed her life alternately loving him and--torturing him, so that, at last, she was never allowed to see the child for fear that she would do it mortal injury. Again, later, when both his father and mother were dead, her love for him was another change in her insanity--until he brought that poor dead one upstairs to the house----"

"And then," said Andrew--"and then?"

As he asked the question the door behind them opened slightly--had not both been sitting with their backs to it and gazing into the fire, they would have seen four long, slim fingers grasping it. Would have seen, too, a moment later, the form of Clemence standing behind them. Yet, in another instant, they knew that she was there, heard her voice give the answer to Andrew's question--heard her say:

"Then she hated him."

Springing from their seats they turned and faced her--appalled almost by the change that had come over her.

The face--always pallid since Andrew had first seen it--was livid now to the lips, the eyes dim and sunken into their sockets--the full lips shook and quivered. And--was it fancy on both their parts, or was it the case?--it seemed to them that the dark hair was now doubly streaked with grey--was far whiter than it had been a day or so ago when she and the others were saved from the ruined house.

"Then--she hated him. Listen. Let me tell the story," and as she spoke she advanced to where they were, and stood before them.

"I hated him because of what he had done to this poor helpless girl--one could not help but love her!--hated him, too, because I saw another victim to the insensate passions of all his race. Told him he was a coward, a villain, to thus betray a woman, bring her a prisoner from her own land. Yet--listen--there is one thing you do not know, neither of you know. It was no fault of his that they were not man and wife--as he tricked you into believing they had become, Valentin Debrasques. He loved the woman dearly, madly--again and again he besought her to marry him. In that respect he was no villain."

"Thank God!" broke from the Marquis's lips as he heard these words--from Andrew Vause there came no utterance. In truth, he was amazed. Had he misjudged the man after all--had----? But he paused in his reflections--remembering that the allurement of the woman from her own land, the breaking thereby of Philip's heart, the long detention of Marion, were sufficient villainy. Again Clemence went on.

"When he returned hastily from his post in Turenne's guard, but a little while ere you yourself came here"--and she directed her eyes towards Andrew--"it was to cast himself once more at her feet, to beg, to pray, to implore that she would pardon him for all the wrong he had done--that she would be his wife. Great God how he besought her. And, when she turned still a deaf ear to him--answering that, sooner would she linger out years here, sooner die here than grant what he demanded--ay! though she remained a prisoner till she was old and grey, he besought her in another manner. Told her that, already, he had suffered enough for his sin--that there was one who sought his life, who ere long would obtain it--was implacable--and that, now, worse even than loss of life threatened him. That this sin was known to more than one, that his honour was in peril--unless he could stand before his King with her for wife at his side, he was a ruined, broken man. That nothing could save him--even though he should abjure France and join with the Duke it would but forestall the King's vengeance for a time. Soon Louis would triumph over Lorraine, and then he would still be disgraced."

"And her answer?" asked Andrew. "Yet--what need the question! I know it." And to himself he muttered, "thank God, she was true to Philip. Even though he is in his grave, thank God for that," while, even as he so thought, another reflection ran swiftly through his mind.

"Perhaps--perhaps," he pondered, "he knows all now. Perhaps!"

"What more to tell!" Clemente went on, standing still before those two, controlling herself as best she could--mastering, as it seemed to Andrew, some terrible agony that racked her soul. "What more? You came here, entered his house as none have ever entered it before, your life hung on a thread a dozen times; you know not how nearly it was taken as you lay stretched in that hall ere you were carried to the garret--how nearly again--by--but no matter! And in your coming I saw her chance, recognized that you who feared nothing might open the way to freedom for that poor, injured lamb--show her the road back to him she loves. Alas! 'twas not to be."

"Alas!" also said Andrew, "it never could have been. He whom she loved had gone before her."

"Dead!" Clemente said, staring at him. "He is dead? Her lover--your brother?"

"Yes, dead."

"Did she know it?" the woman asked, almost hissed, as she bent forward and touched his arm, "did she know it--and die cursing him?"

"Nay, nay, she died cursing none--left the world with peace in her heart, upon her lips, believing that they would soon meet again now. As they will--as they have done," and he turned his face away from her and Debrasques so that they might not see his grief.

Later that night, when Andrew and the Marquis sat once more together in front of the fire, and while Clemence still watched above in the room where the dead girl lay--she was to be buried in the morning in a remote portion of the abbey grounds, the noble ladies of Remiremont having permitted that, in spite of her not being of their faith--the Marquis spoke to him and said:

"Is the feud ended now, Captain Vause, the task accomplished? Are you content?"

"Content?" Andrew said, looking up at him. "Content with what--failure?"

"Have you failed?"

"Ay, from first to last. See! Reflect! My brother lies in his grave unavenged--to-morrow she will lie in hers. Both victims to that man. And--he--is free."

"Free! Free! He is ruined, beggared, bankrupt in honour, too. His career is ended--he can never rejoin the army nor serve France again--even though you should spare him, he should not draw sword again for my country. I would prevent it. Would myself tell the King. Also he must fly Lorraine; they, his own countrymen, will never let him obtain another denier from his land. He must be an outcast--proscribed--a vagabond on the face of the earth. Will that not suffice?"

"No," Andrew said, bending across the table to look into the young man's eyes. "No, Valentin Debrasques, it cannot suffice. If it could--for your sake--I would be content. But--my brother is unavenged, Marion Wyatt is unavenged--De Bois-Vallée and Andrew Vause are alive. The feud ends when one or both are dead. Not before."

"He said to her--to Clemence," whispered Debrasques, "that you were implacable."

"He said true. In such a cause, Valentin, I am implacable. Listen to me, deem me pagan, bloodthirsty--what you will--but understand me. I was a _vaurien_ from my boyhood, always in trouble, doing ever the wrong thing--yet never losing the love of two creatures on this earth. My mother--and Philip. Because of that, because when I was a man, a soldier--a bravo, some called me!--because of their love for me, because the door of our old home stood open always when I turned my wandering steps that way; because, too, there was never aught of reproach but only words of love and welcome for greeting--sweeter to the ears of him who has been homeless for weeks and months together than to any other!--I loved, I worshipped those two."

He paused a moment--and, to the younger man gazing up at him, it seemed as if the firm, strong soldier was overmastered by an emotion such as none could have ever dreamt would sway him--then went on.

"Loved, worshipped them. Became at last, through that love, I think, a better, more thoughtful man. Grew careful of my reputation, did naught that should bring discredit to them, to the old name I bore. Do you wonder, therefore, that, when I saw my brother lowered to his grave--knowing well what had driven him to it--I took the vow I did, swore that the man who was the primary cause of all should himself find his grave at my hands?"

"I do not wonder," Valentin Debrasques replied softly--"I understand."

"And," Andrew went on, "there is one other thing. I owe this man an opportunity of crossing swords with me again--villain though he is--and he shall have it."

"Yet he seeks not that reparation. Has escaped, fled. What will you do? Follow him across the world--perhaps never to find him even then?"

"No. Again listen. I do not believe I shall have far to go. Valentin, it is borne in on me that De Bois-Vallée is at no very great distance from here now."

"What!"

"I believe that he is secreted somewhere in that house of his at this moment."

"At Bois-le-Vaux?"

"Yes. At Bois-le-Vaux."

"It is impossible."

"Nay--it is most probable. Let me repeat to you what I have said happened at the moment when he escaped from my grasp. The garret was full of smoke--dense, black smoke--none could see an inch beyond themselves. Then--in an instant, he was gone. Yet--where? Not backwards to the corridor; that was impossible. There, even if he had regained it, he could not have lived ten minutes--in the garret itself, we should have been suffocated in the same space of time had I not been able to get the trap open--moreover, he could not have passed behind us. We were all together--Marion's form extended along the floor. That was impossible."

"And the roof? Might there be no way down from that?"

"There may be, yet it seems unlikely. For, see. Even though there were some opening, some descent--'tis possible--I searched not the leads as carefully as afterwards I searched the garret floor!--to where would it lead him? Back into that burning house again."

"And the shaft?"

"Ay! the shaft. The oubliette. 'Tis in truth there, I do believe, that he escaped."

"Yet you have said you probed it as far as you were able, flung down the link of chain to test its depth, and found nothing. How, therefore, is it likely that he can have escaped by that road?"

"That, I purpose to once more seek out. At best my examination was but hasty. A second search may reveal more."

"A second search. You intend to make one? In that ruined house--the walls likely enough to fall at any moment and overwhelm you, bury you beneath them. You will do that?"

"I will--and ere many hours are passed. To-morrow, when--she--has been laid in her grave I make my way to Bois-le-Vaux again. And," he continued--speaking now in a tone that, almost unknowingly to Debrasques, carried conviction to his mind, "the clue will be there to his whereabouts. The end will not be far off then."

"Let us go together."

"You wish to go? Remember, it is not the end itself--but the beginning of the end only. If he has escaped down that oubliette it may be that he is a hundred leagues away ere now, that I may have far to go ere I come up with him. Your road lies towards Paris and your mother's house, Valentin--mine leads I know not where."

"No matter. At least let me accompany you to Bois-le-Vaux."

"So be it. We will set out together."