CHAPTER IX

ALONE

Laure scarcely moved for an hour after Walter had left her, but still sat upon the couch, gazing into the wood fire--musing always.

Sometimes on the sacrifice this man had made; more often on the profound depths of that sacrifice.

For it had in its depth that which she had never dreamed of; it had taken a shape she had never looked for.

When he brought her to this apartment she had supposed that, from this day, there was to commence a loveless life such as was so often witnessed in the marriages of convenience with which she was familiar enough in Paris; she had, indeed, told herself that she had escaped one sacrifice only to become the victim of another.

She had escaped Desparre, only to become tied to this Englishman for ever; an escape for the better, it was true, since he was young and manly, while Desparre was old and--worse--depraved. But, still, a sacrifice.

Yet, never had she dreamt of aught like this: of a marriage gone through by him which was, in truth, all a sacrifice on his part but none on hers. For he was bound to her for ever, and he asked nothing from her in return. Not so much as a word of love, a look, a thought; nothing! Nothing, though he knew by her confession that she was a nameless, an abandoned child: the offspring of Shame! Yet he had taken her for his wife.

As she meditated upon it all, her eyes still watching the logs as they smouldered on the hearth, there rose into her mind a reflection which--because she was a woman--was more painful than any that had previously possessed it. The thought that this was no marriage of love on his part, no clutching by him at the one opportunity that had arisen of gaining her for his wife, and, with that gain, the other opportunity of, in time, drawing her to him, but, instead, was simply the fulfilment of a word promised and given a year ago, the redemption of that which was in his eyes as a bond. He had told her once--a year ago--that all he asked was to be allowed to be her servant, her champion, her sentinel; and now the opportunity had come to prove his word. That was all! And she, reflecting, recalling other Englishmen whom she had met or heard of, who were living a life of exile in Paris, remembered how they all prided themselves above aught else upon the sacredness with which they regarded their word when once passed--how, amongst all other men, they were renowned for keeping that word. He would have kept his, she thought sorrowfully, with any other woman as equally well as with her, simply because he had given it.

Why the tears dropped from her eyes as she still mused and still gazed into the dying embers, she could scarcely have told herself; all she did know was that, gradually, a resolve was forming in her heart, a determination that all the nobility should not be with him alone. On her side also there should be, not a sacrifice--remembering what she was, she dared not deem it that--but, at least, a reciprocity. If he loved her still, if what he had done had not been prompted alone by that sense of honour which governed all his countrymen's actions, then he should have the reward that was his due. True or false as the statement might be, she would declare that she loved him.

"Why not?" she whispered to herself. "Why not? Whom have I ever seen or known more worthy of my love? Ah!" she murmured, "return, return, my husband, that I, too, may make confession."

The winter night was come now, though from the churches near by the hour of five was but striking. The Rue de la Dauphine was very still, while yet, from a distance, there came the hum of many noises. She knew that Paris was in a feverous state at this time, that Law's bubble was bursting, that the Regent's popularity was gone, that the boy-king's throne was in danger. And the archers, and the exempts, and provost-marshal's guards were in these streets, carrying off the turbulent ones to the many prisons of Paris, shooting them down sometimes--as the report of a discharged carbine now and again testified--clubbing them and beating out their brains as the most sure way of preventing resistance.

Yet, amidst this distant noise which sometimes disturbed the quiet street at intervals, her ears caught now a footstep outside the door--the footsteps, indeed, of more than one person, as well as a whispering that mixed itself and mingled with her own murmur of "Return, my husband." So that she wondered if her wish was granted, if he had returned, and was giving the concierge further orders in a low tone that she might not be disturbed; or if he was saying "Good night" to some friends--perhaps to those two other Englishmen who that day had witnessed their marriage.

Then the door opened, and a man came in. A man who was not her husband, but, instead, he who expected to have been that husband--the Duc Desparre!

With a cry--a gasp that was half a shriek--she rose and stood facing him, the table, to one side of which he had advanced, being between them. Facing him, with her hand upon her heart,

"You!" she exclaimed. "You here?"

Even as she spoke she wondered what possessed, what ailed the man; he was so changed since the time when last she had seen him. He had thrown back the cloak in which he had been muffled against the wintry air; while, because the habits of the courtier and the gentleman--or, at least, the well-bred man--were strong upon him, he had also removed his hat. He had come, he stood before her, she knew and felt, as an avenger; but he had been of the great Louis' time and the instincts of that period could not be put aside or forgotten.

Yet his appearance, the change which she noticed in him since they had last met and she had listened to his hateful wooing, was terrible. His face was white and drawn; the lines left by a dissolute life, perhaps also by the rough life of a soldier--lines which had always been strong and distinct--showed more plainly now; the eyes glistened horribly. But, worse than all, more terrifying to behold than aught else, were the twitchings of the muscles of his face and the shaking of the long brown hand which was lifted now and again to that face, as though to still the movement of his lips.

"Yes," he said, and she started as he spoke, for the voice of the man was changed also; had she not stood before him she would scarce, she thought, have known to whom it belonged. "Yes. We had to meet again, Laure--Madame Clarges. To meet again. Once. Once more."

"Why?" she gasped. In truth, the girl was appalled, not only by his presence there, but by his dreadful appearance, his indistinct, raucous voice and shaking hands.

"Why! You ask why? Have you forgotten? We--were--to--have--been--made--man and wife--this morning. Yet----"

"By no consent of mine," she cried, interrupting him and speaking rapidly, "but of him--my uncle, my guardian. God! my guardian! My guardian!" Then she continued, more calmly, "Yes, we were to have been married thus: I to be sold; you to buy. Only, I did not choose it should be so. Instead----"

"Instead," he replied, interrupting in his turn, "you married another--thereby to escape me. I--I--hope--you do not love him very dearly. Not, for--instance, more than, than you loved me?"

For a moment she paused ere answering, wondering dimly what lay beneath his words, what threat was implied in them; but, still, with a feeling of happiness unspeakable that now, at this moment, her opportunity had come to fulfil some part of that reciprocity she had resolved on. Even though he, her husband, could not hear the words, she uttered them plainly, distinctly.

"Your hope is vain. I love my husband."

His shaking hand, clutching now at the table, shook even more than before. For some time he essayed ineffectually to speak. Then, as once more he appeared to be obtaining the mastery over his voice, she resumed:

"Why do you come here? What do you require? Between us there is nothing in common. Nothing. You had best leave me."

"Not yet. There is something further to be said--to be done."

And now he mastered himself with some great effort, so that, for a time, he was coherent, intelligible; and continued:

"Listen," he said. "You did not love me. I knew that well enough, I cared little enough upon that score. Yet I needed a wife; it pleased me--for a reason other than your beauty--to select you. I announced to all whom it concerned that I had done so. As for love, that had little part or parcel in the matter. There was no more love--passion is not love--in my heart for you than in yours for me. I have passed the time for loving any woman; but----"

"Why, then," she asked, gazing at him, "seek me?"

"Because I am the bearer of a great name, a great fortune. Because I despised the members of my family--they are all intriguing harridans who formerly despised me. Because I sought a woman at once beautiful, yet lowly, who should arouse equally their envy and their hate; who should sting these women to madness with mortification. That is why I selected you."

"You may now select another," she replied coldly. "Doubtless there are many to whom the holder of so great a name, so great a fortune, will prove acceptable."

"I shall not select another. Meanwhile, you have flouted me, exposed me to the ridicule of the whole court--me, Desparre--of the whole of Paris! Do you think that is to be quickly forgotten, overlooked? Do you think that I, Desparre, will do either?"

"You must do what seems best to you," she said, still coldly. "Monsieur le Duc, I am not your wife. What you may choose to do is of absolute indifference to me."

He became, if such a thing were possible, more white than before. Once his eye glanced at a chair close by as though he felt he must drop into it; yet he forbore. Instead, planting both his shaking hands on the table, he said:

"The trick was clever that you played. Yet--as you should know, you who haunted the gambling-hells of Paris with your precious guardian--you should know that, however clever a trickster may be, there is generally one to be found who is his master. Always. Always. He always finds his master, does that trickster. Shall I tell you of a cleverer trick than yours?"

"What--what do you mean?"

"Attend. You hear that noise in the next street; do you know what it is? It is the archers and the exempts carrying of people to prison who are supposed to be insurgents, uprisers against the King, the Regent--the 'System.' Many of those persons are quite innocent, they are simply passers-by seeking their homes. Still, they have, some of them, enemies, people whom they have wronged, perhaps even inadvertently; yet the wronged ones have now their hour. A purse--a very light one--dropped into an archer's or an exempt's hands--a hint--a name--an address--and--that is all! To-night the prisons, La Force, La Pitié, La Tournelle--the Bastille; to-morrow the false accusations--a month later the wheel, or, at best, the Mississippi, the Colonies. And--and--my purse is not light."

"Devil!" she murmured. "Devil incarnate!"

"Ay, an aroused one. Yet, 'tis your own doing. You should have thought, you should have reflected. Desparre's name was known in those choice circles which you and Vandecque affected--in your own gambling hell. Had you ever heard it coupled with so weak a quality as forgiveness for an insult, a slight? Nay, madame, nay! None can prevent either insult or slight being offered--it is only the weak and powerless who do not retaliate. And I, Desparre, am neither." While, once more, as he spoke, the twitchings of his face presented a terrible sight.

"You mean," she said, staring at him as one stares who is fascinated by some horror from which, appalling as it is, the eyes cannot be withdrawn, "you mean that this retaliation is to be visited on me. On me--or, perhaps, one other. The man who enabled me to escape you--on my husband?"

"I mean precisely that. On you. Yet without my purse's weight being much tested, either. For against you, madame, I have legal claims that will, I fear, prevent you from enjoying your new-found happiness for some time, even were your husband able to share it with you, which he is not----"

He stopped. For as he uttered those last words, "which he is not," she had moved from the position in which she had stood all through the interview; she had quitted that barricade which the table made between them; she was advancing slowly round it to him. In her eyes there was a light that terrified him; on her face a look at which he trembled more than even his rage and unstrung nerves had previously caused him to do. For, now, he saw that the victim was an equal foe--that the aroused woman had changed places with him and was calling him to account, instead of being called to account herself.

"Speak!" she said; her voice low, yet clear, her eyes blazing, her whole frame rigid, "speak. Have done with equivocation, with hints and threats. Speak, villain. Answer me." While, as she herself spoke, she raised her hand and pointed it at him. "You say he cannot share my new-found happiness with me. Answer me! Why can he not? Two hours ago he was here, with me, in this room. Where is he now?"

Standing before her, his eyes peering at her--ghastly, horrible; upon his face a look that was half a leer and half a snarl, he essayed to tell her that which he had come to say. Yet, at first, he could utter no word--almost it seemed to him as though he was suffocating, as though his gall were rising and choking him. Yet, still, there was the woman before him, close to him, her hand outstretched, her eyes glaring into his. Again, too, he heard her words:

"My husband! Villain! Scoundrel! Answer me. Where is my husband?"

Then his voice came to him, though it seemed to her as though it was the voice of one whom she had never known. At last he spoke.

"He is dead," he said, "Half an hour ago. Slain by my orders. Dead. My wrong, my humiliation is avenged."

With a cry she sprang at him, frenzied, maddened at his words; her hands at his throat, as though she would throttle him.

"Murderer!" she shrieked. "Murderer! By your orders--By your orders--By----"

Yet, even as she spoke, the shaking assassin before her seemed to vanish from her sight, the room swam before her and became darkened; with a moan she sank swooning to the floor, forgetting, oblivious of, all.

"Come in," said Monsieur le Duc a moment later, as he opened the door and showed a white face to those waiting without. "Come in. She is quite harmless. Now is your time."