Chapter 23

THE EXECUTIONER OF DESTINY

Lorgnette in hand, Cyrène was sitting in the music chamber of the Hôtel de Noailles, scanning the bars of a sheet of music sent her by her suitor. Near by was the harpsichord on which she was about to try it, when it seemed to her that a screen beside her trembled. Glancing for an instant at it she was reassured. Almost immediately, however, it again shook and fixed her attention, but after watching it for a few moments and seeing no repetition, she once more turned away, satisfied that she had been mistaken. Then suddenly she became aware that a man was standing beside her, sprang to her feet and would have screamed had his attitude not been so deferential.

He was dressed entirely in black, of the best materials and Paris cut; his age was over fifty, and his features well made, but pinched and of an ashen tint. His expression of strange woe roused her sympathy and quieted her fears.

"Who are you?" she said.

He took no notice of her words.

"Are you la Montmorency," he asked, "the _fiancée_ of the Guardsman?"

"This is a strange question," she exclaimed. "How does it concern you, sir?"

"Deeply, deeply. These are matters of life and death."

"What do you mean?"

"Do not fear, your lover is safe. I could have killed him, but did not."

She became roused and agitated, and the thought flashed upon her that the man might be a maniac.

"You would not," she said, trying to reason with him, "have injured anyone so good and inoffensive as Monsieur de Répentigny?"

"Répentigny!" he cried. "It is because he bore that name that I tracked him to Troyes. It was a Répentigny who slew my father, and blessed was the light of the street lamp which showed me your lover was none of that brood."

"You would have killed him, you say?"

"I was to do so, but it was by mistake."

"Who are you, then?" she inquired with the greatest earnestness.

"The Instrument of Vengeance. Do you hear it?" he continued, as if listening. "The Voice of Vengeance in the distance, approaching, approaching, calling, calling? Nearer, year by year, month by month, day by day, hour by hour, moment by moment, until when it reaches my side I shall slay my enemy. When he fled to the farthest Indies, there he found me; now he is in Paris, and finds me here; wherever he goes he has found me. He knows his fate. He knows that I am the Instrument of Vengeance, that a day shall come that has not come, that this hand is the hand of heaven, and this sword the sword of the Almighty."

"You say he slew your father?"

"Yes, thrust him through on the steps of our house--the House of the Golden Dog."

"What was your father's name?"

"The Bourgeois Philibert, of Quebec."

"And who do you say killed him?"

"Répentigny."

"But not my Germain!" she exclaimed eagerly and positively.

"No, he is none of that spawn of evil."

"You will bear him no ill-will at any time then?" she pleaded.

"On the contrary, he is now on my side. They are his enemies too."

"_Who_ are his enemies?"

"The Répentignys; but fear not, Mademoiselle, he is far superior to them. He shall triumph and prevail, for I shall keep him, and heaven has appointed me its Instrument. Nothing they do can prevail against me and our side."

"Why do you say they are his enemies? They are not always enemies who carry the same name."

"Mademoiselle, I see you know not _this_ name," he said with grave courtesy; "I see you know not _this_ name--this name of sorrow, this name of blood--my father's blood--alas! alas! alas! alas!" and his voice trembled with infinite dolor.

"Oh, poor man," she cried, weeping. "I pity you."

He turned upon her a dazed glance, a glance out of a mind absorbed in an unspeakable grief, and returning into his absorption, left the room.

She had been so keenly excited from instant to instant by the statements of Philibert that she had not checked the interview. Apart from her pity for him, the safety of Germain was the single issue of her thoughts, and it was with alarm that she sat down and put together her impressions on that subject. The mixture of woe with triumph on Philibert's countenance affected her powerfully, and the words, "You know not this name of sorrow, this name of blood," troubled her. The vengeance, the killing, the family feud, to which he referred, what were they all? "Oh, Germain," she thought, continuing to weep, "some heavy cloud is hanging over you."

Meanwhile the scandal had spread to several circles in Versailles, and was lit upon by the Abbé Jude, who, too happy to contain himself, ran to Cyrène and invented an order to her from the Princess to attend in her chamber; and when he had led her into the presence of her Excellency, he addressed the latter--

"Madame has of course heard the new tale?" he said.

"Something fresh this morning, Abbé? Who does it concern?"

"Not the great Monsieur, the Prince, my lady, but a Monsieur of much nearer acquaintance."

"Indeed? Monsieur Who, then? How interesting! Make no delay."

"The difficulty precisely is to say Who, Madame; but it is he who _calls_ himself Monsieur de Répentigny. There is in Paris at this very instant a _real_ Monsieur de Répentigny--no relation to our one--who is publicly declaring our Canadian to have stolen his title, and to be nothing less than a cheat."

He gave a malicious look at Cyrène, who turned pale and caught at a chair. However, the great lady herself intervened.

"Stop, Abbé; stop, sir. This time you pass the bounds permitted you. How dare you come into the presence of a Princess inventing such slanderous monstrosities against your superior. A nephew, sir, of the Chevalier de Bailleul, acknowledged by him as such to myself in his own château, is above the aspersions of a contemptible plebeian. Let this be a lesson to you, and never dare again to enter my sight. Footmen, conduct him out of my presence and service. No reply! I am irrevocable in this."

"What is the commotion I heard?" exclaimed Madame l'Etiquette, entering just after the reader's expulsion.

The Princess told her of Jude's insolent assertion.

"It is a serious matter. As likely as not it is true," Madame said, and looked severely at Cyrène.

"I know it to be a falsehood," the latter retorted, with fiery quickness. "Those people are his enemies. I have it on the word of an honest man and a Canadian."