CHAPTER IX - THE TOLEDO BLADE

"But in my terms of honour I stand aloof, and will no reconcilement, Till by some elder masters of known honour I have a voice and precedent of peace, To keep my name ungored." _Hamlet_, Act. v. Sc. 2.

"'Sir,' said he, 'it is very fortunate for you that your face is so strong a letter of recommendation. Here am I, a tough old practitioner, mixing myself up with your very distressing business . . . and here is this lad . . . all, I take it, on the strength of your appearance. I wish I could imagine how it would impress a jury,' said he." Stevenson, _St. Ives._

"But, Sir, for the care and love I have for you, whilst I can bear a sword in my hand I will venture for you." Thomas Burton to Thomas Coke, June 5, 1703.

(1)

The owls were hooting round the little manoir at dusk almost loudly enough to disturb M. Nicolas de Fresne, as he sat at his monthly accounts, once more the country gentleman. Only a sword that was not his own, wrapped away in a press, and a certain very haunting memory, which some times followed him even into sleep, remained to mark his lieutenancy of the now extinct Eperviers. But Mademoiselle Berthe, the old lame sister who kept house for him, thought that he had aged during the last two months of inactivity.

She came halting in now with a lamp, and set it down by him on the table.

"You will ruin your eyes, mon frère."

"It is dark early this evening--early for the middle of July, that is," he said, looking up.

"It is raining," answered Mlle de Fresne. "--Dear me, was that a knock at the front door? Jeanne has gone to bed."

She went out, but was back in a moment. "It is a gentleman to see you on affairs, Nicolas. He did not give his name."

"Ask him to come in, then," said her brother, and, shuffling his papers together, went to put them in his desk. He had his back turned, the door was already ajar, and the lid of his desk, escaping at that moment from his hold with a bang, prevented his hearing it close.

"De Fresne!" said a well-known voice.

He jumped round as if he had been struck. "Great God!"

A gaunt young man in a cloak was standing just inside the door, the lamplight and the dark panelling behind him conspiring to accentuate his pallor and the ruddy gleam of his hair--a young man whom de Fresne had last seen (and felt he should always see) motionless against a grey tree trunk, ropes across him and a canopy of bright leaves above his bowed head. He was bereft of speech; a hand even sought the support of the desk behind him.

"I am afraid I have startled you," said Aymar gravely. "I am very sorry."

"I . . . I heard that you were dying . . . and therefore released," faltered the elder man. "But once I heard . . . I did not know what to believe . . ."

A brief, unmirthful smile flickered for an instant over the visitor's face. "I _was_ released, but not because I was dying. I should like to speak to you, if I may."

De Fresne had pulled himself together. "Of course. Let me take off your cloak. Have you supped?"

"Yes, thank you. I have a room at the inn." He who had been L'Oiseleur was unfastening the cloak. "I must apologize for coming so late, but I was anxious to find you at home."

De Fresne took the cloak from him. "It is not late. It is only this cloak that is wet, I trust? You do not look . . ." He touched his arm. "Are you really flesh and blood, La Rocheterie?" he asked almost timidly.

"Well . . .flesh," responded Aymar, with the same little smile. "The other ingredient is somewhat to seek yet, I believe."

"I'll get you some wine," murmured his lieutenant. "Meanwhile, pray sit down--here."

"No wine, thank you," said Aymar, obeying him. "I shall not detain you long."

"But you must let me give you a bed to-night! I'll tell my sister at once."

"Thank you, but I am staying at the inn," replied his visitor for the second time, in a tone which did not admit of the renewal of the invitation.

De Fresne came slowly and sat down opposite him on the other side of the fireless hearth and felt uncomfortable. Although La Rocheterie's extremely quiet manner was free from any trace of hostility, it conveyed somehow a feeling of immense distance, as though he really were the ghost he looked like. And why would he not drink with him?

"I am sure," he burst out, "that you blame me--that cursed letter! And God knows I have blamed myself . . . bitterly, bitterly!"

"But why?" asked his guest calmly. "Surely I said to you in the wood that I did not blame you in the least, that you could have done no otherwise but bring back the letter and confront me with it. And as we neither of us had reason to suppose that I was not speaking _in articulo mortis_, that declaration should have had weight with you."

The faint flavour of irony, or imagined irony, and his own memories made his hearer turn his head away. "If you knew how it has haunted me," he groaned. "Surely I might somehow have prevented . . . what happened. At any rate, I swear to you, La Rocheterie, that I have not known a day's peace of mind since!"

"Then I am very sorry to hear it," replied Aymar. "Your unnecessary remorse only adds another item to the account against me. Yes," he added, with more warmth in his voice, "it _is_ unnecessary, de Fresne. I give you my word of honour--if you will take it--that I have absolutely no condemnatory thoughts towards you. But, not having passed through purgatory yet, I am less charitably disposed towards--others. Tell me, what became of Magloire and Company?"

But de Fresne had dropped his head on to his hands. "It is no good," he said hoarsely. "You cannot really absolve me . . . for I cannot absolve myself. You saved me, and I let that happen to you."

Aymar sat up in his chair. His face softened. "My dear de Fresne! Will you accept my hand on it? Come--and think no more of it!"

He held it out; no handshake had passed between them as yet. De Fresne looked up and saw it, outstretched so far that a dull red weal was visible above the wrist. He took the hand.

"Now please let there be no more talk of haunting," said L'Oiseleur with a smile. "And tell me what you did with the remnants."

"I disbanded them. There was nothing else to be done. After . . . after the Bois des Fauvettes they turned against Magloire and Hervé, but they would not follow me. . . . I debated a long time, La Rocheterie, about having those two brought to justice, but at the moment the report was that you had died in the hands of the Imperialists. I may have been wrong, but it seemed to me that to rake up a scandal when you were not alive to defend yourself, and when, with the best will in the world, I could not properly defend you because I did not know the nature of your bargain with Colonel Richard, was not the happiest thing for your memory."

"I dare say you were right not to press for justice," said Aymar. "Indeed, as it happens, I am glad that you did not. For I have come to ask you a favour."

De Fresne got up. "I think I can guess what it is, and I shall do it with all my heart, and at once." He went to the black oak press, deeply carved with figures of saints, that stood against the wall, and returned with a long object wrapped in a strip of brocade.

"You want this back again. I have kept it carefully, you see. It is yours, L'Oiseleur." And across his guest's knees he laid his surrendered sword.

But Aymar shook his head and held it out to him again. "Not in that way, my friend! And what has happened that you should now restore it to me? The day I gave it up you said you could not serve under me if I retained it."

De Fresne flushed. "But since that interview----"

"Since that interview--what?" Aymar took him up. "I am further from being cleared than ever. You told me then, most truly, that I stood in a terrible situation. Do I stand in one less terrible now, with the scars of my own men's bullets on me?" And, seeing that de Fresne had nothing to answer he got up, laid the sword on the table, and went on: "Only one hand can give that back to me, and it must first be delivered to that hand. Yes, I am going to press for an enquiry, as you advised me. In a sense, therefore, you were right in thinking that I had come for my sword. I am here to ask you if you will assist me in the endeavour to regain it--but if I ask too much----"

"Too much! I am entirely at your service!"

"You mean that? Thank you. I want you then, if the General will give me a court of enquiry, to accuse me before it."

"What!" cried his lieutenant. "That! Never, never!"

"But it is what you would have had to do last May!"

De Fresne sat down again and ran his hands through his hair. "I would do anything to help you, La Rocheterie. But I cannot do that. You offered your life for mine--yes, I know that the circumstances demanded it, and I should, I hope, have done it as unhesitatingly myself in your place. But you did offer it. . . . No, nothing would bring me to it."

Aymar considered him. "Then I shall have to accuse myself," he said reflectively. "Or perhaps the General will appoint an accuser. Perhaps he will make a regular court-martial of it, and arrest me; or I can give myself up. But I have not thought out any details; I came to you first. And I should have liked the letter to produce. But I suppose Magloire----"

"The letter!" exclaimed de Fresne. "No, Magloire has not got it. _You wish you could produce it!_ Are you mad?"

"I don't think so," said Aymar rather painfully. "But I wish to keep nothing back. Did you get possession of it again then?"

"I did," replied his lieutenant. "But I am thankful to say that you cannot possibly do anything so crazy as to produce it against yourself. I destroyed it that very night. I only wish I had done so a few hours earlier."

The faint colour crept over Aymar's lips again. "You destroyed it--for my sake! My dear de Fresne, that was very good of you! But, had it still been procurable, I should have felt in honour bound to lay it before the Court."

"Well, I am thankful to say that you cannot!" retorted de Fresne. "The only written evidence against you exists no longer. And if you will take my advice, La Rocheterie, you will leave the whole matter alone now. It's too risky. Think of the time that has elapsed--not, God knows, through any fault of yours!--Tell me, how long were you against that damned tree before the Bonapartists found you? When I came back you were gone; but that was some three hours afterwards."

"You came back!"

"Did you suppose I was going to leave you there, alive or dead? Were you . . . but perhaps you would rather not talk about it. . . . At any rate, let us settle this question first. I do implore you to give up the whole idea."

Aymar looked at the wrist of the hand which lay on his knee. "Do you know what people all over the district--all over Brittany, perhaps--are saying about me? Just what you prophesied, of course. Could I be worse off if the Court did not clear me?"

"Yes, indeed you could," said de Fresne earnestly. "The story would be even wider spread; you would be branded for ever. Whereas now it is always possible for it to be said that you disdain to take any notice of it. And there are always men who never will believe you capable of such a thing. I know there are; I have met them. I met a man the other day who knew you slightly, and he laughed at the idea; said that those who believed the charge did so from personal jealousy. If you go before a court and are not completely cleared, to all intents and purposes you will have done--what you did--with the worst of intentions. You will be utterly ruined."

Aymar shook his head and caressed de Fresne's sleepy spaniel. "Not more ruined than I am now."

De Fresne got up and took a turn distractedly about the room. "I don't think you look at all the possibilities of what might happen if you were not acquitted. You wear uniform; you hold the King's commission, if only for form's sake. They might degrade you; take away your cross. For the love of God, L'Oiseleur, don't run that risk!"

But Aymar was unmoved. He sat very still, as he had sat all the time; now he was plaiting the spaniel's silky ear.

"Our positions are indeed strangely reversed, my dear de Fresne, since that day! You were horrified then at my inclination to let things take their course." He stopped playing with the dog, least back in his chair, and looked straight up at him. "I can see why you are now opposed to my taking action; it is because you think my position so much more hopeless."

And once again de Fresne did not answer.

"I have been trying for some weeks," went on Aymar quietly, "merely to live down the charge. I had a good reason. That reason exists no longer . . . and the charge is not being lived down. I am going to take the other course now . . . even if it kills me."

"I should say it very probably would, then," commented the elder man, looking down at him. "I think it's crazy . . . but you always would take risks. . . . I will do what I can, however, so long as you do not require me to accuse you."

"You are not so Roman as I thought you were," murmured Aymar with a smile.

"I am not going to accuse you," repeated de Fresne doggedly. "For the rest, it is of no use appealing to you?"

"It is of no use."

"Then I will give evidence for you--anything you wish but bring an accusation."

"I do not know that you will be able entirely to avoid it," said Aymar with a faint suspicion of amusement. "But you shall not be a formal accuser; I promise you that.--Now I will tell you the true nature of my bargain with Colonel Richard."

(2)

"Undoubtedly," said Tante Clotilde dogmatically, "Laurent is in love; and I only pray, Virginia, that the object of his passion may be found to be suitable, for I have observed in our great-nephew a regrettable fund of obstinacy. But the head of the house of Courtomer cannot follow his own choice in marriage, irrespective of other considerations, as is so lightly done in the country where he has had the misfortune to be brought up."

"And as his father did," said Mme de Courtomer rather maliciously.

"Nonsense!" retorted the old lady. "As a Seymour, you were a perfectly suitable match for Henri."

"You are too good, ma tante," replied Virginia de Courtomer. "But Henri did follow his own choice, all the same. And why you should fear that Laurent's should fall on a soubrette or something of the kind I do not know. Moreover, I very much doubt if he _is_ in love."

Mlle de Courtomer heaved in her armchair. "You will allow me, with a vastly longer experience of life than yours, Virginia, to differ from you! A young man who has fought and endured captivity for his King comes back to find that King replaced on the throne by a glorious victory, Paris in festive humour, himself not uncongratulated for having drawn the sword . . . and what is he like? Restless, moody, almost uninterested in the consummation towards which he has the honour of having contributed, wanting in the petits soins towards my sisters and myself in which, I will say, he has never yet failed, and--always anxious for the visit of the postman! There is only one inference to be drawn. He is in love, or entangled, with some woman he has met in the west. Odile thinks, and I agree with her, that it is probably this Mme de Villecresne at Sessignes, because he will not speak much of her and because he stayed on there unnecessarily long after his escape. And I only hope that his infatuation may not, in consequence, have led to a difference of opinion with her cousin, the Vicomte de la Rocheterie; for in spite of the admiration which Laurent has--which we must all have--for the hero of Penescouët, I have observed that he suffers, at times, from a considerable gêne in speaking of him."

To this summary of her son's condition, no count of which she could deny, Mme de Courtomer made no answer. She had observed all these symptoms herself. Certainly Laurent was not happy. Moreover, she knew something which, luckily, the old ladies did not--namely, that since his return he had withdrawn a large sum of money from his bankers . . . for an excellent object, he had assured her. She did not doubt his assurance, and sometimes she thought he was going to tell her what was troubling him, but, just because of the great confidence between them, she would not ask. Yes, the change in him was marked; she could hardly wonder, even if she resented it, that his great-aunts should talk him over in this fashion. He had become so pensive, and certainly did display an extraordinary interest in the postman.

That afternoon an old friend of her husband's, a general of distinction, called upon her. Laurent came in at the end of his visit.

"Ah, here is our captive hero!" observed the visitor as he shook hands. "You do not look any the worse for your imprisonment, so I hope that it was not rigorous. More boring, probably--eh, young man?"

"I do not fancy that Laurent found it exactly boring, General," said his mother, smiling. "He had a wounded companion whom he helped to nurse; that gave him employment. He has the happiness of having contributed to the Vicomte de la Rocheterie's restoration to health--L'Oiseleur, you know."

The old soldier stiffened curiously. "Ah--really!" he remarked, and looked hard at Laurent for a moment. Then he changed the subject.

But as he was taking his leave he held Mme de Courtomer's hand and said gravely, "My dear lady, if a very old friend may venture on a word of advice, I think it would be as well if you kept silence as to your son's charity in imprisonment."

"Mon Dieu, why?" exclaimed the Comtesse in astonishment.

"Because," said the General still more gravely, "I grieve to say that it was mistaken charity."

"--Monsieur----" began Laurent hotly, but the guest went on, unheeding.

"--Since it was bestowed on an unworthy object. And, in point of fact, it was no charity at all. It would have been a thousand times better to have allowed that--that incredibly treacherous young man to die. But your son, no doubt, did not know what he was doing."

"I did know!" said Laurent, white, his head flung back. "I knew all the time of the abominable slander on a man as honourable as you or I! . . . My God! my God! and now it is going about Paris!"

The distinguished soldier looked at him and was perhaps a little moved by his distress. But he spoke no less sternly, "Can you wonder, Monsieur de Courtomer? What steps have been taken to check it? An innocent man must have cleared himself by now of a charge so infamous.--La Rocheterie betrayed . . . sold . . . his own men to the enemy," he explained to his hostess. "You did not know, of course. I am sorry to have shocked you, but you see why I counsel you, Madame, in your son's best interests, to be discreet." He looked once more towards that son, who had turned his back and laid his head against the mantelshelf--and he forbore to utter a farewell which would obviously have gone unreciprocated.

And when Mme de Courtomer came back across the great salon Laurent had flung himself down in an armchair and buried his head at the side. Herself rather pale, she put her arms about him. "My dearest boy, this is what has been troubling you, then! Tell me, my darling, if you can!"

But all that Laurent could get out for a long time was: "It's not true--it's not true!" And later the cry changed to, "If only he could do something--if only I knew where he was now--his last letter said so little . . . and there were such difficulties."

It was therefore quite in accordance with probability that there was borne in to Laurent next morning, with his coffee and roll, a letter sealed with a swan. He tore it open, and read, in the handwriting which he hardly yet knew, these words:

_"MY DEAR LAURENT,--Since I last wrote the difficulties which Sol de Grisolles saw in the way of granting my request for a court of enquiry have disappeared, and the Court will sit to investigate my case at Aurannes on August 12th. I shall have de Fresne, Colonel Richard, and Saint-Etienne to give evidence on my behalf, and through the latter I have hopes of getting that M. du Parc who was present, as you may remember, at my meeting with him at Keraven._

_"I do not think that you can bring evidence on any point which is likely to arise, or I should not hesitate to call you as a witness, though I am summoning as few as possible, not wishing to involve them in an unpleasant business. As things stand, therefore, it is quite unnecessary for you to take the tiresome journey to Aurannes. But I know that I can count on your good wishes. I shall need them._

_"I will let you know the finding of the Court, though you will probably learn it from other sources. Should it be unfavourable I see nothing before me but to leave France. I might go to the United States perhaps."_

"Thank God!" said Laurent aloud, laying down the letter on the bed. And indeed his first feeling was one of unmitigated relief. This was the only door. But that thankfulness was succeeded by a deep disappointment. Why had Aymar in the past said those things about his friendship if he could thus easily dispense with it in this most critical hour? He read the letter, so brief and restrained, again. No, he did not seem to want him to come--he who would almost give his own good name to clear his friend's. Or was the desire for his presence there, kept with difficulty in leash, in the words which looked so colourless? Aymar had given him date and place . . . though with only just time enough to get there.

The letter, which occupied only one page (for Aymar wrote a very small hand) had fallen open as it lay, and . . . yes, there _was_ something added on the inner page! Laurent snatched it up, and read these words, in marked contrast, even in the handwriting, to the composure of the rest:

_"I doubt if I can face it, when the time comes, without you, Laurent!"_

Two minutes later, gulping his coffee, he was thus addressing his hastily summoned valet: "I want my valise packed immediately--put my uniform in--and find out the Brittany diligences . . . and get hold of Mme la Comtesse's maid, and ask her how soon my mother can receive me. I am going away at once."

(3)

It was quite dusk when Laurent rode into Aurannes, but the little Breton town was stirred by the presence of troops into an animation which it could never have known in ordinary times at that hour. He put up his hired horse at the Hôtel de l'Ecusson, was told there where to find the little house where M. de la Rocheterie was believed to be lodging, enquired of the old woman who owned it in what room he should find her guest, and went up unannounced. Only, outside the door, he paused a moment as once at La Baussaine; then he opened it and went in.

Aymar was sitting at the table facing him, under the lamp, the dear and well-known head bent over some papers. He did not instantly look up, and Laurent had time to take in the rather comfortless little room, the remains of a meal of cheerless aspect at one end of the table, and the fact that there were at least three grey hairs in the bright, lamplit bronze. Then L'Oiseleur abstractedly raised his head.

And all that Laurent had ever done or suffered for him was trebly repaid in that one moment of time when he saw the sudden incredulous joy on his face. The papers went to the floor.

"You, Laurent, you!"

"Who else?" asked Laurent. "Didn't you mean me to see that postscript?"

"I was only afraid that you wouldn't," said Aymar, half laughing, half choking, as they embraced. "Have you really forgiven me, then, for leaving you in that abominable fashion at Sessignes?"

"I forgive you nothing," responded Laurent ambiguously, and, holding him at arm's length, surveyed him with critical eyes. Aymar was very thin, but there was a trace of colour in his lips if nowhere else. He was in uniform, the very uniform in which Laurent had so admired him in Paris, and once more he was wearing the Cross of St. Louis on his breast. But he had no sword.

"I do not think much of your choice of lodging," observed the newcomer after a little, looking round the room. "Could you not have found something more comfortable?"

"Very likely," responded Aymar, unperturbed. "But the first consideration was to find someone who would take me in without demur. And I knew that Mme Leblanc would do that."

Laurent opened his lips to say something, and thought better of it. But it seemed horrible that L'Oiseleur should make this statement without a shadow of his old bitterness, as if it were the most natural thing in the world for his presence to be objected to.

"I did not, however, propose to condemn you to Mme Leblanc's cooking if you did come," went on his friend. "De Fresne tells me that there is still a room or two at the Hôtel de l'Ecusson."

Laurent shrugged his shoulders. "I shall stay here--if there is a corner anywhere. You won't say, 'If you do, I shall not sleep under this roof,' will you?"

Aymar gave him a strange, sweet little smile, and put his hand for a moment over his. "I know better now than to argue with you, mon ami; but I would like to make one appeal to you, on the score of your own reputation. It will not do you any good, and it might do you untold harm, to be seen with me, to lodge with me. You know----"

"Is that why M. de Fresne has so carefully installed himself at the Hôtel de l'Ecusson?" broke in Laurent hotly. "And your friend Saint-Etienne, where is he? Has he been equally prudent?"

Aymar looked at him rather oddly. "Saint-Etienne is . . . much further away," he said, with what seemed an effort. "And I implore you, Laurent, not to harbour a grudge against the excellent de Fresne. He does so hate this whole affair; it is against his better judgment, he puts himself in rather an unpleasant position, and yet he is giving evidence at my request."

"It is the least he can do," retorted the implacable Laurent. "But what about Saint-Etienne, your most important witness, it seems to me--unless you have secured that M. du Parc. Why do you say he is far away? I hope you have both of them?"

Aymar looked down at the floor. "Laurent, I ought not to have allowed you to come here--I ought not, indeed! I did try in my letter not to let you see how much I wanted you, but it was too strong for me. Yet at least I did not know the worst when I wrote. . . . I have neither of those two as witnesses; Saint-Etienne I can never have."

"Good God! why not? Aymar, your whole case----"

"Saint-Etienne is dead," answered Aymar gravely. And he told his stunned hearer how, when he made up his mind to court enquiry, he had written to Saint-Etienne to ask him if he would give evidence on his behalf, and where M. du Parc could be found. No answer came. Meanwhile, Sol de Grisolles made arrangements and fixed the date. Then came a letter from Saint-Etienne's relatives telling Aymar of his death from wounds received in a skirmish in July. Of M. du Parc they knew nothing whatever; and the name was so little uncommon that to trace him--Aymar had already tried--was hopeless.

"But, Laurent," he concluded, "I could not draw back now. Think of inviting an enquiry and then, on the eve, withdrawing from it! Sol de Grisolles could not give me any longer because he is disbanding. And in any case I think the result was doubtful. Only, for the sake of the name I bear, I felt that I must face it. I came to that resolve at Eveno's, but it was a struggle; it took three days to bring me to it." He smiled. "And now it seems hopeless. But I shall make a fight for it, though, as far as direct testimony goes, I am now empty-handed My only chance is that what testimony I can bring will produce a favourable general impression. Several people here have personally assured me that they would believe me on my bare word. Perhaps the Court also may have an inclination to believe me because of my former reputation. I had one once."

Again he spoke without bitterness; but Laurent shivered. The new Aymar discomposed, a little frightened him. He asked of whom the Court consisted.

Aymar told him. And when he came to one name, Laurent gave a joyful exclamation.

"Du Tremblay! Du Tremblay himself! Oh, luck at last! I overheard him speak so warmly of you in Paris, and when he learns what he owes you----"

"Owes me? Oh, you mean that cipher business. But he will not hear anything about that, my dear Laurent. The only evidence which I might call on you to give would be why I was unable to court enquiry earlier, if the point were brought up against me. My story, as I shall give it, will end with the last bullet. I am afraid that they are sure to want to hear something about that affair, and I should prefer to tell them details rather than to have them dragged out. But you need not fear that I shall dilate upon it."

How, feeling about it as he did, he could face the prospect of having that horrible business in the wood gone into at all, Laurent could not conceive. If he were of less sensitive fibre . . . but then, perhaps, he would not have also "the ice-brook's temper."

But he had already become aware of a singular and subtle change in Aymar, the advent of a strange kind of calm, as if a man should come out of very deep waters with something of himself washed away, yet with something added. His composure seemed perfectly natural and effortless, but, considering what he had to face to-morrow, and what hung on the results of that ordeal, Laurent could not believe that it had been achieved, was being maintained now, without heavy cost. And had it to do with that last, that cruellest hurt of all? He thought so. But perhaps the hand which gave the wound had already tried to heal it?

"Does Mme de . . . de la Rocheterie know of the enquiry?" he asked suddenly.

"Yes. But she does not realize how serious it is for me, because when I wrote a few days ago I merely told her that I had asked for an investigation into the rumours of treachery at Pont-aux-Rochers. I have had a line in return, approving of my action." He smiled, a little ironically. "And I hope that, whatever the verdict, she may never learn the details of the evidence."

Laurent knew what he meant by that phrase. After a moment Aymar added, "I wrote to my cousin also, saying that I hoped at least to keep her name out. That _is_ my hope."

But had he heard from her? Presumably not, since he immediately changed the conversation, and began to talk about the way in which he was laying out the first instalment of Laurent's money on the disabled and widows. After which he got up and took something off the mantelpiece.

"Such an extraordinary coincidence, Laurent! I threw this away, as you know. When I put on my uniform, for which I had sent to Sessignes, there was the _jartier_ in a pocket!

"Well, don't throw it away again!" said Laurent. "It must mean that the luck has turned.--Aymar, wear it to-morrow! To please me, let me see if I cannot somehow fasten it on to your arm again! It's nonsense, I know . . . but just to please me!"

And, to please him, his friend consented. Moreover, so thin was his arm now that, with the aid of needle and thread from Mme Leblanc, Laurent did succeed in fastening the rush bracelet in its place once more.

"I have only recently learnt from Eveno," said Aymar as Laurent put in the last stitch, "of another legend which seems much truer than the story about running water. If you are fortunate in . . . if you have obtained or are about to obtain your heart's desire, the _jartier_ will leave you." He pulled down his sleeve. "And apparently," he added, trying to smile, "when that is lost for ever the _jartier_ comes back. It has already found me--remember when?"

An immense pity for him invaded Laurent. He was rather staggered, too.

"But this return must mean that you have your luck again--that you are going to come through to-morrow."

"Perhaps. I admit that I need something to counteract----Come in! . . . Ah, de Fresne, let me make known to you my friend Monsieur de Courtomer, of whom I have told you."

The two men bowed, a little stiffly. "Well, Monsieur de Courtomer," said the newcomer starkly, "if you have heard the last piece of news, I think you will admit that we are here on a fool's errand."

Laurent fired up. "As M. de la Rocheterie is now irrevocably committed to this enterprise, Monsieur," he retorted, "that is hardly an encouraging view of the situation to put before him!"

"M. de la Rocheterie does not need that view to be put before him," interposed Aymar. "It is already his own.--Sit down, de Fresne."

Laurent moved away. That was the man who with his own eyes had seen the outrage wrought on Aymar, who in addition to his own indirect share in bringing it about had not even got himself scratched in trying to prevent it! And yet he surprised on this man's face, as he spoke in low tones with L'Oiseleur, an anxiety much more selfless and acute than his rough and untactful words had suggested.

It was late when de Fresne left. Laurent's sleep was heavy but broken, and he spent a large portion of it in giving evidence of the most ridiculous and disconnected order.

He was glad, therefore, when morning came, for he had yet to realize how its hours were going to drag--since the enquiry did not begin till two o'clock in the afternoon. The only event of importance was the arrival of Colonel Richard for consultation with Aymar. His dismay when he heard of the disastrous gap in the evidence was obvious, though not so nakedly displayed as de Fresne's, but he dismissed the idea of turning back, which, indeed, Aymar had never seriously contemplated. "When a man has courage of your type," were his parting words, "circumstances themselves crumble before him. In any case, you have taken the right course."

"And without you I could not have taken it," responded Aymar warmly. "I only hope that you will have no cause to regret your great generosity in coming here on my account."

With a meal, at which Laurent ate even less than Aymar, the interminable morning did come at last to an end, but when half-past one sounded from a clock outside, and Aymar put his notes in his pocket and rose, Laurent heartily wished it were nine o'clock again. The enquiry was to be held in the Hôtel de Ville, and Aymar had refused to drive the short distance thither. Moreover, since he equally refused to have his actual witnesses go with him, if Laurent had not joined him he would apparently have set forth entirely alone for the place of ordeal--and that through what might possibly be itself an ordeal. Neither of them knew how the feeling went in Aurannes.

At the last moment Laurent, unobserved, divested himself of his recently assumed sword. Aymar de la Rocheterie should not be the only man to walk through the streets that afternoon in uniform but disarmed. They set forth side by side.

It was a hot day, and the streets in their afternoon shadelessness were not very full. For that reason the figure of L'Oiseleur was all the more conspicuous, and Laurent felt it. Only a faint hope sustained him that a spectator might wonder which of the two swordless officers was he whose once brilliant name was so tarnished. But though everyone within sight stared or turned to look, there was no demonstration; a few passing officers even saluted him, though a couple very obviously crossed the street to avoid him. Only, in traversing the market-place, they came full on a Chouan of Gamber's legion, and he, as they passed, looked full at the two young men, and then deliberately spat on the ground at Aymar's feet.

"--Don't, Laurent!" said Aymar in a low voice, clutching his arm and pulling him on, turning on him meanwhile a face for the moment like a dead man's. "Remember, for God's sake, that I have my own temper to keep!"

Only a few scarcely interested spectators lounged round the semicircular steps of the Hôtel de Ville. At the top Aymar suddenly caught his friend's arm again.

"What have you done with your sword?"

Laurent, whose teeth were still clenched, glanced down at his side. Why was Aymar so observant! "Ass that I am, I must have forgotten it! But it is of no consequence; I am not here on duty."

"Forgotten it--when you had it on five minutes before we started!" The grasp tightened. "Laurent, who but you would have thought of such a thing!" He gave him a long look, removed his hand with a rather shaken little laugh, and they went in.

(4)

The hall of the Hôtel de Ville at Aurannes was a good deal too large for the purpose to which it was now being put, for the proceedings were not really public, only the military being admitted. Yet at first there seemed to Laurent to be a crowd of faces; afterwards they resolved themselves into those of about thirty or forty officers, ranged fanwise on either side of the dais on which, at a long table, sat the Court itself.

But, after the first slight shock of dismay on finding that the audience was not directly behind Aymar but facing him, the young man had eyes for the Court only. There were nine of them, all of superior rank. In the middle sat Sol de Grisolles, the General-in-Chief of Brittany, the man who had been Cadoudal's lieutenant sixteen years before, and who, being implicated in his subsequent conspiracy, had suffered an imprisonment of ten years in surroundings so horrible that his health and vigour were gone, his eyesight almost ruined, and that he was an old man at fifty-four. There was his major-general, the Marquis de la Boëssière, on whom the King had actually bestowed full powers of leadership for the province, but who, on finding Sol de Grisolles already in command, had voluntarily subordinated himself to him, the abler to the less able; and there were the Chevaliers de Sécillon and de Margadel. The others Laurent could not identify . . . save one, indeed, the man who owed so much to his disgraced comrade, and who probably did not know it--M. du Tremblay, seen previously in such different surroundings.

An orderly showed them their places. In front of the dais, but at some distance from it, a table and a chair had been set for Aymar. Behind him, seats were to accommodate his witnesses, but they were apparently to give their evidence from another table, placed in a line with his. Laurent wondered if he would ever succeed in standing at it. But no one challenged his right to sit with de Fresne and Colonel Richard and an unknown man whom he guessed to be the landlord of the _Abeille d'Or_.

Then, after a pause which seemed interminable, after some consultation among the nine officers enthroned there, whispered comments from the onlookers and a steady fire of glances directed at the pale, uniformed, swordless young man seated alone at the little table, the General rose in his place.

"I wish to remind you, gentlemen," he said, as emphatically as his broken voice would permit, "that this is not a court-martial. Though the Vicomte de la Rocheterie's sword lies before us on the table (having originally been surrendered in circumstances about which we shall shortly hear) he is in no sense under arrest. He is here of his own free will, having asked for an investigation into his recent conduct, about which, as you are doubtless aware, very damaging rumours are in circulation, although no formal charge has been preferred against him. You, his fellow officers, are accordingly met here to give him an opportunity of clearing himself from the very grave imputation under which he rests of having betrayed his own men to the enemy on the night of the 27th of April last." He paused a moment and cleared his throat. "The procedure which we shall follow is that M. de la Rocheterie will first give us in outline his account of what occurred, and will then go over it in detail, producing his witnesses and answering any question which the Court may put to him. And, since there is no accuser, we are ready for him to begin at once."

So the lists were fairly set for what Aymar had said last night was a hopeless fight. He got to his feet, and, after a few words of thanks to the General-in-Chief and the Court for consenting to hear him, electrified everybody--and Laurent not least--by saying, firmly and quietly:

"I wish to begin by stating that I do not deny having sent certain information to the enemy on the night of 27th April, nor that my action was the cause of the disaster at Pont-aux-Rochers, nor that my men, believing me to have purposely betrayed them, shot me for it."

So strong a sensation here went round Court and audience alike that Aymar was obliged to pause. "Good Lord!" thought Laurent to himself, "what a way to open . . . and how like him!"

"But," went on Aymar, standing like a statue, "I emphatically deny the motive assigned to my action. I shall hope to prove to the Court that the disaster was the result, in reality, of a scheme which went wrong, that no treachery was intended for a moment, and that my men acted as they did under a misapprehension."

He began without more ado to read his summary, a short, lucid statement, making no appeal for mercy but laying a certain stress, as it proceeded, on the points which were undoubtedly in his favour. Such were, the important conversation with Saint-Etienne and M. du Parc at Keraven, showing that the whole scheme had been worked out beforehand, and that he could reasonably rely on Saint-Etienne's collaboration; his immediate return to his own men and the frantic haste he made to warn them; and his agreeing to give up his sword and court an enquiry--which, however, the precipitate action of his followers put for the time out of the question.

He then started to take his points in more detail. With regard to the conversation at the _Abeille d'Or_, the General or the Marquis de la Boëssière could bear out his statement that Colonel de Saint-Etienne and his regiment were at Keraven on April 27th. Of what passed at his interview with him, however, he had to acknowledge that he could not produce evidence, since M. de Saint-Etienne was dead, and he had failed to trace M. du Parc. He was perfectly aware how unfortunate this was for his case.

The Court concurred, and found voice in a member who remarked somewhat gratuitously that M. de la Rocheterie had then nothing to prove that the story of his "plan" was not concocted afterwards.

"That," responded Aymar a trifle drily, "is exactly the inference which may be drawn. But I can at least prove that I _had_ an interview with those two gentlemen at the _Abeille d'Or_ on that date. I will call the innkeeper himself for that purpose."

The questioning of that worthy over, Aymar proceeded with his narrative, and soon came (with what inward shrinking Laurent guessed) to the arrival at Sessignes of the Marquis--he did not name him--with news of grave peril to "a lady" who had rendered a service to the cause in 1813, and might therefore well stand in danger from the Imperialists now; and how, rejecting his impulse to give himself up in her stead, he decided to offer the Bonapartists his lieutenant's letter in exchange for her--with the fixed intention, however, of carrying out the rest of the plan exactly as sketched.

And then, as Laurent anticipated, the questions began.

"Who was the lady, Monsieur?"

"Is it not immaterial what her name was?" asked Aymar.

"No," replied the officer who had put the question, "not if we are to believe that she was in danger because of past services."

"You cannot take my word for those services?"

They shook their heads. Then someone said, "We quite appreciate that you want to keep her name out of this business, Monsieur de la Rocheterie, but we must know what those services were--and we must have some proof that the detained lady was really she who rendered them."

Aymar thereupon detailed Mme de Villecresne's exploit at Chalais, the results of which were highly beneficial to "a certain leader." And the Chevalier de Sécillon, suddenly declaring that he knew the story, and the name of its heroine, it was finally agreed that if a responsible witness wrote down the name of the lady detained by the Bonapartists and sent it up to the Court, and it proved to be the same, he would have established his point. But what witness could do this?

L'Oiseleur turned and exchanged a look with Colonel Richard, who nodded. So he announced that the witness whom he was about to call in any case would do this for him, since it was he who had had the lady in his hands. And, not a little to the general surprise, Colonel Richard, lately in command of the Imperialist troops at Saint-Goazec, was cited to give evidence for his defeated opponent.

He got up very impassively, writing down the name as he did so. It was passed up, and found satisfactory.

"I will now ask you, Colonel Richard," said Aymar, addressing him, "to tell the story of your receipt of M. de Fresne's letter, in order to show that no more was asked of you than this lady's safety--and that in actual fact even that bargain could not be carried out, because the lady was never really in danger."

At which revelation even members of the Court were observed to hold their heads.

(5)

Laurent began by listening with avidity to the story of the coming of M. de Vaubernier that night to the presbytère of Saint-Goazec with the letter, and his interview with Colonel Richard; but as the latter's evidence went on, he listened with inward maledictions also. How was it possible for any one to be such a fool as that old gentleman--not only, in a sense, to have originated the whole situation in his turnip of a brain, but also to have played, in such a preposterous manner, right into the hands of this intelligent colonel of engineers by revealing that the enemy proposed a bargain with him before finding out whether a bargain were called for at all! How could he not have seen from Colonel Richard's manner that night that there was no question of shooting anybody--even though the Imperialist had, as now appeared, been too astute to display his entire ignorance of the lady's presence at the inn! Laurent's disgust got the better of his interest.

He heard, however, at one point, questions eliciting exactly what was in the letter, and also a sharp query as to why it had not been laid before the Court, to which Aymar briefly replied that it had subsequently been destroyed by a third person. He heard, too, the Imperialist being asked what his thoughts were at the moment of the letter's reception, and his frank response, that as it appeared to be genuine he was driven to one of two suppositions: either that L'Oiseleur was a traitor, and was deliberately selling his men for the safety of a woman whom he believed to be in mortal peril, or that the whole thing was a trap. He therefore went over to the _Cheval Blanc_ to find out what possible grounds L'Oiseleur could have for believing the lady to be in such a situation, and got on the track of the truth, though he did not run the culprit to ground till after the fight.

"And what was the truth, Colonel?" asked a voice as he paused.

Laurent put his hands over his ears. But he heard--or seemed to hear--all the same. . . . He certainly heard the sonorous voice of the Chevalier de Margadel exclaiming, with astonishment, "Then do you mean to tell us that the whole question of the lady's danger, and all that hung on it, rested on no more solid basis than a practical joke?"

"I am ashamed to say that it is so," replied Colonel Richard.

Aymar, sitting at his table, had his head on his hand. Laurent knew how bitter this must taste--how the shadow of ridicule, hardest of all to face, must seem to be hovering near him, though really it was engulfed in the shadow of tragedy. None of the Court, at least, appeared to find this revelation amusing, and Laurent was grateful to them. He was not so sure about one or two of the younger officers in the audience. As he scanned in particular one whose demeanour did not please him, he heard Colonel Richard resuming his evidence, and saying how he considered the letter worth acting on--with precautions, as he thought that a leader with the experience and antecedents of M. de la Rocheterie had probably taken steps to nullify the information he had sent; nor, as between one soldier and another, did he consider that unfair . . . merely a move in the game. "So I took every precaution that I could think of," he concluded, "and the result you know; but I desire, gentlemen, to make it very plain that if Colonel de Saint-Etienne's regiment had not been ordered away from Keraven when it was, I, not knowing at the moment of his presence in the neighbourhood, might well have been the victim of disaster instead of M. de la Rocheterie."

Laurent could see that this testimony had made rather a strong impression. The Court conferred together. Then the Marquis de la Boëssière observed, "In fact, you are convinced that M. de la Rocheterie is speaking the truth?"

"I am, absolutely. I should hardly have agreed to come and give evidence at the request of a former adversary if I thought him a traitor. Perhaps," said Colonel Richard, drawing himself up a little, "I may be allowed to say that I think too much of my own reputation for that."

He returned to his place, and Aymar stood up again.

"It seems pretty well proved, Monsieur de la Rocheterie," said M. de la Boëssière, looking at his notes, "that you had sufficient grounds for thinking the lady to be in danger, but do you consider that you were justified in taking such a risk for the sake of any individual, of whatever sex or services?"

"But I have already stated, mon Général," replied Aymar steadily, "for what reasons I considered that there was practically no risk." And he rehearsed them once more.

"You had then no scruples about sending the letter?"

"I had scruples because I disliked the whole idea--but not on the score of risk."

"Your perceptions must have been singularly clouded at the time, Monsieur de la Rocheterie," observed a dry voice. "The risk appears, to me at any rate, to have been more than obvious!"

The shaft drew blood; Laurent saw it. Whose perceptions would not have been clouded at that dizzy moment in the orchard, the meeting-place of rapture and despair? But after a second Aymar recovered himself and said gravely, "I am not speaking of how it appears to me now, Monsieur, but giving evidence as to how it appeared to me then."

"I think we should remember," said the General-in-Chief, suddenly interposing, "that M. de la Rocheterie's whole military career has been one of taking risks, and very successful ones, and that familiarity is apt to breed contempt."

Someone here observed that it would certainly be very hard, too, for a gentleman to leave a lady in such a situation, particularly when he had the means of saving her to his hand.

"Or a man either, if it comes to that," murmured a voice.

And on this M. de Sécillon, who knew the identity of the lady, remarked, presumably with the idea of giving Aymar some support, "Moreover, as it was for M. de la Rocheterie himself that the lady had obtained that military information, it is easy to understand that he felt under a special obligation to her."

("Oh, you fool!" said Laurent to himself.)

The Marquis de la Boëssière looked at the speaker. "Oh, M. de la Rocheterie himself was the leader in question, was he? Then she was personally known to him? Is that so, Monsieur de la Rocheterie? I do not think we had gathered that."

Laurent would not even look at his friend's back here; he looked (against his will) at the deeply interested audience.

"Yes," said Aymar briefly.

"How well? You must pardon the question."

A tiny pause. "She was my cousin."

"Ah, I see," said M. de la Boëssière. He might not have meant his tone to sound significant; it could hardly avoid doing so. Among the audience there was an undoubted and rather pleasurable stir, and on the face which Laurent had already singled out for dislike a grin which made the young man clench his hands.

However, the Court intimated that Aymar should proceed with his narrative. He did so. He recalled the innkeeper to prove that he arrived at three in the morning at Keraven, was greatly distressed at finding the troops gone, and set off at once on a fresh horse. And he had carried his recital as far as the Bois des Fauvettes when an objection occurred from the dark, thin-faced officer who had made the observation about "clouded perceptions." This individual suggested that L'Oiseleur should produce some witness to prove that he really did his best after he left Keraven to arrive in time to prevent a disaster. "Otherwise," he observed, "you might have planned to arrive too late."

"Oh, bosh!" cried Laurent internally, now fixing this objector with a hostile eye.

Aymar replied that he could hardly prove that; the only witness to his haste (failing the dead body of the horse which he had killed by it, and the quarryman whom he had intimidated into selling him another) would again be the innkeeper to whom he had paid the value of the first. "But," he added, "if I had really intended to be too late, should I have rejoined my men at all the same morning?"

"That ought to settle him," thought Laurent. But instead he found that this keen-witted person was landing his friend in a new and unforeseen difficulty, for, having elicited that de Fresne, the next witness, had not appeared in the Bois des Fauvettes till the afternoon of Monday, May 1st, he pointed out that there was no evidence to show that he _did_ rejoin his force the same morning.

For a moment Aymar seemed taken aback. Then he rallied. "I can produce it indirectly, Monsieur," he returned. "If M. du Tremblay will be so obliging, he can tell you that I despatched one of my officers to him early on the morning of April 29th to warn him that I could not now coöperate with him. This officer, M. de Soulanges, no doubt gave him an account of my return; even if he did not, his mission itself was a proof of it." He looked towards his one-time ally.

Now M. du Tremblay was sitting at the extreme left-hand of the table, and round the corner of it. He was not, therefore, directly facing Aymar, like the majority of the Court; and all along, it seemed to Laurent, he had taken advantage of his position not to look at him. All through the business about the "lady," of whose identity and antecedents he certainly knew as much as M. de Sécillon, he had never given a sign. And when he addressed the President now his tone was curt.

"I can perfectly well corroborate that," he said. And indeed he went on to relate how M. de Soulanges had given him a circumstantial account of L'Oiseleur's return, in haste and fatigue, just after the disaster.

Laurent was puzzled by his manner, but it dawned upon him that he was probably deeply distressed at seeing L'Oiseleur at the bar before him. At least, this seemed likely from his next words. "May I take this opportunity of pointing out to the Court," he went on, "though it is not exactly the question at issue now, that a traitor would never have sent that message? He would, on the contrary, have seized the opportunity of letting me blunder into disaster, too, by keeping silence. Through M. de la Rocheterie's timely warning I was able to alter my plans a little, and, as you know, I was fortunate enough to bring off one of the successes of the campaign. Further, if M. de la Rocheterie had had treacherous intentions he would undoubtedly have made use of the intimate knowledge of our joint plans which he possessed--and this, it is clear, he did not do." (_No, he most certainly did not_, observed Laurent, sotto voce.)

A murmur, almost of applause, went round. Aymar thanked the speaker and resumed his narrative, carrying it up to the unexpected arrival of de Fresne in the wood, at which point he called M. de Fresne himself.

"Please tell the Court, Monsieur de Fresne," he said, turning to him, "how you knew of the step I had taken and how you represented to me the only way out."

So Nicolas de Fresne, standing at the witness-table with an expression of concentrated distaste about his whole person, cleared his throat and began abruptly:

"I was taken prisoner at the bridge--knocked on the head. When I was sufficiently recovered Colonel Richard sent for me--it was at Saint-Goazec--showed me my own letter to M. de la Rocheterie, and told how it had come into his hands. Being rather . . . startled I asked him to let me have it back, and I had it on me when I escaped during the night of April 30th. When I reached the----"

M. de la Boëssière leant forward. "One moment, please. We must go back a little. Colonel Richard presumably told you that M. de la Rocheterie had himself sent your letter to him. Did you immediately believe that?"

"No, certainly not," responded de Fresne.

"But he succeeded in convincing you?"

"No, I was not convinced."

"But you were shaken?"

"Yes," muttered the witness.

"Why?"

De Fresne did not answer for a moment. Then he said slowly, "Because M. de la Rocheterie had written something on the letter, and I knew his hand."

"What was it?"

Since his lieutenant seemed to find a difficulty in replying, Aymar hereupon got up himself and said rather drily, "M. de Fresne had written part of his letter in cipher, so I deciphered that portion before sending it. It was of no use trying to drive a bargain with the letter at all unless the information it contained was quite clear." As he sat down again Laurent reflected, "Of course that is perfectly logical, but it does not sound well, and de Fresne has not done any good by being unable to get it out; it merely puts the dot on the i." Indeed the raising of eyebrows and compressing of lips in the Court showed that he was right.

De Fresne, however, was allowed to resume, and related how, returning, he asked his leader for an explanation, and how the latter told him that he had sent the letter as a ruse, but that the scheme had miscarried, and how.

"And what did you think of this explanation?" asked M. de la Boëssière.

"I must admit that I found it inadequate."

"And yet M. de la Rocheterie has been at such pains to prove that the plan was so complete and void of risk that he very nearly carried it out with no other motive than a desire to trap the Bonapartists!"

De Fresne shifted uneasily.

"Why did you not accept this explanation?"

"It was after the disaster had occurred, and the risk then, naturally, seemed indefensible."

The unknown dark officer whom Laurent had already christened "Fouquier-Tinville" leant forward.

"Your two replies do not tally, Monsieur de Fresne. If you found the explanation inadequate, as you admit, it must be that you had some other reason than that you considered the risk indefensible. The latter would be merely a case of condemning your leader's judgment. Which reply are we to accept?"

"I suppose," replied de Fresne reluctantly, "I must say that I considered the explanation inadequate."

"And why?"

A slight pause. "Because I knew from what Colonel Richard had said that there was a bargain of some sort."

"And had not M. de la Rocheterie told you that?"

"No."

"Did you ask him anything about it, as you knew of its existence?"

"Yes. And he admitted it. But he would not tell me what it was."

"The inference being," remarked "Fouquier-Tinville," "that he was ashamed of it."

"I . . . I did not know what to think," admitted de Fresne unhappily.

M. de Margadel here said in his great voice, "Why on earth should he not have told you what the bargain was, if there was nothing to be ashamed of?"

"Because," said Aymar, suddenly rising to his feet, "seeing what had happened, I was ashamed of it."

There was a sensation. A large, stout, heavy-faced officer at the end of the table said, in an annoyed voice, "I should like to know at this point what M. de la Rocheterie is driving at? His witnesses seem to do nothing but bring out damaging admissions, and then he makes them himself, gratuitously." And his mumble to himself of "There's something behind all this!" was distinctly audible.

Aymar was rather stung; Laurent could see it from the poise of his head. "My object, Monsieur," he retorted, "is merely to tell the exact truth, in the hope of clearing myself; I have no other aim."

Once more de Fresne was requested to proceed. This time he got almost without interruption to the crisis, which he managed to represent as a few of the men leaving the wood in panic, shooting at and wounding their leader, on whom they had previously laid hands. But at that point he was not unnaturally questioned.

"You could not stop all this insubordination?"

"I did my best, but since M. de la Rocheterie himself could not control the men----"

"What was M. de la Rocheterie doing all this time, then?"

"I told you," answered de Fresne hurriedly. "They had disarmed him, and were holding him. He could do nothing."

"Then when the alarm came they let him go?"

"N . . . no."

"But they could hardly have shot him while some of their accomplices were holding him."

De Fresne looked at the floor. "By that time they had tied him to a tree."

It was out at last, pronounced in words . . . and caused a silence--but hardly a merciful one. And the eyes, the eyes on Aymar! If Laurent could only have shielded him from them. . . . The questioner's voice took up again:

"And he was found like that by the Imperialists?"

"Yes," answered de Fresne sullenly. "It could not be helped."

Aymar, horribly pale, got up, as if he feared his subordinate was going to be blamed, and corroborated this, adding that M. de Fresne did his best to free him. He sat down again in the same tingling silence.

It was the stout officer who broke it. "Did M. de la Rocheterie," he asked, addressing the witness, "let his men proceed to such an extremity without any attempt to defend himself? It looks as if his followers were so convinced of something against him that no explanations of his were of any avail. Surely the Chouan, of whom we all have experience, will accept anything so long as his faith in a leader is unshaken?"

But to this de Fresne replied that their faith was badly shaken, both by the disaster and the loss of the _jartier_; and that in addition Le Bihan, the ringleader, was nursing a grudge.

Now came endless questions about the _jartier_; how, when, and why lost, and then about Magloire, through all which Laurent's heart was slowly descending to the region of the floor, reaching it completely when the theory was finally evolved between "Fouquier-Tinville," the stout officer, and one other, that something pointing to deliberate treachery must have come out in the unaccounted-for three days, between Aymar's return and de Fresne's escape. And why had M. de la Rocheterie brought no evidence to cover those three days? Was he refraining from producing the only people who could tell why they did shoot him? Aymar, whose voice, to Laurent's ear, was beginning to show the first signs of the strain on him, admitted that he had not thought of it, considering that the testimony of M. de Fresne, who had been present throughout the episode, was sufficient to show on what grounds his men had turned against him.

And then the stout officer said, "We must hear something more about this shooting itself, and how deliberate it was. That is very important. Was it as hurried and casual as you seem to imply, Monsieur de Fresne? It can hardly have been if M. de la Rocheterie was _tied to a tree!_ . . . Did they proceed to do that only just before they shot him?"

"No, not exactly," admitted de Fresne unwillingly.

"How long before, then?"

"It must have been . . . between half an hour and three quarters."

"And in all that time nobody protested?"

"Yes, a good many, but they were not so strong as the other party."

"And did not M. de la Rocheterie himself protest?"

"Once; but when Le Bihan gave him the opportunity of justifying himself he refused to say a word--as I should have done in his place."

"Then they never got the explanation, such as it was?"

"Yes; I gave it them myself in the hope of saving him."

"Without the 'bargain'?"

"Naturally, since I did not know what it was."

"And the 'explanation' was still, presumably, unconvincing to you when you gave it?"

"I was beginning to waver."

"So you were able to tell them that it had convinced you?"

"I could not quite say that."

"How many men precisely took part in shooting M. de la Rocheterie--how many shots were fired?"

De Fresne looked harassed. Once more Aymar came to his assistance.

"As M. de Fresne was trying at considerable risk to cut me free, and had also to rally the men against the Bonapartists, he can hardly have been engaged in computation. I can satisfy the Court, up to a point. I was fired at twice by Le Bihan; his first shot struck me, the second missed; and by another man, who also hit me . . . and by at least one more, as I afterwards discovered. That makes a minimum of three men and four shots; there may have been more. I do not know, because I lost consciousness after the second. But I imagine that they had not much more leisure." He sat down again; it was beyond Laurent how he could have steeled himself to get up.

Sol de Grisolles, intervening here, observed, "Well, I think we can now leave this part of the subject. It is obvious that hasty shots by three or four men cannot be said to constitute an execution."

But the stout officer said stubbornly, "Yes, General, but if he was fastened to a tree the intention at least of an execution seems obvious; and since it was nothing short of murder of a commanding officer, I cannot believe that even irregular troops would be guilty of such an unprecedented act without more reason than the showing of this letter.--And, by the way, who destroyed that letter, and why?"

"I destroyed it," replied de Fresne briefly. "And I did so because I believed M. de la Rocheterie to have died in the hands of the enemy, and I saw no purpose to be served by keeping a piece of evidence which he was not alive to refute."

"In fact," put in "Fouquier-Tinville," "you tried to hush up the whole matter! Was it for the same reason that you never attempted to have any of these men brought to justice? Did you continue to command them, by the way? What happened to them?"

De Fresne told him.

"Then you took no steps to have even Le Bihan brought to trial--you preferred the matter to go by default, even when these rumours began to get about, rather than give the men a chance of stating their case. In fact, you acted then just as M. de la Rocheterie is acting now--either from design or carelessness keeping out the men's evidence."

"I protest against that inference," said de Fresne angrily, "both for myself and M. de la Rocheterie. Monsieur le Président----"

"Yes, I think it is quite unfounded." Sol de Grisolles looked at Fouquier-Tinville."

"Then I withdraw it," said the latter. "But I do submit that, either in those three days in the wood, or in the destroyed letter, there was some more damning proof of treachery than appears."

Aymar was on his feet in an instant. "Will you stand down, Monsieur de Fresne? I call Colonel Richard as a witness that there was nothing extraneous in the letter but my deciphering of a portion of it and his subsequent endorsement."

"There was nothing more--not a syllable," said the Imperialist.

"Then it was the unaccounted-for three days," pronounced the stout officer.

Aymar drew himself up. His temper was roused, but no one save Laurent would have known it. "I can only assure the Court once more," he said, "that nothing was further from my thoughts than to keep back any evidence. But the Court must admit that I could hardly have induced any of the men who shot me to come willingly before this tribunal and confess to what has already been qualified as murder . . . whether justifiable or no."

The President nodded, as if in appreciation of this point, and the Marquis de la Boëssière, addressing him, remarked: "It scarcely seems to me, Monsieur le Président, that we need distress ourselves over the supposition that adverse evidence is being suppressed. What is far more serious, in my view, is of quite an opposite nature--M. de la Rocheterie's entire failure to bring conclusive testimony to support his main contention. We may believe that he is speaking the truth when he says that he acted in good faith--but not because he has _proved_ that he did. If I may put it rather harshly, there has not this afternoon been one shred of real evidence to prove that he did not deliberately sacrifice his troops to save his cousin."

If Aymar did not flush, Laurent did; he almost ground his teeth.

"I think, Monsieur de la Boëssière," said the President, "that that undoubtedly _is_ to put it rather harshly. We must hope that M. de la Rocheterie can bring some more convincing testimony on that point to-morrow, since I think we must now adjourn for to-day."

(6)

All the way back to Aymar's lodging those words were vibrating through Laurent's whole being: "not a shred of real evidence to show that he did not deliberately sacrifice his men to save his cousin." Yet when they got into the little room, and de Fresne, who had accompanied them, revealed the depth of his gloom and of his irritation, Laurent, from pure antagonism, began to cheer up.

"I told you so!" lamented the poor gentleman. "I told you from the beginning, La Rocheterie, that it was a mistake to court enquiry now . . . and after failing to produce your two chief witnesses still more so! And what is going to happen to-morrow? We have no more evidence; the thing will become a farce!"

"I will tell you what will happen to-morrow, Monsieur," remarked Laurent rather maliciously. "You will go on giving your testimony, perhaps for hours, with that fat old fellow asking question after question about those three days in the Bois des Fauvettes which intrigue him so--the Three Days of Creation."

Aymar, who looked like a ghost, smiled in spite of himself. "That event occupied six, you will remember, Laurent." And the unfortunate de Fresne said tartly that, with such a prospect in front of him, he would betake himself to his inn and go to bed early.

As he closed the door behind his lieutenant Aymar shook his head at the tormentor.

"You are really rather unkind, Laurent!" And, as Laurent made a grimace intended to show at once a sense of self-justification and a measure of penitence, he went on gravely, "And you know, mon ami, de Fresne is quite justified in his view. I have not really any chance now . . . of being cleared, that is. Indeed, I was very strongly tempted to tell the General at the close of to-day's proceedings that it was hardly worth while wasting the time of the Court any more. But then it came to me that perhaps it was cowardly, and perhaps it was rash . . . and I have had enough of being both."

"The first you have never been!" retorted Laurent. "Moreover, I feel that the luck will turn yet. Remember that you have the _jartier_ back! Now, you are tired to death; lie down on this horrible sofa and try to rest a little. No, you do not need to go through those notes any more."

"That is true," agreed Aymar as he obeyed him. "There is nothing more to say now." And as Laurent spread a covering over him he added, with a smile, "But I did not mean you to come here to begin Arbelles over again!"

"What did you mean me to come for, then, since you will not let me give evidence now that I am here?"

Aymar made no reply in words; he merely pressed his hand. And a few minutes later, sheer fatigue overriding the nervous tension, he was sleeping like a child. But, in spite of his own brave words, Laurent's heart ached as he sat beside him and thought of the morrow. . . . And to-day? In some ways Aymar had got through better than he probably looked for--in the matter of keeping out Mme de Villecresne's name, for instance. On the other hand, they neither of them anticipated that the Court would want to burrow so deeply into that intensely painful episode of the shooting. Oh, what would be the outcome of the whole business--what, indeed, would an impartial observer have said was the real outcome of to-day's proceedings?

But in Mme Leblanc's little sitting-room no such person existed; there was only one very anxious young man watching another.

More than half an hour had passed thus when there came a knock at the door, and Laurent, tiptoeing over, was presented by Mme Leblanc with a large visiting card, and the information that there was "a gentleman downstairs asking to see M. de la Rocheterie."

Laurent gave an exclamation. "What is it?" asked Aymar, rousing.

"You would never guess!" cried Laurent in high glee. "Our dear Père Perrelet, come, I am sure, to make amends, though dropped from Heaven knows where, and on your track Heaven knows how! You'll see him, Aymar, of course?"

And, pelting down the narrow stairs, he almost fell into the arms of M. le docteur J.-M.-P. Perrelet, in all his Sunday clothes, at the bottom. Indeed M. le docteur soundly embraced him.

"Oh, my dear boy, how is he after this morning? I was there--you didn't see me? I managed to get in--I--as a military doctor! I heard of this by chance at Arbelles two days ago . . . so I knew that I should find him here. And now I've listened to it all . . . mon Dieu, what a story! What a brute and fool I was! Will he see me? I want to ask his pardon. Do you think he will give it me? Or perhaps he never realized that----"

"Oh, did he not!" returned Laurent. "But he owes you far too much to refuse it . . . and in any case . . . Go up; there's the door."

And he watched the little doctor mount the stairs, already taking out his pocket-handkerchief, heard him open the door, and say in husky tones, "My dearest boy, can you ever----" Then the door shut.

"Well," thought the young man, leaning against the foot of the stairs and feeling a kind of pleasant moisture about his own eyelids, "at least _I_ have never claimed not to be a sentimentalist. How long shall I give them?"

M. Perrelet stayed to supper, which his presence somehow enlivened into quite a cheerful meal. He was very hopeful, on what grounds could hardly be discovered. I wonder, thought Laurent once more, that he doesn't say, "I'm no optimist," and shortly afterwards, to his delight, the old surgeon did remark, "Of course I'm not one to take an unduly rosy view of things!" And Laurent himself again besought Aymar to call him as a witness, and when Aymar enquired "as a witness to what?" asseverated anew that he should not be contented till du Tremblay knew what he owed him over the cipher business--till they all knew it.

"My dear Laurent," observed L'Oiseleur a little drily, "you surely do not expect me to bring it forward as a merit that I did not betray a comrade's plans when it was suggested to me to do so!"

"Of course you would never have done it voluntarily! But I wonder how many people, in your condition, could to the very last have kept their heads sufficiently not to show so much as assent or dissent when that blackguard narrowed the issue down to a single question--that vital question of the crossing of the river?"

"Nobody who had not a will of steel," pronounced M. Perrelet.

"There you are!" cried Laurent. "There is evidence--indirect, if you like--as to intention and character. Oh, I could make it very plain to those gentlemen if I had the chance!"

Aymar shrugged his shoulders. "I am afraid your desire will not be gratified, mon cher; and I am afraid that I don't want it gratified so publicly."

"It's a great waste," sighed the champion stubbornly. "And it is of no good to depreciate testimony of that kind, because you see that it is 'without a shred of real evidence,' as M. de la Boëssière would say, that you have converted"--he grinned--"a hard-headed, unemotional, scientific man like M. Perrelet from his temporary unbelief!"

(7)

The scientific man in question becoming very high-handed after supper, and ordering his ex-patient to bed, Laurent went forth to hunt up a couple of acquaintances whom he had seen as they came back from the Hôtel de Ville. He found them, as he expected, at the Hôtel de l'Ecusson and, knowing Aymar to be in excellent hands, went in with them and called for wine.

In the room he entered, which was full of officers, the enquiry seemed to be the sole topic of conversation, and the only point on which there appeared to be general agreement was that those who had not attended it that afternoon would be there next morning. Some stared at Laurent, recognizing him, and he felt that it was not a bad move to have put in an appearance, just to show that one had a clear conscience. His own friends were fortunately _bien pensants_, one of them enthusiastically so, and the other said that he thought La Rocheterie must be innocent, or he would never have had the courage to bring all this upon himself. With them, too, surmises were not wanting as to the "cousin" and her relations with L'Oiseleur, but Laurent purposely avoided throwing any light upon the subject.

Presently, lo, through the clouds of tobacco-smoke a face appeared for a moment and vanished again. Laurent made one of his swift sallies.

"Monsieur Perrelet, come in, come in! Are you looking for me--how charming of you! Come and have a glass of wine with me! I have some friends here; you can tell us the latest news from Arbelles."

M. Perrelet, chuckling, protesting and pleased, suffered the young man to drag him in and make presentations.

"Well, yes, perhaps one glass of cognac," he said. "I left him in bed," he announced behind his hand to Laurent, "in fact, I gave him a sleeping-draught (though he was not aware of it). . . . There is something I want to ask you presently. . . . Oh, thank you, Monsieur, you are too kind!"

So there the good doctor sat, smoking a cheroot, and very happy in the consciousness that he was "seeing life"--in the Royalist camp this time; at least that was how Laurent read his amused and contented and observant expression, and he was probably not far wrong. But half of Laurent himself, though he continued to chat, was gauging with a rather too acute sensitiveness the current of feeling in the room about the one thing which mattered to him. After the tension of the afternoon the wine he had taken, though without affecting his head in the ordinary sense, made him conscious of a desire to get up and say something, publicly, on Aymar's behalf. But his better sense warned him against it. However, he ended by engaging in something a great deal more sensational than oratory.

For at a table close by had now been sitting for a little while, with a friend, the very officer whose behaviour had displeased him in the audience at the Hôtel de Ville. Laurent could not help hearing their conversation. The two amused themselves for some time by half-whispered witticisms about "la belle cousine," and though Laurent's brow grew darker and darker his good sense again warned him not to bring this topic into more prominence by taking notice of it.

But suddenly he heard, so clearly spoken that others must have heard it, too:

"Pretty brazen, to base your main defence on an invented conversation with two men of whom one is dead and the other cannot be found!"

The other man assented, and Laurent, angry as he was, realized what a specious appearance of truth there was in this criticism.

"Yet," went on the voice of his bête noire, "in spite of the fact that he has not, as La Boëssière said, a shred of real evidence to bring forward, I am afraid that he will never get what he deserves now."

"No," responded the other. "It is curious, the impression he seems to have made on some of the Court."

"Cannot you see that it is this pose of complete honesty and telling the whole truth that is doing it! It was an idea little short of genius. Of course one must be a good actor to carry it out . . . but that is just what the man is!"

"--Whatever is the matter, my dear boy?" exclaimed M. Perrelet. The dear boy did move sometimes with such disconcerting suddenness.

As for the individual who had so appraised L'Oiseleur's histrionic abilities, he had now in front of him to his exceeding surprise, a fair young man in the Vendean uniform, who was saying, with a very deadly intensity, "You will kindly take back every word of what you have just said, Monsieur, and apologize for having said it!"

"What! I'll be damned if I will!" cried the critic, jumping to his feet. So Laurent, exclaiming, "Espèce de Guitton!" knocked him down.

"Aha, la boxe Anglaise!" said M. Perrelet, craning forward, like everyone else. But the combat was not destined to proceed on pugilistic lines. Amid terrific clamour the victim rose to his feet, tugging at his sword, while some threw themselves on him, and Laurent's two friends tried to drag him away. M. de Courtomer himself appeared quite calm, though he was really tingling with the liveliest wrath.

"Satisfaction? Certainly!" M. Perrelet heard him say, amid the babel. "Also, instantly. Montbrillais, you'll see fair play for me, won't you?"

"But you can't fight here!" several voices assured him, and his friends, too, spoke of next morning.

"I regret that I am engaged to-morrow morning," quoth Laurent, and proceeded to remove his sword-belt. "Lucky I had my sword on this time!" he told himself.

"Engaged? Ah, yes, with the play-actor!" sneered his opponent, whose lip was already swelling.

"No," retorted Laurent, throwing back his head and speaking very clearly and deliberately, "with my friend, M. le Vicomte de la Rocheterie, Chevalier de St. Louis--he who held the Moulin Brûlé, L'Oiseleur!"

"Bravo!" cried several voices to this.

"And I will either give you satisfaction here and now or not at all," resumed Laurent. "You need have no fear on the score of the medical attendance; I have an excellent surgeon with me"--he slightly indicated M. Perrelet--"and though he, too, happens to be a friend of M. de la Rocheterie's, I am sure he will do his best for you."

There were not only cheers, but laughter now. The general opinion also was with Laurent on the desirability of settling the affair on the spot, and his foe was too angry to wish to postpone shedding his blood. So the company pushed back the tables with alacrity, and Laurent stripped off his coat and gave it to one of his friends. At that point M. Perrelet came and caught him by the arm.

"Laurent," he said in a low voice, agitated and yet pleasurably agitated, and unaware that he had used his Christian name, "Laurent, my dear boy, are you au fait at this sort of thing?"

"Do you mean," enquired Laurent coolly, as he rolled up his shirt sleeve, "have I ever fought before? No, I have not. But between foils and singlestick, I know quite enough to settle M. Guitton cadet."

M. Perrelet could not restrain a chuckle of appreciation. But he whispered, "Do, pray, be careful!"

"Of him? Oh, yes . . . up to a point."

How all too short are moments of ecstasy! This one only lasted, from the--"On guard!" and the loosing of the crossed blades, fifty-six seconds exactly--seconds in which the younger gentleman at the end of one of those blades was blissfully, unimaginably happy. He knew that he was no brilliant swordsman, but he knew, too, that he had a steady hand, a quick eye, and a very good balance . . . and he was fighting for Aymar. Yes, it was a pity that this man, ten years his senior and with more experience, no doubt, behind him, was so angry, because otherwise he might have prolonged the bout instead of exposing himself in that crazy fashion.

A queer sensation, that, of the point going in! Queer evidently for Guitton cadet also. There was surprise on his face as well as pain and fury as he recoiled, run very creditably through the top of the right shoulder.

(8)

About a quarter of an hour afterwards Laurent found himself arm-in-arm under the stars with M. Perrelet, his purpose being to escort that excellent gentleman back to his inn. Prudence had dictated to all in the coffee-room of the Hôtel de l'Ecusson who were amenable to military discipline a quiet and speedy dispersal, and Laurent himself had only waited till M. Perrelet had finished with his victim. The wound was not dangerous, but it was painful; on hearing which its author had expressed the most unchivalrous gratification.

The couple were now in unfeelingly good spirits as they picked their way in the darkness over gutters.

"I wish I could scold you as you deserve to be scolded, mauvais sujet!" said M. Perrelet, pressing the arm under his. "But I am incapable of it. And it was so neat--so clever, even, considering that you can know nothing of anatomy! . . . And your success, your championship of La Rocheterie, had an extraordinary effect--I felt it."

"Do you really think so?" asked Laurent, soaring into a still higher heaven.

"I am sure of it. It was almost a pity that none of the----"

"That none of the Nine Muses were there," finished the young man, laughing. "Yes, that is my pretty name for the gentlemen of the Court of Enquiry. But on the whole, it's a good thing they were not.--By the way, Monsieur Perrelet, did you ever get that letter I wrote you?"

M. Perrelet stopped on the brink of a dark streamlet. "I did, my child, and thankful I was to get it, though it made me more than ever distressed and ashamed about that incident at La Baussaine. But what he said that night was really most damning. (No, I shall not tell you what it was.) Still, I shall never forgive myself for acting as I did. . . . And how much more trying that shooting business, too, must have been for the poor boy than I realized."

"Yes," said Laurent rather sadly, "and the worst of it is, that to have gone through all that suffering and shame only leaves him in a more critical position than he was before. You heard this afternoon how it was cast up against him, and to what cruel allegations it led. As for to-morrow----"

"Oh, to-morrow will be all right, you will see," announced M. Perrelet, resuming his advance. "--If he can hold out till the end, that is. He is not really in the least fit for this affair, of course.--Ah, this was what I wanted to ask you--round this corner is my way--what in the name of fortune made those marks on his arm which he tried, too late, to conceal from me when I was examining him after you left? They are burns, and he says he did them himself, by accident--and expects me, a doctor, to believe him!"

This time it was Laurent who stopped, and under a convenient street lamp. "Ah, he said that, did he? Of course he would! Accident, indeed!" He made one of his hot, boyish gestures. "It was the most deliberate, cold-blooded----"

He never reached his noun. A gesture was made behind him; a hand fell on his shoulder. "I regret to have to demand your sword, Monsieur," said an abrupt military voice. "You are placed under arrest. Kindly follow me at once!"

It is hard to know which of the couple was the more thunderstruck. Words were completely smitten from both of them. On the very threshold of his thrilling revelation Laurent was plucked away, vanishing like a dream from the eyes of M. Perrelet, who, a moment later was left, a stout and bewildered little civilian, in the light of the convenient street lamp, while the footsteps of the patrol and the captured duellist died away round the corner. Elijah and Elisha had not a more dramatic parting.

The threads of events lay thereafter in M. Perrelet's hands. After a short period of dismayed reflection he hurried back to Aymar's lodging. But that young man lay relaxed in the profound and beneficent slumber of his physician's own procuring, and it would have been a crime to wake him. So, except that the hazard of sleep afforded M. Perrelet an uninterrupted view of the branded arm, he gained little by his visit, and hastened off to M. de Fresne, conceiving that there was nothing criminal in waking him with the news.

M. de Fresne was hardly of that opinion. By the time his nocturnal caller had introduced himself and explained his errand he was, and perhaps justifiably, in a thoroughly bad temper. "Poor boy, indeed! Feather-brained young scamp! Let him cool his heels--it won't hurt him. And I can do nothing; the only possible course is for La Rocheterie, if he can, to get permission in the morning for him to attend the Court under open arrest, as a witness. A nice witness for a case where already the testimony is so short of the mark!"

M. Perrelet shook his head at the irate gentleman sitting up in his bed. "I consider that he acted very properly, Monsieur. And as for being feather-brained, let me tell you, in all seriousness, that but for him there would be no La Rocheterie here to-day at all!"

"Humph!" said M. de Fresne, and laying down, turned over on his other side. "Well, I will come and see La Rocheterie about it at half-past six. Good-night."

A little before that hour, therefore, M. Perrelet was on foot once more, and having obtained admission, peeped in on his patient.

The russet head moved at once on the pillow. "You are up early, Monsieur Perrelet!"

"Have you slept, my dear boy?" enquired the doctor, coming in.

"I have not had a night like this," replied Aymar, "for weeks! It is fortunate . . . but mysterious! . . . Why, is that de Fresne up early, too?"

M. Perrelet glanced behind him. "M. de Fresne wants you to write a letter for him to take to the General," he observed casually. "Just a line to request formally that one of your witnesses may be released from arrest in order to attend the Court this morning."

"One of my witnesses arrested!" exclaimed Aymar, raising himself on an elbow. "You don't mean to say that they have arrested Colonel Richard!--his coming here was all arranged with the General-in-Chief."

"No, not Richard, I am glad to say," replied his lieutenant. "But your friend, M. de Courtomer, made the devil of a disturbance in my hotel last night, and he is now in custody."

"Laurent--Laurent made a disturbance!"

"I should rather say--and _I_ was present," put in M. Perrelet, "that he made an impression, and a very gallant one. But as he also made an incision in a member of the party----"

"You mean he fought someone!" exclaimed Aymar, starting up in bed. "And in my quarrel--I can guess it! My God, he's not hurt--don't tell me he is hurt!" he cried, clutching hold of M. Perrelet.

"No, my dear boy, he is not--he had not a scratch. It is the other who is hors de combat, and he is not seriously damaged, either. But Laurent is laid by the heels--I do not even know where, it happened so suddenly . . . in the street as we were coming home."

De Fresne, meanwhile, had got paper and ink and brought them to the bedside. "Why did you not wake me last night?" cried Aymar, seizing them. "He has been a whole night, then, under arrest--in discomfort and anxiety."

(9)

Laurent indeed had been in both, to a high degree, in the cell of the disused convent to which he had been conducted. The discomfort, the fact of arrest itself, could have been light payment for his "moment exquis" . . . in other circumstances. But in these his loss of liberty was calamitous. His evidence (that precious evidence, to the hope of giving which he still clung), his presence itself in the Court next morning at the verdict, all hung by a hair. He tried to bribe the sentries, he cast wildly about for means of escape . . . till it came to him crushingly that even if he did escape he could not present himself in Court without being instantly rearrested--and damaging Aymar. It was, therefore, to a very subdued and uneffervescent young man that it was announced, about eight in the morning, that he could regard himself as under open arrest for the day in order to attend the Court of Enquiry.

He walked out, dazed but thankful, to find M. de Fresne waiting for him in the street.

"I owe this to you, then, Monsieur!" he exclaimed gratefully. "How good of you! You cannot realize what it means to me!"

"You owe it to M. de la Rocheterie," responded de Fresne with no grace of manner. "He had to be roused from sleep early this morning to request your release. I could not have done anything." (Nor, his tone added, should I have done anything if I could.)

Laurent hung his head.

"Well," continued de Fresne, surveying him, "if you are going into Court you had better come back with me to my hotel and make yourself a little more presentable."

"I can go to my room at Mme Leblanc's," said Laurent meekly. "I suppose I do look rather disreputable," he added, trying to laugh, as they turned together along the street.

But as they walked de Fresne was sufficiently human and unwise to try to improve the occasion a little further. "I cannot help wondering, Monsieur de Courtomer," he remarked, "what benefit you imagined you were doing La Rocheterie by running the risk of being brought back last night to his lodging on a shutter, as you might so easily have been."

Laurent was silent.

"Nor," pursued the elder man, "what support you fancied you were giving to his cause by brawling. Obviously it can have done it nothing but harm."

"There you are wrong," replied Laurent rather shortly. "Ask M. Perrelet."

"I am astonished that M. Perrelet did not use his influence to prevent the disturbance."

"He didn't want to," replied the duellist. "He enjoyed it--nearly as much as I did." He sighed reminiscently, almost tenderly.

"And now," continued his mentor, disregarding this, "if you do give evidence on any point, everybody in Court will see that you are without your sword."

"But so I was yesterday. You did not notice that? No, you were rather occupied yourself."

De Fresne glanced sharply at him. They were nearly at the hotel by now. "I am older than you, Monsieur de Courtomer, and therefore I permit myself to regret that you did not think more carefully of the consequences of your behaviour to other people--to one person, in particular."

There was now a wicked light in Laurent's eyes. "I am so sorry," he exclaimed, with what sounded the most genuine regret in his voice. "You mean that you were waked up over this scandalous escapade of mine! I had not realized that! Do, Monsieur, receive my most profound apologies!"

"Pshaw!" said de Fresne angrily. They had stopped at the entry of the hotel, scene of last night's drama. "You know I mean La Rocheterie, whom you might have spared an added anxiety!"

"But it is so hard," said the young man gently, his eyes on the cobblestones, "so hard to know beforehand the consequences of an action even of an entirely justifiable action like mine! For instance, even you yourself, Monsieur de Fresne, must have felt sometimes that if you had not brought back that letter of yours to the Bois des Fauvettes----" He stopped, raised his eyes, and saw from de Fresne's face that he had planted his counterthrust almost too well. The elder man turned his back and disappeared without a word into the hotel.

"Well, he should not have lectured me!" thought Laurent rather uncomfortably as he sped to Mme Leblanc's. And he burst in upon Aymar, who was finishing his breakfast, crying, "Return of the prodigal, who badly needs a wash! Oh, mon cher, I am at least a penitent prodigal--I am, indeed!"

"But are you really an unhurt one?" asked Aymar, springing up and seizing him. "M. Perrelet swears it, but----"

"But you think that I, too, might have been hiding an injury from him and telling him a cock-and-bull story about it?--No, Aymar," he added more seriously, "I have not received--I could wish I had--the poorest equivalent of what you carry for me. . . . On the contrary, I hear that you had to be waked up this morning on my account, wretch that I am!"

"Who told you that, Laurent? I was already awake, after a night in a thousand."

But a little later, when, having washed and shaved, the prodigal was eating, Aymar said in a low voice, "You understand me when I say I hope it _was_ for me that you fought, Laurent? Not that I wish a hundred times you had not exposed yourself in a quarrel that was not worth it! But it was my quarrel, was it not? I dared not ask M. Perrelet."

"Entirely and absolutely your quarrel," replied Laurent, looking him in the face, and thanking his stars that he had not taken any notice of the remarks about Mme de Villecresne. "--And mine," he added, finishing his coffee.

Aymar had laid his watch on the table. He pointed to it now and got up. "Time to start. It is odd to think, isn't it, that when the hour hand gets round to this spot again it will all be over?"

Laurent fixed his eyes on the watch, suddenly miserable and afraid. "They can't proclaim you guilty, Aymar!"

"They won't proclaim me innocent. It will just be not proven. I do not know whether they will deprive me of my commission, but I shall resign it, of course."

"But there is your reputation--there is the Moulin Brûlé and all the rest."

"Nobody is concerned with my reputation of last year, Laurent."

"That's just it!" cried Laurent angrily. "Oh, if only I were defending you!--Why is no one defending you, so that he could bring it forward, since you are so damnably proud that you will not do it yourself? All the time yesterday one could watch points that ought to have been made in your favour going unheeded, just because to emphasize them involved a little blowing of your own trumpet. And I suppose it will be the same to-day! Others may think it modesty--perhaps you think so yourself--but I tell you it is pride, rank, ineradicable pride! You are as proud as Lucifer!"

After which outburst, almost in tears, he put his head down on his arms on the breakfast-table. Aymar stood and looked at him.

"I did not know you had such powers of denunciation, Laurent."

"It is of no use denouncing you," said the muffled voice. "You will not do any differently." He lifted his head. "The only thing that would be of the slightest benefit to-day would be for _me_ to change--to become, if only I could, Saint-Etienne for an hour."

"Do you think I want you changed, even for poor Saint-Etienne?" asked Aymar gently, laying a hand on his shoulder. "I don't want you to be anybody but yourself, Laurent.--Come we must start. You have no need to pretend to forget your sword to-day, my poor knight-errant!"

(10)

Just outside the Hôtel de Ville Laurent saw de Fresne. He went straight up to him.

"I want to beg your pardon, Monsieur de Fresne, for what I said to you a little while ago about that letter. It was cruel and unjust."

De Fresne looked at him with those hard blue eyes of his. "It was certainly cruel. Do you think I have never said that same thing to myself these three months?" He began to pale under his tan. "I have said it a hundred times. But, as you pointed out----"

"Oh, I am sorry!" broke in Laurent impulsively. "And in honour you could have done nothing else. Do forget it! I was annoyed when I spoke."

"I think you had cause," said the elder man suddenly. "I had no right to read you a homily." He held out his hand. Then Laurent was back in the place which would shortly see the scales dip to one side or the other with his dearest friend's honour in the balance--the place which he hated and which, at the same time, he was only too thankful to set eyes on again. For he had had a horrible fright. But a precious grain of consolation was that among the more than doubled number of faces in the audience this morning one was missing. It would grin here no more and was almost certainly not grinning where it was now. The President began by saying that he had an announcement to make. Since M. le Général d'Andigné, now military governor of Maine-et-Loire was staying a couple of nights in the neighbourhood, he himself had so far presumed on their very old acquaintance as to ask him, with the approval of the Court, to give them the benefit of his ripe experience in this difficult and delicate case . . . that was, subject to M. de la Rocheterie's having no objection. M. de la Rocheterie here signifying that he had none--on the contrary--Sol de Grisolles intimated that he had sent M. d'Andigné a short summary of the case as far as it had gone yesterday, so that if he came, he would be au courant. Meanwhile, they had better proceed from the point at which they left off yesterday.

So the hapless de Fresne took his stand once more at the witness-table. Laurent tried not to listen. "Fouquier-Tinville" and the stout officer between them seemed determined to probe into every minute of the interval before de Fresne's return to the wood; hence Aymar also was on his feet most of the time. Laurent began to foresee that every detail of the shooting, too, would have to be gone over again, perhaps more fully. And all to what purpose? There was nothing to discover.

Oh, what would happen if they could not see their way to clearing Aymar? It began to be torture to him to look at the figure in front of him, especially when the bronze head turned a little, and he caught the outline of the sunken cheek.

"I can't stand much more of this!" he whispered at last to M. Perrelet.

"They will not go on at it forever," the optimist whispered back, and he laid his hand over the young man's and gave it a squeeze.

"But there's nothing else to go on to!" replied Laurent miserably.

Why could they not believe Aymar's word when he said that he had all but arranged the plan with Saint-Etienne? How was it possible to look at him and think him capable of infamy? Were they all blind? And why did M. d'Andigné delay? Perhaps he was not coming, after all? He was a great man, just about to be made a peer of France, and very busy at the moment settling the King's peace in Brittany But, if he did come, surely he, the Vendean general of so much experience, he, the phenomenally cool-headed and resourceful, the hero of the incredible escapes from the Fort de Joux and the citadel of Besançon, the man of untarnished integrity and honour, _he_ would recognize that Aymar was telling the truth!

Or, suppose that he did not!

The accursed stout officer seemed now to be criticizing Aymar's intentions and dispositions during those three days in the wood, and as it went on Laurent wondered at Aymar's patience under it. The inquisitor had just ascertained that the nearest Bonapartist troops were no more than eight miles away, at Arbelles.

"Only eight miles!" he exclaimed. "I am surprised, Monsieur de la Rocheterie, that you did not try to withdraw to a safer position! Surely you must have known that you were very dangerously placed, and that you could not hope to do anything there with ninety men!"

And Aymar said nothing.

Suddenly M. du Tremblay leant forward and addressed the speaker.

"Not do anything with ninety men, Monsieur de Noirlieu? Why not? Have you forgotten that M. de la Rocheterie held the famous Moulin Brûlé for four and a half hours against five hundred regulars with--how many men precisely had you with you at Penescouët, Monsieur de la Rocheterie?"

"Eighteen," replied Aymar.

Something hardly distinguishable from applause ran round the audience. And du Tremblay went on quickly, addressing the President, "I trust, mon Général, that I am in order in laying stress on the necessity of remembering and allowing weight to those brilliant services in the past of which M. de la Rocheterie himself is careful not to remind us. As regards the handling of irregular levies, has not L'Oiseleur, young as he is, had more experience and successful experience than any one here except yourself?"

Sol de Grisolles nodded, and the Marquis de la Boëssière remarked, "Certainly more than I have had. I am glad that you have said what you have said, Monsieur du Tremblay."

So was Laurent. He would have bestowed a decoration on M. du Tremblay.

"Yes," said M. de Noirlieu obstinately, "and that past experience is just why M. de la Rocheterie's remaining so near the enemy at Arbelles is so inexplicable."

There was nothing to be done with that man but drown him! Surely Aymar was going to give the very good reason he had for staying in the Bois des Fauvettes as long as he could! But in any case he had not the chance, for "Fouquier-Tinville" observed quickly,

"It is explicable enough on a certain hypothesis--which I do not wish to press. But I should be greatly obliged if M. de la Rocheterie would give us the reason for another delay of his which also needs explanation. I only trust they are not susceptible of the same."

Aymar's head went up. "To what delay are you referring, Monsieur?"

"To the very considerable one which you have shown in courting this enquiry. You were released on the 16th of June. Even if your health was not then sufficiently re-established for you to go to the General-in-Chief in person, why did you not at least communicate with him if, as you assure us, you were so anxious to clear yourself? You made no move whatever for a month, until the middle of July. Is that not true?"

"Yes, it is quite true," said Aymar steadily. He drew a long breath, and Laurent saw his fingers tighten on the paper he was holding.

"I suggest that the month's inaction, then, needs some justification," observed "Fouquier-Tinville" suavely.

In the silence that followed Laurent said to himself, "He was ill, unfit for it, you bully!" But would Aymar say that, since it was not the real reason? No, of course he would not! He replied at last, very coldly and quietly, looking down a little, "The reason for the delay was a purely private one."

"A reason that you would prefer not to give the Court?" suggested "Fouquier-Tinville" with a twist of the lips.

"A reason," retorted Aymar, not without a measure of defiance, "that I am not called upon to give the Court!"

At last something had been found which L'Oiseleur would not answer.

"It had nothing in common, then," demanded the inquisitor meaningly, "with your reason for remaining so long near the enemy in the Bois des Fauvettes?"

Aymar started. "Certainly not. The one was purely military; the other, as I have said, was personal."

"And you refuse to----" But a stir arose at the end of the hall, and he broke off. Laurent turned his head, and saw a glitter of staff uniforms. General d'Andigné had come!

He walked alertly to the dais, while the whole audience rose to their feet, he saluted the Court, who had also risen, was on the platform shaking hands, and, in a very short time indeed, having swept a keen glance round, was reading the notes of the morning's proceedings.

And Laurent, studying him, saw a blue-eyed man in the fifties, of no great height, with a fine, almost leonine head from whose brow the silvering fair hair was receding, and a slightly prominent underlip--a man who gave the impression of exceptional humour and vitality allied to a rare imperturbability. . . . But Laurent's deep interest in him was abruptly diverted. What had happened to Aymar? He was leaning with both hands on the little table before him almost as if he were physically overcome. Then he suddenly sat down, and, supporting his head on his hand, pulled his notes towards him. Laurent could see how deadly pale he was, and that the hand with which he was turning over the papers was shaking. "It's the strain," he thought desperately. "It's telling at last; he won't get through!"

D'Andigné suddenly raised his fine head. "Monsieur le Président, I should like to make a remark. With regard to the suppositions raised by this shooting, surely the very fact that the men immediately suspected M. de Fresne on his return entirely disposes of the theory that in the three preceding days they had discovered some proof of M. de la Rocheterie's guilt?--I might go further, and point out that it was solely to save M. de Fresne from those unjust suspicions that M. de la Rocheterie showed his men the letter . . . with the consequences to himself of which we know. Is that not so?"

"That is most certainly so, mon Général," responded de Fresne warmly. "M. de la Rocheterie undoubtedly sacrificed himself to save me."

"But, in the circumstances, could any honourable man have done less?" enquired M. de Margadel.

"No, he certainly could not," responded d'Andigné like a flash. "But then you are trying to show that he is not an honourable man. . . . And may I not also point out that, so far from his suppressing witnesses (which I see that some of you gentlemen are inclined to suspect) he here lost an unrivalled opportunity of allowing the most formidable witness against him to be suppressed by other hands. Had he let things take their course, and allowed M. de Fresne to be shot instead of him--which seems quite a likely thing to have happened--he would have got rid of the odium of the charge as well as of an adverse witness, for the man who had paid the penalty would have carried the guilt also with him to his grave. His execution would probably have cleared M. de la Rocheterie in popular opinion. Surely these considerations must have occurred to you?"

"I knew he would see things in a proper light!" said Laurent, whose spirits had gone up like a balloon, to M. Perrelet, while the Court conferred over this, and M. d'Andigné, his chin propped on his fist, darted glance after glance at L'Oiseleur's bent head.

"I think," announced the President at length, "that the Court does not wish to ask M. de Fresne any further questions. Have you any more witnesses to call, Monsieur de la Rocheterie?"

"Yes, two!" ejaculated Laurent under his breath.

And Aymar stood up--but it was not to call him. He threw back his head. "I call Monsieur le Général d'Andigné," he said in a clear voice. "That is, if he has not forgotten," he finished a little breathlessly. Laurent fell back in his chair.

Amid the universal sensation M. d'Andigné got briskly to his feet. "I was hoping that I should not have to be so pushing as to call myself," he remarked pleasantly. "Will you question me, Monsieur de la Rocheterie--I am entirely at your service--or shall I have the honour of myself giving the Court an account of our last--our first--meeting at the _Abeille d'Or_ at Keraven on the afternoon of April the 27th?"

"The latter, if you please, General," answered Aymar.

(11)

When Laurent was in an argumentative mood he would assert that it was very wrong of M. d'Andigné, even if he were organizing with great secrecy, not so much to have gone about under an assumed name (since under his own he would have been far too dangerous to be left at large) but to have kept up his incognito in front of L'Oiseleur that day at Keraven when Saint-Etienne, being from his own province of Anjou, knew all the time who "M. du Parc" really was. However, he would acknowledge that on this occasion M. d'Andigné made what amends he could by the declaration with which he ended his short and convincing narrative. For he said, with emphasis, that it was he who ought to be exculpating himself. "I ought to have known better what attractions a risk holds for a young and ardent fighter, when I presented M. de la Rocheterie with the idea of the mouse and the two cats, and even illustrated it from a little piece of good fortune of my own in the old days. Had I not been all these weeks, as you know, engaged in military operations elsewhere, I should have heard of Pont-aux-Rochers before, and I could have taken some steps to mitigate the terrible consequences which an ill-timed suggestion of mine has brought on a gallant and honourable man. I am at least thankful that Fate has given me this belated opportunity for testimony."

He sat down again. Aymar, his hands clenched, tried to thank him, but his words were scarcely audible. As for Laurent, he was so radiant that it was all he could do to prevent himself darting forward to his friend, and, though he knew it not, M. d'Andigné, whom little escaped, was smiling at his very patent exultation.

"Well, gentlemen," said Sol de Grisolles, looking round with a satisfied air, "this puts a very different complexion on affairs. I little thought I was summoning the missing witness when I invited M. d'Andigné to attend as an assessor. As the Court has felt all along, the great weakness of M. de la Rocheterie's case has been the lack of conclusive evidence that his plan was already all but settled upon. But now we have impeccable testimony to that fact." He looked round the table once more. "I suggest, therefore . . . Yes, Monsieur de Noirlieu?"

"In spite of what M. le Général d'Andigné has pointed out to us," said that persistent investigator, "there is still one more point which I emphatically feel should be cleared up. What happened after M. de la Rocheterie was found shot, in the--how many weeks was it?--that he was at the château d'Arbelles? Might it not be said that it was because he had rendered a great service to the Imperialists that they rescued him, nursed him, and released him of their own free will . . . that he was, in short, less their prisoner than . . . their guest?"

Laurent, bristling, gave a kind of snort, and Aymar raised his head sharply. D'Andigné's face was a study in expression. The Court themselves seemed a little taken aback, then someone remarked, "Yes, if any evidence is available, it might be as well to know what were M. de la Rocheterie's relations with the Imperialists during his captivity, and the reason for his release."

"Perhaps M. de la Rocheterie will enlighten us," said Sol de Grisolles.

"I can do better, mon Général," responded Aymar rather grimly. "As it happens I can produce two witnesses as to the terms on which I was with the occupants of Arbelles. I will call first M. le Comte de Courtomer, late aide-de-camp to M. d'Autichamp, who was imprisoned in the same room with me for the whole time, excepting the first night. Monsieur de Courtomer!"

At last! Had Laurent not been so furious with M. de Noirlieu at that moment he might have been grateful to him for procuring him this chance. But--Aymar a guest at Arbelles! He could hear for once in his friend's voice his deep and justifiable indignation. But it was M. de Noirlieu who was going to be annoyed before he, Laurent, had finished, for he would look the fool he was.

He was excited but fairly self-possessed as he stood at the little table, and began with reasonable lucidity to tell the story of those weeks at Arbelles. The early days came back to him so clearly as he spoke that, when he got to the happenings of "Friday," the memory of that scene, bubbling up fresh like lava, led him into an account of it more vivid than Aymar appeared to appreciate, as he sat there with his head between his fists, enduring it as best he might.

At any rate, Laurent made abundantly clear the point he had so desired at supper last night to emphasize--that Aymar, fighting with his last conscious breath that nothing should escape his lips, had nearly given his life for his comrade's victory. . . . Du Tremblay had his hand over his eyes as Laurent went on to testify that for the remaining weeks there were no relations whatever between the Bonapartists and their prisoner, and to detail what occurred on Colonel Guitton's return. "And that is how and for what reason," he concluded, "M. de la Rocheterie was released--or, as some might say, turned out--from Arbelles."

"Thank you, Monsieur de Courtomer," said the President out of the ensuing silence, and Laurent turned and went to his place. He had not been asked a single question; and, as nobody seemed disposed to put one, Aymar observed that, since this evidence did not cover the first hours of his sojourn at Arbelles, and it might be supposed that he had had friendly relations with the Bonapartists on the day of his arrival, if on no other, he would call the doctor who attended him to prove that that was impossible.

M. Perrelet, looking very rotund as he stood forth, was extremely business-like and medical. He described in technical language M. de la Rocheterie's very critical condition when he was summoned to him, and during the whole of that first night; while Laurent behind whispered delightedly to de Fresne, "That will knock that idiot into a cocked hat! Listen to the long words and the Latin rolling out!"

"My patient," pronounced the little doctor, "was profoundly unconscious from the moment of his arrival. In any case a man so near death as he from haemorrhage is not capable of having relations with any one, friend or foe. . . . And since I am here," he went on unasked, but unchecked, "you will like to know, gentlemen, that I can more than corroborate what M. de Courtomer has said of the disastrous effects of Colonel Guitton's inquisition a few days later. As to the turning out, which was done in my absence, I was thunderstruck when I heard of it, and not in the least surprised that in consequence I had to attend M. de la Rocheterie for a threatened attack of pneumonia. He had a very narrow escape of it. Hardly the treatment, altogether, that one accords to a 'guest'!"

M. de Noirlieu, to Laurent's joy, was looking sour enough now. He fidgeted with some papers for an instant and then said: "Yes, that's very convincing--medically. One cannot argue with a doctor. . . . You were not present, I understand, at the interview with the Colonel over those cipher notes?"

"No, but I came in the moment afterwards, to find M. de la Rocheterie almost _in extremis_," replied M. Perrelet rather snappily.

"I should like M. de Courtomer recalled," said M. de Noirlieu.

Laurent came back, full of fight, but wondering what the stout imbecile wanted now.

"M. de la Rocheterie was, I presume, aware of your presence in the room, Monsieur de Courtomer, throughout this . . . unpleasant scene with the Colonel?"

"I should imagine he had something else to think about!" retorted Laurent with hostility. In a flash he saw what he was after--the man was a second Guitton!

"He must have known that you were present. Did you, Monsieur de la Rocheterie?"

"I did," said Aymar curtly.

"And you were aware that he was a Royalist officer--one of your own side?"

"I was aware of it."

M. de Noirlieu lifted his shoulders. "I think, gentlemen, that significant fact considerably detracts from the value of M. de la Rocheterie's refusal to give information--viewed as evidence to character, that is. Is it likely that he would have given it in front of a fellow-officer?"

"May I speak, Monsieur le Président?" burst out the witness.

Sol de Grisolles nodded.

"That--that . . ." (he managed to swallow the qualification) "point of view was precisely Colonel Guitton's when he had failed. I should have thought that this Court . . ." (again he struggled with himself and abandoned the sentence). "Gentlemen, as this last interpretation has been launched, you ought in justice to know that when, later on, Colonel Guitton--for it was by his connivance--resorted to other means to make M. de la Rocheterie betray a comrade, and there was nobody there but the----"

Aymar made a little gesture, and said in a low, quick voice, "For Heaven's sake, stop, Laurent! That is not relevant!"

But Laurent took no notice, and went on as fast as he could, "--He opposed precisely the same refusal to that different method. You see, mon Général, I was safely hidden, but when the search-party found M. de la Rocheterie ill at the farm----"

He was interrupted again. "One moment, please," said the Marquis de la Boëssière. "This is a little too elliptical for us to follow. Are we to understand that you were released at the same time as M. de la Rocheterie, or what?"

And Aymar seized the opportunity to rise and say with authority, "That will do, thank you, Monsieur de Courtomer. We need not trouble the Court with totally irrelevant matter. You can stand down."

But a distinct murmur of "No, no!" went round. Laurent glanced at Aymar; he meant what he said, no doubt of it. Then he hesitated and looked at the tribunal.

"--But we should like to hear it, irrelevant or no," said the President.

Aymar was obliged to give in. He sat down. Laurent did not look at him. He answered the previous question. "No, I was not released, sir. I escaped the same evening and joined M. de la Rocheterie. We went to a farm, and, as you have heard, he was ill from the exposure, and it was then that a party from the château came to search for me; and when they could not find me, but had M. de la Rocheterie at their mercy, _alone_, they tried just as vainly to make him betray me by----"

But here Laurent came to an abrupt stop.

"Well, Monsieur de Courtomer?" asked the President after a moment.

Awful and surprising finish! Laurent had so ached to tell this story of heroism and endurance, and now he could not. His own sensations of the time came back too vividly, and closed up his throat, precluding speech. Besides, his tongue did not seem able to find a way of uttering the thing. He stood there, mute and agonized, with everyone--save Aymar--gazing at him.

"Do you mean that they threatened him?" suggested the Marquis de la Boëssière.

And as the hitherto voluble witness shook his head he said almost impatiently,

"What were the means they used, then?"

At that Laurent managed--but only just--to bring it out.

"They used . . . a red-hot ramrod!" he gasped; and fled the table.

(12)

There was an instant's electric silence. "_What!_" exclaimed several incredulous and horrified voices from the dais, M. d'Andigné's among them. "Good--God!" said the Marquis de la Boëssière slowly.

But Laurent, without waiting for permission, was already back in his place, his elbows on his knees, his head between his fists, heedless of what, under cover of the general sensation, M. Perrelet on the one side was disjointedly asking him, and of de Fresne swearing below his breath on the other. "Ought I to have done it? ought I to have done it?" he was saying to himself. "And will he forgive me?"

And all through the low-voiced conference among the Court which followed, and the subdued hum of the audience, he was more and more conscious (though he dared only glance at it) of the back of that figure in front of him. At first Aymar had covered his face. Suppose he did not forgive him!

Ah, here was Sol de Grisolles getting to his feet at last.

"I think, gentlemen, that we do not need any more testimony as to M. de la Rocheterie's conduct after the disaster, and as we now have M. d'Andigné's evidence as to the _bona fides_ of the scheme he used, the case is practically at an end. None of the Court has any further questions to ask, since we do not propose to enquire into this last shocking episode. Have you yourself, Monsieur de la Rocheterie, anything more that you wish to say?"

Aymar lifted his head from his hands and stood up. "Nothing, thank you, mon Général."

"Then I declare the case closed, and I will ask all present to withdraw while the Court deliberates."

They followed the orderly to a little room opening off the hall. Directly the door was closed Colonel Richard went up to Aymar.

"I am more horrified than I can say at hearing of your treatment at Arbelles," he said, in a voice which indeed showed his strong emotion. "And as for this last outrage--torture--I have no words for it!"

Aymar flushed. "Oh, that was nothing. And I had no intention whatever of having it brought out in Court--I never dreamt of such a thing."

Laurent could not bear the sensation of estrangement (and at this juncture, too) a moment longer. He turned round. "Aymar!" he began imploringly . . . but the Imperialist had not finished.

"I have been deeply shocked also to hear in detail what my own action led to. Had I not surrendered that letter----"

"And if I, still more, had not taken it back to the wood!" put in de Fresne.

"Gentlemen," said M. Perrelet, also intervening, and plucking the last two speakers by the arm, "I think that if M. de la Rocheterie--you will remember that he has been very ill--were to sit down quietly now. . . ."

"Of course," said Colonel Richard instantly, and he and de Fresne withdrew themselves, while M. Perrelet shepherded his ex-patient to a bench in the corner, and sat down in silence beside him, with a hand on his wrist.

Near Laurent, Colonel Richard and de Fresne were now commenting optimistically on d'Andigné's extraordinarily opportune appearance. But Laurent had no eyes for any one save Aymar, sitting there silent with closed eyes, his head against the wall. His face was like a cameo, as drained of colour and as passionless, too; he gave the impression of having passed beyond suspense, but of being nearly slain with fatigue.

But as the offender miserably studied him the closed eyes opened. Aymar looked across at him and smiled. Then he made a little motion with his other hand. Laurent went, hesitatingly, and sat down by him (the guardian on the other side not attempting to say him nay), and though Aymar did not stir and had shut his eyes again, the hand which had beckoned Laurent there closed on his. He was forgiven--without a word.

And in the odd silence which now fell on all of them he, holding that hand, had to force himself to realize that this was the crisis, the dividing line, that Aymar's whole future hung on what those men in there (how could he so flippantly have called them the Nine Muses?) were deciding. They could not now find him guilty, after M. d'Andigné's evidence. But suppose they were not sufficiently agreed to acquit him? There was "Fouquier-Tinville" and that stubborn de Noirlieu. Oh, that was inconceivable! A fit of bitter revolt seized him. Why had Aymar submitted himself into their hands? As if their opinion mattered!

But it did matter, now! Involuntarily, he clutched the cold hand tighter. De Fresne had begun to walk nervously up and down, but Colonel Richard was still leaning against the wall with his arms folded; the doctor was watching Aymar attentively. . . .

Steps outside--the orderly at last. There was nothing to be learnt from his face. "If you will come back now, gentlemen?"

Their hands fell apart. Aymar got up instantly. Without a look, even at Laurent, he walked to the door, and the others followed him in silence. It came to Laurent, as they went through, that by the position of the sword on the table they would know his fate. So, not very sensibly, he shut his eyes for a second. . . . Then the blood rushed to his head. The hilt of Aymar's sword was towards him. . . . Somehow he was back in his place, standing as they all were, his attention divided between the President risen to address the acquitted, and Aymar's motionless figure in front of him. Why had the old Chouan put on spectacles to deliver judgment, since he was looking over, not through them? His voice came, relieved and kindly:

"I have great pleasure in announcing to you, Monsieur de la Rocheterie, that the Court unanimously finds you innocent of the slightest intention of treachery when you sent your subordinate's letter to the Imperialists, and holds that you had sufficient grounds for considering your preconceived plan feasible. It does not, therefore, blame you, in the exceptional circumstances, for attempting to carry it out. For your efforts to prevent the disaster and your whole conduct afterwards we have nothing but praise, and not least for your courage in voluntarily submitting to a very painful ordeal. And if you will come forward, Monsieur, I shall most gladly restore to you your sword . . . untarnished."

There was an uncontrollable burst of applause from the audience, through which Laurent heard M. Perrelet beside him sniffing audibly. Aymar moved; took two steps forward, and then put his hand to his head and hesitated. Laurent was conscious of a violent nudge from M. Perrelet, and his voice saying in a loud whisper, "Go with him; he's pretty well finished!" So he took L'Oiseleur by the arm from behind and steered him forward to the dais, and was thankful to see that the President, realizing the state of affairs, was not waiting for him to mount the steps to the table, but was coming round to the top of them with the sword. And here, with a word or two of congratulation, he laid the weapon in its owner's hands. Aymar lifted it to his lips, tried to say something . . . then, clutching it to his breast, reeled suddenly backwards into the arms of Laurent and du Tremblay, who already on the watch, had jumped down from his place at the end of the table.

He was indeed "finished"; but they kept him on his feet until, someone producing a chair, they lowered him into it, and Laurent, kneeling by him with his arm round him, disengaged the sword from his grasp. In another moment M. Perrelet was bending over him.

"Give him time, gentlemen! . . . Unfit for this . . . a great strain. But he will be himself again in a little." Nevertheless, he had thrust his hand inside the breast of Aymar's uniform. "Water?--yes, thank you!"

And Aymar's head lay against Laurent's shoulder, and Laurent, who rather thought he was crying himself, and didn't care, was battling with a most unseasonable desire to kiss it there, before everyone; and would very likely have succumbed only that he was sure Aymar had not quite lost consciousness.

Meanwhile, the Court had broken up into little groups; the audience, though deeply interested, and disposed to quit their seats, kept their distance. And in a short while, after a period of being finely confused at what had happened, Aymar had recovered, and stood up, and Laurent, with shaking fingers, fastened on his sword--he and no other. No other save he had even touched it.

And, nursing that smaller joy amid the greater, he stood away watching the little scene of congratulation that ensued, members of the Court and of the audience alike crowding round that central figure to shake hands. So he witnessed the long grip, the long wordless look, which du Tremblay gave.

Last of all came d'Andigné, with that fine smile, and said something in a low voice which Laurent could not catch; but he saw Aymar flush, and knew that it was with pleasure. But he did hear the General say, "Then you will give me the pleasure of your company at supper to-night . . . as a proof that you bear me no ill-will, Monsieur de la Rocheterie? I would suggest, in order to spare you the fatigue of the return journey from Kermelven, where I am staying, that you spend the night at my château; and I shall give myself the privilege of sending the carriage for you. I should like also," he went on, "to extend the invitation to your friend M. de Courtomer, whose acquaintance I am anxious to make."

Aymar turned and beckoned, and Laurent, as he was presented, braced himself for the ignominy of confessing that he was not in a position to accept this glorious invitation. Aymar would not remember his disability . . . . But what was he saying? "I am afraid, General, that M. de Courtomer will be unable to have the honour of supping with you, unless you can put in a word for him in the proper quarter. I regret to say that he is under arrest."

M. d'Andigné's keen gaze turned on the culprit. "Dear me, what for?"

"Because," said Aymar, half smiling, "he had a difference of opinion with an officer of M. de Margadel's last night, and as the officer is in bed this morning, and likely to remain there. . . ."

"I see," said the Chevalier d'Andigné with a twinkle. "Oh, I think that can be arranged, Monsieur de la Rocheterie . . . yes, I think I can take that on myself. Our little festival would be very incomplete without M. de Courtomer. Of course, he will honour me by staying the night also." He turned directly to Laurent. "I think I can guess what the difference of opinion was about, can I not?" and as Laurent did not answer, he put his hand for a moment on his shoulder and gave it a little pressure. After which he asked Aymar if he would be so obliging as to make him acquainted with Colonel Richard, with whose general he had been having some correspondence about combining to keep the unnecessary Prussians out of Brittany. So Aymar crossed the hall with him.

Meanwhile, M. Perrelet had requested de Fresne to procure a carriage. "We will drive him home," he said to Laurent and, drawing him aside, "Oh, my dear boy, that ramrod story! And I had deserted him; you had no doctor for those burns!" There were tears in the little man's eyes.

"Oh, come," responded Laurent, "Mme Allard and I did not do so badly, doctor. I shall set up in your line some day." He spoke thus hilariously because, really, his eyes were in much the same state as M. Perrelet's. It was so wonderful, so adorable of Aymar, in the midst of his own triumph and relief, to remember his plight, and to be collected enough to seize the one available opportunity of getting him out of it.

De Fresne here came back and reported that there was a large and enthusiastic crowd gathered about the steps outside.

"There is no doubt," he added in a satisfied tone, "that the finding of the Court is popular." As he said it d'Andigné, Colonel Richard, and Aymar all returned their way, talking together.

"I should be most willing, Monsieur," came the Imperialist's voice. "If we combine, foes though we have been, it could be done. We are all Frenchmen. I know that General Lamarque is most anxious to do it."

"We will enlist L'Oiseleur also in the task," said General d'Andigné.

"But I . . . I have no men now," said Aymar, colouring.

"You have--what I once wished you, Monsieur, if you remember--your sword again," said Colonel Richard.

"It's your brains, your advice that I want, Monsieur de la Rocheterie," said the Royalist. "It will be a matter of arrangement with our allies, after we have come to an understanding with our compatriots. We can talk about it this evening. And if only you had the famous _jartier_ back we could try the effects of that on the Prussians."

"But I have got it back," confessed Aymar, "and it is mended, and I am wearing it at this moment. It is at your service."

"Mended, eh?" said d'Andigné. "Magically, no doubt?"

Aymar suddenly wheeled round and put his hand on Laurent's shoulder. "Yes, magically," he said. "_He_ mended it . . . like a good many other things."

His smile pretty well finished Laurent.

To cover his confusion he went out to the steps. His appearance was the signal for a burst of cheering which very quickly drove him in again. The crowd was much larger and more expectant than he had realized. He clutched Aymar, just turning away from du Tremblay, by the arm. "Can you hear them?" he asked. "In England, you know, we should take the horses out and drag the carriage. I wonder if MM. de Fresne and Perrelet are game?"

"I am," observed the little doctor gaily, but Aymar, beginning to move rather unwillingly towards the door, observed that for nothing on earth would he trust himself behind Laurent as a horse in his present frame of mind. "You might take the bit between your teeth and bolt again," he added with a meaning smile. And he put a hand on the culprit's shoulder and gave him a little shake. "I don't believe you are an atom penitent, either. And what was so unpardonable, Laurent, was the inexactitude! I had told you so many times that it was _not_ red-hot!"

Laurent choked back a queer sound. "Aymar, you really are impayable! . . . What's the matter?"

Aymar had caught sight of the crowd. "Must I go through that? I would rather face the ramrod again."

"I'm afraid you must," said Laurent, and seeing that de Fresne and M. Perrelet and du Tremblay were close behind L'Oiseleur, he darted down the steps to open the carriage door. So, without meaning to, but with delight, he saw the picture he should unendingly possess for his own--Aymar coming down the steps after his ordeal, neither triumphant nor abashed, but just his own quiet and gallant self.

He had so much eyes only for that descending figure in its beautiful and unconscious perfection of poise, that it was not till afterwards that there came to him out of memory the stored scraps he had heard from the populace as he waited there--among people who wanted to shake hands with him, too, which rather bored him. "He would not tell--he saved M. du Tremblay--that's M. du Tremblay himself--they say he was actually tortured--how pale he looks--I knew a man who was with him in the Moulin Brûlé----" and the only other actual visual impression he retained, that of a middle-aged Breton with a firelock slung across his goatskin, reverently removing his broad-brimmed hat as Aymar passed--the Chouan who had spat at him yesterday.

(13)

Laurent was in crazy spirits during the meal which followed at Mme Leblanc's. Particularly did the good M. Perrelet appreciate his sallies; and even de Fresne, who made the fourth, relaxed into amusement. "I shall no longer be a 'guest' at that disgusting convent; to-night we shall both be M. d'Andigné's 'prisoners.'--Do you imagine, Aymar, that old de Noirlieu will be there--a 'prisoner,' too? I wish Guitton cadet could be . . . as a footman! I shall go and serenade him with the news this afternoon; and I shall write to Rigault, and he can tell them all at Arbelles. Oh, I forgot, Arbelles is evacuated."

"And in any case," observed Aymar, "they would only say that Saint Sebastian----"

Laurent dropped his knife and fork. His jaw dropped also. "Where on earth . . . I always hoped that you never knew. . . ."

"My dear Laurent," replied L'Oiseleur, smiling, "your walks on the terrace did not give you the monopoly of the bons mots of Arbelles. I also had the privilege of hearing them during my one visit to the library."

"Of course," said Laurent, when he had got over this, "it was really M. Perrelet who turned the scale, not M. d'Andigné at all. Imagine being able to hurl about missiles like 'ecchymosis' and 'haemorrhage'! I am considering adopting the first as an oath."

"I think," observed M. Perrelet, wiping his eyes (for his was not an exacting sense of humour), "that you had better go and work this off outside, my boy. I cannot allow you to remain in the house, because Aymar" (he made no bones about the Christian name) "is going to bed this afternoon so as to be in trim for the evening."

So a little later Aymar, lying on his bed, looked up at the young man and the old and remarked that they were both of them nothing but tyrants at bottom, and that when they got together one was simply crushed. "Not," he added, shutting his eyes, "that the process is altogether repugnant."

"I wish, my poor boy," said M. Perrelet softly, "that I had been there to tyrannize over this!" And he gently drew his hand down his right arm. Before Aymar could answer he had left the little room.

Laurent stood a moment longer. Then he suddenly dropped on his knees and hid his face against the bed.

"Oh, Aymar, at last . . . at last!"

Aymar gave a long, deep, tired sigh. "It was wonderful. . . . And _his_ coming like that--a miracle. . . ."

"_You_ were wonderful!" said Laurent unsteadily.

Perhaps that evening was the most wonderful of all. No more efficacious method of rehabilitation could probably have been devised than that supper with General d'Andigné and his staff, where L'Oiseleur was plainly the guest of the evening, and where yet the host, with exquisite tact, so arranged matters that it seemed the most natural thing in the world that he should be there, and not a festivity with an object. And, in Laurent's eyes, the unanswering patience, courage, and dignity which Aymar had displayed throughout the enquiry, against perpetual odds both of bodily weakness and of circumstance, found here something of their fitting recognition. In the seventh heaven himself, he thought that, despite the marks of strain, of illness, and of fatigue, there was no one in the room (except possibly M. d'Andigné himself) who could hold a candle to him for distinction. And there were moments when he looked as he had done before the catastrophe, when he might indeed have been the Aymar of the Paris reception. But he would never be quite the same again. To Laurent, at least, he was even more admirable.

Yes, he had come through the sombre forest at last, he had everything back again now . . . all but one thing, probably, to him, the most precious of all.

Very late that night, after the guests had dispersed, Laurent went into the room near his which had been assigned to his friend. It was a room so large that two candles had little effect on it, but the moon was streaming in also through the uncurtained window. And across the majestic fourposter he perceived, by the gleam of his shirt in the moonlight, that Aymar was sitting on the window-seat, partially undressed. But his head was down upon his arms on the sill.

Laurent hesitated. He had not meant to intrude on this. Perhaps, however, he was asleep. Not liking to turn back, either, he went slowly on past the column of the bed, and by the time he had got round the foot L'Oiseleur had lifted his head and was looking at him with a little smile.

"Not in bed, Laurent?" he asked lightly.

"And you?" retorted Laurent. "Think of what M. Perrelet would say after such a day! It must be about two in the morning, I fancy."

"It has been an evening, certainly. Did you enjoy it?"

"What do you suppose?" inquired Laurent. "--But, Aymar, it was indescribably mean of you to tell them about that silly dungeon and my going back for M. Perrelet. You must have known that I was trying to stop you!"

Aymar made no reply. His smile, however, was sufficient commentary.

"Oh, confound you!" cried Laurent, laughing.

"Well, now you know what it feels like! And _I_ got it over quickly!"

"Really, Aymar, I had no idea you were so vindictive!"

"I am a mine of evil qualities," announced Aymar. "You ought to know that from Arbelles. How long ago that seems, now. . . . You remind me, standing there with your candle, Laurent, of further back still, of the night I spent under your roof in Devonshire, centuries ago, when you were so polite. You hoped I would sleep well--which I did."

"And I could not believe I was not dreaming, to have you there. It was then I saw the swan and the motto on your watch. And, Aymar," his voice shook a trifle and he sat down suddenly on the window-seat, "your motto is true. You are _'sans tache'_--you always have been!"

Aymar shook his head, smiling a little sadly. But he looked at him with great affection.

Now, if ever, was the chance to say something about Mme de Villecresne. "How pleased they will be at Sessignes," remarked the diplomatist, looking carefully out of the window. The observation sounded inane to him directly he had uttered it, particularly as Aymar made no reply. It was no use trying to work round tactfully to the subject, and there was always the picture of Mme de Villecresne eating her heart out there now that she was enlightened. Besides, what of Aymar's own tell-tale attitude when he came in? . . . So he next said boldly, "I suppose you will go home now?"

"No, I am not going home," replied Aymar; and he also looked out of the window.

After a moment he turned his head. His pallor was accentuated almost to ghastliness in the moonlight. "I cannot very well do so. I told my cousin when I wrote about the enquiry that whether I were cleared or no I should not come back, and that I hoped she would continue to make Sessignes her home. I should not trouble her."

Laurent was now terribly bothered. What was the right thing to do? "Oh, but don't you think----" he began, and then floundered desperately. "Aymar, I think I ought to tell you . . . yet I don't know whether I had better . . . I . . . I really wish you would advise me whether to tell you . . ." and unconscious of the absurdity he was uttering, he caught hold of Aymar's coat, which lay on the window-seat, and began to wring a button round and round.

A little smile dawned on Aymar's mouth as he looked at his occupation. "Better tell me . . . before you have them all off!"

"I . . . I talked to Mme de Villecresne after you left. I . . . I had no choice--I had to make things clear. She . . . she had not understood, Aymar--she really had not."

"Sometimes," said Aymar very slowly, and dropping out each word separately, "I have hoped that, since."

"Yes," responded Laurent eagerly. "You see, when you explained to her there was so little time--it was so sudden . . . all so horrible and you never do yourself justice. . . . So I--she asked me, you know, and I could not go away like that, before she did understand--I explained."

"So you explained," repeated his friend. "That was . . . like you, Laurent." He put his hand abruptly to his throat, got up with equal abruptness, and walked away out of the wash of moonlight.

He had told him! Now that Aymar knew that she knew the truth--now, surely. . . .

Aymar reappeared with startling suddenness, like a ghost.

"Hadn't we better go to bed?" he said in a dry voice.

Laurent jumped up and held out his hands to the ghost.

"Aymar, if you blame me----"

"Blame you? how could you think such a thing! Don't I know that you would make out a case for me a thousand times better than I could myself, and that you would do it so that it must be believed--if any truth in this world is to be believed! And that is just why . . . Never mind. Why talk of it to-night? Let us go to bed."

But Laurent had laid hold of him. "Aymar--I'm so stupid--for pity's sake tell me what you mean!"

"Why," answered Aymar, very quietly standing still in his grip, "just this: she understands _now_ . . . and it has made no difference."

Laurent loosed him, aghast. By telling him what he had done he had taken away his friend's last hope. He dropped back on to the window-seat.

Aymar sat down there, too, and leant his head against a mullion. "You see," he said evenly, "that this is a just inference, for she has had plenty of time to write to me, even if it were only to wish me good success . . . and I have not had a word. She cannot be ill, or my grandmother would have mentioned it. So it is not my ineradicable pride as you call it, Laurent. I am certain that you put things better for me than I could ever have done myself. Another debt--the deepest, it might have been, of all I owe you. But it only shows that she has washed her hands of me. I dare say she has cause."

The moonlight enshrined the two silent figures. Aymar had his chin cupped on his hand as he looked out of the window into the warm night. But before Laurent's eyes was the rose-garden at Sessignes, the little white-clad figure, the misty eyes, the trembling voice. . . . Yet nothing had come of that emotion, after all.

Aymar turned at last and put a hand on his. "My dear Laurent, one cannot have everything. Don't, don't look like that! It is not for me to show myself ungrateful for this wonderful day. I don't think that I quite realize myself yet that I am no longer an outcast, and that must be my excuse."

Laurent gripped the hand very hard. "I knew the luck would turn," he observed rather huskily. "No one could go on having such appalling bad fortune as you since you lost the _jartier_."

"I suppose," said Aymar softly, "that it has never occurred to you in your imaginative moments--no, I'm certain it has not--that all the time I had something a thousand times better than the _jartier_ . . . a piece of such transcendent good fortune that I might well spend the rest of my life thanking God for it!"

"What do you mean?" exclaimed Laurent. "No, certainly it has not. . . . Still, of course you were very lucky in having an opponent of the type of Colonel Richard, and again in coming across him as you did at----"

He stopped, because Aymar was gently shaking him.

"Is it nature or art, Laurent, that has made you so thick-headed? You don't know what I mean? Well, go and stand in front of your looking-glass, and perhaps it will dawn upon you!"

But it dawned then and there, for as he stared at him Laurent slowly began to turn crimson.