Chapter XV: Happy Reunion of Two Kinsmen

“Come through, come through, Lieutenant Gordon
Come through and drink some wine wi’ me!
For yesterday I was your prisoner,
But now the night I am set free.”
—_Archie o’ Cawfield_.

The long day of suspense was closing into evening before Gilbert, consumed with anxiety at the Hôtel des Etats-Généraux, knew that Madame d’Espaze had not belied her word. From the packet which was brought to him about nine o’clock fell out a scented note.

“Take the accompanying order and present it at La Force without loss of time. It will do all you wish.—C. D’E.”

Dismissing at the Place de l’Hôtel de Ville, for prudence sake, the fiacre which had brought him so far, Château-Foix hurried thence eastwards on foot. His head was in a whirl; he had not time to think how he should greet his cousin, and was glad of it, but threaded his way quickly through the animation of the Rue Saint-Antoine, till he saw on his left the opening of the little Rue des Ballets. Narrow, roughly paved, sloping down to a central gutter with its trickling stream, it ran its thirty paces up to the sombre facade of the Hôtel de la Force. And Gilbert went towards the prison in the July dusk, with no premonition of the September afternoon when the gutter over which he strode should run with a darker stream, and the narrow door which faced him open to let out, into the brief hell of axes and laughter, victim after victim. . . . His thoughts were all of Louis, of Louis immured in that dark mass which rose, its high roof pierced with tiny dormer windows, behind the lower range of the entrance. The sight of La Force and all that it stood for had exorcised for the moment any feelings of his own. He cast a hasty glance to his left, where the building ran along the Rue du Roi de Sicile—lately rebaptized as the Rue des Droits de l’Homme—and accosted the sentry in his box by the door.

Some parley with this individual resulted in his being admitted, and, following a jailor through two successive _guichets_, he found himself in the bureau of the prison. Months afterwards he realised that this place must have been the summary tribunal chamber of so many agonies. Bault, the _concierge_, was fetched from his supper, registers were brought out and searched, the order of release was entered, not without comment, and, as far as formalities were concerned, Louis was a free man again. The _concierge_, at heart not ill-natured, and further softened by the hundred livres which the Marquis had just slipped into his hand, remarked that it would be as well to let the prisoner out by the little door giving into the Rue des Droits de l’Homme, and not by the chief entrance, whence he might possibly be espied by passers in the Rue Saint Antoine. An aristocrat leaving La Force might chance to be a displeasing sight to the good patriots of the Faubourg, and from what he, Bault, remembered of the citizen Saint-Ermay, there was no disguising the fact that he was an aristocrat.

Gilbert thanked him, and, since he should not return that way, was allowed to follow the _guichetier_ instead of remaining where he was, as he had expected do. His guide crossed a small courtyard, went through yet a third _guichet_, emerged into a larger court, and turning, ascended a staircase.

“Number 32,” he repeated to himself, and they went down a dirty ill-lit corridor, with rows of doors either side. But, to Gilbert’s astonishment, the door of 32, when they reached it, stood ajar, affording him a glimpse of the narrow abode for which his kinsman had exchanged his own apartments. A horrible thought suddenly visited him that they had been fooling him at the bureau, that Louis had already been transferred, tried, murdered, he knew not what. . . .

“Where is he?” he demanded harshly.

The jailor, turning on his heel, responded with an oath, and began to retrace his steps, asseverating that if he had known he was coming all this —— way for nothing after a —— _aristo_, some one else could have had the job. However, he seemed to have an objective in view, and Gilbert followed him mutely downstairs again. Half-way along a corridor he stopped, motioned to the Marquis to stay where he was, and disappeared round a corner.

He seemed to be gone long. The lamp above Gilbert’s head stank villainously; the horrible oppression of the place entered his soul and joined forces with the oppression already seated there. Echoing steps came nearer, and Louis, with his head held high, walked down the corridor, alone.

He was on the Marquis before he saw who it was. “Good God! not you as well!” he exclaimed, stopping short with a catch of the breath.

The sound of the familiar, careless voice, pierced with an unfamiliar note of apprehension, swept everything else out of Gilbert’s mind.

“My dear boy—no!” he said, putting a hand on his shoulder. “No—you are free! Did they not tell you?”

“Free!” exclaimed Louis, bewildered. “I thought—— But how the devil——”

The Marquis put a finger on his lips as the _guichetier_ came up, swinging his keys.

“Little surprise for you, _ci-devant_, isn't it?” observed that worthy. “I might have told you, hein? But I like my little joke. Come on, then, since we are to part with you.”

A few moments more and they were standing in the dark, narrow street, with the door swung to upon them and the sound of heavy bolts slipping back into their places to bring home, if it were needed, the full savour of release.

Louis drew a long breath, and turning without a word to Gilbert embraced him. The Marquis released himself something hastily, and took off his cloak. “Put this on,” he said hurriedly. “I must tell you that you are now my valet. I have yet to get you out of Paris. There is a suit of clothes in readiness for you at my hotel, to which you must accompany me at once. Meanwhile, it is fortunately dark.” He swung the heavy cloak over Louis’ slim figure. “Not a word now, I beg of you; but follow me as quickly as you can.”

He started to walk rapidly along the Rue du Roi de Sicile, past the prison front, towards the Rue de la Verrerie, and Louis, wrapped in the cloak, followed obediently and still half dazed. At last, at the corner of the Rue de la Verrerie and the Rue Saint Martin, Gilbert hailed a passing fiacre, and they got in.

“Perhaps now I may thank you, or try to,” exclaimed the Vicomte as the vehicle started. “My dear Gilbert, has any one ever relied on you in vain? Though, indeed, I was not relying much on you or on anybody.” He slipped his arm into his cousin’s.

The conflicts through which Château-Foix had passed had clothed his spirit—for the time being, at least—in a sort of exhaustion. He did not return the pressure, but he smiled—a little wearily—and said: “You have small need to thank me. You owe your release to—an enemy.”

Louis appeared to reflect rapidly. “It’s no use—I have too many.”

“It was Madame d’Espaze.”

“The devil!” exclaimed the Vicomte. He seemed genuinely surprised. “I should never have dreamt of such a thing. But you must have asked her?”

“I did.”

Louis was evidently at a loss for an expression of his feelings. “You are amazing, Gilbert!” he said at last. “Did you actually interview her?”

The Marquis nodded.

“I didn’t think she cared enough,” said her admirer thoughtfully. “I suppose you worked on her feelings? Heavens, what a scene! So I owe my release to Célie—and to you. One must not forget the amiable Lecorrier too; I presume she got the order through him.”

“Probably,” returned Château-Foix drily. “I did not enquire as to the means she proposed to adopt.”

Louis laughed. “They have their humorous side. You must give me a full account some time. Parbleu, mon cher, but you must have been having the deuce of a time these two days!”

“And yourself?” asked Gilbert.

The Vicomte gave a shrug. “My only consolation was that the accommodation in the next world would be better. One has always understood that it is exceptionally good there. The company I would not have wished to change. Is this the Place des Victoires already?”

At the hotel a sleepy servant, in response to enquiry, informed Château-Foix that a bed had been prepared for Monsieur’s new valet in the little dressing-room leading out of his own apartment, and within a few minutes the Vicomte stood, candle in hand, looking down at the sober grey suit which his cousin was placing on his pallet bed. The cloak, half slipping off his shoulders, displayed the elegance which he must discard for it.

“I hope these will fit,” said the Marquis. “They are quite new; I got them this afternoon. What is to be done, I wonder, with the compromising clothes you have on?”

Louis suddenly put down the candle, and impulsively, half laughing, half touched, laid his hands on Gilbert’s shoulders from behind. “My dear Gilbert, I don't deserve all this trouble!”

“Don’t you?” asked the Marquis in an odd tone, turning round and facing his kinsman. “Don’t you? Why not?”

“Well,” returned Louis, “let us admit that I am worth some trouble, but not worth running risks for. And I am sure you have run, and will be running, risks for me.”

Château-Foix shrugged his shoulders. “Not if you will do as I ask,” he responded rather coldly. “Let me tell you what that is. To-morrow morning about noon we start for Chantemerle; we will post, and ought to get to Dreux the same night. I am proposing to take rather a circuitous route, for safety’s sake. I have got a passport for you as my valet, in the name of Pierre Jourdain. All I ask is that you shall play the part as well as you can, for both our sakes.”

“But,” broke in Louis, “I would rather stay in Paris. Why—they are all taken, I suppose, D’Aubeville, Périgny, and the rest—and one might try——”

“I am sorry,” said his cousin, “but in the matter you have no choice. I gave my word that you should go at once; it was a condition of your release. The rest, I fear, must pay the penalty—but, by the way, M. d’Aubeville had not been arrested yesterday evening, for it was he who advised me to go to Madame d’Espaze.”

The light died out of the Vicomte’s face as he listened to this pronouncement, and he sat down rather gloomily on the bed and said nothing. The Marquis looked at him for a moment as he stared at the floor, with his hands in his pockets.

“Well, go to bed now,” he said, more kindly. “You can’t help yourself, Louis—and who knows what there may be to do in Poitou? Good-night.” He went out and shut the door between the two rooms.

It had been a day of great tension and fatigue, following on a sleepless night, and the moment that he was alone, Gilbert realised how tired he was—too tired (as he half thankfully realised) to look his haunting idea in the face again at present. Undressing rapidly, he threw himself into bed. Scarcely had he blown out his light before there was a rap on the door between his room and his cousin’s, and Louis, in his shirt and breeches, stood in the doorway. The light behind him threw up his figure, but left his face untouched.

“I forgot to ask you,” he said, “about Lucienne. Is she going with Madame Gaumont to-morrow as arranged?”

It is true that Gilbert then wished that he had not extinguished his candle, but he was too proud to light it again for the purpose of seeing the speaker’s face, and the voice told him nothing.

“Yes,” he answered. “She leaves Paris to-morrow about eleven.”

There was an infinitesimal pause.

“You told her, I suppose, that I could not escort her to England?”

“Yes,” said the Marquis, and then a mad idea rushed into his mind. He raised himself on his elbow. “Am I to understand that you are reconsidering your decision—that you wish to take her—now?” His heart thumped absurdly on his ribs as he waited for the answer—absurdly, because he had no intention of allowing Louis to do so, but the question was a test.

Did Louis mutter something between his teeth? Aloud he only said: “Certainly not. What made you think so? I merely wanted to know if she were going. Good-night.”