Chapter XXV

The declaration by Sylvia of her love for Bevill had caused so much agitation among those assembled in that gloomy _salle d'armes_ that, for the moment, all forgot there was another declaration to be heard--namely, the denunciation of Francbois by the Comtesse de Valorme. To him who was most principally concerned--to Bevill Bracton--the proclamation of Sylvia's love came not, however, so much as a surprise--since, had she not loved him, the words she had but hitherto whispered would never have been uttered at all by one so calmly dignified and self-contained as she--as a joy supreme. In the joy, too, was merged an honest, manly pride in having won for himself the love of a woman who nobly, before all present, had not hesitated openly to avow that love.

And still, even now that the love was acknowledged, every action of the girl as he drew close to her and, in his deepest murmur, whispered his own love and pride in her, but tended to increase his reverence. For as she--disdained all assumption of embarrassment, of having uttered words before others which, in ordinary cases, should have been whispered in his ears alone--now stood by his side with her hand still clasped in his, and with her calm, clear eyes fixed on him, he recognised more fully than ever he had done before how royally she was clad with womanly dignity. It was given to him to understand how that outspoken love for him had become her even as, oft-times, the murmured confession of their love by other women becomes them.

"Sylvia," he said now, "what shall I say, how prove to you all that is in my heart? How repay the love you have given me, the love I hoped so dearly to win?"

"Repay! Is it not mine to repay? You might have left me here alone. It was in your power to go, yet you resolved to stay. And," she said, gazing at him, "I love you. The words you uttered last night told me of your love for me; to-night I have avowed my own in return. Yet, ah!" she almost gasped, "in what a place, in what a spot, to plight our troth, to exchange vows!"

"Fear not, sweet one. The place matters nothing; the balm is administered, is here," and he touched the lace above his heart. "Even though they keep me prisoner for months, even though they slay me for being that which, God knows, I am not----"

"No, no, no! Not that! Not that!" she murmured, losing momentarily her self-control and clenching her under-lip between her teeth to hide its trembling. "Not that. It cannot be." Then looking up at him more firmly, though now he saw her eyes were welling over with tears, she added, "We have not met thus to part thus. It cannot, cannot be."

"By Heaven's grace we will never part. Once free of this, once safe, and--together--always together--we will never part on earth again. Heart up, my sweet! Heart up!" While, as he spoke, the pressure of his hand by hers told him that, as far as resolution could come to her aid, she would never despair. Nay, more--if such a thing might be--it conveyed in some subtle form to him the knowledge, the assurance, that if there lay in her power any chance of saving him, that chance would be exerted. Yet how, he asked himself, could she do aught towards saving him?

What was there to be done? His presence in this city, his assumption of being French while actually the subject of France's most determined enemy, was enough.

Meanwhile, there were others present--one other at least, the Comtesse--to whom this declaration of Sylvia had, if it came as a surprise at all, only come as one by the manner in which it was made. For she had seen enough, had observed enough to comprehend how, day by day, this man and woman had been gradually drawing nearer and nearer to one another; to discern how dear to each was the presence of the other, and to perceive that, as so they were drawn closer and closer together, the strands that drew them must tighten more and more until they could never be unloosed.

But if this avowal carried, therefore, no surprise to Madame de Valorme, to Francbois it brought an added agony to that which had gone before, even if, to him also, it brought no surprise. For he could not but ask himself what he had gained by his betrayal of this man--a betrayal that alone would have been justified, alone might have claimed extenuation, had it been the outcome of an honest, straightforward desire to serve the country he belonged to by injuring its enemies.

"Gained?" he reflected. He had gained nothing, while losing much, perhaps everything. Sylvia Thorne loved this man; she was not the woman to ever love another--above all, not him who had betrayed the beloved one. And, yes he had given this rival into the hands of the enemy. It might be, it doubtless was the case, that he had brought about his doom; but there--there!--but a few paces from him was one, his own connection, who was now about to send him also to his doom. For she knew enough to do so; she had told him so that night in the lane when, after the Englishman had disarmed him, she had taken him apart, even as, in the same breath, she had told him that if harm came to that other so it should come to him. And now--now--it had come to that other. In a few more moments it would come to him. She was about to speak. Gained! Out of his own mouth, by his own evil disposition, he had brought about his own fate.

As his mind was tortured thus the Comtesse de Valorme commenced the exposure which must lead to his undoing.

"Monsieur de Violaine," he heard her saying now, even as every fibre in his body trembled and seemed to become relaxed and flaccid, while the moisture stood in great drops on his cheeks and forehead, "you have heard Mr. Bracton proclaimed a spy, though he is none, but only a man who assumed a false name, a false nationality, to help a woman whom," she added, "he loves. He is no spy; but, if he were, is a spy worse than a traitor?"

De Violaine started as she uttered these words, since he remembered how the same thought, the same question, had arisen in his own mind that very day; then in reply he said:

"Each is an evil thing--contemned by all honourable men. Yet one man's evil-doing does not justify that of another."

"That is undoubted. Yet listen. This man," her eyes on Bevill, "is no spy; this one," and they fell with withering contempt on Francbois, "is a traitor."

"Have you proof of your words?" De Violaine asked, his marvellous calm always maintained.

"Proof? Ay, as much as you require. Le Maréchal de Boufflers comes here ere long, it is said, to see that all is prepared, all ready to resist the Allies; to, it is also said, resist Marlborough himself. When he comes show him these, after you have read them yourself." As she spoke thus the Comtesse de Valorme thrust her hand beneath the great _houppelande_, or travelling cloak, she had set out in and still wore; while, thrusting it next into the lace of her dress, she drew forth a small bundle of papers. "There is enough matter there," she said, "to hang a score of traitors." After which, turning to Francbois, she added: "You should have burnt those long ago instead of keeping them; or, keeping them, should have found sanctuary for them in the college of your friends and patrons, the Jesuits. Van Ryk's house, the house of a heretic," she said bitterly, "was a poor depository for such things; the bureau in a room sometimes occupied by a heretic woman the worst place of all."

But Francbois was now almost in a state of collapse; it was necessary for the stalwart troopers of the Risbourg dragoons to support him. For at last he knew that, whatever might be the fate of this Englishman whom he had striven to ruin, there was no ray of doubt about his own fate; while--and this was the bitterest of all--he had brought that fate upon himself. She, this tigress in woman's form, as he called her to himself, had warned him in the lane behind Van Ryk's house that it would be so if he betrayed the other; she had said the very same words that she had but just now uttered; had said that she had enough proof against him to hang a score of traitors. Only--she had not told him the exact nature of that proof. While he, who received so many letters by channels so devious that he could scarce remember how each reached his hands, had lost all memory of how once, when disturbed, he had thrust a small packet of them into the topmost drawer of an old bureau in a room that he generally occupied, except when other guests were in the house. In absolute fact, he had forgotten that bundle of letters until now.

For some moments Francbois could not speak; his breath seemed to have failed him. Nay more, even though the breath had been there to give utterance to his words, his mind was incapable of forming thoughts that, in their turn, should be expressed in words. He could but gasp and whine and raise his hand to his brow to wipe away the hot sweat oozing from it; he was so prostrate that the sturdy dragoons holding him thought that he would sink lifeless to the floor. Yet all the time he knew that the eyes of the others were upon him, were fixed coldly and contemptuously on him; the eyes of all except those of De Violaine, who, beneath the greasy candle guttering in their sockets, was reading the papers he had but now received. Yet, once Francbois saw that the Governor turned over a letter again and re-read it, and that--then he raised his eyes from the sheet and also looked at him for an instant. In that instant Francbois anticipated, perhaps experienced, the agonies of death a hundred times.

At last, however, he found his voice: thoughts to utter by its aid came to him. Struggling in the troopers' arms, he raised himself into a firmer, a more upright position and was able to assume something more of the attitude of a man. Then, freeing his right hand from the grasp of one of the soldiers--the hand in which he held his handkerchief, now a rolled-up ball--he lifted and pointed it towards the Comtesse; after which he said, in a harsh, dry, raucous voice:

"Spies! You--you--both--have talked of these." It may be he forgot in his frenzy that from him alone had such talk originated. "So be it. Yet, besides this English bully, this swashbuckler who slays in dark houses, those who would bring him to justice, are then no others present? What is this woman who in her self-righteousness denounces me as a traitor----"

"She has done more; she has proved you to be one," the Comtesse said.

"What is she?" Francbois went on. "What? Her husband died a traitor at the galleys; if women could be punished thus, she would be in a fair way to do so, too. Is she no traitor? She? She who is here to meet with Marlborough, or Cutts, or Athlone; to throw herself in their path, to intrigue with them for an invasion of the South--she who would have escaped to-night with those others had I not warned you of her. Warned you! There was no need of that! You who, like her, are of the South--a Camisard, a Cévenole."

Again De Violaine looked at this man, and the look had in it more terror for the abject creature than a thousand words might have possessed; after which, addressing the soldiers, he said:

"Remove both prisoners--each to a cell. Each of you," addressing both Bevill and Francbois, "will be subjected to a general court-martial when a sufficiency of officers can be collected to form it, and after the Maréchal de Boufflers and the Duc de Maine have been consulted. Mesdames," addressing the Comtesse and Sylvia, "you must return whence you set out. The Captain d'Aubenay and his men shall escort you."

Thus the expedition, the escape from Liége, had failed, since all who were to have gone on it, as well as he who prevented its accomplishment, were prisoners. For that the Comtesse de Valorme and Sylvia were now in a way--though a different one--as much prisoners as Bevill Bracton and Francbois they could not doubt. Except that they would be free of Van Ryk's house and gardens--free, possibly, of the city itself--instead of being confined in some room, or rooms, in the citadel, all freedom was gone from them, and they knew and understood that it was so.

But, still, in each of those women's hearts there had sprung up some hope for the future, the reason whereof neither could have explained, since whence hope was to come neither of them knew. From De Violaine there was, of a certainty, nothing to be looked for. Though no Camisard or Cévenole, as Francbois had stated, he was, nevertheless, a Protestant serving a cruel King who oppressed those of his faith; yet, being one, the Comtesse de Valorme knew well that nothing would turn him from his loyalty. Neither his early love for her, nor any hope that, now she was free, he might win her love, nor his belief--if such were possible--that Bevill had done nothing to merit condemnation as a spy, would weaken his fidelity so long as he bore the commission of Louis. From him there was nothing to be looked for but a stern, unflinching execution of his duty. And, if not from him, whence should hope come? At present they could find no answer to this question that they had each asked of their own hearts; they saw no glimmering ray to give them confidence. And still--still each hoped already, and the hope would never die within their hearts until the last chance was gone.

"I love him I love him! I love him!" Sylvia was whispering to herself now, even as preparations were being made to remove Bevill from this old, dark, and weird hall that reeked of the memories of innumerable cruelties; Francbois being already removed. "I love him. And--and he thought to save me. He deemed I needed assistance, rescue. Now it is he who needs earthly salvation, he whose impending lot cries for prompt succour. Ah, well! help, succour, shall be forthcoming unless I die in an attempt to obtain it. Oh!" she gasped, her hands to her breast, "they are leading him away--from me!"

With one swift movement she was by Bevill's side; a moment later she was clasped to his heart; another, and he was murmuring words of love and farewell in her ears.

"Adieu! Adieu, Sylvia," he said. "Nay, my sweet!" he whispered, "let fall no tears; weep not for me. I have won your love; the happiest hours of my life have come. Since I may be no more by your side--as yet--I have the thoughts of you to solace me; the thought, the pride of knowing I have won your love, that I alone dwell in your heart."

While, seeing that De Violaine in his delicacy had turned his eyes away, and was gazing into the great empty fireplace until this sad parting should be made; seeing, too, that even the rough troopers had turned their eyes from them, he embraced Sylvia for the first time--the first time and, as he feared, the last.

"I love you," he whispered. "Whate'er betide, remember my last words are these. Remember that, if the worst befalls, my last thought shall be of you, my last prayer for you, your name the last word on my lips. Farewell."