Chapter IX: The Toledo Blade (2)

"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."