Part 35 (2/2)

My mind inclined this way and that as I rode. Now I saw how strong was the evidence against her, yet I refused to be convinced by it before I should hear what she might have to say. Now I conjured up her image before me, and then all the evidence was naught. It was impossible that this face, of all faces in the world, could have been a mask to conceal falsehood and treachery, that this voice could have lied in its sweet and sorrowful tones, that her appearance of grief could have been but a pretence, that her seemingly unconscious signs of love could have been simulation!

Yet had not the gypsy sung of the false flame of woman's love? It is true, she had bade me heed these words. Would she have done so had her own appearance of love been false? Perhaps it was this very thought, the very improbability of a false woman's warning a man against woman's treachery, that had made her do so, that I might the less readily on occasion believe her false. Who can tell the resources and devices of a subtle woman?

What? Was I doubting her? Was I believing the story? Was I, with my closer knowledge of her, with my experience of the freaks of circ.u.mstance, with my perception of her heart, to accept the first apparent deduction from the few facts at hand, as blind, unthinking, undiscriminating soldiers, Blaise and Frojac, had done? Did I not know of what kind of woman she was? She was no Mlle. d'Arency.

Yet, who knows but that poor De Noyard had believed Mlle. d'Arency true?

Might he not, with the eyes of love, have seen in her as pure and spotless a creature as I had seen in Mlle. de Varion? Do the eyes of love, then, deceive? Is the confidence of lovers never to be relied on?

But I must have read her heart aright. Surely her heart had spoken to mine. Surely its voice was that of truth. Surely I knew her. Were not her eyes to be believed. Were not truth, goodness, gentleness, love, written on her face?

Yet, how went the gypsy's song,--the one we had heard him sing at G.o.deau's inn, by the forest road?

”But, ah, the sadness of the day When woman shows her treason!

And, oh, the price we have to pay For joys that have their season!

Her look of love is but a mask For plots that she is weaving.

Alas, for those who fondly bask In smiles that are deceiving!”

Might this, then, be true of any woman? So many men had found it out. The eyes of so many had been opened at last. Was I still a fool, had I learned so little of women, had my experience with Mlle. d'Arency taught me only to beware of women outwardly like her, did I need a separate lesson for each different woman on whom I might set my heart? Was it my peculiar lot to be twice deceived in the same way?

And yet, how her eyes had moistened in dwelling on mine, how they had dropped before my look, how she had yielded to my embrace, how she had stood still and unresisting in my arms! No, no, they were wrong! De Berquin had lied, Blaise and Frojac were stolid fools, capable of making only the most obvious inference, and I was a contemptible wretch to falter in my faith in her for an instant! She was the victim of a set of circ.u.mstances. She had reason for her hasty departure, she would make all clear in a few words. On, on, my horse, that I may hear those words, that my heart may rejoice! How soon shall we come up to her? How far ahead is she? How near to Clochonne? On! She is true, I know it. On! It may be even for my sake that she is endangering herself. On, that I may be at her side to s.h.i.+eld her! On, for of late I have pa.s.sed all the hours of the day with her, all the nights near her, her presence has been the breath of life to me, it is a new and unwonted and intolerable thing to be away from her, and I madly thirst and hunger for the sight of her! On, good horse!

Yet, torturing thought, how the story explained all that had seemed strange! How it fitted so many facts! At the inn at Fleurier we had overheard the plan suggested by Montignac for my capture, the employment of a spy who was to find my hiding place, send word of it, then plan an ambush for me. Then the lady had come to the inn. Perhaps she was one who had already some kind of relations with the governor and had now come purposely to meet him. What had pa.s.sed between her and the governor we had not overheard. It might easily have been the proposal by him, and the acceptance by her, of the mission against me. Such a task might better be entrusted to a woman. Catherine herself had employed women to entrap men who would have been on their guard against men. Certain Huguenot gentlemen had been especially susceptible to the charms of her accomplished decoys. Then the governor and his secretary had gone, and the latter had reappeared with De Berquin. It might really be that this woman, whether she were Mlle. de Varion, or whether she merely took that name in order to get my confidence without having to make the risky pretence of being a Protestant, was desired by Montignac and yet disliked him, and that De Berquin had been hired indeed to hold her forcibly for the secretary after she had accomplished her mission. But her ingenuous signs of a tender feeling for me? A device to blind me and win my trust, and so, through me, get the confidence of my supposed friend, La Tournoire. Her grief on the journey? Mere pretence, in order to bear out her story and enlist my sympathy. Her periods of silence and meditation?

She was thinking out the details of her plot. Her questions about La Tournoire? A means of learning what manner of man she would have to deal with, and of finding out his hiding-place at a time when it would be easiest to despatch her boy with a description of it to the governor. Her desire to know how great was my friends.h.i.+p for La Tournoire? This arose perhaps from a thought that I might be won over to her purpose, perhaps from a fear that I might some day avenge his betrayal. The barrier that, she said, lay between us? A pretext to get rid of me as soon as I might be, not only useless to her, but also in the way of her designs against La Tournoire. Her strange agitation? A mask to cover the real excitement that one in her position must have felt. Her aspect of horror at the disclosure that I was La Tournoire? This may have been real, coming from a fear that she might have betrayed herself by the curiosity she had shown about me, that the eyes of La Tournoire must be keener than those of the light-hearted man she had taken me to be, that I had dissembled to her as well as to De Berquin, that I had been playing with her from the first. After she knew me to be La Tournoire, and was a.s.sured that I did not suspect her, she no more spoke of my going from her. What was her weakness of body at Maury but a pretext for delay, that the governor might have time to come to Clochonne and the project of the ambush be carried out? She had forged chains of love to hold me where she was. Her coyness but kept those chains the stronger, her postponement of the surrender made it the more impossible for me to leave her side. Who can go from the woman he loves while his fate is uncertain? If she had made no show of love, I could have left her. If she had confessed her love in words, and promised to be my own, I could have endured to leave her for a time. How well she knew men! How well she had maintained just that appearance which kept my thoughts on her night and day, which made me unwilling to lose sight of her, and which would have made me instantly responsive to any summons that she might have sent me from any part of the forest!

So, then, there were two sides, two appearances, to this woman. The one, the good side, that which I had seen, that which had been the joy of my life, was not real, was but a seeming, had no existence but in pretence.

The other, the wicked side, was the real one, was the actual woman. I had never known her. What I had known was but an a.s.sumption; it had no being.

Was this credible? Could a bad woman so delude one with an angelic pretence, so conceal her wicked self? If so, to what depths of vileness might she not be capable of descending? Was it, then, not that I had lost my beloved, but that she had never existed? At thought of it, I felt a sickness within, a weakness, a choking, a giving way. And then her image came before me again, as she had stood in the moonlit garden, and my beloved was born again. The woman I had known was the real one. I had done her incredible wrong to have thought otherwise. But whether good or bad, whether or not my betrayer, I loved her; I longed for her; I would see her face; I would clasp her in my arms; I would claim her as my own; I would hold her against her own will and the world's. On, my horse, on!

Where is she now, what has befallen her, how soon shall my heart bound at sight of her before me in the night? On! Whether she lead me to heaven or to h.e.l.l, I must be with her; I cannot wait!

Presently we came to the abode of G.o.deau and Marianne, where the forest path runs into the old road across the mountains. We had to check our speed here, on account of the thick growth of vegetation that served to mask the forest path from travellers on the road. We emerged from this, and turned the heads of our horses towards Clochonne.

The door of the inn opened, and Marianne came forth. She had been watching.

”Monsieur,” she said, ”I did not know whether to come to you or not. I have been keeping my eyes and ears open for any of the governor's troops.”

”But you have seen or heard none,” I answered, impatiently.

”None, monsieur. But some one has ridden by, towards Clochonne--the lady!”

I knew from her tone that she saw in Mademoiselle's flight alone sufficient reason for suspicion of mademoiselle and for alarm on my own part. She, too, thought mademoiselle guilty, myself duped. I first thought to pretend that mademoiselle's departure was a thing agreed on by her and me, but it was no time to value the opinion of a peasant.

”On, Frojac!” I said, and on we went. We could make better speed now, for the road, though little used and in bad condition, was continuous and, unlike the forest path, comparatively free of intrusive vegetation. It was hard, too, for the weather had been dry for a long time. The loud clatter of the horses' hoofs was some relief to my eager heart.

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