the groom waiting a full hour while composing his answer. Brief
though it was, it cost him very considerable effort and several unsuccessful
attempts. In the end this is what he wrote:
     Monsieur my  godfather - You make refusal singularly  hard  for me when
you appeal to me upon the ground of affection. It is a thing of which all my
life I shall  hail the opportunity  to give  you proofs,  and I am therefore
desolated beyond anything I could hope to express that I cannot give you the
proof you ask to-day. There is too much between M. de La Tour d'Azyr and me.
Also you  do me and my class  -  whatever it may be - less than justice when
you say that obligations of honour are not binding upon us. So binding  do I
count them, that, if I would, I could not now draw back.
     If hereafter  you should persist in the harsh intention  you express, I
must suffer it. That I shall suffer be assured.
     Your affectionate and grateful godson
     Andre-Louis
     He dispatched  that  letter by  M.  de Kercadiou's groom, and conceived
this to be  the end of the matter.  It cut him keenly; but he bore the wound
with that outward stoicism he affected.
     Next morning, at a quarter past eight,  as with Le Chapelier - who  had
come to break his fast with  him  - he was rising from  table to set out for
the  Bois,  his  housekeeper  startled him  by  announcing  Mademoiselle  de
Kercadiou.
     He looked at his watch. Although his cabriolet was already at the door,
he  had a  few minutes to spare. He  excused himself  from Le Chapelier, and
went briskly out to the anteroom.
     She advanced to meet him, her manner eager, almost feverish.
     "I will not affect ignorance of why you have come," he said quickly, to
make short work. "But time presses, and  I warn you that only the most solid
of reasons can be worth stating."
     It surprised  her. It amounted to a rebuff at the  very  outset, before
she had uttered a word;  and that  was the last thing she  had expected from
Andre-Louis. Moreover,  there  was about  him  an air of  aloofness that was
unusual where  she was concerned, and his voice had been singularly cold and
formal.
     It wounded  her.  She was not to guess the  conclusion to  which he had
leapt. He made with regard to her - as was but natural, after all - the same
mistake  that  he  had  made  with  regard  to yesterday's  letter from  his
godfather.  He  conceived  that  the  mainspring of  action here was  solely
concern for M. de La Tour d'Azyr. That it might be concern for himself never
entered  his mind. So absolute was his own conviction of what  must  be  the
inevitable issue  of  that meeting  that  he could  not conceive of  any one
entertaining a fear on his behalf.
     What he  assumed to be  anxiety on the score of the  predestined victim
had  irritated him in  M. de Kercadiou; in Aline it  filled him with  a cold
anger; he argued from  it that she  had hardly been  frank  with  him;  that
ambition was urging her  to consider with favour the  suit of M. de  La Tour
d'Azyr. And  than  this  there was  no  spur  that  could  have driven  more
relentlessly in  his purpose,  since to save her was in his  eyes  almost as
momentous as to avenge the past.
     She conned him searchingly, and the complete calm of him at such a time
amazed her. She could not repress the mention of it.
     "How calm you are, Andre!"
     "I am not easily disturbed. It is a vanity of mine."
     "But... Oh, Andre, this meeting must not take place!" She came close up
to him, to set her hands upon his shoulders, and stood so, her face within a
foot of his own.
     "You know, of course, of some good reason why it should not?" said he.
     "You may be killed," she  answered  him, and  her  eyes dilated as  she
spoke.
     It was so far from anything that he  had expected that for  a moment he
could only stare at her. Then he thought he had understood. He laughed as he
removed her hands from  his shoulders, and stepped back.  This was a shallow
device, childish and unworthy in her.
     "Can you really think  to prevail  by attempting  to  frighten me?"  he
asked, and almost sneered.
     "Oh,  you  are  surely mad!  M.  de  La Tour d'Azyr is reputed the most
dangerous sword in France."
     "Have   you  never  noticed  that  most  reputations  are   undeserved?
Chabrillane was a  dangerous swordsman, and  Chabrillane  is underground. La
Motte-Royau was an even more dangerous swordsman,  and  he is in a surgeon's
hands. So are the other spadassinicides who dreamt of skewering a poor sheep
of a provincial  lawyer. And here to-day comes the chief, the fine flower of
these bully-swordsmen. He comes, for wages long overdue. Be sure of that. So
if you have no other reason to urge.
     It was  the  sarcasm of him  that mystified her.  Could  he possibly be
sincere in his assurance  that he must prevail against M. de La Tour d'Azyr?
To her in  her limited knowledge, her mind filled with  her uncle's contrary
conviction, it seemed that  Andre-Louis was only acting; he would act a part
to the very end.
     Be that as it might, she shifted her ground to answer him.
     "You had my uncle's letter?"
     "And I answered it."
     "I know.  But what  he  said, he will fulfil. Do not dream that he will
relent if you carry out this horrible purpose."
     "Come, now, that is a better reason than the other," said he. "If there
is a reason in  the world that could move me it would  be that. But there is
too much between La Tour d'Azyr and me. There is an oath I swore on the dead
hand of Philippe de Vilmorin. I could never have hoped that God would afford
me so great an opportunity of keeping it."
     "You have not kept it yet," she warned him.
     He smiled at her. "True!" he said. "But nine o'clock will soon be here.
Tell me,"  he  asked  her suddenly, "why did  you not carry this request  of
yours to M. de La Tour d'Azyr?"
     "I  did,"  she  answered  him,  and  flushed  as  she   remembered  her
yesterday's rejection. He interpreted the flush quite otherwise.
     "And he?" he asked.
     "M. de La Tour  d'Azyr's obligations... " she  was beginning: then  she
broke off to answer shortly: "Oh, he refused."
     "So, so. He must, of course, whatever it  may have cost him. Yet in his
place I should have counted the cost as  nothing. But men are different, you
see." He sighed. "Also in  your place, had that been so,  I  think  I should
have left the matter there. But then... "
     "I don't understand you, Andre."
     "I am not so very obscure. Not nearly so obscure  as  I can be. Turn it
over in  your mind. It may help to comfort you presently." He  consulted his
watch again. "Pray use this house as your own. I must be going."
     Le Chapelier put his head in at the door.
     "Forgive the intrusion. But we shall be late, Andre, unless you... "
     "Coming," Andre answered him. "If you will await my  return, Aline, you
will oblige me deeply. Particularly in view of your uncle's resolve."
     She did not answer him. She was numbed. He took her silence for assent,
and,  bowing, left  her. Standing there she heard his steps  going  down the
stairs  together with Le Chapelier's. He was speaking to his friend, and his
voice was calm and normal.
     Oh, he was mad - blinded by self-confidence and vanity. As his carriage
rattled away, she sat down limply, with a sense  of  exhaustion and  nausea.
She  was  sick and faint with  horror.  Andre-Louis was going  to his death.
Conviction of it - an unreasoning conviction, the result, perhaps, of all M.
de Kercadiou's rantings - entered her soul. Awhile she  sat  thus, paralyzed
by hopelessness. Then  she sprang up again, wringing her hands. She  must do
something to avert this horror.  But what could she do? To follow him to the
Bois  and intervene  there would be to make  a scandal for no  purpose.  The
conventions of conduct were all against her, offering a barrier that was not
to be overstepped. Was there no one could help her?
     Standing  there, half-frenzied  by her helplessness, she caught again a
sound of vehicles and hooves  on the cobbles of the street below. A carriage
was approaching. It drew up with a clatter before the fencing-academy. Could
it  be Andre-Louis  returning? Passionately she  snatched  at that  straw of
hope. Knocking, loud and urgent, fell upon  the door. She heard Andre-Louis'
housekeeper, her  wooden shoes  clanking  upon the  stairs, hurrying down to
open.
     She  sped  to  the  door  of  the anteroom, and pulling  it  wide stood
breathlessly  to listen.  But the  voice that floated  up to her was not the
voice she  so  desperately  hoped to  hear. It was a woman's voice asking in
urgent tones for  M. Andre-Louis - a voice  at first  vaguely familiar, then
clearly recognized, the voice of Mme. de Plougastel.
     Excited, she ran to the  head of the  narrow staircase  in time to hear
Mme. de Plougastel exclaim in agitation:
     "He has gone already! Oh, but how long since? Which way did he take?"
     It  was enough to inform Aline that Mme. de Plougastel's errand must be
akin to her own. At the moment, in the general distress and confusion of her
mind, her mental vision focussed entirely on the one vital  point, she found
in this no matter for astonishment. The singular regard conceived by Mme. de
Plougastel for Andre-Louis seemed to her then a sufficient explanation.
     Without  pausing  to  consider,  she  ran  down that  steep  staircase,
calling:
     "Madame! Madame!"
     The portly,  comely housekeeper drew  aside,  and the two  ladies faced
each other on that threshold. Mme. de Plougastel looked white and haggard, a
nameless dread staring from her eyes.
     "Aline!  You here!" she  exclaimed. And  then  in  the urgency sweeping
aside all minor considerations, "Were you also too late?" she asked.
     "No, madame. I saw him. I implored him. But he would not listen."
     "Oh, this is horrible!"  Mme. de  Plougastel shuddered as she spoke. "I
heard of it only half an  hour ago, and I came at once, to prevent it at all
costs."
     The  two  women  looked  blankly, despairingly,  at each other.  In the
sunshine-flooded street  one  or two shabby idlers  were pausing to eye  the
handsome equipage with its magnificent bay horses, and the  two great ladies
on the doorstep of the fencing-academy. From across the way came the raucous
voice of an itinerant bellows-mender raised in the cry of his trade:
     "A raccommoder les vieux soufflets!"
     Madame swung to the housekeeper.
     "How long is it since monsieur left?"
     "Ten minutes, maybe; hardly more."  Conceiving these great ladies to be
friends of her invincible master's latest victim, the good woman preserved a
decently stolid exterior.
     Madame wrung her hands. "Ten minutes! Oh!" It was almost a moan. "Which
way did he go?"
     "The  assignation is for nine o'clock in  the  Bois de Boulogne," Aline
informed her. "Could we follow? Could we prevail if we did?"
     "Ah,  my God! The question is should we come in time? At  nine o'clock!
And it wants but little more than a quarter of an hour. Mon Dieu! Mon Dieu!"
Madame clasped and unclasped her hands in anguish. "Do you  know,  at least,
where in the Bois they are to meet?"
     "No - only that it is in the Bois."
     "In the Bois!" Madame was flung into a frenzy. "The Bois is nearly half
as large as Paris." But she swept breathlessly on, "Come, Aline: get in, get
in!"
     Then to her  coachman. "To the Bois de Boulogne by way of the Cours  Ia
Reine," she commanded, "as fast as you can drive. There are ten pistoles for
you if we are in time. Whip up, man!"
     She  thrust Aline into  the  carriage, and  sprang  after her with  the
energy of a girl. The heavy  vehicle - too heavy by  far for this race  with
time - was  moving before she had  taken her seat.  Rocking  and lurching it
went, earning the maledictions of more than  one pedestrian whom it narrowly
avoided crushing against a wall or trampling underfoot.
     Madame  sat back with closed  eyes and trembling lips. Her  face showed
very white and drawn. Aline watched her in  silence. Almost it seemed to her
that  Mme. de  Plougastel was suffering as deeply as  herself,  enduring  an
anguish of apprehension as great as her own.
     Later Aline was to wonder at this. But at the moment all the thought of
which her half-numbed mind  was capable was bestowed  upon  their  desperate
errand.
     The  carriage rolled across the Place Louis XV and out on to  the Cours
Ia Reine  at  last. Along that beautiful, tree-bordered  avenue between  the
Champs Elysees and  the Seine,  almost empty at this hour  of the  day, they
made better speed, leaving now a cloud of dust behind them.
     But  fast to danger-point as  was  the  speed, to  the  women  in  that
carriage  it  was  too slow. As  they reached the barrier at the end  of the
Cours, nine o'clock was striking  in the city behind  them, and every stroke
of it seemed to sound a note of doom.
     Yet  here at  the  barrier the regulations compelled  a momentary halt.
Aline enquired  of the sergeant-in-charge how long it  was since a cabriolet
such as she described had gone  that way. She was answered that  some twenty
minutes  ago a  vehicle had passed the barrier containing  the  deputy M. le
Chapelier and the  Paladin of the Third Estate, M.  Moreau. The sergeant was
very well informed. He could make a shrewd  guess, he said, with a  grin, of
the business that took M. Moreau that way so early in the day.
     They left him, to  speed on now through the open country, following the
road that  continued to hug  the  river.  They  sat back mutely  despairing,
staring hopelessly ahead,  Aline's hand clasped  tight  in madame's. In  the
distance,  across  the meadows on their right, they could  see  already  the
long, dusky  line  of  trees of  the  Bois, and presently the carriage swung
aside following a branch of the road that turned to the right, away from the
river and heading straight for the forest.
     Mademoiselle broke at last the silence of hopelessness that had reigned
between them since they had passed the barrier.
     "Oh, it is impossible that we should come in time! Impossible!"
     "Don't say it! Don't say it!" madame cried out.
     "But  it is  long  past  nine,  madame!  Andre  would be punctual,  and
these... affairs do not take long. It... it will be all over by now.
     Madame shivered,  and closed  her  eyes. Presently, however, she opened
them again, and stirred. Then she put her head from the window. "A  carriage
is approaching," she announced, and her tone conveyed the thing she feared.
     "Not already!  Oh,  not already!" Thus  Aline  expressed  the  silently
communicated  thought. She  experienced a difficulty  in breathing, felt the
sudden  need of  air. Something in her  throat  was throbbing as if it would
suffocate her; a mist came and went before her eyes.
     In a cloud  of  dust an open caleche was  speeding towards them, coming
from the  Bois.  They  watched it, both  pale,  neither  venturing to speak,
Aline, indeed, without breath to do so.
     As it  approached,  it  slowed down, perforce, as they did, to effect a
safe  passage  in that narrow  road. Aline  was at the window with  Mme.  de
Plougastel,  and  with fearful eyes both looked into this open carriage that
was drawing abreast of them.
     "Which of them is it, madame? Oh, which of  them?" gasped Aline, scarce
daring to look, her senses swimming.
     Qn the near side sat a swarthy young gentleman unknown to either of the
ladies. He was smiling as he spoke to his companion. A moment  later and the
man  sitting beyond came into view. He was  not  smiling. His face was white
and set, and it was the face of the Marquis de La Tour d'Azyr.
     For  a long moment, in  speechless  horror, both  women stared at  him,
until, perceiving them, blankest surprise invaded his stern face.
     In that moment, with  a long shuddering sigh Aline sank swooning to the
carriage floor behind Mme. de Plougastel.

        CHAPTER XI. INFERENCESI


     By fast driving  Andre-Louis had reached the ground some  minutes ahead
of time, notwithstanding the slight delay in setting out. There he had found
M. de La Tour  d'Azyr already awaiting him,  supported by a M. d'Ormesson, a
swarthy  young gentleman in the blue uniform of a  captain in the  Gardes du
Corps.
     Andre-Louis had been silent and  preoccupied throughout  that drive. He
was perturbed by  his last interview with Mademoiselle de Kercadiou  and the
rash inferences which he had drawn as to her motives.
     "Decidedly," he had said, "this man must be killed."
     Le  Chapelier had  not  answered  him.  Almost, indeed,  had the Breton
shuddered at his compatriot's cold-bloodedness. He had often of late thought
that   this  fellow  Moreau  was  hardly  human.  Also  he  had  found   him
incomprehensibly inconsistent.  When first this spadassinicide  business had
been proposed to him, he had been so very lofty  and disdainful. Yet, having
embraced it,  he went about it at times  with  a ghoulish flippancy that was
revolting, at times with a detachment that was more revolting still.
     Their preparations were  made quickly and in silence, yet without undue
haste or other sign of nervousness on either side. In both men the same grim
determination  prevailed. The  opponent must  be  killed; there could be  no
half-measures here. Stripped each of coat and  waistcoat, shoeless  and with
shirt-sleeves rolled  to the elbow, they faced each  other at last, with the
common resolve of paying in full the long score that  stood between  them. I
doubt  if  either  of  them  entertained a misgiving as to what must  be the
issue.
     Beside them, and opposite each other, stood Le Chapelier and  the young
captain, alert and watchful.
     "Allez, messieurs!"
     The  slender, wickedly delicate  blades clashed  together,  and after a
momentary glizade were whirling,  swift and bright as lightnings, and almost
as  impossible  to  follow  with  the  eye.  The  Marquis  led  the  attack,
impetuously and vigorously, and almost at once Andre-Louis realized  that he
had  to  deal  with  an opponent  of  a  very  different mettle  from  those
successive duellists of last week, not excluding La Motte-Royau, of terrible
reputation.
     Here was a  man whom much and constant practice had given extraordinary
speed and a technique that was almost  perfect. In addition, he enjoyed over
Andre-Louis  physical  advantages  of strength and  length  of  reach, which
rendered  him  altogether  formidable.  And  he  was  cool,  too;  cool  and
self-contained;  fearless  and purposeful. Would anything  shake that  calm,
wondered Andre-Louis?
     He desired the  punishment to be  as  full  as he could  make  it.  Not
content to kill  the Marquis as the Marquis had killed Philippe, he  desired
that  he  should  first know himself  as  powerless to avert that  death  as
Philippe  had been.  Nothing  less would content Andre-Louis.  M. le Marquis
must begin by tasting of that cup of despair. It was in the account; part of
the quittance due.
     As with a breaking  sweep Andre-Louis parried  the heavy lunge in which
that first series of passes culminated, he actually laughed
     - gleefully, after the fashion of a boy at a sport he loves.
     That extraordinary,  ill-timed  laugh  made  M.  de  La  Tour  d'Azyr's
recovery hastier  and less correctly dignified  than it would otherwise have
been. It startled and discomposed him, who had already  been  discomposed by
the  failure to  get home with a lunge so  beautifully timed  and  so  truly
delivered.
     He, too, had realized that his opponent's force was above anything that
he  could  have  expected, fencing-master though he might  be, and  on  that
account he had put forth his utmost energy to make an end at once.
     More  than the actual  parry,  the  laugh by which it  was  accompanied
seemed to make of that end no more than a beginning.  And yet it was the end
of something. It was the end of  that  absolute confidence that had hitherto
inspired M. de La Tour d'Azyr. He no longer looked upon the issue as a thing
forgone. He realized that if he was to prevail in this encounter, he must go
warily and fence as he had never fenced yet in all his life.
     They  settled down again; and again - on the principle  this  time that
the  soundest defence is  in attack - it was the  Marquis who made the game.
Andre-Louis allowed him to do so, desired him to do so; desired him to spend
himself and  that  magnificent speed of  his against the greater  speed that
whole days  of  fencing  in  succession for nearly two years  had given  the
master. With a beautiful, easy pressure  of forte on foible Andre-Louis kept
himself completely covered in  that  second bout, which once more culminated
in a lunge.
     Expecting it  now, Andre-Louis parried it by no more than a  deflecting
touch.  At the  same moment he  stepped suddenly forward, right  within  the
other's guard,  thus placing  his man so completely at his mercy that, as if
fascinated, the Marquis did not even attempt to recover himself.
     This time Andre-Louis did  not laugh:  He just smiled into the dilating
eyes of M. de La Tour d'Azyr, and made no shift to use his advantage.
     "Come,  come, monsieur!" he  bade  him  sharply. "Am I to run my  blade
through  an uncovered  man?" Deliberately he  fell  back, whilst his  shaken
opponent recovered himself at last.
     M. d'Ormesson released the breath which horror had for a moment caught.
Le Chapelier swore softly, muttering:
     "Name of  a name! It  is tempting  Providence to play the  fool in this
fashion!"
     Andre-Louis observed the  ashen pallor that now over spread the face of
his opponent.
     "I think you begin to realize, monsieur, what Philippe de Vilmorin must
have  felt that day  at Gavrillac. I  desired that you should first  do  so.
Since that is accomplished, why, here's to make an end."
     He went in with lightning rapidity. For a moment his point seemed to La
Tour d'Azyr to be everywhere at once,  and  then from  a low  engagement  in
sixte,  Andre-Louis stretched forward with swift  and vigorous ease to lunge
in tierce. He drove his  point to  transfix his opponent  whom a  series  of
calculated  disengages  uncovered  in that line. But to  his  amazement  and
chagrin, La Tour d'Azyr  parried the stroke;  infinitely more to his chagrin
La Tour d'Azyr parried it just too late.  Had he completely parried it,  all
would yet have been well.  But striking the blade  in the last fraction of a
second, the Marquis  deflected the point  from the line of his body, yet not
so completely  but that  a couple of  feet  of that hard-driven  steel  tore
through the muscles of his sword-arm.
     To the seconds  none  of these details  had been visible. All that they
had  seen had  been  a swift whirl of flashing blades, and then  Andre-Louis
stretched  almost to the  ground in an  upward  lunge  that  had pierced the
Marquis' right arm just below the shoulder.
     The  sword fell  from the suddenly  relaxed grip  of La  Tour  d'Azyr's
fingers,  which had been rendered powerless, and he stood now disarmed,  his
lip  in his teeth, his  face white, his chest  heaving, before his opponent,
who had at once recovered. With the blood-tinged tip of his sword resting on
the  ground, Andre-Louis  surveyed  him grimly,  as we  survey the prey that
through our own clumsiness has escaped us at the last moment.
     In the Assembly  and  in the newspapers this might be hailed as another
victory for  the Paladin  of the Third  Estate; only himself could  know the
extent and the bitternest of the failure.
     M. d'Ormesson had sprung to the side of his principal.
     "You are hurt!" he had cried stupidly.
     "It is nothing," said La Tour d'Azyr. "A scratch." But his lip writhed,
and the torn sleeve of his fine cambric shirt was full of blood.
     D'Ormesson, a practical man in such matters, produced a linen kerchief,
which he tore quickly into strips to improvise a bandage.
     Still  Andre-Louis continued to  stand there, looking on as if bemused.
He continued  so until Le Chapelier touched him on  the arm. Then at last he
roused himself,  sighed, and turned away to resume his garments, nor  did he
address or look again at his late opponent, but left the ground at once.
     As, with Le  Chapelier,  he was walking slowly and in silent  dejection
towards the entrance  of the Bois, where  they had left their carriage, they
were passed  by the caleche conveying  La Tour d'Azyr and his second - which
had originally  driven almost  right up to  the  spot of the  encounter. The
Marquis' wounded arm was carried in a sling improvised  from his companion's
sword-belt.  His sky-blue  coat with three collars  had  been  buttoned over
this,  so  that the  right  sleeve hung  empty.  Otherwise, saving a certain
pallor, he looked much his usual self.
     And now you understand how it was that  he was the first to return, and
that seeing him thus returning,  apparently safe and sound,  the two ladies,
intent  upon  preventing the encounter, should have assumed that their worst
fears were realized.
     Mme. de Plougastel attempted  to call  out, but  her  voice refused its
office. She attempted to throw open the door  of her own  carriage; but  her
fingers fumbled  clumsily  and ineffectively with the handle.  And meanwhile
the caleche was  slowly  passing,  La  Tour d'Azyr's fine eyes sombrely  yet
intently meeting her own anguished gaze. And then she saw something else. M.
d'Ormesson, leaning back  again from the  forward inclination of his body to
join his own to his companion's  salutation of  the Countess,  disclosed the
empty right  sleeve of M. de La Tour d'Azyr's blue coat. More, the near side
of the coat itself turned back from the point  near the throat  where it was
caught  together by single button,  revealed the  slung  arm beneath  in its
blood. sodden cambric sleeve.
     Even  now she feared  to jump  to  the  obvious  conclusion feared lest
perhaps the Marquis,  though himself wounded, might have dealt his adversary
a deadlier wound.
     She found her voice at  last, and at  the same moment  signalled to the
driver of the caleche to stop.
     As it was Pulled to  a standstill,  M. d'Ormesson alighted, and so  met
madame in the little space between the two carriages.
     "Where is M. Moreau?" was the question with which she surprised him.
     "Following at his leisure, no doubt, madame," he answered, recovering.
     "He is not hurt?"
     "Unfortunately it is we who... " M. d'Ormesson was beginning, when from
behind him M. de La Tour d'Azyr's voice cut in crisply:
     "This interest on your part in M. Moreau, dear Countess... "
     He broke off, observing a vague  challenge  in  the air  with which she
confronted him. But indeed his sentence did not need completing.
     There  was  a  vaguely  awkward  pause.  And  then  she  looked  at  M.
d'Ormesson.  Her  manner  changed.  She  offered  what  appeared  to  be  an
explanation of her concern for M. Moreau.
     "Mademoiselle de Kercadiou is with me. The poor child has fainted."
     There was more,  a deal more, she would have said just then, but for M.
d'Ormesson's presence.
     Moved by a  deep solicitude for  Mademoiselle de Kertadiou, de  La Tour
d'Azyr sprang up despite his wound.
     "I  am  in  poor  case  to  render assistance,  madame,"  he  said,  an
apologetic smile on his pale face. "But... "
     With the aid of d'Ormesson, and in spite of the latter's protestations,
he  got down from the caleche,  which then  moved on a little  way, so as to
leave the  road clear - for another  carriage that was  approaching from the
direction of the Bois.
     And  thus it happened  that when a  few moments later that  approaching
cabriolet overtook and passed the halted vehicles, Andre-Louis beheld a very
touching  scene.  Standing up  to obtain a better view,  he saw  Aline in  a
half-swooning condition - she was beginning to revive by now - seated in the
doorway of the carriage, supported by Mme. de Plougastel. In  an attitude of
deepest  concern,  M. de La  Tour  d'Azyr,  his  wound notwithstanding,  was
bending over the  girl, whilst behind  him  stood M. d'Ormesson and madame's
footman.
     The Countess  looked  up and  saw  him as  he was driven past. Her face
lighted; almost it seemed to him she  was about to greet him or to call him,
wherefore, to avoid a difficulty, arising out of  the presence there  of his
late  antagonist, he anticipated her  by bowing frigidly  - for his mood was
frigid, the more frigid by virtue of what he saw - and then resumed his seat
with eyes that looked deliberately ahead.
     Could anything more completely  have  confirmed him  in his  conviction
that it  was on M. de La Tour d'Azyr's account that  Aline had come to plead
with him that  morning? For what his  eyes had seen, of  course,  was a lady
overcome  with emotion at the sight of blood  of  her dear friend,  and that
same dear  friend restoring  her with assurances that his  hurt was very far
from mortal. Later, much later,  he was to blame his own perverse stupidity.
Almost is he too severe in his self-condemnation. For how else could he have
interpreted the scene he beheld, his preconceptions being what they were?
     That which he had already been  suspecting, he now accounted proven  to
him. Aline  had been  wanting  in  candour  on the subject  of  her feelings
towards M. de La Tour d'Azyr.  It  was,  he supposed, a  woman's  way  to be
secretive in such matters, and he must not blame her. Nor could he blame her
in his heart for having succumbed to the singular charm of such a man as the
Marquis -  for  not  even his hostility could  blind  him to  M. de  La Tour
d'Azyr's  attractions.  That she had succumbed was betrayed, he  thought, by
the weakness that had overtaken her upon seeing him wounded.
     "My God!" he  cried aloud. "What must she have suffered, then, if I had
killed him as I intended!"
     If only she had used candour with him, she could so easily have won his
consent  to the thing she asked. If only she  had  told him what now he saw,
that she loved M. de La Tour d'Azyr, instead of leaving  him to  assume  her
only  regard for the Marquis to  be based on unworthy  worldly ambition,  he
would at once have yielded.
     He fetched  a sigh, and breathed a  prayer for forgiveness to the shade
of Vilmorin.
     "It is perhaps as well that my lunge went wide," he said.
     "What do you mean?" wondered Le Chapelier.
     "That in this business I must relinquish all hope of recommencing."

        CHAPTER XII. THE OVERWHELMING REASONII


     M.  de La Tour  d'Azyr was seen no more  in the  Manege - or  indeed in
Paris at all - throughout all the months that the National Assembly remained
in session  to complete its work of  providing France with  a  constitution.
After all,  though the wound to his body had  been comparatively slight, the
wound to such a pride as his had been all but mortal.
     The rumour ran that he had emigrated. But that was only half the truth.
The  whole of it was that he had joined that  group of  noble travellers who
came and went between the Tuileries and the headquarters  of the  emigres at
Coblenz. He became, in short, a  member of the royalist  secret service that
in the end was to bring down the monarchy in ruins.
     As for Andre-Louis, his godfather's house  saw him no more, as a result
of his  conviction that M. de  Kercadiou would  not relent from his  written
resolve never to receive him again if the duel were fought.
     He threw himself into  his duties  at the  Assembly with  such zeal and
effect that when - its purpose accomplished - the Constituent was  dissolved
in  September of the  following year, membership of  the  Legislative, whose
election followed immediately, was thrust upon him.
     He considered  then, like many  others, that the Revolution was a thing
accomplished, that France  had only  to  govern  herself by the Constitution
which  had been given her, and that all would  now be well. And so it  might
have been but  that the Court could not bring itself  to  accept the altered
state of things. As a result of its intrigues half Europe was arming to hurl
herself upon France, and her quarrel was the quarrel of the French King with
his people.  That was the horror at the root of all the horrors that were to
come.
     Of  the  counter-revolutionary  troubles  that  were  everywhere  being
stirred up by the clergy, none  were more acute than those of Brittany, and,
in view of the influence it was hoped he would wield in his native province,
it was  proposed  to Andre-Louis by the Commission  of Twelve,  in the early
days of  the  Girondin ministry, that  he should go  thither  to  combat the
unrest. He was desired  to proceed peacefully,  but  his powers  were almost
absolute, as  is shown  by the  orders he carried - orders enjoining all  to
render him assistance and warning those who might hinder him that they would
do so at their peril.
     He accepted  the task,  and  he  was one of the five  plenipotentiaries
despatched on the  same errand  in  that spring of 1792.  It kept him absent
from Paris for  four months and might  have kept him longer  but that at the
beginning  of  August he  was  recalled. More imminent  than any  trouble in
Brittany was the trouble brewing in Paris itself; when the political sky was
blacker than it had been since '89. Paris realized that the hour was rapidly
approaching which would see the climax of the long struggle between Equality
and Privilege. And it was towards a  city so disposed that Andre-Louis  came
speeding from  the West,  to find there also the climax of his own disturbed
career.
     Mlle. de Kercadiou, too, was in Paris in those days of early August, on
a visit to her uncle's cousin  and  dearest friend, Mme. de Plougastel.  And
although nothing could now be plainer than the seething unrest that heralded
the  explosion  to  come,  yet  the  air  of  gaiety, indeed  of jocularity,
prevailing  at  Court - whither madame and mademoiselle  went almost daily -
reassured them. M. de Plougastel had come and gone again, back to Coblenz on
that secret business  that kept him now  almost  constantly absent from  his
wife.  But  whilst with her he had positively assured  her that all measures
were taken, and that an insurrection was a  thing to be welcomed, because it
could have one only conclusion, the final crushing of the  Revolution in the
courtyard  of the Tuileries.  That, he added, was  why the King  remained in
Paris. But for his confidence  in that he would put himself in the centre of
his Swiss and  his knights of  the dagger,  and quit the capital. They would
hack  a way out for him easily  if his departure were opposed.  But not even
that would be necessary.
     Yet in  those early days of August, after  her husband's  departure the
effect of his  inspiring words  was  gradually dissipated  by the  march  of
events under madame's own eyes. And finally on the afternoon  of the  ninth,
there arrived at the Hotel Plougastel a messenger from Meudon bearing a note
from M. de Kercadiou in which he  urgently bade mademoiselle  join him there
at once, and advised her hostess to accompany her.
     You  may  have realized  that  M.  de Kercadiou  was of  those who make
friends with men  of all classes. His ancient lineage placed him on terms of
equality  with members  of  the  noblesse; his simple  manners  -  something
between the rustic and the bourgeois - and his natural affability placed him
on equally good terms  with those who by birth were his inferiors. In Meudon
he was known and esteemed of  all the simple  folk, and  it was Rougane, the
friendly  mayor,  who,  informed on  the 9th of August of the storm that was
brewing for the morrow, and knowing of mademoiselle's  absence in Paris, had
warningly advised him to withdraw her from what in the next  four-and-twenty
hours  might be a  zone of danger for all persons of  quality,  particularly
those suspected of connections with the Court party.
     Now there was no doubt whatever of Mme. de Plougastel's connection with
the Court.  It was not even  to be doubted - indeed, measure of proof  of it
was to be  forthcoming - that those vigilant and ubiquitous secret societies
that watched over the cradle  of the young revolution were fully informed of
the frequent journeyings  of M. de Plougastel to Coblenz, and entertained no
illusions on the score of the  reason for them. Given, then, a defeat of the
Court party in the struggle that  was  preparing,  the position in  Paris of
Mme. de  Plougastel could  not be other than fraught with danger,  and  that
danger would be shared by any guest of birth at her hotel.
     M. de Kercadiou's affection  for both those women quickened  the  fears
aroused  in him by Rougane's warning.  Hence that  hastily dispatched  note,
desiring his niece and imploring his friend to come at once to Meudon.
     The  friendly  mayor  carried  his  complaisance  a  step farther,  and
dispatched  the letter to Paris by  the hands of his own son, an intelligent
lad  of nineteen. It was late in the afternoon  of  that perfect  August day
when young Rougane presented himself at the Hotel Plougastel.
     He  was graciously received  by Mme. de  Plougastel in the salon, whose
splendours,  when  combined  with  the   great  air  of  the  lady  herself,
overwhelmed the lad's simple, unsophisticated soul. Madame made  up her mind
at once.
     M. de Kercadiou's urgent  message no more  than confirmed her own fears
and inclinations. She decided upon instant departure.
     "Bien,  madame," said the  youth. "Then  I  have  the honour to take my
leave."
     But she would not let him go. First to  the kitchen to refresh himself,
whilst  she and  mademoiselle made  ready, and  then  a seat for him in  her
carriage as  far as Meudon. She could not suffer him to return on foot as he
had come.
     Though in  all the circumstances it  was  no more than his due, yet the
kindliness that in such a moment of agitation could take thought for another
was  presently  to be rewarded. Had she done less than  this, she would have
known - if nothing  worse - at least some hours of anguish even greater than
those that were already in store for her.
     It  wanted,  perhaps, a half-hour to sunset when they  set  out  in her
carriage  with  intent  to  leave  Paris  by the  Porte  Saint-Martin.  They
travelled with a single footman behind. Rougane - terrifying condescension -
was given a  seat inside the carriage with the ladies, and proceeded to fall
in love with  Mlle. de Kercadiou, whom he accounted the most beautiful being
he  had ever seen, yet who talked  to him simply and unaffectedly as with an
equal. The thing went to his head a little, and disturbed certain republican
notions which he had hitherto conceived himself to have thoroughly digested.
     The carriage  drew up at the barrier, checked  there by a picket of the
National Guard posted before the iron gates.
     The sergeant in command strode to the door of the vehicle. The Countess
put her head from the window.
     "The barrier is closed, madame," she was curtly informed.
     "Closed!" she echoed. The thing was incredible. "But... but do you mean
that we cannot pass?"
     Not unless you have a permit, madame." The sergeant leaned nonchalantly
on his pike. "The orders are that no one is to leave or enter without proper
papers."
     "Whose orders?"
     "Orders of the Commune of Paris."
     "But  I  must  go into the country  this  evening." Madame's voice  was
almost petulant. "I am expected."
     "In that case let madame procure a permit."
     "Where is it to be procured?"
     "At the Hotel de Ville or at the headquarters of madame's section."
     She considered a moment. "To the  section, then. Be  so good as to tell
my coachman to drive to the Bondy Section."
     He saluted her and stepped  back. "Section  Bondy,  Rue des Morts,"  he
bade the driver.
     Madame sank into  her seat again, in a state of  agitation fully shared
by  mademoiselle. Rougane set himself  to  pacify  and  reassure  them.  The
section would put the matter in order. They would most certainly be accorded
a  permit.  What  possible  reason  could there be for refusing them? A mere
formality, after all!
     His  assurance uplifted them merely to  prepare them for  a  still more
profound  dejection when  presently they met  with a  flat refusal  from the
president of the section who received the Countess.
     "Your name, madame?" he  had asked brusquely. A rude fellow of the most
advanced  republican  type, he  had not even  risen out  of deference to the
l