ugh it may  seem in  a  young  French  abbe  of his day,  M.  de
Vilmorin was  not interested  in  Woman. Poor Philippe was  in several  ways
exceptional. Opposite  the Breton  arme - the inn  and posting-house at  the
entrance  of the  village of Gavrillac  - M.  de  Vilmorin  interrupted  his
companion  just  as  he was  soaring  to  the  dizziest  heights of  caustic
invective, and  Andre-Louis, restored thereby to  actualities, observed  the
carriage of M. de La Tour d'Azyr standing before the door of the hostelry.
     "I don't believe you've been listening to me," said he.
     "Had  you been less interested in what you were saying, you might  have
observed it sooner and spared your breath. The fact is,  you disappoint  me,
Andre. You seem to have forgotten what we went for.  I  have an  appointment
here  with  M. le Marquis.  He desires to hear me further in  the matter. Up
there at Gavrillac I could accomplish nothing. The time was ill-chosen as it
happened. But I have hopes of M. le Marquis."
     "Hopes of what?"
     "That he  will make what reparation lies in his power.  Provide for the
widow and the orphans. Why else should he desire to hear me further?"
     "Unusual condescension," said Andre-Louis, and  quoted "Timeo Danaos et
dona ferentes."
     "Why?" asked Philippe.
     "Let us go and  discover - unless you  consider that I  shall be in the
way."
     Into a room on the right, rendered private to M. le Marquis for so long
as he  should elect to honour it, the  young men were ushered by the host. A
fire of logs was burning brightly at the room's far end, and by this sat now
M. de La Tour d'Azyr and his cousin, the Chevalier de Chabrillane. Both rose
as M. de Vilmorin came in. Andre-Louis following, paused to close the door.
     "You  oblige me  by your  prompt courtesy, M.  de Vilmorin,"  said  the
Marquis, but in a tone so cold as to belie the  politeness of his  words. "A
chair,  I  beg.  Ah,  Moreau?"  The note  was  frigidly  interrogative.  "He
accompanies you, monsieur?" he asked.
     "If you please, M. le Marquis."
     "Why not? Find yourself  a seat, Moreau." He spoke over his shoulder as
to a lackey.
     "It is good of you, monsieur," said  Philippe, "to have offered me this
opportunity  of  continuing  the subject that  took me so fruitlessly, as it
happens, to Gavrillac."
     The Marquis  crossed his legs,  and held one of his fine  hands to  the
blaze. He replied, without troubling  to  turn  to  the  young  man, who was
slightly behind him.
     "The  goodness  of  my request  we  will leave out  of question for the
moment," said he, darkly, and M. de Chabrillane laughed. Andre-Louis thought
him easily moved to mirth, and almost envied him the faculty.
     "But I am grateful,"  Philippe insisted, "that you should condescend to
hear me plead their cause.
     The Marquis stared at him over his shoulder. "Whose cause?" quoth he.
     "Why, the cause of the widow and orphans of this unfortunate Mabey."
     The  Marquis  looked  from  Vilmorin to  the Chevalier,  and  again the
Chevalier laughed, slapping his leg this time.
     "I  think," said  M. de  La  Tour  d'Azyr,  slowly,  "that  we  are  at
cross-purposes. I  asked you  to come  here because the Chateau de Gavrillac
was  hardly a suitable place in  which to carry our discussion  further, and
because I hesitated to incommode you by suggesting  that you should come all
the  way  to Azyr. But  my object is connected with certain expressions that
you let fall up there.  It is on the subject of those expressions, monsieur,
that I would hear you further - if you will honour me."
     Andre-Louis began to apprehend that there was something sinister in the
air. He  was  a man of  quick  intuitions, quicker  far  than those of M. de
Vilmorin, who evinced no more than a mild surprise.
     "I am at a loss, monsieur," said he. "To what expressions does monsieur
allude?"
     "It  seems, monsieur, that  I must  refresh  your  memory." The Marquis
crossed  his  legs,  and  swung  sideways on his  chair, so  that at last he
directly  faced M. de Vilmorin.  "You spoke, monsieur - and however mistaken
you  may  have  been, you spoke very eloquently, too  eloquently almost,  it
seemed to me - of the infamy of  such a deed as the  act  of summary justice
upon this thieving fellow Mabey, or whatever his name may be. Infamy was the
precise word you used. You did not retract that word  when I had the  honour
to inform you that it was by my orders that my gamekeeper Benet proceeded as
he did."
     "If," said M.  de Vilmorin, "the deed was infamous, its  infamy  is not
modified by the rank, however exalted, of the  person responsible. Rather is
it aggravated."
     "Ah!" said  M. le Marquis,  and drew  a gold snuffbox from his  pocket.
"You say, 'if the deed was infamous,' monsieur. Am I to understand that  you
are no longer as convinced as you appeared to be of its infamy?"
     M. de  Vilmorin's  fine  face  wore a look of perplexity.  He  did  not
understand the drift of this.
     "It occurs to me, M. le Marquis, in  view of  your readiness to  assume
responsibility, that  you must  believe justification for  the deed which is
not apparent to myself."
     "That is  better.  That is distinctly better."  The Marquis took  snuff
delicately,  dusting the fragments  from the  fine lace at his  throat. "You
realize  that with an  imperfect understanding  of these matters, not  being
yourself a landowner, you may have rushed to unjustifiable conclusions. That
is indeed  the  case. May it be a warning to you,  monsieur. When I tell you
that  for months past I have been annoyed by similar depredations, you  will
perhaps understand  that  it  had  become  necessary to  employ  a deterrent
sufficiently strong  to put an end to them. Now that the risk is known, I do
not think there  will be any more prowling  in my coverts. And there is more
in it than that, M. de Vilmorin.  It is  not the poaching  that annoys me so
much  as the  contempt for  my  absolute and  inviolable rights.  There  is,
monsieur,  as  you  cannot  fail  to   have  observed,  an  evil  spirit  of
insubordination in the air,  and there is one only way  in which to meet it.
To tolerate  it,  in however  slight a  degree,  to  show leniency,  however
leniently disposed, would entail having  recourse  to still harsher measures
to-morrow.  You  understand me,  I am sure,  and you will  also, I am  sure,
appreciate the condescension of what amounts to an explanation from me where
I cannot  admit that any explanations  were due. If anything in  what I have
said  is  still obscure to you, I  refer you  to  the game laws,  which your
lawyer friend there will expound for you at need."
     With that the gentleman swung round again to face the fire. It appeared
to convey the intimation that the interview was at an end. And  yet this was
not by any means the intimation that  it conveyed  to the watchful, puzzled,
vaguely uneasy  Andre-Louis.  It was,  thought he,  a very curious,  a  very
suspicious oration. It affected to explain, with a politeness of terms and a
calculated  insolence of  tone;  whilst  in  fact it  could  only  serve  to
stimulate and goad a man of M. de Vilmorin's opinions. And that is precisely
what it did. He rose.
     "Are there in the world  no laws but game laws?" he demanded,  angrily.
"Have you never by any chance heard of the laws of humanity?"
     The  Marquis  sighed  wearily. "What have  I to  do with  the  laws  of
humanity?" he wondered.
     M. de Vilmorin looked at him a moment in speechless amazement.
     "Nothing, M. le Marquis. That is - alas! - too obvious. I hope you will
remember it in the hour when  you may wish to appeal to those laws which you
now deride."
     M. de La Tour d'Azyr  threw back his head  sharply, his  high-bred face
imperious.
     "Now what  precisely shall that mean? It  is  not the first time to-day
that you have made use of dark  sayings that  I could almost believe to veil
the presumption of a threat."
     "Not a threat, M. le Marquis - a warning. A warning  that such deeds as
these against God's creatures... Oh, you  may  sneer, monsieur, but they are
God's creatures, even as you or I - neither more nor less, deeply though the
reflection may wound your pride, In His eyes... "
     "Of your charity, spare me a sermon, M. l'abbe!"
     "You mock, monsieur.  You laugh.  Will you  laugh,  I wonder, when  God
presents His reckoning to  you  for the blood  and  plunder with which  your
hands are full?"
     "Monsieur!"  The word, sharp  as  the crack of  a whip, was from  M. de
Chabrillane, who bounded  to his feet. But  instantly  the Marquis repressed
him.
     "Sit down, Chevalier. You are interrupting M. l'abbe, and I should like
to hear him further. He interests me profoundly."
     In  the background Andre-Louis,  too, had risen, brought to his feet by
alarm, by the evil that he saw written on the handsome face of M. de La Tour
d'Azyr. He approached, and touched his friend upon the arm.
     "Better be going, Philippe," said he.
     But M.  de  Vilmorin, caught  in the  relentless grip of passions  long
repressed, was being hurried by them recklessly along.
     "Oh,  monsieur," said he, "consider what you are and what you will  be.
Consider how you and your kind live by abuses, and consider the harvest that
abuses must ultimately bring."
     "Revolutionist!"  said  M. le Marquis,  contemptuously.  "You  have the
effrontery to stand before  my face and offer me  this stinking cant of your
modern so-called intellectuals!"
     "Is it cant, monsieur? Do you think - do you believe in your soul
     - that it is cant? Is  it cant that  the feudal grip  is on  all things
that live, crushing  them like grapes in the press, to its  own profit? Does
it not exercise its rights upon the waters of the river, the fire that bakes
the poor man's bread of grass and barley, on  the wind  that turns the mill?
The peasant cannot take  a step upon the road,  cross  a crazy bridge over a
river, buy  an ell of  cloth in the village market,  without  meeting feudal
rapacity, without  being  taxed in  feudal dues.  Is  not that enough, M. le
Marquis?  Must  you also demand his wretched life  in payment for  the least
infringement of your sacred  privileges, careless of what  widows or orphans
you dedicate to woe? Will naught  content you but that your shadow  must lie
like a curse upon the land? And do you think in your pride that France, this
Job among the nations, will suffer it forever?"
     He paused as if for a reply. But none came. The Marquis considered him,
strangely silent, a half smile  of disdain at the corners  of his  lips,  an
ominous hardness in his eyes.
     Again Andre-Louis tugged at his friend's sleeve.
     "Philippe."
     Philippe shook him off, and plunged on, fanatically.
     "Do you see nothing of the  gathering clouds that herald  the coming of
the storm?  You  imagine, perhaps, that these States General summoned  by M.
Necker, and promised for next year, are to do nothing but devise fresh means
of  extortion  to  liquidate  the   bankruptcy  of  the  State?  You  delude
yourselves,  as  you shall find. The Third  Estate, which you despise,  will
prove itself the preponderating force, and it will find a way to make an end
of this canker of privilege that is devouring the vitals of this unfortunate
country."
     M. le Marquis shifted in his chair, and spoke at last.
     "You have, monsieur," said he, "a very dangerous gift of eloquence. And
it is of yourself rather than of your  subject. For after all, what  do  you
offer me? A  rechauffe of the dishes served to out-at-elbow  enthusiasts  in
the  provincial literary  chambers,  compounded  of  the  effusions  of your
Voltaires and Jean-Jacques  and such dirty-fingered scribblers. You have not
among all your philosophers one  with the wit to understand  that we are  an
order consecrated  by antiquity, that for our  rights and privileges we have
behind us the authority of centuries."
     "Humanity, monsieur," Philippe replied, "is more ancient than nobility.
Human rights are contemporary with man."
     The Marquis laughed and shrugged.
     "That is the  answer I  might have expected. It has the  right  note of
cant that distinguishes the philosophers." And then M. de Chabrillane spoke.
     "You  go  a long way  round," he criticized his  cousin,  on  a note of
impatience.
     "But  I am getting there," he  was answered. "I  desired to make  quite
certain first."
     "Faith, you should have no doubt by now."
     "I have  none." The Marquis rose, and turned again  to M. de  Vilmorin,
who had understood nothing of that brief exchange. "M. l'abbe," said he once
more, "you have a very dangerous  gift of  eloquence. I  can conceive of men
being swayed  by it.  Had you been born a gentleman, you would not so easily
have acquired these false views that you express."
     M. de Vilmorin stared blankly, uncomprehending.
     "Had I  been born  a gentleman,  do you  say?" quoth  he,  in  a  slow,
bewildered  voice. "But I was born a  gentleman. My race is as old, my blood
as good as yours, monsieur."
     >From M. le  Marquis there  was  a  slight play of eyebrows,  a  vague,
indulgent smile. His dark, liquid eyes looked squarely  into  the face of M.
de Vilmorin.
     "You have been deceived in that, I fear."
     "Deceived?"
     "Your sentiments  betray the  indiscretion  of which madame your mother
must have been guilty."
     The brutally  affronting  words were sped beyond  recall,  and the lips
that  had uttered them, coldly, as if they had  been the merest commonplace,
remained calm and faintly sneering.
     A  dead  silence  followed.  Andre-Louis'  wits  were numbed. He  stood
aghast,  all  thought  suspended in  him,  what  time M.  de Vilmorin's eyes
continued fixed  upon M. de  La Tour d'Azyr's, as  if searching there  for a
meaning that eluded him. Quite suddenly he understood the  vile affront. The
blood leapt to his face, fire blazed in his gentle eyes. A convulsive quiver
shook him. Then,  with an inarticulate cry, he leaned forward,  and with his
open hand struck M. le Marquis full and hard upon his sneering face.
     In a flash M. de Chabrillane was on his feet, between the two men.
     Too late Andre-Louis had seen the trap. La Tour d'Azyr's words were but
as  a move in  a game of chess,  calculated to exasperate  his opponent into
some  such counter-move as  this -  a counter-move that left him entirely at
the other's mercy.
     M.  le Marquis  looked  on,  very  white  save where  M.  de Vilmorin's
finger-prints  began slowly to  colour his  face; but he  said nothing more.
Instead,  it was M. de Chabrillane  who now  did  the talking, taking up his
preconcerted part in this vile game.
     "You realize,  monsieur, what  you  have  done,"  said  he, coldly,  to
Philippe. "And you realize, of course, what must inevitably follow."
     M. de Vilmorin had realized nothing. The poor young  man had acted upon
impulse,  upon  the  instinct  of decency and  honour,  never  counting  the
consequences. But he realized them now  at  the sinister invitation of M. de
Chabrillane, and if he  desired to avoid these  consequences,  it was out of
respect for his priestly vocation, which  strictly  forbade such adjustments
of disputes as M. de Chabrillane was clearly thrusting upon him.
     He drew back. "Let one affront wipe out the other," said he, in a  dull
voice. "The balance is still in M.  le Marquis's  favour.  Let  that content
him."
     "Impossible." The Chevalier's lips came together tightly. Thereafter he
was suavity itself,  but  very firm. "A blow  has been  struck, monsieur.  I
think I am correct in saying that such a thing has never  happened before to
M. le Marquis in all his life. If  you felt yourself  affronted, you had but
to ask the satisfaction due from one gentleman to another. Your action would
seem to confirm the assumption that you found so offensive.  But it does not
on that account render you immune from the consequences."
     It was, you see, M. de Chabrillane's part to heap coals upon this fire,
to make quite sure that their victim should not escape them.
     "I desire no immunity,"  flashed back  the  young seminarist,  stung by
this fresh  goad. After all,  he was nobly born, and  the  traditions of his
class were strong upon him - stronger far than the seminarist  schooling  in
humility.  He owed it  to himself, to his honour, to be  killed  rather than
avoid the consequences of the thing he had done.
     "But he does not wear a sword, messieurs!" cried Andre Louis, aghast.
     "That is easily amended. He may have the loan of mine."
     "I mean, messieurs," Andre-Louis insisted, between  fear for his friend
and indignation, "that it is not his  habit  to wear  a sword, that  he  has
never worn one,  that he is untutored in its  uses. He is  a seminarist  - a
postulant for holy orders, already half a priest, and so forbidden from such
an engagement as you propose."
     "All that he  should have remembered before he  struck a blow," said M.
de Chabrillane, politely.
     "The  blow  was  deliberately  provoked,"  raged Andre-Louis.  Then  he
recovered  himself, though the  other's haughty  stare had no  part in  that
recovery. "0 my God, I talk in vain! How is one to argue  against a  purpose
formed! Come away, Philippe. Don't you see the trap... "
     M. de  Vilmorin cut him short, and flung  him off. "Be quiet, Andre. M.
le Marquis is entirely in the right."
     "M.  le Marquis  is  in  the  right?"  Andre-Louis let  his  arms  fall
helplessly. This man  he loved above  all other living men was caught in the
snare of the world's insanity. He was baring his breast to the knife for the
sake of  a vague, distorted  sense of the  honour due to himself. It was not
that  he  did  not see  the  trap. It was  that his honour compelled  him to
disdain  consideration of  it.  To Andre-Louis in  that  moment  he seemed a
singularly tragic figure. Noble, perhaps, but very pitiful.

        CHAPTER VI. THE HERITAGEV


     It was M. de Vilmorin's desire that the matter should be settled out of
hand.  In this  he was at once objective and  subjective. A prey to emotions
sadly at conflict  with his priestly vocation,  he was above all in haste to
have done, so that he might resume a frame of mind  more  proper to it. Also
he feared  himself a  little;  by which I  mean that  his honour feared  his
nature. The circumstances of his education, and the goal that for some years
now  he had  kept in view, had robbed him of much of that spirited brutality
that  is  the birthright  of  the male.  He had  grown timid and gentle as a
woman. Aware of it, he feared that once the heat of his passion was spent he
might betray a dishonouring weakness, in the ordeal.
     M.  le Marquis,  on  his  side,  was  no less  eager  for an  immediate
settlement; and since they had M.  de Chabrillane to act for his cousin, and
Andre-Louis to serve as  witness for M.  de  Vilmorin, there was  nothing to
delay them.
     And so, within a few  minutes, all arrangements were concluded, and you
behold that  sinisterly intentioned  little  group of four assembled in  the
afternoon sunshine  on the bowling-green behind the  inn. They were entirely
private, screened more or less from the  windows of the house by a ramage of
trees, which, if  leafless  now, was at  least  dense  enough to provide  an
effective lattice.
     There  were no formalities over measurements  of blades or selection of
ground. M. le Marquis removed  his sword-belt and scabbard, but declined not
considering  it worth while for the sake of so  negligible an opponent -  to
divest himself either of his shoes  or his coat. Tall,  lithe, and athletic,
he stood  to face the  no  less  tall,  but very delicate  and  frail, M. de
Vilmorin. The  latter also  disdained to make any of the usual preparations.
Since he recognized that it  could avail him nothing  to strip, he  came  on
guard fully  dressed,  two hectic spots above the cheek-bones burning on his
otherwise grey face.
     M. de Chabrillane,  leaning upon a cane - for he had  relinquished  his
sword to M. de  Vilmorin - looked on with quiet interest.  Facing him on the
other side  of the  combatants stood Andre-Louis,  the  palest of the  four,
staring from fevered eyes, twisting and untwisting clammy hands.
     His every  instinct was to  fling  himself  between the antagonists, to
protest against  and frustrate this meeting. That sane impulse  was  curbed,
however, by the consciousness of its  futility. To calm him, he clung to the
conviction  that  the  issue  could  not  really  be  very  serious.  If the
obligations of Philippe's honour compelled him to cross swords with  the man
he had struck, M. de La  Tour d'Azyr's birth  compelled him no less to do no
serious hurt to  the  unfledged  lad he had  so grievously  provoked.  M. le
Marquis, after all,  was a man of honour.  He could intend no  more than  to
administer a lesson; sharp, perhaps, but one by which his opponent must live
to profit. Andre-Louis clung obstinately to that for comfort.
     Steel beat on steel, and the men engaged. The  Marquis presented to his
opponent the narrow edge of his upright body,  his knees slightly flexed and
converted into living springs, whilst M. de Vilmorin stood  squarely, a full
target, his knees wooden. Honour and the spirit of fair play alike cried out
against such a match.
     The  encounter  was very  short,  of course.  In  youth,  Philippe  had
received the  tutoring in sword-play that was given to  every boy  born into
his station of life. And  so he knew at least the rudiments of what was  now
expected of him. But what  could rudiments avail him here?  Three disengages
completed the  exchanges, and then  without  any haste the Marquis  slid his
right foot along the moist turf, his long, graceful body extending itself in
a lunge that went under M. de Vilmorin's  clumsy guard, and with the  utmost
deliberation he drove his blade through the young man's vitals.
     Andre-Louis  sprang  forward  just  in  time to catch his friend's body
under the armpits as  it sank. Then, his own legs bending beneath the weight
of it, he went down with his burden  until he was kneeling on the damp turf.
Philippe's limp  head  lay against  Andre-Louis' left  shoulder;  Philippe's
relaxed  arms trailed at his  sides;  the  blood welled and bubbled from the
ghastly wound to saturate the poor lad's garments.
     With  white face and twitching lips, Andre-Louis looked up at M. de  La
Tour  d'Azyr, who stood surveying  his work with a  countenance of grave but
remorseless interest.
     "You have killed him!" cried Andre-Louis.
     "Of course."
     The Marquis ran a lace handkerchief  along  his blade to wipe it. As he
let the dainty fabric fall,  he explained himself. "He had, as I told him, a
too dangerous gift of eloquence."
     And he turned away,  leaving completest understanding with Andre-Louis.
Still supporting the limp, draining body, the young man called to him.
     "Come  back,  you  cowardly  murderer, and make yourself quite  safe by
killing me too!"
     The Marquis  half  turned,  his  face  dark  with  anger.  Then  M.  de
Chabrillane set a restraining hand upon his arm. Although a party throughout
to the deed, the Chevalier was a little appalled now  that  it  was done. He
had not the high stomach of M. de La  Tour  d'Azyr,  and he was a  good deal
younger.
     "Come away," he said. "The lad is raving. They were friends."
     "You heard what he said?" quoth the Marquis.
     "Nor  can he, or  you,  or any man  deny  it," flung  back Andre-Louis.
"Yourself, monsieur, you made confession when you gave me now the reason why
you killed him. You did it because you feared him."
     "If that were true - what, then?" asked the great gentleman.
     "Do you ask? Do you understand of life  and humanity nothing but how to
wear a  coat and  dress your hair - oh, yes, and to handle  weapons  against
boys and priests? Have you no mind to think, no soul into which you can turn
its vision? Must you be told that it is a coward's part to kill the thing he
fears, and doubly a  coward's part to  kill in this way? Had you stabbed him
in the back with a knife, you would have shown the courage of your vileness.
It would  have  been a vileness undisguised. But you feared the consequences
of  that,  powerful as you  are; and so you shelter your cowardice under the
pretext of a duel."
     The  Marquis  shook  off his cousin's  hand, and  took a  step forward,
holding  now his sword like a whip. But again  the Chevalier caught and held
him.
     "No, no, Gervais! Let be, in God's name!"
     "Let  him  come,  monsieur,"  raved  Andre-Louis, his  voice  thick and
concentrated.  "Let  him  complete  his coward's work  on  me, and thus make
himself safe from a coward's wages."
     M.  de  Chabrillane  let his cousin go.  He came white to the lips, his
eyes glaring at the lad who so recklessly insulted him. And then he checked.
It may be  that he remembered suddenly the relationship in which this  young
man was  popularly  believed to stand to the Seigneur de Gavrillac, and  the
well-known  affection in which the Seigneur  held  him.  And so  he may have
realized that if he pushed this matter further, he might  find himself  upon
the horns  of  a dilemma.  He would be  confronted with the alternatives  of
shedding more blood, and so embroiling himself with the Lord of Gavrillac at
a time when that gentleman's friendship was of the first importance  to him,
or  else of withdrawing with such hurt  to  his  dignity  as must impair his
authority in the countryside hereafter.
     Be  it so or otherwise,  the fact remains that  he stopped short; then,
with an incoherent ejaculation, between  anger and contempt,  he  tossed his
arms, turned on his heel and strode off quickly with his cousin.
     When the landlord and his people came, they found Andre-Louis, his arms
about the body of his dead friend, murmuring  passionately into the deaf ear
that rested almost against his lips:
     "Philippe! Speak to me, Philippe! Philippe... Don't you hear me?  0 God
of Heaven! Philippe!"
     At a glance they saw that here  neither priest nor doctor could  avail.
The cheek that lay against Andre-Louis's was leaden-hued, the half-open eyes
were glazed, and there was a little froth of blood upon the vacuously parted
lips.
     Half  blinded by tears  Andre-Louis stumbled after them  when they bore
the body into  the inn. Upstairs in the little  room to  which they conveyed
it, he knelt by the bed, and holding the dead man's hand in both his own, he
swore to him out of his impotent rage that M. de La Tour d'Azyr should pay a
bitter price for this.
     "It was your eloquence he feared, Philippe," he said. Then if I can get
no justice for  this deed, at least it shall be fruitless to him. The  thing
he feared in you, he shall fear in me. He feared that men might be swayed by
your eloquence to the undoing of such things as himself. Men shall be swayed
by it still. For your eloquence and your arguments shall be my heritage from
you.  I  will make them my own. It matters  nothing that I do not believe in
your gospel of  freedom. I  know it  -  every  word of it; that  is all that
matters to  our purpose, yours and  mine. If  all else fails, your  thoughts
shall  find expression in my  living tongue.  Thus  at least we  shall  have
frustrated his  vile aim to still  the voice he feared. It shall profit  him
nothing to have your blood upon his soul. That voice in you would never half
so  relentlessly have  hounded him and his as it  shall in  me - if all else
fails."
     It was an exulting thought. It calmed him; it soothed his grief, and he
began very softly to pray. And then his heart trembled as he considered that
Philippe, a man of peace, almost  a  priest, an apostle of Christianity, had
gone to his Maker with the sin of  anger on  his soul.  It was horrible. Yet
God would see the righteousness of that anger.  And  in no  case - be  man's
interpretation of Divinity  what  it might - could that one sin outweigh the
loving good that Philippe had ever practised, the  noble purity of his great
heart. God after all, reflected Andre-Louis, was not a grand-seigneur.
     M. de Kercadiou stared at him blankly out of his pale

        CHAPTER V. THE LORD OF GAVRILLAC


     For  the second  time that  day Andre-Louis set  out  for the  chateau,
walking briskly, and heeding not at all the  curious eyes that  followed him
through the village, and the whisperings that marked his passage through the
people, all agog by now with that day's event in which he had been an actor.
     He   was  ushered   by   Benoit,  the   elderly   body-servant,  rather
grandiloquently  called the  seneschal,  into  the ground-floor  room  known
traditionally  as  the  library.  It  still  contained  several  shelves  of
neglected volumes, from which it derived  its title, but implements  of  the
chase - fowling-pieces, powder-horns, hunting-bags, sheath-knives - obtruded
far more prominently  than those of study. The furniture was massive, of oak
richly carved, and belonging to another age. Great massive oak beams crossed
the rather lofty whitewashed ceiling.
     Here  the  squat  Seigneur  de  Gavrillac was  restlessly  pacing  when
Andre-Louis was  introduced.  He was already informed,  as he  announced  at
once, of what had taken place at the Breton arme. M. de Chabrillane had just
left him, and he confessed himself deeply grieved and deeply perplexed.
     "The pity of it!" he  said.  "The  pity  of it!" He  bowed his enormous
head. "So  estimable a young man, and  so full  of promise. Ah, this La Tour
d'Azyr is a hard man, and he feels very strongly in these matters. He may be
right. I  don't know. I  have never killed a man for holding different views
from mine. In fact, I have never killed a man at all. It isn't in my nature.
I shouldn't sleep of nights if I did. But men are differently made."
     "The question, monsieur my godfather," said Andre-Louis, "is what is to
be done." He was quite calm and self-possessed, but very white.
     M. de Kercadiou stared at him blankly out of his pale eyes.
     "Why, what the devil is there to do? From what I am told, Vilmorin went
so far as to strike M. le Marquis."
     "Under the very grossest provocation."
     "Which he  himself provoked by his  revolutionary  language.  The  poor
lad's  head  was full of  this encyclopaedist  trash.  It comes of too  much
reading. I have never set much store by books, Andre; and I have never known
anything but  trouble to come  out of  learning.  It  unsettles  a  man.  It
complicates his views of life, destroys the simplicity which makes for peace
of mind and happiness. Let this miserable affair be a warning to you, Andre.
You  are,  yourself, too prone to  these  new-fashioned speculations upon  a
different  constitution  of the  social order. You see  what comes of  it. A
fine,  estimable young man, the only prop of his widowed mother too, forgets
himself,  his  position, his duty  to that mother - everything; and goes and
gets himself killed like  this. It is infernally sad. On my soul it is sad."
He produced a handkerchief, and blew his nose with vehemence.
     Andre-Louis  felt a tightening of his heart, a lessening of  the hopes,
never too sanguine, which he had founded upon his godfather.
     "Your criticisms," he said,  "are all for  the conduct of the dead, and
none for that of the murderer. It does not seem possible  that you should be
in sympathy with such a crime.
     "Crime?" shrilled M. de Kercadiou. "My God, boy, you are speaking of M.
de La Tour d'Azyr."
     "I am, and of the abominable murder he has committed... "
     "Stop!"  M. de  Kercadiou was very emphatic. "I cannot  permit that you
apply such terms to him. I cannot permit it. M. le Marquis is my friend, and
is likely very soon to stand in a still closer relationship."
     "Notwithstanding this?" asked Andre-Louis.
     M. de Kercadiou was frankly impatient.
     "Why,  what  has this  to do  with it? I may deplore it. But I have  no
right  to condemn it. It is  a common  way of adjusting differences  between
gentlemen."
     "You really believe that?"
     "What the devil do you imply, Andre? Should I  say a thing that I don't
believe? You begin to make me angry."
     "'Thou shalt not kill,' is the King's law as well as God's."
     "You are determined to quarrel with me, I think. It was a duel... "
     Andre-Louis interrupted him. "It is no more  a duel than if it had been
fought  with pistols  of which only  M. le Marquis 's was loaded. He invited
Philippe to discuss  the  matter  further,  with the  deliberate  intent  of
forcing a quarrel upon him and killing him. Be patient with me, monsieur  my
god-father. I am  not telling you of what  I imagine but what  M. le Marquis
himself admitted to me."
     Dominated a  little by the  young man's  earnestness, M. de Kercadiou's
pale  eyes  fell away.  He  turned with a shrug, and  sauntered over to  the
window.
     "It would need a court  of honour to decide such  an issue. And we have
no courts of honour," he said.
     "But we have courts of justice."
     With  returning  testiness the seigneur swung  round to face him again.
"And what court of justice, do you think, would listen to such a plea as you
appear to have in mind?"
     "There is the court of the King's Lieutenant at Rennes."
     "And do you think the King's Lieutenant would listen to you?"
     "Not to me, perhaps, Monsieur. But if you were to bring the plaint... "
     "I bring the plaint?" M. de Kercadiou's pale eyes were wide with horror
of the suggestion.
     "The thing happened here on your domain."
     "I  bring a plaint against M. de La  Tour  d'Azyr! You are out of  your
senses, I  think. Oh, you are mad; as  mad as that  poor friend of yours who
has  come to  this end through meddling  in what  did  not concern  him. The
language he used here to M. le Marquis on the score of Mabey was of the most
offensive. Perhaps you didn't know that. It does not at all surprise me that
the Marquis should have desired satisfaction."
     "I see," said Andre-Louis, on a note of hopelessness.
     "You see? What the devil do you see?"
     "That I shall have to depend upon myself alone."
     "And what the devil do you propose to do, if you please?"
     "I shall go to Rennes, and lay the facts before the King's Lieutenant."
     "He'll  be  too busy to  see you." And M.  de  Kercadiou's mind swung a
trifle  inconsequently,  as  weak minds  will.  "There  is trouble enough in
Rennes already  on the score  of these crazy  States General, with which the
wonderful M.  Necker  is  to repair  the finances of the  kingdom.  As  if a
peddling Swiss bank-clerk, who is also a  damned  Protestant,  could succeed
where such men as Calonne and Brienne have failed."
     "Good-afternoon, monsieur my godfather," said Andre-Louis.
     "Where are you going?" was the querulous demand.
     "Home at present. To Rennes in the morning."
     "Wait, boy,  wait!" The  squat little man  rolled forward, affectionate
concern  on  his  great ugly face, and he set one of his podgy hands  on his
godson's shoulder. "Now listen  to  me, Andre," he  reasoned. "This is sheer
knight-errantry -  moonshine, lunacy. You'11 come  to no good  by it  if you
persist. You've read 'Don  Quixote,' and what happened to  him  when he went
tilting against  windmills. It's  what will happen to you,  neither more nor
less. Leave things as they are, my boy. I wouldn't have a mischief happen to
you."
     Andre-Louis looked at him, smiling wanly.
     "I swore an oath to-day which it would damn my soul to break."
     "You  mean  that  you'll go  in spite  of anything  that  I  may  say?"
Impetuous as he was inconsequent, M. de Kercadiou was bristling again. "Very
well, then, go... Go to the devil!"
     "I will begin with the King's Lieutenant."
     "And if you get into the trouble you are seeking, don't come whimpering
to me for  assistance," the seigneur stormed. He was very  angry now. "Since
you  choose to  disobey  me,  you  can  break your  empty  head  against the
windmill, and be damned to you."
     Andre-Louis bowed with a touch of irony, and reached the door.
     "If  the  windmill  should prove too  formidable," said  he,  from  the
threshold, "I  may see what can be done with the wind. Good-bye, monsieur my
godfather."
     He  was gone, and M.  de  Kercadiou  was  alone,  purple  in  the face,
puzzling  out that last cryptic utterance, and not at all happy in his mind,
either on  the  score of  his godson or of M.  de  La  Tour  d'Azyr.  He was
disposed  to be angry with them both. He found these headstrong, wilful  men
who relentlessly followed their own impulses very disturbing and irritating.
Himself he loved his ease,  and to be at peace with his neighbours; and that
seemed to him so obviously the supreme  good of life that he was disposed to
brand them as fools who troubled to seek other things.

        CHAPTER VI. THE WINDMILLI


     There  was between Nantes  and Rennes  an established  service of three
stage-coaches  weekly  in  each  direction,  which for  a sum of twenty-four
livres - roughly, the equivalent of an English guinea
     -  would  carry you the seventy and  odd  miles of the  journey in some
fourteen  hours. Once a week one  of the diligences  going in each direction
would swerve aside from the highroad to call at Gavrillac, to bring and take
letters, newspapers, and sometimes passengers. It was usually by  this coach
that Andre-Louis  came and  went when  the  occasion  offered.  At  present,
however, he was too much in haste to lose a day awaiting the passing of that
diligence.  So it was on a horse hired from the Breton arme that he set  out
next  morning; and  an  hour's brisk  ride  under a grey  wintry sky,  by  a
half-ruined road through ten miles of  flat, uninteresting country,  brought
him to the city of Rennes.
     He rode  across the main bridge over the Vilaine, and so into the upper
and principal  part of  that important city  of some thirty  thousand souls,
most of  whom, he  opined from the seething, clamant crowds that  everywhere
blocked  his  way, must on  this  day  have taken to  the  streets.  Clearly
Philippe had not overstated the excitement prevailing there.
     He pushed on as best he could, and so came at last to the Place Royale,
where he found the crowd to be most dense. From the plinth of the equestrian
statue  of Louis  XV,  a white-faced  young man was excitedly addressing the
multitude. His youth  and dress proclaimed  the student, and a  group of his
fellows, acting as a guard of honour to him, kept the immediate precincts of
the statue.
     Over the heads of the crowd Andre-Louis  caught a  few  of  the phrases
flung forth by that eager voice.
     "It  was the  promise of  the King...  It is the King's  authority they
flout... They arrogate to themselves the  whole sovereignty in Brittany. The
King has dissolved them... These insolent nobles defying their sovereign and
the people... "
     Had  he  not  known  already, from  what  Philippe had told him, of the
events  which had brought  the Third  Estate to the point of active  revolt,
those few phrases would fully  have  informed  him.  This popular display of
temper was most opportune to his need, he  thought. And in the hope  that it
might serve his turn by  disposing  to reasonableness the mind of the King's
Lieutenant, he  pushed on  up the wide and well-paved Rue  Royale, where the
concourse of people began to diminish. He put up his hired horse at the Come
de Cerf, and set out again, on foot, to the Palais de Justice.
     There was  a brawling mob by  the  framework of poles and  scaffoldings
about the building cathedral, upon which work had been commenced a year ago.
But he did not pause to ascertain the particular cause of that gathering. He
strode on, and  thus came  presently to the handsome  Italianate palace that
was one of the few public edifices hat had survived the devastating fire  of
sixty years ago.
     He won through with difficulty to the  great hall, known  as  the Salle
des Pas Perdus,  where he  was left to cool his  heels for a  full half-hour
after he  had found an  usher  so condescending  as  to  inform  the god who
presided over that shrine  of  Justice that a lawyer  from Gavrillac  humbly
begged an audience on an affair of gravity.
     That the god condescended to  see  him  at all was probably due  to the
grave complexion of  the hour. At long length he  was escorted up the  broad
stone staircase, and  ushered into a spacious,  meagrely furnished anteroom,
to ma