Yet it was hard to do! – hard to thwart the woman whom he had loved and lost, the woman he had once dreamed of winning for his wife; and hard, too, to prevent that woman from endeavouring to obtain help for those of his and her own faith now suffering for that faith.
But if he drew his existence from those of that faith, so, too, he drew it from France, and, as one of her soldiers, he had sworn to protect her.
Not even his love for a woman whom he had lost could make him false to that vow.
CHAPTER XXIV
When De Violaine gave the order to the young Duc de Guise that the gate was to be opened no more for the night, Francbois, had he been present instead of in the citadel, might well have considered that he had succeeded in his betrayal of the man whom he regarded as his rival in the affections of Sylvia Thorne. For that man was now a prisoner in the hands of France; while the actual fact of his being in Liége by aid of a false passport was one that must in any case tell heavily against him. Also, some other statements-which were not facts-that Francbois was prepared to weave into his denunciation would, beyond all doubt, accomplish his destruction.
That those statements would soon be made none who were present at this time could doubt when, following on the order to have the gate kept fast until daybreak, another was issued by the Governor.
"Call Captain d'Aubenay," he said now to one of the mousquetaires under the command of De Guise, while, turning to Bevill, he continued. "You will be taken to the citadel; there you will hear the charge against you-the charge upon which, later, you will be tried, as well as upon another, of being present in a city under the control of France while falsely passing as a Frenchman."
To which Bevill made no reply, except a courteous bow, since he deemed silence best.
But, if he had nothing to say, one person at least-the Comtesse de Valorme-saw no reason for also being silent.
Approaching De Violaine, who stood some little distance apart from the rest, she said therefore:
"There is but one man in all Liége who can have denounced your newly acquired prisoner. That man is named Emile Francbois" while, remarking that the other neither assented to nor denied this statement, she added, "It is so, is it not?"
But still De Violaine kept silence, whereupon the Comtesse continued, while adopting now a different form of inquiry-a more impersonal one.
"Whosoever the man may be," she said, "who has thought fit to testify against monsieur, to formulate the charges against him of which you speak-charges of which you could not otherwise have known-he must have sought you out to do so. Monsieur, I beseech of you to at least answer this, even though you answer nothing else."
Whereupon, stung by the coldness of his questioner, stung also by the almost contemptuous tone in which she spoke-she whom once he had loved so much-De Violaine replied:
"The person who has informed against the prisoner waited upon me at the citadel."
"And is present there now to repeat his charges against-the prisoner?"
To which question De Violaine contented him by answering with an inclination of his head.
"So be it," the Comtesse replied, and there was in her tone a bitterness that her listener could never have supposed her to be possessor of. "So be it. I know-nay, we all know" – with a glance that swept over Sylvia and Bevill-"who this informer is. But, since Monsieur le Gouverneur is by the way of listening to his informers," and she saw De Violaine start and flush as she spoke, "he will not refuse to give audience to another informer-at the citadel."
"Another!"
"Yes, another. Myself! Monsieur de Violaine will not perform his duty to France in a half-hearted manner. He gives open ear to the first one who tells him of spies being about he will not surely turn a deaf ear to a second informer who wishes to denounce a traitor."
"A traitor? Who is he? And who is to denounce him?"
"I am the latter. The man you received in the citadel-Emile Francbois-is the former. I claim the right to be received at the citadel by you in the same manner that you received that man. Only, my denunciation shall be an open one, made before others-not one made, as doubtless this was, within closed doors."
"So be it. The right is yours. When will Madame la Comtesse honour me by-"
"When? To-night. Now. At once!"
"At once? It grows late."
"Late! What matters the lateness of the night in comparison with the exposure of a villain? Monsieur de Violaine, I demand to be allowed to accompany your prisoner to the citadel and to hear what Emile Francbois has to assert against him."
"And I also," Sylvia said, since [illegible] …tion had ceased by now to be c [illegible] … tones and could easily be overheard in the guardroom.
"You, Mademoiselle!" De Violaine exclaimed, not knowing but that Sylvia was, in absolute truth, that which she was supposed to be, namely the dame de compagnie of Madame de Valorme. "You? Surely Madame la Comtesse does not require your support at such a scene."
"That," Sylvia said, as she stood tall and erect before the Governor, so that he no longer deemed he was speaking to any other than a woman who was herself of equal rank and position with the Comtesse, "that is not the question. It was to enable me, to assist me to leave Liége, to protect me as I did so, that your prisoner made his way to this city-for this that the base, crawling creature, Francbois, denounced him to you."
"You are then Mademoiselle Thorne?"
"I am Mademoiselle Thorne. If Francbois has much to tell you about Monsieur Bracton, since that is his rightful name, so too have I," and as Sylvia spoke her eyes were turned for a moment towards Bevill-for a moment only, but it was enough. Enough to tell Bevill that, even though he should be condemned to-night and executed at dawn, it mattered little now. That glance had told him more than a hundred words could do: it had told him he was the possessor of Sylvia's love!
* * * * * * *
The salle d'armes of the citadel, in which half an hour later De Violaine, the Comtesse, Sylvia, and Bevill stood, was large enough for half a regiment to bivouac in, and had, indeed, in past ages served for such a purpose, as well as many another of blacker memory. For in that great hall, wainscotted with oak from floor to roof, that dark hall in which those who stood at one end of it by night could scarce see to the other, deeds of blood and cruelty had been perpetrated the recollection of which had not by then been effaced. Here prisoners innumerable had heard their doom pronounced; while on other occasions those within the citadel had made many a last stand ere being captured or slain.
To-night this hall was but partly lighted by the wood that flamed in a huge cresset at the further end of it, and by great, common candles that flared from sconces fixed into the walls, while dropping masses of grease to the open floor as they did so.
Yet, sombre as was the light thus obtained, it served well enough for what was now occurring. It served to show De Violaine standing before the enormous empty fireplace that reached to the roof-one in which many persons might sit as in a room and warm themselves on winter nights; to show, also, the Comtesse de Valorme and Sylvia seated together on a huge oaken bench on which, in earlier days than these, Spanish, Burgundian, French, and Walloon soldiers had lolled as the citadel was held in turn by their various rulers and generals-a bench on which at times trembling prisoners had awaited the pronouncement of their doom. Also, that light showed Bevill standing erect and calm not far from where Sylvia was seated, with, behind him, four troopers of the Régiment de Risbourg, which was quartered partly in the citadel and partly in the Chartreuse, or Carthusian, monastery.
There was, however, one other man present, behind whom there also stood four soldiers. One other-Francbois. Francbois, white as a phantom, yet speaking with an assumption of calm while protesting that that which he was now saying was uttered in the interests of France and justice.
This protestation made, Francbois went on to state how, from the moment he had seen the prisoner on the Quai, he had recognised him as an Englishman with whom he had been at school in Paris years before; and, consequently, in the interests of his beloved France he had resolved to discover what reasons he might have for being in Liége.
"Was it not possible," De Violaine asked, in his clear, quiet voice, "that the reason the prisoner now gives for his presence here may have been the true one-that he had come from England to escort his compatriot, Mademoiselle Thorne, back to their country?"
"Monsieur, had that been so this Englishman, Bracton, would have proceeded differently. From the moment he landed at Antwerp, almost from the first moment, his actions were marked by deceit and, alas! by wickedness unparalleled. He landed under the assumed name that he has borne here-André de Belleville. When he was recognised as an Englishman by one whom he had deeply injured in earlier days, one whom he had driven to ruin, he passed as an officer of Mousquetaires named Le Blond-"
"Le Blond of the Mousquetaires. He is long since dead. I knew him well."
"And I," said the Comtesse. "He was my cousin."
"Monsieur," said Francbois, "it was that dead man's papers he possessed himself of. The very horse he rides was that of Le Blond."
"How," asked De Violaine, still with ominous calm, "are you acquainted with these matters?"
"Monsieur, the man whom he had so injured tracked him here-tracked him when he had recovered from the wound inflicted on him at St. Trond by the prisoner."
"It is false," Bevill said now, speaking for the first time; "by whomsoever the man may have been wounded at St Trond, that wound was not given by me." While, as he spoke, he learnt for the first time how it was that Sparmann had not denounced him at St. Trond, how it was that he had been enabled to quit St. Trond without molestation.
"In what way," said De Violaine, repeating what he had said before, "are you acquainted with these matters? You tell me that they have happened. What I desire to learn is who you have obtained your knowledge of them?"
"Monsieur le Gouverneur, that man-his name was Sparmann-came to Liége when his wound was healed, still determined to expose, to denounce the Englishman. He and I met-by-by-accident, and I discovered what his intention was."
"It is strange that the only two men in Antwerp who desired to denounce the prisoner should have met. What was this man?"
"He was a Hollander who had been vanquished by the prisoner in a duel. For that he fell into ill-favour. Later, he became a spy of France."
"A spy! You consort with spies!"
"Ah!" murmured the Comtesse de Valorme at these words of the Governor, yet the murmur was loud enough for all present to hear, and to notice also that it was full of meaning-so full that, unconsciously, De Violaine's eyes were turned to her for an instant. Then the latter continued:
"Nevertheless, this man has not denounced the prisoner. It may be he confided that task to you."
"Monsieur," Francbois said now, and it was apparent to all that he was about to make his supreme effort, "Monsieur," drawing himself up to his full height, "I denounce this man, not because the task was confided to me-I am no spy, no denouncer, whose office it is to do these things-but because that other is not here to do it for himself. He was murdered by that man, that Englishman, your prisoner!"
"Liar!" exclaimed Bevill, and in a moment he had sprung at Francbois, when, seizing him in a grasp of iron, he would have throttled him had not the troopers intervened and torn Francbois from his grasp. "Liar! If 'twas any who slew him that night in the Weiss Haus 'twas you!" though even as he spoke he had his doubts, remembering the signs he had discovered of the presence of a third man beside himself in Sylvia's house.
But now, amidst the excitement caused by Francbois' words and Bevill's prompt action to avenge them, amidst the contemptuous exclamations of both Sylvia and the Comtesse against Francbois (while, as the former spoke, she had sprung from the oak bench and stood by Bevill's side, whispering words of belief in his innocence of the horrible deed of which he had been accused), De Violaine's quiet tones fell once more on all their ears.
"You declare this man murdered that other one, that spy. What is your proof?"
"I saw him do it," Francbois replied, though as he spoke he was careful to draw close to the side of the soldiers. "I had gone there with Sparmann to assist in capturing this man."
"Yet did not give help. Had you no weapon with which to assist your 'friend,' your 'confrère,' or, unable to do that, no power to avenge his death?"
"I-I-" Francbois stammered. "I-"
"Enough!" De Violaine said. "Your story does not bear the impress of truth upon it. Remove him," he said now to four of the soldiers. "It needs," he continued, "that I learn more of you-of who and what you are. There lies more matter behind all this than you have seen fit to divulge."
"That you shall know at once-on the instant!" the Comtesse exclaimed. "Let him remain here and listen to what I have to narrate. Also let Mr. Bracton remain. Beside what else there is to tell of that man, Francbois, he hates this Englishman for a reason he has not deemed it well to divulge-for the reason that he believes Sylvia Thorne-"
"What!" De Violaine exclaimed, startled.
"For the reason that he believes I love this man," Sylvia said, drawing even closer to Bevill as she spoke, and holding out her hand to him. Then, as Bevill clasped it in both of his, she turned and looked the others proudly in the face, while adding: "As in truth I do. If you slay him on that wretch's word, you slay the man I love-the man who, I pray, may live to call me wife; the man who has risked, perhaps thrown away, his life for me."
CHAPTER XXV
The declaration by Sylvia of her love for Bevill had caused so much agitation among those assembled in that gloomy salle d'armes that, for the moment, all forgot there was another declaration to be heard-namely, the denunciation of Francbois by the Comtesse de Valorme. To him who was most principally concerned-to Bevill Bracton-the proclamation of Sylvia's love came not, however, so much as a surprise-since, had she not loved him, the words she had but hitherto whispered would never have been uttered at all by one so calmly dignified and self-contained as she-as a joy supreme. In the joy, too, was merged an honest, manly pride in having won for himself the love of a woman who nobly, before all present, had not hesitated openly to avow that love.
And still, even now that the love was acknowledged, every action of the girl as he drew close to her and, in his deepest murmur, whispered his own love and pride in her, but tended to increase his reverence. For as she-disdained all assumption of embarrassment, of having uttered words before others which, in ordinary cases, should have been whispered in his ears alone-now stood by his side with her hand still clasped in his, and with her calm, clear eyes fixed on him, he recognised more fully than ever he had done before how royally she was clad with womanly dignity. It was given to him to understand how that outspoken love for him had become her even as, oft-times, the murmured confession of their love by other women becomes them.
"Sylvia," he said now, "what shall I say, how prove to you all that is in my heart? How repay the love you have given me, the love I hoped so dearly to win?"
"Repay! Is it not mine to repay? You might have left me here alone. It was in your power to go, yet you resolved to stay. And," she said, gazing at him, "I love you. The words you uttered last night told me of your love for me; to-night I have avowed my own in return. Yet, ah!" she almost gasped, "in what a place, in what a spot, to plight our troth, to exchange vows!"
"Fear not, sweet one. The place matters nothing; the balm is administered, is here," and he touched the lace above his heart. "Even though they keep me prisoner for months, even though they slay me for being that which, God knows, I am not-"
"No, no, no! Not that! Not that!" she murmured, losing momentarily her self-control and clenching her under-lip between her teeth to hide its trembling. "Not that. It cannot be." Then looking up at him more firmly, though now he saw her eyes were welling over with tears, she added, "We have not met thus to part thus. It cannot, cannot be."
"By Heaven's grace we will never part. Once free of this, once safe, and-together-always together-we will never part on earth again. Heart up, my sweet! Heart up!" While, as he spoke, the pressure of his hand by hers told him that, as far as resolution could come to her aid, she would never despair. Nay, more-if such a thing might be-it conveyed in some subtle form to him the knowledge, the assurance, that if there lay in her power any chance of saving him, that chance would be exerted. Yet how, he asked himself, could she do aught towards saving him?
What was there to be done? His presence in this city, his assumption of being French while actually the subject of France's most determined enemy, was enough.
Meanwhile, there were others present-one other at least, the Comtesse-to whom this declaration of Sylvia had, if it came as a surprise at all, only come as one by the manner in which it was made. For she had seen enough, had observed enough to comprehend how, day by day, this man and woman had been gradually drawing nearer and nearer to one another; to discern how dear to each was the presence of the other, and to perceive that, as so they were drawn closer and closer together, the strands that drew them must tighten more and more until they could never be unloosed.
But if this avowal carried, therefore, no surprise to Madame de Valorme, to Francbois it brought an added agony to that which had gone before, even if, to him also, it brought no surprise. For he could not but ask himself what he had gained by his betrayal of this man-a betrayal that alone would have been justified, alone might have claimed extenuation, had it been the outcome of an honest, straightforward desire to serve the country he belonged to by injuring its enemies.
"Gained?" he reflected. He had gained nothing, while losing much, perhaps everything. Sylvia Thorne loved this man; she was not the woman to ever love another-above all, not him who had betrayed the beloved one. And, yes he had given this rival into the hands of the enemy. It might be, it doubtless was the case, that he had brought about his doom; but there-there! – but a few paces from him was one, his own connection, who was now about to send him also to his doom. For she knew enough to do so; she had told him so that night in the lane when, after the Englishman had disarmed him, she had taken him apart, even as, in the same breath, she had told him that if harm came to that other so it should come to him. And now-now-it had come to that other. In a few more moments it would come to him. She was about to speak. Gained! Out of his own mouth, by his own evil disposition, he had brought about his own fate.
As his mind was tortured thus the Comtesse de Valorme commenced the exposure which must lead to his undoing.
"Monsieur de Violaine," he heard her saying now, even as every fibre in his body trembled and seemed to become relaxed and flaccid, while the moisture stood in great drops on his cheeks and forehead, "you have heard Mr. Bracton proclaimed a spy, though he is none, but only a man who assumed a false name, a false nationality, to help a woman whom," she added, "he loves. He is no spy; but, if he were, is a spy worse than a traitor?"
De Violaine started as she uttered these words, since he remembered how the same thought, the same question, had arisen in his own mind that very day; then in reply he said:
"Each is an evil thing-contemned by all honourable men. Yet one man's evil-doing does not justify that of another."
"That is undoubted. Yet listen. This man," her eyes on Bevill, "is no spy; this one," and they fell with withering contempt on Francbois, "is a traitor."
"Have you proof of your words?" De Violaine asked, his marvellous calm always maintained.
"Proof? Ay, as much as you require. Le Maréchal de Boufflers comes here ere long, it is said, to see that all is prepared, all ready to resist the Allies; to, it is also said, resist Marlborough himself. When he comes show him these, after you have read them yourself." As she spoke thus the Comtesse de Valorme thrust her hand beneath the great houppelande, or travelling cloak, she had set out in and still wore; while, thrusting it next into the lace of her dress, she drew forth a small bundle of papers. "There is enough matter there," she said, "to hang a score of traitors." After which, turning to Francbois, she added: "You should have burnt those long ago instead of keeping them; or, keeping them, should have found sanctuary for them in the college of your friends and patrons, the Jesuits. Van Ryk's house, the house of a heretic," she said bitterly, "was a poor depository for such things; the bureau in a room sometimes occupied by a heretic woman the worst place of all."
But Francbois was now almost in a state of collapse; it was necessary for the stalwart troopers of the Risbourg dragoons to support him. For at last he knew that, whatever might be the fate of this Englishman whom he had striven to ruin, there was no ray of doubt about his own fate; while-and this was the bitterest of all-he had brought that fate upon himself. She, this tigress in woman's form, as he called her to himself, had warned him in the lane behind Van Ryk's house that it would be so if he betrayed the other; she had said the very same words that she had but just now uttered; had said that she had enough proof against him to hang a score of traitors. Only-she had not told him the exact nature of that proof. While he, who received so many letters by channels so devious that he could scarce remember how each reached his hands, had lost all memory of how once, when disturbed, he had thrust a small packet of them into the topmost drawer of an old bureau in a room that he generally occupied, except when other guests were in the house. In absolute fact, he had forgotten that bundle of letters until now.
For some moments Francbois could not speak; his breath seemed to have failed him. Nay more, even though the breath had been there to give utterance to his words, his mind was incapable of forming thoughts that, in their turn, should be expressed in words. He could but gasp and whine and raise his hand to his brow to wipe away the hot sweat oozing from it; he was so prostrate that the sturdy dragoons holding him thought that he would sink lifeless to the floor. Yet all the time he knew that the eyes of the others were upon him, were fixed coldly and contemptuously on him; the eyes of all except those of De Violaine, who, beneath the greasy candle guttering in their sockets, was reading the papers he had but now received. Yet, once Francbois saw that the Governor turned over a letter again and re-read it, and that-then he raised his eyes from the sheet and also looked at him for an instant. In that instant Francbois anticipated, perhaps experienced, the agonies of death a hundred times.
At last, however, he found his voice: thoughts to utter by its aid came to him. Struggling in the troopers' arms, he raised himself into a firmer, a more upright position and was able to assume something more of the attitude of a man. Then, freeing his right hand from the grasp of one of the soldiers-the hand in which he held his handkerchief, now a rolled-up ball-he lifted and pointed it towards the Comtesse; after which he said, in a harsh, dry, raucous voice:
"Spies! You-you-both-have talked of these." It may be he forgot in his frenzy that from him alone had such talk originated. "So be it. Yet, besides this English bully, this swashbuckler who slays in dark houses, those who would bring him to justice, are then no others present? What is this woman who in her self-righteousness denounces me as a traitor-"
"She has done more; she has proved you to be one," the Comtesse said.
"What is she?" Francbois went on. "What? Her husband died a traitor at the galleys; if women could be punished thus, she would be in a fair way to do so, too. Is she no traitor? She? She who is here to meet with Marlborough, or Cutts, or Athlone; to throw herself in their path, to intrigue with them for an invasion of the South-she who would have escaped to-night with those others had I not warned you of her. Warned you! There was no need of that! You who, like her, are of the South-a Camisard, a Cévenole."
Again De Violaine looked at this man, and the look had in it more terror for the abject creature than a thousand words might have possessed; after which, addressing the soldiers, he said:
"Remove both prisoners-each to a cell. Each of you," addressing both Bevill and Francbois, "will be subjected to a general court-martial when a sufficiency of officers can be collected to form it, and after the Maréchal de Boufflers and the Duc de Maine have been consulted. Mesdames," addressing the Comtesse and Sylvia, "you must return whence you set out. The Captain d'Aubenay and his men shall escort you."
Thus the expedition, the escape from Liége, had failed, since all who were to have gone on it, as well as he who prevented its accomplishment, were prisoners. For that the Comtesse de Valorme and Sylvia were now in a way-though a different one-as much prisoners as Bevill Bracton and Francbois they could not doubt. Except that they would be free of Van Ryk's house and gardens-free, possibly, of the city itself-instead of being confined in some room, or rooms, in the citadel, all freedom was gone from them, and they knew and understood that it was so.
But, still, in each of those women's hearts there had sprung up some hope for the future, the reason whereof neither could have explained, since whence hope was to come neither of them knew. From De Violaine there was, of a certainty, nothing to be looked for. Though no Camisard or Cévenole, as Francbois had stated, he was, nevertheless, a Protestant serving a cruel King who oppressed those of his faith; yet, being one, the Comtesse de Valorme knew well that nothing would turn him from his loyalty. Neither his early love for her, nor any hope that, now she was free, he might win her love, nor his belief-if such were possible-that Bevill had done nothing to merit condemnation as a spy, would weaken his fidelity so long as he bore the commission of Louis. From him there was nothing to be looked for but a stern, unflinching execution of his duty. And, if not from him, whence should hope come? At present they could find no answer to this question that they had each asked of their own hearts; they saw no glimmering ray to give them confidence. And still-still each hoped already, and the hope would never die within their hearts until the last chance was gone.
"I love him I love him! I love him!" Sylvia was whispering to herself now, even as preparations were being made to remove Bevill from this old, dark, and weird hall that reeked of the memories of innumerable cruelties; Francbois being already removed. "I love him. And-and he thought to save me. He deemed I needed assistance, rescue. Now it is he who needs earthly salvation, he whose impending lot cries for prompt succour. Ah, well! help, succour, shall be forthcoming unless I die in an attempt to obtain it. Oh!" she gasped, her hands to her breast, "they are leading him away-from me!"
With one swift movement she was by Bevill's side; a moment later she was clasped to his heart; another, and he was murmuring words of love and farewell in her ears.
"Adieu! Adieu, Sylvia," he said. "Nay, my sweet!" he whispered, "let fall no tears; weep not for me. I have won your love; the happiest hours of my life have come. Since I may be no more by your side-as yet-I have the thoughts of you to solace me; the thought, the pride of knowing I have won your love, that I alone dwell in your heart."
While, seeing that De Violaine in his delicacy had turned his eyes away, and was gazing into the great empty fireplace until this sad parting should be made; seeing, too, that even the rough troopers had turned their eyes from them, he embraced Sylvia for the first time-the first time and, as he feared, the last.
"I love you," he whispered. "Whate'er betide, remember my last words are these. Remember that, if the worst befalls, my last thought shall be of you, my last prayer for you, your name the last word on my lips. Farewell."