"Fortune was very good to me, mademoiselle," said he. "I had little hope that such a face as mine could be disguised, but I take no pride in what you see. It is the handiwork of Rabecque, the most ingenious lackey that ever served a foolish master. It helped me that having been ten years in Italy when I was younger, I acquired the language so well as to be able to impose even upon Fortunio. In that lay a circumstance which at once disarmed suspicion, and if I stay not so long as it shall take the dye to wear from my hair and beard and the staining from my face, I shall have little to fear."
"But, monsieur," she cried, "you have everything to fear!" And alarm grew in her eyes.
But he laughed again for answer. "I have faith in my luck, mademoiselle, and I think I am on the tide of it at present. I little hoped when I made my way into Condillac in this array that I should end, by virtue of my pretended ignorance of French, in being appointed gaoler to you. I had some ado to keep the joy from my eyes when I heard them planning it. It is a thing that has made all else easy."
"But what can you do alone, monsieur?" she asked him; and there was a note almost of petulance in her voice.
He moved to the window, and leaned his elbow on the sill. The light was fast fading. "I know not yet. But I am here to contrive a means. I shall think and watch."
"You know in what hourly peril I am placed," she cried, and suddenly remembering that he must have overheard and understood the Dowager's words, a sudden heat came to her cheeks to recede again and leave them marble-pale. And she thanked Heaven that in the dusk and in the shadow where she stood he could but ill make out her face.
"If you think that I have been rash in returning—"
"No, no, not rash, monsieur; noble and brave above all praise. I would indeed I could tell you how noble and brave I account your action."
"It is as nothing to the bravery required to let Rabecque do this hideous work upon a face for which I have ever entertained some measure of respect."
He jested, sooner than enlighten her that it was his egregious pride had fetched him back when he was but a few hours upon his journey Pariswards, his inability to brook the ridicule that would be his when he announced at the Luxembourg that failure had attended him.
"Ah, but what can you do alone?" she repeated.
"Give me at least a day or two to devise some means; let me look round and take the measure of this gaol. Some way there must be. I have not come so far and so successfully to be beaten now. Still," he continued, "if you think that I overrate my strength or my resource, if you would sooner that I sought men and made an assault upon Condillac, endeavouring to carry it and to let the Queen's will prevail by force of arms, tell me so, and I am gone tomorrow."
"Whither would you go?" she cried, her voice strained with sudden affright.
"I might seek help at Lyons or Moulins. I might find loyal soldiers who would be willing to follow me by virtue of my warrant to levy such help as I may require, if I but tell them that the help was refused me in Grenoble. I am not sure that it would be so, for, unfortunately, my warrant is for the Seneschal of Dauphiny only. Still, I might make the attempt."
"No, no," she implored him, and in her eagerness to have him put all thought of leaving her from his mind, she caught him by the arm and raised a pleading face to his. "Do not leave me here, monsieur; of your pity do not leave me alone amongst them. Think me a coward if you will, monsieur: I am no less. They have made a coward of me."
He understood the thing she dreaded, and a great pity welled up from his generous heart for this poor unfriended girl at the mercy of the beautiful witch of Condillac and her beautiful rascally son. He patted the hand that clutched his arm.
"I think, myself, that it will be best if I remain, now that I have come so far," he said. "Let me ponder things. It may well be that I shall devise some way."
"May Heaven inspire you, monsieur. I shall spend the night in prayer, I think, imploring God and His saints to show you the way you seek."
"Heaven, I think, should hear your prayers, mademoiselle," he answered musingly, his glance upon the white, saintly face that seemed to shine in the deepening gloom. Then, suddenly he stirred and bent to listen.
"Sh! Some one is coming," he whispered. And he sped quickly from her side and into the outer room, where he sank noiselessly on to his chair as the steps ascended the stone staircase and a glow of yellow light grew gradually in the doorway that opened on to it.
CHAPTER XII. A MATTER OF CONSCIENCE
That he might inspire the more confidence in the Dowager and her son Garnache organized and performed a little comedy at Condillac a couple of nights after his appointment as mademoiselle's gaoler. He gave an alarm at dead midnight, and when half-clad men, followed presently by madame and Marian, rushed into the anteroom where he stood, a very picture of the wildest excitement, he drew their attention to two twisted sheets, tied end to end, hanging from the window which overlooked the moat; and in answer to the marquise's questions he informed her that he had been disturbed by sounds of movements and upon entering the chamber he had discovered mademoiselle making these preparations for departure.
Valerie, locked in the inner chamber, refused to come forth as the Marquise bade her, but her voice reassured Madame de Condillac of her presence, and so, since her attempt had failed, madame was content to let her be.
"The little fool," she said, peering down from the window into the night; "she would have been killed for certain. Her rope of sheets does not reach more than a third of the way down. She would have had over thirty feet to fall, and if that had not been enough to finish her, she would of a certainty have, been drowned in the moat."
She signified her satisfaction with the faithful "Battista's" vigilance by a present of some gold pieces in the morning, and since the height of the window and the moat beneath it did not appear sufficient obstacles to mademoiselle's attempts at effecting her escape, the Dowager had the window nailed down. Thus, only by breaking it could egress be obtained, and the breaking of it could not be effected without such a noise as must arouse "Battista."
Under Garnache's instructions the comedy was carried a little further. Mademoiselle affected for her gaoler a most unconquerable aversion, and this she took pains to proclaim.
One morning, three days after her attempted escape, she was taking the air in the garden of Condillac, "Battista," ever watchful, a few paces behind her, when suddenly she was joined by Marius—a splendid, graceful figure in a riding-suit of brown velvet and biscuit-coloured hose, his points tipped with gold, his long boots of the finest marroquin leather, his liver-coloured hound at his heels. It was the last day of October, but the weather, from cold and wet that it had been for the past fortnight, had taken on a sudden improvement. The sun shone, the air was still and warm, and but for the strewn leaves and the faint smell of decay with which the breath of autumn is ever laden, one might have fancied it a day of early spring.
It was not Valerie's wont to pause when Marius approached. Since she might not prevent him from walking where he listed, she had long since abandoned the futility of bidding him begone when he came near her. But, at least, she had never stopped in her walk, never altered its pace; she had suffered what she might not avoid, but she had worn the outward air of suffering it with indifference. This morning, however, she made a departure from her long habit. Not only did she pause upon observing his approach, but she called to him as if she would have him hasten to her side. And hasten he did, a new light in his eyes that was mostly of surprise, but a little, also, of hope.