"Men are known by their works!" the priest retorted. "Now, now," he continued, abruptly raising his voice, and lifting his hand in a kind of exaltation, real or feigned, "is the appointed time! And now is the day of salvation! and woe, Mirepoix, woe! woe! to the backslider, and to him that putteth his hand to the plough and looketh back to-night!"The layman cowered and shrank before his fierce denunciation;while Madame de Pavannes gazed from one to the other as if her dislike for the priest were so great that seeing the two thus quarrelling, she almost forgave Mirepoix his offence. "Mirepoix said he could explain," she murmured irresolutely.
The Coadjutor fixed his baleful eyes on him. "Mirepoix," he said grimly, "can explain nothing! Nothing! I dare him to explain!"And certainly Mirepoix thus challenged was silent. "Come," the priest continued peremptorily, turning to the lady who had entered with him, "your sister must leave with us at once. We have no time to lose.""But what what does it mean!" Madame de Pavannes said, as though she hesitated even now. "Is there danger still?""Danger!" the priest exclaimed, his form seeming to swell, and the exaltation I had before read in his voice and manner again asserting itself. "I put myself at your service, Madame, and danger disappears! I am as God to-night with powers of life and death! You do not understand me? Presently you shall. But you are ready. We will go then. Out of the way, fellow!" he thundered, advancing upon the door.
But Mirepoix, who had placed himself with his back to it, to my astonishment did not give way. His full bourgeois face was pale;yet peeping through my chink, I read in it a desperate resolution. And oddly--very oddly, because I knew that, in keeping Madame de Pavannes a prisoner, he must be in the wrong--Isympathised with him. Low-bred trader, tool of Pavannes though he was, I sympathised with him, when he said firmly:
"She shall not go!"
"I say she shall!" the priest shrieked, losing all control over himself. " Fool! Madman! You know not what you do!" As the words passed his lips, he made an adroit forward movement, surprised the other, clutched him by the arms, and with a strength I should never have thought lay in his meagre frame, flung him some paces into the room. "Fool!" he hissed, shaking his crooked fingers at him in malignant triumph. "There is no man in Paris, do you hear--or woman either--shall thwart me to-night!"
"Is that so? Indeed?"
The words, and the cold, cynical voice, were not those of Mirepoix; they came from behind. The priest wheeled round, as if he had been stabbed in the back. I clutched Croisette, and arrested the cramped limb I was moving under cover of the noise.
The speaker was Bezers! He stood in the open door-way, his great form filling it from post to post, the old gibing smile on his face. We had been so taken up, actors and audience alike, with the altercation, that no one had heard him ascend the stairs. He still wore the black and silver suit, but it was half hidden now under a dark riding cloak which just disclosed the glitter of his weapons. He was booted and spurred and gloved as for a journey.
"Is that so?" he repeated mockingly, as his gaze rested in turn on each of the four, and then travelled sharply round the room.
"So you will not be thwarted by any man in Paris, to-night, eh?
Have you considered, my dear Coadjutor, what a large number of people there are in Paris? It would amuse me very greatly now--and I'm sure it would the ladies too, who must pardon my abrupt entrance--to see you put to the test; pitted against--shall we say the Duke of Anjou? Or M. de Guise, our great man? Or the Admiral? Say the Admiral foot to foot?"Rage and fear--rage at the intrusion, fear of the intruder--struggled in the priest's face. "How do you come here, and what do you want?" he inquired hoarsely. If looks and tones could kill, we three, trembling behind our flimsy screen, had been freed at that moment from our enemy.
"I have come in search of the young birds whose necks you were for stretching, my friend!" was Bezers' answer. "They have vanished. Birds they must be, for unless they have come into this house by that window, they have flown away with wings.""They have not passed this way," the priest declared stoutly, eager only to get rid of the other and I blessed him for the words! "I have been here since I left you."But the Vidame was not one to accept any man's statement. "Thank you; I think I will see for myself," he answered coolly.
"Madame," he continued, speaking to Madame de Pavannes as he passed her, "permit me."He did not look at her, or see her emotion, or I think he must have divined our presence. And happily the others did not suspect her of knowing more than they did. He crossed the floor at his leisure,and sauntered to the window, watched by them with impatience. He drew aside the curtain, and tried each of the bars, and peered through the opening both up and down, An oath and an expression of wonder escaped him. The bars were standing, and firm and strong; and it did not occur to him that we could have passed between them. I am afraid to say how few inches they were apart.
As he turned, he cast a casual glance at the bed--at us; and hesitated. He had the candle in his hand, having taken it to the window the better to examine the bars; and it obscured his sight.
He did not see us. The three crouching forms, the strained white faces, the starting eyes, that lurked in the shadow of the curtain escaped him. The wild beating of our hearts did not reach his ears. And it was well for him that it was so. If he had come up to the bed I think that we should have killed him, Iknow that we should have tried. All the blood in me had gone to my head, and I saw him through a haze--larger than life. The exact spot near the buckle of his cloak where I would strike him, downwards and inwards, an inch above the collar-bone,--this only I saw clearly. I could not have missed it. But he turned away, his face darkening, and went back to the group near the door, and never knew the risk he had run.
