D'Entragues rang for a servant, and into his hands delivered the newly arrived and dusty courier.
'You will be weary, monsieur,' he said to the latter. 'You will find a room at your disposal above-stairs. You are at liberty to rest. What food you require will be sent to you there. I must ask you, in the interests of State, not to leave that room or hold conversation of any kind with any person until I send for you again.'
Monsieur at that very moment was at one of his daily promenades with Mademoiselle. Monsieur de Kercadiou was at work in a neighbouring chamber in the châlet. D'Entragues sat frowning, considering the sealed letter from Moreau which had been enclosed in the package from his Paris agent. This was a damned inconvenient resurrection. He turned the letter over; he studied the seal; he was moved to break it, and see what the fellow found to say to his lady; but he resisted the temptation. He would wait until Monsieur returned. For whatever he did—and he began to have a shrewd suspicion of what it would be—he must have Monsieur's authority.
Meanwhile Monsieur, with little suspicion indeed of the disagreeable surprise awaiting him at home, was chatting amiably, insinuatingly, with the gentle lady who, pitying his loneliness and his misfortunes, was so ready to afford him the companionship he sought with such condescending deference.
'You do not know, child,' he was saying in that thick, purring voice of his, 'what strength and comfort I gather from our discussions; how they help me in my difficulties.'
It was not by any means the first time that he had used some such words during the last of the three weeks that were sped since Langéac's return with his sinister tidings.
They chanced to be walking by the Lippe. It was the first time they had gone that way, by the very path which she and André-Louis had trodden in February last, when the countryside had lain white in the grip of frost. Now all was vernal green, the meadows jewelled with flowers, the shrunken river flowing cool and clear in the shade of willows heavy with feathery leaf.
Mademoiselle de Kercadiou, in a long coat of dark green with wide lapels and a broad black hat to render her whiteness the more startling, stepped daintily beside the sluggish, portly prince whose height was shorter than her own by an inch or so.
'These talks have helped me, too,' she said thoughtfully.
He checked, and turned to her, leaning upon his gold-headed cane. They were quite alone here in the meadows by the river, within sight of that very stile where André-Louis and she had paused on that day of their last week together. High overhead, invisible in the blue, a lark was pouring out its liquid song.
'If I could believe that, my dear child!'
Wistfully she smiled upon the sudden gravity of his florid countenance.
'Is it difficult to believe? In your preoccupations, Monseigneur, I have found some refuge from my own.'
'Do you conceive the joy with which I hear you say it? It makes me of some account, of some use in this world where nowadays there seems to be no place for me or need of me.'
'You exaggerate, Monseigneur, to express the kindness you have always shown me.'
'Kindness? How inadequately that describes my feelings, Aline. I have studied in my mind how I might serve you. Hence the inexpressible satisfaction borne me by what you have now said. If it could but be given to me to comfort you, to bring you abiding consolation, then I should be the proudest, the happiest of men.'
'You should be that, Monseigneur, who are the noblest.' Her gentle eyes considered him almost in wonder. He winced a little under that clear regard. The colour deepened in his cheeks.
'I have not deserved,' she added, 'so great a condescension.'
'What have you not deserved of me, Aline?' He took her arm in the grip of his plump white fingers. 'What is there that you may not command of me? Of my love for you?'
Watching her keenly with his full eyes, that one handsome feature of his otherwise dull face, he read in her troubled glance that he had been premature. This delicious fruit had not yet ripened under the covert ardour of his cautious wooing. She was timid as a gazelle, and he scared her by the clumsiness of his approach. He perceived the necessity to restore at once her confidence. Gently, but resolutely she was disengaging her arm from his grip, a slight contact, yet one which did not make it easier for him now to retreat. But retreat he did in the best order he could summon. Looking deep into her eyes, he smiled very gently.
'You suspect, perhaps, that I but indulge an idle gallantry. My dear! My affection for you is very real, very deep, and very sincere, as it was for your uncle Étienne, whose memory I shall ever cherish.'
This, of course, gave a new meaning to his declaration, and, in effacing the suspicion she had conceived, made her almost ashamed of it. Hence a reaction in his favour which brought a flush to her cheeks and made her falter in her reply.
'Monseigneur, you do me a great honour; too great an honour.'
'No honour could be too great for you. I am but a prince by birth, whilst you are a princess by nature; noble in your soul with a nobility loftier than any that is of human conferring.'
'Monseigneur, you leave me confused.'
'Your modesty does that. You have never realized yourself. That is the way of rare natures such as yours. It is only the worthless who harbour notions of their worth.'
She battled feebly against this tide of flattery. 'Monseigneur, your own nobility lends a kindliness to your vision. There is little worth in me.'
'You shall not decry yourself. With me it is idle. I have too much evidence of your goodness. Who but a saint would so compassionate my loneliness as to give so freely of herself to mitigate it?'
'What are you saying, Monseigneur!'
'Is it less than the truth? Am I not lonely? Lonely and unfortunate, almost friendless nowadays, reduced to poverty, living in sordidness?' Thus he stirred her sympathy which was ever at the call of those in need of it, her sweet womanly instinct to solace the afflicted. 'It is in such times as these that we know our true friends. In this hour I can count my own upon the fingers of one hand. I live here upon grudging charity, at once a prince and a pauper, forsaken by all but a very faithful few. Can I do less than repay in love the disinterested devotion which I can scarcely contemplate without tears?'
They were retracing now their steps, moving slowly along the river's brink, Aline deeply stirred by his lament and flattered to be the recipient of his princely confidences, to have him lay bare to her his secret and humiliating thoughts. She was conscious, too, that these confidences were forging a stronger link between them. As they moved, he continued to talk, passing to still deeper intimacies.
'A prince's is never an enviable estate, even in the happiest times. He is courted, not for himself, but for that which his favour can bestow. He is ever in danger of mistaking sycophancy for love; and if that happens which tests the relations he has formed, if there comes a time when he must depend upon the merits of his own self rather than upon the glitter of his rank, bitterness is commonly his portion. How many of those whom I trusted most, whose affection I deemed most sincere, stand by me today? There was one of whom I believed that she would have remained at my side when all others had forsaken me. Where is she now? Her affection for me when put to the test is not strong enough to envisage poverty.'
She knew that he alluded to Madame de Balbi, and at the pathos in his voice her pity for him deepened.
'Is it not possible, Monseigneur, that, aware of your straitened circumstances, your friends hesitate to encroach upon them?'
'How charitable you are! How everything you say reveals a fresh beauty of your soul! I have sought to flatter my vanity by just such a conclusion. But the evidences deny it.' He sighed ponderously. Then his liquid eyes sought her countenance, and he smiled sadly into it. 'Ah, but there are consolations. Your friendship, my dear Aline, is the greatest of them. I hope that I am not destined to lose it with the rest.'
Her eyes were misty. 'Since you value this poor friendship of mine, Monseigneur, you may be sure that it will never fail you.'
'My