The Greatest Historical Novels. Rafael Sabatini

      CHAPTER XLV

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      André-Louis carried away from the Casa Gazzola a bitterness that choked him. For all the calm self-command he had exhibited to the end, he had that day torn open again the dreadful wound in his soul so that the Regent might behold it. And the compensating satisfaction to him had been less than he had thought to find in the discharge of that scornful errand upon which de Batz had sent him.

      He had failed, he knew, to pierce the armour of egotism in which Monsieur was empanoplied. Monsieur, whilst affronted and angry, had yet remained untouched in his conscience by any sense of having merited the outrage to his dignity which André-Louis Moreau had perpetrated. He resented the words uttered in his presence much as he might have resented an offensive gesture from some urchin in the streets of Verona. Fools and egotists remain what they are because of their self-complacency and lack of the faculty of self-criticism. It is not within their power to view their actions in the light in which they are revealed to others. Blind to the cause which they may have supplied, they have only indignation for effects which are hostile to themselves.

      Something of this André-Louis considered as he rode back to the Two Towers. It did not sweeten his mood or provide balm for his suffering. His vengeance had failed because the man at whom it was aimed could not perceive that it was deserved. It required more than words to hurt such men as the Comte de Provence. He should have given them more. He should have insisted upon satisfaction from that fool d'Avaray. Or, better still, he should have put a quarrel upon d'Entragues, that sly scoundrel who had played the pander to the extent of suppressing his letters, or, at least, of being a party to their suppression. He had forgotten d'Entragues's part in the business in the concentration of his resentment against the chief and unassailable offender. But, after all, it was no great matter. What real satisfaction could lie in visiting upon those lackeys, d'Entragues and d'Avaray, the sins of their master?

      As he dismounted in the courtyard of the Two Towers, he was suddenly overwhelmed by a sense of his aimlessness. It was as if his life had suddenly come to an end. He knew not whither now to turn his steps, for nowhere did any purpose await him.

      The landlord met him on the threshold with the information that a room had been prepared for him, and at the same time with a message from Madame de Plougastel, requesting him to wait upon her at the earliest moment.

      'Conduct me to her,' he said indifferently.

      Still with the dust of travel upon him and his fast unbroken, he was ushered into that same room in which a couple of hours ago he had left her. She was alone when he entered, standing by the window, from which she had witnessed his return. She turned eagerly as the door opened, and came some little way to meet him. Her manner was strained and anxious.

      'You are kind to come so promptly, André-Louis. I have so much to say to you. You left so hurriedly before I could even begin. Where have you been?'

      'To the Casa Gazzola to let them know that I am still alive.'

      'It was what I feared. You have not been imprudent? You have done nothing hasty or rash, André-Louis?' She was trembling.

      His lips writhed as he answered her: 'There was nothing I could do, madame. The harm is past repairing. I could only talk. I doubt if I impressed them.'

      He saw relief in her face.

      'Tell me about it. Ah, but sit down, child.'

      She waved him to one of two chairs that stood by the window and herself took the other one. He sank down wearily, dropping hat and whip upon the floor beside him, and turned all the misery of his haggard eyes upon her gentle, wistful face.

      'You saw Monsieur?' she asked him.

      'I saw him, madame. I had a message for him from Monsieur de Batz.' Briefly he repeated what he had told the Regent. She heard him out, a little colour creeping into her cheeks, a bitter little smile gradually taking shape about her sensitive lips. When at last he had done, she nodded.

      'It was merited. All of it was merited. Although in doing what you did in Paris you betrayed a cause, yet I cannot blame you. And I am glad with you that you had the satisfaction of telling him. Never think that the bitterness of it will not penetrate to his heart, or that he will not understand how his own treachery and disloyalty have brought this failure upon him. He is very fitly punished.'

      'I am not so easily satisfied, madame. I doubt if any punishment I could have visited upon him would have been enough to satisfy me for the ruin he has wrought in wantonness.'

      'Ruin?' she echoed. She was staring at him with widening eyes. 'The ruin he has wrought?'

      'Is that too much to call it?' He was bitter. 'Can any power undo it, or repair it?'

      She paused before replying. Then quietly asked him: 'What has been reported to you, André?'

      'The vile truth, madame: that he made Aline his mistress; that he ...'

      'Ah, no! That, no!' she cried, and came to her feet as she spoke. 'It is not true, my André.'

      He raised his head, and looked at her with his weary eyes. 'Pity misleads you into deceiving me. I have it on the word of a witness, and he a man of honour.'

      'You must mean Monsieur de la Guiche.'

      'How well you know! Yes, it was La Guiche who told me, without knowing how much he was telling me. La Guiche who discovered her in the Regent's arms, when he ...'

      Again he was interrupted. 'I know, I know! Ah, wait, my poor André! Listen to me. What La Guiche reported that he had seen is true. But all the rest, all the assumptions from it are false. False! And you have been tortured by this dreadful belief! My poor child!' She was beside him, her hand upon his head, soothing, caressing, gathering to her starved mother's heart some comfort for the comfort that she brought him. And whilst she went on to speak, to give him the facts within her knowledge, he held his breath and kept his body rigid.

      'How could you have thought that your Aline is of those who yield? Not even the belief in your death could have robbed her of her pure strength. Long and patiently Monsieur laid siege to her. In the end, I suppose, that patience wearied. He was required elsewhere. They were demanding his presence in Toulon. So, to be rid of Monsieur de Kercadiou, he sent him to Brussels on a pretexted errand, and went that night to bear Aline company in her loneliness. Feeling herself helpless because alone there, and terrified by his vehemence, she suffered the embrace which Monsieur de la Guiche surprised, and which Monsieur de la Guiche interrupted. Wait, André! Hear the end. The Regent left her upon the insistence of Monsieur de la Guiche, who was very angry, and, I believe, very unmeasured in his terms, wanting even in respect to his Highness. They went into another room, so that Monsieur might hear the message of which the Marquis was the bearer. No sooner had they gone than Aline came down to me with the tale of what had passed. She was filled with horror and loathing of Monsieur, and between terror of what had been and the fear of its repetition, she implored me to keep her with me and to shelter her.' A moment Madame de Plougastel paused, and then added slowly and solemnly: 'And she did not leave my side again until two days later, after Monsieur had departed from Hamm.'

      André-Louis