The Greatest Historical Novels. Rafael Sabatini

The Greatest Historical Novels

came to his feet. He stood before her, his eyes level with her own, his sight blurred.

'Madame! Madame! Is this the truth?' His tone was piteous.

She took his hands in hers. She spoke wistfully. 'Could I deceive you, André-Louis? You know that, whoever might lie to you, I never should. Not even out of charity, my child, in such a matter as this.'

There were tears in his eyes. 'Madame,' he faltered, 'you give me life.'

She smiled upon him with an ineffable sadness. 'Then I give it to you for the second time. And I thank God that it is in my power to give it.' She leaned forward and kissed him. 'Go to your Aline, André-Louis. Go with confidence. Give no further thought to Monsieur. You have punished him for the evil of his intentions. Be thankful that there was no more to punish.'

'Where is she? Aline?' he asked.

'At Hamm. When we left to follow the Regent to Turin, Monsieur de Kercadiou had not yet returned from Brussels. So that she was compelled to await him there. Besides, she had nowhere to go, poor child. I left her money enough to suffice them for some time. Make haste to her, André-Louis.'

He set out next day, fortified by the blessing and prayers of the gentle lady who was his mother, and who took consolation for the thought that perhaps she might never see him again in the reflection that he went at last to his happiness.

He spared on that journey neither himself nor horseflesh. He was well supplied with money. In addition to a bundle of assignats with which he had paid his way in France, he had received from de Batz at parting a belt containing fifty louis in gold to which he had scarcely yet had recourse. But he had recourse to it freely now. It went prodigally on horseflesh, and to surmount all obstacles and smooth all difficulties.

Within a week, on a fair April day, he came, worn and jaded, but with his heart aglow, into the little Westphalian town on the Lippe. He rolled almost exhausted from the saddle at the door of the Bear Inn, and staggered across the threshold, looking like the ghost for which he was presently to be taken.

When the gaping landlord in answer to his questions had told him that Monsieur de Kercadiou and his niece were above-stairs, André-Louis bade him go tell the Lord of Gavrillac that a courier had just arrived for him.

'Say no more than that. Do not mention my name to him, within mademoiselle's hearing.'

Then he reeled to a chair, and sank into it. But he was on his feet again a few moments later when his godfather came down in answer to the summons.

Monsieur de Kercadiou checked at sight of him, and changed colour; then uttered his name in a voice that rang through the inn, and came running to embrace him, repeating his name again and again between tears and laughter.

André-Louis babbled foolishly in his godfather's arms.

'It is I, monsieur my godfather. It is indeed I. I have come back. I have done with politics. We are going farming. We are going to my farm in Saxony. I always knew that farm would be useful to us one day. Now, let us go and find Aline, if you please.'

But there was no need to go in quest of her. She was there midway upon the stairs. Her uncle's voice pronouncing André-Louis's name had drawn her forth. Her lovely face was piteously white, and she was trembling so violently that she could scarcely stand.

At sight of her, André-Louis disengaged himself from the arms of Monsieur de Kercadiou, and, casting off his weariness as if it had been a cloak, he leapt up to meet her. He came to a halt a step below her, his upturned face on a level with her throat. She put her arms round his neck, and drew his dark head against her breast. Holding him so, she whispered to him: 'I was waiting for you, André. I should always have been waiting for you. To the end.'

THE END