CHAPTER XIII

"She knows," Emérance muttered to herself as she sought her own rooms from which, in fact, she had only been brought forth by the noise and chattering in the passages and the sounds that issued from the Duchess's salon, owing to the door being open. "She knows--in part--what I am. That look from those dark, haughty eyes told all. Yes, she knows something--but only something; not all. She cannot know of the Great Attempt."

She took up now a little hand-bell from the table and, ringing it, brought forth her maid from the bedroom where she was engaged in arranging that apartment; after which Emérance said:--

"What means this turmoil in the inn, this hurly-burly on the stairs and in the passages? Know you aught?"

"Madame," the woman replied, only too willing to talk, "there are strange happenings in this house. The retinue of the Duchesse de Castellucchio have mostly deserted her. They are missing."

"Missing!" Emérance exclaimed, while her face blanched. "Missing! Her retinue missing. Explain to me."

"Ah! Madame la Marquise. They are gone, vanished. All except one--the lowest of them. The handsome young man so gay and debonnair, with shoulders so broad and stalwart and such soft, dark eyes, is gone----"

"Proceed. No matter for his looks."

"Also the captain. He who was like a bull. Also the great swashbuckler, le fanfaron, with the red-brown hair."

"The captain gone," Emérance muttered to herself, "and Fleur de Mai gone too. 'Tis strange. Wondrous strange."

"And, above all," the girl persisted, determined that the one who had been so gentle and courteous to her, so much of an admirer, should not be overlooked, "the young seigneur, madame! The handsome, courtly one."

"Bah!" Emérance exclaimed, "his looks count not." Nor, in truth, would the looks of any man in all the world have counted with this woman who had no thoughts or eyes for the beauty of any, or only one, man. Then, continuing, she said: "And that other? The lowest of them, as you term him. Where is he?"

"He saddles his horse below. He rides to the Syndic to beseech his help in finding them; the Syndic whose lodge is outside the walls upon the route de France, a league or so from here. He does so, having spoken first with the venerable father of Madame la Marquise. The illustrious Seigneur de Chateaugrand."

"Ah! yes. My father. The Seigneur de Chateaugrand!" and now there came a look upon her face vastly different from the look of a few minutes before--one which seemed to speak of some internal spasm of pain, or regret or self-reproach, so different from this which was one of irony, of contempt. "Where is he?"

"He prepares to descend to madame from his room above. He wishes to know something of these strange doings. He will be here ere many moments more are past."

"So be it. He will find me. Now make me ready for the day. Put out my clothes and toilette necessaries. My father," with a scornful smile, "hates ever to see a woman in disarray."

That "father" made his appearance, as the maid had said would be the case, ere many moments were passed, yet when he did so the interview that was to take place--if it was an interview--was not of long duration. Emérance, who was in the bedroom in the hands of the maid when she heard the door of the salon open, called out to know if it was he, and, on discovering such to be the case, had her dress put on hastily and then went to him. After which, without salutation or greeting, she went close to Van den Enden and, speaking to him in almost a whisper--for, which there was scarcely any need since she had carefully shut the door between them and the maid--she said:--

"What is this report? And--what does it mean? Where are they all? All?"

But the Jew made no reply. Which abstention from speech was, in truth, the most pregnant of replies.

"I understand, or almost understand," Emérance whispered, while as she did so she stepped back some paces from Van den Enden and, perhaps unconsciously, drew the skirts of her gown closer round her. "We have been overheard, were overheard, and--and, after you left me last night you and La Truaumont discovered such to be the case. And--and--and----"

But still Van den Enden uttered no word but stood looking strangely at the woman.

"Ah," she gasped. "And De Beaurepaire? Louis? Is he safe? Will he be safe?"

A moment later, though still the old man had uttered no word but only let his eyes meet hers, she murmured, "Ah! malheur! Yet--yet--there is none to harm him now."

* * * * *

Ere Humphrey sought his room the previous afternoon, there to carry out his determination of keeping a watchful ear open, from then till the morning, over all that might transpire in the next one to him, he whispered a last word to Jacquette.

"Sweetest and dearest," he said, "say no word to the Duchess on what I am about to do, give her no inkling. Tell her what you will, excepting only that."

"What shall I say? I would not willingly deceive her. 'Specially since she trusts me so."

"Nor would I have you deceive her. She is too good and kind to have deception practised on her. Yet, remember, you have said that, if she were forced to know of what I think is being plotted, she would find means to bring the news to the King's ears. And that would not take long in the doing. A trusty messenger, a swift horse or so, and, ere a week was past, that which hath been plotted here in this out-of-the-world Swiss place would be known in Paris. And--and--if she has never loved the King she is well nigh the only one of all women near him since his youth who has not done so. She would not spare De Beaurepaire whom, in very fact, she does not love, but has only used for her purpose of escape from her mad husband."

"What then shall I say?" asked Jacquette, grasping the force and truth of her lover's words.

"What you will. That I have ridden forth to see the beauties of this great river out there; or to mount to the cathedral, or that I am indisposed, which in truth I am since I am indisposed to be prevented from overhearing these tricksters."

"Short of absolute falsehood, I will tell her," Jacquette said with a smile; after which, since now they were near the Krone, the girl added, "Farewell until to-morrow, Humphrey, and may heaven bless you, my sweet. Oh! I do pray that what you are about to do--it is in a good cause, He above knows!--may bring no harm to you. Farewell until to-morrow. To-night I will pray for you, and all night, too."

So, with a blessing on him from the woman he loved so fondly and truly, Humphrey West set about his task.

When he was in his room, after pausing until Jacquette had had time to rejoin the Duchess, he sat down in the one chair the place possessed and wondered how long he would have to wait ere anything should happen in the next one that, by being overheard, might be of service to him. The day was still young, it being no later than four o'clock, and he knew that it was more than probable that neither La Truaumont nor that horrible-looking old man with the vulpine features and the repellent leer--whom he felt sure was one of those most concerned in what was hatching--would visit the woman in the next room until late at night and when most of those in the house had retired.

One thing, however, he did at once, after observing that his chamber was made ready for the night--the bed turned down, the ewer filled and so forth. He quietly lifted his chair up to the wall which divided his room from the next one and placed it against the wainscot. Thus he would be nearer to any sound that issued from the lips of those in that next room and, also, if necessary, he could stand with his head underneath the frowsy tapestry, and between it and the panelling, and so hear still better. Next, he locked his door while determining that, no matter who should come to it, he would give no answer. Those outside might think that he was absent, or asleep, or what they would, but he would not reply.

At first, he thought of sitting down and writing to his mother in England a long account of his doings of late--there was a standish on the rickety table, under one leg of which some previous traveller had thrust a piece of folded paper to steady it, and, in the standish, was some half-dried ink as well as one or two pens much mended and worn, and a little jar of sand; but he desisted from following this idea. He would have to bring the chair back again to do so; if, while writing, he should move it unthinkingly, it would grate and rasp upon the parquet floor and warn any who might be in the next room that he was here, while, also, to obtain his writing-paper (with which educated travellers always provided themselves ere setting out) he would have to unroll his valise, the doing which might also betray him if he made any noise.

"Therefore," he thought to himself, "I will lie down a little while. It may hap I shall be awake most of the night, so best that I refresh myself ere night comes. While if I sleep I will do so like a dog, with one eye and both ears open. A whisper will awaken me if 'tis loud enough to penetrate through the tapestry on t'other side and on this."

That he had slept he discovered later when, suddenly opening his eyes, he heard the deep-toned clock of the cathedral striking the four quarters, and, after counting the strokes of the hour, learnt that it was nine o'clock. He noticed, too, at once--though even now but half-awake--that the room was in darkness, that night had come. Upon which he lay quite still a little while, his ears on the alert to discover if there were any persons in the room to his left.

There was, however, nothing to tell him that such was the case, though, from the other side of his room he could hear, in the apartments of the Duchess, her lute being softly played and the light tones of her voice as she hummed the words of an Italian canzone to its accompaniment. Once, too, he heard her call to Jacquette and say something about her cavalier costume in which he knew that, on the next day, she purposed setting forth on her long dreary ride across the Alps--no carriages being possible for that journey. He also heard her tell Jacquette to bid Suzanne bring a flask of Muscat.

Then, suddenly, he knew that a door on his left had opened and shut gently; he heard a voice speaking which he had never, so far as he knew, heard before.

"If," that voice said, it being a low rasping one, "they set forth to-morrow, the captain should be here almost at once. They sup at eight and should be abed soon after. There is much to talk over since we all separate to-morrow. La Truaumont's band sets out to escort madame to Milan, he to go hot foot to Paris afterwards, and then to Normandy--I to Paris direct and----"

"I to Paris and Paradise since De Beaurepaire is there."

That enraptured voice told him at once who this speaker was, it being the same he had overheard the night before. It was, he knew, the voice of the woman who occupied those rooms, the woman to whom La Truaumont had said half-sinisterly, half-warningly, "You may yet pay a dear price for your happiness."

Almost ere the man could make any reply to that remark, another, a deeper, more profound voice seemed to obliterate all other sounds except those of a second gentle opening and shutting of the door; a voice, the full though mellow tones of which the owner was undoubtedly endeavouring to soften. The voice of La Truaumont.

"So," Humphrey heard the captain say, "we meet to decide all. Now, Van den Enden, unfold. Speak, and to the purpose. What is done? What will Spain and Holland do?"

"To commence with," Humphrey heard the unknown voice of the Jew say, "I have the money--all of it--in safe keeping."

"In safe keeping," murmured La Truaumont. "In safe keeping. Where?"

"Some in the hands of the party. Some in mine."

"I'll be sworn, and deeply too."

"Some for those bold hearts who help us with their hands and heads."

"Good! Good!" the voice, which sounded like the soft rumbling of a cathedral organ afar off, murmured.

"Some," Van den Enden went on, as though pleased with his own words, "put aside for fair ones who, also, have helped and can help well. For beauty's coaxings and calineries; for love professed; for love false as beauty's oath or vow----"

"And as true, too!" Humphrey heard the woman exclaim.

"All can play their part and play it well, and earn their guerdon," Van den Enden continued.

"And the rest? Where is it? Hein?" La Truaumont asked in tones that, though low, did not disguise the cynicism beneath them.

"The rest! Why in the hands of Le Dédaigneux."

"So!" exclaimed La Truaumont. "So! Good. That binds him. He is committed to us."

"He needs no binding, no earnest. He is heart and soul with us. And you know it," the listener heard the woman say sharply.

"And the sum total?" La Truaumont asked, ignoring her.

"A million of livres."

"Half of what we asked! Half of what is necessary."

"Added to six thousand Spaniards on board the Dutch Fleet; arms for twenty thousand men; weapons and instruments of siege against the fortresses of Quillebeuf and Honfleur."

"Enough to begin with at least if not enough to complete the glorious task. Now unfold all that is decided on."