ONE morning, four days later, the Comte de Sartines, working in his official room in the HÔtel de Sartines, was informed that a person wished to see him on urgent business.

“What is the name?” asked he.

“Brujon, monsieur. It is the steward of M. le Comte Camus.”

“Show him in,” replied the Minister.

He continued writing; then, when the visitor was announced, he turned in his chair, pen in hand.

“Well, monsieur,” said the Minister of Police, “you wish to see me? What is your business?”

“Monsieur,” said Brujon, “I am in great perplexity and distress. For three nights I have not slept, and the thing has worked so on my mind that I said to myself, I will go to Monsieur de Sartines, who is all-powerful, and place this case before him.”

“Yes?”

“Monsieur, four days ago, our pantry-man, Jumeau, who has charge of the silver belonging to my master, asked leave of absence on account of the illness of his mother; he introduced to me a young man, his cousin, named Jouve, in order that Jouve might take his place during the time of his absence. Jouve had an excellent reference, and I engaged him. Well, that night Jouve disappeared. At least, in the morning he was nowhere to be found. Yet he could not have left the house.”

“And why could not he have left the house?”

“Because, monsieur, all the doors are locked, and, what is more, barred on the inside, yet no bar had been removed. My master, when he comes in late, is always admitted by the concierge, who re-bars the door, all the other doors are equally barred, and that night I examined the fastenings myself. If Jouve had left the house by any door, how could he have replaced the bars?”

“He may have had an accomplice in the house,” replied de Sartines, deeply interested and wondering what new move of Lavenne’s this might be, for Beauregard had told him of Lavenne’s suspicions as to Camus, and the whole business, in fact.

“Yes, monsieur,” replied Brujon. “But no silver was taken, no valuables of any sort, why should he have entered the house just to leave it in that manner? Monsieur, I have a feeling that he is still in the house, though, God knows, I have searched diligently enough to find him.”

“Well,” said de Sartines, “what can I do?”

“I do not know, monsieur, but I thought it my duty to consult you.”

“Have you told your master of this affair?”

Brujon hesitated.

“No, monsieur, I have not—he is of such a violent temper——.”

“Precisely. But the fact remains that you have hidden the thing from him, and that fact would not calm the violence of his temper should you disclose the affair now. He might even do you an injury, so, for the sake of peace and your own skin, I would advise you to say nothing, but keep a vigilant watch. Should Jouve turn up, hidden anywhere, lock him up in a room, and send here at once and I will send a man to arrest him.”

“Thank you, monsieur,” replied Brujon, who seemed relieved by Sartines’ manner and advice. “I will do what you say. Good day, your Excellency.”

When he was gone Sartines rang a bell and ordered Beauregard to be sent to him.

“Ma foi!” said Beauregard, “there is more in this than I can fathom. What can he be doing all these four days?”

“Who knows?” replied the Minister. “But I am quite confident he has not been idle. He will turn up, and I dare swear he will bring with him the rope to hang Monsieur Camus. It has been spinning for a long time and is overdue. Now here is a commission for you. Since I can’t put hands on Lavenne for the business, go yourself to Vincennes and see how Rochefort is doing. They have had orders to make him comfortable, see that these orders have been carried out. We must keep him in a good temper.”

“Yes, monsieur.”

“Have a chat with him; and you might say that the Dubarrys are working in his interests to smooth matters with Choiseul—which, in fact, they are not.”

“Yes, monsieur.”

“See that he is allowed plenty of exercise—tennis and so forth, but always strictly guarded, for I know this devil of a Rochefort, one can’t count on his whims, and should prison gall him he may, even against his own interests, try to break out and fly into the claws of Choiseul.”

“Yes, monsieur.”

Beauregard went off on his mission, and as he left the room, the Vicomte Jean Dubarry was announced.

“My dear Sartines,” cried Jean as they shook hands, “I just called to see if you were going to Choiseul’s reception to-night.”

“I have been invited,” replied Sartines.

“And you will go?”

“Yes, I think I will go—why are you so pressing?”

“Well, as a matter of fact,” said Jean, “Choiseul asked me to make sure of your coming. He wishes peace all round now that the Dauphiness is to arrive so shortly.”

“You are great friends with Choiseul now, you and Madame la Comtesse?”

“We are at peace, for the moment. I do not trust him one hair’s breadth, but we are at peace.”

“Just so,” said Sartines; “and how is Mademoiselle Fontrailles?”

“As beautiful as ever.”

“And as cold?”

“Oh, ma foi!” said Jean, laughing, “I think the ice is broken in that direction—Camus——”

“You mean to say she cares for Camus?”

Jean laughed. “I say nothing. I only know what the Countess told me this morning. Mind this is between ourselves—well, she is Camus’, heart and soul.”

“Peste! What does she see in that fellow?—Are you sure of what you say?”

“I am sure of nothing, but the Countess is. Camille has made her her confidante. I do not know what women see in Camus, but they seem to see something that attracts them.”

“But he is married—Oh, mon Dieu!” cried Sartines, suddenly interrupting himself and breaking into a laugh. “What am I saying—it is well known that Madame Camus is delicate—and should she die——”

“Then our gentleman would be free to marry Camille,” said Jean.

“No, monsieur,” replied Sartines, “I doubt if it would all be as simple as that. However, we will not consider the question of Camus’ marriage with this girl in any event. She is a fool.”

“Why?”

“Why? Because if the Devil had allowed her to care for Rochefort, and she had thrown in her part with him, it would have assisted to smooth matters with Choiseul. The Countess would have worked more earnestly for a dÉmarche, and the Fontrailles would have kept Rochefort contented in Vincennes with a few notes sent to him there— Well, one cannot make up a woman’s mind for her and there is no use in trying. She is going to-night, I suppose, to this affair at Choiseul’s?”

“Oh, you may be sure. Camus will be there.”

The Vicomte went off and Sartines returned to his writing.

But this was to be an eventful morning with him. Five minutes had scarcely passed when the door burst open without knock or warning, and Beauregard, who by this ought to have been on the road to Vincennes, entered, flushed and breathing hard.

“Monsieur,” cried Beauregard, “Rochefort has escaped.”

“Escaped! Mordieu! When did he escape?”

“In the early hours of this morning or during the night. Here is Capitaine Pierre Cousin himself who has brought the story.”

“Show him in,” said Sartines.

CHAPTER II
THE TWO PRISONERS

SARTINES’ uneasiness about Rochefort had arisen from an intuitive knowledge of that gentleman’s character, and strange misdoubts as to how that character might develop under the double influence of Love and Prison.

As a matter of fact, no sooner had the excitement of his arrival at Vincennes passed off, no sooner had he dined that evening, cracked a bottle of Beaune, joked Bonvallot, and rubbed his hands at the discomfiture of Choiseul, than reaction took place accompanied by indigestion. He flung himself on the bed.

Monsieur de Rochefort was not made for a quiet life. If he could not be hunting or hawking he must be moving—moving on the pavements of Paris, talking, laughing, joking or quarrelling.

Here there was no one to laugh with, joke with, or quarrel with—nothing to walk on, except the floor of his cell. And it was now that he first became aware of a fact which he never knew before: that it was his habit to change about from room to room. He was one of those unfortunates who cannot endure to be long in one place. He never knew this till now.

It was now that he became aware for the first time of another fact unknown to him until this: that he was a great talker. And of another fact, more general in its application, that to enjoy talking one must be en rapport with the person to whom one is talking.

This latter fact was borne in upon him by the voice of Ferminard.

Ferminard, who had also finished his dinner, seemed now in a sprightly mood, to judge by the voice that came to Rochefort, a voice which came literally from under his bed.

“Monsieur de Rochefort,” said the voice, “are you there, Monsieur de Rochefort?”

“Oh, mon Dieu!” cried Rochefort, who had started on his elbow at this sudden interruption of his thoughts. “Am I here? Where else would I be? Yes, I am here—what do you wish?”

“Ma foi! nothing but a little quiet conversation.” Rochefort laughed.

“A little quiet conversation—why, your voice comes to me like the voice of a dog grumbling under my bed. How can one converse under such circumstances? But go on, talk as much as you please, I have nothing to do but listen.”

“Well, Monsieur de Rochefort, you are not encouraging, but I will do my best; it is better to talk to a bad listener than to talk to no one, and it is better to talk to no one than not to talk at all. Let us talk, then, of Monsieur Rousseau’s absurd comedy with music attached to it, which at the instigation of M. de Coigny he produced at Versailles.”

“Good heavens, no! What do you take me for—a music-master? If you cannot talk on reasonable subjects, then be dumb. Let me talk of getting out of this infernal castle of Vincennes, which, it seems to me, I was a fool to have entered. Have you that big sou upon you, M. Ferminard?”

“Yes, M. de Rochefort, it is in my pocket.”

“Well, then, if you wish to be agreeable to me, pass it through the hole to me. I wish to examine it. It, at all events, will speak to me of liberty.”

“Monsieur,” said Ferminard, “if my pockets were full of louis, I would pass them to you for the asking. But the big sou—no.”

“And why not, may I ask?”

“Because, monsieur, it would, as you say, talk to you of liberty, and it might even tempt you to try and make your escape.”

“And why should I not make my escape?”

“For two reasons, monsieur. First, you have forgotten that you are hiding from M. de Choiseul.”

“Curse Choiseul!”

“I agree, yet still you are hiding from him. Secondly——”

“Well?”

“Secondly, monsieur, if you escaped, I would be left with no one to talk to.”

“Have you not Bonvallot?”

“Oh hÉ! Bonvallot. A man without parts, without understanding, without knowledge of the world! A nice man to leave me in company with!”

“But I do not intend leaving you in his company. I ask you only for the big sou that I may look at it and see what another man has done so that he might obtain his liberty. If you refuse to gratify my curiosity, M. Ferminard, I shall stuff up that hole with my blanket, and there will be an end of our pleasant conversations.”

“Well, M. de Rochefort, here it is, pull your bed out and I will put it in your hand.”

Rochefort arose and pulled his bed out and the hand of Ferminard came through the hole. Rochefort took the coin and approached the lamp with it.

It was indeed a marvel: in a moment he managed to unscrew the two surfaces and from the tiny box which they formed when in apposition leaped a little silvery saw, small as a watch-spring.

Rochefort, leaving the little saw on the table, refastened the box.

“Mordieu!” said he, “it is clever. What will you sell it to me for, Monsieur Ferminard?”

“You shall have it as a gift, M. Rochefort, when we are both breathing the free air of heaven, but only then.”

“You think I will use it to make my escape?”

“No, monsieur, I think you might use it to break your neck, or to be re-captured by this horrible Choiseul whose very name gives me the nightmare.”

“Well, you are wrong,” replied the other. “Were I outside this place I would not be re-captured, simply because I would do what I ought to have done this morning.”

“And what is that?”

“Go straight to his Majesty and tell him the whole of my story and ask him to be my judge—or better still, go straight to de Choiseul and talk to him as a man to a man.”

“To M. de Choiseul?”

“Why, yes. I should never have run away from him. Nor would I, only that on the night of the Presentation I was in a hurry to go to Paris; he tried to stop me and I resisted arrest. And now it seems to me that I am in a hurry to go to Paris again and that de Sartines is trying to stop me, and that I am prepared to resist his hand.”

He had almost forgotten Lavenne and his words, he had almost forgotten the presence of Ferminard on the other side of the wall, and he talked half to himself as he paced the floor uneasily, the big sou in his hand and his mind revolving this new idea that had only just occurred to him.

He should not have resisted arrest, even at the hands of Camus. Choiseul wanted him primarily for the killing of the agent. Had he gone straight to Choiseul and given him the whole truth, including Camus’ conduct in the case of Javotte, whom he could have called as a witness, Choiseul would he now imagined have released him after inquiry. But he had resisted arrest, not because he felt guilty, but because he wanted to go to Paris to meet Camille Fontrailles. Choiseul did not know that.

It seemed to Rochefort, as his thoughts wandered back, that Camille Fontrailles had been his evil star. She it was who had made him join with the Dubarrys, she it was who had made him run away from Choiseul, she it was who, refusing to see him, had put him in such a temper with the world that his mind, unable to think for itself, had allowed other men to think for it.

It seemed to him now that Lavenne’s advice, though it was the best that Lavenne could give, was not the best that Policy could devise. He—Rochefort—was saved from Choiseul for the moment; tucked away in Vincennes he might be saved from Choiseul as long as Choiseul remained in power—but how long would that be?

Choiseul might remain in power for years, and at this thought the sweat moistened M. de Rochefort’s hands, wetting the big sou which he still held, and which, like some magician, whilst talking of Liberty to him, had shown him, as in a vision, his foolishness and his false position.

Sartines had put him under “protection” at Vincennes, not for his—Rochefort’s—sake, but for his—Sartines’—convenience.

So many charming people in this world are wise after the event; it is chiefly the hard-headed and unpleasant and prosperous people whose wisdom, practical as themselves, saves them and makes them prosper. If Rochefort could only have gone back in his life; if he could only have carried his present wisdom back to the night of the Presentation, how differently things might have shaped themselves as regards his interests—or would he, in the face of everything, have pursued the path pointed out to him, as the old romance-writers would have said, “by Love and Folly”?

I believe he would, for M. de Rochefort had amongst his other qualities, good and bad, the persistence of a snail. Not only had Love urged him that night to strike Camus and escape on the horse of Choiseul’s messenger, but Persistence had lent its powerful backing to Love. This gentleman hated to break his word with himself, and, as a matter of fact, he never did. If he had promised himself to repent of his sins and lead a virtuous life, I believe he would have done so.

He was longing to promise himself now to escape from this infernal prison into which Folly had led him.

“Well, M. de Rochefort,” came the voice of Ferminard, “it is not for me to say whether you are right or wrong, but seeing that you are here, and safe under the protection of M. de Sartines, there is nothing to be done but have patience.”

“Mordieu, patience! To be told that always makes me angry. Monsieur Ferminard, if you use that word again to me I will stuff up that hole with my blanket.”

“Pardon,” said Ferminard. “The word escaped from me, and now, monsieur, if you have done with that big sou.”

“Here is your sou,” replied the other, replacing the coin in the hand of Ferminard that was thrust through the opening, “and now, M. Ferminard, I am going to sit down on my bed and try if sleep will not help me to forget M. de Sartines, M. de Choiseul, myself, and this infernal castle where stupidity has brought me. Bon soir.”

“Bon soir, monsieur,” replied Ferminard.

Rochefort blew out his candle, and having replaced the bed, flung himself upon it, but not to sleep. Camille Fontrailles it was who now haunted him. The rapid events of the day had pushed her image to one side, and now in the darkness it reappeared to torment him. His passion for her, born of a moment, was by no means dead, but it had received a serious blow. At the crucial moment of his life she had refused to see him; after all that he had done for her friends, after all he had sacrificed for her, she had refused to see him, and not only that, she had sent a cold message, and also, she had sent it by the mouth of that fat-lipped libertine, Jean Dubarry.

Jean Dubarry could talk to her through her bedroom door, whilst he, Rochefort, had to remain downstairs, like a servant waiting for a message.

Yes, he would escape, if for no other object than to pull Jean Dubarry’s nose. An intense hatred of the whole Dubarry faction surged up in his mind again. Jean, Chon, and the Countess, he did not know which was the more detestable. He rose from his bed. The moon, which was now near the full, was casting her light through the window, a ray fell on the little steel saw that was lying on the table. He picked it up and examined it again.

The window had only one bar, but the bar was fairly thick and it seemed impossible that he could ever cut through it with the instrument in his hand. Yet M. de Thumery had prepared to do so and would he be daunted by a business that an invalid had contemplated and would undoubtedly have carried out had not Death intervened?

He opened the sash of the window carefully and examined the bar. Then he brought his chair to the window, and, standing on the chair and holding either end of the saw between finger and thumb, drew its teeth against the iron of the bar.

It was one of those saws nicknamed “Dust of Iron,” so wonderfully tempered and so keen that, properly used, no iron bar could stand before them. After five minutes’ work Rochefort found that he could use the thing properly and with effect, and it seemed to him that with patience and diligence, working almost night and day, he could cut through the bar top and bottom—in about ten years’ time.

In fact, though five minutes’ work had produced a tiny furrow in the bar sufficient to be felt with his thumb-nail, the whole thing seemed hopeless. But only for a minute. He began to calculate. If five minutes’ labour made a perceptible furrow in the iron of the bar, fifty minutes would give him ten times that result, and a hundred minutes twenty times. Two hours’ labour, then, ought to start him well on his way through the business.

But even with this calculation fresh in his mind, his heart quailed before the thought of what he would have to do and to suffer before the last cut of the saw and the crowning of his efforts.

It was a life’s work compressed into days. The labours of a Titan condensed and diminished, but not in the least lightened, and his heart quailed at the thought, not because he was a coward, but because he knew that if he once took the job in hand he would go through with it to the end.

He came from the window and putting the saw on the table, lay down on the bed. He lay for a few minutes without moving, like a man exhausted. Then all of a sudden, and as though some vital spring had been wound up and set going, he rose from the bed, snatched the saw from the table and approached the bar.

From the next cell he could hear a faint rhythmical sound. It was the sound of Ferminard snoring. Asleep and quite unconscious of the fact that his precious box which he had placed in his pocket after receiving it back, had been rifled of its contents.

CHAPTER III
THE TWO PRISONERS (continued)

NEXT morning, Rochefort awoke after five hours’ sleep to find the daylight streaming into his cell and Bonvallot opening his door to bring him the early morning coffee that was served out to prisoners of the first class.

He had worked for three hours with the saw, and in his dreams he had been still at work, cutting his way through iron bars in a quite satisfactory manner, only to find that they joined together again when cut.

“Here is your coffee,” said Bonvallot, “and a roll—dÉjeuner is served at noon—and the bed—have you found it comfortable?”

“Mordieu! Comfortable!” grumbled the prisoner, “it seems to me I have been sleeping on brickbats. Put the coffee on the table, Sergeant Bonvallot—that is right, and now tell me, has your Governor, M. le Capitaine Pierre Cousin, returned yet?”

“He has, monsieur.”

“And when may I expect to see him?”

“Ah, when—that I cannot tell you. Maybe to-morrow, maybe the next day, maybe the day after, there are no fixed rules for the visits of the governor through the castle of Vincennes.”

“Maybe to-morrow, maybe the next day—but I wish to see him to-day.”

“Monsieur, that is what the prisoners are always saying. If the governor were to obey the requests of everyone he would be run off his legs.”

“I do not wish to run him off his legs. I simply wish to see him.”

“And what does monsieur wish to see him about?”

“Ma foi! what about, that is a secret. I wish to have a private talk with him.”

“A private talk, why that is in any event impossible.”

“Impossible, how do you mean?”

“When the governor visits the prisoners, monsieur, he is always accompanied by a soldier who remains in the room. That is one of the rules of Vincennes.”

“Confound your rules—There, you can leave me, I am going to get up—and do not forget the writing materials when you come next. I will write the governor a letter—or will some soldier have to read it over his shoulder?”

Bonvallot went out grinning. Rochefort had paid him well for the clean linen and other attentions and he hoped for better payment still.

Then Rochefort got up, still grumbling. The labours of the night before at the bar, and his dreams in which those labours were continued, had not improved his temper. He drank his coffee and ate his roll and then turned to the window to see by daylight what progress he had made with the saw. He was more than satisfied; quite elated also to find that the top part of the bar, just where it entered the stone, had become spindled by rust. Were he to succeed in cutting through the lower part a vigorous wrench would, he felt assured, bring the whole thing away.

He took the little saw from the place where he had hidden it the night before, and, inspired with new energy, set to work.

He felt no fear of being caught; the size of the saw made it easily hidden, the cut in the bar would only be seen were a person to make a close inspection. The noise of the saw was negligible.

Whilst he was so engaged, Ferminard’s voice broke in upon his labours.

“Good-morning, M. de Rochefort.”

“Good-morning, M. Ferminard—what is it you want?”

“Only a little conversation, monsieur.”

“Well, that is impossible as I am busy.”

“Oh hÉ, busy! and what are you busy about?”

“I? I am writing letters.”

“Pardon,” said Ferminard. “I will call on you again.”

As he laboured, pausing every five minutes for five minutes’ rest, a necessity due to the cramped position in which he had to work, he heard vague sounds from Ferminard’s cell, where that individual was also, it would seem, at work.

One might have fancied that two or three people were in there laughing and disputing and now quarrelling.

It was Ferminard at work on one of his infernal productions, tragedy or comedy, it would be impossible to say, but making more noise in the close confines of a prison cell than it was ever likely to make in the world.

After dÉjeuner, when Rochefort, tired out, was lying on his bed, the voice of Ferminard again made itself heard.

“M. de Rochefort—are you inclined for a little talk?”

“No,” replied M. de Rochefort. “But you may talk as much as you like and I will promise not to interrupt—for I am going to sleep.”

“Well, before you go to sleep let me tell you of my new design.”

“Speak.”

“I have torn up the play I was writing.”

“Why, M. Ferminard, have you done that?”

“In order to write a better one.”

“Ah, that is decidedly a good idea.”

“A drama full of action.”

“Hum-hum.”

“M. de Rochefort, you are not listening to me.”

“Eh—what! Where am I—ah, yes, go on, go on—you were saying that you had torn up a play.”

“In order to write a better one, and I am introducing you as one of my characters.”

“You are putting me in your play?”

“Yes, monsieur, I am putting you in my play.”

“Well, M. Ferminard, I forbid it, that’s all. I will not be put in a play.”

“But I am putting myself in also, monsieur.”

“Bon Dieu! what impudence!”

“It is not impudence, but gratitude, monsieur. I will not hide it from you that, despite what brains I have, I am of small extraction; one of the rafataille, as they say in the south. But you have always talked to me as your equal; and if I have put myself in the same piece as you it is only as your servant, imprisoned in the next cell to you in the dungeons of the castle of Pompadiglione.”

“And where the devil is Pompadiglione?”

“It is the name of the castle in my play. Well, monsieur, the first scene is just as it is here, now. The count and his servant, imprisoned just as we are in adjoining cells, with a hole in the partition wall through which they can speak to one another, and the servant has discovered a knotted rope, a big sou and a staple just as I have discovered them. Well, monsieur, the count is to be beheaded, and his execution is fixed for the next day, but the faithful servant hands him through the hole in the wall the means for escape, the rope, the big sou containing a saw, and the staple. The count escapes that night.”

“One moment, M. Ferminard, you say he escaped that night?”

“Yes, monsieur.”

“How did he escape?”

“He escaped by cutting away the bar of his cell with the little saw contained in the sou.”

“Oh. And do you fancy he could do that in one night?”

“Not in reality, monsieur, but on the stage he could.”

“Ah, well, I know nothing of these things—well, he escapes, this count—what then?”

“Next morning his escape is discovered and the faithful servant—that is me—refuses to give any explanation, though the hole in the wall has been discovered—he is dumb.”

“Dumb—good heavens, M. Ferminard—that part would never suit you.”

“Pardon me, monsieur, but I believe it would—well, as I was saying, the count, who had indeed escaped by means of the rope from his cell, had not managed to escape from the precincts of the castle. The rope was not long enough and he had to take refuge on a ledge where he is shown in the next scene crouching and watching the faithful servant being led forth to execution in his place.”

“Well?”

“That is as far as I have got, monsieur.”

“Oh, you have not fixed on the end of your play yet?”

“No, monsieur.”

“But surely, M. Ferminard, the end is the most important thing in a play?”

Ferminard coughed, irritated, as all geniuses are by criticism.

“Why,” said he, “I thought monsieur said he could not tell a play from a washing-bill.”

“Perhaps, yet even in a washing-bill, M. Ferminard, the end is the most important part, since it sums up the whole matter in francs and sous. But do not let me discourage you, for should you fail to find a good ending I will be able to supply you with one. An idea has occurred to me.”

“And what is that idea, monsieur?”

“I have, yet, to think it out. However, go on with your business in your own way and we will talk of the matter when you have finished. I wish now to sleep.”

He felt irritated with Ferminard. Ferminard was the man who possessed the rope which was the only means of escape, and Ferminard, he felt, would refuse the rope to him, just as he had refused the big sou. By using arguments, threats, or entreaties he might be able to make Ferminard give him the rope, but he was not the man to threaten, entreat, or argue with an inferior. Besides, he was too lazy. The cutting of the window-bar was absorbing all his energies.

Besides, why waste time and tongue-power to obtain a thing that could be obtained when desired by a little finesse. When the time came he would obtain the rope from Ferminard just as he had obtained the saw which Ferminard fancied still to be contained in the sou. Rochefort, whilst feeling friendly towards the dramatist, had very little respect for him; he might be a good actor, but it was evident that he was very much of a child. Besides, he was—as he himself confessed—one of the rafataille, a man of the people, and though M. de Rochefort was not in the least a snob, he looked upon the people from the viewpoint of his class. He was not in the least ashamed of the deception he had practiced on Ferminard. The little saw did not belong to Ferminard, he had found it by chance, and it was the property of the dead M. Thumery, or his heirs.

CHAPTER IV
THE TWO PRISONERS (continued)

THE next day passed without a visit from the governor, and the next. Rochefort ceased to ask about him; he resented this neglect, now, as a personal insult. He forgot that he was incarcerated under the name of La Porte, and that any neglect of M. La Porte, though unpleasant to M. de Rochefort, need not be taken as a personal affront.

He would have resented the thing more had it not been that he was very busy.

On the afternoon of the fourth day his work was complete. The bar was not quite divided, but sufficiently so to yield to a strong wrench. With his table-knife, which he had been allowed to keep, he had scraped away the rust where the upper part of the bar was mortised into the stone and had verified the weakness of this part of the attachment.

He had fixed upon midnight as the hour for his evasion, and nothing remained now but to obtain the rope from the unsuspecting Ferminard.

The latter had also not been idle during the last four days. Happy as a child with a toy, the ingenious Ferminard had not noticed the faint sound of the saw in the next cell. If it reached him at all at times, he no doubt put it down to the noise of a rat.

Never before in his life had he possessed so much paper, ink, and time to write in. Up to this his leisure had been mostly consumed by taverns, good companions, women, and the necessity of getting drunk which his unfortunate temperament imposed on him. Also, in hunting for loans. Now he found himself housed, fed, and cared for, protected from drink and supplied with all the materials his imagination required for the moment. So, for the moment, he was happy and busy, and his happiness would have been more complete had Rochefort been a better listener.

Towards dusk, Rochefort considered that the time had come to negotiate the business of the rope with M. Ferminard. Accordingly, he drew the bed away from the wall, and, kneeling down, approached his head to the opening.

“Monsieur Ferminard.”

“Ho! M. de Rochefort, is that you?”

“Yes, it is I—let us talk for awhile.”

“With pleasure, monsieur.”

He heard Ferminard’s bed being moved away from the wall. Then came the dramatist’s voice.

“I am here, monsieur. I was asleep when you called me and I was dreaming that I was at the Maison Gambrinus drinking some Flemish beer that Turgis had just imported, and that there was a hole in the bottom of my mug, so that as fast as I drank so fast did the beer run out. I got nothing but froth, and even that froth had a taste of soap-suds. Now tell me one thing, M. de Rochefort.”

“Yes?”

“Why is it that when one dreams, one’s dreams are always so unsatisfactory? Whenever I meet a pretty girl in dreamland, she always turns into an old woman when I kiss her, and whenever I find myself in good company, I am either dressed in rags, or, what is worse, not dressed at all. If I go to collect money I always enter by mistake the house of some man to whom I owe a debt, and if I find myself on the stage I am always acting some part, the lines of which I have forgotten.”

“The whole world is unsatisfactory, M. Ferminard, and as dreamland is part of the world, why, I suppose it is unsatisfactory too. Now as to that play of yours whose ending you insisted on describing to me this morning, that is like dreamland and the world—unsatisfactory. The ending does not satisfy me in the least.”

“In what way?”

“I have thought of a better.”

“Oh, you have. Well, please explain to me what you mean.”

“I will, certainly. But first let me see that rope which you told me you had discovered, and the discovery of which gave you the idea for this play of yours.”

“The rope, but what can you want with the rope?”

“I will show you when it is in my hands, or at least I will explain my meaning; come, M. Ferminard, the rope, for without it I cannot show you what I want.”

“Wait, monsieur, and I will get it.”

In a moment one end of the precious rope was in Rochefort’s hands. He pulled it through into his cell, noted the length, the thickness and the knots upon it, and was satisfied.

“Well, monsieur?” said the impatient Ferminard.

“Well, M. Ferminard, now I have the rope in my hands I will tell you exactly how your play is going to end, in reality. The count—that is myself, for since you have put me into your play I feel myself justified in acting in it—the count is going to pull his bed to the window of his cell, tie this precious rope to the bedpost, and, crawling out of the window and dangling like a spider, he is going to descend to the ground. He will not remain stuck on a ledge, as in your version of the play, he will reach the ground—then he will pick up his heels and run to Paris, and there he will pull M. de Choiseul’s nose—or make friends with him.”

“But you cannot,” replied Ferminard, not knowing exactly how to take the other.

“And why cannot I?”

“Because, monsieur, the bar of your window would permit you, perhaps, to lower your rope, but it would prevent you from following it.”

“No, M. Ferminard, it would not.”

“Ah, well, then, it must be a most accommodating bar and have altered considerably in strength since you spoke to me of it first.”

“It has.”

“In what way?”

“Why, it has been filed almost in two.”

“Ah,” cried Ferminard, “what is that you say? Filed in two—and since when?”

“Since we had our first talk together.”

“You have cut it then—with what?”

“Heavens! can’t you guess?”

“Your table-knife.”

“Oaf!”

“You had, then, a knife, or file, or saw or something with you.”

“M. Ferminard, prison does not seem to improve your intelligence. I cut it with the little saw contained in the big sou.”

“But that is impossible, for you had not the sou two minutes in your possession.”

Rochefort laughed. “Open your sou, then, and see what is in it.”

Leaning on his elbow, he laughed to himself as he heard Ferminard moving so as to get the sou from his pocket to open it.

Then he heard the voice of Ferminard who was speaking to himself. “It is gone—he must have taken it—never!—yet it is gone.”

The astonishment evident in Ferminard’s voice at the trick that had been played on him acted upon Rochefort just as the sudden stripping of the bedclothes from a person asleep acts on the sleeper.

It was not stupidity on the part of Ferminard that had prevented him from guessing with what instrument the bar had been cut, it was his complete belief in Rochefort’s honour. His mind, of its own accord, could not imagine the Comte de Rochefort playing him a trick like that, and his voice now betrayed what was passing in his mind.

Had Ferminard been a suspicious man, and had he discovered the abstraction of the saw on his own account, anything he might have said would not have shown Rochefort what he saw now.

He felt as though, by some horrible accident, he had shot and injured his own good faith, fair name and honour.

“Mon Dieu!” said he. “What have I done!”

CHAPTER V
M. DE ROCHEFORT REVIEWS HIMSELF

FOR a moment he said nothing more. And then: “M. Ferminard?”

“Yes, M. de Rochefort?”

“I have been a very great fool, it seems to me, for I did not in the least consider the fact, when I played that deception upon you, that it was an unworthy one. You believed in me. You had formed an opinion of me. You paid me the compliment of never imagining that I would deceive you. Well, honestly and as between man and man, I looked on the matter more in the light of a joke. I said to myself, ‘How he will stare when he finds I have outwitted him.’ It was the trick of a child, for it seems to me one grows childish in prison. Give me that big sou, M. Ferminard.”

Ferminard passed the coin through the hole and Rochefort, rising, opened it, put the little saw in, closed it, and returned it to the other.

“And here is the rope,” said he. “I have no more use for it.”

“But, monsieur,” said Ferminard. He paused, and for a moment said nothing more. Ferminard was, in fact, covered with confusion. Rochefort’s unworthy trick had struck him on the cheek, so to say, and left it burning. He felt ashamed. Ashamed of Rochefort for playing the trick and ashamed of himself for having found it out, and ashamed of Rochefort knowing that he—Ferminard—thought less of him. Then, breaking silence:

“It is nothing, M. de Rochefort. If you are tired of prison why should you remain? It is true that there may be danger for you from M. de Choiseul, but one does nothing without danger threatening one in this world, it seems to me. Why, even walking across the street one may be run over by a carriage, as a friend of mine was some time ago.”

“My good Ferminard,” said Rochefort, dropping for the first time the prefix “monsieur,” “you are talking for the sake of talking, and for the kind reason that you wish to hide from yourself and me what you are thinking. And you are thinking that the Comte de Rochefort is a man whom you trusted, but whom you do not trust any longer.”

“Monsieur—monsieur!”

“Let me finish. If that is not what you are thinking you must be a fool, and as you are not a fool that is what is in your mind. Well, you are right and wrong. I do not know my own character entirely, but I do know that when I stop to think I am sometimes at a loss to imagine why I have committed certain actions; some of these actions that startle me are good, and some are bad; but they are not committed by the Comte de Rochefort so much as by something that urges the Comte de Rochefort to commit them. I fancy that some men always think before they act, and other men frequently act before they think, but I do know this, that once I am propelled on a course of action I don’t stop to think at all till the business is over one way or another.

“Now, when I took that saw of yours, I said to myself, ‘Here is a joke I will play on M. Ferminard. What a temper he will be in when he finds that I have outwitted him. He wishes to prevent my escape so that he may not be left in loneliness? We will see.’ Well, M. Ferminard, embarked on that course of action, I never stopped to think that all the time I was cutting that bar I was violating your trust in me. When I found that you did not open the sou to examine whether its contents were safe, I should have paused to take counsel with myself and inquire if liberty were worth the deception of a good and honest mind which placed its faith in me. But I did not pause to take counsel with myself, and for two reasons. First, as I said before, I never stop to think when I am in action; secondly, I am so unused to meeting with good and honest minds that I did not suspect one was in the next cell to me. It is true, M. Ferminard. The men with whom I have always lived have been men very much like myself. Men who do not think much, and who, when they do think, are full of suspicion as a rule. We are robbed by our servants, our wives, and our mistresses. We cheat each other, not at cards, but with phrases and at the game of Love, and so forth. You said you were of small extraction and one of the rafataille—well, it is among the rafataille, among the People, during the last few days that I have met three individuals who have struck me as being the only worthy individuals it has been my lot to meet. They are yourself, Monsieur Lavenne, and little Javotte, a girl whom you do not know.”

“Believe me, monsieur,” said Ferminard, “I have no unworthy thought concerning you. At first, yes, but now after what you have said, no. I am like that myself, and had I been in your place, I would, I am very sure, have done as you did.”

“Perhaps,” replied Rochefort. “But I cannot use the rope, so here it is and I will leave my release from prison to God and M. de Sartines.”

He began to push the rope through the hole. It would not go. Ferminard was pushing it back.

“No, M. de Rochefort—one moment till I speak—I have been blinded to my best interests by my desire to keep you as a companion. You must escape, you must do as Fate dictated to you, and to me, when she gave us the fruits of the labours of M. de Thumery. Honestly, now that I think of the matter, I do not trust M. de Sartines a whit. He put us here to keep us out of the way. Well, it seems to me that considering what we have done and what we know, it may be in his interest to keep us here always. Take the rope, M. de Rochefort, use it, follow the dictates of Fate, and don’t forget Ferminard. You will be able to free me, perhaps, once you have gained freedom and the pardon of M. de Choiseul.”

Rochefort said nothing for a moment. He was thinking.

“M. de Rochefort,” went on the other, “the more I consider this matter, the more do I see the pointing of Fate. Take the rope and use it.”

“Very well, then,” said Rochefort. “I will use it for your freedom as well as mine. We will both escape.”

“Impossible. How can I come through this hole?”

“I will find a means. It is now ten o’clock, or at least I heard the chime a moment ago when I was talking to you. Be prepared to leave your cell. Can you climb down a rope?”

“Yes, monsieur, I have done so once in my early days.”

“Well, be prepared to do so again.”

“But I do not see your meaning in the least.”

“Never mind, you will soon.”

“You frighten me.”

“By my faith,” said Rochefort, laughing, “I am not easily frightened, but if I were, I believe I should be frightened now. Put back your bed, M. Ferminard, and when Bonvallot visits you on his last round pretend to be asleep.”

CHAPTER VI
THE ESCAPE

“VERY well, M. de Rochefort,” replied Ferminard. “I will do as you tell me, though as I have just said, I do not know your meaning in the least.”

Rochefort heard him putting his bed back in its place. Then he set about his preparations. He placed the rope under the mattress of his own bed, and stripping the coverlet off, took the upper sheet away. Having replaced the coverlet, he began tearing the sheet into long strips. The sheet was about four feet broad and it gave him eight strips, each about six inches broad by five feet in length. Four of these he placed under the coverlet of his bed just as he had placed the rope under the mattress, the other four he put in his pockets.

Then he sat down on his chair, and, placing his elbows on the table and his chin between his hands, began to review his plans, or rather the new modification of them which the inclusion of Ferminard in his flight necessitated.

When Bonvallot appeared at his door on his last round of inspection, Rochefort was seated like this.

“Ah, ha!” said he, turning his head, “you are earlier to-night, it seems to me.”

“No, monsieur,” replied Bonvallot, “I am not before my time, for the clock of the courtyard has struck eleven.”

“Indeed. I did not hear it. Sound does not carry very well among these stone walls, and though the courtyard clock is close to this cell, and though it doesn’t whisper over its work, the sound is scarcely perceptible. A man might shout in my cell, Monsieur Bonvallot, without being heard very far.”

“My faith, you are right,” said Bonvallot. “We had a lunatic of a prisoner in No. 32 down the corridor, and it seemed to me that he spent all his time shouting, but he disturbed no one. Our inn is well constructed, you see, monsieur, so that the guests may have a quiet time.”

Rochefort rose from his chair, walked to the door, shut it, and put his back against it.

“Hi,” said Bonvallot, who had been bending to see if the water-pitcher were empty. “What are you doing, monsieur?”

“Nothing. I wish to have a word with you. I am leaving your inn to-night and wish to settle my bill. Do not shout, you will not be heard, and if you move from the place where you are standing——”

Bonvallot, who had grown pale at the first words, suddenly, with head down and arms outstretched, made a dash at Rochefort. The Count, slipping aside, managed to trip him up, and next moment the gallant Bonvallot was on the floor, half-stunned, bleeding from a wound on his forehead, and with Rochefort kneeling across him, a knee on each arm so as to keep him still.

“Now see what you have done,” said the victor. “You might have killed yourself. The wound is nothing, however, and you can charge for it in the bill.”

Bonvallot heaved a few inches as though trying to rise, then lay still.

“There is no use in resisting,” went on the Count, “you have no chance against me, Monsieur Bonvallot, nor have I any wish to harm you. Besides, you will be well paid by me and that wound on your forehead will prove that you did your duty like a man. Now turn on your face, I wish to tie your hands for appearance’s sake.”

Bonvallot in turning made an attempt to break loose and rise, but the Count’s science was too much for him. Literally sitting on his back, or rather on his shoulder-blades, Rochefort, with a strip of the sheet which he took from his pocket, tied the captive’s wrists together. Then he tied the ankles.

“Monsieur,” said Bonvallot, craning his face round, “I make no further resistance, but for the love of the Virgin, bind my knees together and also gag me so that it may be seen that I did my duty.”

“Rest assured,” said Rochefort.

He bound the unfortunate’s knees and elbows, made a gag out of a handkerchief and put it in his mouth. Then, taking ten louis from his pocket, he showed them to the trussed one, and dropped them one by one into the water-pitcher.

Then he took Bonvallot’s keys, left the cell, opened the door of Ferminard’s prison and found that gentleman seated on his bed, a vague figure in the light of the moon, a few stray beams of which were struggling through the window.

“Mordieu!” said Ferminard, “what has happened?”

Rochefort, instead of replying, seized him by the arm, and half pushing, half pulling him, led him into the corridor.

“Now,” said he, “quick; we have no time to waste, I have tied up Bonvallot; but when he does not return to the guard-room they are sure to search. There he is. He is not hurt. Come, help me to pull the bed to the window.”

Ferminard, after a glance at Bonvallot lying on the floor, obeyed mechanically. They got the bed close up with the head-rail under the window. Rochefort tied the rope to the head-rail, and, standing on the bed and opening the sash, seized the bar. It came away in his hands, and then, flinging it on the bed, he seized the rope which he had coiled and flung it out.

This done, he leaned out of the window-place and looked down.

The moonlight lit the castle wall and the dangling rope and showed the black shadow of the moat, a terrific sight that made Rochefort’s stomach crawl and his throat close. This was no castle wall which he had to descend. It was like looking over the cliff at the world’s end or one of those terrific bastions of cloud which one sees sometimes banking the sky before a storm. The moonlight it was that lent this touch of vastness to the prospect below, a prospect that made the sweat stand out on the palms of Rochefort’s hands and his soul to contract on itself.

It was a prospect to be met by the unthinking end of man if one wished for any chance of success, so with a warning to Ferminard not to look before he came, and having wedged two pillows under the rope where it rested on the sill, Rochefort got one leg over the sill, straddled it, got the other leg out and then turned on his face. He was now lying on his stomach across the pillow that was forming a pad for the rope, and as bad luck would have it, a knot in the rope just at this point did not make the position any more comfortable. Then he slowly worked his body downwards till he was supported only by his elbows; supporting himself entirely with his left elbow, he seized with his right hand the rope where it rested on the cushion, gave up his elbow hold and with his left hand seized the sill.

He was hanging now with one hand grasping the sill, the other, the rope. The sill was no longer a window-sill, it was the tangible world, to release his hold upon it and to trust entirely to the rope required an effort of will far greater than one would think, so great that even the plucky mind of Rochefort refused the idea for a moment, but only for a moment, the next he was swinging loose.

But for the pad made by the pillow, the rope would have rested so close to the bevelled stone that he might not have been able to seize it. As it was, his knuckles were bruised and cut, and, as he swung in descending, now his shoulder, now his knee came in contact with the wall. As the pendulum lengthened, these oscillations became terrific. Then, all at once he recognized that the business was over; he was only fifteen feet or so from the ground.

The rope was some six feet short, and at the last few feet he dropped, landed safely and then looked up at the wall and the window from which he had come.

Looking up it seemed nothing, and as he stood watching, and just as the clock of Vincennes was chiming the quarter after eleven, he saw a leg protrude from the window, then the body of Ferminard appeared, and Rochefort held his breath as he watched the legs clutching themselves round the rope and the body swinging free. He seized the rope-end and held it to steady it. He had no reason at all, now, to fear; Ferminard seemed as cool and methodical as a spider in his movements, came down as calmly as a spider comes down its thread, released his hold at the proper moment and landed safely.

“Mordieu! but you did that easily,” whispered Rochefort, filled with admiration and not knowing that Ferminard’s courage was due mainly to an imagination that was not very keen and a head that vertigo did not easily affect. “Now let us keep to the shadow of the moat for a moment till that cloud comes over the moon. There are sentries on the battlements.”

“Monsieur,” whispered Ferminard, “it just occurred to me as I was coming down the rope that when our flight is discovered, they may hunt along the roads for us, but they will not warn the gates of Paris to be on the look-out for us, simply because, were we caught, some of M. de Choiseul’s agents might be at the catching, there would be talk, and the discovery might be made that we had been imprisoned secretly to keep us out of M. de Choiseul’s way.”

“Ma foi!” said Rochefort, “there is truth in that—however, it remains to be seen. Ah, here comes the shadow.”

A cloud was slowly drawing across the moon’s face, and in the deep shadow that swept across castle and road and country, the two fugitives scrambled from the moat, found the road and started towards Paris.

CHAPTER VII
ROCHEFORT’S PLAN

THAT night, or, rather, early next morning, the Vicomte de Chartres was returning to his house in the Rue Malaquais and had just entered the street when, against the setting moon, he saw a form coming towards him which he thought he recognized.

It was Rochefort.

Chartres was one of the few men in Paris whom Rochefort numbered as his bosom friends. He could not believe his eyes at first, and when Rochefort spoke, Chartres scarcely believed his ears.

Rochefort, of whose flight all Paris was talking, Rochefort, the man who was supposed to be far beyond the frontier, Rochefort in the Rue Malaquais, walking along as calmly and jauntily as though nothing had happened.

“Ah, my dear fellow,” said Rochefort as they shook hands, “what a fortunate meeting! Where have you sprung from?”

Chartres broke into a laugh.

“Where have I sprung from? You to ask that question! On the contrary, my dear fellow, it is for me to ask where you have sprung from?”

“Nowhere,” replied Rochefort, also laughing, “or at least from a place I cannot talk of here in the street. I want shelter for the night and a change of clothes; here is your house and we are both about the same size, and I know you have always half a dozen new suits that you have never worn. So, if you want my story, take me and clothe me, and let me rest for a while before I set out on my mission to hunt for M. de Choiseul.”

“To hunt for M. de Choiseul! Bon Dieu! Are not you aware that he is ransacking Paris and all France for you?”

“Then we are both on the same business, and that being so, I think it is highly probable we shall meet.”

He followed Chartres into the house, where in the library and armoury his host lit lamps and produced wine.

The clock on the mantel pointed to two o’clock.

“And now, my dear fellow,” said Chartres, “tell me all about yourself, where have you been, what have you been doing, and what is this nonsense you are saying about hunting for M. de Choiseul.”

“Well, as to what I have been doing, I can answer you simply that I have been in retirement in the country.”

“Where?”

“In the Castle of Vincennes.”

“The Castle of Vincennes!”

“Precisely. Sartines put me there to hide me from Choiseul. I would not tell you this only that I know you are entirely to be trusted. He did not want Choiseul to lay his hands on me, so he arrested me under another name, but with my consent, and popped me into Vincennes, where I have been for the last few days.”

“Yes?”

“Well, my dear Chartres, no sooner did I find myself in prison there than I found that I did not like it.”

“I can understand that.”

“And though Sartines had put me there for my own good—so he said—and to keep me from being imprisoned by Choiseul, it began to dawn on me that I had been a fool.”

“Ah, that began to dawn on you.”

“I said to myself, ‘Sartines is no doubt the best soul in the world, but the best souls are sometimes selfish.’ I said to myself, ‘Sartines has compromised himself in a way by playing this game with Choiseul, and hiding me from him.’ I said to myself, ‘Sartines, however kind he may be, is not the man to compromise himself by letting me out whilst Choiseul has any power in France.’ In fact, I felt that were I to remain passive, I would be saved from M. de Choiseul, but I would still be a prisoner, and that, perhaps, for years, so I determined to escape, to go straight to Choiseul and to tell him frankly the truth about the business for which he wished to apprehend me.”

“I have heard that you killed a man,” said Chartres.

“I did. And that man was one of Choiseul’s agents, but he was a ruffian who was molesting a girl, and whom I caught in the act. I followed him, he attacked me and I killed him in fair fight.”

“Can the girl give evidence?”

“Yes.”

“Then why on earth, my dear fellow, did you resist arrest that night when M. Camus was deputed to arrest you? I had the whole story from Monpavon.”

“I resisted arrest because I wanted to go to Paris to meet a woman who had given me an appointment.”

The Vicomte de Chartres, who was five years older than Rochefort in time, and fifty in discretion, moved in his chair uneasily.

He was fond of Rochefort, and nothing had surprised him more in the last few days than the Rochefort episode. The fact that Rochefort had killed a man was easily understandable, but that Rochefort had evaded arrest instead of facing the business was an action that he could not understand, simply because it was an action unlike Rochefort.

Here had a man gone against his true nature and placed himself in the last position, that of a murderer flying from justice—for what reason? To keep an appointment with a woman.

Unhappily the reason cleared everything up.

It was exactly—arguing from the reason—the thing that Rochefort might be expected to do.

“But did you not consider that for the sake of keeping this confounded appointment you were risking everything—losing everything. Mon Dieu! it makes me shudder. Did you not think, my dear man, did you not think?”

“Ah, think!” said the other, “a lot you would think were you in that position. Had he deputed any man for the business but Camus, it might have been different; but to be told, in effect, by Camus, a man I despise, that I was not to go to Paris, but to remain at Versailles, a prisoner of Choiseul’s, well, it was too much! No, I did not think. There is no use in saying to me what I ought to have done. I ought, of course, to have followed Camus like a lamb, faced Choiseul like a lion, and cleared the matter up. As it was, I showed the front of a lion to Camus and the tail of a fox to Choiseul. That was bad policy—but it was inevitable. It seems to me, Chartres, that the whole of this was like a play written by Fate for me to act in. Camus had been my friend. After I had rescued that girl, of whom I told you, from Choiseul’s ruffianly agent, Camus tried to assault her and I struck him in the face. That was Fate. He did not return the blow or seek a duel, he wanted revenge, and behold, when Choiseul put out his hand for someone to arrest me, whom should he employ but Camus—that also was Fate. The girl I served is the servant of the woman I spoke of, and the woman was the friend of Choiseul’s dearest enemy, the Comtesse Dubarry. That was Fate. To serve the woman I mixed myself up with the business of the Presentation, and so have given Choiseul an extra grudge against me. That was Fate. And stay—just before my row with Camus, he had imparted to me a plot which Choiseul was preparing against the Dubarry, a plot which I refused to mix myself with and the gist of which I disclosed to the Dubarry. There again was Fate.”

“Mon Dieu!” said Chartres, “what a tangle you have got yourself into. But tell me this, does Choiseul know that you disclosed this plot of his to the Dubarry?”

“He is sure to know. Camus is certain to have told him that he disclosed the business to me, and as I visited the Dubarry’s house that same night, and as I believe his agents were watching the house—there you are.”

“You visited the house of the Dubarry the same night that Camus told you of the plot—why did you do such a foolish thing?”

“Fate. I escorted the girl I had rescued home to see her safe—and what house did she bring me to but the house of the Dubarrys. I was giving her a kiss in the passage when Jean Dubarry appeared, he invited me in, I came, the woman I spoke of was there, and at the sight of her, knowing that she was the Countess’ friend, I flung in my part with the Dubarrys and told of the plot. I was not breaking a trust, I had made no promise of secrecy, the thing had disgusted me—and I told.”

“And the name of this woman for whose sake you have got yourself into this dreadful mess?”

“Ah, now you are asking me to tell something that I would not tell to anyone but yourself—it was Mademoiselle Fontrailles.”

“Mademoiselle Fontrailles—why only yesterday——”

“Yes?”

“Well, I heard—it is said—but I don’t know how much truth there is in the story, that she is in love with Camus.”

Rochefort laughed.

“Camus again and Fate again.”

“But there may be no truth in it. Some fool told me, I forget who, Joyeuse, I think. You know how stories run about Paris.”

“It is true,” said Rochefort, “it is the only thing wanting to make the business complete. Whilst I have been tucked away at Vincennes, Monsieur Camus has improved his time. You know the way he has with women. Well, I do not care; that is to say about the girl, but I will make things even with Camus.”

“First, my dear fellow, make things right with Choiseul, that is to say, if you can. And if I were you, I would not trouble about Camus or the girl. She will be punished enough if she has anything to do with him.”

“Well, we will see,” said Rochefort. “We will see, when I have finished with Choiseul. Is he in Paris?”

“No, he is at Versailles, but he is coming to Paris to-morrow, or rather to-day, since it is now nearly three o’clock in the morning. I know he is coming, simply because he has invited me to a reception at his house in the Faubourg St. HonorÉ.”

“Ah, he is holding a reception. When?”

“This very day at nine o’clock in the evening.”

“Good. I will go to it.”

“You will go to it—but he will arrest you!”

“Not in his own house. I would be his guest.”

“But you have not been invited, and so you would not be his guest.”

“Well, my dear Chartres, you know how Choiseul always permits a friend of his to bring a friend to his receptions. You must take me with you.”

“Take you with me! My dear fellow, you are asking what is quite impossible.”

“Why?”

“Why—well, to be frank with you, it is necessary for me to stand well with Choiseul, and if I were to do that I would damage my position at Court.”

“What I like about you,” said Rochefort, “is your perfect frankness. Another man would have excused himself, said that he had already invited a friend, and so forth; but you state your own selfish reason, and that is precisely what I would have done in your place. Well, I can assure you that you will not damage your position in the least. First of all, I am going to make peace with Choiseul; secondly, if I fail, you can tell him that the whole fault was mine and that you understood from me that I had put myself right with him. I will bear you out in that. There is no danger to you, and think what fun it will be to see his face when I appear.”

Chartres hung on this fascinating prospect for a moment.

“All the same,” said he, “I think, in your own interests, you are wrong—the whole thing is mad.”

“So is the whole situation, my dear man. I want to get a word alone with Choiseul. I cannot reach him in any other way. If I went to see him at Versailles I would be taken by the guards and I would only see him across drawn swords. If I went to interview him at his house the concierge would pass me to the major-domo, and the major-domo would show me into a waiting-room, and Choiseul, ten to one, when he heard I had called, would order my arrest without even seeing me. No. This reception of his was arranged by Fate for me, of that I feel sure, as sure as I am that I will make things even with Camus before to-morrow.”

“You seem to count a good deal on Fate, yet it seems to me she has not treated you very kindly.”

“Ah,” said Rochefort, laughing, “that is because you do not know how she treated me in the Castle of Vincennes. I assure you, I have made entire friends with the lady——” He paused for a moment and then looked up at Chartres.

“When we talk of Fate, my friend, we always refer to our own persons and fortunes; when we receive a buffet in life we never consider that the shock may come to us, not directly from Fate, but indirectly as the result of a blow struck at some other person, just as at the LycÉe Louis le Grand, one boy would strike another so that he would fall against the next, and he against the next. Well, Fate in this case is decidedly on my side, since she protected me till now at Vincennes and gave me my release on the day of Choiseul’s reception, and threw me into your arms in the Rue Malaquais. If she is with me she cannot be with the persons who are against me, that is to say, Camus and the Fontrailles, if she cares for Camus.

“Fate, my dear Chartres, seems to me to be hitting at these two, and I reckon the blows I have received, not as blows aimed directly against me, but as blows I have received indirectly and by contre coup.”

“You are becoming a philosopher,” said Chartres, laughing.

“Well, we will see,” replied Rochefort. “I believe I am on the winning side, the indications are with me—well, do you still refuse to take me with you to Choiseul’s?”

“No, my dear Rochefort, I do not refuse, simply because I cannot—and for this reason: The thing you propose is distasteful to me, but it is a matter of urgency with you, and though you may be wrong, still, if the case was reversed, I know you would do for me what I am going to do for you. I will take you to Choiseul’s.”

“Thank you,” said Rochefort. “I will never forget it to you. And now as to clothes. I am unable to go or send for anything to my place, can you dress me as well as take me to this pleasant party of Choiseul’s?”

“Without doubt. My wardrobe is at your disposal—and now, if you will have no more wine, it is time to go to bed. I will have a bed made up for you.”

He called a servant and gave instructions as to the preparation of a room. As they were going upstairs, Rochefort remembered Ferminard, with whom he had parted outside the walls of Paris.

Ferminard had refused to enter by the Porte St. Antoine, preferring to make his way round to the Maison Gambrinus and take shelter there. Rochefort had entered by the Porte St. Antoine, not on his legs, but by means of a market gardener’s cart which they had overtaken. He had given the gardener a few francs for the lift, and, pretending intoxication, had entered Paris lying on some sacks of potatoes, presumably asleep and certainly snoring.

Having been shown to his bedroom, Rochefort undressed and went to bed, where he slept as soundly as a child till Germain, Chartres’ valet, awoke him at nine o’clock.

CHAPTER VIII
THE HONOUR OF LAVENNE

THAT same morning, it will be remembered, Sartines received the visit of the Vicomte Jean, and also Captain Pierre Cousin, the governor of Vincennes, who came in person with the news of Rochefort’s escape.

Having dismissed Cousin, Sartines, perplexed, distracted, furious with himself, Rochefort, Choiseul, and the world in general, put aside the letters on which he had been engaged and rising from his chair began to walk up and down the room.

Everything now depended on what Rochefort would do. With Rochefort and Ferminard safe in Vincennes, Sartines felt safe. He knew instinctively that Choiseul was deeply suspicious about the affair of the Presentation. He knew for a fact that Choiseul had, through an agent, questioned the Comtesse de BÉarn before she left Paris, and that the Comtesse, like the firm old woman she was, had refused to say a single word on the matter. She had, in fact, refused for two reasons. First: she had the two hundred thousand francs which the Dubarrys had paid her tight clutched in her hand. Secondly: she was too proud to acknowledge to the world how she had been tricked. Such a scandal would become historical, but not if she could help it with a de BÉarn in the chief part.

There was no one to talk, then, but Rochefort and Ferminard, the chief actor—and they who had been in safe keeping were now loose.

In the midst of his meditations, a knock came to the door and the usher announced that Lavenne had arrived and wished to speak to the Minister. Sartines ordered him to be sent up at once. No visitor would be more welcome. The absence of Lavenne had been disturbing him for the last few days, for this man so fruitful in advice and expedient had become as the right hand of the Minister. Of all the clever people about him, Lavenne was the man whom he felt to be absolutely essential.

“Mordieu!” cried de Sartines, when Lavenne entered. “What has happened to you?”

He drew back a step.

The man before him looked ten years older than when he had seen him last, his face was white and pinched, his eyes were bloodshot, and the pupils seemed unnaturally dilated.

“Monsieur,” said Lavenne, resting his hand on a chair-back as if for support, “I have had a bad time, but I will soon get over it. Meanwhile, I have an important report to make.”

“Sit down,” said de Sartines.

He rang the bell and ordered some wine to be sent up immediately. “And now,” said he, when the other had set down his glass, “tell me first where have you come from?”

“I have come from the Catacombs of Paris, monsieur, where I have been trapped and wandering since I don’t know when.”

“From the Catacombs?”

“Yes, monsieur, or rather from the plain of Mont Souris to which the gallery which I pursued led me.”

“But what were you doing in the Catacombs?”

“Trying to escape, monsieur, and I can only say this, that I hope never to have a similar experience.”

Then rapidly he began to tell of his visit to Camus’ house, of the laboratory, of what he had seen, and of his escape.

“I had to choose between three corridors, monsieur, and the one I chose led me to a blank wall. I had to come back, which took me a day. I had to go most of the time in darkness to husband the candles I had with me.

“The new corridor I chose led me right at last, but the last was a long time coming. Several times I fell asleep and must have slept many hours. I would have died of exhaustion had I not found water. At several places I found water trickling through crevices of the rock and I had to cross one fairly big pool. I had to walk always, feeling my way with one foot. My progress was slow. At last I came to the old grating which guards the entrance to the Catacombs on the plain of Mont Souris. There I might have died had not my cries attracted the attention of a man, who, obtaining assistance, broke down the bars and freed me. That was yesterday evening. He took me to his cottage, and then after I had taken some food I fell into a sleep that lasted till late this morning.”

Lavenne’s story filled Sartines with such astonishment that he forgot for a moment the main business in hand, that is to say, Rochefort. It was Lavenne who recalled him to it.

“And now that I have told you my story, monsieur,” said he, “let us forget it, for there are matters of much more importance to be considered. I have been out of the world practically for four days. Is Count Camus still alive?”

He had told Sartines about the poisoning of the silver dagger, but he had not told him all.

“Alive,” said the Minister, “oh, yes, he is very much alive, or was so late last night. Why do you ask?”

“Because, monsieur, before leaving the room I told you of, I drew that dagger from its sheath and inserted it again, but I took particular care to insert it the other way about.”

“The other way about?”

“Yes, monsieur. It fitted the sheath either way.”

“So that if Camus uses it,” cried Sartines, starting from his chair, “if the gentleman of the Italian school uses his fruit knife in the way that the poisoning of the blade suggests, it is he himself who will suffer?”

“Precisely, monsieur; I had only a moment to think in. I said to myself, this wicked blade has been prepared for the slaying of an innocent woman, he has already tried to kill her with a prepared rose, he failed, he killed Atalanta instead, the death of his Majesty’s favourite dog drew me into the business, and now I am made by God his judge. I said to myself—There is no use at all trying to bring this gentleman to justice by ordinary means, he is too clever, his poisons are too artfully prepared, he will surely give us the slip. Let his own hand deal him justice, and I reversed the dagger in its sheath.”

“Mordieu!” said de Sartines, “that was at least a quick road. But the handle of the dagger, will he not notice that it has been reversed?”

“No, monsieur, for the pattern of the handle was the same on both sides, whereas the patterns on the sides of the sheath were widely different.”

Sartines sat down again; for a moment he said nothing; he seemed plunged in thought.

“That was four days ago,” said he at last, “yet nothing has happened. Both Camus and his wife are alive and very much in evidence.”

“Have they met much, monsieur?”

“As far as I can say, no, for Madame Camus has been at Versailles for the last couple of days.”

“When I asked had they met much, monsieur, I should have asked, have they met at any public entertainment or banquet, for it is then that the deed will be done, openly and before witnesses. For that is the essence of the whole business. It would be quite easy for Count Camus to poison his wife at home and in secret, but it is necessary for him to say, ‘I only met her once in the last so many days, we were quite good friends, so much so, that we shared an apple together. Do you suggest that I poisoned the apple? Well, considering that I ate half of it and that I did not touch it beyond taking it from the dish and cutting it in two such a suggestion is absurd.—And here is the knife itself. I always use it for cutting fruit, see, the blade is silvered on purpose, take it, test it for poison——’ So, monsieur, you see my drift. The deed will be done at some public entertainment, and I ask you, have they met at such an entertainment where the thing would be feasible?”

“No,” said Sartines, speaking slowly and raising his eyes from the floor where they had been resting. “But they will to-night.”

“To-night?”

“I believe so. M. de Choiseul is holding a reception at his house in the Rue Faubourg St. HonorÉ. Camus, who is in love with Mademoiselle Fontrailles, will surely be there, and the girl will surely be there, since the Dubarrys are now friends with Choiseul—for the moment—and since Madame Camus is a friend of Madame de Choiseul, she will be there.”

“Then, monsieur,” said Lavenne, “I will not give a denier for M. Camus’ life after midnight to-night.”

“He will save the hangman some trouble,” said Sartines, taking a pinch of snuff. “And it will be interesting to watch—yes—very interesting to watch.” Then suddenly his face changed in expression. “Dame! I forgot, all this put it out of my head. Rochefort has left Vincennes.”

“M. de Rochefort left Vincennes!” cried Lavenne. “Since when, monsieur?”

“He escaped last night.”

“But—but,” said Lavenne. “He had agreed to stay. He quite understood his danger. This is strange news, monsieur.”

“He must have got tired of prison,” said Sartines. “That devil of a man never could be easy anywhere, and not only that, he has let out Ferminard.”

“But how did they escape, monsieur?”

“How, by means of a rope which M. de Rochefort must have woven out of nothing in three days, by means of a file which he must have invented out of nothing for the purpose of cutting his window-bar, by half strangling the gaoler and leaving him tied up on the floor—I do not know, the thing was a miracle, but it was done.”

“And you have heard nothing of him this morning?”

“Nothing.”

“Now,” said Lavenne, talking as if to himself, “I wonder what his motive was in doing that? I explained to him and he understood——”

“He had no motive, he is a man who acts on impulse.”

“Has he been visited in prison, monsieur?”

“No. I was sending Captain Beauregard to see him this morning, but it was too late.”

“Has he been treated well?”

“Excellently. Captain Pierre Cousin, who came to me with the news this morning, vouched for his good treatment.”

“Did he say anything to Captain Cousin that might give a clue to his motive?”

“No, Captain Cousin never saw him.”

“Never saw him?”

“Well, it seems that he has been very busy with the half-yearly reports and accounts of Vincennes, and the governor in any case does not visit new prisoners as a matter of routine.”

“Ah,” said Lavenne. “One can fancy M. de Rochefort imagining himself neglected and getting restive, but I cannot imagine where he could have got the means of escape.”

“Nor can anyone else,” replied de Sartines.

He looked up. The usher had knocked at the door and was entering the room, a letter in his hand.

“Who brought it?” asked Sartines, taking the letter.

“I don’t know, monsieur, a man left it and went away saying that there was no answer.”

He withdrew and the Minister opened the letter.

He cast his eyes over the contents and then handed it to Lavenne.

“Well, monsieur,” said Lavenne, returning the letter, which he had read with astonishment, but without the slightest alteration of expression, “we have now, at least, a clue to M. de Rochefort’s plans.”

Sartines was white with anger.

“A clue to M. de Rochefort’s plans. Is the HÔtel de Sartines to sit down, then, and wait for M. de Rochefort to develop his plans?” He had taken his seat, but he rose again and began to walk up and down a few steps, his hands behind his back, his fingers twitching at his ruffles. “M. de Rochefort finds the ChÂteau de Vincennes too dull, he leaves it just as I would leave this room, he comes to Paris to amuse himself and he sends me a note that he hopes to meet me at M. de Choiseul’s. Delightful. But since it is my wish that he should not have left the ChÂteau de Vincennes, that he should not be in Paris, that instead of visiting the Duc de Choiseul, he should be ten thousand leagues away from the Duc de Choiseul—it seems to me, considering all these things, that I have been ill-served by my servants, by my agents, and by the police who have the safe keeping of the order of his Majesty’s city of Paris.”

Lavenne looked on and listened. When Sartines was taken with anger in this particular way, he literally stood on his dignity, and seemed to be addressing the Parliament.

“What, then, has happened to us?” went on the Minister. “We have lost touch with our genius, it seems. Are we the HÔtel de Sartines or the Hospital of the Quinze-Vingts?” Then, blazing out, “By my name and the God above me, I will dismiss every man who has touched this business, from the gaoler at Vincennes to the man who received that letter and allowed the bearer to take his departure.”

“Monsieur,” said Lavenne, “it is less the fault of your servants than of events. M. de Rochefort is free, but you need have no fear of the consequences.”

“Do you not understand,” said Sartines, in an icy voice, speaking slowly, as though to let each word sink home to the mind of the listener, “that if M. le Duc de Choiseul takes this Rochefort in his net he will not be satisfied with imprisoning him. ‘For the good of the State,’ that will be his excuse—he will question him by means of the Rack and the Question by Water. Or rather, he will only have to mention their names and Rochefort will tell all. Why should he shelter the Dubarrys whom he hates? And once he tells, we are all lost. His Majesty would never forgive the affair of the Presentation—never—and now we have this precious Rochefort walking right into M. de Choiseul’s arms.”

“There is nothing to fear, monsieur, I have in my pocket something that will act on M. de Choiseul as a powerful bit acts on a restive horse. It is no less than a letter which M. de Choiseul wrote on the night of the Presentation.”

He took Choiseul’s letter from his pocket and handed it to Sartines.

“Where did you get this from?” asked Sartines when he had finished reading it.

Lavenne told.

“Ah,” said the other. “Well, this simplifies everything indeed. This is the bowstring. Mon Dieu! was the man mad to write this? At once I shall take this to his Majesty and lay it before him with my own hands.”

“No, monsieur,” said Lavenne.

“Ah! What did you say?”

“I said no, monsieur. The letter is not mine, or at least only mine to hold as a means for the protection of M. de Rochefort. I promised the girl I told you of to keep it for that purpose.”

“Why, Mon Dieu!” cried Sartines, “I believe you are dictating to me what course of action I should take!”

“No, monsieur, or only as regards that letter and—a thing which is very precious to me—my honour.”

“Your honour. My faith! An agent of mine coming to me and talking of his honour where a business of State is concerned.” Then, flying out, “What has that to do with me?”

“Oh, monsieur,” said Lavenne coldly, and in a voice perfectly unshaken, “have you lived all these years in the world, and have you faced Paris and the Court so long in your capacity as Minister of Police that you set such a light price on honour. You value the keen sword of Verpellieux, the acuteness of Fremin, the cleverness of Jumeau, but what would all these men be worth to you if they could be bought? I have never spoken to you of the many times I could have accepted bribes in small matters, but the fact remains that without hurting you I could have accumulated fair sums of money. I did not, simply because something in me refused absolutely to play a double part. You know yourself how often I could have enriched myself by selling important secrets to your enemies. Where would you have been then? And the thing that saved you was not Lavenne, but the something that prevented Lavenne from betraying you. I call that something Honour. If it has another name it does not matter. The thing is the same. Well, I have pledged that something with regard to this letter, and if I do not redeem the pledge I will be no longer Lavenne, but a secret service agent of very little use to you, monsieur. That is all I wish to say.”

De Sartines took a few turns up and down. Then he folded up the letter and handed it back to Lavenne. From de Sartines’ point of view the word Honour belonged entirely to his own class. It was the name of a thing used among gentlemen, a thing appertaining to the higher orders. He had never considered it in relation to the Rafataille, had he done so he would have considered the relationship absurd.

According to his view of it, Honour, even amongst the nobility, was a very lean figure. Splendidly dressed, but very lean and capable of being doubled up and packed away without any injury to it.

A man must resent an insult sword in hand.

A man must not cheat at cards—or be caught cheating at cards.

A man may lie as much as he pleases, but he must kill another man who calls him a liar.

These were the chief articles in his code.

Sartines himself was almost destitute of the principles of Honour as we know it, just as he was almost wanting in the principles of Mercy as we know it. Witness that relative of his whom he had kept imprisoned in the Bastille for private ends and who was only released by the Revolutionaries of July.

Still, he had his code, and he talked of Honour and he considered it as an attribute of his station in life.

Lavenne just now had shown him a new side of the question, shown him in a flash that what he had always called the Fidelity of his subordinates was in reality a principle. He had always taken it as a personal tribute. He saw now that in the case of Lavenne, at least, it had to do with Lavenne himself, and secondarily only with de Sartines. And it was a principle that must not be tampered with, for on its integrity depended M. de Sartines’ safety and welfare.

He knew, besides, that the letter was in safe hands and that the wise Lavenne, in using it for the protection of Rochefort, would use it also for the protection of de Sartines. And away at the back of his mind there was the ghost of an idea that this terrible letter was safest for all parties in the hands of Lavenne.

Therefore he returned it.

“What you say is just, here is the letter. I will trust you to use it not only for the protection of M. de Rochefort, but in my interests if necessary. That is to say, of course, the interest of the State.”

“Thank you, monsieur,” replied the other, rising from his chair. “And now I must find M. de Rochefort if possible—though I have very little hope of doing so before to-night.”

CHAPTER IX
THE GATHERING STORM

LAVENNE, when he left the HÔtel de Sartines, made straight for the Rue St. Dominic. He wanted to find Rochefort and he fancied that Javotte might know of the Count’s whereabouts.

He stopped at the door of the house where Camille Fontrailles’ apartments were, rang and was admitted by the concierge.

Scarcely had he made the inquiry as to whether Mademoiselle Javotte were at home when Javotte herself appeared descending the stairs and ready dressed for the street.

“Why, monsieur,” said Javotte, “it is strange that you have called at this moment, for in a very short time you would not have found me. I am leaving.”

“Leaving?”

“Yes, monsieur, and at this moment I am going to call a fiacre to remove my things to a room I have taken in the Rue Jussac close to here.”

He accompanied her into the street.

“And why are you leaving?” asked Lavenne. “Have you quarrelled with your mistress?”

“No, monsieur, she quarrelled with me.”

“Well, well,” said Lavenne, “these things will happen. I called to ask, did you know of the whereabouts of M. de Rochefort?”

“No, monsieur, I do not, and strangely enough, it was concerning M. de Rochefort that my quarrel arose with Mademoiselle Fontrailles.”

“Aha! that is strange. Tell me about it.”

“It was this way, monsieur. That night when M. de Rochefort had the dispute with M. de Choiseul, he took shelter here. He came to see Mademoiselle Fontrailles, she was not here, he asked for shelter and I gave it to him. He slept in my room, whilst I took the room of my mistress. Well, it appeared that the concierge talked, and yesterday Mademoiselle Fontrailles asked me what I meant by harbouring a man here for the night. I was furious; before I could reply two gentlemen were announced, M. Dubarry and Count Camus.

“Count Camus was the man who insulted me that night when M. de Rochefort rescued me, and when the gentlemen were gone I said to Mademoiselle, ‘I would sooner harbour a gentleman here for the night than allow a ruffian to kiss my hand.’

“She asked me what I meant. I told her, and I told her that M. de Rochefort had smacked Comte Camus’ face.

“Her face fired up so that I knew the truth at once. She is in love with him, monsieur, and I was so furious at the false charge she had made about me that I lost all discretion. I said, ‘It is easy to see your feelings for that man; as for me, though I am only a poor girl, I would choose for a lover, if not a gentleman, at least not a cur-dog who snaps at women’s dresses and who runs away when kicked by a man.’”

“And what did she say to that?”

“She boxed my ears, monsieur. She is infatuated. Ah, monsieur, what is it that she can see in a man so horrible to look at, so evil, and so cruel; for he is cruel, and I swear to you the sight of him makes me shudder, and would make me shudder even if I had not personally experienced his baseness.”

“I do not know,” replied Lavenne; “nor can I possibly say why this man should affect two persons so differently. He is, as you say, a terrible man, and your innocence, or what is kindly in your nature, is revolted by him; as for your late mistress, why, we must suppose there is something in her nature that is attracted by him. But she is treading on dangerous ground, for should Madame Camus die and should she marry him, she would find herself under the thumb of a very strange master. Now, listen to me, Mademoiselle Javotte. I have still in my pocket that letter which you gave me, and I hope to make it useful to M. de Rochefort. What is the number of the house in the Rue Jussac which will be your new abode?”

“No. 3, monsieur.”

“Well, it is important for me to know your address as I may want you. I may even want you to-night, so be at home.”

“I will, monsieur—and M. de Rochefort?”

Lavenne smiled.

“Set your mind at rest. He is in danger, very great danger, but I hope to save him.”

“In danger?”

“Yes, but I hope to save him. He is in Paris, I do not know his address, but I shall see him to-night.”

“Ah—in danger—” said Javotte. “I shall not rest till I hear that he is safe.”

“You care for him so much as that?”

“Oh, monsieur, I care for him much more.”

Lavenne left her. “Now there is a faithful heart,” said he. “Ah, if M. de Rochefort had only the genius to see that friend of all friends, the woman who loves him!—And why not. Madame la Comtesse Dubarry was a shop-girl. She had only a pretty face. And here we have the pretty face, but so much more also.”

He dismissed Javotte from his mind, concentrating his attention on the events of the forthcoming evening, on the Duc de Choiseul’s reception, which he felt to be the point towards which all these diverse fortunes were tending. Lavenne half divined the truth that the life of society is really the agglutination of a thousand stories, each story containing so many characters working out a definite plot towards a definite, and sometimes to an indefinite, dÉnouement. He felt that in this especial business in which he was engaged the story, beginning with the Presentation of the Comtesse Dubarry, was about to find its dÉnouement at the reception of the Duc de Choiseul, and he could not help contemplating all the complex interests involved, their reaction one on the other and the manner in which they were being drawn together towards one definite point. Sartines’ fortune was at stake, Rochefort’s liberty, Camus’ life, Camille Fontrailles’ future, Javotte’s love and Choiseul’s position as a Minister.

The thing seemed to have been arranged by some dramatist—or shall we say some chemist, who had slowly brought together, one by one, all these diverse elements that wanted now only the last touch, the last drop of acid or spark of fire to produce the culminating explosion.

CHAPTER X
THE DUC DE CHOISEUL’S RECEPTION

CHOISEUL’S position in the world was a doubly difficult one. He was continually fighting for his life, and he had to conduct the battle in a silk coat that must never be creased and ruffles that must ever be immaculate. He had to parry dagger thrusts with a smile, kiss hands whose owners he hated, laugh when most severely smitten and turn defeats into epigrams.

The Comte de Stainville, now Duc de Choiseul, was well qualified, however, by nature and by training for the difficult position that he held.

The genius that had prompted him, when Comte de Stainville, to make an ally of his enemy the Pompadour, did not desert him when, under the title of Duc de Choiseul, he was created Prime Minister in 1758.

Choiseul was the man who almost averted the French Revolution. He was the first of the real friends of Liberty not dressed as a Philosopher, and the greatest Minister after Colbert. He had his littlenesses, his weaknesses; he made great mistakes, allowed impulse to sway him occasionally, and could be extremely pitiless on occasion. He did not disdain to use the meanest weapons, yet he was great and far more human than the majority of the men of his time, than Terray, or de Maupeou, or de Sartines, or d’Aiguillon, or d’Argeson, more human even than the men who were beginning to babble about Humanity. He did not write “The Social Contract,” but he destroyed the tyranny of the Jesuits in France. He did not profess to love his own family, but at least he did not desert his own children after the fashion of M. Jean Jacques.

To-night, as he stood to receive his guests, he looked precisely the same as on the last occasion, less than a week ago, when, standing in his own house, he had received his guests with the certainty in his mind that the Presentation would not take place. But he showed nothing of his defeat.

De Sartines was among the first to arrive. As Minister of Police it was his duty to guard the safety of the Prime Minister of France on all occasions, and more especially at State functions, balls, and receptions, even when these receptions, functions or balls took place at the Minister’s own house.

There were always dangerous people ready for mischief—Damiens was an example of that—lunatics and fanatics, and to-night, as usual, several agents of the HÔtel de Sartines were among the servants of Choiseul and indistinguishable from them. But to-night, for certain reasons, the occasion was so especial that Lavenne was present, watchful, seeing all things, but unseen, or rather unnoticed, by everyone.

Sartines passed with the first of the crowd into the great salon where Madame de Choiseul was receiving. Here, when he had made his bow, he found himself buttonholed by M. de Duras, the old gentleman who knew everything about everyone and their affairs. The same, it will be remembered, who had explained Camille Fontrailles to Camus on that night of the ball.

“Ah, M. le Comte,” cried this purveyor of news,

“I thought I was too early, but now that I see you, I feel my position more regular. I came here chiefly to-night to make sure that Madame la Princesse de GuemenÉe was not present. You have heard the news? No? Well, there has been a great quarrel. It is entirely between ourselves, but the Princesse de GuemenÉe and Madame de Choiseul have quarrelled, so much so that the Princesse has not been invited.”

“Indeed!” said de Sartines, “I have heard nothing of it.”

“All the same, it is a fact—and the fact is rather scandalous. It was this way——”

“Madame la Princesse de GuemenÉe,” came the voice of the usher as the Princesse, smiling, entered and made her bow to Madame de Choiseul.

“Yes,” said Sartines, “you were going to say?”

“Why, that is the lady herself. Yet the facts were given to me on unimpeachable authority. They must have made the matter up between them. Ma foi! women are adaptable creatures. One can never count on them—as, for instance, the Dubarry. She is hand in glove with the Choiseuls now, and that great fat Jean Dubarry swears by his friend Choiseul; one might fancy them brothers to hear Jean talking, but I would like to hear Choiseul’s view of the matter. Ah, there is Count Camus, he seems quite recovered from the blow that M. de Rochefort gave him—what an affair!—a fine, open-hearted man, Camus, and only for that vile smallpox he would not be bad-looking, but beauty is only skin deep and it is the man who counts after all. Have you heard the news about Rochefort?”

“No,” said Sartines with a little start. “Have you heard anything fresh?”

“Oh, ma foi! yes. He is in Germany. Managed to make his escape, fool. I always said he would make a mess of his affairs, but I never thought he would have gone the length he did.”

“Oh, in Germany, is he?” said Sartines, wishing sincerely that the news was true.

“Yes. He made his escape from France in the disguise of a pedlar. I had the news only yesterday. Ah, there is Mademoiselle Fontrailles, with Mademoiselle Chon Dubarry and the Vicomte Jean. What did I tell you? Hand in glove, hand in glove. She looks well, the Fontrailles. Cold as an icicle, but beautiful. And they say she has a fortune of a million francs. Why, there is Madame Camus, she has come with Madame de Courcelles; and look at Camus, he seems to have no eyes but for his wife.”

Sartines gazed in the direction of a group consisting of Camus, his wife, Camille Fontrailles and Jean Dubarry. They were all laughing and talking, and now, apropos of some remark, Camus, with a little bow, took his wife’s hand and kissed the tips of her fingers. The others laughed at the joke, whatever it was.

“Look,” said de Sartines, “what a charming husband. And yet it seemed to me, for I have been watching them all since they came in, that this charming husband slipped a little note behind his back to the Fontrailles, and that she took it quite in the orthodox way—that is to say, without being seen.”

“Except by you.”

“Except by me, but then, you see, I am the Minister of Police, and I am supposed to see what other people do not see, and know what other people do not know.” De Sartines, as he finished speaking, turned again towards the group and contemplated them with a brooding eye, his hands behind his back, and his lips slightly thrust out.

“But she can have no hopes, since Madame Camus is alive and, despite her lameness, evidently in the best of health,” said M. de Duras.

“My dear fellow,” said de Sartines, “that is not a girl to build on hopes. If she cares for Camus, as I believe she does, he has only to wink and she will follow him. She is of that type. The type of the perverse prude. The creature who would refuse herself to an honest man, and yet is quite ready to roll in the gutter if the gutter pleases her. Here has this one refused a man whom she might have made something of—that is to say, Rochefort, and who has welcomed the advances of a speckled toad—that is to say, Camus. You say Camus is an open-hearted man, at least I fancy you made some curious remark of that sort; you are wrong, just as wrong as when you said Madame de GuemenÉe had quarrelled with Madame de Choiseul; just as wrong as when you said de Rochefort was in Germany. M. de Rochefort is in Paris—and there he is in the flesh.”

“Monsieur le Vicomte de Chartres. Monsieur le Comte de Rochefort,” came the usher’s voice.

An earthquake would not have shaken de Choiseul more than that announcement, and just as he would have remained unmoved after the first shock of the earthquake, so did he now after the first shock of the announcement.

Rochefort, accompanying Chartres, advanced a hair’s-breadth behind the Vicomte, and with that half-smiling, easy grace which was one of his attractions. He was beautifully dressed in a suit of Chartres’ which a tailor had been half a day altering to suit his fastidious tastes. He bowed to his hostess and host.

Had de Choiseul changed colour or expression, Rochefort would have been far better pleased; but the Minister received him with absolute courtesy, as though they had parted in friendship but a few hours ago, and as though it were the most natural thing in the world for a man against whom he had issued a warrant, and for whom he was hunting throughout France, to appear as his guest. The appalling sang-froid of de Choiseul, who would have suffered anything rather than that a scene should be created in his house, disconcerted Rochefort. The idea clutched his mind that he had taken another false step. He had come to meet a man, he found himself face to face with etiquette. He had hoped, by an explosion, to create the warmth that would lead to a mutual understanding; he found no materials for an explosion—nothing but ice.

Against the faultless reception of de Choiseul, his intrusion now seemed bad taste.

All this passed through his mind, leaving no trace, however, on his manner or expression as he turned from his host and hostess and calmly surveyed the people in his immediate neighbourhood.

Not a person present that was not filled with astonishment, yet not a person betrayed his or her feelings. Rochefort had, then, made his position good again, and Choiseul had invited him to his reception. How had Rochefort worked this miracle? Impossible to say, yet there was the fact, and if Choiseul was satisfied it was nobody’s business to grumble.

Camus was the most astonished of all, yet he said nothing, only turning to the Vicomte Jean Dubarry with eyebrows lifted as though to say, “Well, what do you think of that?”

Sartines alone knew the truth of the whole business and Sartines wished himself well away, for he knew that Rochefort would come and speak to him, Sartines—the man who ought to take M. de Rochefort by the arm and lead him out to arrest, an action that would have pleased his vexed soul, and which he would promptly have taken were it not impossible.

To arrest Rochefort now would mean simply to hand him over to the agents of Choiseul, to be questioned and to reveal to them everything he knew. He would sacrifice the Dubarrys most certainly rather than suffer for them, that was patently apparent now, for Rochefort, passing the Dubarry group, turned on Mademoiselle Fontrailles, on Chon, on Jean Dubarry and on Camus, a glance in which hatred was half veiled and contempt clearly manifested.

And the group did not fail to respond.

On the way towards Sartines, Rochefort was stopped by M. de Duras.

“Why, M. de Rochefort,” said the old gentleman, “this is an unexpected pleasure.”

“Which, monsieur?”

“Why, to meet you here to-night.”

“Well, M. de Duras, unexpected pleasures are always the sweetest; but why should the pleasure be unexpected?”

“Why——?” stammered the old fellow—“Well, monsieur, it was rumoured that you were in Germany.”

“Ah! it was rumoured that I was in Germany—well, Rumour has told a lie for the first time. Ah, Sartines, you see I have kept my promise; how are you this evening—charmingly, I hope?”

Rochefort had recovered his spirits. The sight of Camus, the Fontrailles, Chon, and Jean Dubarry all in one group laughing and talking together, had clinched the business with him and given the last blow to his half-dead passion for Camille Fontrailles. But a dead passion makes fine combustible material when it is bound together with wounded pride. This dead passion of Rochefort’s burst into flame like a lit tar-barrel, and his anger against the Dubarry group became furiously alive and the next worse thing to hatred.

“Hush, my dear fellow,” said de Sartines, drawing him aside. “I do not know what has driven you to this mad act, but at least remember that I am your friend. You have kept no promise to me. I could not help receiving your letter; had I been in communication with you, I would have been the first to warn you against what you have done.”

“And you know perfectly well,” replied Rochefort, “that I have never taken warnings—or at least only once, when I was foolish enough to take a cell in that rat-haunted old barrack of Vincennes at your advice, instead of facing Choiseul like a man.”

“Facing Choiseul like a man! And what do you expect from that?”

“I expect that he will listen to reason, hear my story, which I would have told him had he not tried to arrest me as I was just starting to Paris to keep an appointment, and release me.”

“You do not know Choiseul.”

“Excuse me, but I believe I do. He is a gentleman, he knows that I am a gentleman and he will take my word.”

“Choiseul will have you arrested the instant you leave this hÔtel. He would arrest you now only he does not wish to make a scene.”

“I am going to explain to him.”

“Where?”

“Here.”

“And how are you going to obtain an interview with him?”

“You must do that for me.”

“I?”

“Yes, you are the proper person. Go to him and say, ‘Rochefort wishes to speak to you on a matter of great importance.’ You can say to him also if you like, ‘He asked me to say that he came here to-night not as your guest, but as a gentleman who has been lied against and misunderstood and who wishes to lay his case before the first gentleman in France, after his Majesty.’”

“Words, words,” said Sartines. “He will crumple them up and fling them in your face.”

“He will not. Choiseul is a gentleman and will listen to me.”

“Ay, he will listen to you—you are like a child with your talk of ‘gentleman—gentleman.’ However, you are not quite lost. You had a letter of Choiseul’s.”

“I?”

“Yes, you took it from the saddle-bag of a horse.”

“Oh, that!”

“Yes. Well, I have that letter in my pocket.”

“How did you get it?”

“You gave it to a girl—like a fool—to send back to Choiseul, and the girl, who seems to have cared for you a lot, opened it.”

“Ah, Javotte! Little meddler——”

“Read it.”

“Yes—yes!”

“And found that it was a—what shall I say?—a revelation of how Choiseul had plotted against the Dubarry and a libel on his Majesty. It was written in a moment of anger, it was one of the false steps men make who have not control of their temper. With this letter in your hand you are safe from Choiseul. He, of course, knows that the thing was taken from the saddle-bag of the horse, but I doubt if he suspects you as having taken it, simply because in the ordinary course you would have used it against him before this.”

“How did you get this letter?”

“The girl gave it to my agent, Lavenne, making him promise that it was to be used only for your protection. Now we have some honour amongst us at the HÔtel de Sartines, otherwise this—um—treasonable document would have been laid by this before his Majesty for the good of the State. Lavenne, to-night, knowing that you would be here, gave it to me to give to you.”

“Let me have it.”

“Come into this corridor, then.”

Sartines led the way between two curtains into a corridor giving entrance to the salon where to-night refreshments were being served.

He handed the letter to Rochefort, who hastily put it in his pocket.

“Thanks,” said Rochefort. “This will make the matter easier for me. Or at least it will serve as an introduction to our business. And now, like a good fellow, obtain for me my interview with Choiseul.”

They went back against a tide of people setting in the direction of the room where the buffet was laid out and where little tables were set about for the guests.

Rochefort waited in a corridor whilst Sartines advanced towards Choiseul and buttonholed him.

CHAPTER XI
ROCHEFORT AND CHOISEUL

ROCHEFORT watched the two men. One could make out absolutely nothing from their expressions or movements. Then they turned slowly and walked towards a door on the left of the salon.

Choiseul, with his hand on the door-handle, nodded slightly to his companion, passed through the door, shut it, and Sartines came hurrying towards Rochefort.

“Your interview has been granted. Remember that the letter in your pocket stands between you and social and bodily destruction. Mordieu! remember also your friends, Rochefort, for I will not hide it from you, that, should you fall into Choiseul’s hands, things will go badly with us.”

“Do not worry me with directions, my dear fellow,” said Rochefort. “If I am to do this thing, I must do it in my own way—come.”

He led the way through the door and into a passage leading to a room the door of which was ajar.

Rochefort knocked at this door and entered the room, followed by Sartines.

It was a small but beautifully furnished writing-room. Choiseul was standing before the fireplace, with his hands behind his back. He seemed in meditation, and raising his head, bowed slightly to the Count whilst Sartines closed the door and took a position on the right.

Sartines, as he came to a halt, produced his snuff-box, tapped it, opened it, and took a pinch.

“Well, Monsieur de Rochefort,” said Choiseul, “you wish to speak to me?”

“Yes, monsieur,” replied Rochefort, “I wish to make an explanation. Some days ago, at his Majesty’s palace of Versailles, you in your discretion, and acting under your powers, thought fit to issue a warrant for the arrest of my person, and you entrusted this business to two of your gentlemen, M. le Comte Camus and M. d’Estouteville.”

Choiseul nodded slightly.

“I resisted that arrest, monsieur, not because I was conscious of having done any wrong and not because I dreaded any consequences that might arise from false information given against me. I resisted arrest simply because I was going to Paris on important business and did not wish to be stopped.”

“Oh!” said Choiseul, “you were going to Paris on important business and did not wish to be stopped. Indeed! And you have come here to tell me that you resisted an order of the State because you were going to Paris and did not wish to be stopped!”

Choiseul’s voice would have frozen an ordinary man, and few men in Rochefort’s position could have stood under the gaze of his cold grey eyes unmoved.

“I came to tell you absolutely the truth, monsieur. Yes, I resisted the order of the State for private reasons, but I will add this, my reasons were not entirely personal. I had to meet a lady——”

“Go on,” said Choiseul, “I do not wish to pry into your personal affairs. Have you anything more to say?”

“Yes, monsieur. To make my escape, I had to take a horse that was standing in waiting. On it I reached Paris. In the saddle-bag I found a letter addressed by you to a lady—I have forgotten the name—I do not wish to pry into your private affairs.”

Choiseul’s face had changed slightly in colour, but otherwise he betrayed none of the emotion that filled him, except, Sartines noticed, by a slight twitching of his left shoulder.

“Ah!” said he, “you found a letter of mine!”

“Yes, monsieur, I entrusted it to a person, who is my very faithful servant, to take to the address upon it. Now, this person—knowing that I was in trouble with M. de Choiseul—thought fit to open the letter, an action most discreditable and only excusable inasmuch as it was prompted by an humble mind, blinded by devotion to my interests.

“The letter was put into my hands with a strong suggestion that the contents might be useful to me.”

“Now, M. le Duc, you will at once understand that, so far from making use of this letter, I did not even read it. It is in my pocket now, perfectly safe, and I have the honour of returning it to you.”

To Sartines’ horror, Rochefort put his hand in his pocket, took out the letter and gave it to Choiseul, who opened it, glanced at the contents and placed it on the mantelpiece as though it were of no importance.

“I have only to add, monsieur,” continued Rochefort, “that in Paris, instead of taking the wise course of returning to Versailles to seek re-arrest, I said to myself, ‘M. Choiseul is against me. I had better make my escape or at least keep concealed until the storm blows over.’ That was very foolish, but I was enraged about other matters and I did not think clearly, and now, monsieur, what is the charge against me?”

“You are charged, Monsieur de Rochefort, with the killing of a man in the streets of Paris on the very night upon which you were here as my guest last.”

“The charge is perfectly correct, monsieur, but your informant did not tell all.”

“Walking home with Comte Camus I rescued a woman from two men who were maltreating her. I pursued one of the men, he attacked me and I killed him. I returned only to find the unfortunate woman whom I had rescued being assaulted by Count Camus. I struck him in the face and rolled him in the gutter, and he has never yet sought redress for that assault which I made upon him.”

“What is this you say?” asked Choiseul.

“The truth, monsieur,” replied Rochefort proudly.

Now Lavenne that evening, on taking over the police arrangements for Choiseul’s reception, had given special instructions to Vallone, one of his subordinates who had nothing to do with the policing of the reception, who, as a matter of fact, was a spy of the HÔtel de Sartines engaged in the service of Choiseul. It was Vallone, in fact, who had given Sartines the information that Choiseul had sent the note which the Comtesse de BÉarn had received in the basket of flowers.

Lavenne had given the man instructions to watch Count Camus as a cat watches a mouse, and Lavenne, just at this moment, was standing unobserved watching the throng passing in and out of the salon where refreshments were served. He saw Vallone leave the salon. Vallone glanced about, saw Lavenne and came rapidly towards him.

“Well,” said Lavenne, “what is it?”

“Monsieur, you told me to watch Count Camus, and more especially should he use a dagger to cut fruit with.”

“Yes—yes?”

“He is seated at a small table with Madame Camus, Mademoiselle Fontrailles, and M. le Vicomte Jean Dubarry.”

“Yes—yes?”

“He has just taken a peach from a dish of fruit handed to him by a servant, and producing a knife like that which you spoke of, he cut the peach in two.”

“Quick—go on!”

“He handed one half of the peach to Madame Camus.”

“Yes—and the other half he ate himself?”

“No, monsieur. The other half he handed on his plate to Mademoiselle Fontrailles.”

“Did she eat it?”

“Yes, monsieur, she ate it, looking all the time at Monsieur Camus with a smile, and between you and me, monsieur, she seems to favour the Count more than a little.”

Lavenne did not hear this last. Horrified at what he had heard, he felt as though some unseen hand had suddenly intervened in this game of life and death, dealing the cards in a reverse direction, and the ace of spades, not to Camus, but to Camille Fontrailles. He turned from Vallone and walked rapidly to the door of the supper-room.

He entered.

Dressed in a sober suit of black he had the appearance of a confidential servant, and no one noticed him, or, if they did, put him down as one of the stewards of the house superintending the service. Numerous small tables were spread about, the place was crowded and a band of violins in the gallery was playing, mixing its music with the sound of voices, laughter, and the tinkle of glass and silver.

Lavenne passed the table where the Dubarry group was seated. Camille Fontrailles was chatting and laughing with the others; she had never appeared more beautiful, she was seated opposite to Camus. Lavenne swept the room with his eyes, as though he were searching for some plan of action; then he hurriedly walked to the door, crossed the reception salon and passed through the door through which he had seen Sartines and Rochefort following Choiseul. He reached the door where the conference was going forward and knocked.

Choiseul paused for a moment without replying.

“Let us see,” said he, “you accuse Monsieur Camus of having assaulted this girl, and you would add to that the suggestion that his accusation against you was prompted by anger at the blow you dealt him.”

“I did not know that the accusation against me came from Comte Camus,” replied Rochefort, “but I must say I suspected that he had a hand in the business. Now that you tell me, I would say that most certainly the accusation was prompted by spite.”

“Well,” said Choiseul, “I have listened to what you have said, and what you have said has impressed me, Monsieur de Rochefort. But I stand here to do justice, and for that purpose I must hear what Comte Camus has to say, for he distinctly told me that he had parted company with you, that he had started on his way home, that he altered his direction in order to call on a friend, and that by accident he had come upon the evidence which he disclosed to me. I shall call Comte Camus and you can confront him.”

“Do so, monsieur,” replied Rochefort, “and now one word first. I fell into politics by a false step, just as a man might fall into a well. I confess that I acted against you, monsieur, not from animosity, but simply because the party with which I momentarily allied myself was in opposition to you. I would ask you to forget all that and forgive an antagonist who is now well disposed towards you, should you decide that Monsieur Camus’ story is a lie, and that I have spoken the truth. Monsieur, I am not fit for politics; I want to enjoy my life since I have only one to enjoy. I don’t want to go into the Bastille on account of your anger, and I don’t want to be hanged for having killed a ruffian who attempted my life. Therefore, Monsieur le Duc, should you think that I have acted as a straight man and a gentleman through all this, I would ask a clear forgiveness. Firstly, for ridding Paris of a rogue with my sword; secondly, for having been such a fool as to ally my life and my fortune to the fortune of those cursed Dubarrys.”

The outward effect of this extraordinary speech on Choiseul was to make him turn half way in order to hide a smile. Then, stretching out his hand he rang a bell; with almost the same movement he casually took the letter lying on the mantelpiece and put it in his pocket.

Sartines knew from the expression on Choiseul’s face that Rochefort was saved, unless Camus, by some trickery, were to turn the tables. Everything rested now with what Camus would do and say.

He was taking a pinch of snuff when Lavenne’s knock came to the door.

Lavenne entered. His face was absolutely white.

“Monsieur,” said he to Sartines, disregarding the other two, “send at once for Monsieur Camus. Mademoiselle Fontrailles has been poisoned—he may know some antidote, but it will have to be forced from him.”

“Good God!” said Sartines, instantly guessing the truth. “He has given her the poison instead of his wife.”

“Yes—yes, monsieur—but send quick.”

“I will fetch him myself,” cried Sartines, rushing from the room.

Choiseul, amazed, found his speech.

“What is this you say?” he asked. “Poisoned, in my house? Explain yourself!”

“Monsieur,” said Lavenne, “Comte Camus has poisoned a lady at the supper-table—yes, in your house; he intended to poison his wife. I have been watching him for some time. He poisoned Atalanta, the King’s hound, with poison which he had prepared for his wife, and which the dog ate by accident. Woe is me! I should have seized him to-day, but the evidence was not complete. I had arranged things otherwise, but God in His wisdom has brought my plans to nothing.”

“Bon Dieu!” said Rochefort, all thoughts about himself swept away. There was something shocking in Lavenne’s face and voice and words. Choiseul, mystified, understanding only half of what had happened, yet comprehending the depth of the tragedy of which his house had been chosen for the stage, stood waiting, half dreading the re-appearance of Sartines, too proud to cross-question a subordinate and at heart furious at this scandal which had thrust itself upon his hearth.

He had not to wait long.

Steps sounded outside, the door opened and Camus entered, closely followed by Sartines. Camus, not comprehending the urgent summons, was, still, pale about the lips, and his manner had lost its assurance.

Sartines shut the door.

“That is the man,” said Lavenne, stepping forward and suddenly taking command of the situation.

Lavenne, in a flash, had altered. He seemed to have increased in size; something ferocious and bullying lying dormant in his nature broke loose; advancing swiftly on Camus he seized him by the collar as he would have seized the commonest criminal and absolutely shouting in his face, held him tight clutched the while:

“I arrest you, your game is lost. The antidote for the poison you have just given an unfortunate woman! Confess, save her, and you may yet save your neck. You refuse? You would struggle? Ah, there——”

He flung himself on Camus as if he would tear the secret from him, but he was not searching for the secret, but for the dagger, which he found and plucked from him, flinging it to Sartines.

Camus, who had not spoken a word, struggled furiously, white, gasping, terrific, proclaiming his infamy by his silence, knowing that all was over, and that this terrible man whom he had never seen before, this man who had lain hidden in his path and who had seized him like Fate, was his executioner.

The struggle lasted only half a minute, then Camus was on the floor and Lavenne, with the whipcord which he always carried, was fastening the wrists of his prisoner. There was no appeal, no defence, or questions or cross-questions. Just a prisoner bound on the floor, and Lavenne, now calm, rising to address his master.

“Shall I remove him, monsieur?”

“But the antidote,” said Sartines.

“There is no antidote, monsieur,” said Lavenne, “else he would have confessed to save his life.” He gave a down glance at Camus. Camus, white and groaning, lay like a man stricken by a mortal blow, and then Choiseul, glaring at him, spoke.

Choiseul, who had not moved nor spoken, suddenly found speech. Filled with fury at the whole business, not caring who was poisoned as long as the affair did not occur in his house, stricken in his dignity and hating the idea of a scandal, he turned to Sartines.

“Take that carrion away,” he burst out. “Away with him by that door which opens on the kitchen premises. Go first, Sartines, and order all the servants to remain away from the yard where you will have a carriage brought. Then you can remove him to La Bastille. Monsieur de Rochefort, kindly help in the business—and Monsieur de Rochefort, all is cleared between us. Go in peace and avoid politics. Now do as I direct. No scandal, no noise—not a word about all this business which is deeply discreditable to our order. We poison in secret, it seems; well, in secret we shall punish.”

“Monsieur,” said Sartines, delighted that the Rochefort business was over and done with, “I shall do exactly as you direct. It is best. Lavenne, open that door and give me your assistance with this.”

Lavenne opened the door and they carried Camus out. Not one word had he spoken from first to last. Rochefort followed. When he reached the door, he turned and bowed to Choiseul, Choiseul returned the bow. Rochefort went out and shut the door behind him and the incident was closed.

Then Choiseul, taking the letter from his pocket re-read it, lit a taper and burned it in the grate. He stamped on the ashes and, leaving the room, returned to the salon on which the passage opened.

Some of the guests were taking their departure, amongst them the Dubarry party.

“We were looking for Monsieur Camus,” said Jean Dubarry, “but he seems to have vanished.”

“Ah, Comte Camus,” replied Choiseul, “I saw him early this evening, but I have not seen him since.”

“Sartines came and fetched him off,” said Jean.

“Then perhaps he has gone off with Sartines,” said Choiseul, “and now you are carrying off Mademoiselle Fontrailles so early in the evening. Ah, Mademoiselle Fontrailles, you are carrying away with you all the charm you have brought to my poor salons, and leaving behind you the envy of all the roses of Paris who have been eclipsed by the Flower of Martinique.”

He bowed profoundly to the laughing girl and to Chon Dubarry.

Then he went to the card-room.

CHAPTER XII
ENVOI

A FEW days later the Comte de Rochefort was breakfasting with his friend, de Chartres, when, the conversation taking a turn, Rochefort, in reply to some remark of his companion, laughed.

“That reminds me,” said he, “I am going to leave Paris.”

“You are going to leave Paris? And for how long?”

“Oh, an indefinite time.”

“And who gave you that bright idea?”

“M. de Duras.”

“M. de Duras advised you to leave Paris?”

“Oh, no, he only gave me the idea that it would be a good thing not to become like M. de Duras. I saw myself in a flash as I would be twenty years hence, old M. de Rochefort with a painted face, living socially on the tolerance of his friends and mentally on the latest rumour and the cast-off wit of others. Besides, I was always fond of a country life; besides—I have had my fling in Paris, I have spent I don’t know how many thousand francs in four years, and if I go on I will be impoverished, and I can stand many things, Chartres, but I could never stand being your poor man.

“I do not mind living on a crust of bread in the least, but I object very strongly to living with the knowledge that I cannot have venison if I want it. I have come from a queer stock, we have always gone the pace, but we have all of us had a grain of commonsense somewhere in our natures to check us in time.

“People say I am mad simply because they only see me spending my money in Paris; they do not know in the least that I have a reputation for commonsense on my estates as solid as an oak-tree. My people in the country know me and they respect me, because I know them and will not let myself be cheated. People say I am mad—silly fools—have they never considered the fact that I have always steered clear of politics?”

“Oh, oh!” said Chartres; “good heavens, what are you saying?”

“That was an accident, an uncharted rock that I struck. I have always steered clear of politics, otherwise I might be like Camus, of whose fate I have just told you—and mind, never, never breathe a word of that even to your pillow—or poor Camille Fontrailles. Well, to return to our subject. I am leaving Paris for another reason, which I will tell to you who are my best friend. I am in love, and the girl whom I am going to make my wife could not live in Paris.”

“And why not?”

“Because she is a girl of the people; because she has a heart of gold and a soul as pure as the soul of a child, and a power of love simple and indestructible as the love of a dog; because she is a woman who can be faithful in friendliness as a man, because she is a child who will be a child till she dies. All that would be extremely absurd in Paris. But down there in the country, Madame la Comtesse de Rochefort will grow and live in the clear air that nourishes the flowers; she will be respected by people who know the value of worth, and when Monsieur de Rochefort is an old man, he will perhaps see in his grandchildren the strength of a new race and not the vices of our rotten aristocracy.”

“Rochefort,” said Chartres, “I do not know whether this is madness or commonsense, I only know that you are talking in a way that surprises me as much as though I were to hear my poodle Pistache talking philosophy.”

“Precisely, yet Pistache has more philosophy in his composition than half the philosophers. You despise him because he is a poodle and plays antics, just as you despise me because I am a man who has played the fool. Yet Madame de Chartres does not look on Pistache as a bag of tricks covered with fur, for she believes—so she told me—that Pistache has a soul, and the woman whom I am going to marry does not look on me as a fool, simply because she loves me.

“Believe me, Chartres, the only people who really understand dogs and men—are women.”

Footnote:

THE END.