The House of the Wolf: A Romance by Stanley John Weyman (ebook reader 8 inch TXT) 📕

information I want. I shall take him back with me."

"To whom?"

"To whom? To those who sent me, sirrah!"

I thundered. "You do not seem to be much in the Duke's confidence, captain," I went on; "now take a word of advice from me! There is nothing: so easily cast off as an over-officious servant! He goes too far—and he goes like an old glove! An old glove," I repeated grimly, sneering in his face, "which saves the hand and suffers itself. Beware of too much zeal, Captain Pallavicini! It is a dangerous thing!"

He turned pale with anger at being thus treated by a beardless boy. But he faltered all the same. What I said was unpleasant, but the bravo knew it was true.

I saw the impression I had made, and I turned to the soldiers standing round.

"Bring here, my friends," I said, "M. de Pavannes' sword!"

One ran up to the guard house and brought it at once. They were townsfolk, burgher guards or such like, and for some reason betrayed so evident a respect for me, that I soberly believe they would have turned on their temporary leader at my bidding. Pavannes took his sword, and placed it under his arm. We both bowed ceremoniously to Pallavicini, who scowled in response; and slowly, for I was afraid to show any signs of haste, we walked across the moonlit space to the bottom of the street by which I had come. There the gloom swallowed us up at once. Pavannes touched my sleeve and stopped in the darkness.

"I beg to be allowed to thank you for your aid," he said with emotion, turning and facing me. "Whom have I the honour of addressing?"

"M. Anne de Caylus, a friend of your cousin," I replied.

"Indeed?" he said "well, I thank you most heartily," and we embraced with warmth.

"But I could have done little," I answered modestly, "on your behalf, if it had not been for this ring."

"And the virtue of the ring lies in—"

"In—I am sure I cannot say in what!" I confessed. And then, in the sympathy which the scene had naturally created between us, I forgot one portion of my lady's commands and I added impulsively, "All I know is that Madame d'O gave it me; and that it has done all, and more than all she said it would."

"Who gave it to you?" he asked, grasping my arm so tightly as to hurt me.

"Madame d'O," I repeated. It was too late to draw back now.

"That woman!" he ejaculated in a strange low whisper. "Is it possible? That woman gave it you?"

I wandered what on earth he meant, surprise, scorn and dislike were so blended in his tone. It even seemed to me that he drew off from me somewhat. "Yes, M. de Pavannes," I replied, offended and indignant, "It is so far possible that it is the truth; and more, I think you would not so speak of this lady if you knew all; and that it was through her your wife was to-day freed from those who were detaining her, and taken safely home!"

"Ha!" he cried eagerly. "Then where has my wife been?"

"At the house of Mirepoix, the glover," I answered coldly, "in the Rue Platriere. Do you know him? You do. Well, she was kept there a prisoner, until we helped her to escape an hour or so ago."

He did not seem to comprehend even then. I could see little of his face, but there was doubt and wonder in his tone when he spoke. "Mirepoix the glover," he murmured. "He is an honest man enough, though a Catholic. She was kept there! Who kept her there?"

"The Abbess of the Ursulines seems to have been at the bottom of it," I explained, fretting with impatience. This wonder was misplaced, I thought; and time was passing. "Madame d'O found out where she was," I continued, "and took her home, and then sent me to fetch you, hearing you had crossed the river. That is the story in brief."

"That woman sent you to fetch me?" he repeated again.

"Yes," I answered angrily. "She did, M. de Pavannes."

"Then," he said slowly, and with an air of solemn conviction which could not but impress me, "there is a trap laid for me! She is the worst, the most wicked, the vilest of women! If she sent you, this is a trap! And my wife has fallen into it already! Heaven help her—and me—if it be so!"

CHAPTER VIII. THE PARISIAN MATINS.

There are some statements for which it is impossible to be prepared; statements so strong and so startling that it is impossible to answer them except by action—by a blow. And this of M. de Pavannes was one of these. If there had been any one present, I think I should have given him the lie and drawn upon him. But alone with him at midnight in the shadow near the bottom of the Rue des Fosses, with no witnesses, with every reason to feel friendly towards him, what was I to do?

As a fact, I did nothing. I stood, silent and stupefied, waiting to hear more. He did not keep me long.

"She is my wife's sister," he continued grimly. "But I have no reason to shield her on that account! Shield her? Had you lived at court only a month I might shield her all I could, M. de Caylus, it would avail nothing. Not Madame de Sauves is better known. And I would not if I could! I know well, though my wife will not believe it, that there is nothing so near Madame d'O's heart as to get rid of her sister and me—of both of us—that she may succeed to Madeleine's inheritance! Oh, yes, I had good grounds for being nervous yesterday, when my wife did not return," he added excitedly.

"But there at least you wrong Madame d'O!" I cried, shocked and horrified by an accusation, which seemed so much more dreadful in the silence and gloom—and withal so much less preposterous than it might have seemed in the daylight. "There you certainly wrong her! For shame! M. de Pavannes."

He came a step nearer, and laying a hand on my sleeve peered into my face. "Did you see a priest with her?" he asked slowly. "A man called the Coadjutor—a down-looking dog?"

I said—with a shiver of dread, a sudden revulsion of feeling, born of his manner—that I had. And I explained the part the priest had taken.

"Then," Pavannes rejoined, "I am right There IS a trap laid for me. The Abbess of the Ursulines! She abduct my wife? Why, she is her dearest friend, believe me. It is impossible. She would be more likely to save her from danger than to—umph! wait a minute." I did: I waited, dreading what he might discover, until he muttered, checking himself—"Can that be it? Can it be that the Abbess did know of some danger threatening us, and would have put Madeleine in a safe retreat? I wonder!"

And I wondered; and then—well, thoughts are like gunpowder. The least spark will fire a train. His words were few, but they formed spark enough to raise such a flare in my brain as for a moment blinded me, and shook me so that I trembled. The shock over, I was left face to face with a possibility of wickedness such as I could never have suspected of myself. I remembered Mirepoix's distress and the priest's eagerness. I re-called the gruff warning Bezers—even Bezers, and there was something very odd in Bezers giving a warning!—had given Madame de Pavannes when he told her that she would be better where she was. I thought of the wakefulness which I had marked in the streets, the silent hurrying to and fro, the signs of coming strife, and contrasted these with the quietude and seeming safety of Mirepoix's house; and I hastily asked Pavannes at what time he had been arrested.

"About an hour before midnight," he answered.

"Then you know nothing of what is happening?" I replied quickly. "Why, even while we are loitering here—but listen!"

And with all speed, stammering indeed in my haste and anxiety, I told him what I had noticed in the streets, and the hints I had heard, and I showed him the badges with which Madame had furnished me.

His manner when he had heard me out frightened me still more. He drew me on in a kind of fury to a house in the windows of which some lighted candles had appeared not a minute before.

"The ring!" he cried, "let me see the ring! Whose is it?"

He held up my hand to this chance light and we looked at the ring. It was a heavy gold signet, with one curious characteristic: it had two facets. On one of these was engraved the letter "H," and above it a crown. On the other was an eagle with outstretched wings.

Pavannes let my hand drop and leaned against the wall in sudden despair. "It is the Duke of Guise's," he muttered. "It is the eagle of Lorraine."

"Ha!" said I softly, seeing light. The Duke was the idol then, as later, of the Parisian populace, and I understood now why the citizen soldiers had shown me such respect. They had taken me for the Duke's envoy and confidant.

But I saw no farther. Pavannes did, and murmured bitterly, "We may say our prayers, we Huguenots. That is our death-warrant. To-morrow night there will not be one left in Paris, lad. Guise has his father's death to avenge, and these cursed Parisians will do his bidding like the wolves they are! The Baron de Rosny warned us of this, word for word. I would to Heaven we had taken his advice!"

"Stay!" I cried—he was going too fast for me—"stay!" His monstrous conception, though it marched some way with my own suspicions, outran them far! I saw no sufficient grounds for it. "The King—the king would not permit such a thing, M. de Pavannes," I argued.

"Boy, you are blind!" he rejoined impatiently, for now he saw all and I nothing. "Yonder was the Duke of Anjou's captain—Monsieur's officer, the follower of France's brother, mark you! And HE—he obeyed the Duke's ring! The Duke has a free hand to-night, and he hates us. And the river. Why are we not to cross the river? The King indeed! The King has undone us. He has sold us to his brother and the Guises. VA CHASSER L'IDOLE" for the second time I heard the quaint phrase, which I learned afterwards was an anagram of the King's name, Charles de Valois, used by the Protestants as a password—"VA CHASSER L'IDOLE has betrayed us! I remember the very words he used to the Admiral, 'Now we have got you here we shall not let you go so easily!' Oh, the traitor! The wretched traitor!"

He leaned against the wall overcome by the horror of the conviction which had burst upon him, and unnerved by the imminence of the peril. At all times he was an unready man, I fancy, more fit, courage apart, for the college than the field; and now he gave way to despair. Perhaps the thought of his wife unmanned him. Perhaps the excitement through which he had already gone tended to stupefy him, or the suddenness of the discovery.

At any rate, I was the first to gather my wits together, and my earliest impulse was to tear into two parts a white handkerchief I had in my pouch, and fasten one to his sleeve, the other in his hat, in rough imitation of the badges I wore myself.

It will appear from this that I no longer trusted Madame d'O. I was not convinced, it is true, of her conscious guilt, still I did not trust her entirely. "Do not wear them on your return," she had said and that was odd; although I could not yet believe that she was such a siren as Father Pierre had warned us of, telling tales from old poets. Yet I doubted, shuddering as I did so. Her companionship with that vile priest, her strange eagerness to secure Pavannes' return, her mysterious directions to me, her