(1) From the clump of pines on the rise the view down the Allée des Vieilles, with the sunset light on it, was extensive, and figures half a mile away were tolerably clear. The Comte de Brencourt had learnt at the farm that he was too late, but he had come on nevertheless. He had not reached his vantage point in time to witness the actual moment of meeting, but, though faces were of course indistinguishable at that distance, he had seen enough. And, grinding his teeth, with strange red spasmodic waves passing across his eyesight, so that from time to time he could see nothing at all, he still waited in the shadow of the clump. He had not known why—till a few minutes ago, when they had started to walk this way.
Yes, he knew now why he had come, and why he had endured that hell. But they walked so slowly—and he did not want to kill her too. Her husband’s arm was about her, and her head rested against him. Zéphyr followed, with his incomparable grace of movement, trying now and then to twitch a mouthful of something edible from among the heather. They were only a couple of hundred yards away now. What was this in his own hand—yes, of course, his pistol. And it was not moonlight this time, but strong level sunlight, falling in the right direction. A hundred and fifty yards. His hand must not shake now. But he must be very careful. If only de Trélan would take his arm away, curse him! A hundred and twenty yards, a hundred yards. . . .
If Valentine de Trélan had not worn that look, who knows what might not have happened, whether the menhirs would not have had their wish, and taken her heart’s desire from her. But what, when she was near enough, he who loved her in his own fashion could read on her face was both shield and sword. Crazed though he was at the moment, it smote the pistol from his hand, the very impulse to use it from his heart. The glory that she wore was not forgiveness, or reconciliation, or the transient joy of a great wonder, but absolute, perfect, rounded happiness, tranquillised ecstasy. Then all those years of desertion were nothing; all those years when Gaston de Trélan had followed strange fires were nothing; all the time in Mirabel, then, she had been thinking of him, had perhaps gone there for the sake of his memory—all her life, perhaps, she had been a ship beating against contrary winds to a haven he had not thought existed. And now she was in harbour—no doubt of that!
“She has the face of a saint in Paradise!” he said to himself, trembling. At her husband’s he cast no look; he mattered less than nothing to him.
Vain, then, his own faithfulness to her, that had led him into such crooked and faithless paths, vain his endeavours, stained with his own dishonour, to keep them apart. She had loved him all the time, and now . . .
There was no more to say or do. Ite, missa est. Artus de Brencourt stumbled down the slope, blinded less by the sunset’s exultation as he turned than by that sight, mounted and rode off, more cold and grey than the immemorial watchers, with eyes from which not even hate looked out any more.
No, one thing remained to do, and that quickly. He would have wished to return to the Clos-aux-Grives for a few moments first, but that was impossible, for he would risk meeting them—if he brought her there. Nor did he want to do it too near headquarters. If he could light on a place with sufficient cover there was a chance that his body would never be found at all. He would prefer that—not to give de Trélan the satisfaction of knowing how thoroughly he had worsted him.
And, surely, this oak thicket a little off the road would serve, for the road was lonely enough. He could not wait to find a better spot, for a thirst was on him to be gone. He had done a thing for which there was no forgiveness this side death—a thing for which he had no intention of asking forgiveness—and, what was far more terrible to him had done it in vain.
He dismounted at the entry to the copse. What should he do with his horse, whose presence might betray his own? A moment’s reflection, and he turned the animal’s head away from the direction of the Clos-aux-Grives, and, drawing his sword, smote it hard on the flank with the flat. The beast reared, capered, and bolted down the road. Then, dropping the sword, M. de Brencourt plunged into the thicket.
It was not as dense as he had thought, but at the foot of this oak tree he would be quite invisible from the road. He had no last message to leave other than those he had written on the night of the duel and, as it happened, left undestroyed afterwards. He had no last thoughts, for he was incapable of any thought but one, and as for prayer, a man had no right to it who was doing what he was doing. Nevertheless once familiar words drifted through his brain and out again as he knelt down by the oak-tree’s strong old roots, “. . . pray for us sinners now and in the hour of our death” . . . but they scarcely had meaning, and his mind seemed only a blank of wreathing fog as he put the pistol to his ear.
The weapon remained there for perhaps eight seconds, then sank.
For there comes a point when the machinery that the brain controls will not revolve any longer. Artus de Brencourt had come to that point now. Ridden as he had recently been with the most devastating emotions, torn with hatred and more than half mad with jealousy, having twice tried and failed to kill the man he hated, having lived by day on the edge of a volcano and having scarcely slept by night, he had now to face the most shattering experience of all—itself the direct outcome of the others. He lacked the nerve to kill himself.
Only the tiniest muscular action was needed, the pressure of a finger, and he had not the will power left for it. Kneeling there, the sweat pouring off his face, he tried . . . and could not. His hand would not even hold the weapon in position. He who but a little while ago had tried to steal another man’s life from him had not courage left to take his own.
The discovery, stark and sickening, broke the violent, passion-tossed man to pieces, broke him utterly. Never in his life had he known the taste of physical cowardice till now. A horrible nausea came over him, and he fell forward on his face at the foot of the oak tree and lay there, beaten at last—lay there while an oak leaf settled on his hair and his horse, returning, trotted past again in the direction of headquarters. But he did not hear it.
(2)
Complicated emotions of some violence had assailed M. Chassin when he reached the Clos-aux-Grives and heard from Lucien the story of the ford, and how M. de Brencourt had recently ridden off in haste—and especially when he learnt why he had thus ridden off. And at that piece of news—since the “lady from Paris” awaiting the Marquis could be no other than Mme de Trélan herself—M. Chassin also, abandoning his duties towards the wounded, rushed out of the farmhouse, a prey at the same time to he knew not what dire premonitions, and to a joy and thankfulness beyond words.
Yet where was he to go, and what was he to do? He found himself setting out as fast as he could go for the Ferme des Vieilles, become now a species of rendezvous. But he had hardly gone a mile, his soutane well tucked up, when between heat, fatigue and apprehension he was asking himself why in the name of all the saints he had not borrowed a horse. And instantly the saints sent him one. It came trotting leisurely down the road towards him, its bridle dangling, a riderless horse—more, a horse that he recognised. It was the Comte de Brencourt’s roan.
The Abbé stood in the dust and smote his brow. What did this portend? At any rate he would utilise the steed. He caught it as it passed, girt his soutane still higher, mounted and pursued his road. And as he went he looked from side to side, but he would not have thought of entering the oak copse when he came to it, had not his eye been attracted by something that glinted at the side of the road—the sword that lay there.
The Abbé dismounted, without grace, and picked it up. He seemed to have seen it before, though, after all, one sword was very much like another. Perhaps the thicket would yield some explanation of the mystery. He tied up the roan and went in.
But, in a sense, the thicket only yielded him another mystery. For, on the root of an oaktree, with a pistol lying on the ground beside him, was quietly seated M. de Brencourt, writing something on his knee. M. Chassin, having expected anything in the world but this sight, stood speechless, his cassock tucked about his waist and the drawn sword in his hand. Af............