depart at once.'
'Monsieur, I am grateful—very, very deeply grateful. I can say no more. May Heaven reward you. I shall pray the good God to watch over you always. Adieu, Monsieur!'
He stood looking at her a moment still retaining his hold of her hands.
'Adieu, Mademoiselle,' he said at last. Then, very slowly—as if so that realising his intent she might frustrate it were she so minded—he raised her right hand. It was not withdrawn, and so he bent low, and pressed his lips upon it.
'God guard you, Mademoiselle,' he said at last, and if they were strange words for a Republican and a Deputy, it must be remembered that his bearing during the past few moments had been singularly unlike a Republican's.
He released her hand, and stepping back, doffed his hat. With a final inclination of the head, she turned and walked away in the direction of the terrace.
At a distance La Boulaye followed, so lost in thought that he did not observe Captain Juste until the fellow's voice broke upon his ear.
'You have been long enough, Citizen-deputy,' was the soldier's greeting. 'I take it there is to be no duel.'
'I make you my compliments upon the acuteness of your perception,' answered La Boulaye tartly. 'You are right. There is to be no encounter.'
Juste's air was slightly mocking, and words of not overdelicate banter rose to his lips, to be instantly quelled by La Boulaye.
'Let your drums beat a rally, Citizen-captain,' he commanded briskly. 'We leave Bellecour in ten minutes.'.
And indeed, in less than that time the blue-coats were swinging briskly down the avenue. In the rear rode La Boulaye, his cloak wrapped about him, his square chin buried in his neck-cloth, and his mind deep in meditation.
From a window of the Chateau the lady who was the cause of the young Revolutionist's mental absorption watched the departing soldiers. On either side of her stood Ombreval and her father.
'My faith, little one,' said Bellecour good-humouredly. 'I wonder what magic you have exercised to rid us of that infernal company.'
'Women have sometimes a power of which men know nothing,' was her cryptic answer.
Ombreval turned to her with a scowl of sudden suspicion.
'I trust, Mademoiselle, that you did not—' he stopped short. His thoughts were of a quality that defied polite utterance.
'That I did not what, Monsieur?' she asked.
'I trust you remembered that you are to become the Vicomtesse d'Ombreval' he answered, constructing his sentence differently.
'Monsieur!' exclaimed Bellecour angrily.
'I was chiefly mindful of the fact that I had my brother's life to save,' said the girl, very coldly, her eye resting upon her betrothed in a glance of so much contempt that it forced him into an abashed silence.
In her mind she was contrasting this supercilious, vacillating weakling with the stern, strong man who lode yonder. A sigh fluttered across her lips. Had things but been different. Had Ombreval been the Revolutionist and La Boulaye the Vicomte, how much better pleased might she not have been. But since it was not so, why sigh? It was not as if she had loved this La Boulaye. How was that possible? Was he not of the canaille, basely born, and a Revolutionist—the enemy of her order—in addition? It were a madness to even dream of the possibility of such a thing, for Suzanne de Bellecour came of too proud a stock, and knew too well the respect that was due to it.
CHAPTER VIII. THE INVALIDS AT BOISVERT
There had been friction between the National Convention and General Dumouriez, who, though a fine soldier, was a remarkably indifferent Republican. The Convention had unjustly ordered the arrest of his commissariat officers, Petit-Jean and Malus, and in other ways irritated a man whose patience was never of the longest.
On the eve, however, of war with Holland, the great ones in Paris had suddenly perceived their error, and had sought—despite the many enemies, from Marat downwards, that Dumouriez counted among their numbers— to conciliate a general whose services they found that they could not dispense with. This conciliation was the business upon which the Deputy La Boulaye had been despatched to Antwerp, and as an ambassador he proved signally successful, as much by virtue of the excellent terms he was empowered to offer as in consequence of the sympathy and diplomacy he displayed in offering them.
The great Republican General started upon his campaign in the Low Countries as fully satisfied as under the circumstances he could hope to be. Malus and Petit-Jean were not only enlarged but reinstated, he was promised abundant supplies of all descriptions, and he was assured that the Republic approved and endorsed his plan of campaign.
La Boulaye, his mission satisfactorily discharged, turned homewards once more, and with an escort of six men and a corporal he swiftly retraced his steps through that blackened, war-ravaged country. They had slept a night at Mons, and they were within a short three leagues of French soil when they chanced to ride towards noon into the little hamlet of Boisvert. Probably they would have gone straight through without drawing rein, but that, as they passed the Auberge de l'Aigle, La Boulaye espied upon the green fronting the wayside hostelry a company of a half-dozen soldiers playing at bowls with cannon-balls.
The sight brought Caron to a sudden halt, and he sat his horse observing them and wondering how it chanced that these men should find themselves so far from the army. Three of them showed signs of having been recently wounded. One carried his arm in a sling, another limped painfully and by the aid of a stick, whilst the head of the third was swathed in bandages. But most remarkable were they by virtue of their clothes. One fellow—he of the bandaged head—wore a coat of yellow brocaded silk, which, in spite of a rent in the shoulder, and sundry stains of wine and oil, was unmistakably of a comparative newness. Beneath this appeared the nankeens and black leggings of a soldier. Another covered his greasy locks with a three-cornered hat, richly laced in gold. A third flaunted under his ragged blue coat a gold-broidered waistcoat and a Brussels cravat. A valuable ring flashed from the grimy finger of a fourth, who, instead of the military white nankeens, wore a pair of black silk breeches. There was one—he of the injured arm—resplendent in a redingote of crimson velvet, whilst he of the limp supported himself upon a gold-headed cane of ebony, which was in ludicrous discord with the tattered blue coat, the phrygian cap, and the toes that peeped through his broken boots.
They paused in their game to inspect, in their turn, the newcomers, and to La Boulaye it seemed that their glances were not free from uneasiness.
'A picturesque company on my life,' he mused aloud. Then beckoned the one in the crimson coat.
'Hola, Citizen,' he called to him.
The fellow hesitated a moment, then shuffled forward with a sullen air, and stood by Caron's stirrup.
'In God's name, what are you and who are you?' the Deputy demanded.
'We are invalided soldiers from the army of Dumouriez,' the man answered him.
'But what are you doing here, at Boisvert?'
'We are in hospital, Citizen.'
'Yonder?' asked La Boulaye derisively, pointing with his whip to the 'Eagle Inn.'
The fellow nodded.
'Yes, Citizen, yonder,' he answered curtly.
La Boulaye looked surprised. Then his eyes strayed to the others on the green.
'But you are not all invalids?' he questioned.
'Many of us are convalescent.'
'Convalescent? But those three braves yonder are something more than convalescent. They are as well as I am. Why do they not rejoin the troops?'
