"Chouan or not, you are my friends, all of you," said Monsieur Joseph; and he turned and left them.

He went back to his room, wrote a short letter to his brother Urbain, and left it on the table. Then he took his sword, crossed himself, and went out into the slowly lightening day.

Ratoneau was waiting for him under the trees, just out of sight of the house, and they were practically alone. A groom held the General's horse at some little distance; Simon waited in the background, skulking behind the trees, and the other men were watching the house from various points. The road which passed Les Chouettes on the north crept on westward, and skirted that same wood of tall oaks, chestnuts, and firs where Monsieur Joseph's Chouan friends had been hidden from the Prefect and the General. The wood, with little undergrowth, but thickly carpeted with dead leaves, sloped down to the south; on its highest edge a line of old oaks, hollow and enormous, stood like grim sentinels. It was under one of these, hidden from the house by a corner of the wood, that Monsieur Joseph met the General.

Ratoneau was considerably cooler than when he had left Lancilly. His manner was less violent, but even more insolent than usual. He looked at his watch as Monsieur Joseph came up, walking over the rough grass with the light step of a boy.

"What do you mean, monsieur, by keeping an Imperial officer waiting?" he said. "Ten minutes? I have been standing here twenty, and you had no right to ask for one. You forget who you are, monsieur, and who I am."

"Kindly enlighten me on these points, Monsieur le General," said Monsieur Joseph, smiling cheerfully.

"I will enlighten you so far—that you are twice a traitor, and the worst of a whole band of traitors."

"Et puis, monsieur? Once—it is possible from your point of view, but how twice?" said Monsieur Joseph, with that air of happy curiosity which had often, in earlier years, misled his enemies to their undoing.

Ratoneau stared at him, muttered an oath, and stammered out: "Not content with plotting against His Majesty's government—why you—you, monsieur—are aiding and abetting that nephew of yours in this scandalous affair of his marriage. Sapristi! you look as innocent as a new-born child! You laugh, monsieur! Do you suppose the Emperor will not learn the truth about this marriage? Yes, I can tell you, you will bitterly repent this night's work—Monsieur de Sainfoy and all of you. And to begin with, that accursed nephew of yours will spend his honeymoon in prison. I have not yet seen my way through the ins and outs of the affair—I do not know how Monsieur de Sainfoy heard of the Emperor's intention—but at least I can have my revenge on your nephew and I will—I will!"

"Ah!" Monsieur Joseph laughed slightly. "I would not be too sure, monsieur. You can prove nothing against Ange. His father, let me tell you, has set him right with the Emperor. He is in no danger at all, unless from your personal malice. The prize you intended to have has been given to him. It is no doing of his family. I do not believe the Emperor will punish him or them. And—unless he values your services more highly than I should think probable, I fancy he will see excuses for Monsieur de Sainfoy!"

"No doing of his family! The intrigue has been going on for weeks," cried Ratoneau. "When have I not seen that odious boy pushing himself at Lancilly? Detestable little hound! as insolent as yourself, and far more of a fool. I have always hated him—always—since the day I first saw him in your house, the day when we met a herd of cattle in the lane, and he dared to laugh at my horse's misbehaviour. Little scum of the earth! if I had him under my heel—What are we losing time for? What do you want to say to me? It is my duty to arrest you, and to search your house for conspirators and arms, in the name of the Emperor."

"Yes; I know all that," said Monsieur Joseph, gently, with his head a little on one side.

He was wondering, as he wondered on first acquaintance with this man, for how long he would be able to refrain from striking him in the face. He was afraid that it would not, at this juncture, be a wise thing to do. The two girls in the house were much on his mind; perhaps a presentiment of something of this sort had made him arrange for their escape.

"I told that police fellow," he went on very mildly, "that I was ready to go with you to Sonnay, where the Prefect, of course, is the right person to deal with any suspected conspiracy. I also told him, and I tell you, that I will not have my house searched without the Prefect's warrant."

"And pray, how are you going to prevent it?" said Ratoneau, staring at him.

"Try it, and you will see," said Monsieur Joseph.

"Your nephew is shut up there, I know. He is taking care of his bride, and is afraid to come out and face me," said Ratoneau, with a frightful grin. "He will not dare to resist by force—miserable little coward!"

"All this shall be paid for by and by," Monsieur Joseph said to himself, consolingly. Aloud he said, "It happens that my nephew is not there, Monsieur le General."

"Not there! where are they gone then? I believe that is a lie."

Monsieur Joseph bowed politely, with his hand on his sword.

"Allow me to remark, Monsieur le General Ratoneau, that you are a cheat and a coward."

Ratoneau turned purple, and almost choked.

"Monsieur! You dare to use such words to me! I shall call my men up, and—"

"Call the whole of the usurper's army," said Monsieur Joseph, with unearthly coolness. "As they follow him they may follow you, his pasteboard image. But I am quite of your opinion, my words need explanation. I see through you, Monsieur le General. You tried to cheat the Comte de Sainfoy out of his daughter, whom he had refused you. And I am sure now, that my nephew's arrest the other day was a scoundrelly piece of cheating, a satisfaction of your private spite, a means of getting him out of your way. Yes, I see through you now. A fine specimen of an Imperial officer, bribing police spies to carry out his private malice. Coward and cheat! Defend yourself!"

Both swords were out, and the fight began instantly. The steel clashed and darted lightly, flashing back the rising day. It was no ordinary duel, no mere satisfaction of honour, though each might have had the right to demand this of the other. It was a quarrel of life and death, personal hatred that must slay or be slain.

Monsieur Joseph, with all his grace and amiability, had the passionate nature of old France; his instincts were primitive and simple; he longed, and his longing had become irresistible, to send a villain out of the world. Perhaps, too, in Ratoneau's overbearing swagger, he saw and felt an incarnation of that Empire which had crushed his native country under its iron feet. But all mixed motives were fused together and flamed up in the fighting rage that drew that slight hand to the sword-hilt, and darted like lightning along the living blade.

Monsieur Joseph was a splendid swordsman. But Ratoneau, too, had perfect command of his weapon; and besides this, he was a taller and heavier man. And the fury of disappointment, of revenge, the dread of being found out, of probable disgrace, if Joseph de la Mariniere could prove his keen suspicions true; all this added to his caution, while he never lacked the bull-dog courage of a fighting soldier. Though foaming with rage, he was at that moment the cooler, the more self-possessed of the two.

Simon tried at first to interfere. He stepped out from among the trees, exclaiming, "Messieurs—messieurs!" but then withdrew again, for the very sight of the two men's faces, the sound of their breath, the quick clash of the swords, showed that this was a quarrel past mending. Simon watched. He was conscious, in the depths of his mind, of a knowledge that he would not mourn very deeply if General Ratoneau should be the one to fall. He hastily made his own plans. In that case he would slip away behind the trees, take the horse from the groom without a word, and ride away to Paris, trusting that he might never be called to account for any dark doings in Anjou. For there was not only the false arrest of Angelot; there were also certain dealings with the Prefect's secretary; there were tamperings with papers and seals, all to set forward that marriage affair that had failed so dismally, he hardly understood how. But he had hoped that the Prefect would die, and the news of his rapid recovery seemed strangely inopportune. It appeared to Simon that General Ratoneau's star was on the wane; and so, for those entangled in his rascally deeds, a lucky thrust of Monsieur de la Mariniere's swiftly flashing sword—Ah, no! the fortune of war was on the wrong side that morning. A few passes; a fight three or four minutes long; a low cry, then silence, and the slipping down of a light body on the grass. General Ratoneau had run his adversary through the heart, had withdrawn his sword and stood, white but unmoved, looking at him as he lay.



Monsieur Joseph turned himself once, and stretched his slight limbs, as if composing himself to sleep. His face was towards his house and the rising dawn, and he gazed that way with dark eyes wide open. His lips moved, but no one heard what he said. All the fighting fury was gone from his face, and as a thin thread of blood trickled down from his side and began to redden the grass beneath, his look, at first startled and painful, became every moment more peaceful, more satisfied. His eyelids slowly drooped and fell; he died smiling, his whole attitude and expression so lifelike that the two witnesses, Ratoneau and Simon, could scarcely believe that he was dead.

The General stood immovable. Simon, after a minute, knelt down and felt the pulse and examined the wound. It had been almost instantly fatal, the pulse was still.

"Mon Dieu, Monsieur le General, you have killed him!" Simon said, under his breath.

Ratoneau glared at him for a moment before he spoke.

"He tried to kill me," he said. "You were there, you can bear witness, he challenged and attacked me, the little fighting-cock. I wish it had been his nephew. But now for him! Come, leave the body there; the servants will fetch it in presently."

He started to walk towards the house, carrying his drawn sword in his hand. In the middle of the slope he turned round with a furious look to his follower.

"Those who insult me, and stand in my way—you see the lessons I teach them!" he said hoarsely, and walked on.

The western front of Les Chouettes, the tower rising into the slowly lightening sky, presented a lifeless face to the woods where its master lay. All the windows were closed and shuttered; dead silence reigned. When the General shouted an order to open, beating with his sword-hilt at a window, he was only answered by the growling and barking of the dogs, whom the defenders had called in. He walked round by the south to the east front; the same chorus accompanied him, but of human voices there were none. He whistled up the rest of the gendarmes, and ordered them to force the dining-room window. Then the shutters of a window above it were pushed open, and a white-haired man looked out into the court.

"Now, old Chouan, do you hear me?" shouted Ratoneau, in his most overbearing tones. "Come down and open some of these windows."

"Pardon, monsieur," old Joubard answered quietly. "I have Monsieur de la Mariniere's orders to keep them shut."

"Have you, indeed? Well, it makes no difference to him whether they are shut or open. Tell his nephew, Monsieur Ange, with my compliments, to come down and speak to me. Tell him I want to see his pretty wife, and to congratulate him on his marriage. Tell him to bring a sword, if he knows how to use one, and to revenge his uncle."

There was a dead pause. The two Joubards and the servants, all together in that upper room, looked strangely at each other.

"Tiens, Maitre Joubard, let me come to the window and I'll shoot that man dead!" groaned Tobie in the background.

"No, you fool, Tobie," Joubard said angrily. "Do you want us all to be massacred? Anyhow, let us first know what he means."

"I wonder where the master is!" said Gigot, and his teeth chattered.

"He has killed him," Martin whispered, looking at his father.

"This will be the ruin of us all," said old Joubard aside to him. "You, at least, keep out of the way. Those men have carbines. You have not come home from Spain to be shot by mistake for a Chouan. I will try to speak civilly. Monsieur le General," he said, leaning out of the window, "your worship is mistaken. There are no Chouans here, and no ladies. And Monsieur Angelot is not here. Only we, a few harmless servants and neighbours, taking care of the house, left in charge while Monsieur de la Mariniere went to speak to you, waiting till he comes back. We can do nothing without his orders, Monsieur le General."

"Then you will do nothing till doomsday," said Ratoneau. "Don't you understand that he is dead, old fool, whoever you may be?"

"Dead! Impossible!" old Joubard stammered. "Monsieur Joseph dead—murdered! And the gendarmes on your side, monsieur! Why, he was here giving us our orders, a quarter of an hour ago."

In the horrified look he turned on Martin, there was yet the shadow of a smile. For Martin's eager persuasions had sent Helene and Riette away with Marie Gigot through the woods to La Mariniere, almost before Monsieur Joseph's appointed time.

Joubard leaned again out of the window, his rugged face in the full light of the morning.

"This is a bad business, Monsieur le General," he said. "If it is true that you have killed Monsieur Joseph, you have done enough for one day. Take my advice, draw your men off and go away. Justice will follow you; and you have no right here. I am not a Chouan. I am Joubard, of La Joubardiere, Monsieur Urbain de la Mariniere's best tenant, and my only son lost his limbs fighting for the Emperor."

Simon drew near, with his bandaged head, and looked up at the window. "Ah! He has limbs enough left to do some mischief," he growled savagely. "Is he there, your precious cripple of a son? I shall have something to say to him, one of these days."

"Begone with you all," cried old Joubard, "for a pack of thieves and murderers! You are a disgrace to the Emperor, his police and his army!"

"Silence, old fool!" shouted Ratoneau. "What do you say about murder, you idiot? Did you never hear of a man being killed in a duel? Come down, some of you, I say, or I force my way in."

He would have done so, and easily, but for a sudden interruption.

There was a wild howl of pain from among the trees beyond the kitchen, where one of Monsieur Joseph's faithful dogs followed him to the land where all faithfulness is perhaps rewarded; and then the gendarme whom Joubard had tied to a tree came running down to the house with the comrade who had freed him and killed his guard. He was eager to tell the General what he had seen while every one but himself was away in the western wood. He had seen two women and a child escape from the house, and hurry away by the footpath under the trees towards La Mariniere. One of the women was dressed in white; he could see it under her cloak; she spoke, and it was a lady's voice; they had passed quite near him. How long ago? Well, perhaps a quarter of an hour. General Ratoneau stamped his foot and ground his teeth.

"Bring my horse!" he said; and then he looked up again at the window, at old Joubard's stern face watching him.

"Monsieur Ange de la Mariniere!" he shouted in tones of thunder. "Come out of your hole, little coward, if you are there. I will teach you to marry against the Emperor's commands! You shall meet me before you see your wife again. I will give account of you, and I will have what is my own. What! you dare not come out? Then follow me to Sonnay, monsieur, by way of La Mariniere."

He flung himself into the saddle and rode off at a furious pace, turning round to shout back to Simon, "I shall overtake her! Go on—shoot them all—burn the house, if you must."

His horse plunged down into the shadows of the narrow lane, and they heard the heavy thud of its hoofs as it galloped away.



CHAPTER XXVIII

HOW GENERAL RATONEAU MET HIS MATCH

Within and without Les Chouettes the men all listened till those sounds died away. Then Simon turned to the little group of gendarmes and said: "Come along, fellows, make a rush for that window. If there are any Chouan gentlemen here, we must not let them escape."

Then the oldest of the gendarmes, a man well accustomed to hunting this sort of game, hung back and looked at him queerly.

"There are none—I'll answer for that," he said. "Certainly not Monsieur Ange de la Mariniere, or he would have been out long ago—and none of us ever felt sure that he was mixed up in Chouannerie—"

"What are you talking about?" cried Simon. "Hold your tongue, and do your duty. The General ordered us to break into the house and search it. Why, you know yourself that it is the headquarters of this plot."

"If so, if I hear rightly, the master of it has paid for his Chouannerie with his life," said the man gravely, still holding back, and watching Simon with a dogged steadiness. "Our mates have caught the other gentlemen—they could not fail—and as for me, Monsieur Simon, I don't feel inclined to take any more orders from that General of yours. To me, he seems like a madman. There's private malice behind all this. It is not the sort of justice that suits me—to kill a gentleman and shoot his servants and burn his house down. I tell you, fellows, I don't like it—there are limits to what the police ought to do, and we shall find ourselves in the wrong box, if we go further without the Prefect's warrant."

"Obey your orders, or you'll pay for it!" shouted Simon. "Come on, men!" and he ran towards the house.

"Be off, or we fire!" cried a voice from the window above.

"All right, Maitre Joubard, don't fire; we know you are a loyal man," said the spokesman of the gendarmes. "I am going straight back to Sonnay, to see what Monsieur le Prefet says to all this. Do you agree?" he turned to his comrades, who had drawn up behind him, and who answered, even the man who had been tied to the tree, by a quick murmur of assent. "Come, Monsieur Simon, I advise you to cast in your lot with us; you have had too much to do with that madman. Everybody hates him. They sent him down here because they could not stand him in the army."

As Simon turned his back and walked sulkily away, the gendarme added: "Come down, some of you, and look for your master. He may be still alive."

The men in the room above looked at each other. They could not and did not believe that Monsieur Joseph was dead. To his old servants, it was one of those shocks too heavy for the brain to bear; the thought stunned them. Large tears were rolling down old Joubard's cheeks, but his brain and Martin's were active enough.

"What do you think?" he said to his son. "Are they safe at La Mariniere?"

"I'll wager my wooden leg they are," Martin said cheerfully. "They had a good start, and that lumbering brute with his big horse would not know the shortest path. And once with Monsieur Urbain—"

"Ah, poor man! Well, let us go down and look for him, the little uncle. Ah, Martin, all the pretty girls in the world will take long to comfort Monsieur Angelot—and as to Mademoiselle Henriette!"

"The gendarme said he might be still alive," said Martin. "See, they are gone round to him."

"He is dead," said Joubard. "Come, Gigot, you and I must carry him in. As to you, Tobie, just keep watch on this side with your gun—that poisonous snake of a Simon is prowling about there. Don't shoot, of course, but keep him off; don't let him get into the house."

Martin lingered a moment behind his father. "Tobie," he said, "that Simon has been Monsieur Angelot's enemy all through. I thought I had finished him with my stick, two or three hours ago, but—"

"I know—I have my master's orders," said Tobie. He smiled, and lifted his gun to his shoulder.

The sun was rising when they found Monsieur Joseph on his bed of soft grass and leaves, at the foot of his own old oak just bronzed by the sun of August and September. Up above the squirrels were playing; they did not disturb his sleep, though they scampered along the boughs and squeaked and peeped down curiously. The birds cried and chirped about him in the opening day; and one long ray of yellow sunshine pierced the eastern screen of trees, creeping all along up the broad slope where the autumn crocuses grew, till it laid itself softly and caressingly on the smiling face turned to meet it once more. The sportsman had gone out for the last time into his loved fields and woods; and perhaps he would have chosen to die there, rather than in a curtained room with fresh air and daylight shut out. No doubt the manner of his death had been terrible; but the pain was momentary, and he had gone to meet it in his highest mood, all one flame of indignation against evil, and ready, generous self-sacrifice. He had died for Angelot, fighting his enemy; he had carried out his little daughter's words, and the last drop of that good heart's blood was for Angelot, though indeed his dear boy's enemy was also the enemy of the cause he loved, to which his life had been given. No more conspiracies now for the little Royalist gentleman.

They all came and stood about him, Joubard, Martin, Gigot, and the party of gendarmes. At first they hardly liked to touch him; he lay so peacefully asleep under the tree, his thin right hand pressed over his heart, where the sword had wounded him, such a look of perfect content on the face that death had marked for its own. His sword lay on the grass beside him, where it had fallen from his dying hand. Martin picked it up, saying in a low voice, "This will be for Monsieur Angelot."

Sturdy Gigot, choking with sobs, turned upon him fiercely.

"It belongs to mademoiselle."

They lifted Monsieur Joseph—old Joubard at his head, Gigot at his feet—and carried their light burden down to his house, in at his own bedroom window. They laid him on his bed in the alcove, and then were afraid to touch him any more. All the group of strong men stood and looked at him, Gigot weeping loudly, Joubard silently; even the eyes of the gendarmes were wet.

"We must have women here," said Joubard.

Turning round, he saw Monsieur Joseph's letter to his brother lying on the table; he took it up and gave it to Gigot.

"Take this letter to La Mariniere," he said, "and tell Monsieur Urbain what has happened. And you," to the gendarmes, "be off to Sonnay, and make your report at once to Monsieur le Prefet. I doubt if he will justify all that is done in his name."

"We will do as you say, Maitre Joubard," said the gendarme.

A few minutes later the only one of the General's party left at Les Chouettes was Simon. He skulked round behind the buildings, but could not persuade himself to go away. It seemed to him that there was a good deal of danger in escaping on foot; that the country people, enraged by Monsieur Joseph's death, delighted, as they probably would be, by Monsieur Angelot's marriage, would all be his enemies. He was half terrified by General Ratoneau's desperation. Suppose he had overtaken Angelot's young bride and her companions! suppose he had swung her up on his horse and carried her away, forgetting that he was not campaigning in a foreign country, but living peaceably in France, where the law protected people from such violent doings. It might be very inconvenient, in such a case, to appear at Sonnay as a friend and follower of General Ratoneau. Any credit he still had with the Prefect, for instance, would be lost for ever. And yet, if he deserted the General entirely, washed his hands, as far as possible, of him and his doings, what chance was there of receiving the large sums of money so grudgingly promised him!

"A hard master, the devil!" Simon muttered to himself.

He peeped cautiously round the corner of the kitchen wall, where the silver birches had scattered their golden leaves in the wind of the night. He watched the little band of gendarmes as they started down the road towards Sonnay. It struck him that his best plan would be to slip away across the landes towards the Etang des Morts, and to put himself right with the authorities by helping to capture a few Chouan gentlemen and conveying them to prison.

But first—how still all the place was! The men were busy, he supposed, with their dead master. Surely those windows were not so firmly fastened but that he could make his way in, and perhaps find some evidence to prove Monsieur Joseph's complicity in the plots of the moment. He walked lightly across the sand. A dog barked in the house, and Martin Joubard looked out from an upper window.

All the evil passions of his nature rose in Simon then. That was the man who knew he had arrested Angelot; that was the man who had knocked him down in the park and lost him half an hour of valuable time. As Angelot himself, in some mysterious way, was out of reach, here was this man on whom he might revenge himself. Both for his own sake and the General's, this man would be better out of the way; Simon raised his loaded carbine and fired.

Martin stepped back at the instant, and he missed him. The shot grazed Tobie's cheek as he knelt inside the room, resting his long gun-barrel on the low window-sill.

"Ah, Chouan-catcher, your time is come!" muttered Tobie, and his gun went off almost of itself.

Simon flung up his arms in the air, and dropped upon the sand.

* * * * *

While these things were happening at Les Chouettes, Angelot was hurrying back from his mission to the Etang des Morts. He was full of wild happiness, a joy that could not be believed in, till he saw and touched Helene again. His heart was as light as the air of that glorious morning, so keen, clear, and still on the high moorlands as he crossed them.

He had done all and more than the little uncle expected of him. In the darkness before dawn, as he rode through the deep lanes beyond La Joubardiere, he had met a friendly peasant who warned him that a party of police and gendarmes was watching the country a little farther south, towards the Etang des Morts. He therefore left his horse in a shed, took to the fields and woods, and intercepted Cesar d'Ombre on his way to the rendezvous. Explanations were not altogether easy, for Cesar cared little for the private affairs of young La Mariniere. He had never expected much from the son of Urbain. He took his warning, and gave up his companionship easily enough. Striking off across country, avoiding all roads likely to be patrolled by the police, he made his way alone to Brittany and the coast, while Angelot returned by the way he had come.

For the sake of taking the very shortest cut across the landes, he brought his horse up to La Joubardiere and left him there. For no horse could carry him through the lanes, rocky as they were, at the pace that he could run and walk across country, and it was only because Uncle Joseph insisted on it that he had taken a horse at all.

The golden light of sunrise spread over the moor as he ran. He took long leaps through the heather, and coveys of birds scuttled out of his way; but their lives were safe that morning, though his eyes followed them eagerly. Far beyond the purple landes, the woods of Lancilly lay heaped against the western sky, a billowy dark green sea of velvet touched with the bright gold of autumn and of sunrise; and the chateau itself shone out broad in its glittering whiteness. The guests were all gone now; the music was still; and for Angelot the place was empty, a mere shell, a pile of stones. Other roofs covered the joy of his life now.

This shortest cut from La Joubardiere did not bring him to Les Chouettes by the usual road, but by a sharp slope of moorland, all stones and bushes and no path at all, and then across one or two small fields into a narrow lane, a bridle-path between high straggling hedges, one way from Les Chouettes to La Mariniere. The poplars by the manor gate, a shining row, lifted their tall heads, always softly rustling, a quarter of a mile farther on.

Angelot ran across the fields, jumped a ditch, reached the lane at a sharp corner, and was turning to the right towards Les Chouettes, thinking in his joyful gladness that he would be back before even Helene expected him, when something struck his ear and brought him to a sudden stand. It was a woman's scream.

"Help, help!" a voice cried; and then again there was a piteous shriek of pain or extreme terror.

For one moment Angelot hesitated. Who or what could this be? Some one was in trouble, some woman, and probably a woman he knew. Or could it be a child, hurt by some animal? One of the bulls at La Mariniere was very fierce; there had been trouble with him before now. Ah! he must turn his back on Helene and see what it meant, this cursed interruption. What were they doing to let that beast roam about alone? And even as he turned the shriek tore the air again, and now he could hear a man's voice, rough and furious, a confusion of voices, the stamping of a horse, the creaking of harness. No! Bellot the bull was not the aggressor here.

Angelot loosened his hunting knife as he ran along the lane. It turned sharply once or twice between its banks, dipping into the hollow, then climbing again to La Mariniere. At its lowest point it touched the elbow of a stream, winding away under willows to join the river near Lancilly, and overflowing the lane in winter and stormy weather. Now, however, the passage was dry, and at that very point a group of figures was struggling. Angelot had the eyes of a hawk, and at that distance knew them all.

General Ratoneau was on horseback; his gold lace flashed in the sunlight. Before him on the horse's neck lay a girl's white figure, flung across the front of the saddle, struggling, shrieking, held down by his bridle hand which also clutched her dress, while with the butt-end of a pistol he threatened Marie Gigot, who screamed for help as she hung to the horse's head. He, good creature, not being one of the General's own chargers, but a harmless beast borrowed without leave from the Lancilly stables, backed from Marie instead of pushing and trampling her down in obedience to his desperate rider. Little Henriette did her best by clinging tightly to the white folds of her cousin's gown as they fell over the horse's shoulder, and was in great danger of being either pushed down or kicked away by Ratoneau, as soon as he should have disposed of Marie.

"Let go, woman!" he shouted, with frightful oaths. "Let go, or I'll kill you! Do you see this pistol? A moment more, and I'll dash your brains out—send you after your master, do you hear?—Ah, bah! keep still, beauty!" as Helene almost struggled away from him. "I don't want to hurt you, but I will have what is my own. Get away, child, we don't want you. Morbleau! what's that?"

It was a sound of quick running, and Riette's keen ears had heard it already. It had, indeed, saved Ratoneau from being shot dead on the spot, for the child had let go her hold on her cousin's dress with one hand and had clutched the tiny, beautiful pistol with which her father had trusted her, and which she had hidden inside her frock. True, she was shaking with the terrible excitement of the moment, she was nearly dragged off her feet by the horse's plunging backwards, and a correct aim seemed almost impossible—but her father had told her to defend Angelot's wife, and Riette was very sure that this wicked man should not carry away Helene, as long as she had life and a weapon to prevent it. And if she could have understood those words to Marie,—"send you after your master"—there would have been no hesitation at all.

At the same moment, she and the General turned their heads and looked up the lane. Something wild and lithe, bright and splendid, came flying straight down from the east, from the heart of the sunrise. The swiftness with which Angelot darted upon them was almost supernatural. He might have been a young god of the Greeks, flashing from heaven to rescue his earthly love from an earthly ravisher.

Ratoneau was not prepared for such a sudden and fiery onslaught. It was easy, the work he expected—to tear Helene from the company of a woman and child, to carry her off to Sonnay. He considered her his own property, given to him by the Emperor, stolen from him by her father and Angelot. It would be easy, he told himself, to have the absurd midnight ceremony declared illegal; or if not, he would soon find means to put Angelot out of his way. By fair means or by foul, he meant to have the girl and to marry her. If his method was that of the ancient Gauls—well, she would forgive him in time! Women love a hero, however roughly he may treat them. He thought he had learnt that from experience; and if Helene de Sainfoy thought herself too good for him, she must find her level. The man swore to himself that he loved her, and would be good to her, when once she was his own. As he lifted her on the horse he knew he loved her with all the violent instincts of a coarse and unrestrained nature.

And now came vengeance, darting upon him like a bolt from the shining sky. Before his slower senses even knew what was happening, before, encumbered with his prey, he could fire a pistol or draw his sword, Helene had been snatched from him into Angelot's arms. No leave asked of Ratoneau; a spring and a clutch; it might have been a tiger leaping at the horse's neck and carrying off its victim. The girl screamed again and again, as Angelot set her on the ground, and trembled so that she could not stand alone. As her lover supported her for an instant, saying to Marie Gigot, who ran forward from the horse's head, "Take her—take her home!" Ratoneau fired his pistol straight at the two young heads so near together. The bullet passed actually between them, touching Helene's curls. Then the sturdy peasant woman threw a strong arm round her, and dragged her away towards La Mariniere.

Angelot, with a flushed face and blazing eyes, turned to the General, who sat and glared in speechless fury. Then the young fellow smiled, lifted his hat, and set it jauntily on again. He had not drawn his hunting knife, and stood empty-handed, though this and a pair of pistols were in his belt.

"And now, Monsieur le General!" he said, a little breathlessly.

Ratoneau stared at him, struck, even at that moment, by his extraordinary likeness to his uncle. There was the same easy grace, the same light gaiety, the same joy in battle and fearless confidence, with more outward dash and daring. Ah, well! as the other insolent life had ended, so in a few minutes this should end. It would be easy—a slip of a boy—it was fortunate indeed, that it happened so.

"Mille tonnerres! you can be buried together!" said Ratoneau.

"Merci, monsieur, I hope so—a hundred years hence," Angelot answered with a laugh.

"You are mistaken—I am not talking of your wife," growled Ratoneau. "She will be a widow in ten minutes, and married to me in a month. I mean that you and your precious uncle can be buried together."

"Indeed! Is my uncle going to die?" Angelot said carelessly; but he looked at the madman a little more steadily, with the sudden idea that he was really and literally mad.

"He is dead already. I have killed him," said Ratoneau.

Angelot turned pale, and stepped back a pace, watching him cautiously.

"When? Where? I don't believe it," he said.

"We had a disagreement," said Ratoneau. "It was about you that we quarrelled, a worthless cause. He chose to take your part, and to insult me. I ran him through the body."

Saying this, he slowly dismounted and drew his sword. Angelot stood motionless, looking at him. The words had stunned him; his heart and brain seemed to be gripped by icy hands, crushing out all sensation. Henriette, who had not followed the others, came up and stood beside him, her great dark eyes, full of horror, fixed upon General Ratoneau. She was motionless and dumb; under the folds of her frock, her fingers gripped the little pistol. As long as she remained silent, neither of the men saw that she was there.

"Look!" said Ratoneau. He held out his sword, red and still wet, as he had thrust it back into the scabbard after killing Monsieur Joseph. "Give up the girl to me or you follow your uncle," he said, after a moment's frightful pause.

Henriette came a step nearer, came quite close and looked at the sword. Every drop of her own blood had forsaken her small face, always delicate and pale. Suddenly she stretched out her hand and touched the sword, saying in a low voice, "That was why he did not come back!"

"Oh, good God! Go away, child!" cried Angelot, suddenly waking from his trance of horror, and pushing her violently back.

Then he drew his knife and sprang furiously upon the General.

"Villain! murderer!" he shouted as he closed with him; for this was no formal fight with swords.

"Keep off, little devil, or I'll tear you to pieces!" shrieked Ratoneau. "What! You will have it? Come on then, plague upon you, cursed wild cat!"

It was an unequal struggle; for Angelot, though strong, was slender and small, and Ratoneau had height and width of chest, besides great muscular power. And he hated Angelot with all the intensity of his violent nature. It was a case in which strength told, and Angelot had been unwise in trusting to his own. A duel with pistols, as he had no sword, would have been better for him. Still, at first, his furious attack brought him some advantage. He wrenched Ratoneau's sword from his hand and flung it into the stream. Twice he wounded him slightly with his knife, but Ratoneau, hugging him like a bear, made it difficult to strike, and the fight became a tremendous wrestling match, in which the two men struggled and panted and slipped and lurched from side to side, from the grassy bank to the willows by the water, each vainly trying to throw the other.

The issue of such a combat could not long be doubtful. Courage and energy being equal, the taller and heavier man was sure to have the better of it. Several times Angelot tried to trip his enemy up, but failed, for his wrestling skill, as well as his strength, was not equal to Ratoneau's. The General was more successful. A twist of his leg, and both men were dashed violently down upon the stones, Angelot underneath.

His knife had already dropped from his hand. Ratoneau snatched it up, and knelt over him, one knee on his chest, one hand on his throat, the knife in the other. Looking up into the dark, furious eyes bent upon him, watching the evil smile that broadened round the handsome, cruel mouth, Angelot felt that his last moment was come. That face leaning over him was the face of death itself. The little uncle would not be long alone in the unknown country to which this same hand had sent him.

"How about your pretty wife now, Monsieur Angelot?" the snarling voice said, and the sharp knife trembled and flashed in the sunshine.

Angelot set his teeth, and closed his eyes that he might not see it. Ratoneau went on saying something, but he did not hear, for in those few moments he dreamed a dream. Helene's face was bending over his, her soft hair falling upon him, her lips touching his. Was death already over, and was this Paradise?

He came back to life with a violent start, at the discharge of a pistol close by; and then the weight on his chest became suddenly unbearable, and the knife dropped from his enemy's hand, and the cruel face fell aside, changing into something still more dreadful. In another minute he had dragged himself out from under Ratoneau's dead body, and staring wildly round, saw Riette holding a pistol.

"Ah! do not look at me so!" she cried, as she met her cousin's horrified eyes. "I had to save you! Papa will not be angry."

"He is avenged. You are a heroine, Riette!" he said, and held out his arms to her; but the child flung away her little weapon which had done so great a deed, and threw herself upon the ground in a passionate agony of tears.



CHAPTER XXIX

THE DISAPPOINTMENT OF MONSIEUR URBAIN

It was an afternoon late in November. A wild wind was blowing, and shadows were flying across the country and the leafless woods which rushed and cried like the sea. A great full moon shone in the sky, chased over and constantly obscured by thin racing clouds, silver and copper-coloured on the blue-black depths of air.

Madame de la Mariniere was alone in her old room. The candles were lighted on her work-table, her embroidery frame stood beside it, the needle carelessly stuck in; a fire of logs was flaming up the wide black chimney. Anne was not working, but wandering restlessly up and down the room. Once she went to a window and dragged it open; the moonlight flowed in, and with it a soft rough blast that blew the candles about wildly and made smoke and flames fly out from the fire. Anne hastily, with some difficulty, closed the window and fastened it again.

She had not waited very long when slow heavy feet came tramping through the stone court, the house door opened and shut with a clang, and Monsieur Urbain came into the room. As he took Anne's hand and kissed it in the old pretty fashion, she looked anxiously into his face, a very sad face in these days. Urbain's philosophy had been hardly tried of late. And his wife was not mistaken in fancying that something new had happened that day to deepen the hollows round his eyes, the lines on his rugged brow. She would not, even dared not ask, for reasons of her own. It might well be that his grief and her joy should run on the same lines. Anne had been praying for something; she was half afraid, though she fully expected, to hear that her prayer was granted.

Urbain sat down by the fire, and stretched out his feet and hands to the blaze.

"Where are the children?" he said.

Anne smiled very sweetly. "Out somewhere in the moonlight. Ange thinks there is nothing for Helene like fresh air."

"From her looks, he is right."

"It is not only the fresh air—" Anne broke off, then went on again. "Well, my friend, you went to Sonnay—you took the child to the convent?"

"Yes—she will be very safe there for a time—the reverend mothers received her excellently. I do not care for convents, as you know, but I am not sure that Henriette, even at this early age, has not found her vocation. Till to-day, I do not think I had seen the child smile since—"

"Ah, yes—" Anne murmured something under her breath. "Did you see Monsieur de Mauves?"

"For a few minutes. I talked so long with the Prioress that it was late before I reached the Prefecture. He had been to Paris. He explained all that tissue of rascality to the Emperor, so that no blame might fall on the wrong shoulders. Luckily His Majesty disliked Ratoneau; the man smoked and swore too much to please him."

"But after all," Anne said thoughtfully, "the Prefect drew up those papers himself, if he did not send them. And you, Urbain—"

He waved his hand sadly, impatiently. "No more of me, I am punished enough," he said. "I thought I was acting for everybody's good—but alas!—Yes, De Mauves drew up the papers, and then repented. He threw them into a drawer, and determined at least to delay sending them till circumstances and Ratoneau should force his hand further. Then came his illness; recovering, he believed the papers to be safe in his bureau, and left this affair, with many others, to arrange itself later. In the meanwhile, the rascal Simon had corrupted his foolish young secretary and stolen the papers—you know the rest. I suppose we should be glad that he found out in time—"

"Can any one be otherwise than glad?" Anne said gravely.

"Yes, my dear, there are those who are very sorry. And—before you blame them too hardly, remember that Angelot's marriage was the immediate cause of Joseph's death."

"The wickedness of a wicked man is alone to be blamed for that," said Anne. "Helene's marriage with such an unspeakable wretch would have been a worse thing still."

Urbain sighed, and did not answer. Presently, gazing into the fire, while Anne watched him with intent, questioning eyes, he said, "It appears that the Emperor is a little angry with Herve for his hurried action, though he does not object to its consequence, being good enough to say that he values me and my influence in this country. But he does not like to be treated as a tyrant. De Mauves thinks that Adelaide will not have the post of lady-in-waiting. It is a pity; she had set her heart on it."

Anne shrugged her shoulders slightly; it was beyond her power, being a truthful woman, to express any sympathy with Adelaide. It was her coldest little voice that said, "Have you been to Lancilly to-day?"

"Yes," her husband answered.

"Did you see Adelaide?"

"No."

A bitter smile curled Anne's still beautiful mouth as she stood near his chair and looked at him. Was it only or chiefly Adelaide's unforgiving anger that weighed on his broad shoulders, bent his clever brow, drove the old contented smile from his face? True, Joseph's death might well have done all this; but she knew Urbain, and he was not the man to cower under the inevitable. It was his way to meet the blows of fate with a brave front, if not a gay one; he was a Frenchman, and had lived and laughed through the great Revolution. And yet Anne was puzzled; for she respected Urbain too much to acknowledge that Adelaide's anger could have so great an effect upon him.

After a short silence he spoke, and told her all; told her of the disappointment of his dearest hopes, the failure of the schemes and struggles of a lifetime. And as he talked, Anne came gradually nearer, till at last, with a most unusual demonstrativeness, her arm was round his neck, and her cheek pressed against his whitening hair. Large tears ran down the man's face and dropped across his wife's hand and splashed on the tapestried arm of the chair.

The Sainfoys were about to leave Lancilly, and probably for ever. Adelaide could not endure it; since her daughter's marriage it had become odious to her. Neither did Georges like it; and before going back to the army he had become engaged to the heiress with whom he had danced so much at the ball, who had a castle and large estates of her own in Touraine, and who considered Lancilly far too wild and old-fashioned to be inhabited, except perhaps for a month in the shooting season. Thus it was not unlikely that Lancilly would be sold; and for the present it was to be dismantled and shut up; once more the deserted place, the preservation of which, the restoring to its right inhabitants, had been the dream and ambition of Urbain de la Mariniere's life. For his cousin Herve he had spent all his energies and a considerable part of his fortune; and to no purpose and worse than none. Even Herve's love and gratitude failed him now; the knowledge that Herve could never quite forget or forgive his plotting with Adelaide and Ratoneau, was the sharpest sting of all; worse even, as his wife felt with a throb of rapturous joy, than the fact that Adelaide would smile on him no more.

"My poor Urbain!" she murmured.

Her sympathy was tender and real, though she felt that her prayer had been answered, that she and her house had been delivered from the crushing weight of Lancilly, that the great castle on the hill would henceforth be a harmless pile of stones, to be viewed without the old dislike and jealousy. It seemed to her now that she had not known a happy day since the Sainfoys came back, or even for long before, while Urbain's whole soul was wrapped up in preparing for them. Yet she was very sorry for Urbain.

"All for nothing, and worse than nothing," he sighed; and she found no words to comfort him.

The fire crackled and blazed; outside, the wind rolled in great thundering blasts over the country. It roared so loudly in the chimneys that nothing else was to be heard. Urbain went on talking, so low that his wife, stooping over his chair, could hardly hear him; but she knew that all he said had the one refrain—"I have worked for twenty years, and this is the end of it all. I might have left poor Joseph in exile. I might have allowed Lancilly to tumble into ruins. What has come of it all! Nothing, nothing but disappointment and failure. Is it not enough to break a man's heart, to give the best of his whole life, and to fail!"

The wind went on roaring. Absorbed in his own thoughts, he did not hear the house door open and shut, then the door of the room, then the light steps of Angelot and Helene across the floor.

"Look up, Urbain!" his wife said with a sudden inspiration. "There is your success, dear friend!"

There was a bright pink colour in Helene's cheeks; her eyes and lips, once so sad, were smiling in perfect content; her fair curls were blown about her face; she was gloriously beautiful. Angelot held her hand, and his dark eyes glowed as he looked at her.

"We have been fighting the elements," he said.

Urbain and Anne gazed at them, these two splendid young creatures for whom life was beginning. The philosopher's brow and eyes lightened suddenly, and he smiled.

"And by your triumphant looks, you have conquered them!" he said. "Is that my doing, Anne? Is that my success, my victory?" he added after a moment in her ear. "Yes, dearest, you are right. Embrace me, my children!"

* * * * *

Les Chouettes was shut up for seven years, and the country people were shy of passing it in the dusk, for they said that under the old oaks you might meet Monsieur Joseph with his gun and dog as of old, coming back from a day's shooting. When old Joubard heard that, he said—and his wife crossed herself at the saying—that he would rather meet Monsieur Joseph, dead, than any living gentleman of Anjou.

But there came a time when young life took possession again of Les Chouettes, and lovely little children played in the sandy court and picked wild flowers and ran after butterflies in the meadow; when Madame Ange de la Mariniere wandered out in the soft twilight, without fear of ghosts or men, to meet her husband as he walked down the rugged lane from the landes after a long day's shooting.

And there were no plots now in Anjou, and neither Chouans nor police haunted the woods; for Napoleon was at St. Helena, and France could breathe throughout her provinces, for the iron bands were taken off her heart, and the young generation might grow up without being cut down in its flower.

It was at this time that Henriette de la Mariniere decided to give Les Chouettes to her cousin Angelot, and finally to enter the convent where she had spent much time since her father's death, and where she died as Prioress late in the nineteenth century, having seen in France three Kings, a second Empire, and a Republic.

She remained through all, of course, a consistent Royalist like her father. But to some minds, such an ebb and flow may seem to justify the philosophy of Urbain, and even more, perhaps, the light and happy indifference of Angelot.

* * * * *

Transcriber's note:

There is some inconsistency in placing of accents, all are as in the original.

THE END