第53章 AT ROSNY.(4)

M.de Rosny pointed abruptly to a small piece of paper which lay on the table beside it,and,obeying his gesture,I took this up and read its contents,which consisted of less than a score of words.

'He is ill and like to die,'the message ran,'twenty leagues south of La Ganache.Come at all costs.P.M.

'Who?'I said stupidly--stupidly,for already I began to understand.Who is ill and like to die?'

M.de Rosny turned to me,and I saw that the tears were trickling unbidden down his cheeks.'There is but one HE for me,'he cried.'May God spare that one!May He spare him to France,which needs him,to the Church,which hangs on him,and to me,who love him!Let him not fall in the hour of fruition.O Lord,let him not fall!'And he sank on to a stool,and remained in that posture with his face in his hands,his broad shoulders shaken with grief.

'Come,sir,'I said,after a pause sacred to sorrow and dismay;'let me remind you that while there is life there is hope.'

'Hope?'

'Yes,M.de Rosny,hope,'I replied more cheerfully.'He has work to do.He is elected,called,and chosen;the Joshua of his people,as M.d'Amours rightly called him.God will not take him yet.You shall see him and be embraced by him,as has happened a hundred times.Remember,sir,the King of Navarre is strong,hardy,and young,and no doubt in good hands.'

'Mornay's,'M.de Rosny cried,looking up with contempt in his eye.

Yet from that moment he rallied,spurred,I think,by the thought that the King of Navarre's recovery depended under God on M.de Mornay;whom he was ever inclined to regard as his rival.He began to make instant preparations for departure from Rosny,and bade me do so also,telling me,somewhat curtly and without explanation,that he had need of me.The danger of so speedy a return to the South,where the full weight of the Vicomte de Turenne's vengeance awaited me,occurred to me strongly;and Iventured,though with a little shame,to mention it.But M.de Rosny,after gazing at me a moment in apparent doubt,put the objection aside with a degree of peevishness unusual in him,and continued to press on his arrangements as earnestly as though they did not include separation from a wife equally loving and beloved.

Having few things to look to myself,I was at leisure,when the hour of departure came,to observe both the courage with which Madame de Rosny supported her sorrow,'for the sake of France,'

and the unwonted tenderness which Mademoiselle de la Vire,lifted for once above herself,lavished on her.I seemed to stand--happily in one light,and yet the feeling was fraught with pain--outside their familiar relations;yet,having made my adieux as short and formal as possible,that I might not encroach on other and more sacred ones,I found at the last moment something in waiting for me.I was surprised as I rode under the gateway a little ahead of the others,by something small and light falling on the saddle-bow before me.Catching it before it could slide to the ground,I saw,with infinite astonishment,that I held in my hand a tiny velvet bow.

To look up at the window of the parlour,which I have said was over the archway,was my first impulse.I did so,and met mademoiselle's eyes for a second,and a second only.The next moment she was gone.M.de Rosny clattered through the gate at my heels,the servants behind him.And we were on the road.