We talked long together,—we three,—and anon we were joined by the Chevalier de Canaples, who offered me also, in his hesitating manner, his felicitations. And with me they lingered until Yvonne came to drive them with protestations from my bedside.
Such, in brief, was the manner of my resurrection. For a week or so I still kept my chamber; then one day towards the middle of April, the weather being warm and the sun bright, Michelot assisted me to don my clothes, which hung strangely empty upon my gaunt, emaciated frame, and, leaning heavily upon my faithful henchman, I made my way below.
In the salon I found the Chevalier de Canaples with Mesdemoiselles and Andrea awaiting me, and the kindness wherewith they overwhelmed me, as I sat propped up with pillows, was such that I asked myself again and again if, indeed, I was that same Gaston de Luynes who but a little while ago had held himself as destitute of friends as he was of fortune. I was the pampered hero of the hour, and even little Geneviève had a sunny smile and a kind word for me.
Thereafter my recovery progressed with great strides, and gradually, day by day, I felt more like my old vigorous self. They were happy days, for Mademoiselle was often at my side, and ever kind to me; so kind was she that presently, as my strength grew, there fell a great cloud athwart my happiness—the thought that soon I must leave Canaples never to return there,—leave Mademoiselle's presence never to come into it again.
I was Monsieur de Montrésor's prisoner. I had learned that in common with all others, save those at Canaples, he deemed me dead, and that, informed of it by a message from St. Auban, he had returned to Paris on the day following that of my journey to Reaux. Nevertheless, since I lived, he had my parole, and it was my duty as soon as I had regained sufficient strength, to journey to Paris and deliver myself into his hands.
Nearer and nearer drew the dreaded hour in which I felt that I must leave Canaples. On the last day of April I essayed a fencing bout with Andrea, and so strong and supple did I prove myself that I was forced to realise that the time was come. On the morrow I would go.
As I was on the point of returning indoors with the foils under my arm, Andrea called me back.
"Gaston, I have something of importance to say to you. Will you take a turn with me down yonder by the river?"
There was a serious, almost nervous look on his comely face, which arrested my attention. I dropped the foils, and taking his arm I went with him as he bade me. We seated ourselves on the grass by the edge of the gurgling waters, and he began:
"It is now two months since we came to Blois: I, to pay my court to the wealthy Mademoiselle de Canaples; you, to watch over and protect me—nay, you need not interrupt me. Michelot has told me what St. Auban sought here, and the true motives of your journey to St. Sulpice. Never shall I be able to sufficiently prove my gratitude to you, my poor Gaston. But tell me, dear friend, you who from the outset saw how matters stood, why did you not inform St. Auban that he had no cause to hunt me down since I intended not to come between him and Yvonne?"
"Mon Dieu!" I exclaimed, "that little fair-haired coquette has—"
"Gaston," he interrupted, "you go too fast. I love Geneviève de Canaples. I have loved her, I think, since the moment I beheld her in the inn at Choisy, and, what is more, she loves me."
"So that—?" I asked with an ill-repressed sneer.
"We have plighted our troth, and with her father's sanction, or without it, she will do me the honour to become my wife."
"Admirable!" I exclaimed. "And my Lord Cardinal?"
"May hang himself on his stole for aught I care."
"Ah! Truly a dutiful expression for a nephew who has thwarted his uncle's plans!"
"My uncle's plans are like himself, cold and selfish in their ambition."
"Andrea, Andrea! Whatever your uncle may be, to those of your blood, at least, he was never selfish."
"Not selfish!" he cried. "Think you that he is enriching and contracting great alliances for us because he loves us? No, no. Our uncle seeks to gain our support and with it the support of those noble houses to which he is allying us. The nobility opposes him, therefore he seeks to find relatives among noblemen, so that he may weather the storm of which his far-seeing eyes have already detected the first dim clouds. What to him are my feelings, my inclinations, my affections? Things of no moment, to be sacrificed so that I may serve him in the manner that will bring him the most profit. Yet you call him not selfish! Were he not selfish, I should go to him and say: 'I love Geneviève de Canaples. Create me Duke as you would do, did I wed her sister, and the Chevalier de Canaples will not withstand our union.' What think you would be his answer?"
"I have a shrewd idea what his answer would be," I replied slowly. "Also I have a shrewd idea of what he will say when he learns in what manner you have defied his wishes."
"He can but order me away from Court, or, at most, banish me from France."
"And then what will become of you—of you and your wife?"
"What is to become of us?" he cried in a tone that was almost that of anger. "Think you that I am a pauper dependent upon my uncle's bounty? I have an estate near Palermo, which, for all that it does not yield riches, is yet sufficient to enable us to live with dignity and comfort. I have told Geneviève, and she is content."
I looked at his flushed face and laughed.
"Well, well!" said I. "If you are resolved upon it, it is ended."
He appeared to meditate for a moment, then—"We have decided to be married by the Curé of St. Innocent on the day after to-morrow."
"Crédieu!" I answered, with a whistle, "you have wasted no time in determining your plans. Does Yvonne know of it?"
"We have dared tell nobody," he replied; and a moment later he added hesitatingly, "You, I know, will not betray us."
"Do you know me so little that you doubt me on that score? Have no fear, Andrea, I shall not speak. Besides, to-morrow, or the next day at latest, I leave Canaples."
"You do not mean that you are returning to the Lys de France!"
"No. I am going farther than that. I am going to Paris."
"To Paris?"
"To Paris, to deliver myself up to M. de Montrésor, who gave me leave to go to Reaux some seven weeks ago."
"But it is madness, Gaston!" he ejaculated.
"All virtue is madness in a world so sinful; nevertheless I go. In a measure I am glad that things have fallen out with you as they have done, for when the news goes abroad that you have married Geneviève de Canaples and left the heiress free, your enemies will vanish, and you will have no further need of me. New enemies you will have perchance, but in your strife with them I could lend you no help, were I by."
He sat in silence casting pebbles into the stream, and watching the ripples they made upon the face of the waters.
"Have you told Mademoiselle?" he asked at length.
"Not yet. I shall tell her to-day. You also, Andrea, must take her into your confidence touching your approaching marriage. That she will prove a good friend to you I am assured."
"But what reason shall I give form my secrecy?" he inquired, and inwardly I smiled to see how the selfishness which love begets in us had caused him already to forget my affairs, and how the thought of his own approaching union effaced all thought of me and the doom to which I went.
"Give no reason," I answered. "Let Genevieve tell her of what you contemplate, and if a reason she must have, let Geneviève bid her come to me. This much will I do for you in the matter; indeed, Andrea, it is the last service I am like to render you."
"Sh! Here comes the Chevalier. She shall be told to-day."
CHAPTER XVI. THE WAY OF WOMAN
For all that I realised that this love of mine for Yvonne was as a child still-born—a thing that had no existence save in the heart that had begotten it—I rejoiced meanly at the thought that she was not destined to become Andrea's wife. For since I understood that this woman—who to me was like no other of her sex—was not for so poor a thing as Gaston de Luynes, like the dog in the fable I wished that no other might possess her. Inevitable it seemed that sooner or later one must come who would woo and win her. But ere that befell, my Lord Cardinal would have meted out justice to me—the justice of the rope meseemed—and I should not be by to gnash my teeth in jealousy.