III
Leroux arrived punctually at three o'clock the following afternoon. Madame la Marquise was in Fernande's room, talking platitudes to the young girl in a tardy fit of remorse at having neglected her so completely these past two days.
Fernande appeared more dejected than she had been before, and Madame had much ado to keep her temper from breaking away against so much pessimism, which almost amounted to disloyalty.
It was old Annette who announced Leroux, and Madame la Marquise sent a message down to say that she would see him immediately. As soon as Annette had gone, Fernande, with one of her sudden, impulsive gestures, threw her arms round Madame's shoulders.
"Before it is too late, ma tante," she cried, with a tone of desperate entreaty, "will you not think—just once more?"
"Too late for what, child?" retorted Madame impatiently, and she shook herself free from the young girl's arms which encircled her with a forceful and passionate grip.
"Too late to avert this appalling calamity," replied Fernande. "That man Leroux is a criminal, a murderer," she continued with ever-increasing vehemence. "His greed for the money which has been offered him will render him utterly unscrupulous. I could see it in his face the other day ... when he was here ... and M. de Puisaye was speaking to him. He will stick at nothing, ma tante, at nothing in order to gain his ten thousand francs."
"Well, my dear," rejoined Madame coldly, "we want a man who will stick at nothing. King Louis hath no use for velvet gloves, for mincing ways, or for half-hearted cowards these days. We have to fight an unscrupulous foe, remember. What is Bonaparte, what are these regicides, I'd like to know, but criminals and murderers! What is Mademoiselle de Courson at this moment," she added, as with flaming cheeks and glowing eyes she turned on Fernande and would have smitten her with a look—"what is Mademoiselle de Courson now save a half-hearted coward, unworthy to stand shoulder to shoulder with her father, her lover, her kinsfolk in their homeric struggle for justice and for right?"
But Fernande bore the withering looks and the insult unflinchingly. It seemed as if in the last two days she had stepped boldly across the dividing line which separates blind unquestioning childhood from understanding and reasoning womanhood. All the horror for past crimes and past excesses committed against her King and against her cause was still present in her mind; but now she refused to accept the complacent theory that crime must beget worse crime and that revenge and reprisals, murder and pillage, would ever help the righteousness of a cause or be justifiable in the sight of God.
"Bid me fight, ma tante," she retorted proudly, "side by side with my father; bid me meet the enemies of my King in loyal combat, and I'll warrant you'll not find me weak or cowardly. Fight! Yes, let us fight—fight as did George Cadoudal and Louis de Frotté and Henri de la Rochejaquelin—let us fight like men, but not like criminals. In God's name let us not stoop to murder."
"Murder, child!" exclaimed Madame, "who talked of murder, I should like to know?"
"Would you swear, ma tante," riposted Fernande slowly, "that whilst you traffic with a man like Leroux, the possibility of an awful, hideous, horrible murder has never presented itself to your mind? That you have never envisaged the likelihood of Ronnay de Maurel getting wind of this affair and of his taking Leroux to task for his proposed treachery? Have you never thought, ma tante, of what would happen if Leroux thought that his master suspected him, and if he then came face to face with him—somewhere alone...?"
Just for the space of one second Madame la Marquise de Mortain stood quite still—rigid almost as a statue—with eyes closed and lips tightly set. Just for the space of that one second it seemed as if something human, something womanly, stirred within that heart of stone. Then an impatient exclamation escaped her lips.
"Tush, child!" she said. "I'll not be taken to task by you. Who are you, pray, that you should strive to throw your childish sensibilities, your childish nonsense across the path of your King's destiny? Ronnay de Maurel must take his chance in this fight," she added, as she threw back her head with a movement of invincible determination. "He has chosen the traitor's path; while he and his kind have the power, they stick at nothing to bring us into subjection. We have the chance now ... one chance in a thousand—to gain the upper hand of all these regicides and these minions of Bonaparte. To neglect that chance for the sake of a craven scruple were now an act of criminal folly. Let that be my last word, child," continued Madame, as she made for the door; "do not let me hear any more of your warnings, your prophecies, or your sermons. What has been decided by our chiefs shall be done—understand?—and what must be, must be. And when your father returns, after having risked his life for the cause which you seem to hold so lightly, take care lest the first word he utters be one of condemnation of a recreant daughter."