V

Monseigneur the governor acted throughout as the Master of Ceremonies. Obsequious and suave, he seemed to have no wish save to please His Highness in all things, and to make him forget the want of trust that the present ceremony implied. He hovered round Gilles, executing a manoeuvre which the latter was certainly too guileless to notice. It was a case of: 'On this side, I entreat Your Highness!' and 'Here is Messire de Haynin, who craves the honour...' or 'If Your Highness would deign to speak with Messire d'Anthoin.' All very subtle and unnoticeable, but it meant that every time a city father came to kiss hands, Gilles, in order to greet him, had to take a step or two forward, and that each step brought him a trifle nearer to the open window. That window gave directly on La Bretèque, the vast terrace-like balcony which overlooked the Grand' Place and which had so often been the scene of historic proclamations. Suddenly Gilles found himself there, in the open, with a huge concourse of people down below at his feet.

He had Monseigneur the governor on his left, and the company of city fathers and dignitaries had followed him out on La Bretèque. They were standing in a compact group around him; and all down the length of the balcony, at the foot of the balustrade, there were huge pots filled with those Madonna lilies, which seemed like the very emblem of Jacqueline.

Time had gone on; the crowd had cheered at sight of him, and Gilles had gradually been lulled into a semblance of security. Then suddenly, from the far end of the balcony, some fifty paces away, there came the sound of an usher's voice calling in stentorian tones:

'Make room for Madame Jacqueline de Broyart, Duchesse et Princesse de Ramèse, d'Espienne et de Wargny! Make room!'

And down the vista of the long terrace, he caught sight of Jacqueline advancing towards him between the avenue of lilies. She was dressed in a white satin gown, and she had pearls round her neck and in her hair. The April sun fell full upon her, and the soft breeze blew the tendrils of her hair, like strands of gold, about her face. With a sinking of the heart, Gilles saw that she walked with a weary and listless step; but she held herself very erect, with head slightly thrown back, looking straight out before her as she came. A mask of black satin hid her face, but even though he could not see those heavenly blue eyes of hers, Gilles had realized in a moment that his beloved knew everything.

An access of wellnigh savage rage sent the hot blood up to his head. For the space of one second everything around him took on a blood-red hue, and he turned on d'Inchy with convulsed fingers, prepared to grip him by the throat. Already the cry 'You miserable scoundrel!' hovered on his lips.... Then he checked himself. What was the good? D'Inchy had acted rightly, in accordance with his own lights. He wished to make sure that the Valois Prince, who had broken so many promises in his life, should at least on this one occasion be irrevocably fettered. The assembled dignitaries, the crowd down below, the whole city of Cambray should witness the solemn plighting of his troth. And Jacqueline—the unfortunate, innocent pawn in all these intrigues—should be the one whose weak, small hands would hold him indissolubly to his bond.

There was a moment of tense silence. Gilles could hear his own heart beating in his breast. He had of a truth ceased to feel and to think. The situation was so hopeless now, so stupendous, that it was beyond human power to grapple with. He hardly felt that he was alive; a kind of greyish veil had interposed itself between his eyes and that group of solemn Flemish worthies around him. And through that veil he could see their podgy faces, red and round, and grinning at him with great cavern-like mouths, and eyes that darted fierce flames upon him. Of a truth, he thought that he was going mad, had a wild desire to throw back his head and to laugh—laugh loudly and long; laugh for ever at the discomfiture of some fool who was standing there in his—Gilles de Crohin's—shoes; at that fool who had thought to carry through a long farce unchecked, and who presently would be unmasked by the very woman whom he loved, and driven forth under opprobrium and ignominy into an outer world, where he could never look an honest man in the face again.

Perhaps he would have laughed—for the muscles round his mouth were itching till they ached—only that, just then, in the very midst of the crowd below, he caught sight of de Landas' mocking glance—de Landas, who had been in the Council Room awhile ago, and who apparently had since mixed with the crowd for the sole purpose of witnessing his successful rival's discomfiture. This seemed to stiffen him suddenly, to drag him back from out that whirlpool of wild sensations wherein he was floundering, and which was bowling him along, straight to dementia.

'No, my friend Gilles!' he said to himself. 'Since you are to die dishonoured, at least die like a man. Not before all these people; not before that man who hates you, not before that woman who loves you, shall you flinch in the face of Destiny. You have played many ignoble parts these days; do not now play that of a coward!'

And he stood quietly there, still picturesque and magnificent, still defying Fate which had played him this last, desperate trick, while Monseigneur advanced to Jacqueline, took her hand and said aloud in measured tones of ceremony, so that every one there might hear:

'My dear Jacqueline, it is with inexpressible joy that mine old eyes behold this happy hour. Monsieur Duc d'Anjou et d'Alençon, Prince of the House of France, hath asked your hand in marriage. We, your guardians, do but await your consent to this union which we had planned for the great good of our beloved country. Say the word, my dear Jacqueline, and I myself will proclaim to our poor, sorrowing people the joyful news that a Liberator hath come to them at last, and that the United Provinces of the Netherlands may look to him as their Sovereign Lord and King.'

Jacqueline had listened to Monseigneur's peroration with perfect composure. She stood then not ten paces away from Gilles—the only woman in the midst of all these men who were gambling with her destiny. Through her mask she was looking on Gilles, and on him only, feeling that the whole abyss of loathing, which filled her soul for him, would be conveyed to him through her look.

She had believed in him so completely, trusted him so implicitly, that now that she knew him to be both a liar and a cheat, she felt that the very well-spring of her love had turned to bitter hate. And hate in a strong and sensitive nature is at least as potent as love. What the mystery was wherewith he chose to surround himself, she did not know. What the object of the hideous comedy which he had played could be, she hardly cared. All that she knew was that he had cheated her and played her false, stolen her love from her to suit some political intrigue of which he held the threads—helped in any case in a hideous and clumsy deception which would leave her for ever shamed.

But now she knew just what she had to do. She might have unmasked the deception last night, told Monseigneur the truth and opened his eyes to the stupid fraud that was perpetrated upon him. What stopped her from doing that she did not know. Perhaps she still hoped that something would occur that would give a simple explanation of the difficult puzzle. Perhaps she thought that when she would be brought face to face with the man who was impersonating the Duc d'Anjou, that man would prove to be some low impostor, but not her knight—not the man who had held her in his arms and sworn that his love for her was as pure as that of the lark for the sun. And if, indeed, she had been so hideously deceived, if her idol prove to have not only feet of clay but heart of stone and soul of darkness, then she would unmask him, publicly, daringly, before the entire people of Cambray, humiliate him so utterly that his very name would become a by-word for all that was ignominious and base, and find some solace for her misery in the satisfaction of seeing him brought to shame.

Therefore Jacqueline had said nothing last night to Monseigneur—nothing this morning. When requested by her guardian to prepare for this day's ceremony, she had obeyed without a word. Now she listened to his speech until the end. After which, she said calmly:

'Like yourself, Monseigneur, I am covered with confusion at thought of the great honour which a Prince of the House of France will do to our poor country. I would wish, with your permission, to express my deep respect for him ere I place my hand in his.'

Whereupon Monseigneur stood a little to one side, so that Jacqueline and Gilles remained directly facing one another. Every one was watching the young pair, and kindly murmurs of approval at the beauty of the girl, and the martial bearing of the man, flew from mouth to mouth.

Jacqueline, stately and dignified as was her wont, advanced a step or two. Then she said slowly:

'And is it of a truth Monsieur Duc d'Anjou et d'Alençon who stands before me now?'

She looked straight at him, and he in imagination saw beneath the mask which hid the expression of her face—saw those blue eyes which had looked on him yesterday with such ineffable tenderness; saw those exquisite lips which had murmured words of infinite love. An utter loathing overcame him of the part which he had to play, of the fraud which was to deliver his beloved into the keeping of a worthless reprobate. He was conscious only of a wild desire to throw himself at her feet in an agony of remorse and repentance, to kiss her gown, the tips of her velvet shoes; and then to proclaim the truth, to put it for ever out of that profligate Prince's power to claim this exquisite woman as his bride—to proclaim the truth, and then to run away like a second Cain, from the scene of an unforgivable crime; to flee like the treacherous soldier who hath deserted the citadel; to flee, leaving behind him the tattered rag of France's honour lying for ever soiled in the dust, beneath the feet of a duped and credulous nation.

Just then she put out her hand—that perfect hand, which he had held in his and which to his touch had seemed like the petal of a flower, and she said, with the same solemn deliberation:

'Is it in truth to the Duc d'Anjou himself that I herewith plight my troth?'

The avowal was on Gilles' lips.

'Madame——' he began, and looked unflinchingly, straightforwardly at her.

But before he could speak another word, a cry suddenly rang out—shrill and terrifying—out of the crowd.

'Do not touch him, Madame! Do not touch him! He is not the Duc d'Anjou! He is an impostor and a liar! A Spanish spy! Beware!!'

Monseigneur, the city fathers, the Mayor—every one on La Bretèque, in fact—gasped with horror. How dared these abominable agitators mar the beauty of this affecting ceremony? Monseigneur went forward, leaned over the balustrade in order to try and ascertain who it was who was trying to create a disturbance. He saw de Landas down below in the midst of the throng, vaguely wondered what the young commandant was doing there, when his place was up on La Bretèque amongst those of his own rank. Anyway, he spoke to de Landas, shouted himself hoarse to make the young man hear, for an unpleasant turmoil had followed that first cry of 'Spanish spy'—people were shouting and gesticulating and the call 'Down with him!' came repeatedly from several points in the rear of the crowd.

De Landas looked up, but he pretended not to hear, laughed and shrugged his shoulders, as if the matter did not concern him. And yet there was no mistaking the persistence with which that ominous cry 'Spanish spy!' was taken up again and again, nor the disturbing effect which it had upon the crowd.

Monseigneur then tried to harangue the mob, to point out to them the evil of their ways. Had they forgotten that they were out to enjoy themselves, to forget their troubles, to forget the very fact that the words 'Spaniard' and 'Spanish' existed in their lexicon. But Messire de Landas' paid agents would not let him speak. They had been paid to create a disturbance, not to let the people stand about placidly, listening to windy harangues.

So, the moment Monseigneur opened his mouth, the whole gang of them took up the provocative cry: 'A Spanish spy! Take care, Madame Jacqueline!' until it was repeated over and over again by numberless voices, hoarse with excitement and with spite. The crowd oscillated as if driven by a sudden blast; ominous murmurs came from those points where women and men stood in compact and sullen groups.

'Spanish spy! Beware!' rang out again and again.

Monseigneur the governor was in a wild state of agitation. He could not understand what it was that had set some rowdy malcontents to disturb the peaceful serenity of this eventful morning. Unable to make himself heard, he turned in helpless bewilderment to Gilles.

'Monseigneur,' he began, in a voice quivering with consternation. 'I do entreat you...'

But he got no further. Above this peroration, above the shuffling and the mutterings of his friends on the balcony, above the cries and murmurs down below, there had suddenly resounded the dull boom of distant cannon. The crowd gave one terrific, full-throated roar of terror:

'The Spaniards! They are on us!'

And in the seething mass of humanity on the Grand' Place could be seen just that awful, ominous swaying which precedes a stampede. Already the women screamed and some men shouted: 'Sauve qui peut!'

'The Spanish spy!' cried a voice. 'What did I tell you, citizens? He hath taken advantage of this holiday to bring the Spaniards about your ears!'

Now the swaying of the crowd became like a tidal wave upon the bosom of the ocean. Hundreds of men and women and little children started to move, not in one direction but in several, like frightened sheep who know not whither to go. Yells and screams, some of rage others of terror, rose in a wild tumult from below. And through it all a few persistent voices—recognizable by the well-known guttural tone peculiar to those of Spanish blood—shouted themselves hoarse with the persistent cry: 'The Spaniards are on us! We are betrayed!'