“Let him,” he said briefly; and his glance rested on me for a moment in defiant significance. And then, without another word, he turned on his heel. He took no heed of Lafleur’s dead body, that seemed to fondle the box, huddling it in a ghastly embrace, nor of me, who swayed and tottered and sank on the ground by the corpse. With set lips and eager eyes he passed me, taking the road by which we had come. And I, hugging my wounded arm, with open eyes and parted lips, saw him dive in among the trees and disappear toward the house. And I looked round on the iron box and the dead body—two caskets robbed of all that made them more than empty lumber.
Minute followed minute; and then I heard the hoofs of a horse galloping at full speed along the road from the house toward Avranches. Lafleur was dead and done with; Pierre might go his ways; I lay fainting in the wood; the Cardinal’s Necklace was still against my side. What recked the Duke of Saint-Maclou of all that? I knew, as I heard the thud of the hoofs on the road, that by the time the first reddening rays reached over the horizon he would be at the convent, seeking the woman who was all the world to him.
And I sat there helpless, fearful of what would befall her. For what could a convent full of women avail against his mastering rage? And a sudden sharp pang ran through me, startling even myself in its intensity; so that I cried out aloud, raising my sound arm in the air toward Heaven, like a man who swears a vow:
“By God, no! By God, no—no!”
[Chapter XV.]
I Choose my Way.
The dead man lay there, embracing the empty box that had brought him to his death; and for many minutes I sat within a yard of him, detained by the fascination and grim mockery of the picture no less than by physical weakness and a numbness of my brain. My body refused to act, and my mind hardly urged its indolent servant. I was in sore distress for Marie Delhasse,—my vehement cry witnessed it,—yet I had not the will to move to her aid; will and power both seemed to fail me. I could fear, I could shrink with horror, but I could not act; nor did I move till the increasing pain of my wound drove me, as it might any unintelligent creature, to scramble to my feet and seek, half-blindly, for some place that should afford shelter and succor.
Leaving Lafleur and the box where they lay, a pretty spectacle for a moralist, I stumbled through the wood back to the path, and stood there in helpless vacillation. At the house I should find better attendance, but old Jean’s cottage was nearer. The indolence of weakness gained the day, and I directed my steps toward the cottage, thinking now, so far as I can recollect, of none of the exciting events of the night nor even of what the future still held, but purely and wholly of the fact that in the cottage I should find a fire and a bed. The root-instincts of the natural man—the primeval elementary wants—asserted their supremacy and claimed a monopoly of my mind, driving out all rival emotions, and with a mighty sigh of relief and content I pushed open the door of the cottage, staggered across to the fire and sank down on the stool by it, thanking Heaven for so much, and telling myself that soon, very soon, I should feel strong enough to make my way into the inner room and haul out Jean’s pallet and set it by the fire and stretch my weary limbs, and, if the pain of my wound allowed me, go to sleep. Beyond that my desires did not reach, and I forgot all my fears save the one dread that I was too weak for the desired effort. Certainly it is hard for a man to think himself a hero!