That was the letter which had taken the Minister of Police over half an hour to prepare. Oh, clever and astute Fouché! How thoroughly you understood the science of making men the engines of your will! Here was Ronnay de Maurel, who had earned for himself undying laurels on fields where every man was brave and worthy of distinction, ready—at your bidding—to throw himself into a maze of intrigue where his uncultured mind was bound to be at once at a hopeless disadvantage. But Fouché had made appeal in the name of France, and the democrats of this age, who had emerged chastened and purified from out the withering fire of a sanguinary Revolution, had in their hearts a boundless store of love for their country who had suffered so much.
Gaston de Maurel had spent much of his reserve of strength in trying to counteract the effect of Fouché's letter in his nephew's mind. Long before he had said all that he meant, he knew that he had failed. When—some time after he had finished speaking—Ronnay still remained silent, the invalid, half prostrate after the exertion, threw back his head and broke into a strident laugh.
"I might have saved my wind—eh, Ronnay?" he asked, panting.
Ronnay made no reply.
"I suppose you'll go to-morrow?" continued old Gaston.
"Yes," replied the younger man curtly, "I'll go to-morrow."
"As you are now?"
"As I am now."
Again the invalid laughed, but the laughter was choked in a spasm of coughing. Without another word Ronnay de Maurel rose and readjusted the pillows behind the sick man's head. Gaston was still chuckling inwardly to himself; his dim eyes, feebly glittering now with a glance of mockery, wandered restlessly over the massive and uncouth figure of this soldier of Napoleon. Ronnay de Maurel—General of Division in the most marvellous army the world has ever known—looked at this moment very like an overgrown, over-developed product of industrial Normandy. Ungainly in his movements, with that dragging gait which always appeared more accentuated whenever he laboured under fatigue or excitement, untutored of speech, unversed in every one of the gentle arts which mark the preux chevalier, or the squire of dames, Ronnay was not like to find favour in his mother's eyes. His linen blouse was stained with the grime and smoke of his foundries, his hair was wont to rebel against the conventional tie at the nape of the neck, his hands were rough, his nails unpolished. How the fine, if impecunious, entourage of Mme. la Marquise de Mortain would sneer at this handiwork of democratic France!
Ronnay felt the invalid's mocking glance, but he was far too indifferent to all that it implied even to wince under it.