I took the letter with a trembling hand,—a fear of something undefined was over me,—and tearing it open, read as follows:—
Dear Friend,—The Abbé, d'Ervan will deliver this into your
hands, and if you wish it, explain the reason of the request
it contains,—which is simply that you will afford me the
shelter of your quarters for one day in the park at
Versailles. I know the difficulty of your position; and if
any other means under heaven presented itself, I should not
ask the favor, which, although I pledge my honor not to
abuse, I shall value as the dearest a whole life's gratitude
can repay. My heart tells me that you will not refuse the
last wish of one you will never see after this meeting. I
shall wait at the gate below the Trianon at eleven o'clock
on Friday night, when you can pass me through the sentries.
Yours, ever and devoted,
Henri De Beauvais.
“The thing is impossible,” said I, laying down the letter on the table, and staring over at D'Ervan.
“No more so, dear friend, than what you have done for me this evening, and which, I need not tell you, involves no risk whatever. Here am I now, without pass or countersign, your guest,—the partaker of as good a supper and as excellent a glass of wine as man need care for. In an hour hence,—say two at most,—I shall be on my way over to St. Cloud. Who is, then, I ask you, to be the wiser? You'll not put me down in the night report. Don't start: I repeat it, you can't do it, for I had no countersign to pass through; and as the Consul reads these sheets every morning, you are not going to lose your commission for the sake of an absurd punctilio that nobody on earth will thank you for. Come, come, my worthy lieutenant, these same excellent scruples of yours savor far more of the scholar at the rigid old Polytechnique than the young officer of hussars. Help me to that ortolan there, and pass the bottle. There! a bumper of such a vintage is a good reward for so much talking.”
While the abbé, continued to exert himself, by many a flippant remark and many a smart anecdote, to dissipate the gloom that now fell over my spirits, I grew only more and more silent. The one false step I had taken already presented itself before me as the precedent for further wrong, and I knew not what course to take, nor how to escape from my dilemma.
“I say, Lieutenant,” said D'Ervan, after a pause of some minutes, during which he had never ceased to regard me with a fixed, steady stare, “you are about as unlike the usual character of your countrymen as one can well conceive.”
“How so?” said I, half smiling at the remark.
“All the Irishmen I have ever seen,” replied he,—“and I have known some scores of them,—were bold, dashing, intrepid fellows, that cared nothing for an enterprise if danger had no share in it; who loved a difficulty as other men love safety; who had an instinct for where their own reckless courage would give them an advantage over all others; and took life easily, under the conviction that, every day could present the circumstance where a ready wit and a stout heart could make the way to fortune. Such were the Irish I knew in the brigade; and though not a man of the number had ever seen what they called the Green Island, they were as unlike the English, or French, or Germans, or any other people, as—as the old Court of Louis the Fourteenth was unlike the guardroom style of reception that goes on nowadays yonder.”
“What you say may be just,” said I, coolly; “and if I seem to have few features of that headlong spirit which is the gift of my nation, the circumstances of my boyhood could well explain, perhaps excuse them. From my earliest years I have had to struggle against ills that many men in a long lifetime do not meet with. If suspicion and distrust have crept or stolen into my heart, it is from, watching the conduct of those I deemed high-spirited and honorable, and seeing them weak and, vacillating and faithless. And lastly, if every early hope that stirred my heart does but wane and pale within me, as stars go out when day is near, you cannot wonder that I, who stand alone here, without home or friend, should feel a throb of fear at aught which may tarnish a name that has yet no memory of past services to rely upon. And if you knew how sorely such emotions war against the spirit that lives here, believe me you had never made the reproach; my punishment is enough already.”
“Forgive me, my dear boy, if I said anything that could wound you for a moment,” said the abbé. “This costume of mine, they say, gives a woman's privilege, and truly I believe it does something of the sex's impertinence also.. I ought to have known you better; and I do know you better by this time. And now let me press a request I made some half an hour ago: tell me this same story of yours. I long to learn something of the little boy, where I feel such affection for the man.”