‘A few poor babes I was permitted to rescue, but very few. But let me understand to whom I speak,’ he added, much perplexed. ‘You, sir—-’
‘I am her husband, married at five years old—contract renewed last year. It was he whom you call Nid de Merle who fell on me, and left me for dead. A faithful servant saved my life, but I have lain sick in England till now, when her letter to my mother brought me to La Sablerie, to find—to find THIS. Oh, sir, have pity on me! Tell me if you know anything of her, or if you can give me her child.’
‘The orphans I was able to save are—the boys at nurse here, the girls with the good nuns at Lucon,’ said the priest, with infinite pity in his look. ‘Should you know it, sir?’
‘I would—I should,’ said Berenger. ‘But it is a girl. Ah, would that it were here! But you—you, sir—you know more than these fellows. Is there no—no hope of herself?’
‘Alas! I fear I can give you none,’ said the priest; ‘but I will tell all I know; only I would fain see you eat, rest, and be dried.’
‘How can I?’ gasped he, allowing himself, however, to sink into a chair; and the priest spoke:
‘Perhaps you know, sir, that the poor lady fled from her friends, and threw herself upon the Huguenots. All trace had been lost, when, at a banquet given by the mayor of Lucon, there appeared some patisseries, which some ecclesiastic, who had enjoyed the hospitality of Bellaise, recognized as peculiar to the convent there, where she had been brought up. They were presented to the mayor by his friend, Bailli la Grasse, who had boasted of the excellent confitures of the heretic pastor’s daughter that lodged in the town of La Sablerie. The place was in disgrace for having afforded shelter and supplies to Montgomery’s pirate crews, and there were narrations of outrages committed on Catholics. The army were enraged by their failure before La Rochelle; in effect, it was resolved to make an example, when, on M. de Nid de Merle’s summons, all knowledge of the lady was denied. Is it possible that she was indeed not there?’
Berenger shook his head. ‘She was indeed there,’ he said, with an irrepressible groan. ‘Was there no mercy—none?’
‘Ask not, sir,’ said the compassionate priest; ‘the flesh shrinks, though there may be righteous justice. A pillaged town, when men are enraged, is like a place of devils unchained. I reached it only after it had been taken by assault, when all was flame and blood. Ask me no more; it would be worse for you to hear than me to tell,’ he concluded, shuddering, but laying his hand kindly on Berenger’s arm. ‘At least it is ended now and God is more merciful than men. Many died by the bombs cast into to city, and she for whom you ask certainly fell not alive into the hands of those who sought her. Take comfort, sir; there is One who watches and takes count of our griefs. Sir, turning to Philip, ‘this gentleman is too much spent with sorrow to bear this cold and damp. Aid me, I entreat, to persuade him to lie down.’
Philip understood the priest’s French far better than that of the peasants, and added persuasions that Berenger was far too much exhausted and stunned to resist. To spend a night in a Popish priest’s house would once have seemed to Philip a shocking alternative, yet here he was, heartily assisting in removing the wet garments in which his brother had sat only too long, and was heartily relieved to lay him down in the priest’s own bed, even though there was an image over the head, which, indeed, the boy never saw. He only saw his brother turn away from the light with a low, heavy moan, as if he would fain be left alone with his sorrow and his crushed hopes.