He shook his head with a vehement negative, beckoned Cecily impatiently, and said earnestly, ‘Is it the contagion? Is she sick? I will go to her.’
Cecily and Sir Marmaduke both replied with a ‘No, no!’ and were thankful, though in much suspense at the momentary pause, while again he leant back on the cushions, looked steadily at the pin-holes, that formed themselves into the word ‘Sweet heart,’ then suddenly began to draw up the loose sleeve of his wrapping-gown and unbutton the wristband of his right sleeve. His mother tried to help him, asking if he had hurt or tired his arm. They would have been almost glad to hear that it was so, but he shook her off impatiently, and the next moment had a view of the freshly skinned over, but still wide and gaping gash on his arm. He looked for a brief space, and said, ‘It is a sword-cut.’
‘Truly it is, lad,’ said Sir Marmaduke, ‘and a very bad one, happily whole! Is this the first time you have seen it?’
He did not answer, but covered his eyes with his hand, and presently burst out again, ‘Then it is no dream? Sir—have I been to France?’
‘Yes, my son, you have,’ said Sir Marmaduke, gently, and with more tenderness than could have been looked for; ‘but what passed there is much better viewed as a dream, and cast behind your back.’
Berenger had, while he spoke, taken up the same little mirror where he had once admired himself; and as he beheld the scar and plaster that disfigured his face, with a fresh start of recollection, muttered over, ‘“Barbouiller ce chien de visage”—ay, so he said. I felt the pistol’s muzzle touch! Narcisse! Has God had mercy on me? I prayed Him. Ah! “le baiser d’Eustacie”—so he said. I was waiting in the dark. Why did he come instead of her? Oh! father, where is she?’
It was a sore task, but Sir Marmaduke went bravely and bluntly, though far from unkindly, to the point: ‘She remains with her friends in France.’
There the youth’s look of utter horror and misery shocked and startled them all, and he groaned rather than said, ‘Left there! Left to them! What have I done to leave her there?’
‘Come, Berenger, this will not serve,’ said his mother, trying to rouse and cheer him. ‘You should rather be thankful that when you had been so foully ensnared by their wiles, good Osbert brought you off with your life away from those bloody doings. Yes, you may thank Heaven and Osbert, for you are the only one of them living now.’
‘Of whom, mother?’