“Yes,” said his brother with an indescribable intonation, “If you will guarantee that I shall still be alive—afterwards!” And he withdrew his hand.
There indeed lay the hazard, and they both knew it. Disabled, too, as he was, he might well be killed before that meeting could take place, for there would be fighting over this business of the convoy. And death, the long desired, had terrors for him now.
Nevertheless the little priest did not budge. Gaston would thank him for it, he knew, when his brain was clear of this tremendous shock.
“No, my first duty is to her,” went on the Duc de Trélan with all his old stubbornness. “I can never offer her sufficient reparation; at least what I can offer her shall be instant. And—she may be in danger there! I have plenty of competent officers; de Brencourt, du Ménars can handle the men as well as I for this affair. It will not amount to more than a skirmish at most—perhaps there will be no collision with the Republicans at all.”
“Then why,” said the Abbé very low, looking at the floor, “did you speak just now of the possibility of your falling yourself before you and she could meet?”
His shot went home. The tired eyes flashed like steel. “Pierre!” said the Duc de Trélan in a warning voice.
The priest raised his head. There were tears in his own eyes. “The men are untried, Gaston, most of them. They will follow you, but who really knows whether they will follow du Ménars? And the Comte de Brencourt—no one knows where he is. There may be no big engagement with the Republicans over this business, but it will be no easy task to cover the disembarkation and get the arms away from Sainte-Brigitte. You are a soldier; I do not need to tell you that. With these peasants it will need the most skilful leadership. And . . . to throw away, after all our prayers, the chance of arming Finistère! My brother, my brother . . .”
But his brother had already turned away and was at the window, his back to him, and the priest heard him say in a stifled voice, “Finistère, Finistère . . . O my God, what a refinement of cruelty!”
The sun was up now; the curtain could not withhold it. In the silence could be heard the tread of M. du Ménars as he walked up and down in the room outside—waiting. Pierre Chassin looked at the crumpled despatch that he held, and its characters seemed to him like the writing on the wall. Yet how natural was the impulse to disregard it—how brutal to stand in the way of disregarding it . . . . But because he loved the man by the window so much he struck again at him, and harder.
“You said just now, Gaston, that your first duty was to your wife. Yes, I think it is, but only because your duty to your King and your position coincide with it—risen though she be from the dead. Think for a moment of her—what she would choose—not of your own most natural desires! Which would she have, that you should be false to your trust in order to hasten to her, or that you fulfil it first, setting her second . . . even” his voice shook a little, “even if need be, that you should die in fulfilling it. O—forgive me, my brother—you know which she would have . . .”