He dismounted at the entry to the copse. What should he do with his horse, whose presence might betray his own? A moment’s reflection, and he turned the animal’s head away from the direction of the Clos-aux-Grives, and, drawing his sword, smote it hard on the flank with the flat. The beast reared, capered, and bolted down the road. Then, dropping the sword, M. de Brencourt plunged into the thicket.
It was not as dense as he had thought, but at the foot of this oak tree he would be quite invisible from the road. He had no last message to leave other than those he had written on the night of the duel and, as it happened, left undestroyed afterwards. He had no last thoughts, for he was incapable of any thought but one, and as for prayer, a man had no right to it who was doing what he was doing. Nevertheless once familiar words drifted through his brain and out again as he knelt down by the oak-tree’s strong old roots, “. . . pray for us sinners now and in the hour of our death” . . . but they scarcely had meaning, and his mind seemed only a blank of wreathing fog as he put the pistol to his ear.
The weapon remained there for perhaps eight seconds, then sank.
For there comes a point when the machinery that the brain controls will not revolve any longer. Artus de Brencourt had come to that point now. Ridden as he had recently been with the most devastating emotions, torn with hatred and more than half mad with jealousy, having twice tried and failed to kill the man he hated, having lived by day on the edge of a volcano and having scarcely slept by night, he had now to face the most shattering experience of all—itself the direct outcome of the others. He lacked the nerve to kill himself.
Only the tiniest muscular action was needed, the pressure of a finger, and he had not the will power left for it. Kneeling there, the sweat pouring off his face, he tried . . . and could not. His hand would not even hold the weapon in position. He who but a little while ago had tried to steal another man’s life from him had not courage left to take his own.
The discovery, stark and sickening, broke the violent, passion-tossed man to pieces, broke him utterly. Never in his life had he known the taste of physical cowardice till now. A horrible nausea came over him, and he fell forward on his face at the foot of the oak tree and lay there, beaten at last—lay there while an oak leaf settled on his hair and his horse, returning, trotted past again in the direction of headquarters. But he did not hear it.
(2)
Complicated emotions of some violence had assailed M. Chassin when he reached the Clos-aux-Grives and heard from Lucien the story of the ford, and how M. de Brencourt had recently ridden off in haste—and especially when he learnt why he had thus ridden off. And at that piece of news—since the “lady from Paris” awaiting the Marquis could be no other than Mme de Trélan herself—M. Chassin also, abandoning his duties towards the wounded, rushed out of the farmhouse, a prey at the same time to he knew not what dire premonitions, and to a joy and thankfulness beyond words.
Yet where was he to go, and what was he to do? He found himself setting out as fast as he could go for the Ferme des Vieilles, become now a species of rendezvous. But he had hardly gone a mile, his soutane well tucked up, when between heat, fatigue and apprehension he was asking himself why in the name of all the saints he had not borrowed a horse. And instantly the saints sent him one. It came trotting leisurely down the road towards him, its bridle dangling, a riderless horse—more, a horse that he recognised. It was the Comte de Brencourt’s roan.
The Abbé stood in the dust and smote his brow. What did this portend? At any rate he would utilise the steed. He caught it as it passed, girt his soutane still higher, mounted and pursued his road. And as he went he looked from side to side, but he would not have thought of entering the oak copse when he came to it, had not his eye been attracted by something that glinted at the side of the road—the sword that lay there.