The Yellow Poppy

by D. K. Broster

And instantly, looking at the expression on his visage, the Comte understood.

“I have just told her,” he said.

“Thank God for that,” returned the hussar. “But I have a message to deliver—and I pray you, Monsieur, to give it to her, as you have . . . done the other thing. I come straight from Mirabel.”

“Monsieur,” replied the Comte hoarsely. “Once it was prophesied to me that I should do this lady a service. I did not know what it would be—now, I think I do . . . I have just rendered it, and not for the hope of heaven would I go through the like again. You must give the message yourself, if it was from . . . him.”

“There is no verbal message from . . . the late Duc de Trélan,” answered the young hussar, and as he paused at the name and its qualification he suddenly brought his heels together and saluted. And the Comte, for all his pre-occupation with his own feelings, saw that his mouth was twitching. “There is no verbal message,” he repeated, “but I have two letters, and the Duc’s decoration. I am charged, however, to say, that Mme de Trélan is at liberty to go to Mirabel when and how she will, that her privacy will be respected in every way, and that if she wishes the body to be buried in the chapel there——”

“Is this the First Consul’s magnanimity!” flared out the Comte. And, thinking he heard a sound behind him in the house, and suddenly becoming conscious, too, that all this was taking place on the doorstep, he seized hold of the young officer’s hanging dolman. “Bring that cursed uniform of yours inside!” he muttered, and, opening the door of a little room close by, pushed the glittering and jingling form inside.

Once sheltered by a closed door the young Republican turned on him almost savagely. “Do you think that you are the only man heartbroken over this horrible business?” he demanded. “Do you realise that I have had to help carry it out—that it was I, at least, who commanded the escort, that it was I who had to rouse M. de Trélan early this morning with the news, had to drive with him from Paris to Mirabel, had to sit my horse like a statue with my sword drawn, as though I approved, while it was done—I who have been one of Bonaparte’s aides-de-camp in Egypt and Syria, and have worshipped his very stirrup leather . . . and am going to throw up my commission the moment I leave this house!”

There was no doubt of his emotion now; two tears were running down his face. He could not have been more than five and twenty. He raised a gauntleted hand and brushed them away.

“Why, then, did you——” began M. de Brencourt in a suddenly weary voice.

“Because if I had not commanded the escort someone else would have done so. When I found I was detailed for that duty, I thought I could at least ensure that M. de Trélan had due respect shown him—and that I could, perhaps, let him know before he died that there was, at any rate, one soldier of the Republic who was ashamed of the deed. As I intended to resign my commission immediately afterwards there was nothing improper in that . . . and if I went farther than I should perhaps have done when, on the way to Mirabel, I offered to connive at his escape—well, the Duc refused.” He paused, drew a long breath, and said, “Afterwards I had my men carry him into Mirabel, into the great hall there. We unbarred the big door for it. I had the candlesticks fetched from the chapel also; strangely enough, there were funeral candles already in them. If Mme de Trélan goes, therefore, there is nothing she cannot look upon; I have seen to that. His face is quite uninjured—I would not even have it covered.”