“Absolve, O Lord, the soul of Thy servant,” prayed the Abbé in the silence, “that though dead to the world he may live to Thee, and whatsoever he hath done amiss in his human conversation, through the weakness of the flesh, do Thou by the pardon of Thy most merciful loving-kindness wipe away.” He rose to his feet, took up the letter addressed to him, kissed it, and put it in his pocket. “This, I understand,” he said to the hussar, touching the cross, “is for Mme de Trélan, as well as the letter?”
“You will do my commission then, Monsieur l’Abbé?” asked the young man, his face haggard with strain and entreaty. “I thank you from my heart! As for me, I have business of my own now.” And he picked up his shako.
“One moment,” said M. Chassin. “I fancy that when I came in you were telling this gentleman some details about—the end. The Duchesse may some day wish to hear them; and I wish to know now, both as M. le Duc’s foster-brother and a priest.—Did they let him have a priest this morning?”
The young captain sedulously fingered the cords that went round his headgear. “He asked for one, but none could be found in the time.” He hesitated, and then broke out—“If I might tell you the rest another day, Monsieur l’Abbé; I engage to do so. But just now the whole affair is so horrible to me—no, not the actual execution, for any one more nobly and simply composed than M. de Trélan it is impossible to imagine . . . the one man at Mirabel this morning who had no cause for shame. Moreover since there was, mercifully, no bungling, he could scarcely have suffered—shot, as he was, through the heart. I was not the only soldier there who envied him so fine an end before so many witnesses. (There were generals present; Lannes and Murat, and Marmont, too, I think.) But the treachery of it! . . . Gentlemen, your cause has sustained a great loss, but Bonaparte’s honour has sustained a greater!”
“Yes,” said the Comte, “and if M. de Trélan had cared less for that cause for which he died, he might very conceivably have kept his life—but that, I expect, is not generally known. I intend that it shall be.”
“What is that?” exclaimed the Abbé. “He refused a pardon?”
“He refused to ask for one,” returned the Comte, and explained.
“O, my brother, I recognise you there!” said Pierre softly.
“Yet it is not a thing that the Duchesse ought to know,” added M. de Brencourt.
“Not know it!” exclaimed the young hussar. “Why, to die like that is more than fine—it is glorious! It seems a pity that she should be ignorant of it. I shall remember . . . Farewell, gentlemen.”