Bertrand waited to hear no more, but flew up the narrow stair, thrusting aside the strong soldier like a child.
“Lives he?” asked he of his wife, as she came forward to meet him.
“He lives as yet,” she replied sadly; “but his sickness hath taken an ill turn, and——”
“I could have better spared a better man,” said Du Guesclin, in the very words that Shakespeare has immortalized. “Must he die? Is there no hope?”
“None, unless God work a miracle to save him. But who are we, my Bertrand, to question the will of God? In mercy, it may be, hath this brave man been called hence while his heart was right and his purpose good, lest he should fall back into his former sins. God’s will be done!”
But the “Amen” that Bertrand strove to utter died on his lips, and he silently followed his lady into the chamber of death.
The Wolf’s grim features were already white and sunken, and his mighty frame lay helpless as a child; but his eyes glowed with a wild light, and words of terrible meaning broke from his lips.
“They are great, and rich, and powerful, and their life is full of pleasure. What know they of how a man feels who has had no pleasure in life from the birth-hour to the grave? They call me ‘Wolf;’ but who made me so? When a wolf tears and slays one of those who have hunted and wounded him, and driven him to lie cold and hungry in his darksome den, what doth he but what yourselves have taught him?”
“Hear’st thou, Tiphaine?” said Du Guesclin, drawing a quick breath as if in sudden pain. “And it is all true, too!”
“Not true of thee, Bertrand; thou hast ever been good to the poor.”