"Ah, they talk," replied he at last, turning toward his companions, "and this is talk which means something. Within the year we shall see Paris upside down. These people are ready for any new thing. But"—and his face lost some of its gravity—"the streets are none too safe to-day, my Lady. Therefore you must forgive me if I do not set you down, but keep you prisoner until you reach your own gates. 'Tis not your fault that your carriage broke down on the road from Marly; and as for my brother Will and myself, we can not forego a good fortune which enables us at last to destroy a certain long-standing debt of a carriage ride given us, once upon a time, by the Lady Catharine Knollys."
"At least, then, we shall be well acquit on both sides," replied the soft voice of the woman. "I may, perhaps, be an unwilling prisoner for so short a time."
"Madam, I would God it might be forever!"
It was the same John Law of old who made this impetuous reply, and indeed he seemed scarce changed by the passing of these few years of time. It was the audacious youth of the English highway who now looked at her with grave face, yet with eyes that shone.
Some years had indeed passed since Law, turning his back upon the appeal of the wide New World, had again set foot upon the shores of England, from which his departure had been so singular. Driven by the goads of remorse, it had been his first thought to seek out the Lady Catharine Knollys; and so intent had he been on this quest, that he learned almost without emotion of the king's pardon which had been entered, discharging him of further penalty of the law of England. Meeting Lady Catharine, he learned, as have others since and before him, that a human soul may have laws inflexible; that the iron bars of a woman's resolve may bar one out, even as prison doors may bar him in. He found the Lady Catharine unshakeable in her resolve not to see him or speak with him. Whereat he raged, expostulated by post, waited, waylaid, and so at length gained an interview, which taught him many things.
He found the Lady Catharine Knollys changed from a light-hearted girl to a maiden tall, grave, reserved and sad, offering no reproaches, listening to no protestations. Told of Sir Arthur Pembroke's horrible death, she wept with tears which his survivor envied. Told at length of the little child, she sat wide-eyed and silent. Approached with words of remorse, with expostulations, promises, she shrank back in absolute horror, trembling, so that in very pity the wretched young man left her and found his way out into a world suddenly grown old and gray.
After this dismissal, Law for many months saw nothing, heard nothing of this woman whom he had wronged, even as he received no sign from the woman who had forsaken him over seas. He remained away as long as might be, until his violent nature, geyser-like, gathered inner storm and fury by repression, and broke away in wild eruption.
Once more he sought the presence of the woman whose face haunted his soul, and once more he met ice and adamant stronger than his own fires. Beaten, he fled from London and from England, seeking still, after the ancient and ineffective fashion of man, to forget, though he himself had confessed the lesson that man can not escape himself, but takes his own hell with him wherever he goes.
Rejected, as he was now, by the new ministry of England, none the less every capital of Europe came presently to know John Law, gambler, student and financier. Before every ruler on the continent he laid his system of financial revolution, and one by one they smiled, or shrugged, or scoffed at him. Baffled once more in his dearest purpose, he took again to play, play in such colossal and audacious form as never yet had been seen even in the gayest courts of a time when gaming was a vice to be called national. No hazard was too great for him, no success and no reverse sufficiently keen to cause him any apparent concern. There was no risk sharp enough to deaden the gnawing in his soul, no excitement strong enough to wipe away from his mind the black panorama of his past.
He won princely fortunes and cast them away again. With the figure and the air of a prince, he gained greater reputation than any prince of Europe. Upon him were spent the blandishments of the fairest women of his time. Yet not this, not all this, served to steady his energies, now unbalanced, speeding without guidance. The gold, heaped high on the tables, was not enough to stupefy his mind, not enough though he doubled and trebled it, though he cast great golden markers to spare him trouble in the counting of his winnings. Still student, still mathematician, he sought at Amsterdam, at Paris, at Vienna, all new theories which offered in the science of banking and finance, even as at the same time he delved still further into the mysteries of recurrences and chance.