"They have had naught to do with it," replied the duke, at once. "The good brethren love me too well to inflict such grief upon me."
"They have cause, my lord," replied the judge; "but we do not always find that gratitude follows good offices. By your permission, I will make some inquiry as to who was the person who entered their gates last night at the hour named."
"As you will," replied the duke, shaking his head; "but I repeat, there is something within me which tells me better than the clearest evidence, who was the man that did this horrid act; and he is not at the Celestins. Inquire, if you please; but it is vain, I know. He and I will meet, however, ere our lives end. My conscience was loaded on his account. He has well balanced the debt; and when we meet--"
He added no more, but clasped his hands tight together, and set his teeth bitterly.
"Nevertheless, I will inquire," said the judge, who seemed somewhat pertinacious in his own opinions. "It is needful that this should be sifted to the bottom. Such acts are becoming too common."
As he spoke, he rose and took his leave, bidding the artisan follow him; and Jean Charost remained alone in the presence of the Duke of Orleans, though two or three servants and armed men passed and repassed from time to time across the further end of the hall.
For several minutes the duke remained in thought; but at length he raised his eyes to Jean Charost's face, and gazed at him for a few moments with an absent air. Then rising, he beckoned him to follow, saying, "Come with me. There is a weight in this air; it is heavy with sorrow."
Thus saying, he led the way through a small door at the end of the hall--opposite to that by which the young gentleman had entered--into a large, square, inner court of the palace, round three sides of which ran an arcade or cloister.
"Give me your arm," said the duke, as they issued forth; and, leaning somewhat heavily on his young companion, he continued to pace up and down the arcade for more than an hour, sometimes in silence--sometimes speaking a few words--asking a question--making some observation on the reply--or giving voice to the feelings of his own heart, in words which Jean Charost did not half understand.
More than once a page, a servant, or an armed officer would come and ask a question, receive the duke's answer, and retire. But in all instances the prince's reply was short, and made without pausing in his walk. It was evidently one of those moments of struggle when the mind seeks to cast off the oppression of some great and heavy grief, rousing itself again to resist, after one of all the many stunning blows which every one must encounter in this mortal career. And it is wonderful how various is the degree of elasticity--the power of action--shown by the spirits of different men in the same circumstances. The weak and puny, the tender and the gentle fall, crushed, as it were, probably never to recover, or crawl away from a battle-field, for which they are not fitted, to seek in solitude an escape from the combat of life. The stern and hardy warrior, accustomed to endure and to resist, may be cast down for a moment by the shock, but starts on his feet again, ready to do battle the next instant; and the light and elastic leaps up with the very recoil of the fall, and mingles in the melee again, as if sporting with the ills of the world. In the character of the Duke of Orleans there was something of both the latter classes of mind. From his very infancy he had been called upon to deal with the hard things of life. Strife, evil, sorrow, care, danger, had been round his cradle, and his youth and his manhood had been passed in contests often provoked by himself, often forced upon him by others.