"All that I know, my Lord, I will tell," replied the Count; "but of my own knowledge I have little to tell, for the principal part of my information was derived from the boy with whom you have already spoken. All then that I personally know is, that, having slept long from great fatigue, I was roused by the boy in the morning; that he told me my brother was about to depart; and that, on descending, I found his report true. My brother was already on horseback, and his troop in the act of setting out; but he was accompanied by a gentleman whom I had never seen before, whose name is Colombel, and who, I found afterwards, is an officer in the service of the King."
"Oh yes," said the Duke of Guise; "I have heard him named; a person of no great repute, but some cunning."
"My conversation with my brother," continued the Count, "was not the most agreeable. On his side it was all taunts; but the only part of which it is needful to inform your Highness, was, that when I asked tidings of Mademoiselle de Clairvaut, he would afford me no information, except that she was in safe hands. I am grieved, also, to be compelled to say that he told me, if I did not join you before he did, I should be long parted from you."
"We have lost an ally," replied the Duke; "but one which, to say sooth, I do not covet. If he be not treacherous, he is at best unsteady; but I cannot help fearing, Charles of Montsoreau, that your brother himself, apprehending that my regard for you might not suit his purposes, has had some share in suffering Marie to fall into the hands of Henry."
"Oh no, my Lord, oh no!" exclaimed Charles of Montsoreau; "you do him wrong, believe me. My Lord, a few words will explain to you the cause of his conduct. He is possessed with a passion for Mademoiselle de Clairvaut, so strong, so vehement, so intense, as to have a portion of madness in it,--a sufficient portion to make him cast away his former nature altogether, to hate his brother, to abandon his friends, to abjure all the thoughts and feelings of his youth, and to follow her still where-ever she goes, seeking to obtain her by means which the very blindness of his passion prevents him from seeing are those which must insure his losing her."
"This is the passion of a weak and unstable mind," said the Duke. "Love, my young friend, is in itself a grand and ennobling thing, leading us to do great actions for the esteem and approbation of her we love. The love of a bright woman," he added, "the love of a bright woman--I speak it with all due reverence," and he put his hand to his hat, "is the next finest sensation, the next grand mover in human actions, to the love of God. The object is undoubtedly inferior, but the course is the same, namely, the striving to do high and excellent things for the approbation of a being that we love and venerate. Alas that it should be so! but in this world I fear the love of woman is amongst us the strongest mover of the two: the other is so remote, so high, so pure, that our dull senses strain their wings in reaching it. The love of woman appeals to the earthly as well as to the heavenly part of man's nature, and consequently is heard more easily. Perhaps--and Heaven grant it!--that, as some of our fathers held, the one love may lead us on to the other, and the perishable be but a step to the immortal. However," he added, "such love as that which you say possesses your brother, will certainly never lead him on to any thing that is great, or high, or noble. Most certainly it will not lead him to the hand of Marie de Clairvaut as long as Henry of Guise can draw a sword. If he have not betrayed me, he has abandoned me; if he have not shown himself a coward, he has shown himself a weak defender of those intrusted to his charge; and under such circumstances, had he the wealth of either India and the power of Cæsar, he should never wed Marie de Clairvaut." He laid his hand upon the shoulder of Charles of Montsoreau, and he said, "You have heard my words, good friend; those words are irrevocable: and now knowing that your brother can never be really your rival, act as you will. I would fain have your confidence, Charles, but I will not wring it from you. This girl is beautiful and sweet and fascinating; and if I judge right, you love her not less but more nobly than your brother. Tell me, or tell me not as you will, but we all feel pleased with confidence."
"Oh, my Lord," replied Charles of Montsoreau, "how can I deny you my confidence when you load me with such proofs of your goodness? I do love Mademoiselle de Clairvaut as deeply, as intensely, as passionately, as my brother,--more, more a thousand fold than he or any body else, I believe, is capable of loving. I had some opportunities of rendering her services, and on one of those occasions I was betrayed into words and actions which I fancied must have made her acquainted with all my feelings. It was after that I discovered, my Lord, how madly my brother loved her: it was after that I discovered that the pursuit of my love must bring contention and destruction on my father's house. Had I believed that she loved me, nothing should have made me yield her to any one; for I had the prior claim, I had the prior right: but when I had reason to believe that she had not marked, and did not comprehend all the signs of my affection; when I felt that I could quit her without the appearance of trifling with her regard, though not without the continued misery of my own life, my determination was taken in a moment, and I determined to make the sacrifice, be the consequences what they might. Such, my Lord, is the simple truth; such is the only secret of all my actions."
The Duke of Guise bent down his eyes upon the ground with a smile, in the expression of which there was a degree of cynical bitterness. It was somewhat like one of the smiles of the Abbé de Boisguerin; but the Duke's words explained it at once, which the Abbé's never did.
"I fear, my young friend," he said, "that the science of women's hearts is a more difficult one than the science of war. You have learnt the one, it would seem, by intuition; in the other you are yet a novice. However, you shall pursue your own course, bearing with you the remembrance that I swear by my own honour--"
"Oh swear not, my Lord," replied Charles of Montsoreau; "circumstances may change; she may love him; her love may alter him, and lead him back to noble things."