"Hush, hush, sir," said the old man, in a low voice: "if your soldiers did but hear."
"I will break the first man's neck that climbs the hill," replied the officer.
"I want nothing," said Edward. "We supped at Cossé, and my men have taken care of themselves below, depend upon it. Where is the duchess now, Monsieur Matthew? and who has she got with her?"
"Oh, she is in Venice still," replied the old man; "and there are Madame St. Aignan, and Mademoiselle de Mirepoix, and three or four maids, and the serving-men. Do you know her, sir? She's a fine lady, and mighty gay."
"I have not the honor," said Edward. "But now, my good man, let the fire be lighted: I shall go to bed soon, for I have ridden long and hard. I trust," he continued, addressing the old officer, "that Monsieur de Lude will communicate my coming to his Eminence as soon as possible; for it is very necessary that I should see him without delay."
"Be you sure he will do that," replied the other. "De Lude is not a man to burn his fingers twice with the same chestnut."
He then took his leave. The old servant with the candle marshalled the way ceremoniously to a very splendid suite of apartments which had escaped, I know not how, from the rude hands of the soldiers when the town was taken. Pierrot and Jacques Beaupré disposed of themselves, doubtless very comfortably; and Edward sat down to meditate. The reader need not ask what was the subject of his thoughts, if he remembers that those were the halls and dwelling-place of the ancestors of Lucette.
"Was it a dream?" he asked himself. Hardly nine months before, had he passed with her not many miles from that very spot? had they wandered alone together for weeks without restraint? had they borne suffering, anxiety, danger in dear companionship which made even danger sweet? had they been married, parted, met again, and again parted?
There are times when a sensation of the unreality of all things upon this earth comes over us,—when memory seems but a dream, our past acts a vision, our hopes, our fears, our enjoyments, but the fancies of the fleeting hour.
For an instant it was so with Edward Langdale as he sat and gazed into the flickering and phantasm-begetting fire. But when he turned his eyes around upon those old walls, whose scrolls and sconces and fantastic ornaments all spoke of the past,—all told that he was in the dwelling of the Rohan Rohans,—the strange, shadowy doubts vanished: he felt that there was something real in the world,—something more real than mere tangible objects; that, if all else died or passed away like a show, the realities of heart and mind must remain forever,—that esteem, affection, love, truth, honesty and honor, genius and wisdom, can never perish.