"H'm, Henri Vaufontaine shall see—and all his tribe! They shall not feed upon these lands of the d'Avranches, they shall not carouse at my table when I am gone and the fool I begot has returned to his Maker. The fault of him was never mine, but God's—does the Almighty think we can forget that? I was ever sound and strong. When I was twenty I killed two men with my own sword at a blow; when I was thirty, to serve the King I rode a hundred and forty miles in one day—from Paris to Dracourt it was. We d'Avranches have been men of power always. We fought for Christ's sepulchre in the Holy Land, and three bishops and two archbishops have gone from us to speak God's cause to the world. And my wife, she came of the purest stock of Aquitaine, and she was constant, in her prayers. What discourtesy was it then, for God, who hath been served well by us, to serve me in return with such mockery: to send me a bloodless zany, whom his wife left ere the wedding meats were cold."
His foot tapped the floor in anger, his eyes wandered restlessly out over the green expanse. Suddenly a dove perched upon the window-sill before him. His quick, shifting gaze settled on it and stayed, softening and quieting.
After a slight pause, he turned to Philip and spoke in a still lower tone. "Last night in the chapel I spake to God and I said: 'Lord God, let there be fair speech between us. Wherefore hast Thou nailed me like a malefactor to the tree? Why didst Thou send me a fool to lead our house, and afterwards a lad as fine and strong as Absalom, and then lay him low like a wisp of corn in the wind, leaving me wifeless—with a prince to follow me, the by-word of men, the scorn of women—and of the Vaufontaines?"'
He paused again, and his eyes seemed to pierce Philip's, as though he would read if each word was burning its way into his brain.
"As I stood there alone, a voice spoke to me as plainly as now I speak to you, and it said: 'Have done with railing. That which was the elder's shall be given to the younger. The tree hath grown crabbed and old, it beareth no longer. Behold the young sapling by thy door—I have planted it there. The seed is the seed of the old tree. Cherish it, lest a grafted tree flourish in thy house.'" . . . . His words rose triumphantly. "Yes, yes, I heard it with my own ears, the Voice. The crabbed tree, that is the main line, dying in me; the grafted tree is the Vaufontaine, the interloper and the mongrel; and the sapling from the same seed as the crabbed old tree"—he reached out as though to clutch Philip's arm, but drew back, sat erect in his chair, and said with ringing decision: "the sapling is Philip d'Avranche, of the Jersey Isle."
For a moment there was silence between the two. A strong wind came rushing up the valley through the clear sunlight, the great trees beneath the castle swayed, and the flapping of the tricolour could be heard within. From the window-sill the dove, caught up on the wave of wind, sailed away down the widening glade.
Philip's first motion was to stand up and say: "I dare not think your
Highness means in very truth to make me your kinsman in the succession."
"And why not, why not?" testily answered the Duke, who liked not to be imperfectly apprehended. Then he added more kindly: "Why not—come, tell me that, cousin? Is it then distasteful?"
Philip's heart gave a leap and his face flushed. "I have no other kinsman," he answered in a low tone of feeling. "I knew I had your august friendship—else all the tokens of your goodness to me were mockery; but I had scarce let myself count on the higher, more intimate honour—I, a poor captain in the English navy."
He said the last words slowly, for, whatever else he was, he was a loyal English sailor, and he wished the Duc de Bercy to know it, the more convincingly the better for the part he was going to play in this duchy, if all things favoured.