“Oh, say, where goes your love?
O gai, vine le roi!”
Her hand caught her bosom as if to stifle a sudden pain. That song had been the keynote to her new life, and it seemed now as if it were also to be the final benediction. All her spirit gathered itself up for a great resolution: she would not yield to this invading weakness, this misery of body and mind.
Some one drew out of the shadows and came towards her. It was Madame Degardy. She had seen the sobbing figure inside the tent, but, with the occasional wisdom of the foolish of this world, she had not been less considerate than the children of light.
With brusque, kindly taps of her stick, she drove the girl to her own tent, and bade her sleep: but sleep was not for Elise that night; and in the grey dawn, while yet no one was stirring in the camp, she passed slowly down the valley to her home.
Madame Chalice was greatly troubled also. Valmond’s life was saved. In three days he was on his feet, eager and ardent again, and preparing to go to the village; but what would the end of it all be? She knew of De la Riviere’s intentions, and she foresaw a crisis. If Valmond were in very truth a Napoleon, all might be well, though this crusade must close here. If he were an impostor, things would go cruelly hard with him. Impostor? Strange how, in spite of all evidence against him, she still felt a vital sureness in him somewhere; a radical reality, a convincing quality of presence. At times he seemed like an actor playing his own character. She could never quite get rid of that feeling.
In her anxiety—for she was in the affair for good or ill—she went again to Monsieur Garon.
“You believe in Monsieur Valmond, dear avocat?” she asked.
The little man looked at her admiringly, though his admiration was a quaint, Arcadian thing; and, perching his head on one side abstractedly, he answered:
“Ah, yes, ah, yes! Such candour! He is the son of Napoleon and a certain princess, born after Napoleon’s fall, not long before his death.”
“Then, of course, Monsieur Valmond is really nameless?” she asked.