Just in that point of time—in that soft melting moment—a heavy hand was laid quietly on Armand’s shoulder—he started, as the fiend sprang up, revealed before the temper of Ithuriel’s angel weapon—he started like a guilty thing from that forbidden kiss.
A tall form stood beside him, shrouded from head to heel in a dark riding-cloak of the Italian fashion; but there was no hat on the stately head, nor any covering to the cold stern impassive features. The high broad forehead as pale as sculptured marble, with the dark chestnut curls falling off parted evenly upon the crown—the full, fixed, steady eye, which he could no more meet than he could gaze unscathed on the meridian sun, the noble features, sharpened by want and suffering and wo—were all! all those of his good cousin.
For a moment’s space the three stood there in silence—Charles de La-Hirè reaping rich vengeance from the unconquerable consternation of the traitor! Armand de Laguy bent almost to the earth with shame and conscious terror! and Marguerite half dead with fear, and scarcely certain if indeed he who stood before her were the man in his living presence, whom she had vowed to love for ever; or if it were but the visioned form of an indignant friend returned from the dark grave to thunderstrike the false disturbers of his eternal rest.
“I am in time”—he said at length, in accents slow and unfaltering as his whole air was cold and tranquil—“in time to break off this monstrous union!—Thy perjuries have been in vain, weak man; thy lies are open to the day. He whom thou didst betray to the Italian’s dungeon—to the Italian’s dagger—as thou didst then believe and hope—stands bodily before thee.”
A long heart-piercing shriek burst from the lips of Marguerite, as the dread import of his speech fell on her sharpened fears—the man whom she had loved—first loved!—for all her previous words were false and fickle—stood at her side in all his power and glory—and she affianced to a liar, a base traitor—a foul murderer in his heart!—a scorn and byword to her own sex—an object of contempt and hatred to every noble spirit!
But at that instant Armand de Laguy’s pride awoke—for he was proud, and brave, and daring!—and he gave back the lie, and hurled defiance in his accuser’s teeth.
“Death to thy soul!” he cried; “’tis thou that liest, Charles! Did I not see thee stretched on the bloody plain? did I not sink beside thee, hewed down and trampled under foot, in striving to preserve thee? And when my vassals found me, wert thou not beside me—with thy face scarred, indeed, and mangled beyond recognition—but with the surcoat and the arms upon the lifeless corpse, and the sword in the cold hand? ’Tis thou that liest, man!—’tis thou that, for some base end, didst conceal thy life, and now wouldst charge thy felonies on me; but ’twill not do, fair cousin! The king shall judge between us! Come, lady”—and he would have taken her by the hand, but she sprang back as though a viper would have stung her.
“Back, traitor!” she exclaimed, in tones of the deepest loathing; “I hate thee—spit on thee—defy thee! Base have I been myself, and frail, and fickle; but, as I live, Charles de La-Hirè—but as I live now, and will die right shortly—I knew not of this villany! I did believe thee dead, as that false murtherer swore—and—God be good to me!—I did betray thee dead; and now have lost thee living! But for thee, Armand de Laguy—dog! traitor! villain! knave!—dare not to look upon me any more; dare not address me with one accent of thy serpent-tongue! for Marguerite de Vaudreuil, fallen although she be, and lost for ever, is not so all abandoned as, knowing thee for what thou art, to bear with thee one second longer—no! not though that second could redeem all the past, and wipe out all the sin—”
“Fine words, fine words, fair mistress! but on with me thou shalt!”—and he stretched out his arm to seize her, when, with a perfect majesty, Charles de La-Hirè stepped in and grasped him by the wrist, and held him for a moment there, gazing into his eye as though he would have read his soul; then threw him off with a force that made him stagger back ten paces before he could regain his footing. Then, then, with all the fury of the fiend depicted on his working lineaments, Armand unsheathed his rapier and made a full longe, bounding forward as he did so, right at his cousin’s heart; but he was foiled again—for with a single, and, as it seemed, slight motion of the sheathed broadsword which he held under his cloak, Charles de La-Hirè struck up the weapon, and sent it whirling through the air to twenty paces’ distance.
Just then there came a shout, “The king! the king!”—and, with the words, a glare of many torches, and with his courtiers and his guard about him, the monarch stood forth in offended majesty.