'Mademoiselle de Lorraine and M. Blane, allow me kindly to end an interview, which, under all the circumstances, seems to have been sufficiently painful and prolonged. The Duke, your father, mademoiselle, sent me, as his most fitting messenger, to say that he would speak a few words with you, on a matter of the first importance to us both; thus I doubt not that our very good friend of the Garde du Corps Ecossais will excuse us.'
This style of deportment, in which hatred, jealousy, and rage were skilfully veiled under a bland but ironical exterior, left me nothing more to urge at that time; and we bowed mutually, as with a heart swollen by fury, sorrow, and envy, I saw him take the cold white hand of the girl I loved—of Marie Louise—and lead her away. I was left alone, with nothing of her but the memory of her parting glance, which was so full of agony and expression, that I seem to see it still before me, even now, after the long lapse of many, many years.
CHAPTER LII.
THE CHAPEL IN THE WOOD.
So ended my painful interview with Marie Louise.
The lofty air assumed by this presumptuous Austrian lord rankled in my breast like a poisoned arrow! I longed to meet him alone—alone on the solitary highway, or in some deep and voiceless solitude, in any sequestered place where there would be none to see or to separate us; and where, with sword and dagger, we might prove which was the better man, or which was the greater braggart of the two. For the present, there was nothing for me but to retreat, leaving him in quiet possession of the battlefield and of the contested prize, alas! for hope, had I none! That fickle fortune would ever afford to one so humble, a prospect or a plea for disputing her hand and love with the son and heir of Pappenheim, the rival of Tilly—he whose pride made him spurn even the Golden Fleece was more than a madman's dream.
Had the gallant old Duke been severe upon me as his prisoner—nay, had he even been less kind—I would have left nothing undone to carry off his daughter and wed her in the face of France and the Empire; but the demeanour of Charles IV. was too conciliatory to spur or foster such a thought of treachery in me.
After a residence in Paris, during that age of dissipation and vice when virtue and religion were alike made a mockery, it charmed me to find that, with all her beauty, her natural wit and shrewdness, Marie Louise was so innocent and so amiable. In short, I knew not which dazzled me most—her vivacity of thought and grace of expression, the beauty of her person, or the purity and sincerity of her heart, which (unchanged as when first I met her) loved me still, with a regard which was strengthened by a sentiment of pity for the deception of which I had been the dupe, and for the wrong that had thus been done me.
But Pappenheim had certainly overheard a considerable portion of our interview: he might thus know my route to the French camp, and put in practice some foul treachery; for I believed that he and his compatriot, De Bitche, were capable of any atrocity.
I exchanged my cassock for a good buff coat, trimmed with broad bars of silver lace, a cuirass, and gorget, which, together with a basinette of tempered steel, were given to me by De Vaudemont. I charged carefully my pistols, the recent gift of his father, examined the locks, and then placed them in my girdle, with a good dagger and sword. My papers and despatches I had already secured in a secret pocket; and the Prince, as he placed in my hand a passport signed by the Duke, told me that the master of the horse had selected the best steed in the ducal stables to replace the fine Spanish barb so wickedly destroyed by De Bitche. My old travelling-cloak, with a Spanish beaver, I presented to Sergeant Asfeldt, and a dear gift they proved to him in the sequel.