Denounced: A Romance

by John Bloundelle-Burton

He had thought of Fordingbridge over and over again as the man whose hand might have inflicted this last deadly blow, yet he could never convince himself that it could indeed be he. He would be almost as much an outcast now, if in the city, as he would have been in London with a price upon his head. How, he had asked himself, could it be Fordingbridge?

And the Lieutenant's next words, uttered in almost a whisper, in spite of their being still alone, seemed to confirm his doubts.

"Think again," he said; "reflect on some other than this one you mention; on one whom you injured, whose ambition you thwarted in its dearest design; on one who is powerful, has the ear of the King, who could send you here, and did so. Reflect!"

Bertie drew back in amazement and stared at the Lieutenant, unable to believe his own ears. Then he repeated:

"Whose ambition I thwarted! One who is powerful--the friend of the King! Oh, 'tis impossible, impossible! Some awful mistake has been made. I know no one such as that. No one."

Then, clasping his hands together, while his voice rang out clear and distinct in that vaulted chapel, he exclaimed, "For God's sake, help me in this! For God's sake, tell me to whom you refer!"

"Hush!" said the other. "Hush! They are coming back. And as for the name, it must never pass my lips. If the recollection of your own actions cannot help you now, I can do no more;" and, seeing the turnkeys at the door, he said in his usual tones, "Monsieur, follow me to your new apartment."

Dazed with what he had heard, Elphinston obeyed him, and slowly they went through the gloomy passages and up more stairs through iron-plated doors, until they stood at the one which opened into the calotte of the tower above the chapel--so called because, being the topmost chamber in the roof, it resembled a calotte, or fool's cap, or extinguisher.

"Messieurs," said the Lieutenant to the inmates of the room when the door had been unlocked and unbarred, "allow me to present to you a comrade. Let me trust you will be agreeable to each other. Monsieur de Chevagny, you are the father of the house; I commit him to you." Then, glancing over to a bed in the corner, on which a dark-haired man lay sleeping with his face turned to the wall, the Lieutenant shrugged his shoulders and said, "Mon Dieu! le fou sleeps heavily. Well, we need not disturb him. No presentations are necessary with him."

The man addressed as Chevagny--whom Bertie could not but regard with interest, despite the whirl in which his brain was at the strange, inexplicable revelations of the Lieutenant--rose with courtesy from a chair as his name was mentioned, and, coming towards Bertie, held out a thin hand. His hair was snow-white and of great length, while his face, partly from age and partly, perhaps, from long confinement, was shrivelled and wan. What his clothes might have originally been it was impossible to guess; now they were a mass of rags and tatters, patched in some places, in others hanging in shreds. Round his neck he wore for a cravat the sleeve of an old shirt; while the soles of his shoes, which were full of holes, were joined to the upper parts by pieces of pack thread. All over his face there grew a great beard as white as the hair on his head, and this may have helped to keep him warm, especially as over his breast it was tucked inside a shirt that was almost black from long wear. Yet, with all this ragged misery, those features of his face which his hair and beard allowed to be seen were refined and elegant, were the features of a well-born man.