Denounced: A Romance

by John Bloundelle-Burton

At last, tossing on his bed as he had so often wearily tossed before, he thought of Tencin. The cardinal, he knew, was no longer in the greatest favour, and had been sent back to his archbishopric as a punishment; yet he could not be the Primate of France and still be without some influence. If he could do nothing else, he could at least find out on what charge Elphinston, an officer of the King's army, had thus been thrown into prison. So he sat down and wrote to monseigneur.

Of course more weeks passed thus--long ones to the poor prisoner in the calotte, and almost as long to the woman outside who loved him so, and to the man at St. Omer who was doing his best for him; then, at last, the archbishop wrote, but could tell nothing. He was, he said, astonished that such a thing could be. The Scotch officers had served the King faithfully without exception; it was incredible that one could be thus incarcerated. The only thing his Eminence could suppose was that Elphinston must have mortally wounded or angered someone of high position at court--someone much in favour with the King himself, and able to procure a lettre de cachet from him without any questions whatever being asked. He could imagine nothing else but that. Then, having given vent to his surmise, he proceeded to suggest to Sholto the very best steps he could take.

"Of all men," his Eminence wrote, "there is none for your purpose like D'Argenson. As you know, all the family are of the same trade--lieutenants of police, Presidents of Parliament, judges; and the present one, like his father before him, is not only one of his Majesty's chief judges, but also the chief Examiner of the internes of the Bastille. The family is high in the world now, but some generations back were low--forget not that. Yet, neither will your remembrance of it have weight with D'Argenson. He has a heart of marble if he has any heart at all, but with it a sense of justice that it is impossible to excel. If Captain Elphinston is falsely detained, or detained in error, D'Argenson will set the matter right, though he may take months to do it."

"Though he may take months to do it." Alas! it soon seemed to Archibald Sholto that he was more like to take years. He had got into communication with this important personage through the influence of the cardinal, but once in communication had advanced, or seemed to advance, no further. The judge wrote in his tablets, it is true, the name of Elphinston, and said that if he were in any prison in France he would take care that his case was inquired into sooner or later. Beyond that he refused to say another word.

And with this Sholto had to be content, and to try and persuade himself that it was at least something toward the desired end. Also he wrote to Kate, saying that it was from the Bastille that Fordingbridge had been brought to execution, and that therefore doubtless it was the Bastille in which Bertie was. And he bade her be of good heart and hope for the best, since one of the principal examiners of prisoners detained in the prisons had promised that his case should be inquired into.

"Though he may take months to do it!" the cardinal had said. Verily it seemed as if he had indeed known the man of whom he wrote.

For the months passed away outside the Bastille as they were passing away inside, and to those without there came no news of him within; so that, at last, Kate was led almost to believe that, as her husband had lied to her from the very beginning, so he had lied to her at the end. For it seemed to her that if Bertie had ever been in the gloomy fortress, by which she now so often walked and to which she went and stood before and gazed upon, he must have been released ere this, or in some way have found an opportunity of communicating with her.

[CHAPTER XXVIII.]

"A KIND OF CHANGE CAME IN MY FATE."

It was in the early part of May, 1747, that Fordingbridge had been led out to his doom, and month after month had passed, another May had come and gone, and, at last, another December--the December of 1748--had come round. Then even the hopeless state into which Bertie had been so long plunged was quickened back to life by the behaviour of two people with whom he held some intercourse.