It seemed to have been left much as it must have been in those long-past years, when so dreadful a doom had fallen upon that unhappy family--perhaps had scarcely undergone any alteration since those days. Upon the walls there hung several pictures: one, of a man in half armour, bearing a strong resemblance to him who now tottered on Bertie's arm; another, of an elderly woman, of a long anterior date; a third, of a young man in all the bravery of the rich apparel of Louis XIV's date, a young man with bright blue eyes and a joyous smile--De Chevagny himself. Also, there were many chairs, none very comfortable, since, fifty years before this time, comfortable chairs were almost unknown articles; a table or so and a tabouret; also a woman's worktable in a corner by the fireplace with, above it, a painting of a fair young girl with a soft, gentle expression, done in what was, at the period in which it was painted, quite a new style--the style of Antoine Watteau--and much embellished with a rural landscape behind the portrait.
With a gasp, a cry of recognition, De Chevagny regarded this portrait in the light of the thin December sun, and then, leaning now so heavily on Bertie's arm as to be almost entirely held up and supported by him, he exclaimed:
"See! see! She has come back to me; we have met again! Again, Jeanne, my love, my wife, my dear! O Jeanne, Jeanne, we shall be so happy now!"
The woman and Bertie regarded each other significantly, though neither could speak from emotion, while De Chevagny addressed the latter, saying:
"See! there is the table where nightly she sits and works, making little things for the child that is to come--the babe that shall make us so happy. Here," and he put his finger on a gilt nail by the chimney-piece, "where she hangs her workbasket at night; here," and he pointed to a low stool, "where I sit by her side and tell her all I have done at the court."
He broke off, and appeared to be listening.
"Hark!" he said, "hark! It is striking eleven--we are going to bed--the great cloche is ringing; there is a noise in the courtyard. God!" he screamed, "it is full of torches; the exempts are there; they have come to seize me--to drag me to the Bastille--to part us! Hide! oh, hide me!"
"Courage, courage, dear friend," said Bertie, soothingly, as he held him in his arms, and noticed once again how heavy and inert his poor form was--"courage, courage! They will never come for you again. You are free forever now. Dispel these illusions. Be brave."
"Free," he repeated, "free!" and his wandering blue eyes sought Bertie's once more, while in them there was again that wistful look which so wrung his heart. "Free! yes, I am free!" and as he spoke he released himself from Elphinston's grasp and flung himself upon his knees before his wife's picture.
"My darling," he murmured, gazing up at it, "ma mignonne, we shall never part more. I am free! free! free! And so happy! oh, so happy!" and he clasped his hands together and bent over the low chair before the picture. And once again he looked up and murmured, "So--so happy now!"