Yet, never had she dreamt of aught like this: of a marriage gone through by him which was, in truth, all a sacrifice on his part but none on hers. For he was bound to her for ever, and he asked nothing from her in return. Not so much as a word of love, a look, a thought; nothing! Nothing, though he knew by her confession that she was a nameless, an abandoned child: the offspring of Shame! Yet he had taken her for his wife.
As she meditated upon it all, her eyes still watching the logs as they smouldered on the hearth, there rose into her mind a reflection which--because she was a woman--was more painful than any that had previously possessed it. The thought that this was no marriage of love on his part, no clutching by him at the one opportunity that had arisen of gaining her for his wife, and, with that gain, the other opportunity of, in time, drawing her to him, but, instead, was simply the fulfilment of a word promised and given a year ago, the redemption of that which was in his eyes as a bond. He had told her once--a year ago--that all he asked was to be allowed to be her servant, her champion, her sentinel; and now the opportunity had come to prove his word. That was all! And she, reflecting, recalling other Englishmen whom she had met or heard of, who were living a life of exile in Paris, remembered how they all prided themselves above aught else upon the sacredness with which they regarded their word when once passed--how, amongst all other men, they were renowned for keeping that word. He would have kept his, she thought sorrowfully, with any other woman as equally well as with her, simply because he had given it.
Why the tears dropped from her eyes as she still mused and still gazed into the dying embers, she could scarcely have told herself; all she did know was that, gradually, a resolve was forming in her heart, a determination that all the nobility should not be with him alone. On her side also there should be, not a sacrifice--remembering what she was, she dared not deem it that--but, at least, a reciprocity. If he loved her still, if what he had done had not been prompted alone by that sense of honour which governed all his countrymen's actions, then he should have the reward that was his due. True or false as the statement might be, she would declare that she loved him.
"Why not?" she whispered to herself. "Why not? Whom have I ever seen or known more worthy of my love? Ah!" she murmured, "return, return, my husband, that I, too, may make confession."
The winter night was come now, though from the churches near by the hour of five was but striking. The Rue de la Dauphine was very still, while yet, from a distance, there came the hum of many noises. She knew that Paris was in a feverous state at this time, that Law's bubble was bursting, that the Regent's popularity was gone, that the boy-king's throne was in danger. And the archers, and the exempts, and provost-marshal's guards were in these streets, carrying off the turbulent ones to the many prisons of Paris, shooting them down sometimes--as the report of a discharged carbine now and again testified--clubbing them and beating out their brains as the most sure way of preventing resistance.
Yet, amidst this distant noise which sometimes disturbed the quiet street at intervals, her ears caught now a footstep outside the door--the footsteps, indeed, of more than one person, as well as a whispering that mixed itself and mingled with her own murmur of "Return, my husband." So that she wondered if her wish was granted, if he had returned, and was giving the concierge further orders in a low tone that she might not be disturbed; or if he was saying "Good night" to some friends--perhaps to those two other Englishmen who that day had witnessed their marriage.
Then the door opened, and a man came in. A man who was not her husband, but, instead, he who expected to have been that husband--the Duc Desparre!
With a cry--a gasp that was half a shriek--she rose and stood facing him, the table, to one side of which he had advanced, being between them. Facing him, with her hand upon her heart,
"You!" she exclaimed. "You here?"
Even as she spoke she wondered what possessed, what ailed the man; he was so changed since the time when last she had seen him. He had thrown back the cloak in which he had been muffled against the wintry air; while, because the habits of the courtier and the gentleman--or, at least, the well-bred man--were strong upon him, he had also removed his hat. He had come, he stood before her, she knew and felt, as an avenger; but he had been of the great Louis' time and the instincts of that period could not be put aside or forgotten.