"How can I say? It is a week since I left Urbaine there, safe with him in those mountains. Since then many things have happened, among others the horrors of Mercier's mill."
"It was not my doing," Baville answered hotly. "Not mine; Montrevel is alone answerable for that. I was away at the beginning, on my road back from Valence. None can visit that upon my head. Yet--yet--rather should fifty such horrors happen, rather that I myself should perish in such a catastrophe, than that this woman and Urbaine should ever meet."
As he spoke there came to Martin's memory the words that Cavalier had uttered to him. "Ere she leaves us there is something to be told her as regards Baville's friendship for her father, Ducaire. And when she has heard that, it may be she will never wish to return to him, to set eyes on her beloved Intendant again."
Was this woman of whom Baville spoke the one who could tell her that which would cause her the great revulsion of feeling which Cavalier had hinted at?
"Why should they never meet?" he asked, the question forced from him by the recollection of the Camisard's words joined to Baville's present emotion.
"Because," the other replied, his face once more the colour of death, the usually rich full voice dull and choked, "because--O God! that I should have to say it--because I am, though all unwittingly, her father's murderer. And that woman knows it."
"You! Her father's murderer!"
"Yes, I." Then he went on rapidly, his tones once more those of command, his bearing that of the ruler before whom stood a prisoner in his power. "But ask me no more. It was all a hideous, an awful mistake. I loved Urbain Ducaire; would have saved him. And--and--by that mistake I slew him. Also, I love his child--his!--nay, mine, by all the years in which I have cherished, nurtured her. Oh, Urbaine, Urbaine, ma mie, ma petite!" he whispered, as though there were none other present to see him in this, his dark hour. "Urbaine, if you learn this you will come to hate me as all in Languedoc hate me."
"Be comforted," Martin exclaimed, touched to the heart by the man's grief, forgetful, too, of all the horrible instances of severity linked with his name, "be comforted. She must never meet that woman, never know. Only," he almost moaned, remembering all that the knowledge of this awful thing would bring to her, "how to prevent it. How to prevent it."
"I have it," Baville said, and he straightened himself, was alert, strong again, "I have it. I said but now I would, must, see her once more. But, God help me! I renounce that hope forever. To save her from that knowledge, to save her heart from breaking, I forego all hopes of ever looking on her face again, ever hearing her whisper 'Father' in my ear more. And you, you alone, can save her. You must fly with her, away, out of France. Then--God, he knows!--she and I will be far enough apart. Also she will be far enough away from that woman who can denounce me."