"I beseeched him to go, to leave the neighbourhood, to depart in peace. Provided him with safe conducts, implored him to seek an asylum in England or Holland where those of his newly adopted creed were safe. He refused. Your mother, a woman of the province, had died in giving birth to you. He swore he would not leave the place where her body lay. He defied me, bade me do my worst."
"And--and----" Urbaine sobbed.
"And the orders came from Paris. From Louvois, then alive, and Madame de Maintenon. 'Saccagez tous!' they wrote. 'Those who will not recant must be exterminated.'
"Then I sent to him by a trusty hand a copy of those orders. I bade him fly at once, since even I could not save him. Told him that on a fixed night--great God! it was the night ere Christmas, the night when the priests bid us have our hearts full of love and mercy for each other--I must be at his cottage with my Cravates. He was a marked man; also I was known to favour him. If I did so now, spared him and imprisoned others, all the south would be in a tumult."
Again Baville paused. Again went on:
"I never deemed I should find him; would have sworn he must be gone ere I reached his house. Yet went there, knowing that I dared not omit him. Went there, praying, as not often I have prayed, that it would be empty, forsaken. Alas! Alas! Alas! he had ignored my warning, my beseechings. He was there, reading his Bible. He defied me. By his hand he had a pistol. Seeing the Cravates behind me, their musketoons ready, it seemed as though he was about to use it. Raised it, pointed it at me, covered my breast."
The pause was longer now. Martin, hearing, understanding all, his mind and memory returned to him, thought Baville dreaded to continue. Yet it was not so. The full clear tones reached his ear again:
"I could not deem him base enough to do that, to shoot me down like a dog, since I had drawn no weapon of my own. It was, I have divined since, the soldiers whom he defied. Yet in my contempt for what I thought his idle threat, I cried scornfully 'Tirez donc.' Alas, ah, God! the fatal error that has forever darkened your life and mine! Those words were misunderstood. The Cravates misunderstood them, believed the exclamation an order given to them by me; a moment later they had fired. O Urbaine! my love, my child--I--I--what more is there to tell?"
And as he ceased, hers were not the only sobs Martin heard now.
Then, as they too ceased somewhat, another voice was heard by the listener--the voice of Buscarlet.