But aloud he said, "In that letter Mr. Bracton"--De Violaine knowing Bevill's proper name by this time as well as Sylvia or Madame de Valorme knew it--"is addressed as 'cousin' by the Earl. Is he that?"
"He is," Sylvia replied fearlessly. "Some degrees removed, yet still his cousin."
"He could scarcely own a worse kinsmanship--in--in De Boufflers' eyes," De Violaine muttered once more--to himself.
To himself he had muttered these words, yet words were not needed to tell either of the others that here was a circumstance which must tell hardly, cruelly, against Bevill. They understood that by some act of forgetfulness, some inadvertency, he must have kept about him a letter that prudence should have warned him to destroy the instant he had set foot in the neighbourhood of the French; and now--now it would tell against him with awful force. They could not doubt this to be the case; no further doubt could exist in either of their minds. De Violaine's face, as he thought to himself that the unfortunate prisoner could scarce claim kinship with a more dangerous man in the eyes of France than the Earl of Peterborough, had been enough to tell them all, to banish all hope from their hearts.
[CHAPTER XXVII.]
If the Comtesse de Valorme had taken but a secondary part in the conversation that had occurred, it was because she recognised that, to Sylvia, the moment was all important. Also she recognised, or understood well, that at the present moment the preservation, the earthly salvation of Bevill Bracton, if such were possible, stood before all else. Her own desires, her own hopes of coming into contact with the Generalissimo of the allied armies, or, short of him, of someone in high command, must, if only temporarily, give place to the saving of this man so young and so fearless. Yet, even as this thought possessed itself of her mind, she acknowledged that all power of so saving him was outside the efforts of Sylvia or herself.
What, she asked herself, was there that either of them could do to assist in that salvation--they who were themselves in a sense prisoners? De Boufflers was here at this moment; he would doubtless make himself acquainted with everything in connection with the prisoner, or, indeed, the prisoners; he would give orders as to what was to be done in the form of a trial, a judgment; and against these orders there could be no disobedience on the part of any. Nor could there be any suggestions of mercy. There were none who could venture to disobey or to suggest, or who, thus venturing, would be allowed a moment's hearing; while, worse than all, the facts were overwhelming. Bevill Bracton had placed himself in this position--a position that in war time was the worst in which any alien could stand. For, having, as an alien, obtained an entrance to Liége, he had next disobeyed the stern order that no aliens who happened to be in the city should attempt to leave it and thereby find the opportunity, should they desire it, of communicating with the enemy. To all of which was added the additional terror that, villain though he was, Francbois was a Frenchman, and the Frenchmen who listened to what he had to say might be tempted to believe his words. While, to cap everything, a letter of Lord Peterborough's had been found in Bevill's possession--Peterborough, of whom it was as well known in France as in London itself that he had loudly denounced the French succession, had counselled the rupture with France, and himself thirsted to take part in the present war.
Yet, even as Madame de Valorme acknowledged that there were none who could help him who now stood in such imminent deadly danger, a counter-thought, a counter-question ran through her brain like wildfire. "Is it so?" she asked herself. "Is it truly so?" and almost sickened as she found the answer that there were two persons who still had it in their power to afford timely help, though, in doing so, their own feelings, their own self-respect, their sense of honour, might be forfeited. The first was one who might be brought to influence the council, the court-martial that decided the unlucky man's fate--De Violaine!
And the second was one who might influence him. Ah, yes! She, the woman he had loved and lost--the woman whom--since it was idle to juggle with herself--he still loved. Herself!
Herself! and the moment had come when, if it were to be done she must do it, though, even as she knew that it was so, she loathed, execrated herself. For in her heart there dwelt, as there would ever dwell, the thought, the memory, of her unhappy husband who had died beneath the horrible tortures, the beatings, the sweat, the labour of the galleys; while in De Violaine's own heart there dwelt one thing above all--his honour, his loyalty to the country he loved and served and to the King he despised, yet had deeply pledged himself to obey faithfully.