Traitor and True: A Romance

by John Bloundelle-Burton

"No chance if that is done. The swiftest portion of the Rhine is quickly reached by that brawling, rushing river outside. I know, I have been a refugee in this city ere now--and then, once there, the secret is hidden for ever. The swirl at that spot is worse than the grave, since the latter can be made to give up its dead or what is left of them, but it never."

Of this speech Humphrey could understand nothing; it conveyed naught to his mind. Or, if it did convey anything, only the thought that some proof of their secret, something which he could not guess at or surmise, was to be consigned to an eternal and unyielding oblivion.

It seemed as if, now, those two were about to separate for the night. In still broken, still interjected sentences and scraps of sentences and stray words, Humphrey could understand that they were telling each other their future plans. He gathered that the woman had promised to set out the next day in her coach for Paris, that she would wait at Mülhausen till the French coach from Basle arrived when she would take her confederate into her own carriage and convey him with her. He also found out for certainty what the old man's name was.

"I will not have you masquerading as my father," he heard the woman whisper. "You need be no longer the Seigneur de Châteaugrand. Your own name of Van den Enden will do very well, since nothing connects you with us or Normandy."

"It will do very well for me, too," Humphrey said to himself, "since I know both of them now. And yours also, my lady, thanks to your chattering maid and your travelling necessaries."

A moment later he once more heard the door opened and shut, gently as ever, and knew that the woman was left alone. Still another moment, and he heard her cross the floor of her salon and knew by the sound of a closing door--the different sound made by a different door--that she had entered another room, the one in which she doubtless slept.

It was now ten o'clock, as Humphrey heard plainly from all the various clocks in the city, and he knew that he must, as yet, have no thought of setting out for France. By the absence of all movement whatever in the Duchess's room to the right he recognised that she had not yet sought her bed; he heard, too, all the sounds rising up the stairs from the ground portion of the inn which told him that there was as yet no likelihood of the place being closed for the night. There were, he knew well, no other travellers, or at least none of importance, staying in the house, yet--even in this rigid and now harsh and severe Protestant city that, nearly a hundred years after Calvin's death, had not yet shaken off the gloomy asceticism with which he had dyed and imbued it, as well as Geneva and others--there were wassailers and carousers who came here to drink nightly. He had seen them and heard them, too, the evening before, as, also, he had seen Fleur de Mai and Boisfleury drinking with them. He knew, also, that until midnight, or at least as long as the landlord would allow them to remain, which was so long as they would drink and sup, the house would not be closed and these topers sent forth.

"Therefore," thought Humphrey, "I must possess my soul in patience. There is naught else for it." Though, even as he so thought, there came another reflection to his mind.

"Foregad!" he said to himself, "if I stay in here until the house is closed, I am as like not to be unable to leave it. Therefore let me consider what is best. Either to quit the house before it is shut up for the night, to get to the stables and remain in them till all is quiet and then steal away on 'Soupir'--she is fleet of foot and, once off, none will catch us!--or wait here till all are gone to their beds and take my chance of finding an exit? Which shall I do?"

Suddenly, however, he made his final decision. To stay here and risk being unable to obtain that exit was folly. Better walk about the streets for hours and then return and make his way to the stables and obtain his horse--if the stables were not themselves made fast for the night--than stay here to be shut in till the morning. Consequently, he decided he would go in an hour's time if not sooner. And, also, it might be best that then, if he could get into the stables, he should saddle "Soupir," at once, lead her out gently, and, mounting her without delay, ride forth out of the town. That he would have to pass the gate he knew, but, with the passport he carried in his pocket signed by D'Argenson for the King--the King whom, if possible, he went forth to warn and save--this would be easy.