Gabrielle made no answer but sat dumb.
"Eh, bien, madame," he cried, suddenly wheeling round and standing in front of her, his thin lips curled into a snarl. "The result of your insensate acts be on your head. Mark that the fault is yours if, after all my efforts to annihilate the past, you force me to be your enemy. Here below we must be judged by acts, madame, not by sugared words that mean nothing. Why compel me to war when I would fain bring peace? If you execute so iniquitous an instrument as you propose, you will have made thereby three implacable enemies; and a woman without friends should think twice before making one. Your husband never wronged you with that governess, you foolish girl; you were racked by your own silly phantom jealousy. If you must have revenge, wreak it upon me, whose only fault was loving you too much. No need to start. Cards down! Why should I deny that I loved you? The more fool I! But as your love for him has been crushed out, so, too, has mine for you, as to your sorrow you will learn."
His envenomed words snapped out like the clicks of a matchlock, and the old dismay gathered round the heart of the marquise with a chill of exceeding desolation. She had been taken in. His seeming recovery of his better self was but a sham, his fawning courtesy a grimace, his suave kindliness a mockery, his effusive benevolence a snare. To one so simply truthful as Gabrielle, such calculating duplicity was diabolical. He had dropped his vizard and shown his real face, and as she shudderingly surveyed it, she had gauged something of the malice of which this foe was capable. Returned to Lorge, was peace to be denied? Since cajolery and threats had not availed to win her, did he think to bend her to his will by force? Though he declared he hated her, there was that on his white vindictive face that she had learned to read too well. She would go straight to her husband, tell him the whole truth, and claim protection. But what then of the disposal of her property, which she felt it her duty to make? Ought she, taking a high line, to threaten to withdraw the allowance, act for herself as the good father had done on her behalf? But, ah me, how changed things were since then, so brief a while ago! Her husband already hated her--there was a ring of sincerity in the voice of Pharamond as he informed her that it was so, and she knew well, in case of a tussle, into which scale the latter would throw all his weight. Doubtless, Clovis wished her dead; alone at Lorge, might even--yet no, much as he might wish to be quit of her, his courage would surely fail when the pinch came.
In carrying out her project she would be acting rightly, of that she was now more than ever convinced; but locked up with the brethren at Lorge, would not her own courage fail? Perhaps it would be safer to remain in the Paris whirlpool. But what of the children then, and what of the prisons that filled so rapidly? Behind the bars and bolts of La Force or the Abbaye, of what service could she be to them? Leave the country she would not, stay in the capital she dared not. Moreover, in so turbulent a time her place was among her people in her distant citadel of Lorge.
All that was fine in theory, yet her heart whispered grave doubts as to her tenacity of purpose in carrying out to the end the fight so boldly planned. Alas, did she not know too well that standing alone and unsupported, with no succour within hail, she would go down at the shock of the first lance? Should she parley, even surrender now, at once--unveil her feebleness and implore pity? Promise to abandon the project which raised such ire and stirred the lees of the worst passions, trust the future of her children to their father's paternal instincts? No; one of the lessons taught by the abbé was that Clovis was born to be led. Happily that woman had been expelled, but rescued from her baleful control, he would fall under that of somebody else, and circumstanced as they were, who should that other be but the vindictive Pharamond? Of course, at Lorge, the marquis would sink completely under the abbé's sway; and with him for master, much chance would Victor and Camille have of justice in the event of their mother's death. Come what might to her, they should be guarded. Taking her courage in both hands and clinging firmly to it, she must pray for strength to bear all, doing what was best for the little ones. The best security against the greed and malevolence of Pharamond would be to place the fortune out of reach.
As these considerations flitted across the mind of the harassed marquise, she took comfort in the thought that the arch-foe should have exposed himself as he was before the party had started from Paris. Further precautions should be devised by a mother's ingenuity such as should reduce to harmlessness, in the event of disaster to herself, the abbé's strongest batteries.
Meanwhile, Pharamond mopped his face with a laced kerchief, blaming himself for precipitation as he paced nervously up and down. That he, skilful fowler of artless birds, should have been betrayed by sudden passion and disappointment into exhibiting his person to this flutterer! But then the blow had been so swift and heavy that there was some excuse for reeling under the shock. It was vexatious to have been taken off his guard. Further duplicity was useless now, for the present, at least, for she was fully informed as to his sentiments with regard to the obnoxious testament. She had beheld a glimpse of his real countenance, which was a pity, for burrowing underground was the favourite pastime of our abbé. It was a mercy, considering all things, that the obdurate and recalcitrant lady had resolved on returning to Lorge. Beyond the frontier, countenanced by friends and acquaintances, she would doubtless have proved dreadfully obstreperous. Yes, decidedly it was best to depart forthwith for the chateau. It was a fortunate thing, too, that during the lengthy and tedious sojourn in the metropolis, Clovis should have abstained from falling into the clutches of some new and antagonistic affinity.
And this turned the current of his meditations into another channel. It would have to be war now at Lorge, deliberate and serious war for the averting of a threatened calamity; a campaign consisting of feints, and ambuscades, and forced night marches requiring swiftness of resolve and unerring execution. As to submitting to such a testament, it was out of the question. The campaign might prove a desperate and bloody one, for maternity at bay fights hard.
If she signed the proposed document--and just now she looked very resolute--it would have, somehow or another, to be cancelled; a ticklish job even for so astute a diplomatist as our abbé. Would it be prudent to descend alone into the arena, or must an ally be found? But for Clovis's tergiversation, Pharamond felt fully capable of carrying a battle to successful issue, but he knew better than to deceive himself with regard to the shifty marquis, and caution whispered that he dared not work alone. His mere male influence might lead the horse to the water, but could not make him drink. You may bend a bow with impunity to a certain point, beyond which it will snap unless strengthened. Desperate emergencies call for desperate remedies, and Clovis' was one to shrink and run away in the face of anything desperate. How difficult to guide clear of obstacles is a shying horse!
Although a thousand pities, it was plain to Pharamond that what might have to be done could not be accomplished alone; that combined forces would be required to arrive at a given result, to reach a goal which he gropingly saw looming.