The eyes of Clovis fell on a group in the angle of the courtyard, and, blushing, he hung his head. His brothers, unkempt and bound, none the better for rough usage, tied back to back like common malefactors, while a young seigneur whom all three knew well was mounting guard on them.
"M. de Vaux," he stammered, "things look black, I know, but I implore you not to condemn me in your mind unheard. I swear to you that I did not know of this. I was coming home from an absence due to business, and was as horrified as you could be when I was informed of the terrible story."
"You will all three be broken on the wheel," was the pithy answer of the baron.
The chevalier, with chin sunk upon his breast, saw and heard nothing; his weak brain was in a daze. But the abbé glanced quickly at the marquis and smiled with profound disdain. He had always felt for his elder brother a contempt so deep that it approached near to loathing. Worldly prudence alone had cloaked his feelings, for he knew him to be of the mean sort that, too feeble for independent action, will, while prating virtue, glibly accept the fruit of another's wickedness, or denounce him in case of failure. The aspect of this sorry apologetic craven acted on the abbé's nerves like a dash of refreshing spray. The old gleam glittered for a moment from under half-closed lids. He shook himself, raised his head proudly, and pointing a finger at Clovis, harshly laughed aloud--
"Remember that, unluckily, we are related," he sneered; "and spare me this humiliating spectacle. We have all three played our game and lost, and must pay the stakes with resignation."
"I assure you, Monsieur le Baron, that he lies malignantly," the hapless Clovis began; but his words died away in confusion, for his flesh quivered under the abbé's words and scathing looks as under a whip.
"Believe him not," scoffed Pharamond. "We are guilty of lamentable failure, for which I am honestly ashamed, due in part to the pusillanimity of yonder cur; and failure, as we all know, is the one sin that never may hope for pardon. He knew perfectly well the intended programme, and having given his tacit consent was despatched on a mission, which he apparently has bungled, that we might not be hampered by his cowardice. We failed, as better and stronger men have failed, and I am sorry for the mistake. It would have been shorter and safer to have made away with him as well as his puling wife. Speak, chevalier--you are a drunken sot, but not a craven--is not this the truth?"
Urged by the sharp elbow of his brother, lustily applied, Phebus raised his head and looked dreamily around; then saying simply "Yes; what you say is truth," relapsed into stupid reverie.
The abbé was growing lively, for now, thanks to Clovis's ineptitude, he no longer played the ridiculous role. The marquis hoped to whitewash himself by steady lying at the expense of his more brilliant confederate. That should never be. None but a fool would have deemed such a denouément possible. But for the advent of the new-comer, Pharamond might have stuck to his guns, and have adroitly wriggled out of the meshes of the law, delightfully pure and unsullied, though for a moment stained by calumny; for though the marquise had for some unaccountable reason recovered, there was nothing but her word for the absurd story of the goblet, sword, and pistol. Even had she died no trace of the herb would have been found. Mademoiselle Brunelle and the servants of the chateau would with one accord have sworn--as they aspired to an edifying end and a cosy seat in Heaven--that madame had suffered from a serious complaint, accompanied by delirious hallucination. That she was better now was in the nature of things, due partly to tenderest solicitude on the part of her affectionate family, and an additional proof, if any still were wanting, that the story of the poison was a dream. But Clovis, by his own dastardly and execrable meanness, had cut the ground from under the feet of the suspected trio; for the abbé had been goaded for once to forget himself and his own interests in order, with a pretty display of scornful protest, to inflict revenge upon another. In sober truth, the abbé felt outraged in his best feelings by the move of Clovis.
Pharamond had confessed with easy nonchalance to an attempt of superior wickedness, and was rather flattered than otherwise by the silent horror depicted on the bovine countenances of the Seigneurie. They appeared to gaze, face to face, on the Satanic one, and were abashed by his unexpected propinquity.