Péron was not untouched by the honest man’s anxiety.
“I thank you, friend,” he said, shaking the other’s hand, “but it is useless; I can make shift with a good horse to outstrip these plotters on the road, and I am off at once. There is the letter for Père Antoine; and for the cake—why, keep it against my return.”
“Which road do you take, M. Jehan?” persisted the pastry cook, as they went down the narrow stairs together.
“By the way of Amiens, though I shall avoid the town,” Péron replied; “but I shall cross the Somme at the Blanche Tache.”
No more was said; Péron believed that he had discouraged the cook’s well-meant scheme, and hastened to the stables for his horse, knowing well that every hour counted and that he must reach Brussels before the conspirators, or all would be lost. The stable-boys were asleep and he saddled and bridled his own horse, thinking once or twice that he heard something stir in the straw in the next stall, but putting it down to the credit of the rats.
It had been an eventful evening; at nightfall mademoiselle came to warn him, later Archambault told his story, and at midnight he was riding along the Rue St. Denis on his way to Flanders. His future, and perhaps his life, depended upon the four feet of his horse and his own wit. In spite of the stirring occurrences of the last few weeks, in spite of his disappointment at the tidings of mademoiselle’s betrothal, he was calm and alert as he went out on his dangerous and uncertain errand. He not only wished to save his own honor, but he believed that there was peril to France in the plotting of these conspirators. He knew that on a little thing hangs sometimes the fate of an empire, and he understood something of the web that the cardinal was ever weaving with the patience and the skill of a spider. Yet with all these reflections, with the weight of this anxiety upon him, he longed greatly to settle an account with M. de Bièvre, and the face of mademoiselle haunted him. He thought with a smile, however, of the party waiting with fruitless patience at the stone bridge of the Cours la Reine.
CHAPTER XXVI
IN THE FOREST OF CHANTILLY
IT was one o’clock when Péron rode through St. Denis, and a light spring rain was falling; through the mist he saw the blurred lights of the guardhouse and he heard the tolling of the abbey bell. It was dreary enough, and so were his meditations; at the very moment when he seemed to have succeeded, misfortune again assailed him. He had staked his honor and his life upon the mission to Brussels, and he had executed it only to lose all that he had gained by this last trick of fate. It seemed as if peril, conspiracy, and murder had tracked his footsteps ever since the night when good Madame Michel had held him in her arms in the woods of Nançay, praying and weeping by turns over the bereaved infant. His peaceful childhood on the Rue de la Ferronnerie, the happiness of his boyhood with Condé, were after all but intervals in the drama of his eventful life. The hour, the rain, the lonely road, all depressed his usually buoyant spirits and chilled his blood; he recalled a story which Jacques des Horloges was fond of reciting—of a noble family in which every male died a violent death. It required an effort to shake off his lethargy, to direct his attention to his horse, which stumbled more than once in the mire, and to concentrate his mind upon his errand. If Archambault’s story was true, he had seven or eight hours the start of the conspirators, and it would go hard with him if he did not defeat them; in any event, there was a hope left, and that a strong one, that Père Matthieu would never be outwitted.
With all this, fate beset Péron on every side. He had been willing to sacrifice himself for Renée de Nançay, to endure an injustice rather than crush her with the shame of her father’s villainy, but was he prepared to do the same for Madame de Bièvre? And why not? Had he ever dreamed of wedding mademoiselle? Surely not; to wed her he must proclaim his rank; and if he proclaimed it, they would be separated forever. Then, he argued, if he could not marry her, doubtless she would have married in any case, and why should he find it hard to shield her as a wife? Ah, but he did! The difference was there, and sharp enough to make him wince.
In the midst of these reflections there came a more common-place anxiety. His horse stumbled again and went lame. He had saddled the beast in the dark, without making any examination of him, and he now realized his error; for if anything went wrong with the horse, he would meet with disastrous delays. He dismounted and tried to discover the trouble, but in vain; he was without means of making a light, and could not see. There was no alternative therefore but to resume his seat in the saddle and go on with caution until daybreak; but he no longer dared to keep up the pace at which he had started, no matter how much he chafed under the delay. To change horses on the road was no part of his design, especially since the horse left behind would prove an excellent clew by which he could be tracked. This compelled him to spare the animal, and he was further impeded by the soft condition of the roads, still muddy from the heavy weather; so he made but poor progress, and was still a league from Chantilly when the black rain-clouds lifted in the east showing a keen line of silver, like the edge of a naked sword, where dawn cut the night in twain. Before him the woods of Chantilly took fantastic shapes through the mist, and around him the meadows were undulated like the gray billows of the ocean. The estate of Chantilly, once the property of the house of Montmorency, had been forfeited by the rebellion of the last unfortunate duke and was now in the hands of the Princesse de Condé, a gift from the king.