“Choin,” he said, “I must stay here with the body; take therefore your two prisoners and your men and go to Ferré, the blacksmith at Chantilly; he will help you to hide the prisoners there, for my sake, and he will come with you to take these two bodies. One can lie at Chantilly, but the other must go to Paris.”
The Italian was too alarmed and worried to gainsay the younger man, and he seemed glad to escape, even for a while, the presence of the dead men. He and his men helped to drag the two bodies out of sight and caught the horses; then, with their prisoners, they rode off to Chantilly, leaving Péron on guard with the dead and tormented with his own anxieties.
Never did two hours seem longer than the two which elapsed before he saw Choin and Ferré coming again with two litters for the corpses, borne, as he soon learned, by the big blacksmith’s trusted apprentices; for Choin’s two men had stayed to guard the prisoners. The dead marquis and his servant were taken secretly through the forest and concealed in a shed behind the blacksmith’s forge until nightfall, when they could be brought quietly to Paris. But Péron did not wait for this; he left them in charge of Choin, and spurred on to the city to tell his story to the cardinal. That was not the first thing he did, however; instead, he rode to the church of St. Nicholas de Champs, where he found Père Antoine and told him of Nançay’s death, begging him to go at once to the Rue St. Thomas du Louvre to break the heavy tidings to mademoiselle. Archambault had already carried Péron’s letter, and the story was not wholly a surprise to the priest; but he listened without comment. When the young musketeer concluded with his appeal for the orphan girl, Père Antoine’s blue eyes were suddenly lifted from the ground and looked searchingly into his face.
“My son,” he said gently, “it is well that this man’s death does not seem to have filled your heart with the satisfied lust of vengeance, and that at such an hour your thoughts are of mercy and peace.”
Péron’s honest face flamed scarlet and he looked back steadfastly into the priest’s kind eyes.
“Mon père,” he said, with the ingenuous frankness of a boy, “I fear that it is not altogether Christian mercy which has changed my heart.”
Père Antoine smiled.
“Jehan,” he said softly, “love entering into a man’s heart is either its crucifixion or its crown, and sometimes it is both. I will go this hour to Mademoiselle de Nançay, and I am deeply thankful that it was Choin who killed him; it might have been—” He crossed himself, murmuring a prayer of thanksgiving, to which Péron said amen with a lighter heart.
CHAPTER XXVII
AN ACT OF JUSTICE
AFTER leaving Père Antoine, Péron stopped only long enough at his lodgings to remove the stains of travel, and still wearing his plain suit of dark blue taffety, he bent his steps toward the Palais Cardinal. His perplexities and adventures had been so numerous in the last few hours that he tried to keep his thoughts from them that his mind might be clear to deal with his exacting patron. He could not conjecture what would be Richelieu’s reception of the tidings, but he anticipated a sharp reprimand for the loss of the ring even though it was recovered. As for M. de Nançay’s death, he suspected that it would not be unwelcome to monsignor, for he was not wholly blind to the natural results which the wily Italian must have expected on the day on which he posted Péron in Catharine de’ Medici’s clock, after revealing the secret of his father’s execution. Nor did he fear any trouble for Choin; he knew the cardinal to be just, if remorselessly stern. However, the prospect of the interview was far from pleasing, and he walked slowly through the gardens behind the palace, noting the lime-trees and wondering which one had shaded M. de Nançay and M. de Vesson at their conference which monsignor’s eavesdropper had overheard. Péron only partially divined the extent of the plot which he had helped to reveal; he did not know that it was but the forerunner of a greater one which would bring M. le Grand to the block, and that Monsieur, the queen-mother, and M. de Bouillon were but hatching another conspiracy on the wreck of the lesser one.