A few moments later they emerged from the room, Babet carrying Truffle under her mantle; Charlot secured the door behind them, replacing the bar, and softly and cautiously they descended. They heard Père Ambroise speaking, in unctuous tones, and a coarse oath from M. de Baudri, on whom the wine was having some effect, but no one heard them. The porter had left his place and the door was unbolted. Almost without noise, the three slipped out and stood free upon the open street.
CHAPTER XXI
IN THE WOODS OF ST. CYR
The next morning found Charlot in his shop. He had spread his tools and leather on his bench with a pretence of work, but he was not working. He sat watching his door with eager eyes, alert and impatient. He was waiting for the return of the blacksmith’s boy whom he had sent in search of d’Aguesseau. Rosaline and Babet had walked out of the gate of the town as soon as it was opened, and must be now near St. Césaire. In le Bossu’s chamber a candle burned before the Virgin, a prayer for the heretics; such is the inconsistency of the human heart and its religion.
In a week the little hunchback had grown old, and his back seemed more pitifully bowed than ever. The Intendant of Languedoc might indeed regard him as scarcely worth the killing; but no man can see the naked soul of his brother, and it may be vastly different from his body; as different as the abode on earth is from the mansion in heaven. “It is sown in weakness; it is raised in power.� It is cast in the shape of a cripple on earth, it is raised in the form of an angel. The starved soul of le Bossu looked out of his patient eyes and saw not even a crumb of comfort falling from the rich man’s table, and self-sacrifice became the law of his life.
He looked down at his brown, toil-worn, right hand, and tears shone in his eyes. It was sanctified, for she had kissed it. He shrank within himself at the thought, but in her gratitude and her relief, she had thanked him and she had even taken his hand and kissed it. Had he not delivered her from a fate worse than death? and was he not her humble friend and servant? Rosaline’s impulse had been followed by no second thought; her whole soul was filled with the hope of escaping to her lover. And the poor little cobbler understood her, but he felt that he might fall down and worship her still. No one else had ever considered him, no one else had ever been uniformly kind to him; in the parched desert of his life she alone had held him a cup of water. The starved and empty heart held one image; the life—of so little worth—was at her service.
The sun was high enough now to reach the court, and the spot of light on the pavement began to grow, but the weed that had blossomed in June had gone to seed and stood there yellow and lean. One of the children opposite was ill of a fever, and the other played silently, in a melancholy way, on the steps. Le Bossu’s glance lighted on her and his heart was touched; it was cruel that a heart so large in its sympathy for all sufferers should have been cast by the wayside and choked with thorns. He rose from his bench and took up a little pair of shoes, and then he opened his wallet and counted out some money; with the shoes and the coin he crossed the court and gave them to the little girl for her sick sister. The child stared at him wide-eyed; she had shown him as little mercy as the others, and had looked upon the hunchback as unlike other human beings. She had not the sense to thank him, though she clasped his presents greedily to her breast and fled into the house, half-affrighted at the little man with his hump. The unwitting cruelty of children often hurts as much as the coarse brutality of their parents, but to-day le Bossu smiled. If his life was worth something to Rosaline de St. Cyr, it was worth all the suffering of living it; the bon Dieu had given him a blessed compensation.
He was returning to the shop of Two Shoes when another man entered the court. The cobbler looked about anxiously, for he had been dreading the possible appearance of Père Ambroise or one of M. de Baudri’s emissaries, but a second glance reassured him, for he came face to face with François d’Aguesseau. The hunchback signed to him to follow him in to his shop and then closed the door.
“Where is she?� demanded d’Aguesseau, in an agitated tone. “I received your message, and I am here.�
The cobbler looked at him strangely. “Did you come to release mademoiselle single-handed?� he asked quietly.
“I came to save her—if mortal man can do it,� he retorted sternly. “It may be that they will take me in exchange; I hear that there is a price on my head—but, mon Dieu! where is she?�