It was Summer, and the myriad wild-flowers of the Tauric Chersonese had sprung up upon the brown plains, and between the stones and boulders; and as in the beech-forest near the Inn of the Three Herons long ago, Dunoisse flung himself face downwards amidst the flaunting blooms and wept. Then he rose up and went back to his labors among the sick and suffering. But he wrote to her; and presently received a letter in the beloved handwriting, telling him that she had returned to England in feeble health.
The Allied Armies were withdrawn from the seat of war—the hospitals were closed, yet Dunoisse hesitated to follow her. He had not earned the right, it seemed to him. He volunteered as a surgeon’s assistant on one of the French hospital-ships and returned to Marseilles. Here he rendered service to his wounded countrymen, and—simultaneously with the outbreak of the Indian Mutiny—was called back to Paris, to be present at the death-bed of Marshal Dunoisse.
The stately mansion in the Rue Chaussée d’Antin had fallen into decay. A dusty board upon the weather-stained portico advertised it as Unfurnished and To Let. In the little ground-floor back room of the porter’s lodge, inhabited by Auguste and his plump-faced wife, the late master of the big house lay dying, his fur-lined cloak spread above the patchwork coverlet and drawn up to his long-unshaven chin. The curly-brimmed beaver hat was perched upon the top of the wardrobe—the gold-mounted teeth were in their morocco case on the deal toilet-table—the ambrosial wig hung upon the looking-glass—the big Malacca cane, its chased golden top replaced by a knob of tarnished pewter, lay beside the Marshal on the frowsy bed.... Monseigneur would have it, Auguste’s stout wife explained, to shake at devils that worried him. When he got too weak to do this she had set a plaster Crucifix on the chest of drawers that stood at the foot of the bed.
The Marshal’s race was nearly run, that was evident. But he was conscious, with lapses into semi-delirium. He recognized his son.
“When I said that Flemish Buonaparte should never pick my bones, I forgot you!” he told Hector. “So, when that woman of yours came to me for money for her dear imprisoned one—I gave, though I knew myself a fool! Then de Fleury sent to me, saying that—though your sentence was for life and the Emperor’s resentment was implacable—he could insure your freedom for—I forget how much, but I know it was a thumping sum of money!—and what in the name of a thousand thunders was a man with bowels to do? You were a poor creature, but Marie’s son, after all!—and so I let them plunder me.... Ah-h! What are you up to now, you rascals, you?”
He saw devils, and roared and brandished his big cane at them. Only in imagination, because his voice had sunk to a crackling whisper, and his hand was powerless. A little child—the year-old son of the ex-coachman’s daughter—sat on the bed, holding one of the shrunken fingers—undismayed by the fierce glare of the bloodshot eyes.... Monseigneur had been kind to Toto, Auguste’s wife whispered.... Dunoisse, seeing the end approach, signed to her to take the boy away.
A change of mood came upon the old man presently.
“Let me rise up!” he said to the coachman’s wife, a trifle wildly. “I tell you that I am in the presence of the great!...”