'Mon Dieu! No!' broke in the duchess, and Madame looked at the speaker with a cold contempt.
'He is the only man living here,' and the strong accent of the Béarnais came as from a distance; 'Ventre-saint-Gris! But they fought like paladins, and Frenchman or foreigner, he shall be saved if it can be done.'
'Sire,' said a soft voice, 'you are the true King of the brave.'
Then two men-at-arms raised me with a rough gentleness on their crossed spears, and inflicted on me in their kindness the most infinite torture. The King himself pressed a flask of wine to my lips, and, as I drank greedily, two cool hands held up my head. Then we moved on slowly, Madame refusing to ride, but walking by my side, and supporting my burning head.
CHAPTER IV
[THE CHATEAU DE LA BIDACHE]
Months had passed since I shook hands with death in the cornfield by the banks of the Oise, and the grass was tall and green on the mounds around La Fère which marked the graves of those who had fought and died there, in reality for the hand of Spain, in spirit for the League that was dead. It was autumn now, and as I, well and strong again, walked down the long avenue of beeches that led to the park gates of Bidache, I let my memory run back to the days in the hospital of Ste. Geneviève, whither I was borne from the field; to the soft-voiced, gentle-handed sisters of mercy; to the physician Marescot, the King's own leech, with his acid face and kind heart, who doctored me; and above all to the tall, slight, black-robed figure that came to see me daily, and for whose coming I used to long, in the dreary hours of my pain, with an infinite desire. I argued with myself on the absurdity of the thing—here was I, hardened by ten years of campaigning which ought to have taught me the world, conquered out of hand by the glance of a pair of bright eyes, and the tones of a sweet voice. As the days wore on, I cursed myself for the unworthy suspicions that had come to me and tied my tongue when I lay wounded, and was rescued by chance, and her charity. Who or what she was I cared not, and recklessly abandoned myself to the feelings that were aroused in my heart.
I shall not forget what happened one afternoon. A long gallery in the convent of Ste. Geneviève had been turned into a ward, and here the wounded lay on pallets with a walking space between. Owing to Madame's kindness I was comfortably quartered at the end of the gallery, and a screen had been set between me and the other patients. I was gaining strength daily, and, at the moment I speak of, was in a state between sleeping and waking, when I heard a laugh and the sound of footsteps, and saw through the partly open wing of the screen that my lady had come to make her daily rounds, not attended as usual only by her women, but by a gaily-dressed cavalier as well, and it was his laugh that I had heard. In this person, dressed in the extreme of fashion, I made out M. d'Ayen, the same who had so kindly suggested that I should be left to die in the field. He pattered along, holding a kerchief edged with gold lace to his nose, and ever and again waving it in the air, whilst he spoke in a loud tone, regardless of the looks cast at him by the sisters in attendance on the wounded. They came slowly towards me, for Madame stayed constantly to speak to some maimed wretch, and I saw her slip money into the hands of some, and there were kind words for all. I felt a strange pleasure in watching her, whilst at the same time I thought of my past, and how unfit I was even to nurse such a dream as my love for her. When within a yard or so of the screen, Madame bent over a sufferer, and d'Ayen exclaimed in his biting voice—
'Morbleu! Madame! But you are the Princess of Charity. Let us hasten to your interesting patient, however. His Majesty is most anxious to hear of him.'
'His Majesty has never done me the honour to inquire,' she answered coldly.