Then they turned to me where I stood, a drumming in my ears, a dull, aching pain at my heart; and Achon’s voice came to me as from a far distance. He was speaking to Guise: “You see, monseigneur, that his attempt to join the Constable is open war, and will utterly damn him. Let him reach St. Loup, and we have the whole hive, queen bee and all.” Then he turned to me.
“Monsieur de Vibrac! You will not speak of this to a soul. Go on as before. Let none suspect you. Take the Prince to St. Loup to-morrow. We will bring him back, and then——” He began to laugh again; but Guise checked him.
“Let this end,” he said, and addressed me. “You have your instructions, monsieur, and the reward will come.” So saying, he took Achon by the arm, and they passed out through a door in the wall that separated us from the main garden.
I looked after them stupidly, my mind still dazed and blurred, and a shame to which all other shame was as nothing throbbing through me. I turned to Richelieu, I know not why, and he stepped back a pace, as he would have from some foul thing.
“Monsieur,” he said, “our other meeting cannot take place. Even you must know why. Monsieur! I have been in many lands, I have seen strange things, good things, and evil things; but—so help me God!—I have never yet seen a thing so evil as this—I have never yet seen man fall so low as you. The key is in the door, monsieur; and you will find the street dark enough, even to hide your shame.”
With this he left me, following the others, and I, the mean, the abject, staggered toward the door like a drunken man, and, like the evil thing I was, flitted through the night.
CHAPTER XX
A QUOTATION FROM VIRGIL
I hurried on, utterly careless whither my footsteps led. Richelieu’s speech burned within me, and my very soul shrivelled under the fierce light he had poured upon it. I saw myself in all my infamy. I cursed, again and again, the coward heart that had not nerved my hand to strike him dead, as he flung at me those bitter words of insult and scorn. But a guilty conscience makes a craven soul, and the lesson was brought home to me, as with blanched lips and trembling limbs I went on, keeping in the shadow, looking neither to the right nor to the left. Now and again I met a few passers-by, but, night-hawks or honest men, they left me the road, until at last I would have been glad if one of them had even drawn upon me.
Finally I reached the Martroi and gained my chamber in Cipierre’s house. Alone there I tore the letters and the glove into shreds, and cast the fragments into the fire; then I flung the sword that had served me so ill to a corner of the room, venting upon the senseless steel some of the fury in my heart, and, undressing, lay down to sleep. But no rest came to my hot eyes, and I spent the weary hours counting the diamonds on the lattice window, watching the moonlight fade into darkness, and listening to the sighing of the wind, which rose with the setting of the moon and gave promise of a day as gray as sorrow.
I did not rise till about the dinner hour, eleven o’clock, and when I descended, I found the Vicomte and Jean awaiting me. I was surprised at my own self-control. During the hours of the night, my heart had, as it were, steeled itself within its guilt. All sensations of regret or remorse were numbed and paralyzed. I thought them dead. All that lived within me was a burning hate against those whom in my madness I accused of bringing me to the pass to which I had sunk, and so I gave my traitor hand to both Cipierre and Marcilly, and sat down to eat with them, cordial and even gay. I had some right to be gay. In a few hours my revenge would be complete.