"By these presents I command and empower Gilles de Berault, sieur de Berault, to seek for, hold, arrest, and deliver to the Governor of the Bastile the body of Henri de Cocheforêt, and to do all such acts and things as shall be necessary to effect such arrest and delivery, for which these shall be his warrant.
"(Signed) RICHELIEU, Lieut.-Gen."
When he had done,--and he read the signature with a peculiar intonation,--some one said softly, "Vive le roi!" and there was a moment's silence. The sergeant lowered his lanthorn. "Is it enough?" I said hoarsely, glaring from face to face.
The lieutenant bowed stiffly. "For me?" he said. "Quite, Monsieur. I beg your pardon again. I find that my first impressions were the-correct ones. Sergeant, give the gentleman his paper." And turning his shoulder rudely, he tossed the commission towards the sergeant, who picked it up, and gave it to me, grinning.
I knew that the clown would not fight, and he had his men round him; and I had no choice but to swallow the insult. As I put the paper in my breast, with as much indifference as I could assume, he gave a sharp order. The troopers began to form on the edge above, the men who had descended, to climb the bank. As the group behind him began to open and melt away, I caught sight of a white robe in the middle of it. The next moment, appearing with a suddenness which was like a blow on the cheek to me, Mademoiselle de Cocheforêt glided forward, and came towards me. She had a hood on her head, drawn low; and for a moment I could not see her face. I forgot her brother's presence at my elbow; from habit and impulse rather than calculation, I took a step forward to meet her---though my tongue cleaved to the roof of my mouth, and I was dumb and trembling.
But she recoiled with such a look of white hate, of staring, frozen-eyed loathing, that I stepped back as if she had indeed struck me. It did not need the words which accompanied the look, the "Do not touch me!" which she hissed at me as she drew her skirts together, to drive me to the farther edge of the hollow; there to stand with clenched teeth and nails driven into the flesh while she hung, sobbing tearless sobs, on her brother's neck.
CHAPTER XI.
[THE ROAD TO PARIS.]
I remember hearing Marshal Bassompierre, who, of all men within my knowledge, had the widest experience, say that not dangers, but discomforts, prove a man, and show what he is; and that the worst sores in life are caused by crumpled rose-leaves and not by thorns.
I am inclined to agree with this. For I remember that when I came from my room on the morning after the arrest, and found hall and parlour and passage empty, and all the common rooms of the house deserted, and no meal laid, and when I divined anew from this discovery the feeling of the house towards me,--however natural and to be expected,--I felt as sharp a pang as when, the night before, I had had to face discovery and open rage and scorn. I stood in the silent, empty parlour, and looked round me with a sense of desolation; of something lost and gone, which I could not replace. The morning was grey and cloudy, the air sharp; a shower was falling. The rose-bushes at the window swayed in the wind, and where I could remember the hot sunshine lying on floor and table, the rain beat in and stained the boards. The main door flapped and creaked to and fro. I thought of other days and meals I had taken there, and of the scent of flowers, and I fled to the hall in despair.