“To-morrow?… Let me see,” said M. Gombard; and thrusting both hands into his pockets, he bent his head upon his breast with
the air of a man making a calculation. After a prolonged silence he looked up, and continued reflectively: “If I can leave this to-morrow at four o’clock, with a good pair of horses, I shall be at X—— by ten; and starting afresh at, say, five next morning, I shall be—”
“Saved!” broke in the landlord.
“I shall be saved, as you say,” repeated M. Gombard.
“Monsieur, if the thing is possible it shall be done!” protested the landlord. This coolness, this superhuman calm, at such a crisis, were magnificent; this felon, whoever he was, was a glorious man.
“Very peculiar person our host seems,” was the hero’s reflection, when the door closed behind that excited and highly sensitive individual. M. Gombard then drew a chair towards the fire, pulled a newspaper from his pocket, and poked his feet as far out on the hearth as he could without putting them right into the blaze.
When he had squeezed the newspaper dry, he threw it aside, and bethought to himself that he might as well go for a walk, and reconnoitre this extremely unprogressive town, where a traveller might wait two days and two nights for a pair of post-horses. He pulled on his big furred coat and sallied forth. The snow was deep, but the night’s sharp frost had hardened it, so that it was dry and crisp to walk on. There was little in the aspect of Cabicol that promised entertainment; it was called a town, but it was more like a village with a disproportionately fine church, and some large houses that looked out of place in the midst of the shabby ones all round though the largest was insignificant beside the imposing old pile opposite the inn. They looked quaint and picturesque enough, however,
in their snow dress, glistening in the beams of the pale winter sun that shone out feebly from the milky-looking sky. The church was the first place to which M. Gombard bent his steps, not with any pious intentions, but because it was the only place that seemed to be open to a visitor, and was, moreover, a stately, Gothic edifice that would have done honor to a thriving, well-populated town. The front door was closed. M. Gombard was turning away with some disappointment, when an old woman who was frying chestnuts in the angle of the projecting buttress, with an umbrella tied to the back of her chair as a protest rather than a protection against the north wind that was blowing over the deserted market-place, called out to him that the side door was open, and pointed to the other side of the church. When the visitor entered it, he was struck by the solemnity and vastness of the place. It was quite empty. At least he thought so; for his eye, piercing the sombre perspective, saw no living person there. In the south aisle the rich stained glass threw delicate shadows of purple and gold and crimson on the pavement, on the stern mediæval statues, on the slim, groined pillars; but the other aisle was so dark that it was like night until your eyes grew accustomed to the gloom. M. Gombard walked slowly through the darkened aisle, peering up at the massive carving of the capitals, and into the quaint devices of the basements, and wondering what could have brought this majestic, cathedral-like church into so incongruous a frame as Cabicol. Suddenly he descried coming towards him from the farthest end of the aisle, like a dimly visible form emerging from total darkness,
the figure of a man. He supposed at first it was a priest, and he thought he would ask him for some information about the church; but, as the figure drew near, he saw he had been mistaken, and presently he recognized the tall, erect bearing and hurried step of the lover of Mlle. Bobert. There was no reason why M. Gombard should not have accosted him just as readily as if he had been the priest he had taken him for, but something checked him at the first moment; and when the young man had passed, he was loath to call him back. He had not the kind of face M. Gombard expected; there was none of the levity or mawkishness that almost invariably characterized the countenances of men who were in love; neither was there any trace of coxcombry or conceit in his dress and general appearance; he had a fine head, well shaped, and with a breadth of forehead that announced brains; his face was thoughtful and intelligent. M. Gombard was sorry for the poor fellow, who was evidently not otherwise a fool. The sound of the lover’s footfall died away, and the great door closed behind him with a boom like low thunder. M. Gombard continued his walk round the church undisturbed. He came to the Lady Chapel behind the high altar, and stood at the entrance, filled with a new admiration and surprise. The chapel was as dimly lighted as the rest of the building; but from a deep, mullioned window there came a flood of amber light that fell full upon a kneeling figure, illuminating it with an effulgence to which the word heavenly might fitly be applied. M. Gombard’s first thought was that this new wonder was part of the whole; that it was not a real, living female form he beheld,
but some beautiful creation of painter and sculptor, placed here to symbolize faith and worship in their loveliest aspect. But this was merely the first unreasoning impression of delight and wonder. He had not gazed more than a second on the kneeling figure when he saw that it was neither a statue nor an apparition, but a living, breathing woman. The worshipper was absorbed in her devotions, and seemed unconscious of the proximity of any spectator; so M. Gombard was free to contemplate her at his ease. It was the first time in his life that he ever stood deliberately to contemplate a woman, simply as a beautiful object; but there was something in this one totally different from all the women, beautiful or otherwise, that he had ever seen. It may have been the circumstances, the place and hour, the obscurity of all around, except for that yellow shaft of light that shot straight down upon the lovely devotee, investing her with a sort of celestial glory; but whatever it was, the spectacle stirred the fibres of his heart as they had never been stirred before. Who was this lovely creature, and why was she here in the deserted church, alone and at an hour when there was neither chant nor ceremony to call her thither? M. Gombard’s habit of mind and his semi-legal and magisterial functions led him to suspect and discover plots and sinister motives in most human actions that were at all out of the usual course; but it never for an instant occurred to seek any such here. This fair girl—she looked in the full bloom of youth—could only be engaged on some errand of duty, of mercy, or of love. Love! Strange to say, the word, as it rose to his lips, did not call up the scornful, or even the