The Chevalier was not dead! A low moan from the couch had echoed through the room, and André poured brandy down his throat, stanched the wound, and waited with feverish passion, for the Chevalier’s lips were moving. His eyes opened—he saw who it was at his side.
“Marie,” came the faint words, “Marie—the Carrefour”—his head fell back.
André waited, overwhelmed by a wave of passion, repentance, remorse. The Chevalier was no foe—he was trying to tell him something, something of vital importance to both of them; would he have the strength to do it? Denise’s and his own fate hung on that.
“Marie,” trickled the feeble words, “Carrefour de St. Antoine No. 3—” again he swooned, but André had learned almost enough. It was time to leave him, cruel as it seemed, for every half-hour now would be precious.
“Marie—paper—save her—Onslow,” the Chevalier was making a great effort; André guessed the rest. But the Chevalier’s hand moved pleadingly. He was asking for a promise—“save her,” he repeated and his lips ceased to move.
André took the young man’s hand. He scarcely knew what he was saying, he knew not who Marie was, but in the presence of death, death inflicted by that dastard stab in the back, a man who was inspired by love might well feel a great pity, the desire to forgive and atone.
“I promise,” he whispered. “I promise.”
Moved by the beautiful peace that those two words brought into the young man’s face, André kneeled beside him. No doctor could save the Chevalier de St. Amant now, but he, too, had loved Denise; he, too, had charged by the side of the Chevau-légers de la Garde at Fontenoy. And him at least an assassin’s dagger had delivered from the justice of the King of France and of Madame de Pompadour.
Sceptic as he was, André whispered a brief prayer, and, as Denise would have wished him to do, reverently made the sign of the Cross, commending his soul to the God whose eyes are upon the truth, and whose mercy is infinite.
As he stepped outside, into that clearing where Yvonne had saved his own life, a sharp altercation apparently in the outhouses at the back sent him hurrying thither.