The Mystery of the Lost Dauphin Part 34

There is a cat in a bag, several cats, rather. You know my neighbor well."

"I should say I did. I have known her and her brother Louis Pierre Louvel a lifetime. Such a sullen silent fellow! I wonder where he is now. No one seems to have heard of him since the banishment of his beloved Emperor."

"Why he is here, my boy. He has been here for three days. He brought with him to his sister's house that young girl and a handsome young man.

They came stealthily and they have all kept as quiet as mice. I have not seen even Louis Pierre's sister. She must however go out at night to buy provisions. But through a window I have seen the f aces of Louis Pierre and the handsome gentleman."

"Has he been casting eyes at you?" jealously inquired Patin, whereupon his mistress boxed his ears, and so diverted his thoughts from this trend of suspicion regarding the new comers.

"I could swear that these people are conspiring," remarked the laundress.

"You are dreaming, my dear. I have but just met the girl on the stairs.

Why should you become suspicious because a brother visits his sister?"

"That a brother should visit a sister causes me no surprise, but there are queer kinds of brothers and queer ways of paying visits. Will you believe that the sister denied to me yesterday that her brother was with her?"

"Rosa, that is indeed strange," remarked the sergeant pensively.

"I do not like Louis Pierre. He is capable of anything."

"Well, my little Rosa, stop your gossip. I don't suppose danger is being plotted. Neither the King nor Princes are in the castle; as for the d.u.c.h.ess, she is a saint whom no one would harm. What amazes me is the resemblance of the girl to the dead Queen."

"She is a live bird, I'll warrant," answered the woman.

While this dialogue was in progress, the blond girl in black rapidly crossed several streets and reached a deserted square shaded by elm trees. She was almost immediately joined by a man with whom she walked for some distance, entering at last the beginning of a park by a path which skirted the wall. The man consulted from time to time a paper plan which he carried in his hands. He stopped suddenly and examined a breach in the wall.

"Louis Pierre was right," he said.

He vaulted the fence and held forth his arms for the girl, who, crawling along the ruins, came within his reach. Taking her by the waist, he held her for a moment against his breast and spoke pa.s.sionate words of love.

"Amelie!" he whispered, "when will you become mine for all time? I adore you more than ever."

"Rene, I long for it as much as you. But O the saddest of presentiments weighs upon me. My father's mind seems giving way beneath the weight of his sorrows. His reason is clouded and confused. If his sister does not open her arms today, alas for him, alas for us! And she will not; this interview is part of an infernal plot--"

"Amelie, you express my fears also. But none of your father's friends are sleeping on their oars. Louis Pierre knows every inch of ground on this place. We are here to defend the cause, he, Giacinto and I. 'Twould have been better had you not come."

"Perhaps so, Rene, but I wanted so much to be near you. Do not heed my seeming coldness of the last few days. How could I fail in mourning for that innocent, n.o.ble man,--victim of low intrigues and his own loyalty?

He typifies the people, the people sacrificed to the cla.s.ses."

"I have been jealous of your devotion, your grat.i.tude. I have longed to be the dead. Had I died, what should you have done?"

"Died with you, Rene."

He stooped and kissed her eyes, holding her close in his arms.

Chapter VII

THE INTERVIEW

On reaching the appointed place, the d.u.c.h.ess fell upon a garden seat, seemingly very tired. Taking a lace handkerchief from the reticule which hung at her wrist, she wiped the perspiration from her forehead. She consulted the watch at her belt and found it lacked ten minutes of the time set. She sighed, resigning herself to wait.

At last she heard the approach of footsteps; some moments later a man with uncovered head stood before her. Marie Therese de Bourbon uttered no cry. She was stricken dumb. After so many years, she beheld standing before her against the crimson background of the sky, which looked like a nimbus of blood, the Past, the terrible, tragic Past. It surged again to overwhelm her, that Past, the sorrows of which seemed to have been calmed by time; the terrors of the prison; the flaring up of frail hopes destined to be dashed to earth; the incert.i.tude of the fate of loved ones; ardent prayers to heaven to work miracles; entreaties; outrages; infinite despair: all these rose again out of that terrible Past and stood before her.

She could not speak; she could scarcely see; but she felt hot tears through her silk skirt and trembling arms clasp her knees while a heart-rending voice cried:

"Marie Therese! Marie Therese!"

"Rise," she said at last, almost inaudibly. "Be seated."

He staggered to the stone bench beside her. She averted her head in order to avoid seeing his grief-stricken face. A silence followed which the lady at last broke:

"You perceive, Sir, that I have complied with your request. What do you wish?"

"To remind you that I am your brother, the brother whom your mother bore."

"My brother--died," she faltered.

"He lives and speaks to you. Dare you look upon me and deny it? I carry on my face the marks of royal baptism and of prison torture."

"My G.o.d!" she groaned.

"Why do you not acknowledge me?" he cried with waxing indignation. "I believed that on receiving me you would take me to your heart. I thought you felt the great thirst that devours me. I thought that you and I should mourn our mother in each other's arms. Why did you receive me, if you had already decided to treat me as an impostor? Are you about to turn me out of your palace gates along with the dogs and beggars? After all that I have suffered?"

Making a terrible effort, she said:

"You have spoken of proofs, irrefutable proofs."

"Miserable woman, until today I thought that the wall which separates us should be demolished on our meeting. But I see it is of iron. Listen, then. You ask me for the doc.u.ments. Well, those doc.u.ments shall be presented at a French tribunal, and you with the others shall be brushed off the usurped throne. You refuse to acknowledge me; well, when the world salutes me King, you will admit I am your brother. Europe will proclaim what no court can deny. Until then, farewell."

She trembled and softly spoke his name:

"Charles Louis!"

Her voice seemed to come from an immense distance. He cried out almost in delirium:

"Therese, Therese, my adored sister!"

He caught the d.u.c.h.ess in his arms almost strangling her. He wept and laughed together for at last his overmastering desire was filled. He felt a wild longing to dance. Scarcely realizing the craftiness of her thoughts, she a.s.sured herself with feminine complacency that she should now do with him as she chose.

"You know me at last,--do you, Therese? You no longer repulse me? O how happy I am! Only thro you do I believe in myself, for tho I told you with so much a.s.surance just now that I was your brother, I doubted my own words. Are you surprised that much suffering seems to have clouded my brain? On leaving prison, you found friends and shelter and affection and at last a throne; you returned to our father's palace amid acclamations and festivities. How can you divine my suffering? See, I have written them that you may read."

He took from his pocket an oblong case of yellow calf.

"I intended that the Marquis de Breze, whom I regard as my son should bring you this. But perhaps 'tis better that you receive it from me.

When you read my via crucis, you will not marvel that my past life seems to me a dream, a forgery of a madman's delirium. Only you can relieve me of this intolerable fear and restore me to faith in myself. You have called me Charles Louis, my name in infancy and early childhood. Those who now call me Louis do not know this. Ah, Therese, G.o.d bless you!"