Part 5

That was Vigo's way. The toughest snarl untangled at his touch. He had more sense and fewer airs than any other, he saw at once that I was in earnest; and Constant's voluble protests were as so much wind. The title does not make the man. Though Constant was Master of the Household and Vigo only Equery, yet Vigo ruled every corner of the establishment and every man in it, save only Monsieur, who ruled him.

He said no word to me as we climbed the broad stair; neither reproved me for the fracas nor questioned me about my coming. He would not pry into Monsieur's business; and, save as I concerned Monsieur, he had no interest in me whatsoever. He led the way straight into an antechamber, where a page sprang up to bar our passage.

"No one may enter, M. Vigo, not even you. M. le Duc has ordered it. Why, Félix! You in Paris!"

"I enter," said Vigo; and, sweeping Marcel aside, he knocked loudly.

"I came last night," I found time to say under my breath to my old comrade before the door was opened.

The handsome secretary whom I had taken for the count stood in the doorway looking askance at us. He knew me at once and wondered.

"You cannot enter, Vigo. M. le Duc is occupied."

He made to shut the door, but Vigo's foot was over the sill.

"Natheless, I must enter," he answered unabashed and pushed his way into the room.

"Then you must answer for it," returned the secretary, with a scowl that sat ill on his delicate face.

"_You_ shall answer for it if it turns out a mare's nest," said Vigo, in a low, meaning voice to me. But I hardly heard him. I passed him and Lucas, and flew down the long room to Monsieur.

M. le Duc was seated before a table heaped with papers. He had been watching the scene at the door in surprise and anger. He looked at me with a sharp frown, while the deer-hound at his feet rose on its haunches growling.

"Roland!" I said. The dog sprang up and came to me.

"Félix Broux!" Monsieur exclaimed, with his quick, warm smile--a smile no man in France could match for radiance.

I had no thought of kneeling, of making obeisance, of waiting permission to speak.

"Monsieur," I cried, half choked, "there is a plot--a vile plot to murder you!"

"Where? At St. Quentin?"

"No, Monsieur. Here in Paris. In the streets to-night, when you go to the king."

Monsieur sprang to his feet, his hand on his sword. Lucas turned white. Vigo swore. Monsieur cried:

"How, in God's name, know you that?"

"You have been betrayed, Monsieur. Your plan is known. You leave the house to-night, near a quarter of eleven, to go in secret to the king. You leave by the little door in the alley--"

"Diable!" breathed Vigo.

"They set on you on your way--three of them--to run you through before you can draw."

"But, ventre bleu! Monsieur is not alone."

"No; he walks between you and M. Lucas."

Not one of them spoke. They stared at me as if I were something uncanny. I, a raw country boy, disclosing a perfect knowledge of their most intimate plans!

"How know you this?" Monsieur demanded of me. But he was not looking at me. His keen glance went first to Lucas, then to Vigo, the two men who had shared his confidence. The secretary cried out:

"You cannot think, Monsieur, that I betrayed you?"

Vigo said nothing. His steady eyes never left Monsieur's face.

"No," answered Monsieur to Lucas, "I cannot think it." And to Vigo he said: "I shall accuse you when I accuse myself. But--none knew this thing save our three selves." And his gaze went back to Lucas.

"It is not likely to be he," I said, impelled to be just to him though I did not like him, "for they meant to kill him as well."

Lucas started, then instantly recovered himself.

"A comprehensive plot, Monsieur," he said, with a smile.

"Then who was it?" cried Monsieur to me. "You know. Speak."

"There is a spy in the house--an eavesdropper," I said, and then paused.

"Aye?" said Monsieur. "Who?"

Now the answer to this was easy, yet I flinched before it; for I knew well enough what Monsieur would do. He feared no man, and waited on no man's advice. And if he was a good lover, he was a good hater. He would not inform the governor, and await the tardy course of justice, that would probably accomplish--nothing. Nor would he consider the troubled times and the danger of his position, and ignore the affair, as many would have deemed best. He would not stop to think what the Sixteen might have to say to it. No; he would call out his guards and slay the plotters in the Rue Coupejarrets like the wolves they were. It was right he should, but--I owed my life to Yeux-gris.

"His name, man, his name!" Monsieur was crying.

"Monsieur," I returned, flushing hot, "Monsieur--"

"Do you know his name?"

"Yes, Monsieur, I know his name, but--"

Monsieur looked at me in surprise and frowning, impatience. Quickly Lucas struck in:

"Monsieur, I have grave doubts of the boy's honesty."

"Doubts!" cried Monsieur, with a sudden laugh. "It is not a case for doubts. The boy states facts."

He seated himself in his chair, his face growing stern again. The little

## action seemed to make him no longer merely my questioner, but my judge.

"Now, Félix Broux, let us get to the bottom of this."

"Monsieur," I began, struggling to put the case clearly, "I learned of the plot by accident. I did not guess for a long time it was you who were the victim. When I found out that, I came straight here to you. Monsieur, there are four men in the plot, and one of them has stood my friend."

"And my assassin!"

"He is a black-hearted villain!" I acknowledged. "For he swore no harm was meant to you. He swore it was only a private grudge against M. Lucas. But when one of them let out the truth I came straight to you."

"That is likely true," said Vigo, "for he was ready to kill the men who barred his way."

"You were in a plot to kill my secretary!"

"Ah, Monsieur!" I cried.

"You--Félix Broux!"

I curled with shame.

"M. Lucas had struck me," I muttered; "I thought the fight was fair enough. And they threatened my life."

Monsieur's contemptuous eyes shrivelled me as flame shrivels a leaf.

"You--a Broux of St. Quentin!"

Lucas, who had watched me close all the while, as they all three did, said now:

"I believe he is a cheat, Monsieur. There is no plot. He has learned of your plan through the eavesdropper he speaks of and thinks to make credit out of a trumped-up tale of murder."

"No," answered Monsieur. "You may think that, Lucas, for he is a stranger to you. But I know him. He was a fool sometimes, but he was never dishonest. You used to be fond of me, Félix. What has happened to make you consort with my enemies?"

"Ah, Monsieur, I love you. I have always loved you," I cried. "I am not lying now, nor cheating you. There is a plot. I learned it and came straight to you, though I was under oath not to betray them."

"Then, in Heaven's name, Félix," burst out Vigo, "which side are you on?"

Monsieur began to laugh.

"That is what I should like to know. For, by St. Quentin, I can make nothing of it."

"Monsieur," insisted Lucas, "whatever he was once, I believe him a trickster now."

Monsieur bent his keen eyes on me.

"No; he is plainly in earnest. Therefore with patience I look to get some sense out of this snarl of a story. Something is there we have not yet fathomed."

"Will Monsieur let me speak?"

"I have done naught but urge you to do so for some time past," he answered dryly.

"Monsieur, you know my father would not let me leave St. Quentin with you, three months back. But at length he said I should come, and I reached Paris last night and, since it was late, lodged at an inn. This morning I came to your gate, but the guard would not let me enter. I was so mad to see you, Monsieur, that when you drove out I sprang up on your coach-step--"

"Ah," said Monsieur, a new light breaking in upon him, "that was you, Félix? I did not know you; I was thinking of other matters. And Lucas took you for a miscreant. Now I _am_ sorry."

If I had been a noble he could not have spoken franker apology. But at once he was stern again. "And because my secretary took you in all good faith for a possible assassin and struck you to save me, you turn traitor and take part in a plot to set on him and kill him! I had believed that of some hired lackey, not of a Broux."

"Monsieur, I was wrong--a thousand times wrong. I knew that as soon as I had sworn. And when I found it was you they meant, I came to you, oath or no oath."

"There spoke the Broux!" cried Monsieur with his brilliant smile. "Now you are Félix. Who are my would-be murderers?"

We had come round in a circle to the place where we had stuck before, and here we stuck again.

"Monsieur, I would tell you all before you could count ten--tell you their names, their whereabouts, everything--were it not for one man who stood my friend."

The duke's eyes flashed.

"You call him that--my assassin!"

"He is an assassin," I was forced to answer; "even Monsieur's assassin--and a perjurer. But--but, Monsieur, he saved my life from the other, at the risk of his own. How can I pay him back by betraying him?"

"According to your own account, he betrayed you."

"Aye, he lied to me," I said brokenly. "Yet Monsieur, if it were your own case and one had saved your life, were he the scum of the gutter, would you send him to his death?"

"To whom do you owe your first duty?"

"Monsieur, to you."

"Then speak."

But I could not do it. Though I knew Yeux-gris for a villain, yet he had saved my life.

"Monsieur, I cannot."

The duke cried out:

"This to me!"

There was a silence. I stood with hanging head, the picture of a shame-faced knave. Shame so filled me that I could not look up to meet Monsieur's sentence. But when I had remembered the good hater in Monsieur, I should have remembered, too, the good lover. Monsieur had been fond of me at St. Quentin. As I waited for the lightning to strike, he said with utmost gentleness:

"Félix, let me understand you. In what manner did this man save your life?"

Now that was like my lord. Though a hot man, he loved fairness and ever strove to do the just thing, and his patience was the finer that it was not his nature. His leniency fired me with a sudden hope.

"Monsieur, there are four of them in the plot. But one cannot be as vile as the others, since he saved my life. Monsieur, if I tell you, will you let that one go?"

"I shall do as I see fit," he answered, all the duke. "Félix, will you speak?"

"If Monsieur will promise to let him go--"

"Insolence, sirrah! I do not bargain with my servants."

His words were like whips. I flinched before his proud anger, and for the second time stood with hanging head awaiting his sentence. And again he did what I could not guess. He cried out:

"Félix, you are blind, besotted, mad. You know not what you do. I am in constant danger. The city is filled with my enemies. The Leagues hate me and are ever plotting mischief against me. Every day their mistrust and hatred grow. I did a bold thing in coming to Paris, but I had a great end to serve--to pave a way into the capital for the Catholic king and bring the land to peace. For that, I live in hourly jeopardy, and risk my life to-night on foot in the streets. If I am killed, more than my life is lost. The Church may lose the king, and this dear France of ours be harried to a desert in the civil wars!"

I had braced myself to bear Monsieur's anger, but this unlooked-for appeal pierced me through and through. All the love and loyalty in me--and I had much, though it may not have seemed so--rose in answer to Monsieur's call. I fell on my knees before him, choked with sobs.

Monsieur's hand lay on my head as he said quietly:

"Now, Félix, speak."

I answered huskily:

"Would Monsieur have me turn Judas?"

"Judas betrayed his _master_."

It was my last stand. My last redoubt had fallen. I raised my head to tell him all.

Maybe it was the tears in my eyes, but as I lifted them to M. le Duc, I saw--not him, but Yeux-gris--Yeux-gris looking at me with warm good will, as he had looked when he was saving me from Gervais. I saw him, I say, plain before my eyes. The next instant there was nothing but Monsieur's face of rising impatience.

I rose to my feet, and said:

"Kill me, Monsieur; I cannot tell."

"Nom de dieu!" he shouted, springing up.

I shut my eyes and waited. Had he slain me then and there it were no more than my deserts.

"Monsieur," said Vigo, immovably, "shall I go for the boot?"

I opened my eyes then. Monsieur stood quite still, his brow knotted, his hands clenched as if to keep them off me.

"Monsieur," I said, "send for the boot, the thumbscrew, whatever you please. I deserve it, and I will bear it. Monsieur, it is not that I will not tell. It is something stronger than I. I _cannot_."

He burst into an angry laugh.

"Say you are possessed of a devil, and I will believe it. My faith! though you are a low-born lad and I Duke of St. Quentin, I seem to be getting the worst of it."

"There is the boot, Monsieur."

Monsieur laughed again, no less angrily.

"That does not help me, my good Vigo. I cannot torture a Broux."

"There Monsieur is wrong. The lad has been disloyal and insolent, if he is a Broux."

"Granted, Vigo," said M. le Duc. But he did not add, "Fetch the boot."

Vigo went on with steady persistence. "He has not been loyal to Monsieur and his interests in refusing to tell what he knows. And if he goes counter to Monsieur's interests he is a traitor, Broux or no Broux. He has no claim to be treated as other than an enemy. These are serious times. Monsieur does not well to play with his dangers. The boy must tell what he knows. Am I to go for the boot, Monsieur?"

M. le Duc was silent for a moment, while the hot flush that had sprung to his face died away. Then he answered Vigo:

"Nevertheless, it is owing to Félix that I shall not walk out to meet my death to-night."

The secretary had stood silent for a long time, fingering nervously the papers on the table. I had forgotten his presence, when now he stepped forward and said:

"If I might be permitted a suggestion, Monsieur--"

Monsieur silenced him with a sharp gesture.

"Félix Broux," he said to me, "you have been following a bad plan. No man can run with the hare and hunt with the hounds. You are either my loyal servant or my enemy, one thing or the other. Now I am loath to hurt you. You have seen how I am loath to hurt you. I give you one more chance to be honest. Go and think it over. If in half an hour you have decided that you are my true man, well and good. If not, by St. Quentin, we will see what a flogging can do!"

VIII

_Charles-André-Étienne-Marie._

Unpleased, but unprotesting, Vigo led me out into the anteroom. Those men who judged by the outside of things and, knowing Vigo's iron ways, said that he ruled Monsieur, were wrong.

The big equery gave me over to the charge of Marcel and returned to the inner room. Hardly had the door closed behind him when the page burst out:

"What is it? What is the coil? What have you done, Félix?"

Now you can guess I was too sick-hearted for chatter. I had defied and disobeyed my liege lord; I could never hope for pardon or any man's respect. They threatened me with flogging; well, let them flog. They could not make my back any sorer than my conscience was. For I had not the satisfaction in my trouble of thinking that I had done right. Monsieur's danger should have been my first consideration. What was Yeux-gris, perjured scoundrel, in comparison with M. le Duc? And yet I knew that at the end of the half-hour I should not tell; at the end of the flogging I should not tell. I had warned Monsieur; that I would have done had it been the breaking of a thousand oaths. But give up Yeux-gris? Not if they tore me limb from limb!

"What is it all about?" cried Marcel, again. "You look as glum as a Jesuit in Lent. What is the matter with you, Félix?"

"I have cooked my goose," I said gloomily.

"What have you done?"

"Nothing that I can speak about. But I am out of Monsieur's books."

"What was old Vigo after when he took you in to Monsieur? I never saw anything so bold. When Monsieur says he is not to be disturbed he means it."

I had nothing to tell him, and was silent.

"What is it? Can't you tell an old chum?"

"No; it is Monsieur's private business."

"Well, you are grumpy!" he cried out pettishly. "You must be out of grace." He seemed to decide that nothing was to be made out of me just now on this tack, and with unabated persistence tried another.

"Is it true, Félix, what one of the men said just now, that you tried to speak with Monsieur this morning when he drove out?"

"Yes. But Monsieur did not recognize me."

"Like enough," Marcel answered. "He has a way of late of falling into these absent fits. Monsieur is not the man he was."

"He does look older," I said, "and worn. I trow the risk he is running--"

"Pshaw!" cried Marcel, with scorn. "Is Monsieur a man to mind risks? No; it is M. le Comte."

I started like a guilty thing, remembering what Yeux-gris had told me and I, wrapped in my petty troubles, had forgotten. Monsieur had lost his only son. And I had chosen this time to defy him!

"How long ago was it?" I asked in a hushed voice.

"Since M. le Comte left us? It will be three weeks next Friday."

"How did he die?"

"Die?" echoed Marcel. "You crazy fellow, he is not dead!"

It was my turn to stare.

"Then where is he?"

"It would be money in my pouch if I knew. What made you think him dead, Félix?"

"A man told me so."

"Pardieu!" he cried in some excitement. "When? Who was it?"

"To-day. I do not know the man's name."

"It seems you know very little. Pardieu! I do not believe M. le Comte is dead. What else did your man say?"

"Nothing. He only said the Comte de Mar was dead."

"Pshaw! I don't believe it. You believe everything you hear because you are just from the country. No; if M. le Comte were dead we should hear of it. Oh, certainly, we should hear."

"But where is he, then? You say he is lost."

"Aye. He has not been seen or heard of since the day they had the quarrel."

"Who quarrelled?"

"Why, he and Monsieur," answered Marcel, in a lower voice, pointing to the door of the inner room. "M. le Comte has been his own master too long to take kindly to a hand over him; that is the whole of it. He has a quick temper. So has Monsieur."

But I thought of Monsieur's wonderful patience, and I cried:

"Shame!"

"What now?"

"To speak like that of Monsieur."

"Enfin, it is true. He is none the worse for that. But I suppose if Monsieur had a cloven hoof one must not mention it."

"One would get his head broken."

"Oh, you Broux!" he cried out. "I have not seen you for half a year. I had forgotten that with you the St. Quentins rank with the saints."

"You--you are a hired servant. You come to Monsieur as you might come to anybody. With the Broux it is different," I retorted angrily. Yet I could not but know in my heart that any hired servant might have served Monsieur better than I. My boasted loyalty--what was it but lip-service? I said more humbly: "Pshaw! it is no great matter. Tell me about the quarrel."

"And so I will, if you're civil. In the first place, there was the question of M. le Comte's marriage."

"What! is he married?"

"Oh, by no means. Monsieur wouldn't have it. You see, Félix," Marcel said in a tone deep with importance, "we're Navarre's men now."

"Of course," said I.

"I suppose you would say 'of course' just like that to Mayenne himself. You greenhorn! It is as much as our lives are worth to side openly with Navarre. The League may attack us any day."

"I know," I said uneasily. Every chance word Marcel spoke seemed to dye my guilt the deeper. "But what has this to do with M. le Comte's marriage?" I asked him.

"Why, he was more than half a Leaguer. Perhaps he is one now. Some say he and Monsieur were at daggers drawn about politics; but I warrant it was about Mlle. de Montluc. They call her the Rose of Lorraine. She's the Duke of Mayenne's own cousin and housemate. And we're king's men, so of course it was no match for Monsieur's son. They say Mayenne himself favoured the marriage, but our duke wouldn't hear of it. However, the backbone of the trouble was M. de Grammont."

"And who may he be?"

"He's a cousin of the house. He and M. le Comte are as thick as thieves. Before we came to Paris they lodged together. So when M. le Comte came here he brought M. de Grammont. Dare I speak ill of Monsieur's cousin, Félix? For I would say, at the risk of a broken head, that he is a sour-faced churl. You cannot deny it. You never saw him."

"No, nor M. le Comte, either."

"Why, you have seen M. le Comte!"

"Never. The only time he came to St. Quentin I was laid up in bed with a strained leg. I missed the chase. Don't you remember?"

"Why, you are right; that was the time you fell out of the buttery window when you were stealing tarts, and Margot got after you with the broomstick. I remember very well."

He was for calling up all our old pranks at the château, but it was little joy to me to think on those fortunate days when I was Monsieur's favourite. I said:

"Nay, Marcel, you were telling me of M. le Comte and the quarrel."