Bab Bab 35 · SAFE-CONDUCT

s placed the whole of

his future, perhaps his very life, in jeopardy. And he had consented to

do this not for the sake of a reality, but out of regard for an idea--he

who all his life had avoided the false lure of worthless and hollow

sentimentality.

Thus thought Andre-Louis as he considered her now so searchingly,

finding it, naturally enough, a matter of extraordinary interest to

look consciously upon his mother for the first time at the age of

eight-and-twenty.

From her he looked at last at Jacques, who remained at attention,

waiting by the open door.

“Could we be alone, madame?” he asked her.

She waved the footman away, and the door closed. In agitated silence,

unquestioning, she waited for him to account for his presence there at

so extraordinary a time.

“Rougane could not return,” he informed her shortly. “At M. de

Kercadiou’s request, I come instead.”

“You! You are sent to rescue us!” The note of amazement in her voice was

stronger than that of her relief.

“That, and to make your acquaintance, madame.”

“To make my acquaintance? But what do you mean, Andre-Louis?”

“This letter from M. de Kercadiou will tell you.” Intrigued by his odd

words and odder manner, she took the folded sheet. She broke the seal

with shaking hands, and with shaking hands approached the written page

to the light. Her eyes grew troubled as she read; the shaking of her

hands increased, and midway through that reading a moan escaped her.

One glance that was almost terror she darted at the slim, straight man

standing so incredibly impassive upon the edge of the light, and

then she endeavoured to read on. But the crabbed characters of M. de

Kercadiou swam distortedly under her eyes. She could not read. Besides,

what could it matter what else he said. She had read enough. The sheet

fluttered from her hands to the table, and out of a face that was like a

face of wax, she looked now with a wistfulness, a sadness indescribable,

at Andre-Louis.

“And so you know, my child?” Her voice was stifled to a whisper.

“I know, madame my mother.”

The grimness, the subtle blend of merciless derision and reproach in

which it was uttered completely escaped her. She cried out at the new

name. For her in that moment time and the world stood still. Her peril

there in Paris as the wife of an intriguer at Coblenz was blotted out,

together with every other consideration--thrust out of a consciousness

that could find room for nothing else beside the fact that she stood

acknowledged by her only son, this child begotten in adultery, borne

furtively and in shame in a remote Brittany village eight-and-twenty

years ago. Not even a thought for the betrayal of that inviolable

secret, or the consequences that might follow, could she spare in this

supreme moment.

She took one or two faltering steps towards him, hesitating. Then she

opened her arms. Sobs suffocated her voice.

“Won’t you come to me, Andre-Louis?”

A moment yet he stood hesitating, startled by that appeal, angered

almost by his heart’s response to it, reason and sentiment at grips

in his soul. This was not real, his reason postulated; this poignant

emotion that she displayed and that he experienced was fantastic. Yet he

went. Her arms enfolded him; her wet cheek was pressed hard against his

own; her frame, which the years had not yet succeeded in robbing of its

grace, was shaken by the passionate storm within her.

“Oh, Andre-Louis, my child, if you knew how I have hungered to hold you

so! If you knew how in denying myself this I have atoned and suffered!

Kercadiou should not have told you--not even now. It was wrong--most

wrong, perhaps, to you. It would have been better that he should have

left me here to my fate, whatever that may be. And yet--come what may of

this--to be able to hold you so, to be able to acknowledge you, to hear

you call me mother--oh! Andre-Louis, I cannot now regret it. I cannot...

I cannot wish it otherwise.”

“Is there any need, madame?” he asked her, his stoicism deeply shaken.

“There is no occasion to take others into our confidence. This is for

to-night alone. To-night we are mother and son. To-morrow we resume our

former places, and, outwardly at least, forget.”

“Forget? Have you no heart, Andre-Louis?”

The question recalled him curiously to his attitude towards life--that

histrionic attitude of his that he accounted true philosophy. Also he

remembered what lay before them; and he realized that he must master not

only himself but her; that to yield too far to sentiment at such a time

might be the ruin of them all.

“It is a question propounded to me so often that it must contain the

truth,” said he. “My rearing is to blame for that.”

She tightened her clutch about his neck even as he would have attempted

to disengage himself from her embrace.

“You do not blame me for your rearing? Knowing all, as you do,

Andre-Louis, you cannot altogether blame. You must be merciful to me.

You must forgive me. You must! I had no choice.”

“When we know all of whatever it may be, we can never do anything but

forgive, madame. That is the profoundest religious truth that was ever

written. It contains, in fact, a whole religion--the noblest religion

any man could have to guide him. I say this for your comfort, madame my

mother.”

She sprang away from him with a startled cry. Beyond him in the shadows

by the door a pale figure shimmered ghostly. It advanced into the light,

and resolved itself into Aline. She had come in answer to that forgotten

summons madame had sent her by Jacques. Entering unperceived she had

seen Andre-Louis in the embrace of the woman whom he addressed as

“mother.” She had recognized him instantly by his voice, and she could

not have said what bewildered her more: his presence there or the thing

she overheard.

“You heard, Aline?” madame exclaimed.

“I could not help it, madame. You sent for me. I am sorry if...” She

broke off, and looked at Andre-Louis long and curiously. She was pale,

but quite composed. She held out her hand to him. “And so you have come

at last, Andre,” said she. “You might have come before.”

“I come when I am wanted,” was his answer. “Which is the only time in

which one can be sure of being received.” He said it without bitterness,

and having said it stooped to kiss her hand.

“You can forgive me what is past, I hope, since I failed of my purpose,”

he said gently, half-pleading. “I could not have come to you pretending

that the failure was intentional--a compromise between the necessities of

the case and your own wishes. For it was not that. And yet, you do not

seem to have profited by my failure. You are still a maid.”

She turned her shoulder to him.

“There are things,” she said, “that you will never understand.”

“Life, for one,” he acknowledged. “I confess that I am finding it

bewildering. The very explanations calculated to simplify it seem but to

complicate it further.” And he looked at Mme. de Plougastel.

“You mean something, I suppose,” said mademoiselle.

“Aline!” It was the Countess who spoke. She knew the danger of

half-discoveries. “I can trust you, child, I know, and Andre-Louis, I am

sure, will offer no objection.” She had taken up the letter to show it

to Aline. Yet first her eyes questioned him.

“Oh, none, madame,” he assured her. “It is entirely a matter for

yourself.”

Aline looked from one to the other with troubled eyes, hesitating to

take the letter that was now proffered. When she had read it through,

she very thoughtfully replaced it on the table. A moment she stood there

with bowed head, the other two watching her. Then impulsively she ran to

madame and put her arms about her.

“Aline!” It was a cry of wonder, almost of joy. “You do not utterly

abhor me!”

“My dear,” said Aline, and kissed the tear-stained face that seemed to

have grown years older in these last few hours.

In the background Andre-Louis, steeling himself against emotionalism,

spoke with the voice of Scaramouche.

“It would be well, mesdames, to postpone all transports until they can

be indulged at greater leisure and in more security. It is growing late.

If we are to get out of this shambles we should be wise to take the road

without more delay.”

It was a tonic as effective as it was necessary. It startled them into

remembrance of their circumstances, and under the spur of it they went

at once to make their preparations.

They left him for perhaps a quarter of an hour, to pace that long room

alone, saved only from impatience by the turmoil of his mind. When

at length they returned, they were accompanied by a tall man in a

full-skirted shaggy greatcoat and a broad hat the brim of which was

turned down all around. He remained respectfully by the door in the

shadows.

Between them the two women had concerted it thus, or rather the Countess

had so concerted it when Aline had warned her that Andre-Louis’ bitter

hostility towards the Marquis made it unthinkable that he should move a

finger consciously to save him.

Now despite the close friendship uniting M. de Kercadiou and his niece

with Mme. de Plougastel, there were several matters concerning them of

which the Countess was in ignorance. One of these was the project at one

time existing of a marriage between Aline and M. de La Tour d’Azyr.

It was a matter that Aline--naturally enough in the state of her

feelings--had never mentioned, nor had M. de Kercadiou ever alluded to it

since his coming to Meudon, by when he had perceived how unlikely it was

ever to be realized.

M. de La Tour d’Azyr’s concern for Aline on that morning of the duel

when he had found her half-swooning in Mme. de Plougastel’s carriage had

been of a circumspection that betrayed nothing of his real interest in

her, and therefore had appeared no more than natural in one who must

account himself the cause of her distress. Similarly Mme. de Plougastel

had never realized nor did she realize now--for Aline did not trouble

fully to enlighten her--that the hostility between the two men was other

than political, the quarrel other than that which already had taken

Andre-Louis to the Bois on every day of the preceding week. But, at

least, she realized that even if Andre-Louis’ rancour should have no

other source, yet that inconclusive duel was cause enough for Aline’s

fears.

And so she had proposed this obvious deception; and Aline had consented

to be a passive party to it. They had made the mistake of not fully

forewarning and persuading M. de La Tour d’Azyr. They had trusted

entirely to his anxiety to escape from Paris to keep him rigidly within

the part imposed upon him. They had reckoned without the queer sense

of honour that moved such men as M. le Marquis, nurtured upon a code of

shams.

Andre-Louis, turning to scan that muffled figure, advanced from the

dark depths of the salon. As the light beat on his white, lean face the

pseudo-footman started. The next moment he too stepped forward into

the light, and swept his broad-brimmed hat from his brow. As he did so

Andre-Louis observed that his hand was fine and white and that a

jewel flashed from one of the fingers. Then he caught his breath, and

stiffened in every line as he recognized the face revealed to him.

“Monsieur,” that stern, proud man was saying, “I cannot take advantage

of your ignorance. If these ladies can persuade you to save me, at least

it is due to you that you shall know whom you are saving.”

He stood there by the table very erect and dignified, ready to perish as

he had lived--if perish he must--without fear and without deception.

Andre-Louis came slowly forward until he reached the table on the other

side, and then at last the muscles of his set face relaxed, and he

laughed.

“You laugh?” said M. de La Tour d’Azyr, frowning, offended.

“It is so damnably amusing,” said Andre-Louis.

“You’ve an odd sense of humour, M. Moreau.”

“Oh, admitted. The unexpected always moves me so. I have found you many

things in the course of our acquaintance. To-night you are the one thing

I never expected to find you: an honest man.”

M. de La Tour d’Azyr quivered. But he attempted no reply.

“Because of that, monsieur, I am disposed to be clement. It is probably

a foolishness. But you have surprised me into it. I give you three

minutes, monsieur, in which to leave this house, and to take your own

measures for your safety. What afterwards happens to you shall be no

concern of mine.”

“Ah, no, Andre! Listen...” Madame began in anguish.

“Pardon, madame. It is the utmost that I will do, and already I am

violating what I conceive to be my duty. If M. de La Tour d’Azyr remains

he not only ruins himself, but he imperils you. For unless he departs

at once, he goes with me to the headquarters of the section, and the

section will have his head on a pike inside the hour. He is a notorious

counter-revolutionary, a knight of the dagger, one of those whom an

exasperated populace is determined to exterminate. Now, monsieur, you

know what awaits you. Resolve yourself and at once, for these ladies’

sake.”

“But you don’t know, Andre-Louis!” Mme. de Plougastel’s condition was

one of anguish indescribable. She came to him and clutched his arm. “For

the love of Heaven, Andre-Louis, be merciful with him! You must!”

“But that is what I am being, madame--merciful; more merciful than he

deserves. And he knows it. Fate has meddled most oddly in our concerns

to bring us together to-night. Almost it is as if Fate were forcing

retribution at last upon him. Yet, for your sakes, I take no advantage

of it, provided that he does at once as I have desired him.”

And now from beyond the table the Marquis spoke icily, and as he spoke

his right hand stirred under the ample folds of his greatcoat.

“I am glad, M. Moreau, that you take that tone with me. You relieve me

of the last scruple. You spoke of Fate just now, and I must agree with

you that Fate has meddled oddly, though perhaps not to the end that you

discern. For years now you have chosen to stand in my path and thwart me

at every turn, holding over me a perpetual menace. Persistently you have

sought my life in various ways, first indirectly and at last directly.

Your intervention in my affairs has ruined my highest hopes--more

effectively, perhaps, than you suppose. Throughout you have been my evil

genius. And you are even one of the agents of this climax of despair

that has been reached by me to-night.”

“Wait! Listen!” Madame was panting. She flung away from Andre-Louis,

as if moved by some premonition of what was coming. “Gervais! This is

horrible!”

“Horrible, perhaps, but inevitable. Himself he has invited it. I am a

man in despair, the fugitive of a lost cause. That man holds the keys

of escape. And, besides, between him and me there is a reckoning to be

paid.”

His hand came from beneath the coat at last, and it came armed with a

pistol.

Mme. de Plougastel screamed, and flung herself upon him. On her knees

now, she clung to his arm with all her strength and might.

Vainly he sought to shake himself free of that desperate clutch.

“Therese!” he cried. “Are you mad? Will you destroy me and yourself?

This creature has the safe-conducts that mean our salvation. Himself, he

is nothing.”

From the background Aline, a breathless, horror-stricken spectator

of that scene, spoke sharply, her quick mind pointing out the line of

checkmate.

“Burn the safe-conducts, Andre-Louis. Burn them at once--in the candles

there.”

But Andre-Louis had taken advantage of that moment of M. de La Tour

d’Azyr’s impotence to draw a pistol in his turn. “I think it will be

better to burn his brains instead,” he said. “Stand away from him,

madame.”

Far from obeying that imperious command, Mme. de Plougastel rose to her

feet to cover the Marquis with her body. But she still clung to his arm,

clung to it with unsuspected strength that continued to prevent him from

attempting to use the pistol.

“Andre! For God’s sake, Andre!” she panted hoarsely over her shoulder.

“Stand away, madame,” he commanded her again, more sternly, “and let

this murderer take his due. He is jeopardizing all our lives, and his

own has been forfeit these years. Stand away!” He sprang forward with

intent now to fire at his enemy over her shoulder, and Aline moved too

late to hinder him.

“Andre! Andre!”

Panting, gasping, haggard of face, on the verge almost of hysteria,

the distracted Countess flung at last an effective, a terrible barrier

between the hatred of those men, each intent upon taking the other’s

life.

“He is your father, Andre! Gervais, he is your son--our son! The letter

there... on the table... O my God!” And she slipped nervelessly to the

ground, and crouched there sobbing at the feet of M. de La Tour d’Azyr.

Chapter 35. SAFE-CONDUCT

Across the body of that convulsively sobbing woman, the mother of one

and the mistress of the other, the eyes of those mortal enemies met,

invested with a startled, appalled interest that admitted of no words.

Beyond the table, as if turned to stone by this culminating horror of

revelation, stood Aline.

M. de La Tour d’Azyr was the first to stir. Into his bewildered mind

came the memory of something that Mme. de Plougastel had said of

a letter that was on the table. He came forward, unhindered. The

announcement made, Mme. de Plougastel no longer feared the sequel, and

so she let him go. He walked unsteadily past this new-found son of his,

and took up the sheet that lay beside the candlebranch. A long moment

he stood reading it, none heeding him. Aline’s eyes were all on

Andre-Louis, full of wonder and commiseration, whilst Andre-Louis was

staring down, in stupefied fascination, at his mother.

M. de La Tour d’Azyr read the letter slowly through. Then very quietly

he replaced it. His next concern, being the product of an artificial age

sternly schooled in the suppression of emotion, was to compose himself.

Then he stepped back to Mme. de Plougastel’s side and stooped to raise

her.

“Therese,” he said.

Obeying, by instinct, the implied command, she made an effort to rise

and to control herself in her turn. The Marquis half conducted, half

carried her to the armchair by the table.

Andre-Louis looked on. Still numbed and bewildered, he made no attempt

to assist. He saw as in a dream the Marquis bending over Mme. de

Plougastel. As in a dream he heard him ask:

“How long have you known this, Therese?”

“I... I have always known it... always. I confided him to Kercadiou. I

saw him once as a child... Oh, but what of that?”

“Why was I never told? Why did you deceive me? Why did you tell me that

this child had died a few days after birth? Why, Therese? Why?”

“I was afraid. I... I thought it better so--that nobody, nobody, not even

you, should know. And nobody has known save Quintin until last night,

when to induce him to come here and save me he was forced to tell him.”

“But I, Therese?” the Marquis insisted. “It was my right to know.”

“Your right? What could you have done? Acknowledge him? And then? Ha!”

It was a queer, desperate note of laughter. “There was Plougastel; there

was my family. And there was you... you, yourself, who had ceased to

care, in whom the fear of discovery had stifled love. Why should I have

told you, then? Why? I should not have told you now had there been

any other way to... to save you both. Once before I suffered just such

dreadful apprehensions when you and he fought in the Bois. I was on my

way to prevent it when you met me. I would have divulged the truth, as

a last resource, to avert that horror. But mercifully God spared me the

necessity then.”

It had not occurred to any of them to doubt her statement, incredible

though it might seem. Had any done so her present words must have

resolved all doubt, explaining as they did much that to each of her

listeners had been obscure until this moment.

M. de La Tour d’Azyr, overcome, reeled away to a chair and sat down

heavily. Losing command of himself for a moment, he took his haggard

face in his hands.

Through the windows open to the garden came from the distance the faint

throbbing of a drum to remind them of what was happening around them.

But the sound went unheeded. To each it must have seemed that here

they were face to face with a horror greater than any that might be

tormenting Paris. At last Andre-Louis began to speak, his voice level

and unutterably cold.

“M. de La Tour d’Azyr,” he said, “I trust that you’ll agree that this

disclosure, which can hardly be more distasteful and horrible to you

than it is to me, alters nothing, since it effaces nothing of all

that lies between us. Or, if it alters anything, it is merely to add

something to that score. And yet... Oh, but what can it avail to talk!

Here, monsieur, take this safe-conduct which is made out for Mme. de

Plougastel’s footman, and with it make your escape as best you can. In

return I will beg of you the favour never to allow me to see you or hear

of you again.”

“Andre!” His mother swung upon him with that cry. And yet again that

question. “Have you no heart? What has he ever done to you that you

should nurse so bitter a hatred of him?”

“You shall hear, madame. Once, two years ago in this very room I told

you of a man who had brutally killed my dearest friend and debauched the

girl I was to have married. M. de La Tour d’Azyr is that man.”

A moan was her only answer. She covered her face with her hands.

The Marquis rose slowly to his feet again. He came slowly forward, his

smouldering eyes scanning his son’s face.

“You are hard,” he said grimly. “But I recognize the hardness. It

derives from the blood you bear.”

“Spare me that,” said Andre-Louis.

The Marquis inclined his head. “I will not mention it again. But I

desire that you should at least understand me, and you too, Therese. You

accuse me, sir, of murdering your dearest friend. I will admit that the

means employed were perhaps unworthy. But what other means were at my

command to meet an urgency that every day since then proves to have

existed? M. de Vilmorin was a revolutionary, a man of new ideas that

should overthrow society and rebuild it more akin to the desires of such

as himself. I belonged to the order that quite as justifiably desired

society to remain as it was. Not only was it better so for me and mine,

but I also contend, and you have yet to prove me wrong, that it is

better so for all the world; that, indeed, no other conceivable society

is possible. Every human society must of necessity be composed of

several strata. You may disturb it temporarily into an amorphous whole

by a revolution such as this; but only temporarily. Soon out of the

chaos which is all that you and your kind can ever produce, order must

be restored or life will perish; and with the restoration of order comes

the restoration of the various strata necessary to organized society.

Those that were yesterday at the top may in the new order of things find

themselves dispossessed without any benefit to the whole. That change

I resisted. The spirit of it I fought with whatever weapons were

available, whenever and wherever I encountered it. M. de Vilmorin was

an incendiary of the worst type, a man of eloquence full of false ideals

that misled poor ignorant men into believing that the change proposed

could make the world a better place for them. You are an intelligent

man, and I defy you to answer me from your heart and conscience that

such a thing was true or possible. You know that it is untrue; you know

that it is a pernicious doctrine; and what made it worse on the lips

of M. de Vilmorin was that he was sincere and eloquent. His voice was

a danger that must be removed--silenced. So much was necessary in

self-defence. In self-defence I did it. I had no grudge against M. de

Vilmorin. He was a man of my own class; a gentleman of pleasant ways,

amiable, estimable, and able.

“You conceive me slaying him for the very lust of slaying, like some

beast of the jungle flinging itself upon its natural prey. That has

been your error from the first. I did what I did with the very heaviest

heart--oh, spare me your sneer!--I do not lie, I have never lied. And I

swear to you here and now, by my every hope of Heaven, that what I say

is true. I loathed the thing I did. Yet for my own sake and the sake of

my order I must do it. Ask yourself whether M. de Vilmorin would have

hesitated for a moment if by procuring my death he could have brought

the Utopia of his dreams a moment nearer realization.

“After that. You determined that the sweetest vengeance would be to

frustrate my ends by reviving in yourself the voice that I had silenced,

by yourself carrying forward the fantastic apostleship of equality that

was M. de Vilmorin’s. You lacked the vision that would have shown you

that God did not create men equals. Well, you are in case to-night to

judge which of us was right, which wrong. You see what is happening here

in Paris. You see the foul spectre of Anarchy stalking through a land

fallen into confusion. Probably you have enough imagination to conceive

something of what must follow. And do you deceive yourself that out of

this filth and ruin there will rise up an ideal form of society? Don’t

you understand that society must re-order itself presently out of all

this?

“But why say more? I must have said enough to make you understand the

only thing that really matters--that I killed M. de Vilmorin as a matter

of duty to my order. And the truth--which though it may offend you should

also convince you--is that to-night I can look back on the deed with

equanimity, without a single regret, apart from what lies between you

and me.

“When, kneeling beside the body of your friend that day at Gavrillac,

you insulted and provoked me, had I been the tiger you conceived me

I must have killed you too. I am, as you may know, a man of quick

passions. Yet I curbed the natural anger you aroused in me, because

I could forgive an affront to myself where I could not overlook a

calculated attack upon my order.”

He paused a moment. Andre-Louis stood rigid listening and wondering.

So, too, the others. Then M. le Marquis resumed, on a note of less

assurance. “In the matter of Mlle. Binet I was unfortunate. I wronged

you through inadvertence. I had no knowledge of the relations between

you.”

Andre-Louis interrupted him sharply at last with a question: “Would it

have made a difference if you had?”

“No,” he was answered frankly. “I have the faults of my kind. I cannot

pretend that any such scruple as you suggest would have weighed with me.

But can you--if you are capable of any detached judgment--blame me very

much for that?”

“All things considered, monsieur, I am rapidly being forced to the

conclusion that it is impossible to blame any man for anything in this

world; that we are all of us the sport of destiny. Consider, monsieur,

this gathering--this family gathering--here to-night, whilst out there...

O my God, let us make an end! Let us go our ways and write ‘finis’ to

this horrible chapter of our lives.”

M. le La Tour considered him gravely, sadly, in silence for a moment.

“Perhaps it is best,” he said, at length, in a small voice. He turned to

Mme. de Plougastel. “If a wrong I have to admit in my life, a wrong

that I must bitterly regret, it is the wrong that I have done to you, my

dear...”

“Not now, Gervais! Not now!” she faltered, interrupting him.

“Now--for the first and the last time. I am going. It is not likely that

we shall ever meet again--that I shall ever see any of you again--you who

should have been the nearest and dearest to me. We are all, he says, the

sport of destiny. Ah, but not quite. Destiny is an intelligent force,

moving with purpose. In life we pay for the evil that in life we do.

That is the lesson that I have learnt to-night. By an act of betrayal

I begot unknown to me a son who, whilst as ignorant as myself of our

relationship, has come to be the evil genius of my life, to cross

and thwart me, and finally to help to pull me down in ruin. It is

just--poetically just. My full and resigned acceptance of that fact is

the only atonement I can offer you.”

He stooped and took one of madame’s hands that lay limply in her lap.

“Good-bye, Therese!” His voice broke. He had reached the end of his iron

self-control.

She rose and clung to him a moment, unashamed before them. The ashes of

that dead romance had been deeply stirred this night, and deep down some

lingering embers had been found that glowed brightly now before their

final extinction. Yet she made no attempt to detain him. She understood

that their son had pointed out the only wise, the only possible course,

and was thankful that M. de La Tour d’Azyr accepted it.

“God keep you, Gervais,” she murmured. “You will take the safe-conduct,

and... and you will let me know when you are safe?”

He held her face between his hands an instant; then very gently kissed

her and put her from him. Standing erect, and outwardly calm again, he

looked across at Andre-Louis who was proffering him a sheet of paper.

“It is the safe-conduct. Take it, monsieur. It is my first and last gift

to you, and certainly the last gift I should ever have thought of making

you--the gift of life. In a sense it makes us quits. The irony, sir, is

not mine, but Fate’s. Take it, monsieur, and go in peace.”

M. de La Tour d’Azyr took it. His eyes looked hungrily into the lean

face confronting him, so sternly set. He thrust the paper into his

bosom, and then abruptly, convulsively, held out his hand. His son’s

eyes asked a question.

“Let there be peace between us, in God’s name,” said the Marquis

thickly.

Pity stirred at last in Andre-Louis. Some of the sternness left his

face. He sighed. “Good-bye, monsieur,” he said.

“You are hard,” his father told him, speaking wistfully. “But perhaps

you are in the right so to be. In other circumstances I should have been

proud to have owned you as my son. As it is...” He broke off abruptly,

and as abruptly added, “Good-bye.”

He loosed his son’s hand and stepped back. They bowed formally to each

other. And then M. de La Tour d’Azyr bowed to Mlle. de Kercadiou in

utter silence, a bow that contained something of utter renunciation, of

finality.

That done he turned and walked stiffly out of the room, and so out of

all their lives. Months later they were to hear of him in the service of

the Emperor of Austria.