Chương Chương 5 · THE LORD OF GAVRILLAC

at a time when that gentleman’s friendship was of the

first importance to him, or else of withdrawing with such hurt to his

dignity as must impair his authority in the countryside hereafter.

Be it so or otherwise, the fact remains that he stopped short; then,

with an incoherent ejaculation, between anger and contempt, he tossed

his arms, turned on his heel and strode off quickly with his cousin.

When the landlord and his people came, they found Andre-Louis, his arms

about the body of his dead friend, murmuring passionately into the deaf

ear that rested almost against his lips:

“Philippe! Speak to me, Philippe! Philippe... Don’t you hear me? O God

of Heaven! Philippe!”

At a glance they saw that here neither priest nor doctor could avail.

The cheek that lay against Andre-Louis’s was leaden-hued, the half-open

eyes were glazed, and there was a little froth of blood upon the

vacuously parted lips.

Half blinded by tears Andre-Louis stumbled after them when they bore the

body into the inn. Upstairs in the little room to which they conveyed

it, he knelt by the bed, and holding the dead man’s hand in both his

own, he swore to him out of his impotent rage that M. de La Tour d’Azyr

should pay a bitter price for this.

“It was your eloquence he feared, Philippe,” he said. “Then if I can

get no justice for this deed, at least it shall be fruitless to him. The

thing he feared in you, he shall fear in me. He feared that men might be

swayed by your eloquence to the undoing of such things as himself. Men

shall be swayed by it still. For your eloquence and your arguments shall

be my heritage from you. I will make them my own. It matters nothing

that I do not believe in your gospel of freedom. I know it--every word of

it; that is all that matters to our purpose, yours and mine. If all else

fails, your thoughts shall find expression in my living tongue. Thus

at least we shall have frustrated his vile aim to still the voice he

feared. It shall profit him nothing to have your blood upon his soul.

That voice in you would never half so relentlessly have hounded him and

his as it shall in me--if all else fails.”

It was an exulting thought. It calmed him; it soothed his grief, and he

began very softly to pray. And then his heart trembled as he considered

that Philippe, a man of peace, almost a priest, an apostle of

Christianity, had gone to his Maker with the sin of anger on his soul.

It was horrible. Yet God would see the righteousness of that anger. And

in no case--be man’s interpretation of Divinity what it might--could that

one sin outweigh the loving good that Philippe had ever practised, the

noble purity of his great heart. God after all, reflected Andre-Louis,

was not a grand-seigneur.

Chapter 5. THE LORD OF GAVRILLAC

For the second time that day Andre-Louis set out for the chateau,

walking briskly, and heeding not at all the curious eyes that followed

him through the village, and the whisperings that marked his passage

through the people, all agog by now with that day’s event in which he

had been an actor.

He was ushered by Benoit, the elderly body-servant, rather

grandiloquently called the seneschal, into the ground-floor room known

traditionally as the library. It still contained several shelves of

neglected volumes, from which it derived its title, but implements

of the chase--fowling-pieces, powder-horns, hunting-bags,

sheath-knives--obtruded far more prominently than those of study. The

furniture was massive, of oak richly carved, and belonging to another

age. Great massive oak beams crossed the rather lofty whitewashed

ceiling.

Here the squat Seigneur de Gavrillac was restlessly pacing when

Andre-Louis was introduced. He was already informed, as he announced at

once, of what had taken place at the Breton arme. M. de Chabrillane

had just left him, and he confessed himself deeply grieved and deeply

perplexed.

“The pity of it!” he said. “The pity of it!” He bowed his enormous head.

“So estimable a young man, and so full of promise. Ah, this La Tour

d’Azyr is a hard man, and he feels very strongly in these matters.

He may be right. I don’t know. I have never killed a man for holding

different views from mine. In fact, I have never killed a man at all.

It isn’t in my nature. I shouldn’t sleep of nights if I did. But men are

differently made.”

“The question, monsieur my godfather,” said Andre-Louis, “is what is to

be done.” He was quite calm and self-possessed, but very white.

M. de Kercadiou stared at him blankly out of his pale eyes.

“Why, what the devil is there to do? From what I am told, Vilmorin went

so far as to strike M. le Marquis.”

“Under the very grossest provocation.”

“Which he himself provoked by his revolutionary language. The poor

lad’s head was full of this encyclopaedist trash. It comes of too much

reading. I have never set much store by books, Andre; and I have never

known anything but trouble to come out of learning. It unsettles a man.

It complicates his views of life, destroys the simplicity which makes

for peace of mind and happiness. Let this miserable affair be a warning

to you, Andre. You are, yourself, too prone to these new-fashioned

speculations upon a different constitution of the social order. You

see what comes of it. A fine, estimable young man, the only prop of

his widowed mother too, forgets himself, his position, his duty to that

mother--everything; and goes and gets himself killed like this. It is

infernally sad. On my soul it is sad.” He produced a handkerchief, and

blew his nose with vehemence.

Andre-Louis felt a tightening of his heart, a lessening of the hopes,

never too sanguine, which he had founded upon his godfather.

“Your criticisms,” he said, “are all for the conduct of the dead, and

none for that of the murderer. It does not seem possible that you should

be in sympathy with such a crime.”

“Crime?” shrilled M. de Kercadiou. “My God, boy, you are speaking of M.

de La Tour d’Azyr.”

“I am, and of the abominable murder he has committed...”

“Stop!” M. de Kercadiou was very emphatic. “I cannot permit that you

apply such terms to him. I cannot permit it. M. le Marquis is my friend,

and is likely very soon to stand in a still closer relationship.”

“Notwithstanding this?” asked Andre-Louis.

M. de Kercadiou was frankly impatient.

“Why, what has this to do with it? I may deplore it. But I have no

right to condemn it. It is a common way of adjusting differences between

gentlemen.”

“You really believe that?”

“What the devil do you imply, Andre? Should I say a thing that I don’t

believe? You begin to make me angry.”

“‘Thou shalt not kill,’ is the King’s law as well as God’s.”

“You are determined to quarrel with me, I think. It was a duel...”

Andre-Louis interrupted him. “It is no more a duel than if it had been

fought with pistols of which only M. le Marquis’s was loaded. He invited

Philippe to discuss the matter further, with the deliberate intent of

forcing a quarrel upon him and killing him. Be patient with me, monsieur

my god-father. I am not telling you of what I imagine but what M. le

Marquis himself admitted to me.”

Dominated a little by the young man’s earnestness, M. de Kercadiou’s

pale eyes fell away. He turned with a shrug, and sauntered over to the

window.

“It would need a court of honour to decide such an issue. And we have no

courts of honour,” he said.

“But we have courts of justice.”

With returning testiness the seigneur swung round to face him again.

“And what court of justice, do you think, would listen to such a plea as

you appear to have in mind?”

“There is the court of the King’s Lieutenant at Rennes.”

“And do you think the King’s Lieutenant would listen to you?”

“Not to me, perhaps, Monsieur. But if you were to bring the plaint...”

“I bring the plaint?” M. de Kercadiou’s pale eyes were wide with horror

of the suggestion.

“The thing happened here on your domain.”

“I bring a plaint against M. de La Tour d’Azyr! You are out of your

senses, I think. Oh, you are mad; as mad as that poor friend of yours

who has come to this end through meddling in what did not concern him.

The language he used here to M. le Marquis on the score of Mabey was

of the most offensive. Perhaps you didn’t know that. It does not at all

surprise me that the Marquis should have desired satisfaction.”

“I see,” said Andre-Louis, on a note of hopelessness.

“You see? What the devil do you see?”

“That I shall have to depend upon myself alone.”

“And what the devil do you propose to do, if you please?”

“I shall go to Rennes, and lay the facts before the King’s Lieutenant.”

“He’ll be too busy to see you.” And M. de Kercadiou’s mind swung a

trifle inconsequently, as weak minds will. “There is trouble enough in

Rennes already on the score of these crazy States General, with which

the wonderful M. Necker is to repair the finances of the kingdom. As

if a peddling Swiss bank-clerk, who is also a damned Protestant, could

succeed where such men as Calonne and Brienne have failed.”

“Good-afternoon, monsieur my godfather,” said Andre-Louis.

“Where are you going?” was the querulous demand.

“Home at present. To Rennes in the morning.”

“Wait, boy, wait!” The squat little man rolled forward, affectionate

concern on his great ugly face, and he set one of his podgy hands on

his godson’s shoulder. “Now listen to me, Andre,” he reasoned. “This is

sheer knight-errantry--moonshine, lunacy. You’ll come to no good by it if

you persist. You’ve read ‘Don Quixote,’ and what happened to him when

he went tilting against windmills. It’s what will happen to you, neither

more nor less. Leave things as they are, my boy. I wouldn’t have a

mischief happen to you.”

Andre-Louis looked at him, smiling wanly.

“I swore an oath to-day which it would damn my soul to break.”

“You mean that you’ll go in spite of anything that I may say?” Impetuous

as he was inconsequent, M. de Kercadiou was bristling again. “Very well,

then, go... Go to the devil!”

“I will begin with the King’s Lieutenant.”

“And if you get into the trouble you are seeking, don’t come whimpering

to me for assistance,” the seigneur stormed. He was very angry now.

“Since you choose to disobey me, you can break your empty head against