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CHAPTER XLIV.
VALENTINE AND HER VENGEANCE

But as he watched, a strange drawn look appeared on the countenance of Francis Agnew the Scot. And there came that set look to his mouth, which had enabled him to endure so many things.

"The lad also!" he muttered, "and I had begun to love him!"

For it was not given to Francis Agnew, more than to any other son of Adam, to divine the good when the appearance is evil. And with his elbows on his knees he thought of Claire, of her hope deferred, and of the waiting of the sick heart. She believed this man faithful. And now, would even her father's return (if ever he did return) make up to her for this most foul treachery?

To John d'Albret he spoke no further word. He asked no question, as they rested side by side during the night-watches. The stammered explanation which the Abbé John began after Valentine's departure was left unanswered. Francis Agnew had learned a great secret – how to keep silence. It is an excellent gift.

The ancient, high-piled town loomed up tier above tier, white and grey and purple under the splendours of the moon. The Abbé John took it in bit by bit – the black ledges and capes with the old Moorish castles, and later corsair watch-towers, the flaring phare at the mouth of the harbour, the huge double swell of the cathedral crowning all, the long lines of the arch-episcopal palace on the slope, the vineyards and oliveyards – all stood up blanched and, as it were, blotched in pen and ink under the silver flood of light and the steady milky blue arch of the sky. Such was Tarragona upon that night of sleepless silence.

The morning brought a new order, grateful to both.

The armourer of the Conquistador came down, and with file, and rasp, and pince-monseigneur, he speedily undid the iron belt which had not yet had time to eat into the flesh. The Abbé John was commanded to go on shore. During his short time aboard he had made himself a favourite. The Turk, Ben Hamal, hugged him to his hairy chest and stammered a blessing in the name of the Prophet. Others here and there wished him good speed, and looked wistfully at him, even though after John had departed they shook their heads, and with quick upward motions of their thumbs imitated the darting flames of the bi-weekly auto de fé.

They understood why he was sent for – and envied him.

Only Francis Agnew the Scot said no word, bade no adieu, wished no wish, gazing steadily at a post on the shore, which to his distorted imagination took on the shape of a woman dressed in white waiting for John d'Albret.

Had he only thought, he would have known that to be impossible. But he did not think – except of Claire, his daughter. And – as he had said – he had begun to love the lad. So much the worse for him and for all.

It was not upon the shore, but high in the city that the Abbé John found Valentine la Niña. She awaited him in that secular annex to the palace of the Archbishop which the great Terés Doria now occupied as Viceroy of Catalonia. The Archbishop-Governor had put his private cabinet at her service. One does not say no to the daughters of reigning sovereigns, when one has served both father and grandfather.

Doria had ordered his valet, a layman with mere servitor's vows to give him a standing, to assist John d'Albret in his toilet. So before long the Abbé John found himself in a suit of black velvet, severe and unbroidered, which fitted him better than it could ever have done the stouter Don Jacques Casas, for whom it had been made. A sword hung at his side – a feeble blade and blunt, as John d'Albret ascertained as soon as he was left a moment alone, but sheathed in a scabbard of price. He sat still and let the good valet perfume and lave, and comb out his love-locks, without thinking much of what was coming. His mind was benumbed and curiously oppressed. Fate planned above his head, shadowy but unseen. And somehow he was afraid – he knew not why.

Finally all was done. Even Jacques Casas was satisfied, and smiled. The galley-slave had become a man again.

The cabinet of the Cardinal-Viceroy of Catalonia looked over the city wall, very nearly at its highest seaward angle, in the place where now they have pierced a gate, where red-kerchiefed gipsies sit about on steps, and vagabonds in mauve caps sell snails by measure. But then a little vice-regal garden fronted the windows, and the ancient walls of Tarragona, older than the Romans or the Greeks, older than Carthage – older even than the galleys of Tyre – fell away beneath towards the sea verges, so solid that to the eye there was little difference between them and the living rock on which they were founded. The giants who were in the times before the flood built them, so the townsmen said. And as no one knows anything about the matter, that opinion is as good as any other.

The two young people stood regarding each other, silent. The blonde masses of the girl's hair seemed less full of living gold and fire than of yore. Perhaps there was a thread or two of grey mingling with the graciousness of those thick coils and curves. But the great eyes, coloured like clover-honey dropped from the comb, were moist and glorious as ever. They had manifestly gained in directness and nobility.

The Abbé John bowed low. Valentine la Niña did not respond. There was, however, a slight colour on her cheeks of clear ivory. Man born of woman had never seen that before.

"I have sent for you," said Valentine la Niña, in a low and thrilling contralto, "I would speak with you! Yet this one time more!"

She put her hand rapidly to her throat, as if something there impeded her utterance.

"Yes," she continued, swallowing down her emotion with difficulty, "I would speak with you – it may be for the last time."

After this she was silent a while, as if making up her mind what to say. Then with a single instinctive mechanical gesture she twitched her long robe of white and creamy lace behind her. It seemed as if she wanted all space wide and clear before her for what she had to say and do. Her eyes devoured those of John d'Albret.

"You – still – love her?" she said, forcing the words slowly from her lips.

"I love her!" John answered simply. He had nothing to add to that. It had been said before. Any apology would be an insult to Claire. Sympathy a deeper insult to the woman before him.

The carmine flush deepened on her cheek. But it was not anger. The girl was singularly mistress of herself – calm, resolved, clear-seeing.

"Ah," said Valentine la Niña softly, "I expected no other answer. But still, have you remembered that I once gave you your liberty? How you lost it a second time, I do not know. Now I am putting all my cards on the table. I play – hearts only. If I and my love are not worthy of yours, will you tell me why another, who has done nothing for you, is preferred to me, who has risked, and am willing to risk everything for you – life, death, the world, position, freedom, honour, all! Tell me! Answer me!"

"I loved her first!" said the Abbé John.

"Ah, that too you said before," she cried, with a kind of sigh, "and you have nothing more to say – I – nothing more to offer. Yet I cannot tell why it should be so. It seems, in all dispassion, that if I were a man, I should choose Valentine la Niña. Men – many men – ah, how many men, have craved for that which I have begged you to accept – not for your vague princedom, not for your vague hopes, not for your soldier's courage, which is no rare virtue. But for you – yourself! Because you are you – and have drawn me, I know not how – I see not where – "

"I do not ask you to obtain my release," said John d'Albret, somewhat uneasily, "I have no claim to that; but I have on board that ship a comrade" – here he hesitated – "yes, I will tell you his name, for you are noble. It is Francis Agnew, her father, he who was left for dead on the Street of the University by the Guisards of Paris on the Day of the Barricades. He is now at the same bench as I, in the Conquistador– "

"What!" cried Valentine, "not the old man with the white tangled beard I saw by your side when – when – I saw you?"

"The same," the Abbé John answered her softly.

Then came a kind of glory over the girl's face, like the first certainty of forgiveness breaking over a redeemed soul. She drew in her breath sharply. Her hands clasped themselves on her bosom. Then she smiled, but the bitterness was gone out of the smile now.

"I must see this Claire," she said, speaking shortly and somewhat sternly to herself; "I must know whether she is worthy. For to obtain from my father (who will not of his own goodwill call me daughter) – from Philip the King, I mean – pardon for two such heretics, one of them the cousin of his chief enemy – I must have a great thing to offer. And such I have indeed – something that he would almost expend another Armada to obtain. But, before I decide, I must see Claire Agnew. I must look in her eyes, and know if she be worthy. Then I will do it. Or, perhaps, she and I together."

The last words were murmured only.

The Abbé John, who knew not of what she was speaking, judged it prudent to say nothing.

"Yes – I must know," she went on, still brusquely, "you will tell me where she is. I will go there. And afterwards I will return to the Escorial to see my father – Philip the King. Meantime I will speak to the Duke of Err, and to his mother, as well as to the Viceroy Doria. You shall abide in Pilate's House down there, where is a prison garden – "

"And my friend?" said John d'Albret.

The girl hesitated a little, and then held out her hand. The young man took it.

"And your friend!" she said. "There in Pilate's House you must wait, you two, till I see – till I know that she is worth the sacrifice."

Once again she laughed a little, seeing a wave of joy or perhaps some more complex emotion sweep over John's face.

"Ah," she cried, with a returning trace of her first bitterness, "you are certain that she is worthy. Doubtless so for you! But as the sacrifice is mine – I also must be certain – ah, very certain. For there is no back-going. It is the end of all things for Valentine la Niña."

She laughed little and low, like one on the verge of hysterics. A nerve twitched irregularly in her throat under her chin to the right. The pink came out brighter to her cheek. It was a terrible laugh to hear in that still place. And the mirthlessness of it – it struck the Abbé John cold.

"This shall be my revenge," she said, fixing him, with flame in her honey-coloured eyes; "long after, long – oh, so – so long after" – she waved her arm – "you will know! And you will see that, however much she has loved you, hers was the love which takes. But mine – ah, mine is different. Mine is the love which gives – the only true woman's love – without scant, without measure, without bounds of good or evil, without thought of recompense, or hope of reward. Love net, unselfish, boundless, encompassing as the sea, and like a fountain sealed within the heart of a woman. And then – then you shall remember that when ye might – ye would not – ah, ye would not!"

A sob tore her throat.

"But one day, or it may be through all eternity, you shall know which is the greater love, and you shall wish – no, you are a man, you will be content with the lesser, the more comprehensible, the goodwife warming her feet by the fire over against yours. There is your ideal. While I – I – would have carried you beyond the stars!"

The Abbé John took a step nearer her. He had some vague notion of comforting – not knowing.

But she thrust her arms out furiously as if to strike him.

"Go – go!" she cried, "you are breaking my heart every instant you remain. Is it not enough, that which you have done? I would be quiet. They are waiting for you to take you to Pilate's House. But tell me first where to find this – this Claire Agnew!"

She pronounced the name with difficulty.

"Ah," Valentine continued, when John had told her how she was safe in Provence, "that is no great way. I shall go and soon return. Then to Madrid is farther, but easier. But if I suffer – what I must suffer – you can well abide here a little season. The hope – the future is with you. For me there is neither – save to do the greatest thing for you that ever woman did for man! That shall be my revenge."

CHAPTER XLV.
VALENTINE FINDS CLAIRE WORTHY

The mornings are fair – yes, very sweet and very clear at the Mas of the Mountain well-nigh all the year round. However hot the day, however mosquito-tormented the nights for those who do not protect themselves, the morn is ever fresh, with deep draughts of air cool as long-cellared wine, and everywhere the scent of springy, low-growing plants – the thyme, the romarin, the juniper – making an undergrowth which supports the foot of the wanderer, and carries him on league after league almost without his knowledge.

There was great peace on the Valley of the Rhone. It was at peace even from the drive of the eternal mistral, which, from horizon to horizon, turns all things greyish-white, the trees and herbage heavy with dust, and the heavens hiding themselves away under a dry steely pall.

 
"Avenio ventoso,
Si non ventoso, venenoso,"
 

muttered the Professor, as he looked at the black mass to the north, which was the Palace of the Popes. "But I thank God it is windy, this Rhone Valley of ours, with its one great, sweeping, cleansing wind, so that no poison can lurk anywhere."

He had a book in his hand, and he was looking abroad over the wide valley between the grey ridges of the Mountain of Barbentane and the little splintered peaks of the Alpilles. As on the landscape, great peace was upon the Professor.

But all suddenly, without noise of approach, Jean-aux-Choux stood before him – changed, indeed, from him who had been called "The Fool of the Three Henries." The fire of a strange passion glowed in his eye. His great figure was hollowed and ghastly. His regard seemed to burn like a torch that smokes. On the back of his huge hand the muscles stood out like whipcords. His arms, bare beneath his shepherd's cape, were burned to brick colour.

"Jean-aux-Choux!" cried the Professor, clapping his hands, "come and see my mother – how content she will be."

The ex-fool made a sign of negation.

"No, I cannot enter," he said; "there is a woman down in the valley there who would see Claire Agnew. She hath somewhat to say to her, which it concerns her greatly to know."

"Who is the woman?" demanded the Professor.

"I will vouch for her," said Jean-aux-Choux; "her name is nothing to you or to any man."

"But Claire Agnew's name and life concern me greatly," said the Professor hotly. "Had it been otherwise, I should even now have been in my class-room with my students at the Sorbonne!"

"In your grave more like – with Catherine and Guise and Henry of Valois!"

"Possibly," said the Professor tranquilly, "all the same I must know!"

"I vouch for the woman. She has come with me from Collioure," said Jean-aux-Choux. "Nevertheless, do you come also, and we will stand apart and watch while these two speak the thing which is in their hearts!"

"But she may be a messenger of the Inquisition," the Professor protested, whom hard experience had rendered suspicious in these latter days. "A dagger under the cloak is easy to carry!"

"Did I not tell you I would vouch for her?" thundered Jean-aux-Choux, the face of the slayer of Guise showing for the first time; "is not that enough?"

It was enough. Notwithstanding, the Professor armed himself with his sword-cane, and prepared to be of the company. They called Claire. She came forth to them with the flour of the bread-baking on her hands, gowned in white with the cook's apron and cap, which Madame Amélie had made for her – a fair, gracious, household figure.

She had no suspicions. Someone wanted to speak with her. There – down by the olive plant! A woman – a single woman – come from far with tidings! Well, Jean-aux-Choux was with her. Good Jean – dear Jean!

Then, all suddenly, there sprang a vivid red to her cheek.

Could it be? News of the Abbé John. Ah, but why this woman? Why could not Jean-aux-Choux have brought the message himself?

And Claire quickened her step down towards the olives in the valley.

The two met, the girl and the woman – Claire, slender and dark, but with eyes young, and with colour bright – Valentine la Niña fuller and taller, in the mid-most flower of a superb beauty. Claire, fresh from the kitchen, showed an abounding energy in every limb. Sweet, gracious, happy, born to make others happy, the Woman of the Interior went to meet her Sister of the Exterior – of the life without a home. Valentine la Niña had her plans ready. She had thought deeply over what to say and what to do before she met Claire Agnew. She must look into the depths of the girl's soul.

"I am called Valentine la Niña," she said, speaking with slow distinctness, yet softly, "and I have come from very far to tell you that I love the Prince Jean d'Albret. I am of his rank, and I demand that you release him from any hasty bond or promise he may have made to you!"

The colour flushed to the cheek of Claire Agnew, a deep sustained flood of crimson, which, standing a moment at the full, ebbed slowly away.

"Did he send you to ask me that question – to make that request?" she demanded, her voice equally low and firm.

"I have come of my own accord," Valentine la Niña answered, "I speak for his sake and for yours. The release, which it is not fitting that he should ask – I, who am a king's daughter, laying aside my dignity, may well require!"

It was curious that Claire never questioned the truth of these statements. Had not the lady come with Jean-aux-Choux? Nevertheless, when she spoke, it was clearly and to the main issue.

"Jean d'Albret has made me no promise – I have given none to him. True, I know that he loved me. If he loves me no more, let him come himself and tell me so!"

"He cannot," said Valentine la Niña, "he is in prison. He has been on the Spanish galleys. He has suffered much – "

"It was for my sake, I know – all for my sake!" cried Claire, a burst of gladness triumphing in her voice. Valentine la Niña stopped and looked at her. If there had been only a light woman's satisfaction in one more proof of her power, she would never have gone on with what she came to do. But Valentine saw clearly, being one of the few who can judge their own sex. She watched Claire from under her long lashes, and the smile which hovered about the corners of her mouth was tender, sweet, and pitiful. Valentine la Niña was making up her mind.

"Well, let us agree that it was 'for your sake,'" she said. "Now it is your turn to do something for his. He is ill, in prison. If he is sent back to the galleys he will soon die of exposure, of torture, and of fatigue. If he, a prince of the House of France, weds with me, a daughter of the King of Spain, there will be peace. Great good will be done through all the world."

"I do not care – I do not care," cried Claire, "let him first come and tell me himself."

"But he cannot, I tell you," said the other quietly; "he is in the prison of Tarragona!"

"Well, then, let him write!" said Claire, "why does he not write?"

Valentine la Niña produced a piece of paper, and handed it to Claire without a word. It was in John d'Albret's clear, clerkly hand. Claire and he had capped verses too often together by the light of Madame Granier's pine-cones for any mistake. She knew it instantly.

"Whatever this lady says is true, and if you have any feeling in your heart for your father, or love for me, do as she bids you!

"Jean d'Albret de Bourbon."

Three times Claire read the message to make sure.

Then she spoke. "What do you wish me to do? I am ready!"

"You will give this man up to me?"

"He never was mine to give, but if he had been, he is free to go – because he wills it!"

"I put my life in danger for him now – every moment I stay here," said Valentine la Niña; "Jean-aux-Choux will tell you so. Will you walk to the gates of death with me to deliver him whom you love?"

"I will," said Claire, "I will obey you – that is, I will obey him through you!"

"This you do for the love you bear to the man whom you give up to me?"

"For what else?" cried Claire, the tears starting in her eyes. "Surely an honest girl may love a man? She may be ready even to give her life for him. But – she will not hold him against his will!"

"Then you will come with me to my father, the King of Spain?" Valentine persisted. "Perhaps – I do not know – he will pardon Jean d'Albret at our request – perhaps he will send us, all three, to the fires of the Inquisition. That also I do not know!"

"And I do not care!" cried Claire; "I will come!"

"For his sake alone?" queried Valentine, resolved to test the girl to the uttermost.

"For whose else?" cried Claire at last, exasperated; "not for yours, I suppose! Nor yet for mine own! I have been searched for by your Inquisition bloodhounds before now. He saved me from that!"

"And I – all of you!" said Valentine la Niña to herself. "But the price is somewhat heavy!"

Nevertheless, she had found Claire worthy.