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CHAPTER XXVII
REVELATION

Had Madame Labroquerie continued firm in her resolve never to approach the fortress while her nephew ruled, all might have been well; but unfortunately for her daughter, and, as it was to prove, for herself, the bitter little woman permitted her longing to enter again into the affairs of the world to prevail over her hatred for the commandant, and so suffered herself to be brought to the citadel, railing savagely throughout the journey. Before a week had passed she revealed herself fully as an unnatural mother and an implacable foe. Yet, to do justice to even a worker of evil, it must be admitted that Madeleine, with all her sweetness, was a sore trial to a fanatical Catholic and bigoted patriot, for she refused to be ashamed of her heresy, and was never weary of singing the praise of her English lover.

Left to themselves, neither Laroche, now the head of the Church in that district, nor Roussilac would have taken action against the lovely sinner; but Madame, in one of her fits of ungovernable anger, publicly preferred two charges against her daughter, accusing her of heresy and treason, and calling upon the Church to punish her for the one offence and the State to exact a penalty for the other.

These were grave indictments, but both priest and layman closed their ears, the former not wishing to be troubled by unpleasant duties, the latter hanging back, not on account of the tie of relationship, but because of Madeleine's beauty. But when Madame, in another fit of fury, openly denounced the commandant before D'Archand, who for the second time had arrived at that coast, as a Lutheran at heart, and a protector of the enemies of the Church, he was driven to act for the sake of his ambition. So Madeleine was arrested and confined in a small stone hut high upon the cliff, and before her door a sentry paced both by day and night, while Laroche, with many deep grumblings, was compelled to undertake the uncongenial task of saving the fair girl's soul.

To the credit of the priest, be it said that he was charitable. He believed Madeleine had been perverted from the right way by some spell of witchcraft, and this belief was strengthened by the fact that, when he adjured the girl by the tears of the Saviour to weep, she merely laughed at him. It was notorious that a guilty witch was unable to shed tears. Accordingly Laroche attended himself to the obvious duty of exorcising the evil spirit which had taken up its abode in her; but, in spite of all his efforts, the girl remained as wickedly obstinate as before.

"The Church acts towards her children with wondrous love, and because of that love may chasten," the abbé preached. "'Tis the duty of the faithful within the fold to bring in the wandering sheep, either by suasion or by force. Being bewitched, my daughter, you stand in great peril, and we, by the powers entrusted unto us, may remove that danger, when reasoning fails, by bodily torment. Be converted, and your soul shall live. Remain in your unbelief, and punishment shall follow, because a living heretic is a danger to the world and a dishonour to the holy saints."

Even such sound doctrine as this failed to move the heart of Madeleine, and each day Laroche grumbled louder at his failure, and Roussilac shrank yet more from bringing his cousin to trial, and Madame became more stinging in speech and more furious in her awful passions, because of the suffering of her mind during lucid moments, when she could see herself in sunny Normandy once more young and sane. Her hatred for Roussilac increased, until she would spit and snarl at him when he passed, and scream: "Infidel! This shall be known in France. Power shall fall from you, and the people shall curse your name." And when the men who had been sent after Geoffrey returned afoot with their tale of failure, Madame Labroquerie made it known from the ship to the citadel that it was the commandant who had secured the spy's safety for the love of his heretic cousin.

Coward as he was in many ways, Roussilac at length saw that he must act or be dishonoured; he must either release Madeleine or bring her to trial for treason. The former alternative was impossible, because the girl was an ecclesiastical prisoner. The lightest sentence he could pass for treason was banishment, and he could not endure the prospect of losing Madeleine. Besides, when he had sentenced her, she still remained to be judged by the clerical court. It needed a wiser brain than Roussilac's to solve so tangled a problem. Nevertheless, he resolved to attempt it. After some speech with Laroche, who was heartily weary of the whole business, the commandant passed from the church of Ste. Mary, after the hour of vespers, and ascended the winding path which led towards the hut where the impenitent was imprisoned. The sentry saluted as the governor approached, then resumed his march along the brown scar which the constant tread had made.

"Withdraw yonder," Roussilac ordered.

A happy voice broke out, as he put up his hand to the door:

"There is the sun upon the side of the wall. So it is already evening. Time flies as fast in prison as elsewhere. I pray you, sun, shine upon Geoffrey rather than on me!"

Cribbed and confined as the girl was, she steadily refused to be cast down, because she was assured that life had far better things in store. Her lover was pursued, but then she knew he would escape. Her body might be held in prison, but her spirit was free, flying over forest and hill, and singing like a lark against the clouds.

Her note changed when Roussilac flung open the door and stood before her in a flood of light.

"Cousin," Madeleine said coldly. "You break upon me suddenly. I had better company before you came. Why do you drive my friends away?"

The commandant closed the door and stepped forward, his sallow face working.

"You are alone," he said. "None dare visit you without permission."

"I am never alone," she declared. "My friends left me when you entered; but they shall return when you depart."

"Am not I a friend? Nay, more – I am a relation," began Roussilac; but she checked him with the reproof: "I have no family now that Jean-Marie is dead."

"Your mother," he reminded her.

"She has delivered me into the power of the Church."

"Because it is best for you. I would care for your body, Madeleine, as your mother cares for your soul. Cousin, think not unkindly of me. I would release you; but what power have I to remove the judgment of the Abbé Laroche? He has sentenced you to close confinement, until – "

"My lover returns to release me," she finished, and backed from him with a laugh.

Roussilac clenched his fingers tightly, and jealousy venomed the words which then left his lips:

"Foolish girl, would you rouse all the evil in me? Bear with me, cousin," he went on quickly. "It is not in me to endure patiently. Since that day when I stood before you in the grove I have not known the meaning of peace. My nights have been long, my days dark, my position unprofitable – "

Again she interrupted him, to simplify what she knew must follow:

"Because you think that you love me."

He stepped forward to seize her hands; but she drew back and steadied herself against the wall.

"I do love you, sweet cousin."

"You do not love me. Need I give you the lie when your own tongue gives it you? Is it love when the nights become long, and the day dark, and position brings no pleasure? Arnaud, I love, and am held in prison; but my nights are short, my days warm, and my position is a happiness. Believe you that love, however unrequited, takes away from life? I tell you it adds, it enriches, it beautifies. It is a crown which makes a humble man a king, and the halo which makes the singing-girl a saint. Love gives a man strength to use his power, to defy superstition and false religion, to snap his fingers in the face of a fat priest who believes that a strong will may be bent and broken by holding the body in bondage. Had I my heart to offer I would scorn your cowardly love."

He had faced her while she spoke, but when she stopped he turned, and, feeling the sting of her eyes, savagely pulled at the cloak which had drifted from his shoulders.

"My mother has sent you," said Madeleine.

"She and I are bitter enemies," came the sullen answer. "I have but borne with her for your sake. She seeks to stir up mischief all the day long." He turned abruptly. "Have you no kind word for me, little cousin?"

He looked worn and old, and the girl pitied him; but she was too honest to deceive by fair speech.

"You brought me to this place against my will," she reminded him. "I was happy in our cabin beyond the river. You have played into the hands of my mother, who desires to see me punished because I have abjured her faith. Would you have brought me here had you found the plain country maid you had looked to see?"

"I swore to your brother to protect you."

"Do not recall that death scene, I pray you," she said firmly. "If the spirit of Jean-Marie looks down upon us now, he finds you – protecting me!"

Roussilac winced as that shot struck him. "Blame me not," he said more submissively. "Were you a civil prisoner only, I would open this door, and you should go as free as air. My purpose in coming to you is to urge you to free yourself."

"Never at the price demanded. Arnaud, I put your courage to the test. I trow that the man who loves a woman will for her sake perform what she may demand, even though he lose position for it. Open the door, and lead me to Father Laroche, and say to him: 'Father, I have taken it upon myself to release your prisoner, since it shames me to see flesh and blood of mine confined against her will in the fortress over which I rule.' Do so, Arnaud, and I shall believe in you."

"It is madness to ask it," said Roussilac loudly.

"Let us have the truth. You dare not."

"It is so," he confessed. "I dare not set myself against the Church, which has the power to consign a man's soul to hell."

Madeleine smiled contemptuously.

"If you would search your heart and read truly what there you find, I should hear a different answer. You do not fear Father Laroche. He does not wish to hold me here. Rather would he cast me from his mind, that he might have more time to spend at the tavern and his brawls. I will tell you what you fear: your actions are watched, your words criticised. If you let me free, it would be rumoured that you were false to the faith. That rumour would be wafted across seas, and your enemies at home would see to it that you were recalled and relegated to the obscurity from which you have arisen. You would rather treat your cousin as a courtesan than abate one fragment of the pitiful power which shall some day fall from your body like a rag. Now, my commandant, are you answered?"

Roussilac said not a word when he saw the scorn in those violet eyes. He merely put out his hand, and opened the door, muttering, as though to himself: "That pride shall break when she knows."

"Know?" cried Madeleine. "What should I know?"

He looked at her savagely, feeling that it was in him to make her suffer.

"That your lover is hanged at my command."

He closed the door quickly and fastened it, half hoping, half dreading, to hear the scream of anguish which he believed must follow. But there came to him as he waited a peal of joyous laughter, and the happy words:

"Geoffrey, Geoffrey! would that you could hear that! Dead! Why, my love, you are full of life. Were you to die, which God indeed forbids, your dear spirit would fly at once to me. Dead! Have I not seen you in my dreams? Do not I see you now walking within sight of the New England fields? Oh, Geoffrey! Near – how near! Who is that great man riding beside you, a panther skin across his shoulder? How noisily he talks … and now leans over, and pats you on the arm. Ah, gone – gone! And he would have me think that you are hanged!"

CHAPTER XXVIII
BODY AND MIND

Roussilac strode towards the river, and in that hour found it in his heart to envy the meanest settler in the land. Like many a man who has risen from the ranks, he found himself destitute of friends. He had cut himself off from his own relations, lest they should hinder his ascent, and none had come to take their place; the captains of noble birth, his official equals, having refused to receive into friendship the son of a Normandy farmer. The home government was but using what military talents he possessed to their advantage; and when his services had been rendered, he would be cast aside by the proud priest who ruled the destinies of France, and another chosen in his stead.

"Courage!" he muttered. "'Tis but imagination which makes a weakling of me. I will to D'Archand, and inquire of him whether or no my name be yet in favour. Then to stand up like a man, and sweep away my enemies, let them be priests, relations, or demons."

D'Archand was idling upon deck, but at a word from the commandant entered his curtained cabin and produced a flask of Burgundy as an aid to conversation. First Roussilac sought to hear more particularly the news of the world, and induced the master to expatiate upon the revolution of the Scottish Covenanters, the struggle of Charles for money and ships, the resolute stand of John Pym for just law, the prosperity of France under Richelieu, and the breaking of the short treaty between that country and Holland. D'Archand warmed to his discourse under the influence of the wine and a thrill of patriotism, as he concluded: "I have but recently crossed the high seas without sighting a hostile vessel. The Dutch privateers have gone home empty. The English coffers are bare. France now holds the world. I drink to the Cardinal and our King."

Abstractedly Roussilac lifted his glass. When the master leaned over and emptied the flask between them, the commandant observed, with an assumption of indifference: "Didst hear any word of praise for my work in this land?"

"My stay was short," D'Archand answered. "I heard no talk of you, commandant – at least, not upon the streets, and to be spoken of in the street is the only fame, I take it. But there were rumours afloat regarding the Abbé La Salle."

"Perdition!" muttered Roussilac. "Shall these priests never confine themselves to their own affairs?"

"Your princes of the Church are statesmen now rather than priests," said the master. "The Abbé La Salle comes of a renowned family. 'Twas said that he is wasted in this colony. I also heard it said – accept the rumour as you will – that his Holiness has set a cross against his name."

"What means that?" asked the commandant hastily.

"Urbano the Eighth, who, I may tell you, has recently bestowed the title of Eminence upon his Cardinals, having suitably enriched his family and acquired the Duchy of Urbino, now seeks strong men, priests who are fighters rather than scholars, to aid him in the execution of his plans, and he who has the cross set against his name may be assured of sudden promotion. A canon of Notre Dame, who is much in favour with Cardinal Richelieu, informed me that La Salle may immediately be recalled. His Holiness will raise a parish priest to the cardinalate, through the grades of canon, dean, and bishop, in a month or less, according to his necessity for that man's help."

"The St. Wenceslas now bears for home with my despatches," said Roussilac moodily. "I have mentioned the abbé as instrumental in holding heretics at bay."

"His Holiness loves a fighter," muttered D'Archand significantly, as he opened another flask of Burgundy.

A light glimmered here and there when Roussilac made his way homeward, and the murmur of the forest brushed his ears as he passed. The news of another man's advancement hurt his selfish nature as though it were a premonition of his own failure. He hesitated where the path split, then hastened to his house, entered, and immediately found himself in the presence of his aunt, who awaited his coming, knitting her fingers in the lamplight.

"So!" she snapped, her little face hard and wrinkled like a sour apple. "We have now open treachery at headquarters. Treachery against Church and State. You, the representative of the King, the upholder of the faith! You shall be stripped of your power and be disgraced. And I will walk a hundred miles barefoot, if there be need, to see sentence executed upon you."

Her attack was ill-timed. The commandant was then in no mood to bear with a mutinous subject, though she had been his own mother.

"Out of my sight," he said fiercely. "Out, I say. Madame, my forbearance is at an end, and I will be obeyed. Would you have me forget that you are a woman and a relative?"

"Since you have forgot your duty to God and the King, forget that also," screamed the little woman. "Seducer, what have you done with my daughter? Where have you hidden her? Abductor! You shall learn what it means to defy Holy Church. Tell me, where have you taken her?"

Roussilac's anger cooled at that, and he lowered his voice as he answered: "I left my cousin not three hours ago in the place where she is confined as an impenitent by the judgment of the Abbé Laroche. There you shall find her."

"Arnaud," shrieked Madame, "deceive your men, cheat a priest, you may, but you shall not so prevail upon me. I know your deeds and the vileness of your heart. As a child you were ever false; as a man you hated your own people, because you had risen and they remained obscure; and now you stand before the mother of the girl whose heart you have helped to harden, whom you have taken and hidden for your own purpose, and ask her what she means when she demands to know the truth."

"If you have information, I will in my official capacity hear it," Roussilac answered. "But forget not that my nature can be fiercer than yours, and do not tempt my power."

"Your power!" sneered Madame. "It has already departed from you. I thank you, Arnaud, for having disowned your honest family. How ill the cloak of innocence lies upon your shoulders! Madeleine's cell stands empty, as you know well. Beside the door the sentry lies stabbed through the heart, murdered by your hand as surely as though you yourself had driven home the dagger. I have but come from there, and none know what has been done, save you the doer, and I the accuser."

Roussilac caught up his cloak, and wrapped it about his shoulders. "What took you to her prison?" he demanded, his own nature being no less suspicious than hers.

Madame laughed furiously.

"You are a brave rogue, Arnaud. You plot, and murder, and seduce, and smile through it all, and act the innocent like a mime. Know that Father St Agapit came to me – a haughty priest, with no respect for age – to recommend that Madeleine should be entrusted to his care, that he might obtain her conversion by a new method. 'Let her not be crossed,' quoth he. ''Tis human nature to offend more deeply in the front of opposition. I would let her go free, and win her by gentle persuasion to the fold.' What does a priest know of the pride of a girl's heart? 'Is the branch broken by persuasion for the fire?' said I. 'No, you shall take it in hand strongly and break it by force.' To that the abbé said, 'You shall not compare the inanimate thing with the living creature whom God has gifted with free-will. Go now to her and be gentle. Try her with mother's milk rather than with the strong meat of human nature. I have bidden the sentry admit you.' So I went to win my erring child as the priest taught me, for I never yet have disobeyed a Churchman, and what I found you know."

"You are right, Madame, if what you say be true," said Roussilac sternly. "There is treachery here."

"Behold my hand! It points at the traitor," screamed the pale woman, her fury surging back upon her. "You shall not escape with your fellow-sinner. You shall not go from me until I hear from your own lips where you have placed Madeleine, my child."

"Woman, I know nothing," he snarled. "Is my position nothing to me that I should play so loosely?"

A cry of animal rage broke that instant from his throat. Madame had dashed upon him, and, before he could beat her back, had clawed his face like a maddened bird from cheek-bones to chin.

At that terrible indignity the pusillanimous spirit of the commandant was sobered into resolution. He hurled her back screaming, and put up a hand to his burning face. The finger-tips came away reddened.

He shivered from head to foot. Madame was raving. Roussilac steadied himself, then walked from that place, a cold, sinister figure, the howling of the mad woman pealing into his ears.

Scarce a minute had elapsed before he returned, accompanied by two soldiers; and again facing Madame Labroquerie, whose bloodless face was distorted with the fury of her terrible nature, issued his orders in a pitiless voice:

"Secure that woman, and keep her in ward this night." He raised his hand, and smiled vengefully at the marks on his fingers, as he drew off his ring, which he extended to the man nearest him with the words: "Take your authority. Spare not force, if force be wanted. Restore this ring to me after sunrise, when you shall have hanged this woman upon the eastern side of the fortress."

Again Roussilac smiled, and, turning quickly, passed outside. One terrible scream made him lift his hands to his ears, then he hurried up the steep path, to see with his own eyes the cold body of the sentry, and the empty cell, and to learn that Madame had not lied.

For a few moments he stood, like a man in a trance, seeing indeed his problem solved, but knowing that Madeleine was lost to him. He turned to the dead body, and commanded it to speak; and when he understood that the spirit had passed for ever from his discipline, he spurned the cold matter with his foot, and in a fury cried: "I would give my position and all I have to hear this dead man speak."

"Listen, then," said a cold voice. "The dead are not silent." And Roussilac cried out with superstitious fear, then started, when he beheld a tall figure proceeding from the shadow of the doorway, and recognised St Agapit, the priest.

"Who has done this?" he demanded. "What lover of this girl has dared to enter the fortress, to stab one of my guards, and carry her off beneath my eye?"

"I am no reader of riddles," said St Agapit. "I came here to reason with the maid, because it seemed to me that her heart, young as it is and tender, must surely respond to the message of love. Why she refuses the only faith by which mortals may be saved passed my understanding. But now I know that she has been driven into heresy by the neglect of a father and the unnatural spirit of a mother, and strengthened in her sin by the persecution of a cousin."

"Father, I loved her."

"Not so. You shall find at your heart passion, but not the warmth of love. It is not the ice which produces the plant and the flower. It is the warm rain and the sunshine. You offered her the storm, and wondered because she desired the sun."

"Where has she gone?" cried the blind man.

"To freedom. My blessing follows her, unbeliever though she be."

The ascetic moved forward, thin and stern, and made the sign of the cross over the fallen sentry.

"Bless me also," cried Roussilac, catching at his skirt. "Father, I have done much evil. Bless me before you go."

"I may pity where I may not bless," said St Agapit, and passed with that same dignified step which awed the Iroquois into silence when on a distant day they led him out to die. His shadow flickered once upon the slope, went out, and the governor was alone with the dead.

The soldiers who had been left to execute their commander's unnatural order glanced fearfully at one another, and he who held the ring muttered a charm against the evil eye. That cry of impotent rage, which had caused Roussilac to stop his ears, fell from the lips of Madame Labroquerie so soon as her mind caught the meaning of her sentence; and when the men at length advanced to take her, she writhed and bit the air, and hurled after her nephew words of execration which caused the soldiers to draw back and cross themselves in terror. All the hate and madness of the unhappy woman's ruined mind poured forth in one awful torrent, until she sank to the floor and settled there to silence.

Then the men took courage to seize her, believing that the blood which they saw issuing from her mouth was produced by the wounds which her own teeth had inflicted; but when the body fell limp in their arms they realised that nature had intervened.

One at the head, the other at the feet, they carried through the night the silent shape of Madame Labroquerie, who was never to move, never to rave, again. Yet so blindly obedient to their officer's word of command were these men in the ranks, that they carried the body out and executed sentence upon it an hour after sunrise in the valley of St. Charles.

At that same hour rumour went about the fortress – set in motion by a sentry, who had seen the governor rushing down to the forest during the night – to the effect that Roussilac was lying under a spell of witchcraft. This rumour became an established fact when the Abbé Laroche was seen proceeding from the church upon the hill with asperges brush and a shell of holy water.

"Such is the end of ambition," murmured St Agapit, when they had brought him the evil tidings. "Can a clay body resist free spirits of the dead?"