THE WOUNDED NAME

by

D. K. Broster

Doubleday, Page & Company, Garden City, New York, 1923

Copyright, 1923, by Doubleday, Page & Company

All rights reserved, including that of translation into foreign languages, including the Scandinavian.

Printed in the United States at The Country Life Press, Garden City, N.Y.

First Edition

"O good Horatio, what a wounded name,

Things standing thus unknown, shall live behind me!"

Hamlet, Act v. Sc. 2

"How shall I find that friend

Of the rare friends, the deep-hearted?

When the delicate revels end

And the maskers have all departed.

At a sudden hour and a drear,

For the sweet hour is the sternest,

Thou shalt know who held thee dear,

Whose hand was thine in earnest."

Herbert Trench

CHAPTER I - RUNNING WATER

"Without a horse, and a dog, and a friend, man would perish. The Gods gave me all three, and there is no gift like friendship. Remember this . . . when you become a young man. For your fate will turn on the first true friend you make."

RUDYARD KIPLING, Puck of Pook's Hill ("On the Great Wall").

(1)

The lady who was writing at the rosewood escritoire near the window paused, and with the feather end of the quill traced along the days of the month on a little calendar headed "1814" which was propped up behind the ink-stand.

"April the twelfth," she murmured, and wrote it at the top of the already finished letter under her hand.

She was not young—forty-five at least—but she was distinctly charming in her very short-waisted, close-fitting gown of lilac sarcenet. The irregular-shaped room, cool and fresh and sunlit, opened by a small bow-window on her left hand on to a garden that could not have been other than English. And she herself looked English, yet she had just signed a French name at the bottom of her letter, while over the mantelpiece hung the portrait of a middle-aged man with a refined and thoughtful face who did not even look English.

The door opened, and a man's voice could be heard speaking to someone outside.

"Laurent, is that you?" asked the lady, without looking up. She was sealing her letter. "Dearest, are you going out? Will you take this note to Mesdames Tantes, if you, are passing?—Where are you going, by the way?"

"Fishing," responded the owner of the voice, coming in. "Yes, of course I will take it for you, Maman. But isn't it the anniversary of something or other, so that the Aunts will be plunged in appropriate gloom, and will not approve of my occupation?"

The lady held up her face to his kiss. "No, I do not think it is the anniversary of any calamity to-day, otherwise they would not have agreed to come to supper." Once again she ran her quill along the almanac. "There is nothing now, I think, till Louis XVII's death in June. . . . You will be careful about the river, will you not, chéri? It must be in flood still, after the terribly severe winter we have had."

"Probably the gigantic salmon that I shall hook will pull me in," prophesied the young man teasingly. "Or perhaps I shall be taken with vertigo and fall in . . . or a tidal wave may come up from the sea!" The smile in his clear grey eyes spread to his mouth. "I am so glad that I shall never be a mother!"

"You are a very wicked son!" retorted the lady, laughing, too, and she pulled down his head and kissed the crisp fair hair that, after the fashion of the day, clustered rather thickly on his forehead. "In France, you know, you will have to show me much more respect, from all I hear of the authority of a mother there."

"Respect!" exclaimed Laurent de Courtomer, as he looked at the girlish figure. "How can I respect the authority of a mother who only appears to be about five years older than I am myself? Am I then to respect you more in Paris, and to love you less?"

"Must they run in inverse proportion? Go and fish, Laurent, instead of talking nonsense, and forget that we shall so soon be living in France."

"I rather wish that I could," unpatriotically remarked the young Frenchman, taking up the note from the escritoire. "Is it wrong to be so fond of this country because one was born and brought up in it?" He looked up at the portrait of his father over the mantelpiece. "If only this had come four years ago!" And Mme de Courtomer followed his gaze and sighed.

Although Fate's keys had opened the gate so long shut, and her voice, through the bugles of the advancing Allies, was calling the stout Bourbon, Louis XVIII, from his retreat at Hartwell to the throne of his ancestors, that exile would never return to his native land. And since his widow was English, and his son had never set foot in France, though both duty and sentiment might call them over the Channel to the young man's patrimony, neither of them could welcome the summons in quite the same spirit as he would have done. For to them it was not "returning."

"The Allies are nearly at Paris and Napoleon's star has set," said Laurent, turning away, "but, wonderful as it is, I do not somehow feel any more exhilarated than you do, Maman, for, after all, it is the bayonets of the foreigner which are bringing back the King. And I don't know my French relatives, and I shall miss my English ones."

Mme de Courtomer, rising, slipped her arm through his.

"Take care, darling, that the Aunts do not hear you talking like this! To them, as you know, it matters little who brings back the King, provided he is brought back—and to regret Devonshire would be the last offence."

"Nevertheless, I shall regret it," persisted Laurent, who did not easily change his affections. "You will, too, I know. Still, we are coming back here every year, are we not? . . . Yes, I must start. And this is an invitation for Mesdames Tantes to sup with us to-night? Do you want an answer?"

"No," said his mother, studying him with a smile. "It is only to confirm an arrangement already made. But I should like a salmon."

"You shall have one," replied her son confidently. "And now permit me to practise taking a Parisian farewell of my respected mother, the Comtesse Henri de Courtomer, née Seymour." And he kissed her hand with a flourish.

(2)

Soon afterwards he mounted into his English gig, with his English groom behind in charge of his rod and tackle, and drove down the village street in one of the most English of counties. But he was thinking, "A few weeks more, and I shall no longer be Mr. Laurent Courtomer of Keynton House, but M. le Comte de Courtomer in the family mansion that I have never seen in the Faubourg St. Germain where Mesdames Tantes, at least, will be in their element."

For Laurent's three great-aunts, "Mesdames Tantes de Roi," so christened by him on the analogy of those daughters of Louis XV who were thus known in the days of Louis XVI, were of a Royalist and Catholic fervour truly overwhelming. And of course, once in France, they would all, in French fashion, live together—as indeed they almost did now, settled in one small Devonshire village. But at least they were not all under one roof, and Laurent was not quite sure that he was longing for that increased proximity.

He soon pulled up before a door in a red brick wall, and in a few seconds was walking up a tiled path to the habitation of Mesdemoiselles de Courtomer. He knew that he must deliver his note in person, for the Aunts would consider it unpardonable if he merely left it without paying his respects.

The countenance of Augustine, their elderly, precise maid, bore signs of excitement.

"Yes, Monsieur le Comte," she said in response to his query at the door. "Mesdames are within. And they are receiving company."

"Really?" said Laurent. "In the morning?"

"A traveller, Monsieur le Comte. An old acquaintance just come over from France—M. le Baron de Vicq."

Laurent, by now in the hall, with an engraving of Louis XVI mounting the scaffold on one side of him and a bust of the Duc d'Enghien wreathed in immortelles on the other, murmured, "This is indeed great news!" For he seemed to remember having heard that in times inconceivably remote M. de Vicq had been a suitor for the hand of Tante Bonne or was it that he had been a flame of Tante Odile's? And, before he bowed respectfully over the hands of his venerable relatives, he beheld a withered but well-preserved old gentleman (yet younger, surely, by a decade than any of them) rise from a chair at a disappointingly equal distance from all of the old ladies . . . from Tante Odile's majestic piety and grey curls, from Tante Clotilde's even greater majesty and even more denuded (and therefore even more imposingly becapped) head, and from the long-faded prettiness of Tante Bonne, the youngest, who wore the smallest cap of any, and the least hideous cameo, and no jet at all, so that Tante Clotilde had more than once been known to accuse this eighty-year-old junior of hers of an ineradicable tendency to levity.

But Tante Clotilde herself had undergone a change since Lady Day, when a fair wind from France had blown so many clouds out of the Royalist sky. Her majesty was not less, her loyalism even more pronounced, but a ribbon of a discreet maroon shade had replaced the black moiré round her cap, and her manner to all and sundry was marked by an unexampled benignancy. So that Laurent, when he had saluted her dry, shrivelled hand with the mourning ring, was almost startled by the sensible favour with which she kissed him on either cheek, for though the greeting was not a novelty, it was often frosty. Tante Clotilde considered that Laurent spoke English too well, and his mother's habit of occasionally calling him Laurence—"a girl's name"—was an abomination to her. But, willy-nilly, her great-nephew would have to be entirely French now.

M. de Vicq, on introduction, made him a bow of another generation, and the young man, having duly delivered his note, was inspired to announce his hope that if the newcomer were staying the night he would give the ladies his escort up to Keynton House; this addition to the party would, he assured him, procure his mother and himself the greatest pleasure. After the proper amount of pressing the old gentleman accepted, and Laurent thereupon began to make efforts to extricate himself from his great-aunts' drawing-room.

But this was not so easy. M. de Vicq, whose fervour appeared to be almost equal to that of the old ladies, had embarked on a rapturous description of the enthusiasm manifested at the entry of the Duc d'Angoulême, the King's nephew, into Bordeaux about three weeks before, the news of which had caused such joyful anticipations in the little court at Hartwell, and since, after all, Laurent was French and on the point of treading French soil, the narration was not devoid of interest. Only it had not the charm of entire novelty, and he would rather have heard it at another time. It must, therefore, have been a rather unfortunate spirit of contradiction which led him to remark that Brittany and Vendée, for all their long and glorious struggle on behalf of monarchy, had not at this particular juncture played much part in the imminent restoration of the royal house.

"Oh, que si, Monsieur!" exclaimed the Baron, shocked; and Tante Clotilde said, "Fie, nephew!" in her deepest voice, and he was assured that under the rule of "the Corsican" more than thirty secondary chiefs had perished in that region for the Cause, and their names began to shower upon him.

"I take back my remark!" cried the young man, laughing. "Besides, after all, mes tantes, you are not mentioning a leader who is alive, which is better. What about that fellow in Brittany—L'Oiseleur, the Fowler, who is always luring the enemy into difficult positions, and who is personally so lucky that he is supposed to possess a charm of some sort? . . . Or is that all a myth, and his defence of the burning mill also?"

M. de Vicq almost started from his chair. "What an extraordinary thing that you should speak of L'Oiseleur to-day, Monsieur!" he exclaimed. "No, indeed, he is no myth! I have seen him—I saw him (though for the time I had forgotten it) no later than yesterday, and on the very packet which brought me from Brest to Plymouth."

"The Plymouth packet! Why, what was he doing there?" ejaculated Laurent and the old ladies in the same moment.

"I do not in the least know, Mesdames," replied the visitor, "and as I spent all the time of the voyage most miserably in the cabin below, I knew nothing of our distinguished passenger till we were disembarking at Plymouth. But then, as we were massed on the deck, eager for the shore, I heard a compatriot say, 'That's he—that's L'Oiseleur!'" And so I saw the personage pointed out—a rather stern, rough-looking man of fifty or so, with thick dark hair, somewhat unshorn, a real Chouan type. Greatly moved, I wished to shake him by his heroic hand, but in the press I could not, and I lost sight of him thereafter."

"Owing to his amulet, perhaps," observed Laurent idly. "But I had a notion that he was quite young, this famous fighter, and that he was a gentleman—titled, in fact. Of course I must have been wrong.—Now, if you will excuse me, mes tantes . . ."

"Yes, I, too, had previously thought that L'Oiseleur was gently born," said M. de Vicq slowly, "for he bears an old and honoured name—that of La Rocheterie; but this man could not have been a gentleman. Yet that does not prevent—"

"No, indeed!" cried the noble dames, generously waiving the claims of their caste to exclusive leadership. "Think of the great, the sublime, the sainted Cathelineau—a mason's son—"

"Think of Stofflet, a gamekeeper—"

"Think of Cadoudal, think of Guillemot—"

"Think of a salmon!" said Laurent irreverently to himself. And, by concentrating his will-power on that object, he did at last succeed in making his escape.

But as he drove between the high hedges, making for a chosen spot some five miles up the river, he found his mind running, despite himself, on the twenty years of struggle in the never-conquered west of France. He had been too young to take part in its earlier manifestations, and it was only in the last eighteen months or so that these had begun again, often with the formation of bands of "réfractaires," conscripts who would not serve Napoleon, led by gentlemen who equally refused. And among these was this well-nigh legendary "L'Oiseleur," audacious, undefeated, almost invisible, so swiftly and mysteriously did he move and strike—"jeune homme du plus brillant courage, adoré par ses hommes," as Laurent had heard him called. The double encomium was certainly borne out by his famous defence of the mill at Penescouët, where he and eighteen men were said to have kept five hundred Imperialists, troops of the line, at bay for more than four hours, till the soldiers were at last obliged to send for reinforcements, and contrived to burn the place over their heads. And even then the little band had operated a retreat almost more wonderful than their defence.

And now, if M. de Vicq were correct, this gallant fighter was in England, a shaggy, middle-aged peasant, not, after all, the young man of Laurent's own class who had seized the opportunity which he had missed. For it must be rather fine to have contributed by something more than prayers and wishes to restore Louis XVIII to that throne of his ancestors which, in a few weeks, he would almost certainly mount.

(3)

But these reflections were totally forgotten an hour later, when the young Frenchman was standing, in his high leather boots, the water swirling about his legs, casting hopefully over the particular pool in which it was impossible that there should not be a fish.

Maman was right (though he should not tell her so) about the river. It was running so strongly that, as Laurent moved slowly forward, he used considerable caution before he followed one foot by the other, for though he stood in shallow, broken water, there was enough stream to take him off his legs if he trod on a slippery stone or dropped unexpectedly into even a small hole. Nevertheless, it was not really the strength of the stream which prevented M. de Courtomer from immersing himself even to the fifth button of his waistcoat, which was then accounted the maximum depth, but the fact that, after the severe cold which had once followed this exploit, he had promised his mother never to repeat it. Indeed, in wading at all he was doing more than the majority of fishermen ever thought of attempting.

The long, twenty-foot rod bent; he cast again a little farther over the sliding, deeper water near the opposite bank, which there was flat and pebbly, and sprinkled with low shrubs. Yet the deepest part of the channel was below it. . . . No luck, not the ghost of a rise! Perhaps there was a little too much flood, after all, though the water was perfectly clear. Laurent thought he would try a change of fly. He reeled up and caught the line.

But as he was detaching the fly he had been using (rather clumsily, for his fingers were cold) he heard, somewhat to his annoyance, quick steps on the pebbles of the other side. He did not desire a possibly loquacious spectator. Finding, however, after a moment or two, that the owner of the steps did not address him, he glanced up.

A young man—a gentleman—was standing on the opposite bank looking at him. As Laurent raised his head he lifted his hat and said, in fair but obviously foreign English,

"Can you tell me, sir, where I shall find a bridge across this river? I have deceived myself of the road."

M. de Courtomer recognized in the flavour of the accent and the turn of the idiom an undoubted compatriot though at first glance the speaker did not look French, particularly in colouring. As he stood there bareheaded the April sun struck warmly on hair of an unusual bronze tint—a hue that had no real trace of red in it, and yet that was not brown. He was tall, carefully dressed, and had a noticeably graceful and easy carriage of the head, and indeed of his whole person. So much Laurent took in before he replied pleasantly:

"There is no bridge, I regret to say, Monsieur, within less than two miles of here. The nearest is at Oakford."

At his replying in French the stranger seemed surprised, as Laurent had quite expected that he would be. "Monsieur also is French?" he enquired in that tongue.

"I have that privilege," replied M. de Courtomer, smiling.

"You seem also, Monsieur, to have that of walking on the water, or pretty nearly," observed the newcomer. "Am I right in supposing that you arrived at your present position from the opposite bank—where I desire to find myself? If you would permit me to join you on your Ararat I could thence gain the shore, could I not?" And he advanced right to the water's edge.

"Good Heavens, have a care!" cried Laurent, alarmed. "I am in shallow water here, and have enough ado to keep my feet as it is, but between you and me there is the full force of the current—I don't know how deep the stream is to-day—and all sorts of nasty holes! Don't think of such a thing, I implore you!"

The stranger looked down at the smooth water swirling past his feet at remarkable speed. "The stream—yes, I see that it is excessive. But I do so wish myself on that bank! I am walking from Bidcombe to pick up the Bath coach again at Midhampton; and if I have to go out of my way to this bridge of which you have been kind enough to tell me I shall certainly miss it . . . and my valise which I sent on in it."

"But even that is not worth drowning yourself for," protested Laurent, staggering a little as he spoke. "This river is said to claim a life every year; pray do not be the candidate for 1814. The bridge at—Damnation!" He had dropped his fly.

The stream had it in an instant. Laurent stooped involuntarily to grasp at it as it was whirled out of his reach, lost his balance for a second, had to take a hasty step to recover this, slipped on a stone . . . and the stream had him also.

Not without a battle, however, since before it carried him into deeper water he almost contrived to regain his feet . . . but was pulled down again by the driving weight of it. As its cold fury rolled him over and over, struggling and gasping, he had a distinct (but surely erroneous) impression of a shout and a splash from the other bank, quickly forgotten in the stinging interlude which followed, filled to the brim as it was with confused sensations of choking, of a temperature which took his breath away, of thoughts of Maman, of doubts whether he would ever see France now, of a conviction that he must, of course, go with the stream. . . . But it was so difficult to keep one's head above water, . . . and he wasn't swimming, he was being hurtled. . . . And then, inconceivably, and yet, in a way, expectedly, he was spluttering in the shallows at the bend, his feet touching bottom in that place where the bank was so eaten away—a difficult place to get out at, but where he now most firmly intended to get out, and that instantly. Only the bank was still above his head, and he still had water to his breast, and the bottom was shelving and slippery. . . . But he managed to catch a bit of the old staking with one hand—and just then something clutched him from behind by the shoulder. . . .

Great God, he had jumped in, then! it was no illusion. Yet how, in the name of fortune . . . "There's bottom here!" gasped Laurent, and without loosing his hold of the staking, grabbed in his turn with his other hand, and discovered that he had his compatriot by the collar.

"Have you found your feet?" he asked, not wasting speech over his own amazement. "Try to catch hold of this piece of wood. Then I will get out somehow, and help you out. But we must be careful—the bank is rotten."

"Monsieur, how could you, how could you do such a hazardous thing!" panted Laurent. "I . . . really, words are ridiculous in face of . . . such an obligation. How you are here at all is nothing short of a miracle. You must have jumped . . . straight into the swiftest part of the current!"

They were both on the bank by this, drenched and coughing and rather like landed fishes themselves. But Laurent had no desire to laugh, for though their situation might be absurd now, it had narrowly escaped being tragic.

The water poured off the would-be rescuer as he raised himself and threw back the soaked hair from which the river had dragged the ribbon—hair longer than was usually to be seen in 1814. "I am here, Monsieur," he replied rather breathlessly, "because you pulled me out, that is plain. How could I stand there watching while the river carried you away! And I accomplished nothing at all—I merely made it more difficult for you to extricate yourself. . . . However, I daresay neither of us was really in danger."

"We were in danger," responded Laurent seriously, "and you far more than I. And I had warned you! As to accomplishing nothing, it is the intention which counts in such cases."

His companion was wringing out his sodden locks. "I had the intention of coming across, it is true. Here I am, then; I have saved . . . how much did you say . . . two miles of road?" He suddenly smiled; it was a very attractive smile, too.

"I shall always feel, at any rate, that I owe you the debt," said Laurent rather huskily. "And . . . thank God that you did not pay the price which you might very well have paid!" He held out his hand, wrung the wet hand put into it, and then, jumping to his feet, became very practical.

"We must not stay here a moment longer; we will go to the inn near, have a fire, and get our clothes off at once. Yours, Monsieur"—and as he looked at their deplorable condition he became aware that their owner wore a red ribbon in his buttonhole; he must have the Cross of St. Louis, then, but he was unusually young for such a distinction—"yours will never be dry in time for you to continue your journey to Bath. So you will allow me, will you not, the great pleasure of offering you hospitality for the night at least? I live about five miles from here."

"You are very kind indeed, Monsieur," said the dripping young man, hesitating. Then he looked at him frankly. "I should like it greatly . . . on condition that you will not tell any of your acquaintances of my foolish short cut across your river?"

"Conditions of that kind can be discussed later," responded M. de Courtomer, smiling. "At present I think our joint physical condition is what matters. . . . Excuse me if I lead the way."

(4)

Twenty minutes later both adventurers were peeling off their soaked garments before a hastily lit fire in a room of the Three Trouts, and shortly afterwards, wrapped in blankets, were ensconced before it in a couple of large chairs, with two steaming glasses beside them. And Walters the groom, to his own surprise, was riding across country on M. de Courtomer's cob to intercept the Bath coach at Midhampton and bring back the French gentleman's valise which it contained—this neat strategic idea having occurred to his master on his way to the inn, when it was borne in upon him that no clothes of his were likely to fit his guest, taller than himself by nearly a couple of inches.

Laurent had just now had, too, the opportunity of verifying what his first impressions had already told him, that his compatriot was an exceptionally well-built young man, with the lithe strength of steel. He had also seen that he wore round his left arm, just above the elbow, a little strip of some plaited or woven substance, not fine enough to be hair. Laurent had only obtained a momentary glimpse of this object, and his curiosity had not been gratified by another; but he had now the prospect of being able to study at leisure the appearance of this strangely made acquaintance, and he proceeded to do so.

He had the clear pallor and fine skin which often go with hair of warm colouring, and his, as it dried, was gradually resuming its proper shade, the deepest tone of September bracken. Even his eyes, which at a distance looked dark, were seen at closer quarters to be of a deep red-brown. The rest of his features were noticeably straight and delicate and strong; the chin, a little long, curved slightly forward and was squared at the corners, the mouth was firm and sweet—altogether a face of great individuality and charm, without the weakness which sometimes accompanies the latter quality in a man. Laurent took him to be about twenty-six—a couple of years older than himself.

"I do not know," he observed at last, ashamed to scrutinize any longer, "if it is correct to introduce oneself in this unconventional attire. I ought to have done it earlier. My name is Courtomer—Laurent de Courtomer. I have always lived in England."

"And mine," said the other, setting down his glass, "is La Rocheterie—Aymar de la Rocheterie, at your service. For my part, I have always lived in France."

"What!" cried Laurent, nearly bounding out of his blanket. "La . . . La Rocheterie . . . L'Oiseleur! You, Monsieur, are L'Oiseleur! Is it possible!"

In a lesser degree his companion also showed surprise. "My name is then known to you, Monsieur? But this is not Brittany!"

"But I am a Frenchman—and a Royalist!" cried M. de Courtomer. "I have known of you, Monsieur, for some time—no, I assure you that your name is not so unfamiliar over here as your modesty assumes. We have heard of the defence of the Moulin Brûlé! Indeed we were speaking of you only this morning, my great-aunts and I, and a gentleman who thinks he came over with you in the Brest packet. But he said you were . . . It's more than extraordinary! . . . L'Oiseleur, himself, here!"

"Ma foi, but this is to find oneself famous!" said M. de la Rocheterie, laughing. "One had, perhaps, the good—or ill—fortune to be known on the other side of the Channel, but over here, who cares for an obscure brigand, as our foes are so fond of calling us?"

Even in his present unusual attire, or absence of it, a young man who looked less like a brigand could hardly be imagined. And the question of birth could be set at rest for ever by the beautifully shaped if sunburnt hands emerging from the blanket. So Laurent, remembering M. de Vicq's picture of the hairy individual "not a gentleman" whose hand he had longed to shake, and mindful that he and the Aunts were coming to supper that evening, foresaw an amusing encounter. . . . But—to be sitting here tête-à-tête with this young hero, who had known countless days and nights of hazard and discomfort among the gorse and broom, with only a handful of men and his own wits and courage between him and Napoleon's vengeance . . . and he wrapped in a blanket because he had jumped into the Dart after him—it was incredible!

He pulled himself together.

"I believe, Monsieur, that you bear a title, do you not?" he asked, thinking of the introductions he should have to effect.

"A small one—Vicomte. You, Monsieur, perhaps also?"

Laurent named his. "But I do not use it here. When we are in France I suppose I shall have to tack it on again."

"Ah, you are returning, of course?"

"Almost immediately. Yet, since it is not really a return, it will be strange. . . . I was born in England; my father, now dead, married an Englishwoman and settled here in the early days of the Revolution."

"So Madame votre mère is English?" observed the Vicomte de la Rocheterie, with interest. "That then accounts for the perfection of your accent, Monsieur de Courtomer, and also—if as a Frenchman you can forgive me—for an appearance not altogether French. As you stood in the river which has so happily brought us together I had no idea that you were a compatriot."

"You must remember that I have lived all my life in England," said Laurent to this. "That, probably, has even more to do with it. And since we are on the subject of personal appearance, may I say that I never took you for French, either—till you spoke? Your hair . . . you will excuse me, I trust? is of an unusual colour for a Frenchman, is it not?"

The young man good-humouredly took hold of a damp bronze lock. "This tiresome stuff? Yes, I believe it is not often met with. Indeed, I have found it inconvenient at times, for that reason; in a tight corner one usually does not wish to be identified. As a matter of fact, I have some Norse blood in my veins, and the . . . the other member of my family who shares that with me has much the same hair. So no doubt it comes from that strain. . . . I hope that the next time I fall into a river I shall be wearing it short, which is probable, for I only keep it long to be like my Chouans. I wish it would dry." He put up his other hand to his head, and the blanket slipped instantly off his left shoulder and arm.

Before he could replace it Laurent's eyes had involuntarily darted to his elbow—and away again.

"You were looking at my bracelet, Monsieur?" enquired its owner, in his pleasant voice. "Now there, no doubt, is the explanation of my safe navigation of your river. Are you superstitious, Monsieur de Courtomer? No more than I, probably; so I would like you to realize that I wear this ridiculous thing for the sake of other people's superstitions only—I mean, of course, my men's."

And the little half-smile he gave Laurent (he seemed rarely to smile fully) had a tinge of mischief in it.

"I could not help seeing it," confessed the latter, rather red. "And that, then, is the famous charm which makes you invincible! Might I . . .?"

L'Oiseleur thrust out his arm again for his inspection. The mysterious object upon it resolved itself into a band of plaited rushes or coarse grass, about half an inch wide, fitting just tightly enough not to slip down over the elbow.

"I will make you another confession about that, Monsieur," said its wearer, looking down at it. "It is not even the original jartier which is supposed to have been bestowed upon me by the fairy Mélusine or her deputy! In a somewhat rough-and-tumble life a bracelet of rushes will not last for ever, and so I . . . have it renewed from time to time. Still, there is a strand of the original in it somewhere." He smiled again as he made this rather cynical admission, and finished the remains of his punch.

Laurent was examining the talisman with deep interest. "There is no fastening. Then, Monsieur, the . . . the fairy Mélusine plaits it on your arm every time?"

"She does," replied M. de la Rocheterie.

A woman's fingers, of course. Perhaps he was married; but Laurent did not, somehow, think so. He could not pursue further the question of the weaver, and, moreover, the possessor of the rush bracelet was now looking thoughtfully into the fire.

"And nothing has ever touched you, in all the time you have fought, since you wore that?" asked Laurent after a moment.

L'Oiseleur turned his head, and the enquirer had a little shock of surprise. . . . Or had he merely imagined that a profound sadness looked for a moment out of the red-brown eyes? It was gone so quickly that he was not sure—gone by the time his companion answered simply, "Nothing. I have never received a scratch, so I cannot claim the honour of having shed my blood for the King, as so many better men have done."

"Yet," observed Laurent, "the King seems to consider that you have done fully enough for him without that. That ribbon . . ."

"Yes. His Majesty was pleased to send me the Cross last year. Some of my men had better deserved it. They had no talisman."

"You must really need a strong head, Monsieur de la Rocheterie, not to believe, after all, in the efficacy of yours! Tell me, if I am not impertinent, whether there is not some one action which will break its power if you happen to do it? In most fairy tales it is so."

"I believe," said the young leader, wrapping himself up again, "that there is some dark story in the past history of this object or its predecessors, but I do not know what moral it is supposed to point. Apart from that—Morbleu, what an extraordinary thing! It has just happened to me, and I never gave it a thought!"

"What is it?" asked Laurent eagerly.

"I must never cross running water, except by a bridge, or on horseback, or by some means of that sort. I must never go through it in person. And, to do myself justice—and again in deference to those Chouans of mine—I never have . . . until to-day. But you cannot deny that I have crossed it this morning—water of the most running!"

And he looked at his fellow-adventurer in running water with unfeigned amusement.

(5)

As Laurent de Courtomer tied his stock that evening in his own bedroom, he was both thoughtful and excited. To fall into the river and narrowly escape drowning, to have a total stranger risk his life for him over it, to discover that the stranger in question was someone he knew about and admired, and, finally, to possess him at the moment as a guest under his own roof—these were sufficient reasons why the stock should be well tied . . . and sufficient excuse for the fact that it was not.

Nor had Laurent quite shaken off the shyness which had unexpectedly descended upon him when he was driving home from the Three Trouts with L'Oiseleur beside him—that sudden hot conviction that he, with nothing to his credit, had been chattering too freely to this young hero. Had or had not M. de la Rocheterie seemed a little remote, a little withdrawn, during that drive?

A knock at the door, interrupting these cogitations, heralded the entrance of Mme de Courtomer, looking charming but pale. Laurent's heart smote him as he turned round from the dressing-table. She kissed him long and closely; she had not yet got over her emotion.

"I am just going down to the drawing-room, my darling," she said. "I hope M. de la Rocheterie may be there; I want to see him alone. When you brought him to me in the garden I was, I fear, rather selfishly absorbed in thoughts of you and your danger."

Laurent nodded. "He tried to make me promise not to mention what he did, but of course—"

"An absolute stranger, Laurent! And such a risk! I cannot get accustomed to the idea!"

Like her son, Mme de Courtomer seemed a firm believer in the theory of "intention." Yet it had already been made perfectly clear to her by M. de la Rocheterie himself that he had in no sense saved Laurent's life.

"Maman," said Laurent, putting his arm round her, "if you can't get some more colour into those cheeks I shall not eat any dinner. Dearest, dearest little mother, I did not do it on purpose!—See now, I am going to kiss them very hard. . . . That's a trifle better! Now go down and thank M. de la Rocheterie for spoiling a very elegant suit of clothes—if he gives you the chance. Unless I have gauged him wrongly, you will not get very far."

"There is one thing that comforts me, Laurent," said Virginia de Courtomer, "and that is, that you would have done just the same in similar circumstances."

"Perhaps," replied her son. "But not so quickly!"

The enlightenment of M. de Vicq and the old ladies that evening was indeed great fun, only it was too soon over, and Laurent was a little afraid of embarrassing his guest, who seemed genuinely averse from anything resembling posing or display. But, probably just because he was so free from self-consciousness and so simply dignified, he took the ensuing adulation lightly, and yet with a fine courtesy as if he were aware that he was a young man receiving the homage of the old. If he found the worshippers a little absurd, he did not betray it. The impression which he had produced on Tante Clotilde, even before she realized whom the "Monsieur le Vicomte de la Rocheterie" of Laurent's introduction cloaked, was marked by her making him the suggestion of a curtsey of fifty years ago, with all Versailles behind it—an honour which no Englishman ever received from her. And M. de la Rocheterie had kissed her hand in a manner which also had tradition behind it. Yet more important to Laurent, really, than the unqualified success of his little coup de théâtre, than the joy of being able to whisper to M. de Vicq, "I expect you think, Monsieur, that L'Oiseleur has shaved since you saw him last? I expect he has—but not to that extent!" was his mother's murmur to him, just before they went in to supper. "Your Chouan has already enslaved me, Laurent, I think he is charming!"

But now supper was going forward, and M. de la Rocheterie was making obvious efforts to efface himself, to avoid being what he had become, the centre of the little festivity. But with everybody determined to make him so, it was impossible to get out of the position. First of all, M. de Vicq's mistake of the packet had to be explained. It appeared that L'Oiseleur had come over in it, and that he had heard another passenger being pointed out as himself, "which," as he added with a little smile, "enabled me to escape an attention that I had then no idea I should encounter."

"Ah, Vicomte," interposed Tante Clotilde significantly at this, "you are doubtless in England—am I indiscreet?—on the King's business?"

One felt it almost needed courage to reply, as L'Oiseleur did, "No, Madame; on a purely private matter." However, Tante Clotilde's large face wore the air of one who "knows better."

"I think," said M. de Vicq, then addressing him, "that I once had the pleasure, a few years ago, of meeting a gentleman of your name—a good deal older than you, however. Your father, perhaps?"

The young man's face changed subtly. "My father was guillotined with my mother, during the Terror, Monsieur."

It only needed this avowal to complete his prestige in the eyes of the Aunts. A ripple of emotion went round.

"Where did you meet M. de la Rocheterie, did you say, Laurent?" enquired Tante Clotilde when she had contributed to it.

"In the river, ma tante."

The old lady looked severe, for she did not like being jested with. "Please express yourself more accurately, great-nephew!" So Laurent elaborated, without changing, his statement.

On the heels of the ensuing sensation M. de Vicq asked suddenly whether it was true that the guest possessed, or was popularly supposed to possess, a talisman of some kind.

"Quite true, Monsieur," responded L'Oiseleur soberly. "I really have it—a magic garter, or jartier, as the common folk call it." Then he caught Laurent's eye, and smiled. "But its virtue is, of course, all nonsense."

"The popular voice, in short, ascribes to the possession of a charm what is in reality due solely to your own skill and valour!" observed M. de Vicq rather sententiously, but pointing this remark as a compliment by a bow.

"I did not mean that!" said Aymar de la Rocheterie, looking for the first time a trifle disconcerted. "And I spoke too strongly, for undoubtedly my possession of the jartier has influenced my men and given them confidence—they are exceedingly superstitious—so in that way the thing has its value. That is, in fact, why I wear it."

"And how did you acquire this jartier?" enquired Tante Clotilde massively.

"A witch gave it to me, Madame."

"A witch—a real witch!" exclaimed his hostess. "Oh, how, Monsieur de la Rocheterie—and why?"

"The 'why' makes rather a long story, Madame."

"We shall hope to hear it, then, after supper," announced Mlle Clotilde de Courtomer in a tone that seemed to settle the whole matter.

"And, perhaps, the whole story of the Moulin Brûlé too?" hazarded M. de Vicq; but L'Oiseleur shook his head with a little smile.

Mme de Courtomer looked from one to the other. "What was the Moulin Brûlé?" she enquired of the old gentleman in a low voice.

But it was Tante Clotilde who replied for him. "My dear Virginia—really!—before the hero of Penescouët himself! The details which reached us of that exploit were, I doubt not, inadequate, but surely we all treasure them too securely in our memories to ask 'What was the Moulin Brûlé'?"

Poor Mme de Courtomer, thus brought to book at her own table, before and on account of her guest, flushed, M. de la Rocheterie bit his lip and looked thoroughly uncomfortable, and Laurent's anger was kindled.

"You forget, I think, ma tante," he said as politely as he could, "that my mother, after all, is not French by birth; and it is quite plain that no one can have told her the story, for it is not one which she could ever have forgotten."

"Quite so—very well said!" put in M. de Vicq hastily, and he gallantly monopolized the old lady's attention while the awkward wave in the conversation caused by the boulder she had cast into it spent itself. Indeed Laurent, looking down the table after a moment's silent fight with his annoyance, was relieved to find that the "hero of Penescouët" was smiling delightfully at his hostess, and heard her say, smiling, too, "Will you ever be able to forgive me, Monsieur de la Rocheterie?"

"Madame," replied L'Oiseleur, "you cannot conceive what a relief it is to find that there is one fortunate being in Royalist circles who has not been pestered with the tale of that detestable old windmill! I sometimes wish I had never seen the place!"

When the ladies, following English custom, had left them, M. de Vicq drew in his chair and concentrated his attention on his fellow-guest.

"I remember the Vendée, of course," he remarked, "and the great days of the Chouannerie, Cadoudal's days. You are too young to recall them, Monsieur—but you have relit the sacred fire!"

"No—only fanned the embers," said L'Oiseleur quickly. "The fire is always there. The Breton does not change. Indeed, some of mine are identically the same as those of the great days. And one has the same devotion to rely on, the same obstinacy to combat, the same superstitions to use or respect, and the same kind of warfare."

"That warfare of hedgerows and heather of which one has heard," put in Laurent, his chin on his hands, "and which needs, I imagine, a special aptitude."

"I suppose it does. At any rate, it is the only kind which the Breton really understands. You have to be always on the move; if you have very few men, as I had—at least at the beginning, when I started with twenty-five—that is easy. And if you keep moving you are not only invisible, but the enemy thinks your numbers are much greater than they are. I have never had more than six hundred men, but they were all picked, and if I had told any one of them to go immediately and cut off his hand the only delay would have been the finding of the chopper. . . . Well, that is all over now. I suppose I ought to say, Thank God. I do say it—but one does not like parting from one's comrades."

"You have disbanded them, then?"

"Not yet. But I shall do so directly the King is actually in Paris."

"The King in Paris!" exclaimed the Baron de Vicq in a rapt tone. And he began a loyal reverie on that theme, to which the two young men listened with becoming patience. Then he reverted somewhat abruptly to the question of L'Oiseleur's amulet, and asked so many questions about it, that in the end M. de la Rocheterie, beginning, Laurent fancied, to be slightly bored, offered to show it to him, and, while M. de Vicq murmured delightedly, "Monsieur, you are really too obliging!" took off his coat with an apology to his host and turned up the sleeve of his fine shirt.

Laurent, leaning back on his chair, his hands behind his head, looked on amused. Little exclamations broke from the old Royalist as, spectacles on nose, he bent over the table and scrutinized the circlet closely. "And that is really the fairy garter of the legend—dear, dear, how wonderful! After all these years . . . so fresh and well-preserved . . . there must be something in it, after all! It is indeed to be hoped, Monsieur, that you will never lose that!"

The owner of the jartier, with his bare arm stretched out before him on the mahogany, caught his host's eye over the grey head. "Yes, as you say, Monsieur, remarkably well-preserved!" And Laurent, smiling back, had a delightful sense of complicity with him. He was not going to tell the old fellow what he had told him!

"My last doubts are removed," murmured M. de Vicq, taking off his spectacles. "Now I know that I really have shaken L'Oiseleur and no other by the hand!"

The bearer of that name, who was turning down his shirt-sleeve, stopped, and flushed very slightly.

"Why, Monsieur, did you think I was an impostor?" he demanded. "Was that why you wanted to see the thing?" And he looked at the old gentleman very straight and challengingly.

Poor M. de Vicq, meeting the spark he had so tactlessly struck out, confounded himself in apologies; on which M. de la Rocheterie, evidently quickly penitent, but still with a little air not free from hauteur, begged his pardon for having suspected his motive, and, peace being restored, their young host suggested that they should join the ladies.

"Very interesting, that," he thought as he opened the door. "So he's got a hot temper under that quiet exterior of his! I think that, for all his modesty and charm, I should be sorry to take liberties with M. le Vicomte de la Rocheterie!"

(6)

Installed on the sofa in the drawing-room, Tante Clotilde immediately motioned to M. de la Rocheterie to take his place beside her.

"Now, Vicomte, the story you promised us, if you please—the story of the jartier!" she said with heavy graciousness.

"I can recall no such promise, Madame," replied L'Oiseleur. "However, if you conceive that it would interest you . . . and M. le Baron," he added, flashing a glance half malicious, half apologetic on that offender, "I will endeavour not to bore you too much." He stirred his coffee for an instant. "You must know, then, that in the district of Penescouët there is a legend of an enchanted garter given in the Middle Ages by that ubiquitous immortal, the fairy Mélusine, to a knight whom it rendered invincible. This garter was said to be still in existence, in the keeping of an old witch in the forest of Armor—we still have witches in Brittany—whom some held to be the fairy Mélusine herself. I must also tell you, if you will pardon a reference to my personal appearance, that this knight—known to after ages only as L'Oiseleur—seems to have been so unfortunate as to possess hair of the colour of mine.

"Well, I had—I have—a specially devoted follower named Jacques Eveno, who comes from the neighbourhood of my little estate at Sessignes. This man, who not only knew the legend, but the old woman, too, who had the jartier, must have begun by wishing that he could procure the lucky talisman for me, but hesitated to steal it for fear the theft should bring misfortune on me. Then he must have pondered how to trick the witch into giving it me of her own free will, and how therefore to inveigle me—at the time perfectly innocent—into playing the part as it should be played. For it seems (but I only learnt this afterwards) that if a young man with reddish hair came at sunset to her hut with a hawk on his shoulder, and asked for a night's lodging, offering in payment merely a sprig of mistletoe . . . well, he was the dead Fowler come to life again, and she would give him the jartier as of right. Eveno, a simple peasant, successfully contrived that all those coincidences should come about—except indeed the finding of the hawk. One afternoon he got me into the heart of the forest on some pretext or other, and deliberately misled me, so that I lost my way and had to ask for shelter at the witch's hut. Knowing her reputation I made no difficulty about his suggestion that I should offer her the bit of mistletoe which he had plucked for me—one learns to humour superstition in Brittany. But the hawk . . . yes, that was strange."

"How did he procure the hawk, then?" asked Tante Odile as he paused.

"He did not, Madame; chance procured it, turning his fraud, for him, into reality . . . and somewhat frightening him, I think. For, as we went through the wood, I came on a young hawk half stunned on the ground, with a broken wing, and I picked the poor bird up and carried it for a while, and ended by putting it (all innocently) on my shoulder, where it stayed. So it was there, quite correctly, when I knocked at the witch's door." He smiled—that most attractive smile of his.

"And the witch, Monsieur—she gave you the charm?"

"Without demur. I was only afraid that she was going to kiss me! She did kiss my hands. You must remember, Mesdames, that at the moment I was completely in the dark, and had no idea for whom she took me, nor why, with the tears running down her wrinkled face, she brought out with such awe from a box of battered and time-blackened silver this little dried twist of rushes. Then the legend suddenly came back to me; and as she and Eveno were by now in a frenzy of excitement, and my protests had no effect, I . . . accepted the talisman, which was, so the wise woman assured me, the identical magic circlet which Mélusine had bestowed on the original L'Oiseleur of whom I was, somehow, a reincarnation. I retain, naturally, my own ideas on that subject, but afterwards, of course, my men always called me by that name."

"And you have the jartier still—you wear it perhaps?" asked Mme de Courtomer.

L'Oiseleur bowed. "I always wear it—for my men's sake. But as it was shrunken with age, and had moreover been cut, I could not wear it where a garter should be worn. So the witch fastened it round my left arm, like a bracelet."

The eyes of all the ladies went to his sleeve. But that it would have been out of place they would all, obviously, have dearly loved to invite the young man to remove his coat. Laurent thought it charming of him not to spoil the story for them by confessing that it was not exactly the original jartier which he wore now, and hugged himself to think that he had been the sole recipient of that confidence.

"But what, Monsieur," asked Tante Bonne a little timidly, "was the story of the first owner of the jartier?"

"Alas, Madame, I fear that it was tragic. The legends say that he was betrayed by the woman he loved . . . or else that he gave her the garter in obedience to her whim, and in consequence his enemies fell on him and slew him. I am not sure which; but it comes to the same thing."

"I hope—" began Mme de Courtomer rather rashly; and then, checking herself, blushed like a girl.

"Maman, Maman!" said Laurent to himself—and was surprised to see M. de la Rocheterie look across at her without the shadow of offence, and to hear him say, "Merci, Madame, but of that there is no danger!"

A little enigmatic smile just touched the corners of his firmly cut mouth, and Laurent presumed it meant that he was sure that no woman would ever have sufficient power over him to play Delilah.

At any rate no woman—or man either—had the power to get him to talk any more about himself that evening, and the affair of Penescouët went untold . . . till the guests had driven away in the venerable fly which had brought them.

"And now, Maman," said Laurent with a sigh of relief, "M. de la Rocheterie, as a sign that he has forgiven you for your lamentable ignorance, shall tell us two the true story of the Moulin Brûlé. Will you, Vicomte?"

"To save me from the possibility of being crushed like that again, Monsieur?" pleaded Mme de Courtomer, putting out her hand to him.

L'Oiseleur bent his handsome head and kissed it. "You could extort anything from me with that weapon, Madame," he replied. "Let us get it over then!"

(7)

Late that night Laurent, deeper than ever in the toils of hero-worship, stood, candlestick in hand, in his guest's bedroom, and, looking at M. de la Rocheterie as he took the watch from his fob and laid it on the dimity-hung dressing-table, said earnestly, "I hope you will sleep well!"

He himself would dream to-night of those revolving sheets of flame, the sails of the riddled Moulin Brûlé; of the Emperor's soldiers ceasing fire at last, thinking that they were merely wasting ammunition on the holocaust whose heat was too great for them to approach; and of the dozen blackened figures—or, more probably, of one figure in particular—bursting out of that inferno of smoke and blood and, completely surrounded though they were, cutting a way through the stupefied besiegers.

"I suppose you can—sleep in any surroundings," he added, for though he knew that L'Oiseleur must often have spent the night in the open, that reflection was somehow as incongruous as the recital downstairs with this composed and very well-dressed young man now calmly winding up his watch in the best bedroom of Keynton House.

"I much prefer a bed to any other surroundings," replied the Vicomte de la Rocheterie. "Yours, I am sure, is most comfortable." Here, as Laurent afterwards realized, he must have discovered on what a vain employment he was spending his time; but, instead of holding his useless watch to his ear, or otherwise betraying to the man in whose service he had wrecked it, the effect of Dart water upon its interior, he quietly laid it face downwards on the dressing-table, glanced at the mantelpiece to ascertain that there was a clock in the room, and went on, "By the way, Monsieur de Courtomer, I hope my early start to-morrow will not prevent my taking farewell of Mme la Comtesse?"

Laurent reassured him, warning him that, unless he chose to have coffee brought to him in his room, he would have to face an English breakfast. But for this M. de la Rocheterie expressed a preference.

"I trust you have everything you require?" then said Laurent, reluctantly preparing to take his leave. "No, there is one thing that you will need in the morning, Monsieur, and that is a hat. You cannot travel without one, though you can remedy the lack excellently well when you get to Bath. You must really allow me to supply you with one."

"Thank you," said his guest. "Yes, I suppose that to travel so far bareheaded might excite comment."

"Especially in your case," thought Laurent, though by now he admired the hair en queue. "Do you know Bath, Vicomte?" he asked as an excuse to linger a little.

"No, not at all," returned the traveller.

"It is a prodigious fine place," pronounced Laurent. "I hope I am not impertinent in assuming that it is not—fortunately—for the good of your health that you are going there?"

"No," answered L'Oiseleur, "it is certainly not for my health that I am going to Bath."

He was fingering, with bent head, the seals of his watch lying there. Laurent had the impression that his mouth tightened as he spoke, and got an instant conviction that M. de la Rocheterie's visit to Bath was no pleasure to him. He wondered, not for the first time, what the object of his journey could be, he whose Chouans were still under arms, yet who avowed that he was not on the King's business. And his eyes, following the strong, slender hand, noted the crest on the back of the watch, a swan with its neck encircled by a crown; he even distinguished, on the scroll below the proud and laconic motto, Sans tache. Both pleased him.

Then he made a more determined effort, and bade his guest good-night. There would always be the morning.

But the morning was disappointing, as usually on the occasion of an early start. There seemed no time for conversation, no opportunity for learning any more of the visitor. The inspiration which had come to Laurent of begging the latter to spend a day or two at Keynton House on his way back from Bath proved unfruitful, M. de la Rocheterie explaining that he would probably have to return by London and Dover. It was Mme de Courtomer who had most of L'Oiseleur's attention during the English breakfast, and it seemed to her son that it was not till the last stage of all had arrived, and he was walking down the village beside his guest, with Walters behind carrying his valise, that he had the chance of a word with him; and then there seemed nothing to say . . . just because there was so much. He tried, indeed, to thank him anew for yesterday's act, but even that expression of his feelings was debarred him. Aymar de la Rocheterie declared that thanks for a thing which he had not done made him feel as fraudulent as he sometimes did over the jartier. So Laurent, after murmuring stubbornly, "You meant to save me! I only wish I might have a chance of repaying you some day," had to desist. Then the coach came rumbling in.

"You have promised my mother that when you are in Paris you will give us the pleasure of seeing you, Monsieur," Laurent reminded the traveller. "I want the promise made to me, too."

"I do not need to be doubly bound," retorted M. de la Rocheterie, smiling. "And you, Monsieur de Courtomer, when are you coming to Brittany? We have a little river at Sessignes, with indifferent fishing . . . though to be sure I have succeeded in catching excellent trout at Pont-aux-Rochers . . . but that is a good way off."

"I do not need to be tempted by fishing," responded Laurent in his turn. "Some day . . ."

A hearty shake of the hand on both sides, and again that charming smile of L'Oiseleur's, and he was mounting to his place.

"At any rate, he's got my hat!" reflected Laurent, watching the coach roll off. Then he went rather pensively home.

CHAPTER II - "ROSES, ROSES ALL THE WAY"

"Both faithful and loyal, one grace more shall brim

His cup with perfection; a lady's true lover,

He holds—save his God and his King—none above her."

R. BROWNING, Which?

(1)

It is quite possible that Laurent de Courtomer did not miss Devonshire nearly as much as he had anticipated—not, at least, during those first weeks of excitement and fervour which followed Louis XVIII's entry into Paris on that third of May, 1814, behind the eight white horses from Napoleon's stable. There were more than enough of interests in his new life for a young Frenchman who had never been in France, let alone in Paris, and for a young Royalist who was not only sharing the triumph of his cause, but who was himself taking possession of his own deserted family mansion in the capital, and negotiating for the repurchase of his father's confiscated estates in the country.

Yet Laurent never quite forgot the young man he had met in the river. He had always a hope that he might run up against the Vicomte de la Rocheterie some day. Nothing, however, had been heard of him since the advent of a very polite note, written before he left England, thanking Mme de Courtomer for her hospitality.

So the strange, novelty-ridden months slipped past, till the autumn evening when Laurent found himself attending the great reception given by the Duc de Saint-Séverin which Royalty itself was gracing, in the person of the Duchesse d'Angoulême. Moreover, it was an open secret that the King himself would honour the assembly with a short visit if his gout permitted. M. de Courtomer had gone expecting to be bored (for he understood that there was to be no dancing) and thinking that, after all, Maman, nursing a cold at home, had perhaps the best of it. But he was not bored after the first half-hour or so.

The tremendous formalities of the Tuileries were not going to be observed in the Hôtel de Saint-Séverin. Though the Duchesse d'Angoulême, stiff and well-meaning as ever, was holding her court for the ladies in a separate room, her Royal uncle, when he came, was merely going to make a tour of the great salon, speaking to a few people here and there; and this in itself was considered extremely gracious of him, seeing how helpless his gout rendered him. In this vast apartment then, dazzlingly lit, yet only half filled by its hundreds of guests, the greater part of whom were men, Laurent talked to his acquaintances and awaited the entry of his sovereign. All at once the buzz of conversation was entirely stilled, and the young man, turning, saw that the doors at the other side of the room were open.

On the threshold stood that short, stout, but imposing figure of a King, the pale blue ribbon of the Saint-Esprit across his breast, his gouty legs encased in red velvet gaiters, wearing powder in his grey hair, which was still dressed in the fashion of his youth, with a curl behind each ear and a short queue. . . . Bourbon all over, from the prominent light blue eyes, the aquiline nose, the disdainful mouth, to the heavy double chin . . . the prince who through years of exile and privation had never abated a jot of his pretensions, but had waited for the day of their recognition till the day had come.

He advanced, walking with difficulty, but gracious. A little behind him could be seen the unpatrician head of his nephew, the Duc de Berry, and behind him again that of the King's favourite, the Comte de Blacas, tall, cold, dignified, and fair. And Louis XVIII had gone but a few steps along the bowing ranks of gentlemen before he beckoned to Blacas, and leant on his arm, for the effort of walking was great. Now and then he stopped and addressed a few words to one or another, on whom every eye was instantly fixed. At first the scene was amusing to Laurent, quite pleasantly free from the apprehension that any Royal conversation would come his way; then he became less interested.

"Who are those officers the King is coming to next?" he enquired of his companion.

"Vendeans or Bretons, most probably," replied the acquaintance. "He means to show them some favour, no doubt, Vendée having ruined herself for the Bourbons, and words being cheaper than pensions."

But Laurent did not hear this cynical comment. Who—who was that officer the King was addressing now—a tall, slim figure in dark green? The figure's back was towards Laurent, but he would know that hair in a thousand, even though it were no longer gathered into a ribbon, but cut short like everyone else's! Ridiculously excited, he began to try to work himself a little nearer through the press immediately about him, and, obtaining a new angle of vision, saw the officer's face. It was—it was! and he was looking down at Royalty with just that quiet composure, that complete absence of self-consciousness which seemed his native gift. The King, on the other hand, seemed to be half-playfully scolding him.

At last, after shaking his head at L'Oiseleur with a smile, he passed on, and Laurent saw M. de la Rocheterie, when he raised himself from his bow, say something over his shoulder to one of his companions. M. de Courtomer began hastily to extricate himself entirely from the deeply interested throng in which he was embedded, but by the time he reached the spot where L'Oiseleur had stood, his quarry had disappeared.

Half an hour later, however, he came on Aymar de la Rocheterie again, quite unexpectedly, in a smaller and only half-populated room. At one end was a sort of alcove with a swinging lamp, and here he was standing talking to a beautiful woman in green and silver, dark and tall and animated, who was making much play with a fan. Laurent could hardly go and interrupt; but he reflected that if he waited he might have a chance of catching L'Oiseleur's attention, or of following him. And as, with this object, he remained near the door, he overheard a conversation.

"Monsieur du Tremblay," said a woman's voice, "you know him—M. de la Rocheterie, I mean—you are almost a neighbour; do tell us whether that is a case for congratulation?"

Laurent turned at once to see who the man who knew L'Oiseleur might be, and recognized one of the officers from the group in the salon—the very one, he fancied, to whom he had seen La Rocheterie speak—a good-looking man of about five and forty. This gentleman now replied to the lady who had questioned him, "Oh, no, Madame; not to my knowledge—no, I should think certainly not."

"L'Oiseleur's heart is in his own keeping?"

"Either that, or—but I am not in his confidence—that of the cousin with whom he was brought up. But she is married to an old roué, though she does not live with him."

"Where does she live, then?"

"Like La Rocheterie, with his grandmother, at his château of Sessignes."

The lady opened her eyes wide, and a gentleman with her observed drily, "Très commode pour que le beau cousin la console!"

M. du Tremblay shook his head. "Nothing of the sort, I assure you. La Rocheterie has a very cold temperament; there has never been a breath of scandal. Moreover, the attachment is all hearsay."

"But it will add the last touch to L'Oiseleur's vogue," said the lady meditatively—"an unfortunate love affair!" And her companion observed, "One knows those 'cold temperaments.' Their owners sometimes do the most astonishing things."

M. du Tremblay smiled. "Not La Rocheterie, I think. The cousin, Mme de Villecresne, is, by the way, the heroine of a little story which may interest you. During the fighting last year, knowing that La Rocheterie was in great need of definite information as to whether there were or were not Imperialist troops in a certain little town—it was Chalais—she deliberately drove into it in her carriage with her maid and a trunk or two, as though she were travelling, discovered that there were troops there—since they stopped her—and sent off the maid with the news to L'Oiseleur. The Imperialists were very angry when they found out, too late, how they had been outwitted."

"Ah, surely she was in love with him!" deduced the lady, her eyes fixed on the alcove, while "Rather a dangerous game to play," commented the male hearer. "Tell me," he went on, "do you consider that La Rocheterie deserves the military reputation he has acquired?"

"Certainly," replied M. du Tremblay. "He's a fine leader, with just that dash of recklessness in his caution—or of caution in his recklessness—which is so disconcerting to an enemy. It is a pity that his talents have not had wider scope."

Laurent, who had been listening avidly, felt very kindly towards this generous appreciator. The lady, still pensive over the possible love affair, asked where the roué husband lived, to which M. du Tremblay replied that when last he had heard of him he was in England at Bath.

Bath! Illumination broke upon M. de Courtomer; he almost betrayed that he was listening. But at that moment La Rocheterie caught sight of him. His face lighted up, he said a word to his fair companion, and came quickly towards Laurent, holding out his hand.

"My dear Comte, how delightful! I had a hope that I might meet you here. Come and let me present you to Mme de Morsan."

To tell truth, Laurent would much have preferred him without the lady, who was so resplendent, though in perfectly good taste, that she rather alarmed him. But in a moment he was bending before her, a few commonplaces passed, and then, to his disappointment, he was alone with her, for the Vicomte Mathieu de Montmorency, the Duchesse d'Angoulême's chevalier d'honneur, suddenly appeared and signified that the Princess wished to speak to the Vicomte de la Rocheterie, and L'Oiseleur, with a tiny shrug of his shoulders, was obliged to go.

"What it is to be famous!" said Mme de Morsan, letting her fine eyes roam over his substitute. "Shall we sit down, Monsieur de Courtomer, and await my cousin's return?"

They sat. So she was a cousin, too!

"Ce cher Aymar," resumed Mme de Morsan, "he really has no liking for being a lion. And one would fancy that what he has done in Paris would sensibly cloud the sun of Royal favour. On the contrary, here is Her Royal Highness sending for him. But possibly, with her detestation of all things revolutionary, that is precisely why."

Laurent asked what he had done.

"You did not hear? They were talking of nothing else in the great salon a little while ago. Yesterday he refused the Legion of Honour, which the King wanted to give him in addition to his Cross of St. Louis, and this evening he stuck to his refusal—very respectfully, of course—to the King's face."

"I saw the conversation," said Laurent, "though I could not hear it. His Majesty did not seem displeased."

"No, oddly enough, he was not. And, after all, it is Napoleon's decoration, even if he chooses to bestow it. He scolded M. de la Rocheterie . . . but what more flattering than a Royal scolding? It is enough to make Aymar the rage in Court circles, much more than his military exploits. But, as I said, he has small taste for that sort of thing."

"M. de la Rocheterie refused the Legion of Honour because of its associations, then?"

"I suppose so. He has the strangest ideas! His parents were both guillotined, one must remember, and so—" Mme de Morsan shrugged her shoulders. "Did I understand, Monsieur, that you had met in England?"

Laurent told her how.

"He jumped in?—Just like Aymar! For all that quiet tenacity of his he adores taking risks. . . You know, Comte," she went on after a moment, "the risk he took when he openly defied the Emperor in 1813 was out of all reason—one young man alone against all the military authorities of the district. You have heard about that—no? They were trying to arrest him at last because of his refusal to enter the Emperor's guard of honour. He was surprised at Sessignes—his home—and rather than be taken, which would have meant either submission to Napoleon's wishes or a fortress . . . for him, of course, a fortress . . . he leapt straight out of the window before their eyes, swam the river, and took to the woods. He had outlawed himself; still more so when he sent a letter to the sous-prefet, saying briefly, 'Napoleon wishes me to fight; very well, I will fight!' He had no followers at all when he sent that challenge. . . . But you will think that I can talk of no other man! Let us speak of someone else—yourself, for instance, Monsieur de Courtomer!"

They talked small talk. Then, to Laurent's relief, an elderly man came and bore off Mme de Morsan, who went rather reluctantly, but not, Laurent was aware, because she was leaving him. But, since it was just possible that L'Oiseleur would return thither, the young man waited in the alcove. And before very long, to his great pleasure, he saw him making his way through the room again.

"I am lucky to find you still here, Monsieur de Courtomer," he remarked with a little smile, sitting down by him. "I was afraid that you might be gone." On the disappearance of Mme de Morsan he bestowed not even an enquiry.

"Your cousin," Laurent informed him, "was carried off a little while ago."

"Mme de Morsan is not my cousin," replied M. de la Rocheterie a trifle curtly. "She is the widow of a nephew of my grandmother's, Edouard de Morsan, a rather distinguished scholar in his day.—Well, Comte, did you catch any more salmon or pull any more rash persons out of the river before you left England? And how is Madame votre mère, and your venerable aunts?"

"I hope you mean to satisfy yourself personally on that score," replied Laurent. "They will all be delighted to see you, particularly my mother."

"She is not here, then? I hope indeed to give myself the pleasure of calling on them. I should have done so already, but somehow a provincial always finds so much business to transact on his rare visits to Paris, and mine have been very rare of late."

Provincial indeed! Where was there any trace of that? Too shy to refer to the affair of the Legion of Honour, or even to ask him about his recent interview with the Dauphine, Laurent looked at the Cross of St. Louis over La Rocheterie's heart, where previously he had only seen the ribbon—the white cross sown with fleur-de-lys, where on a crimson ground the royal saint held in one hand a crown of laurels, in the other the crown of thorns and the nails. How strikingly his uniform with its high collar and the black stock inside set off his clear, pale face, his lithe figure, and the hair like September bracken. Laurent did not wonder that his "cousin" frankly admired him. Did he admire her? From the way in which he had repudiated their relationship, apparently not.

L'Oiseleur noticed his gaze. "I'm not the wild Chouan any more, you see," he said, smiling and running his hand over his head. "But I should not be surprised if, when you come and visit me in the spring—as I hope I may persuade you to do—I am not condemned to wearing those long locks again."

"Why, you do not anticipate fighting again, surely?"

"No, no; and if there were I could hardly grow them to order in a day or two. But my grandmother, who is very much ancien régime, greatly prefers the queue to which she was accustomed—in my father, for instance. So when I return, as I shortly shall, to my rustic solitudes, I may have to let my hair grow again to please her. But I drew the line at showing myself in Paris in times of peace like that!"

"Some men with his reputation would cling to the singularity," thought Laurent; "I was sure he hated display."

"Your men are disbanded now, I suppose?" he enquired.

"Yes, the Eperviers exist no longer.—Did I tell you that they called themselves the 'Hawks'—I suppose because of the name of 'Fowler' that came to me with the jartier. But I am a peaceful country gentleman now, and keep pigeons, not hawks."

"But you have your swan—or swans perhaps?" observed Laurent, thinking of his crest.

L'Oiseleur looked surprised for a moment; then he smiled. "Ah, I see. Yes, we bear seven on the coat. That is where the name of Sessignes comes from—Sept-Cygnes. There are wild ones in the river sometimes. But I hope you will see them for yourself."

Why, when he spoke of his home, did his face seem, ever so little, to cloud? It struck Laurent that his good spirits, though evidently unassumed, did not go very deep. Perhaps he had terrible memories from childhood? He stole a glance at his profile—strangely sensitive, for all its vigour and resolution. But, puzzling or no, he was more attractive than ever.

Peste! here was that Mme de Morsan back again, on the arm of her cavalier, and her voice saying, "My dear Aymar, I want to hear everything Her Royal Highness said to you!" and, though they both begged him to remain, Laurent excused himself. He should see M. de la Rocheterie later at the Hotel de Courtomer.

About a quarter of an hour later he drifted past the room again on his way out. It was empty now, so his glance, reminiscently, went clear to the other end. But it was not quite empty, for the couple were there still, standing under the lamp. And, thought M. de Courtomer with all the worldly experience of four-and-twenty, as Mme de Morsan's languorous expression and half-mocking smile smote themselves into his perceptions, "if ever a woman was set on a man, she is on him!" But he hesitated to add that the reverse was true, for L'Oiseleur was undisguisedly frowning at her with that peculiarly straight gaze he had when he was angry—as witnessed by Laurent in his own dining-room across the Channel. Unless, of course, it was a lovers' quarrel. They made, indeed, a most striking pair—but somehow he did not want . . . How ridiculous for him to assume a critical attitude to the Vicomte de la Rocheterie's affaires de coeur . . . if he had any.

(2)

L'Oiseleur did pay his call at the Hôtel de Courtomer, but, enormously to Laurent's disappointment, it was when he himself happened to be out. Mme de Courtomer reported that he had said he was on his way back to Brittany in a day or two, so Laurent concluded that the last picture he would have of him would be of his standing with the lady in green and silver under the filigree lamp, looking so deeply annoyed.

But two days later, as he chanced to walk down the Tuileries garden, he caught sight, amid a tolerable crowd, of two people in front of him who gave him a start. He saw only their backs; but one undoubtedly was L'Oiseleur's. Yet he had on his arm a lady who was obviously not Mme de Morsan. For one thing, she was not so tall—she only came up to her escort's shoulder; for another, from below her bonnet escaped a tendril of bright bronze; and for a third, Aymar de la Rocheterie's own head was bent down towards her in a way it had shown no sign of doing to Mme de Morsan. They were obviously talking very intimately—so intimately that the self-denying Laurent slackened his faster pace lest he should overtake them; and they were soon lost in the crowd.

Was that the real cousin, the heroine of the exploit at Chalais, the member of his family who shared his Northern blood—the lady whose unhappy marriage to a roué might very well have been the cause of his visit to England, the lady who had . . . perhaps . . . the charge of his heart?

This question Laurent asked of the unresponsive facade of the Tuileries as he strong-mindedly returned towards it. For the answer to it he would have to wait now till the spring . . . and the spring would be a deuced long time in coming.

(3)

But it was not. The winter—gay despite almost universal discontent—passed very swiftly in Paris. Laurent went out a great deal, and already the Aunts said that it was time he should think of marrying, particularly as his English grandfather, who died in the autumn, had left him nearly all his money. His mother laughed and replied, "Wait till he sees a lady he likes," to which Tante Clotilde responded: "Virginia, that is not the way things are done in France! It is your—our—duty to find a suitable match." And Mme de Courtomer promised that she would try.

Yet had she really made any matrimonial plans for her son they could hardly have been followed up that spring. The bombshell of Napoleon's landing at Cannes on March 1st would have cast them into as much confusion as it did the whole organization of the newly established regime. But Laurent's mind at least was not troubled by divided counsels; he was off to join the Royalists of the west. Nothing could stop him from seizing this unexpected chance of proving his loyalty, and Mesdames Tantes, at all events, were not likely to do anything in that direction. They gave him benedictions and scapulars. His mother tried not to show her heart. The leader of all others whom he longed to join was, of course, L'Oiseleur in Brittany—he imagined that he would spring at once to arms—but, not having heard anything of him since the autumn, and not knowing whether he himself would prove a welcome recruit, he abandoned the idea.

Moreover, directly it became known that the Duc de Bourbon was being sent to the Loire, it seemed plain to Laurent and all his like-minded friends that Vendée, and not Brittany, would prove the centre of resistance; and so, having had the good fortune to procure a personal introduction to the Vendean general, Comte Charles d'Autichamp, who held the military command at Angers, he and a few others set off thither, full of enthusiasm to lay their swords, through him, at the feet of the Duc d'Enghien's father.

CHAPTER III - IN THE DUST