“You merit two deaths for your insolence,” said he, “but the oath of which you spoke restrains me, and I will touch you no more; let me pass. Come, madame, I answer for your free passage.”

  Then appeared a woman, whose head was covered by a hood, and her face by a mask, and who took Ernanton’s arm, tremblingly. St. Maline stood by, stifling with rage at his merited punishment. He drew his dagger as Ernanton passed by him. Did he mean to strike Ernanton, or only to do what he did? No one knew, but as they passed, his dagger cut through the silken hood of the duchess and severed the string of her mask, which fell to the ground. This movement was so rapid that in the half light no one saw or could prevent it. The duchess uttered a cry; St. Maline picked up the mask and returned it to her, looking now full in her uncovered face.

  “Ah!” cried he, in an insolent tone, “it is the beautiful lady of the litter. Ernanton, you get on fast.”

  Ernanton stopped and half-drew his sword again; but the duchess drew him on, saying, “Come on, I beg you, M. Ernanton.”

  “We shall meet again, M. de St. Maline,” said Ernanton, “and you shall pay for this, with the rest.”

  And he went on without meeting with any further opposition, and conducted the duchess to her litter, which was guarded by two servants. Arrived there and feeling herself in safety, she pressed Ernanton’s hand, and said, “M. Ernanton, after what has just passed, after the insult which, in spite of your courage, you could not defend me from, and which might probably be renewed, we can come here no more; seek, I beg of you, some house in the neighborhood to sell or to let; before long you shall hear from me.”

  “Must I now take leave of you, madame?” said Ernanton, bowing in token of obedience to the flattering orders he had just received.

  “Not yet, M. de Carmainges; follow my litter as far as the new bridge, lest that wretch who recognized in me the lady of the litter, but did not know me for what I am, should follow to find out my residence.”

  Ernanton obeyed, but no one watched them. When they arrived at the Pont Neuf, which then merited the name, as it was scarcely seven years since Ducerceau had built it, the duchess gave her hand to Ernanton, saying, “Now go, monsieur.”

  “May I dare to ask when I shall see you again, madame?”

  “That depends on the length of time which you take in executing my commission, and your haste will be a proof to me of your desire to see me again.”

  “Oh, madame, I shall not be idle.”

  “Well, then, go, Ernanton.”

  “It is strange,” thought the young man, as he retraced his steps; “I cannot doubt that she likes me, and yet she does not seem the least anxious as to whether or not I get killed by that brute of a St. Maline. But, poor woman, she was in great trouble, and the fear of being compromised is, particularly with princesses, the strongest of all sentiments.”

  Ernanton, however, could not forget the insult he had received, and he returned straight to the hotel. He was naturally decided to infringe all orders and oaths, and to finish with St. Maline; he felt in the humor to fight ten men, if necessary. This resolution sparkled in his eyes when he reached the door of the “Brave Chevalier.” Madame Fournichon, who expected his return with anxiety, was standing trembling in the doorway. At the sight of Ernanton she wiped her eyes, as if she had been crying, and throwing her arms round the young man’s neck, begged for his pardon, in spite of her husband’s representations that, as she had done no wrong, she had nothing to be pardoned for. Ernanton assured her that he did not blame her at all — that it was only her wine that was in fault.

  While this passed at the door, all the rest were at table, where they were warmly discussing the previous quarrel. Many frankly blamed St. Maline; others abstained, seeing the frowning brow of their comrade. They did not attack with any less enthusiasm the supper of M. Fournichon, but they discussed as they ate.

  “As for me,” said Hector de Bizan, “I know that M. de St. Maline was wrong, and that had I been Ernanton de Carmainges, M. de St. Maline would be at this moment stretched on the ground instead of sitting here.”

  St. Maline looked at him furiously.

  “Oh, I mean what I say,” continued he; “and stay, there is some one at the door who appears to agree with me.”

  All turned at this, and saw Ernanton standing in the doorway, looking very pale. He descended from the step, as the statue of the commander from his pedestal, and walked straight up to St. Maline, firmly, but quietly.

  At this sight, several voices cried, “Come here, Ernanton; come this side, Carmainges; there is room here.”

  “Thank you,” replied the young man; “but it is near M. de St. Maline that I wish to sit.” St. Maline rose, and all eyes were fixed on him. But as he rose, his face changed its expression.

  “I will make room for you, monsieur,” said he, gently; “and in doing so address to you my frank and sincere apologies for my stupid aggression just now; I was drunk; forgive me.”

  This declaration did not satisfy Ernanton; but the cries of joy that proceeded from all the rest decided him to say no more, although a glance at St. Maline showed him that he was not to be trusted. St. Maline’s glass was full, and he filled Ernanton’s.

  “Peace! peace!” cried all the voices.

  Carmainges profited by the noise, and leaning toward St. Maline, with a smile on his lips, so that no one might suspect the sense of what he was saying, whispered:

  “M. de St. Maline, this is the second time that you have insulted me without giving me satisfaction; take care, for at the third offense I will kill you like a dog.”

  And the two mortal enemies touched glasses as though they had been the best friends.

  CHAPTER LIX.

  WHAT WAS PASSING IN THE MYSTERIOUS HOUSE.

  While the hotel of the “Brave Chevalier,” the abode, apparently, of the most perfect concord, with closed doors and open cellars, showed through the openings of the shutters the light of its candles and the mirth of its guests, an unaccustomed movement took place in that mysterious house of which our readers have as yet only seen the outside.

  The servant was going from one room to another, carrying packages which he placed in a trunk. These preparations over, he loaded a pistol, examined his poniard, then suspended it, by the aid of a ring, to the chain which served him for a belt, to which he attached besides a bunch of keys and a book of prayers bound in black leather.

  While he was thus occupied, a step, light as that of a shadow, came up the staircase, and a woman, pale and phantom-like under the folds of her white veil, appeared at the door, and a voice, sad and sweet as the song of a bird in the wood, said: “Remy, are you ready?”

  “Yes, madame, I only wait for your box.”

  “Do you think these boxes will go easily on our horses?”

  “Oh! yes, madame, but if you have any fear, I can leave mine; I have all I want there.”

  “No, no, Remy, take all that you want for the journey. Oh! Remy! I long to be with my father; I have sad presentiments, and it seems an age since I saw him.”

  “And yet, madame, it is but three months; not a longer interval than usual.”

  “Remy, you are such a good doctor, and you yourself told me, the last time we quitted him, that he had not long to live.”

  “Yes, doubtless; but it was only a dread, not a prediction. Sometimes death seems to forget old men, and they live on as though by the habit of living; and often, besides, an old man is like a child, ill to-day and well to-morrow.”

  “Alas! Remy, like the child also, he is often well to-day and dead to-morrow.”

  Remy did not reply, for he had nothing really reassuring to say, and silence succeeded for some minutes.

  “At what hour have you ordered the horses?” said the lady, at last.

  “At two o’clock.”

  “And one has just struck.”

  “Yes, madame.”

  “No one is watching outside?”

  “No one.”

  “Not even that unhappy young man?”

  “Not even he.”

  And Remy sighed.

  “You say that in a strange manner, Remy.”

  “Because he also has made a resolution.”

  “What is it?”

  “To see us no more; at least, not to try to see us any more.”

  “And where is he going?”

  “Where we are all going — to rest.”.

  “God give it him eternally,” said the lady, in a cold voice, “and yet — ”

  “Yet what, madame?”

  “Had he nothing to do here?”

  “He had to love if he had been loved.”

  “A man of his name, rank, and age, should think of his future.”

  “You, madame, are of an age, rank, and name little inferior to his, and you do not look forward to a future.”

  “Yes, Remy, I do,” cried she, with a sudden flashing of the eyes; “but listen! is that not the trot of a horse that I hear?”

  “Yes, I think so.”

  “Can it be ours?”

  “It is possible; but it is an hour too soon.”

  “It stops at the door, Remy.”

  Remy ran down and arrived just as three hurried blows were struck on the door.

  “Who is there?” said he.

  “I!” replied a trembling voice, “I, Grandchamp, the baron’s valet.”

  “Ah! mon Dieu! Grandchamp, you at Paris! speak low! Whence do you come?”

  “From Meridor. Alas, dear M. Remy!”

  “Well,” cried the lady from the top of the stairs, “are they our horses, Remy?”

  “No, madame, it is not them. What is it, Grandchamp?”

  “You do not guess?”

  “Alas! I do; what will she do, poor lady.”

  “Remy,” cried she again, “you are talking to some one?”

  “Yes, madame.”

  “I thought I knew the voice.”

  “Indeed, madame.”

  She now descended, saying:

  “Who is there? Grandchamp?”

  “Yes, madame, it is I,” replied the old man sadly, uncovering his white head.

  “Grandchamp! you! oh! mon Dieu! my presentiments were right; my father is dead?”

  “Indeed, madame, Meridor has no longer a master.”

  Pale, but motionless and firmly, the lady listened; Remy went to her and took her hand softly.

  “How did he die; tell me, my friend?” said she.

  “Madame, M. le Baron, who could no longer leave his armchair, was struck a week ago by an attack of apoplexy. He muttered your name for the last time, then ceased to speak, and soon was no more.”

  Diana went up again without another word. Her room was on the first story, and looked only into a courtyard. The furniture was somber, but rich, the hangings, in Arras tapestry, represented the death of our Saviour, a prie-Dieu and stool in carved oak, a bed with twisted columns, and tapestries like the walls, were the sole ornaments of the room. Not a flower, no gilding, but in a frame of black was contained a portrait of a man, before which the lady now knelt down, with dry eyes, but a sad heart. She fixed on this picture a long look of indescribable love. It represented a young man about twenty-eight, lying half naked on a bed; from his wounded breast the blood still flowed, his right hand hung mutilated, and yet it still held a broken sword. His eyes were closed as though he were about to die, paleness and suffering gave to his face that divine character which the faces of mortals assume only at the moment of quitting life for eternity. Under the portrait, in letters red as blood, was written, “Aut Cæsar aut nihil.” The lady extended her arm, and spoke as though it could hear her.

  “I had begged thee to wait, although thy soul must have thirsted for vengeance; and as the dead see all, thou hast seen, my love, that I lived only not to kill my father, else I would have died after you; and then, you know, on your bleeding corpse I uttered a vow to give death for death, blood for blood, but I would not do it while the old man called me his innocent child. Thou hast waited, beloved, and now I am free: the last tie which bound me to earth is broken. I am all yours, and now I am free to come to you.”

  She rose on one knee, kissed the hand, and then went on: “I can weep no more — my tears have dried up in weeping over your tomb. In a few months I shall rejoin you, and you then will reply to me, dear shade, to whom I have spoken so often without reply.” Diana then rose, and seating herself in her chair, muttered, “Poor father!” and then fell into a profound reverie. At last she called Remy.

  The faithful servant soon appeared.

  “Here I am, madame.”

  “My worthy friend, my brother — you, the last person who knows me on this earth — say adieu to me.”

  “Why so, madame?”

  “Because the time has come for us to separate.”

  “Separate!” cried the young man. “What do you mean, madame?”

  “Yes, Remy. My project of vengeance seemed to me noble and pure while there remained an obstacle between me and it, and I only contemplated it from afar off; but now that I approach the execution of it — now that the obstacle has disappeared — I do not draw back, but I do not wish to drag with me into crime a generous and pure soul like yours; therefore you must quit me, my friend.”

  Remy listened to the words of Diana with a somber look.

  “Madame,” replied he, “do you think you are speaking to a trembling old man? Madame, I am but twenty-six; and snatched as I was from the tomb, if I still live, it is for the accomplishment of some terrible action — to play an active part in the work of Providence. Never, then, separate your thoughts from mine, since we both have the same thoughts, sinister as they may be. Where you go, I will go; what you do I will aid in; or if, in spite of my prayers, you persist in dismissing me — ”

  “Oh!” murmured she, “dismiss you! What a word, Remy!”

  “If you persist in that resolution,” continued the young man, “I know what I have to do, and all for me will end with two blows from a poniard — one in the heart of him whom you know, and the other in your own.”

  “Remy! Remy!” cried Diana, “do not say that. The life of him you threaten does not belong to you — it is mine — I have paid for it dearly enough. I swear to you, Remy, that on the day on which I knelt beside the dead body of him” — and she pointed to the portrait — ”on that day I approached my lips to that open wound, and the trembling lips seemed to say to me, ‘Avenge me, Diana! — avenge me!’“

  “Madame — ”

  “Therefore, I repeat, vengeance is for me, and not for you; besides, for whom and through whom did he die? By me and through me.”

  “I must obey you, madame, for I also was left for dead. Who carried me away from the middle of the corpses with which that room was filled? — You. Who cured me of my wounds? — You. Who concealed me? — You always. Order, then, and I will obey, provided that you do not order me to leave you.”

  “So be it, Remy; you are right; nothing ought to separate us more.”

  Remy pointed to the portrait.

  “Now, madame,” said he, “he was killed by treason — it is by treason that he must be revenged. Ah! you do not know one thing — the hand of God is with us, for to-night I have found the secret of the ‘Aqua tofana,’ that poison of the Medicis and of Rene the Florentine.”

  “Really?”

  “Come and see, madame.”

  “But where is Grandchamp?”

  “The poor old man has come sixty leagues on horseback; he is tired out, and has fallen asleep on my bed.”

  “Come, then,” said Diana; and she followed Remy.

  CHAPTER LX.

  THE LABORATORY.

  Remy led the lady into a neighboring room; and pushing a spring which was hidden under a board in the floor, and which, opening, disclosed a straight dark staircase, gave his hand to Diana to help her to descend. Twenty steps of this staircase, or rather ladder, led into a dark and circular cave, whose only furniture was a stove with an immense hearth, a square table, two rush chairs, and a quantity of phials and iron boxes. In the stove a dying fire still gleamed, while a thick black smoke escaped through a pipe fastened into the wall. From a still placed on the hearth a few drops of a liquid, yellow as gold, was dropping into a thick white phial. Diana looked round her without astonishment or terror; the ordinary feelings of life seemed to be unknown to her who lived only in the tomb. Remy lighted a lamp, and then approached a well hollowed out in the cave, attached a bucket to a long cord, let it down into the well, and then drew it up full of a water as cold as ice and as clear as crystal.

  “Approach, madame,” said he.

  Diana drew near. In the bucket he let fall a single drop of the liquid contained in the phial, and the entire mass of the water became instantaneously yellow; then the color evaporated, and the water in ten minutes became as clear as before.

  Remy looked at her.

  “Well?” said she.

  “Well, madame,” said he, “now dip in that water, which has neither smell nor color, a glove or a handkerchief; soak it in scented soap, pour some of it into the basin where you are about to wash your hands or face, and you will see, as was seen at the court of Charles IX., the flower kill by its perfume, the glove poison by its contact, the soap kill by its introduction into the pores of the skin. Pour a single drop of this pure oil on the wick of a lamp or candle, and for an hour the candle or lamp will exhale death, and burn at the same time like any other.”

  “You are sure of what you say, Remy?”

  “All this I have tried. See these birds who can now neither drink nor eat; they have drunk of water like this. See this goat who has browsed on grass watered with this same water; he moves and totters; vainly now should we restore him to life and liberty; his life is forfeited, unless, indeed, nature should reveal to his instinct some of those antidotes to poison which animals know, although men do not.” — ”Can I see this phial, Remy?”