“To-morrow! why to-morrow? Death does not turn back nor stay his course.”

  “I need time for thought and self communion, I cannot so soon forget the life I have led, however much I may regret it. I thank you for your counsel, my father; it will not be unfruitful.”

  “God grant it! but you know the wise man’s axiom, — never put off till to-morrow what you can do to-day.”

  “I already owe you my thanks; I was discouraged and you have comforted my spirits. One cannot do everything at once, my father.”

  “Oh! Monsieur le Marquis,” replied the Monk, with a respectful bow, “it needs but a minute to turn a sinner into a penitent, a lost soul into one of the elect. If only you would...”

  “Well and good, my father, to-morrow. There I hear the dinner bell,” — and he dismissed him with a wave of the hand, and plunged down a side path.

  The tutor came up to Père Delar. “What is wrong with the Marquis? He is quite changed; usually so light- hearted, he is grown anxious, gloomy, haggard.”

  “He feels a presentiment of his approaching end, and thinks of amending his life; ‘tis a very fine conversion, that will do great honour to my Order. Ah! if only the King...”

  “Ah ha! ‘appetite grows by what it feeds on,’ as they say, father; yet I greatly fear your wishes will remain unfulfilled in this case. His Majesty is hard to persuade. Besides he has his official converters; the Bishop of Séez is spoken of as a very doughty champion.”

  “Oh! the King is not so great an unbeliever as people think; remember his illness at Metz and how he sent Madame de Châteauroux packing.”

  “Yes, but at that date Louis XV. was still young, and it was not a question of expelling Jeanne Vaubernier, — two circumstances which alter the case enormously. Well, you have time enough to see to it, my dear Monsieur Delar; meantime, as the dinner bell has rung, the point is not to keep Monsieur le Marquis waiting. He does not often afford us the happiness of dining with us.”

  The dinner, for which the Père Delar and the Abbé V... arrived in good time, was enlivened by the presence of father, mother and children, as had been expected. Never had the Marquise looked so gay and happy; never had she been more obliging in doing the honours of her table. The cook had surpassed himself. The best fish of the fishponds, the finest poultry of the poultry- yard, the juiciest fruit of the greenhouses and vineries reminded the Marquis how well-stocked was his house when it became a question of fêting a beloved lord and master. The servants, proud to be serving once more so distinguished a master, strutted in their freshest liveries, watching their master’s eye to satisfy the smallest want and obviate the slightest inconvenience, But the Marquis soon lost the healthy appetite he had boasted about on his first arrival. The table seemed a lonely desert, the silence of respect and pleasure to express only gloom and apprehension. Little by little melancholy filled his mind and darkened his face; he let his hand fall lifeless beside his scarcely touched plate, and forgot the goblet where flashed in diamonds the wine of all and glowed the ruby nectar of old Burgundy.

  Mere sadness grew into black despondency, and all followed with affright the progressive darkening of his mood. Suddenly a tear fell from his eyes. The Marquise sighed deeply, but he did not so much as notice her distress.

  “I have been thinking,” he observed presently to his wife, without preface or warning, “and I wish to be buried, not at Boissy-Saint-Léger, like my father and mother, but at Paris, in the Carmelite Church in the Place Maubert, with my ancestors.”

  “Why think of these things now, sir?” asked the Marquise, her voice choked with grief. “Surely we have time enough before us.”

  “Who can tell? Tell them to summon Bonbonne and bid him wait for me in my study. I wish to do an hour’s work with him. Father Delar has convinced me how necessary it is. You have an excellent confessor in him, Madame.”

  “I am happy to find he pleases you, sir! you may put full confidence in him.”

  “I mean to apply to him, and that tomorrow. Now with your permission, Madame, I am going upstairs to my own rooms.”

  The Marquise raised her eyes to heaven and thanked God silently in her heart. Gazing after her husband as he left the room with Bonbonne, then turning to her sons, she said:

  “In your prayers to-night, my children, ask God to inspire your father with the wish to reside amongst us for always, to strengthen his present good dispositions and give him grace to put them in practice.”

  Meantime the Marquis, arrived in his private room, said feverishly, “Now, my good Bonbonne, now, to work, to work! “ — and he shook the papers littering the desk with an eager, trembling hand, as if to classify and master them all on the spot.

  “Come, come,” interposed the old man; “we are on the right road, so do not let us hurry too fast; ‘more haste, less speed,’ you know.”

  “Time presses, Bonbonne; I tell you, time presses.”

  “You don’t say so!”

  “I say that the man to whom God grants the joy of arranging duly for the last voyage of all can never work too fast to complete those preparations. Quick, Bonbonne, to work.”

  “At this rate, with this heat, sir, you will get a pleurisy, or a congestion, or a bad fever, and so justify yourself as having made your will just in the nick of time.”

  “A truce to delay. Where are the accounts of income?”

  “Here they are.”

  “And those of expenditure?”

  “Here.”

  “Deficit, sixteen hundred thousand livres. The Deuce!”

  “Two years’ savings will fill the gap.”

  “I have not two years to save in.”

  “Oh! you will drive me mad; what nonsense, with health like yours!”

  “I think you told me that the Notary had drawn out a draft will, very cleverly expressed so as to secure to my sons the whole of the assets on their majority?”

  “Yes, sir, on condition of your renouncing for six years a quarter of the income from the landed estates alone.”

  “Let me see the draft.”

  “Here it is.”

  “I am a trifle near-sighted. Kindly read it out to me.”

  Bonbonne proceeded to read each of the several provisions in order, the Marquis testifying from time to time his lively sense of satisfaction.

  “It is an excellent scheme,” he pronounced eventually, — ” the more so, as it j leaves Madame de Chauvelin in possession of a yearly income of three hundred thousand livres, twice what she enjoys now.”

  “So you approve?”

  “Yes, in every respect.”

  “And I may engross the document?”

  “Pray do so.”

  “That done, you will have to execute it by appending your signature.”

  “Quick, Bonbonne, get it done quick!”

  “There you are again asking impossibilities. It has taken me half an hour to read the paper over to you, and I shall require at least an hour to make a fair copy.”

  “If you only know what a hurry I am in! Look here, you dictate to me, and I will write out the whole will in my own hand.”

  “No, no, no, sir! Your eyes look red and inflamed already; before you have been at it ten minutes, you will be in a high fever on top of the headache you have brought on already.

  “What am I to do for the hour you say will be needed.”

  “Why, walk up and down the lawn in the fresh air with Madame la Marquise. Meantime I will butt and cut my pens; then woe to the paper! I shall blacken more all by myself than three lawyer’s clerks put together.”

  The Marquis did as he was told, but reluctantly; he felt somehow oppressed and disturbed in mind.

  “Calm yourself,” Bonbonne told him soothingly; “are you afraid you won’t have time to sign? I say an hour; deuce take it, Marquis, you are good to live another one and sixty minutes!”

  “You are quite right,” the Marquis agreed, and he went down into the garden, to find the Marquise waiting for him.

  Seeing him more composed and looking less unhappy, “Well, sir!” she asked, “have you worked to good purpose?”

  “Oh! yes, Marquise, yes, an excellent piece of work, for which you and your boys will be thankful, I hope and believe.”

  “Very good! Your arm; the conservatories are open, shall we pay them a visit?”

  “Whatever you wish, Marquise, whatever you wish.”

  “You will sleep all the better for our little walk. If you could only see how delighted your valets were to make the great state bed.”

  “Marquise, I am going to sleep as I have not done this ten years; I tremble with joy at the mere thought of it.”

  “You don’t think you will find life too tiresome with us here?”

  “No, no, Marquise, no.”

  “And you will get used to our country neighbours?”

  “Yes, very easily. And if the King [I fear I treated him rather unceremoniously perhaps), if the King forgets me, so much the better.”

  “The King? ah! Marquis,” said Madame de Chauvelin softly, “you gave a sigh when you spoke of the King.”

  “I love His Majesty, Marquise; but rest assured...”

  The sentence remained unfinished. The crack of a whip and the jingle of a horse’s bells interrupted the Marquis.

  “What is that?” he asked.

  “A mounted messenger; they are opening the gates for him now,” the Marquise replied. “Did you send him?”

  “No. Very strange; a messenger to whom everybody bows low and who is admitted to the private gardens can only come from...”

  “From the King,” faltered the Marquise, turning pale.

  “In the King’s name!” cried the horseman in a loud, clear voice.

  “In the King’s name! “ — and Monsieur de Chauvelin ran forward to meet the horseman, who had already handed his letter to the major domo.

  “A letter from the King!” cried the Marquis to Père Delar, whom the news of the despatch had brought to the spot with the rest of the household.

  The Marquis offered to the courier wine in a silver cup, — a compliment justified by the respect paid by every man of birth to the King, even when represented by a servant. Then he opened the letter, which was written wholly in the Monarch’s own hand, and ran as follows:

  “MY FRIEND, — It is scarce four and twenty hours since you left us; yet I feel as though I had not seen you for months. Old people who love each other should not part, as they may never have the time to come together again. I am fit to die of melancholy. I need you, so you must come. Never rob me of a friend under pretext of wishing to defend my crown. No, you are going the surest way to attack it; so long as you sustain it by your presence, I shall know it is firmer and stronger than ever. Let me see you to-morrow when I meet my Court on rising; it will be the signal for a happy day. Your friend, Louis.”

  “The King recalls me to his side,” exclaimed Chauvelin, deeply moved. “I must set off this very instant; he cannot do without me. Bid them put to the horses.”

  “Oh!” protested the Marquise, “so soon, after so many delightful promises.”

  “You shall soon hear from me, Madame.”

  “Monsieur le Marquis, my copy is finished! “Bonbonne called from afar as he came running up, “Good, very good!”

  “There is nothing now but to read it through again and sign.”

  “I have not the time now, I will another day.”

  “Another day? But do you forget what you were saying just now?”

  “I remember, I remember.”

  “A truce to delay, you said.”

  “The King cannot wait.”

  “But you forget your children, and the future of your house.”

  “I forget nothing, Bonbonne; I only go because I am obliged to. My children, the future of my line, — everything, you must remember, Bonbonne, is now secured.”

  “Your signature, only your signature is wanted.”

  “Look you, old friend,” declared the Marquis, radiant with delight, “so firmly am I resolved duly to complete this matter that if I were to die before signing, I swear I would come back here from the other world, — and ‘tis a long journey, — on purpose to append my signature. Now have I satisfied you? Then farewell.”

  So saying he hurriedly embraced his wife and children, and oblivious of all but King and Court, leapt into his coach, a younger man by twenty years, and rolled away for Paris.

  But the Marquise and all the household, so happy a moment before, were left standing by the gates, sad, forsaken, dumb and despairing.

  CHAPTER IX.

  VENUS AND PSYCHE.

  THE morning after his despatch to Grosbois, Louis XV.’s first word was to ask for the Marquis de Chauvelin and his first look to see if he had arrived. The Marquis had travelled all night and appeared at the King’s first ‘lever.’

  “Good, Marquis, good,” cried the King, “so here you are. Good Lord! what a long time you have been away!”

  “Sire, ‘tis the first, and it shall be the last time of my leaving you; if I quit you again, it will be for ever... But indeed the King is very gracious to think I have been long absent; I have been but four and twenty hours away.”

  “You think so, dear friend; well, well, it is that confounded prophecy that keeps knelling in my ears. So, not seeing you at your usual post, I imagined you were dead, and then, you understand...?”

  “I understand perfectly, Sire.”

  “However, let us say no more about it. Here you are, that is the main point. Very true the Countess still bears us a grudge; she is angry with you for having said what you did to her, and annoyed with me for having recalled you to Court after insulting her so outrageously. But never heed her ill humour; time will smooth every difficulty, and the King will give time a helping hand.”

  “I thank you, Sire.”

  “Now tell me, what have you been doing during your exile?”

  “Just think, Sire, I came very near being converted.”

  “I understand you are beginning to repent having sung the seven mortal sins in verse.”

  “Oh! if I had never done worse than sing them!”

  “My cousin of Conti was talking to me of your lines only yesterday; he was delighted with them.”

  “Sire, I was a young man then, and impromptus came easy to me. I was there, at the Ile-Adam, alone with seven charming women. The Prince de Conti was away at the chase, while I was left at home at the Château, and made the ladies... verses. Ah! ‘twas a fine time, a glorious time, Sire.”

  “Marquis, do you take me for your Father Confessor, and is this what you mean by your repentance?”

  “My Confessor, — ah! yes, Your Majesty is right; this very morning I had appointed to confer with a Camaldulensian father at Grosbois.”

  “Alas! poor man, what an opportunity for worming out your secrets he has missed! Should you have told him everything, Chauvelin?”

  “Everything, without exception, Sire.”

  “Truly, ‘twould have been a long sitting!”

  “My God! Sire, besides my own particular sins, I have so many sins of other folks’ upon my conscience, above all I have...”

  “You have mine, you would say? Those, Chauvelin, I dispense you from revealing; a man need only confess his own faults.”

  “Still, Sire, sin is appallingly epidemic at Court. I am but just come, and already I have heard speak of a strange adventure.”

  “An adventure, Chauvelin, and whom have they credited with this adventure of yours, pray?”

  “Whom do they credit with most happy adventures, Sire?”

  “Egad!” it should be myself.”

  “Or perhaps...”

  “Or perhaps the Comtesse du Barry, eh?”

  “You have guessed, Sire?”

  “What! the Comtesse du Barry has been sinning? Plague on’t, tell me about it, Chauvelin.”

  “I don’t say that the escapade is exactly a sin in itself, I only say it came into my head in talking of sins.”

  “Now, Marquis, what is this escapade? tell me directly.”

  “What! directly, Sire?”

  “Yes; you know kings are not fond of waiting.”

  “Sire, the thing is serious.”

  “Pooh! perhaps a difference of opinion with my little daughter-in-law?”

  “Sire, I cannot deny it.”

  “There, the Countess will end in quarrelling with the Dauphine, and then, my word...”

  “Sire, I think the Countess is by this time in full quarrel.”

  “With the Dauphine?”

  “No; but with another little daughter- in-law of yours.”

  “What, the Comtesse de Provence?”

  “Precisely.”

  “Good! a pretty kettle of fish we have now? Look here, Chauvelin; is it the Comtesse de Provence who brings this complaint?”

  “So they tell me.”

  “In that case the Comte de Provence will write the most odious epigrams on my poor Countess. Do what she will, she will be whipped in fine style.”

  “Then, Sire, ‘twill only be a Roland for an Oliver, after all.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Just think, the Marquise de Rosen...”

  “That pretty little brunette, eh? the Comtesse de Provence’s friend?”

  “Yes, the lady Your Majesty has looked at so often in the last month.”

  “Oh! I have had scolding enough about it from a certain quarter, Marquis? Well, you say...”

  “Who scolded you, Sire?”

  “Egad! the Countess of course.”

  Well, Sire, if the Countess has scolded you, she has done more than scold somebody else!”

  “Explain yourself, Marquis; you frighten me.”

  “Egad! Sire, I wish to frighten you.”

  “What! it is really serious then?”

  “Most serious.”

  “Tell me.”

  “Well, it seems that... that — do you know, Sire, it is harder to tell about than it was to do.”

  “Really you frighten me, Marquis. Till now I supposed you were joking. But if there is something really serious that has happened, come, let us be serious about it.”