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CHAPTER XIV

THE CAUSE

THEY were both silent.

It seemed to Lucien as though the hour of some tremendous event in life had struck-to die, or to be married when he was unprepared. That he could not even conjecture what the event might be, made no difference. Only he repeated to himself over and over again, violently, defensively, as he had said She is not beautiful,' a later observation- She is not young.'

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To her it seemed as though she were about to risk all that she valued most on a single throw of the dice. 'But I must do it,' she said-'I must do it.' And she prayed to St. Anne.

Then, without preface of any kind, she dashed straight at the thought that was piercing her like a dagger.

'Monsieur Sylvestre, I am a woman. The sight of blood is terrible to me. Bah! if I cut my finger I hate to look.'

Lucien tried to understand. She was saying that she hated the sight of a scratch. This was not what he had braced himself to hear. He made no reply.

'You are like the rest,' she cried. You think I do not know, I do not care. You think I am weak, light -that I have no strength to endure to the end. You think I am for myself alone.'

'I think nothing of all this,' Lucien said.

He spoke earnestly, yet she did not hear him. Her restless eyes fixed themselves on a distant corner of the room, as if she saw there something from which they could not lift themselves.

'You forget,' she went on. God did not kill my husband. A man killed him. It was red. I have seen. I know.'

She paused, shuddering, as if she had reached the limit of words.

'It will be red again. They will say I did it. They will curse me. How can I help that? He told me to come. You will succeed in la Vendée. I heard him. It was no dream. He spoke to me-my saint in heaven. He remembered his child.'

She turned suddenly upon Lucien.

'I am the child's mother. There is no one else to defend him. He has no one but me. Am I right?'

Into her eyes, into her attitude, as she bent a little towards him, she threw a force of passionate entreaty that staggered the singer of songs. It was the rush of spirit against spirit.

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She spoke as though enforcing a claim, yet graciously preferring the tone of one who asks a favour. 'I will indeed.'

He raised the little hand to his lips, as if it were holy bread. He trembled in every limb.

She leant back for a moment, and her eyes closed. She rubbed them open again. She seemed to rub the brightness back.

They told me you were my worst enemy,' she said. 'I?'

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'Others think it strange that you are not. I knew you from the first.'

'Ah!' said Lucien. 'I do not know who I am. I am your servant until I die.'

'If you wished, you might make it impossible for my son to be King.'

She looked at him till he felt as if she saw, not his eyes, but something that shrank from her behind them. What do you mean? I was a foundling; I have no parents,' he said.

6 Are you sure of that?'

'I do not care to know the name of my father. Whoever he was, he wronged my mother. If I have longed to see her face, that is human. I have wept over the misery that I caused her. I would never hurt women.'

'It was a cruel woman that disowned you,' said the little duchess, her eyes flashing.

'She gave me life,' said Lucien. Some day I will give it back to her. I will make her famous.'

All at once the scene of the return of his manuscript became vivid. She would laugh-she must-she was bound to laugh. To his relief she took no heed of the words.

'I think you are the bearer of a packet for me,' she said, stretching out her hand.

Lucien had forgotten the charge altogether. He felt in his pockets, full of unreasoning fear. No-yes—it was there.

'Someone has tampered with this,' the duchess said. 'It has been opened on the way. The silk is frayed— look!-and the paper has been folded twice.'

'I was told to give it to colonel de Nacquart, and I did so. I am sure he never opened it.'

'You did not observe the difference when the packet was given back to you?

'No.'

'What are your eyes for? You see many things that no one else can. When anybody might see, you are blind.'

Lucien sat silent. He knew it was so.

'Perhaps,' he said, after a moment, 'Madame de Nacquart opened it—after she had put on the green veil?'

The duchess looked up at him as she untied the silk, and smiled mischievously.

'Not so bad,' said she.

The packet contained a snuff-box of black horn. She raised the lid; a miniature was painted on the inside of it, representing a young man with gray eyes and somewhat heavy features.

'Do you see any likeness in this to anyone with whom you are acquainted?' She asked, holding it toward him.

'No.'

She gave a little short, impatient sigh.

She drew from her waistcoat-pocket a tiny mirror in a frame of ivory.

'Take that in one hand and the snuff-box in the other. Look at the miniature first, then at the glass.' Lucien did so.

He started.

'Myself!' he said.

'The portrait is that of my late husband, Charles Ferdinand, duc de Berry.'

Intent as Lucien was upon the painted face, the eyes of the duchess were yet more intent upon the face be

fore her, but she could gather nothing from its expression.

If that be true which mirror and miniature assert, you have a great inheritance,' she said, when at last he shut the lid down.

'No greater than I knew before, and no less.'

He was walking in some high dream. The marquis de Civrac-Blum-the city of Lyons-his hopes and dreams of fame-all these were gone. In the whole world there was no one but himself and the duchess. 'This is Nature's freak. It is not true.'

'But if it were

'I would deny it. I am only your servant. You have given me the whole world—and more,' he said, not knowing what he said.

'You know the marquis de Civrac?'

'He was my truest friend.' 'Was? He is not dead.'

'No; but our friendship is.'

'You are wrong there. You might as well say that his friendship for me was dead. You heard how he spoke to me at Morfontaine? He had to speak like that for fear you should guess. He apologized afterwards. Hush! let me tell you. He is one of the best friends I have, but he was against my coming; he did everything that he could to dissuade me. By a strange chance, I was driven to take refuge in his house. He hid me in the room on the upper floor, because no one but himself ever entered it. There was another room, at the end of the passage, where I was to sleep, but I found it was not quite ready. I had promised to go to bed at dinner-time when all the servants-except the butler, who knew-would be busy, and there was

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