FullReads

An infuriate voice came through the key-hole. “You are undoubtedly a bully,” it stated. “I loathe you.” Followed silence.

Presently the voice said, “Because if you really loved her you were no better than she was, and so I hate you both.”

“‘Beautiful as an angel, and headstrong as a devil,'” was John Bulmer’s meditation. Afterward John Bulmer turned over and went back to sleep.

For after all, as he reflected, he had given his parole.

XIV

He was awakened later by a shriek that was followed by a hubbub of tumult. John Bulmer sat erect in bed. He heard a medley of yelling, of musketry, and of crashes, like the dilapidation of falling battlements. He knew well enough what had happened. Cazaio and his men were making a night attack upon Bellegarde.

John Bulmer arose and, having lighted two candles, dressed himself. He cast aside the first cravat as a failure, knotted the second with scrupulous nicety, and afterward sat down, facing the door to his apartment, and trimmed his finger nails. Outside was Pandemonium, and the little scrap of sky visible from his one window was now of a sullen red.

“It is very curious I do not suffer more acutely. As a matter of fact, I am not conscious of any particular feeling at all. I believe that most of us when we are confronted with a situation demanding high joy or agony find ourselves devoid of emotion. They have evidently taken de Soyecourt by surprise. She is yonder in that hell outside and will inevitably be captured by its most lustful devil–or else be murdered. I am here like a trapped rat, impotent, waiting to be killed, which Cazaio’s men will presently attend to when they ransack the place and find me. And I feel nothing, absolutely nothing.

“By this she has probably fallen into Cazaio’s power–“

And the man went mad. He dashed upon the locked door, and tore at it with soft-white hands, so that presently they were all blood. He beat his face upon the door, cutting open his forehead.

He shook his bleeding hands toward heaven. “In my time I have been cruel. I am less cruel than You! Let me go!”

The door opened and she stood upon the threshold. His arms were about her and repeatedly he kissed her, mercilessly, with hard kisses, crushing her in his embrace.

“Jean, Jean!” she sobbed, beneath his lips, and lay quite still in his arms. He saw how white and tender a thing she was, and the fierce embrace relaxed.

“You came to me!” he said.

“Louis had forgotten you. They had all retreated to the Inner Tower. [Footnote: The inner ward, or ballium, which (according to Quinault) was defended by ten towers, connected by an embattled stone wall about thirty feet in height and eight feet thick, on the summit of which was a footway; now demolished to make way for the famous gardens.] Cazaio cannot take that, for he has no cannon. Louis can hold out there until Gaston comes with help,” Claire rapidly explained. “But the thieves are burning Bellegarde. I could bribe no man to set you free. They were afraid to venture.”

“And you came,” said John Bulmer–“you left the tall safe Inner Tower to come to me!”

“I could not let you die, Jean Bulmer.”

“Why, then I must live not unworthily the life which, you have given me. O God!” John Bulmer cried, “what a pitiful creature was that great Duke of Ormskirk! Now make a man of me, O God!”

“Listen, dear madman,” she breathed; “we cannot go out into Bellegarde. They are everywhere–Cazaio’s men. They are building huge fires about the Inner Tower; but it is all stone, and I think Louis can hold out. But we, Jean Bulmer, can only retreat to the roofing of this place. There is a trap-door to admit you to the top, and there–there we can at least live until the dawn.”

“I am unarmed,” John Bulmer said; “and weaponless, I cannot hold even a trap-door against armed men.”