United States or Australia ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Then by means of the treachery of the maid Louise and his friend Duval, a crook who would even descend to play the part of valet for him and fall in love with the maid, he has succeeded in removing the woman who stood between him and an American fortune." "Marie," rambled Chateaurouge as he came blinking, sneezing, and choking out of his stupor, "Marie, you are clever, but not too clever for me.
"Why, the papers say that she is engaged " "Exactly," cut in McBride, "the heiress who is rumoured to be engaged to the Duc de Chateaurouge." Kennedy and I exchanged glances. "Yes," I added, recollecting a remark I had heard a few days before from our society reporter on the Star, "I believe it has been said that Chateaurouge is in this country, incognito."
I simply know that such a creature exists. She said it defiantly and with an iciness which showed more plainly than in mere words that she scorned even an acquaintance with a demi-mondaine. "Do you suppose the Duc de Chateaurouge would be able to identify her?" asked Kennedy mercilessly. "One moment, please," he added, anticipating the blank look of amazement on her face.
"If Leslie gets safely away it will, perhaps, all turn out for the best," the marshal said. "As soon as the king's anger dies out I will begin to plead the cause of the boy's parents; and now that the influence of Chateaurouge the other way is withdrawn, I may hope for a more favourable hearing. As to the lad himself, we will make his peace in a few months.
"But what was the cause of the quarrel? Why should the Duc de Chateaurouge fix a dispute, as you tell me he did, upon this officer of yours?" "I believe, sire, that it was a long standing quarrel. The duke's words showed that he bore an enmity against the lad's father, and that it was on this account that he insulted the son." "Leslie!" the king exclaimed, with a sudden recollection.
Two years ago this child was born, but she managed somehow to keep it from her father, who was all this time urging her to marry the Duke de Chateaurouge. "At last, as ill luck would have it, he shut her up in a convent just a week before she had arranged to fly with Leslie to Germany, where he intended to take service until her father came round.
What became of the child which was said to have been born no one ever heard; but it was generally supposed that it had been put out of the way. We in vain endeavoured to soften the king's anger against Leslie, but the influence of Recambours and Chateaurouge was too great for us.
The man gazed dazedly at the manacles that held his wrists instead of the delicate hands he had been dreaming of as he lived over the terrible scene of his struggle with the woman who was his wife in the Vanderveer. "Chateaurouge," almost hissed Kennedy in his righteous wrath, "fake nobleman, real swindler of five continents.
"If it had been anyone but you I should have ordered him to the barracks at once under pain of arrest, and have laid the matter before the king, for it would have been nothing short of murder. But I can trust you to hold your own even against the Duke of Chateaurouge. And, in truth, after what has been said, I do not see that you can do other but meet him."
The king is brave himself, as he showed when under fire at Fontenoy, and he admires bravery in others, and when he has once got over the loss of Chateaurouge he will appreciate the skill and courage which the lad showed in an encounter with one of the most noted duellists in France.
Word Of The Day