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Updated: May 2, 2025
As we did so, Doltaire exclaimed and started to the window, and the Seigneur and Madame followed. A red light was showing on the panes. I caught Alixe's eye, and held it, coming quickly to her. All backs were on us. I took her hand and pressed it to my lips suddenly. She gave a little gasp, and I saw her bosom heave. "I am going from prison to prison," said I, "and I leave a loved jailer behind."
"I'll hold the door for ten minutes," he added; and bowed to the chaplain, who blessed us then with tears in his eyes, and smiled a little to my thanks and praises and purse of gold, and to Alixe's sweet gratitude. With lifting chin good honest gentleman, who afterwards proved his fidelity and truth he said that he would die to uphold this sacred ceremony.
For a moment there was stillness in the room and all around us, and then the chaplain began in a low voice: "I require and charge you both " and so on. In a few moments I had made the great vow, and had put on Alixe's finger a ring which the clergyman drew from his own hand.
This officer also said that now, when it might seem as if both the Seigneur and his daughter were dead, opinion had turned in Alixe's favour, and the feeling had crept about, first among the common folk and afterwards among the people of the garrison, that she had been used harshly.
His glance never shifted from the choir, where the priests slowly entered and took their places, the aged and feeble bishop going falteringly to his throne. Alixe's face was pale and sorrowful, and yet it had a dignity and self-reliance that gave it a kind of grandeur. A buzz passed through the building, yet I noted, too, with gladness that there were tears on many faces.
She had managed to hope for that, and believe in it. Then, in some way, the news of Alixe's marriage to Ruthven filtered through the family silence. She had gone straight to Nina, horrified, unbelieving. And, when the long, tender, intimate interview was over, another unhappy truth, very gently revealed, was added to the growing list already learned by this young girl. Then Selwyn came.
This was due largely, he thought, to the constant advocacy of the Chevalier de la Darante, whose nephew had married Mademoiselle Georgette Duvarney. This piece of news, in spite of the uncertainty of Alixe's fate, touched me, for the Chevalier had indeed kept his word to me.
I caught his hand and pressed it, and a minute afterwards I was alone before Alixe's door. An hour later, knowing Alixe to be alone, I tapped on her door and entered. As I did so she rose from a priedieu where she had been kneeling. Two candles were burning on the mantel, but the room was much in shadow. "What is't you wish?" she asked, approaching.
Is there not the watcher aloft? Shall the sparrow fall unheeded? The wicked shall be confounded." It was Alixe's writing. She had hazarded this in the hands of my jailer as her only hope, and, knowing that he might not serve her, had put her message in vague sentences which I readily interpreted.
When Gabord and Voban were gone, leaving the light behind, I went over to where the torch stuck in the wall, and drew Alixe's letter from my pocket with eager fingers. It told the whole story of her heart. CHATEAU ST. LOUIS, 27th November, 1757. Though I write you these few words, dear Robert, I do not know that they will reach you, for as yet it is not certain they will let Voban visit you.
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