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Updated: September 21, 2025
"I seek Mr Simon Dale," answered Fontelles. "Ah, Simon! Poor Simon! What would you with the lad, sir?" "I will tell that to him. Why do you call him poor?" "He has been deluded by a high-sounding prophecy, and it has come to little." The Vicar shook his head in gentle regret. "He is no worse off, sir, than a man who marries," said Fontelles with a smile.
She looked for a moment keenly in his face; her breath came quick and fast, the hue of her cheek flashed from red to white. "Mr Dale," said she, drawing herself up, "will not fear to meet you." Again Fontelles bowed, turned, and was gone, swiftly and eagerly striding down the avenue, bent on finding me. Barbara was left alone with Carford. His heavy frown and surly eyes accused her.
"He might well have made us better, sir." "There are very few of us who truly wish it," the Vicar replied. "A man hugs his sin." "The embrace, sir, is often delightful." "I must not understand you," said the Vicar. Fontelles' business was proceeding but slowly. A man on an errand should not allow himself to talk about the universe.
They gaped. "Il vient," I cried triumphantly, and their chairs shot back as they sprang to their feet, astonishment vivid on their faces. For me, I sat there laughing in sheer delight at the excellence of my aim and the shrewdness of my penetration. What they would have said, I do not know. The door was flung open and M. de Fontelles appeared.
M. de Fontelles was honest, M. de Fontelles was hot-tempered, M. de Fontelles would be told that he was a rogue. To Carford this seemed enough. "You would do yourself good if you convinced him of that," he answered. "For though she would not, I think, become his wife, he has the influence of long acquaintance, and might use it against you. But perhaps you're too angry with him?"
M. de Fontelles lost no time in coming to the question; his grievance was strong and bitter, and he poured out his heart without reserve. Carford listened, saying little, but being very attentive and keeping his shrewd eyes on the other's face.
Yes, a pretty quarrel promised; but a moment later Fontelles, seeing no prospect of sport in falling out with an old man of sacred profession, and amused, in spite of his principles, by the Vicar's whimsical talk, chose to laugh rather than to storm, and said with a chuckle: "Well, kings are like other men." "Very like," agreed the Vicar. "In what can I serve you, sir?"
"Why, here is M. de Fontelles!" he cried in surprise. "I am very pleased to see you, sir, again in England. Carford, here is M. de Fontelles. You were acquainted with him when he was in the suite of the French Ambassador? You carry a message, sir?" I listened keenly to all that the Duke's words told me.
Fontelles, growing puzzled and ill at ease, waited some moments before he ventured to address her; her air was not such as to encourage him; her cheek was reddened and her eyes were indignant. Yet at last he plucked up his courage. "I trust, madame," said he, "that I may carry the fairest of answers back with me?" "What answer is that, sir?" she asked, half-turning to him with a scornful glance.
Barbara read her letter through once and a second time; then, without a word to Fontelles, aye, not so much as bidding him be seated, she called a servant and sent him to the inn to summon Carford to her. She spoke low, and the Frenchman did not hear. When they were again alone together, Barbara walked to the window, and stood there looking out.
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