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He permitted himself to live and breathe it as one who finds himself for a space in the heart of a golden mirage. He was sitting so near Marie-Anne that now and then the faint perfume of her came to him like the delicate scent of a flower.
"I have brought you something to eat, M'sieu David," broke in a soft voice behind him. Nepapinas slipped away, and Jeanne Marie-Anne stood in his place. David stared up at her, speechless. He heard the door close behind the old Indian. Then Jeanne Marie-Anne drew up a chair, so that for the first time he could see her clear eyes with the light of day full upon her.
It was this time that his eyes shot open, wide and seeing, and straight over him was the face of Jeanne Marie-Anne, nearer him than it had been even in the visionings of his feverish mind. His fingers were clutching her shoulders, gripping like steel hooks. "M'sieu M'sieu David!" she was crying. For a moment he stared; then his hands and fingers relaxed, and his arms dropped limply.
Yesterday Martial and Marie-Anne spent a quarter of an hour together at the Croix d'Arcy." The old physician at Vigano, who had come to Marie-Anne's aid, was an honorable man. His intellect was of a superior order, and his heart was equal to his intelligence. He knew life; he had loved and suffered, and he possessed two sublime virtues forbearance and charity.
But no a chance remained she darted into the dressing-room. She dared not close the door; the least click of the latch would have betrayed her. Marie-Anne entered the chamber, followed by a peasant, bearing a large bundle. "Ah! here is my candle!" she exclaimed, as she crossed the threshold. "Joy must be making me lose my wits! I could have sworn that I left it on the table downstairs."
"You have not forgotten, I see plainly, how often Marie-Anne has filled your empty larder and now you take your revenge." The miserable wretch seemed crushed. Now that he had done this foul deed, he knew what treason really was. "So be it," said M. Lacheneur. "You will receive the price of my blood; but it will not bring you good fortune traitor!"
Leaning against the door, pale as death, he tried most energetically, but in vain, to repress the tears of rage and of sorrow which swelled up in his eyes. To insult Lacheneur was to insult Marie-Anne that is to say, to injure, to strike, to outrage him in all that he held most dear in the world.
"Yes," she exclaimed, "the Count de Lavalette, protected by royal connivance, succeeded in making his escape." The simplicity of the expedient the authority of the example seemed to make a vivid impression upon the duke. He was silent for a moment, and Marie-Anne fancied she saw an expression of relief steal over his face.
"If I should comply with your request, Maurice," said M. Lacheneur, "in less than three days you would curse me, and ruin us by some outburst of anger. You love Marie-Anne. Could you see, unmoved, the frightful position in which she is placed? Remember, she must not discourage the addresses either of Chanlouineau or of the Marquis de Sairmeuse.
For there was Carmin Fanchet, a fitting companion for a man like Black Roger, and there was Marie-Anne, who, if it had been a joke, would not have played her part so well. Suddenly his mind was filled only with her. Had she been his friend, using all her influence to protect him, because her heart was sick of the environment of which she was a part? His own heart jumped at the thought.
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