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Updated: May 27, 2025
And although the news travelled rapidly, that Gambetta that spirit of an unquenchable hope had escaped from Paris with full power to conduct the war from Tours, the notification that the army of de la Motterouge had melted away before the advance of von der Tann, did not reach Lory de Vasselot until he passed to the north of Marseilles with his handful of men.
As she spoke she consulted a little red morocco betting-book. "Lory!" she cried, after a short search. "Yes, of course it was Lory de Vasselot my cousin. And will you believe it? he saved my life the other day, all in a moment! Yes! I saw death, quite close, before my eyes. Ugh! And I, who am so wicked! You do not know what it is to be wicked and to know it, Denise you who are so young.
De Vasselot turned the clumsy parcel in his hand. "What is it?" he asked. "It is the papers of Vasselot and Perucca your title-deeds." Lory laid the papers on the bank beside him. "In your pocket," corrected Jean, gruffly. "That is the place for them." And while Lory was securing the packet inside his tunic, the unusually silent man spoke again. "It is Fate who has handed them to you," he said.
But the pursuer's horse was tired; for de Vasselot had been unable to relieve him of his burden all through the night. Lame and disabled, he could not mount or dismount without assistance. On the upward slope, where the road climbs through a rocky gorge, the fugitive gained ground. Out on the open road again, within sight of Cauro, the count's horse showed signs of distress, but gained visibly.
There was a pause, and Lory de Vasselot limped into the room after him. He was smiling and pleasant as he always was; even, his friends said, on the battlefield. He looked at Denise, met her eyes for a moment and turned to bow with grave politeness to Gilbert. It was, oddly enough, the colonel who brought forward a chair for the wounded man. "Sit down," he said curtly.
"When the abbe says it, it is important," he said. "But it is easily done," protested de Vasselot, who like many men of action had a certain contempt for those crises in life which are but matters of words. Which is a mistake; for as the world progresses it grows more verbose, and for one moment of action, there are in men's lives to-day a million words.
She ignored the side-issues and pounced, as it were, upon the central thread the reason that Lory de Vasselot had had for sending such an order. She rose and tore open the newspaper, glanced at the war-news, and laid it aside. Then she opened a letter addressed to herself. It was on superlatively thick paper and bore a coronet in one corner.
That, and a single memory the secret, perhaps, which was such a standing joke at the school in the Rue du Cherche-Midi made up the whole life of this obscure woman. Two days later she gave Lory Susini's message; and de Vasselot sent for the surgeon. "I am going," he said. "Patch me up for a journey." The surgeon had dealt so freely with life and death that he only shrugged his shoulders.
"It was above Asco, in the high mountains near Cinto," he continued, "and about a week ago. It was he who gave me money, and told me to come and fight for France. He was arranging for others to do the same." "The abbe is a practical man," said Lory. "Yes and he told me news of Olmeta," said the man, glancing sideways at his companion. "What news?" "You have no doubt heard it of Vasselot."
But de Vasselot only fully realized the magic of his own name when he at length found the man, Casabianda a scoundrel whose personal appearance must assuredly have condemned him without further evidence in any court of justice except a Corsican court who bowed before him as before a king, and laid violent hands upon his wife and daughter a few minutes later because the domestic linen chest failed to rise to the height of a clean table cloth.
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