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The shock over, I was left face to face with a possibility of wickedness such as I could never have suspected of myself. I remembered Mirepoix's distress and the priest's eagerness. I re-called the gruff warning Bezers even Bezers, and there was something very odd in Bezers giving a warning! had given Madame de Pavannes when he told her that she would be better where she was.
But I seemed vaguely to suspect that Bezers had swept him aside and taken his place. My first impulse therefore obeyed on the instant was to stride to the Vidame's side and grasp his arm. "What have you done?" I cried, my voice sounding hoarsely even in my own ears. "What have you done with M. de Pavannes? Answer me!"
I recalled the old proverb which says that when thieves fall out, honest men come by their own, and speculated on the chance of the priest freeing us once for all from M. de Bezers. But the two were ill-matched. The Vidame could have taken up the other with one hand and dashed his head on the floor. And it did not end there. I doubt if in craft the priest was his equal.
I could not see his face, but I had no need to see it. I knew him, and groaned aloud. It was Bezers! I understood the scene better now. The horsemen, stern, bearded Switzers for the most part, who eyed the rabble about them with grim disdain, and were by no means chary of their blows, were all in his colours and armed to the teeth.
"You are aware, M. de Bezers," I continued, "that the Vicomte has jurisdiction extending to life and death over all persons within the valley?" "My household excepted," he rejoined quietly. "Precisely; while they are within the curtilage of your house," I retorted. "However as the punishment was summary, and the man had no time to confess himself, I am willing to " "Well?"
And and it meant more it meant that he was yet in danger, and still ignorant of the vow that unchained fiend Bezers had taken to have his life! In pursuing his namesake we had been led astray, how sadly I only knew now! And had indeed lost most precious time. "Your wife, M. de Pavannes" I began in haste, seeing the necessity of explaining matters with the utmost quickness. "Your wife is "
No less than to go to Paris the unknown city so far beyond the hills and seek out M. de Pavannes, and warn him. It would be a race between the Vidame and ourselves; a race for the life of Kit's suitor. Could we reach Paris first, or even within twenty-four hours of Bezers' arrival, we should in all probability be in time, and be able to put Pavannes on his guard.
As she spoke now, she shook back the hood from her face and disclosed the chestnut hair clinging about her temples deep blots of colour on the abnormal whiteness of her skin, "That is true, M. de Bezers," she said. "You have the legions. You have the power. But you will not use it, I think, against an old friend. You will not do us this hurt when I But listen." He would not.
"But not Kit's!" Croisette said passionately otherwise ignoring him. "Not Kit's! You do not know her, Vidame! Indeed you do not!" The remark was ill-timed. I saw a spasm of anger distort Bezers' face. "Get up, boy!" he snarled, "I wrote to Mademoiselle what I would do, and that I shall do! A Bezers keeps his word. By the God above us if there be a God, and in the devil's name I doubt it to-night!
"Sometimes I think we do not understand him; and that after all there may be worse people in the world than Bezers." I looked hard at the lad, for that was not what I had meant. "Worse?" I said. "I do not think so. Hardly!" "Yes, worse," he replied, shaking his head. "Do you remember lying under the curtain in the box-bed at Mirepoix's?" "Of course I do! Do you think I shall ever forget it?"
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