We must surmise that surprise and rage had rendered Gaston speechless for the moment.
Of all the conjectures which had racked his brains for the past two hours none had come near this amazing reality. Gaston was no fool, and in one vivid flash he saw before his mental vision not only his own discomfiture, the annihilation of all his hopes, but also the failure of King Louis' plans, the relegation of those fifteen millions back into the pockets of His Grace the Duke of Cumberland.
That Eglinton had not ridden to Le Havre on the King's business but on his own, that he had not sent Le Monarque to Scotland in order that he might share in those millions was of course obvious.
No! no! it was clear enough! Lydie having found that Gaston had failed her, had turned to her husband for help: and he, still nominally Comptroller-General of Finance, had found it quite easy to send Captain Barre on his way with secret orders to find Charles Edward Stuart and ensure the safety of the Jacobites at once and at any cost.
Milor was immensely rich; that had helped him too, of course; bribes, promises, presents of money were nothing to him. Mentally he was weak—reasoned Gaston's vanity—and Lydie had commanded him.
But physically he was as strong as a horse, impervious to fatigue, and whilst Gaston rested last night preparing for his journey, le petit Anglais was in the saddle at midnight and had killed a horse under him ere de Stainville was midway.
What King Louis' attitude would be over this disappointment it were premature to conjecture. Royal disfavour coupled with Pompadour's ill-humour would make itself felt on innocent and guilty alike.
That he himself was a ruined man and that, through the interference of that weak-kneed young fop, whom it had been the fashion in Versailles mildly to despise, was the one great, all-absorbing fact which seemed to turn Gaston's blood into living fire within his veins.
And the man who had thus deliberately snatched a couple of millions or more from his grip stood there, not twenty paces away, calm, somewhat gauche in manner, yet with that certain stiff dignity peculiar to Englishmen of high rank, and withal apparently unconscious of the fact that the rival whom he had deprived of a fortune was in this same room with him, burning with rage and thirsting for revenge.
Gaston watched his enemy for awhile as he now settled himself at the table, with Jean Marie ministering obsequiously to his wants. Soon mine host had arranged everything to his guest's liking, had placed a dish of stewed veal before him, a bottle of wine, some nice fresh bread, then retired walking backwards, so wonderfully deferential was he to the man who dealt with gold as others would with tin.
One grim thought had now risen in Stainville's mind, the revival of a memory, half-faded: an insult, a challenge, refused by that man, who had thwarted him!
A coward? Eh?
These English would not fight! 'twas well known; in battle, yes! but not in single combat, not in a meeting 'twixt gentlemen, after a heady bottle of wine when tempers wax hot, and swords skip almost of themselves out of the scabbard.
Aye! he would ride a hundred and eighty leagues, to frustrate a plan, or nathless to dip into the well-filled coffers of the Jacobite Alliance—such things were possible—but he would not fight!
Gaston hugged the thought! it was grim but delicious! revenge, bitter, awful, complete revenge was there, quite easy of accomplishment. Fortune was lost to him, but not revenge! Not before his hand had struck the cheek of his enemy.
This was his right. No one could blame him. Not even the King, sworn foe of duelling though he might profess to be.
A long laugh now broke from Gaston's burning throat! Was it not all ridiculous, senseless, and puerile?
His Majesty the King, Pompadour, the Duc d'Aumont, Prime Minister of France, and he himself, Gaston de Stainville, the most ruthlessly ambitious man in the kingdom, all fooled, stupidly fooled and tricked by that man, who was too great a coward to meet the rival whom he had insulted.
At Gaston's laugh Eglinton turned to look in his direction, and his eyes met those of de Mortémar fixed intently upon him.
"Surely it is M. le Contrôleur-Général," said the latter, jumping to his feet.
He had paid no heed to his guest's curious outburst of merriment, putting it down as another expression of his strange humour, else to the potency of Jean Marie's wine; but he had been deeply interested in the elegant figure of the stranger, that perfect type of a high-born gentleman which the young man was quick enough to recognise. The face, the quaintly awkward manner, brought back certain recollections of two days spent at the Court of Versailles.
Now when Eglinton turned toward him, he at once recognised the handsome face, and those kind eyes, which always looked grave and perfectly straight at an interlocutor.
"Milor Eglinton, a thousand pardons," he now said as he moved quickly across the room. "I had failed to recognise you at first, and had little thought of seeing so great a personage in this sleepy old town."
Eglinton too had risen at his first words and had stepped forward, with his habitual courtesy, to greet the young man. De Mortémar's hand was cordially stretched out toward him, the next moment he would have clasped that of the young Englishman, when with one bound and a rush across the room and with one wild shout of rage, Gaston de Stainville overtook his friend and, catching hold of his arm, he drew him roughly back.
"Nay! de Mortémar, my friend," he cried loudly, "be warned in time lest your honest hand come in contact with that of a coward."
His words echoed along the vast, empty room. Then there was dead silence. Instinctively Mortémar had stepped back as if he had been stung. He did not of course understand the meaning of it all, and was so taken aback that he could no nothing but stare amazed at the figure of the young man before him. Eglinton's placidity had in no sense given way before the deadly insult; only his face had become pale as death, but the eyes still looked grave, earnest and straight at his enemy.
"Aye! a coward," said Gaston, who during these few moments of silence had fought the trembling of his limbs, the quiver of his voice. He saw the calm of the other man and with a mighty effort smothered the cryings of his rage, leaving cool contempt free play. "Or will you deny here, before my friend le Comte de Mortémar, who was about to touch your hand, that last night having insulted me you refused to give me satisfaction? Coward! you have no right to touch another's hand . . . the hand of an honourable gentleman. . . . Coward! . . . Do you hear me? I'll say it again—coward—and coward again ere I shout it on the house-tops of Versailles—coward!—even now when my hand has struck your cheek—coward!"
How it all happened Mortémar himself could not afterward have said, the movement must have been extraordinarily quick, for even as the last word "Coward!" rose to Gaston's lips it was drowned in an involuntary cry of agony, whilst his hand, raised ready to strike, was held in a grip which indeed seemed like one of steel.
"'Tis done, man! 'tis done!" said the gentle, perfectly even voice, "but in the name of Heaven provoke me no further, or it will be murder instead of fight. There!" he added, releasing the other man's wrist, who staggered back faint and giddy with the pain, "'tis true that I refused to meet you in combat yester e'en; the life of my friend, lonely and betrayed, out there in far-off Scotland, had been the price of delay if I did not ride out of Versailles before cock-crow, but now 'tis another matter," he added lightly, "and I am at your service."
"Aye!" sneered Gaston, still writhing with pain, "at my service now, when you hope that my broken wrist will ensure your impunity."
"Nay, sir, but at your service across the width of this table," responded Eglinton coldly, "a pair of pistols, one unloaded. . . . And we'll both use the left hand."
An exclamation of protest broke from Mortémar's lips.
"Impossible! . . ."
"Why so, Monsieur le Comte?"
"'Twere murder, milor!"
"Does M. le Comte de Stainville protest?" queried the other calmly.
"No! damn you! . . . Where are the pistols?"
"Yours, M. le Comte, an you will; surely you have not ridden all the way from Versailles without a pair in your holster."
"Well guessed, milor," quoth Gaston lightly. "Mortémar, I pray you, in the pocket of my coat . . . a pair of pistols."
Mortémar tried again to protest.
"Silence!" said Gaston savagely, "do you not see that I must kill him?"
"'Tis obvious as the crescent moon yonder, M. de Mortémar," said Eglinton with a whimsical smile. "I entreat you, the pistols."
The young man obeyed in silence. He strode across the room to the place lately vacated by Gaston, and near which his cloak was lying close to his hat and whip. Mortémar groped in the pockets: he found the two pistols and then rejoined the antagonists.
"I used one against a couple of footpads in the early dawn," said Gaston, as he took the weapons from Mortémar's hands and placed them on the table.
"'Twas lucky, Monsieur le Comte," rejoined Eglinton gravely, "then all we need do is to throw for the choice."
"Dice," said Stainville curtly.
On a table close by there was a dice-box, left there by one of Jean Marie's customers: Mortémar, without a word, handed it to Eglinton. He could not understand the placidity of the man: Gaston's attitude was simple enough, primitive animal rage, blinding him to the possibility of immediate death; excitement too, giving him a sense of bravado, an arrogant disregard of the consequences of his own provocation.
Eglinton was within his rights. He was now the insulted party, he could make his own conditions, but did he wish to die? or was he so supremely indifferent to life that he could view with perfect serenity that pair of pistols, one of which death-dealing of a surety across a narrow table, and that box of dice the arbiter of his fate?
Of a truth Eglinton was perfectly indifferent as to the issue of the combat. He did not care if he killed Gaston, nor did he care to live. Lydie hated him, so what mattered if the sky was blue, or if the sun ceased to shed radiance over the earth?
It was the supreme indifference of a man who with life had nothing else to lose.
His hand was absolutely steady as he took the dice-box and threw:
"Blank!" murmured Mortémar under his breath, as he saw the result of the throw. Yet the face of milor was as impassive as before, even though now by all the rules of chance Gaston's was the winning hand.
"Three!" he said calmly, as the dice once more rolled on to the table. "Monsieur le Comte, the choice of weapon rests with you."
Once more Mortémar tried to interpose. This was monstrous! horrible! a shocking, brutal murder!
"Monsieur de Stainville knows his own weapons," he said impulsively, "he discharged one this morning and . . ."
"Milor should have thought of this before!" retorted Stainville savagely.
"The remark did not come from me, Monsieur," rejoined Eglinton passively, "an you will choose your weapon, I am fully satisfied."
But his grave eyes found occasion to send a kindly glance of gratitude to young de Mortémar. The latter felt a tightening of his very heart strings: he would at this moment have willingly given his fortune to avert the awful catastrophe.
"Mortémar, an you interfere," said Gaston, divining his thoughts, "I'll brand you as a meddler before the Court of Versailles. An you are afraid to see bloodshed, get you gone in the name of hell."
By all the unwritten laws which governed such affairs of honour, Mortémar could not interfere. He did not know the right or wrong of the original enmity between these two men, but had already guessed that mere disappointment with regard to the voyage of Le Monarque had not been sufficient to kindle such deadly hate: vaguely he surmised that somewhere in the background lurked the rustle of a silk petticoat.
Without the slightest hesitation now Gaston took one of the pistols in his left hand: his right still caused him excruciating pain; and every time he felt the agony, his eyes gleamed with more intense savagery, the lust of a certain revenge.
He had worked himself up into a passion of hate. Money has the power to do that sometimes; that vanished hope of fortune had killed every instinct in the man, save that of desire for vengeance. He was sure of himself. The pistols were his as de Mortémar had said, and he had handled them but a few hours ago: he could apprise their weight—loaded or unloaded—and he was quite satisfied.
It was hatred alone that prompted him to a final thrust, a blow, he thought, to a dying man. Eglinton was as good as dead, with the muzzle of a loaded pistol a foot away from his breast, and an empty weapon in his own hand; but his serenity irritated Gaston; the blood which tingled in his own veins, which had rushed to his head almost obscuring his vision clamoured for a sight of a shrinking enemy, not of a wooden puppet, calm, impassive even before certain death.
The agony as he lifted the half-broken wrist to his coat was intolerable, but he almost welcomed it now, for it added a strange, lustful joy to the excitement of this deed. His eyes, glowing and restless with fumes of wine and passion of hate, were fixed upon the marble-like face of his enemy. Then from the breast-pocket of his coat, he drew a packet of papers.
And although he was nigh giddy with the pain in his wrist, he clutched that packet tightly, toyed with it for a while, smoothed out the creases with a hand which shook with the intensity of his excitement, the intensity of his triumph.
The proofs in Madame la Marquise d'Eglinton's own writing that she was at one with the gang who meant to sell the Stuart prince for gold! The map revealing his hiding-place! and her letter to him bidding him trust the bearer whose orders—now affixed to map and letter—were that he deliver the young Pretender into the hands of the English authorities.
That these orders to Le Monarque had been forestalled by milor Eglinton could not exonerate Madame la Marquise from having been at one with Gaston de Stainville and Madame de Pompadour, and others who might remain nameless, in the blackest treachery ever planned against a trusting friend.
No wonder Gaston de Stainville forgot physical suffering when he toyed lovingly with this packet of papers in his hand, the consummation of his revenge.
At last 'twas done. A subtle, indefinable change had come over the calm face of Lord Eglinton, an ashen grey hue which had chased the former pallor of the cheeks, and the slender hand, which held the pistol, trembled almost imperceptibly.
Serenity had given way at sight of that packet of papers.
"Friend de Mortémar," said Gaston lightly, but with glowing eyes still fixed on his opponent, "the chances of my demise being at least equal to those of milor's—seeing that I know not, on my honour, which is the loaded pistol, and that methinks at this moment I can read murder in his eye—I pray you to take charge of this packet. It is a sacred trust. In case of my death promise me that you will deliver it into the hands of my wife, and into no other. Madame la Comtesse de Stainville will know how to deal with it."
The young Comte de Mortémar took the packet from Gaston.
"I will do as you desire," he said coldly.
"You promise that no one shall touch these papers except my wife, Irène Comtesse de Stainville," reiterated Gaston solemnly.
"On my word of honour," rejoined the young man.
The request was perfectly proper and natural, very usual in such cases; de Mortémar could not help but comply. He could not know that the fulfilment of this promise would mean public dishonour to an innocent and noble woman, and the supreme revenge of a baffled traitor.
If Gaston expected protest, rage, or excitement from his foe he was certainly disappointed. Eglinton had all the characteristics of his race, perfect sang-froid in the face of the inevitable, and an almost morbid consciousness of pride and dignity. He could not filch those papers from Gaston nor prevent de Mortémar from accepting and fulfilling a trust, which had all the appearance of being sacred.
He knew that by this act he had wrested a fortune from a man whose fetish was money, and the power which money gives: true that being an honest man himself, he had never thought of such an infamous revenge.
If he died now Heaven help his proud Lydie! but if he lived then Heaven help them both!