The Golden Dog [253]
of prayer and supplication.
Angelique's keen eye, which nothing escaped, needed not a second glance to recognize the unmistakable grace of Amelie de Repentigny and the nobility of the Lady de Tilly.
She started at sight of these relatives of Le Gardeur's, but did not wonder at their presence, for she already knew that they had returned to the city immediately after the abduction of Le Gardeur by the Chevalier de Pean.
Startled, frightened, and despairing, with aching hearts but unimpaired love, Amelie and the Lady de Tilly had followed Le Gardeur and reoccupied their stately house in the city, resolved to leave no means untried, no friends unsolicited, no prayers unuttered to rescue him from the gulf of perdition into which he had again so madly plunged.
Within an hour after her return, Amelie, accompanied by Pierre Philibert, had gone to the Palace to seek an interview with her brother. They were rudely denied. "He was playing a game of piquet for the championship of the Palace with the Chevalier de Pean, and could not come if St. Peter, let alone Pierre Philibert, stood at the gate knocking!"
This reply had passed through the impure lips of the Sieur de Lantagnac before it reached Amelie and Pierre. They did not believe it came from their brother. They left the Palace with heavy hearts, after long and vainly seeking an interview, Philibert resolving to appeal to the Intendant himself and call him to account at the sword's point, if need be, for the evident plot in the Palace to detain Le Gardeur from his friends.
Amelie, dreading some such resolution on the part of Pierre, went back next day alone to the Palace to try once more to see Le Gardeur.
She was agitated and in tears at the fate of her brother. She was anxious over the evident danger which Pierre seemed to court, for his sake and--she would not hide the truth from herself--for her own sake too; and yet she would not forbid him. She felt her own noble blood stirred within her to the point that she wished herself a man to be able to walk sword in hand into the Palace and confront the herd of revellers who she believed had plotted the ruin of her brother.
She was proud of Pierre, while she trembled at the resolution which she read in his countenance of demanding as a soldier, and not as a suppliant, the restoration of Le Gardeur to his family.
Amelie's second visit to the Palace had been as fruitless as her first. She was denied admittance, with the profoundest regrets on the part of De Pean, who met her at the door and strove to exculpate himself from the accusation of having persuaded Le Gardeur to depart from Tilly, and of keeping him in the Palace against the prayers of his friends.
De Pean remembered his presumption as well as his rejection by Amelie at Tilly, and while his tongue ran smooth as oil in polite regrets that Le Gardeur had resolved not to see his sister to-day, her evident distress filled him with joy, which he rolled under his tongue as the most delicate morsel of revenge he had ever tasted.
Bowing with well-affected politeness, De Pean attended her to her carriage, and having seen her depart in tears, returned laughing into the Palace, remarking, as he mimicked the weeping countenance of Amelie, that "the Honnetes Gens had learned it was a serious matter to come to the burial of the virtues of a young gentleman like Le Gardeur de Repentigny."
On her return home Amelie threw herself on the neck of her aunt, repeating in broken accents, "My poor Le Gardeur! my brother! He refuses to see me, aunt! He is lost and ruined in that den of all iniquity and falsehood!"
"Be composed, Amelie," replied the Lady de Tilly; "I know it is hard to bear, but perhaps Le Gardeur did not send that message to you. The men about him are capable of deceiving you to an extent you have no conception of,--you who know so little of the world's baseness."
"O aunt, it is true! He sent me this dreadful thing; I took it, for it bears the handwriting of my brother."
She held in her hand a card, one of a pack. It was the death-card
Angelique's keen eye, which nothing escaped, needed not a second glance to recognize the unmistakable grace of Amelie de Repentigny and the nobility of the Lady de Tilly.
She started at sight of these relatives of Le Gardeur's, but did not wonder at their presence, for she already knew that they had returned to the city immediately after the abduction of Le Gardeur by the Chevalier de Pean.
Startled, frightened, and despairing, with aching hearts but unimpaired love, Amelie and the Lady de Tilly had followed Le Gardeur and reoccupied their stately house in the city, resolved to leave no means untried, no friends unsolicited, no prayers unuttered to rescue him from the gulf of perdition into which he had again so madly plunged.
Within an hour after her return, Amelie, accompanied by Pierre Philibert, had gone to the Palace to seek an interview with her brother. They were rudely denied. "He was playing a game of piquet for the championship of the Palace with the Chevalier de Pean, and could not come if St. Peter, let alone Pierre Philibert, stood at the gate knocking!"
This reply had passed through the impure lips of the Sieur de Lantagnac before it reached Amelie and Pierre. They did not believe it came from their brother. They left the Palace with heavy hearts, after long and vainly seeking an interview, Philibert resolving to appeal to the Intendant himself and call him to account at the sword's point, if need be, for the evident plot in the Palace to detain Le Gardeur from his friends.
Amelie, dreading some such resolution on the part of Pierre, went back next day alone to the Palace to try once more to see Le Gardeur.
She was agitated and in tears at the fate of her brother. She was anxious over the evident danger which Pierre seemed to court, for his sake and--she would not hide the truth from herself--for her own sake too; and yet she would not forbid him. She felt her own noble blood stirred within her to the point that she wished herself a man to be able to walk sword in hand into the Palace and confront the herd of revellers who she believed had plotted the ruin of her brother.
She was proud of Pierre, while she trembled at the resolution which she read in his countenance of demanding as a soldier, and not as a suppliant, the restoration of Le Gardeur to his family.
Amelie's second visit to the Palace had been as fruitless as her first. She was denied admittance, with the profoundest regrets on the part of De Pean, who met her at the door and strove to exculpate himself from the accusation of having persuaded Le Gardeur to depart from Tilly, and of keeping him in the Palace against the prayers of his friends.
De Pean remembered his presumption as well as his rejection by Amelie at Tilly, and while his tongue ran smooth as oil in polite regrets that Le Gardeur had resolved not to see his sister to-day, her evident distress filled him with joy, which he rolled under his tongue as the most delicate morsel of revenge he had ever tasted.
Bowing with well-affected politeness, De Pean attended her to her carriage, and having seen her depart in tears, returned laughing into the Palace, remarking, as he mimicked the weeping countenance of Amelie, that "the Honnetes Gens had learned it was a serious matter to come to the burial of the virtues of a young gentleman like Le Gardeur de Repentigny."
On her return home Amelie threw herself on the neck of her aunt, repeating in broken accents, "My poor Le Gardeur! my brother! He refuses to see me, aunt! He is lost and ruined in that den of all iniquity and falsehood!"
"Be composed, Amelie," replied the Lady de Tilly; "I know it is hard to bear, but perhaps Le Gardeur did not send that message to you. The men about him are capable of deceiving you to an extent you have no conception of,--you who know so little of the world's baseness."
"O aunt, it is true! He sent me this dreadful thing; I took it, for it bears the handwriting of my brother."
She held in her hand a card, one of a pack. It was the death-card