第78章

He bent his head, dipped his pen and began to write.

"What punishment would you have me mete out to him?" he asked as he wrote. "Come, Marcel, deal fairly with me, and deal fairly with him - for as you deal with him, so shall I deal with you through him."I felt myself paling in my excitement. "There is banishment, Sire - it is usual in cases of treason that are not sufficiently flagrant to be punished by death.""Yes!" He wrote busily. "Banishment for how long, Marcel? For his lifetime?""Nay, Sire. That were too long."

"For my lifetime, then?"

"Again that were too long."

He raised his eyes and smiled. "Ah! You turn prophet? Well, for how long, then? Come, man.""I should think five years - "

"Five years be it. Say no more."

He wrote on for a few moments; then he raised the sandbox and sprinkled the document.

"Tiens!" he cried, as he dusted it and held it out to me. "There is my warrant for the disposal of Monsieur le Vicomte Leon de Lavedan. He is to go into banishment for five years, but his estates shall suffer no sequestration, and at the end of that period he may return and enjoy them - we hope with better loyalty than in the past. Get them to execute that warrant at once, and see that the Vicomte starts to-day under escort for Spain. It will also be your warrant to Mademoiselle de Lavedan, and will afford proof to her that your mission has been successful.""Sire!" I cried. And in my gratitude I could say no more, but Isank on my knee before him and raised his hand to my lips.

"There," said he in a fatherly voice. "Go now, and be happy."As I rose, he suddenly put up his hand.

"Ma foi, I had all but forgotten, so much has Monsieur de Lavedan's fate preoccupied us." He picked up another paper from his table, and tossed it to me. It was my note of hand to Chatellerault for my Picardy estates.

"Chatellerault died this morning," the King pursued. "He had been asking to see you, but when he was told that you had left Toulouse, he dictated a long confession of his misdeeds, which he sent to me together with this note of yours. He could not, he wrote, permit his heirs to enjoy your estates; he had not won them; he had really forfeited his own stakes, since he had broken the rules of play.

He has left me to deliver judgment in the matter of his own lands passing into your possession. What do you say to it, Marcel?"It was almost with reluctance that I took up that scrap of paper.

It had been so fine and heroic a thing to have cast my wealth to the winds of heaven for love's sake, that on my soul I was loath to see myself master of more than Beaugency. Then a compromise suggested itself.

"The wager, Sire," said I, "is one that I take shame in having entered upon; that shame made me eager to pay it, although fully conscious that I had not lost. But even now, I cannot, in any case, accept the forfeit Chatellerault was willing to suffer. Shall we - shall we forget that the wager was ever laid?""The decision does you honour. It was what I had hoped from you.

Go now, Marcel. I doubt me you are eager. When your love-sickness wanes a little we shall hope to see you at Court again."I sighed. "Helas, Sire, that would be never.""So you said once before, monsieur. It is a foolish spirit upon which to enter into matrimony; yet - like many follies - a fine one. Adieu, Marcel!""Adieu, Sire!"

I had kissed his hands; I had poured forth my thanks; I had reached the door already, and he was in the act of turning to La Fosse, when it came into my head to glance at the warrant he had given me.

He noticed this and my sudden halt.

"Is aught amiss?" he asked.

"You-you have omitted something, Sire," I ventured, and I returned to the table. "I am already so grateful that I hesitate to ask an additional favour. Yet it is but troubling you to add a few strokes of the pen, and it will not materially affect the sentence itself."He glanced at me, and his brows drew together as he sought to guess my meaning.

"Well, man, what is it?" he demanded impatiently.

"It has occurred to me that this poor Vicomte, in a strange land, alone, among strange faces, missing the loved ones that for so many years he has seen daily by his side, will be pitiably lonely."The King's glance was lifted suddenly to my face. "Must I then banish his family as well?""All of it will not be necessary, Your Majesty."For once his eyes lost their melancholy, and as hearty a burst of laughter as ever I heard from that poor, weary gentleman he vented then.

"Ciel! what a jester you are! Ah, but I shall miss you!" he cried, as, seizing the pen, he added the word I craved of him.

"Are you content at last?" he asked, returning the paper to me.

I glanced at it. The warrant now stipulated that Madame la Vicomtesse de Lavedan should bear her husband company in his exile.

"Sire, you are too good!" I murmured.

"Tell the officer to whom you entrust the execution of this warrant that he will find the lady in the guardroom below, where she is being detained, pending my pleasure. Did she but know that it was your pleasure she has been waiting upon, I should tremble for your future when the five years expire."