Swiftly as she passed between the tree columns, more swiftly her youth and vitality died in that walk of a few yards. We had been girl and boy together a brief half hour, heedless and gay. When she reached the arbor end, our chapter of youth was ended. I saw her bloodless face as she stepped upon the terrace. The man stretched his arms to her. As if the blight of her spirit fell upon him, the light died out of his face and he dropped his arms at his sides. He was a courtly gentleman, cadaverous and shabby as he stood, all the breeding of past generations appearing in him. "Eagle?" he said. The tone of piteous apology went through me like a sword. She took his hands and herself drew them around her neck. He kissed her on both cheeks. "O Cousin Philippe!" "I have frightened you, child! I meant to send a message first--but I wanted to see you--I wanted to come home!" "Cousin Philippe, who wrote that letter?" "The notary, child. I made him do it." "It was cruel!" She gave way, and brokenly sobbed, leaning helpless against him. The old marquis smoothed her head, and puckered his forehead under the sunlight, casting his eyes around like a culprit. "It was desperate. But I could do nothing else! You see it has succeeded. While I lay in hiding, the sight of the child, and your youth, has softened Bonaparte. That was my intention, Eagle!" "The peasants should have told me you were living!" "They didn't know I came back. Many of them think I died in America. The family at Les Rochers have been very faithful; and the notary has held his tongue. We must reward them, Eagle. I have been hidden very closely. I am tired of such long hiding!" He looked toward the chateau and lifted his voice sharply-- "Where's the baby? I haven't seen the baby!" With gracious courtesy, restraining an impulse to plunge up the steps, he gave her his arm; and she swayed against it as they entered. When I could see them no more, I rose, and put my snuffbox in my breast. The key rattled in it. A savage need of hiding when so wounded, worked first through the disorder that let me see none of the amenities of leave-taking, self-command, conduct. I was beyond the gates, bare-headed, walking with long strides, when an old mill caught my eye, and I turned towards it, as we turn to trifles to relieve us from unendurable tension. The water dripped over the wheel, and long green beard trailed from its chin down the sluice. In this quieting company Skenedonk spied me as he rattled past with the post-carriage; and considering my behavior at other times, he was not enough surprised to waste any good words of Oneida. He stopped the carriage and I got in. He pointed ahead toward a curtain of trees which screened the chateau. "Paris," I answered. "Paris," he repeated to the postilion, and we turned about. I looked from hill to stream, from the fruited brambles of blackberry to reaches of noble forest, realizing that I should never see those lands again, or the neighboring crest where my friend the marquis slept. We posted the distance to Paris in two days. What the country was like or what towns we passed I could not this hour declare with any certainty. At first making effort and groping numbly in my mind, but the second day grasping determination, I formed my plans, and talked them over with Skenedonk. We would sail for America on the first convenient ship; waiting in Paris only long enough to prepare for the post journey to a port. Charges must at once be settled with Doctor Chantry, who would willingly stay in Paris while the De Chaumonts remained there. Beyond the voyage I did not look. The first faint tugging of my foster country began to pull me as it has pulled many a broken wretch out of the conditions of the older world. Paris was horrible, with a lonesomeness no one could have foreseen in its crowded streets. A taste of war was in the air. Troops passed to review. Our post-carriage met the dashing coaches of gay young men I knew, who stared at me without recognition. Marquis du Plessy no longer made way for me and displayed me at his side. I drove to his hotel in the Faubourg St. Germain for my possessions. It was closed: the distant relative who inherited after him being an heir with no Parisian tastes. The care-taker, however, that gentle old valet like a woman, who had dressed me in my first Parisian finery, let us in, and waited upon us with food I sent him out to buy. He gave me a letter from my friend, which he had held to deliver on my return, in case any accident befell the marquis. He was tremulous in his mourning, and all his ardent care of me was service rendered to the dead. I sat in the garden, with the letter spread upon the table where we had dined. Its brevity was gay. The writer would have gone under the knife with a jest. He did not burden me with any kind of counsel. We had touched. We might touch again. It was as if a soul sailed by, waving its hat. "My Dear Boy:-- "I wanted you, but it was best you should not stay and behold the depravity of your elders. It is about a woman. "May you come to a better throne than the unsteady one of France. "Your friend and servant, Etienne du Plessy. "Garlic is the spice of life, my boy!" I asked no questions about the affair in which he had been engaged. If he had wanted me to know he would have told me. The garden was more than I could endure. I lay down early and slept late, as soon as I awoke in the morning beginning preparation for leaving France. Yet two days passed, for we were obliged to exchange our worn post-carriage for another after waiting for repairs. The old valet packed my belongings; though I wondered what I was going to do with them in America. The outfit of a young man of fashion overdressed a refugee of diminished fortune. For no sooner was I on the street than a sense of being unmistakably watched grew upon me. I scarcely caught anybody in the act. A succession of vanishing people passed me from one to another. A working man in his blouse eyed me; and disappeared. In the afternoon it was a soldier who turned up near my elbow, and in the evening he was succeeded by an equally interested old woman. I might not have remembered these people with distrust if Skenedonk had not told me he was trailed by changing figures, and he thought it was time to get behind trees. Bellenger might have returned to Paris, and set Napoleon's spies on the least befriended Bourbon of all; or the police upon a man escaped from Ste. Pelagie after choking a sacristan. The Indian and I were not skilled in disguises as our watchers were. Our safety lay in getting out of Paris. Skenedonk undertook to stow our belongings in the post-chaise at the last minute. I went to De Chaumont's hotel to bring the money from Doctor Chantry and to take leave without appearing to do so. Mademoiselle de Chaumont seized me as I entered. Her carriage stood in the court. Miss Chantry was waiting in it while Annabel's maid fastened her glove. "O Lazarre!" the poppet cried, her heartiness going through me like wine. "Are you back? And how you are changed! They must have abused you in Russia. We heard you went to Russia. But since dear Marquis du Plessy died we never hear the truth about anything." I acknowledged that I had been to Russia. "Why did you go there? Tell your dearest Annabel. She won't tell." "To see a lady." Annabel shook her fretwork of misty hair. "That's treason to me. Is she beautiful?" "Very." "Kind?" "Perfectly." "Well, you're not. By the way, why are you looking so wan if she is beautiful and kind?" "I didn't say she was beautiful and kind for me, did I?" "No, of course not. She has jilted you, the wretch. Your dearest Annabel will console you, Lazarre!" She clasped my arm with both hands. "Madame de Ferrier's husband is alive!" "What consolation is there in that?" "A great deal for me. She has her estates back, and he was only hiding until she got them. I know the funniest thing!" Annabel hooked her finger and led me to a small study or cabinet at the end of the drawing-room. A profusion of the most beautiful stuffs was arranged there for display. "Look!" the witch exclaimed, pinching my wrist in her rapture. "India muslin embroidered in silver lama, Turkish velvet, ball dresses for a bride, ribbons of all colors, white blond, Brussels point, Cashmere shawls, veils in English point, reticules, gloves, fans, essences, a bridal purse of gold links--and worse than all,--except this string of perfect pearls--his portrait on a medallion of ivory, painted by Isabey!" "What is this collection?" "A corbeille!" "What's a corbeille?" Annabel crossed her hands in desperation. "Oh, haven't you been in Paris long enough to know what a corbeille is? It's the collection of gifts a bridegroom makes for his bride. He puts his taste, his sentiment, his"--she waved her fingers in the air--"as well as his money, into it. A corbeille shows what a man is. He must have been collecting it ever since he came to France. I feel proud of him. I want to pat him on his dear old back!" Not having him there to pat she patted me. "You are going to be married?" "Who said I was going to be married?" "Isn't this your corbeille?" Annabel lifted herself to my ear. "It was Madame de Ferrier's!" "What!" "I'm sure of it!" "Who bought it?" "Count de Chaumont, of course." "Was Madame de Ferrier going to marry him?" "Who wouldn't marry a man with such a corbeille?" "Was she?" "Don't grind your teeth at your dearest Annabel. She hadn't seen it, but it must have decided her. I am sure he intended to marry Madame de Ferrier, and he does most things he undertakes to do. That inconsiderate wretch of a Marquis de Ferrier--to spoil such a corbeille as this! But Lazarre!" She patted her gloved hands. "Here's the consolation:--my father will be obliged to turn his corbeille into my trousseau when I am married!" "What's a trousseau?" "Goose! It's a bride's wardrobe, I knew he had something in this cabinet, but he never left the key in the door until to-day. He was so completely upset when the De Ferriers came into Paris!" "Are they in Paris?" "Yes, at their own hotel. The old marquis has posted here to thank the emperor! The emperor is away with the troops, so he is determined at least to thank the empress at the assembly to-night." "Will Madame de Ferrier go to the Tuileries?" "Assuredly. Fancy how furious my father must be!" "May I enter?" said the humblest of voices outside the door. We heard a shuffling step. Annabel made a face and clenched her hands. The sprite was so harmless I laughed at her mischief. She brought in Doctor Chantry as she had brought me, to behold the corbeille; covering her father's folly with transparent fabrications, which anybody but the literal Briton must have seen through. He scarcely greeted me at all, folding his hands, pale and crushed, the sharp tip of his nose standing up more than ever like a porcelain candle-extinguisher, while I was anxious to have him aside, to get my money and take my leave. "See this beautiful corbeille, Doctor Chantry! Doesn't it surprise you Lazarre should have such taste? We are going this morning to the mayor of the arrondissement. Nothing is so easy as civil marriage under the Empire! Of course the religious sacrament in the church of the Capuchins follows, and celebrating that five minutes before midnight, will make all Paris talk! Go with us to the mayor, Doctor Chantry!" "No," he answered, "no!" "My father joins us there. We have kept Miss Chantry waiting too long. She will be tired of sitting in the carriage." Chattering with every breath Annabel entrained us both to the court, my poor master hobbling after her a victim, and staring at me with hatred when I tried to get a word in undertone. I put Annabel into the coach, and Miss Chantry made frigid room for me. "Hasten yourself, Lazarre," said Mademoiselle de Chaumont. I looked back at the poor man who was being played with, and she cried out laughing-- "Did you go to Russia a Parisian to come back a bear?" I entered her coach, intending to take my leave as soon as I had seen Count de Chaumont. Annabel chattered all the way about civil marriage, and directed Miss Chantry to wait for us while we went in to the mayor. I was perhaps too indifferent to the trick. The usually sharp governess, undecided and piqued, sat still. The count was not in the mayor's office. A civil marriage was going forward, and a strange bridal party looked at us. "Now, Lazarre," the strategist confided, "your dearest Annabel is going to cover herself with Parisian disgrace. You don't know how maddening it is to have every step dogged by a woman who never was, never could have been--and manifestly never will be--young! Wasn't that a divine flash about the corbeille and the mayor? Miss Chantry will wait outside half a day. As I said, she will be very tired of sitting in the carriage. This is what you must do; smuggle me out another way; call another carriage, and take me for a drive and wicked dinner. I don't care what the consequences are, if you don't!" I said I certainly didn't, and that I was ready to throw myself in the Seine if that would amuse her; and she commended my improvement in manners. We had a drive, with a sympathetic coachman; and a wicked dinner in a suburb, which would have been quite harmless on American ground. The child was as full of spirits as she had been the night she mounted the cabin chimney. But I realized that more of my gold pieces were slipping away, and I had not seen Doctor Chantry. "We were going to the mayor's," she maintained, when reproached. "My father would have joined us if he had been there. He would certainly have joined us if he had seen me alone with you. Nothing is so easy as civil marriage under the Empire. Of course the religious sacrament follows, when people want it, and if it is celebrated in the church of the Capuchins--or any other church--five minutes before midnight, it will make all Paris talk! Every word I said was true!" "But Doctor Chantry believed something entirely different." "You can't do anything for the English," said Annabel. "Next week he will say haw-haw." Doctor Chantry could not be found when we returned to her father's hotel. She gave me her fingers to kiss in good-bye, and told me I was less doleful. "We thought you were the Marquis du Plessy's son, Lazarre. I always have believed that story the Holland woman told in the cabin, about your rank being superior to mine. Don't be cut up about Madame de Ferrier! You may have to go to Russia again for her, but you'll get her!" The witch shook the mist of hair at the sides of her pretty aquiline face, blew a kiss at me, and ran up the staircase and out of my life. After waiting long for Doctor Chantry I hurried to Skenedonk and sent him with instructions to find my master and conclude our affair before coming back. The Indian silently entered the Du Plessy hotel after dusk, crestfallen and suspicious. He brought nothing but a letter, left in Doctor Chantry's room; and no other trace remained of Doctor Chantry. "What has he done with himself, Skenedonk?" I exclaimed. The Oneida begged me to read that we might trail him. It was a long and very tiresome letter written in my master's spider tracks, containing long and tiresome enumerations of his services. He presented a large bill for his guardianship on the voyage and across France. He said I was not only a Rich Man through his Influence, but I had proved myself an ungrateful one, and had robbed him of his only Sentiment after a disappointed Existence. My Impudence was equaled only by my astonishing Success, and he chose not to contemplate me as the Husband of Beauty and Lofty Station, whose Shoes he in his Modesty and Worth, felt unworthy to unlatch. Therefore he withdrew that very day from Paris, and would embrace the Opportunity of going into pensive Retirement and rural Contemplation, in his native Kingdom; where his Sister would join him when she could do so with Dignity and Propriety. I glanced from line to line smiling, but the postscript brought me to my feet. "The Deposit which you left with me I shall carry with me, as no more than my Due for lifting low Savagery to high Gentility, and beg to subscribe my Thanks for at least this small Tribute of Gratitude." "Doctor Chantry is gone with the money!" Skenedonk bounded up grasping the knife which he always carried in a sheath hanging from his belt. "Which way did the old woman go?" "Stop," I said. The Indian half crouched for counsel. "I'll be a prince! Let him have it." "Let him rob you?" "We're quits, now. I've paid him for the lancet stab I gave him." "But you haven't a whole bagful of coin left." "We brought nothing into France, and it seems certain we shall take nothing but experience out of it. And I'm young, Skenedonk. He isn't." The Oneida grunted. He was angrier than I had ever seen him. "We ought to have knocked the old woman on the head at Saratoga," he responded. Annabel's trick had swept away my little fortune. With recklessness which repeated loss engenders I proposed we scatter the remaining coin in the street, but Skenedonk prudently said we would divide and conceal it in our clothes. I gave the kind valet a handful to keep his heart warm; and our anxieties about our valuables were much lightened. Then we consulted about our imminent start, and I told my servant it would be better to send the post-chaise across the Seine. He agreed with me. And for me to come to it as if by accident the moment we were ready to join each other on the road. He agreed to that. All of our belongings would be put into it by the valet and himself, and when we met we would make a circuit and go by the way of St. Denis. "We will meet," I told him, "at eleven o'clock in front of the Tuileries." Skenedonk looked at me without moving a muscle. "I want to see the palace of the Tuileries before I leave France." He still gazed at me. "At any risk, I am going to the Tuileries to-night!" My Iroquois grunted. A glow spread all over his copper face and head. If I had told him I was going to an enemy's central camp fire to shake a club in the face of the biggest chief, he could not have thought more of my daring or less of my common sense. "You will never come out." "If I don't, Skenedonk, go without me." He passed small heroics unnoticed. "Why do you do it?" I couldn't tell him. Neither could I leave Paris without doing it. I assured him many carriages would be there, near the entrance, which was called, I believed, the pavilion of Flora; and by showing boldness we might start from that spot as well as from any other. He abetted the reckless devil in me, and the outcome was that I crossed the Seine bridge by myself about ten o'clock; remembering my escape from Ste. Pelagie; remembering I should never see the gargoyles on Notre Dame any more, or the golden dome of the Invalides, or hear the night hum of Paris, whether I succeeded or not. For if I succeeded I should be away toward the coast by morning; and if I did not succeed, I should be somewhere under arrest. I can see the boy in white court dress, with no hint of the traveler about him, who stepped jauntily out of a carriage and added himself to groups entering the Tuileries. The white court dress was armor which he put on to serve him in the dangerous attempt to look once more on a woman's face. He mounted with a strut toward the guardians of the imperial court, not knowing how he might be challenged; and fortune was with him. "Lazarre!" exclaimed Count de Chaumont, hurrying behind to take my elbow. "I want you to help me!" Remembering with sudden remorse Annabel's escape and our wicked dinner, I halted eager to do him service. He was perhaps used to Annabel's escapes, for a very different annoyance puckered his forehead as he drew me aside within the entrance. "Have you heard the Marquis de Ferrier is alive?" I told him I had heard it. "Damned old fox! He lay in hiding until the estates were recovered. Then out he creeps to enjoy them!" I pressed the count's hand. We were one in disapproval. "It's a shame!" said the count. It was a shame, I said. "And now he's posted into Paris to make a fool of himself." "How?" "Have you seen Madame de Ferrier?" "No, I have not seen her." "I believe we are in time to intercept him. You have a clever head, boy. Use it. How shall we get this old fellow out of the Tuileries without letting him speak to the emperor?" "Easily, I should think, since Napoleon isn't here." "Yes, he is. He dashed into Paris a little while ago, and may leave to-night. But he is here." "Why shouldn't the Marquis de Ferrier speak to Napoleon?" "Because he is going to make an ass of himself before the court, and what's worse, he'll make a laughing-stock of me." "How can he do that?" "He is determined to thank the emperor for restoring his estates. He might thank the empress, and she wouldn't know what he was talking about. But the emperor knows everything. I have used all the arguments I dared to use against it, but he is a pig for stubbornness. For my sake, for Madame de Ferrier's sake, Lazarre, help me to get him harmlessly out of the Tuileries, without making a public scandal about the restitution of the land!" "What scandal can there be, monsieur? And why shouldn't he thank Napoleon for giving him back his estates after the fortunes of revolution and war?" "Because the emperor didn't do it. I bought them!" "You!" "Yes, I bought them. Come to that, they are my property!" "Madame de Ferrier doesn't know this?" "Certainly not. I meant to settle them on her. Saints and angels, boy, anybody could see what my intentions were!" "Then she is as poor as she was in America?" "Poorer. She has the Marquis de Ferrier!" We two who loved her, youth and man, rich and powerful, or poor and fugitive, felt the passionate need of protecting her. "She wouldn't accept them if she knew it." "Neither would the marquis," said De Chaumont. "The Marquis de Ferrier might live on the estates his lifetime without any interference. But if he will see the emperor, and I can't prevent it any other way, I shall have to tell him!" "Yes, you will have to tell him!" I thought of Eagle in the village, and the old woman who blessed her a quarter of an hour, and Paul standing on the seat to be worshiped. How could I go to America and leave her? And what could I do for her when a rich man like De Chaumont was powerless? "Can't you see Napoleon," I suggested, "and ask him to give the marquis a moment's private audience, and accept his thanks?" "No!" groaned De Chaumont. "He wouldn't do it. I couldn't put myself in such a position!" "If Napoleon came in so hurriedly he may not show himself in the state apartments to-night." "But he is accessible, wherever he is. He doesn't deny himself to the meanest soldier. Why should he refuse to see a noble of the class he is always conciliating when he can?" "Introduce me to the Marquis de Ferrier," I finally said, "and let me see if I can talk against time while you get your emperor out of his way." I thought desperately of revealing to the old royalist what I believed myself to be, what Eagle and he believed me to be, and commanding him, as his rightful prince, to content himself with less effusive and less public gratitude to an usurper. He would live in the country, shrinking so naturally from the court that a self-imposed appearance there need never be repeated. I believe this would have succeeded. A half hour more of time might have saved years of comfort to Eagle--for De Chaumont was generous--and have changed the outcome of my own life. But in scant fifteen minutes our fate was decided. De Chaumont and I had moved with our heads together, from corridor to antechamber, from antechamber to curtained salon of the lower floor. The private apartments of the Bonaparte family were thrown open, and in the mahogany furnished room, all hung with yellow satin, I noticed a Swiss clock which pointed its minute finger to a quarter before eleven. I made no hurry. My errand was not accomplished. Skenedonk would wait for me, and even dare a search if he became suspicious. The count, knowing what Madame de Ferrier considered me, perhaps knew my plan. He turned back at once assenting. The Marquis and Marquise de Ferrier were that instant going up the grand staircase, and would be announced. Eagle turned her face above me, the long line of her throat uplifted, and went courageous and smiling on her way. The marquis had adapted himself to the court requirements of the Empire. Noble gentleman of another period, he stalked a piteous masquerader where he had once been at home. Count de Chaumont grasped my arm and we hurried up the stairs after them. The end of a great and deep room was visible, and I had a glimpse, between heads and shoulders, of a woman standing in the light of many lusters. She parted her lips to smile, closing them quickly, but having shown little dark teeth. She was of exquisite shape, her face and arms and bosom having a clean fair polish like the delicate whiteness of a magnolia, as I have since seen that flower in bloom. She wore a small diadem in her hair, and her short-waisted robe trailed far back among her ladies. I knew without being told that this was the empress of the French. De Chaumont's hand was on my arm, but another hand touched my shoulder. I looked behind me. This time it was not an old woman, or a laborer in a blouse, or a soldier; but I knew my pursuer in his white court dress. Officer of the law, writ in the lines of his face, to my eyes appeared all over him. "Monsieur Veeleeum!" As soon as he said that I understood it was the refugee from Ste. Pelagie that he wanted. "Certainly," I answered. "Don't make a disturbance." "You will take my arm and come with me, Monsieur Veeleeum." "I will do nothing of the kind until my errand is finished," I answered desperately. De Chaumont looked sharply at the man, but his own salvation required him to lay hold on the marquis. As he did so, Eagle's face and my face encountered in a panel of mirror, two flashes of pallor; and I took my last look. "You will come with me now," said the gendarme at my ear. She saw him, and understood his errand. There was no chance. De Chaumont wheeled ready to introduce me to the marquis. I was not permitted to speak to him. But Eagle took my right arm and moved down the corridor with me. Decently and at once the disguised gendarme fell behind where he could watch every muscle without alarming Madame de Ferrier. She appeared not to see him. I have no doubt he praised himself for his delicacy and her unconsciousness of my arrest. "You must not think you can run away from me," she said. "I was coming back," I answered, making talk. My captor's person heaved behind me, signifying that he silently laughed. He kept within touch. "Do you know the Tuileries well?" inquired Eagle. "No. I have never been in the palace before." "Nor I, in the state apartments." We turned from the corridor into a suite in these upper rooms, the gendarme humoring Madame de Ferrier, and making himself one in the crowd around us. De Chaumont and the Marquis de Ferrier gave chase. I saw them following, as well as they could. "This used to be the queen's dressing-room," said Eagle. We entered the last one in the suite. "Are you sure?" "Quite sure." "This is the room you told me you would like to examine?" "The very one. I don't believe the Empire has made any changes in it. These painted figures look just as Sophie described them." Eagle traced lightly with her finger one of the shepherdesses dancing on the panel; and crossed to the opposite side of the room. People who passed the door found nothing to interest them, and turned away, but the gendarme stayed beside us. Eagle glanced at him as if resenting his intrusion, and asked me to bring her a candle and hold it near a mark on the tracery. The gendarme himself, apologetic but firm, stepped to the sconce and took the candle. I do not know how the thing was done, or why the old spring and long unused hinges did not stick, but his back was toward us--she pushed me against the panel and it let me in. And I held her and drew her after me, and the thing closed. The wall had swallowed us. We stood on firm footing as if suspended in eternity. No sound from the swarming palace, not even possible noise made by the gendarme, reached us. It was like being earless, until she spoke in the hollow. "Here's the door on the staircase, but it will not open!" I groped over every inch of it with swift haste in the blackness. "Hurry--hurry!" she breathed. "He may touch the spring himself--it moves instantly!" "Does this open with a spring, too?" "I don't know. Sophie didn't know!" "Are you sure there is any door here?" "She told me there was." "This is like a door, but it will not move." It sprang inward against us, a rush of air and a hollow murmur as of wind along the river, following it. "Go--be quick!" said Madame de Ferrier. "But how will you get out?" "I shall get out when you are gone." "O, Eagle, forgive me!" (Yet I would have dragged her in with me again!) "I am in no danger. You are in danger. Goodbye, my liege." Cautiously she pushed me through the door, begging me to feel for every step. I stood upon the top one, and held to her as I had held to her in passing through the other wall. I thought of the heavy days before her and the blank before me. I could not let go her wrists. We were fools to waste our youth. I could work for her in America. My vitals were being torn from me. I should go to the devil without her. I don't know what I said. But I knew the brute love which had risen like a lion in me would never conquer the woman who kissed me in the darkness and held me at bay. "O Louis--O Lazarre! Think of Paul and Cousin Philippe! You shall be your best for your little mother! I will come to you sometime!" Then she held the door between us, and I went down around and around the spiral of stone. ARRIVING