第61章

I slept ill when at last I sought my bed, and through the night Inursed my bitter grief, huddling to me the corpse of the love she had borne me as a mother may the corpse of her first-born.

On the morrow I resolved to leave Toulouse - to quit this province wherein so much had befallen me and repair to Beaugency, there to grow old in misanthropical seclusion. I had done with Courts, Ihad done with love and with women; I had done, it seemed to me, with life itself. Prodigal had it been in gifts that I had not sought of it. It had spread my table with the richest offerings, but they had been little to my palate, and I had nauseated quickly. And now, when here in this remote corner of France it had shown me the one prize I coveted, it had been swift to place it beyond my reach, thereby sowing everlasting discontent and misery in my hitherto pampered heart.

I saw Castelroux that day, but I said no word to him of my affliction. He brought me news of Chatellerault. The Count was lying in a dangerous condition at the Auberge Royale, and might not be moved. The physician attending him all but despaired of his life.

"He is asking to see you," said Castelroux.

But I was not minded to respond. For all that he had deeply wronged me, for all that I despised him very cordially, the sight of him in his present condition might arouse my pity, and I was in no mood to waste upon such a one as Chatellerault even on his deathbed - a quality of which I had so dire a need just then for my own case.

"I will not go," said I, after deliberation. "Tell him from me that I forgive him freely if it be that he seeks my forgiveness; tell him that I bear him no rancour, and - that he had better make his will, to save me trouble hereafter, if he should chance to die."I said this because I had no mind, if he should perish intestate, to go in quest of his next heirs and advise them that my late Picardy estates were now their property.

Castelroux sought yet to persuade me to visit the Count, but I held firmly to my resolve.

"I am leaving Toulouse to-day," I announced.

"Whither do you go?"

"To hell, or to Beaugency - I scarce know which, nor does it matter."He looked at me in surprise, but, being a man of breeding, asked no questions upon matters that he accounted secret.

"But the King?" he ventured presently.

"His Majesty has already dispensed me from my duties by him."Nevertheless, I did not go that day. I maintained the intention until sunset; then, seeing that it was too late, I postponed my departure until the morrow. I can assign no reason for my dallying mood. Perhaps it sprang from the inertness that pervaded me, perhaps some mysterious hand detained me. Be that as it may, that I remained another night at the Hotel de l'Epee was one of those contingencies which, though slight and seemingly inconsequential in themselves, lead to great issues. Had I departed that day for Beaugency, it is likely that you had never heard of me -- leastways, not from my own pen - for in what so far I have told you, without that which is to follow, there is haply little that was worth the labour of setting down.

In the morning, then, I set out; but having started late, we got no farther than Grenade, where we lay the night once more at the Hotel de la Couronne. And so, through having delayed my departure by a single day, did it come to pass that a message reached me before it might have been too late.