“Was it at Kowno that you left Monsieur d’Arragon?”
asked Desiree, in a sharp voice.
“No—no. We quitted Kowno together,
and parted on the heights above the town. He
would not trust me—monsieur le marquis—he
was afraid that I should get at the brandy.
And he was right. I only wanted the opportunity.
He is a strong one—that!” And Barlasch
held up a warning hand, as if to make known to all
and sundry that it would be inadvisable to trifle
with Louis d’Arragon.
He drew the icicles one by one from his whiskers with
a wry face indicative of great agony, and threw them
down on the mat.
“Well,” he said, after a pause, to Desiree,
“have you made your choice?”
Desiree was reading the letter again, and before she
could answer, a quick knock on the front door startled
them all. Barlasch’s face broke into that
broad smile which was only called forth by the presence
of danger.
“Is it the patron?” he asked in a whisper,
with his hand on the heavy bolts affixed by that pious
Hanseatic merchant who held that if God be in the
house there is no need of watchmen.
“Yes,” answered Mathilde. “Open
quickly.”
Sebastian came in with a light step. He was
like a man long saddled with a burden of which he
had at length been relieved.
“Ah! What news?” he asked, when
he recognised Barlasch.
“Nothing that you do not know already, monsieur,”
replied Barlasch, “except that the husband of
Mademoiselle is well and on the road to Warsaw.
Here—read that.”
And he took the letter from Desiree’s hand.
“I knew he would come back safely,” said
Desiree; and that was all.
Sebastian read the letter in one quick glance—and
then fell to thinking.
“It is time to quit Dantzig,” said Barlasch
quietly, as if he had divined the old man’s
thoughts. “I know Rapp. There will
be trouble—here, on the Vistula.”
But Sebastian dismissed the suggestion with a curt
shake of the head.
Barlasch’s attention had been somewhat withdrawn
by a smell of cooking meat, to which he opened his
nostrils frankly and noisily after the manner of a
dog.
“Then it remains,” he said, looking towards
the kitchen, “for Mademoiselle to make her choice.”
“There is no choice,” replied Desiree,
“I shall be ready to go with you—when
you have eaten.”
“Good,” said Barlasch, and the word applied
as well to Lisa, who was beckoning to him.
Oft expectation fails,
and most oft there
Where it most promises;
and oft it hits
Where hope is coldest
and despair most sits.
Love, it is said, is blind. But hatred is as
bad. In Antoine Sebastian hatred of Napoleon
had not only blinded eyes far-seeing enough in earlier
days, but it had killed many natural affections.
Love, too, may easily die—from a surfeit
or a famine. Hatred never dies; it only sleeps.
