But the mockery of it. Vive Hellewyl! Vive Solignac! Long live the man who dies within two weeks! Long live the man who rides in his own funeral! Long live Solignac of the burnt roof-tree! Solignac, the harbour for owls and bats! They might as well cry, Long live Death and Destruction! And yet at the ring of the hoarse roar my blood warmed, my eyes lightened, and my heart leaped. Gaspard Hellewyl would pass as the over-blown rose had passed, but his memory would live, and Morsigny would hold it fragrant. There was some comfort in that to the man who so dearly and without hope loved the mistress of Morsigny. But such comfort soon passes; the spirit needs stronger meat than a windy cheer, however well meant, to keep it in health, and as my pulses calmed I saw facts in their true proportions. So long as I was at Morsigny, so long as I was in touch with Mademoiselle, she was the prism at which I looked at life and the hours shone red or blue at her mood's pleasure. Now that was finally done with, and thenceforward if there was a light at all it was cold and passionless. In that glamour of interweaving reds and blues I could play the stoic and say, It is not so very hard. And at the time it was true. We all have a high note in us, though all too soon it dies away in a quaver. Nor was Martin helpful. Sour and disconsolate he rode behind, whistling a _Dies irae, Dies illa_ of his own composing, until Morsigny was no longer in sight. Then, according to custom, he spurred up Ninus until his muzzle was a foot or two ahead of my girth. "I don't understand it at all, Monsieur Gaspard. We come to a place where we plainly were not wanted, stay there two months playing ourselves, then ride back where plainly we do not want to go. Why is all that? Do you remember, we were to roof over Solignac, redeem the old lands, and catch Jan Meert, and when we rode from Morsigny we were to ride as if the devil or Tristan were after us. But here we are, pricking along leisurely, as if----" "Tristan was before us, which he is. Cannot you see that we have failed?" "And Solignac?" "My poor Martin, there is no more a Solignac." "And the lands?" "Never again will a Hellewyl have lands in Flanders." "Jan Meert?" "Perhaps," said I, grimly, "perhaps Jan Meert. The King has promised we shall meet, and when it suits him to do so he keeps his word." "The King?" a spasm had poor Martin by the throat, just as in my room at Morsigny when the noosed cord was dangled in his face. "For me," said I, "but not for you. I go to Plessis, but you--to Solignac, I think, will be safest." His only answer was the reproach in his eyes, and a "God forgive you, Monsieur Gaspard," as he reined back again. Of course, he meant that where I went there would he go also: nor, so complete was his faith that what I did was the one and only thing that could be done, did he attempt remonstrance or persuasion.