The Grey Cloak - Page 144/256

Diane! From beyond the wilderness spoke a voice, the luring voice of

love. Diane! He was free to seek her; no barrier stood between. He

could return to France. Her letter! He drew it forth, his hands

trembling like a woman's. "France is large. If you love me you will

find me. . . . I kiss your handsome grey eyes a thousand times." There

was still the delicate odor of vervain--her perfume--clinging to it.

Ah, if that terrible old man were not lying again! If he but spoke the

truth!

As he strode back and forth his foot struck something. He bent and

picked up the object. It was a grey mask with a long curtain. He

carried it to the candle-light and inspected it. A grey mask: what was

such a thing doing in Quebec? There were no masks in Quebec save those

which nature herself gave to man, that ever-changing mask called the

human face. A grey mask: what did it recall to him? Ah! Like a bar

of light the memory of it returned to him. The mysterious woman of the

Corne d'Abondance! But this mask could not be hers, since she was by

now in Spain. With a movement almost unconscious he held the silken

fabric close to his face and inhaled . . . vervain!

"Monsieur," said a soft but thrilling voice from the doorway, "will you

return to me my mask, which I dropped in this room a few moments ago?"

As he raised his head the woman stopped, transfixed.

"Diane?" leaped from the Chevalier's lips. He caught the back of a

chair to steady himself. He was mad, he knew he was mad; it had come

at last, this loosing of reason.