to every man they come, sooner or later, these second days of birth in which at last he knows himself to be truly alive and with a purpose in the world. in some the ushering into a life of the knowledge of good and evil comes by way of a woman's kiss, in others the pangs are as keen as those that forerun the first gasped filling of the babe's lungs; but whether by way of sweetness or by way of pain, by the glory of love or by the enfibering dignity of grief, by gain or by loss it comes to all. nor is it a slow process. in an hour that which was not is, and so, being at last a man, the touch of martin's hand, the trembling of its grip where no grip should have been, was a sinister alert to watchfulness, and i would not go back.

putting his arm aside i drew level with him, and through the general chaos searched out a something to justify his presumption, a something that overshadowed with its terror the common exalted level of disaster. but i missed it; search as i might, i missed it, not knowing what to look for, and turned at last to martin, who stood watching me. there was a new look on his face that puzzled me, so softened was it. what could there be left in solignac that made for gentleness?

"well?"

"it was a good end, monsieur gaspard, the finest end in the world; i could ask no better myself."

out of the blackening ruins of my home a puff of foul vapour blew smarting into my face.

"a good end? that! are you mad?"

"hers," he answered, "babette's; she died for solignac."

"babette? dead? where—?"

i broke off, following the direction of his eyes, but without comprehension. i had forgotten babette, and remembered her now with a rush of shame. from a triangular patch of gloom where a transverse fallen beam, propped against the wall, buttressed up a mass of wreckage, a sleeve of homespun woollen stuff was thrust. motes of wood ash and dust of rubble were strewn so thickly over it that i had passed it by as only another wisp of solignac's torn hangings. even now it was not until martin shook these off and babette's dead hand hung limply down that i understood.

"poor babette!" i whispered, "poor faithful babette!"

i spoke to myself rather than to martin, and yet he heard me above the crackle of the pyre settling inch by inch.

"why would she not be faithful?" he said as roughly as if he grudged her the remorse of my regret; "you make too much of it, monsieur gaspard. this is but a little thing to have done, and for what else was she born? we must lift her out somehow; though, but for one thing, i would say leave her where she is."

"leave her here? leave babette in this hell of a place?"

"where better, with solignac for a tomb, and the dust of the house she loved to cover her? but we must have her out."

going down on his knees, he crawled across her into the hollow where the body lay, while i stooped by her, her hand fast in mine as if she were alive and i comforting her. from within came the sound of ripped cloth, and martin returned, coughing and choking with the dusty smoke.

"a joist pinned her," he explained. "stand aside now, monsieur gaspard, and i'll carry her out."

god be thanked for fresh air! the three greatest blessings in the world are fresh air, pure water, and a clean life. not even the ruin behind us nor the dead at my feet could make stale the sweetness of the breath that filled my lungs. a dozen steps from the door, martin had laid her on the grass, and for a moment we stood one on either side of her, motionless. then martin went down on one knee and deliberately began fumbling at the loose ends of the bow that knotted-in the kirtle at the throat. everywhere in the dress there were marks of solignac's disaster, powdered ash, jagged dents with frayed edges, blotches of charcoal, smouldered holes even, but the stern hard face with the set teeth and wide-open angry eyes was unbruised. it was only when he had the two upper couple of tags unfastened that i guessed at his purpose and it revolted me.

"leave her alone!" i cried, leaning across her to push him back. "what does it matter how she died?"

"it matters much," he answered. "d'you think it was for pure love and pity that i grovelled in the heat yonder? wait and see."

to his unaccustomed fingers—martin knew as little of women or women's gear as i did, and that was nothing—the knots were hard to unravel; but at length he had enough undone to satisfy him, and he looked up.

"that," and he laid his hand upon a brown stain that stretched above the ribs to the left, "is why i do it. you must see all jan meert's work, monsieur gaspard, or how can you hope to pay all?" loosening the kirtle slightly, but no more than showed the withered muscles and cordy sinews of the neck, he pushed his hand slowly, reverently beneath it. "aye! i thought so!" and again he looked up at me, sucking in his breath with a gasp as we all do when we are hurt. "not even her grey head could save her. see here, monsieur gaspard!"

drawing the edge of the stuff aside an inch or two he showed what i have seen many times since, but never before, the smooth straight lips of a sword wound. in the dry heat the skin had shrunk aside, and the red flesh looked broadly out of the cut.

"murdered! babette murdered?"

"jan meert's way," answered martin, and drew back the kirtle. "it was like this," he went on slowly. his hand still rested on the brown stain, and his face, like my own, was bent over that of the dead woman between us. "even in the copse she heard the noise of the devil's work going on, and it drew her home, for love of solignac it drew her home. she came back, that was her duty, being alone." he stopped, and his hand slipped up to the face. he had never loved babette; chiefly, i think, because of her love for me: but now, with a strange tenderness he smoothed the wrinkles of her withered face, and i knew it was his repentant amends for many a hard word and harder thought. she had loved solignac, she had died for love of solignac, and if there had been strife between them it was forgiven for the sake of that love and death. "i could not," he went on, half to himself and half, it seemed, in humble, apologetic explanation to her. "i was not alone, and so i could not come back. monsieur gaspard came first. thou understandest, dost thou not, thou quiet one, that monsieur gaspard is always first? she came back," he resumed, looking again up at me and speaking briskly, "came back raging! my faith! don't i know the mood well! she found jan meert and his crew busy and she let loose her tongue. solignac has failed in wit now and then, but it never bred cowards even in its women. rats fight when cornered, and babette was no rat. she fought with what weapon she had, and it cannot hurt her now to say she was bitter-tongued beyond all reason. another man would have let her rail, but not jan meert. that was never jan meert's way; he answered her back, and there's his answer!"

"it was a foolish thing, that coming back," said i, my brain in such a whirl from the conflict within; rage, grief, resentment, hate, warring to so confused a tumult that i hardly knew what i said.

"is love foolish? is duty foolish?"

"what could one, and that one a woman, what could she do?" i answered sourly. it was not that i did not love old babette, it was not that i did not mourn for her, but realization was as yet far from me.

martin made no reply, but the reproach in his eyes smote me. down i went on my knees, my palms on either side the withered face.

"old friend, old friend, how can i pay thee? how? how?"

"look in her face for the answer and then look here," he said harshly, "pay jan meert. love takes no payment for love. pay jan meert."

from the hard passionless face of the dead i looked up to the hard passionate face of the living, and laid my hand on the wound jan meert had made.

"by god! i will!"

as if there was no more to be said martin rose briskly to his feet. babette had done hellewyl of solignac a last service and one, in his opinion, worth dying for.

"that settles it, and hey! for ghent," he cried gaily, as if there were no such thing as ruin or sack or death in the world, and stooping, lifted her once more in his arms.

it was an ugly gruesome sight, and it made me shudder, that leathern, wrinkled, smiling face of his looking satisfaction at me over that frowning mask of death, blind-eyed, and still staring defiance. but martin was as unconscious of indecorum as he was of offence. nor was there even cause for mourning. why should there be? the woman having done her duty, had fallen on sleep, and there was no more to be said.

still briskly he retraced his steps the way we three had come, but it was only as he paused before the forced door that i divined his purpose.

"not there!" i cried; "for god's sake not there, martin; the thought is horrible."

but he only stumbled on up the step. martin was losing his youth, and the burden in his arms weighed heavier than he would own.

"there's neither pick nor spade; would you leave her to the wolves? horrible!" and again he paused, panting; "never a hellewyl of them all, seigneurs though they were, had so fine a burial. look at the smoke, monsieur gaspard, and listen to the wind in the tree-tops."

the pall had lifted, and a steady flow of grey vapour flecked with sparks was already streaming east towards courtray. with such a wind abroad the charred ends still smouldering in the heart of the pyre would yet set flying such a flag as would tell jan meert, even were he ten leagues away, that his work was well done. martin was right. better that than the wolves. the god who is himself a consuming fire might be trusted to see to his own, and that which the cold earth gives up, flame will surely not hold back.

with all reverence we cleared a space as near the heart of solignac as the heat and smoke and danger would permit. there we laid her, piling in—still with all reverence—the torn silks and tapestries that were the brightness of our house, the shattered spoils of raids by more than one generation of hellewyls, intermixed with rafters and rough timber; beauty, glory, strength, all that was left of solignac to round off the red grave of almost its last servant.

there we left her, and as we ended, there came the sudden roaring as of a furnace springing into furious heat from a dozen centres. flame, fanned to sudden birth, spurted, strengthened, leaped from splintered joist to shattered armoire, caught beams and flooring, sucked strength from their three hundred years of dryness, licked up in an instant the gaudy fripperies that hung like rent flags amidst the wreck, soared up, soared outwards, and streamed in smoke-tipped spirals flapping down the wind. truly martin was right; never had a hellewyl of solignac so grand a funeral as we gave to old babette.

"it's hey for ghent!" said martin again, as we stood on the grass watching the sparks fly, but with hearts less heavy than might have been supposed. the very greatness of a catastrophe can be its own alleviation. the spirit of a man rises within him to watch the crisis and face it down. "hey for ghent! or maybe, cologne? and the sooner we are on the road the better. which shall it be, monsieur gaspard, burgher or emperor?"

"neither," i answered; "the king and paris."

"paris?" and he looked his incredulity. it was a new thing for monsieur gaspard to have a will of his own. "why to paris?"

"how can we two face jan meert and his twenty brutes?" i quoted. "we need backing, and we'll get it from louis of france."

"from that old fox? from louis the treaty-breaker? a cunning, coldhearted, cruel—for the lord's sake, monsieur gaspard, let us keep out of his claws. when did louis of france ever back anything but louis?"

"never, and that is why he'll back us. listen, and see if i am as much a fool as you think. the dauphin marries our margaret of flanders. the dauphin's father, that cunning old fox, will desire excuses to meddle in the affairs of flanders; we give him one, and to gain his own end, he helps us to gain ours."

"what right has he to meddle with flanders?"

"the right of every just man to put down lawlessness, the right of the most christian king to right the wrong, the right of louis of france to please himself—when he is strong enough! and the right of the third is greater than the other two."

"but he shuts himself up like a rat in a hole; no man goes near him."

"monsieur de commines is the king's good friend, monsieur de commines was my father's good friend, and is my cousin thrice removed. monsieur de commines will open the rat hole and let me in. the one thing that troubles me is how we are to reach paris, scarecrows as we are and penniless."

"scarecrows," answered martin, looking ruefully at the stains and tatters that either from fire, smoke, or the ragged edges of splintered timber so disguised us that whether we were clad in silk or stuff, browns or crimsons, no man could have told. that morning, even though the tryst was only with a peasant girl, i had put on my finest splendour, and now it was a thing of derision; "scarecrows, but not quite penniless; wait for me, monsieur gaspard."

chuckling, he half ran, half shuffled off into the wood in the opposite direction to that in which he had hidden babette, and in five minutes was back, breathless, but his face still puckered with satisfaction.

"what came from hellewyl goes back to hellewyl, and where better could it go?" said he, holding out his hands. they were open, hollowed to a bowl, and in the hollow lay a little heap of coins to which patches of moist earth still clung. they were mostly silver, crowns and three-crown pieces, with here and there the red glint of a ducat. for thirty years martin had served solignac, heart, head and hand, and now, as the shadows of age darkened round him, the gains of his service failed to cover his two palms.

the thought of how we had taken so much and given so little smote me, and the tears that filled my eyes were in part shame.

"what are these, old friend?" and i put my hands behind my back.

"bread and meat for the road to paris."

"a hellewyl of solignac travels at his own charges."

"'tis the right of the king—" he began.

"but i am no king," i cut in, "nothing but a homeless, ruined man."

"my king," he answered. "take them, monsieur gaspard; would you shame an old friend? your pardon, but the word is your own. take them, of what use are they to me? if i had died last night, they'd have lain in the earth till some lout ploughed them up a hundred years hence."

but we compromised. they were my debt, but he should keep them, paying our way as we rode to paris as friend and friend.

thus it was that i turned my back for the first time on solignac, travelling at the charges of my own servant and with no more gear in the world than the ragged, smoke-stained suit upon my back. brigitta? to be frank, i had forgotten brigitta, and martin was too cunning a diplomatist to remind me of her.