"French--French always!" he heard one man say to the other. "French always and everywhere! When will the English or our own troops come?"
"Have patience," another said. "Already, a month ago, even before the war was declared, was not Kaiserswörth besieged by the English general Athlone? The city will soon fall now."
"English? Dutch--our countryman--you should say. Is not the Lord Athlone a Dutchman? Is he not Ginkell?"
"What matters, so that one or the other does it? Soon Marlborough will be here. Then we shall see."
"Meanwhile, he is not here, and the French are; and they eat us out of house and home, and do not pay too well."
"They will pay with their skins ere long."
But Bevill knew as much as this himself, so, continuing his walk, he soon returned towards the inns in which, he on the one side the _place_ and the Comtesse de Valorme on the other, they were to rest for the night. But when on the _place_ he could not refrain from letting his eyes wander to the "Duc de Brabant," while speculating idly as to where his companion might be installed in it.
He soon knew, however, since on the first floor of the house he observed that the long wooden shutters were open, and the windows thrown back, doubtless to admit the cool air of the coming night, while he also saw that Jeanne passed once or twice before them. As he did so he could not prevent his thoughts from turning once more to the mystery in which the Comtesse seemed to be enveloped, or from wondering again and again why she should testify such interest in him, a stranger.
Could he have gazed into one of those rooms in the "Duc de Brabant"; could he have seen the Comtesse seated in a deep _fauteuil_ wrapped in meditation; above all, could he have caught the occasional expressions that fell from her lips; or, gazing into her mind, have probed her innermost thoughts, he would have wondered no longer.
"For fourteen years now," he would in such a case have heard her say, or have gathered from the Comtesse de Valorme's thoughts, "we have suffered and borne all from him--and from her who sits by his side. From her, the scourge and curse of France, the snake that sucks the life-blood from all who do not worship as she does. Oh! God," he would have heard the undoubtedly unhappy woman exclaim, as she lifted her eyes, "how long is it to be? How long for all of us? Fathers, mothers, husbands, all--all--dead--done to death, either on the wheel or the gallows, or in the galleys or the dungeons. And for what? Because we desire to worship God in our own way--the way his grandsire promised solemnly that we should worship: the way for following which this one burns us, racks us, destroys our homes, drives us forth to exile and beggary."
