Then at last he turned to Fernande.
She had been terribly frightened at first, but the same magnetic power which had quelled the turbulent spirit of a pack of jail-birds had also acted on Fernande's overstrung nerves. Her fright had soon given way before the power and confidence which de Maurel's attitude inspired. In the same way as she had marvelled at his dealings with the workmen who were loyal, so did she render unwilling homage in her thoughts to his unflinching courage in the face of treachery. Perhaps she realized more completely than she had ever done before that here was a man whom it was easy enough to hate, but not one whom it was possible to despise. That she—Fernande—still hated him, she felt more than sure ... hated him for his rough ways, which had perhaps never been so apparent as now, when he tried to reassure her. His blouse was more stained and crumpled than ever. It had lain in the mud of the workshop, when he flung it away from him in a fit of passionate wrath. As for his hands, they were smeared with grime, and she could see that the sweat was pouring down from his forehead when with an impatient movement he brushed his thick, brown hair with his hand away from his brow.
"I am deeply grieved, Mademoiselle Fernande," he said in his unapt and halting way, "that your ears should have been offended and your eyes outraged by the sayings and doings of a pack of traitors. Meseems you will be able to regale your kinsfolk up at Coursonwith tales of the mutinous spirit of these unworthy soldiers of the Empire. I can hear my brother Laurent laughing his fill at your tale. Indeed, I know that I am to blame. I ought not to have brought you here. But Mathurin and I are passing proud of the work done by these men, and I wanted to show you what the spirit of patriotism will often do with fellows, whom my brother Laurent hath so scornfully dubbed my jail-birds. 'Twas unfortunate," he added with quaint shamefacedness, "that the rascals just chose to-day for breaking out in such senseless and childish revolt."
"Childish and senseless," Fernande said, with a contemptuous smile round her pretty lips; "you take things easily, by my faith!" Then she added earnestly: "Take care,mon cousin! one of them will kill you one day."
He turned brusquely to face her, and for a moment looked at her with a dark, puzzled frown between his eyes; then he asked abruptly: "Would you care if they did?"
She drew back suddenly, as if his strange and earnest query had hit her in the face. He did not withdraw his gaze from her, however—a curious, searching, intense gaze—which sent the blood coursing hotly through her veins in unbounded pride and anger. Indeed, for the moment she forget her rôle, forgot her foolish boast, her childish wager that she would bring this untamed ogre to his knees. For the first time now she felt appalled at the magnitude of a passion which she had wantonly kindled, and with the marvellous prodigality of youth—she would at this moment have bartered twenty years of her life to undo the mischief which she had already done. She felt like a sleep-walker who—suddenly awakened—sees a yawning abyss at his feet, and with a strange instinct of self-protection she put up her hands as if to ward off a threatened blow.
The gesture, and a vague look of fear in her eyes, sobered him quickly enough, and after a while he reiterated quite gently:
"Would you care, Mademoiselle Fernande?"
Fernande de Courson, young as she was, had a great fund of self-control and self-confidence, and already she had recovered from that sense of fear which had paralysed her for a moment and of which she was already heartily ashamed.
"Of course I would care,mon cousin," she replied coolly and with a forced little laugh. "Did you not care when our kinsfolk were murdered on the guillotine by a lot of insensate brutes? You are my kinsman, too! Surely you do not credit me with less sensibility than you or M. Gaston de Maurel possess?"
She had hit back boldly this time, and he was not quite so unsophisticated as not to know that she was punishing him for all the bitter words which he had spoken so freely—even in the woods, when her beauty and her helplessness ought to have put a curb upon his tongue. A hot flush rose to his brow, and a look of remorse, which seemed intensely pathetic and appealing, crept into his eyes. But Fernande, after her fright of a while ago, was in no mood for gentleness, and she responded to his mute prayer for forgiveness by a light, ironical laugh and a careless shrug of the shoulders.
Before she had time to speak again, however, good old Mathurin had intervened in a blundering fashion, which had the effect of adding more fuel to the smouldering flames of Fernande's wrath.
"Ah, Mademoiselle," he said, his voice quivering with emotion, "I would to God you could persuade the General not to expose himself alone in the midst of those hellhounds in there. As you say, one of them will be sticking a knife into him one day ... and...."
"Mathurin!" came in stern reproof from de Maurel.
But Mathurin had ventured too far now to draw back. He gave a shrug of his broad shoulders, as if to show that he was prepared to take all the consequences of his boldness. Worthy old Mathurin—who was wholly unversed in the ways of women—had an idea that inFernande he had found an ally who would second him in his anxiety for his master.
"Mademoiselle," he went on, imperturbed by de Maurel's glowering look, "the General's life is too precious to be thrown to those dogs.... Mademoiselle ... if you love him...."
"Silence, Mathurin!" thundered de Maurel roughly, and this time he succeeded in stopping the flow of the worthy man's eloquence. Mathurin hung his head, looking shamed and sheepish.
"What have I said?" he queried ruefully.
"Nothing that you need be ashamed of, my good friend," said Fernande de Courson with gentle earnestness, "and I honour you for your devotion to your master. Indeed, he were well advised—I feel sure—to listen to your counsels." Then she turned to de Maurel and said coolly:
"Shall we go,mon cousin? My father andma tante, not to speak of Laurent, will be desperately anxious if I do not return."
Once more it seemed as if between her and him some subtle sortilege had suddenly been broken. De Maurel felt as if he had been roughly wakened from a dream, wherein angels and demons had alternately soothed and teased him. His brother's name acted as a counter-charm upon his mood. In a moment he became constrained, halting in his speech, clumsy in his manner. His self-consciousness returned, and at the same time his delight in Fernande's company vanished. He thought that in the blue eyes which met his now so unconcernedly, he read mockery and contempt, as well as the indifference which had stung him a while ago, but which he had schooled himself in a measure to endure. Once again he felt hot shame of his ignorance, of his soiled blouse and grimy hands; and his shame and irritation were aggravated by the sting of suddenly awakened jealousy against the young and handsome brother, who even in absence appeared to exercise a sort of acknowledged mentorship over Fernande. He lost control overhis temper and retorted with unwarrantable gruffness and worse discourtesy:
"Do not let me detain you, Mademoiselle," he said. "Mathurin will see you safely into the carriole, and the man will drive you to Courson as fast as the horse can trot. I would not like to be the innocent cause of my brother's anxiety. But I fear me," he added, "that you will carry away a very unpleasant impression of La Frontenay—the jail-birds have pecked at their keeper, eh? Well, if I have to dismiss some of them, they'll be available for the campaign of highway robbery and pillage which I hear the adherents of the dispossessed King have set on foot, in order to fill his coffers; and my brother Laurent will be satisfied, I hope."
Strangely enough, Fernande—proud, imperious, high-handed Fernande—felt all her anger against de Maurel suddenly melt away at his scornful tirade. Indeed, had he been less blind and more sophisticated, he could not have failed to notice the little smile of triumph which lit up her entire face as she listened to words which of a surety ought to have filled the measure of her wrath. There could be no doubt now that the bear was over-ready to dance whithersoever he was led, seeing that the mere mention of his brother's name had caused him to forget himself completely in this new feeling of jealousy, and to hit out senselessly in every direction. Well, thought Mademoiselle Fernande—and she drew a contented little sigh—he should suffer punishment for this outburst of temper—punishment far more severe than he had endured a while ago, for it would be accompanied by stinging remorse and a gnawing fear that forgiveness would never be granted to him again. With this thought of retributive justice in her mind, she allowed becoming tears to gather in her eyes and a slight tremor to veil her voice, as she drew herself up to her full height with stately dignity and said coldly:
"My cousin Laurent would, indeed, be satisfied if he saw me once more safely at Courson, where, though we are poor, and still, in a measure, strangers in ournative land, we are at least not subjected to insult. My good Mathurin," she added, placing her small white hand on the grimy sleeve of the overseer, "I pray you escort me to the carriole. The heat and noise of the workshops have made me faint. I should be grateful for the support of your arm.Au revoir, mon cousin!" she said in conclusion, with a slight nod of her dainty head toward de Maurel, accompanied by a look of cold reproach. "Let us go, my good Mathurin!"
And before de Maurel had time to throw himself at her feet, as he, indeed, was longing to do, and to sue for pardon on his knees, weeping tears of blood for his brutality, she had sailed out of the workshop, with small head erect, her final glance turned deliberately away from him. And he remained there as if rooted to the spot, his heart aching with the bitterness of his remorse, gazing on the marks which her tiny heelless shoe had made upon the mud floor of the workshop, and longing with a mad and senseless aching of his whole heart to grovel on that floor and kiss each small footprint which was all that was left to him of her fragrant presence and the magic of her person.
It was over a week before Ronnay de Maurel dared venture as far as Courson in order to sue for pardon; and then mayhap he would not have gone, only that Madame la Marquise sent over repeatedly to La Vieuville, complaining of his want of attention to her and desiring his presence as soon as may be.
"'Tis hard, indeed," she said in one of her letters, "that when I thought I had found my son again, I should so soon lose him through no fault of mine own."
And at the end of another epistle she had added:
"I know everything, and pledge you my word that you need have no fear. Forgiveness is assured you."
It was a strange fact, and one of which de Maurel was in his heart mightily ashamed, that he did not speak to his uncle Gaston of his mother's letters, or of his own desire to go to Courson and obtain his pardon from the girl, the thought of whom now filled his entire soul. Of course, the invalid knew of Fernande's visit to the foundries; he knew of the incident that had occurred during the visit, and felt just strong enough to resent bitterly the fact that his workmen had shown their disloyalty in the presence of one of these "cursed Royalists."
But after that one serious attempt which he had made to keep Ronnay away from Courson, old Gaston deMaurel had not said another word on the subject; nevertheless, the keen insight which his fondness for his nephew gave him soon showed him the clue of what was in the wind.
"One of thosesatanéde Coursons has got hold of the boy," he muttered to himself, "and God help him; for she'll make him suffer, as my dead brother suffered. God grant he does not break his heart over the wench."
He sent for Mathurin and questioned him. But Mathurin was not reassuring. He thought that the General did not seem to pay much court to the lady, but, on the other hand, he declared that the lady was very beautiful, and had tantalizing, blue eyes. Old Gaston was nearer scenting the trap that was being set for Ronnay than the latter was himself. But it is passing likely that even if Ronnay had been warned he would still have deliberately courted his destiny.
The last message which his mother sent him set his pulses on fire. He could not have kept away from Courson after that. Some strange instinct for which he despised himself, caused him to avoid the invalid's room after he had donned his uniform and made ready to start for Courson. He feared his uncle's gibes and his counsels of prudence, even though in his heart he knew that his uncle was right.
When he reached Courson he found his mother in a soft and tender mood; she and Fernande were sitting together under the trees in the garden. M. de Courson and Laurent had gone fishing, he was told, and the ladies professed themselves delighted at his company. Fernande said little, but her smile was kind, and she gave de Maurel her hand to kiss. She was sitting on a low stool beside her aunt, and now and then she shot a glance from her blue eyes at him—a glance which set him galloping once more to the land of dreams. ButMadame la Marquise talked a great deal and with marked affection to her son, telling him something of her troubles, something of her anxieties about Laurent. She had no home, she said, for, of a truth, she could no longer live on the bounty of her brother. Laurent chafed at the thought of owing bread and board to his uncle.
De Maurel listened in silence to everything she said. Indeed, he was glad that his mother talked at such lengths. He would have sat here and listened for hours, all the while that he could watch Fernande, as she put in a word here and there, or made a movement to show her love and sympathy with her aunt. The sun came slanting in between the branches of the trees, and there was nothing in the world that Ronnay loved more than to watch the play of light upon Fernande's fair hair, or to see it creeping round the contour of her exquisite neck and shoulders, outlining their pearly hue with gold. When he went, he promised to come again the next day.
For the next fortnight he came nearly every day. Sometimes M. de Courson would be at home; sometimes—more seldom—Laurent would be there; but nearly always the two ladies would be alone, and Madame would talk about her troubles, and Ronnay de Maurel listened with half an ear, while his eyes followed Fernande's every movement.
Within a week he had offered to his mother and to Laurent his own Château of La Frontenay as a residence, and Madame la Marquise had graciously accepted the offer. It had been made because at the precise moment when de Maurel had his eyes fixed on Fernande, she had looked up at him, and Madame had said quite casually: "Fernande will make her home with me for the next few months while my brother and Laurent are away," and Fernande had added with a pathetic little sigh: "Is it not pitiable thatma tantehas no homeof her own, whilst you are so rich,mon cousin, and your château stands empty?"
By this time every counsel of wisdom and prudence spoken by Gaston de Maurel had long since been forgotten. Ronnay saw things through a pair of blue eyes, his thoughts only mirrored those which had their birth behind a smooth, white forehead and beneath a crown of golden hair.
To Laurent, however, his brother's daily visits at Courson were nothing short of martyrdom, and it took Madame la Marquise all her time and all her powers of persuasive eloquence to keep her younger son out of the way when de Maurel called. If by some mischance the brothers met, a quarrel was only averted by Madame's untiring tact and—it must be admitted—by Ronnay's own determination to avoid another scene which might hopelessly imperil the friendly footing which he had earned for himself in the house where dwelt his divinity.
That Ronnay de Maurel was by this time deeply in love with Fernande no one could fail to see. Madame la Marquise chose to pooh-pooh the idea only because she was afraid of Laurent's outbursts of jealousy, which would thwart all her carefully laid plans before she had put them into execution. Laurent, of a truth, was almost beside himself during these days; even though Fernande soothed his jealous temper with more soft words and more endearing ways than she had been wont to bestow on him in the past. Though the young man suffered acutely all the while that he knew de Maurel to be in Fernande's company, she very quickly sent him into paradise the moment the ogre was out of the way.
"I am working for King and country," the young girl would say, with a kind of dreamy exultation, whenever—after the departure of de Maurel—she had to endure one of Laurent's outbursts of insensate rage. "Think you that it is a pleasure to me to be in daily contact with such an odious creature? Bah! meseems when I speak with him that I can see the spectre of our martyred King and Queen calling to me to avenge them! Surely," sheadded reproachfully, "if I can endure the looks, the touch, the propinquity of the traitor, if I can bear the thought that he actually dares to sully me with his love, you, Laurent, might for the sake of our cause try to keep your unwarrantable jealousy in check."
"How can I?" exclaimed Laurent vehemently, "when I know that the man has dared to make love to you...."
"Nay, he has not yet done that, dear Laurent," broke in Fernande thoughtfully.
"But you mean to allow him to make love to you when the fancy seizes him!" he retorted angrily.
"Indeed I do. I have a wager on it with you. Have I not said that the bear would dance to my piping?"
"He doth that quite enough already. And I'll release you of that wager, Fernande."
Flushed with wrath, wretched with maddening jealousy, he drew nearer to the girl, and with a brusque movement seized her in his arms.
"Fernande," he cried, "you torture me...."
She looked up at him—there certainly was a look of acute suffering in his young face. She disengaged herself from his arms and said gently:
"Poor Laurent! If it were not that we have need of the man and thatma tantesets such great store by La Frontenay, I would turn my back on him for ever to-morrow."
But he was not satisfied, even though she had spoken with singular vehemence, and his misery wrung from him a last passionate appeal:
"You do not love him, Fernande?"
For a moment or two she stood quite still, her eyes fixed on the distance, far away where lay the woods of La Frontenay—a dark green patch on the lower slope of the hills; then she turned slowly and looked calmly into Laurent de Mortain's glowering eyes.
"I hate him," she replied.
Madame la Marquise, on the other hand, encouraged Fernande with all her might. She was one of those fanatics in the Royalist cause who would stick at nothing in order to gain influence, men, money that would help toward ultimate success. In fact, she dreaded that Fernande was really only playing with de Maurel's love, and that she really meant to throw him over. In her heart she was hoping that the child could be persuaded to accept his attentions. As the wife of Ronnay de Maurel, the master of the foundries of La Frontenay, she could render incalculable services to the King. What was a girl's happiness worth, when weighed in the balance with the triumph of a sacred cause? But Madame was too shrewd a campaigner to show her hand to the enemy—the enemy in this case being both Laurent and M. de Courson. The latter, of a truth, saw little of what went on, even though Laurent boldly tackled him one day on the subject.
"Fernande sees too much of Ronnay de Maurel,mon oncle," he said, when as usual he and M. de Courson were out of the way at the hour when de Maurel paid his visit to the ladies. "He pesters her with his attentions...."
M. de Courson shrugged his shoulders at the idea. "You are dreaming, my good Laurent," he said. "My sister would never allow Fernande to accept the attentions of one of that pestiferous crowd."
And when Laurent hotly pressed his point, M. de Courson had an indulgent smile for his vehemence.
"Your jealousy blinds you, my good Laurent," he said. "Fernande loves you and she is not a girl to change her feelings lightly. Just now she is coquetting with de Maurel because it is in all our interests to keep on friendly terms with him. We are beginning toorganize our army; we shall be wanting money, arms, munitions, suitable headquarters. All these de Maurel can supply us with—if he remain friendly. Fernande has gained influence over him. Already he is less bitter when he speaks of the King. Let the child be, my good Laurent. There is no more enthusiastic patriot than our little Fernande. She vowed that she would make the Maurel bear dance to her piping. Let us not place any obstacles in the way of success."
"But,mon oncle," protested Laurent hotly, "our future happiness is at stake ... both Fernande's and mine ... and if my brother...."
"Ah, çà," broke in M. le Comte tartly, "are you insinuating, Monsieur my nephew, that my daughter is like to be untrue to her promise to you?"
"God forbid!"
"Then why all this pother, I pray you? Fernande knows just as well—and better than both of us—how far she can go with de Maurel. Her coquetry—I'll stake my oath on it—is harmless enough, nor would my sister countenance de Maurel's visits here if they erred against the proprieties."
But though M. de Courson refused to admit before Laurent that there was anything but the most harmless coquetry between his daughter and de Maurel, he, nevertheless, made up his mind then and there that he would talk seriously on the subject with Madame la Marquise.
This he did, and she soon succeeded in reassuring him. A little patience, she argued, and Ronnay would be definitely pledged to place La Frontenay at her disposal; after which Fernande need never see him again.
"I am going over there within the next few days in order to select the rooms which are to be got ready for me. I shall arrange it so that Vardenne, the chief bailiff, shall see me there, and hear Ronnay speak definitely of my future residence in the place. Once he has done that in front of Vardenne, it will be impossible for him to go back on his word. Moreover, Fernande will be with me, and Ronnay will say anything, promiseanything, while I let him think that she will take up her abode at La Frontenay with me."
M. de Courson frowned. There is always a certain esprit de corps in the male sex, which is up in arms the moment one man sees that a feminine trap is being set for another.
"You are not playing a very dignified game there, Denise," he said.
"Bah!" she retorted. "Did those infamous revolutionists play a dignified game, I wonder? Is not everything fair in war—such war as we must wage—we who are poor and feeble, against the whole might of this mushroom Empire? Fernande is a true patriot. She is willing to be a pawn in the great game which we are about to play, and the stakes of which are the immortal crown and sceptre of St. Louis."
Then as she saw that M. de Courson still remained moody and silent, she said reassuringly:
"You must not fear for Fernande, my brother. If I have no fear for Laurent—and, believe me, I have none—then surely you may rest satisfied that the happiness of our children is not at stake."
That same afternoon de Maurel spoke of the woods and of the silent pool before Fernande. The warm summer mornings were exquisite there just now, he said; the water-lilies on the pool were in bud, and the sun glittered with myriads of colours on the iridescent wings of the dragon-flies. The mountain-ash was in full blossom and the white acacia filled the air with its fragrance. Fernande seemed to be listening with half an ear, but anon she said: "I will have to resume my early morning walks again some day. I have been lazy of late."
He took this to mean that she would come, and seemed quite unconscious of the fact that while Fernande spoke,Laurent had stood by with an unusually dark scowl upon his face.
But a whole month went by ere she came—a month during which Ronnay walked every morning in the woods, going as far as the silent pool, and there waiting on the chance of seeing her. It was a weary month for him, because matters at the armament works were going from bad to worse with the discontented workmen. Leroux, smarting under the punishment imposed upon him, worked hard to rally his more unruly comrades around him. Exactly what it was the men wanted, even they would have found it difficult to say. They had been called to the colours and allowed to take on work in the powder factories, but they were amenable to military discipline. The fact that most of them had been let out of prison, in order to help supply the Emperor and his armies with their needs, should have made them more contented with their lot, even though that lot was not an easy one.
'Tis true that the hardest and most dangerous tasks were put upon them; hours of idleness were few, and they were not free to come and go, as were the other workmen in the foundry. They dwelt in compounds, always under supervision; those who had families were not allowed to live with them—the boys belonged to the State and were drilled for soldiers as soon as they were old enough; the girls were set to make clothes and shirts for the army as soon as they could handle a needle.
Leroux took for his main grievance this segregation of the men away from their families, choosing to remain oblivious of the fact that had he and his mates been serving their full term of imprisonment or been deported to New Caledonia, they would have been still more effectually separated from their wives and children. But he was able to talk impassioned rhetoric on the subject, and men are easily enough won over by the bait of a real or supposed grievance.
It took all de Maurel's energy to cope with the trouble, and it was only in the early morning, before work in thepowder factory had properly begun, that he was able to absent himself from the works. He had to discontinue his afternoon visits to Courson, and in the hope of seeing Fernande again he could only rely on the vague words which she spoke the last time he saw her: "I will have to resume my early morning walks again some day."
While the trouble with his men filled his thoughts, he did not become a prey to that melancholy which was gnawing at his heart, when day after day went by and Fernande did not come. To a man of de Maurel's wilful and dictatorial temperament, the delay was positive torture, and it is quite likely that this constant jarring of his nerves, this aching desire for a sight of the woman whom he loved so passionately, tended to make him less lenient with Leroux and the malcontents.
He who throughout his administration of the great factory had always been in complete sympathy with every one of his workmen, found himself often now in complete disharmony with them—impatient of their complaints, severe in punishment, bitingly scornful in the face of threats. These had become more numerous and more violent of late. Mathurin and the other overseers, who were loyal to a man, went in fear and trembling for their master's life. And all the while old Gaston de Maurel was sinking. His life at times seemed literally to be hanging by a thread; at others he would rally, and with marvellous tenacity would refuse all medicaments and declare that he had still many years before him wherein to defeat the machinations of those Coursons whom he abhorred.
He knew quite well all that was going on; he knew that his nephew had started on that pilgrimage of suffering, wherein a de Courson led the way, and which could but end in a broken heart at the journey's end; but he said nothing more on the subject. He was a de Maurel, too, and knew well enough that against the wilfulness of one of that race, all the warnings and all the tears of a faithful mentor would be in vain.
Toward the end of June Ronnay de Maurel sent a courier over to his mother, asking her to come over to La Frontenay and select the rooms which she would like to be made habitable for her use.
Madame handed the letter over to her brother with a triumphant smile.
"The first battle has been won," she said firmly. Then she turned to her niece and placed her hand affectionately on the young girl's shoulder. "Thanks to Fernande," she added. "And in years to come, my dear, think how proud you will be that you have rendered such a signal service to His Majesty—God guard him!"
"It has not been easy,ma tante," rejoined Fernande with a whimsical smile. "Laurent has been a perfect ogre; lately he has taken to dogging my footsteps. He lies in wait for me at every turn. I dared not meet M. de Maurel outside the château, lest Laurent pounced upon us and provoked a scene. I was beginning to fear that my bear would escape me, after all."
"No fear of that, child. My son Ronnay is deeply enamoured of you. His absence from you these last few weeks has provoked him into capitulating sooner than I thought. To-morrow will clinch the pledge which Ronnay has already given me, and by autumn we shall be settled at La Frontenay."
"And Fernande, I trust," here interposed M. de Courson with stern decision, "need never meet that abominable democrat again."
As usual, when the subject was alluded to, Madame held her peace. She was in no hurry to settle anything with regard to Fernande. Everything would depend on Ronnay's attitude toward herself and toward her political schemes. If he remained impassive and indifferent, or if he could be kept in ignorance of the Royalist planstill these were sufficiently mature to ensure success, things between him and Fernande might very well be left as they were. He was far too shy and inexperienced to brusque a crisis with any woman, and Fernande might easily be trusted to keep him at arm's length, whilst allowing him to hope, until such time as he was no longer in the way of the Royalist schemes.
On the other hand, if he proved openly hostile, then Fernande must still be the bait whereby so dangerous a fish would have to be caught; she would have to be sacrificed in order to win him over completely. Once Ronnay de Maurel had a de Courson for wife, it would be her business to see that he closed his eyes to the Royalist intrigues which had the armament works of La Frontenay for their chief objective.
Madame la Marquise knew well enough that discontent and disloyalty were rife in the powder factories of La Frontenay. Her task would be to see that the disaffection spread to the foundries. The dearness of food, the oft times irksome military regulations for the defence of the realm, were always safe cards to play when men were to be won over from constituted authority to a cause wherein promises were cheap and plentiful. Rumours of disturbances at the factory had become more insistent of late, and they were an augury of further disturbances to come. And, after all, thought Madame, even jail-birds were not to be disdained as allies in a cause which was both sacred and just.
Laurent, backed by M. de Courson, raised so many objections to Fernande going over to La Frontenay again, that Madame la Marquise was for once obliged to yield. Nor did she regret Fernande's absence when she realized that Ronnay was all the more determined to push her own installation at the château forward as a means of his seeing the young girl again.
"Fernande will settle down here with me," Madame said very judicially at the most critical moment of the interview; "she will help me to put things in order, and bear me company in my loneliness, as my brother and Laurent will be going away very soon."
Vardenne, the head-bailiff, had much ado to keep his master's impatience in check after that. He was to see at once that the rooms which Madame la Marquise had selected were put ready for her occupation. If men were not available capable women and girls would have to be brought up from the village; in any case, Madame la Marquise should be installed here within the week, and suitable servants engaged for her. He himself was so absolutely ignorant of what ladies required in order to be comfortable in a château, that he then and there placed the bailiff entirely at Madame's disposal for any orders she might deign to give.
Nothing could have pleased Madame better. She was quite ready to take up her abode at La Frontenay, where already she had arranged to meet M. de Puisaye and the other Royalist leaders, and where every kind of plan and scheme could be discussed and prepared at leisure. Madame had plans of her own to think of as well—plans intimately connected with the armament works of La Frontenay and its disaffected workmen, and which she felt sure would commend themselves at once to Joseph de Puisaye. So she returned to Courson in a high state of exultation. The rapidity wherewith happy events had moved along surpassed her wildest expectations. That same evening M. de Courson decided that he and Laurent had best join de Puisaye, their chief, immediately. The whole aspect of the proposed rising was wearing a different aspect now that such perfect headquarters were at the disposal of its leaders.
"Directly you are settled at La Frontenay," M. de Courson said, "I'll communicate with Prigent and d'Aché, and they can come over with de Puisaye as soon as you are ready to receive them. The park is so marvellously secluded and so extensive, that there ispractically no fear of Bonaparte's spies being about, and I feel confident that our chiefs can come and go when they like, and as often as they like, without fear of discovery...."
"Till we are ready for our big coup," asserted Madame eagerly.
"Yes," mused M. le Comte; "it begins to look feasible now."
"Feasible?" exclaimed Madame, whose optimism and enthusiasm nothing would ever damp. "Feasible? I look upon it as done. Give Fernande and me three months, and we'll have won over two-thirds of the workmen at La Frontenay. When our recruits march upon the foundry and demand its surrender in the name of the King, they will be received with acclamations of loyalty, and within the hour the foundries of La Frontenay will be manufacturing munitions of war for the triumph of the King's cause and the overthrow of that execrable Bonaparte."
"God grant that your hopes may be realized, my dear Denise," rejoined M. de Courson; and Laurent added fervently:
"What a triumph that will be for us! The mouths of fire and engines of war fashioned by regicides and traitors for the exaltation of the baseborn Corsican, suddenly turned against that very idol whom they have dared to set up against their lawful King!"
At last there came a morning when Fernande felt free from Laurent's untiring vigilance. Since the day when she had thrown out the vague hint to de Maurel that she would resume her walks in the wood, Laurent had never wearied of keeping an eye on every one of her movements.
Morning after morning, when the sun irradiated the distant slopes with gold, she had started out at an hour when even old Matthieu was not yet about; she had tiptoed out of the house, certain that she would not wake anyone; she had stolen out into the garden by way of the veranda, her soft, heelless shoes gliding noiselessly along the parquet floors as well as upon the flagged stones. She had then skirted the château, in order to reach the park gates, only to find Laurent pacing up and down the avenue of limes, ostensibly engaged in reading a book, quite self-possessed and unconcerned, and exhibiting only the very slightest show of surprise at seeing her abroad so early in the day. He then suggested a walk round the park, or even at times a stroll as far as the woods, and she, inwardly exasperated at her own discomfiture, had perforce to appear gay and unconcerned too.
Once she thought that she would try to cross the park as far as the postern gate and to slip out into the orchardthat way and thence to the woods; but she had not yet reached the park wall before she heard Laurent's voice calling her by name. The avenue of limes commanded an extensive view of the gardens, and he had caught sight of her white dress flitting in among the trees.
She did not wish to be caught stealing out of the precincts of the château like some country wench tripping to a rendezvous, so she had perforce to give up her matutinal excursions for a while, and to be content with an inward vision of poor Laurent getting up at break of day and cooling his heels morning after morning under the lime-trees while she lay snugly in bed, breaking her little head in order to devise some means of eluding his watchfulness.
Why she should have wished to meet de Maurel again—alone in the woods—she herself could not have said. Encouraged by Madame la Marquise, she had certainly come to look upon her final subjugation of the Maurel bear as a work of selfless patriotism, and even an actual duty to her King and his cause. At the same time, the subjugation was already so complete, that it lay well within her power—this she knew—to precipitate the crisis at any moment when she felt so inclined. At a word, a look now, she could bring de Maurel to his knees and force from his untutored lips the avowal of his love which he himself was at no pains to conceal. One word from her—a message sent by courier to the foundries—would bring him to her side, even though the factories were on fire or the workmen in open revolt. She knew all that, and felt at the same time that she would sooner cut off her right hand or cut out her tongue than pen the message or speak the word. And yet she could not conquer the desire to meet him once again—alone—there where the romance of the pool, the song of birds, the murmur of the trees would all help to bring about that very avowal which she dreaded.
Of Madame la Marquise's more serious intentions with regard to herself and Ronnay de Maurel she knew nothing as yet. Had she known of them, she would have foughtagainst them with her whole might. She had far too much ardent hatred for the man to think of him as anything but a mere tool for the success of her own cause—a tool to be speedily cast aside once it had served its purpose.
That her coquetry with the man was not only capricious and thoughtless, but also wantonly cruel, she did not realize for a moment. Just now she felt more amused than thrilled by the thought that she had aroused tender feelings in the heart of a man of de Maurel's calibre; and she was only eighteen, and had no one to guide her in the somewhat tortuous path in which she had embarked. Madame la Marquise encouraged her openly. Her father was indulgently detached, and Laurent somewhat ridiculously jealous, whilst all the while she never brought herself to believe that de Maurel had it in him to love—sincerely, tenderly, unendingly. To her he was—he still remained—the enemy and the traitor; the man who perhaps had had no actual hand in the atrocities and the murders of the Revolution, but who had, nevertheless, countenanced them by openly professing democratic principles. Such a man was, therefore, fair prey for any loyal subject of His Majesty the King who had it in her power to make him suffer—as those of his kind had made the innocent suffer—and to make him weep tears of longing or of shame, that those very principles which he professed had shut him out for ever from the heart of his kindred, from their family circle, from home life and from happiness.
Yet, hating the man as she did, detesting all that he loved and despising all that he worshipped, Fernande—such are the contradictions of a woman's heart—manœuvred day after day, at great risk to her own comfort and to her reputation, for the chance of meeting that same man alone and on the self-same spot where in his deep and ardent eyes she had already more than once read the secret of a passion which he himself had not yet probed to its depths.
Fernande was not at all surprised when she saw de Maurel sitting beside the silent pool—obviously waiting for her.
Laurent and M. de Courson had gone to Avranches the previous day in answer to a summons from their chief; they were not expected home till the late afternoon. And that morning Fernande was free—free to steal out of the park gates while the morning sun tipped the distant hills with rose and made each dewdrop upon the leaves of beech and alder glisten like a diamond. She was free to wander through the orchards, where the apples were beginning to ripen, and where the cherry-trees were already stripped of their rich spoil; she was free to plunge into the cool and shady wood, to flit between the larches and the pines, feeling the cones crackling under her feet and the exhalation of warm earth rising to her nostrils and sending a delicious intoxication through her veins.
The moment she saw de Maurel she was ready to run away. But it was already too late. He had spied her white dress, and in a moment he was on his feet, and a look of strange, exultant happiness lit up his entire face. Before she could move he had reached her side and taken her hand.
"I knew that you would come, my beloved," he said simply.
She tried to be flippant, or else wrathful, but somehow the words died on her lips. Such an extraordinary change had come over him, that she caught herself looking intently into his face—studying wherein lay that subtle transformation of his whole personality which made him seem like a triumphant lover. Indeed, the manner in which he had greeted her had taken her breath completely away, and it was quite mechanicallythat she allowed him to lead her to her favourite bank of moss, there where the broken stump of a tree trunk made a comfortable seat whereon to rest, and where the wild iris grew thickest and the meadowsweet in full flower sent its delicious fragrance through the air.
She sat down on the tree trunk and arranged the folds of her gown primly round her feet, and he half sat, half lay, on the moss beside her, and all the while that she fumbled with her gown he sat quite still, with his elbow resting on the stump of the tree, his head leaning upon his hand. She felt restless and not a little nervy, and was vastly vexed with herself because—strive how she may—she could not steady the slight tremor of her fingers, and she could see that he was watching them.
"I did not think of meeting you here,mon cousin," she contrived to say after a while.
"Ah! but I think you did," he rejoined quietly. "How could you think not to meet me once you gave me hope that you would come? Every morning I have lain in wait for you until the hour when I knew that it would be too late for you to venture out so far without being seen. Then I have gone back to my work. If I had not seen you to-day, I would have come again to-morrow, and the day after, and the day after that—for a month or for a year—or for ten years—until you came."
"You talk at random,mon cousin," she said coldly, choosing to ignore the intense passion which vibrated in his voice, and the ardent look wherewith he seemed to hold her, just as he had held her once in his strong arms. "You talk at random," she reiterated. "Your words seem to imply that my desire was to meet you here, without being seen by others, whereas it is my custom to walk here often, sometimes alone, but more often with Laurent."
"Ah! that was a long while ago," he said, with that same smile which was wont to light up his bronzed face with a strange air of youth and of joy. "You used to walk in the woods with Laurent in the olden days, butnot of late. Of late you sometimes started in the early morning, hoping to steal from out the park unperceived. But Laurent has always been on the watch, and you could not come. To-day he is absent...."
"Indeed,mon cousin," broke in Fernande vehemently, "your imagination carries you far. I do not know whence you have gleaned this fantastic information, but...."
The smile still lingered round his firm lips as he rejoined quietly:
"Every morning at break of day I have prowled around the park of Courson. Every morning, until a week ago, I saw your white dress gleaming amongst the trees. I also saw Laurent wandering, disconsolate, under the lime-trees until he caught sight of you and turned you from your purpose."
"You have, indeed, a vivid imagination,mon cousin," she retorted, somewhat abashed, "if you connect my early morning walks in the park of Courson in the company of Laurent with any desire on my part to meet you here."
"For the past week," he went on, wholly unperturbed, "I have only seen Laurent, still walking dolefully under the limes. You did not come. But yesterday Laurent went to Avranches and this morning I saw you from afar. I saw your white dress, which looked like an exquisite white cloud on which the sun had imprinted a kiss and covered it with a rosy glow. I saw your hair like a golden aureole and the outline of your shoulders and your arms as you flitted like a sprite in and out amongst the trees. Then I knew that you were on your way hither; I soon outdistanced you. How I walked I cannot tell. Meseems that fairies must have carried me."
"Meseems that your work cannot of late have been very absorbing,mon cousin," she rejoined with well-assumed flippancy, "if you have spent every morning spying on my movements ten kilomètres away from your home."
"I would walk fifty on the chance of catching sight ofyou for five minutes in the distance," he said, "but not because I am idle. Work at the foundries and in the factory has been arduous and heavy. Rumour will have told you that some of our men have been troublesome...."
She looked straight down into his eyes and said earnestly:
"Those for whose sake you and yours became false to your King and to your caste are turning against you now,mon cousin. Yes! Rumour hath told me that."
"And you have rejoiced?"
"And I have rejoiced."
"Because in your thoughts you still hate me?"
"Because in my thoughts I condemn you as false to your country and false to your King."
"But in your heart, Fernande," he said slowly, "in your heart you no longer hate me."
"Mon cousin," she protested.
"Do you hate me, Fernande?" he insisted.
She would have given worlds for the power to jump up then and there and to run away. But some invisible bond kept her chained to the spot. She could not move. There was a clump of meadowsweet close to her feet, all interwoven with marguerites, and overhead a mountain-ash was in full bloom and the pungent scent went to her head like wine. Her cheeks felt glowing with heat, and there were tiny beads of perspiration at the roots of her hair, but her hands felt cold and her feet numb, and her throat was dry and parched.
She had just enough strength left to try and hide her confusion from him. She stooped and picked a marguerite, and thoughtfully, mechanically, her delicate fingers began to pull the white petals off one by one.
"An that flower does not lie," he said, with the same quiet earnestness, "it will tell you that I love you ... passionately...."
The word, the look which accompanied it—above all, his hand which had without any warning seized her own—suddenly dispelled the witchery which up to nowhad so unaccountably held her will and her spirit in bondage. With a brusque movement she jumped to her feet and wrenched her hand out of his grasp, and now stood before him, tall, stately, with flaming cheeks and wrath-filled eyes, whilst a laugh of infinite scorn broke from her lips.
"Ah çà!" she exclaimed, "you have methinks taken leave of your senses,Monsieur mon cousin. Or hath rumour lied again, when it averred that you led an abstemious life? The cellars of La Vieuville are well stocked with wine apparently, and its fumes have overclouded your brain, or you had not dared to insult me with such folly."
He, too, had risen and stood facing her, his cheeks pale beneath their bronze, his hands tightly clenched.
"There is no insult," he said quietly, as soon as she had finished speaking, "in the offer of an honest man's love."
"An honest man's love?" she retorted. "The love of a man whose hands are stained with the blood of all those I care for!"
"A truce on this childishness, Fernande," he rejoined almost roughly. "Are we puppets, you and I, to dance to the piping of political wirepullers? I say, that when a man and a woman love one another, political aims and ideals soon sink into insignificance. What matters it if you desire to see this nation governed by a descendant of the Bourbons, or I by a newly-risen military genius? What matters it, dear heart, if one loves?..."
"Aye! if one loves!" she exclaimed, with a derisive laugh. "But you see, I do not love you,mon cousin."
"That is where you are wrong, Fernande," he riposted, still speaking calmly, even though his voice had now become quite hoarse and choked. "You do not know your own heart, my dear ... you are too young to know it. But I knew that you loved me the day that first you came to meet me here! You remember? It was a lovely day in May; the sun shone golden between the branches of the trees, the mating birds were buildingtheir nests, the woods were fragrant with the scent of violets and lilies of the valley. You had gathered a bunch of wild hyacinths and they lay scattered at your feet, and I knelt down and picked them up for you, and for one instant your hand came in contact with mine. You loved me then, Fernande! you loved me when you nestled in my arms, and I carried you through the woods and out in the fields beneath the clear blue sky, less blue than your eyes. And from below a skylark rose heavenwards and sang a hosanna in the empyrean above. Your eyes were closed, but you did not sleep. You loved me then, Fernande! I felt it in every fibre of my heart, in every aspiration of my soul. My entire being thrilled with the knowledge that you loved me. You love me now, my dear," he added with ineffable tenderness, "else you were not here to-day."
"M. de Maurel!" cried Fernande, "this is an outrage!" Her voice was choked with tears—tears of shame and of remorse for the past, tears of wrath and of misery at her own helplessness. She buried her face in her hands, lest he should see her tears; her feet were rooted to the ground; she dared not move, she dared not fly! she was only conscious of an awful, an overwhelming sense of fear.
"It is the truth, Fernande," he rejoined calmly. "Ah! you may scorn me, your beautiful eyes may flash hatred upon me. No doubt that I deserve both your scorn and your hate. I am rough, uneducated, illiterate, common, vulgar—what you will; but I am a man, a creature of flesh and blood, with a mind and a soul and a heart. That soul and that heart are yours—yours because you filched them from me with your blue eyes and your enchanting smile. You may turn away from me now—and we may part to-day never perhaps to meet again! We may each go our ways—you to sacrifice your youth, your beauty, your life to a degenerate cause; I, to eat my heart out in mad longing for you; but what has passed between us will never be forgotten. My words will ring in your ears long after an assassin's hand,which your kinsfolk have armed against me, has done its work and sent me to fall obscurely in a ditch with a Royalist bullet between my shoulders...."
Her hands dropped away from her face. She drew herself up and looked at him with large, puzzled, inquiring eyes.
"What do you mean?" she asked slowly.
With a careless laugh and a shrug of the shoulders, he pointed to the thicket immediately behind her.
"I mean that day after day an assassin lurks in the undergrowth, dogging my footsteps, watching his opportunity. I mean that three times in the past week I have caught a man in there with a musket in his hand—a musket which was aimed at me. Three times I dragged a man out into the light of day, and the terror of being handed to the hangman forced an avowal from his lips. An avowal! always the same! He had been paid by an agent of Joseph de Puisaye to put a bullet into my back."
"It is false!" she cried.
"It is true!" he retorted. "Why should the hands that pillaged the home of M. de Ris, that murdered the Bishop of Quimper and outraged the Bishop of Cannes—why should they hesitate to strike a de Maurel who happens to be an inconvenient foe?"
"It is false!" she reiterated vehemently.
"False, think you? Then I pray you listen."
He put up his hand, and instinctively she obeyed. The wood lay quite still under the heat of this July forenoon. There was not a rustle among the trees; the birds were silent, and from the mysterious pool there only came the gentle lapping of lazy waters against the mossy bank.
Fernande strained her ears to listen, and soon she heard a stealthy, furtive movement in the undergrowth close by, and she was conscious of that curious, unerring sense which in the midst of Nature's silence proclaims the presence of a hidden human being. She felt more than she heard that somewhere amidst the tangledchestnut a creature was lurking, who was neither bird nor beast—a creature who might, indeed, be hiding there with sinister intent, his hand upon a musket which he had been paid to wield.
A shudder of horror went right through her. She knew well enough that the Chouan leaders nowadays openly boasted of the reprisals which they meant to take; she had often heard fanatics, like Madame la Marquise, declare that in this coming war they would stick neither at murder, nor pillage, nor outrage, and an icy terror overcame her lest, indeed, some malcontent had been bribed to strike at this dangerous opponent from behind and in the dark.
De Maurel moved toward the thicket, and she, with an impulse that was almost crazy, caught at his arm and clung to it, carried away by that same agonizing and nameless terror which in a swift vision had shown her the lurking assassin, and this splendid soldier of France lying murdered in a ditch.
"Where are you going?" she cried wildly.
"To find the assassin," he replied with a loud laugh. "Those Normandy peasants are vastly unapt with their muskets. God forgive him, but in aiming at me he might succeed in hitting you."
"You must not go. It is madness to go."
"It were madness not to go, Fernande. I entreat you take your dear hand from off my arm...."
"You shall not go," she reiterated half deliriously.
He could not have wrenched himself free from her grasp without hurting her delicate hands. "Dear heart," he said more gently, "I'll return in a trice."
"You shall not go."
"Fernande!"
"You shall not go."
Then suddenly he yielded. With a quick movement he turned and caught her in his arms.
"Ah, Fernande!" he said exultantly, "can you tell me now that you do not love me?" And as she, suddenly brought back to her senses, tried to drag herselfaway from him, he seized both her wrists and held her there one moment firmly, almost brutally, so that she was forced to look him straight in the eyes—his deep-set, passionate eyes, wherein love, triumph, joy, a mad jubilation had kindled a glowing light.
"It was all a ruse, Fernande," he said, and the words came with vast rapidity, tumbling through his lips, "a ruse to catch you unawares. Do you think that I care if an assassin doth lurk behind a thicket? Our fate is in God's hands, and I have affronted Prussian or Austrian cannon too often to think twice of a peasant's musket. But I wanted you to know, to realize what love means. And just now, when you thought my life in danger, there came a call from your heart, Fernande, the hearing of which I would not barter for the highest place in paradise."
"It is false," she cried. "Let me go!"
"You love me, Fernande."
"I hate you. Let me go!"
"Not until you understand. Ah, my dear, my dear, if you only realized what it means, you would not fight—like the shy young bird that you are—against the most glorious, the most magnificent, the most overpowering joy that God can grant to his miserable creatures. You would understand, Fernande, how paltry a thing are country, kindred, friends, King or Emperor, life or death? You love me, Fernande, and in love you would forget aught but love. Together we would forget, together we would live, my arms around you, your sweet head upon my breast. Look up to Heaven now, my dear, there where through the branches of that delicate birch you can see glints of blue and of gold, and swear now before God that you still hate me ... swear it, Fernande, if you can."
She remained silent, numbed, bewildered, her very senses aching with the intensity of her emotion, her gaze held by the fascination of that transcendental passion which glowed from out his eyes. Just for a moment they remained thus, hand in hand, whilst the murmurings of the woods were hushed, and a soft breeze stirred thedelicate tendrils of her golden hair—just for one moment—that supreme second which in the life of God's elect spells immortality!
Then, as when in the midst of a master's touch upon a perfectly tuned violin, a string suddenly snaps with a harsh and grating sound, so did a strident laugh break upon the exquisite silence of the woods.
"Well done, Fernande! well done!" came in ringing accents from out the thicket. "You have, indeed, won your wager. The bear is dancing to your piping, and I am just in time to see that he doth not commence to growl."
At the first sound of that laugh and of those words de Maurel had suddenly dropped Fernande's hands; he drew away from her and staggered almost as if that shot from the assassin's musket had struck him in the back. He put his hand up to his forehead and gazed out into the depths of the undergrowth close by, where Laurent de Mortain's slim form could be seen with outstretched arms pushing aside the thick branches of the young chestnut, his face—set and pale with passion—peering out from amongst the leaves.
Fernande had not moved; only the tender glow of a while ago had suddenly fled from her cheeks and left them pale as ashes, and her eyes—which looked preternaturally large and dark with their dilated pupils—were fixed upon the approaching figure of Laurent. And de Maurel gazed from one to the other, from Laurent to Fernande, in a dazed, uncomprehending manner. He could not speak, he could not confront his young brother with the taunt that he was lying. He had looked on Fernande, and, God help him! he could not understand.
But already Laurent had extricated himself out of the tangled coppice, and was striding rapidly toward them both.
"It was very well done," he said as he approached."Many a time these past two months we all thought that you would fail. But you were so sure, were you not? Ah!" he added, as with a nervy gesture he flicked his boot with the riding whip which he carried, "how well I remember your boast, after that day when de Maurel and I quarrelled so hotly that we all feared he never would come nigh us again. 'The Maurel bear,' you said, 'will dance to my piping on the faith of Fernande de Courson!' No offence, dear brother," continued the young man with well-affected unconcern; "our fair cousin's innocent coquetry must have vastly pleased your vanity. But there's no harm done, is there? We all have to go through the mill of women's wiles, and are none the worse for it in after life. You'll learn that, too, my good de Maurel, when you become better acquainted with the world. Shall we go now, Fernande?"
With an air of proprietorship as well as of perfect courtesy he bowed before his young cousin and held out his arm to her. She appeared to be in a dream, all the life seemed to have gone out of her, and she stood there like a wooden doll, motionless and with wide-open eyes still fixed upon Laurent. Now, when he seemed to expect her to place her hand on his arm, she obeyed with a mechanical, automatic gesture.
That half-crazy vacancy which had descended on de Maurel's mind when first Laurent's derisive words had hit him as with a blow, was gradually lifted from him. Sober common-sense, of which he had an abundant fund, had soon begun to whisper insidiously that here was no misunderstanding, no arrogance or perversion on the part of Laurent, since Fernande had not by word or gesture attempted to deny the truth of what he said. She had been ready enough to cry out: "It is false!" when those whom she loved were being indirectly attacked. That cry had come from her heart, whereas now she did not deny. She gave no word, no look. She allowed Laurent to lead her away. She had had her fun—her game with the besotted rustic, who had dared to raise his eyes to her unapproachable beauty—shehad had her fun with him; now she was in a hurry to get home, in order to laugh at her ease.
But to see her go away like that was something past the endurance of any man. De Maurel felt that even a word of torturing cruelty from her would be more bearable than this icy silence. And, after all—who knows?—the magic of her voice might dispel even this horrible dream. And so just as she was about to move away, he spoke to her, slowly, deliberately, forcing his rough voice to tones of courtesy.
"One moment, I pray you, Mademoiselle Fernande," he said. "Surely, ere you go, you will at least deign to confirm the truth of what my brother hath said?"
"You need no confirmation from Mademoiselle Fernande," broke in Laurent harshly. "I am not in the habit of lying."
"'Tis to Mademoiselle Fernande I was speaking," rejoined de Maurel quietly. "I would humbly beg her to answer for herself."
Then only did she turn and look at him, and at sight of the hopeless shame and misery which were imprinted on his face, she felt the hot tears welling up from her heart, and she had to close her eyes, lest he should read in them all the agonizing remorse which she felt.
But she could not speak; every word she uttered would have choked her. And he, seeing her coldness, that proud aloofness which seemed to have descended upon her like a mantle the moment Laurent de Mortain appeared upon the scene, could have cried out in his humiliation and his wretchedness like some poor animal that has been wounded unto death. Not to these two proud aristocrats, however, would he show how terribly he was suffering. She—Fernande—held him in ridicule, it seemed—in contempt and derision. With cruel scorn she had toyed with his tenderest heart-strings, and laughed at his coming misery with those who would gladly sweep him off this earth. How she must have hated him, he thought, to have planned his abasement so thoughtfully, so deliberately.
That first day in the woods, the sheaf of bluebells, her exquisite bare toes ... all a trick! a trick! and he stood before her now—before Laurent his brother—shamed to the innermost depths of his being—openly denounced as a self-deluded fool—an unpardonably vain, besotted, unjustifiable fool!!
For the moment he could do nothing, save to try and rescue a few tattered shreds of his own self-respect; so now, when after a second or two of silence, Laurent made as if he would speak again, Ronnay interposed firmly:
"I have had my answer," he said, as calmly as the hoarseness of his voice would allow, "and there is nothing left for me to do, meseems, save to tender to Mademoiselle Fernande de Courson my humble apologies for the annoyance which this present scene must have caused her. I may be a rustic—and I know that I am a fool—still, I am not quite such an one as not to realize how very unpleasant even a chance meeting with me in the future would be to her. I should like to assure her, therefore, as well as Madame la Marquise, my mother, that I shall be leaving for Poland soon to join the Emperor, and that the sight of my soiled blouse and unkempt hair will not offend their eyes for many months to come."
Laurent, vaguely stirred by shame at his own attitude at this moment, felt that he ought to say something amicable or conciliatory, but with a decided gesture of the hand, de Maurel repelled any further argument. He remained undoubtedly the master of the situation, a curiously dignified figure despite his rough clothes and the humiliation which had been put upon him. He remained standing close by the mossy bank whereon he had first dreamed—a foolish fond dream of happiness. The exquisite vision of loveliness and of grace who, with small, cruel hands had oped for him the secret door and shown him a glimpse of paradise, was even now turning away from him, without a word, without a look, arm in arm with the man for whom she had reserved herkisses, her fond embrace, the mere thought of which had sent fire through his own veins.
She went right round the lake, her hand resting on Laurent's arm; then they struck the woodland path which led straight to Courson. For a while de Maurel could see her white dress gleaming amongst the trees, and once a ray of sunshine caught the top of her tiny head and made her hair shine like living gold. Then the thicket gradually enveloped them, and in the next few minutes they were hidden from his view.
The breeze of a while ago had begun to rustle more insistently through the trees; the birds flew back to their nests. Overhead a squirrel looked down with beady, inquisitive eyes on that motionless figure of a human foe. And wafted upon the breeze, there came from out the depths of the silent pool the sustained, dulcet cooing of wood-pigeons. The soft and melancholy sound rose up like the wail of a broken heart; it floated through the leaves of the wild iris and the clumps of meadowsweet, until it soared up finally among the quivering leaves of birch and mountain-ash, and then was still.
And with a cry like that of a dumb animal in pain, de Maurel fell upon his knees, and burying his face in the dewy moss, he sobbed his poor, overburdened heart out in desolation and utter loneliness.