Chapter Ten.“Pierre had wandered down the whole length of the Rue de Lille before he quite came to himself, and then he started to see how far he had come. He had crossed two or three side streets without noticing their names.”‘I may have passed the Rue de Poitiers,’ he said to himself, ‘where she said the wine-shop was,’ and he looked about him anxiously. A few steps further brought him out of the quiet Rue de Lille into a wider thoroughfare, the noise of which had already begun to reach him. Here there was life and movement enough—of a kind. Groups stood about talking, noisily laughing; some few passers-by, looking more serious, as if on their way to or from their daily work, were stopped and jeered at, and in some cases seemed to have difficulty in getting away.”‘Stay five minutes—they are coming this way—hark! you can hear them already,’ Pierre heard said in a group of blouses to one of their fellows, who evidently wanted to get off.”‘My wife’s ill,’ he said, ‘and the noise frightens her when she hears them pass. Let me go, good friends; I would stay, and gladly, but for that.’“They let him go with a muttered oath. The man’s face was pale, and belied his words. Indeed, on many faces Pierre learnt to recognise the traces of misery and deadly fear, though these very ones sometimes laughed and shouted the loudest. But his attention was now caught by a strange sound coming nearer and nearer—a distant roar it had seemed at first, but by degrees it grew into the shouting and yelling, hardly to be called singing—though there was some tune and measure in it, and the time was marked by the beating of small drums, the clashing and clanging of tambourine;—of a multitude of human voices.”‘What is it?’ said Pierre, half-timidly, to a boy a year or two younger than himself, who stood near. ‘Is it a procession?’“The boy looked at him curiously. But his face was thin and pale; he did not look as if he had come in for many of the good things to be had for the asking.”‘A procession!’ he repeated, but in a low voice; ‘mind what you say.’ For the word is associated in France with religious observances. ‘It is the Carmagnole—the dance of rejoicing. Stay, you will see for yourself; you must be a new-comer never to have seen it before.’“Many and many a time in his after-life, as he has often told me, did Pierre Germain wish he had never seen that horrid sight at all. It used to haunt him, strong and practical as he was, like a hideous nightmare. There they came—a band of men and women, or beings that had been such, though looking more like demons. Some were half-naked, with scarfs and ribbons, generally of flaming red, flying from them; some in the most absurd and grotesque costumes that could be imagined: the women with long hair streaming, the men daubed crimson with paint or what looked like worse, some brandishing sticks and clubs, some waving scarlet flags—all leaping and dancing with a sort of monotonous rhythm, sometimes closing in together, sometimes stretching out with joined hands in enormous wheels, all yelling and shouting, with yet a tune or refrain that went in time to their steps, and somehow seemed to make the whole more horrible.”‘Are they mad?’ said Pierre, leaning back against the wall with unutterable loathing. The pale-faced boy was still beside him, for to proceed on one’s way till the hideous crowd had passed was impossible.”‘Hush! hush!’ said the boy in a tone of real terror. ‘Mad? Yes, indeed they are—mad with blood! Oh, I would not have risked coming out had I known I would meet them again,’ and he reeled as if he were going to faint. Pierre caught him by the arm; something in the boy’s air and tone seemed at variance with his shabby clothes.”‘Can I do nothing for you?’ said Pierre. ‘You seem so weak. Will you take my arm?’“But the boy seemed better again, and as the crowd began to disperse a little he was evidently in an agony to be gone.”‘No, no,’ he said, ‘I have not far to go. Take care of yourself,’ he added, and in an instant he had slipped away.“Pierre stood for a moment, feeling almost as sick and faint as the poor boy he had pitied. Then afraid of attracting notice he crossed the street, and went down the first quiet one he came to. Here, after a while, he passed some children playing about, whom he asked to direct him to the Rue de Poitiers. It happened to be very near, and in another moment he found himself again at a corner of the Rue de Lille. Here stood a wine-shop, sure enough. It must be here that Marguerite Ribou was to be heard of.“But his courage, or presence of mind rather, had begun to fail him a little. He had met with such disappointment, and was confused and shocked by what he had seen and heard, and by the constant warnings to ‘beware’ of he scarcely knew what. It was evident that his countrified air and anxious face made him remarked, and though he had no fear for himself, he felt more than ever that all chance of finding and rescuing Edmée or her mother hung on him alone. He was faint and hungry too—he had had nothing for many hours but his cup of coffee and bread—and he felt as if even the fumes of the wine, for he distinguished several blouses drinking inside, would mount to his head, and make him feel still more confused, and he hung about irresolutely, even while conscious that his doing so might attract attention. Happily for him, before any one inside had noticed him, a servant-maid with a basket on her arm came out of the shop and passed down the street. Pierre followed her quickly.”‘Pardon,’ said he, lifting his cap—a vague idea had struck him that this perhaps might be the Marguerite he was in search of, but one glance at the girl’s round rosy face told him he was wrong; ‘is there anywhere near here I can get anything to eat at?’”‘Follow me,’ said the girl, who seemed a matter-of-fact person, ‘there is an eating-house round the corner.’”‘Do you live there?’ said Pierre, glancing back to the wine-shop.”‘To be sure. I am the servant.’”‘Do you know any one called Marguerite, who comes there sometimes?’“The girl shook her head.”‘She comes no more,’ she said. ‘She and the mistress, the Citizeness Victorine, had words one day, and since then she comes no more.’”‘Do you know where she is now?’“Again the stolid young person shook her head.”‘It is somewhere over by the church of Notre Dame—a good way from here. But I cannot tell you where,’ said the girl. ‘It is possible that the Citizeness Victorine may know, and would tell you if she were in a good temper.’“But Pierre, feeling sure that the Victorine she spoke of was none other than his old enemy of the same name, was unutterably thankful to have avoided coming across her, so in his turn he shook his head.”‘It would not be worth while to derange the Citizeness, a mere inquiry,’ he said vaguely, and then having arrived within sight of the modest restaurant, he thanked the girl, and entering, asked for the food he was much in need of.“His spirits rose a little when he was no longer faint and hungry. He determined to go in the direction the girl had mentioned, with a vague hope of somehow or other coming upon some trace, for in his inexperience he did not realise the difficulty and improbability of doing so. He spent the whole of the day in wandering about, seeing and hearing many strange and startling things, doing his utmost to hide his impressions, for fear of attracting notice. But when night fell, and he could wander about no more he took refuge in a little room he had managed to find in the house of a poor washerwoman, who let it to him cheaply, on the condition of his paying a week in advance, and then poor Pierre, completely disheartened, beginning to doubt if after all he had done right in coming off as he had done, threw himself upon the little bed and burst into tears.“The history of that day was very much the history of many that followed. At the wine-shop of the Rue de Poitiers, they would not or could not direct him to Marguerite Ribou, and Pierre wandered about, glancing in every face he passed in the hopes of seeing some one who might help him in his quest, though rarely, very rarely, venturing to make any inquiry. He forced himself to frequent places that were abhorrent to him; many an hour he hung about the streets through which would, as he came to know, pass the fearful ‘tumbrils,’ as they were called—the heavy waggons crowded every day with the victims for the guillotine. Never in after-life did he forget the faces he saw—on this ghastly journey to death; some strong in despair, some fainting and unconscious as if already dead, a few, but very few, shrieking wildly for mercy to their brutal keepers—others, many even, with looks of sweet resignation and noble courage, to whom the guillotine was indeed but the gate of Heaven. Put among them all, never did he perceive the pale, beautiful features of the Countess of Valmont, nor, though youthful boys and girls, little children even, were often among the condemned, did he ever catch sight of Edmée’s fair head and blue eyes, which he felt sure he would have known among a thousand. Some few times he forced himself to make one of the crowd in the dreadful Place de la République, where the guillotine stood: but he grew too sick with horror to repeat often his search there, feeling, too, how awful would have been his success! He learnt to know all the principal prisons, and the doors at which came out both the condemned and the appallingly small number of the released. But in vain—always, always in vain, till his hope began to die out, and his sad and wistful eyes told their own tale, had any one cared to read it. His money, too, was running low; he saw no possibility of gaining any; he felt that his days in Paris were numbered, and that he must return to Valmont having failed. But for his poor father and mother, he felt that he would rather die than do so.“At last came the first ray of hope. One evening, in a sort of old curiosity shop, not far from the neighbourhood where he had been told to look for Marguerite Ribou, he fancied he caught sight, as he passed, of a picture resembling the well-remembered portrait of the baby Edmée. It was some little way back in the shop, and the owner was just closing for the night, so he could see no more. But with the first of the morning he was back again, waiting till the window was opened, and the contents exposed to view. It was a quiet street, and there were few people about. What were his feelings when, able at last to press his face against the glass and peer into the shop, he saw that his glance the night before had not deceived him! It was indeed the well-known portrait of his little lady. This time Pierre threw caution to the winds: he entered the shop boldly, and walking up to the picture, asked the old man behind the counter, just preparing to enjoy his early breakfast of a bowl of soup, if he could tell him from whence it had come. The shopman’s first glance of suspicion—everybody in Paris looked at everybody else with suspicion, it seemed to simple Pierre—fell before the boy’s earnest and straightforward manner.”‘Yes,’ he said, ‘if you have any particular reason for wanting to know.’”‘I have the best of reasons,’ said Pierre. ‘It belongs—it belonged to the friends I owe most to in the world, and if they were not in great trouble, it would not be here.’”‘You are right,’ said the old man. ‘Many people to whom trouble is new are having a sharp taste of it now. I do not take any part in these things. I live as I have always done, and for my business it is a good time just now. You would wonder at the objects of value I have bought for almost nothing. It is not my fault. I cannot give more. And it will only be afterwards that I shall reap my benefit; when things recover themselves I daresay many will be glad to buy back at a profit the things I have. I should be glad to do the owners a good turn if I can, so I label the things carefully, and when I cannot get the real name I distinguish them somehow.’”‘And thus,’ said Pierre, beside himself with impatience, ‘you can tell me where this came from?’”‘Yes,’ said the old man, ‘for you seem honest and trustworthy. It came from some people living in the first street round the corner there,’ and he pointed through the window, ‘the first street to the right. I do not know their name, but they have been there some time, and are, no doubt, as you say, in great trouble. I have several things of theirs—I mark them all with the name of the street and the number.’”‘What is it?’ asked Pierre breathlessly.”‘Nine, number nine,’ said the man, and scarcely waiting to thank him, young Germain, in a bewilderment of feeling, such as he had never known, rushed out of the shop and in the direction pointed out.“It was a poor place, and it was not till he had knocked at several doors, and repeated several times the description of what he wanted—a lady—a citizeness, he was obliged to say—with her young daughter, a young girl with fair hair and blue eyes, that he was at last directed to the right rooms. Up at the very top of the house they were—rooms that would be dreary even to those who had never known any better: what must they have been to the Countess and her child? Pierre’s tremulous knock was twice repeated before it was responded to. Then the door was opened, hesitatingly and unwillingly, by a boy. At first Pierre’s heart sank with new disappointment; then, looking again, fresh perplexity seized him—it was the boy, though still paler and thinner, the same boy he had met in the crowd that first day in Paris. And as he stared at him a new idea struck him like a revelation.”‘I am not mistaken,’ he said suddenly; ‘they must be here. You are—are you not?—you are Edmond de Sarinet?’ though, strangely enough, through all his search, the remembrance of his childish enemy, the thought of him as perhaps with his aunt and cousin, had never before occurred to him.“The boy drew himself up haughtily; thin and miserable as he looked, there would have been something ludicrous in his manner had it not been so piteous.”‘And what if I am?’ he was beginning, when he was suddenly pushed aside. A girl, as tall as he, nearly, and far stronger and healthier in appearance, though her face was pale, and her eyes swollen with much crying, her flaxen hair tossed back over her shoulders, as if she had not had the time or the heart to arrange it, came flying forward, and in another instant her arms were round Pierre’s neck, her fair face pressed against his sturdy shoulders as he bent to meet her.”‘Oh, Pierrot! my own good Pierrot!’ she cried, though her voice shook with sobs, ‘you have come at last. I knew your voice at once. Oh, Pierrot, pity your poor Edmée!—Mamma is dying! But come, come,’ she went on, dragging him forward before he had time to utter a word of the sorrow and sympathy which were choking him; ‘she will know you still—she will speak to you. It will make the leaving me less hard; she has prayed so, that God has answered at last. Come, Pierre, and comfort her.’“And before he could take in that he had really found them, feeling as if he were dreaming, Pierre Germain was standing in a small and poorly-furnished room, where the evident efforts to make it as comfortable as possible but made its bareness more touching—standing beside a bed, on which, whiter than the pillows that supported her, lay his dearly-loved lady, the sweet and gentle Countess of Valmont!”‘That I should have found youthus!’ were the first words he uttered, while the tears ran down his sunburnt cheeks. ‘After my long search—why has it come too late?’“But the Countess checked his words. With the beautiful calm of the dying for whom death has no terrors she smiled up into his face.”‘Not too late,’ she whispered; ‘in time—just in time, say rather, my boy. I think God has let me live for this. I think I should have died some days ago but for a strange hope that you would come. You will take her home to your mother, Pierre; she will love my Edmée as her own child. I cannot see into the future—I am too tired to think. But she will be safe with you, safer than anywhere else. O God, I thank Thee!’“Her words were scarcely audible—she had to stop between every two or three. She did not seem surprised to see Pierre, nor did she ask why he did not come before. Her spirit was already on the wing, only, as it were, recalled, or held back, by her great mother-love. And not for Edmée alone. After a pause, during which Pierre, kneeling beside her, murmured, amidst his sobs, his most solemn promises to devote his life, his strength, his everything to the girl so soon to be orphan and alone—promises which seemed to increase the soft peace on the dying face—she glanced round as if seeking some one.”‘Edmond, my poor Edmond!’ she whispered; ‘him too—you will be kind to him too, Pierre?’”‘God helping me, I will,’ said Pierre.”‘Where are you, Edmond? Give me your hand,’ she said.“The poor boy came from behind the thin curtain of the bed, where he had hidden.”‘Take me with you, auntie—little aunt, who has been my only true mother!’ he said, in an agony of tears. ‘No one will care for me now. I am not strong enough to protect Edmée as I fain would, and she will not want me. Oh, cannot you ask God to take me too—weak and useless that I am?’“Even in the extremity of her own grief Edmée’s generous heart was touched. She drew Edmond round to where she and Pierre were kneeling, and threw her arm round his thin shoulders.”‘Ilove you, my poor Edmond. I will always love you, and we will all take care of you.’“He yielded to her, but he said nothing. But the Countess caught what Edmée said, and smiled again.”‘Thank God!’ she said. They were her last words, and what could have shown her more fit for Heaven? Thanking God through all—through the dark and bitter days that had befallen, through sunshine and through storm—thanking Him now with her latest breath for the ray of comfort that had come at the last, though so long deferred that hope had well-nigh fled.“She died that afternoon. All through the long, sad hours of that strange day the three young creatures watched beside her, not knowing, in their inexperience, the exact moment at which the gentle spirit fled—not till the Sister of Charity, who, in disguise, like many others all through those awful months, still went about ministering to the sick and dying—not till Sister Angelique tapped softly at the door, and entering, saw in a moment the sad truth, did they understand that the mother and friend was no longer there—only the garment she had worn.”‘I would have come sooner, but I was even more wanted elsewhere; there was nothing to be done here. The doctor saw her yesterday,’ she said to Pierre, when it was explained to her who he was.”‘And the kind priest,’ sobbed Edmée; ‘he will come again, dear Sister, will he not? No one knows he is a priest,’ she said to Pierre. ‘He has to dress like a workman.’“Angelique stayed a while and did what she could. There was a little, a very little money remaining, and Pierre drew out the remains of his. Edmée had been obliged to sell everything they had brought away in their flight from the Rue de Lille. ‘My portrait was the last to go,’ she said, ‘but my darling did not know it. And as it brought usyou, Pierre, we must not regret it. Some day we may buy it back again,’ and by degrees she related to him all the details of the last few weeks. How the Marquis and Marquise had been taken very soon after Ludovic had left, how but for a warning from Marguerite Ribou she, her mother, and Edmond would infallibly have perished astheydid.”‘They were not long in prison,’ she said. ‘Marguerite told us the day they were guillotined. My uncle died like a gentleman, and at the last the Marquise seemed to find courage too. They must have repented of much in those last days I think. See! this is what my poor uncle sent us secretly,’ and she held out a soiled scrap of paper, on which were written the two words ‘Forgive me!’ ‘Ah,’ continued Edmée, who—such is the education of sorrow—at fourteen spoke like a woman, ‘I cannot murmur thatsheis gone when I think of her gentle death, and what it might have been. Marguerite had not wished to save Edmond,’ she went on after a pause. ‘She is very angry, even now, whenever she sees him. I think her brain is a little gone. But she has been most faithful tous. It was that dreadful Victorine that caused it. She kept persuading my aunt there was no danger, and thus delayed their escaping till she had completed her own plans. She must have robbed them fearfully.’“Pierre let Edmée talk. She was too excited to remain quiet. He listened without saying much, though his mind was terribly full. How were they to accomplish the journey to Valmont? Penniless to begin with, and almost afraid to spend money if they had had it! How could Edmée ever make the journey on foot, and almost worst, Edmond, of whom Pierre had never thought? His presence, too, made the risk greater, for, as his father’s son, there must be many to hate him, and notwithstanding his pity for the boy, Pierre foresaw trouble. Edmond had scarcely spoken to him, and even through his misery there flashed out sparks of his old ill-feeling.“There came again a knock at the door.”‘It must be our kind priest,’ said Edmée.“Pierre started up joyfully, ‘Let me speak to him,’ he said. And in his heart he added, ‘Here will be some one to give me counsel.’”
“Pierre had wandered down the whole length of the Rue de Lille before he quite came to himself, and then he started to see how far he had come. He had crossed two or three side streets without noticing their names.
”‘I may have passed the Rue de Poitiers,’ he said to himself, ‘where she said the wine-shop was,’ and he looked about him anxiously. A few steps further brought him out of the quiet Rue de Lille into a wider thoroughfare, the noise of which had already begun to reach him. Here there was life and movement enough—of a kind. Groups stood about talking, noisily laughing; some few passers-by, looking more serious, as if on their way to or from their daily work, were stopped and jeered at, and in some cases seemed to have difficulty in getting away.
”‘Stay five minutes—they are coming this way—hark! you can hear them already,’ Pierre heard said in a group of blouses to one of their fellows, who evidently wanted to get off.
”‘My wife’s ill,’ he said, ‘and the noise frightens her when she hears them pass. Let me go, good friends; I would stay, and gladly, but for that.’
“They let him go with a muttered oath. The man’s face was pale, and belied his words. Indeed, on many faces Pierre learnt to recognise the traces of misery and deadly fear, though these very ones sometimes laughed and shouted the loudest. But his attention was now caught by a strange sound coming nearer and nearer—a distant roar it had seemed at first, but by degrees it grew into the shouting and yelling, hardly to be called singing—though there was some tune and measure in it, and the time was marked by the beating of small drums, the clashing and clanging of tambourine;—of a multitude of human voices.
”‘What is it?’ said Pierre, half-timidly, to a boy a year or two younger than himself, who stood near. ‘Is it a procession?’
“The boy looked at him curiously. But his face was thin and pale; he did not look as if he had come in for many of the good things to be had for the asking.
”‘A procession!’ he repeated, but in a low voice; ‘mind what you say.’ For the word is associated in France with religious observances. ‘It is the Carmagnole—the dance of rejoicing. Stay, you will see for yourself; you must be a new-comer never to have seen it before.’
“Many and many a time in his after-life, as he has often told me, did Pierre Germain wish he had never seen that horrid sight at all. It used to haunt him, strong and practical as he was, like a hideous nightmare. There they came—a band of men and women, or beings that had been such, though looking more like demons. Some were half-naked, with scarfs and ribbons, generally of flaming red, flying from them; some in the most absurd and grotesque costumes that could be imagined: the women with long hair streaming, the men daubed crimson with paint or what looked like worse, some brandishing sticks and clubs, some waving scarlet flags—all leaping and dancing with a sort of monotonous rhythm, sometimes closing in together, sometimes stretching out with joined hands in enormous wheels, all yelling and shouting, with yet a tune or refrain that went in time to their steps, and somehow seemed to make the whole more horrible.
”‘Are they mad?’ said Pierre, leaning back against the wall with unutterable loathing. The pale-faced boy was still beside him, for to proceed on one’s way till the hideous crowd had passed was impossible.
”‘Hush! hush!’ said the boy in a tone of real terror. ‘Mad? Yes, indeed they are—mad with blood! Oh, I would not have risked coming out had I known I would meet them again,’ and he reeled as if he were going to faint. Pierre caught him by the arm; something in the boy’s air and tone seemed at variance with his shabby clothes.
”‘Can I do nothing for you?’ said Pierre. ‘You seem so weak. Will you take my arm?’
“But the boy seemed better again, and as the crowd began to disperse a little he was evidently in an agony to be gone.
”‘No, no,’ he said, ‘I have not far to go. Take care of yourself,’ he added, and in an instant he had slipped away.
“Pierre stood for a moment, feeling almost as sick and faint as the poor boy he had pitied. Then afraid of attracting notice he crossed the street, and went down the first quiet one he came to. Here, after a while, he passed some children playing about, whom he asked to direct him to the Rue de Poitiers. It happened to be very near, and in another moment he found himself again at a corner of the Rue de Lille. Here stood a wine-shop, sure enough. It must be here that Marguerite Ribou was to be heard of.
“But his courage, or presence of mind rather, had begun to fail him a little. He had met with such disappointment, and was confused and shocked by what he had seen and heard, and by the constant warnings to ‘beware’ of he scarcely knew what. It was evident that his countrified air and anxious face made him remarked, and though he had no fear for himself, he felt more than ever that all chance of finding and rescuing Edmée or her mother hung on him alone. He was faint and hungry too—he had had nothing for many hours but his cup of coffee and bread—and he felt as if even the fumes of the wine, for he distinguished several blouses drinking inside, would mount to his head, and make him feel still more confused, and he hung about irresolutely, even while conscious that his doing so might attract attention. Happily for him, before any one inside had noticed him, a servant-maid with a basket on her arm came out of the shop and passed down the street. Pierre followed her quickly.
”‘Pardon,’ said he, lifting his cap—a vague idea had struck him that this perhaps might be the Marguerite he was in search of, but one glance at the girl’s round rosy face told him he was wrong; ‘is there anywhere near here I can get anything to eat at?’
”‘Follow me,’ said the girl, who seemed a matter-of-fact person, ‘there is an eating-house round the corner.’
”‘Do you live there?’ said Pierre, glancing back to the wine-shop.
”‘To be sure. I am the servant.’
”‘Do you know any one called Marguerite, who comes there sometimes?’
“The girl shook her head.
”‘She comes no more,’ she said. ‘She and the mistress, the Citizeness Victorine, had words one day, and since then she comes no more.’
”‘Do you know where she is now?’
“Again the stolid young person shook her head.
”‘It is somewhere over by the church of Notre Dame—a good way from here. But I cannot tell you where,’ said the girl. ‘It is possible that the Citizeness Victorine may know, and would tell you if she were in a good temper.’
“But Pierre, feeling sure that the Victorine she spoke of was none other than his old enemy of the same name, was unutterably thankful to have avoided coming across her, so in his turn he shook his head.
”‘It would not be worth while to derange the Citizeness, a mere inquiry,’ he said vaguely, and then having arrived within sight of the modest restaurant, he thanked the girl, and entering, asked for the food he was much in need of.
“His spirits rose a little when he was no longer faint and hungry. He determined to go in the direction the girl had mentioned, with a vague hope of somehow or other coming upon some trace, for in his inexperience he did not realise the difficulty and improbability of doing so. He spent the whole of the day in wandering about, seeing and hearing many strange and startling things, doing his utmost to hide his impressions, for fear of attracting notice. But when night fell, and he could wander about no more he took refuge in a little room he had managed to find in the house of a poor washerwoman, who let it to him cheaply, on the condition of his paying a week in advance, and then poor Pierre, completely disheartened, beginning to doubt if after all he had done right in coming off as he had done, threw himself upon the little bed and burst into tears.
“The history of that day was very much the history of many that followed. At the wine-shop of the Rue de Poitiers, they would not or could not direct him to Marguerite Ribou, and Pierre wandered about, glancing in every face he passed in the hopes of seeing some one who might help him in his quest, though rarely, very rarely, venturing to make any inquiry. He forced himself to frequent places that were abhorrent to him; many an hour he hung about the streets through which would, as he came to know, pass the fearful ‘tumbrils,’ as they were called—the heavy waggons crowded every day with the victims for the guillotine. Never in after-life did he forget the faces he saw—on this ghastly journey to death; some strong in despair, some fainting and unconscious as if already dead, a few, but very few, shrieking wildly for mercy to their brutal keepers—others, many even, with looks of sweet resignation and noble courage, to whom the guillotine was indeed but the gate of Heaven. Put among them all, never did he perceive the pale, beautiful features of the Countess of Valmont, nor, though youthful boys and girls, little children even, were often among the condemned, did he ever catch sight of Edmée’s fair head and blue eyes, which he felt sure he would have known among a thousand. Some few times he forced himself to make one of the crowd in the dreadful Place de la République, where the guillotine stood: but he grew too sick with horror to repeat often his search there, feeling, too, how awful would have been his success! He learnt to know all the principal prisons, and the doors at which came out both the condemned and the appallingly small number of the released. But in vain—always, always in vain, till his hope began to die out, and his sad and wistful eyes told their own tale, had any one cared to read it. His money, too, was running low; he saw no possibility of gaining any; he felt that his days in Paris were numbered, and that he must return to Valmont having failed. But for his poor father and mother, he felt that he would rather die than do so.
“At last came the first ray of hope. One evening, in a sort of old curiosity shop, not far from the neighbourhood where he had been told to look for Marguerite Ribou, he fancied he caught sight, as he passed, of a picture resembling the well-remembered portrait of the baby Edmée. It was some little way back in the shop, and the owner was just closing for the night, so he could see no more. But with the first of the morning he was back again, waiting till the window was opened, and the contents exposed to view. It was a quiet street, and there were few people about. What were his feelings when, able at last to press his face against the glass and peer into the shop, he saw that his glance the night before had not deceived him! It was indeed the well-known portrait of his little lady. This time Pierre threw caution to the winds: he entered the shop boldly, and walking up to the picture, asked the old man behind the counter, just preparing to enjoy his early breakfast of a bowl of soup, if he could tell him from whence it had come. The shopman’s first glance of suspicion—everybody in Paris looked at everybody else with suspicion, it seemed to simple Pierre—fell before the boy’s earnest and straightforward manner.
”‘Yes,’ he said, ‘if you have any particular reason for wanting to know.’
”‘I have the best of reasons,’ said Pierre. ‘It belongs—it belonged to the friends I owe most to in the world, and if they were not in great trouble, it would not be here.’
”‘You are right,’ said the old man. ‘Many people to whom trouble is new are having a sharp taste of it now. I do not take any part in these things. I live as I have always done, and for my business it is a good time just now. You would wonder at the objects of value I have bought for almost nothing. It is not my fault. I cannot give more. And it will only be afterwards that I shall reap my benefit; when things recover themselves I daresay many will be glad to buy back at a profit the things I have. I should be glad to do the owners a good turn if I can, so I label the things carefully, and when I cannot get the real name I distinguish them somehow.’
”‘And thus,’ said Pierre, beside himself with impatience, ‘you can tell me where this came from?’
”‘Yes,’ said the old man, ‘for you seem honest and trustworthy. It came from some people living in the first street round the corner there,’ and he pointed through the window, ‘the first street to the right. I do not know their name, but they have been there some time, and are, no doubt, as you say, in great trouble. I have several things of theirs—I mark them all with the name of the street and the number.’
”‘What is it?’ asked Pierre breathlessly.
”‘Nine, number nine,’ said the man, and scarcely waiting to thank him, young Germain, in a bewilderment of feeling, such as he had never known, rushed out of the shop and in the direction pointed out.
“It was a poor place, and it was not till he had knocked at several doors, and repeated several times the description of what he wanted—a lady—a citizeness, he was obliged to say—with her young daughter, a young girl with fair hair and blue eyes, that he was at last directed to the right rooms. Up at the very top of the house they were—rooms that would be dreary even to those who had never known any better: what must they have been to the Countess and her child? Pierre’s tremulous knock was twice repeated before it was responded to. Then the door was opened, hesitatingly and unwillingly, by a boy. At first Pierre’s heart sank with new disappointment; then, looking again, fresh perplexity seized him—it was the boy, though still paler and thinner, the same boy he had met in the crowd that first day in Paris. And as he stared at him a new idea struck him like a revelation.
”‘I am not mistaken,’ he said suddenly; ‘they must be here. You are—are you not?—you are Edmond de Sarinet?’ though, strangely enough, through all his search, the remembrance of his childish enemy, the thought of him as perhaps with his aunt and cousin, had never before occurred to him.
“The boy drew himself up haughtily; thin and miserable as he looked, there would have been something ludicrous in his manner had it not been so piteous.
”‘And what if I am?’ he was beginning, when he was suddenly pushed aside. A girl, as tall as he, nearly, and far stronger and healthier in appearance, though her face was pale, and her eyes swollen with much crying, her flaxen hair tossed back over her shoulders, as if she had not had the time or the heart to arrange it, came flying forward, and in another instant her arms were round Pierre’s neck, her fair face pressed against his sturdy shoulders as he bent to meet her.
”‘Oh, Pierrot! my own good Pierrot!’ she cried, though her voice shook with sobs, ‘you have come at last. I knew your voice at once. Oh, Pierrot, pity your poor Edmée!—Mamma is dying! But come, come,’ she went on, dragging him forward before he had time to utter a word of the sorrow and sympathy which were choking him; ‘she will know you still—she will speak to you. It will make the leaving me less hard; she has prayed so, that God has answered at last. Come, Pierre, and comfort her.’
“And before he could take in that he had really found them, feeling as if he were dreaming, Pierre Germain was standing in a small and poorly-furnished room, where the evident efforts to make it as comfortable as possible but made its bareness more touching—standing beside a bed, on which, whiter than the pillows that supported her, lay his dearly-loved lady, the sweet and gentle Countess of Valmont!
”‘That I should have found youthus!’ were the first words he uttered, while the tears ran down his sunburnt cheeks. ‘After my long search—why has it come too late?’
“But the Countess checked his words. With the beautiful calm of the dying for whom death has no terrors she smiled up into his face.
”‘Not too late,’ she whispered; ‘in time—just in time, say rather, my boy. I think God has let me live for this. I think I should have died some days ago but for a strange hope that you would come. You will take her home to your mother, Pierre; she will love my Edmée as her own child. I cannot see into the future—I am too tired to think. But she will be safe with you, safer than anywhere else. O God, I thank Thee!’
“Her words were scarcely audible—she had to stop between every two or three. She did not seem surprised to see Pierre, nor did she ask why he did not come before. Her spirit was already on the wing, only, as it were, recalled, or held back, by her great mother-love. And not for Edmée alone. After a pause, during which Pierre, kneeling beside her, murmured, amidst his sobs, his most solemn promises to devote his life, his strength, his everything to the girl so soon to be orphan and alone—promises which seemed to increase the soft peace on the dying face—she glanced round as if seeking some one.
”‘Edmond, my poor Edmond!’ she whispered; ‘him too—you will be kind to him too, Pierre?’
”‘God helping me, I will,’ said Pierre.
”‘Where are you, Edmond? Give me your hand,’ she said.
“The poor boy came from behind the thin curtain of the bed, where he had hidden.
”‘Take me with you, auntie—little aunt, who has been my only true mother!’ he said, in an agony of tears. ‘No one will care for me now. I am not strong enough to protect Edmée as I fain would, and she will not want me. Oh, cannot you ask God to take me too—weak and useless that I am?’
“Even in the extremity of her own grief Edmée’s generous heart was touched. She drew Edmond round to where she and Pierre were kneeling, and threw her arm round his thin shoulders.
”‘Ilove you, my poor Edmond. I will always love you, and we will all take care of you.’
“He yielded to her, but he said nothing. But the Countess caught what Edmée said, and smiled again.
”‘Thank God!’ she said. They were her last words, and what could have shown her more fit for Heaven? Thanking God through all—through the dark and bitter days that had befallen, through sunshine and through storm—thanking Him now with her latest breath for the ray of comfort that had come at the last, though so long deferred that hope had well-nigh fled.
“She died that afternoon. All through the long, sad hours of that strange day the three young creatures watched beside her, not knowing, in their inexperience, the exact moment at which the gentle spirit fled—not till the Sister of Charity, who, in disguise, like many others all through those awful months, still went about ministering to the sick and dying—not till Sister Angelique tapped softly at the door, and entering, saw in a moment the sad truth, did they understand that the mother and friend was no longer there—only the garment she had worn.
”‘I would have come sooner, but I was even more wanted elsewhere; there was nothing to be done here. The doctor saw her yesterday,’ she said to Pierre, when it was explained to her who he was.
”‘And the kind priest,’ sobbed Edmée; ‘he will come again, dear Sister, will he not? No one knows he is a priest,’ she said to Pierre. ‘He has to dress like a workman.’
“Angelique stayed a while and did what she could. There was a little, a very little money remaining, and Pierre drew out the remains of his. Edmée had been obliged to sell everything they had brought away in their flight from the Rue de Lille. ‘My portrait was the last to go,’ she said, ‘but my darling did not know it. And as it brought usyou, Pierre, we must not regret it. Some day we may buy it back again,’ and by degrees she related to him all the details of the last few weeks. How the Marquis and Marquise had been taken very soon after Ludovic had left, how but for a warning from Marguerite Ribou she, her mother, and Edmond would infallibly have perished astheydid.
”‘They were not long in prison,’ she said. ‘Marguerite told us the day they were guillotined. My uncle died like a gentleman, and at the last the Marquise seemed to find courage too. They must have repented of much in those last days I think. See! this is what my poor uncle sent us secretly,’ and she held out a soiled scrap of paper, on which were written the two words ‘Forgive me!’ ‘Ah,’ continued Edmée, who—such is the education of sorrow—at fourteen spoke like a woman, ‘I cannot murmur thatsheis gone when I think of her gentle death, and what it might have been. Marguerite had not wished to save Edmond,’ she went on after a pause. ‘She is very angry, even now, whenever she sees him. I think her brain is a little gone. But she has been most faithful tous. It was that dreadful Victorine that caused it. She kept persuading my aunt there was no danger, and thus delayed their escaping till she had completed her own plans. She must have robbed them fearfully.’
“Pierre let Edmée talk. She was too excited to remain quiet. He listened without saying much, though his mind was terribly full. How were they to accomplish the journey to Valmont? Penniless to begin with, and almost afraid to spend money if they had had it! How could Edmée ever make the journey on foot, and almost worst, Edmond, of whom Pierre had never thought? His presence, too, made the risk greater, for, as his father’s son, there must be many to hate him, and notwithstanding his pity for the boy, Pierre foresaw trouble. Edmond had scarcely spoken to him, and even through his misery there flashed out sparks of his old ill-feeling.
“There came again a knock at the door.
”‘It must be our kind priest,’ said Edmée.
“Pierre started up joyfully, ‘Let me speak to him,’ he said. And in his heart he added, ‘Here will be some one to give me counsel.’”
Chapter Eleven.“Pierre opened the door, but in an instant he saw it was not the priest. A woman in dark clothing, her face half concealed by a veil or handkerchief of some kind, which she had muffled round her head, stood before him. She was coming forward as if to enter without speaking, when, glancing upwards, she perceived that he was not, as she had imagined, Edmond. She fell back startled, but instantly recovering herself.”‘Who may you be, citizen?’ she said, in a hard, cold tone, which had little gentleness in it, and then she added in a lower voice, ‘Mind you, if you are another aristocrat in disguise, come to take refuge here, I will have nothing to do with you. I have enough on my hands, and so have they,’ nodding towards the door, where the poor dead lady was lying, ‘in there.’“Pierre looked at her quietly.”‘I am Pierre Germain,’ he said. ‘I have seen you once before, Marguerite Ribou.’“The girl, or woman rather, for she had grown tall, and was finely proportioned, threw back her veil. Her beautiful dark face grew deathly pale, and she staggered back against the wall.”‘Forgive me!’ she said; ‘I have never forgotten you, though there are times my poor brain aches with remembering,’ and she passed her hand across her forehead with a gesture that reminded Pierre of what Edmée had said of her. ‘All is wrong,’ continued Marguerite; ‘there is no right, no good anywhere! But I waste precious moments. It is well you have come, for it is only just in time—they must fly; well or ill, they must fly at once. Tell me, how is the Countess?’”‘She is dead,’ replied Pierre simply.“One or two large tears gathered in the girl’s eyes, and slowly rolled down her face. But all she said was, ‘It is well.’“Then Pierre stepped back to let her pass in.”‘You will see Mademoiselle?’ he said.“Marguerite hesitated.”‘It is as I said!’ she exclaimed hurriedly. ‘She must start at once—at once, I say—if she would not share the fate of her uncle and aunt!’”‘How can we persuade her to leaveher—the Countess!’ said Pierre, in despair.”‘Better leave her dead than dying,’ said Marguerite, and though the words were almost coarse, the intense earnestness of the tone made them not seem so. Just then a step made both Pierre and the girl look round. It was Edmée. Pale almost as her dead mother, she came forward.”‘I have heard,’ she said. ‘I opened the door to see who it was. Marguerite, I trust you—shedid. Is it really as bad as you say? Is the danger so near?’”‘Near!’ repeated Marguerite; ‘it ishere! I came to do what I could, though with but small hopes of seeing you. It is Victorine; she has not rested till she found where you were, and now it is only a question of a few hours.’”‘I will be ready,’ said Edmée, to the great surprise of both her hearers. ‘When you tell me to go, Marguerite, I will go. I have no right to risk Pierre’s life; he has risked it for me—that was his own doing. And I know he would not go without me. Besides, I promised—I promised my darling; she seemed to have known it would come so, and she made me promise to go, even if I could not stay to see her laid in the grave. Living, I could never have left her. Oh, Pierrot, it is hard!’ she went on, turning to him, and clasping her hands, while the tears ran down her face again, ‘must we already say we are glad she is dead?’“Pierre could not answer, but Marguerite did so for him.”‘Yes, my poor child, it is so. Youmustsay it and feel it.’“Her voice seemed to recall Edmée’s thoughts.”‘There is one thing,’ she said, looking now at Marguerite. ‘You understand—I will not go without Edmond.’”‘Then,’ said the girl, in a sudden burst of passion, ‘you may stay, for all I will do to save you. Child, you are mad! But you, you, Pierre Germain, you should have influence with her. Tell her she is mad.’”‘No, Marguerite,’ said Pierre, ‘we cannot desert him. If Edmée could be saved without my help, I would gladly stay with him and entreat her to go. But she cannot go alone. And I, too, promised to protect the poor boy.’”‘Then you are both mad!’ said Marguerite, and she burst away as she spoke. But Pierre was too quick for her. He caught her before she had reached the stair.”‘Marguerite,’ he said, ‘you thanked me once for my pity, and the very little I was able to do for you in your sorrow. You said you would never forget it. I too have never forgotten your wrongs and sorrows. I have no reason to risk danger for that boy’s sake—I have no love for him. But I have promised—and besides, how cowardly would it be to desert a creature so weak and helpless! Marguerite, you will not fail us?—for your dead brother Louis’s sake be generous, and return good for evil.’“A stifled groan from the girl when he named her brother was the only sound for a moment. Then she turned again.”‘Forhissake!—a strange revenge,’ she muttered. Then she said aloud, though speaking softly—”‘Be ready then—all three of you. In two hours I will be back. But you have made it much more difficult for me, and for yourselves,’ and with these words she was gone.“Pierre hastened to tell Edmée that she had given in, and together they set to work to arrange the few, terribly few things belonging to the Countess and her daughter, so that they would be ready to carry away. Edmond seemed dazed and stupid. His cousin had to pack for him too; he would scarcely speak, and seemed indifferent to everything. Pierre dared not leave Edmée alone, and yet he was anxious to go back to pay his poor landlady a little sum he owed her, and to collect his own little bundle. It was a dreadful afternoon. Every sound on the stairs made Edmée start and shiver with horror, and yet every time she glanced at the still, cold form on the bed, her heart seemed to burst with fresh agony at the thought of deserting all that was left her of her mother.“The thankfulness of both Pierre and the young girl was great when, an hour after Marguerite had left, Sister Angelique returned with the priest in disguise. They had already made arrangements for the burial of the Countess. It was to be in the night, so that in secret, with the help of one or two he could trust, the good priest would be able to read the service for the dead. He did not tell—and not till long afterwards did Edmée know—that for the necessary expense he had parted with his watch, the last remains of his happier days! Pierre hurried to his lodgings, whence he returned only just in time, for Marguerite was already waiting. She had brought a gown of her own, which she had shortened for Edmée, and made Pierre dress Edmond in the suit he had in his bundle, replacing it by that which young de Sarinet had hitherto worn. He submitted, but in silence, and with no word of thanks. Pierre thought him merely dazed and stupid with sorrow, but Marguerite darted angry looks at him with her dark eyes.”‘You will wish you had taken my advice about him before you get to the end of your journey,’ she muttered to Pierre.“Then she gave them directions. They were to start at once, walking quietly through the town till they came to a little wine-shop in a street which she clearly described to them.”‘There you must ask for the Citizeness Dupuis,’ she said. ‘She is a short stout woman. She will say little to you, but you may trust her. She will give you a good dinner in the room behind the shop, and there you must stay till I come. Pay no attention to anything you see or hear—be deaf and dumb. I will bring your things with me, and what you cannot carry away will be kept for you till I can send it to Valmont.’“In the same dry, hard manner she stood by while Edmée, in a passion of grief, threw herself on the bed where lay her mother, and kissed for the last time the soft white face already cold with the iciness of death. Sister Angelique had drawn Edmond aside, and was whispering good advice to him, which he seemed to receive more meekly than might have been expected; but even she, trained as she was to Self-control through the most painful scenes, broke down when Edmée at last tore herself away from the Countess’s room, and sobbed her farewell in the kind Sister’s arms.”‘Good-bye, my child. The good Father and I will do all we can—trust us. In more peaceful days you may be able to visit her grave. God bless you, my sweet child, and take comfort in the thought that to-day’s sorrow might have come in a more terrible form.’”‘I know, I know,’ said Edmée. ‘I am ready now, Marguerite. Poor Marguerite!’ she added, almost caressingly; ‘how good you are! I want to be resigned, but you can understand how hard it is.’“But Pierre, who was standing close to her, heard the girl mutter under her breath, ‘No, I understand nothing. I have no heart, no feelings any more, thank God.’“The boy shuddered, but intense pity softened his horror at her words. ‘She knows not what she says,’ he thought. ‘Her actions show how good and generous a heart she had.’“Marguerite accompanied them only to the door, and then repeated her directions.”‘Speak to each other in an ordinary way as you go along,’ she said. ‘You must hide your grief till there is no one to remark you. Speak to her of Valmont, of country things, Pierre; it is best for you to speak with your country accent,’ though, to tell the truth, he had but little, for in Touraine, as you know, the pronunciation, even of the peasants, is unusually good.“They reached the place indicated without difficulty, and on saying they were there to wait for the Citizeness Marguerite, the short stout woman at once led them into a little back parlour, where she served them a good meal. Poor things! they were very hungry by this time, and it was a better dinner than any of the three had tasted for many days. (Often has my mother told me how strangely shocked she was at herself for being so hungry—in such circumstances).“Edmond remained silent, and took no notice of Pierre’s little overtures of friendliness, so young Germain ended by leaving him alone. It grew very dreary after their dinner—they had nothing to do, and for, no doubt, a good reason, the Citizeness Dupuis left them without a light. As it grew darker, several men in blouses, and a few women, strolled into the shop, which at first had been empty, and Edmée began to understand Marguerite’s warning. For such snatches of talk as came to them were far from reassuring, and as the evening went on and more wine was drunk, the loud laughing, the coarse jokes about ‘Madame Guillotine,’ and the good work she had done lately, the threats of what was yet to be done, grew so terrible, that more than once Edmée put her fingers in her ears. But she had to take them out again to sooth Edmond, who became wildly excited, at one moment declaring he would burst into the shop and tell the wretched hounds what he thought of them, and whohewas, with a touch of his old braggadocio; and next, bursting into tears, and saying it was all a trick, Marguerite had decoyed them there to betray them, and as soon as she came would herself give them up to their enemies. Pierrecouldnot think her capable of such hideous treachery, but still his mind misgave him somewhat, and when at last Marguerite herself came in by another door from that by which they had entered, he had been on the point of suggesting to Edmée to take flight and trust to themselves.”‘What is the matter?’ said the girl, when she had lighted a small taper and saw the state that Edmond was in.“Edmée and Pierre explained to her.”‘Well, did I not warn you?’ she said. ‘Though I own I did not think it would have been so noisy to-night, and I had hoped to be here sooner. It will do that fool no harm, all the same,’ she added, and when Edmond, wild with fury, started up as if to strike her, she calmly seized his two arms and held them tightly behind his back, with a sort of contemptuous pity in her face, for she was very strong, twice as strong as poor thin Edmond.”‘No, you shall not strike me, little Sarinet,’ she said, and as if moved by a spirit of contradiction, ‘I will save you in spite of yourself, you foolish boy.’“Then in a stern, grave whisper she told them to come with her, and without waiting to say good-bye to the Citizeness Dupuis, who I daresay was not sorry to find them gone, she led them out by the way she had entered.“In silence for some length of time the two boys followed their strange guide, who had made Edmée take her arm, she herself carrying the bag containing all of her small possessions that the last of the Valmonts had ventured to bring away. Marguerite chose the darkest and narrowest streets, but she seemed to know her way with wonderful cleverness, considering she was not a Parisian by birth or breeding. At last she stopped.”‘I can go no further,’ she said. ‘If I stay so late my friends will wonder what I am doing. In ten minutes, taking the first road to your left, you will arrive at the barriers. I know the sergeant who at this hour will probably be there. Show him these papers; you will have no trouble. Pierre must speak. Tell him you mean to spend the night just outside the town, that you may be ready for a friend who is going your way in the morning, and ask him the nearest way to Choisy-le-roi. He will offer to send some one with you, as if out of good nature. Accept his offer. You may trust your guide, but you need not speak to him. He will take you to the cottage where you will spend the night. Start with the earliest dawn, and get as far as you can on your way before night. Do not hesitate to take any chance of getting on quicker, either in the public carriages if you meet them, or in any passing cart. The great thing is to get away far from Paris as fast as possible.’”‘But,’ said Pierre, ‘we have no choice, my good Marguerite. We have no money.’”‘I was coming to that,’ she said. ‘Here is more than enough for your journey in the only way in which you will dare to travel. I could give you more, but it would only expose you to danger.’”‘But we cannot takeyourmoney, Marguerite,’ said Pierre. ‘At least only as a loan.’”‘And also,’ began Edmée, and then she hesitated.”‘I know,’ said the girl; ‘it is what the Countess said. She would rather have starved than take money from me, because she thought it ill come by. But this you can take without scruple.’ She turned slightly aside, so that only Pierre and Edmée could hear her. ‘The Hotel de Sarinet was sacked last week; yesterday they threw me for my share some ofhismother’s jewels. I sold some; the rest I will pack among your things.Iwould not touch them. Now,’ she went on, ‘this is all I can do. You must now trust to your own sense and courage. It is onlyhe,’ and she nodded towards Edmond, standing apart, ‘who may get you into trouble, as he nearly did to-night, mistrusting me for having brought you there—the safest place for you this evening, because the last they would have looked for you in! Now farewell.’”‘Farewell, Marguerite, and God bless you!’ said Pierre and Edmée together, and the latter added, ‘If you would but have come with us, as my mother begged you.’“But Marguerite shook her head.”‘There will always be a home for you at Valmont,’ added Edmée, ‘and we will always pray for you, dear Marguerite.’”‘Ah,’ said the poor girl, ‘you may do that. Your prayers may be heard;minehave never been answered.’“And with these words she turned away, and was lost to sight.“At first all happened as their protectress had said. The sergeant at the gates let them pass with some rough good-natured words loudly spoken, as if he never supposed them to be other than their papers and Pierre’s explanation represented them to be—two peasant lads and their sister making their way back to their friends in the country, as many of the better class poor, getting shocked at the state of things in Paris, were glad to do at that time. And after directing them to Choisy-le-roi, a second thought seemed to strike him. ‘I can do more than that,’ he said. ‘Here Jean, Choisy is your road. Show these little citizens the way,’ and up started a man, young or old they could not tell, for they never saw his face, which seemed muffled up, nor did he speak all the way. And they never knew who he was, nor for what motive he had rendered them this service.“At Choisy-le-roi they spent the night with the old woman who seemed to be expecting them. Before daybreak they were some miles further on their way to Bretigny, the first stage, one might say, on the road home, driven in a cart by a boy, the grandson of the old woman, and accustomed to take her eggs into Paris for the market. Some days of pretty steady travelling followed; the weather was fine, fortunately, for had it not been so, the poor children were but scantily protected; and Edmond kept up better than they could have hoped. Edmée herself, during those first days, was scarcely conscious of fatigue, or even of anxiety. She felt as if in a dream, and constantly expected to wake and find herself again in the wretched lodgings, beside her mother. The thought of that mother, of the terrible parting from all that was left of her, possessed her to such an extent, that for herself she would have felt no fear, hardly emotion of any kind had they been seized and carried back to Paris. Pierre was sometimes frightened by her very quietness; it was unlike her to be so dreamy and silent, even in sorrow, and more than once he endeavoured to rouse her by reminding her that she must not let herself fall ill. ‘We are obeying the dear Countess,’ he said. ‘Her last thought was for you—the only comfort of those last moments was the belief that you would yet be safe at Valmont.’”‘I know it was so,’ said Edmée. ‘Yes, Pierre, my kind Pierrot, you are right. I will try to wish what she did.’“But before they had reached the longed-for end of their journey, danger came so near them that all the girl’s faculties were roused, and, terrible as it was, she has sometimes said to me that she thought this very experience saved her from falling into a sort of half-stupid, almost idiotic state, from which she might never have recovered. For till now, there had been nothing to make them realise along what a precipice-brink they were moving. Once out of Paris, both Edmée and her cousin had imagined themselves safe, and the girl had yielded to her overpowering sorrow, the boy to his grief, not less sincere, but less unselfish than hers. But for wide-awake, practical Pierre what would have become of them?“It happened thus: it was, as Marguerite had foreseen, the fault of Edmond.“One evening—they had been travelling, sometimes on foot and sometimes in a cart or in one of the public coaches, running short distances—they would not of course have ventured to take places right through to Tours, the nearest point to Valmont for the regular diligences—one evening they reached a village not very far from Sarinet. Pierre had judged it wise to skirt Sarinet, both because Edmond might have been recognised, and also out of pity for the boy, to spare his feelings as much as possible, and as they were now in a part of the country he thoroughly knew, he found it easy to make their way round at what he thought a safe distance. But they had had a long day’s walk before they arrived weary and foot-sore at a village where Pierre had decided to spend the night. There was a small inn in the village—a while ago Pierre would have been horrified at the idea of Edmée’s entering such a place, but he had grown used to the necessity of such things, and the young girl never by word or glance murmured or seemed to notice the roughness and coarseness to which she was for the first time exposed. Pierre bespoke a bed for his ‘sister,’ and a corner of the barn for himself and Edmond, and then they sat down in the rude kitchen to such a supper as could be provided for them. There were one or two peasants drinking in a corner, but quietly enough, when suddenly the door was pushed roughly open, and a couple of men in blouses came noisily in, shouting for something to drink. The innkeeper’s wife, a timid, civil woman, hurried forward, but before she had time to serve the new-comers, one of them came up to the fire-place, near where the three young strangers were seated, and kicked the burning logs with his foot. Some embers flew out, and a spark or two lighted on Edmée’s dress, though she at once extinguished it. But up started Edmond.”‘Mind what you’re about, fellow!’ he cried, with the true Sarinet tone.“The offender turned round and eyed him curiously, but without speaking a word. Then he kicked the logs again till more sparks flew out in all directions. Edmond was springing to his feet, but Pierre held him forcibly back. ‘Are you mad—quite mad?’ he whispered in a low, stern voice, while Edmée clasped his hand under the table with her trembling ones. The boy seemed startled into submission, and Pierre, rising from his seat, went forward to the fire.”‘If you don’t object, citizen,’ he said good-humouredly, ‘I think I can make it burn better without scorching your feet or my sister’s dress,’ and he skilfully turned and arranged the logs till a bright glow rewarded him.“The man eyed Pierre with curiosity.”‘You are a handy fellow, and a civil one,’ he said; ‘how come you in company with such a young insolent as that one yonder?’ and he jerked his thumb towards Edmond.“Pierre laughed, though his heart was beating so fast that he fancied it must be heard. But for knowing that Edmée was holding her cousin tight, he dared not have risked that laugh or his words.”‘A spoilt child,’ he said lightly. ‘He was brought up in Paris; I and our sister in the country. Now we are on our way to Tours, and my brother is tired. We have had a long tramp. You must excuse him, citizen.’“In his turn the man laughed, but the laugh had not a pleasant sound.”‘He is not worth chastising; it is easy to seeheis not country-bred,’ he said. But Pierre, watching, saw him shoot an expressive glance over to his companion, who was sitting still and had taken no part in the discussion. And Pierre’s heart stood still with horror, for to him the glance spoke terrible things.”‘And but for Edmond,’ he reflected, ‘we might have passed unnoticed. Marguerite was right. Oh, my dear lady, I would have died for you and Edmée, but it will be too hard to have her sacrificed for him!’”
“Pierre opened the door, but in an instant he saw it was not the priest. A woman in dark clothing, her face half concealed by a veil or handkerchief of some kind, which she had muffled round her head, stood before him. She was coming forward as if to enter without speaking, when, glancing upwards, she perceived that he was not, as she had imagined, Edmond. She fell back startled, but instantly recovering herself.
”‘Who may you be, citizen?’ she said, in a hard, cold tone, which had little gentleness in it, and then she added in a lower voice, ‘Mind you, if you are another aristocrat in disguise, come to take refuge here, I will have nothing to do with you. I have enough on my hands, and so have they,’ nodding towards the door, where the poor dead lady was lying, ‘in there.’
“Pierre looked at her quietly.
”‘I am Pierre Germain,’ he said. ‘I have seen you once before, Marguerite Ribou.’
“The girl, or woman rather, for she had grown tall, and was finely proportioned, threw back her veil. Her beautiful dark face grew deathly pale, and she staggered back against the wall.
”‘Forgive me!’ she said; ‘I have never forgotten you, though there are times my poor brain aches with remembering,’ and she passed her hand across her forehead with a gesture that reminded Pierre of what Edmée had said of her. ‘All is wrong,’ continued Marguerite; ‘there is no right, no good anywhere! But I waste precious moments. It is well you have come, for it is only just in time—they must fly; well or ill, they must fly at once. Tell me, how is the Countess?’
”‘She is dead,’ replied Pierre simply.
“One or two large tears gathered in the girl’s eyes, and slowly rolled down her face. But all she said was, ‘It is well.’
“Then Pierre stepped back to let her pass in.
”‘You will see Mademoiselle?’ he said.
“Marguerite hesitated.
”‘It is as I said!’ she exclaimed hurriedly. ‘She must start at once—at once, I say—if she would not share the fate of her uncle and aunt!’
”‘How can we persuade her to leaveher—the Countess!’ said Pierre, in despair.
”‘Better leave her dead than dying,’ said Marguerite, and though the words were almost coarse, the intense earnestness of the tone made them not seem so. Just then a step made both Pierre and the girl look round. It was Edmée. Pale almost as her dead mother, she came forward.
”‘I have heard,’ she said. ‘I opened the door to see who it was. Marguerite, I trust you—shedid. Is it really as bad as you say? Is the danger so near?’
”‘Near!’ repeated Marguerite; ‘it ishere! I came to do what I could, though with but small hopes of seeing you. It is Victorine; she has not rested till she found where you were, and now it is only a question of a few hours.’
”‘I will be ready,’ said Edmée, to the great surprise of both her hearers. ‘When you tell me to go, Marguerite, I will go. I have no right to risk Pierre’s life; he has risked it for me—that was his own doing. And I know he would not go without me. Besides, I promised—I promised my darling; she seemed to have known it would come so, and she made me promise to go, even if I could not stay to see her laid in the grave. Living, I could never have left her. Oh, Pierrot, it is hard!’ she went on, turning to him, and clasping her hands, while the tears ran down her face again, ‘must we already say we are glad she is dead?’
“Pierre could not answer, but Marguerite did so for him.
”‘Yes, my poor child, it is so. Youmustsay it and feel it.’
“Her voice seemed to recall Edmée’s thoughts.
”‘There is one thing,’ she said, looking now at Marguerite. ‘You understand—I will not go without Edmond.’
”‘Then,’ said the girl, in a sudden burst of passion, ‘you may stay, for all I will do to save you. Child, you are mad! But you, you, Pierre Germain, you should have influence with her. Tell her she is mad.’
”‘No, Marguerite,’ said Pierre, ‘we cannot desert him. If Edmée could be saved without my help, I would gladly stay with him and entreat her to go. But she cannot go alone. And I, too, promised to protect the poor boy.’
”‘Then you are both mad!’ said Marguerite, and she burst away as she spoke. But Pierre was too quick for her. He caught her before she had reached the stair.
”‘Marguerite,’ he said, ‘you thanked me once for my pity, and the very little I was able to do for you in your sorrow. You said you would never forget it. I too have never forgotten your wrongs and sorrows. I have no reason to risk danger for that boy’s sake—I have no love for him. But I have promised—and besides, how cowardly would it be to desert a creature so weak and helpless! Marguerite, you will not fail us?—for your dead brother Louis’s sake be generous, and return good for evil.’
“A stifled groan from the girl when he named her brother was the only sound for a moment. Then she turned again.
”‘Forhissake!—a strange revenge,’ she muttered. Then she said aloud, though speaking softly—
”‘Be ready then—all three of you. In two hours I will be back. But you have made it much more difficult for me, and for yourselves,’ and with these words she was gone.
“Pierre hastened to tell Edmée that she had given in, and together they set to work to arrange the few, terribly few things belonging to the Countess and her daughter, so that they would be ready to carry away. Edmond seemed dazed and stupid. His cousin had to pack for him too; he would scarcely speak, and seemed indifferent to everything. Pierre dared not leave Edmée alone, and yet he was anxious to go back to pay his poor landlady a little sum he owed her, and to collect his own little bundle. It was a dreadful afternoon. Every sound on the stairs made Edmée start and shiver with horror, and yet every time she glanced at the still, cold form on the bed, her heart seemed to burst with fresh agony at the thought of deserting all that was left her of her mother.
“The thankfulness of both Pierre and the young girl was great when, an hour after Marguerite had left, Sister Angelique returned with the priest in disguise. They had already made arrangements for the burial of the Countess. It was to be in the night, so that in secret, with the help of one or two he could trust, the good priest would be able to read the service for the dead. He did not tell—and not till long afterwards did Edmée know—that for the necessary expense he had parted with his watch, the last remains of his happier days! Pierre hurried to his lodgings, whence he returned only just in time, for Marguerite was already waiting. She had brought a gown of her own, which she had shortened for Edmée, and made Pierre dress Edmond in the suit he had in his bundle, replacing it by that which young de Sarinet had hitherto worn. He submitted, but in silence, and with no word of thanks. Pierre thought him merely dazed and stupid with sorrow, but Marguerite darted angry looks at him with her dark eyes.
”‘You will wish you had taken my advice about him before you get to the end of your journey,’ she muttered to Pierre.
“Then she gave them directions. They were to start at once, walking quietly through the town till they came to a little wine-shop in a street which she clearly described to them.
”‘There you must ask for the Citizeness Dupuis,’ she said. ‘She is a short stout woman. She will say little to you, but you may trust her. She will give you a good dinner in the room behind the shop, and there you must stay till I come. Pay no attention to anything you see or hear—be deaf and dumb. I will bring your things with me, and what you cannot carry away will be kept for you till I can send it to Valmont.’
“In the same dry, hard manner she stood by while Edmée, in a passion of grief, threw herself on the bed where lay her mother, and kissed for the last time the soft white face already cold with the iciness of death. Sister Angelique had drawn Edmond aside, and was whispering good advice to him, which he seemed to receive more meekly than might have been expected; but even she, trained as she was to Self-control through the most painful scenes, broke down when Edmée at last tore herself away from the Countess’s room, and sobbed her farewell in the kind Sister’s arms.
”‘Good-bye, my child. The good Father and I will do all we can—trust us. In more peaceful days you may be able to visit her grave. God bless you, my sweet child, and take comfort in the thought that to-day’s sorrow might have come in a more terrible form.’
”‘I know, I know,’ said Edmée. ‘I am ready now, Marguerite. Poor Marguerite!’ she added, almost caressingly; ‘how good you are! I want to be resigned, but you can understand how hard it is.’
“But Pierre, who was standing close to her, heard the girl mutter under her breath, ‘No, I understand nothing. I have no heart, no feelings any more, thank God.’
“The boy shuddered, but intense pity softened his horror at her words. ‘She knows not what she says,’ he thought. ‘Her actions show how good and generous a heart she had.’
“Marguerite accompanied them only to the door, and then repeated her directions.
”‘Speak to each other in an ordinary way as you go along,’ she said. ‘You must hide your grief till there is no one to remark you. Speak to her of Valmont, of country things, Pierre; it is best for you to speak with your country accent,’ though, to tell the truth, he had but little, for in Touraine, as you know, the pronunciation, even of the peasants, is unusually good.
“They reached the place indicated without difficulty, and on saying they were there to wait for the Citizeness Marguerite, the short stout woman at once led them into a little back parlour, where she served them a good meal. Poor things! they were very hungry by this time, and it was a better dinner than any of the three had tasted for many days. (Often has my mother told me how strangely shocked she was at herself for being so hungry—in such circumstances).
“Edmond remained silent, and took no notice of Pierre’s little overtures of friendliness, so young Germain ended by leaving him alone. It grew very dreary after their dinner—they had nothing to do, and for, no doubt, a good reason, the Citizeness Dupuis left them without a light. As it grew darker, several men in blouses, and a few women, strolled into the shop, which at first had been empty, and Edmée began to understand Marguerite’s warning. For such snatches of talk as came to them were far from reassuring, and as the evening went on and more wine was drunk, the loud laughing, the coarse jokes about ‘Madame Guillotine,’ and the good work she had done lately, the threats of what was yet to be done, grew so terrible, that more than once Edmée put her fingers in her ears. But she had to take them out again to sooth Edmond, who became wildly excited, at one moment declaring he would burst into the shop and tell the wretched hounds what he thought of them, and whohewas, with a touch of his old braggadocio; and next, bursting into tears, and saying it was all a trick, Marguerite had decoyed them there to betray them, and as soon as she came would herself give them up to their enemies. Pierrecouldnot think her capable of such hideous treachery, but still his mind misgave him somewhat, and when at last Marguerite herself came in by another door from that by which they had entered, he had been on the point of suggesting to Edmée to take flight and trust to themselves.
”‘What is the matter?’ said the girl, when she had lighted a small taper and saw the state that Edmond was in.
“Edmée and Pierre explained to her.
”‘Well, did I not warn you?’ she said. ‘Though I own I did not think it would have been so noisy to-night, and I had hoped to be here sooner. It will do that fool no harm, all the same,’ she added, and when Edmond, wild with fury, started up as if to strike her, she calmly seized his two arms and held them tightly behind his back, with a sort of contemptuous pity in her face, for she was very strong, twice as strong as poor thin Edmond.
”‘No, you shall not strike me, little Sarinet,’ she said, and as if moved by a spirit of contradiction, ‘I will save you in spite of yourself, you foolish boy.’
“Then in a stern, grave whisper she told them to come with her, and without waiting to say good-bye to the Citizeness Dupuis, who I daresay was not sorry to find them gone, she led them out by the way she had entered.
“In silence for some length of time the two boys followed their strange guide, who had made Edmée take her arm, she herself carrying the bag containing all of her small possessions that the last of the Valmonts had ventured to bring away. Marguerite chose the darkest and narrowest streets, but she seemed to know her way with wonderful cleverness, considering she was not a Parisian by birth or breeding. At last she stopped.
”‘I can go no further,’ she said. ‘If I stay so late my friends will wonder what I am doing. In ten minutes, taking the first road to your left, you will arrive at the barriers. I know the sergeant who at this hour will probably be there. Show him these papers; you will have no trouble. Pierre must speak. Tell him you mean to spend the night just outside the town, that you may be ready for a friend who is going your way in the morning, and ask him the nearest way to Choisy-le-roi. He will offer to send some one with you, as if out of good nature. Accept his offer. You may trust your guide, but you need not speak to him. He will take you to the cottage where you will spend the night. Start with the earliest dawn, and get as far as you can on your way before night. Do not hesitate to take any chance of getting on quicker, either in the public carriages if you meet them, or in any passing cart. The great thing is to get away far from Paris as fast as possible.’
”‘But,’ said Pierre, ‘we have no choice, my good Marguerite. We have no money.’
”‘I was coming to that,’ she said. ‘Here is more than enough for your journey in the only way in which you will dare to travel. I could give you more, but it would only expose you to danger.’
”‘But we cannot takeyourmoney, Marguerite,’ said Pierre. ‘At least only as a loan.’
”‘And also,’ began Edmée, and then she hesitated.
”‘I know,’ said the girl; ‘it is what the Countess said. She would rather have starved than take money from me, because she thought it ill come by. But this you can take without scruple.’ She turned slightly aside, so that only Pierre and Edmée could hear her. ‘The Hotel de Sarinet was sacked last week; yesterday they threw me for my share some ofhismother’s jewels. I sold some; the rest I will pack among your things.Iwould not touch them. Now,’ she went on, ‘this is all I can do. You must now trust to your own sense and courage. It is onlyhe,’ and she nodded towards Edmond, standing apart, ‘who may get you into trouble, as he nearly did to-night, mistrusting me for having brought you there—the safest place for you this evening, because the last they would have looked for you in! Now farewell.’
”‘Farewell, Marguerite, and God bless you!’ said Pierre and Edmée together, and the latter added, ‘If you would but have come with us, as my mother begged you.’
“But Marguerite shook her head.
”‘There will always be a home for you at Valmont,’ added Edmée, ‘and we will always pray for you, dear Marguerite.’
”‘Ah,’ said the poor girl, ‘you may do that. Your prayers may be heard;minehave never been answered.’
“And with these words she turned away, and was lost to sight.
“At first all happened as their protectress had said. The sergeant at the gates let them pass with some rough good-natured words loudly spoken, as if he never supposed them to be other than their papers and Pierre’s explanation represented them to be—two peasant lads and their sister making their way back to their friends in the country, as many of the better class poor, getting shocked at the state of things in Paris, were glad to do at that time. And after directing them to Choisy-le-roi, a second thought seemed to strike him. ‘I can do more than that,’ he said. ‘Here Jean, Choisy is your road. Show these little citizens the way,’ and up started a man, young or old they could not tell, for they never saw his face, which seemed muffled up, nor did he speak all the way. And they never knew who he was, nor for what motive he had rendered them this service.
“At Choisy-le-roi they spent the night with the old woman who seemed to be expecting them. Before daybreak they were some miles further on their way to Bretigny, the first stage, one might say, on the road home, driven in a cart by a boy, the grandson of the old woman, and accustomed to take her eggs into Paris for the market. Some days of pretty steady travelling followed; the weather was fine, fortunately, for had it not been so, the poor children were but scantily protected; and Edmond kept up better than they could have hoped. Edmée herself, during those first days, was scarcely conscious of fatigue, or even of anxiety. She felt as if in a dream, and constantly expected to wake and find herself again in the wretched lodgings, beside her mother. The thought of that mother, of the terrible parting from all that was left of her, possessed her to such an extent, that for herself she would have felt no fear, hardly emotion of any kind had they been seized and carried back to Paris. Pierre was sometimes frightened by her very quietness; it was unlike her to be so dreamy and silent, even in sorrow, and more than once he endeavoured to rouse her by reminding her that she must not let herself fall ill. ‘We are obeying the dear Countess,’ he said. ‘Her last thought was for you—the only comfort of those last moments was the belief that you would yet be safe at Valmont.’
”‘I know it was so,’ said Edmée. ‘Yes, Pierre, my kind Pierrot, you are right. I will try to wish what she did.’
“But before they had reached the longed-for end of their journey, danger came so near them that all the girl’s faculties were roused, and, terrible as it was, she has sometimes said to me that she thought this very experience saved her from falling into a sort of half-stupid, almost idiotic state, from which she might never have recovered. For till now, there had been nothing to make them realise along what a precipice-brink they were moving. Once out of Paris, both Edmée and her cousin had imagined themselves safe, and the girl had yielded to her overpowering sorrow, the boy to his grief, not less sincere, but less unselfish than hers. But for wide-awake, practical Pierre what would have become of them?
“It happened thus: it was, as Marguerite had foreseen, the fault of Edmond.
“One evening—they had been travelling, sometimes on foot and sometimes in a cart or in one of the public coaches, running short distances—they would not of course have ventured to take places right through to Tours, the nearest point to Valmont for the regular diligences—one evening they reached a village not very far from Sarinet. Pierre had judged it wise to skirt Sarinet, both because Edmond might have been recognised, and also out of pity for the boy, to spare his feelings as much as possible, and as they were now in a part of the country he thoroughly knew, he found it easy to make their way round at what he thought a safe distance. But they had had a long day’s walk before they arrived weary and foot-sore at a village where Pierre had decided to spend the night. There was a small inn in the village—a while ago Pierre would have been horrified at the idea of Edmée’s entering such a place, but he had grown used to the necessity of such things, and the young girl never by word or glance murmured or seemed to notice the roughness and coarseness to which she was for the first time exposed. Pierre bespoke a bed for his ‘sister,’ and a corner of the barn for himself and Edmond, and then they sat down in the rude kitchen to such a supper as could be provided for them. There were one or two peasants drinking in a corner, but quietly enough, when suddenly the door was pushed roughly open, and a couple of men in blouses came noisily in, shouting for something to drink. The innkeeper’s wife, a timid, civil woman, hurried forward, but before she had time to serve the new-comers, one of them came up to the fire-place, near where the three young strangers were seated, and kicked the burning logs with his foot. Some embers flew out, and a spark or two lighted on Edmée’s dress, though she at once extinguished it. But up started Edmond.
”‘Mind what you’re about, fellow!’ he cried, with the true Sarinet tone.
“The offender turned round and eyed him curiously, but without speaking a word. Then he kicked the logs again till more sparks flew out in all directions. Edmond was springing to his feet, but Pierre held him forcibly back. ‘Are you mad—quite mad?’ he whispered in a low, stern voice, while Edmée clasped his hand under the table with her trembling ones. The boy seemed startled into submission, and Pierre, rising from his seat, went forward to the fire.
”‘If you don’t object, citizen,’ he said good-humouredly, ‘I think I can make it burn better without scorching your feet or my sister’s dress,’ and he skilfully turned and arranged the logs till a bright glow rewarded him.
“The man eyed Pierre with curiosity.
”‘You are a handy fellow, and a civil one,’ he said; ‘how come you in company with such a young insolent as that one yonder?’ and he jerked his thumb towards Edmond.
“Pierre laughed, though his heart was beating so fast that he fancied it must be heard. But for knowing that Edmée was holding her cousin tight, he dared not have risked that laugh or his words.
”‘A spoilt child,’ he said lightly. ‘He was brought up in Paris; I and our sister in the country. Now we are on our way to Tours, and my brother is tired. We have had a long tramp. You must excuse him, citizen.’
“In his turn the man laughed, but the laugh had not a pleasant sound.
”‘He is not worth chastising; it is easy to seeheis not country-bred,’ he said. But Pierre, watching, saw him shoot an expressive glance over to his companion, who was sitting still and had taken no part in the discussion. And Pierre’s heart stood still with horror, for to him the glance spoke terrible things.
”‘And but for Edmond,’ he reflected, ‘we might have passed unnoticed. Marguerite was right. Oh, my dear lady, I would have died for you and Edmée, but it will be too hard to have her sacrificed for him!’”
Chapter Twelve.“A few minutes later the two men went away. They paid for the wine they had drunk, but said nothing. Pierre breathed more freely when they were gone, and as both he and his two charges were very tired, they soon after went to bed: that is to say, Edmée went to the room prepared for her, and the boys made the best of their corner of the barn. It was a tumble-down old place, and there were several other out-buildings adjoining it; a disused stable was at one end, separated from it only by a wall which ran up as a partition, though leaving a space between its top and the roof. This Pierre happened to notice before he lay down. He was asleep in five minutes, but after some time, how long he knew not, he awoke with a start, something had wakened him, though he could not remember what. He lay perfectly still, and in a moment a sound from the other side of the partition wall, of which I have spoken, caught his ears. It was that of men’s voices, though speaking so softly that less sharp ears than those of the forester’s boy, trained to distinguish each cry of the wood-creatures, each note of the birds, could have heard nothing.”‘I tell you,’ said one voice, ‘I am as sure as I can be. I knew that insolent tone at once, and when I looked I was certain. The girl too—though who the third is I cannot make out. That baffled me.’”‘Then if you were so sure, why give yourself and me all this bother?’ grumbled the other. ‘Why did you not at once seize them? It would be too bad to lose the reward after coming so far, and taking so much trouble.’”‘I have told you why,’ said the other, speaking more loudly as he got angry. ‘They might have been too much for us; there is no telling whether they have not got friends in the village. They are in their own country now, and that Valmont lot set up to be benevolent, and all that kind of thing. No, I would not risk any scene; let us wait here quietly and watch them off in the morning—we can see which way they go, and easily take them when they are alone. You have the order for the arrest all right?’”‘Yes, but only for the two.’”‘Of course; we don’t want the country lad, though, perhaps—’ But here the voice grew so low that Pierre, strain his ears as he would, could hear no more, till he caught a half-surly ‘Good-night then’ from the second speaker, and all was silent, save the beating of the poor boy’s own heart, which sounded to him so unnaturally loud, that he felt as if it could not but be heard through the partition.“And all this time Edmond was sleeping soundly; it was too dark to see him, but by listening close, Pierre heard his soft and regular breathing. What could he do? whatdaredhe do? or was it useless to attempt anything? thought poor Pierre, till he began to fear the night would pass in this sort of paralysis of terror. At last his brain began to recover itself a little. He moved himself up into a sitting position, trembling at every rustle in the hay, and at last, getting on to his feet, having slipped off his shoes, he managed to creep out at the door, without its creaking. The fresh cold air did him good, and he rapidly regained his presence of mind. There would be no difficulty in rousing Edmée, he hoped, for he knew her to be the lightest of sleepers, and she was already uneasy from the events of the evening. The little room where she was, opened out of the kitchen where they had supped, and by good chance the house door was only latched. So far, all was easy, and in five minutes the poor child, who had only partly undressed, was standing shivering beside her young protector. She took it all in, in an instant.”‘Pierrot,’ she said, ‘there is nothing to do; there is no chance of escape for us. There is only one thing to do, save yourself. They may mean to take you too, or to kill you at once,’ and Edmée shuddered, ‘if you make any defence. Go, Pierre—go home to your father and mother, you have no right to throw your life away uselessly.’“But Pierre did not seem to hear her words.”‘Edmée,’ he replied, ‘I can saveyou—we could start off at once, and hide in the woods till they have lost all trace of us—we should be hours in advance of them. But oh, Edmée, it is Edmond! And I promised—I promised the Countess not to desert him.’”‘No,’ said Edmée, determinedly, ‘wecannotdesert him.’“They then consulted together—how to wake him without being heard by the two men was the terrible question. He was a heavy sleeper, especially when tired, and from his delicate health and nervousness he was always irritable if awakened before his sleep was completed.”‘He is sure,certainto scream out crossly, and then all will be over,’ said Edmée, her teeth chattering with cold and terror.”‘Then there is only one thing to be done,’ said Pierre. ‘Have you your bag ready, Edmée?’ The girl nodded as she held it up. ‘You have nothing left in the house? That is right; my bundle and Edmond’s are just as they were—only we must leave some money to pay for our supper and lodging. Here, I will slip in and place it on the table. Now we must both creep back into the barn—you to help me in case of need. I have here a large, strong handkerchief; I will gag Edmond before he has time to make a sound—he is so feeble it will be easily done; then if you can take the baggage I will carry him on my back till we are well out of hearing, and then explain all.’”‘He will struggle fearfully,’ said Edmée. ‘Perhaps—perhaps, Pierre, if I whisper in his ear that it is we who are doing it to save him, he will be quiet.’”‘Afterhe is gagged, if you like,’ said Pierre; ‘but not before. We must run no risk; our lives hang on the thinnest of threads, Edmée. Come, try not to tremble so—oh, my poor little lady, if I could have spared you this!’“Edmée hesitated.”‘Dear Pierrot,’ she said, ‘I think perhaps if I were to say a little prayer to the good God to help and save us, it would make me leave off trembling so.’“Pierre answered by uncovering his head, and then, at a sign from Edmée, he knelt down beside her on the grass, for they had crept back behind the house, and there the two young creatures prayed with earnest and simple words for the help they so sorely needed—‘or,’ whispered Edmée, ‘if we do not escape, for courage to bear whatever is before us.’“Then she rose to her feet.”‘I am not trembling now,’ she said. ‘Pierrot dear, kiss me once before we go; for we don’t know, we may fail.’“Pierrot kissed her; he could not have spoken had he tried.“He led the way to the barn. Pierre crept in first to reconnoitre; all was quiet, and as he had left it, he reported, when he crept out again, bringing his own and Edmond’s bundles, which, with her bag, he and Edmée carried a little way into the shelter of the wood hard by, so that the girl’s hands might be free, if need were, to help him with the much more troublesome piece of baggage—Edmond. Then they both made their way in again, Edmée standing a little aside, while Pierre, by the very faint moonlight which came in through the open doorway, satisfied himself as to the exact position in which Edmond lay, before attempting to gag and seize him. How he succeeded he could never himself tell, but succeed he did. Before the sleeping boy had recovered his faculties sufficiently to attempt to scream or to make any resistance, he was safe and fast in Pierre’s strong arms, his mouth so firmly gagged that, though he was scarlet, nay purple, with rage and terror long before he found out the real state of the case, not the faintest sound was audible, as, followed by Edmée, young Germain, with his heavy burden, made his way from the barn by the path behind the house, which they had already discovered led into the woods. More than once Edmée tried to whisper into Edmond’s ear, but blinded and confused as he was she could not catch his attention.”‘Better wait awhile,’ whispered Pierre, and it was not till after quite a quarter of an hour of this painful progress that he at last stopped, and, after listening in all directions, let Edmond slip to the ground, though still firmly holding him. The boy opened his eyes; he had half lost consciousness, and Pierre began to loosen the handkerchief.”‘Edmond,’ said Edmée, though still in a whisper, ‘it is we—Pierre and I. Don’t you know us?’ But Edmond shivered convulsively, and it was some minutes—minutes of most precious time—before Edmée and Pierre together could get him to understand all that had passed. Then he burst into tears, blaming himself as the cause of the terrible risk they had run, thanking them both for saving his life, and entreating their forgiveness. It was a great relief that his excitement had taken this form,—Edmée had been secretly terrified that he would perhaps have turned upon Pierre in a rage at him for having employed force, even to save his life,—for it was easy to make him do whatever they wished. He soon recovered himself enough to get on to his feet, and with Pierre on one side and Edmée on the other, to make his way deeper and deeper into the recesses of the forest. It was their best chance. Pierre’s experience served as a guide, even though with these special woods he was unacquainted, and he was able to direct their steps ever towards Valmont, though plunging very much further into the forest than he intended. And for some days they did not venture to leave its friendly shelter. What did they live upon? you will ask, as I have often asked my mother when she has been relating to me the history of these strange days. Very little, it seems to me. Pierre managed, two or three times, to get a loaf from one of the wood-cutters’ cottages they passed at long intervals, but which he never dared approach near, except by himself. He used to hide his companions and then, whistling lightly, as if on an ordinary journey of a few hours, would knock at the cottage door and ask for some bread, as he was hungry and had some distance to go; but not much of the bread fell tohisshare, you may be sure. Once or twice he got a few eggs, which he cooked on a fire of dry wood, and which Edmée thought delicious, for there is no sauce like hunger! The nights they spent, in part, in walking, when there was light enough to see their way, for it was cold work lying on the beds of dead leaves they collected, with the scanty spare clothing that was all their bundles contained; and had the weather not been exceptionally fine, and even mild for October, my mother has always maintained they would never have got to Valmont alive. It was that thought—the thought that they were near their journey’s end—that kept up their hearts through this, so much the most painful part of the journey. For even when so near home that a few hours in a passing diligence would have safely landed them within a league of Valmont, they dared not venture on the high road.“It was a forlorn little group which at last, late one evening,—they had purposely concealed themselves till late in the woods hard by, ‘our own woods,’ said Edmée and Pierre joyously, where to the boy every path, every tree almost, had been familiar from infancy,—approached the forester’s cottage at the extreme end of the village. They had not ventured to pass along the main street, but made a round which brought them in by the other side; for since their terrible fright Pierre had grown doubly cautious.”‘They may have come here and be waiting to take them,’ he thought, though he did not say so to his two poor tired charges. And even when within a stone’s throw of the cottage he made Edmée and her cousin wait in a little copse while he went forward to reconnoitre. And these few minutes’ waiting, my mother has often said, seemed to her the most trying part of the whole journey.“With what joy did she hear Pierre’s footsteps in return, and his voice exclaiming eagerly, ‘It is all right! come quickly. Ah, here is my mother behind me.’“And so it was. Poor Madame Germain had found it impossible to wait in the cottage—here she was, crying and sobbing, and yet smiling through her tears.”‘My children! my children! whom I had given up hoping ever to see again!’ she exclaimed, clasping Edmée to her arms, forgetful of everything except that she had again her precious nursling, her little lady, whose life she had so many years ago saved by her devotion!“But to poor Edmée the loving clasp of those motherly arms brought an agonising remembrance.”‘Dear, dear mamma Germain,’ she said. ‘Do you know—has Pierrot told you all—about my sweet mother?’”‘I know—he told me. Oh, my darling, how I grieve for you! But she is happy—and thank heaven her death was as it was. And now she will rejoice to see you safe—at last, my Edmée—after all your weary journeying. And Monsieur Edmond too,’ she added, turning to the poor boy. ‘Welcome, a thousand times welcome, to the best we can give you.’“And the last vestige of his foolish pride melted out of the poor boy’s heart, as he impulsively threw himself into the kind motherly arms. ‘Kiss me too,’ he said, ‘for Pierre’s sake—Pierre, who has saved my life.’“You may be sure Madame Germain did not need twice asking to do so. ‘Poor boy, poor boy, the most desolate of all,’ she said to herself; ‘for he has not even a happy past to look back to.’“How thankful they all were to sit down to a comfortable supper in the cottage—and, even more, to rest their poor tired limbs in Madame Germain’s nice clean beds, where the sheets, though not of the finest, were sweet with country bleaching, and scented with lavender! That night Germain said nothing to distress the poor children, but the next day direful news had to be told. Edmée was indeed homeless, for the Château of Valmont no longer existed, except in crumbling ruins. It had been burnt down during Pierre’s absence. Poor old Ludovic happily for himself perhaps, had not lived to see this. He had died a few days after Pierre’s departure for Paris. No special ill-will to the family had been the reason of this destruction, but one of the wild mobs which in these dreadful times laid waste so much of the country had found their way to the peaceful village, and joined by some of the malcontents who would not believe that the recent exactions of money had not been the Countess’s doing, had set fire to the home of the innocent lady and her child.”‘After all she was a Sarinet,’ was muttered as a sort of excuse for the shameful deed. But when the villagers recovered from the shock and horror, they had united to drive the doers of it from among them, and were now, father Germain had good reason to think, ready to defend the orphaned Edmée to the utmost.“So after much consultation, the Germains determined to remain at Valmont, though they had at first hesitated whether it would be safe for their charges to do so. It would, however, as was soon seen, have been difficult, almost impossible, to move Edmond. His strength, once he felt himself in safety, rapidly failed; he took to his bed, where he lay in peaceful weakness for some months, suffering little, thankful and grateful, and clinging with touching affection to Pierre’s kind mother, till at last, when the first spring blossoms began to peep out again, he gently died. And though the change in him had endeared him to them all, they felt it was better thus. Life would have been a hard struggle to the poor boy, and he was devoid of the strength required to face his completely altered circumstances, for even had there been no Revolution the Sarinet family was completely ruined.“Before his death Edmée’s kind protectors had began to breathe rather more freely with regard to her safety. The state of things in Paris was growing worse and worse; the ‘Reign of terror,’ so called, was beginning. But less attention was now given to the upper classes—if, indeed, any of them still remained in the country! The fury of the various Republican parties, every one fighting for the mastery, was now turning against each other—in the end to be the ruin of all; and the motives and causes of the first revolt were forgotten in the general chaos of selfishness, and wild ambition.“So the months passed on, till they grew into years, and still Edmée was living like a simple country maiden with her kind friends. They did all in their power to prevent her feeling the change in her position. The good curé gave her daily lessons, such as her mother would have wished her to have, and the Germains managed to turn an outhouse which had been used for storing apples and such things into a pretty little sitting-room for her, where they collected the very few pieces of furniture that had been saved from the château, several of which are now in the room where I am writing—the best room at Belle Prairie Farm. And Edmée gradually recovered some of her old brightness; she felt that she was where her mother would have wished her to be, and she was by nature of a wise and unworldly spirit. Even the destruction of her old home she learned to view in a way that was very different from the feelings of most of her class.”‘We ourselves—we Valmonts—may not have sinned as others,’ she said one day to the curé, when he had been explaining to her some of the causes of this dreadful Revolution which had so changed the face of the country, ‘but our class was guilty. And we have suffered for their sins. Is it not so, dear Monsieur?’“And the old man’s own eyes filled with tears, as he looked at her earnest ones upraised to his.”‘It is even so, my child.’”‘Then I pray God to accept the sacrifice!’ said the child. ‘But, Monsieur le Curé, I do not wish to be an aristocrat any more. I will belong to my own people.’“And to this, through all the years that followed, she remained firm. Even when distant relations, hearing of her escape, wrote from England, begging her to join them there, with good hope of before long returning to their own home in France, promising, poor as she now was, to adopt her as their own child, Edmée wrote decidedly, though gratefully, refusing. She had made her choice. Some years later, thanks to the efforts of all the most esteemed among the inhabitants of Valmont, a small portion of her forefathers’ possessions, which had been divided and sold, like scores of other properties, was restored to Edmée, and as the owner of the Belle Prairie Farm, she was able to do something in return for the kind friends who had sheltered her in her desolation. The whole family removed there, and you can fancy that it was a happy day for Edmée when she received her kind foster-parents under her own roof.“I have now come to a point at which I earnestly wish my mother would herself take up the pen. Not that there remain many facts or events to relate, but the crowning one—that of her marriage to my dear father—I could wish her to describe. At present—so shortly after his death—she says she could hardly bear to recall the details of those happy days, in which she gradually learnt to love her faithful Pierrot, with the trusting affection of a woman for the man she would choose for her husband. But in the future, I have good hopes she may be persuaded to do so, and also to relate how Pierre, frightened at first at his own audacity, could scarcely believe it possible that his beautiful Edmée, his ‘little lady,’ could think herself honoured by his deep and fervent love.Icannot altogether sympathise in this great humility on the part of my dear father; but then I have known him, and the rare beauty of his character; then, too, I am quite as proud of my Germain ancestry as of the long lines of Valmont and Sarinet. And nothing gratifies my mother so much as when I say so.“In the meantime I may give a few particulars that may be of interest to those who will read these pages. Pierre and Edmée never saw poor Marguerite Ribou again; but years after they had news of her death—she died peacefully—from the kind priest in Paris, who had never lost sight of her, and who restored to Edmée the jewels and money the poor girl had so honestly kept for her. And thanks to him—for neither my father or mother ever entered Paris again—the little portrait, which had been the means of Pierre’s finding Edmée and her mother, was recovered from the old dealer in antiquities, and placed, with the other relics of her child-life, in the best parlour at Belle Prairie Farm, where I trust it may be admired and loved by many generations of the descendants of Pierre and Edmée Germain. And now—”Madame Marceau stopped suddenly, and looked up.“What is it, mother dear? Go on, please—that is if you are not tired,” said several voices.“No, dears, I am not tired. I have not read as much to-day as the two last times.” (For though I have not interrupted the course of the story to say so, it will be readily understood that the reading of the old manuscript had occupied several holiday or Sunday evenings). “But,” she went on, “I have stopped simply because there is no more to read! Those two words, ‘and now,’ are the last of the manuscript.”“Oh dear!”—“What a pity!”—“Did our great-grandmother never write any more to it, as our grandmother hoped she would?” exclaimed the children.“No, my dears. She often intended to do so, but she did not live many years after her husband’s death. She lived to see my mother happily married to my good father and then she died. I think the world seemed a strange place to her without her Pierre. She spoke of the manuscript not long before her death. ‘After all,’ she said, ‘no words of mine could have done justice to his goodness. Teach your children to honour the memory of their grandfather, and to know that a long line of ancestry is not the only thing to be proud of.’”“But mother,” said Pierre Marceau, half-timidly, “if one’s ancestors have beengoodpeople?”“Ah yes, my boy. In such case be not so much proud of them as grateful to the good God for having come of such a stock, be they noblemen or farmers, high in the world’s esteem, or working with their hands for their daily bread,” said Farmer Marceau, as he rose from the arm-chair where he had been sitting to listen to his wife’s reading.“And the Valmontsweregood,” whispered Pierre to his sister Edmée; “so wemaybe a little proud of them, you see, after all.”But when he went to say good-night to Madame Marceau, he added gently, “You are right, dear little mother. Iamvery glad that you called me Pierre, after my good great-grandfather, Pierre Germain—”My readers may be sure that from the time of the reading of the manuscript, the little old portrait was dusted with even greater care than before, and that on holidays and fête days it was decorated with wreaths of the loveliest flowers to be found in all the country-side. And there, I hope, in the best room of the old farmhouse, it will smile down for many and many, a day on the dwellers therein, reminding them that riches and greatness are not the best or most enduring possessions, that sorrows come alike to all, that trust in God and reverence for His laws are the only sure pilots through this life—that faithful, unselfish love is the most beautiful thing on earth, and, may we not say, in Heaven also?
“A few minutes later the two men went away. They paid for the wine they had drunk, but said nothing. Pierre breathed more freely when they were gone, and as both he and his two charges were very tired, they soon after went to bed: that is to say, Edmée went to the room prepared for her, and the boys made the best of their corner of the barn. It was a tumble-down old place, and there were several other out-buildings adjoining it; a disused stable was at one end, separated from it only by a wall which ran up as a partition, though leaving a space between its top and the roof. This Pierre happened to notice before he lay down. He was asleep in five minutes, but after some time, how long he knew not, he awoke with a start, something had wakened him, though he could not remember what. He lay perfectly still, and in a moment a sound from the other side of the partition wall, of which I have spoken, caught his ears. It was that of men’s voices, though speaking so softly that less sharp ears than those of the forester’s boy, trained to distinguish each cry of the wood-creatures, each note of the birds, could have heard nothing.
”‘I tell you,’ said one voice, ‘I am as sure as I can be. I knew that insolent tone at once, and when I looked I was certain. The girl too—though who the third is I cannot make out. That baffled me.’
”‘Then if you were so sure, why give yourself and me all this bother?’ grumbled the other. ‘Why did you not at once seize them? It would be too bad to lose the reward after coming so far, and taking so much trouble.’
”‘I have told you why,’ said the other, speaking more loudly as he got angry. ‘They might have been too much for us; there is no telling whether they have not got friends in the village. They are in their own country now, and that Valmont lot set up to be benevolent, and all that kind of thing. No, I would not risk any scene; let us wait here quietly and watch them off in the morning—we can see which way they go, and easily take them when they are alone. You have the order for the arrest all right?’
”‘Yes, but only for the two.’
”‘Of course; we don’t want the country lad, though, perhaps—’ But here the voice grew so low that Pierre, strain his ears as he would, could hear no more, till he caught a half-surly ‘Good-night then’ from the second speaker, and all was silent, save the beating of the poor boy’s own heart, which sounded to him so unnaturally loud, that he felt as if it could not but be heard through the partition.
“And all this time Edmond was sleeping soundly; it was too dark to see him, but by listening close, Pierre heard his soft and regular breathing. What could he do? whatdaredhe do? or was it useless to attempt anything? thought poor Pierre, till he began to fear the night would pass in this sort of paralysis of terror. At last his brain began to recover itself a little. He moved himself up into a sitting position, trembling at every rustle in the hay, and at last, getting on to his feet, having slipped off his shoes, he managed to creep out at the door, without its creaking. The fresh cold air did him good, and he rapidly regained his presence of mind. There would be no difficulty in rousing Edmée, he hoped, for he knew her to be the lightest of sleepers, and she was already uneasy from the events of the evening. The little room where she was, opened out of the kitchen where they had supped, and by good chance the house door was only latched. So far, all was easy, and in five minutes the poor child, who had only partly undressed, was standing shivering beside her young protector. She took it all in, in an instant.
”‘Pierrot,’ she said, ‘there is nothing to do; there is no chance of escape for us. There is only one thing to do, save yourself. They may mean to take you too, or to kill you at once,’ and Edmée shuddered, ‘if you make any defence. Go, Pierre—go home to your father and mother, you have no right to throw your life away uselessly.’
“But Pierre did not seem to hear her words.
”‘Edmée,’ he replied, ‘I can saveyou—we could start off at once, and hide in the woods till they have lost all trace of us—we should be hours in advance of them. But oh, Edmée, it is Edmond! And I promised—I promised the Countess not to desert him.’
”‘No,’ said Edmée, determinedly, ‘wecannotdesert him.’
“They then consulted together—how to wake him without being heard by the two men was the terrible question. He was a heavy sleeper, especially when tired, and from his delicate health and nervousness he was always irritable if awakened before his sleep was completed.
”‘He is sure,certainto scream out crossly, and then all will be over,’ said Edmée, her teeth chattering with cold and terror.
”‘Then there is only one thing to be done,’ said Pierre. ‘Have you your bag ready, Edmée?’ The girl nodded as she held it up. ‘You have nothing left in the house? That is right; my bundle and Edmond’s are just as they were—only we must leave some money to pay for our supper and lodging. Here, I will slip in and place it on the table. Now we must both creep back into the barn—you to help me in case of need. I have here a large, strong handkerchief; I will gag Edmond before he has time to make a sound—he is so feeble it will be easily done; then if you can take the baggage I will carry him on my back till we are well out of hearing, and then explain all.’
”‘He will struggle fearfully,’ said Edmée. ‘Perhaps—perhaps, Pierre, if I whisper in his ear that it is we who are doing it to save him, he will be quiet.’
”‘Afterhe is gagged, if you like,’ said Pierre; ‘but not before. We must run no risk; our lives hang on the thinnest of threads, Edmée. Come, try not to tremble so—oh, my poor little lady, if I could have spared you this!’
“Edmée hesitated.
”‘Dear Pierrot,’ she said, ‘I think perhaps if I were to say a little prayer to the good God to help and save us, it would make me leave off trembling so.’
“Pierre answered by uncovering his head, and then, at a sign from Edmée, he knelt down beside her on the grass, for they had crept back behind the house, and there the two young creatures prayed with earnest and simple words for the help they so sorely needed—‘or,’ whispered Edmée, ‘if we do not escape, for courage to bear whatever is before us.’
“Then she rose to her feet.
”‘I am not trembling now,’ she said. ‘Pierrot dear, kiss me once before we go; for we don’t know, we may fail.’
“Pierrot kissed her; he could not have spoken had he tried.
“He led the way to the barn. Pierre crept in first to reconnoitre; all was quiet, and as he had left it, he reported, when he crept out again, bringing his own and Edmond’s bundles, which, with her bag, he and Edmée carried a little way into the shelter of the wood hard by, so that the girl’s hands might be free, if need were, to help him with the much more troublesome piece of baggage—Edmond. Then they both made their way in again, Edmée standing a little aside, while Pierre, by the very faint moonlight which came in through the open doorway, satisfied himself as to the exact position in which Edmond lay, before attempting to gag and seize him. How he succeeded he could never himself tell, but succeed he did. Before the sleeping boy had recovered his faculties sufficiently to attempt to scream or to make any resistance, he was safe and fast in Pierre’s strong arms, his mouth so firmly gagged that, though he was scarlet, nay purple, with rage and terror long before he found out the real state of the case, not the faintest sound was audible, as, followed by Edmée, young Germain, with his heavy burden, made his way from the barn by the path behind the house, which they had already discovered led into the woods. More than once Edmée tried to whisper into Edmond’s ear, but blinded and confused as he was she could not catch his attention.
”‘Better wait awhile,’ whispered Pierre, and it was not till after quite a quarter of an hour of this painful progress that he at last stopped, and, after listening in all directions, let Edmond slip to the ground, though still firmly holding him. The boy opened his eyes; he had half lost consciousness, and Pierre began to loosen the handkerchief.
”‘Edmond,’ said Edmée, though still in a whisper, ‘it is we—Pierre and I. Don’t you know us?’ But Edmond shivered convulsively, and it was some minutes—minutes of most precious time—before Edmée and Pierre together could get him to understand all that had passed. Then he burst into tears, blaming himself as the cause of the terrible risk they had run, thanking them both for saving his life, and entreating their forgiveness. It was a great relief that his excitement had taken this form,—Edmée had been secretly terrified that he would perhaps have turned upon Pierre in a rage at him for having employed force, even to save his life,—for it was easy to make him do whatever they wished. He soon recovered himself enough to get on to his feet, and with Pierre on one side and Edmée on the other, to make his way deeper and deeper into the recesses of the forest. It was their best chance. Pierre’s experience served as a guide, even though with these special woods he was unacquainted, and he was able to direct their steps ever towards Valmont, though plunging very much further into the forest than he intended. And for some days they did not venture to leave its friendly shelter. What did they live upon? you will ask, as I have often asked my mother when she has been relating to me the history of these strange days. Very little, it seems to me. Pierre managed, two or three times, to get a loaf from one of the wood-cutters’ cottages they passed at long intervals, but which he never dared approach near, except by himself. He used to hide his companions and then, whistling lightly, as if on an ordinary journey of a few hours, would knock at the cottage door and ask for some bread, as he was hungry and had some distance to go; but not much of the bread fell tohisshare, you may be sure. Once or twice he got a few eggs, which he cooked on a fire of dry wood, and which Edmée thought delicious, for there is no sauce like hunger! The nights they spent, in part, in walking, when there was light enough to see their way, for it was cold work lying on the beds of dead leaves they collected, with the scanty spare clothing that was all their bundles contained; and had the weather not been exceptionally fine, and even mild for October, my mother has always maintained they would never have got to Valmont alive. It was that thought—the thought that they were near their journey’s end—that kept up their hearts through this, so much the most painful part of the journey. For even when so near home that a few hours in a passing diligence would have safely landed them within a league of Valmont, they dared not venture on the high road.
“It was a forlorn little group which at last, late one evening,—they had purposely concealed themselves till late in the woods hard by, ‘our own woods,’ said Edmée and Pierre joyously, where to the boy every path, every tree almost, had been familiar from infancy,—approached the forester’s cottage at the extreme end of the village. They had not ventured to pass along the main street, but made a round which brought them in by the other side; for since their terrible fright Pierre had grown doubly cautious.
”‘They may have come here and be waiting to take them,’ he thought, though he did not say so to his two poor tired charges. And even when within a stone’s throw of the cottage he made Edmée and her cousin wait in a little copse while he went forward to reconnoitre. And these few minutes’ waiting, my mother has often said, seemed to her the most trying part of the whole journey.
“With what joy did she hear Pierre’s footsteps in return, and his voice exclaiming eagerly, ‘It is all right! come quickly. Ah, here is my mother behind me.’
“And so it was. Poor Madame Germain had found it impossible to wait in the cottage—here she was, crying and sobbing, and yet smiling through her tears.
”‘My children! my children! whom I had given up hoping ever to see again!’ she exclaimed, clasping Edmée to her arms, forgetful of everything except that she had again her precious nursling, her little lady, whose life she had so many years ago saved by her devotion!
“But to poor Edmée the loving clasp of those motherly arms brought an agonising remembrance.
”‘Dear, dear mamma Germain,’ she said. ‘Do you know—has Pierrot told you all—about my sweet mother?’
”‘I know—he told me. Oh, my darling, how I grieve for you! But she is happy—and thank heaven her death was as it was. And now she will rejoice to see you safe—at last, my Edmée—after all your weary journeying. And Monsieur Edmond too,’ she added, turning to the poor boy. ‘Welcome, a thousand times welcome, to the best we can give you.’
“And the last vestige of his foolish pride melted out of the poor boy’s heart, as he impulsively threw himself into the kind motherly arms. ‘Kiss me too,’ he said, ‘for Pierre’s sake—Pierre, who has saved my life.’
“You may be sure Madame Germain did not need twice asking to do so. ‘Poor boy, poor boy, the most desolate of all,’ she said to herself; ‘for he has not even a happy past to look back to.’
“How thankful they all were to sit down to a comfortable supper in the cottage—and, even more, to rest their poor tired limbs in Madame Germain’s nice clean beds, where the sheets, though not of the finest, were sweet with country bleaching, and scented with lavender! That night Germain said nothing to distress the poor children, but the next day direful news had to be told. Edmée was indeed homeless, for the Château of Valmont no longer existed, except in crumbling ruins. It had been burnt down during Pierre’s absence. Poor old Ludovic happily for himself perhaps, had not lived to see this. He had died a few days after Pierre’s departure for Paris. No special ill-will to the family had been the reason of this destruction, but one of the wild mobs which in these dreadful times laid waste so much of the country had found their way to the peaceful village, and joined by some of the malcontents who would not believe that the recent exactions of money had not been the Countess’s doing, had set fire to the home of the innocent lady and her child.
”‘After all she was a Sarinet,’ was muttered as a sort of excuse for the shameful deed. But when the villagers recovered from the shock and horror, they had united to drive the doers of it from among them, and were now, father Germain had good reason to think, ready to defend the orphaned Edmée to the utmost.
“So after much consultation, the Germains determined to remain at Valmont, though they had at first hesitated whether it would be safe for their charges to do so. It would, however, as was soon seen, have been difficult, almost impossible, to move Edmond. His strength, once he felt himself in safety, rapidly failed; he took to his bed, where he lay in peaceful weakness for some months, suffering little, thankful and grateful, and clinging with touching affection to Pierre’s kind mother, till at last, when the first spring blossoms began to peep out again, he gently died. And though the change in him had endeared him to them all, they felt it was better thus. Life would have been a hard struggle to the poor boy, and he was devoid of the strength required to face his completely altered circumstances, for even had there been no Revolution the Sarinet family was completely ruined.
“Before his death Edmée’s kind protectors had began to breathe rather more freely with regard to her safety. The state of things in Paris was growing worse and worse; the ‘Reign of terror,’ so called, was beginning. But less attention was now given to the upper classes—if, indeed, any of them still remained in the country! The fury of the various Republican parties, every one fighting for the mastery, was now turning against each other—in the end to be the ruin of all; and the motives and causes of the first revolt were forgotten in the general chaos of selfishness, and wild ambition.
“So the months passed on, till they grew into years, and still Edmée was living like a simple country maiden with her kind friends. They did all in their power to prevent her feeling the change in her position. The good curé gave her daily lessons, such as her mother would have wished her to have, and the Germains managed to turn an outhouse which had been used for storing apples and such things into a pretty little sitting-room for her, where they collected the very few pieces of furniture that had been saved from the château, several of which are now in the room where I am writing—the best room at Belle Prairie Farm. And Edmée gradually recovered some of her old brightness; she felt that she was where her mother would have wished her to be, and she was by nature of a wise and unworldly spirit. Even the destruction of her old home she learned to view in a way that was very different from the feelings of most of her class.
”‘We ourselves—we Valmonts—may not have sinned as others,’ she said one day to the curé, when he had been explaining to her some of the causes of this dreadful Revolution which had so changed the face of the country, ‘but our class was guilty. And we have suffered for their sins. Is it not so, dear Monsieur?’
“And the old man’s own eyes filled with tears, as he looked at her earnest ones upraised to his.
”‘It is even so, my child.’
”‘Then I pray God to accept the sacrifice!’ said the child. ‘But, Monsieur le Curé, I do not wish to be an aristocrat any more. I will belong to my own people.’
“And to this, through all the years that followed, she remained firm. Even when distant relations, hearing of her escape, wrote from England, begging her to join them there, with good hope of before long returning to their own home in France, promising, poor as she now was, to adopt her as their own child, Edmée wrote decidedly, though gratefully, refusing. She had made her choice. Some years later, thanks to the efforts of all the most esteemed among the inhabitants of Valmont, a small portion of her forefathers’ possessions, which had been divided and sold, like scores of other properties, was restored to Edmée, and as the owner of the Belle Prairie Farm, she was able to do something in return for the kind friends who had sheltered her in her desolation. The whole family removed there, and you can fancy that it was a happy day for Edmée when she received her kind foster-parents under her own roof.
“I have now come to a point at which I earnestly wish my mother would herself take up the pen. Not that there remain many facts or events to relate, but the crowning one—that of her marriage to my dear father—I could wish her to describe. At present—so shortly after his death—she says she could hardly bear to recall the details of those happy days, in which she gradually learnt to love her faithful Pierrot, with the trusting affection of a woman for the man she would choose for her husband. But in the future, I have good hopes she may be persuaded to do so, and also to relate how Pierre, frightened at first at his own audacity, could scarcely believe it possible that his beautiful Edmée, his ‘little lady,’ could think herself honoured by his deep and fervent love.Icannot altogether sympathise in this great humility on the part of my dear father; but then I have known him, and the rare beauty of his character; then, too, I am quite as proud of my Germain ancestry as of the long lines of Valmont and Sarinet. And nothing gratifies my mother so much as when I say so.
“In the meantime I may give a few particulars that may be of interest to those who will read these pages. Pierre and Edmée never saw poor Marguerite Ribou again; but years after they had news of her death—she died peacefully—from the kind priest in Paris, who had never lost sight of her, and who restored to Edmée the jewels and money the poor girl had so honestly kept for her. And thanks to him—for neither my father or mother ever entered Paris again—the little portrait, which had been the means of Pierre’s finding Edmée and her mother, was recovered from the old dealer in antiquities, and placed, with the other relics of her child-life, in the best parlour at Belle Prairie Farm, where I trust it may be admired and loved by many generations of the descendants of Pierre and Edmée Germain. And now—”
Madame Marceau stopped suddenly, and looked up.
“What is it, mother dear? Go on, please—that is if you are not tired,” said several voices.
“No, dears, I am not tired. I have not read as much to-day as the two last times.” (For though I have not interrupted the course of the story to say so, it will be readily understood that the reading of the old manuscript had occupied several holiday or Sunday evenings). “But,” she went on, “I have stopped simply because there is no more to read! Those two words, ‘and now,’ are the last of the manuscript.”
“Oh dear!”—“What a pity!”—“Did our great-grandmother never write any more to it, as our grandmother hoped she would?” exclaimed the children.
“No, my dears. She often intended to do so, but she did not live many years after her husband’s death. She lived to see my mother happily married to my good father and then she died. I think the world seemed a strange place to her without her Pierre. She spoke of the manuscript not long before her death. ‘After all,’ she said, ‘no words of mine could have done justice to his goodness. Teach your children to honour the memory of their grandfather, and to know that a long line of ancestry is not the only thing to be proud of.’”
“But mother,” said Pierre Marceau, half-timidly, “if one’s ancestors have beengoodpeople?”
“Ah yes, my boy. In such case be not so much proud of them as grateful to the good God for having come of such a stock, be they noblemen or farmers, high in the world’s esteem, or working with their hands for their daily bread,” said Farmer Marceau, as he rose from the arm-chair where he had been sitting to listen to his wife’s reading.
“And the Valmontsweregood,” whispered Pierre to his sister Edmée; “so wemaybe a little proud of them, you see, after all.”
But when he went to say good-night to Madame Marceau, he added gently, “You are right, dear little mother. Iamvery glad that you called me Pierre, after my good great-grandfather, Pierre Germain—”
My readers may be sure that from the time of the reading of the manuscript, the little old portrait was dusted with even greater care than before, and that on holidays and fête days it was decorated with wreaths of the loveliest flowers to be found in all the country-side. And there, I hope, in the best room of the old farmhouse, it will smile down for many and many, a day on the dwellers therein, reminding them that riches and greatness are not the best or most enduring possessions, that sorrows come alike to all, that trust in God and reverence for His laws are the only sure pilots through this life—that faithful, unselfish love is the most beautiful thing on earth, and, may we not say, in Heaven also?