The Marquis talked with his mother some time longer, and he triumphed. He used all the eloquence of passion, and all that filial tenderness of which he had given so many proofs. His mother was touched and yielded.
"Well, now," cried the Marquis, "will you let me call her here on your behalf? Are you willing that, for the first time,—in your presence, at your feet,—I should tell her that I love her? See, I yet dare not tell her alone! One cold look, one word of distrust, would break my heart. Here, in your presence, I can speak, I will convince her."
"My son," said the Marchioness, "you have my promise. And you see," added she, taking him in her feeble arms, "if I have not given it with very impulsive joy, it is at least with tenderness unlimited and unalloyed. I ask, I exact one single thing; that is, that you will take twenty-four hours to reflect upon your position. It is new, for here you are in possession of my consent, which you thought more than doubtful an hour ago. Up to that time you believed yourself parted from Mlle de Saint-Geneix by obstacles that you did not think of overcoming so easily, perhaps, and this may have given illusive strength to your feelings for her. Don't shake your head! What do you know about it yourself? Besides, what I ask is a very little thing,—twenty-four hours without speaking to her, that is all. For myself, I feel the need of accepting completely before God the decision I have just reached; that my face, my agitation, my tears, may not lead Caroline to suspect that it has cost me something—"
"O yes, you are right," exclaimed the Marquis. "If she suspected that, she never would let me speak to her. To-morrow, then, dear mother. Twenty-four hours, did you say? It is very long! And then,—it is one o'clock in the morning. Will you be up again to-morrow night?"
"Yes, for we have a concert to-morrow at the apartments of the young Duchess. You see why we must sleep to-night. Are you going back to the ball-room?"
"Ah! please let me: she is there still, and she is so lovely with her white dress and the pearls. I have not looked at her enough, really. I did not dare—now only shall I truly see her."
"Well! make this sacrifice for me in your turn, not to look at her again,—not to speak to her before to-morrow evening. Promise me, as you have no idea of sleeping, to think of her, of me, and of yourself, all alone, for a few hours, and then again to-morrow morning. You are not to come here before dinner-time. You must not; promise me!"
The Marquis promised and kept his word; but the solitude, the darkness, the pain of not seeing Caroline, and of leaving her surrounded by the notice and homage of others, only increased his impatience, only fed the fire of his passion. Besides, his mother's precautions, although wise in themselves, were of no use to a man who had been reflecting and deciding so long.
Caroline was surprised not to see the Marquis reappear, and was one of the first to withdraw,—trying to persuade herself she had not been mistaken in thinking he would soon recover his self-control. She was, as will be seen, far from suspecting the truth.
Madame d'Arglade had her spies at this ball, and among others a man who desired to marry her, a secretary of legation, who, the next morning, reported to her the great success of the "young lady companion." The devotion of the Marquis had not escaped malevolent eyes, and the diplomatic apprentice had even scented out an interesting conversation between the Marquis and his mother, as they left the room together.
Léonie listened to this report with apparent indifference; but she said to herself it was time to act, and at noon she was inquiring for the Marchioness at the very moment Caroline appeared.
"One minute, my dear friend," said she to Mlle de Saint-Geneix, "let me go in before you do; it is an urgent matter,—a kindness to be done for some poor people who wish to remain unknown."
Once alone with the Marchioness, she apologized for coming to speak about the poor in these days of rejoicing. "They are, on the contrary, the days of the poor," replied the generous lady; "speak. One of my great joys now will be that I can do more good than I could awhile ago."
Léonie had her pretext all prepared. When she had presented her request, and put the Marchioness down on her subscription-list, she pretended that she was in haste to go, so as to be invited to stay a little while. It is useless to relate the skilful turns and tricks by which she maliciously contrived to reach the interesting point of the conversation. These mean-spirited attacks, unhappily too common, will be remembered by all those who have ever felt their cruel effects; and they are very few who have been forgotten by calumny.
They naturally spoke of Gaëtan's happiness and about the perfections of the young Duchess. "What I love most in her," said Léonie, "is that she isn't jealous of any one, not even of—Oh! beg pardon, the name was just going to escape me."
She returned to this subject several times, refusing to mention the name until the Marchioness began to grow uneasy. At last it did escape her, and the name was that of Caroline.
She hastened to take it back, to say her tongue had tripped; but in ten minutes the blow had been dealt by a sure hand, and the Marchioness had drawn from her a solemn asseveration that she had seen, with her own eyes seen, at Séval, the Duke conducting Caroline back to her room at daybreak, and holding both her hands in his, talking to her eagerly, for three good minutes, at the foot of the Renard stairway.
Upon this she made the Marchioness, whose word she knew was sacred, promise not to betray her, not to make her enemies,—because so far she had never had any; saying she was in despair at the persistence which had drawn this disclosure from her, that she would have done better to disobey the Marchioness outright, that at heart she really loved Caroline, and that, after all, since she had answered for her character, it was, perhaps, her duty to confess that she had been mistaken.
"Bah!" exclaimed the Marchioness thoroughly mistress of herself, "all this is not so serious. She may have been very good otherwise, and yet have been impressed by this irresistible Duke. He is so skilful! Have no fear. I am to know nothing of this, and I will act at the proper time and place, if need be, without its appearing at all."
When Caroline entered just as Léonie was going, the latter extended her hand with a good-natured air, telling her that the news of her triumph the evening before had reached her even, and that she offered her congratulations.
Caroline found the Marchioness so pale as to arouse her anxiety, and on asking the cause she received a very cool reply. "It is the fatigue of all this festivity," said the Marchioness; "it is nothing. Be so good as to read me my letters."
While Caroline was reading Madame de Villemer did not listen. She was thinking of what she was going to do. She was concealing deep indignation against the young girl, a violent grief at the blow she would have to inflict on the Marquis; and with this maternal sorrow mingled the involuntary satisfaction of a titled lady at being released from a promise which had cost her much, and to which, for twelve hours, she had not recurred without a shudder.
When she had reached her decision, she interrupted the reading harshly, saying, in an icy tone, "That is enough, Mlle de Saint-Geneix. I want to speak with you seriously. One of my sons, I need not say which, seems lately to have entertained sentiments for you which you surely have not encouraged?"
Caroline turned as pale as the Marchioness; but, strong in her own conscience, she replied without hesitation, "I am ignorant of what you assert, Madame. Neither of your sons has ever expressed to me any sentiments at which I could be seriously alarmed."
The Marchioness took this reply for an audacious falsehood. She flung at the poor girl one contemptuous look, and for a moment was silent; then she resumed, "I shall not speak of the Duke; it is entirely useless to defend yourself on this point."
"I have no complaint to make of him or of his brother," replied Caroline.
"I suppose not!" said the Marchioness, with a withering smile; "but as for me, I should have good cause for complaint if you had the presumption—"
Caroline interrupted the Marchioness with a violence she could not control. "I have shown no presumption," cried she, "and no one in the world has a right to speak to me as if I were to blame, or even ridiculous—Pardon, Madame," added she, seeing the Marchioness almost frightened by her excitement; "I have interrupted you. I have spoken rudely. Forgive me. I love you,—I love you so that I would give you my life willingly. You see why your suspicion hurts me so that I lose my temper. But I ought to control myself; I will control myself! I see there is some misunderstanding between us. Be so good as to explain—or question me. I will answer with all the calmness in my power."
"My dear Caroline," said the Marchioness, more gently, "I do not question you. I warn you. It is not my intention to condemn you or sadden you with useless questions. You were mistress of your own heart—"
"No, Madame, I was not."
"Indeed! Very well, the truth comes out in spite of you," said the Marchioness, with a return of her ironical disdain.
"No, a hundred times no!" rejoined Caroline, indignantly. "That is not what I mean. Knowing that a thousand duties, some more serious than others, forbade me to dispose of it, I have given it to no one."
The Marchioness looked at Caroline with astonishment. "How well she understands lying!" thought Madame de Villemer. Then she said to herself that, so far as the Duke was concerned, this poor girl was not obliged to betray herself; that the feeling she had entertained for him ought to be regarded just as if it had never been, since, after all, she had made him no trouble and claimed no rights detrimental to his marriage.
This idea, which had but just occurred to her, suddenly mollified the rancor of the Marchioness; and when she saw her silence was wounding Caroline, whose eyes were full of scalding tears, she returned to her friendship for her, and even to a new kind of esteem.
"My dear little one," said she, extending her hands to her, "forgive me! I have hurt your feelings; I have explained myself wretchedly. Let us even admit I was unjust for a moment. In point of fact I understand you better than you think, and I appreciate your conduct. You are unselfish, prudent, generous, and wise. If you have chanced—to think more of certain attentions than was for your own happiness, it is none the less certain you have always stood ready to make sacrifices on occasion, and you would be ready to do the same again; it is so, is it not?"
Caroline did not comprehend, and could not comprehend that in all this there was an allusion to Gaëtan's marriage. She thought only his brother's case was called in question; and as she had never relaxed her self-control for a moment, she felt as if the Marchioness had no right to pry into the painful secrets of her heart. "I have never had any sacrifice to make," replied she, haughtily. "If you have orders for me give them, Madame, and do not think it any merit on my part to obey you."
"You mean to say, and you do say, my dear, that you have never responded to the sentiments of the Marquis?"
"I have never known them."
"You had never suspected them?"
"No, Madame; and I do not believe in them! Who could have made you suppose the contrary? Certainly not the Marquis himself."
"Well, pardon me, but it was he. You see what confidence I have in you. I tell you the truth. I trust to your generosity without hesitation. My son loves you and thinks he may have won your love in return."
"Monsieur the Marquis is strangely mistaken," replied Caroline, wounded by an avowal which, presented thus, was almost an offence.
"Ah! you are telling the truth now, I see that," cried the Marchioness, deceived by the pride of Mlle de Saint-Geneix; and wishing to control her by means of her self-respect, the old lady kissed her on the forehead. "Thank you, my dear child," said she, "you restore me to life. You are sincere; you are too noble to punish my doubts by trifling with my peace. Very well; now let me tell my son Urbain that he has been only dreaming, that this marriage is impossible, not through my opposition, but through yours."
This imprudent request enlightened Caroline. She understood the admirable delicacy which had led the Marquis to consult his mother before declaring his feelings to her; but she was not deluded by this discovery, for she saw how much the Marchioness disliked the idea of their marriage. She attributed this severity to the ambition of Madame de Villemer, which she had known perfectly and feared for a long time. She was very far from thinking that, after having yielded the point with a good grace, the Marchioness was now withdrawing her consent because she believed in the stain of a fault. "Madame de Villemer," replied she, with a certain severity, "you are never wrong in the eyes of your son. I understand that; and I fear no reproaches from him, if, on my own part, I decline the honor he would do me. Over and above this you can tell him what you think best; I shall not be here to contradict you."
"What! do you want to leave me?" cried Madame de Villemer, alarmed at a conclusion which she did not expect so suddenly, although she had secretly desired it. "No, no, that is impossible! It would ruin everything. My son loves you with an earnestness,—whose future consequences I do not fear, if you will help me to contend against them, but whose violence at the first moment I do fear. Stop! He would follow you, perhaps; he is eloquent, he would triumph over your resistance, he would bring you back, and I should be forced to tell him—what I never want to tell him."
"You will never have to say 'No' to him!" replied Caroline, still under a delusion, and nowise suspecting this menace of her pretended misconduct hanging over her head; "it is I who should tell him, is it not? Well then I will write to him, and my letter shall pass through your hands."
"But his grief—his anger, perhaps—have you thought of that?"
"Madame, let me go away!" replied Caroline, desperately, for the thought of this grief touched her heart. "I did not come here to suffer in this way. I was brought here without even being told that you had sons. Let me leave you without trouble as well as without blame. I will never see M. de Villemer again; this is all I can promise. If he should follow me—"
"Do not doubt that he will! For Heaven's sake, speak lower! What if any one should hear you! In case he should follow you, what would you do?"
"I shall go where he cannot follow me. Permit me to arrange this according to my own judgment. In an hour I will return to take leave of you, Madame de Villemer."
Mlle de Saint-Geneix went out with such energetic resolution that Madame de Villemer dared not say another word to detain her. She saw that Caroline was irritated and hurt. She blamed herself for having made it too evident that "she knew all," while the poor woman actually knew nothing, for she did not perceive Caroline's real affection.
So far was she from this that she tried to persuade herself Caroline had always loved the Duke, that she had sacrificed herself to his happiness, or that, perhaps, like a practical girl, she was counting upon the return of his friendship after the honeymoon of his marriage. "In the latter case," thought the Marchioness, "it would be dangerous to let her remain in the house. Some time or other it would bring unhappiness into my young household; but it is too soon to have her go away—and so abruptly: the Marquis would be almost insane. She will grow calm, lay her plans, and whenever she returns with them I will persuade her to accommodate herself to mine."
For an hour, then, the Marchioness was engaged upon her own plans. She would see her son again that evening, as had been agreed, and would tell him that she had sounded Caroline's inclinations, and found her very cold toward him. For several days she would avoid the decisive explanation. She would gain time, she would induce Caroline herself to discourage him, but gently and with prudence. In a word she was planning to control the fates, when she saw the hour had passed and Caroline had failed to come. She inquired for her. She was told that Mlle de Saint-Geneix had gone away in a hackney-coach with a very small bundle, leaving behind the following letter:—
"MADAME DE VILLEMER,—
"I have just received the sad news that one of my sister's children is seriously ill. Pardon me for hastening to her at once without having asked your leave; you have visitors. Besides, I know how kind you are; you will surely give me twenty-four hours. I shall be back by to-morrow evening. Receive the assurance of my tender and profound regard.
CAROLINE."
"Well now, that is admirable!" said the Marchioness to herself after a moment of surprise and fright. "She enters into my ideas; she has enabled me to win the first evening, the hardest of all certainly. By promising to come back to-morrow night she keeps my son from rushing away to Étampes. To-morrow probably she will have a new pretext for not returning—But I would rather not know what she means to do. I shall then be sure that the Marquis will never get the truth from me."
Nevertheless, the evening came too soon for her comfort. Her fears increased as she saw the hour approaching when they would have to dine together.
If Caroline had really fled a little farther than Étampes, it was necessary to gain time. She then decided upon telling an untruth. She never spoke to her son until they were just seating themselves at table, contriving to keep herself surrounded by others. It was a great dinner, very ceremonious; but unable to bear the anxious gaze which he fastened upon her, before taking her seat she said to the young Duchess, in such a way as to be overheard by the Marquis, "Mlle de Saint-Geneix will not come to dinner. She has a little niece ill at the convent, and has asked leave to go and see her."
Immediately after dinner the Marquis, tortured with anxiety, tried to speak to his mother. She avoided him again; but, seeing him preparing to go out, she made signs for him to come near and whispered to him: "She has n't gone to the convent, but to Étampes."
"Then why did n't you tell us so awhile ago?"
"I was mistaken. I had scarcely read the note, which was just given me this evening. It is not the little girl who is mentioned, but another of the children; however, she will return to-morrow morning. Come! there is nothing alarming in this. Be careful, my son, your bewildered face astonishes every one. There are ill-disposed persons everywhere: what if some one should happen to think and say that you were envious of your brother's happiness! It is known that at first it was you—"
"Ah! mother, that is the very thing! You are keeping something from me. It is Caroline who is ill. She is here, I am sure of it. Let me inquire on your behalf—"
"Do you want to compromise her, then? That would be no way to prepossess her in your favor."
"She is not well disposed toward me, then? Mother, you have spoken to her."
"No, I have n't seen her; she went away this morning."
"You said the note came this evening."
"I received it—some time, I can't tell when; but these questions are not very amiable, my son. Pray be calm; we are observed."
The poor mother did not know how to tell a lie. Her son's anguish pierced her to the heart. She struggled for an hour against the sight. Every time he approached a door, she followed him with a glance which plainly told of her fear that he would go: their eyes would meet, and the Marquis would remain, as if held by his mother's anxiety. She could not bear this long. She was broken down by the fatigue of the emotions she had endured for twenty-four hours; by the excitement of the festivity which, for several days, she had been trying to enliven with all her cleverness; and above all, by the violent effort she had made since dinner, to appear calm. She had herself conducted back to her own apartment, and there fainted in the arms of the Marquis, who had followed her.
Urbain lavished the most tender care on his mother, reproaching himself a thousand times for having agitated her; assuring her that he was composed, that he would not ask another question until she had recovered. He watched over her the whole night. The next day, finding her perfectly well, he ventured upon a few timid questions. She showed him Caroline's note, and he waited patiently until evening. The evening brought a fresh note, dated at Étampes. The child was better, but still so poorly that Madame Heudebert desired to keep Caroline twenty-four hours longer.
The Marquis promised to be patient for twenty-four hours more; but the next day, deceiving his mother with the pretence of going to ride with his brother and sister, he set out for Étampes.
There he learned that Caroline had really been with her sister, but had just set out again for Paris. They must have passed each other on the way. It occurred to the Marquis that on his arrival, which was evidently anticipated, one of the children was kept out of sight, and silence enjoined upon the others. He inquired after the little invalid, and asked to see him. Camille replied that he was asleep and she was afraid to wake him. M. de Villemer dared not urge the matter, and returned to Paris seriously doubting Madame Heudebert's sincerity, and wholly unable to explain her embarrassed and absent-minded ways.
He hastened to his mother's; but Caroline had not made her reappearance; she was perhaps at the convent. He went there to wait for her before the iron grate, and at the close of an hour he made up his mind to ask for her in the name of Madame de Villemer. He was told that she had not been seen there for the last five days. He returned a second time to the Hôtel de Xaintrailles; he awaited the evening; his mother still seemed ill, and he controlled himself. But on the morrow his courage finally broke down, and he sobbed at her feet, begging her to restore Caroline, whom he still believed hidden in the convent by her orders.
Madame de Villemer really knew nothing further about it. She began to share her son's uneasiness. However, Caroline had taken with her only a very small bundle of clothing; she could have had but little money, for she was in the habit of sending it all, as soon as she received it, to her family. She had left her jewels and her books behind; so she could not be very far off.
While the Marquis was returning to the convent with a letter from his mother, who, overcome by his grief, was now really anxious to have him find Caroline again,—the young lady, wrapped up and veiled to her chin, was alighting from a diligence just arrived from Brioude, and, carrying her own bundle, was making her way alone along the picturesque boulevard of the town of Le Puy in Velay, toward the station of another little stage-coach, which was just then setting out for Issingeaux.
No one saw her face or thought of troubling himself to do so. She asked no questions, and seemed thoroughly acquainted with the country, its customs, and its localities.
Nevertheless, she was there for the first time; but, resolute, active, and cautious, she had before leaving Paris bought a guide-book, with a plan of the town and the surrounding country, which she had carefully studied on the way. She then got into the diligence for Issingeaux, telling the driver she would stop at Brives, that is, at about a league from Le Puy. There she alighted at the bridge of the Loire, and disappeared, without asking her way of any one. She knew she had to follow the Loire until it met the Gâgne; then, directing her course toward the Red Rock, again follow the bed of the torrent flowing at its foot until she reached the first village. There could be no possible mistake. There were about three leagues to be traversed on foot in a wilderness, and it was midnight; but the road was smooth, and the moon came out clearly in a beautiful half-globe from among the great white clouds, driven back to the horizon by the winds of May.
Where, then, was Mlle de Saint-Geneix going in this fashion, in the depths of the night and the wilds of the mountain, through a bewildering country? Has it been forgotten that she had here, in the village of Lantriac, devoted friends and the safest of all retreats? Her nurse, the good-wife Peyraque, formerly Justine Lanion, had written her a second letter, about six weeks before, and Caroline, remembering with certainty that she had never mentioned to the Marquis or to any one of the family these letters, or these people, or this country, had accepted the stern suggestion of going there for a month or so, thus making sure that all traces of herself would be entirely lost. Thence arose her precautions against being recognized on the way, and against exciting chance curiosity by asking questions.
She had gone to Étampes to embrace her sister, and, after having told her all and intrusted her with all, except the secret feelings which disturbed her, she had burned her ships behind her by leaving a letter which, at the end of the week, was to be forwarded to Madame de Villemer. In this letter she announced that she had gone abroad, pretending to have found employment there, and begging that no anxiety should be felt on her account.
Cumbered with her bundle, she was planning to leave it at the first house where she could effect an entrance, when she became aware of a train of ox-teams coming behind her. She waited for it. A family of teamsters, young and old, with a woman holding a child asleep under her cape, were transporting some great hewn logs,—intended to serve as carpenters' timber,—by means of a pair of solid little wheels, bound with ropes to each end of the log. There were six of these logs, each drawn by a yoke of oxen with a driver walking beside them. It was a caravan, which occupied a long space on the road.
"Providence," thought Caroline, "always helps those who rely upon it. Here are carriages to choose from if I am weary."
She spoke to the first teamster. He shook his head: he understood only the dialect of the country. The second stopped, made her repeat her words, then shrugged his shoulders and resumed his walk: he understood no better than the first. A third made signs for her to address his wife, who was seated on one of the logs, her feet supported by a rope. Caroline asked her, as she walked along, if they were going in the direction of Laussonne. She did not wish to mention the name of Lantriac, which was nearer, on the same road. The woman replied in French of very harsh accent, that they were going to Laussonne, and that it was "far off,—yes, indeed!"
"Will you let me fasten my bundle to one of these logs?"
The woman shook her head.
"Is this a refusal?" returned Caroline. "I do not ask it for nothing; I will pay you."
The same response came. In Caroline's speech the mountaineer had understood only the name of Laussonne.
Caroline knew nothing of the dialect of the Cévennes. It had formed no part of the early education she had received from her nurse. The music of Justine's accent, however, had lingered in her memory, and she caught at the bright idea of imitating it, which she succeeded in doing so well that the ears of the peasant woman opened at once. She understood French measured out in this way, and even spoke it herself quite readily.
"Sit down there, behind, on the next log," said she, "and give your bundle to my husband. Come! we ask nothing for this, my daughter."
Caroline thanked her and took a seat upon the log. The peasant made her a stirrup like that which held up the feet of his wife, and the rustic procession went on its way but slightly delayed by the ceremony. The husband, who walked close at hand, made no attempt to talk. The Cévenol is grave, and if he is ever curious, he will not deign to let the fact appear. He contents himself with listening afterward to the comments of the women, who ask information boldly; but the logs were long, and Caroline was too far from the female mountaineer to be in danger of any cross-questioning.
She thus passed at no great distance the Red Rock, which she mistook at first for an enormous ruined tower; but she recalled the stories of Justine about this curiosity of her country, and recognized the strange dike, the indestructible volcanic monument, through whose pale shadow cast by the moon she was now journeying.
The narrow, winding road rose above the torrent little by little, growing so contracted that Caroline was frightened to see her feet hanging in space over these awful depths. The wheels cut down into the earth soaked by the rains on the extreme edge of the dizzy slope; but the little oxen never swerved in the least; the driver kept on singing, standing a little way off when he could find no comfortable place near his log, and the nurse had a fashion of swaying back and forth that seemed to mask a vain struggle with sleep.
"Bless me!" cried Caroline to the husband, "have you no fear for your wife and child?"
He understood the gesture, if not the words, and called out to his wife not to drop the little one, then launched forth anew in a dismal air, which resembled a religious chant.
Caroline soon became used to the dizziness; she would not be tempted into turning her back to the precipice, as the peasant motioned for her to do. The country was so fine and so strange, the splendor of the moon made it look so terrible, that she was unwilling to lose anything of the novel spectacle. In the angles of the ascent, when the oxen had turned the fore wheels, and the log still held the hind wheels to their former course until they threatened to go over the brink, the astonished traveller unconsciously stiffened herself up a little on her stirrup of rope. Then the driver would speak to his oxen in a calm and gentle tone, and his voice, which seemed to adapt their docile steps to the least unevenness of the ground, reassured Caroline as if it had been the voice of a mysterious spirit shaping her destiny.
"And yet why should I be afraid?" she asked herself. "Why should I cling to a life which will be henceforth full of dread?—to a succession of days which in prospect are a hundred times more frightful than death! If I fell into this chasm, I should be instantly crushed. And even if I suffered an hour or two before my death, what would that be compared with the years of sorrow, loneliness, and perhaps despair, which await me!"
We see that Caroline at last had owned to her love and her grief. Their full extent she had not yet measured, and, as she thought about that instinctive love of life which had just made her shudder, bold as she was by nature, she tried to persuade herself that it was a presentiment,—a celestial promise of speedy relief. "Who knows! Perhaps I shall forget sooner than I think. Have I any right to wish for death! Can I even afford to give way to grief, and waste my strength! Can my sister and her children do without me? Do I want them to live on the charity of those who have driven me away? Must I not soon go to work again, and, in order to work, shall I not be obliged to forget everything that is not work?"
And then she was troubled even by her own courage. "What," she said to herself again,—"what if this were only a snare of hope!" Some of M. de Villemer's words came back to her, and certain phrases in his book that showed a wonderful amount of energy, penetration, and perseverance. Would such a man give up a plan he was bent upon, allowing himself to be deceived by stratagem, and would he not have in its highest power that divining sense which is a part of love!
"I have acted to no purpose; he will find me again, if he tries to find me. It is useless for me to have come here, though I am a hundred and fifty leagues off, and though it seems impossible for any one to think of my being here rather than elsewhere; for he will have that gift of second sight, if he loves me with all his strength. So it would be childish to run away and hide, if this were the whole of my defensive resistance. My heart must take up arms against him, and at any moment, no matter when, I must stand ready to face him, and say to him, 'Suffer in vain or die if need be; I do not love you!'"
As she said this, Caroline was seized by a sudden impulse to lean forward, quit the stirrup, and let herself fall into the abyss. At last, fatigue overcame her excitement; the road, which still led upward, was not so steep, and had turned away from the cleft of the ravine, leaving all danger behind. Their slow progress, the monotonous swaying of the log, and the regular grinding of the yokes against the pole, had a quieting effect upon her. She watched the rocks as they passed slowly before her, under their fantastic lights, and the tree-tops, whose budding leafage resembled transparent clouds. It became quite cold as they rose above the valleys, and the keen air was benumbing. The torrent vanished into the depths, but its strong, fresh voice filled the night with wild harmonies. Caroline felt her eyelids growing heavy. Judging it could not be far from Lantriac, and not wanting to be carried to Laussonne, she jumped to the ground and walked on to rouse herself.
She knew Lantriac was in a mountain gorge and that she would be very near it when she had lost sight of the torrent of the Gâgne. At the end of a half-hour's walk, in fact, she saw the outlines of houses above the rocks, reclaimed her bundle, made the peasant take some money, though not without difficulty, evaded the curiosity of his wife, and stayed behind to let them pass through the village, exposed to the barking of the dogs and disturbing the rest of the villagers whom she hoped to find sound asleep again on her own arrival.
But nothing disturbs the sleep of the dwellers in a Velay hamlet, and nothing awakens their dogs. The procession of timber went along; the teamsters still singing, the wheels rumbling heavily over the blocks of lava which, under pretext of paving the streets, in these inhospitable villages, form a system of defence far more impassably sure than the perilous roads by which you arrive.
Caroline, noticing the deep silence which followed upon the noise of the wheels, ventured resolutely into the narrow and almost perpendicular street which was supposed to continue the highway. Here her knowledge of the place came to a sudden stop. Justine had never described the position of her house. The traveller, wishing to glide in quietly and arrange with the family to keep her incognito, resolved to avoid knocking anywhere or waking any one, and to wait for day, which could not be long in dawning. She laid her bundle down beside her on a wooden bench, and took her seat under the pent-house of the first cottage she came to. She gazed at the queer fantastic picture made by the roofs, brought into uneven and hard relief against the white clouds of the sky. The moon passed into the narrow zone left open between the neighboring pent-houses. The basin of a little fountain caught the clear moonlight in full, and a quarter of its circle sparkled under the fall of a slender spray of water from the rock. The peaceful aspect and continuous measured sound of this silvery water soon lulled our exhausted traveller to sleep.
"Here is certainly a change within three days," said she to herself, placing her bundle so as to make it a rest for her weary head. "Only last Thursday, nevertheless, Mlle de Saint-Geneix, in a dress of tulle, her neck and arms loaded with rare pearls, and her hair full of camellias, was dancing with the Marquis de Villemer, under the light of countless tapers, in one of the richest of Parisian drawing-rooms. What would M. de Villemer say now if he could see this pretended queen of the ball-room, wrapped in coarse woollen, lying at the door of a shed, her feet almost in the flowing water and her hands stiff with the cold? Happily the moon is beautiful,—and here it is striking two o'clock! Well, there is an hour more to be spent here, and since sleep will come whether or no, why, then, let it be welcome."
At daybreak Mlle de Saint-Geneix was awakened by the hens clucking and scratching around her. She rose and walked on, looking at the doors of the houses as they opened one by one, and saying to herself with reason that in a hamlet so small and stowed so close among the rocks, she could not stray far without finding the face she sought.
But here a difficulty presented itself. Was she sure of recognizing this nurse, whom she had never seen since she was ten years old? She had Justine's voice and accent in her memory far more clearly than her face. She followed the ups and downs of the road as far as the last house behind the rock, and there she saw written on the door "Peyraque Lanion." A horseshoe nailed over this sign indicated his occupation of farrier.
Justine had risen first, as was her custom, while the closed calico curtains of the bed shaded the last nap of M. Peyraque. The principal apartment on this ground-floor showed the comfort of a well-to-do household, and the mark of this easy competence consisted particularly in the garniture of the ceiling; which was trellised with racks of monumental supplies of vegetables and divers rural commodities; but the strict cleanliness, a rare deviation from the customs of the country, removed everything which might offend the eye or the sense of smell.
Justine was lighting her fire, and preparing to make the soup her husband was to find smoking hot on his awakening, when she saw Mlle de Saint-Geneix come in with her hood on, carrying her bundle. She cast a look of perplexity upon the stranger, and said at last, "What have you to sell?"
Caroline, hearing Peyraque snore behind his curtain, put her finger to her lips and threw her hood back on her shoulders. Justine stood still an instant, suppressed a cry of joy, and opened her stout arms with rapture. She had recognized her child. "Come, come!" said she, leading her toward a little break-neck staircase at the farther end of the entry, "your room is all ready. We have been hoping for you every day this year." And she called to her husband, "Get up, Peyraque, at once, and shut the door. Here is news, O, such good news!"
The little chamber, whitewashed and furnished in rustic fashion, was, like the lower room, of irreproachable neatness. The view was magnificent; and blossoming fruit-trees came up to the level of the window. "It is a paradise!" exclaimed Caroline to the good woman. "It only needs a little fire, which you are going to make for me. I am cold and hungry, but happy to see you and be with you. I must tell you something, first of all. I don't want it known here who I am. My reasons are good ones, and you shall know them; they will meet your approval. Let us begin by agreeing on our facts; you have lived at Brioude?"
"Yes; I was in service there before I was married."
"Brioude is a long way from here. Is there any one from that country in Lantriac?"
"No one; and strangers never come. There is no road except for ox-carts."
"I saw that myself. Then you can pass me off for some one you knew at Brioude?"
"Very easily,—the daughter of my old mistress."
"No; I'm not to be a young lady."
"But she was not a young lady; she was a little tradeswoman."
"That's it; but I must have an occupation."
"Wait a minute!—that's easy enough. Be a pedler of small wares, like the one I am speaking of."
"But then I shall have to sell something."
"I'll see to that. Besides, you are supposed to have made your rounds, and I shall have detained you here as a matter of friendship; for you are going to stay?"
"A month, at least."
"You must stay always. We will find you something to do, never fear. But, let's see; what shall be your name?"
"Charlette; you called me that when I was a little thing; so it will not give you any trouble. I am supposed to be a widow, and you must say 'thou' to me."
"Just as I used to. Good! it is agreed. But how will you dress, my dear Charlette?"
"Like this. You see it's not luxurious."
"It's not very rich, to be sure; though it will pass; but this lovely blond hair of yours will attract the eye; and a city bonnet will be a wonder."
"I thought of that; so I bought at Brioude one of the head-dresses worn there. I have it in my travelling-bag, and I'm going to don my costume at once for fear of a surprise."
"Then I'll go at once and get you some breakfast. You will eat with Peyraque, I take it?"
"And with you, I hope. To-morrow I mean to help you about the house and in the kitchen."
"O, you may pretend to do that! I don't want you to spoil those little hands I used to take such care of. Now I'm going to see if Peyraque is up, and let him know what has been agreed upon; then you must tell us why there is need of all this mystery."
While talking, Justine had kindled the wood already in the fireplace. She had filled the pitchers with pure cold water, which had trickled from the rock, coming through an earthen pipe to the toilet-table of her little chamber, and then down into the kitchen sink. This was an invention of Peyraque's, who prided himself oh having ideas of his own.
Half an hour afterward Caroline, whose simple attire marked no particular station, put up her fine hair under the little head-dress from Brioude, less scantily contrived, and more prettily curved than the round dish-cover—which, like it, is of black felt trimmed with velvet—worn by the women of Velay. It was all in vain; she was still charming in spite of the weariness that dimmed the large eyes "green like the sea," formerly so bepraised by the Marchioness.
The soup of rice and potatoes was quickly served in a small room where Peyraque at odd moments did a little carpenter-work. The good man thought this an unsuitable reception, and wanted to sweep away the shavings. "On the contrary," said his wife, spreading the chips and sawdust over the floor, "you don't understand at all! She will think it a pretty carpet. O you don't know her yet! She is a daughter of the good Providence, this one is!"
Caroline made acquaintance with Peyraque by embracing him. He was a man of about sixty years, still very robust though thin, of medium height, and plain-featured, like most of the mountaineers in this region; but that his austere and even stern countenance bore the stamp of integrity was evident at the first glance. His rare smile was remarkably genial. You saw in it real affection and sincerity, which were all the more unmistakable from the fact that they were never lavished demonstratively.
Justine also had rigid features, and a blunt way of speaking. She was a strong generous character. An earnest Roman Catholic, she respected the silence of her husband who was of Protestant descent, nominally converted indeed, but a free-thinker if there ever was one. Caroline knew these circumstances and was touched to see the delicate respect which this superior woman knew how to weave into her love for her husband. It must be remembered that Mlle de Saint-Geneix, the daughter of a very weak man, and the sister of an inefficient woman, owed the great courage she possessed first to her mother, who was of Cévenol parentage, and afterward to the ideas Justine had given her in early life. She perceived this very clearly when she found herself seated between this old couple whose precise language and notions caused her neither fear nor surprise. It seemed as if the milk of her mountain nurse had passed into her whole being, and as if she were there in the presence of types with which she had already been made familiar in some previous existence.
"My friends," said she, when Justine had brought her the cream of the dessert, while Peyraque washed down his soup with a draught of hot wine, followed up before long with a draught of black coffee, "I promised to tell you my story and here it is in few words. One of the sons of my old lady had some idea of marrying me."
"Ah, indeed! that might well be," said Justine.
"You are right, because our characters and ideas are alike. Any one ought to have foreseen that, and I myself first of all."
"And the mother, too!" said Peyraque.
"Well, no one seems to have thought of it; and the son surprised and even angered the mother when he told her he loved me."
"And you?" asked Justine.
"I—I—why he never told me of it at all; and, as I knew I was not noble enough or wealthy enough for him, I should never have allowed him to think of it."
"Yes, that's right!" returned Peyraque.
"And it's true!" added Justine.
"Then I saw I could not stay a day longer, and at the first angry word from the mother I went away without seeing the son again; but the son would have hurried after me if I had remained with my sister. The Marchioness wanted me to stay a little to have an explanation with him, to tell him I did not love him—"
"That is what ought to have been done, perhaps," said Peyraque.
Caroline was forcibly impressed by the austere logic of the peasant. "Yes, unquestionably," thought she, "my courage ought to have been pushed thus far."
And, as she still kept silence, the nurse, enlightened by the penetration of a loving heart, said to her husband, sharply, "Stop talking there, you! How you run on! How do you know she did n't love him, this poor child?"
"Ah! that, that is another thing," replied Peyraque, bowing his serious, thoughtful head, which now looked nobler for the sense of delicate pity expressed upon his face.
Caroline was touched in an unspeakable degree by the straightforwardness of this simple friendship, which with one word touched the sorest spot in her wound. What she had not had strength or confidence to tell her sister, she was impelled not to disguise from these hearts, so thoroughly true and so able to read her own. "Well, my friends, you are right," said she, taking their hands. "I should not perhaps have been able to lie to you, for, in spite of myself, I—I do love him!"
Hardly had she spoken the words, when she was seized with terror, and looked around as if Urbain might have been there to hear them; then she burst into tears at the thought that he never would hear them.
"Courage, my daughter, the Lord will aid you," exclaimed Peyraque, rising.
"And we will aid you, too," said Justine, embracing her. "We will hide you, we will love you, we will pray for you!"
She led her back to her room, undressed her, and made her lie down, with motherly care that she should be warm and not see the sun shining in too early on her bed. Then she went down to apprise her neighbors of the arrival from Brioude of a person named Charlette, to answer all their questions, mentioning her paleness and her beauty that these might not strike them too forcibly. She took pains to tell them also that the speech of Brioude was not at all like that of the mountains, so Charlette would be unable to talk with them. "Ah! the poor creature," replied the gossips. "She will find it very dull and tiresome with us!"
A week later, after having informed her sister, in the proper time and place, of her safe arrival, Caroline gave her some detailed account of her new mode of life. It must not be forgotten that, hiding her actual sorrow, she was trying to reassure her sister, and to divert her own thoughts by affecting an independence far from being so complete or so real as it seemed.
"You can form no idea of the care they take of me, these Peyraques. Justine is always the same noble woman, with a heart like an angel's, whom you know, and whom our father could not bear to see going away from us. So it is saying more than a little to declare that her husband is worthy of her. He has even more intelligence, although he is slower of comprehension; but what he does understand is as if engraved on marble without spot or blemish. I assure you I am not weary a single moment with them. I could be alone much more than I am, for my little room is free from all intrusion of servants, and I can dream without being disturbed; but I rarely feel the need of this: I am contented among these worthy people, I am conscious of being loved.
"They have, besides, something of intellectual life, like most of the people here. They inquire about things in the world without; and it is astonishing to find in a kind of blind alley, among such wild mountains, a peasantry with so many notions foreign to their own necessities and habits. Their children, their neighbors, and their friends impress me as active, intelligent, and honest, while Peyraque tells me it is the same in villages farther still from all civilization.
"As an offset to this, the dwellers in the little groups of cottages scattered over the mountain, those who are only peasants, shepherds, or laborers, live in an apathy beyond all comprehension. The other day I asked a woman the name of a river which formed a magnificent cascade not more than a hundred paces from her house. 'That is water,' she replied. 'But the water has a name, has n't it?' 'I will ask my husband; I don't know myself; we women always call all the rivers water.'
"The husband knew enough to tell me the names of the torrent and the cascade; but when I asked for those of the mountains on the horizon, he said he knew nothing about them, he had never been there. 'But you must have heard that those are the Cévennes?'
"'Perhaps so! The Mézenc and the Gerbier de Joncs [sheaf or stack of reeds] are over there, but I don't know which they are.'
"I pointed them out to him; they are easily recognized,—Mézenc, the loftiest of the peaks, and the Gerbier, an elegant cone, which holds in its crater reeds and swamp-grasses. Only, the good man would not even look. It was all precisely the same to him. He showed me the 'grottos of the ancient savages,' that is, a kind of Gallic or Celtic village hollowed out of the rock, with the same precautions that beasts of the wilderness use to conceal their dens; for you can examine this rock and follow it without discovering anything unusual unless you know the path which penetrates this labyrinth and its habitations. Ah, my dear Camille, am I not here a little like those 'ancient savages,' who, for fear of intrusion, hid themselves in caves and sought their peace in forgetfulness of the whole world?
"At all events, the inhabitants of La Roche impress me as being the direct descendants of those poor Celts, hidden in their rock, and, as it were, bound to it. I looked at the woman, with bare legs and dull eyes, who conducted us into the grottos, and asked myself whether three or four thousand years had really passed away since her ancestors took root in these stones.
"You see I go out, for prudence does not require the in-door life, which you feared for me. On the contrary, having nothing to read here, I feel the need of strolling about, and my movements surprise the good people of Lantriac much less than a mysterious retreat would do. I run no risk of meeting strangers. You saw me set out in clothing that would not attract attention in the least. Besides, I have a black felt hat, larger than those worn here, which shades my face quite nicely. In case of need, too, I can conceal it entirely under the brown hood I brought with me, which the capricious weather gives me an excuse for wearing in my walks. I am not just like the women of the country; but there is nothing in my appearance to create a sensation in the places where I go.
"Then, too, I have a pretext for going out, which accounts for everything. Justine has a little trade in small wares and gives me charge of a box whose contents I offer for sale, while Peyraque, who is a farrier, busies himself with visiting sick animals. This enables me to go into the houses and observe the manners and customs of the country. I sell but little, for the women are so absorbed in their lace-making that they never mend for their husbands, their children, or themselves. Here is the triumph of rags worn with pride. Their devotion to their one occupation is so passionate as to exclude all material well-being and all cleanliness even, as a profane superfluity. Avarice finds its account in this, and vanity also, for if Justine gave me jewelry to sell I should soon have customers more eager for that than for linen and shoes.
"They produce all those marvellous black and white laces, which you have seen Justine make at our house. It is wonderful to see, here among the mountains, this fairy-like work coming from the hands of these poor creatures, and the trifling sum they realize shocks the traveller. They would cheerfully give you for twenty sous what they ask twenty francs for in Paris, if they were allowed to trade with the consumer; but this is strictly forbidden. Under the pretext of having furnished silk, thread, and patterns, the dealer monopolizes and sets a price on their work. In vain you offer to supply the peasant-woman with materials and pay her well. The poor woman sighs, looks at the money, shakes her head, and replies that she will not risk losing the patronage of 'her master' in order to profit by the liberality of a person who will not employ her permanently, and whom she may possibly never see again. And then all these women are pious, or pretend to be so. Those who are sincere have sworn by the Virgin and the saints not to sell to individuals, and one is forced to honor their respect for a promise given. Those who make religion a regular profession (and I see there are more such than one would suppose) are conscious of being always under the hand and beneath the eye of the priests, nuns, monks, and seminarists, with whom this country is literally sown and covered even in the most uninhabitable places. The convents have the work done; and here, as elsewhere, under conditions of trade still more lucrative than those of the dealers. You can see, in the vestibules of the churches even, the women from the village in a sort of community, sitting in a circle, making their bobbins fly as they murmur litanies or chant offices in Latin; which does not, however, prevent them from gazing curiously at the passers-by and exchanging remarks, while they replyora pro nobisto the gray, black, or blue sister who oversees the work and the psalmody.
"These women are generally kind and hospitable. Their children interest me, and when I find those who are ill, I am glad to be able to point out the more simple attentions that should be given them. There is either great ignorance or great indifference on this point. Maternity here is rather passionate than tender. It is as if they told you that children are created for the single purpose of learning how to suffer.
"Peyraque's business, as his services are much in demand, leads us into some almost inaccessible places on the mountain, giving me a chance to see the finest landscapes in the world, for this wonderful country is like a dream,—and my own life is a strange dream also, is it not?
"Our fashion of going in search of adventures is quite primitive. Peyraque has a little cart, which he is pleased to denominate a carriage, because it has an awning of canvas, which somewhat ambitiously pretends to shelter us. He harnesses to this vehicle now an intrepid little mule, and now a pony, spirited but gentle, all skin and bone like its owner, but like him, too, never flinching at anything. So, while Justine's eldest son, just returned from the regiment, where he has been shoeing artillery horses, continues his trade under the paternal roof, his father and I wander over hill and vale without regard to the weather. Justine pretends this does me so much good that I must stay with her 'always,' and vows she will find some way for me to earn our livelihood without humiliating myself to serve any great lady.
"Alas! I never felt humiliated so long as I knew I was loved; and then I loved so sincerely in return! Do you know it saddens me no longer to receive a blessing every morning from that poor old Marchioness, and not only so, but I am quite uneasy, alarmed about her even, as if I felt she could not live without me? God grant she may soon forget me, that my place may already have been filled by one less fatal than I to her peace. But will she be cared for, morally speaking, as I cared for her? Will her fanciful whims be understood, the dulness of her leisure hours charmed away, or her children spoken of as she loves to hear them spoken of? On my arrival here, I drank in the free air with long breaths; I gazed at this grand, rugged scenery which I had felt so strong a wish to know. I said to myself, 'Here I am then free! I shall go where I please; I will talk as little as I please; I shall no longer write the same letter ten times a day to ten different people; I shall not live in a hot-house; I shall not breathe the sharp perfumes of flowers distilled by chemical processes, or of plants half dead on the windowsills; I shall drink from the breeze hawthorn and wild thyme in their real fragrance.' Yes, I said all this to myself, and I could not rejoice. I saw my poor friend sad and lonely, perhaps weeping for having made me weep so much!
"But she chose this, and to all appearance, it was necessary. I have no right to blame her for a moment of unjust anger. The mother thought only of her son, and such a son well deserves all a mother's sacrifice. Perhaps she calls me hard and ungrateful for not falling in with her plans, and I often ask myself if I ought not to have fallen in with them; but I always answer that the end would not have been attained. The Marquis de V—— is not one of those men who can be sent off with a few commonplaces of cool disdain. Besides, you have no right to act thus toward one who, far from declaring his passion, has surrounded you with respect and delicate affection. In vain I seek some language, half cold, half tender, which I might have used in telling him that I hold his mother's happiness and his own equally sacred: I do not find in myself the requisite tact or skill. Either the real friendship I have for him would have deceived him as to my feelings, leading him to think I was sacrificing myself to a sense of duty, or my firmness would have offended him, as if I were parading a virtue whose aid he has never given me occasion to invoke. No, no! it could not be, it ought not to be.
"I have an impression that the Marchioness hinted that I might tell him I had an engagement, another love. For Heaven's sake, let her invent all she will now! Let her sacrifice my life and that which I hold still more sacred, if need be. I have left the field clear: but, for my own part, I could never have improvised a romance for the occasion. And would he have been duped by it?
"Camille, you will see him, you have doubtless already seen him again since that first visit, when you admitted it was hard for you to play your part. You say it made you very unhappy to see him; he was almost distracted—He is certainly calm now. He has so much moral strength, he will understand so well that I must never see him again? However, be on your guard! He is very keen. Tell him my nature is a cold one—no, not that; he would n't believe it. But speak of my invincible pride. That is true; yes, I am proud, I feel it! And if I were not, should I deserve his affection?
"Perhaps it would have been liked if I had become really unworthy of his regard,—not the mother; not she! no, never! She is too upright, too pious, too pure in heart; but the Duke, I mean. Now, I can recall a number of things which I did not understand, and they appear in a new light. The Duke is excellent; he worships his brother. I believe his wife, who is an angel, will purify his life and thoughts; but at Séval, when he told me to save his brother at any cost,—I think of it now, and I blush to think of it!
"Ah, that I might be allowed to disappear, that I might be allowed to forget all! For a year I believed myself calm, worthy, happy. One day, one hour has spoiled the whole. With one word, Madame de Villemer has poisoned all the memories I had hoped to carry away unsoiled,—memories which now I dare not dwell upon. In truth, Camille, you were right in saying, as you sometimes did, that one should not be too ingenuous, that I ventured out into life too quixotically. This will serve me as a lesson, and I will renounce friendship as well as love. I ask myself why I should not from this time onward break off all relations with a world so full of dangers and snares, why I should not accept my misery more bravely indeed than I have done. I could create some resources in this province even, remote as it is in point of civilization. I could not be a school-mistress, as Justine imagined last year; the clergy have usurped everything here, and the good sisters would not let me teach, even in Lantriac; but in a city I could find pupils, or I could become a book-keeper in some mercantile house.
"First of all, I must make sure of being forgotten there; but when this oblivion is complete, I must indeed take thought for our children, and I dwell upon this a little in advance. After all, be at ease. I will find something. I shall manage to conquer the malicious fates. I do not sleep, I cannot falter; you know this perfectly. You have enough to live on for two months more, and I need absolutely nothing here. Do not worry, let us always trust the good God, as you, for your part, must trust the sister who loves you."
Caroline had reason to be alarmed by the inquiries M. de Villemer was making at her sister's. He had already returned twice to Étampes, and, fully aware that delicacy forbade anything like a system of cross-questioning, he confined himself to watching the demeanor of Camille, and drawing his own inferences from her silent evasions. Thenceforth he might take it for granted that Madame Heudebert knew her sister's hiding-place and that Caroline's disappearance gave her no real uneasiness. Camille held in reserve the letter which said Caroline had found employment away from France, and did not produce it. She saw such anguish and distress in the features of the Marquis, which were already much changed, that she dared not inflict this last blow on the benefactor, the protector of her children. Besides Madame Heudebert did not share all Caroline's scruples or comprehend all her pride. She had not ventured to blame her, in this regard; but she herself would not have held it so great a crime to brave the displeasure of the Marchioness a little, and become her daughter-in-law notwithstanding. "Since the intentions of the Marquis were so serious," thought she, "and his mother loves him so that she dares not oppose him openly, and, finally, since he is of age and master of his own fortune, I don't see why Caroline could not have used her influence over the old lady, her powers of persuasion, and the evidence of her own worth, and so led her gently to admit the propriety of the marriage.—There! poor Caroline, with all her valiant devotedness, is too romantic, and will go away and kill herself in order to support us; while, with a little patient tact, she might be happy and make us all happy too."
Here is another common-sense opinion which may be set over against that of Peyraque and Justine. Of these two lines of reasoning the reader is free to adopt the one that he prefers; but the narrator must, of necessity, hold an opinion also, and he avows a little partiality for that of Caroline.
The Marquis perceived that Madame Heudebert made, now and then, some timid allusions to the state of things, and felt sure she knew the whole. He threw himself on her mercy a little more than he had done hitherto; and Camille, encouraged, asked him, with a sufficient want of tact, whether, in case the Marchioness proved inexorable, he was fully resolved to make Caroline an offer of his hand. She seemed on the point of betraying her sister's secret, if the Marquis would pledge his word of honor.
The Marquis replied without hesitation: "If I was sure of being loved, if the happiness of Mlle de Saint-Geneix depended on my courage, I would contrive to do away with my mother's prejudices, at any cost; but you give me no encouragement. Only give me that, and you will see!"
"I give you encouragement!" exclaimed Camille, amazed and confused. She hesitated to reply. She had indeed divined Caroline's secret; but the latter had always guarded it proudly, not by falsehood, but by never allowing herself to be questioned, and Madame Heudebert had not the daring to inflict a severe wound on her sister's dignity, by taking it upon herself to compromise her. "That is something I am no wiser about than you," said she. "Caroline has a strong character,—one which I cannot always fathom."
"And this strength of hers is so great," said the Marquis, "that she would never accept my name without my mother's sincere benediction. This I know better even than you do. So tell me nothing; it is for me alone to act. I ask of you only one thing more, and that is to let me watch over you and your children until something new shall occur, and even—yes, I will venture to say it—I am haunted by the fear that Mlle da Saint-Geneix may find herself without resources, exposed to privations which it makes me shudder to think of. Spare me this dread. Let me leave you a sum which you can return, if there is no use for it, but which, in case of need, you will remit to her as coming from yourself.'
"O, that is quite impossible," replied Camille: "she would divine the source, and never forgive me for having taken it!"
"I see you are really afraid of her."
"Just as I am of all that commands respect."
"Then we feel alike," replied the Marquis as he took leave. "I am so thoroughly afraid of her that I dare not seek her any farther, and yet I must find her again or die."
Shortly afterward the Marquis drew an explanation from his mother, which was painful enough to both of them. Although he saw her suffering, sad, regretting Caroline a hundred times more than she admitted, and although he had resolved to await a more propitious moment for his inquiries, the explanation came, in his own despite and in despite of the Marchioness, through the fatality of circumstances. The anxiety of the situation was too intense; it could not be prolonged. Madame de Villemer confessed that she had conceived a sudden prejudice against the character of Mlle de Saint-Geneix, and that at the very moment of fulfilling her promise she had let Caroline feel the exceeding pain it caused her. Gradually, under the eager questioning of the Marquis, the conversation grew more animated, and Madame de Villemer, pushed to extremity, allowed the accusation against Caroline to escape her. The unfortunate girl had committed a fault pardonable in the eyes of the Marchioness when acting as her friend and guardian, but one which made it quite out of the question even to think of receiving her as a daughter.
Before this result of calumny the Marquis did not flinch one instant. "It is an infamous lie," he cried, beside himself,—"a base lie! And you could believe it? Then it must have been very artful and very audacious. Mother, you must tell me all, for I am not disposed to be taken in so myself."
"No, my son, I shall tell you no more," replied Madame de Villemer firmly; "and every word you add to those you have just uttered, I shall consider a breach of filial affection and respect."
So the Marchioness remained impenetrable; she had promised not to betray Léonie; and, besides, nothing in the world would tempt her to sow the seeds of discord between her two sons. The Duke had so often told her, in Urbain's presence, that he had never sought or obtained a single kind look from Caroline! This, in the opinion of the Marchioness, was a falsehood the Marquis would never pardon. She knew, now, that he had taken the Duke into his confidence, and that Gaëtan, touched by his grief, had persuaded his wife into taking measures for seeking Caroline in all the Parisian convents. "He does not speak," said the Marchioness to herself; "he will not dissuade his wife and brother from this folly, when he ought, at the very least, to have confessed the past to the Marquis, in order to cure him of it. It is too late now to risk such avowals. I cannot do it without leading my two sons to kill each other after having loved so warmly."
Meanwhile Caroline wrote her sister as follows:—
"You feel alarmed because I am in so uneven and rocky a region, and ask what can be fine enough to make one run the risk of being killed at every step. First of all, there is really no danger here for me under the guidance of this good Peyraque. The roads, that would be actually frightful, and, as I think, impassable for carriages like those with which we are familiar, are just large enough for the little carts of this region. Then, too, Peyraque is very prudent. When he cannot measure with his eye just precisely the space he needs, he has a method of ascertaining it, which made me laugh heartily the first time I saw him put it in practice. He trusts me with the reins, jumps to the ground himself, takes his whip, which has the exact size of his cart marked with a little notch on its stock, and, advancing a few paces on the road, he proceeds to measure the width of the passage between the rock and the precipice,—sometimes between one precipice on the right and another on the left. If the road has a centimetre more than is needful he comes back triumphant, and we go quickly by. If we have no such centimetre in which to disport ourselves, he makes me alight, while he leads the horse by the bridle, dragging on the carriage. When we find two little walls hemming in a foot-path, we place one wheel on either wall and the horse in the pathway. I assure you one soon becomes accustomed to all this, and already I think no more about it. The horses here have no vicious tricks, and are not inclined to shy; they know the danger as well as we, and accidents are no more frequent in this country than they are on the plains. I certainly exaggerated the danger of these jaunts in my first letters; it was from vanity, or a lingering fear, of which I am wholly cured now that I feel it was groundless.
"As to the beauty of Velay, I could never describe it for you. I did not dream there could be, here in the heart of France, a country so strange and so imposing. It is far more lovely than Auvergne, through which I passed on my way hither. The city of Le Puy is probably unique in point of location; it is perched upon masses of lava that seem to spring up from its very heart and form a part of its architecture. These lava pyramids are indeed the edifices of giants; but those which man has placed on their sides, and often on their summits, have certainly been inspired by the grandeur and wildness of the spot.
"The cathedral is admirable, in the Romanesque style, of the same color as the rocks, but slightly enlivened by the blue and white mosaics on the pediments of its façade. It is placed so as to seem colossal, for, to reach it, you must climb a mountain of dizzy steps. The interior is sublime in its elegant strength and solemn dimness. I never understood the terrors of the Middle Ages, or felt them, so to speak, as I did under these bare, black pillars, beneath these storm-laden domes. There was a furious tempest while I was there. The flashes sent their infernal lights across the splendid windows that strew the walls and pavements with jewels. The thunders seemed rolling forth from the sanctuary itself. It was Jehovah in all his wrath; but it gave me no alarm. The true God, whom we love to-day, has no menaces for the weak. I prayed there with a perfect faith, and felt it had done me good. As for these beautiful temples of the faith in ages both rude and stern, it is clear they are the expression of the one grand word, 'mystery,' whose veil it was forbidden to lift. If M. de Villemer had been there he would have said—
"But a course of history and religious philosophy is not to the point now. The ideas of M. de Villemer are no longer the book from which I may study the past or learn to anticipate the future.
"You see, thanks to good Peyraque and his desire to show me the marvels of Velay, thanks also to my impenetrable hood, I have ventured into the city and its suburbs. The city is everywhere picturesque; it is still a mediæval town, closely studded with churches and convents. The cathedral is flanked by a whole world of ancient structures, where, under mysterious arcades, and in the turns and twists of the rock they stand on, you can see cloisters, gardens, staircases, and mute shadows gliding by, hidden beneath veil and cassock. A strange silence reigns there, and a certain odor of the past, I know not what, which makes one shiver with fear, not of our God, the source of all confidence and spiritual freedom, but of everything that, in the name of God, breaks up forever the ties and duties of our common humanity. In our convent, I remember a religious life seemed cheerful; here, it is sombre enough to make one tremble.