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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of White Lies, by Charles Reade
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: White Lies
+
+Author: Charles Reade
+
+Release Date: May 16, 2006 [EBook #2472]
+Last Updated: September 27, 2016
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WHITE LIES ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Donald Lainson
+
+
+
+
+
+WHITE LIES
+
+By Charles Reade
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+
+Towards the close of the last century the Baron de Beaurepaire lived
+in the chateau of that name in Brittany. His family was of prodigious
+antiquity; seven successive barons had already flourished on this spot
+when a younger son of the house accompanied his neighbor the Duke of
+Normandy in his descent on England, and was rewarded by a grant of
+English land, on which he dug a mote and built a chateau, and called it
+Beaurepaire (the worthy Saxons turned this into Borreper without delay).
+Since that day more than twenty gentlemen of the same lineage had held
+in turn the original chateau and lands, and handed them down to their
+present lord.
+
+Thus rooted in his native Brittany, Henri Lionel Marie St. Quentin de
+Beaurepaire was as fortunate as any man can be pronounced before he
+dies. He had health, rank, a good income, a fair domain, a goodly
+house, a loving wife, and two lovely young daughters, all veneration and
+affection. Two months every year he visited the Faubourg St. Germain and
+the Court. At both every gentleman and every lacquey knew his name, and
+his face: his return to Brittany after this short absence was celebrated
+by a rustic fete.
+
+Above all, Monsieur de Beaurepaire possessed that treasure of treasures,
+content. He hunted no heart-burns. Ambition did not tempt him; why
+should he listen to long speeches, and court the unworthy, and descend
+to intrigue, for so precarious and equivocal a prize as a place in the
+Government, when he could be De Beaurepaire without trouble or loss of
+self-respect? Social ambition could get little hold of him; let parvenus
+give balls half in doors, half out, and light two thousand lamps,
+and waste their substance battling and manoeuvring for fashionable
+distinction; he had nothing to gain by such foolery, nothing to lose by
+modest living; he was the twenty-ninth Baron of Beaurepaire. So wise,
+so proud, so little vain, so strong in health and wealth and honor,
+one would have said nothing less than an earthquake could shake
+this gentleman and his house. Yet both were shaken, though rooted by
+centuries to the soil; and by no vulgar earthquake.
+
+For years France had bowed in silence beneath two galling burdens--a
+selfish and corrupt monarchy, and a multitudinous, privileged, lazy, and
+oppressive aristocracy, by whom the peasant was handled like a Russian
+serf. [Said peasant is now the principal proprietor of the soil.]
+
+The lower orders rose upon their oppressors, and soon showed themselves
+far blacker specimens of the same breed. Law, religion, humanity, and
+common sense, hid their faces; innocent blood flowed in a stream, and
+terror reigned. To Monsieur de Beaurepaire these republicans--murderers
+of women, children, and kings--seemed the most horrible monsters nature
+had ever produced; he put on black, and retired from society; he felled
+timber, and raised large sums of money upon his estate. And one day he
+mounted his charger, and disappeared from the chateau.
+
+Three months after this, a cavalier, dusty and pale, rode into the
+courtyard of Beaurepaire, and asked to see the baroness. She came to
+him; he hung his head and held her out a letter.
+
+It contained a few sad words from Monsieur de Laroche-jaquelin. The
+baron had just fallen in La Vendee, fighting for the Crown.
+
+From that hour till her death the baroness wore black.
+
+The mourner would have been arrested, and perhaps beheaded, but for a
+friend, the last in the world on whom the family reckoned for any solid
+aid. Dr. Aubertin had lived in the chateau twenty years. He was a man of
+science, and did not care a button for money; so he had retired from
+the practice of medicine, and pursued his researches at ease under
+the baron’s roof. They all loved him, and laughed at his occasional
+reveries, in the days of prosperity; and now, in one great crisis, the
+protege became the protector, to their astonishment and his own. But it
+was an age of ups and downs. This amiable theorist was one of the oldest
+verbal republicans in Europe. And why not? In theory a republic is
+the perfect form of government: it is merely in practice that it is
+impossible; it is only upon going off paper into reality, and trying
+actually to self-govern limited nations, after heating them white hot
+with the fire of politics and the bellows of bombast--that the thing
+resolves itself into bloodshed silvered with moonshine.
+
+Dr. Aubertin had for years talked and written speculative republicanism.
+So they applied to him whether the baroness shared her husband’s
+opinions, and he boldly assured them she did not; he added, “She is a
+pupil of mine.” On this audacious statement they contented themselves
+with laying a heavy fine on the lands of Beaurepaire.
+
+Assignats were abundant, but good mercantile paper, a notorious coward,
+had made itself wings and fled, and specie was creeping into strong
+boxes like a startled rabbit into its hole. The fine was paid; but
+Beaurepaire had to be heavily mortgaged, and the loan bore a high rate
+of interest. This, with the baron’s previous mortgages, swamped the
+estate.
+
+The baroness sold her carriage and horses, and she and her daughters
+prepared to deny themselves all but the bare necessaries of life, and
+pay off their debts if possible. On this their dependants fell away from
+them; their fair-weather friends came no longer near them; and many a
+flush of indignation crossed their brows, and many an aching pang their
+hearts, as adversity revealed the baseness and inconstancy of common
+people high or low.
+
+When the other servants had retired with their wages, one Jacintha
+remained behind, and begged permission to speak to the baroness.
+
+“What would you with me, my child?” asked that lady, with an accent in
+which a shade of surprise mingled with great politeness.
+
+“Forgive me, madame,” began Jacintha, with a formal courtesy; “but how
+can I leave you, and Mademoiselle Josephine, and Mademoiselle Rose? I
+was born at Beaurepaire; my mother died in the chateau: my father died
+in the village; but he had meat every day from the baron’s own
+table, and fuel from the baron’s wood, and died blessing the house of
+Beaurepaire. I CANNOT go. The others are gone because prosperity is here
+no longer. Let it be so; I will stay till the sun shines again upon the
+chateau, and then you shall send me away if you are bent on it; but
+not now, my ladies--oh, not now! Oh! oh! oh!” And the warm-hearted girl
+burst out sobbing ungracefully.
+
+“My child,” said the baroness, “these sentiments touch me, and honor
+you. But retire, if you please, while I consult my daughters.”
+
+Jacintha cut her sobs dead short, and retreated with a formal reverence.
+
+The consultation consisted of the baroness opening her arms, and both
+her daughters embracing her at once. Proud as they were, they wept
+with joy at having made one friend amongst all their servants. Jacintha
+stayed.
+
+As months rolled on, Rose de Beaurepaire recovered her natural gayety in
+spite of bereavement and poverty; so strong are youth, and health,
+and temperament. But her elder sister had a grief all her own: Captain
+Dujardin, a gallant young officer, well-born, and his own master, had
+courted her with her parents’ consent; and, even when the baron began to
+look coldly on the soldier of the Republic, young Dujardin, though too
+proud to encounter the baron’s irony and looks of scorn, would not yield
+love to pique. He came no more to the chateau, but he would wait hours
+and hours on the path to the little oratory in the park, on the bare
+chance of a passing word or even a kind look from Josephine. So much
+devotion gradually won a heart which in happier times she had been half
+encouraged to give him; and, when he left her on a military service
+of uncommon danger, the woman’s reserve melted, and, in that moment of
+mutual grief and passion, she vowed she loved him better than all the
+world.
+
+Letters from the camp breathing a devotion little short of worship
+fed her attachment; and more than one public mention of his name and
+services made her proud as well as fond of the fiery young soldier.
+
+Still she did not open her heart to her parents. The baron, alive at
+that time, was exasperated against the Republic, and all who served it;
+and, as for the baroness, she was of the old school: a passionate
+love in a lady’s heart before marriage was contrary to her notions of
+etiquette. Josephine loved Rose very tenderly; but shrank with modest
+delicacy from making her a confidante of feelings, the bare relation of
+which leaves the female hearer a child no longer.
+
+So she hid her heart, and delicious first love nestled deep in her
+nature, and thrilled in every secret vein and fibre.
+
+They had parted two years, and he had joined the army of the Pyrenees
+about one month, when suddenly all correspondence ceased on his part.
+
+Restless anxiety rose into terror as this silence continued; and
+starting and trembling at every sound, and edging to the window at every
+footstep, Josephine expected hourly the tidings of her lover’s death.
+
+Months rolled on in silence.
+
+Then a new torture came. He must not be dead but unfaithful. At this all
+the pride of her race was fired in her.
+
+The struggle between love and ire was almost too much for nature:
+violently gay and moody by turns she alarmed both her mother and the
+good Dr. Aubertin. The latter was not, I think, quite without suspicion
+of the truth; however, he simply prescribed change of air and place;
+she must go to Frejus, a watering-place distant about five leagues.
+Mademoiselle de Beaurepaire yielded a languid assent. To her all places
+were alike.
+
+But when they returned from Frejus a change had taken place. Rose had
+extracted her sister’s secret, and was a changed girl. Pity, and the
+keen sense of Josephine’s wrong, had raised her sisterly love to a
+passion. The great-hearted girl hovered about her lovely, suffering
+sister like an angel, and paid her the tender attentions of a devoted
+lover, and hated Camille Dujardin with all her heart: hated him all the
+more that she saw Josephine shrink even from her whenever she inveighed
+against him.
+
+At last Rose heard some news of the truant lover. The fact is, this
+young lady was as intelligent as she was inexperienced; and she had
+asked Jacintha to tell Dard to talk to every soldier that passed through
+the village, and ask him if he knew anything about Captain Dujardin
+of the 17th regiment. Dard cross-examined about a hundred invalided
+warriors, who did not even recognize the captain’s name; but at last,
+by extraordinary luck, he actually did fall in with two, who told him
+strange news about Captain Dujardin. And so then Dard told Jacintha; and
+Jacintha soon had the men into the kitchen and told Rose. Rose ran to
+tell Josephine; but stopped in the passage, and turned suddenly very
+cold. Her courage failed her; she feared Josephine would not take the
+news as she ought; and perhaps would not love her so well if SHE told
+her; so she thought to herself she would let the soldiers tell their own
+tale. She went into the room where Josephine was reading to the baroness
+and Dr. Aubertin; she sat quietly down; but at the first opportunity
+made Josephine one of those imperceptible signals which women, and above
+all, sisters, have reduced to so subtle a system. This done, she went
+carelessly out: and Josephine in due course followed her, and found her
+at the door.
+
+“What is it?” said Josephine, earnestly.
+
+“Have you courage?” was Rose’s reply.
+
+“He is dead?” said Josephine, turning pale as ashes.
+
+“No, no;” said Rose hastily; “he is alive. But you will need all your
+courage.”
+
+“Since he lives I fear nothing,” said Josephine; and stood there and
+quivered from head to foot. Rose, with pitying looks, took her by the
+hand and drew her in silence towards the kitchen.
+
+Josephine yielded a mute submission at first; but at the very door hung
+back and faltered, “He loves another; he is married: let me go.” Rose
+made no reply, but left her there and went into the kitchen and found
+two dragoons seated round a bottle of wine. They rose and saluted her.
+
+“Be seated, my brave men,” said she; “only please tell me what you told
+Jacintha about Captain Dujardin.”
+
+“Don’t stain your mouth with the captain, my little lady. He is a
+traitor.”
+
+“How do you know?”
+
+“Marcellus! mademoiselle asks us how we know Captain Dujardin to be a
+traitor. Speak.”
+
+Marcellus, thus appealed to, told Rose after his own fashion that he
+knew the captain well: that one day the captain rode out of the camp and
+never returned: that at first great anxiety was felt on his behalf, for
+the captain was a great favorite, and passed for the smartest soldier in
+the division: that after awhile anxiety gave place to some very awkward
+suspicions, and these suspicions it was his lot and his comrade’s here
+to confirm. About a month later he and the said comrade and two more
+were sent, well mounted, to reconnoitre a Spanish village. At the door
+of a little inn they caught sight of a French uniform. This so excited
+their curiosity that he went forward nearer than prudent, and distinctly
+recognized Captain Dujardin seated at a table drinking between two
+guerillas; then he rode back and told the others, who then came up and
+satisfied themselves it was so: that if any of the party had entertained
+a doubt, it was removed in an unpleasant way; he, Marcellus, disgusted
+at the sight of a French uniform drinking among Spaniards, took down his
+carabine and fired at the group as carefully as a somewhat restive horse
+permitted: at this, as if by magic, a score or so of guerillas poured
+out from Heaven knows where, musket in hand, and delivered a volley;
+the officer in command of the party fell dead, Jean Jacques here got a
+broken arm, and his own horse was wounded in two places, and fell from
+loss of blood a few furlongs from the French camp, to the neighborhood
+of which the vagabonds pursued them, hallooing and shouting and firing
+like barbarous banditti as they were.
+
+“However, here I am,” concluded Marcellus, “invalided for awhile, my
+lady, but not expended yet: we will soon dash in among them again for
+death or glory. Meantime,” concluded he, filling both glasses, “let
+us drink to the eyes of beauty (military salute); and to the renown
+of France; and double damnation to all her traitors, like that Captain
+Dujardin; whose neck may the devil twist.”
+
+Ere they could drink to this energetic toast, a low wail at the door,
+like a dying hare’s, arrested the glasses on their road, and the rough
+soldiers stood transfixed, and looked at one another in some dismay.
+Rose flew to the door with a face full of concern.
+
+Josephine was gone.
+
+Then Rose had the tact and resolution to say a few kind, encouraging
+words to the soldiers, and bid Jacintha be hospitable to them. This done
+she darted up-stairs after Josephine; she reached the main corridor just
+in time to see her creep along it with the air and carriage of a woman
+of fifty, and enter her own room.
+
+Rose followed softly with wet eyes, and turned the handle gently. But
+the door was locked.
+
+“Josephine! Josephine!”
+
+No answer.
+
+“I want to speak to you. I am frightened. Oh, do not be alone.”
+
+A choking voice answered, “Give me a little while to draw my breath.”
+ Rose sank down at the door, and sat close to it, with her head against
+it, sobbing bitterly. She was hurt at not being let in; such a friend as
+she had proved herself. But this personal feeling was only a fraction of
+her grief and anxiety.
+
+A good half hour elapsed ere Josephine, pale and stern as no one had
+ever seen her till that hour, suddenly opened the door. She started at
+sight of Rose couched sorrowful on the threshold; her stern look relaxed
+into tender love and pity; she sank, blushing, on her knees, and took
+her sister’s head quickly to her bosom. “Oh, my little love, have you
+been here all this time?”--“Oh! oh! oh!” was all the little love could
+reply. Then the deserted one, still kneeling, took Rose in her lap, and
+caressed and comforted her, and poured words of gratitude and affection
+over her like a warm shower.
+
+They rose hand in hand.
+
+Then Rose suddenly seized Josephine, and looked long and anxiously down
+into her eyes. They flashed fire under the scrutiny. “Yes, it is all
+over; I could not despise and love. I am dead to him, as he is dead to
+France.”
+
+This was joyful news to Rose. “I hoped it would be so,” said she; “but
+you frightened me. My noble sister, were I ever to lose your esteem, I
+should die. Oh, how awful yet how beautiful is your scorn. For worlds
+I would not be that Cam”--Josephine laid her hand imperiously on Rose’s
+mouth. “To mention his name to me will be to insult me; De Beaurepaire
+I am, and a Frenchwoman. Come, dear, let us go down and comfort our
+mother.”
+
+They went down; and this patient sufferer, and high minded conqueror, of
+her own accord took up a commonplace book, and read aloud for two mortal
+hours to her mother and Aubertin. Her voice only wavered twice.
+
+To feel that life is ended; to wish existence, too, had ceased; and so
+to sit down, an aching hollow, and take a part and sham an interest in
+twaddle to please others; such are woman’s feats. How like nothing at
+all they look!
+
+A man would rather sit on the buffer of a steam-engine and ride at the
+Great Redan.
+
+Rose sat at her elbow, a little behind her, and turned the leaves, and
+on one pretence or other held Josephine’s hand nearly all the rest of
+the day. Its delicate fibres remained tense, like a greyhound’s sinews
+after a race, and the blue veins rose to sight in it, though her voice
+and eyes were mastered.
+
+So keen was the strife, so matched the antagonists, so hard the victory.
+
+For ire and scorn are mighty. And noble blood in a noble heart is
+heroic. And Love is a giant.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+
+The French provinces were now organized upon a half military plan, by
+which all the local authorities radiated towards a centre of government.
+By-the-by, this feature has survived subsequent revolutions and
+political changes.
+
+In days of change, youth is at a premium; because, though experience is
+valuable, the experience of one order of things unfits ordinary men for
+another order of things. So a good many old fogies in office were shown
+the door, and a good deal of youth and energy infused into the veins of
+provincial government. For instance, Edouard Riviere, who had but just
+completed his education with singular eclat at a military school, was
+one fine day ordered into Brittany to fill a responsible post under
+Commandant Raynal, a blunt, rough soldier, that had risen from the
+ranks, and bore a much higher character for zeal and moral integrity
+than for affability.
+
+This officer was the son of a widow that kept a grocer’s shop in Paris.
+She intended him for spice, but he thirsted for glory, and vexed her. So
+she yielded, as mothers will.
+
+In the armies of the republic a good soldier rose with unparalleled
+certainty, and rapidity, too; for when soldiers are being mowed down
+like oats, it is a glorious time for such of them as keep their feet.
+Raynal mounted fast, and used to write to his mother, and joke her about
+the army being such a bad profession; and, as he was all for glory, not
+money, he lived with Spartan frugality, and saved half his pay and all
+his prize money for the old lady in Paris.
+
+But this prosperous man had to endure a deep disappointment; on the very
+day he was made commandant and one of the general’s aides-de-camp, came
+a letter into the camp. His mother was dead after a short illness. This
+was a terrible blow to the simple, rugged soldier, who had never had
+much time nor inclination to flirt with a lot of girls, and toughen his
+heart. He came back to Paris honored and rich, but downcast. The old
+home, empty of his mother, seemed to him not to have the old look.
+It made him sadder. To cheer him up they brought him much money. The
+widow’s trade had taken a wonderful start the last few years, and she
+had been playing the same game as he had, living on ten-pence a day, and
+saving all for him. This made him sadder, if anything.
+
+“What,” said he, “have we both been scraping all this dross together
+for? I would give it all to sit one hour by the fire, with her hand in
+mine, and hear her say, ‘Scamp, you made me unhappy when you were young,
+but I have lived to be proud of you.’”
+
+He applied for active service, no matter what: obtained at once this
+post in Brittany, and threw himself into it with that honest zeal and
+activity, which are the best earthly medicine for all our griefs. He was
+busy writing, when young Riviere first presented himself. He looked up
+for a moment, and eyed him, to take his measure; then put into his
+hand a report by young Nicole, a subordinate filling a post of the same
+nature as Riviere’s; and bade him analyze that report on the spot: with
+this he instantly resumed his own work.
+
+Edouard Riviere was an adept at this sort of task, and soon handed him
+a neat analysis. Raynal ran his eye over it, nodded cold approval, and
+told him to take this for the present as a guide as to his own duties.
+He then pointed to a map on which Riviere’s district was marked in
+blue ink, and bade him find the centre of it. Edouard took a pair
+of compasses off the table, and soon discovered that the village of
+Beaurepaire was his centre. “Then quarter yourself at Beaurepaire; and
+good-day,” said Raynal.
+
+The chateau was in sight from Riviere’s quarters, and he soon learned
+that it belonged to a royalist widow and her daughters, who all three
+held themselves quite aloof from the rest of the world. “Ah,” said the
+young citizen, “I see. If these rococo citizens play that game with me,
+I shall have to take them down.” Thus a fresh peril menaced this family,
+on whose hearts and fortunes such heavy blows had fallen.
+
+One evening our young official, after a day spent in the service of
+the country, deigned to take a little stroll to relieve the cares of
+administration. He imprinted on his beardless face the expression of
+a wearied statesman, and strolled through an admiring village. The men
+pretended veneration from policy; the women, whose views of this great
+man were shallower but more sincere, smiled approval of his airs; and
+the young puppy affected to take no notice of either sex.
+
+Outside the village, Publicola suddenly encountered two young ladies,
+who resembled nothing he had hitherto met with in his district; they
+were dressed in black, and with extreme simplicity; but their easy grace
+and composure, and the refined sentiment of their gentle faces, told at
+a glance they belonged to the high nobility. Publicola divined them at
+once, and involuntarily raised his hat to so much beauty and dignity,
+instead of poking it with a finger as usual. On this the ladies
+instantly courtesied to him after the manner of their party, with a
+sweep and a majesty, and a precision of politeness, that the pup would
+have laughed at if he had heard of it; but seeing it done, and well
+done, and by lovely women of rank, he was taken aback by it, and lifted
+his hat again, and bowed again after he had gone by, and was generally
+flustered. In short, instead of a member of the Consular Government
+saluting private individuals of a decayed party that existed only
+by sufferance, a handsome, vain, good-natured boy had met two
+self-possessed young ladies of distinction and breeding, and had cut the
+usual figure.
+
+For the next hundred yards his cheeks burned and his vanity cooled. But
+bumptiousness is elastic in France, as in England, and doubtless among
+the Esquimaux. “Well, they are pretty girls,” says he to himself. “I
+never saw two such pretty girls together; they will do for me to flirt
+with while I am banished to this Arcadia.” Banished from school, I beg
+to observe.
+
+And “awful beauty” being no longer in sight, Mr. Edouard resolved he
+would flirt with them to their hearts’ content. But there are ladies
+with whom a certain preliminary is required before you can flirt with
+them. You must be on speaking terms. How was this to be managed?
+
+He used to watch at his window with a telescope, and whenever the
+sisters came out of their own grounds, which unfortunately was not
+above twice a week, he would throw himself in their way by the merest
+accident, and pay them a dignified and courteous salute, which he had
+carefully got up before a mirror in the privacy of his own chamber.
+
+One day, as he took off his hat to the young ladies, there broke from
+one of them a smile, so sudden, sweet, and vivid, that he seemed to feel
+it smite him first on the eyes then in the heart. He could not sleep for
+this smile.
+
+Yet he had seen many smilers; but to be sure most of them smiled without
+effect, because they smiled eternally; they seemed cast with their
+mouths open, and their pretty teeth forever in sight; and this has a
+saddening influence on a man of sense--when it has any. But here a fair,
+pensive face had brightened at sight of him; a lovely countenance, on
+which circumstances, not nature, had impressed gravity, had sprung back
+to its natural gayety for a moment, and had thrilled and bewitched the
+beholder.
+
+The next Sunday he went to church--and there worshipped--whom? Cupid.
+He smarted for his heathenism; for the young ladies went with higher
+motives, and took no notice of him. They lowered their long silken
+lashes over one breviary, and scarcely observed the handsome citizen.
+Meantime he, contemplating their pious beauty with earthly eyes, was
+drinking long draughts of intoxicating passion. And when after the
+service they each took an arm of Dr. Aubertin, and he with the air of an
+admiral convoying two ships choke-full of specie, conducted his precious
+charge away home, our young citizen felt jealous, and all but hated the
+worthy doctor.
+
+This went on till he became listless and dejected on the days he did not
+see them. Then he asked himself whether he was not a cowardly fool
+to keep at such a distance. After all he was a man in authority. His
+friendship was not to be despised, least of all by a family suspected of
+disaffection to the state.
+
+He put on his glossy beaver with enormous brim, high curved; his
+blue coat with brass buttons; his white waistcoat, gray breeches, and
+top-boots; and marched up to the chateau of Beaurepaire, and sent in his
+card with his name and office inscribed.
+
+Jacintha took it, bestowed a glance of undisguised admiration on
+the young Adonis, and carried it to the baroness. That lady sent her
+promptly down again with a black-edged note to this effect.
+
+
+Highly flattered by Monsieur de Riviere’s visit, the baroness must
+inform him that she receives none but old acquaintances, in the present
+grief of the family, and of the KINGDOM.
+
+
+Young Riviere was cruelly mortified by this rebuff. He went off
+hurriedly, grinding his teeth with rage.
+
+“Cursed aristocrats! We have done well to pull you down, and we will
+have you lower still. How I despise myself for giving any one the chance
+to affront me thus. The haughty old fool; if she had known her interest,
+she would have been too glad to make a powerful friend. These royalists
+are in a ticklish position; I can tell her that. She calls me De
+Riviere; that implies nobody without a ‘De’ to their name would have the
+presumption to visit her old tumble-down house. Well, it is a lesson; I
+am a republican, and the Commonwealth trusts and honors me; yet I am
+so ungrateful as to go out of the way to be civil to her enemies, to
+royalists; as if those worn-out creatures had hearts, as if they could
+comprehend the struggle that took place in my mind between duty, and
+generosity to the fallen, before I could make the first overture to
+their acquaintance; as if they could understand the politeness of
+the heart, or anything nobler than curving and ducking and heartless
+etiquette. This is the last notice I will ever take of that old woman,
+unless it is to denounce her.”
+
+He walked home to the town very fast, his heart boiling, and his lips
+compressed, and his brow knitted.
+
+To this mood succeeded a sullen and bitter one. He was generous, but
+vain, and his love had humiliated him so bitterly, he resolved to tear
+it out of his heart. He absented himself from church; he met the young
+ladies no more. He struggled fiercely with his passion; he went about
+dogged, silent, and sighing. Presently he devoted his leisure hours
+to shooting partridges instead of ladies. And he was right; partridges
+cannot shoot back; whereas beautiful women, like Cupid, are all archers
+more or less, and often with one arrow from eye or lip do more execution
+than they have suffered from several discharges of our small shot.
+
+In these excursions, Edouard was generally accompanied by a thick-set
+rustic called Dard, who, I believe, purposes to reveal his own character
+to you, and so save me that trouble.
+
+One fine afternoon, about four o’clock, this pair burst remorselessly
+through a fence, and landed in the road opposite Bigot’s Auberge; a long
+low house, with “ICI ON LOGE A PIED ET A CHEVAL,” written all across it
+in gigantic letters. Riviere was for moving homeward, but Dard halted
+and complained dismally of “the soldier’s gripes.” The statesman had
+never heard of that complaint, so Dard explained that the VULGAR name
+for it was hunger. “And only smell,” said he, “the soup is just fit to
+come off the fire.”
+
+Riviere smiled sadly, but consented to deign to eat a morsel in the
+porch. Thereat Dard dashed wildly into the kitchen.
+
+They dined at one little round table, each after his fashion. When Dard
+could eat no more, he proceeded to drink; and to talk in proportion.
+Riviere, lost in his own thoughts, attended to him as men of business do
+to a babbling brook; until suddenly from the mass of twaddle broke forth
+a magic word--Beaurepaire; then the languid lover pricked up his ears
+and found Mr. Dard was abusing that noble family right and left. Young
+Riviere inquired what ground of offence they had given HIM. “I’ll tell
+you,” said Dard; “they impose on Jacintha; and so she imposes on me.”
+ Then observing he had at last gained his employer’s ear, he became
+prodigiously loquacious, as such people generally are when once they get
+upon their own griefs.
+
+“These Beaurepaire aristocrats,” said he, with his hard peasant
+good-sense, “are neither the one thing nor the other; they cannot keep
+up nobility, they have not the means; they will not come down off their
+perch, they have not the sense. No, for as small as they are, they must
+look and talk as big as ever. They can only afford one servant, and
+I don’t believe they pay her; but they must be attended on just as
+obsequious as when they had a dozen. And this is fatal to all us little
+people that have the misfortune to be connected with them.”
+
+“Why, how are you connected with them?”
+
+“By the tie of affection.”
+
+“I thought you hated them.”
+
+“Of course I do; but I have the ill-luck to love Jacintha, and she loves
+these aristocrats, and makes me do little odd jobs for them.” And at
+this Dard’s eyes suddenly glared with horror.
+
+“Well, what of that?” asked Riviere.
+
+“What of it, citizen, what? you do not know the fatal meaning of those
+accursed words?”
+
+“Why, I never heard of a man’s back being broken by little odd jobs.”
+
+“Perhaps not his back, citizen, but his heart? if little odd jobs will
+not break that, why nothing will. Torn from place to place, and from
+trouble to trouble; as soon as one tiresome thing begins to go a bit
+smooth, off to a fresh plague, in-doors work when it is dry, out-a-doors
+when it snows; and then all bustle; no taking one’s work quietly, the
+only way it agrees with a fellow. ‘Milk the cow, Dard, but look sharp;
+the baroness’s chair wants mending. Take these slops to the pig, but you
+must not wait to see him enjoy them: you are wanted to chop billets.’
+Beat the mats, take down the curtains, walk to church (best part of
+a league), and heat the pew cushions; come back and cut the cabbages,
+paint the door, and wheel the old lady about the terrace, rub
+quicksilver on the little dog’s back,--mind he don’t bite you to make
+hisself sick,--repair the ottoman, roll the gravel, scour the kettles,
+carry half a ton of water up two purostairs, trim the turf, prune the
+vine, drag the fish-pond; and when you ARE there, go in and gather water
+lilies for Mademoiselle Josephine while you are drowning the puppies;
+that is little odd jobs: may Satan twist her neck who invented them!”
+
+“Very sad all this,” said young Riviere.
+
+Dard took the little sneer for sympathy, and proceeded to “the cruellest
+wrong of all.”
+
+“When I go into their kitchen to court Jacintha a bit, instead of
+finding a good supper there, which a man has a right to, courting a
+cook, if I don’t take one in my pocket, there is no supper, not to
+say supper, for either her or me. I don’t call a salad and a bit of
+cheese-rind--SUPPER. Beggars in silk and satin! Every sou they have goes
+on to their backs, instead of into their bellies.”
+
+“I have heard their income is much reduced,” said Edouard gently.
+
+“Income! I would not change with them if they’d throw me in half a
+pancake a day. I tell you they are the poorest family for leagues round;
+not that they need be quite so starved, if they could swallow a little
+of their pride. But no, they must have china and plate and fine linen
+at dinner; so their fine plates are always bare, and their silver
+trays empty. Ask the butcher, if you don’t believe ME. Just you ask him
+whether he does not go three times to the smallest shopkeeper, for once
+he goes to Beaurepaire. Their tenants send them a little meal and eggs,
+and now and then a hen; and their great garden is chock full of fruit
+and vegetables, and Jacintha makes me dig in it gratis; and so they
+muddle on. But, bless your heart, coffee! they can’t afford it; so they
+roast a lot of horse-beans that cost nothing, and grind them, and serve
+up the liquor in a silver coffee-pot, on a silver salver. Haw, haw,
+haw!”
+
+“Is it possible? reduced to this?” said Edouard gravely.
+
+“Don’t you be so weak as to pity them,” cried the remorseless plebeian.
+“Why don’t they melt their silver into soup, and cut down their plate
+into rashers of bacon? why not sell the superfluous, and buy the
+needful, which it is grub? And, above all, why don’t they let their old
+tumble-down palace to some rich grocer, and that accursed garden along
+with it, where I sweat gratis, and live small and comfortable, and pay
+honest men for their little odd jobs, and”--
+
+Here Riviere interrupted him, and asked if it was really true about the
+beans.
+
+“True?” said Dard, “why, I have seen Rose doing it for the old woman’s
+breakfast: it was Rose invented the move. A girl of nineteen beginning
+already to deceive the world! But they are all tarred with the same
+stick. Down with the aristocrats!”
+
+“Dard,” said Riviere, “you are a brute.”
+
+“Me, citizen?” inquired Dard with every appearance of genuine surprise.
+
+Edouard Riviere rose from his seat in great excitement. Dard’s abuse of
+the family he was lately so bitter against had turned him right round.
+He pitied the very baroness herself, and forgave her declining his
+visit.
+
+“Be silent,” said he, “for shame! There is such a thing as noble
+poverty; and you have described it. I might have disdained these people
+in their prosperity, but I revere them in their affliction. And I’ll
+tell you what, don’t you ever dare to speak slightly of them again in my
+presence, or”--
+
+He did not conclude his threat, for just then he observed that a
+strapping girl, with a basket at her feet, was standing against the
+corner of the Auberge, in a mighty careless attitude, but doing nothing,
+so most likely listening with all her ears and soul. Dard, however, did
+not see her, his back being turned to her as he sat; so he replied at
+his ease,--
+
+“I consent,” said he very coolly: “that is your affair; but permit me,”
+ and here he clenched his teeth at remembrance of his wrongs, “to say
+that I will no more be a scullery man without wages to these high-minded
+starvelings, these illustrious beggars.” Then he heated himself red-hot.
+“I will not even be their galley slave. Next, I have done my last little
+odd job in this world,” yelled the now infuriated factotum, bouncing
+up to his feet in brief fury. “Of two things one: either Jacintha quits
+those aristos, or I leave Jacin--eh?--ah!--oh!--ahem! How--‘ow d’ye do,
+Jacintha?” And his roar ended in a whine, as when a dog runs barking
+out, and receives in full career a cut from his master’s whip, his
+generous rage turns to whimper with ludicrous abruptness. “I was just
+talking of you, Jacintha,” quavered Dard in conclusion.
+
+“I heard you, Dard,” replied Jacintha slowly, softly, grimly.
+
+Dard withered.
+
+It was a lusty young woman, with a comely peasant face somewhat
+freckled, and a pair of large black eyes surmounted by coal-black brows.
+She stood in a bold attitude, her massive but well-formed arms folded so
+that the pressure of each against the other made them seem gigantic, and
+her cheek red with anger, and her eyes glistening like basilisks upon
+citizen Dard. She looked so grand, with her lowering black brows, that
+even Riviere felt a little uneasy. As for Jacintha, she was evidently
+brooding with more ire than she chose to utter before a stranger. She
+just slowly unclasped her arms, and, keeping her eye fixed on Dard,
+pointed with a domineering gesture towards Beaurepaire. Then the doughty
+Dard seemed no longer master of his limbs: he rose slowly, with his eyes
+fastened to hers, and was moving off like an ill-oiled automaton in the
+direction indicated; but at that a suppressed snigger began to shake
+Riviere’s whole body till it bobbed up and down on the seat. Dard turned
+to him for sympathy.
+
+“There, citizen,” he cried, “do you see that imperious gesture? That
+means you promised to dig in the aristocrat’s garden this afternoon,
+so march! Here, then, is one that has gained nothing by kings being put
+down, for I am ruled with a mopstick of iron. Thank your stars, citizen,
+that you are not in may place.”
+
+“Dard,” retorted Jacintha, “if you don’t like your place, I’d quit it.
+There are two or three young men down in the village will be glad to
+take it.”
+
+“I won’t give them the chance, the vile egotists!” cried Dard. And he
+returned to the chateau and little odd jobs.
+
+Jacintha hung behind, lowered her eyes, put on a very deferential
+manner, and thanked Edouard for the kind sentiments he had uttered; but
+at the same time she took the liberty to warn him against believing the
+extravagant stories Dard had been telling about her mistress’s poverty.
+She said the simple fact was that the baron had contracted debts, and
+the baroness, being the soul of honor, was living in great economy to
+pay them off. Then, as to Dard getting no supper up at Beaurepaire, a
+complaint that appeared to sting her particularly, she assured him she
+was alone to blame: the baroness would be very angry if she knew it.
+“But,” said she, “Dard is an egotist. Perhaps you may have noticed that
+trait in him.”
+
+“Glimpses of it,” replied Riviere, laughing.
+
+“Monsieur, he is so egotistic that he has not a friend in the world
+but me. I forgive him, because I know the reason; he has never had a
+headache or a heartache in his life.”
+
+Edouard, aged twenty, and a male, did not comprehend this piece of
+feminine logic one bit: and, while he puzzled over it in silence,
+Jacintha went on to say that if she were to fill her egotist’s paunch,
+she should never know whether he came to Beaurepaire for her, or
+himself. “Now, Dard,” she added, “is no beauty, monsieur; why, he is
+three inches shorter than I am.”
+
+“You are joking! he looks a foot,” said Edouard.
+
+“He is no scholar neither, and I have had to wipe up many a sneer and
+many a sarcasm on his account; but up to now I have always been able
+to reply that this five feet one of egotism loves me sincerely; and the
+moment I doubt this, I give him the sack,--poor little fellow!”
+
+“In a word,” said Riviere, a little impatiently, “the family at
+Beaurepaire are not in such straits as he pretends?”
+
+“Monsieur, do I look like one starved?”
+
+“By Jove, no! by Ceres, I mean.”
+
+“Are my young mistresses wan, and thin?”
+
+“Treason! blasphemy! ah, no! By Venus and Hebe, no!”
+
+Jacintha smiled at this enthusiastic denial, and also because her sex is
+apt to smile when words are used they do not understand.
+
+“Dard is a fool,” suggested Riviere, by way of general solution. He
+added, “And yet, do you know I wish every word he said had been true.”
+ (Jacintha’s eyes expressed some astonishment.) “Because then you and I
+would have concerted means to do them kindnesses, secretly; for I see
+you are no ordinary servant; you love your young mistresses. Do you
+not?”
+
+These simple words seemed to touch a grander chord in Jacintha’s nature.
+
+“Love them?” said she, clasping her hands; “ah, sir, do not be offended;
+but, believe me, it is no small thing to serve an old, old family. My
+grandfather lived and died with them; my father was their gamekeeper,
+and fed to his last from off the poor baron’s plate (and now they have
+killed him, poor man); my mother died in the house and was buried in
+the sacred ground near the family chapel. They put an inscription on her
+tomb praising her fidelity and probity. Do you think these things do not
+sink into the heart of the poor?--praise on her tomb, and not a word on
+their own, but just the name, and when each was born and died, you know.
+Ah! the pride of the mean is dirt; but the pride of the noble is gold.”
+
+“For, look you, among parvenues I should be a servant, and nothing more;
+in this proud family I am a humble friend; of course they are not always
+gossiping with me like vulgar masters and mistresses; if they did, I
+should neither respect nor love them; but they all smile on me whenever
+I come into the room, even the baroness herself. I belong to them, and
+they belong to me, by ties without number, by the many kind words in
+many troubles, by the one roof that sheltered us a hundred years, and
+the grave where our bones lie together till the day of judgment.” *
+
+     * The French peasant often thinks half a sentence, and
+     utters the other half aloud, and so breaks air in the middle
+     of a thought. Probably Jacintha’s whole thought, if we had
+     the means of knowing it, would have run like this--“Besides,
+     I have another reason: I could not be so comfortable myself
+     elsewhere--for, look you”--
+
+Jacintha clasped her hands, and her black eyes shone out warm through
+the dew. Riviere’s glistened too.
+
+“That is well said,” he cried; “it is nobly said: yet, after all, these
+are ties that owe their force to the souls they bind. How often have
+such bonds round human hearts proved ropes of sand! They grapple YOU
+like hooks of steel; because you are steel yourself to the backbone. I
+admire you, Jacintha. Such women as you have a great mission in France
+just now.”
+
+Jacintha shook her head incredulously. “What can we poor women do?”
+
+“Bring forth heroes,” cried Publicola with fervor. “Be the mothers of
+great men, the Catos and the Gracchi of the future!”
+
+Jacintha smiled. She did not know the Gracchi nor their politics; but
+the name rang well. “Gracchi!” Aristocrats, no doubt. “That would be too
+much honor,” replied she modestly. “At present, I must say adieu!” and
+she moved off an inch at a time, in an uncertain hesitating manner, not
+very difficult to read; but Riviere, you must know, had more than once
+during this interview begged her to sit down, and in vain; she had
+always thanked him, but said she had not a moment to stay. So he made no
+effort to detain her now. The consequence was--she came slowly back
+of her own accord, and sat down in a corner of the porch, where nobody
+could see her, and then she sighed deeply.
+
+“What is the matter now?” said Edouard, opening his eyes.
+
+She looked at him point-blank for one moment; and her scale turned.
+
+“Monsieur,” said she timidly, “you have a good face, and a good heart.
+All I told you was--give me your honor not to betray us.”
+
+“I swear it,” said Edouard, a little pompously.
+
+“Then--Dard was not so far from the truth; it was but a guess of his,
+for I never trusted my own sweetheart as I now trust a stranger. But to
+see what I see every day, and have no one I dare breathe a word to, oh,
+it is very hard! But on what a thread things turn! If any one had told
+me an hour ago it was you I should open my heart to! It’s not economy:
+it’s not stinginess; they are not paying off their debts. They never
+can. The baroness and the Demoiselles de Beaurepaire--are paupers.”
+
+“Paupers, Jacintha?”
+
+“Ay, paupers! their debts are greater than their means. They live here
+by sufferance. They have only their old clothes to wear. They have
+hardly enough to eat. Just now our cow is in full milk, you know; so
+that is a great help: but, when she goes dry, Heaven knows what we shall
+do; for I don’t. But that is not the worst; better a light meal than a
+broken heart. Your precious government offers the chateau for sale.
+They might as well send for the guillotine at once, and cut off all our
+heads. You don’t know my mistress as I do. Ah, butchers, you will drag
+nothing out of that but her corpse. And is it come to this? the great
+old family to be turned adrift like beggars. My poor mistress! my pretty
+demoiselles that I played with and nursed ever since I was a child! (I
+was just six when Josephine was born) and that I shall love with my last
+breath”--
+
+She could say no more, but choked by the strong feeling so long pent up
+in her own bosom, fell to sobbing hysterically, and trembling like one
+in an ague.
+
+The statesman, who had passed all his short life at school and college,
+was frightened, and took hold of her and pulled her, and cried,
+“Oh! don’t, Jacintha; you will kill yourself, you will die; this is
+frightful: help here! help!” Jacintha put her hand to his mouth, and,
+without leaving off her hysterics, gasped out, “Ah! don’t expose me.”
+ So then he didn’t know what to do; but he seized a tumbler and filled
+it with wine, and forced it between her lips. All she did was to bite a
+piece out of the glass as clean as if a diamond had cut it. This did
+her a world of good: destruction of sacred household property gave her
+another turn. “There, I’ve broke your glass now,” she cried, with a
+marvellous change of tone; and she came-to and cried quietly like a
+reasonable person, with her apron to her eyes.
+
+When Edouard saw she was better, he took her hand and said proudly,
+“Secret for secret. I choose this moment to confide to you that I love
+Mademoiselle Rose de Beaurepaire. Love her? I did love her; but now you
+tell me she is poor and in distress, I adore her.” The effect of this
+declaration on Jacintha was magical, comical. Her apron came down from
+one eye, and that eye dried itself and sparkled with curiosity: the
+whole countenance speedily followed suit and beamed with sacred joy.
+What! an interesting love affair confided to her all in a moment! She
+lowered her voice to a whisper directly. “Why, how did you manage? She
+never goes into company.”
+
+“No; but she goes to church. Besides, I have met her eleven times out
+walking with her sister, and twice out of the eleven she smiled on me.
+O Jacintha! a smile such as angels smile; a smile to warm the heart and
+purify the soul and last forever in the mind.”
+
+“Well, they say ‘man is fire and woman tow:’ but this beats all. Ha!
+ha!”
+
+“Oh! do not jest. I did not laugh at you. Jacintha, it is no laughing
+matter; I revere her as mortals revere the saints; I love her so that
+were I ever to lose all hope of her I would not live a day. And now that
+you have told me she is poor and in sorrow, and I think of her walking
+so calm and gentle--always in black, Jacintha,--and her low courtesy to
+me whenever we met, and her sweet smile to me though her heart must be
+sad, oh! my heart yearns for her. What can I do for her? How shall I
+surround her with myself unseen--make her feel that a man’s love waits
+upon her feet every step she takes--that a man’s love floats in the air
+round that lovely head?” Then descending to earth for a moment, “but I
+say, you promise not to betray me; come, secret for secret.”
+
+“I will not tell a soul; on the honor of a woman,” said Jacintha.
+
+The form of protestation was quite new to Edouard, and not exactly the
+one his study of the ancient writers would have led him to select. But
+the tone was convincing: he trusted her. They parted sworn allies; and,
+at the very moment of parting, Jacintha, who had cast many a furtive
+glance at the dead game, told Edouard demurely, Mademoiselle Rose was
+very fond of roast partridge. On this he made her take the whole bag;
+and went home on wings. Jacintha’s revelation roused all that was noble
+and forgiving in him. His understanding and his heart expanded from that
+hour, and his fancy spread its pinions to the sun of love. Ah! generous
+Youth, let who will betray thee; let who will sneer at thee; let me,
+though young no longer, smile on thee and joy in thee! She he loved was
+sad, was poor, was menaced by many ills; then she needed a champion. He
+would be her unseen friend, her guardian angel. A hundred wild schemes
+whirled in his beating heart and brain. He could not go in-doors,
+indeed, no room could contain him: he made for a green lane he knew at
+the back of the village, and there he walked up and down for hours.
+The sun set, and the night came, and the stars glittered; but still he
+walked alone, inspired, exalted, full of generous and loving schemes: of
+sweet and tender fancies: a heart on fire; and youth the fuel, and the
+flame vestal.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+
+This very day was the anniversary of the baron’s death.
+
+The baroness kept her room all the morning, and took no nourishment but
+one cup of spurious coffee Rose brought her. Towards evening she came
+down-stairs. In the hall she found two chaplets of flowers; they were
+always placed there for her on this sad day. She took them in her hand,
+and went into the little oratory that was in the park; there she found
+two wax candles burning, and two fresh chaplets hung up. Her daughters
+had been there before her.
+
+She knelt and prayed many hours for her husband’s soul; then she rose
+and hung up one chaplet and came slowly away with the other in her hand.
+At the gate of the park, Josephine met her with tender anxiety in her
+sapphire eyes, and wreathed her arms round her, and whispered, “But you
+have your children still.”
+
+The baroness kissed her and they came towards the house together, the
+baroness leaning gently on her daughter’s elbow.
+
+Between the park and the angle of the chateau was a small plot of turf
+called at Beaurepaire the Pleasance, a name that had descended
+along with other traditions; and in the centre of this Pleasance,
+or Pleasaunce, stood a wonderful oak-tree. Its circumference was
+thirty-four feet. The baroness came to this ancient tree, and hung her
+chaplet on a mutilated limb called the “knights’ bough.”
+
+The sun was setting tranquil and red; a broad ruby streak lingered on
+the deep green leaves of the prodigious oak. The baroness looked at it
+awhile in silence.
+
+Then she spoke slowly to it and said, “You were here before us: you will
+be here when we are gone.”
+
+A spasm crossed Josephine’s face, but she said nothing at the time. And
+so they went in together.
+
+Now as this tree was a feat of nature, and, above all, played a curious
+part in our story, I will ask you to stay a few minutes and look at it,
+while I say what was known about it; not the thousandth part of what it
+could have told, if trees could speak as well as breathe.
+
+The baroness did not exaggerate; the tree was far older than even this
+ancient family. They possessed among other archives a manuscript written
+by a monk, a son of the house, about four hundred years before our
+story, and containing many of the oral traditions about this tree that
+had come down to him from remote antiquity. According to this authority,
+the first Baron of Beaurepaire had pitched his tent under a fair
+oak-tree that stood prope rivum, near a brook. His grandson built a
+square tower hard by, and dug a moat that enclosed both tree and tower,
+and received the waters of the brook aforesaid.
+
+At this time the tree seems only to have been remarked for its height.
+But, a century and a half before the monk wrote, it had become famous in
+all the district for its girth, and in the monk’s own day had ceased
+to grow; but not begun to decay. The mutilated arm I have mentioned
+was once a long sturdy bough, worn smooth as velvet in one part from
+a curious cause: it ran about as high above the ground as a full-sized
+horse, and the knights and squires used to be forever vaulting upon
+it, the former in armor; the monk, when a boy, had seen them do it a
+thousand times. This bough broke in two, A.D. 1617: but the mutilated
+limb was still called the knights’ bough, nobody knew why. So do names
+survive their ideas.
+
+What had not this tree seen since first it came green and tender as
+a cabbage above the soil, and stood at the mercy of the first hare or
+rabbit that should choose to cut short its frail existence!
+
+Since then eagles had perched on its crown, and wild boars fed without
+fear of man upon its acorns. Troubadours had sung beneath it to lords
+and ladies seated round, or walking on the grass and commenting the
+minstrel’s tales of love by exchange of amorous glances. Mediaeval
+sculptors had taken its leaves, and wisely trusting to nature, had
+adorned churches with those leaves cut in stone.
+
+It had seen a Norman duke conquer England, and English kings invade
+France and be crowned at Paris. It had seen a girl put knights to the
+rout, and seen the warrior virgin burned by envious priests with common
+consent both of the curs she had defended and the curs she had defeated.
+
+Why, in its old age it had seen the rise of printing, and the first dawn
+of national civilization in Europe. It flourished and decayed in France;
+but it sprung in Gaul. And more remarkable still, though by all accounts
+it may see the world to an end, it was a tree in ancient history: its
+old age awaits the millennium; its first youth belonged to that great
+tract of time which includes the birth of Christ, the building of Rome,
+and the siege of Troy.
+
+The tree had, ere this, mingled in the fortunes of the family. It had
+saved their lives and taken their lives. One lord of Beaurepaire, hotly
+pursued by his feudal enemies, made for the tree, and hid himself partly
+by a great bough, partly by the thick screen of leaves. The foe darted
+in, made sure he had taken to the house, ransacked it, and got into the
+cellar, where by good-luck was a store of Malvoisie: and so the oak and
+the vine saved the quaking baron. Another lord of Beaurepaire, besieged
+in his castle, was shot dead on the ramparts by a cross-bowman who had
+secreted himself unobserved in this tree a little before the dawn.
+
+A young heir of Beaurepaire, climbing for a raven’s nest to the top
+of this tree, lost his footing and fell, and died at its foot: and his
+mother in her anguish bade them cut down the tree that had killed her
+boy. But the baron her husband refused, and spake in this wise: “ytte ys
+eneugh that I lose mine sonne, I will nat alsoe lose mine Tre.” In
+the male you see the sober sentiment of the proprietor outweighed the
+temporary irritation of the parent. Then the mother bought fifteen ells
+of black velvet, and stretched a pall from the knights’ bough across the
+west side to another branch, and cursed the hand that should remove it,
+and she herself “wolde never passe the Tre neither going nor coming, but
+went still about.” And when she died and should have been carried past
+the tree to the park, her dochter did cry from a window to the bearers,
+“Goe about! goe about!” and they went about, and all the company. And in
+time the velvet pall rotted, and was torn and driven away by the winds:
+and when the hand of Nature, and no human hand, had thus flouted and
+dispersed the trappings of the mother’s grief, two pieces were picked up
+and preserved among the family relics: but the black velvet had turned a
+rusty red.
+
+So the baroness did nothing new in this family when she hung her chaplet
+on the knights’ bough; and, in fact, on the west side, about
+eighteen feet from the ground, there still mouldered one corner of
+an Atchievement an heir of Beaurepaire had nailed there two centuries
+before, when his predecessor died: “For,” said he, “the chateau is of
+yesterday, but the tree has seen us all come and go.” The inside of the
+oak was hollow as a drum; and on its east side yawned a fissure as
+high as a man and as broad as a street-door. Dard used to wheel his
+wheelbarrow into the tree at a trot, and there leave it.
+
+Yet in spite of excavation and mutilation not life only but vigor
+dwelt in this wooden shell. The extreme ends of the longer boughs were
+firewood, touchwood, and the crown was gone this many a year: but narrow
+the circle a very little to where the indomitable trunk could still
+shoot sap from its cruse deep in earth, and there on every side burst
+the green foliage in its season countless as the sand. The leaves carved
+centuries ago from these very models, though cut in stone, were most of
+them mouldered, blunted, notched, deformed: but the delicate types came
+back with every summer, perfect and lovely as when the tree was but
+their elder brother: and greener than ever: for, from what cause nature
+only knows, the leaves were many shades richer than any other tree could
+show for a hundred miles round; a deep green, fiery, yet soft; and then
+their multitude--the staircases of foliage as you looked up the tree,
+and could scarce catch a glimpse of the sky. An inverted abyss of color,
+a mound, a dome, of flake emeralds that quivered in the golden air.
+
+And now the sun sets; the green leaves are black; the moon rises: her
+cold light shoots across one half that giant stem.
+
+How solemn and calm stands the great round tower of living wood, half
+ebony, half silver, with its mighty cloud above of flake jet leaves
+tipped with frosty fire!
+
+Now is the still hour to repeat in a whisper the words of the dame of
+Beaurepaire, “You were here before us: you will be here when we are
+gone.”
+
+We leave the hoary king of trees standing in the moonlight, calmly
+defying time, and follow the creatures of a day; for, what they were, we
+are.
+
+
+A spacious saloon panelled; dead but showy white picked out sparingly
+with gold. Festoons of fruits and flowers finely carved in wood on some
+of the panels. These also not smothered in gilding, but as it were gold
+speckled here and there, like tongues of flame winding among insoluble
+snow. Ranged against the walls were sofas and chairs covered with rich
+stuffs well worn. And in one little distant corner of the long room
+a gray-haired gentleman and two young ladies sat round a small plain
+table, on which burned a solitary candle; and a little way apart in
+this candle’s twilight an old lady sat in an easy-chair, thinking of
+the past, scarce daring to inquire the future. Josephine and Rose were
+working: not fancy-work but needle-work; Dr. Aubertin writing. Every
+now and then he put the one candle nearer the girls. They raised no
+objection: only a few minutes after a white hand would glide from one
+or other of them like a serpent, and smoothly convey the light nearer to
+the doctor’s manuscript.
+
+“Is it not supper-time?” he inquired. “I have an inward monitor; and I
+think our dinner was more ethereal than usual.”
+
+“Hush!” said Josephine, and looked uneasily towards her mother. “Wax is
+so dear.”
+
+“Wax?--ah!--pardon me:” and the doctor returned hastily to his work.
+But Rose looked up and said, “I wonder Jacintha does not come; it is
+certainly past the hour;” and she pried into the room as if she
+expected to see Jacintha on the road. But she saw in fact very little of
+anything, for the spacious room was impenetrable to her eye; midway from
+the candle to the distant door its twilight deepened, and all became
+shapeless and sombre. The prospect ended sharp and black, as in those
+out-o’-door closets imagined and painted by a certain great painter,
+whose Nature comes to a full stop as soon as he has no further
+commercial need of her, instead of melting by fine expanse and exquisite
+gradation into genuine distance, as nature does in Claude and in nature.
+To reverse the picture, if you stood at the door you looked across forty
+feet of black, and the little corner seemed on fire, and the fair heads
+about the candle shone like the St. Cecilias and Madonnas in an antique
+stained-glass window.
+
+At last the door opened, and another candle fired Jacintha’s comely
+peasant face in the doorway. She put down her candle outside the door,
+and started as crow flies for the other light. After glowing a moment in
+the doorway she dived into the shadow and emerged into light again
+close to the table with napkins on her arm. She removed the work-box
+reverentially, the doctor’s manuscript unceremoniously, and proceeded to
+lay a cloth: in which operation she looked at Rose a point-blank glance
+of admiration: then she placed the napkins; and in this process she
+again cast a strange look of interest upon Rose. The young lady noticed
+it this time, and looked inquiringly at her in return, half expecting
+some communication; but Jacintha lowered her eyes and bustled about the
+table. Then Rose spoke to her with a sort of instinct of curiosity, on
+the chance of drawing her out.
+
+“Supper is late to-night, is it not, Jacintha?”
+
+“Yes, mademoiselle; I have had more cooking than usual,” and with this
+she delivered another point-blank look as before, and dived into the
+palpable obscure, and came to light in the doorway.
+
+Her return was anxiously expected; for, if the truth must be told,
+they were very hungry. So rigorous was the economy in this decayed but
+honorable house that the wax candles burned to-day in the oratory had
+scrimped their dinner, unsubstantial as it was wont to be. Think of
+that, you in fustian jackets who grumble after meat. The door opened,
+Jacintha reappeared in the light of her candle a moment with a tray
+in both hands, and, approaching, was lost to view; but a strange and
+fragrant smell heralded her. All their eyes turned with curiosity
+towards the unwonted odor, and Jacintha dawned with three roast
+partridges on a dish.
+
+They were wonder-struck, and looked from the birds to her in mute
+surprise, that was not diminished by a certain cynical indifference
+she put on. She avoided their eyes, and forcibly excluded from her face
+everything that could imply she did not serve up partridges to this
+family every night of her life.
+
+“The supper is served, madame,” said she, with a respectful courtesy
+and a mechanical tone, and, plunging into the night, swam out at her own
+candle, shut the door, and, unlocking her face that moment, burst out
+radiant, and so to the kitchen, and, with a tear in her eye, set-to and
+polished all the copper stewpans with a vigor and expedition unknown to
+the new-fangled domestic.
+
+“Partridges, mamma! What next?”
+
+“Pheasants, I hope,” cried the doctor, gayly. “And after them hares; to
+conclude with royal venison. Permit me, ladies.” And he set himself to
+carve with zeal.
+
+Now nature is nature, and two pair of violet eyes brightened and dwelt
+on the fragrant and delicate food with demure desire; for all that,
+when Aubertin offered Josephine a wing, she declined it. “No partridge?”
+ cried the savant, in utter amazement.
+
+“Not to-day, dear friend; it is not a feast day to-day.”
+
+“Ah! no; what was I thinking of?”
+
+“But you are not to be deprived,” put in Josephine, anxiously. “We will
+not deny ourselves the pleasure of seeing you eat some.”
+
+“What!” remonstrated Aubertin, “am I not one of you?”
+
+The baroness had attended to every word of this. She rose from her
+chair, and said quietly, “Both you and he and Rose will be so good as to
+let me see you eat.”
+
+“But, mamma,” remonstrated Josephine and Rose in one breath.
+
+“Je le veux,” was the cold reply.
+
+These were words the baroness uttered so seldom that they were little
+likely to be disputed.
+
+The doctor carved and helped the young ladies and himself.
+
+When they had all eaten a little, a discussion was observed to be going
+on between Rose and her sister. At last Aubertin caught these words, “It
+will be in vain; even you have not influence enough for that, Rose.”
+
+“We shall see,” was the reply, and Rose put the wing of a partridge on a
+plate and rose calmly from her chair. She took the plate and put it on
+a little work-table by her mother’s side. The others pretended to be all
+mouths, but they were all ears. The baroness looked in Rose’s face
+with an air of wonder that was not very encouraging. Then, as Rose said
+nothing, she raised her aristocratic hand with a courteous but decided
+gesture of refusal.
+
+Undaunted Rose laid her palm softly on the baroness’s shoulder, and said
+to her as firmly as the baroness herself had just spoken,--
+
+“Il le veut.”
+
+The baroness was staggered. Then she looked with moist eyes at the fair
+young face, then she reflected. At last she said, with an exquisite
+mixture of politeness and affection, “It is his daughter who has told me
+‘Il le veut.’ I obey.”
+
+Rose returning like a victorious knight from the lists, saucily
+exultant, and with only one wet eyelash, was solemnly kissed and petted
+by Josephine and the doctor.
+
+Thus they loved one another in this great, old, falling house. Their
+familiarity had no coarse side; a form, not of custom but affection, it
+went hand-in-hand with courtesy by day and night.
+
+The love of the daughters for their mother had all the tenderness,
+subtlety, and unselfishness of womanly natures, together with a certain
+characteristic of the female character. And whither that one defect
+led them, and by what gradations, it may be worth the reader’s while to
+observe.
+
+The baroness retired to rest early; and she was no sooner gone than
+Josephine leaned over to Rose, and told her what their mother had
+said to the oak-tree. Rose heard this with anxiety; hitherto they had
+carefully concealed from their mother that the government claimed the
+right of selling the chateau to pay the creditors, etc.; and now both
+sisters feared the old lady had discovered it somehow, or why that
+strange thing she had said to the oak-tree? But Dr. Aubertin caught
+their remarks, and laid down his immortal MS. on French insects, to
+express his hope that they were putting a forced interpretation on the
+baroness’s words.
+
+“I think,” said he, “she merely meant how short-lived are we all
+compared with this ancient oak. I should be very sorry to adopt the
+other interpretation; for if she knows she can at any moment be expelled
+from Beaurepaire, it will be almost as bad for her as the calamity
+itself; THAT, I think, would kill her.”
+
+“Why so?” said Rose, eagerly. “What is this house or that? Mamma will
+still have her daughters’ love, go where she will.”
+
+Aubertin replied, “It is idle to deceive ourselves; at her age men and
+women hang to life by their habits; take her away from her chateau, from
+the little oratory where she prays every day for the departed, from her
+place in the sun on the south terrace, and from all the memories that
+surround her here; she would soon pine, and die.”
+
+Here the savant seeing a hobby-horse near, caught him and jumped on. He
+launched into a treatise upon the vitality of human beings, and proved
+that it is the mind which keeps the body of a man alive for so great a
+length of time as fourscore years; for that he had in the earlier part
+of his studies carefully dissected a multitude of animals,--frogs,
+rabbits, dogs, men, horses, sheep, squirrels, foxes, cats, etc.,--and
+discovered no peculiarity in man’s organs to account for his singular
+longevity, except in the brain or organ of mind. Thence he went to
+the longevity of men with contented minds, and the rapid decay of the
+careworn. Finally he succeeded in convincing them the baroness was so
+constituted, physically and mentally, that she would never move from
+Beaurepaire except into her grave. However, having thus terrified them,
+he proceeded to console them. “You have a friend,” said he, “a powerful
+friend; and here in my pocket--somewhere--is a letter that proves it.”
+
+The letter was from Mr. Perrin the notary. It appeared by it that Dr.
+Aubertin had reminded the said Perrin of his obligations to the late
+baron, and entreated him to use all his influence to keep the estate in
+this ancient family.
+
+Perrin had replied at first in a few civil lines; but his present letter
+was a long and friendly one. It made both the daughters of Beaurepaire
+shudder at the peril they had so narrowly escaped. For by it they now
+learned for the first time that one Jaques Bonard, a small farmer,
+to whom they owed but five thousand francs, had gone to the mayor and
+insisted, as he had a perfect right, on the estate being put up to
+public auction. This had come to Perrin’s ears just in time, and he had
+instantly bought Bonard’s debt, and stopped the auction; not, however,
+before the very bills were printed; for which he, Perrin, had paid, and
+now forwarded the receipt. He concluded by saying that the government
+agent was personally inert, and would never move a step in the matter
+unless driven by a creditor.
+
+“But we have so many,” said Rose in dismay. “We are not safe a day.”
+
+Aubertin assured her the danger was only in appearance. “Your large
+creditors are men of property, and such men let their funds lie unless
+compelled to move them. The small mortgagee, the petty miser, who has,
+perhaps, no investment to watch but one small loan, about which he is
+as anxious and as noisy as a hen with one chicken, he is the clamorous
+creditor, the harsh little egoist, who for fear of risking a crown piece
+would bring the Garden of Eden to the hammer. Now we are rid of
+that little wretch, Bonard, and have Perrin on our side; so there is
+literally nothing to fear.”
+
+The sisters thanked him warmly, and Rose shared his hopes; and said so;
+but Josephine was silent and thoughtful. Nothing more worth recording
+passed that night. But the next day was the first of May, Josephine’s
+birthday.
+
+Now they always celebrated this day as well as they could; and used to
+plant a tree, for one thing. Dard, well spurred by Jacintha, had got
+a little acacia; and they were all out in the Pleasaunce to plant it.
+Unhappily, they were a preposterous time making up their feminine minds
+where to have it set; so Dard turned rusty and said the park was the
+best place for it. There it could do no harm, stick it where you would.
+
+“And who told you to put in your word?” inquired Jacintha. “You’re here
+to dig the hole where mademoiselle chooses; not to argufy.”
+
+Josephine whispered Rose, “I admire the energy of her character. Could
+she be induced to order once for all where the poor thing is to be
+planted?”
+
+“Then where WILL you have it, mademoiselle?” asked Dard, sulkily.
+
+“Here, I think, Dard,” said Josephine sweetly.
+
+Dard grinned malignantly, and drove in his spade. “It will never be much
+bigger than a stinging nettle,” thought he, “for the roots of the oak
+have sucked every atom of heart out of this.” His black soul exulted
+secretly.
+
+Jacintha stood by Dard, inspecting his work; the sisters intertwined,
+a few feet from him. The baroness turned aside, and went to look for a
+moment at the chaplet she had placed yesterday on the oak-tree bough.
+Presently she uttered a slight ejaculation; and her daughters looked up
+directly.
+
+“Come here, children,” said she. They glided to her in a moment; and
+found her eyes fixed upon an object that lay on the knights’ bough.
+
+It was a sparkling purse.
+
+I dare say you have noticed that the bark on the boughs of these very
+ancient trees is as deeply furrowed as the very stem of an oak tree that
+boasts but a few centuries; and in one of these deep furrows lay a green
+silk purse with gold coins glittering through the glossy meshes.
+
+Josephine and Rose eyed it a moment like startled deer; then Rose
+pounced on it. “Oh, how heavy!” she cried. This brought up Dard and
+Jacintha, in time to see Rose pour ten shining gold pieces out of the
+purse into her pink-white palm, while her face flushed and her eyes
+glittered with excitement. Jacintha gave a scream of joy; “Our luck is
+turned,” she cried, superstitiously. Meanwhile, Josephine had found a
+slip of paper close to the purse. She opened it with nimble fingers;
+it contained one line in a hand like that of a copying clerk: FROM A
+FRIEND: IN PART PAYMENT OF A GREAT DEBT.
+
+Keen, piquant curiosity now took the place of surprise. Who could it
+be? The baroness’s suspicion fell at once on Dr. Aubertin. But Rose
+maintained he had not ten gold pieces in the world. The baroness
+appealed to Josephine. She only blushed in an extraordinary way, and
+said nothing. They puzzled, and puzzled, and were as much in the dark as
+ever, when lo! one of the suspected parties delivered himself into
+the hands of justice with ludicrous simplicity. It happened to be Dr.
+Aubertin’s hour of out-a-door study; and he came mooning along, buried
+in a book, and walked slowly into the group--started, made a slight
+apology, and was mooning off, lost in his book again. Then the
+baroness, who had eyed him with grim suspicion all the time, said with
+well-affected nonchalance, “Doctor, you dropped your purse; we have just
+picked it up.” And she handed it to him. “Thank you, madame,” said he,
+and took it quietly without looking at it, put it in his pocket,
+and retired, with his soul in his book. They stared comically at one
+another, and at this cool hand. “It’s no more his than it’s mine,” said
+Jacintha, bluntly. Rose darted after the absorbed student, and took
+him captive. “Now, doctor,” she cried, “be pleased to come out of the
+clouds.” And with the word she whipped the purse out of his coat pocket,
+and holding it right up before his eye, insisted on his telling her
+whether that was his purse or not, money and all. Thus adjured, he
+disowned the property mighty coolly, for a retired physician, who had
+just pocketed it.
+
+“No, my dear,” said he; “and, now I think of it, I have not carried a
+purse this twenty years.”
+
+The baroness, as a last resource, appealed to his honor whether he had
+not left a purse and paper on the knights’ bough. The question had to be
+explained by Josephine, and then the doctor surprised them all by being
+rather affronted--for once in his life.
+
+“Baroness,” said he, “I have been your friend and pensioner nearly
+twenty years; if by some strange chance money were to come into my
+hands, I should not play you a childish trick like this. What! have I
+not the right to come to you, and say, ‘My old friend, here I bring you
+back a very small part of all I owe you?’”
+
+“What geese we are,” remarked Rose. “Dear doctor, YOU tell us who it
+is.”
+
+Dr. Aubertin reflected a single moment; then said he could make a shrewd
+guess.
+
+“Who? who? who?” cried the whole party.
+
+“Perrin the notary.”
+
+It was the baroness’s turn to be surprised; for there was nothing
+romantic about Perrin the notary. Aubertin, however, let her know that
+he was in private communication with the said Perrin, and this was not
+the first friendly act the good notary had done her in secret.
+
+While he was converting the baroness to his view, Josephine and Rose
+exchanged a signal, and slipped away round an angle of the chateau.
+
+“Who is it?” said Rose.
+
+“It is some one who has a delicate mind.”
+
+“Clearly, and therefore not a notary.”
+
+“Rose, dear, might it not be some person who has done us some wrong, and
+is perhaps penitent?”
+
+“Certainly; one of our tenants, or creditors, you mean; but then, the
+paper says ‘a friend.’ Stay, it says a debtor. Why a debtor? Down with
+enigmas!”
+
+“Rose, love,” said Josephine, coaxingly, “think of some one that
+might--since it is not the doctor, nor Monsieur Perrin, might it not
+be--for after all, he would naturally be ashamed to appear before me.”
+
+“Before you? Who do you mean?” asked Rose nervously, catching a glimpse
+now.
+
+“He who once pretended to love me.”
+
+“Josephine, you love that man still.”
+
+“No, no. Spare me!”
+
+“You love him just the same as ever. Oh, it is wonderful; it is
+terrible; the power he has over you; over your judgment as well as your
+heart.”
+
+“No! for I believe he has forgotten my very name; don’t you think so?”
+
+“Dear Josephine, can you doubt it? Come, you do doubt it.”
+
+“Sometimes.”
+
+“But why? for what reason?”
+
+“Because of what he said to me as we parted at that gate; the words and
+the voice seem still to ring like truth across the weary years. He said,
+‘I am to join the army of the Pyrenees, so fatal to our troops; but say
+to me what you never yet have said, Camille, I love you: and I swear
+I will come back alive.’ So then I said to him, ‘I love you,’--and he
+never came back.”
+
+“How could he come here? a deserter, a traitor!”
+
+“It is not true; it is not in his nature; inconstancy may be. Tell me
+that he never really loved me, and I will believe you; but not that he
+is a traitor. Let me weep over my past love, not blush for it.”
+
+“Past? You love him to-day as you did three years ago.”
+
+“No,” said Josephine, “no; I love no one. I never shall love any one
+again.”
+
+“But him. It is that love which turns your heart against others.
+Oh, yes, you love him, dearest, or why should you fancy our secret
+benefactor COULD be that Camille?”
+
+“Why? Because I was mad: because it is impossible; but I see my folly. I
+am going in.”
+
+“What! don’t you care to know who I think it was, perhaps?”
+
+“No,” said Josephine sadly and doggedly; she added with cold
+nonchalance, “I dare say time will show.” And she went slowly in, her
+hand to her head.
+
+“Her birthday!” sighed Rose.
+
+The donor, whoever he was, little knew the pain he was inflicting on
+this distressed but proud family, or the hard battle that ensued
+between their necessities and their delicacy. The ten gold pieces were
+a perpetual temptation: a daily conflict. The words that accompanied the
+donation offered a bait. Their pride and dignity declined it; but these
+bright bits of gold cost them many a sharp pang. You must know that
+Josephine and Rose had worn out their mourning by this time; and were
+obliged to have recourse to gayer materials that lay in their great
+wardrobes, and were older, but less worn. A few of these gold pieces
+would have enabled the poor girls to be neat, and yet to mourn their
+father openly. And it went through and through those tender, simple
+hearts, to think that they must be disunited, even in so small a thing
+as dress; that while their mother remained in her weeds, they must seem
+no longer to share her woe.
+
+The baroness knew their feeling, and felt its piety, and yet could not
+bow her dignity to say, “Take five of these bits of gold, and let us
+all look what we are--one.” Yet in this, as in everything else, they
+supported each other. They resisted, they struggled, and with a wrench
+they conquered day by day. At last, by general consent, Josephine locked
+up the tempter, and they looked at it no more. But the little bit of
+paper met a kinder fate. Rose made a little frame for it, and it was
+kept in a drawer, in the salon: and often looked at and blessed. Just
+when they despaired of human friendship, this paper with the sacred
+word “friend” written on it, had fallen all in a moment on their aching
+hearts.
+
+They could not tell whence it came, this blessed word.
+
+But men dispute whence comes the dew?
+
+Then let us go with the poets, who say it comes from heaven.
+
+And even so that sweet word, friend, dropped like the dew from heaven on
+these afflicted ones.
+
+So they locked the potent gold away from themselves, and took the kind
+slip of paper to their hearts.
+
+The others left off guessing: Aubertin had it all his own way: he upheld
+Perrin as their silent benefactor, and bade them all observe that the
+worthy notary had never visited the chateau openly since the day the
+purse was left there. “Guilty conscience,” said Aubertin dryly.
+
+One day in his walks he met a gaunt figure ambling on a fat pony: he
+stopped him, and, holding up his finger, said abruptly, “We have found
+you out, Maitre Perrin.”
+
+The notary changed color.
+
+“Oh, never be ashamed,” said Aubertin; “a good action done slyly is none
+the less a good action.”
+
+The notary wore a puzzled air.
+
+Aubertin admired his histrionic powers in calling up this look.
+
+“Come, come, don’t overdo it,” said he. “Well, well; they cannot profit
+by your liberality; but you will be rewarded in a better world, take my
+word for that.”
+
+The notary muttered indistinctly. He was a man of moderate desires;
+would have been quite content if there had been no other world in
+perspective. He had studied this one, and made it pay: did not desire a
+better; sometimes feared a worse.
+
+“Ah!” said Aubertin, “I see how it is; we do not like to hear ourselves
+praised, do we? When shall we see you at the chateau?”
+
+“I propose to call on the baroness the moment I have good news to
+bring,” replied Perrin; and to avoid any more compliments spurred the
+dun pony suddenly; and he waddled away.
+
+Now this Perrin was at that moment on the way to dine with a character
+who plays a considerable part in the tale--Commandant Raynal. Perrin had
+made himself useful to the commandant, and had become his legal adviser.
+And, this very day after dinner, the commandant having done a good day’s
+work permitted himself a little sentiment over the bottle, and to a man
+he thought his friend. He let out that he had a heap of money he did not
+know what to do with, and almost hated it now his mother was gone and
+could not share it.
+
+The man of law consoled him with oleaginous phrases: told him he very
+much underrated the power of money. His hoard, directed by a judicious
+adviser, would make him a landed proprietor, and the husband of some
+young lady, all beauty, virtue, and accomplishment, whose soothing
+influence would soon heal the sorrow caused by an excess of filial
+sentiment.
+
+“Halt!” shouted Raynal: “say that again in half the words.”
+
+Perrin was nettled, for he prided himself on his colloquial style.
+
+“You can buy a fine estate and a chaste wife with the money,” snapped
+this smooth personage, substituting curt brutality for honeyed
+prolixity.
+
+The soldier was struck by the propositions the moment they flew at him
+small and solid, like bullets.
+
+“I’ve no time,” said he, “to be running after women. But the estate I’ll
+certainly have, because you can get that for me without my troubling my
+head.”
+
+“Is it a commission, then?” asked the other sharply.
+
+“Of course. Do you think I speak for the sake of talking?”
+
+And so Perrin received formal instructions to look out for a landed
+estate; and he was to receive a handsome commission as agent.
+
+Now to settle this affair, and pocket a handsome percentage for himself,
+he had only to say “Beaurepaire.”
+
+Well, he didn’t. Never mentioned the place; nor the fact that it was for
+sale.
+
+Such are all our agents, when rival speculators. Mind that. Still it
+is a terrible thing to be so completely in the power of any man of the
+world, as from this hour Beaurepaire was in the power of Perrin the
+notary.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+
+Edouard Riviere was unhappy. She never came out now. This alone made the
+days dark to him. And then he began to fear it was him she shunned. She
+must have seen him lie in wait for her; and so she would come out no
+more. He prowled about and contrived to fall in with Jacintha; he told
+her his grief. She assured him the simple fact was their mourning was
+worn out, and they were ashamed to go abroad in colors. This revelation
+made his heart yearn still more.
+
+“O Jacintha,” said he, “if I could only make a beginning; but here we
+might live a century in the same parish, and not one chance for a poor
+wretch to make acquaintance.”
+
+Jacintha admitted this, and said gentlefolks were to be pitied. “Why, if
+it was the likes of me, you and I should have made friends long before
+now.”
+
+Jacintha herself was puzzled what to do; she would have told Rose if she
+had felt sure it would be well received; but she could not find out that
+the young lady had even noticed the existence of Edouard. But her brain
+worked, and lay in wait for an opportunity.
+
+One came sooner than she expected. One morning at about six o’clock, as
+she came home from milking the cow, she caught sight of young Riviere
+trying to open the iron gate. “What is up now?” thought she; suddenly
+the truth flashed upon her, clear as day. She put her pail down and
+stole upon him. “You want to leave us another purse,” said she. He
+colored all over and panted.
+
+“How did you know? how could you know? you won’t betray me? you won’t be
+so cruel? you promised.”
+
+“Me betray you,” said Jacintha; “why, I’ll help you; and then they will
+be able to buy mourning, you know, and then they will come out, and give
+you a chance. You can’t open that gate, for it’s locked. But you come
+round to the lane, and I’ll get you the key; it is hanging up in the
+kitchen.”
+
+The key was in her pocket. But the sly jade wanted him away from that
+gate; it commanded a view of the Pleasaunce. He was no sooner safe in
+the lane, than she tore up-stairs to her young ladies, and asked them
+with affected calm whether they would like to know who left the purse.
+
+“Oh, yes, yes!” screamed Rose.
+
+“Then come with me. You ARE dressed; never mind your bonnets, or you
+will be too late.”
+
+Questions poured on her; but she waived all explanation, and did not
+give them time to think, or Josephine, for one, she knew would raise
+objections. She led the way to the Pleasaunce, and, when she got to the
+ancestral oak, she said hurriedly, “Now, mesdemoiselles, hide in there,
+and as still as mice. You’ll soon know who leaves the purses.”
+
+With this she scudded to the lane, and gave Edouard the key. “Look
+sharp,” said she, “before they get up; it’s almost their dressing time.”
+
+“YOU’LL SOON KNOW WHO LEAVES THE PURSES!”
+
+Curiosity, delicious curiosity, thrilled our two daughters of Eve.
+
+This soon began to alternate with chill misgivings at the novelty of the
+situation.
+
+“She is not coming back,” said Josephine ruefully.
+
+“No,” said Rose, “and suppose when we pounce out on him, it should be a
+stranger.”
+
+“Pounce on him? surely we are not to do that?”
+
+“Oh, y-yes; that is the p-p-programme,” quavered Rose.
+
+A key grated, and the iron gate creaked on its hinges. They ran together
+and pinched one another for mutual support, but did not dare to speak.
+
+Presently a man’s shadow came slap into the tree. They crouched and
+quivered, and expected to be caught instead of catching, and wished
+themselves safe back in bed, and all this a nightmare, and no worse.
+
+At last they recovered themselves enough to observe that this shadow,
+one half of which lay on the ground, while the head and shoulders went a
+little way up the wall of the tree, represented a man’s profile, not his
+front face. The figure, in short, was standing between them and the sun,
+and was contemplating the chateau, not the tree.
+
+The shadow took off its hat to Josephine, in the tree. Then would she
+have screamed if she had not bitten her white hand instead, and made a
+red mark thereon.
+
+It wiped its brow with a handkerchief; it had walked fast, poor thing!
+The next moment it was away.
+
+They looked at one another and panted. They scarcely dared do it before.
+Then Rose, with one hand on her heaving bosom, shook her little white
+fist viciously at where the figure must be, and perhaps a comical
+desire of vengeance stimulated her curiosity. She now glided through the
+fissure like a cautious panther from her den; and noiseless and supple
+as a serpent began to wind slowly round the tree. She soon came to a
+great protuberance in the tree, and twining and peering round it with
+diamond eye, she saw a very young, very handsome gentleman, stealing on
+tiptoe to the nearest flower-bed. Then she saw him take a purse out of
+his bosom, and drop it on the bed. This done, he came slowly past the
+tree again, and was even heard to vent a little innocent chuckle of
+intense satisfaction: but of brief duration; for, when Rose saw the
+purse leave his hand, she made a rapid signal to Josephine to wheel
+round the other side of the tree, and, starting together with admirable
+concert, both the daughters of Beaurepaire glided into sight with a vast
+appearance of composure.
+
+Two women together are really braver than fifteen separate; but still,
+most of this tranquillity was merely put on, but so admirably that
+Edouard Riviere had no chance with them. He knew nothing about their
+tremors; all he saw or heard was, a rustle, then a flap on each side of
+him as of great wings, and two lovely women were upon him with angelic
+swiftness. “Ah!” he cried out with a start, and glanced from the
+first-comer, Rose, to the gate. But Josephine was on that side by this
+time, and put up her hand, as much as to say, “You can’t pass here.” In
+such situations, the mind works quicker than lightning. He took off his
+hat, and stammered an excuse--“Come to look at the oak.” At this moment
+Rose pounced on the purse, and held it up to Josephine. He was caught.
+His only chance now was to bolt for the mark and run; but it was not
+the notary, it was a novice who lost his presence of mind, or perhaps
+thought it rude to run when a lady told him to stand still. All he did
+was to crush his face into his two hands, round which his cheeks and
+neck now blushed red as blood. Blush? they could both see the color rush
+like a wave to the very roots of his hair and the tips of his fingers.
+
+The moment our heroines, who, in that desperation which is one of
+the forms of cowardice, had hurled themselves on the foe, saw this,
+flash--the quick-witted poltroons exchanged purple lightning over
+Edouard’s drooping head, and enacted lionesses in a moment.
+
+It was with the quiet composure of lofty and powerful natures that
+Josephine opened on him. “Compose yourself, sir; and be so good as
+to tell us who you are.” Edouard must answer. Now he could not speak
+through his hands; and he could not face a brace of tranquil lionesses:
+so he took a middle course, removed one hand, and shading himself from
+Josephine with the other, he gasped out, “I am--my name is Riviere; and
+I--I--ladies!”
+
+“I am afraid we frighten you,” said Josephine, demurely.
+
+“Don’t be frightened,” said Rose, majestically; “we are not VERY angry,
+only a LITTLE curious to know why you water our flowers with gold.”
+
+At this point-blank thrust, and from her, Edouard was so confounded and
+distressed, they both began to pity him. He stammered out that he was
+so confused he did not know what to say. He couldn’t think how ever he
+could have taken such a liberty; might he be permitted to retire? and
+with this he tried to slip away.
+
+“Let me detain you one instant,” said Josephine, and made for the house.
+
+Left alone so suddenly with the culprit, the dignity, and majesty, and
+valor of Rose seemed to ooze gently out; and she stood blushing, and had
+not a word to say; no more had Edouard. But he hung his head, and she
+hung her head. And, somehow or other, whenever she raised her eyes
+to glance at him, he raised his to steal a look at her, and mutual
+discomfiture resulted.
+
+This awkward, embarrassing delirium was interrupted by Josephine’s
+return. She now held another purse in her hand, and quietly poured the
+rest of the coin into it. She then, with a blush, requested him to take
+back the money.
+
+At that he found his tongue. “No, no,” he cried, and put up his hands in
+supplication. “Ladies, do let me speak ONE word to you. Do not reject my
+friendship. You are alone in the world; your father is dead; your mother
+has but you to lean on. After all, I am your neighbor, and neighbors
+should be friends. And I am your debtor; I owe you more than you could
+ever owe me; for ever since I came into this neighborhood I have been
+happy. No man was ever so happy as I, ever since one day I was
+walking, and met for the first time an angel. I don’t say it was you,
+Mademoiselle Rose. It might be Mademoiselle Josephine.”
+
+“How pat he has got our names,” said Rose, smiling.
+
+“A look from that angel has made me so good, so happy. I used to
+vegetate, but now I live. Live! I walk on wings, and tread on roses. Yet
+you insist on declining a few miserable louis d’or from him who owes you
+so much. Well, don’t be angry; I’ll take them back, and throw them into
+the nearest pond, for they are really no use to me. But then you will
+be generous in your turn. You will accept my devotion, my services.
+You have no brother, you know; well, I have no sisters; let me be your
+brother, and your servant forever.”
+
+At all this, delivered in as many little earnest pants as there were
+sentences, the water stood in the fair eyes he was looking into so
+piteously.
+
+Josephine was firm, but angelical. “We thank you, Monsieur Riviere,”
+ said she, softly, “for showing us that the world is still embellished
+with hearts like yours. Here is the money;” and she held it out in her
+creamy hand.
+
+“But we are very grateful,” put in Rose, softly and earnestly.
+
+“That we are,” said Josephine, “and we beg to keep the purse as a
+souvenir of one who tried to do us a kindness without mortifying us. And
+now, Monsieur Riviere, you will permit us to bid you adieu.”
+
+Edouard was obliged to take the hint. “It is I who am the intruder,”
+ said he. “Mesdemoiselles, conceive, if you can, my pride and my
+disappointment.” He then bowed low; they courtesied low to him in
+return; and he retired slowly in a state of mixed feeling indescribable.
+
+With all their sweetness and graciousness, he felt overpowered by their
+high breeding, their reserve, and their composure, in a situation that
+had set his heart beating itself nearly out of his bosom. He acted the
+scene over again, only much more adroitly, and concocted speeches for
+past use, and was very hot and very cold by turns.
+
+I wish he could have heard what passed between the sisters as soon as
+ever he was out of earshot. It would have opened his eyes, and given him
+a little peep into what certain writers call “the sex.”
+
+“Poor boy,” murmured Josephine, “he has gone away unhappy.”
+
+“Oh, I dare say he hasn’t gone far,” replied Rose, gayly. “I shouldn’t
+if I was a boy.”
+
+Josephine held up her finger like an elder sister; then went on to say
+she really hardly knew why she had dismissed him.
+
+“Well, dear,” said Rose, dryly, “since you admit so much, I must say I
+couldn’t help thinking--while you were doing it--we were letting ‘the
+poor boy’ off ridiculously cheap.”
+
+“At least I did my duty?” suggested Josephine, inquiringly.
+
+“Magnificently; you overawed even me. So now to business, as the
+gentlemen say. Which of us two takes him?”
+
+“Takes whom?” inquired Josephine, opening her lovely eyes.
+
+“Edouard,” murmured Rose, lowering hers.
+
+Josephine glared on the lovely minx with wonder and comical horror.
+
+“Oh! you shall have him,” said Rose, “if you like. You are the eldest,
+you know.”
+
+“Fie!”
+
+“Do now; TO OBLIGE ME.”
+
+“For shame! Rose. Is this you? talking like that!”
+
+“Oh! there’s no compulsion, dear; I never force young ladies’
+inclinations. So you decline him?”
+
+“Of course I decline him.”
+
+“Then, oh, you dear, darling Josephine, this is the prettiest present
+you ever made me,” and she kissed her vehemently.
+
+Josephine was frightened now. She held Rose out at arm’s length with
+both hands, and looked earnestly into her, and implored her not to play
+with fire. “Take warning by me.”
+
+Rose recommended her to keep her pity for Monsieur Riviere, “who had
+fallen into nice hands,” she said. That no doubt might remain on that
+head, she whispered mysteriously, but with much gravity and conviction,
+“I am an Imp;” and aimed at Josephine with her forefinger to point the
+remark. For one second she stood and watched this important statement
+sink into her sister’s mind, then set-to and gambolled elfishly round
+her as she moved stately and thoughtful across the grass to the chateau.
+
+Two days after this a large tree was blown down in Beaurepaire park,
+and made quite a gap in the prospect. You never know what a big thing a
+leafy tree is till it comes down. And this ill wind blew Edouard good;
+for it laid bare the chateau to his inquiring telescope. He had not
+gazed above half an hour, when a female figure emerged from the chateau.
+His heart beat. It was only Jacintha. He saw her look this way and that,
+and presently Dard appeared, and she sent him with his axe to the fallen
+tree. Edouard watched him hacking away at it. Presently his heart gave a
+violent leap; for why? two ladies emerged from the Pleasaunce and walked
+across the park. They came up to Dard, and stood looking at the tree and
+Dard hacking it, and Edouard watched them greedily. You know we all love
+to magnify her we love. And this was a delightful way of doing it. It
+is “a system of espionage” that prevails under every form of government.
+How he gazed, and gazed, on his now polar star; studied every turn,
+every gesture, with eager delight, and tried to gather what she said, or
+at least the nature of it.
+
+But by and by they left Dard and strolled towards the other end of the
+park. Then did our astronomer fling down his tube, and come running out
+in hopes of intercepting them, and seeming to meet them by some strange
+fortuity. Hope whispered he should be blessed with a smile; perhaps
+a word even. So another minute and he was running up the road to
+Beaurepaire. But his good heart was doomed to be diverted to a much
+humbler object than his idol; as he came near the fallen tree he heard
+loud cries for help, followed by groans of pain. He bounded over the
+hedge, and there was Dard hanging over his axe, moaning. “What is the
+matter? what is the matter?” cried Edouard, running to him.
+
+“Oh! oh! cut my foot. Oh!”
+
+Edouard looked, and turned sick, for there was a gash right through
+Dard’s shoe, and the blood welling up through it. But, recovering
+himself by an effort of the will, he cried out, “Courage, my lad!
+don’t give in. Thank Heaven there’s no artery there. Oh, dear, it is
+a terrible cut! Let us get you home, that is the first thing. Can you
+walk?”
+
+“Lord bless you, no! nor stand neither without help.”
+
+Edouard flew to the wheelbarrow, and, reversing it, spun a lot of billet
+out. “Ye must not do that,” said Dard with all the energy he was capable
+of in his present condition. “Why, that is Jacintha’s wood.”--“To the
+devil with Jacintha and her wood too!” cried Edouard, “a man is worth
+more than a fagot. Come, I shall wheel you home: it is only just across
+the park.”
+
+With some difficulty he lifted him into the barrow. Luckily he had his
+shooting-jacket on with a brandy-flask in it: he administered it with
+excellent effect.
+
+The ladies, as they walked, saw a man wheeling a barrow across the park,
+and took no particular notice; but, as Riviere was making for the same
+point they were, though at another angle, presently the barrow came near
+enough for them to see Dard’s head and arms in it. Rose was the first to
+notice this. “Look! look! if he is not wheeling Dard in the barrow now.”
+
+“Who?”
+
+“Can you ask? Who provides all our excitement?”
+
+Josephine instantly divined there was something amiss. “Consider,” said
+she, “Monsieur Riviere would not wheel Dard all across the park for
+amusement.”
+
+Rose assented; and in another minute, by a strange caprice of fate,
+those Edouard had come to intercept, quickened their pace to intercept
+him. As soon as he saw their intention he thrilled all over, but did not
+slacken his pace. He told Dard to take his coat and throw it over his
+foot, for here were the young ladies coming.
+
+“What for?” said Dard sulkily. “No! let them see what they have done
+with their little odd jobs: this is my last for one while. I sha’n’t go
+on two legs again this year.”
+
+The ladies came up with them.
+
+“O monsieur!” said Josephine, “what is the matter?”
+
+“We have met with a little accident, mademoiselle, that is all. Dard has
+hurt his foot; nothing to speak of, but I thought he would be best at
+home.”
+
+Rose raised the coat which Riviere, in spite of Dard, had flung over his
+foot.
+
+“He is bleeding! Dard is bleeding! Oh, my poor Dard. Oh! oh!”
+
+“Hush, Rose!”
+
+“No, don’t put him out of heart, mademoiselle. Take another pull at the
+flask, Dard. If you please, ladies, I must have him home without delay.”
+
+“Oh yes, but I want him to have a surgeon,” cried Josephine. “And we
+have no horses nor people to send off as we used to have.”
+
+“But you have me, mademoiselle,” said Edouard tenderly. “Me, who would
+go to the world’s end for you.” He said this to Josephine, but his eye
+sought Rose. “I’m a famous runner,” he added, a little bumptiously;
+“I’ll be at the town in half an hour, and send a surgeon up full
+gallop.”
+
+“You have a good heart,” said Rose simply.
+
+He bowed his blushing, delighted face, and wheeled Dard to his cottage
+hard by with almost more than mortal vigor. How softly, how nobly, that
+frolicsome girl could speak! Those sweet words rang in his ears and ran
+warm round and round his heart, as he straightened his arms and his back
+to the work. When they had gone about a hundred yards, a single snivel
+went off in the wheelbarrow. Five minutes after, Dard was at home in
+charge of his grandmother, his shoe off, his foot in a wet linen cloth;
+and Edouard, his coat tied round the neck, squared his shoulders, and
+ran the two short leagues out. He ran them in forty minutes, found the
+surgeon at home, told the case, pooh-poohed that worthy’s promise to
+go to the patient presently, darted into his stable, saddled the horse,
+brought him round, saw the surgeon into the saddle, started him, dined
+at the restaurateur’s, strolled back, and was in time to get a good look
+at the chateau of Beaurepaire just as the sun set on it.
+
+Jacintha came into Dard’s cottage that evening.
+
+“So you have been at it, my man,” cried she cheerfully and rather
+roughly, then sat down and rocked herself, with her apron over her head.
+She explained this anomalous proceeding to his grandmother privately. “I
+thought I would keep his heart up anyway, but you see I was not fit.”
+
+Next morning, as Riviere sat writing, he received an unexpected visit
+from Jacintha. She came in with her finger to her lips, and said, “You
+prowl about Dard’s cottage. They are sure to go and see him every day,
+and him wounded in their service.”
+
+“Oh, you good girl! you dear girl!” cried Edouard.
+
+She did not reply in words, but, after going to the door, returned and
+gave him a great kiss without ceremony. “Dare say you know what that’s
+for,” said she, and went off with a clear conscience and reddish cheeks.
+
+Dard’s grandmother had a little house, a little land, a little money,
+and a little cow. She could just maintain Dard and herself, and her
+resources enabled Dard to do so many little odd jobs for love, yet keep
+his main organ tolerably filled.
+
+“Go to bed, my little son, since you have got hashed,” said she.--“Bed
+be hanged,” cried he. “What good is bed? That’s a silly old custom wants
+doing away with. It weakens you: it turns you into train oil: it is the
+doctor’s friend, and the sick man’s bane. Many a one dies through taking
+to bed, that could have kept his life if he had kept his feet like a
+man. If I had cut myself in two I would not go to bed,--till I go to the
+bed with a spade in it. No! sit up like Julius Caesar; and die as you
+lived, in your clothes: don’t strip yourself: let the old women strip
+you; that is their delight laying out a chap; that is the time they
+brighten up, the old sorceresses.” He concluded this amiable rhapsody,
+the latter part of which was levelled at a lugubrious weakness of his
+grandmother’s for the superfluous embellishment of the dead, by telling
+her it was bad enough to be tied by the foot like an ass, without
+settling down on his back like a cast sheep. “Give me the armchair. I’ll
+sit in it, and, if I have any friends, they will show it now: they will
+come and tell me what is going on in the village, for I can’t get out to
+see it and hear it, they must know that.”
+
+Seated in state in his granny’s easy-chair, the loss of which after
+thirty years’ use made her miserable, she couldn’t tell why, le Sieur
+Dard awaited his friends.
+
+They did not come.
+
+The rain did, and poured all the afternoon. Night succeeded, and
+solitude. Dard boiled over with bitterness. “They are a lot of pigs
+then, all those fellows I have drunk with at Bigot’s and Simmet’s. Down
+with all fair-weather friends.”
+
+The next day the sun shone, the air was clear, and the sky blue. “Ah!
+let us see now,” cried Dard.
+
+Alas! no fellow-drinkers, no fellow-smokers, came to console their hurt
+fellow. And Dard, who had boiled with anger yesterday, was now sad and
+despondent. “Down with egotists,” he groaned.
+
+About three in the afternoon came a tap at the door.
+
+“Ah! at last,” cried Dard: “come in!”
+
+The door was slowly opened, and two lovely faces appeared at the
+threshold. The demoiselles De Beaurepaire wore a tender look of
+interest and pity when they caught sight of Dard, and on the old woman
+courtesying to them they courtesied to her and Dard. The next moment
+they were close to him, one a little to his right, the other to his
+left, and two pair of sapphire eyes with the mild lustre of sympathy
+playing down incessantly upon him. How was he? How had he slept? Was he
+in pain? Was he in much pain? tell the truth now. Was there anything to
+eat or drink he could fancy? Jacintha should make it and bring it, if
+it was within their means. A prince could not have had more solicitous
+attendants, nor a fairy king lovelier and less earthly ones.
+
+He looked in heavy amazement from one to the other. Rose bent, and was
+by some supple process on one knee, taking the measure of the wounded
+foot. When she first approached it he winced: but the next moment he
+smiled. He had never been touched like this--it was contact and no
+contact--she treated his foot as the zephyr the violets--she handled
+it as if it had been some sacred thing. By the help of his eye he
+could just know she was touching him. Presently she informed him he
+was measured for a list shoe: and she would run home for the materials.
+During her absence came a timid tap to the door; and Edouard Riviere
+entered. He was delighted to see Josephine, and made sure Rose was not
+far off. It was Dard who let out that she was gone to Beaurepaire for
+some cloth to make him a shoe. This information set Edouard fidgeting
+on his chair. He saw such a chance as was not likely to occur again. He
+rose with feigned nonchalance, and saying, “I leave you in good hands;
+angel visitors are best enjoyed alone,” slowly retired, with a deep
+obeisance. Once outside the door, dignity vanished in alacrity; he flew
+off into the park, and ran as hard as he could towards the chateau.
+He was within fifty yards of the little gate, when sure enough Rose
+emerged. They met; his heart beat violently. “Mademoiselle,” he
+faltered.
+
+“Ah! it is Monsieur Riviere, I declare,” said Rose, coolly; all over
+blushes though.
+
+“Yes, mademoiselle, and I am so out of breath. Mademoiselle Josephine
+awaits you at Dard’s house.”
+
+“She sent you for me?” inquired Rose, demurely.
+
+“Not positively. But I could see I should please her by coming for you;
+there is, I believe, a bull or so about.”
+
+“A bull or two! don’t talk in that reckless way about such things. She
+has done well to send you; let us make haste.”
+
+“But I am a little out of breath.”
+
+“Oh, never mind that! I abhor bulls.”
+
+“But, mademoiselle, we are not come to them yet, and the faster we go
+now the sooner we shall.”
+
+“Yes; but I always like to get a disagreeable thing over as soon as
+possible,” said Rose, slyly.
+
+“Ah,” replied Edouard, mournfully, “in that case let us make haste.”
+
+After a little spurt, mademoiselle relaxed the pace of her own accord,
+and even went slower than before. There was an awkward silence. Edouard
+eyed the park boundary, and thought, “Now what I have to say I must say
+before we get to you;” and being thus impressed with the necessity of
+immediate action, he turned to lead.
+
+Rose eyed him and the ground, alternately, from under her long lashes.
+
+At last he began to color and flutter. She saw something was coming, and
+all the woman donned defensive armor.
+
+“Mademoiselle.”
+
+“Monsieur.”
+
+“Is it quite decided that your family refuse my acquaintance, my
+services, which I still--forgive me--press on you? Ah! Mademoiselle
+Rose, am I never to have the happiness of--of--even speaking to you?”
+
+“It seems so,” said Rose, ironically.
+
+“Have you then decided against me too?”
+
+“I?” asked Rose. “What have I to do with questions of etiquette? I am
+only a child: so considered at least.”
+
+“You a child--an angel like you?”
+
+“Ask any of them, they will tell you I am a child; and it is to that I
+owe this conversation, no doubt; if you did not look on me as a child,
+you would not take this liberty with me,” said the young cat, scratching
+without a moment’s notice.
+
+“Mademoiselle, do not be angry. I was wrong.”
+
+“Oh! never mind. Children are little creatures without reserve, and
+treated accordingly, and to notice them is to honor them.”
+
+“Adieu then, mademoiselle. Try to believe no one respects you more than
+I do.”
+
+“Yes, let us part, for there is Dard’s house; and I begin to suspect
+that Josephine never sent you.”
+
+“I confess it.”
+
+“There, he confesses it. I thought so all along; WHAT A DUPE I HAVE
+BEEN!”
+
+“I will offend no more,” said poor silly Edouard. “Adieu, mademoiselle.
+May you find friends as sincere as I am, and more to your taste!”
+
+“Heaven hear your prayers!” replied the malicious thing, casting up her
+eyes with a mock tragic air.
+
+Edouard sighed; a chill conviction that she was both heartless and empty
+fell on him. He turned away without another word. She called to him
+with a sudden airy cheerfulness that made him start. “Stay, monsieur, I
+forgot--I have a favor to ask you.”
+
+“I wish I could believe that:” and his eyes brightened.
+
+Rose stopped, and began to play with her parasol. “You seem,” said
+she softly, “to be pretty generous in bestowing your acquaintance on
+strangers. I should be glad if I might secure you for a dear friend of
+mine, Dr. Aubertin. He will not discredit my recommendation; and he will
+not make so many difficulties as we do; shall I tell you why? Because
+he is really worth knowing. In short, believe me, it will be a valuable
+acquaintance for you--and for him,” added she with all the grace of the
+De Beaurepaires.
+
+Many a man, inferior in a general way to Edouard Riviere, would have
+made a sensible reply to this. Such as, “Oh, any friend of yours,
+mademoiselle, must be welcome to me,” or the like. But the proposal
+caught Edouard on his foible, his vanity, to wit; and our foibles are
+our manias. He was mortified to the heart’s core. “She refuses to know
+me herself,” thought he, “but she will use my love to make me amuse that
+old man.” His heart swelled against her injustice and ingratitude,
+and his crushed vanity turned to strychnine. “Mademoiselle,” said he,
+bitterly and doggedly, but sadly, “were I so happy as to have your
+esteem, my heart would overflow, not only on the doctor but on every
+honest person around. But if I must not have the acquaintance I value
+more than life, suffer me to be alone in the world, and never to say a
+word either to Dr. Aubertin, or to any human creature if I can help it.”
+
+The imperious young beauty drew herself up directly. “So be it,
+monsieur; you teach me how a child should be answered that forgets
+herself, and asks a favor of a stranger--a perfect stranger,” added she,
+maliciously.
+
+Could one of the dog-days change to mid-winter in a second, it would
+hardly seem so cold and cross as Rose de Beaurepaire turned from the
+smiling, saucy fairy of the moment before. Edouard felt as it were a
+portcullis of ice come down between her and him. She courtesied and
+glided away. He bowed and stood frozen to the spot.
+
+He felt so lonely and so bitter, he must go to Jacintha for comfort.
+
+He took advantage of the ladies being with Dard, and marched boldly into
+the kitchen of Beaurepaire.
+
+“Well, I never,” cried Jacintha. “But, after all, why not?”
+
+He hurled himself on the kitchen table (clean as china), and told her it
+was all over. “She hates me now; but it is not my fault,” and so poured
+forth his tale, and feeling sure of sympathy, asked Jacintha whether it
+was not bitterly unjust of Rose to refuse him her own acquaintance, yet
+ask him to amuse that old fogy.
+
+Jacintha stood with her great arms akimbo, taking it all in, and looking
+at him with a droll expression of satirical wonder.
+
+“Now you listen to a parable,” said she. “Once there was a little boy
+madly in love with raspberry jam.”
+
+“A thing I hate.”
+
+“Don’t tell me! Who hates raspberry jam? He came to the store closet,
+where he knew there were jars of it, and--oh! misery--the door was
+locked. He kicked the door, and wept bitterly. His mamma came and said,
+‘Here is the key,’ and gave him the key. And what did he do? Why,
+he fell to crying and roaring, and kicking the door. ‘I don’t
+wa-wa-wa-wa-nt the key-ey-ey. I wa-a-ant the jam--oh! oh! oh! oh!’”
+ and Jacintha mimicked, after her fashion, the mingled grief and ire of
+infancy debarred its jam. Edouard wore a puzzled air, but it was only
+for a moment; the next he hid his face in his hands, and cried, “Fool!”
+
+“I shall not contradict you,” said his Mentor.
+
+“She was my best friend. Once acquainted with the doctor, I could visit
+at Beaurepaire.”
+
+“Parbleu!”
+
+“She had thought of a way to reconcile my wishes with this terrible
+etiquette that reigns here.”
+
+“She thinks to more purpose than you do; that is clear.”
+
+“Nothing is left now but to ask her pardon, and to consent; I am off.”
+
+“No, you are not,” and Jacintha laid a grasp of iron on him. “Will you
+be quiet?--is not one blunder a day enough? If you go near her now, she
+will affront you, and order the doctor not to speak to you.”
+
+“O Jacintha! your sex then are fiends of malice?”
+
+“While it lasts. Luckily with us nothing lasts very long. Now you don’t
+go near her till you have taken advantage of her hint, and made the
+doctor’s acquaintance; that is easy done. He walks two hours on the east
+road every day, with his feet in the puddles and his head in the clouds.
+Them’s HIS two tastes.”
+
+“But how am I to get him out of the clouds and the puddles?” inquired
+Riviere half peevishly.
+
+“How?” asked Jacintha, with a dash of that contempt uneducated persons
+generally have for any one who does not know some little thing they
+happen to know themselves. “How? Why, with the nearest blackbeetle, to
+be sure.”
+
+“A blackbeetle?”
+
+“Black or brown; it matters little. Have her ready for use in your
+handkerchief: pull a long face: and says you--‘Excuse me, sir, I have
+THE MISFORTUNE not to know the Greek name of this merchandise here.’ Say
+that, and behold him launched. He will christen you the beast in Hebrew
+and Latin as well as Greek, and tell you her history down from the
+flood: next he will beg her of you, and out will come a cork and a pin,
+and behold the creature impaled. For that is how men love beetles. He
+has a thousand pinned down at home--beetles, butterflies, and so forth.
+When I go near the rubbish with my duster he trembles like an aspen.
+I pretend to be going to clean them, but it is only to see the face he
+makes, for even a domestic must laugh now and then--or die. But I never
+do clean them, for after all he is more stupid than wicked, poor man: I
+have not therefore the sad courage to make him wretched.”
+
+“Let us return to our beetle--what will his tirades about its antiquity
+advance me?”
+
+“Oh! one begins about a beetle, but one ends Heaven knows where.”
+
+Riviere profited by this advice. He even improved on it. In due
+course he threw himself into Aubertin’s way. He stopped the doctor
+reverentially, and said he had heard he was an entomologist. WOULD he
+be kind enough to tell him what was this enormous chrysalis he had just
+found?
+
+“The death’s head moth!” cried Aubertin with enthusiasm--“the death’s
+head moth! a great rarity in this district. Where found you this?”
+ Riviere undertook to show him the place.
+
+It was half a league distant. Coming and going he had time to make
+friends with Aubertin, and this was the easier that the old gentleman,
+who was a physiognomist as well as ologist, had seen goodness and
+sensibility in Edouard’s face. At the end of the walk he begged the
+doctor to accept the chrysalis. The doctor coquetted. “That would be a
+robbery. You take an interest in these things yourself--at least I hope
+so.”
+
+The young rogue confessed modestly to the sentiment of entomology, but
+“the government worked him so hard as to leave him no hopes of shining
+in so high a science,” said he sorrowfully.
+
+The doctor pitied him. “A young man of your attainments and tastes to
+be debarred from the everlasting secrets of nature, by the fleeting
+politics of the day.”
+
+Riviere shrugged his shoulders. “Somebody must do the dirty work,” said
+he, chuckling inwardly.
+
+The chrysalis went to Beaurepaire in the pocket of a grateful man,
+who that same evening told the whole party his conversation with
+young Riviere, on whom he pronounced high encomiums. Rose’s saucy eyes
+sparkled with fun: you might have lighted a candle at one and exploded a
+mine at the other; but not a syllable did she utter.
+
+The doctor proved a key, and opened the enchanted castle. One fine
+day he presented his friend in the Pleasaunce to the baroness and her
+daughters.
+
+They received him with perfect politeness. Thus introduced, and as he
+was not one to let the grass grow under his feet, he soon obtained a
+footing as friend of the family, which, being now advised by Josephine,
+he took care not to compromise by making love to Rose before the
+baroness. However, he insisted on placing his financial talent at their
+service. He surveyed and valued their lands, and soon discovered that
+all their farms were grossly underlet. Luckily most of the leases were
+run out. He prepared a new rent roll, and showed it Aubertin, now his
+fast friend. Aubertin at his request obtained a list of the mortgages,
+and Edouard drew a balance-sheet founded on sure data, and proved to the
+baroness that in able hands the said estate was now solvent.
+
+This was a great comfort to the old lady: and she said to Aubertin,
+“Heaven has sent us a champion, a little republican--with the face of an
+angel.”
+
+Descending to practice, Edouard actually put three of the farms into
+the market, and let them at an advance of twenty per cent on the expired
+leases. He brought these leases signed; and the baroness had scarcely
+done thanking him, when her other secret friend, Monsieur Perrin, was
+announced. Edouard exchanged civilities with him, and then retired to
+the Pleasaunce. There he found both sisters, who were all tenderness and
+gratitude to him. By this time he had learned to value Josephine: she
+was so lovely and so good, and such a true womanly friend to him. Even
+Rose could not resist her influence, and was obliged to be kind to him,
+when Josephine was by. But let Josephine go, and instead of her being
+more tender, as any other girl would, left alone with her lover,
+sauciness resumed its empire till sweet Josephine returned. Whereof
+cometh an example; for the said Josephine was summoned to a final
+conference with the baroness and Monsieur Perrin.
+
+“Don’t be long,” said Rose, as Josephine glided away, and (taking the
+precaution to wait till she was quite out of hearing), “I shall be so
+dull, dear, till you come back.”
+
+“I shall not though,” said Edouard.
+
+“I am not so sure of that. Now then.”
+
+“Now then, what?”
+
+“Begin.”
+
+“Begin what?”
+
+“Amusing me.” And she made herself look sullen and unamusable all over.
+
+“I will try,” said Riviere. “I’ll tell you what they say of you: that
+you are too young to love.”
+
+“So I am, much.”
+
+“No, no, no! I made a mistake. I mean too young to be loved.”
+
+“Oh, I am not too young for that, not a bit.”
+
+This point settled, she suggested that, if he could not amuse her, he
+had better do THE NEXT BEST THING, and that was, talk sense.
+
+“I think I had better not talk at all,” said he, “for I am no match
+for such a nimble tongue. And then you are so remorseless. I’ll hold my
+tongue, and make a sketch of this magnificent oak.”
+
+“Ay, do: draw it as it appeared on a late occasion: with two ladies
+flying out of it, and you rooted with dismay.”
+
+“There is no need; that scene is engraved.”
+
+“Where? in all the shops?”
+
+“No; on all our memories.”
+
+“Not on mine; not on mine. How terrified you were--ha, ha! and how
+terrified we should have been if you had not. Listen: once upon a
+time--don’t be alarmed: it was long after Noah--a frightened hare ran by
+a pond; the frogs splashed in the water, smit with awe. Then she said,
+‘Ah ha! there are people in the world I frighten in my turn; I am the
+thunderbolt of war.’ Excuse my quoting La Fontaine: I am not in ‘Charles
+the Twelfth of Sweden’ yet. I am but a child.”
+
+“And it’s a great mercy, for when you grow up, you will be too much
+for me, that is evident. Come, then, Mademoiselle the Quizzer, come and
+adorn my sketch.”
+
+“Monsieur, shall I make you a confession? You will not be angry: I could
+not support your displeasure. I have a strange inclination to walk
+up and down this terrace while you go and draw that tree in the
+Pleasaunce.”
+
+“Resist that inclination; perhaps it will fly from you.”
+
+“No; you fly from me, and draw. I will rejoin you in a few minutes.”
+
+“Thank you, I’m not so stupid. You will step indoors directly.”
+
+“Do you doubt my word, sir?” asked she haughtily.
+
+He had learned to obey all her caprices; so he went and placed himself
+on the west side of the oak and took out his sketch-book, and worked
+zealously and rapidly. He had done the outlines of the tree and was
+finishing in detail a part of the huge trunk, when his eyes were
+suddenly dazzled: in the middle of the rugged bark, deformed here and
+there with great wart-like bosses, and wrinkled, seamed, and ploughed
+all over with age, burst a bit of variegated color; bright as a poppy on
+a dungeon wall, it glowed and glittered out through a large hole in the
+brown bark; it was Rose’s face peeping. To our young lover’s eye how
+divine it shone! None of the half tints of common flesh were there,
+but a thing all rose, lily, sapphire, and soul. His pencil dropped, his
+mouth opened, he was downright dazzled by the glowing, bewitching face,
+sparkling with fun, in the gaunt tree. Tell me, ladies, did she know,
+even at that age, the value of that sombre frame to her brightness? The
+moment she found herself detected, the gaunt old tree rang musical with
+a crystal laugh, and out came the arch-dryad. “I have been there all the
+time. How solemn you looked! Now for the result of such profound study.”
+ He showed her his work; she altered her tone. “Oh, how clever!” she
+cried, “and how rapid! What a facility you have! Monsieur is an artist,”
+ said she gravely; “I will be more respectful,” and she dropped him a low
+courtesy. “Mind you promised it me,” she added sharply.
+
+“You will accept it, then?”
+
+“That I will, now it is worth having: dear me, I never reckoned on that.
+Finish it directly,” cried this peremptory young person.
+
+“First I must trouble you to stand out there near the tree.”
+
+“Me? what for?”
+
+“Because art loves contrasts. The tree is a picture of age and gradual
+decay; by its side then I must place a personification of youth and
+growing loveliness.”
+
+She did not answer, but made a sort of defiant pirouette, and went where
+she was bid, and stood there with her back to the artist. “That will
+never do,” said he; “you really must be so good as to turn round.”
+
+“Oh, very well.” And when she came round, behold her color had risen
+mightily. Flattery is sweet.
+
+This child of nature was delighted, and ashamed it should be seen that
+she was.
+
+And so he drew her, and kept looking off the paper at her, and had a
+right in his character of artist to look her full in the face; and he
+did so with long lingering glances. To be sure, they all began severe
+and businesslike with half-closed eyes, and the peculiar hostile
+expression art puts on; but then they always ended open-eyed, and so
+full and tender, that she, poor girl, who was all real gold, though sham
+brass, blushed and blushed, and did not know which way to look not to
+be scorched up by his eye like a tender flower, or blandly absorbed like
+the pearly dew. Ah, happy hour! ah, happy days of youth and innocence
+and first love!
+
+Trouble loves to intrude on these halcyon days.
+
+The usually quiet Josephine came flying from the house, pale and
+agitated, and clung despairingly to Rose, and then fell to sobbing and
+lamenting piteously.
+
+I shall take leave to relate in my own words what had just occurred
+to agitate her so. When she entered her mother’s room, she found the
+baroness and Perrin the notary seated watching for her. She sat down
+after the usual civilities, and Perrin entered upon the subject that had
+brought him.
+
+He began by confessing to them that he had not overcome the refractory
+creditor without much trouble; and that he had since learned there was
+another, a larger creditor, likely to press for payment or for sale of
+the estate. The baroness was greatly troubled by this communication: the
+notary remained cool as a cucumber, and keenly observant. After a pause
+he went on to say all this had caused him grave reflections. “It seems,”
+ said he with cool candor, “a sad pity the estate should pass from a
+family that has held it since the days of Charlemagne.”
+
+“Now God forbid!” cried the baroness, lifting her eyes and her quivering
+hands to heaven.
+
+The notary held the republican creed in all its branches. “Providence,
+madame, does not interfere--in matters of business,” said he. “Nothing
+but money can save the estate. Let us then be practical. Has any means
+occurred to you of raising money to pay off these incumbrances?”
+
+“No. What means can there be? The estate is mortgaged to its full value:
+so they say, at least.”
+
+“And they say true,” put in the notary quickly. “But do not distress
+yourself, madame: confide in me.”
+
+“Ah, my good friend, may Heaven reward you.”
+
+“Madame, up to the present time I have no complaint to make of Heaven.
+I am on the rise: here, mademoiselle, is a gimcrack they have given me;”
+ and he unbuttoned his overcoat, and showed them a piece of tricolored
+ribbon and a clasp. “As for me, I look to ‘the solid;’ I care little for
+these things,” said he, swelling visibly, “but the world is dazzled by
+them. However, I can show you something better.” He took out a letter.
+“This is from the Minister of the Interior to a client of mine: a
+promise I shall be the next prefect; and the present prefect--I am happy
+to say--is on his death-bed. Thus, madame, your humble servant in a few
+short months will be notary no longer, but prefect; I shall then sell my
+office of notary: and I flatter myself when I am a prefect you will not
+blush to own me.”
+
+“Then, as now, monsieur,” said the baroness politely, “we shall
+recognize your merit. But”--
+
+“I understand, madame: like me you look to ‘the solid.’ Thus then it is;
+I have money.”
+
+“Ah! all the better for you.”
+
+“I have a good deal of money. But it is dispersed in a great many small
+but profitable investments: to call it in suddenly would entail some
+loss. Nevertheless, if you and my young lady there have ever so little
+of that friendly feeling towards me of which I have so much towards you,
+all my investments shall be called in, and two-thirds of your creditors
+shall be paid off at once. A single client of mine, no less a man than
+the Commandant Raynal, will, I am sure, advance me the remaining third
+at an hour’s notice; and so Beaurepaire chateau, park, estate, and
+grounds, down to the old oak-tree, shall be saved; and no power shall
+alienate them from you, mademoiselle, and from the heirs of your body.”
+
+The baroness clasped her hands in ecstasy.
+
+“But what are we to do for this?” inquired Josephine calmly, “for it
+seems to me that it can only be effected by a sacrifice on your part.”
+
+“I thank you, mademoiselle, for your penetration in seeing that I must
+make sacrifices. I would never have told you, but you have seen it;
+and I do not regret that you have seen it. Madame--mademoiselle--those
+sacrifices appear little to me; will seem nothing; will never be
+mentioned, or even alluded to after this day, if you, on your part, will
+lay me under a far heavier obligation, if in short”--here the contemner
+of things unsubstantial reopened his coat, and brought his ribbon to
+light again--“if you, madame, will accept me for your son-in-law--if
+you, mademoiselle, will take me for your husband.”
+
+The baroness and her daughter looked at one another in silence.
+
+“Is it a jest?” inquired the former of the latter.
+
+“Can you think so? Answer Monsieur Perrin. He has just done us a kind
+office, mother.”
+
+“I shall remember it. Monsieur, permit me to regret that having lately
+won our gratitude and esteem, you have taken this way of modifying those
+feelings. But after all,” she added with gentle courtesy, “we may well
+put your good deeds against this--this error in judgment. The balance is
+in your favor still, provided you never return to this topic. Come,
+is it agreed?” The baroness’s manner was full of tact, and the latter
+sentences were said with an open kindliness of manner. There was nothing
+to prevent Perrin from dropping the subject, and remaining good friends.
+A gentleman or a lover would have so done. Monsieur Perrin was neither.
+He said bitterly, “You refuse me, then.”
+
+The tone and the words were each singly too much for the baroness’s
+pride. She answered coldly but civilly,--
+
+“I do not refuse you. I do not take an affront into consideration.”
+
+“Be calm, mamma; no affront whatever was intended.”
+
+“Ah! here is one that is more reasonable,” cried Perrin.
+
+“There are men,” continued Josephine without noticing him, “who look
+to but one thing--interest. It was an offer made politely in the way of
+business: decline it in the same spirit; that is what you have to do.”
+
+“Monsieur, you hear what mademoiselle says? She carries politeness
+a long way. After all it is a good fault. Well, monsieur, I need not
+answer you, since Mademoiselle de Beaurepaire has answered you; but I
+detain you no longer.”
+
+Strictly a weasel has no business with the temper of a tiger, but this
+one had, and the long vindictiveness of a Corsican. “Ah! my little lady,
+you turn me out of the house, do you?” cried he, grinding his teeth.
+
+“Turn him out of the house? what a phrase! where has this man lived?”
+
+“A man!” snarled Perrin, “whom none ever yet insulted without repenting
+it, and repenting in vain. You are under obligations to me, and you
+think to turn me out! You are at my mercy, and you think I will let you
+turn me to your door! In less than a mouth I will stand here, and say to
+you, Beaurepaire is mine. Begone from it!”
+
+When he uttered these terrible words, each of which was like a
+sword-stroke to the baroness, the old lady, whose courage was not
+equal to her strength, shrank over the side of her arm-chair, and cried
+piteously--“He threatens me! he threatens me! I am frightened;” and put
+up her trembling hands, for the notary’s eloquence, being accompanied
+with abundance of gesture, bordered upon physical violence. His
+brutality received an unexpected check. Imagine that a sparrow-hawk had
+seized a trembling pigeon, and that a royal falcon swooped, and with one
+lightning-like stroke of body and wing, buffeted him away, and sent him
+gaping and glaring and grasping at pigeonless air with his claws. So
+swift and majestic, Josephine de Beaurepaire came from her chair with
+one gesture of her body between her mother and the notary, who was
+advancing with arms folded in a brutal, menacing way--not the Josephine
+we have seen her, the calm languid beauty, but the demoiselle de
+Beaurepaire--her great heart on fire--her blood up--not her own only,
+but all the blood of all the De Beaurepaires--pale as ashes with great
+wrath, her purple eyes on fire, and her whole panther-like body full
+of spring. “Wretch! you dare to insult her, and before me! Arriere
+miserable! or I soil my hand with your face.” And her hand was up with
+the word, up, up, higher it seemed than ever a hand was raised before.
+And if he had hesitated one moment, I really believe it would have come
+down; not heavily, perhaps--the lightning is not heavy. But there was
+no need. The towering threat and the flaming eye and the swift rush
+buffeted the caitiff away: he recoiled. She followed him as he went,
+strong, FOR A MOMENT OR TWO, as Hercules, beautiful and terrible as
+Michael driving Satan. He dared not, or could not stand before her: he
+writhed and cowered and recoiled all down the room, while she marched
+upon him. But the driven serpent hissed horribly as it wriggled away.
+
+“You shall both be turned out of Beaurepaire by me, and forever; I swear
+it, parole de Perrin.”
+
+He had not been gone a minute when Josephine’s courage oozed away,
+and she ran, or rather tottered, into the Pleasaunce, and clung like a
+drowning thing to Rose, and, when Edouard took her hand, she clung to
+him. They had to gather what had happened how they could: the account
+was constantly interrupted with her sobs and self-reproaches. She said
+she had ruined all she loved: ruined her sister, ruined her mother,
+ruined the house of Beaurepaire. Why was she ever born? Why had she
+not died three years ago? (Query, what was the date at which Camille’s
+letters suddenly stopped?) “That coward,” said she, “has the heart of a
+fiend. He told us he never forgave an affront; and he holds our fate
+in his hands. He will drive our mother from her home, and she will die:
+murdered by her own daughter. After all, why did I refuse him? What
+should I have sacrificed by marrying him? Rose, write to him, and
+say--say--I was taken by surprise, I--I”--a violent flood of tears
+interrupted the sentence.
+
+Rose flung her arms round her neck. “My beautiful Josephine marry that
+creature? Let house and lands go a thousand times sooner. I love my
+sister a thousand times better than the walls of this or any other
+house.”
+
+“Come, come,” cried Edouard, “you are forgetting ME all this time. Do
+you really think I am the sort of man to stand by with my hands in
+my pockets, and let her marry that cur, or you be driven out of
+Beaurepaire? Neither, while I live.”
+
+“Alas! dear boy,” sighed Josephine, “what can you do?”
+
+“I’ll soon show you. From this hour forth it is a duel between that
+Perrin and me. Now, Josephine--Rose--don’t you cry and fret like that:
+but just look quietly on, and enjoy the fight, both of you.”
+
+Josephine shook her head with a sad smile: but Rose delivered herself
+thus, after a sob, “La, yes; I forgot: we have got a gentleman now;
+that’s one comfort.”
+
+Edouard rose to the situation: he saw that Perrin would lose no time;
+and that every day, or even hour, might be precious. He told them that
+the first thing he must do for them was to leave the company he loved
+best on earth, and run down to the town to consult Picard the rival
+notary: he would be back by supper-time, when he hoped they would do
+him the honor, in a matter of such importance, to admit him to a family
+council.
+
+Josephine assented with perfect simplicity; Rose with a deep blush, for
+she was too quick not to see all the consequences of admitting so brisk
+a wooer into a family council.
+
+
+It was a wet evening, and a sad and silent party sat round a wood fire
+in the great dining-hall. The baroness was almost prostrated by the
+scene with Perrin; and a sombre melancholy and foreboding weighed on
+all their spirits, when presently Edouard Riviere entered briskly, and
+saluted them all profoundly, and opened the proceedings with a little
+favorite pomposity. “Madame the baroness, and you Monsieur Aubertin, who
+honor me with your esteem, and you Mademoiselle de Beaurepaire, whom I
+adore, and you Mademoiselle Rose, whom I hoped to be permitted--you have
+this day done me the honor to admit me as your adviser. I am here to
+lay my plans before you. I believe, madame, I have already convinced
+you that your farms are under-let, and your property lowered in value by
+general mismanagement; this was doubtless known to Perrin, and set him
+scheming. Well, I rely on the same circumstance to defeat him. I have
+consulted Picard and shown him the rent-roll and balance-sheet I had
+already shown you. He has confessed that the estate is worth more
+than its debts, so capitalists can safely advance the money. To-morrow
+morning, then, I ride to Commandant Raynal for a week’s leave of
+absence; then, armed with Picard’s certificate, shall proceed to my
+uncle and ask him to lend the money. His estate is very small compared
+with Beaurepaire, but he has always farmed it himself. ‘I’ll have no
+go-between,’ says he, ‘to impoverish both self and soil.’ He is also a
+bit of a misanthrope, and has made me one. I have a very poor opinion of
+my fellow-creatures, very.”
+
+“Well, but,” said Rose, “if he is all that, he will not sympathize with
+us, who have so mismanaged Beaurepaire. Will he not despise us?”
+
+Edouard was a little staggered, but Aubertin came to his aid.
+
+“Permit me, Josephine,” said he. “Natural history steps in here, and
+teaches by me, its mouth-piece. A misanthrope hates all mankind, but is
+kind to every individual, generally too kind. A philanthrope loves the
+whole human race, but dislikes his wife, his mother, his brother, and
+his friends and acquaintances. Misanthrope is the potato: rough and
+repulsive outside, but good to the core. Philanthrope is a peach: his
+manner all velvet and bloom, his words sweet juice, his heart of hearts
+a stone. Let me read Philanthrope’s book, and fall into the hands of
+Misanthrope.”
+
+Edouard admitted the shrewdness of this remark.
+
+“And so,” said he, “my misanthrope will say plenty of biting
+words,--which, by-the-by, will not hurt you, who will not hear them,
+only me,--and then he’ll lend us the money, and Beaurepaire will be
+free, and I shall have had a hand in it. Hurrah!”
+
+Then came a delicious hour to Edouard Riviere. Young and old poured out
+their glowing thanks and praises upon him till his checks burned like
+fire.
+
+The baroness was especially grateful, and expressed a gentle regret that
+she could see no way of showing her gratitude except in words. “What can
+we do for this little angel?” said she, turning to Josephine.
+
+“Leave that to me, mamma,” replied Josephine, turning her lovely eyes
+full on Edouard, with a look the baroness misunderstood directly.
+
+She sat and watched Josephine and Edouard with comical severity all the
+rest of the time she was there; and, when she retired, she kissed Rose
+affectionately, but whispered her eldest daughter, “I hope you are not
+serious. A mere boy compared with you.”
+
+“But such a sweet one,” suggested Josephine, apologetically.
+
+“What will the world come to?” said the baroness out loud, and retreated
+with a sour glance at all of them--except Rose.
+
+She had not been gone five minutes when a letter came by messenger to
+Edouard. It was from Picard. He read it out.
+
+
+“Perrin has been with me, to raise money. He wants it in forty-eight
+hours. Promises good legal security. I have agreed to try and arrange
+the matter for him.”
+
+
+They were all astonished at this.
+
+“The double-faced traitor!” cried Edouard. “Stay; wait a minute. Let us
+read it to an end.”
+
+
+“This promise is, of course, merely to prevent his going elsewhere. At
+the end of the forty-eight hours I shall begin to make difficulties.
+Meantime, as Perrin is no fool, you had better profit to the full by
+this temporary delay.”
+
+
+“Well done, Picard!” shouted Edouard. “Notary cut notary. I won’t
+lose an hour. I’ll start at five; Commandant Raynal is an early riser
+himself.”
+
+Accordingly, at five he was on the road; Raynal’s quarters lay in the
+direct line to his uncle’s place. He found the commandant at home, and
+was well received. Raynal had observed his zeal, and liked his manners.
+He gave him the week’s leave, and kept him to breakfast, and had his
+horse well fed. At eight o’clock Edouard rode out of the premises in
+high spirits. At the very gate he met a gaunt figure riding in on a
+squab pony. It was Perrin the notary coming in hot haste to his friend
+and employer, Commandant Raynal.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+
+After Edouard’s departure, Josephine de Beaurepaire was sad, and weighed
+down with presentiments. She felt as soldiers sometimes feel who know
+the enemy is undermining them; no danger on the surface; nothing that
+can be seen, met, baffled, attacked, or evaded; in daily peril, all the
+more horrible that it imitates perfect serenity, they await the fatal
+match. She imparted her misgivings to Aubertin; but he assured her she
+exaggerated the danger.
+
+“We have a friend still more zealous and active than our enemy; believe
+me, your depression is really caused by his absence; we all miss the
+contact of that young heroic spirit; we are a body, and he its soul.”
+
+Josephine was silent, for she said to herself, “Why should I dash their
+spirits? they are so happy and confident.”
+
+Edouard had animated Rose and Aubertin with his own courage, and had
+even revived the baroness.
+
+It had been agreed between him and Picard that the latter should
+communicate with Dr. Aubertin direct, should anything fresh occur. And
+on the third day after Edouard’s departure, Picard sent up a private
+message: “Perrin has just sent me a line to say he will not trouble us,
+as he is offered the money in another quarter.”
+
+This was a heavy blow, and sent them all to bed more or less despondent.
+
+The next day brought a long letter from Edouard to Rose, telling her he
+had found his uncle crusty at first; but at last with a little patience,
+and the co-operation of Martha, his uncle’s old servant, and his nurse,
+the old boy had come round. They might look on the affair as all but
+settled.
+
+The contents of this letter were conveyed to the baroness. The house
+brightened under it: the more so that there was some hope of their
+successful champion returning in person next day. Meantime Perrin had
+applied to Raynal for the immediate loan of a large sum of money on
+excellent security. Raynal refused plump. Perrin rode away disconsolate.
+
+But the next day he returned to the charge with another proposal: and
+the nature of this second proposal we shall learn from events.
+
+The day Edouard was expected opened deliciously. It was a balmy morning,
+and tempted the sisters out before breakfast. They strolled on the
+south terrace with their arms round each other’s waists, talking about
+Edouard, and wondering whether they should really see him before night.
+Rose owned she had missed him, and confessed for the first time she was
+a proud and happy girl.
+
+“May I tell him so?” asked Josephine.
+
+“Not for all the world. Would you dare?”
+
+Further discussion of that nice point was stopped by the baroness coming
+out, leaning on Dr. Aubertin.
+
+Then--how we young people of an unceremonious age should have
+stared--the demoiselles de Beaurepaire, inasmuch as this was their
+mother’s first appearance, lowered their fair heads at the same time
+like young poplars bowing to the wind, and so waited reverently till she
+had slightly lifted her hands, and said, “God bless you, my children!”
+
+It was done in a moment on both sides, but full of grace and piety, and
+the charm of ancient manners.
+
+“How did our dear mother sleep?” inquired Josephine. Aubertin interposed
+with a theory that she slept very well indeed if she took what he gave
+her.
+
+“Ay, IF,” suggested Rose, saucily.
+
+“I slept,” said the baroness, “and I wish I had not for I dreamed an
+ugly dream.” They all gathered round her, and she told her dream.
+
+“I thought I was with you all in this garden. I was admiring the flowers
+and the trees, and the birds were singing with all their might. Suddenly
+a dark cloud came; it cleared almost directly; but flowers, trees, sky,
+and birds were gone now, and I could see the chateau itself no more. It
+means that I was dead. An ugly dream, my children, an ugly dream.”
+
+“But only a dream, dear mother,” said Rose: then with a sweet, consoling
+smile, “See, here is your terrace and your chateau.”
+
+“And here are your daughters,” said Josephine; and they both came
+and kissed her to put their existence out of doubt. “And here is your
+Aesculapius,” said Aubertin. “And here is your Jacintha.”
+
+“Breakfast, madame,” said Jacintha. “Breakfast, mesdemoiselles.
+Breakfast, monsieur:” dropping each a distinct courtesy in turn.
+
+“She has turned the conversation very agreeably,” said the baroness, and
+went in leaning on her old friend.
+
+But the sisters lagged behind and took several turns in silence. Rose
+was the first to speak. “How superstitious of you!”
+
+“I said nothing.”
+
+“No; but you looked volumes at me while mamma was telling her dream. For
+my part I feel sure love is stronger than hate; and we shall stay all
+our days in this sweet place: and O Josey! am I not a happy girl that
+it’s all owing to HIM!”
+
+At this moment Jacintha came running towards them. They took it for a
+summons to breakfast, and moved to meet her. But they soon saw she was
+almost as white as her apron, and she came open-mouthed and wringing her
+hands. “What shall I do? what shall I do? Oh, don’t let my poor mistress
+know!”
+
+They soon got from her that Dard had just come from the town, and
+learned the chateau was sold, and the proprietor coming to take
+possession this very day. The poor girls were stupefied by the blow.
+
+If anything, Josephine felt it worst. “It is my doing,” she gasped, and
+tottered fainting. Rose supported her: she shook it off by a violent
+effort. “This is no time for weakness,” she cried, wildly; “come to the
+Pleasaunce; there is water there. I love my mother. What will I not do
+for her? I love my mother.”
+
+Muttering thus wildly she made for the pond in the Pleasaunce. She had
+no sooner turned the angle of the chateau than she started back with
+a convulsive cry, and her momentary feebleness left her directly; she
+crouched against the wall and griped the ancient corner-stone with her
+tender hand till it powdered, and she spied with dilating eye into the
+Pleasaunce, Rose and Jacintha panting behind her. Two men stood with
+their backs turned to her looking at the oak-tree; one an officer in
+full uniform, the other the human snake Perrin. Though the soldier’s
+back was turned, his off-handed, peremptory manner told her he was
+inspecting the place as its master.
+
+“The baroness! the baroness!” cried Jacintha, with horror. They looked
+round, and the baroness was at their very backs.
+
+“What is it?” cried she, gayly.
+
+“Nothing, mamma.”
+
+“Let me see this nothing.”
+
+They glanced at one another, and, idle as the attempt was, the habit
+of sparing her prevailed, and they flung themselves between her and the
+blow.
+
+“Josephine is not well,” said Rose. “She wants to go in.” Both girls
+faced the baroness.
+
+“Jacintha,” said the baroness, “fetch Dr. Aubertin. There, I have sent
+her away. So now tell me, why do you drive me back so? Something has
+happened,” and she looked keenly from one to the other.
+
+“O mamma! do not go that way: there are strangers in the Pleasaunce.”
+
+“Let me see. So there are. Call Jacintha back that I may order these
+people out of my premises.” Josephine implored her to be calm.
+
+“Be calm when impertinent intruders come into my garden?”
+
+“Mother, they are not intruders.”
+
+“What do you mean?”
+
+“They have a right to be in our Pleasaunce. They have bought the
+chateau.”
+
+“It is impossible. HE was to buy it for us--there is some mistake--what
+man would kill a poor old woman like me? I will speak to this gentleman:
+he wears a sword. Soldiers do not trample on women. Ah! that man.”
+
+The notary, attracted by her voice, was coming towards her, a paper in
+his hand.
+
+Raynal coolly inspected the tree, and tapped it with his scabbard, and
+left Perrin to do the dirty work. The notary took off his hat, and, with
+a malignant affectation of respect, presented the baroness with a paper.
+
+The poor old thing took it with a courtesy, the effect of habit, and
+read it to her daughters as well as her emotion permitted, and the
+language, which was as new to her as the dialect of Cat Island to
+Columbus.
+
+“Jean Raynal, domiciled by right, and lodging in fact at the Chateau
+of Beaurepaire, acting by the pursuit and diligence of Master Perrin,
+notary; I, Guillaume Le Gras, bailiff, give notice to Josephine Aglae
+St. Croix de Beaurepaire, commonly called the Baroness de Beaurepaire,
+having no known place of abode”--
+
+“Oh!”
+
+“But lodging wrongfully at the said Chateau of Beaurepaire, that she is
+warned to decamp within twenty-four hours”--
+
+“To decamp!”
+
+“Failing which that she will be thereto enforced in the manner for that
+case made and provided with the aid of all the officers and agents of
+the public force.”
+
+“Ah! no, messieurs, pray do not use force. I am frightened enough
+already. I did not know I was doing anything wrong. I have been here
+thirty years. But, since Beaurepaire is sold, I comprehend perfectly
+that I must go. It is just. As you say, I am not in my own house. I will
+go, gentlemen, I will go. Whither shall I go, my children? The house
+where you were born to me is ours no longer. Excuse me, gentlemen--this
+is nothing to you. Ah! sir, you have revenged yourself on two weak
+women--may Heaven forgive you!”
+
+The notary turned on his heel. The poor baroness, all whose pride the
+iron law, with its iron gripe, had crushed into dismay and terror,
+appealed to him. “O sir! send me from the house, but not from the soil
+where my Henri is laid! is there not in all this domain a corner where
+she who was its mistress may lie down and die? Where is the NEW BARON,
+that I may ask this favor of him on my knees?”
+
+She turned towards Raynal and seemed to be going towards him with
+outstretched arms. But Rose checked her with fervor. “Mamma! do not
+lower yourself. Ask nothing of these wretches. Let us lose all, but not
+forget ourselves.”
+
+The baroness had not her daughter’s spirit. Her very person tottered
+under this blow. Josephine supported her, and the next moment Aubertin
+came out and hastened to her side. Her head fell back; what little
+strength she had failed her; she was half lifted, half led, into the
+house.
+
+Commandant Raynal was amazed at all this, and asked what the deuce was
+the matter.
+
+“Oh!” said the notary, “we are used to these little scenes in our
+business.”
+
+“But I am not,” replied the soldier. “You never told me there was to be
+all this fuss.”
+
+He then dismissed his friend rather abruptly and strode up and down the
+Pleasaunce. He twisted his mustaches, muttered, and “pested,” and
+was ill at ease. Accustomed to march gayly into a town, and see the
+regiment, that was there before, marching gayly out, or vice versa, and
+to strike tents twice a quarter at least, he was little prepared for
+such a scene as this. True, he did not hear all the baroness’s words,
+but more than one tone of sharp distress reached him where he stood, and
+the action of the whole scene was so expressive, there was little need
+of words. He saw the notice given; the dismay it caused, and the old
+lady turn imploringly towards him with a speaking gesture, and above all
+he saw her carried away, half fainting, her hands clasped, her
+reverend face pale. He was not a man of quick sensibilities. He did not
+thoroughly take the scene in at first: it grew upon him afterwards.
+
+“Confound it,” thought he, “I am the proprietor. They all say so.
+Instead of which I feel like a thief. Fancy her getting so fond of a
+PLACE as all this.”
+
+Presently it occurred to him that the shortness of the notice might
+have much to do with her distress. “These notaries,” said he to himself,
+“understand nothing save law: women have piles of baggage, and can’t
+strike tents directly the order comes, as we can. Perhaps if I were to
+give them twenty-four days instead of hours?--hum!”
+
+With this the commandant fell into a brown study. Now each of us has his
+attitude of brown study. One runs about the room like hyena in his den;
+another stands stately with folded arms (this one seldom thinks to the
+purpose); another sits cross-legged, brows lowered: another must put
+his head into his hand, and so keep it up to thinking mark: another must
+twiddle a bit of string, or a key; grant him this, he can hatch an epic.
+This commandant must draw himself up very straight, and walk six paces
+and back very slowly, till the problem was solved: I suspect he had done
+a good bit of sentinel work in his time.
+
+Now whilst he was guarding the old oak-tree, for all the world as if
+it had been the gate of the Tuileries or the barracks, Josephine de
+Beaurepaire came suddenly out from the house and crossed the Pleasaunce:
+her hair was in disorder, her manner wild: she passed swiftly into the
+park.
+
+Raynal recognized her as one of the family; and after a moment’s
+reflection followed her into the park with the good-natured intention of
+offering her a month to clear out instead of a day.
+
+But it was not so easy to catch her: she flew. He had to take his
+scabbard in his left hand and fairly run after her. Before he could
+catch her, she entered the little chapel. He came up and had his foot on
+the very step to go in, when he was arrested by that he heard within.
+
+Josephine had thrown herself on her knees and was praying aloud: praying
+to the Virgin with sighs and sobs and all her soul: wrestling so in
+prayer with a dead saint as by a strange perversity men cannot or will
+not wrestle with Him, who alone can hear a million prayers at once from
+a million different places,--can realize and be touched with a sense
+of all man’s infirmities in a way no single saint with his partial
+experience of them can realize and be touched by them; who unasked
+suspended the laws of nature that had taken a stranger’s only son, and
+she a widow; and wept at another great human sorrow, while the eyes of
+all the great saints that stood around it and Him were dry.
+
+Well, the soldier stood, his right foot on the step and his sword in
+his left hand, transfixed: listening gravely to the agony of prayer the
+innocent young creature poured forth within:--
+
+“O Madonna! hear me: it is for my mother’s life. She will die--she will
+die. You know she cannot live if she is taken away from her house and
+from this holy place where she prays to you this many years. O Queen
+of Heaven! put out your hand to us unfortunates! Virgin, hear a virgin:
+mother, listen to a child who prays for her mother’s life! The doctor
+says she will not live away from here. She is too old to wander over the
+world. Let them drive us forth: we are young, but not her, mother, oh,
+not her! Forgive the cruel men that do this thing!--they are like those
+who crucified your Son--they know not what they are doing. But you,
+Queen of Heaven, you know all; and, sweet mother, if you have kind
+sentiments towards me, poor Josephine, ah! show them now: for you know
+that it was I who insulted that wicked notary, and it is out of hatred
+to me he has sold our beloved house to a hard stranger. Look down on me,
+a child who loves her mother, yet will destroy her unless you pity me
+and help me. Oh! what shall I say?--what shall I do? mercy! mercy! for
+my poor mother, for me!”
+
+Here her utterance was broken by sobs.
+
+The soldier withdrew his foot quietly. Her words had knocked against
+his very breast-bone. He marched slowly to and fro before the chapel,
+upright as a dart, and stiff as a ramrod, and actually pale: for even
+our nerves have their habits; a woman’s passionate grief shook him as a
+cannon fired over his head could not.
+
+Josephine little thought who was her sentinel. She came to the door
+at last, and there he was marching backwards and forwards, upright and
+stiff. She gave a faint scream and drew back with a shudder at the sight
+of their persecutor. She even felt faintish at him, as women will in
+such cases.
+
+Not being very quick at interpreting emotion, Raynal noticed her alarm,
+but not her repugnance; he saluted her with military precision by
+touching his cap as only a soldier can, and said rather gently for him,
+“A word with you, mademoiselle.”
+
+She replied only by trembling.
+
+“Don’t be frightened,” said Raynal, in a tone not very reassuring. “I
+propose an armistice.”
+
+“I am at your disposal, sir,” said Josephine, now assuming a calmness
+that was belied by the long swell of her heaving bosom.
+
+“Of course you look on me as an enemy.”
+
+“How can I do otherwise, sir? yet perhaps I ought not. You did not know
+us. You just wanted an estate, I suppose--and--oh!”
+
+“Well, don’t cry; and let us come to the point, since I am a man of few
+words.”
+
+“If you please, sir. My mother may miss me.”
+
+“Well, I was in position on your flank when the notary delivered his
+fire. And I saw the old woman’s distress.”
+
+“Ah, sir!”
+
+“When you came flying out I followed to say a good word to you. I could
+not catch you. I listened while you prayed to the Virgin. That was not a
+soldier-like trick, you will say. I confess it.”
+
+“It matters little, sir, and you heard nothing I blush for.”
+
+“No! by St. Denis; quite the contrary. Well, to the point. Young lady,
+you love your mother.”
+
+“What has she on earth now but her children’s love?”
+
+“Now look here, young lady, I had a mother; I loved her in my humdrum
+way very dearly. She promised me faithfully not to die till I should be
+a colonel; and she went and died before I was a commandant, even; just
+before, too.”
+
+“Then I pity you,” murmured Josephine; and her soft purple eye began to
+dwell on him with less repugnance.
+
+“Thank you for that word, my good young lady,” said Raynal. “Now, I
+declare, you are the first that has said that word to me about my losing
+the true friend, that nursed me on her knee, and pinched and pinched to
+make a man of me. I should like to tell you about her and me.”
+
+“I shall feel honored,” said Josephine, politely, but with considerable
+restraint.
+
+Then he told her all about how he had vexed her when he was a boy, and
+gone for a soldier, though she was all for trade, and how he had
+been the more anxious to see her enjoy his honors and success. “And,
+mademoiselle,” said he, appealingly, “the day this epaulet was put on my
+shoulder in Italy, she died in Paris. Ah! how could you have the heart
+to do that, my old woman?”
+
+The soldier’s mustache quivered, and he turned away brusquely, and
+took several steps. Then he came back to Josephine, and to his infinite
+surprise saw that her purple eyes were thick with tears. “What? you are
+within an inch of crying for my mother, you who have your own trouble at
+this hour.”
+
+“Monsieur, our situations are so alike, I may well spare some little
+sympathy for your misfortune.”
+
+“Thank you, my good young lady. Well, then, to business; while you were
+praying to the Virgin, I was saying a word or two for my part to her who
+is no more.”
+
+“Sir!”
+
+“Oh! it was nothing beautiful like the things you said to the other.
+Can I turn phrases? I saw her behind her little counter in the Rue
+Quincampoix; for she is a woman of the people, is my mother. I saw
+myself come to the other side of the counter, and I said, ‘Look here,
+mother, here is the devil to pay about this new house. The old woman
+talks of dying if we take her from her home, and the young one weeps
+and prays to all the saints in paradise; what shall we do, eh?’ Then
+I thought my old woman said to me, ‘Jean, you are a soldier, a sort of
+vagabond; what do you want with a house in France? you who are always in
+a tent in Italy or Austria, or who knows where. Have you the courage to
+give honest folk so much pain for a caprice? Come now,’ says she, ‘the
+lady is of my age, say you, and I can’t keep your fine house, because
+God has willed it otherwise; so give her my place; so then you can fancy
+it is me you have set down at your hearth: that will warm your heart up
+a bit, you little scamp,’ said my old woman in her rough way. She was
+not well-bred like you, mademoiselle. A woman of the people, nothing
+more.”
+
+“She was a woman of God’s own making, if she was like that,” cried
+Josephine, the tears now running down her cheeks.
+
+“Ah, that she was, she was. So between her and me it is settled--what
+are you crying for NOW? why, you have won the day; the field is yours;
+your mother and you remain; I decamp.” He whipped his scabbard up with
+his left hand, and was going off without another word, if Josephine had
+not stopped him.
+
+“But, sir, what am I to think? what am I to hope? it is impossible that
+in this short interview--and we must not forget what is due to you. You
+have bought the estate.”
+
+“True; well, we will talk over that, to-morrow; but being turned out of
+the house, that was the bayonet thrust to the old lady. So you run in
+and put her heart at rest about it. Tell her that she may live and die
+in this house for Jean Raynal; and tell her about the old woman in the
+Rue Quincampoix.”
+
+“God bless you, Jean Raynal!” cried Josephine, clasping her hands.
+
+“Are you going?” said he, peremptorily.
+
+“Oh, yes!” and she darted towards the chateau.
+
+But when she had taken three steps she paused, and seemed irresolute.
+She turned, and in a moment she had glided to Raynal again and had taken
+his hand before he could hinder her, and pressed two velvet lips on it,
+and was away again, her cheeks scarlet at what she had done, and her wet
+eyes beaming with joy. She skimmed the grass like a lapwing; you would
+have taken her at this minute for Rose, or for Virgil’s Camilla; at the
+gate she turned an instant and clasped her hands together, with such a
+look, to show Raynal she blessed him again, then darted into the house.
+
+“Aha, my lady,” said he, as he watched her fly, “behold you changed a
+little since you came out.” He was soon on the high road marching
+down to the town at a great rate, his sword clanking, and thus ran his
+thoughts: “This does one good; you are right, my old woman. Your son’s
+bosom feels as warm as toast. Long live the five-franc pieces! And they
+pretend money cannot make a fellow happy. They lie; it is because they
+do not know how to spend it.”
+
+Meantime at the chateau, as still befalls in emergencies and trials,
+the master spirit came out and took its real place. Rose was now the
+mistress of Beaurepaire; she set Jacintha, and Dard, and the doctor,
+to pack up everything of value in the house. “Do it this moment!” she
+cried; “once that notary gets possession of the house, it may be too
+late. Enough of folly and helplessness. We have fooled away house and
+lands; our movables shall not follow them.”
+
+The moment she had set the others to work, she wrote a single line to
+Riviere to tell him the chateau and lands were sold, and would he come
+to Beaurepaire at once? She ran with it herself to Bigot’s auberge, the
+nearest post-office, and then back to comfort her mother.
+
+The baroness was seated in her arm-chair, moaning and wringing her
+hands, and Rose was nursing and soothing her, and bathing her temples
+with her last drop of eau de Cologne, and trying in vain to put some of
+her own courage into her, when in came Josephine radiant with happiness,
+crying “Joy! joy! joy!” and told her strange tale, with this difference,
+that she related her own share in it briefly and coldly, and was more
+eloquent than I about the strange soldier’s goodness, and the interest
+her mother had awakened in his heart. And she told about the old woman
+in the Rue Quincampoix, her rugged phrases, and her noble, tender heart.
+The baroness, deaf to Rose’s consolations, brightened up directly at
+Josephine’s news, and at her glowing face, as she knelt pouring the good
+news, and hope, and comfort, point blank into her. But Rose chilled them
+both.
+
+“It is a generous offer,” said, she, “but one we cannot accept. We
+cannot live under so great an obligation. Is all the generosity to be on
+the side of this Bonapartist? Are we noble in name only? What would our
+father have said to such a proposal?”
+
+Josephine hung her head. The baroness groaned.
+
+“No, mother,” continued Rose; “let house and land go, but honor and true
+nobility remain.”
+
+“What shall I do? you are cruel to me, Rose.”
+
+“Mamma,” cried the enthusiastic girl, “we need depend on no one.
+Josephine and I have youth and spirit.”
+
+“But no money.”
+
+“We have plenty of jewels, and pictures, and movables. We can take a
+farm.”
+
+“A farm!” shrieked the baroness.
+
+“Why, his uncle has a farm, and we have had recourse to him for help:
+better a farmhouse than an almshouse, though that almshouse were a
+palace instead of a chateau.”
+
+Josephine winced and held up her hand deprecatingly. The baroness paled:
+it was a terrible stroke of language to come from her daughter. She said
+sternly, “There is no answer to that. We were born nobles, let us die
+farmers: only permit me to die first.”
+
+“Forgive me, mother,” said Rose, kneeling. “I was wrong; it is for me
+to obey you, not to dictate. I speak no more.” And, after kissing her
+mother and Josephine, she crept away, but she left her words sticking in
+both their consciences.
+
+“HIS uncle,” said the shrewd old lady. “She is no longer a child; and
+she says his uncle. This makes me half suspect it is her that dear
+boy--Josephine, tell me the truth, which of you is it?”
+
+“Dear mother, who should it be? they are nearly of an age: and what man
+would not love our sweet Rose, that had eyes or a heart?”
+
+The baroness sighed deeply; and was silent. After awhile she said, “The
+moment they have a lover, he detaches their hearts from their poor old
+mother. She is no longer what my Josephine is to me.”
+
+“Mamma, she is my superior. I see it more and more every day. She is
+proud: she is just; she looks at both sides. As for me, I am too apt to
+see only what will please those I love.”
+
+“And that is the daughter for me,” cried the poor baroness, opening her
+arms wide to her.
+
+The next morning when they were at breakfast, in came Jacintha to say
+the officer was in the dining-room and wanted to speak with the young
+lady he talked to yesterday. Josephine rose and went to him. “Well,
+mademoiselle,” said he gayly, “the old woman was right. Here I have just
+got my orders to march: to leave France in a month. A pretty business
+it would have been if I had turned your mother out. So you see there is
+nothing to hinder you from living here.”
+
+“In your house, sir?”
+
+“Why not, pray?”
+
+“Forgive us. But we feel that would be unjust to you, humiliating to us:
+the poor are sometimes proud.”
+
+“Of course they are,” said Raynal: “and I don’t want to offend your
+pride. Confound the house: why did I go and buy it? It is no use to
+me except to give pain to worthy people.” He then, after a moment’s
+reflection, asked her if the matter could not be arranged by some third
+party, a mutual friend. “Then again,” said he, “I don’t know any friend
+of yours.”
+
+“Yes, sir,” said Josephine; “we have one friend, who knows you, and
+esteems you highly.”
+
+She wanted to name Edouard; but she hesitated, and asked her conscience
+if it was fair to name him: and while she blushed and hesitated, lo and
+behold a rival referee hove in sight. Raynal saw him, suddenly opened a
+window, and shouted, “Hallo come in here: you are wanted.”
+
+Perrin had ridden up to complete the exodus of the De Beaurepaires, and
+was strolling about inspecting the premises he had expelled them from.
+
+Here was a pretty referee!
+
+Josephine almost screamed--“What are you doing? that is our enemy, our
+bitterest enemy. He has only sold you the estate to spite us, not for
+the love of you. I had--we had--we mortified his vanity. It was not our
+fault: he is a viper. Sir, pray, pray, pray be on your guard against his
+counsels.”
+
+These words spoken with rare fire and earnestness carried conviction:
+but it was too late to recall the invitation. The notary entered the
+room, and was going to bow obsequiously to Raynal, when he caught sight
+of Josephine, and almost started. Raynal, after Josephine’s warning, was
+a little at a loss how to make him available; and even that short delay
+gave the notary’s one foible time to lead him into temptation. “Our
+foibles are our manias.”
+
+“So,” said he, “you have taken possession, commandant. These military
+men are prompt, are they not, mademoiselle?”
+
+“Do not address yourself to me, sir, I beg,” said Josephine quietly.
+
+Perrin kept his self-command. “It is only as Commandant Raynal’s agent
+I presume to address so distinguished a lady: in that character I must
+inform you that whatever movables you have removed are yours: those we
+find in the house on entering we keep.”
+
+“Come, come, not so fast,” cried Raynal; “bother the chairs and tables!
+that is not the point.”
+
+“Commandant,” said the notary with dignity, “have I done anything to
+merit this? have I served your interests so ill that you withdraw your
+confidence from me?”
+
+“No, no, my good fellow; but you exceed your powers. Just now I want you
+to take orders, not give them.”
+
+“That is only just,” said Perrin, “and I recall my hasty remark: excuse
+the susceptibility of a professional man, who is honored with the esteem
+of his clients; and favor me with your wishes.”
+
+“All right,” said Raynal heartily. “Well, then--I want mademoiselle
+and her family to stay here while I go to Egypt with the First Consul.
+Mademoiselle makes difficulties; it offends her delicacy.”
+
+“Comedy!” said the notary contemptuously.
+
+“Though her mother’s life depends on her staying here.”
+
+“Comedy!” said Perrin. Raynal frowned.
+
+“Her pride (begging her pardon) is greater than her affection.”
+
+“Farce!”
+
+“I have pitched upon you to reconcile the two.”
+
+“Then you have pitched upon the wrong man,” said Perrin bluntly. He
+added obsequiously, “I am too much your friend. She has been talking you
+over, no doubt; but you have a friend, an Ulysses, who is deaf to the
+siren’s voice. I will be no party to such a transaction. I will not
+co-operate to humbug my friend and rob him of his rights.”
+
+If Josephine was inferior to the notary in petty sharpness, she was
+his superior in the higher kinds of sagacity; and particularly in
+instinctive perception of character. Her eye flashed with delight at the
+line Perrin was now taking with Raynal. The latter speedily justified
+her expectations: he just told Perrin to be off, and send him a more
+accommodating notary.
+
+“A more accommodating notary!” screamed Perrin, stung to madness by
+this reproach. “There is not a more accommodating notary in Europe.
+Ungrateful man! is this the return for all my zeal, my integrity, my
+unselfishness? Is there another agent in the world who would have let
+such a bargain as Beaurepaire fall into your hands? It serves me right
+for deviating from the rules of business. Send me another agent--oh!”
+
+The honest soldier was confused. The lawyer’s eloquence overpowered
+him. He felt guilty. Josephine saw his simplicity, and made a cut with
+a woman’s two-edged sword. “Sir,” said she coolly, “do you not see it is
+an affair of money? This is his way of saying, Pay me handsomely for so
+unusual a commission.”
+
+“And I’ll pay him double,” cried Raynal, catching the idea; “don’t be
+alarmed, I’ll pay you for it.”
+
+“And my zeal, my devotion?”
+
+“Put ‘em in figures.”
+
+“And my prob--?”
+
+“Add it up.”
+
+“And my integ--?”
+
+“Add them together: and don’t bother me.”
+
+“I see! I see! my poor soldier. You are no match for a woman’s tongue.”
+
+“Nor, for a notary’s. Go to h---, and send in your bill!” roared the
+soldier in a fury. “Well, will you go?” and he marched at him.
+
+The notary scuttled out, with something between a snarl and a squeak.
+
+Josephine hid her face in her hands.
+
+“What is the matter with you?” inquired Raynal. “Not crying again,
+surely!”
+
+“Me! I never cry--hardly. I hid my face because I could not help
+laughing. You frightened me, sir,” said she: then very demurely, “I was
+afraid you were going to beat him.”
+
+“No, no; a good soldier never leathers a civilian if he can possibly
+help it; it looks so bad; and before a lady!”
+
+“Oh, I would have forgiven you, monsieur,” said Josephine benignly, and
+something like a little sun danced in her eye.
+
+“Now, mademoiselle, since my referee has proved a pig, it is your turn.
+Choose you a mutual friend.”
+
+Josephine hesitated. “Ours is so young. You know him very well. You
+are doubtless the commandant of whom I once heard him speak with such
+admiration: his name is Riviere, Edouard Riviere.”
+
+“Know him? he is my best officer, out and out.” And without a moment’s
+hesitation he took Edouard’s present address, and accepted that youthful
+Daniel as their referee; then looked at his watch and marched off to his
+public duties with sabre clanking at his heels.
+
+The notary went home gnashing his teeth. His sweet revenge was turned to
+wormwood this day. Raynal’s parting commissions rang in his ear; in his
+bitter mood the want of logical sequence in the two orders disgusted
+him.
+
+So he inverted them.
+
+He sent in a thundering bill the very next morning, but postponed the
+other commission till his dying day.
+
+As for Josephine, she came into the drawing-room beaming with love
+and happiness, and after kissing both her mother and Rose with gentle
+violence, she let them know the strange turn things had taken.
+
+And she whispered to Rose, “Only think, YOUR Edouard to be OUR referee!”
+
+Rose blushed and bent over her work; and wondered how Edouard would
+discharge so grave an office.
+
+The matter approached a climax; for, as the reader is aware, Edouard was
+hourly expected at Beaurepaire.
+
+He did not come; but it was not his fault. On receiving Rose’s letter he
+declined to stay another hour at his uncle’s.
+
+He flung himself on his horse; and, before he was well settled on the
+stirrups, the animal shied violently at a wheelbarrow some fool had left
+there; and threw Edouard on the stones of the courtyard. He jumped up in
+a moment and laughed at Marthe’s terror; meantime a farm-servant caught
+the nag and brought him back to his work.
+
+But when Edouard went to put his hand on the saddle, he found it would
+not obey him. “Wait a minute,” said he; “my arm is benumbed.”
+
+“Let me see!” said the farmer, and examined the limb himself; “benumbed?
+yes; and no wonder. Jacques, get on the brute and ride for the surgeon.”
+
+“Are you mad, uncle?” cried Edouard. “I can’t spare my horse, and I want
+no surgeon; it will be well directly.”
+
+“It will be worse before it is better.”
+
+“I don’t know what you mean, uncle; it is only numbed, ah! it hurts when
+I rub it.”
+
+“It is worse than numbed, boy; it is broken.”
+
+“Broken? nonsense:” and he looked at it in piteous bewilderment: “how
+can it be broken? it does not hurt except when I touch it.”
+
+“It WILL hurt: I know all about it. I broke mine fifteen years ago: fell
+off a haystack.”
+
+“Oh, how unfortunate I am!” cried Edouard, piteously. “But I will go to
+Beaurepaire all the same. I can have the thing mended there, as well as
+here.”
+
+“You will go to bed,” said the old man, quietly; “that is where YOU’LL
+go.”
+
+“I’ll go to blazes sooner,” yelled the young one.
+
+The old man made a signal to his myrmidons, whom Marthe’s cries had
+brought around, and four stout fellows took hold of Edouard by the legs
+and the left shoulder and carried him up-stairs raging and kicking; and
+deposited him on a bed.
+
+Presently he began to feel faint, and so more reasonable. They cut his
+coat off, and put him in a loose wrapper, and after considerable delay
+the surgeon came, and set his arm skilfully, and behold this ardent
+spirit caged. He chafed and fretted sadly. Fortitude was not his forte.
+
+It was two days after his accident. He was lying on his back, environed
+by slops and cursing his evil fate, and fretting his soul out of its
+fleshly prison, when suddenly he heard a cheerful trombone saying three
+words to Marthe, then came a clink-clank, and Marthe ushered into the
+sickroom the Commandant Raynal. The sick man raised himself in bed, with
+great surprise and joy.
+
+“O commandant! this is kind to come and see your poor officer in
+purgatory.”
+
+“Ah,” cried Raynal, “you see I know what it is. I have been chained down
+by the arm, and the leg, and all: it is deadly tiresome.”
+
+“Tiresome! it is--it is--oh, dear commandant, Heaven bless you for
+coming!”
+
+“Ta! ta! ta! I am come on my own business.”
+
+“All the better. I have nothing to do; that is what kills me. I’m eating
+my own heart.”
+
+“Cannibal! Well, my lad, since you are in that humor, cheer up, for I
+bring you a job, and a tough one; it has puzzled me.”
+
+“What is it, commandant? What is it?”
+
+“Well, do you know a house and a family called Beaurepaire?”
+
+“Do I know Beaurepaire?”
+
+And the pale youth turned very red; and stared with awe at this wizard
+of a commandant. He thought he was going to be called over the coals for
+frequenting a disaffected family. “Well,” said Raynal, “I have been and
+bought this Beaurepaire.”
+
+Edouard uttered a loud exclamation. “It was YOU bought it! she never
+told me that.”
+
+“Yes,” said Raynal, “I am the culprit; and we have fixed on you to undo
+my work without hurting their pride too much, poor souls; but let us
+begin with the facts.”
+
+Then Raynal told him my story after his fashion. Of course I shall not
+go and print his version; you might like his concise way better than my
+verbose; and I’m not here to hold up any man’s coat-tails. Short as he
+made it, Edouard’s eyes were moist more than once; and at the end he
+caught Raynal’s hand and kissed it. Then he asked time to reflect;
+“for,” said he, “I must try and be just.”
+
+“I’ll give you an hour,” said Raynal, with an air of grand munificence.
+The only treasure he valued was time.
+
+In less than an hour Edouard had solved the knot, to his entire
+satisfaction; he even gave the commandant particular instructions for
+carrying out his sovereign decree. Raynal received these orders from
+his subordinate with that simplicity which formed part of his amazing
+character, and rode home relieved of all responsibility in the matter.
+
+
+COMMANDANT RAYNAL TO MADEMOISELLE DE BEAUREPAIRE.
+
+Mademoiselle,--Before I could find time to write to our referee, news
+came in that he had just broken his arm;--
+
+“Oh! oh, dear! our poor Edouard!”
+
+And if poor Edouard had seen the pale faces, and heard the faltering
+accents, it would have reconciled him to his broken arm almost. This
+hand-grenade the commandant had dropped so coolly among them, it was a
+long while ere they could recover from it enough to read the rest of the
+letter,--
+
+So I rode over to him, and found him on his back, fretting for want of
+something to do. I told him the whole story. He undertook the business.
+I have received his instructions, and next week shall be at his quarters
+to clear off his arrears of business, and make acquaintance with all
+your family, if they permit.
+
+RAYNAL.
+
+
+As the latter part of this letter seemed to require a reply, the
+baroness wrote a polite note, and Jacintha sent Dard to leave it for the
+commandant at Riviere’s lodgings. But first they all sat down and wrote
+kind and pitying and soothing letters to Edouard. Need I say these
+letters fell upon him like balm?
+
+They all inquired carelessly in their postscripts what he had decided
+as their referee. He replied mysteriously that they would know that in
+a week or two. Meantime, all he thought it prudent to tell them was that
+he had endeavored to be just to both parties.
+
+“Little solemn puppy,” said Rose, and was racked with curiosity.
+
+Next week Raynal called on the baroness. She received him alone. They
+talked about Madame Raynal. The next day he dined with the whole party,
+and the commandant’s manners were the opposite of what the baroness
+had inculcated. But she had a strong prejudice in his favor. Had her
+feelings been the other way his brusquerie would have shocked her. It
+amused her. If people’s hearts are with you, THAT for their heads!
+
+He came every day for a week, chatted with the baroness, walked with the
+young ladies; and when after work he came over in the evening, Rose
+used to cross-examine him, and out came such descriptions of battles and
+sieges, such heroism and such simplicity mixed, as made the evening pass
+delightfully. On these occasions the young ladies fixed their glowing
+eyes on him, and drank in his character as well as his narrative, in
+which were fewer “I’s” than in anything of the sort you ever read or
+heard.
+
+At length Rose contrived to draw him aside, and, hiding her curiosity
+under feigned nonchalance, asked him what the referee had decided. He
+told her that was a secret for the present.
+
+“Well, but,” said Rose, “not from me. Edouard and I have no secrets.”
+
+“Come, that’s good,” said Raynal. “Why, you are the very one he warned
+me against the most; said you were as curious as Mother Eve, and as
+sharp as her needle.”
+
+“Then he is a little scurrilous traitor,” cried Rose, turning very red.
+“So that is how he talks of me behind my back, and calls me an angel to
+my face; I’ll pay him for this. Do tell me, commandant; never mind what
+HE says.”
+
+“What! disobey orders?”
+
+“Orders? to you from that boy!”
+
+“Oh!” said Raynal, “for that matter, we soldiers are used to command one
+moment, and obey the next.”
+
+In a word, this military pedant was impracticable, and Rose gave him up
+in disgust, and began to call up a sulky look when the other two sang
+his praises. For the old lady pronounced him charming, and Josephine
+said he was a man of crystal; never said a word he did not mean, and
+she wished she was like him. But the baroness thought this was going a
+little too far.
+
+“No, thank you,” said she hastily; “he is a man, a thorough man. He
+would make an intolerable woman. A fine life if one had a parcel of
+women about, all blurting out their real minds every moment, and never
+smoothing matters.”
+
+“Mamma, what a horrid picture!” chuckled Rose.
+
+She then proposed that at his next visit they should all three make an
+earnest appeal to him to let them know what Edouard had decided.
+
+But Josephine begged to be excused, feared it would be hardly delicate;
+and said languidly that for her part she felt they were in good hands,
+and prescribed patience. The baroness acquiesced, and poor Rose and her
+curiosity were baffled on every side.
+
+At last, one fine day, her torments were relieved without any further
+exertion on her part. Jacintha bounced into the drawing-room with a
+notice that the commandant wanted to speak to Josephine a minute out in
+the Pleasaunce.
+
+“How droll he is,” said Rose; “fancy sending in for a young lady like
+that. Don’t go, Josephine; how, he would stare.”
+
+“My dear, I no more dare disobey him than if I was one of his soldiers.”
+ And she laid down her work, and rose quietly to do what she was bid.
+
+“Well,” said Rose, superciliously, “go to your commanding officer. And,
+O Josephine, if you are worth anything at all, do get out of him what
+that Edouard has settled.”
+
+Josephine kissed her, and promised to try. After the first salutation,
+there was a certain hesitation about Raynal which Josephine had never
+seen a trace of in him before; so, to put him at his ease, and at the
+same time keep her promise to Rose, she asked timidly if their mutual
+friend had been able to suggest anything.
+
+“What! don’t you know that I have been acting all along upon his
+instructions?” answered Raynal.
+
+“No, indeed! and you have not told us what he advised.”
+
+“Told you? why, of course not; they were secret instructions. I
+have obeyed one set, and now I come to the other; and there is the
+difficulty, being a kind of warfare I know nothing about.”
+
+“It must be savage warfare, then,” suggested the lady politely.
+
+“Not a bit of it. Now, who would have thought I was such a coward?”
+
+Josephine was mystified; however, she made a shrewd guess. “Do you
+fear a repulse from any one of us? Then, I suppose, you meditate some
+extravagant act of generosity.”
+
+“Not I.”
+
+“Of delicacy, then.”
+
+“Just the reverse. Confound the young dog! why is he not here to help
+me?”
+
+“But, after all,” suggested Josephine, “you have only to carry out his
+instructions.”
+
+“That is true! that is true! but when a fellow is a coward, a poltroon,
+and all that sort of thing.”
+
+This repeated assertion of cowardice on the part of the living Damascus
+blade that stood bolt-upright before her, struck Josephine as so funny
+that she laughed merrily, and bade him fancy it was only a fort he
+was attacking instead of the terrible Josephine; whom none but heroes
+feared, she assured him.
+
+This encouragement, uttered in jest, was taken in earnest. The soldier
+thanked her, and rallied visibly at the comparison. “All right,” said
+he, “as you say, it is only a fort--so--mademoiselle!”
+
+“Monsieur!”
+
+“Hum! will you lend me your hand for a moment?”
+
+“My hand! what for? there,” and she put it out an inch a minute. He took
+it, and inspected it closely.
+
+“A charming hand; the hand of a virtuous woman?”
+
+“Yes,” said Josephine as cool as a cucumber, too sublimely and absurdly
+innocent even to blush.
+
+“Is it your own?”
+
+“Sir!” She blushed at that, I can tell you.
+
+“Because if it was, I would ask you to give it me. (I’ve fired the first
+shot anyway.)”
+
+Josephine whipped her hand off his palm, where it lay like cream spilt
+on a trencher.
+
+“Ah! I see; you are not free: you have a lover.”
+
+“No, no!” cried Josephine in distress; “I love nobody but my mother and
+sister: I never shall.”
+
+“Your mother,” cried Raynal; “that reminds me; he told me to ask her;
+by Jove, I think he told me to ask her first;” and Raynal up with his
+scabbard and was making off.
+
+Josephine begged him to do nothing of the kind.
+
+“I can save you the trouble,” said she.
+
+“Ah, but my instructions! my instructions!” cried the military pedant,
+and ran off into the house, and left Josephine “planted there,” as they
+say in France.
+
+Raynal demanded a private interview of the baroness so significantly
+and unceremoniously that Rose had no alternative but to retire, but not
+without a glance of defiance at the bear. She ran straight, without her
+bonnet, into the Pleasaunce to slake her curiosity at Josephine. That
+young lady was walking pensively, but turned at sight of Rose, and the
+sisters came together with a clash of tongues.
+
+“O Rose! he has”--
+
+“Oh!”
+
+So nimbly does the female mind run on its little beaten tracks, that it
+took no more than those syllables for even these innocent young women to
+communicate that Raynal had popped.
+
+Josephine apologized for this weakness in a hero. “It wasn’t his fault,”
+ said she. “It is your Edouard who set him to do it.”
+
+“My Edouard? Don’t talk in that horrid way: I have no Edouard. You said
+‘no’ of course.”
+
+“Something of the kind.”
+
+“What, did you not say ‘no’ plump?”
+
+“I did not say it brutally, dear.”
+
+“Josephine, you frighten me. I know you can’t say ‘no’ to any one; and
+if you don’t say ‘no’ plump to such a man as this, you might as well say
+‘yes.’”
+
+“Well, love,” said Josephine, “you know our mother will relieve me of
+this; what a comfort to have a mother!”
+
+They waited for Raynal’s departure, to go to the baroness. They had
+to wait a long time. Moreover, when he did leave the chateau he came
+straight into the Pleasaunce. At sight of him Rose seized Josephine
+tight and bade her hold her tongue, as she could not say “no” plump
+to any one. Josephine was far from raising any objection to the
+arrangement.
+
+“Monsieur,” said Rose, before he could get a word out, “even if she had
+not declined, I could not consent.”
+
+Raynal tapped his forehead reflectively, and drew forth from memory that
+he had no instructions whatever to ask HER consent.
+
+She colored high, but returned to the charge.
+
+“Is her own consent to be dispensed with too? She declined the honor,
+did she not?”
+
+“Of course she did; but this was anticipated in my instructions. I am to
+be sure and not take the first two or three refusals.”
+
+“O Josephine, look at that insolent boy: he has found you out.”
+
+“Insolent boy!” cried Raynal; “why, it is the referee of your own
+choosing, and as well behaved a lad as ever I saw, and a zealous
+officer.”
+
+“My kind friends,” put in Josephine with a sweet languor, “I cannot let
+you quarrel about a straw.”
+
+“It is not about a straw,” said Raynal, “it is about you.”
+
+“The distinction involves a compliment, sir,” said Josephine; then she
+turned to Rose, “Is it possible you do not see Monsieur Raynal’s strange
+proposal in its true light? and you so shrewd in general. He has no
+personal feeling whatever in this eccentric proceeding: he wants to make
+us all happy, especially my mother, without seeming to lay us under too
+great an obligation. Surely good-nature was never carried so far before;
+ha, ha! Monsieur, I will encumber you with my friendship forever, if you
+permit me, but farther than that I will not abuse your generosity.”
+
+“Now look here, mademoiselle,” began Raynal bluntly, “I did start with
+a good motive at first, that there’s no denying. But, since I have been
+every day in your company, and seen how good and kind you are to all
+about you, I have turned selfish; and I say to myself, what a comfort
+such a wife as you would be to a soldier! Why, only to have you to
+write letters home to, would be worth half a fellow’s pay. Do you know
+sometimes when I see the fellows writing their letters it gives me a
+knock here to think I have no one at all to write to.”
+
+Josephine sighed.
+
+“So you see I am not so mighty disinterested. Now, mademoiselle, you
+speak so charmingly, I can’t tell what you mean: can’t tell whether
+you say ‘no’ because you could never like me, or whether it is out of
+delicacy, and you only want pressing. So I say no more at present: it is
+a standing offer. Take a day to consider. Take two if you like. I must
+go to the barracks; good-day.”
+
+“Oh! this must be put an end to at once,” said Rose.
+
+“With all my heart,” replied Josephine; “but how?”
+
+“Come to our mother, and settle that,” said the impetuous sister, and
+nearly dragged the languid one into the drawing-room.
+
+To their surprise they found the baroness walking up and down the room
+with unusual alacrity for a person of her years. She no sooner caught
+sight of Josephine than she threw her arms open to her with joyful
+vivacity, and kissed her warmly. “My love, you have saved us. I am a
+happy old woman. If I had all France to pick from I could not have found
+a man so worthy of my Josephine. He is brave, he is handsome, he is
+young, he is a rising man, he is a good son, and good sons make good
+husbands--and--I shall die at Beaurepaire, shall I not, Madame the
+Commandante?”
+
+Josephine held her mother round the neck, but never spoke. After a
+silence she held her tighter, and cried a little.
+
+“What is it?” asked the baroness confidentially of Rose, but without
+showing any very profound concern.
+
+“Mamma! mamma! she does not love him.”
+
+“Love him? She would be no daughter of mine if she loved a man at sight.
+A modest woman loves her husband only.”
+
+“But she scarcely knows Monsieur Raynal.”
+
+“She knows more of him than I knew of your father when I married him.
+She knows his virtues and appreciates them. I have heard her, have
+I not, love? Esteem soon ripens into love when they are once fairly
+married.”
+
+“Mother, does her silence then tell you nothing? Her tears--are they
+nothing to you?”
+
+“Silly child! These are tears that do not scald. The sweet soul weeps
+because she now for the first time sees she will have to leave her
+mother. Alas! my eldest, it is inevitable. Mothers are not immortal.
+While they are here it is their duty to choose good husbands for their
+daughters. My youngest, I believe, has chosen for herself--like the
+nation. But for my eldest I choose. We shall see which chooses the best.
+Meantime we stay at Beaurepaire, thanks to my treasure here.”
+
+“Josephine! Josephine! you don’t say one word,” cried Rose in dismay.
+
+“What CAN I say? I love my mother and I love you. You draw me different
+ways. I want you to be both happy.”
+
+“Then if you will not speak out I must. Mother, do not deceive yourself:
+it is duty alone that keeps her silent: this match is odious to her.”
+
+“Then we are ruined. Josephine, is this match odious to you?”
+
+“Not exactly odious: but I am very, very indifferent.”
+
+“There!” cried Rose triumphantly.
+
+“There!” cried the baroness in the same breath, triumphantly. “She
+esteems his character; but his person is indifferent to her: in other
+words, she is a modest girl, and my daughter; and let me tell you, Rose,
+that but for the misfortunes of our house, both my daughters would be
+married as I was, without knowing half as much of their husbands as
+Josephine knows of this brave, honest, generous, filial gentleman.”
+
+“Well, then, since she will not speak out, I will. Pity me: I love her
+so. If this stranger, whom she does not love, takes her away from us, he
+will kill me. I shall die; oh!”
+
+Josephine left her mother and went to console Rose.
+
+The baroness lost her temper at this last stroke of opposition. “Now
+the truth comes out, Rose; this is selfishness. Do not deceive
+YOURself--selfishness!”
+
+“Mamma!”
+
+“You are only waiting to leave me yourself. Yet your eldest sister,
+forsooth, must be kept here for you,--till then.” She added more gently,
+“Let me advise you to retire to your own room, and examine your heart
+fairly. You will find there is a strong dash of egoism in all this.”
+
+“If I do”--
+
+“You will retract your opposition.”
+
+“My heart won’t let me; but I will despise myself, and be silent.”
+
+And the young lady, who had dried her eyes the moment she was accused
+of selfishness, walked, head erect, from the room. Josephine cast a
+deprecating glance at her mother. “Yes, my angel!” said the latter, “I
+was harsh. But we are no longer of one mind, and I suppose never shall
+be again.”
+
+“Oh, yes, we shall. Be patient! Mother--you shall not leave
+Beaurepaire.”
+
+The baroness colored faintly at these four last words of her daughter,
+and hung her head.
+
+Josephine saw that, and darted to her and covered her with kisses.
+
+That day the doctor scolded them both. “You have put your mother into
+a high fever,” said he; “here’s a pulse; I do wish you would be more
+considerate.”
+
+The commandant did not come to dinner as usual. The evening passed
+heavily; their hearts were full of uncertainty.
+
+“We miss our merry, spirited companion,” said the baroness with a grim
+look at Rose. Both young ladies assented with ludicrous eagerness.
+
+That night Rose came and slept with Josephine, and more than once she
+awoke with a start and seized Josephine convulsively and held her tight.
+
+Accused of egoism! at first her whole nature rose in arms against the
+charge: but, after a while, coming as it did from so revered a person,
+it forced her to serious self-examination. The poor girl said to
+herself, “Mamma is a shrewd woman. Am I after all deceiving myself?
+Would she be happy, and am I standing in the way?” In the morning she
+begged her sister to walk with her in the park, so that they might be
+safe from interruption.
+
+There, she said sadly, she could not understand her own sister. “Why are
+you so calm and cold, while am I in tortures of anxiety? Have you made
+some resolve and not confided it to your Rose?”
+
+“No, love,” was the reply; “I am scarce capable of a resolution; I am a
+mere thing that drifts.”
+
+“Let me put it in other words, then. How will this end?”
+
+“I hardly know.”
+
+“Do you mean to marry Monsieur Raynal, then? answer me that.”
+
+“No; but I should not wonder if he were to marry ME.”
+
+“But you said ‘no.’”
+
+“Yes, I said ‘no’ once.”
+
+“And don’t you mean to say it again, and again, and again, till kingdom
+come?”
+
+“What is the use? you heard him say he would not desist any the
+more, and I care too little about the matter to go on persisting, and
+persisting, and persisting.”
+
+“Why not, if he goes on pestering, and pestering, and pestering?”
+
+“Ah, he is like you, all energy, at all hours; but I have so little
+where my heart is unconcerned: he seems, too, to have a wish! I have
+none either way, and my conscience says ‘marry him!’”
+
+“Your conscience say marry one man when you love another?”
+
+“Heaven forbid! Rose, I love no one: I HAVE loved; but now my heart is
+dead and silent; only my conscience says, ‘You are the cause of all your
+mother’s trouble; you are the cause that Beaurepaire was sold. Now you
+can repair that mischief, and at the same time make a brave man happy,
+our benefactor happy.’ It is a great temptation: I hardly know why I
+said ‘no’ at all; surprise, perhaps--or to please you, pretty one.”
+
+Rose groaned: “Are you then worth so little that you would throw
+yourself away on a man who does not love you, nor want you, and is quite
+as happy single?”
+
+“No; not happy; he is only stout-hearted and good, and therefore
+content; and he is a character that it would be easy--in short, I feel
+my power here: I could make that man happy; he has nobody to write to
+even, when he is away--poor fellow!”
+
+“I shall lose all patience,” cried Rose; “you are at your old trick,
+thinking of everybody but yourself: I let you do it in trifles, but I
+love you too well to permit it when the happiness of your whole life is
+at stake. I must be satisfied on one point, or else this marriage shall
+never take place: just answer me this; if Camille Dujardin stood on one
+side, and Monsieur Raynal on the other, and both asked your hand, which
+would you take?”
+
+“That will never be. Whose? Not his whom I despise. Esteem might ripen
+into love, but what must contempt end in?”
+
+This reply gave Rose great satisfaction. To exhaust all awkward
+contingencies, she said, “One question more, and I have done. Suppose
+Camille should turn out--be not quite--what shall I say--inexcusable?”
+
+At this unlucky gush, Josephine turned pale, then red, then pale again,
+and cried eagerly, “Then all the world should not part us. Why torture
+me with such a question? Ah! you have heard something.” And in a moment
+the lava of passion burst wildly through its thin sheet of ice. “I was
+blind. This is why you would save me from this unnatural marriage.
+You are breaking the good news to me by degrees. There is no need.
+Quick--quick--let me have it. I have waited three years; I am sick of
+waiting. Why don’t you speak? Why don’t you tell me? Then I will tell
+YOU. He is alive--he is well--he is coming. It was not he those soldiers
+saw; they were so far off. How could they tell? They saw a uniform but
+not a face. Perhaps he has been a prisoner, and so could not write;
+could not come: but he is coming now. Why do you groan? why do you turn
+pale? ah! I see; I have once more deceived myself. I was mad. He I love
+is still a traitor to France and me, and I am wretched forever. Oh! that
+I were dead! oh! that I were dead! No; don’t speak to me: never mind me;
+this madness will pass as it has before, and leave me a dead thing
+among the living. Ah! sister, why did you wake me from my dream? I was
+drifting so calmly, so peacefully, so dead, and painless, drifting over
+the dead sea of the heart towards the living waters of gratitude and
+duty. I was going to make more than one worthy soul happy; and seeing
+them happy, I should have been content and useful--what am I now?--and
+comforted other hearts, and died joyful--and young. For God is good; he
+releases the meek and patient from their burdens.”
+
+With this came a flood of tears; and she leaned against a bough with her
+forehead on her arm, bowed like a wounded lily.
+
+“Accursed be that man’s name, and MY tongue if ever I utter it again in
+your hearing!” cried Rose, weeping bitterly. “You are wiser than I, and
+every way better. O my darling, dry your tears! Here he comes: look!
+riding across the park.”
+
+“Rose,” cried Josephine, hastily, “I leave all to you. Receive Monsieur
+Raynal, and decline his offer if you think proper. It is you who love me
+best. My mother would give me up for a house; for an estate, poor dear.”
+
+“I would not give you for all the world.”
+
+“I know it. I trust all to you.”
+
+“Well, but don’t go; stay and hear what I shall say.”
+
+“Oh, no; that poor man is intolerable to me NOW. Let me avoid his sight,
+and think of his virtues.”
+
+Rose was left alone, mistress of her sister’s fate. She put her head
+into her hands and filled with anxiety and sudden doubt.
+
+Like a good many more of us, she had been positive so long as the
+decision did not rest with her. But with power comes responsibility,
+with responsibility comes doubt. Easy to be an advocate in re incerta;
+hard to be the judge. And she had but a few seconds to think in; for
+Raynal was at hand. The last thing in her mind before he joined her was
+the terrible power of that base Camille over her sister. She despaired
+of curing Josephine, but a husband might. There’s such divinity doth
+hedge a husband in innocent girls’ minds.
+
+“Well, little lady,” began Raynal, “and how are you, and how is my
+mother-in-law that is to be--or is not to be, as your sister pleases;
+and how is SHE? have I frightened her away? There were two petticoats,
+and now there is but one.”
+
+“She left me to answer you.”
+
+“All the worse for me: I am not to your taste.”
+
+“Do not say that,” said Rose, almost hysterically.
+
+“Oh! it is no sacrilege. Not one in fifty likes me.”
+
+“But I do like you, sir.”
+
+“Then why won’t you let me have your sister?”
+
+“I have not quite decided that you shall not have her,” faltered poor
+Rose. She murmured on, “I dare say you think me very unkind, very
+selfish; but put yourself in my place. I love my sister as no man can
+ever love her, I know: my heart has been one flesh and one soul with
+hers all my life. A stranger comes and takes her away from me as if she
+was I don’t know what; his portmanteau; takes her to Egypt, oh! oh! oh!”
+
+Raynal comforted her.
+
+“What, do you think I am such a brute as to take that delicate creature
+about fighting with me? why, the hot sand would choke her, to begin.
+No. You don’t take my manoeuvre. I have no family; I try for a wife that
+will throw me in a mother and sister. You will live all together the
+same as before, of course; only you must let me make one of you when I
+am at home. And how often will that be? Besides, I am as likely to
+be knocked on the head in Egypt as not; you are worrying yourself for
+nothing, little lady.”
+
+He uttered the last topic of consolation in a broad, hearty, hilarious
+tone, like a trombone impregnated with cheerful views of fate.
+
+“Heaven forbid!” cried Rose: “and I will, for even I shall pray for you
+now. What you will leave her at home? forgive me for not seeing all your
+worth: of course I knew you were an angel, but I had no idea you were a
+duck. You are just the man for my sister. She likes to obey: you are all
+for commanding. So you see. Then she never thinks of herself; any other
+man but you would impose on her good-nature; but you are too generous
+to do that. So you see. Then she esteems you so highly. And one whom I
+esteem (between you and me) has chosen you for her.”
+
+“Then say yes, and have done with it,” suggested the straightforward
+soldier.
+
+“Why should I say ‘no?’ you will make one another happy some day: you
+are both so good. Any other man but you would tear her from me; but you
+are too just, too kind. Heaven will reward you. No! I will. I will give
+you Josephine: ah, my dear brother-in-law, it is the most precious thing
+I have to give in the world.”
+
+“Thank you, then. So that is settled. Hum! no, it is not quite; I
+forgot; I have something for you to read; an anonymous letter. I got it
+this morning; it says your sister has a lover.”
+
+The letter ran to this tune: a friend who had observed the commandant’s
+frequent visits at Beaurepaire wrote to warn him against traps. Both
+the young ladies of Beaurepaire were doubtless at the new proprietor’s
+service to pick and choose from. But for all that each of them had a
+lover, and though these lovers had their orders to keep out of the way
+till monsieur should be hooked, he might be sure that if he married
+either, the man of her heart would come on the scene soon after, perhaps
+be present at the wedding.
+
+In short, it was one of those poisoned arrows a coarse vindictive coward
+can shoot.
+
+It was the first anonymous letter Rose had ever seen. It almost drove
+her mad on the spot. Raynal was sorry he had let her see it.
+
+She turned red and white by turns, and gasped for breath.
+
+“Why am I not a man?--why don’t I wear a sword? I would pass it through
+this caitiff’s heart. The cowardly slave!--the fiend! for who but a
+fiend could slander an angel like my Josephine? Hooked? Oh! she will
+never marry you if she sees this.”
+
+“Then don’t let her see it: and why take it to heart like that? I don’t
+trust to the word of a man who owns that his story is a thing he dares
+not sign his name to; at all events, I shall not put his word against
+yours. But it is best to understand one another in time. I am a plain
+man, but not a soft one. I should not be an easygoing husband like some
+I see about: I’d have no wasps round my honey; if my wife took a lover I
+would not lecture THE WOMAN--what is the use?--I’d kill THE MAN then and
+there, in-doors or out, as I would kill a snake. If she took another,
+I’d send him after the first, and so on till one killed me.”
+
+“And serve the wretches right.”
+
+“Yes; but for my own sake I don’t choose to marry a woman that loves any
+other man. So tell me the plain truth; come.”
+
+Rose turned chill in her inside. “I have no lover,” she stammered. “I
+have a young fool that comes and teases me: but it is no secret. He is
+away, but why? he is on a sickbed, poor little fellow!”
+
+“But your sister? She could not have a lover unknown to you.”
+
+“I defy her. No, sir; I have not seen her speak three words to any young
+man except Monsieur Riviere this three years past.”
+
+“That is enough;” and he tore the letter quietly to atoms.
+
+Then Rose saw she could afford a little more candor. “Understand me; I
+can’t speak of what happened when I was a child. But if ever she had a
+girlish attachment, he has not followed it up, or surely I should have
+seen something of him all these years.”
+
+“Of course. Oh! as for flirtations, let them pass: a lovely girl does
+not grow up without one or two whispering some nonsense into her ear.
+Why, I myself should have flirted no doubt; but I never had the time.
+Bonaparte gives you time to eat and drink, but not to sleep or
+flirt, and that reminds me I have fifty miles to ride, so good-by,
+sister-in-law, eh?”
+
+“Adieu, brother-in-law.”
+
+Left alone, Rose had some misgivings. She had equivocated with one whose
+upright, candid nature ought to have protected him: but an enemy had
+accused Josephine; and it came so natural to shield her. “Did he really
+think I would expose my own sister?” said she to herself, angrily. Was
+not this anger secret self-discontent?
+
+
+“Well, love,” said Josephine, demurely, “have you dismissed him?”
+
+“No.”
+
+Josephine smiled feebly. “It is easy to say ‘say no;’ but it is not so
+easy to say ‘no,’ especially when you feel you ought to say ‘yes,’ and
+have no wish either way except to give pleasure to others.”
+
+“But I am not such skim milk as all that,” replied Rose: “I have always
+a strong wish where you are concerned, and your happiness. I hesitated
+whilst I was in doubt, but I doubt no longer: I have had a long talk
+with him. He has shown me his whole heart: he is the best, the noblest
+of creatures: he has no littleness or meanness. And then he is a
+thorough man; I know that by his being the very opposite of a woman in
+his ways. Now you are a thorough woman, and so you will suit one another
+to a T. I have decided: so no more doubts, love; no more tears; no more
+disputes. We are all of one mind, and I do think I have secured your
+happiness. It will not come in a day, perhaps, but it will come. So then
+in one little fortnight you marry Monsieur Raynal.”
+
+“What!” said Josephine, “you have actually settled that?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“But are you sure I can make him as happy as he deserves?”
+
+“Positive.”
+
+“I think so too; still”--
+
+“It is settled, dear,” said Rose soothingly.
+
+“Oh, the comfort of that! you relieve me of a weight; you give me peace.
+I shall have duties; I shall do some good in the world. They were all
+for it but you before, were they not?”
+
+“Yes, and now I am strongest for it of them all. Josephine, it is
+settled.”
+
+Josephine looked at her for a moment in silence, then said eagerly,
+“Bless you, dear Rose; you have saved your sister;” then, after a
+moment, in a very different voice, “O Camille! Camille! why have you
+deserted me?”
+
+And with this she fell to sobbing terribly. Rose wept on her neck,
+but said nothing. She too was a woman, and felt that this was the last
+despairing cry of love giving up a hopeless struggle.
+
+They sat twined together in silence till Jacintha came to tell them it
+was close upon dinner-time; so then they hastened to dry their tears and
+wash their red eyes, for fear their mother should see what they had been
+at, and worry herself.
+
+
+“Well, mademoiselle, these two consent; but what do you say? for after
+all, it is you I am courting, and not them. Have you the courage to
+venture on a rough soldier like me?”
+
+This delicate question was put point-blank before the three ladies.
+
+“Sir,” replied Josephine timidly, “I will be as frank, as
+straightforward as you are. I thank you for the honor you do me.”
+
+Raynal looked perplexed.
+
+“And does that mean ‘yes’ or ‘no’?”
+
+“Which you please,” said Josephine, hanging her sweet head.
+
+The wedding was fixed for that day fortnight. The next morning wardrobes
+were ransacked. The silk, muslin, and lace of their prosperous days were
+looked out: grave discussions were held over each work of art. Rose was
+active, busy, fussy. The baroness threw in the weight of her judgment
+and experience.
+
+Josephine managed to smile whenever either Rose or the baroness looked
+at all fixedly at her.
+
+So glided the peaceful days. So Josephine drifted towards the haven of
+wedlock.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+
+At Bayonne, a garrison town on the south frontier of France, two
+sentinels walked lethargically, crossing and recrossing before the
+governor’s house. Suddenly their official drowsiness burst into energy;
+for a pale, grisly man, in rusty, defaced, dirty, and torn regimentals,
+was walking into the courtyard as if it belonged to him. The sentinels
+lowered their muskets, and crossed them with a clash before the gateway.
+
+The scarecrow did not start back. He stopped and looked down with a
+smile at the steel barrier the soldiers had improvised for him, then
+drew himself a little up, carried his hand carelessly to his cap, which
+was nearly in two, and gave the name of an officer in the French army.
+
+If you or I, dressed like a beggar who years ago had stolen regimentals
+and worn them down to civil garments, had addressed these soldiers with
+these very same words, the bayonets would have kissed closer, or perhaps
+the points been turned against our sacred and rusty person: but there is
+a freemasonry of the sword. The light, imperious hand that touched that
+battered cap, and the quiet clear tone of command told. The sentinels
+slowly recovered their pieces, but still looked uneasy and doubtful in
+their minds. The battered one saw this, and gave a sort of lofty smile;
+he turned up his cuffs and showed his wrists, and drew himself still
+higher.
+
+The sentinels shouldered their pieces sharp, then dropped them
+simultaneously with a clatter and ring upon the pavement.
+
+“Pass, captain.”
+
+The rusty figure rang the governor’s bell. A servant came and eyed
+him with horror and contempt. He gave his name, and begged to see the
+governor. The servant left him in the hall, and went up-stairs to tell
+his master. At the name the governor reflected, then frowned, then bade
+his servant reach him down a certain book. He inspected it. “I thought
+so: any one with him?”
+
+“No, your excellency.”
+
+“Load my pistols, put them on the table, show him in, and then order a
+guard to the door.”
+
+The governor was a stern veteran with a powerful brow, a shaggy eyebrow,
+and a piercing eye. He never rose, but leaned his chin on his hand, and
+his elbow on a table that stood between them, and eyed his visitor very
+fixedly and strangely. “We did not expect to see you on this side the
+Pyrenees,” said he gravely.
+
+“Nor I myself, governor.”
+
+“What do you come for?”
+
+“A suit of regimentals, and money to take me to Paris.”
+
+“And suppose, instead of that, I turn out a corporal’s guard, and bid
+them shoot you in the courtyard?”
+
+“It would be the drollest thing you ever did, all things considered,”
+ said the other coolly, but bitterly.
+
+The governor looked for the book he had lately consulted, found the
+page, handed it to the rusty officer, and watched him keenly: the blood
+rushed all over his face, and his lip trembled; but his eye dwelt stern
+yet sorrowful on the governor.
+
+“I have read your book, now read mine.” He drew off his coat and showed
+his wrists and arms, blue and waled. “Can you read that, sir?”
+
+“No.”
+
+“All the better for you: Spanish fetters, general.” He showed a white
+scar on his shoulder. “Can you read that? This is what I cut out of it,”
+ and he handed the governor a little round stone as big and almost as
+regular as a musket-ball.
+
+“Humph! that could hardly have been fired from a French musket.”
+
+“Can you read this?” and he showed him a long cicatrix on his other arm.
+
+“Knife I think,” said the governor.
+
+“You are right, sir: Spanish knife. Can you read this?” and opening his
+bosom he showed a raw wound on his breast.
+
+“Oh, the devil!” cried the governor.
+
+The wounded man put his rusty coat on again, and stood erect, and
+haughty, and silent.
+
+The general eyed him, and saw his great spirit shining through this man.
+The more he looked the less could the scarecrow veil the hero from his
+practised eye. He said there must be some mistake, or else he was in
+his dotage; after a moment’s hesitation, he added, “Be seated, if you
+please, and tell me what you have been doing all these years.”
+
+“Suffering.”
+
+“Not all the time, I suppose.”
+
+“Without intermission.”
+
+“But what? suffering what?”
+
+“Cold, hunger, darkness, wounds, solitude, sickness, despair, prison,
+all that man can suffer.”
+
+“Impossible! a man would be dead at that rate before this.”
+
+“I should have died a dozen deaths but for one thing; I had promised her
+to live.”
+
+There was a pause. Then the old soldier said gravely, but more kindly,
+to the young one, “Tell me the facts, captain” (the first time he had
+acknowledged his visitor’s military rank).
+
+An hour had scarce elapsed since the rusty figure was stopped by the
+sentinels at the gate, when two glittering officers passed out under
+the same archway, followed by a servant carrying a furred cloak. The
+sentinels presented arms. The elder of these officers was the governor:
+the younger was the late scarecrow, in a brand-new uniform belonging to
+the governor’s son. He shone out now in his true light; the beau ideal
+of a patrician soldier; one would have said he had been born with a
+sword by his side and drilled by nature, so straight and smart, yet easy
+he was in every movement. He was like a falcon, eye and all, only, as
+it were, down at the bottom of the hawk’s eye lay a dove’s eye. That
+compound and varying eye seemed to say, I can love, I can fight: I can
+fight, I can love, as few of you can do either.
+
+The old man was trying to persuade him to stay at Bayonne, until his
+wound should be cured.
+
+“No, general, I have other wounds to cure of longer standing than this
+one.”
+
+“Well, promise me to lay up at Paris.”
+
+“General, I shall stay an hour at Paris.”
+
+“An hour in Paris! Well, at least call at the War Office and present
+this letter.”
+
+That same afternoon, wrapped in the governor’s furred cloak, the young
+officer lay at his full length in the coupe of the diligence, the whole
+of which the governor had peremptorily demanded for him, and rolled day
+and night towards Paris.
+
+He reached it worn with fatigue and fevered by his wound, but his spirit
+as indomitable as ever. He went to the War Office with the governor’s
+letter. It seemed to create some little sensation; one functionary came
+and said a polite word to him, then another. At last to his infinite
+surprise the minister himself sent down word he wished to see him; the
+minister put several questions to him, and seemed interested in him and
+touched by his relation.
+
+“I think, captain, I shall have to send to you: where do you stay in
+Paris?”
+
+“Nowhere, monsieur; I leave Paris as soon as I can find an easy-going
+horse.”
+
+“But General Bretaux tells me you are wounded.”
+
+“Not dangerously.”
+
+“Pardon me, captain, but is this prudent? is it just to yourself and
+your friends?”
+
+“Yes, I owe it to those who perhaps think me dead.”
+
+“You can write to them.”
+
+“I grudge so great, so sacred a joy to a letter. No! after all I have
+suffered I claim to be the one to tell her I have kept my word: I
+promised to live, and I live.”
+
+“HER? then I say no more, only tell me what road you take.”
+
+“The road to Brittany.”
+
+As the young officer was walking his horse by the roadside about a
+league and a half from Paris, he heard a clatter behind him, and up
+galloped an aide-de-camp and drew up alongside, bringing his horse
+nearly on his haunches.
+
+He handed him a large packet sealed with the arms of France. The other
+tore it open; and there was his brevet as colonel. His cheek flushed
+and his eye glittered with joy. The aide-de-camp next gave him a parcel:
+“Your epaulets, colonel! We hear you are going into the wilds where
+epaulets don’t grow. You are to join the army of the Rhine as soon as
+your wound is well.”
+
+“Wherever my country calls me.”
+
+“Your address, then, colonel, that we may know where to put our finger
+on a tried soldier when we want one.”
+
+“I am going to Beaurepaire.”
+
+“Beaurepaire? I never heard of it.”
+
+“You never heard of Beaurepaire? it is in Brittany, forty-five leagues
+from Paris, forty-three leagues and a half from here.”
+
+“Good! Health and honor to you, colonel.”
+
+“The same to you, lieutenant; or a soldier’s death.”
+
+The new colonel read the precious document across his horse’s mane, and
+then he was going to put one of the epaulets on his right shoulder, bare
+at present: but he reflected.
+
+“No; she should make him a colonel with her own dear hand. He put them
+in his pocket. He would not even look at them till she had seen them.
+Oh, how happy he was not only to come back to her alive, but to come
+back to her honored.”
+
+His wound smarted, his limbs ached, but no pain past or present could
+lay hold of his mind. In his great joy he remembered past suffering
+and felt present pain--yet smiled. Only every now and then he pined for
+wings to shorten the weary road.
+
+He was walking his horse quietly, drooping a little over his saddle,
+when another officer well mounted came after him and passed him at a
+hand gallop with one hasty glance at his uniform, and went tearing on
+like one riding for his life.
+
+“Don’t I know that face?” said Dujardin.
+
+He cudgelled his memory, and at last he remembered it was the face of
+an old comrade. At least it strongly reminded him of one Jean Raynal who
+had saved his life in the Arno, when they were lieutenants together.
+
+Yes, it was certainly Raynal, only bronzed by service in some hot
+country.
+
+“Ah!” thought Camille; “I suppose I am more changed than he is; for he
+certainly did not recognize me at all. Now I wonder what that fellow has
+been doing all this time. What a hurry he was in! a moment more and
+I should have hailed him. Perhaps I may fall in with him at the next
+town.”
+
+He touched his horse with the spur, and cantered gently on, for trotting
+shook him more than he could bear. Even when he cantered he had to press
+his hand against his bosom, and often with the motion a bitterer pang
+than usual came and forced the water from his eyes; and then he smiled.
+His great love and his high courage made this reply to the body’s
+anguish. And still his eyes looked straight forward as at some object
+in the distant horizon, while he came gently on, his hand pressed to his
+bosom, his head drooping now and then, smiling patiently, upon the road
+to Beaurepaire.
+
+Oh! if anybody had told him that in five days his Josephine was to be
+married; and that the bronzed comrade, who had just galloped past him,
+was to marry her!
+
+
+At Beaurepaire they were making and altering wedding-dresses. Rose was
+excited, and even Josephine took a calm interest. Dress never goes for
+nothing with her sex. The chairs and tables were covered, and the floor
+was littered. The baroness was presiding over the rites of vanity, and
+telling them what she wore at her wedding, under Louis XV., with strict
+accuracy, and what we men should consider a wonderful effort of memory,
+when the Commandant Raynal came in like a cannon-ball, without
+any warning, and stood among them in a stiff, military attitude.
+Exclamations from all the party, and then a kind greeting, especially
+from the baroness.
+
+“We have been so dull without you, Jean.”
+
+“And I have missed you once or twice, mother-in-law, I can tell you.
+Well, I have got bad news; but you must consider we live in a busy time.
+To-morrow I start for Egypt.”
+
+Loud ejaculations from the baroness and Rose. Josephine put down her
+work quietly.
+
+The baroness sighed deeply, and the tears came into her eyes. “Oh,
+you must not be down-hearted, old lady,” shouted Raynal. “Why, I am as
+likely to come back from Egypt as not. It is an even chance, to say the
+least.”
+
+This piece of consolation completed the baroness’s unhappiness. She
+really had conceived a great affection for Raynal, and her heart had
+been set on the wedding.
+
+“Take away all that finery, girls,” said she bitterly; “we shall not
+want it for years. I shall not be alive when he comes home from Egypt.
+I never had a son--only daughters--the best any woman ever had; but a
+mother is not complete without a son, and I shall never live to have one
+now.”
+
+“I hate General Bonaparte,” said Rose viciously.
+
+“Hate my general?” groaned Raynal, looking down with a sort of
+superstitious awe and wonder at the lovely vixen. “Hate the best soldier
+the world ever saw?”
+
+“What do I care for his soldiership? He has put off our wedding. For how
+many years did you say?”
+
+“No; he has put it on.”
+
+In answer to the astonished looks this excited, he explained that the
+wedding was to have been in a week, but now it must be to-morrow at ten
+o’clock.
+
+The three ladies set up their throats together. “Tomorrow?”
+
+“To-morrow. Why, what do you suppose I left Paris for yesterday? left my
+duties even.”
+
+“What, monsieur?” asked Josephine, timidly, “did you ride all that
+way, and leave your duties MERELY TO MARRY ME?” and she looked a little
+pleased.
+
+“You are worth a great deal more trouble than that,” said Raynal simply.
+“Besides, I had passed my word, and I always keep my word.”
+
+“So do I,” said Josephine, a little proudly. “I will not go from it now,
+if you insist; but I confess to you, that such a proposal staggers me;
+so sudden--no preliminaries--no time to reflect; in short, there are so
+many difficulties that I must request you to reconsider the matter.”
+
+“Difficulties,” shouted Raynal with merry disdain; “there are none,
+unless you sit down and make them; we do more difficult things than
+this every day of our lives: we passed the bridge of Arcola in thirteen
+minutes; and we had not the consent of the enemy, as we have yours--have
+we not?”
+
+Her only reply was a look at her mother, to which the baroness replied
+by a nod; then turning to Raynal, “This empressement is very flattering;
+but I see no possibility: there is an etiquette we cannot altogether
+defy: there are preliminaries before a daughter of Beaurepaire can
+become a wife.”
+
+“There used to be all that, madam,” laughed Raynal, putting her down
+good-humoredly; “but it was in the days when armies came out and touched
+their caps to one another, and went back into winter quarters. Then the
+struggle was who could go slowest; now the fight is who can go fastest.
+Time and Bonaparte wait for nobody; and ladies and other strong
+places are taken by storm, not undermined a foot a month as under Noah
+Quartorze: let me cut this short, as time is short.”
+
+He then drew a little plan of a wedding campaign. “The carriages will be
+here at 9 A.M.,” said he; “they will whisk us down to the mayor’s
+house by a quarter to ten: Picard, the notary, meets us there with the
+marriage contract, to save time; the contract signed, the mayor will do
+the marriage at quick step out of respect for me--half an hour--quarter
+past ten; breakfast in the same house an hour and a quarter:--we mustn’t
+hurry a wedding breakfast--then ten minutes or so for the old fogies to
+waste in making speeches about our virtues--my watch will come out--my
+charger will come round--I rise from the table--embrace my dear old
+mother--kiss my wife’s hand--into the saddle--canter to Paris--roll to
+Toulon--sail to Egypt. But I shall leave a wife and a mother behind
+me: they will both send me a kind word now and then; and I will write
+letters to you all from Egypt, and when I come home, my wife and I will
+make acquaintance, and we will all be happy together: and if I am killed
+out there, don’t you go and fret your poor little hearts about it; it
+is a soldier’s lot sooner or later. Besides, you will find I have taken
+care of you; nobody shall come and turn you out of your quarters,
+even though Jean Raynal should be dead; I have got to meet Picard at
+Riviere’s on that very business--I am off.”
+
+He was gone as brusquely as he came.
+
+“Mother! sister!” cried Josephine, “help me to love this man.”
+
+“You need no help,” cried the baroness, with enthusiasm, “not love him,
+we should all be monsters.”
+
+Raynal came to supper looking bright and cheerful. “No more work to-day.
+I have nothing to do but talk; fancy that.”
+
+This evening Josephine de Beaurepaire, who had been silent and
+thoughtful, took a quiet opportunity, and purred in his ear, “Monsieur!”
+
+“Mademoiselle!” rang the trombone.
+
+“Am I not to go to Egypt?”
+
+“No.”
+
+Josephine drew back at this brusque reply like a sensitive plant. But
+she returned to the attack.
+
+“But is it not a wife’s duty to be by her husband’s side to look after
+his comfort--to console him when others vex him--to soothe him when he
+is harassed?”
+
+“Her first duty is to obey him.”
+
+“Certainly.”
+
+“Well, when I am your husband, I shall bid you stay with your mother and
+sister while I go to Egypt.”
+
+“I shall obey you.”
+
+He told her bluntly he thought none the worse of her for making the
+offer; but should not accept it.
+
+
+Camille Dujardin slept that night at a roadside inn about twelve miles
+from Beaurepaire, and not more than six from the town where the wedding
+was to take place next day.
+
+It was a close race.
+
+And the racers all unconscious of each other, yet spurred impartially by
+events that were now hurrying to a climax.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+
+The next day at sharp nine two carriages were at the door.
+
+But the ladies were not ready. Thus early in the campaign did they throw
+all into disorder. For so nicely had Raynal timed the several events
+that this threw him all into confusion. He stamped backwards and
+forwards, and twisted his mustaches, and swore. This enforced
+unpunctuality was a new torture to him. Jacintha told them he was angry,
+and that made them nervous and flurried, and their fingers strayed
+wildly among hooks and eyes, and all sorts of fastenings; they were not
+ready till half-past nine. Conscious they deserved a scolding, they sent
+Josephine down first to mollify. She dawned upon the honest soldier so
+radiant, so dazzling in her snowy dress, with her coronet of pearls (an
+heirloom), and her bridal veil parted, and the flush of conscious beauty
+on her cheek, that instead of scolding her, he actually blurted out,
+“Well! by St. Denis it was worth waiting half an hour for.”
+
+He recovered a quarter of an hour by making the driver gallop. Then
+occasional shrieks issued from the carriage that held the baroness. That
+ancient lady feared annihilation: she had not come down from a galloping
+age.
+
+They drove into the town, drew up at the mayor’s house, were received
+with great ceremony by that functionary and Picard, and entered the
+house.
+
+When their carriages rattled into the street from the north side,
+Colonel Dujardin had already entered it from the south, and was riding
+at a foot’s pace along the principal street. The motion of his horse now
+shook him past endurance. He dismounted at an inn a few doors from the
+mayor’s house, and determined to do the rest of the short journey on
+foot. The landlord bustled about him obsequiously. “You are faint,
+colonel; you have travelled too far. Let me order you an excellent
+breakfast.”
+
+“No. I want a carriage; have you one?”
+
+“I have two; but, unluckily, they are both engaged for the day, and by
+people of distinction. Commandant Raynal is married to-day.”
+
+“Ah! I wish him joy,” said Camille, heartily. He then asked the landlord
+to open the window, as he felt rather faint. The landlord insisted on
+breakfast, and Camille sat down to an omelet and a bottle of red wine.
+Then he lay awhile near the window, revived by the air, and watched
+the dear little street he had not seen for years. He felt languid, but
+happy, celestially happy.
+
+She was a few doors from him, and neither knew it.
+
+A pen was put into her white hand, and in another moment she had signed
+a marriage contract.
+
+“Now to the church,” cried the baroness, gayly. To get to the church,
+they must pass by the window Camille reclined at.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+
+“Oh! there’s no time for that,” said Raynal. And as the baroness looked
+horrified and amazed, Picard explained: “The state marries its citizens
+now, with reason: since marriage is a civil contract.”
+
+“Marriage a civil contract!” repeated the baroness. “What, is it then no
+longer one of the holy sacraments? What horrible impiety shall we come
+to next? Unhappy France! Such a contract would never be a marriage in my
+eyes: and what would become of an union the Church had not blessed?”
+
+“Madame,” said Picard, “the Church can bless it still; but it is only
+the mayor here that can DO it.”
+
+All this time Josephine was blushing scarlet, and looking this way
+and that, with a sort of instinctive desire to fly and hide, no matter
+where, for a week or so.
+
+“Haw! haw! haw!” roared Raynal; “here is a pretty mother. Wants her
+daughter to be unlawfully married in a church, instead of lawfully in a
+house. Give me the will!”
+
+“Look here, mother-in-law: I have left Beaurepaire to my lawful wife.”
+
+“Otherwise,” put in Picard, “in case of death, it would pass to his
+heir-at-law.”
+
+“And HE would turn you all out, and that does not suit me. Now there
+stands the only man who can make mademoiselle my LAWFUL wife. So quick
+march, monsieur the mayor, for time and Bonaparte wait for no man.”
+
+“Stay a minute, young people,” said the mayor. “We should soothe
+respectable prejudices, not crush them. Madam, I am at least as old as
+you, and have seen many changes. I perfectly understand your feelings.”
+
+“Ah, monsieur! oh!”
+
+“Calm yourself, dear madam; the case is not so bad as you think. It is
+perfectly true that in republican France the civil magistrate alone can
+bind French citizens in lawful wedlock. But this does not annihilate the
+religious ceremony. You can ask the Church’s blessing on my work; and be
+assured you are not the only one who retains that natural prejudice. Out
+of every ten couples that I marry, four or five go to church afterwards
+and perform the ancient ceremonies. And they do well. For there before
+the altar the priest tells them what it is not my business to dilate
+upon--the grave moral and religious duties they have undertaken along
+with this civil contract. The state binds, but the Church still blesses,
+and piously assents to that”--
+
+“From which she has no power to dissent.”
+
+“Monsieur Picard, do you consider it polite to interrupt the chief
+magistrate of the place while he is explaining the law to a citizen?”
+
+(This closed Picard.)
+
+“I married a daughter last year,” continued the worthy mayor.
+
+“What, after this fashion?”
+
+“I married her myself, as I will marry yours, if you will trust me with
+her. And after I have made them one, there is nothing to prevent them
+adjourning to the church.”
+
+“I beg your pardon,” cried Raynal, “there are two things to prevent it:
+a couple that wait for no man: Time and Bonaparte. Come, sir; marry us,
+and have done with it.”
+
+The mayor assented. He invited Josephine to stand before him. She
+trembled and wept a little: Rose clung to her and wept, and the good
+mayor married the parties off hand.
+
+“Is that all?” asked the baroness; “it is terribly soon done.”
+
+“It is done effectively, madam,” said the mayor, with a smile. “Permit
+me to tell you that his Holiness the Pope cannot undo my work.”
+
+Picard grinned slyly, and whispered something into Raynal’s ear.
+
+“Oh! indeed,” said Raynal aloud and carelessly. “Come, Madame Raynal, to
+breakfast: follow us, the rest of you.”
+
+They paired, and followed the bride and bridegroom into the
+breakfast-room.
+
+
+The light words Picard whispered were five in number.
+
+Now if the mayor had not snubbed Picard just before, he would have
+uttered those jocose but true words aloud. There was no particular
+reason why he should not. And if he had,--The threads of the web of
+life, how subtle they are! The finest cotton of Manchester, the finer
+meshes of the spider, seem three-inch cables by comparison with those
+moral gossamers which vulgar eyes cannot see at all, the “somethings,
+nothings,” on which great fates have hung.
+
+It was a cheerful breakfast, thanks to Raynal, who would be in high
+spirits, and would not allow a word of regret from any one. Madame
+Raynal sat by his side, looking up at him every now and then with
+innocent admiration. A merry wedding breakfast.
+
+But if men and women could see through the walls of houses!
+
+Two doors off sat the wounded colonel alone, recruiting the small
+remnant of his sore tried strength, that he might struggle on to
+Beaurepaire, and lose in one moment years of separation, pain, prison,
+anguish, martyrdom, in one great gush of joy without compare.
+
+
+The wedding breakfast was ended. The time was drawing near to part.
+There was a silence. It was broken by Madame Raynal. She asked Raynal
+very timidly if he had reflected. “On what?” said he.
+
+“About taking me to Egypt.”
+
+“No: I have not given it a thought since I said ‘no.’”
+
+“Yet permit me to say that it is my duty to be by your side, my
+husband.” And she colored at this word, being the first time she had
+ever used it. Raynal was silent. She murmured on, “I would not be an
+encumbrance to you, sir: I should not be useless. Gentlemen, I could add
+more to his comfort than he gives me credit for.”
+
+Warm assent of the mayor and notary to this hint.
+
+“I give you credit for being an angel,” said Raynal warmly.
+
+He hesitated. Rose was trembling, her fork shaking in her poor little
+hand.
+
+She cast a piteous glance at him. He saw it.
+
+“You shall go with me next time,” said he. “Let us speak of it no more.”
+
+Josephine bowed her head. “At least give me something to do for you
+while you are away. Tell me what I can do for my absent friend to show
+my gratitude, my regard, my esteem.”
+
+“Well, let me think. I saw a plain gray dress at Beaurepaire.”
+
+“Yes, monsieur. My gray silk, Rose.”
+
+“I like that dress.”
+
+“Do you? Then the moment I reach home after losing you I shall put it
+on, and it shall be my constant wear. I see; you are right; gray becomes
+a wife whose husband is not dead, but is absent, and alas! in hourly
+danger.”
+
+“Now look at that!” cried Raynal to the company. “That is her all
+over: she can see six meanings where another would see but one. I never
+thought of that, I swear. I like modest colors, that is all. My mother
+used to be all for modest wives wearing modest colors.”
+
+“I am of her mind, sir. Is there nothing more difficult you will be so
+good as give me to do?”
+
+“No; there is only one order more, and that will be easier still to such
+a woman as you. I commit to your care the name of Raynal. It is not
+so high a name as yours, but it is as honest. I am proud of it: I am
+jealous of it. I shall guard it for you in Egypt: you guard it in France
+for me.”
+
+“With my life,” cried Josephine, lifting her eyes and her hand to
+heaven.
+
+Soon after this Raynal ordered his charger.
+
+The baroness began to cry. “The young people may hope to see you again,”
+ said she; “but there are two chances against your poor old mother.”
+
+“Courage, mother!” cried the stout soldier. “No, no; you won’t play me
+such a trick: once is enough for that game.”
+
+“Brother!” cried Rose, “do not go without kissing your little sister,
+who loves you and thanks you.” He kissed her. “Bravo, generous soul!”
+ she cried, with her arms round his neck. “God protect you, and send you
+back safe to us!”
+
+“Amen!” cried all present by one impulse, even the cold notary.
+
+Raynal’s mustache quivered. He kissed Josephine hastily on the brow, the
+baroness on both cheeks; shook the men’s hands warmly but hastily, and
+strode out without looking behind him. He was moved for once.
+
+They all followed him to the door of the house. He was tightening his
+horse’s girths. He flung himself with all the resolution of his steel
+nature into the saddle, and, with one grand wave of his cocked hat to
+the tearful group, he spurred away for Egypt.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+
+The baroness took the doctor a-shopping; she must buy Rose a gray silk.
+In doing this she saw many other tempting things. I say no more.
+
+But the young ladies went up to Beaurepaire in the other carriage, for
+Josephine wished to avoid the gaze of the town, and get home and be
+quiet. The driver went very fast. He had drunk the bride’s health at the
+mayor’s, item the bridegroom’s, the bridesmaid’s, the mayor’s, etc.,
+and “a spur in the head is worth two in the heel,” says the proverb.
+The sisters leaned back on the soft cushions, and enjoyed the smooth and
+rapid motion once so familiar to them, so rare of late.
+
+Then Rose took her sister gently to task for having offered to go to
+Egypt. She had forgotten her poor sister.
+
+“No, love,” replied Josephine, “did you not see I dared not look towards
+you? I love you better than all the world; but this was my duty. I
+was his wife: I had no longer a feeble inclination and a feeble
+disinclination to decide between, but right on one side, wrong on the
+other.”
+
+“Oh! I know where your ladyship’s strength lies: my force is--in--my
+inclinations.”
+
+“Yes, Rose,” continued Josephine thoughtfully, “duty is a great comfort:
+it is so tangible; it is something to lay hold of for life or death; a
+strong tower for the weak but well disposed.”
+
+Rose assented, and they were silent a minute; and when she spoke again
+it was to own she loved a carriage. “How fast we glide! Now lean back
+with me, and take my hand, and as we glide shut your eyes and think:
+whisper me all your feelings, every one of them.”
+
+“Well, then,” said Josephine, half closing her eyes, “in the first
+place I feel a great calm, a heavenly calm. My fate is decided. No more
+suspense. My duties are clear. I have a husband I am proud of. There is
+no perfidy with him, no deceit, no disingenuousness, no shade. He is a
+human sun. He will make me a better, truer woman, and I him a happier
+man. Yes, is it not nice to think that great and strong as he is I can
+teach him a happiness he knows not as yet?” And she smiled with the
+sense of her delicate power, but said no more; for she was not the one
+to talk much about herself. But Rose pressed her. “Yes, go on, dear,”
+ she said, “I seem to see your pretty little thoughts rising out of your
+heart like a bubbling fountain: go on.”
+
+Thus encouraged, Josephine thought on aloud, “And then, gratitude!” said
+she. “I have heard it said, or read it somewhere, that gratitude is a
+burden: I cannot understand that sentiment; why, to me gratitude is a
+delight, gratitude is a passion. It is the warmest of all the tender
+feelings I have for dear Monsieur Raynal. I feel it glow here, in my
+bosom. I think I shall love him as I ought long before he comes back.”
+
+“BEFORE?”
+
+“Yes,” murmured Josephine, her eyes still half closed. “His virtues
+will always be present to me. His little faults of manner will not be
+in sight. Good Raynal! The image of those great qualities I revere so,
+perhaps because I fail in them myself, will be before my mind; and ere
+he comes home I shall love him dearly. I’ll tell you one reason why I
+wished to go home at once was--no--you must guess.”
+
+“Guess?” said Rose, contemptuously. “As if I did not see it was to put
+on your gray silk.”
+
+Josephine smiled assent, and said almost with fervor, “Good Raynal! I
+feel prouder of his honest name than of our noble one. And I am so calm,
+dear, thanks to you, so tranquil; so pleased that my mother’s mind is at
+rest, so convinced all is for the best, so contented with my own lot; so
+hap--py.”
+
+A gentle tear stole from beneath her long lashes. Rose looked at her
+wistfully: then laid her cheek to hers. They leaned back hand in hand,
+placid and silent.
+
+The carriage glided fast. Beaurepaire was almost in sight.
+
+Suddenly Josephine’s hand tightened on Rose’s, and she sat up in the
+carriage like a person awakened from a strange dream.
+
+“What is it?” asked Rose.
+
+“Some one in uniform.”
+
+“Oh, is that all? Ah! you thought it was a message from Raynal.”
+
+“Oh! no! on foot--walking very slowly. Coming this way, too. Coming
+this way!” and she became singularly restless, and looked round in the
+carriage. It was one of those old chariots with no side windows, but
+a peep hole at the back. This aperture, however, had a flap over it.
+Josephine undid the flap with nimble though agitated fingers; and
+saw--nothing. The road had taken a turn. “Oh,” said Rose, carelessly,
+“for that matter the roads are full of soldiers just now.”
+
+“Ay, but not of officers on foot.”
+
+Rose gave her such a look, and for the first time this many a day spoke
+sternly to her, and asked her what on earth she had to do with uniforms
+or officers except one, the noblest in the world, her husband.
+
+A month ago that word was almost indifferent to Josephine, or rather she
+uttered it with a sort of mild complacency. Now she started at it, and
+it struck chill upon her. She did not reply, however, and the carriage
+rolled on.
+
+“He seemed to be dragging himself along.” This was the first word
+Josephine had spoken for some time. “Oh, did he?” replied Rose
+carelessly; “well, let him. Here we are, at home.”
+
+“I am glad of it,” said Josephine, “very glad.”
+
+On reaching Beaurepaire she wanted to go up-stairs at once and put on
+her gray gown. But the day was so delightful that Rose begged her to
+stroll in the Pleasaunce for half an hour and watch for their mother’s
+return. She consented in an absent way, and presently began to walk very
+fast, unconscious of her companion. Rose laid a hand upon her playfully
+to moderate her, and found her skin burning.
+
+“Why, what is the matter?” said she, anxiously.
+
+“Nothing, nothing,” was the sharp reply.
+
+“There’s a fretful tone; and how excited you look, and feel too. Well, I
+thought you were unnaturally calm after such an event.”
+
+“I only saw his back,” said Josephine. “Did not you see him?”
+
+“See who? Oh, that tiresome officer. Why, how much more are we to hear
+about him? I don’t believe there WAS one.”
+
+At this moment a cocked hat came in sight, bobbing up and down above
+the palings that divided the park from the road. Josephine pointed to it
+without a word.
+
+Rose got a little cross at being practically confuted, and said coldly,
+“Come, let us go in; the only cocked hat we can see is on the way to
+Paris.”
+
+Josephine assented eagerly. But she had not taken two steps towards the
+house ere she altered her mind, and said she felt faint, she wanted air;
+no, she should stay out a little longer. “Look, Rose,” said she, in a
+strangely excited way, “what a shame! They put all manner of rubbish
+into this dear old tree: I will have it all turned out.” And she looked
+with feigned interest into the tree: but her eyes seemed turned inward.
+
+Rose gave a cry of surprise. “He is waving his hat to me! What on earth
+does that mean?”
+
+“Perhaps he takes you for me,” said Josephine.
+
+“Who is it? What do you mean?”
+
+“IT IS HE! I knew his figure at a glance.” And she blushed and trembled
+with joy; she darted behind the tree and peered round at him unseen:
+turning round a moment she found Rose at her back pale and stern. She
+looked at her, and said with terrible simplicity, “Ah, Rose, I forgot.”
+
+“Are you mad, Josephine? Into the house this moment; if it IS he, I will
+receive him and send him about his business.”
+
+But Josephine stood fascinated, and pale as ashes; for now the cocked
+hat stopped, and a pale face with eyes whose eager fire shone even at
+that distance, rose above the palings. Josephine crouched behind Rose,
+and gasped out, “Something terrible is coming, terrible! terrible!”
+
+“Say something hateful,” said Rose, trembling in her turn, but only with
+anger. “The heartless selfish traitor! He never notices you till you are
+married to the noblest of mankind; and then he comes here directly to
+ruin your peace. No; I have altered my mind. He shall not see you, of
+course; but YOU shall hear HIM. I’ll soon make you know the wretch and
+loathe him as I do. There, now he has turned the corner; hide in the
+oak while he is out of sight. Hide, quick, quick.” Josephine obeyed
+mechanically; and presently, through that very aperture whence her
+sister had smiled on her lover she hissed out, in a tone of which one
+would not have thought her capable, “Be wise, be shrewd; find out who is
+the woman that has seduced him from me, and has brought two wretches to
+this. I tell you it is some wicked woman’s doing. He loved me once.”
+
+“Not so loud!--one word: you are a wife. Swear to me you will not let
+him see you, come what may.”
+
+“Oh! never! never!” cried Josephine with terror. “I would rather die.
+When you have heard what he has to say, then tell him I am dead. No,
+tell him I adore my husband, and went to Egypt this day with him. Ah!
+would to God I had!”
+
+“Sh! sh!”
+
+“Sh!”
+
+Camille was at the little gate.
+
+Rose stood still, and nerved herself in silence. Josephine panted in her
+hiding-place.
+
+Rose’s only thought now was to expose the traitor to her sister, and
+restore her peace. She pretended not to see Camille till he was near
+her. He came eagerly towards her, his pale face flushing with great joy,
+and his eyes like diamonds.
+
+“Josephine! It is not Josephine, after all,” said he. “Why, this must be
+Rose, little Rose, grown up to a fine lady, a beautiful lady.”
+
+“What do you come here for, sir?” asked Rose in a tone of icy
+indifference.
+
+“What do I come here for? is that the way to speak to me? but I am too
+happy to mind. Dear Beaurepaire! do I see you once again!”
+
+“And madame?”
+
+“What madame?”
+
+“Madame Dujardin that is or was to be.”
+
+“This is the first I have ever heard of her,” said Camille, gayly.
+
+“This is odd, for we have heard all about it.”
+
+“Are you jesting?”
+
+“No.”
+
+“If I understand you right, you imply that I have broken faith with
+Josephine?”
+
+“Certainly.”
+
+“Then you lie, Mademoiselle Rose de Beaurepaire.”
+
+“Insolent!”
+
+“No. It is you who have insulted your sister as well as me. She was not
+made to be deserted for meaner women. Come, mademoiselle, affront me,
+and me alone, and you shall find me more patient. Oh! who would have
+thought Beaurepaire would receive me thus?”
+
+“It is your own fault. You never sent her a line for all these years.”
+
+“Why, how could I?”
+
+“Well, sir, the information you did not supply others did. We know that
+you were seen in a Spanish village drinking between two guerillas.”
+
+“That is true,” said Camille.
+
+“An honest French soldier fired at you. Why, he told us so himself.”
+
+“He told you true,” said Camille, sullenly. “The bullet grazed my hand;
+see, here is the mark. Look!” She did look, and gave a little scream;
+but recovering herself, said she wished it had gone through his heart.
+“Why prolong this painful interview?” said she; “the soldier told us
+all.”
+
+“I doubt that,” said Camille. “Did he tell you that under the table I
+was chained tight down to the chair I sat in? Did he tell you that my
+hand was fastened to a drinking-horn, and my elbow to the table, and two
+fellows sitting opposite me with pistols quietly covering me, ready to
+draw the trigger if I should utter a cry? Did he tell you that I would
+have uttered that cry and died at that table but for one thing, I had
+promised her to live?”
+
+“Not he; he told me nothing so incredible. Besides, what became of you
+all these years? You are a double traitor, to your country and to her.”
+
+Camille literally gasped for breath. “You are a most cruel young lady
+to insult me so,” said he, and scalding tears forced themselves from his
+eyes.
+
+Rose eyed him with merciless scorn.
+
+He fought manfully against this weakness, with which his wound and his
+fatigue had something to do, as well as Rose’s bitter words; and after
+a gallant struggle he returned her her haughty stare, and addressed her
+thus: “Mademoiselle, I feel myself blush, but it is for you I blush, not
+for myself. This is what BECAME of me. I went out alone to explore; I
+fell into an ambuscade; I shot one of the enemy, and pinked another,
+but my arm being broken by a bullet, and my horse killed under me, the
+rascals got me. They took me about, tried to make a decoy of me as I
+have told you, and ended by throwing me into a dungeon. They loaded me
+with chains, too, though the walls were ten feet thick, and the door
+iron, and bolted and double-bolted outside. And there for months and
+years, in spite of wounds, hunger, thirst, and all the tortures those
+cowards made me suffer, I lived, because, Rose, I had promised some one
+at that gate there (and he turned suddenly and pointed to it) that I
+would come back alive. At last, one night, my jailer came to my
+cell drunk. I seized him by the throat and throttled him till he was
+insensible; his keys unlocked my fetters, and locked him in the cell,
+and I got safely outside. But there a sentinel saw me, and fired at
+me. He missed me but ran after me, and caught me. You see I was stiff,
+confined so long. He gave me a thrust of his bayonet; I flung my heavy
+keys fiercely in his face; he staggered; I wrested his piece from him,
+and disabled him.”
+
+“Ah!”
+
+“I crossed the frontier in the night, and got to Bayonne; and thence,
+day and night, to Paris. There I met a reward for all my anguish. They
+gave me the epaulets of a colonel. See, here they are. France does not
+give these to traitors, young lady.” He held them out to her in both
+hands. She eyed them half stupidly; all her thoughts were on the
+oak-tree hard by. She began to shudder. Camille was telling the truth.
+She felt that; she saw it; and Josephine was hearing it. “Ay! look at
+them, you naughty girl,” said Camille, trying to be jocose over it all
+with his poor trembling lip. He went on to say that from the moment he
+had left dark Spain, and entered fair France everybody was so kind, so
+sympathizing. “They felt for the poor worn soldier coming back to his
+love. All but you, Rose. You told me I was a traitor to her and to
+France.”
+
+“I was told so,” said Rose, faintly. She was almost at her wits’ end
+what to say or do.
+
+“Well, are you sorry or not sorry for saying such a cruel thing to a
+poor fellow?”
+
+“Sorry, very sorry,” whispered Rose. She could not persist in injustice,
+yet she did not want Josephine to hear.
+
+“Then say no more about it; there’s my hand. You are not a soldier, and
+did not know what you were talking about.”
+
+“I am very sorry I spoke so harshly to you. But you understand. How you
+look; how you pant.”
+
+“There, I will show you I forgive you. These epaulets, dear, I have
+never put them on. I said, no; Josephine shall put them on for me. I
+will take honor as well as happiness from her dear hand. But you are her
+sister, and what are epaulets compared with what she will give me? You
+shall put them on, dear. Come, then you will be sure I bear no malice.”
+
+Rose, faint at heart, consented in silence, and fastened on the
+epaulets. “Yes, Camille!” she cried, with sudden terror, “think of
+glory, now; nothing but glory.”
+
+“No one thinks of it more. But to-day how can I think of it, how can I
+give her a rival? To-day I am all love. Rose, no man ever loved a human
+creature as I love Josephine. Your mother is well, dear? All are well
+at Beaurepaire? Oh, where is she all this time? in the house?” He was
+moving quickly towards the house; but Rose instinctively put out her
+hand to stop him. He recoiled a little and winced.
+
+“What is the matter?” cried she.
+
+“Nothing, dear girl; you put your hand on my wound, that is all. What is
+that noise in the tree? Anybody listening to us?”
+
+“I’ll see,” said Rose, with all a woman’s wit, and whipped hastily
+round to hinder Camille from going. She found Josephine white as death,
+apparently fainting, and clutching at the tree convulsively with her
+nails. Such was the intensity of the situation that she left her beloved
+sister in that piteous state, and even hoped she would faint dead away,
+and so hear no more. She came back white, and told Camille it was only a
+bird got into the tree. “And to think you should be wounded,” said she,
+to divert his attention from the tree.
+
+“Yes,” said he, “and it is rather inflamed, and has worried me all the
+way. You need not go telling Josephine, though. They wanted me to stop
+and lay up at Bayonne. How could I? And again at Paris. How could I?
+They said, ‘You will die.’--‘Not before I get to Beaurepaire,’ said I.
+I could bear the motion of a horse no longer, so at the nearest town I
+asked for a carriage. Would you believe it? both his carriages were
+OUT AT A WEDDING. I could not wait till they came back. I had waited an
+eternity. I came on foot. I dragged my self along; the body was weak,
+but the heart was strong. A little way from here my wound seemed
+inclined to open. I pressed it together tight with my hand; you see I
+could not afford to lose any more blood, and so struggled on. ‘Die?’
+said I, ‘not before Beaurepaire.’ And, O Rose! now I could be content to
+die--at her feet; for I am happy. Oh! I am happy beyond words to utter.
+What I have gone through! But I kept my word, and this is Beaurepaire.
+Hurrah!” and his pale cheek flushed, and his eye gleamed, and he waved
+his hat feebly over his head, “hurrah! hurrah! hurrah!”
+
+“Oh, don’t!--don’t!--don’t!” cried Rose wild with pity and dismay.
+
+“How can I help?--I am mad with joy--hurrah! hurrah! hurrah!”
+
+“No! no! no! no! no!”
+
+“What is the matter?”
+
+“And must I stab you worse than all your enemies have stabbed you?”
+ sighed Rose, and tears of womanly pity now streamed down her cheeks.
+
+Camille’s mind began to misgive him. What was become of Josephine? she
+did not appear. He faltered out, “Your mother is well; all are well
+I hope. Oh, where is she?” and receiving no reply, began to tremble
+visibly with the fear of some terrible calamity.
+
+Rose, with a sister fainting close by, and this poor lover trembling
+before her, lost all self-command, and began to wring her hands and cry
+wildly. “Camille,” she almost screamed, “there is but one thing for you
+to do; leave Beaurepaire on the instant: fly from it; it is no place for
+you.”
+
+“She is dead,” said Camille, very quietly.
+
+When he said that, with an unnatural and monotonous calm such as
+precedes deliberate suicide, it flashed in one moment across Rose that
+it was much best he should think so.
+
+She did not reply; but she drooped her head and let him think it.
+
+“She would have come to me ere this if she was alive,” said he. “You
+are all in white: they mourn in white for angels like her, that go to
+heaven, virgins. Oh! I was blind. You might have told me at once; you
+see I can bear it. What does it matter to one who loves as I love? It is
+only to give her one more proof I lived only for her. I would have died
+a hundred times but for my promise to her. Yes, I am coming, love; I am
+coming.”
+
+He fell on his knees and smiled, and whispered, “I am coming, Josephine,
+I am coming.”
+
+A sob and a moan as of a creature dying in anguish answered him.
+
+Rose screamed with terror when she heard it.
+
+Camille rose to his feet, awestruck. “That was her voice, behind this
+tree,” he whispered.
+
+“No, no,” cried Rose; “it was me.”
+
+But at that moment a rustle and a rush was heard of some one darting out
+of the tree.
+
+Camille darted furiously round it in the same direction. Rose tried to
+stop him, but was too late. The next moment Raynal’s wife was in his
+arms.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+
+Josephine wrestled long and terribly with nature in that old oak-tree.
+But who can so struggle forever? Anguish, remorse, horror, despair, and
+love wrenched her to and fro; and O mysterious human heart! gleams of
+a mad fitful joy shot through her, coming quick as lightning, going as
+quickly, and leaving the despair darker. And then the fierce struggle of
+the soul to make itself heard! More than once she had to close her mouth
+with her hand: more than once she seized her throat not to cry out. But
+as the struggle endured, she got weaker and weaker, and nature mightier
+and mightier. And when the wounded hero fell on his knees so close to
+her; when he who had resisted death so bravely for her, prepared to give
+up life calmly for her, her bosom rose beyond all control: it seemed to
+fill to choking, then to split wide open and give the struggling soul
+passage in one gasping sob and heart-stricken cry. Could she have pent
+this in she must have died.
+
+It betrayed her. She felt it had: so then came the woman’s
+instinct--flight: the coward’s impulse--flight: the chaste wife’s
+inspiration--flight. She rushed from her hiding-place and made wildly
+for the house.
+
+But, unluckily, Camille was at that moment darting round the tree: she
+ran right into the danger she meant to flee. He caught her in his arms.
+He held her irresistibly. “I have got her; I have got her,” he shouted
+in wild triumph. “No! I will not let you go. None but God shall ever
+take you from me, and he has spared you to me. You are not dead: you
+have kept faith as I have: you have lived. See! look at me. I am alive,
+I am well, I am happy. I told Rose that I suffered. If I had suffered
+I should remember it. It is all gone at sight of you, my love! my love!
+Oh, my Josephine! my love!”
+
+His arm was firm round her waist. His glowing eyes poured love upon her.
+She felt his beating heart.
+
+All that passed in her then, what mortal can say? She seemed two women:
+that part of her which could not get away from his strong arm lost all
+strength to resist, it yielded and thrilled under his embrace, her bosom
+heaving madly: all that was free writhed away from him; her face was
+averted with a glare of terror, and both her hands put up between his
+eyes and it.
+
+“You turn away your head. Rose, she turns away. Speak for me. Scold her;
+for I don’t know how to scold her. No answer from either; oh, what has
+turned your hearts against me so?”
+
+“Camille,” cried Rose--the tears streaming down her cheeks--“my poor
+Camille! leave Beaurepaire. Oh, leave it at once.”
+
+Returned towards her with a look of inquiry.
+
+At that Josephine, like some feeble but nimble wild creature on whom
+a grasp has relaxed, writhed away from him and got free: “Farewell!
+Farewell!” she cried, in despair’s own voice, and made swiftly for the
+house.
+
+Camille stood aghast, and did not follow her.
+
+Now ere she had gone many steps who should meet her right in front but
+Jacintha.
+
+“Madame Raynal, the baroness’s carriage is just in sight. I thought
+you’d like to know.” Then she bawled proudly to Rose, “I was the first
+to call her madame;” and off went Jacintha convinced she had done
+something very clever.
+
+This blow turned those three to stone.
+
+Josephine had no longer the power or the wish to fly. “Better so,” she
+thought, and she stood cowering.
+
+The great passions that had spoken so loud were struck dumb, and a deep
+silence fell upon the place. Madame Raynal’s quivering eye turned slowly
+and askant towards Camille, but stopped in terror ere it could see him.
+For she knew by this fearful stillness that the truth was creeping on
+Camille. And so did Rose.
+
+At last Camille spoke one word in a low whisper.
+
+“Madame?”
+
+Dead silence.
+
+“White? both in white?”
+
+Rose came between him and Josephine, and sobbed out, “Camille, it was
+our doing. We drove her to it. O sir, look how afraid of you she is. Do
+not reproach her, if you are a man.”
+
+He waved her out of his way as if she had been some idle feather, and
+almost staggered up to Josephine.
+
+“It is for you to speak, my betrothed: are you married?”
+
+The poor creature, true to her nature, was thinking more of him than
+herself. Even in her despair it flashed across her, “If he knew all, he
+too would be wretched for life. If I let him think ill of me he may be
+happy one day.” She cowered the picture of sorrow and tongue-tied guilt.
+
+“Are you a wife?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+He winced and quivered as if a bullet had pierced him.
+
+“This is how I came to be suspected; she I loved was false.”
+
+“Yes, Camille.”
+
+“No, no!” cried Rose; “don’t believe HER: she never suspected you. We
+have brought her to this, we alone.”
+
+“Be silent, Rose! oh, be silent!” gasped Josephine.
+
+“I lived for you: I would have died for you; you could not even wait for
+me.”
+
+A low moan, but not a word of excuse.
+
+“What can I do for you now?”
+
+“Forget me, Camille,” said she despairingly, doggedly.
+
+“Forget you? never, never! there is but one thing I can do to show you
+how I loved you: I will forgive you, and begone. Whither shall I go?
+whither shall I go now?”
+
+“Camile, your words stab her.”
+
+“Let none speak but I,” said Camille; “none but I have the right to
+speak. Poor weak angel that loved yet could not wait: I forgive you. Be
+happy, if you can; I bid you be hap-py.”
+
+The quiet, despairing tones died away, and with them life seemed to end
+to her, and hope to go out. He turned his back quickly on her. He cried
+hoarsely, “To the army! Back to the army, and a soldier’s grave!”
+ Then with a prodigious effort he drew himself haughtily up in marching
+attitude. He took three strides, erect and fiery and bold.
+
+At the next something seemed to snap asunder in the great heart, and the
+worn body that heart had held up so long, rolled like a dead log upon
+the ground with a tremendous fall.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+
+The baroness and Aubertin were just getting out of their carriage, when
+suddenly they heard shrieks of terror in the Pleasaunce. They came with
+quaking hearts as fast as their old limbs would carry them. They found
+Rose and Josephine crouched over the body of a man, an officer.
+
+Rose was just tearing open his collar and jacket. Dard and Jacintha had
+run from the kitchen at the screams. Camille lay on his back, white and
+motionless.
+
+The doctor was the first to come up. “Who! what is this? I seem to know
+his face.” Then shaking his head, “Whoever it is, it is a bad case.
+Stand away, ladies. Let me feel his pulse.”
+
+Whilst the old man was going stiffly down on one knee, Jacintha uttered
+a cry of terror. “See, see! his shirt! that red streak! Ah, ah! it is
+getting bigger and bigger:” and she turned faint in a moment, and would
+have fallen but for Dard.
+
+The doctor looked. “All the better,” said he firmly. “I thought he
+was dead. His blood flows; then I will save him. Don’t clutch me so,
+Josephine; don’t cling to me like that. Now is the time to show your
+breed: not turn sick at the sight of a little blood, like that foolish
+creature, but help me save him.”
+
+“Take him in-doors,” cried the baroness.
+
+“Into our house, mamma?” gasped Rose; “no, no.”
+
+“What,” said the baroness, “a wounded soldier who has fought for France!
+leave him to lie and die outside my door: what would my son say to that?
+He is a soldier himself.”
+
+Rose cast a hasty look at Josephine. Josephine’s eyes were bent on the
+ground, and her hands clenched and trembling.
+
+“Now, Jacintha, you be off,” said the doctor. “I can’t have cowards
+about him to make the others as bad. Go and stew down a piece of good
+beef for him. Stew it in red wine and water.”
+
+“That I will: poor thing!”
+
+“Why, I know him,” said the baroness suddenly; “it is an old
+acquaintance, young Dujardin: you remember, Josephine. I used to suspect
+him of a fancy for you, poor fellow! Why, he must have come here to see
+us, poor soul.”
+
+“No matter who it is; it is a man. Now, girls, have you courage, have
+you humanity? Then come one on each side of him and take hands beneath
+his back, while I lift his head and Dard his legs.”
+
+“And handle him gently whatever you do,” said Dard. “I know what it is
+to be wounded.”
+
+These four carried the lifeless burden very slowly and gently across the
+Pleasaunce to the house, then with more difficulty and caution up the
+stairs.
+
+All the while the sisters’ hands griped one another tight beneath the
+lifeless burden, and spoke to one another. And Josephine’s arm upheld
+tenderly but not weakly the hero she had struck down. She avoided Rose’s
+eye, her mother’s, and even the doctor’s: one gasping sob escaped her as
+she walked with head half averted, and vacant, terror-stricken eyes, and
+her victim on her sustaining arm.
+
+The doctor selected the tapestried chamber for him as being most airy.
+Then he ordered the women out, and with Dard’s help undressed the still
+insensible patient.
+
+Josephine sat down on the stairs in gloomy silence, her eyes on the
+ground, like one waiting for her deathblow.
+
+Rose, sick at heart, sat silent too at some distance. At last she said
+faintly, “Have we done well?”
+
+“I don’t know,” said Josephine doggedly. Her eyes never left the ground.
+
+“We could not let him die for want of care.”
+
+“He will not thank us. Better for him to die than live. Better for me.”
+
+At this instant Dard came running down. “Good news, mesdemoiselles, good
+news! the wound runs all along; it is not deep, like mine was. He has
+opened his eyes and shut them again. The dear good doctor stopped the
+blood in a twinkle. The doctor says he’ll be bound to save him. I must
+run and tell Jacintha. She is taking on in the kitchen.”
+
+Josephine, who had risen eagerly from her despairing posture, clasped
+her hands together, then lifted up her voice and wept. “He will live! he
+will live!”
+
+When she had wept a long while, she said to Rose, “Come, sister, help
+your poor Josephine.”
+
+“Yes, love, what shall we do?”
+
+“My duty,” faltered Josephine. “An hour ago it seemed so sweet,” and
+she fell to weeping patiently again. They went to Josephine’s room. She
+crept slowly to a wardrobe, and took out a gray silk dress.
+
+“Oh, never mind for to-day,” cried Rose.
+
+“Help me, Rose. It is for myself as well; to remind me every moment I am
+Madame Raynal.”
+
+They put the gray gown on her, both weeping patiently. It will be known
+at the last day, all that honest women have suffered weeping silently in
+this noisy world.
+
+
+Camille soon recovered his senses and a portion of his strength: then
+the irritation of his wound brought on fever. This in turn retired
+before the doctor’s remedies and a sound constitution, but it left
+behind it a great weakness and general prostration. And in this state
+the fate of the body depends greatly on the mind.
+
+The baroness and the doctor went constantly to see him, and soothe him:
+he smiled and thanked them, but his eager eyes watched the door for one
+who came not.
+
+When he got well enough to leave his bed the largest couch was sent up
+to him from the saloon; a kind hand lined the baron’s silk dressing-gown
+for him warm and soft and nice; and he would sit or lie on his couch, or
+take two turns in the room leaning upon Rose’s shoulder, and glad of the
+support; and he looked piteously in her eyes when she came and when she
+went. Rose looked down; she could do nothing, she could say nothing.
+
+With his strength, Camille lost a portion of his pride: he pined for a
+sight of her he no longer respected; pined for her, as the thirsty pine
+for water in Sahara.
+
+At last one day he spoke out. “How kind you are to me, Rose! how kind
+you all are--but one.”
+
+He waited in hopes she would say something, but she held her tongue.
+
+“At least tell me why it is. Is she ashamed? Is she afraid?”
+
+“Neither.”
+
+“She hates me: it is true, then, that we hate those whom we have
+wounded. Cruel, cruel Josephine! Oh, heart of marble against which my
+heart has wrecked itself forever!”
+
+“No, no! She is anything but cruel: but she is Madame Raynal.”
+
+“Ah! I forgot. But have I no claim on her? Nearly four years she has
+been my betrothed. What have I done? Was I ever false to her? I could
+forgive her for what she has done to me, but she cannot forgive me. Does
+she mean never to see me again?”
+
+“Ask yourself what good could come of it.”
+
+“Very well,” said Camille, with a malicious smile. “I am in her way. I
+see what she wants; she shall have it.”
+
+Rose carried these words to Josephine. They went through her like a
+sword.
+
+Rose pitied her. Rose had a moment’s weakness.
+
+“Let us go to him,” she said; “anything is better than this.”
+
+“Rose, I dare not,” was the wise reply.
+
+But the next day early, Josephine took Rose to a door outside the house,
+a door that had long been disused. Nettles grew before it. She produced
+a key and with great difficulty opened this door. It led to the
+tapestried chamber, and years ago they used to steal up it and peep into
+the room.
+
+Rose scarcely needed to be told that she was to watch Camille, and
+report to her. In truth, it was a mysterious, vague protection against
+a danger equally mysterious. Yet it made Josephine easier. But so
+unflinching was her prudence that she never once could be prevailed on
+to mount those stairs, and peep at Camille herself. “I must starve my
+heart, not feed it,” said she. And she grew paler and more hollow-eyed
+day by day.
+
+Yet this was the same woman who showed such feebleness and irresolution
+when Raynal pressed her to marry him. But then dwarfs feebly drew
+her this way and that. Now giants fought for her. Between a feeble
+inclination and a feeble disinclination her dead heart had drifted
+to and fro. Now honor, duty, gratitude,--which last with her was a
+passion,--dragged her one way: love, pity, and remorse another.
+
+Not one of these giants would relax his grasp, and nothing yielded
+except her vital powers. Yes; her temper, one of the loveliest Heaven
+ever gave a human creature, was soured at times.
+
+Was it a wonder? There lay the man she loved pining for her; cursing her
+for her cruelty, and alternately praying Heaven to forgive him and to
+bless her: sighing, at intervals, all the day long, so loud, so deep, so
+piteously, as if his heart broke with each sigh; and sometimes, for he
+little knew, poor soul, that any human eye was upon him, casting aside
+his manhood in his despair, and flinging himself on the very floor, and
+muffling his head, and sobbing; he a hero.
+
+And here was she pining in secret for him who pined for her? “I am not a
+woman at all,” said she, who was all woman. “I am crueller to him than a
+tiger or any savage creature is to the victim she tears. I must cure him
+of his love for me; and then die; for what shall I have to live for? He
+weeps, he sighs, he cries for Josephine.”
+
+Her enforced cruelty was more contrary to this woman’s nature than black
+is to white, or heat to cold, and the heart rebelled furiously at times.
+As when a rock tries to stem a current, the water fights its way on more
+sides than one, so insulted nature dealt with Josephine. Not only did
+her body pine, but her nerves were exasperated. Sudden twitches came
+over her, that almost made her scream. Her permanent state was utter
+despondency, but across it came fitful flashes of irritation; and then
+she was scarce mistress of herself.
+
+Wherefore you, who find some holy woman cross and bitter, stop a moment
+before you sum her up vixen and her religion naught: inquire the history
+of her heart: perhaps beneath the smooth cold surface of duties well
+discharged, her life has been, or even is, a battle against some
+self-indulgence the insignificant saint’s very blood cries out for: and
+so the poor thing is cross, not because she is bad, but because she is
+better than the rest of us; yet only human.
+
+Now though Josephine was more on her guard with the baroness than with
+Rose, or the doctor, or Jacintha, her state could not altogether escape
+the vigilance of a mother’s eye.
+
+But the baroness had not the clew we have; and what a difference that
+makes! How small an understanding, put by accident or instruction on the
+right track, shall run the game down! How great a sagacity shall wander
+if it gets on a false scent!
+
+“Doctor,” said the baroness one day, “you are so taken up with your
+patient you neglect the rest of us. Do look at Josephine! She is ill,
+or going to be ill. She is so pale, and so fretful, so peevish, which is
+not in her nature. Would you believe it, doctor, she snaps?”
+
+“Our Josephine snap? This is new.”
+
+“And snarls.”
+
+“Then look for the end of the world.”
+
+“The other day I heard her snap Rose: and this morning she half snarled
+at me, just because I pressed her to go and console our patient. Hush!
+here she is. My child, I am accusing you to the doctor. I tell him you
+neglect his patient: never go near him.”
+
+“I will visit him one of these days,” said Josephine, coldly.
+
+“One of these days,” said the baroness, shocked. “You used not to be so
+hard-hearted. A soldier, an old comrade of your husband’s, wounded
+and sick, and you alone never go to him, to console him with a word of
+sympathy or encouragement.”
+
+Josephine looked at her mother with a sort of incredulous stare. Then,
+after a struggle, she replied with a tone and manner so spiteful and icy
+that it would have deceived even us who know her had we heard it. “He
+has plenty of nurses without me.” She added, almost violently, “My
+husband, if he were wounded, would not have so many, perhaps not have
+one.”
+
+With this she rose and went out, leaving them aghast. She sat down in
+the passage on a window-seat, and laughed hysterically. Rose heard her
+and ran to her. Josephine told her what her mother had said to her.
+Rose soothed her. “Never mind, you have your sister who understands you:
+don’t you go back till they have got some other topic.”
+
+Rose out of curiosity went in, and found a discussion going on. The
+doctor was fathoming Josephine, for the benefit of his companion.
+
+“It is a female jealousy, and of a mighty innocent kind. We are so taken
+up with this poor fellow, she thinks her soldier is forgotten.”
+
+“Surely, doctor, our Josephine would not be so unreasonable, so unjust,”
+ suggested her mother.
+
+“She belongs to a sex, be it said without offending you, madame, among
+whose numberless virtues justice does not fill a prominent place.”
+
+The baroness shook her head. “That is not it. It is a piece of prudery.
+This young gentleman was a sort of admirer of hers, though she did not
+admire him much, as far as I remember. But it was four years ago; and
+she is married to a man she loves, or is going to love.”
+
+“Well, but, mamma, a trifling excess of delicacy is surely excusable.”
+ This from Rose.
+
+“No, no; it is not delicacy; it is prudery. And when people are sick and
+suffering, an honest woman should take up her charity and lay down her
+prudery, or her coquetry: two things that I suspect are the same thing
+in different shapes.”
+
+Here Jacintha came in. “Mademoiselle, here is the colonel’s broth;
+Madame Raynal has flavored it for him, and you are to take it up to him,
+and keep him company while he eats it.”
+
+“Come,” cried the baroness, “my lecture has not been lost.”
+
+Rose followed Jacintha up-stairs.
+
+Rose was heart and head on Raynal’s side.
+
+She had deceived him about Josephine’s attachment, and felt all the more
+desirous to guard him against any ill consequences of it. Then he had
+been so generous to her: he had left her her sister, who would have gone
+to Egypt, and escaped this misery, but for her.
+
+But on the other hand,
+
+                                         --Gentle pity
+     Tugged at her heartstrings with complaining cries.
+
+This watching of Camille saddened even her. When she was with him his
+pride bore him up: but when he was alone as he thought, his anguish and
+despair were terrible, and broke out in so many ways that often Rose
+shrank in terror from her peep hole.
+
+She dared not tell Josephine the half of what she saw: what she did tell
+her agitated her so terribly: and often Rose had it on the tip of her
+tongue to say, “Do pray go and see if you can say nothing that will
+do him good;” but she fought the impulse down. This battle of feeling,
+though less severe than her sister’s, was constant; it destroyed her
+gayety. She, whose merry laugh used to ring like chimes through the
+house, never laughed now, seldom smiled, and often sighed.
+
+Dr. Aubertin was the last to succumb to the deep depression, but his
+time came: and he had been for a day or two as grave and as sad as the
+rest, when one day that Rose was absent, spying on Camille, he took the
+baroness and Josephine into his confidence; and condescended finally to
+ask their advice.
+
+“It is humiliating,” said he, “after all my experience, to be obliged to
+consult unprofessional persons. Forty years ago I should have been TOO
+WISE to do so. But since then I have often seen science baffled and
+untrained intelligences throw light upon hard questions: and your sex
+in particular has luminous instincts and reads things by flashes that
+we men miss with a microscope. Our dear Madame Raynal suspected that
+plausible notary, and to this day I believe she could not tell us why.”
+
+Josephine admitted as much very frankly.
+
+“There you see,” said the doctor. “Well, then, you must help me in this
+case. And this time I promise to treat your art with more respect.”
+
+“And pray who is it she is to read now?” asked the baroness.
+
+“Who should it be but my poor patient? He puzzles me. I never knew a
+patient so faint-hearted.”
+
+“A soldier faint-hearted!” exclaimed the baroness. “To be sure these men
+that storm cities, and fire cannon, and cut and hack one another with so
+much spirit, are poor creatures compared with us when they have to lie
+quiet and suffer.”
+
+The doctor walked the room in great excitement. “It is not his wound
+that is killing him, there’s something on his mind. You, Josephine,
+with your instincts do help me: do pray, for pity’s sake, throw off that
+sublime indifference you have manifested all along to this man’s fate.”
+
+“She has not,” cried the baroness, firing up. “Did I not see her lining
+his dressing-gown for him? and she inspects everything that he eats: do
+you not?”
+
+“Yes, mother.” She then suggested in a faltering voice that time would
+cure the patient, and time alone.
+
+“Time! you speak as if time was a quality: time is only a measure of
+events, favorable or unfavorable; it kills as many as it cures.”
+
+“Why, you surely would not imply his life is in any danger?” This was
+the baroness.
+
+“Madame, if the case was not grave, should I take this unusual step? I
+tell you if some change does not take place soon, he will be a dead man
+in another fortnight. That is all TIME will do for him.”
+
+The baroness uttered an exclamation of pity and distress. Josephine put
+her hand to her bosom, and a creeping horror came over her, and then a
+faintness. She sat working mechanically, and turning like ice within.
+After a few minutes of this, she rose with every appearance of external
+composure and left the room. In the passage she met Rose coming hastily
+towards the salon laughing: the first time she had laughed this many a
+day. Oh, what a contrast between the two faces that met there--the one
+pale and horror stricken, the other rosy and laughing!
+
+“Well, dear, at last I am paid for all my trouble, and yours, by a
+discovery; he never drinks a drop of his medicine; he pours it into the
+ashes under the grate; I caught him in the fact.”
+
+“Then this is too much: I can resist no longer. Come with me,” said
+Josephine doggedly.
+
+“Where?”
+
+“To him.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+
+Josephine paused on the landing, and laid her hand on Rose’s shoulder.
+It was so cold it made Rose shudder, and exacted a promise from her not
+to contradict a word she should say to Camille. “I do not go to him for
+my pleasure, but for his life,” she said; “I must deceive him and save
+him; and then let me lie down and die.”
+
+“Oh, that the wretch had never been born!” cried Rose, in despair.
+But she gave the required promise, and offered to go and tell Camille
+Josephine was coming to visit him.
+
+But Josephine declined this. “No,” said she; “give me every advantage; I
+must think beforehand every word I shall say; but take him by surprise,
+coward and doubleface that I am.”
+
+Rose knocked at the door. A faint voice said, “Come in.” The sisters
+entered the room very softly. Camille sat on the sofa, his head bowed
+over his hands. A glance showed Josephine that he was doggedly and
+resolutely thrusting himself into the grave. Thinking it was only
+Rose--for he had now lost all hope of seeing Josephine come in at the
+door--he never moved. Some one glided gently but rapidly up to him. He
+looked up. Josephine was kneeling to him.
+
+He lifted his head with a start, and trembled all over.
+
+She whispered, “I am come to you to beg your pity; to appeal to your
+generosity; to ask a favor; I who deserve so little of you.”
+
+“You have waited a long time,” said Camille, agitated greatly; “and so
+have I.”
+
+“Camille, you are torturing one who loved you once, and who has been
+very weak and faithless, but not so wicked as she appears.”
+
+“How am I torturing you?”
+
+“With remorse; do I not suffer enough? Would you make me a murderess?”
+
+“Why have you never been near me?” retorted Camille. “I could forgive
+your weakness, but not your heartlessness.”
+
+“It is my duty. I have no right to seek your society. If you really want
+mine, you have only to get well, and so join us down-stairs a week or
+two before you leave us.”
+
+“How am I to get well? My heart is broken.”
+
+“Camille, be a man. Do not fling away a soldier’s life because a fickle,
+worthless woman could not wait for you. Forgive me like a man, or else
+revenge yourself like a man. If you cannot forgive me, kill me. See, I
+kneel at your feet. I will not resist you. Kill me.”
+
+“I wish I could. Oh! if I could kill you with a look and myself with a
+wish! No man should ever take you from me, then. We would be together in
+the grave at this hour. Do not tempt me, I say;” and he cast a terrible
+look of love, and hatred, and despair upon her. Her purple eye never
+winced; it poured back tenderness and affection in return. He saw and
+turned away with a groan, and held out his hand to her. She seized it
+and kissed it. “You are great, you are generous; you will not strike me
+as a woman strikes; you will not die to drive me to despair.”
+
+“I see,” said he, more gently, “love is gone, but pity remains. I
+thought that was gone, too.”
+
+“Yes, Camille,” said Josephine, in a whisper, “pity remains, and remorse
+and terror at what I have done to a man of whom I was never worthy.”
+
+“Well, madame, as you have come at last to me, and even do me the
+honor to ask me a favor--I shall try--if only out of courtesy--to--ah,
+Josephine! Josephine! when did I ever refuse you anything?”
+
+At this Josephine sank into a chair, and burst out crying. Camille, at
+this, began to cry too; and the two poor things sat a long way from one
+another, and sobbed bitterly.
+
+The man, weakened as he was, recovered his quiet despair first.
+
+“Don’t cry so,” said he. “But tell me what is your will, and I shall
+obey you as I used before any one came between us.”
+
+“Then, live, Camille. I implore you to live.”
+
+“Well, Josephine, since you care about it, I will try and live. Why did
+not you come before and ask me? I thought I was in your way. I thought
+you wanted me dead.”
+
+Josephine cast a look of wonder and anguish on Camille, but she said
+nothing. She rang the bell, and, on Jacintha coming up, despatched her
+to Dr. Aubertin for the patient’s medicine.
+
+“Tell the doctor,” said she, “Colonel Dujardin has let fall the glass.”
+ While Jacintha was gone, she scolded Camille gently. “How could you be
+so unkind to the poor doctor who loves you so? Only think: to throw away
+his medicines! Look at the ashes; they are wet. Camille, are you, too,
+becoming disingenuous?”
+
+Jacintha came in with the tonic in a glass, and retired with an
+obeisance. Josephine took it to Camille.
+
+“Drink with me, then,” said he, “or I will not touch it.” Josephine took
+the glass. “I drink to your health, Camille, and to your glory; laurels
+to your brow, and some faithful woman to your heart, who will make you
+forget this folly: it is for her I am saving you.” She put the glass
+with well-acted spirit to her lips; but in the very action a spasm
+seized her throat and almost choked her; she lowered her head that he
+might not see her face, and tried again; but the tears burst from her
+eyes and ran into the liquid, and her lips trembled over the brim, and
+were paralyzed.
+
+“No, no! give it me!” he cried; “there is a tear of yours in it.” He
+drank off the bitter remedy now as if it had been nectar.
+
+Josephine blushed.
+
+“If you wanted me to live, why did you not come here before?”
+
+“I did not think you would be so foolish, so wicked, so cruel as to do
+what you have been doing.”
+
+“Come and shine upon me every day, and you shall have no fresh cause of
+complaint; things flourish in the sunshine that die in the dark: Rose,
+it is as if the sun had come into my prison; you are pale, but you are
+beautiful as ever--more beautiful; what a sweet dress! so quiet, so
+modest, it sets off your beauty instead of vainly trying to vie with
+it.” With this he put out his hand and took her gray silk dress, and
+went to kiss it as a devotee kisses the altar steps.
+
+She snatched it away with a shudder.
+
+“Yes, you are right,” said she; “thank you for noticing my dress; it is
+a beautiful dress--ha! ha! A dress I take a pride in wearing, and
+always shall, I hope. I mean to be buried in it. Come, Rose. Thank you,
+Camille; you are very good, you have once more promised me to live. Get
+well; come down-stairs; then you will see me every day, you know--there
+is a temptation. Good-by, Camille!--are you coming, Rose? What are you
+loitering for? God bless you, and comfort you, and help you to forget
+what it is madness to remember!”
+
+With these wild words she literally fled; and in one moment the room
+seemed to darken to Camille.
+
+Outside the door Josephine caught hold of Rose. “Have I committed
+myself?”
+
+“Over and over again. Do not look so terrified; I mean to me, but not to
+him. How blind he is! and how much better you must know him than I do to
+venture on such a transparent deceit. He believes whatever you tell
+him. He is all ears and no eyes. Yes, love, I watched him keenly all
+the time. He really thinks it is pity and remorse, nothing more. My poor
+sister, you have a hard life to lead, a hard game to play; but so far
+you have succeeded; yet could look poor Raynal in the face if he came
+home to-day.”
+
+“Then God be thanked!” cried Josephine. “I am as happy to-day as I can
+ever hope to be. Now let us go through the farce of dressing--it is near
+dinner-time--and then the farce of talking, and, hardest of all, the
+farce of living.”
+
+From that hour Camille began to get better very slowly, yet perceptibly.
+
+The doctor, afraid of being mistaken, said nothing for some days, but
+at last he announced the good news at the dinner-table. “He is to come
+down-stairs in three days,” added the doctor.
+
+But I am sorry to say that as Camille’s body strengthened some of the
+worst passions in our nature attacked him. Fierce gusts of hate and love
+combined overpowered this man’s high sentiments of honor and justice,
+and made him clench his teeth, and vow never to leave Beaurepaire
+without Josephine. She had been his four years before she ever saw this
+interloper, and she should be his forever. Her love would soon revive
+when they should meet every day, and she would end by eloping with him.
+
+Then conscience pricked him, and reminded him how and why Raynal had
+married her: for Rose had told him all. Should he undermine an absent
+soldier, whose whole conduct in this had been so pure, so generous, so
+unselfish?
+
+But this was not all. As I have already hinted, he was under a great
+personal obligation to his quondam comrade Raynal. Whenever this was
+vividly present to his mind, a great terror fell on him, and he would
+cry out in anguish, “Oh! that some angel would come to me and tear me by
+force from this place!” And the next moment passion swept over him like
+a flood, and carried away all his virtuous resolves. His soul was in
+deep waters; great waves drove it to and fro. Perilous condition,
+which seldom ends well. Camille was a man of honor. In no other earthly
+circumstance could he have hesitated an instant between right and
+wrong. But such natures, proof against all other temptations, have often
+fallen, and will fall, where sin takes the angel form of her they love.
+Yet, of all men, they should pray for help to stand; for when they fall
+they still retain one thing that divides them from mean sinners.
+
+Remorse, the giant that rends the great hearts which mock at fear.
+
+The day came in which the doctor had promised his patient he should come
+down-stairs. First his comfortable sofa was taken down into the saloon
+for his use: then the patient himself came down leaning on the doctor’s
+arm, and his heart palpitating at the thought of the meeting. He came
+into the room; the baroness was alone. She greeted him kindly,
+and welcomed him. Rose came in soon after and did the same. But no
+Josephine. Camille felt sick at heart. At last dinner was announced;
+“She will surely join us at dinner,” thought he. He cast his eyes
+anxiously on the table; the napkins were laid for four only. The
+baroness carelessly explained this to him as they sat down. “Madame
+Raynal dines in her own room. I am sorry to say she is indisposed.”
+
+Camille muttered polite regrets: the rage of disappointment drove its
+fangs into him, and then came the heart-sickness of hope deferred.
+The next day he saw her, but could not get a word with her alone. The
+baroness tortured him another way. She was full of Raynal. She loved
+him. She called him her son; was never weary of descanting on his
+virtues to Camille. Not a day passed that she did not pester Camille to
+make a calculation as to the probable period of his return, and he was
+obliged to answer her. She related to him before Josephine and Rose, how
+this honest soldier had come to them like a guardian angel and saved the
+whole family. In vain he muttered that Rose had told him.
+
+“Let me have the pleasure of telling it you my way,” cried she, and told
+it diffusely, and kept him writhing.
+
+The next thing was, Josephine had received no letter from him this
+month; the first month he had missed. In vain did Rose represent that
+he was only a few days over his time. The baroness became anxious,
+communicated her anxieties to Camille among the rest; and, by a
+torturing interrogatory, compelled him to explain to her before
+Josephine and them all, that ships do not always sail to a day, and
+are sometimes delayed. But oh! he winced at the man’s name; and Rose
+observed that he never mentioned it, nor acknowledged the existence of
+such a person as Josephine’s husband, except when others compelled him.
+Yet they were acquainted; and Rose sometimes wondered that he did not
+detract or sneer.
+
+“I should,” said she; “I feel I should.”
+
+“He is too noble,” said Josephine, “and too wise. For, if he did, I
+should respect him less, and my husband more than I do--if possible.”
+
+Certainly Camille was not the sort of nature that detracts, but the
+reason he avoided Raynal’s name was simply that his whole internal
+battle was to forget such a man existed. From this dream he was rudely
+awakened every hour since he joined the family, and the wound his
+self-deceiving heart would fain have skinned over, was torn open. But
+worse than this was the torture of being tantalized. He was in company
+with Josephine, but never alone. Even if she left the room for an
+instant, Rose accompanied her and returned with her. Camille at last
+began to comprehend that Josephine had decided there should be no
+private interviews between her and him. Thus, not only the shadow of the
+absent Raynal stood between them, but her mother and sister in person,
+and worst of all, her own will. He called her a cold-blooded fiend in
+his rage. Then the thought of all her tenderness and goodness came to
+rebuke him. But even in rebuking it maddened him. “Yes, it is her very
+nature to love; but since she can make her heart turn whichever way her
+honor bids, she will love her husband; she does not now; but sooner or
+later she will. Then she will have children--(he writhed with anguish
+and fury at this thought)--loving ties between him and her. He has
+everything on his side. I, nothing but memories she will efface from her
+heart. Will efface? She must have effaced them, or she could not have
+married him.” I know no more pitiable state of mind than to love and
+hate the same creature. But when the two feelings are both intense, and
+meet in an ardent bosom, such a man would do well to spend a day or two
+upon his knees, praying for grace divine. For he who with all his soul
+loves and hates one woman is next door to a maniac, and is scarcely
+safe an hour together from suicide or even from homicide; this truth the
+newspapers tell us, by examples, every month; but are wonderfully little
+heeded, because newspapers do not, nor is it their business to, analyze
+and dwell upon the internal feelings of the despairing lover, whose mad
+and bloody act they record. With such a tempest in his heart did Camille
+one day wander into the park. And soon an irresistible attraction drew
+him to the side of the stream that flowed along one side of it. He eyed
+it gloomily, and wherever the stagnant water indicated a deeper pool
+than usual he stopped, and looked, and thought, “How calm and peaceful
+you are!”
+
+He sat down at last by the water-side, his eyes bent on a calm, green
+pool.
+
+It looked very peaceful; and it could give peace. He thought, oh! what
+a blessing; to be quit of rage, jealousy, despair, and life, all in a
+minute!
+
+Yet that was a sordid death for a soldier to die, who had seen great
+battles. Could he not die more nobly than that? With this he suddenly
+felt in his pocket; and there sure enough fate had placed his pistols.
+He had put them into this coat; and he had not worn this coat until
+to-day. He had armed himself unconsciously. “Ah!” said he; “it is to be;
+all these things are preordained.” (This notion of fate has strengthened
+many a fatal resolution.) Then he had a cruel regret. To die without a
+word; a parting word. Then he thought to himself, it was best so; for
+perhaps he should have taken her with him.
+
+“Sir! colonel!” uttered a solemn voice behind him.
+
+Absorbed and strung up to desperation as he was, this voice seemed
+unnaturally loud, and discordant with Camille’s mood; a sudden trumpet
+from the world of small things.
+
+It was Picard, the notary.
+
+“Can you tell me where Madame Raynal is?”
+
+“No. At the chateau, I suppose.”
+
+“She is not there; I inquired of the servant. She was out. You have not
+seen her, colonel?”
+
+“Not I; I never see her.”
+
+“Then perhaps I had better go back to the chateau and wait for her:
+stay, are you a friend of the family? Colonel, suppose I were to tell
+you, and ask you to break it to Madame Raynal, or, better still, to the
+baroness, or Mademoiselle Rose.”
+
+“Monsieur,” said Camille coldly, “charge me with no messages, for I
+cannot deliver them. I AM GOING ANOTHER WAY.”
+
+“In that case, I will go to the chateau once more; for what I have to
+say must be heard.”
+
+Picard returned to the chateau wondering at the colonel’s strange
+manner.
+
+Camille, for his part, wondered that any one could be so mad as to talk
+to him about trifles; to him, a man standing on the brink of eternity.
+Poor soul, it was he who was mad and unlucky. He should have heard what
+Picard had to say. The very gentleness and solemnity of manner ought to
+have excited his curiosity.
+
+He watched Picard’s retiring form. When he was out of sight, then he
+turned round and resumed his thoughts as if Picard had been no more than
+a fly that had buzzed and then gone.
+
+“Yes, I should have taken her with me,” he said. He sat gloomy and
+dogged like a dangerous maniac in his cell; never moved, scarce thought
+for more than half an hour; but his deadly purpose grew in him. Suddenly
+he started. A lady was at the style, about a hundred yards distant. He
+trembled. It was Josephine.
+
+She came towards him slowly, her eyes bent on the ground in a deep
+reverie. She stopped about a stone’s throw from him, and looked at the
+river long and thoughtfully; then casting her eye around, she caught
+sight of Camille. He watched her grimly. He saw her give a little start,
+and half turn round; but if this was an impulse to retreat, it was
+instantly suppressed; for the next moment she pursued her way.
+
+Camille stood gloomy and bitter, awaiting her in silence. He planted
+himself in the middle of the path, and said not a word.
+
+She looked him all over, and her color came and went.
+
+“Out so far as this,” she said kindly; “and without your cap.”
+
+He put his hand to his head, and discovered that he was bareheaded.
+
+“You will catch your death of cold. Come, let us go in and get your
+cap.”
+
+She made as if she would pass him. He planted himself right before her.
+
+“No.”
+
+“Camille!”
+
+“Why do you shun me as if I was a viper?”
+
+“I do not shun you. I but avoid conferences that can lead to no good; it
+is my duty.”
+
+“You are very wise; cold-hearted people can be wise.”
+
+“Am I cold-hearted, Camille?”
+
+“As marble.”
+
+She looked him in the face; the water came into her eyes; after awhile
+she whispered, sorrowfully, “Well, Camille, I am.”
+
+“But with all your wisdom and all your coldness,” he went on to say,
+“you have made a mistake; you have driven me to madness and despair.”
+
+“Heaven forbid!” said she.
+
+“Your prayer comes too late; you have done it.”
+
+“Camille, let me go to the oratory, and pray for you. You terrify me.”
+
+“It is no use. Heaven has no mercy for me. Take my advice; stay where
+you are; don’t hurry; for what remains of your life you gave to pass
+with me, do you understand that?”
+
+“Ah!” And she turned pale.
+
+“Can you read my riddle?”
+
+She looked him in the face. “I can read your eyes, and I know you love
+me. I think you mean to kill me. I have heard men kill the thing they
+love.”
+
+“Of course they do; sooner than another should have it, they kill
+it--they kill it.”
+
+“God has not made them patient like us women. Poor Camille!”
+
+“Patience dies when hope dies. Come, Madame Raynal, say a prayer, for
+you are going to die.”
+
+“God bless you, Camille!” said the poor girl, putting her hands together
+in her last prayer. At this sweet touch of affection, Camille hung his
+head, and sobbed. Then suddenly lashing himself into fury, he cried,--
+
+“You are my betrothed! you talk of duty; but you forget your duty to me.
+Are you not my betrothed this four years? Answer me that.”
+
+“Yes, Camille, I was.”
+
+“Did I not suffer death a hundred times for you, to keep faith with you,
+you cold-blooded traitress with an angel’s face?”
+
+“Ah, Camille! can you speak so bitterly to me? Have I denied your right
+to kill me? You shall never dishonor me, but you shall kill me, if it is
+your pleasure. I do not resist. Why, then, speak to me like that; must
+the last words I hear from your mouth be words of anger, cruel Camille?”
+
+“I was wrong. But it is so hard to kill her I love in cold blood. I want
+anger as well as despair to keep me to it. Come, turn your head away
+from me, and all our troubles shall end.”
+
+“No, Camille, let me look at you. Then you will be the last thing I
+shall see on earth.”
+
+At this he hesitated a moment; then, with a fierce stamp at what he
+thought was weakness, he levelled a pistol at her.
+
+She put up her hands with a piteous cry, “Oh! not my face, Camille! pray
+do not disfigure my face. Here--kill me here--in my bosom--my heart that
+loved you well, when it was no sin to love you.”
+
+“I can’t shoot you. I can’t spill your blood. The river will end all,
+and not disfigure your beauty, that has driven me mad, and cost you,
+poor wretch, your life.”
+
+“Thank you, dear Camille. The water does not frighten me as a pistol
+does; it will not hurt me; it will only kill me.”
+
+“No, it is but a plunge, and you will be at peace forever; and so shall
+I. Come, take my hand, Madame Raynal, Madame Raynal.”
+
+She gave him her hand with a look of infinite love. She only said, “My
+poor mother!” That word did not fall to the ground. It flashed like
+lightning at night across the demented lover, and lighted up his egotism
+(suicide, like homicide, is generally a fit of maniacal egotism), even
+to his eyes blinded by fury.
+
+“Wretch that I am,” he shrieked. “Fly, Josephine, fly! escape this
+moment, that my better angel whispers to me. Do you hear? begone, while
+it is time.”
+
+“I will not leave you, Camille.”
+
+“I say you shall. Go to your mother and Rose; go to those you love, and
+I can pity; go to the chapel and thank Heaven for your escape.”
+
+“Yes, but not without you, Camille. I am afraid to leave you.”
+
+“You have more to fear if you stay. Well, I can’t wait any longer. Stay,
+then, and live; and learn from me how to love Jean Raynal.”
+
+He levelled the pistol at himself.
+
+Josephine threw herself on him with a cry, and seized his arm. With the
+strength excitement lent her she got the better, and all but overpowered
+him. But, as usual, the man’s strength lasted longer, and with a
+sustained effort he threw her off; then, pale and panting, raised the
+pistol to take his life. This time she moved neither hand nor foot; but
+she palsied his rash hand with a word.
+
+“No; I LOVE YOU.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+
+There lie the dead corpses of those words on paper; but my art is
+powerless to tell you how they were uttered, those words, potent as a
+king’s, for they saved a life.
+
+They were a cry of terror and a cry of reproach and a cry of love
+unfathomable.
+
+The weapon shook in his hand. He looked at her with growing astonishment
+and joy; she at him fixedly and anxiously, her hands clasped in
+supplication.
+
+“As you used to love me?”
+
+“More, far more. Give me the pistol. I love you, dearest. I love you.”
+
+At these delicious words he lost all power of resistance, she saw;
+and her soft and supple hand stole in and closed upon his, and gently
+withdrew the weapon, and threw it into the water. “Good Camille! now
+give me the other.”
+
+“How do you know there is another?”
+
+“I know you are not the man to kill a woman and spare yourself. Come.”
+
+“Josephine, have pity on me, do not deceive me; pray do not take this,
+my only friend, from me, unless you really love me.”
+
+“I love you; I adore you,” was her reply.
+
+She leaned her head on his shoulder, but with her hand she sought his,
+and even as she uttered those loving words she coaxed the weapon from
+his now unresisting grasp.
+
+“There, it is gone; you are saved from death--saved from crime.” And
+with that, the danger was over, she trembled for the first time, and
+fell to sobbing hysterically.
+
+He threw himself at her knees, and embraced them again and again, and
+begged her forgiveness in a transport of remorse and self-reproach.
+
+She looked down with tender pity on him, and heard his cries of
+penitence and shame.
+
+“Rise, Camille, and go home with me,” said she faintly.
+
+“Yes, Josephine.”
+
+They went slowly and in silence. Camille was too ashamed and penitent
+to speak; too full of terror too at the abyss of crime from which he
+had been saved. The ancients feigned that a virgin could subdue a lion;
+perhaps they meant that a pure gentle nature can subdue a nature fierce
+but generous. Lion-like Camille walked by Josephine’s side with his eyes
+bent on the ground, the picture of humility and penitence.
+
+“This is the last walk you and I shall take together,” said Josephine
+solemnly.
+
+“I know it,” said he humbly. “I have forfeited all right to be by your
+side.”
+
+“My poor, lost love,” sighed Josephine, “will you never understand
+me? You never stood higher in my esteem than at this moment. It is the
+avowal you have forced from ME that parts us. The man to whom I have
+said ‘I’--must not remain beneath my husband’s roof. Does not your sense
+of honor agree with mine?”
+
+“It does,” faltered he.
+
+“To-morrow you must leave the chateau.”
+
+“I will obey you.”
+
+“What, you do not resist, you do not break my heart by complaints, by
+reproaches?”
+
+“No, Josephine, all is changed. I thought you unfeeling: I thought you
+were going to be HAPPY with him; that was what maddened me.”
+
+“I pray daily YOU may be happy, no matter how. But you and I are not
+alike, dear as we are to one another. Well, do not fear: I shall never
+be happy--will that soothe you, Camille?”
+
+“Yes, Josephine, all is changed; the words you have spoken have driven
+the fiends out of my heart. I have nothing to do now but to obey, you to
+command: it is your right. Since you love me a little still, dispose
+of me. Bid me live: bid me die: bid me stay: bid me go. I shall never
+disobey the angel who loves me, my only friend upon the earth.”
+
+A single deep sob from Josephine was all the answer.
+
+Then he could not help asking her why she had not trusted him?
+
+“Why did you not say to me long ago, ‘I love you, but I am a wife; my
+husband is an honest soldier, absent, and fighting for France: I am the
+guardian of his honor and my own; be just, be generous, be self-denying;
+depart and love me only as angels love’? Perhaps this might have helped
+me to show you that I too am a man of honor.”
+
+“Perhaps I was wrong,” sighed Josephine. “I think I should have trusted
+more to you. But then, who would have thought you could really doubt my
+love? You were ill; I could not bear you to go till you were well, quite
+well. I saw no other way to keep you but this, to treat you with feigned
+coldness. You saw the coldness, but not what it cost me to maintain it.
+Yes, I was unjust; and inconsiderate, for I had many furtive joys to
+sustain me: I had you in my house under my care--that thought was always
+sweet--I had a hand in everything that was for your good, for your
+comfort. I helped Jacintha make your soup and your chocolate every day.
+I had the delight of lining the dressing-gown you were to wear. I had
+always some little thing or other to do for you. These kept me up: I
+forgot in my selfishness that you had none of these supports, and that
+I was driving you to despair. I am a foolish, disingenuous woman: I have
+been very culpable. Forgive me!”
+
+“Forgive you, angel of purity and goodness? I alone am to blame.
+What right had I to doubt your heart? I knew the whole story of your
+marriage; I saw your sweet pale face; but I was not pure enough to
+comprehend angelic virtue and unselfishness. Well, I am brought to
+my senses. There is but one thing for me to do--you bade me leave you
+to-morrow.”
+
+“I was very cruel.”
+
+“No! not cruel, wise. But I will be wiser. I shall go to-night.”
+
+“To-night, Camille?” said Josephine, turning pale.
+
+“Ay! for to-night I am strong; to-morrow I may be weak. To-night
+everything thrusts me on the right path. To-morrow everything will draw
+me from it. Do not cry, beloved one; you and I have a hard fight. We
+must be true allies; whenever one is weak, then is the time for the
+other to be strong. I have been weaker than you, to my shame be it said;
+but this is my hour of strength. A light from heaven shows me my path.
+I am full of passion, but like you I have honor. You are Raynal’s wife,
+and--Raynal saved my life.”
+
+“Ah! is it possible? When? where? may Heaven bless him for it!”
+
+“Ask HIM; and say I told you of it--I have not strength to tell it you,
+but I will go to-night.”
+
+Then Josephine, who had resisted till all her strength was gone,
+whispered with a blush that it was too late to get a conveyance.
+
+“I need none to carry my sword, my epaulets, and my love for you. I
+shall go on foot.”
+
+Josephine said nothing, but she began to walk slower and slower. And
+so the unfortunate pair came along creeping slowly with drooping heads
+towards the gate of the Pleasaunce. There their last walk in this world
+must end. Many a man and woman have gone to the scaffold with hearts
+less heavy and more hopeful than theirs.
+
+“Dry your eyes, Josephine,” said Camille with a deep sigh. “They are all
+out on the Pleasaunce.”
+
+“No, I will not dry my eyes,” cried Josephine, almost violently. “I care
+for nothing now.”
+
+The baroness, the doctor, and Rose, were all in the Pleasaunce: and as
+the pair came in, lo! every eye was bent on Josephine.
+
+She felt this, and her eyes sought the ground: benumbed as she was with
+despondency, she began now to dread some fresh stroke or other.
+
+Camille felt doubly guilty and confused. How they all look at us, he
+thought. Do they know what a villain I have been? He determined to slip
+away, and pack up, and begone. However, nobody took any notice of him.
+The baroness drew Josephine apart. And Rose followed her mother and
+sister with eyes bent on the ground.
+
+There was a strange solemnity about them all.
+
+Aubertin remained behind. But even he took no notice of Camille, but
+walked up and down with his hands behind him, and a sad and troubled
+face. Camille felt his utter desolation. He was nothing to any of them.
+He resolved to go at once, and charge Aubertin with his last adieus to
+the family. It was a wise and manly resolve. He stopped Aubertin in
+the middle of his walk, and said in a faint voice of the deepest
+dejection,--
+
+“Doctor, the time is come that I must once more thank you for all your
+goodness to me, and bid you all farewell.”
+
+“What, going before your strength is re-established?” said the doctor
+politely, but not warmly.
+
+“I am out of all danger, thanks to your skill.”
+
+“Colonel, at another time I should insist upon your staying a day or two
+longer; but now I think it would be unadvisable to press you to stay.
+Ah, colonel, you came to a happy house, but you leave a sad one. Poor
+Madame Raynal!”
+
+“Sir!”
+
+“You saw the baroness draw her aside.”
+
+“Y-yes.”
+
+“By this time she knows it.”
+
+“In Heaven’s name what do you mean?” asked Camille.
+
+“I forgot; you are not aware of the calamity that has fallen upon our
+beloved Josephine; on the darling of the house.”
+
+Camille turned cold with vague apprehension. But he contrived to stammer
+out, “No; tell me! for Heaven’s sake tell me.”
+
+The doctor thus pressed revealed all in a very few words. “My poor
+friend,” said he solemnly, “her husband--is dead.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+
+The baroness, as I have said, drew Josephine aside, and tried to break
+to her the sad news: but her own grief overcame her, and bursting into
+tears she bewailed the loss of her son. Josephine was greatly shocked.
+Death!--Raynal dead--her true, kind friend dead--her benefactor dead.
+She clung to her mother’s neck, and sobbed with her. Presently she
+withdrew her face and suddenly hid it in both her hands.
+
+She rose and kissed her mother once more: and went to her own room: and
+then, though there was none to see her, she hid her wet, but burning,
+cheeks in her hands.
+
+Josephine confined herself for some days to her own room, leaving it
+only to go to the chapel in the park, where she spent hours in prayers
+for the dead and in self-humiliation. Her “tender conscience” accused
+herself bitterly for not having loved this gallant spirit more than she
+had.
+
+Camille realized nothing at first; he looked all confused in the
+doctor’s face, and was silent. Then after awhile he said, “Dead? Raynal
+dead?”
+
+“Killed in action.”
+
+A red flush came to Camille’s face, and his eyes went down to the ground
+at his very feet, nor did he once raise them while the doctor told him
+how the sad news had come. “Picard the notary brought us the Moniteur,
+and there was Commandant Raynal among the killed in a cavalry skirmish.”
+ With this, he took the journal from his pocket, and Camille read it,
+with awe-struck, and other feelings he would have been sorry to see
+analyzed. He said not a word; and lowered his eyes to the ground.
+
+“And now,” said Aubertin, “you will excuse me. I must go to my poor
+friend the baroness. She had a mother’s love for him who is no more:
+well she might.”
+
+Aubertin went away, and left Dujardin standing there like a statue, his
+eyes still glued to the ground at his feet.
+
+The doctor was no sooner out of sight, than Camille raised his eyes
+furtively, like a guilty person, and looked irresolutely this way
+and that: at last he turned and went back to the place where he had
+meditated suicide and murder; looked down at it a long while, then
+looked up to heaven--then fell suddenly on his knees: and so remained
+till night-fall. Then he came back to the chateau.
+
+He whispered to himself, “And I am afraid it is too late to go away
+to-night.” He went softly into the saloon. Nobody was there but Rose and
+Aubertin. At sight of him Rose got up and left the room. But I suppose
+she went to Josephine; for she returned in a few minutes, and rang the
+bell, and ordered some supper to be brought up for Colonel Dujardin.
+
+“You have not dined, I hear,” said she, very coldly.
+
+“I was afraid you were gone altogether,” said the doctor: then turning
+to Rose, “He told me he was going this evening. You had better stay
+quiet another day or two,” added he, kindly.
+
+“Do you think so?” said Camille, timidly.
+
+He stayed upon these terms. And now he began to examine himself. “Did
+I wish him dead? I hope I never formed such a thought! I don’t remember
+ever wishing him dead.” And he went twice a day to that place by the
+stream, and thought very solemnly what a terrible thing ungoverned
+passion is; and repented--not eloquently, but silently, sincerely.
+
+But soon his impatient spirit began to torment itself again. Why did
+Josephine shun him now? Ah! she loved Raynal now that he was dead. Women
+love the thing they have lost; so he had heard say. In that case, the
+very sight of him would of course be odious to her: he could understand
+that. The absolute, unreasoning faith he once had in her had been
+so rudely shaken by her marriage with Raynal, that now he could only
+believe just so much as he saw, and he saw that she shunned him.
+
+He became moody, sad, and disconsolate: and as Josephine shunned him, so
+he avoided all the others, and wandered for hours by himself, perplexed
+and miserable. After awhile, he became conscious that he was under a
+sort of surveillance. Rose de Beaurepaire, who had been so kind to him
+when he was confined to his own room, but had taken little notice of him
+since he came down, now resumed her care of him, and evidently made it
+her business to keep up his heart. She used to meet him out walking in
+a mysterious way, and in short, be always falling in with him and trying
+to cheer him up: with tolerable success.
+
+Such was the state of affairs when the party was swelled and matters
+complicated by the arrival of one we have lost sight of.
+
+Edouard Riviere retarded his cure by an impatient spirit: but he got
+well at last, and his uncle drove him in the cabriolet to his own
+quarters. The news of the house had been told him by letter, but, of
+course, in so vague and general a way that, thinking he knew all, in
+reality he knew nothing.
+
+Josephine had married Raynal. The marriage was sudden, but no doubt
+there was an attachment: he had some reason to believe in sudden
+attachments. Colonel Dujardin, an old acquaintance, had come back
+to France wounded, and the good doctor had undertaken his cure: this
+incident appeared neither strange nor any way important. What affected
+him most deeply was the death of Raynal, his personal friend and patron.
+But when his tyrants, as he called the surgeon and his uncle, gave him
+leave to go home, all feelings were overpowered by his great joy at the
+prospect of seeing Rose. He walked over to Beaurepaire, his arm in a
+sling, his heart beating. He was coming to receive the reward of all he
+had done, and all he had attempted. “I will surprise them,” thought he.
+“I will see her face when I come in at the door: oh, happy hour! this
+pays for all.” He entered the house without announcing himself; he went
+softly up to the saloon; to his great disappointment he found no one
+but the baroness: she received him kindly, but not with the warmth he
+expected. She was absorbed in her new grief. He asked timidly after her
+daughters. “Madame Raynal bears up, for the sake of others. You will
+not, however, see her: she keeps her room. My daughter Rose is taking
+a walk, I believe.” After some polite inquiries, and sympathy with his
+accident, the baroness retired to indulge her grief, and Edouard thus
+liberated ran in search of his beloved.
+
+He met her at the gate of the Pleasaunce, but not alone. She was walking
+with an officer, a handsome, commanding, haughty, brilliant officer. She
+was walking by his side, talking earnestly to him.
+
+An arrow of ice shot through young Riviere; and then came a feeling of
+death at his heart, a new symptom in his young life.
+
+The next moment Rose caught sight of him. She flushed all over and
+uttered a little exclamation, and she bounded towards him like a little
+antelope, and put out both her hands at once. He could only give her
+one.
+
+“Ah!” she cried with an accent of heavenly pity, and took his hand with
+both hers.
+
+This was like the meridian sun coming suddenly on a cold place. He was
+all happiness.
+
+When Josephine heard he was come her eye flashed, and she said quickly,
+“I will come down to welcome him--dear Edouard!”
+
+The sisters looked at one another. Josephine blushed. Rose smiled and
+kissed her. She colored higher still, and said, “No, she was ashamed to
+go down.”
+
+“Why?”
+
+“Look at my face.”
+
+“I see nothing wrong with it, except that it eclipses other people’s,
+and I have long forgiven you that.”
+
+“Oh, yes, dear Rose: look what a color it has, and a fortnight ago it
+was pale as ashes.”
+
+“Never mind; do you expect me to regret that?”
+
+“Rose, I am a very bad woman.”
+
+“Are you, dear? then hook this for me.”
+
+“Yes, love. But I sometimes think you would forgive me if you knew how
+hard I pray to be better. Rose, I do try so to be as unhappy as I ought;
+but I can’t, I can’t. My cold heart seems as dead to unhappiness as once
+it was to happiness. Am I a heartless woman after all?”
+
+“Not altogether,” said Rose dryly. “Fasten my collar, dear, and don’t
+torment yourself. You have suffered much and nobly. It was Heaven’s
+will: you bowed to it. It was not Heaven’s will that you should be
+blighted altogether. Bow in this, too, to Heaven’s will: take things
+as they come, and do cease to try and reconcile feelings that are too
+opposite to live together.”
+
+“Ah! these are such comfortable words, Rose; but mamma will see this
+dreadful color in my cheek, and what can I say to her?”
+
+“Ten to one it will not be observed; and if it should, I will say it is
+the excitement of seeing Edouard. Leave all to me.”
+
+Josephine greeted Edouard most affectionately, drew from him his whole
+history, and petted him and sympathized with him deliciously, and made
+him the hero of the evening. Camille, who was not naturally of a jealous
+temper, bore this very well at first, but at last he looked so bitter
+at her neglect of him, that Rose took him aside to soothe him. Edouard,
+missing the auditor he most valued, and seeing her in secret conference
+with the brilliant colonel, felt a return of the jealous pangs that
+had seized him at first sight of the man; and so they played at cross
+purposes.
+
+At another period of the evening the conversation became more general;
+and Edouard took a dislike to Colonel Dujardin. A young man of
+twenty-eight nearly always looks on a boy of twenty-one with the air of
+a superior, and this assumption, not being an ill-natured one, is apt to
+be so easy and so undefined that the younger hardly knows how to resent
+or to resist it. But Edouard was a little vain as we know; and the
+Colonel jarred him terribly. His quick haughty eye jarred him. His
+regimentals jarred him: they fitted like a glove. His mustache and his
+manner jarred him, and, worst of all, his cool familiarity with Rose,
+who seemed to court him rather than be courted by him. He put this act
+of Rose’s to the colonel’s account, according to the custom of lovers,
+and revenged himself in a small way by telling Josephine in her ear
+“that the colonel produced on his mind the effect of an intolerable
+puppy.”
+
+Josephine colored up and looked at him with a momentary surprise. She
+said quietly, “Military men do give themselves some airs, but he is very
+amiable at bottom. You must make a better acquaintance with him, and
+then he will reveal to you his nobler qualities.”--“Oh! I have no
+particular desire,” sneered unlucky Edouard. Sweet as Josephine was,
+this was too much for her: she said nothing; but she quietly turned
+Edouard over to Aubertin, and joined Rose, and under cover of her had a
+sweet timid chat with her falsely accused.
+
+This occupied the two so entirely that Edouard was neglected. This hurt
+his foible, and seemed to be so unkind on the very first day of his
+return that he made his adieus to the baroness, and marched off in
+dudgeon unobserved.
+
+Rose missed him first, but said nothing.
+
+When Josephine saw he was gone, she uttered a little exclamation, and
+looked at Rose. Rose put on a mien of haughty indifference, but the
+water was in her eyes.
+
+Josephine looked sorrowful.
+
+When they talked over everything together at night, she reproached
+herself. “We behaved ill to poor Edouard: we neglected him.”
+
+“He is a little cross, ill-tempered fellow,” said Rose pettishly.
+
+“Oh, no! no!”
+
+“And as vain as a peacock.”
+
+“Has he not some right to be vain in this house?”
+
+“Yes,--no. I am very angry with him. I won’t hear a word in his favor,”
+ said Rose pouting: then she gave his defender a kiss. “Yes, dear,” said
+Josephine, answering the kiss, and ignoring the words, “he is a dear;
+and he is not cross, nor so very vain, poor boy! now don’t you see what
+it was?”
+
+“No.”
+
+“Yes, you do, you little cunning thing: you are too shrewd not to see
+everything.”
+
+“No, indeed, Josephine; do tell me, don’t keep me waiting: I can’t bear
+that.”
+
+“Well, then--jealous! A little.”
+
+“Jealous? Oh, what fun! Of Camille? Ha! ha! Little goose!”
+
+“And,” said Josephine very seriously, “I almost think he would be
+jealous of any one that occupied your attention. I watched him more or
+less all the evening.”
+
+“All the better. I’ll torment my lord.”
+
+“Heaven forbid you should be so cruel.”
+
+“Oh! I will not make him unhappy, but I’ll tease him a little; it is not
+in nature to abstain.”
+
+This foible detected in her lover, Rose was very gay at the prospect of
+amusement it afforded her.
+
+And I think I have many readers who at this moment are awaiting unmixed
+enjoyment and hilarity from the same source.
+
+I wish them joy of their prospect.
+
+Edouard called the next day: he wore a gloomy air. Rose met this with
+a particularly cheerful one; on this, Edouard’s face cleared up, and
+he was himself again; agreeable as this was, Rose felt a little
+disappointed. “I am afraid he is not very jealous after all,” thought
+she.
+
+Josephine left her room this day and mingled once more with the family.
+The bare sight of her was enough for Camille at first, but after awhile
+he wanted more. He wanted to be often alone with her; but several causes
+co-operated to make her shy of giving him many such opportunities:
+first, her natural delicacy, coupled with her habit of self-denial; then
+her fear of shocking her mother, and lastly her fear of her own heart,
+and of Camille, whose power over her she knew. For Camille, when he did
+get a sweet word alone with her, seemed to forget everything except that
+she was his betrothed, and that he had come back alive to marry her.
+He spoke to her of his love with an ardor and an urgency that made her
+thrill with happiness, but at the same time shrink with a certain fear
+and self-reproach. Possessed with a feeling no stronger than hers, but
+single, he did not comprehend the tumult, the trouble, the daily contest
+in her heart. The wind seemed to him to be always changing, and hot and
+cold the same hour. Since he did not even see that she was acting in
+hourly fear of her mother’s eye, he was little likely to penetrate
+her more hidden sentiments; and then he had not touched her
+key-note,--self-denial.
+
+Women are self-denying and uncandid. Men are self-indulgent and
+outspoken.
+
+And this is the key to a thousand double misunderstandings; for believe
+me, good women are just as stupid in misunderstanding men as honest men
+are in misunderstanding women.
+
+To Camille, Josephine’s fluctuations, joys, tremors, love, terror,
+modesty, seemed one grand total, caprice. The component parts of it he
+saw not; and her caprice tortured him almost to madness. Too penitent
+to give way again to violent passion, he gently fretted. His health
+retrograded and his temper began to sour. The eye of timid love that
+watched him with maternal anxiety from under its long lashes saw this
+with dismay, and Rose, who looked into her sister’s bosom, devoted
+herself once more to soothe him without compromising Josephine’s
+delicacy. Matters were not so bad but what a fine sprightly girl like
+Rose could cheer up a dejected but manly colonel; and Rose was generally
+successful.
+
+But then, unfortunately, this led to a fresh mystification. Riviere’s
+natural jealousy revived, and found constant food in the attention Rose
+paid Camille, a brilliant colonel living in the house while he, poor
+wretch, lived in lodgings. The false position of all the parties brought
+about some singular turns. I give from their number one that forms a
+link, though a small one, in my narrative.
+
+One day Edouard came to tell Rose she was making him unhappy; he had her
+alone in the Pleasaunce; she received him with a radiant smile, and they
+had a charming talk,--a talk all about HIM: what the family owed him,
+etc.
+
+On this, his late jealousy and sense of injury seemed a thing of three
+years ago, and never to return. So hard it is for the loving heart to
+resist its sun.
+
+Jacintha came with a message from the colonel: “Would it be agreeable to
+Mademoiselle Rose to walk with him at the usual hour?”
+
+“Certainly,” said Rose.
+
+As Jacintha was retiring Edouard called to her to stop a minute.
+
+Then, turning to Rose, he begged her very ceremoniously to reconsider
+that determination.
+
+“What determination?”
+
+“To sacrifice me to this Colonel Dujardin.” Still politely, only a
+little grimly.
+
+Rose opened her eyes. “Are you mad?” inquired she with quiet hauteur.
+
+“Neither mad nor a fool,” was the reply. “I love you too well to share
+your regard with any one, upon any terms; least of all upon these, that
+there is to be a man in the world at whose beck and call you are to
+be, and at whose orders you are to break off an interview with me.
+Perdition!”
+
+“Dear Edouard, what folly! Can you suspect me of discourtesy, as well as
+of--I know not what. Colonel Dujardin will join us, that is all, and we
+shall take a little walk with him.”
+
+“Not I. I decline the intrusion; you are engaged with me, and I have
+things to say to you that are not fit for that puppy to hear. So choose
+between me and him, and choose forever.”
+
+Rose colored. “I should be very sorry to choose either of you forever;
+but for this afternoon I choose you.”
+
+“Oh, thank you--my whole life shall prove my gratitude for this
+preference.”
+
+Rose beckoned Jacintha, and sent her with an excuse to Colonel Dujardin.
+She then turned with an air of mock submission to Edouard. “I am at
+monsieur’s ORDERS.”
+
+Then this unhappy novice, being naturally good-natured, thanked her
+again and again for her condescension in setting his heart at rest. He
+proposed a walk, since his interference had lost her one. She yielded
+a cold assent. This vexed him, but he took it for granted it would wear
+off before the end of the walk. Edouard’s heart bounded, but he loved
+her too sincerely to be happy unless he could see her happy too; the
+malicious thing saw this, or perhaps knew it by instinct, and by means
+of this good feeling of his she revenged herself for his tyranny. She
+tortured him as only a woman can torture, and as even she can torture
+only a worthy man, and one who loves her. In the course of that short
+walk this inexperienced girl, strong in the instincts and inborn arts
+of her sex, drove pins and needles, needles and pins, of all sorts and
+sizes, through her lover’s heart.
+
+She was everything by turns, except kind, and nothing for long together.
+She was peevish, she was ostentatiously patient and submissive, she was
+inattentive to her companion and seemingly wrapped up in contemplation
+of absent things and persons, the colonel to wit; she was dogged,
+repulsive, and cold; and she never was herself a single moment. They
+returned to the gate of the Pleasaunce. “Well, mademoiselle,” said
+Riviere very sadly, “that interloper might as well have been with us.”
+
+“Of course he might, and you would have lost nothing by permitting me
+to be courteous to a guest and an invalid. If you had not played the
+tyrant, and taken the matter into your own hands, I should have found
+means to soothe your jeal--I mean your vanity; but you preferred to have
+your own way. Well, you have had it.”
+
+“Yes, mademoiselle, you have given me a lesson; you have shown me how
+idle it is to attempt to force a young lady’s inclinations in anything.”
+
+He bade her good-day, and went away sorrowful.
+
+She cut Camille dead for the rest of the day.
+
+Next morning, early, Edouard called expressly to see her. “Mademoiselle
+Rose,” said he, humbly, “I called to apologize for the ungentlemanly
+tone of my remonstrances yesterday.”
+
+“Fiddle-dee,” said Rose. “Don’t do it again; that is the best apology.”
+
+“I am not likely to offend so again,” said he sadly. “I am going away. I
+am sorry to say I am promoted; my new post is ten leagues. HE WILL HAVE
+IT ALL HIS OWN WAY NOW. But perhaps it is best. Were I to stay here, I
+foresee you would soon lose whatever friendly feeling you have for me.”
+
+“Am I so changeable? I am not considered so,” remonstrated Rose, gently.
+
+Riviere explained; “I am not vain,” said he, with that self-knowledge
+which is so general an attribute of human beings; “no man less so, nor
+am I jealous; but I respect myself, and I could never be content to
+share your time and your regard with Colonel Dujardin, nor with a much
+better man. See now; he has made me arrogant. Was I ever so before?”
+
+“No! no! no! and I forgive you now, my poor Edouard.”
+
+“He has made you cold as ice to me.”
+
+“No! that was my own wickedness and spitefulness.”
+
+“Wickedness, spitefulness! they are not in your nature. It is all that
+wretch’s doing.”
+
+Rose sighed, but she said nothing; for she saw that to excuse Camille
+would only make the jealous one more bitter against him.
+
+“Will you deign to write to me at my new post? once a month? in answer
+to my letters?”
+
+“Yes, dear. But you will ride over sometimes to see us.”
+
+“Oh, yes; but for some little time I shall not be able. The duties of a
+new post.”
+
+“Perhaps in a month--a fortnight?”
+
+“Sooner perhaps; the moment I hear that man is out of the house.”
+
+Edouard went away, dogged and sad; Rose shut herself up in her room and
+had a good cry. In the afternoon Josephine came and remonstrated with
+her. “You have not walked with him at all to-day.”
+
+“No; you must pet him yourself for once. I hate the sight of him; it
+has made mischief between Edouard and me, my being so attentive to him.
+Edouard is jealous, and I cannot wonder. After all, what right have I to
+mystify him who honors me with his affection?”
+
+Then, being pressed with questions by Josephine, she related to her all
+that had passed between Edouard and her, word for word.
+
+“Poor Camille!” sighed Josephine the just.
+
+“Oh, dear, yes! poor Camille! who has the power to make us all
+miserable, and who does it, and will go on doing it until he is happy
+himself.”
+
+“Ah! would to Heaven I could make him as happy as he deserves to be.”
+
+“You could easily make him much happier than that. And why not do it?”
+
+“O Rose,” said Josephine, shocked, “how can you advise me so?”
+
+She then asked her if she thought it possible that Camille could be
+ignorant of her heart.
+
+“Josephine,” replied Rose, angrily, “these men are absurd: they believe
+only what they see. I have done what I can for you and Camille, but it
+is useless. Would you have him believe you love him, you must yourself
+be kind to him; and it would be a charitable action: you would make four
+unhappy people happy, or, at least, put them on the road; NOW they are
+off the road, and, by what I have seen to-day, I think, if we go on so
+much longer, it will be too late to try to return. Come, Josephine,
+for my sake! Let me go and tell him you will consent--to all our
+happinesses. There, the crime is mine.” And she ran off in spite of
+Josephine’s faint and hypocritical entreaties. She returns the next
+minute looking all aghast. “It is too late,” said she. “He is going
+away. I am sure he is, for he is packing up his things to go. I spied
+through the old place and saw him. He was sighing like a furnace as he
+strapped his portmanteau. I hate him, of course, but I was sorry for
+him. I could not help being. He sighed so all the time, piteously.”
+
+Josephine turned pale, and lifted her hands in surprise and dismay.
+
+“Depend on it, Josephine, we are wrong,” said Rose, firmly: “these
+wretches will not stand our nonsense above a certain time: they are not
+such fools. We are mismanaging: one gone, the other going; both losing
+faith in us.”
+
+Josephine’s color returned to her cheek, and then mounted high.
+Presently she smiled, a smile full of conscious power and furtive
+complacency, and said quietly, “He will not go.”
+
+Rose was pleased, but not surprised, to hear her sister speak so
+confidently, for she knew her power over Camille. “That is right,” said
+she, “go to him, and say two honest words: ‘I bid you stay.’”
+
+“O Rose! no!”
+
+“Poltroon! You know he would go down on his knees, and stay directly.”
+
+“No: I should blush all my life before you and him. I COULD not. I
+should let him go sooner, almost. Oh, no! I will never ask a man to stay
+who wishes to leave me. But just you go to him, and say Madame Raynal
+is going to take a little walk: will he do her the honor to be her
+companion? Not a word more, if you love me.”
+
+“I’ll go. Hypocrite!”
+
+
+Josephine received Camille with a bright smile. She seemed in unusually
+good spirits, and overflowing with kindness and innocent affection. On
+this his high gloomy brow relaxed, and all his prospects brightened as
+by magic. Then she communicated to him a number of little plans for next
+week and the week after. Among the rest he was to go with her and Rose
+to Frejus. “Such a sweet place: I want to show it you. You will come?”
+
+He hesitated a single moment: a moment of intense anxiety to the smiling
+Josephine.
+
+“Yes! he would come: it was a great temptation, he saw so little of
+her.”
+
+“Well, you will see more of me now.”
+
+“Shall I see you every day--alone, I mean?”
+
+“Oh, yes, if you wish it,” replied Josephine, in an off-hand,
+indifferent way.
+
+He seized her hand and devoured it with kisses. “Foolish thing!”
+ murmured she, looking down on him with ineffable tenderness. “Should I
+not be always with you if I consulted my inclination?--let me go.”
+
+“No! consult your inclination a little longer.”
+
+“Must I?”
+
+“Yes; that shall be your punishment.”
+
+“For what? What have I done?” asked she with an air of great innocence.
+
+“You have made me happy, me who adore you,” was the evasive reply.
+
+Josephine came in from her walk with a high color and beaming eyes, and
+screamed, “Run, Rose!”
+
+On this concise, and to us not very clear instruction, Rose slipped up
+the secret stair. She saw Camille come in and gravely unpack his little
+portmanteau, and dispose his things in the drawers with soldier-like
+neatness, and hum an agreeable march. She came and told Josephine.
+
+“Ah!” said Josephine with a little sigh of pleasure, and a gentle
+triumph in her eyes.
+
+She had not only got her desire, but had arrived at it her way,--woman’s
+way, round about.
+
+This adroit benevolence led to more than she bargained for. She and
+Camille were now together every day: and their hearts, being under
+restraint in public, melted together all the more in their stolen
+interviews.
+
+At the third delicious interview the modest Camille begged Josephine to
+be his wife directly.
+
+Have you noticed those half tame deer that come up to you in a park so
+lovingly, with great tender eyes, and, being now almost within reach,
+stop short, and with bodies fixed like statues on pedestals, crane
+out their graceful necks for sugar, or bread, or a chestnut, or a
+pocket-handkerchief? Do but offer to put your hand upon them, away they
+bound that moment twenty yards, and then stand quite still, and look at
+your hand and you, with great inquiring, suspicious, tender eyes.
+
+So Josephine started at Camille’s audacious proposal. “Never mention
+such a thing to me again: or--or, I will not walk with you any more:”
+ then she thrilled with pleasure at the obnoxious idea, “she Camille’s
+wife!” and colored all over--with rage, Camille thought. He promised
+submissively not to renew the topic: no more he did till next day.
+Josephine had spent nearly the whole interval in thinking of it; so she
+was prepared to put him down by calm reasons. She proceeded to do so,
+gently, but firmly.
+
+Lo and behold! what does he do, but meets her with just as many reasons,
+and just as calm ones: and urges them gently, but firmly.
+
+Heaven had been very kind to them: why should they be unkind to
+themselves? They had had a great escape: why not accept the happiness,
+as, being persons of honor, they had accepted the misery? with many
+other arguments, differing in other things, but agreeing in this, that
+they were all sober, grave, and full of common-sense.
+
+Finding him not defenceless on the score of reason, she shifted her
+ground and appealed to his delicacy. On this he appealed to her
+love, and then calm reason was jostled off the field, and passion and
+sentiment battled in her place.
+
+In these contests day by day renewed, Camille had many advantages.
+
+Rose, though she did not like him, had now declared on his side. She
+refused to show him the least attention. This threw him on Josephine:
+and when Josephine begged her to help reduce Camille to reason, her
+answer would be,--
+
+“Hypocrite!” with a kiss: or else she would say, with a half comic
+petulance, “No! no! I am on his side. Give him his own way, or he will
+make us all four miserable.”
+
+Thus Josephine’s ally went over to the enemy.
+
+And then this coy young lady’s very power of resistance began to give
+way. She had now battled for months against her own heart: first for her
+mother; then, in a far more terrible conflict for Raynal, for honor and
+purity; and of late she had been battling, still against her own heart,
+for delicacy, for etiquette, things very dear to her, but not so great,
+holy, and sustaining as honor and charity that were her very household
+gods: and so, just when the motives of resistance were lowered, the
+length of the resistance began to wear her out.
+
+For nothing is so hard to her sex as a long steady struggle. In matters
+physical, this is the thing the muscles of the fair cannot stand; in
+matters intellectual and moral, the long strain it is that beats them
+dead.
+
+Do not look for a Bacona, a Newtona, a Handella, a Victoria Huga.
+
+Some American ladies tell us education has stopped the growth of these.
+
+No! mesdames. These are not in nature.
+
+They can bubble letters in ten minutes that you could no more deliver
+to order in ten days than a river can play like a fountain. They can
+sparkle gems of stories: they can flash little diamonds of poems. The
+entire sex has never produced one opera nor one epic that mankind could
+tolerate: and why? these come by long, high-strung labor. But, weak as
+they are in the long run of everything but the affections (and there
+giants), they are all overpowering while their gallop lasts. Fragilla
+shall dance any two of you flat on the floor before four o’clock, and
+then dance on till the peep of day.
+
+Only you trundle off to your business as usual, and could dance again
+the next night, and so on through countless ages.
+
+She who danced you into nothing is in bed, a human jelly tipped with
+headache.
+
+What did Josephine say to Rose one day? “I am tired of saying ‘No! no!
+no! no! no!’ forever and ever to him I love.”
+
+But this was not all. She was not free from self-reproach. Camille’s
+faith in her had stood firm. Hers in him had not. She had wronged him,
+first by believing him false, then by marrying another. One day she
+asked his pardon for this. He replied that he had forgiven that; but
+would she be good enough to make him forget it?
+
+“I wish I could.”
+
+“You can. Marry me: then your relation to that man will seem but a
+hideous dream. I shall be able to say, looking at you, my wife, ‘I was
+faithful: I suffered something for her; I came home: she loved me still;
+the proof is, she was my wife within three months of my return.’”
+
+When he said that to her in the Pleasaunce, if there had been a priest
+at hand--. In a word, Josephine longed to show him her love, yet wished
+not to shock her mother, nor offend her own sense of delicacy; but
+Camille cared for nothing but his love. To sacrifice love and happiness,
+even for a time, to etiquette, seemed to him to be trifling with the
+substance of great things for the shadow of petty things; and he said
+so: sometimes sadly, sometimes almost bitterly.
+
+So Josephine was a beleagured fortress, attacked with one will, and
+defended by troops, one-third of which were hot on the side of the
+besiegers.
+
+When singleness attacks division, you know the result beforehand. Why
+then should I spin words? I will not trace so ill-matched a contest step
+by step, sentence by sentence: let me rather hasten to relate the one
+peculiarity that arose out of this trite contest, where, under the names
+of Camille and Josephine, the two great sexes may be seen acting the
+whole world-wide distich,--
+
+     “It’s a man’s part to try,
+     And a woman’s to deny [for a while?].”
+
+Finding her own resolutions oozing away, Josephine caught at another
+person.
+
+She said to Camille before Rose,--
+
+“Even if I could bring myself to snatch at happiness in this indelicate
+way--scarce a month after, oh!” And there ended the lady’s sentence.
+In the absence of a legitimate full stop, she put one hand before her
+lovely face to hide it, and so no more. But some two minutes after she
+delivered the rest in the form and with the tone of a distinct remark,
+“No: my mother would never consent.”
+
+“Yes, she would if you could be brought to implore her as earnestly as I
+implore you.”
+
+“Now would she?” asked Josephine, turning quickly to her sister.
+
+“No, never. Our mother would look with horror on such a proposal. A
+daughter of hers to marry within a twelvemonth of her widowhood!”
+
+“There, you see, Camille.”
+
+“And, besides, she loved Raynal so; she has not forgotten him as we
+have, almost.”
+
+“Ungrateful creature that I am!” sighed Josephine!
+
+“She mourns for him every day. Often I see her eyes suddenly fill; that
+is for him. Josephine’s influence with mamma is very great: it is double
+mine: but if we all went on our knees to her, the doctor and all, she
+would never consent.”
+
+“There you see, Camille: and I could not defy my mother, even for you.”
+
+Camille sighed.
+
+“I see everything is against me, even my love: for that love is too much
+akin to veneration to propose to you a clandestine marriage.”
+
+“Oh, thank you! bless you for respecting as well as loving me, dear
+Camille,” said Josephine.
+
+These words, uttered with gentle warmth, were some consolation to
+Camille, and confirmed him, as they were intended to do, in the above
+good resolution. He smiled.
+
+“Maladroit!” muttered Rose.
+
+“Why maladroit?” asked Camille, opening his eyes.
+
+“Let us talk of something else,” replied Rose, coolly.
+
+Camille turned red. He understood that he had done something very
+stupid, but he could not conceive what. He looked from one sister to the
+other alternately. Rose was smiling ironically, Josephine had her eyes
+bent demurely on a handkerchief she was embroidering.
+
+That evening Camille drew Rose aside, and asked for an explanation of
+her “maladroit.”
+
+“So it was,” replied Rose, sharply.
+
+But as this did not make the matter quite clear, Camille begged a little
+further explanation.
+
+“Was it your part to make difficulties?”
+
+“No, indeed.”
+
+“Was it for you to tell her a secret marriage would not be delicate?
+Do you think she will be behind you in delicacy? or that a love without
+respect will satisfy her? yet you must go and tell her you respected her
+too much to ask her to marry you secretly. In other words, situated as
+she is, you asked her not to marry you at all: she consented to that
+directly; what else could you expect?”
+
+“Maladroit! indeed,” said Camille, “but I would not have said it, only I
+thought”--
+
+“You thought nothing would induce her to marry secretly, so you said to
+yourself, ‘I will assume a virtue: I will do a bit of cheap self-denial:
+decline to the sound of trumpets what another will be sure to deny me if
+I don’t--ha! ha!’--well, for your comfort, I am by no means so sure she
+might not have been brought to do ANYTHING for you, except openly defy
+mamma: but now of course”--
+
+And here this young lady’s sentence ended: for the sisters, unlike in
+most things, were one in grammar.
+
+Camille was so disconcerted and sad at what he had done, that Rose began
+to pity him: so she rallied him a little longer in spite of her pity:
+and then all of a sudden gave him her hand, and said she would try and
+repair the mischief.
+
+He began to smother her hand with kisses.
+
+“Oh!” said she, “I don’t deserve all that: I have a motive of my own;
+let me alone, child, do. Your unlucky speech will be quoted to me a
+dozen times. Never mind.”
+
+Rose went and bribed Josephine to consent.
+
+“Come, mamma shall not know, and as for you, you shall scarcely move in
+the matter; only do not oppose me very violently, and all will be well.”
+
+“Ah, Rose!” said Josephine; “it is delightful--terrible, I mean--to have
+a little creature about one that reads one like this. What shall I do?
+What shall I do?”
+
+“Why, do the best you can under all the circumstances. His wound is
+healed, you know; he must go back to the army; you have both suffered to
+the limits of mortal endurance. Is he to go away unhappy, in any
+doubt of your affection? and you to remain behind with the misery of
+self-reproach added to the desolation of absence?--think.”
+
+“It is cruel. But to deceive my mother!”
+
+“Do not say deceive our mother; that is such a shocking phrase.”
+
+Rose then reminded Josephine that their confessor had told them a wise
+reticence was not the same thing as a moral deceit. She reminded her,
+too, how often they had acted on his advice and always with good effect;
+how many anxieties and worries they had saved their mother by reticence.
+Josephine assented warmly to this.
+
+Was there not some reason to think they had saved their mother’s very
+life by these reticences? Josephine assented. “And, Josephine, you are
+of age; you are your own mistress; you have a right to marry whom you
+please: and, sooner or later, you will certainly marry Camille. I doubt
+whether even our mother could prevail on you to refuse him altogether.
+So it is but a question of time, and of giving our mother pain, or
+sparing her pain. Dear mamma is old; she is prejudiced. Why shock her
+prejudices? She could not be brought to understand the case: these
+things never happened in her day. Everything seems to have gone by rule
+then. Let us do nothing to worry her for the short time she has to
+live. Let us take a course between pain to her and cruelty to you and
+Camille.”
+
+These arguments went far to convince Josephine: for her own heart
+supported them. She went from her solid objections to untenable ones--a
+great point gained. She urged the difficulty, the impossibility of a
+secret marriage.
+
+Camille burst in here: he undertook at once to overcome these imaginary
+difficulties. “They could be married at a distance.”
+
+“You will find no priest who will consent to do such a wicked thing as
+marry us without my mother’s knowledge,” objected Josephine.
+
+“Oh! as to that,” said Rose, “you know the mayor marries people
+nowadays.”
+
+“I will not be married again without a priest,” said Josephine, sharply.
+
+“Nor I,” said Camille. “I know a mayor who will do the civil forms for
+me, and a priest who will marry me in the sight of Heaven, and both will
+keep it secret for love of me till it shall please Josephine to throw
+off this disguise.”
+
+“Who is the priest?” inquired Josephine, keenly.
+
+“An old cure: he lives near Frejus: he was my tutor, and the mayor is
+the mayor of Frejus, also an old friend of mine.”
+
+“But what on earth will you say to them?”
+
+“That is my affair: I must give them some reasons which compel me to
+keep my marriage secret. Oh! I shall have to tell them some fibs, of
+course.”
+
+“There, I thought so! I will not have you telling fibs; it lowers you.”
+
+“Of course it does; but you can’t have secrecy without a fib or two.”
+
+“Fibs that will injure no one,” said Rose, majestically.
+
+From this day Camille began to act as well as to talk. He bought a
+light caleche and a powerful horse, and elected factotum Dard his groom.
+Camille rode over to Frejus and told a made-up story to the old cure and
+the mayor, and these his old friends believed every word he said, and
+readily promised their services and strict secrecy.
+
+He told the young ladies what he had done.
+
+Rose approved. Josephine shook her head, and seeing matters going as
+her heart desired and her conscience did not quite approve, she suddenly
+affected to be next to nobody in the business--to be resigned, passive,
+and disposed of to her surprise by Queen Rose and King Camille, without
+herself taking any actual part in their proceedings.
+
+At last the great day arrived on which Camille and Josephine were to be
+married at Frejus.
+
+The mayor awaited them at eleven o’clock. The cure at twelve. The family
+had been duly prepared for this excursion by several smaller ones.
+
+Rose announced their intention over night; a part of it.
+
+“Mamma,” said she, blushing a little, “Colonel Dujardin is good enough
+to take us to Frejus tomorrow. It is a long way, and we must breakfast
+early or we shall not be back to dinner.”
+
+“Do so, my child. I hope you will have a fine day: and mind you take
+plenty of wraps with you in case of a shower.”
+
+At seven o’clock the next morning Camille and the two ladies took a
+hasty cup of coffee together instead of breakfast, and then Dard brought
+the caleche round.
+
+The ladies got in, and Camille had just taken the reins in his hand,
+when Jacintha screamed to him from the hall, “Wait a moment, colonel,
+wait a moment! The doctor! don’t go without the doctor!” And the next
+moment Dr. Aubertin appeared with his cloak on his arm, and, saluting
+the ladies politely, seated himself quietly in the vehicle before the
+party had recovered their surprise.
+
+The ladies managed to keep their countenances, but Dujardin’s
+discomfiture was evident.
+
+He looked piteously at Josephine, and then asked Aubertin if they were
+to set him down anywhere in particular.
+
+“Oh, no; I am going with you to Frejus,” was the quiet reply.
+
+Josephine quaked. Camille was devoured with secret rage: he lashed the
+horse and away they went.
+
+It was a silent party. The doctor seemed in a reverie. The others did
+not know what to think, much less to say. Aubertin sat by Camille’s
+side; so the latter could hold no secret communication with either lady.
+
+Now it was not the doctor’s habit to rise at this time of the morning:
+yet there he was, going with them to Frejus uninvited.
+
+Josephine was in agony; had their intention transpired through some
+imprudence of Camille?
+
+Camille was terribly uneasy. He concluded the secret had transpired
+through female indiscretion. Then they all tortured themselves as to the
+old man’s intention. But what seemed most likely was, that he was with
+them to prevent a clandestine marriage by his bare presence, without
+making a scene and shocking Josephine’s pride: and if so, was he there
+by his own impulse? No, it was rather to be feared that all this was
+done by order of the baroness. There was a finesse about it that smacked
+of a feminine origin, and the baroness was very capable of adopting such
+a means as this, to spare her own pride and her favorite daughter’s.
+“The clandestine” is not all sugar. A more miserable party never went
+along, even to a wedding.
+
+After waiting a long time for the doctor to declare himself, they turned
+desperate, and began to chatter all manner of trifles. This had a good
+effect: it roused Aubertin from his reverie, and presently he gave them
+the following piece of information: “I told you the other day that a
+nephew of mine was just dead; a nephew I had not seen for many years.
+Well, my friends, I received last night a hasty summons to his funeral.”
+
+“At Frejus?”
+
+“No, at Paris. The invitation was so pressing, that I was obliged to go.
+The letter informed me, however, that a diligence passes through Frejus,
+at eleven o’clock, for Paris. I heard you say you were going to
+Frejus; so I packed up a few changes of linen, and my MS., my work on
+entomology, which at my last visit to the capital all the publishers
+were mad enough to refuse: here it is. Apropos, has Jacintha put my bag
+into the carriage?”
+
+On this a fierce foot-search, and the bag was found. Meantime, Josephine
+leaned back in her seat with a sigh of thankfulness. She was more intent
+on not being found out than on being married. But Camille, who was more
+intent on being married than on not being found out, was asking himself,
+with fury, how on earth they should get rid of Aubertin in time.
+
+Well, of course, under such circumstances as these the diligence did
+not come to its time, nor till long after; and all the while, they were
+waiting for it they were failing their rendezvous with the mayor, and
+making their rendezvous with the curate impossible. But, above all,
+there was the risk of one or other of those friends coming up and
+blurting all out, taking for granted that the doctor must be in their
+confidence, or why bring him.
+
+At last, at half-past eleven o’clock, to their great relief, up came the
+diligence. The doctor prepared to take his place in the interior, when
+the conductor politely informed him that the vehicle stopped there a
+quarter of an hour.
+
+“In that case I will not abandon my friends,” said the doctor,
+affectionately.
+
+One of his friends gnashed his teeth at this mark of affection. But
+Josephine smiled sweetly.
+
+At last he was gone; but it wanted ten minutes only to twelve.
+
+Josephine inquired amiably, whether it would not be as well to postpone
+matters to another day--meaning forever. “My ARDOR is chilled,” said
+she, and showed symptoms of crying at what she had gone through.
+
+Camille replied by half dragging them to the mayor. That worthy received
+them with profound, though somewhat demure respect, and invited them to
+a table sumptuously served. The ladies, out of politeness, were about to
+assent, but Camille begged permission to postpone that part until after
+the ceremony.
+
+At last, to their astonishment, they were married. Then, with a promise
+to return and dine with the mayor, they went to the cure. Lo and behold!
+he was gone to visit a sick person. “He had waited a long time for
+them,” said the servant.
+
+Josephine was much disconcerted, and showed a disposition to cry again.
+The servant, a good-natured girl, nosed a wedding, and offered to run
+and bring his reverence in a minute.
+
+Presently there came an old silvery-haired man, who addressed them all
+as his children. He took them to the church, and blessed their union;
+and for the first time Josephine felt as if Heaven consented. They took
+a gentle farewell of him, and went back to the mayor’s to dine; and
+at this stage of the business Rose and Josephine at last effected a
+downright simultaneous cry, apropos of nothing that was then occurring.
+
+This refreshed them mightily, and they glowed at the mayor’s table like
+roses washed with dew.
+
+But oh! how glad at heart they all were to find themselves in the
+carriage once more going home to Beaurepaire.
+
+Rose and Josephine sat intertwined on the back seat; Camille, the reins
+in his right hand, nearly turned his back on the horse, and leaned back
+over to them and purred to Rose and his wife with ineffable triumph and
+tenderness.
+
+The lovers were in Elysium, and Rose was not a little proud of her good
+management in ending all their troubles. Their mother received them
+back with great, and as they fancied, with singular, affection. She was
+beginning to be anxious about them, she said. Then her kindness gave
+these happy souls a pang it never gave them before.
+
+Since the above events scarce a fortnight had elapsed; but such
+a change! Camille sunburnt and healthy, and full of animation and
+confidence; Josephine beaming with suppressed happiness, and more
+beautiful than Rose could ever remember to have seen her. For a soft
+halo of love and happiness shone around her head; a new and indefinable
+attraction bloomed on her face. She was a wife. Her eye, that used to
+glance furtively on Camille, now dwelt demurely on him; dwelt with a
+sort of gentle wonder and admiration as well as affection, and, when
+he came or passed very near her, a keen observer might have seen her
+thrill.
+
+She kept a good deal out of her mother’s way; for she felt within that
+her face must be too happy. She feared to shock her mother’s grief with
+her radiance. She was ashamed of feeling unmixed heaven. But the flood
+of secret bliss she floated in bore all misgivings away. The pair were
+forever stealing away together for hours, and on these occasions Rose
+used to keep out of her mother’s sight, until they should return. So
+then the new-married couple could wander hand in hand through the thick
+woods of Beaurepaire, whose fresh green leaves were now just out, and
+hear the distant cuckoo, and sit on mossy banks, and pour love into
+one another’s eyes, and plan ages of happiness, and murmur their deep
+passion and their bliss almost more than mortal; could do all this and
+more, without shocking propriety. These sweet duets passed for trios:
+for on their return Rose would be out looking for them, or would go and
+meet them at some distance, and all three would go up together to the
+baroness, as from a joint excursion. And when they went up to their
+bedrooms, Josephine would throw her arms round her sister’s neck, and
+sigh, “It is not happiness, it is beatitude!”
+
+Meantime, the baroness mourned for Raynal. Her grief showed no decrease.
+Rose even fancied at times she wore a gloomy and discontented look as
+well; but on reflection she attributed that to her own fancy, or to the
+contrast that had now sprung up in her sister’s beaming complacency.
+
+Rose, when she found herself left day after day alone for hours, was sad
+and thought of Edouard. And this feeling gained on her day by day.
+
+At last, one afternoon, she locked herself in her own room, and, after a
+long contest with her pride, which, if not indomitable, was next door to
+it, she sat down to write him a little letter. Now, in this letter,
+in the place devoted by men to their after-thoughts, by women to their
+pretended after-thoughts; i. e., to what they have been thinking of
+all through the letter, she dropped a careless hint that all the party
+missed him very much, “even the obnoxious colonel, who, by-the-by, has
+transferred his services elsewhere. I have forgiven him that, because he
+has said civil things about you.”
+
+Rose was reading her letter over again, to make sure that all the
+principal expressions were indistinct, and that the composition
+generally, except the postscript, resembled a Delphic oracle, when
+there was a hasty footstep, and a tap at her door, and in came Jacintha,
+excited.
+
+“He is come, mademoiselle,” cried she, and nodded her head like a
+mandarin, only more knowingly; then she added, “So you may burn that.”
+ For her quick eye had glanced at the table.
+
+“Who is come?” inquired Rose, eagerly.
+
+“Why, your one?”
+
+“My one?” asked the young lady, reddening, “my what?”
+
+“The little one--Edouard--Monsieur Riviere.”
+
+“Oh, Monsieur Riviere,” said Rose, acting nonchalance. “Why could you
+not say so? you use such phrases, who can conjecture what you mean? I
+will come to Monsieur Riviere directly; mamma will be so glad.”
+
+Jacintha gone, Rose tore up the letter and locked up the pieces, then
+ran to the glass. Etc.
+
+Edouard had been so profoundly miserable he could stand it no longer; in
+spite of his determination not to visit Beaurepaire while it contained
+a rival, he rode over to see whether he had not tormented himself idly:
+above all, to see the beloved face.
+
+Jacintha put him into the salle a manger. “By that you will see her
+alone,” said the knowing Jacintha. He sat down, hat and whip in hand,
+and wondered how he should be received--if at all.
+
+In glides Rose all sprightliness and good-humor, and puts out her hand
+to him; the which he kisses.
+
+“How could I keep away so long?” asked he vaguely, and self-astonished.
+
+“How indeed, and we missing you so all the time!”
+
+“Have YOU missed me?” was the eager inquiry.
+
+“Oh, no!” was the cheerful reply; “but all the rest have.”
+
+Presently the malicious thing gave a sudden start.
+
+“Oh! such a piece of news; you remember Colonel Dujardin, the obnoxious
+colonel?”
+
+No answer.
+
+“Transferred his attentions. Fancy!”
+
+“Who to?”
+
+“To Josephine and mamma. But such are the military. He only wanted to
+get rid of you: this done (through your want of spirit), he scorns the
+rich prize; so now I scorn HIM. Will you come for a walk?”
+
+“Oh, yes!”
+
+“We will go and look for my deserter. I say, tell me now; cannot I write
+to the commander-in-chief about this? a soldier has no right to be a
+deserter, has he? tell me, you are a public man, and know everything
+except my heart.”
+
+“Is it not too bad to tease me to-day?”
+
+“Yes! but please! I have had few amusements of late. I find it so dull
+without you to tease.”
+
+Formal permission to tease being conceded, she went that instant on the
+opposite tack, and began to tell him how she had missed him, and how
+sorry she had been anything should have occurred to vex their kind good
+friend. In short, Edouard spent a delightful day, for Rose took him one
+way to meet Josephine, who, she knew, was coming another. At night the
+last embers of jealousy got quenched, for Josephine was a wife now, and
+had already begun to tell Camille all her little innocent secrets; and
+she told him all about Edouard and Rose, and gave him his orders; so he
+treated Rose with great respect before Edouard; but paid her no marked
+attention; also he was affable to Riviere, who, having ceased to
+suspect, began to like him.
+
+In the course of the evening, the colonel also informed the baroness
+that he expected every day an order to join the army of the Rhine.
+
+Edouard pricked his ears.
+
+The baroness said no more than politeness dictated. She did not press
+him to stay, but treated his departure as a matter of course. Riviere
+rode home late in the evening in high spirits.
+
+The next day Rose varied her late deportment; she sang snatches of
+melody, going about the house; it was for all the world like a bird
+chirping. In the middle of one chirp Jacintha interfered. “Hush,
+mademoiselle, your mamma! she is at the bottom of the corridor.”
+
+“What was I thinking of?” said Rose.
+
+“Oh! I dare say you know, mademoiselle,” replied the privileged
+domestic.
+
+A letter of good news came from Aubertin. That summons to his nephew’s
+funeral was an era in his harmless life.
+
+The said nephew was a rich man and an oddity; one of those who love to
+surprise folk. Moreover, he had no children, and detected his nephews
+and nieces being unnaturally civil to him. “Waiting to cut me up,” was
+his generous reading of them. So with this he made a will, and there
+defied, as far as in him lay, the laws of nature; for he set his wealth
+a-flowing backwards instead of forwards; he handed his property up to an
+ancestor, instead of down to posterity.
+
+All this the doctor’s pen set down with some humor, and in the calm
+spirit with which a genuine philosopher receives prosperity as well as
+adversity. Yet one natural regret escaped him; that all this wealth,
+since it was to come, had not come a year or two sooner.
+
+All at Beaurepaire knew what their dear old friend meant.
+
+His other news to them was that they might expect him any moment.
+
+So here was another cause of rejoicing.
+
+“I am so glad,” said Josephine. “Now, perhaps, he will be able to
+publish his poor dear entomology, that the booksellers were all so
+unkind, so unfeeling about.”
+
+I linger on the brink of painful scenes to observe that a sweet and
+loving friendship, such as this was between the good doctor and three
+persons of another sex, is one of the best treasures of the human heart.
+Poverty had strengthened it; yet now wealth could not weaken it. With
+no tie of blood it yet was filial, sisterly, brotherly, national,
+chivalrous; happy, unalloyed sentiment, free from ups and downs, from
+heats and chills, from rivalry, from caprice; and, indeed, from all
+mortal accidents but one--and why say one? methinks death itself does
+but suspend these gentle, rare, unselfish amities a moment, then waft
+them upward to their abiding home.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+
+It was a fair morning in June: the sky was a bright, deep, lovely,
+speckless blue: the flowers and bushes poured perfume, and sprinkled
+song upon the balmy air. On such a day, so calm, so warm, so bright, so
+scented, so tuneful, to live and to be young is to be happy. With gentle
+hand it wipes all other days out of the memory; it smiles, it smells,
+it sings, and clouds and rain and biting wind seem as far off and
+impossible as grief and trouble.
+
+Camille and Josephine had stolen out, and strolled lazily up and down
+close under the house, drinking the sweet air, fragrant with perfume and
+melody; the blue sky, and love.
+
+Rose was in the house. She had missed them; but she thought they must be
+near; for they seldom took long walks early in the day. Meeting Jacintha
+on the landing of the great staircase, she asked her where her sister
+was.
+
+“Madame Raynal is gone for a walk. She has taken the colonel with her.
+You know she always takes the colonel out with her now.”
+
+“That will do. You can finish your work.”
+
+Jacintha went into Camille’s room.
+
+Rose, who had looked as grave as a judge while Jacintha was present,
+bubbled into laughter. She even repeated Jacintha’s words aloud, and
+chuckled over them. “You know she always takes the colonel out with her
+now--ha, ha, ha!”
+
+“Rose!” sighed a distant voice.
+
+She looked round, and saw the baroness at some distance in the corridor,
+coming slowly towards her, with eyes bent gloomily on the ground. Rose
+composed her features into a settled gravity, and went to meet her.
+
+“I wish to speak with you,” said the baroness; “let us sit down; it is
+cool here.”
+
+Rose ran and brought a seat without a back, but well stuffed, and set it
+against the wall. The old lady sat down and leaned back, and looked at
+Rose in silence a good while; then she said,--
+
+“There is room for you; sit down, for I want to speak seriously to you.”
+
+“Yes, mamma; what is it?”
+
+“Turn a little round, and let me see your face.”
+
+Rose complied; and began to feel a little uneasy.
+
+“Perhaps you can guess what I am going to say to you?”
+
+“I have no idea.”
+
+“Well, I am going to put a question to you.”
+
+“With all my heart, dear mamma.”
+
+“I invite you to explain to me the most singular, the most unaccountable
+thing that ever fell under my notice. Will you do this for your mother?”
+
+“O mamma! of course I will do anything to please you that I can; but,
+indeed, I don’t know what you mean.”
+
+“I am going to tell you.”
+
+The old lady paused. The young one, naturally enough, felt a chill of
+vague anxiety strike across her frame.
+
+“Rose,” said the old lady, speaking very gently but firmly, and leaning
+in a peculiar way on her words, while her eye worked like an ice gimlet
+on her daughter’s face, “a little while ago, when my poor Raynal--our
+benefactor--was alive--and I was happy--you all chilled my happiness by
+your gloom: the whole house seemed a house of mourning--tell me now why
+was this.”
+
+“Mamma!” said Rose, after a moment’s hesitation, “we could hardly be
+gay. Sickness in the house! And if Colonel Raynal was alive, still he
+was absent, and in danger.”
+
+“Oh! then it was out of regard for him we were all dispirited?”
+
+“Why, I suppose so,” said Rose, stoutly; but then colored high at her
+own want of candor. However, she congratulated herself that her mother’s
+suspicion was confined to past events.
+
+Her self-congratulation on that score was short; for the baroness, after
+eying her grimly for a second or two in silence, put her this awkward
+question plump.
+
+“If so, tell me why is it that ever since that black day when the news
+of his DEATH reached us, the whole house has gone into black, and has
+gone out of mourning?”
+
+“Mamma,” stammered Rose, “what DO you mean?”
+
+“Even poor Camille, who was so pale and wan, has recovered like magic.”
+
+“O mamma! is not that fancy?” said Rose, piteously. “Of what do you
+suspect me? Can you think I am unfeeling--ungrateful? I should not be
+YOUR daughter.”
+
+“No, no,” said the baroness, “to do you justice, you attempt sorrow;
+as you put on black. But, my poor child, you do it with so little skill
+that one sees a horrible gayety breaking through that thin disguise:
+you are no true mourners: you are like the mutes or the undertakers at
+a funeral, forced grief on the surface of your faces, and frightful
+complacency below.”
+
+“Tra la! lal! la! la! Tra la! la! Tra la! la!” carolled Jacintha, in the
+colonel’s room hard by.
+
+The ladies looked at one another: Rose in great confusion.
+
+“Tra la! la! la! Tra lal! lal! la! la! la!”
+
+“Jacintha!” screamed Rose angrily.
+
+“Hush! not a word,” said the baroness. “Why remonstrate with HER?
+Servants are but chameleons: they take the color of those they serve. Do
+not cry. I wanted your confidence, not your tears, love. There, I will
+not twice in one day ask you for your heart: it would be to lower the
+mother, and give the daughter the pain of refusing it, and the regret,
+sure to come one day, of having refused it. I will discover the meaning
+of it all by myself.” She went away with a gentle sigh; and Rose was cut
+to the heart by her words; she resolved, whatever it might cost her and
+Josephine, to make a clean breast this very day. As she was one of those
+who act promptly, she went instantly in search of her sister, to gain
+her consent, if possible.
+
+Now, the said Josephine was in the garden walking with Camille, and
+uttering a wife’s tender solicitudes.
+
+“And must you leave me? must you risk your life again so soon; the life
+on which mine depends?”
+
+“My dear, that letter I received from headquarters two days ago, that
+inquiry whether my wound was cured. A hint, Josephine--a hint too broad
+for any soldier not to take.”
+
+“Camille, you are very proud,” said Josephine, with an accent of
+reproach, and a look of approval.
+
+“I am obliged to be. I am the husband of the proudest woman in France.”
+
+“Hush! not so loud: there is Dard on the grass.”
+
+“Dard!” muttered the soldier with a word of meaning. “Josephine,” said
+he after a pause, and a little peevishly, “how much longer are we to
+lower our voices, and turn away our eyes from each other, and be ashamed
+of our happiness?”
+
+“Five months longer, is it not?” answered Josephine quietly.
+
+“Five months longer!”
+
+Josephine was hurt at this, and for once was betrayed into a serious and
+merited remonstrance.
+
+“Is this just?” said she. “Think of two months ago: yes, but two months
+ago, you were dying. You doubted my love, because it could not overcome
+my virtue and my gratitude: yet you might have seen it was destroying my
+life. Poor Raynal, my husband, my benefactor, died. Then I could do more
+for you, if not with delicacy, at least with honor; but no! words, and
+looks, and tender offices of love were not enough, I must give stronger
+proof. Dear Camille, I have been reared in a strict school: and perhaps
+none of your sex can know what it cost me to go to Frejus that day with
+him I love.”
+
+“My own Josephine!”
+
+“I made but one condition: that you would not rob me of my mother’s
+respect: to her our hasty marriage would appear monstrous, heartless.
+You consented to be secretly happy for six months. One fortnight has
+passed, and you are discontented again.”
+
+“Oh, no! do not think so. It is every word true. I am an ungrateful
+villain.”
+
+“How dare you say so? and to me! No! but you are a man.”
+
+“So I have been told; but my conduct to you, sweet one, has not been
+that of a man from first to last. Yet I could die for you, with a smile
+on my lips. But when I think that once I lifted this sacrilegious hand
+against your life--oh!”
+
+“Do not be silly, Camille. I love you all the better for loving me well
+enough to kill me. What woman would not? I tell you, you foolish thing,
+you are a man: monseigneur is one of the lordly sex, that is accustomed
+to have everything its own way. My love, in a world that is full of
+misery, here are two that are condemned to be secretly happy a few
+months longer: a hard fate for one of your sex, it seems: but it is so
+much sweeter than the usual lot of mine, that really I cannot share your
+misery,” and she smiled joyously.
+
+“Then share my happiness, my dear wife.”
+
+“I do; only mine is deep, not loud.”
+
+“Why, Dard is gone, and we are out of doors; will the little birds
+betray us?”
+
+“The lower windows are open, and I saw Jacintha in one of the rooms.”
+
+“Jacintha? we are in awe of the very servants. Well, if I must not
+say it loud I will say it often,” and putting his mouth to her ear, he
+poured a burning whisper of love into it--“My love! my angel! my wife!
+my wife! my wife!”
+
+She turned her swimming eyes on him.
+
+“My husband!” she whispered in return.
+
+Rose came out, and found them billing and cooing. “You MUST not be so
+happy, you two,” said she authoritatively.
+
+“How can we help it?” asked Camille.
+
+“You must and shall help it, somehow,” retorted this little tyrant.
+“Mamma suspects. She has given me such a cross-examination, my blood
+runs cold. No, on second thoughts, kiss her again, and you may both be
+as happy as you like; for I am going to tell mamma all, and no power on
+earth shall hinder me.”
+
+“Rose,” said Camille, “you are a sensible girl; and I always said so.”
+
+But Josephine was horrified. “What! tell my mother that within a month
+of my husband’s death?”--
+
+“Don’t say your husband,” put in Camille wincing; “the priest never
+confirmed that union; words spoken before a magistrate do not make a
+marriage in the sight of Heaven.”
+
+Josephine cut him short. “Amongst honorable men and women all oaths are
+alike sacred: and Heaven’s eye is in a magistrate’s room as in a church.
+A daughter of Beaurepaire gave her hand to him, and called herself
+his wife. Therefore, she was his wife: and is his widow. She owes him
+everything; the house you are all living in among the rest. She ought
+to be proud of her brief connection with that pure, heroic spirit, and,
+when she is so little noble as to disown him, then say that gratitude
+and justice have no longer a place among mankind.”
+
+“Come into the chapel,” said Camille, with a voice that showed he was
+hurt.
+
+They entered the chapel, and there they saw something that thoroughly
+surprised them: a marble monument to the memory of Raynal. It leaned
+at present against the wall below the place prepared to receive it.
+The inscription, short, but emphatic, and full of feeling, told of the
+battles he had fought in, including the last fatal skirmish, and his
+marriage with the heiress of Beaurepaire; and, in a few soldier-like
+words, the uprightness, simplicity, and generosity of his character.
+
+They were so touched by this unexpected trait in Camille that they both
+threw their arms round his neck by one impulse. “Am I wrong to be proud
+of him?” said Josephine, triumphantly.
+
+“Well, don’t say too much to me,” said Camille, looking down confused.
+“One tries to be good; but it is very hard--to some of us--not to you,
+Josephine; and, after all, it is only the truth that we have written on
+that stone. Poor Raynal! he was my old comrade; he saved me from death,
+and not a soldier’s death--drowning; and he was a better man than I am,
+or ever shall be. Now he is dead, I can say these things. If I had said
+them when he was alive, it would have been more to my credit.”
+
+They all three went back towards the house; and on the way Rose told
+them all that had passed between the baroness and her. When she came to
+the actual details of that conversation, to the words, and looks, and
+tones, Josephine’s uneasiness rose to an overpowering height; she even
+admitted that further concealment would be very difficult.
+
+“Better tell her than let her find out,” said Rose. “We must tell her
+some day.”
+
+At last, after a long and agitated discussion, Josephine consented;
+but Rose must be the one to tell. “So then, you at least will make
+your peace with mamma,” argued Josephine, “and let us go in and do
+this before our courage fails; besides, it is going to rain, and it has
+turned cold. Where have all these clouds come from? An hour ago there
+was not one in the sky.”
+
+They went, with hesitating steps and guilty looks, to the saloon. Their
+mother was not there. Here was a reprieve.
+
+Rose had an idea. She would take her to the chapel, and show her the
+monument, and that would please her with poor Camille. “After that,”
+ said Rose, “I will begin by telling her all the misery you have both
+gone through; and, when she pities you, then I will show her it was all
+my fault your misery ended in a secret marriage.”
+
+The confederates sat there in a chilly state, waiting for the baroness.
+At last, as she did not come, Rose got up to go to her. “When the mind
+is made up, it is no use being cowardly, and putting off,” said she,
+firmly. For all that, her cheek had but little color left in it, when
+she left her chair with this resolve.
+
+Now as Rose went down the long saloon to carry out their united resolve,
+Jacintha looked in; and, after a hasty glance to see who was present,
+she waited till Rose came up to her, and then whipped a letter from
+under her apron and gave it her.
+
+“For my mistress,” said she, with an air of mystery.
+
+“Why not take it to her, then?” inquired Rose.
+
+“I thought you might like to see it first, mademoiselle,” said Jacintha,
+with quiet meaning.
+
+“Is it from the dear doctor?” asked Josephine.
+
+“La, no, mademoiselle, don’t you know the doctor is come home? Why, he
+has been in the house near an hour. He is with my lady.”
+
+The doctor proved Jacintha correct by entering the room in person soon
+after; on this Rose threw down the letter, and she and the whole party
+were instantly occupied in greeting him.
+
+When the ladies had embraced him and Camille shaken hands with him, they
+plied him with a thousand questions. Indeed, he had not half satisfied
+their curiosity, when Rose happened to catch sight of the letter again,
+and took it up to carry to the baroness. She now, for the first time,
+eyed it attentively, and the consequence was she uttered an exclamation,
+and took the first opportunity to beckon Aubertin.
+
+He came to her; and she put the letter into his hand.
+
+He put up his glasses, and eyed it. “Yes!” whispered he, “it is from
+HIM.”
+
+Josephine and Camille saw something was going on; they joined the other
+two, with curiosity in their faces.
+
+Rose put her hand on a small table near her, and leaned a moment. She
+turned half sick at a letter coming from the dead. Josephine now came
+towards her with a face of concern, and asked what was the matter.
+
+The reply came from Aubertin. “My poor friends,” said he, solemnly,
+“this is one of those fearful things that you have not seen in your
+short lives, but it has been more than once my lot to witness it. The
+ships that carry letters from distant countries vary greatly in speed,
+and are subject to detaining accidents. Yes, this is the third time I
+have seen a letter come written by a hand known to be cold. The baroness
+is a little excited to-day, I don’t know from what cause. With your
+approbation, Madame Raynal, I will read this letter before I let her see
+it.”
+
+“Read it, if you please.”
+
+“Shall I read it out?”
+
+“Certainly. There may be some wish expressed in it; oh, I hope there
+is!”
+
+Camille, from delicacy, retired to some little distance, and the doctor
+read the letter in a low and solemn voice.
+
+
+“MY DEAR MOTHER,--I hope all are well at Beaurepaire, as I am, or I hope
+soon to be. I received a wound in our last skirmish; not a very severe
+one; but it put an end to my writing for some time.”
+
+
+“Poor fellow! it was his death wound. Why, when was this written?--why,”
+ and the doctor paused, and seemed stupefied: “why, my dears, has my
+memory gone, or”--and again he looked eagerly at the letter--“what was
+the date of the battle in which he was killed? for this letter is dated
+the 15th of May. Is it a dream? no! this was written since the date of
+his death.”
+
+“No, doctor,” said Rose, “you deceive yourself.”
+
+“Why, what was the date of the Moniteur, then?” asked Aubertin, in great
+agitation.
+
+“Considerably later than this,” said Camille.
+
+“I don’t think so; the journal! where is it?”
+
+“My mother has it locked up. I’ll run.”
+
+“No, Rose; no one but me. Now, Josephine, do not you go and give way to
+hopes that may be delusive. I must see that journal directly. I will go
+to the baroness. I shall excuse her less than you would.”
+
+He was scarcely gone when a cry of horror filled the room, a cry as of
+madness falling like a thunderbolt on a human mind. It was Josephine,
+who up to this had not uttered one word. But now she stood, white as
+a corpse, in the middle of the room, and wrung her hands. “What have
+I done? What shall I do? It was the 3d of May. I see it before me in
+letters of fire; the 3d of May! the 3d of May!--and he writes the 15th.”
+
+“No! no!” cried Camille wildly. “It was long, long after time 3d.”
+
+“It was the 3d of May,” repeated Josephine in a hoarse voice that none
+would have known for hers.
+
+Camille ran to her with words of comfort and hope; he did not share her
+fears. He remembered about when the Moniteur came, though not the very
+day. He threw his arm lovingly round her as if to protect her against
+these shadowy terrors. Her dilating eyes seemed fixed on something
+distant in space or time, at some horrible thing coming slowly towards
+her. She did not see Camille approach her, but the moment she felt him
+she turned upon him swiftly.
+
+“Do you love me?” still in the hoarse voice that had so little in it of
+Josephine. “I mean, does one grain of respect or virtue mingle in your
+love for me?”
+
+“What words are these, my wife?”
+
+“Then leave Raynal’s house upon the instant. You wonder I can be so
+cruel? I wonder too; and that I can see my duty so clear in one short
+moment. But I have lived twenty years since that letter came. Oh! my
+brain has whirled through a thousand agonies. And I have come back a
+thousand times to the same thing; you and I must see each other’s face
+no more.”
+
+“Oh!” cried Rose, “is there no way but this?”
+
+“Take care,” she screamed, wildly, to her and Camille, “I am on the
+verge of madness; is it for you two to thrust me over the precipice?
+Come, now, if you are a man of honor, if you have a spark of gratitude
+towards the poor woman who has given you all except her fair name--that
+she will take to the grave in spite of you all--promise that you will
+leave Raynal’s house this minute if he is alive, and let me die in honor
+as I have lived.”
+
+“No, no!” cried Camille, terror-stricken; “it cannot be. Heaven is
+merciful, and Heaven sees how happy we are. Be calm! these are idle
+fears; be calm! I say. For if it is so I will obey you. I will stay; I
+will go; I will die; I will live; I will obey you.”
+
+“Swear this to me by the thing you hold most sacred,” she almost
+shrieked.
+
+“I swear by my love for you,” was his touching reply.
+
+Ere they had recovered a miserable composure after this passionate
+outburst, all the more terrible as coming from a creature so tender
+as Josephine, agitated voices were heard at the door, and the baroness
+tottered in, followed by the doctor, who was trying in vain to put some
+bounds to her emotion and her hopes.
+
+“Oh, my children! my children!” cried she, trembling violently. “Here,
+Rose, my hands shake so; take this key, open the cabinet, there is the
+Moniteur. What is the date?”
+
+The journal was found, and rapidly examined. The date was the 20th of
+May.
+
+“There!” cried Camille. “I told you!”
+
+The baroness uttered a feeble moan. Her hopes died as suddenly as they
+had been born, and she sank drooping into a chair, with a bitter sigh.
+
+Camille stole a joyful look at Josephine. She was in the same attitude
+looking straight before her as at a coming horror. Presently Rose
+uttered a faint cry, “The battle was BEFORE.”
+
+“To be sure,” cried the doctor. “You forget, it is not the date of the
+paper we want, but of the battle it records. For Heaven’s sake, when was
+the battle?”
+
+“The 3d of May,” said Josephine, in a voice that seemed to come from the
+tomb.
+
+Rose’s hands that held the journal fell like a dead weight upon her
+knees, journal and all. She whispered, “It was the 3d of May.”
+
+“Ah!” cried the baroness, starting up, “he may yet be alive. He must be
+alive. Heaven is merciful! Heaven would not take my son from me, a poor
+old woman who has not long to live. There was a letter; where is the
+letter?”
+
+“Are we mad, not to read the letter?” said the doctor. “I had it; it has
+dropped from my old fingers when I went for the journal.”
+
+A short examination of the room showed the letter lying crumpled up near
+the door. Camille gave it to the baroness. She tried to read it, but
+could not.
+
+“I am old,” said she; “my hand shakes and my eyes are troubled. This
+young gentleman will read it to us. His eyes are not dim and troubled.
+Something tells me that when I hear this letter, I shall find out
+whether my son lives. Why do you not read it to me, Camille?” cried she,
+almost fiercely.
+
+Camille, thus pressed, obeyed mechanically, and began to read Raynal’s
+letter aloud, scarce knowing what he did, but urged and driven by the
+baroness.
+
+
+“MY DEAR MOTHER,--I hope all are well at Beaurepaire, as I am, or I hope
+soon to be. I received a wound in our last skirmish; not a very severe
+one, but it put an end to my writing for some time.”
+
+
+“Go on, dear Camille! go on.”
+
+“The page ends there, madame.”
+
+The paper was thin, and Camille, whose hand trembled, had some
+difficulty in detaching the leaves from one another. He succeeded,
+however, at last, and went on reading and writhing.
+
+
+“By the way, you must address your next letter to me as Colonel Raynal.
+I was promoted just before this last affair, but had not time to tell
+you; and my wound stopped my writing till now.”
+
+
+“There, there!” cried the baroness. “He was Colonel Raynal, and Colonel
+Raynal was not killed.”
+
+The doctor implored her not to interrupt.
+
+“Go on, Camille. Why do you hesitate? what is the matter? Do for pity’s
+sake go on, sir.”
+
+Camille cast a look of agony around, and put his hand to his brow,
+on which large drops of cold perspiration, like a death dew, were
+gathering; but driven to the stake on all sides, he gasped on rather
+than read, for his eye had gone down the page.
+
+“A namesake of mine, Commandant Raynal,”--
+
+“Ah!”
+
+“has not been--so fortunate. He”--
+
+“Go on! go on!”
+
+The wretched man could now scarcely utter Raynal’s words; they came from
+him in a choking groan.
+
+“he was killed, poor fellow! while heading a gallant charge upon the
+enemy’s flank.”
+
+He ground the letter convulsively in his hand, then it fell all crumpled
+on the floor.
+
+“Bless you, Camille!” cried the baroness, “bless you! bless you! I have
+a son still.”
+
+She stooped with difficulty, took up the letter, and, kissing it again
+and again, fell on her knees, and thanked Heaven aloud before them all.
+Then she rose and went hastily out, and her voice was heard crying very
+loud, “Jacintha! Jacintha!”
+
+The doctor followed in considerable anxiety for the effects of this
+violent joy on so aged a person. Three remained behind, panting and
+pale like those to whom dead Lazarus burst the tomb, and came forth in a
+moment, at a word. Then Camille half kneeled, half fell, at Josephine’s
+feet, and, in a voice choked with sobs, bade her dispose of him.
+
+She turned her head away. “Do not speak to me; do not look at me; if we
+look at one another, we are lost. Go! die at your post, and I at mine.”
+
+He bowed his head, and kissed her dress, then rose calm as despair, and
+white as death, and, with his knees knocking under him, tottered away
+like a corpse set moving.
+
+He disappeared from the house.
+
+The baroness soon came back, triumphant and gay.
+
+“I have sent her to bid them ring the bells in the village. The poor
+shall be feasted; all shall share our joy: my son was dead, and lives.
+Oh, joy! joy! joy!”
+
+“Mother!” shrieked Josephine.
+
+“Mad woman that I am, I am too boisterous. Help me, Rose! she is going
+to faint; her lips are white.”
+
+Dr. Aubertin and Rose brought a chair. They forced Josephine into it.
+She was not the least faint; yet her body obeyed their hands just like
+a dead body. The baroness melted into tears; tears streamed from Rose’s
+eyes. Josephine’s were dry and stony, and fixed on coming horror. The
+baroness looked at her with anxiety. “Thoughtless old woman! It was
+too sudden; it is too much for my dear child; too much for me,” and she
+kneeled, and laid her aged head on her daughter’s bosom, saying feebly
+through her tears, “too much joy, too much joy!”
+
+Josephine took no notice of her. She sat like one turned to stone
+looking far away over her mother’s head with rigid eyes fixed on the air
+and on coming horrors.
+
+Rose felt her arm seized. It was Aubertin. He too was pale now, though
+not before. He spoke in a terrible whisper to Rose, his eye fixed on the
+woman of stone that sat there.
+
+“IS THIS JOY?”
+
+Rose, by a mighty effort, raised her eyes and confronted his full. “What
+else should it be?” said she.
+
+And with these words this Spartan girl was her sister’s champion once
+more against all comers, friend or foe.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+
+
+Dr. Aubertin received one day a note from a publishing bookseller, to
+inquire whether he still thought of giving the world his valuable work
+on insects. The doctor was amazed. “My valuable work! Why, Rose, they
+all refused it, and this person in particular recoiled from it as if my
+insects could sting on paper.”
+
+The above led to a correspondence, in which the convert to insects
+explained that the work must be published at the author’s expense, the
+publisher contenting himself with the profits. The author, thirsting for
+the public, consented. Then the publisher wrote again to say that the
+immortal treatise must be spiced; a little politics flung in: “Nothing
+goes down, else.” The author answered in some heat that he would not
+dilute things everlasting with the fleeting topics of the day, nor
+defile science with politics. On this his Mentor smoothed him down,
+despising him secretly for not seeing that a book is a matter of trade
+and nothing else. It ended in Aubertin going to Paris to hatch his
+Phoenix. He had not been there a week, when a small deputation called on
+him, and informed him he had been elected honorary member of a certain
+scientific society. The compliment was followed by others, till at last
+certain ladies, with the pliancy of their sex, find out they had always
+secretly cared for butterflies. Then the naturalist smelt a rat, or, in
+other words, began to scent that entomology, a form of idiocy in a poor
+man, is a graceful decoration of the intellect in a rich one.
+
+Philosopher without bile, he saw through this, and let it amuse, not
+shock him. His own species, a singularly interesting one in my opinion,
+had another trait in reserve for him.
+
+He took a world of trouble to find out the circumstances of his nephew’s
+nephews and nieces: then he made arrangements for distributing a large
+part of his legacy among them. His intentions and the proportions of his
+generosity transpired.
+
+Hitherto they had been silent, but now they all fell-to and abused him:
+each looking only to the amount of his individual share, not at the sum
+total the doctor was giving way to an ungrateful lot.
+
+The donor was greatly amused, and noted down the incident and some
+of the remarks in his commonplace book, under the general head of
+“Bestiarium;” and the particular head of “Homo.”
+
+Paris with its seductions netted the good doctor, and held him two or
+three months; would have detained him longer, but for alarming accounts
+the baroness sent of Josephine’s health. These determined him to return
+to Beaurepaire; and, must I own it, the announcement was no longer
+hailed at Beaurepaire with universal joy as heretofore.
+
+
+Josephine Raynal, late Dujardin, is by this time no stranger to my
+intelligent reader. I wish him to bring his knowledge of her character
+and her sensibility to my aid. Imagine, as the weary hours and days and
+weeks roll over her head, what this loving woman feels for her lover
+whom she has dismissed; what this grateful wife feels for the benefactor
+she has unwittingly wronged; but will never wrong with her eyes open;
+what this lady pure as snow, and proud as fire, feels at the seeming
+frailty into which a cruel combination of circumstances has entrapped
+her.
+
+Put down the book a moment: shut your eyes: and imagine this strange and
+complicated form of human suffering.
+
+Her mental sufferings were terrible; and for some time Rose feared for
+her reason. At last her agonies subsided into a listlessness and apathy
+little less alarming. She seemed a creature descending inch by inch into
+the tomb. Indeed, I fully believe she would have died of despair: but
+one of nature’s greatest forces stepped into the arena and fought on the
+side of life. She was affected with certain bilious symptoms that added
+to Rose’s uneasiness, but Jacintha assured her it was nothing, and would
+retire and leave the sufferer better. Jacintha, indeed, seemed now to
+take a particular interest in Josephine, and was always about her with
+looks of pity and interest.
+
+“Good creature!” thought Rose, “she sees my sister is unhappy: and that
+makes her more attentive and devoted to her than ever.”
+
+One day these three were together in Josephine’s room. Josephine was
+mechanically combing her long hair, when all of a sudden she stretched
+out her hand and cried, “Rose!”
+
+Rose ran to her, and coming behind her saw in the glass that her
+lips were colorless. She screamed to Jacintha, and between them they
+supported Josephine to the bed. She had hardly touched it when she
+fainted dead away. “Mamma! mamma!” cried Rose in her terror.
+
+“Hush!” cried Jacintha roughly, “hold your tongue: it is only a faint.
+Help me loosen her: don’t make any noise, whatever.” They loosened her
+stays, and applied the usual remedies, but it was some time before she
+came-to. At last the color came back to her lips, then to her cheek, and
+the light to her eye. She smiled feebly on Jacintha and Rose, and asked
+if she had not been insensible.
+
+“Yes, love, and frightened us--a little--not much--oh, dear! oh, dear!”
+
+“Don’t be alarmed, sweet one, I am better. And I will never do it again,
+since it frightens you.” Then Josephine said to her sister in a low
+voice, and in the Italian language, “I hoped it was death, my sister;
+but he comes not to the wretched.”
+
+“If you hoped that,” replied Rose in the same language, “you do not love
+your poor sister who so loves you.”
+
+While the Italian was going on, Jacintha’s dark eyes glanced
+suspiciously on each speaker in turn. But her suspicions were all wide
+of the mark.
+
+“Now may I go and tell mamma?” asked Rose.
+
+“No, mademoiselle, you shall not,” said Jacintha. “Madame Raynal, do
+take my side, and forbid her.”
+
+“Why, what is it to you?” said Rose, haughtily.
+
+“If it was not something to me, should I thwart my dear young lady?”
+
+“No. And you shall have your own way, if you will but condescend to give
+me a reason.”
+
+This to some of us might appear reasonable, but not to Jacintha: it even
+hurt her feelings.
+
+“Mademoiselle Rose,” she said, “when you were little and used to ask me
+for anything, did I ever say to you, ‘Give me a REASON first’?”
+
+“There! she is right,” said Josephine. “We should not make terms with
+tried friends. Come, we will pay her devotion this compliment. It is
+such a small favor. For my part I feel obliged to her for asking it.”
+
+Josephine’s health improved steadily from that day. Her hollow cheeks
+recovered their plump smoothness, and her beauty its bloom, and her
+person grew more noble and statue-like than ever, and within she felt
+a sense of indomitable vitality. Her appetite had for some time been
+excessively feeble and uncertain, and her food tasteless; but of late,
+by what she conceived to be a reaction such as is common after youth has
+shaken off a long sickness, her appetite had been not only healthy
+but eager. The baroness observed this, and it relieved her of a large
+portion of her anxiety. One day at dinner her maternal heart was so
+pleased with Josephine’s performance that she took it as a personal
+favor, “Well done, Josephine,” said she; “that gives your mother
+pleasure to see you eat again. Soup and bouillon: and now twice you
+have been to Rose for some of that pate, which does you so much credit,
+Jacintha.”
+
+Josephine colored high at this compliment.
+
+“It is true,” said she, “I eat like a pig;” and, with a furtive glance
+at the said pate, she laid down her knife and fork, and ate no more of
+anything. The baroness had now a droll misgiving.
+
+“The doctor will be angry with me,” said she: “he will find her as well
+as ever.”
+
+“Madame,” said Jacintha hastily, “when does the doctor come, if I may
+make so bold, that I may get his room ready, you know?”
+
+“Well thought of, Jacintha. He comes the day after to-morrow, in the
+afternoon.”
+
+At night when the young ladies went up to bed, what did they find but a
+little cloth laid on a little table in Josephine’s room, and the remains
+of the pate she had liked. Rose burst out laughing. “Look at that dear
+duck of a goose, Jacintha! Our mother’s flattery sank deep: she thinks
+we can eat her pates at all hours of the day and night. Shall I send it
+away?”
+
+“No,” said Josephine, “that would hurt her culinary pride, and perhaps
+her affection: only cover it up, dear, for just now I am not in the
+humor: it rather turns me.”
+
+It was covered up. The sisters retired to rest. In the morning Rose
+lifted the cover and found the plate cleared, polished. She was
+astounded.
+
+The large tapestried chamber, once occupied by Camille Dujardin, was
+now turned into a sitting-room, and it was a favorite on account of the
+beautiful view from the windows.
+
+One day Josephine sat there alone with some work in her hand; but the
+needle often stopped, and the fair head drooped. She heaved a deep sigh.
+To her surprise it was echoed by a sigh that, like her own, seemed to
+come from a heart full of sighs.
+
+She turned hastily round and saw Jacintha.
+
+Now Josephine had all a woman’s eye for reading faces, and she was
+instantly struck by a certain gravity in Jacintha’s gaze, and a flutter
+which the young woman was suppressing with tolerable but not complete
+success.
+
+Disguising the uneasiness this discovery gave her, she looked her
+visitor full in the face, and said mildly, but a little coldly, “Well,
+Jacintha?”
+
+Jacintha lowered her eyes and muttered slowly,--
+
+“The doctor--comes--to-day,” then raised her eyes all in a moment to
+take Josephine off her guard; but the calm face was impenetrable.
+So then Jacintha added, “to our misfortune,” throwing in still more
+meaning.
+
+“To our misfortune? A dear old friend--like him?”
+
+Jacintha explained. “That old man makes me shake. You are never safe
+with him. So long as his head is in the clouds, you might take his shoes
+off, and on he’d walk and never know it; but every now and then he comes
+out of the clouds all in one moment, without a word of warning, and when
+he does his eye is on everything, like a bird’s. Then he is so old: he
+has seen a heap. Take my word for it, the old are more knowing than the
+young, let them be as sharp as you like: the old have seen everything.
+WE have only heard talk of the most part, with here and there a glimpse.
+To know life to the bottom you must live it out, from the soup to the
+dessert; and that is what the doctor has done, and now he is coming
+here. And Mademoiselle Rose will go telling him everything; and if she
+tells him half what she has seen, your secret will be no secret to that
+old man.”
+
+“My secret!” gasped Josephine, turning pale.
+
+“Don’t look so, madame: don’t be frightened at poor Jacintha. Sooner or
+later you MUST trust somebody besides Mademoiselle Rose.”
+
+Josephine looked at her with inquiring, frightened eyes.
+
+Jacintha drew nearer to her.
+
+“Mademoiselle,--I beg pardon, madame,--I carried you in my arms when I
+was a child. When I was a girl you toddled at my side, and held my gown,
+and lisped my name, and used to put your little arms round my neck, and
+kissed me, you would; and if ever I had the least pain or sickness your
+dear little face would turn as sorrowful, and all the pretty color leave
+it for Jacintha; and now you are in trouble, in sore trouble, yet you
+turn away from me, you dare not trust me, that would be cut in pieces
+ere I would betray you. Ah, mademoiselle, you are wrong. The poor can
+feel: they have all seen trouble, and a servant is the best of friends
+where she has the heart to love her mistress; and do not I love you?
+Pray do not turn from her who has carried you in her arms, and laid you
+to sleep upon her bosom, many’s and many’s the time.”
+
+Josephine panted audibly. She held out her hand eloquently to Jacintha,
+but she turned her head away and trembled.
+
+Jacintha cast a hasty glance round the room. Then she trembled too at
+what she was going to say, and the effect it might have on the young
+lady. As for Josephine, terrible as the conversation had become, she
+made no attempt to evade it: she remained perfectly passive. It was the
+best way to learn how far Jacintha had penetrated her secret, if at all.
+
+Jacintha looked fearfully round and whispered in Josephine’s ear, “When
+the news of Colonel Raynal’s death came, you wept, but the color came
+back to your cheek. When the news of his life came, you turned to stone.
+Ah! my poor young lady, there has been more between you and THAT MAN
+than should be. Ever since one day you all went to Frejus together, you
+were a changed woman. I have seen you look at him as--as a wife looks at
+her man. I have seen HIM”--
+
+“Hush, Jacintha! Do not tell me what you have seen: oh! do not remind
+me of joys I pray God to help me forget. He was my husband, then!--oh,
+cruel Jacintha, to remind me of what I have been, of what I am! Ah me!
+ah me! ah me!”
+
+“Your husband!” cried Jacintha in utter amazement.
+
+Then Josephine drooped her head on this faithful creature’s shoulder,
+and told her with many sobs the story I have told you. She told it very
+briefly, for it was to a woman who, though little educated, was full of
+feeling and shrewdness, and needed but the bare facts: she could add the
+rest from her own heart and experience: could tell the storm of feelings
+through which these two unhappy lovers must have passed. Her frequent
+sighs of pity and sympathy drew Josephine on to pour out all her griefs.
+When the tale was ended she gave a sigh of relief.
+
+“It might have been worse: I thought it was worse the more fool I. I
+deserve to have my head cut off.” This was Jacintha’s only comment at
+that time.
+
+It was Josephine’s turn to be amazed. “It could have been worse?” said
+she. “How? tell me,” added she bitterly. “It would be a consolation to
+me, could I see that.”
+
+Jacintha colored and evaded this question, and begged her to go on, to
+keep nothing back from her. Josephine assured her she had revealed all.
+Jacintha looked at her a moment in silence.
+
+“It is then as I half suspected. You do not know all that is before you.
+You do not see why I am afraid of that old man.”
+
+“No, not of him in particular.”
+
+“Nor why I want to keep Mademoiselle Rose from prattling to him?”
+
+“No. I assure you Rose is to be trusted; she is wise--wiser than I am.”
+
+“You are neither of you wise. You neither of you know anything. My poor
+young mistress, you are but a child still. You have a deep water to wade
+through,” said Jacintha, so solemnly that Josephine trembled. “A deep
+water, and do not see it even. You have told me what is past, now I must
+tell you what is coming. Heaven help me! But is it possible you have no
+misgiving? Tell the truth, now.”
+
+“Alas! I am full of them; at your words, at your manner, they fly around
+me in crowds.”
+
+“Have you no ONE?”
+
+“No.”
+
+“Then turn your head from me a bit, my sweet young lady; I am an honest
+woman, though I am not so innocent as you, and I am forced against my
+will to speak my mind plainer than I am used to.”
+
+Then followed a conversation, to detail which might anticipate our
+story; suffice it to say, that Rose, coming into the room rather
+suddenly, found her sister weeping on Jacintha’s bosom, and Jacintha
+crying and sobbing over her.
+
+She stood and stared in utter amazement.
+
+
+Dr. Aubertin, on his arrival, was agreeably surprised at Madame Raynal’s
+appearance. He inquired after her appetite.
+
+“Oh, as to her appetite,” cried the baroness, “that is immense.”
+
+“Indeed!”
+
+“It was,” explained Josephine, “just when I began to get better, but
+now it is as much as usual.” This answer had been arranged beforehand by
+Jacintha. She added, “The fact is, we wanted to see you, doctor, and
+my ridiculous ailments were a good excuse for tearing you from
+Paris.”--“And now we have succeeded,” said Rose, “let us throw off the
+mask, and talk of other things; above all, of Paris, and your eclat.”
+
+“For all that,” persisted the baroness, “she was ill, when I first
+wrote, and very ill too.”
+
+“Madame Raynal,” said the doctor solemnly, “your conduct has been
+irregular; once ill, and your illness announced to your medical adviser,
+etiquette forbade you to get well but by his prescriptions. Since, then,
+you have shown yourself unfit to conduct a malady, it becomes my
+painful duty to forbid you henceforth ever to be ill at all, without my
+permission first obtained in writing.”
+
+This badinage was greatly relished by Rose, but not at all by the
+baroness, who was as humorless as a swan.
+
+He stayed a month at Beaurepaire, then off to Paris again: and being now
+a rich man, and not too old to enjoy innocent pleasures, he got a habit
+of running backwards and forwards between the two places, spending a
+month or so at each alternately. So the days rolled on. Josephine fell
+into a state that almost defies description; her heart was full of
+deadly wounds, yet it seemed, by some mysterious, half-healing balm,
+to throb and ache, but bleed no more. Beams of strange, unreasonable
+complacency would shoot across her; the next moment reflection would
+come, she would droop her head, and sigh piteously. Then all would merge
+in a wild terror of detection. She seemed on the borders of a river of
+bliss, new, divine, and inexhaustible: and on the other bank mocking
+malignant fiends dared her to enter that heavenly stream. The past to
+her was full of regrets; the future full of terrors, and empty of hope.
+Yet she did not, could not succumb. Instead of the listlessness and
+languor of a few months back, she had now more energy than ever; at
+times it mounted to irritation. An activity possessed her: it broke out
+in many feminine ways. Among the rest she was seized with what we men
+call a cacoethes of the needle: “a raging desire” for work. Her fingers
+itched for work. She was at it all day. As devotees retire to pray, so
+she to stitch. On a wet day she would often slip into the kitchen, and
+ply the needle beside Jacintha: on a dry day she would hide in the old
+oak-tree, and sit like a mouse, and ply the tools of her craft, and make
+things of no mortal use to man or woman; and she tried little fringes of
+muslin upon her white hand, and held it up in front of her, and smiled,
+and then moaned. It was winter, and Rose used sometimes to bring her out
+a thick shawl, as she sat in the old oak-tree stitching, but Josephine
+nearly always declined it. SHE WAS NEARLY IMPERVIOUS TO COLD.
+
+Then, her purse being better filled than formerly, she visited the
+poor more than ever, and above all the young couples; and took a warm
+interest in their household matters, and gave them muslin articles of
+her own making, and sometimes sniffed the soup in a young housewife’s
+pot, and took a fancy to it, and, if invited to taste it, paid her the
+compliment of eating a good plateful of it, and said it was much better
+soup than the chateau produced, and, what is stranger, thought so: and,
+whenever some peevish little brat set up a yell in its cradle and the
+father naturally enough shook his fist at the destroyer of his peace,
+Madame Raynal’s lovely face filled with concern not for the sufferer but
+the pest, and she flew to it and rocked it and coaxed it and consoled
+it, till the young housewife smiled and stopped its mouth by other
+means. And, besides the five-franc pieces she gave the infants to hold,
+these visits of Madame Raynal were always followed by one from Jacintha
+with a basket of provisions on her stalwart arm, and honest Sir John
+Burgoyne peeping out at the corner. Kind and beneficent as she was,
+her temper deteriorated considerably, for it came down from angelic
+to human. Rose and Jacintha were struck with the change, assented to
+everything she said, and encouraged her in everything it pleased her
+caprice to do. Meantime the baroness lived on her son Raynal’s letters
+(they came regularly twice a month). Rose too had a correspondence,
+a constant source of delight to her. Edouard Riviere was posted at a
+distance, and could not visit her; but their love advanced rapidly.
+Every day he wrote down for his Rose the acts of the day, and twice a
+week sent the budget to his sweetheart, and told her at the same time
+every feeling of his heart. She was less fortunate than he; she had to
+carry a heavy secret; but still she found plenty to tell him, and tender
+feelings too to vent on him in her own arch, shy, fitful way. Letters
+can enchain hearts; it was by letters that these two found themselves
+imperceptibly betrothed. Their union was looked forward to as certain,
+and not very distant. Rose was fairly in love.
+
+One day, Dr. Aubertin, coming back from Paris to Beaurepaire rather
+suddenly, found nobody at home but the baroness. Josephine and Rose were
+gone to Frejus; had been there more than a week. She was ailing again;
+so as Frejus had agreed with her once, Rose thought it might again. “She
+would send for them back directly.”
+
+“No,” said the doctor, “why do that? I will go over there and see them.”
+ Accordingly, a day or two after this, he hired a carriage, and went off
+early in the morning to Frejus. In so small a place he expected to find
+the young ladies at once; but, to his surprise, no one knew them nor had
+heard of them. He was at a nonplus, and just about to return home and
+laugh at himself and the baroness for this wild-goose chase, when he
+fell in with a face he knew, one Mivart, a surgeon, a young man of some
+talent, who had made his acquaintance in Paris. Mivart accosted him with
+great respect; and, after the first compliments, informed him that he
+had been settled some months in this little town, and was doing a fair
+stroke of business.
+
+“Killing some, and letting nature cure others, eh?” said the doctor;
+then, having had his joke, he told Mivart what had brought him to
+Frejus.
+
+“Are they pretty women, your friends? I think I know all the pretty
+women about,” said Mivart with levity. “They are not pretty,”
+ replied Aubertin. Mivart’s interest in them faded visibly out of his
+countenance. “But they are beautiful. The elder might pass for Venus,
+and the younger for Hebe.”
+
+“I know them then!” cried he; “they are patients of mine.”
+
+The doctor colored. “Ah, indeed!”
+
+“In the absence of your greater skill,” said Mivart, politely; “it is
+Madame Aubertin and her sister you are looking for, is it not?”
+
+Aubertin groaned. “I am rather too old to be looking for a Madame
+Aubertin,” said he; “no; it is Madame Raynal, and Mademoiselle de
+Beaurepaire.”
+
+Mivart became confidential. “Madame Aubertin and her sister,” said he,
+“are so lovely they make me ill to look at them: the deepest blue eyes
+you ever saw, both of them; high foreheads; teeth like ivory mixed with
+pearl; such aristocratic feet and hands; and their arms--oh!” and by way
+of general summary the young surgeon kissed the tips of his fingers,
+and was silent; language succumbed under the theme. The doctor smiled
+coldly.
+
+Mivart added, “If you had come an hour sooner, you might have seen
+Mademoiselle Rose; she was in the town.”
+
+“Mademoiselle Rose? who is that?”
+
+“Why, Madame Aubertin’s sister.”
+
+At this Dr. Aubertin looked first very puzzled, then very grave.
+
+“Hum!” said he, after a little reflection, “where do these paragons
+live?”
+
+“They lodge at a small farm; it belongs to a widow; her name is Roth.”
+ They parted. Dr. Aubertin walked slowly towards his carriage, his hands
+behind him, his eyes on the ground. He bade the driver inquire where
+the Widow Roth lived, and learned it was about half a league out of the
+town. He drove to the farmhouse; when the carriage drove up, a young
+lady looked out of the window on the first floor. It was Rose de
+Beaurepaire. She caught the doctor’s eye, and he hers. She came down and
+welcomed him with a great appearance of cordiality, and asked him, with
+a smile, how he found them out.
+
+“From your medical attendant,” said the doctor, dryly.
+
+Rose looked keenly in his face.
+
+“He said he was in attendance on two paragons of beauty, blue eyes,
+white teeth and arms.”
+
+“And you found us out by that?” inquired Rose, looking still more keenly
+at him.
+
+“Hardly; but it was my last chance of finding you, so I came. Where is
+Madame Raynal?”
+
+“Come into this room, dear friend. I will go and find her.”
+
+Full twenty minutes was the doctor kept waiting, and then in came Rose,
+gayly crying, “I have hunted her high and low, and where do you think my
+lady was? sitting out in the garden--come.”
+
+Sure enough, they found Josephine in the garden, seated on a low chair.
+She smiled when the doctor came up to her, and asked after her mother.
+There was an air of languor about her; her color was clear, delicate,
+and beautiful.
+
+“You have been unwell, my child.”
+
+“A little, dear friend; you know me; always ailing, and tormenting those
+I love.”
+
+“Well! but, Josephine, you know this place and this sweet air always set
+you up. Look at her now, doctor; did you ever see her look better? See
+what a color. I never saw her look more lovely.”
+
+“I never saw her look SO lovely; but I have seen her look better. Your
+pulse. A little languid?”
+
+“Yes, I am a little.”
+
+“Do you stay at Beaurepaire?” inquired Rose; “if so, we will come home.”
+
+“On the contrary, you will stay here another fortnight,” said the
+doctor, authoritatively.
+
+“Prescribe some of your nice tonics for me, doctor,” said Josephine,
+coaxingly.
+
+“No! I can’t do that; you are in the hands of another practitioner.”
+
+“What does that matter? You were at Paris.”
+
+“It is not the etiquette in our profession to interfere with another
+man’s patients.”
+
+“Oh, dear! I am so sorry,” began Josephine.
+
+“I see nothing here that my good friend Mivart is not competent to deal
+with,” said the doctor, coldly.
+
+Then followed some general conversation, at the end of which the doctor
+once more laid his commands on them to stay another fortnight where they
+were, and bade them good-by.
+
+He was no sooner gone than Rose went to the door of the kitchen, and
+called out, “Madame Jouvenel! Madame Jouvenel! you may come into the
+garden again.”
+
+The doctor drove away; but, instead of going straight to Beaurepaire,
+he ordered the driver to return to the town. He then walked to Mivart’s
+house.
+
+In about a quarter of an hour he came out of it, looking singularly
+grave, sad, and stern.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+
+
+Edouard Riviere contrived one Saturday to work off all arrears of
+business, and start for Beaurepaire. He had received a very kind letter
+from Rose, and his longing to see her overpowered him. On the road his
+eyes often glittered, and his cheek flushed with expectation. At last he
+got there. His heart beat: for four months he had not seen her. He
+ran up into the drawing-room, and there found the baroness alone; she
+welcomed him cordially, but soon let him know Rose and her sister were
+at Frejus. His heart sank. Frejus was a long way off. But this was not
+all. Rose’s last letter was dated from Beaurepaire, yet it must have
+been written at Frejus. He went to Jacintha, and demanded an explanation
+of this. The ready Jacintha said it looked as if she meant to be home
+directly; and added, with cool cunning, “That is a hint for me to get
+their rooms ready.”
+
+“This letter must have come here enclosed in another,” said Edouard,
+sternly.
+
+“Like enough,” replied Jacintha, with an appearance of sovereign
+indifference.
+
+Edouard looked at her, and said, grimly, “I will go to Frejus.”
+
+“So I would,” said Jacintha, faltering a little, but not perceptibly;
+“you might meet them on the road, if so be they come the same road;
+there are two roads, you know.”
+
+Edouard hesitated; but he ended by sending Dard to the town on his own
+horse, with orders to leave him at the inn, and borrow a fresh horse. “I
+shall just have time,” said he. He rode to Frejus, and inquired at the
+inns and post-office for Mademoiselle de Beaurepaire. They did not know
+her; then he inquired for Madame Raynal. No such name known. He rode by
+the seaside upon the chance of their seeing him. He paraded on horseback
+throughout the place, in hopes every moment that a window would open,
+and a fair face shine at it, and call him. At last his time was up, and
+he was obliged to ride back, sick at heart, to Beaurepaire. He told the
+baroness, with some natural irritation, what had happened. She was as
+much surprised as he was.
+
+“I write to Madame Raynal at the post-office, Frejus,” said she.
+
+“And Madame Raynal gets your letters?”
+
+“Of course she does, since she answers them; you cannot have inquired at
+the post.”
+
+“Why, it was the first place I inquired at, and neither Mademoiselle de
+Beaurepaire nor Madame Raynal were known there.”
+
+Jacintha, who could have given the clew, seemed so puzzled herself, that
+they did not even apply to her. Edouard took a sorrowful leave of the
+baroness, and set out on his journey home.
+
+Oh! how sad and weary that ride seemed now by what it had been coming.
+His disappointment was deep and irritating; and ere he had ridden half
+way a torturer fastened on his heart. That torture is suspicion; a vague
+and shadowy, but gigantic phantom that oppresses and rends the mind more
+terribly than certainty. In this state of vague, sickening suspicion, he
+remained some days: then came an affectionate letter from Rose, who
+had actually returned home. In this she expressed her regret and
+disappointment at having missed him; blamed herself for misleading him,
+but explained that their stay at Frejus had been prolonged from day to
+day far beyond her expectation. “The stupidity of the post-office was
+more than she could account for,” said she. But, what went farthest to
+console Edouard, was, that after this contretemps she never ceased to
+invite him to come to Beaurepaire. Now, before this, though she said
+many kind and pretty things in her letters, she had never invited him to
+visit the chateau; he had noticed this. “Sweet soul,” thought he, “she
+really is vexed. I must be a brute to think any more about it. Still”--
+
+So this wound was skinned over.
+
+At last, what he called his lucky star ordained that he should be
+transferred to the very post his Commandant Raynal had once occupied. He
+sought and obtained permission to fix his quarters in the little village
+near Beaurepaire, and though this plan could not be carried out for
+three months, yet the prospect of it was joyful all that time--joyful to
+both lovers. Rose needed this consolation, for she was very unhappy: her
+beloved sister, since their return from Frejus, had gone back. The flush
+of health was faded, and so was her late energy. She fell into
+deep depression and languor, broken occasionally by fits of nervous
+irritation.
+
+She would sit for hours together at one window languishing and fretting.
+Can the female reader guess which way that window looked?
+
+Now, Edouard was a favorite of Josephine’s; so Rose hoped he would help
+to distract her attention from those sorrows which a lapse of years
+alone could cure.
+
+On every account, then, his visit was looked forward to with hope and
+joy.
+
+He came. He was received with open arms. He took up his quarters at
+his old lodgings, but spent his evenings and every leisure hour at the
+chateau.
+
+He was very much in love, and showed it. He adhered to Rose like a
+leech, and followed her about like a little dog.
+
+This would have made her very happy if there had been nothing great to
+distract her attention and her heart; but she had Josephine, whose deep
+depression and fits of irritation and terror filled her with anxiety;
+and so Edouard was in the way now and then. On these occasions he was
+too vain to see what she was too polite to show him offensively.
+
+But on this she became vexed at his obtuseness.
+
+“Does he think I can be always at his beck and call?” thought she.
+
+“She is always after her sister,” said he.
+
+He was just beginning to be jealous of Josephine when the following
+incident occurred:--
+
+Rose and the doctor were discussing Josephine. Edouard pretended to be
+reading a book, but he listened to every word.
+
+Dr. Aubertin gave it as his opinion that Madame Raynal did not make
+enough blood.
+
+“Oh! if I thought that!” cried Rose.
+
+“Well, then, it is so, I assure you.”
+
+“Doctor,” said Rose, “do you remember, one day you said healthy blood
+could be drawn from robust veins and poured into a sick person’s?”
+
+“It is a well-known fact,” said Aubertin.
+
+“I don’t believe it,” said Rose, dryly.
+
+“Then you place a very narrow limit to science,” said the doctor,
+coldly.
+
+“Did you ever see it done?” asked Rose, slyly.
+
+“I have not only seen it done, but have done it myself.”
+
+“Then do it for us. There’s my arm; take blood from that for dear
+Josephine!” and she thrust a white arm out under his eye with such a
+bold movement and such a look of fire and love as never beamed from
+common eyes.
+
+A keen, cold pang shot through the human heart of Edouard Riviere.
+
+The doctor started and gazed at her with admiration: then he hung his
+head. “I could not do it. I love you both too well to drain either of
+life’s current.”
+
+Rose veiled her fire, and began to coax. “Once a week; just once a week,
+dear, dear doctor; you know I should never miss it. I am so full of that
+health, which Heaven denies to her I love.”
+
+“Let us try milder measures first,” said the doctor. “I have most faith
+in time.”
+
+“What if I were to take her to Frejus? hitherto, the sea has always done
+wonders for her.”
+
+“Frejus, by all means,” said Edouard, mingling suddenly in the
+conversation; “and this time I will go with you, and then I shall find
+out where you lodged before, and how the boobies came to say they did
+not know you.”
+
+Rose bit her lip. She could not help seeing then how much dear Edouard
+was in her way and Josephine’s. Their best friends are in the way of all
+who have secrets. Presently the doctor went to his study. Then Edouard
+let fall a mock soliloquy. “I wonder,” said he, dropping out his words
+one by one, “whether any one will ever love me well enough to give a
+drop of their blood for me.”
+
+“If you were in sickness and sorrow, who knows?” said Rose, coloring up.
+
+“I would soon be in sickness and sorrow if I thought that.”
+
+“Don’t jest with such matters, monsieur.”
+
+“I am serious. I wish I was as ill as Madame Raynal is, to be loved as
+she is.”
+
+“You must resemble her in some other things to be loved as she is.
+
+“You have often made me feel that of late, dear Rose.”
+
+This touched her. But she fought down the kindly feeling. “I am glad of
+it,” said she, out of perverseness. She added after a while, “Edouard,
+you are naturally jealous.”
+
+“Not the least in the world, Rose, I assure you. I have many faults, but
+jealous I am not.”
+
+“Oh, yes, you are, and suspicious, too; there is something in your
+character that alarms me for our happiness.”
+
+“Well, if you come to that, there are things in YOUR conduct I could
+wish explained.”
+
+“There! I said so. You have not confidence in me.”
+
+“Pray don’t say that, dear Rose. I have every confidence in you; only
+please don’t ask me to divest myself of my senses and my reason.”
+
+“I don’t ask you to do that or anything else for me; good-by, for the
+present.”
+
+“Where are you going now? tic! tic! I never can get a word in peace with
+you.”
+
+“I am not going to commit murder. I’m only going up-stairs to my
+sister.”
+
+“Poor Madame Raynal, she makes it very hard for me not to dislike her.”
+
+“Dislike my Josephine?” and Rose bristled visibly.
+
+“She is an angel, but I should hate an angel if it came forever between
+you and me.”
+
+“Excuse me, she was here long before you. It is you that came between
+her and me.”
+
+“I came because I was told I should be welcome,” said Edouard bitterly,
+and equivocating a little; he added, “and I dare say I shall go when I
+am told I am one too many.”
+
+“Bad heart! who says you are one too many in the house? But you are
+too exigent, monsieur; you assume the husband, and you tease me. It is
+selfish; can you not see I am anxious and worried? you ought to be kind
+to me, and soothe me; that is what I look for from you, and, instead of
+that, I declare you are getting to be quite a worry.”
+
+“I should not be if you loved me as I love you. I give YOU no rival.
+Shall I tell you the cause of all this? you have secrets.”
+
+“What secrets?”
+
+“Is it me you ask? am I trusted with them? Secrets are a bond that not
+even love can overcome. It is to talk secrets you run away from me
+to Madame Raynal. Where did you lodge at Frejus, Mademoiselle the
+Reticent?”
+
+“In a grotto, dry at low water, Monsieur the Inquisitive.”
+
+“That is enough: since you will not tell me, I will find it out before I
+am a week older.”
+
+This alarmed Rose terribly, and drove her to extremities. She decided to
+quarrel.
+
+“Sir,” said she, “I thank you for playing the tyrant a little
+prematurely; it has put me on my guard. Let us part; you and I are not
+suited to each other, Edouard Riviere.”
+
+He took this more humbly than she expected. “Part!” said he, in
+consternation; “that is a terrible word to pass between you and me.
+Forgive me! I suppose I am jealous.”
+
+“You are; you are actually jealous of my sister. Well, I tell you
+plainly I love you, but I love my sister better. I never could love any
+man as I do her; it is ridiculous to expect such a thing.”
+
+“And do you think I could bear to play second fiddle to her all my
+life?”
+
+“I don’t ask you. Go and play first trumpet to some other lady.”
+
+“You speak your wishes so plainly now, I have nothing to do but to
+obey.”
+
+He kissed her hand and went away disconsolately.
+
+Rose, instead of going to Josephine, her determination to do which had
+mainly caused the quarrel, sat sadly down, and leaned her head on her
+hand. “I am cruel. I am ungrateful. He has gone away broken-hearted.
+And what shall I do without him?--little fool! I love him better than he
+loves me. He will never forgive me. I have wounded his vanity; and they
+are vainer than we are. If we meet at dinner I will be so kind to him,
+he will forget it all. No! Edouard will not come to dinner. He is not a
+spaniel that you can beat, and then whistle back again. Something tells
+me I have lost him, and if I have, what shall I do? I will write him a
+note. I will ask him to forgive me.”
+
+She sat down at the table, and took a sheet of notepaper and began to
+write a few conciliatory words. She was so occupied in making these kind
+enough, and not too kind, that a light step approached her unobserved.
+She looked up and there was Edouard. She whipped the paper off the
+table.
+
+A look of suspicion and misery crossed Edouard’s face.
+
+Rose caught it, and said, “Well, am I to be affronted any more?”
+
+“No, Rose. I came back to beg you to forget what passed just now,” said
+he.
+
+Rose’s eye flashed; his return showed her her power. She abused it
+directly.
+
+“How can I forget it if you come reminding me?”
+
+“Dear Rose, now don’t be so unkind, so cruel--I have not come back to
+tease you, sweet one. I come to know what I can do to please you; to
+make you love me again?” and he was about to kneel graciously on one
+knee.
+
+“I’ll tell you. Don’t come near me for a month.”
+
+Edouard started up, white as ashes with mortification and wounded love.
+
+“This is how you treat me for humbling myself, when it is you that ought
+to ask forgiveness.”
+
+“Why should I ask what I don’t care about?”
+
+“What DO you care about?--except that sister of yours? You have no
+heart. And on this cold-blooded creature I have wasted a love an empress
+might have been proud of inspiring. I pray Heaven some man may sport
+with your affections, you heartless creature, as you have played with
+mine, and make you suffer what I suffer now!”
+
+And with a burst of inarticulate grief and rage he flung out of the
+room.
+
+Rose sank trembling on the sofa a little while: then with a mighty
+effort rose and went to comfort her sister.
+
+Edouard came no more to Beaurepaire.
+
+
+There is an old French proverb, and a wise one, “Rien n’est certain que
+l’imprevu;” it means you can make sure of nothing but this, that matters
+will not turn as you feel sure they will. And, even for this reason,
+you, who are thinking of suicide because trade is declining, speculation
+failing, bankruptcy impending, or your life going to be blighted forever
+by unrequited love--DON’T DO IT. Whether you are English, American,
+French, or German, listen to a man that knows what is what, and DON’T DO
+IT. I tell you none of those horrors, when they really come, will affect
+you as you fancy they will. The joys we expect are not a quarter
+so bright, nor the troubles half so dark as we think they will be.
+Bankruptcy coming is one thing, come is quite another: and no heart
+or life was ever really blighted at twenty years of age. The love-sick
+girls that are picked out of the canal alive, all, without exception,
+marry another man, have brats, and get to screech with laughter when
+they think of sweetheart No. 1, generally a blockhead, or else a
+blackguard, whom they were fools enough to wet their clothes for, let
+alone kill their souls. This happens INVARIABLY. The love-sick girls
+that are picked out of the canal dead have fled from a year’s misery
+to eternal pain, from grief that time never failed to cure, to anguish
+incurable. In this world “Rien n’est certain que l’imprevu.”
+
+Edouard and Rose were tender lovers, at a distance. How much happier and
+more loving they thought they should be beneath the same roof. They came
+together: their prominent faults of character rubbed: the secret
+that was in the house did its work: and altogether, they quarrelled.
+L’imprevu.
+
+Dard had been saying to Jacintha for ever so long, “When granny dies, I
+will marry you.”
+
+Granny died. Dard took possession of her little property. Up came a
+glittering official, and turned him out; he was not her heir. Perrin,
+the notary, was. He had bought the inheritance of her two sons, long
+since dead.
+
+Dard had not only looked on the cottage and cow, as his, but had spoken
+of them as such for years. The disappointment and the irony of comrades
+ate into him.
+
+“I will leave this cursed place,” said he.
+
+Josephine instantly sent for him to Beaurepaire. He came, and was
+factotum with the novelty of a fixed salary. Jacintha accommodated him
+with a new little odd job or two. She set him to dance on the oak floors
+with a brush fastened to his right foot; and, after a rehearsal or two,
+she made him wait at table. Didn’t he bang the things about: and when
+he brought a lady a dish, and she did not instantly attend, he gave her
+elbow a poke to attract attention: then she squeaked; and he grinned
+at her double absurdity in minding a touch, and not minding the real
+business of the table.
+
+But his wrongs rankled in him. He vented antique phrases such as, “I
+want a change;” “This village is the last place the Almighty made,” etc.
+
+Then he was attacked with a moral disease: affected the company of
+soldiers. He spent his weekly salary carousing with the military, a
+class of men so brilliant that they are not expected to pay for their
+share of the drink; they contribute the anecdotes and the familiar
+appeals to Heaven: and is not that enough?
+
+Present at many recitals, the heroes of which lost nothing by being
+their own historians, Dard imbibed a taste for military adventure. His
+very talk, which used to be so homely, began now to be tinselled with
+big swelling words of vanity imported from the army. I need hardly say
+these bombastical phrases did not elevate his general dialect: they lay
+fearfully distinct upon the surface, “like lumps of marl upon a barren
+soil, encumbering the ground they could not fertilize.”
+
+Jacintha took leave to remind him of an incident connected with
+warfare--wounds.
+
+“Do you remember how you were down upon your luck when you did but cut
+your foot? Why, that is nothing in the army. They never go out to fight
+but some come back with arms off, and some with legs off and some with
+heads; and the rest don’t come back at all: and how would you like
+that?”
+
+This intrusion of statistics into warfare at first cooled Dard’s
+impatience for the field. But presently the fighting half of his heart
+received an ally in one Sergeant La Croix (not a bad name for a military
+aspirant). This sergeant was at the village waiting to march with the
+new recruits to the Rhine. Sergeant La Croix was a man who, by force of
+eloquence, could make soldiering appear the most delightful as well as
+glorious of human pursuits. His tongue fired the inexperienced soul with
+a love of arms, as do the drums and trumpets and tramp of soldiers,
+and their bayonets glittering in the sun. He would have been worth his
+weight in fustian here, where we recruit by that and jargon; he was
+superfluous in France, where they recruited by force: but he was
+ornamental: and he set Dard and one or two more on fire. Indeed, so
+absorbing was his sense of military glory, that there was no room left
+in him for that mere verbal honor civilians call veracity.
+
+To speak plainly, the sergeant was a fluent, fertile, interesting,
+sonorous, prompt, audacious liar: and such was his success, that Dard
+and one or two more became mere human fiction pipes--of comparatively
+small diameter--irrigating a rural district with false views of military
+life, derived from that inexhaustible reservoir, La Croix.
+
+At last the long-threatened conscription was levied: every person fit to
+bear arms, and not coming under the allowed exceptions, drew a number:
+and at a certain hour the numbers corresponding to these were deposited
+in an urn, and one-third of them were drawn in presence of the
+authorities. Those men whose numbers were drawn had to go for soldiers.
+Jacintha awaited the result in great anxiety. She could not sit at home
+for it; so she went down the road to meet Dard, who had promised to
+come and tell her the result as soon as known. At last she saw him
+approaching in a disconsolate way. “O Dard! speak! are we undone? are
+you a dead man?” cried she. “Have they made a soldier of you?”
+
+“No such luck: I shall die a man of all work,” grunted Dard.
+
+“And you are sorry? you unnatural little monster! you have no feeling
+for me, then.”
+
+“Oh, yes, I have; but glory is No. 1 with me now.”
+
+“How loud the bantams crow! You leave glory to fools that be six feet
+high.”
+
+“General Bonaparte isn’t much higher than I am, and glory sits upon his
+brow. Why shouldn’t glory sit upon my brow?”
+
+“Because it would weigh you down, and smother you, you little fool.”
+ She added, “And think of me, that couldn’t bear you to be killed at any
+price, glory or no glory.”
+
+Then, to appease her fears, Dard showed her his number, 99; and assured
+her he had seen the last number in the functionary’s hand before he came
+away, and it was sixty something.
+
+This ocular demonstration satisfied Jacintha; and she ordered Dard to
+help her draw the water.
+
+“All right,” said he, “there is no immortal glory to be picked up
+to-day, so I’ll go in for odd jobs.”
+
+While they were at this job a voice was heard hallooing. Dard looked
+up, and there was a rigid military figure, with a tremendous
+mustache, peering about. Dard was overjoyed. It was his friend, his
+boon-companion. “Come here, old fellow,” cried he, “ain’t I glad to
+see you, that is all?” La Croix marched towards the pair. “What are you
+skulking here for, recruit ninety-nine?” said he, sternly, dropping the
+boon-companion in the sergeant; “the rest are on the road.”
+
+“The rest, old fellow! what do you mean? why, I was not drawn.”
+
+“Yes, you were.”
+
+“No, I wasn’t.”
+
+“Thunder of war, but I say you were. Yours was the last number.”
+
+“That is an unlucky guess of yours, for I saw the last number. Look
+here,” and he fumbled in his pocket, and produced his number.
+
+La Croix instantly fished out a corresponding number.
+
+“Well, and here you are; this was the last number drawn.”
+
+Dard burst out laughing.
+
+“You goose!” said he, “that is sixty-six--look at it.”
+
+“Sixty-six!” roared the sergeant; “no more than yours is--they are both
+sixty-sixes when you play tricks with them, and turn them up like that;
+but they are both ninety-nines when you look at them fair.”
+
+Dard scratched his head.
+
+“Come,” said the corporal, briskly, “make up his bundle, girl, and let
+us be off; we have got our marching orders; going to the Rhine.”
+
+“And do you think that I will let him go?” screamed Jacintha. “No! I
+will say one word to Madame Raynal, and she will buy him a substitute
+directly.”
+
+Dard stopped her sullenly. “No! I have told all in the village that I
+would go the first chance: it is come, and I’ll go. I won’t stay to be
+laughed at about this too. If I was sure to be cut in pieces, I’d go.
+Give over blubbering, girl, and get us a bottle of the best wine, and
+while we are drinking it, the sergeant and I, you make up my bundle. I
+shall never do any good here.”
+
+Jacintha knew the obstinate toad. She did as she was bid, and soon
+the little bundle was ready, and the two men faced the wine; La Croix,
+radiant and bellicose; Dard, crestfallen but dogged (for there was a
+little bit of good stuff at the bottom of the creature); and Jacintha
+rocking herself, with her apron over her head.
+
+“I’ll give you a toast,” said La Croix. “Here’s gunpowder.”
+
+Jacintha promptly honored the toast with a flood of tears.
+
+“Drop that, Jacintha,” said Dard, angrily; “do you think that is
+encouraging? Sergeant, I told this poor girl all about glory before you
+came, but she was not ripe for it: say something to cheer her up, for I
+can’t.”
+
+“I can,” cried this trumpet of battle, emptying its glass. “Attention,
+young woman.”
+
+“Oh, dear! oh, dear! yes, sir.”
+
+“A French soldier is a man who carries France in his heart”--
+
+“But if the cruel foreign soldiers kill him? Oh!”
+
+“Why, in that case, he does not care a straw. Every man must die; horses
+likewise, and dogs, and donkeys, when they come to the end of
+their troubles; but dogs and donkeys and chaps in blouses can’t die
+gloriously; as Dard may, if he has any luck at all: so, from this hour,
+if there was twice as little of him, be proud of him, for from this
+time he is a part of France and her renown. Come, recruit ninety-nine,
+shoulder your traps at duty’s call, and let us go forth in form.
+Attention! Quick--march! Halt! is that the way I showed you to march?
+Didn’t I tell you to start from the left? Now try again. QUICK--march!
+left--right--left--right--left--right--NOW you’ve--GOT it--DRAT
+ye,--KEEP it--left--right--left--right--left--right.” And with no more
+ado the sergeant marched the little odd-job man to the wars.
+
+VIVE LA FRANCE!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+
+Edouard, the moment his temper cooled, became very sad. He longed to be
+friends again with Rose, but did not know how. His own pride held
+him back, and so did his fear that he had gone too far, and that his
+offended mistress would not listen to an offer of reconciliation from
+him. He sat down alone now to all his little meals. No sweet, mellow
+voices in his ear after the fatigues of the day. It was a dismal change
+in his life.
+
+At last, one day, he received three lines from Josephine, requesting him
+to come and speak to her. He went over directly, full of vague hopes. He
+found her seated pale and languid in a small room on the ground floor.
+
+“What has she been doing to you, dear?” began she kindly.
+
+“Has she not told you, Madame Raynal?”
+
+“No; she is refractory. She will tell me nothing, and that makes me fear
+she is the one in fault.”
+
+“Oh! if she does not accuse me, I am sure I will not accuse her. I dare
+say I am to blame; it is not her fault that I cannot make her love me.”
+
+“But you can. She does.”
+
+“Yes; but she loves others better, and she holds me out no hope it will
+ever be otherwise. On this one point how can I hope for your sympathy;
+unfortunately for me you are one of my rivals. She told me plainly she
+never could love me as she loves you.”
+
+“And you believed her?”
+
+“I had good reason to believe her.”
+
+Josephine smiled sadly. “Dear Edouard,” said she, “you must not attach
+so much importance to every word we say. Does Rose at her age know
+everything? Is she a prophet? Perhaps she really fancies she will always
+love her sister as she does now; but you are a man of sense; you ought
+to smile and let her talk. When you marry her you will take her to your
+own house; she will only see me now and then; she will have you and your
+affection always present. Each day some new tie between you and her. You
+two will share every joy, every sorrow. Your children playing at your
+feet, and reflecting the features of both parents, will make you one.
+Your hearts will melt together in that blessed union which raises earth
+so near to heaven; and then you will wonder you could ever be jealous of
+poor Josephine, who must never hope--ah, me!”
+
+Edouard, wrapped up in himself, mistook Josephine’s emotion at the
+picture she had drawn of conjugal love. He soothed her, and vowed upon
+his honor he never would separate Rose from her.
+
+“Madame Raynal,” said he, “you are an angel, and I am a fiend. Jealousy
+must be the meanest of all sentiments. I never will be jealous again,
+above all, of you, sweet angel. Why, you are my sister as well as hers,
+and she has a right to love you, for I love you myself.”
+
+“You make me very happy when you talk so,” sighed Josephine. “Peace is
+made?”
+
+“Never again to be broken. I will go and ask her pardon. What is the
+matter now?”
+
+For Jacintha was cackling very loud, and dismissing with ignominy two
+beggars, male and female.
+
+She was industry personified, and had no sympathy with mendicity. In
+vain the couple protested, Heaven knows with what truth, that they were
+not beggars, but mechanics out of work. “March! tramp!” was Jacintha’s
+least word. She added, giving the rein to her imagination, “I’ll loose
+the dog.” The man moved away, the woman turned appealingly to Edouard.
+He and Josephine came towards the group. She had got a sort of large
+hood, and in that hood she carried an infant on her shoulders. Josephine
+inspected it. “It looks sickly, poor little thing,” said she.
+
+“What can you expect, young lady?” said the woman. “Its mother had to
+rise and go about when she ought to have been in her bed, and now she
+has not enough to give it.”
+
+“Oh, dear!” cried Josephine. “Jacintha, give them some food and a nice
+bottle of wine.”
+
+“That I will,” cried Jacintha, changing her tone with courtier-like
+alacrity. “I did not see she was nursing.”
+
+Josephine put a franc into the infant’s hand; the little fingers closed
+on it with that instinct of appropriation, which is our first and often
+our last sentiment. Josephine smiled lovingly on the child, and the
+child seeing that gave a small crow.
+
+“Bless it,” said Josephine, and thereupon her lovely head reared itself
+like a snake’s, and then darted down on the child; and the young noble
+kissed the beggar’s brat as if she would eat it.
+
+This won the mother’s heart more than even the gifts.
+
+“Blessings on you, my lady!” she cried. “I pray the Lord not to forget
+this when a woman’s trouble comes on you in your turn! It is a small
+child, mademoiselle, but it is not an unhealthy one. See.” Inspection
+was offered, and eagerly accepted.
+
+Edouard stood looking on at some distance in amazement, mingled with
+disgust.
+
+“Ugh!” said he, when she rejoined him, “how could you kiss that nasty
+little brat?”
+
+“Dear Edouard, don’t speak so of a poor little innocent. Who would pity
+them if we women did not? It had lovely eyes.”
+
+“Like saucers.”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“It is no compliment when you are affectionate to anybody; you overflow
+with benevolence on all creation, like the rose which sheds its perfume
+on the first-comer.”
+
+“If he is not going to be jealous of me next,” whined Josephine.
+
+She took him to Rose, and she said, “There, whenever good friends
+quarrel, it is understood they were both in the wrong. Bygones are to be
+bygones; and when your time comes round to quarrel again, please consult
+me first, since it is me you will afflict.” She left them together, and
+went and tapped timidly at the doctor’s study.
+
+Aubertin received her with none of that reserve she had seen in him. He
+appeared both surprised and pleased at her visit to his little sanctum.
+He even showed an emotion Josephine was at a loss to account for. But
+that wore off during the conversation, and, indeed, gave place to a sort
+of coldness.
+
+“Dear friend,” said she, “I come to consult you about Rose and Edouard.”
+ She then told him what had happened, and hinted at Edouard’s one fault.
+The doctor smiled. “It is curious. You have come to draw my attention to
+a point on which it has been fixed for some days past. I am preparing a
+cure for the two young fools; a severe remedy, but in their case a sure
+one.”
+
+He then showed her a deed, wherein he had settled sixty thousand francs
+on Rose and her children. “Edouard,” said he, “has a good place. He is
+active and rising, and with my sixty thousand francs, and a little purse
+of ten thousand more for furniture and nonsense, they can marry next
+week, if they like. Yes, marriage is a sovereign medicine for both of
+these patients. She does not love him quite enough. Cure: marriage. He
+loves her a little too much. Cure: marriage.”
+
+“O doctor!”
+
+“Can’t help it. I did not make men and women. We must take human nature
+as we find it, and thank God for it on the whole. Have you nothing else
+to confide to me?”
+
+“No, doctor.”
+
+“Are you sure?”
+
+“No, dear friend. But this is very near my heart,” faltered Josephine.
+
+The doctor sighed; then said gently, “They shall be happy: as happy as
+you wish them.”
+
+Meantime, in another room, a reconciliation scene was taking place, and
+the mutual concessions of two impetuous but generous spirits.
+
+
+The baroness noticed the change in Josephine’s appearance.
+
+She asked Rose what could be the matter.
+
+“Some passing ailment,” was the reply.
+
+“Passing? She has been so, on and off, a long time. She makes me very
+anxious.”
+
+Rose made light of it to her mother, but in her own heart she grew more
+and more anxious day by day. She held secret conferences with Jacintha;
+that sagacious personage had a plan to wake Josephine from her deathly
+languor, and even soothe her nerves, and check those pitiable fits
+of nervous irritation to which she had become subject. Unfortunately,
+Jacintha’s plan was so difficult and so dangerous, that at first even
+the courageous Rose recoiled from it; but there are dangers that seem to
+diminish when you look them long in the face.
+
+The whole party was seated in the tapestried room: Jacintha was there,
+sewing a pair of sheets, at a respectful distance from the gentlefolks,
+absorbed in her work; but with both ears on full cock.
+
+The doctor, holding his glasses to his eye, had just begun to read out
+the Moniteur.
+
+The baroness sat close to him, Edouard opposite; and the young ladies
+each in her corner of a large luxurious sofa, at some little distance.
+
+
+“‘The Austrians left seventy cannon, eight thousand men, and three
+colors upon the field. Army of the North: General Menard defeated the
+enemy after a severe engagement, taking thirteen field-pieces and a
+quantity of ammunition.’”
+
+
+The baroness made a narrow-minded renmark. “That is always the way with
+these journals,” said she. “Austrians! Prussians! when it’s Egypt one
+wants to hear about.”--“No, not a word about Egypt,” said the doctor;
+“but there is a whole column about the Rhine, where Colonel Dujardin
+is--and Dard. If I was dictator, the first nuisance I would put down
+is small type.” He then spelled out a sanguinary engagement: “eight
+thousand of the enemy killed. We have some losses to lament. Colonel
+Dujardin”--
+
+“Only wounded, I hope,” said the baroness.
+
+The doctor went coolly on. “At the head of the 24th brigade made a
+brilliant charge on the enemy’s flank, that is described in the general
+order as having decided the fate of the battle.”
+
+“How badly you do read,” said the old lady, sharply. “I thought he was
+gone; instead of that he has covered himself with glory; but it is all
+our doing, is it not, young ladies? We saved his life.”
+
+“We saved it amongst us, madame.”
+
+“What is the matter, Rose?” said Edouard.
+
+“Nothing: give me the salts, quick.”
+
+She only passed them, as it were, under her own nostrils; then held
+them to Josephine, who was now observed to be trembling all over. Rose
+contrived to make it appear that this was mere sympathy on Josephine’s
+part.
+
+“Don’t be silly, girls,” cried the baroness, cheerfully; “there is
+nobody killed that we care about.”
+
+Dr. Aubertin read the rest to himself.
+
+Edouard fell into a gloomy silence and tortured himself about Camille,
+and Rose’s anxiety and agitation.
+
+By and by the new servant brought in a letter. It was the long-expected
+one from Egypt.
+
+“Here is something better than salts for you. A long letter, Josephine,
+and all in his own hand; so he is safe, thank Heaven! I was beginning
+to be uneasy again. You frightened me for that poor Camille: but this
+is worth a dozen Camilles; this is my son; I would give my old life
+for him.”--“My dear Mother--[‘Bless him!’), my dear wife, and my dear
+sister--[‘Well! you sit there like two rocks!’)--We have just gained
+a battle--fifty colors. [‘What do you think of that?’) All the enemy’s
+baggage and ammunition are in our hands. [‘This is something like
+a battle, this one.’) Also the Pasha of Natolie. [‘Ah! the Pasha of
+Natolie; an important personage, no doubt, though I never had the honor
+of hearing of him. Do you hear?--you on the sofa. My son has captured
+the Pasha of Natolie. He is as brave as Caesar.’) But this success is
+not one of those that lead to important results [‘Never mind, a victory
+is a victory’), and I should not wonder if Bonaparte was to dash home
+any day. If so, I shall go with him, and perhaps spend a whole day with
+you, on my way to the Rhine.”
+
+At this prospect a ghastly look passed quick as lightning between Rose
+and Josephine.
+
+The baroness beckoned Josephine to come close to her, and read her what
+followed in a lower tone of voice.
+
+“Tell my wife I love her more and more every day. I don’t expect as much
+from her, but she will make me very happy if she can make shift to like
+me as well as her family do.”--“No danger! What husband deserves to be
+loved as he does? I long for his return, that his wife, his mother, and
+his sister may all combine to teach this poor soldier what happiness
+means. We owe him everything, Josephine, and if we did not love him, and
+make him happy, we should be monsters; now should we not?”
+
+Josephine stammered an assent.
+
+“NOW you may read his letter: Jacintha and all,” said the baroness
+graciously.
+
+The letter circulated. Meantime, the baroness conversed with Aubertin in
+quite an undertone.
+
+“My friend, look at Josephine. That girl is ill, or else she is going to
+be ill.”
+
+“Neither the one nor the other, madame,” said Aubertin, looking her
+coolly in the face.
+
+“But I say she is. Is a doctor’s eye keener than a mother’s?”
+
+“Considerably,” replied the doctor with cool and enviable effrontery.
+
+The baroness rose. “Now, children, for our evening walk. We shall enjoy
+it now.”
+
+“I trust you may: but for all that I must forbid the evening air to one
+of the party--to Madame Raynal.”
+
+The baroness came to him and whispered, “That is right. Thank you. See
+what is the matter with her, and tell me.” And she carried off the rest
+of the party.
+
+At the same time Jacintha asked permission to pass the rest of the
+evening with her relations in the village. But why that swift, quivering
+glance of intelligence between Jacintha and Rose de Beaurepaire when the
+baroness said, “Yes, certainly”?
+
+Time will show.
+
+Josephine and the doctor were left alone. Now Josephine had noticed the
+old people whisper and her mother glance her way, and the whole woman
+was on her guard. She assumed a languid complacency, and by way of
+shield, if necessary, took some work, and bent her eyes and apparently
+her attention on it.
+
+The doctor was silent and ill at ease.
+
+She saw he had something weighty on his mind. “The air would have done
+me no harm,” said she.
+
+“Neither will a few words with me.”
+
+“Oh, no, dear friend. Only I think I should have liked a little walk
+this evening.”
+
+“Josephine,” said the doctor quietly, “when you were a child I saved
+your life.”
+
+“I have often heard my mother speak of it. I was choked by the croup,
+and you had the courage to lance my windpipe.”
+
+“Had I?” said the doctor, with a smile. He added gravely, “It seems then
+that to be cruel is sometimes kindness. It is the nature of men to love
+those whose life they save.”
+
+“And they love you.”
+
+“Well, our affection is not perfect. I don’t know which is most to
+blame, but after all these years I have failed to inspire you with
+confidence.” The doctor’s voice was sad, and Josephine’s bosom panted.
+
+“Pray do not say so,” she cried. “I would trust you with my life.”
+
+“But not with your secret.”
+
+“My secret! What secret? I have no secrets.”
+
+“Josephine, you have now for full twelve months suffered in body and
+mind, yet you have never come to me for counsel, for comfort, for an old
+man’s experience and advice, nor even for medical aid.”
+
+“But, dear friend, I assure you”--
+
+“We DO NOT deceive our friend. We CANNOT deceive our doctor.”
+
+Josephine trembled, but defended herself after the manner of her sex.
+“Dear doctor,” said she, “I love you all the better for this. Your
+regard for me has for once blinded your science. I am not so robust as
+you have known me, but there is nothing serious the matter with me. Let
+us talk of something else. Besides, it is not interesting to talk about
+one’s self.”
+
+“Very well; since there is nothing serious or interesting in your case,
+we will talk about something that is both serious and interesting.”
+
+“With all my heart;” and she smiled with a sense of relief.
+
+But the doctor leaned over the table to her, and said in a cautious and
+most emphatic whisper, “We will talk about YOUR CHILD.”
+
+The work dropped from Josephine’s hands: she turned her face wildly on
+Aubertin, and faltered out, “M--my child?”
+
+“My words are plain,” replied he gravely. “YOUR CHILD.”
+
+When the doctor repeated these words, when Josephine looking in his face
+saw he spoke from knowledge, however acquired, and not from guess, she
+glided down slowly off the sofa and clasped his knees as he stood before
+her, and hid her face in an agony of shame and terror on his knees.
+
+“Forgive me,” she sobbed. “Pray do not expose me! Do not destroy me.”
+
+“Unhappy young lady,” said he, “did you think you had deceived me, or
+that you are fit to deceive any but the blind? Your face, your anguish
+after Colonel Dujardin’s departure, your languor, and then your sudden
+robustness, your appetite, your caprices, your strange sojourn at
+Frejus, your changed looks and loss of health on your return! Josephine,
+your old friend has passed many an hour thinking of you, divining your
+folly, following your trouble step by step. Yet you never invited him to
+aid you.”
+
+Josephine faltered out a lame excuse. If she had revered him less she
+could have borne to confess to him. She added it would be a relief to
+her to confide in him.
+
+“Then tell me all,” said he.
+
+She consented almost eagerly, and told him--nearly all. The old man was
+deeply affected. He murmured in a broken voice, “Your story is the story
+of your sex, self-sacrifice, first to your mother, then to Camille, now
+to your husband.”
+
+“And he is well worthy of any sacrifice I can make,” said Josephine.
+“But oh, how hard it is to live!”
+
+“I hope to make it less hard to you ere long,” said the doctor quietly.
+He then congratulated himself on having forced Josephine to confide in
+him. “For,” said he, “you never needed an experienced friend more than
+at this moment. Your mother will not always be so blind as of late.
+Edouard is suspicious. Jacintha is a shrewd young woman, and very
+inquisitive.”
+
+Josephine was not at the end of her concealments: she was ashamed to let
+him know she had made a confidant of Jacintha and not of him. She held
+her peace.
+
+“Then,” continued Aubertin, “there is the terrible chance of Raynal’s
+return. But ere I take on me to advise you, what are your own plans?”
+
+“I don’t know,” said Josephine helplessly.
+
+“You--don’t--know!” cried the doctor, looking at her in utter amazement.
+
+“It is the answer of a mad woman, is it not? Doctor, I am little better.
+My foot has slipped on the edge of a precipice. I close my eyes, and let
+myself glide down it. What will become of me?”
+
+“All shall be well,” said Aubertin, “provided you do not still love that
+man.”
+
+Josephine did not immediately reply: her thoughts turned inwards. The
+good doctor was proceeding to congratulate her on being cured of a fatal
+passion, when she stopped him with wonder in her face. “Not love him!
+How can I help loving him? I was his betrothed. I wronged him in my
+thoughts. War, prison, anguish, could not kill him; he loved me so. He
+struggled bleeding to my feet; and could I let him die, after all? Could
+I be crueller than prison, and torture, and despair?”
+
+The doctor sighed deeply; but, arming himself with the necessary
+resolution, he sternly replied, “A woman of your name cannot vacillate
+between love and honor; such vacillations have but one end. I will not
+let you drift a moral wreck between passion and virtue; and that is what
+it will come to if you hesitate now.”
+
+“Hesitate! Who can say I have hesitated where my honor was concerned?
+You can read our bodies then, but not our hearts. What! you see me so
+pale, forlorn, and dead, and that does not tell you I have bid Camille
+farewell forever? That we might be safer still I have not even told him
+he is a father: was ever woman so cruel as I am? I have written him but
+one letter, and in that I must deceive him. I told him I thought I might
+one day be happy, if I could hear that he did not give way to despair. I
+told him we must never meet again in this world. So now come what will:
+show me my duty and I will do it. This endless deceit burns my heart.
+Shall I tell my husband? It will be but one pang more, one blush more
+for me. But my mother!” and, thus appealed to, Dr. Aubertin felt, for
+the first time, all the difficulty of the situation he had undertaken to
+cure. He hesitated, he was embarrassed.
+
+“Ah,” said Josephine, “you see.” Then, after a short silence, she said
+despairingly, “This is my only hope: that poor Raynal will be long
+absent, and that ere he returns mamma will lie safe from sorrow and
+shame in the little chapel. Doctor, when a woman of my age forms
+such wishes as these, I think you might pity her, and forgive her
+ill-treatment of you, for she cannot be very happy. Ah me! ah me! ah
+me!”
+
+“Courage, poor soul! All is now in my hands, and I will save you,” said
+the doctor, his voice trembling in spite of him. “Guilt lies in the
+intention. A more innocent woman than you does not breathe. Two courses
+lay open to you: to leave this house with Camille Dujardin, or to
+dismiss him, and live for your hard duty till it shall please Heaven to
+make that duty easy (no middle course was tenable for a day); of these
+two paths you chose the right one, and, having chosen, I really think
+you are not called on to reveal your misfortune, and make those unhappy
+to whose happiness you have sacrificed your own for years to come.”
+
+“Forever,” said Josephine quietly.
+
+“The young use that word lightly. The old have almost ceased to use it.
+They have seen how few earthly things can conquer time.”
+
+He resumed, “You think only of others, Josephine, but I shall think
+of you as well. I shall not allow your life to be wasted in a needless
+struggle against nature.” Then turning to Rose, who had glided into the
+room, and stood amazed, “Her griefs were as many before her child was
+born, yet her health stood firm. Why? because nature was on her side.
+Now she is sinking into the grave. Why? because she is defying nature.
+Nature intended her to be pressing her child to her bosom day and night;
+instead of that, a peasant woman at Frejus nurses the child, and the
+mother pines at Beaurepaire.”
+
+At this, Josephine leaned her face on her hands on the doctor’s
+shoulder. In this attitude she murmured to him, “I have never seen him
+since I left Frejus.” Dr. Aubertin sighed for her. Emboldened by this,
+she announced her intention of going to Frejus the very next day to
+see her little Henri. But to this Dr. Aubertin demurred. “What,
+another journey to Frejus?” said he, “when the first has already roused
+Edouard’s suspicions; I can never consent to that.”
+
+Then Josephine surprised them both. She dropped her coaxing voice and
+pecked the doctor like an irritated pigeon. “Take care,” said she,
+“don’t be too cruel to me. You see I am obedient, resigned. I have given
+up all I lived for: but if I am never to have my little boy’s arms round
+me to console me, then--why torment me any longer? Why not say to me,
+‘Josephine, you have offended Heaven; pray for pardon, and die’?”
+
+Then the doctor was angry in his turn. “Oh, go then,” said he, “go to
+Frejus; you will have Edouard Riviere for a companion this time. Your
+first visit roused his suspicions. So before you go tell your mother
+all; for since she is sure to find it out, she had better hear it from
+you than from another.”
+
+“Doctor, have pity on me,” said Josephine.
+
+“You have no heart,” said Rose. “She shall see him though, in spite of
+you.”
+
+“Oh, yes! he has a heart,” said Josephine: “he is my best friend. He
+will let me see my boy.”
+
+All this, and the tearful eyes and coaxing yet trembling voice, was
+hard to resist. But Aubertin saw clearly, and stood firm. He put his
+handkerchief to his eyes a moment: then took the pining young mother’s
+hand. “And, do you think,” said he, “I do not pity you and love your
+boy? Ah! he will never want a father whilst I live; and from this moment
+he is under my care. I will go to see him; I will bring you news, and
+all in good time; I will place him where you shall visit him without
+imprudence; but, for the present, trust a wiser head than yours or
+Rose’s; and give me your sacred promise not to go to Frejus.”
+
+Weighed down by his good-sense and kindness, Josephine resisted no
+longer in words. She just lifted her hands in despair and began to cry.
+It was so piteous, Aubertin was ready to yield in turn, and consent to
+any imprudence, when he met with an unexpected ally.
+
+“Promise,” said Rose, doggedly.
+
+Josephine looked at her calmly through her tears.
+
+“Promise, dear,” repeated Rose, and this time with an intonation so
+fine that it attracted Josephine’s notice, but not the doctor’s. It was
+followed by a glance equally subtle.
+
+“I promise,” said Josephine, with her eye fixed inquiringly on her
+sister.
+
+For once she could not make the telegraph out: but she could see it was
+playing, and that was enough. She did what Rose bid her; she promised
+not to go to Frejus without leave.
+
+Finding her so submissive all of a sudden, he went on to suggest that
+she must not go kissing every child she saw. “Edouard tells me he saw
+you kissing a beggar’s brat. The young rogue was going to quiz you about
+it at the dinner-table; luckily, he told me his intention, and I
+would not let him. I said the baroness would be annoyed with you
+for descending from your dignity--and exposing a noble family to
+fleas--hush! here he is.”
+
+“Tiresome!” muttered Rose, “just when”--
+
+Edouard came forward with a half-vexed face.
+
+However, he turned it off into play. “What have you been saying to her,
+monsieur, to interest her so? Give me a leaf out of your book. I need
+it.”
+
+The doctor was taken aback for a moment, but at last he said slyly, “I
+have been proposing to her to name the day. She says she must consult
+you before she decides that.”
+
+“Oh, you wicked doctor!--and consult HIM of all people!”
+
+“So be off, both of you, and don’t reappear before me till it is
+settled.”
+
+Edouard’s eyes sparkled. Rose went out with a face as red as fire.
+
+It was a balmy evening. Edouard was to leave them for a week the next
+day. They were alone: Rose was determined he should go away quite happy.
+Everything was in Edouard’s favor: he pleaded his cause warmly: she
+listened tenderly: this happy evening her piquancy and archness seemed
+to dissolve into tenderness as she and Edouard walked hand in hand under
+the moon: a tenderness all the more heavenly to her devoted lover, that
+she was not one of those angels who cloy a man by invariable sweetness.
+
+For a little while she forgot everything but her companion. In that soft
+hour he won her to name the day, after her fashion.
+
+“Josephine goes to Paris with the doctor in about three weeks,” murmured
+she.
+
+“And you will stay behind, all alone?”
+
+“Alone? that shall depend on you, monsieur.”
+
+On this Edouard caught her for the first time in his arms.
+
+She made a faint resistance.
+
+“Seal me that promise, sweet one!”
+
+“No! no!--there!”
+
+He pressed a delicious first kiss upon two velvet lips that in their
+innocence scarcely shunned the sweet attack.
+
+For all that, the bond was no sooner sealed after this fashion, than the
+lady’s cheek began to burn.
+
+“Suppose we go in NOW?” said she, dryly.
+
+“Ah, not yet.”
+
+“It is late, dear Edouard.”
+
+And with these words something returned to her mind with its full force:
+something that Edouard had actually made her forget. She wanted to get
+rid of him now.
+
+“Edouard,” said she, “can you get up early in the morning? If you can,
+meet me here to-morrow before any of them are up; then we can talk
+without interruption.”
+
+Edouard was delighted.
+
+“Eight o’clock?”
+
+“Sooner if you like. Mamma bade me come and read to her in her room
+to-night. She will be waiting for me. Is it not tiresome?”
+
+“Yes, it is.”
+
+“Well, we must not mind that, dear; in three weeks’ time we are to have
+too much of one another, you know, instead of too little.”
+
+“Too much! I shall never have enough of you. I shall hate the night
+which will rob me of the sight of you for so many hours in the
+twenty-four.”
+
+“If you can’t see me, perhaps you may hear me; my tongue runs by night
+as well as by day.”
+
+“Well, that is a comfort,” said Edouard, gravely. “Yes, little quizzer,
+I would rather hear you scold than an angel sing. Judge, then, what
+music it is when you say you love me!”
+
+“I love you, Edouard.”
+
+Edouard kissed her hand warmly, and then looked irresolutely at her
+face.
+
+“No, no!” said she, laughing and blushing. “How rude you are. Next time
+we meet.”
+
+“That is a bargain. But I won’t go till you say you love me again.
+
+“Edouard, don’t be silly. I am ashamed of saying the same thing so
+often--I won’t say it any more. What is the use? You know I love you.
+There, I HAVE said it: how stupid!”
+
+“Adieu, then, my wife that is to be.”
+
+“Adieu! dear Edouard.”
+
+“My hus--go on--my hus--”
+
+“My huswife that shall be.”
+
+Then they walked very slowly towards the house, and once more Rose left
+quizzing, and was all tenderness.
+
+“Will you not come in, and bid them ‘good-night’?”
+
+“No, my own; I am in heaven. Common faces--common voices would bring me
+down to earth. Let me be alone;--your sweet words ringing in my ear. I
+will dilute you with nothing meaner than the stars. See how bright they
+shine in heaven; but not so bright as you shine in my heart.”
+
+“Dear Edouard, you flatter me, you spoil me. Alas! why am I not more
+worthy of your love?”
+
+“More worthy! How can that be?”
+
+Rose sighed.
+
+“But I will atone for all. I will make you a better--(here she
+substituted a full stop for a substantive)--than you expect. You will
+see else.”
+
+She lingered at the door: a proof that if Edouard, at that particular
+moment, had seized another kiss, there would have been no very violent
+opposition or offence.
+
+But he was not so impudent as some. He had been told to wait till
+the next meeting for that. He prayed Heaven to bless her, and so the
+affianced lovers parted for the night.
+
+It was about nine o’clock. Edouard, instead of returning to his
+lodgings, started down towards the town, to conclude a bargain with the
+innkeeper for an English mare he was in treaty for. He wanted her
+for to-morrow’s work; so that decided him to make the purchase. In
+purchases, as in other matters, a feather turns the balanced scale. He
+sauntered leisurely down. It was a very clear night; the full moon and
+the stars shining silvery and vivid. Edouard’s heart swelled with joy.
+He was loved after all, deeply loved; and in three short weeks he was
+actually to be Rose’s husband: her lord and master. How like a heavenly
+dream it all seemed--the first hopeless courtship, and now the wedding
+fixed! But it was no dream; he felt her soft words still murmur music at
+his heart, and the shadow of her velvet lips slept upon his own.
+
+He had strolled about a league when he heard the ring of a horse’s hoofs
+coming towards him, accompanied by a clanking noise; it came nearer and
+nearer, till it reached a hill that lay a little ahead of Edouard; then
+the sounds ceased; the cavalier was walking his horse up the hill.
+
+Presently, as if they had started from the earth, up popped between
+Edouard and the sky, first a cocked hat that seemed in that light to be
+cut with a razor out of flint; then the wearer, phosphorescent here and
+there; so brightly the keen moonlight played on his epaulets and steel
+scabbard. A step or two nearer, and Edouard gave a great shout; it was
+Colonel Raynal.
+
+After the first warm greeting, and questions and answers, Raynal told
+him he was on his way to the Rhine with despatches.
+
+“To the Rhine?”
+
+“I am allowed six days to get there. I made a calculation, and found I
+could give Beaurepaire half a day. I shall have to make up for it by
+hard riding. You know me; always in a hurry. It is Bonaparte’s fault
+this time. He is always in a hurry too.”
+
+“Why, colonel,” said Edouard, “let us make haste then. Mind they go
+early to rest at the chateau.”
+
+“But you are not coming my way, youngster?”
+
+“Not coming your way? Yes, but I am. Yours is a face I don’t see every
+day, colonel; besides I would not miss THEIR faces, especially the
+baroness’s and Madame Raynal’s, at sight of you; and, besides,”--and the
+young gentleman chuckled to himself, and thought of Rose’s words, “the
+next time we meet;” well, this will be the next time. “May I jump up
+behind?”
+
+Colonel Raynal nodded assent. Edouard took a run, and lighted like a
+monkey on the horse’s crupper. He pranced and kicked at this unexpected
+addition; but the spur being promptly applied to his flanks, he bounded
+off with a snort that betrayed more astonishment than satisfaction, and
+away they cantered to Beaurepaire, without drawing rein.
+
+“There,” said Edouard, “I was afraid they would be gone to bed; and they
+are. The very house seems asleep--fancy--at half-past ten.”
+
+“That is a pity,” said Raynal, “for this chateau is the stronghold of
+etiquette. They will be two hours dressing before they will come out and
+shake hands. I must put my horse into the stable. Go you and give the
+alarm.”
+
+“I will, colonel. Stop, first let me see whether none of them are up,
+after all.”
+
+And Edouard walked round the chateau, and soon discovered a light at one
+window, the window of the tapestried room. Running round the other
+way he came slap upon another light: this one was nearer the ground. A
+narrow but massive door, which he had always seen not only locked but
+screwed up, was wide open; and through the aperture the light of a
+candle streamed out and met the moonlight streaming in.
+
+“Hallo!” cried Edouard.
+
+He stopped, turned, and looked in.
+
+“Hallo!” he cried again much louder.
+
+A young woman was sleeping with her feet in the silvery moonlight, and
+her head in the orange-colored blaze of a flat candle, which rested on
+the next step above of a fine stone staircase, whose existence was now
+first revealed to the inquisitive Edouard.
+
+Coming plump upon all this so unexpectedly, he quite started.
+
+“Why, Jacintha!”
+
+He touched her on the shoulder to wake her. No. Jacintha was sleeping as
+only tired domestics can sleep. He might have taken the candle and burnt
+her gown off her back. She had found a step that fitted into the small
+of her back, and another that supported her head, and there she was fast
+as a door.
+
+At this moment Raynal’s voice was heard calling him.
+
+“There is a light in that bedroom.”
+
+“It is not a bedroom, colonel; it is our sitting-room now. We shall find
+them all there, or at least the young ladies; and perhaps the doctor.
+The baroness goes to bed early. Meantime I can show you one of our
+dramatis personae, and an important one too. She rules the roost.”
+
+He took him mysteriously and showed him Jacintha.
+
+Moonlight by itself seems white, and candlelight by itself seems yellow;
+but when the two come into close contrast at night, candle turns a
+reddish flame, and moonlight a bluish gleam.
+
+So Jacintha, with her shoes in this celestial sheen, and her face in
+that demoniacal glare, was enough to knock the gazer’s eye out.
+
+“Make a good sentinel--this one,” said Raynal--“an outlying picket for
+instance, on rough ground, in front of the enemy’s riflemen.”
+
+“Ha! ha! colonel! Let us see where this staircase leads. I have an idea
+it will prove a short cut.”
+
+“Where to?”
+
+“To the saloon, or somewhere, or else to some of Jacintha’s haunts.
+Serve her right for going to sleep at the mouth of her den.”
+
+“Forward then--no, halt! Suppose it leads to the bedrooms? Mind this
+is a thundering place for ceremony. We shall get drummed out of the
+barracks if we don’t mind our etiquette.”
+
+At this they hesitated; and Edouard himself thought, on the whole, it
+would be better to go and hammer at the front door.
+
+Now while they hesitated, a soft delicious harmony of female voices
+suddenly rose, and seemed to come and run round the walls. The men
+looked at one another in astonishment; for the effect was magical. The
+staircase being enclosed on all sides with stone walls and floored with
+stone, they were like flies inside a violoncello; the voices rang above,
+below, and on every side of the vibrating walls. In some epochs spirits
+as hardy as Raynal’s, and wits as quick as Riviere’s, would have fled
+then and there to the nearest public, and told over cups how they had
+heard the dames of Beaurepaire, long since dead, holding their revel,
+and the conscious old devil’s nest of a chateau quivering to the ghostly
+strains.
+
+But this was an incredulous age. They listened, and listened, and
+decided the sounds came from up-stairs.
+
+“Let us mount, and surprise these singing witches,” said Edouard.
+
+“Surprise them! what for? It is not the enemy--for once. What is the
+good of surprising our friends?”
+
+Storming parties and surprises were no novelty and therefore no treat to
+Raynal.
+
+“It will be so delightful to see their faces at first sight of you. O
+colonel, for my sake! Don’t spoil it by going tamely in at the front
+door, after coming at night from Egypt for half an hour.”
+
+Raynal grumbled something about its being a childish trick; but to
+please Edouard consented at last; only stipulated for a light: “or
+else,” said he, “we shall surprise ourselves instead with a broken neck,
+going over ground we don’t know to surprise the natives--our skirmishers
+got nicked that way now and then in Egypt.”
+
+“Yes, colonel, I will go first with Jacintha’s candle.” Edouard mounted
+the stairs on tiptoe. Raynal followed. The solid stone steps did not
+prate. The men had mounted a considerable way, when puff a blast of wind
+came through a hole, and out went Edouard’s candle. He turned sharply
+round to Raynal. “Peste!” said he in a vicious whisper. But the other
+laid his hand on his shoulder and whispered, “Look to the front.” He
+looked, and, his own candle being out, saw a glimmer on ahead. He
+crept towards it. It was a taper shooting a feeble light across a small
+aperture. They caught a glimpse of what seemed to be a small apartment.
+Yet Edouard recognized the carpet of the tapestried room--which was a
+very large room. Creeping a yard nearer, he discovered that it was the
+tapestried room, and that what had seemed the further wall was only the
+screen, behind which were lights, and two women singing a duet.
+
+He whispered to Raynal, “It is the tapestried room.”
+
+“Is it a sitting-room?” whispered Raynal.
+
+“Yes! yes! Mind and not knock your foot against the wood.”
+
+And Raynal went softly up and put his foot quietly through the aperture,
+which he now saw was made by a panel drawn back close to the ground;
+and stood in the tapestried chamber. The carpet was thick; the voices
+favored the stealthy advance; the floor of the old house was like a
+rock; and Edouard put his face through the aperture, glowing all over
+with anticipation of the little scream of joy that would welcome his
+friend dropping in so nice and suddenly from Egypt.
+
+The feeling was rendered still more piquant by a sharp curiosity that
+had been growing on him for some minutes past. For why was this passage
+opened to-night?--he had never seen it opened before. And why was
+Jacintha lying sentinel at the foot of the stairs?
+
+But this was not all. Now that they were in the room both men became
+conscious of another sound besides the ladies’ voices--a very peculiar
+sound. It also came from behind the screen. They both heard it, and
+showed, by the puzzled looks they cast at one another, that neither
+could make out what on earth it was. It consisted of a succession of
+little rustles, followed by little thumps on the floor.
+
+But what was curious, too, this rustle, thump--rustle, thump--fell
+exactly into the time of the music; so that, clearly, either the rustle
+thump was being played to the tune, or the tune sung to the rustle
+thump.
+
+This last touch of mystery inflamed Edouard’s impatience beyond bearing:
+he pointed eagerly and merrily to the corner of the screen. Raynal
+obeyed, and stepped very slowly and cautiously towards it.
+
+Rustle, thump! rustle, thump! rustle, thump! with the rhythm of
+harmonious voices.
+
+Edouard got his head and foot into the room without taking his eye off
+Raynal.
+
+Rustle, thump! rustle, thump! rustle, thump!
+
+Raynal was now at the screen, and quietly put his head round it, and his
+hand upon it.
+
+Edouard was bursting with expectation.
+
+No result. What is this? Don’t they see him? Why does he not speak to
+them? He seems transfixed.
+
+Rustle, thump! rustle, thump; accompanied now for a few notes by one
+voice only, Rose’s.
+
+Suddenly there burst a shriek from Josephine, so loud, so fearful, that
+it made even Raynal stagger back a step, the screen in his hand.
+
+Then another scream of terror and anguish from Rose. Then a fainter cry,
+and the heavy helpless fall of a human body.
+
+Raynal sprang forward whirling the screen to the earth in terrible
+agitation, and Edouard bounded over it as it fell at his feet. He did
+not take a second step. The scene that caught his eye stupefied and
+paralyzed him in full career, and froze him to the spot with amazement
+and strange misgivings.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX.
+
+
+To return for a moment to Rose. She parted from Edouard, and went in at
+the front door: but the next moment she opened it softly and watched her
+lover unseen. “Dear Edouard!” she murmured: and then she thought, “how
+sad it is that I must deceive him, even to-night: must make up an excuse
+to get him from me, when we were so happy together. Ah! he little knows
+how I shall welcome our wedding-day. When once I can see my poor martyr
+on the road to peace and content under the good doctor’s care. And oh!
+the happiness of having no more secrets from him I love! Dear Edouard!
+when once we are married, I never, never, will have a secret from you
+again--I swear it.”
+
+As a comment on these words she now stepped cautiously out, and peered
+in every direction.
+
+“St--st!” she whispered. No answer came to this signal.
+
+Rose returned into the house and bolted the door inside. She went up
+to the tapestried room, and found the doctor in the act of wishing
+Josephine good-night. The baroness, fatigued a little by her walk, had
+mounted no higher than her own bedroom, which was on the first floor
+just under the tapestried room. Rose followed the doctor out. “Dear
+friend, one word. Josephine talked of telling Raynal. You have not
+encouraged her to do that?”
+
+“Certainly not, while he is in Egypt.”
+
+“Still less on his return. Doctor, you don’t know that man. Josephine
+does not know him. But I do. He would kill her if he knew. He would kill
+her that minute. He would not wait: he would not listen to excuses: he
+is a man of iron. Or if he spared her he would kill Camille: and that
+would destroy her by the cruellest of all deaths! My friend, I am a
+wicked, miserable girl. I am the cause of all this misery!”
+
+She then told Aubertin all about the anonymous letter, and what Raynal
+had said to her in consequence.
+
+“He never would have married her had he known she loved another. He
+asked me was it so. I told him a falsehood. At least I equivocated, and
+to equivocate with one so loyal and simple was to deceive him. I am the
+only sinner: that sweet angel is the only sufferer. Is this the justice
+of Heaven? Doctor, my remorse is great. No one knows what I feel when I
+look at my work. Edouard thinks I love her so much better than I do
+him. He is wrong: it is not love only, it is pity: it is remorse for the
+sorrow I have brought on her, and the wrong I have done poor Raynal.”
+
+The high-spirited girl was greatly agitated: and Aubertin, though he did
+not acquit her of all blame, soothed her, and made excuses for her.
+
+“We must not always judge by results,” said he. “Things turned
+unfortunately. You did for the best. I forgive you for one. That is, I
+will forgive you if you promise not to act again without my advice.”
+
+“Oh, never! never!”
+
+“And, above all, no imprudence about that child. In three little weeks
+they will be together without risk of discovery. Well, you don’t answer
+me.”
+
+Rose’s blood turned cold. “Dear friend,” she stammered, “I quite agree
+with you.”
+
+“Promise, then.”
+
+“Not to let Josephine go to Frejus?” said Rose hastily. “Oh, yes! I
+promise.”
+
+“You are a good girl,” said Aubertin. “You have a will of your own. But
+you can submit to age and experience.” The doctor then kissed her, and
+bade her farewell.
+
+“I leave for Paris at six in the morning,” he said. “I will not try your
+patience or hers unnecessarily. Perhaps it will not be three weeks ere
+she sees her child under her friend’s roof.”
+
+The moment Rose was alone, she sat down and sighed bitterly. “There
+is no end to it,” she sobbed despairingly. “It is like a spider’s web:
+every struggle to be free but multiplies the fine yet irresistible
+thread that seems to bind me. And to-night I thought to be so happy;
+instead of that, he has left me scarce the heart to do what I have to
+do.”
+
+She went back to the room, opened a window, and put out a white
+handkerchief, then closed the window down on it.
+
+Then she went to Josephine’s bedroom-door: it opened on the tapestried
+room.
+
+“Josephine,” she cried, “don’t go to bed just yet.”
+
+“No, love. What are you doing? I want to talk to you. Why did you say
+promise? and what did you mean by looking at me so? Shall I come out to
+you?”
+
+“Not just yet,” said Rose; she then glided into the corridor, and passed
+her mother’s room and the doctor’s, and listened to see if all was
+quiet. While she was gone Josephine opened her door; but not seeing Rose
+in the sitting-room, retired again.
+
+Rose returned softly, and sat down with her head in her hand, in a calm
+attitude belied by her glancing eye, and the quick tapping of her other
+hand upon the table.
+
+Presently she raised her head quickly; a sound had reached her ear,--a
+sound so slight that none but a high-strung ear could have caught it. It
+was like a mouse giving a single scratch against a stone wall.
+
+Rose coughed slightly.
+
+On this a clearer sound was heard, as of a person scratching wood with
+the finger-nail. Rose darted to the side of the room, pressed against
+the wall, and at the same time put her other hand against the rim of one
+of the panels and pushed it laterally; it yielded, and at the opening
+stood Jacintha in her cloak and bonnet.
+
+“Yes,” said Jacintha, “under my cloak--look!”
+
+“Ah! you found the things on the steps?”
+
+“Yes! I nearly tumbled over them. Have you locked that door?”
+
+“No, but I will.” And Rose glided to the door and locked it. Then she
+put the screen up between Josephine’s room and the open panel: then she
+and Jacintha were wonderfully busy on the other side the screen, but
+presently Rose said, “This is imprudent; you must go down to the foot of
+the stairs and wait till I call you.”
+
+Jacintha pleaded hard against this arrangement, and represented that
+there was no earthly chance of any one coming to that part of the
+chateau.
+
+“No matter; I will be guarded on every side.”
+
+“Mustn’t I stop and just see her happy for once?”
+
+“No, my poor Jacintha, you must hear it from my lips.”
+
+Jacintha retired to keep watch as she was bid. Rose went to Josephine’s
+room, and threw her arms round her neck and kissed her vehemently.
+Josephine returned her embrace, then held her out at arm’s length and
+looked at her.
+
+“Your eyes are red, yet your little face is full of joy. There, you
+smile.”
+
+“I can’t help that; I am so happy.”
+
+“I am glad of it. Are you coming to bed?”
+
+“Not yet. I invite you to take a little walk with me first. Come!”
+ and she led the way slowly, looking back with infinite archness and
+tenderness.
+
+“You almost frighten me,” said Josephine; “it is not like you to be all
+joy when I am sad. Three whole weeks more!”
+
+“That is it. Why are you sad? because the doctor would not let you go to
+Frejus. And why am I not sad? because I had already thought of a way to
+let you see Edouard without going so far.”
+
+“Rose! O Rose! O Rose!”
+
+“This way--come!” and she smiled and beckoned with her finger, while
+Josephine followed like one under a spell, her bosom heaving, her eye
+glancing on every side, hoping some strange joy, yet scarce daring to
+hope.
+
+Rose drew back the screen, and there was a sweet little berceau that had
+once been Josephine’s own, and in it, sunk deep in snow-white lawn, was
+a sleeping child, that lay there looking as a rose might look could it
+fall upon new-fallen snow.
+
+At sight of it Josephine uttered a little cry, not loud but deep--ay, a
+cry to bring tears into the eye of the hearer, and she stood trembling
+from head to foot, her hands clasped, and her eye fascinated and fixed
+on the cradle.
+
+“My child under this roof! What have you done?” but her eye, fascinated
+and fixed, never left the cradle.
+
+“I saw you languishing, dying, for want of him.”
+
+“Oh, if anybody should come?” But her eye never stirred an inch from the
+cradle.
+
+“No, no, no! the door is locked. Jacintha watches below; there is no
+dan--Ah, oh, poor sister!”
+
+For, as Rose was speaking, the young mother sprang silently upon her
+child. You would have thought she was going to kill him; her head reared
+itself again and again like a crested snake’s, and again and again and
+again and again plunged down upon the child, and she kissed his little
+body from head to foot with soft violence, and murmured, through her
+streaming tears, “My child! my darling! my angel! oh, my poor boy! my
+child! my child!”
+
+I will ask my female readers of every degree to tell their brothers and
+husbands all the young noble did: how she sat on the floor, and had her
+child on her bosom; how she smiled over it through her tears; how she
+purred over it; how she, the stately one, lisped and prattled over it;
+and how life came pouring into her heart from it.
+
+Before she had had it in her arms five minutes, her pale cheek was as
+red as a rose, and her eyes brighter than diamonds.
+
+“Bless you, Rose! bless you! bless you! in one moment you have made me
+forget all I ever suffered in my life.”
+
+“There is a cold draught,” cried she presently, with maternal anxiety;
+“close the panel, Rose.”
+
+“No, dear; or I could not call to Jacintha, or she to me; but I will
+shift the screen round between him and the draught. There, now, come to
+his aunt--a darling!”
+
+Then Rose sat on the floor too, and Josephine put her boy on aunt’s
+lap, and took a distant view of him. But she could not bear so vast a
+separation long. She must have him to her bosom again.
+
+Presently my lord, finding himself hugged, opened his eyes, and, as a
+natural consequence, his mouth.
+
+“Oh, that will never do,” cried Rose, and they put him back in the
+cradle with all expedition, and began to rock it. Young master was
+not to be altogether appeased even by that. So Rose began singing an
+old-fashioned Breton chant or lullaby.
+
+Josephine sang with her, and, singing, watched with a smile her boy drop
+off by degrees to sleep under the gentle motion and the lulling song.
+They sang and rocked till the lids came creeping down, and hid the
+great blue eyes; but still they sang and rocked, lulling the boy, and
+gladdening their own hearts; for the quaint old Breton ditty was tunable
+as the lark that carols over the green wheat in April; and the words so
+simple and motherly, that a nation had taken them to heart. Such songs
+bind ages together and make the lofty and the low akin by the great ties
+of music and the heart. Many a Breton peasant’s bosom in the olden time
+had gushed over her sleeping boy as the young dame’s of Beaurepaire
+gushed now--in this quaint, tuneful lullaby.
+
+Now, as they kneeled over the cradle, one on each side, and rocked it,
+and sang that ancient chant, Josephine, who was opposite the screen,
+happening to raise her eyes, saw a strange thing.
+
+There was the face of a man set close against the side of the screen,
+and peeping and peering out of the gloom. The light of her candle fell
+full on this face; it glared at her, set pale, wonder-struck, and vivid
+in the surrounding gloom.
+
+Horror! It was her husband’s face.
+
+At first she was quite stupefied, and looked at it with soul and senses
+benumbed. Then she trembled, and put her hand to her eyes; for she
+thought it a phantom or a delusion of the mind. No: there it glared
+still. Then she trembled violently, and held out her left hand, the
+fingers working convulsively, to Rose, who was still singing.
+
+But, at the same moment, the mouth of this face suddenly opened in a
+long-drawn breath. At this, Josephine uttered a violent shriek, and
+sprang to her feet, with her right hand quivering and pointing at that
+pale face set in the dark.
+
+Rose started up, and, wheeling her head round, saw Raynal’s gloomy
+face looking over her shoulder. She fell screaming upon her knees, and,
+almost out of her senses, began to pray wildly and piteously for mercy.
+
+Josephine uttered one more cry, but this was the faint cry of nature,
+sinking under the shock of terror. She swooned dead away, and fell
+senseless on the floor ere Raynal could debarrass himself of the screen,
+and get to her.
+
+This, then, was the scene that met Edouard’s eyes. His affianced bride
+on her knees, white as a ghost, trembling, and screaming, rather than
+crying, for mercy. And Raynal standing over his wife, showing by the
+working of his iron features that he doubted whether she was worthy he
+should raise her.
+
+One would have thought nothing could add to the terror of this scene.
+Yet it was added to. The baroness rang her bell violently in the room
+below. She had heard Josephine’s scream and fall.
+
+At the ringing of this shrill bell Rose shuddered like a maniac, and
+grovelled on her knees to Raynal, and seized his very knees and implored
+him to show some pity.
+
+“O sir! kill us! we are culpable”--
+
+Dring! dring! dring! dring! dring! pealed the baroness’s bell again.
+
+“But do not tell our mother. Oh, if you are a man! do not! do not! Show
+us some pity. We are but women. Mercy! mercy! mercy!”
+
+“Speak out then,” groaned Raynal. “What does this mean? Why has my wife
+swooned at sight of me?--whose is this child?”
+
+“Whose?” stammered Rose. Till he said that, she never thought there
+COULD be a doubt whose child.
+
+Dring! dring! dring! dring! dring!
+
+“Oh, my God!” cried the poor girl, and her scared eyes glanced every way
+like some wild creature looking for a hole, however small, to escape by.
+
+Edouard, seeing her hesitation, came down on her other side. “Whose is
+the child, Rose?” said he sternly.
+
+“You, too? Why were we born? mercy! oh! pray let me go to my sister.”
+
+Dring! dring! dring! dring! dring! went the terrible bell.
+
+The men were excited to fury by Rose’s hesitation; they each seized an
+arm, and tore her screaming with fear at their violence, from her knees
+up to her feet between them with a single gesture.
+
+“Whose is the child?”
+
+“You hurt me!” said she bitterly to Edouard, and she left crying and was
+terribly calm and sullen all in a moment.
+
+“Whose is the child?” roared Edouard and Raynal, in one raging breath.
+“Whose is the child?”
+
+“It is mine.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX.
+
+
+These were not words; they were electric shocks.
+
+The two arms that gripped Rose’s arms were paralyzed, and dropped off
+them; and there was silence.
+
+Then first the thought of all she had done with those three words
+began to rise and grow and surge over her. She stood, her eyes turned
+downwards, yet inwards, and dilating with horror.
+
+Silence.
+
+Now a mist began to spread over her eyes, and in it she saw indistinctly
+the figure of Raynal darting to her sister’s side, and raising her head.
+
+She dared not look round on the other side. She heard feet stagger on
+the floor. She heard a groan, too; but not a word.
+
+Horrible silence.
+
+With nerves strung to frenzy, and quivering ears, that magnified every
+sound, she waited for a reproach, a curse; either would have been some
+little relief. But no! a silence far more terrible.
+
+Then a step wavered across the room. Her soul was in her ear. She could
+hear and feel the step totter, and it shook her as it went. All sounds
+were trebled to her. Then it struck on the stone step of the staircase,
+not like a step, but a knell; another step, another and another; down to
+the very bottom. Each slow step made her head ring and her heart freeze.
+
+At last she heard no more. Then a scream of anguish and recall rose
+to her lips. She fought it down, for Josephine and Raynal. Edouard
+was gone. She had but her sister now, the sister she loved better than
+herself; the sister to save whose life and honor she had this moment
+sacrificed her own, and all a woman lives for.
+
+She turned, with a wild cry of love and pity, to that sister’s side to
+help her; and when she kneeled down beside her, an iron arm was promptly
+thrust out between the beloved one and her.
+
+“This is my care, madame,” said Raynal, coldly.
+
+There was no mistaking his manner. The stained one was not to touch his
+wife.
+
+She looked at him in piteous amazement at his ingratitude. “It is well,”
+ said she. “It is just. I deserve this from you.”
+
+She said no more, but drooped gently down beside the cradle, and hid her
+forehead in the clothes beside the child that had brought all this woe,
+and sobbed bitterly.
+
+Then honest Raynal began to be sorry for her, in spite of himself. But
+there was no time for this. Josephine stirred; and, at the same moment,
+a violent knocking came at the door of the apartment, and the new
+servant’s voice, crying, “Ladies, for Heaven’s sake, what is the matter?
+The baroness heard a fall--she is getting up--she will be here. What
+shall I tell her is the matter?”
+
+Raynal was going to answer, but Rose, who had started up at the
+knocking, put her hand in a moment right before his mouth, and ran to
+the door. “There is nothing the matter; tell mamma I am coming down to
+her directly.” She flew back to Raynal in an excitement little short of
+frenzy. “Help me carry her into her own room,” cried she imperiously.
+Raynal obeyed by instinct; for the fiery girl spoke like a general,
+giving the word of command, with the enemy in front. He carried the true
+culprit in his arms, and laid her gently on her bed.
+
+“Now put IT out of sight--take this, quick, man! quick!” cried Rose.
+
+Raynal went to the cradle. “Ah! my poor girl,” said he, as he lifted it
+in his arms, “this is a sorry business; to have to hide your own child
+from your own mother!”
+
+“Colonel Raynal,” said Rose, “do not insult a poor, despairing girl.
+C’est lache.”
+
+“I am silent, young woman,” said Raynal, sternly. “What is to be done?”
+
+“Take it down the steps, and give it to Jacintha. Stay, here is a
+candle; I go to tell mamma you are come; and, Colonel Raynal, I never
+injured YOU: if you tell my mother you will stab her to the heart, and
+me, and may the curse of cowards light on you!--may”--
+
+“Enough!” said Raynal, sternly. “Do you take me for a babbling girl? I
+love your mother better than you do, or this brat of yours would not be
+here. I shall not bring her gray hairs down with sorrow to the grave. I
+shall speak of this villany to but one person; and to him I shall talk
+with this, and not with the idle tongue.” And he tapped his sword-hilt
+with a sombre look of terrible significance.
+
+He carried out the cradle. The child slept sweetly through it all.
+
+Rose darted into Josephine’s room, took the key from the inside to the
+outside, locked the door, put the key in her pocket, and ran down to her
+mother’s room; her knees trembled under her as she went.
+
+Meantime, Jacintha, sleeping tranquilly, suddenly felt her throat
+griped, and heard a loud voice ring in her ear; then she was lifted, and
+wrenched, and dropped. She found herself lying clear of the steps in the
+moonlight; her head was where her feet had been, and her candle out.
+
+She uttered shriek upon shriek, and was too frightened to get up. She
+thought it was supernatural; some old De Beaurepaire had served her thus
+for sleeping on her post. A struggle took place between her fidelity and
+her superstitious fears. Fidelity conquered. Quaking in every limb, she
+groped up the staircase for her candle.
+
+It was gone.
+
+Then a still more sickening fear came over her.
+
+What if this was no spirit’s work, but a human arm--a strong one--some
+man’s arm?
+
+Her first impulse was to dart up the stairs, and make sure that no
+calamity had befallen through her mistimed drowsiness. But, when she
+came to try, her dread of the supernatural revived. She could not
+venture without a light up those stairs, thronged perhaps with angry
+spirits. She ran to the kitchen. She found the tinderbox, and with
+trembling hands struck a light. She came back shading it with her shaky
+hands; and, committing her soul to the care of Heaven, she crept quaking
+up the stairs. Then she heard voices above, and that restored her more;
+she mounted more steadily. Presently she stopped, for a heavy step was
+coming down. It did not sound like a woman’s step. It came further down;
+she turned to fly.
+
+“Jacintha!” said a deep voice, that in this stone cylinder rang like
+thunder from a tomb.
+
+“Oh! saints and angels save me!” yelled Jacintha; and fell on her knees,
+and hid her head for security; and down went her candlestick clattering
+on the stone.
+
+“Don’t be a fool!” said the iron voice. “Get up and take this.”
+
+She raised her head by slow degrees, shuddering. A man was holding out a
+cradle to her; the candle he carried lighted up his face; it was Colonel
+Raynal.
+
+She stared at him stupidly, but never moved from her knees, and the
+candle began to shake violently in her hand, as she herself trembled
+from head to foot.
+
+Then Raynal concluded she was in the plot; but, scorning to reproach a
+servant, he merely said, “Well, what do you kneel there for, gaping at
+me like that? Take this, I tell you, and carry it out of the house.”
+
+He shoved the cradle roughly down into her hands, then turned on his
+heel without a word.
+
+Jacintha collapsed on the stairs, and the cradle beside her, for all
+the power was driven out of her body; she could hardly support her own
+weight, much less the cradle.
+
+She rocked herself, and moaned out, “Oh, what’s this? oh, what’s this?”
+
+A cold perspiration came over her whole frame.
+
+“What could this mean? What on earth had happened?”
+
+She took up the candle, for it was lying burning and guttering on the
+stairs; scraped up the grease with the snuffers, and by force of habit
+tried to polish it clean with a bit of paper that shook between her
+fingers; she did not know what she was doing. When she recovered her
+wits, she took the child out of the cradle, and wrapped it carefully in
+her shawl; then went slowly down the stairs; and holding him close to
+her bosom, with a furtive eye, and brain confused, and a heart like
+lead, stole away to the tenantless cottage, where Madame Jouvenel
+awaited her.
+
+Meantime, Rose, with quaking heart, had encountered the baroness. She
+found her pale and agitated, and her first question was, “What is the
+matter? what have you been all doing over my head?”
+
+“Darling mother,” replied Rose, evasively, “something has happened that
+will rejoice your heart. Somebody has come home.”
+
+“My son? eh, no! impossible! We cannot be so happy.”
+
+“He will be with you directly.”
+
+The old lady now trembled with joyful agitation.
+
+“In five minutes I will bring him to you. Shall you be dressed? I will
+ring for the girl to help you.”
+
+“But, Rose, the scream, and that terrible fall. Ah! where is Josephine?”
+
+“Can’t you guess, mamma? Oh, the fall was only the screen; they stumbled
+over it in the dark.”
+
+“They! who?”
+
+“Colonel Raynal, and--and Edouard. I will tell you, mamma, but don’t be
+angry, or even mention it; they wanted to surprise us. They saw a light
+burning, and they crept on tiptoe up to the tapestried room, where
+Josephine and I were, and they did give us a great fright.”
+
+“What madness!” cried the baroness, angrily; “and in Josephine’s weak
+state! Such a surprise might have driven her into a fit.”
+
+“Yes, it was foolish, but let it pass, mamma. Don’t speak of it, for he
+is so sorry about it.”
+
+Then Rose slipped out, ordered a fire in the salon, and not in the
+tapestried room, and the next minute was at her sister’s door. There she
+found Raynal knocking, and asking Josephine how she was.
+
+“Pray leave her to me a moment,” said she. “I will bring her down to
+you. Mamma is waiting for you in the salon.”
+
+Raynal went down. Rose unlocked the bedroom-door, went in, and, to her
+horror, found Josephine lying on the floor. She dashed water in her
+face, and applied every remedy; and at last she came back to life, and
+its terrors.
+
+“Save me, Rose! save me--he is coming to kill me--I heard him at the
+door,” and she clung trembling piteously to Rose.
+
+Then Rose, seeing her terror, was almost glad at the suicidal falsehood
+she had told. She comforted and encouraged Josephine and--deceived her.
+(This was the climax.)
+
+“All is well, my poor coward,” she cried; “your fears are all imaginary;
+another has owned the child, and the story is believed.”
+
+“Another! impossible! He would not believe it.”
+
+“He does believe it--he shall believe it.”
+
+Rose then, feeling by no means sure that Josephine, terrified as she
+was, would consent to let her sister come to shame to screen her, told
+her boldly that Jacintha had owned herself the mother of the child, and
+that Raynal’s only feeling towards HER was pity, and regret at having
+so foolishly frightened her, weakened as she was by illness. “I told him
+you had been ill, dear. But how came you on the ground?”
+
+“I had come to myself; I was on my knees praying. He tapped. I heard his
+voice. I remember no more. I must have fainted again directly.”
+
+Rose had hard work to make her believe that her guilt, as she called
+it, was not known; and even then she could not prevail on her to come
+down-stairs, until she said, “If you don’t, he will come to you.” On
+that Josephine consented eagerly, and with trembling fingers began to
+adjust her hair and her dress for the interview.
+
+All this terrible night Rose fought for her sister. She took her
+down-stairs to the salon; she put her on the sofa; she sat by her and
+pressed her hand constantly to give her courage. She told the story of
+the surprise her own way, before the whole party, including the doctor,
+to prevent Raynal from being called on to tell it his way. She laughed
+at Josephine’s absurdity, but excused it on account of her feeble
+health. In short, she threw more and more dust in all their eyes.
+
+But by the time when the rising sun came faintly in and lighted the
+haggard party, where the deceived were happy, the deceivers wretched,
+the supernatural strength this young girl had shown was almost
+exhausted. She felt an hysterical impulse to scream and weep: each
+minute it became more and more ungovernable. Then came an unexpected
+turn. Raynal after a long and tiring talk with his mother, as he called
+her, looked at his watch, and in a characteristic way coolly announced
+his immediate departure, this being the first hint he had given them
+that he was not come back for good.
+
+The baroness was thunderstruck.
+
+Rose and Josephine pressed one another’s hands, and had much ado not to
+utter a loud cry of joy.
+
+Raynal explained that he was the bearer of despatches. “I must be off:
+not an hour to lose. Don’t fret, mother, I shall soon be back again, if
+I am not knocked on the head.”
+
+Raynal took leave of them all. When it came to Rose’s turn, he drew her
+aside and whispered into her ear, “Who is the man?”
+
+She started, and seemed dumfounded.
+
+“Tell me, or I ask my wife.”
+
+“She has promised me not to betray me: I made her swear. Spare me now,
+brother; I will tell you all when you come back.”
+
+“That is a bargain: now hear ME swear: he shall marry you, or he shall
+die by my hand.”
+
+He confirmed this by a tremendous oath.
+
+Rose shuddered, but said nothing, only she thought to herself, “I am
+forewarned. Never shall you know who is the father of that child.”
+
+He was no sooner gone than the baroness insisted on knowing what this
+private communication between him and Rose was about.
+
+“Oh,” said Rose, “he was only telling me to keep up your courage and
+Josephine’s till he comes back.”
+
+This was the last lie the poor entangled wretch had to tell that
+morning. The next minute the sisters, exhausted by their terrible
+struggle, went feebly, with downcast eyes, along the corridor and up the
+staircase to Josephine’s room.
+
+They went hand in hand. They sank down, dressed as they were, on
+Josephine’s bed, and clung to one another and trembled together, till
+their exhausted natures sank into uneasy slumbers, from which each in
+turn would wake ever and anon with a convulsive start, and clasp her
+sister tighter to her breast.
+
+Theirs was a marvellous love. Even a course of deceit had not yet
+prevailed to separate or chill their sister bosoms. But still in this
+deep and wonderful love there were degrees: one went a shade deeper than
+the other now--ay, since last night. Which? why, she who had sacrificed
+herself for the other, and dared not tell her, lest the sacrifice should
+be refused.
+
+
+It was the gray of the morning, and foggy, when Raynal, after taking
+leave, went to the stable for his horse. At the stable-door he came upon
+a man sitting doubled up on the very stones of the yard, with his head
+on his knees. The figure lifted his head, and showed him the face of
+Edouard Riviere, white and ghastly: his hair lank with the mist, his
+teeth chattering with cold and misery. The poor wretch had walked
+frantically all night round and round the chateau, waiting till Raynal
+should come out. He told him so.
+
+“But why didn’t you?--Ah! I see. No! you could not go into the house
+after that. My poor fellow, there is but one thing for you to do. Turn
+your back on her, and forget she ever lived; she is dead to you.”
+
+“There is something to be done besides that,” said Edouard, gloomily.
+
+“What?”
+
+“Vengeance.”
+
+“That is my affair, young man. When I come back from the Rhine, she will
+tell me who her seducer is. She has promised.”
+
+“And don’t you see through that?” said Edouard, gnashing his teeth;
+“that is only to gain time: she will never tell you. She is young in
+years, but old in treachery.”
+
+He groaned and was silent a moment, then laying his hand on Raynal’s arm
+said grimly, “Thank Heaven, we don’t depend on her for information! I
+know the villain.”
+
+Raynal’s eyes flashed: “Ah! then tell me this moment.”
+
+“It is that scoundrel Dujardin.”
+
+“Dujardin! What do you mean?”
+
+“I mean that, while you were fighting for France, your house was turned
+into a hospital for wounded soldiers.”
+
+“And pray, sir, to what more honorable use could they put it?”
+
+“Well, this Dujardin was housed by you, was nursed by your wife and all
+the family; and in return has seduced your sister, my affianced.”
+
+“I can hardly believe that. Camille Dujardin was always a man of honor,
+and a good soldier.”
+
+“Colonel, there has been no man near the place but this Dujardin. I tell
+you it is he. Don’t make me tear my bleeding heart out: must I tell you
+how often I caught them together, how I suspected, and how she gulled
+me? blind fool that I was, to believe a woman’s words before my own
+eyes. I swear to you he is the villain; the only question is, which of
+us two is to kill him.”
+
+“Where is the man?”
+
+“In the army of the Rhine.”
+
+“Ah! all the better.”
+
+“Covered with glory and honor. Curse him! oh, curse him! curse him!”
+
+“I am in luck. I am going to the Rhine.”
+
+“I know it. That is why I waited here all through this night of misery.
+Yes, you are in luck. But you will send me a line when you have killed
+him; will you not? Then I shall know joy again. Should he escape you, he
+shall not escape me.”
+
+“Young man,” said Raynal, with dignity, “this rage is unmanly. Besides,
+we have not heard his side of the story. He is a good soldier; perhaps
+he is not all to blame: or perhaps passion has betrayed him into a sin
+that his conscience and honor disapprove: if so, he must not die. You
+think only of your wrong: it is natural: but I am the girl’s brother;
+guardian of her honor and my own. His life is precious as gold. I shall
+make him marry her.”
+
+“What! reward him for his villany?” cried Edouard, frantically.
+
+“A mighty reward,” replied Raynal, with a sneer.
+
+“You leave one thing out of the calculation, monsieur,” said Edouard,
+trembling with anger, “that I will kill your brother-in-law at the
+altar, before her eyes.”
+
+“YOU leave one thing out of the calculation: that you will first have to
+cross swords, at the altar, with me.”
+
+“So be it. I will not draw on my old commandant. I could not; but be
+sure I will catch him and her alone some day, and the bride shall be a
+widow in her honeymoon.”
+
+“As you please,” said Raynal, coolly. “That is all fair, as you have
+been wronged. I shall make her an honest wife, and then you may make
+her an honest widow. (This is what they call LOVE, and sneer at me for
+keeping clear of it.) But neither he nor you shall keep MY SISTER what
+she is now, a ----,” and he used a word out of camp.
+
+Edouard winced and groaned. “Oh! don’t call her by such a name. There
+is some mystery. She loved me once. There must have been some strange
+seduction.”
+
+“Now you deceive yourself,” said Raynal. “I never saw a girl that could
+take her own part better than she can; she is not like her sister at
+all in character. Not that I excuse him; it was a dishonorable act, an
+ungrateful act to my wife and my mother.”
+
+“And to you.”
+
+“Now listen to me: in four days I shall stand before him. I shall not
+go into a pet like you; I am in earnest. I shall just say to him,
+‘Dujardin, I know all!’ Then if he is guilty his face will show it
+directly. Then I shall say, ‘Comrade, you must marry her whom you have
+dishonored.’”
+
+“He will not. He is a libertine, a rascal.”
+
+“You are speaking of a man you don’t know. He WILL marry her and repair
+the wrong he has done.”
+
+“Suppose he refuses?”
+
+“Why should he refuse? The girl is not ugly nor old, and if she has done
+a folly, he was her partner in it.”
+
+“But SUPPOSE he refuses?”
+
+Raynal ground his teeth. “Refuse? If he does, I’ll run my sword through
+his carcass then and there, and the hussy shall go into a convent.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI.
+
+
+The French army lay before a fortified place near the Rhine, which we
+will call Philipsburg.
+
+This army knew Bonaparte by report only; it was commanded by generals of
+the old school.
+
+Philipsburg was defended on three sides by the nature of the ground; but
+on the side that faced the French line of march there was only a zigzag
+wall, pierced, and a low tower or two at each of the salient angles.
+
+There were evidences of a tardy attempt to improve the defences. In
+particular there was a large round bastion, about three times the height
+of the wall; but the masonry was new, and the very embrasures were not
+yet cut.
+
+Young blood was for assaulting these equivocal fortifications at the end
+of the day’s march that brought the French advanced guard in sight of
+the place; but the old generals would not hear of it; the soldiers’
+lives must not be flung away assaulting a place that could be reduced in
+twenty-one days with mathematical certainty. For at this epoch a siege
+was looked on as a process with a certain result, the only problem was
+in how many days would the place be taken; and even this they used to
+settle to a day or two on paper by arithmetic; so many feet of wall, and
+so many guns on the one side; so many guns, so many men, and such and
+such a soil to cut the trenches in on the other: result, two figures
+varying from fourteen to forty. These two figures represented the
+duration of the siege.
+
+For all that, siege arithmetic, right in general, has often been
+terribly disturbed by one little incident, that occurs from time to
+time; viz., Genius INside. And, indeed, this is one of the sins of
+genius; it goes and puts out calculations that have stood the brunt of
+years. Archimedes and Todleben were, no doubt, clever men in their way
+and good citizens, yet one characteristic of delicate men’s minds they
+lacked--veneration; they showed a sad disrespect for the wisdom of the
+ancients, deranged the calculations which so much learning and patient
+thought had hallowed, disturbed the minds of white-haired veterans, took
+sieges out of the grasp of science, and plunged them back into the field
+of wild conjecture.
+
+Our generals then sat down at fourteen hundred yards’ distance, and
+planned the trenches artistically, and directed them to be cut at
+artful angles, and so creep nearer and nearer the devoted town. Then the
+Prussians, whose hearts had been in their shoes at first sight of the
+French shakos, plucked up, and turned not the garrison only but the
+population of the town into engineers and masons. Their fortifications
+grew almost as fast as the French trenches.
+
+The first day of the siege, a young but distinguished brigadier in the
+French army rode to the quarters of General Raimbaut, who commanded
+his division, and was his personal friend, and respectfully but firmly
+entreated the general to represent to the commander-in-chief the
+propriety of assaulting that new bastion before it should become
+dangerous. “My brigade shall carry it in fifteen minutes, general,” said
+he.
+
+“What! cross all that open under fire? One-half your brigade would never
+reach the bastion.”
+
+“But the other half would take it.”
+
+“That is not so certain.”
+
+General Raimbaut refused to forward the young colonel’s proposal to
+headquarters. “I will not subject you to TWO refusals in one matter,”
+ said he, kindly.
+
+The young colonel lingered. He said, respectfully, “One question,
+general, when that bastion cuts its teeth will it be any easier to take
+than now?”
+
+“Certainly; it will always be easier to take it from the sap than to
+cross the open under fire to it, and take it. Come, colonel, to your
+trenches; and if your friend should cut its teeth, you shall have a
+battery in your attack that will set its teeth on edge. Ha! ha!”
+
+The young colonel did not echo his chief’s humor; he saluted gravely,
+and returned to the trenches.
+
+The next morning three fresh tiers of embrasures grinned one above
+another at the besiegers. The besieged had been up all night, and not
+idle. In half these apertures black muzzles showed themselves.
+
+The bastion had cut its front teeth.
+
+Thirteenth day of the siege.
+
+The trenches were within four hundred yards of the enemy’s guns, and
+it was hot work in them. The enemy had three tiers of guns in the round
+bastion, and on the top they had got a long 48-pounder, which they
+worked with a swivel joint, or the like, and threw a great roaring shot
+into any part of the French lines.
+
+As to the commander-in-chief and his generals, they were dotted about
+a long way in the rear, and no shot came as far as them; but in the
+trenches the men began now to fall fast, especially on the left attack,
+which faced the round bastion. Our young colonel had got his heavy
+battery, and every now and then he would divert the general efforts
+of the bastion, and compel it to concentrate its attention on him, by
+pounding away at it till it was all in sore places. But he meant it
+worse mischief than that. Still, as heretofore, regarding it as the key
+to Philipsburg, he had got a large force of engineers at work driving a
+mine towards it, and to this he trusted more than to breaching it; for
+the bigger holes he made in it by day were all stopped at night by the
+townspeople.
+
+This colonel was not a favorite in the division to which his brigade
+belonged. He was a good soldier, but a dull companion. He was also
+accused of hauteur and of an unsoldierly reserve with his brother
+officers.
+
+Some loose-tongued ones even called him a milk-sop, because he was
+constantly seen conversing with the priest--he who had nothing to say to
+an honest soldier.
+
+Others said, “No, hang it, he is not a milk-sop: he is a tried soldier:
+he is a sulky beggar all the same.” Those under his immediate command
+were divided in opinion about him. There was something about him they
+could not understand. Why was his sallow face so stern, so sad? and why
+with all that was his voice so gentle? somehow the few words that did
+fall from his mouth were prized. One old soldier used to say, “I would
+rather have a word from our brigadier than from the commander-in-chief.”
+ Others thought he must at some part of his career have pillaged a
+church, taken the altar-piece, and sold it to a picture-dealer in Paris,
+or whipped the earrings out of the Madonna’s ears, or admitted the
+female enemy to quarter upon ungenerous conditions: this, or some such
+crime to which we poor soldiers are liable: and now was committing the
+mistake of remording himself about it. “Always alongside the chaplain,
+you see!”
+
+This cold and silent man had won the heart of the most talkative
+sergeant in the French army. Sergeant La Croix protested with many oaths
+that all the best generals of the day had commanded him in turn, and
+that his present colonel was the first that had succeeded in inspiring
+him with unlimited confidence. “He knows every point of war--this
+one,” said La Croix, “I heard him beg and pray for leave to storm this
+thundering bastion before it was armed: but no, the old muffs would be
+wiser than our colonel. So now here we are kept at bay by a place that
+Julius Caesar and Cannibal wouldn’t have made two bites at apiece; no
+more would I if I was the old boy out there behind the hill.” In such
+terms do sergeants denote commanders-in-chief--at a distance. A voluble
+sergeant has more influence with the men than the minister of war is
+perhaps aware: on the whole, the 24th brigade would have followed its
+gloomy colonel to grim death and a foot farther. One thing gave these
+men a touch of superstitious reverence for their commander. He seemed
+to them free from physical weakness. He never SAT DOWN to dinner, and
+seemed never to sleep. At no hour of the day or night were the sentries
+safe from his visits.
+
+Very annoying. But, after awhile, it led to keen watchfulness: the more
+so that the sad and gloomy colonel showed by his manner he appreciated
+it. Indeed, one night he even opened his marble jaws, and told Sergeant
+La Croix that a watchful sentry was an important soldier, not to his
+brigade only, but to the whole army. Judge whether the maxim and the
+implied encomium did not circulate next morning, with additions.
+
+Sixteenth day of the siege. The round bastion opened fire at eight
+o’clock, not on the opposing battery, but on the right of the French
+attack. Its advanced position enabled a portion of its guns to rake
+these trenches slant-wise: and depressing its guns it made the round
+shot strike the ground first and ricochet over.
+
+On this our colonel opened on them with all his guns: one of these
+he served himself. Among his other warlike accomplishments, he was
+a wonderful shot with a cannon. He showed them capital practice this
+morning: drove two embrasures into one, and knocked about a ton of
+masonry off the parapet. Then taking advantage of this, he served two of
+his guns with grape, and swept the enemy off the top of the bastion,
+and kept it clear. He made it so hot they could not work the upper guns.
+Then they turned the other two tiers all upon him, and at it both
+sides went ding, dong, till the guns were too hot to be worked. So then
+Sergeant La Croix popped his head up from the battery, and showed
+the enemy a great white plate. This was meant to convey to them an
+invitation to dine with the French army: the other side of the table of
+course.
+
+To the credit of Prussian intelligence be it recorded, that this
+pantomimic hint was at once taken and both sides went to dinner.
+
+The fighting colonel, however, remained in the battery, and kept a
+detachment of his gunners employed cooling the guns and repairing the
+touch-holes. He ordered his two cutlets and his glass of water into the
+battery.
+
+Meantime, the enemy fired a single gun at long intervals, as much as to
+say, “We had the last word.”
+
+Let trenches be cut ever so artfully, there will be a little space
+exposed here and there at the angles. These spaces the men are ordered
+to avoid, or whip quickly across them into cover.
+
+Now the enemy had just got the range of one of these places with their
+solitary gun, and had already dropped a couple of shot right on to it.
+A camp follower with a tray, two cutlets, and a glass of water, came to
+this open space just as a puff of white smoke burst from the bastion.
+Instead of instantly seeking shelter till the shot had struck, he, in
+his inexperience, thought the shot must have struck, and all danger be
+over. He stayed there mooning instead of pelting under cover: the
+shot (eighteen-pound) struck him right on the breast, knocked him into
+spilikins, and sent the mutton cutlets flying.
+
+The human fragments lay quiet, ten yards off. But a soldier that was
+eating his dinner kicked it over, and jumped up at the side of “Death’s
+Alley” (as it was christened next minute), and danced and yelled with
+pain.
+
+“Haw! haw! haw!” roared a soldier from the other side of the alley.
+
+“What is that?” cried Sergeant La Croix. “What do you laugh at, Private
+Cadel?” said he sternly, for, though he was too far in the trench to
+see, he had heard that horrible sound a soldier knows from every other,
+the “thud” of a round shot striking man or horse.
+
+“Sergeant,” said Cadel, respectfully, “I laugh to see Private Dard, that
+got the wind of the shot, dance and sing, when the man that got the shot
+itself does not say a word.”
+
+“The wind of the shot, you rascal!” roared Private Dard: “look here!”
+ and he showed the blood running down his face.
+
+The shot had actually driven a splinter of bone out of the sutler into
+Dard’s temple.
+
+“I am the unluckiest fellow in the army,” remonstrated Dard: and he
+stamped in a circle.
+
+“Seems to me you are only the second unluckiest this time,” said a young
+soldier with his mouth full; and, with a certain dry humor, he pointed
+vaguely over his shoulder with the fork towards the corpse.
+
+The trenches laughed and assented.
+
+This want of sympathy and justice irritated Dard. “You cursed fools!”
+ cried he. “He is gone where we must all go--without any trouble. But
+look at me. I am always getting barked. Dogs of Prussians! they pick me
+out among a thousand. I shall have a headache all the afternoon, you see
+else.”
+
+Some of our heads would never have ached again: but Dard had a good
+thick skull.
+
+Dard pulled out his spilikin savagely.
+
+“I’ll wrap it up in paper for Jacintha,” said he. “Then that will learn
+her what a poor soldier has to go through.”
+
+Even this consolation was denied Private Dard.
+
+Corporal Coriolanus Gand, a bit of an infidel from Lyons, who sometimes
+amused himself with the Breton’s superstition, told him with a grave
+face, that the splinter belonged not to him, but to the sutler, and,
+though so small, was doubtless a necessary part of his frame.
+
+“If you keep that, it will be a bone of contention between you two,”
+ said he; “especially at midnight. HE WILL BE ALWAYS COMING BACK TO YOU
+FOR IT.”
+
+“There, take it away!” said the Breton hastily, “and bury it with the
+poor fellow.”
+
+Sergeant La Croix presented himself before the colonel with a rueful
+face and saluted him and said, “Colonel, I beg a thousand pardons; your
+dinner has been spilt--a shot from the bastion.”
+
+“No matter,” said the colonel. “Give me a piece of bread instead.”
+
+La Croix went for it himself, and on his return found Cadel sitting on
+one side of Death’s Alley, and Dard with his head bound up on the other.
+They had got a bottle which each put up in turn wherever he fancied
+the next round shot would strike, and they were betting their afternoon
+rations which would get the Prussians to hit the bottle first.
+
+La Croix pulled both their ears playfully.
+
+“Time is up for playing marbles,” said he. “Be off, and play at duty,”
+ and he bundled them into the battery.
+
+
+It was an hour past midnight: a cloudy night. The moon was up, but seen
+only by fitful gleams. A calm, peaceful silence reigned.
+
+Dard was sentinel in the battery.
+
+An officer going his rounds found the said sentinel flat instead of
+vertical. He stirred him with his scabbard, and up jumped Dard.
+
+“It’s all right, sergeant. O Lord! it’s the colonel. I wasn’t asleep,
+colonel.”
+
+“I have not accused you. But you will explain what you were doing.”
+
+“Colonel,” said Dard, all in a flutter, “I was taking a squint at them,
+because I saw something. The beggars are building a wall, now.”
+
+“Where?”
+
+“Between us and the bastion.”
+
+“Show me.”
+
+“I can’t, colonel; the moon has gone in; but I did see it.”
+
+“How long was it?”
+
+“About a hundred yards.”
+
+“How high?”
+
+“Colonel, it was ten feet high if it was an inch.”
+
+“Have you good sight?”
+
+“La! colonel, wasn’t I a bit of a poacher before I took to the bayonet?”
+
+“Good! Now reflect. If you persist in this statement, I turn out the
+brigade on your information.”
+
+“I’ll stand the fire of a corporal’s guard at break of day if I make a
+mistake now,” said Dard.
+
+The colonel glided away, called his captain and first lieutenants, and
+said two words in each ear, that made them spring off their backs.
+
+Dard, marching to an fro, musket on shoulder, found himself suddenly
+surrounded by grim, silent, but deadly eager soldiers, that came pouring
+like bees into the open space behind the battery. The officers came
+round the colonel.
+
+“Attend to two things,” said he to the captains. “Don’t fire till they
+are within ten yards: and don’t follow them unless I lead you.”
+
+The men were then told off by companies, some to the battery, some to
+the trenches, some were kept on each side Death’s Alley, ready for a
+rush.
+
+They were not all of them in position, when those behind the parapet
+saw, as it were, something deepen the gloom of night, some fourscore
+yards to the front: it was like a line of black ink suddenly drawn upon
+a sheet covered with Indian ink.
+
+It seems quite stationary. The novices wondered what it was. The
+veterans muttered--“Three deep.”
+
+Though it looked stationary, it got blacker and blacker. The soldiers of
+the 24th brigade griped their muskets hard, and set their teeth, and the
+sergeants had much ado to keep them quiet.
+
+All of a sudden, a loud yell on the right of the brigade, two or three
+single shots from the trenches in that direction, followed by a volley,
+the cries of wounded men, and the fierce hurrahs of an attacking party.
+
+Our colonel knew too well those sounds: the next parallel had been
+surprised, and the Prussian bayonet was now silently at work.
+
+Disguise was now impossible. At the first shot, a guttural voice in
+front of Dujardin’s men was heard to give a word of command. There was
+a sharp rattle and in a moment the thick black line was tipped with
+glittering steel.
+
+A roar and a rush, and the Prussian line three deep came furiously like
+a huge steel-pointed wave, at the French lines. A tremendous wave of
+fire rushed out to meet that wave of steel: a crash of two hundred
+muskets, and all was still. Then you could see through the black
+steel-tipped line in a hundred frightful gaps, and the ground sparkled
+with bayonets and the air rang with the cries of the wounded.
+
+A tremendous cheer from the brigade, and the colonel charged at the head
+of his column, out by Death’s Alley.
+
+The broken wall was melting away into the night. The colonel wheeled
+his men to the right: one company, led by the impetuous young Captain
+Jullien, followed the flying enemy.
+
+The other attack had been only too successful. They shot the sentries,
+and bayoneted many of the soldiers in their tents: others escaped by
+running to the rear, and some into the next parallel.
+
+Several, half dressed, snatched up their muskets, killed one Prussian,
+and fell riddled like sieves.
+
+A gallant officer got a company together into the place of arms and
+formed in line.
+
+Half the Prussian force went at them, the rest swept the trenches: the
+French company delivered a deadly volley, and the next moment clash
+the two forces crossed bayonets, and a silent deadly stabbing match was
+played: the final result of which was inevitable. The Prussians were
+five to one. The gallant officer and the poor fellows who did their duty
+so stoutly, had no thought left but to die hard, when suddenly a roaring
+cheer seemed to come from the rear rank of the enemy. “France! France!”
+ Half the 24th brigade came leaping and swarming over the trenches in the
+Prussian rear. The Prussians wavered. “France!” cried the little party
+that were being overpowered, and charged in their turn with such fury
+that in two seconds the two French corps went through the enemy’s centre
+like paper, and their very bayonets clashed together in more than one
+Prussian body.
+
+Broken thus in two fragments the Prussian corps ceased to exist as a
+military force. The men fled each his own way back to the fort, and many
+flung away their muskets, for French soldiers were swarming in from all
+quarters. At this moment, bang! bang! bang! from the bastion.
+
+“They are firing on my brigade,” said our colonel. “Who has led his
+company there against my orders? Captain Neville, into the battery, and
+fire twenty rounds at the bastion! Aim at the flashes from their middle
+tier.”
+
+“Yes, colonel.”
+
+The battery opened with all its guns on the bastion. The right attack
+followed suit. The town answered, and a furious cannonade roared and
+blazed all down both lines till daybreak. Hell seemed broken loose.
+
+Captain Jullien had followed the flying foe: but could not come up with
+them: and, as the enemy had prepared for every contingency, the
+fatal bastion, after first throwing a rocket or two to discover their
+position, poured showers of grape into them, killed many, and would have
+killed more but that Captain Neville and his gunners happened by mere
+accident to dismount one gun and to kill a couple of gunners at the
+others. This gave the remains of the company time to disperse and run
+back. When the men were mustered, Captain Jullien and twenty-five of
+his company did not answer to their names. At daybreak they were visible
+from the trenches lying all by themselves within eighty yards of the
+bastion.
+
+A flag of truce came from the fort: the dead were removed on both sides
+and buried. Some Prussian officers strolled into the French lines.
+Civilities and cigars exchanged: “Bon jour,” “Gooten daeg:” then at it
+again, ding dong all down the line blazing and roaring.
+
+At twelve o’clock the besieged had got a man on horseback, on top of a
+hill, with colored flags in his hand, making signals.
+
+“What are you up to now?” inquired Dard.
+
+“You will see,” said La Croix, affecting mystery; he knew no more than
+the other.
+
+Presently off went Long Tom on the top of the bastion, and the shot came
+roaring over the heads of the speakers.
+
+The flags were changed, and off went Long Tom again at an elevation.
+
+Ten seconds had scarcely elapsed when a tremendous explosion took place
+on the French right. Long Tom was throwing red-hot shot; one had fallen
+on a powder wagon, and blown it to pieces, and killed two poor fellows
+and a horse, and turned an artillery man at some distance into a seeming
+nigger, but did him no great harm; only took him three days to get the
+powder out of his clothes with pipe clay, and off his face with raw
+potato-peel.
+
+When the tumbril exploded, the Prussians could be heard to cheer, and
+they turned to and fired every iron spout they owned. Long Tom worked
+all day.
+
+They got into a corner where the guns of the battery could not hit
+them or him, and there was his long muzzle looking towards the sky, and
+sending half a hundredweight of iron up into the clouds, and plunging
+down a mile off into the French lines.
+
+And, at every shot, the man on horseback made signals to let the gunners
+know where the shot fell.
+
+At last, about four in the afternoon, they threw a forty-eight-pound
+shot slap into the commander-in-chief’s tent, a mile and a half behind
+trenches.
+
+Down comes a glittering aide-de-camp as hard as he can gallop.
+
+“Colonel Dujardin, what are you about, sir? YOUR BASTION has thrown a
+round shot into the commander-in-chief’s tent.”
+
+The colonel did not appear so staggered as the aide-de-camp expected.
+
+“Ah, indeed!” said he quietly. “I observed they were trying distances.”
+
+“Must not happen again, colonel. You must drive them from the gun.”
+
+“How?”
+
+“Why, where is the difficulty?”
+
+“If you will do me the honor to step into the battery, I will show you,”
+ said the colonel.
+
+“If you please,” said the aide-de-camp stiffly.
+
+Colonel Dujardin took him to the parapet, and began, in a calm,
+painstaking way, to show him how and why none of his guns could be
+brought to bear upon Long Tom.
+
+In the middle of the explanation a melodious sound was heard in the air
+above them, like a swarm of Brobdingnag bees.
+
+“What is that?” inquired the aide-de-camp.
+
+“What? I see nothing.”
+
+“That humming noise.”
+
+“Oh, that? Prussian bullets. Ah, by-the-by, it is a compliment to your
+uniform, monsieur; they take you for some one of importance. Well, as I
+was observing”--
+
+“Your explanation is sufficient, colonel; let us get out of this. Ha,
+ha! you are a cool hand, colonel, I must say. But your battery is a warm
+place enough: I shall report it so at headquarters.”
+
+The grim colonel relaxed.
+
+“Captain,” said he politely, “you shall not have ridden to my post in
+vain. Will you lend me your horse for ten minutes?”
+
+“Certainly; and I will inspect your trenches meantime.”
+
+“Do so; oblige me by avoiding that angle; it is exposed, and the enemy
+have got the range to an inch.”
+
+Colonel Dujardin slipped into his quarters; off with his half-dress
+jacket and his dirty boots, and presently out he came full fig,
+glittering brighter than the other, with one French and two foreign
+orders shining on his breast, mounted the aide-de-camp’s horse, and away
+full pelt.
+
+Admitted, after some delay, into the generalissimo’s tent, Dujardin
+found the old gentleman surrounded by his staff and wroth: nor was the
+danger to which he had been exposed his sole cause of ire.
+
+The shot had burst through his canvas, struck a table on which was a
+large inkstand, and had squirted the whole contents over the despatches
+he was writing for Paris.
+
+Now this old gentleman prided himself upon the neatness of his
+despatches: a blot on his paper darkened his soul.
+
+Colonel Dujardin expressed his profound regret. The commander, however,
+continued to remonstrate. “I have a great deal of writing to do,”
+ said he, “as you must be aware; and, when I am writing, I expect to be
+quiet.”
+
+Colonel Dujardin assented respectfully to the justice of this. He then
+explained at full length why he could not bring a gun in the battery to
+silence “Long Tom,” and quietly asked to be permitted to run a gun out
+of the trenches, and take a shot at the offender.
+
+“It is a point-blank distance, and I have a new gun, with which a man
+ought to be able to hit his own ball at three hundred yards.”
+
+The commander hesitated.
+
+“I cannot have the men exposed.”
+
+“I engage not to lose a man--except him who fires the gun. HE must take
+his chance.”
+
+“Well, colonel, it must be done by volunteers. The men must not be
+ORDERED out on such a service as that.”
+
+Colonel Dujardin bowed, and retired.
+
+
+“Volunteers to go out of the trenches!” cried Sergeant La Croix, in
+a stentorian voice, standing erect as a poker, and swelling with
+importance.
+
+There were fifty offers in less than as many seconds.
+
+“Only twelve allowed to go,” said the sergeant; “and I am one,” added
+he, adroitly inserting himself.
+
+A gun was taken down, placed on a carriage, and posted near Death’s
+Alley, but out of the line of fire.
+
+The colonel himself superintended the loading of this gun; and to the
+surprise of the men had the shot weighed first, and then weighed out the
+powder himself.
+
+He then waited quietly a long time till the bastion pitched one of its
+periodical shots into Death’s Alley, but no sooner had the shot struck,
+and sent the sand flying past the two lanes of curious noses, than
+Colonel Dujardin jumped upon the gun and waved his cocked hat. At this
+preconcerted signal, his battery opened fire on the bastion, and the
+battery to his right opened on the wall that fronted them; and the
+colonel gave the word to run the gun out of the trenches. They ran it
+out into the cloud of smoke their own guns were belching forth, unseen
+by the enemy; but they had no sooner twisted it into the line of Long
+Tom, than the smoke was gone, and there they were, a fair mark.
+
+“Back into the trenches, all but one!” roared Dujardin.
+
+And in they ran like rabbits.
+
+“Quick! the elevation.”
+
+Colonel Dujardin and La Croix raised the muzzle to the mark--hoo, hoo,
+hoo! ping, ping, ping! came the bullets about their ears.
+
+“Away with you!” cried the colonel, taking the linstock from him.
+
+Then Colonel Dujardin, fifteen yards from the trenches, in full blazing
+uniform, showed two armies what one intrepid soldier can do. He kneeled
+down and adjusted his gun, just as he would have done in a practising
+ground. He had a pot shot to take, and a pot shot he would take. He
+ignored three hundred muskets that were levelled at him. He looked
+along his gun, adjusted it, and re-adjusted it to a hair’s breadth. The
+enemy’s bullets pattered upon it: still he adjusted it delicately. His
+men were groaning and tearing their hair inside at his danger.
+
+At last it was levelled to his mind, and then his movements were as
+quick as they had hitherto been slow. In a moment he stood erect in the
+half-fencing attitude of a gunner, and his linstock at the touch-hole:
+a huge tongue of flame, a volume of smoke, a roar, and the iron
+thunderbolt was on its way, and the colonel walked haughtily but rapidly
+back to the trenches; for in all this no bravado. He was there to make a
+shot; not to throw a chance of life away watching the effect.
+
+Ten thousand eyes did that for him.
+
+Both French and Prussians risked their own lives craning out to see
+what a colonel in full uniform was doing under fire from a whole line
+of forts, and what would be his fate; but when he fired the gun their
+curiosity left the man and followed the iron thunderbolt.
+
+For two seconds all was uncertain; the ball was travelling.
+
+Tom gave a rear like a wild horse, his protruding muzzle went up
+sky-high, then was seen no more, and a ring of old iron and a clatter of
+fragments was heard on the top of the bastion. Long Tom was dismounted.
+Oh! the roar of laughter and triumph from one end to another of the
+trenches; and the clapping of forty thousand hands that went on for full
+five minutes; then the Prussians, either through a burst of generous
+praise for an act so chivalrous and so brilliant, or because they would
+not be crowed over, clapped their tea thousand hands as loudly, and thus
+thundering, heart-thrilling salvo of applause answered salvo on both
+sides that terrible arena.
+
+That evening came a courteous and flattering message from the
+commander-in-chief to Colonel Dujardin; and several officers visited his
+quarters to look at him; they went back disappointed. The cry was, “What
+a miserable, melancholy dog! I expected to see a fine, dashing fellow.”
+
+
+The trenches neared the town. Colonel Dujardin’s mine was far advanced;
+the end of the chamber was within a few yards of the bastion. Of late,
+the colonel had often visited this mine in person. He seemed a little
+uneasy about something in that quarter; but no one knew what: he was a
+silent man. The third evening, after he dismounted Long Tom, he received
+private notice that an order was coming down from the commander-in-chief
+to assault the bastion. He shrugged his shoulders, but said nothing.
+That same night the colonel and one of his lieutenants stole out of the
+trenches, and by the help of a pitch-dark, windy night, got under the
+bastion unperceived, and crept round it, and made their observations,
+and got safe back. About noon down came General Raimbaut.
+
+“Well, colonel, you are to have your way at last. Your bastion is to
+be stormed this afternoon previous to the general assault. Why, how is
+this? you don’t seem enchanted?”
+
+“I am not.”
+
+“Why, it was you who pressed for the assault.”
+
+“At the right time, general, not the wrong. In five days I undertake to
+blow that bastion into the air. To assault it now would be to waste our
+men.”
+
+General Raimbaut thought this excess of caution a great piece
+of perversity in Achilles. They were alone, and he said a little
+peevishly,--
+
+“Is not this to blow hot and cold on the same thing?”
+
+“No, general,” was the calm reply. “Not on the same thing. I blew hot
+upon timorous counsels; I blow cold on rash ones. General, last night
+Lieutenant Fleming and I were under that bastion; and all round it.”
+
+“Ah! my prudent colonel, I thought we should not talk long without your
+coming out in your true light. If ever a man secretly enjoyed risking
+his life, it is you.”
+
+“No, general,” said Dujardin looking gloomily down; “I enjoy neither
+that nor anything else. Live or die, it is all one to me; but to the
+lives of my soldiers I am not indifferent, and never will be while I
+live. My apparent rashness of last night was pure prudence.”
+
+Raimbaut’s eye twinkled with suppressed irony. “No doubt!” said he; “no
+doubt!”
+
+The impassive colonel would not notice the other’s irony; he went calmly
+on:--
+
+“I suspected something; I went to confute, or confirm that suspicion. I
+confirmed it.”
+
+Rat! tat! tat! tat! tat! tat! tat! was heard a drum. Relieving guard in
+the mine.
+
+Colonel Dujardin interrupted himself.
+
+“That comes apropos,” said he. “I expect one proof more from that
+quarter. Sergeant, send me the sentinel they are relieving.”
+
+Sergeant La Croix soon came back, as pompous as a hen with one chick,
+predominating with a grand military air over a droll figure that
+chattered with cold, and held its musket in hands clothed in great
+mittens. Dard.
+
+La Croix marched him up as if he had been a file; halted him like a
+file, sang out to him as to a file, stentorian and unintelligible, after
+the manner of sergeants.
+
+“Private No. 4.”
+
+DARD. P-p-p-present!
+
+LA CROIX. Advance to the word of command, and speak to the colonel.
+
+The shivering figure became an upright statue directly, and carried one
+of his mittens to his forehead. Then, suddenly recognizing the rank of
+the gray-haired officer, he was morally shaken, but remained physically
+erect, and stammered,--
+
+“Colonel!--general!--colonel!”
+
+“Don’t be frightened, my lad. But look at the general and answer me.”
+
+“Yes! general! colonel!” and he levelled his eye dead at the general, as
+he would a bayonet at a foe, being so commanded.
+
+“Now answer in as few syllables as you can.”
+
+“Yes! general--colonel.”
+
+“You have been on guard in the mine.”
+
+“Yes, general.”
+
+“What did you see there?”
+
+“Nothing; it was night down there.”
+
+“What did you feel?”
+
+“Cold! I--was--in--water--hugh!”
+
+“Did you hear nothing, then?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“What?”
+
+“Bum! bum! bum!”
+
+“Are you sure you did not hear particles of earth fall at the end of the
+trench?”
+
+“I think it did, and this (touching his musket) sounded of its own
+accord.”
+
+“Good! you have answered well; go.”
+
+“Sergeant, I did not miss a word,” cried Dard, exulting. He thought
+he had passed a sort of military college examination. The sergeant was
+awe-struck and disgusted at his familiarity, speaking to him before the
+great: he pushed Private Dard hastily out of the presence, and bundled
+him into the trenches.
+
+“Are you countermined, then?” asked General Raimbaut.
+
+“I think not, general; but the whole bastion is. And we found it had
+been opened in the rear, and lately half a dozen broad roads cut through
+the masonry.”
+
+“To let in re-enforcements?”
+
+“Or to let the men run out in ease of an assault. I have seen from the
+first an able hand behind that part of the defences. If we assault the
+bastion, they will pick off as many of us as they can with their muskets
+then they will run for it, and fire a train, and blow it and us into the
+air.”
+
+“Colonel, this is serious. Are you prepared to lay this statement before
+the commander-in-chief?”
+
+“I am, and I do so through you, the general of my division. I even beg
+you to say, as from me, that the assault will be mere suicide--bloody
+and useless.”
+
+General Raimbaut went off to headquarters in some haste, a thorough
+convert to Colonel Dujardin’s opinion. Meantime the colonel went
+slowly to his tent. At the mouth of it a corporal, who was also his
+body-servant, met him, saluted, and asked respectfully if there were any
+orders.
+
+“A few minutes’ repose, Francois, that is all. Do not let me be
+disturbed for an hour.”
+
+“Attention!” cried Francois. “Colonel wants to sleep.”
+
+The tent was sentinelled, and Dujardin was alone with the past.
+
+Then had the fools, that took (as fools will do) deep sorrow for
+sullenness, seen the fiery soldier droop, and his wan face fall into
+haggard lines, and his martial figure shrink, and heard his stout heart
+sigh! He took a letter from his bosom: it was almost worn to pieces. He
+had read it a thousand times, yet he read it again. A part of the sweet
+sad words ran thus:--
+
+
+“We must bow. We can never be happy together on earth; let us make
+Heaven our friend. This is still left us,--not to blush for our love; to
+do our duty, and to die.”
+
+
+“How tender, but how firm,” thought Camille. “I might agitate, taunt,
+grieve her I love, but I could not shake her. No! God and the saints to
+my aid! they saved me from a crime I now shudder at. And they have given
+me the good chaplain: he prays with me, he weeps for me. His prayers
+still my beating heart. Yes, poor suffering angel! I read your will in
+these tender, but bitter, words: you prefer duty to love. And one day
+you will forget me; not yet awhile, but it will be so. It wounds me when
+I think of it, but I must bow. Your will is sacred. I must rise to your
+level, not drag you to mine.”
+
+Then the soldier that had stood between two armies in a hail of bullets,
+and fired a master-shot, took a little book of offices in one hand,--the
+chaplain had given it him,--and fixed his eyes upon the pious words,
+and clung like a child to the pious words, and kissed his lost wife’s
+letter, and tried hard to be like her he loved: patient, very patient,
+till the end should come.
+
+“Qui vive?” cried the sentinel outside to a strange officer.
+
+“France,” was his reply. He then asked the sentinel, “Where is the
+colonel commanding the brigade?”
+
+The sentinel lowered his voice, “Asleep, my officer,” said he; for the
+new-comer carried two epaulets.
+
+“Wake him,” said the officer in a tone of a man used to command on a
+large scale.
+
+Dujardin heard, and did not choose a stranger should think he was
+asleep in broad day. He came hastily out of the tent, therefore, with
+Josephine’s letter in his hand, and, in the very act of conveying it to
+his bosom, found himself face to face with--her husband.
+
+Did you ever see two duellists cross rapiers?
+
+How unlike a theatrical duel! How smooth and quiet the bright blades
+are! they glide into contact. They are polished and slippery, yet they
+hold each other. So these two men’s eyes met, and fastened: neither
+spoke: each searched the other’s face keenly. Raynal’s countenance,
+prepared as he was for this meeting, was like a stern statue’s. The
+other’s face flushed, and his heart raged and sickened at sight of the
+man, that, once his comrade and benefactor, was now possessor of the
+woman he loved. But the figures of both stood alike haughty, erect, and
+immovable, face to face.
+
+Colonel Raynal saluted Colonel Dujardin ceremoniously. Colonel Dujardin
+returned the salute in the same style.
+
+“You thought I was in Egypt,” said Raynal with grim significance
+that caught Dujardin’s attention, though he did not know quite how to
+interpret it.
+
+He answered mechanically, “Yes, I did.”
+
+“I am sent here by General Bonaparte to take a command,” explained
+Raynal.
+
+“You are welcome. What command?”
+
+“Yours.”
+
+“Mine?” cried Dujardin, his forehead flushing with mortification and
+anger. “What, is it not enough that you take my”--He stopped then.
+
+“Come, colonel,” said the other calmly, “do not be unjust to an old
+comrade. I take your demi-brigade; but you are promoted to Raimbaut’s
+brigade. The exchange is to be made to-morrow.”
+
+“Was it then to announce to me my promotion you came to my quarters?”
+ and Camille looked with a strange mixture of feelings at his old
+comrade.
+
+“That was the first thing, being duty, you know.”
+
+“What? have you anything else to say to me, then?”
+
+“I have.”
+
+“Is it important? for my own duties will soon demand me.”
+
+“It is so important that, command or no command, I should have come
+further than the Rhine to say it to you.”
+
+Let a man be as bold as a lion, a certain awe still waits upon doubt
+and mystery; and some of this vague awe crept over Camille Dujardin at
+Raynal’s mysterious speech, and his grave, quiet, significant manner.
+
+Had he discovered something, and what? For Josephine’s sake, more than
+his own, Camille was on his guard directly.
+
+Raynal looked at him in silence a moment.
+
+“What?” said he with a slight sneer, “has it never occurred to you
+that I MUST have a serious word to say to you? First, let me put you
+a question: did they treat you well at my house? at the chateau de
+Beaurepaire?”
+
+“Yes,” faltered Camille.
+
+“You met, I trust, all the kindness and care due to a wounded soldier
+and an officer of merit. It would annoy me greatly if I thought you were
+not treated like a brother in my house.”
+
+Colonel Dujardin writhed inwardly at this view of matters. He could not
+reply in few words. This made him hesitate.
+
+His inquisitor waited, but, receiving no reply, went on, “Well, colonel,
+have you shown the sense of gratitude we had a right to look for in
+return? In a word, when you left Beaurepaire, had your conscience
+nothing to reproach you with?”
+
+Dujardin still hesitated. He scarcely knew what to think or what to say.
+But he thought to himself, “Who has told him? does he know all?”
+
+“Colonel Dujardin, I am the husband of Josephine, the son of Madame de
+Beaurepaire, and the brother of Rose. You know very well what brings me
+here. Your answer?”
+
+“Colonel Raynal, between men of honor, placed as you and I are, few
+words should pass, for words are idle. You will never prove to me that
+I have wronged you: I shall never convince you that I have not. Let us
+therefore close this painful interview in the way it is sure to close. I
+am at your service, at any hour and place you please.”
+
+“And pray is that all the answer you can think of?” asked Raynal
+somewhat scornfully.
+
+“Why, what other answer can I give you?”
+
+“A more sensible, a more honest, and a less boyish one. Who doubts that
+you can fight, you silly fellow? haven’t I seen you? I want you to show
+me a much higher sort of courage: the courage to repair a wrong, not the
+paltry valor to defend one.”
+
+“I really do not understand you, sir. How can I undo what is done?”
+
+“Why, of course you cannot. And therefore I stand here ready to forgive
+all that is past; not without a struggle, which you don’t seem to
+appreciate.”
+
+Camille was now utterly mystified. Raynal continued, “But of course it
+is upon condition that you consent to heal the wound you have made. If
+you refuse--hum! but you will not refuse.”
+
+“But what is it you require of me?” inquired Camille impatiently.
+
+“Only a little common honesty. This is the case: you have seduced a
+young lady.”
+
+“Sir!” cried Camille angrily.
+
+“What is the matter? The word is not so bad as the crime, I take it. You
+have seduced her, and under circumstances--But we won’t speak of them,
+because I am resolved to keep cool. Well, sir, as you said just now,
+it’s no use crying over spilled milk; you can’t unseduce the little
+fool; so you must marry her.”
+
+“M--m--marry her?” and Dujardin flushed all over, and his heart beat,
+and he stared in Raynal’s face.
+
+“Why, what is the matter again? If she has played the fool, it was with
+you, and no other man: it is not as if she was depraved. Come, my lad,
+show a little generosity! Take the consequences of your own act--or your
+share of it--don’t throw it all on the poor feeble woman. If she has
+loved you too much, you are the man of all others that should forgive
+her. Come, what do you say?”
+
+This was too much for Camille; that Raynal should come and demand of him
+to marry his own wife, for so he understood the proposal. He stared at
+Raynal in silence ever so long, and even when he spoke it was only to
+mutter, “Are you out of your senses, or am I?”
+
+At this it cost Raynal a considerable effort to restrain his wrath.
+However, he showed himself worthy of the office he had undertaken. He
+contained himself, and submitted to argue the matter. “Why, colonel,”
+ said he, “is it such a misfortune to marry poor Rose? She is young,
+she is lovely, she has many good qualities, and she would have walked
+straight to the end of her days but for you.”
+
+Now here was another surprise for Dujardin, another mystification.
+
+“Rose de Beaurepaire?” said he, putting his hand to his head, as if to
+see whether his reason was still there.
+
+“Yes, Rose de Beaurepaire--Rose Dujardin that ought to be, and that is
+to be, if you please.”
+
+“One word, monsieur: is it of Rose we have been talking all this time?”
+
+Raynal nearly lost his temper at this question, and the cold,
+contemptuous tone with which it was put; but he gulped down his ire.
+
+“It is,” said he.
+
+“One question more. Did she tell you I had--I had”--
+
+“Why, as to that, she was in no condition to deny she had fallen, poor
+girl; the evidence was too strong. She did not reveal her seducer’s
+name; but I had not far to go for that.”
+
+“One question more,” said Dujardin, with a face of anguish. “Is it
+Jos--is it Madame Raynal’s wish I should marry her sister?”
+
+“Why, of course,” said Raynal, in all sincerity, assuming that naturally
+enough as a matter of course; “if you have any respect for HER feelings,
+look on me as her envoy in this matter.”
+
+At this Camille turned sick with disgust; then rage and bitterness
+swelled his heart. A furious impulse seized him to expose Josephine on
+the spot. He overcame that, however, and merely said, “She wishes me to
+marry her sister, does she? very well then, I decline.”
+
+Raynal was shocked. “Oh,” said he, sorrowfully, “I cannot believe this
+of you; such heartlessness as this is not written in your face; it is
+contradicted by your past actions.”
+
+“I refuse,” said Dujardin, hastily; and to tell the truth, not sorry to
+inflict some pain on the honest soldier who had unintentionally driven
+the iron so deep into his own soul.
+
+“And I,” said Raynal, losing his temper, “insist, in the name of my dear
+Josephine”--
+
+“Perdition!” snarled Dujardin, losing his self-command in turn.
+
+“And of the whole family.”
+
+“And I tell you I will never marry her. Upon my honor, never.”
+
+“Your honor! you have none. The only question is would you rather marry
+her--or die.”
+
+“Die, to be sure.”
+
+“Then die you shall.”
+
+“Ah!” said Dujardin; “did I not tell you we were wasting time?
+
+“Let us waste no more then. WHEN and WHERE?”
+
+“At the rear of the commander-in-chief’s tent; when you like.”
+
+“This afternoon, then--at five.”
+
+“At five.”
+
+“Seconds?”
+
+“What for?”
+
+“You are right. They are only in the way of men who carry sabres; and
+besides the less gossip the better. Good-by, till five,” and the two
+saluted one another with grim ceremony; and Raynal turned on his heel.
+
+Camille stood transfixed; a fierce, guilty joy throbbed in his heart.
+His rival had quarrelled with him, had insulted him, had challenged him.
+It was not his fault. The sun shone bright now upon his cold despair.
+An hour ago life offered nothing. A few hours more, and then joy beyond
+expression, or an end of all. Death or Josephine! Then he remembered
+that this very Josephine wished to marry him to Rose. Then he remembered
+Raynal had saved his life. Cold chills crossed his breaking heart.
+Of all that could happen to him death alone seemed a blessing without
+alloy.
+
+He stood there so torn with conflicting passions, that he noted neither
+the passing hours nor the flying bullets.
+
+He was only awakened from his miserable trance by the even tread of
+soldiers marching towards him; he looked up and there were several
+officers coming along the edge of the trench, escorted by a corporal’s
+guard.
+
+He took a step or two to meet them. After the usual salutes, one of the
+three colonels delivered a large paper, with a large seal, to Dujardin.
+He read it out to his captains and lieutenants, who had assembled at
+sight of the cocked hats and full uniforms.
+
+
+“Attack by the army to-morrow upon all the lines. Attack of the bastion
+St. Andre this evening. The 22d, the 24th, and 12th brigades will
+furnish the contingents; the operation will be conducted by one of the
+colonels of the second division, to be appointed by General Raimbaut.”
+
+
+“Aha!” sounded a voice like a trombone at the reader’s elbow. “I am just
+in the nick of time. When, colonel, when?”
+
+“At five this evening, Colonel Raynal.”
+
+“There,” said Raynal, in a half-whisper, to Dujardin; “could they choose
+no hour but that?”
+
+“Do not be uneasy,” replied Dujardin, under his breath. He explained
+aloud--“the assault will not take place, gentlemen; the bastion is
+mined.”
+
+“What of that? half of them are mined. We will take our engineers in
+with us,” said Raynal.
+
+“Such an assault will be a useless massacre,” resumed Dujardin. “I
+reconnoitred the bastion last night, and saw their preparations for
+blowing us to the devil; and General Raimbaut, at my request, is even
+now presenting my remarks to the commander-in-chief, and enforcing them.
+There will be no assault. In a day or two we shall blow the bastion,
+mines, and all into the air.”
+
+At this moment Raynal caught sight of a gray-haired officer coming at
+some distance. “There IS General Raimbaut,” said he. “I will go and
+pay my respects to him.” General Raimbaut shook his hand warmly, and
+welcomed him to the army. They were old and warm friends. “And you are
+come at the right time,” said he. “It will soon be as hot here as in
+Egypt.”
+
+Raynal laughed and said all the better.
+
+General Raimbaut now joined the group of officers, and entered at once
+in the business which had brought him. Addressing himself to
+Colonel Dujardin, first he informs that officer he had presented his
+observations to the commander-in-chief, who had given them the attention
+they merited.
+
+Colonel Dujardin bowed.
+
+“But,” continued General Raimbaut, “they are overruled by imperious
+circumstances, some of which he did not reveal; they remain in his
+own breast. However, on the eve of a general attack, which he cannot
+postpone, that bastion must be disarmed, otherwise it would be too fatal
+to all the storming parties. It is a painful necessity.” He added, “Tell
+Colonel Dujardin I count greatly on the courage and discipline of his
+brigade, and on his own wise measures.”
+
+Colonel Dujardin bowed. Then he whispered in the other’s ear, “Both will
+alike be wasted.”
+
+The other colonels waved their hats in triumph at the
+commander-in-chief’s decision, and Raynal’s face showed he looked on
+Dujardin as a sort of spoil-sport happily defeated.
+
+“Well, then, gentlemen,” said General Raimbaut, “we begin by settling
+the contingents to be furnished by your several brigades. Say, an equal
+number from each. The sum total shall be settled by Colonel Dujardin,
+who has so long and ably baffled the bastion at this post.”
+
+Colonel Dujardin bowed stiffly and not very graciously. In his heart he
+despised these old fogies, compounds of timidity and rashness.
+
+“So, how many men in all, colonel?” asked General Raimbaut.
+
+“The fewer the better,” replied the other solemnly, “since”--and then
+discipline tied his tongue.
+
+“I understand you,” said the old man. “Shall we say eight hundred men?”
+
+“I should prefer three hundred. They have made a back door to the
+bastion, and the means of flight at hand will put flight into their
+heads. They will pick off some of our men as we go at them. When the
+rest jump in they will jump out, and”--He paused.
+
+“Why, he knows all about it before it comes,” said one of the colonels
+naively.
+
+“I do. I see the whole operation and its result before me, as I see this
+hand. Three hundred men will do.”
+
+“But, general,” objected Raynal, “you are not beginning at the
+beginning. The first thing in these cases is to choose the officer to
+command the storming party.”
+
+“Yes, Raynal, unquestionably; but you must be aware that is a painful
+and embarrassing part of my duty, especially after Colonel Dujardin’s
+remarks.”
+
+“Ah, bah!” cried Raynal. “He is prejudiced. He has been digging a
+thundering long mine here, and now you are going to make his child
+useless. We none of us like that. But when he gets the colors in his
+hand, and the storming column at his back, his misgivings will all go to
+the wind, and the enemy after them, unless he has been committing some
+crime, and is very much changed from what I knew him four years ago.”
+
+“Colonel Raynal,” said one of the other colonels, politely but firmly,
+“pray do not assume that Colonel Dujardin is to lead the column; there
+are three other claimants. General Raimbaut is to select from us four.”
+
+“Yes, gentlemen, and in a service of this kind I would feel grateful to
+you all if you would relieve me of that painful duty.”
+
+“Gentlemen,” said Dujardin, with an imperceptible sneer, “the general
+means to say this: the operation is so glorious that he could hardly
+without partiality assign the command to either of us four claimants.
+Well, then, let us cast lots.”
+
+The proposal was received by acclamation.
+
+“The general will mark a black cross on one lot, and he who draws it
+wins the command.”
+
+The young colonels prepared their lots with almost boyish eagerness.
+These fiery spirits were sick to death of lying and skulking in the
+trenches. They flung their lots into the hat. After them, who
+should approach the hat, lot in hand, but Raynal. Dujardin instantly
+interfered, and held his arm as he was in the act of dropping in his
+lot.
+
+“What is the matter?” said Raynal, sharply.
+
+“This is our affair, Colonel Raynal. You have no command in this army.”
+
+“I beg your pardon, sir, I have yours.”
+
+“Not till to-morrow.”
+
+“Why, you would not take such a pettifogging advantage of an old comrade
+as that.”
+
+“Tell him the day ends at twelve o’clock,” said one of the colonels
+interested by this strange strife.
+
+“Ah!” cried Raynal, triumphantly; “but no,” said he, altering his tone,
+“let us leave that sort of argument to lawyers. I have come a good many
+miles to fight with you, general; and now you must decide to pay me this
+little compliment on my arrival, or put a bitter affront on me--choose!”
+
+While the old general hesitated, Camille replied, “Since you take that
+tone there can be but one answer. You are too great a credit to the
+French army for even an apparent slight to be put on you here. The
+rule, I think, is, that one of the privates shall hold the hat.--Hallo!
+Private Dard, come here--there--hold this hat.”
+
+“Yes, colonel.--Lord, here is my young mistress’s husband!”
+
+“Silence!”
+
+And they began to draw, and, in the act of drawing, a change of manner
+was first visible in these gay and ardent spirits.
+
+“It is not I,” said one, throwing away his lot.
+
+“Nor I.”
+
+“It is I,” said Raynal; then with sudden gravity, “I am the lucky one.”
+
+And now that the honor and the danger no longer floated vaguely over
+four heads, but had fixed on one, a sudden silence and solemnity took
+the place of eager voices.
+
+It was first broken by Private Dard saying, with foolish triumph, “And I
+held the hat for you, colonel.”
+
+“Ah, Raynal!” said General Raimbaut, sorrowfully, “it was not worth
+while to come from Egypt for this.”
+
+Raynal made no reply to this. He drew out his watch, and said calmly, he
+had no time to lose; he must inspect the detachments he was to command.
+“Besides,” said he, “I have some domestic arrangements to make. Hitherto
+on these occasions I was a bachelor, now I am married.” General Raimbaut
+could not help sighing. Raynal read this aright, and turned to him, “A
+droll marriage, my old friend; I’ll tell you all about it if ever I
+have the time. It began with a purchase, general, and ends with--with a
+bequest, which I might as well write now, and so have nothing to think
+of but duty afterwards. Where can I write?”
+
+“Colonel Dujardin will lend you his tent, I am sure.”
+
+“Certainly.”
+
+“And, messieurs,” said Raynal, “if I waste time you need not. You can
+pick me my men from your brigades. Give me a strong spice of old hands.”
+
+The colonels withdrew on this, and General Raimbaut walked sadly and
+thoughtfully towards the battery. Dujardin and Raynal were left alone.
+
+“This postpones our affair, sir.”
+
+“Yes, Raynal.”
+
+“Have you writing materials in your tent?”
+
+“Yes; on the table.”
+
+“You are quite sure the bastion is mined, comrade?”
+
+This unexpected word and Raynal’s gentle appeal touched Dujardin deeply.
+It was in a broken voice he replied that he was unfortunately too sure
+of it.
+
+Raynal received this reply as a sentence of death, and without another
+word walked slowly into Dujardin’s tent.
+
+Dujardin’s generosity was up in arms; he followed Raynal, and said
+eagerly, “Raynal, for Heaven’s sake resign this command!”
+
+“Allow me to write to my wife, colonel,” was the cold reply.
+
+Camille winced at this affront, and drew back a moment; but his nobler
+part prevailed. He seized Raynal by the wrist. “You shall not affront
+me, you cannot affront me. You go to certain death I tell you, if you
+attack that bastion.”
+
+“Don’t be a fool, colonel,” said Raynal: “somebody must lead the men.”
+
+“Yes; but not you. Who has so good a right to lead them as I, their
+colonel?”
+
+“And be killed in my place, eh?”
+
+“I know the ground better than you,” said Camille. “Besides, who cares
+for me? I have no friends, no family. But you are married--and so many
+will mourn if you”--
+
+Raynal interrupted him sternly. “You forget, sir, that Rose de
+Beaurepaire is my sister, when you tell me you have no tie to life.”
+ He added, with wonderful dignity and sobriety, “Allow me to write to
+my wife, sir; and, while I write, reflect that you can embitter an old
+comrade’s last moments by persisting in your refusal to restore his
+sister the honor you have robbed her of.”
+
+And leaving the other staggered and confused by this sudden blow, he
+retired into Dujardin’s tent, and finding writing materials on a little
+table that was there, sat down to pen a line to Josephine.
+
+Camille knew to whom he was writing, and a jealous pang passed through
+him.
+
+What he wrote ran thus,--
+
+
+“A bastion is to be attacked at five. I command. Colonel Dujardin
+proposed we should draw lots, and I lost. The service is honorable,
+but the result may, I fear, give you some pain. My dear wife, it is our
+fate. I was not to have time to make you know, and perhaps love me. God
+bless you.”
+
+
+In writing these simple words, Raynal’s hard face worked, and his
+mustache quivered, and once he had to clear his eye with his hand to
+form the letters. He, the man of iron.
+
+He who stood there, leaning on his scabbard and watching the writer, saw
+this, and it stirred all that was great and good in that grand though
+passionate heart of his.
+
+“Poor Raynal!” thought he, “you were never like that before on going
+into action. He is loath to die. Ay, and it is a coward’s trick to let
+him die. I shall have her, but shall I have her esteem? What will the
+army say? What will my conscience say? Oh! I feel already it will gnaw
+my heart to death; the ghost of that brave fellow--once my dear friend,
+my rival now, by no fault of his--will rise between her and me, and
+reproach me with my bloody inheritance. The heart never deceives; I feel
+it now whispering in my ear: ‘Skulking captain, white-livered soldier,
+that stand behind a parapet while a better man does your work! you
+assassinate the husband, but the rival conquers you.’ There, he puts his
+hand to his eyes. What shall I do?”
+
+“Colonel,” said a low voice, and at the same time a hand was laid on his
+shoulder.
+
+It was General Raimbaut. The general looked pale and distressed.
+
+“Come apart, colonel, for Heaven’s sake! One word, while he is writing.
+Ah! that was an unlucky idea of yours.”
+
+“Of mine, general?”
+
+“‘Twas you proposed to cast lots.”
+
+“Good God! so it was.”
+
+“I thought of course it was to be managed so that Raynal should not be
+the one. Between ourselves, what honorable excuse can we make?”
+
+“None, general.”
+
+“The whole division will be disgraced, and forgive me if I say a portion
+of the discredit will fall on you.”
+
+“Help me to avert that shame then,” cried Camille, eagerly.
+
+“Ah! that I will: but how?”
+
+“Take your pencil and write--‘I authorize Colonel Dujardin to save the
+honor of the colonels of the second division.’”
+
+The general hesitated. He had never seen an order so worded. But at
+last he took out his pencil and wrote the required order, after his own
+fashion; i.e., in milk and water:--
+
+
+On account of the singular ability and courage with which Colonel
+Dujardin has conducted the operations against the Bastion St. Andre, a
+discretionary power is given him at the moment of assault to carry
+into effect such measures, as, without interfering with the
+commander-in-chief’s order, may sustain his own credit, and that of the
+other colonels of the second division.
+
+RAIMBAUT, General of Division.
+
+
+Camille put the paper into his bosom.
+
+“Now, general, you may leave all to me. I swear to you, Raynal shall not
+die--shall not lead this assault.”
+
+“Your hand, colonel. You are an honor to the French armies. How will you
+do it?”
+
+“Leave it to me, general, it shall be done.”
+
+“I feel it will, my noble fellow: but, alas! I fear not without risking
+some valuable life or other, most likely your own. Tell me!”
+
+“General, I decline.”
+
+“You refuse me, sir?”
+
+“Yes; this order gives me a discretionary power. I will hand back the
+order at your command; but modify it I will not. Come, sir, you veteran
+generals have been unjust to me, and listened to me too little all
+through this siege, but at last you have honored me. This order is the
+greatest honor that was ever done me since I wore a sword.”.
+
+“My poor colonel!”
+
+“Let me wear it intact, and carry it to my grave.”
+
+“Say no more! One word--Is there anything on earth I can do for you, my
+brave soldier?”
+
+“Yes, general. Be so kind as to retire to your quarters; there are
+reasons why you ought not to be near this post in half an hour.”
+
+“I go. Is there NOTHING else?”
+
+“Well, general, ask the good priest Ambrose, to pray for all those who
+shall die doing their duty to their country this afternoon.”
+
+They parted. General Raimbaut looked back more than once at the firm,
+intrepid figure that stood there unflinching, on the edge of the grave.
+But HE never took his eye off Raynal. The next minute the sad letter was
+finished, and Raynal walked out of the tent, and confronted the man he
+had challenged to single combat.
+
+I have mentioned elsewhere that Colonel Dujardin had eyes strangely
+compounded of battle and love, of the dove and the hawk. And these,
+softened by a noble act he meditated, now rested on Raynal with a
+strange expression of warmth and goodness. This strange gaze struck
+Raynal, so far at least as this; he saw it was no hostile eye. He was
+glad of that, for his own heart was calmed and softened by the solemn
+prospect before him.
+
+“We, too, have a little account to settle before I order out the men,”
+ said he, calmly, “and I can’t give you a long credit. I am pressed for
+time.”
+
+“Our quarrel is at an end. When duty sounds the recall, a soldier’s
+heart leaves private feuds. See! I come to you without anger and
+ill-will. Just now my voice was loud, my manner, I dare say, offensive,
+and menacing even, and that always tempts a brave fellow like you to
+resist. But now, you see, I am harmless as a woman. We are alone. Humbug
+to the winds! I know that you are the only man in this army fit to
+command a division. I know that when you say the assault of that bastion
+is death, death it is. To the point then; now that my manner is no
+longer irritating, now that I am going to die, Camille Dujardin, my old
+comrade, have you the heart to refuse me? am I to die unhappy?”
+
+“No; no: I will do whatever you like.”
+
+“You will marry that poor girl, then?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“Aha! did not I always say he was a good fellow? Clench the nail; give
+me your honor.”
+
+“I give you my honor to marry her, if I live.”
+
+“You take a load off me; may Heaven reward you. In one hour those poor
+women, whose support I had promised to be, will lose their protector;
+but I give them another in you. We shall not leave that family in tears,
+Rose in shame, and your child without a name.”
+
+Dujardin stared at the speaker. What new and devilish deception was
+this?
+
+“My child!” he faltered. “What child?”
+
+“Ah,” said Raynal, “what a fool I was! That is the first thing I ought
+to have told you. Poor little fellow! I surprised him in his cradle; his
+mother and Josephine were rocking him, and singing over him. Oh! it was
+a scene, I can tell you. My poor wife had been ill for some time, and
+was so weakened by it, that I frightened her into a fit, stealing a
+march on her that way. She fainted away. Perhaps it is as well she did;
+for I--I did not know what to think; it looked ugly; but while she lay
+at our feet insensible, I forced the truth from Rose; she owned the boy
+was hers.”
+
+While Raynal told him this strange story, Camille turned hot and cold.
+First came a thrill of glowing joy; he had some clew to all this: he was
+a father; that child was Josephine’s and his; the next moment he froze
+within. So Josephine had not only gulled her husband, but him, too; she
+had refused him the sad consolation of knowing he had a child. Cruelty,
+calculation, and baseness unexampled! Here was a creature who could
+sacrifice anything and anybody to her comfort, to the peace and sordid
+smoothness of her domestic life. She stood between two men--a thing.
+Between two truths--a double lie.
+
+His heart, in one moment, turned against her like a stone. A
+musket-bullet through the body does not turn life to death quicker than
+Raynal turned his rival’s love to despair and scorn: that love which
+neither wounds, absence, prison, nor even her want of constancy had
+prevailed to shake.
+
+“Out of my bosom!” he cried--“out of it, in this world and the next!”
+
+He forgot, in his lofty rage, who stood beside him.
+
+“What?--what?” cried Raynal.
+
+“No matter,” said Camille; “only I esteem YOU, Raynal. You are truth;
+you are a man, and deserve a better lot.”
+
+“Don’t say that,” replied Raynal, quite misunderstanding him. “It is a
+soldier’s end: I never desired nor hoped a better: only, of course, I
+feel sad. You are a happy fellow, to have a child and to live to see it,
+and her you love.”
+
+“Oh, yes, I am very happy,” replied the poor fellow, his lip quivering.
+
+“Watch over all those poor women, comrade, and sometimes speak to them
+of me. It is foolish, but we like to be remembered.”
+
+“Yes! but do not let us speak of that. Raynal, you and I were
+lieutenants together; do you remember saving my life in the Arno?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“Then promise me, if you should live, to remember not our quarrel of
+to-day, nor anything; but only those early days, AND THIS AFTERNOON.”
+
+“I do.”
+
+“Your hand, comrade.”
+
+“There, comrade, there.”
+
+They wrung one another’s hands, and turned away and hid their faces from
+each other, for their eyes were moist.
+
+“This won’t do, comrade, I must go. I shall attack from your position.
+So I shall go down the line, and bring the men up. Meantime, pick me
+your detachment. Give me a good spice of veterans. I shall get one word
+with you before we go out. God bless you!”
+
+“God bless you, Raynal!”
+
+The moment Raynal was gone, Camille beckoned a lieutenant to him,
+and ordered half the brigade to form in a strong column on both sides
+Death’s Alley.
+
+His eye fell upon private Dard, as luck would have it. “Come here,” said
+he. Dard came and saluted.
+
+“Have you anybody at Beaurepaire that would be sorry if you were
+killed?”
+
+“Yes, colonel! Jacintha, that used to make your broth, colonel.”
+
+“Take this line to Colonel Raynal. You will find him with the 12th
+brigade.”
+
+He wrote a few lines in pencil, folded them, and Dard went off with
+them, little dreaming that the colonel of his brigade was taking the
+trouble to save his life, because he came from Beaurepaire. Colonel
+Dujardin then went into his tent, and closed the aperture, and took the
+good book the priest had given him, and prayed humbly, and forgave all
+the world.
+
+Then he sat down, his head in his hands, and thought of his child, and
+how hard it was he must die and never see him. Then he lighted a candle,
+and sealed up his orders of valor, and wrote a line, begging that they
+might be sent to his sister. He also sealed up his purse, and left a
+memorandum that the contents should be given to disabled soldiers of his
+brigade upon their being invalided.
+
+Then he took out Josephine’s letter. “Poor coward,” he said, “let me not
+be unkind. See, I burn your letter, lest it should be found, and disturb
+the peace you prize so highly. I, too, shall soon be at peace.” He
+lighted the letter, and dropped it on the ground: it burned slowly away.
+He eyed it, despairingly. “Ay,” said he, “you perish, last record of an
+unhappy love: and even so pass away my life; my hopes of glory, and my
+dreams of love; it all ends to-day: at nine and twenty.”
+
+He put his white handkerchief to his eyes. Josephine had given it him.
+He cried a little.
+
+When he had done crying, he put his white handkerchief in his bosom, and
+the whole man was transformed beyond language to express. Powder does
+not change more when it catches fire. He rose that moment and went like
+a flash of lightning out of the tent. The next, he came down between the
+lines of the strong column that stood awaiting orders in Death’s Alley.
+
+“Attention!” cried the sergeants; “the colonel!”
+
+There was a dead silence, for the bare sight of that erect and inspired
+figure made the men’s bosoms thrill with the certainty of great deeds to
+come: the light of battle was in his eye. No longer the moody colonel,
+but a thunderbolt of war, red-hot, and waiting to be launched.
+
+“Officers, sergeants, soldiers, a word with you!”
+
+La Croix. Attention!
+
+“Do you know what passed here five minutes ago?”
+
+“The attack of the bastion was settled!” cried a captain.
+
+“It was; and who was to lead the assault? do you know that?”
+
+“No.”
+
+“A colonel FROM EGYPT.”
+
+At that there was a groan from the men.
+
+“With detachments from the other brigades.”
+
+“AH!” an angry roar.
+
+Colonel Dujardin walked quickly down between the two lines, looking with
+his fiery eye into the men’s eyes on his right. Then he came back on the
+other side, and, as he went, he lighted those men’s eyes with his own.
+It was a torch passing along a line of ready gas-lights.
+
+“The work to us!” he cried in a voice like a clarion (it fired the
+hearts as his eye had fired the eyes)--“The triumph to strangers! Our
+fatigues and our losses have not gained the brigade the honor of going
+out at those fellows that have killed so many of our comrades.”
+
+A fierce groan broke from the men.
+
+“What! shall the colors of another brigade and not ours fly from that
+bastion this afternoon?”
+
+“No! no!” in a roar like thunder.
+
+“Ah! you are of my mind. Attention! the attack is fixed for five
+o’clock. Suppose you and I were to carry the bastion ten minutes before
+the colonel from Egypt can bring his men upon the ground.”
+
+At this there was a fierce burst of joy and laughter; the strange
+laughter of veterans and born invincibles. Then a yell of exulting
+assent, accompanied by the thunder of impatient drums, and the rattle of
+fixing bayonets.
+
+The colonel told off a party to the battery.
+
+“Level the guns at the top tier. Fire at my signal, and keep firing over
+our heads, till you see our colors on the place.”
+
+He then darted to the head of the column, which instantly formed behind
+him in the centre of Death’s Alley.
+
+“The colors! No hand but mine shall hold them to-day.”
+
+They were instantly brought him: his left hand shook them free in the
+afternoon sun.
+
+A deep murmur of joy rolled out from the old hands at the now unwonted
+sight. Out flashed the colonel’s sword like steel lightning. He pointed
+to the battery.
+
+Bang! bang! bang! bang! went his cannon, and the smoke rolled over
+the trenches. At the same moment up went the colors waving, and the
+colonel’s clarion voice pealed high above all:--
+
+“Twenty-fourth brigade--FORWARD!”
+
+They went so swiftly out of the trenches that they were not seen through
+their own smoke until they had run some sixty yards. As soon as they
+were seen, coming on like devils through their own smoke, two thousand
+muskets were levelled at them from the Prussian line. It was not a
+rattle of small arms--it was a crash, and the men fell fast: but in a
+moment they were seen to spread out like a fan, and to offer less mark,
+and when the fan closed again, it half encircled the bastion. It was a
+French attack: part swarmed at it in front like bees, part swept round
+the glacis and flanked it. They were seen to fall in numbers, shot down
+from the embrasures. But the living took the place of the dead: and the
+fight ranged evenly there. Where are the colors? Towards the rear
+there. The colonel and a hundred men are fighting hand to hand with
+the Prussians, who have charged out at the back doors of the bastion.
+Success there, and the bastion must fall--both sides know this.
+
+The colors disappeared. There was a groan from the French lines. The
+colors reappeared, and close under the bastion.
+
+And now in front the attack was so hot, that often the Prussian gunners
+were seen to jump down, driven from their posts; and the next moment
+a fierce hurrah from the rear told that the French had won some great
+advantage there. The fire slackening told a similar tale and presently
+down came the Prussian flag-staff. That might be an accident. A few
+moments of thirsting expectation, and up went the colors of the 24th
+brigade upon the Bastion St. Andre.
+
+The French army raised a shout that rent the sky, and their cannon began
+to play on the Prussian lines and between the bastion and the nearest
+fort, to prevent a recapture.
+
+Sudden there shot from the bastion a cubic acre of fire: it carried up a
+heavy mountain of red and black smoke that looked solid as marble. There
+was a heavy, sullen, tremendous explosion that snuffed out the sound of
+the cannon, and paralyzed the French and Prussian gunners’ hands, and
+checked the very beating of their hearts. Thirty thousand pounds of
+gunpowder were in that awful explosion. War itself held its breath,
+and both armies, like peaceable spectators, gazed wonder-struck,
+terror-struck. Great hell seemed to burst through the earth’s crust,
+and to be rushing at heaven. Huge stones, cannons, corpses, and limbs of
+soldiers, were seen driven or falling through the smoke. Some of these
+last came quite clear of the ruins, ay, into the French and Prussian
+lines, that even the veterans put their hands to their eyes. Raynal felt
+something patter on him from the sky--it was blood--a comrade’s perhaps.
+
+
+The smoke cleared. Where, a moment before, the great bastion stood and
+fought, was a monstrous pile of blackened, bloody stones and timbers,
+with dismounted cannon sticking up here and there.
+
+And, rent and crushed to atoms beneath the smoking mass, lay the relics
+of the gallant brigade, and their victorious colors.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII.
+
+
+A few wounded soldiers of the brigade lay still till dusk. Then they
+crept back to the trenches. These had all been struck down or disabled
+short of the bastion. Of those that had taken the place no one came
+home.
+
+Raynal, after the first stupefaction, pressed hard and even angrily for
+an immediate assault on the whole Prussian line. Not they. It was on
+paper that the assault should be at daybreak to-morrow. Such leaders as
+they were cannot IMPROVISE.
+
+Rage and grief in his heart, Raynal waited chafing in the trenches till
+five minutes past midnight. He then became commander of the brigade,
+gave his orders, and took thirty men out to creep up to the wreck of the
+bastion, and find the late colonel’s body.
+
+Going for so pious a purpose, he was rewarded by an important discovery.
+The whole Prussian lines had been abandoned since sunset, and, mounting
+cautiously on the ramparts, Raynal saw the town too was evacuated, and
+lights and other indications on a rising ground behind it convinced
+him that the Prussians were in full retreat, probably to effect that
+junction with other forces which the assault he had recommended would
+have rendered impossible.
+
+They now lighted lanterns, and searched all over and round the bastion
+for the poor colonel, in the rear of the bastion they found many French
+soldiers, most of whom had died by the bayonet. The Prussian dead had
+all been carried off.
+
+Here they found the talkative Sergeant La Croix. The poor fellow was
+silent enough now. A terrible sabre-cut on the skull. The colonel was
+not there. Raynal groaned, and led the way on to the bastion. The ruins
+still smoked. Seven or eight bodies were discovered by an arm or a foot
+protruding through the masses of masonry. Of these some were Prussians;
+a proof that some devoted hand had fired the train, and destroyed both
+friend and foe.
+
+They found the tube of Long Tom sticking up, just as he had shown over
+the battlements that glorious day, with this exception, that a great
+piece was knocked off his lip, and the slice ended in a long, broad
+crack.
+
+The soldiers looked at this. “That is our bullet’s work,” said they.
+Then one old veteran touched his cap, and told Raynal gravely, he knew
+where their beloved colonel was. “Dig here, to the bottom,” said he. “HE
+LIES BENEATH HIS WORK.”
+
+Improbable and superstitious as this was, the hearts of the soldiers
+assented to it.
+
+Presently there was a joyful cry outside the bastion. A rush was made
+thither. But it proved to be only Dard, who had discovered that Sergeant
+La Croix’s heart still beat. They took him up carefully, and carried him
+gently into camp. To Dard’s delight the surgeon pronounced him curable.
+For all that, he was three days insensible, and after that unfit for
+duty. So they sent him home invalided, with a hundred francs out of the
+poor colonel’s purse.
+
+Raynal reported the evacuation of the place, and that Colonel Dujardin
+was buried under the bastion, and soon after rode out of the camp.
+
+The words Camille had scratched with a pencil, and sent him from the
+edge of the grave, were few but striking.
+
+
+“A dead man takes you once more by the hand. My last thought, thank God,
+is France. For her sake and mine, Raynal. GO FOR GENERAL BONAPARTE. Tell
+him, from a dying soldier, the Rhine is a river to these generals, but
+to him a field of glory. He will lay out our lives, not waste them.”
+
+
+There was nothing to hinder Raynal from carrying out this sacred
+request: for the 24th brigade had ceased to exist: already thinned by
+hard service, it was reduced to a file or two by the fatal bastion. It
+was incorporated with the 12th; and Raynal rode heavy at heart to Paris,
+with a black scarf across his breast.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII.
+
+
+You see now into what a fatal entanglement two high-minded young ladies
+were led, step by step, through yielding to the natural foible of their
+sex--the desire to hide everything painful from those they love, even at
+the expense of truth.
+
+A nice mess they made of it with their amiable dishonesty. And pray take
+notice that after the first White Lie or two, circumstances overpowered
+them, and drove them on against their will. It was no small part of all
+their misery that they longed to get back to truth and could not.
+
+We shall see presently how far they succeeded in that pious object, for
+the sake of which they first entered on concealments. But first a word
+is due about one of the victims of their amiable, self-sacrificing
+lubricity. Edouard Riviere fell in one night, from happiness and
+confidence, such as till that night he had never enjoyed, to deep and
+hopeless misery.
+
+He lost that which, to every heart capable of really loving, is the
+greatest earthly blessing, the woman he adored. But worse than that,
+he lost those prime treasures of the masculine soul, belief in human
+goodness, and in female purity. To him no more could there be in nature
+a candid eye, a virtuous ready-mantling cheek: for frailty and treachery
+had put on these signs of virtue and nobility. Henceforth, let him live
+a hundred years, whom could he trust or believe in?
+
+Here was a creature whose virtues seemed to make frailty impossible:
+treachery, doubly impossible: a creature whose very faults--for faults
+she had--had seemed as opposite to treachery as her very virtues were.
+Yet she was all frailty and falsehood.
+
+He passed in that one night of anguish from youth to age. He went about
+his business like a leaden thing. His food turned tasteless. His life
+seemed ended. Nothing appeared what it had been. The very landscape
+seemed cut in stone, and he a stone in the middle of it, and his heart
+a stone in him. At times, across that heavy heart came gushes of furious
+rage and bitter mortification; his heart was broken, and his faith was
+gone, for his vanity had been stabbed as fiercely as his love. “Georges
+Dandin!” he would cry, “curse her! curse her!” But love and misery
+overpowered these heats, and froze him to stone again.
+
+The poor boy pined and pined. His clothes hung loose about him; his
+face was so drawn with suffering, you would not have known him. He hated
+company. The things he was expected to talk about!--he with his crushed
+heart. He could not. He would not. He shunned all the world; he went
+alone like a wounded deer. The good doctor, on his return from Paris,
+called on him to see if he was ill: since he had not come for days to
+the chateau. He saw the doctor coming and bade the servant say he was
+not in the village.
+
+He drew down the blind, that he might never see the chateau again. He
+drew it up again: he could not exist without seeing it. “She will be
+miserable, too,” he cried, gnashing his teeth. “She will see whether she
+has chosen well.” At other times, all his courage, and his hatred, and
+his wounded vanity, were drowned in his love and its despair, and then
+he bowed his head, and sobbed and cried as if his heart would burst. One
+morning he was so sobbing with his head on the table, when his landlady
+tapped at his door. He started up and turned his head away from the
+door.
+
+“A young woman from Beaurepaire, monsieur.”
+
+“From Beaurepaire?” his heart gave a furious leap. “Show her in.”
+
+He wiped his eyes and seated himself at a table, and, all in a flutter,
+pretended to be the state’s.
+
+It was not Jacintha, as he expected, but the other servant. She made a
+low reverence, cast a look of admiration on him, and gave him a letter.
+His eye darted on it: his hand trembled as he took it. He turned away
+again to open it. He forced himself to say, in a tolerably calm voice,
+“I will send an answer.”
+
+The letter was apparently from the baroness de Beaurepaire; a mere line
+inviting him to pay her a visit. It was written in a tremulous hand.
+Edouard examined the writing, and saw directly it was written by Rose.
+
+Being now, naturally enough, full of suspicion, he set this down as an
+attempt to disguise her hand. “So,” said he, to himself, “this is the
+game. The old woman is to be drawn into it, too. She is to help to make
+Georges Dandin of me. I will go. I will baffle them all. I will expose
+this nest of depravity, all ceremony on the surface, and voluptuousness
+and treachery below. O God! who could believe that creature never loved
+me! They shall none of them see my weakness. Their benefactor shall
+be still their superior. They shall see me cold as ice, and bitter as
+gall.”
+
+But to follow him farther just now, would be to run too far in advance
+of the main story. I must, therefore, return to Beaurepaire, and show,
+amongst other things, how this very letter came to be written.
+
+
+When Josephine and Rose awoke from that startled slumber that followed
+the exhaustion of that troubled night, Rose was the more wretched of the
+two. She had not only dishonored herself, but stabbed the man she loved.
+
+Josephine, on the other hand, was exhausted, but calm. The fearful
+escape she had had softened down by contrast her more distant terrors.
+
+She began to shut her eyes again, and let herself drift. Above all, the
+doctor’s promise comforted her: that she should go to Paris with him,
+and have her boy.
+
+This deceitful calm of the heart lasted three days.
+
+Carefully encouraged by Rose, it was destroyed by Jacintha.
+
+Jacintha, conscious that she had betrayed her trust, was almost
+heart-broken. She was ashamed to appear before her young mistress, and,
+coward-like, wanted to avoid knowing even how much harm she had done.
+
+She pretended toothache, bound up her face, and never stirred from the
+kitchen. But she was not to escape: the other servant came down with a
+message: “Madame Raynal wanted to see her directly.”
+
+She came quaking, and found Josephine all alone.
+
+Josephine rose to meet her, and casting a furtive glance round the room
+first, threw her arms round Jacintha’s neck, and embraced her with many
+tears.
+
+“Was ever fidelity like yours? how COULD you do it, Jacintha? and how
+can I ever repay it? But, no; it is too base of me to accept such a
+sacrifice from any woman.”
+
+Jacintha was so confounded she did not know what to say. But it was a
+mystification that could not endure long between two women, who were
+both deceived by a third. Between them they soon discovered that it must
+have been Rose who had sacrificed herself.
+
+“And Edouard has never been here since,” said Josephine.
+
+“And never will, madame.”
+
+“Yes, he shall! there must be some limit even to my feebleness, and my
+sister’s devotion. You shall take a line to him from me. I will write it
+this moment.”
+
+The letter was written. But it was never sent. Rose found Josephine and
+Jacintha together; saw a letter was being written, asked to see it; on
+Josephine’s hesitating, snatched it out of her hand, read it, tore it to
+pieces, and told Jacintha to leave the room. She hated the sight of
+poor Jacintha, who had slept at the very moment when all depended on her
+watchfulness.
+
+“So you were going to send to HIM, unknown to me.”
+
+“Forgive me, Rose.” Rose burst out crying.
+
+“O Josephine! is it come to this? Would you deceive ME?”
+
+“You have deceived ME! Yes! it has come to that. I know all. Twill not
+consent to destroy ALL I love.”
+
+She then begged hard for leave to send the letter.
+
+Rose gave an impetuous refusal. “What could you say to him? foolish
+thing, don’t you know him, and his vanity? When you had exposed yourself
+to him, and showed him I had insulted him for you, do you think he would
+forgive me? No! this is to make light of my love--to make me waste the
+sacrifice I have made. I feel that sacrifice as much as you do, more
+perhaps, and I would rather die in a convent than waste that night of
+shame and agony. Come, promise me, no more attempts of that kind, or we
+are sisters no more, friends no more, one heart and one blood no more.”
+
+The weaker nature, weakened still more by ill-health and grief, was
+terrified into submission, or rather temporized. “Kiss me then,” said
+Josephine, “and love me to the end. Ah, if I was only in my grave!”
+
+Rose kissed her with many sighs, but Josephine smiled. Rose eyed her
+with suspicion. That deep smile; what did it mean? She had formed some
+resolution. “She is going to deceive me somehow,” thought Rose.
+
+From that day she watched Josephine like a spy. Confidence was gone
+between them. Suspicion took its place.
+
+Rose was right in her misgivings. The moment Josephine saw that
+Edouard’s happiness and Rose’s were to be sacrificed for her whom
+nothing could make happy, the poor thing said to herself, “I CAN DIE.”
+
+And that was the happy thought that made her smile.
+
+The doctor gave her laudanum: he found she could not sleep: and he
+thought it all-important that she should sleep.
+
+Josephine, instead of taking these small doses, saved them all up,
+secreted them in a phial, and so, from the sleep of a dozen nights,
+collected the sleep of death: and now she was tranquil. This young
+creature that could not bear to give pain to any one else, prepared her
+own death with a calm resolution the heroes of our sex have not often
+equalled. It was so little a thing to her to strike Josephine. Death
+would save her honor, would spare her the frightful alternative of
+deceiving her husband, or of telling him she was another’s. “Poor
+Raynal,” said she to herself, “it is so cruel to tie him to a woman
+who can never be to him what he deserves. Rose would then prove her
+innocence to Edouard. A few tears for a weak, loving soul, and they
+would all be happy and forget her.”
+
+
+One day the baroness, finding herself alone with Rose and Dr. Aubertin,
+asked the latter what he thought of Josephine’s state.
+
+“Oh, she was better: had slept last night without her usual narcotic.”
+
+The baroness laid down her knitting and said, with much meaning, “And
+I tell you, you will never cure her body till you can cure her mind. My
+poor child has some secret sorrow.”
+
+“Sorrow!” said Aubertin, stoutly concealing the uneasiness these words
+created, “what sorrow?”
+
+“Oh, she has some deep sorrow. And so have you, Rose.”
+
+“Me, mamma! what DO you mean?”
+
+The baroness’s pale cheek flushed a little. “I mean,” said she, “that
+my patience is worn out at last; I cannot live surrounded by secrets.
+Raynal’s gloomy looks when he left us, after staying but one hour;
+Josephine ill from that day, and bursting into tears at every word;
+yourself pale and changed, hiding an unaccountable sadness under forced
+smiles--Now, don’t interrupt me. Edouard, who was almost like a son,
+gone off, without a word, and never comes near us now.”
+
+“Really you are ingenious in tormenting yourself. Josephine is ill!
+Well, is it so very strange? Have you never been ill? Rose is pale! you
+ARE pale, my dear; but she has nursed her sister for a month; is it a
+wonder she has lost color? Edouard is gone a journey, to inherit his
+uncle’s property: a million francs. But don’t you go and fall ill, like
+Josephine; turn pale, like Rose; and make journeys in the region of
+fancy, after Edouard Riviere, who is tramping along on the vulgar high
+road.”
+
+This tirade came from Aubertin, and very clever he thought himself.
+But he had to do with a shrewd old lady, whose suspicions had long
+smouldered; and now burst out. She said quietly, “Oh, then Edouard is
+not in this part of the world. That alters the case: where IS he?”
+
+“In Normandy, probably,” said Rose, blushing.
+
+The baroness looked inquiringly towards Aubertin. He put on an innocent
+face and said nothing.
+
+“Very good,” said the baroness. “It’s plain I am to learn nothing from
+you two. But I know somebody who will be more communicative. Yes:
+this uncomfortable smiling, and unreasonable crying, and interminable
+whispering; these appearances of the absent, and disappearances of the
+present; I shall know this very day what they all mean.”
+
+“Really, I do not understand you.”
+
+“Oh, never mind; I am an old woman, and I am in my dotage. For all that,
+perhaps you will allow me two words alone with my daughter.”
+
+“I retire, madame,” and he disappeared with a bow to her, and an anxious
+look at Rose. She did not need this; she clenched her teeth, and braced
+herself up to stand a severe interrogatory.
+
+Mother and daughter looked at one another, as if to measure forces, and
+then, instead of questioning her as she had intended, the baroness sank
+back in her chair and wept aloud. Rose was all unprepared for this. She
+almost screamed in a voice of agony, “O mamma! mamma! O God! kill me
+where I stand for making my mother weep!”
+
+“My girl,” said the baroness in a broken voice, and with the most
+touching dignity, “may you never know what a mother feels who finds
+herself shut out from her daughters’ hearts. Sometimes I think it is my
+fault; I was born in a severer age. A mother nowadays seems to be a sort
+of elder sister. In my day she was something more. Yet I loved my mother
+as well, or better than I did my sisters. But it is not so with those I
+have borne in my bosom, and nursed upon my knee.”
+
+At this Rose flung herself, sobbing and screaming, at her mother’s
+knees. The baroness was alarmed. “Come, dearest, don’t cry like that. It
+is not too late to take your poor old mother into your confidence. What
+is this mystery? and why this sorrow? How comes it I intercept at every
+instant glances that were not intended for me? Why is the very air
+loaded with signals and secrecy? (Rose replied only by sobs.) Is some
+deceit going on? (Rose sobbed.) Am I to have no reply but these sullen
+sobs? will you really tell me nothing?”
+
+“I’ve nothing to tell,” sobbed Rose.
+
+“Well, then, will you do something for me?”
+
+Such a proposal was not only a relief, but a delight to the deceiving
+but loving daughter. She started up crying, “Oh, yes, mamma; anything,
+everything. Oh, thank you!” In the ardor of her gratitude, she wanted
+to kiss her mother; but the baroness declined the embrace politely, and
+said, coldly and bitterly, “I shall not ask much; I should not venture
+now to draw largely on your affection; it’s only to write a few lines
+for me.”
+
+Rose got paper and ink with great alacrity, and sat down all beaming,
+pen in hand.
+
+The baroness dictated the letter slowly, with an eye gimleting her
+daughter all the time.
+
+“Dear--Monsieur--Riviere.”
+
+The pen fell from Rose’s hand, and she turned red and then pale.
+
+“What! write to him?”
+
+“Not in your own name; in mine. But perhaps you prefer to give me the
+trouble.”
+
+“Cruel! cruel!” sighed Rose, and wrote the words as requested.
+
+The baroness dictated again,--
+
+“Oblige me by coming here at your very earliest convenience.”
+
+“But, mamma, if he is in Normandy,” remonstrated Rose, fighting every
+inch of the ground.
+
+“Never you mind where he is,” said the baroness. “Write as I request.”
+
+“Yes, mamma,” said Rose with sudden alacrity; for she had recovered her
+ready wit, and was prepared to write anything, being now fully resolved
+the letter should never go.
+
+“Now sign my name.” Rose complied. “There; now fold it, and address it
+to his lodgings.” Rose did so; and, rising with a cheerful air, said she
+would send Jacintha with it directly.
+
+She was half across the room when her mother called her quietly back.
+
+“No, mademoiselle,” said she sternly. “You will give me the letter.
+I can trust neither the friend of twenty years, nor the servant that
+stayed by me in adversity, nor the daughter I suffered for and nursed.
+And why don’t I trust you? Because YOU HAVE TOLD ME A LIE.”
+
+At this word, which in its coarsest form she had never heard from those
+high-born lips till then, Rose cowered like a hare.
+
+“Ay, A LIE,” said the baroness. “I saw Edouard Riviere in the park
+but yesterday. I saw him. My old eyes are feeble, but they are not
+deceitful. I saw him. Send my breakfast to my own room. I come of an
+ancient race: I could not sit with liars; I should forget courtesy;
+you would see in my face how thoroughly I scorn you all.” And she went
+haughtily out with the letter in her hand.
+
+Rose for the first time, was prostrated. Vain had been all this deceit;
+her mother was not happy; was not blinded. Edouard might come and tell
+her his story. Then no power could keep Josephine silent. The plot was
+thickening; the fatal net was drawing closer and closer.
+
+She sank with a groan into a chair, and body and spirit alike succumbed.
+But that was only for a little while. To this prostration succeeded a
+feverish excitement. She could not, would not, look Edouard in the face.
+She would implore Josephine to be silent; and she herself would fly from
+the chateau. But, if Josephine would not be silent? Why, then she would
+go herself to Edouard, and throw herself upon his honor, and tell him
+the truth. With this, she ran wildly up the stairs, and burst into
+Josephine’s room so suddenly, that she caught her, pale as death, on her
+knees, with a letter in one hand and a phial of laudanum in the other.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV.
+
+
+Josephine conveyed the phial into her bosom with wonderful rapidity
+and dexterity, and rose to her feet. But Rose just saw her conceal
+something, and resolved to find out quietly what it was. So she said
+nothing about it, but asked Josephine what on earth she was doing.
+
+“I was praying.”
+
+“And what is that letter?”
+
+“A letter I have just received from Colonel Raynal.”
+
+Rose took the letter and read it. Raynal had written from Paris. He was
+coming to Beaurepaire to stay a month, and was to arrive that very day.
+
+Then Rose forgot all about herself, and even what she had come for. She
+clung about her sister’s neck, and implored her, for her sake, to try
+and love Raynal.
+
+Josephine shuddered, and clung weeping to her sister in turn. For in
+Rose’s arms she realized more powerfully what that sister would suffer
+if she were to die. Now, while they clung together, Rose felt something
+hard, and contrived just to feel it with her cheek. It was the phial.
+
+A chill suspicion crossed the poor girl. The attitude in which she had
+found Josephine; the letter, the look of despair, and now this little
+bottle, which she had hidden. WHY HIDE IT? She resolved not to let
+Josephine out of her sight; at all events, until she had seen this
+little bottle, and got it away from her.
+
+She helped her to dress, and breakfasted with her in the tapestried
+room, and dissembled, and put on gayety, and made light of everything
+but Josephine’s health.
+
+Her efforts were not quite in vain. Josephine became more composed; and
+Rose even drew from her a half promise that she would give Raynal and
+time a fair trial.
+
+And now Rose was relieved of her immediate apprehensions for Josephine,
+but the danger of another kind, from Edouard, remained. So she ran into
+her bedroom for her bonnet and shawl, determined to take the strong
+measure of visiting Edouard at once, or intercepting him. While she was
+making her little toilet, she heard her mother’s voice in the room. This
+was unlucky; she must pass through that room to go out. She sat down
+and fretted at this delay. And then, as the baroness appeared to be
+very animated, Rose went to the keyhole, and listened. Their mother was
+telling Josephine how she had questioned Rose, and how Rose had told her
+an untruth, and how she had made that young lady write to Edouard, etc.;
+in short, the very thing Rose wanted to conceal from Josephine.
+
+Rose lost all patience, and determined to fly through the room and out
+before anybody could stop her. She heard Jacintha come in with some
+message, and thought that would be a good opportunity to slip out
+unmolested. So she opened the door softly. Jacintha, it seemed, had been
+volunteering some remark that was not well received, for the baroness
+was saying, sharply, “Your opinion is not asked. Go down directly, and
+bring him up here, to this room.” Jacintha cast a look of dismay at
+Rose, and vanished.
+
+Rose gathered from that look, as much as from the words, who the visitor
+was. She made a dart after Jacintha. But the room was a long one, and
+the baroness intercepted her: “No,” said she, gravely, “I cannot spare
+you.”
+
+Rose stood pale and panting, but almost defiant. “Mamma,” said she, “if
+it is Monsieur Riviere, I MUST ask your leave to retire. And you have
+neither love nor pity, nor respect for me, if you detain me.”
+
+“Mademoiselle!” was the stern reply, “I FORBID you to move. Be good
+enough to sit there;” with which the baroness pointed imperiously to
+a sofa at the other side of the room. “Josephine, go to your room.”
+ Josephine retired, casting more than one anxious glance over her
+shoulder.
+
+Rose looked this way and that in despair and terror; but ended by
+sinking, more dead than alive, into the seat indicated; and even as she
+drooped, pale and trembling, on that sofa, Edouard Riviere, worn and
+agitated, entered the room, and bowed low to them all, without a word.
+
+The baroness looked at him, and then at her daughter, as much as to say,
+now I have got you; deceive me now if you can. “Rose, my dear,” said
+this terrible old woman, affecting honeyed accents, “don’t you see
+Monsieur Riviere?”
+
+The poor girl at this challenge rose with difficulty, and courtesied
+humbly to Edouard.
+
+He bowed to her, and stealing a rapid glance saw her pallor and
+distress; and that showed him she was not so hardened as he had thought.
+
+“You have not come to see us lately,” said the baroness, quietly, “yet
+you have been in the neighborhood.”
+
+These words puzzled Edouard. Was the old lady all in the dark, then? As
+a public man he had already learned to be on his guard; so he stammered
+out, “That he had been much occupied with public duties.”
+
+Madame de Beaurepaire despised this threadbare excuse too much to notice
+it at all. She went on as if he had said nothing. “Intimate as you were
+with us, you must have some reason for deserting us so suddenly.”
+
+“I have,” said Edouard, gravely.
+
+“What is it?”
+
+“Excuse me,” said Edouard, sullenly.
+
+“No, monsieur, I cannot. This neglect, succeeding to a somewhat ardent
+pursuit of my daughter, is almost an affront. You shall, of course,
+withdraw yourself altogether, if you choose. But not without an
+explanation. This much is due to me; and, if you are a gentleman, you
+will not withhold it from me.”
+
+“If he is a gentleman!” cried Rose; “O mamma, do not you affront a
+gentleman, who never, never gave you nor me any ground of offence. Why
+affront the friends and benefactors we have lost by our own fault?”
+
+“Oh, then, it is all your fault,” said the baroness. “I feared as much.”
+
+“All my fault, all,” said Rose; then putting her pretty palms together,
+and casting a look of abject supplication on Edouard, she murmured, “my
+temper!”
+
+“Do not you put words into his mouth,” said the shrewd old lady. “Come,
+Monsieur Riviere, be a man, and tell me the truth. What has she said to
+you? What has she done?”
+
+By this time the abject state of terror the high-spirited Rose was in,
+and her piteous glances, had so disarmed Edouard, that he had not the
+heart to expose her to her mother.
+
+“Madame,” said he, stiffly, taking Rose’s hint, “my temper and
+mademoiselle’s could not accord.”
+
+“Why, her temper is charming: it is joyous, equal, and gentle.”
+
+“You misunderstand me, madame; I do not reproach Mademoiselle Rose. It
+is I who am to blame.”
+
+“For what?” inquired the baroness dryly.
+
+“For not being able to make her love me.”
+
+“Oh! that is it! She did not love you?”
+
+“Ask herself, madame,” said Edouard, bitterly.
+
+“Rose,” said the baroness, her eye now beginning to twinkle, “were
+you really guilty of such a want of discrimination? Didn’t you love
+monsieur?”
+
+Rose flung her arms round her mother’s neck, and said, “No, mamma, I
+did not love Monsieur Edouard,” in an exquisite tone of love, that to a
+female ear conveyed the exact opposite of the words.
+
+But Edouard had not that nice discriminating ear. He sighed deeply, and
+the baroness smiled. “You tell me that?” said she, “and you are crying!”
+
+“She is crying, madame?” said Edouard, inquiringly, and taking a step
+towards them.
+
+“Why, you see she is, you foolish boy. Come, I must put an end to this;”
+ and she rose coolly from her seat, and begging Edouard to forgive her
+for leaving him a moment with his deadly enemy, went off with knowing
+little nods into Josephine’s room; only, before she entered it, she
+turned, and with a maternal smile discharged this word at the pair.
+
+“Babies!”
+
+But between the alienated lovers was a long distressing silence. Neither
+knew what to say; and their situation was intolerable. At last Rose
+ventured in a timorous voice to say, “I thank you for your generosity.
+But I knew that you would not betray me.”
+
+“Your secret is safe for me,” sighed Edouard. “Is there anything else I
+can do for you?”
+
+Rose shook her head sadly.
+
+Edouard moved to the door.
+
+Rose bowed her head with a despairing moan. It took him by the heart and
+held him. He hesitated, then came towards her.
+
+“I see you are sorry for what you have done to me who loved you so; and
+you loved me. Oh! yes, do not deny it, Rose; there was a time you loved
+me. And that makes it worse: to have given me such sweet hopes, only to
+crush both them and me. And is not this cruel of you to weep so and let
+me see your penitence--when it is too late?”
+
+“Alas! how can I help my regrets? I have insulted so good a friend.”
+
+There was a sad silence. Then as he looked at her, her looks belied the
+charge her own lips had made against herself.
+
+A light seemed to burst on Edouard from that high-minded,
+sorrow-stricken face.
+
+“Tell me it is false!” he cried.
+
+She hid her face in her hands--woman’s instinct to avoid being read.
+
+“Tell me you were misled then, fascinated, perverted, but that your
+heart returned to me. Clear yourself of deliberate deceit, and I will
+believe and thank you on my knees.”
+
+“Heaven have pity on us both!” cried poor Rose.
+
+“On us! Thank you for saying on us. See now, you have not gained
+happiness by destroying mine. One word--do you love that man?--that
+Dujardin?”
+
+“You know I do not.”
+
+“I am glad of that; since his life is forfeited; if he escapes my friend
+Raynal, he shall not escape me.”
+
+Rose uttered a cry of terror. “Hush! not so loud. The life of Camille!
+Oh! if he were to die, what would become of--oh, pray do not speak so
+loud.”
+
+“Own then that you DO love him,” yelled Edouard; “give me truth, if you
+have no love to give. Own that you love him, and he shall be safe. It is
+myself I will kill, for being such a slave as to love you still.”
+
+Rose’s fortitude gave way.
+
+“I cannot bear it,” she cried despairingly; “it is beyond my strength;
+Edouard, swear to me you will keep what I tell you secret as the grave!”
+
+“Ah!” cried Edouard, all radiant with hope, “I swear.”
+
+“Then you are under a delirium. I have deceived, but never wronged you;
+that unhappy child is not--Hush! HERE SHE COMES.”
+
+The baroness came smiling out, and Josephine’s wan, anxious face was
+seen behind her.
+
+“Well,” said the baroness, “is the war at an end? What, are we still
+silent? Let me try then what I can do. Edouard, lend me your hand.”
+
+While Edouard hesitated, Josephine clasped her hands and mutely
+supplicated him to consent. Her sad face, and the thought of how often
+she had stood his friend, shook his resolution. He held out his hand,
+but slowly and reluctantly.
+
+“There is my hand,” he groaned.
+
+“And here is mine, mamma,” said Rose, smiling to please her mother.
+
+Oh! the mixture of feeling, when her soft warm palm pressed his. How the
+delicious sense baffled and mystified the cold judgment.
+
+Josephine raised her eyes thankfully to heaven.
+
+While the young lovers yet thrilled at each other’s touch, yet could not
+look one another in the face, a clatter of horses’ feet was heard.
+
+“That is Colonel Raynal,” said Josephine, with unnatural calmness. “I
+expected him to-day.”
+
+The baroness was at the side window in a moment.
+
+“It is he!--it is he!”
+
+She hurried down to embrace her son.
+
+Josephine went without a word to her own room. Rose followed her the
+next minute. But in that one minute she worked magic.
+
+She glided up to Edouard, and looked him full in the face: not the sad,
+depressed, guilty-looking humble Rose of a moment before, but the old
+high-spirited, and some what imperious girl.
+
+“You have shown yourself noble this day. I am going to trust you as only
+the noble are trusted. Stay in the house till I can speak to you.”
+
+She was gone, and something leaped within Edouard’s bosom, and a flood
+of light seemed to burst in on him. Yet he saw no object clearly: but he
+saw light.
+
+Rose ran into Josephine’s room, and once more surprised her on her
+knees, and in the very act of hiding something in her bosom.
+
+“What are you doing, Josephine, on your knees?” said she, sternly.
+
+“I have a great trial to go through,” was the hesitating answer.
+
+Rose said nothing. She turned paler. She is deceiving me, thought she,
+and she sat down full of bitterness and terror, and, affecting not to
+watch Josephine, watched her.
+
+“Go and tell them I am coming, Rose.”
+
+“No, Josephine, I will not leave you till this terrible meeting is over.
+We will encounter him hand in hand, as we used to go when our hearts
+were one, and we deceived others, but never each other.”
+
+At this tender reproach Josephine fell upon her neck and wept.
+
+“I will not deceive you,” she said. “I am worse than the poor doctor
+thinks me. My life is but a little candle that a breath may put out any
+day.”
+
+Rose said nothing, but trembled and watched her keenly.
+
+“My little Henri,” said Josephine imploringly, “what would you do with
+him--if anything should happen to me?”
+
+“What would I do with him? He is mine. I should be his mother. Oh! what
+words are these: my heart! my heart!”
+
+“No, dearest; some day you will be married, and owe all the mother to
+your children; and Henri is not ours only: he belongs to some one I have
+seemed unkind to. Perhaps he thinks me heartless. For I am a foolish
+woman; I don’t know how to be virtuous, yet show a man my heart. But
+THEN he will understand me and forgive me. Rose, love, you will write
+to him. He will come to you. You will go together to the place where I
+shall be sleeping. You will show him my heart. You will tell him all my
+long love that lasted to the end. YOU need not blush to tell him all. I
+have no right. Then you will give him his poor Josephine’s boy, and you
+will say to him, ‘She never loved but you: she gives you all that
+is left of her, her child. She only prays you not to give him a bad
+mother.’”
+
+Poor soul! this was her one bit of little, gentle jealousy; but it made
+her eyes stream. She would have put out her hand from the tomb to keep
+her boy’s father single all his life.
+
+“Oh! my Josephine, my darling sister,” cried Rose, “why do you speak of
+death? Do you meditate a crime?”
+
+“No; but it was on my heart to say it: it has done me good.”
+
+“At least, take me to your bosom, my well-beloved, that I may not SEE
+your tears.”
+
+“There--tears? No, you have lightened my heart. Bless you! bless you!”
+
+The sisters twined their bosoms together in a long, gentle embrace. You
+might have taken them for two angels that flowed together in one love,
+but for their tears.
+
+A deep voice was now heard in the sitting-room.
+
+Josephine and Rose postponed the inevitable one moment more, by
+arranging their hair in the glass: then they opened the door, and
+entered the tapestried room.
+
+Raynal was sitting on the sofa, the baroness’s hand in his. Edouard was
+not there.
+
+Colonel Raynal had given him a strange look, and said, “What, you here?”
+ in a tone of voice that was intolerable.
+
+Raynal came to meet the sisters. He saluted Josephine on the brow.
+
+“You are pale, wife: and how cold her hand is.”
+
+“She has been ill this month past,” said Rose interposing.
+
+“You look ill, too, Mademoiselle Rose.”
+
+“Never mind,” cried the baroness joyously, “you will revive them both.”
+
+Raynal made no reply to that.
+
+“How long do you stay this time, a day?”
+
+“A month, mother.”
+
+The doctor now joined the party, and friendly greetings passed between
+him and Raynal.
+
+But ere long somehow all became conscious this was not a joyful meeting.
+The baroness could not alone sustain the spirits of the party, and soon
+even she began to notice that Raynal’s replies were short, and that his
+manner was distrait and gloomy. The sisters saw this too, and trembled
+for what might be coming.
+
+At last Raynal said bluntly, “Josephine, I want to speak to you alone.”
+
+The baroness gave the doctor a look, and made an excuse for going
+down-stairs to her own room. As she was going Josephine went to her and
+said calmly,--
+
+“Mother, you have not kissed me to-day.”
+
+“There! Bless you, my darling!”
+
+Raynal looked at Rose. She saw she must go, but she lingered, and sought
+her sister’s eye: it avoided her. At that Rose ran to the doctor, who
+was just going out of the door.
+
+“Oh! doctor,” she whispered trembling, “don’t go beyond the door. I
+found her praying. My mind misgives me. She is going to tell him--or
+something worse.”
+
+“What do you mean?”
+
+“I am afraid to say all I dread. She could not be so calm if she meant
+to live. Be near! as I shall. She has a phial hid in her bosom.”
+
+She left the old man trembling, and went back.
+
+“Excuse me,” said she to Raynal, “I only came to ask Josephine if she
+wants anything.”
+
+“No!--yes!--a glass of eau sucree.”
+
+Rose mixed it for her. While doing this she noticed that Josephine
+shunned her eye, but Raynal gazed gently and with an air of pity on her.
+
+She retired slowly into Josephine’s bedroom, but did not quite close the
+door.
+
+Raynal had something to say so painful that he shrank from plunging into
+it. He therefore, like many others, tried to creep into it, beginning
+with something else.
+
+“Your health,” said he, “alarms me. You seem sad, too. I don’t
+understand that. You have no news from the Rhine, have you?”
+
+“Monsieur!” said Josephine scared.
+
+“Do not call me monsieur, nor look so frightened. Call me your friend. I
+am your sincere friend.”
+
+“Oh, yes; you always were.”
+
+“Thank you. You will give me a dearer title before we part this time.”
+
+“Yes,” said Josephine in a low whisper, and shuddered.
+
+“Have you forgiven me frightening you so that night?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“It was a shock to me, too, I can tell you. I like the boy. She
+professed to love him, and, to own the truth, I loathe all treachery
+and deceit. If I had done a murder, I would own it. A lie doubles every
+crime. But I took heart; we are all selfish, we men; of the two sisters
+one was all innocence and good faith; and she was the one I had chosen.”
+
+At these words Josephine rose, like a statue moving, and took a phial
+from her bosom and poured the contents into the glass.
+
+But ere she could drink it, if such was her intention, Raynal, with his
+eyes gloomily lowered, said, in a voice full of strange solemnity,--
+
+“I went to the army of the Rhine.”
+
+Josephine put down the glass directly, though without removing her hand
+from it.
+
+“I see you understand me, and approve. Yes, I saw that your sister would
+be dishonored, and I went to the army and saw her seducer.”
+
+“You saw HIM. Oh, I hope you did not go and speak to him of--of this?”
+
+“Why, of course I did.”
+
+Josephine resolved to know the worst at once. “May I ask,” said she,
+“what you told him?”
+
+“Why, I told him all I had discovered, and pointed out the course he
+must take; he must marry your sister at once. He refused. I challenged
+him. But ere we met, I was ordered to lead a forlorn hope against a
+bastion. Then, seeing me go to certain death, the noble fellow pitied
+me. I mean this is how I understood it all at the time; at any rate, he
+promised to marry Rose if he should live.”
+
+Josephine put out her hand, and with a horrible smile said, “I thank
+you; you have saved the honor of our family;” and with no more ado, she
+took the glass in her hand to drink the fatal contents.
+
+But Raynal’s reply arrested her hand. He said solemnly, “No, I have
+not. Have you no inkling of the terrible truth? Do not fiddle with
+that glass: drink it, or leave it alone; for, indeed, I need all your
+attention.”
+
+He took the glass out of her patient hand, and with a furtive look at
+the bedroom-door, drew her away to the other end of the room; “and,”
+ said he, “I could not tell your mother, for she knows nothing of the
+girl’s folly; still less Rose, for I see she loves him still, or why is
+she so pale? Advise me, now, whilst we are alone. Colonel Dujardin was
+COMPARATIVELY indifferent to YOU. Will you undertake the task? A rough
+soldier like me is not the person to break the terrible tidings to that
+poor girl.”
+
+“What tidings? You confuse, you perplex me. Oh! what does this horrible
+preparation mean?”
+
+“It means he will never marry your sister; he will never see her more.”
+
+Then Raynal walked the room in great agitation, which at once
+communicated itself to his hearer. But the loving heart is ingenious in
+avoiding its dire misgivings.
+
+“I see,” said she; “he told you he would never visit Beaurepaire again.
+He was right.”
+
+Raynal shook his head sorrowfully.
+
+“Ah, Josephine, you are far from the truth. I was to attack the bastion.
+It was mined by the enemy, and he knew it. He took advantage of my
+back being turned. He led his men out of the trenches; he assaulted the
+bastion at the head of his brigade. He took it.”
+
+“Ah, it was noble; it was like him.”
+
+“The enemy, retiring, blew the bastion into the air, and Dujardin--is
+dead.”
+
+“Dead!” said Josephine, in stupefied tones, as if the word conveyed no
+meaning to her mind, benumbed and stunned by the blow.
+
+“Don’t speak so loud,” said Raynal; “I hear the poor girl at the door.
+Ay, he took my place, and is dead.”
+
+“Dead!”
+
+“Swallowed up in smoke and flames, overwhelmed and crushed under the
+ruins.”
+
+Josephine’s whole body gave way, and heaved like a tree falling under
+the axe. She sank slowly to her knees, and low moans of agony broke from
+her at intervals. “Dead, dead, dead!”
+
+“Is it not terrible?” he cried.
+
+She did not see him nor hear him, but moaned out wildly, “Dead, dead,
+dead!” The bedroom-door was opened.
+
+She shrieked with sudden violence, “Dead! ah, pity! the glass! the
+composing draught.” She stretched her hands out wildly. Raynal, with a
+face full of concern, ran to the table, and got the glass. She crawled
+on her knees to meet it; he brought it quickly to her hand.
+
+“There, my poor soul!”
+
+Even as their hands met, Rose threw herself on the cup, and snatched
+it with fury from them both. She was white as ashes, and her eyes,
+supernaturally large, glared on Raynal with terror. “Madman!” she cried,
+“would you kill her?”
+
+He glared back on her: what did this mean? Their eyes were fixed on each
+other like combatants for life and death; they did not see that the room
+was filling with people, that the doctor was only on the other side of
+the table, and that the baroness and Edouard were at the door, and all
+looking wonderstruck at this strange sight--Josephine on her knees,
+and those two facing each other, white, with dilating eyes, the glass
+between them.
+
+But what was that to the horror, when the next moment the patient
+Josephine started to her feet, and, standing in the midst, tore her hair
+by handfuls, out of her head.
+
+“Ah, you snatch the kind poison from me!”
+
+“Poison!”
+
+“Poison!”
+
+“Poison!” cried the others, horror-stricken.
+
+“Ah! you won’t let me die. Curse you all! curse you! I never had my own
+way in anything. I was always a slave and a fool. I have murdered the
+man I love--I love. Yes, my husband, do you hear? the man I love.”
+
+“Hush! daughter, respect my gray hairs.”
+
+“Your gray hairs! You are not so old in years as I am in agony. So this
+is your love, Rose! Ah, you won’t let me die--won’t you? THEN I’LL DO
+WORSE--I’LL TELL.”
+
+“He who is dead; you have murdered him amongst you, and I’ll follow
+him in spite of you all--he was my betrothed. He struggled wounded,
+bleeding, to my feet. He found me married. News came of my husband’s
+death; I married my betrothed.”
+
+“Married him!” exclaimed the baroness.
+
+“Ah, my poor mother. And she kissed me so kindly just now--she will kiss
+me no more. Oh, I am not ashamed of marrying him. I am only ashamed
+of the cowardice that dared not do it in face of all the world. We had
+scarce been happy a fortnight, when a letter came from Colonel Raynal.
+He was alive. I drove my true husband away, wretch that I was. None
+but bad women have an atom of sense. I tried to do my duty to my legal
+husband. He was my benefactor. I thought it was my duty. Was it? I don’t
+know: I have lost the sense of right and wrong. I turned from a living
+creature to a lie. He who had scattered benefits on me and all this
+house; he whom it was too little to love; he ought to have been adored:
+this man came here one night to wife proud, joyous, and warm-hearted. He
+found a cradle, and two women watching it. Now Edouard, now MONSIEUR, do
+you see that life is IMPOSSIBLE to me? One bravely accused herself: she
+was innocent. One swooned away like a guilty coward.”
+
+Edouard uttered an exclamation.
+
+“Yes, Edouard, you shall not be miserable like me; she was guilty. You
+do not understand me yet, my poor mother--and she was so happy this
+morning--I was the liar, the coward, the double-faced wife, the
+miserable mother that denied her child. Now will you let me die? Now do
+you see that I can’t and won’t live upon shame and despair? Ah, Monsieur
+Raynal, my dear friend, you were always generous: you will pity and
+kill me. I have dishonored the name you gave me to keep: I am neither
+Beaurepaire nor Raynal. Do pray kill me, monsieur--Jean, do pray release
+me from my life!”
+
+And she crawled to his knees and embraced them, and kissed his hand, and
+pleaded more piteously for death, than others have begged for life.
+
+Raynal stood like a rock: he was pale, and drew his breath audibly,
+but not a word. Then came a sight scarce less terrible than Josephine’s
+despair. The baroness, looking and moving twenty years older than an
+hour before, tottered across the room to Raynal.
+
+“Sir, you whom I have called my son, but whom I will never presume so
+to call again, I thought I had lived long enough never to have to blush
+again. I loved you, monsieur. I prayed every day for you. But she who
+WAS my daughter was not of my mind. Monsieur, I have never knelt but to
+God and to my king, and I kneel to you: forgive us, sir, forgive us!”
+
+She tried to go down on her knees. He raised her with his strong arm,
+but he could not speak. She turned on the others.
+
+“So this is the secret you were hiding from me! This secret has not
+killed you all. Oh! I shall not live under its shame so long as
+you have. Chateau of Beaurepaire--nest of treason, ingratitude, and
+immodesty--I loathe you as much as once I loved you. I will go and hide
+my head, and die elsewhere.”
+
+“Stay, madame!” said he, in a voice whose depth and dignity was
+such that it seemed impossible to disobey it. “It was sudden--I was
+shaken--but I am myself again.”
+
+“Oh, show some pity!” cried Rose.
+
+“I shall try to be just.”
+
+There was a long, trembling silence; and during that silence and
+terrible agitation, one figure stood firm among those quaking, beating
+hearts, like a rock with the waves breaking round it--the MAN OF
+PRINCIPLE among the creatures of impulse.
+
+He raised Josephine from her knees, and placed her all limp and
+powerless in an arm-chair. To her frenzy had now succeeded a sickness
+and feebleness like unto death.
+
+“Widow Dujardin,” said he, in a broken voice, “listen to me.”
+
+She moaned a sort of assent.
+
+“Your mistake has been not trusting me. I was your friend, and not
+a selfish friend. I was not enough in love with you to destroy your
+happiness. Besides, I despise that sort of love. If you had told me all,
+I would have spared you this misery. By the present law, civil contracts
+of marriage can be dissolved by mutual consent.”
+
+At this the baroness uttered some sign of surprise.
+
+“Ah!” continued Raynal, sadly, “you are aristocrats, and cannot keep
+pace with the times. This very day our mere contract shall be formally
+dissolved. Indeed, it ceases to exist since both parties are resolved
+to withdraw from it. So, if you married Dujardin in a church, you are
+Madame Dujardin at this moment, and his child is legitimate. What does
+she say?”
+
+This question was to Rose, for what Josephine uttered sounded like a
+mere articulate moan. But Rose’s quick ear had caught words, and she
+replied, all in tears, “My poor sister is blessing you, sir. We all
+bless you.”
+
+“She does not understand my position,” said Raynal. He then walked up to
+Josephine, and leaning over her arm, and speaking rather loud, under the
+impression that her senses were blunted by grief, he said, “Look here:
+Colonel Dujardin, your husband, deliberately, and with his eyes open,
+sacrificed his life for me, and for his own heroic sense of honor. Now,
+it is my turn. If that hero stood here, and asked me for all the blood
+in my body, I would give it him. He is gone; but, dying for me, he has
+left me his widow and his child; they remain under my wing. To protect
+them is my pride, and my only consolation. I am going to the mayor to
+annul our unlucky contract in due form, and make us brother and sister
+instead. But,” turning to the baroness, “don’t you think to escape me
+as your daughter has done: no, no, old lady, once a mother, always a
+mother. Stir from your son’s home if you dare!”
+
+And with these words, in speaking which his voice had recovered its iron
+firmness, he strode out at the door, superb in manhood and principle,
+and every eye turned with wonder and admiration after him. Even when he
+was gone they gazed at the door by which a creature so strangely noble
+had disappeared.
+
+The baroness was about to follow him without taking any notice of
+Josephine. But Rose caught her by the gown. “O mother, speak to poor
+Josephine: bid her live.”
+
+The baroness only made a gesture of horror and disgust, and turned her
+back on them both.
+
+Josephine, who had tottered up from her seat at Rose’s words, sank
+heavily down again, and murmured, “Ah! the grave holds all that love me
+now.”
+
+Rose ran to her side. “Cruel Josephine! what, do not I love you? Mother,
+will you not help me persuade her to live? Oh! if she dies, I will die
+too; you will kill both your children.”
+
+Stern and indignant as the baroness was, yet these words pierced her
+heart. She turned with a piteous, half apologetic air to Edouard and
+Aubertin. “Gentlemen,” said she, “she has been foolish, not guilty.
+Heaven pardons the best of us. Surely a mother may forgive her child.”
+ And with this nature conquered utterly; and she held out her arms, wide,
+wide, as is a mother’s heart. Her two erring children rushed sobbing
+violently into them; and there was not a dry eye in the room for a long
+time.
+
+After this, Josephine’s heart almost ceased to beat. Fear and
+misgivings, and the heavy sense of deceit gnawing an honorable heart,
+were gone. Grief reigned alone in the pale, listless, bereaved widow.
+
+The marriage was annulled before the mayor; and, three days afterwards,
+Raynal, by his influence, got the consummated marriage formally allowed
+in Paris.
+
+With a delicacy for which one would hardly have given him credit, he
+never came near Beaurepaire till all this was settled; but he brought
+the document from Paris that made Josephine the widow Dujardin, and
+her boy the heir of Beaurepaire; and the moment she was really Madame
+Dujardin he avoided her no longer; and he became a comfort to her
+instead of a terror.
+
+The dissolution of the marriage was a great tie between them. So much
+that, seeing how much she looked up to Raynal, the doctor said one day
+to the baroness, “If I know anything of human nature, they will marry
+again, provided none of you give her a hint which way her heart is
+turning.”
+
+They, who have habituated themselves to live for others, can suffer as
+well as do great things. Josephine kept alive. A passion such as hers,
+in a selfish nature, must have killed her.
+
+Even as it was, she often said, “It is hard to live.”
+
+Then they used to talk to her of her boy. Would she leave him--Camille’s
+boy--without a mother? And these words were never spoken to her quite in
+vain.
+
+Her mother forgave her entirely, and loved her as before. Who could be
+angry with her long? The air was no longer heavy with lies. Wretched as
+she was, she breathed lighter. Joy and hope were gone. Sorrowful peace
+was coming. When the heart comes to this, nothing but Time can cure; but
+what will not Time do? What wounds have I seen him heal! His cures are
+incredible.
+
+
+The little party sat one day, peaceful, but silent and sad, in the
+Pleasaunce, under the great oak.
+
+Two soldiers came to the gate. They walked feebly, for one was lame, and
+leaned upon the other, who was pale and weak, and leaned upon a stick.
+
+“Soldiers,” said Raynal, “and invalided.”
+
+“Give them food and wine,” said Josephine.
+
+Rose went towards them; but she had scarcely taken three steps ere she
+cried out,--
+
+“It is Dard! it is poor Dard! Come in, Dard, come in.”
+
+Dard limped towards them, leaning upon Sergeant La Croix. A bit of
+Dard’s heel had been shot away, and of La Croix’s head.
+
+Rose ran to the kitchen.
+
+“Jacintha, bring out a table into the Pleasaunce, and something for two
+guests to eat.”
+
+The soldiers came slowly to the Pleasaunce, and were welcomed, and
+invited to sit down, and received with respect; for France even in that
+day honored the humblest of her brave.
+
+Soon Jacintha came out with a little round table in her hands, and
+affected a composure which was belied by her shaking hands and her
+glowing cheek.
+
+After a few words of homely welcome--not eloquent, but very sincere--she
+went off again with her apron to her eyes. She reappeared with the good
+cheer, and served the poor fellows with radiant zeal.
+
+“What regiment?” asked Raynal.
+
+Dard was about to answer, but his superior stopped him severely;
+then, rising with his hand to his forehead, he replied, with pride,
+“Twenty-fourth brigade, second company. We were cut up at Philipsburg,
+and incorporated with the 12th.”
+
+Raynal instantly regretted his question; for Josephine’s eye fixed on
+Sergeant La Croix with an expression words cannot paint. Yet she showed
+more composure, real or forced, than he expected.
+
+“Heaven sends him,” said she. “My friend, tell me, were you--ah!”
+
+Colonel Raynal interfered hastily. “Think what you do. He can tell you
+nothing but what we know, not so much, in fact, as we know; for, now I
+look at him, I think this is the very sergeant we found lying insensible
+under the bastion. He must have been struck before the bastion was taken
+even.”
+
+“I was, colonel, I was. I remember nothing but losing my senses, and
+feeling the colors go out of my hand.”
+
+“There, you see, he knows nothing,” said Raynal.
+
+“It was hot work, colonel, under that bastion, but it was hotter to the
+poor fellows that got in. I heard all about it from Private Dard here.”
+
+“So, then, it was you who carried the colors?”
+
+“Yes, I was struck down with the colors of the brigade in my hand,”
+ cried La Croix.
+
+“See how people blunder about, everything; they told me the colonel
+carried the colors.”
+
+“Why, of course he did. You don’t think our colonel, the fighting
+colonel, would let me hold the colors of the brigade so long as he was
+alive. No; he was struck by a Prussian bullet, and he had just time to
+hand the colors to me, and point with his sword to the bastion, and down
+he went. It was hot work, I can tell you. I did not hold them long, not
+thirty seconds, and if we could know their history, they passed through
+more hands than that before they got to the Prussian flag-staff.”
+
+Raynal suddenly rose, and walked rapidly to and fro, with his hands
+behind him.
+
+“Poor colonel!” continued La Croix. “Well, I love to think he died like
+a soldier, and not like some of my poor comrades, hashed to atoms, and
+not a volley fired over him. I hope they put a stone over him, for he
+was the best soldier and the best general in the army.”
+
+“O sir!” cried Josephine, “there is no stone even to mark the spot where
+he fell,” and she sobbed despairingly.
+
+“Why, how is this, Private Dard?” inquired La Croix, sternly.
+
+Dard apologized for his comrade, and touching his own head significantly
+told them that since his wound the sergeant’s memory was defective.
+
+“Now, sergeant, didn’t I tell you the colonel must have got the better
+of his wound, and got into the battery?”
+
+“It’s false, Private Dard; don’t I know our colonel better than that?
+Would ever he have let those colors out of his hand, if there had been
+an ounce of life left in him?”
+
+“He died at the foot of the battery, I tell you.”
+
+“Then why didn’t we find him?”
+
+Here Jacintha put in a word with the quiet subdued meaning of her class.
+“I can’t find that anybody ever saw the colonel dead.”
+
+“They did not find him, because they did not look for him,” said
+Sergeant La Croix.
+
+“God forgive you, sergeant!” said Dard, with some feeling. “Not look
+for OUR COLONEL! We turned over every body that lay there,--full thirty
+there were,--and you were one of them.”
+
+“Only thirty! Why, we settled more Prussians than that, I’ll swear.”
+
+“Oh! they carried off their dead.”
+
+“Ay! but I don’t see why they should carry our colonel off. His epaulets
+was all the thieves could do any good with. Stop! yet I do, Private
+Dard; I have a horrible suspicion. No, I have not; it is a certainty.
+What! don’t you see, ye ninny? Thunder and thousands of devils, here’s a
+disgrace. Dogs of Prussians! they have got our colonel, they have taken
+him prisoner.”
+
+“O God bless them!” cried Josephine; “O God bless the mouth that tells
+me so! O sir, I am his wife, his poor heart-broken wife. You would not
+be so cruel as to mock my despair. Say again that he may be alive, pray,
+say it again!”
+
+“His wife! Private Dard, why didn’t you tell me? You tell me nothing.
+Yes, my pretty lady, I’ll say it again, and I’ll prove it. Here is an
+enemy in full retreat, would they encumber themselves with the colonel?
+If he was dead, they’d have whipped off his epaulets, and left him
+there. Alive? why not? Look at me: I am alive, and I was worse wounded
+than he was. They took me for dead, you see. Courage, madame! you will
+see him again, take an old soldier’s word for it. Dard, attention! this
+is the colonel’s wife.”
+
+She gazed on the speaker like one in a trance.
+
+Every eye and every soul had been so bent on Sergeant La Croix that it
+was only now Raynal was observed to be missing. The next minute he came
+riding out of the stable-yard, and went full gallop down the road.
+
+“Ah!” cried Rose, with a burst of hope; “he thinks so too; he has hopes.
+He is gone somewhere for information. Perhaps to Paris.”
+
+Josephine’s excitement and alternations of hope and fear were now
+alarming. Rose held her hand, and implored her to try and be calm till
+they could see Raynal.
+
+Just before dark he came riding fiercely home. Josephine flew down the
+stairs. Raynal at sight of her forgot all his caution. He waved his
+cocked hat in the air. She fell on her knees and thanked God. He gasped
+out,--
+
+“Prisoner--exchanged for two Prussian lieutenants--sent home--they say
+he is in France!”
+
+The tears of joy gushed in streams from her.
+
+Some days passed in hope and joy inexpressible; but the good doctor
+was uneasy for Josephine. She was always listening with supernatural
+keenness and starting from her chair, and every fibre of her lovely
+person seemed to be on the quiver.
+
+Nor was Rose without a serious misgiving. Would husband and wife ever
+meet? He evidently looked on her as Madame Raynal, and made it a point
+of honor to keep away from Beaurepaire.
+
+They had recourse to that ever-soothing influence--her child. Madame
+Jouvenel was settled in the village, and Josephine visited her every
+day, and came back often with red eyes, but always soothed.
+
+One day Rose and she went to Madame Jouvenel, and, entering the house
+without ceremony, found the nurse out, and no one watching the child.
+
+“How careless!” said Rose.
+
+Josephine stopped eagerly to kiss him. But instead of kissing him, she
+uttered a loud cry. There was a locket hanging round his neck.
+
+It was a locket containing some of Josephine’s hair and Camille’s. She
+had given it him in the happy days that followed their marriage. She
+stood gasping in the middle of the room. Madame Jouvenel came running
+in soon after. Josephine, by a wonderful effort over herself, asked her
+calmly and cunningly,--
+
+“Where is the gentleman who put this locket round my child’s neck? I
+want to speak with him.”
+
+Madame Jouvenel stammered and looked confused.
+
+“A soldier--an officer?--come, tell me!”
+
+“Woman,” cried Rose, “why do you hesitate?”
+
+“What am I to do?” said Madame Jouvenel. “He made me swear never to
+mention his coming here. He goes away, or hides whenever you come. And
+since Madame does not love the poor wounded gentleman, what can he do
+better?”
+
+“Not love him!” cried Rose: “why, she is his wife, his lawful wedded
+wife; he is a fool or a monster to run away for her. She loves him as no
+woman ever loved before. She pines for him. She dies for him.”
+
+The door of a little back room opened at these words of Rose, and there
+stood Camille, with his arm in a sling, pale and astounded, but great
+joy and wonder working in his face.
+
+Josephine gave a cry of love that made the other two women weep, and in
+a moment they were sobbing for joy upon each other’s neck.
+
+Away went sorrow, doubt, despair, and all they had suffered. That one
+moment paid for all. And in that moment of joy and surprise, so great as
+to be almost terrible, perhaps it was well for Josephine that Camille,
+weakened by his wound, was quite overcome, and nearly fainted. She was
+herself just going into hysterics; but, seeing him quite overcome,
+she conquered them directly, and nursed, and soothed, and pitied, and
+encouraged him instead.
+
+Then they sat hand in hand. Their happiness stopped their very breath.
+They could not speak. So Rose told him all. He never owned why he had
+slipped away when he saw them coming. He forgot it. He forgot all his
+hard thoughts of her. They took him home in the carriage. His wife would
+not let him out of her sight. For years and years after this she could
+hardly bear to let him be an hour out of her sight.
+
+The world is wide; there may be a man in it who can paint the sudden
+bliss that fell on these two much suffering hearts; but I am not that
+man; this is beyond me; it was not only heaven, but heaven after hell.
+
+Leave we the indescribable and the unspeakable for a moment, and go to a
+lighter theme.
+
+The day Rose’s character was so unexpectedly cleared, Edouard had no
+opportunity of speaking to her, or a reconciliation would have taken
+place. As it was, he went home intensely happy. But he did not resume
+his visits to the chateau. When he came to think calmly over it, his
+vanity was cruelly mortified. She was innocent of the greater offence;
+but how insolently she had sacrificed him, his love, and his respect, to
+another’s interest.
+
+More generous thoughts prevailed by degrees. And one day that her pale
+face, her tears, and her remorse got the better of his offended pride,
+he determined to give her a good lecture that should drown her in
+penitent tears; and then end by forgiving her. For one thing he could
+not be happy till he had forgiven her.
+
+She walked into the room with a calm, dignified, stately air, and before
+he could utter one word of his grave remonstrance, attacked him thus:
+“You wish to speak to me, sir. If it is to apologize to me, I will save
+your vanity the mortification. I forgive you.”
+
+“YOU forgive ME!” cried Edouard furiously.
+
+“No violence, if you please,” said the lady with cold hauteur. “Let us
+be friends, as Josephine and Raynal are. We cannot be anything more
+to one another now. You have wounded me too deeply by your jealous,
+suspicious nature.”
+
+Edouard gasped for breath, and was so far out-generalled that he
+accepted the place of defendant. “Wasn’t I to believe your own lips? Did
+not Colonel Raynal believe you?”
+
+“Oh, that’s excusable. He did not know me. But you were my lover; you
+ought to have seen I was forced to deceive poor Raynal. How dare you
+believe your eyes; much more your ears, against my truth, against my
+honor; and then to believe such nonsense?” Then, with a grand assumption
+of superior knowledge, says she, “You little simpleton, how could the
+child be mine when I wasn’t married at all?”
+
+At this reproach, Edouard first stared, then grinned. “I forgot that,”
+ said he.
+
+“Yes, and you forgot the moon isn’t made of green cheese. However, if I
+saw you very humble, and very penitent, I might, perhaps, really forgive
+you--in time.”
+
+“No, forgive me at once. I don’t understand your angelical, diabolical,
+incomprehensible sex: who on earth can? forgive me.”
+
+“Oh! oh! oh! oh!”
+
+Lo! the tears that could not come at a remonstrance were flowing in a
+stream at his generosity.
+
+“What is the matter now?” said he tenderly. She cried away, but at the
+same time explained,--
+
+“What a f--f--foolish you must be not to see that it is I who am without
+excuse. You were my betrothed. It was to you I owed my duty; not my
+sister. I am a wicked, unhappy girl. How you must hate me!”
+
+“I adore you. There, no more forgiving on either side. Let our only
+quarrel be who shall love the other best.”
+
+“Oh, I know how that will be,” said the observant toad. “You will love
+me best till you have got me; and then I shall love you best; oh, ever
+so much.”
+
+However, the prospect of loving best did not seem disagreeable to her;
+for with this announcement she deposited her head on his shoulder, and
+in that attitude took a little walk with him up and down the Pleasaunce:
+sixty times; about eight miles.
+
+These two were a happy pair. This wayward, but generous heart never
+forgot her offence, and his forgiveness. She gave herself to him heart
+and soul, at the altar, and well she redeemed her vow. He rose high in
+political life: and paid the penalty of that sort of ambition; his
+heart was often sore. But by his own hearth sat comfort and ever ready
+sympathy. Ay, and patient industry to read blue-books, and a ready hand
+and brain to write diplomatic notes for him, off which the mind glided
+as from a ball of ice.
+
+In thirty years she never once mentioned the servants to him.
+
+“Oh, let eternal honor crown her name!”
+
+It was only a little bit of heel that Dard had left in Prussia. More
+fortunate than his predecessor (Achilles), he got off with a slight but
+enduring limp. And so the army lost him.
+
+He married Jacintha, and Josephine set them up in Bigot’s, (deceased)
+auberge. Jacintha shone as a landlady, and custom flowed in. For all
+that, a hankering after Beaurepaire was observable in her. Her favorite
+stroll was into the Beaurepaire kitchen, and on all fetes and grand
+occasions she was prominent in gay attire as a retainer of the house.
+The last specimen of her homely sagacity I shall have the honor to lay
+before you is a critique upon her husband, which she vented six years
+after marriage.
+
+“My Dard,” said she, “is very good as far as he goes. What he has felt
+himself, that he can feel FOR: nobody better. You come to him with an
+empty belly, or a broken head, or all bleeding with a cut, or black
+and blue, and you shall find a friend. But if it is a sore heart, or
+trouble, and sorrow, and no hole in your carcass to show for it, you had
+better come to ME; for you might as well tell your grief to a stone wall
+as to my man.”
+
+
+The baroness took her son Raynal to Paris, and there, with keen eye,
+selected him a wife. She proved an excellent one. It would have been
+hard if she had not, for the baroness with the severe sagacity of her
+age and sex, had set aside as naught a score of seeming angels, before
+she could suit herself with a daughter-in-law. At first the Raynals very
+properly saw little of the Dujardins; but when both had been married
+some years, the recollection of that fleeting and nominal connection
+waxed faint, while the memory of great benefits conferred on both sides
+remained lively as ever in hearts so great, and there was a warm, a
+sacred friendship between the two houses--a friendship of the ancient
+Greeks, not of the modern club-house.
+
+Camille and Josephine were blessed almost beyond the lot of humanity:
+none can really appreciate sunshine but those who come out of the cold
+dark. And so with happiness. For years they could hardly be said to live
+like mortals: they basked in bliss. But it was a near thing; for they
+but just scraped clear of life-long misery, and death’s cold touch
+grazed them both as they went.
+
+Yet they had heroic virtues to balance White Lies in the great Judge’s
+eye.
+
+A wholesome lesson, therefore, and a warning may be gathered from this
+story: and I know many novelists who would have preached that lesson at
+some length in every other chapter, and interrupted the sacred
+narrative to do it. But when I read stories so mutilated, I think of a
+circumstance related by Mr. Joseph Miller.
+
+“An Englishman sojourning in some part of Scotland was afflicted with
+many hairs in the butter, and remonstrated. He was told, in reply, that
+the hairs and the butter came from one source--the cow; and that the
+just and natural proportions hitherto observed, could not be deranged,
+and bald butter invented--for ONE. ‘So be it,’ said the Englishman; ‘but
+let me have the butter in one plate, and the hairs in another.’”
+
+Acting on this hint, I have reserved some admirable remarks,
+reflections, discourses, and tirades, until the story should be ended,
+and the other plate be ready for the subsidiary sermon.
+
+And now that the proper time is come, that love of intruding one’s own
+wisdom in one’s own person on the reader, which has marred so many works
+of art, is in my case restrained--first, by pure fatigue; secondly,
+because the moral of this particular story stands out so clear in the
+narrative, that he who runs may read it without any sermon at all.
+
+Those who will not take the trouble to gather my moral from the living
+tree, would not lift it out of my dead basket: would not unlock their
+jaw-bones to bite it, were I to thrust it into their very mouths.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of White Lies, by Charles Reade
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