II

The two personages whom we have mentioned, Indiana Delmare and Sir

Ralph, or, if you prefer, Monsieur Rodolphe Brown, continued to face

each other, as calm and cold as if the husband were standing between

them. The Englishman had no idea of justifying himself, and Madame

Delmare realized that she had no serious grounds for reproaching him,

for he had spoken with no evil intention. At last, making an effort, she

broke the silence and upbraided him mildly.

"That was not well done of you, my dear Ralph," she said. "I had

forbidden you to repeat the words that I let slip in a moment of pain,

and Monsieur Delmare is the last person in the world whom I should want

told of my trouble."

"I can't understand you, my dear," Sir Ralph replied; "you are ill and

you refuse to take care of yourself. I had to choose between the chance

of losing you and the necessity of letting your husband know."

"Yes," said Madame Delmare, with a sad smile, "and you decided to

_notify the authorities._"

"You are wrong, you are wrong, on my word, to allow yourself to inveigh

so against the colonel; he is a man of honor, a worthy man."

"And who says that he's not, Sir Ralph?"

"Why, you do, without meaning to. Your depression, your ailing

condition, and, as he himself observes, your red eyes, tell everybody

every hour in the day that you are not happy."

"Hush, Sir Ralph, you go too far. I have never given you permission to

find out so much."

"I anger you, I see; but what would you have! I am not clever; I am not

acquainted with the subtle distinctions of your language, and then, too,

I resemble your husband in many ways. Like him I am utterly in the dark

as to what a man must say to a woman, either in English or in French, to

console her. Another man would have conveyed to your mind, without

putting it in words, the idea that I have just expressed so awkwardly;

he would have had the art to insinuate himself into your confidence

without allowing you to detect his progress, and perhaps he would have

succeeded in affording some relief to your heart, which puts fetters on

itself and locks itself up before me. This is not the first time that I

have noticed how much more influence words have upon women than ideas,

especially in France. Women more than----"

"Oh! you have a profound contempt for women, my dear Ralph. I am alone

here against two of you, so I must make up my mind never to be right."

"Put us in the wrong, my dear cousin, by recovering your health, your

good spirits, your bloom, your animation of the old days; remember Ile

Bourbon and that delightful retreat of ours, Bernica, and our happy

childhood, and our friendship, which is as old as you are yourself."

"I remember my father, too," said Indiana, dwelling sadly upon the words

and placing her hand in Sir Ralph's.

They relapsed into profound silence.

"Indiana," said Ralph, after a pause, "happiness is always within our

reach. Often one has only to put out his hand to grasp it. What do you

lack? You have modest competence, which is preferable to great wealth,

an excellent husband, who loves you with all his heart, and, I dare to

assert, a sincere and devoted friend."

Madame Delmare pressed Sir Ralph's hand faintly, but she did not change

her attitude; her head still hung forward on her breast and her

tear-dimmed eyes were fixed on the magic effects produced by the embers.

"Your depression, my dear friend," continued Sir Ralph, "is due purely

to physical causes; which one of us can escape disappointment, vexation?

Look below you and you will see people who envy you, and with good

reason. Man is so constituted that he always aspires to what he has

not."

I spare you a multitude of other commonplaces which the excellent Sir

Ralph put forth in a tone as monotonous and sluggish as his thoughts. It

was not that Sir Ralph was a fool, but he was altogether out of his

element. He lacked neither common sense nor shrewdness; but the rôle of

consoler of women was, as he himself acknowledged, beyond his capacity.

And this man had so little comprehension of another's grief, that with

the best possible disposition to furnish a remedy, he could not touch it

without inflaming it. He was so conscious of his awkwardness that he

rarely ventured to take notice of his friend's sorrows; and on this

occasion he made superhuman efforts to perform what he considered the

most painful duty of friendship.

When he saw that Madame Delmare was obliged to make an effort to listen

to him, he held his peace, and naught could be heard save the

innumerable little voices whispering in the burning wood, the plaintive

song of the log as it becomes heated and swells, the crackling of the

bark as it curls before breaking, and the faint phosphorescent

explosions of the alburnum, which emits a bluish flame. From time to

time the baying of a dog mingled with the whistling of the wind through

the cracks of the door and the beating of the rain against the

windowpanes. That evening was one of the saddest that Madame Delmare had

yet passed in her little manor-house in Brie.

Moreover, an indefinable vague feeling of suspense weighed upon that

impressionable soul and its delicate fibres. Weak creatures live on

alarms and presentiments. Madame Delmare had all the superstitions of a

nervous, sickly Creole; certain nocturnal sounds, certain phases of the

moon were to her unfailing presages of specific events, of impending

misfortunes, and the night spoke to that dreamy, melancholy creature a

language full of mysteries and phantoms which she alone could understand

and translate according to her fears and her sufferings.

"You will say again that I am mad," she said, withdrawing her hand,

which Sir Ralph still held, "but some disaster, I don't know what, is

preparing to fall upon us. Some danger is impending over

someone--myself, no doubt--but, look you, Ralph, I feel intensely

agitated, as at the approach of a great crisis in my destiny. I am

afraid," she added, with a shudder, "I feel faint."

And her lips became as white as her cheeks. Sir Ralph, terrified, not by

Madame Delmare's presentiments, which he looked upon as symptoms of

extreme mental exhaustion, but by her deathly pallor, pulled the

bell-rope violently to summon assistance. No one came, and as Indiana

grew weaker and weaker, Sir Ralph, more alarmed in proportion, moved her

away from the fire, deposited her in a reclining chair, and ran through

the house at random, calling the servants, looking for water or salts,

finding nothing, breaking all the bell-ropes, losing his way in the

labyrinth of dark rooms, and wringing his hands with impatience and

anger against himself.

At last it occurred to him to open the glass door that led into the

park, and to call alternately Lelièvre and Noun, Madame Delmare's

Creole maid.

A few moments later Noun appeared from one of the dark paths in the

park, and hastily inquired if Madame Delmare were worse than usual.

"She is really ill," replied Sir Ralph.

They returned to the salon and devoted themselves to the task of

restoring the unconscious Madame Delmare, one with all the ardor of

useless and awkward zeal, the other with the skill and efficacy of

womanly affection.

Noun was Madame Delmare's foster-sister; the two young women had been

brought up together and loved each other dearly. Noun was tall and

strong, glowing with health, active, alert, overflowing with ardent,

passionate creole blood; and she far outshone with her resplendent

beauty the frail and pallid charms of Madame Delmare; but the tenderness

of their hearts and the strength of their attachment killed every

feeling of feminine rivalry.

When Madame Delmare recovered consciousness, the first thing that she

observed was the unusual expression of her maid's features, the damp and

disordered condition of her hair and the excitement which was manifest

in her every movement.

"Courage, my poor child," she said kindly; "my illness is more

disastrous to you than to myself. Why, Noun, you are the one to take

care of yourself; you are growing thin and weeping as if it were not

your destiny to live; dear Noun, life is so bright and fair before you!"

Noun pressed Madame Delmare's hand to her lips effusively, and said, in

a sort of frenzy, glancing wildly about the room:

"_Mon Dieu!_ madame, do you know why Monsieur Delmare is in the park?"

"Why?" echoed Indiana, losing instantly the faint flush that had

reappeared on her cheeks. "Wait a moment--I don't know--You frighten me!

What is the matter, pray?"

"Monsieur Delmare declares that there are thieves in the park," replied

Noun in a broken voice. "He is making the rounds with Lelièvre, both

armed with guns."

"Well?" said Indiana, apparently expecting some shocking news.

"Why, madame," rejoined Noun, clasping her hands frantically, "isn't it

horrible to think that they are going to kill a man?"

"Kill a man!" cried Madame Delmare, springing to her feet with the

terrified credulity of a child frightened by it's nurse's tales.

"Ah! yes, they will kill him," said Noun, stifling her sobs.

"These two women are mad," thought Sir Ralph, who was watching this

strange scene with a bewildered air. "Indeed," he added mentally, "all

women are."

"But why do you say that, Noun," continued Madame Delmare; "do you

believe that there are any thieves there?"

"Oh! if they were really thieves! but some poor peasant perhaps, who has

come to pick up a handful of wood for his family!"

"Yes, that would be ghastly, as you say! But it is not probable; right

at the entrance to Fontainebleau forest, when it is so easy to steal

wood there, nobody would take the risk of a park enclosed by walls. Bah!

Monsieur Delmare won't find anybody in the park, so don't you be

afraid."

[Illustration 02:_MADAME DELMARE DRESSES DE

RAMIÈRES WOUNDS._

_A mattress was placed on several chairs, and

Indiana, assisted by her women, busied herself in

dressing the wounded hand, while Sir Ralph, who

had some surgical knowledge, drew a large quantity

of blood from him._]

But Noun was not listening; she walked from the window to her mistress's

chair, her ears strained to catch the slightest sound; she seemed torn

between the longing to run after Monsieur Delmare and the desire to

remain with the invalid.

Her anxiety seemed so strange, so uncalled-for to Monsieur Brown, that

he laid aside his customary mildness of manner, and said, grasping her

arm roughly:

"Have you lost your wits altogether? don't you see that you frighten

your mistress and that your absurd alarms have a disastrous effect upon

her?"

Noun did not hear him; she had turned her eyes upon her mistress, who

had just started on her chair as if the concussion of the air had

imparted an electric shock to her senses. Almost at the same instant the

report of a gun shook the windows of the salon, and Noun fell upon her

knees.

"What miserable woman's terrors!" cried Sir Ralph, worn out by their

emotion; "in a moment a dead rabbit will be brought to you in triumph,

and you will laugh at yourselves."

"No, Ralph," said Madame Delmare, walking with a firm step toward the

door, "I tell you that human blood has been shed."

Noun uttered a piercing shriek and fell upon her face.

The next moment they heard Lelièvre's voice in the park:

"He's there! he's there! Well aimed, my colonel! the brigand is down!"

Sir Ralph began to be excited. He followed Madame Delmare. A few moments

later a man covered with blood and giving no sign of life was brought

under the peristyle.

"Not so much noise! less shrieking!" said the colonel with rough gayety

to the terrified servants who crowded around the wounded man; "this is

only a joke; my gun was loaded with nothing but salt. Indeed I don't

think I touched him; he fell from fright."

"But what about this blood, monsieur?" said Madame Delmare in a

profoundly reproachful tone, "was it fear that caused it to flow?"

"Why are you here, madame?" cried Monsieur Delmare, "what are you doing

here?"

"I have come to repair the harm that you have done, as it is my duty to

do," replied Madame Delmare coldly.

She walked up to the wounded man with a courage of which no one of the

persons present had as yet felt capable, and held a light to his face.

Thereupon, instead of the plebeian features and garments which they

expected to see, they discovered a young man with noble features and

fashionably dressed, albeit in hunting costume. He had a trifling wound

on one hand, but his torn clothes and his swoon indicated a serious

fall.

"I should say as much!" said Lelièvre; "he fell from a height of twenty

feet. He was just putting his leg over the wall when the colonel fired,

and a few grains of small shot or salt in the right hand prevented his

getting a hold. The fact is, I saw him fall, and when he got to the

bottom he wasn't thinking much about running away, poor devil!"

"Would any one believe," said one of the female servants, "that a man so

nicely dressed would amuse himself by stealing?"

"And his pockets are full of money!" said another, who had unbuttoned

the supposed thief's waistcoat.

"It is very strange," said the colonel, gazing, not without emotion, at

the man stretched out before him. "If the man is dead it's not my fault;

examine his hand, madame, and see if you can find a particle of lead in

it."

"I prefer to believe you, monsieur," replied Madame Delmare, who, with a

self-possession and moral courage of which no one would have deemed her

capable, was closely scrutinizing his pulse and the arteries of his

neck. "Certainly," she added, "he is not dead, and he requires speedy

attention. The man hasn't the appearance of a thief and perhaps he

deserves our care; even if he does not deserve it, our duty calls upon

us women to care for him none the less."

Thereupon Madame Delmare ordered the wounded man to be carried to the

billiard room, which was nearest. A mattress was placed on several

chairs, and Indiana, assisted by her women, busied herself in dressing

the wounded hand, while Sir Ralph, who had some surgical knowledge, drew

a large quantity of blood from him.

Meanwhile, the colonel, much embarrassed, found himself in the position

of a man who has shown more ill-temper than he intended to show. He felt

the necessity of justifying himself in the eyes of the others, or rather

of making them justify him in his own eyes. So he had remained under the

peristyle, surrounded by his servants, and indulging with them in the

excited, prolix and perfectly useless disquisitions which are always

forthcoming after the event. Lelièvre had already explained twenty

times, with the most minute details, the shot, the fall and its results,

while the colonel, who had recovered his good-nature among his own

people, according to his custom, after giving way to his anger,

impeached the purposes of a man who entered private property in the

night-time over the wall. Every one agreed with the master, when the

gardener, quietly leading him aside, assured him that the thief was the

living image of a young land-owner who had recently settled in the

neighborhood, and whom he had seen talking with Mademoiselle Noun three

days before at the rustic fête at Rubelles.

This information gave a different turn to Monsieur Delmare's ideas; on

his ample forehead, bald and glistening, appeared a huge swollen vein,

which was always the precursor of a tempest.

"Morbleu!" he said, clenching his fists, "Madame Delmare takes a deal of

interest in this puppy, who sneaks into my park over the wall!"

And he entered the billiard room, pale and trembling with wrath.