LX

That wild night-ride through the beech-forest back to Widinitz, and the

interview with his mother at the Convent of the Carmelites, was ever to

Dunoisse the most unreal, the most strange of all those adventures that

seemed as though woven upon the loom of Sleep.

He remembered his lost mother as so tall--yet, when the dark woolen

curtains hanging behind the double grating that halved the Convent

parlor had been drawn back, revealing the two brown-robed, black-veiled

figures--the shape that had put its veil aside with a little, shrunken

hand, and called him by his name--had appeared to be barely above the

stature of a child.

Not in the haggard, ashen-gray face, closely framed in the conventual

folds of white linen--its features pinched and drawn, its eyes almost

extinguished as though with constant weeping--was there anything left

that recalled in the remotest degree the lovely, beloved mother of the

old, unforgotten days....

Only the voice, so soaked with tears, so changed from that of her son’s

remembrance, retained tones that well-nigh wrought Dunoisse to a wild

outbreak of weeping, though sometimes in the dim and sunken eyes there

shone a transient ray of the dear light of old.

If she had shrieked, it would have pierced the heart less than her

immobile and rigorous quiescence. Yet her trembling could not be

controlled by any act of will. Between the visitor who stood upon one

side of the double grille, and the brown-robed, black-veiled figure

seated upon the other, a current of hot air might have been rising, the

shape so quivered and vibrated and shuddered before his eyes.

Ah! could he have realized the wild conflict of emotions surging under

the white _guimpe_ and the coarse brown habit.... But if the weak

body of Sister Térèse de Saint François was shaken as a reed, her

determination was immovable; her word was not to be gainsaid.

Never, never!--though the Plenum of the Federative Council should throw

all its “Ayes!” into the scale that confirmed the females of the house

of Widinitz and their heirs in the dynastic succession, would the

nun-Princess consent to her son’s occupying the throne.

Saying the word so softly in her threadlike, feeble voice, her “Never!”

reared between Hector and the hereditary dignities a Titanic wall of

rock, that no tempered tool might pierce, no fulminate shatter and

blast.

So it was quashed and ended, the vexed question of the Claim of

Succession. And Dunoisse drew breath with almost a sensation of relief.

Of reproach there was not a shadow in her voice or expression. She

had not heard--possibly she had not heard?--that her son had not

lacked a companion on his journey. Those scathing reproaches of the

Archbishop’s were not to be voiced again by Sister Térèse. She spoke

of the Marshal--asked of his health? Their son felt himself flushing

guiltily in the sheer inability to reply with authority. Who knew less

of Achille Dunoisse, well or ill, jaundiced or jovial, gouty or in good

fettle, than the son he had begotten? Tardy Conscience, waking from a

nodding sleep in the saddle, dug both spurs rowel-deep in Dunoisse’s

smart sides. His eyes shunned the sunken eyes that questioned with

such desperate eagerness, belying the sparse, meager utterance, the

carefully colorless tone. He stammered a conventional reply.

“You will give him a message from me, when you return to him,” she

said, and dropped the faded curtains of her eyelids between them....

“Tell him that I who know him to be infinitely generous and noble at

heart”--Dunoisse barely restrained a start of incredulous surprise at

the new idea of nobility in connection with the Marshal--“tell him that

I was never led by any act of his to doubt the disinterestedness of

his regard. And say to him, that what he wildly dreams may one day be

brought about, cannot and will not! That in the parched and dried-up

skeleton you have seen here at the Convent there is no beauty left to

covet. Entreat of him to think of his wife and your mother as one who

has passed forever beyond the gates of this world.... For I have chosen

to be dead whilst living,” said the thread-thin, trembling voice,

“that by the Divine Mercy not only I, but others--may not taste of the

Death that is eternal.” She added, almost inaudibly: “My strength is

not great, Hector. I have suffered much lately.... Take my blessing

now, and go.”

She rose from what was now revealed as a wooden stool, and as her

son knelt down before the inexorable grating, she thrust a slender,

wasted finger between the iron wires of the lattice, and lightly traced

the Sign of the Cross upon his brow. How its touch thrilled him--the

withered little finger that Achille Dunoisse had kissed with such

exuberant rapture! Her son would have pressed his lips to it, but that

she drew it quickly away. He said in a tone of bitter sadness, for the

slight involuntary recoil had wounded:

“Ah!--you do well to shrink from me, my mother!--could you know all!...”

She put up her little shaking hand, and swiftly pulled her close black

veil down, and breathed from behind its screen:

“I do know all.... It is not for me to judge you--whose veins were

filled from mine....”

“Mother!” broke from Hector hoarsely, for her terrible humility

appalled him. It was as though she had bared her scarred shoulders in

his sight, and bent her frail strength to the scourge. She silenced

him by a gesture, and continued, in a whisper so faint that it barely

reached his ears:

“But if you can--atone!”

The veil was lifted, the sunken eyes met Hector’s.... What infinite

tenderness shone in their dark gray depths. She said, in the voice that

fluttered like a cobweb in the wind: “For there is but one road to

peace, and that is the Way of Expiation. My feet have stumbled amidst

its thorns for many years now.... Farewell! Pray for me! Tell your

father I----”

Dunoisse had no more words of her. The little figure had swayed and

wavered, the watchful Sister in attendance had stepped forwards and

thrown an arm about it and pulled the curtain-rope with her disengaged

hand. And the black woolen drapery had fallen, with a rattling of

metal rings,--and Dunoisse as he stumbled from the parlor, blinded by

rushing tears, knew that he had looked his last, in this world, upon

his mother....

But the details of that brief meeting remained as bitten in with acid

on the memory of the son. An elderly woman, who served the Sisters

as portress of the Convent’s outer gate, contributed a touch or

two to the unforgettable picture; speaking, in tones of genuinely

affectionate reverence, as she guided the stranger, by the light of

the evil-smelling tallow candle in her iron lantern, through divers

stone-flagged passages previously traversed, of Sister Térèse de Saint

François.

* * * * *

“Who has been our Mother Prioress now ten years, and a holier and

wiser never ruled the Convent. And how she wept, dear, humble soul!

when the decision of the Chapter was made known to her at Vienna. She

implored the Mother-General, upon her knees, to spare her the shame

of being sent back to rule her superiors in piety and obedience ...

but no! it had to be.... Thenceforth--until her strength gave out--the

tasks that were too heavy for the most energetic were performed by

the Mother-Prioress, who was the weakest of all. And to this day,

when compelled to rebuke a sister for a fault, she will first beg her

forgiveness; or, when any specially heavy penance will be enjoined

upon another by the Father-Director, she will meet such a one as she

comes from the confessional and whisper: _‘Tell me what it is, so that

I may perform it with you!...’_ One might truly say our Mother has

a zest for mortification, and an appetite for fasting that is never

satisfied.” The portress, whose rosy cheeks and plump figure testified

to a discreet enjoyment of the good things of the world, sighed and

shook her black-capped head as she added: “The _gnädiger Herr_ knows

that Saints are not made without suffering. Our Lord decreed it should

be so. And--come the Last Day--if I can catch on to the skirt of our

Reverend Mother’s habit--I dare to say I shall stand a better chance

than most. Good-night, _gnädiger Herr_!--or rather good-morning!--for

in another hour it will be day.” And the portress curtsied Dunoisse out

into the clammy grayness that heralded dawn, and closed and locked and

barred the Convent door. And as the stars paled and the wan moon reeled

northwards as though sickened at the spectacle of all the deeds that

are done by men under Night’s sable canopy, Dunoisse and Remorse rode

back through the shadowy forest roads, to the inn of “The Heron,” where

waited Henriette.

* * * * *

She had not been to bed. She had paced the single guest-room of the

posting-house all night, waiting in passionate impatience for her

lover’s return. When she heard his step upon the uncarpeted stair, she

ran to the door and opened it, and shut it when he entered; and threw

herself before it, and opened the flood-gates of her fury, that had

been pent up all those hours....

“So!... You have returned!... I presume I am expected to be grateful!

I, who have spent a night of horror in this miserable place with a pair

of frightened servants for my sole protectors and companions....”

“Are not von Steyregg and Köhler----?” Dunoisse began. She answered

before he had completed the sentence:

“They have taken what conveyance they could procure, and posted on to

Paris; and had I been wiser I would have accompanied them.... ‘_Had I

been wiser’_ do I say?...” She laughed angrily, plucking at the ribbon

of velvet that confined her swelling throat. “One grain of sense would

have saved me from the fatal error of accompanying you to that den

among the mountains--that hot-bed of bigotry and intolerance--whence

we have been--like a pair of lepers!--cast out.” Her teeth chattered,

she struck her mouth with her little clenched fist as relentlessly as

though it had been an enemy’s. “But you insisted,” she resumed--“I

yielded to your persuasions.... Oh!--how hideously I have been repaid!”

His haggard eyes regarded her with a dreadful recollection in them.

In her disarray and abandonment--the dishevelled hair, with its

drooping curls and loosened coils, the pallor of fatigue that warred

with the burnt flush of feverish excitement; the hinted lines and

indicated hollows in the passionate, mutinous, changeful face that

the merciless daylight revealed as it showed the crumpled silks

and soiled laces of the dinner-dress that had been so fresh and

dainty a few hours before--she was the Henriette of that morning of

his return to Paris--save for the branding mark upon her throat.

While in her disillusioned eyes he seemed almost plain, not at all

heroic--desperately uninteresting--a poor creature stripped of all his

princely garniture.... And she cried, in a voice unlike her own:

“For you have made me blush for you! Why could you not have gone

out upon the balcony and spoken to the people? Where were your

courage--your manliness--your strength?”

Dunoisse might have answered her: “With you!” but he bowed his head

in silence under the lashing hailstorm of her reproaches. The springs

of energy were dried up in him; he felt like an old man. She pursued,

while her beautiful eyes shot baleful lightnings, and her little teeth

gritted savagely:

“How can a woman of spirit love a man who is not manly? You will have

yourself to thank for whatever happens now!... Where have you been all

this night? What have you done? Into what new kennel of degradation

will you next drag me? Or having gone so far, will you abandon your

undeniable right, and seek no longer to obtain recognition of your

Claim of Succession from the Council of the Federation? That you intend

to do so I am quite prepared to hear!”

She paced the painted floor of the meagerly-furnished, bare inn

guest-chamber, dragging the woolen rugs awry with her trailing silken

flounces, spurning the spotted fawn skins with the toes of her little

satin shoes. Dunoisse murmured, as he sank down wearily into the

uncomfortable arms of a three-cornered elbow-chair of green-painted

pine, upholstered in Berlin-wool cross-stitch, and turned his eyes from

her:

“Dearest, my mother has put her veto on the affair--it is for her to

decide--and I am bound to respect her wishes.” He added, in a breaking

voice: “Would to Heaven they had been known to me before!”

“Your mother!--your mother!” she raved. “Is no one to be considered--no

one obeyed but she? You fool!--your wife might meekly submit to be

thrust aside because of your duty to your mother.... But not your

mistress!--not a woman like me!”

She was beside herself--a beautiful fury--her lovely face

distorted--her mouth wrung crooked with the bitter flood of invective,

insult, upbraiding, that came pouring from it. He rose, and said, in a

tone that was hostile and menacing, while the cold light in his black

eyes chilled and daunted her:

“When you speak of my mother, Madame, you will do so with

consideration, and respect, and reverence. Let that for the future be

understood.”

She laughed harshly, setting his teeth on edge with a sensation that

was sheer loathing of her. She said, shrugging her shoulders, driven on

to the verge of self-degradation by her resentment, and her contempt,

and her weariness; willing to break her spell over the man forever, if

only she might wound him sufficiently deep:

“With all my heart, Monsieur! But at the same time, accord to me a

measure of the consideration, respect, and so forth you lavish so

abundantly upon Madame there! I may lay claim to it, I fancy.... After

all, we are in the same galley; though, let me point out, _I_ was not

chained to the bench by an irrevocable vow.” She added, as Dunoisse

stared at her speechlessly: “Good Heavens! it is inconceivable that

nobody has ever told you, when people are so malicious! Have you never

heard that I was a novice in the Convent of the Vergen de la Soledad at

Cartagena when de Roux saw me, and fell in love with me, and begged me

to run away with him?...”

A strange sound came from the man’s throat. She pursued, cynically

smiling in his horror-stricken eyes, playing her little hand as though

she held a fan:

“Listen!... My father was killed when I was an infant. My mother died

when I was five years old. The Sisters of the Soledad brought me up

with the idea that I might perhaps become a religious.... I dreamed

of the vocation, and prayed much....” Her pearl-white teeth gleamed

between the mocking curves of scarlet. “Then--my dreams changed,”

she said, “and my prayers became shorter. Except the Chaplain who

confessed the nuns and the pupils, and the Bishop who visited us for

Confirmations, no man ever set foot inside the Convent walls. Yet

we elder girls constantly talked and thought of lovers, from little

Dolores, who was twelve and had a hump, to great Carlota, who was

seventeen, and ah! so beautiful.... And you may imagine whether or

no Henriette had her visions too!... Yet I was quite content to be

a nun.... I had had the White Veil of Reception from the Bishop on

my sixteenth birthday ... my behavior gave great edification to the

Sisters, and his Lordship, and the clergy ... everybody said, _‘That

young girl will one day become a Saint!’_ And one night, a week later,

I got over the garden-wall because a band was playing on the Calle

Major--I walked down the middle of the great, crowded street, in my

little old cast-off black alpaca Convent frock and blue ribbon....

I had left the habit and the White Veil folded on the pillow of

my bed.... A French officer accosted me and asked my name. It was

Eugéne--I thought him splendid!--perhaps he was--compared with the

Bishop, and the Chaplain, and the gardener.... And--I never went back

to the Convent of the Soledad. De Roux married me. Another man might

have been less honorable.... Perhaps it would have been wiser to have

waited, you may think?” She laughed jeeringly. “Some odd chance might

have brought you to Cartagena. Some lucky wind might have blown you

over the Convent garden-wall!”

The tale was a trumped-up one at least as regards the novice’s habit

and the White Veil--yet her gift of deception lent it such reality that

shame and horror struggled in the heart of the man who heard. To kill

her--and himself--was an almost ungovernable impulse, but he drove the

nails of his clenched hands deep into their palms, and moved stiffly

to the door, and Henriette shrank away.... If he had seized her by the

throat,--struck her and cursed her,--marred her beauty with merciless

bruises,--stabbed her, even,--he would have won her back again, though

only for a time.... But in conquering the mad desire to wreak such

brutal vengeance on the woman, he lost her irretrievably.... And so

went from her out into the clear morning sunshine, and fled blindly,

hunted by all the devils she had roused, into the dew-wet forest, and

flung himself face downwards amidst the tall golden bracken at the

knees of a graybeard oak that spread its giant boughs and browning

foliage as though to afford sanctuary to such hunted, desperate

creatures,--and wept, with groans and chokings--what bitter, scalding,

shameful tears....