At this reply a murmur not to be repressed ran through the assembly.
Those that sympathized with Gonzague before now sympathized more deeply
on hearing such an answer come so coldly from his wife's lips. Gonzague
allowed himself the luxury of a little, patient sigh, the privileged
protest of the good and just under an intolerable suspicion.
"I am not surprised. The princess does not know me. For seventeen years
the princess and I have been strangers. Now, for the first time, I can
show myself to my wife as I am." He addressed himself directly to the
princess: "Through all these seventeen years I, too, have been seeking
what you sought; but, more fortunate than you, I have succeeded where you
have failed."
He turned to Peyrolles, who was standing close to his master's side, and
commanded: "Bring in Mademoiselle Gabrielle de Nevers."
In a moment Peyrolles had vanished from the room, leaving every man in
the assembly impressed and startled by Gonzague's statement. The king
looked from Gonzague, whose face he had been studying while he spoke with
admiration and approval, and fixed his keen gaze upon the princess. She
alone, of all those in the room, seemed unmoved by the momentous tidings
that her husband had communicated. The younger men whispered among
themselves, the elders kept silence, but it was plain that their
curiosity was very great.
In a few moments Peyrolles returned to the room escorting Flora, now very
beautifully attired in a dress of simple richness.
Chavernay could not restrain his surprise as she entered. "The little
dancing-girl," he whispered to his right-hand neighbor, Choisy, but he
said no more. Even his airy nature was impressed by the stillness of the
company and the gravity of the situation.
Gonzague took the hand of Flora and conducted her across the room to the
princess. "Madame," he said, "I restore your child."
The princess looked fixedly at the girl, her thin hands clasping the arms
of her chair convulsively, and it could be seen that she was trembling
from head to foot. She was waiting for a voice, she was wondering if she
would hear a voice, and as she waited and wondered she heard a voice from
behind the curtain near where she sat apart, a voice which reached her
ears, a voice with a mysterious message--"I am here."
The princess clasped her hand to her heart. "Ah!" she murmured, "will
the dead speak? Is this my child?" And again the voice spoke and
answered: "No."
By this time Gonzague and the girl had reached the princess, who now rose
to her feet and confronted the pair as she spoke. "My child should have
with her a packet containing the page torn away from the register of the
chapel of Caylus, torn away with my own hands." She turned to Flora and
questioned her: "Have you that packet?"
Flora dropped on her knees and stretched out her hands with a pretty,
pathetic air of supplication. "Madame, I have nothing. Ah, madame, the
poor little gypsy girl asks of you neither wealth nor station; she only
entreats you to love her as she loves you."