HOW ANGELOT PLAYED THE PART OF AN OWL IN AN IVY-BUSH
That night, while Hélène sat alone and in disgrace, her lover was
dancing.
After dinner Riette persuaded her father to walk across with her to La
Marinière, where they found Monsieur Urbain, his wife and son, spending
the evening in their usual sober fashion; he, deep in vintage matters,
still studying his friend De Serres, and arguing various points with
Angelot whose day had been passed with Joubard in the vineyards; she,
working at her frame, where a very rococo shepherd and shepherdess under
a tree had almost reached perfection.
Madame de la Marinière had views of her own about little girls, and
considered Riette by no means a model. She had tried to impress her
ideas on Monsieur Joseph, but though he smiled and listened admiringly,
he spoiled Riette all the more. So her Aunt Anne reluctantly gave her
up. But still, in her rather severe way, she was kind to the child, and
Riette, though a little shy and on her good behaviour, was not afraid of
her. There was always a basket beside Aunt Anne, of clothes she was
making for the poor, for her tapestry was only an evening amusement. In
this basket there was a little white cap such as the peasant children
wore, partly embroidered in white thread. This was Riette's special
work, whenever she came to La Marinière. Sitting on a footstool beside
her aunt, she stitched away at "le bonnet de la petite Lise." At her
rate of progress, however, as her aunt pointed out with a melancholy
smile, Lise would be a grown-up woman before the cap was finished.
And on this special evening the stitches were both few and crooked.
Riette paid no attention to her work, but sat staring and smiling at
Angelot across the room, and he, instead of talking to his father and
uncle, watched her keenly under his eyelids. Presently he came and stood
near his mother's chair while she asked Riette a few questions about her
lessons that day. It appeared that all had been satisfactory.
"A good little woman, Mademoiselle Moineau," said Riette, softly,
smiling at Angelot, who felt the colour mounting to his hair. "I like
her very much. She pretends to scold, but there is no malice in it, you
know. I don't think she is very clever. Quite clever enough for Sophie
and Lucie, who are most amiable, poor dear children, but stupid--ah!"
"They are older than you, I believe, Henriette," said her aunt,
reprovingly.
"Yes, dear aunt, in years, but not in experience. I have lived, I know
life"--she nodded gently--"while those poor girls--Ah, how charming! May
I have a little dance with Ange, Aunt Anne?"
"I suppose so. Lise will not have her cap yet, it seems," said Madame de
la Marinière, smiling in spite of herself.
Monsieur Joseph had sat down to the piano and was playing a lively
polka. Angelot started up, seized his little cousin, and whirled her off
down the room. In a minute or two Urbain took off his spectacles, shut
the _Théâtre d'Agriculture_ with a sharp clap, walked up to Anne and
held out his hands with a smiling bow.
"I can't resist Joseph's music, if you can, my little lady!"
"It seems we must follow the children," she said. "Riette has just been
pointing out that she, at least, is wiser than her elders."
Angelot and his father jumped their light partners up and down with all
the merry energy of France and a new world. After a few turns, Angelot
waltzed Riette out into the hall, and they stood still for a few moments
under the porch, while she whispered Hélène's message into his ear.
"Mon Dieu! But how can she meet me? It must be at night, or they will
see us. And if she is locked into her room?"
"She can get out of her room, mon petit! She knows there is a way,
though I have not shown it to her. Then there is the secret staircase
in the chapel wall."
"You are right, glorious child that you are. She will find me in the
moat, close to the little door. Nothing can be safer, provided that no
one misses her."
"At what time?"
"Nine o'clock, when they are all playing cards."
"I will tell her," said Riette. "Oh, my Ange! she looked so sweet when
she talked of you. I think I love her as much as you do. Why don't you
bring her to Les Chouettes, that we may take care of her? There is an
idea. Take her to Monsieur le Curé to-morrow night. He will be gone to
bed, but no matter. Make him get up and marry you. Then come and live at
Les Chouettes, both of you. We have plenty of room, and little papa
would not be angry."
"Hush, child, what things you say!"
The very thoughts were maddening, there in the dim darkness under the
stairs, with glimmering points of distant earthly light from Lancilly on
the opposite hill. One of them might be Hélène's window, where she sat
and watched La Marinière.
The music in the old room behind went swinging on. Monsieur Joseph
played with immense spirit; Monsieur and Madame Urbain danced merrily up
and down.
"Allons! we must go back," Angelot whispered to his little cousin,
whose arms were round his neck. "And then you must dance with your
uncle, because my mother likes a turn with me."
One cold touch of reflection came to dim his happiness. He had promised
Uncle Joseph not to make Henriette a go-between. And it seemed no real
excuse that it was Hélène's doing, not his. Well, this once it could not
be helped. All the promises in the world would not make him disobey
Hélène or disappoint her.
For the present, it seemed as if the attraction between himself and
Hélène, a rapture to both of them, still meant very real misery to her.
She was in deep disgrace with Madame de Sainfoy. Although she was
allowed to come down to the meals, at which she sat statue-like and
silent, she was sent back at once to her room, and either her mother or
Mademoiselle Moineau locked her in.
Her father noticed these proceedings and shrugged his shoulders. He was
sorry for Hélène, but had learnt by experience not to interfere, except
on great and necessary occasions. No doubt girls were sometimes
troublesome, and he did not pretend to know how to manage them. Adélaïde
must bring up her children in her own way.
Another day of almost entire solitude, with a terrible doubt of Angelot
added to the longing for his presence, so that peace was no longer to be
found in the distant sight of La Marinière; another day had dragged its
length through the hot hours of the afternoon, when, as Hélène walked
restlessly up and down in her room, the blue-green depths of a grove on
her tapestried wall began to move, and out from the wall itself, as if
to join the dancing peasants beyond the grove, came the slender little
figure of Henriette. In an instant the panel of tapestry had closed
behind her and she had sprung into Hélène's arms. The girl clutched her
convulsively.
"What does he say?"
"To-night, at nine o'clock, he will be near the little door in the moat.
Meet him there."
"The little door in the moat!"
"You see this. Let me show you the spring"--she dragged her to the wall,
and opened the panel with a touch. Inside it there was a dark and narrow
passage, but opposite another panel stood slightly ajar.
"That is the way into the chapel," Riette whispered. "I came that way.
But you must turn to the right, and almost directly you will find the
stairs. The door is at the foot of them. He will be there."
"It is unlocked?"
"There is no key. I believe there has been none for centuries. Adieu, my
pretty angel. They will miss me; I must go. I told them I wanted to say
a little prayer to Our Lady in the chapel. She often helped me when I
used to play here."
"I hope she will help me, too!" murmured Hélène.
In another moment she was terrified at finding herself alone in the
dark; for the child was gone, softly closing the secret door into the
chapel. Hélène felt about for a minute or two before she could find the
spring behind the tapestry, and stepped back into her room, shivering
from the damp chill of the passage.
It seemed like an extraordinary fate that that night her mother kept her
downstairs at needlework later than usual. It was in truth a slight mark
of returning favour. Madame de Sainfoy was in a better temper, and
realised that it might be unwise to treat a tall girl of nineteen quite
like a disobedient child. So Hélène sat there stitching beside
Mademoiselle Moineau, who was sometimes called upon to take a hand at
cards. To-night this did not seem likely, for Urbain de la Marinière
came in after dinner, and the snuffy, sharp-faced little Curé of
Lancilly was there too. Madame de Sainfoy had asked him to dine that
day, partly to show herself superior to family prejudices; for this
little man, unlike the venerable Curé of La Marinière, was one of the
Constitutional priests of the Republic.
Flushing crimson, and feeling, as she well might, like a heroine of
romance, Hélène heard the new Paris clock strike nine. Its measured,
silvery tones had not died away, when she was by her mother's side at
the card-table, timidly asking leave to go to her room.
Madame de Sainfoy had just glanced at her hand and found it an excellent
one.
"Yes, my child, certainly," she said absently, and gave Hélène her free
hand.
The girl touched it with her lips, and then her mother's fingers lightly
patted her cheek.
"How feverish you are!" Adélaïde murmured, but took no further notice,
absorbed in her game.
"Like a little flame! but it is a hot night," said Hervé as his daughter
kissed him.
Mademoiselle Moineau was following Hélène from the room, when she was
called back.
"No, mademoiselle, you must stay; we cannot do without you. Monsieur le
Curé has to be home before ten o'clock."
The governess went back obediently to her corner. Hélène glanced back
from the door at the group round the table, deep in their calculations,
careless of what might be going on outside their circle of shaded
candle-light. Only her father lifted his head and looked after her for
an instant; her presence or absence was totally indifferent to the other
men, though the square-headed cousin Urbain was Angelot's father; and
her mother had forgotten her already.
Carrying her light, Hélène went with quick and trembling steps through
the house to the north wing. As she entered the last passage, she met
the maid who had been waiting on Sophie and Lucie, and who slept in the
room next her own.
"Mademoiselle wants me?" said Jeanne, a little disappointed; she had
hoped for half-an-hour's freedom.
"No, no, I do not want you," Hélène answered quickly. "I have things to
do--you can stay till Mademoiselle Moineau comes up."
Jeanne went on her way rejoicing.
Hélène, once in her own room, locked the door inside, took a large black
lace scarf and threw it over her head, hiding her white dress with it as
much as possible; then, still carrying her candle, touched the
mysterious tapestry door, that door which seemed to lead into old-time
woods, into happy, romantic worlds far away, and stepped through into
the passage in the thickness of the wall.
Almost instantly she came to the topmost step of the staircase. Black
with dust and cobwebs, damp, with slimy snail-tracks on the stones, it
went winding down to the lowest story of the old house. The steps were
worn and irregular. Long ago they had been built, for this was the most
ancient part of the château. In their first days the stairs had not
ended with the moat, then full of water, but had gone lower still,
leading to a passage under the moat that communicated with the open
country. There were many such underground ways in the war-worn old
province. But when Lancilly was restored and the moat drained, in the
seventeenth century, the lower stairs and passage were blocked up, and
the present door was made, opening on the green grass and bushes that
grew at the bottom of the old moat.
Hélène went down the steep and narrow stairs as quickly as her trembling
limbs would carry her. They seemed endless; but at last the light fell
on a low, heavy door, deep set in the immense foundation wall. She
seized the large rusty latch and lifted it without difficulty. Then she
pulled gently; no result; she pushed hard, thinking the door must open
outwards; it did not move. She set down her light on the stairs, and
tried again with both hands; but the door was immovable. As her brain
became a little steadier, and her eyes more accustomed to the dimness,
she saw that a heavy iron bar was fastened across the upper panels of
the door, and run into two enormous staples on the wall at each side.
She touched the bar, tried to move it, but found her hands absolutely
useless; it would have been a heavy task for a strong man. She stood and
looked at the door, shivering with terror and distress. After all, it
seemed, she was a real prisoner. She could not keep her appointment with
Angelot. She gave a stifled cry and threw herself against the door,
beating it with her fists and bruising them. Then a voice spoke outside,
low and quickly.
"Hélène!"
"Ah! you are there!" she said, and leaned her head against the door.
"Open then, dearest--don't be afraid. Lift the latch, and pull it
towards you. There is only a keyhole on this side--but it can't be
locked, for there is no key."
"I cannot," she said. "It is barred with a great iron bar. I cannot move
it. Oh, how unhappy I am! Why should I be so unfortunate, so miserable?"
she cried, and beat upon the door again.
"Ah, mon Dieu! My father's precautions! He went round the château six
weeks ago, to examine all the doors. I was not with him, or I should
have known it. Hélène! Will you do as I ask you?"
"Ah! there is nothing to be done. I had to speak to you--I cannot, with
this dreadful door between us, and--Ah, heavens, something has put out
my candle. I am in the dark! What shall I do!"
"Courage, courage!" he said, speaking close to the keyhole. "Go back up
the stairs; go to the chapel window!"
"But I cannot speak to you from the window!"
"Yes, you can--you shall."
"But I am in the dark!"
"You cannot miss your way. Go--go quickly--we have not much time--it is
late already."
"I could not help it," sighed Hélène.
She was almost angry with him, and for a moment she was sorry she had
sent him any message.
"What is the use? How can I speak to him from the window? it is too
high," she said to herself as she stumbled up the stairs, shuddering as
her fingers touched the damp wall. "It is my fate--I am never to be
happy. My mother knows she can do as she likes with me."
A sob rose in her throat, and burning tears blinded her. But she dashed
them away when she reached the level, and saw the thin line of light
which showed the entrance into her own room, where she had left a candle
burning. The opposite panel flew open as she touched it; she stooped and
crept into the chapel.
It was dark, cold, and lonely; no friendly red light in the seldom-used
little sanctuary; but the window in the north wall was unshuttered, and
let in the pale glimmer of a sky lit by stars. Hélène had no difficulty
in opening the window, though its rusty hinges groaned. There was a
quick, loud rustling in the ivy beneath. Hélène stepped back with a
slight scream as a hand shot suddenly up and caught the sill; in another
instant Angelot had climbed to the level of the window and dropped on
the brick floor. Hélène was almost in his arms, but she drew back and
motioned him away, remembering just in time that she was angry.
"What is it?" he said quickly. "Why--"
"How--how did you get here?" she stammered. "I thought you were down in
the moat."
"It is not the first time I have climbed the ivy, as the owls might
tell you," he said. "It is easy; the old trunk is as thick as my body,
and twists like a ladder. Hélène! You are angry with me! What have I
done?"
He tried to take her hand, but she drew it from him. He fell on his
knees and kissed the hem of her gown.
"Hélène!"
She stood motionless, unable to speak. But Angelot was not long to be
treated in this chilling fashion. It seemed that he had a good
conscience, and was not afraid to account for any of his actions. He
rose to his feet; no words passed between them; but Hélène resisted him
no longer. Her head was leaning on his breast; a long, happy sigh
escaped her; and it was between kisses that he asked her again, "Why are
you angry with me?"
"I am not--not now--I know it is not true," she murmured.
"What, my beloved?"
"You do care for me?"
Angelot laughed. Indeed it did not seem necessary to reassure her on
such a point.
"Because, if you give me up, I shall die," she said. "I should have
died, I think, if I had not seen you to-night. Now they may say and do
what they please."
"What have they been saying and doing? Ah, my sweet, how have they been
tormenting you? You are no happier than when I saw you first, though I
love you so. How you tremble! Sit down here--there, softly--you are
quite safe. What in God's name are we to do? Must I leave you again with
these people?"
For a few minutes they sat in a corner of an old carved bench under the
window, one of the family seats in those more religious days when
grandfathers and grandmothers came to the chapel to pray. Hélène leaned
against Angelot, clinging to him, and past his dark profile, dimly
visible in the twilight of stars, she could see the roughly carved and
painted figure of Our Lady, brought from a Spanish convent and much
venerated by that Mademoiselle de Sainfoy who became a Carmelite in the
early days of the order. Hélène had fancied, before now, that there was
something motherly in the smile of the statue, neglected so long. She
thought, even as her lover kissed her, that neither the Blessed Virgin,
nor St. Theresa, nor the ancestor who was her disciple, would have been
angry with her and Angelot. Only her own mother, and she for worldly
reasons alone, would find any sin in this sweet human love which wrapped
her round, which, if allowed to have its way, would shield her from all
the miseries of life and keep her in the rapturous peace she enjoyed in
this moment, this fleeting moment, which she could not spoil even by
telling her Angelot why she sent for him.
"Ah, how I wanted you!" she breathed in his ear.
"My love! But what--what are we to do!" he murmured passionately; her
feelings of rest and peace and safety were not for him.
"Your father is very good, and loves you," he said. "At least we know
that he will not have you sacrificed. I will ask him. If he
refuses--then, mille tonnerres, I will carry you off into the woods,
Hélène."
"It is no use asking him, dearest, none," she said. "Besides, you told
them all that you did not care for me."
She lifted her head, and tried to look into his face.
"Ah, did they tell you that? Was that why you were angry?" Angelot
cried.
"Yes," she said; "and now you had better ask to be forgiven."
Indeed, as they both knew too well, there were more serious things than
kisses and loving words to occupy that stolen half-hour. They had to
tell each other all--all they knew--and each became a little wiser.
Hélène knew that General Ratoneau had actually asked for her, and that
her father had refused to listen; thus realising that her mother was
deceiving her, and also that for some hidden reason the plan seemed to
Madame de Sainfoy still possible. Angelot, even as they sat there
together, realised vividly that he was living in a fool's paradise; that
his love's confession to her mother had made things incalculably worse,
justifying all the stern treatment, the violent means, which such a
mother might think necessary.
"She means to marry her to Ratoneau," he thought, "and she will do it,
unless Heaven interferes by a miracle. Uncle Joseph is my only friend,
and he cannot help me--at least--if I do not act at once, we are lost."
He lifted Hélène's fair head a little, and its pale beauty, in the dim
gleam from the open window, seemed to fill his whole being as he gazed.
He drew her towards him and kissed her again and again; it might have
been a last embrace, a last good-bye, but he did not mean it for that.
"Will you come with me now?" he said.
"Yes!" Hélène said faintly.
"Are you afraid?"
"No"--she hesitated--"not with you. I can be brave when I am with
you--but when you are not here--"
"They shall not part us again," Angelot said.
"But how are we to get out?"
Though her lover was there, still holding her, the girl trembled as she
asked the question.
"I can unbar the door," he said. "Come to the top of the stairs and wait
there till I whistle; then come down to me."
This seemed enough for the moment, and the wild fellow had no further
plan at all. To have her outside these prison walls, in the free air he
loved, under the trees in the starlight, to make a right to her, as he
vaguely thought, by running off with her in this fashion--that was all
that concerned him at the moment. Where was he to take her? Would Uncle
Joseph receive them? Such thoughts just flashed through the tumult of
his brain, but seemed of no present importance. Angelot was mad that
night, mad with love of his cousin, with the desperate necessity which
needed to be met by desperate daring.
Hélène followed him, trembling very much, to the top of the stairs.
"You have a candle there? Fetch it for me," he said.
She obeyed him, slipping through the tapestry into her own room. Once
there, she looked round with a wild wonder. Could this be
herself--Hélène de Sainfoy--about to escape into the wide world with her
lover--and empty-handed? She looked down vaguely at her white evening
gown and thin shoes, snatched up her watch and chain and a diamond ring,
which were lying on the table, and slipped them into her pocket. It was
the work of a moment, yet when she carried the candle to Angelot, he was
white as death, and stamping with impatience; the flame in his eyes
frightened her.
He took the candle without a word and disappeared down the first steep
winding of the stairs. His moving shadow danced gigantic on the wall,
then was gone. Hélène waited in the darkness. Even love and faith, with
hope added, were not strong enough to keep her brave and happy during
the terrible minutes of lonely waiting there. Her limbs trembled, her
heart thumped so that she had to lean for support against the cold damp
wall. She bent her head forward, eagerly listening. Why had she not gone
down with him? Somebody might hear him whistle. However, no whistle
came; only a dull sound of banging, which echoed strangely, alarmingly,
up the narrow staircase in the thickness of the wall.
It seemed to Hélène that she had waited long and was becoming stupefied
with anxiety, when a light flashed suddenly upon her eyes, and she
opened them wide; she had never lost the childish fear which made her
shut them in the dark. Angelot had leaped up the stairs again and was
standing beside her, white and frowning.
"It is impossible," he said, in a hurried whisper. "I cannot move the
bar without tools. Come back into the chapel."
He set down the candlestick on the altar step, walked distractedly to
the end of the low vaulted room, then back to where she stood gazing at
him with a pitiful terror in her eyes.
"What is to be done! Is there no other way!" he said, half to himself.
"Mon Dieu, Hélène, how beautiful you are! Ah, what is that? Listen!"
His ears, quicker than hers, had caught steps and a rustling sound in
the passage that ended at the chapel door.
"Dear--go back to your room," he said. "They must not find you here. We
shall meet again--Good-night, my own!"
He was gone. The bewildered girl looked after him silently, and he was
across the floor, on the window-sill, disappearing hand over head down
his ladder of old twisted ivy stems, before she realised anything. Then,
not the least aware that some one was knocking at her bedroom door in
the passage, shaking the latch, calling her name, she flew after him to
the window and leaned out, crying to him low and wildly, "Angelot, come
back, come back! Why did you go? Ah, don't leave me! Help me to climb
down, too,--please, please, darling!"
Angelot was out of sight, though not out of hearing. Forty feet of thick
ivy and knotted stems, shelter of generations of owls, stretched between
the chapel window and the moat's green floor; ivy two centuries old, the
happy hunting-ground of many a lad of Lancilly and La Marinière. But
that night, perhaps, the hospitable old tree reached the most romantic
point of its history.
Hélène stretched down eager hands among the thick leaves.
"Angelot! Angelot!"
She heard nothing but the rustling down below, saw nothing but the thick
leaves under the stars, though somebody had opened the chapel door, and
though her treacherous candle, throwing a square of light upon the dark
trees opposite, showed not only her own imploring shadow, but that of a
tall figure stepping up behind her. In another moment her arm was seized
in a grasp by no means gentle, and she turned round with a scream to
face Madame de Sainfoy.
Her cry might have stopped Angelot in his swift descent and brought him
to the window again, but as he neared the ground he saw that some one
was waiting for him, some one standing on the flat grass, under the
light of such stars as shone down into the moat, gazing with fixed
gravity at the window from which Hélène was leaning.
Angelot's light spring to the ground brought him within a couple of
yards of the motionless figure, and his white face flushed red when he
saw that it was Hélène's father. The few moments during which he faced
Comte Hervé silently were the worst his happy young life had ever known.
The elder man did not speak till Hélène, with that last little cry, had
disappeared from the window. Then he looked at Angelot.
"I am sorry, Ange," he said, "for I owe a good deal to your father. But
I will ask you to wait here while I fetch my pistols. It is best to
settle such a matter on the spot--though you hardly deserve to be so
well treated."
"Monsieur--" Angelot almost choked.
"Ah! Do not trouble yourself to hunt for excuses--there are none," said
the Comte.
He was moving off, but Angelot threw himself in his way.
"Bring one pistol," he said. "One will be enough, for I cannot fight
you--you know it. But you may kill me if it pleases you."
Hervé shrugged his shoulders.
"How long has this been going on? How many times have you met my
daughter clandestinely? Does it seem to you the behaviour of a
gentleman? On my soul, you deserve to be shot down like a dog, as you
say!"
"No, monsieur," Angelot said quickly, "I give you leave to do it, for I
see now that life must be misery. But I have done no such harm as to
deserve to be shot! No! I love and adore my cousin, and you must have
known it--every one knows it, I should think. Can I sit quietly at home
while her family gives her the choice between General Ratoneau and a
convent? No, I confess it is more than I can bear."
"And if her family had given her such a choice--which is false, by the
bye--what could you do? Is it likely that they would change their minds
and give her to you, as your uncle Joseph suggested? And would you
expect to gain their favour by this sort of thing?" He pointed to the
window. "No, young man; if you were not your father's son, my grooms
might whip you out of Lancilly, and I should feel justified in giving
the order."
Angelot broke into a short laugh. "A pistol-shot is not an insult," he
said. "But you are angry."
"And you are Urbain's son," the Comte said.
There was a world of reproach in the words, but little violent anger.
The two men stood and looked at each other; and it was not the least
strange part of the position that they were still, as they had been all
along, mutually attracted. Both natures were open, sweet-tempered, and
generous. A certain grace and charm about Hervé de Sainfoy drew Angelot,
as it had drawn his father. The touch of romance in Angelot, his beauty,
his bold, defiant air, took Hervé's fancy.
"You climb like a monkey or a sailor," he said. "But you tried another
exit, did you not? Was it you who was hammering at the door down there?"
"Yes, monsieur."
"Tell me all."
The questions were severe, but Angelot answered them frankly and truly,
as far as he could do so and take the whole blame upon himself.
"It was I," he said; "I did the whole wrong, if it was wrong. Do not let
madame her mother be angry with her. But for God's sake do not make her
marry Ratoneau. She is timid, she is delicate--ah, monsieur--and we are
cousins, after all--"
There was a break in his voice, and the Comte almost smiled.
"You are a pair of very absurd and troublesome children," he said, much
more kindly. "But you are old enough to know better; it is ignorance of
the world to think that lives can be arranged to suit private
inclinations. I could not give you my daughter, even if I wished it; you
ought to see, as your father would, that you are not in a position to
expect such a wife. You are not even on my side in politics, though you
very well might be. If you were in the army, with even the prospect of
distinguishing yourself like General Ratoneau--and why not even now--"
It was a tremendous temptation, but only for a moment. Angelot thought
of his mother and of his uncle Joseph.
"I cannot go into the army," he said quickly.
"No--you are a Chouan at heart, I know," said Hervé.
He added presently, as the young man stood silent and doubtful before
him--"You will give me your word of honour, Angelot, that there is no
more of this--that you do not attempt to see my daughter again."
Angelot answered him, after a moment's pause, "I warn you that I shall
break my word, if I hear more of Ratoneau."
"The devil take Ratoneau!" replied his cousin. "You will give me your
word, and I will give you mine. I will never consent to such a marriage
as that for Hélène. Are you satisfied now?"
"You give me life and hope," said Angelot.
"Not at all. It is not for your sake, I assure you."
Angelot's poor love went to bed that night in a passion of tears. The
time came for her to know and confess that Angelot's father, when he
barred the postern door, might have had more than one guardian angel
behind him; but that time was not yet.