“That is your last word?” he asked.
Instead of answering him, she drew a step aside, thus opening the way to
the door, at which she pointed with her finger.
“Well,” said Sir Thorn with an accent of fierce threatening, “remember
this; I have sworn you shall be my wife, whether you will or not; and my
wife you shall be!”
“Leave the room, sir, or I must give it up to you!”
He went out swearing; and, more dead than alive, Henrietta sank into
an arm-chair. As long as she had been in the presence of the enemy, her
pride had enabled her to keep up the appearance of absolute faith in
Daniel; but, now she was alone, terrible doubts began to beset her. Was
there not something true in the evident exaggerations of the Hon. M.
Elgin? She was not quite sure. Had not Sarah also boasted of it, that
she loved Daniel, and that she had been in his room? Finally, Henrietta
recalled with a shudder, that, when Daniel had told her of his adventure
in Circus Street, he had appeared embarrassed towards the end, and had
failed fully to explain the reasons of his flight.
And to crown the matter, when she had tried to draw from M. de Brevan
additional information on the subject, she had been struck by his
embarrassment, and the lame and confused way in which he had defended
his friend.
“Ah, now all is really over!” she thought. “The measure of my sufferings
is full indeed!”
Unfortunately it was not yet full. A new persecution awaited her,
infamous, monstrous, by the side of which all the others amounted to
nothing.
“Whether you will, or not, you shall be mine,” had Sir Thorn said; and
from that moment he was bent upon convincing her that he was not the man
to shrink from any thing, even unto violence.
He was no longer the sympathetic defender of former days, nor the
timid lover, nor the sighing, rejected lover, who followed Henrietta
everywhere. He was, henceforth, a kind of wild beast, pursuing her,
harassing her, persecuting her, with his eyes glaring at her with
abominable lust. He no longer looked at her furtively, as formerly;
but he lay in wait for her in the passages, ready, apparently, to throw
himself upon her; projecting his lips as if to touch her cheeks, and
extending his arms as if to seize her around her waist. A drunken lackey
pursuing a scullion would not have looked and acted more impudently.
Terrified, the poor girl threw herself on her knees before her father,
beseeching him to protect her. But he pushed her back, and reproached
her for slandering the most honorable and most inoffensive of men.
Blindness could go no farther.
And Sir Thorn knew probably of her failure; for the next day he looked
at her, laughing, as if he felt that he now might venture upon any
thing. And he did venture upon something, that so far would have seemed
impossible. One evening, or rather one night, when the count and the
countess were at a ball, he came and knocked at the door of Henrietta’s
chamber.
Frightened, she rang the bell; and the servants who came up freed her
from the intruder. But from that moment her terrors had no limit; and,
whenever the count went out at night with his wife, she barricaded
herself up in her chamber, and spent the whole night, dressed, in a
chair. Could she remain any longer standing upon the brink of an abyss
without name? She thought she could not; and after long and painful
hesitation, she said one evening to M. de Brevan,--
“My mind is made up; I must flee.”
Taken aback, as if he had received a blow upon his head, with his mouth
wide open, his eyes stretched out, M. de Brevan had turned deadly pale;
and the perspiration pearled in large drops on his temples, while his
hands trembled like the eager hands of a man who touches, and is about
to seize, a long-coveted prize.
“Then,” he stammered out, “you are decided; you will leave your father’s
house?”
“I must,” she said; and her eyes filled with bright tears. “And the
sooner I can do it the better; for every moment I spend here now may
bring a new danger. And yet, before risking any thing decisive, it might
be better first to write to Daniel’s aunt in order to ask her about the
directions she may have received, and to tell her that very soon I shall
come to ask for her pity and her protection.”
“What? You think of seeking refuge at the house of that estimable lady?”
“Certainly.”
M. de Brevan, now entirely master of himself, and calculating with his
usual calmness, gravely shook his head, and said,--
“You ought to be careful, madam. To seek an asylum at the house of our
friend’s relative might be a very grave imprudence.”
“But Daniel recommended it to me in his letter.”
“Yes; but he had not considered the consequences of the advice he gave
you. Do not deceive yourself; the wrath of your enemies will be terrible
when they find that you have escaped them. They will pursue you; they
will employ the police; they will search for you all over France. Now,
it is evident, that the very first place where they will look for you
will be Daniel’s relatives. The house of the old aunt will be watched
at once, and most jealously. How can you there escape from inquiry and
pursuit? It would be folly to hope for safety there.”