We must now turn to the Count d'Aubin; but ere we inquire what became
of him after he fell under his cousin's hand on the field of Ivry, it
may be as well to relate some of the events which intervened between
his night march from Gross[oe]uvres and his encounter with St. Real.
On reaching the quarters of the Duke of Mayenne, he found that prince,
whom he had not seen for some weeks, still up, notwithstanding the
lateness of the hour; and he was immediately admitted to his presence.
Mayenne was in high spirits, and full of confidence in regard to what
would be the result of the approaching battle; and, after some
conversation respecting the military arrangements about to be made,
the Duke handed D'Aubin a small strip of parchment, asking him if he
knew the hand-writing which it displayed.
"If the Duke of Mayenne," the writing went to express, "desires to
recover a prize which not long ago escaped both his hands and those of
the Count d'Aubin, he will detach a small force of cavalry to sweep
the valley of the higher Eure between Courville and La Coupe."
"Know it!" cried D'Aubin, "know that hand! I know it well! It is that
of my cousin St. Real's dwarf Bartholo. By the Lord! then Albert of
Wolfstrom was not so wrong in his suspicions; and, with your
highness's leave, after to-morrow's business be over, we will take
counsel how this fair fugitive may best be recovered. I know that part
of the country well; the St. Reals have a chace in the valley, and it
is wild, wooded, and difficult for the movements of troops. But after
the battle we shall have the whole country clear before us; and, if I
be not sadly disappointed, ere to-morrow is at an end, I will make my
fair and simple-seeming cousin pay for his perfidy towards me."
"In that, act as you think best," replied Mayenne; "and after the
battle we will find means to recover the runaway, let the ground she
has taken for her refuge be as wild as it will: and now, D'Aubin,
farewell for the present. I will not bid so good a knight as you do
his _devoir_ to-morrow."
D'Aubin slept little during the night, and he was up betimes on the
following morning; for a heart full of bitterness and anger chased
slumber away. One of the first in the field, after sending a defiance
to his cousin by a trumpet, he rode over the ground and narrowly
observed the position of the king, as the small army of Royalists
advanced from Fourcainville and the other villages where they had
passed the night; but as he rode along, he perceived that four or five
strange horsemen followed him about, as if watching his movements;
and, on inquiry, found that they had joined his troop as volunteers
since his arrival in the camp of the League. He took no farther notice
of them at the time, and full of other thoughts, fierce, bitter, and
engrossing, forgot what he had observed, till in the midst of the
battle he was abandoned by the troops of Menancourt; and doubting not
that they had been seduced by the pretended volunteers, he turned a
vengeful and searching glance towards the rear, where they had been
stationed; but to his surprise, the strangers closed up in line as
soon as the others had gone over to the Royalists, without showing the
slightest disposition to join them. D'Aubin then, as we have
previously related, retreated, intending to unite his diminished force
to some of the larger squadrons; when, perceiving that the reitters
under Albert of Wolfstrom had followed Mayenne in his charge against
the division of the king, and that the gallant chivalry of Henry
Quatre were still maintaining an equal field against the more numerous
forces of the League, he also poured his troops into the _mêlée_, in
the hope of deciding the contest. Scarcely had he done so, however,
when he heard the war-cry of the St. Reals, and caught a momentary
glance of his cousin's person, as the dark and rolling cloud of battle
broke away for a moment from before his eyes.
Maddened by fancied injuries, but still more by a feeling of
inferiority and a consciousness of wrong, he strove to cleave his way
through the press, in order to try, against one whose powers his pride
undervalued, that skill and courage which had been so often successful
against others. He succeeded, as we have seen, in at length meeting
St. Real; but not till he had received several slight wounds--without
which, indeed, he would have been no match for his more powerful and
equally skilful cousin, but which tended to render him still more
unequal to the encounter that he sought. Baffled in the combat by St.
Real's skill, that vanity, which through life had led him forward from
evil to evil, urged him on with redoubled force; and when he saw,
without the power of parrying it, the descending blow which struck him
from his horse, he groaned, in bitterness of spirit, not from the fear
of death, but from disappointed hate. That blow, though light when
compared with what St. Real's arm might have dealt, drove down his
casque upon his head, split the rivets of the gorget, and laid him
without sense or feeling upon the plain.
Scarcely had he fallen, when one of those fell monsters who frequent
fields of battle to plunder the dying and the dead, attracted by his
splendid surcoat, stooped over him, and, unbuckling the plastron, felt
his heart beat. To make sure of no interruption from a reviving man,
the human vulture struck him a stroke with his dagger. The wound he
inflicted was but slight, and his arm was raised for a more effectual
blow, when the sweep of a long sword, taking him in the back of the
neck, severed his head from his body, and stretched him across the
prostrate form he had been intent to plunder. The person who thus
interposed to save D'Aubin was no other than one of the five
volunteers who had joined his corps, and who, keeping close together
through the _mêlée_, without striking a stroke except in self-defence,
had followed, as fast as circumstances permitted, wherever the count
had turned his steps. The press round the spot where St. Real and his
cousin had encountered, had delayed them for some moments; but still
they came up in time to rescue D'Aubin from the dagger of the
assassin. The tide of battle had now somewhat rolled on; the ground
around was clear; and springing from their horses, the strangers
raised the senseless body of the wounded man in their arms, lifted him
on a horse, and taking every precaution in order to bear him safely
and easily, turned their steps with all speed from the field. Although
confused bodies of the Leaguers and the Royalists were by this time
mixed all over the plain, the men who bore D'Aubin wound their way
amongst the contending squadrons with skill and presence of mind, and
soon were behind the woods which skirted the plain to the right. The
musketry was no longer heard, the sound of the cannon was faint; and
pausing for a moment, they undid and cast away the Count's armour, and
bound up his still bleeding wounds. Then, once more bearing him amidst
them, they hurried from the field, taking the road towards Chartres.
When Philip d'Aubin, after a long period of sickness, during which
insensibility and delirium had filled up the place of thought and
understanding, at length recovered a clear perception of his own
condition and of external things, he found himself lying, reduced to a
state of infant weakness, on a soft and easy bed, in a chamber which
was strange to his eye. Rich arras covered the walls; the hangings of
the couch were of velvet and gold; and through the open casement at
the end of the room breathed in the air of spring, sweet with the
perfume of jasmine and of violets. Mingled with that scent, however,
was a faint odour of incense; and on the left of the bed stood a
priest in his robes, with two or three of the inferior clergy; at the
foot were men in the dress then reserved for the followers of the
healing art; while on the right stood two or three women, and a page.
For a moment these things swam indistinctly before the eye of the sick
man; but the next instant, one particular object attracted all his
attention. It was as lovely a form as ever man beheld, advanced before
the rest, and kneeling by his bedside, with her face hidden in the
rich coverings of the bed, and her dark black hair broken from the
large gold pin that ought to have confined it, and falling in masses
of bright dishevelled curls over her neck. The convulsive grasp with
which she held the bedclothes, the deep sobs that shook her frame, the
scared and anxious glances of the attendants, the solemn aspect of the
priests, the sacred vessels for the communion and extreme unction, the
extended cross held up before his eyes--all showed Philip d'Aubin that
those who surrounded him supposed him to be dying; and that what he
beheld was the last solemn ceremonies, and the last bitter tears,
which attend the passing of the living to the dead. All eyes, but
those which were hidden to conceal the burning drops that filled them,
were fixed upon his countenance; and as his eyelids were raised, the
priest, believing it the last effort of life, lifted his hands, saying
in a solemn tone, "_Accipe, Domine_"--but as the eye wandered round
the group, and the light of life and meaning beamed faintly up in the
lamp that had seemed extinguished, the old man paused and stooped
eagerly forward.
D'Aubin would have given a world to speak, but his tongue refused its
office; and all that he could do was to turn a feeble glance of
inquiry to the countenance that gazed upon him. The priest, without
speaking, beckoned forward the physician, who laid his hand upon the
patient's pulse, and then whispered eagerly a word in the ear of an
attendant. A cup was instantly brought forward and held to the sick
man's lips; a few drops of wine moistened his tongue. With difficulty
and pain he swallowed the draught, and the unwonted effort made his
heart flutter like that of a dying bird; but soon the beating became
more regular; thick drops of perspiration stood upon his brow; he
tried again to speak; his lips moved for a moment without a sound; but
the next instant he succeeded better, and the name of "Beatrice!"
murmured on his lips.
Hitherto there had not been a sound in the chamber, but the struggling
sobs of the beautiful girl who knelt by the bedside, and the stealthy
step of the attendant who brought the cup; but that one word,
"Beatrice," spoken by a voice that had been so long unheard, struck
the ear for which it was intended. Loosing her hold of the bedclothes,
she lifted her streaming eyes, saw the change that had taken place,
gazed for an instant with all the lingering incredulity of
apprehension, and then, seeing that it was true--quite true--Beatrice
of Ferrara started on her feet, and ere any one could save her, fell
back senseless on the floor. With as little noise and confusion as
possible, she was carried from the chamber; and every means that the
science of the day suggested, were employed to complete the recovery
of the Count d'Aubin. The physician, however, who attended him, was a
disciple of the great Esculapius, Nature; and therefore, slowly but
progressively, the patient regained a degree of strength. All
conversation was forbidden, and everything that might agitate him was
carefully removed from his sight. No one visited his chamber for
several days but the attendants necessary to watch over him, and the
physician who directed their movements; and when, at the end of three
days, the first returning struggles of D'Aubin's impatient spirit
would not be controlled, and he would speak in spite of all
injunctions to the contrary, the physician continued to sit beside him
all day, in order to ensure that the subjects permitted contained
nothing which would retard his recovery by agitating his mind.
Beatrice of Ferrara had never entered his chamber since the day when,
believing him to be in the agonies of death, she had cast off all
reserve, and given way to that passionate burst of grief, which
revealed to all around the secret of her heart's inmost shrine. Feeble
as he had been at that moment, D'Aubin had not failed to mark and
understand the whole; but in sickness, and with death at our right
hand, we feel such things in a manner different from that in which
they affect us in the high glow of insolent health, and all the vanity
of life and expectation. D'Aubin felt touched and grateful for the
love he saw; and when he asked for "The lady!" it was in a tone of
reverence and softness, unmingled with a touch of the vain lightness
which characterised the society in which they lived.
"If he meant the Princess," the physician said, "she was well--quite
well."
D'Aubin replied, that he meant Mademoiselle de Ferrara whom he had
seen in the room when he first recovered from the long stupor in which
he had lain.
"Not many months ago," replied the physician, "Mademoiselle de
Ferrara, as you call her, became, by her uncle's and her brother's
death, Princess of Legnagno; but, as I said, she is well--quite well."
The Count mused for a moment; but after a while he besought the
physician, in earnest terms, to obtain for him once more an interview,
however short, with the lady in whose dwelling he lay. The good man,
however, who had marked all that passed before, would not hear of it;
and it was only on the following day, when he found that Aubin's
impatience of contradiction was likely to injure him more than any
other agitation he could undergo--he consented to bear his request to
the ear of Beatrice. With her he found more difficulty than he had
expected. She hesitated to bestow that care and attention upon the
wounded man, now that he was recovering, which she had lavished on him
without reserve when he had appeared dying. Her answer to his entreaty
was cold and backward; and it was not till the physician brought her
word that her reply had so much grieved the Count that his health
suffered, that she consented once more to visit his chamber.
With a pale cheek, and with a timid step, Beatrice again approached
the couch where D'Aubin, still as feeble as a child, anxiously awaited
her coming. Her dark bright eyes stole a momentary glance at his worn
countenance, and then fell again to the ground: for the feelings that
were within her bosom--the knowledge that her love could no more be
concealed, yet the wish to hide it--the compassion for D'Aubin's
present state, which prevented her from covering her real sensations
with the garb of coldness and disdain--and the doubt and the fear that
even yet the chastening rod of suffering might not have had its due
effect on him she loved,--all rendered it impossible for her to play
the bold and careless part she had hitherto acted, yet left it
difficult to choose another.
Seating herself by his bedside, while the physician stood gazing from
the window, she strove to speak; but, for the first time in her life,
her ready wit failed her; and ere she could call it back, D'Aubin
himself broke the silence, and relieved her. "Beatrice!" he said in a
low tone, "how much have I to thank you for! how much deep gratitude
do I owe you!"
"Not so, Monsieur d'Aubin," she replied, without looking at him: "I
have done but a common act of charity, in tending one so badly hurt as
you were."
"Beatrice, dear Beatrice!" he replied, "use not cold words towards me;
for believe me, that of all the medicaments which the leeches have
applied to bring me back to life and strength, the sight of Beatrice,
when I woke from that cold and deathlike trance, was the best cordial
to my heart."
She looked up, and there was something like tears in her bright eyes;
but all she could answer was, "Indeed, D'Aubin? Indeed?"
"Indeed, Beatrice! and in truth!" replied D'Aubin; "and ever since
that hour the sight has been present to my eyes. I have remembered
it--I have fed upon it; and believe me, that it has not only tended to
heal the wounds of this weak frame, but has done much to cure the
diseases of my still weaker heart and mind. Beatrice, my beloved, I
have done you wrong. Wild, vain, and heedless, I have acted ill, and
have cast away my own happiness through idleness and folly. That time
is past: forgive me, Beatrice; and believe me, D'Aubin is changed."
"I hope it may be so, Monsieur d'Aubin," replied the fair Italian,
more composedly--"I hope it maybe so; for though the past has given
pain to many of your noblest friends, still Beatrice of Ferrara never
yet gave up the hope that all might be amended. But now I leave you
for to-day, because such conversation is not fitted to your present
feeble state."
"Nay, nay, stay yet awhile, Beatrice," he cried, holding her hand,
which he had taken, and gazing on her lovely features as if he would
have impressed every line on his memory so deeply that remembrance
might become a picture rather than that vague shadowy phantasmagoria
which at best it is. Beatrice, however, disengaged her hand, and
saying, "I will come again to-morrow; I must not be profuse of my
presence, D'Aubin, lest you cease to value it;" she glided away and
left him.
Eagerly did Philip d'Aubin watch for her coming; and day after day, so
long as he continued unable to rise, did Beatrice accompany the
physician back to his chamber, after the man of healing had made his
morning's report touching his patient's health. Still fearful of
yielding to all she felt, and with an intuitive knowledge of that
subtle thing--the heart of man--Beatrice would fain have put a strong
restraint upon her words and actions, and struggled against each of
those little signs of deep and passionate love into which every day's
conversation was prone to betray her. But who is there with a heart so
obedient, and with a demeanour so completely under the rule and
government of the mind, as to avoid every tender word, or smile of
affection, or look of love, under a daily intercourse with one so dear
as he was unto her? Besides, too, he was recovering from wounds, and
had but by a miracle escaped death; and there is something sadly
traitorous to all strong resolutions in watching the coming back of
health--the reviving colour, the brightening eye, the expanding look;
and in hearing the round tone of life's full breath take place of the
low trembling voice of sickness. At first, as Beatrice entered his
chamber, she would smile with a look of arch gaiety, to see the
anxiety with which he turned to ascertain if it were her step he
heard; but as day passed by on day, that smile lost all but the signs
of gladness, and Beatrice might be seen watching for the hour of the
visit, as well as her wounded lover. One day only was that visit not
made; and that was the first on which D'Aubin rose from a couch
whereon he had passed nearly six weeks in danger and anguish. It was
not coquetry that made her refrain; it was not the least abatement of
her love; but a feeling which she strove not to explain, even to
herself, and which it would be impossible to explain to others. Be it
what it may that moved her, she passed that day in prayer.
D'Aubin had been warned of her purpose not to come, and important
business was the cause that Beatrice assigned for her absence; but the
day having lost its usual occupations, neither the anxiety for her
coming, nor the remembrance of her visit, affording matter for
reflection, the thoughts of Philip d'Aubin turned to other things. Had
he been one of those stern moralists who examine with microscopic
exactness all their feelings, try every idea in the fine balance of
equity, and search out all the lurking motives of the heart, D'Aubin
might have started to discover how much he was recovered, by finding
out how much his thoughts were flowing back into old channels. There
were fancies crossed his mind, there were ideas presented themselves
to his imagination, at which he recoiled; and he was still so feeble,
his convalescence was still so far unconfirmed, that he blamed himself
for the recurrence of thoughts that, still smarting as he was under
the lash of suffering and the correction of adversity, he looked upon
as base and ungenerous. He hastened, then, to banish all such ideas,
and tried to look with horror and disgust those past vices and follies
which had been once his pride. But the surest sign that our faults
still cling to us, is the necessity of an effort to banish them from
our thoughts. So long as he had been really ill, D'Aubin had hated his
errors without an effort; but he was now convalescent, and they began
to play around his imagination as familiar things.
The next morning broke in floods of splendour, bearing in a golden day
of May; and as soon as his attendants would permit him, D'Aubin rose,
and, supported by the physician, walked feebly forth into the garden
of the chateau, where many a flower was opening its young bosom to the
sweet breath of the spring air, and the warm beams of the genial sun.
Under the spreading branches of an old tree, which, standing by the
castle wall, cast its scarce unfolded leaves over the garden, some
seats were placed; and there sat Beatrice with several of her women,
busily employed at their everlasting embroidery: but ever and anon the
eye of the lady turned to the low postern door; and when she at length
beheld the expected sight, a smile, bright and beautiful as the
morning, beamed upon her lip, accompanied by as warm a blush as ever
touched with crimson the timid cheek of love.
Hours went on, and days, working with their usual power to the change
of all things: but, oh! how differently does the mighty artist, Time,
labour on the world of subjects ever beneath his hands. Who would
dream that the same handiwork gave expansion to the bursting bud, and
shrivelled up the withering leaf of winter; or at the same moment cast
the pale violet dying on the green lap of spring, and called forth the
rose to bind the temples of the lusty year? Yet as different, as
strangely different, were the changes which he worked in Beatrice of
Ferrara and in Philip d'Aubin; and those changes must be told and
dwelt on separately.
Beatrice gave herself up to hope, that bright deluder, whose skilful,
unseen diplomacy outwits, with scarcely an effort, the whole cabinet
of reason. Fondly, idly, she gave herself up to hope; and the triumph
of the magician was the more powerful, inasmuch as she had nobler
allies than the mere selfishness with which she usually works her
ends. Beatrice's hope was--not solely that the period of anxiety and
pain for herself was past--that the long-sought, dear-bought,
well-earned happiness was before her--that the intense and burning
love, which none but a nature passionate and ardent as her own could
feel, was returned with full and answering passion; but she hoped,
that he whom she loved, taught by severe affliction, had learned to
know and value virtue--had become nobler, wiser, better, under the
chastisement of sickness. The biting disdain which she had assumed
towards him, when, in the insolence of unchecked prosperity and
vigorous health, he had dared to speak the same language of love to
her that he held towards others--the scorn, the defiance, with which
she then treated him--had not survived the sight of a man, whose vices
even had not estranged her heart, lying wounded, senseless, and
apparently dying, before her eyes: and now, as day after day went by,
and she was permitted to trace the bright progress of returning health
on the face of him she loved; as a thousand new interests and tender
feelings sprang up under the little cares and anxieties of his
convalescence; as with the mild and gentle words of yet unconfirmed
health, he spoke vaguely, but not the less ardently, of hopes and
wishes, and feelings in common, the reserve which she afterwards
assumed, as a light armour against slight perils, was cast away piece
by piece; and she loved even to sit alone, and dream of him and
happiness.
Such was the work of Time with Beatrice of Ferrara; with Philip
d'Aubin it was different. He saw Beatrice in all her beauty, and in
all her excellence, it is true, and he loved her better than any other
upon earth; and yet, as health returned, came back the thoughts that
he had known in health--the vanity, the pride, the levity. The heart
of man can love as deeply and as fondly as that of woman; and who
denies it such capability, libels it most foully; but the heart of man
or woman either, worn by the touch of follies and of vices, soon loses
its power to love: the temple is profaned, and the god will no longer
dwell therein. Women, less called upon to pass amidst the foul and
polluting things of earth, keep the heart's bright garment longer in
its lustre--that lustre which, like the bloom upon the unplucked
fruit, is lost at every touch; and this is why so few men are found to
love with woman's intensity; because they have staked the fortune of
the heart upon petty throws, and lost it piece by piece. So was it
with Philip d'Aubin: he could not love as Beatrice of Ferrara loved;
he could not feel as she could feel; and yet he loved her as much as
he loved anything, but other thoughts shared that love; and when he
remembered Eugenie de Menancourt, his unstable mind wavered under
contending doubts and purposes. The tie between himself and her could
easily be broken, he well knew, if both parties sought its
dissolution; but he knew too, that she would seek its dissolution with
an eagerness that roused every evil spirit in his heart in the cause
of mortified vanity. He fancied to himself her triumph; he fancied the
scoffs, and the sneers, and the jests of all that knew him; he
pictured the smiles that would hang upon the lip of many whom he had
scorned in his day of pride and success; and he crowned the whole by
representing to the eye of imagination, her who had disdained his vows
and rejected his hand, united to him who had supplanted him in love,
and overthrown him in battle. And yet he loved Beatrice of Ferrara
deeply, passionately; and while, at times, he revolved the means of
triumphing over Eugenie, and casting back the pre-imagined scoff in
the teeth of the world whose slave he had made himself, at others he
longed to fly with the fair Italian girl, whose love and devotion were
of so firm a quality; and, dying to his follies, his vices, and his
native land, to live in some far country in peace, and love, and
forgetfulness.
Such were often his meditations as health and strength slowly
returned; and the increasing success attending the arms of Henry IV.
which reached his ear in vague rumours, rendered the better course
even the more immediately politic. It was thus one evening he had sat
listening to the lute and voice of Beatrice, and thinking that ever to
have that voice and lute to soothe the moments of gloom, and that
lovely being to be the star of a domestic home, were, in truth, a lot
that princes might envy, when the careful physician warned him away
from the garden where they had been sitting, and through which the
evening air was beginning to blow somewhat cool and sharp. D'Aubin
lingered a moment; but Beatrice, with gentle urgency, enforced the old
man's authority; and retiring to his chamber, the Count continued to
gaze out, in solitude, on the spot where his fair companion and her
women still sat. He heard the door of his apartments open, but he
heeded not; so fixed was his attention upon the beautiful line of
Beatrice's reclining figure, as--leaning back till the flowers of the
jasmine behind her mingled with her jetty hair, and with her hand
resting still upon the lute--she gazed up at a bright passing cloud,
that, tinted with the hope-like hues of the setting sun, was floating
fast overhead.
"My lord Count!" said a low voice near him, "I have risked all to come
to you for a moment, and to glad my eyes with the sight of your
restored health."
D'Aubin turned in some surprise, and beheld the small form of
Bartholo, his cousin's dwarf page. That form, indeed, seemed even more
shrunk and small than ever; and on the usually sallow cheek of the
dwarf there was a red and fiery glow that was not that of health; but
nevertheless his voice was calm and strong, and his bright large eyes
full of meaning and intelligence.
"Ha, Bartholo!" cried D'Aubin; "art thou here? Right glad am I to see
thee: but how doest thou risk aught in thus coming to see me? Thou art
safe here!"
"You know not, sir, that I have left your cousin long," replied the
dwarf, "and am now with my first mistress; the only one who has ever
had a real right to call me servant. But she wills not that I should
come hither. It was only because the other page was sick that I was
brought here to-day; and I tremble lest the time of departing comes,
and she should miss me; for she has the eye of a lynx, and would
instantly divine that I was here, against her express command."
"Why, how now, man of mysteries?" cried D'Aubin. "The hour of her
departure! Does she not sleep in the castle to-night?"
"Never, sir! never!" replied the page. "Since three days after you
began to mend, she has never passed one night within these walls. But
I have not time to explain more mysteries, and only came to see you
well, and perhaps, if I had a moment, to give you some counsel that
were not ungrateful to your ear."
"Oh, you have time, plenty of time!" cried D'Aubin. "Lo, there she
sits, and she is running over the strings of her lute in another air,
though we cannot hear it here; but we can see when she rises;
beautiful creature! One could gaze on her for ever! What is it you
would say?"
"I would ask," replied the page, "if his Highness of Mayenne ever
showed you some information he received concerning one whom you
thought no less fair than the fair thing before you?"
"Yes, yes, he showed it to me!" answered D'Aubin. "But know you,
Bartholo, that since we met, my mind has undergone a revolution. Like
you, my little friend, I have changed my service also; and, as you
said, am now with my first mistress, the only one who ever had a real
right to call me servant."
The cheek of the dwarf turned pale; and he replied, "I thought,
indeed, that you might be her servant, as we use that word in Italy:
her servant _par amours_; and yet might like to wed the other too, if
it were but to set your foot for ever upon all the gay jests and
ribald laughter that are going on in the capital and the camp at your
expense. But if you are set on marrying the fair Princess, Heaven
forbid that I should stay you from such a righteous purpose!"
D'Aubin paused in thought for several moments, while the dwarf
alternately glanced his eye to the changing countenance of the Count,
and to the garden in which Beatrice still sat. "You speak strange
words, Bartholo!" said D'Aubin at length: "I, with all the world, have
deemed her as pure as the falling snow, ere it touches earth."
"And so she is," cried the dwarf, eagerly; "and so she is, I do
believe. But yet, Monsieur d'Aubin, she loves--loves with that passion
which makes such steps as we speak of easy. Besides, we in Italy are
accustomed to look upon the marriage tie as a form much less binding
than that which love twines for itself--a mere form indeed; and she,
who worships the spirit of constancy, abhors all idle forms. But I
speak too boldly, noble sir; and yet I seek to serve you. I have heard
that Sir Albert of Wolfstrom, too, has betaken himself to your estates
of Aubin, and--but I must fly!--see, she is rising!"
"Stay, stay a moment!" cried the Count; "she is not yet prepared to go
forth, and I have much to ask you. Tell me, where is the Lady of
Menancourt, and how may I best find her?"
"I dare not stay, sir!" replied the dwarf. "As soon as she enters, she
will ask for me; but I will find another opportunity soon, of telling
you more. In the mean time, fear not, sir, to press your advantage;
for you know not passion's force with those upon whose birth a
brighter sun has shone. Remember, I never gave you false information
or wrong advice."
"Good faith, no!" said D'Aubin; "but she is coming in! Farewell, and
return if you can to-morrow, my good Bartholo."
Without further reply, the page glided out of the room; and while
D'Aubin, gazing upon Beatrice as she advanced towards the house,
pondered over all the poisonous words that had just been dropped into
his ear, Bartholo glided down the small and narrow staircases that led
to a far part of the building, laughing with a bitter laugh as he
went, and murmuring something of a goodly scheme well spoiled.