The little room was lighted only by the lantern, the rays of which
were concentrated on the door, leaving in darkness, or at any rate in
obscurity, the rest of the room,--if, indeed, the word "room" can be
applied to the sort of pigeon-loft in which the two young people were
now alone.
Michel was still sitting on the heap of oats. Mary was kneeling on the
ground, looking into the basket with more embarrassment than interest,
ostensibly in search of some dainty which might still be forthcoming
to conclude the repast.
But so many things had now happened that Michel was no longer hungry.
His head was resting on his hand and his elbow on his knee. He was
watching with a lover's eye the soft, sweet face before him, now
foreshortened by the girl's attitude in a way to double the charm of
her delicate features. He breathed in with delight the waves of
perfumed air that came to him from the long fair curls, which the
breeze entering through the window gently raised and wafted to his
lips. At that contact, that perfume, that sight, his blood circulated
more rapidly in his veins. He heard the arteries of his temples
beating; he felt a quiver running through every limb until it reached
his brain. Under the influence of sensations so new to him the young
man felt his soul animated by unknown aspirations; he learned to
_will_.
What he willed he felt to the depths of his soul; he willed to find
some way of telling Mary that he loved her. He sought the best; but
with all his seeking he found no better way than the simple means of
taking her hand and carrying it to his lips. Suddenly he did it,
without really knowing what he did.
"Monsieur Michel! Monsieur Michel!" cried Mary, more astonished than
angry; "what are you doing?"
The young girl rose quickly. Michel saw that he had gone too far and
must now go farther still and say all. It was he who now took Mary's
posture; that is, he fell upon his knees and again took the hand which
had escaped him. It is true that hand made no effort to avoid his
clasp.
"Oh! can I have offended you?" he cried. "If that were so I should be
most unhappy, and ask pardon of you on my knees."
"Monsieur Michel!" began the young girl, without knowing what she
meant to say.
But the baron, afraid that the little hand might be snatched away from
him, folded it in both his own; and as, on his side, he did not very
well know what he was saying, he continued:--
"If I have abused your goodness, mademoiselle, tell me,--I implore
you,--tell me that you are not angry with me."
"I will say so, monsieur, when you rise," said Mary, making a feeble
effort to withdraw her hand. But the effort was so feeble it had no
other result than to show Michel its captivity was not altogether
forced upon her.
"No," said the young baron, under the influence of a growing ardor
caused by the change from hope into something that was almost
certainty,--"no, leave me at your feet. Oh! if you only knew how many
times, since I have known you, I have dreamed of the moment when I
should kneel thus at your feet; if you knew how that dream, mere dream
as it was, gave me the sweetest sensations, the most delightful agony,
you would let me enjoy the happiness which is at this moment a
reality."
"But, Monsieur Michel," replied Mary, in a voice of increasing
emotion as she spoke, for she felt she had reached the moment when she
could have no further doubt as to the nature of his affection for
her,--"Monsieur Michel, we should not kneel except to God and to the
saints."
"I know not to whom we ought to kneel, nor why I kneel to you," said
the young man. "What I feel is far beyond all that I ever felt
before,--greater than my affection for my mother, so great that I do
not know where to place or what to call the sentiment that leads me to
adore you. It is something which belongs to the reverence you speak
of, which we offer to God and to the saints. For me you are the whole
creation; in adoring you it seems to me that I adore the universe
itself."
"Oh, monsieur, cease to say such things! Michel! my friend!"
"No, no, leave me as I am; suffer me to consecrate myself to you with
an absolute devotion. Alas! I feel,--believe me, I am not mistaken,--I
feel, since I have seen men who are truly men, that the devotion of a
timid, feeble child, which, alas! I am, is but a paltry thing at best;
and yet it seems to me that the joy of suffering, of shedding my
blood, of dying, if need be, for you, must be so infinite that the
hope of winning it would give me the strength and courage that I
lack."
"Why talk of suffering and of death?" said Mary, in her gentle voice.
"Do you think death and suffering absolutely necessary to prove an
affection true?"
"Why do I speak of them, Mademoiselle Mary? Why do I call them to my
aid? Because I dare not hope for another happiness; because to live
happy, calm, and peaceful beside you, to enjoy your tenderness, in
short, to make you my wife, seems to me a dream beyond all human hope.
I cannot picture to my mind that such a dream should ever be reality
for me."
"Poor child!" said Mary, in a voice of at least as much compassion as
tenderness; "then you do indeed love me truly?"
"Oh, Mademoiselle Mary, why must I tell you? Why should I repeat it?
Do you not see it with your eyes and with your heart? Pass your hand
across my forehead bathed in sweat, place it on my heart that is
beating wildly; see how my body trembles, and can you doubt I love
you?"
The feverish excitement, which suddenly transformed the young man into
another being, was communicated to Mary; she was no less agitated, no
less trembling than himself. She forgot all,--the hatred of her father
for all that bore the name of Michel, the repugnance of Madame de la
Logerie toward her family, even the delusions Bertha cherished of
Michel's love to herself, delusions which Mary had so many times
determined to respect. The native warmth and ardor of her vigorous and
primitive nature gained an ascendency over the reserve she had for
some time thought it proper to assume. She was on the point of
yielding wholly to the tenderness of her heart and of replying to that
passionate love by a love even, perhaps, more passionate, when a
slight noise at the door caused her to turn her head.
There stood Bertha, erect and motionless, on the threshold. The eye of
the lantern, as we have said, was turned toward the door, so that the
light was concentrated on Bertha's face. Mary could therefore see
plainly how white her sister was, and also how pain and anger were
gathering upon that frowning brow and behind those lips so violently
contracted. She was so terrified by the unexpected and almost menacing
apparition that she pushed away the young man, whose hand had not left
hers, and went up to her sister.
But Bertha, who had now entered the turret, did not stop to meet Mary.
Pushing her aside with her hand as though she were an inert object,
she went straight to Michel.
"Monsieur," she said, in a ringing voice, "has my sister not told you
that Monsieur Loriot, your mother's notary, is in the salon and wishes
to speak to you?"
Michel muttered a few words.
"You will find him in the salon," continued Bertha, in the tone of
voice she would have used in giving an order.
Michel, cast suddenly back into his usual timidity and all his
terrors, stood up in a confused and vacillating manner without saying
a word, and turned to leave the room, like a child detected in a fault
who obeys without having the courage to excuse himself.
Mary took the lantern to light him down, but Bertha snatched it from
her hand and put it into that of the young man, making him a sign to
go.
"But you, mademoiselle?" he ventured to say.
"We know the house," replied Bertha. Then stamping her foot
impatiently, as she noticed that Michel's eyes were seeking those of
Mary, "Go, go! I tell you; go!" she exclaimed.
The young man disappeared, leaving the two young girls without other
light than the pale gleam of a half-veiled moon, which entered the
turret through the narrow casement.
Left alone with her sister, Mary expected to be severely blamed for
the impropriety of her conduct in permitting such a _tête-à-tête_,--an
impropriety of which she herself was now fully aware. In this she was
mistaken. As soon as Michel had disappeared down the spiral stairway,
and Bertha, with her ears strained to the door, had heard him leave
the tower, she seized her sister's hand, and pressing it with a force
which proved the violence of her feelings, asked in a choking voice:--
"What was he saying to you on his knees?"
For all answer Mary threw herself on her sister's neck, and in spite
of Bertha's efforts to repulse her she wound her arms about her and
kissed her, moistening Bertha's face with the tears that flowed from
her own eyes.
"Why are you angry with me, dear sister?" she said.
"It is not being angry with you, Mary, to ask what a young man whom I
find kneeling at your feet was saying to you."
"But this is not the way you usually speak to me."
"What matters it how I usually speak to you? What I wish and what I
exact is that you answer my question."
"Bertha! Bertha!"
"Come, answer me; speak! What was he saying? I ask you what he said?"
cried the girl, harshly, shaking her sister so violently by the arm
that Mary gave a cry and sank to the floor as if about to faint.
The cry recalled Bertha to her natural feeling. This impetuous and
violent nature, fundamentally kind, softened at the expression of the
pain and distress she had wrung from her sister. She did not let her
fall to the ground, but took her in her arms, raised her as though she
were a child, and laid her on the bench, holding her all the while
tightly embraced. Then she covered her with kisses, and a few tears,
gushing from her eyes like sparks from a brazier, dropped upon Mary's
cheek. Bertha wept as Maria Theresa wept,--her tears, instead of
flowing, burst forth like lightning.
"Poor little thing! poor little thing!" she said, speaking to her
sister as if to a child she had chanced to injure; "forgive me! I have
hurt you, and, worse still, I have grieved you; oh, forgive me!" Then,
gathering herself together, she repeated, "Forgive me! It is my fault.
I ought to have opened my heart to you before letting you see that the
strange love I feel for that man--that child," she added with a touch
of scorn--"has such power over me that it makes me jealous of one whom
I love better than all the world, better than life itself, better than
I love him,--jealous of you! Ah! if you only knew, my poor Mary, the
misery this senseless love, which I know to be beneath me, has already
brought upon me! If you knew the struggles I have gone through to
subdue it! how bitterly I deplore my weakness! There is nothing in him
of all I respect, nothing of what I love,--neither distinction of
race, nor religious faith, nor ardor, nor vigor, nor strength, nor
courage; and yet, in spite of all, I love him! I loved him the first
moment that I saw him. I love him so much that sometimes, breathless,
frantic, bathed in perspiration, and suffering almost unspeakable
anguish, I have cried aloud like one possessed, 'My God! make me die,
but let him love me!' For the last few months--ever since, to my
misfortune, we met him--the thought of this man has never left me for
an instant. I feel for him some strange emotion, which must be that a
woman feels to a lover, but which is really far more like the
affection of a mother for her child. Each day that passes, my life is
more bound up in him; I put not only my thoughts, but all my dreams,
my hopes on him. Ah, Mary! Mary! just now I was asking you to pardon
me; but now I say to you, pity me, sister! Oh, my sister, have pity
upon me!"
And Bertha, quite beside herself, clasped her sister frantically in
her arms.
Poor Mary had listened, trembling, to this explosion of an almost
savage passion, such as the powerful and self-willed nature of Bertha
alone could feel. Each cry, each word, each sentence tore to shreds
the rosy vapors which a few moments earlier she had seen on the
horizon. Her sister's impetuous voice swept those fragments from her
sight, as the gust of a rising tempest sweeps the light, fleecy clouds
before it. Her grief and bewilderment was such during Bertha's last
words that the latter's silence alone warned her she was expected to
reply. She made a great effort over herself, striving to check her
sobs.
"Oh, sister," she said, "my heart is breaking; my grief is all the
greater because what has happened to-night is partly my fault."
"No, no!" cried Bertha, with her accustomed violence. "It was I who
ought to have looked to see what became of him when we left the
chapel. But," she continued, with that pertinacity of ideas which
characterizes persons who are violently in love, "what was he saying
to you? Why was he kneeling at your feet?"
Mary felt that Bertha shuddered as she asked the question; she herself
trembled violently at the thought of what she had to answer. It seemed
to her that each word by which she was forced to explain the truth to
Bertha would scorch her lips as they left her heart.
"Come, come!" said Bertha, weeping, her tears having more effect on
Mary than her anger,--"Come, tell me, dear sister; have pity on me!
The suspense is worse a hundred-fold than any pain. Tell me, tell me;
did he speak to you of love?"
Mary could not lie; or rather, self-devotion had not yet taught her to
do so.
"Yes," she said.
"Oh, my God! my God!" cried Bertha, tearing herself from her sister's
breast and falling, with outstretched arms, her face against the wall.
There was such a tone of absolute despair in the cry that Mary was
terrified. She forgot Michel, she forgot her love; she forgot all
except her sister. The sacrifice before which her heart had quailed at
the moment when she first heard that Bertha loved Michel, she now made
valiantly, with sublime self-abnegation; for she smiled, with a
breaking heart.
"Foolish girl that you are!" she cried, springing to Bertha's neck;
"let me finish what I have to say."
"Did you not tell me that he spoke of love?" replied the suffering
creature.
"Yes; but I did not tell you whom he loves."
"Mary! Mary! have pity on my heart!"
"Bertha! dear Bertha!"
"Was it of me he spoke?"
Mary had not the strength to reply in words; she made a sign of
acquiescence with her head.
Bertha breathed heavily, passed her hand several times over her
burning forehead. The shock had been too violent to allow her to
recover instantly her normal condition.
"Mary," she said, "what you have just told me seems so unlikely, so
impossible, that you must swear it. Swear to me--" She hesitated.
"I will swear what you will, sister," said Mary, who was eager herself
to put some insurmountable barrier between her heart and her love.
"Swear to me that Michel does not love you, and that you do not love
him." She laid her hand on her sister's shoulder. "Swear it by our
mother's grave."
"I swear, by the grave of our mother," said Mary, resolutely, "that I
will never marry Michel."
She threw herself into her sister's arms, seeking compensation for her
sacrifice in the caresses the latter gave her. If the room had been
less dark Bertha might have seen on Mary's features the anguish that
oath had cost her. As it was, it restored all Bertha's calmness. She
sighed gently, as though her heart were lightened of a heavy weight.
"Thank you!" she said; "oh, thank you! thank you! Now let us return to
the salon."
But, half-way down, Mary made an excuse to go to her room. There she
locked herself in to pray and weep.
The company had not yet left the supper-table. As Bertha crossed the
vestibule to reach the salon she heard bursts of laughter from the
guests.
When she entered the salon Monsieur Loriot was arguing with the young
baron, endeavoring to persuade him that it was his interest as well as
his duty to return to La Logerie. But the negative silence of the
young man was so eloquent that the notary presently found himself at
the end of his arguments. It is true, however, that he had been
talking for half an hour.
Michel was probably not less embarrassed than the notary himself, and
he welcomed Bertha as a battalion formed in a hollow square and
attacked on all sides welcomes an auxiliary who will strengthen its
defence. He sprang to meet her with an eagerness which owed as much to
his present difficulty as to the closing scene of his interview with
Mary.
To his great surprise, Bertha, incapable of concealing for a moment
what she was feeling, stretched out her hand and pressed his with
effusion. She mistook the meaning of the young man's eager advance,
and from being content she became radiant.
Michel, who expected quite another reception, did not feel at his
ease. However, he immediately recovered himself so far as to say to
Loriot:--
"You will tell my mother, monsieur, that a man of principle finds
actual duties in his political opinions, and that I decide to die, if
need be, in accomplishing mine."
Poor boy! he was confounding love with duty.