However firm Mary's resolution to control herself may have been,
Michel's entrance was so sudden, his voice vibrated with such an
accent, there was in his cry so much of love, so passionate a prayer,
that the gentle creature was unable to repress her own emotion; her
breast heaved, her fingers trembled, and the tears the young baron
fancied he saw on her eyelids detached themselves and fell, drop by
drop like liquid pearls, on Michel's hands which were grasping hers.
The poor lover himself was too overcome with his own emotion to notice
Mary's, and the girl had time to recover herself before he spoke. She
gently pushed him aside and looked about her. Michel's eyes followed
Mary's and then fixed themselves anxiously and inquiringly on her
face.
"How is it that you are alone, monsieur?" she asked. "Where is
Rosine?"
"And you, Mary," said the young man, in a voice full of sadness, "how
is it that you are not, as I am, full of the happiness of our
meeting?"
"Ah! my friend," said Mary, dwelling on the word, "you have no
cause--now especially--to doubt the interest I take in your safety."
"No," said Michel, trying to regain the hand she had drawn away from
him. "No, indeed, for it is you to whom I owe my liberty, and probably
my life."
"But," interrupted Mary, trying to smile, "all that does not make me
forget that we are alone together. Do me the kindness to call Rosine,
for there are certain social conventions I do not wish to disregard."
Michel sighed and remained on his knees, while two large tears escaped
his eyelids. Mary turned away her head that she might not see them;
then she made a motion as if to rise. But Michel retained her. The
poor lad had not enough experience of the human heart to observe that
Mary had never before manifested any reluctance to be alone with him,
and to draw from her present action a deduction favorable to his love.
On the contrary, all his beautiful visions went up in smoke, and Mary
seemed to him even colder and more indifferent than she had been of
late.
"Ah!" he cried, in a tone of melancholy reproach, "why did you rescue
me from the hands of the soldiers? They might have shot me, but I
would meet that fate rather than live to know you do not love me!"
"Michel! Michel!" cried Mary.
"Oh!" he exclaimed, "I repeat it, I would rather die."
"Don't talk so, naughty child that you are!" said Mary, striving to
assume a maternal tone. "Don't you see that it distresses me?"
"You do not care!" said Michel.
"You cannot doubt," continued Mary, "that my friendship for you is
true and most sincere."
"Alas! Mary," said the young man, sadly, "that feeling is not enough
to satisfy the passion that consumes my heart ever since I have known
you; I do feel certain of your friendship, but my heart wants more."
Mary made a supreme effort.
"My friend, what you ask of me, Bertha will give you; She loves you as
you wish to be loved, as you deserve to be loved;" said the poor
child, in a trembling voice, striving to put her sister's name as a
barrier between herself and the man she loved.
Michel shook his head and sighed.
"Oh, not her! not her!" he said.
"Why--" said Mary as if she did not see his gesture of refusal or hear
that cry from his heart. "Why did you write her that letter, which
would have filled her with despair had it reached her?"
"That letter; then it was you who received it?"
"Alas! yes," said Mary, "and painful as it was to me, it is most
fortunate that I did so."
"Did you read it through?" asked Michel.
"Yes," said the young girl, lowering her eyes before the supplicating
glance with which he enfolded her as he asked the question. "Yes, I
read it--all; and it is because I did so, dear friend, that I wished
to speak to you before you see my sister again."
"But, Mary, do you not see that that letter is truth itself from the
first line to the last, and that if I love Bertha at all it can only
be as a sister?"
"No, no," cried Mary; "I only know that my future would be horrible if
I caused unhappiness to my poor sister whom I love so well."
"But," said Michel, "what do you ask of me?"
"I ask you," replied Mary, clasping her hands, "to sacrifice a feeling
which has not had time to strike deep roots into your heart; I ask you
to forget a fancy nothing justifies, to renounce an attachment which
can have no good result for you and must be fatal to all three of us."
"Ask my life, Mary; I can kill myself, or let myself be
killed,--nothing is easier; but to ask me not to love you! Good God!
what would my poor heart be if deprived of its love for you?"
"And yet it must be so, dear Michel," said Mary, in her winning voice;
"for never--no never--will you obtain from me a word of encouragement
for the love you speak of in that letter. I have sworn it."
"To whom, Mary?"
"To God and to myself."
"Oh!" exclaimed Michel, sobbing, "and I dreamed she loved me!"
Mary thought that the more warmth he put into his words and actions,
the colder it behooved her to be.
"All that I have now said to you, my friend," she continued, "is
dictated not only by common-sense, but by the strong interest I feel
in your future. If I were indifferent to you, I should simply express
my feelings and let the matter end; but as a friend I cannot do
so,--as a friend, I say to you, Michel, forget the woman who can never
be yours and love the woman who loves you and to whom you are
virtually betrothed."
"Oh, but you know very well how that betrothal, as you call it, took
me by surprise; you know that in making that proposal Petit-Pierre
mistook my feelings. Those feelings you well know. I expressed them to
you that night when the general and the soldiers were at the château.
You did not repulse them; I felt your hands press mine; I knelt at
your feet, Mary, as I do now; you bent your head to mine; your hair,
your beautiful, adored hair touched my forehead. I did wrong not to
tell Petit-Pierre who it was I loved; but how could I expect what has
happened? It never crossed my mind she could suppose I loved any one
but Mary. It is the fault of my timidity, which I curse; but, after
all, it is not so grievous a fault that it ought to separate me
forever from the woman I love, and chain my life to one I do not
love."
"Alas! my friend, the fault that seems to you so light seems to me
irreparable. Whatever happens, and even though you repudiate the
promise made in your name and in which you acquiesced by silence, you
must understand that I can never be yours, for I will never rend the
heart of my beloved sister with the sight of my happiness."
"Good God!" cried Michel, "how wretched I am!"
He put his face in his hands and burst into tears.
"Yes," said Mary, "I know you suffer now; but take courage. Call up
your virtue, your courage, my friend. Listen willingly to my advice;
this feeling will, little by little, be effaced from your heart. If
necessary, I will go away for a time that you may cure yourself."
"Go away! separate yourself from me! No, Mary, never, never! no, don't
leave me, for I swear that the day you leave, I leave; where you go, I
go. Good God! what would become of me, deprived of your dear presence?
No, no, no; don't go, I implore you, Mary."
"So be it; I will stay, but only to help you to do whatever may be
painful and sad in your duty; and when that is done, when you are
happy, when you are Bertha's husband--"
"Never! never!" muttered Michel.
"Yes, my friend, for Bertha is more fitted to be your wife than I am;
her love for you,--and I can swear this for I have heard her express
it,--is greater than you suppose; her tenderness will satisfy the
craving for love which now consumes you, and my sister's strength and
energy, which I do not possess, will clear your path in life of the
thorns and briers you might not of yourself be able to put aside. So,
if there is really a sacrifice on your part, that sacrifice, believe
me, will be well-rewarded."
In saying these words Mary affected a calmness which was far indeed
from being in her heart, the real condition of which was betrayed by
her paleness and agitation. As for Michel, he listened in feverish
agitation.
"Don't talk so!" he cried as she ended. "Do you suppose the current of
human affections is a thing to be managed and directed as we please,
like a river which an engineer forces between the banks of a canal, or
a vine which the gardener trains as he will? No, no; I tell you again,
I repeat it and I will repeat it a hundred times,--it is you, you
alone whom I love, Mary. It would be impossible for my heart to name
any other name than yours, even if I wished it, and I don't wish it.
My God! my God!" continued the young man, flinging up his arms to
heaven with a look of agonized despair; "what would become of me if I
saw you the wife of another man?"
"Michel," said Mary, with passionate fervor, "if you will do as I ask
you, I swear by all that is most sacred that, as I cannot be your
wife, I will belong to none but God; I will never marry. All my
affection, my tenderness shall remain yours; and this affection will
not be of the vulgar kind that years destroy or a mere chance kills.
It will be the deep, unutterable affection of a sister for a brother;
it will be a gratitude which will forever bind me to you. I shall owe
to you the happiness of my sister, and all my life shall be spent in
blessing you."
"Your love for your sister misleads you, Mary," replied Michel. "You
think only of her; you do not think of me when you seek to condemn me
to the horrible torture of being chained, for life, to a woman I do
not love. Oh, Mary! it is cruel of you,--you for whom I would give my
life,--it is cruel to ask of me a thing to which I can never resign
myself."
"Oh, yes, you can, my friend," persisted the girl; "you can surely
resign yourself to what, though it may be the result of fate, is also
most assuredly, a generous and magnanimous action; you can resign
yourself because you know that God would never suffer a sacrifice like
that to go unrewarded, and the reward will be--yes, it will be--the
happiness of two poor orphans."
"Oh, Mary," said Michel, quite beside himself, "don't talk to me like
that. Oh, it is plain that you don't know what it is to love! You tell
me to give you up! but remember that you are my heart, my soul, my
life,--it is simply asking me to tear my heart from my breast,
forswear my soul, blast my happiness, dry up my very existence at its
source. You are the light for which and by which the world, to my
eyes, is a world; the day you cease to shine upon my life I shall fall
into a gulf the darkness of which horrifies me. I swear to you, Mary,
that since I have known you, since that moment when I first saw you
and felt your hands cooling my wounded forehead, you have been so
identified with my being that there is not a thought in my mind that
does not belong to you, all that is within me refers to you, and if my
heart were to lose you, it would cease to beat as if the principle of
life were taken from it. You see, therefore, that it is impossible I
should do as you ask."
"And yet," cried Mary, in a paroxysm of despair, "Bertha loves you,
and I do not love you."
"Ah! if you do not love me, Mary, if, with your eyes in my eyes, your
hands in my hands, you have the courage to say, 'I do not love you,'
then, indeed, all is over."
"What do you mean by that,--how is it all over?"
"Simply enough, Mary. As truly as those stars in heaven see the
chastity of my love for you, as truly as that God who is above those
stars knows that my love for you is immortal, Mary, neither you nor
your sister shall ever see me again."
"Oh, don't say that, Michel."
"I have but to cross the lake and mount my horse, which is there among
the osiers, and gallop to the first guard-house; once there, I have
only to say, 'I am Baron Michel de la Logerie,' to be shot in three
days." Mary gave a cry. "And that is what I will do," added Michel,
"as surely as the stars look down upon us, and God himself is above
them."
The young man made a movement to rush from the hut. Mary threw herself
before him and clasped him round the body, but her strength gave way,
her hold loosened, and she slipped to his feet.
"Michel," she murmured, "if you love me as you say you do, you will
not refuse my entreaty. In the name of your love I implore you,--I
whom you say you love,--do not kill my sister, grant me her life;
grant her happiness to my prayers and tears. God will bless you for
it; and every day my soul shall rise to Him, imploring happiness for
one who has helped me to save a sister I love better than myself.
Michel, forget me,--I ask it of your mercy, Michel,--do not reduce my
Bertha to despair."
"Oh, Mary, Mary, you are cruel!" cried the young man, grasping his
hair with both hands; "you are asking my very life. I shall die of
this."
"Courage, friend, courage," said the girl, weakening herself.
"I could have courage for all, except renouncing you; but the simple
thought of that makes me feebler than a child,--more despairing than a
soul in hell."
"Michel, my friend, will you do as I ask of you?" stammered Mary, her
voice half drowned in tears.
"I--I--"
He was about to answer that he would, but he stopped.
"Ah," he cried, "if you suffered as I suffer!"
At that cry of utter selfishness and yet of infinite love, Mary,
beside herself, panting for breath, half maddened, clasped him in her
nervous arms and said in a sobbing voice:--
"Would it comfort you to know that my heart is torn with an anguish
like yours?"
"Yes, yes; oh, yes!"
"Would hell be a paradise if I were by your side?"
"An eternity of suffering with you, Mary, and I could bear all."
"Well, then," cried Mary, losing control of herself; "be satisfied,
cruel man! your sufferings, your anguish--I feel them all. Like you, I
am dying of despair at the sacrifice our duty is wringing from us."
"Then you love me, Mary?" said the young man.
"Oh, faithless heart!" she cried; "oh, faithless man, who can see my
tears, my tortures, and cannot see my love!"
"Mary, Mary!" exclaimed Michel, staggering, breathless, mad, and
drunken at once; "after killing me with grief, will you kill me with
joy?"
"Yes, yes, I love you!" repeated Mary. "I love you! I needs must say
the words that have choked me long. Yes, I love you as you love me. I
love you so well that when I think of the sacrifice we both must make,
death would be dear to me could it come at this moment when I tell you
the truth."
Saying these words in spite of herself, and as if attracted by
magnetic power, Mary approached her face to that of the young man, who
looked at her with the eyes of one whom a sudden hallucination has
flung into ecstasy; her blond hair touched his forehead; their breaths
mingled and intoxicated both. As if overcome by this amorous
effluence, Michel closed his eyes, his lips touched Mary's, and she,
exhausted by her struggle so long sustained against herself, yielded
to the impulse that moved her. Their lips united, and thus they stayed
for several moments, lost in a gulf of dolorous felicity.
Mary was the first to recover herself. She rose quickly, pushed Michel
away from her, and began to cry bitterly.
At that instant Rosine entered the hut.