The young baron remained for several minutes in a state of utter
prostration. Jean Oullier's words rang in his ears like a knell
sounding his own death. He thought he dreamed, and he kept repeating,
as if to convince himself of the reality of his sorrow, "Go away? Go
away?"
Presently, the chill idea of death, which he had lately invoked as a
succor from heaven, an idea adopted as we fasten upon such thoughts at
twenty, passed from his brain to his heart and froze him. He shuddered
from head to foot. He saw himself separated from Mary, not merely by a
distance he dared not cross, but by that wall of granite which
incloses a man eternally in his last abode.
His pain grew so intense that he thought it a presentiment. He now
accused Jean Oullier of cruelty and injustice. The sternness of the
old Vendéan in refusing him the consolation of a last farewell seemed
to him intolerable; it was surely impossible that he should be
actually denied a last look. He rebelled at the thought, and resolved
to see Mary, no matter what might come of it.
Michel knew the internal arrangements of the miller's house.
Petit-Pierre's room was the miller's own, above the grindstones. This
was, naturally, the place of honor in the establishment. The sisters
slept in a little room adjoining this chamber. A narrow window in the
smaller room looked down upon the outside mill-wheel which kept the
machinery at work. For the present, however, all was still, lest the
noise should prevent the sentries from hearing other sounds.
Michel waited till it was dark,--an hour perhaps; then he went to the
buildings. A light could be seen in the narrow window. He threw a
plank on a paddle of the wheel and managed, by resting his body
against the wall, to climb spoke by spoke to the highest point of the
wheel; there he found himself on a level with the narrow casement. He
raised his head and looked into the tiny room.
Mary was alone, sitting on a stool, her elbow resting on the bed, her
head in her hands. Now and then a heavy sigh escaped her; from time to
time her lips moved as though she were murmuring a prayer. The young
man tapped against a window-pane. At the sound she raised her head,
recognized him through the glass, and ran to him.
"Hush!" he said.
"You! you here!" cried Mary.
"Yes, I."
"Good God! what do you want?"
"Mary, it is more than a week since I have spoken to you, almost a
week since I have seen you. I have come to bid you farewell before I
go to meet my fate."
"Farewell! and why farewell?"
"I have come to say farewell, Mary," said the youth, firmly.
"Oh, you do not mean to die?"
Michel did not answer.
"No, no; you will not die," continued Mary. "I have prayed so much
that God must hear me. But now that you have seen me, now that you
have spoken to me, you must go,--go!"
"Why must I leave you so soon? Do you hate me so intensely that you
cannot bear to see me?"
"No, you know it is not that, my friend;" said Mary. "But Bertha is in
the next room; she may have heard you come. She may be hearing what
you say. Good God! what would become of me--of me who have sworn to
her that I did not love you!"
"You may have sworn that to her, but to me you swore otherwise. You
swore that you loved me, and it was upon the faith of that love that I
consented to conceal my own."
"Michel, I entreat you, go away!"
"No, Mary, I will not go until your lips have repeated to me again
what they said on the island of Jonchère."
"But that love is almost a crime!" said Mary, desperately. "Michel, my
friend, I blush, I weep, when I think of that momentary weakness."
"Mary! I swear to you that to-morrow you shall have no such remorse,
you shall shed no tears of that kind."
"Oh, you mean to die! No, no; do not say it! Leave me the hope that my
sufferings may bring you a better fate than mine. Hush! Don't you
hear? Some one is coming! Go, Michel; go, go!"
"One kiss, Mary!"
"No."
"Yes, yes; a last kiss--the last!"
"Never, my friend."
"Mary, it is to a dying man!"
Mary gave a cry; her lips touched his forehead; but the instant they
had done so, and while she was closing the window hastily, Bertha
appeared in the doorway.
When the latter saw her sister, pale, perturbed, scarcely able to
support herself, she rushed, with the terrible instinct of jealousy,
to the window, opened it violently, leaned out, and saw a shadow
disappearing in the darkness.
"Michel was with you, Mary!" she cried, with trembling lips.
"Sister," said Mary, falling on her knees; "I swear--"
Bertha interrupted her.
"Don't swear, don't lie. I heard his voice."
Bertha pushed Mary away from her with such violence that the latter
fell flat upon the floor. Then Bertha, springing over her sister's
body, furious as a lioness deprived of her young, rushed from the room
and down the stairs, crossed the mill, and reached the courtyard.
There, to her astonishment, she saw Michel sitting on the doorstep
beside Jean Oullier. She went straight up to him.
"How long have you been here?" she said in a curt, harsh voice.