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White Lies

by Charles Reade

January, 2001  [Etext #2472]


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WHITE LIES

by CHARLES READE




CHAPTER I.


Towards the close of the last century the Baron de Beaurepaire lived
in the chateau of that name in Brittany.  His family was of
prodigious antiquity; seven successive barons had already flourished
on this spot when a younger son of the house accompanied his
neighbor the Duke of Normandy in his descent on England, and was
rewarded by a grant of English land, on which he dug a mote and
built a chateau, and called it Beaurepaire (the worthy Saxons turned
this into Borreper without delay).  Since that day more than twenty
gentlemen of the same lineage had held in turn the original chateau
and lands, and handed them down to their present lord.

Thus rooted in his native Brittany, Henri Lionel Marie St. Quentin
de Beaurepaire was as fortunate as any man can be pronounced before
he dies.  He had health, rank, a good income, a fair domain, a
goodly house, a loving wife, and two lovely young daughters, all
veneration and affection.  Two months every year he visited the
Faubourg St. Germain and the Court.  At both every gentleman and
every lacquey knew his name, and his face: his return to Brittany
after this short absence was celebrated by a rustic fete.

Above all, Monsieur de Beaurepaire possessed that treasure of
treasures, content.  He hunted no heart-burns.  Ambition did not
tempt him; why should he listen to long speeches, and court the
unworthy, and descend to intrigue, for so precarious and equivocal a
prize as a place in the Government, when he could be De Beaurepaire
without trouble or loss of self-respect?  Social ambition could get
little hold of him; let parvenus give balls half in doors, half out,
and light two thousand lamps, and waste their substance battling and
manoeuvring for fashionable distinction; he had nothing to gain by
such foolery, nothing to lose by modest living; he was the twenty-
ninth Baron of Beaurepaire.  So wise, so proud, so little vain, so
strong in health and wealth and honor, one would have said nothing
less than an earthquake could shake this gentleman and his house.
Yet both were shaken, though rooted by centuries to the soil; and by
no vulgar earthquake.

For years France had bowed in silence beneath two galling burdens--a
selfish and corrupt monarchy, and a multitudinous, privileged, lazy,
and oppressive aristocracy, by whom the peasant was handled like a
Russian serf.  [Said peasant is now the principal proprietor of the
soil.]

The lower orders rose upon their oppressors, and soon showed
themselves far blacker specimens of the same breed.  Law, religion,
humanity, and common sense, hid their faces; innocent blood flowed
in a stream, and terror reigned.  To Monsieur de Beaurepaire these
republicans--murderers of women, children, and kings--seemed the
most horrible monsters nature had ever produced; he put on black,
and retired from society; he felled timber, and raised large sums of
money upon his estate.  And one day he mounted his charger, and
disappeared from the chateau.

Three months after this, a cavalier, dusty and pale, rode into the
courtyard of Beaurepaire, and asked to see the baroness.  She came
to him; he hung his head and held her out a letter.

It contained a few sad words from Monsieur de Laroche-jaquelin.  The
baron had just fallen in La Vendee, fighting for the Crown.

From that hour till her death the baroness wore black.

The mourner would have been arrested, and perhaps beheaded, but for
a friend, the last in the world on whom the family reckoned for any
solid aid.  Dr. Aubertin had lived in the chateau twenty years.  He
was a man of science, and did not care a button for money; so he had
retired from the practice of medicine, and pursued his researches at
ease under the baron's roof.  They all loved him, and laughed at his
occasional reveries, in the days of prosperity; and now, in one
great crisis, the protege became the protector, to their astonishment
and his own.  But it was an age of ups and downs.  This amiable
theorist was one of the oldest verbal republicans in Europe.  And
why not?  In theory a republic is the perfect form of government:
it is merely in practice that it is impossible; it is only upon
going off paper into reality, and trying actually to self-govern
limited nations, after heating them white hot with the fire of
politics and the bellows of bombast--that the thing resolves
itself into bloodshed silvered with moonshine.

Dr. Aubertin had for years talked and written speculative
republicanism.  So they applied to him whether the baroness shared
her husband's opinions, and he boldly assured them she did not; he
added, "She is a pupil of mine."  On this audacious statement they
contented themselves with laying a heavy fine on the lands of
Beaurepaire.

Assignats were abundant, but good mercantile paper, a notorious
coward, had made itself wings and fled, and specie was creeping into
strong boxes like a startled rabbit into its hole.  The fine was
paid; but Beaurepaire had to be heavily mortgaged, and the loan bore
a high rate of interest.  This, with the baron's previous mortgages,
swamped the estate.

The baroness sold her carriage and horses, and she and her daughters
prepared to deny themselves all but the bare necessaries of life,
and pay off their debts if possible.  On this their dependants fell
away from them; their fair-weather friends came no longer near them;
and many a flush of indignation crossed their brows, and many an
aching pang their hearts, as adversity revealed the baseness and
inconstancy of common people high or low.

When the other servants had retired with their wages, one Jacintha
remained behind, and begged permission to speak to the baroness.

"What would you with me, my child?" asked that lady, with an accent
in which a shade of surprise mingled with great politeness.

"Forgive me, madame," began Jacintha, with a formal courtesy; "but
how can I leave you, and Mademoiselle Josephine, and Mademoiselle
Rose?  I was born at Beaurepaire; my mother died in the chateau: my
father died in the village; but he had meat every day from the
baron's own table, and fuel from the baron's wood, and died blessing
the house of Beaurepaire.  I CANNOT go.  The others are gone because
prosperity is here no longer.  Let it be so; I will stay till the
sun shines again upon the chateau, and then you shall send me away
if you are bent on it; but not now, my ladies--oh, not now!  Oh! oh!
oh!"  And the warm-hearted girl burst out sobbing ungracefully.

"My child," said the baroness, "these sentiments touch me, and honor
you.  But retire, if you please, while I consult my daughters."

Jacintha cut her sobs dead short, and retreated with a formal
reverence.

The consultation consisted of the baroness opening her arms, and
both her daughters embracing her at once.  Proud as they were, they
wept with joy at having made one friend amongst all their servants.
Jacintha stayed.

As months rolled on, Rose de Beaurepaire recovered her natural
gayety in spite of bereavement and poverty; so strong are youth, and
health, and temperament.  But her elder sister had a grief all her
own: Captain Dujardin, a gallant young officer, well-born, and his
own master, had courted her with her parents' consent; and, even
when the baron began to look coldly on the soldier of the Republic,
young Dujardin, though too proud to encounter the baron's irony and
looks of scorn, would not yield love to pique.  He came no more to
the chateau, but he would wait hours and hours on the path to the
little oratory in the park, on the bare chance of a passing word or
even a kind look from Josephine.  So much devotion gradually won a
heart which in happier times she had been half encouraged to give
him; and, when he left her on a military service of uncommon danger,
the woman's reserve melted, and, in that moment of mutual grief and
passion, she vowed she loved him better than all the world.

Letters from the camp breathing a devotion little short of worship
fed her attachment; and more than one public mention of his name and
services made her proud as well as fond of the fiery young soldier.

Still she did not open her heart to her parents.  The baron, alive
at that time, was exasperated against the Republic, and all who
served it; and, as for the baroness, she was of the old school: a
passionate love in a lady's heart before marriage was contrary to
her notions of etiquette.  Josephine loved Rose very tenderly; but
shrank with modest delicacy from making her a confidante of
feelings, the bare relation of which leaves the female hearer a
child no longer.

So she hid her heart, and delicious first love nestled deep in her
nature, and thrilled in every secret vein and fibre.

They had parted two years, and he had joined the army of the
Pyrenees about one month, when suddenly all correspondence ceased on
his part.

Restless anxiety rose into terror as this silence continued; and
starting and trembling at every sound, and edging to the window at
every footstep, Josephine expected hourly the tidings of her lover's
death.

Months rolled on in silence.

Then a new torture came.  He must not be dead but unfaithful.  At
this all the pride of her race was fired in her.

The struggle between love and ire was almost too much for nature:
violently gay and moody by turns she alarmed both her mother and the
good Dr. Aubertin.  The latter was not, I think, quite without
suspicion of the truth; however, he simply prescribed change of air
and place; she must go to Frejus, a watering-place distant about
five leagues.  Mademoiselle de Beaurepaire yielded a languid assent.
To her all places were alike.

But when they returned from Frejus a change had taken place.  Rose
had extracted her sister's secret, and was a changed girl.  Pity,
and the keen sense of Josephine's wrong, had raised her sisterly
love to a passion.  The great-hearted girl hovered about her lovely,
suffering sister like an angel, and paid her the tender attentions
of a devoted lover, and hated Camille Dujardin with all her heart:
hated him all the more that she saw Josephine shrink even from her
whenever she inveighed against him.

At last Rose heard some news of the truant lover.  The fact is, this
young lady was as intelligent as she was inexperienced; and she had
asked Jacintha to tell Dard to talk to every soldier that passed
through the village, and ask him if he knew anything about Captain
Dujardin of the 17th regiment.  Dard cross-examined about a hundred
invalided warriors, who did not even recognize the captain's name;
but at last, by extraordinary luck, he actually did fall in with
two, who told him strange news about Captain Dujardin.  And so then
Dard told Jacintha; and Jacintha soon had the men into the kitchen
and told Rose.  Rose ran to tell Josephine; but stopped in the
passage, and turned suddenly very cold.  Her courage failed her; she
feared Josephine would not take the news as she ought; and perhaps
would not love her so well if SHE told her; so she thought to
herself she would let the soldiers tell their own tale.  She went
into the room where Josephine was reading to the baroness and Dr.
Aubertin; she sat quietly down; but at the first opportunity made
Josephine one of those imperceptible signals which women, and above
all, sisters, have reduced to so subtle a system.  This done, she
went carelessly out: and Josephine in due course followed her, and
found her at the door.

"What is it?" said Josephine, earnestly.

"Have you courage?" was Rose's reply.

"He is dead?" said Josephine, turning pale as ashes.

"No, no;" said Rose hastily; "he is alive.  But you will need all
your courage."

"Since he lives I fear nothing," said Josephine; and stood there and
quivered from head to foot.  Rose, with pitying looks, took her by
the hand and drew her in silence towards the kitchen.

Josephine yielded a mute submission at first; but at the very door
hung back and faltered, "He loves another; he is married: let me
go."  Rose made no reply, but left her there and went into the
kitchen and found two dragoons seated round a bottle of wine.  They
rose and saluted her.

"Be seated, my brave men," said she; "only please tell me what you
told Jacintha about Captain Dujardin."

"Don't stain your mouth with the captain, my little lady.  He is a
traitor."

"How do you know?"

"Marcellus! mademoiselle asks us how we know Captain Dujardin to be
a traitor.  Speak."

Marcellus, thus appealed to, told Rose after his own fashion that he
knew the captain well: that one day the captain rode out of the camp
and never returned: that at first great anxiety was felt on his
behalf, for the captain was a great favorite, and passed for the
smartest soldier in the division: that after awhile anxiety gave
place to some very awkward suspicions, and these suspicions it was
his lot and his comrade's here to confirm.  About a month later he
and the said comrade and two more were sent, well mounted, to
reconnoitre a Spanish village.  At the door of a little inn they
caught sight of a French uniform.  This so excited their curiosity
that he went forward nearer than prudent, and distinctly recognized
Captain Dujardin seated at a table drinking between two guerillas;
then he rode back and told the others, who then came up and
satisfied themselves it was so: that if any of the party had
entertained a doubt, it was removed in an unpleasant way; he,
Marcellus, disgusted at the sight of a French uniform drinking among
Spaniards, took down his carabine and fired at the group as
carefully as a somewhat restive horse permitted: at this, as if by
magic, a score or so of guerillas poured out from Heaven knows
where, musket in hand, and delivered a volley; the officer in
command of the party fell dead, Jean Jacques here got a broken arm,
and his own horse was wounded in two places, and fell from loss of
blood a few furlongs from the French camp, to the neighborhood of
which the vagabonds pursued them, hallooing and shouting and firing
like barbarous banditti as they were.

"However, here I am," concluded Marcellus, "invalided for awhile, my
lady, but not expended yet: we will soon dash in among them again
for death or glory.  Meantime," concluded he, filling both glasses,
"let us drink to the eyes of beauty (military salute); and to the
renown of France; and double damnation to all her traitors, like
that Captain Dujardin; whose neck may the devil twist."

Ere they could drink to this energetic toast, a low wail at the
door, like a dying hare's, arrested the glasses on their road, and
the rough soldiers stood transfixed, and looked at one another in
some dismay.  Rose flew to the door with a face full of concern.

Josephine was gone.

Then Rose had the tact and resolution to say a few kind, encouraging
words to the soldiers, and bid Jacintha be hospitable to them.  This
done she darted up-stairs after Josephine; she reached the main
corridor just in time to see her creep along it with the air and
carriage of a woman of fifty, and enter her own room.

Rose followed softly with wet eyes, and turned the handle gently.
But the door was locked.

"Josephine!  Josephine!"

No answer.

"I want to speak to you.  I am frightened.  Oh, do not be alone."

A choking voice answered, "Give me a little while to draw my
breath."  Rose sank down at the door, and sat close to it, with her
head against it, sobbing bitterly.  She was hurt at not being let
in; such a friend as she had proved herself.  But this personal
feeling was only a fraction of her grief and anxiety.

A good half hour elapsed ere Josephine, pale and stern as no one had
ever seen her till that hour, suddenly opened the door.  She started
at sight of Rose couched sorrowful on the threshold; her stern look
relaxed into tender love and pity; she sank, blushing, on her knees,
and took her sister's head quickly to her bosom.  "Oh, my little
love, have you been here all this time?"--"Oh! oh! oh!" was all the
little love could reply.  Then the deserted one, still kneeling,
took Rose in her lap, and caressed and comforted her, and poured
words of gratitude and affection over her like a warm shower.

They rose hand in hand.

Then Rose suddenly seized Josephine, and looked long and anxiously
down into her eyes.  They flashed fire under the scrutiny.  "Yes, it
is all over; I could not despise and love.  I am dead to him, as he
is dead to France."

This was joyful news to Rose.  "I hoped it would be so," said she;
"but you frightened me.  My noble sister, were I ever to lose your
esteem, I should die.  Oh, how awful yet how beautiful is your
scorn.  For worlds I would not be that Cam"--  Josephine laid her
hand imperiously on Rose's mouth.  "To mention his name to me will
be to insult me; De Beaurepaire I am, and a Frenchwoman.  Come,
dear, let us go down and comfort our mother."

They went down; and this patient sufferer, and high minded
conqueror, of her own accord took up a commonplace book, and read
aloud for two mortal hours to her mother and Aubertin.  Her voice
only wavered twice.

To feel that life is ended; to wish existence, too, had ceased; and
so to sit down, an aching hollow, and take a part and sham an
interest in twaddle to please others; such are woman's feats.  How
like nothing at all they look!

A man would rather sit on the buffer of a steam-engine and ride at
the Great Redan.

Rose sat at her elbow, a little behind her, and turned the leaves,
and on one pretence or other held Josephine's hand nearly all the
rest of the day.  Its delicate fibres remained tense, like a
greyhound's sinews after a race, and the blue veins rose to sight in
it, though her voice and eyes were mastered.

So keen was the strife, so matched the antagonists, so hard the
victory.

For ire and scorn are mighty.  And noble blood in a noble heart is
heroic.  And Love is a giant.


CHAPTER II.


The French provinces were now organized upon a half military plan,
by which all the local authorities radiated towards a centre of
government.  By-the-by, this feature has survived subsequent
revolutions and political changes.

In days of change, youth is at a premium; because, though experience
is valuable, the experience of one order of things unfits ordinary
men for another order of things.  So a good many old fogies in
office were shown the door, and a good deal of youth and energy
infused into the veins of provincial government.  For instance,
Edouard Riviere, who had but just completed his education with
singular eclat at a military school, was one fine day ordered into
Brittany to fill a responsible post under Commandant Raynal, a
blunt, rough soldier, that had risen from the ranks, and bore a much
higher character for zeal and moral integrity than for affability.

This officer was the son of a widow that kept a grocer's shop in
Paris.  She intended him for spice, but he thirsted for glory, and
vexed her.  So she yielded, as mothers will.

In the armies of the republic a good soldier rose with unparalleled
certainty, and rapidity, too; for when soldiers are being mowed down
like oats, it is a glorious time for such of them as keep their
feet.  Raynal mounted fast, and used to write to his mother, and
joke her about the army being such a bad profession; and, as he was
all for glory, not money, he lived with Spartan frugality, and saved
half his pay and all his prize money for the old lady in Paris.

But this prosperous man had to endure a deep disappointment; on the
very day he was made commandant and one of the general's aides-de-
camp, came a letter into the camp.  His mother was dead after a
short illness.  This was a terrible blow to the simple, rugged
soldier, who had never had much time nor inclination to flirt with a
lot of girls, and toughen his heart.  He came back to Paris honored
and rich, but downcast.  The old home, empty of his mother, seemed
to him not to have the old look.  It made him sadder.  To cheer him
up they brought him much money.  The widow's trade had taken a
wonderful start the last few years, and she had been playing the
same game as he had, living on ten-pence a day, and saving all for
him.  This made him sadder, if anything.

"What," said he, "have we both been scraping all this dross together
for?  I would give it all to sit one hour by the fire, with her hand
in mine, and hear her say, 'Scamp, you made me unhappy when you were
young, but I have lived to be proud of you.'"

He applied for active service, no matter what: obtained at once this
post in Brittany, and threw himself into it with that honest zeal
and activity, which are the best earthly medicine for all our
griefs.  He was busy writing, when young Riviere first presented
himself.  He looked up for a moment, and eyed him, to take his
measure; then put into his hand a report by young Nicole, a
subordinate filling a post of the same nature as Riviere's; and bade
him analyze that report on the spot: with this he instantly resumed
his own work.

Edouard Riviere was an adept at this sort of task, and soon handed
him a neat analysis.  Raynal ran his eye over it, nodded cold
approval, and told him to take this for the present as a guide as to
his own duties.  He then pointed to a map on which Riviere's
district was marked in blue ink, and bade him find the centre of it.
Edouard took a pair of compasses off the table, and soon discovered
that the village of Beaurepaire was his centre.  "Then quarter
yourself at Beaurepaire; and good-day," said Raynal.

The chateau was in sight from Riviere's quarters, and he soon
learned that it belonged to a royalist widow and her daughters, who
all three held themselves quite aloof from the rest of the world.
"Ah," said the young citizen, "I see.  If these rococo citizens play
that game with me, I shall have to take them down."  Thus a fresh
peril menaced this family, on whose hearts and fortunes such heavy
blows had fallen.

One evening our young official, after a day spent in the service of
the country, deigned to take a little stroll to relieve the cares of
administration.  He imprinted on his beardless face the expression
of a wearied statesman, and strolled through an admiring village.
The men pretended veneration from policy; the women, whose views of
this great man were shallower but more sincere, smiled approval of
his airs; and the young puppy affected to take no notice of either
sex.

Outside the village, Publicola suddenly encountered two young
ladies, who resembled nothing he had hitherto met with in his
district; they were dressed in black, and with extreme simplicity;
but their easy grace and composure, and the refined sentiment of
their gentle faces, told at a glance they belonged to the high
nobility.  Publicola divined them at once, and involuntarily raised
his hat to so much beauty and dignity, instead of poking it with a
finger as usual.  On this the ladies instantly courtesied to him
after the manner of their party, with a sweep and a majesty, and a
precision of politeness, that the pup would have laughed at if he
had heard of it; but seeing it done, and well done, and by lovely
women of rank, he was taken aback by it, and lifted his hat again,
and bowed again after he had gone by, and was generally flustered.
In short, instead of a member of the Consular Government saluting
private individuals of a decayed party that existed only by
sufferance, a handsome, vain, good-natured boy had met two self-
possessed young ladies of distinction and breeding, and had cut the
usual figure.

For the next hundred yards his cheeks burned and his vanity cooled.
But bumptiousness is elastic in France, as in England, and doubtless
among the Esquimaux.  "Well, they are pretty girls," says he to
himself.  "I never saw two such pretty girls together; they will do
for me to flirt with while I am banished to this Arcadia."  Banished
from school, I beg to observe.

And "awful beauty" being no longer in sight, Mr. Edouard resolved he
would flirt with them to their hearts' content.  But there are
ladies with whom a certain preliminary is required before you can
flirt with them.  You must be on speaking terms.  How was this to be
managed?

He used to watch at his window with a telescope, and whenever the
sisters came out of their own grounds, which unfortunately was not
above twice a week, he would throw himself in their way by the
merest accident, and pay them a dignified and courteous salute,
which he had carefully got up before a mirror in the privacy of his
own chamber.

One day, as he took off his hat to the young ladies, there broke
from one of them a smile, so sudden, sweet, and vivid, that he
seemed to feel it smite him first on the eyes then in the heart.  He
could not sleep for this smile.

Yet he had seen many smilers; but to be sure most of them smiled
without effect, because they smiled eternally; they seemed cast with
their mouths open, and their pretty teeth forever in sight; and this
has a saddening influence on a man of sense--when it has any.  But
here a fair, pensive face had brightened at sight of him; a lovely
countenance, on which circumstances, not nature, had impressed
gravity, had sprung back to its natural gayety for a moment, and had
thrilled and bewitched the beholder.

The next Sunday he went to church--and there worshipped--whom?
Cupid.  He smarted for his heathenism; for the young ladies went
with higher motives, and took no notice of him.  They lowered their
long silken lashes over one breviary, and scarcely observed the
handsome citizen.  Meantime he, contemplating their pious beauty
with earthly eyes, was drinking long draughts of intoxicating
passion.  And when after the service they each took an arm of Dr.
Aubertin, and he with the air of an admiral convoying two ships
choke-full of specie, conducted his precious charge away home, our
young citizen felt jealous, and all but hated the worthy doctor.

This went on till he became listless and dejected on the days he did
not see them.  Then he asked himself whether he was not a cowardly
fool to keep at such a distance.  After all he was a man in
authority.  His friendship was not to be despised, least of all by a
family suspected of disaffection to the state.

He put on his glossy beaver with enormous brim, high curved; his
blue coat with brass buttons; his white waistcoat, gray breeches,
and top-boots; and marched up to the chateau of Beaurepaire, and
sent in his card with his name and office inscribed.

Jacintha took it, bestowed a glance of undisguised admiration on the
young Adonis, and carried it to the baroness.  That lady sent her
promptly down again with a black-edged note to this effect.


Highly flattered by Monsieur de Riviere's visit, the baroness must
inform him that she receives none but old acquaintances, in the
present grief of the family, and of the KINGDOM.


Young Riviere was cruelly mortified by this rebuff.  He went off
hurriedly, grinding his teeth with rage.

"Cursed aristocrats!  We have done well to pull you down, and we
will have you lower still.  How I despise myself for giving any one
the chance to affront me thus.  The haughty old fool; if she had
known her interest, she would have been too glad to make a powerful
friend.  These royalists are in a ticklish position; I can tell her
that.  She calls me De Riviere; that implies nobody without a 'De'
to their name would have the presumption to visit her old tumble-
down house.  Well, it is a lesson; I am a republican, and the
Commonwealth trusts and honors me; yet I am so ungrateful as to go
out of the way to be civil to her enemies, to royalists; as if those
worn-out creatures had hearts, as if they could comprehend the
struggle that took place in my mind between duty, and generosity to
the fallen, before I could make the first overture to their
acquaintance; as if they could understand the politeness of the
heart, or anything nobler than curving and ducking and heartless
etiquette.  This is the last notice I will ever take of that old
woman, unless it is to denounce her."

He walked home to the town very fast, his heart boiling, and his
lips compressed, and his brow knitted.

To this mood succeeded a sullen and bitter one.  He was generous,
but vain, and his love had humiliated him so bitterly, he resolved
to tear it out of his heart.  He absented himself from church; he
met the young ladies no more.  He struggled fiercely with his
passion; he went about dogged, silent, and sighing.  Presently he
devoted his leisure hours to shooting partridges instead of ladies.
And he was right; partridges cannot shoot back; whereas beautiful
women, like Cupid, are all archers more or less, and often with one
arrow from eye or lip do more execution than they have suffered from
several discharges of our small shot.

In these excursions, Edouard was generally accompanied by a thick-
set rustic called Dard, who, I believe, purposes to reveal his own
character to you, and so save me that trouble.

One fine afternoon, about four o'clock, this pair burst remorselessly
through a fence, and landed in the road opposite Bigot's Auberge; a
long low house, with "ICI ON LOGE A PIED ET A CHEVAL," written all
across it in gigantic letters.  Riviere was for moving homeward,
but Dard halted and complained dismally of "the soldier's gripes."
The statesman had never heard of that complaint, so Dard explained
that the VULGAR name for it was hunger.  "And only smell," said he,
"the soup is just fit to come off the fire."

Riviere smiled sadly, but consented to deign to eat a morsel in the
porch.  Thereat Dard dashed wildly into the kitchen.

They dined at one little round table, each after his fashion.  When
Dard could eat no more, he proceeded to drink; and to talk in
proportion.  Riviere, lost in his own thoughts, attended to him as
men of business do to a babbling brook; until suddenly from the mass
of twaddle broke forth a magic word--Beaurepaire; then the languid
lover pricked up his ears and found Mr. Dard was abusing that noble
family right and left.  Young Riviere inquired what ground of
offence they had given HIM.  "I'll tell you," said Dard; "they
impose on Jacintha; and so she imposes on me."  Then observing he
had at last gained his employer's ear, he became prodigiously
loquacious, as such people generally are when once they get upon
their own griefs.

"These Beaurepaire aristocrats," said he, with his hard peasant
good-sense, "are neither the one thing nor the other; they cannot
keep up nobility, they have not the means; they will not come down
off their perch, they have not the sense.  No, for as small as they
are, they must look and talk as big as ever.  They can only afford
one servant, and I don't believe they pay her; but they must be
attended on just as obsequious as when they had a dozen.  And this
is fatal to all us little people that have the misfortune to be
connected with them."

"Why, how are you connected with them?"

"By the tie of affection."

"I thought you hated them."

"Of course I do; but I have the ill-luck to love Jacintha, and she
loves these aristocrats, and makes me do little odd jobs for them."
And at this Dard's eyes suddenly glared with horror.

"Well, what of that?" asked Riviere.

"What of it, citizen, what? you do not know the fatal meaning of
those accursed words?"

"Why, I never heard of a man's back being broken by little odd
jobs."

"Perhaps not his back, citizen, but his heart? if little odd jobs
will not break that, why nothing will.  Torn from place to place,
and from trouble to trouble; as soon as one tiresome thing begins to
go a bit smooth, off to a fresh plague, in-doors work when it is
dry, out-a-doors when it snows; and then all bustle; no taking one's
work quietly, the only way it agrees with a fellow.  'Milk the cow,
Dard, but look sharp; the baroness's chair wants mending.  Take
these slops to the pig, but you must not wait to see him enjoy them:
you are wanted to chop billets.'  Beat the mats, take down the
curtains, walk to church (best part of a league), and heat the pew
cushions; come back and cut the cabbages, paint the door, and wheel
the old lady about the terrace, rub quicksilver on the little dog's
back,--mind he don't bite you to make hisself sick,--repair the
ottoman, roll the gravel, scour the kettles, carry half a ton of
water up twopurostairs, trim the turf, prune the vine, drag the
fish-pond; and when you ARE there, go in and gather water lilies for
Mademoiselle Josephine while you are drowning the puppies; that is
little odd jobs: may Satan twist her neck who invented them!"

"Very sad all this," said young Riviere.

Dard took the little sneer for sympathy, and proceeded to "the
cruellest wrong of all."

"When I go into their kitchen to court Jacintha a bit, instead of
finding a good supper there, which a man has a right to, courting a
cook, if I don't take one in my pocket, there is no supper, not to
say supper, for either her or me.  I don't call a salad and a bit of
cheese-rind--SUPPER.  Beggars in silk and satin!  Every sou they
have goes on to their backs, instead of into their bellies."

"I have heard their income is much reduced," said Edouard gently.

"Income!  I would not change with them if they'd throw me in half a
pancake a day.  I tell you they are the poorest family for leagues
round; not that they need be quite so starved, if they could swallow
a little of their pride.  But no, they must have china and plate and
fine linen at dinner; so their fine plates are always bare, and
their silver trays empty.  Ask the butcher, if you don't believe ME.
Just you ask him whether he does not go three times to the smallest
shopkeeper, for once he goes to Beaurepaire.  Their tenants send
them a little meal and eggs, and now and then a hen; and their great
garden is chock full of fruit and vegetables, and Jacintha makes me
dig in it gratis; and so they muddle on.  But, bless your heart,
coffee! they can't afford it; so they roast a lot of horse-beans
that cost nothing, and grind them, and serve up the liquor in a
silver coffee-pot, on a silver salver.  Haw, haw, haw!"

"Is it possible? reduced to this?" said Edouard gravely.

"Don't you be so weak as to pity them," cried the remorseless
plebeian.  "Why don't they melt their silver into soup, and cut down
their plate into rashers of bacon? why not sell the superfluous, and
buy the needful, which it is grub?  And, above all, why don't they
let their old tumble-down palace to some rich grocer, and that
accursed garden along with it, where I sweat gratis, and live small
and comfortable, and pay honest men for their little odd jobs, and"--

Here Riviere interrupted him, and asked if it was really true
about the beans.

"True?" said Dard, "why, I have seen Rose doing it for the old
woman's breakfast: it was Rose invented the move.  A girl of
nineteen beginning already to deceive the world!  But they are all
tarred with the same stick.  Down with the aristocrats!"

"Dard," said Riviere, "you are a brute."

"Me, citizen?" inquired Dard with every appearance of genuine
surprise.

Edouard Riviere rose from his seat in great excitement.  Dard's
abuse of the family he was lately so bitter against had turned him
right round.  He pitied the very baroness herself, and forgave her
declining his visit.

"Be silent," said he, "for shame!  There is such a thing as noble
poverty; and you have described it.  I might have disdained these
people in their prosperity, but I revere them in their affliction.
And I'll tell you what, don't you ever dare to speak slightly of
them again in my presence, or"--

He did not conclude his threat, for just then he observed that a
strapping girl, with a basket at her feet, was standing against the
corner of the Auberge, in a mighty careless attitude, but doing
nothing, so most likely listening with all her ears and soul.  Dard,
however, did not see her, his back being turned to her as he sat; so
he replied at his ease,--

"I consent," said he very coolly: "that is your affair; but permit
me," and here he clenched his teeth at remembrance of his wrongs,
"to say that I will no more be a scullery man without wages to these
high-minded starvelings, these illustrious beggars."  Then he heated
himself red-hot.  "I will not even be their galley slave.  Next, I
have done my last little odd job in this world," yelled the now
infuriated factotum, bouncing up to his feet in brief fury.  "Of two
things one: either Jacintha quits those aristos, or I leave Jacin--
eh?--ah!--oh!--ahem!  How--'ow d'ye do, Jacintha?"  And his roar
ended in a whine, as when a dog runs barking out, and receives in
full career a cut from his master's whip, his generous rage turns to
whimper with ludicrous abruptness.  "I was just talking of you,
Jacintha," quavered Dard in conclusion.

"I heard you, Dard," replied Jacintha slowly, softly, grimly.

Dard withered.

It was a lusty young woman, with a comely peasant face somewhat
freckled, and a pair of large black eyes surmounted by coal-black
brows.  She stood in a bold attitude, her massive but well-formed
arms folded so that the pressure of each against the other made them
seem gigantic, and her cheek red with anger, and her eyes glistening
like basilisks upon citizen Dard.  She looked so grand, with her
lowering black brows, that even Riviere felt a little uneasy.  As
for Jacintha, she was evidently brooding with more ire than she
chose to utter before a stranger.  She just slowly unclasped her
arms, and, keeping her eye fixed on Dard, pointed with a domineering
gesture towards Beaurepaire.  Then the doughty Dard seemed no longer
master of his limbs: he rose slowly, with his eyes fastened to hers,
and was moving off like an ill-oiled automaton in the direction
indicated; but at that a suppressed snigger began to shake Riviere's
whole body till it bobbed up and down on the seat.  Dard turned to
him for sympathy.

"There, citizen," he cried, "do you see that imperious gesture?
That means you promised to dig in the aristocrat's garden this
afternoon, so march!  Here, then, is one that has gained nothing by
kings being put down, for I am ruled with a mopstick of iron.  Thank
your stars, citizen, that you are not in may place."

"Dard," retorted Jacintha, "if you don't like your place, I'd quit
it.  There are two or three young men down in the village will be
glad to take it."

"I won't give them the chance, the vile egotists!" cried Dard.  And
he returned to the chateau and little odd jobs.

Jacintha hung behind, lowered her eyes, put on a very deferential
manner, and thanked Edouard for the kind sentiments he had uttered;
but at the same time she took the liberty to warn him against
believing the extravagant stories Dard had been telling about her
mistress's poverty.  She said the simple fact was that the baron had
contracted debts, and the baroness, being the soul of honor, was
living in great economy to pay them off.  Then, as to Dard getting
no supper up at Beaurepaire, a complaint that appeared to sting her
particularly, she assured him she was alone to blame: the baroness
would be very angry if she knew it.  "But," said she, "Dard is an
egotist.  Perhaps you may have noticed that trait in him."

"Glimpses of it," replied Riviere, laughing.

"Monsieur, he is so egotistic that he has not a friend in the world
but me.  I forgive him, because I know the reason; he has never had
a headache or a heartache in his life."

Edouard, aged twenty, and a male, did not comprehend this piece of
feminine logic one bit: and, while he puzzled over it in silence,
Jacintha went on to say that if she were to fill her egotist's
paunch, she should never know whether he came to Beaurepaire for
her, or himself.  "Now, Dard," she added, "is no beauty, monsieur;
why, he is three inches shorter than I am."

"You are joking! he looks a foot," said Edouard.

"He is no scholar neither, and I have had to wipe up many a sneer
and many a sarcasm on his account; but up to now I have always been
able to reply that this five feet one of egotism loves me sincerely;
and the moment I doubt this, I give him the sack,--poor little
fellow!"

"In a word," said Riviere, a little impatiently, "the family at
Beaurepaire are not in such straits as he pretends?"

"Monsieur, do I look like one starved?"

"By Jove, no! by Ceres, I mean."

"Are my young mistresses wan, and thin?"

"Treason! blasphemy! ah, no!  By Venus and Hebe, no!"

Jacintha smiled at this enthusiastic denial, and also because her
sex is apt to smile when words are used they do not understand.

"Dard is a fool," suggested Riviere, by way of general solution.  He
added, "And yet, do you know I wish every word he said had been
true."  (Jacintha's eyes expressed some astonishment.)  "Because
then you and I would have concerted means to do them kindnesses,
secretly; for I see you are no ordinary servant; you love your young
mistresses.  Do you not?"

These simple words seemed to touch a grander chord in Jacintha's
nature.

"Love them?" said she, clasping her hands; "ah, sir, do not be
offended; but, believe me, it is no small thing to serve an old, old
family.  My grandfather lived and died with them; my father was
their gamekeeper, and fed to his last from off the poor baron's
plate (and now they have killed him, poor man); my mother died in
the house and was buried in the sacred ground near the family
chapel.  They put an inscription on her tomb praising her fidelity
and probity.  Do you think these things do not sink into the heart
of the poor?--praise on her tomb, and not a word on their own, but
just the name, and when each was born and died, you know.  Ah! the
pride of the mean is dirt; but the pride of the noble is gold."

"For, look you, among parvenues I should be a servant, and nothing
more; in this proud family I am a humble friend; of course they are
not always gossiping with me like vulgar masters and mistresses; if
they did, I should neither respect nor love them; but they all smile
on me whenever I come into the room, even the baroness herself.  I
belong to them, and they belong to me, by ties without number, by
the many kind words in many troubles, by the one roof that sheltered
us a hundred years, and the grave where our bones lie together till
the day of judgment."*


* The French peasant often thinks half a sentence, and utters the
other half aloud, and so breaks air in the middle of a thought.
Probably Jacintha's whole thought, if we had the means of knowing
it, would have run like this--Besides, I have another reason: I
could not be so comfortable myself elsewhere--for, look you"--


Jacintha clasped her hands, and her black eyes shone out warm
through the dew.  Riviere's glistened too.

"That is well said," he cried; "it is nobly said: yet, after all,
these are ties that owe their force to the souls they bind.  How
often have such bonds round human hearts proved ropes of sand!  They
grapple YOU like hooks of steel; because you are steel yourself to
the backbone.  I admire you, Jacintha.  Such women as you have a
great mission in France just now."

Jacintha shook her head incredulously.  "What can we poor women do?"

"Bring forth heroes," cried Publicola with fervor.  "Be the mothers
of great men, the Catos and the Gracchi of the future!"

Jacintha smiled.  She did not know the Gracchi nor their politics;
but the name rang well.  "Gracchi!"  Aristocrats, no doubt.  "That
would be too much honor," replied she modestly.  "At present, I must
say adieu!" and she moved off an inch at a time, in an uncertain
hesitating manner, not very difficult to read; but Riviere, you must
know, had more than once during this interview begged her to sit
down, and in vain; she had always thanked him, but said she had not
a moment to stay.  So he made no effort to detain her now.  The
consequence was--she came slowly back of her own accord, and sat
down in a corner of the porch, where nobody could see her, and then
she sighed deeply.

"What is the matter now?" said Edouard, opening his eyes.

She looked at him point-blank for one moment; and her scale turned.

"Monsieur," said she timidly, "you have a good face, and a good
heart.  All I told you was--give me your honor not to betray us."

"I swear it," said Edouard, a little pompously.

"Then--Dard was not so far from the truth; it was but a guess of
his, for I never trusted my own sweetheart as I now trust a
stranger.  But to see what I see every day, and have no one I dare
breathe a word to, oh, it is very hard!  But on what a thread things
turn!  If any one had told me an hour ago it was you I should open
my heart to!  It's not economy: it's not stinginess; they are not
paying off their debts.  They never can.  The baroness and the
Demoiselles de Beaurepaire--are paupers."

"Paupers, Jacintha?"

"Ay, paupers! their debts are greater than their means.  They live
here by sufferance.  They have only their old clothes to wear.  They
have hardly enough to eat.  Just now our cow is in full milk, you
know; so that is a great help: but, when she goes dry, Heaven knows
what we shall do; for I don't.  But that is not the worst; better a
light meal than a broken heart.  Your precious government offers the
chateau for sale.  They might as well send for the guillotine at
once, and cut off all our heads.  You don't know my mistress as I
do.  Ah, butchers, you will drag nothing out of that but her corpse.
And is it come to this? the great old family to be turned adrift
like beggars.  My poor mistress! my pretty demoiselles that I played
with and nursed ever since I was a child!  (I was just six when
Josephine was born) and that I shall love with my last breath"--

She could say no more, but choked by the strong feeling so long pent
up in her own bosom, fell to sobbing hysterically, and trembling
like one in an ague.

The statesman, who had passed all his short life at school and
college, was frightened, and took hold of her and pulled her, and
cried, "Oh! don't, Jacintha; you will kill yourself, you will die;
this is frightful: help here! help!"  Jacintha put her hand to his
mouth, and, without leaving off her hysterics, gasped out, "Ah!
don't expose me."  So then he didn't know what to do; but he seized
a tumbler and filled it with wine, and forced it between her lips.
All she did was to bite a piece out of the glass as clean as if a
diamond had cut it.  This did her a world of good: destruction of
sacred household property gave her another turn.  "There, I've broke
your glass now," she cried, with a marvellous change of tone; and
she came-to and cried quietly like a reasonable person, with her
apron to her eyes.

When Edouard saw she was better, he took her hand and said proudly,
"Secret for secret.  I choose this moment to confide to you that I
love Mademoiselle Rose de Beaurepaire.  Love her?  I did love her;
but now you tell me she is poor and in distress, I adore her."  The
effect of this declaration on Jacintha was magical, comical.  Her
apron came down from one eye, and that eye dried itself and sparkled
with curiosity: the whole countenance speedily followed suit and
beamed with sacred joy.  What! an interesting love affair confided
to her all in a moment!  She lowered her voice to a whisper
directly.  "Why, how did you manage?  She never goes into company."

"No; but she goes to church.  Besides, I have met her eleven times
out walking with her sister, and twice out of the eleven she smiled
on me.  O Jacintha! a smile such as angels smile; a smile to warm
the heart and purify the soul and last forever in the mind."

"Well, they say 'man is fire and woman tow:' but this beats all.
Ha! ha!"

"Oh! do not jest.  I did not laugh at you.  Jacintha, it is no
laughing matter; I revere her as mortals revere the saints; I love
her so that were I ever to lose all hope of her I would not live a
day.  And now that you have told me she is poor and in sorrow, and I
think of her walking so calm and gentle--always in black, Jacintha,--
and her low courtesy to me whenever we met, and her sweet smile to
me though her heart must be sad, oh! my heart yearns for her.  What
can I do for her?  How shall I surround her with myself unseen--make
her feel that a man's love waits upon her feet every step she takes--
that a man's love floats in the air round that lovely head?"  Then
descending to earth for a moment, "but I say, you promise not to
betray me; come, secret for secret."

"I will not tell a soul; on the honor of a woman," said Jacintha.

The form of protestation was quite new to Edouard, and not exactly
the one his study of the ancient writers would have led him to
select.  But the tone was convincing: he trusted her.  They parted
sworn allies; and, at the very moment of parting, Jacintha, who had
cast many a furtive glance at the dead game, told Edouard demurely,
Mademoiselle Rose was very fond of roast partridge.  On this he made
her take the whole bag; and went home on wings.  Jacintha's
revelation roused all that was noble and forgiving in him.  His
understanding and his heart expanded from that hour, and his fancy
spread its pinions to the sun of love.  Ah! generous Youth, let who
will betray thee; let who will sneer at thee; let me, though young
no longer, smile on thee and joy in thee!  She he loved was sad, was
poor, was menaced by many ills; then she needed a champion.  He
would be her unseen friend, her guardian angel.  A hundred wild
schemes whirled in his beating heart and brain.  He could not go in-
doors, indeed, no room could contain him: he made for a green lane
he knew at the back of the village, and there he walked up and down
for hours.  The sun set, and the night came, and the stars
glittered; but still he walked alone, inspired, exalted, full of
generous and loving schemes: of sweet and tender fancies: a heart on
fire; and youth the fuel, and the flame vestal.


CHAPTER III.


This very day was the anniversary of the baron's death.

The baroness kept her room all the morning, and took no nourishment
but one cup of spurious coffee Rose brought her.  Towards evening
she came down-stairs.  In the hall she found two chaplets of
flowers; they were always placed there for her on this sad day.  She
took them in her hand, and went into the little oratory that was in
the park; there she found two wax candles burning, and two fresh
chaplets hung up.  Her daughters had been there before her.

She knelt and prayed many hours for her husband's soul; then she
rose and hung up one chaplet and came slowly away with the other in
her hand.  At the gate of the park, Josephine met her with tender
anxiety in her sapphire eyes, and wreathed her arms round her, and
whispered, "But you have your children still."

The baroness kissed her and they came towards the house together,
the baroness leaning gently on her daughter's elbow.

Between the park and the angle of the chateau was a small plot of
turf called at Beaurepaire the Pleasance, a name that had descended
along with other traditions; and in the centre of this Pleasance, or
Pleasaunce, stood a wonderful oak-tree.  Its circumference was
thirty-four feet.  The baroness came to this ancient tree, and hung
her chaplet on a mutilated limb called the "knights' bough."

The sun was setting tranquil and red; a broad ruby streak lingered
on the deep green leaves of the prodigious oak.  The baroness looked
at it awhile in silence.

Then she spoke slowly to it and said, "You were here before us: you
will be here when we are gone."

A spasm crossed Josephine's face, but she said nothing at the time.
And so they went in together.

Now as this tree was a feat of nature, and, above all, played a
curious part in our story, I will ask you to stay a few minutes and
look at it, while I say what was known about it; not the thousandth
part of what it could have told, if trees could speak as well as
breathe.

The baroness did not exaggerate; the tree was far older than even
this ancient family.  They possessed among other archives a
manuscript written by a monk, a son of the house, about four hundred
years before our story, and containing many of the oral traditions
about this tree that had come down to him from remote antiquity.
According to this authority, the first Baron of Beaurepaire had
pitched his tent under a fair oak-tree that stood prope rivum, near
a brook.  His grandson built a square tower hard by, and dug a moat
that enclosed both tree and tower, and received the waters of the
brook aforesaid.

At this time the tree seems only to have been remarked for its
height.  But, a century and a half before the monk wrote, it had
become famous in all the district for its girth, and in the monk's
own day had ceased to grow; but not begun to decay.  The mutilated
arm I have mentioned was once a long sturdy bough, worn smooth as
velvet in one part from a curious cause: it ran about as high above
the ground as a full-sized horse, and the knights and squires used
to be forever vaulting upon it, the former in armor; the monk, when
a boy, had seen them do it a thousand times.  This bough broke in
two, A.D. 1617: but the mutilated limb was still called the knights'
bough, nobody knew why.  So do names survive their ideas.

What had not this tree seen since first it came green and tender as
a cabbage above the soil, and stood at the mercy of the first hare
or rabbit that should choose to cut short its frail existence!

Since then eagles had perched on its crown, and wild boars fed
without fear of man upon its acorns.  Troubadours had sung beneath
it to lords and ladies seated round, or walking on the grass and
commenting the minstrel's tales of love by exchange of amorous
glances.  Mediaeval sculptors had taken its leaves, and wisely
trusting to nature, had adorned churches with those leaves cut in
stone.

It had seen a Norman duke conquer England, and English kings invade
France and be crowned at Paris.  It had seen a girl put knights to
the rout, and seen the warrior virgin burned by envious priests with
common consent both of the curs she had defended and the curs she
had defeated.

Why, in its old age it had seen the rise of printing, and the first
dawn of national civilization in Europe.  It flourished and decayed
in France; but it sprung in Gaul.  And more remarkable still, though
by all accounts it may see the world to an end, it was a tree in
ancient history: its old age awaits the millennium; its first youth
belonged to that great tract of time which includes the birth of
Christ, the building of Rome, and the siege of Troy.

The tree had, ere this, mingled in the fortunes of the family.  It
had saved their lives and taken their lives.  One lord of
Beaurepaire, hotly pursued by his feudal enemies, made for the tree,
and hid himself partly by a great bough, partly by the thick screen
of leaves.  The foe darted in, made sure he had taken to the house,
ransacked it, and got into the cellar, where by good-luck was a
store of Malvoisie: and so the oak and the vine saved the quaking
baron.  Another lord of Beaurepaire, besieged in his castle, was
shot dead on the ramparts by a cross-bowman who had secreted himself
unobserved in this tree a little before the dawn.

A young heir of Beaurepaire, climbing for a raven's nest to the top
of this tree, lost his footing and fell, and died at its foot: and
his mother in her anguish bade them cut down the tree that had
killed her boy.  But the baron her husband refused, and spake in
this wise: "ytte ys eneugh that I lose mine sonne, I will nat alsoe
lose mine Tre."  In the male you see the sober sentiment of the
proprietor outweighed the temporary irritation of the parent.  Then
the mother bought fifteen ells of black velvet, and stretched a pall
from the knights' bough across the west side to another branch, and
cursed the hand that should remove it, and she herself "wolde never
passe the Tre neither going nor coming, but went still about."  And
when she died and should have been carried past the tree to the
park, her dochter did cry from a window to the bearers, "Goe about!
goe about!" and they went about, and all the company.  And in time
the velvet pall rotted, and was torn and driven away by the winds:
and when the hand of Nature, and no human hand, had thus flouted and
dispersed the trappings of the mother's grief, two pieces were
picked up and preserved among the family relics: but the black
velvet had turned a rusty red.

So the baroness did nothing new in this family when she hung her
chaplet on the knights' bough; and, in fact, on the west side, about
eighteen feet from the ground, there still mouldered one corner of
an Atchievement an heir of Beaurepaire had nailed there two
centuries before, when his predecessor died: "For," said he, "the
chateau is of yesterday, but the tree has seen us all come and go."
The inside of the oak was hollow as a drum; and on its east side
yawned a fissure as high as a man and as broad as a street-door.
Dard used to wheel his wheelbarrow into the tree at a trot, and
there leave it.

Yet in spite of excavation and mutilation not life only but vigor
dwelt in this wooden shell.  The extreme ends of the longer boughs
were firewood, touchwood, and the crown was gone this many a year:
but narrow the circle a very little to where the indomitable trunk
could still shoot sap from its cruse deep in earth, and there on
every side burst the green foliage in its season countless as the
sand.  The leaves carved centuries ago from these very models,
though cut in stone, were most of them mouldered, blunted, notched,
deformed: but the delicate types came back with every summer,
perfect and lovely as when the tree was but their elder brother: and
greener than ever: for, from what cause nature only knows, the
leaves were many shades richer than any other tree could show for a
hundred miles round; a deep green, fiery, yet soft; and then their
multitude--the staircases of foliage as you looked up the tree, and
could scarce catch a glimpse of the sky.  An inverted abyss of
color, a mound, a dome, of flake emeralds that quivered in the
golden air.

And now the sun sets; the green leaves are black; the moon rises:
her cold light shoots across one half that giant stem.

How solemn and calm stands the great round tower of living wood,
half ebony, half silver, with its mighty cloud above of flake jet
leaves tipped with frosty fire!

Now is the still hour to repeat in a whisper the words of the dame
of Beaurepaire, "You were here before us: you will be here when we
are gone."

We leave the hoary king of trees standing in the moonlight, calmly
defying time, and follow the creatures of a day; for, what they
were, we are.


A spacious saloon panelled; dead but showy white picked out
sparingly with gold.  Festoons of fruits and flowers finely carved
in wood on some of the panels.  These also not smothered in gilding,
but as it were gold speckled here and there, like tongues of flame
winding among insoluble snow.  Ranged against the walls were sofas
and chairs covered with rich stuffs well worn.  And in one little
distant corner of the long room a gray-haired gentleman and two
young ladies sat round a small plain table, on which burned a
solitary candle; and a little way apart in this candle's twilight an
old lady sat in an easy-chair, thinking of the past, scarce daring
to inquire the future.  Josephine and Rose were working: not fancy-
work but needle-work; Dr. Aubertin writing.  Every now and then he
put the one candle nearer the girls.  They raised no objection: only
a few minutes after a white hand would glide from one or other of
them like a serpent, and smoothly convey the light nearer to the
doctor's manuscript.

"Is it not supper-time?" he inquired.  "I have an inward monitor;
and I think our dinner was more ethereal than usual."

"Hush!" said Josephine, and looked uneasily towards her mother.
"Wax is so dear."

"Wax?--ah!--pardon me:" and the doctor returned hastily to his work.
But Rose looked up and said, "I wonder Jacintha does not come; it is
certainly past the hour;" and she pried into the room as if she
expected to see Jacintha on the road.  But she saw in fact very
little of anything, for the spacious room was impenetrable to her
eye; midway from the candle to the distant door its twilight
deepened, and all became shapeless and sombre.  The prospect ended
sharp and black, as in those out-o'-door closets imagined and
painted by a certain great painter, whose Nature comes to a full
stop as soon as he has no further commercial need of her, instead of
melting by fine expanse and exquisite gradation into genuine
distance, as nature does in Claude and in nature.  To reverse the
picture, if you stood at the door you looked across forty feet of
black, and the little corner seemed on fire, and the fair heads
about the candle shone like the St. Cecilias and Madonnas in an
antique stained-glass window.

At last the door opened, and another candle fired Jacintha's comely
peasant face in the doorway.  She put down her candle outside the
door, and started as crow flies for the other light.  After glowing
a moment in the doorway she dived into the shadow and emerged into
light again close to the table with napkins on her arm.  She removed
the work-box reverentially, the doctor's manuscript unceremoniously,
and proceeded to lay a cloth: in which operation she looked at Rose
a point-blank glance of admiration: then she placed the napkins; and
in this process she again cast a strange look of interest upon Rose.
The young lady noticed it this time, and looked inquiringly at her
in return, half expecting some communication; but Jacintha lowered
her eyes and bustled about the table.  Then Rose spoke to her with a
sort of instinct of curiosity, on the chance of drawing her out.

"Supper is late to-night, is it not, Jacintha?"

"Yes, mademoiselle; I have had more cooking than usual," and with
this she delivered another point-blank look as before, and dived
into the palpable obscure, and came to light in the doorway.

Her return was anxiously expected; for, if the truth must be told,
they were very hungry.  So rigorous was the economy in this decayed
but honorable house that the wax candles burned to-day in the
oratory had scrimped their dinner, unsubstantial as it was wont to
be.  Think of that, you in fustian jackets who grumble after meat.
The door opened, Jacintha reappeared in the light of her candle a
moment with a tray in both hands, and, approaching, was lost to
view; but a strange and fragrant smell heralded her.  All their eyes
turned with curiosity towards the unwonted odor, and Jacintha dawned
with three roast partridges on a dish.

They were wonder-struck, and looked from the birds to her in mute
surprise, that was not diminished by a certain cynical indifference
she put on.  She avoided their eyes, and forcibly excluded from her
face everything that could imply she did not serve up partridges to
this family every night of her life.

"The supper is served, madame," said she, with a respectful courtesy
and a mechanical tone, and, plunging into the night, swam out at her
own candle, shut the door, and, unlocking her face that moment,
burst out radiant, and so to the kitchen, and, with a tear in her
eye, set-to and polished all the copper stewpans with a vigor and
expedition unknown to the new-fangled domestic.

"Partridges, mamma!  What next?"

"Pheasants, I hope," cried the doctor, gayly.  "And after them
hares; to conclude with royal venison.  Permit me, ladies."  And he
set himself to carve with zeal.

Now nature is nature, and two pair of violet eyes brightened and
dwelt on the fragrant and delicate food with demure desire; for all
that, when Aubertin offered Josephine a wing, she declined it.  "No
partridge?" cried the savant, in utter amazement.

"Not to-day, dear friend; it is not a feast day to-day."

"Ah! no; what was I thinking of?"

"But you are not to be deprived," put in Josephine, anxiously.  "We
will not deny ourselves the pleasure of seeing you eat some."

"What!" remonstrated Aubertin, "am I not one of you?"

The baroness had attended to every word of this.  She rose from her
chair, and said quietly, "Both you and he and Rose will be so good
as to let me see you eat."

"But, mamma," remonstrated Josephine and Rose in one breath.

"Je le veux," was the cold reply.

These were words the baroness uttered so seldom that they were
little likely to be disputed.

The doctor carved and helped the young ladies and himself.

When they had all eaten a little, a discussion was observed to be
going on between Rose and her sister.  At last Aubertin caught these
words, "It will be in vain; even you have not influence enough for
that, Rose."

"We shall see," was the reply, and Rose put the wing of a partridge
on a plate and rose calmly from her chair.  She took the plate and
put it on a little work-table by her mother's side.  The others
pretended to be all mouths, but they were all ears.  The baroness
looked in Rose's face with an air of wonder that was not very
encouraging.  Then, as Rose said nothing, she raised her
aristocratic hand with a courteous but decided gesture of refusal.

Undaunted Rose laid her palm softly on the baroness's shoulder, and
said to her as firmly as the baroness herself had just spoken,--

"Il le veut."

The baroness was staggered.  Then she looked with moist eyes at the
fair young face, then she reflected.  At last she said, with an
exquisite mixture of politeness and affection, "It is his daughter
who has told me 'Il le veut.'  I obey."

Rose returning like a victorious knight from the lists, saucily
exultant, and with only one wet eyelash, was solemnly kissed and
petted by Josephine and the doctor.

Thus they loved one another in this great, old, falling house.
Their familiarity had no coarse side; a form, not of custom but
affection, it went hand-in-hand with courtesy by day and night.

The love of the daughters for their mother had all the tenderness,
subtlety, and unselfishness of womanly natures, together with a
certain characteristic of the female character.  And whither that
one defect led them, and by what gradations, it may be worth the
reader's while to observe.

The baroness retired to rest early; and she was no sooner gone than
Josephine leaned over to Rose, and told her what their mother had
said to the oak-tree.  Rose heard this with anxiety; hitherto they
had carefully concealed from their mother that the government
claimed the right of selling the chateau to pay the creditors, etc.;
and now both sisters feared the old lady had discovered it somehow,
or why that strange thing she had said to the oak-tree?  But Dr.
Aubertin caught their remarks, and laid down his immortal MS. on
French insects, to express his hope that they were putting a forced
interpretation on the baroness's words.

"I think," said he, "she merely meant how short-lived are we all
compared with this ancient oak.  I should be very sorry to adopt the
other interpretation; for if she knows she can at any moment be
expelled from Beaurepaire, it will be almost as bad for her as the
calamity itself; THAT, I think, would kill her."

"Why so?" said Rose, eagerly.  "What is this house or that?  Mamma
will still have her daughters' love, go where she will."

Aubertin replied, "It is idle to deceive ourselves; at her age men
and women hang to life by their habits; take her away from her
chateau, from the little oratory where she prays every day for the
departed, from her place in the sun on the south terrace, and from
all the memories that surround her here; she would soon pine, and
die."

Here the savant seeing a hobby-horse near, caught him and jumped on.
He launched into a treatise upon the vitality of human beings, and
proved that it is the mind which keeps the body of a man alive for
so great a length of time as fourscore years; for that he had in the
earlier part of his studies carefully dissected a multitude of
animals,--frogs, rabbits, dogs, men, horses, sheep, squirrels,
foxes, cats, etc.,--and discovered no peculiarity in man's organs to
account for his singular longevity, except in the brain or organ of
mind.  Thence he went to the longevity of men with contented minds,
and the rapid decay of the careworn.  Finally he succeeded in
convincing them the baroness was so constituted, physically and
mentally, that she would never move from Beaurepaire except into her
grave.  However, having thus terrified them, he proceeded to console
them.  "You have a friend," said he, "a powerful friend; and here in
my pocket--somewhere--is a letter that proves it."

The letter was from Mr. Perrin the notary.  It appeared by it that
Dr. Aubertin had reminded the said Perrin of his obligations to the
late baron, and entreated him to use all his influence to keep the
estate in this ancient family.

Perrin had replied at first in a few civil lines; but his present
letter was a long and friendly one.  It made both the daughters of
Beaurepaire shudder at the peril they had so narrowly escaped.  For
by it they now learned for the first time that one Jaques Bonard, a
small farmer, to whom they owed but five thousand francs, had gone
to the mayor and insisted, as he had a perfect right, on the estate
being put up to public auction.  This had come to Perrin's ears just
in time, and he had instantly bought Bonard's debt, and stopped the
auction; not, however, before the very bills were printed; for which
he, Perrin, had paid, and now forwarded the receipt.  He concluded
by saying that the government agent was personally inert, and would
never move a step in the matter unless driven by a creditor.

"But we have so many," said Rose in dismay.  "We are not safe a day."

Aubertin assured her the danger was only in appearance.  "Your large
creditors are men of property, and such men let their funds lie
unless compelled to move them.  The small mortgagee, the petty
miser, who has, perhaps, no investment to watch but one small loan,
about which he is as anxious and as noisy as a hen with one chicken,
he is the clamorous creditor, the harsh little egoist, who for fear
of risking a crown piece would bring the Garden of Eden to the
hammer.  Now we are rid of that little wretch, Bonard, and have
Perrin on our side; so there is literally nothing to fear."

The sisters thanked him warmly, and Rose shared his hopes; and said
so; but Josephine was silent and thoughtful.  Nothing more worth
recording passed that night.  But the next day was the first of May,
Josephine's birthday.

Now they always celebrated this day as well as they could; and used
to plant a tree, for one thing.  Dard, well spurred by Jacintha, had
got a little acacia; and they were all out in the Pleasaunce to
plant it.  Unhappily, they were a preposterous time making up their
feminine minds where to have it set; so Dard turned rusty and said
the park was the best place for it.  There it could do no harm,
stick it where you would.

"And who told you to put in your word?" inquired Jacintha.  "You're
here to dig the hole where mademoiselle chooses; not to argufy."

Josephine whispered Rose, "I admire the energy of her character.
Could she be induced to order once for all where the poor thing is
to be planted?"

"Then where WILL you have it, mademoiselle?" asked Dard, sulkily.

"Here, I think, Dard," said Josephine sweetly.

Dard grinned malignantly, and drove in his spade.  "It will never be
much bigger than a stinging nettle," thought he, "for the roots of
the oak have sucked every atom of heart out of this."  His black
soul exulted secretly.

Jacintha stood by Dard, inspecting his work; the sisters
intertwined, a few feet from him.  The baroness turned aside, and
went to look for a moment at the chaplet she had placed yesterday on
the oak-tree bough.  Presently she uttered a slight ejaculation; and
her daughters looked up directly.

"Come here, children," said she.  They glided to her in a moment;
and found her eyes fixed upon an object that lay on the knights'
bough.

It was a sparkling purse.

I dare say you have noticed that the bark on the boughs of these
very ancient trees is as deeply furrowed as the very stem of an oak
tree that boasts but a few centuries; and in one of these deep
furrows lay a green silk purse with gold coins glittering through
the glossy meshes.

Josephine and Rose eyed it a moment like startled deer; then Rose
pounced on it.  "Oh, how heavy!" she cried.  This brought up Dard
and Jacintha, in time to see Rose pour ten shining gold pieces out
of the purse into her pink-white palm, while her face flushed and
her eyes glittered with excitement.  Jacintha gave a scream of joy;
"Our luck is turned," she cried, superstitiously.  Meanwhile,
Josephine had found a slip of paper close to the purse.  She opened
it with nimble fingers; it contained one line in a hand like that of
a copying clerk: FROM A FRIEND: IN PART PAYMENT OF A GREAT DEBT.

Keen, piquant curiosity now took the place of surprise.  Who could
it be?  The baroness's suspicion fell at once on Dr. Aubertin.  But
Rose maintained he had not ten gold pieces in the world.  The
baroness appealed to Josephine.  She only blushed in an extraordinary
way, and said nothing.  They puzzled, and puzzled, and were as much
in the dark as ever, when lo! one of the suspected parties delivered
himself into the hands of justice with ludicrous simplicity.  It
happened to be Dr. Aubertin's hour of out-a-door study; and he
came mooning along, buried in a book, and walked slowly into the
group--started, made a slight apology, and was mooning off, lost
in his book again.  Then the baroness, who had eyed him with grim
suspicion all the time, said with well-affected nonchalance, "Doctor,
you dropped your purse; we have just picked it up."  And she handed
it to him.  "Thank you, madame," said he, and took it quietly without
looking at it, put it in his pocket, and retired, with his soul in
his book.  They stared comically at one another, and at this cool
hand.  "It's no more his than it's mine," said Jacintha, bluntly.
Rose darted after the absorbed student, and took him captive.  "Now,
doctor," she cried, "be pleased to come out of the clouds."  And
with the word she whipped the purse out of his coat pocket, and
holding it right up before his eye, insisted on his telling her
whether that was his purse or not, money and all.  Thus adjured,
he disowned the property mighty coolly, for a retired physician,
who had just pocketed it.

"No, my dear," said he; "and, now I think of it, I have not carried
a purse this twenty years."

The baroness, as a last resource, appealed to his honor whether he
had not left a purse and paper on the knights' bough.  The question
had to be explained by Josephine, and then the doctor surprised them
all by being rather affronted--for once in his life.

"Baroness," said he, "I have been your friend and pensioner nearly
twenty years; if by some strange chance money were to come into my
hands, I should not play you a childish trick like this.  What! have
I not the right to come to you, and say, 'My old friend, here I
bring you back a very small part of all I owe you?'"

"What geese we are," remarked Rose.  "Dear doctor, YOU tell us who
it is."

Dr. Aubertin reflected a single moment; then said he could make a
shrewd guess.

"Who? who? who?" cried the whole party.

"Perrin the notary."

It was the baroness's turn to be surprised; for there was nothing
romantic about Perrin the notary.  Aubertin, however, let her know
that he was in private communication with the said Perrin, and this
was not the first friendly act the good notary had done her in secret.

While he was converting the baroness to his view, Josephine and Rose
exchanged a signal, and slipped away round an angle of the chateau.

"Who is it?" said Rose.

"It is some one who has a delicate mind."

"Clearly, and therefore not a notary."

"Rose, dear, might it not be some person who has done us some wrong,
and is perhaps penitent?"

"Certainly; one of our tenants, or creditors, you mean; but then,
the paper says 'a friend.'  Stay, it says a debtor.  Why a debtor?
Down with enigmas!"

"Rose, love," said Josephine, coaxingly, "think of some one that
might--since it is not the doctor, nor Monsieur Perrin, might it not
be--for after all, he would naturally be ashamed to appear before me."

"Before you?  Who do you mean?" asked Rose nervously, catching a
glimpse now.

"He who once pretended to love me."

"Josephine, you love that man still."

"No, no.  Spare me!"

"You love him just the same as ever.  Oh, it is wonderful; it is
terrible; the power he has over you; over your judgment as well as
your heart."

"No! for I believe he has forgotten my very name; don't you think so?"

"Dear Josephine, can you doubt it?  Come, you do doubt it."

"Sometimes."

"But why? for what reason?"

"Because of what he said to me as we parted at that gate; the words
and the voice seem still to ring like truth across the weary years.
He said, 'I am to join the army of the Pyrenees, so fatal to our
troops; but say to me what you never yet have said, Camille, I love
you: and I swear I will come back alive.'  So then I said to him, 'I
love you,'--and he never came back."

"How could he come here? a deserter, a traitor!"

"It is not true; it is not in his nature; inconstancy may be.  Tell
me that he never really loved me, and I will believe you; but not
that he is a traitor.  Let me weep over my past love, not blush for
it."

"Past?  You love him to-day as you did three years ago."

"No," said Josephine, "no; I love no one.  I never shall love any
one again."

"But him.  It is that love which turns your heart against others.
Oh, yes, you love him, dearest, or why should you fancy our secret
benefactor COULD be that Camille?"

"Why?  Because I was mad: because it is impossible; but I see my
folly.  I am going in."

"What! don't you care to know who I think it was, perhaps?"

"No," said Josephine sadly and doggedly; she added with cold
nonchalance, "I dare say time will show."  And she went slowly in,
her hand to her head.

"Her birthday!" sighed Rose.

The donor, whoever he was, little knew the pain he was inflicting on
this distressed but proud family, or the hard battle that ensued
between their necessities and their delicacy.  The ten gold pieces
were a perpetual temptation: a daily conflict.  The words that
accompanied the donation offered a bait.  Their pride and dignity
declined it; but these bright bits of gold cost them many a sharp
pang.  You must know that Josephine and Rose had worn out their
mourning by this time; and were obliged to have recourse to gayer
materials that lay in their great wardrobes, and were older, but
less worn.  A few of these gold pieces would have enabled the poor
girls to be neat, and yet to mourn their father openly.  And it went
through and through those tender, simple hearts, to think that they
must be disunited, even in so small a thing as dress; that while
their mother remained in her weeds, they must seem no longer to
share her woe.

The baroness knew their feeling, and felt its piety, and yet could
not bow her dignity to say, "Take five of these bits of gold, and
let us all look what we are--one."  Yet in this, as in everything
else, they supported each other.  They resisted, they struggled, and
with a wrench they conquered day by day.  At last, by general
consent, Josephine locked up the tempter, and they looked at it no
more.  But the little bit of paper met a kinder fate.  Rose made a
little frame for it, and it was kept in a drawer, in the salon: and
often looked at and blessed.  Just when they despaired of human
friendship, this paper with the sacred word "friend" written on it,
had fallen all in a moment on their aching hearts.

They could not tell whence it came, this blessed word.

But men dispute whence comes the dew?

Then let us go with the poets, who say it comes from heaven.

And even so that sweet word, friend, dropped like the dew from
heaven on these afflicted ones.

So they locked the potent gold away from themselves, and took the
kind slip of paper to their hearts.

The others left off guessing: Aubertin had it all his own way: he
upheld Perrin as their silent benefactor, and bade them all observe
that the worthy notary had never visited the chateau openly since
the day the purse was left there.  "Guilty conscience," said
Aubertin dryly.

One day in his walks he met a gaunt figure ambling on a fat pony: he
stopped him, and, holding up his finger, said abruptly, "We have
found you out, Maitre Perrin."

The notary changed color.

"Oh, never be ashamed," said Aubertin; "a good action done slyly is
none the less a good action."

The notary wore a puzzled air.

Aubertin admired his histrionic powers in calling up this look.

"Come, come, don't overdo it," said he.  "Well, well; they cannot
profit by your liberality; but you will be rewarded in a better
world, take my word for that."

The notary muttered indistinctly.  He was a man of moderate desires;
would have been quite content if there had been no other world in
perspective.  He had studied this one, and made it pay: did not
desire a better; sometimes feared a worse.

"Ah!" said Aubertin, "I see how it is; we do not like to hear
ourselves praised, do we?  When shall we see you at the chateau?"

"I propose to call on the baroness the moment I have good news to
bring," replied Perrin; and to avoid any more compliments spurred
the dun pony suddenly; and he waddled away.

Now this Perrin was at that moment on the way to dine with a
character who plays a considerable part in the tale--Commandant
Raynal.  Perrin had made himself useful to the commandant, and had
become his legal adviser.  And, this very day after dinner, the
commandant having done a good day's work permitted himself a little
sentiment over the bottle, and to a man he thought his friend.  He
let out that he had a heap of money he did not know what to do with,
and almost hated it now his mother was gone and could not share it.

The man of law consoled him with oleaginous phrases: told him he
very much underrated the power of money.  His hoard, directed by a
judicious adviser, would make him a landed proprietor, and the
husband of some young lady, all beauty, virtue, and accomplishment,
whose soothing influence would soon heal the sorrow caused by an
excess of filial sentiment.

"Halt!" shouted Raynal: "say that again in half the words."

Perrin was nettled, for he prided himself on his colloquial style.

"You can buy a fine estate and a chaste wife with the money,"
snapped this smooth personage, substituting curt brutality for
honeyed prolixity.

The soldier was struck by the propositions the moment they flew at
him small and solid, like bullets.

"I've no time," said he, "to be running after women.  But the estate
I'll certainly have, because you can get that for me without my
troubling my head."

"Is it a commission, then?" asked the other sharply.

"Of course.  Do you think I speak for the sake of talking?"

And so Perrin received formal instructions to look out for a landed
estate; and he was to receive a handsome commission as agent.

Now to settle this affair, and pocket a handsome percentage for
himself, he had only to say "Beaurepaire."

Well, he didn't.  Never mentioned the place; nor the fact that it
was for sale.

Such are all our agents, when rival speculators.  Mind that.  Still
it is a terrible thing to be so completely in the power of any man
of the world, as from this hour Beaurepaire was in the power of
Perrin the notary.


CHAPTER IV.


Edouard Riviere was unhappy.  She never came out now.  This alone
made the days dark to him.  And then he began to fear it was him she
shunned.  She must have seen him lie in wait for her; and so she
would come out no more.  He prowled about and contrived to fall in
with Jacintha; he told her his grief.  She assured him the simple
fact was their mourning was worn out, and they were ashamed to go
abroad in colors.  This revelation made his heart yearn still more.

"O Jacintha," said he, "if I could only make a beginning; but here
we might live a century in the same parish, and not one chance for a
poor wretch to make acquaintance."

Jacintha admitted this, and said gentlefolks were to be pitied.
"Why, if it was the likes of me, you and I should have made friends
long before now."

Jacintha herself was puzzled what to do; she would have told Rose if
she had felt sure it would be well received; but she could not find
out that the young lady had even noticed the existence of Edouard.
But her brain worked, and lay in wait for an opportunity.

One came sooner than she expected.  One morning at about six
o'clock, as she came home from milking the cow, she caught sight of
young Riviere trying to open the iron gate.  "What is up now?"
thought she; suddenly the truth flashed upon her, clear as day.  She
put her pail down and stole upon him.  "You want to leave us another
purse," said she.  He colored all over and panted.

"How did you know? how could you know? you won't betray me? you
won't be so cruel? you promised."

"Me betray you," said Jacintha; "why, I'll help you; and then they
will be able to buy mourning, you know, and then they will come out,
and give you a chance.  You can't open that gate, for it's locked.
But you come round to the lane, and I'll get you the key; it is
hanging up in the kitchen."

The key was in her pocket.  But the sly jade wanted him away from
that gate; it commanded a view of the Pleasaunce.  He was no sooner
safe in the lane, than she tore up-stairs to her young ladies, and
asked them with affected calm whether they would like to know who
left the purse.

"Oh, yes, yes!" screamed Rose.

"Then come with me.  You ARE dressed; never mind your bonnets, or
you will be too late."

Questions poured on her; but she waived all explanation, and did not
give them time to think, or Josephine, for one, she knew would raise
objections.  She led the way to the Pleasaunce, and, when she got to
the ancestral oak, she said hurriedly, "Now, mesdemoiselles, hide in
there, and as still as mice.  You'll soon know who leaves the purses."

With this she scudded to the lane, and gave Edouard the key.  "Look
sharp," said she, "before they get up; it's almost their dressing
time."

"YOU'LL SOON KNOW WHO LEAVES THE PURSES!"

Curiosity, delicious curiosity, thrilled our two daughters of Eve.

This soon began to alternate with chill misgivings at the novelty of
the situation.

"She is not coming back," said Josephine ruefully.

"No," said Rose, "and suppose when we pounce out on him, it should
be a stranger."

"Pounce on him? surely we are not to do that?"

"Oh, y-yes; that is the p-p-programme," quavered Rose.

A key grated, and the iron gate creaked on its hinges.  They ran
together and pinched one another for mutual support, but did not
dare to speak.

Presently a man's shadow came slap into the tree.  They crouched and
quivered, and expected to be caught instead of catching, and wished
themselves safe back in bed, and all this a nightmare, and no worse.

At last they recovered themselves enough to observe that this
shadow, one half of which lay on the ground, while the head and
shoulders went a little way up the wall of the tree, represented a
man's profile, not his front face.  The figure, in short, was
standing between them and the sun, and was contemplating the
chateau, not the tree.

The shadow took off its hat to Josephine, in the tree.  Then would
she have screamed if she had not bitten her white hand instead, and
made a red mark thereon.

It wiped its brow with a handkerchief; it had walked fast, poor
thing!  The next moment it was away.

They looked at one another and panted.  They scarcely dared do it
before.  Then Rose, with one hand on her heaving bosom, shook her
little white fist viciously at where the figure must be, and perhaps
a comical desire of vengeance stimulated her curiosity.  She now
glided through the fissure like a cautious panther from her den; and
noiseless and supple as a serpent began to wind slowly round the
tree.  She soon came to a great protuberance in the tree, and
twining and peering round it with diamond eye, she saw a very young,
very handsome gentleman, stealing on tiptoe to the nearest flower-
bed.  Then she saw him take a purse out of his bosom, and drop it on
the bed.  This done, he came slowly past the tree again, and was
even heard to vent a little innocent chuckle of intense satisfaction:
but of brief duration; for, when Rose saw the purse leave his hand,
she made a rapid signal to Josephine to wheel round the other side
of the tree, and, starting together with admirable concert, both
the daughters of Beaurepaire glided into sight with a vast appearance
of composure.

Two women together are really braver than fifteen separate; but
still, most of this tranquillity was merely put on, but so admirably
that Edouard Riviere had no chance with them.  He knew nothing about
their tremors; all he saw or heard was, a rustle, then a flap on
each side of him as of great wings, and two lovely women were upon
him with angelic swiftness.  "Ah!" he cried out with a start, and
glanced from the first-comer, Rose, to the gate.  But Josephine was
on that side by this time, and put up her hand, as much as to say,
"You can't pass here."  In such situations, the mind works quicker
than lightning.  He took off his hat, and stammered an excuse--"Come
to look at the oak."  At this moment Rose pounced on the purse, and
held it up to Josephine.  He was caught.  His only chance now was to
bolt for the mark and run; but it was not the notary, it was a
novice who lost his presence of mind, or perhaps thought it rude to
run when a lady told him to stand still.  All he did was to crush
his face into his two hands, round which his cheeks and neck now
blushed red as blood.  Blush? they could both see the color rush
like a wave to the very roots of his hair and the tips of his
fingers.

The moment our heroines, who, in that desperation which is one of
the forms of cowardice, had hurled themselves on the foe, saw this,
flash--the quick-witted poltroons exchanged purple lightning over
Edouard's drooping head, and enacted lionesses in a moment.

It was with the quiet composure of lofty and powerful natures that
Josephine opened on him.  "Compose yourself, sir; and be so good as
to tell us who you are."  Edouard must answer.  Now he could not
speak through his hands; and he could not face a brace of tranquil
lionesses: so he took a middle course, removed one hand, and shading
himself from Josephine with the other, he gasped out, "I am--my name
is Riviere; and I--I--ladies!"

"I am afraid we frighten you," said Josephine, demurely.

"Don't be frightened," said Rose, majestically; "we are not VERY
angry, only a LITTLE curious to know why you water our flowers with
gold."

At this point-blank thrust, and from her, Edouard was so confounded
and distressed, they both began to pity him.  He stammered out that
he was so confused he did not know what to say.  He couldn't think
how ever he could have taken such a liberty; might he be permitted
to retire? and with this he tried to slip away.

"Let me detain you one instant," said Josephine, and made for the
house.

Left alone so suddenly with the culprit, the dignity, and majesty,
and valor of Rose seemed to ooze gently out; and she stood blushing,
and had not a word to say; no more had Edouard.  But he hung his
head, and she hung her head.  And, somehow or other, whenever she
raised her eyes to glance at him, he raised his to steal a look at
her, and mutual discomfiture resulted.

This awkward, embarrassing delirium was interrupted by Josephine's
return.  She now held another purse in her hand, and quietly poured
the rest of the coin into it.  She then, with a blush, requested him
to take back the money.

At that he found his tongue.  "No, no," he cried, and put up his
hands in supplication.  "Ladies, do let me speak ONE word to you.
Do not reject my friendship.  You are alone in the world; your
father is dead; your mother has but you to lean on.  After all, I am
your neighbor, and neighbors should be friends.  And I am your
debtor; I owe you more than you could ever owe me; for ever since I
came into this neighborhood I have been happy.  No man was ever so
happy as I, ever since one day I was walking, and met for the first
time an angel.  I don't say it was you, Mademoiselle Rose.  It might
be Mademoiselle Josephine."

"How pat he has got our names," said Rose, smiling.

"A look from that angel has made me so good, so happy.  I used to
vegetate, but now I live.  Live!  I walk on wings, and tread on
roses.  Yet you insist on declining a few miserable louis d'or from
him who owes you so much.  Well, don't be angry; I'll take them
back, and throw them into the nearest pond, for they are really no
use to me.  But then you will be generous in your turn.  You will
accept my devotion, my services.  You have no brother, you know;
well, I have no sisters; let me be your brother, and your servant
forever."

At all this, delivered in as many little earnest pants as there were
sentences, the water stood in the fair eyes he was looking into so
piteously.

Josephine was firm, but angelical.  "We thank you, Monsieur
Riviere," said she, softly, "for showing us that the world is still
embellished with hearts like yours.  Here is the money;" and she
held it out in her creamy hand.

"But we are very grateful," put in Rose, softly and earnestly.

"That we are," said Josephine, "and we beg to keep the purse as a
souvenir of one who tried to do us a kindness without mortifying us.
And now, Monsieur Riviere, you will permit us to bid you adieu."

Edouard was obliged to take the hint.  "It is I who am the
intruder," said he.  "Mesdemoiselles, conceive, if you can, my pride
and my disappointment."  He then bowed low; they courtesied low to
him in return; and he retired slowly in a state of mixed feeling
indescribable.

With all their sweetness and graciousness, he felt overpowered by
their high breeding, their reserve, and their composure, in a
situation that had set his heart beating itself nearly out of his
bosom.  He acted the scene over again, only much more adroitly, and
concocted speeches for past use, and was very hot and very cold by
turns.

I wish he could have heard what passed between the sisters as soon
as ever he was out of earshot.  It would have opened his eyes, and
given him a little peep into what certain writers call "the sex."

"Poor boy," murmured Josephine, "he has gone away unhappy."

"Oh, I dare say he hasn't gone far," replied Rose, gayly.  "I
shouldn't if I was a boy."

Josephine held up her finger like an elder sister; then went on to
say she really hardly knew why she had dismissed him.

"Well, dear," said Rose, dryly, "since you admit so much, I must say
I couldn't help thinking--while you were doing it--we were letting
'the poor boy' off ridiculously cheap."

"At least I did my duty?" suggested Josephine, inquiringly.

"Magnificently; you overawed even me.  So now to business, as the
gentlemen say.  Which of us two takes him?"

"Takes whom?" inquired Josephine, opening her lovely eyes.

"Edouard," murmured Rose, lowering hers.

Josephine glared on the lovely minx with wonder and comical horror.

"Oh! you shall have him," said Rose, "if you like.  You are the
eldest, you know."

"Fie!"

"Do now; TO OBLIGE ME."

"For shame! Rose.  Is this you? talking like that!"

"Oh! there's no compulsion, dear; I never force young ladies'
inclinations.  So you decline him?"

"Of course I decline him."

"Then, oh, you dear, darling Josephine, this is the prettiest
present you ever made me," and she kissed her vehemently.

Josephine was frightened now.  She held Rose out at arm's length
with both hands, and looked earnestly into her, and implored her not
to play with fire.  "Take warning by me."

Rose recommended her to keep her pity for Monsieur Riviere, "who had
fallen into nice hands," she said.  That no doubt might remain on
that head, she whispered mysteriously, but with much gravity and
conviction, "I am an Imp;" and aimed at Josephine with her
forefinger to point the remark.  For one second she stood and
watched this important statement sink into her sister's mind, then
set-to and gambolled elfishly round her as she moved stately and
thoughtful across the grass to the chateau.

Two days after this a large tree was blown down in Beaurepaire park,
and made quite a gap in the prospect.  You never know what a big
thing a leafy tree is till it comes down.  And this ill wind blew
Edouard good; for it laid bare the chateau to his inquiring
telescope.  He had not gazed above half an hour, when a female
figure emerged from the chateau.  His heart beat.  It was only
Jacintha.  He saw her look this way and that, and presently Dard
appeared, and she sent him with his axe to the fallen tree.  Edouard
watched him hacking away at it.  Presently his heart gave a violent
leap; for why? two ladies emerged from the Pleasaunce and walked
across the park.  They came up to Dard, and stood looking at the
tree and Dard hacking it, and Edouard watched them greedily.  You
know we all love to magnify her we love.  And this was a delightful
way of doing it.  It is "a system of espionage" that prevails under
every form of government.  How he gazed, and gazed, on his now polar
star; studied every turn, every gesture, with eager delight, and
tried to gather what she said, or at least the nature of it.

But by and by they left Dard and strolled towards the other end of
the park.  Then did our astronomer fling down his tube, and come
running out in hopes of intercepting them, and seeming to meet them
by some strange fortuity.  Hope whispered he should be blessed with
a smile; perhaps a word even.  So another minute and he was running
up the road to Beaurepaire.  But his good heart was doomed to be
diverted to a much humbler object than his idol; as he came near the
fallen tree he heard loud cries for help, followed by groans of
pain.  He bounded over the hedge, and there was Dard hanging over
his axe, moaning.  "What is the matter? what is the matter?" cried
Edouard, running to him.

"Oh! oh! cut my foot.  Oh!"

Edouard looked, and turned sick, for there was a gash right through
Dard's shoe, and the blood welling up through it.  But, recovering
himself by an effort of the will, he cried out, "Courage, my lad!
don't give in.  Thank Heaven there's no artery there.  Oh, dear, it
is a terrible cut!  Let us get you home, that is the first thing.
Can you walk?"

"Lord bless you, no! nor stand neither without help."

Edouard flew to the wheelbarrow, and, reversing it, spun a lot of
billet out.  "Ye must not do that," said Dard with all the energy he
was capable of in his present condition.  "Why, that is Jacintha's
wood."--"To the devil with Jacintha and her wood too!" cried
Edouard, "a man is worth more than a fagot.  Come, I shall wheel you
home: it is only just across the park."

With some difficulty he lifted him into the barrow.  Luckily he had
his shooting-jacket on with a brandy-flask in it: he administered it
with excellent effect.

The ladies, as they walked, saw a man wheeling a barrow across the
park, and took no particular notice; but, as Riviere was making for
the same point they were, though at another angle, presently the
barrow came near enough for them to see Dard's head and arms in it.
Rose was the first to notice this.  "Look! look! if he is not
wheeling Dard in the barrow now."

"Who?"

"Can you ask?  Who provides all our excitement?"

Josephine instantly divined there was something amiss.  "Consider,"
said she, "Monsieur Riviere would not wheel Dard all across the park
for amusement."

Rose assented; and in another minute, by a strange caprice of fate,
those Edouard had come to intercept, quickened their pace to
intercept him.  As soon as he saw their intention he thrilled all
over, but did not slacken his pace.  He told Dard to take his coat
and throw it over his foot, for here were the young ladies coming.

"What for?" said Dard sulkily.  "No! let them see what they have
done with their little odd jobs: this is my last for one while.  I
sha'n't go on two legs again this year."

The ladies came up with them.

"O monsieur!" said Josephine, "what is the matter?"

"We have met with a little accident, mademoiselle, that is all.
Dard has hurt his foot; nothing to speak of, but I thought he would
be best at home."

Rose raised the coat which Riviere, in spite of Dard, had flung over
his foot.

"He is bleeding!  Dard is bleeding!  Oh, my poor Dard.  Oh! oh!"

"Hush, Rose!"

"No, don't put him out of heart, mademoiselle.  Take another pull at
the flask, Dard.  If you please, ladies, I must have him home
without delay."

"Oh yes, but I want him to have a surgeon," cried Josephine.  "And
we have no horses nor people to send off as we used to have."

"But you have me, mademoiselle," said Edouard tenderly.  "Me, who
would go to the world's end for you."  He said this to Josephine,
but his eye sought Rose.  "I'm a famous runner," he added, a little
bumptiously; "I'll be at the town in half an hour, and send a
surgeon up full gallop."

"You have a good heart," said Rose simply.

He bowed his blushing, delighted face, and wheeled Dard to his
cottage hard by with almost more than mortal vigor.  How softly, how
nobly, that frolicsome girl could speak!  Those sweet words rang in
his ears and ran warm round and round his heart, as he straightened
his arms and his back to the work.  When they had gone about a
hundred yards, a single snivel went off in the wheelbarrow.  Five
minutes after, Dard was at home in charge of his grandmother, his
shoe off, his foot in a wet linen cloth; and Edouard, his coat tied
round the neck, squared his shoulders, and ran the two short leagues
out.  He ran them in forty minutes, found the surgeon at home, told
the case, pooh-poohed that worthy's promise to go to the patient
presently, darted into his stable, saddled the horse, brought him
round, saw the surgeon into the saddle, started him, dined at the
restaurateur's, strolled back, and was in time to get a good look at
the chateau of Beaurepaire just as the sun set on it.

Jacintha came into Dard's cottage that evening.

"So you have been at it, my man," cried she cheerfully and rather
roughly, then sat down and rocked herself, with her apron over her
head.  She explained this anomalous proceeding to his grandmother
privately.  "I thought I would keep his heart up anyway, but you see
I was not fit."

Next morning, as Riviere sat writing, he received an unexpected
visit from Jacintha.  She came in with her finger to her lips, and
said, "You prowl about Dard's cottage.  They are sure to go and see
him every day, and him wounded in their service."

"Oh, you good girl! you dear girl!" cried Edouard.

She did not reply in words, but, after going to the door, returned
and gave him a great kiss without ceremony.  "Dare say you know what
that's for," said she, and went off with a clear conscience and
reddish cheeks.

Dard's grandmother had a little house, a little land, a little
money, and a little cow.  She could just maintain Dard and herself,
and her resources enabled Dard to do so many little odd jobs for
love, yet keep his main organ tolerably filled.

"Go to bed, my little son, since you have got hashed," said she.--
"Bed be hanged," cried he.  "What good is bed?  That's a silly old
custom wants doing away with.  It weakens you: it turns you into
train oil: it is the doctor's friend, and the sick man's bane.  Many
a one dies through taking to bed, that could have kept his life if
he had kept his feet like a man.  If I had cut myself in two I would
not go to bed,--till I go to the bed with a spade in it.  No! sit up
like Julius Caesar; and die as you lived, in your clothes: don't
strip yourself: let the old women strip you; that is their delight
laying out a chap; that is the time they brighten up, the old
sorceresses."  He concluded this amiable rhapsody, the latter part
of which was levelled at a lugubrious weakness of his grandmother's
for the superfluous embellishment of the dead, by telling her it was
bad enough to be tied by the foot like an ass, without settling down
on his back like a cast sheep.  "Give me the armchair.  I'll sit in
it, and, if I have any friends, they will show it now: they will
come and tell me what is going on in the village, for I can't get
out to see it and hear it, they must know that."

Seated in state in his granny's easy-chair, the loss of which after
thirty years' use made her miserable, she couldn't tell why, le
Sieur Dard awaited his friends.

They did not come.

The rain did, and poured all the afternoon.  Night succeeded, and
solitude.  Dard boiled over with bitterness.  "They are a lot of
pigs then, all those fellows I have drunk with at Bigot's and
Simmet's.  Down with all fair-weather friends."

The next day the sun shone, the air was clear, and the sky blue.
"Ah! let us see now," cried Dard.

Alas! no fellow-drinkers, no fellow-smokers, came to console their
hurt fellow.  And Dard, who had boiled with anger yesterday, was now
sad and despondent.  "Down with egotists," he groaned.

About three in the afternoon came a tap at the door.

"Ah! at last," cried Dard: "come in!"

The door was slowly opened, and two lovely faces appeared at the
threshold.  The demoiselles De Beaurepaire wore a tender look of
interest and pity when they caught sight of Dard, and on the old
woman courtesying to them they courtesied to her and Dard.  The next
moment they were close to him, one a little to his right, the other
to his left, and two pair of sapphire eyes with the mild lustre of
sympathy playing down incessantly upon him.  How was he?  How had he
slept?  Was he in pain?  Was he in much pain? tell the truth now.
Was there anything to eat or drink he could fancy?  Jacintha should
make it and bring it, if it was within their means.  A prince could
not have had more solicitous attendants, nor a fairy king lovelier
and less earthly ones.

He looked in heavy amazement from one to the other.  Rose bent, and
was by some supple process on one knee, taking the measure of the
wounded foot.  When she first approached it he winced: but the next
moment he smiled.  He had never been touched like this--it was
contact and no contact--she treated his foot as the zephyr the
violets--she handled it as if it had been some sacred thing.  By the
help of his eye he could just know she was touching him.  Presently
she informed him he was measured for a list shoe: and she would run
home for the materials.  During her absence came a timid tap to the
door; and Edouard Riviere entered.  He was delighted to see
Josephine, and made sure Rose was not far off.  It was Dard who let
out that she was gone to Beaurepaire for some cloth to make him a
shoe.  This information set Edouard fidgeting on his chair.  He saw
such a chance as was not likely to occur again.  He rose with
feigned nonchalance, and saying, "I leave you in good hands; angel
visitors are best enjoyed alone," slowly retired, with a deep
obeisance.  Once outside the door, dignity vanished in alacrity; he
flew off into the park, and ran as hard as he could towards the
chateau.  He was within fifty yards of the little gate, when sure
enough Rose emerged.  They met; his heart beat violently.
"Mademoiselle," he faltered.

"Ah! it is Monsieur Riviere, I declare," said Rose, coolly; all over
blushes though.

"Yes, mademoiselle, and I am so out of breath.  Mademoiselle
Josephine awaits you at Dard's house."

"She sent you for me?" inquired Rose, demurely.

"Not positively.  But I could see I should please her by coming for
you; there is, I believe, a bull or so about."

"A bull or two! don't talk in that reckless way about such things.
She has done well to send you; let us make haste."

"But I am a little out of breath."

"Oh, never mind that!  I abhor bulls."

"But, mademoiselle, we are not come to them yet, and the faster we
go now the sooner we shall."

"Yes; but I always like to get a disagreeable thing over as soon as
possible," said Rose, slyly.

"Ah," replied Edouard, mournfully, "in that case let us make haste."

After a little spurt, mademoiselle relaxed the pace of her own
accord, and even went slower than before.  There was an awkward
silence.  Edouard eyed the park boundary, and thought, "Now what I
have to say I must say before we get to you;" and being thus
impressed with the necessity of immediate action, he turned to lead.

Rose eyed him and the ground, alternately, from under her long
lashes.

At last he began to color and flutter.  She saw something was
coming, and all the woman donned defensive armor.

"Mademoiselle."

"Monsieur."

"Is it quite decided that your family refuse my acquaintance, my
services, which I still--forgive me--press on you?  Ah! Mademoiselle
Rose, am I never to have the happiness of--of--even speaking to
you?"

"It seems so," said Rose, ironically.

"Have you then decided against me too?"

"I?" asked Rose.  "What have I to do with questions of etiquette?  I
am only a child: so considered at least."

"You a child--an angel like you?"

"Ask any of them, they will tell you I am a child; and it is to that
I owe this conversation, no doubt; if you did not look on me as a
child, you would not take this liberty with me," said the young cat,
scratching without a moment's notice.

"Mademoiselle, do not be angry.  I was wrong."

"Oh! never mind.  Children are little creatures without reserve, and
treated accordingly, and to notice them is to honor them."

"Adieu then, mademoiselle.  Try to believe no one respects you more
than I do."

"Yes, let us part, for there is Dard's house; and I begin to suspect
that Josephine never sent you."

"I confess it."

"There, he confesses it.  I thought so all along; WHAT A DUPE I HAVE
BEEN!"

"I will offend no more," said poor silly Edouard.  "Adieu,
mademoiselle.  May you find friends as sincere as I am, and more to
your taste!"

"Heaven hear your prayers!" replied the malicious thing, casting up
her eyes with a mock tragic air.

Edouard sighed; a chill conviction that she was both heartless and
empty fell on him.  He turned away without another word.  She called
to him with a sudden airy cheerfulness that made him start.  "Stay,
monsieur, I forgot--I have a favor to ask you."

"I wish I could believe that:" and his eyes brightened.

Rose stopped, and began to play with her parasol.  "You seem," said
she softly, "to be pretty generous in bestowing your acquaintance on
strangers.  I should be glad if I might secure you for a dear friend
of mine, Dr. Aubertin.  He will not discredit my recommendation; and
he will not make so many difficulties as we do; shall I tell you
why?  Because he is really worth knowing.  In short, believe me, it
will be a valuable acquaintance for you--and for him," added she
with all the grace of the De Beaurepaires.

Many a man, inferior in a general way to Edouard Riviere, would have
made a sensible reply to this.  Such as, "Oh, any friend of yours,
mademoiselle, must be welcome to me," or the like.  But the proposal
caught Edouard on his foible, his vanity, to wit; and our foibles
are our manias.  He was mortified to the heart's core.  "She refuses
to know me herself," thought he, "but she will use my love to make
me amuse that old man."  His heart swelled against her injustice and
ingratitude, and his crushed vanity turned to strychnine.
"Mademoiselle," said he, bitterly and doggedly, but sadly, "were I
so happy as to have your esteem, my heart would overflow, not only
on the doctor but on every honest person around.  But if I must not
have the acquaintance I value more than life, suffer me to be alone
in the world, and never to say a word either to Dr. Aubertin, or to
any human creature if I can help it."

The imperious young beauty drew herself up directly.  "So be it,
monsieur; you teach me how a child should be answered that forgets
herself, and asks a favor of a stranger--a perfect stranger," added
she, maliciously.

Could one of the dog-days change to mid-winter in a second, it would
hardly seem so cold and cross as Rose de Beaurepaire turned from the
smiling, saucy fairy of the moment before.  Edouard felt as it were
a portcullis of ice come down between her and him.  She courtesied
and glided away.  He bowed and stood frozen to the spot.

He felt so lonely and so bitter, he must go to Jacintha for comfort.

He took advantage of the ladies being with Dard, and marched boldly
into the kitchen of Beaurepaire.

"Well, I never," cried Jacintha.  "But, after all, why not?"

He hurled himself on the kitchen table (clean as china), and told
her it was all over.  "She hates me now; but it is not my fault,"
and so poured forth his tale, and feeling sure of sympathy, asked
Jacintha whether it was not bitterly unjust of Rose to refuse him
her own acquaintance, yet ask him to amuse that old fogy.

Jacintha stood with her great arms akimbo, taking it all in, and
looking at him with a droll expression of satirical wonder.

"Now you listen to a parable," said she.  "Once there was a little
boy madly in love with raspberry jam."

"A thing I hate."

"Don't tell me!  Who hates raspberry jam?  He came to the store
closet, where he knew there were jars of it, and--oh! misery--the
door was locked.  He kicked the door, and wept bitterly.  His mamma
came and said, 'Here is the key,' and gave him the key.  And what
did he do?  Why, he fell to crying and roaring, and kicking the
door.  'I don't wa-wa-wa-wa-nt the key-ey-ey.  I wa-a-ant the jam--
oh! oh! oh! oh!'" and Jacintha mimicked, after her fashion, the
mingled grief and ire of infancy debarred its jam.  Edouard wore a
puzzled air, but it was only for a moment; the next he hid his face
in his hands, and cried, "Fool!"

"I shall not contradict you," said his Mentor.

"She was my best friend.  Once acquainted with the doctor, I could
visit at Beaurepaire."

"Parbleu!"

"She had thought of a way to reconcile my wishes with this terrible
etiquette that reigns here."

"She thinks to more purpose than you do; that is clear."

"Nothing is left now but to ask her pardon, and to consent; I am
off."

"No, you are not," and Jacintha laid a grasp of iron on him.  "Will
you be quiet?--is not one blunder a day enough?  If you go near her
now, she will affront you, and order the doctor not to speak to you."

"O Jacintha! your sex then are fiends of malice?"

"While it lasts.  Luckily with us nothing lasts very long.  Now you
don't go near her till you have taken advantage of her hint, and
made the doctor's acquaintance; that is easy done.  He walks two
hours on the east road every day, with his feet in the puddles and
his head in the clouds.  Them's HIS two tastes."

"But how am I to get him out of the clouds and the puddles?"
inquired Riviere half peevishly.

"How?" asked Jacintha, with a dash of that contempt uneducated
persons generally have for any one who does not know some little
thing they happen to know themselves.  "How?  Why, with the nearest
blackbeetle, to be sure."

"A blackbeetle?"

"Black or brown; it matters little.  Have her ready for use in your
handkerchief: pull a long face: and says you--'Excuse me, sir, I
have THE MISFORTUNE not to know the Greek name of this merchandise
here.'  Say that, and behold him launched.  He will christen you the
beast in Hebrew and Latin as well as Greek, and tell you her history
down from the flood: next he will beg her of you, and out will come
a cork and a pin, and behold the creature impaled.  For that is how
men love beetles.  He has a thousand pinned down at home--beetles,
butterflies, and so forth.  When I go near the rubbish with my
duster he trembles like an aspen.  I pretend to be going to clean
them, but it is only to see the face he makes, for even a domestic
must laugh now and then--or die.  But I never do clean them, for
after all he is more stupid than wicked, poor man: I have not
therefore the sad courage to make him wretched."

"Let us return to our beetle--what will his tirades about its
antiquity advance me?"

"Oh! one begins about a beetle, but one ends Heaven knows where."

Riviere profited by this advice.  He even improved on it.  In due
course he threw himself into Aubertin's way.  He stopped the doctor
reverentially, and said he had heard he was an entomologist.  WOULD
he be kind enough to tell him what was this enormous chrysalis he
had just found?

"The death's head moth!" cried Aubertin with enthusiasm--"the
death's head moth! a great rarity in this district.  Where found you
this?"  Riviere undertook to show him the place.

It was half a league distant.  Coming and going he had time to make
friends with Aubertin, and this was the easier that the old
gentleman, who was a physiognomist as well as ologist, had seen
goodness and sensibility in Edouard's face.  At the end of the walk
he begged the doctor to accept the chrysalis.  The doctor coquetted.
"That would be a robbery.  You take an interest in these things
yourself--at least I hope so."

The young rogue confessed modestly to the sentiment of entomology,
but "the government worked him so hard as to leave him no hopes of
shining in so high a science," said he sorrowfully.

The doctor pitied him.  "A young man of your attainments and tastes
to be debarred from the everlasting secrets of nature, by the
fleeting politics of the day."

Riviere shrugged his shoulders.  "Somebody must do the dirty work,"
said he, chuckling inwardly.

The chrysalis went to Beaurepaire in the pocket of a grateful man,
who that same evening told the whole party his conversation with
young Riviere, on whom he pronounced high encomiums.  Rose's saucy
eyes sparkled with fun: you might have lighted a candle at one and
exploded a mine at the other; but not a syllable did she utter.

The doctor proved a key, and opened the enchanted castle.  One fine
day he presented his friend in the Pleasaunce to the baroness and
her daughters.

They received him with perfect politeness.  Thus introduced, and as
he was not one to let the grass grow under his feet, he soon
obtained a footing as friend of the family, which, being now advised
by Josephine, he took care not to compromise by making love to Rose
before the baroness.  However, he insisted on placing his financial
talent at their service.  He surveyed and valued their lands, and
soon discovered that all their farms were grossly underlet.  Luckily
most of the leases were run out.  He prepared a new rent roll, and
showed it Aubertin, now his fast friend.  Aubertin at his request
obtained a list of the mortgages, and Edouard drew a balance-sheet
founded on sure data, and proved to the baroness that in able hands
the said estate was now solvent.

This was a great comfort to the old lady: and she said to Aubertin,
"Heaven has sent us a champion, a little republican--with the face
of an angel."

Descending to practice, Edouard actually put three of the farms into
the market, and let them at an advance of twenty per cent on the
expired leases.  He brought these leases signed; and the baroness
had scarcely done thanking him, when her other secret friend,
Monsieur Perrin, was announced.  Edouard exchanged civilities with
him, and then retired to the Pleasaunce.  There he found both
sisters, who were all tenderness and gratitude to him.  By this time
he had learned to value Josephine: she was so lovely and so good,
and such a true womanly friend to him.  Even Rose could not resist
her influence, and was obliged to be kind to him, when Josephine was
by.  But let Josephine go, and instead of her being more tender, as
any other girl would, left alone with her lover, sauciness resumed
its empire till sweet Josephine returned.  Whereof cometh an
example; for the said Josephine was summoned to a final conference
with the baroness and Monsieur Perrin.

"Don't be long," said Rose, as Josephine glided away, and (taking
the precaution to wait till she was quite out of hearing), "I shall
be so dull, dear, till you come back."

"I shall not though," said Edouard.

"I am not so sure of that.  Now then."

"Now then, what?"

"Begin."

"Begin what?"

"Amusing me."  And she made herself look sullen and unamusable all
over.

"I will try," said Riviere.  "I'll tell you what they say of you:
that you are too young to love."

"So I am, much."

"No, no, no! I made a mistake.  I mean too young to be loved."

"Oh, I am not too young for that, not a bit."

This point settled, she suggested that, if he could not amuse her,
he had better do THE NEXT BEST THING, and that was, talk sense.

"I think I had better not talk at all," said he, "for I am no match
for such a nimble tongue.  And then you are so remorseless.  I'll
hold my tongue, and make a sketch of this magnificent oak."

"Ay, do: draw it as it appeared on a late occasion: with two ladies
flying out of it, and you rooted with dismay."

"There is no need; that scene is engraved."

"Where? in all the shops?"

"No; on all our memories."

"Not on mine; not on mine.  How terrified you were--ha, ha! and how
terrified we should have been if you had not.  Listen: once upon a
time--don't be alarmed: it was long after Noah--a frightened hare
ran by a pond; the frogs splashed in the water, smit with awe.  Then
she said, 'Ah ha! there are people in the world I frighten in my
turn; I am the thunderbolt of war.'  Excuse my quoting La Fontaine:
I am not in 'Charles the Twelfth of Sweden' yet.  I am but a child."

"And it's a great mercy, for when you grow up, you will be too much
for me, that is evident.  Come, then, Mademoiselle the Quizzer, come
and adorn my sketch."

"Monsieur, shall I make you a confession?  You will not be angry: I
could not support your displeasure.  I have a strange inclination to
walk up and down this terrace while you go and draw that tree in the
Pleasaunce."

"Resist that inclination; perhaps it will fly from you."

"No; you fly from me, and draw.  I will rejoin you in a few minutes."

"Thank you, I'm not so stupid.  You will step indoors directly."

"Do you doubt my word, sir?" asked she haughtily.

He had learned to obey all her caprices; so he went and placed
himself on the west side of the oak and took out his sketch-book,
and worked zealously and rapidly.  He had done the outlines of the
tree and was finishing in detail a part of the huge trunk, when his
eyes were suddenly dazzled: in the middle of the rugged bark,
deformed here and there with great wart-like bosses, and wrinkled,
seamed, and ploughed all over with age, burst a bit of variegated
color; bright as a poppy on a dungeon wall, it glowed and glittered
out through a large hole in the brown bark; it was Rose's face
peeping.  To our young lover's eye how divine it shone!  None of the
half tints of common flesh were there, but a thing all rose, lily,
sapphire, and soul.  His pencil dropped, his mouth opened, he was
downright dazzled by the glowing, bewitching face, sparkling with
fun, in the gaunt tree.  Tell me, ladies, did she know, even at that
age, the value of that sombre frame to her brightness?  The moment
she found herself detected, the gaunt old tree rang musical with a
crystal laugh, and out came the arch-dryad.  "I have been there all
the time.  How solemn you looked!  Now for the result of such
profound study."  He showed her his work; she altered her tone.
"Oh, how clever!" she cried, "and how rapid!  What a facility you
have!  Monsieur is an artist," said she gravely; "I will be more
respectful," and she dropped him a low courtesy.  "Mind you promised
it me," she added sharply.

"You will accept it, then?"

"That I will, now it is worth having: dear me, I never reckoned on
that.  Finish it directly," cried this peremptory young person.

"First I must trouble you to stand out there near the tree."

"Me? what for?"

"Because art loves contrasts.  The tree is a picture of age and
gradual decay; by its side then I must place a personification of
youth and growing loveliness."

She did not answer, but made a sort of defiant pirouette, and went
where she was bid, and stood there with her back to the artist.
"That will never do," said he; "you really must be so good as to
turn round."

"Oh, very well."  And when she came round, behold her color had
risen mightily.  Flattery is sweet.

This child of nature was delighted, and ashamed it should be seen
that she was.

And so he drew her, and kept looking off the paper at her, and had a
right in his character of artist to look her full in the face; and
he did so with long lingering glances.  To be sure, they all began
severe and businesslike with half-closed eyes, and the peculiar
hostile expression art puts on; but then they always ended open-
eyed, and so full and tender, that she, poor girl, who was all real
gold, though sham brass, blushed and blushed, and did not know which
way to look not to be scorched up by his eye like a tender flower,
or blandly absorbed like the pearly dew.  Ah, happy hour! ah, happy
days of youth and innocence and first love!

Trouble loves to intrude on these halcyon days.

The usually quiet Josephine came flying from the house, pale and
agitated, and clung despairingly to Rose, and then fell to sobbing
and lamenting piteously.

I shall take leave to relate in my own words what had just occurred
to agitate her so.  When she entered her mother's room, she found
the baroness and Perrin the notary seated watching for her.  She sat
down after the usual civilities, and Perrin entered upon the subject
that had brought him.

He began by confessing to them that he had not overcome the
refractory creditor without much trouble; and that he had since
learned there was another, a larger creditor, likely to press for
payment or for sale of the estate.  The baroness was greatly
troubled by this communication: the notary remained cool as a
cucumber, and keenly observant.  After a pause he went on to say all
this had caused him grave reflections.  "It seems," said he with
cool candor, "a sad pity the estate should pass from a family that
has held it since the days of Charlemagne."

"Now God forbid!" cried the baroness, lifting her eyes and her
quivering hands to heaven.

The notary held the republican creed in all its branches.
"Providence, madame, does not interfere--in matters of business,"
said he.  "Nothing but money can save the estate.  Let us then be
practical.  Has any means occurred to you of raising money to pay
off these incumbrances?"

"No.  What means can there be?  The estate is mortgaged to its full
value: so they say, at least."

"And they say true," put in the notary quickly.  "But do not
distress yourself, madame: confide in me."

"Ah, my good friend, may Heaven reward you."

"Madame, up to the present time I have no complaint to make of
Heaven.  I am on the rise: here, mademoiselle, is a gimcrack they
have given me;" and he unbuttoned his overcoat, and showed them a
piece of tricolored ribbon and a clasp.  "As for me, I look to 'the
solid;' I care little for these things," said he, swelling visibly,
"but the world is dazzled by them.  However, I can show you
something better."  He took out a letter.  "This is from the
Minister of the Interior to a client of mine: a promise I shall be
the next prefect; and the present prefect--I am happy to say--is on
his death-bed.  Thus, madame, your humble servant in a few short
months will be notary no longer, but prefect; I shall then sell my
office of notary: and I flatter myself when I am a prefect you will
not blush to own me."

"Then, as now, monsieur," said the baroness politely, "we shall
recognize your merit.  But"--

"I understand, madame: like me you look to 'the solid.'  Thus then
it is; I have money."

"Ah! all the better for you."

"I have a good deal of money.  But it is dispersed in a great many
small but profitable investments: to call it in suddenly would
entail some loss.  Nevertheless, if you and my young lady there have
ever so little of that friendly feeling towards me of which I have
so much towards you, all my investments shall be called in, and two-
thirds of your creditors shall be paid off at once.  A single client
of mine, no less a man than the Commandant Raynal, will, I am sure,
advance me the remaining third at an hour's notice; and so
Beaurepaire chateau, park, estate, and grounds, down to the old oak-
tree, shall be saved; and no power shall alienate them from you,
mademoiselle, and from the heirs of your body."

The baroness clasped her hands in ecstasy.

"But what are we to do for this?" inquired Josephine calmly, "for it
seems to me that it can only be effected by a sacrifice on your
part."

"I thank you, mademoiselle, for your penetration in seeing that I
must make sacrifices.  I would never have told you, but you have
seen it; and I do not regret that you have seen it.  Madame--
mademoiselle--those sacrifices appear little to me; will seem
nothing; will never be mentioned, or even alluded to after this day,
if you, on your part, will lay me under a far heavier obligation, if
in short"--here the contemner of things unsubstantial reopened his
coat, and brought his ribbon to light again--"if you, madame, will
accept me for your son-in-law--if you, mademoiselle, will take me
for your husband."

The baroness and her daughter looked at one another in silence.

"Is it a jest?" inquired the former of the latter.

"Can you think so?  Answer Monsieur Perrin.  He has just done us a
kind office, mother."

"I shall remember it.  Monsieur, permit me to regret that having
lately won our gratitude and esteem, you have taken this way of
modifying those feelings.  But after all," she added with gentle
courtesy, "we may well put your good deeds against this--this error
in judgment.  The balance is in your favor still, provided you never
return to this topic.  Come, is it agreed?"  The baroness's manner
was full of tact, and the latter sentences were said with an open
kindliness of manner.  There was nothing to prevent Perrin from
dropping the subject, and remaining good friends.  A gentleman or a
lover would have so done.  Monsieur Perrin was neither.  He said
bitterly, "You refuse me, then."

The tone and the words were each singly too much for the baroness's
pride.  She answered coldly but civilly,--

"I do not refuse you.  I do not take an affront into consideration."

"Be calm, mamma; no affront whatever was intended."

"Ah! here is one that is more reasonable," cried Perrin.

"There are men," continued Josephine without noticing him, "who look
to but one thing--interest.  It was an offer made politely in the
way of business: decline it in the same spirit; that is what you
have to do."

"Monsieur, you hear what mademoiselle says?  She carries politeness
a long way.  After all it is a good fault.  Well, monsieur, I need
not answer you, since Mademoiselle de Beaurepaire has answered you;
but I detain you no longer."

Strictly a weasel has no business with the temper of a tiger, but
this one had, and the long vindictiveness of a Corsican.  "Ah! my
little lady, you turn me out of the house, do you?" cried he,
grinding his teeth.

"Turn him out of the house? what a phrase! where has this man
lived?"

"A man!" snarled Perrin, "whom none ever yet insulted without
repenting it, and repenting in vain.  You are under obligations to
me, and you think to turn me out!  You are at my mercy, and you
think I will let you turn me to your door!  In less than a mouth I
will stand here, and say to you, Beaurepaire is mine.  Begone from
it!"

When he uttered these terrible words, each of which was like a
sword-stroke to the baroness, the old lady, whose courage was not
equal to her strength, shrank over the side of her arm-chair, and
cried piteously--"He threatens me! he threatens me! I am
frightened;" and put up her trembling hands, for the notary's
eloquence, being accompanied with abundance of gesture, bordered
upon physical violence.  His brutality received an unexpected check.
Imagine that a sparrow-hawk had seized a trembling pigeon, and that
a royal falcon swooped, and with one lightning-like stroke of body
and wing, buffeted him away, and sent him gaping and glaring and
grasping at pigeonless air with his claws.  So swift and majestic,
Josephine de Beaurepaire came from her chair with one gesture of her
body between her mother and the notary, who was advancing with arms
folded in a brutal, menacing way--not the Josephine we have seen
her, the calm languid beauty, but the demoiselle de Beaurepaire--her
great heart on fire--her blood up--not her own only, but all the
blood of all the De Beaurepaires--pale as ashes with great wrath,
her purple eyes on fire, and her whole panther-like body full of
spring.  "Wretch! you dare to insult her, and before me!  Arriere
miserable! or I soil my hand with your face."  And her hand was up
with the word, up, up, higher it seemed than ever a hand was raised
before.  And if he had hesitated one moment, I really believe it
would have come down; not heavily, perhaps--the lightning is not
heavy.  But there was no need.  The towering threat and the flaming
eye and the swift rush buffeted the caitiff away: he recoiled.  She
followed him as he went, strong, FOR A MOMENT OR TWO, as Hercules,
beautiful and terrible as Michael driving Satan.  He dared not, or
could not stand before her: he writhed and cowered and recoiled all
down the room, while she marched upon him.  But the driven serpent
hissed horribly as it wriggled away.

"You shall both be turned out of Beaurepaire by me, and forever; I
swear it, parole de Perrin."

He had not been gone a minute when Josephine's courage oozed away,
and she ran, or rather tottered, into the Pleasaunce, and clung like
a drowning thing to Rose, and, when Edouard took her hand, she clung
to him.  They had to gather what had happened how they could: the
account was constantly interrupted with her sobs and self-
reproaches.  She said she had ruined all she loved: ruined her
sister, ruined her mother, ruined the house of Beaurepaire.  Why was
she ever born?  Why had she not died three years ago?  (Query, what
was the date at which Camille's letters suddenly stopped?)  "That
coward," said she, "has the heart of a fiend.  He told us he never
forgave an affront; and he holds our fate in his hands.  He will
drive our mother from her home, and she will die: murdered by her
own daughter.  After all, why did I refuse him?  What should I have
sacrificed by marrying him?  Rose, write to him, and say--say--I was
taken by surprise, I--I"--a violent flood of tears interrupted the
sentence.

Rose flung her arms round her neck.  "My beautiful Josephine marry
that creature?  Let house and lands go a thousand times sooner.  I
love my sister a thousand times better than the walls of this or any
other house."

"Come, come," cried Edouard, "you are forgetting ME all this time.
Do you really think I am the sort of man to stand by with my hands
in my pockets, and let her marry that cur, or you be driven out of
Beaurepaire?  Neither, while I live."

"Alas! dear boy," sighed Josephine, "what can you do?"

"I'll soon show you.  From this hour forth it is a duel between that
Perrin and me.  Now, Josephine--Rose--don't you cry and fret like
that: but just look quietly on, and enjoy the fight, both of you."

Josephine shook her head with a sad smile: but Rose delivered
herself thus, after a sob, "La, yes; I forgot: we have got a
gentleman now; that's one comfort."

Edouard rose to the situation: he saw that Perrin would lose no
time; and that every day, or even hour, might be precious.  He told
them that the first thing he must do for them was to leave the
company he loved best on earth, and run down to the town to consult
Picard the rival notary: he would be back by supper-time, when he
hoped they would do him the honor, in a matter of such importance,
to admit him to a family council.

Josephine assented with perfect simplicity; Rose with a deep blush,
for she was too quick not to see all the consequences of admitting
so brisk a wooer into a family council.


It was a wet evening, and a sad and silent party sat round a wood
fire in the great dining-hall.  The baroness was almost prostrated
by the scene with Perrin; and a sombre melancholy and foreboding
weighed on all their spirits, when presently Edouard Riviere entered
briskly, and saluted them all profoundly, and opened the proceedings
with a little favorite pomposity.  "Madame the baroness, and you
Monsieur Aubertin, who honor me with your esteem, and you
Mademoiselle de Beaurepaire, whom I adore, and you Mademoiselle
Rose, whom I hoped to be permitted--you have this day done me the
honor to admit me as your adviser.  I am here to lay my plans before
you.  I believe, madame, I have already convinced you that your
farms are under-let, and your property lowered in value by general
mismanagement; this was doubtless known to Perrin, and set him
scheming.  Well, I rely on the same circumstance to defeat him.  I
have consulted Picard and shown him the rent-roll and balance-sheet
I had already shown you.  He has confessed that the estate is worth
more than its debts, so capitalists can safely advance the money.
To-morrow morning, then, I ride to Commandant Raynal for a week's
leave of absence; then, armed with Picard's certificate, shall
proceed to my uncle and ask him to lend the money.  His estate is
very small compared with Beaurepaire, but he has always farmed it
himself.  'I'll have no go-between,' says he, 'to impoverish both
self and soil.'  He is also a bit of a misanthrope, and has made me
one.  I have a very poor opinion of my fellow-creatures, very."

"Well, but," said Rose, "if he is all that, he will not sympathize
with us, who have so mismanaged Beaurepaire.  Will he not despise
us?"

Edouard was a little staggered, but Aubertin came to his aid.

"Permit me, Josephine," said he.  "Natural history steps in here,
and teaches by me, its mouth-piece.  A misanthrope hates all
mankind, but is kind to every individual, generally too kind.  A
philanthrope loves the whole human race, but dislikes his wife, his
mother, his brother, and his friends and acquaintances.  Misanthrope
is the potato: rough and repulsive outside, but good to the core.
Philanthrope is a peach: his manner all velvet and bloom, his words
sweet juice, his heart of hearts a stone.  Let me read Philanthrope's
book, and fall into the hands of Misanthrope."

Edouard admitted the shrewdness of this remark.

"And so," said he, "my misanthrope will say plenty of biting words,--
which, by-the-by, will not hurt you, who will not hear them, only
me,--and then he'll lend us the money, and Beaurepaire will be free,
and I shall have had a hand in it.  Hurrah!"

Then came a delicious hour to Edouard Riviere.  Young and old poured
out their glowing thanks and praises upon him till his checks burned
like fire.

The baroness was especially grateful, and expressed a gentle regret
that she could see no way of showing her gratitude except in words.
"What can we do for this little angel?" said she, turning to
Josephine.

"Leave that to me, mamma," replied Josephine, turning her lovely
eyes full on Edouard, with a look the baroness misunderstood
directly.

She sat and watched Josephine and Edouard with comical severity all
the rest of the time she was there; and, when she retired, she
kissed Rose affectionately, but whispered her eldest daughter, "I
hope you are not serious.  A mere boy compared with you."

"But such a sweet one," suggested Josephine, apologetically.

"What will the world come to?" said the baroness out loud, and
retreated with a sour glance at all of them--except Rose.

She had not been gone five minutes when a letter came by messenger
to Edouard.  It was from Picard.  He read it out.


"Perrin has been with me, to raise money.  He wants it in forty-
eight hours.  Promises good legal security.  I have agreed to try
and arrange the matter for him."


They were all astonished at this.

"The double-faced traitor!" cried Edouard.  "Stay; wait a minute.
Let us read it to an end."


"This promise is, of course, merely to prevent his going elsewhere.
At the end of the forty-eight hours I shall begin to make
difficulties.  Meantime, as Perrin is no fool, you had better profit
to the full by this temporary delay."


"Well done, Picard!" shouted Edouard.  "Notary cut notary.  I won't
lose an hour.  I'll start at five; Commandant Raynal is an early
riser himself."

Accordingly, at five he was on the road; Raynal's quarters lay in
the direct line to his uncle's place.  He found the commandant at
home, and was well received.  Raynal had observed his zeal, and
liked his manners.  He gave him the week's leave, and kept him to
breakfast, and had his horse well fed.  At eight o'clock Edouard
rode out of the premises in high spirits.  At the very gate he met a
gaunt figure riding in on a squab pony.  It was Perrin the notary
coming in hot haste to his friend and employer, Commandant Raynal.


CHAPTER V.


After Edouard's departure, Josephine de Beaurepaire was sad, and
weighed down with presentiments.  She felt as soldiers sometimes
feel who know the enemy is undermining them; no danger on the
surface; nothing that can be seen, met, baffled, attacked, or
evaded; in daily peril, all the more horrible that it imitates
perfect serenity, they await the fatal match.  She imparted her
misgivings to Aubertin; but he assured her she exaggerated the
danger.

"We have a friend still more zealous and active than our enemy;
believe me, your depression is really caused by his absence; we all
miss the contact of that young heroic spirit; we are a body, and he
its soul."

Josephine was silent, for she said to herself, "Why should I dash
their spirits? they are so happy and confident."

Edouard had animated Rose and Aubertin with his own courage, and had
even revived the baroness.

It had been agreed between him and Picard that the latter should
communicate with Dr. Aubertin direct, should anything fresh occur.
And on the third day after Edouard's departure, Picard sent up a
private message: "Perrin has just sent me a line to say he will not
trouble us, as he is offered the money in another quarter."

This was a heavy blow, and sent them all to bed more or less
despondent.

The next day brought a long letter from Edouard to Rose, telling her
he had found his uncle crusty at first; but at last with a little
patience, and the co-operation of Martha, his uncle's old servant,
and his nurse, the old boy had come round.  They might look on the
affair as all but settled.

The contents of this letter were conveyed to the baroness.  The
house brightened under it: the more so that there was some hope of
their successful champion returning in person next day.  Meantime
Perrin had applied to Raynal for the immediate loan of a large sum
of money on excellent security.  Raynal refused plump.  Perrin rode
away disconsolate.

But the next day he returned to the charge with another proposal:
and the nature of this second proposal we shall learn from events.

The day Edouard was expected opened deliciously.  It was a balmy
morning, and tempted the sisters out before breakfast.  They
strolled on the south terrace with their arms round each other's
waists, talking about Edouard, and wondering whether they should
really see him before night.  Rose owned she had missed him, and
confessed for the first time she was a proud and happy girl.

"May I tell him so?" asked Josephine.

"Not for all the world.  Would you dare?"

Further discussion of that nice point was stopped by the baroness
coming out, leaning on Dr. Aubertin.

Then--how we young people of an unceremonious age should have
stared--the demoiselles de Beaurepaire, inasmuch as this was their
mother's first appearance, lowered their fair heads at the same time
like young poplars bowing to the wind, and so waited reverently till
she had slightly lifted her hands, and said, "God bless you, my
children!"

It was done in a moment on both sides, but full of grace and piety,
and the charm of ancient manners.

"How did our dear mother sleep?" inquired Josephine.  Aubertin
interposed with a theory that she slept very well indeed if she took
what he gave her.

"Ay, IF," suggested Rose, saucily.

"I slept," said the baroness, "and I wish I had not for I dreamed an
ugly dream."  They all gathered round her, and she told her dream.

"I thought I was with you all in this garden.  I was admiring the
flowers and the trees, and the birds were singing with all their
might.  Suddenly a dark cloud came; it cleared almost directly; but
flowers, trees, sky, and birds were gone now, and I could see the
chateau itself no more.  It means that I was dead.  An ugly dream,
my children, an ugly dream."

"But only a dream, dear mother," said Rose: then with a sweet,
consoling smile, "See, here is your terrace and your chateau."

"And here are your daughters," said Josephine; and they both came
and kissed her to put their existence out of doubt.  "And here is
your Aesculapius," said Aubertin.  "And here is your Jacintha."

"Breakfast, madame," said Jacintha.  "Breakfast, mesdemoiselles.
Breakfast, monsieur:" dropping each a distinct courtesy in turn.

"She has turned the conversation very agreeably," said the baroness,
and went in leaning on her old friend.

But the sisters lagged behind and took several turns in silence.
Rose was the first to speak.  "How superstitious of you!"

"I said nothing."

"No; but you looked volumes at me while mamma was telling her dream.
For my part I feel sure love is stronger than hate; and we shall
stay all our days in this sweet place: and O Josey! am I not a happy
girl that it's all owing to HIM!"

At this moment Jacintha came running towards them.  They took it for
a summons to breakfast, and moved to meet her.  But they soon saw
she was almost as white as her apron, and she came open-mouthed and
wringing her hands.  "What shall I do? what shall I do?  Oh, don't
let my poor mistress know!"

They soon got from her that Dard had just come from the town, and
learned the chateau was sold, and the proprietor coming to take
possession this very day.  The poor girls were stupefied by the
blow.

If anything, Josephine felt it worst.  "It is my doing," she gasped,
and tottered fainting.  Rose supported her: she shook it off by a
violent effort.  "This is no time for weakness," she cried, wildly;
"come to the Pleasaunce; there is water there.  I love my mother.
What will I not do for her?  I love my mother."

Muttering thus wildly she made for the pond in the Pleasaunce.  She
had no sooner turned the angle of the chateau than she started back
with a convulsive cry, and her momentary feebleness left her
directly; she crouched against the wall and griped the ancient
corner-stone with her tender hand till it powdered, and she spied
with dilating eye into the Pleasaunce, Rose and Jacintha panting
behind her.  Two men stood with their backs turned to her looking at
the oak-tree; one an officer in full uniform, the other the human
snake Perrin.  Though the soldier's back was turned, his off-handed,
peremptory manner told her he was inspecting the place as its master.

"The baroness! the baroness!" cried Jacintha, with horror.  They
looked round, and the baroness was at their very backs.

"What is it?" cried she, gayly.

"Nothing, mamma."

"Let me see this nothing."

They glanced at one another, and, idle as the attempt was, the habit
of sparing her prevailed, and they flung themselves between her and
the blow.

"Josephine is not well," said Rose.  "She wants to go in."  Both
girls faced the baroness.

"Jacintha," said the baroness, "fetch Dr. Aubertin.  There, I have
sent her away.  So now tell me, why do you drive me back so?
Something has happened," and she looked keenly from one to the
other.

"O mamma! do not go that way: there are strangers in the Pleasaunce."

"Let me see.  So there are.  Call Jacintha back that I may order
these people out of my premises."  Josephine implored her to be
calm.

"Be calm when impertinent intruders come into my garden?"

"Mother, they are not intruders."

"What do you mean?"

"They have a right to be in our Pleasaunce.  They have bought the
chateau."

"It is impossible.  HE was to buy it for us--there is some mistake--
what man would kill a poor old woman like me?  I will speak to this
gentleman: he wears a sword.  Soldiers do not trample on women.  Ah!
that man."

The notary, attracted by her voice, was coming towards her, a paper
in his hand.

Raynal coolly inspected the tree, and tapped it with his scabbard,
and left Perrin to do the dirty work.  The notary took off his hat,
and, with a malignant affectation of respect, presented the baroness
with a paper.

The poor old thing took it with a courtesy, the effect of habit, and
read it to her daughters as well as her emotion permitted, and the
language, which was as new to her as the dialect of Cat Island to
Columbus.


"Jean Raynal, domiciled by right, and lodging in fact at the Chateau
of Beaurepaire, acting by the pursuit and diligence of Master
Perrin, notary; I, Guillaume Le Gras, bailiff, give notice to
Josephine Aglae St. Croix de Beaurepaire, commonly called the
Baroness de Beaurepaire, having no known place of abode"--


"Oh!"


"but lodging wrongfully at the said Chateau of Beaurepaire, that she
is warned to decamp within twenty-four hours"--


"To decamp!"


"failing which that she will be thereto enforced in the manner for
that case made and provided with the aid of all the officers and
agents of the public force."


"Ah! no, messieurs, pray do not use force.  I am frightened enough
already.  I did not know I was doing anything wrong.  I have been
here thirty years.  But, since Beaurepaire is sold, I comprehend
perfectly that I must go.  It is just.  As you say, I am not in my
own house.  I will go, gentlemen, I will go.  Whither shall I go, my
children?  The house where you were born to me is ours no longer.
Excuse me, gentlemen--this is nothing to you.  Ah! sir, you have
revenged yourself on two weak women--may Heaven forgive you!"

The notary turned on his heel.  The poor baroness, all whose pride
the iron law, with its iron gripe, had crushed into dismay and
terror, appealed to him.  "O sir! send me from the house, but not
from the soil where my Henri is laid! is there not in all this
domain a corner where she who was its mistress may lie down and die?
Where is the NEW BARON, that I may ask this favor of him on my
knees?"

She turned towards Raynal and seemed to be going towards him with
outstretched arms.  But Rose checked her with fervor.  "Mamma! do
not lower yourself.  Ask nothing of these wretches.  Let us lose
all, but not forget ourselves."

The baroness had not her daughter's spirit.  Her very person
tottered under this blow.  Josephine supported her, and the next
moment Aubertin came out and hastened to her side.  Her head fell
back; what little strength she had failed her; she was half lifted,
half led, into the house.

Commandant Raynal was amazed at all this, and asked what the deuce
was the matter.

"Oh!" said the notary, "we are used to these little scenes in our
business."

"But I am not," replied the soldier.  "You never told me there was
to be all this fuss."

He then dismissed his friend rather abruptly and strode up and down
the Pleasaunce.  He twisted his mustaches, muttered, and "pested,"
and was ill at ease.  Accustomed to march gayly into a town, and see
the regiment, that was there before, marching gayly out, or vice
versa, and to strike tents twice a quarter at least, he was little
prepared for such a scene as this.  True, he did not hear all the
baroness's words, but more than one tone of sharp distress reached
him where he stood, and the action of the whole scene was so
expressive, there was little need of words.  He saw the notice
given; the dismay it caused, and the old lady turn imploringly
towards him with a speaking gesture, and above all he saw her
carried away, half fainting, her hands clasped, her reverend face
pale.  He was not a man of quick sensibilities.  He did not
thoroughly take the scene in at first: it grew upon him afterwards.

"Confound it," thought he, "I am the proprietor.  They all say so.
Instead of which I feel like a thief.  Fancy her getting so fond of
a PLACE as all this."

Presently it occurred to him that the shortness of the notice might
have much to do with her distress.  "These notaries," said he to
himself, "understand nothing save law: women have piles of baggage,
and can't strike tents directly the order comes, as we can.  Perhaps
if I were to give them twenty-four days instead of hours?--hum!"

With this the commandant fell into a brown study.  Now each of us
has his attitude of brown study.  One runs about the room like hyena
in his den; another stands stately with folded arms (this one seldom
thinks to the purpose); another sits cross-legged, brows lowered:
another must put his head into his hand, and so keep it up to
thinking mark: another must twiddle a bit of string, or a key; grant
him this, he can hatch an epic.  This commandant must draw himself
up very straight, and walk six paces and back very slowly, till the
problem was solved: I suspect he had done a good bit of sentinel
work in his time.

Now whilst he was guarding the old oak-tree, for all the world as if
it had been the gate of the Tuileries or the barracks, Josephine de
Beaurepaire came suddenly out from the house and crossed the
Pleasaunce: her hair was in disorder, her manner wild: she passed
swiftly into the park.

Raynal recognized her as one of the family; and after a moment's
reflection followed her into the park with the good-natured
intention of offering her a month to clear out instead of a day.

But it was not so easy to catch her: she flew.  He had to take his
scabbard in his left hand and fairly run after her.  Before he could
catch her, she entered the little chapel.  He came up and had his
foot on the very step to go in, when he was arrested by that he
heard within.

Josephine had thrown herself on her knees and was praying aloud:
praying to the Virgin with sighs and sobs and all her soul:
wrestling so in prayer with a dead saint as by a strange perversity
men cannot or will not wrestle with Him, who alone can hear a
million prayers at once from a million different places,--can
realize and be touched with a sense of all man's infirmities in a
way no single saint with his partial experience of them can realize
and be touched by them; who unasked suspended the laws of nature
that had taken a stranger's only son, and she a widow; and wept at
another great human sorrow, while the eyes of all the great saints
that stood around it and Him were dry.

Well, the soldier stood, his right foot on the step and his sword in
his left hand, transfixed: listening gravely to the agony of prayer
the innocent young creature poured forth within:--

"O Madonna! hear me: it is for my mother's life.  She will die--she
will die.  You know she cannot live if she is taken away from her
house and from this holy place where she prays to you this many
years.  O Queen of Heaven! put out your hand to us unfortunates!
Virgin, hear a virgin: mother, listen to a child who prays for her
mother's life!  The doctor says she will not live away from here.
She is too old to wander over the world.  Let them drive us forth:
we are young, but not her, mother, oh, not her!  Forgive the cruel
men that do this thing!--they are like those who crucified your Son--
they know not what they are doing.  But you, Queen of Heaven, you
know all; and, sweet mother, if you have kind sentiments towards me,
poor Josephine, ah! show them now: for you know that it was I who
insulted that wicked notary, and it is out of hatred to me he has
sold our beloved house to a hard stranger.  Look down on me, a child
who loves her mother, yet will destroy her unless you pity me and
help me.  Oh! what shall I say?--what shall I do? mercy! mercy! for
my poor mother, for me!"

Here her utterance was broken by sobs.

The soldier withdrew his foot quietly.  Her words had knocked
against his very breast-bone.  He marched slowly to and fro before
the chapel, upright as a dart, and stiff as a ramrod, and actually
pale: for even our nerves have their habits; a woman's passionate
grief shook him as a cannon fired over his head could not.

Josephine little thought who was her sentinel.  She came to the door
at last, and there he was marching backwards and forwards, upright
and stiff.  She gave a faint scream and drew back with a shudder at
the sight of their persecutor.  She even felt faintish at him, as
women will in such cases.

Not being very quick at interpreting emotion, Raynal noticed her
alarm, but not her repugnance; he saluted her with military
precision by touching his cap as only a soldier can, and said rather
gently for him, "A word with you, mademoiselle."

She replied only by trembling.

"Don't be frightened," said Raynal, in a tone not very reassuring.
"I propose an armistice."

"I am at your disposal, sir," said Josephine, now assuming a
calmness that was belied by the long swell of her heaving bosom.

"Of course you look on me as an enemy."

"How can I do otherwise, sir? yet perhaps I ought not.  You did not
know us.  You just wanted an estate, I suppose--and--oh!"

"Well, don't cry; and let us come to the point, since I am a man of
few words."

"If you please, sir.  My mother may miss me."

"Well, I was in position on your flank when the notary delivered his
fire.  And I saw the old woman's distress."

"Ah, sir!"

"When you came flying out I followed to say a good word to you.  I
could not catch you.  I listened while you prayed to the Virgin.
That was not a soldier-like trick, you will say.  I confess it."

"It matters little, sir, and you heard nothing I blush for."

"No! by St. Denis; quite the contrary.  Well, to the point.  Young
lady, you love your mother."

"What has she on earth now but her children's love?"

"Now look here, young lady, I had a mother; I loved her in my
humdrum way very dearly.  She promised me faithfully not to die till
I should be a colonel; and she went and died before I was a
commandant, even; just before, too."

"Then I pity you," murmured Josephine; and her soft purple eye began
to dwell on him with less repugnance.

"Thank you for that word, my good young lady," said Raynal.  "Now, I
declare, you are the first that has said that word to me about my
losing the true friend, that nursed me on her knee, and pinched and
pinched to make a man of me.  I should like to tell you about her
and me."

"I shall feel honored," said Josephine, politely, but with
considerable restraint.

Then he told her all about how he had vexed her when he was a boy,
and gone for a soldier, though she was all for trade, and how he had
been the more anxious to see her enjoy his honors and success.
"And, mademoiselle," said he, appealingly, "the day this epaulet was
put on my shoulder in Italy, she died in Paris.  Ah! how could you
have the heart to do that, my old woman?"

The soldier's mustache quivered, and he turned away brusquely, and
took several steps.  Then he came back to Josephine, and to his
infinite surprise saw that her purple eyes were thick with tears.
"What? you are within an inch of crying for my mother, you who have
your own trouble at this hour."

"Monsieur, our situations are so alike, I may well spare some little
sympathy for your misfortune."

"Thank you, my good young lady.  Well, then, to business; while you
were praying to the Virgin, I was saying a word or two for my part
to her who is no more."

"Sir!"

"Oh! it was nothing beautiful like the things you said to the other.
Can I turn phrases?  I saw her behind her little counter in the Rue
Quincampoix; for she is a woman of the people, is my mother.  I saw
myself come to the other side of the counter, and I said, 'Look
here, mother, here is the devil to pay about this new house.  The
old woman talks of dying if we take her from her home, and the young
one weeps and prays to all the saints in paradise; what shall we do,
eh?'  Then I thought my old woman said to me, 'Jean, you are a
soldier, a sort of vagabond; what do you want with a house in
France? you who are always in a tent in Italy or Austria, or who
knows where.  Have you the courage to give honest folk so much pain
for a caprice?  Come now,' says she, 'the lady is of my age, say
you, and I can't keep your fine house, because God has willed it
otherwise; so give her my place; so then you can fancy it is me you
have set down at your hearth: that will warm your heart up a bit,
you little scamp,' said my old woman in her rough way.  She was not
well-bred like you, mademoiselle.  A woman of the people, nothing
more."

"She was a woman of God's own making, if she was like that," cried
Josephine, the tears now running down her cheeks.

"Ah, that she was, she was.  So between her and me it is settled--
what are you crying for NOW? why, you have won the day; the field is
yours; your mother and you remain; I decamp."  He whipped his
scabbard up with his left hand, and was going off without another
word, if Josephine had not stopped him.

"But, sir, what am I to think? what am I to hope? it is impossible
that in this short interview--and we must not forget what is due to
you.  You have bought the estate."

"True; well, we will talk over that, to-morrow; but being turned out
of the house, that was the bayonet thrust to the old lady.  So you
run in and put her heart at rest about it.  Tell her that she may
live and die in this house for Jean Raynal; and tell her about the
old woman in the Rue Quincampoix."

"God bless you, Jean Raynal!" cried Josephine, clasping her hands.

"Are you going?" said he, peremptorily.

"Oh, yes!" and she darted towards the chateau.

But when she had taken three steps she paused, and seemed irresolute.
She turned, and in a moment she had glided to Raynal again and had
taken his hand before he could hinder her, and pressed two velvet
lips on it, and was away again, her cheeks scarlet at what she had
done, and her wet eyes beaming with joy.  She skimmed the grass like
a lapwing; you would have taken her at this minute for Rose, or for
Virgil's Camilla; at the gate she turned an instant and clasped her
hands together, with such a look, to show Raynal she blessed him
again, then darted into the house.

"Aha, my lady," said he, as he watched her fly, "behold you changed
a little since you came out."  He was soon on the high road marching
down to the town at a great rate, his sword clanking, and thus ran
his thoughts: "This does one good; you are right, my old woman.
Your son's bosom feels as warm as toast.  Long live the five-franc
pieces!  And they pretend money cannot make a fellow happy.  They
lie; it is because they do not know how to spend it."

Meantime at the chateau, as still befalls in emergencies and trials,
the master spirit came out and took its real place.  Rose was now
the mistress of Beaurepaire; she set Jacintha, and Dard, and the
doctor, to pack up everything of value in the house.  "Do it this
moment!" she cried; "once that notary gets possession of the house,
it may be too late.  Enough of folly and helplessness.  We have
fooled away house and lands; our movables shall not follow them."

The moment she had set the others to work, she wrote a single line
to Riviere to tell him the chateau and lands were sold, and would he
come to Beaurepaire at once?  She ran with it herself to Bigot's
auberge, the nearest post-office, and then back to comfort her
mother.

The baroness was seated in her arm-chair, moaning and wringing her
hands, and Rose was nursing and soothing her, and bathing her
temples with her last drop of eau de Cologne, and trying in vain to
put some of her own courage into her, when in came Josephine radiant
with happiness, crying "Joy! joy! joy!" and told her strange tale,
with this difference, that she related her own share in it briefly
and coldly, and was more eloquent than I about the strange soldier's
goodness, and the interest her mother had awakened in his heart.
And she told about the old woman in the Rue Quincampoix, her rugged
phrases, and her noble, tender heart.  The baroness, deaf to Rose's
consolations, brightened up directly at Josephine's news, and at her
glowing face, as she knelt pouring the good news, and hope, and
comfort, point blank into her.  But Rose chilled them both.

"It is a generous offer," said, she, "but one we cannot accept.  We
cannot live under so great an obligation.  Is all the generosity to
be on the side of this Bonapartist?  Are we noble in name only?
What would our father have said to such a proposal?"

Josephine hung her head.  The baroness groaned.

"No, mother," continued Rose; "let house and land go, but honor and
true nobility remain."

"What shall I do? you are cruel to me, Rose."

"Mamma," cried the enthusiastic girl, "we need depend on no one.
Josephine and I have youth and spirit."

"But no money."

"We have plenty of jewels, and pictures, and movables.  We can take
a farm."

"A farm!" shrieked the baroness.

"Why, his uncle has a farm, and we have had recourse to him for
help: better a farmhouse than an almshouse, though that almshouse
were a palace instead of a chateau."

Josephine winced and held up her hand deprecatingly.  The baroness
paled: it was a terrible stroke of language to come from her
daughter.  She said sternly, "There is no answer to that.  We were
born nobles, let us die farmers: only permit me to die first."

"Forgive me, mother," said Rose, kneeling.  "I was wrong; it is for
me to obey you, not to dictate.  I speak no more."  And, after
kissing her mother and Josephine, she crept away, but she left her
words sticking in both their consciences.

"HIS uncle," said the shrewd old lady.  "She is no longer a child;
and she says his uncle.  This makes me half suspect it is her that
dear boy--Josephine, tell me the truth, which of you is it?"

"Dear mother, who should it be? they are nearly of an age: and what
man would not love our sweet Rose, that had eyes or a heart?"

The baroness sighed deeply; and was silent.  After awhile she said,
"The moment they have a lover, he detaches their hearts from their
poor old mother.  She is no longer what my Josephine is to me."

"Mamma, she is my superior.  I see it more and more every day.  She
is proud: she is just; she looks at both sides.  As for me, I am too
apt to see only what will please those I love."

"And that is the daughter for me," cried the poor baroness, opening
her arms wide to her.

The next morning when they were at breakfast, in came Jacintha to
say the officer was in the dining-room and wanted to speak with the
young lady he talked to yesterday.  Josephine rose and went to him.
"Well, mademoiselle," said he gayly, "the old woman was right.  Here
I have just got my orders to march: to leave France in a month.  A
pretty business it would have been if I had turned your mother out.
So you see there is nothing to hinder you from living here."

"In your house, sir?"

"Why not, pray?"

"Forgive us.  But we feel that would be unjust to you, humiliating
to us: the poor are sometimes proud."

"Of course they are," said Raynal: "and I don't want to offend your
pride.  Confound the house: why did I go and buy it?  It is no use
to me except to give pain to worthy people."  He then, after a
moment's reflection, asked her if the matter could not be arranged
by some third party, a mutual friend.  "Then again," said he, "I
don't know any friend of yours."

"Yes, sir," said Josephine; "we have one friend, who knows you, and
esteems you highly."

She wanted to name Edouard; but she hesitated, and asked her
conscience if it was fair to name him: and while she blushed and
hesitated, lo and behold a rival referee hove in sight.  Raynal saw
him, suddenly opened a window, and shouted, "Hallo come in here: you
are wanted."

Perrin had ridden up to complete the exodus of the De Beaurepaires,
and was strolling about inspecting the premises he had expelled them
from.

Here was a pretty referee!

Josephine almost screamed--"What are you doing? that is our enemy,
our bitterest enemy.  He has only sold you the estate to spite us,
not for the love of you.  I had--we had--we mortified his vanity.
It was not our fault: he is a viper.  Sir, pray, pray, pray be on
your guard against his counsels."

These words spoken with rare fire and earnestness carried
conviction: but it was too late to recall the invitation.  The
notary entered the room, and was going to bow obsequiously to
Raynal, when he caught sight of Josephine, and almost started.
Raynal, after Josephine's warning, was a little at a loss how to
make him available; and even that short delay gave the notary's one
foible time to lead him into temptation.  "Our foibles are our
manias."

"So," said he, "you have taken possession, commandant.  These
military men are prompt, are they not, mademoiselle?"

"Do not address yourself to me, sir, I beg," said Josephine quietly.

Perrin kept his self-command.  "It is only as Commandant Raynal's
agent I presume to address so distinguished a lady: in that
character I must inform you that whatever movables you have removed
are yours: those we find in the house on entering we keep."

"Come, come, not so fast," cried Raynal; "bother the chairs and
tables! that is not the point."

"Commandant," said the notary with dignity, "have I done anything to
merit this? have I served your interests so ill that you withdraw
your confidence from me?"

"No, no, my good fellow; but you exceed your powers.  Just now I
want you to take orders, not give them."

"That is only just," said Perrin, "and I recall my hasty remark:
excuse the susceptibility of a professional man, who is honored with
the esteem of his clients; and favor me with your wishes."

"All right," said Raynal heartily.  "Well, then--I want mademoiselle
and her family to stay here while I go to Egypt with the First
Consul.  Mademoiselle makes difficulties; it offends her delicacy."

"Comedy!" said the notary contemptuously.

"Though her mother's life depends on her staying here."

"Comedy!" said Perrin.  Raynal frowned.

"Her pride (begging her pardon) is greater than her affection."

"Farce!"

"I have pitched upon you to reconcile the two."

"Then you have pitched upon the wrong man," said Perrin bluntly.  He
added obsequiously, "I am too much your friend.  She has been
talking you over, no doubt; but you have a friend, an Ulysses, who
is deaf to the siren's voice.  I will be no party to such a
transaction.  I will not co-operate to humbug my friend and rob him
of his rights."

If Josephine was inferior to the notary in petty sharpness, she was
his superior in the higher kinds of sagacity; and particularly in
instinctive perception of character.  Her eye flashed with delight
at the line Perrin was now taking with Raynal.  The latter speedily
justified her expectations: he just told Perrin to be off, and send
him a more accommodating notary.

"A more accommodating notary!" screamed Perrin, stung to madness by
this reproach.  "There is not a more accommodating notary in Europe.
Ungrateful man! is this the return for all my zeal, my integrity, my
unselfishness?  Is there another agent in the world who would have
let such a bargain as Beaurepaire fall into your hands?  It serves
me right for deviating from the rules of business.  Send me another
agent--oh!"

The honest soldier was confused.  The lawyer's eloquence overpowered
him.  He felt guilty.  Josephine saw his simplicity, and made a cut
with a woman's two-edged sword.  "Sir," said she coolly, "do you not
see it is an affair of money?  This is his way of saying, Pay me
handsomely for so unusual a commission."

"And I'll pay him double," cried Raynal, catching the idea; "don't
be alarmed, I'll pay you for it."

"And my zeal, my devotion?"

"Put 'em in figures."

"And my prob--?"

"Add it up."

"And my integ--?"

"Add them together: and don't bother me."

"I see! I see! my poor soldier.  You are no match for a woman's
tongue."

"Nor, for a notary's.  Go to h---, and send in your bill!" roared
the soldier in a fury.  "Well, will you go?" and he marched at him.

The notary scuttled out, with something between a snarl and a squeak.

Josephine hid her face in her hands.

"What is the matter with you?" inquired Raynal.  "Not crying again,
surely!"

"Me!  I never cry--hardly. I hid my face because I could not help
laughing.  You frightened me, sir," said she: then very demurely, "I
was afraid you were going to beat him."

"No, no; a good soldier never leathers a civilian if he can possibly
help it; it looks so bad; and before a lady!"

"Oh, I would have forgiven you, monsieur," said Josephine benignly,
and something like a little sun danced in her eye.

"Now, mademoiselle, since my referee has proved a pig, it is your
turn.  Choose you a mutual friend."

Josephine hesitated.  "Ours is so young.  You know him very well.
You are doubtless the commandant of whom I once heard him speak with
such admiration: his name is Riviere, Edouard Riviere."

"Know him? he is my best officer, out and out."  And without a
moment's hesitation he took Edouard's present address, and accepted
that youthful Daniel as their referee; then looked at his watch and
marched off to his public duties with sabre clanking at his heels.

The notary went home gnashing his teeth.  His sweet revenge was
turned to wormwood this day.  Raynal's parting commissions rang in
his ear; in his bitter mood the want of logical sequence in the two
orders disgusted him.

So he inverted them.

He sent in a thundering bill the very next morning, but postponed
the other commission till his dying day.

As for Josephine, she came into the drawing-room beaming with love
and happiness, and after kissing both her mother and Rose with
gentle violence, she let them know the strange turn things had
taken.

And she whispered to Rose, "Only think, YOUR Edouard to be OUR
referee!"

Rose blushed and bent over her work; and wondered how Edouard would
discharge so grave an office.

The matter approached a climax; for, as the reader is aware, Edouard
was hourly expected at Beaurepaire.

He did not come; but it was not his fault.  On receiving Rose's
letter he declined to stay another hour at his uncle's.

He flung himself on his horse; and, before he was well settled on
the stirrups, the animal shied violently at a wheelbarrow some fool
had left there; and threw Edouard on the stones of the courtyard.
He jumped up in a moment and laughed at Marthe's terror; meantime a
farm-servant caught the nag and brought him back to his work.

But when Edouard went to put his hand on the saddle, he found it
would not obey him.  "Wait a minute," said he; "my arm is benumbed."

"Let me see!" said the farmer, and examined the limb himself;
"benumbed? yes; and no wonder.  Jacques, get on the brute and ride
for the surgeon."

"Are you mad, uncle?" cried Edouard.  "I can't spare my horse, and I
want no surgeon; it will be well directly."

"It will be worse before it is better."

"I don't know what you mean, uncle; it is only numbed, ah! it hurts
when I rub it."

"It is worse than numbed, boy; it is broken."

"Broken? nonsense:" and he looked at it in piteous bewilderment:
"how can it be broken? it does not hurt except when I touch it."

"It WILL hurt: I know all about it.  I broke mine fifteen years ago:
fell off a haystack."

"Oh, how unfortunate I am!" cried Edouard, piteously.  "But I will
go to Beaurepaire all the same.  I can have the thing mended there,
as well as here."

"You will go to bed," said the old man, quietly; "that is where
YOU'LL go."

"I'll go to blazes sooner," yelled the young one.

The old man made a signal to his myrmidons, whom Marthe's cries had
brought around, and four stout fellows took hold of Edouard by the
legs and the left shoulder and carried him up-stairs raging and
kicking; and deposited him on a bed.

Presently he began to feel faint, and so more reasonable.  They cut
his coat off, and put him in a loose wrapper, and after considerable
delay the surgeon came, and set his arm skilfully, and behold this
ardent spirit caged.  He chafed and fretted sadly.  Fortitude was
not his forte.

It was two days after his accident.  He was lying on his back,
environed by slops and cursing his evil fate, and fretting his soul
out of its fleshly prison, when suddenly he heard a cheerful
trombone saying three words to Marthe, then came a clink-clank, and
Marthe ushered into the sickroom the Commandant Raynal.  The sick
man raised himself in bed, with great surprise and joy.

"O commandant! this is kind to come and see your poor officer in
purgatory."

"Ah," cried Raynal, "you see I know what it is.  I have been chained
down by the arm, and the leg, and all: it is deadly tiresome."

"Tiresome! it is--it is--oh, dear commandant, Heaven bless you for
coming!"

"Ta! ta! ta!  I am come on my own business."

"All the better.  I have nothing to do; that is what kills me.  I'm
eating my own heart."

"Cannibal!  Well, my lad, since you are in that humor, cheer up, for
I bring you a job, and a tough one; it has puzzled me."

"What is it, commandant?  What is it?"

"Well, do you know a house and a family called Beaurepaire?"

"Do I know Beaurepaire?"

And the pale youth turned very red; and stared with awe at this
wizard of a commandant.  He thought he was going to be called over
the coals for frequenting a disaffected family.  "Well," said
Raynal, "I have been and bought this Beaurepaire."

Edouard uttered a loud exclamation.  "It was YOU bought it! she
never told me that."

"Yes," said Raynal, "I am the culprit; and we have fixed on you to
undo my work without hurting their pride too much, poor souls; but
let us begin with the facts."

Then Raynal told him my story after his fashion.  Of course I shall
not go and print his version; you might like his concise way better
than my verbose; and I'm not here to hold up any man's coat-tails.
Short as he made it, Edouard's eyes were moist more than once; and
at the end he caught Raynal's hand and kissed it.  Then he asked
time to reflect; "for," said he, "I must try and be just."

"I'll give you an hour," said Raynal, with an air of grand
munificence.  The only treasure he valued was time.

In less than an hour Edouard had solved the knot, to his entire
satisfaction; he even gave the commandant particular instructions
for carrying out his sovereign decree.  Raynal received these orders
from his subordinate with that simplicity which formed part of his
amazing character, and rode home relieved of all responsibility in
the matter.


COMMANDANT RAYNAL TO MADEMOISELLE DE BEAUREPAIRE.

Mademoiselle,--Before I could find time to write to our referee,
news came in that he had just broken his arm;--


"Oh! oh, dear! our poor Edouard!"

And if poor Edouard had seen the pale faces, and heard the faltering
accents, it would have reconciled him to his broken arm almost.
This hand-grenade the commandant had dropped so coolly among them,
it was a long while ere they could recover from it enough to read
the rest of the letter,--


so I rode over to him, and found him on his back, fretting for want
of something to do.  I told him the whole story.  He undertook the
business.  I have received his instructions, and next week shall be
at his quarters to clear off his arrears of business, and make
acquaintance with all your family, if they permit.

RAYNAL.


As the latter part of this letter seemed to require a reply, the
baroness wrote a polite note, and Jacintha sent Dard to leave it for
the commandant at Riviere's lodgings.  But first they all sat down
and wrote kind and pitying and soothing letters to Edouard.  Need I
say these letters fell upon him like balm?

They all inquired carelessly in their postscripts what he had
decided as their referee.  He replied mysteriously that they would
know that in a week or two.  Meantime, all he thought it prudent to
tell them was that he had endeavored to be just to both parties.

"Little solemn puppy," said Rose, and was racked with curiosity.

Next week Raynal called on the baroness.  She received him alone.
They talked about Madame Raynal.  The next day he dined with the
whole party, and the commandant's manners were the opposite of what
the baroness had inculcated.  But she had a strong prejudice in his
favor.  Had her feelings been the other way his brusquerie would
have shocked her.  It amused her.  If people's hearts are with you,
THAT for their heads!

He came every day for a week, chatted with the baroness, walked with
the young ladies; and when after work he came over in the evening,
Rose used to cross-examine him, and out came such descriptions of
battles and sieges, such heroism and such simplicity mixed, as made
the evening pass delightfully.  On these occasions the young ladies
fixed their glowing eyes on him, and drank in his character as well
as his narrative, in which were fewer "I's" than in anything of the
sort you ever read or heard.

At length Rose contrived to draw him aside, and, hiding her
curiosity under feigned nonchalance, asked him what the referee had
decided.  He told her that was a secret for the present.

"Well, but," said Rose, "not from me.  Edouard and I have no
secrets."

"Come, that's good," said Raynal.  "Why, you are the very one he
warned me against the most; said you were as curious as Mother Eve,
and as sharp as her needle."

"Then he is a little scurrilous traitor," cried Rose, turning very
red.  "So that is how he talks of me behind my back, and calls me an
angel to my face; I'll pay him for this.  Do tell me, commandant;
never mind what HE says."

"What! disobey orders?"

"Orders? to you from that boy!"

"Oh!" said Raynal, "for that matter, we soldiers are used to command
one moment, and obey the next."

In a word, this military pedant was impracticable, and Rose gave him
up in disgust, and began to call up a sulky look when the other two
sang his praises.  For the old lady pronounced him charming, and
Josephine said he was a man of crystal; never said a word he did not
mean, and she wished she was like him.  But the baroness thought
this was going a little too far.

"No, thank you," said she hastily; "he is a man, a thorough man.  He
would make an intolerable woman.  A fine life if one had a parcel of
women about, all blurting out their real minds every moment, and
never smoothing matters."

"Mamma, what a horrid picture!" chuckled Rose.

She then proposed that at his next visit they should all three make
an earnest appeal to him to let them know what Edouard had decided.

But Josephine begged to be excused, feared it would be hardly
delicate; and said languidly that for her part she felt they were in
good hands, and prescribed patience.  The baroness acquiesced, and
poor Rose and her curiosity were baffled on every side.

At last, one fine day, her torments were relieved without any
further exertion on her part.  Jacintha bounced into the drawing-
room with a notice that the commandant wanted to speak to Josephine
a minute out in the Pleasaunce.

"How droll he is," said Rose; "fancy sending in for a young lady
like that.  Don't go, Josephine; how, he would stare."

"My dear, I no more dare disobey him than if I was one of his
soldiers."  And she laid down her work, and rose quietly to do what
she was bid.

"Well," said Rose, superciliously, "go to your commanding officer.
And, O Josephine, if you are worth anything at all, do get out of
him what that Edouard has settled."

Josephine kissed her, and promised to try.  After the first
salutation, there was a certain hesitation about Raynal which
Josephine had never seen a trace of in him before; so, to put him at
his ease, and at the same time keep her promise to Rose, she asked
timidly if their mutual friend had been able to suggest anything.

"What! don't you know that I have been acting all along upon his
instructions?" answered Raynal.

"No, indeed! and you have not told us what he advised."

"Told you? why, of course not; they were secret instructions.  I
have obeyed one set, and now I come to the other; and there is the
difficulty, being a kind of warfare I know nothing about."

"It must be savage warfare, then," suggested the lady politely.

"Not a bit of it.  Now, who would have thought I was such a coward?"

Josephine was mystified; however, she made a shrewd guess.  "Do you
fear a repulse from any one of us?  Then, I suppose, you meditate
some extravagant act of generosity."

"Not I."

"Of delicacy, then."

"Just the reverse.  Confound the young dog! why is he not here to
help me?"

"But, after all," suggested Josephine, "you have only to carry out
his instructions."

"That is true! that is true! but when a fellow is a coward, a
poltroon, and all that sort of thing."

This repeated assertion of cowardice on the part of the living
Damascus blade that stood bolt-upright before her, struck Josephine
as so funny that she laughed merrily, and bade him fancy it was only
a fort he was attacking instead of the terrible Josephine; whom none
but heroes feared, she assured him.

This encouragement, uttered in jest, was taken in earnest.  The
soldier thanked her, and rallied visibly at the comparison.  "All
right," said he, "as you say, it is only a fort--so--mademoiselle!"

"Monsieur!"

"Hum! will you lend me your hand for a moment?"

"My hand! what for? there," and she put it out an inch a minute.  He
took it, and inspected it closely.

"A charming hand; the hand of a virtuous woman?"

"Yes," said Josephine as cool as a cucumber, too sublimely and
absurdly innocent even to blush.

"Is it your own?"

"Sir!"  She blushed at that, I can tell you.

"Because if it was, I would ask you to give it me.  (I've fired the
first shot anyway.)"

Josephine whipped her hand off his palm, where it lay like cream
spilt on a trencher.

"Ah! I see; you are not free: you have a lover."

"No, no!" cried Josephine in distress; "I love nobody but my mother
and sister: I never shall."

"Your mother," cried Raynal; "that reminds me; he told me to ask
her; by Jove, I think he told me to ask her first;" and Raynal up
with his scabbard and was making off.

Josephine begged him to do nothing of the kind.

"I can save you the trouble," said she.

"Ah, but my instructions! my instructions!" cried the military
pedant, and ran off into the house, and left Josephine "planted
there," as they say in France.

Raynal demanded a private interview of the baroness so significantly
and unceremoniously that Rose had no alternative but to retire, but
not without a glance of defiance at the bear.  She ran straight,
without her bonnet, into the Pleasaunce to slake her curiosity at
Josephine.  That young lady was walking pensively, but turned at
sight of Rose, and the sisters came together with a clash of tongues.

"O Rose! he has"--

"Oh!"

So nimbly does the female mind run on its little beaten tracks, that
it took no more than those syllables for even these innocent young
women to communicate that Raynal had popped.

Josephine apologized for this weakness in a hero.  "It wasn't his
fault," said she.  "It is your Edouard who set him to do it."

"My Edouard?  Don't talk in that horrid way: I have no Edouard.  You
said 'no' of course."

"Something of the kind."

"What, did you not say 'no' plump?"

"I did not say it brutally, dear."

"Josephine, you frighten me.  I know you can't say 'no' to any one;
and if you don't say 'no' plump to such a man as this, you might as
well say 'yes.'"

"Well, love," said Josephine, "you know our mother will relieve me
of this; what a comfort to have a mother!"

They waited for Raynal's departure, to go to the baroness.  They had
to wait a long time.  Moreover, when he did leave the chateau he
came straight into the Pleasaunce.  At sight of him Rose seized
Josephine tight and bade her hold her tongue, as she could not say
"no" plump to any one.  Josephine was far from raising any objection
to the arrangement.

"Monsieur," said Rose, before he could get a word out, "even if she
had not declined, I could not consent."

Raynal tapped his forehead reflectively, and drew forth from memory
that he had no instructions whatever to ask HER consent.

She colored high, but returned to the charge.

"Is her own consent to be dispensed with too?  She declined the
honor, did she not?"

"Of course she did; but this was anticipated in my instructions.  I
am to be sure and not take the first two or three refusals."

"O Josephine, look at that insolent boy: he has found you out."

"Insolent boy!" cried Raynal; "why, it is the referee of your own
choosing, and as well behaved a lad as ever I saw, and a zealous
officer."

"My kind friends," put in Josephine with a sweet languor, "I cannot
let you quarrel about a straw."

"It is not about a straw," said Raynal, "it is about you."

"The distinction involves a compliment, sir," said Josephine; then
she turned to Rose, "Is it possible you do not see Monsieur Raynal's
strange proposal in its true light? and you so shrewd in general.
He has no personal feeling whatever in this eccentric proceeding: he
wants to make us all happy, especially my mother, without seeming to
lay us under too great an obligation.  Surely good-nature was never
carried so far before; ha, ha! Monsieur, I will encumber you with my
friendship forever, if you permit me, but farther than that I will
not abuse your generosity."

"Now look here, mademoiselle," began Raynal bluntly, "I did start
with a good motive at first, that there's no denying.  But, since I
have been every day in your company, and seen how good and kind you
are to all about you, I have turned selfish; and I say to myself,
what a comfort such a wife as you would be to a soldier!  Why, only
to have you to write letters home to, would be worth half a fellow's
pay.  Do you know sometimes when I see the fellows writing their
letters it gives me a knock here to think I have no one at all to
write to."

Josephine sighed.

"So you see I am not so mighty disinterested.  Now, mademoiselle,
you speak so charmingly, I can't tell what you mean: can't tell
whether you say 'no' because you could never like me, or whether it
is out of delicacy, and you only want pressing.  So I say no more at
present: it is a standing offer.  Take a day to consider.  Take two
if you like.  I must go to the barracks; good-day."

"Oh! this must be put an end to at once," said Rose.

"With all my heart," replied Josephine; "but how?"

"Come to our mother, and settle that," said the impetuous sister,
and nearly dragged the languid one into the drawing-room.

To their surprise they found the baroness walking up and down the
room with unusual alacrity for a person of her years.  She no sooner
caught sight of Josephine than she threw her arms open to her with
joyful vivacity, and kissed her warmly.  "My love, you have saved
us.  I am a happy old woman.  If I had all France to pick from I
could not have found a man so worthy of my Josephine.  He is brave,
he is handsome, he is young, he is a rising man, he is a good son,
and good sons make good husbands--and--I shall die at Beaurepaire,
shall I not, Madame the Commandante?"

Josephine held her mother round the neck, but never spoke.  After a
silence she held her tighter, and cried a little.

"What is it?" asked the baroness confidentially of Rose, but without
showing any very profound concern.

"Mamma! mamma! she does not love him."

"Love him?  She would be no daughter of mine if she loved a man at
sight.  A modest woman loves her husband only."

"But she scarcely knows Monsieur Raynal."

"She knows more of him than I knew of your father when I married
him.  She knows his virtues and appreciates them.  I have heard her,
have I not, love?  Esteem soon ripens into love when they are once
fairly married."

"Mother, does her silence then tell you nothing?  Her tears--are
they nothing to you?"

"Silly child!  These are tears that do not scald.  The sweet soul
weeps because she now for the first time sees she will have to leave
her mother.  Alas! my eldest, it is inevitable.  Mothers are not
immortal.  While they are here it is their duty to choose good
husbands for their daughters.  My youngest, I believe, has chosen
for herself--like the nation.  But for my eldest I choose.  We shall
see which chooses the best.  Meantime we stay at Beaurepaire, thanks
to my treasure here."

"Josephine!  Josephine! you don't say one word," cried Rose in
dismay.

"What CAN I say?  I love my mother and I love you.  You draw me
different ways.  I want you to be both happy."

"Then if you will not speak out I must.  Mother, do not deceive
yourself: it is duty alone that keeps her silent: this match is
odious to her."

"Then we are ruined.  Josephine, is this match odious to you?"

"Not exactly odious: but I am very, very indifferent."

"There!" cried Rose triumphantly.

"There!" cried the baroness in the same breath, triumphantly.  "She
esteems his character; but his person is indifferent to her: in
other words, she is a modest girl, and my daughter; and let me tell
you, Rose, that but for the misfortunes of our house, both my
daughters would be married as I was, without knowing half as much of
their husbands as Josephine knows of this brave, honest, generous,
filial gentleman."

"Well, then, since she will not speak out, I will.  Pity me: I love
her so.  If this stranger, whom she does not love, takes her away
from us, he will kill me.  I shall die; oh!"

Josephine left her mother and went to console Rose.

The baroness lost her temper at this last stroke of opposition.
"Now the truth comes out, Rose; this is selfishness.  Do not deceive
YOURself--selfishness!"

"Mamma!"

"You are only waiting to leave me yourself.  Yet your eldest sister,
forsooth, must be kept here for you,--till then."  She added more
gently, "Let me advise you to retire to your own room, and examine
your heart fairly.  You will find there is a strong dash of egoism
in all this."

"If I do"--

"You will retract your opposition."

"My heart won't let me; but I will despise myself, and be silent."

And the young lady, who had dried her eyes the moment she was
accused of selfishness, walked, head erect, from the room.
Josephine cast a deprecating glance at her mother.  "Yes, my angel!"
said the latter, "I was harsh.  But we are no longer of one mind,
and I suppose never shall be again."

"Oh, yes, we shall.  Be patient!  Mother--you shall not leave
Beaurepaire."

The baroness colored faintly at these four last words of her
daughter, and hung her head.

Josephine saw that, and darted to her and covered her with kisses.

That day the doctor scolded them both.  "You have put your mother
into a high fever," said he; "here's a pulse; I do wish you would be
more considerate."

The commandant did not come to dinner as usual.  The evening passed
heavily; their hearts were full of uncertainty.

"We miss our merry, spirited companion," said the baroness with a
grim look at Rose.  Both young ladies assented with ludicrous
eagerness.

That night Rose came and slept with Josephine, and more than once
she awoke with a start and seized Josephine convulsively and held
her tight.

Accused of egoism! at first her whole nature rose in arms against
the charge: but, after a while, coming as it did from so revered a
person, it forced her to serious self-examination.  The poor girl
said to herself, "Mamma is a shrewd woman.  Am I after all deceiving
myself?  Would she be happy, and am I standing in the way?"  In the
morning she begged her sister to walk with her in the park, so that
they might be safe from interruption.

There, she said sadly, she could not understand her own sister.
"Why are you so calm and cold, while am I in tortures of anxiety?
Have you made some resolve and not confided it to your Rose?"

"No, love," was the reply; "I am scarce capable of a resolution; I
am a mere thing that drifts."

"Let me put it in other words, then.  How will this end?"

"I hardly know."

"Do you mean to marry Monsieur Raynal, then? answer me that."

"No; but I should not wonder if he were to marry ME."

"But you said 'no.'"

"Yes, I said 'no' once."

"And don't you mean to say it again, and again, and again, till
kingdom come?"

"What is the use? you heard him say he would not desist any the
more, and I care too little about the matter to go on persisting,
and persisting, and persisting."

"Why not, if he goes on pestering, and pestering, and pestering?"

"Ah, he is like you, all energy, at all hours; but I have so little
where my heart is unconcerned: he seems, too, to have a wish!  I
have none either way, and my conscience says 'marry him!'"

"Your conscience say marry one man when you love another?"

"Heaven forbid!  Rose, I love no one: I HAVE loved; but now my heart
is dead and silent; only my conscience says, 'You are the cause of
all your mother's trouble; you are the cause that Beaurepaire was
sold.  Now you can repair that mischief, and at the same time make a
brave man happy, our benefactor happy.'  It is a great temptation: I
hardly know why I said 'no' at all; surprise, perhaps--or to please
you, pretty one."

Rose groaned: "Are you then worth so little that you would throw
yourself away on a man who does not love you, nor want you, and is
quite as happy single?"

"No; not happy; he is only stout-hearted and good, and therefore
content; and he is a character that it would be easy--in short, I
feel my power here: I could make that man happy; he has nobody to
write to even, when he is away--poor fellow!"

"I shall lose all patience," cried Rose; "you are at your old trick,
thinking of everybody but yourself: I let you do it in trifles, but
I love you too well to permit it when the happiness of your whole
life is at stake.  I must be satisfied on one point, or else this
marriage shall never take place: just answer me this; if Camille
Dujardin stood on one side, and Monsieur Raynal on the other, and
both asked your hand, which would you take?"

"That will never be.  Whose?  Not his whom I despise.  Esteem might
ripen into love, but what must contempt end in?"

This reply gave Rose great satisfaction.  To exhaust all awkward
contingencies, she said, "One question more, and I have done.
Suppose Camille should turn out--be not quite--what shall I say--
inexcusable?"

At this unlucky gush, Josephine turned pale, then red, then pale
again, and cried eagerly, "Then all the world should not part us.
Why torture me with such a question?  Ah! you have heard something."
And in a moment the lava of passion burst wildly through its thin
sheet of ice.  "I was blind.  This is why you would save me from
this unnatural marriage.  You are breaking the good news to me by
degrees.  There is no need.  Quick--quick--let me have it.  I have
waited three years; I am sick of waiting.  Why don't you speak?  Why
don't you tell me?  Then I will tell YOU.  He is alive--he is well--
he is coming.  It was not he those soldiers saw; they were so far
off.  How could they tell?  They saw a uniform but not a face.
Perhaps he has been a prisoner, and so could not write; could not
come: but he is coming now.  Why do you groan? why do you turn pale?
ah! I see; I have once more deceived myself.  I was mad.  He I love
is still a traitor to France and me, and I am wretched forever.  Oh!
that I were dead! oh! that I were dead!  No; don't speak to me:
never mind me; this madness will pass as it has before, and leave me
a dead thing among the living.  Ah! sister, why did you wake me from
my dream?  I was drifting so calmly, so peacefully, so dead, and
painless, drifting over the dead sea of the heart towards the living
waters of gratitude and duty.  I was going to make more than one
worthy soul happy; and seeing them happy, I should have been content
and useful--what am I now?--and comforted other hearts, and died
joyful--and young.  For God is good; he releases the meek and
patient from their burdens."

With this came a flood of tears; and she leaned against a bough with
her forehead on her arm, bowed like a wounded lily.

"Accursed be that man's name, and MY tongue if ever I utter it again
in your hearing!" cried Rose, weeping bitterly.  "You are wiser than
I, and every way better.  O my darling, dry your tears!  Here he
comes: look! riding across the park."

"Rose," cried Josephine, hastily, "I leave all to you.  Receive
Monsieur Raynal, and decline his offer if you think proper.  It is
you who love me best.  My mother would give me up for a house; for
an estate, poor dear."

"I would not give you for all the world."

"I know it.  I trust all to you."

"Well, but don't go; stay and hear what I shall say."

"Oh, no; that poor man is intolerable to me NOW.  Let me avoid his
sight, and think of his virtues."

Rose was left alone, mistress of her sister's fate.  She put her
head into her hands and filled with anxiety and sudden doubt.

Like a good many more of us, she had been positive so long as the
decision did not rest with her.  But with power comes responsibility,
with responsibility comes doubt.  Easy to be an advocate in
re incerta; hard to be the judge.  And she had but a few seconds
to think in; for Raynal was at hand.  The last thing in her
mind before he joined her was the terrible power of that base
Camille over her sister.  She despaired of curing Josephine, but a
husband might.  There's such divinity doth hedge a husband in
innocent girls' minds.

"Well, little lady," began Raynal, "and how are you, and how is my
mother-in-law that is to be--or is not to be, as your sister
pleases; and how is SHE? have I frightened her away?  There were two
petticoats, and now there is but one."

"She left me to answer you."

"All the worse for me: I am not to your taste."

"Do not say that," said Rose, almost hysterically.

"Oh! it is no sacrilege.  Not one in fifty likes me."

"But I do like you, sir."

"Then why won't you let me have your sister?"

"I have not quite decided that you shall not have her," faltered
poor Rose.  She murmured on, "I dare say you think me very unkind,
very selfish; but put yourself in my place.  I love my sister as no
man can ever love her, I know: my heart has been one flesh and one
soul with hers all my life.  A stranger comes and takes her away
from me as if she was I don't know what; his portmanteau; takes her
to Egypt, oh! oh! oh!"

Raynal comforted her.

"What, do you think I am such a brute as to take that delicate
creature about fighting with me? why, the hot sand would choke her,
to begin.  No.  You don't take my manoeuvre.  I have no family; I
try for a wife that will throw me in a mother and sister.  You will
live all together the same as before, of course; only you must let
me make one of you when I am at home.  And how often will that be?
Besides, I am as likely to be knocked on the head in Egypt as not;
you are worrying yourself for nothing, little lady."

He uttered the last topic of consolation in a broad, hearty,
hilarious tone, like a trombone impregnated with cheerful views of
fate.

"Heaven forbid!" cried Rose: "and I will, for even I shall pray for
you now.  What you will leave her at home? forgive me for not seeing
all your worth: of course I knew you were an angel, but I had no
idea you were a duck.  You are just the man for my sister.  She
likes to obey: you are all for commanding.  So you see.  Then she
never thinks of herself; any other man but you would impose on her
good-nature; but you are too generous to do that.  So you see.  Then
she esteems you so highly.  And one whom I esteem (between you and
me) has chosen you for her."

"Then say yes, and have done with it," suggested the straightforward
soldier.

"Why should I say 'no?' you will make one another happy some day:
you are both so good.  Any other man but you would tear her from me;
but you are too just, too kind.  Heaven will reward you.  No! I
will.  I will give you Josephine: ah, my dear brother-in-law, it is
the most precious thing I have to give in the world."

"Thank you, then.  So that is settled.  Hum! no, it is not quite; I
forgot; I have something for you to read; an anonymous letter.  I
got it this morning; it says your sister has a lover."

The letter ran to this tune: a friend who had observed the
commandant's frequent visits at Beaurepaire wrote to warn him
against traps.  Both the young ladies of Beaurepaire were doubtless
at the new proprietor's service to pick and choose from.  But for
all that each of them had a lover, and though these lovers had their
orders to keep out of the way till monsieur should be hooked, he
might be sure that if he married either, the man of her heart would
come on the scene soon after, perhaps be present at the wedding.

In short, it was one of those poisoned arrows a coarse vindictive
coward can shoot.

It was the first anonymous letter Rose had ever seen.  It almost
drove her mad on the spot.  Raynal was sorry he had let her see it.

She turned red and white by turns, and gasped for breath.

"Why am I not a man?--why don't I wear a sword?  I would pass it
through this caitiff's heart.  The cowardly slave!--the fiend! for
who but a fiend could slander an angel like my Josephine?  Hooked?
Oh! she will never marry you if she sees this."

"Then don't let her see it: and why take it to heart like that?  I
don't trust to the word of a man who owns that his story is a thing
he dares not sign his name to; at all events, I shall not put his
word against yours.  But it is best to understand one another in
time.  I am a plain man, but not a soft one.  I should not be an
easygoing husband like some I see about: I'd have no wasps round my
honey; if my wife took a lover I would not lecture THE WOMAN--what
is the use?--I'd kill THE MAN then and there, in-doors or out, as I
would kill a snake.  If she took another, I'd send him after the
first, and so on till one killed me."

"And serve the wretches right."

"Yes; but for my own sake I don't choose to marry a woman that loves
any other man.  So tell me the plain truth; come."

Rose turned chill in her inside.  "I have no lover," she stammered.
"I have a young fool that comes and teases me: but it is no secret.
He is away, but why? he is on a sickbed, poor little fellow!"

"But your sister?  She could not have a lover unknown to you."

"I defy her.  No, sir; I have not seen her speak three words to any
young man except Monsieur Riviere this three years past."

"That is enough;" and he tore the letter quietly to atoms.

Then Rose saw she could afford a little more candor.  "Understand
me; I can't speak of what happened when I was a child.  But if ever
she had a girlish attachment, he has not followed it up, or surely I
should have seen something of him all these years."

"Of course.  Oh! as for flirtations, let them pass: a lovely girl
does not grow up without one or two whispering some nonsense into
her ear.  Why, I myself should have flirted no doubt; but I never
had the time.  Bonaparte gives you time to eat and drink, but not to
sleep or flirt, and that reminds me I have fifty miles to ride, so
good-by, sister-in-law, eh?"

"Adieu, brother-in-law."

Left alone, Rose had some misgivings.  She had equivocated with one
whose upright, candid nature ought to have protected him: but an
enemy had accused Josephine; and it came so natural to shield her.
"Did he really think I would expose my own sister?" said she to
herself, angrily.  Was not this anger secret self-discontent?


"Well, love," said Josephine, demurely, "have you dismissed him?"

"No."

Josephine smiled feebly.  "It is easy to say 'say no;' but it is not
so easy to say 'no,' especially when you feel you ought to say
'yes,' and have no wish either way except to give pleasure to
others."

"But I am not such skim milk as all that," replied Rose: "I have
always a strong wish where you are concerned, and your happiness.  I
hesitated whilst I was in doubt, but I doubt no longer: I have had a
long talk with him.  He has shown me his whole heart: he is the
best, the noblest of creatures: he has no littleness or meanness.
And then he is a thorough man; I know that by his being the very
opposite of a woman in his ways.  Now you are a thorough woman, and
so you will suit one another to a T.  I have decided: so no more
doubts, love; no more tears; no more disputes.  We are all of one
mind, and I do think I have secured your happiness.  It will not
come in a day, perhaps, but it will come.  So then in one little
fortnight you marry Monsieur Raynal."

"What!" said Josephine, "you have actually settled that?"

"Yes."

"But are you sure I can make him as happy as he deserves?"

"Positive."

"I think so too; still"--

"It is settled, dear," said Rose soothingly.

"Oh, the comfort of that! you relieve me of a weight; you give me
peace.  I shall have duties; I shall do some good in the world.
They were all for it but you before, were they not?"

"Yes, and now I am strongest for it of them all.  Josephine, it is
settled."

Josephine looked at her for a moment in silence, then said eagerly,
"Bless you, dear Rose; you have saved your sister;" then, after a
moment, in a very different voice, "O Camille! Camille! why have you
deserted me?"

And with this she fell to sobbing terribly.  Rose wept on her neck,
but said nothing.  She too was a woman, and felt that this was the
last despairing cry of love giving up a hopeless struggle.

They sat twined together in silence till Jacintha came to tell them
it was close upon dinner-time; so then they hastened to dry their
tears and wash their red eyes, for fear their mother should see what
they had been at, and worry herself.


"Well, mademoiselle, these two consent; but what do you say? for
after all, it is you I am courting, and not them.  Have you the
courage to venture on a rough soldier like me?"

This delicate question was put point-blank before the three ladies.

"Sir," replied Josephine timidly, "I will be as frank, as
straightforward as you are.  I thank you for the honor you do me."

Raynal looked perplexed.

"And does that mean 'yes' or 'no'?"

"Which you please," said Josephine, hanging her sweet head.

The wedding was fixed for that day fortnight.  The next morning
wardrobes were ransacked.  The silk, muslin, and lace of their
prosperous days were looked out: grave discussions were held over
each work of art.  Rose was active, busy, fussy.  The baroness threw
in the weight of her judgment and experience.

Josephine managed to smile whenever either Rose or the baroness
looked at all fixedly at her.

So glided the peaceful days.  So Josephine drifted towards the haven
of wedlock.


CHAPTER VI.


At Bayonne, a garrison town on the south frontier of France, two
sentinels walked lethargically, crossing and recrossing before the
governor's house.  Suddenly their official drowsiness burst into
energy; for a pale, grisly man, in rusty, defaced, dirty, and torn
regimentals, was walking into the courtyard as if it belonged to
him.  The sentinels lowered their muskets, and crossed them with a
clash before the gateway.

The scarecrow did not start back.  He stopped and looked down with a
smile at the steel barrier the soldiers had improvised for him, then
drew himself a little up, carried his hand carelessly to his cap,
which was nearly in two, and gave the name of an officer in the
French army.

If you or I, dressed like a beggar who years ago had stolen
regimentals and worn them down to civil garments, had addressed
these soldiers with these very same words, the bayonets would have
kissed closer, or perhaps the points been turned against our sacred
and rusty person: but there is a freemasonry of the sword.  The
light, imperious hand that touched that battered cap, and the quiet
clear tone of command told.  The sentinels slowly recovered their
pieces, but still looked uneasy and doubtful in their minds.  The
battered one saw this, and gave a sort of lofty smile; he turned up
his cuffs and showed his wrists, and drew himself still higher.

The sentinels shouldered their pieces sharp, then dropped them
simultaneously with a clatter and ring upon the pavement.

"Pass, captain."

The rusty figure rang the governor's bell.  A servant came and eyed
him with horror and contempt.  He gave his name, and begged to see
the governor.  The servant left him in the hall, and went up-stairs
to tell his master.  At the name the governor reflected, then
frowned, then bade his servant reach him down a certain book.  He
inspected it.  "I thought so: any one with him?"

"No, your excellency."

"Load my pistols, put them on the table, show him in, and then order
a guard to the door."

The governor was a stern veteran with a powerful brow, a shaggy
eyebrow, and a piercing eye.  He never rose, but leaned his chin on
his hand, and his elbow on a table that stood between them, and eyed
his visitor very fixedly and strangely.  "We did not expect to see
you on this side the Pyrenees," said he gravely.

"Nor I myself, governor."

"What do you come for?"

"A suit of regimentals, and money to take me to Paris."

"And suppose, instead of that, I turn out a corporal's guard, and
bid them shoot you in the courtyard?"

"It would be the drollest thing you ever did, all things considered,"
said the other coolly, but bitterly.

The governor looked for the book he had lately consulted, found the
page, handed it to the rusty officer, and watched him keenly: the
blood rushed all over his face, and his lip trembled; but his eye
dwelt stern yet sorrowful on the governor.

"I have read your book, now read mine."  He drew off his coat and
showed his wrists and arms, blue and waled.  "Can you read that,
sir?"

"No."

"All the better for you: Spanish fetters, general."  He showed a
white scar on his shoulder.  "Can you read that?  This is what I cut
out of it," and he handed the governor a little round stone as big
and almost as regular as a musket-ball.

"Humph! that could hardly have been fired from a French musket."

"Can you read this?" and he showed him a long cicatrix on his other
arm.

"Knife I think," said the governor.

"You are right, sir: Spanish knife.  Can you read this?" and opening
his bosom he showed a raw wound on his breast.

"Oh, the devil!" cried the governor.

The wounded man put his rusty coat on again, and stood erect, and
haughty, and silent.

The general eyed him, and saw his great spirit shining through this
man.  The more he looked the less could the scarecrow veil the hero
from his practised eye.  He said there must be some mistake, or else
he was in his dotage; after a moment's hesitation, he added, "Be
seated, if you please, and tell me what you have been doing all
these years."

"Suffering."

"Not all the time, I suppose."

"Without intermission."

"But what? suffering what?"

"Cold, hunger, darkness, wounds, solitude, sickness, despair,
prison, all that man can suffer."

"Impossible! a man would be dead at that rate before this."

"I should have died a dozen deaths but for one thing; I had promised
her to live."

There was a pause.  Then the old soldier said gravely, but more
kindly, to the young one, "Tell me the facts, captain" (the first
time he had acknowledged his visitor's military rank).

An hour had scarce elapsed since the rusty figure was stopped by the
sentinels at the gate, when two glittering officers passed out under
the same archway, followed by a servant carrying a furred cloak.
The sentinels presented arms.  The elder of these officers was the
governor: the younger was the late scarecrow, in a brand-new uniform
belonging to the governor's son.  He shone out now in his true
light; the beau ideal of a patrician soldier; one would have said he
had been born with a sword by his side and drilled by nature, so
straight and smart, yet easy he was in every movement.  He was like
a falcon, eye and all, only, as it were, down at the bottom of the
hawk's eye lay a dove's eye.  That compound and varying eye seemed
to say, I can love, I can fight: I can fight, I can love, as few of
you can do either.

The old man was trying to persuade him to stay at Bayonne, until his
wound should be cured.

"No, general, I have other wounds to cure of longer standing than
this one."

"Well, promise me to lay up at Paris."

"General, I shall stay an hour at Paris."

"An hour in Paris!  Well, at least call at the War Office and
present this letter."

That same afternoon, wrapped in the governor's furred cloak, the
young officer lay at his full length in the coupe of the diligence,
the whole of which the governor had peremptorily demanded for him,
and rolled day and night towards Paris.

He reached it worn with fatigue and fevered by his wound, but his
spirit as indomitable as ever.  He went to the War Office with the
governor's letter.  It seemed to create some little sensation; one
functionary came and said a polite word to him, then another.  At
last to his infinite surprise the minister himself sent down word he
wished to see him; the minister put several questions to him, and
seemed interested in him and touched by his relation.

"I think, captain, I shall have to send to you: where do you stay in
Paris?"

"Nowhere, monsieur; I leave Paris as soon as I can find an easy-
going horse."

"But General Bretaux tells me you are wounded."

"Not dangerously."

"Pardon me, captain, but is this prudent? is it just to yourself and
your friends?"

"Yes, I owe it to those who perhaps think me dead."

"You can write to them."

"I grudge so great, so sacred a joy to a letter.  No! after all I
have suffered I claim to be the one to tell her I have kept my word:
I promised to live, and I live."

"HER? then I say no more, only tell me what road you take."

"The road to Brittany."

As the young officer was walking his horse by the roadside about a
league and a half from Paris, he heard a clatter behind him, and up
galloped an aide-de-camp and drew up alongside, bringing his horse
nearly on his haunches.

He handed him a large packet sealed with the arms of France.  The
other tore it open; and there was his brevet as colonel.  His cheek
flushed and his eye glittered with joy.  The aide-de-camp next gave
him a parcel: "Your epaulets, colonel!  We hear you are going into
the wilds where epaulets don't grow.  You are to join the army of
the Rhine as soon as your wound is well."

"Wherever my country calls me."

"Your address, then, colonel, that we may know where to put our
finger on a tried soldier when we want one."

"I am going to Beaurepaire."

"Beaurepaire?  I never heard of it."

"You never heard of Beaurepaire? it is in Brittany, forty-five
leagues from Paris, forty-three leagues and a half from here."

"Good!  Health and honor to you, colonel."

"The same to you, lieutenant; or a soldier's death."

The new colonel read the precious document across his horse's mane,
and then he was going to put one of the epaulets on his right
shoulder, bare at present: but he reflected.

"No; she should make him a colonel with her own dear hand.  He put
them in his pocket.  He would not even look at them till she had
seen them.  Oh, how happy he was not only to come back to her alive,
but to come back to her honored."

His wound smarted, his limbs ached, but no pain past or present
could lay hold of his mind.  In his great joy he remembered past
suffering and felt present pain--yet smiled.  Only every now and
then he pined for wings to shorten the weary road.

He was walking his horse quietly, drooping a little over his saddle,
when another officer well mounted came after him and passed him at a
hand gallop with one hasty glance at his uniform, and went tearing
on like one riding for his life.

"Don't I know that face?" said Dujardin.

He cudgelled his memory, and at last he remembered it was the face
of an old comrade.  At least it strongly reminded him of one Jean
Raynal who had saved his life in the Arno, when they were lieutenants
together.

Yes, it was certainly Raynal, only bronzed by service in some hot
country.

"Ah!" thought Camille; "I suppose I am more changed than he is; for
he certainly did not recognize me at all.  Now I wonder what that
fellow has been doing all this time.  What a hurry he was in! a
moment more and I should have hailed him.  Perhaps I may fall in
with him at the next town."

He touched his horse with the spur, and cantered gently on, for
trotting shook him more than he could bear.  Even when he cantered
he had to press his hand against his bosom, and often with the
motion a bitterer pang than usual came and forced the water from his
eyes; and then he smiled.  His great love and his high courage made
this reply to the body's anguish.  And still his eyes looked
straight forward as at some object in the distant horizon, while he
came gently on, his hand pressed to his bosom, his head drooping now
and then, smiling patiently, upon the road to Beaurepaire.

Oh! if anybody had told him that in five days his Josephine was to
be married; and that the bronzed comrade, who had just galloped past
him, was to marry her!


At Beaurepaire they were making and altering wedding-dresses.  Rose
was excited, and even Josephine took a calm interest.  Dress never
goes for nothing with her sex.  The chairs and tables were covered,
and the floor was littered.  The baroness was presiding over the
rites of vanity, and telling them what she wore at her wedding,
under Louis XV., with strict accuracy, and what we men should
consider a wonderful effort of memory, when the Commandant Raynal
came in like a cannon-ball, without any warning, and stood among
them in a stiff, military attitude.  Exclamations from all the
party, and then a kind greeting, especially from the baroness.

"We have been so dull without you, Jean."

"And I have missed you once or twice, mother-in-law, I can tell you.
Well, I have got bad news; but you must consider we live in a busy
time.  To-morrow I start for Egypt."

Loud ejaculations from the baroness and Rose.  Josephine put down
her work quietly.

The baroness sighed deeply, and the tears came into her eyes.  "Oh,
you must not be down-hearted, old lady," shouted Raynal.  "Why, I am
as likely to come back from Egypt as not.  It is an even chance, to
say the least."

This piece of consolation completed the baroness's unhappiness.  She
really had conceived a great affection for Raynal, and her heart had
been set on the wedding.

"Take away all that finery, girls," said she bitterly; "we shall not
want it for years.  I shall not be alive when he comes home from
Egypt.  I never had a son--only daughters--the best any woman ever
had; but a mother is not complete without a son, and I shall never
live to have one now."

"I hate General Bonaparte," said Rose viciously.

"Hate my general?" groaned Raynal, looking down with a sort of
superstitious awe and wonder at the lovely vixen.  "Hate the best
soldier the world ever saw?"

"What do I care for his soldiership?  He has put off our wedding.
For how many years did you say?"

"No; he has put it on."

In answer to the astonished looks this excited, he explained that
the wedding was to have been in a week, but now it must be to-morrow
at ten o'clock.

The three ladies set up their throats together.  "Tomorrow?"

"To-morrow.  Why, what do you suppose I left Paris for yesterday?
left my duties even."

"What, monsieur?" asked Josephine, timidly, "did you ride all that
way, and leave your duties MERELY TO MARRY ME?" and she looked a
little pleased.

"You are worth a great deal more trouble than that," said Raynal
simply.  "Besides, I had passed my word, and I always keep my word."

"So do I," said Josephine, a little proudly.  "I will not go from it
now, if you insist; but I confess to you, that such a proposal
staggers me; so sudden--no preliminaries--no time to reflect; in
short, there are so many difficulties that I must request you to
reconsider the matter."

"Difficulties," shouted Raynal with merry disdain; "there are none,
unless you sit down and make them; we do more difficult things than
this every day of our lives: we passed the bridge of Arcola in
thirteen minutes; and we had not the consent of the enemy, as we
have yours--have we not?"

Her only reply was a look at her mother, to which the baroness
replied by a nod; then turning to Raynal, "This empressement is very
flattering; but I see no possibility: there is an etiquette we
cannot altogether defy: there are preliminaries before a daughter of
Beaurepaire can become a wife."

"There used to be all that, madam," laughed Raynal, putting her down
good-humoredly; "but it was in the days when armies came out and
touched their caps to one another, and went back into winter
quarters.  Then the struggle was who could go slowest; now the fight
is who can go fastest.  Time and Bonaparte wait for nobody; and
ladies and other strong places are taken by storm, not undermined a
foot a month as under Noah Quartorze: let me cut this short, as time
is short."

He then drew a little plan of a wedding campaign.  "The carriages
will be here at 9 A.M.," said he; "they will whisk us down to the
mayor's house by a quarter to ten: Picard, the notary, meets us
there with the marriage contract, to save time; the contract signed,
the mayor will do the marriage at quick step out of respect for me--
half an hour--quarter past ten; breakfast in the same house an hour
and a quarter:--we mustn't hurry a wedding breakfast--then ten
minutes or so for the old fogies to waste in making speeches about
our virtues--my watch will come out--my charger will come round--I
rise from the table--embrace my dear old mother--kiss my wife's
hand--into the saddle--canter to Paris--roll to Toulon--sail to
Egypt.  But I shall leave a wife and a mother behind me: they will
both send me a kind word now and then; and I will write letters to
you all from Egypt, and when I come home, my wife and I will make
acquaintance, and we will all be happy together: and if I am killed
out there, don't you go and fret your poor little hearts about it;
it is a soldier's lot sooner or later.  Besides, you will find I
have taken care of you; nobody shall come and turn you out of your
quarters, even though Jean Raynal should be dead; I have got to meet
Picard at Riviere's on that very business--I am off."

He was gone as brusquely as he came.

"Mother! sister!" cried Josephine, "help me to love this man."

"You need no help," cried the baroness, with enthusiasm, "not love
him, we should all be monsters."

Raynal came to supper looking bright and cheerful.  "No more work
to-day.  I have nothing to do but talk; fancy that."

This evening Josephine de Beaurepaire, who had been silent and
thoughtful, took a quiet opportunity, and purred in his ear,
"Monsieur!"

"Mademoiselle!" rang the trombone.

"Am I not to go to Egypt?"

"No."

Josephine drew back at this brusque reply like a sensitive plant.
But she returned to the attack.

"But is it not a wife's duty to be by her husband's side to look
after his comfort--to console him when others vex him--to soothe him
when he is harassed?"

"Her first duty is to obey him."

"Certainly."

"Well, when I am your husband, I shall bid you stay with your mother
and sister while I go to Egypt."

"I shall obey you."

He told her bluntly he thought none the worse of her for making the
offer; but should not accept it.


Camille Dujardin slept that night at a roadside inn about twelve
miles from Beaurepaire, and not more than six from the town where
the wedding was to take place next day.

It was a close race.

And the racers all unconscious of each other, yet spurred impartially
by events that were now hurrying to a climax.


CHAPTER VII.


The next day at sharp nine two carriages were at the door.

But the ladies were not ready.  Thus early in the campaign did they
throw all into disorder.  For so nicely had Raynal timed the several
events that this threw him all into confusion.  He stamped backwards
and forwards, and twisted his mustaches, and swore.  This enforced
unpunctuality was a new torture to him.  Jacintha told them he was
angry, and that made them nervous and flurried, and their fingers
strayed wildly among hooks and eyes, and all sorts of fastenings;
they were not ready till half-past nine.  Conscious they deserved a
scolding, they sent Josephine down first to mollify.  She dawned
upon the honest soldier so radiant, so dazzling in her snowy dress,
with her coronet of pearls (an heirloom), and her bridal veil
parted, and the flush of conscious beauty on her cheek, that instead
of scolding her, he actually blurted out, "Well! by St. Denis it was
worth waiting half an hour for."

He recovered a quarter of an hour by making the driver gallop.  Then
occasional shrieks issued from the carriage that held the baroness.
That ancient lady feared annihilation: she had not come down from a
galloping age.

They drove into the town, drew up at the mayor's house, were
received with great ceremony by that functionary and Picard, and
entered the house.

When their carriages rattled into the street from the north side,
Colonel Dujardin had already entered it from the south, and was
riding at a foot's pace along the principal street.  The motion of
his horse now shook him past endurance.  He dismounted at an inn a
few doors from the mayor's house, and determined to do the rest of
the short journey on foot.  The landlord bustled about him
obsequiously.  "You are faint, colonel; you have travelled too far.
Let me order you an excellent breakfast."

"No.  I want a carriage; have you one?"

"I have two; but, unluckily, they are both engaged for the day, and
by people of distinction.  Commandant Raynal is married to-day."

"Ah! I wish him joy," said Camille, heartily.  He then asked the
landlord to open the window, as he felt rather faint.  The landlord
insisted on breakfast, and Camille sat down to an omelet and a
bottle of red wine.  Then he lay awhile near the window, revived by
the air, and watched the dear little street he had not seen for
years.  He felt languid, but happy, celestially happy.

She was a few doors from him, and neither knew it.

A pen was put into her white hand, and in another moment she had
signed a marriage contract.

"Now to the church," cried the baroness, gayly.  To get to the
church, they must pass by the window Camille reclined at.


CHAPTER VIII.


"Oh! there's no time for that," said Raynal.  And as the baroness
looked horrified and amazed, Picard explained: "The state marries
its citizens now, with reason: since marriage is a civil contract."

"Marriage a civil contract!" repeated the baroness.  "What, is it
then no longer one of the holy sacraments?  What horrible impiety
shall we come to next?  Unhappy France!  Such a contract would never
be a marriage in my eyes: and what would become of an union the
Church had not blessed?"

"Madame," said Picard, "the Church can bless it still; but it is
only the mayor here that can DO it."

All this time Josephine was blushing scarlet, and looking this way
and that, with a sort of instinctive desire to fly and hide, no
matter where, for a week or so.

"Haw! haw! haw!" roared Raynal; "here is a pretty mother.  Wants her
daughter to be unlawfully married in a church, instead of lawfully
in a house.  Give me the will!"

"Look here, mother-in-law: I have left Beaurepaire to my lawful
wife."

"Otherwise," put in Picard, "in case of death, it would pass to his
heir-at-law."

"And HE would turn you all out, and that does not suit me.  Now
there stands the only man who can make mademoiselle my LAWFUL wife.
So quick march, monsieur the mayor, for time and Bonaparte wait for
no man."

"Stay a minute, young people," said the mayor.  "We should soothe
respectable prejudices, not crush them.  Madam, I am at least as old
as you, and have seen many changes.  I perfectly understand your
feelings."

"Ah, monsieur! oh!"

"Calm yourself, dear madam; the case is not so bad as you think.  It
is perfectly true that in republican France the civil magistrate
alone can bind French citizens in lawful wedlock.  But this does not
annihilate the religious ceremony.  You can ask the Church's
blessing on my work; and be assured you are not the only one who
retains that natural prejudice.  Out of every ten couples that I
marry, four or five go to church afterwards and perform the ancient
ceremonies.  And they do well.  For there before the altar the
priest tells them what it is not my business to dilate upon--the
grave moral and religious duties they have undertaken along with
this civil contract.  The state binds, but the Church still blesses,
and piously assents to that"--

"From which she has no power to dissent."

"Monsieur Picard, do you consider it polite to interrupt the chief
magistrate of the place while he is explaining the law to a
citizen?"

(This closed Picard.)

"I married a daughter last year," continued the worthy mayor.

"What, after this fashion?"

"I married her myself, as I will marry yours, if you will trust me
with her.  And after I have made them one, there is nothing to
prevent them adjourning to the church."

"I beg your pardon," cried Raynal, "there are two things to prevent
it: a couple that wait for no man: Time and Bonaparte.  Come, sir;
marry us, and have done with it."

The mayor assented.  He invited Josephine to stand before him.  She
trembled and wept a little: Rose clung to her and wept, and the good
mayor married the parties off hand.

"Is that all?" asked the baroness; "it is terribly soon done."

"It is done effectively, madam," said the mayor, with a smile.
"Permit me to tell you that his Holiness the Pope cannot undo my
work."

Picard grinned slyly, and whispered something into Raynal's ear.

"Oh! indeed," said Raynal aloud and carelessly.  "Come, Madame
Raynal, to breakfast: follow us, the rest of you."

They paired, and followed the bride and bridegroom into the
breakfast-room.


The light words Picard whispered were five in number.

Now if the mayor had not snubbed Picard just before, he would have
uttered those jocose but true words aloud.  There was no particular
reason why he should not.  And if he had,--The threads of the web of
life, how subtle they are!  The finest cotton of Manchester, the
finer meshes of the spider, seem three-inch cables by comparison
with those moral gossamers which vulgar eyes cannot see at all, the
"somethings, nothings," on which great fates have hung.

It was a cheerful breakfast, thanks to Raynal, who would be in high
spirits, and would not allow a word of regret from any one.  Madame
Raynal sat by his side, looking up at him every now and then with
innocent admiration.  A merry wedding breakfast.

But if men and women could see through the walls of houses!

Two doors off sat the wounded colonel alone, recruiting the small
remnant of his sore tried strength, that he might struggle on to
Beaurepaire, and lose in one moment years of separation, pain,
prison, anguish, martyrdom, in one great gush of joy without
compare.


The wedding breakfast was ended.  The time was drawing near to part.
There was a silence.  It was broken by Madame Raynal.  She asked
Raynal very timidly if he had reflected.  "On what?" said he.

"About taking me to Egypt."

"No: I have not given it a thought since I said 'no.'"

"Yet permit me to say that it is my duty to be by your side, my
husband."  And she colored at this word, being the first time she
had ever used it.  Raynal was silent.  She murmured on, "I would not
be an encumbrance to you, sir: I should not be useless.  Gentlemen,
I could add more to his comfort than he gives me credit for."

Warm assent of the mayor and notary to this hint.

"I give you credit for being an angel," said Raynal warmly.

He hesitated.  Rose was trembling, her fork shaking in her poor
little hand.

She cast a piteous glance at him.  He saw it.

"You shall go with me next time," said he.  "Let us speak of it no
more."

Josephine bowed her head.  "At least give me something to do for you
while you are away.  Tell me what I can do for my absent friend to
show my gratitude, my regard, my esteem."

"Well, let me think.  I saw a plain gray dress at Beaurepaire."

"Yes, monsieur.  My gray silk, Rose."

"I like that dress."

"Do you?  Then the moment I reach home after losing you I shall put
it on, and it shall be my constant wear.  I see; you are right; gray
becomes a wife whose husband is not dead, but is absent, and alas!
in hourly danger."

"Now look at that!" cried Raynal to the company.  "That is her all
over: she can see six meanings where another would see but one.  I
never thought of that, I swear.  I like modest colors, that is all.
My mother used to be all for modest wives wearing modest colors."

"I am of her mind, sir.  Is there nothing more difficult you will be
so good as give me to do?"

"No; there is only one order more, and that will be easier still to
such a woman as you.  I commit to your care the name of Raynal.  It
is not so high a name as yours, but it is as honest.  I am proud of
it: I am jealous of it.  I shall guard it for you in Egypt: you
guard it in France for me."

"With my life," cried Josephine, lifting her eyes and her hand to
heaven.

Soon after this Raynal ordered his charger.

The baroness began to cry.  "The young people may hope to see you
again," said she; "but there are two chances against your poor old
mother."

"Courage, mother!" cried the stout soldier.  "No, no; you won't play
me such a trick: once is enough for that game."

"Brother!" cried Rose, "do not go without kissing your little
sister, who loves you and thanks you."  He kissed her.  "Bravo,
generous soul!" she cried, with her arms round his neck.  "God
protect you, and send you back safe to us!"

"Amen!" cried all present by one impulse, even the cold notary.

Raynal's mustache quivered.  He kissed Josephine hastily on the
brow, the baroness on both cheeks; shook the men's hands warmly but
hastily, and strode out without looking behind him.  He was moved
for once.

They all followed him to the door of the house.  He was tightening
his horse's girths.  He flung himself with all the resolution of his
steel nature into the saddle, and, with one grand wave of his cocked
hat to the tearful group, he spurred away for Egypt.


CHAPTER IX.


The baroness took the doctor a-shopping; she must buy Rose a gray
silk.  In doing this she saw many other tempting things.  I say no
more.

But the young ladies went up to Beaurepaire in the other carriage,
for Josephine wished to avoid the gaze of the town, and get home and
be quiet.  The driver went very fast.  He had drunk the bride's
health at the mayor's, item the bridegroom's, the bridesmaid's, the
mayor's, etc., and "a spur in the head is worth two in the heel,"
says the proverb.  The sisters leaned back on the soft cushions, and
enjoyed the smooth and rapid motion once so familiar to them, so
rare of late.

Then Rose took her sister gently to task for having offered to go to
Egypt.  She had forgotten her poor sister.

"No, love," replied Josephine, "did you not see I dared not look
towards you?  I love you better than all the world; but this was my
duty.  I was his wife: I had no longer a feeble inclination and a
feeble disinclination to decide between, but right on one side,
wrong on the other."

"Oh! I know where your ladyship's strength lies: my force is--in--my
inclinations."

"Yes, Rose," continued Josephine thoughtfully, "duty is a great
comfort: it is so tangible; it is something to lay hold of for life
or death; a strong tower for the weak but well disposed."

Rose assented, and they were silent a minute; and when she spoke
again it was to own she loved a carriage.  "How fast we glide!  Now
lean back with me, and take my hand, and as we glide shut your eyes
and think: whisper me all your feelings, every one of them."

"Well, then," said Josephine, half closing her eyes, "in the first
place I feel a great calm, a heavenly calm.  My fate is decided.  No
more suspense.  My duties are clear.  I have a husband I am proud
of.  There is no perfidy with him, no deceit, no disingenuousness,
no shade.  He is a human sun.  He will make me a better, truer
woman, and I him a happier man.  Yes, is it not nice to think that
great and strong as he is I can teach him a happiness he knows not
as yet?"  And she smiled with the sense of her delicate power, but
said no more; for she was not the one to talk much about herself.
But Rose pressed her.  "Yes, go on, dear," she said, "I seem to see
your pretty little thoughts rising out of your heart like a bubbling
fountain: go on."

Thus encouraged, Josephine thought on aloud, "And then, gratitude!"
said she.  "I have heard it said, or read it somewhere, that
gratitude is a burden: I cannot understand that sentiment; why, to
me gratitude is a delight, gratitude is a passion.  It is the
warmest of all the tender feelings I have for dear Monsieur Raynal.
I feel it glow here, in my bosom.  I think I shall love him as I
ought long before he comes back."

"BEFORE?"

"Yes," murmured Josephine, her eyes still half closed.  "His virtues
will always be present to me.  His little faults of manner will not
be in sight.  Good Raynal!  The image of those great qualities I
revere so, perhaps because I fail in them myself, will be before my
mind; and ere he comes home I shall love him dearly.  I'll tell you
one reason why I wished to go home at once was--no--you must guess."

"Guess?" said Rose, contemptuously.  "As if I did not see it was to
put on your gray silk."

Josephine smiled assent, and said almost with fervor, "Good Raynal!
I feel prouder of his honest name than of our noble one.  And I am
so calm, dear, thanks to you, so tranquil; so pleased that my
mother's mind is at rest, so convinced all is for the best, so
contented with my own lot; so hap--py."

A gentle tear stole from beneath her long lashes.  Rose looked at
her wistfully: then laid her cheek to hers.  They leaned back hand
in hand, placid and silent.

The carriage glided fast.  Beaurepaire was almost in sight.

Suddenly Josephine's hand tightened on Rose's, and she sat up in the
carriage like a person awakened from a strange dream.

"What is it?" asked Rose.

"Some one in uniform."

"Oh, is that all?  Ah! you thought it was a message from Raynal."

"Oh! no! on foot--walking very slowly.  Coming this way, too.
Coming this way!" and she became singularly restless, and looked
round in the carriage.  It was one of those old chariots with no
side windows, but a peep hole at the back.  This aperture, however,
had a flap over it.  Josephine undid the flap with nimble though
agitated fingers; and saw--nothing.  The road had taken a turn.
"Oh," said Rose, carelessly, "for that matter the roads are full of
soldiers just now."

"Ay, but not of officers on foot."

Rose gave her such a look, and for the first time this many a day
spoke sternly to her, and asked her what on earth she had to do with
uniforms or officers except one, the noblest in the world, her
husband.

A month ago that word was almost indifferent to Josephine, or rather
she uttered it with a sort of mild complacency.  Now she started at
it, and it struck chill upon her.  She did not reply, however, and
the carriage rolled on.

"He seemed to be dragging himself along."  This was the first word
Josephine had spoken for some time.  "Oh, did he?" replied Rose
carelessly; "well, let him.  Here we are, at home."

"I am glad of it," said Josephine, "very glad."

On reaching Beaurepaire she wanted to go up-stairs at once and put
on her gray gown.  But the day was so delightful that Rose begged
her to stroll in the Pleasaunce for half an hour and watch for their
mother's return.  She consented in an absent way, and presently
began to walk very fast, unconscious of her companion.  Rose laid a
hand upon her playfully to moderate her, and found her skin burning.

"Why, what is the matter?" said she, anxiously.

"Nothing, nothing," was the sharp reply.

"There's a fretful tone; and how excited you look, and feel too.
Well, I thought you were unnaturally calm after such an event."

"I only saw his back," said Josephine.  "Did not you see him?"

"See who?  Oh, that tiresome officer.  Why, how much more are we to
hear about him?  I don't believe there WAS one."

At this moment a cocked hat came in sight, bobbing up and down above
the palings that divided the park from the road.  Josephine pointed
to it without a word.

Rose got a little cross at being practically confuted, and said
coldly, "Come, let us go in; the only cocked hat we can see is on
the way to Paris."

Josephine assented eagerly.  But she had not taken two steps towards
the house ere she altered her mind, and said she felt faint, she
wanted air; no, she should stay out a little longer.  "Look, Rose,"
said she, in a strangely excited way, "what a shame!  They put all
manner of rubbish into this dear old tree: I will have it all turned
out."  And she looked with feigned interest into the tree: but her
eyes seemed turned inward.

Rose gave a cry of surprise.  "He is waving his hat to me!  What on
earth does that mean?"

"Perhaps he takes you for me," said Josephine.

"Who is it?  What do you mean?"

"IT IS HE!  I knew his figure at a glance."  And she blushed and
trembled with joy; she darted behind the tree and peered round at
him unseen: turning round a moment she found Rose at her back pale
and stern.  She looked at her, and said with terrible simplicity,
"Ah, Rose, I forgot."

"Are you mad, Josephine?  Into the house this moment; if it IS he, I
will receive him and send him about his business."

But Josephine stood fascinated, and pale as ashes; for now the
cocked hat stopped, and a pale face with eyes whose eager fire shone
even at that distance, rose above the palings.  Josephine crouched
behind Rose, and gasped out, "Something terrible is coming,
terrible! terrible!"

"Say something hateful," said Rose, trembling in her turn, but only
with anger.  "The heartless selfish traitor!  He never notices you
till you are married to the noblest of mankind; and then he comes
here directly to ruin your peace.  No; I have altered my mind.  He
shall not see you, of course; but YOU shall hear HIM.  I'll soon
make you know the wretch and loathe him as I do.  There, now he has
turned the corner; hide in the oak while he is out of sight.  Hide,
quick, quick."  Josephine obeyed mechanically; and presently,
through that very aperture whence her sister had smiled on her lover
she hissed out, in a tone of which one would not have thought her
capable, "Be wise, be shrewd; find out who is the woman that has
seduced him from me, and has brought two wretches to this.  I tell
you it is some wicked woman's doing.  He loved me once."

"Not so loud!--one word: you are a wife.  Swear to me you will not
let him see you, come what may."

"Oh! never! never!" cried Josephine with terror.  "I would rather
die.  When you have heard what he has to say, then tell him I am
dead.  No, tell him I adore my husband, and went to Egypt this day
with him.  Ah! would to God I had!"

"Sh! sh!"

"Sh!"

Camille was at the little gate.

Rose stood still, and nerved herself in silence.  Josephine panted
in her hiding-place.

Rose's only thought now was to expose the traitor to her sister, and
restore her peace.  She pretended not to see Camille till he was
near her.  He came eagerly towards her, his pale face flushing with
great joy, and his eyes like diamonds.

"Josephine!  It is not Josephine, after all," said he.  "Why, this
must be Rose, little Rose, grown up to a fine lady, a beautiful
lady."

"What do you come here for, sir?" asked Rose in a tone of icy
indifference.

"What do I come here for? is that the way to speak to me? but I am
too happy to mind.  Dear Beaurepaire! do I see you once again!"

"And madame?"

"What madame?"

"Madame Dujardin that is or was to be."

"This is the first I have ever heard of her," said Camille, gayly.

"This is odd, for we have heard all about it."

"Are you jesting?"

"No."

"If I understand you right, you imply that I have broken faith with
Josephine?"

"Certainly."

"Then you lie, Mademoiselle Rose de Beaurepaire."

"Insolent!"

"No.  It is you who have insulted your sister as well as me.  She
was not made to be deserted for meaner women.  Come, mademoiselle,
affront me, and me alone, and you shall find me more patient.  Oh!
who would have thought Beaurepaire would receive me thus?"

"It is your own fault.  You never sent her a line for all these
years."

"Why, how could I?"

"Well, sir, the information you did not supply others did.  We know
that you were seen in a Spanish village drinking between two
guerillas."

"That is true," said Camille.

"An honest French soldier fired at you.  Why, he told us so himself."

"He told you true," said Camille, sullenly.  "The bullet grazed my
hand; see, here is the mark.  Look!"  She did look, and gave a
little scream; but recovering herself, said she wished it had gone
through his heart.  "Why prolong this painful interview?" said she;
"the soldier told us all."

"I doubt that," said Camille.  "Did he tell you that under the table
I was chained tight down to the chair I sat in?  Did he tell you
that my hand was fastened to a drinking-horn, and my elbow to the
table, and two fellows sitting opposite me with pistols quietly
covering me, ready to draw the trigger if I should utter a cry?  Did
he tell you that I would have uttered that cry and died at that
table but for one thing, I had promised her to live?"

"Not he; he told me nothing so incredible.  Besides, what became of
you all these years?  You are a double traitor, to your country and
to her."

Camille literally gasped for breath.  "You are a most cruel young
lady to insult me so," said he, and scalding tears forced themselves
from his eyes.

Rose eyed him with merciless scorn.

He fought manfully against this weakness, with which his wound and
his fatigue had something to do, as well as Rose's bitter words; and
after a gallant struggle he returned her her haughty stare, and
addressed her thus: "Mademoiselle, I feel myself blush, but it is
for you I blush, not for myself.  This is what BECAME of me.  I went
out alone to explore; I fell into an ambuscade; I shot one of the
enemy, and pinked another, but my arm being broken by a bullet, and
my horse killed under me, the rascals got me.  They took me about,
tried to make a decoy of me as I have told you, and ended by
throwing me into a dungeon.  They loaded me with chains, too, though
the walls were ten feet thick, and the door iron, and bolted and
double-bolted outside.  And there for months and years, in spite of
wounds, hunger, thirst, and all the tortures those cowards made me
suffer, I lived, because, Rose, I had promised some one at that gate
there (and he turned suddenly and pointed to it) that I would come
back alive.  At last, one night, my jailer came to my cell drunk.  I
seized him by the throat and throttled him till he was insensible;
his keys unlocked my fetters, and locked him in the cell, and I got
safely outside.  But there a sentinel saw me, and fired at me.  He
missed me but ran after me, and caught me.  You see I was stiff,
confined so long.  He gave me a thrust of his bayonet; I flung my
heavy keys fiercely in his face; he staggered; I wrested his piece
from him, and disabled him."

"Ah!"

"I crossed the frontier in the night, and got to Bayonne; and
thence, day and night, to Paris.  There I met a reward for all my
anguish.  They gave me the epaulets of a colonel.  See, here they
are.  France does not give these to traitors, young lady."  He held
them out to her in both hands.  She eyed them half stupidly; all her
thoughts were on the oak-tree hard by.  She began to shudder.
Camille was telling the truth.  She felt that; she saw it; and
Josephine was hearing it.  "Ay! look at them, you naughty girl,"
said Camille, trying to be jocose over it all with his poor
trembling lip.  He went on to say that from the moment he had left
dark Spain, and entered fair France everybody was so kind, so
sympathizing.  "They felt for the poor worn soldier coming back to
his love.  All but you, Rose.  You told me I was a traitor to her
and to France."

"I was told so," said Rose, faintly.  She was almost at her wits'
end what to say or do.

"Well, are you sorry or not sorry for saying such a cruel thing to a
poor fellow?"

"Sorry, very sorry," whispered Rose.  She could not persist in
injustice, yet she did not want Josephine to hear.

"Then say no more about it; there's my hand.  You are not a soldier,
and did not know what you were talking about."

"I am very sorry I spoke so harshly to you.  But you understand.
How you look; how you pant."

"There, I will show you I forgive you.  These epaulets, dear, I have
never put them on.  I said, no; Josephine shall put them on for me.
I will take honor as well as happiness from her dear hand.  But you
are her sister, and what are epaulets compared with what she will
give me?  You shall put them on, dear.  Come, then you will be sure
I bear no malice."

Rose, faint at heart, consented in silence, and fastened on the
epaulets.  "Yes, Camille!" she cried, with sudden terror, "think of
glory, now; nothing but glory."

"No one thinks of it more.  But to-day how can I think of it, how
can I give her a rival?  To-day I am all love.  Rose, no man ever
loved a human creature as I love Josephine.  Your mother is well,
dear?  All are well at Beaurepaire?  Oh, where is she all this time?
in the house?"  He was moving quickly towards the house; but Rose
instinctively put out her hand to stop him.  He recoiled a little
and winced.

"What is the matter?" cried she.

"Nothing, dear girl; you put your hand on my wound, that is all.
What is that noise in the tree?  Anybody listening to us?"

"I'll see," said Rose, with all a woman's wit, and whipped hastily
round to hinder Camille from going.  She found Josephine white as
death, apparently fainting, and clutching at the tree convulsively
with her nails.  Such was the intensity of the situation that she
left her beloved sister in that piteous state, and even hoped she
would faint dead away, and so hear no more.  She came back white,
and told Camille it was only a bird got into the tree.  "And to
think you should be wounded," said she, to divert his attention from
the tree.

"Yes," said he, "and it is rather inflamed, and has worried me all
the way.  You need not go telling Josephine, though.  They wanted me
to stop and lay up at Bayonne.  How could I?  And again at Paris.
How could I?  They said, 'You will die.'--'Not before I get to
Beaurepaire,' said I.  I could bear the motion of a horse no longer,
so at the nearest town I asked for a carriage.  Would you believe
it? both his carriages were OUT AT A WEDDING.  I could not wait till
they came back.  I had waited an eternity.  I came on foot.  I
dragged my self along; the body was weak, but the heart was strong.
A little way from here my wound seemed inclined to open.  I pressed
it together tight with my hand; you see I could not afford to lose
any more blood, and so struggled on.  'Die?' said I, 'not before
Beaurepaire.'  And, O Rose! now I could be content to die--at her
feet; for I am happy.  Oh! I am happy beyond words to utter.  What I
have gone through!  But I kept my word, and this is Beaurepaire.
Hurrah!" and his pale cheek flushed, and his eye gleamed, and he
waved his hat feebly over his head, "hurrah! hurrah! hurrah!"

"Oh, don't!--don't!--don't!" cried Rose wild with pity and dismay.

"How can I help?--I am mad with joy--hurrah! hurrah! hurrah!"

"No! no! no! no! no!"

"What is the matter?"

"And must I stab you worse than all your enemies have stabbed you?"
sighed Rose, and tears of womanly pity now streamed down her cheeks.

Camille's mind began to misgive him.  What was become of Josephine?
she did not appear.  He faltered out, "Your mother is well; all are
well I hope.  Oh, where is she?" and receiving no reply, began to
tremble visibly with the fear of some terrible calamity.

Rose, with a sister fainting close by, and this poor lover trembling
before her, lost all self-command, and began to wring her hands and
cry wildly.  "Camille," she almost screamed, "there is but one thing
for you to do; leave Beaurepaire on the instant: fly from it; it is
no place for you."

"She is dead," said Camille, very quietly.

When he said that, with an unnatural and monotonous calm such as
precedes deliberate suicide, it flashed in one moment across Rose
that it was much best he should think so.

She did not reply; but she drooped her head and let him think it.

"She would have come to me ere this if she was alive," said he.
"You are all in white: they mourn in white for angels like her, that
go to heaven, virgins.  Oh! I was blind.  You might have told me at
once; you see I can bear it.  What does it matter to one who loves
as I love?  It is only to give her one more proof I lived only for
her.  I would have died a hundred times but for my promise to her.
Yes, I am coming, love; I am coming."

He fell on his knees and smiled, and whispered, "I am coming,
Josephine, I am coming."

A sob and a moan as of a creature dying in anguish answered him.

Rose screamed with terror when she heard it.

Camille rose to his feet, awestruck.  "That was her voice, behind
this tree," he whispered.

"No, no," cried Rose; "it was me."

But at that moment a rustle and a rush was heard of some one darting
out of the tree.

Camille darted furiously round it in the same direction.  Rose tried
to stop him, but was too late.  The next moment Raynal's wife was in
his arms.


CHAPTER X.


Josephine wrestled long and terribly with nature in that old oak-
tree.  But who can so struggle forever?  Anguish, remorse, horror,
despair, and love wrenched her to and fro; and O mysterious human
heart! gleams of a mad fitful joy shot through her, coming quick as
lightning, going as quickly, and leaving the despair darker.  And
then the fierce struggle of the soul to make itself heard!  More
than once she had to close her mouth with her hand: more than once
she seized her throat not to cry out.  But as the struggle endured,
she got weaker and weaker, and nature mightier and mightier.  And
when the wounded hero fell on his knees so close to her; when he who
had resisted death so bravely for her, prepared to give up life
calmly for her, her bosom rose beyond all control: it seemed to fill
to choking, then to split wide open and give the struggling soul
passage in one gasping sob and heart-stricken cry.  Could she have
pent this in she must have died.

It betrayed her.  She felt it had: so then came the woman's
instinct--flight: the coward's impulse--flight: the chaste wife's
inspiration--flight.  She rushed from her hiding-place and made
wildly for the house.

But, unluckily, Camille was at that moment darting round the tree:
she ran right into the danger she meant to flee.  He caught her in
his arms.  He held her irresistibly.  "I have got her; I have got
her," he shouted in wild triumph.  "No! I will not let you go.  None
but God shall ever take you from me, and he has spared you to me.
You are not dead: you have kept faith as I have: you have lived.
See! look at me.  I am alive, I am well, I am happy.  I told Rose
that I suffered.  If I had suffered I should remember it.  It is all
gone at sight of you, my love! my love!  Oh, my Josephine! my love!"

His arm was firm round her waist.  His glowing eyes poured love upon
her.  She felt his beating heart.

All that passed in her then, what mortal can say?  She seemed two
women: that part of her which could not get away from his strong arm
lost all strength to resist, it yielded and thrilled under his
embrace, her bosom heaving madly: all that was free writhed away
from him; her face was averted with a glare of terror, and both her
hands put up between his eyes and it.

"You turn away your head.  Rose, she turns away.  Speak for me.
Scold her; for I don't know how to scold her.  No answer from
either; oh, what has turned your hearts against me so?"

"Camille," cried Rose--the tears streaming down her cheeks--"my poor
Camille! leave Beaurepaire.  Oh, leave it at once."

Returned towards her with a look of inquiry.

At that Josephine, like some feeble but nimble wild creature on whom
a grasp has relaxed, writhed away from him and got free: "Farewell!
Farewell!" she cried, in despair's own voice, and made swiftly for
the house.

Camille stood aghast, and did not follow her.

Now ere she had gone many steps who should meet her right in front
but Jacintha.

"Madame Raynal, the baroness's carriage is just in sight.  I thought
you'd like to know."  Then she bawled proudly to Rose, "I was the
first to call her madame;" and off went Jacintha convinced she had
done something very clever.

This blow turned those three to stone.

Josephine had no longer the power or the wish to fly.  "Better so,"
she thought, and she stood cowering.

The great passions that had spoken so loud were struck dumb, and a
deep silence fell upon the place.  Madame Raynal's quivering eye
turned slowly and askant towards Camille, but stopped in terror ere
it could see him.  For she knew by this fearful stillness that the
truth was creeping on Camille.  And so did Rose.

At last Camille spoke one word in a low whisper.

"Madame?"

Dead silence.

"White? both in white?"

Rose came between him and Josephine, and sobbed out, "Camille, it
was our doing.  We drove her to it.  O sir, look how afraid of you
she is.  Do not reproach her, if you are a man."

He waved her out of his way as if she had been some idle feather,
and almost staggered up to Josephine.

"It is for you to speak, my betrothed: are you married?"

The poor creature, true to her nature, was thinking more of him than
herself.  Even in her despair it flashed across her, "If he knew
all, he too would be wretched for life.  If I let him think ill of
me he may be happy one day."  She cowered the picture of sorrow and
tongue-tied guilt.

"Are you a wife?"

"Yes."

He winced and quivered as if a bullet had pierced him.

"This is how I came to be suspected; she I loved was false."

"Yes, Camille."

"No, no!" cried Rose; "don't believe HER: she never suspected you.
We have brought her to this, we alone."

"Be silent, Rose! oh, be silent!" gasped Josephine.

"I lived for you: I would have died for you; you could not even wait
for me."

A low moan, but not a word of excuse.

"What can I do for you now?"

"Forget me, Camille," said she despairingly, doggedly.

"Forget you? never, never! there is but one thing I can do to show
you how I loved you: I will forgive you, and begone.  Whither shall
I go? whither shall I go now?"

"Camile, your words stab her."

"Let none speak but I," said Camille; "none but I have the right to
speak.  Poor weak angel that loved yet could not wait: I forgive
you.  Be happy, if you can; I bid you be hap-py."

The quiet, despairing tones died away, and with them life seemed to
end to her, and hope to go out.  He turned his back quickly on her.
He cried hoarsely, "To the army!  Back to the army, and a soldier's
grave!"  Then with a prodigious effort he drew himself haughtily up
in marching attitude.  He took three strides, erect and fiery and
bold.

At the next something seemed to snap asunder in the great heart, and
the worn body that heart had held up so long, rolled like a dead log
upon the ground with a tremendous fall.


CHAPTER XI.


The baroness and Aubertin were just getting out of their carriage,
when suddenly they heard shrieks of terror in the Pleasaunce.  They
came with quaking hearts as fast as their old limbs would carry
them.  They found Rose and Josephine crouched over the body of a
man, an officer.

Rose was just tearing open his collar and jacket.  Dard and Jacintha
had run from the kitchen at the screams.  Camille lay on his back,
white and motionless.

The doctor was the first to come up.  "Who! what is this?  I seem to
know his face."  Then shaking his head, "Whoever it is, it is a bad
case.  Stand away, ladies.  Let me feel his pulse."

Whilst the old man was going stiffly down on one knee, Jacintha
uttered a cry of terror.  "See, see! his shirt! that red streak!
Ah, ah! it is getting bigger and bigger:" and she turned faint in a
moment, and would have fallen but for Dard.

The doctor looked.  "All the better," said he firmly.  "I thought he
was dead.  His blood flows; then I will save him.  Don't clutch me
so, Josephine; don't cling to me like that.  Now is the time to show
your breed: not turn sick at the sight of a little blood, like that
foolish creature, but help me save him."

"Take him in-doors," cried the baroness.

"Into our house, mamma?" gasped Rose; "no, no."

"What," said the baroness, "a wounded soldier who has fought for
France! leave him to lie and die outside my door: what would my son
say to that?  He is a soldier himself."

Rose cast a hasty look at Josephine.  Josephine's eyes were bent on
the ground, and her hands clenched and trembling.

"Now, Jacintha, you be off," said the doctor.  "I can't have cowards
about him to make the others as bad.  Go and stew down a piece of
good beef for him.  Stew it in red wine and water."

"That I will: poor thing!"

"Why, I know him," said the baroness suddenly; "it is an old
acquaintance, young Dujardin: you remember, Josephine.  I used to
suspect him of a fancy for you, poor fellow!  Why, he must have come
here to see us, poor soul."

"No matter who it is; it is a man.  Now, girls, have you courage,
have you humanity?  Then come one on each side of him and take hands
beneath his back, while I lift his head and Dard his legs."

"And handle him gently whatever you do," said Dard.  "I know what it
is to be wounded."

These four carried the lifeless burden very slowly and gently across
the Pleasaunce to the house, then with more difficulty and caution
up the stairs.

All the while the sisters' hands griped one another tight beneath
the lifeless burden, and spoke to one another.  And Josephine's arm
upheld tenderly but not weakly the hero she had struck down.  She
avoided Rose's eye, her mother's, and even the doctor's: one gasping
sob escaped her as she walked with head half averted, and vacant,
terror-stricken eyes, and her victim on her sustaining arm.

The doctor selected the tapestried chamber for him as being most
airy.  Then he ordered the women out, and with Dard's help undressed
the still insensible patient.

Josephine sat down on the stairs in gloomy silence, her eyes on the
ground, like one waiting for her deathblow.

Rose, sick at heart, sat silent too at some distance.  At last she
said faintly, "Have we done well?"

"I don't know," said Josephine doggedly.  Her eyes never left the
ground.

"We could not let him die for want of care."

"He will not thank us.  Better for him to die than live.  Better for
me."

At this instant Dard came running down.  "Good news, mesdemoiselles,
good news! the wound runs all along; it is not deep, like mine was.
He has opened his eyes and shut them again.  The dear good doctor
stopped the blood in a twinkle.  The doctor says he'll be bound to
save him.  I must run and tell Jacintha.  She is taking on in the
kitchen."

Josephine, who had risen eagerly from her despairing posture,
clasped her hands together, then lifted up her voice and wept.  "He
will live! he will live!"

When she had wept a long while, she said to Rose, "Come, sister,
help your poor Josephine."

"Yes, love, what shall we do?"

"My duty," faltered Josephine.  "An hour ago it seemed so sweet,"
and she fell to weeping patiently again.  They went to Josephine's
room.  She crept slowly to a wardrobe, and took out a gray silk
dress.

"Oh, never mind for to-day," cried Rose.

"Help me, Rose.  It is for myself as well; to remind me every moment
I am Madame Raynal."

They put the gray gown on her, both weeping patiently.  It will be
known at the last day, all that honest women have suffered weeping
silently in this noisy world.


Camille soon recovered his senses and a portion of his strength:
then the irritation of his wound brought on fever.  This in turn
retired before the doctor's remedies and a sound constitution, but
it left behind it a great weakness and general prostration.  And in
this state the fate of the body depends greatly on the mind.

The baroness and the doctor went constantly to see him, and soothe
him: he smiled and thanked them, but his eager eyes watched the door
for one who came not.

When he got well enough to leave his bed the largest couch was sent
up to him from the saloon; a kind hand lined the baron's silk
dressing-gown for him warm and soft and nice; and he would sit or
lie on his couch, or take two turns in the room leaning upon Rose's
shoulder, and glad of the support; and he looked piteously in her
eyes when she came and when she went.  Rose looked down; she could
do nothing, she could say nothing.

With his strength, Camille lost a portion of his pride: he pined for
a sight of her he no longer respected; pined for her, as the thirsty
pine for water in Sahara.

At last one day he spoke out.  "How kind you are to me, Rose! how
kind you all are--but one."

He waited in hopes she would say something, but she held her tongue.

"At least tell me why it is.  Is she ashamed?  Is she afraid?"

"Neither."

"She hates me: it is true, then, that we hate those whom we have
wounded.  Cruel, cruel Josephine!  Oh, heart of marble against which
my heart has wrecked itself forever!"

"No, no!  She is anything but cruel: but she is Madame Raynal."

"Ah! I forgot.  But have I no claim on her?  Nearly four years she
has been my betrothed.  What have I done?  Was I ever false to her?
I could forgive her for what she has done to me, but she cannot
forgive me.  Does she mean never to see me again?"

"Ask yourself what good could come of it."

"Very well," said Camille, with a malicious smile.  "I am in her
way.  I see what she wants; she shall have it."

Rose carried these words to Josephine.  They went through her like a
sword.

Rose pitied her.  Rose had a moment's weakness.

"Let us go to him," she said; "anything is better than this."

"Rose, I dare not," was the wise reply.

But the next day early, Josephine took Rose to a door outside the
house, a door that had long been disused.  Nettles grew before it.
She produced a key and with great difficulty opened this door.  It
led to the tapestried chamber, and years ago they used to steal up
it and peep into the room.

Rose scarcely needed to be told that she was to watch Camille, and
report to her.  In truth, it was a mysterious, vague protection
against a danger equally mysterious.  Yet it made Josephine easier.
But so unflinching was her prudence that she never once could be
prevailed on to mount those stairs, and peep at Camille herself.  "I
must starve my heart, not feed it," said she.  And she grew paler
and more hollow-eyed day by day.

Yet this was the same woman who showed such feebleness and
irresolution when Raynal pressed her to marry him.  But then dwarfs
feebly drew her this way and that.  Now giants fought for her.
Between a feeble inclination and a feeble disinclination her dead
heart had drifted to and fro.  Now honor, duty, gratitude,--which
last with her was a passion,--dragged her one way: love, pity, and
remorse another.

Not one of these giants would relax his grasp, and nothing yielded
except her vital powers.  Yes; her temper, one of the loveliest
Heaven ever gave a human creature, was soured at times.

Was it a wonder?  There lay the man she loved pining for her;
cursing her for her cruelty, and alternately praying Heaven to
forgive him and to bless her: sighing, at intervals, all the day
long, so loud, so deep, so piteously, as if his heart broke with
each sigh; and sometimes, for he little knew, poor soul, that any
human eye was upon him, casting aside his manhood in his despair,
and flinging himself on the very floor, and muffling his head, and
sobbing; he a hero.

And here was she pining in secret for him who pined for her?  "I am
not a woman at all," said she, who was all woman.  "I am crueller to
him than a tiger or any savage creature is to the victim she tears.
I must cure him of his love for me; and then die; for what shall I
have to live for?  He weeps, he sighs, he cries for Josephine."

Her enforced cruelty was more contrary to this woman's nature than
black is to white, or heat to cold, and the heart rebelled furiously
at times.  As when a rock tries to stem a current, the water fights
its way on more sides than one, so insulted nature dealt with
Josephine.  Not only did her body pine, but her nerves were
exasperated.  Sudden twitches came over her, that almost made her
scream.  Her permanent state was utter despondency, but across it
came fitful flashes of irritation; and then she was scarce mistress
of herself.

Wherefore you, who find some holy woman cross and bitter, stop a
moment before you sum her up vixen and her religion naught: inquire
the history of her heart: perhaps beneath the smooth cold surface of
duties well discharged, her life has been, or even is, a battle
against some self-indulgence the insignificant saint's very blood
cries out for: and so the poor thing is cross, not because she is
bad, but because she is better than the rest of us; yet only human.

Now though Josephine was more on her guard with the baroness than
with Rose, or the doctor, or Jacintha, her state could not
altogether escape the vigilance of a mother's eye.

But the baroness had not the clew we have; and what a difference
that makes!  How small an understanding, put by accident or
instruction on the right track, shall run the game down!  How great
a sagacity shall wander if it gets on a false scent!

"Doctor," said the baroness one day, "you are so taken up with your
patient you neglect the rest of us.  Do look at Josephine!  She is
ill, or going to be ill.  She is so pale, and so fretful, so
peevish, which is not in her nature.  Would you believe it, doctor,
she snaps?"

"Our Josephine snap?  This is new."

"And snarls."

"Then look for the end of the world."

"The other day I heard her snap Rose: and this morning she half
snarled at me, just because I pressed her to go and console our
patient.  Hush! here she is.  My child, I am accusing you to the
doctor.  I tell him you neglect his patient: never go near him."

"I will visit him one of these days," said Josephine, coldly.

"One of these days," said the baroness, shocked.  "You used not to
be so hard-hearted.  A soldier, an old comrade of your husband's,
wounded and sick, and you alone never go to him, to console him with
a word of sympathy or encouragement."

Josephine looked at her mother with a sort of incredulous stare.
Then, after a struggle, she replied with a tone and manner so
spiteful and icy that it would have deceived even us who know her
had we heard it.  "He has plenty of nurses without me."  She added,
almost violently, "My husband, if he were wounded, would not have so
many, perhaps not have one."

With this she rose and went out, leaving them aghast.  She sat down
in the passage on a window-seat, and laughed hysterically.  Rose
heard her and ran to her.  Josephine told her what her mother had
said to her.  Rose soothed her.  "Never mind, you have your sister
who understands you: don't you go back till they have got some other
topic."

Rose out of curiosity went in, and found a discussion going on.  The
doctor was fathoming Josephine, for the benefit of his companion.

"It is a female jealousy, and of a mighty innocent kind.  We are so
taken up with this poor fellow, she thinks her soldier is forgotten."

"Surely, doctor, our Josephine would not be so unreasonable, so
unjust," suggested her mother.

"She belongs to a sex, be it said without offending you, madame,
among whose numberless virtues justice does not fill a prominent
place."

The baroness shook her head.  "That is not it.  It is a piece of
prudery.  This young gentleman was a sort of admirer of hers, though
she did not admire him much, as far as I remember.  But it was four
years ago; and she is married to a man she loves, or is going to
love."

"Well, but, mamma, a trifling excess of delicacy is surely
excusable."  This from Rose.

"No, no; it is not delicacy; it is prudery.  And when people are
sick and suffering, an honest woman should take up her charity and
lay down her prudery, or her coquetry: two things that I suspect are
the same thing in different shapes."

Here Jacintha came in.  "Mademoiselle, here is the colonel's broth;
Madame Raynal has flavored it for him, and you are to take it up to
him, and keep him company while he eats it."

"Come," cried the baroness, "my lecture has not been lost."

Rose followed Jacintha up-stairs.

Rose was heart and head on Raynal's side.

She had deceived him about Josephine's attachment, and felt all the
more desirous to guard him against any ill consequences of it.  Then
he had been so generous to her: he had left her her sister, who
would have gone to Egypt, and escaped this misery, but for her.

But on the other hand,


                                         --Gentle pity
     Tugged at her heartstrings with complaining cries.


This watching of Camille saddened even her.  When she was with him
his pride bore him up: but when he was alone as he thought, his
anguish and despair were terrible, and broke out in so many ways
that often Rose shrank in terror from her peep hole.

She dared not tell Josephine the half of what she saw: what she did
tell her agitated her so terribly: and often Rose had it on the tip
of her tongue to say, "Do pray go and see if you can say nothing
that will do him good;" but she fought the impulse down.  This
battle of feeling, though less severe than her sister's, was
constant; it destroyed her gayety.  She, whose merry laugh used to
ring like chimes through the house, never laughed now, seldom
smiled, and often sighed.

Dr. Aubertin was the last to succumb to the deep depression, but his
time came: and he had been for a day or two as grave and as sad as
the rest, when one day that Rose was absent, spying on Camille, he
took the baroness and Josephine into his confidence; and
condescended finally to ask their advice.

"It is humiliating," said he, "after all my experience, to be
obliged to consult unprofessional persons.  Forty years ago I should
have been TOO WISE to do so.  But since then I have often seen
science baffled and untrained intelligences throw light upon hard
questions: and your sex in particular has luminous instincts and
reads things by flashes that we men miss with a microscope.  Our
dear Madame Raynal suspected that plausible notary, and to this day
I believe she could not tell us why."

Josephine admitted as much very frankly.

"There you see," said the doctor.  "Well, then, you must help me in
this case.  And this time I promise to treat your art with more
respect."

"And pray who is it she is to read now?" asked the baroness.

"Who should it be but my poor patient?  He puzzles me.  I never knew
a patient so faint-hearted."

"A soldier faint-hearted!" exclaimed the baroness.  "To be sure
these men that storm cities, and fire cannon, and cut and hack one
another with so much spirit, are poor creatures compared with us
when they have to lie quiet and suffer."

The doctor walked the room in great excitement.  "It is not his
wound that is killing him, there's something on his mind.  You,
Josephine, with your instincts do help me: do pray, for pity's sake,
throw off that sublime indifference you have manifested all along to
this man's fate."

"She has not," cried the baroness, firing up.  "Did I not see her
lining his dressing-gown for him? and she inspects everything that
he eats: do you not?"

"Yes, mother."  She then suggested in a faltering voice that time
would cure the patient, and time alone.

"Time! you speak as if time was a quality: time is only a measure of
events, favorable or unfavorable; it kills as many as it cures."

"Why, you surely would not imply his life is in any danger?"  This
was the baroness.

"Madame, if the case was not grave, should I take this unusual step?
I tell you if some change does not take place soon, he will be a
dead man in another fortnight.  That is all TIME will do for him."

The baroness uttered an exclamation of pity and distress.  Josephine
put her hand to her bosom, and a creeping horror came over her, and
then a faintness.  She sat working mechanically, and turning like
ice within.  After a few minutes of this, she rose with every
appearance of external composure and left the room.  In the passage
she met Rose coming hastily towards the salon laughing: the first
time she had laughed this many a day.  Oh, what a contrast between
the two faces that met there--the one pale and horror stricken, the
other rosy and laughing!

"Well, dear, at last I am paid for all my trouble, and yours, by a
discovery; he never drinks a drop of his medicine; he pours it into
the ashes under the grate; I caught him in the fact."

"Then this is too much: I can resist no longer.  Come with me," said
Josephine doggedly.

"Where?"

"To him."


CHAPTER XII.


Josephine paused on the landing, and laid her hand on Rose's
shoulder.  It was so cold it made Rose shudder, and exacted a
promise from her not to contradict a word she should say to Camille.
"I do not go to him for my pleasure, but for his life," she said; "I
must deceive him and save him; and then let me lie down and die."

"Oh, that the wretch had never been born!" cried Rose, in despair.
But she gave the required promise, and offered to go and tell
Camille Josephine was coming to visit him.

But Josephine declined this.  "No," said she; "give me every
advantage; I must think beforehand every word I shall say; but take
him by surprise, coward and doubleface that I am."

Rose knocked at the door.  A faint voice said, "Come in."  The
sisters entered the room very softly.  Camille sat on the sofa, his
head bowed over his hands.  A glance showed Josephine that he was
doggedly and resolutely thrusting himself into the grave.  Thinking
it was only Rose--for he had now lost all hope of seeing Josephine
come in at the door--he never moved.  Some one glided gently but
rapidly up to him.  He looked up.  Josephine was kneeling to him.

He lifted his head with a start, and trembled all over.

She whispered, "I am come to you to beg your pity; to appeal to your
generosity; to ask a favor; I who deserve so little of you."

"You have waited a long time," said Camille, agitated greatly; "and
so have I."

"Camille, you are torturing one who loved you once, and who has been
very weak and faithless, but not so wicked as she appears."

"How am I torturing you?"

"With remorse; do I not suffer enough?  Would you make me a
murderess?"

"Why have you never been near me?" retorted Camille.  "I could
forgive your weakness, but not your heartlessness."

"It is my duty.  I have no right to seek your society.  If you
really want mine, you have only to get well, and so join us down-
stairs a week or two before you leave us."

"How am I to get well?  My heart is broken."

"Camille, be a man.  Do not fling away a soldier's life because a
fickle, worthless woman could not wait for you.  Forgive me like a
man, or else revenge yourself like a man.  If you cannot forgive me,
kill me.  See, I kneel at your feet.  I will not resist you.  Kill
me."

"I wish I could.  Oh! if I could kill you with a look and myself
with a wish!  No man should ever take you from me, then.  We would
be together in the grave at this hour.  Do not tempt me, I say;" and
he cast a terrible look of love, and hatred, and despair upon her.
Her purple eye never winced; it poured back tenderness and affection
in return.  He saw and turned away with a groan, and held out his
hand to her.  She seized it and kissed it.  "You are great, you are
generous; you will not strike me as a woman strikes; you will not
die to drive me to despair."

"I see," said he, more gently, "love is gone, but pity remains.  I
thought that was gone, too."

"Yes, Camille," said Josephine, in a whisper, "pity remains, and
remorse and terror at what I have done to a man of whom I was never
worthy."

"Well, madame, as you have come at last to me, and even do me the
honor to ask me a favor--I shall try--if only out of courtesy--to--
ah, Josephine! Josephine! when did I ever refuse you anything?"

At this Josephine sank into a chair, and burst out crying.  Camille,
at this, began to cry too; and the two poor things sat a long way
from one another, and sobbed bitterly.

The man, weakened as he was, recovered his quiet despair first.

"Don't cry so," said he.  "But tell me what is your will, and I
shall obey you as I used before any one came between us."

"Then, live, Camille.  I implore you to live."

"Well, Josephine, since you care about it, I will try and live.  Why
did not you come before and ask me?  I thought I was in your way.  I
thought you wanted me dead."

Josephine cast a look of wonder and anguish on Camille, but she said
nothing.  She rang the bell, and, on Jacintha coming up, despatched
her to Dr. Aubertin for the patient's medicine.

"Tell the doctor," said she, "Colonel Dujardin has let fall the
glass."  While Jacintha was gone, she scolded Camille gently.  "How
could you be so unkind to the poor doctor who loves you so?  Only
think: to throw away his medicines!  Look at the ashes; they are
wet.  Camille, are you, too, becoming disingenuous?"

Jacintha came in with the tonic in a glass, and retired with an
obeisance.  Josephine took it to Camille.

"Drink with me, then," said he, "or I will not touch it."  Josephine
took the glass.  "I drink to your health, Camille, and to your
glory; laurels to your brow, and some faithful woman to your heart,
who will make you forget this folly: it is for her I am saving you."
She put the glass with well-acted spirit to her lips; but in the
very action a spasm seized her throat and almost choked her; she
lowered her head that he might not see her face, and tried again;
but the tears burst from her eyes and ran into the liquid, and her
lips trembled over the brim, and were paralyzed.

"No, no! give it me!" he cried; "there is a tear of yours in it."
He drank off the bitter remedy now as if it had been nectar.

Josephine blushed.

"If you wanted me to live, why did you not come here before?"

"I did not think you would be so foolish, so wicked, so cruel as to
do what you have been doing."

"Come and shine upon me every day, and you shall have no fresh cause
of complaint; things flourish in the sunshine that die in the dark:
Rose, it is as if the sun had come into my prison; you are pale, but
you are beautiful as ever--more beautiful; what a sweet dress! so
quiet, so modest, it sets off your beauty instead of vainly trying
to vie with it."  With this he put out his hand and took her gray
silk dress, and went to kiss it as a devotee kisses the altar steps.

She snatched it away with a shudder.

"Yes, you are right," said she; "thank you for noticing my dress; it
is a beautiful dress--ha! ha!  A dress I take a pride in wearing,
and always shall, I hope.  I mean to be buried in it.  Come, Rose.
Thank you, Camille; you are very good, you have once more promised
me to live.  Get well; come down-stairs; then you will see me every
day, you know--there is a temptation.  Good-by, Camille!--are you
coming, Rose?  What are you loitering for?  God bless you, and
comfort you, and help you to forget what it is madness to remember!"

With these wild words she literally fled; and in one moment the room
seemed to darken to Camille.

Outside the door Josephine caught hold of Rose.  "Have I committed
myself?"

"Over and over again.  Do not look so terrified; I mean to me, but
not to him.  How blind he is! and how much better you must know him
than I do to venture on such a transparent deceit.  He believes
whatever you tell him.  He is all ears and no eyes.  Yes, love, I
watched him keenly all the time.  He really thinks it is pity and
remorse, nothing more.  My poor sister, you have a hard life to
lead, a hard game to play; but so far you have succeeded; yet could
look poor Raynal in the face if he came home to-day."

"Then God be thanked!" cried Josephine.  "I am as happy to-day as I
can ever hope to be.  Now let us go through the farce of dressing--
it is near dinner-time--and then the farce of talking, and, hardest
of all, the farce of living."

From that hour Camille began to get better very slowly, yet
perceptibly.

The doctor, afraid of being mistaken, said nothing for some days,
but at last he announced the good news at the dinner-table.  "He is
to come down-stairs in three days," added the doctor.

But I am sorry to say that as Camille's body strengthened some of
the worst passions in our nature attacked him.  Fierce gusts of hate
and love combined overpowered this man's high sentiments of honor
and justice, and made him clench his teeth, and vow never to leave
Beaurepaire without Josephine.  She had been his four years before
she ever saw this interloper, and she should be his forever.  Her
love would soon revive when they should meet every day, and she
would end by eloping with him.

Then conscience pricked him, and reminded him how and why Raynal had
married her: for Rose had told him all.  Should he undermine an
absent soldier, whose whole conduct in this had been so pure, so
generous, so unselfish?

But this was not all.  As I have already hinted, he was under a
great personal obligation to his quondam comrade Raynal.  Whenever
this was vividly present to his mind, a great terror fell on him,
and he would cry out in anguish, "Oh! that some angel would come to
me and tear me by force from this place!"  And the next moment
passion swept over him like a flood, and carried away all his
virtuous resolves.  His soul was in deep waters; great waves drove
it to and fro.  Perilous condition, which seldom ends well.  Camille
was a man of honor.  In no other earthly circumstance could he have
hesitated an instant between right and wrong.  But such natures,
proof against all other temptations, have often fallen, and will
fall, where sin takes the angel form of her they love.  Yet, of all
men, they should pray for help to stand; for when they fall they
still retain one thing that divides them from mean sinners.

Remorse, the giant that rends the great hearts which mock at fear.

The day came in which the doctor had promised his patient he should
come down-stairs.  First his comfortable sofa was taken down into
the saloon for his use: then the patient himself came down leaning
on the doctor's arm, and his heart palpitating at the thought of the
meeting.  He came into the room; the baroness was alone.  She
greeted him kindly, and welcomed him.  Rose came in soon after and
did the same.  But no Josephine.  Camille felt sick at heart.  At
last dinner was announced; "She will surely join us at dinner,"
thought he.  He cast his eyes anxiously on the table; the napkins
were laid for four only.  The baroness carelessly explained this to
him as they sat down.  "Madame Raynal dines in her own room.  I am
sorry to say she is indisposed."

Camille muttered polite regrets: the rage of disappointment drove
its fangs into him, and then came the heart-sickness of hope
deferred.  The next day he saw her, but could not get a word with
her alone.  The baroness tortured him another way.  She was full of
Raynal.  She loved him.  She called him her son; was never weary of
descanting on his virtues to Camille.  Not a day passed that she did
not pester Camille to make a calculation as to the probable period
of his return, and he was obliged to answer her.  She related to him
before Josephine and Rose, how this honest soldier had come to them
like a guardian angel and saved the whole family.  In vain he
muttered that Rose had told him.

"Let me have the pleasure of telling it you my way," cried she, and
told it diffusely, and kept him writhing.

The next thing was, Josephine had received no letter from him this
month; the first month he had missed.  In vain did Rose represent
that he was only a few days over his time.  The baroness became
anxious, communicated her anxieties to Camille among the rest; and,
by a torturing interrogatory, compelled him to explain to her before
Josephine and them all, that ships do not always sail to a day, and
are sometimes delayed.  But oh! he winced at the man's name; and
Rose observed that he never mentioned it, nor acknowledged the
existence of such a person as Josephine's husband, except when
others compelled him.  Yet they were acquainted; and Rose sometimes
wondered that he did not detract or sneer.

"I should," said she; "I feel I should."

"He is too noble," said Josephine, "and too wise.  For, if he did, I
should respect him less, and my husband more than I do--if
possible."

Certainly Camille was not the sort of nature that detracts, but the
reason he avoided Raynal's name was simply that his whole internal
battle was to forget such a man existed.  From this dream he was
rudely awakened every hour since he joined the family, and the wound
his self-deceiving heart would fain have skinned over, was torn
open.  But worse than this was the torture of being tantalized.  He
was in company with Josephine, but never alone.  Even if she left
the room for an instant, Rose accompanied her and returned with her.
Camille at last began to comprehend that Josephine had decided there
should be no private interviews between her and him.  Thus, not only
the shadow of the absent Raynal stood between them, but her mother
and sister in person, and worst of all, her own will.  He called her
a cold-blooded fiend in his rage.  Then the thought of all her
tenderness and goodness came to rebuke him.  But even in rebuking it
maddened him.  "Yes, it is her very nature to love; but since she
can make her heart turn whichever way her honor bids, she will love
her husband; she does not now; but sooner or later she will.  Then
she will have children--(he writhed with anguish and fury at this
thought)--loving ties between him and her.  He has everything on his
side.  I, nothing but memories she will efface from her heart.  Will
efface?  She must have effaced them, or she could not have married
him."  I know no more pitiable state of mind than to love and hate
the same creature.  But when the two feelings are both intense, and
meet in an ardent bosom, such a man would do well to spend a day or
two upon his knees, praying for grace divine.  For he who with all
his soul loves and hates one woman is next door to a maniac, and is
scarcely safe an hour together from suicide or even from homicide;
this truth the newspapers tell us, by examples, every month; but are
wonderfully little heeded, because newspapers do not, nor is it
their business to, analyze and dwell upon the internal feelings of
the despairing lover, whose mad and bloody act they record.  With
such a tempest in his heart did Camille one day wander into the
park.  And soon an irresistible attraction drew him to the side of
the stream that flowed along one side of it.  He eyed it gloomily,
and wherever the stagnant water indicated a deeper pool than usual
he stopped, and looked, and thought, "How calm and peaceful you
are!"

He sat down at last by the water-side, his eyes bent on a calm,
green pool.

It looked very peaceful; and it could give peace.  He thought, oh!
what a blessing; to be quit of rage, jealousy, despair, and life,
all in a minute!

Yet that was a sordid death for a soldier to die, who had seen great
battles.  Could he not die more nobly than that?  With this he
suddenly felt in his pocket; and there sure enough fate had placed
his pistols.  He had put them into this coat; and he had not worn
this coat until to-day.  He had armed himself unconsciously.  "Ah!"
said he; "it is to be; all these things are preordained."  (This
notion of fate has strengthened many a fatal resolution.)  Then he
had a cruel regret.  To die without a word; a parting word.  Then he
thought to himself, it was best so; for perhaps he should have taken
her with him.

"Sir! colonel!" uttered a solemn voice behind him.

Absorbed and strung up to desperation as he was, this voice seemed
unnaturally loud, and discordant with Camille's mood; a sudden
trumpet from the world of small things.

It was Picard, the notary.

"Can you tell me where Madame Raynal is?"

"No.  At the chateau, I suppose."

"She is not there; I inquired of the servant.  She was out.  You
have not seen her, colonel?"

"Not I; I never see her."

"Then perhaps I had better go back to the chateau and wait for her:
stay, are you a friend of the family?  Colonel, suppose I were to
tell you, and ask you to break it to Madame Raynal, or, better
still, to the baroness, or Mademoiselle Rose."

"Monsieur," said Camille coldly, "charge me with no messages, for I
cannot deliver them.  I AM GOING ANOTHER WAY."

"In that case, I will go to the chateau once more; for what I have
to say must be heard."

Picard returned to the chateau wondering at the colonel's strange
manner.

Camille, for his part, wondered that any one could be so mad as to
talk to him about trifles; to him, a man standing on the brink of
eternity.  Poor soul, it was he who was mad and unlucky.  He should
have heard what Picard had to say.  The very gentleness and
solemnity of manner ought to have excited his curiosity.

He watched Picard's retiring form.  When he was out of sight, then
he turned round and resumed his thoughts as if Picard had been no
more than a fly that had buzzed and then gone.

"Yes, I should have taken her with me," he said.  He sat gloomy and
dogged like a dangerous maniac in his cell; never moved, scarce
thought for more than half an hour; but his deadly purpose grew in
him.  Suddenly he started.  A lady was at the style, about a hundred
yards distant.  He trembled.  It was Josephine.

She came towards him slowly, her eyes bent on the ground in a deep
reverie.  She stopped about a stone's throw from him, and looked at
the river long and thoughtfully; then casting her eye around, she
caught sight of Camille.  He watched her grimly.  He saw her give a
little start, and half turn round; but if this was an impulse to
retreat, it was instantly suppressed; for the next moment she
pursued her way.

Camille stood gloomy and bitter, awaiting her in silence.  He
planted himself in the middle of the path, and said not a word.

She looked him all over, and her color came and went.

"Out so far as this," she said kindly; "and without your cap."

He put his hand to his head, and discovered that he was bareheaded.

"You will catch your death of cold.  Come, let us go in and get your
cap."

She made as if she would pass him.  He planted himself right before
her.

"No."

"Camille!"

"Why do you shun me as if I was a viper?"

"I do not shun you.  I but avoid conferences that can lead to no
good; it is my duty."

"You are very wise; cold-hearted people can be wise."

"Am I cold-hearted, Camille?"

"As marble."

She looked him in the face; the water came into her eyes; after
awhile she whispered, sorrowfully, "Well, Camille, I am."

"But with all your wisdom and all your coldness," he went on to say,
"you have made a mistake; you have driven me to madness and
despair."

"Heaven forbid!" said she.

"Your prayer comes too late; you have done it."

"Camille, let me go to the oratory, and pray for you.  You terrify
me."

"It is no use.  Heaven has no mercy for me.  Take my advice; stay
where you are; don't hurry; for what remains of your life you gave
to pass with me, do you understand that?"

"Ah!"  And she turned pale.

"Can you read my riddle?"

She looked him in the face.  "I can read your eyes, and I know you
love me.  I think you mean to kill me.  I have heard men kill the
thing they love."

"Of course they do; sooner than another should have it, they kill
it--they kill it."

"God has not made them patient like us women.  Poor Camille!"

"Patience dies when hope dies.  Come, Madame Raynal, say a prayer,
for you are going to die."

"God bless you, Camille!" said the poor girl, putting her hands
together in her last prayer.  At this sweet touch of affection,
Camille hung his head, and sobbed.  Then suddenly lashing himself
into fury, he cried,--

"You are my betrothed! you talk of duty; but you forget your duty to
me.  Are you not my betrothed this four years?  Answer me that."

"Yes, Camille, I was."

"Did I not suffer death a hundred times for you, to keep faith with
you, you cold-blooded traitress with an angel's face?"

"Ah, Camille! can you speak so bitterly to me?  Have I denied your
right to kill me?  You shall never dishonor me, but you shall kill
me, if it is your pleasure.  I do not resist.  Why, then, speak to
me like that; must the last words I hear from your mouth be words of
anger, cruel Camille?"

"I was wrong.  But it is so hard to kill her I love in cold blood.
I want anger as well as despair to keep me to it.  Come, turn your
head away from me, and all our troubles shall end."

"No, Camille, let me look at you.  Then you will be the last thing I
shall see on earth."

At this he hesitated a moment; then, with a fierce stamp at what he
thought was weakness, he levelled a pistol at her.

She put up her hands with a piteous cry, "Oh! not my face, Camille!
pray do not disfigure my face.  Here--kill me here--in my bosom--my
heart that loved you well, when it was no sin to love you."

"I can't shoot you.  I can't spill your blood.  The river will end
all, and not disfigure your beauty, that has driven me mad, and cost
you, poor wretch, your life."

"Thank you, dear Camille.  The water does not frighten me as a
pistol does; it will not hurt me; it will only kill me."

"No, it is but a plunge, and you will be at peace forever; and so
shall I.  Come, take my hand, Madame Raynal, Madame Raynal."

She gave him her hand with a look of infinite love.  She only said,
"My poor mother!"  That word did not fall to the ground.  It flashed
like lightning at night across the demented lover, and lighted up
his egotism (suicide, like homicide, is generally a fit of maniacal
egotism), even to his eyes blinded by fury.

"Wretch that I am," he shrieked.  "Fly, Josephine, fly! escape this
moment, that my better angel whispers to me.  Do you hear? begone,
while it is time."

"I will not leave you, Camille."

"I say you shall.  Go to your mother and Rose; go to those you love,
and I can pity; go to the chapel and thank Heaven for your escape."

"Yes, but not without you, Camille.  I am afraid to leave you."

"You have more to fear if you stay.  Well, I can't wait any longer.
Stay, then, and live; and learn from me how to love Jean Raynal."

He levelled the pistol at himself.

Josephine threw herself on him with a cry, and seized his arm.  With
the strength excitement lent her she got the better, and all but
overpowered him.  But, as usual, the man's strength lasted longer,
and with a sustained effort he threw her off; then, pale and
panting, raised the pistol to take his life.  This time she moved
neither hand nor foot; but she palsied his rash hand with a word.

"No; I LOVE YOU."


CHAPTER XIII.


There lie the dead corpses of those words on paper; but my art is
powerless to tell you how they were uttered, those words, potent as
a king's, for they saved a life.

They were a cry of terror and a cry of reproach and a cry of love
unfathomable.

The weapon shook in his hand.  He looked at her with growing
astonishment and joy; she at him fixedly and anxiously, her hands
clasped in supplication.

"As you used to love me?"

"More, far more.  Give me the pistol.  I love you, dearest.  I love
you."

At these delicious words he lost all power of resistance, she saw;
and her soft and supple hand stole in and closed upon his, and
gently withdrew the weapon, and threw it into the water.  "Good
Camille! now give me the other."

"How do you know there is another?"

"I know you are not the man to kill a woman and spare yourself.
Come."

"Josephine, have pity on me, do not deceive me; pray do not take
this, my only friend, from me, unless you really love me."

"I love you; I adore you," was her reply.

She leaned her head on his shoulder, but with her hand she sought
his, and even as she uttered those loving words she coaxed the
weapon from his now unresisting grasp.

"There, it is gone; you are saved from death--saved from crime."
And with that, the danger was over, she trembled for the first time,
and fell to sobbing hysterically.

He threw himself at her knees, and embraced them again and again,
and begged her forgiveness in a transport of remorse and self-
reproach.

She looked down with tender pity on him, and heard his cries of
penitence and shame.

"Rise, Camille, and go home with me," said she faintly.

"Yes, Josephine."

They went slowly and in silence.  Camille was too ashamed and
penitent to speak; too full of terror too at the abyss of crime from
which he had been saved.  The ancients feigned that a virgin could
subdue a lion; perhaps they meant that a pure gentle nature can
subdue a nature fierce but generous.  Lion-like Camille walked by
Josephine's side with his eyes bent on the ground, the picture of
humility and penitence.

"This is the last walk you and I shall take together," said
Josephine solemnly.

"I know it," said he humbly.  "I have forfeited all right to be by
your side."

"My poor, lost love," sighed Josephine, "will you never understand
me?  You never stood higher in my esteem than at this moment.  It is
the avowal you have forced from ME that parts us.  The man to whom I
have said 'I'--must not remain beneath my husband's roof.  Does not
your sense of honor agree with mine?"

"It does," faltered he.

"To-morrow you must leave the chateau."

"I will obey you."

"What, you do not resist, you do not break my heart by complaints,
by reproaches?"

"No, Josephine, all is changed.  I thought you unfeeling: I thought
you were going to be HAPPY with him; that was what maddened me."

"I pray daily YOU may be happy, no matter how.  But you and I are
not alike, dear as we are to one another.  Well, do not fear: I
shall never be happy--will that soothe you, Camille?"

"Yes, Josephine, all is changed; the words you have spoken have
driven the fiends out of my heart.  I have nothing to do now but to
obey, you to command: it is your right.  Since you love me a little
still, dispose of me.  Bid me live: bid me die: bid me stay: bid me
go.  I shall never disobey the angel who loves me, my only friend
upon the earth."

A single deep sob from Josephine was all the answer.

Then he could not help asking her why she had not trusted him?

"Why did you not say to me long ago, 'I love you, but I am a wife;
my husband is an honest soldier, absent, and fighting for France: I
am the guardian of his honor and my own; be just, be generous, be
self-denying; depart and love me only as angels love'?  Perhaps this
might have helped me to show you that I too am a man of honor."

"Perhaps I was wrong," sighed Josephine.  "I think I should have
trusted more to you.  But then, who would have thought you could
really doubt my love?  You were ill; I could not bear you to go till
you were well, quite well.  I saw no other way to keep you but this,
to treat you with feigned coldness.  You saw the coldness, but not
what it cost me to maintain it.  Yes, I was unjust; and inconsiderate,
for I had many furtive joys to sustain me: I had you in my house
under my care--that thought was always sweet--I had a hand in
everything that was for your good, for your comfort.  I helped
Jacintha make your soup and your chocolate every day.  I had the
delight of lining the dressing-gown you were to wear.  I had always
some little thing or other to do for you.  These kept me up: I forgot
in my selfishness that you had none of these supports, and that I
was driving you to despair.  I am a foolish, disingenuous woman:
I have been very culpable.  Forgive me!"

"Forgive you, angel of purity and goodness?  I alone am to blame.
What right had I to doubt your heart?  I knew the whole story of
your marriage; I saw your sweet pale face; but I was not pure enough
to comprehend angelic virtue and unselfishness.  Well, I am brought
to my senses.  There is but one thing for me to do--you bade me
leave you to-morrow."

"I was very cruel."

"No! not cruel, wise.  But I will be wiser.  I shall go to-night."

"To-night, Camille?" said Josephine, turning pale.

"Ay! for to-night I am strong; to-morrow I may be weak.  To-night
everything thrusts me on the right path.  To-morrow everything will
draw me from it.  Do not cry, beloved one; you and I have a hard
fight.  We must be true allies; whenever one is weak, then is the
time for the other to be strong.  I have been weaker than you, to my
shame be it said; but this is my hour of strength.  A light from
heaven shows me my path.  I am full of passion, but like you I have
honor.  You are Raynal's wife, and--Raynal saved my life."

"Ah! is it possible?  When? where? may Heaven bless him for it!"

"Ask HIM; and say I told you of it--I have not strength to tell it
you, but I will go to-night."

Then Josephine, who had resisted till all her strength was gone,
whispered with a blush that it was too late to get a conveyance.

"I need none to carry my sword, my epaulets, and my love for you.  I
shall go on foot."

Josephine said nothing, but she began to walk slower and slower.
And so the unfortunate pair came along creeping slowly with drooping
heads towards the gate of the Pleasaunce.  There their last walk in
this world must end.  Many a man and woman have gone to the scaffold
with hearts less heavy and more hopeful than theirs.

"Dry your eyes, Josephine," said Camille with a deep sigh.  "They
are all out on the Pleasaunce."

"No, I will not dry my eyes," cried Josephine, almost violently.  "I
care for nothing now."

The baroness, the doctor, and Rose, were all in the Pleasaunce: and
as the pair came in, lo! every eye was bent on Josephine.

She felt this, and her eyes sought the ground: benumbed as she was
with despondency, she began now to dread some fresh stroke or other.

Camille felt doubly guilty and confused.  How they all look at us,
he thought.  Do they know what a villain I have been?  He determined
to slip away, and pack up, and begone.  However, nobody took any
notice of him.  The baroness drew Josephine apart.  And Rose
followed her mother and sister with eyes bent on the ground.

There was a strange solemnity about them all.

Aubertin remained behind.  But even he took no notice of Camille,
but walked up and down with his hands behind him, and a sad and
troubled face.  Camille felt his utter desolation.  He was nothing
to any of them.  He resolved to go at once, and charge Aubertin with
his last adieus to the family.  It was a wise and manly resolve.  He
stopped Aubertin in the middle of his walk, and said in a faint
voice of the deepest dejection,--

"Doctor, the time is come that I must once more thank you for all
your goodness to me, and bid you all farewell."

"What, going before your strength is re-established?" said the
doctor politely, but not warmly.

"I am out of all danger, thanks to your skill."

"Colonel, at another time I should insist upon your staying a day or
two longer; but now I think it would be unadvisable to press you to
stay.  Ah, colonel, you came to a happy house, but you leave a sad
one.  Poor Madame Raynal!"

"Sir!"

"You saw the baroness draw her aside."

"Y-yes."

"By this time she knows it."

"In Heaven's name what do you mean?" asked Camille.

"I forgot; you are not aware of the calamity that has fallen upon
our beloved Josephine; on the darling of the house."

Camille turned cold with vague apprehension.  But he contrived to
stammer out, "No; tell me! for Heaven's sake tell me."

The doctor thus pressed revealed all in a very few words.  "My poor
friend," said he solemnly, "her husband--is dead."


CHAPTER XIV.


The baroness, as I have said, drew Josephine aside, and tried to
break to her the sad news: but her own grief overcame her, and
bursting into tears she bewailed the loss of her son.  Josephine was
greatly shocked.  Death!--Raynal dead--her true, kind friend dead--
her benefactor dead.  She clung to her mother's neck, and sobbed
with her.  Presently she withdrew her face and suddenly hid it in
both her hands.

She rose and kissed her mother once more: and went to her own room:
and then, though there was none to see her, she hid her wet, but
burning, cheeks in her hands.

Josephine confined herself for some days to her own room, leaving it
only to go to the chapel in the park, where she spent hours in
prayers for the dead and in self-humiliation.  Her "tender
conscience" accused herself bitterly for not having loved this
gallant spirit more than she had.

Camille realized nothing at first; he looked all confused in the
doctor's face, and was silent.  Then after awhile he said, "Dead?
Raynal dead?"

"Killed in action."

A red flush came to Camille's face, and his eyes went down to the
ground at his very feet, nor did he once raise them while the doctor
told him how the sad news had come.  "Picard the notary brought us
the Moniteur, and there was Commandant Raynal among the killed in a
cavalry skirmish."  With this, he took the journal from his pocket,
and Camille read it, with awe-struck, and other feelings he would
have been sorry to see analyzed.  He said not a word; and lowered
his eyes to the ground.

"And now," said Aubertin, "you will excuse me.  I must go to my poor
friend the baroness.  She had a mother's love for him who is no
more: well she might."

Aubertin went away, and left Dujardin standing there like a statue,
his eyes still glued to the ground at his feet.

The doctor was no sooner out of sight, than Camille raised his eyes
furtively, like a guilty person, and looked irresolutely this way
and that: at last he turned and went back to the place where he had
meditated suicide and murder; looked down at it a long while, then
looked up to heaven--then fell suddenly on his knees: and so
remained till night-fall.  Then he came back to the chateau.

He whispered to himself, "And I am afraid it is too late to go away
to-night."  He went softly into the saloon.  Nobody was there but
Rose and Aubertin.  At sight of him Rose got up and left the room.
But I suppose she went to Josephine; for she returned in a few
minutes, and rang the bell, and ordered some supper to be brought up
for Colonel Dujardin.

"You have not dined, I hear," said she, very coldly.

"I was afraid you were gone altogether," said the doctor: then
turning to Rose, "He told me he was going this evening.  You had
better stay quiet another day or two," added he, kindly.

"Do you think so?" said Camille, timidly.

He stayed upon these terms.  And now he began to examine himself.
"Did I wish him dead?  I hope I never formed such a thought!  I
don't remember ever wishing him dead."  And he went twice a day to
that place by the stream, and thought very solemnly what a terrible
thing ungoverned passion is; and repented--not eloquently, but
silently, sincerely.

But soon his impatient spirit began to torment itself again.  Why
did Josephine shun him now?  Ah! she loved Raynal now that he was
dead.  Women love the thing they have lost; so he had heard say.  In
that case, the very sight of him would of course be odious to her:
he could understand that.  The absolute, unreasoning faith he once
had in her had been so rudely shaken by her marriage with Raynal,
that now he could only believe just so much as he saw, and he saw
that she shunned him.

He became moody, sad, and disconsolate: and as Josephine shunned
him, so he avoided all the others, and wandered for hours by
himself, perplexed and miserable.  After awhile, he became conscious
that he was under a sort of surveillance.  Rose de Beaurepaire, who
had been so kind to him when he was confined to his own room, but
had taken little notice of him since he came down, now resumed her
care of him, and evidently made it her business to keep up his
heart.  She used to meet him out walking in a mysterious way, and in
short, be always falling in with him and trying to cheer him up:
with tolerable success.

Such was the state of affairs when the party was swelled and matters
complicated by the arrival of one we have lost sight of.

Edouard Riviere retarded his cure by an impatient spirit: but he got
well at last, and his uncle drove him in the cabriolet to his own
quarters.  The news of the house had been told him by letter, but,
of course, in so vague and general a way that, thinking he knew all,
in reality he knew nothing.

Josephine had married Raynal.  The marriage was sudden, but no doubt
there was an attachment: he had some reason to believe in sudden
attachments.  Colonel Dujardin, an old acquaintance, had come back
to France wounded, and the good doctor had undertaken his cure: this
incident appeared neither strange nor any way important.  What
affected him most deeply was the death of Raynal, his personal
friend and patron.  But when his tyrants, as he called the surgeon
and his uncle, gave him leave to go home, all feelings were
overpowered by his great joy at the prospect of seeing Rose.  He
walked over to Beaurepaire, his arm in a sling, his heart beating.
He was coming to receive the reward of all he had done, and all he
had attempted.  "I will surprise them," thought he.  "I will see her
face when I come in at the door: oh, happy hour! this pays for all."
He entered the house without announcing himself; he went softly up
to the saloon; to his great disappointment he found no one but the
baroness: she received him kindly, but not with the warmth he
expected.  She was absorbed in her new grief.  He asked timidly
after her daughters.  "Madame Raynal bears up, for the sake of
others.  You will not, however, see her: she keeps her room.  My
daughter Rose is taking a walk, I believe."  After some polite
inquiries, and sympathy with his accident, the baroness retired to
indulge her grief, and Edouard thus liberated ran in search of his
beloved.

He met her at the gate of the Pleasaunce, but not alone.  She was
walking with an officer, a handsome, commanding, haughty, brilliant
officer.  She was walking by his side, talking earnestly to him.

An arrow of ice shot through young Riviere; and then came a feeling
of death at his heart, a new symptom in his young life.

The next moment Rose caught sight of him.  She flushed all over and
uttered a little exclamation, and she bounded towards him like a
little antelope, and put out both her hands at once.  He could only
give her one.

"Ah!" she cried with an accent of heavenly pity, and took his hand
with both hers.

This was like the meridian sun coming suddenly on a cold place.  He
was all happiness.

When Josephine heard he was come her eye flashed, and she said
quickly, "I will come down to welcome him--dear Edouard!"

The sisters looked at one another.  Josephine blushed.  Rose smiled
and kissed her.  She colored higher still, and said, "No, she was
ashamed to go down."

"Why?"

"Look at my face."

"I see nothing wrong with it, except that it eclipses other
people's, and I have long forgiven you that."

"Oh, yes, dear Rose: look what a color it has, and a fortnight ago
it was pale as ashes."

"Never mind; do you expect me to regret that?"

"Rose, I am a very bad woman."

"Are you, dear? then hook this for me."

"Yes, love.  But I sometimes think you would forgive me if you knew
how hard I pray to be better.  Rose, I do try so to be as unhappy as
I ought; but I can't, I can't.  My cold heart seems as dead to
unhappiness as once it was to happiness.  Am I a heartless woman
after all?"

"Not altogether," said Rose dryly.  "Fasten my collar, dear, and
don't torment yourself.  You have suffered much and nobly.  It was
Heaven's will: you bowed to it.  It was not Heaven's will that you
should be blighted altogether.  Bow in this, too, to Heaven's will:
take things as they come, and do cease to try and reconcile feelings
that are too opposite to live together."

"Ah! these are such comfortable words, Rose; but mamma will see this
dreadful color in my cheek, and what can I say to her?"

"Ten to one it will not be observed; and if it should, I will say it
is the excitement of seeing Edouard.  Leave all to me."

Josephine greeted Edouard most affectionately, drew from him his
whole history, and petted him and sympathized with him deliciously,
and made him the hero of the evening.  Camille, who was not
naturally of a jealous temper, bore this very well at first, but at
last he looked so bitter at her neglect of him, that Rose took him
aside to soothe him.  Edouard, missing the auditor he most valued,
and seeing her in secret conference with the brilliant colonel, felt
a return of the jealous pangs that had seized him at first sight of
the man; and so they played at cross purposes.

At another period of the evening the conversation became more
general; and Edouard took a dislike to Colonel Dujardin.  A young
man of twenty-eight nearly always looks on a boy of twenty-one with
the air of a superior, and this assumption, not being an ill-natured
one, is apt to be so easy and so undefined that the younger hardly
knows how to resent or to resist it.  But Edouard was a little vain
as we know; and the Colonel jarred him terribly.  His quick haughty
eye jarred him.  His regimentals jarred him: they fitted like a
glove.  His mustache and his manner jarred him, and, worst of all,
his cool familiarity with Rose, who seemed to court him rather than
be courted by him.  He put this act of Rose's to the colonel's
account, according to the custom of lovers, and revenged himself in
a small way by telling Josephine in her ear "that the colonel
produced on his mind the effect of an intolerable puppy."

Josephine colored up and looked at him with a momentary surprise.
She said quietly, "Military men do give themselves some airs, but he
is very amiable at bottom.  You must make a better acquaintance with
him, and then he will reveal to you his nobler qualities."--"Oh! I
have no particular desire," sneered unlucky Edouard.  Sweet as
Josephine was, this was too much for her: she said nothing; but she
quietly turned Edouard over to Aubertin, and joined Rose, and under
cover of her had a sweet timid chat with her falsely accused.

This occupied the two so entirely that Edouard was neglected.  This
hurt his foible, and seemed to be so unkind on the very first day of
his return that he made his adieus to the baroness, and marched off
in dudgeon unobserved.

Rose missed him first, but said nothing.

When Josephine saw he was gone, she uttered a little exclamation,
and looked at Rose.  Rose put on a mien of haughty indifference, but
the water was in her eyes.

Josephine looked sorrowful.

When they talked over everything together at night, she reproached
herself.  "We behaved ill to poor Edouard: we neglected him."

"He is a little cross, ill-tempered fellow," said Rose pettishly.

"Oh, no! no!"

"And as vain as a peacock."

"Has he not some right to be vain in this house?"

"Yes,--no.  I am very angry with him.  I won't hear a word in his
favor," said Rose pouting: then she gave his defender a kiss.  "Yes,
dear," said Josephine, answering the kiss, and ignoring the words,
"he is a dear; and he is not cross, nor so very vain, poor boy! now
don't you see what it was?"

"No."

"Yes, you do, you little cunning thing: you are too shrewd not to
see everything."

"No, indeed, Josephine; do tell me, don't keep me waiting: I can't
bear that."

"Well, then--jealous!  A little."

"Jealous?  Oh, what fun!  Of Camille?  Ha! ha!  Little goose!"

"And," said Josephine very seriously, "I almost think he would be
jealous of any one that occupied your attention.  I watched him more
or less all the evening."

"All the better.  I'll torment my lord."

"Heaven forbid you should be so cruel."

"Oh! I will not make him unhappy, but I'll tease him a little; it is
not in nature to abstain."

This foible detected in her lover, Rose was very gay at the prospect
of amusement it afforded her.

And I think I have many readers who at this moment are awaiting
unmixed enjoyment and hilarity from the same source.

I wish them joy of their prospect.

Edouard called the next day: he wore a gloomy air.  Rose met this
with a particularly cheerful one; on this, Edouard's face cleared
up, and he was himself again; agreeable as this was, Rose felt a
little disappointed.  "I am afraid he is not very jealous after
all," thought she.

Josephine left her room this day and mingled once more with the
family.  The bare sight of her was enough for Camille at first, but
after awhile he wanted more.  He wanted to be often alone with her;
but several causes co-operated to make her shy of giving him many
such opportunities: first, her natural delicacy, coupled with her
habit of self-denial; then her fear of shocking her mother, and
lastly her fear of her own heart, and of Camille, whose power over
her she knew.  For Camille, when he did get a sweet word alone with
her, seemed to forget everything except that she was his betrothed,
and that he had come back alive to marry her.  He spoke to her of
his love with an ardor and an urgency that made her thrill with
happiness, but at the same time shrink with a certain fear and self-
reproach.  Possessed with a feeling no stronger than hers, but
single, he did not comprehend the tumult, the trouble, the daily
contest in her heart.  The wind seemed to him to be always changing,
and hot and cold the same hour.  Since he did not even see that she
was acting in hourly fear of her mother's eye, he was little likely
to penetrate her more hidden sentiments; and then he had not touched
her key-note,--self-denial.

Women are self-denying and uncandid.  Men are self-indulgent and
outspoken.

And this is the key to a thousand double misunderstandings; for
believe me, good women are just as stupid in misunderstanding men as
honest men are in misunderstanding women.

To Camille, Josephine's fluctuations, joys, tremors, love, terror,
modesty, seemed one grand total, caprice.  The component parts of it
he saw not; and her caprice tortured him almost to madness.  Too
penitent to give way again to violent passion, he gently fretted.
His health retrograded and his temper began to sour.  The eye of
timid love that watched him with maternal anxiety from under its
long lashes saw this with dismay, and Rose, who looked into her
sister's bosom, devoted herself once more to soothe him without
compromising Josephine's delicacy.  Matters were not so bad but what
a fine sprightly girl like Rose could cheer up a dejected but manly
colonel; and Rose was generally successful.

But then, unfortunately, this led to a fresh mystification.
Riviere's natural jealousy revived, and found constant food in the
attention Rose paid Camille, a brilliant colonel living in the house
while he, poor wretch, lived in lodgings.  The false position of all
the parties brought about some singular turns.  I give from their
number one that forms a link, though a small one, in my narrative.

One day Edouard came to tell Rose she was making him unhappy; he had
her alone in the Pleasaunce; she received him with a radiant smile,
and they had a charming talk,--a talk all about HIM: what the family
owed him, etc.

On this, his late jealousy and sense of injury seemed a thing of
three years ago, and never to return.  So hard it is for the loving
heart to resist its sun.

Jacintha came with a message from the colonel: "Would it be
agreeable to Mademoiselle Rose to walk with him at the usual hour?"

"Certainly," said Rose.

As Jacintha was retiring Edouard called to her to stop a minute.

Then, turning to Rose, he begged her very ceremoniously to
reconsider that determination.

"What determination?"

"To sacrifice me to this Colonel Dujardin."  Still politely, only a
little grimly.

Rose opened her eyes.  "Are you mad?" inquired she with quiet
hauteur.

"Neither mad nor a fool," was the reply.  "I love you too well to
share your regard with any one, upon any terms; least of all upon
these, that there is to be a man in the world at whose beck and call
you are to be, and at whose orders you are to break off an interview
with me.  Perdition!"

"Dear Edouard, what folly!  Can you suspect me of discourtesy, as
well as of--I know not what.  Colonel Dujardin will join us, that is
all, and we shall take a little walk with him."

"Not I.  I decline the intrusion; you are engaged with me, and I
have things to say to you that are not fit for that puppy to hear.
So choose between me and him, and choose forever."

Rose colored.  "I should be very sorry to choose either of you
forever; but for this afternoon I choose you."

"Oh, thank you--my whole life shall prove my gratitude for this
preference."

Rose beckoned Jacintha, and sent her with an excuse to Colonel
Dujardin.  She then turned with an air of mock submission to
Edouard.  "I am at monsieur's ORDERS."

Then this unhappy novice, being naturally good-natured, thanked her
again and again for her condescension in setting his heart at rest.
He proposed a walk, since his interference had lost her one.  She
yielded a cold assent.  This vexed him, but he took it for granted
it would wear off before the end of the walk.  Edouard's heart
bounded, but he loved her too sincerely to be happy unless he could
see her happy too; the malicious thing saw this, or perhaps knew it
by instinct, and by means of this good feeling of his she revenged
herself for his tyranny.  She tortured him as only a woman can
torture, and as even she can torture only a worthy man, and one who
loves her.  In the course of that short walk this inexperienced
girl, strong in the instincts and inborn arts of her sex, drove pins
and needles, needles and pins, of all sorts and sizes, through her
lover's heart.

She was everything by turns, except kind, and nothing for long
together.  She was peevish, she was ostentatiously patient and
submissive, she was inattentive to her companion and seemingly
wrapped up in contemplation of absent things and persons, the
colonel to wit; she was dogged, repulsive, and cold; and she never
was herself a single moment.  They returned to the gate of the
Pleasaunce.  "Well, mademoiselle," said Riviere very sadly, "that
interloper might as well have been with us."

"Of course he might, and you would have lost nothing by permitting
me to be courteous to a guest and an invalid.  If you had not played
the tyrant, and taken the matter into your own hands, I should have
found means to soothe your jeal--I mean your vanity; but you
preferred to have your own way.  Well, you have had it."

"Yes, mademoiselle, you have given me a lesson; you have shown me
how idle it is to attempt to force a young lady's inclinations in
anything."

He bade her good-day, and went away sorrowful.

She cut Camille dead for the rest of the day.

Next morning, early, Edouard called expressly to see her.
"Mademoiselle Rose," said he, humbly, "I called to apologize for the
ungentlemanly tone of my remonstrances yesterday."

"Fiddle-dee," said Rose.  "Don't do it again; that is the best
apology."

"I am not likely to offend so again," said he sadly.  "I am going
away.  I am sorry to say I am promoted; my new post is ten leagues.
HE WILL HAVE IT ALL HIS OWN WAY NOW.  But perhaps it is best.  Were
I to stay here, I foresee you would soon lose whatever friendly
feeling you have for me."

"Am I so changeable?  I am not considered so," remonstrated Rose,
gently.

Riviere explained; "I am not vain," said he, with that self-
knowledge which is so general an attribute of human beings; "no man
less so, nor am I jealous; but I respect myself, and I could never
be content to share your time and your regard with Colonel Dujardin,
nor with a much better man.  See now; he has made me arrogant.  Was
I ever so before?"

"No! no! no! and I forgive you now, my poor Edouard."

"He has made you cold as ice to me."

"No! that was my own wickedness and spitefulness."

"Wickedness, spitefulness! they are not in your nature.  It is all
that wretch's doing."

Rose sighed, but she said nothing; for she saw that to excuse
Camille would only make the jealous one more bitter against him.

"Will you deign to write to me at my new post? once a month? in
answer to my letters?"

"Yes, dear.  But you will ride over sometimes to see us."

"Oh, yes; but for some little time I shall not be able.  The duties
of a new post."

"Perhaps in a month--a fortnight?"

"Sooner perhaps; the moment I hear that man is out of the house."

Edouard went away, dogged and sad; Rose shut herself up in her
room and had a good cry.  In the afternoon Josephine came and
remonstrated with her.  "You have not walked with him at all to-day."

"No; you must pet him yourself for once.  I hate the sight of him;
it has made mischief between Edouard and me, my being so attentive
to him.  Edouard is jealous, and I cannot wonder.  After all, what
right have I to mystify him who honors me with his affection?"

Then, being pressed with questions by Josephine, she related to her
all that had passed between Edouard and her, word for word.

"Poor Camille!" sighed Josephine the just.

"Oh, dear, yes! poor Camille! who has the power to make us all
miserable, and who does it, and will go on doing it until he is
happy himself."

"Ah! would to Heaven I could make him as happy as he deserves to
be."

"You could easily make him much happier than that.  And why not do
it?"

"O Rose," said Josephine, shocked, "how can you advise me so?"

She then asked her if she thought it possible that Camille could be
ignorant of her heart.

"Josephine," replied Rose, angrily, "these men are absurd: they
believe only what they see.  I have done what I can for you and
Camille, but it is useless.  Would you have him believe you love
him, you must yourself be kind to him; and it would be a charitable
action: you would make four unhappy people happy, or, at least, put
them on the road; NOW they are off the road, and, by what I have
seen to-day, I think, if we go on so much longer, it will be too
late to try to return.  Come, Josephine, for my sake!  Let me go and
tell him you will consent--to all our happinesses.  There, the crime
is mine."  And she ran off in spite of Josephine's faint and
hypocritical entreaties.  She returns the next minute looking all
aghast.  "It is too late," said she.  "He is going away.  I am sure
he is, for he is packing up his things to go.  I spied through the
old place and saw him.  He was sighing like a furnace as he strapped
his portmanteau.  I hate him, of course, but I was sorry for him.  I
could not help being.  He sighed so all the time, piteously."

Josephine turned pale, and lifted her hands in surprise and dismay.

"Depend on it, Josephine, we are wrong," said Rose, firmly: "these
wretches will not stand our nonsense above a certain time: they are
not such fools.  We are mismanaging: one gone, the other going; both
losing faith in us."

Josephine's color returned to her cheek, and then mounted high.
Presently she smiled, a smile full of conscious power and furtive
complacency, and said quietly, "He will not go."

Rose was pleased, but not surprised, to hear her sister speak so
confidently, for she knew her power over Camille.  "That is right,"
said she, "go to him, and say two honest words: 'I bid you stay.'"

"O Rose! no!"

"Poltroon!  You know he would go down on his knees, and stay
directly."

"No: I should blush all my life before you and him.  I COULD not.  I
should let him go sooner, almost.  Oh, no!  I will never ask a man
to stay who wishes to leave me.  But just you go to him, and say
Madame Raynal is going to take a little walk: will he do her the
honor to be her companion?  Not a word more, if you love me."

"I'll go.  Hypocrite!"


Josephine received Camille with a bright smile.  She seemed in
unusually good spirits, and overflowing with kindness and innocent
affection.  On this his high gloomy brow relaxed, and all his
prospects brightened as by magic.  Then she communicated to him a
number of little plans for next week and the week after.  Among the
rest he was to go with her and Rose to Frejus.  "Such a sweet place:
I want to show it you.  You will come?"

He hesitated a single moment: a moment of intense anxiety to the
smiling Josephine.

"Yes! he would come: it was a great temptation, he saw so little of
her."

"Well, you will see more of me now."

"Shall I see you every day--alone, I mean?"

"Oh, yes, if you wish it," replied Josephine, in an off-hand,
indifferent way.

He seized her hand and devoured it with kisses.  "Foolish thing!"
murmured she, looking down on him with ineffable tenderness.
"Should I not be always with you if I consulted my inclination?--let
me go."

"No! consult your inclination a little longer."

"Must I?"

"Yes; that shall be your punishment."

"For what?  What have I done?" asked she with an air of great
innocence.

"You have made me happy, me who adore you," was the evasive reply.

Josephine came in from her walk with a high color and beaming eyes,
and screamed, "Run, Rose!"

On this concise, and to us not very clear instruction, Rose slipped
up the secret stair.  She saw Camille come in and gravely unpack his
little portmanteau, and dispose his things in the drawers with
soldier-like neatness, and hum an agreeable march.  She came and
told Josephine.

"Ah!" said Josephine with a little sigh of pleasure, and a gentle
triumph in her eyes.

She had not only got her desire, but had arrived at it her way,--
woman's way, round about.

This adroit benevolence led to more than she bargained for.  She and
Camille were now together every day: and their hearts, being under
restraint in public, melted together all the more in their stolen
interviews.

At the third delicious interview the modest Camille begged Josephine
to be his wife directly.

Have you noticed those half tame deer that come up to you in a park
so lovingly, with great tender eyes, and, being now almost within
reach, stop short, and with bodies fixed like statues on pedestals,
crane out their graceful necks for sugar, or bread, or a chestnut,
or a pocket-handkerchief?  Do but offer to put your hand upon them,
away they bound that moment twenty yards, and then stand quite
still, and look at your hand and you, with great inquiring,
suspicious, tender eyes.

So Josephine started at Camille's audacious proposal.  "Never
mention such a thing to me again: or--or, I will not walk with you
any more:" then she thrilled with pleasure at the obnoxious idea,
"she Camille's wife!" and colored all over--with rage, Camille
thought.  He promised submissively not to renew the topic: no more
he did till next day.  Josephine had spent nearly the whole interval
in thinking of it; so she was prepared to put him down by calm
reasons.  She proceeded to do so, gently, but firmly.

Lo and behold! what does he do, but meets her with just as many
reasons, and just as calm ones: and urges them gently, but firmly.

Heaven had been very kind to them: why should they be unkind to
themselves?  They had had a great escape: why not accept the
happiness, as, being persons of honor, they had accepted the misery?
with many other arguments, differing in other things, but agreeing
in this, that they were all sober, grave, and full of common-sense.

Finding him not defenceless on the score of reason, she shifted her
ground and appealed to his delicacy.  On this he appealed to her
love, and then calm reason was jostled off the field, and passion
and sentiment battled in her place.

In these contests day by day renewed, Camille had many advantages.

Rose, though she did not like him, had now declared on his side.
She refused to show him the least attention.  This threw him on
Josephine: and when Josephine begged her to help reduce Camille to
reason, her answer would be,--

"Hypocrite!" with a kiss: or else she would say, with a half comic
petulance, "No! no!  I am on his side.  Give him his own way, or he
will make us all four miserable."

Thus Josephine's ally went over to the enemy.

And then this coy young lady's very power of resistance began to
give way.  She had now battled for months against her own heart:
first for her mother; then, in a far more terrible conflict for
Raynal, for honor and purity; and of late she had been battling,
still against her own heart, for delicacy, for etiquette, things
very dear to her, but not so great, holy, and sustaining as honor
and charity that were her very household gods: and so, just when the
motives of resistance were lowered, the length of the resistance
began to wear her out.

For nothing is so hard to her sex as a long steady struggle.  In
matters physical, this is the thing the muscles of the fair cannot
stand; in matters intellectual and moral, the long strain it is that
beats them dead.

Do not look for a Bacona, a Newtona, a Handella, a Victoria Huga.

Some American ladies tell us education has stopped the growth of
these.

No! mesdames.  These are not in nature.

They can bubble letters in ten minutes that you could no more
deliver to order in ten days than a river can play like a fountain.
They can sparkle gems of stories: they can flash little diamonds of
poems.  The entire sex has never produced one opera nor one epic
that mankind could tolerate: and why? these come by long, high-
strung labor.  But, weak as they are in the long run of everything
but the affections (and there giants), they are all overpowering
while their gallop lasts.  Fragilla shall dance any two of you flat
on the floor before four o'clock, and then dance on till the peep of
day.

Only you trundle off to your business as usual, and could dance
again the next night, and so on through countless ages.

She who danced you into nothing is in bed, a human jelly tipped with
headache.

What did Josephine say to Rose one day?  "I am tired of saying 'No!
no! no! no! no!' forever and ever to him I love."

But this was not all.  She was not free from self-reproach.
Camille's faith in her had stood firm.  Hers in him had not.  She
had wronged him, first by believing him false, then by marrying
another.  One day she asked his pardon for this.  He replied that he
had forgiven that; but would she be good enough to make him forget
it?

"I wish I could."

"You can.  Marry me: then your relation to that man will seem but a
hideous dream.  I shall be able to say, looking at you, my wife, 'I
was faithful: I suffered something for her; I came home: she loved
me still; the proof is, she was my wife within three months of my
return.'"

When he said that to her in the Pleasaunce, if there had been a
priest at hand--.  In a word, Josephine longed to show him her love,
yet wished not to shock her mother, nor offend her own sense of
delicacy; but Camille cared for nothing but his love.  To sacrifice
love and happiness, even for a time, to etiquette, seemed to him to
be trifling with the substance of great things for the shadow of
petty things; and he said so: sometimes sadly, sometimes almost
bitterly.

So Josephine was a beleagured fortress, attacked with one will, and
defended by troops, one-third of which were hot on the side of the
besiegers.

When singleness attacks division, you know the result beforehand.
Why then should I spin words?  I will not trace so ill-matched a
contest step by step, sentence by sentence: let me rather hasten to
relate the one peculiarity that arose out of this trite contest,
where, under the names of Camille and Josephine, the two great sexes
may be seen acting the whole world-wide distich,--


     "It's a man's part to try,
      And a woman's to deny [for a while?]."


Finding her own resolutions oozing away, Josephine caught at another
person.

She said to Camille before Rose,--

"Even if I could bring myself to snatch at happiness in this
indelicate way--scarce a month after, oh!"  And there ended the
lady's sentence.  In the absence of a legitimate full stop, she put
one hand before her lovely face to hide it, and so no more.  But
some two minutes after she delivered the rest in the form and with
the tone of a distinct remark, "No: my mother would never consent."

"Yes, she would if you could be brought to implore her as earnestly
as I implore you."

"Now would she?" asked Josephine, turning quickly to her sister.

"No, never.  Our mother would look with horror on such a proposal.
A daughter of hers to marry within a twelvemonth of her widowhood!"

"There, you see, Camille."

"And, besides, she loved Raynal so; she has not forgotten him as we
have, almost."

"Ungrateful creature that I am!" sighed Josephine!

"She mourns for him every day.  Often I see her eyes suddenly fill;
that is for him.  Josephine's influence with mamma is very great: it
is double mine: but if we all went on our knees to her, the doctor
and all, she would never consent."

"There you see, Camille: and I could not defy my mother, even for
you."

Camille sighed.

"I see everything is against me, even my love: for that love is too
much akin to veneration to propose to you a clandestine marriage."

"Oh, thank you! bless you for respecting as well as loving me, dear
Camille," said Josephine.

These words, uttered with gentle warmth, were some consolation to
Camille, and confirmed him, as they were intended to do, in the
above good resolution.  He smiled.

"Maladroit!" muttered Rose.

"Why maladroit?" asked Camille, opening his eyes.

"Let us talk of something else," replied Rose, coolly.

Camille turned red.  He understood that he had done something very
stupid, but he could not conceive what.  He looked from one sister
to the other alternately.  Rose was smiling ironically, Josephine
had her eyes bent demurely on a handkerchief she was embroidering.

That evening Camille drew Rose aside, and asked for an explanation
of her "maladroit."

"So it was," replied Rose, sharply.

But as this did not make the matter quite clear, Camille begged a
little further explanation.

"Was it your part to make difficulties?"

"No, indeed."

"Was it for you to tell her a secret marriage would not be delicate?
Do you think she will be behind you in delicacy? or that a love
without respect will satisfy her? yet you must go and tell her you
respected her too much to ask her to marry you secretly.  In other
words, situated as she is, you asked her not to marry you at all:
she consented to that directly; what else could you expect?"

"Maladroit! indeed," said Camille, "but I would not have said it,
only I thought"--

"You thought nothing would induce her to marry secretly, so you said
to yourself, 'I will assume a virtue: I will do a bit of cheap self-
denial: decline to the sound of trumpets what another will be sure
to deny me if I don't--ha! ha!'--well, for your comfort, I am by no
means so sure she might not have been brought to do ANYTHING for
you, except openly defy mamma: but now of course"--

And here this young lady's sentence ended: for the sisters, unlike
in most things, were one in grammar.

Camille was so disconcerted and sad at what he had done, that Rose
began to pity him: so she rallied him a little longer in spite of
her pity: and then all of a sudden gave him her hand, and said she
would try and repair the mischief.

He began to smother her hand with kisses.

"Oh!" said she, "I don't deserve all that: I have a motive of my
own; let me alone, child, do.  Your unlucky speech will be quoted to
me a dozen times.  Never mind."

Rose went and bribed Josephine to consent.

"Come, mamma shall not know, and as for you, you shall scarcely move
in the matter; only do not oppose me very violently, and all will be
well."

"Ah, Rose!" said Josephine; "it is delightful--terrible, I mean--to
have a little creature about one that reads one like this.  What
shall I do?  What shall I do?"

"Why, do the best you can under all the circumstances.  His wound is
healed, you know; he must go back to the army; you have both
suffered to the limits of mortal endurance.  Is he to go away
unhappy, in any doubt of your affection? and you to remain behind
with the misery of self-reproach added to the desolation of
absence?--think."

"It is cruel.  But to deceive my mother!"

"Do not say deceive our mother; that is such a shocking phrase."

Rose then reminded Josephine that their confessor had told them a
wise reticence was not the same thing as a moral deceit.  She
reminded her, too, how often they had acted on his advice and always
with good effect; how many anxieties and worries they had saved
their mother by reticence.  Josephine assented warmly to this.

Was there not some reason to think they had saved their mother's
very life by these reticences?  Josephine assented.  "And,
Josephine, you are of age; you are your own mistress; you have a
right to marry whom you please: and, sooner or later, you will
certainly marry Camille.  I doubt whether even our mother could
prevail on you to refuse him altogether.  So it is but a question of
time, and of giving our mother pain, or sparing her pain.  Dear
mamma is old; she is prejudiced.  Why shock her prejudices?  She
could not be brought to understand the case: these things never
happened in her day.  Everything seems to have gone by rule then.
Let us do nothing to worry her for the short time she has to live.
Let us take a course between pain to her and cruelty to you and
Camille."

These arguments went far to convince Josephine: for her own heart
supported them.  She went from her solid objections to untenable
ones--a great point gained.  She urged the difficulty, the
impossibility of a secret marriage.

Camille burst in here: he undertook at once to overcome these
imaginary difficulties.  "They could be married at a distance."

"You will find no priest who will consent to do such a wicked thing
as marry us without my mother's knowledge," objected Josephine.

"Oh! as to that," said Rose, "you know the mayor marries people
nowadays."

"I will not be married again without a priest," said Josephine,
sharply.

"Nor I," said Camille.  "I know a mayor who will do the civil forms
for me, and a priest who will marry me in the sight of Heaven, and
both will keep it secret for love of me till it shall please
Josephine to throw off this disguise."

"Who is the priest?" inquired Josephine, keenly.

"An old cure: he lives near Frejus: he was my tutor, and the mayor
is the mayor of Frejus, also an old friend of mine."

"But what on earth will you say to them?"

"That is my affair: I must give them some reasons which compel me to
keep my marriage secret.  Oh! I shall have to tell them some fibs,
of course."

"There, I thought so!  I will not have you telling fibs; it lowers
you."

"Of course it does; but you can't have secrecy without a fib or
two."

"Fibs that will injure no one," said Rose, majestically.

From this day Camille began to act as well as to talk.  He bought a
light caleche and a powerful horse, and elected factotum Dard his
groom.  Camille rode over to Frejus and told a made-up story to the
old cure and the mayor, and these his old friends believed every
word he said, and readily promised their services and strict
secrecy.

He told the young ladies what he had done.

Rose approved.  Josephine shook her head, and seeing matters going
as her heart desired and her conscience did not quite approve, she
suddenly affected to be next to nobody in the business--to be
resigned, passive, and disposed of to her surprise by Queen Rose and
King Camille, without herself taking any actual part in their
proceedings.

At last the great day arrived on which Camille and Josephine were to
be married at Frejus.

The mayor awaited them at eleven o'clock.  The cure at twelve.  The
family had been duly prepared for this excursion by several smaller
ones.

Rose announced their intention over night; a part of it.

"Mamma," said she, blushing a little, "Colonel Dujardin is good
enough to take us to Frejus tomorrow.  It is a long way, and we must
breakfast early or we shall not be back to dinner."

"Do so, my child.  I hope you will have a fine day: and mind you
take plenty of wraps with you in case of a shower."

At seven o'clock the next morning Camille and the two ladies took a
hasty cup of coffee together instead of breakfast, and then Dard
brought the caleche round.

The ladies got in, and Camille had just taken the reins in his hand,
when Jacintha screamed to him from the hall, "Wait a moment,
colonel, wait a moment!  The doctor! don't go without the doctor!"
And the next moment Dr. Aubertin appeared with his cloak on his arm,
and, saluting the ladies politely, seated himself quietly in the
vehicle before the party had recovered their surprise.

The ladies managed to keep their countenances, but Dujardin's
discomfiture was evident.

He looked piteously at Josephine, and then asked Aubertin if they
were to set him down anywhere in particular.

"Oh, no; I am going with you to Frejus," was the quiet reply.

Josephine quaked.  Camille was devoured with secret rage: he lashed
the horse and away they went.

It was a silent party.  The doctor seemed in a reverie.  The others
did not know what to think, much less to say.  Aubertin sat by
Camille's side; so the latter could hold no secret communication
with either lady.

Now it was not the doctor's habit to rise at this time of the
morning: yet there he was, going with them to Frejus uninvited.

Josephine was in agony; had their intention transpired through some
imprudence of Camille?

Camille was terribly uneasy.  He concluded the secret had transpired
through female indiscretion.  Then they all tortured themselves as
to the old man's intention.  But what seemed most likely was, that
he was with them to prevent a clandestine marriage by his bare
presence, without making a scene and shocking Josephine's pride: and
if so, was he there by his own impulse?  No, it was rather to be
feared that all this was done by order of the baroness.  There was a
finesse about it that smacked of a feminine origin, and the baroness
was very capable of adopting such a means as this, to spare her own
pride and her favorite daughter's.  "The clandestine" is not all
sugar.  A more miserable party never went along, even to a wedding.

After waiting a long time for the doctor to declare himself, they
turned desperate, and began to chatter all manner of trifles.  This
had a good effect: it roused Aubertin from his reverie, and
presently he gave them the following piece of information: "I told
you the other day that a nephew of mine was just dead; a nephew I
had not seen for many years.  Well, my friends, I received last
night a hasty summons to his funeral."

"At Frejus?"

"No, at Paris.  The invitation was so pressing, that I was obliged
to go.  The letter informed me, however, that a diligence passes
through Frejus, at eleven o'clock, for Paris.  I heard you say you
were going to Frejus; so I packed up a few changes of linen, and my
MS., my work on entomology, which at my last visit to the capital
all the publishers were mad enough to refuse: here it is.  Apropos,
has Jacintha put my bag into the carriage?"

On this a fierce foot-search, and the bag was found.  Meantime,
Josephine leaned back in her seat with a sigh of thankfulness.  She
was more intent on not being found out than on being married.  But
Camille, who was more intent on being married than on not being
found out, was asking himself, with fury, how on earth they should
get rid of Aubertin in time.

Well, of course, under such circumstances as these the diligence did
not come to its time, nor till long after; and all the while, they
were waiting for it they were failing their rendezvous with the
mayor, and making their rendezvous with the curate impossible.  But,
above all, there was the risk of one or other of those friends
coming up and blurting all out, taking for granted that the doctor
must be in their confidence, or why bring him.

At last, at half-past eleven o'clock, to their great relief, up came
the diligence.  The doctor prepared to take his place in the
interior, when the conductor politely informed him that the vehicle
stopped there a quarter of an hour.

"In that case I will not abandon my friends," said the doctor,
affectionately.

One of his friends gnashed his teeth at this mark of affection.  But
Josephine smiled sweetly.

At last he was gone; but it wanted ten minutes only to twelve.

Josephine inquired amiably, whether it would not be as well to
postpone matters to another day--meaning forever.  "My ARDOR is
chilled," said she, and showed symptoms of crying at what she had
gone through.

Camille replied by half dragging them to the mayor.  That worthy
received them with profound, though somewhat demure respect, and
invited them to a table sumptuously served.  The ladies, out of
politeness, were about to assent, but Camille begged permission to
postpone that part until after the ceremony.

At last, to their astonishment, they were married.  Then, with a
promise to return and dine with the mayor, they went to the cure.
Lo and behold! he was gone to visit a sick person.  "He had waited a
long time for them," said the servant.

Josephine was much disconcerted, and showed a disposition to cry
again.  The servant, a good-natured girl, nosed a wedding, and
offered to run and bring his reverence in a minute.

Presently there came an old silvery-haired man, who addressed them
all as his children.  He took them to the church, and blessed their
union; and for the first time Josephine felt as if Heaven consented.
They took a gentle farewell of him, and went back to the mayor's to
dine; and at this stage of the business Rose and Josephine at last
effected a downright simultaneous cry, apropos of nothing that was
then occurring.

This refreshed them mightily, and they glowed at the mayor's table
like roses washed with dew.

But oh! how glad at heart they all were to find themselves in the
carriage once more going home to Beaurepaire.

Rose and Josephine sat intertwined on the back seat; Camille, the
reins in his right hand, nearly turned his back on the horse, and
leaned back over to them and purred to Rose and his wife with
ineffable triumph and tenderness.

The lovers were in Elysium, and Rose was not a little proud of her
good management in ending all their troubles.  Their mother received
them back with great, and as they fancied, with singular, affection.
She was beginning to be anxious about them, she said.  Then her
kindness gave these happy souls a pang it never gave them before.

Since the above events scarce a fortnight had elapsed; but such a
change!  Camille sunburnt and healthy, and full of animation and
confidence; Josephine beaming with suppressed happiness, and more
beautiful than Rose could ever remember to have seen her.  For a
soft halo of love and happiness shone around her head; a new and
indefinable attraction bloomed on her face.  She was a wife.  Her
eye, that used to glance furtively on Camille, now dwelt demurely on
him; dwelt with a sort of gentle wonder and admiration as well as
affection, and, when he came or passed very near her, a keen
observer might have seen her thrill.

She kept a good deal out of her mother's way; for she felt within
that her face must be too happy.  She feared to shock her mother's
grief with her radiance.  She was ashamed of feeling unmixed heaven.
But the flood of secret bliss she floated in bore all misgivings
away.  The pair were forever stealing away together for hours, and
on these occasions Rose used to keep out of her mother's sight,
until they should return.  So then the new-married couple could
wander hand in hand through the thick woods of Beaurepaire, whose
fresh green leaves were now just out, and hear the distant cuckoo,
and sit on mossy banks, and pour love into one another's eyes, and
plan ages of happiness, and murmur their deep passion and their
bliss almost more than mortal; could do all this and more, without
shocking propriety.  These sweet duets passed for trios: for on
their return Rose would be out looking for them, or would go and
meet them at some distance, and all three would go up together to
the baroness, as from a joint excursion.  And when they went up to
their bedrooms, Josephine would throw her arms round her sister's
neck, and sigh, "It is not happiness, it is beatitude!"

Meantime, the baroness mourned for Raynal.  Her grief showed no
decrease.  Rose even fancied at times she wore a gloomy and
discontented look as well; but on reflection she attributed that to
her own fancy, or to the contrast that had now sprung up in her
sister's beaming complacency.

Rose, when she found herself left day after day alone for hours, was
sad and thought of Edouard.  And this feeling gained on her day by
day.

At last, one afternoon, she locked herself in her own room, and,
after a long contest with her pride, which, if not indomitable, was
next door to it, she sat down to write him a little letter.  Now, in
this letter, in the place devoted by men to their after-thoughts, by
women to their pretended after-thoughts; i. e., to what they have
been thinking of all through the letter, she dropped a careless hint
that all the party missed him very much, "even the obnoxious
colonel, who, by-the-by, has transferred his services elsewhere.  I
have forgiven him that, because he has said civil things about you."

Rose was reading her letter over again, to make sure that all the
principal expressions were indistinct, and that the composition
generally, except the postscript, resembled a Delphic oracle, when
there was a hasty footstep, and a tap at her door, and in came
Jacintha, excited.

"He is come, mademoiselle," cried she, and nodded her head like a
mandarin, only more knowingly; then she added, "So you may burn
that."  For her quick eye had glanced at the table.

"Who is come?" inquired Rose, eagerly.

"Why, your one?"

"My one?" asked the young lady, reddening, "my what?"

"The little one--Edouard--Monsieur Riviere."

"Oh, Monsieur Riviere," said Rose, acting nonchalance.  "Why could
you not say so? you use such phrases, who can conjecture what you
mean?  I will come to Monsieur Riviere directly; mamma will be so
glad."

Jacintha gone, Rose tore up the letter and locked up the pieces,
then ran to the glass.  Etc.

Edouard had been so profoundly miserable he could stand it no
longer; in spite of his determination not to visit Beaurepaire while
it contained a rival, he rode over to see whether he had not
tormented himself idly: above all, to see the beloved face.

Jacintha put him into the salle a manger.  "By that you will see her
alone," said the knowing Jacintha.  He sat down, hat and whip in
hand, and wondered how he should be received--if at all.

In glides Rose all sprightliness and good-humor, and puts out her
hand to him; the which he kisses.

"How could I keep away so long?" asked he vaguely, and self-
astonished.

"How indeed, and we missing you so all the time!"

"Have YOU missed me?" was the eager inquiry.

"Oh, no!" was the cheerful reply; "but all the rest have."

Presently the malicious thing gave a sudden start.

"Oh! such a piece of news; you remember Colonel Dujardin, the
obnoxious colonel?"

No answer.

"Transferred his attentions.  Fancy!"

"Who to?"

"To Josephine and mamma.  But such are the military.  He only wanted
to get rid of you: this done (through your want of spirit), he
scorns the rich prize; so now I scorn HIM.  Will you come for a
walk?"

"Oh, yes!"

"We will go and look for my deserter.  I say, tell me now; cannot I
write to the commander-in-chief about this? a soldier has no right
to be a deserter, has he? tell me, you are a public man, and know
everything except my heart."

"Is it not too bad to tease me to-day?"

"Yes! but please! I have had few amusements of late.  I find it so
dull without you to tease."

Formal permission to tease being conceded, she went that instant on
the opposite tack, and began to tell him how she had missed him, and
how sorry she had been anything should have occurred to vex their
kind good friend.  In short, Edouard spent a delightful day, for
Rose took him one way to meet Josephine, who, she knew, was coming
another.  At night the last embers of jealousy got quenched, for
Josephine was a wife now, and had already begun to tell Camille all
her little innocent secrets; and she told him all about Edouard and
Rose, and gave him his orders; so he treated Rose with great respect
before Edouard; but paid her no marked attention; also he was
affable to Riviere, who, having ceased to suspect, began to like
him.

In the course of the evening, the colonel also informed the baroness
that he expected every day an order to join the army of the Rhine.

Edouard pricked his ears.

The baroness said no more than politeness dictated.  She did not
press him to stay, but treated his departure as a matter of course.
Riviere rode home late in the evening in high spirits.

The next day Rose varied her late deportment; she sang snatches of
melody, going about the house; it was for all the world like a bird
chirping.  In the middle of one chirp Jacintha interfered.  "Hush,
mademoiselle, your mamma! she is at the bottom of the corridor."

"What was I thinking of?" said Rose.

"Oh! I dare say you know, mademoiselle," replied the privileged
domestic.

A letter of good news came from Aubertin.  That summons to his
nephew's funeral was an era in his harmless life.

The said nephew was a rich man and an oddity; one of those who love
to surprise folk.  Moreover, he had no children, and detected his
nephews and nieces being unnaturally civil to him.  "Waiting to cut
me up," was his generous reading of them.  So with this he made a
will, and there defied, as far as in him lay, the laws of nature;
for he set his wealth a-flowing backwards instead of forwards; he
handed his property up to an ancestor, instead of down to posterity.

All this the doctor's pen set down with some humor, and in the calm
spirit with which a genuine philosopher receives prosperity as well
as adversity.  Yet one natural regret escaped him; that all this
wealth, since it was to come, had not come a year or two sooner.

All at Beaurepaire knew what their dear old friend meant.

His other news to them was that they might expect him any moment.

So here was another cause of rejoicing.

"I am so glad," said Josephine.  "Now, perhaps, he will be able to
publish his poor dear entomology, that the booksellers were all so
unkind, so unfeeling about."

I linger on the brink of painful scenes to observe that a sweet and
loving friendship, such as this was between the good doctor and
three persons of another sex, is one of the best treasures of the
human heart.  Poverty had strengthened it; yet now wealth could not
weaken it.  With no tie of blood it yet was filial, sisterly,
brotherly, national, chivalrous; happy, unalloyed sentiment, free
from ups and downs, from heats and chills, from rivalry, from
caprice; and, indeed, from all mortal accidents but one--and why say
one? methinks death itself does but suspend these gentle, rare,
unselfish amities a moment, then waft them upward to their abiding
home.


CHAPTER XV.


It was a fair morning in June: the sky was a bright, deep, lovely,
speckless blue: the flowers and bushes poured perfume, and sprinkled
song upon the balmy air.  On such a day, so calm, so warm, so
bright, so scented, so tuneful, to live and to be young is to be
happy.  With gentle hand it wipes all other days out of the memory;
it smiles, it smells, it sings, and clouds and rain and biting wind
seem as far off and impossible as grief and trouble.

Camille and Josephine had stolen out, and strolled lazily up and
down close under the house, drinking the sweet air, fragrant with
perfume and melody; the blue sky, and love.

Rose was in the house.  She had missed them; but she thought they
must be near; for they seldom took long walks early in the day.
Meeting Jacintha on the landing of the great staircase, she asked
her where her sister was.

"Madame Raynal is gone for a walk.  She has taken the colonel with
her.  You know she always takes the colonel out with her now."

"That will do.  You can finish your work."

Jacintha went into Camille's room.

Rose, who had looked as grave as a judge while Jacintha was present,
bubbled into laughter.  She even repeated Jacintha's words aloud,
and chuckled over them.  "You know she always takes the colonel out
with her now--ha, ha, ha!"

"Rose!" sighed a distant voice.

She looked round, and saw the baroness at some distance in the
corridor, coming slowly towards her, with eyes bent gloomily on the
ground.  Rose composed her features into a settled gravity, and went
to meet her.

"I wish to speak with you," said the baroness; "let us sit down; it
is cool here."

Rose ran and brought a seat without a back, but well stuffed, and
set it against the wall.  The old lady sat down and leaned back, and
looked at Rose in silence a good while; then she said,--

"There is room for you; sit down, for I want to speak seriously to
you."

"Yes, mamma; what is it?"

"Turn a little round, and let me see your face."

Rose complied; and began to feel a little uneasy.

"Perhaps you can guess what I am going to say to you?"

"I have no idea."

"Well, I am going to put a question to you."

"With all my heart, dear mamma."

"I invite you to explain to me the most singular, the most
unaccountable thing that ever fell under my notice.  Will you do
this for your mother?"

"O mamma! of course I will do anything to please you that I can;
but, indeed, I don't know what you mean."

"I am going to tell you."

The old lady paused.  The young one, naturally enough, felt a chill
of vague anxiety strike across her frame.

"Rose," said the old lady, speaking very gently but firmly, and
leaning in a peculiar way on her words, while her eye worked like an
ice gimlet on her daughter's face, "a little while ago, when my poor
Raynal--our benefactor--was alive--and I was happy--you all chilled
my happiness by your gloom: the whole house seemed a house of
mourning--tell me now why was this."

"Mamma!" said Rose, after a moment's hesitation, "we could hardly be
gay.  Sickness in the house!  And if Colonel Raynal was alive, still
he was absent, and in danger."

"Oh! then it was out of regard for him we were all dispirited?"

"Why, I suppose so," said Rose, stoutly; but then colored high at
her own want of candor.  However, she congratulated herself that her
mother's suspicion was confined to past events.

Her self-congratulation on that score was short; for the baroness,
after eying her grimly for a second or two in silence, put her this
awkward question plump.

"If so, tell me why is it that ever since that black day when the
news of his DEATH reached us, the whole house has gone into black,
and has gone out of mourning?"

"Mamma," stammered Rose, "what DO you mean?"

"Even poor Camille, who was so pale and wan, has recovered like
magic."

"O mamma! is not that fancy?" said Rose, piteously.  "Of what do you
suspect me?  Can you think I am unfeeling--ungrateful?  I should not
be YOUR daughter."

"No, no," said the baroness, "to do you justice, you attempt sorrow;
as you put on black.  But, my poor child, you do it with so little
skill that one sees a horrible gayety breaking through that thin
disguise: you are no true mourners: you are like the mutes or the
undertakers at a funeral, forced grief on the surface of your faces,
and frightful complacency below."

"Tra la! lal! la! la!  Tra la! la!  Tra la! la!" carolled Jacintha,
in the colonel's room hard by.

The ladies looked at one another: Rose in great confusion.

"Tra la! la! la!  Tra lal! lal! la! la! la!"

"Jacintha!" screamed Rose angrily.

"Hush! not a word," said the baroness.  "Why remonstrate with HER?
Servants are but chameleons: they take the color of those they
serve.  Do not cry.  I wanted your confidence, not your tears, love.
There, I will not twice in one day ask you for your heart: it would
be to lower the mother, and give the daughter the pain of refusing
it, and the regret, sure to come one day, of having refused it.  I
will discover the meaning of it all by myself."  She went away with
a gentle sigh; and Rose was cut to the heart by her words; she
resolved, whatever it might cost her and Josephine, to make a clean
breast this very day.  As she was one of those who act promptly, she
went instantly in search of her sister, to gain her consent, if
possible.

Now, the said Josephine was in the garden walking with Camille, and
uttering a wife's tender solicitudes.

"And must you leave me? must you risk your life again so soon; the
life on which mine depends?"

"My dear, that letter I received from headquarters two days ago,
that inquiry whether my wound was cured.  A hint, Josephine--a hint
too broad for any soldier not to take."

"Camille, you are very proud," said Josephine, with an accent of
reproach, and a look of approval.

"I am obliged to be.  I am the husband of the proudest woman in
France."

"Hush! not so loud: there is Dard on the grass."

"Dard!" muttered the soldier with a word of meaning.  "Josephine,"
said he after a pause, and a little peevishly, "how much longer are
we to lower our voices, and turn away our eyes from each other, and
be ashamed of our happiness?"

"Five months longer, is it not?" answered Josephine quietly.

"Five months longer!"

Josephine was hurt at this, and for once was betrayed into a serious
and merited remonstrance.

"Is this just?" said she.  "Think of two months ago: yes, but two
months ago, you were dying.  You doubted my love, because it could
not overcome my virtue and my gratitude: yet you might have seen it
was destroying my life.  Poor Raynal, my husband, my benefactor,
died.  Then I could do more for you, if not with delicacy, at least
with honor; but no! words, and looks, and tender offices of love
were not enough, I must give stronger proof.  Dear Camille, I have
been reared in a strict school: and perhaps none of your sex can
know what it cost me to go to Frejus that day with him I love."

"My own Josephine!"

"I made but one condition: that you would not rob me of my mother's
respect: to her our hasty marriage would appear monstrous,
heartless.  You consented to be secretly happy for six months.  One
fortnight has passed, and you are discontented again."

"Oh, no! do not think so.  It is every word true.  I am an
ungrateful villain."

"How dare you say so? and to me!  No! but you are a man."

"So I have been told; but my conduct to you, sweet one, has not been
that of a man from first to last.  Yet I could die for you, with a
smile on my lips.  But when I think that once I lifted this
sacrilegious hand against your life--oh!"

"Do not be silly, Camille.  I love you all the better for loving me
well enough to kill me.  What woman would not?  I tell you, you
foolish thing, you are a man: monseigneur is one of the lordly sex,
that is accustomed to have everything its own way.  My love, in a
world that is full of misery, here are two that are condemned to be
secretly happy a few months longer: a hard fate for one of your sex,
it seems: but it is so much sweeter than the usual lot of mine, that
really I cannot share your misery," and she smiled joyously.

"Then share my happiness, my dear wife."

"I do; only mine is deep, not loud."

"Why, Dard is gone, and we are out of doors; will the little birds
betray us?"

"The lower windows are open, and I saw Jacintha in one of the
rooms."

"Jacintha? we are in awe of the very servants.  Well, if I must not
say it loud I will say it often," and putting his mouth to her ear,
he poured a burning whisper of love into it--"My love! my angel! my
wife! my wife! my wife!"

She turned her swimming eyes on him.

"My husband!" she whispered in return.

Rose came out, and found them billing and cooing.  "You MUST not be
so happy, you two," said she authoritatively.

"How can we help it?" asked Camille.

"You must and shall help it, somehow," retorted this little tyrant.
"Mamma suspects.  She has given me such a cross-examination, my
blood runs cold.  No, on second thoughts, kiss her again, and you
may both be as happy as you like; for I am going to tell mamma all,
and no power on earth shall hinder me."

"Rose," said Camille, "you are a sensible girl; and I always said
so."

But Josephine was horrified.  "What! tell my mother that within a
month of my husband's death?"--

"Don't say your husband," put in Camille wincing; "the priest never
confirmed that union; words spoken before a magistrate do not make a
marriage in the sight of Heaven."

Josephine cut him short.  "Amongst honorable men and women all oaths
are alike sacred: and Heaven's eye is in a magistrate's room as in a
church.  A daughter of Beaurepaire gave her hand to him, and called
herself his wife.  Therefore, she was his wife: and is his widow.
She owes him everything; the house you are all living in among the
rest.  She ought to be proud of her brief connection with that pure,
heroic spirit, and, when she is so little noble as to disown him,
then say that gratitude and justice have no longer a place among
mankind."

"Come into the chapel," said Camille, with a voice that showed he
was hurt.

They entered the chapel, and there they saw something that
thoroughly surprised them: a marble monument to the memory of
Raynal.  It leaned at present against the wall below the place
prepared to receive it.  The inscription, short, but emphatic, and
full of feeling, told of the battles he had fought in, including the
last fatal skirmish, and his marriage with the heiress of
Beaurepaire; and, in a few soldier-like words, the uprightness,
simplicity, and generosity of his character.

They were so touched by this unexpected trait in Camille that they
both threw their arms round his neck by one impulse.  "Am I wrong to
be proud of him?" said Josephine, triumphantly.

"Well, don't say too much to me," said Camille, looking down
confused.  "One tries to be good; but it is very hard--to some of
us--not to you, Josephine; and, after all, it is only the truth that
we have written on that stone.  Poor Raynal! he was my old comrade;
he saved me from death, and not a soldier's death--drowning; and he
was a better man than I am, or ever shall be.  Now he is dead, I can
say these things.  If I had said them when he was alive, it would
have been more to my credit."

They all three went back towards the house; and on the way Rose told
them all that had passed between the baroness and her.  When she
came to the actual details of that conversation, to the words, and
looks, and tones, Josephine's uneasiness rose to an overpowering
height; she even admitted that further concealment would be very
difficult.

"Better tell her than let her find out," said Rose.  "We must tell
her some day."

At last, after a long and agitated discussion, Josephine consented;
but Rose must be the one to tell.  "So then, you at least will make
your peace with mamma," argued Josephine, "and let us go in and do
this before our courage fails; besides, it is going to rain, and it
has turned cold.  Where have all these clouds come from?  An hour
ago there was not one in the sky."

They went, with hesitating steps and guilty looks, to the saloon.
Their mother was not there.  Here was a reprieve.

Rose had an idea.  She would take her to the chapel, and show her
the monument, and that would please her with poor Camille.  "After
that," said Rose, "I will begin by telling her all the misery you
have both gone through; and, when she pities you, then I will show
her it was all my fault your misery ended in a secret marriage."

The confederates sat there in a chilly state, waiting for the
baroness.  At last, as she did not come, Rose got up to go to her.
"When the mind is made up, it is no use being cowardly, and putting
off," said she, firmly.  For all that, her cheek had but little
color left in it, when she left her chair with this resolve.

Now as Rose went down the long saloon to carry out their united
resolve, Jacintha looked in; and, after a hasty glance to see who
was present, she waited till Rose came up to her, and then whipped a
letter from under her apron and gave it her.

"For my mistress," said she, with an air of mystery.

"Why not take it to her, then?" inquired Rose.

"I thought you might like to see it first, mademoiselle," said
Jacintha, with quiet meaning.

"Is it from the dear doctor?" asked Josephine.

"La, no, mademoiselle, don't you know the doctor is come home?  Why,
he has been in the house near an hour.  He is with my lady."

The doctor proved Jacintha correct by entering the room in person
soon after; on this Rose threw down the letter, and she and the
whole party were instantly occupied in greeting him.

When the ladies had embraced him and Camille shaken hands with him,
they plied him with a thousand questions.  Indeed, he had not half
satisfied their curiosity, when Rose happened to catch sight of the
letter again, and took it up to carry to the baroness.  She now, for
the first time, eyed it attentively, and the consequence was she
uttered an exclamation, and took the first opportunity to beckon
Aubertin.

He came to her; and she put the letter into his hand.

He put up his glasses, and eyed it.  "Yes!" whispered he, "it is
from HIM."

Josephine and Camille saw something was going on; they joined the
other two, with curiosity in their faces.

Rose put her hand on a small table near her, and leaned a moment.
She turned half sick at a letter coming from the dead.  Josephine
now came towards her with a face of concern, and asked what was the
matter.

The reply came from Aubertin.  "My poor friends," said he, solemnly,
"this is one of those fearful things that you have not seen in your
short lives, but it has been more than once my lot to witness it.
The ships that carry letters from distant countries vary greatly in
speed, and are subject to detaining accidents.  Yes, this is the
third time I have seen a letter come written by a hand known to be
cold.  The baroness is a little excited to-day, I don't know from
what cause.  With your approbation, Madame Raynal, I will read this
letter before I let her see it."

"Read it, if you please."

"Shall I read it out?"

"Certainly.  There may be some wish expressed in it; oh, I hope
there is!"

Camille, from delicacy, retired to some little distance, and the
doctor read the letter in a low and solemn voice.


"MY DEAR MOTHER,--I hope all are well at Beaurepaire, as I am, or I
hope soon to be.  I received a wound in our last skirmish; not a
very severe one; but it put an end to my writing for some time."


"Poor fellow! it was his death wound.  Why, when was this written?--
why," and the doctor paused, and seemed stupefied: "why, my dears,
has my memory gone, or"--and again he looked eagerly at the letter--
"what was the date of the battle in which he was killed? for this
letter is dated the 15th of May.  Is it a dream? no! this was
written since the date of his death."

"No, doctor," said Rose, "you deceive yourself."

"Why, what was the date of the Moniteur, then?" asked Aubertin, in
great agitation.

"Considerably later than this," said Camille.

"I don't think so; the journal! where is it?"

"My mother has it locked up.  I'll run."

"No, Rose; no one but me.  Now, Josephine, do not you go and give
way to hopes that may be delusive.  I must see that journal
directly.  I will go to the baroness.  I shall excuse her less than
you would."

He was scarcely gone when a cry of horror filled the room, a cry as
of madness falling like a thunderbolt on a human mind.  It was
Josephine, who up to this had not uttered one word.  But now she
stood, white as a corpse, in the middle of the room, and wrung her
hands.  "What have I done?  What shall I do?  It was the 3d of May.
I see it before me in letters of fire; the 3d of May! the 3d of
May!--and he writes the 15th."

"No! no!" cried Camille wildly.  "It was long, long after time 3d."

"It was the 3d of May," repeated Josephine in a hoarse voice that
none would have known for hers.

Camille ran to her with words of comfort and hope; he did not share
her fears.  He remembered about when the Moniteur came, though not
the very day.  He threw his arm lovingly round her as if to protect
her against these shadowy terrors.  Her dilating eyes seemed fixed
on something distant in space or time, at some horrible thing coming
slowly towards her.  She did not see Camille approach her, but the
moment she felt him she turned upon him swiftly.

"Do you love me?" still in the hoarse voice that had so little in it
of Josephine.  "I mean, does one grain of respect or virtue mingle
in your love for me?"

"What words are these, my wife?"

"Then leave Raynal's house upon the instant.  You wonder I can be so
cruel?  I wonder too; and that I can see my duty so clear in one
short moment.  But I have lived twenty years since that letter came.
Oh! my brain has whirled through a thousand agonies.  And I have
come back a thousand times to the same thing; you and I must see
each other's face no more."

"Oh!" cried Rose, "is there no way but this?"

"Take care," she screamed, wildly, to her and Camille, "I am on the
verge of madness; is it for you two to thrust me over the precipice?
Come, now, if you are a man of honor, if you have a spark of
gratitude towards the poor woman who has given you all except her
fair name--that she will take to the grave in spite of you all--
promise that you will leave Raynal's house this minute if he is
alive, and let me die in honor as I have lived."

"No, no!" cried Camille, terror-stricken; "it cannot be.  Heaven is
merciful, and Heaven sees how happy we are.  Be calm! these are idle
fears; be calm! I say.  For if it is so I will obey you.  I will
stay; I will go; I will die; I will live; I will obey you."

"Swear this to me by the thing you hold most sacred," she almost
shrieked.

"I swear by my love for you," was his touching reply.

Ere they had recovered a miserable composure after this passionate
outburst, all the more terrible as coming from a creature so tender
as Josephine, agitated voices were heard at the door, and the
baroness tottered in, followed by the doctor, who was trying in vain
to put some bounds to her emotion and her hopes.

"Oh, my children! my children!" cried she, trembling violently.
"Here, Rose, my hands shake so; take this key, open the cabinet,
there is the Moniteur.  What is the date?"

The journal was found, and rapidly examined.  The date was the 20th
of May.

"There!" cried Camille.  "I told you!"

The baroness uttered a feeble moan.  Her hopes died as suddenly as
they had been born, and she sank drooping into a chair, with a
bitter sigh.

Camille stole a joyful look at Josephine.  She was in the same
attitude looking straight before her as at a coming horror.
Presently Rose uttered a faint cry, "The battle was BEFORE."

"To be sure," cried the doctor.  "You forget, it is not the date of
the paper we want, but of the battle it records.  For Heaven's sake,
when was the battle?"

"The 3d of May," said Josephine, in a voice that seemed to come from
the tomb.

Rose's hands that held the journal fell like a dead weight upon her
knees, journal and all.  She whispered, "It was the 3d of May."

"Ah!" cried the baroness, starting up, "he may yet be alive.  He
must be alive.  Heaven is merciful!  Heaven would not take my son
from me, a poor old woman who has not long to live.  There was a
letter; where is the letter?"

"Are we mad, not to read the letter?" said the doctor.  "I had it;
it has dropped from my old fingers when I went for the journal."

A short examination of the room showed the letter lying crumpled up
near the door.  Camille gave it to the baroness.  She tried to read
it, but could not.

"I am old," said she; "my hand shakes and my eyes are troubled.
This young gentleman will read it to us.  His eyes are not dim and
troubled.  Something tells me that when I hear this letter, I shall
find out whether my son lives.  Why do you not read it to me,
Camille?" cried she, almost fiercely.

Camille, thus pressed, obeyed mechanically, and began to read
Raynal's letter aloud, scarce knowing what he did, but urged and
driven by the baroness.


"MY DEAR MOTHER,--I hope all are well at Beaurepaire, as I am, or I
hope soon to be.  I received a wound in our last skirmish; not a
very severe one, but it put an end to my writing for some time."


"Go on, dear Camille! go on."

"The page ends there, madame,"

The paper was thin, and Camille, whose hand trembled, had some
difficulty in detaching the leaves from one another.  He succeeded,
however, at last, and went on reading and writhing.


"By the way, you must address your next letter to me as Colonel
Raynal.  I was promoted just before this last affair, but had not
time to tell you; and my wound stopped my writing till now."


"There, there!" cried the baroness.  "He was Colonel Raynal, and
Colonel Raynal was not killed."

The doctor implored her not to interrupt.

"Go on, Camille.  Why do you hesitate? what is the matter?  Do for
pity's sake go on, sir."

Camille cast a look of agony around, and put his hand to his brow,
on which large drops of cold perspiration, like a death dew, were
gathering; but driven to the stake on all sides, he gasped on rather
than read, for his eye had gone down the page.


"A namesake of mine, Commandant Raynal,"--


"Ah!"


"has not been--so fortunate.  He"--


"Go on! go on!"

The wretched man could now scarcely utter Raynal's words; they came
from him in a choking groan.


"he was killed, poor fellow! while heading a gallant charge upon the
enemy's flank."


He ground the letter convulsively in his hand, then it fell all
crumpled on the floor.

"Bless you, Camille!" cried the baroness, "bless you! bless you!  I
have a son still."

She stooped with difficulty, took up the letter, and, kissing it
again and again, fell on her knees, and thanked Heaven aloud before
them all.  Then she rose and went hastily out, and her voice was
heard crying very loud, "Jacintha! Jacintha!"

The doctor followed in considerable anxiety for the effects of this
violent joy on so aged a person.  Three remained behind, panting and
pale like those to whom dead Lazarus burst the tomb, and came forth
in a moment, at a word.  Then Camille half kneeled, half fell, at
Josephine's feet, and, in a voice choked with sobs, bade her dispose
of him.

She turned her head away.  "Do not speak to me; do not look at me;
if we look at one another, we are lost.  Go! die at your post, and I
at mine."

He bowed his head, and kissed her dress, then rose calm as despair,
and white as death, and, with his knees knocking under him, tottered
away like a corpse set moving.

He disappeared from the house.

The baroness soon came back, triumphant and gay.

"I have sent her to bid them ring the bells in the village.  The
poor shall be feasted; all shall share our joy: my son was dead, and
lives.  Oh, joy! joy! joy!"

"Mother!" shrieked Josephine.

"Mad woman that I am, I am too boisterous.  Help me, Rose! she is
going to faint; her lips are white."

Dr. Aubertin and Rose brought a chair.  They forced Josephine into
it.  She was not the least faint; yet her body obeyed their hands
just like a dead body.  The baroness melted into tears; tears
streamed from Rose's eyes.  Josephine's were dry and stony, and
fixed on coming horror.  The baroness looked at her with anxiety.
"Thoughtless old woman!  It was too sudden; it is too much for my
dear child; too much for me," and she kneeled, and laid her aged
head on her daughter's bosom, saying feebly through her tears, "too
much joy, too much joy!"

Josephine took no notice of her.  She sat like one turned to stone
looking far away over her mother's head with rigid eyes fixed on the
air and on coming horrors.

Rose felt her arm seized.  It was Aubertin.  He too was pale now,
though not before.  He spoke in a terrible whisper to Rose, his eye
fixed on the woman of stone that sat there.

"IS THIS JOY?"

Rose, by a mighty effort, raised her eyes and confronted his full.
"What else should it be?" said she.

And with these words this Spartan girl was her sister's champion
once more against all comers, friend or foe.


CHAPTER XVI.


Dr. Aubertin received one day a note from a publishing bookseller,
to inquire whether he still thought of giving the world his valuable
work on insects.  The doctor was amazed.  "My valuable work!  Why,
Rose, they all refused it, and this person in particular recoiled
from it as if my insects could sting on paper."

The above led to a correspondence, in which the convert to insects
explained that the work must be published at the author's expense,
the publisher contenting himself with the profits.  The author,
thirsting for the public, consented.  Then the publisher wrote again
to say that the immortal treatise must be spiced; a little politics
flung in: "Nothing goes down, else."  The author answered in some
heat that he would not dilute things everlasting with the fleeting
topics of the day, nor defile science with politics.  On this his
Mentor smoothed him down, despising him secretly for not seeing that
a book is a matter of trade and nothing else.  It ended in Aubertin
going to Paris to hatch his Phoenix.  He had not been there a week,
when a small deputation called on him, and informed him he had been
elected honorary member of a certain scientific society.  The
compliment was followed by others, till at last certain ladies, with
the pliancy of their sex, find out they had always secretly cared
for butterflies.  Then the naturalist smelt a rat, or, in other
words, began to scent that entomology, a form of idiocy in a poor
man, is a graceful decoration of the intellect in a rich one.

Philosopher without bile, he saw through this, and let it amuse, not
shock him.  His own species, a singularly interesting one in my
opinion, had another trait in reserve for him.

He took a world of trouble to find out the circumstances of his
nephew's nephews and nieces: then he made arrangements for
distributing a large part of his legacy among them.  His intentions
and the proportions of his generosity transpired.

Hitherto they had been silent, but now they all fell-to and abused
him: each looking only to the amount of his individual share, not at
the sum total the doctor was giving way to an ungrateful lot.

The donor was greatly amused, and noted down the incident and some
of the remarks in his commonplace book, under the general head of
"Bestiarium;" and the particular head of "Homo."

Paris with its seductions netted the good doctor, and held him two
or three months; would have detained him longer, but for alarming
accounts the baroness sent of Josephine's health.  These determined
him to return to Beaurepaire; and, must I own it, the announcement
was no longer hailed at Beaurepaire with universal joy as
heretofore.


Josephine Raynal, late Dujardin, is by this time no stranger to my
intelligent reader.  I wish him to bring his knowledge of her
character and her sensibility to my aid.  Imagine, as the weary
hours and days and weeks roll over her head, what this loving woman
feels for her lover whom she has dismissed; what this grateful wife
feels for the benefactor she has unwittingly wronged; but will never
wrong with her eyes open; what this lady pure as snow, and proud as
fire, feels at the seeming frailty into which a cruel combination of
circumstances has entrapped her.

Put down the book a moment: shut your eyes: and imagine this strange
and complicated form of human suffering.

Her mental sufferings were terrible; and for some time Rose feared
for her reason.  At last her agonies subsided into a listlessness
and apathy little less alarming.  She seemed a creature descending
inch by inch into the tomb.  Indeed, I fully believe she would have
died of despair: but one of nature's greatest forces stepped into
the arena and fought on the side of life.  She was affected with
certain bilious symptoms that added to Rose's uneasiness, but
Jacintha assured her it was nothing, and would retire and leave the
sufferer better.  Jacintha, indeed, seemed now to take a particular
interest in Josephine, and was always about her with looks of pity
and interest.

"Good creature!" thought Rose, "she sees my sister is unhappy: and
that makes her more attentive and devoted to her than ever."

One day these three were together in Josephine's room.  Josephine
was mechanically combing her long hair, when all of a sudden she
stretched out her hand and cried, "Rose!"

Rose ran to her, and coming behind her saw in the glass that her
lips were colorless.  She screamed to Jacintha, and between them
they supported Josephine to the bed.  She had hardly touched it when
she fainted dead away.  "Mamma! mamma!" cried Rose in her terror.

"Hush!" cried Jacintha roughly, "hold your tongue: it is only a
faint.  Help me loosen her: don't make any noise, whatever."  They
loosened her stays, and applied the usual remedies, but it was some
time before she came-to.  At last the color came back to her lips,
then to her cheek, and the light to her eye.  She smiled feebly on
Jacintha and Rose, and asked if she had not been insensible.

"Yes, love, and frightened us--a little--not much--oh, dear! oh,
dear!"

"Don't be alarmed, sweet one, I am better.  And I will never do it
again, since it frightens you."  Then Josephine said to her sister
in a low voice, and in the Italian language, "I hoped it was death,
my sister; but he comes not to the wretched."

"If you hoped that," replied Rose in the same language, "you do not
love your poor sister who so loves you."

While the Italian was going on, Jacintha's dark eyes glanced
suspiciously on each speaker in turn.  But her suspicions were all
wide of the mark.

"Now may I go and tell mamma?" asked Rose.

"No, mademoiselle, you shall not," said Jacintha.  "Madame Raynal,
do take my side, and forbid her."

"Why, what is it to you?" said Rose, haughtily.

"If it was not something to me, should I thwart my dear young lady?"

"No.  And you shall have your own way, if you will but condescend to
give me a reason."

This to some of us might appear reasonable, but not to Jacintha: it
even hurt her feelings.

"Mademoiselle Rose," she said, "when you were little and used to ask
me for anything, did I ever say to you, 'Give me a REASON first'?"

"There! she is right," said Josephine.  "We should not make terms
with tried friends.  Come, we will pay her devotion this compliment.
It is such a small favor.  For my part I feel obliged to her for
asking it."

Josephine's health improved steadily from that day.  Her hollow
cheeks recovered their plump smoothness, and her beauty its bloom,
and her person grew more noble and statue-like than ever, and within
she felt a sense of indomitable vitality.  Her appetite had for some
time been excessively feeble and uncertain, and her food tasteless;
but of late, by what she conceived to be a reaction such as is
common after youth has shaken off a long sickness, her appetite had
been not only healthy but eager.  The baroness observed this, and it
relieved her of a large portion of her anxiety.  One day at dinner
her maternal heart was so pleased with Josephine's performance that
she took it as a personal favor, "Well done, Josephine," said she;
"that gives your mother pleasure to see you eat again.  Soup and
bouillon: and now twice you have been to Rose for some of that pate,
which does you so much credit, Jacintha."

Josephine colored high at this compliment.

"It is true," said she, "I eat like a pig;" and, with a furtive
glance at the said pate, she laid down her knife and fork, and ate
no more of anything.  The baroness had now a droll misgiving.

"The doctor will be angry with me," said she: "he will find her as
well as ever."

"Madame," said Jacintha hastily, "when does the doctor come, if I
may make so bold, that I may get his room ready, you know?"

"Well thought of, Jacintha.  He comes the day after to-morrow, in
the afternoon."

At night when the young ladies went up to bed, what did they find
but a little cloth laid on a little table in Josephine's room, and
the remains of the pate she had liked.  Rose burst out laughing.
"Look at that dear duck of a goose, Jacintha!  Our mother's flattery
sank deep: she thinks we can eat her pates at all hours of the day
and night.  Shall I send it away?"

"No," said Josephine, "that would hurt her culinary pride, and
perhaps her affection: only cover it up, dear, for just now I am not
in the humor: it rather turns me."

It was covered up.  The sisters retired to rest.  In the morning
Rose lifted the cover and found the plate cleared, polished.  She
was astounded.

The large tapestried chamber, once occupied by Camille Dujardin, was
now turned into a sitting-room, and it was a favorite on account of
the beautiful view from the windows.

One day Josephine sat there alone with some work in her hand; but
the needle often stopped, and the fair head drooped.  She heaved a
deep sigh.  To her surprise it was echoed by a sigh that, like her
own, seemed to come from a heart full of sighs.

She turned hastily round and saw Jacintha.

Now Josephine had all a woman's eye for reading faces, and she was
instantly struck by a certain gravity in Jacintha's gaze, and a
flutter which the young woman was suppressing with tolerable but not
complete success.

Disguising the uneasiness this discovery gave her, she looked her
visitor full in the face, and said mildly, but a little coldly,
"Well, Jacintha?"

Jacintha lowered her eyes and muttered slowly,--

"The doctor--comes--to-day," then raised her eyes all in a moment to
take Josephine off her guard; but the calm face was impenetrable.
So then Jacintha added, "to our misfortune," throwing in still more
meaning.

"To our misfortune?  A dear old friend--like him?"

Jacintha explained.  "That old man makes me shake.  You are never
safe with him.  So long as his head is in the clouds, you might take
his shoes off, and on he'd walk and never know it; but every now and
then he comes out of the clouds all in one moment, without a word of
warning, and when he does his eye is on everything, like a bird's.
Then he is so old: he has seen a heap.  Take my word for it, the old
are more knowing than the young, let them be as sharp as you like:
the old have seen everything.  WE have only heard talk of the most
part, with here and there a glimpse.  To know life to the bottom you
must live it out, from the soup to the dessert; and that is what the
doctor has done, and now he is coming here.  And Mademoiselle Rose
will go telling him everything; and if she tells him half what she
has seen, your secret will be no secret to that old man."

"My secret!" gasped Josephine, turning pale.

"Don't look so, madame: don't be frightened at poor Jacintha.
Sooner or later you MUST trust somebody besides Mademoiselle Rose."

Josephine looked at her with inquiring, frightened eyes.

Jacintha drew nearer to her.

"Mademoiselle,--I beg pardon, madame,--I carried you in my arms when
I was a child.  When I was a girl you toddled at my side, and held
my gown, and lisped my name, and used to put your little arms round
my neck, and kissed me, you would; and if ever I had the least pain
or sickness your dear little face would turn as sorrowful, and all
the pretty color leave it for Jacintha; and now you are in trouble,
in sore trouble, yet you turn away from me, you dare not trust me,
that would be cut in pieces ere  I would betray you.  Ah,
mademoiselle, you are wrong.  The poor can feel: they have all seen
trouble, and a servant is the best of friends where she has the
heart to love her mistress; and do not I love you?  Pray do not turn
from her who has carried you in her arms, and laid you to sleep upon
her bosom, many's and many's the time."

Josephine panted audibly.  She held out her hand eloquently to
Jacintha, but she turned her head away and trembled.

Jacintha cast a hasty glance round the room.  Then she trembled too
at what she was going to say, and the effect it might have on the
young lady.  As for Josephine, terrible as the conversation had
become, she made no attempt to evade it: she remained perfectly
passive.  It was the best way to learn how far Jacintha had
penetrated her secret, if at all.

Jacintha looked fearfully round and whispered in Josephine's ear,
"When the news of Colonel Raynal's death came, you wept, but the
color came back to your cheek.  When the news of his life came, you
turned to stone.  Ah! my poor young lady, there has been more
between you and THAT MAN than should be.  Ever since one day you all
went to Frejus together, you were a changed woman.  I have seen you
look at him as--as a wife looks at her man.  I have seen HIM"--

"Hush, Jacintha!  Do not tell me what you have seen: oh! do not
remind me of joys I pray God to help me forget.  He was my husband,
then!--oh, cruel Jacintha, to remind me of what I have been, of what
I am!  Ah me! ah me! ah me!"

"Your husband!" cried Jacintha in utter amazement.

Then Josephine drooped her head on this faithful creature's
shoulder, and told her with many sobs the story I have told you.
She told it very briefly, for it was to a woman who, though little
educated, was full of feeling and shrewdness, and needed but the
bare facts: she could add the rest from her own heart and
experience: could tell the storm of feelings through which these two
unhappy lovers must have passed.  Her frequent sighs of pity and
sympathy drew Josephine on to pour out all her griefs.  When the
tale was ended she gave a sigh of relief.

"It might have been worse: I thought it was worse the more fool I.
I deserve to have my head cut off."  This was Jacintha's only
comment at that time.

It was Josephine's turn to be amazed.  "It could have been worse?"
said she.  "How? tell me," added she bitterly.  "It would be a
consolation to me, could I see that."

Jacintha colored and evaded this question, and begged her to go on,
to keep nothing back from her.  Josephine assured her she had
revealed all.  Jacintha looked at her a moment in silence.

"It is then as I half suspected.  You do not know all that is before
you.  You do not see why I am afraid of that old man."

"No, not of him in particular."

"Nor why I want to keep Mademoiselle Rose from prattling to him?"

"No.  I assure you Rose is to be trusted; she is wise--wiser than I
am."

"You are neither of you wise.  You neither of you know anything.  My
poor young mistress, you are but a child still.  You have a deep
water to wade through," said Jacintha, so solemnly that Josephine
trembled.  "A deep water, and do not see it even.  You have told me
what is past, now I must tell you what is coming.  Heaven help me!
But is it possible you have no misgiving?  Tell the truth, now."

"Alas! I am full of them; at your words, at your manner, they fly
around me in crowds."

"Have you no ONE?"

"No."

"Then turn your head from me a bit, my sweet young lady; I am an
honest woman, though I am not so innocent as you, and I am forced
against my will to speak my mind plainer than I am used to."

Then followed a conversation, to detail which might anticipate our
story; suffice it to say, that Rose, coming into the room rather
suddenly, found her sister weeping on Jacintha's bosom, and Jacintha
crying and sobbing over her.

She stood and stared in utter amazement.


Dr. Aubertin, on his arrival, was agreeably surprised at Madame
Raynal's appearance.  He inquired after her appetite.

"Oh, as to her appetite," cried the baroness, "that is immense."

"Indeed!"

"It was," explained Josephine, "just when I began to get better, but
now it is as much as usual."  This answer had been arranged
beforehand by Jacintha.  She added, "The fact is, we wanted to see
you, doctor, and my ridiculous ailments were a good excuse for
tearing you from Paris."--"And now we have succeeded," said Rose,
"let us throw off the mask, and talk of other things; above all, of
Paris, and your eclat."

"For all that," persisted the baroness, "she was ill, when I first
wrote, and very ill too."

"Madame Raynal," said the doctor solemnly, "your conduct has been
irregular; once ill, and your illness announced to your medical
adviser, etiquette forbade you to get well but by his prescriptions.
Since, then, you have shown yourself unfit to conduct a malady, it
becomes my painful duty to forbid you henceforth ever to be ill at
all, without my permission first obtained in writing."

This badinage was greatly relished by Rose, but not at all by the
baroness, who was as humorless as a swan.

He stayed a month at Beaurepaire, then off to Paris again: and being
now a rich man, and not too old to enjoy innocent pleasures, he got
a habit of running backwards and forwards between the two places,
spending a month or so at each alternately.  So the days rolled on.
Josephine fell into a state that almost defies description; her
heart was full of deadly wounds, yet it seemed, by some mysterious,
half-healing balm, to throb and ache, but bleed no more.  Beams of
strange, unreasonable complacency would shoot across her; the next
moment reflection would come, she would droop her head, and sigh
piteously.  Then all would merge in a wild terror of detection.  She
seemed on the borders of a river of bliss, new, divine, and
inexhaustible: and on the other bank mocking malignant fiends dared
her to enter that heavenly stream.  The past to her was full of
regrets; the future full of terrors, and empty of hope.  Yet she did
not, could not succumb.  Instead of the listlessness and languor of
a few months back, she had now more energy than ever; at times it
mounted to irritation.  An activity possessed her: it broke out in
many feminine ways.  Among the rest she was seized with what we men
call a cacoethes of the needle: "a raging desire" for work.  Her
fingers itched for work.  She was at it all day.  As devotees retire
to pray, so she to stitch.  On a wet day she would often slip into
the kitchen, and ply the needle beside Jacintha: on a dry day she
would hide in the old oak-tree, and sit like a mouse, and ply the
tools of her craft, and make things of no mortal use to man or
woman; and she tried little fringes of muslin upon her white hand,
and held it up in front of her, and smiled, and then moaned.  It was
winter, and Rose used sometimes to bring her out a thick shawl, as
she sat in the old oak-tree stitching, but Josephine nearly always
declined it.  SHE WAS NEARLY IMPERVIOUS TO COLD.

Then, her purse being better filled than formerly, she visited the
poor more than ever, and above all the young couples; and took a
warm interest in their household matters, and gave them muslin
articles of her own making, and sometimes sniffed the soup in a
young housewife's pot, and took a fancy to it, and, if invited to
taste it, paid her the compliment of eating a good plateful of it,
and said it was much better soup than the chateau produced, and,
what is stranger, thought so: and, whenever some peevish little brat
set up a yell in its cradle and the father naturally enough shook
his fist at the destroyer of his peace, Madame Raynal's lovely face
filled with concern not for the sufferer but the pest, and she flew
to it and rocked it and coaxed it and consoled it, till the young
housewife smiled and stopped its mouth by other means.  And, besides
the five-franc pieces she gave the infants to hold, these visits of
Madame Raynal were always followed by one from Jacintha with a
basket of provisions on her stalwart arm, and honest Sir John
Burgoyne peeping out at the corner.  Kind and beneficent as she was,
her temper deteriorated considerably, for it came down from angelic
to human.  Rose and Jacintha were struck with the change, assented
to everything she said, and encouraged her in everything it pleased
her caprice to do.  Meantime the baroness lived on her son Raynal's
letters (they came regularly twice a month).  Rose too had a
correspondence, a constant source of delight to her.  Edouard
Riviere was posted at a distance, and could not visit her; but their
love advanced rapidly.  Every day he wrote down for his Rose the
acts of the day, and twice a week sent the budget to his sweetheart,
and told her at the same time every feeling of his heart.  She was
less fortunate than he; she had to carry a heavy secret; but still
she found plenty to tell him, and tender feelings too to vent on him
in her own arch, shy, fitful way.  Letters can enchain hearts; it
was by letters that these two found themselves imperceptibly
betrothed.  Their union was looked forward to as certain, and not
very distant.  Rose was fairly in love.

One day, Dr. Aubertin, coming back from Paris to Beaurepaire rather
suddenly, found nobody at home but the baroness.  Josephine and Rose
were gone to Frejus; had been there more than a week.  She was
ailing again; so as Frejus had agreed with her once, Rose thought it
might again.  "She would send for them back directly."

"No," said the doctor, "why do that?  I will go over there and see
them."  Accordingly, a day or two after this, he hired a carriage,
and went off early in the morning to Frejus.  In so small a place he
expected to find the young ladies at once; but, to his surprise, no
one knew them nor had heard of them.  He was at a nonplus, and just
about to return home and laugh at himself and the baroness for this
wild-goose chase, when he fell in with a face he knew, one Mivart, a
surgeon, a young man of some talent, who had made his acquaintance
in Paris.  Mivart accosted him with great respect; and, after the
first compliments, informed him that he had been settled some months
in this little town, and was doing a fair stroke of business.

"Killing some, and letting nature cure others, eh?" said the doctor;
then, having had his joke, he told Mivart what had brought him to
Frejus.

"Are they pretty women, your friends?  I think I know all the pretty
women about," said Mivart with levity.  "They are not pretty,"
replied Aubertin.  Mivart's interest in them faded visibly out of
his countenance.  "But they are beautiful.  The elder might pass for
Venus, and the younger for Hebe."

"I know them then!" cried he; "they are patients of mine."

The doctor colored.  "Ah, indeed!"

"In the absence of your greater skill," said Mivart, politely; "it
is Madame Aubertin and her sister you are looking for, is it not?"

Aubertin groaned.  "I am rather too old to be looking for a Madame
Aubertin," said he; "no; it is Madame Raynal, and Mademoiselle de
Beaurepaire."

Mivart became confidential.  "Madame Aubertin and her sister," said
he, "are so lovely they make me ill to look at them: the deepest
blue eyes you ever saw, both of them; high foreheads; teeth like
ivory mixed with pearl; such aristocratic feet and hands; and their
arms--oh!" and by way of general summary the young surgeon kissed
the tips of his fingers, and was silent; language succumbed under
the theme.  The doctor smiled coldly.

Mivart added, "If you had come an hour sooner, you might have seen
Mademoiselle Rose; she was in the town."

"Mademoiselle Rose? who is that?"

"Why, Madame Aubertin's sister."

At this Dr. Aubertin looked first very puzzled, then very grave.

"Hum!" said he, after a little reflection, "where do these paragons
live?"

"They lodge at a small farm; it belongs to a widow; her name is
Roth."  They parted.  Dr. Aubertin walked slowly towards his
carriage, his hands behind him, his eyes on the ground.  He bade the
driver inquire where the Widow Roth lived, and learned it was about
half a league out of the town.  He drove to the farmhouse; when the
carriage drove up, a young lady looked out of the window on the
first floor.  It was Rose de Beaurepaire.  She caught the doctor's
eye, and he hers.  She came down and welcomed him with a great
appearance of cordiality, and asked him, with a smile, how he found
them out.

"From your medical attendant," said the doctor, dryly.

Rose looked keenly in his face.

"He said he was in attendance on two paragons of beauty, blue eyes,
white teeth and arms."

"And you found us out by that?" inquired Rose, looking still more
keenly at him.

"Hardly; but it was my last chance of finding you, so I came.  Where
is Madame Raynal?"

"Come into this room, dear friend.  I will go and find her."

Full twenty minutes was the doctor kept waiting, and then in came
Rose, gayly crying, "I have hunted her high and low, and where do
you think my lady was? sitting out in the garden--come."

Sure enough, they found Josephine in the garden, seated on a low
chair.  She smiled when the doctor came up to her, and asked after
her mother.  There was an air of languor about her; her color was
clear, delicate, and beautiful.

"You have been unwell, my child."

"A little, dear friend; you know me; always ailing, and tormenting
those I love."

"Well! but, Josephine, you know this place and this sweet air always
set you up.  Look at her now, doctor; did you ever see her look
better?  See what a color.  I never saw her look more lovely."

"I never saw her look SO lovely; but I have seen her look better.
Your pulse.  A little languid?"

"Yes, I am a little."

"Do you stay at Beaurepaire?" inquired Rose; "if so, we will come
home."

"On the contrary, you will stay here another fortnight," said the
doctor, authoritatively.

"Prescribe some of your nice tonics for me, doctor," said Josephine,
coaxingly.

"No! I can't do that; you are in the hands of another practitioner."

"What does that matter?  You were at Paris."

"It is not the etiquette in our profession to interfere with another
man's patients."

"Oh, dear! I am so sorry," began Josephine.

"I see nothing here that my good friend Mivart is not competent to
deal with," said the doctor, coldly.

Then followed some general conversation, at the end of which the
doctor once more laid his commands on them to stay another fortnight
where they were, and bade them good-by.

He was no sooner gone than Rose went to the door of the kitchen, and
called out, "Madame Jouvenel!  Madame Jouvenel! you may come into
the garden again."

The doctor drove away; but, instead of going straight to Beaurepaire,
he ordered the driver to return to the town.  He then walked to
Mivart's house.

In about a quarter of an hour he came out of it, looking singularly
grave, sad, and stern.


CHAPTER XVII.


Edouard Riviere contrived one Saturday to work off all arrears of
business, and start for Beaurepaire.  He had received a very kind
letter from Rose, and his longing to see her overpowered him.  On
the road his eyes often glittered, and his cheek flushed with
expectation.  At last he got there.  His heart beat: for four months
he had not seen her.  He ran up into the drawing-room, and there
found the baroness alone; she welcomed him cordially, but soon let
him know Rose and her sister were at Frejus.  His heart sank.
Frejus was a long way off.  But this was not all.  Rose's last
letter was dated from Beaurepaire, yet it must have been written at
Frejus.  He went to Jacintha, and demanded an explanation of this.
The ready Jacintha said it looked as if she meant to be home
directly; and added, with cool cunning, "That is a hint for me to
get their rooms ready."

"This letter must have come here enclosed in another," said Edouard,
sternly.

"Like enough," replied Jacintha, with an appearance of sovereign
indifference.

Edouard looked at her, and said, grimly, "I will go to Frejus."

"So I would," said Jacintha, faltering a little, but not
perceptibly; "you might meet them on the road, if so be they come
the same road; there are two roads, you know."

Edouard hesitated; but he ended by sending Dard to the town on his
own horse, with orders to leave him at the inn, and borrow a fresh
horse.  "I shall just have time," said he.  He rode to Frejus, and
inquired at the inns and post-office for Mademoiselle de
Beaurepaire.  They did not know her; then he inquired for Madame
Raynal.  No such name known.  He rode by the seaside upon the chance
of their seeing him.  He paraded on horseback throughout the place,
in hopes every moment that a window would open, and a fair face
shine at it, and call him.  At last his time was up, and he was
obliged to ride back, sick at heart, to Beaurepaire.  He told the
baroness, with some natural irritation, what had happened.  She was
as much surprised as he was.

"I write to Madame Raynal at the post-office, Frejus," said she.

"And Madame Raynal gets your letters?"

"Of course she does, since she answers them; you cannot have
inquired at the post."

"Why, it was the first place I inquired at, and neither Mademoiselle
de Beaurepaire nor Madame Raynal were known there."

Jacintha, who could have given the clew, seemed so puzzled herself,
that they did not even apply to her.  Edouard took a sorrowful leave
of the baroness, and set out on his journey home.

Oh! how sad and weary that ride seemed now by what it had been
coming.  His disappointment was deep and irritating; and ere he had
ridden half way a torturer fastened on his heart.  That torture is
suspicion; a vague and shadowy, but gigantic phantom that oppresses
and rends the mind more terribly than certainty.  In this state of
vague, sickening suspicion, he remained some days: then came an
affectionate letter from Rose, who had actually returned home.  In
this she expressed her regret and disappointment at having missed
him; blamed herself for misleading him, but explained that their
stay at Frejus had been prolonged from day to day far beyond her
expectation.  "The stupidity of the post-office was more than she
could account for," said she.  But, what went farthest to console
Edouard, was, that after this contretemps she never ceased to invite
him to come to Beaurepaire.  Now, before this, though she said many
kind and pretty things in her letters, she had never invited him to
visit the chateau; he had noticed this.  "Sweet soul," thought he,
"she really is vexed.  I must be a brute to think any more about it.
Still"--

So this wound was skinned over.

At last, what he called his lucky star ordained that he should be
transferred to the very post his Commandant Raynal had once
occupied.  He sought and obtained permission to fix his quarters in
the little village near Beaurepaire, and though this plan could not
be carried out for three months, yet the prospect of it was joyful
all that time--joyful to both lovers.  Rose needed this consolation,
for she was very unhappy: her beloved sister, since their return
from Frejus, had gone back.  The flush of health was faded, and so
was her late energy.  She fell into deep depression and languor,
broken occasionally by fits of nervous irritation.

She would sit for hours together at one window languishing and
fretting.  Can the female reader guess which way that window looked?

Now, Edouard was a favorite of Josephine's; so Rose hoped he would
help to distract her attention from those sorrows which a lapse of
years alone could cure.

On every account, then, his visit was looked forward to with hope
and joy.

He came.  He was received with open arms.  He took up his quarters
at his old lodgings, but spent his evenings and every leisure hour
at the chateau.

He was very much in love, and showed it.  He adhered to Rose like a
leech, and followed her about like a little dog.

This would have made her very happy if there had been nothing great
to distract her attention and her heart; but she had Josephine,
whose deep depression and fits of irritation and terror filled her
with anxiety; and so Edouard was in the way now and then.  On these
occasions he was too vain to see what she was too polite to show him
offensively.

But on this she became vexed at his obtuseness.

"Does he think I can be always at his beck and call?" thought she.

"She is always after her sister," said he.

He was just beginning to be jealous of Josephine when the following
incident occurred:--

Rose and the doctor were discussing Josephine.  Edouard pretended to
be reading a book, but he listened to every word.

Dr. Aubertin gave it as his opinion that Madame Raynal did not make
enough blood.

"Oh! if I thought that!" cried Rose.

"Well, then, it is so, I assure you."

"Doctor," said Rose, "do you remember, one day you said healthy
blood could be drawn from robust veins and poured into a sick
person's?"

"It is a well-known fact," said Aubertin.

"I don't believe it," said Rose, dryly.

"Then you place a very narrow limit to science," said the doctor,
coldly.

"Did you ever see it done?" asked Rose, slyly.

"I have not only seen it done, but have done it myself."

"Then do it for us.  There's my arm; take blood from that for dear
Josephine!" and she thrust a white arm out under his eye with such a
bold movement and such a look of fire and love as never beamed from
common eyes.

A keen, cold pang shot through the human heart of Edouard Riviere.

The doctor started and gazed at her with admiration: then he hung
his head.  "I could not do it.  I love you both too well to drain
either of life's current."

Rose veiled her fire, and began to coax.  "Once a week; just once a
week, dear, dear doctor; you know I should never miss it.  I am so
full of that health, which Heaven denies to her I love."

"Let us try milder measures first," said the doctor.  "I have most
faith in time."

"What if I were to take her to Frejus? hitherto, the sea has always
done wonders for her."

"Frejus, by all means," said Edouard, mingling suddenly in the
conversation; "and this time I will go with you, and then I shall
find out where you lodged before, and how the boobies came to say
they did not know you."

Rose bit her lip.  She could not help seeing then how much dear
Edouard was in her way and Josephine's.  Their best friends are in
the way of all who have secrets.  Presently the doctor went to his
study.  Then Edouard let fall a mock soliloquy.  "I wonder," said
he, dropping out his words one by one, "whether any one will ever
love me well enough to give a drop of their blood for me."

"If you were in sickness and sorrow, who knows?" said Rose, coloring
up.

"I would soon be in sickness and sorrow if I thought that."

"Don't jest with such matters, monsieur."

"I am serious.  I wish I was as ill as Madame Raynal is, to be loved
as she is."

"You must resemble her in some other things to be loved as she is.

"You have often made me feel that of late, dear Rose."

This touched her.  But she fought down the kindly feeling.  "I am
glad of it," said she, out of perverseness.  She added after a
while, "Edouard, you are naturally jealous."

"Not the least in the world, Rose, I assure you.  I have many
faults, but jealous I am not."

"Oh, yes, you are, and suspicious, too; there is something in your
character that alarms me for our happiness."

"Well, if you come to that, there are things in YOUR conduct I could
wish explained."

"There! I said so.  You have not confidence in me."

"Pray don't say that, dear Rose.  I have every confidence in you;
only please don't ask me to divest myself of my senses and my
reason."

"I don't ask you to do that or anything else for me; good-by, for
the present."

"Where are you going now? tic! tic! I never can get a word in peace
with you."

"I am not going to commit murder.  I'm only going up-stairs to my
sister."

"Poor Madame Raynal, she makes it very hard for me not to dislike
her."

"Dislike my Josephine?" and Rose bristled visibly.

"She is an angel, but I should hate an angel if it came forever
between you and me."

"Excuse me, she was here long before you.  It is you that came
between her and me."

"I came because I was told I should be welcome," said Edouard
bitterly, and equivocating a little; he added, "and I dare say I
shall go when I am told I am one too many."

"Bad heart! who says you are one too many in the house?  But you are
too exigent, monsieur; you assume the husband, and you tease me.  It
is selfish; can you not see I am anxious and worried? you ought to
be kind to me, and soothe me; that is what I look for from you, and,
instead of that, I declare you are getting to be quite a worry."

"I should not be if you loved me as I love you.  I give YOU no
rival.  Shall I tell you the cause of all this? you have secrets."

"What secrets?"

"Is it me you ask? am I trusted with them?  Secrets are a bond that
not even love can overcome.  It is to talk secrets you run away from
me to Madame Raynal.  Where did you lodge at Frejus, Mademoiselle
the Reticent?"

"In a grotto, dry at low water, Monsieur the Inquisitive."

"That is enough: since you will not tell me, I will find it out
before I am a week older."

This alarmed Rose terribly, and drove her to extremities.  She
decided to quarrel.

"Sir," said she, "I thank you for playing the tyrant a little
prematurely; it has put me on my guard.  Let us part; you and I are
not suited to each other, Edouard Riviere."

He took this more humbly than she expected.  "Part!" said he, in
consternation; "that is a terrible word to pass between you and me.
Forgive me! I suppose I am jealous."

"You are; you are actually jealous of my sister.  Well, I tell you
plainly I love you, but I love my sister better.  I never could love
any man as I do her; it is ridiculous to expect such a thing."

"And do you think I could bear to play second fiddle to her all my
life?"

"I don't ask you.  Go and play first trumpet to some other lady."

"You speak your wishes so plainly now, I have nothing to do but to
obey."

He kissed her hand and went away disconsolately.

Rose, instead of going to Josephine, her determination to do which
had mainly caused the quarrel, sat sadly down, and leaned her head
on her hand.  "I am cruel.  I am ungrateful.  He has gone away
broken-hearted.  And what shall I do without him?--little fool!  I
love him better than he loves me.  He will never forgive me.  I have
wounded his vanity; and they are vainer than we are.  If we meet at
dinner I will be so kind to him, he will forget it all.  No! Edouard
will not come to dinner.  He is not a spaniel that you can beat, and
then whistle back again.  Something tells me I have lost him, and if
I have, what shall I do?  I will write him a note.  I will ask him
to forgive me."

She sat down at the table, and took a sheet of notepaper and began
to write a few conciliatory words.  She was so occupied in making
these kind enough, and not too kind, that a light step approached
her unobserved.  She looked up and there was Edouard.  She whipped
the paper off the table.

A look of suspicion and misery crossed Edouard's face.

Rose caught it, and said, "Well, am I to be affronted any more?"

"No, Rose.  I came back to beg you to forget what passed just now,"
said he.

Rose's eye flashed; his return showed her her power.  She abused it
directly.

"How can I forget it if you come reminding me?"

"Dear Rose, now don't be so unkind, so cruel--I have not come back
to tease you, sweet one.  I come to know what I can do to please
you; to make you love me again?" and he was about to kneel
graciously on one knee.

"I'll tell you.  Don't come near me for a month."

Edouard started up, white as ashes with mortification and wounded
love.

"This is how you treat me for humbling myself, when it is you that
ought to ask forgiveness."

"Why should I ask what I don't care about?"

"What DO you care about?--except that sister of yours?  You have no
heart.  And on this cold-blooded creature I have wasted a love an
empress might have been proud of inspiring.  I pray Heaven some man
may sport with your affections, you heartless creature, as you have
played with mine, and make you suffer what I suffer now!"

And with a burst of inarticulate grief and rage he flung out of the
room.

Rose sank trembling on the sofa a little while: then with a mighty
effort rose and went to comfort her sister.

Edouard came no more to Beaurepaire.


There is an old French proverb, and a wise one, "Rien n'est certain
que l'imprevu;" it means you can make sure of nothing but this, that
matters will not turn as you feel sure they will.  And, even for
this reason, you, who are thinking of suicide because trade is
declining, speculation failing, bankruptcy impending, or your life
going to be blighted forever by unrequited love--DON'T DO IT.
Whether you are English, American, French, or German, listen to a
man that knows what is what, and DON'T DO IT.  I tell you none of
those horrors, when they really come, will affect you as you fancy
they will.  The joys we expect are not a quarter so bright, nor the
troubles half so dark as we think they will be.  Bankruptcy coming
is one thing, come is quite another: and no heart or life was ever
really blighted at twenty years of age.  The love-sick girls that
are picked out of the canal alive, all, without exception, marry
another man, have brats, and get to screech with laughter when they
think of sweetheart No. 1, generally a blockhead, or else a
blackguard, whom they were fools enough to wet their clothes for,
let alone kill their souls.  This happens INVARIABLY.  The love-sick
girls that are picked out of the canal dead have fled from a year's
misery to eternal pain, from grief that time never failed to cure,
to anguish incurable.  In this world "Rien n'est certain que
l'imprevu."

Edouard and Rose were tender lovers, at a distance.  How much
happier and more loving they thought they should be beneath the same
roof.  They came together: their prominent faults of character
rubbed: the secret that was in the house did its work: and
altogether, they quarrelled.  L'imprevu.

Dard had been saying to Jacintha for ever so long, "When granny
dies, I will marry you."

Granny died.  Dard took possession of her little property.  Up came
a glittering official, and turned him out; he was not her heir.
Perrin, the notary, was.  He had bought the inheritance of her two
sons, long since dead.

Dard had not only looked on the cottage and cow, as his, but had
spoken of them as such for years.  The disappointment and the irony
of comrades ate into him.

"I will leave this cursed place," said he.

Josephine instantly sent for him to Beaurepaire.  He came, and was
factotum with the novelty of a fixed salary.  Jacintha accommodated
him with a new little odd job or two.  She set him to dance on the
oak floors with a brush fastened to his right foot; and, after a
rehearsal or two, she made him wait at table.  Didn't he bang the
things about: and when he brought a lady a dish, and she did not
instantly attend, he gave her elbow a poke to attract attention:
then she squeaked; and he grinned at her double absurdity in minding
a touch, and not minding the real business of the table.

But his wrongs rankled in him.  He vented antique phrases such as,
"I want a change;"  "This village is the last place the Almighty
made," etc.

Then he was attacked with a moral disease: affected the company of
soldiers.  He spent his weekly salary carousing with the military, a
class of men so brilliant that they are not expected to pay for
their share of the drink; they contribute the anecdotes and the
familiar appeals to Heaven: and is not that enough?

Present at many recitals, the heroes of which lost nothing by being
their own historians, Dard imbibed a taste for military adventure.
His very talk, which used to be so homely, began now to be tinselled
with big swelling words of vanity imported from the army.  I need
hardly say these bombastical phrases did not elevate his general
dialect: they lay fearfully distinct upon the surface, "like lumps
of marl upon a barren soil, encumbering the ground they could not
fertilize."

Jacintha took leave to remind him of an incident connected with
warfare--wounds.

"Do you remember how you were down upon your luck when you did but
cut your foot?  Why, that is nothing in the army.  They never go out
to fight but some come back with arms off, and some with legs off
and some with heads; and the rest don't come back at all: and how
would you like that?"

This intrusion of statistics into warfare at first cooled Dard's
impatience for the field.  But presently the fighting half of his
heart received an ally in one Sergeant La Croix (not a bad name for
a military aspirant).  This sergeant was at the village waiting to
march with the new recruits to the Rhine.  Sergeant La Croix was a
man who, by force of eloquence, could make soldiering appear the
most delightful as well as glorious of human pursuits.  His tongue
fired the inexperienced soul with a love of arms, as do the drums
and trumpets and tramp of soldiers, and their bayonets glittering in
the sun.  He would have been worth his weight in fustian here, where
we recruit by that and jargon; he was superfluous in France, where
they recruited by force: but he was ornamental: and he set Dard and
one or two more on fire.  Indeed, so absorbing was his sense of
military glory, that there was no room left in him for that mere
verbal honor civilians call veracity.

To speak plainly, the sergeant was a fluent, fertile, interesting,
sonorous, prompt, audacious liar: and such was his success, that
Dard and one or two more became mere human fiction pipes--of
comparatively small diameter--irrigating a rural district with false
views of military life, derived from that inexhaustible reservoir,
La Croix.

At last the long-threatened conscription was levied: every person
fit to bear arms, and not coming under the allowed exceptions, drew
a number: and at a certain hour the numbers corresponding to these
were deposited in an urn, and one-third of them were drawn in
presence of the authorities.  Those men whose numbers were drawn had
to go for soldiers.  Jacintha awaited the result in great anxiety.
She could not sit at home for it; so she went down the road to meet
Dard, who had promised to come and tell her the result as soon as
known.  At last she saw him approaching in a disconsolate way.  "O
Dard! speak! are we undone? are you a dead man?" cried she.  "Have
they made a soldier of you?"

"No such luck: I shall die a man of all work," grunted Dard.

"And you are sorry? you unnatural little monster! you have no
feeling for me, then."

"Oh, yes, I have; but glory is No. 1 with me now."

"How loud the bantams crow!  You leave glory to fools that be six
feet high."

"General Bonaparte isn't much higher than I am, and glory sits upon
his brow.  Why shouldn't glory sit upon my brow?"

"Because it would weigh you down, and smother you, you little fool."
She added, "And think of me, that couldn't bear you to be killed at
any price, glory or no glory."

Then, to appease her fears, Dard showed her his number, 99; and
assured her he had seen the last number in the functionary's hand
before he came away, and it was sixty something.

This ocular demonstration satisfied Jacintha; and she ordered Dard
to help her draw the water.

"All right," said he, "there is no immortal glory to be picked up
to-day, so I'll go in for odd jobs."

While they were at this job a voice was heard hallooing.  Dard
looked up, and there was a rigid military figure, with a tremendous
mustache, peering about.  Dard was overjoyed.  It was his friend,
his boon-companion.  "Come here, old fellow," cried he, "ain't I
glad to see you, that is all?"  La Croix marched towards the pair.
"What are you skulking here for, recruit ninety-nine?" said he,
sternly, dropping the boon-companion in the sergeant; "the rest are
on the road."

"The rest, old fellow! what do you mean? why, I was not drawn."

"Yes, you were."

"No, I wasn't."

"Thunder of war, but I say you were.  Yours was the last number."

"That is an unlucky guess of yours, for I saw the last number.  Look
here," and he fumbled in his pocket, and produced his number.

La Croix instantly fished out a corresponding number.

"Well, and here you are; this was the last number drawn."

Dard burst out laughing.

"You goose!" said he, "that is sixty-six--look at it."

"Sixty-six!" roared the sergeant; "no more than yours is--they are
both sixty-sixes when you play tricks with them, and turn them up
like that; but they are both ninety-nines when you look at them
fair."

Dard scratched his head.

"Come," said the corporal, briskly, "make up his bundle, girl, and
let us be off; we have got our marching orders; going to the Rhine."

"And do you think that I will let him go?" screamed Jacintha.  "No!
I will say one word to Madame Raynal, and she will buy him a
substitute directly."

Dard stopped her sullenly.  "No! I have told all in the village that
I would go the first chance: it is come, and I'll go.  I won't stay
to be laughed at about this too.  If I was sure to be cut in pieces,
I'd go.  Give over blubbering, girl, and get us a bottle of the best
wine, and while we are drinking it, the sergeant and I, you make up
my bundle.  I shall never do any good here."

Jacintha knew the obstinate toad.  She did as she was bid, and soon
the little bundle was ready, and the two men faced the wine; La
Croix, radiant and bellicose; Dard, crestfallen but dogged (for
there was a little bit of good stuff at the bottom of the creature);
and Jacintha rocking herself, with her apron over her head.

"I'll give you a toast," said La Croix.  "Here's gunpowder."

Jacintha promptly honored the toast with a flood of tears.

"Drop that, Jacintha," said Dard, angrily; "do you think that is
encouraging?  Sergeant, I told this poor girl all about glory before
you came, but she was not ripe for it: say something to cheer her
up, for I can't."

"I can," cried this trumpet of battle, emptying its glass.
"Attention, young woman."

"Oh, dear! oh, dear! yes, sir."

"A French soldier is a man who carries France in his heart"--

"But if the cruel foreign soldiers kill him?  Oh!"

"Why, in that case, he does not care a straw.  Every man must die;
horses likewise, and dogs, and donkeys, when they come to the end of
their troubles; but dogs and donkeys and chaps in blouses can't die
gloriously; as Dard may, if he has any luck at all: so, from this
hour, if there was twice as little of him, be proud of him, for from
this time he is a part of France and her renown.  Come, recruit
ninety-nine, shoulder your traps at duty's call, and let us go forth
in form.  Attention!  Quick--march!  Halt! is that the way I showed
you to march?  Didn't I tell you to start from the left?  Now try
again.  QUICK--march! left--right--left--right--left--right--NOW
you've--GOT it--DRAT ye,--KEEP it--left--right--left--right--left--
right."  And with no more ado the sergeant marched the little odd-
job man to the wars.

VIVE LA FRANCE!


CHAPTER XVIII.


Edouard, the moment his temper cooled, became very sad.  He longed
to be friends again with Rose, but did not know how.  His own pride
held him back, and so did his fear that he had gone too far, and
that his offended mistress would not listen to an offer of
reconciliation from him.  He sat down alone now to all his little
meals.  No sweet, mellow voices in his ear after the fatigues of the
day.  It was a dismal change in his life.

At last, one day, he received three lines from Josephine, requesting
him to come and speak to her.  He went over directly, full of vague
hopes.  He found her seated pale and languid in a small room on the
ground floor.

"What has she been doing to you, dear?" began she kindly.

"Has she not told you, Madame Raynal?"

"No; she is refractory.  She will tell me nothing, and that makes me
fear she is the one in fault."

"Oh! if she does not accuse me, I am sure I will not accuse her.  I
dare say I am to blame; it is not her fault that I cannot make her
love me."

"But you can.  She does."

"Yes; but she loves others better, and she holds me out no hope it
will ever be otherwise.  On this one point how can I hope for your
sympathy; unfortunately for me you are one of my rivals.  She told
me plainly she never could love me as she loves you."

"And you believed her?"

"I had good reason to believe her."

Josephine smiled sadly.  "Dear Edouard," said she, "you must not
attach so much importance to every word we say.  Does Rose at her
age know everything?  Is she a prophet?  Perhaps she really fancies
she will always love her sister as she does now; but you are a man
of sense; you ought to smile and let her talk.  When you marry her
you will take her to your own house; she will only see me now and
then; she will have you and your affection always present.  Each day
some new tie between you and her.  You two will share every joy,
every sorrow.  Your children playing at your feet, and reflecting
the features of both parents, will make you one.  Your hearts will
melt together in that blessed union which raises earth so near to
heaven; and then you will wonder you could ever be jealous of poor
Josephine, who must never hope--ah, me!"

Edouard, wrapped up in himself, mistook Josephine's emotion at the
picture she had drawn of conjugal love.  He soothed her, and vowed
upon his honor he never would separate Rose from her.

"Madame Raynal," said he, "you are an angel, and I am a fiend.
Jealousy must be the meanest of all sentiments.  I never will be
jealous again, above all, of you, sweet angel.  Why, you are my
sister as well as hers, and she has a right to love you, for I love
you myself."

"You make me very happy when you talk so," sighed Josephine.  "Peace
is made?"

"Never again to be broken.  I will go and ask her pardon.  What is
the matter now?"

For Jacintha was cackling very loud, and dismissing with ignominy
two beggars, male and female.

She was industry personified, and had no sympathy with mendicity.
In vain the couple protested, Heaven knows with what truth, that
they were not beggars, but mechanics out of work.  "March! tramp!"
was Jacintha's least word.  She added, giving the rein to her
imagination, "I'll loose the dog."  The man moved away, the woman
turned appealingly to Edouard.  He and Josephine came towards the
group.  She had got a sort of large hood, and in that hood she
carried an infant on her shoulders.  Josephine inspected it.  "It
looks sickly, poor little thing," said she.

"What can you expect, young lady?" said the woman.  "Its mother had
to rise and go about when she ought to have been in her bed, and now
she has not enough to give it."

"Oh, dear!" cried Josephine.  "Jacintha, give them some food and a
nice bottle of wine."

"That I will," cried Jacintha, changing her tone with courtier-like
alacrity.  "I did not see she was nursing."

Josephine put a franc into the infant's hand; the little fingers
closed on it with that instinct of appropriation, which is our first
and often our last sentiment.  Josephine smiled lovingly on the
child, and the child seeing that gave a small crow.

"Bless it," said Josephine, and thereupon her lovely head reared
itself like a snake's, and then darted down on the child; and the
young noble kissed the beggar's brat as if she would eat it.

This won the mother's heart more than even the gifts.

"Blessings on you, my lady!" she cried.  "I pray the Lord not to
forget this when a woman's trouble comes on you in your turn!  It is
a small child, mademoiselle, but it is not an unhealthy one.  See."
Inspection was offered, and eagerly accepted.

Edouard stood looking on at some distance in amazement, mingled with
disgust.

"Ugh!" said he, when she rejoined him, "how could you kiss that
nasty little brat?"

"Dear Edouard, don't speak so of a poor little innocent.  Who would
pity them if we women did not?  It had lovely eyes."

"Like saucers."

"Yes."

"It is no compliment when you are affectionate to anybody; you
overflow with benevolence on all creation, like the rose which sheds
its perfume on the first-comer."

"If he is not going to be jealous of me next," whined Josephine.

She took him to Rose, and she said, "There, whenever good friends
quarrel, it is understood they were both in the wrong.  Bygones are
to be bygones; and when your time comes round to quarrel again,
please consult me first, since it is me you will afflict."  She left
them together, and went and tapped timidly at the doctor's study.

Aubertin received her with none of that reserve she had seen in him.
He appeared both surprised and pleased at her visit to his little
sanctum.  He even showed an emotion Josephine was at a loss to
account for.  But that wore off during the conversation, and,
indeed, gave place to a sort of coldness.

"Dear friend," said she, "I come to consult you about Rose and
Edouard."  She then told him what had happened, and hinted at
Edouard's one fault.  The doctor smiled.  "It is curious.  You have
come to draw my attention to a point on which it has been fixed for
some days past.  I am preparing a cure for the two young fools; a
severe remedy, but in their case a sure one."

He then showed her a deed, wherein he had settled sixty thousand
francs on Rose and her children.  "Edouard," said he, "has a good
place.  He is active and rising, and with my sixty thousand francs,
and a little purse of ten thousand more for furniture and nonsense,
they can marry next week, if they like.  Yes, marriage is a
sovereign medicine for both of these patients.  She does not love
him quite enough.  Cure: marriage.  He loves her a little too much.
Cure: marriage."

"O doctor!"

"Can't help it.  I did not make men and women.  We must take human
nature as we find it, and thank God for it on the whole.  Have you
nothing else to confide to me?"

"No, doctor."

"Are you sure?"

"No, dear friend.  But this is very near my heart," faltered
Josephine.

The doctor sighed; then said gently, "They shall be happy: as happy
as you wish them."

Meantime, in another room, a reconciliation scene was taking place,
and the mutual concessions of two impetuous but generous spirits.


The baroness noticed the change in Josephine's appearance.

She asked Rose what could be the matter.

"Some passing ailment," was the reply.

"Passing?  She has been so, on and off, a long time.  She makes me
very anxious."

Rose made light of it to her mother, but in her own heart she grew
more and more anxious day by day.  She held secret conferences with
Jacintha; that sagacious personage had a plan to wake Josephine from
her deathly languor, and even soothe her nerves, and check those
pitiable fits of nervous irritation to which she had become subject.
Unfortunately, Jacintha's plan was so difficult and so dangerous,
that at first even the courageous Rose recoiled from it; but there
are dangers that seem to diminish when you look them long in the
face.

The whole party was seated in the tapestried room: Jacintha was
there, sewing a pair of sheets, at a respectful distance from the
gentlefolks, absorbed in her work; but with both ears on full cock.

The doctor, holding his glasses to his eye, had just begun to read
out the Moniteur.

The baroness sat close to him, Edouard opposite; and the young
ladies each in her corner of a large luxurious sofa, at some little
distance.


"'The Austrians left seventy cannon, eight thousand men, and three
colors upon the field.  Army of the North: General Menard defeated
the enemy after a severe engagement, taking thirteen field-pieces
and a quantity of ammunition.'"


The baroness made a narrow-minded renmark.  "That is always the way
with these journals," said she.  "Austrians!  Prussians! when it's
Egypt one wants to hear about."--"No, not a word about Egypt," said
the doctor; "but there is a whole column about the Rhine, where
Colonel Dujardin is--and Dard.  If I was dictator, the first
nuisance I would put down is small type."  He then spelled out a
sanguinary engagement: "eight thousand of the enemy killed.  We have
some losses to lament.  Colonel Dujardin"--

"Only wounded, I hope," said the baroness.

The doctor went coolly on.  "At the head of the 24th brigade made a
brilliant charge on the enemy's flank, that is described in the
general order as having decided the fate of the battle."

"How badly you do read," said the old lady, sharply.  "I thought he
was gone; instead of that he has covered himself with glory; but it
is all our doing, is it not, young ladies?  We saved his life."

"We saved it amongst us, madame."

"What is the matter, Rose?" said Edouard.

"Nothing: give me the salts, quick."

She only passed them, as it were, under her own nostrils; then held
them to Josephine, who was now observed to be trembling all over.
Rose contrived to make it appear that this was mere sympathy on
Josephine's part.

"Don't be silly, girls," cried the baroness, cheerfully; "there is
nobody killed that we care about."

Dr. Aubertin read the rest to himself.

Edouard fell into a gloomy silence and tortured himself about
Camille, and Rose's anxiety and agitation.

By and by the new servant brought in a letter.  It was the long-
expected one from Egypt.

"Here is something better than salts for you.  A long letter,
Josephine, and all in his own hand; so he is safe, thank Heaven! I
was beginning to be uneasy again.  You frightened me for that poor
Camille: but this is worth a dozen Camilles; this is my son; I would
give my old life for him."--"My dear Mother--('Bless him!'), my dear
wife, and my dear sister--('Well! you sit there like two rocks!')--
We have just gained a battle--fifty colors.  ('What do you think of
that?')  All the enemy's baggage and ammunition are in our hands.
('This is something like a battle, this one.')  Also the Pasha of
Natolie.  ('Ah! the Pasha of Natolie; an important personage, no
doubt, though I never had the honor of hearing of him.  Do you
hear?--you on the sofa.  My son has captured the Pasha of Natolie.
He is as brave as Caesar.')  But this success is not one of those
that lead to important results ('Never mind, a victory is a
victory'), and I should not wonder if Bonaparte was to dash home any
day.  If so, I shall go with him, and perhaps spend a whole day with
you, on my way to the Rhine."

At this prospect a ghastly look passed quick as lightning between
Rose and Josephine.

The baroness beckoned Josephine to come close to her, and read her
what followed in a lower tone of voice.

"Tell my wife I love her more and more every day.  I don't expect as
much from her, but she will make me very happy if she can make shift
to like me as well as her family do."--"No danger!  What husband
deserves to be loved as he does?  I long for his return, that his
wife, his mother, and his sister may all combine to teach this poor
soldier what happiness means.  We owe him everything, Josephine, and
if we did not love him, and make him happy, we should be monsters;
now should we not?"

Josephine stammered an assent.

"NOW you may read his letter: Jacintha and all," said the baroness
graciously.

The letter circulated.  Meantime, the baroness conversed with
Aubertin in quite an undertone.

"My friend, look at Josephine.  That girl is ill, or else she is
going to be ill."

"Neither the one nor the other, madame," said Aubertin, looking her
coolly in the face.

"But I say she is.  Is a doctor's eye keener than a mother's?"

"Considerably," replied the doctor with cool and enviable effrontery.

The baroness rose.  "Now, children, for our evening walk.  We shall
enjoy it now."

"I trust you may: but for all that I must forbid the evening air to
one of the party--to Madame Raynal."

The baroness came to him and whispered, "That is right.  Thank you.
See what is the matter with her, and tell me."  And she carried off
the rest of the party.

At the same time Jacintha asked permission to pass the rest of the
evening with her relations in the village.  But why that swift,
quivering glance of intelligence between Jacintha and Rose de
Beaurepaire when the baroness said, "Yes, certainly"?

Time will show.

Josephine and the doctor were left alone.  Now Josephine had noticed
the old people whisper and her mother glance her way, and the whole
woman was on her guard.  She assumed a languid complacency, and by
way of shield, if necessary, took some work, and bent her eyes and
apparently her attention on it.

The doctor was silent and ill at ease.

She saw he had something weighty on his mind.  "The air would have
done me no harm," said she.

"Neither will a few words with me."

"Oh, no, dear friend.  Only I think I should have liked a little
walk this evening."

"Josephine," said the doctor quietly, "when you were a child I saved
your life."

"I have often heard my mother speak of it.  I was choked by the
croup, and you had the courage to lance my windpipe."

"Had I?" said the doctor, with a smile.  He added gravely, "It seems
then that to be cruel is sometimes kindness.  It is the nature of
men to love those whose life they save."

"And they love you."

"Well, our affection is not perfect.  I don't know which is most to
blame, but after all these years I have failed to inspire you with
confidence."  The doctor's voice was sad, and Josephine's bosom
panted.

"Pray do not say so," she cried.  "I would trust you with my life."

"But not with your secret."

"My secret!  What secret?  I have no secrets."

"Josephine, you have now for full twelve months suffered in body and
mind, yet you have never come to me for counsel, for comfort, for an
old man's experience and advice, nor even for medical aid."

"But, dear friend, I assure you"--

"We DO NOT deceive our friend.  We CANNOT deceive our doctor."

Josephine trembled, but defended herself after the manner of her
sex.  "Dear doctor," said she, "I love you all the better for this.
Your regard for me has for once blinded your science.  I am not so
robust as you have known me, but there is nothing serious the matter
with me.  Let us talk of something else.  Besides, it is not
interesting to talk about one's self."

"Very well; since there is nothing serious or interesting in your
case, we will talk about something that is both serious and
interesting."

"With all my heart;" and she smiled with a sense of relief.

But the doctor leaned over the table to her, and said in a cautious
and most emphatic whisper, "We will talk about YOUR CHILD."

The work dropped from Josephine's hands: she turned her face wildly
on Aubertin, and faltered out, "M--my child?"

"My words are plain," replied he gravely.  "YOUR CHILD."

When the doctor repeated these words, when Josephine looking in his
face saw he spoke from knowledge, however acquired, and not from
guess, she glided down slowly off the sofa and clasped his knees as
he stood before her, and hid her face in an agony of shame and
terror on his knees.

"Forgive me," she sobbed.  "Pray do not expose me!  Do not destroy
me."

"Unhappy young lady," said he, "did you think you had deceived me,
or that you are fit to deceive any but the blind?  Your face, your
anguish after Colonel Dujardin's departure, your languor, and then
your sudden robustness, your appetite, your caprices, your strange
sojourn at Frejus, your changed looks and loss of health on your
return!  Josephine, your old friend has passed many an hour thinking
of you, divining your folly, following your trouble step by step.
Yet you never invited him to aid you."

Josephine faltered out a lame excuse.  If she had revered him less
she could have borne to confess to him.  She added it would be a
relief to her to confide in him.

"Then tell me all," said he.

She consented almost eagerly, and told him--nearly all.  The old man
was deeply affected.  He murmured in a broken voice, "Your story is
the story of your sex, self-sacrifice, first to your mother, then to
Camille, now to your husband."

"And he is well worthy of any sacrifice I can make," said Josephine.
"But oh, how hard it is to live!"

"I hope to make it less hard to you ere long," said the doctor
quietly.  He then congratulated himself on having forced Josephine
to confide in him.  "For," said he, "you never needed an experienced
friend more than at this moment.  Your mother will not always be so
blind as of late.  Edouard is suspicious.  Jacintha is a shrewd
young woman, and very inquisitive."

Josephine was not at the end of her concealments: she was ashamed to
let him know she had made a confidant of Jacintha and not of him.
She held her peace.

"Then," continued Aubertin, "there is the terrible chance of
Raynal's return.  But ere I take on me to advise you, what are your
own plans?"

"I don't know," said Josephine helplessly.

"You--don't--know!" cried the doctor, looking at her in utter
amazement.

"It is the answer of a mad woman, is it not?  Doctor, I am little
better.  My foot has slipped on the edge of a precipice.  I close my
eyes, and let myself glide down it.  What will become of me?"

"All shall be well," said Aubertin, "provided you do not still love
that man."

Josephine did not immediately reply: her thoughts turned inwards.
The good doctor was proceeding to congratulate her on being cured of
a fatal passion, when she stopped him with wonder in her face.  "Not
love him!  How can I help loving him?  I was his betrothed.  I
wronged him in my thoughts.  War, prison, anguish, could not kill
him; he loved me so.  He struggled bleeding to my feet; and could I
let him die, after all?  Could I be crueller than prison, and
torture, and despair?"

The doctor sighed deeply; but, arming himself with the necessary
resolution, he sternly replied, "A woman of your name cannot
vacillate between love and honor; such vacillations have but one
end.  I will not let you drift a moral wreck between passion and
virtue; and that is what it will come to if you hesitate now."

"Hesitate!  Who can say I have hesitated where my honor was
concerned?  You can read our bodies then, but not our hearts.  What!
you see me so pale, forlorn, and dead, and that does not tell you I
have bid Camille farewell forever?  That we might be safer still I
have not even told him he is a father: was ever woman so cruel as I
am?  I have written him but one letter, and in that I must deceive
him.  I told him I thought I might one day be happy, if I could hear
that he did not give way to despair.  I told him we must never meet
again in this world.  So now come what will: show me my duty and I
will do it.  This endless deceit burns my heart.  Shall I tell my
husband?  It will be but one pang more, one blush more for me.  But
my mother!" and, thus appealed to, Dr. Aubertin felt, for the first
time, all the difficulty of the situation he had undertaken to cure.
He hesitated, he was embarrassed.

"Ah," said Josephine, "you see."  Then, after a short silence, she
said despairingly, "This is my only hope: that poor Raynal will be
long absent, and that ere he returns mamma will lie safe from sorrow
and shame in the little chapel.  Doctor, when a woman of my age
forms such wishes as these, I think you might pity her, and forgive
her ill-treatment of you, for she cannot be very happy.  Ah me! ah
me! ah me!"

"Courage, poor soul!  All is now in my hands, and I will save you,"
said the doctor, his voice trembling in spite of him.  "Guilt lies
in the intention.  A more innocent woman than you does not breathe.
Two courses lay open to you: to leave this house with Camille
Dujardin, or to dismiss him, and live for your hard duty till it
shall please Heaven to make that duty easy (no middle course was
tenable for a day); of these two paths you chose the right one, and,
having chosen, I really think you are not called on to reveal your
misfortune, and make those unhappy to whose happiness you have
sacrificed your own for years to come."

"Forever," said Josephine quietly.

"The young use that word lightly.  The old have almost ceased to use
it.  They have seen how few earthly things can conquer time."

He resumed, "You think only of others, Josephine, but I shall think
of you as well.  I shall not allow your life to be wasted in a
needless struggle against nature."  Then turning to Rose, who had
glided into the room, and stood amazed, "Her griefs were as many
before her child was born, yet her health stood firm.  Why? because
nature was on her side.  Now she is sinking into the grave.  Why?
because she is defying nature.  Nature intended her to be pressing
her child to her bosom day and night; instead of that, a peasant
woman at Frejus nurses the child, and the mother pines at
Beaurepaire."

At this, Josephine leaned her face on her hands on the doctor's
shoulder.  In this attitude she murmured to him, "I have never seen
him since I left Frejus."  Dr. Aubertin sighed for her.  Emboldened
by this, she announced her intention of going to Frejus the very
next day to see her little Henri.  But to this Dr. Aubertin
demurred.  "What, another journey to Frejus?" said he, "when the
first has already roused Edouard's suspicions; I can never consent
to that."

Then Josephine surprised them both.  She dropped her coaxing voice
and pecked the doctor like an irritated pigeon.  "Take care," said
she, "don't be too cruel to me.  You see I am obedient, resigned.  I
have given up all I lived for: but if I am never to have my little
boy's arms round me to console me, then--why torment me any longer?
Why not say to me, 'Josephine, you have offended Heaven; pray for
pardon, and die'?"

Then the doctor was angry in his turn.  "Oh, go then," said he, "go
to Frejus; you will have Edouard Riviere for a companion this time.
Your first visit roused his suspicions.  So before you go tell your
mother all; for since she is sure to find it out, she had better
hear it from you than from another."

"Doctor, have pity on me," said Josephine.

"You have no heart," said Rose.  "She shall see him though, in spite
of you."

"Oh, yes! he has a heart," said Josephine: "he is my best friend.
He will let me see my boy."

All this, and the tearful eyes and coaxing yet trembling voice, was
hard to resist.  But Aubertin saw clearly, and stood firm.  He put
his handkerchief to his eyes a moment: then took the pining young
mother's hand.  "And, do you think," said he, "I do not pity you and
love your boy?  Ah! he will never want a father whilst I live; and
from this moment he is under my care.  I will go to see him; I will
bring you news, and all in good time; I will place him where you
shall visit him without imprudence; but, for the present, trust a
wiser head than yours or Rose's; and give me your sacred promise not
to go to Frejus."

Weighed down by his good-sense and kindness, Josephine resisted no
longer in words.  She just lifted her hands in despair and began to
cry.  It was so piteous, Aubertin was ready to yield in turn, and
consent to any imprudence, when he met with an unexpected ally.

"Promise," said Rose, doggedly.

Josephine looked at her calmly through her tears.

"Promise, dear," repeated Rose, and this time with an intonation so
fine that it attracted Josephine's notice, but not the doctor's.  It
was followed by a glance equally subtle.

"I promise," said Josephine, with her eye fixed inquiringly on her
sister.

For once she could not make the telegraph out: but she could see it
was playing, and that was enough.  She did what Rose bid her; she
promised not to go to Frejus without leave.

Finding her so submissive all of a sudden, he went on to suggest
that she must not go kissing every child she saw.  "Edouard tells me
he saw you kissing a beggar's brat.  The young rogue was going to
quiz you about it at the dinner-table; luckily, he told me his
intention, and I would not let him.  I said the baroness would be
annoyed with you for descending from your dignity--and exposing a
noble family to fleas--hush! here he is."

"Tiresome!" muttered Rose, "just when"--

Edouard came forward with a half-vexed face.

However, he turned it off into play.  "What have you been saying to
her, monsieur, to interest her so?  Give me a leaf out of your book.
I need it."

The doctor was taken aback for a moment, but at last he said slyly,
"I have been proposing to her to name the day.  She says she must
consult you before she decides that."

"Oh, you wicked doctor!--and consult HIM of all people!"

"So be off, both of you, and don't reappear before me till it is
settled."

Edouard's eyes sparkled.  Rose went out with a face as red as fire.

It was a balmy evening.  Edouard was to leave them for a week the
next day.  They were alone: Rose was determined he should go away
quite happy.  Everything was in Edouard's favor: he pleaded his
cause warmly: she listened tenderly: this happy evening her piquancy
and archness seemed to dissolve into tenderness as she and Edouard
walked hand in hand under the moon: a tenderness all the more
heavenly to her devoted lover, that she was not one of those angels
who cloy a man by invariable sweetness.

For a little while she forgot everything but her companion.  In that
soft hour he won her to name the day, after her fashion.

"Josephine goes to Paris with the doctor in about three weeks,"
murmured she.

"And you will stay behind, all alone?"

"Alone? that shall depend on you, monsieur."

On this Edouard caught her for the first time in his arms.

She made a faint resistance.

"Seal me that promise, sweet one!"

"No! no!--there!"

He pressed a delicious first kiss upon two velvet lips that in their
innocence scarcely shunned the sweet attack.

For all that, the bond was no sooner sealed after this fashion, than
the lady's cheek began to burn.

"Suppose we go in NOW?" said she, dryly.

"Ah, not yet."

"It is late, dear Edouard."

And with these words something returned to her mind with its full
force: something that Edouard had actually made her forget.  She
wanted to get rid of him now.

"Edouard," said she, "can you get up early in the morning?  If you
can, meet me here to-morrow before any of them are up; then we can
talk without interruption."

Edouard was delighted.

"Eight o'clock?"

"Sooner if you like.  Mamma bade me come and read to her in her room
to-night.  She will be waiting for me.  Is it not tiresome?"

"Yes, it is."

"Well, we must not mind that, dear; in three weeks' time we are to
have too much of one another, you know, instead of too little."

"Too much! I shall never have enough of you.  I shall hate the night
which will rob me of the sight of you for so many hours in the
twenty-four."

"If you can't see me, perhaps you may hear me; my tongue runs by
night as well as by day."

"Well, that is a comfort," said Edouard, gravely.  "Yes, little
quizzer, I would rather hear you scold than an angel sing.  Judge,
then, what music it is when you say you love me!"

"I love you, Edouard."

Edouard kissed her hand warmly, and then looked irresolutely at her
face.

"No, no!" said she, laughing and blushing.  "How rude you are.  Next
time we meet."

"That is a bargain.  But I won't go till you say you love me again.

"Edouard, don't be silly.  I am ashamed of saying the same thing so
often--I won't say it any more.  What is the use?  You know I love
you.  There, I HAVE said it: how stupid!"

"Adieu, then, my wife that is to be."

"Adieu! dear Edouard."

"My hus--go on--my hus--"

"My huswife that shall be."

Then they walked very slowly towards the house, and once more Rose
left quizzing, and was all tenderness.

"Will you not come in, and bid them 'good-night'?"

"No, my own; I am in heaven.  Common faces--common voices would
bring me down to earth.  Let me be alone;--your sweet words ringing
in my ear.  I will dilute you with nothing meaner than the stars.
See how bright they shine in heaven; but not so bright as you shine
in my heart."

"Dear Edouard, you flatter me, you spoil me.  Alas! why am I not
more worthy of your love?"

"More worthy!  How can that be?"

Rose sighed.

"But I will atone for all.  I will make you a better--(here she
substituted a full stop for a substantive)--than you expect.  You
will see else."

She lingered at the door: a proof that if Edouard, at that
particular moment, had seized another kiss, there would have been no
very violent opposition or offence.

But he was not so impudent as some.  He had been told to wait till
the next meeting for that.  He prayed Heaven to bless her, and so
the affianced lovers parted for the night.

It was about nine o'clock.  Edouard, instead of returning to his
lodgings, started down towards the town, to conclude a bargain with
the innkeeper for an English mare he was in treaty for.  He wanted
her for to-morrow's work; so that decided him to make the purchase.
In purchases, as in other matters, a feather turns the balanced
scale.  He sauntered leisurely down.  It was a very clear night; the
full moon and the stars shining silvery and vivid.  Edouard's heart
swelled with joy.  He was loved after all, deeply loved; and in
three short weeks he was actually to be Rose's husband: her lord and
master.  How like a heavenly dream it all seemed--the first hopeless
courtship, and now the wedding fixed!  But it was no dream; he felt
her soft words still murmur music at his heart, and the shadow of
her velvet lips slept upon his own.

He had strolled about a league when he heard the ring of a horse's
hoofs coming towards him, accompanied by a clanking noise; it came
nearer and nearer, till it reached a hill that lay a little ahead of
Edouard; then the sounds ceased; the cavalier was walking his horse
up the hill.

Presently, as if they had started from the earth, up popped between
Edouard and the sky, first a cocked hat that seemed in that light to
be cut with a razor out of flint; then the wearer, phosphorescent
here and there; so brightly the keen moonlight played on his
epaulets and steel scabbard.  A step or two nearer, and Edouard gave
a great shout; it was Colonel Raynal.

After the first warm greeting, and questions and answers, Raynal
told him he was on his way to the Rhine with despatches.

"To the Rhine?"

I am allowed six days to get there.  I made a calculation, and found
I could give Beaurepaire half a day.  I shall have to make up for it
by hard riding.  You know me; always in a hurry.  It is Bonaparte's
fault this time.  He is always in a hurry too."

"Why, colonel," said Edouard, "let us make haste then.  Mind they go
early to rest at the chateau."

"But you are not coming my way, youngster?"

"Not coming your way?  Yes, but I am.  Yours is a face I don't see
every day, colonel; besides I would not miss THEIR faces, especially
the baroness's and Madame Raynal's, at sight of you; and, besides,"--
and the young gentleman chuckled to himself, and thought of Rose's
words, "the next time we meet;" well, this will be the next time.
"May I jump up behind?"

Colonel Raynal nodded assent.  Edouard took a run, and lighted like
a monkey on the horse's crupper.  He pranced and kicked at this
unexpected addition; but the spur being promptly applied to his
flanks, he bounded off with a snort that betrayed more astonishment
than satisfaction, and away they cantered to Beaurepaire, without
drawing rein.

"There," said Edouard, "I was afraid they would be gone to bed; and
they are.  The very house seems asleep--fancy--at half-past ten."

"That is a pity," said Raynal, "for this chateau is the stronghold
of etiquette.  They will be two hours dressing before they will come
out and shake hands.  I must put my horse into the stable.  Go you
and give the alarm."

"I will, colonel.  Stop, first let me see whether none of them are
up, after all."

And Edouard walked round the chateau, and soon discovered a light at
one window, the window of the tapestried room.  Running round the
other way he came slap upon another light: this one was nearer the
ground.  A narrow but massive door, which he had always seen not
only locked but screwed up, was wide open; and through the aperture
the light of a candle streamed out and met the moonlight streaming
in.

"Hallo!" cried Edouard.

He stopped, turned, and looked in.

"Hallo!" he cried again much louder.

A young woman was sleeping with her feet in the silvery moonlight,
and her head in the orange-colored blaze of a flat candle, which
rested on the next step above of a fine stone staircase, whose
existence was now first revealed to the inquisitive Edouard.

Coming plump upon all this so unexpectedly, he quite started.

"Why, Jacintha!"

He touched her on the shoulder to wake her.  No.  Jacintha was
sleeping as only tired domestics can sleep.  He might have taken the
candle and burnt her gown off her back.  She had found a step that
fitted into the small of her back, and another that supported her
head, and there she was fast as a door.

At this moment Raynal's voice was heard calling him.

"There is a light in that bedroom."

"It is not a bedroom, colonel; it is our sitting-room now.  We shall
find them all there, or at least the young ladies; and perhaps the
doctor.  The baroness goes to bed early.  Meantime I can show you
one of our dramatis personae, and an important one too.  She rules
the roost."

He took him mysteriously and showed him Jacintha.

Moonlight by itself seems white, and candlelight by itself seems
yellow; but when the two come into close contrast at night, candle
turns a reddish flame, and moonlight a bluish gleam.

So Jacintha, with her shoes in this celestial sheen, and her face in
that demoniacal glare, was enough to knock the gazer's eye out.

"Make a good sentinel--this one," said Raynal--"an outlying picket
for instance, on rough ground, in front of the enemy's riflemen."

"Ha! ha! colonel!  Let us see where this staircase leads.  I have an
idea it will prove a short cut."

"Where to?"

"To the saloon, or somewhere, or else to some of Jacintha's haunts.
Serve her right for going to sleep at the mouth of her den."

"Forward then--no, halt!  Suppose it leads to the bedrooms?  Mind
this is a thundering place for ceremony.  We shall get drummed out
of the barracks if we don't mind our etiquette."

At this they hesitated; and Edouard himself thought, on the whole,
it would be better to go and hammer at the front door.

Now while they hesitated, a soft delicious harmony of female voices
suddenly rose, and seemed to come and run round the walls.  The men
looked at one another in astonishment; for the effect was magical.
The staircase being enclosed on all sides with stone walls and
floored with stone, they were like flies inside a violoncello; the
voices rang above, below, and on every side of the vibrating walls.
In some epochs spirits as hardy as Raynal's, and wits as quick as
Riviere's, would have fled then and there to the nearest public, and
told over cups how they had heard the dames of Beaurepaire, long
since dead, holding their revel, and the conscious old devil's nest
of a chateau quivering to the ghostly strains.

But this was an incredulous age.  They listened, and listened, and
decided the sounds came from up-stairs.

"Let us mount, and surprise these singing witches," said Edouard.

"Surprise them! what for?  It is not the enemy--for once.  What is
the good of surprising our friends?"

Storming parties and surprises were no novelty and therefore no
treat to Raynal.

"It will be so delightful to see their faces at first sight of you.
O colonel, for my sake!  Don't spoil it by going tamely in at the
front door, after coming at night from Egypt for half an hour."

Raynal grumbled something about its being a childish trick; but to
please Edouard consented at last; only stipulated for a light: "or
else," said he, "we shall surprise ourselves instead with a broken
neck, going over ground we don't know to surprise the natives--our
skirmishers got nicked that way now and then in Egypt."

"Yes, colonel, I will go first with Jacintha's candle."  Edouard
mounted the stairs on tiptoe.  Raynal followed.  The solid stone
steps did not prate.  The men had mounted a considerable way, when
puff a blast of wind came through a hole, and out went Edouard's
candle.  He turned sharply round to Raynal.  "Peste!" said he in a
vicious whisper.  But the other laid his hand on his shoulder and
whispered, "Look to the front."  He looked, and, his own candle
being out, saw a glimmer on ahead.  He crept towards it.  It was a
taper shooting a feeble light across a small aperture.  They caught
a glimpse of what seemed to be a small apartment.  Yet Edouard
recognized the carpet of the tapestried room--which was a very large
room.  Creeping a yard nearer, he discovered that it was the
tapestried room, and that what had seemed the further wall was only
the screen, behind which were lights, and two women singing a duet.

He whispered to Raynal, "It is the tapestried room."

"Is it a sitting-room?" whispered Raynal.

"Yes! yes!  Mind and not knock your foot against the wood."

And Raynal went softly up and put his foot quietly through the
aperture, which he now saw was made by a panel drawn back close to
the ground; and stood in the tapestried chamber.  The carpet was
thick; the voices favored the stealthy advance; the floor of the old
house was like a rock; and Edouard put his face through the
aperture, glowing all over with anticipation of the little scream of
joy that would welcome his friend dropping in so nice and suddenly
from Egypt.

The feeling was rendered still more piquant by a sharp curiosity
that had been growing on him for some minutes past.  For why was
this passage opened to-night?--he had never seen it opened before.
And why was Jacintha lying sentinel at the foot of the stairs?

But this was not all.  Now that they were in the room both men
became conscious of another sound besides the ladies' voices--a very
peculiar sound.  It also came from behind the screen.  They both
heard it, and showed, by the puzzled looks they cast at one another,
that neither could make out what on earth it was.  It consisted of a
succession of little rustles, followed by little thumps on the
floor.

But what was curious, too, this rustle, thump--rustle, thump--fell
exactly into the time of the music; so that, clearly, either the
rustle thump was being played to the tune, or the tune sung to the
rustle thump.

This last touch of mystery inflamed Edouard's impatience beyond
bearing: he pointed eagerly and merrily to the corner of the screen.
Raynal obeyed, and stepped very slowly and cautiously towards it.

Rustle, thump! rustle, thump! rustle, thump! with the rhythm of
harmonious voices.

Edouard got his head and foot into the room without taking his eye
off Raynal.

Rustle, thump! rustle, thump! rustle, thump!

Raynal was now at the screen, and quietly put his head round it, and
his hand upon it.

Edouard was bursting with expectation.

No result.  What is this?  Don't they see him?  Why does he not
speak to them?  He seems transfixed.

Rustle, thump! rustle, thump; accompanied now for a few notes by one
voice only, Rose's.

Suddenly there burst a shriek from Josephine, so loud, so fearful,
that it made even Raynal stagger back a step, the screen in his
hand.

Then another scream of terror and anguish from Rose.  Then a fainter
cry, and the heavy helpless fall of a human body.

Raynal sprang forward whirling the screen to the earth in terrible
agitation, and Edouard bounded over it as it fell at his feet.  He
did not take a second step.  The scene that caught his eye stupefied
and paralyzed him in full career, and froze him to the spot with
amazement and strange misgivings.


CHAPTER XIX.


To return for a moment to Rose.  She parted from Edouard, and went
in at the front door: but the next moment she opened it softly and
watched her lover unseen.  "Dear Edouard!" she murmured: and then
she thought, "how sad it is that I must deceive him, even to-night:
must make up an excuse to get him from me, when we were so happy
together.  Ah! he little knows how I shall welcome our wedding-day.
When once I can see my poor martyr on the road to peace and content
under the good doctor's care.  And oh! the happiness of having no
more secrets from him I love!  Dear Edouard! when once we are
married, I never, never, will have a secret from you again--I swear
it."

As a comment on these words she now stepped cautiously out, and
peered in every direction.

"St--st!" she whispered.  No answer came to this signal.

Rose returned into the house and bolted the door inside.  She went
up to the tapestried room, and found the doctor in the act of
wishing Josephine good-night.  The baroness, fatigued a little by
her walk, had mounted no higher than her own bedroom, which was on
the first floor just under the tapestried room.  Rose followed the
doctor out.  "Dear friend, one word.  Josephine talked of telling
Raynal.  You have not encouraged her to do that?"

"Certainly not, while he is in Egypt."

"Still less on his return.  Doctor, you don't know that man.
Josephine does not know him.  But I do.  He would kill her if he
knew.  He would kill her that minute.  He would not wait: he would
not listen to excuses: he is a man of iron.  Or if he spared her he
would kill Camille: and that would destroy her by the cruellest of
all deaths!  My friend, I am a wicked, miserable girl.  I am the
cause of all this misery!"

She then told Aubertin all about the anonymous letter, and what
Raynal had said to her in consequence.

"He never would have married her had he known she loved another.  He
asked me was it so.  I told him a falsehood.  At least I
equivocated, and to equivocate with one so loyal and simple was to
deceive him.  I am the only sinner: that sweet angel is the only
sufferer.  Is this the justice of Heaven?  Doctor, my remorse is
great.  No one knows what I feel when I look at my work.  Edouard
thinks I love her so much better than I do him.  He is wrong: it is
not love only, it is pity: it is remorse for the sorrow I have
brought on her, and the wrong I have done poor Raynal."

The high-spirited girl was greatly agitated: and Aubertin, though he
did not acquit her of all blame, soothed her, and made excuses for
her.

"We must not always judge by results," said he.  "Things turned
unfortunately.  You did for the best.  I forgive you for one.  That
is, I will forgive you if you promise not to act again without my
advice."

"Oh, never! never!"

"And, above all, no imprudence about that child.  In three little
weeks they will be together without risk of discovery.  Well, you
don't answer me."

Rose's blood turned cold.  "Dear friend," she stammered, "I quite
agree with you."

"Promise, then."

"Not to let Josephine go to Frejus?" said Rose hastily.  "Oh, yes! I
promise."

"You are a good girl," said Aubertin.  "You have a will of your own.
But you can submit to age and experience."  The doctor then kissed
her, and bade her farewell.

"I leave for Paris at six in the morning," he said.  "I will not try
your patience or hers unnecessarily.  Perhaps it will not be three
weeks ere she sees her child under her friend's roof."

The moment Rose was alone, she sat down and sighed bitterly.  "There
is no end to it," she sobbed despairingly.  "It is like a spider's
web: every struggle to be free but multiplies the fine yet
irresistible thread that seems to bind me.  And to-night I thought
to be so happy; instead of that, he has left me scarce the heart to
do what I have to do."

She went back to the room, opened a window, and put out a white
handkerchief, then closed the window down on it.

Then she went to Josephine's bedroom-door: it opened on the
tapestried room.

"Josephine," she cried, "don't go to bed just yet."

"No, love.  What are you doing?  I want to talk to you.  Why did you
say promise? and what did you mean by looking at me so?  Shall I
come out to you?"

"Not just yet," said Rose; she then glided into the corridor, and
passed her mother's room and the doctor's, and listened to see if
all was quiet.  While she was gone Josephine opened her door; but
not seeing Rose in the sitting-room, retired again.

Rose returned softly, and sat down with her head in her hand, in a
calm attitude belied by her glancing eye, and the quick tapping of
her other hand upon the table.

Presently she raised her head quickly; a sound had reached her ear,--
a sound so slight that none but a high-strung ear could have caught
it.  It was like a mouse giving a single scratch against a stone
wall.

Rose coughed slightly.

On this a clearer sound was heard, as of a person scratching wood
with the finger-nail.  Rose darted to the side of the room, pressed
against the wall, and at the same time put her other hand against
the rim of one of the panels and pushed it laterally; it yielded,
and at the opening stood Jacintha in her cloak and bonnet.

"Yes," said Jacintha, "under my cloak--look!"

"Ah! you found the things on the steps?"

"Yes! I nearly tumbled over them.  Have you locked that door?"

"No, but I will."  And Rose glided to the door and locked it.  Then
she put the screen up between Josephine's room and the open panel:
then she and Jacintha were wonderfully busy on the other side the
screen, but presently Rose said, "This is imprudent; you must go
down to the foot of the stairs and wait till I call you."

Jacintha pleaded hard against this arrangement, and represented that
there was no earthly chance of any one coming to that part of the
chateau.

"No matter; I will be guarded on every side."

"Mustn't I stop and just see her happy for once?"

"No, my poor Jacintha, you must hear it from my lips."

Jacintha retired to keep watch as she was bid.  Rose went to
Josephine's room, and threw her arms round her neck and kissed her
vehemently.  Josephine returned her embrace, then held her out at
arm's length and looked at her.

"Your eyes are red, yet your little face is full of joy.  There, you
smile."

"I can't help that; I am so happy."

"I am glad of it.  Are you coming to bed?"

"Not yet.  I invite you to take a little walk with me first.  Come!"
and she led the way slowly, looking back with infinite archness and
tenderness.

"You almost frighten me," said Josephine; "it is not like you to be
all joy when I am sad.  Three whole weeks more!"

"That is it.  Why are you sad? because the doctor would not let you
go to Frejus.  And why am I not sad? because I had already thought
of a way to let you see Edouard without going so far."

"Rose! O Rose! O Rose!"

"This way--come!" and she smiled and beckoned with her finger, while
Josephine followed like one under a spell, her bosom heaving, her
eye glancing on every side, hoping some strange joy, yet scarce
daring to hope.

Rose drew back the screen, and there was a sweet little berceau that
had once been Josephine's own, and in it, sunk deep in snow-white
lawn, was a sleeping child, that lay there looking as a rose might
look could it fall upon new-fallen snow.

At sight of it Josephine uttered a little cry, not loud but deep--
ay, a cry to bring tears into the eye of the hearer, and she stood
trembling from head to foot, her hands clasped, and her eye
fascinated and fixed on the cradle.

"My child under this roof!  What have you done?" but her eye,
fascinated and fixed, never left the cradle.

"I saw you languishing, dying, for want of him."

"Oh, if anybody should come?"  But her eye never stirred an inch
from the cradle.

"No, no, no! the door is locked.  Jacintha watches below; there is
no dan--  Ah, oh, poor sister!"

For, as Rose was speaking, the young mother sprang silently upon her
child.  You would have thought she was going to kill him; her head
reared itself again and again like a crested snake's, and again and
again and again and again plunged down upon the child, and she
kissed his little body from head to foot with soft violence, and
murmured, through her streaming tears, "My child! my darling! my
angel! oh, my poor boy! my child! my child!"

I will ask my female readers of every degree to tell their brothers
and husbands all the young noble did: how she sat on the floor, and
had her child on her bosom; how she smiled over it through her
tears; how she purred over it; how she, the stately one, lisped and
prattled over it; and how life came pouring into her heart from it.

Before she had had it in her arms five minutes, her pale cheek was
as red as a rose, and her eyes brighter than diamonds.

"Bless you, Rose! bless you! bless you! in one moment you have made
me forget all I ever suffered in my life."

"There is a cold draught," cried she presently, with maternal
anxiety; "close the panel, Rose."

"No, dear; or I could not call to Jacintha, or she to me; but I will
shift the screen round between him and the draught.  There, now,
come to his aunt--a darling!"

Then Rose sat on the floor too, and Josephine put her boy on aunt's
lap, and took a distant view of him.  But she could not bear so vast
a separation long.  She must have him to her bosom again.

Presently my lord, finding himself hugged, opened his eyes, and, as
a natural consequence, his mouth.

"Oh, that will never do," cried Rose, and they put him back in the
cradle with all expedition, and began to rock it.  Young master was
not to be altogether appeased even by that.  So Rose began singing
an old-fashioned Breton chant or lullaby.

Josephine sang with her, and, singing, watched with a smile her boy
drop off by degrees to sleep under the gentle motion and the lulling
song.  They sang and rocked till the lids came creeping down, and
hid the great blue eyes; but still they sang and rocked, lulling the
boy, and gladdening their own hearts; for the quaint old Breton
ditty was tunable as the lark that carols over the green wheat in
April; and the words so simple and motherly, that a nation had taken
them to heart.  Such songs bind ages together and make the lofty and
the low akin by the great ties of music and the heart.  Many a
Breton peasant's bosom in the olden time had gushed over her
sleeping boy as the young dame's of Beaurepaire gushed now--in this
quaint, tuneful lullaby.

Now, as they kneeled over the cradle, one on each side, and rocked
it, and sang that ancient chant, Josephine, who was opposite the
screen, happening to raise her eyes, saw a strange thing.

There was the face of a man set close against the side of the
screen, and peeping and peering out of the gloom.  The light of her
candle fell full on this face; it glared at her, set pale, wonder-
struck, and vivid in the surrounding gloom.

Horror!  It was her husband's face.

At first she was quite stupefied, and looked at it with soul and
senses benumbed.  Then she trembled, and put her hand to her eyes;
for she thought it a phantom or a delusion of the mind.  No: there
it glared still.  Then she trembled violently, and held out her left
hand, the fingers working convulsively, to Rose, who was still
singing.

But, at the same moment, the mouth of this face suddenly opened in a
long-drawn breath.  At this, Josephine uttered a violent shriek, and
sprang to her feet, with her right hand quivering and pointing at
that pale face set in the dark.

Rose started up, and, wheeling her head round, saw Raynal's gloomy
face looking over her shoulder.  She fell screaming upon her knees,
and, almost out of her senses, began to pray wildly and piteously
for mercy.

Josephine uttered one more cry, but this was the faint cry of
nature, sinking under the shock of terror.  She swooned dead away,
and fell senseless on the floor ere Raynal could debarrass himself
of the screen, and get to her.

This, then, was the scene that met Edouard's eyes.  His affianced
bride on her knees, white as a ghost, trembling, and screaming,
rather than crying, for mercy.  And Raynal standing over his wife,
showing by the working of his iron features that he doubted whether
she was worthy he should raise her.

One would have thought nothing could add to the terror of this
scene.  Yet it was added to.  The baroness rang her bell violently
in the room below.  She had heard Josephine's scream and fall.

At the ringing of this shrill bell Rose shuddered like a maniac, and
grovelled on her knees to Raynal, and seized his very knees and
implored him to show some pity.

"O sir! kill us! we are culpable"--

Dring! dring! dring! dring! dring! pealed the baroness's bell again.

"But do not tell our mother.  Oh, if you are a man! do not! do not!
Show us some pity.  We are but women.  Mercy! mercy! mercy!"

"Speak out then," groaned Raynal.  "What does this mean?  Why has my
wife swooned at sight of me?--whose is this child?"

"Whose?" stammered Rose.  Till he said that, she never thought there
COULD be a doubt whose child.

Dring! dring! dring! dring! dring!

"Oh, my God!" cried the poor girl, and her scared eyes glanced every
way like some wild creature looking for a hole, however small, to
escape by.

Edouard, seeing her hesitation, came down on her other side.  "Whose
is the child, Rose?" said he sternly.

"You, too?  Why were we born? mercy! oh! pray let me go to my
sister."

Dring! dring! dring! dring! dring! went the terrible bell.

The men were excited to fury by Rose's hesitation; they each seized
an arm, and tore her screaming with fear at their violence, from her
knees up to her feet between them with a single gesture.

"Whose is the child?"

"You hurt me!" said she bitterly to Edouard, and she left crying and
was terribly calm and sullen all in a moment.

"Whose is the child?" roared Edouard and Raynal, in one raging
breath.  "Whose is the child?"

"It is mine."


CHAPTER XX.


These were not words; they were electric shocks.

The two arms that gripped Rose's arms were paralyzed, and dropped
off them; and there was silence.

Then first the thought of all she had done with those three words
began to rise and grow and surge over her.  She stood, her eyes
turned downwards, yet inwards, and dilating with horror.

Silence.

Now a mist began to spread over her eyes, and in it she saw
indistinctly the figure of Raynal darting to her sister's side, and
raising her head.

She dared not look round on the other side.  She heard feet stagger
on the floor.  She heard a groan, too; but not a word.

Horrible silence.

With nerves strung to frenzy, and quivering ears, that magnified
every sound, she waited for a reproach, a curse; either would have
been some little relief.  But no! a silence far more terrible.

Then a step wavered across the room.  Her soul was in her ear.  She
could hear and feel the step totter, and it shook her as it went.
All sounds were trebled to her.  Then it struck on the stone step of
the staircase, not like a step, but a knell; another step, another
and another; down to the very bottom.  Each slow step made her head
ring and her heart freeze.

At last she heard no more.  Then a scream of anguish and recall rose
to her lips.  She fought it down, for Josephine and Raynal.  Edouard
was gone.  She had but her sister now, the sister she loved better
than herself; the sister to save whose life and honor she had this
moment sacrificed her own, and all a woman lives for.

She turned, with a wild cry of love and pity, to that sister's side
to help her; and when she kneeled down beside her, an iron arm was
promptly thrust out between the beloved one and her.

"This is my care, madame," said Raynal, coldly.

There was no mistaking his manner.  The stained one was not to touch
his wife.

She looked at him in piteous amazement at his ingratitude.  "It is
well," said she.  "It is just.  I deserve this from you."

She said no more, but drooped gently down beside the cradle, and hid
her forehead in the clothes beside the child that had brought all
this woe, and sobbed bitterly.

Then honest Raynal began to be sorry for her, in spite of himself.
But there was no time for this.  Josephine stirred; and, at the same
moment, a violent knocking came at the door of the apartment, and
the new servant's voice, crying, "Ladies, for Heaven's sake, what is
the matter?  The baroness heard a fall--she is getting up--she will
be here.  What shall I tell her is the matter?"

Raynal was going to answer, but Rose, who had started up at the
knocking, put her hand in a moment right before his mouth, and ran
to the door.  "There is nothing the matter; tell mamma I am coming
down to her directly."  She flew back to Raynal in an excitement
little short of frenzy.  "Help me carry her into her own room,"
cried she imperiously.  Raynal obeyed by instinct; for the fiery
girl spoke like a general, giving the word of command, with the
enemy in front.  He carried the true culprit in his arms, and laid
her gently on her bed.

"Now put IT out of sight--take this, quick, man! quick!" cried Rose.

Raynal went to the cradle.  "Ah! my poor girl," said he, as he
lifted it in his arms, "this is a sorry business; to have to hide
your own child from your own mother!"

"Colonel Raynal," said Rose, "do not insult a poor, despairing girl.
C'est lache."

"I am silent, young woman," said Raynal, sternly.  "What is to be
done?"

"Take it down the steps, and give it to Jacintha.  Stay, here is a
candle; I go to tell mamma you are come; and, Colonel Raynal, I
never injured YOU: if you tell my mother you will stab her to the
heart, and me, and may the curse of cowards light on you!--may"--

"Enough!" said Raynal, sternly.  "Do you take me for a babbling
girl?  I love your mother better than you do, or this brat of yours
would not be here.  I shall not bring her gray hairs down with
sorrow to the grave.  I shall speak of this villany to but one
person; and to him I shall talk with this, and not with the idle
tongue."  And he tapped his sword-hilt with a sombre look of
terrible significance.

He carried out the cradle.  The child slept sweetly through it all.

Rose darted into Josephine's room, took the key from the inside to
the outside, locked the door, put the key in her pocket, and ran
down to her mother's room; her knees trembled under her as she went.

Meantime, Jacintha, sleeping tranquilly, suddenly felt her throat
griped, and heard a loud voice ring in her ear; then she was lifted,
and wrenched, and dropped.  She found herself lying clear of the
steps in the moonlight; her head was where her feet had been, and
her candle out.

She uttered shriek upon shriek, and was too frightened to get up.
She thought it was supernatural; some old De Beaurepaire had served
her thus for sleeping on her post.  A struggle took place between
her fidelity and her superstitious fears.  Fidelity conquered.
Quaking in every limb, she groped up the staircase for her candle.

It was gone.

Then a still more sickening fear came over her.

What if this was no spirit's work, but a human arm--a strong one--
some man's arm?

Her first impulse was to dart up the stairs, and make sure that no
calamity had befallen through her mistimed drowsiness.  But, when
she came to try, her dread of the supernatural revived.  She could
not venture without a light up those stairs, thronged perhaps with
angry spirits.  She ran to the kitchen.  She found the tinderbox,
and with trembling hands struck a light.  She came back shading it
with her shaky hands; and, committing her soul to the care of
Heaven, she crept quaking up the stairs.  Then she heard voices
above, and that restored her more; she mounted more steadily.
Presently she stopped, for a heavy step was coming down.  It did not
sound like a woman's step.  It came further down; she turned to fly.

"Jacintha!" said a deep voice, that in this stone cylinder rang like
thunder from a tomb.

"Oh! saints and angels save me!" yelled Jacintha; and fell on her
knees, and hid her head for security; and down went her candlestick
clattering on the stone.

"Don't be a fool!" said the iron voice.  "Get up and take this."

She raised her head by slow degrees, shuddering.  A man was holding
out a cradle to her; the candle he carried lighted up his face; it
was Colonel Raynal.

She stared at him stupidly, but never moved from her knees, and the
candle began to shake violently in her hand, as she herself trembled
from head to foot.

Then Raynal concluded she was in the plot; but, scorning to reproach
a servant, he merely said, "Well, what do you kneel there for,
gaping at me like that?  Take this, I tell you, and carry it out of
the house."

He shoved the cradle roughly down into her hands, then turned on his
heel without a word.

Jacintha collapsed on the stairs, and the cradle beside her, for all
the power was driven out of her body; she could hardly support her
own weight, much less the cradle.

She rocked herself, and moaned out, "Oh, what's this? oh, what's
this?"

A cold perspiration came over her whole frame.

"What could this mean?  What on earth had happened?"

She took up the candle, for it was lying burning and guttering on
the stairs; scraped up the grease with the snuffers, and by force of
habit tried to polish it clean with a bit of paper that shook
between her fingers; she did not know what she was doing.  When she
recovered her wits, she took the child out of the cradle, and
wrapped it carefully in her shawl; then went slowly down the stairs;
and holding him close to her bosom, with a furtive eye, and brain
confused, and a heart like lead, stole away to the tenantless
cottage, where Madame Jouvenel awaited her.

Meantime, Rose, with quaking heart, had encountered the baroness.
She found her pale and agitated, and her first question was, "What
is the matter? what have you been all doing over my head?"

"Darling mother," replied Rose, evasively, "something has happened
that will rejoice your heart.  Somebody has come home."

"My son? eh, no! impossible!  We cannot be so happy."

"He will be with you directly."

The old lady now trembled with joyful agitation.

"In five minutes I will bring him to you.  Shall you be dressed?  I
will ring for the girl to help you."

"But, Rose, the scream, and that terrible fall.  Ah! where is
Josephine?"

"Can't you guess, mamma?  Oh, the fall was only the screen; they
stumbled over it in the dark."

"They! who?"

"Colonel Raynal, and--and Edouard.  I will tell you, mamma, but
don't be angry, or even mention it; they wanted to surprise us.
They saw a light burning, and they crept on tiptoe up to the
tapestried room, where Josephine and I were, and they did give us a
great fright."

"What madness!" cried the baroness, angrily; "and in Josephine's
weak state!  Such a surprise might have driven her into a fit."

"Yes, it was foolish, but let it pass, mamma.  Don't speak of it,
for he is so sorry about it."

Then Rose slipped out, ordered a fire in the salon, and not in the
tapestried room, and the next minute was at her sister's door.
There she found Raynal knocking, and asking Josephine how she was.

"Pray leave her to me a moment," said she.  "I will bring her down to
you.  Mamma is waiting for you in the salon."

Raynal went down.  Rose unlocked the bedroom-door, went in, and, to
her horror, found Josephine lying on the floor.  She dashed water in
her face, and applied every remedy; and at last she came back to
life, and its terrors.

"Save me, Rose! save me--he is coming to kill me--I heard him at the
door," and she clung trembling piteously to Rose.

Then Rose, seeing her terror, was almost glad at the suicidal
falsehood she had told.  She comforted and encouraged Josephine and--
deceived her.  (This was the climax.)

"All is well, my poor coward," she cried; "your fears are all
imaginary; another has owned the child, and the story is believed."

"Another! impossible!  He would not believe it."

"He does believe it--he shall believe it."

Rose then, feeling by no means sure that Josephine, terrified as she
was, would consent to let her sister come to shame to screen her,
told her boldly that Jacintha had owned herself the mother of the
child, and that Raynal's only feeling towards HER was pity, and
regret at having so foolishly frightened her, weakened as she was by
illness.  "I told him you had been ill, dear.  But how came you on
the ground?"

"I had come to myself; I was on my knees praying.  He tapped.  I
heard his voice.  I remember no more.  I must have fainted again
directly."

Rose had hard work to make her believe that her guilt, as she called
it, was not known; and even then she could not prevail on her to
come down-stairs, until she said, "If you don't, he will come to
you."  On that Josephine consented eagerly, and with trembling
fingers began to adjust her hair and her dress for the interview.

All this terrible night Rose fought for her sister.  She took her
down-stairs to the salon; she put her on the sofa; she sat by her
and pressed her hand constantly to give her courage.  She told the
story of the surprise her own way, before the whole party, including
the doctor, to prevent Raynal from being called on to tell it his
way.  She laughed at Josephine's absurdity, but excused it on
account of her feeble health.  In short, she threw more and more
dust in all their eyes.

But by the time when the rising sun came faintly in and lighted the
haggard party, where the deceived were happy, the deceivers
wretched, the supernatural strength this young girl had shown was
almost exhausted.  She felt an hysterical impulse to scream and
weep: each minute it became more and more ungovernable.  Then came
an unexpected turn.  Raynal after a long and tiring talk with his
mother, as he called her, looked at his watch, and in a
characteristic way coolly announced his immediate departure, this
being the first hint he had given them that he was not come back for
good.

The baroness was thunderstruck.

Rose and Josephine pressed one another's hands, and had much ado not
to utter a loud cry of joy.

Raynal explained that he was the bearer of despatches.  "I must be
off: not an hour to lose.  Don't fret, mother, I shall soon be back
again, if I am not knocked on the head."

Raynal took leave of them all.  When it came to Rose's turn, he drew
her aside and whispered into her ear, "Who is the man?"

She started, and seemed dumfounded.

"Tell me, or I ask my wife."

"She has promised me not to betray me: I made her swear.  Spare me
now, brother; I will tell you all when you come back."

"That is a bargain: now hear ME swear: he shall marry you, or he
shall die by my hand."

He confirmed this by a tremendous oath.

Rose shuddered, but said nothing, only she thought to herself, "I am
forewarned.  Never shall you know who is the father of that child."

He was no sooner gone than the baroness insisted on knowing what
this private communication between him and Rose was about.

"Oh," said Rose, "he was only telling me to keep up your courage and
Josephine's till he comes back."

This was the last lie the poor entangled wretch had to tell that
morning.  The next minute the sisters, exhausted by their terrible
struggle, went feebly, with downcast eyes, along the corridor and up
the staircase to Josephine's room.

They went hand in hand.  They sank down, dressed as they were, on
Josephine's bed, and clung to one another and trembled together,
till their exhausted natures sank into uneasy slumbers, from which
each in turn would wake ever and anon with a convulsive start, and
clasp her sister tighter to her breast.

Theirs was a marvellous love.  Even a course of deceit had not yet
prevailed to separate or chill their sister bosoms.  But still in
this deep and wonderful love there were degrees: one went a shade
deeper than the other now--ay, since last night.  Which? why, she
who had sacrificed herself for the other, and dared not tell her,
lest the sacrifice should be refused.


It was the gray of the morning, and foggy, when Raynal, after taking
leave, went to the stable for his horse.  At the stable-door he came
upon a man sitting doubled up on the very stones of the yard, with
his head on his knees.  The figure lifted his head, and showed him
the face of Edouard Riviere, white and ghastly: his hair lank with
the mist, his teeth chattering with cold and misery.  The poor
wretch had walked frantically all night round and round the chateau,
waiting till Raynal should come out.  He told him so.

"But why didn't you?--Ah! I see.  No! you could not go into the
house after that.  My poor fellow, there is but one thing for you to
do.  Turn your back on her, and forget she ever lived; she is dead
to you."

"There is something to be done besides that," said Edouard, gloomily.

"What?"

"Vengeance."

"That is my affair, young man.  When I come back from the Rhine, she
will tell me who her seducer is.  She has promised."

"And don't you see through that?" said Edouard, gnashing his teeth;
"that is only to gain time: she will never tell you.  She is young
in years, but old in treachery."

He groaned and was silent a moment, then laying his hand on Raynal's
arm said grimly, "Thank Heaven, we don't depend on her for
information!  I know the villain."

Raynal's eyes flashed: "Ah! then tell me this moment."

"It is that scoundrel Dujardin."

"Dujardin!  What do you mean?"

"I mean that, while you were fighting for France, your house was
turned into a hospital for wounded soldiers."

"And pray, sir, to what more honorable use could they put it?"

"Well, this Dujardin was housed by you, was nursed by your wife and
all the family; and in return has seduced your sister, my affianced."

"I can hardly believe that.  Camille Dujardin was always a man of
honor, and a good soldier."

"Colonel, there has been no man near the place but this Dujardin.  I
tell you it is he.  Don't make me tear my bleeding heart out: must I
tell you how often I caught them together, how I suspected, and how
she gulled me? blind fool that I was, to believe a woman's words
before my own eyes.  I swear to you he is the villain; the only
question is, which of us two is to kill him."

"Where is the man?"

"In the army of the Rhine."

"Ah! all the better."

"Covered with glory and honor.  Curse him! oh, curse him! curse
him!"

"I am in luck.  I am going to the Rhine."

"I know it.  That is why I waited here all through this night of
misery.  Yes, you are in luck.  But you will send me a line when you
have killed him; will you not?  Then I shall know joy again.  Should
he escape you, he shall not escape me."

"Young man," said Raynal, with dignity, "this rage is unmanly.
Besides, we have not heard his side of the story.  He is a good
soldier; perhaps he is not all to blame: or perhaps passion has
betrayed him into a sin that his conscience and honor disapprove: if
so, he must not die.  You think only of your wrong: it is natural:
but I am the girl's brother; guardian of her honor and my own.  His
life is precious as gold.  I shall make him marry her."

"What! reward him for his villany?" cried Edouard, frantically.

"A mighty reward," replied Raynal, with a sneer.

"You leave one thing out of the calculation, monsieur," said
Edouard, trembling with anger, "that I will kill your brother-in-law
at the altar, before her eyes."

"YOU leave one thing out of the calculation: that you will first
have to cross swords, at the altar, with me."

"So be it.  I will not draw on my old commandant.  I could not; but
be sure I will catch him and her alone some day, and the bride shall
be a widow in her honeymoon."

"As you please," said Raynal, coolly.  "That is all fair, as you
have been wronged.  I shall make her an honest wife, and then you
may make her an honest widow.  (This is what they call LOVE, and
sneer at me for keeping clear of it.)  But neither he nor you shall
keep MY SISTER what she is now, a ----," and he used a word out of
camp.

Edouard winced and groaned.  "Oh! don't call her by such a name.
There is some mystery.  She loved me once.  There must have been
some strange seduction."

"Now you deceive yourself," said Raynal.  "I never saw a girl that
could take her own part better than she can; she is not like her
sister at all in character.  Not that I excuse him; it was a
dishonorable act, an ungrateful act to my wife and my mother."

"And to you."

"Now listen to me: in four days I shall stand before him.  I shall
not go into a pet like you; I am in earnest.  I shall just say to
him, 'Dujardin, I know all!'  Then if he is guilty his face will
show it directly.  Then I shall say, 'Comrade, you must marry her
whom you have dishonored.'"

"He will not.  He is a libertine, a rascal."

"You are speaking of a man you don't know.  He WILL marry her and
repair the wrong he has done."

"Suppose he refuses?"

"Why should he refuse?  The girl is not ugly nor old, and if she has
done a folly, he was her partner in it."

"But SUPPOSE he refuses?"

Raynal ground his teeth.  "Refuse?  If he does, I'll run my sword
through his carcass then and there, and the hussy shall go into a
convent."


CHAPTER XXI.


The French army lay before a fortified place near the Rhine, which
we will call Philipsburg.

This army knew Bonaparte by report only; it was commanded by
generals of the old school.

Philipsburg was defended on three sides by the nature of the ground;
but on the side that faced the French line of march there was only a
zigzag wall, pierced, and a low tower or two at each of the salient
angles.

There were evidences of a tardy attempt to improve the defences.  In
particular there was a large round bastion, about three times the
height of the wall; but the masonry was new, and the very embrasures
were not yet cut.

Young blood was for assaulting these equivocal fortifications at the
end of the day's march that brought the French advanced guard in
sight of the place; but the old generals would not hear of it; the
soldiers' lives must not be flung away assaulting a place that could
be reduced in twenty-one days with mathematical certainty.  For at
this epoch a siege was looked on as a process with a certain result,
the only problem was in how many days would the place be taken; and
even this they used to settle to a day or two on paper by
arithmetic; so many feet of wall, and so many guns on the one side;
so many guns, so many men, and such and such a soil to cut the
trenches in on the other: result, two figures varying from fourteen
to forty.  These two figures represented the duration of the siege.

For all that, siege arithmetic, right in general, has often been
terribly disturbed by one little incident, that occurs from time to
time; viz., Genius INside.  And, indeed, this is one of the sins of
genius; it goes and puts out calculations that have stood the brunt
of years.  Archimedes and Todleben were, no doubt, clever men in
their way and good citizens, yet one characteristic of delicate
men's minds they lacked--veneration; they showed a sad disrespect
for the wisdom of the ancients, deranged the calculations which so
much learning and patient thought had hallowed, disturbed the minds
of white-haired veterans, took sieges out of the grasp of science,
and plunged them back into the field of wild conjecture.

Our generals then sat down at fourteen hundred yards' distance, and
planned the trenches artistically, and directed them to be cut at
artful angles, and so creep nearer and nearer the devoted town.
Then the Prussians, whose hearts had been in their shoes at first
sight of the French shakos, plucked up, and turned not the garrison
only but the population of the town into engineers and masons.
Their fortifications grew almost as fast as the French trenches.

The first day of the siege, a young but distinguished brigadier in
the French army rode to the quarters of General Raimbaut, who
commanded his division, and was his personal friend, and
respectfully but firmly entreated the general to represent to the
commander-in-chief the propriety of assaulting that new bastion
before it should become dangerous.  "My brigade shall carry it in
fifteen minutes, general," said he.

"What! cross all that open under fire?  One-half your brigade would
never reach the bastion."

"But the other half would take it."

"That is not so certain."

General Raimbaut refused to forward the young colonel's proposal to
headquarters.  "I will not subject you to TWO refusals in one
matter," said he, kindly.

The young colonel lingered.  He said, respectfully, "One question,
general, when that bastion cuts its teeth will it be any easier to
take than now?"

"Certainly; it will always be easier to take it from the sap than to
cross the open under fire to it, and take it.  Come, colonel, to
your trenches; and if your friend should cut its teeth, you shall
have a battery in your attack that will set its teeth on edge.  Ha!
ha!"

The young colonel did not echo his chief's humor; he saluted
gravely, and returned to the trenches.

The next morning three fresh tiers of embrasures grinned one above
another at the besiegers.  The besieged had been up all night, and
not idle.  In half these apertures black muzzles showed themselves.

The bastion had cut its front teeth.

Thirteenth day of the siege.

The trenches were within four hundred yards of the enemy's guns, and
it was hot work in them.  The enemy had three tiers of guns in the
round bastion, and on the top they had got a long 48-pounder, which
they worked with a swivel joint, or the like, and threw a great
roaring shot into any part of the French lines.

As to the commander-in-chief and his generals, they were dotted
about a long way in the rear, and no shot came as far as them; but
in the trenches the men began now to fall fast, especially on the
left attack, which faced the round bastion.  Our young colonel had
got his heavy battery, and every now and then he would divert the
general efforts of the bastion, and compel it to concentrate its
attention on him, by pounding away at it till it was all in sore
places.  But he meant it worse mischief than that.  Still, as
heretofore, regarding it as the key to Philipsburg, he had got a
large force of engineers at work driving a mine towards it, and to
this he trusted more than to breaching it; for the bigger holes he
made in it by day were all stopped at night by the townspeople.

This colonel was not a favorite in the division to which his brigade
belonged.  He was a good soldier, but a dull companion.  He was also
accused of hauteur and of an unsoldierly reserve with his brother
officers.

Some loose-tongued ones even called him a milk-sop, because he was
constantly seen conversing with the priest--he who had nothing to
say to an honest soldier.

Others said, "No, hang it, he is not a milk-sop: he is a tried
soldier: he is a sulky beggar all the same."  Those under his
immediate command were divided in opinion about him.  There was
something about him they could not understand.  Why was his sallow
face so stern, so sad? and why with all that was his voice so
gentle? somehow the few words that did fall from his mouth were
prized.  One old soldier used to say, "I would rather have a word
from our brigadier than from the commander-in-chief."  Others
thought he must at some part of his career have pillaged a church,
taken the altar-piece, and sold it to a picture-dealer in Paris, or
whipped the earrings out of the Madonna's ears, or admitted the
female enemy to quarter upon ungenerous conditions: this, or some
such crime to which we poor soldiers are liable: and now was
committing the mistake of remording himself about it.  "Always
alongside the chaplain, you see!"

This cold and silent man had won the heart of the most talkative
sergeant in the French army.  Sergeant La Croix protested with many
oaths that all the best generals of the day had commanded him in
turn, and that his present colonel was the first that had succeeded
in inspiring him with unlimited confidence.  "He knows every point
of war--this one," said La Croix, "I heard him beg and pray for
leave to storm this thundering bastion before it was armed: but no,
the old muffs would be wiser than our colonel.  So now here we are
kept at bay by a place that Julius Caesar and Cannibal wouldn't have
made two bites at apiece; no more would I if I was the old boy out
there behind the hill."  In such terms do sergeants denote
commanders-in-chief--at a distance.  A voluble sergeant has more
influence with the men than the minister of war is perhaps aware: on
the whole, the 24th brigade would have followed its gloomy colonel
to grim death and a foot farther.  One thing gave these men a touch
of superstitious reverence for their commander.  He seemed to them
free from physical weakness.  He never SAT DOWN to dinner, and
seemed never to sleep.  At no hour of the day or night were the
sentries safe from his visits.

Very annoying.  But, after awhile, it led to keen watchfulness: the
more so that the sad and gloomy colonel showed by his manner he
appreciated it.  Indeed, one night he even opened his marble jaws,
and told Sergeant La Croix that a watchful sentry was an important
soldier, not to his brigade only, but to the whole army.  Judge
whether the maxim and the implied encomium did not circulate next
morning, with additions.

Sixteenth day of the siege.  The round bastion opened fire at eight
o'clock, not on the opposing battery, but on the right of the French
attack.  Its advanced position enabled a portion of its guns to rake
these trenches slant-wise: and depressing its guns it made the round
shot strike the ground first and ricochet over.

On this our colonel opened on them with all his guns: one of these
he served himself.  Among his other warlike accomplishments, he was
a wonderful shot with a cannon.  He showed them capital practice
this morning: drove two embrasures into one, and knocked about a ton
of masonry off the parapet.  Then taking advantage of this, he
served two of his guns with grape, and swept the enemy off the top
of the bastion, and kept it clear.  He made it so hot they could not
work the upper guns.  Then they turned the other two tiers all upon
him, and at it both sides went ding, dong, till the guns were too
hot to be worked.  So then Sergeant La Croix popped his head up from
the battery, and showed the enemy a great white plate.  This was
meant to convey to them an invitation to dine with the French army:
the other side of the table of course.

To the credit of Prussian intelligence be it recorded, that this
pantomimic hint was at once taken and both sides went to dinner.

The fighting colonel, however, remained in the battery, and kept a
detachment of his gunners employed cooling the guns and repairing
the touch-holes.  He ordered his two cutlets and his glass of water
into the battery.

Meantime, the enemy fired a single gun at long intervals, as much as
to say, "We had the last word."

Let trenches be cut ever so artfully, there will be a little space
exposed here and there at the angles.  These spaces the men are
ordered to avoid, or whip quickly across them into cover.

Now the enemy had just got the range of one of these places with
their solitary gun, and had already dropped a couple of shot right
on to it.  A camp follower with a tray, two cutlets, and a glass of
water, came to this open space just as a puff of white smoke burst
from the bastion.  Instead of instantly seeking shelter till the
shot had struck, he, in his inexperience, thought the shot must have
struck, and all danger be over.  He stayed there mooning instead of
pelting under cover: the shot (eighteen-pound) struck him right on
the breast, knocked him into spilikins, and sent the mutton cutlets
flying.

The human fragments lay quiet, ten yards off.  But a soldier that
was eating his dinner kicked it over, and jumped up at the side of
"Death's Alley" (as it was christened next minute), and danced and
yelled with pain.

"Haw! haw! haw!" roared a soldier from the other side of the alley.

"What is that?" cried Sergeant La Croix.  "What do you laugh at,
Private Cadel?" said he sternly, for, though he was too far in the
trench to see, he had heard that horrible sound a soldier knows from
every other, the "thud" of a round shot striking man or horse.

"Sergeant," said Cadel, respectfully, "I laugh to see Private Dard,
that got the wind of the shot, dance and sing, when the man that got
the shot itself does not say a word."

"The wind of the shot, you rascal!" roared Private Dard: "look
here!" and he showed the blood running down his face.

The shot had actually driven a splinter of bone out of the sutler
into Dard's temple.

"I am the unluckiest fellow in the army," remonstrated Dard: and he
stamped in a circle.

"Seems to me you are only the second unluckiest this time," said a
young soldier with his mouth full; and, with a certain dry humor, he
pointed vaguely over his shoulder with the fork towards the corpse.

The trenches laughed and assented.

This want of sympathy and justice irritated Dard.  "You cursed
fools!" cried he.  "He is gone where we must all go--without any
trouble.  But look at me.  I am always getting barked.  Dogs of
Prussians! they pick me out among a thousand.  I shall have a
headache all the afternoon, you see else."

Some of our heads would never have ached again: but Dard had a good
thick skull.

Dard pulled out his spilikin savagely.

"I'll wrap it up in paper for Jacintha," said he.  "Then that will
learn her what a poor soldier has to go through."

Even this consolation was denied Private Dard.

Corporal Coriolanus Gand, a bit of an infidel from Lyons, who
sometimes amused himself with the Breton's superstition, told him
with a grave face, that the splinter belonged not to him, but to the
sutler, and, though so small, was doubtless a necessary part of his
frame.

"If you keep that, it will be a bone of contention between you two,"
said he; "especially at midnight.  HE WILL BE ALWAYS COMING BACK TO
YOU FOR IT."

"There, take it away!" said the Breton hastily, "and bury it with
the poor fellow."

Sergeant La Croix presented himself before the colonel with a rueful
face and saluted him and said, "Colonel, I beg a thousand pardons;
your dinner has been spilt--a shot from the bastion."

"No matter," said the colonel.  "Give me a piece of bread instead."

La Croix went for it himself, and on his return found Cadel sitting
on one side of Death's Alley, and Dard with his head bound up on the
other.  They had got a bottle which each put up in turn wherever he
fancied the next round shot would strike, and they were betting
their afternoon rations which would get the Prussians to hit the
bottle first.

La Croix pulled both their ears playfully.

"Time is up for playing marbles," said he.  "Be off, and play at
duty," and he bundled them into the battery.


It was an hour past midnight: a cloudy night.  The moon was up, but
seen only by fitful gleams.  A calm, peaceful silence reigned.

Dard was sentinel in the battery.

An officer going his rounds found the said sentinel flat instead of
vertical.  He stirred him with his scabbard, and up jumped Dard.

"It's all right, sergeant.  O Lord! it's the colonel.  I wasn't
asleep, colonel."

"I have not accused you.  But you will explain what you were doing."

"Colonel," said Dard, all in a flutter, "I was taking a squint at
them, because I saw something.  The beggars are building a wall,
now."

"Where?"

"Between us and the bastion."

"Show me."

"I can't, colonel; the moon has gone in; but I did see it."

"How long was it?"

"About a hundred yards."

"How high?"

"Colonel, it was ten feet high if it was an inch."

"Have you good sight?"

"La! colonel, wasn't I a bit of a poacher before I took to the
bayonet?"

"Good!  Now reflect.  If you persist in this statement, I turn out
the brigade on your information."

"I'll stand the fire of a corporal's guard at break of day if I make
a mistake now," said Dard.

The colonel glided away, called his captain and first lieutenants,
and said two words in each ear, that made them spring off their
backs.

Dard, marching to an fro, musket on shoulder, found himself suddenly
surrounded by grim, silent, but deadly eager soldiers, that came
pouring like bees into the open space behind the battery.  The
officers came round the colonel.

"Attend to two things," said he to the captains.  "Don't fire till
they are within ten yards: and don't follow them unless I lead you."

The men were then told off by companies, some to the battery, some
to the trenches, some were kept on each side Death's Alley, ready
for a rush.

They were not all of them in position, when those behind the parapet
saw, as it were, something deepen the gloom of night, some fourscore
yards to the front: it was like a line of black ink suddenly drawn
upon a sheet covered with Indian ink.

It seems quite stationary.  The novices wondered what it was.  The
veterans muttered--"Three deep."

Though it looked stationary, it got blacker and blacker.  The
soldiers of the 24th brigade griped their muskets hard, and set
their teeth, and the sergeants had much ado to keep them quiet.

All of a sudden, a loud yell on the right of the brigade, two or
three single shots from the trenches in that direction, followed by
a volley, the cries of wounded men, and the fierce hurrahs of an
attacking party.

Our colonel knew too well those sounds: the next parallel had been
surprised, and the Prussian bayonet was now silently at work.

Disguise was now impossible.  At the first shot, a guttural voice in
front of Dujardin's men was heard to give a word of command.  There
was a sharp rattle and in a moment the thick black line was tipped
with glittering steel.

A roar and a rush, and the Prussian line three deep came furiously
like a huge steel-pointed wave, at the French lines.  A tremendous
wave of fire rushed out to meet that wave of steel: a crash of two
hundred muskets, and all was still.  Then you could see through the
black steel-tipped line in a hundred frightful gaps, and the ground
sparkled with bayonets and the air rang with the cries of the
wounded.

A tremendous cheer from the brigade, and the colonel charged at the
head of his column, out by Death's Alley.

The broken wall was melting away into the night.  The colonel
wheeled his men to the right: one company, led by the impetuous
young Captain Jullien, followed the flying enemy.

The other attack had been only too successful.  They shot the
sentries, and bayoneted many of the soldiers in their tents: others
escaped by running to the rear, and some into the next parallel.

Several, half dressed, snatched up their muskets, killed one
Prussian, and fell riddled like sieves.

A gallant officer got a company together into the place of arms and
formed in line.

Half the Prussian force went at them, the rest swept the trenches:
the French company delivered a deadly volley, and the next moment
clash the two forces crossed bayonets, and a silent deadly stabbing
match was played: the final result of which was inevitable.  The
Prussians were five to one.  The gallant officer and the poor
fellows who did their duty so stoutly, had no thought left but to
die hard, when suddenly a roaring cheer seemed to come from the rear
rank of the enemy.  "France! France!"  Half the 24th brigade came
leaping and swarming over the trenches in the Prussian rear.  The
Prussians wavered.  "France!" cried the little party that were being
overpowered, and charged in their turn with such fury that in two
seconds the two French corps went through the enemy's centre like
paper, and their very bayonets clashed together in more than one
Prussian body.

Broken thus in two fragments the Prussian corps ceased to exist as a
military force.  The men fled each his own way back to the fort, and
many flung away their muskets, for French soldiers were swarming in
from all quarters.  At this moment, bang! bang! bang! from the
bastion.

"They are firing on my brigade," said our colonel.  "Who has led his
company there against my orders?  Captain Neville, into the battery,
and fire twenty rounds at the bastion!  Aim at the flashes from
their middle tier."

"Yes, colonel."

The battery opened with all its guns on the bastion.  The right
attack followed suit.  The town answered, and a furious cannonade
roared and blazed all down both lines till daybreak.  Hell seemed
broken loose.

Captain Jullien had followed the flying foe: but could not come up
with them: and, as the enemy had prepared for every contingency, the
fatal bastion, after first throwing a rocket or two to discover
their position, poured showers of grape into them, killed many, and
would have killed more but that Captain Neville and his gunners
happened by mere accident to dismount one gun and to kill a couple
of gunners at the others.  This gave the remains of the company time
to disperse and run back.  When the men were mustered, Captain
Jullien and twenty-five of his company did not answer to their
names.  At daybreak they were visible from the trenches lying all by
themselves within eighty yards of the bastion.

A flag of truce came from the fort: the dead were removed on both
sides and buried.  Some Prussian officers strolled into the French
lines.  Civilities and cigars exchanged: "Bon jour," "Gooten daeg:"
then at it again, ding dong all down the line blazing and roaring.

At twelve o'clock the besieged had got a man on horseback, on top of
a hill, with colored flags in his hand, making signals.

"What are you up to now?" inquired Dard.

"You will see," said La Croix, affecting mystery; he knew no more
than the other.

Presently off went Long Tom on the top of the bastion, and the shot
came roaring over the heads of the speakers.

The flags were changed, and off went Long Tom again at an elevation.

Ten seconds had scarcely elapsed when a tremendous explosion took
place on the French right.  Long Tom was throwing red-hot shot; one
had fallen on a powder wagon, and blown it to pieces, and killed two
poor fellows and a horse, and turned an artillery man at some
distance into a seeming nigger, but did him no great harm; only took
him three days to get the powder out of his clothes with pipe clay,
and off his face with raw potato-peel.

When the tumbril exploded, the Prussians could be heard to cheer,
and they turned to and fired every iron spout they owned.  Long Tom
worked all day.

They got into a corner where the guns of the battery could not hit
them or him, and there was his long muzzle looking towards the sky,
and sending half a hundredweight of iron up into the clouds, and
plunging down a mile off into the French lines.

And, at every shot, the man on horseback made signals to let the
gunners know where the shot fell.

At last, about four in the afternoon, they threw a forty-eight-pound
shot slap into the commander-in-chief's tent, a mile and a half
behind trenches.

Down comes a glittering aide-de-camp as hard as he can gallop.

"Colonel Dujardin, what are you about, sir?  YOUR BASTION has thrown
a round shot into the commander-in-chief's tent."

The colonel did not appear so staggered as the aide-de-camp
expected.

"Ah, indeed!" said he quietly.  "I observed they were trying
distances."

"Must not happen again, colonel.  You must drive them from the gun."

"How?"

"Why, where is the difficulty?"

"If you will do me the honor to step into the battery, I will show
you," said the colonel.

"If you please," said the aide-de-camp stiffly.

Colonel Dujardin took him to the parapet, and began, in a calm,
painstaking way, to show him how and why none of his guns could be
brought to bear upon Long Tom.

In the middle of the explanation a melodious sound was heard in the
air above them, like a swarm of Brobdingnag bees.

"What is that?" inquired the aide-de-camp.

"What?  I see nothing."

"That humming noise."

"Oh, that?  Prussian bullets.  Ah, by-the-by, it is a compliment to
your uniform, monsieur; they take you for some one of importance.
Well, as I was observing"--

"Your explanation is sufficient, colonel; let us get out of this.
Ha, ha! you are a cool hand, colonel, I must say.  But your battery
is a warm place enough: I shall report it so at headquarters."

The grim colonel relaxed.

"Captain," said he politely, "you shall not have ridden to my post
in vain.  Will you lend me your horse for ten minutes?"

"Certainly; and I will inspect your trenches meantime."

"Do so; oblige me by avoiding that angle; it is exposed, and the
enemy have got the range to an inch."

Colonel Dujardin slipped into his quarters; off with his half-dress
jacket and his dirty boots, and presently out he came full fig,
glittering brighter than the other, with one French and two foreign
orders shining on his breast, mounted the aide-de-camp's horse, and
away full pelt.

Admitted, after some delay, into the generalissimo's tent, Dujardin
found the old gentleman surrounded by his staff and wroth: nor was
the danger to which he had been exposed his sole cause of ire.

The shot had burst through his canvas, struck a table on which was a
large inkstand, and had squirted the whole contents over the
despatches he was writing for Paris.

Now this old gentleman prided himself upon the neatness of his
despatches: a blot on his paper darkened his soul.

Colonel Dujardin expressed his profound regret.  The commander,
however, continued to remonstrate.  "I have a great deal of writing
to do," said he, "as you must be aware; and, when I am writing, I
expect to be quiet."

Colonel Dujardin assented respectfully to the justice of this.  He
then explained at full length why he could not bring a gun in the
battery to silence "Long Tom," and quietly asked to be permitted to
run a gun out of the trenches, and take a shot at the offender.

"It is a point-blank distance, and I have a new gun, with which a
man ought to be able to hit his own ball at three hundred yards."

The commander hesitated.

"I cannot have the men exposed."

"I engage not to lose a man--except him who fires the gun.  HE must
take his chance."

"Well, colonel, it must be done by volunteers.  The men must not be
ORDERED out on such a service as that."

Colonel Dujardin bowed, and retired.


"Volunteers to go out of the trenches!" cried Sergeant La Croix, in
a stentorian voice, standing erect as a poker, and swelling with
importance.

There were fifty offers in less than as many seconds.

"Only twelve allowed to go," said the sergeant; "and I am one,"
added he, adroitly inserting himself.

A gun was taken down, placed on a carriage, and posted near Death's
Alley, but out of the line of fire.

The colonel himself superintended the loading of this gun; and to
the surprise of the men had the shot weighed first, and then weighed
out the powder himself.

He then waited quietly a long time till the bastion pitched one of
its periodical shots into Death's Alley, but no sooner had the shot
struck, and sent the sand flying past the two lanes of curious
noses, than Colonel Dujardin jumped upon the gun and waved his
cocked hat.  At this preconcerted signal, his battery opened fire on
the bastion, and the battery to his right opened on the wall that
fronted them; and the colonel gave the word to run the gun out of
the trenches.  They ran it out into the cloud of smoke their own
guns were belching forth, unseen by the enemy; but they had no
sooner twisted it into the line of Long Tom, than the smoke was
gone, and there they were, a fair mark.

"Back into the trenches, all but one!" roared Dujardin.

And in they ran like rabbits.

"Quick! the elevation."

Colonel Dujardin and La Croix raised the muzzle to the mark--hoo,
hoo, hoo! ping, ping, ping! came the bullets about their ears.

"Away with you!" cried the colonel, taking the linstock from him.

Then Colonel Dujardin, fifteen yards from the trenches, in full
blazing uniform, showed two armies what one intrepid soldier can do.
He kneeled down and adjusted his gun, just as he would have done in
a practising ground.  He had a pot shot to take, and a pot shot he
would take.  He ignored three hundred muskets that were levelled at
him.  He looked along his gun, adjusted it, and re-adjusted it to a
hair's breadth.  The enemy's bullets pattered upon it: still he
adjusted it delicately.  His men were groaning and tearing their
hair inside at his danger.

At last it was levelled to his mind, and then his movements were as
quick as they had hitherto been slow.  In a moment he stood erect in
the half-fencing attitude of a gunner, and his linstock at the
touch-hole: a huge tongue of flame, a volume of smoke, a roar, and
the iron thunderbolt was on its way, and the colonel walked
haughtily but rapidly back to the trenches; for in all this no
bravado.  He was there to make a shot; not to throw a chance of life
away watching the effect.

Ten thousand eyes did that for him.

Both French and Prussians risked their own lives craning out to see
what a colonel in full uniform was doing under fire from a whole
line of forts, and what would be his fate; but when he fired the gun
their curiosity left the man and followed the iron thunderbolt.

For two seconds all was uncertain; the ball was travelling.

Tom gave a rear like a wild horse, his protruding muzzle went up
sky-high, then was seen no more, and a ring of old iron and a
clatter of fragments was heard on the top of the bastion.  Long Tom
was dismounted.  Oh! the roar of laughter and triumph from one end
to another of the trenches; and the clapping of forty thousand hands
that went on for full five minutes; then the Prussians, either
through a burst of generous praise for an act so chivalrous and so
brilliant, or because they would not be crowed over, clapped their
tea thousand hands as loudly, and thus thundering, heart-thrilling
salvo of applause answered salvo on both sides that terrible arena.

That evening came a courteous and flattering message from the
commander-in-chief to Colonel Dujardin; and several officers visited
his quarters to look at him; they went back disappointed.  The cry
was, "What a miserable, melancholy dog!  I expected to see a fine,
dashing fellow."


The trenches neared the town.  Colonel Dujardin's mine was far
advanced; the end of the chamber was within a few yards of the
bastion.  Of late, the colonel had often visited this mine in
person.  He seemed a little uneasy about something in that quarter;
but no one knew what: he was a silent man.  The third evening, after
he dismounted Long Tom, he received private notice that an order was
coming down from the commander-in-chief to assault the bastion.  He
shrugged his shoulders, but said nothing.  That same night the
colonel and one of his lieutenants stole out of the trenches, and by
the help of a pitch-dark, windy night, got under the bastion
unperceived, and crept round it, and made their observations, and
got safe back.  About noon down came General Raimbaut.

"Well, colonel, you are to have your way at last.  Your bastion is
to be stormed this afternoon previous to the general assault.  Why,
how is this? you don't seem enchanted?"

"I am not."

"Why, it was you who pressed for the assault."

"At the right time, general, not the wrong.  In five days I
undertake to blow that bastion into the air.  To assault it now
would be to waste our men."

General Raimbaut thought this excess of caution a great piece of
perversity in Achilles.  They were alone, and he said a little
peevishly,--

"Is not this to blow hot and cold on the same thing?"

"No, general," was the calm reply.  "Not on the same thing.  I blew
hot upon timorous counsels; I blow cold on rash ones.  General, last
night Lieutenant Fleming and I were under that bastion; and all
round it."

"Ah! my prudent colonel, I thought we should not talk long without
your coming out in your true light.  If ever a man secretly enjoyed
risking his life, it is you."

"No, general," said Dujardin looking gloomily down; "I enjoy neither
that nor anything else.  Live or die, it is all one to me; but to
the lives of my soldiers I am not indifferent, and never will be
while I live.  My apparent rashness of last night was pure
prudence."

Raimbaut's eye twinkled with suppressed irony.  "No doubt!" said he;
"no doubt!"

The impassive colonel would not notice the other's irony; he went
calmly on:--

"I suspected something; I went to confute, or confirm that
suspicion.  I confirmed it."

Rat! tat! tat! tat! tat! tat! tat! was heard a drum.  Relieving
guard in the mine.

Colonel Dujardin interrupted himself.

"That comes apropos," said he.  "I expect one proof more from that
quarter.  Sergeant, send me the sentinel they are relieving."

Sergeant La Croix soon came back, as pompous as a hen with one
chick, predominating with a grand military air over a droll figure
that chattered with cold, and held its musket in hands clothed in
great mittens.  Dard.

La Croix marched him up as if he had been a file; halted him like a
file, sang out to him as to a file, stentorian and unintelligible,
after the manner of sergeants.

"Private No. 4."

DARD.  P-p-p-present!

LA CROIX.  Advance to the word of command, and speak to the colonel.

The shivering figure became an upright statue directly, and carried
one of his mittens to his forehead.  Then, suddenly recognizing the
rank of the gray-haired officer, he was morally shaken, but remained
physically erect, and stammered,--

"Colonel!--general!--colonel!"

"Don't be frightened, my lad.  But look at the general and answer
me."

"Yes! general! colonel!" and he levelled his eye dead at the
general, as he would a bayonet at a foe, being so commanded.

"Now answer in as few syllables as you can."

"Yes! general--colonel."

"You have been on guard in the mine."

"Yes, general."

"What did you see there?"

"Nothing; it was night down there."

"What did you feel?"

"Cold!  I--was--in--water--hugh!"

"Did you hear nothing, then?"

"Yes."

"What?"

"Bum! bum! bum!"

"Are you sure you did not hear particles of earth fall at the end of
the trench?"

"I think it did, and this (touching his musket) sounded of its own
accord."

"Good! you have answered well; go."

"Sergeant, I did not miss a word," cried Dard, exulting.  He thought
he had passed a sort of military college examination.  The sergeant
was awe-struck and disgusted at his familiarity, speaking to him
before the great: he pushed Private Dard hastily out of the
presence, and bundled him into the trenches.

"Are you countermined, then?" asked General Raimbaut.

"I think not, general; but the whole bastion is.  And we found it
had been opened in the rear, and lately half a dozen broad roads cut
through the masonry."

"To let in re-enforcements?"

"Or to let the men run out in ease of an assault.  I have seen from
the first an able hand behind that part of the defences.  If we
assault the bastion, they will pick off as many of us as they can
with their muskets then they will run for it, and fire a train, and
blow it and us into the air."

"Colonel, this is serious.  Are you prepared to lay this statement
before the commander-in-chief?"

"I am, and I do so through you, the general of my division.  I even
beg you to say, as from me, that the assault will be mere suicide--
bloody and useless."

General Raimbaut went off to headquarters in some haste, a thorough
convert to Colonel Dujardin's opinion.  Meantime the colonel went
slowly to his tent.  At the mouth of it a corporal, who was also his
body-servant, met him, saluted, and asked respectfully if there were
any orders.

"A few minutes' repose, Francois, that is all.  Do not let me be
disturbed for an hour."

"Attention!" cried Francois.  "Colonel wants to sleep."

The tent was sentinelled, and Dujardin was alone with the past.

Then had the fools, that took (as fools will do) deep sorrow for
sullenness, seen the fiery soldier droop, and his wan face fall into
haggard lines, and his martial figure shrink, and heard his stout
heart sigh!  He took a letter from his bosom: it was almost worn to
pieces.  He had read it a thousand times, yet he read it again.  A
part of the sweet sad words ran thus:--


"We must bow.  We can never be happy together on earth; let us make
Heaven our friend.  This is still left us,--not to blush for our
love; to do our duty, and to die."


"How tender, but how firm," thought Camille.  "I might agitate,
taunt, grieve her I love, but I could not shake her.  No!  God and
the saints to my aid! they saved me from a crime I now shudder at.
And they have given me the good chaplain: he prays with me, he weeps
for me.  His prayers still my beating heart.  Yes, poor suffering
angel!  I read your will in these tender, but bitter, words: you
prefer duty to love.  And one day you will forget me; not yet
awhile, but it will be so.  It wounds me when I think of it, but I
must bow.  Your will is sacred.  I must rise to your level, not drag
you to mine."

Then the soldier that had stood between two armies in a hail of
bullets, and fired a master-shot, took a little book of offices in
one hand,--the chaplain had given it him,--and fixed his eyes upon
the pious words, and clung like a child to the pious words, and
kissed his lost wife's letter, and tried hard to be like her he
loved: patient, very patient, till the end should come.

"Qui vive?" cried the sentinel outside to a strange officer.

"France," was his reply.  He then asked the sentinel, "Where is the
colonel commanding the brigade?"

The sentinel lowered his voice, "Asleep, my officer," said he; for
the new-comer carried two epaulets.

"Wake him," said the officer in a tone of a man used to command on a
large scale.

Dujardin heard, and did not choose a stranger should think he was
asleep in broad day.  He came hastily out of the tent, therefore,
with Josephine's letter in his hand, and, in the very act of
conveying it to his bosom, found himself face to face with--her
husband.

Did you ever see two duellists cross rapiers?

How unlike a theatrical duel!  How smooth and quiet the bright
blades are! they glide into contact.  They are polished and
slippery, yet they hold each other.  So these two men's eyes met,
and fastened: neither spoke: each searched the other's face keenly.
Raynal's countenance, prepared as he was for this meeting, was like
a stern statue's.  The other's face flushed, and his heart raged and
sickened at sight of the man, that, once his comrade and benefactor,
was now possessor of the woman he loved.  But the figures of both
stood alike haughty, erect, and immovable, face to face.

Colonel Raynal saluted Colonel Dujardin ceremoniously.  Colonel
Dujardin returned the salute in the same style.

"You thought I was in Egypt," said Raynal with grim significance
that caught Dujardin's attention, though he did not know quite how
to interpret it.

He answered mechanically, "Yes, I did."

"I am sent here by General Bonaparte to take a command," explained
Raynal.

"You are welcome.  What command?"

"Yours."

"Mine?" cried Dujardin, his forehead flushing with mortification and
anger.  "What, is it not enough that you take my"--  He stopped
then.

"Come, colonel," said the other calmly, "do not be unjust to an old
comrade.  I take your demi-brigade; but you are promoted to
Raimbaut's brigade.  The exchange is to be made to-morrow."

"Was it then to announce to me my promotion you came to my
quarters?" and Camille looked with a strange mixture of feelings at
his old comrade.

"That was the first thing, being duty, you know."

"What? have you anything else to say to me, then?"

"I have."

"Is it important? for my own duties will soon demand me."

"It is so important that, command or no command, I should have come
further than the Rhine to say it to you."

Let a man be as bold as a lion, a certain awe still waits upon doubt
and mystery; and some of this vague awe crept over Camille Dujardin
at Raynal's mysterious speech, and his grave, quiet, significant
manner.

Had he discovered something, and what?  For Josephine's sake, more
than his own, Camille was on his guard directly.

Raynal looked at him in silence a moment.

"What?" said he with a slight sneer, "has it never occurred to you
that I MUST have a serious word to say to you?  First, let me put
you a question: did they treat you well at my house? at the chateau
de Beaurepaire?"

"Yes," faltered Camille.

"You met, I trust, all the kindness and care due to a wounded
soldier and an officer of merit.  It would annoy me greatly if I
thought you were not treated like a brother in my house."

Colonel Dujardin writhed inwardly at this view of matters.  He could
not reply in few words.  This made him hesitate.

His inquisitor waited, but, receiving no reply, went on, "Well,
colonel, have you shown the sense of gratitude we had a right to
look for in return?  In a word, when you left Beaurepaire, had your
conscience nothing to reproach you with?"

Dujardin still hesitated.  He scarcely knew what to think or what to
say.  But he thought to himself, "Who has told him? does he know
all?"

"Colonel Dujardin, I am the husband of Josephine, the son of Madame
de Beaurepaire, and the brother of Rose.  You know very well what
brings me here.  Your answer?"

"Colonel Raynal, between men of honor, placed as you and I are, few
words should pass, for words are idle.  You will never prove to me
that I have wronged you: I shall never convince you that I have not.
Let us therefore close this painful interview in the way it is sure
to close.  I am at your service, at any hour and place you please."

"And pray is that all the answer you can think of?" asked Raynal
somewhat scornfully.

"Why, what other answer can I give you?"

"A more sensible, a more honest, and a less boyish one.  Who doubts
that you can fight, you silly fellow? haven't I seen you?  I want
you to show me a much higher sort of courage: the courage to repair
a wrong, not the paltry valor to defend one."

"I really do not understand you, sir.  How can I undo what is done?"

"Why, of course you cannot.  And therefore I stand here ready to
forgive all that is past; not without a struggle, which you don't
seem to appreciate."

Camille was now utterly mystified.  Raynal continued, "But of course
it is upon condition that you consent to heal the wound you have
made.  If you refuse--hum! but you will not refuse."

"But what is it you require of me?" inquired Camille impatiently.

"Only a little common honesty.  This is the case: you have seduced a
young lady."

"Sir!" cried Camille angrily.

"What is the matter?  The word is not so bad as the crime, I take
it.  You have seduced her, and under circumstances--  But we won't
speak of them, because I am resolved to keep cool.  Well, sir, as
you said just now, it's no use crying over spilled milk; you can't
unseduce the little fool; so you must marry her."

"M--m--marry her?" and Dujardin flushed all over, and his heart
beat, and he stared in Raynal's face.

"Why, what is the matter again?  If she has played the fool, it was
with you, and no other man: it is not as if she was depraved.  Come,
my lad, show a little generosity!  Take the consequences of your own
act--or your share of it--don't throw it all on the poor feeble
woman.  If she has loved you too much, you are the man of all others
that should forgive her.  Come, what do you say?"

This was too much for Camille; that Raynal should come and demand of
him to marry his own wife, for so he understood the proposal.  He
stared at Raynal in silence ever so long, and even when he spoke it
was only to mutter, "Are you out of your senses, or am I?"

At this it cost Raynal a considerable effort to restrain his wrath.
However, he showed himself worthy of the office he had undertaken.
He contained himself, and submitted to argue the matter.  "Why,
colonel," said he, "is it such a misfortune to marry poor Rose?  She
is young, she is lovely, she has many good qualities, and she would
have walked straight to the end of her days but for you."

Now here was another surprise for Dujardin, another mystification.

"Rose de Beaurepaire?" said he, putting his hand to his head, as if
to see whether his reason was still there.

"Yes, Rose de Beaurepaire--Rose Dujardin that ought to be, and that
is to be, if you please."

"One word, monsieur: is it of Rose we have been talking all this
time?"

Raynal nearly lost his temper at this question, and the cold,
contemptuous tone with which it was put; but he gulped down his ire.

"It is," said he.

"One question more.  Did she tell you I had--I had"--

"Why, as to that, she was in no condition to deny she had fallen,
poor girl; the evidence was too strong.  She did not reveal her
seducer's name; but I had not far to go for that."

"One question more," said Dujardin, with a face of anguish.  "Is it
Jos--is it Madame Raynal's wish I should marry her sister?"

"Why, of course," said Raynal, in all sincerity, assuming that
naturally enough as a matter of course; "if you have any respect for
HER feelings, look on me as her envoy in this matter."

At this Camille turned sick with disgust; then rage and bitterness
swelled his heart.  A furious impulse seized him to expose Josephine
on the spot.  He overcame that, however, and merely said, "She
wishes me to marry her sister, does she? very well then, I decline."

Raynal was shocked.  "Oh," said he, sorrowfully, "I cannot believe
this of you; such heartlessness as this is not written in your face;
it is contradicted by your past actions."

"I refuse," said Dujardin, hastily; and to tell the truth, not sorry
to inflict some pain on the honest soldier who had unintentionally
driven the iron so deep into his own soul.

"And I," said Raynal, losing his temper, "insist, in the name of my
dear Josephine"--

"Perdition!" snarled Dujardin, losing his self-command in turn.

"And of the whole family."

"And I tell you I will never marry her.  Upon my honor, never."

"Your honor! you have none.  The only question is would you rather
marry her--or die."

"Die, to be sure."

"Then die you shall."

"Ah!" said Dujardin; "did I not tell you we were wasting time?

"Let us waste no more then.  WHEN and WHERE?"

"At the rear of the commander-in-chief's tent; when you like."

"This afternoon, then--at five."

"At five."

"Seconds?"

"What for?"

"You are right.  They are only in the way of men who carry sabres;
and besides the less gossip the better.  Good-by, till five," and
the two saluted one another with grim ceremony; and Raynal turned on
his heel.

Camille stood transfixed; a fierce, guilty joy throbbed in his
heart.  His rival had quarrelled with him, had insulted him, had
challenged him.  It was not his fault.  The sun shone bright now
upon his cold despair.  An hour ago life offered nothing.  A few
hours more, and then joy beyond expression, or an end of all.  Death
or Josephine!  Then he remembered that this very Josephine wished to
marry him to Rose.  Then he remembered Raynal had saved his life.
Cold chills crossed his breaking heart.  Of all that could happen to
him death alone seemed a blessing without alloy.

He stood there so torn with conflicting passions, that he noted
neither the passing hours nor the flying bullets.

He was only awakened from his miserable trance by the even tread of
soldiers marching towards him; he looked up and there were several
officers coming along the edge of the trench, escorted by a
corporal's guard.

He took a step or two to meet them.  After the usual salutes, one of
the three colonels delivered a large paper, with a large seal, to
Dujardin.  He read it out to his captains and lieutenants, who had
assembled at sight of the cocked hats and full uniforms.


"Attack by the army to-morrow upon all the lines.  Attack of the
bastion St. Andre this evening.  The 22d, the 24th, and 12th
brigades will furnish the contingents; the operation will be
conducted by one of the colonels of the second division, to be
appointed by General Raimbaut."


"Aha!" sounded a voice like a trombone at the reader's elbow.  "I am
just in the nick of time.  When, colonel, when?"

"At five this evening, Colonel Raynal."

"There," said Raynal, in a half-whisper, to Dujardin; "could they
choose no hour but that?"

"Do not be uneasy," replied Dujardin, under his breath.  He
explained aloud--"the assault will not take place, gentlemen; the
bastion is mined."

"What of that? half of them are mined.  We will take our engineers
in with us," said Raynal.

"Such an assault will be a useless massacre," resumed Dujardin.  "I
reconnoitred the bastion last night, and saw their preparations for
blowing us to the devil; and General Raimbaut, at my request, is
even now presenting my remarks to the commander-in-chief, and
enforcing them.  There will be no assault.  In a day or two we shall
blow the bastion, mines, and all into the air."

At this moment Raynal caught sight of a gray-haired officer coming
at some distance.  "There IS General Raimbaut," said he.  "I will go
and pay my respects to him."  General Raimbaut shook his hand
warmly, and welcomed him to the army.  They were old and warm
friends.  "And you are come at the right time," said he.  "It will
soon be as hot here as in Egypt."

Raynal laughed and said all the better.

General Raimbaut now joined the group of officers, and entered at
once in the business which had brought him.  Addressing himself to
Colonel Dujardin, first he informs that officer he had presented his
observations to the commander-in-chief, who had given them the
attention they merited.

Colonel Dujardin bowed.

"But," continued General Raimbaut, "they are overruled by imperious
circumstances, some of which he did not reveal; they remain in his
own breast.  However, on the eve of a general attack, which he
cannot postpone, that bastion must be disarmed, otherwise it would
be too fatal to all the storming parties.  It is a painful
necessity."  He added, "Tell Colonel Dujardin I count greatly on the
courage and discipline of his brigade, and on his own wise
measures."

Colonel Dujardin bowed.  Then he whispered in the other's ear, "Both
will alike be wasted."

The other colonels waved their hats in triumph at the commander-in-
chief's decision, and Raynal's face showed he looked on Dujardin as
a sort of spoil-sport happily defeated.

"Well, then, gentlemen," said General Raimbaut, "we begin by
settling the contingents to be furnished by your several brigades.
Say, an equal number from each.  The sum total shall be settled by
Colonel Dujardin, who has so long and ably baffled the bastion at
this post."

Colonel Dujardin bowed stiffly and not very graciously.  In his
heart he despised these old fogies, compounds of timidity and
rashness.

"So, how many men in all, colonel?" asked General Raimbaut.

"The fewer the better," replied the other solemnly, "since"--and
then discipline tied his tongue.

"I understand you," said the old man.  "Shall we say eight hundred
men?"

"I should prefer three hundred.  They have made a back door to the
bastion, and the means of flight at hand will put flight into their
heads.  They will pick off some of our men as we go at them.  When
the rest jump in they will jump out, and"--  He paused.

"Why, he knows all about it before it comes," said one of the
colonels naively.

"I do.  I see the whole operation and its result before me, as I see
this hand.  Three hundred men will do."

"But, general," objected Raynal, "you are not beginning at the
beginning.  The first thing in these cases is to choose the officer
to command the storming party."

"Yes, Raynal, unquestionably; but you must be aware that is a
painful and embarrassing part of my duty, especially after Colonel
Dujardin's remarks."

"Ah, bah!" cried Raynal.  "He is prejudiced.  He has been digging a
thundering long mine here, and now you are going to make his child
useless.  We none of us like that.  But when he gets the colors in
his hand, and the storming column at his back, his misgivings will
all go to the wind, and the enemy after them, unless he has been
committing some crime, and is very much changed from what I knew him
four years ago."

"Colonel Raynal," said one of the other colonels, politely but
firmly, "pray do not assume that Colonel Dujardin is to lead the
column; there are three other claimants.  General Raimbaut is to
select from us four."

"Yes, gentlemen, and in a service of this kind I would feel grateful
to you all if you would relieve me of that painful duty."

"Gentlemen," said Dujardin, with an imperceptible sneer, "the
general means to say this: the operation is so glorious that he
could hardly without partiality assign the command to either of us
four claimants.  Well, then, let us cast lots."

The proposal was received by acclamation.

"The general will mark a black cross on one lot, and he who draws it
wins the command."

The young colonels prepared their lots with almost boyish eagerness.
These fiery spirits were sick to death of lying and skulking in the
trenches.  They flung their lots into the hat.  After them, who
should approach the hat, lot in hand, but Raynal.  Dujardin
instantly interfered, and held his arm as he was in the act of
dropping in his lot.

"What is the matter?" said Raynal, sharply.

"This is our affair, Colonel Raynal.  You have no command in this
army."

"I beg your pardon, sir, I have yours."

"Not till to-morrow."

"Why, you would not take such a pettifogging advantage of an old
comrade as that."

"Tell him the day ends at twelve o'clock," said one of the colonels
interested by this strange strife.

"Ah!" cried Raynal, triumphantly; "but no," said he, altering his
tone, "let us leave that sort of argument to lawyers.  I have come a
good many miles to fight with you, general; and now you must decide
to pay me this little compliment on my arrival, or put a bitter
affront on me--choose!"

While the old general hesitated, Camille replied, "Since you take
that tone there can be but one answer.  You are too great a credit
to the French army for even an apparent slight to be put on you
here.  The rule, I think, is, that one of the privates shall hold
the hat.--Hallo!  Private Dard, come here--there--hold this hat."

"Yes, colonel.--Lord, here is my young mistress's husband!"

"Silence!"

And they began to draw, and, in the act of drawing, a change of
manner was first visible in these gay and ardent spirits.

"It is not I," said one, throwing away his lot.

"Nor I."

"It is I," said Raynal; then with sudden gravity, "I am the lucky
one."

And now that the honor and the danger no longer floated vaguely over
four heads, but had fixed on one, a sudden silence and solemnity
took the place of eager voices.

It was first broken by Private Dard saying, with foolish triumph,
"And I held the hat for you, colonel."

"Ah, Raynal!" said General Raimbaut, sorrowfully, "it was not worth
while to come from Egypt for this."

Raynal made no reply to this.  He drew out his watch, and said
calmly, he had no time to lose; he must inspect the detachments he
was to command.  "Besides," said he, "I have some domestic
arrangements to make.  Hitherto on these occasions I was a bachelor,
now I am married."  General Raimbaut could not help sighing.  Raynal
read this aright, and turned to him, "A droll marriage, my old
friend; I'll tell you all about it if ever I have the time.  It
began with a purchase, general, and ends with--with a bequest, which
I might as well write now, and so have nothing to think of but duty
afterwards.  Where can I write?"

"Colonel Dujardin will lend you his tent, I am sure."

"Certainly."

"And, messieurs," said Raynal, "if I waste time you need not.  You
can pick me my men from your brigades.  Give me a strong spice of
old hands."

The colonels withdrew on this, and General Raimbaut walked sadly and
thoughtfully towards the battery.  Dujardin and Raynal were left
alone.

"This postpones our affair, sir."

"Yes, Raynal."

"Have you writing materials in your tent?"

"Yes; on the table."

"You are quite sure the bastion is mined, comrade?"

This unexpected word and Raynal's gentle appeal touched Dujardin
deeply.  It was in a broken voice he replied that he was
unfortunately too sure of it.

Raynal received this reply as a sentence of death, and without
another word walked slowly into Dujardin's tent.

Dujardin's generosity was up in arms; he followed Raynal, and said
eagerly, "Raynal, for Heaven's sake resign this command!"

"Allow me to write to my wife, colonel," was the cold reply.

Camille winced at this affront, and drew back a moment; but his
nobler part prevailed.  He seized Raynal by the wrist.  "You shall
not affront me, you cannot affront me.  You go to certain death I
tell you, if you attack that bastion."

"Don't be a fool, colonel," said Raynal: "somebody must lead the
men."

"Yes; but not you.  Who has so good a right to lead them as I, their
colonel?"

"And be killed in my place, eh?"

"I know the ground better than you," said Camille.  "Besides, who
cares for me?  I have no friends, no family.  But you are married--
and so many will mourn if you"--

Raynal interrupted him sternly.  "You forget, sir, that Rose de
Beaurepaire is my sister, when you tell me you have no tie to life."
He added, with wonderful dignity and sobriety, "Allow me to write to
my wife, sir; and, while I write, reflect that you can embitter an
old comrade's last moments by persisting in your refusal to restore
his sister the honor you have robbed her of."

And leaving the other staggered and confused by this sudden blow, he
retired into Dujardin's tent, and finding writing materials on a
little table that was there, sat down to pen a line to Josephine.

Camille knew to whom he was writing, and a jealous pang passed
through him.

What he wrote ran thus,--


"A bastion is to be attacked at five.  I command.  Colonel Dujardin
proposed we should draw lots, and I lost.  The service is honorable,
but the result may, I fear, give you some pain.  My dear wife, it is
our fate.  I was not to have time to make you know, and perhaps love
me.  God bless you."


In writing these simple words, Raynal's hard face worked, and his
mustache quivered, and once he had to clear his eye with his hand to
form the letters.  He, the man of iron.

He who stood there, leaning on his scabbard and watching the writer,
saw this, and it stirred all that was great and good in that grand
though passionate heart of his.

"Poor Raynal!" thought he, "you were never like that before on going
into action.  He is loath to die.  Ay, and it is a coward's trick to
let him die.  I shall have her, but shall I have her esteem?  What
will the army say?  What will my conscience say?  Oh! I feel already
it will gnaw my heart to death; the ghost of that brave fellow--once
my dear friend, my rival now, by no fault of his--will rise between
her and me, and reproach me with my bloody inheritance.  The heart
never deceives; I feel it now whispering in my ear: 'Skulking
captain, white-livered soldier, that stand behind a parapet while a
better man does your work! you assassinate the husband, but the
rival conquers you.'  There, he puts his hand to his eyes.  What
shall I do?"

"Colonel," said a low voice, and at the same time a hand was laid on
his shoulder.

It was General Raimbaut.  The general looked pale and distressed.

"Come apart, colonel, for Heaven's sake!  One word, while he is
writing.  Ah! that was an unlucky idea of yours."

"Of mine, general?"

"'Twas you proposed to cast lots."

"Good God! so it was."

"I thought of course it was to be managed so that Raynal should not
be the one.  Between ourselves, what honorable excuse can we make?"

"None, general."

"The whole division will be disgraced, and forgive me if I say a
portion of the discredit will fall on you."

"Help me to avert that shame then," cried Camille, eagerly.

"Ah! that I will: but how?"

"Take your pencil and write--'I authorize Colonel Dujardin to save
the honor of the colonels of the second division.'"

The general hesitated.  He had never seen an order so worded.  But
at last he took out his pencil and wrote the required order, after
his own fashion; i.e., in milk and water:--


On account of the singular ability and courage with which Colonel
Dujardin has conducted the operations against the Bastion St. Andre,
a discretionary power is given him at the moment of assault to carry
into effect such measures, as, without interfering with the
commander-in-chief's order, may sustain his own credit, and that of
the other colonels of the second division.

RAIMBAUT, General of Division.


Camille put the paper into his bosom.

"Now, general, you may leave all to me.  I swear to you, Raynal
shall not die--shall not lead this assault."

"Your hand, colonel.  You are an honor to the French armies.  How
will you do it?"

"Leave it to me, general, it shall be done."

"I feel it will, my noble fellow: but, alas! I fear not without
risking some valuable life or other, most likely your own.  Tell
me!"

"General, I decline."

"You refuse me, sir?"

"Yes; this order gives me a discretionary power.  I will hand back
the order at your command; but modify it I will not.  Come, sir, you
veteran generals have been unjust to me, and listened to me too
little all through this siege, but at last you have honored me.
This order is the greatest honor that was ever done me since I wore
a sword.".

"My poor colonel!"

"Let me wear it intact, and carry it to my grave."

"Say no more!  One word--Is there anything on earth I can do for
you, my brave soldier?"

"Yes, general.  Be so kind as to retire to your quarters; there are
reasons why you ought not to be near this post in half an hour."

"I go.  Is there NOTHING else?"

"Well, general, ask the good priest Ambrose, to pray for all those
who shall die doing their duty to their country this afternoon."

They parted.  General Raimbaut looked back more than once at the
firm, intrepid figure that stood there unflinching, on the edge of
the grave.  But HE never took his eye off Raynal.  The next minute
the sad letter was finished, and Raynal walked out of the tent, and
confronted the man he had challenged to single combat.

I have mentioned elsewhere that Colonel Dujardin had eyes strangely
compounded of battle and love, of the dove and the hawk.  And these,
softened by a noble act he meditated, now rested on Raynal with a
strange expression of warmth and goodness.  This strange gaze struck
Raynal, so far at least as this; he saw it was no hostile eye.  He
was glad of that, for his own heart was calmed and softened by the
solemn prospect before him.

"We, too, have a little account to settle before I order out the
men," said he, calmly, "and I can't give you a long credit.  I am
pressed for time."

"Our quarrel is at an end.  When duty sounds the recall, a soldier's
heart leaves private feuds.  See! I come to you without anger and
ill-will.  Just now my voice was loud, my manner, I dare say,
offensive, and menacing even, and that always tempts a brave fellow
like you to resist.  But now, you see, I am harmless as a woman.  We
are alone.  Humbug to the winds!  I know that you are the only man
in this army fit to command a division.  I know that when you say
the assault of that bastion is death, death it is.  To the point
then; now that my manner is no longer irritating, now that I am
going to die, Camille Dujardin, my old comrade, have you the heart
to refuse me? am I to die unhappy?"

"No; no: I will do whatever you like."

"You will marry that poor girl, then?"

"Yes."

"Aha! did not I always say he was a good fellow?  Clench the nail;
give me your honor."

"I give you my honor to marry her, if I live."

"You take a load off me; may Heaven reward you.  In one hour those
poor women, whose support I had promised to be, will lose their
protector; but I give them another in you.  We shall not leave that
family in tears, Rose in shame, and your child without a name."

Dujardin stared at the speaker.  What new and devilish deception was
this?

"My child!" he faltered.  "What child?"

"Ah," said Raynal, "what a fool I was!  That is the first thing I
ought to have told you.  Poor little fellow!  I surprised him in his
cradle; his mother and Josephine were rocking him, and singing over
him.  Oh! it was a scene, I can tell you.  My poor wife had been ill
for some time, and was so weakened by it, that I frightened her into
a fit, stealing a march on her that way.  She fainted away.  Perhaps
it is as well she did; for I--I did not know what to think; it
looked ugly; but while she lay at our feet insensible, I forced the
truth from Rose; she owned the boy was hers."

While Raynal told him this strange story, Camille turned hot and
cold.  First came a thrill of glowing joy; he had some clew to all
this: he was a father; that child was Josephine's and his; the next
moment he froze within.  So Josephine had not only gulled her
husband, but him, too; she had refused him the sad consolation of
knowing he had a child.  Cruelty, calculation, and baseness
unexampled!  Here was a creature who could sacrifice anything and
anybody to her comfort, to the peace and sordid smoothness of her
domestic life.  She stood between two men--a thing.  Between two
truths--a double lie.

His heart, in one moment, turned against her like a stone.  A
musket-bullet through the body does not turn life to death quicker
than Raynal turned his rival's love to despair and scorn: that love
which neither wounds, absence, prison, nor even her want of
constancy had prevailed to shake.

"Out of my bosom!" he cried--"out of it, in this world and the
next!"

He forgot, in his lofty rage, who stood beside him.

"What?--what?" cried Raynal.

"No matter," said Camille; "only I esteem YOU, Raynal.  You are
truth; you are a man, and deserve a better lot."

"Don't say that," replied Raynal, quite misunderstanding him.  "It
is a soldier's end: I never desired nor hoped a better: only, of
course, I feel sad.  You are a happy fellow, to have a child and to
live to see it, and her you love."

"Oh, yes, I am very happy," replied the poor fellow, his lip
quivering.

"Watch over all those poor women, comrade, and sometimes speak to
them of me.  It is foolish, but we like to be remembered."

"Yes! but do not let us speak of that.  Raynal, you and I were
lieutenants together; do you remember saving my life in the Arno?"

"Yes."

"Then promise me, if you should live, to remember not our quarrel of
to-day, nor anything; but only those early days, AND THIS AFTERNOON."

"I do."

"Your hand, comrade."

"There, comrade, there."

They wrung one another's hands, and turned away and hid their faces
from each other, for their eyes were moist.

"This won't do, comrade, I must go.  I shall attack from your
position.  So I shall go down the line, and bring the men up.
Meantime, pick me your detachment.  Give me a good spice of
veterans.  I shall get one word with you before we go out.  God
bless you!"

"God bless you, Raynal!"

The moment Raynal was gone, Camille beckoned a lieutenant to him,
and ordered half the brigade to form in a strong column on both
sides Death's Alley.

His eye fell upon private Dard, as luck would have it.  "Come here,"
said he.  Dard came and saluted.

"Have you anybody at Beaurepaire that would be sorry if you were
killed?"

"Yes, colonel!  Jacintha, that used to make your broth, colonel."

"Take this line to Colonel Raynal.  You will find him with the 12th
brigade."

He wrote a few lines in pencil, folded them, and Dard went off with
them, little dreaming that the colonel of his brigade was taking the
trouble to save his life, because he came from Beaurepaire.  Colonel
Dujardin then went into his tent, and closed the aperture, and took
the good book the priest had given him, and prayed humbly, and
forgave all the world.

Then he sat down, his head in his hands, and thought of his child,
and how hard it was he must die and never see him.  Then he lighted
a candle, and sealed up his orders of valor, and wrote a line,
begging that they might be sent to his sister.  He also sealed up
his purse, and left a memorandum that the contents should be given
to disabled soldiers of his brigade upon their being invalided.

Then he took out Josephine's letter.  "Poor coward," he said, "let
me not be unkind.  See, I burn your letter, lest it should be found,
and disturb the peace you prize so highly.  I, too, shall soon be at
peace."  He lighted the letter, and dropped it on the ground: it
burned slowly away.  He eyed it, despairingly.  "Ay," said he, "you
perish, last record of an unhappy love: and even so pass away my
life; my hopes of glory, and my dreams of love; it all ends to-day:
at nine and twenty."

He put his white handkerchief to his eyes.  Josephine had given it
him.  He cried a little.

When he had done crying, he put his white handkerchief in his bosom,
and the whole man was transformed beyond language to express.
Powder does not change more when it catches fire.  He rose that
moment and went like a flash of lightning out of the tent.  The
next, he came down between the lines of the strong column that stood
awaiting orders in Death's Alley.

"Attention!" cried the sergeants; "the colonel!"

There was a dead silence, for the bare sight of that erect and
inspired figure made the men's bosoms thrill with the certainty of
great deeds to come: the light of battle was in his eye.  No longer
the moody colonel, but a thunderbolt of war, red-hot, and waiting to
be launched.

"Officers, sergeants, soldiers, a word with you!"

La Croix.  Attention!

"Do you know what passed here five minutes ago?"

"The attack of the bastion was settled!" cried a captain.

"It was; and who was to lead the assault? do you know that?"

"No."

"A colonel FROM EGYPT."

At that there was a groan from the men.

"With detachments from the other brigades."

"AH!" an angry roar.

Colonel Dujardin walked quickly down between the two lines, looking
with his fiery eye into the men's eyes on his right.  Then he came
back on the other side, and, as he went, he lighted those men's eyes
with his own.  It was a torch passing along a line of ready gas-
lights.

"The work to us!" he cried in a voice like a clarion (it fired the
hearts as his eye had fired the eyes)--"The triumph to strangers!
Our fatigues and our losses have not gained the brigade the honor of
going out at those fellows that have killed so many of our
comrades."

A fierce groan broke from the men.

"What! shall the colors of another brigade and not ours fly from
that bastion this afternoon?"

"No! no!" in a roar like thunder.

"Ah! you are of my mind.  Attention! the attack is fixed for five
o'clock.  Suppose you and I were to carry the bastion ten minutes
before the colonel from Egypt can bring his men upon the ground."

At this there was a fierce burst of joy and laughter; the strange
laughter of veterans and born invincibles.  Then a yell of exulting
assent, accompanied by the thunder of impatient drums, and the
rattle of fixing bayonets.

The colonel told off a party to the battery.

"Level the guns at the top tier.  Fire at my signal, and keep firing
over our heads, till you see our colors on the place."

He then darted to the head of the column, which instantly formed
behind him in the centre of Death's Alley.

"The colors!  No hand but mine shall hold them to-day."

They were instantly brought him: his left hand shook them free in
the afternoon sun.

A deep murmur of joy rolled out from the old hands at the now
unwonted sight.  Out flashed the colonel's sword like steel
lightning.  He pointed to the battery.

Bang! bang! bang! bang! went his cannon, and the smoke rolled over
the trenches.  At the same moment up went the colors waving, and the
colonel's clarion voice pealed high above all:--

"Twenty-fourth brigade--FORWARD!"

They went so swiftly out of the trenches that they were not seen
through their own smoke until they had run some sixty yards.  As
soon as they were seen, coming on like devils through their own
smoke, two thousand muskets were levelled at them from the Prussian
line.  It was not a rattle of small arms--it was a crash, and the
men fell fast: but in a moment they were seen to spread out like a
fan, and to offer less mark, and when the fan closed again, it half
encircled the bastion.  It was a French attack: part swarmed at it
in front like bees, part swept round the glacis and flanked it.
They were seen to fall in numbers, shot down from the embrasures.
But the living took the place of the dead: and the fight ranged
evenly there.  Where are the colors?  Towards the rear there.  The
colonel and a hundred men are fighting hand to hand with the
Prussians, who have charged out at the back doors of the bastion.
Success there, and the bastion must fall--both sides know this.

The colors disappeared.  There was a groan from the French lines.
The colors reappeared, and close under the bastion.

And now in front the attack was so hot, that often the Prussian
gunners were seen to jump down, driven from their posts; and the
next moment a fierce hurrah from the rear told that the French had
won some great advantage there.  The fire slackening told a similar
tale and presently down came the Prussian flag-staff.  That might be
an accident.  A few moments of thirsting expectation, and up went
the colors of the 24th brigade upon the Bastion St. Andre.

The French army raised a shout that rent the sky, and their cannon
began to play on the Prussian lines and between the bastion and the
nearest fort, to prevent a recapture.

Sudden there shot from the bastion a cubic acre of fire: it carried
up a heavy mountain of red and black smoke that looked solid as
marble.  There was a heavy, sullen, tremendous explosion that
snuffed out the sound of the cannon, and paralyzed the French and
Prussian gunners' hands, and checked the very beating of their
hearts.  Thirty thousand pounds of gunpowder were in that awful
explosion.  War itself held its breath, and both armies, like
peaceable spectators, gazed wonder-struck, terror-struck.  Great
hell seemed to burst through the earth's crust, and to be rushing at
heaven.  Huge stones, cannons, corpses, and limbs of soldiers, were
seen driven or falling through the smoke.  Some of these last came
quite clear of the ruins, ay, into the French and Prussian lines,
that even the veterans put their hands to their eyes.  Raynal felt
something patter on him from the sky--it was blood--a comrade's
perhaps.


The smoke cleared.  Where, a moment before, the great bastion stood
and fought, was a monstrous pile of blackened, bloody stones and
timbers, with dismounted cannon sticking up here and there.

And, rent and crushed to atoms beneath the smoking mass, lay the
relics of the gallant brigade, and their victorious colors.


CHAPTER XXII.


A few wounded soldiers of the brigade lay still till dusk.  Then
they crept back to the trenches.  These had all been struck down or
disabled short of the bastion.  Of those that had taken the place no
one came home.

Raynal, after the first stupefaction, pressed hard and even angrily
for an immediate assault on the whole Prussian line.  Not they.  It
was on paper that the assault should be at daybreak to-morrow.  Such
leaders as they were cannot IMPROVISE.

Rage and grief in his heart, Raynal waited chafing in the trenches
till five minutes past midnight.  He then became commander of the
brigade, gave his orders, and took thirty men out to creep up to the
wreck of the bastion, and find the late colonel's body.

Going for so pious a purpose, he was rewarded by an important
discovery.  The whole Prussian lines had been abandoned since
sunset, and, mounting cautiously on the ramparts, Raynal saw the
town too was evacuated, and lights and other indications on a rising
ground behind it convinced him that the Prussians were in full
retreat, probably to effect that junction with other forces which
the assault he had recommended would have rendered impossible.

They now lighted lanterns, and searched all over and round the
bastion for the poor colonel, in the rear of the bastion they found
many French soldiers, most of whom had died by the bayonet.  The
Prussian dead had all been carried off.

Here they found the talkative Sergeant La Croix.  The poor fellow
was silent enough now.  A terrible sabre-cut on the skull.  The
colonel was not there.  Raynal groaned, and led the way on to the
bastion.  The ruins still smoked.  Seven or eight bodies were
discovered by an arm or a foot protruding through the masses of
masonry.  Of these some were Prussians; a proof that some devoted
hand had fired the train, and destroyed both friend and foe.

They found the tube of Long Tom sticking up, just as he had shown
over the battlements that glorious day, with this exception, that a
great piece was knocked off his lip, and the slice ended in a long,
broad crack.

The soldiers looked at this.  "That is our bullet's work," said
they.  Then one old veteran touched his cap, and told Raynal
gravely, he knew where their beloved colonel was.  "Dig here, to the
bottom," said he.  "HE LIES BENEATH HIS WORK."

Improbable and superstitious as this was, the hearts of the soldiers
assented to it.

Presently there was a joyful cry outside the bastion.  A rush was
made thither.  But it proved to be only Dard, who had discovered
that Sergeant La Croix's heart still beat.  They took him up
carefully, and carried him gently into camp.  To Dard's delight the
surgeon pronounced him curable.  For all that, he was three days
insensible, and after that unfit for duty.  So they sent him home
invalided, with a hundred francs out of the poor colonel's purse.

Raynal reported the evacuation of the place, and that Colonel
Dujardin was buried under the bastion, and soon after rode out of
the camp.

The words Camille had scratched with a pencil, and sent him from the
edge of the grave, were few but striking.


"A dead man takes you once more by the hand.  My last thought, thank
God, is France.  For her sake and mine, Raynal.  GO FOR GENERAL
BONAPARTE.  Tell him, from a dying soldier, the Rhine is a river to
these generals, but to him a field of glory.  He will lay out our
lives, not waste them."


There was nothing to hinder Raynal from carrying out this sacred
request: for the 24th brigade had ceased to exist: already thinned
by hard service, it was reduced to a file or two by the fatal
bastion.  It was incorporated with the 12th; and Raynal rode heavy
at heart to Paris, with a black scarf across his breast.


CHAPTER XXIII.


You see now into what a fatal entanglement two high-minded young
ladies were led, step by step, through yielding to the natural
foible of their sex--the desire to hide everything painful from
those they love, even at the expense of truth.

A nice mess they made of it with their amiable dishonesty.  And pray
take notice that after the first White Lie or two, circumstances
overpowered them, and drove them on against their will.  It was no
small part of all their misery that they longed to get back to truth
and could not.

We shall see presently how far they succeeded in that pious object,
for the sake of which they first entered on concealments.  But first
a word is due about one of the victims of their amiable, self-
sacrificing lubricity.  Edouard Riviere fell in one night, from
happiness and confidence, such as till that night be had never
enjoyed, to deep and hopeless misery.

He lost that which, to every heart capable of really loving, is the
greatest earthly blessing, the woman he adored.  But worse than
that, he lost those prime treasures of the masculine soul, belief in
human goodness, and in female purity.  To him no more could there be
in nature a candid eye, a virtuous ready-mantling cheek: for frailty
and treachery had put on these signs of virtue and nobility.
Henceforth, let him live a hundred years, whom could he trust or
believe in?

Here was a creature whose virtues seemed to make frailty impossible:
treachery, doubly impossible: a creature whose very faults--for
faults she had--had seemed as opposite to treachery as her very
virtues were.  Yet she was all frailty and falsehood.

He passed in that one night of anguish from youth to age.  He went
about his business like a leaden thing.  His food turned tasteless.
His life seemed ended.  Nothing appeared what it had been.  The very
landscape seemed cut in stone, and he a stone in the middle of it,
and his heart a stone in him.  At times, across that heavy heart
came gushes of furious rage and bitter mortification; his heart was
broken, and his faith was gone, for his vanity had been stabbed as
fiercely as his love.  "Georges Dandin!" he would cry, "curse her!
curse her!"  But love and misery overpowered these heats, and froze
him to stone again.

The poor boy pined and pined.  His clothes hung loose about him; his
face was so drawn with suffering, you would not have known him.  He
hated company.  The things he was expected to talk about!--he with
his crushed heart.  He could not.  He would not.  He shunned all the
world; he went alone like a wounded deer.  The good doctor, on his
return from Paris, called on him to see if he was ill: since he had
not come for days to the chateau.  He saw the doctor coming and bade
the servant say he was not in the village.

He drew down the blind, that he might never see the chateau again.
He drew it up again: he could not exist without seeing it.  "She
will be miserable, too," he cried, gnashing his teeth.  "She will
see whether she has chosen well."  At other times, all his courage,
and his hatred, and his wounded vanity, were drowned in his love and
its despair, and then he bowed his head, and sobbed and cried as if
his heart would burst.  One morning he was so sobbing with his head
on the table, when his landlady tapped at his door.  He started up
and turned his head away from the door.

"A young woman from Beaurepaire, monsieur."

"From Beaurepaire?" his heart gave a furious leap.  "Show her in."

He wiped his eyes and seated himself at a table, and, all in a
flutter, pretended to be the state's.

It was not Jacintha, as he expected, but the other servant.  She
made a low reverence, cast a look of admiration on him, and gave him
a letter.  His eye darted on it: his hand trembled as he took it.
He turned away again to open it.  He forced himself to say, in a
tolerably calm voice, "I will send an answer."

The letter was apparently from the baroness de Beaurepaire; a mere
line inviting him to pay her a visit.  It was written in a tremulous
hand.  Edouard examined the writing, and saw directly it was written
by Rose.

Being now, naturally enough, full of suspicion, he set this down as
an attempt to disguise her hand.  "So," said he, to himself, "this
is the game.  The old woman is to be drawn into it, too.  She is to
help to make Georges Dandin of me.  I will go.  I will baffle them
all.  I will expose this nest of depravity, all ceremony on the
surface, and voluptuousness and treachery below.  O God! who could
believe that creature never loved me!  They shall none of them see
my weakness.  Their benefactor shall be still their superior.  They
shall see me cold as ice, and bitter as gall."

But to follow him farther just now, would be to run too far in
advance of the main story.  I must, therefore, return to
Beaurepaire, and show, amongst other things, how this very letter
came to be written.


When Josephine and Rose awoke from that startled slumber that
followed the exhaustion of that troubled night, Rose was the more
wretched of the two.  She had not only dishonored herself, but
stabbed the man she loved.

Josephine, on the other hand, was exhausted, but calm.  The fearful
escape she had had softened down by contrast her more distant
terrors.

She began to shut her eyes again, and let herself drift.  Above all,
the doctor's promise comforted her: that she should go to Paris with
him, and have her boy.

This deceitful calm of the heart lasted three days.

Carefully encouraged by Rose, it was destroyed by Jacintha.

Jacintha, conscious that she had betrayed her trust, was almost
heart-broken.  She was ashamed to appear before her young mistress,
and, coward-like, wanted to avoid knowing even how much harm she had
done.

She pretended toothache, bound up her face, and never stirred from
the kitchen.  But she was not to escape: the other servant came down
with a message: "Madame Raynal wanted to see her directly."

She came quaking, and found Josephine all alone.

Josephine rose to meet her, and casting a furtive glance round the
room first, threw her arms round Jacintha's neck, and embraced her
with many tears.

"Was ever fidelity like yours? how COULD you do it, Jacintha? and
how can I ever repay it?  But, no; it is too base of me to accept
such a sacrifice from any woman."

Jacintha was so confounded she did not know what to say.  But it was
a mystification that could not endure long between two women, who
were both deceived by a third.  Between them they soon discovered
that it must have been Rose who had sacrificed herself.

"And Edouard has never been here since," said Josephine.

"And never will, madame."

"Yes, he shall! there must be some limit even to my feebleness, and
my sister's devotion.  You shall take a line to him from me.  I will
write it this moment."

The letter was written.  But it was never sent.  Rose found
Josephine and Jacintha together; saw a letter was being written,
asked to see it; on Josephine's hesitating, snatched it out of her
hand, read it, tore it to pieces, and told Jacintha to leave the
room.  She hated the sight of poor Jacintha, who had slept at the
very moment when all depended on her watchfulness.

"So you were going to send to HIM, unknown to me."

"Forgive me, Rose."  Rose burst out crying.

"O Josephine! is it come to this?  Would you deceive ME?"

"You have deceived ME!  Yes! it has come to that.  I know all.
Twill not consent to destroy ALL I love."

She then begged hard for leave to send the letter.

Rose gave an impetuous refusal.  "What could you say to him? foolish
thing, don't you know him, and his vanity?  When you had exposed
yourself to him, and showed him I had insulted him for you, do you
think he would forgive me?  No! this is to make light of my love--to
make me waste the sacrifice I have made.  I feel that sacrifice as
much as you do, more perhaps, and I would rather die in a convent
than waste that night of shame and agony.  Come, promise me, no more
attempts of that kind, or we are sisters no more, friends no more,
one heart and one blood no more."

The weaker nature, weakened still more by ill-health and grief, was
terrified into submission, or rather temporized.  "Kiss me then,"
said Josephine, "and love me to the end.  Ah, if I was only in my
grave!"

Rose kissed her with many sighs, but Josephine smiled.  Rose eyed
her with suspicion.  That deep smile; what did it mean?  She had
formed some resolution.  "She is going to deceive me somehow,"
thought Rose.

From that day she watched Josephine like a spy.  Confidence was gone
between them.  Suspicion took its place.

Rose was right in her misgivings.  The moment Josephine saw that
Edouard's happiness and Rose's were to be sacrificed for her whom
nothing could make happy, the poor thing said to herself, "I CAN
DIE."

And that was the happy thought that made her smile.

The doctor gave her laudanum: he found she could not sleep: and he
thought it all-important that she should sleep.

Josephine, instead of taking these small doses, saved them all up,
secreted them in a phial, and so, from the sleep of a dozen nights,
collected the sleep of death: and now she was tranquil.  This young
creature that could not bear to give pain to any one else, prepared
her own death with a calm resolution the heroes of our sex have not
often equalled.  It was so little a thing to her to strike
Josephine.  Death would save her honor, would spare her the
frightful alternative of deceiving her husband, or of telling him
she was another's.  "Poor Raynal," said she to herself, "it is so
cruel to tie him to a woman who can never be to him what he
deserves.  Rose would then prove her innocence to Edouard.  A few
tears for a weak, loving soul, and they would all be happy and
forget her."


One day the baroness, finding herself alone with Rose and Dr.
Aubertin, asked the latter what he thought of Josephine's state.

"Oh, she was better: had slept last night without her usual
narcotic."

The baroness laid down her knitting and said, with much meaning,
"And I tell you, you will never cure her body till you can cure her
mind.  My poor child has some secret sorrow."

"Sorrow!" said Aubertin, stoutly concealing the uneasiness these
words created, "what sorrow?"

"Oh, she has some deep sorrow.  And so have you, Rose."

"Me, mamma! what DO you mean?"

The baroness's pale cheek flushed a little.  "I mean," said she,
"that my patience is worn out at last; I cannot live surrounded by
secrets.  Raynal's gloomy looks when he left us, after staying but
one hour; Josephine ill from that day, and bursting into tears at
every word; yourself pale and changed, hiding an unaccountable
sadness under forced smiles--  Now, don't interrupt me.  Edouard,
who was almost like a son, gone off, without a word, and never comes
near us now."

"Really you are ingenious in tormenting yourself.  Josephine is ill!
Well, is it so very strange?  Have you never been ill?  Rose is
pale! you ARE pale, my dear; but she has nursed her sister for a
month; is it a wonder she has lost color?  Edouard is gone a
journey, to inherit his uncle's property: a million francs.  But
don't you go and fall ill, like Josephine; turn pale, like Rose; and
make journeys in the region of fancy, after Edouard Riviere, who is
tramping along on the vulgar high road."

This tirade came from Aubertin, and very clever he thought himself.
But he had to do with a shrewd old lady, whose suspicions had long
smouldered; and now burst out.  She said quietly, "Oh, then Edouard
is not in this part of the world.  That alters the case: where IS
he?"

"In Normandy, probably," said Rose, blushing.

The baroness looked inquiringly towards Aubertin.  He put on an
innocent face and said nothing.

"Very good," said the baroness.  "It's plain I am to learn nothing
from you two.  But I know somebody who will be more communicative.
Yes: this uncomfortable smiling, and unreasonable crying, and
interminable whispering; these appearances of the absent, and
disappearances of the present; I shall know this very day what they
all mean."

"Really, I do not understand you."

"Oh, never mind; I am an old woman, and I am in my dotage.  For all
that, perhaps you will allow me two words alone with my daughter."

"I retire, madame," and he disappeared with a bow to her, and an
anxious look at Rose.  She did not need this; she clenched her
teeth, and braced herself up to stand a severe interrogatory.

Mother and daughter looked at one another, as if to measure forces,
and then, instead of questioning her as she had intended, the
baroness sank back in her chair and wept aloud.  Rose was all
unprepared for this.  She almost screamed in a voice of agony, "O
mamma! mamma!  O God! kill me where I stand for making my mother
weep!"

"My girl," said the baroness in a broken voice, and with the most
touching dignity, "may you never know what a mother feels who finds
herself shut out from her daughters' hearts.  Sometimes I think it
is my fault; I was born in a severer age.  A mother nowadays seems
to be a sort of elder sister.  In my day she was something more.
Yet I loved my mother as well, or better than I did my sisters.  But
it is not so with those I have borne in my bosom, and nursed upon my
knee."

At this Rose flung herself, sobbing and screaming, at her mother's
knees.  The baroness was alarmed.  "Come, dearest, don't cry like
that.  It is not too late to take your poor old mother into your
confidence.  What is this mystery? and why this sorrow?  How comes
it I intercept at every instant glances that were not intended for
me?  Why is the very air loaded with signals and secrecy?  (Rose
replied only by sobs.)  Is some deceit going on?  (Rose sobbed.)  Am
I to have no reply but these sullen sobs? will you really tell me
nothing?"

"I've nothing to tell," sobbed Rose.

"Well, then, will you do something for me?"

Such a proposal was not only a relief, but a delight to the
deceiving but loving daughter.  She started up crying, "Oh, yes,
mamma; anything, everything.  Oh, thank you!"  In the ardor of her
gratitude, she wanted to kiss her mother; but the baroness declined
the embrace politely, and said, coldly and bitterly, "I shall not
ask much; I should not venture now to draw largely on your
affection; it's only to write a few lines for me."

Rose got paper and ink with great alacrity, and sat down all
beaming, pen in hand.

The baroness dictated the letter slowly, with an eye gimleting her
daughter all the time.

"Dear--Monsieur--Riviere."

The pen fell from Rose's hand, and she turned red and then pale.

"What! write to him?"

"Not in your own name; in mine.  But perhaps you prefer to give me
the trouble."

"Cruel! cruel!" sighed Rose, and wrote the words as requested.

The baroness dictated again,--

"Oblige me by coming here at your very earliest convenience."

"But, mamma, if he is in Normandy," remonstrated Rose, fighting
every inch of the ground.

"Never you mind where he is," said the baroness.  "Write as I
request."

"Yes, mamma," said Rose with sudden alacrity; for she had recovered
her ready wit, and was prepared to write anything, being now fully
resolved the letter should never go.

"Now sign my name."  Rose complied.  "There; now fold it, and
address it to his lodgings."  Rose did so; and, rising with a
cheerful air, said she would send Jacintha with it directly.

She was half across the room when her mother called her quietly
back.

"No, mademoiselle," said she sternly.  "You will give me the letter.
I can trust neither the friend of twenty years, nor the servant that
stayed by me in adversity, nor the daughter I suffered for and
nursed.  And why don't I trust you?  Because YOU HAVE TOLD ME A
LIE."

At this word, which in its coarsest form she had never heard from
those high-born lips till then, Rose cowered like a hare.

"Ay, A LIE," said the baroness.  "I saw Edouard Riviere in the park
but yesterday.  I saw him.  My old eyes are feeble, but they are not
deceitful.  I saw him.  Send my breakfast to my own room.  I come of
an ancient race: I could not sit with liars; I should forget
courtesy; you would see in my face how thoroughly I scorn you all."
And she went haughtily out with the letter in her hand.

Rose for the first time, was prostrated.  Vain had been all this
deceit; her mother was not happy; was not blinded.  Edouard might
come and tell her his story.  Then no power could keep Josephine
silent.  The plot was thickening; the fatal net was drawing closer
and closer.

She sank with a groan into a chair, and body and spirit alike
succumbed.  But that was only for a little while.  To this
prostration succeeded a feverish excitement.  She could not, would
not, look Edouard in the face.  She would implore Josephine to be
silent; and she herself would fly from the chateau.  But, if
Josephine would not be silent?  Why, then she would go herself to
Edouard, and throw herself upon his honor, and tell him the truth.
With this, she ran wildly up the stairs, and burst into Josephine's
room so suddenly, that she caught her, pale as death, on her knees,
with a letter in one hand and a phial of laudanum in the other.


CHAPTER XXIV.


Josephine conveyed the phial into her bosom with wonderful rapidity
and dexterity, and rose to her feet.  But Rose just saw her conceal
something, and resolved to find out quietly what it was.  So she
said nothing about it, but asked Josephine what on earth she was
doing.

"I was praying."

"And what is that letter?"

"A letter I have just received from Colonel Raynal."

Rose took the letter and read it.  Raynal had written from Paris.
He was coming to Beaurepaire to stay a month, and was to arrive that
very day.

Then Rose forgot all about herself, and even what she had come for.
She clung about her sister's neck, and implored her, for her sake,
to try and love Raynal.

Josephine shuddered, and clung weeping to her sister in turn.  For
in Rose's arms she realized more powerfully what that sister would
suffer if she were to die.  Now, while they clung together, Rose
felt something hard, and contrived just to feel it with her cheek.
It was the phial.

A chill suspicion crossed the poor girl.  The attitude in which she
had found Josephine; the letter, the look of despair, and now this
little bottle, which she had hidden.  WHY HIDE IT?  She resolved not
to let Josephine out of her sight; at all events, until she had seen
this little bottle, and got it away from her.

She helped her to dress, and breakfasted with her in the tapestried
room, and dissembled, and put on gayety, and made light of
everything but Josephine's health.

Her efforts were not quite in vain.  Josephine became more composed;
and Rose even drew from her a half promise that she would give
Raynal and time a fair trial.

And now Rose was relieved of her immediate apprehensions for
Josephine, but the danger of another kind, from Edouard, remained.
So she ran into her bedroom for her bonnet and shawl, determined to
take the strong measure of visiting Edouard at once, or intercepting
him.  While she was making her little toilet, she heard her mother's
voice in the room.  This was unlucky; she must pass through that
room to go out.  She sat down and fretted at this delay.  And then,
as the baroness appeared to be very animated, Rose went to the
keyhole, and listened.  Their mother was telling Josephine how she
had questioned Rose, and how Rose had told her an untruth, and how
she had made that young lady write to Edouard, etc.; in short, the
very thing Rose wanted to conceal from Josephine.

Rose lost all patience, and determined to fly through the room and
out before anybody could stop her.  She heard Jacintha come in with
some message, and thought that would be a good opportunity to slip
out unmolested.  So she opened the door softly.  Jacintha, it
seemed, had been volunteering some remark that was not well
received, for the baroness was saying, sharply, "Your opinion is not
asked.  Go down directly, and bring him up here, to this room."
Jacintha cast a look of dismay at Rose, and vanished.

Rose gathered from that look, as much as from the words, who the
visitor was.  She made a dart after Jacintha.  But the room was a
long one, and the baroness intercepted her: "No," said she, gravely,
"I cannot spare you."

Rose stood pale and panting, but almost defiant.  "Mamma," said she,
"if it is Monsieur Riviere, I MUST ask your leave to retire.  And
you have neither love nor pity, nor respect for me, if you detain
me."

"Mademoiselle!" was the stern reply, "I FORBID you to move.  Be good
enough to sit there;" with which the baroness pointed imperiously to
a sofa at the other side of the room.  "Josephine, go to your room."
Josephine retired, casting more than one anxious glance over her
shoulder.

Rose looked this way and that in despair and terror; but ended by
sinking, more dead than alive, into the seat indicated; and even as
she drooped, pale and trembling, on that sofa, Edouard Riviere, worn
and agitated, entered the room, and bowed low to them all, without a
word.

The baroness looked at him, and then at her daughter, as much as to
say, now I have got you; deceive me now if you can.  "Rose, my
dear," said this terrible old woman, affecting honeyed accents,
"don't you see Monsieur Riviere?"

The poor girl at this challenge rose with difficulty, and courtesied
humbly to Edouard.

He bowed to her, and stealing a rapid glance saw her pallor and
distress; and that showed him she was not so hardened as he had
thought.

"You have not come to see us lately," said the baroness, quietly,
"yet you have been in the neighborhood."

These words puzzled Edouard.  Was the old lady all in the dark,
then?  As a public man he had already learned to be on his guard; so
he stammered out, "That he had been much occupied with public
duties."

Madame de Beaurepaire despised this threadbare excuse too much to
notice it at all.  She went on as if he had said nothing.  "Intimate
as you were with us, you must have some reason for deserting us so
suddenly."

"I have," said Edouard, gravely.

"What is it?"

"Excuse me," said Edouard, sullenly.

"No, monsieur, I cannot.  This neglect, succeeding to a somewhat
ardent pursuit of my daughter, is almost an affront.  You shall, of
course, withdraw yourself altogether, if you choose.  But not
without an explanation.  This much is due to me; and, if you are a
gentleman, you will not withhold it from me."

"If he is a gentleman!" cried Rose; "O mamma, do not you affront a
gentleman, who never, never gave you nor me any ground of offence.
Why affront the friends and benefactors we have lost by our own
fault?"

"Oh, then, it is all your fault," said the baroness.  "I feared as
much."

"All my fault, all," said Rose; then putting her pretty palms
together, and casting a look of abject supplication on Edouard, she
murmured, "my temper!"

"Do not you put words into his mouth," said the shrewd old lady.
"Come, Monsieur Riviere, be a man, and tell me the truth.  What has
she said to you?  What has she done?"

By this time the abject state of terror the high-spirited Rose was
in, and her piteous glances, had so disarmed Edouard, that he had
not the heart to expose her to her mother.

"Madame," said he, stiffly, taking Rose's hint, "my temper and
mademoiselle's could not accord."

"Why, her temper is charming: it is joyous, equal, and gentle."

"You misunderstand me, madame; I do not reproach Mademoiselle Rose.
It is I who am to blame."

"For what?" inquired the baroness dryly.

"For not being able to make her love me."

"Oh! that is it!  She did not love you?"

"Ask herself, madame," said Edouard, bitterly.

"Rose," said the baroness, her eye now beginning to twinkle, "were
you really guilty of such a want of discrimination?  Didn't you love
monsieur?"

Rose flung her arms round her mother's neck, and said, "No, mamma, I
did not love Monsieur Edouard," in an exquisite tone of love, that
to a female ear conveyed the exact opposite of the words.

But Edouard had not that nice discriminating ear.  He sighed deeply,
and the baroness smiled.  "You tell me that?" said she, "and you are
crying!"

"She is crying, madame?" said Edouard, inquiringly, and taking a
step towards them.

"Why, you see she is, you foolish boy.  Come, I must put an end to
this;" and she rose coolly from her seat, and begging Edouard to
forgive her for leaving him a moment with his deadly enemy, went off
with knowing little nods into Josephine's room; only, before she
entered it, she turned, and with a maternal smile discharged this
word at the pair.

"Babies!"

But between the alienated lovers was a long distressing silence.
Neither knew what to say; and their situation was intolerable.  At
last Rose ventured in a timorous voice to say, "I thank you for your
generosity.  But I knew that you would not betray me."

"Your secret is safe for me," sighed Edouard.  "Is there anything
else I can do for you?"

Rose shook her head sadly.

Edouard moved to the door.

Rose bowed her head with a despairing moan.  It took him by the
heart and held him.  He hesitated, then came towards her.

"I see you are sorry for what you have done to me who loved you so;
and you loved me.  Oh! yes, do not deny it, Rose; there was a time
you loved me.  And that makes it worse: to have given me such sweet
hopes, only to crush both them and me.  And is not this cruel of you
to weep so and let me see your penitence--when it is too late?"

"Alas! how can I help my regrets?  I have insulted so good a
friend."

There was a sad silence.  Then as he looked at her, her looks belied
the charge her own lips had made against herself.

A light seemed to burst on Edouard from that high-minded, sorrow-
stricken face.

"Tell me it is false!" he cried.

She hid her face in her hands--woman's instinct to avoid being read.

"Tell me you were misled then, fascinated, perverted, but that your
heart returned to me.  Clear yourself of deliberate deceit, and I
will believe and thank you on my knees."

"Heaven have pity on us both!" cried poor Rose.

"On us!  Thank you for saying on us.  See now, you have not gained
happiness by destroying mine.  One word--do you love that man?--that
Dujardin?"

"You know I do not."

"I am glad of that; since his life is forfeited; if he escapes my
friend Raynal, he shall not escape me."

Rose uttered a cry of terror.  "Hush! not so loud.  The life of
Camille!  Oh! if he were to die, what would become of--oh, pray do
not speak so loud."

"Own then that you DO love him," yelled Edouard; "give me truth, if
you have no love to give.  Own that you love him, and he shall be
safe.  It is myself I will kill, for being such a slave as to love
you still."

Rose's fortitude gave way.

"I cannot bear it," she cried despairingly; "it is beyond my
strength; Edouard, swear to me you will keep what I tell you secret
as the grave!"

"Ah!" cried Edouard, all radiant with hope, "I swear."

"Then you are under a delirium.  I have deceived, but never wronged
you; that unhappy child is not--  Hush!  HERE SHE COMES."

The baroness came smiling out, and Josephine's wan, anxious face was
seen behind her.

"Well," said the baroness, "is the war at an end?  What, are we
still silent?  Let me try then what I can do.  Edouard, lend me your
hand."

While Edouard hesitated, Josephine clasped her hands and mutely
supplicated him to consent.  Her sad face, and the thought of how
often she had stood his friend, shook his resolution.  He held out
his hand, but slowly and reluctantly.

"There is my hand," he groaned.

"And here is mine, mamma," said Rose, smiling to please her mother.

Oh! the mixture of feeling, when her soft warm palm pressed his.
How the delicious sense baffled and mystified the cold judgment.

Josephine raised her eyes thankfully to heaven.

While the young lovers yet thrilled at each other's touch, yet could
not look one another in the face, a clatter of horses' feet was
heard.

"That is Colonel Raynal," said Josephine, with unnatural calmness.
"I expected him to-day."

The baroness was at the side window in a moment.

"It is he!--it is he!"

She hurried down to embrace her son.

Josephine went without a word to her own room.  Rose followed her
the next minute.  But in that one minute she worked magic.

She glided up to Edouard, and looked him full in the face: not the
sad, depressed, guilty-looking humble Rose of a moment before, but
the old high-spirited, and some what imperious girl.

"You have shown yourself noble this day.  I am going to trust you as
only the noble are trusted.  Stay in the house till I can speak to
you."

She was gone, and something leaped within Edouard's bosom, and a
flood of light seemed to burst in on him.  Yet he saw no object
clearly: but he saw light.

Rose ran into Josephine's room, and once more surprised her on her
knees, and in the very act of hiding something in her bosom.

"What are you doing, Josephine, on your knees?" said she, sternly.

"I have a great trial to go through," was the hesitating answer.

Rose said nothing.  She turned paler.  She is deceiving me, thought
she, and she sat down full of bitterness and terror, and, affecting
not to watch Josephine, watched her.

"Go and tell them I am coming, Rose."

"No, Josephine, I will not leave you till this terrible meeting is
over.  We will encounter him hand in hand, as we used to go when our
hearts were one, and we deceived others, but never each other."

At this tender reproach Josephine fell upon her neck and wept.

"I will not deceive you," she said.  "I am worse than the poor
doctor thinks me.  My life is but a little candle that a breath may
put out any day."

Rose said nothing, but trembled and watched her keenly.

"My little Henri," said Josephine imploringly, "what would you do
with him--if anything should happen to me?"

"What would I do with him?  He is mine.  I should be his mother.
Oh! what words are these: my heart! my heart!"

"No, dearest; some day you will be married, and owe all the mother
to your children; and Henri is not ours only: he belongs to some one
I have seemed unkind to.  Perhaps he thinks me heartless.  For I am
a foolish woman; I don't know how to be virtuous, yet show a man my
heart.  But THEN he will understand me and forgive me.  Rose, love,
you will write to him.  He will come to you.  You will go together
to the place where I shall be sleeping.  You will show him my heart.
You will tell him all my long love that lasted to the end.  YOU need
not blush to tell him all.  I have no right.  Then you will give him
his poor Josephine's boy, and you will say to him, 'She never loved
but you: she gives you all that is left of her, her child.  She only
prays you not to give him a bad mother.'"

Poor soul! this was her one bit of little, gentle jealousy; but it
made her eyes stream.  She would have put out her hand from the tomb
to keep her boy's father single all his life.

"Oh! my Josephine, my darling sister," cried Rose, "why do you speak
of death?  Do you meditate a crime?"

"No; but it was on my heart to say it: it has done me good."

"At least, take me to your bosom, my well-beloved, that I may not
SEE your tears."

"There--tears?  No, you have lightened my heart.  Bless you! bless
you!"

The sisters twined their bosoms together in a long, gentle embrace.
You might have taken them for two angels that flowed together in one
love, but for their tears.

A deep voice was now heard in the sitting-room.

Josephine and Rose postponed the inevitable one moment more, by
arranging their hair in the glass: then they opened the door, and
entered the tapestried room.

Raynal was sitting on the sofa, the baroness's hand in his.  Edouard
was not there.

Colonel Raynal had given him a strange look, and said, "What, you
here?" in a tone of voice that was intolerable.

Raynal came to meet the sisters.  He saluted Josephine on the brow.

"You are pale, wife: and how cold her hand is."

"She has been ill this month past," said Rose interposing.

"You look ill, too, Mademoiselle Rose."

"Never mind," cried the baroness joyously, "you will revive them
both."

Raynal made no reply to that.

"How long do you stay this time, a day?"

"A month, mother."

The doctor now joined the party, and friendly greetings passed
between him and Raynal.

But ere long somehow all became conscious this was not a joyful
meeting.  The baroness could not alone sustain the spirits of the
party, and soon even she began to notice that Raynal's replies were
short, and that his manner was distrait and gloomy.  The sisters saw
this too, and trembled for what might be coming.

At last Raynal said bluntly, "Josephine, I want to speak to you
alone."

The baroness gave the doctor a look, and made an excuse for going
down-stairs to her own room.  As she was going Josephine went to her
and said calmly,--

"Mother, you have not kissed me to-day."

"There!  Bless you, my darling!"

Raynal looked at Rose.  She saw she must go, but she lingered, and
sought her sister's eye: it avoided her.  At that Rose ran to the
doctor, who was just going out of the door.

"Oh! doctor," she whispered trembling, "don't go beyond the door.  I
found her praying.  My mind misgives me.  She is going to tell him--
or something worse."

"What do you mean?"

"I am afraid to say all I dread.  She could not be so calm if she
meant to live.  Be near! as I shall.  She has a phial hid in her
bosom."

She left the old man trembling, and went back.

"Excuse me," said she to Raynal, "I only came to ask Josephine if
she wants anything."

"No!--yes!--a glass of eau sucree."

Rose mixed it for her.  While doing this she noticed that Josephine
shunned her eye, but Raynal gazed gently and with an air of pity on
her.

She retired slowly into Josephine's bedroom, but did not quite close
the door.

Raynal had something to say so painful that he shrank from plunging
into it.  He therefore, like many others, tried to creep into it,
beginning with something else.

"Your health," said he, "alarms me.  You seem sad, too.  I don't
understand that.  You have no news from the Rhine, have you?"

"Monsieur!" said Josephine scared.

"Do not call me monsieur, nor look so frightened.  Call me your
friend.  I am your sincere friend."

"Oh, yes; you always were."

"Thank you.  You will give me a dearer title before we part this
time."

"Yes," said Josephine in a low whisper, and shuddered.

"Have you forgiven me frightening you so that night?"

"Yes."

"It was a shock to me, too, I can tell you.  I like the boy.  She
professed to love him, and, to own the truth, I loathe all treachery
and deceit.  If I had done a murder, I would own it.  A lie doubles
every crime.  But I took heart; we are all selfish, we men; of the
two sisters one was all innocence and good faith; and she was the
one I had chosen."

At these words Josephine rose, like a statue moving, and took a
phial from her bosom and poured the contents into the glass.

But ere she could drink it, if such was her intention, Raynal, with
his eyes gloomily lowered, said, in a voice full of strange
solemnity,--

"I went to the army of the Rhine."

Josephine put down the glass directly, though without removing her
hand from it.

"I see you understand me, and approve.  Yes, I saw that your sister
would be dishonored, and I went to the army and saw her seducer."

"You saw HIM.  Oh, I hope you did not go and speak to him of--of
this?"

"Why, of course I did."

Josephine resolved to know the worst at once.  "May I ask," said
she, "what you told him?"

"Why, I told him all I had discovered, and pointed out the course he
must take; he must marry your sister at once.  He refused.  I
challenged him.  But ere we met, I was ordered to lead a forlorn
hope against a bastion.  Then, seeing me go to certain death, the
noble fellow pitied me.  I mean this is how I understood it all at
the time; at any rate, he promised to marry Rose if he should live."

Josephine put out her hand, and with a horrible smile said, "I thank
you; you have saved the honor of our family;" and with no more ado,
she took the glass in her hand to drink the fatal contents.

But Raynal's reply arrested her hand.  He said solemnly, "No, I have
not.  Have you no inkling of the terrible truth?  Do not fiddle with
that glass: drink it, or leave it alone; for, indeed, I need all
your attention."

He took the glass out of her patient hand, and with a furtive look
at the bedroom-door, drew her away to the other end of the room;
"and," said he, "I could not tell your mother, for she knows nothing
of the girl's folly; still less Rose, for I see she loves him still,
or why is she so pale?  Advise me, now, whilst we are alone.
Colonel Dujardin was COMPARATIVELY indifferent to YOU.  Will you
undertake the task?  A rough soldier like me is not the person to
break the terrible tidings to that poor girl."

"What tidings?  You confuse, you perplex me.  Oh! what does this
horrible preparation mean?"

"It means he will never marry your sister; he will never see her
more."

Then Raynal walked the room in great agitation, which at once
communicated itself to his hearer.  But the loving heart is
ingenious in avoiding its dire misgivings.

"I see," said she; "he told you he would never visit Beaurepaire
again.  He was right."

Raynal shook his head sorrowfully.

"Ah, Josephine, you are far from the truth.  I was to attack the
bastion.  It was mined by the enemy, and he knew it.  He took
advantage of my back being turned.  He led his men out of the
trenches; he assaulted the bastion at the head of his brigade.  He
took it."

"Ah, it was noble; it was like him."

"The enemy, retiring, blew the bastion into the air, and Dujardin--
is dead."

"Dead!" said Josephine, in stupefied tones, as if the word conveyed
no meaning to her mind, benumbed and stunned by the blow.

"Don't speak so loud," said Raynal; "I hear the poor girl at the
door.  Ay, he took my place, and is dead."

"Dead!"

"Swallowed up in smoke and flames, overwhelmed and crushed under the
ruins."

Josephine's whole body gave way, and heaved like a tree falling
under the axe.  She sank slowly to her knees, and low moans of agony
broke from her at intervals.  "Dead, dead, dead!"

"Is it not terrible?" he cried.

She did not see him nor hear him, but moaned out wildly, "Dead,
dead, dead!"  The bedroom-door was opened.

She shrieked with sudden violence, "Dead! ah, pity! the glass! the
composing draught."  She stretched her hands out wildly.  Raynal,
with a face full of concern, ran to the table, and got the glass.
She crawled on her knees to meet it; he brought it quickly to her
hand.

"There, my poor soul!"

Even as their hands met, Rose threw herself on the cup, and snatched
it with fury from them both.  She was white as ashes, and her eyes,
supernaturally large, glared on Raynal with terror.  "Madman!" she
cried, "would you kill her?"

He glared back on her: what did this mean?  Their eyes were fixed on
each other like combatants for life and death; they did not see that
the room was filling with people, that the doctor was only on the
other side of the table, and that the baroness and Edouard were at
the door, and all looking wonderstruck at this strange sight--
Josephine on her knees, and those two facing each other, white, with
dilating eyes, the glass between them.

But what was that to the horror, when the next moment the patient
Josephine started to her feet, and, standing in the midst, tore her
hair by handfuls, out of her head.

"Ah, you snatch the kind poison from me!"

"Poison!"

"Poison!"

"Poison!" cried the others, horror-stricken.

"Ah! you won't let me die.  Curse you all! curse you!  I never had
my own way in anything.  I was always a slave and a fool.  I have
murdered the man I love--I love.  Yes, my husband, do you hear? the
man I love."

"Hush! daughter, respect my gray hairs."

"Your gray hairs!  You are not so old in years as I am in agony.  So
this is your love, Rose!  Ah, you won't let me die--won't you?  THEN
I'LL DO WORSE--I'LL TELL."

"He who is dead; you have murdered him amongst you, and I'll follow
him in spite of you all--he was my betrothed.  He struggled wounded,
bleeding, to my feet.  He found me married.  News came of my
husband's death; I married my betrothed."

"Married him!" exclaimed the baroness.

"Ah, my poor mother.  And she kissed me so kindly just now--she will
kiss me no more.  Oh, I am not ashamed of marrying him.  I am only
ashamed of the cowardice that dared not do it in face of all the
world.  We had scarce been happy a fortnight, when a letter came
from Colonel Raynal.  He was alive.  I drove my true husband away,
wretch that I was.  None but bad women have an atom of sense.  I
tried to do my duty to my legal husband.  He was my benefactor.  I
thought it was my duty.  Was it?  I don't know: I have lost the
sense of right and wrong.  I turned from a living creature to a lie.
He who had scattered benefits on me and all this house; he whom it
was too little to love; he ought to have been adored: this man came
here one night to wife proud, joyous, and warm-hearted.  He found a
cradle, and two women watching it.  Now Edouard, now MONSIEUR, do
you see that life is IMPOSSIBLE to me?  One bravely accused herself:
she was innocent.  One swooned away like a guilty coward."

Edouard uttered an exclamation.

"Yes, Edouard, you shall not be miserable like me; she was guilty.
You do not understand me yet, my poor mother--and she was so happy
this morning--I was the liar, the coward, the double-faced wife, the
miserable mother that denied her child.  Now will you let me die?
Now do you see that I can't and won't live upon shame and despair?
Ah, Monsieur Raynal, my dear friend, you were always generous: you
will pity and kill me.  I have dishonored the name you gave me to
keep: I am neither Beaurepaire nor Raynal.  Do pray kill me,
monsieur--Jean, do pray release me from my life!"

And she crawled to his knees and embraced them, and kissed his hand,
and pleaded more piteously for death, than others have begged for
life.

Raynal stood like a rock: he was pale, and drew his breath audibly,
but not a word.  Then came a sight scarce less terrible than
Josephine's despair.  The baroness, looking and moving twenty years
older than an hour before, tottered across the room to Raynal.

"Sir, you whom I have called my son, but whom I will never presume
so to call again, I thought I had lived long enough never to have to
blush again.  I loved you, monsieur.  I prayed every day for you.
But she who WAS my daughter was not of my mind.  Monsieur, I have
never knelt but to God and to my king, and I kneel to you: forgive
us, sir, forgive us!"

She tried to go down on her knees.  He raised her with his strong
arm, but he could not speak.  She turned on the others.

"So this is the secret you were hiding from me!  This secret has not
killed you all.  Oh! I shall not live under its shame so long as you
have.  Chateau of Beaurepaire--nest of treason, ingratitude, and
immodesty--I loathe you as much as once I loved you.  I will go and
hide my head, and die elsewhere."

"Stay, madame!" said he, in a voice whose depth and dignity was such
that it seemed impossible to disobey it.  "It was sudden--I was
shaken--but I am myself again."

"Oh, show some pity!" cried Rose.

"I shall try to be just."

There was a long, trembling silence; and during that silence and
terrible agitation, one figure stood firm among those quaking,
beating hearts, like a rock with the waves breaking round it--the
MAN OF PRINCIPLE among the creatures of impulse.

He raised Josephine from her knees, and placed her all limp and
powerless in an arm-chair.  To her frenzy had now succeeded a
sickness and feebleness like unto death.

"Widow Dujardin," said he, in a broken voice, "listen to me."

She moaned a sort of assent.

"Your mistake has been not trusting me.  I was your friend, and not
a selfish friend.  I was not enough in love with you to destroy your
happiness.  Besides, I despise that sort of love.  If you had told
me all, I would have spared you this misery.  By the present law,
civil contracts of marriage can be dissolved by mutual consent."

At this the baroness uttered some sign of surprise.

"Ah!" continued Raynal, sadly, "you are aristocrats, and cannot keep
pace with the times.  This very day our mere contract shall be
formally dissolved.  Indeed, it ceases to exist since both parties
are resolved to withdraw from it.  So, if you married Dujardin in a
church, you are Madame Dujardin at this moment, and his child is
legitimate.  What does she say?"

This question was to Rose, for what Josephine uttered sounded like a
mere articulate moan.  But Rose's quick ear had caught words, and
she replied, all in tears, "My poor sister is blessing you, sir.  We
all bless you."

"She does not understand my position," said Raynal.  He then walked
up to Josephine, and leaning over her arm, and speaking rather loud,
under the impression that her senses were blunted by grief, he said,
"Look here: Colonel Dujardin, your husband, deliberately, and with
his eyes open, sacrificed his life for me, and for his own heroic
sense of honor.  Now, it is my turn.  If that hero stood here, and
asked me for all the blood in my body, I would give it him.  He is
gone; but, dying for me, he has left me his widow and his child;
they remain under my wing.  To protect them is my pride, and my only
consolation.  I am going to the mayor to annul our unlucky contract
in due form, and make us brother and sister instead.  But," turning
to the baroness, "don't you think to escape me as your daughter has
done: no, no, old lady, once a mother, always a mother.  Stir from
your son's home if you dare!"

And with these words, in speaking which his voice had recovered its
iron firmness, he strode out at the door, superb in manhood and
principle, and every eye turned with wonder and admiration after
him.  Even when he was gone they gazed at the door by which a
creature so strangely noble had disappeared.

The baroness was about to follow him without taking any notice of
Josephine.  But Rose caught her by the gown.  "O mother, speak to
poor Josephine: bid her live."

The baroness only made a gesture of horror and disgust, and turned
her back on them both.

Josephine, who had tottered up from her seat at Rose's words, sank
heavily down again, and murmured, "Ah! the grave holds all that love
me now."

Rose ran to her side.  "Cruel Josephine! what, do not I love you?
Mother, will you not help me persuade her to live?  Oh! if she dies,
I will die too; you will kill both your children."

Stern and indignant as the baroness was, yet these words pierced her
heart.  She turned with a piteous, half apologetic air to Edouard
and Aubertin.  "Gentlemen," said she, "she has been foolish, not
guilty.  Heaven pardons the best of us.  Surely a mother may forgive
her child."  And with this nature conquered utterly; and she held
out her arms, wide, wide, as is a mother's heart.  Her two erring
children rushed sobbing violently into them; and there was not a dry
eye in the room for a long time.

After this, Josephine's heart almost ceased to beat.  Fear and
misgivings, and the heavy sense of deceit gnawing an honorable
heart, were gone.  Grief reigned alone in the pale, listless,
bereaved widow.

The marriage was annulled before the mayor; and, three days
afterwards, Raynal, by his influence, got the consummated marriage
formally allowed in Paris.

With a delicacy for which one would hardly have given him credit, he
never came near Beaurepaire till all this was settled; but he
brought the document from Paris that made Josephine the widow
Dujardin, and her boy the heir of Beaurepaire; and the moment she
was really Madame Dujardin he avoided her no longer; and he became a
comfort to her instead of a terror.

The dissolution of the marriage was a great tie between them.  So
much that, seeing how much she looked up to Raynal, the doctor said
one day to the baroness, "If I know anything of human nature, they
will marry again, provided none of you give her a hint which way her
heart is turning."

They, who have habituated themselves to live for others, can suffer
as well as do great things.  Josephine kept alive.  A passion such
as hers, in a selfish nature, must have killed her.

Even as it was, she often said, "It is hard to live."

Then they used to talk to her of her boy.  Would she leave him--
Camille's boy--without a mother?  And these words were never spoken
to her quite in vain.

Her mother forgave her entirely, and loved her as before.  Who could
be angry with her long?  The air was no longer heavy with lies.
Wretched as she was, she breathed lighter.  Joy and hope were gone.
Sorrowful peace was coming.  When the heart comes to this, nothing
but Time can cure; but what will not Time do?  What wounds have I
seen him heal!  His cures are incredible.


The little party sat one day, peaceful, but silent and sad, in the
Pleasaunce, under the great oak.

Two soldiers came to the gate.  They walked feebly, for one was
lame, and leaned upon the other, who was pale and weak, and leaned
upon a stick.

"Soldiers," said Raynal, "and invalided."

"Give them food and wine," said Josephine.

Rose went towards them; but she had scarcely taken three steps ere
she cried out,--

"It is Dard! it is poor Dard!  Come in, Dard, come in."

Dard limped towards them, leaning upon Sergeant La Croix.  A bit of
Dard's heel had been shot away, and of La Croix's head.

Rose ran to the kitchen.

"Jacintha, bring out a table into the Pleasaunce, and something for
two guests to eat."

The soldiers came slowly to the Pleasaunce, and were welcomed, and
invited to sit down, and received with respect; for France even in
that day honored the humblest of her brave.

Soon Jacintha came out with a little round table in her hands, and
affected a composure which was belied by her shaking hands and her
glowing cheek.

After a few words of homely welcome--not eloquent, but very sincere--
she went off again with her apron to her eyes.  She reappeared with
the good cheer, and served the poor fellows with radiant zeal.

"What regiment?" asked Raynal.

Dard was about to answer, but his superior stopped him severely;
then, rising with his hand to his forehead, he replied, with pride,
"Twenty-fourth brigade, second company.  We were cut up at
Philipsburg, and incorporated with the 12th."

Raynal instantly regretted his question; for Josephine's eye fixed
on Sergeant La Croix with an expression words cannot paint.  Yet she
showed more composure, real or forced, than he expected.

"Heaven sends him," said she.  "My friend, tell me, were you--ah!"

Colonel Raynal interfered hastily.  "Think what you do.  He can tell
you nothing but what we know, not so much, in fact, as we know; for,
now I look at him, I think this is the very sergeant we found lying
insensible under the bastion.  He must have been struck before the
bastion was taken even."

"I was, colonel, I was.  I remember nothing but losing my senses,
and feeling the colors go out of my hand."

"There, you see, he knows nothing," said Raynal.

"It was hot work, colonel, under that bastion, but it was hotter to
the poor fellows that got in.  I heard all about it from Private
Dard here."

"So, then, it was you who carried the colors?"

"Yes, I was struck down with the colors of the brigade in my hand,"
cried La Croix.

"See how people blunder about, everything; they told me the colonel
carried the colors."

"Why, of course he did.  You don't think our colonel, the fighting
colonel, would let me hold the colors of the brigade so long as he
was alive.  No; he was struck by a Prussian bullet, and he had just
time to hand the colors to me, and point with his sword to the
bastion, and down he went.  It was hot work, I can tell you.  I did
not hold them long, not thirty seconds, and if we could know their
history, they passed through more hands than that before they got to
the Prussian flag-staff."

Raynal suddenly rose, and walked rapidly to and fro, with his hands
behind him.

"Poor colonel!" continued La Croix.  "Well, I love to think he died
like a soldier, and not like some of my poor comrades, hashed to
atoms, and not a volley fired over him.  I hope they put a stone
over him, for he was the best soldier and the best general in the
army."

"O sir!" cried Josephine, "there is no stone even to mark the spot
where he fell," and she sobbed despairingly.

"Why, how is this, Private Dard?" inquired La Croix, sternly.

Dard apologized for his comrade, and touching his own head
significantly told them that since his wound the sergeant's memory
was defective.

"Now, sergeant, didn't I tell you the colonel must have got the
better of his wound, and got into the battery?"

"It's false, Private Dard; don't I know our colonel better than
that?  Would ever he have let those colors out of his hand, if there
had been an ounce of life left in him?"

"He died at the foot of the battery, I tell you."

"Then why didn't we find him?"

Here Jacintha put in a word with the quiet subdued meaning of her
class.  "I can't find that anybody ever saw the colonel dead."

"They did not find him, because they did not look for him," said
Sergeant La Croix.

"God forgive you, sergeant!" said Dard, with some feeling.  "Not
look for OUR COLONEL!  We turned over every body that lay there,--
full thirty there were,--and you were one of them."

"Only thirty!  Why, we settled more Prussians than that, I'll
swear."

"Oh! they carried off their dead."

"Ay! but I don't see why they should carry our colonel off.  His
epaulets was all the thieves could do any good with.  Stop! yet I
do, Private Dard; I have a horrible suspicion.  No, I have not; it
is a certainty.  What! don't you see, ye ninny?  Thunder and
thousands of devils, here's a disgrace.  Dogs of Prussians! they
have got our colonel, they have taken him prisoner."

"O God bless them!" cried Josephine; "O God bless the mouth that
tells me so!  O sir, I am his wife, his poor heart-broken wife.  You
would not be so cruel as to mock my despair.  Say again that he may
be alive, pray, say it again!"

"His wife!  Private Dard, why didn't you tell me?  You tell me
nothing.  Yes, my pretty lady, I'll say it again, and I'll prove it.
Here is an enemy in full retreat, would they encumber themselves
with the colonel?  If he was dead, they'd have whipped off his
epaulets, and left him there.  Alive? why not?  Look at me: I am
alive, and I was worse wounded than he was.  They took me for dead,
you see.  Courage, madame! you will see him again, take an old
soldier's word for it.  Dard, attention! this is the colonel's
wife."

She gazed on the speaker like one in a trance.

Every eye and every soul had been so bent on Sergeant La Croix that
it was only now Raynal was observed to be missing.  The next minute
he came riding out of the stable-yard, and went full gallop down the
road.

"Ah!" cried Rose, with a burst of hope; "he thinks so too; he has
hopes.  He is gone somewhere for information.  Perhaps to Paris."

Josephine's excitement and alternations of hope and fear were now
alarming.  Rose held her hand, and implored her to try and be calm
till they could see Raynal.

Just before dark he came riding fiercely home.  Josephine flew down
the stairs.  Raynal at sight of her forgot all his caution.  He
waved his cocked hat in the air.  She fell on her knees and thanked
God.  He gasped out,--

"Prisoner--exchanged for two Prussian lieutenants--sent home--they
say he is in France!"

The tears of joy gushed in streams from her.

Some days passed in hope and joy inexpressible; but the good doctor
was uneasy for Josephine.  She was always listening with
supernatural keenness and starting from her chair, and every fibre
of her lovely person seemed to be on the quiver.

Nor was Rose without a serious misgiving.  Would husband and wife
ever meet?  He evidently looked on her as Madame Raynal, and made it
a point of honor to keep away from Beaurepaire.

They had recourse to that ever-soothing influence--her child.
Madame Jouvenel was settled in the village, and Josephine visited
her every day, and came back often with red eyes, but always
soothed.

One day Rose and she went to Madame Jouvenel, and, entering the
house without ceremony, found the nurse out, and no one watching the
child.

"How careless!" said Rose.

Josephine stopped eagerly to kiss him.  But instead of kissing him,
she uttered a loud cry.  There was a locket hanging round his neck.

It was a locket containing some of Josephine's hair and Camille's.
She had given it him in the happy days that followed their marriage.
She stood gasping in the middle of the room.  Madame Jouvenel came
running in soon after.  Josephine, by a wonderful effort over
herself, asked her calmly and cunningly,--

"Where is the gentleman who put this locket round my child's neck?
I want to speak with him."

Madame Jouvenel stammered and looked confused.

"A soldier--an officer?--come, tell me!"

"Woman," cried Rose, "why do you hesitate?"

"What am I to do?" said Madame Jouvenel.  "He made me swear never to
mention his coming here.  He goes away, or hides whenever you come.
And since Madame does not love the poor wounded gentleman, what can
he do better?"

"Not love him!" cried Rose: "why, she is his wife, his lawful wedded
wife; he is a fool or a monster to run away for her.  She loves him
as no woman ever loved before.  She pines for him.  She dies for
him."

The door of a little back room opened at these words of Rose, and
there stood Camille, with his arm in a sling, pale and astounded,
but great joy and wonder working in his face.

Josephine gave a cry of love that made the other two women weep, and
in a moment they were sobbing for joy upon each other's neck.

Away went sorrow, doubt, despair, and all they had suffered.  That
one moment paid for all.  And in that moment of joy and surprise, so
great as to be almost terrible, perhaps it was well for Josephine
that Camille, weakened by his wound, was quite overcome, and nearly
fainted.  She was herself just going into hysterics; but, seeing him
quite overcome, she conquered them directly, and nursed, and
soothed, and pitied, and encouraged him instead.

Then they sat hand in hand.  Their happiness stopped their very
breath.  They could not speak.  So Rose told him all.  He never
owned why he had slipped away when he saw them coming.  He forgot
it.  He forgot all his hard thoughts of her.  They took him home in
the carriage.  His wife would not let him out of her sight.  For
years and years after this she could hardly bear to let him be an
hour out of her sight.

The world is wide; there may be a man in it who can paint the sudden
bliss that fell on these two much suffering hearts; but I am not
that man; this is beyond me; it was not only heaven, but heaven
after hell.

Leave we the indescribable and the unspeakable for a moment, and go
to a lighter theme.

The day Rose's character was so unexpectedly cleared, Edouard had no
opportunity of speaking to her, or a reconciliation would have taken
place.  As it was, he went home intensely happy.  But he did not
resume his visits to the chateau.  When he came to think calmly over
it, his vanity was cruelly mortified.  She was innocent of the
greater offence; but how insolently she had sacrificed him, his
love, and his respect, to another's interest.

More generous thoughts prevailed by degrees.  And one day that her
pale face, her tears, and her remorse got the better of his offended
pride, he determined to give her a good lecture that should drown
her in penitent tears; and then end by forgiving her.  For one thing
he could not be happy till he had forgiven her.

She walked into the room with a calm, dignified, stately air, and
before he could utter one word of his grave remonstrance, attacked
him thus: "You wish to speak to me, sir.  If it is to apologize to
me, I will save your vanity the mortification.  I forgive you."

"YOU forgive ME!" cried Edouard furiously.

"No violence, if you please," said the lady with cold hauteur.  "Let
us be friends, as Josephine and Raynal are.  We cannot be anything
more to one another now.  You have wounded me too deeply by your
jealous, suspicious nature."

Edouard gasped for breath, and was so far out-generalled that he
accepted the place of defendant.  "Wasn't I to believe your own
lips?  Did not Colonel Raynal believe you?"

"Oh, that's excusable.  He did not know me.  But you were my lover;
you ought to have seen I was forced to deceive poor Raynal.  How
dare you believe your eyes; much more your ears, against my truth,
against my honor; and then to believe such nonsense?"  Then, with a
grand assumption of superior knowledge, says she, "You little
simpleton, how could the child be mine when I wasn't married at
all?"

At this reproach, Edouard first stared, then grinned.  "I forgot
that," said he.

"Yes, and you forgot the moon isn't made of green cheese.  However,
if I saw you very humble, and very penitent, I might, perhaps,
really forgive you--in time."

"No, forgive me at once.  I don't understand your angelical,
diabolical, incomprehensible sex: who on earth can? forgive me."

"Oh! oh! oh! oh!"

Lo! the tears that could not come at a remonstrance were flowing in
a stream at his generosity.

"What is the matter now?" said he tenderly.  She cried away, but at
the same time explained,--

"What a f--f--foolish you must be not to see that it is I who am
without excuse.  You were my betrothed.  It was to you I owed my
duty; not my sister.  I am a wicked, unhappy girl.  How you must
hate me!"

"I adore you.  There, no more forgiving on either side.  Let our
only quarrel be who shall love the other best."

"Oh, I know how that will be," said the observant toad.  "You will
love me best till you have got me; and then I shall love you best;
oh, ever so much."

However, the prospect of loving best did not seem disagreeable to
her; for with this announcement she deposited her head on his
shoulder, and in that attitude took a little walk with him up and
down the Pleasaunce: sixty times; about eight miles.

These two were a happy pair.  This wayward, but generous heart never
forgot her offence, and his forgiveness.  She gave herself to him
heart and soul, at the altar, and well she redeemed her vow.  He
rose high in political life: and paid the penalty of that sort of
ambition; his heart was often sore.  But by his own hearth sat
comfort and ever ready sympathy.  Ay, and patient industry to read
blue-books, and a ready hand and brain to write diplomatic notes for
him, off which the mind glided as from a ball of ice.

In thirty years she never once mentioned the servants to him.

"Oh, let eternal honor crown her name!"

It was only a little bit of heel that Dard had left in Prussia.
More fortunate than his predecessor (Achilles), he got off with a
slight but enduring limp.  And so the army lost him.

He married Jacintha, and Josephine set them up in Bigot's,
(deceased) auberge.  Jacintha shone as a landlady, and custom flowed
in.  For all that, a hankering after Beaurepaire was observable in
her.  Her favorite stroll was into the Beaurepaire kitchen, and on
all fetes and grand occasions she was prominent in gay attire as a
retainer of the house.  The last specimen of her homely sagacity I
shall have the honor to lay before you is a critique upon her
husband, which she vented six years after marriage.

"My Dard," said she, "is very good as far as he goes.  What he has
felt himself, that he can feel FOR: nobody better.  You come to him
with an empty belly, or a broken head, or all bleeding with a cut,
or black and blue, and you shall find a friend.  But if it is a sore
heart, or trouble, and sorrow, and no hole in your carcass to show
for it, you had better come to ME; for you might as well tell your
grief to a stone wall as to my man."


The baroness took her son Raynal to Paris, and there, with keen eye,
selected him a wife.  She proved an excellent one.  It would have
been hard if she had not, for the baroness with the severe sagacity
of her age and sex, had set aside as naught a score of seeming
angels, before she could suit herself with a daughter-in-law.  At
first the Raynals very properly saw little of the Dujardins; but
when both had been married some years, the recollection of that
fleeting and nominal connection waxed faint, while the memory of
great benefits conferred on both sides remained lively as ever in
hearts so great, and there was a warm, a sacred friendship between
the two houses--a friendship of the ancient Greeks, not of the
modern club-house.

Camille and Josephine were blessed almost beyond the lot of
humanity: none can really appreciate sunshine but those who come out
of the cold dark.  And so with happiness.  For years they could
hardly be said to live like mortals: they basked in bliss.  But it
was a near thing; for they but just scraped clear of life-long
misery, and death's cold touch grazed them both as they went.

Yet they had heroic virtues to balance White Lies in the great
Judge's eye.

A wholesome lesson, therefore, and a warning may be gathered from
this story: and I know many novelists who would have preached that
lesson at some length in every other chapter, and interrupted the
sacred narrative to do it.  But when I read stories so mutilated, I
think of a circumstance related by Mr. Joseph Miller.

"An Englishman sojourning in some part of Scotland was afflicted
with many hairs in the butter, and remonstrated.  He was told, in
reply, that the hairs and the butter came from one source--the cow;
and that the just and natural proportions hitherto observed, could
not be deranged, and bald butter invented--for ONE.  'So be it,'
said the Englishman; 'but let me have the butter in one plate, and
the hairs in another.'"

Acting on this hint, I have reserved some admirable remarks,
reflections, discourses, and tirades, until the story should be
ended, and the other plate be ready for the subsidiary sermon.

And now that the proper time is come, that love of intruding one's
own wisdom in one's own person on the reader, which has marred so
many works of art, is in my case restrained--first, by pure fatigue;
secondly, because the moral of this particular story stands out so
clear in the narrative, that he who runs may read it without any
sermon at all.

Those who will not take the trouble to gather my moral from the
living tree, would not lift it out of my dead basket: would not
unlock their jaw-bones to bite it, were I to thrust it into their
very mouths.





End of The Project Gutenberg Etext of White Lies, by Charles Reade