Oh, comrades mine, go roam the earth, You"ll find in all your roving That all its other joys are worth Not half the joys of loving!"
"Ah, mademoiselle," I whispered, "before yesterday those words would have meant nothing to me!"
She made no answer, but closed her eyes, as if to shut out every thought but consciousness of that moment.
And now the gypsy, in an air and voice expressive of sadness, as he had before been expressive of rapture, sang a second stanza:
"But, ah, the price we have to pay For joys that have their season!
And, oh, the sadness of the day When woman shows her treason!
Her look of love is but a mask For plots that she is weaving.
Alas, for those who fondly bask In smiles that are deceiving!"
I thought of Mlle. d"Arency, but not for long; for suddenly Mlle. de Varion started up, as if awakened from a dream, and looked at me with an expression of unspeakable distress of mind.
"Oh, monsieur!" she cried. "You must leave me! I must never see you again. Go, go,--or let me go at once!"
"Mademoiselle!" I cried, astonished.
"I beg you, make no objections, ask no questions! Only go! It is a crime, an infamy, for me to have listened while you spoke as you spoke a while ago! I ought not to have accepted your protection! Go, monsieur, and have no more to do with the most miserable woman in France!"
She started to go into the inn, but I caught her by the hand and detained her.
"Mademoiselle," I said, gently, "the difference in our religions need not forbid such words between us as I have spoken. I can understand how you regard it as an insuperable barrier, but it is really a slight one, easily removed, as it has been in many notable cases."
"Monsieur," she replied, resolutely, shaking her head, "I say again, we must part. I am not to be urged or persuaded. The greatest kindness you can do me is to go, or let me go, without more words."
"But, mademoiselle," I interposed, "it will be very difficult for you to continue your flight across this border without a guide. Not to speak of the danger from men, there is the chance of losing your way."
"The Sieur de la Tournoire will not refuse me his guidance," she said, in a voice that seemed forced to an unwonted hardness.
"Then you will discard my protection, and accept his, a stranger"s?"
"Yes, because he is a stranger,--thank G.o.d!"
What, I asked myself, was to be the end of this? Would she not, on learning that La Tournoire was myself, all the more decidedly insist on going her own way? Therefore, before disclosing myself to her, I must accustom her to the view that a difference in religion ought not to separate two who love each other. In order to do this, I must have time; so I said:
"At least, mademoiselle, you will let me show you the way to Maury, and present to you the Sieur de la Tournoire. That is little to ask."
"I have already accepted too much from you," she replied, hesitating.
"Then cancel the obligation by granting me this one favor."
"Very well, monsieur. But you will then go immediately?"
"From the moment when you first meet La Tournoire, he shall be your only guide, unless you yourself choose another. In the meantime," I added, for she had taken another step towards the inn, "grant me at least as much of your society as you would bestow on an indifferent acquaintance, who happened to be your fellow-traveler in this lonely place."
She gave a sigh which I took as meaning that the more we should see each other, the harder the parting would be at last, but she said, tremulously:
"We shall meet at supper, monsieur, and to-morrow, when you conduct me on to Maury." Then she entered the inn, but stopped on the threshold, and, casting on me a strangely wistful look, she added, "Great must be the friendship between you and La Tournoire, that you can so confidently a.s.sure his protection to those for whom you ask it."
"Oh, I have done much for him, and he cannot refuse me any request that it is in his power to grant," I said, truly enough.
"Then," she went on, "the tie is one of obligation, rather than of great friendship?"
"Yes. I have often been in a position to do him great services when no one else was, and when he most needed them. As for my feeling of friendship for him, I shall not even weep when he is dead."
"Suppose you should love a woman," she continued, with a strange eagerness, "and there should come a time when you would have to choose between your love for her, and your friendship for this man, which would prevail?"
"I would sacrifice La Tournoire for the woman I loved," I answered, with truth.
She looked at me steadily, and a hope seemed to dawn in her eyes, but in a moment they darkened again; she sighed deeply, and she turned to ascend to her chamber, while I stood there trying to deduce a meaning from her strange speeches and conduct, which I finally put down to the capaciousness of woman. I could understand the feeling that she ought to part from a man who loved her and whom her religion forbade her to love in return; but why she should seem pleased at the apparent lukewarmness of my friendship for La Tournoire, whom she was willing to accept as her guide, I could not guess. Since she intended to part from me, never to see me again, what mattered it to her whether or not I was the intimate of a proscribed ruffian? Yet she seemed glad to hear that I was not, but this might be only seeming. I might not have read her face and tone aright. Her inquiries might have been due to curiosity alone. So I thought no more of them, and gave my mind instead to planning how she might be made to ignore the difference between our religions, and to revoke the edict banishing me from her side. It would be necessary that she should be willing to remain at Maury, with a guard composed of some of my men, while I, giving a pretext for delaying the flight and for the absence of myself and the most of my company, should attempt the delivery of her father from the chateau of Fleurier. It was my hope, though I dared not yet breathe it, that I might bring her father and my company back to Maury, and that all of us might then proceed to Guienne.
My meditations were interrupted by the return of Blaise from Maury, where he had found all well and the men there joyous at the prospect of soon rejoining the army in Guienne. A part of the company was absent on a foraging raid. Two of the roofed chambers were rapidly being made habitable for Mlle. de Varion, whom Blaise had announced to the men as a distinguished refugee.
When supper was ready in the kitchen, I sent Jeannotte to summon her mistress. Mademoiselle came down from her chamber, her sweet face betokening a brave attempt to bear up under the many woes that crushed her,--the condition of her father, her own exile, the peril in which she stood of the governor"s reconsidering his order and sending to make her prisoner, the seeming necessity of exchanging my guidance for that of a stranger who had been painted to her in repulsive colors, and the other unhappy elements of her situation.
"It is strange that the boy, Pierre, has not returned," I said, while we sat at table.
Mademoiselle reddened. It then occurred to me that, in her abstraction, she had not even noticed his absence, and that now it came on her as a new trouble.
"Pardon me for speaking of it in such a way as to frighten you," I said.
"There is no cause for alarm. Not finding me on the road, he may have turned into the woods to look for me, and so have lost his way. He would surely be able to find the road again."
"I trust he will not come to any harm," replied mademoiselle, in a low voice that seemed forced, as if she were concealing the fears that she really felt.
Jeannotte cast a sympathetic look at her mistress.
"Shall I go and look for him?" asked Hugo, showing in his face his anxiety for his comrade.
"You would lose yourself, also," I said. "Mademoiselle, I shall go, for I know all the hillocks and points of vantage from which he may be seen."
"Nay, monsieur, do not give yourself the trouble, I pray you."
But I rose from the table, to show that I was determined, and said:
"Blaise, I leave you as guard. Remember last night."
"I am not likely to forget," he growled, dropping his eyes before the sharp glance of Jeannotte. "Mademoiselle need have no fears."
"But, monsieur," said mademoiselle. She was about to continue, but her eye met Jeannotte"s, and in the face of the maid was an expression as if counselling silence. So mademoiselle said no more, but she followed me to the door, and stood on the threshold.
"Monsieur," she said, "if you do not find him within a few minutes, I entreat that you will not put yourself to further discomfort. See, it is already nearly dark. If he be lost in the woods for the night, he can doubtless find his way hither tomorrow."
"I shall not seek long, mademoiselle, for the reason that I would not be long away from you."
At that moment, feeling under my foot something different from leaves or earth, I stooped and found one of mademoiselle"s gloves, which she had dropped, probably, on first entering the inn. Remaining in my kneeling posture and looking up at her sweet, sad face, I said:
"Whatever may come in the future, mademoiselle, circ.u.mstance has made me your faithful chevalier for a day. Will you not give me some badge of service that I may wear forever in memory of that sweet, though sorrowful day?"