"You shall tell her that you were taken captive, and she will forgive you, if it be only for the sake of your _jailer_. There"s vanity for you!"
"But my arrangements for this evening are not all completed. It is growing late, Maurice; I entreat you to release me; I _cannot_ remain--I _must_ go!"
"Not until I have spoken to you. The time has come when you must hear me."
Madeleine felt that there was no escape, and, forcing herself to a.s.sume an air of composure, answered, "Speak, then; what can you have to say, Maurice, to which I ought to listen?"
"Must I tell you? Have you not divined? Must I show you my heart? If no responsive pulse in your own has revealed to you what is pa.s.sing in mine, I am truly unfortunate,--I have been deceived indeed!"
"Maurice, Maurice! for the love of Heaven"--
"You do well to say for the love of Heaven; for I love Heaven all the better for loving a being who bears the impress of Heaven"s own glorious hand! Yes, Madeleine, ever loved,--loved from the first hour we met."
The rustling of silk interrupted his sentence. Madeleine tremblingly withdrew her hand. The Countess de Gramont stood before them! Her tall figure dilated until it seemed to shut out all the sunlight beyond; her countenance grew ashy with suppressed rage; her black eyes shot out glances that pierced like arrows; not a sound issued from her tightly-compressed lips.
Maurice, recovering himself, tried to a.s.sume an unconcerned air, and stooped to gather some of the ivy leaves scattered around him. Madeleine bowed her head as a culprit who has no defence to make, and no hope of concealment to cling to as a last refuge.
The countess broke the painful silence, speaking in a hollow, scornful tone: "I am here at an unfortunate moment, it seems!"
There was no reply.
"Perhaps I ought to apologize for disturbing you," she continued, sarcastically.
"Not at all--not at all," said Maurice, who felt that it was his duty to answer and shield Madeleine, as far as possible, from his grandmother"s displeasure.
"Why, then, is Madeleine covered with confusion? Why did she so quickly withdraw her hand? How--how came it clasped in yours?"
"Is she not my cousin?" answered Maurice, evasively. "Have I no right to show her affection? Must I renounce the ties of blood?"
"It is not you, Maurice, whom I blame," said the countess, trying to speak less sternly. "It is Madeleine, who should not have permitted this unmeet familiarity. I well know by what arts she has lured you to forget yourself. The fault lies with her."
For the first time the countess beheld a flash of indignation in the eyes Madeleine lifted from the ground.
"Madame--aunt!" she began.
The countess would not permit her to proceed.
"I know what I say! You have too much tact and quickness not to have comprehended our hopes in regard to Maurice and Bertha; and it has not escaped my notice that you have sought, by every artful manoeuvre in your power, to frustrate those hopes."
"I?" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Madeleine, aghast at the charge, and too much bewildered to be able to utter a denial.
"Yes, _you!_ Have you not sought to fascinate Maurice by every species of wily coquetry? Have you not"--
"Grandmother!" cried Maurice, furiously.
"Be silent, Maurice,--it is Madeleine to whom I am addressing my remarks, and her own conscience tells her their justice."
"Aunt, if ever by word, or look, or thought"--
"Oh! it was all done in the most apparently artless, natural, _purposeless_ manner! But the same end was always kept steadily in view.
What I have witnessed this morning convinces me of your aims. Your movements were so skilfully managed that they scarcely seemed open to suspicion. The most specious coquetry has governed all your actions. You were always attired more simply than any one else; but by this very simplicity you thought to render yourself remarkable, and attract a larger share of attention. You always pretended to shun observation, that you might be brought into more positive notice. You affected to avoid Maurice, that he might feel tempted to follow you,--that he might be lured to seek you when you were alone, as you were a moment ago,--that he might"--
Maurice could restrain his ire no longer. He broke forth with vehemence,--"Grandmother, I cannot listen to this injustice. I cannot see Madeleine so cruelly insulted. Were it my mother herself who spoke, I would not stand by and see her trample thus upon an innocent and defenceless heart."
Madeleine turned to Maurice beseechingly. "Do not utter such words to one whom you are bound to address with reverence;--do not, or you will render my sufferings unendurable!"
"Your _sufferings_?" exclaimed the countess, catching at a word that seemed to imply a reproof, which galled the more because she knew it was deserved. "Your _sufferings_? That is a fitting expression to drop from your lips! I had the right to believe that, far from causing you _suffering_, I had put an end to your suffering when I threw open my doors to admit you."
"You misunderstood me, aunt. I did not intend to say"--
"You have said enough to prove that you add ingrat.i.tude to your other sins. And, since you talk of _sufferings_, I will beg you to remember the sufferings you have brought upon us,--you, who, in return for all you have received at my hands, have caused my very grandson to treat me with disrespect, for the first time in his life. _Your_ sufferings? I can well conceive that she who creates so much affliction in the house that has sheltered her,--she who so treacherously pierces the hearts that have opened to yield her a place,--she who has played the viper warmed upon almost a mother"s bosom,--she may well have sufferings to wail over!"
Madeleine stood speechless, thunderstruck, by the rude shock of these words. The countess turned from her, and, preparing to leave the _chalet_, bade Maurice give her his arm. He silently obeyed, casting a look of compa.s.sionate tenderness upon Madeleine. But she saw it not; all her vast store of mental strength suddenly melted away! For the first time in her life she was completely crushed, overwhelmed,--hopeless and powerless. For a few moments she remained standing as motionless as one petrified; then, with a heart-broken cry, dropped into a seat, and covering her face with her hands, sobbed convulsively,--sobbed as though all the sorrows of her life were concentrated in the anguish of that moment, and found vent in that deluge of tears,--that stormy whirlwind of pa.s.sion! All the clouds in the firmament of her existence, which she had, day after day, dispelled by the internal sunshine of her patient, trustful spirit, culminated and broke in that wild flood. Hope was drowned in that heavy rain; all the flowers that brightened, and the sweet, springing herbs that lent their balm to her weary pilgrimage, were beaten down into the mire of despair. There was no ark, no Ararat; she was alone, without refuge, on the waste of waters.
Her heavy sobs prevented her hearing the entrance of Bertha, and it was only when the arms of the young girl were fondly twined about her, that she became aware of her presence.
"Madeleine, dear, dear Madeleine! What has happened? Why do you weep thus?"
"Do not speak to me, Bertha!" replied Madeleine in a stifled voice. "You cannot, cannot help me; there is no hope left,--none, none! My father has died to me again to day, and I am alone once more!--alone in a desert that has no place of shelter for me, but a grave beneath its swathing sands!"
Her tears gushed forth with redoubled violence.
"Do not treat me so cruelly! Do not cast me off!" pleaded Bertha, as her cousin tried to disengage herself from her encircling arms. "If you are wretched, so am I--_because_ you are! Only tell me the reason for this terrible sorrow. I was awaiting you in your room; but, as you did not come, I felt sure my cousin Maurice had detained you."
At those last words an involuntary cry of intense suffering burst from Madeleine"s lips.
"Then I saw my aunt and Maurice returning together, and Maurice appeared to be talking in an excited manner, and my aunt looked blacker than any thunder-cloud. Still you did not come, and I went in search of you. Tell me why I find you thus?--you, who have always borne your griefs with such silent fort.i.tude. What _has_ my aunt said or done to you?"
"She has ceased to love me,--she has ceased to esteem me,--she even repents of the benefits she has conferred upon me."
"No, no, Madeleine; you are mistaken."
"Oh, I am not mistaken,--my eyes are opened at last. The thin, waxen mask of a.s.sumed kindness has melted from her face! I am a burden to her,--an enc.u.mbrance,--an offence. She only desires to be rid of me!"
"You,--the fairy of good works in her household? What could she do without you? It is only excitement which makes you imagine this."
"I never guessed, never dreamed it before; but I have wilfully deceived myself. _Now_ all is too clear! A thousand recollections rise up to testify to the truth; a thousand suspicions, which I repulsed as unworthy of me and of her, return to convince me; words and looks, coldness and injustice, slights and reproaches start up with frightful vividness, and throw a hideous light upon conduct I never dared to interpret aright."
"What looks? what words? what actions?" asked Bertha, though her heart told her with what a catalogue she could answer her own question.
"They could not be rehea.r.s.ed in an hour or in a day. But it is not to my aunt alone that my presence is offensive. Cousin Tristan also chafes at the sight of his dependent relative. I have seen it when I took my seat at table; I have seen it when room was made for me in the carriage; I have seen it on numberless occasions. His glances, his accents, his whole demeanor, have seemed to reproach me for the place I occupied, for the garments I wore, for the very bread I ate,--the bread of bitter, bitter charity! And oh!" she groaned, "_must this be so still?_ _Must_ I still accept these bounties, which are begrudged me? _Must_ I still be bowed to the dust by the weight of these charities? Alas! I _must_, because I have nothing of my own,--because I am nothing of myself!"
"Madeleine! one of these days"--
Madeleine did not heed her. "Oh, my father! my father! To what torturing humiliations you subjected me in bequeathing me n.o.bility with poverty!
Well may you have wished that you had been born a peasant! Had I been a peasant"s child, I might have lived by, and rejoiced in, honest labor!
Had I been the daughter of a mechanic, I might have gained my bread by some useful trade. Had I even been the child of some poor gentleman, I might have earned a livelihood by giving lessons in music, in drawing, by becoming a governess, or teaching in a school. But, the daughter of the Duke de Gramont, it is one of the curses of my n.o.ble birth that I must live upon charity,--charity unwillingly doled out and thrown in my face, even when I am receiving it with meekness!"