"I would."
"And that barrier is the opposition of his proud relatives?" a.s.serted Maurice.
Madeleine started, looked in his face in alarm; for the first time, the suspicion that he had divined her secret, flashed upon her.
But Maurice went on unpityingly,--
"You refused him your hand because you thought it base ingrat.i.tude to those relatives who had sheltered you in your orphan and unprotected condition, and who had other, as they supposed, _higher_ views for him.
You feared by letting him know that you loved him to injure his future prospects, and you nearly blighted that future by the despair you caused him when he lost you. And since you have been restored, at least to his sight, you have with a martyr"s heroism adhered to your plan of self-sacrifice because you thought that to relinquish it would draw down upon him and yourself the wrath of his haughty grandmother,--I will not say of his father; because, too, you believed that you would be accused of ingrat.i.tude. And you have allowed him to suffer unimaginable torture rather than acknowledge that the lover to whom you have been so true,--the lover for whom you have sacrificed yourself,--the lover most unworthy of you (save through that love which renders the humblest worthy),--is the man you rejected in the Chateau de Gramont at the risk of breaking his heart."
Madeleine dropped her face upon her hands with a low sob, but Maurice drew the hands away, and folding his arms about her said, fervently,--
"Madeleine, my own, my best beloved, it is too late for concealment now!
I know whom you love,--it is too late for denial. Look at me and tell me once,--tell me only _once_ that it is true you do love me; tell me this, and it will repay me for all I have suffered."
But Madeleine did not yield to his prayer; she tried to extricate herself from his arms, but they clasped her too tightly; and when she could speak she said, through her tears,--
"You ensnared me,--you entrapped me to this! I should never have told you! And what does it avail,--I can never be your wife."
"It avails beyond all calculation to know that you love me, even if, as you say, you cannot be my wife. Madeleine, to know that you love no other,--that you love _me_,--that I have a claim upon you which I may not be able to urge until we meet in heaven,--is heaven on earth!"
What could Madeleine reply?
"But why, Madeleine, can you not become mine? My father would no longer object. Are you not sure of that? Do you not see how he clings to you?
And my grandmother"--
"It would kill her," broke in Madeleine, "to see you the husband of one whom she detests and looks down upon as a degraded outcast. The Duke de Gramont"s daughter only feels her pride in this, that she could never enter a family to which she was not welcome."
"Then her pride is stronger than her love! No, Madeleine, though your firmness has been tested and I dread it, I will not believe that you will continue so cruel as to refuse me your hand."
"Did you not say that it was happiness enough to know that,--that,"--
Madeleine had stumbled upon a sentence which it was not particularly easy to finish.
"To know that you love me! that you love me! Let me repeat the words over and over again, until my unaccustomed ears believe the sound; for they are yet incredulous! But, Madeleine, you who are truth itself, how could you have said that you loved another, even from the best of motives?"
"I did not. I said that my affections were already engaged: yet I meant you to believe, as you did, that I loved another; and the thought of the deception, for it _was deception_, has caused me ceaseless contrition.
_I do not reconcile it to my conscience_; I spoke the words _impulsively_ as the only means of forcing you to give up all claim to my hand; _but I do not defend those words_."
"And I do not forgive them! You can only win my pardon by promising me that you will openly contradict them, and atone for your error by becoming my wife."
Madeleine"s agitated features composed themselves to a look of determination which made Maurice tremble with apprehension; and he had cause, for she said,--
"I cannot, Maurice,--I cannot,--must not,--will not be your wife without the consent of your father and your grandmother!"
"But if it be impossible to obtain my grandmother"s?"
"Then you must prove to me that you spoke truth by being content with that knowledge which you declared _would_ satisfy you."
Maurice remonstrated, argued, prayed, but he did not shake Madeleine"s resolve. Believing she was right, she was as inflexible as the Countess de Gramont herself.
CHAPTER LIII.
RESISTANCE.
Maurice could not tear himself away; he was still lingering by Madeleine"s side when Bertha and Gaston entered to pay their daily visit. The perfect joy that rendered luminous the countenance of Maurice, and the happy confusion depicted upon Madeleine"s face, demanded but few words of explanation. Bertha caught Madeleine in her arms, laughing and crying, kissing her and reproaching her, over and over again. Then she turned to Maurice, as if impelled to greet him hardly less lovingly; but Gaston, jealous of his own particular rights, interposed. She darted away from his restraining arms and danced about the room, shouting like a gleeful child; then she kissed Madeleine again; then, suddenly calming down, said to Gaston, reproachfully,--
"And you,--_you_ knew this all the time, and did not tell me? What penalty can I make you pay that will be severe enough? I will plot mischief with Madeleine. If we can punish you in no other manner, we will postpone to a tantalizing distance the day you wish near at hand.
Confess that I was wise to wait! I knew Madeleine"s lover would claim her in good season, but I never suspected he was my own dear cousin Maurice, whom she so resolutely rejected."
"Nor did I!" cried Maurice, joyously; "and if _I_ can forgive Gaston, you must."
"All in good time; after he is fitly punished, not before! What do you say, Madeleine? Shall we promise these two hapless swains their brides a couple of years hence?"
"Bertha, Bertha! you have not understood," answered Madeleine, gravely, yet with a happy smile on her sweet lips. "Maurice has no promise of a bride; he looks forward to no bride, though I trust, you will, before very long, give one to M. de Bois."
"Dear me!" exclaimed Bertha, completely sobered by this unexpected announcement. "I thought you had confessed to Maurice that _he_ was the mysterious but fortunate individual whom you loved, and whom I have been puzzling my brains to discover."
Madeleine did not choose to respond to the statement made with such straightforward ingenuousness by Bertha, and only replied,--
"Madame de Gramont would never give her consent to the marriage of Maurice with the humble mantua-maker. I have too much of the de Gramont pride, or too much pride of my own, or too much of some stronger feeling which I can only translate into a sense of right and fitness, to become the wife of Maurice in the face of such opposition."
Bertha looked sorely disappointed and vexed, but vented her spleen upon the one whom she loved best, according to the invariable practice of women. She said to Gaston,--
"There! you are no better off than you were before! That"s just what you deserve for keeping this secret from me!"
"But, Bertha, you will not be so unreasonable," urged Madeleine.
"Why not, when you set me the example? Why should I not be unreasonable and obstinate when you teach me how to be so? You know, Madeleine, you have been my model all my life long, and it is too late to choose another."
Madeleine was silenced, but Bertha ran on petulantly, this time turning to Maurice.
"How _can_ you look so happy when Madeleine says she does not mean to marry you? I never saw anything like you men! One would think you had no feeling."
Maurice replied: "It is so much happiness to know who possesses Madeleine"s heart, that even if she remain unshaken in her resolution, I could not be miserable."
"And you will not mind leaving her and going to Brittany? Your plans are not to be altered?"
"Not unless she will alter them by consenting to accompany me. You know that my grandmother insists upon returning, and she is inexorable when she has once made up her mind."
"Like somebody else!" said Bertha, who was decidedly irritated.
Maurice resumed: "And it is my duty not only to protect her, but to watch over my poor father."
"And you will really, _really_ go?" questioned Bertha, doubtingly.