The blind girl touched his icy arm, half exposed by his ragged shirt, as she rose to sing for the charity of those who attended ma.s.s.
"No, no, Pierre," she cried, removing the coat from her shoulders, "I will not let you freeze. Oh, how selfish I am to permit you to suffer, who have been so kind to me!"
Rejecting his entreaties, she made him put it on again, hiding her own suffering.
"Hearken! there sounds the organ for the recessional!" she continued.
"Soon the people will be coming out. I will sing the same songs that my sister Henriette and I used to sing. Perhaps some one will recognize the melody, and lead me back to her!"
A beautifully majestic, ermined figure stepped graciously out of the church, as La Frochard rejoined Louise and began whining: "Charity! In the name of G.o.d, Charity!" whilst the girl"s voice lifted up in an old plaintive melody.
The lady was the Countess de Linieres, returning from her devotions.
The song evoked memories of a bitter past and of a long lost daughter s.n.a.t.c.hed from her in infancy. Bending over poor Louise, she asked: "My child, can you not see me?"
"No, Madame, I am blind," was the low, sad answer.
[Ill.u.s.tration: MARQUIS DE PRAILLE PLYING HIS ART WITH THE LADIES.]
A strange sympathy stirred in the Countess for this girl. There seemed to be some hidden link between them, the nature of which baffled her.
She felt the impulse to protect and cherish--was it the voice of Mother Love obscurely speaking?
"Alas!" said Louise. "Blindness is not the worst of my misfortunes.
I--I--"
La Frochard administered a terrible pinch that pulled Louise away, then "mothered" her cutely. "We are starving, my beautiful lady," she whined, "and the poor girl is out of her head. What is that you say?
_Not my daughter?_ Yes, indeed she is--the precious--and the youngest of seven. Charity, charity! In the name of G.o.d, charity!" she sniffled.
Reluctantly Countess de Linieres stifled the impulse to mother this kindred and hapless young being, averred to be the beggar"s daughter.
She placed a golden louis on the palm of the singer, saying:
"Give this to your mother, child."
CHAPTER XII
LOVE, MASTER OF HEARTS
The Count"s demands brought to a head a resolve that had taken possession of Chevalier de Vaudrey"s heart and soul. Always the picture of the sweet Norman girl he had saved from de Praille"s foul clutches was in his waking thoughts, of nights he dreamed a blessed romance! He recked not of the Count"s displeasure, sorrowed that he must displease his Aunt as sorely. The only bar was that a vision of the lost Louise stood, as it were, between him and his beloved Henriette.
Now that he had come to her to speak of his proposal, the little heart still quested for the lost sister.
"Don"t you ever think of anyone but her?" he asked.
A negative shake of the golden head and ringleted curls was the answer, though the cupid mouth and the blue eyes smiled with tenderness. They stood very close to another, like poles of a magnet twixt which a spark flashes.
Silently Maurice drew from his pocket a ring. "Twas of pure gold, a lovely and exquisite bauble, whereof the two little claws clasped a golden heart. He handed it to Henriette, who took it with a happy smile till she realized its meaning as betrothal.
A wave of color overspread her cheek. The heir of the de Vaudreys to give himself to her! Pride and love mingled in her thoughts.
Yes, to throw himself away on a Commoner girl--he meant it. Flashed the picture on her mental retina of the little solemn oath to Louise.
What he asked was impossible--for him and for her.
Henriette handed back the ring.
"Marry you--an aristocrat! Why, that would ruin you in the eyes of _all the world_!"
He was down on his knees, pleading, agonized, distressed, looking for some sign of relentment from the beauteous little head that seemed rigidly to repress emotion.
"Then you d-o-n-"t l-o-v-e m-e?" he faltered at last, rising.
"No!" was the reply, in a firm but very small voice.
The broken Chevalier started slowly for the door. He turned slightly and caught the sound of sobs.
Wheeling around, he saw her arms half stretched towards him. He bounded back.
He was now kissing the hem of her garments, her gloves, her roses, her fingertips, and crying extravagantly, almost shouting the words: "You DO love me!"
Gently Henriette imparted a maiden"s delicate kiss on his cheek.
"When Louise is found--" she was half sobbing in his arms, "--dreams--yes--perhaps you might find a way to bring them true!"
But the gallant gentleman jumps forward to the end of the dream.
Youthfully swearing that Louise will soon be found, he visions their exquisite happiness as of tomorrow or the day after. He holds her delightedly, then draws her closer. The kindred magnets are one.
Lips meet lips in soul-kiss that cause the maidenly head to hide under elbow in confusion. Kissing almost every part and furnishing of that dear second self--vowing never to rest till he brings Louise and takes Henriette--the ecstatic cavalier is gone!
Alas for the quickly visioned dream-facts of twenty-four! Full long shall be the interval betwixt the bright Utopia and the heavenly reality:--the dungeon, the Storm, the death chamber and e"en the shining axe shall intervene.
A great Nation shall have thrown off its old tyrants and weltered in the blood of new tyranny. What matter? The souls of the girl and the man are one, they shall be faithful unto the End!
CHAPTER XIII
THE RECOGNITION
The Chevalier de Vaudrey sought his Aunt and begged her to see his beloved before finally siding with the Count against him. The incident of the chance encounter with the blind girl had stirred the Countess, awakened renewed pity for hapless love such as she herself had once experienced. She decided to visit Henriette, if only to divert her from the seemingly mad project of a union with the Chevalier.
Meantime Count Linieres had decided to exercise the power of the dread lettres de cachet. In the France of that day, personal rights were unknown. Subject only to the King"s will, no other warrant than the Prefect"s signature was required to send anyone into exile or to life imprisonment. The means that Linieres now had in mind were often used to quell rebellious lovers.
He would brand this inconvenient, presumptuous Henriette Girard as a fallen woman, imprison her at La Salpetriere, and then ship her as a convict to Louisiana. That would get rid of her, truly!
In the meanwhile the Chevalier, if disobedient, could cool his heels in the prison tower of the royal fortress at Caen. After a while, he might indeed see reason and think better of marrying the Princesse de Acquitaine!