"My lord, I shall try to find solace in the discharge of my charitable duties,--duties I first learned to love and practise from your counsels and suggestions, and which have already afforded me so much consolation and sweet occupation."
"Hear me, I beseech you,--since you tell me it is right, I will marry this woman; but the sacrifice once accomplished, think not I will remain a single hour with her, or suffer her to behold my child; thus Fleur-de-Marie will lose in you the best and tenderest of mothers."
"But she will still retain the best and tenderest of fathers. By your marriage with the Countess Sarah she will be the legitimate daughter of one of Europe"s sovereign princes, and, as you but just now observed, my lord, her position will be as great and splendid as it has been miserable and obscure."
"You are then pitilessly determined to shut out all hope from me?
Unhappy being that I am!"
"Dare you style yourself unhappy,--you so good, so just, so elevated in rank, as well as in mind and feeling? Who so well and n.o.bly understand the duty of self-denial and self-sacrifice? When but a short time since you bewailed your child"s death with such heartfelt agony, had any one said to you, "Utter the dearest wish of your soul and it shall be accomplished," you would have cried, "My child--my daughter! Restore her to me in life and health!" This unexpected blessing is granted you, your daughter is given to your longing arms, and yet you style yourself miserable! Ah, my lord, let not Fleur-de-Marie hear you, I beseech you!"
"You are right," said Rodolph, after a long silence, "such happiness as I aspired to would have been too much for this world, and far beyond my right even to dream of. Be satisfied your words have prevailed,--I will act according to my duty to my daughter, and forget the bleeding wound it inflicts on my own heart. But I am not sorry I hesitated in my resolution, since I owe to it a fresh proof of the perfection of your character."
"And is it not to you I owe the power of struggling with personal feelings and devoting myself to the good of others? Was it not you who raised and comforted my poor depressed mind, and encouraged me to look for comfort where only it could be found? To you, then, be all the merit of the little virtue I may now be practising, as well as all the good I may hereafter achieve. But take courage, my lord, bear up, as becomes one of your firm, right-minded nature. Directly Fleur-de-Marie is equal to the journey, remove her to Germany; once there, she will benefit so greatly by the grave tranquillity of the country that her mind and feelings will be soothed and calmed down to a placidity and gentle enjoyment of the present, while the past will seem but as a troubled dream."
"But you--you?"
"Ah, I may now confess with joy and pride that my love for you will be, as it were, a shield of defence from all snares and temptations,--a guardian angel that will preserve me from all that could a.s.sail me in body or mind. Then I shall write to you daily. Pardon me this weakness, "tis the only one I shall allow myself; you, my lord, will also write to me occasionally, if but to give me intelligence of her whom once, at least, I called my daughter," said Clemence, melting into tears at the thoughts of all she was giving up, "and who will ever be fondly cherished in my heart as such; and when advancing years shall permit me fearlessly and openly to avow the regard which binds us to each other, then, my lord, I vow by your daughter that, if you desire it, I will establish myself in Germany, in the same city you yourself inhabit, never again to quit you, but so to end a life which might have been pa.s.sed more agreeably, as far as our earthly feelings were concerned, but which shall, at least, have been spent in the practice of every n.o.ble and virtuous feeling."
"My lord," exclaimed Murphy, entering with eagerness, "she whom Heaven has restored to you has regained her senses. Her first word upon recovering consciousness was to call for you. "My father!--my beloved father!" she cried, "oh, do not take me from him!" Come to her, my lord, she is all impatience again to behold you!"
A few minutes after this Madame d"Harville quitted the prince"s hotel, while the latter repaired in all haste to the house of the Countess Macgregor, accompanied by Murphy, Baron de Graun, and an aide-de-camp.
CHAPTER VII.
THE MARRIAGE.
From the moment in which she had learnt from Rodolph the violent death of Fleur-de-Marie, Sarah had felt crushed and borne down by a disclosure so fatal to all her ambitious hopes. Tortured equally by a too late repentance, she had fallen into a fearful nervous attack, attended even by delirium; her partially healed wound opened afresh, and a long continuation of fainting fits gave rise to the supposition of her death.
Yet still the natural strength of her const.i.tution sustained her even amid this severe shock, and life seemed to struggle vigorously against death.
Seated in an easy chair, the better to relieve herself from the sense of suffocation which oppressed her, Sarah had remained for some time plunged in bitter reflections, almost amounting to regrets, that she had been permitted to escape from almost certain death.
Suddenly the door of the invalid"s chamber opened, and Thomas Seyton entered, evidently struggling to restrain some powerful emotion. Hastily waving his hand for the countess"s attendants to retire, he approached his sister, who seemed scarcely to perceive her brother"s presence.
"How are you now?" inquired he.
"Much the same; I feel very weak, and have at times a most painful sensation of being suffocated. Why was I not permitted to quit this world during my late attack?"
"Sarah," replied Thomas Seyton, after a momentary silence, "you are hovering between life and death,--any violent emotion might destroy you or recall your feeble powers and restore you to health."
"There can be no further trial for me, brother!"
"You know not that--"
"I could now even hear that Rodolph were dead without a shock. The pale spectre of my murdered child--murdered through my instrumentality, is ever before me. It creates not mere emotion, but a bitter and ceaseless remorse. Oh, brother, I have known the feelings of a mother only since I have become childless."
"I own I liked better to find in you that cold, calculating ambition, that made you regard your daughter but as a means of realising the dream of your whole existence."
"That ambition fell to the ground, crushed for ever beneath the overwhelming force of the prince"s reproaches. And the picture drawn by him of the horrors to which my child had been exposed awakened in my breast all a mother"s tenderness."
"And how," said Seyton, hesitatingly and laying deep emphasis on each word he uttered, "if by a miracle, a chance, an almost impossibility, your daughter were still living, tell me how you would support such a discovery."
"I should expire of shame and despair!"
"No such thing! You would be but too delighted at the triumph such a circ.u.mstance would afford to your ambition; for had your daughter survived, the prince would, beyond a doubt, have married you."
"And admitting the miracle you speak of could happen, I should have no right to live; but so soon as the prince had bestowed on me the t.i.tle of his consort, my duty would have been to deliver him from an unworthy spouse, and my daughter from an unnatural mother."
The perplexity of Thomas Seyton momentarily increased. Commissioned by Rodolph, who was waiting in an adjoining room, to acquaint Sarah that Fleur-de-Marie still lived, he knew not how to proceed. So feeble was the state of the countess"s health, that an instant might extinguish the faint spark that still animated her frame; and he saw that any delay in performing the nuptial rite between herself and the prince might be fatal to every hope. Determined to legitimise the birth of Fleur-de-Marie by giving every necessary formality to the ceremony, the prince had brought with him a clergyman to perform the sacred service, and two witnesses in the persons of Murphy and Baron de Graun. The Duc de Lucenay and Lord Douglas, hastily summoned by Seyton, had arrived to act as attesting witnesses on the part of the countess.
Each moment became important, but the remorse of Sarah, mingled as it was with a maternal tenderness that had entirely replaced the fiery ambition that once held sway in her breast, rendered the task of Seyton still more difficult. He could but hope that his sister deceived either herself or him, and that her pride and vanity would rekindle in all their former brightness at the prospect of the crown so long and ardently coveted.
"Sister," resumed Seyton, in a grave and solemn voice, "I am placed in a situation of cruel perplexity. I could utter one word of such deep importance that it might save your life or stretch you a corpse at my feet."
"I have already told you nothing in this world can move me more."
"Yes, one--one event, my sister."
"And what is that?"
"Your daughter"s welfare."
"I have no longer a child,--she is dead!"
"But if she were not?"
"Cease, brother, such useless suppositions,--we exhausted that subject some minutes since. Leave me to unavailing regrets!"
"Nay, but I cannot so easily persuade myself that if, by some almost incredible chance, some unhoped-for aid, your daughter had been s.n.a.t.c.hed from death, and still lived--"
"I beseech you talk not thus to me,--you know not what I suffer."
"Then listen to me, sister, while I declare that, as the Almighty shall judge you and pardon me, your daughter lives!"
"Lives! said you? My child lives?"
"I did, and truly so; the prince, with a clergyman and the necessary witnesses, awaits in the adjoining chamber; I have summoned two of our friends to act as our witnesses. The desire of your life is at length accomplished, the prediction fulfilled, and you are wedded to royalty!"
As Thomas Seyton slowly uttered the concluding part of his speech, he observed, with indescribable uneasiness, the want of all expression in his sister"s countenance, the marble features remained calm and imperturbable, and her only sign of attending to her brother"s words was a sudden pressure of both hands to her heart, as if to still its throbbing, or as though under the influence of some acute pain, while a stifled cry escaped her trembling lips as she fell back in her chair.
But the feeling, whatever it was, soon pa.s.sed away, and Sarah became fixed, rigid, and tranquil, as before.
"Sister!" cried Seyton, "what ails you? Shall I call for a.s.sistance?"
""Tis nothing! Merely the result of surprise and joy at the unhoped-for tidings you have communicated to me. At last, then, the dearest wish of my heart is accomplished!"