"And the Prince?" inquired Anna Bell, nervously. "He has not been wounded?"
"No, mademoiselle. I am riding ahead of monsieur; he is returning with his squadrons," answered the page, alighting from his horse, and his sighs and sobs redoubled, while the tears rolled down his cheeks.
At ease on the score of Franz of Gerolstein"s life, Anna Bell had some words of consolation for the afflicted page. "I am sorry for you," she said; "to lose a friend at your age."
"Oh, mademoiselle. I loved him so dearly--he died so valiantly! An arquebusier was taking aim at the Prince. Wilhelm threw himself in front and received the ball in his chest. He dropped, never to rise again."
"Generous lad!" exclaimed Anna Bell, and silently she thought: "To die for Franz! Under his own eyes. That is a death to be envied!"
"Poor Wilhelm!" continued the page sadly, "his last words were for his mother. He asked me, if ever I return home again, to carry to her a sash that she embroidered for him, and which he left at our lodging together with his gala suit."
The lad"s words seemed to have suggested an unexpected line of thought to Anna Bell, when she suddenly saw Odelin from a distance, returning at full gallop in the company of other hors.e.m.e.n. She cried: "There is father! Thank G.o.d, he is not wounded. But where is brother?"
Not daring, out of a sense of modesty, to be seen by the strangers who accompanied her father, Anna Bell stepped back into the room. Odelin led his horse to a stable where also the horses of Franz of Gerolstein were kept, and hastened back to join his daughter in the house. The girl ran to him, kissed his hands respectfully several times, and said:
"Thank heaven, father, you are safe and sound--but brother, dear Antonicq, did he also come off scathless?"
"You may feel at ease," answered Odelin, embracing his daughter, "Antonicq is not wounded. Together with other volunteers he is escorting a number of prisoners to places of safety in the camp. Poor child, great must have been your anxiety since I left you. Come to your father"s arms!"
"Oh, I counted the hours--the minutes--"
"Let me embrace you again--and yet again," said Odelin with tears in his eyes, and fondly holding her in his arms. "Oh, divine power of happiness! It brings with it the balm of forgetfulness of the past! I have found you again--dear child! In one day, years of sorrow are blotted out!"
Hardly able to repress her tears, Anna Bell responded unrestrainedly to Odelin"s caresses. His ineffable clemency was not belied.
"Father," she said, "would you have me disarm you while we wait for Antonicq? Your cuira.s.s must tire you. Let me unbuckle it."
"Thank you, child," the armorer answered, as he stepped to a lanthorn that hung from the wall, and lighted the same to dispel the shadows that began to invade the apartment. He then took off his casque, loosened his belt, and returned to his daughter: "But I shall remain armed. The Admiral issued orders that the troops rest a few hours, take supper, and hold themselves ready to march at a minute"s notice."
"My G.o.d--is there another battle pending?"
"I do not know the projects of Admiral Coligny; all I know--and that is all that is of importance to me--I know we have a few hours to ourselves. Sit down there, dear child, so that the light of the lanthorn may fall upon your face--I wish to behold you at my leisure. This morning tears darkened my eyes almost continuously."
And after contemplating Anna Bell for a while with tender and silent curiosity, Odelin resumed:
"Yes, your sweet beauty is such as your charming little girl"s face gave promise of. Oh! how often did I not leave my anvil and drop my hammer to fondle your blonde head! Your hair has grown darker. In your infancy you were as blonde as my sister Hena. Many a line in your face recalls hers.
She and I resembled each other. But your beautiful brown and velvety eyes have remained the same--neither in color nor shape have they changed. I find the dimple still on your chin, and the two little ones on your cheeks each time you laughed, they also are still there--and you were always laughing--my dear, dear child!"
"Oh! how happy those days must have been to me!" murmured the young girl, as she recalled with bitter sorrow the hours of her innocent childhood. "I then was near you, father, and near mother--and besides--"
Anna Bell could not finish the sentence. The distressed girl broke down sobbing.
"Heaven and earth!" cried up the armorer, whose features, shortly before illumined with happiness, now were overcast with grief. "To think that you had to beg your bread! My poor child--perhaps beaten by the gypsy woman who kidnapped you from the loving paternal roof!"
"Father," replied the poor girl with a look of profound grief, "those days of misery were not my worst days. Oh, that I had always remained a beggar!"
"I understand your thoughts, unhappy child! Let us drop those sad recollections!" And stamping the floor furiously Odelin added: "Oh, infamous Queen! Thou art the monster who debauched my child! A curse upon thee and thy execrable brood!" After a painful silence, Odelin proceeded abruptly: "Do! I conjure you! Let us never again return to the past. Let us endeavor to bury it in everlasting oblivion!"
"Alas, father, even if your clemency were to forget, my conscience will ever remember. It will every day remind me that I am a disgrace to my family. Oh, G.o.d! My cheeks tingle with shame at the bare thought of meeting my sister--and mother!"
"Your mother! You know not the depths of a mother"s love, indulgence and compa.s.sion. You return to her soiled, but repentant, and your mother will forgive. Besides, you are not guilty--you are the victim of, not the accomplice in, your past life. Your heart has remained pure, your instincts honest and lofty; your tears, your remorse, your apprehensions prove it to me. No, no! Be not afraid. Your mother and sister will receive you with joy, with confidence. I am certain henceforth your life will be ours, pure, modest, industrious! Oh, I know it--it is only that that causes my heart to bleed, and my pity for you to redouble; you are never to experience the austere yet sweet joys of a wife--and a mother!"
Odelin remained for a moment steeped in silent rumination. After a pause he proceeded:
"It is the severe punishment for a sin that it is allowed to none but your own family to absolve you of. But your sister"s children will be your own. Your brother also is to marry. Cornelia, his sweetheart, is worthy of our affection. You will silence the cravings of your own heart in loving their children as you would have done your own. They will also love you. You will spend your life near them and us. Come, take a father"s word for it--the domestic hearth is an inexhaustible source of consolation for the sorrowful--an inexhaustible source of sweet joys and healthy pleasures."
These warm and affectionate words moved Anna Bell so profoundly that, dropping down upon her knees before her father, she covered his hands and face with kisses and tears; and raising her eyes up to him, and contemplating him with a kind of respectful admiration, "Oh, father!"
she exclaimed, "living image of G.o.d! Your goodness and compa.s.sion are like only unto His!"
"Because you suffer, my poor child," replied Odelin, his eyes moist with tears. And raising his daughter from the floor and placing her beside him, he put his arm around her and covered her with renewed caresses.
"It is because you are to suffer still more--it is because you love--it is because you are bound to love--and without hope!" the armorer proceeded with solemnity. "Only this once, and never again shall I mention this painful love. If I, your father, touch upon such a subject with you, the reason is that it is impossible for me to blame the choice of your heart. Franz of Gerolstein, by the strength of his character, the generosity of his sentiments, the loftiness of his whole life, deserves to be loved pa.s.sionately. Alas, but for that unhappy past, your love needed not be hopeless. Only a few hours ago, speaking about you at a halt made by our troops, Franz of Gerolstein remarked to me: "Oh, that honor, the only barrier I may never leap, should separate me forever from your daughter!" It was not a hollow consolation the Prince was offering me. I know Franz"s contempt for distinctions of rank. Moreover we are of the same blood, our family comes from one stock; but that fatal past--that is the unbridgeable abyss that separates us forever from the Prince. That is why you inspire me with so much pity. Yes, you are all the more endeared to me because you suffer, and by reason of your future sufferings, poor dear child, so guiltless of the sins you have committed!" added Odelin with renewed tenderness.
"But be brave, be brave, my child! Your hopeless love is at least honorable and pure; you can nourish it without shame, in the secret recesses of your heart. I shall say not another word upon that ill-starred pa.s.sion. When you are back among us and, although surrounded by our affection, I shall see you at times lost in revery, sad, and moist of eye, believe me, poor distressed soul, your father will sympathize with your grief; each tear you drop will fall upon my heart."
Odelin was uttering these last words when his son hurried into the apartment, looking sad and even bewildered. Anna Bell jumped up to meet the young man, saying: "Thank G.o.d, brother, I see you back safe and sound!"
Such was the preoccupation of Antonicq that, without answering his sister, without taking notice of her, and even gently pushing her aside, he approached his father, and taking him apart to the other end of the room, spoke to him in a low and excited voice. Painfully affected at seeing herself pushed out of the way by her brother, who seemed to have neither a word nor a look for her in response to the gladness that she expressed at his safe return from battle, the young girl imagined herself despised by him.
"Alas!" thought the maid of honor, "my brother will not forgive my past life; only a father"s heart is capable of indulgence. Great G.o.d! If my sister, my mother, were also to receive me with such disdain--perchance aversion! I would rather die than expose myself to such treatment!"
Antonicq continued to speak with his father in a low voice. Suddenly Odelin seemed to shudder, and hid his face in his hands. Profound silence ensued. Anna Bell, more and more the prey of the shyness and mistrust that conscious guilt inspires in a repentant soul, imagined herself the subject of the mysterious conversation between her father and brother. Odelin"s features, lowering and angry, betokened disgust and indignation. The words escaped him: "And yet, despite such revolting horrors, I am bound to him by a sacred bond! Oh, a curse upon the day that brought us together again! A curse upon the fatal discovery! But once I shall have fulfilled that last duty, may heaven ever after deliver me of his hated presence! Listen," added the armorer, and again lowering his voice, he spoke to his son with intense earnestness, closing with the statement: "Such is my plan!"
The conversation was again renewed in undertones between father and son.
Anna Bell had caught only fragments of her father"s remarks. She was convinced they spoke of her--and yet, only a minute before, Odelin was so lovingly indulgent towards his erring daughter. In vain did the young girl seek to fathom the cause of so sudden a change. What could the fatal discovery be that Antonicq had just imparted to his father, and seemed suddenly to incite his indignation and anger? Did she not lay her past life bare to her father in all sincerity of heart? What could she be accused of that she had not voluntarily confessed? A prey to profound anxiety, the young girl"s heart sank within her; her limbs trembled as she saw her father hurriedly take up his sword and casque, and make ready to leave with Antonicq.
The young man stepped to the couch of straw and pulled out of it a long, wide cloak of a brown material with a scarlet hood attached, such as was common among the Rochelois,[71] and helped his father to wrap himself in it over his armor; Odelin then put on his casque, threw the hood over it, and, without either look or word to his daughter, who, trembling and with frightened eyes followed his movements, went out, followed by his son.
Long did Anna Bell weep. When her tears ran dry, the young girl turned her face to the future with sinister resolution. She considered herself an object of disgust and aversion to her brother and father. Forsaken by them, an unbridgeable abyss--honor--separated her forever from Franz of Gerolstein. Nothing was left but to die. Suddenly a flash of joy lightened her eyes, red with recent tears. She rose, stood erect, and looking about said: "Yes, to die. But to die under Franz"s eyes--to die for him, like the young page killed this very day by throwing himself in the path of the bullet that was to fell his master. The army is to return to battle. The clothes, the horse of the page who was killed to-day are all here!"
As these thoughts seethed in her mind, Anna Bell"s eyes fell upon some sheets of paper, a pen and ink in a broken cup lying on the mantlepiece.
The girl took them down with a sigh:
"Oh, father! Oh, brother! Despite your contempt and aversion, my last thoughts will be of you!"
Herve Lebrenn, the incestuous wretch who raised a matricidal hand against his mother, Fra Herve, the Cordelier, as he was called in the royal army, deserved but too well the reputation for a fiery preacher and leader of implacable sectarians. His sermons, lighted by a savage style of eloquence, and coupled to acts of ferocity in battle, inspired the Catholics with fanatic admiration. Wounded and made a prisoner in the course of the engagement of that day, he was taken pinioned to St.
Yrieix and locked up in a dark cellar. The cellar door opened. The light of a lanthorn partially dispelled the gloom of the subterranean cell.
Seated on the ground with his shoulders against the wall, Fra Herve saw a man enter, wrapped in a brown mantle, the scarlet hood of which, being wholly thrown over his head, concealed the face of the nocturnal visitor. The visitor was Odelin Lebrenn. He closed the door behind him, placed the lanthorn on the floor, and almost convulsed with wracking emotions, silently contemplated his brother, who had not yet recognized him. Odelin saw him now for the first time since the day when, still a lad returning from Italy with Master Raimbaud, the armorer, he involuntarily witnessed the torture and death of his sister Hena and Brother St. Ernest-Martyr. Herve also attended the solemnity of his sister"s execution, in the company of Fra Girard, his evil genius.
Odelin Lebrenn looked with mute horror upon his imprisoned brother. The lanthorn, placed upon the floor, threw upward a bright light streaked with hard, black shadows upon the cadaverous, ascetic and haggard features of Herve. His large, bald forehead, yellow and dirty, was tied in a blood-stained bandage. The blood had flowed down from his wound, dried up on one of his protruding cheek bones, and coagulated in the hairs of his thick and matted beard. His brown and threadbare coat, patched up in a score of places, was held around his waist by a cord from which hung a chaplet of arquebus b.a.l.l.s with a small crucifix of lead. Rusty iron spurs were fastened with leather straps to his muddy feet, shod in sandals. Fra Herve, unable to distinguish his brother"s face, shadowed as it was by the hood of the mantle, turned his head slowly towards the visitor, and kneeling down with an expression of gloomy disdain, said in a hollow voice:
"Is it death? I am ready!"
The Cordelier thereupon bowed down his large bald head, and raising his fettered hands towards the roof of the cellar muttered in a low voice the funeral invocation of the dying. Odelin threw back his hood, took up the lanthorn, and held it so as to throw a clear light upon his face.
"Brother!" he called out to the monk in a voice that betrayed his profound emotion. "I am Odelin Lebrenn!"