"And you have permitted it," Dionysia went on with breathless haste; "and you did not come, and cry out in open court that your husband was a false witness! What a woman you must be! You do not mind it, that your love carries a poor unfortunate man to the galleys. You mean to live on with this thought in your heart, that the man whom you love is innocent, and nevertheless, disgraced forever, and cut off from human society. A priest might induce the count to retract his statement, you know very well; and hence you refuse to let the priest from Brechy come to his bedside. And what is the end and aim of all your crimes? To save your false reputation as an honest woman. Ah! that is miserable; that is mean; that is infamous!"
The countess was roused at last. What all M. Folgat"s skill and ability had not been able to accomplish, Dionysia obtained in an instant by the force of her pa.s.sion. Throwing aside her mask, the countess exclaimed with a perfect burst of rage,--
"Well, then, no, no! I have not acted so, and permitted all this to happen, because I care for my reputation. My reputation!--what does it matter? It was only a week ago, when Jacques had succeeded in escaping from prison, I offered to flee with him. He had only to say a word, and I should have given up my family, my children, my country, every thing, for him. He answered, "Rather the galleys!""
In the midst of all her fearful sufferings, Dionysia"s heart filled with unspeakable happiness as she heard these words. Ah! now she could no longer doubt Jacques.
"He has condemned himself, you see," continued the countess. "I was quite willing to ruin myself for him, but certainly not for another woman."
"And that other woman--no doubt you mean me!"
"Yes!--you for whose sake he abandoned me,--you whom he was going to marry,--you with whom he hoped to enjoy long happy years, and a happiness not furtive and sinful like ours, but a legitimate, honest happiness."
Tears were trembling in Dionysia"s eyes. She was beloved: she thought of what she must suffer who was not beloved.
"And yet I should have been generous," she murmured. The countess broke out into a fierce, savage laugh.
"And the proof of it is," said the young girl, "that I came to offer you a bargain."
"A bargain?"
"Yes. Save Jacques, and, by all that is sacred to me in the world, I promise I will enter a convent: I will disappear, and you shall never hear my name any more."
Intense astonishment seized the countess, and she looked at Dionysia with a glance full of doubt and mistrust. Such devotion seemed to her too sublime not to conceal some snare.
"You would really do that?" she asked.
"Unhesitatingly."
"You would make a great sacrifice for my benefit?"
"For yours? No, madam, for Jacques"s."
"You love him very dearly, do you?"
"I love him dearly enough to prefer his happiness to my own a thousand times over. Even if I were buried in the depths of a convent, I should still have the consolation of knowing that he owed his rehabilitation to me; and I should suffer less in knowing that he belonged to another than that he was innocent, and yet condemned."
But, in proportion as the young girl thus confirmed her sincerity, the brow of the countess grew darker and sterner, and pa.s.sing blushes mantled her cheek. At last she said with haughty irony,--
"Admirable!"
"Madam!"
"You condescend to give up M. de Boiscoran. Will that make him love me? You know very well he will not. You know that he loves you alone.
Heroism with such conditions is easy enough. What have you to fear?
Buried in a convent, he will love you only all the more ardently, and he will execrate me all the more fervently."
"He shall never know any thing of our bargain!"
"Ah! What does that matter? He will guess it, if you do not tell him.
No: I know what awaits me. I have felt it now for two years,--this agony of seeing him becoming daily more detached from me. What have I not done to keep him near me! How I have stooped to meanness, to falsehood, to keep him a single day longer, perhaps a single hour! But all was useless. I was a burden to him. He loved me no longer; and my love became to him a heavier load than the cannon-ball which they will fasten to his chains at the galleys."
Dionysia shuddered.
"That is horrible!" she murmured.
"Horrible! Yes, but true. You look amazed. That is because you have as yet only seen the morning dawn of your love: wait for the dark evening, and you will understand me. Is not the story of all of us women the same! I have seen Jacques at my feet as you see him at yours: the vows he swears to you, he once swore to me; and he swore them to me with the same voice, tremulous with pa.s.sion, and with the same burning glances.
But you think you will be his wife, and I never was. What does that matter? What does he tell you? That he will love you forever, because his love is under the protection of G.o.d and of men. He told me, precisely because our love was not thus protected, that we should be united by indissoluble bonds,--bonds stronger than all others. You have his promise: so had I. And the proof of it is that I gave him every thing,--my honor and the honor of my family, and that I would have given him still more, if there had been any more to give. And now to be betrayed, forsaken, despised, to sink lower and lower, until at last I must become the object of your pity! To have fallen so low, that you should dare come and offer me to give up Jacques for my benefit! Ah, that is maddening! And I should let the vengeance I hold in my hands slip from me at your bidding! I should be stupid enough, blind enough, to allow myself to be touched by your hypocritical tears! I should secure your happiness by the sacrifice of my reputation! No, madam, cherish no such hope!"
Her voice expired in her throat in a kind of toneless rattle. She walked up and down a few times in the room. Then she placed herself straight before Dionysia, and, looking fixedly into her eyes, she asked,--
"Who suggested to you this plan of coming here, this supreme insult which you tried to inflict upon me?"
Dionysia was seized with unspeakable horror, and hardly found heart to reply.
"No one," she murmured.
"M. Folgat?"
"Knows nothing of it."
"And Jacques?"
"I have not seen him. The thought occurred to me quite suddenly, like an inspiration on high. When Dr. Seignebos told me that you had refused to admit the priest from Brechy, I said to myself, "This is the last misfortune, and the greatest of them all! If Count Claudieuse dies without retracting, Jacques can never be fully restored, whatever may happen hereafter, not even if his innocence should be established." Then I made up my mind to come to you. Ah! it was a hard task. But I was in hopes I might touch your heart, or that you might be moved by the greatness of my sacrifice."
The countess was really moved. There is no heart absolutely bad, as there is none altogether good. As she listened to Dionysia"s pa.s.sionate entreaty, her resolution began to grow weaker.
"Would it be such a great sacrifice?" she asked.
Tears sprang to the eyes of the poor young girl.
"Alas!" she said, "I offer you my life. I know very well you will not be long jealous of me."
She was interrupted by groans, which seemed to come from the room in which the count was lying.
The countess half-opened the door; and immediately a feeble, and yet imperious voice was heard calling out,--
"Genevieve, I say, Genevieve!"
"I am coming, my dear, in a moment," replied the countess.
"What security can you give me," she said, in a hard and stern voice, after having closed the door again,--"what security do you give me, that if Jacques"s innocence were established, and he reinstated, you would not forget your promises?"
"Ah, madam! How or upon what do you want me to swear that I am ready to disappear. Choose your own securities, and I will do whatever you require."
Then, sinking down on her knees, before the countess, she went on,--
"Here I am at your feet, madam, humble and suppliant,--I whom you accuse of a desire to insult you. Have pity on Jacques! Ah! if you loved him as much as I do, you would not hesitate."