The House of Egremont

trolled Roger Egremont in a voice, though not so good as Dicky’s, yet highly agreeable. He was riding by the side of François at the time. Berwick had, without so much as saying, “By your leave,” attached himself to Mademoiselle d’Orantia. The two rode in the lead, the travelling-chaise following, and Roger and François came next. The baggage wagon and servants were quite in the rear. To start out in the dewy freshness of a spring morning, on a good horse, upon an adventurous journey, with the lady of one’s love in the party, is not a bad thing. So thought Roger Egremont, undisturbed by Berwick’s possession of Michelle. He did not wish to make too free with his company. He had art enough and wit enough to know that it was well to make her ask herself the reason of his absence.

They had been travelling a good two hours before Roger broke out in song. At their first starting there had been something of uneasiness in the whole party. The receipt of the King’s letters had not seemed to elevate either the Princess Michelle or Madame de Beaumanoir to the pitch of joy. Berwick had jogged along looking even soberer than usual. Even François’s foolish face was clouded. Roger was annoyed at being the only one in the party who was left out of some sort of information or arrangement,—he knew not exactly what, and had no vulgar curiosity to know,—but not to know made him feel like an interloper. However, the sweet spring day, the motion, the exercise, helped to put each one in tune, and when Roger trolled forth his song, waking the woodland echoes, every one wore a cheerful face, and had a composed spirit. There is no such soother of perturbed minds as a good horse, on which to traverse the King’s highway, fair and free.

They made rapid progress, the roads being good, and skirting Paris without passing through it, found themselves at noonday on the side of the town opposite to St. Germains. They chose to stop in a pretty wooded place, rather than at an inn for dinner, Madame de Beaumanoir having brought a huge lot of provisions along. Her cook, however,—an incomparable artist,—had been left behind on a plea of illness; a plea which did not impress his mistress with its sincerity. She was therefore obliged to satisfy herself with the services of her maître d’hôtel and the footman. These two proceeded to lay a white table-cloth on the ground, and set forth a dinner that made the travellers’ hearts rejoice; all except Madame de Beaumanoir, who bemoaned that when they had got to the end of their home supplies she should not again have a decent meal until she returned to her own château and the recalcitrant cook. She even threatened to send back for that functionary, but was dissuaded by the maître d’hôtel betraying that the cook had an engagement in Paris, and had sworn publicly that nothing would induce him to again serve a house where there was a lady at the head of it.

“The ungrateful villain!” cried Madame de Beaumanoir, and proceeded to baste the cook; winding up, however, with the observation that he was right, after all; and if ever she adopted his profession, she too would decline to serve a mistress.

It was a very merry dinner; Michelle laughed and talked more than Roger had ever heard her. The air was unusually mild, even for the spring, and they could almost feel the grass growing under their feet, and see the bursting buds. Their stop, however, was not long. Madame de Beaumanoir was determined to reach Meaux that night, although it made a day of hard travel. But the roads were good, the weather fine, the cattle fresh, and no one balked her. They again took the highway, Roger this time with Michelle. He thought she would be weary and would wish to rest in the travelling-chaise; but he soon found that no old campaigner could sit a horse longer and with less fatigue than this delicately made girl. They talked gayly together, Michelle describing the country, of which she knew something so far. It was flat and rich and well tilled. Roger, as the case always was, found himself bringing into his talk something about the country at Egremont, until, after an hour or two, Michelle, breaking into laughter, said,

“Mr. Egremont, it is the seventh time, when I have said a spot, a stream was beautiful, land well cultivated, or anything in praise of this country through which you are travelling, that you have responded, ‘Madam, you should see such and such a one at Egremont!’”

“True,” replied Roger, quite sheepish and abashed. “I dare say I have made a fool of myself about Egremont; I always do. But to tell you the truth from my heart, I cannot help it. I never could see the forest at St. Germains at evening without thinking, thinking, thinking about the woods of Egremont, how they looked with the evening light shining upon their dark masses. And if a bird sang in a bush it recalled the singing of the thrushes and blackbirds in the hedges. Nor can I look at a rising moon, without seeing its reflection in the Dark Pool where the river widens out, under the myrtle bushes and alders—for myrtle does actually grow in the open at some spots in the path—and the oak avenue. If Hugo Stein has cut down all the oaks, as he often urged me to do—”

Roger unconsciously clenched his fist. His face was so expressive that Michelle could not but note it. Usually he was a comely man, with his wide, roguish, laughing mouth, white teeth, and glowing eyes; but when he was angry he became positively ugly. However, he checked himself in time, saying,—

“Pray pardon a man who has not yet learned to govern himself as he should. And now, think you that you can ride all the way to Meaux?”

“To be sure I can,” replied Michelle, with spirit. “I hope Monsieur Bossuet will be there; you know he is Bishop of Meaux, and perhaps we may have the good fortune to hear a sermon from him.”

“And perhaps,” piously added Roger, “being then well into the champagne country, we may get some of the best wine in France.”

They rode on steadily. At four o’clock they again stopped for a rest. They were then twelve miles from Meaux; but at Meaux Madame de Beaumanoir would sleep. At five they again started. Their last stage was made slowly, for the horses were tired, and the baggage wagon was far behind. The moon was high in the heavens before the roofs and steeples of Meaux, then a large city, came into sight. The town was quiet for the night; it was quite eight o’clock. The air had grown sharp, and Michelle had put on her travelling-mantle, and Roger found his furred cloak comfortable. They passed the huge mass of the cathedral, standing nobly and solemnly beautiful in the moonlight. Berwick piloted them to the chief inn of the town. The approach of such a party, and the incessant clacking of Madame de Beaumanoir’s tongue waked the neighborhood. They had supper in a private room before a good fire, and as the case generally is with travellers’ suppers, it was very gay. Then they parted for the night. Each one protested that he or she, as it might be, was perfectly fresh and ready to take the road at sunrise; but for the sake of the horses, they deferred their start until nine o’clock the next morning.

Berwick and Roger had a room between them with two beds; and it did not take them long to seek their rest.

At sunrise next morning Berwick was wakened by Roger moving softly about the room, dressing himself as quietly as possible. Ever since daylight they had heard at intervals the deep-toned music of the great cathedral bells. The chimes were exquisitely attuned, and their soft, deep, rich, melodious thunder was like a vast sea of aerial music, which rose and fell like the waves of some mighty ocean. The glorious sound would arise, filling the heavens and the earth with its majestic harmonies, swelling grandly and more grandly until it seemed to reach the great arch of the sky; and then to melt away, in the softest, the sweetest, the most delicate vibrations, only to rise, to swell, to die away once more.

Roger could not but stop sometimes in his rapid dressing to listen to this noble diapason; but he had great work on hand, and proceeded with it. He thought Berwick was asleep, until just as Roger with hat and cloak in hand, was leaving the room, Berwick rolled over in his bed and said quietly,—

“You go to the cathedral?”

“Yes,” replied Roger.

“I am pretty sure you will find her there. She said as much at supper last night.”

Roger went out laughing.

The inn was not far from the cathedral. The morning was fair and bright, and the sun lighted up the dark and narrow streets. When he came to the cathedral square the bells were still booming, booming thunderously. A great flight of birds, hovering around the gold-tipped pinnacles of the cathedral, shining in the glory of the morning, added their call to prayer and thankfulness, and acknowledgment of the good God, to the majestic command of the mighty bells.

“Come and give thanks,” was the song of the bells. “Bring not into this sacred place any repinings against God, any ill-will against man. Behold here the places sacred to His saints, who bore the utmost malice of men, and yet praised God with great joy and much thanks. And leave outside all pride of rank and estate and all shame of humble condition; within these doors all are equal. Enter.”

A hump-backed boy in a ragged smock was on one side of the great open door. On the other side sat a man in a tattered uniform of a private soldier, but Roger saw in his face and bearing some ineffaceable mark of the gentleman ill-treated of fortune. He remembered having often heard beggars cursed, but he did not remember to have read any of those curses in the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Roger gave liberally out of his slender purse to each of these poor suppliants, calling the boy “my lad,” and the old soldier “my comrade.” They thanked him more with their eyes than their tongues; and glancing up, Roger found Michelle close by, and bending upon him the soft splendor of her eyes. He blushed and smiled, like a boy. Without a word she joined him and they entered the great cathedral together.

Mass was beginning, and the low voice of the priest was broken by the delicious clamor of birds under the eaves. The bells having ceased their mighty music, the great golden voice of the organ in the organ-loft was lifted up and searched the arches and echoed from the vaulted roof. The interior of the cathedral was all purple and gold in the shimmering morning sunshine; the main altar glowed like fire, and the side altars and the statues of saints and martyrs were bathed in iridescent light, or else gleamed softly out of mellow shadows. The tombs with their effigies,—some of them of warriors of the Church and heroes of the State, others of women, royal or humble, their monuments telling the eternal story of love and death,—were illuminated with the rays of the morning; it was all inexpressibly lovely, solemn, and touching.

Roger Egremont kneeled on the bare stone floor by Michelle’s side. He prayed earnestly for his own forgiveness, and asked God to teach him how to forgive,—a lore in which he had but little learning. Presently, the organ, after giving its praise joyfully and majestically, became a murmur of music, like the echo of the wind among the trees, and then was stilled. The little bell tinkled, and there was the awful and solemn moment of the Sacrifice.

Roger Egremont bent his head to the ground and asked that God would be merciful to him, a sinner. And contemplating all His mercies, Roger became lost in love and adoration, and had one moment, one brief moment, in which he saw as far as man can see, into the depths of God’s perfect goodness, His tender love for all His children, His willingness to forgive, His fatherly call to repentance; and Roger Egremont humbly besought his Maker to make him a better man. Then, after the sweet silence all over the vast church, the organ pealed forth again in a shout of music and gladness, and the air about him quivered and throbbed with the anthem of praise. And looking up, he saw Michelle’s eyes fixed upon him with a look he never forgot to the longest day of his life.

Presently all was over and they went out into the air. As they passed the holy-water font, Michelle took some in her hand, and after crossing herself, gently sprinkled a few drops on Roger Egremont. He felt it as a consecration.

When they were again together on the street, in the bright sunshine, Roger felt strangely happy. He looked at Michelle, expecting to see happiness reflected in her eyes. Instead he saw only misery. A sudden change had come over her. She looked unhappy and listless, and in place of the light, quick step with which she had entered the cathedral, she was languid and walked with her eyes on the ground. It was like a cold douche to Roger Egremont, glowing with enthusiasm and melting emotions.

“Mademoiselle,” he said to her humbly. “It is yet early—but seven of the cathedral clock. There is a plenty of time for a walk.”

“No, I must return to the inn at once. I am not used to being out alone. I cannot walk with you.”

This prudishness upon the part of a woman who was half English, and who had an independence that marked her among all the women he had ever known, surprised and chilled Roger. He said not another word, but escorting her back to the inn, and into the courtyard, left her, with a ceremonious bow.

He went for his walk, but the sun did not shine so bright, and he thought the birds clamorous, and he met many beggars, to none of whom he gave anything. He realized that he was not so good a man away from the woman he loved as with her,—however hopeless that love might be.

At nine o’clock they set forth, and travelled half the distance to Épernay, a short day’s travel. Mademoiselle d’Orantia still rode her horse, but she did not ride alone with Roger Egremont any that day. Either Berwick was on one side of her, or François. Madame de Beaumanoir, declaring she was lonely, commanded Roger to take a seat in the berline with her, where she gave him the entire history of every scandal that had occurred in her time at the court of the blessed King Charles the Second. In several of these Roger’s father figured, and Roger himself, who had learned to hate his father’s memory, yet fumed and fretted at being regaled with stories of that father’s peccadilloes. He knew Madame de Beaumanoir was far from a stupid woman, and he did not think her malicious, yet she delighted in telling him things he did not wish to hear. Presently an inspiration struck him.

“Oh!” he bawled suddenly, drawing up his leg as if cramped with pain. “Madam, my right leg seems paralyzed. I think I never rode in a wheeled vehicle so long before in my life!”

There was nothing for it but that he must get out and walk half a mile. At the end of the half-mile, the berline was waiting for him, the footman holding the door open. Roger got in. Madame de Beaumanoir resumed her stories. Within half an hour she remarked,—

“I am not at all surprised to hear of the doings at play of the sons of Mr. Egremont of the Sandhills. Their father, I warrant you, was no saint, nor hero either. A more selfish, wrongheaded man—though I believe he was reckoned a man of honor—”

“My leg!” exclaimed Roger, opening the chaise door without ceremony and jumping out while the chaise was going at a good speed.

When next he got in Madame de Beaumanoir very civilly inquired after his cramped leg.

“Much better, thank you, madam,” replied Roger, politely. “A few steps on the ground restores the circulation at once. But madam, I foresee that whenever you tell anything to the discredit of my family, it stops the circulation in my leg as if you had tied a bandage about it. So I implore you to desist if you desire my company.”

Madame de Beaumanoir was so pleased with his effrontery that she threatened to kiss him, which frightened him extremely.

The inn they made that night was but a poor one in a small village. When they looked at the dingy and uninviting room, Michelle said to Roger,—

“I thought, Mr. Egremont, that we were to sleep often at the Sign of the Shining Stars, as you called the out-of-doors once to me. Would that not be better than this wretched place?”

“No,” replied Roger; “but wait until we get to the mountain passes. We may have to do it then.”

“And I know I shall like it,” cried Michelle.

One wretched room was shared by Berwick and Roger. Berwick, wrapping himself in his cloak, said, “This is luxury for a campaigner.”

Roger had meant to swear at the landlord next morning, but Berwick’s words shamed him out of it.

The next day they penetrated deeper into the rich champagne country toward Épernay. The peasants were at work in the vineyards. They sang at their work. It was a cheerful sight to watch them in the balmy air, their harsh voices mellowed by distance. This day Roger again rode with Michelle, and found her kind. But it seemed to him as if every step they took from Paris she lost her gayety of heart. He had ever found in her a willingness to talk and think more soberly than was usual among her countrywomen. Now, however, although she often smiled, she did not laugh.

At Épernay, they fell in with a great party of people going to Paris in company. They were of the surrounding gentry, and comprised a number of those who held small places at court and had come on visits to their homes, generally in search of money. Hearing that Madame de Beaumanoir’s party was at the principal inn they all came to visit her in the evening, and to propose they should spend the next day together. One of the gentlemen, the Chevalier de Montbois, invited them all to his château. Roger was pleased at this. He wished to know something of the real country life of France; he had only seen that strange medley at St. Germains, the intolerable round at Marly and Versailles, and a little of Paris.

He was charmed with his day at the château of Montbois, and comparing the life with that of the same class in England secretly thought the French the better. There was much mild wine drunk, but all remained sober. There was a light-hearted gayety among them that delighted him. They had dinner served to a large company, within the château, and the sun being then very warm on the south terrace, they trooped out-of-doors to dance to the music of a pipe and tabor. The father of Monsieur de Montbois, an old gentleman of seventy, with snow-white hair, led off the dance with Michelle. She tripped gracefully, holding up her skirt, and her high-heeled red shoes leaving their pretty impress in the soft earth. Berwick danced with dignity, though rather stiffly, being used to parquet floors; Roger, however, who always appeared well when out-of-doors, was so agile and light of heel that the old Monsieur de Montbois fell in love with him and challenged him to a trial in dancing. Roger was artful enough to let the graybeard outdance him, and as he leaned, panting, against a tree, and pleaded more fatigue than he really felt, Michelle passing him whispered,—

“Do not dance again for some time—else your kindly ruse will be detected.” And then said out, aloud, in the next breath,—

“Mr. Egremont, I know, will dance with me now.”

“Pardon, mademoiselle,” exclaimed that arch-hypocrite, “but Monsieur de Montbois has so winded me that I must rest during this next dance. ’T is the first one I ever missed in my life because I could not do it—and to miss dancing with you mademoiselle!”

Monsieur de Montbois embraced and kissed him, crying out,—

“Oh, brave and gallant Englishman! How I love you!”

In the evening they returned to the inn, and to a good supper. Roger began to find this journey more agreeable than even he had expected—and he had expected much. He loved being out in the open all day, and the travel through a new country charmed him. He was in company with the woman whose society most pleased him of any on earth, and Berwick, the man he most esteemed and admired of any in the world, and they were both very, very kind to him. That day they travelled as far as Châlons-sur-Marne. It was but a short day’s travel, and they reached the banks of the Marne by four o’clock in the afternoon. Michelle still disdained the chaise, and professed her determination to ride a-horseback all the way to Orlamunde. François Delaunay, on the contrary, grew stiff with so much riding, and had to take to the chaise, much to the disgust of Madame de Beaumanoir, who considered it as another proof that he was a milksop. The poor young man, exposed to the gibes of his benefactress in the chaise, and suffering from an ill-gaited horse when he chose another mode of travel, was an object of much diversion to the rest of the party.

“It is well to harden one’s self, mademoiselle,” remarked Roger, when Michelle’s endurance was praised at François’s expense. “The day may come when you will long to see your own land and ourselves, your own friends, before the time appointed for you to return; and then—presto! all you have to do is to mount your horse, turn his nose toward France, and ride as you are now riding—and you will be there.”

Michelle, in reply, turned on him two eyes, so filled with a sudden fear and melancholy that Roger was amazed and abashed.

“It might very well be,” she said. “I might desire to make my way back to France, but I should be pursued and brought ignominiously back. No! I hope I shall ever have sense enough to appear to submit voluntarily to what I cannot help.”

Roger was still more puzzled at her words. She and Madame de Beaumanoir were going to visit their relative, the Prince of Orlamunde. No time was fixed for their return, but no one had power to detain them a day longer than they wished. But then he remembered uncomfortably that there was something in this visit which he did not wholly understand, and so he relapsed into a sulky silence.

The sun was shining on the broad, bright Marne when they reached it. They had had no bad weather so far. A boat was got for them, and it took three trips to transport the passengers, with the chaise and baggage wagon. The saddle-horses swam the stream. When they reached the opposite bank, Michelle’s horse being too wet for her to mount, Roger offered his escort to walk with her to the inn of the Golden Lion, where they were to stop.

They walked, therefore, from the river bank to the inn, a considerable distance, through tortuous streets. It was not the same as walking in the pleasant country lanes. The sights and sounds and smells were not inviting; but Roger admired Michelle’s calm and unruffled air at things that would have provoked spleen in most women.

Madame de Beaumanoir, who was not, after all, so young as she had been when she was a reigning toast at the court of Charles the Second, retired with her woman as soon as supper was over. Michelle being obliged to go also, Berwick and Roger spent their evening together, as they had usually done since the beginning of the journey. François did not give them much of his company, being usually engaged in writing down in his commonplace book all his acts and reflections for the day. To-night he sighed heavily, as, at the table in a corner of the common room, he wrote, and then desisted, and then wrote again.

“What is the trouble, Delaunay?” asked Berwick, flourishing a decanter of wine in François’ direction. “Come and be jolly with a couple of sinners.”

“I would I were such a sinner as you two,” sighed François. “You are gentlemen and men of honor, and have no scruples in the life you lead. While I, gentlemen, I am the most tormented man on earth by that—”

François stopped; he too was a man of honor, and received much kindness along with many cruel gibes daily from Madame de Beaumanoir. And Berwick and Roger grinned heartlessly at him and urged him to drown his sorrows in drink, and find surcease of pain in play. François shook his head at these wicked suggestions and went dejectedly to bed.

There is a very noble cathedral at Châlons, and Roger, putting two and two together, determined to visit it early the next morning. He thought he could get quietly out of the inn, without being caught by Berwick; but that sharp-eyed soldier called to him from an upper window as he passed through the courtyard,—

“Turn to the left for the cathedral. She has had above ten minutes’ start of you.”

The morning was dark,—the first unpromising day since they had left St. Germains. Roger walked through a hideous black rain to the cathedral, which loomed dark and mysterious through the veil of rain. A handful of worshippers revealed the vastness of the interior. Roger had no difficulty in distinguishing Michelle in the dusk of the great nave. She had on a long black cloak which enveloped her, and which she drew around her throat, so that it almost concealed her dainty face in its black hood. He thought she was weeping. The sound of the rain descending on the vaulted roof was like thunder, and there was not a ray of light except two sparks of candles on the high altar, and the faint glow of the sanctuary lamp. Roger Egremont said his prayers that morning as most human beings do; that is, he implored happiness from the Giver of all good, as children cry out for their favorite toy, and thought, because he was very earnest about it, that he was very devout. Then he asked forgiveness for his sins and offered forgiveness to his enemies in rather a lukewarm manner, but thought himself extremely pious to do so at all. He had no sweet unction of the soul as at Meaux; but at last some glimmer of light revealed to him his miserable imperfections, the multitude and vigor of his bad impulses; and, as it always follows, the sense of his own unworthiness raised his belief that there was One infinitely good, who desired him to be good also. He looked at Michelle and wondered what sins she had upon her conscience, thinking foolishly, as most men do, that a person removed from the temptations of war, women and liquor, must find it easy to be good. When the service was over Roger was still kneeling, and thinking so profoundly of her that she thought he was praying as she passed him. But some instinct always revealed to Roger when she was near. He detected that light step among many others upon the stone floor. He rose quickly and joined her.

As they walked through the muddy street together Roger suddenly asked her what prayer was.

“I can tell you very readily what it is not,” replied Michelle. “To weary Heaven with our supplications for happiness is not prayer. No such prayers were made in the garden of Gethsemane, nor upon Calvary.”

Roger was abashed.

“I see,” he said sorrowfully, “that I do not yet know what it is to pray.”

“What are your prayers?” asked Michelle, very gently, but half laughing. Roger, assisting her over puddles and trying to shield her from the rain with his broad hat, replied,—

“I think my first prayers were that I might succeed in catching my game; for, as you know, my youth was spent in caring for some of God’s dumb creatures far beyond their worth,—such as horses and dogs,—and mercilessly destroying others, like fishes and foxes. Then, when I grew older, I prayed that the reign of King James might succeed,—you see, mademoiselle, I had a great stake in it, being a staunch supporter of the King,—and then I demanded, rather than asked, that God should continue me in health and prosperity. After I was in Newgate gaol, I did not pray at all for a while, thinking that the Most High had treated me shabbily in suffering me to come to such a pass in defence of my King and country against the foreigner.”

Roger told this with such an air of naïveté that Michelle smiled quite openly.

“When I again prayed, it was that God would punish my enemies, especially Hugo Stein, who calls himself Hugo Egremont. I can truly say that when it came to praying for revenge upon him, I wrestled in prayer as did Jacob with the angel. Presently I saw the folly of this, and concluded to leave Hugo Stein’s punishment in God’s hands—as I could not take it out, observe—and meanwhile to do all that lay in my small powers to compass Hugo’s destruction. That is what men call, I believe, submitting to God’s will.”

Michelle was almost laughing now as she glanced up, her fair face looking quite roguish under her black hood, her eyes dancing as they met Roger’s, which were comically serious.

The dark rain was still pouring, and it dripped upon his bare brown head, with his long curls on his shoulders, and shone upon his sun-browned, vivid face, as he held his hat to protect her from the rain. He kept on gravely,—

“When I came to St. Germains I began to see—well, as you have said, what prayer was not. I could not give thanks for the loss of my estate, as the King does daily for the loss of his three kingdoms. His Majesty thinks he led a wicked life in his youth, especially in breaking his vows of fidelity to his wife,—a most heinous sin, I take it,” Roger added boldly, desiring the approval of the lady in whose sweet company he was at that moment; “but I reckon myself to have led a clean and gentlemanly life when I was in the enjoyment of Egremont. Most of my sins came from the losing of it; so I have no reason to give thanks for that loss. But of late when I go into a church or a chapel, and kneel down to pray, I think less of my grievances, and more of the perfections of the good God. My injuries seem but small to what Christ endured. I am far, very far off from praying well, but I do not pray so ill as I once did—and oh, mademoiselle, what a fool you must think me for telling you all this!”

“Not at all,” answered Michelle, in a soft, low voice. They were then passing through a public square, under trees which shielded them a little from the rain, and they seemed alone and far from the rest of the world. “All human beings, I know, go along the road you have described—women, more than men; for we lead such interior lives, we dwell so much with our thoughts and our feelings and our prayers, that they are more to us than the same things are to men. All I ask for now is that, knowing my duty, I may do it, that no human being may ever be wronged by me, no matter how great my malice against him may be, and that I may have the privilege to suffer in place of those whom I love.”

“And whom do you love as much as that, mademoiselle?” suddenly asked Roger.

Michelle looked at him with startled eyes. She stopped still in the path. Roger, his eyes fixed on her, read her like an open book. Whom, indeed, did she love? She had neither father nor mother, brother nor sister. The tie was strong between Madame de Beaumanoir and herself despite their unlikeness—there had been kindness on the one side, gratitude on the other; but not the affection which asks to be sacrificed for the beloved object. There was François, a good fellow, and she had friends, but—

“I perceive,” she said presently, “that I have deceived myself. I am poorer than I thought.”

“You mean, mademoiselle,” said Roger, deferentially, “that some day you hope to love so deeply and truly that you can in truth make that prayer to suffer.”

“No,” replied Michelle, quietly, and walking on, “I neither hope nor expect that. My prayer was foolish and insincere,—far more foolish and insincere than any prayer you ever made in your life.”

They walked on without uttering a word more. The morning, dark and dismal before, seemed to have grown a thousand times worse to Roger Egremont. Châlons he thought the dirtiest town in the world; he wondered the King did not make the citizens keep it cleaner. A man was a fool to let the love of a woman lodge in his heart,—to be made wretched one moment by a chance word and joyful the next, for nothing at all. Thus, discontented and unhappy, he reached the inn. Michelle disappeared to change her wet clothes. François, meeting him in the courtyard, said that Madame de Beaumanoir would not start until the weather cleared.

“I cannot stand this infernal inn this whole day,” cried Roger,—it was a remarkably good inn,—“I shall ride ahead as far as Vitry; I may go on to Bar-sur-Aube. I shall order my horse. Make my apologies to the ladies, and say I will rejoin them on the road.”

He called to the ostler to fetch Merrylegs from the stables, and then went in search of breakfast and Berwick. He got his breakfast, and then, Berwick strolling into the common room, Roger told him of his intention to ride ahead.

“You will have enough of this in the campaign,” coolly remarked Berwick; “for my part, I shall keep my cloak dry whenever I can. If you go on to Bar, leave word at the Three Roses in Vitry.”

Roger set forth. The rain still poured, but he felt it not. He was in motion and out-of-doors; that always made his misfortunes seem lighter. He rode ahead steadily, and Merrylegs, who had proved himself worthy of his name, showed no lack of energy in taking the road before him. Every mile Roger put between himself and Châlons, he was less heavy-hearted. Lovers’ pangs are sharp, but singularly curable as long as the lady remains unmarried. At last, just as he saw the old castle rising on the hill at Vitry, the sun came out gloriously. He thought he would not go on to Bar. He turned around and had half a mind to ride back toward Châlons, but mercy for his good Merrylegs restrained him.

He rode into the little town, put up his horse at the Three Roses, and then went for a walk around the old castle. It was the loveliest of all the lovely days they had yet had upon their journey. The face of nature was newly washed, the trees were putting on their new green liveries for the festal time of spring. The sun shone out with a generous and penetrating ardor that warmed the whole earth and all the people on it. The gray old castle basked in the noonday light. Roger Egremont wandered over it and, standing on the ancient parapet under the deep blue sky, saw all the beauty around him—and could enjoy none of it, because Michelle was not there.