The House of Egremont

THE Château de la Rivière near Pont-à-Mousson, as Madame de Beaumanoir had said, was but a rookery, so aged and decayed it was. But it was so exquisitely placed, it was so quaint, so remote, so peaceful; the roses, red and white, which climbed all over the gray walls were so fragrant, the purple woods were so darkly beautiful, what wonder that Roger Egremont and Michelle thought it a paradise? For they were there together and alone in the sweetest days of the year, the time of May and roses.

On leaving Orlamunde, Roger had driven straight toward the French frontier. He did not draw rein, and scarcely drew breath until they were beyond Orlamunde, for two men are but two men after all, and Prince Karl could have sent five hundred after them. Arrived at the frontier town, though, and on French soil, they for the first time had leisure to think, to plan, to eat, and to sleep.

Roger left everything to Berwick, and so did Michelle. Berwick, then, promptly decided that the cumbersome coach must be left behind, four out of the six horses sold, and a travelling-chaise purchased. A woman attendant was secured in the little town for Michelle, and it was arranged that Roger should escort her as far as Pont-à-Mousson, where she knew of a religious house she could enter and remain in until she could communicate with her friends at St. Germains. There was no doubt François Delaunay would be sent after her. Roger Egremont, on leaving Michelle at Pont-à-Mousson, was to rejoin Berwick at Strasburg, Berwick meaning not to go too far from Orlamunde until the guns were replaced at Mondberg and Arnheim, and he had got further instructions from the King of France.

And how had Roger Egremont carried out this plan? As basely as Hugo Stein could have done.

Of course, Roger tried to lay it all on fate, on opportunity, on everything except that tendency to evil which dwells in every man’s breast. It fell out so, he argued miserably and senselessly to himself. At the very first stage, the woman attendant had repented of her bargain to go to Pont-à-Mousson, and had slipped off secretly in the night. So Roger and Michelle were left without any travelling companion.

There was, however, no time to stop, as Berwick and Roger had agreed that Michelle should be got as far from Orlamunde and as quickly as possible. Michelle suggested that they should make for this old château of la Rivière, only two days’ hard travel off, where they could rest a night, get an attendant for her, and press on to Pont-à-Mousson. This seemed the only feasible thing to do; so they set forth from the village where the treacherous attendant had deserted them, and made haste to reach la Rivière. Roger rode Merrylegs, and the post-boys drove Michelle in the chaise.

They reached la Rivière late on the second evening from the frontier. They found an old man and his wife in charge, whom they knocked up at ten o’clock at night. The post-boys were dismissed, old Pierre cared for the tired horses, and old Marianne made Roger and Michelle decently comfortable in the tumble-down old château. At last they had a breathing spell, and Roger slept in a bed, instead of sitting in a chair in the corridor near Michelle’s door, with his hand on his pistol, as he had done for two nights before.

The next morning both of them slept late; the last three days were calculated to try the soul of either man or woman. What wonder was it, then, that when Roger saw how weary and languid Michelle was, he should say to her that she was not fit to travel to Pont-à-Mousson that day, and should rest at la Rivière? So much with a good conscience; but he did not go farther, as a gentleman should, and take horse to Pont-à-Mousson, and fetch her back an attendant on a pillion behind him, so that Michelle should not be without the constant company of a woman. No. The Devil did not need to take him up upon a high mountain, and show him the kingdoms of the earth in order to seduce him from his duty; all the fiend had to do was to picture forth to Roger’s imagination the fond delight of a day in May, at that lovely secluded spot, alone with Michelle. Of course, the favorite argument of Satan was used with good effect: it would never be known. And Michelle, who should have asked him to go to Pont-à-Mousson, if he had not so offered, listened to the same argument from the same source. Nay, she was even more casuistical than Roger, and tried to silence her conscience by saying to herself that it was the good God who had given her this one day with the man she loved, as a recompense for five years of torment.

They would certainly go on to Pont-à-Mousson the next day; of that there was no doubt whatever,—so each one declared in secret.

Old Marianne gave them some breakfast, and then Michelle, this wearied lady, who was not able to travel in a chaise a day’s ride, suddenly recovered her strength and spirits. When Roger said that it was not prudent for her health for her to go farther until the next day, her face became so illumined, she smiled so radiantly, the faint dimple showing in her cheek, that Roger was dazed with joy, and thought the six years since they had made hay in the meadows of St. Germains must be a bad dream. And when he remained silent on the subject of his going to Pont-à-Mousson, Michelle did not so much as once remind him of his duty. She acted as if two or three days of travel could fatigue him completely as it did her—him, Captain Roger Egremont, a campaigner in the Irish Brigade.

After it was tacitly settled between their two pairs of eyes, their tongues taking no part in the debate, that they should spend that day, the loveliest May day ever seen, together and alone at la Rivière, each saw rapture in the face of the other. Roger lay back in his chair on one side of the table where they had been breakfasting, and Michelle lay back in her chair on the other side, and they could no more have helped smiling than they could have stopped breathing.

“’Tis a heavenly day,” said Roger. “We must see this sweet spot,—this quaint house, the park; we shall have one whole day together.” And there was a note of triumph in his voice.

After breakfast, they started out on their exploring expedition. In the night, Roger had heard the rippling of water over stones; and to their delight they found a beautiful, shallow, clear, little river, tinkling under the windows of an old saloon with its moth-eaten yellow satin furniture. And, oh, surprise of surprises! there was a stone bridge across the water,—a bridge which some dead and gone Beaumanoir had built for defence; and some other dead and gone Beaumanoir had conceived the notion of building a quaint octagon room on this bridge; and the cushioned window-seats of this room looked down upon the crystal flood of the little river, with its mossy banks. On either side were willows, dipping almost into the water, making dark places where the silver scales of fish glinted.

Michelle—the weary Michelle—walked about this room with the quickest and lightest step imaginable, crying,—

“Look, Roger, look! was ever anything so lovely, so quaint, so delicious? Oh, this place was meant for happiness!”

When she called him Roger, a look of victory came into his eyes, and he took her hand; he drew her to a window-seat, where they sat down together and looked into each other’s eyes as they had often longed and never dared to before. And presently they averted their eyes and gazed down upon the bright, unquiet water. The roses, which rioted over everything, had dared to cross the bridge from either side, and a great bold red one audaciously climbed into the very window where they sat, and smiled into the two happy faces there. The birds were singing rapturously; the old place had been so quiet and deserted that the birds felt they owned it, but they did not resent the intrusion of another pair of lovers,—it was the mating time of all. The old room itself was charming. Roger called Michelle’s attention to a shelf full of old books; and recognizing a dear friend from whom he had long been parted, he rose and fetched the volume to her. It was Ronsard,—Ronsard, whose poems Roger had recited to her in that never-to-be-forgotten journey,—Ronsard, whose songs he had sung to his guitar. They turned the old, yellow leaves, in quaint black-letter print and antique French, reading a little to each other now and then. There was one little poem about love, and youth, and a sunny sky being all that one could ask in this life. Roger read this to Michelle, and saw her eyes grow dark, and a flush mount to her pale cheek, just as he had seen five years before; and then, suddenly, he burst out with the story of that other volume of Ronsard, which he had thrown on the campfire in the Low Countries.

“I burnt it trying to forget you,” he said.

“But you did not forget me,” Michelle replied softly.

It was very wrong. They had begun to have a suspicion that God had nothing in particular to do with their determination to spend that day together,—but it was only a single day. There could be no great harm in one day of each other’s society,—so they argued to themselves. Never had they had one whole day of each other’s society, and Fate would not soon again be so kind to them. Fate had by that time taken the place of God in the affair. Truly, it was neither God nor Fate, but the devil.

At noonday Marianne gave them a dinner of herbs, which both of them relished as the most delicious meal they had ever eaten, for the same reason that Solomon gave on a similar occasion—there was love therewith. In the afternoon they walked about the small, overgrown, and deserted park and gardens. The place was at all times lonely and secluded, but it had likewise been deserted for many years, and so it gave them a heavenly sense of aloneness. They watched from a moss-grown bench under a great clump of myrtle trees the sun set and the moon rise, and a wind like velvet softly moved the tender leaves. There were roses all about them, and a nightingale sang in the hedge close by. It was late before they returned; but there was no one to question them or make them afraid. They had both dreamed continuously, during five years past, of the bliss of being together. One day of it had far surpassed all their expectations.

The next morning a soft and silvery rain was falling upon the grateful earth. It was impossible to start in such weather,—so said Roger; and Michelle, averting her eyes, said, Yes; it was impossible. Nevertheless, when the sun flickered out, turning the silver rain to gold, they must both go out in the park to see the lovely, dreamlike beauty of the raining and the shining. Toward afternoon a storm came up, and there was heavy thunder and sharp lightning. Michelle was frightened, and cowered on a moth-eaten sofa in one of the remote saloons. Roger sat by her, comforting her, and gently laughing at her terror. The storm continued until evening, when it settled into a steady downpour. It grew cold, and old Pierre made them a morsel of fire in the fireplace of the little room over the bridge, and brought them a couple of candles, and laid their supper on a round table close to the fire.

The little river was now roaring, swollen by the rain, under their feet.

“There will be no travelling to-morrow,” Roger ventured. “The roads will be very heavy. The horses are scarce rested enough to take the road, and, no doubt, all the bridges are washed away.”

Most of this was a lie, and Roger remembered the old saying: “Sin has many tools, but a lie is the handle which fits them all.” Yes, he was lying, and he knew it—and Michelle knew it; but she wished to hear just such lies as that.

If the day was sweet and intimate, what was the evening, spent with no company but their own and that of their dear Pierre Ronsard? They were as far separated from the rest of the universe as if they were on a planet of their own. There were no words to express their deep delight.

It was late before they parted, and early next morning when they met; and neither on that morning nor any other morning did Roger Egremont—this gentleman who prided himself upon his virgin honor, his life open as day, his reverence for a woman’s name and fame—propose to the Princess of Orlamunde, a wife fugitive from her husband and intrusted to his care, to proceed one step upon her way. And Michelle—this woman whose path had been like that of a star—trembled every day, when the sun rose, lest Roger should say, “Come, we must be going.”

As if it were not enough that they had long felt themselves born for each other, they discovered in this daily companionship a multitude and variety of intellectual gifts in common, and their tastes seemed to coincide to a miracle. All the things which Roger Egremont had loved during his whole life, and had never expected to find any human being to sympathize fully with, he discovered Michelle also loved and understood. Neither one of them, in their wildest dreaming, had imagined how entirely each would suffice for the other. They never had a weary or dull moment. There was nothing, from politics and campaigning to the harvesting of wheat, in which Michelle did not prove an intelligent companion. In some things, in the politics of Europe, for example, she was better informed than Roger was; but she used her knowledge so gracefully and discreetly that it did not ever offend his masculine self-love. She was, by far, the most intellectual woman he had ever known; and besides all her gifts and graces, she had, in perfection, all those delicate reserves which a woman should have, the want of which had always shocked Roger in poor Bess Lukens. Although every hour she remained at la Rivière Michelle risked her name and fame, yet did she as scrupulously observe etiquette as if she had been living in the palace of Versailles, with two thousand pairs of critical eyes fixed on her. When Roger, one day, tried to converse with her as she stood at her bedroom window, she shut the window in his face, and sharply rated him afterward for his impropriety. On the night of their arrival, old Marianne had given him a bed in a dark closet of a room, next her own, and he could only reach it either by going outside or going through old Marianne’s room. He would have dearly liked one of the pleasant rooms in the upper part of the building, but he never had the courage to suggest changing his wretched quarters, well knowing that he would not be allowed to. Never did two people more strictly observe all the outward canons of decorum than these two lovers, shut up together in that lonely, sweet place; and never did two people place themselves in a position where this decorum would be more incredulously received if they should assert it.

Every day they spent together the devil provided them with some new source of pleasure. In a dark cupboard Roger found an old viol de gamba. He glued it together, restrung it, and found in it endless pleasure. To it he sang those love songs which made Michelle’s eyes shine like stars. And then—oh, joy, discovering that Michelle had some knowledge of the viol, he taught her the accompaniments. She was quick to learn, but she ever seemed to need more teaching, and then—their hands and eyes met. And Roger, giving poignant meaning to all those burning words, sang as she played, watching the color come and go in her cheek. Then there were long afternoons spent in the woods, hunting the wild roses, which bloomed late in those ferny depths. And there were long, sweet moonlit evenings, when the nightingales sang to them as they walked up and down the terrace, under the quivering aspen leaves, which made black shadows on the white earth. Oh, how keen was their joy!

Even their homeliest wants brought with them charm and amusement and pleasure. Roger gave old Pierre a long string of names, such as Chief Steward, Master of the Horse, Groom of the Chambers, and Cellarer. Michelle called Marianne her Lady-in-Waiting, Mistress of the Robes, and femme de chambre.

There was some antiquated table furniture found in the cupboards and closets of the old château, but there was only one porcelain teacup. Over this teacup Roger and Michelle made merry, squabbled like children, and had endless amusement. They even had that luxury of luxuries—a lovers’ quarrel. Roger, setting a trap in the woods, as he had often done when a lad at Egremont, caught a hare. Michelle insisted that he should set it free; Roger declared it would make excellent soup. He released the little creature at last, but he showed some temper and crossness in the doing; Michelle grew cold to him, and they had the pleasure of quarrelling and the rapture of reconciliation.

Their quiet, intimate talk, day by day, covered many subjects, and avoided others. Neither spoke of the past except in connection with the other. Especially did they wish that the memory of the last five unhappy years should be lost in oblivion, as a prisoner would drop his manacles into the ocean, never to be seen or heard of again. And into that same ocean, they felt, as every day they spent together passed, that a pearl had been dropped.

They did not speak of the future at all, nor indeed suffer themselves so much as to think of it. For them there was neither past nor future,—only the present hour; and the golden glow of each hour together eclipsed all that had gone before, and made them careless as to what was to come afterward.

But in the midst of this deep delight, were they happy? No! a thousand times no! They were not guilty, but before them always yawned an abyss,—an abyss into which each might plunge the other. And already, as far as the verdict of the world might go, they were lost in this abyss. Roger had agreed to take upon himself the charge of Michelle, from an honorable man like Berwick. How could he meet Berwick’s eye again? He positively trembled and broke out in a cold sweat when he thought of it; and that was but a part of what he had to fear. And Michelle—for her husband’s sins against her might be shed the blood of honest men; her King and benefactor might take vengeance for her wrongs; and what would be his position in the eyes of the world, when it came out, where and how and with whom she had passed her time since leaving Orlamunde? Many nights this thought drove her from her bed, and Roger, awake too, and fighting with his conscience, would hear above him her light step, as she walked the floor in her anguish.

Neither of them had ever tried living without the approval of the conscience; for, whatever wrong and folly Michelle had committed at Orlamunde, she was just enough to herself to know she had not committed it wilfully, or willingly, or wantonly; she had been driven to it by the gang of miscreants who had surrounded her. But no one forced her to remain at la Rivière; she stayed because she had neither the wish nor the will to leave it—and she dared not think much on this; that way, madness lay.

And so it was with Roger Egremont. His honor was as his life, and he was now living in defiance of it. In many ways this new conduct of his, new because it was base, affected him strangely. He had been wont to ride abroad, to see and speak with his fellow-men. Now he would not go near the highway, albeit there was no danger of his being recognized; he did not want to see the face of any of his kind except Michelle. Even the occasional presence of old Pierre and Marianne was often distasteful to him.

There were no houses nor even a peasant’s hut in sight from the windows, but on a neighboring hill was a little old church. It could not be seen, but the sound of the church bell could be heard; a singularly rich and sonorous bell, which some echo of the neighboring hillsides repeated with beautiful effect. When, at morning and evening, this bell set up its melodious clangor, Michelle always turned pale,—it seemed to be an accusing voice. Roger, on those occasions, would snatch up the viol and sing to it some merry chansonette—perhaps that gay song which so often rang out at the inn of Michot.

“Amis, passons-le gaîment!”

But it made a discord, a horrid discord, with that deep and serene music—that clear, angelic call to prayer and repentance of the bell.

It may, in short, be judged how happy they were in the Paradise of their own seeking, when it is told that Roger, after a while, began to be haunted by a dreadful apprehension about Michelle; he lived in terror that she might, some delicious day, or some wretched night, throw herself into the river. Something in her eyes, when she heard the sound of the church bell, frightened him. And on those nights when she walked the floor all night, he came, after a time, to rise, and open his outer door, which looked on to the little brawling stream, so that if he should see a white figure fluttering down, he could save it. And something of the same idea came to Michelle.

One day, sitting in the bridge-room, she inadvertently spoke of Berwick.

They had tacitly avoided talking of persons, because if these persons were good, Roger Egremont and the Princess of Orlamunde would be scorned by them; and if bad, this gentleman and lady would be reckoned fit company for them. But on this day Michelle, for once forgetting where she stood, talked of Berwick. She glanced at Roger, and saw that his face had turned pale under his tan and sunburn. She stopped at once, and a painful silence came between them, broken by Roger’s saying, in a tremulous voice,—

“Some day, I shall have to meet Berwick—and then—”

He rose and literally fled from the room. Presently she heard a noise below, and looking out of the window, saw Roger, in the doorway of his wretched chamber, hammering at his horse-pistol. She too ran out of the room, but when she came within his sight as she turned the corner of the building, she walked sedately enough. Going straight up to him, and looking him full in the eye, she said to him calmly,—

“Roger, give me this pistol,” and took it out of his hand.

Roger gazed at her stupidly.

“I—I—was but putting it in order,” he stammered. “I was not thinking of—of—killing myself. How ridiculous! But I don’t know why I should have thought of the pistol at this moment. Only, when I thought of meeting Berwick, the notion of seeing if my pistol were in good condition, came to me in the strangest, strangest way!”

All that day, they were constrained in each other’s company—for the first time. In the afternoon Roger went out alone. He did not come back until toward sunset, and as it was then June, the sun was late in setting. He came up to Michelle, as she sat on the window-seat of the bridge-room, trifling with some embroidery. He looked wearied, as if he had walked far and fast. “Here,” he said, throwing himself in a chair, and holding out one of his strong, brown hands to her, “I have got a thorn in my hand; will you get it out?”

Michelle, to see the better in the waning light, got upon one knee, and took his hand in her two small, soft ones. She trembled, and was so agitated that she could not see the thorn. As she bent her head over, her rich dark hair escaped from the golden net which had confined it, and fell over her like a veil. A faint, wandering, vagrant breeze swept it also over Roger Egremont’s shoulder. He caught it in his free hand and kissed passionately the silky tresses, and Michelle suddenly found the two hands, which were trying to get the thorn out, imprisoned in a grasp like fate. She felt the thorn then; it cut into her hand as into Roger’s; but neither drew apart, or flinched from the pain. They looked into each other’s eyes and actually smiled; the pangs of the thorn they bore with joy, as a type of the joy with which they would bear the pangs of love such as theirs must bring. But in the midst of their exaltation came, from afar, through the open window, over the woods and fields and rocks, the chiming of the church bell. It smote the air with music, the sweet sound of it delicately overbore the murmur of the river, and faint and soft as it was, it seemed to fill the heavens and the earth as did the grand diapason of the great cathedral bells at Meaux.

Instinctively, and at the same moment, they remembered Meaux. They had listened with joy to the mighty clanging of those noble bells on that spring morning, more than five years before, because then both were innocent, high-minded, serene in the consciousness of right living. But now—but now— Michelle rose, as pale as a ghost. Roger did not detain her a moment. She went slowly from the room, and when she reached the door, turned, and looked back a full minute at Roger. Her glance was not one of reproach; her eyes said as plainly as her lips could have said,—

“I love you—I love you—I love you.”

He did not see her again that night. She sent word to him at supper time that she felt ill and would remain in her room. He asked no questions, but ate his solitary supper in sullen silence. He felt ill too—very ill in mind—so ill, in fact, that he was driven forth, as in most of the crises of his life, to spend the whole night out-of-doors, under the solemn stars.

He walked about in the park, through the whole night, an angel and a devil wrestling within him. Should he let Michelle go away,—for after that last meeting, he felt sure she would make some sort of a struggle to leave him,—or should he make her stay? He was torn with agony between these two thoughts. He had always found some comfort before in the silent companionship of his mother, Nature, but she had no consolation for him in this. He saw the moon rise and sink, and the faint glory of the dawn, and he was farther away from a resolve than he had been when he had first wrestled with himself. Suddenly, it was just at five o’clock on a June morning, he heard the church bell again. It was like a voice from Heaven. It cast him upon his knees on the green earth, in the forest, to ask for light and help, and instantly light and help came to him. He would spare the woman he loved. He had loved her with a true and honorable love, and true and honorable should his love remain. He adored God and thanked Him for His mercy in bringing His unworthy servant to a knowledge of sin. For the first time since his boyhood he wept, wept tears of penitence and of thankfulness, and those burning drops washed his soul and made it clean again. The bell continued its sweet chiming; it sounded to Roger Egremont like the pæans of angels rejoicing over one sinner doing penance.

He rose presently to his feet, and walked rapidly back to the château. He was once more Roger Egremont, a gentleman. He was humbled when he reflected that twice in his life he had come within a frightful chance of utterly losing himself,—the miserable time when he was first cast into Newgate, and the delicious hours he had spent at la Rivière. He promised that, having been so great a sinner himself, he would never look with anything but pity on the greatest sinner that walked the earth.

As he made his way toward the château, his acute and practical mind began to work out the actual solution of the entanglements he had brought on Michelle and himself. He would see her as soon as she arose. He would take, as he deserved, all the blame upon himself for the cruel position in which he had placed her, and humbly beg her pardon as he had begged that of his Maker. He felt sure of her forgiveness and of her love. They might never be united, but neither could ever doubt the other. They would, of course, devise an immediate plan for leaving la Rivière. He would probably go straight to Pont-à-Mousson, to the religious house of which she had spoken before they had reached la Rivière; she had never so much as mentioned it to him since. He would make a frank confession to the Mother Superior, who was sure to be a discreet woman and kindly. So much was due her, and with her help it would be easy enough to keep quiet the time—thirty-seven days; he knew the exact number—which Michelle had spent at la Rivière. After taking Michelle to Pont-à-Mousson, he would join Berwick. He divined that Michelle would exact that he should confess all to Berwick, and that, as a man of honor, he was prepared to do.

When he reached the château, he thought he had never seen the old gray pile so lovely, so inviting, as in the dewy freshness of the morning. He stopped under Michelle’s window, and his aspiration was like a prayer. It was still so early that he thought he would snatch an hour’s sleep; he began to feel the fatigue which follows upon many hours of exhausting emotions, and going to his dingy little room, he threw himself, dressed, upon his bed and instantly fell into a delicious slumber. He thought he had slept but an hour, when he waked and tumbled out of bed. As he opened the door leading outward, sunshine flooded the room, and he saw that it was near noon. Cursing himself for a sluggard, he glanced involuntarily at Michelle’s window. It was closed, nor was the window in the bridge-room open.

A deadly presentiment struck his heart. Instead of going into the château and calling softly for Michelle, as he usually did when he did not see her, he called loudly for Marianne. The old woman was long in coming, but presently she appeared.

“Where is the Princess Michelle?” he asked.

“Gone,” coolly replied the old Marianne. “She left a letter for you, which, however, I am not to give you until to-night.”

Roger seized her roughly.

“Give me that letter instantly,” he shouted in her ear.

Old Marianne was obstinate.

“You may strike me if you like, but I will not give you the letter an hour before my lady told me,” she answered, doggedly.

And Roger Egremont, this honorable gentleman, whose creed was gentleness to women, who had gone to sleep a penitent man, resolving to do right even if it required the crucifixion of the soul, fell into the most unseemly passion imaginable. The devil in a man dies hard, and even after he is conquered he can give much trouble. Roger Egremont, this strong, weather-beaten man, was unnerved and unstrung by the strain of furious emotions from which he had suffered the whole night, and these words of Marianne’s seemed altogether unbearable to him. He began to storm and swear frightfully at her; he did everything, this chivalrous Captain Egremont, but strike the poor old woman. Nay, in his eagerness to find the letter, he rushed into her poverty-stricken room; he turned her poor belongings upside down, threw her few wretched sticks of furniture about, and behaved like a ruffian and a madman. Such is human nature at its worst, even in an honest man, when he is cruelly balked. But he could not find the letter. He then condescended to beg. He offered the old woman half the money he had, all of it, if only she would give him the letter. But his previous conduct had aroused all the doggedness in an obstinate nature. Marianne would not give him the letter.

And Pierre had gone, and the chaise and the post-horses. He easily tracked them to the front of the château. Yes, there was the very imprint of Michelle’s delicate feet in the mossy earth. She had got into the chaise at the foot of the terrace, and the wheel tracks passed through the park, and into the highroad, half a mile away. Then they were lost.

He had some wild idea of mounting his horse and pursuing Michelle—but where? He knew nothing of the country, and could have no inkling of the direction she had taken. No. In the midst of his wildness he realized that the only thing to do was to wait for the letter.

He returned to the château as nearly mad as a sane man could be. To desert him in that manner! Had she, then, ever truly loved him? Yesterday—last night—this morning—what answer would his heart have given him? But now— He struck his forehead and swore to himself that she had never, never loved him.

He had a dreadful conviction that the thing was final with her; and going all over the château, and wandering amid the grounds was like going to the old familiar places the day that the one who made them bright has been laid in the earth. Yes,—this was the very spot in the bridge-room where they had sat the evening before. Not even the chair had been moved in which he had sat when she knelt before him, and her hair had fallen upon his shoulder. On the window-seat lay her embroidery, just as her hand had dropped it. Close to it lay the volume of Ronsard. The place they had last read was marked with some rose leaves; she had gathered them from the bold marauder whose lovely face had laughed in at the window—and those leaves were not yet withered.

In the old saloon was the viol. Roger had thrown it down carelessly on a table. Michelle, with a woman’s orderly instinct, had put it in its case, and carefully closed it. That had been only twenty-hours before.

These things almost broke his heart. As sunset approached he went back to the bridge-room and sullenly threw himself into the same chair in which he had sat when last he saw Michelle vanish through the door. It came to him that there was something like farewell in that last long look, and the memory of it softened him. Love was in her eyes; the mere recollection of that look was convincing. Dwelling upon it, he fell into a better frame of mind, and gradually he came to his other self. And when the evening shadows lay upon the land, and the dying light wrapped all the earth in its soft, mysterious splendor, and the unseen bell echoed sweetly from the hill, Roger Egremont, changed and melted, cried out aloud in his agitation, “Michelle, Michelle, forgive me! Forgive me, Michelle!”

As if in answer to this, her letter was thrown in to him at the window. This is it,—

Here some illegible words followed, and then her name.

Five weeks afterward, as Berwick was sitting in the garden of the Swan Inn at Strasburg one evening, he saw Roger Egremont approaching on Merrylegs. Roger dismounted, and Berwick went forward to greet him. He looked worn and tired,—so much so that Berwick asked him if he had been ill. No, he had not been ill; he would tell all as soon as he had had some supper,—he had ridden hard that day.

After supper he proposed to Berwick to walk into the country. Berwick knew then that the story of his mysterious absence and silence would be told.

He told it all, without reservation; only, he tried to give out the idea that he had detained Michelle against her will at la Rivière. But he was truly penitent and had obtained her forgiveness. Through the Mother Superior at Pont-à-Mousson, everything would appear quite right for Michelle, and Roger merely told Berwick because he felt he had behaved extremely ill, and had miserably betrayed the trust reposed in him.

Berwick was a shrewd man. He did not believe any man could have detained Michelle at la Rivière. She had gone away in the post-chaise as soon as she was ready. He suspected the exact state of the case, and while he blamed them justly, he pitied the two poor unhappy souls. He said nothing, but after a while held out his hand in a friendly grasp to Roger,—they were standing still by the roadside then. Roger had never expected Berwick to take his hand again. That hand-clasp was the gratefullest one he had ever known in his life.

On returning to the inn Berwick produced two letters which he had been holding for Roger. One was from Dicky,—a mere line saying he was well, and hoped to be soon ordered to England. It was two months old. The second was only three weeks old, and was from Bess Lukens. Something in the letter itself,—hurried and giving no signs of that elaborate care which half-educated persons like poor Bess bestow upon their rare letters—alarmed Roger. It was written from Paris the first of July, and said briefly,—