Mary felt that Rosine's coming was a help sent to her from above. Alone, without other support than her own heart, which had yielded so utterly, she felt herself at the mercy of her lover. Seeing Rosine, she ran to her and caught her hand.
"What is it, my child?" she said. "What have you come to say?"
She passed her hands over her forehead and eyes to efface, if possible, the signs of her emotion.
"Mademoiselle," said Rosine, "I think I hear a boat."
"In which direction?"
"Toward Saint-Philbert."
"I thought your father's boat was the only one on the lake."
"No, mademoiselle, the miller of Grand-Lieu has one; it is half-rotten to be sure, but some one has no doubt taken it to come over here."
"Well," said Mary, "I'll go with you and see who it is?"
Then, without paying the slightest heed to the young man, who stretched out his arms to her in a supplicating way, Mary, who was not sorry to leave Michel in order to gather up her courage, sprang from the hut. Rosine followed her.
Michel was left alone, completely crushed; he felt that happiness had escaped him, and he doubted the possibility of recovering it. Never again would another such scene bring another such avowal.
When Mary returned, after listening in all directions without hearing anything more than the lapping of the water on the shore, she found Michel sitting on the reeds with his head in his hands. She thought him calm,--he was only depressed; she went to him. Michel, hearing her step, raised his head, and seeing her as reserved on her return as she was emotional before she left him, he merely held out his hand and shook his head sadly.
"Oh, Mary, Mary!" he said.
"Well, my friend?" she replied.
"Repeat to me, for Heaven's sake--repeat to me those dear words you said just now! Tell me again that you love me!"
"I will repeat it, dear friend," said Mary, sadly; "and as often as you wish it, if the conviction that my love is watching tenderly your sufferings and your efforts can in any way inspire you with courage and resolution."
"What!" cried Michel, wringing his hands, "are you still thinking of that cruel separation? Can you expect me, with the knowledge of my love for you, and the certainty of your love for me,--can you still expect me to give myself to another woman?"
"I expect us both to accomplish the duty that lies before us, my friend. That is why I do not regret having opened my heart to you. I hope that my example will teach you to suffer, and inspire you with resignation to the will of God. A fatal chain of circumstances, which I deplore as much as you, Michel, has separated us; we cannot belong to each other."
"But why not? I have made no pledge. I never said one word of love to Mademoiselle Bertha."
"No; but she told me that she loved you. I received her confidence as long ago as that evening when you met her at Tinguy's cottage, and walked home with her."
"But whatever I said to her that night that may have seemed tender referred to you," said the luckless young man.
"Ah! friend, a heart which bends is soon filled; poor Bertha deceived herself. As we returned to the château that night and I was thinking in the depths of my heart, 'I love him,' she said those very words to me aloud. To love you is only to suffer, but to be yours, Michel, would be a crime."
"Ah! my God! my God!"
"Yes. God will give us strength, Michel,--the God whom we invoke. Let us bear heroically the consequences of our mutual timidity. I do not blame you for yours, be sure of that; but, at least, spare me the remorse of feeling that I have made my sister's unhappiness without benefit or advantage to myself."
"But," said Michel, "your project is senseless; the very thing you seek to avoid would surely come of it. Sooner or later Bertha must discover that I do not love her, and then--"
"Listen to me, friend." interrupted Mary, laying her hand on Michel's arm: "though very young, I have strong convictions on what is called love. My education, the direct opposite of yours, has, like yours, its drawbacks, but also some advantages. One of these advantages--a terrible one, I admit--is a practical view of realities. Accustomed to hear conversations in which the past disguised nothing of its weakness, I know, through what I have learned from my father's life, that nothing is more fugitive than the feelings which you now express to me. I therefore hope that Bertha will have taken my place in your heart before she has time to perceive your indifference. That is my hope, Michel, and I pray you not to destroy it."
"You ask an impossibility, Mary."
"Well, if it must be so, it must. You are free not to keep the engagement which binds you to my sister: free to reject the prayer I make to you on my knees; it will be only another wound and shame inflicted on two poor girls already unjustly treated by the world. My poor Bertha will suffer, I know that; but at least I shall suffer with her, and with the same pain as hers; but take care, Michel, lest our sufferings, increased by each seeing that of the other, end by cursing you.
"I implore you, Mary. I conjure you do not say such words,--they break my heart."
"Listen, Michel; the hours are passing, the night is nearly gone, day will soon be here; we must now separate, and my resolution is irrevocable. We have both dreamed a dream which we must both forget. I have told you how you can deserve,--I will not say my love, for you have it,--but the eternal gratitude of your poor Mary. I swear to you," she added, in a deeper tone of supplication than she had yet used; "I swear to you that if you will devote yourself to the happiness of my sister, I will have but one thought, one prayer, in my heart,--that of beseeching God to reward you here below, and in heaven above. If on contrary, you refuse me, Michel, if your heart cannot rise to the level of my own abnegation, you must renounce the sight of us, you must go far away; for, I repeat, and I swear it before God, I will never, my friend, never be yours!"
"Mary, Mary, do not take that oath; leave me some hope, at least. The obstacles around us may lessen."
"To leave you any hope would be doing wrong, Michel; and since the certainty that I share your sufferings has not given you--as you promised me it should--the firmness and resignation which strengthen my own heart, I bitterly regret the confession I have made this night. No," she added, passing her hand across her forehead, "we must have no more dreams; they are too dangerous. I have made you a request, a prayer; you will not listen to it; there is nothing left but to bid you an eternal farewell."
"Never to see you, Mary! Oh, rather death! I will do what you exact--"
He stopped, unable to say the words.
"I exact nothing," said Mary. "I have asked you on my knees not to break two hearts instead of one, and, on my knees, I once more ask it."
And she did, in fact, slip down to the feet of the young man.
"Rise, rise!" he cried. "Yes, Mary, yes, I will do what you want. But you must be there, you must never leave me; and when I suffer too much I must draw my strength and courage from your eyes. Promise me that, Mary, and I will obey you."
"Thank you, friend, thank you. That which gives me strength to ask and accept this sacrifice, is my conviction that nothing is lost for your happiness as well as Bertha's."
"But yours, yours?" cried the young man.
"Do not think of me, Michel." A groan escaped him. "God," she continued, "has given consolations to sacrifice of which the soul knows nothing till it sounds those depths. As for me," said Mary, veiling her eyes with her hand as though she feared they might deny her words, "I shall endeavor to find the sight of your happiness sufficient for me."
"Oh, my God, my God!" cried Michel, wringing his hands; "is it all over,--am I condemned to death?"
And he flung himself face down upon the floor.
At that moment Rosine entered.
"Mademoiselle," she said, "the day is breaking."
"What is the matter, Rosine?" asked Mary; "you are trembling!"
"I am sure I heard oars in the lake; and just now I heard footsteps behind me."
"Footsteps on this lonely islet! you are dreaming, child."
"I think so myself, for I have searched everywhere and seen no one."
"Now we must go," said Mary.
A sob from Michel made her turn to him.
"We must go alone, my friend," she said, "but in an hour Rosine shall come back for you with the boat. Don't forget what you have promised me. I rely upon your courage."
"Rely upon my love, Mary," he said. "The proof you exact is terrible; the task you impose immense. God grant I may not fail under the burden of it."
"Remember, Michel, that Bertha loves you, that she cherishes every glance you give her. Remember, too, that I would rather die than have her discover the true state of your heart."
"Oh, my God! my God!" murmured the young man.
"Courage! courage! Farewell, friend!"
Profiting by the moment when Rosine turned to open the door and look outside, Mary laid a kiss on Michel's forehead. It was a different kiss from that she had given him half an hour earlier. The first was the jet of flame, which darts from the heart of the lover to that of the loved one; the second was the chaste farewell of a sister to a brother.
Michel understood the difference, and it wrung his heart. Tears sprang again to his eyes. He went with the two young girls to the shore, and when he had seen them in the boat he sat down upon a stone and watched the little bark till it was lost in the morning mist that was rising from the lake.
The sound of oars still lingered in his ear; he was listening, as though to some funeral knell which told him that his illusions were vanishing like phantom dreams, when a hand was lightly laid upon his shoulder. He turned and saw Jean Oullier close beside him.
The Vendéan's face was sadder than usual, but it seemed to have lost the expression of hatred which Michel had so often seen there. His eyelids were moist, and two big drops were hanging to the beard which formed a collar round his face. Were they dew? Could they be tears from the eyes of the old follower of Charette?
He held out his hand to Michel, a thing he had never done before. The latter looked at him in surprise, and took, with some hesitation, the hand that was offered to him.
"I heard all," said Jean Oullier.
Michel sighed and dropped his head.
"Noble hearts! both of you," said the Vendéan; "but you were right. It is a terrible task that poor child has set you. May God reward her devotion! As for you, when you feel that you are weakening, let me know, Monsieur de la Logerie, and you'll find out one thing, and that is, if Jean Oullier hates his enemies he can also love those he does love."
"Thank you," replied Michel.
"Come, come!" continued Jean Oullier, "no more tears; it isn't manly to cry. If necessary, I'll try to make that iron head, called Bertha, listen to reason; though I admit to you, in advance, it isn't easy."
"But in case she won't hear reason, there is one thing else you can help me in,--an easy thing."
"What is that?"
"To get myself killed."
Michel said it so simply that it was evidently the expression of his thought.
"Oh, oh!" muttered Jean Oullier; "he really looks, my faith, as if he'd do it." Then he added aloud, addressing the young man: "Well, so be it; if the necessity comes, we'll see about it."
This promise, melancholy as it was, gave Michel a little courage.
"Now, then," said the old Chouan, "come with me. You can't stay here. I have a miserable boat, but by taking some precautions I think we can both of us get safely ashore."
"But Rosine was to return in an hour and row me over," objected the young man.
"She will come on a useless errand, that's all;" replied Jean Oullier. "It will teach her to gossip on the high-road about other people's affairs as she did with you to-night."
After these words, which explained how Jean Oullier came to visit the island of Jonchère, Michel followed him to the boat, and presently, avoiding the road taken by Mary and Rosine, they took to the open country in the direction of Saint-Philbert.
As Gaspard had clearly foreseen, and as he had predicted to Petit-Pierre at the farmhouse of Banl[oe]uvre, the postponement of the uprising till the 4th of June was a fatal blow to the projected insurrection. In spite of every effort and every activity on the part of the leaders of the Legitimist party, who all, like the Marquis de Souday, his daughters, and adherents, went themselves to the villages of their divisions to carry the order for delay, it was too late to get the information sent to the country districts, and these conflicting plans defeated the whole movement.
In the region about Niort, Fontenay, and Luçon, the royalists assembled; Diot and Robert, at the head of their organized bands, issued from the forests of the Deux-Sèvres, to serve as kernel to the movement. This was instantly made known to the military leaders of the various surrounding detachments, who at once assembled their forces, marched to the parish of Amailloux, defeated the peasantry, and arrested a large number of gentlemen and royalist officers who were in the neighborhood, and had rushed into the fight on hearing the firing.
Arrests of the same kind were made in the environs of the Champ-Saint-Père. The post of Port-la-Claye was attacked, and although, because of the small number of assailants the royalists were easily repulsed, it was evident from the audacity and vigor of the attack that it was made, or at any rate led, by other than mere refractories,--deserting recruits.
On one of the prisoners taken at the Champ-Saint-Père a list was found of the young men forming the corps d'élite of the royalist forces. This list, these attacks made on various sides at the same time, these arrests of men known for the enthusiasm of their Legitimist opinions, naturally put the authorities on their guard, and made them regard as imminent the dangers they had hitherto treated lightly.
If the countermand of the uprising did not reach the country districts of La Vendée in time, still less could the provinces of Brittany and Maine receive the order; and there the standard of revolt was openly unfurled. In the first, the division of Vitré took the field, and even won a victory for the Bretons at Bréal,--an ephemeral victory, which was changed to defeat the following day at Gaudinière.
In Maine Gaullier received the countermand too late to stop his gars from making a bloody fight at Chaney, which lasted six hours; and besides that engagement (a serious one in its results) the peasantry, unwilling to return to their homes after beginning the insurrection, kept up a daily guerilla warfare with the various columns of troops which lined the country.
We may boldly declare that the countermand of May 22, the headlong and unsupported movements which then took place, the want of cohesion and confidence which naturally resulted, did more for the government of July than the zeal of all its agents put together.
In the provinces where these premature attempts were made it was impossible to revive the ardor thus chilled and wasted. The insurgent peasantry had time to reflect; and reflection, often favorable to calculation, is always fatal to sentiment. The leaders, whose names were now made known to the government, were easily surprised and arrested on returning to their homes.
It was still worse in the districts where the peasantry had openly taken the field. Finding themselves abandoned by their own supporters, and not receiving the reinforcements on which they counted, they believed themselves betrayed, broke their guns in two, and returned, indignantly, to their cottages.
The Legitimist insurrection died in the womb. The cause of Henri V. lost two provinces before his flag was raised; but such was the courage of these sons of giants that, as we are now about to see, they did not yet despair.
Eight days had elapsed since the events recorded in our last chapter, and during those eight days the political turmoil going on around Machecoul was so violent that it swept into its orbit all the personages of our history whose own passions and interests might otherwise have kept them aloof from it.
Bertha, made uneasy at first by Michel's disappearance, was quite reassured when he returned; and her happiness was shown with such effusion and publicity that it was impossible for the young man, unless he broke the promise he had made to Mary, to do otherwise than appear, on his side, glad to see her. The many services she had to render to Petit-Pierre, the many details of the correspondence with which she was intrusted, so absorbed Bertha's time that she did not notice Michel's sadness and depression, or the constraint with which he yielded to the familiarity her masculine habits led her to show to the man whom she regarded as her betrothed husband.
Mary, who had rejoined her father and sister two hours after leaving Michel on the islet of Jonchère, avoided carefully all occasions of being alone with her lover. When the necessities of their daily life brought them together she took every possible means to put her sister at an advantage in Michel's eyes; and when her own eyes encountered those of the young baron she looked at him with so supplicating an expression that he felt himself gently but relentlessly held to the promise he had given.
If, by accident, Michel seemed to authorize by his silence the attentions with which Bertha overwhelmed him, Mary affected a joyous and demonstrative pleasure, which, though doubtless far from her own heart, was agonizing to that of Michel. Nevertheless, in spite of all her efforts, it was impossible for her to conceal the ravages which the struggle she was making against her love wrought in her appearance. The change would certainly have struck every one about her had they been less preoccupied,--Bertha with her love, Petit-Pierre and the marquis with the cares of State. Poor Mary's healthy freshness disappeared; dark circles of bluish bistre hollowed her eyes, her pale cheeks visibly grew thinner, and slender lines appearing on her beautiful forehead contradicted the smile that was ever on her lips.
Jean Oullier, whose loving solicitude could not have been deceived, was absent. The very day he returned to Banl[oe]uvre the marquis despatched him on a mission to the East, and, inexperienced as he was in matters of the heart, he had departed almost easy in mind, having no real conception, in spite of all he had heard, that the trouble was so deep.
The 3d of June had now arrived. On that day a great commotion took place at the Jacquet mill in the district of Saint-Colombin. From early morning the going and coming of women and beggars had been incessant, and by nightfall the orchard which surrounded the mill had all the appearance of an encampment.
Every few minutes men in blouses or hunting-jackets, armed with guns, sabres, and pistols, kept coming in; some through the fields, others by the roads. They said a word to the sentries posted around the farm, on which word they were allowed to pass. They stacked their guns along the hedge which separated the orchard from the courtyard, and prepared, as they severally arrived, to bivouac, under the apple-trees. Each and all came full of devotion; few with hope.
The courage and loyalty of such convictions make them sacred and worthy of respect. No matter to what opinions we may belong, we must be proud of finding such loyalty, such courage, among friends, and glad to recognize them among adversaries. That political faith for which men did not shrink from dying may be rebuked and denied; God was not with it and it fell. Nevertheless, it has won the right to be honored, even in defeat, without discussion.
Antiquity declared, "Ills to the vanquished!" but antiquity was pagan. Mercy never reigned among false gods.
As for us,--not concerning ourselves in the sentiments or convictions which animated them,--we feel it was a noble and chivalric devotion which these Vendéans of 1832 held up to France, then beginning to be invaded by the narrow, sordid, commercial spirit which has since then absorbed it. And above all it seems noble and chivalrous when we reflect that most of these Vendéans had no illusion as to the outcome of their struggle; they advanced without hope to certain death. However mistaken they may have been, whatever may be said of their action, the names of those men belong to history; and we here join hands with history, if not to glorify them, at least to absolve them, although their actual names must not be mentioned in our narrative.
Inside the Jacquet mill the concourse, though less numerous than without, was not less noisily busy. Some of the leaders were receiving their last instructions and concerting with each other for the morrow; others were relating the occurrences of the day, which had not been uneventful. A gathering had taken place on the moors of Les Vergeries, and several encounters with the government troops had occurred.
The Marquis de Souday made himself conspicuous among the various groups by his enthusiastic loquacity. Once more he was a youth of twenty. In his feverish impatience it seemed to him that the sun of the morrow would never dawn; and he was profiting by the time the earth consumed in making its revolution to give a lesson in military tactics to the young men about him.
Michel, sitting in the chimney-corner, was the only person present whose mind was not completely absorbed in the events that were impending. His situation was growing more complicated every moment. A few friends and neighbors of the marquis had congratulated him on his approaching marriage with Mademoiselle de Souday. At every step he made he felt he was entangling himself more and more in the net he had blindly entered head foremost; and at the same time he felt that all his efforts to keep the promise Mary had wrung from him were hopeless. He knew it was in vain to attempt to drive from his heart the gentle image that had taken possession of it.
His sadness grew deeper and heavier, and presented at this moment a curious contrast with the eager countenances of those about him. The noise and the excitement soon became intolerable to him, and he rose and went out without exciting notice. He crossed the courtyard and passing behind the mill-wheel entered the miller's garden, followed the water-course, and finally sat down on the rail of a little bridge some two or three hundred yards from the house.
He had been sitting there about an hour, indulging in all the dismal ideas which the consciousness of his unfortunate position suggested to him, when he noticed a man who was coming toward him along the path he himself had just taken.
"Is that you, Monsieur Michel?" asked the man.
"Jean Oullier!" cried Michel. "Jean Oullier! Heaven has sent you. When did you get back?"
"Half an hour ago."
"Have you seen Mary?"
"Yes, I have seen Mademoiselle Mary."
And the old keeper raised his eyes to heaven and sighed. The tone in which he said the words, the gesture, and the sigh which accompanied them, showed that his deep solicitude was not blind to the cause of the young girl's fading appearance, and also that he fully appreciated the gravity of the situation.
Michel understood him; he covered his face with his hands and merely murmured:--
"Poor Mary!"
Jean Oullier looked at him with a certain compassion; then, after a moment's silence he said:--
"Have you decided on a course?"
"No; but I hope that to-morrow a musket-ball will save me the necessity."
"Oh," said Jean Oullier, "you can't count on that; balls are so capricious,--they never go to those who call them."
"Ah, Monsieur Jean!" exclaimed Michel, shaking; "we are very unhappy."
"Yes, so it seems; you are making terrible trouble for yourselves, all of you. What you call love is nothing but unreasonableness. Good God! who could have told me that these two children, who thought of nothing but roaming the woods bravely and merrily with their father and me, would fall in love with the first hat that came in their way,--and that, too, when the man it covered was more of a girl in his sex than they were in theirs!"
"Alas! it is fatality, my good Jean."
"No," said the Vendéan, "you needn't blame fate; it was I. But come, as you haven't the nerve to face that foolish Bertha, and speak the truth, how do you expect to remain an honest man?"
"I shall do all I can to get nearer to Mary; you can count on me for that so long as you act in that direction."
"Who says anything about your keeping near to Mary? Poor child! she has more good sense than all of you. She cannot be your wife,--she told you so the other day, or rather the other night; and she was perfectly right,--only, her love for Bertha is carrying her too far. She is condemning herself to the torture she wishes to spare her sister; and that is what neither you nor I must allow."
"How can we help it, Jean Oullier?"
"Easily. As you cannot be the husband of the woman you love, you must not be the husband of the woman you don't love. Now it is my opinion that Mary's grief will get easier when that pain is taken away from her. For she may say what she pleases; there's always a touch of jealousy at the bottom of a woman's heart, however tender it may be."
"Renounce both the hope of making Mary my wife and the consolation of seeing her? Impossible! I can't do it. I tell you, Jean Oullier, that to get nearer to Mary I would go through hell-fire."
"Phrases, my young gentleman, phrases! The world has been consoled for being turned out of paradise, and at your age a man can always forget the woman he loves. Besides, the thing that ought to separate you from Mary is something else than hell-fire. It may be the dead body of her sister; for you don't yet know what an undisciplined child it is that goes by the name of Bertha, nor of what she is capable, I don't understand, poor fool of a peasant that I am, all your fine sentiments; but it seems to me the grandest of them ought to pause before an obstacle of this sort."
"But what can I do, my friend? What shall I do? Advise me."
"All the trouble comes, as I think, from your not having the character of your sex. You must now do what a person of the sex to which by your manners and your weakness you seem to belong would do under the circumstances. You have not known how to master the situation in which fate placed you; and now you must flee from it."
"Flee from it! But did you hear Mary say the other day that if I renounced her sister she would never see me again?"
"What of that, if she respects you?"
"But think of all I shall have to suffer!"
"You won't suffer at a distance more than you will suffer here."
"Here, at least, I can see her."
"Do you think the heart knows distance? No, not even when those we are parted from have bid us their last farewell. Thirty years ago and over I lost my poor wife, but there are days when I see her as plain as I now see you. Mary's image will remain on your heart, and you will hear her voice thanking you for what you now do."
"Ah! I would rather you talked to me of death."
"Come, Monsieur Michel, make an effort. I'd go on my knees to you if necessary--I who have many a cause of hatred against you; I beg you, I implore you, give peace, as far as it is now possible, to those poor creatures!"
"What do you want me to do?"
"I want you to go. I have said it, and I repeat it."
"Go? Go away? You can't mean it. Why, they fight to-morrow, and to go to-day would be deserting,--it would be dishonor."
"No, I don't want you to dishonor yourself. If you go it shall not be desertion."
"How so?"
"In the absence of a captain of the Clisson division I have been appointed to take his command; you shall come with me."
"Oh, I hope the first ball to-morrow may carry me off."
"You will fight under my eyes," continued Jean Oullier; "and if any one doubts your bravery, I'll bear witness to it. Will you come?"
"Yes," replied Michel, in so low a voice that the old man could scarcely hear him.
"Good! in three hours we start."
"Start! without bidding her farewell?"
"Yes. In the face of such circumstances she might not have the strength to let you go. Come, take courage!"
"I will take it, Oullier; you shall be satisfied with me."
"Then I can rely upon you?"
"You can. I give you my word of honor."
"I shall be waiting at the cross ways of Belle-Passe in three hours from now."
"I will be there."
Jean Oullier made Michel a farewell sign that was almost friendly; then springing across the little bridge, he went to the orchard and mingled with the other Vendéans.
The young baron remained for several minutes in a state of utter prostration. Jean Oullier's words rang in his ears like a knell sounding his own death. He thought he dreamed, and he kept repeating, as if to convince himself of the reality of his sorrow, "Go away? Go away?"
Presently, the chill idea of death, which he had lately invoked as a succor from heaven, an idea adopted as we fasten upon such thoughts at twenty, passed from his brain to his heart and froze him. He shuddered from head to foot. He saw himself separated from Mary, not merely by a distance he dared not cross, but by that wall of granite which incloses a man eternally in his last abode.
His pain grew so intense that he thought it a presentiment. He now accused Jean Oullier of cruelty and injustice. The sternness of the old Vendéan in refusing him the consolation of a last farewell seemed to him intolerable; it was surely impossible that he should be actually denied a last look. He rebelled at the thought, and resolved to see Mary, no matter what might come of it.
Michel knew the internal arrangements of the miller's house. Petit-Pierre's room was the miller's own, above the grindstones. This was, naturally, the place of honor in the establishment. The sisters slept in a little room adjoining this chamber. A narrow window in the smaller room looked down upon the outside mill-wheel which kept the machinery at work. For the present, however, all was still, lest the noise should prevent the sentries from hearing other sounds.
Michel waited till it was dark,--an hour perhaps; then he went to the buildings. A light could be seen in the narrow window. He threw a plank on a paddle of the wheel and managed, by resting his body against the wall, to climb spoke by spoke to the highest point of the wheel; there he found himself on a level with the narrow casement. He raised his head and looked into the tiny room.
Mary was alone, sitting on a stool, her elbow resting on the bed, her head in her hands. Now and then a heavy sigh escaped her; from time to time her lips moved as though she were murmuring a prayer. The young man tapped against a window-pane. At the sound she raised her head, recognized him through the glass, and ran to him.
"Hush!" he said.
"You! you here!" cried Mary.
"Yes, I."
"Good God! what do you want?"
"Mary, it is more than a week since I have spoken to you, almost a week since I have seen you. I have come to bid you farewell before I go to meet my fate."
"Farewell! and why farewell?"
"I have come to say farewell, Mary," said the youth, firmly.
"Oh, you do not mean to die?"
Michel did not answer.
"No, no; you will not die," continued Mary. "I have prayed so much that God must hear me. But now that you have seen me, now that you have spoken to me, you must go,--go!"
"Why must I leave you so soon? Do you hate me so intensely that you cannot bear to see me?"
"No, you know it is not that, my friend;" said Mary. "But Bertha is in the next room; she may have heard you come. She may be hearing what you say. Good God! what would become of me--of me who have sworn to her that I did not love you!"
"You may have sworn that to her, but to me you swore otherwise. You swore that you loved me, and it was upon the faith of that love that I consented to conceal my own."
"Michel, I entreat you, go away!"
"No, Mary, I will not go until your lips have repeated to me again what they said on the island of Jonchère."
"But that love is almost a crime!" said Mary, desperately. "Michel, my friend, I blush, I weep, when I think of that momentary weakness."
"Mary! I swear to you that to-morrow you shall have no such remorse, you shall shed no tears of that kind."
"Oh, you mean to die! No, no; do not say it! Leave me the hope that my sufferings may bring you a better fate than mine. Hush! Don't you hear? Some one is coming! Go, Michel; go, go!"
"One kiss, Mary!"
"No."
"Yes, yes; a last kiss--the last!"
"Never, my friend."
"Mary, it is to a dying man!"
Mary gave a cry; her lips touched his forehead; but the instant they had done so, and while she was closing the window hastily, Bertha appeared in the doorway.
When the latter saw her sister, pale, perturbed, scarcely able to support herself, she rushed, with the terrible instinct of jealousy, to the window, opened it violently, leaned out, and saw a shadow disappearing in the darkness.
"Michel was with you, Mary!" she cried, with trembling lips.
"Sister," said Mary, falling on her knees; "I swear--"
Bertha interrupted her.
"Don't swear, don't lie. I heard his voice."
Bertha pushed Mary away from her with such violence that the latter fell flat upon the floor. Then Bertha, springing over her sister's body, furious as a lioness deprived of her young, rushed from the room and down the stairs, crossed the mill, and reached the courtyard. There, to her astonishment, she saw Michel sitting on the doorstep beside Jean Oullier. She went straight up to him.
"How long have you been here?" she said in a curt, harsh voice.
Michel made a gesture as if to say, "I leave Jean Oullier to reply."
"Monsieur le baron and I have been talking here for the last half hour or more."
Bertha looked fixedly at the old Vendéan.
"That is singular!" she said.
"Why singular?" asked Jean Oullier, fixing his own eyes steadily upon her.
"Because," said Bertha, addressing Michel and not Jean Oullier. "because I thought I heard you talking with my sister at her window, and saw you climbing down the mill-wheel which you had mounted to reach her."
"Monsieur le baron doesn't look as if he had just performed such an acrobatic feat," said Jean Oullier, sarcastically.
"Then who do you suppose it was, Jean?" said Bertha, stamping her foot impatiently.
"Oh, some of those drunkards over there, who were playing a trick."
"But I tell you that Mary was pale and trembling."
"With fright," said Jean Oullier. "She hasn't got your iron nerves."
Bertha grew thoughtful. She knew the feelings that Jean Oullier cherished against the young baron; therefore she could hardly suppose he was in league with him against her. After a moment's silence her thoughts reverted to Mary, and she remembered that she had left her almost fainting.
"Yes," she said; "yes. Jean Oullier, you are right. The poor child must have been frightened, and I, with my rough ways, have made matters worse. Oh," she muttered, "this love is making me beside myself!"
Then, without another word to Michel or Jean Oullier, she rushed into the mill.
Jean Oullier looked at Michel, who lowered his eyes.
"I shall not reproach you," he said to the young man, "but you must see now on what a powder-barrel you are stepping. What would have happened if I had not been here to lie, God forgive me! as if I were a liar born."
"Yes," said Michel, "you are right, Jean,--I know it; and the proof is that I swear to follow you, for I see plainly I can't stay here any longer."
"That's right. The Nantes men will start in a few moments; the marquis joins them with his division; start yourself at the same time, but fall behind and join me, you know where."
Michel went off to fetch his horse, and Jean Oullier, meantime, obtained his last instructions from the marquis. The Vendéans camping in the orchard now formed in line, their arms sparkling in the shadows. A quiver of repressed impatience ran through the ranks.
Presently Petit-Pierre, followed by the principal leaders, came out of the house and advanced to the Vendéans. She was hardly recognized before a mighty cry of enthusiasm burst from every mouth. Sabres were drawn to salute her for whose cause each man was prepared to die.
"My friends," said Petit-Pierre, advancing, "I promised I would be present at the first armed meeting; and here I am, never to leave you. Fortunate or unfortunate, your fate shall be mine henceforth. If I cannot--as my son would have done--rally you to where my white plume shines, I can--as he would--die with you! Go, sons of giants, go where duty and honor call you!"
Frantic cries of "Vive Henri V! Vive Marie-Caroline!" welcomed this allocution. Petit-Pierre addressed a few more words to those of the leaders whom she knew; and then the little troop on which rested the fate of the oldest monarchy in Europe took its way in the direction of Vieille-Vigne.
During this time Bertha had been showering attentions on her sister, all the more eager because of her sudden change of feeling. She carried her to her bed and bathed her face in cold water. Mary opened her eyes and looked about her in a bewildered way, murmuring in a low voice Michel's name. Her heart revived before her reason.
Bertha shuddered. She was about to ask Mary to forgive her violence, but Michel's name on her sister's lips stopped the words in her throat. For the second time the serpents of jealousy were gnawing at her heart.
Just then the acclamations with which the Vendéans welcomed the address of Petit-Pierre reached her ears. She went to the window of the next room and saw the waving line of a dark mass among the trees, lighted here and there with flashes. It was the column just beginning its march. The thought struck her that Michel, who was certainly with that column, had gone without bidding her good-bye; and she returned, thoughtful, uneasy, and gloomy to her sister's bedside.