"You see, Lauriane, that nothing separates us now. If I am not the good and learned man that I would like to be, I believe at all events that I know as much and can fight as stoutly as most of the young men of twenty-five to thirty years, with whom I came in contact in the army. As for my affection, Lauriane, I can answer for its lasting so long as my life shall last. I am entitled to no credit for it, for I was born loyal, and from childhood it has been impossible for me to consider any other woman than you lovely and lovable; I placed my heart in your keeping the first day that I saw you. I have never become accustomed to living apart from you, and I have never passed a single day at Briantes without sitting down to dream of you, instead of playing and amusing myself, whenever I left my studies for an instant. What I thought, what I said to you eight years ago, in the famous labyrinth, I still think and I say to you again to-day.

"I cannot live happily without you, Lauriane! In order to be happy, I must see you always. I know that I have no right to say to you: 'Make me happy!'—You owe me nothing! but perhaps you will be happier with me than you were with your poor father, or than you are now, alone, persecuted, and obliged to conceal yourself. I do not need that you should be rich; but if you are bent upon being rich, I will enforce your rights as soon as peace is assured; I will defend you against your enemies. Married to me, you will have absolute freedom of conscience; and under my protection you can pray as you choose. We will not fight for our altars, as the King and Queen of England are doing at this moment. If you must have a title, why I am bemarquised for good and all. Whether you are still beautiful or not, I do not know, I never shall know. I see that you have changed. You are paler now and thinner than when you were sixteen years old; but in my eyes you are much lovelier so, and if you had never been lovely, it seems to me that I should have loved you no less dearly.

"If therefore a woman's happiness consists in being beautiful in the eyes of the man she loves, love me, Lauriane, and you will have that happiness. Listen, Lauriane, and let me speak to you as in the old days. I have been submissive and brave down to this day; do not deprive me of my strength; if you wish to wait still longer and know me as a friend and a brother, I will wait until you trust me. If you wish me to go back to the army—and, in truth, such is my desire—come to the camp as my father's ward and adopted daughter. I will see you only when you choose, not at all if you insist, until you accept me for your husband. But do not leave us again; for, with or without your love, we are and desire always to be your family, your friends, your defenders, your slaves, whatever you wish us to be, provided that you permit us to love you and serve you."

Lauriane pressed Mario's loyal hands in hers.

"You are an angel," she said, "and it requires courage on my part to refuse you. But I love you too well to chain your brilliant destiny to mine, melancholy, as it is, and alas! complete; I love your father too well to be willing to cause him this sorrow."

"My father? you doubt my father?" cried Mario, beside himself. "Ah! Lauriane, do you not understand that your father deceived you! Say that you do not love me, that you have never loved me!"

At that moment there was a violent ringing at the gate of the convent, and a moment later the Marquis de Bois-Doré rushed into the parlor and embraced Mario and Lauriane in turn.

He had not received Clindor's message, but Lauriane's letter; and as the treaty was signed and he was returning to Berry, he had come to the convent to take her home with him. He was greatly surprised to find Mario there, thinking that he had already returned to Briantes.

The situation was explained to him; then Mario, still intensely agitated, said to him:

"You arrive in good time, father. Lauriane here thinks that you do not love her!"

A second explanation ensued. The marquis perceived Mario's agitation and grief, and he smiled.

Lauriane suddenly understood that smile.

"Dear marquis," she cried, blushing and trembling from head to foot, "give me back the letter I wrote you when I thought that your son was dead! Give it back to me, I insist; do not show it."

"No, no," replied the marquis, handing the letter to Mario with a sly expression; "he shall never see it, unless he snatches it from my hands—which he is quite capable of doing, as you see!"

LXXIV

The letter was short and disconsolate; Mario had soon devoured it with his eyes, while Lauriane hid her face on the old man's shoulder.

Lauriane, in the first outburst of bitter grief, had written the marquis that she had always loved Mario since their separation and should wear mourning for him all her life.

"For now," she said, "I feel for the first time that I am really widowed!"

"You are not, you never will be, my Lauriane," said the marquis, removing her little black cap for a moment. "I have never desired any other daughter than you, and we will go home and prepare for the wedding at Briantes."

I leave you to imagine the rejoicing at the old manor at the simultaneous return of the Beaux Messieurs de Bois-Doré, Lauriane, Adamas, Aristandre, and even Clindor, who, the better to destroy the spell cast upon him by the gypsy, hastened to pay court to all the village maidens.

The marriage of Monsieur Sylvain's beloved children could not be celebrated publicly until Lauriane had made submission to the king and obtained her pardon, for she had proclaimed herself a rebel in a moment of desperation; and, despite Monsieur Poulain's influence, the king remained inflexible so long as the War in the South lasted.

It was short and bloody. It was the last gasp of the party as a political faction.

"Upon the ruins of that demolished party, Richelieu caused the son of Henri IV. to swear to maintain the religious liberty proclaimed by his father."[11]

Thereafter they could safely present to Louis XIII. the Marquis de Bois-Doré's petition in behalf of his daughter-in-law. To that end Mario went in person to Nîmes, where the king had made a triumphal entry with Richelieu. Monsieur de Rohan had gone to Venice.

Mario obtained a decree restoring his wife's estates in despite of monsieur le prince, who was sniffing eagerly at them, and likewise restoring her liberty without condition or reservation. The cardinal received him and rebuked him mildly for having taken no part in that war. Mario requested another opportunity to fight in Italy, and the cardinal, as he dismissed him, said in an undertone, with a most affable smile:

"I promise you the opportunity, but say nothing about it unless you wish me to fail!"

Mario found the Abbé Poulain at Nîmes, thoroughly exhausted and delighted to have a few weeks of repose. He had assisted Mario so cordially, that the young man invited him to come to Briantes, and they set out together, the priest congratulating himself upon the prospect of celebrating the marriage of the young people.

They started on an intensely hot day. It was early in July. The country which they rode through had been laid waste by the war and not a tree, not a cottage was standing.

By the king's command the troops had ravaged the territory around all the rebellious cities, in order to starve the inhabitants.

"We are passing through a conflagration," said Monsieur Poulain to Mario; "the sun treats us as we treated this poor soil, and I verily believe that our clothes will take fire."

"Really, monsieur l'abbé," said Clindor, who loved to mingle in the conversation, "there's a very unpleasant smell of something burning!"

"I believe that some house is still burning behind yonder hill," said Mario; "do you not see smoke?"

"There is very little of it," said the abbé; "some little hovel, I presume. I confess, monsieur le comte, that I am weary of so much misery. I used to hate the Huguenots; now that they are down, I am like you, I pity them. I witnessed the Privas affair. Well, I have had enough of it, and I defy the greatest gluttons of vengeance to say that they are not surfeited with it."

"I should say as much!" said Mario with a sigh; "but listen to those shrieks, monsieur l'abbé; there is somebody in great distress. Let us go to see."

Behind the hill where the smoke was ascending, they heard shrieks, or rather one long, piercing, heart-rending shriek. The appalling duration of that distant cry, which seemed to be uttered by a child, made a profound impression on the abbé. Clindor could not believe that it was a human voice.

"No, no," he said, "either that is a shepherd's pipe, or somebody is killing a kid."

"It is a human being expiring in torture," said Monsieur Poulain; "I know that frightful music only too well!"

"Let us hasten then!" cried Mario; "we may be in time to save an unfortunate fellow creature. Come, come, monsieur l'abbé! The peace is signed; no one has the right to torture Huguenots!"

"It is too late," said the priest, "the sounds have ceased."

The shrieks had suddenly ceased and the smoke had disappeared. Perhaps they were mistaken. However, they urged their horses and soon reached the top of the hill.

Thereupon they espied, in the valley beyond, and much farther away than they had supposed, a group of peasants bustling about a half-extinct fire. Before they came within ear-shot, the men had dispersed. A single old woman remained near the smoking ashes, which she was turning over with a fork as if in search of something. Mario arrived first at the spot, where his nostrils were assailed by an acrid, intolerable odor.

"What are you looking for there, mother?" he said; "what have you been burning?"

"Oh! nothing, my fine gentleman! nothing but a witch who gave us the fever with her look whenever she passed. Our men made an end of her, and I am looking to see if she didn't leave her secret in the ashes."

"What? her secret?" said Mario, disgusted by the sang-froid of that harridan.

"You see," replied the old woman, "she had something around her neck that glistened, and she lost it struggling when they put her in the fire. Then she shrieked: 'I have lost it, I am lost myself!'—It must have been an amulet to protect her from a violent death, and I would like to find it."