CHAPTER XXXI.

D'Aubin passed a restless and unquiet night; and the next morning his pale countenance and languid look re-awakened in the bosom of Beatrice of Ferrara all those apprehensions and anxieties which are treacherous internal allies of the ambitious tyrant love. From that day, however, the conduct of Philip d'Aubin underwent a change, slight, indeed, to appearance, but yet of no small import. His demeanour grew softer, tenderer, more solicitous towards his fair companion; his conversation was all of love. From every bright thing in external nature, from the stores of history, or the pages of imagination, he drew matter for comparing, and illustrating, and typifying the ardent passion of the heart. Beatrice listened, pleased, and joined in, and felt that she was beloved; and spoke her own warm feelings boldly, so long as the words were general. Her eyes, and the varying colour of her cheek, told all the rest: and much would they discuss the evil and the good of strong and fiery passion; and to their hearts' content they proved that it was aught but a fault, a capability in a bright spirit, a proof of superior energy of heart and mind. But then Beatrice said it must be ruled and governed by ties and principles as strong and energetic as itself; and D'Aubin, though he did not venture to dissent, went on in the praise of intense and vehement love without restriction, and brought forth a thousand examples in which that passion, in what he called nobler and more generous times, had been carried to a height unknown in their own age. Still, on every point where he and Beatrice might differ, he touched the subject lightly, and then left it; pointing still, by many an endearing name and soft caress, the object and application of all his bland eloquence. Beatrice hoped and believed, and was happy; and now that her bosom was at rest--that the conflict of hope, and fear, and passion, which had ceaselessly agitated her during the last four years, was at an end, and her heart reposed in peace on the conviction of being loved, and the prospect of future happiness, her demeanour grew milder, softer, tenderer; it lost the wild and eager fire which it had acquired, and fell back into all that was sweet, and womanly, and gentle. The days passed on, too, in peace; for D'Aubin asked no questions upon the many matters which might have called up subjects painful to either; and Beatrice, ere she spoke of the past, wished all those things completed which would put an irrevocable seal upon the happiness of the present. Then she thought that addressing her husband and her lover both in one, she could tell him that all he had done amiss was forgiven; that he had been ever loved, even in his errors; and that her eye had been ever watchful, her hand ever stretched out, to snatch him from the consequences of his faults, and to lead him away from those faults themselves.

At length, on one bright and sunshiny morning in June, when the clear lustre of health had fully returned into D'Aubin's eye, and his step was as firm as it had been four months before, the lovers sat together in a wood near the chateau, passing away, under the shadow of the old trees, the hot hours of summer noon. She scarcely knew why, but with a lingering touch of timidity, to which she yielded willingly, without trying to scrutinise it, Beatrice had ever, in her interviews with D'Aubin, kept some of her women round her; and although, feeling that there was much to be said between them which were better said without witnesses, she had day after day determined to dispense with their presence, still there they sat at a little distance, plying the busy needle on the object which served to occupy their discreet eyes. Their presence was no great restraint, it is true, but still D'Aubin found it burthensome; and, resolved to hesitate no longer in his purposes, he besought Beatrice to send the women away. With a blushing cheek, and somewhat of an agitated tone, Beatrice complied; and then, turning away her head, played idly with the flowers that gemmed the grass on which they sat.

D'Aubin paused and hesitated, even at that moment, if he should go on; but his determination soon returned, and gliding his arm round her waist, while with his right hand he took hers unresistingly, he said, "Beatrice, dear Beatrice, do we not love one another?"

Beatrice replied nothing; but the trembling of her whole frame was a sufficient answer; and D'Aubin went on. "Hear me, Beatrice, and believe me, when I say that I love you with my whole heart and soul, with the deepest, the truest, the most lasting affection; that I love you better than anything on earth; and that for you I am ready to abandon friends, and country, and station altogether."

He paused, and Beatrice replied in a low voice, "But, thank God! no such sacrifice is necessary, D'Aubin."

"If it be, I am ready to make it," pursued the Count, in a voice to which deep and sincere passion lent all its earnestness; "if it be, I am ready to make it. Oh, Beatrice, you know not how I love you! but I must be loved with the like affection, not with the cold and formal love of fashion and society--idols to which I have only bowed because I found no better godhead. Now I have found a power above,--now I know that, however I have erred, I have loved you ever, and you alone; that without you the earth would be one vast piece of desolation to my eyes. Wherever you are, is henceforth my country; wherever you dwell, is henceforth my home; for you I will sacrifice everything, for you I will regret nothing. Tell me, Beatrice, is your love for me the same?"

"Can you doubt it, Philip?" she replied, "can you doubt it?"

"Then I am happy," he cried, pressing her to his bosom; "the vain ties, the idle ceremonies of the world may bind together cold and careless hands, and indifferent and unimpassioned bosoms, but between your heart and mine, Beatrice, there will be a dearer, a nobler, a more lasting tie, and we will have no other!"

Beatrice disengaged herself from his arms. "What do you mean, D'Aubin?" she cried: but then pausing, she added, "but I forgot; you fancy yourself bound to another by one of those bonds of society which cannot be broken: but you are mistaken; your supposed marriage with Eugenie de Menancourt is null. The ceremony was vain, the seeming priest was none, and I have papers here to prove that he was but a soldier in the army of the Huguenots."

"Glad am I to hear it," cried D'Aubin, again throwing his arms around her; "yet listen to me, Beatrice; is the same idle ceremony necessary between you and me? Do you doubt my love, Beatrice? will your constancy faint unless upheld by an idle form? Is your love so weak, that, when I am ready to resign all, even to my country, for you, you will not make the sacrifice even of a mere name for me?"

Beatrice turned, as he held her in his arms; and for an instant gazed in his face, with a look of wondering inquiry, as if--even acquainted with the world and all its ways as she was--the base, ungrateful wickedness of his purpose were too much for her belief. At length, convinced that her ears had not deceived her, and satisfied, from the soft, entreating expression he assumed, that his proposal was the result of calm, deliberate forethought--no idle jest, no capricious trial of her heart--she burst from him like a young eagle from a net which had been spread for larks; and, standing in all the majesty of indignant beauty on the spot where she had lately sat, she gazed upon him with flashing eyes, and a quivering lip, while the fingers of her right hand felt along her girdle for the dagger, which, according to a common custom of the day, usually hung there. But it had been forgotten; and it might be lucky for the Count d'Aubin that it was so.

For a moment anger and surprise, and bitter indignation seemed to take away all words; but ere D'Aubin could speak again, she had recovered herself. "Out of my sight, viper!" she cried; "base, ungrateful, perfidious snake! Oh God! Oh God! never let woman, henceforth and for ever, love man again. Let her trample upon that black thing, his heart, and sport with his torture, and deceive his love, and betray his confidence, till he know not where to find faith or truth in all the world; for, the moment that he believes her true, or kind, or gentle, or affectionate, he turns a serpent which would sting her, and poison for her the life, the feelings, the happiness, she is ever ready to devote to him. Out of my sight, traitor, I say! Why linger you here?"

"Hear me! hear me, Beatrice!" cried D'Aubin, rising and attempting to take her hand. "Hear me! I meant not to offend you! I am no traitor. I meant but----"

"No traitor!" cried Beatrice. "Is he no traitor, that, received with friendship and hospitality into the heart of a fortress in time of war, treated with confidence and love, saved from death, cherished, protected, befriended, strives to corrupt the garrison and betray the leader, to ruin the defences, and destroy the walls? Out on thee, man! Out on thee! I would not be the base, ungenerous, contemptible thing thou art, for all the power of a Cæsar!"

D'Aubin saw he had deceived himself; and at the same moment that he perceived that he had risked the love of Beatrice for ever, he felt most strongly what an inestimable jewel that love was. "Hear me--but hear me, Beatrice!" he said. "Have I not said that I am ready to sacrifice everything for you? I make no exception to that sacrifice; not a pride, not a vanity, not a prejudice do I wish excepted. I will sacrifice all! Be mine on any terms. I did but think that Beatrice was more liberal, more unprejudiced, than our idle crowd of courtly dames, who insist upon a ceremonious vow that they break, one and all, most unceremoniously, rather than that private compact which binds the heart."

"Say no more, Sir--say no more," cried Beatrice. "Those last words are quite enough, if all the rest of your conduct were insufficient. There is hope in every man who can yet believe in purity; but he whose vice is so confirmed, that he does not credit the existence of virtue, is irreclaimable. So you did but think," she continued, while her cheek again glowed, and her eye flashed--"you did but think, that Beatrice of Ferrara was too liberal, too unprejudiced, to hold her honour as a jewel, without which life is darkness and bitterness. You did but think, that, because to save, to reclaim, to elevate a man she fancied not wholly lost, she braved opinion, and, strong in her own righteousness, set the world's maxims at defiance. You did but think that she had forgotten the line between virtue and prejudice, in her mad love for Philip d'Aubin, and would soon, for his sake, trample upon the one, as she had spurned the other? But, sir, you were mistaken; and you will now quit for ever her you have insulted."

D'Aubin had nothing in the shape of reason to reply, but he had much in the shape of love; and with a heart full of passion, and shame, and regret, he failed not to plead for forgiveness with vehemence and eloquence. Forgetting pride and all its train, he cast himself at her feet; he held her hand when she sought to go; and he poured forth, from the deep feelings in his heart, all those ardent and fiery words which well might move and win. At first Beatrice strove to stay him, and to disengage her hand; but when she found that his vehemence would be heard, she stood and listened, but with that calm and cold demeanour, which ere long brought his eloquence to an end. Then withdrawing her hand and her robe from his grasp, she said, in a low and agitated, but determined tone, which, full of deep feeling but strong resolution, was much more striking than the words of passion which had at first broken from her lips, "Rise, Monsieur d'Aubin! and as I have heard you, now hear me! When first you talked of love to me, I knew you to be young, and light, and foolish; but I thought that I discovered, underneath the follies of youth and gaiety, deeper feelings, better aspirations, and a nobler soul. I then saw you flutter round many another woman, and I heard of vices into which I did not inquire; for, in your language and your manner towards me, there was much that gave me better hopes, and I strove to reclaim you by gentleness and kindness. Deeper offences succeeded; and it became me, though love loses hope but slowly, to assume a demeanour towards you, which might at once tend to awaken you, and do justice to myself. The weakness of a woman's heart taught me to believe, that, on one occasion I had carried severity too far, and I reproached myself for having hurried you on in evil. I soon had an opportunity of mending that. In a battle, where I had good assurance that your party would fail, I caused you to be followed by some faithful and skilful men, who had orders to rescue you at any moment of extreme need. They brought you wounded, and apparently dying, to my dwelling, and like a sister I tended you night and day, till all hope was lost; and then I wept for you as no sister could have wept. Against all calculation you recovered; saw how deep, how strong, was my love towards you; taught me to give full scope to that love, by pretending reformation and virtue: and now you have ended all, by proving to me that kindness, like the spring sun upon a torpid snake, but re-awakens your venom with your strength; that you look upon the love of woman but as the means of injuring her; that kind deeds and services but hire you to ingratitude; and that, though you may be capable of passion, you are incapable of love! Thus convinced, sir, I bid you quit me, and for ever. No time, no circumstances, will change my resolution of banishing you from my thoughts for ever; for Beatrice of Ferrara would sooner die than wed one whom she has at length learned so thoroughly to despise, could he offer a kingly crown."

D'Aubin rose in silent bitterness, and half turned away; but ere he went he again paused, as if to speak, and a few indistinct words trembled on his tongue. Beatrice, however, stopped him, and with an air of calm, stern dignity, exclaimed, "No more, Monsieur d'Aubin, I will hear no more; it is time, sir, that you should quit one whom you have so basely insulted. Your horse is in the stable, your health is restored; my servants will guide and guard you on your way, should you need protection; but never let your step cross the threshold of Beatrice of Ferrara again, as never again shall your image enter her mind."

"Your commands shall be obeyed, Lady," replied D'Aubin, proudly; "and as to protection, I need none. Fare you well, madam, with thanks for the kindness you showed me at first; and with silence--if so it must be--for the harshness you now show; and yet I could wish to be heard."

"Not a word more!" replied Beatrice. "Sir, I bid you farewell! Laura! Annette! Where are those girls? Annette, I say!" and turning from him, she hastened on in the direction which her maids had taken when she sent them from her. They were at no great distance; and bidding them follow her, Beatrice with a rapid step retrod her way towards the chateau. Firmly, and apparently unshaken by what had passed, but with her dark bright eyes bent upon the ground, the beautiful girl entered the gates of the house; hurried along its many passages to the chamber in which, during the first period of D'Aubin's illness, she had been accustomed to repose; and opening the door, advanced towards a chair. But the energy of her great effort did not last till she reached it; her brain reeled, her steps wavered, and she sunk upon the floor, insensible and silent, ere her attendants could catch her in their arms. That innate faculty which teaches women to divine, as by intuition, the secrets of their fellow woman's hearts, held the girls who had followed Beatrice quite silent and noiseless, as they did all in their power to recall her to herself. There was no bustle, no outcry, no running hither and thither for assistance; but with quiet and persevering assiduity they tended her, till at length she opened her eyes and gazed languidly round the chamber. Then came some broken sobs, and then a flood of tears; and then, wiping away the drops that gemmed her long dark eyelashes, Beatrice of Ferrara once more shook off the bonds of woman's weakness, and was herself again.

"Be silent on what has past, Annette," she said; "Laura, I know I can trust you. I would fain learn whether the chateau is free of all guests; I long to be alone in my own house again. Fly, Annette, and see."

The girl sped away, and soon returned, saying, "The count mounted his horse, lady, and rode away some twenty minutes since."

"Did he?" said Beatrice--"did he?" and she fell into a deep fit of thought.