CHAPTER XLII

RESOLUTION

The passion conceived by Madame de Hansfeld for M. de Morville had considerably augmented since her last interview during the Opera ball.

This love was in the breast of Paula a singular mixture of noble and exalted sentiments and gloomy, sinister ideas. She would have thought it a degradation of the man she loved had she suffered him to break his oath; while, at the same time, she resolved, if not to encourage, at least to permit, Iris to carry on any plot she thought proper against the life of her husband, in order that she might be at liberty to espouse M. de Morville without his having in any manner broken his vow.

In vain did Paula seek to remain in ignorance of Iris's machinations, the consequences of which she could but imperfectly make out. The very violence of her reluctance, her shuddering apprehensions, and anticipated remorse, all served to shew her the criminal part she was taking in the affair, which had originated solely in her wild, ungovernable passion. Yet, strange to say, had the revelations of Iris but occurred some few months sooner, when the prince was still under the influence of his passionate love for Paula--a love so strong, and yet so clear-sighted, that it remained unshaken by the apparent evidences of her guilt and foresaw her innocence:--if, therefore, we repeat, the confessions of Iris had been made when the only obstacle that prevented Paula from returning the prince's affection was the remembrance of Raphael--of Raphael the hitherto lamented and adored--what would have been the results?

Arnold would have learned the innocence of Paula, while she would have become acquainted with the infamous deceit practised by Raphael.

The chances were all in favour of Madame de Hansfeld's returning the love of the prince, who had proved his affection to be so genuine and ardent; by unremitted assiduities he would have induced Paula to pardon him for entertaining suspicions so injurious to her, and which had caused him so much torture, both bodily and mentally, and Paula must ere long have been constrained to admit, that only a passion as blind, as all-absorbing as that of her husband could have enabled him to continue that almost adoring love, in spite even of the horrible appearances which proclaimed her a would be murderess.

Unfortunately it was not so; and the tardy and constrained confessions of Iris were not made until M. de Hansfeld had transferred his affections to Bertha, and Madame de Hansfeld had given her heart to M. de Morville. This fatal position of affairs rendered the situation of all concerned equally unendurable.

Madame de Hansfeld saw herself doomed to drag on a wearisome existence beside a man who cared not for her, he even loved another, and his heart, shut for ever against any warmer feeling for Paula than pity and regret, could but coldly and feebly seek, by surrounding her with every worldly enjoyment, to atone for those suspicions to which she had been sacrificed. And while separated from the object of her new affection by an insuperable obstacle, she saw, through the enchanting rays of love, one young, handsome, and devoted, so passionately devoted as to have been willing to sacrifice at her feet the two leading idols of his life--_his mother and his promise_--and, amid all this, Paula had not even the gratification of thinking that by devoting herself to her duties she in the smallest degree contributed to the happiness of M. de Hansfeld, who, on his side, finding in Bertha the most seductive union of personal graces and perfect sweetness of character, gave himself up without a struggle to the delights of a passion as pure and fervid as that which now filled his breast, finding full excuse in the frigid indifference Paula had ever evinced towards him.

Such was the situation of M. and Madame de Hansfeld at the moment when, by way of conciliating M. de Brévannes, who had it in his power to calumniate her so fearfully, Paula was about to receive both himself and his wife at the Hôtel Lambert.

The infatuation of Paula had now reached a point that rendered it quite impossible for her much longer to endure her present position. She had named eight days to M. de Morville as the period for acquainting him with her final resolution, because she trusted that ere then her future destiny would be decided.

Either she would courageously accept the propositions of Iris, or her own hand should take away her life if the project of the mulatto appeared to her to require a too direct or too personal a co-operation.

Nothing is more strange, yet at the same time real, than the tiny particles fraught with deadly sin, which, floating over the subdued conscience, form at last a mass of guilt, startling and fearful to contemplate.

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The result of Madame de Hansfeld's deep reverie was to summon Iris; the ready messenger of evil came quickly at her call.