Part 13

As I yielded, with the egotism of passion, to my secret ecstasy, some trace of which, perhaps, expressed itself in my face, I was suddenly awakened by these words, spoken in a dull tone, and with affected calm:

"M. le Marquis de Champcey, have there been many cowards in your family before you?"

I rose, and immediately fell back again on the stone bench, looking stupidly into the darkness, where I saw dimly the ghostly figure of the young girl. Only one idea occurred to me--a terrible idea--that grief and fear had affected her reason--that she was going mad.

"Marguerite!" I cried, without knowing that I spoke.

The word no doubt put a climax to her irritation.

"My God, this is hateful!" she continued. "It is cowardly. I repeat, it is cowardly."

I began to see the truth. I descended one of the steps.

"What is the matter?" I said coldly.

She replied with abrupt vehemence: "You paid that man or child, whichever it was, to shut us up in this wretched tower. To-morrow I shall be ruined ... my reputation lost ... then I shall have perforce to belong to you. That was your calculation, wasn't it? But, I warn you, it will not serve you any better than the rest. You still know me very little if you think I would not prefer dishonour, the convent, death, anything, to the vileness of yielding my hand--my life--to yours. And suppose this infamous trick had succeeded, suppose I had been weak enough--which of a surety I never shall be--to yield myself, and what you covet more, my fortune to you, what kind of a man can you be? What mud are you made of, to desire wealth and a wife by such means? Ah! you may thank me for not yielding to your wishes. They are imprudent, believe me; for if ever shame and public ridicule drove me to your arms, I have such a contempt for you that I would break your heart. Yes, were it as hard and cold as these stones, I would press blood and tears from it!"

"Mademoiselle," I said, with all the calm I could command, "I beg you to return to yourself, to your senses. On my honour I assure you that you do me injustice. Think for a moment. Your suspicions are quite absurd. In no possible way could I have accomplished the treachery of which you accuse me; and even if I could have done so, when have I ever given you the right to think me capable of it?"

"Everything I know of you gives me this right!" she cried, lashing the air with her whip. "I will tell you once for all what has been in my thoughts for a long time. Why did you come into our house under a false name, in a false character? My mother and I were happy and at peace. You have brought trouble, anxiety, and sorrow upon us. To attain your object, to restore your fallen fortunes, you usurped our confidence ... you destroyed our peace ... you have played with our purest, deepest, and holiest feelings ... you have bruised and shattered our hearts without pity. That is what you have done or tried to do, it doesn't matter which. Well, I am utterly weary of, utterly disgusted with, all this. I tell you plainly. And when now you offer to pledge your honour as a gentleman, the honour that has already allowed you to do so many unworthy things, certainly I have the right not to believe in it--I do not believe in it."

I lost all control of myself. I seized her hands in a transport of violence which daunted her. "Marguerite, my poor child, listen. I love you, it is true, and a love more passionate, more disinterested, more holy, never possessed the heart of man. But you--you love me too! Unhappy girl, you love me and you are killing me. You talk of a bruised and a broken heart. What have you done to mine? But it is yours. I give it up to you. As for my honour, I keep it ... it is intact, and before long I shall compel you to acknowledge this. And on that honour I swear that if I die, you will weep for me; that if I live--worshipped though you are--never, never, were you on your knees before me, would I marry you unless you were as poor as I, or I as rich as you. And now pray! pray! Ask God for a miracle; it is time!"

Then I pushed her roughly far from the embrasure, and sprang on to the highest step. A desperate idea had come to me. I carried it out with the precipitation of positive madness. As I have said, the tops of the beeches and oaks that grew in the moat were on the level of the window. With my bent whip I drew the ends of the nearest branches to me, seized them at random, and let myself drop into the void. I heard my name--"Maxime!"--uttered with a wild cry above my head. The branches I held bent their full length towards the abyss; there was an ominous crack, and they broke under my weight. I fell heavily on the ground. The muddy nature of the soil must have deadened the shock, for I felt that I was alive, though a good deal hurt. One of my arms had struck the stonework of the moat, and I was in such pain that I fainted. Marguerite's despairing voice recalled me to myself.

"Maxime! Maxime!" she cried, "for pity's sake, for God's sake, speak to me! Forgive me!"

I got up and saw her in the bay of the window, standing in an aureole of pale light, her head bare, her hair loose, her hands grasping the bar of the cross, while her glowing eyes searched the dark abyss.

"Don't be alarmed," I said; "I'm not hurt. Only be patient for an hour or two. Give me time to get to the chateau--that is the best place to go. You may be sure I shall keep your secret and save your honour, as I have just saved my own."

I scrambled painfully out of the moat and went to look for my horse. I used my handkerchief as a sling for my left arm, which was quite disabled and gave me great pain. The night was clear and I found the way easily. An hour later I was at the chateau. They told me that Dr. Desmarets was in the drawing-room. I hurried there and found him and a dozen others, all looking anxious and alarmed.

"Doctor," I said lightly as I came in, "my horse shied at his own shadow and came down in the road. I think my left arm is put out. Will you see?"

"Eh, what?--put out?" said M. Desmarets, after he had removed the handkerchief. "Your arm's broken, my poor boy."

Mme. Laroque started up with a little scream and came towards me.

"It seems we are to have an evening of misfortunes," she said.

"What else has happened?" I asked, as if surprised.

"I am afraid my daughter must have had an accident. She went out on horseback about three; it is now eight, and she has not returned!"

"Mlle. Marguerite? Why, I met her..."

"Met her? When? Where? Forgive a mother's selfishness, M. Odiot."

"Oh, I met her on the road, about five. She told me she thought of going as far as the tower of Elven."

"The tower of Elven! She has lost her way in the woods. We must send at once and search."

M. de Bevallan ordered horses to be got ready immediately. At first I pretended that I meant to be of the party, but Mme. Laroque and the doctor would not hear of it. Without much trouble I was persuaded to take to my bed, which, truth to tell, I needed badly. M. Desmarets attended to my arm, and then drove away with Mme. Laroque, who was to await the result of the search inaugurated by M. de Bevallan at the village of Elven.

About ten o'clock Alain came to tell me that Mlle. Marguerite had been found. He related the story of her imprisonment without omitting any details, except, of course, those known only to me and the young girl. The news was soon confirmed by the doctor, and afterwards by Mme. Laroque, and I had the satisfaction of seeing that no one suspected what had actually occurred.

I passed the night in repeating the dangerous leap from the window of the donjon with all the grotesque complications of fever and delirium. I did not get used to it. Every moment the sensation of falling through emptiness caught me by the throat, and I awoke breathless. At last day came, and I got calm. At eight o'clock Mlle. de Porhoet came in and took her place at my bedside with her knitting in her hand. She did the honours of my room to the visitors who followed one another throughout the day. Mme. Laroque was the first after my old friend. As she held my hand and pressed it earnestly I saw tears on her face. Has her daughter confided in her?

Mlle. de Porhoet told me that old M. Laroque had been confined to his bed since yesterday. He had a slight attack of paralysis. To-day he cannot speak, and they are much alarmed about him. The marriage is to be hastened. M. Laubepin has been sent for from Paris; he is expected to-morrow, and the contract will be signed the following day, under his direction.

I have been able to sit up for some hours this evening, but, according to M. Desmarets, I should not have written while the fever was on me, and I am a great idiot.

_October 3d_.

Really it seems as if some malign power were hard at work devising the strangest and most cruel tests for my conscience and heart alternately.

M. Laubepin not having arrived this morning, Mme. Laroque has asked me to give her some of the information necessary for drawing up the general conditions of the contract, which is to be signed to-morrow. As I am obliged to keep my room for some days yet, I asked Mme. Laroque to send me the title-deeds and private documents in her father-in-law's possession, as they were indispensable for the clearing up of the points she had mentioned to me.

Very soon they brought me two or three drawers full of papers which they had taken out of M. Laroque's cabinet while he was asleep, for the old gentleman would never let any one touch his secret archives. On the first paper that I took up I saw my family name repeated several times. My curiosity was irresistibly aroused. Here is the literal text of the document:

To MY CHILDREN

The name I bequeath to you, and which I have honoured, is not mine. My father's name was Savage. He was overseer of a large plantation in the Island of St. Lucia (then French), which belonged to a rich and noble family of Dauphine--the Champcey d'Hauterives. In 1793 my father died, and, though I was quite young, I succeeded to the trust the Champceys reposed in him. Towards the end of that disastrous year the French Antilles were taken by the English or given up to them by the rebel colonists. The Marquis of Champcey d'Hauterive (Jacques-Auguste), whom the orders of the Convention had not yet struck down, then commanded the _Thetis_ frigate, which had been cruising on this coast for three years. A good number of the French colonists of the Antilles had succeeded in realizing their fortunes, which had been in imminent peril. They had arranged with the Commandant de Champcey to get together a fleet of light transports, to which their property had been transferred, and which was to sail for France under the protection of the guns of the _Thetis_. In view of imminent disasters, I had myself received, a long time back, an order and authority to sell the plantation at any price. On the night of November 14, 1793, I put out alone in a boat for the Point of Morne-au-Sable and secretly left St. Lucia, already occupied by the enemy. I brought with me in English notes and guineas the amount I had received for the plantation. M. de Champcey, thanks to his intimate knowledge of the coast, had slipped past the English cruiser and had taken refuge in the dangerous and unknown channel of Gros-Ilet. He had instructed me to join him there this night, and only awaited my arrival to leave the channel with his convoy and make for France. In crossing, I fell into the hands of the English. These experts in treason gave me the choice of being shot on the spot or of selling them, for the million I had with me, which they agreed to leave in my hands, the secret of the channel where the fleet was hiding. I was young ... the temptation was too great. Half an hour later the _Thetis_ was sunk, the convoy taken, and M. de Champcey seriously wounded. A year passed--a year without sleep.... I was going mad.... I determined to make the cursed English pay for the remorse I suffered. I went to Guadeloupe; I changed my name; I devoted the larger part of the money I had received to the purchase of an armed brig, and I fell upon the English. For fifteen years I washed in their blood and my own the stain that in an hour of weakness I had brought on my country's flag. Though three parts of my fortune have been acquired in honourable combats, its origin was, nevertheless, the price of my treachery.

Returning to France in my old age, I ascertained the position of the Champcey d'Hauterives, and found that they were happy and wealthy. I kept my own counsel. I ask my children to forgive me. While I lived I had not the courage to blush before them. My death will reveal this secret to them. They must use it as their consciences may direct. For myself I have only one prayer to address to them. Soon or late there will be a final war between France and her neighbour. We hate one another too much; there's nothing else to be done; either we must devour them or they must devour us. If this war should be declared during the life of my children or grand-children, I desire that they give to the state a corvette fully armed and completely equipped, on one condition, that it shall be called the Savage, and be commanded by a Breton. At each broadside she shall send on to the Carthaginian shore my bones will tremble with joy in my grave.

RICHARD SAVAGE, called LAROQUE.

The memories that this terrible confession awakened convinced me that it was correct. Twenty times I had heard my father relate with pride and indignation this incident in my ancestor's career. But in the family we believed that Richard Savage--I remember the name quite well--had been the victim, and not the contriver of the treason or mischance which had betrayed the commandant of the _Thetis_. Now I understand the peculiarities I had often noticed in the old sailor's character, and especially his thoughtful and timid bearing towards me. My father had always told me that I was the living portrait of my grandfather, the Marquis Jacques, and perhaps some dim perception of this resemblance had penetrated to the old man's troubled brain.

This revelation threw me into a terrible perplexity. I felt but little resentment against the unhappy man who had redeemed a moment of weakness by a long life of repentance, and by a passion of desperation and hatred which was not without greatness. Nor could I, without admiration, breathe the wild blast which animated the lines written by this guilty but heroic hand. Still, what was I to do with this terrible secret? My first thought was that it removed all obstacles between Marguerite and me; that henceforth the fortune that had kept us apart would be almost an obligatory bond, for I was the only person in the world who could regularize her title to it by sharing it with her. But in truth this secret did not belong to me, and though I had learned it by the purest of accidents, strict honesty, perhaps, demanded that I should leave it to come at its own time into the hands for which it was destined. But while I waited for that moment the irreparable would be accomplished. Eternal bonds were to be forged. The tomb was to close over my love, my hopes, and my sorrowful heart. And should I allow it when I might prevent it by a single word? And the day these poor women learned the truth, and blushed with shame to learn it, perhaps they would share my regret and despair. They would be the first to cry:

"Ah! if you knew, why did you not speak?"

No, neither to-day nor to-morrow, nor ever, shall those noble women blush for shame if I can prevent it. My happiness shall not be bought at the price of their humiliation. This secret is mine alone. The old man, henceforth speechless, cannot betray himself. The secret does not exist; the flames have destroyed it. I pondered it well. I know what I have dared to do. It was a will, a sacred document, and I have destroyed it. Moreover, it did not benefit me alone. My sister, who is intrusted to my care, might have found a fortune there, and, without consulting her, I have plunged her back into poverty. I know all that, but I will not allow two pure proud souls to be crushed and dishonoured by the burden of a crime of which they are ignorant. There is a principle of equity at stake far superior to mere literal justice. If, in my turn, I have committed a crime, I will answer for it. But the struggle has exhausted me. I can do no more now.

_October 4th_.

M. Laubepin, after all, arrived yesterday. He came to see me. He was brusque, preoccupied, and seemed ill-pleased. He spoke briefly of the marriage.

"A very satisfactory business!" he said; "in all respects an excellent combination, where nature and society both receive the guarantees they have the right to require in such matters. And so, young man, good-night. I have to smooth the delicate ground of the preliminary agreements, that the hymeneal car of this interesting union may reach its goal without jolting."

At one o'clock this afternoon the family assembled in the drawing-room with all the preparations and formalities observed at the signing of a marriage contract. I could not attend this ceremony, and I blessed my broken arm for sparing me the trial. About three I was writing to little Helene, and taking care to assure her more strongly than ever of my complete devotion to her, when M. Laubepin and Mlle. de Porhoet came into my room. In his frequent visits to Laroque, M. Laubepin has learnt to appreciate my venerable friend, and the two old people have formed a respectful and Platonic attachment, which Dr. Desmarets tries in vain to misrepresent. After an exchange of ceremonies, of interminable bows and courtesies, they took the chairs I offered them, and both set about considering me with an air of grave beatitude.

"Well," I said, "it's over?"

"Yes," they replied in chorus, "it's over."

"It went off well?"

"Very well," said Mlle. de Porhoet.

"Wonderfully well," said M. Laubepin. After a pause he added: "Bevallan's gone to the devil!"

"And the young Helouin after him!" continued Mlle. de Porhoet.

I exclaimed in surprise:

"Good God! what has happened?"

"My friend," said M. Laubepin, "the contemplated union had every possible advantage, and it would have without doubt insured the common happiness of both the parties concerned, if marriage were a purely commercial partnership; but it is nothing of the sort. As my assistance had been asked, I thought it my duty to bear in mind the inclination of the hearts and the agreement of the character just as much as the relative proportions of the estates. Now, from the first, I had the impression that the contemplated marriage had one drawback. It pleased no one, neither my excellent friend Mme. Laroque, nor the amiable _fiancee_, nor their most sensible friends--no one, in fact, except perhaps the _fiance_, about whom I trouble myself very slightly. It is true (I quote here from Mlle. de Porhoet), it is true, I say, that the _fiance is *gentilhomme_...."

"A _gentleman_, if you please," Mlle. de Porhoet interrupted severely.

"A _gentleman_," continued M. Laubepin, accepting the correction, "but it is a kind of _gentleman_ I don't care for."

"Nor I," said Mlle. de Porhoet. "There are curious specimens of the kind. Dissipated stablemen, such as those whom we saw last century deserting their English stables under the direction of the Duc de Chartres to come over here and prepare the Revolution."

"Oh, if they had only prepared the Revolution," said M. Laubepin, sententiously, "we should forgive them."

"A million apologies, my dear sir; but--speak for yourself! Besides, that is not the question; will you go on?"

"So," continued M. Laubepin, "seeing that every one was approaching this wedding as if it were a funeral, I searched for some honourable and legal means, not to break the engagement with M. de Bevallan, but to get him to withdraw voluntarily. This proceeding was the more justifiable, as in my absence M. de Bevallan had profited by the inexperience of my excellent friend, Mme. Laroque, and the weakness of my colleague in the neighbouring town, to make the most exorbitant demand in his own interests. Without departing from the wording of the agreements, I succeeded in materially altering their spirit. But there were limits which honour and the engagements already entered into forbade me to pass. And the contract remained favourable enough to be accepted with confidence by any high-minded man who had a sincere affection for his betrothed. Was M. de Bevallan such a man? We had to take that risk. I confess that I was not free from emotion when I began to read the irrevocable document before an imposing audience this morning."

"As for me," interrupted Mlle. de Porhoet, "I hadn't a drop of blood left in my veins. The first part of the contract conceded so much to the enemy that I thought all was lost."

"No doubt, mademoiselle; but, as we augurs say among ourselves, 'the sting is in the tail,' _in cauda venenum_.

"It was comical, my friend, to see the faces of M. de Bevallan and my _confrere_ from Rennes, who assisted him, when I suddenly unmasked my batteries. At first they looked at each other in silence; then they whispered together; at last they rose, and, coming to the table where I sat, asked me in a low voice for an explanation.

"'Speak up, gentlemen, if you please,' I said to them. 'We must have no mysteries here. What have you to say?'

"The company began to prick up their ears. Without raising his voice, M. de Bevallan suggested to me that the contract showed mistrust.

"'Mistrust, sir!' I replied, in my most impressive tone. 'What do you intend to convey by that? Do you make that strange imputation against Mme. Laroque, or against me, or against my _confrere_ here present?'

"'S-s-sh! Silence! No wrangling!' said the Rennes notary discreetly; 'But listen: it was agreed in the first place that the legal system of dotation should not be insisted on.'

"'The legal system? And where do you find that mentioned?'

"'Oh, my dear sir, you know that you have practically reconstituted it by a subterfuge.'

"'Subterfuge, monsieur? Allow me, as your senior, to advise you to withdraw that word from your vocabulary.'

"'But, after all,' murmured M. de Bevallan, 'I'm tied hand and foot, and treated like a school-boy.'

"'Indeed, sir! What, in your opinion, are we here for at this moment--a contract or a will? You forget that Mme. Laroque is living; that her father is living, and that it is a question of marriage, not of inheritance--at least, not yet.... Really, you must have a little patience; you must wait a little.'

"At these words Mlle. Marguerite rose.

"'That is enough,' she said.--'M. Laubepin, throw that contract into the fire. Mother, let this gentleman's presents be returned.'

"Then she rose and left us like an outraged queen. Mme. Laroque followed her, and at the same time I threw the contract into the fireplace.

"'Sir,' said M. de Bevallan in a threatening tone, 'there's some trickery in this, and I will find it out.'

"'Sir,' I replied, 'allow me to explain it to you. A young lady, who, with a just pride, values herself very highly, feared that your offer might have been influenced by her wealth; she wished to be certain; she has no longer any doubts. I have the honour to wish you good-day!'

"Thereupon, my friend, I went after the ladies, and--upon my honour--they embraced me.