Chapter X: Part 10

Mario shouted for help with all his strength. No one heard him. His father was still far behind, his companions already far ahead. He fired his carbine to attract attention, and, to avoid wasting his shot, aimed it at his assailants, one of whom rolled in the dust. Mario did not wait for the others. He had remounted, and rode away like an arrow, amid a hailstorm of bullets, some of which lodged in his hat, others in the bank by the road.

He heard a tumult behind him, yells, shots. He paid no heed and did not turn.

He had not seen the messenger's face or recognized his voice. He regretted having to abandon to the enemy a man who might be useful. But if was of the utmost importance to save the despatches, and it was only by a miracle that he saved them.

His retrograde course surprised those whom he met; At a short distance from the royal headquarters, he met his father, who was alarmed to see him pass thus without stopping, and supposed that he was wounded and that his horse was running away.

But Mario shouted: "Nothing! nothing!" and vanished in a cloud of dust.

At first he was turned away from the king's tent; he at once determined upon his course of action and hastened to the cardinal's.

The cardinal had already been exposed to so many attempts at assassination that it was no easy matter to obtain access to him. But the despatches which Mario waved above his head, and the excellent young man's winning countenance suddenly inspired the great minister with entire confidence. He summoned him to his presence and took the package, which Mario, in his haste, did not think to present to him with one knee on the ground.

[Footnote 10: Henri Martin, _History of France_.]

LXXII

The cardinal read the despatch.

It contained some good news: perhaps a report of the small number of troops that Gonzalez of Cordova had before Casal; perhaps of a conspiracy of the queens against the power which saved France.

Whatever it may have been, the cardinal folded the despatch with a shrewd smile and looked up at Mario, saying:

"Propitious fate has ordained everything so well to-day, that it has chosen an archangel for messenger. Who are you, monsieur, and how does it happen that you are the bearer of such a despatch?"

"I am a volunteer," Mario replied. "I took this despatch from the hand of a dying man, which was held out to me in the midst of our pursuit of the enemy. He said to me: 'The king's service before everything.'--I could not obtain access to the king, so I thought I would seek access to your eminence."

"So you thought that it was all the same, in the sense that the king can have no secrets from the minister?"

"I thought that he should have none," replied Mario, calmly.

"What is your name?"

"Mario de Bois-Doré."

"Your age?"

"Nineteen years."

"Were you at La Rochelle?"

"No, monseigneur."

"Why not?"

"I do not care to fight against those of the Reformed religion."

"Are you one of them?"

"No, monseigneur."

"But you approve of them?"

"I pity them."

"If you have any favor to ask of me, do it quickly, for time is precious."

"Give us days like this often, that is all that I ask," replied Mario; and, in his eagerness not to waste the cardinal's time, he took his leave without observing that His Eminence was inclined to speak further with him.

But other duties demanded the great minister's attention. He turned to something else and forgot Mario.

On the following day, as they were pitching their camp at Suse, Mario thought that he saw Monsieur Poulain pass dressed as a countryman. He called him, but received no reply.

Monsieur Poulain was in hiding, according to his custom. Being regularly employed upon secret missions, the ex-rector showed his face as little as possible in certain localities, and never appeared openly in the presence of the eminent personages who employed him.

While the king--that is to say the cardinal--was receiving the Duc de Savoie's submission at Suse, which ceremony necessarily lasted several days, the marquis was reposing after his excitement.

Although Richelieu's campaigns in nowise resembled the partizan warfare of his youthful days, Bois-Doré had borne himself as tranquilly as if he had never left the battle-field; but it had been a rude shock to him to see Mario subjected to that test. In the first place, he had been afraid that Mario would not come up to his hopes; for, since the terrible night of the attack upon Briantes and Sancho's death, Mario had often exhibited much repugnance for bloodshed. Sometimes, indeed, when he saw how little interest he took in the siege of La Rochelle, which excited all the youthful minds in their neighborhood, the marquis, although well satisfied with his principles, had been somewhat afraid of his prudence. But when he saw him rushing upon the Spaniards and climbing over the redoubts in the Pas de Suse, he thought him far too rash, and asked pardon of God for bringing him there. At last, however, he had recovered confidence, and, upon learning of the episode of the despatch, he wept for joy and chattered with pleasure in the bosom of the faithful Adamas.

Adamas attracted attention in the town by his arrogant airs and his utter contempt for everybody except Monsieur le Marquis and Monsieur le Comte de Bois-Doré. Aristandre was well pleased to have killed many Piedmontese, but he would have liked to kill more Spaniards. Clindor had not behaved badly. He was terribly frightened at the beginning, but he said that he was all ready to go through it again.

But Mario, amid the gratification of all his dear ones, was oppressed by profound disquietude. Although he despised vain predictions, and had passed through his baptism of fire without thinking of them, he trembled at the recollection of a foolish threat, and Pilar appeared again and again in his dreams, as the spirit of evil, in the guise of an invisible and intangible enemy. He learned, to his cost, that the weakest adversaries may, by a perseverance of hatred, become the most formidable. He had Lauriane constantly before his eyes; it seemed to him that she was threatened by some terrible danger. He took his fears for presentiments.

One morning he returned to Chaumont, as if for exercise. He inquired for the little gypsy to no purpose. He rode over to Mont Genèvre, and learned that a woman's body had been found there on the morning of the 3d of March. At first they had thought that she was frozen to death; but when they buried her they noticed that her lips and her neckerchief bore the marks of burning, as if she had been forced to swallow some corrosive poison. The mountaineers who gave Mario this information proposed to show him the body. They had buried it in the snow temporarily, the ground being frozen so hard that a grave could not easily be dug.

Mario at once identified the body as Bellinde's. So Pilar had told the truth. She had disposed of her companion; she might by the same means dispose of her rival.

Mario returned to Suse at full speed and told his father the whole story.

"Let me go to Briantes," he said. "Await me here to continue the campaign, if it is to be continued. If a definitive treaty is signed, you will know it in a few days, and will join me at home, without haste and without tiring yourself. I can go more quickly alone, quickly enough to arrive before that detestable creature, who has neither the means nor the power to travel by post."

The marquis consented. Mario instantly made his arrangements to start the next day with Clindor.

During the evening Monsieur Poulain visited them, with the utmost precaution. He was in most excellent spirits, and, at the same time, most mysterious.

"Monsieur le marquis," he said to Bois-Doré, when he was alone with him and Mario, "I owed you much before, and I shall owe my fortune to your amiable son! The valuable despatch of which I was the bearer, and which he succeeded in saving, assures me a less dangerous and more honorable place in the confidence of Père Joseph, that is to say, of the cardinal. I have come to pay my debt, and to inform you that your sole ambition is gratified. The king confirms your claim to the marquisate of Bois-Doré, on the sole condition that you shall construct somewhere on your domains a house to which you shall give that name, and which shall, by royal letters patent, be made transmissible to your heirs and their descendants. His eminence hopes that you will continue to serve in his army, if the war continues, and he will avail himself of his first leisure moment to summon you to his presence, in order to congratulate you upon the courage and devotion of the _old man_ and the _child_; I ask your pardon, those were his words. Monsieur le cardinal noticed you both in the charge, and he afterward inquired your names. He was also particularly gratified with you, monsieur le comte, because you asked him simply for more fighting as your reward. I had the honor to appear before him in my humble person, and to tell him the story of my perils and your own, not forgetting that, at eleven years of age, you killed with your own hand your father's murderer; and lastly I reminded him that he was indebted for the receipt of news that was no less advantageous than agreeable to him to this same child, who is as shrewd and intelligent as he is brave. So you have a good start, Monsieur Mario. Humble as I am, I will help you forward with all my strength if opportunity offers."

Despite the marquis's very earnest desire to present Mario to the cardinal, Mario refused to await the uncertain fulfilment of the promise of an audience.

Having warmly thanked Abbé Poulain--he told them under his breath, with a smile, that they might call him so thenceforth,--Mario, happy in the joy of his father and Adamas because of the famous marquisate, threw himself on his bed, slept a few hours, embraced his old friends once more, and started for France at daybreak.

Mario attempted to travel too fast. Although he had an admirable horse, he thought that he would do better to travel by post at full speed, and his own strength failed him. He had received a slight wound in the affair of the Pas de Suse, and had carefully concealed it; the wound became inflamed, he was attacked by fever, and when he reached Grenoble fell helpless on his bed. Clindor, in dismay, discovered that he was delirious.

The poor page ran to fetch a doctor. He was not skilful; he irritated the wound still more by his remedies. Mario was very ill. His impatience and disappointment at being thus delayed aggravated his condition. Clindor decided to send a messenger to the marquis; but he lost his head and sent him to Nice instead of to Suse.

One evening when he was weeping in desperation on the landing outside the room in which Mario lay helpless, he thought that he heard him talking to himself and hastily entered the room.

Mario was not alone; a slender, pale-faced creature, dressed in red, was leaning over him as if to question him.

Clindor was afraid. He thought that the devil had come to torment his poor young master's last moments, and he was trying to remember some formulas of exorcism, when by the dim light of the night lamp he recognized Pilar.

His fear increased. He had overheard her conversation with Mario at Chaumont. He knew therefore that she loved him to frenzy. He believed that she was entirely under the influence of Satan, and fear produced its accustomed effect upon him, that is to say it made him brave; he threw himself upon her, sword in hand, and nearly wounded Mario, whom Pilar exposed as she avoided the blow.

He was not able to strike a second time; Pilar disarmed him, he knew not how, jumping upon him so quickly and unexpectedly that he was forced to fall back.

"Be quiet, stupid idiot that you are!" she said; "I did not come here to injure Mario, but to save him: don't you know that I love him, and that his life is mine? Do what I bid you do, and in two days he will be on his feet."

Clindor, not knowing which way to turn, and realizing that the charlatan whom he had summoned made the patient worse with each new prescription, yielded to Pilar's ascendancy. Despite the fear she caused him, she acted upon his will by virtue of a fascination which he did not admit, but which he could not shake off. At times he trembled to entrust Mario's life to her, but he obeyed, saying to himself that he was bewitched by her.

In Mario's case the fever was simply a result of nervous irritation: a day of repose would have cured his wound. But the physician had applied a healing ointment which produced the effect of poison throughout his whole system.

Pilar washed and purified the wound. She possessed those _secrets_ of the Moors to which the Christians of Spain had recourse as a last resort. She administered powerful antidotes. The purity of the patient's blood and the wonderful equilibrium of his constitution seconded the effect of the remedies. He partly recovered consciousness that same night; and on the following morning he was no longer delirious. In the evening, although terribly weak, he felt that he was saved.

In his transports of joy, Clindor unconsciously made a declaration of love to the clever gypsy. She paid no heed whatever. She concealed herself behind the head of the bed so that Mario might not see her. She was well aware that her appearance would agitate him.

Two days later, Mario felt so fully restored that he ordered Clindor to look about for a post-chaise which he could purchase, so that they might continue their journey. Clindor, seeing that it was too soon, pretended that he could not find one, whereupon Mario bade him bring horses for them to ride.

Clindor was driven to despair by his persistence; Pilar interposed. Mario nearly fell ill again with anger when he saw her and learned that he owed his life to her. But he soon became calm and said to her in a mild tone:

"Whence do you come? where have you been since you made those threats?"

"Ah! you are afraid for _her_!" rejoined Pilar with a bitter smile. "Set your mind at rest; I have had no time to go thither. I will not go, if you will cease to hate me."

"I will, Pilar, if you abandon all thought of vengeance; but, if you persist in it, I shall hate you as much as I hate the life I owe to you."

"Let us not speak of that for the moment; you can safely remain quiet and not return to your province, since my presence with you is a guaranty that everything is well."

Therein Pilar touched the crucial point of the situation. Mario restrained his impatience and consented to remain at Grenoble until he should be fully cured. He had to consent also to allow Pilar to wait upon him. He could not dream of turning over to the strong arm of the law the woman who had just saved his life and whom it was his duty to try to convert from her evil ways by gentleness. He dared not irritate her by displaying his contempt, and despite the unconquerable repugnance she inspired in him, he was reduced to the necessity of being perturbed in mind when she was long absent and of rejoicing when she returned.

This state of affairs became intolerable after two or three days. Pilar, incapable of any sort of moral reasoning, was determined to be loved; she described her passion with a species of wild eloquence, saying and believing that it was chaste, because it was not governed by the senses, and sublime, because it had all the fervor of an unbridled imagination and a wilful temper. She heaped curses upon Lauriane and bitter reproaches upon Mario, exhibiting her mad passion shamelessly before poor Clindor, who took fire beside that volcano.

Mario soon wearied of the absurd rôle he was compelled to play. In vain did he try to transform that nature, incapable as it was of loving the right for the right's sake, or even of conceiving that Mario or anyone else on earth could so love it.

"If you did not love that Lauriane so madly," she said to him with appalling frankness, "you would entrust me with your vengeance; for she always has despised you and always will."

LXXIII

Mario was able to leave his bed at last, and one evening he went out alone, starving for fresh air and liberty, to test his strength, being fully determined to continue his journey even though he must procure Pilar's imprisonment until further notice, or though he must allow her to accompany him in order to hold her in subjection.

Meditating upon the most advantageous plan to adopt, he walked slowly toward the Convent of the Visitation, aimlessly, as if attracted by its elevated site. Suddenly he found himself face to face with a person who stopped in front of him. He too stopped. It was as if they were both irresistibly forced to look at each other.

To judge from her appearance and her manner, the stranger was a woman of noble rank, richly dressed, short and slender, pale, but young and beautiful, so far as he could see through the black mask which women of refinement wore when walking.

She wore a widow's cap and was dressed in black throughout. Her flaxen hair was arranged in two graceful masses over her hair. She was entirely alone. No companion, no servant before or behind her.

The graceful and modest charm of her carriage had impressed Mario at a distance. As she approached, her light hair and black attire had made his heart beat fast. At a little distance he put away the illusion; face to face, he was agitated and uncertain.

The same perplexity seemed to assail the masked lady. At last she passed on, returning Mario's salute.

Mario walked a little way, not without turning several times; he walked a little farther and stopped again.

"At the risk of being discourteous and receiving a sharp rebuke, I propose to find out who that woman is!" he said to himself.

He retraced his steps, walking rapidly, and found himself again face to face with the masked lady, who also had turned back. They both hesitated, and were very near passing a second time without speaking. At last the lady determined to break the ice.

"I ask your pardon," she said with some emotion, "but unless I am deceived by a striking resemblance, you are Mario de Bois-Doré?"

"And you are Lauriane de Beuvre?" cried Mario, intensely excited.

"How does it happen that you recognized me, Mario?" said Lauriane, removing her mask. "See how I have changed!"

"Yes," said Mario, beside himself with joy, "you were not half so lovely before!"

"Oh! do not feel compelled to be gallant to that point," said Lauriane. "My father's death, the sufferings of my party, and the downfall of all my hopes have aged me more than the years have done. But tell me of yourself and yours, Mario!"

"Yes, Lauriane; but take my arm and let us go to your home; for I must speak to you, and unless you are under proper protection here, I will not leave you."

Lauriane was surprised at Mario's excited air; she accepted his arm and said to him:

"I could not, if I would, take you to my present home. It is the convent which you see yonder on the plateau. But you can escort me to the gate and on the way we will tell each other all about ourselves."

Being urged to tell her story first, she told Mario that after the fall of La Rochelle, having failed to obtain permission to share Madame de Rohan's imprisonment, she had attempted to return to Berry. But she had learned in time that the Prince de Condé had given orders to arrest her again in case she should make her appearance there.

An old aunt, her only remaining relation and faithful friend, was superior of the Convent of the Visitation at Grenoble: she was a former Protestant, who had been consigned to that institution when very young, and had allowed herself to be converted there. But she had retained a very great sympathy for the Protestants, and she urged Lauriane most affectionately to come to her for shelter and protection until the end of the war in the South. Lauriane had found some repose and much affection there. She had been no more persecuted there than by the nuns at Bourges. From consideration for her aunt, they had even pretended not to know that she was a heretic, and she was allowed to go out alone and masked, to carry alms and consolation to the divers unfortunate Protestants living in the suburbs.

"Lauriane," said Mario, "you must not go out any more; you must not show yourself in public again until I tell you. It is due to the interposition of Providence that you have not been met and recognized by an invisible and dangerous foe. Here we are at the gate of the convent; swear by your father's memory that you will not pass through this gate again until you have seen me."

"Shall I see you again then, Mario?"

"Yes, to-morrow. Can you receive me in the parlor?"

"Yes, at ten o'clock."

"Do you swear that you will not go out?"

"I swear it."

This time Mario was overjoyed to see the gate of the cloister close between Lauriane and himself. He considered that she was safe there if Pilar did not discover her. He carefully explored the immediate neighborhood of the convent, to satisfy himself that he had not been followed and watched by her. He knew that she was capable of sacrificing the whole community in order to reach her rival.

He returned to his apartments and did not find her there. Clindor had not seen her since his master went out.

All Mario's anxiety revived. He was going down to the street when he heard an uproar which made him quicken his pace. He saw Pilar being taken to prison by a party of archers. She uttered piercing shrieks, at once heart-rending and savage; and when she saw Mario, she held out her hands to him imploringly with a despairing expression which shook his resolution for a moment.

"Ah! cruel!" she cried, "it is you who cause me to be cast into a dungeon as the reward of my love and my care! Infamous wretch! you wish to be rid of me. Curse you!"

Mario, without replying, questioned the leader of the squad in whose custody she was.

"Can you tell me," he said, "whether you propose simply to imprison her for the night as a vagrant, or whether you have arrested her on suspicion of some crime or misdemeanor?"

He was informed that she was accused of a misdemeanor. The physician who had treated Mario with such ill success, irritated to find that he had been cured by an adventuress, accused her of breathing upon her patients, in terms which were equivalent in those days to a charge of unlawfully practising medicine, which charge was likely to have far more serious consequences then than in our day, since the question of witchcraft could always be raised, a crime which the most learned magistrates took seriously and punished with death.

"Whatever may happen to her," said Mario to himself, "it is most important that this dangerous girl should lose track of Lauriane, whom perhaps she has already discovered."

On the following morning he hurried to the convent.

"Now," he said to his friend, "we may breathe freely, but we cannot go to sleep over the volcano."

And he told the whole of his strange adventure with the gypsy.

Lauriane listened attentively.

"Now," she said, "I understand everything. Let me tell you, Mario, why I was so deeply moved when I saw you yesterday, and why I had the assurance to speak to you without being certain that I recognized you. Also, why I hesitated the first time, thinking that I was deceived by my imagination. A week ago, I received an anonymous letter full of insults and threats, in which I was told that you had been killed in the battle of the Pas de Suse. I was overwhelmed by that news. I wept for you, Mario, as one weeps for a brother, and I wrote a letter to your father and sent it instantly to the mail carrier. Little by little, however, reflection led me to doubt the truth of the suspicious intelligence I had received, and when I met you I was on my way to the town, to ascertain, if possible, the names of the nobles who were killed in that battle. I had resolved, if yours was among them, to go to your father and try to sustain him and care for him in that terrible trial. I surely owed him that, did I not, Mario, for all his kindness to me in years gone by?"

Mario gazed at Lauriane; he could not tire of contemplating her altered features, her eyes inflamed by grief and tears, the traces of which seemed very fresh.

"Ah! my Lauriane," he cried, kissing her hands, "so you have retained a little affection for me?"

"Affection and esteem," she replied; "I knew that you had refused to fight against the Protestants."

"Ah! I will never do that! and yet I never told my principal reason! I can tell it to you now: I would not run the risk of firing upon your father and your friends. Lauriane, I always loved you dearly; why were your letters to my father always so cold with respect to me?"

"I, too, can speak with perfect frankness now, my dear Mario. My father, when we went to Bourges the last time, four years ago, had the strange idea of affiancing us to each other. Your father rejected, as he was bound to do, the suggestion of so ill-assorted a union; and I, a little humiliated by my poor father's thoughtlessness, informed you several times of marriage projects, to which I gave but slight consideration in the melancholy situation in which I then was. At the same time I was cold to you in words, my dear Mario, and perhaps somewhat humiliated by the thought of the presumption which you would naturally attribute to me. Let us smile to-day at all that past misery, and do me the justice to believe that I do not entertain the slightest thought of marriage. I am twenty-three years old; my time has gone by. My party is crushed, and my fortune will be confiscated whenever it suits the Prince de Condé's caprice. My poor father is dead, stripped by the hazard of war of the property he had amassed in his maritime expeditions. So I am neither rich nor beautiful nor young. I have but one cause of rejoicing: it is that I can live hereafter not far from you, without being suspected of aspiring to anything except your friendship."

Mario listened, trembling and bewildered.

"Lauriane," he said impetuously, "you show your disdain of my name, my youth and my heart when you speak of the tranquil bond of friendship which it would be easy for you to resume. But it is for me to say: It is too late. I have always loved you reverently, and I do not think that my love is any less reverent because I have loved you more passionately since I lost you and since I have found you again. I, too, Lauriane, have suffered keenly! But I have never despaired altogether. When I had carefully concealed my grief, in order not to allow myself to languish and die, God sent me, in His merciful compassion, gusts of hope in Him and of faith in you.

"'She knows, she must know that it would kill me,' I would say to myself; 'she will love me, she will not love another, because of her kindness of heart if for no other reason! I am only a child, but I can soon and very quickly make myself worthy of her, by working hard, by keeping my heart pure, by having courage, by making them happy who will love me, and by fighting gallantly when there comes a righteous war': for this one is righteous, is it not, Lauriane, and your heart cannot be so changed that you love the Spaniards to-day?"

"No, surely not!" she replied. "And it was because Monsieur de Rohan insisted upon this mad, disgraceful and desperate alliance that I awaited the result of events here, and took no deeper interest in them."

"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."

"_Look" said Mario, picking up a coin with a hole in it, which he saw shining at his feet, "is this it?_"

"_Yes, yes, that's it, my fine gentleman! Give it to me for the trouble I had keeping the fire burning._"]

"Look," said Mario, picking up a coin with a hole in it, which he saw shining at his feet, "is this it?"

"Yes, yes, that's it, my fine gentleman! Give it to me for the trouble I had keeping the fire burning."

Mario threw the coin far away, impelled by a feeling of unconquerable horror. He had read upon it a name carved with a knife. It was Pilar's talisman. Naught else remained of her save that testimony of her fatal love, a few charred bones, and the disgusting odor of burned flesh with which the atmosphere was heavy.

Overwhelmed with horror and pity, Mario rode rapidly away, refusing to give Clindor, who questioned him closely, the key to the riddle; and, during a considerable part of the journey, he was unable to shake off the painful impression produced by that shocking incident.

But when they drew near the manor, we can readily believe that he had forgotten everything, and thought only of the joy of seeing once more his dear betrothed, his beloved father, his loving Mercedes, his paternal tutor Lucilio, the sage Adamas, and the heroic charioteer,--all those loving hearts who, while spoiling him to the best of their ability, had succeeded as by a miracle in making him the best and most charming of mortals.

The wedding festival was magnificent. The marquis opened the ball with Lauriane, who, being happy and at peace once more, seemed not a day older than the handsome Mario.

[Footnote 11: Henri Martin.]