Chapter XVIII: Choosing the Path (10)

“Ah! François, François, it was not well to leave me all these years without a sign or a word. Gaston held out for a long time that either you had escaped from the country, or that you were still fighting, and that it was in either case only the fear of getting us into trouble that prevented you writing, or the want of a trusty messenger, and I believed him while I could; but when two whole years went by, and still we had no news, what could I think but that you had fallen? Victoire, put on your hood, and go--but stay--no, I had better go myself. We must run no risks: there is a price on your head, you say? I will go myself. These are times when we need the cunning of the serpent more than the innocence of the dove. Alas! what does innocence avail my little ones? But shame upon me for an ungrateful wretch! Does it not avail them the palm-branch and the crown, and are not the purest of the flock chosen for a sacrifice to plead for the guilty?”

Thus discoursing, he wrapped himself in his heavy serge cloak, and clutched his stick, and went in search of Gaston, but not without first speaking a word in Victoire’s ear.

And who was Gaston? Gaston was cousin-german and adopted brother of François. They had been brought up from infancy together by Gaston’s mother. When they were both sixteen, she died, leaving the lads to the care of the good God and Monsieur le Curé, and bidding them love each other like true brothers, and live together in the comfortable cottage, which, being her own, she bequeathed them as a joint legacy till either should marry, and then, if they chose to separate, the one who left was to have compensation in a sum of money to be kept by M. le Curé till the event entitled either of the youths to claim it. Besides the cottage, their mother, for both the lads looked on her as such, left two thousand francs, to be equally divided between them when they came to be twenty-one. This was the wedding portion she had brought to Gaston’s father, and as she had adopted François, and given him a true mother’s love, she wished to divide her all, share and share, between him and her own son.

Gaston had a goodly inheritance of land from his father, so she was 450 not impoverishing him by sharing her own with his brother, and he could never feel in after-life that she had wronged him. So Jeanne Léonval thought, at least. And perhaps she was right at the time. But as years went on, Gaston saw things differently; his ideas about the value of money changed, and with them his notions regarding right and justice, and he began to feel an undefined vexation and sense of injury on the subject of his mother’s will. For Gaston had a worm at his heart--the worm that entered the heart of Judas, and sucked it dry of love, and truth, and mercy, and led him at last to deicide and despair. He loved money, and he was growing to love it more every day; it was filling up his heart, and making him hard and selfish, and brushing off the bloom of his boyish freshness. He was growing into a miser. Nobody noticed the growth. Gaston did not suspect it. He lived like other people, frugally but abundantly, in the homely manner of his mother and the people of his class. He wore good clothes, and the same as those around him. But though he did not take to the ways and crotchets of the miser of the story-book, his heart was none the less developing the miser’s spirit, and growing rapidly absorbed, to the exclusion of all other aims, in the love of money. He grudged more and more parting with it, and he longed and pined more greedily after its possession. François, who lived with him, saw nothing of this. He saw him indeed eager and active in turning his land and stock to account, vigilant to seize every opportunity for gain, sharp at striking a bargain, chary of spending his money on many innocent pleasures that tempted the self-denial of older and wiser heads; but this was right and fair so far. There were plenty of idlers, and fellows to spend their money as fast as they made it, and it was well to see Gaston prudent and thrifty, and laying by for the rainy day and the little ones who would be coming by-and-by. So argued the honest, open-handed François, who approved the wisdom of his brother, but did not practise it, and never could keep a franc in his pocket while he saw any one in want of it. Quite as self-denying as Gaston, he pinched himself from a different motive. He saved to give. He gave to the widow who would be driven from her shelter if he did not come in time to pay the rent; he gave to the cold and the hungry; no hearth wanted wood, no mouth craved for bread, while François could supply both. Not a child in the village but loved him, not an elder but smiled a blessing on the young man as he passed. Gaston knew it, and forgave him. He loved him well enough to forgive him even that share in his mother’s _dot_ that was coming to François one of these days. But when the day came, and he saw the money that ought to have been his handed over to his cousin--he disowned the brotherhood that moment for the first time in his life--Gaston felt the fiend wake up in him, he felt he was badly treated, wronged and robbed of his due, and he was wrathful against Jeanne and François. In the angry spirit of the moment, he spoke bitter words to François, and reproached him for having come between him and his mother. But François, who retained the guilelessness of a child, cared too little about the money to seize the base motive of his brother’s anger; he thought it was an outburst of latent jealousy against the orphan child who had come between him and the fulness of 451 his mother’s love, and, with the warmth of a generous nature, François forgave him his unjust reproaches; he offered to give up all at once unconditionally to his cousin, and to leave the cottage, and take no compensation, provided only Gaston would give him back his love and trust. Gaston was not utterly hardened, and the generosity and frankness of his cousin disarmed him, and shamed him out of his unworthy resentment; he embraced him, and asked him to forgive him, and they were true brothers from that out. The coils of avarice twined round Gaston’s heart, and choked his best instincts and his finest impulses, but they did not crush out his love for François. That grew and flourished like a lily amongst weeds. So they stayed together till they grew up to man’s estate, and then an event occurred in the distant town of Chapelle-aux-lys which was to make a new era in the lives of both.

A niece of the curé’s died, leaving one orphan child, whom she implored her uncle to receive and take care of; Marie was alone in the world; and there was no one to whom the mother could bequeath her except the curé of Chamtocé. Great was the perplexity of the worthy priest when he received the intelligence of his niece’s death, accompanied by the unexpected legacy of a grand-niece, and a request that he would enter into possession at once. Victoire was called into council, but, instead of helping him out of the difficulties of the position, she staggered him by asking if he meant to buy a cage and hang _la petite_ in the window like a canary? That was the only way _she_ saw of taking her in. Why, they were so tight for room that if she, Victoire, were not the woman she was, it would be simply an impossibility to fit herself and her _effects_ into the space allotted to her at the presbytery; and where, in the name of common sense, did M. le Curé think she could make room for another inmate? The curé admitted the inexorable logic of this fact, and immediately proposed adding another room to the house; this was the Vendéan’s ready way of simplifying difficulties when his family outgrew his dwelling. Victoire said of course that this remedy was open to them, but what were they to do with _la petite_ till the room was built? Hang her up in the window? M. le Curé rejected the cage alternative, and suggested his niece be sent to one of the farmers’ wives’ for the time being. “Which of them?” Victoire begged leave to inquire. Mère Madeleine would take her and welcome, but she had four sons at home, so that would not do. Then there were La Mère Tustine and La Tante Ursule, and a great many other estimable matrons who would gladly give her a shelter, but between their hospitality and Marie’s acceptance of it there stood some impediment in the shape of sons or brothers that shut the door on the young stranger. The curé and his gouvernante were puzzling over the case, and seeing no way out of it, when François Léonval came in. The curé loved all his children, but, if there was one that he loved better than all, it was the child-like, open-hearted François. He told him at once of his trouble, and asked him what he was to do. François solved the difficulty instanter by offering him the spare room at home--his mother’s formerly, and never occupied since her death--assuring the curé that he and Gaston and Gervoise, their old _bonne_, would take every care of his grand-niece, and that, far from being in the way, she would be quite a godsend to them all in the dull cottage. The curé smiled with a deeper thankfulness than the 452 young man understood at the biblical simplicity betrayed in this proposal, and it took a good deal of argument to make François see that the scheme was not practicable; but when ultimately he did see it, he was ready with an amendment which the curé saw no fair reason for rejecting. This was that Mlle. Marie was to be installed in her uncle’s room, and he was to come and stay with the brothers while another was being added to the presbytery. This point settled, the first thing to be done was to get possession of Marie. The curé would have gladly gone to fetch the poor little orphan himself, but this was Saturday, a very busy day for the country priest, and to-morrow would be Sunday, a busier day still, and when it was quite impossible for him to be absent. But François here again came to the rescue. He would drive over to Chapelle-aux-lys, put up for a few hours--it was a good three hours’ drive--and be back by nightfall with the legacy. François Léonval was perhaps the only youth in the village to whom such a mission could have been entrusted without its provoking a stream of chattering comments on all sides, but the curé knew that not even that queen of gossips, Tante Ursule, would find a word to say against it in his case. So he gave his blessing to François, who ran home as fast as he could, put the strong bay mare to the cariole, and was soon trotting over the snow on the road to Chapelle-aux-lys. This was how Marie came to Chamtocé.

In due time the room was built, the curé took leave of the brothers, and returned to the presbytery, where Marie reigned henceforth with soft, despotic sway over himself, the stiff old Victoire, and all who came within her kingdom. She was soon the acknowledged belle of Chamtocé, and the number of her admirers and the zeal with which they competed for her hand in the village dance, or the honor of carrying her red morocco _Heures_ to and from church on Sundays and fête-days, became a serious complication in the existence of the venerable curé. For his flock loved him with the love that casteth out fear, and had no secrets from him; old and young went to him with their _confidences_ as a matter of course, and the rival candidates for Marie’s favors carried their hopes and fears and complaints of her and of each other to his sympathizing ears with merciless garrulity. It was no small thing to bear the burden of this confidence, to hearken to these knotty cases, and to give advice and sympathy befitting each particular one. The curé, to be sure, had more experience than most men in this kind of diplomacy, having been the bosom confidant of all the swains who had sighed to the belles of Chamtocé these forty years past; but he declared that Marie’s lovers gave him more to do than the whole generation together. There were nine eligible _partis_ going, and all nine were competing for her. The good man was driven to his wits’ end. Marie remained serenely indifferent to them all, and never gave a glance of encouragement to one above another, nor could her uncle detect the faintest sign of preference toward any of them. He took refuge, therefore, in perfect neutrality, and refused to interfere in behalf of any of the suitors. She was young enough to bide her time and try their fidelity before she adopted a choice so important to them and to herself. Marie was fifteen when she came to Chamtocé. The revolution had broken out in Paris and was spreading rapidly through the provinces. La Vendée, which was destined soon to 453 play such a noble part in the fiercest tragedy the world ever saw, was still comparatively quiet; but before Marie had spent two years in her new home, the Royalist movement was firing the hearts of the Vendéans, and the enthusiastic spirit of Charette and Cathelineau and Stoffel was fanning the flames of patriotism and goading the peasants to that grand and universal uprising whose story stands unparalleled in the annals of chivalrous loyalty. The Republican soldiers, _les bleus_, as they were called, were scouring the country, depopulating villages, murdering the priests, and hunting down the nobles, ordering off whole streets to the guillotine in a batch, spreading terror and devastation everywhere. The peasantry had risen _en masse_ and joined the Royalist troops, and were selling their lives and their altars dear. Chamtocé was not behind hand in the patriotic movement. It furnished its goodly contingent of soldiers to the king, and many were the episodes of daring and self-devoted loyalty that marked the progress of the Vendéan cause in the pretty, peaceful village.

Marie was just seventeen when the first recruitment took place. It was a bright spring morning. She was sitting in the latticed window of the presbytery parlor, a dark-eyed, merry-looking maiden in a fan-shaped Vendéan cap, whose soft white cambric frilling set off her warm olive complexion admirably, and made her a very pretty picture as she sat singing to her spinning-wheel, bobbing her head with a quick, graceful movement that kept time to the play of her foot and hands. At a table at the other end of the room the curé was writing away diligently. He was too much absorbed in his work to be disturbed by the musical purring of Marie’s wheel, or the broken snatches of song with which she varied the _rond-rond_ and enlivened the pleasant, monotonous labor; he knew she was there, but her presence was no more hindrance to him than the sunshine that was streaming unbidden through the window, and filling the little room with warmth and brightness.

Suddenly the _rond-rond_ ceased, Marie looked up, and fixed her eyes on some distant object along on the road. Then she stood up, and said hurriedly:

“Mon oncle! mon oncle!”

“Well, my child?” answered the curé abstractedly, without pausing from his work.

“I see horsemen galloping toward the village. _Sont-ce les bleus?_”

The word made the curé start like the touch of a spring. He dropped his pen and was beside her in an instant. They looked out steadily toward the dust-cloud that was advancing rapidly, and for one minute neither spoke. Then the curé exclaimed joyfully:

“No! They are Charette’s men!”

And so they were. But none the less was there cause for Marie’s cheek to grow pale, and the heart of the old pastor to beat with a great emotion. They knew what brought these Royalist soldiers to Chamtocé. Charette wanted men, and he had sent here to levy them. In less than an hour, every available man in the village was up on the _place_ for inspection. The difficulty was whom to take and whom to refuse, for the brave fellows whose exploits and valor won for them later the sobriquet of _peuple de géants_ (race of giants) were all clamoring to be enrolled under the king’s flag, and to go forth and die for the king’s cause.

For the first time to-day since that outbreak that had bound them in closer brotherhood, François and Gaston quarrelled. Both wanted to go, 454 both were equally good for the service; the recruiting officer, unable to choose between them, declared they must decide for themselves. The only way to do this was to defer it to the curé. They walked off to the church, where the old man was speaking plain, soul-stirring words of encouragement and exhortation to a throng of men and women, the men exulting, the women weeping, but all of one mind and heart in the cause, and ready to give their best and dearest to serve under the banner of the fleur-de-lis.

Marie was kneeling close by the altar, amidst a group of weeping mothers and sisters. Her eyes were dry, but dim and restless; she spoke to no one, but turned constantly toward the door, as if she were watching for some new arrival. When the brothers came in, there was a movement, the crowd made way for them as they walked up to the altar, and hushed their sobs to hear what they were going to say.

“Monsieur le Curé,” said Gaston, “only one of us may enlist, and you are to choose between us; which of us may go and fight for the king?”

“Ah! my children, what is it you ask of me! How can I choose!” exclaimed the old man, clasping his hands. “You are both dear to me; I would have you both fight for the king and win a crown of glory. If you fall fighting in defence of God and his altars, yours will be the crown of the martyrs. Which is most pure at heart, strongest in faith, most worthy to serve in the cause of God? He alone can tell!”

“François! François!” cried many voices in chorus, and the people gathered round the poor man’s friend, and blessed him, and bid him joy of being chosen for the good fight.

“So be it!” said the curé; and François knelt down, and the curé laid both hands upon his head and blessed him.

Marie was a silent and unnoticed spectator of the scene. She was still on her knees, clasping the altar-rails with both hands so tightly that the strain left them white and bloodless. François waited till the crowd had followed M. le Curé out of the church, and it was empty except of the two, and then he went close up to Marie and knelt down beside her. He did not speak, and she did not look at him, but she knew that it was François.

“Marie!” he said, and laid his hand on her arm.

Then she turned and looked into his eyes, and these two knew that they loved each other.

“If I fall, you will remember me, Marie, and pray for me,” said François, taking her hand in both his.

“Yes.”

“And, Marie, if I return--”

“We will come to this same spot and bless God together, François.”

“You will wait for me a year and a day?”

“I will wait for you to the end of my life.”

They sent up one last prayer in silence, then kissed each other and parted.

As François left the church he met Gaston, who was seeking him in great concern everywhere. The brothers walked home arm-in-arm, discoursing with full hearts of this sudden and solemn parting. When they entered the cottage, François went straight to his room, and came out with a small deal box in his hand.

“_Frère_,” he said, “I have not much to trouble about in the way of property, but what I have you will keep for me. My savings are nothing to speak of, seven hundred francs in all; here is the box. I should not have had even that sum but for the sale of the cattle at Easter. Do 455 the best you can for me with it; lay it out in stock or grain--whatever brings most as times go. The sheep were the best investment the last two fairs; I wish I had done more in that line; but I was never overwise with my money, and this will thrive better in your hands than in mine, _frère_; only I would rather you didn’t let it lie out long at a time, as you do with your own; gather it in soon after a good stroke, and let it grow till it’s a good sum; it’s not safe in these days to leave one’s money floating in any business.”

Gaston’s astonishment had grown to stupefaction by the time his brother brought this speech to an end. What did it mean, this sudden desire to make money and let it accumulate? François had all his life been as careless of louis-d’or as of carrots or apples, and gave them away as readily for the asking; and now that he was about to face the cannon, and stood a strong chance of never needing them again, he was smitten with an insane desire to have them increase and multiply. Though Gaston said nothing, François read this wonder in his eyes.

“Don’t think I’ve put my heart in the money,” he said, laying a hand on Gaston’s shoulder, and looking wistfully into his face; “I’d hand it to you for your own, to do as you liked with it, if I were alone in the world; but I’m not, _frère_. I’ve another to think of now.”

He drew away his hand, and averted his face quickly, but Gaston saw his lip quiver, and the drops gather in his brave, truthful eyes. He saw it all at a glance, and followed the recruit’s figure, as it disappeared again into his room, with an expression on his face that it was better for both François did not see; if he had looked at his brother then he would have read a secret that would have pierced his heart like a sword. Gaston stood staring after him as if he had been turned to stone, his features fierce and hard-set, the veins in his forehead swelling and throbbing, all his frame shaken by a vehement struggle. Gaston mastered it, his face relaxed, and he went in after François.

“_Frère_,” he said, “you may trust me,” and held out his hand to him.

François clasped it, but looking at his brother with a puzzled smile:

“Trust thee!” he repeated, “as if I needed thy pledge for that! Brother, I trust thee as I trust my soul.”

“And, _frère_, as Monsieur le Curé said just now, the best and purest are chosen for the sacrifice; if--”

“_Vive Dieu et le Roi!_” cried François, raising his cap. Then he was silent a moment before he said:

“If I fall, you will be a good brother to Marie, and do what you can to comfort her.”

“And the money, what shall I do with it?”

“Give it to her.”

The brothers embraced, and set out in search of M. le Curé. He blessed them all once more, and the brave young fellows fell into ranks with the soldiers, and marched off singing their battle-psalm, their hearts beating with high hope and faith and courage; while brave Vendéan mothers followed them out of the village, speeding them with blessings and cries of _Vive Dieu et le Roi!_ It echoed through the gathering twilight with a strange, inspiring pathos. Quiet and darkness fell upon Chamtocé, the shadows died out of the silent church, the red flame of the sanctuary lamp rose and fell, flickering like a crimson pulse in the gloom, and casting its halo on the bowed head of the 456 Vendéan soldier’s _fiancée_.

PART SECOND.

François’s money multiplied with such unprecedented luck in Gaston’s keeping that the little deal box was soon too small to hold it. Gaston kept very little money of his own in hand, he let it float, as his brother said, but whatever he had was always in gold--he never took payment in anything else, and he followed the same plan for François. If it had been his own, he could not have put more zeal into the management of it; and it was with a sense of personal pride and success that at the end of a year he counted over François’s treasure, and found he had trebled the original sum. And Marie--how fared it with her? She was waiting in patience and hope and prayer till the time named by François as the furthest date of his return came and passed and brought no sign of him, and then her heart sank. She could not think that he would leave her in such cruel ignorance of his fate if he were still alive; but neither could she believe that he was dead. They would have heard of it somehow. Bad news travels quickly at all times, and even in those days of terror, when postal arrangements were broken up, and it was at the risk of his head that a messenger carried a letter, news came from the most distant points to out-of-the-way villages in a way that was almost miraculous. _Les bleus_ were everywhere, ubiquitous, stealthy, vindictive, but they could not cut off communication between the Royalists. Fresh recruits started from Chamtocé, and wounds and deaths and noble exploits were chronicled from the distant camp or battle-field, but not a word came over the hilly plains of La Vendée to tell of the fate of François Léonval. Two years went by, and still the silence was unbroken. Then one morning Gaston dressed himself with unwonted care, and went to the presbytery. He found M. le Curé alone. They sat some time together, and when the young man rose to take his leave, the curé said:

“You will meet her probably on the way home. Plead your own cause, my boy; I have done what I could for you; you have my best blessing if you can persuade Marie.”

Gaston met her and pleaded. But not successfully. “François said a year and a day, and after that, if you did not hear, you might be sure he had gone before us,” urged Gaston, choosing the word that would fall less harshly on his listener’s heart; “and now two years have passed and he has neither written nor sent. I do not ask you to forget him, or to cease to love him; we will both love him, and think of him always as dear brother, and he will be happier in heaven for seeing you happy here. Let me fulfil my promise to him that I would take care of you. Come home with me, Marie, and be my wife!”

“I promised that I would wait for him,” answered Marie, her dark eyes looking out toward the west with a gaze of patient longing as she walked on by Gaston’s side.

“A year and a day. You told me he said a year and a day.”

“He said it, but I put no limit to the time. I said I would wait to the end.”

“But he would not have it, Marie; he loved you too well to wish you to waste your life in solitude and vain hopes.”

But Marie shook her head and repeated:

“I promised I would wait for him.” 457

“And your uncle--does his wish count for nothing? You know that he has long since given up all hope, and that the thought of leaving you alone in the world is embittering his old age. ‘I am getting old,’ he said to me just now, ‘but the only thing that makes me dread death is this anxiety about my _pauvre petite_. Who will take care of her when I am gone?’ ‘I promised François I would, _mon père_,’ I said. ‘Then go and plead with her for yourself and for me,’ he replied, ‘that Marie may let you keep your promise.’”

They walked on in silence till they came to the gate of the presbytery, and Marie raised her face to Gaston’s and said:

“Wait one year more, Gaston, and then, if you still wish, come and tell me, and I will go home with you.”

“I have waited three years already, and I would wait as many more to win you,” answered the young man; and as he bent his face over hers--not a handsome face, but illuminated now by eyes that were liquid and beautiful with beseeching love--Marie thought that, since she must choose a home when her uncle was gone, she would rather share Gaston’s than any other, and that it might not be such a difficult thing to love him by-and-by.

That night, when Gervoise had gone to bed, and the place was quiet and all the bolts drawn, Gaston took out François’ money-bag and counted over the contents. It was a good round sum now. He built up the louis into little piles and reckoned them, and then poured them back into the bag; and the coins flashed like little suns in the dim light of his lantern; and Gaston feasted his eyes on them: he thrust his hand into the heap, and, gathering up a handful of coins, let them drip down through his fingers one by one, listening to the pure ring of the metal as if it had been music, as indeed it was to him. Now that Marie had promised to be his wife, this gold which was hers would soon be his, and before the year was out it would be a still bigger heap. He had not told her or the curé that Francois had left any money in his charge, not from any idea of latent treachery to François--oh, no! Gaston was incapable of that; but it had been his dream ever since François had gone to win Marie and then settle this money on her, telling her, of course, whose gift it was. Partly from methodical habit, and partly from an unconfessed pleasure in the sight and touch of the gold, he had made a point of counting it all over after every fresh transaction, but from this night out he began to count it oftener. The fact that it was now to all intents and purposes his own added a new zest to the operation, and the prospect of it became by degrees the chief solace of his working hours, till at last he came to count it regularly every night and to long for the moment when he could lock his door and turn the flame of his lantern on the burning blaze of the gold.

The year came to an end. There was no news of François, and Gaston, being still of the same mind, claimed his promise, and Marie came home with him.

But seven months later François was tramping along through the snow on his way to Chamtocé, and now he is sitting before the pine-wood fire in Monsieur le Curé’s parlor. He had not asked for Marie, and the curé had not named her. The dumb entreaty of François’ eyes smote him to the heart, and he had not the courage to tell the pilgrim that the light which had lured him on through the smoke of the battle, in the 458 dreary watches of the bivouac, in the many miseries of his soldier life, was a mirage that had tempted him along the desert path, only to mock him when he neared it, and fade out of the sky like a false and fickle star. No; he had not the courage to tell him that Marie was his brother’s wife.

When the curé entered the cottage, he found Gaston sitting down to his dinner alone. Marie had gone to nurse a sick neighbor’s child. The curé was glad of her absence. It made his mission easier. “_Mon garçon_,” he said at once, “I bring news that will startle you, and I am thankful to be able to break it to you before Marie hears it. Your brother is come back.” The curé expected his announcement to startle Gaston, as he had said, but he was not prepared for the effect it produced. The young man stood bolt upright, looked at the curé with wild, scared eyes, and dropped again into his chair without uttering a word.

“Have you told him?” he gasped, after an interval of silence that the old priest felt himself incapable of breaking.

“No; her name was not mentioned by either of us.”

“Ha!” Gaston drew a breath of relief; “then perhaps--who knows? He may take it less to heart than we fear?”

“I don’t know. At his age, four years is a long absence; still we cannot tell. But at any rate, my son, you must come and give him a brother’s welcome, and do what a brother’s love can do to lighten the disappointment to him.”

He took Gaston’s arm, and they went out to the presbytery together.

The curé’s heart belied his words when he held out the hope that François’ love might not have borne unchanged the test of absence. He knew the youth too well to believe it. And he was right.

The meeting between the brothers was quiet, but none the less terrible. The curé told François how it had all happened; how faithfully Marie had kept her troth, hoping long after he and Gaston had given up all hope; how at length he had urged her to listen to Gaston; and how, tardily and with a sad heart, she had yielded to both their entreaties. François heard him to the end, and then, in a voice of heart-rending gentleness, he said:

“It was my fault, _frère_; I do not blame thee. God’s will be done!”

He held out his hand, Gaston clasped it, and the brothers stood for a moment face to face in silence. Both were very, pale, but it was not François who was the paler of the two.

Gaston went home, and François watched his figure across the little garden and down the road till it disappeared like a blue speck on the white background, and then he fell upon the curé’s neck and sobbed like a woman.

Before many hours Chamtocé was on tiptoe with alarm and curiosity. A shepherd had arrived in haste with the news that one of the royalist captains had passed through Saumur in disguise, and been traced to Chapelle-aux-lys, whence _les bleus_ were started in pursuit of him; there was a large price on his head; and _les bleus_ were so enraged against him for his desperate exploits and for having baffled them so long, that they were resolved to show no quarter to the people that harbored him, and would set fire to the town rather than let him escape. An old cowherd who had been born and bred in the service of the Maulevriers had recognized François Léonvel on the road, and, guessing whither he was bound, had sent a trusty messenger with a word 459 of warning to Chamtocé.

Gaston was the only person, besides the curé and Victoire, who knew of his brother’s arrival so far, and when Gervoise came in with this news, which she caught from the village gossips on her way from evening prayers, his first impulse was to rush to the presbytery, and warn his brother to start at once, and seek some safer hiding-place. He went out quickly, but, as he had his hand on the wicket, he saw Marie coming towards the cottage. She was the last person he wished to meet just then, but he could not avoid her without exciting surprise in her mind, and perhaps suspicion. So he tarried till she came, wondering why she walked so slowly, as if she did not make sure he was waiting for her, or as if--as Gaston’s heart whispered to him--she would rather he went without speaking to her. Why? Was it possible the truth had come to her ears already? He could not believe it, still it was with a painful quickening of his pulse that he saw her at that leisurely pace.

“Were you waiting for me, Gaston?” she said simply.

“No. I am going in to Monsieur le Curé for a minute; I will be back presently. Are you not well, Marie?”

“Yes, _mon ami_, quite well, only tired and cold.”

She drew her shawl closer round her with a little shudder, and passed him and entered the cottage. Gaston’s heart leaped up as if an adder had stung it, and then sank as suddenly with a horrible faintness. He leaned against the snow-stuffed hedge and felt as if the very life were frozen within him. The blood rushed to his throat; he put his hand to his forehead as if a spasm of pain had stunned him; but soon rousing himself from his absent attitude, he walked on to the presbytery. But he did not enter it. He did not see it, in fact. He walked on and on like a man in a dream, looking neither to the right nor the left, and when suddenly he remembered where he was, and whither he was bound, he had left the village more than a league behind him, and was standing on the sloping beach of St. Florent, under the shadow of its semicircular hills that look down upon the Loire, where the little islet of ---- sits like a brooding swan midway in its waters. The night had fallen, but the moon was not yet up, and the darkness was only lightened by the snowy reflex of the landscape. A bank of cloud hung like a heavy curtain over the hill, and hid away the moon. Somehow Gaston was glad of the darkness. But it was in vain that he strove to make it dark within. No outer darkness could conceal from him the workings of his heart. He saw into its troubled depths as clearly as if a thousand moons had been shining in the purple vault above him. He saw the tempter busy with his fiercest instincts, and he saw what a base and miserable tool he was. Ay, but desperate as well as base. Much must be forgiven to a desperate man. Here was his whole life wrecked. His wife’s affection and trust--he felt it had not yet grown to love--was lost to him; his gold was lost to him--his precious, darling gold, that he had hugged to his heart till it grew to be a part of it, a second wife; and he must give it up just at a moment when he wanted it as he had never done before, and had laid out all his money, and had not a louis to ring on his hearthstone except this gold of François’. A curse upon the hour he took it! François would never ask it back--never accept it, most likely, Gaston felt. 460 But Marie would never consent to keep it. No, and she would grow to hate him in spite of herself for having come between her and François, and forced her to break her troth to him. His life, that was so bright and rich, how dark and wretched it had become within these last few hours! And was there no rescue from it all? Yes. He had only to speak a word, and he was saved. Let him start off now, before Marie knew of François’s return, and meet _les bleus_, and they would come quietly to the presbytery, and take him away in the night, and there would be an end of François for ever, and of the misery he was going to cause. Treachery? Bah! His was the treachery to come back after being as good as dead all this time. Was it a crime to have married Marie, when he left her three whole years without a word of love or a sign of existence? She was happy now, but if once she saw François she would never know happiness again. The sight of his misery would fill her heart with remorse, and break it. What right had François to go away at all when he knew that Marie loved him? It was no doing of Gaston’s that; he wanted to go in his stead. Would that he had! But now he was to be a ruined, blighted man to the end of his days. And to what purpose? To save François from being shot a little sooner than he might be; for so surely as he had a head on his shoulders, so surely would he have a bullet through it some day. No one would be the worse of his having it to-morrow instead of a month hence or a year, and two human beings would be considerably the better of it.

Gaston had flung himself on a snow-heap by the side of the river, his face buried in his arms, while he worked out his wrongs and his despair to this conclusion. François must die. There was no other way out of it. Once he brought his mind to face this alternative and close with it, there was no time to be lost, and it would be dangerous to go over the ground again. He must act at once if he were to act at all. Gaston shook the snow from his arms, and sprang to his feet. But a change had come over the scene, and he could hardly realize that it was the same he had surveyed in the dim white darkness half an hour previously. The heavy bank of cloud had melted away; only one small patch remained, fringed with silvery rays that lighted up the sky like the glory of a tabernacle; all round it myriads of stars were twinkling in the liquid depths of blue, and gazing on their own brightness in the steel-blue mirror of the Loire, that trembled lightly as the golden shafts shot down through it and illuminated its cold, pure bosom like a second heaven. Presently, the moon came out, not “pale for weariness of climbing” the steep sky, but radiant and beautiful, and shone serenely in the clear December heaven, and all the world was bathed in silvery twilight. The solemnity of the scene thrilled through Gaston’s soul, and made his pulse beat with an unknown fear; but it was the ennobling fear with which nature inspires us in her sublimest aspects--the reverent awe that uplifts the soul, not the guilty terror that casts it down, paralyzing and debasing it.

His ghastly project cowered before him like a fiend dragged from outer darkness into the splendor of God’s sunshine. The divine beauty of the world without rebuked and annihilated the foulness of the world within. No base or treacherous thoughts could contemplate the purity and glory of that starry splendor, and not perish. It drew the earth 461 heavenward, and made all things grand and solemn. The meek, low hills grew mighty and majestic; they stretched their pure white peaks to kiss the stars, soaring high above the haunts of men, as if they scorned the earth, and would have naught in common with the pettiness, the guilt, and the folly that had their dwelling on the plain. The very silence had a voice in it more powerful than thunder. It rang with inarticulate harmonies through Gaston’s soul--mysterious, unuttered whisperings, as of angels hovering to and fro, brushing the crystal twilight with their wings.

And were there not angels near him in his hour of struggle? Did he not hear them pleading at his heart, touching his storm-tossed spirit with their loving, beseeching eyes, weeping, perhaps, over the impending ruin of his God-imaged soul? Surely, if angels ever weep, earth has no misery more worthy of their tears. And were they less powerful than the fallen spirits who were fighting against them for the noble prize, or did they love God’s human creature less than the fiends hate him?

Gaston called to mind the days long ago, when he was an innocent child, and prayed every night to his angel guardian before lying down to sleep, and believed that the beautiful benign spirit stood at the right side of his little cot, watching him while he slept. It was many a day since he had prayed, but now the words came back on him with a strange, impelling power, and played upon his heart like the notes of a long-forgotten melody. They rose to his lips, but he choked them down. He could not let them pass. Whom was he to speak to--an angel? There was a gulf between the Judas that he was to-day and the unsullied little child who used to breathe that prayer in an angel’s ear.

Gaston felt the scene was subduing his soul to a dangerous softness, and unnerving him for his purpose. What a fool he was to stand there moon-gazing! He turned his back on the river and the hills, and strode homeward at a rapid pace. He tried to sing, but his voice jarred like a discord on the holy silence, and he checked himself. It was near ten when he re-entered the village. Every house was closed and quiet, but not asleep. This was Christmas eve. The children were put to bed with many a promise that they should be called for midnight Mass, but most of the elders were watching, saying their rosaries, or singing _cantiques_ in family groups while awaiting the summons of the bell to gather round the crib of the new-born King. Gaston saw the lights gleaming from many windows, and wished them out. He had no mind to be seen prowling alone in the snow at this time of night, and on such a night, so he crept on stealthily under the shadow of the cottages, till he came to his own gate. He dreaded meeting Marie, and having to answer her questions as to why he had been out so long. But perhaps she would ask no questions. Was she really so pale when he met her that time, or was it his terrified fancy? Anyhow, she could not know yet for certain that François was here, whatever fears or hopes--yes, Gaston must use the word--the gossip that had reached her ears may have suggested. But on entering the bright, spacious kitchen where the table was spread for supper, all its pewter and delft glancing in the light of the pine-logs that blazed merrily in the broad chimney, he saw no one but old Gervoise, sitting bolt upright in her high-backed chair in the chimney-corner, and nodding significantly at the knitting 462 that lay on her knees. The noise he made drawing a stool to the fire awoke her. He asked where her mistress was, and Gervoise told him that Marie had come in for a few minutes and then gone out again, and that they were not to expect her home that night, as the child was worse. He was glad of her absence; yet it frightened him. Was it a pretext--was she shrinking from him, afraid or loath to meet him! At any rate, it changed his intention of starting at once; he decided that he would wait till all the village was up and astir for midnight Mass, and then he would slip off and ride hard, so as to reach Chapelle-aux-lys and be back again before daylight and Marie’s return. He said he did not care to eat anything, and went up to his room. He locked himself in, lighted his lantern, and pulled out the fatal money-bag; he felt he must strengthen himself by the sight of the gold, and count over his treasure once more, to make sure it was worth the price he was going to pay for it. This done, he flung himself undressed on the bed, and, worn out by the conflict of the last few hours, was soon sound asleep. But he had not been asleep long before he was aroused by a long knocking at his door, and a rough voice demanded admittance. Gaston sprang to his feet.

“Who’s there?” he said.

“_Les bleus._ Open in the name of the republic!” and the speaker dealt a blow on the door that nearly broke it in.

Gaston opened without further parley, and six men entered the room.

“What do you want?” he asked.

“We want one François Léonval who is concealed in this house. Tell us where to find him and we will go, and do you no harm; but if you try to shirk it--” The man swore a brutal oath, and pointed his pistol at Gaston’s head.

But Gaston Léonval had a Vendéan’s spirit withal. It was not to dastardly personal cowardice that he would betray his brother; he felt the cold touch of the muzzle on his forehead, and, quietly pushing it aside, he told the man he might search the house, and he wished him joy if he found what he was looking for. “We had better begin by the outhouses and the garden,” said the one who seemed to take the lead; “two of you stay inside to prevent any tricks, while we are outside.” And he left the room, followed by all but one soldier, who remained to mount guard over Gaston.

But a safer and stronger sentinel was keeping watch by the wretched brother, urging him with terrible power and show of reason to say the word that would free him for ever. Only an hour ago, he was resolved to run great risks to say it, and now he had only to make a sign, and run no risk whatever, and he could not bring himself to do it. Confound that moonshine! It had made a woman of him. He went to the window and looked down into the garden to watch the proceedings of the soldiers. Then he heard them searching the rooms below, banging doors and overturning everything, and presently the officer came up-stairs again.

“Hearken, _mon garçon_, it’s no use trying to play hide-and-seek with _les bleus_,” he said, “you won’t find it answer. Now, once for all, where is this François Léonval?”

“I tell you he’s not here,” replied Gaston doggedly; “if he was, you would find him.”

“Most likely, if we had time to lose hammering at the walls and hunting 463 up the chimneys; but _les bleus_ have a more expeditious way of going to work. When we can’t bag our game, we fire it. So walk out, and we will set a light to the house and make a little Christmas bonfire for you. If he’s a coward, he’ll soon cry _merci_! If he’s a brave man, why he’ll go out in a blaze, and that’s as good a death as another. So here goes, give me the light!”

He seized the lantern, took out the socket, and deliberately advanced towards the bed.

“Hold!” cried Gaston, clutching his outstretched arm; “the man you are in search of is not here; he is at the presbytery.”

The _bleu_ laid down the light.

“Stay here,” he said to the soldier who had remained in the room; “we will whistle for you when it’s time to join us.”

He descended the stairs quickly, and Gaston heard the door close, and saw the five figures disappear down the road. After that he seemed to fall into a sort of stupor, and stood without moving hand or foot, staring stolidly out of the window, while the soldier waited in silence for the promised signal. It came at last, wounding the silence like the hiss of a snake, and Gaston knew that his brother was in the hands of the torturers.

No sooner was he alone than a legion of demons seemed to people the room, filling it with hideous forms and voices, mocking and scoffing, and asking him what he had done with his brother. He stamped in rage, and dashed his hands through his hair, and began to walk rapidly up and down. But the spectres kept pace with him, grinning and hooting and repeating with maddening iteration: “What have you done with your brother?”