Chapter XLIII: Part II (1)

When it was known in the country that M. le Marquis had joined the army as a common soldier, the consternation was great; but when it was known why he had done so, surprise gave way to bitter indignation and regret. The Marquis de Gondriac gone to risk his life for the son of a low plebeian, generally supposed to have been a pirate! The marvel was how the world stood still while such a scandal was enacted in its face. As to the widow, nobody thought of congratulating her. If Marcel had gone out and been shot, they would have pitied her, within reasonable bounds; but now every man’s hand was against her and her son—even the women felt the sweet font of pity dried up within them when they thought of what might come of this. But the people, despite their wrath, were loath to take so gloomy a view of the future.

“The bullets have a sense of their own,” said Peltran; “they know who to hit first and who last, and who never to hit. Look at M. le Comte, how they respect him! He has seen more fighting than ever the Caboffs did, and yet the bullets have never touched a hair of his head. It’s my belief the things are alive and know what they are about.”

No one contradicted this sapient remark; for Peltran was not a pleasant person to contradict.

Marcel Caboff had never been popular, but from this time forth he was branded as a sort of potential malefactor; if M. le Marquis died, Marcel would be his murderer, and Marcel’s life would not be worth an old song in Gondriac. The only people who did the young man justice and had the courage to take his part were Virginie and Alba. Since the night of the storm a friendship had sprung up between Marcel and Alba which had grown to more than friendship on his side. Alba was a lovely maiden now; impulsive, untutored as the waves that her nature seemed attuned to, wild as the sea-birds whose lot she sometimes envied when they beat their wings, rose up from the rocks, and took flight across the sea.

“I wonder you can stay here and live this idle, humdrum life when you might be away seeing the great world,” Alba said to him one day, as they met upon the cliff and walked on together.

“You wish I were away, do you?”

“Oh! no; only I wonder you don’t go. I should, if I were a man.”

“It is harder on me than you think,” said Marcel bitterly. “I did my best to get away; but mother went on her knees and said I would kill her if I went. It was hard to resist that; but it makes me feel angry with her when I think of what has come of it. I know the people hate me and call me a coward. Alba,” he said, turning suddenly round, “you don’t think me a coward, do you?”

“No, Marcel; if you had not been braver than any man in Gondriac, except your father, you would not have come out in the boat that night. How dare they call you a coward when they remember it!”

“They don’t remember it. Everybody has forgotten it but you.”

“M. le Marquis has not forgotten it.”

“I wish he had. That is what has brought all this misery about. If he had not remembered, I should be away with the _grande armée_ now, and should either die a glorious death like my brothers, or come home by and by with the cross, and perhaps a wound or two. Then everybody would know I was a brave man, and mother would have had something to be proud of.”

“Yes,” said Alba dreamily; she was watching a ship that flecked the horizon far away like a great swan, its white sails flapping against the sky, the sea-gulls following in its wake, as it cleaved the wave.

“Would _you_ have been proud of me?” asked Marcel.

“Yes,... perhaps.”

“You would not have cared a straw, I believe,” he said, angry and hurt at her indifferent tone.

“If you had been killed? Indeed I should, Marcel. I should have been very sorry; but what is the good of being sorry now, when it is never going to happen? Look at that ship out there! With what a dip she shears the water! How fast she goes! Her sails are like wings. I wish I had wings!”

“You are always wishing for impossible things,” said Marcel, huffed at this summary dismissal; “you were wishing you were a man a little while ago, and now you want to be a bird. Why don’t you wish for something I could give you?”

“_You_ give me! You could not give me any one of the things I wish for!” Alba flung back the waves of swart hair from her low, broad brow and laughed derisively.

“How do you know that? I have plenty of money, and money can buy everything—everything reasonable, that is. Suppose a fairy were to come and say she would give you whatever you wished; what would you ask for?”

“I would ask her first to make me perfectly beautiful, perfectly good, and perfectly happy,” began Alba.

“Why, you are all that already, you foolish girl!”

“You think so; but you know nothing about it. I would ask her to make me as rich and powerful as a queen, and to make everybody pay me homage—not because I was rich and powerful, but because they loved me! Oh! I should like to be loved more than anybody ever was in this world before. And I should like to live in a beautiful castle, like the castle yonder, and I should fill it with beautiful things, and make it a real fairy palace to live in.”

“And who would you like to live in it with you? You would not care to live in it all alone?” inquired Marcel, bewildered by these ambitious aspirations that left himself and his money-bags altogether out of the reckoning.

“Well, first, I should like to have petite mère, of course; then ... then I should ask the fairy for a brave and handsome prince, who would come and woo me as they do in the story-books; he should be handsome and clever and good, or I should not care for him; but if he was all that, I should love him with all my heart and soul, and we should be as happy as the days are long!”

Marcel heard her to the end, and then began to consider if there was not some one item in the capacious list that came within his possibilities.

“If another castle would do instead of this one—you know you never _could_ have this one—I would go and buy it for you, Alba, and you might have as many pretty gauds to fill it as you liked. We have lots of gold and silver things and pictures up there”—nodding towards the Fortress—“and if I asked mother she would give them to us—to you, I mean.” Alba’s laugh rang like a silver echo all along the cliff.

“And the prince—where would you get him?”

“Must he be a prince? Would not a brave man who loved you and was ready to do your bidding in everything, who would spend his whole life in trying to make you happy—would not that do instead? Must he be a prince, Alba?”

He took her hand and held it, and she did not struggle to release it. They were standing at the foot of a rock that cast a long, black shadow far out upon the sea; the west wind blew into their faces; Alba’s scarlet hood had fallen back, and her hair drifted in a heavy stream behind her, as Marcel bent over her, waiting to hear his fate. He might have read it in her blank, scared looks, in her startled, reluctant attitude. If there had been hope for him, would she have shrunk away and drawn closer to the rock, as if asking it to protect her?

“I have been too hasty,” said the young man penitently; “I should have spoken to Mère Virginie first. Forgive me, Alba, and say only if I may go to her now and ask you for my wife?” He still held her hand, and, mistaking her silence, made an effort to slip his arm around her. The movement acted on Alba like the sting of a snake; she escaped from him with a cry, and sped along the cliff like a deer flying from the hunters.

“My child, you have been foolish, and so has Marcel; but there is no need to cry or be unhappy about it,” said Mère Virginie when Alba had sobbed out the terrible story on her breast. But Alba was not to be comforted. She had been living in dreamland, and now awoke to find the hard ground under her feet instead of golden clouds. Of course she had dreamt of love and lovers, and her heart, or that vague yearning which as yet took its place, had become enamored of the dreams, visions that lay safe beyond the disenchanting present, wrapped in the golden haze of distance; and now this rude awakening had dispelled them, and brought home to the dreamer that she had reached that border-land that lies between the mystery of morning and the revelation of noon; the pearly mists had rolled away in an instant, and the blaze of the mid-day sun was upon her, chasing the fairy phantoms and making sober realities pitilessly clear. She had been dreaming of a lover in some remote time and place, and, lo! he was at her side; he had been close to her all along—an ugly, common man, who seemed made on purpose to mock the visions of her fancy. And yet this incident, which threw Alba into such despair, had been for many a day the fond anticipation of her mother’s heart.

“Why need it frighten you to find that Marcel loves you and wants to have you for his little wife, my child?” said Virginie. “Don’t shudder and cling to me as if he were going to drag you away this very moment! You shall never leave me, unless you do it of your own free will. But remember, darling, that I may have to leave you; and then what will become of you?”

“You leave me, petite mère?” And Alba looked up at her in dismay.

“It must come to that some day. I am old and you are young. I have a trouble here that reminds me of this often, and then I lie awake of nights, thinking of my little one, and praying God to give her a friend, the best and truest friend a woman can have in this world, to take care of her before I am called away.”

“Mother, if you go I will go too. I could never live without you! What should I do here if you were gone? Nobody wants me, nobody loves me in the whole world but you.”

“Marcel loves you, my child, and he will be that good friend, if you will let him.”

“Marcel! Marcel! As if he could replace you! I don’t love him; I don’t care if he went to the wars and never came back again.”

“If you married him you would soon learn to love him; his goodness would soon win your love. And then remember, Alba, how happy he could make you. You often long to have beautiful things—pearls and jewels and splendid dresses—and you sigh to go away in the ships that we see setting sail for distant lands, and to see fair cities, and the great mountains, and the countries where it is always summer and the flowers never die. Marcel would give you all these wishes; and then he would let you be so good and generous to the poor!”

“I should not care for pearls and pretty things, if I had to marry Marcel,” said Alba. “I should not like to go to distant cities with him; and if he loved me like a real lover, he would let me be good to the poor without making me his wife.”

How was the anxious woman to argue with this sweet, foolish innocence? If she could but teach the child to believe in the happiness that was at her feet, and persuade her to become Marcel’s wife, how easy it would be to die! How terrible it was to have to leave her unprotected and alone! Virginie’s heart overflowed in tears as she thought of it, and the hot drops trickled down her face and fell on Alba’s.

Alba looked up quickly. “Petite mère!” she said.

Throwing her arms round Virginie and kissing the wet cheeks again and again, “I will marry him! I will do anything, only don’t be unhappy, don’t cry! O mother, mother! what is it?” she cried, starting up in terror; for Virginie had fallen back and was gasping for breath. She pressed the child’s arm, and with her eyes bade her be still. The spasm of pain passed away after a while; but when she tried to speak the words came faintly in broken sentences.

“Petite mère! what is it?” entreated Alba, scarcely reassured. “May I call Jeanne? Shall we send for the doctor?”

“No, my darling, it is nothing; I am well now,” said Virginie, with a sickly smile that belied her words. The sharp pang had, it is true, subsided, but she was still ashy pale and could only speak under her breath. Alba watched her intently for some minutes, and then, twining her arms round Virginie’s neck, she laid her head upon her breast, nestling to her like a bird.

“Mother,” she whispered, “would it really make you happy if I were to marry Marcel?”

“My darling, it would make me happier than anything else in this world.”

“Then I will marry him, petite mère.”

“My child!” Virginie’s face lighted up with a beaming joy.

“I will marry him to please you. There, now, promise me not to be unhappy, not to lie awake at night fretting, and never to have any more pains at your heart!”

“But, my darling, I would not have you do it to make me happy. It is your happiness I am thinking of, not my own. Don’t you think you could learn to love Marcel after a while?”

“Petite mère! how can you ask me? Foolish, ugly Marcel, whom everybody laughs at and calls a coward! But never mind. I will marry him, since he wants me and you wish it; I promise you I will.”

“You are a foolish child to speak of Marcel so,” said Virginie; “those who laugh at him are the fools, and you know he is not a coward. As to his ugliness, what does that matter, if he is faithful, and fond, and good?”

Alba pondered this philosophy for some minutes; then she said: “When will he want to marry me, petite mère?”

“Not for a long while yet, my darling. You are both very young; there’s time to wait.”

“How old am I?”

“You were sixteen in September.”

“And how long will you let me wait?”

“Till your seventeenth birthday is passed, at least.”

“Nearly a whole year! Then I have all that time to be free and happy!”

“And if at the end of that time you have not learned to care for Marcel, I shall not ask you to marry him at all,” said Virginie. The ecstasy which the reprieve had called forth sent a pang through her heart, and made her ask herself whether, after all, she was doing wisely and well in forcing upon the child a lot from which her sympathies recoiled so violently.

“Not marry him at all!” repeated Alba in amazement; but she added quickly, with one of those sudden changes of manner that were familiar to her sensitive and mobile nature: “I think, petite mère, I had better not wait for the year. Instead of growing easier, it might grow harder by thinking over it all that time. You know you always tell me that when one has a disagreeable thing to do, it is better to do it at once and be done with it; one only makes it worse by looking at it. I think it would be better if I were to marry Marcel at once and get it over.”

Virginie was aghast at the combination of strength and utter childish ignorance of the true nature and bearings of the sacrifice in contemplation which Alba’s reasoning revealed. In the bottom of her heart the mother believed this repugnance would pass away, and there was no cruelty in coercing the child’s will at the outset, in order to bend it to her real happiness; but unless it could be so bent, Virginie would rather die trusting her treasure to God’s guardianship than force it into any man’s keeping.

“We will say no more about it for the present, my child,” she said; “we will leave it in the hands of God for another year.”

“And you will be happy now, petite mère?”

“Yes. I feel more tranquil about my darling’s future.”

“And Marcel—must I tell him?”

“No, you must not mention to him or to any one what we have been saying. I will speak to him myself.”

So there was no engagement, no promise exchanged; not a word of thanks or of rejoicing passed between him and Alba; but Marcel knew how docile she was to the power of love, and she loved her mother with a strength and depth of feeling that knew no limits and measured no sacrifices. He did not mean to be accepted as a sacrifice. He had faith enough in his love to believe that before the year was out it would have conquered the coy heart of his lady-love and brought her a willing captive to his side. Meantime, he would leave none of the stratagems and tactics of honorable warfare untried.

Alba was fond of books; he sent for all those he could hear of that were likely to interest her, and she and Virginie read them together in the long evenings, and talked over them, until their days were brightened by the scenes of travel and story which the books described. He knew she loved jewels and shining silks, and he went to Paris himself and selected pretty trinkets of every kind—a necklace of pearls, and rings of emeralds and rubies, and silks of soft and brilliant colors—and he would carry them to the cottage, and shyly lay them down without saying a word. Alba seldom noticed them till he was gone, when she would open the parcel and examine its contents; but Mère Virginie seemed to take more pleasure in the gauds than she did. This went on for three months. Then, one morning, Alba, who had been out since sunrise, sitting on the rocks and watching the tide come in and the creamy surf break upon the shore, entered the cottage and said abruptly:

“Mother, I won’t take any more presents from Marcel, and I want to give him back all those we have. I can’t keep them; I can’t indeed.”

“You have made up your mind never to marry him?”

“I will marry him whenever you wish it. It is not that, only I can’t take his gifts; they make me miserable. I hate them!”

“My darling, I will send them back to him, if you wish; but it will hurt him very much, poor fellow!—he took so much trouble to get them for you, and you used to love pretty things. How often have I not heard you long for the rings and flowers and shining silks we have seen in the fine shops at X——? Many a time you have wished a fairy or a lover would come and give them to you! Do you forget?”

“Ah! that is just it,” said Alba, with a light laugh that was full of pain; “if a lover gave them to me, I dare say I should like them well enough.”

“But Marcel is your lover?”

“Poor Marcel! It is so funny trying to think of him like that. He is so awkward and stupid and ugly; a real lover would be quite different. But I don’t want one now; I don’t indeed, petite mère. Only please send Marcel back his gifts. They make me feel as if he were bribing me to be fond of him, and I should not care a bit more for him if he gave me the loveliest jewels in France. I don’t care any more for jewels. I used to long to be happy myself, but now I only care to make you happy. You promised me to be very happy when I married Marcel?”

This was dreadful. This was not what the mother meant when she prayed for the marriage that Alba contemplated with such pathetic resignation, as if it were a sacrifice or a torture that every day brought nearer to her. There were still eight months between her and the dreaded fate, and Virginie was strongly moved to tell her at once that she was released. It seemed cruel to poison the child’s life all that time on the chance, which apparently grew less as the months went on, of her getting to love Marcel at the end of the year. But, again, this marriage was the one prospect of security and happiness which the future opened out—quiet, substantial happiness such as the mother longed to see her in possession of. If Alba flung it away, there was nothing before her but a lonely, loveless life of unprotected poverty. It was best to be patient, to keep silence a little longer. Virginie, meantime, had faith in the power of her own love, and she would never cease imploring heaven to take the destiny of her darling into its safe-keeping.

* * * * *

Hermann de Gondriac had now been five years absent, and those years had been an uninterrupted series of triumphs for him; he had borne a charmed life on every battle-field, and come off unharmed where all around him were stricken. But the chances of war prevailed at last, and the news came to Gondriac that M. le Comte had been seriously wounded and was coming home. His left arm had been shattered, and, though the skill of the emperor’s surgeon had saved him from amputation, he was in great suffering and condemned to the severest precautions. A few bonfires were lighted on the cliffs to bid the home-comer welcome, but this was all the people ventured on. M. le Marquis, it was said, had been in the same engagement with his son, but had come out of it unhurt.

That winter was a fierce one all through France, and Gondriac suffered terribly; the bleak gray sea in a perpetual roar, and the winds beating on its wild, open coast. Food and fuel were scanty, and but for the presence of the young lord at the castle many amongst the fishermen’s families must have perished and starved. No one had yet seen him; the great physician, who came from Paris at intervals, forbade his going beyond the southern side of the park until spring came with sunshine and blossoms. But Hermann could not have been more actively present amongst his people had he been walking daily in the midst of them. He seemed to know by inspiration what they wanted, and food and clothing were dealt out from the castle in unlimited supplies. There were toys for the children, and medicine and strengthening wine for the sick, and books for those who could enjoy them, until the people came to think that the bird of the fairy-tale must be true, and that their young master had the tell-tale messenger at his orders.

Alba busied her poetic fancy in making pictures of what Hermann was like. She had not seen him since she was a child and he a tall, slim lad. Now that he was a man and a hero, she longed to behold him again. Even to look at a hero from a distance would be something—life was so tame, and all the people she knew were so commonplace. Was he proud and stern and abrupt in speech, as they said the emperor was? Or was he gentle and honey-tongued like the knights of old?

One morning a man rode in from X—— to the castle bearing important news to M. le Comte. Important news indeed: the emperor was coming the next day to inspect the fortifications of a neighboring seaport. It was settled at once in Gondriac that M. le Comte would go to meet his majesty. No physician could hinder him in that, come what might of it.

Alba had heard nothing of this great event which was stirring the country for fifty miles round. She and Virginie lived a life apart up in their sea-nest, and old Jeanne was not given to gossip, but did her marketing without waste of words, and brought home little news in her basket.

It was a lovely morning; the sun shone brightly on the sea; the breakers were scampering in, not loud and angry, but tossing over one another in masses of creamy foam. Alba loved these laughing seas, and would sit for hours on the rocks, watching the tide ride in on the silver horses. To-day the salt breath of the ocean and the mellow west wind excited her like wine, and carried her off to the old dreamland where she seldom ventured now. She was away on the dancing billows, sailing to the land of the sun with a noble knight by her side. Virginie sat there with maidens serving her; there was music on shore, and crowds waving glad farewells. Alba began to sing as she walked briskly along the cliff, building her castle in fairy-land. But the Fortress standing out like a spectral prison, with the ivy blown inside out on its grimy walls, sent a sudden chill through her and put out the sunlight. There was a figure at the window watching her. She turned hastily back, walking quickly until she got down the slope, when she almost flew across the moor, on and on till she was safe in the shelter of the park. O that figure, how it pursued her! How the Fortress threatened her! If she could but fly from them for ever, and never hear of Marcel Caboff any more! She had fancied latterly that the prospect of being his wife and living with old Mme. Caboff in the gloomy, rat-haunted place was less odious to her than it used to be; but to-day the thought nearly drove her mad. She had sped along as if some evil fate were behind her, and she was tired; there was a moss-grown oak close by, and she sat down on the trunk to rest. The wind rustled the dead leaves at her feet and swept the topmost branches of the pines; then the anthem died softly away and all was silent. The place was very still; nothing stirred but the insects in the grass, and the zephyr high up above her head, as it rose and fell in swift, Æolian breathings. In the distance, with a forest of trees between, lay the castle, its battlements and towers and flying buttresses rising majestically against the sky—a high romance of chivalry and war chronicled in stone; to Alba the door of an enchanted realm whose portals she might never pass. No wonder men were heroes who lived in homes like this; how easy it must be to lead grand lives where the very walls are heralds and witnesses urging to noble and knightly deeds! The present owner of this splendid house was worthy in all this of his proud ancestors. What a royal act of heroism it was of the old Marquis to enlist as a common soldier out of gratitude to a dead man and pity for his widow! Then Alba thought of Marcel, of the poor, tame creature he showed beside this race of knightly nobles, and she despised him, and fell to wondering how it would be when she was his wife. Gradually the castle melted away, and in its place rose the Fortress, dark and frowning, and it lowered on her like a doom, and Marcel and his grim old mother stood at the window beckoning her to advance. Alba flung herself down upon the trunk and buried her face in the moss, and began to cry passionately. She cried a long time, being full of pity for herself, and there was no one within reach that she need check her sobs.

“What has happened? What is the matter with you, child?” said a voice close to her.

She started up in terror. Yet the speaker was not at all terrible to look at—a gentleman in the brilliant uniform of the Imperial Guard, young and handsome, with a most commanding air, and carrying his left arm in a sling. When Alba rose it was his turn to start. Lying there in an attitude of child-like _abandon_, shaken with sobs, her scarlet hood thrown back and her masses of black hair falling in loose coils over her neck and face, he had taken her for a little girl; he had called her child, and, lo! she was a full-grown maiden, and lovely beyond words, despite her tears and her dishevelled mien. He bowed to her as he might have done to a queen.

“You are M. le Comte!” said Alba, pretty much as she might have said to a celestial apparition, “You are the Archangel Gabriel!”

“Hermann de Gondriac, your humble servant, mademoiselle.”

She stared at him through the big tears that hung like dew-drops from her lashes, her soft, large glance modest, yet unabashed as if it were gazing on a picture. The knighthood in Hermann recognized the maidenhood of that fearless gaze and did it reverence, but he could not quench the glowing admiration of his own. How liquid and pure they were, those black stars with which she stared at him, those soul-lit eyes that met his without dismay, too innocent to quail beneath their burning light! Why should they quail? Were they not looking at a vision, a dream transmuted into substance? This was the young chief whom she had pictured to herself so often, whose lineage and prowess were the pride of all the people. Only how much grander the reality was than anything she had fancied! What a martial air he wore in his gold-embroidered uniform, with his spurs and clanging sword and plumed helmet, the stars upon his breast—every inch a warrior and a knight!

“You have hurt yourself, mademoiselle; you are in pain,” said Hermann. “Can I send to the castle for assistance for you?”

“Thank you, monseigneur; I have not hurt myself.”

“Yet you were crying?”

“It was not with pain.” This time Alba dropped her lids and blushed.

“Forgive me; I did not mean to intrude upon you.” Alba stood looking down like a guilty child, her cheeks aflame, her lips quivering with the sudden conflict between fear and shame, and a strange emotion that thrilled her like sweet music. “Who is she?” thought Hermann. He remembered, years ago, a child whom his father raved about, wondering how a plebeian stem could have put forth so fair a flower. Could this be she? The _curé_ had told him of the girl’s rare beauty as a sad and anxious burden on his mind, and of the mother’s being ill and in need of generous wine, and he had ordered the best in his cellar to be sent to her. Half unconsciously, as when we try to catch some forgotten air by humming it under our breath, he murmured, “Alba....”

She looked up with a start, and then they both smiled.

“How did you guess I was Alba?” she said, her shyness gone in an instant.

“I did not guess, I remembered.”

“How wonderful! I should never have remembered you, monseigneur.”

“That is not surprising. I am changed since you saw me.”

“And so am I, am I not?”

“Yes, more changed than I could have believed.”

“Ah?” Did he mean for the better or the worse? The man read the question in her eyes and answered it:

“You are far more beautiful than I expected.”

“Beautiful!” she repeated, and her face lighted up.

“I was frightened when I saw you; I took you for a fairy princess,” said Hermann, yielding to the irresistible temptation of pleasing her.

Alba’s face clouded over. “Now I know you are laughing at me, monseigneur; you don’t believe in fairies, and you know very well I’m not a bit like a princess.”

“I have seen many a one who would have given a great deal to be like you,” said Hermann.

“Like me! I thought princesses were all so happy!”

Hermann smiled. “Sometimes they have hearts,” he said.

“Sometimes! And does that make them unhappy?”

He turned to walk under the trees, tacitly inviting her to do the same.

“It endows them with the power of loving,” he answered absently.

“But I thought....” She hesitated; it was difficult to put the thought into the right words.

“You thought that love always led to happiness?” said Hermann, finishing the sentence for her, while he looked at her with a curious glance. Why had she come to cry in this lonely place?

“I don’t know what it leads to. I shall never know,” said Alba very gravely.

M. le Comte smiled. “Tell me, Alba, why were you crying so bitterly just now?”

She turned away her head and made no answer.

“Tell me, sweet Alba,” persisted the young man; “perhaps I can help you if you are in trouble. Trust me with your secret. As I am a soldier and a gentleman, I will defend you if I can. Tell me, is there some one you care for who does not know it?”

She shook her head. “It is not I who care.... I wish I could, but I have tried my best and I _cannot_ love him!” The tears welled up again and were flowing freely.

“Who is forcing you to love him? Tell me his name and I will protect you from him. I swear to you I will!” And Hermann, with a soldier’s instinctive gesture, put his hand to his sword, while his eye kindled with chivalrous anger. Alba thought him the ideal of a noble knight, as she looked at him, terrified and enchanted.

“He is not forcing me, monseigneur,” she said, “and you can do nothing to help me. I have promised to marry, and I must keep my word.”

“You shall not, by heaven, if it makes you wretched! He is a cowardly dog who would hold you to your word against your will,” protested the count hotly.

“He is not forcing me; but I have promised,” repeated Alba.

“And you cannot love him?”

“No! and I have tried so hard.... But mother says that when I am his wife it will be different....”

“Yes, it will be worse, a thousand times worse! Alba, tell me this man’s name; trust me with your secret,” said Hermann, changing his angry tone to one of soft persuasion.

“I dare not,” said Alba in a frightened whisper; “you would go and kill him.” The great, swart eyes were looking up at him, full of trust and admiration.

“Kill him, child! Do you think me so terribly wicked? Do I look like a murderer?”

“It would not be murder in you. You are a warrior; you don’t think it wrong to kill men. That is what warriors are for; but I should not like you to kill poor Marcel.”

“Marcel!... Marcel! I seem to know that name,” said the count, musing. “Has he no other?”

“Yes, Marcel Caboff,” replied Alba in a confidential tone; “but you must not hurt him, monseigneur. Oh! I wish I had not told you.”

Hermann started and muttered something between his teeth which she did not hear, but his look frightened her.

“Marcel Caboff! the fellow whom my father ransomed at the risk of his own life!” said the count. “And he would force you into marrying him! By heaven! he shan’t. I will foil him there.”

“O monseigneur, monseigneur! you will not kill him,” pleaded Alba, clasping her hands and appealing to the murderer with a scared face. “It is not his fault—it is not indeed, monseigneur!”

“I don’t mean to kill him; I would not touch a hair of his head,” said Hermann. “But why do you say it is not his fault? Does he not love you? Does he not want you to marry him?”

“He does, oh! so dreadfully. But I should not mind that. It is mother whom I have promised. It is to please her that I must marry him,” said Alba, and her breast heaved with big sobs, and all the floods were let loose again.

Hermann longed to draw her to his breast and kiss away the tears—she was such a child in spite of her sixteen summers and their full-blossomed beauty! But he checked the impulse. There is no majesty so imposing as the majesty of childhood. “Alba,” he said, “I will save you from Marcel Caboff without hurting him or any one. You shall not marry him, unless you come to wish it yourself. Are you sure that if he gave you up you would not change your mind and wish him back again?” This was Hermann’s estimate of woman’s nature; true, his experience had been gathered among types as different from the one before him as the flowers of a hot-house are from the primrose of the woods.

“I should never wish him to come back; I could never love him,” said Alba—“never, never, never.”

“Then I swear to you on my sword you shall not marry him!” said the count impetuously. “Now tell me, Alba,” he resumed, seeing that she did not speak, “is there not some one you would like to marry better than this fellow Caboff? Tell me the truth. If you had a brother, you would not mind telling him. Try and fancy I am your brother.”

Fancy him her brother! Alba’s fancy had taken many an aerial flight, but never such a one as this.

“Who is he? What is his name?” said Hermann in a whisper, bending closer to her.

But she shook her head. “There is no one, monseigneur.”

“Oh! I don’t believe that; you are afraid to trust me. There is surely some one else who wants to marry you?”

“No one, monseigneur, but Marcel.”

“Alba, look at me!” She turned and looked at him like a docile child. “Have you never seen any one whom you could love or whose heart you would care to win?” He was gazing deep down into the two dark pools of light, as if he thought to see into her soul through them. She did not shrink from the searching glance, but dwelt in it for one long moment; then, as if the flame in Hermann’s eyes leaped out and flashed upon her with too intense a radiance, revealing the spring of some sweet mystery in her heart and his, the white lids quivered and dropped, and a deep blush rose to Alba’s face. They were alone. The voices of the wood were hushed; the dead leaves ceased to rustle at their feet; the zephyrs paused in the branches overhead; the silence grew and deepened, filling the solitude with an overpowering presence, till each seemed to hear the beating of the other’s heart. Suddenly the sound of a horn, followed by a noise of wheels crushing the gravel in the distance, broke the spell and admonished Hermann that he must be gone. He lifted Alba’s hand to his lips, and without a word of farewell turned from her and struck across the park towards the castle.

Alba watched him out of sight, and then turned and wended homewards. Her heart beat with wild throbs of joy; the spirit that had been dead within her all these miserable months woke up, quickened to a new birth, and overflowed in song. The flute-like voice trilled out over the lonesome moor like the carol of a bird let loose; but as she drew near the confines of the heath the Fortress came in sight and checked her song. Was it so certain that Hermann could set her free? and how? What would her mother think of it? how of this wonderful meeting and monseigneur’s promise? Alba slackened her steps and took to pondering. A moment ago she was impatient to pour into Virginie’s ear the story of the interview, to repeat every word Hermann had said, to convey, as far as it was possible, the impression he had made upon her, to describe his manly beauty, his warlike aspect, his gentle courtesy, the incomparable sweetness of his voice, the chivalrous kindness of his manner, never doubting but that Virginie would sympathize in this new delight, as she had done in every little joy that had gladdened her child’s young life. But suddenly a change came over Alba—something vague, and undefined; a sense of doubt, of warning, of intangible fear. She had done nothing wrong, and yet the still, small voice was whispering inaudible reproach as if she had. Could Virginie be angry with her for speaking to monseigneur? How could she have avoided it, how refuse to answer his persistent questions, so kindly and so courteously put? He had entreated her to trust him! Alba stood amidst the breezy waves of heather, and recalled him as he bent near her and lowered his voice and bade her look at him. How he had seemed to read her through and through! “Have you never seen any one whose heart you would care to win?” She murmured the words softly to herself, and the sound of them was like the echo of his voice, and called up the hot blush to her cheeks again. There was nothing wrong in monseigneur’s asking her the question. Why, then, did she feel afraid to tell her mother of it? Musing for a moment on this mystery, Alba remembered how he had said: “Try and fancy I am your brother.” Virginie could not be angry at that, surely. “I will tell her that, and say nothing about the other,” muttered Alba to herself; and, satisfied that this was a safe way out of the difficulty, she walked on briskly till she was close upon the confines of the moor. Then the sound of a carriage coming down the road made her stop till it should pass. It was an open calêche preceded by outriders. Alba recognized the occupant at once, even before his hand was raised in courtly salutation as he flashed by. Her heart beat fast, and sent the blood to her cheeks and brow, dying them crimson.

“Perhaps I had better say nothing at all to petite mère,” was her reflection as she crossed the road and began to climb the cliff. “He told me to trust him; perhaps he would be angry if I spoke until he bade me.” And so it was decreed. The tyrant had stepped in, and at his first whispered prompting the discipline of a life gave way.

It was not many days after this wonderful morning when an event occurred which threw all the sweet romance of life into the shade, and made Alba forget her own cares and hopes in concern for the great sorrow of another. M. le Marquis was dead. He had died, not actually on the field, but of a wound received in battle. The young lord’s grief was like a madness, they said. Those about him said that in the first frenzy of despair he had called on Marcel Caboff and cursed him as the murderer of his father. Whether this was true or not, Gondriac believed it, and bitter words were spoken against the widow’s son in all the country round. Bitter words are like the wind; they fly, and have a faculty for reaching those whose aching nerves most dread their sting. The widow heard what was said of her son and felt it keenly; it was cruel, yet it was just; it was a hard price to pay for Marcel’s safety, but she could not reckon it too high. If only she might pay it alone! They are all alike, these mothers. Mme. Caboff was a vain, hard woman, but the mother in her was all soft and generous and beautiful. She came to Virginie for sympathy—not for herself, but for Marcel. It was her doing, M. le Marquis’ death, not his. Why would not people visit her sin upon herself, and not upon her boy? But Virginie and Alba would be kind; they had always said that Marcel was no coward. Virginie gave the poor woman what comfort she could; but Alba was not there. She could not bear the sight of Marcel’s mother; for the thought of Marcel was now unendurable to her. It might be unjust, and yet it was true to say that he was the murderer of M. le Marquis, of Hermann’s father. The news had thrown her into such a paroxysm of distress that Virginie was terrified, not holding the key to it. It was right that she should be sorry, and natural that she should be shocked, but this agony of grief was unaccountable. Virginie took her in her arms, and soothed her with caresses and endearing words, and then bade her go and rest awhile. But Alba, as if instinct warned her of the coming visit, hastened out of the house, and fled across the moor until she was safe in the shelter of the park, and then she flung herself down on the moss-grown trunk that had a memory of its own, and buried her face in the primroses and cried her heart out in pity for Hermann.

After this it was impossible to mention Marcel Caboff’s name in her presence. “I loathe the very thought of him, mother! I would rather die than marry him!” she said; and Virginie felt that Providence was against her, and surrendered. Marcel took back his gifts, and quarrelled with his mother, and went away from Gondriac. People said it was shame and remorse that drove him forth; but Alba knew this was not true, and, now that he had set her free, she pitied him.

* * * * *

M. le Marquis was borne to the grave amidst such honors as the proudest Crusader of his name might have envied. It was with the jubilant pomp of a coronation rather than the mournful pageant of a burial that they laid him to rest. For his people would have it that he was a martyr; he had gone out to die of his own free will, sacrificing himself out of gratitude to the dead and charity to the living. The population flocked in from thirty miles round to attend the funeral. Five hundred men followed the crimson-draped car with palms and laurel branches; children clad in white bore crimson banners that fluttered in the breeze, while their voices rose in hymns of victory, giving glory to God and the Christian soldier; the voices of the multitude made response in chorus, and the waves, breaking in low thunder against the rocks, sounded their everlasting _amens_ as the procession wound its way by the sea-shore to the cemetery.

And now Hermann de Gondriac was alone, the head of an ancient house, wealthy and young, but as poor in that which makes life rich as the poorest of his peasantry. If he could but have girded on his sword, and, escaping from solitude, have drowned his grief in the excitement of the camp! Spring came, and the fields were carpeted with wild flowers, and the woods were full of music. But Hermann was seldom seen abroad; he lived indoors, amidst his books, the people said; but, in truth, the young lord’s chief companions were his thoughts, angry, rebellious thoughts, that made him chafe most bitterly against his forced inaction. The park was vast as a forest, and he never went beyond it. Often, in his moody walks, he strayed to that spot close upon the moor where he had first seen Alba lying upon the mossy trunk. The charm of her beauty and her daisy-like simplicity had wrought upon his heart more deeply than he was aware. For days after that meeting she had been ever in his thoughts. He said that he was thinking only of how he might rescue her from a cruel fate; no doubt it was to help him to this issue that he returned to the spot where she had stood, and conjured up her image, till the nymph-like figure with the dark eyes and witching smile seemed to float visibly before him, and listened for her voice until he thought he heard it in the sighing of the wind.

Then came the thunderbolt of his father’s death, and Alba and all the world were forgotten. But grief cannot hold its sway in human souls beyond a given time. As the days go by they bear away its sting upon their wings, that touch the bleeding places with a balm. Hermann was young, and as the weeks passed youth vindicated itself, and rebelled against the stagnant, lonely life, and longed for action and for the sweet companionship of kindred youth. If he could not fight, he could at least love; but who was there at Gondriac to love? The merry comrades of the bivouac were out of call, and when he returned to the midst of them he would find his place filled up; others would have come and gone again, and risen in command and won place and distinction, while he was out of sight, a prisoner to a stiff arm, as good as a dead man. He hated himself with bitter vexation. One morning he betook himself in one of these savage moods to wander in the park, and, not heeding which way he went, strayed to that lonely walk under the shadow of the old trees near the moor. Some one, meanwhile, was watching him, crouched timidly behind a furze-bush, admiring his quick, military stride, thinking how grand and lion-like was that angry toss of the head which every now and then relieved his bitter thoughts.

The air was fresh, and yet warm with that delicious warmth of some spring days that come like heralds of the summer, gathering up all the sweets of earth into one fragrant breath, wooing us with soft, furry zephyrs, and the scent of opening blossoms, and the melody of young birds learning to sing. Alba had been tempted across the heath to the park, where the trees had put out their bright green foliage that looked so lovely sparkling in the sunlight. Perhaps, too, though she did not own it, there was a lurking hope in her heart that she might catch a glimpse of Hermann in the distance. If so, she was not disappointed. There he was, walking under the pine-trees, but, happily, with his back to the heath, so that he did not see her! She dipped quickly behind a furze-bush, and disappeared from view just as he turned, and, coming through the trees at an angle, stepped out on the pathway. A nightingale began to sing in the distant copse; but Alba, as she cowered behind her bush, thought the crystal trills and the loud call-note less musical than the sound of Hermann’s foot-fall crushing the gravel close to her hiding-place—so close she almost feared he would note the shadow of her pink skirt upon the grass, or mayhap overhear the palpitation of her heart. But presently the foot-falls died away, and the nightingale and the zephyrs had it all to themselves again. She waited some minutes—an hour it seemed to her—before she ventured to look up; but at last she did, and there, within a few paces, straight before her, stood Hermann. He had left the pathway and taken to the noiseless grass under the trees.

“Alba!”

There was a ring of joy in the greeting, as the young lord came forward, holding out his hand.

“Why have you never come? I have been here again and again in hopes of seeing you!”

He was a true knight and meant no harm; but in his joy at seeing the sunbeam on his path he forgot that he had no right to be so glad or to let Alba see it.

“I did not forget my promise,” he said, leading her into the park and turning to walk by her side; “but I learned soon after that there was no need for me to interfere. Caboff left the place, they told me.”

“Yes, monseigneur, people said” ... she hesitated. “They were all so sorry for you, and Marcel could not bear it, because they hated him—poor Marcel! It was not his fault; he never was a coward.”

“You are sorry now that he is gone! Perhaps he will come back? No doubt he will, if you ask him.”