Chapter XXIV: Lost Again

While John Lebrenn was enlightening his companions on the probable events of the coming day, Victoria, returning home close on half past nine, had gone up to her room. Setting the lamp on the table, she took off her street cloak and sat down, sad and weary. Her head fell between her hands. Suddenly her glance rested on a sheet of paper, placed conspicuously in the center of the table, and the young woman read, almost mechanically, these lines, traced in Oliver's still inexpert hand:

In daring to write you this letter, I put to use the little that I
know, and which I owe to your generosity. You had pity on me, a
poor orphan, you had compassion upon my ignorance. Thanks to you I
can read, and form the letters. Thanks be to God, for at least I am
able to write you what I would never have dared to tell you, for
fear of incurring your anger or contempt. But at this hour what
have I to fear?

What a change has come over me! A moment ago my hand trembled that
I could not write, at the mere thought of acknowledging that I love
you passionately. Now it seems to me that this acknowledgment will
cause you neither contempt nor anger, for it is a sincere one.

You will not love me, you can never love me, because I am not
worthy of you, and for that I am too young--I am a child, as you so
often told me. I can not hope to win your affection.

This evening, about eight, I saw you go out. I was glad of it. I
preferred to know that you were not here, and that I could thus in
your absence place this letter on your table, to be read by you on
your return.

I double-locked myself in. I looked at the roof gutter. The passage
seemed practicable. To assure myself, I went as far as your window.
It was open. I saw your table, your work-basket, your books. Ah,
how I wept.

On returning to my chamber I began writing you this letter. I went
at once to place it on your table, and then, thanks to some
charcoal I have procured, I shall--put an end--to my existence--

"The poor child!" exclaimed Victoria, throwing the letter far from her; and rising, pale with apprehension, she ran to Oliver's door, crying aloud for help as she went. But in vain she beat on the panels and sought to force an entrance. Gertrude, Madam Lebrenn and her mother hastened up at Victoria's summons. The latter's presence of mind was only increased by the impending danger; failing in all her attempts to break down the door, she returned to her own room, adventured the narrow gutter which had served Oliver for a pathway, and arrived thus before the window of his garret chamber. There it was but the work of a minute to break one of the little panes, snap back the catch, leap into the room, and unfasten the locked door from within. Immediately, assisted by Madam Desmarais, Charlotte and Gertrude, she hastened to take the first steps for the resuscitation of the unfortunate boy stretched on the couch. The apprentice no longer gave any signs of life. But soon the pure air, rushing in by the now opened door and window, dispelled the deadly fumes of the charcoal. Oliver's breast heaved; he drew a faint breath. Victoria and Madam Desmarais carried the almost suffocated lad to the window. There he was propped up in a chair; his ashen features, covered with icy sweat, slowly regained a slight color, and little by little life returned to his bosom.

Two hours later he had quite come to, and found himself in John Lebrenn's parlor, alone with Victoria. One would have difficulty to frame in his imagination a countenance of more rare perfection than that of the youth, who possessed a physiognomy of charming candor. On her part, the young woman was grave. Her eyes, reddened with tears, and the feverish color which replaced the habitual pallor of her beautiful features, both bore witness to the painful emotions under which she was laboring. After a few seconds' hesitation, she thus addressed the youth in a sweet and solemn voice:

"Oliver, you are now, I believe, in condition to listen to me. I have requested my brother and his family to leave us to ourselves a while. Our interview will, I trust, exert a happy influence over your future, and give you complete satisfaction."

"I listen, Mademoiselle Victoria."

"I have read your letter," resumed the young woman, drawing Oliver's missive from her corsage. "Frightened at your resolve of suicide, and thinking only of snatching you from death while there was yet time, I was not at first able to finish it. But now I have just read it through."

"What do I hear!" exclaimed the youth, clasping his hands in a transport of joy. "My letter caused you neither contempt nor anger?"

"Why should it? You yielded to the promptings of gratitude toward me, and sympathy for my character. So, I am not irritated, but touched, by your affection."

"You are touched by my affection, Mademoiselle Victoria? My heaven, what do you say!"

"Now, my friend, answer me sincerely. The fear of seeing me insensible to an avowal which timidity has for so long kept trembling on your lips, drove you to think of suicide--am I right?"

"Helas, yes, mademoiselle!"

"Now speak true, Oliver. Was it as a mistress, or a wife, that you dreamt of me?"

"Good heavens! Do you think--?"

"You thought of me as the future companion of your life? Ah, me, I declare that I am unworthy to become your wife. Cruelly as this avowal wounds my heart, Oliver, I must make it to you, in order that you retain no illusion, and no hope. But I offer you in their place a devoted attachment, the affection of a mother for her child. That is all I can give you."

Oliver, who so far had held his hands clasped over his face, now let them drop upon his knees. He replied with not a single word, but fixing upon Victoria a dark and foreboding look, rose with difficulty from his seat, and with a step that still wavered, moved towards the door.

The apprentice's silence and the expression on his face bore evidence to so profound a despair that Victoria presaged some new misfortune. She hastened to Oliver's side, took his hand, and asked:

"Where are you going?"

"To my room. I need rest."

"You shall not stay alone in your room. Gertrude and I will watch over you. We will remain there all night."

"Good night, Mademoiselle Victoria," returned the apprentice, moving anew towards the door. But Victoria, still holding him by the hand, replied:

"Oliver, I know what you are thinking of. You are not in your right mind."

"I beg your pardon, Mademoiselle Victoria; I am fully in possession of my senses; and if you have read my thoughts, you ought to realize that no power in the world can balk my resolution."

"You would have the cruelty to leave me under the weight of the horrible thought that I--I who love you as a son--was the cause of your death?"

"Your heart is compassionate, Mademoiselle Victoria, and your character generous. I wish to leave this world because you do not wish, or are not able, to love me."

"Unhappy child, even were I not sufficiently old to be your mother, I repeat to you with a blushing forehead, I am not worthy of being your wife. You can not be my husband. Such a union would be the shame of your life and the eternal remorse of mine."

"In your eyes, perhaps, but not in mine, Mademoiselle Victoria. Whatever a past of which I am ignorant may hold, a past in which I am in no way concerned, you are now for me the one creature in the world most worthy of respect and love. Life without you will be insupportable. I have resolved to die--"

"What a crazy thought! I do not love you with a lover's love. Why do you persist thus in a struggle for the impossible, poor foolish lad?"

"I have no thought of a struggle. I am resigned--and shall put myself out of the way."

These final words of Oliver's, pronounced without emphasis or bitterness, could not but remove from Victoria's mind her last doubts as to the unfortunate boy's resolution. She had been used long enough to read to the bottom of his open and childlike soul, to recognize there a blending of gentleness and strength of will. Hardly escaped from one almost certain death, the apprentice was all the more determined to seek in self-destruction the end of his torments. Victoria communed long with herself, and after an extended silence, began again:

"Oliver, you are resolved to die. I do not wish at any price to reawaken your hopes by entering into any engagement with you whatsoever. I do not wish to revive your illusions--they must be destroyed, and forever. But in the name of the interest I have always borne you, in the name even of your attachment for me, I ask of you only to promise me not to attempt to destroy your life until to-morrow at midnight. At that hour, you will meet me here again, or if not you will receive a letter from me. If the interview I shall then have with you, or if the reading of my letter does not change your sad designs, you may put them into execution, as you please. Let your destiny then run its course."

"To die twenty-four hours later, or twenty-four hours earlier, it matters little. I promise not to go before the hour you have set," replied the apprentice with such marked indifference that it was clear the poor boy entertained no hope of his suicide's being obviated. Again turning to the door, he added:

"Mademoiselle Victoria, to-morrow, then, shall decide my fate."

"Oliver, we have a full day to reflect on the grave matter which thus links both our existences."

Hardly had Oliver left the parlor when Victoria rose, and running to the door of an ante-room where John Lebrenn and his wife were concealed, said to them in a shaking voice:

"You heard everything?"

"Ah, the unfortunate boy," exclaimed John. "He is out of his mind. It is certain to me that he will carry out his fatal threat."

"Oh, heaven," added Madam Lebrenn, drying her eyes, "to think that to-day we saved him from death, and that to-morrow--oh, it is horrible! But what can one do in such an extremity? What can we make up our minds on? What is your idea?"

"We can and ought at least to put to profit the twenty-four hours and over which you have succeeded in winning from him, dear sister," replied Lebrenn. "I have before now not wished to intrude in this painful affair. But Oliver has a great affection for me. I have some influence over him; his heart is good, his spirit unblemished, his character open. I can appeal to his good parts, I can endeavor to exalt his already so ardent patriotism, which even his mad passion has not been able to cool. I shall prove to Oliver that he would commit a crime against the Republic, against his mother country, in sacrificing his life instead of devoting it to her protection when she is menaced by foreign invasion."

"Ah, brother, do you then believe that I have not thought of resurrecting that soul, now crushed and disheartened? Alas, my efforts were unavailing. I know the child better than you, my friends. Listen to me--this is the hour of a cruel confession, brother. You know what part Maurice, the sergeant in the French Guards, the unfortunate victim of Monsieur Plouernel, played in my life."

"Aye, and I know further, or I believe I know, that Oliver is Maurice's brother." Then, in answer to a gesture of surprise on Victoria's part, "It is to Charlotte's penetration that I owe the discovery."

"Oliver is, indeed, the brother of Maurice, and by one of those inexplicable mysteries of nature, the physical resemblance between the two is even perhaps less remarkable than their mental resemblance. My knowledge of Maurice's nature has given me the key to Oliver's. Woe is me!" cried Victoria in heartrending tones. "In seeing, in hearing the one, I thought I saw and heard the other! The same voice, the same look! How many times, entranced in memories, have I surprised myself moved, my heart beating for this living phantom of the only man I ever loved in my sad life!"

"You love Oliver--or rather in him you continue to love Maurice. Unhappy sister!"

"Sister, dear," said Charlotte, warmly seizing the two hands of Victoria, who stood mute and overcome, bowing her face which was empurpled with shame and flooded with tears, "do you suppose that we could breathe one word of censure against you? Your new agonies inspire but the tenderest compassion. Ah, if our sisterly affection were capable of any growth, it would increase before this touching proof of the persistence of the single love of your life. Do we not know, alas, that for you to love Oliver is but for you to continue faithful to Maurice?"

"And still this love, although as pure as the former one, would be shameful, revolting," murmured Victoria.

"Victoria," interposed John, unable to restrain his tears, "do not abandon yourself to despair. Let us face the reality coolly, and regulate our conduct accordingly."

"Helas, the reality!" broke from Victoria. "This it is: No human power can prevent the suicide of Oliver, if I do not promise to be his wife--or his mistress. The only alternatives are my shame or his death."

Victoria's words were followed by silence for several minutes.

"Woe is us," at length resumed John, the first to speak. "Aye, fate has shut us in an iron circle. And still, despite myself, some dim hope supports me. Some inspiration will come to us."

"Yes," replied Charlotte, "I also hope, because our sister Victoria is a noble creature; because Oliver is gifted with generous qualities. I believe it will be possible to discover a solution honorable for all of us."

"Oh, dear wife," exclaimed John, "how your words do comfort me. Aye, aye, every situation, desperate as it may seem, is capable of an honorable solution. Beloved sister, raise that bowed forehead. Let us have faith in the unison of noble hearts."

Suddenly Victoria lifted her head, transfigured, radiant; and passionately embracing her brother's wife, she cried:

"You spoke sooth, Charlotte. We shall come out of this situation with honor." Then, clasping John with redoubled ardor, she continued: "Ah, brother, what a weight of fear has been lifted from my heart! To-morrow you shall know all. To-morrow that circle of iron shall be broken which now hems us in. A happy path opens itself before me."

The following morning, as John Lebrenn was leaving his house for the shop, he was met in the courtyard by the servant Gertrude, who drew from her pocket an addressed envelope.

"Mademoiselle Victoria gave me this letter for you, Monsieur John."

"My sister has gone out, then?"

"Yes, sir. She left at daybreak with Oliver. He had a traveling-case on his shoulder."

"My sister has left us!" stammered John, in amazement. Then he hastily broke the envelope he had just received from Gertrude, and read as follows:

Adieu, brother! Embrace your wife tenderly for me.

I have taken Oliver away. I may not at present let you into my
plans; but of one thing be assured, the solution is honorable for
all. I am and shall remain worthy of your esteem and affection. Do
not seek for the present to fathom what has become of me, and have
no uneasiness over my fate. You shall receive a letter from me
every week, until the day, close at hand, it may be, or perhaps far
away, when I can return to you, dear brother, dear sister, never to
leave you again.

While awaiting that day so much to be desired, continue, both of
you, to love me--for never shall I have so much needed your
affection.

VICTORIA.