第89章

I am intoxicated by your words, your looks, by you--by you, and I am ready to obey you.""Well, then, make me for an instant very happy.Let me enjoy the only triumph I desire.I want to breathe freely, to drink of the life Ihave dreamed, to feed my illusions before they are gone forever.Come --come into the ballroom and dance with me."They re-entered the room together, and though Mademoiselle de Verneuil was as completely satisfied in heart and vanity as any woman ever could be, the unfathomable gentleness of her eyes, the demure smile on her lips, the rapidity of the motions of a gay dance, kept the secret of her thoughts as the sea swallows those of the criminal who casts a weighted body into its depths.But a murmur of admiration ran through the company as, circling in each other's arms, voluptuously interlaced, with heavy heads, and dimmed sight, they waltzed with a sort of frenzy, dreaming of the pleasures they hoped to find in a future union.

A few moments later Mademoiselle de Verneuil and the marquis were in the latter's travelling-carriage drawn by four horses.Surprised to see these enemies hand in hand, and evidently understanding each other, Francine kept silence, not daring to ask her mistress whether her conduct was that of treachery or love.Thanks to the darkness, the marquis did not observe Mademoiselle de Verneuil's agitation as they neared Fougeres.The first flush of dawn showed the towers of Saint-Leonard in the distance.At that moment Marie was saying to herself:

"I am going to my death."

As they ascended the first hill the lovers had the same thought; they left the carriage and mounted the rise on foot, in memory of their first meeting.When Marie took the young man's arm she thanked him by a smile for respecting her silence; then, as they reached the summit of the plateau and looked at Fougeres, she threw off her reverie.

"Don't come any farther," she said; "my authority cannot save you from the Blues to-day."Montauran showed some surprise.She smiled sadly and pointed to a block of granite, as if to tell him to sit down, while she herself stood before him in a melancholy attitude.The rending emotions of her soul no longer permitted her to play a part.At that moment she would have knelt on red-hot coals without feeling them any more than the marquis had felt the fire-brand he had taken in his hand to prove the strength of his passion.It was not until she had contemplated her lover with a look of the deepest anguish that she said to him, at last:--"All that you have suspected of me is true."The marquis started.

"Ah! I pray you," she said, clasping her hands, "listen to me without interruption.I am indeed the daughter of the Duc de Verneuil,--but his natural daughter.My mother, a Demoiselle de Casteran, who became a nun to escape the reproaches of her family, expiated her fault by fifteen years of sorrow, and died at Seez, where she was abbess.On her death-bed she implored, for the first time and only for me, the help of the man who had betrayed her, for she knew she was leaving me without friends, without fortune, without a future.The duke accepted the charge, and took me from the roof of Francine's mother, who had hitherto taken care of me; perhaps he liked me because I was beautiful; possibly I reminded him of his youth.He was one of those great lords of the old regime, who took pride in showing how they could get their crimes forgiven by committing them with grace.I will say no more, he was my father.But let me explain to you how my life in Paris injured my soul.The society of the Duc de Verneuil, to which he introduced me, was bitten by that scoffing philosophy about which all France was then enthusiastic because it was wittily professed.The brilliant conversations which charmed my ear were marked by subtlety of perception and by witty contempt for all that was true and spiritual.Men laughed at sentiments, and pictured them all the better because they did not feel them; their satirical epigrams were as fascinating as the light-hearted humor with which they could put a whole adventure into a word; and yet they had sometimes too much wit, and wearied women by making love an art, and not a matter of feeling.

I could not resist the tide.And yet my soul was too ardent--forgive this pride--not to feel that their minds had withered their hearts;and the life I led resulted in a perpetual struggle between my natural feelings and beliefs and the vicious habits of mind which I there contracted.Several superior men took pleasure in developing in me that liberty of thought and contempt for public opinion which do tear from a woman her modesty of soul, robbed of which she loses her charm.