Part 38 (1/2)
”No; but, pardon me, it is not about Monsieur de Roquemaure that I have come here. The De Roquemaures and I have had enough intercourse.”
And now he saw that he had touched her, since she grew pale as death.
”There will be no need of any further when once my child is restored to me. Mademoiselle, I have come to demand that child of you. Where is she--what have you done with her?”
For answer she advanced to a bell rope, and, pulling it, said to the servant when he appeared, ”Send Mademoiselle de Vannes to me.”
”Mademoiselle de Vannes!” he exclaimed, ”Mademoiselle de Vannes! You call her that--you know----”
”I know.”
He raised his hand to his forehead with a gesture of bewilderment, then said, ”And you keep her here?”
”She is here, monseigneur,” as the door opened once more; ”here is your child.”
Even as she spoke a bright-haired child ran into the room and, rus.h.i.+ng toward Mademoiselle de Roquemaure, caught her by the hands and buried her face in her dress, while she whispered:
”Aurelie, dear sister Aurelie, why do you send for me now when I am so hard at work with Pere Antoine? And who is this stranger? What does he want?”
”Who is this stranger?” At those words St. Georges's heart gave a throb--he said afterward that he thought it would cease to beat--and the room swam round with him. He had found the child of many longings--and he was a stranger! A moment later he heard Aurelie speaking.
”Dorine, this is no stranger. Give him your hand; kiss him.”
Reluctantly the child advanced to where he stood, and obeyed her in so far that she held out her hand; but, either from coyness or some other cause, she did not offer to lift up her face for him to kiss. And he, standing there, looking down on her, felt as if his heart would break.
Then, overcome by all that was struggling within his bosom, he dropped upon one knee beside the child and drew her toward him, she seeming terrified at his embrace.
”Ah, little one!” he said, ”if I tell you how I have longed for this hour, prayed for it to come, surely you will say some word of greeting to me. Dorine, do you not know me? Dorine, Dorine!”
For answer, the child, still seeming frightened, drew further away from him and whispered that she did not know him, that she desired to go to Aurelie.
”You love her?” he whispered, too, for now his voice seemed to be failing him--”you love her? You are happy with her? I hoped you would have come with me----”
”With you!”--and now the tears stood in the child's eyes as she shrank still further from him--”and leave Aurelie?”
”Why not?” he asked almost fiercely, his despair driving him nearly to distraction. ”Why not? Who is she? What share has she in you? You are mine, mine, mine! O child, I am your father!” And suddenly overwrought by his emotions, by the broken hopes he had cherished, the vanis.h.i.+ng of the future to which he had looked forward, he sprang to his feet and turned to Mademoiselle de Roquemaure. ”I see it all,” he said; ”understand all. Your brother uttered the truth at last. You stole my child because she stood in your way; you won her love afterward because----”
”Stop!” exclaimed Aurelie de Roquemaure, and as she spoke she drew herself to her full height and confronted him, while the child, trembling by her side, could not understand why her sister had changed so. ”Stop and hear the truth since you force me to tell it. I stole your child because in that way alone could her life be saved, her safety at least be a.s.sured. My brother would--G.o.d forgive him!--have hidden her away forever; even then, as I learned afterward, the bishop's servant had stolen her from the inn in the city and was hastening to meet him. There was no time to lose; it was that man's life or hers, and--and--I acted by my mother's orders. Now, Monseigneur le Duc----”
But he whom she addressed thus had fallen on his knees before her, had endeavoured to seize her hand, and, failing that, was kissing the hem of her dress.
”Forgive, forgive, forgive!” he moaned; ”I have been blind--blind! Let me go in peace and offend no more. She is yours, not mine; yours by your womanly grace and mercy--the love she has to give belongs to you by right of your womanly mercy. Better that I had died in Paris yesterday than live to repay you as I have!”
But now to the child's mind there seemed to come some gleam of light as to what was pa.s.sing between the stranger and her mother; the words, ”Better I had died in Paris,” awakened her intelligence.
”Aurelie,” she cried, ”was this the gentleman whom you hurried to Paris to save?”
”To save!” St. Georges exclaimed, ”to save! My G.o.d! do I owe my life to you as well?”
And Aurelie--her eyes cast down, her frame trembling from head to foot--murmured: ”I could not let you die, knowing what I did, knowing the evil the De Roquemaures had wrought you. When Monsieur Boussac sent me word you were doomed, I determined to tell the king all.”