Part 9 (2/2)
”Do so, mademoiselle, and I will add my earnest a.s.surances again; though, heaven knows,” she said, despondingly, ”I antic.i.p.ate little success; but it is well to leave no chance untried.”
Marston was sitting, as we have said, in his library. His agitation had given place to a listless gloom, and he leaned back in his chair, his head supported by his hand, and undisturbed, except by the occasional fall of the embers upon the hearth. There was a knock at the chamber door. His back was towards it, and, without turning or moving, he called to the applicant to enter. The door opened--closed again: a light tread was audible--a tall shadow darkened the wall: Marston looked round, and Mademoiselle de Barras was standing before him. Without knowing how or why, he rose, and stood gazing upon her in silence.
”Mademoiselle de Barras!” he said, at last, in a tone of cold surprise.
”Yes, poor Mademoiselle de Barras,” replied the sweet voice of the young Frenchwoman, while her lips hardly moved as the melancholy tones pa.s.sed them.
”Well, mademoiselle, what do you desire?” he asked, in the same cold accents, and averting his eyes.
”Ah, monsieur, do you ask?--can you pretend to be ignorant? Have you not sent me a message, a cruel, cruel message?”
She spoke so low and gently, that a person at the other end of the room could hardly have heard her words.
”Yes, Mademoiselle de Barras, I did send you a message,” he replied, doggedly. ”A cruel one you will scarcely presume to call it, when you reflect upon your own conduct, and the circ.u.mstances which have provoked the measures I have taken.”
”What have I done, Monsieur?--what circ.u.mstances do you mean?” asked she, plaintively.
”What have you done! A pretty question, truly. Ha, ha!” he repeated, bitterly, and then added, with suppressed vehemence, ”ask your own heart, mademoiselle.”
”I have asked, I do ask, and my heart answers--nothing,” she replied, raising her fine melancholy eyes for a moment to his face.
”It lies, then,” he retorted, with a fierce scoff.
”Monsieur, before heaven I swear, you wrong me foully,” she said, earnestly, clasping her hands together.
”Did ever woman say she was accused rightly, mademoiselle?” retorted Marston, with a sneer.
”I don't know--I don't care. I only know that I am innocent,” continued she, piteously. ”I call heaven to witness you have wronged me.”
”Wronged you!--why, after all, with what have I charged you?” said he, scoffingly; ”but let that pa.s.s. I have formed my opinions, arrived at my conclusions. If I have not named them broadly, you at least seem to understand their nature thoroughly. I know the world. I am no novice in the arts of women, mademoiselle. Reserve your vows and attestations for schoolboys and simpletons; they are sadly thrown away upon me.”
Marston paced to and fro, with his hands thrust into his pockets, as he thus spoke.
”Then you don't, or rather you will not believe what I tell you?” said she, imploringly. ”No,” he answered, drily and slowly, as he pa.s.sed her.
”I don't, and I won't (as you say) believe one word of it; so, pray spare yourself further trouble about the matter.”
She raised her head, and darted after him a glance that seemed absolutely to blaze, and at the same time smote her little hand fast clenched upon her breast. The words, however, that trembled on her pale lips were not uttered; her eyes were again cast down, and her fingers played with the little locket that hung round her neck.
”I must make, before I go,” she said, with a deep sigh and a melancholy voice, ”one confidence--one last confidence: judge me by it. You cannot choose but believe me now: it is a secret, and it must even here be whispered, whispered, whispered!”
As she spoke, the color fled from her face, and her tones became so strange and resolute, that Marston turned short upon his heel, and stopped before her. She looked in his face; he frowned, but lowered his eyes. She drew nearer, laid her hand upon his shoulder, and whispered for a few moments in his ear. He raised his face suddenly: its features were sharp and fixed; its hue was changed; it was livid and moveless, like a face cut in gray stone. He staggered back a little and a little more, and then a little more, and fell backward. Fortunately, the chair in which he had been sitting received him, and he lay there insensible as a corpse.
When at last his eyes opened, there was no gleam of triumph, no shade of anger, nothing perceptible of guilt or menace, in the young woman's countenance. The flush had returned to her cheeks; her dimpled chin had sunk upon her full white throat; sorrow, shame, and pride seemed struggling in her handsome face, and she stood before him like a beautiful penitent, who has just made a strange and humbling shrift to her father confessor.
Next day, Marston was mounting his horse for a solitary ride through his park, when Doctor Danvers rode abruptly into the courtyard from the back entrance. Marston touched his hat, and said--
”I don't stand on forms with you, doctor, and you, I know, will waive ceremony with me. You will find Mrs. Marston at home.”
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