Part 55 (1/2)

In the throes of constantly returning terror, Adeline talked more than usual, and Catherine did not leave her side. But she shuddered at the broken phrases that the stranger uttered:

”Take him from that scaffold!” Adeline exclaimed again and again, putting her hands before her eyes. ”In pity's name, do not give him to the executioners! They are going to kill him! I hear his voice! But no, that plaintive cry did not come from his mouth; that was another victim.--Oh! I cannot be mistaken, I recognize his tones; they always go to my heart!”

Catherine shed tears; Monsieur Gerval caught a glimpse of a ghastly mystery, and the old servant repeated to her master:

”A scaffold! executioners! Ah! that makes one shudder, monsieur!”

”No matter,” said the kindhearted Gerval; ”if the young woman's husband or relatives are criminals I will keep her none the less. She is not guilty, I am sure; she is only unfortunate!”

”Yes, monsieur; but the monsters who have brought her to this condition!

they are very guilty; they deserve to be severely punished!”

”Yes, my poor Catherine; but we do not know them; let us leave to Providence the duty of avenging this unhappy creature, and let us not doubt its justice. It would be too horrible to think that the wicked may enjoy in peace the fruit of an evil deed, while the victim wastes her life away in tears and despair.”

Monsieur Gerval summoned his servants again, and urged them to redouble their attention, in order to spare the young mother such dangerous emotion.

”No noise, no shouts in the neighborhood of her room! If you come together to talk and laugh, which I do not wish to forbid you to do, let it be in some room at a distance from Constance's so that she cannot hear you. Above all, no more questions; for they lead to no good result.”

”Oh! I am done, monsieur,” said the old servant; ”I have no desire to learn anything more now; it strikes me as altogether too painful a subject; and I should be terribly distressed to pain a woman whom I should like to see happy once more.”

Thanks to these precautions, Adeline became calm once more, and everything went on in its accustomed order. Some time pa.s.sed before they dared to let the invalid leave the house; and she no longer walked in the woods except under the escort of both Lucas and Catherine; and as soon as the peasants caught sight of her, knowing her condition and the orders that Monsieur Gerval had given, they quietly moved away from her path. If she approached, unperceived, a group of peasant girls, who were engaged in diverting themselves, their games, their dancing or singing were instantly suspended.

”It is the mad woman,” they would whisper to one another; ”let's not make any noise, for that makes her worse.”

Time flew by without bringing any change in Adeline's condition; but her little Ermance grew rapidly and her features began to develop. Already her smile had the sweet expression of her mother's, and her affectionate heart seemed to have inherited Adeline's sensibility.

A year had pa.s.sed since Monsieur Gerval had taken Adeline and her daughter under his roof. Pretty Ermance loved the old man as she would have loved her father. Her little white hands patted her protector's white hair, and he became more and more attached every day to the sweet child.

”You have no parents,” he said to her one night, taking her on his knees. ”Your mother is dead to you, poor child! Your father is dead too, no doubt, or else he has abandoned you, and does not deserve your love.

I propose to a.s.sure your future; you shall be rich; and may you be happy and think sometimes of the old man who adopted you, but who will not live long enough to see you enjoy his gifts!”

The winter came and stripped the trees of their foliage and the earth of the verdure which embellished it. The woods were deserted, the birds had gone to seek shade and water beneath another sky. The snow, falling in great flakes on the mountains, lay in huge drifts among the Vosges, and made the roads difficult for pedestrians and impracticable for carriages. The evenings grew long, and the whistling of the wind made them melancholy and gloomy. The peasant, who was forced to pa.s.s through the woods, made haste to reach his home, for fear of being overtaken by the darkness; he hurried along, blowing on his fingers, and his footprints in the snow often served to guide the traveller who had lost his way.

However, ennui did not find its way into honest Gerval's abode; all the inmates were able to employ their time profitably. The old man read, or attended to his business and wrote to his farmers. Dupre made up his accounts, and looked after the wants of the household; Catherine did the housework and the cooking, and Lucas looked after his garden and tried to protect his trees and his flowers from the rigors of the season.

Adeline did not leave her room except in the morning, when she made the circuit of the garden a few times; she was rarely seen in the other parts of the house. As soon as night came, she withdrew to her room, sometimes taking her daughter with her; when, by any chance, she remained with her host in the evening, she sat beside Catherine, who told the child stories, while Gerval played a game of piquet or backgammon with Dupre, and Lucas spelled out in a great book a story of thieves or ghosts.

When a violent gust of wind made the windows creak, and blew against them the branches of the trees which stood near the house, Lucas, who was not courageous, but who loved to frighten himself by reading terrifying stories, would drop his book and look about him in dismay; the monotonous noise of the weatherc.o.c.k on the roof, the uniform beating of an iron hook against the wall, were so many subjects of alarm to the gardener.

Sometimes Adeline would break the silence, crying:

”There he is! I hear him!” and Lucas would jump from his chair, thinking that someone was really about to appear. Then Catherine would make fun of the gardener, his master would scold him for his cowardice, and Lucas, to restore his courage, would take his book and continue his ghost story.

x.x.xVI

THE TRUTH SOMETIMES SEEMS IMPROBABLE

The snow had fallen with more violence and in greater abundance than usual; the gusts of wind constantly snapped off branches of the trees and hurled them far away across the roads, which soon became impa.s.sable.