Part 40 (1/2)
”You are not dead?”
A hundred questions were in her eyes.
”No, I am not dead, dear love, dear love.”
He spoke the last words hungrily, wistfully, longing for response, yet scarcely daring to hope for it.
The colour had not come to her cheeks at his words; she was still staring up in that same wonder.
Yet he saw another thought dawning behind it.
”If you are alive, what does it mean?” she asked, then shuddered violently. ”They told me you were a traitor,” she said.
”A traitor? And so I was, Cecile--a black and dishonoured traitor.
But I repented.”
”Repented!”
Her voice rang harshly.
”Ay. G.o.d grant before too late.”
”When--when you rode to Varenac----”
”I went as its Marquis, to cry 'Long live the King.'”
”And yet----”
”I never reached Varenac.”
”You--turned back?”
How her eyes accused him.
”Cecile! Cecile! Yet I deserve it. No, I did not turn back. I met my sister----”
”She has told me all that, and how you disappeared before she could return.”
”Lord Denningham found me awaiting her. A quarrel was forced. He sneered at me for a Chouan. I lost my temper, and gave him his desire.
We fought near here, and I think he left me for dead. Old Nanette nursed me back to life--it was a miracle that saved me. I am on my way to Varenac.”
He spoke breathlessly, almost incoherently. Yet each word carried truth with it. And she believed him, though, by reason of her very love and fear, she hesitated.
”You go to Varenac?”
”At once, Mademoiselle.”
”Your enemies are there.”