Part 5 (2/2)
He paused suddenly; a visitor was entering the room.
It was a young man about twenty years of age, of distinguished appearance, but with a rather melancholy and gentle manner.
His eyes when he entered the apartment encountered those of Marie-Anne; he blushed slightly, and the girl half turned away, crimsoning to the roots of her hair.
”Monsieur,” said the young man, ”my father sends me to inform you that the Duc de Sairmeuse and his son have just arrived. They have asked the hospitality of our cure.”
M. Lacheneur rose, unable to conceal his frightful agitation.
”You will thank the Baron d'Escorval for his attention, my dear Maurice,” he responded. ”I shall have the honor of seeing him to-day, after a very momentous step which we are about to take, my daughter and I.”
Young d'Escorval had seen, at the first glance, that his presence was inopportune, so he remained only a few moments.
But as he was taking leave, Marie-Anne found time to say, in a low voice:
”I think I know your heart, Maurice; this evening I shall know it certainly.”
CHAPTER III
Few of the inhabitants of Sairmeuse knew, except by name, the terrible duke whose arrival had thrown the whole village into commotion.
Some of the oldest residents had a faint recollection of having seen him long ago, before '89 indeed, when he came to visit his aunt, Mlle.
Armande.
His duties, then, had seldom permitted him to leave the court.
If he had given no sign of life during the empire, it was because he had not been compelled to submit to the humiliations and suffering which so many of the emigrants were obliged to endure in their exile.
On the contrary, he had received, in exchange for the wealth of which he had been deprived by the revolution, a princely fortune.
Taking refuge in London after the defeat of the army of Conde, he had been so fortunate as to please the only daughter of Lord Holland, one of the richest peers in England, and he had married her.
She possessed a fortune of two hundred and fifty thousand pounds sterling, more than six million francs.
Still the marriage was not a happy one. The chosen companion of the dissipated and licentious Count d'Artois was not likely to prove a very good husband.
The young d.u.c.h.ess was contemplating a separation when she died, in giving birth to a boy, who was baptized under the names of Anne-Marie-Martial.
The loss of his wife did not render the Duc de Sairmeuse inconsolable.
He was free and richer than he had ever been.
As soon as _les convenances_ permitted, he confided his son to the care of a relative of his wife, and began his roving life again.
Rumor had told the truth. He had fought, and that furiously, against France in the Austrian, and then in the Russian ranks.
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