The Chaplet of Pearls, Charlotte M. Yonge [superbooks4u .TXT] 📗

would not consult? Would that I had not!’ she added, clasping her hands. ‘His prediction lured me? Well, he saw my father privately, told him he had seen her, and had bought her jewels, even her hair. My father sent him in quest of her again, but told not me till the man returned with tidings that she was at Quinet, in favour with the Duchess. You remember that he went from home. It was to demand he; and, ah! you know how long I had loved you, and they told me that your marriage was void, and that all would be well upon the dispensation coming. And now the good father there tells me that I was deceived—cruelly deceived—that such a dispensation would not be granted save through gross misrepresentation.’ Then, as Berenger began to show tokens of eagerness to come at tidings of Eustacie, she continued, ‘Ah! it is vain to seek to excuse one you care not for. My father could learn nothing from the Duchess; she avowed that she had been there, but would say no more. However, he and my brother were sure she was under their protection; they took measures, and—and the morning my poor father was stricken, there had been a letter from my brother to say he was on her track, and matters must be ended with you, for he should have her in a week;’ and then, as Berenger started forward with an inarticulate outburst, half of horror, half of interrogation, she added, ‘Where, he said not, nor did I learn from him. All our one interview was spend in sneers that answered to my wild entreaties; but this I know—that you would never have reached Tours a living man.’

‘And now, now he is on the way to her!’ cried Berenger, ‘and you kept it from me!’

‘There lay my hope,’ said Diane, raising her head; and now, with glittering eyes and altered voice, ‘How could I not but hate her who had bereaved me of you; her for whose sake I could not earn your love?’

The change of her tone had, perhaps, warned the priest to draw nearer, and as she perceived him, she said, ‘Yes, father, this is not the way to absolution, but my heart will burst if I say not all.’

‘Thou shalt not prevail, foul spirit,’ said the priest, looking earnestly into the darkness, as though he beheld the fiend hovering over her, ‘neither shall these holy walls be defiled with accents of unhallowed love. You have made your reparation, daughter; it is enough.’

‘And can you tell me no more?’ said Berenger, sadly. ‘Can you give me no clue that I may save her from the wolf that may be already on her track? Cousin, if you would do this, I would bless you for ever.’

‘Alas! I would if I could! It is true, cousin, I have no heart to deceive you any longer. But it is to Madame de Quinet that you must apply, and if my brother has though me worth pursuit, you may be in time! One moment,’—as he would have sprung away as if in the impulse to fly to the rescue,—‘cousin; had you gone to England as I hoped, I would have striven to deserve to win that love of yours, but you have conquered by your constancy. Now, father, I have spoken my last save as penitent.’

She covered her head and sank down again.

Berenger, bewildered and impelled to be doing something, let the priest lead him out before he exclaimed, ‘I said nothing to her of pardon!’

‘You do pardon?’ said the priest.

He paused a moment. ‘Freely, if I find my wife. I can only remember now that she set me on the way. I would ease her soul, poor thing, and thinking would make me hard again.’

‘Do the English bring up their sons with such feelings?’ asked the cure, pausing for a moment.

‘Of course,’ said Berenger. ‘May I say that one word, sir?’

‘Not now,’ said the priest; ‘she had better be left to think of her sin towards Heaven, rather than towards man.’

‘But do you leave her there, sir?’

‘I shall return. I shall pray for her true penitence,’ said the priest, and Berenger perceived from his tone that one without the pale might inquire no further. He only asked how safe and honourable shelter could be found for her; and the cure replied that he had already spoken to her of the convent of Lucon, and should take her there so soon as it could safely be done, and that Abbess Monique, he trusted, would assist her crushed spirit in finding the path of penitence. He thought her cousin had better not endeavour to see her again; and Berenger himself was ready to forget her very existence in his burning anxiety to outstrip Narcisse in the quest of Eustacie.