Frances Peard (continued 5)

Reaching Poissy, she heard that all, even Mme. de Beaudrillart, had gone down to one of the nearest vineyards. She knew that her husband would not have expected her to return so soon, and impulse made her long to be by his side. She lost no time in hurrying after them, crossing the river by the bridge, and finding them without difficulty, guided, as she was, by the vibration of voices in the clear air. From out of her anxious thoughts she came into the gayest of scenes. The grapes were being picked into great baskets; from a sky of clearest blue, the sun, now a little low, shone ripeningly upon the mellow clusters, the women’s white head-gear and bright dresses flitting here and there between the green vines; light, warmth, colour, and gaiety were everywhere. Raoul was the masterful head of the troop of children whom he had constituted his regiment, Léon in his grey suit was chatting familiarly with one of the oldest of his tenants, Mme. de Beaudrillart and Claire stood graciously regarding the busy scene, and eating from the beautiful bunch of grapes which had just been presented to them, while Félicie, with her small steps, moved about from group to group. Almost every one from the château, down to Jean Charpentier, was there, and in all fair France it would have been difficult to have lit upon a spot more peaceful, more sunny, and more secure.

Nathalie drew a long breath as she stood for an instant watching it. This was her home, her peace, her security. Her husband caught sight of her, and came towards her with his easy smile upon his face.

“Back already, chérie? A thousand welcomes! They say the vintage is splendid—better than it had been for years. No phyloxera, and magnificently ripened. Look how the light shoots through those bunches. Old Félix is delighted.”

Surely, her security.

Chapter Seventeen.

“I Love You!”

Léon’s mood changed like a weathercock on a gusty English day. Extreme wrath with Charles Lemaire alternated with the fancy that it was a foolish charge which no one in their senses would believe. Nathalie, by her sturdy faith, helped to keep him in this fools’ paradise; and in his indignation at the accusation that the money had not been repaid, he quite lost sight of what he had really done. He groaned with disgust at Lemaire’s falsity, and feeling himself a martyr to a false charge, looked at the matter from heights of virtuous probity.

His mother’s fears were in a measure quieted by the laughing explanation he gave of the envelope incident. There was no temptation to say anything but the truth, so that its probability impressed her, and only a latent uneasiness remained. M. de Cadanet had given no acknowledgment, and he was not the sort of man to worry on the subject. He did not want to press for it or to offend the old man. Mme. de Beaudrillart shook her head; but it was at the rashness, not its impossibility. Besides—and that there was a change in her was proved by this besides—if he had not felt secure he could not possibly have ventured himself on this action; nor would M. Rodoin have permitted it. She had a woman’s confidence in a lawyer’s far-sightedness.

M. Bourget remained sternly apart, making no sign. His daughter thought of him with trouble, but could not bring herself to face him again. His attitude cut her to the heart, for she felt as if, through her father’s distrust, she herself had done her husband wrong. As for changing his opinion, once it had gripped him, she knew she was powerless, and she remained undutifully pitiless, even when reflecting upon that changed desolate figure by the window, thinking only of him as one who had failed Léon at a time when he wanted support.

No one else had a thought to spare for anything except the vintage. There had been a threat of the fine weather breaking up, but the fear had passed, and the vines with their gnarled and twisted stems and transparent leaves, through which the sun struck golden, were gradually stripped, and the grapes carried off to the presses. There was a great deal of jollity and some drunkenness. All the talk was of the yield and condition of the vines. Bacchus reigned supreme.

Félicie, meanwhile, was in a bubble of small excitement, preparing for the bishop’s visit. Bushels of pink roses were stored in one of the deep cupboards in the old walls; ribbons were knotted, banners arranged for the procession, little framed coloured prints prepared; the cottas of the boys trimmed with fresh lace, the vestments all carefully shaken out and looked over for moth, the bishop’s room provided with a prie-dieu and crucifix. Nothing was wanting except the last stitches to the abbé’s new cope, at which Félicie was toiling from morning till night. Claire mocked at the abundance of detail, but was half envious of her preoccupation. Mme. de Beaudrillart encouraged it, perhaps with a feverish hope that so much piety might avert threatened disaster, and Nathalie was impatient that Félicie had no thought for any other subject. She was growing uneasy because no letter came from M. Rodoin. The tone of his last communication had not seemed to her satisfactory. He had said that, so far, the other side had made no sign, and he was evidently uneasy that their confidence appeared unshaken. If it was an attempt to extort money, a bold front and a threat set in action would have probably been enough to make them retreat. The lawyer begged M. de Beaudrillart to search his papers yet more carefully, on the chance of finding some mention of the loan in a letter from M. de Cadanet.

“But I have no letters from Monsieur de Cadanet!” cried Léon, pettishly tossing the letter to his wife.

He had got into the habit now of turning to her in perplexity, and more than once it had even crossed his mind whether it would not be the better plan to tell her exactly what had happened, and let her clear wits help him if difficulties thickened. But, as yet, the satisfaction of her entire belief in him being greater than his need, he clung to it and to silence.

She suggested that he should go to Paris, and see M. Rodoin.

“There is nothing more to say, and it is delightful here just now. No. Let them arrange it among themselves.”

Her strong convictions in the matter acquiesced in this, and then one morning he came to her, ghastly, an open letter in his hand, despair in his face.

“Rodoin throws it up!” he cried, flinging the letter on the table, and dropping into a chair.

“Léon!”

“Read for yourself. Don’t ask me to explain. Read, read!” He thrust his hands through his hair, and stared haggardly at the floor.

She took the letter. M. Rodoin wrote that he and Maître Barraud had been in daily consultation over M. de Beaudrillart’s case. He regretted exceedingly to inform him that they had arrived at the conclusion that it would be dishonest on their part to attempt to carry it on without more materials for the prosecution than were at their disposal. They had no evidence of any sort beyond the word of monsieur le baron, and satisfying as that would be to those who knew him, the courts would require further confirmation. The other side would plead that the libel was justified, and deeply as he lamented being obliged to point it out, if their plea could not be disproved the dismissal of the case would be followed by the immediate arrest of monsieur le baron, who would be placed in a worse position by the failure of his own case. M. Rodoin ventured to suggest that it might, under these circumstances, be advisable to attempt an amicable settlement with M. Lemaire, who undoubtedly had contrived to secure a strong position.

Read, Nathalie’s strong fingers closed vice-like round the letter, a slow fire mounting to her eyes threatened scorching. She raised her look with difficulty, letting it rest upon the crouching figure of her husband, and made an impatient step towards him.

“If one man has failed, we must find another. Let us go to Paris at once.”

He murmured an inarticulate sound.

“Do you hear, Léon? There is no time to lose. That Monsieur Rodoin has been half-hearted throughout; I saw it from the first. There are plenty of others—come.”

His murmur resolved itself into muttered despair. They would all be the same; he should give it up. She did not understand.

Curbing her impatience, she knelt down by his side, and brought her head on a level with his own.

“Dear, you are doing just what this Lemaire wishes you to do, when the only fatal thing would be to yield to him. Do not be disheartened. I am quite certain that we can easily find a more able lawyer. Look at me; I am smiling, I am not in the least alarmed, for I am quite certain that truth must be stronger than slander, and that we shall come out all right.”

He lifted a miserable face.

“How dare he say that it was not repaid?”

“Does he? I did not know that he said anything about the loan.”

“Oh, it is all mixed up,” said Léon, impatiently; “only there is no use in telling you, because you do not understand.”

“But, dear Léon, do you not think I could understand?” asked his wife, gently. “If I really do not, I think you would make me more useful by explaining it to me, and I would try very hard. Is there any point which might be more fully explained!”

He writhed uneasily in the chair, but the impulse to tell her was strong upon him, now that the lawyer’s letter had reduced him to helpless pulp. She waited, expectant of some detail, perhaps legal, which had been withheld from her.

“Well, you see,” he explained, running his hands again and again through his hair, “what was I to have done? Monsieur de Cadanet showed me the cheque done up, and then before my eyes directed it to that confounded villain. It was enough to make a man desperate—”

He stopped. Nathalie, all the blood out of her face, but fire in her eyes, had risen, and was staring down upon him.

“How can I explain to you if you look at me like that?” he said, pettishly. “You might guess what happened, and what ninety-nine men out of a hundred would have done, if they had had the chance. I had no thought of it till the thing was over, and I did not make any mystery about it, for I wrote and told the old count that I had taken the money as a loan. He had it all back again, with interest, and as for telling me that this scoundrel lost a penny by it—”

If she could have taken in these last words, the awful numbness in her heart might have yielded, but the first blow had stunned her, and she stood like a dead woman—blind, dumb, deaf. Once having broken the barrier, Léon found relief in rambling on, accusing Lemaire, excusing himself. A sigh broke from her at last, the sigh of returning consciousness, her heart sending it forth as a cry. Then she shivered violently, and became aware that her husband was speaking.

“Don’t, don’t!” she cried, thrusting out her hands.

“Don’t what?” he said, irritably. “Do you think it is agreeable for me to talk about it? I haven’t even told my mother, but you spoke as if you could help one out of the scrape, and now can only stand and stare.”

The blood surged violently into her face; she tottered, and mechanically caught at the table for support.

“Good heavens, say something or other! Where am I to turn? What am I to do? Why, if nothing is done, I may be arrested as a thief!” he cried, with gathering excitement, springing up and pacing the room. “Nathalie, do you hear! Speak! I—Léon de Beaudrillart—arrested! Do you hear!” And with a sudden change he flung himself into a seat, arms and head on the table, and wept like a child.

Nathalie shuddered. Then he began to moan:

“Why did I tell her! She cares nothing for me; just because I am in trouble she has not a word to fling. And this is my wife, who talks of loving me—”

“Oh, Léon, Léon, I love you!”

It came like a cry from a distance, from death itself. She knelt down and flung her arm around him, and strained him passionately to her—“I love you, I love you, do you hear!” He clung to her as if he had been a child.

“Help me, then, chérie, help me!”

“Yes, yes,” she murmured, “courage. We will bear it together.”

He went on, recovering himself as he spoke, and as buoyant as a bubble. “You are so clever, my Nathalie, your wits will certainly be able to think of some way out of it, and you cannot tell what a comfort it is to me that you should know all at last. A hundred times I have been on the very point of telling you, but there is something so disagreeable in explanations that my heart failed. Now you see the difficulty of the position, do you not! What do you think! Is there any use in applying to another lawyer!”

She shook her head.

“Still, one must do something. It is impossible to sit still and let that rascal come down on one. Something must be done. What, what?”

He waited, wanting the suggestion to come from her. As she was silent, knowing that what she had to say would wound him to the quick, he rushed his words.

“Money is all he is after, and I suppose we had better pay!”

She repressed her inclination to cry out, and said, softly: “But it is a fact, is it not, that you repaid the sum!”

“Every penny.”

“To pay would be to acknowledge that you had not done so.”

“That is true,” he said, gloomily.

“A bribe would tell fearfully against you, you may be sure, for even if it stopped him from taking proceedings, he would contrive that it should all leak out.”

He gazed at her bewilderingly. “But what else!—what remains? You are a poor comforter, Nathalie!”

“If only I could bear it for you!” she cried, passionately, her hands closing on his with strong support.

“Bear what? Bear what? What do you want me to do!”

“To tell them the truth.” She flung her head back and fastened imploring eyes on his. “Let them know that you took it. Oh, Léon, it is true.”

“Tell them!” He started back as if he had touched hot iron. Then he laughed. “Certainly this affair has turned your head.”

She pressed her words.

“It is the only noble, straightforward way, and all that you can do to atone. Shelter yourself behind the truth; it will not fail you. Then you can face the worst.”

Muttering, “She is mad!” Léon pushed her from him. “Do you in the least understand what you are suggesting? It means that I should have to plead guilty. How could I ever prove that the money was repaid? You want to ruin me.”

“You will be clear to your own soul, dearest—to your own soul, and to God.”

“What, you mean it? You see where it leads, and yet mean it! You must suppose you are talking to some little bourgeois instead of to a De Beaudrillart!” he cried, scornfully. “We are not used to bear disgrace tamely. There are other ways of avoiding it.”

She clasped him in her arms, terror clutching her heart. “Léon, Léon, not that! Promise me!”

His moods, always variable, now ran up and down the scale of emotion.

“Poor child,” he said, touching her cheek softly, “you mean well; but you don’t know the world. Perhaps my mother will be able to suggest something.”

“Yes, go,” she said, releasing him, and letting her arms drop by her side.

There was a clatter of small steps outside, an impatient rattle of the handle, and Raoul rushed in.

“Father, there’s a monkey—a real monkey—in the court! I’ve given him a piece of melon, and he’s eaten that, and a bunch of nuts, and he’s cracked them; and now I want a sou, and his master says he’ll make a bow for it. Oh, I do wish I might have a monkey!”

Léon, on his way to the door, pointed to the boy. “You propose that I should ruin him,” he said, and was gone.

Poor mother! She caught her child in her arms, while he struggled impatiently.

“Two sous, two sous, please, quick! Oh, it is the dearest little monkey! Don’t you think we could buy it? Jean could take care of it, and it could sleep in my bed.”

He went off with his two sous, and Nathalie dropped into a chair, the anguish of the moment in her eyes. What future lay before the boy? A tarnished name, a dishonoured father? Her thoughts travelled wildly round; she was like a wounded creature, seeking escape from the hunters. How confident she had been, how blind! Now the flitting distrust she had refused to see in the lawyer’s eyes stood before her alive and menacing. Was there any other way but that terrible one to which she had been forced to point? Could Léon ever endure it? What was it? What was it? She pressed her fingers on her quivering eyelids; trial, confession, perhaps a prison—the words printed themselves on her brain, and hung there like leaden weights. And she—oh, cruel, cruel!—she was the one to urge them upon him. God, must it be so? She slipped off the chair on her knees, her lips forming no petitions, because her whole being became a living prayer.

How long she lay she never knew, but there Claire found her at last. Claire was white, rigid, fiercely wroth. She had been with her mother when Léon rushed in, so taken up with the burden of his misery that he poured it all out without hesitation. His first cry had been: “I am lost! Rodoin says he can do nothing, and that villain Lemaire is determined to ruin me. I ask you whether, after all my father did for Monsieur de Cadanet, I had not a right to the loan? He flourished it in my face. I believe he meant me to take it. And if I had not repaid it, then they might have the right to say something; but every farthing went back. What am I to do? Mother, unless you can suggest something, I shall go mad!”

He might have rambled on, striking out blindly, if Claire had not angrily stopped him.

“Do you wish to kill your mother?” For Mme. de Beaudrillart’s usual pallor had changed to a dull grey, and her eyes were vacant. The sight instantly recalled him; he put his arm round her neck and kissed her.

“Don’t, mother! Don’t look like that!”

She did not utter one word of disbelief, conviction had battered at her heart from the moment when she saw it written in M. Bourget’s eyes, and she did not reproach him; only sobs of helpless misery broke from her as she clung. Claire was different. Her eyes were dry and fierce, her voice bitter.

“Do you mean that you have really done this shameful thing and brought all this disgrace upon us?”

“Hush, Claire, hush!” moaned her mother.

“No, mother, I shall speak; I have a right to speak. He has ruined us all. We can never face the world again. Oh, where can we hide ourselves? What will come next?”

Anger, misery, choked her. She rushed from the room, and paced up and down the picture-gallery, darting lightning reproaches at Léon, at his wife, at herself. Her brain was in a whirl. Félicie, who was on her way down-stairs, trailing pink wreaths behind her, stopped and peeped in at the door, hearing sounds. She would have retired, but that Claire seized her.

“Oh, Claire, gently, gently!” she cried, trying to shelter her precious roses. And then, to her horror, her sister snatched the wreath, tore it into fragments, and stamped on them.

“You will drive me mad, I believe!” she said, in a terrible voice. “Do you care for nothing but this frippery? Will it disturb you at all to hear that it is likely Léon will be arrested—arrested, do you hear?—and tried for stealing two hundred thousand francs? Yes, I am not mad, I am telling you the truth.”

“Léon! But what do you mean? I do not understand,” stammered poor Félicie, pale with dismay.

“How should you? All this goes on while you make your paper wreaths, and think of nothing else.”

“Oh, Claire, how cruel you are!” sobbed her sister. “You know I care for dear Léon as much as you—”

“Then you hate him!” interjected Claire. “I have never before heard of a seigneur of Poissy who was a thief. Every one will point at us—at us!”

“I do not think it can be possible,” said Félicie, drying her eyes, and mechanically trying to smooth out her damaged roses. Claire stood and stared at her; then flung herself away, and betook herself again to her passionate pacing. “No, I do not believe it, because you are always so violent when anything puts you out. What does mamma say? There is sure to be a mistake, for Léon has been so kind about the bishop that I am certain he could not have done the dreadful things you talk about. I dare say if he consults his Grandeur that he will give him some—”

She stopped. Claire had caught her wrists.

“If you speak about it to a soul, I shall kill you, Félicie. Do you hear!”

“Pray, be quiet, Claire!” whimpered the other; “it is very wrong to be so violent, and whether we tell him or not, I am sure the bishop will bring us a blessing. You will see that things will come right.”

“Oh, go away, go away!” cried her sister, pushing her. “Leave me in peace!”

“Perhaps it will be a lesson to Nathalie. I always felt afraid that some punishment would come to her for reading those books,” said Félicie, gathering up the last remains of her wreath and departing.

As her paroxysm of anger burned out into duller ashes of misery, Claire, at war with her sister, turned shudderingly towards Nathalie. She found herself wondering how the dreadful story affected her—what her intellect counselled. Suddenly she admitted her strength, and thought it possible that by her help means of extrication might be contrived. It might be he had not told her, from some weak notion of sparing her; Claire set her face like a rock against such mercy. From her she should know everything. Like an indomitable fate she walked towards her sister-in-law’s room, and there, as has been seen, found her unconscious on the floor. Nature forced her to go to her help, but as she knelt down she was full of contempt; for her own constitution was iron, and she held a collapse such as this a proof of miserable weakness. She read in it that Nathalie would never rise to the occasion, would suffer and make others suffer, and her own thoughts flew to plans for shielding Léon, or, at worst, of helping him to avoid the scandal.

Meanwhile, when Nathalie opened her eyes she saw no one at first, for Claire was kneeling behind. She had one minute of wondering reprieve before intolerable pain, rushed into possession. Words, looks, confronted her again; she moaned once, and then called upon her ebbing strength to meet its foes gallantly. Raising herself on an elbow, and pushing the hair back from her forehead with her other hand, a sound made her glance round, and she met Claire’s gaze. The two women eyed each other silently. Claire was the first to say, briefly:

“You know?”

“Yes, I know.”

They were mute again, each reflecting.

“And you fainted?” Mlle. de Beaudrillart uttered the words like a judge. Nathalie simply answered:

“I shall not do it again.”

Their words were few, like the first feints of fencers. Both rose and stood upright, and Claire felt a momentary vexation that Nathalie was the taller. She said, presently:

“There is no use in our talking. I shall never forgive Léon; but perhaps something can be arranged to hush it up, and prevent the disgrace becoming public. Whatever that costs, it must be done. I suppose money is always a strong weapon, and I imagine, under these circumstances, you cannot object to its being paid?”

To the tone Nathalie was indifferent to the point of unconsciousness. But to the suggestion she replied: “I should object with all my might. Forgive me if I oppose you.”

Claire flung out the taunt: “The sacrifice is too great?”

“What sacrifice? What I feel is that to sin, and then to bribe to escape its consequences, is to sin twice.”

The other stared at her.

“What will you do, then?”

Nathalie’s voice carried anguish. “I shall urge him to meet it.”

Claire made a step towards her. “Meet it? Do you mean own that he has done it?”

Nathalie encountered her eye, her voice, without quailing. She was vaguely sorry for these others who were suffering; but all her emotions fastened themselves upon her husband, and remembering some words he had let drop, she started. “Where is Léon?” she cried.

“With his mother. You need not be afraid for him,” said Claire, scornfully; “he has always taken care of himself, and he will do so to his dying day. I don’t know why I was such a fool as to be alarmed at hearing the advice you are going to bestow upon him, for Léon will never face a disagreeable so long as he can find a means of slipping round it. You may do your worst. Of course, you can’t be expected to feel what we feel: the disgrace—the horrible shame—the—” She stopped, choked. Nathalie looked at her, neither assenting nor denying, and, after a moment’s pause, the other began again:

“It must be crushed down, even if Poissy has to go. The name comes first. This man—it is true, is it not, that he will accept money!”

“Do you know what you are saying!” said her sister-in-law, speaking in a low, even voice. “If Léon did what you demand, he would be owning himself the thief they call him. He took the money, but it was not to keep; he wrote to Monsieur de Cadanet and told him what he had done, and promised to pay it back, and did it. He owes nothing.”

“You believe this!”

“Yes. He has told me all, now,” she answered, in the same tone. There was something in it which for the moment impressed Claire; but she presently returned to her conviction.

“If it is true, it is only a matter of degree,” she said, her eyes dilating.

“It is everything,” rejoined Nathalie, firmly.

“Take what comfort you can from it, then. What I think is that, true or not, unless Léon can prove it, it will be of no use in warding off the blow. That is the only thing which remains to us. It must not fall. Do you hear! It must not fall.”

“God knows!” She turned away with a sigh, but there was no irresolution in her face. The sun still shone outside; above the grey stone the clear blue was beginning to whiten; so high as to be mere specks, the swallows circled. Suddenly Claire broke into a laugh—a high-pitched laugh, not good to hear.

“A De Beaudrillart tried for theft!” she exclaimed. “In a common dock, I imagine! What a fine event for the world! Tours, too. Why, Tours would have something to talk about for quite a year.” Her voice changed again to something harsh, fierce. “You are not to tell your father, do you hear! Do you mean to say that you have done so already?”

Nathalie looked at her gravely.

“Hush!” she said. “There is no use in saying these things. My father has guessed it, and I think it is breaking his heart.”

“Oh,” cried Claire, wildly, “it only wanted this! Monsieur Bourget knows, and it is breaking Monsieur Bourget’s heart! We Beaudrillarts can bear it, but Monsieur Bourget’s heart is breaking! Do you suppose that we are going to endure this degrading pity? I tell you that anything—death itself—would be better!”

Her white face was distorted, changed; yet if any one had been there to make the comparison, they might have detected a deeper suffering behind Mme. Léon’s silence. She stood mute, her sad young eyes looking into the unknown, her delicate lips compressed. Claire suddenly felt the unconquerable power of calmness. Her taunts were useless. She turned and rushed from the room. Outside on the stairs were two men, and her first impression was that perhaps they were officers of justice come to seize Léon, until she saw that one was her brother himself and the other M. Georges.

Chapter Eighteen.

A Different Standpoint.

In his present mood Léon would have avoided any visitor, and M. Georges perhaps most of all; for to go over the estates, point out improvements and changes, and listen to the cautious encouraging admiration of his guest was almost unendurable. He had fallen upon him by chance, running down the stairs from his mother’s room just as a parley with M. Georges was being held at the door, and the kindliness of his nature prevented him from shaking him off, as he longed to do. But he hailed his sister as a means of escape, and though it was contrary to all etiquette to leave her to entertain him unassisted, this was an hour of anguish, in which everything not immediately connected with the matter in hand sank to insignificance. To Claire, too, under the exhaustion of her passion and her fears, the sight of M. Georges’s quiet, every-day respectful face gave an immediate and pleasurable sense of repose; and she was not sorry to second her brother when he explained that Mme. de Beaudrillart was ailing, that he himself had a pressing engagement, and that therefore he would ask his sister to go over the place, and show M. Georges anything that he would like to see.

“Mademoiselle will indeed do me too much honour,” murmured M. Georges, blushing, and clasping his straw hat and bowing to the ground. “If it is an inconvenience, permit me to choose some other time.”

“No, no!” cried Léon, hastily but kindly, for his heart had always reproached him with his treatment of his intendant, “you have had a long walk, and must certainly see what you came to see. Claire, be sure to show Monsieur Georges the new presses and the rick-yard.”

He waved his hand and went away. M. Georges, who was gazing after him, ventured to remark that monsieur le baron did not look so well as he had hoped to find him.

“No,” said Claire, abruptly; “he has his troubles. Who has not?”

“Ah, mademoiselle,” said M. Georges, simply, “I hoped that the troubles of Poissy were over.”

Mlle. de Beaudrillart, too, was altered. To him, she had been less dignified than to others, finding some sort of expansion in speaking to a man who, with all his indecision, was intelligent and had ideas. To-day she struck him as sharper and more angular; but he had always nursed a respectful admiration for Mlle. de Beaudrillart, who had often protected him from her mother’s criticisms. In the course of their walk round the estate he more than once suggested that he feared he was taking her from other occupations, to which she merely shook her head. Once he made an unfortunate allusion.

“Ah, here is the wall which has been strengthened, of which Monsieur Bourget was telling me the other day. He is a marvellous man, Monsieur Bourget!”

“Oh, do not talk of him!” said Claire, impatiently.

“No?” Little M. Georges glanced at her with nervousness. “Possibly one may admit that occasionally he expresses himself with too much force; but he is solid, and knows what he is speaking about.” He added, conscience demanding the tribute: “And he is devoted to his family.” They were advancing towards the château when he stopped, and said, supplicatingly, “Would mademoiselle permit me to beg for one favour? I have never had the honour of seeing Monsieur Raoul.”

The homage in his tone soothed poor Claire’s wounded spirit. She exclaimed, impulsively:

“Ah, Monsieur Georges, you served my brother very faithfully! I wish he still had such a good friend by his side!”

“You do me too much honour, mademoiselle,” he said, much touched; “the more so, because I have always been painfully aware of my own deficiencies at a critical time, and I have seen for myself to-day that Monsieur de Beaudrillart has done better without me. And I do not doubt that he has an excellent adviser in his wife.”

“In his wife? Oh no; she does not understand the exigencies of the family, and how should she? She looks at everything from a totally different standpoint to ours. But there she is, and Raoul with her.”

They were standing on the small stone balcony which clung to the wall outside Nathalie’s room, feeding the pigeons in the court, and, at Claire’s call, came down the steps and across the sun-smitten court. M. Georges, who had never seen her since her marriage, stared amazedly at this pale, noble-looking woman, with dark circles round her eyes, and the shadow of a great trouble resting upon her. He swept the ground with his hat, as Raoul marched up, put his hand into that of the visitor, and said, with sturdy precision: “How do you do, Monsieur Georges?” Mme. Léon also put out her hand.

“Léon desired me to tell you,” she said, turning to her sister-in-law, “that Félicie has coffee ready, and he hopes that Monsieur Georges will have that or anything else he may prefer.”

“Of course,” said Claire, shortly. “Are you coming?”

“No, Léon wants me. Good-bye, Monsieur Georges. If you see my father, will you beg him to come and see us?” She moved away, and he stared, open-mouthed, after her. There was a tender dignity in her face, a composure in her manner, which, after all he had heard, left him amazed. And, though his perceptions were slow, he read in her eyes that she was a very sorrowful woman. What could threaten Poissy? What had humbled Mlle. Claire? Even Félicie, whom they found with the coffee, had red and swollen eyes, although she brightened and became enthusiastic in her descriptions of the preparations for monseigneur, and of all that she and the Abbé Nisard had to organise. She even ran to fetch some of her cherished decorations, and when it appeared that a yard or two of coloured calico was wanting, and M. Georges offered to procure it in Tours, her little inexpressive face became radiant.

“Would you really be so kind? We should be most grateful, for I did not know where to turn, and to have failed in the effect just on account of two or three yards of stuff would have been too dreadful! Is it possible that you have never heard monseigneur preach! How much you would be edified! Instead of going to those terrible clubs where the Church is shut out, and the most dreadful doctrines are taught, you must come here and listen to him. You must indeed!”

M. Georges, whose talk at clubs had been always most innocent, was highly gratified.

“Mademoiselle is only too good,” he reiterated. “If I might be permitted—”

“But certainly,” cried Félicie, enchanted at a possible convert. “Monseigneur arrives on Monday—the day after to-morrow—and the function will be on Tuesday.”

“Félicie,” said her sister, warningly, “it is possible that we may not be able to receive monseigneur.”

Félicie nodded her head in full confidence.

“Ah, but I have spoken to Léon, and he wishes no change to be made; but everything to go on as was settled.”

“Perhaps—” hesitated M. Georges, “if Madame Léon wishes to see her father, Monsieur Bourget and I might come out together?”

“Monsieur Bourget!” Félicie was aghast. “Oh, for pity’s sake, do not bring him here! I am convinced that he is both a republican and a freethinker. He is really too dreadful! I believe he would be capable of shocking the bishop, and saying something insulting to the Church. Pray, pray, Monsieur Georges!”

“For all our sakes, I think you may forget that message,” said Claire, significantly.

But M. Georges could not so soon put aside his recollection of Mme. Léon’s earnest face and the sad sorrow in her eyes. After he got back to Tours, he was going in pursuit of M. Bourget, when he met him in the street, and uttered some little jest about the reversal of their positions.

“It is I who have now returned from Poissy,” he said, smiling.

“Well?”

The word shot out so sharply that it startled the hearer.

“The visit was exceedingly gratifying to me,” he returned, “although Monsieur de Beaudrillart was unfortunately a good deal occupied. But his sister kindly showed me the improvements, and it afforded me immense pleasure to see your grandson—and Madame Léon,” he added.

M. Bourget’s face softened.

“Did—did she say anything?” he demanded.

“She desired me to beg you to come out.”

“She wants me—eh?” Her father’s chin drooped on his chest, but he straightened himself by an effort, and inquired if she were well. M. Georges hesitated.

“To tell you the truth, I am afraid some bad news had reached the family. Nothing was said, but you know how an impression fixes itself upon the mind. Still, I may be mistaken. Mademoiselle Félicie, who is very amiable, appeared much interested in a visit which the bishop is to pay them on Monday. It is astonishing how much she contrives to do for the Church!”

M. Bourget paid no attention to his words, and when they had parted, M. Georges reflected that there had been a good deal of exaggeration in what Leroux and others had told him about the ex-builder’s mania on the subject of Poissy. Instead of descanting on the theme by the hour, as his victims represented, he had been as curt and silent as if the very name of the place were repugnant, and M. Georges, whose honest fealty had all come back that afternoon, made up his mind that jealousy probably lay at the bottom of the reports which had come to his ears. He walked away extremely well satisfied with himself, recalling Mlle. de Beaudrillart’s unusual condescension, and giving himself immense pains to match the coloured calico and despatch it.

On Sunday afternoon M. Bourget, in his Sunday clothes, with a stick. And very conspicuous watch-chain festooned with seals in front, presented himself at the château and demanded his daughter. He was shown to her room, and there had to wait for some time, as Mme. Léon was in the grounds with her husband. When she came at last, she advanced quickly to meet him, but stopped, checked by the gloom in his face.

“You see,” he said, briefly.

She moved forward then; her eyes softened with a divine pity.

“Yes,” she said, quietly.

“And what is he going to do, this rascal of a husband of yours?”

Her face flushed swiftly. “You must not speak of him like that.”

“Why, what else is he? Didn’t he take the money?”

“Yes, he took it. There he sinned. But he wrote to Monsieur de Cadanet by that day’s post, and told him what he had done, and promised to repay it—as he did.”

M. Bourget groaned. “And you believe this story! I’ve been thinking, Nathalie, as I came along, and there’s nothing for it but money, money. The amount must be raised, the saints know how! but somehow, and the black business hushed up. It’s the only thing to be done for the boy—for all of us; and the quicker the better. Look here, I must see your husband. I’ll keep my hands off him, if I can, but that letter will have to be written to-day.” He groaned again. “It will leave me a beggar. Oh, the villain, to have brought his good name to this!”

Nathalie’s face was white; but her eyes shone, and she confronted her father bravely.

“And you would drag it in the dust! You would make him own to what he never did! Raoul’s father! Oh, shame, father, shame! I sent for you because I knew you were an honest man, and I believed you would counsel my poor Léon honestly. This is not honesty, and you shall not see him—you shall not disgrace yourself and me.”

He flung angry glances at her.

“Mighty fine!” he said, ironically. “Pray, what better plan have you for keeping him out of prison?”

The light faded from her eyes, she locked her hands tightly one in the other, and was silent. He repeated, tauntingly,—

“Come, now, what?”

Thus cruelly pressed, her lips parted, she gasped rather than spoke the one word: “None.”

M. Bourget was too angry for pity. “Perhaps you would like to put him there?”

Silence.

“Don’t deceive yourself, my girl. If you don’t pay, that is where he goes.”

Her voice had come back to her.

“I cannot help it. He must tell the truth.”

He started to his feet with a violent exclamation of rage.

“So you have no consideration for me? How can I ever show my face again in Tours? And Raoul! You mean him to grow up to be pointed at as the son of a man who has been in prison, all for the sake of a story which is only another lie! Yes, a lie! Do you tell me you believe it?”

“I know it.”

“Then you are a fool!” he cried, fiercely. “You will be telling me next that you still care for him.”

“Ah, do I not!” she cried, her steadfast eyes shining.

“Will you let me see him?” he exclaimed, imperiously.

“No; I will not. He wants help, and you will not help him.”

He marched to the door in a rage, but came back again, and stood with his great hands resting on the table, palms downward.

“You are a woman, a foolish woman, and talk of things you don’t understand. You suppose that no one will have the heart to hurt your dear Léon; and that when they hear that fine story of his, judge and jury will be so much impressed that it will require no more to make them acquit him. A baron, the Baron de Beaudrillart, the master of Poissy, one of the oldest names in the country—you flatter yourself, no doubt, that all this will prepossess them in his favour, to say nothing of a weeping wife, clasping her hands and crying, ‘Gentlemen, gentlemen, for the love of Heaven!’ You know nothing at all, my girl. Baron, and Beaudrillart, and Poissy, and descent—all this grandeur—is exactly what will tell against him. In these days it is a fine thing for a miserable little tallow-chandler, or a creature like Leroux, to sit in the jury-box, and feel, ‘Now it is my turn. Down with these seigneurs and their accursed pride!’ If he were an upstart of a washer-woman’s son, picked out of the gutter, he would have a chance, but as it is,”—he stopped and blew out a whiff of air—“there! That is what his is worth! And as for the love of Heaven—peste! few of them will think twice of that.”

Till these last words, Nathalie had bent her head before the pitiless storm. Now she raised it confidently.

“Yet it will not fail us,” she said. “If Léon does what is right, I do not fear.”

His anger was on the point of overpowering him, but he mastered it by a great effort so far as to mutter:

“Perhaps it is as well I should not see your husband, lest I should lose patience. But you had better let him hear my opinion. He can send in and let me know, if it isn’t too late.”

“Will you not have the carriage?”

He refused curtly, and, without listening to the words with which she tried to thank him, took himself out of the room, down the stairs, and out into the broad sweep. Poissy had never looked more beautiful. It was one of those grey, languorous days in which thunder threatens, and the dark, rich tones of a cloudy sky threw the mellow stone-work and its delicate ornamentation into high relief. The court side was the more picturesque and broken, but the noble simplicity of the lines of the front had always powerfully affected M. Bourget, and he was ready to vow that nothing could exceed the grace of the chimneys or the fine proportion of the windows. And now, as he looked, the pride with which he had dwelt upon it broke forth in an angry snort, which was really a groan. Unfortunately for himself, Jean Charpentier was on his way round the house. It was very well known in the household how the father of Mme. Léon was regarded by Mme. de Beaudrillart and her daughters, and Jean held, if possible, yet stouter aristocratic opinions. The sight, therefore, of M. Bourget’s square and sturdy figure, planted on the drive, and tragically gesticulating, stretched his face into a broad grin, which he took no pains to hide. In a moment he found himself in the clutch of the avenger. M. Bourget, gripping his collar, rained down blows upon him with his cane until he roared for mercy, and the ex-builder, wrathfully sending him staggering, expressed a hope that the castigation would have a good and much-needed effect upon his manners.

At any rate, this little incident had a soothing influence upon M. Bourget. It made him hot, but it restored his sense of power, and he went on his way home with a feeling that his visit had not been all in vain. Jean ran into the house, smarting for revenge, but it was an unlucky day for him, as the first person he fell upon was his father. Jacques listened to the tale, spluttered out between threats of vengeance, and when it was ended took his son by the ear.

“I’ll wager you’ve had no more than you earned; and see here, if you talk about it, you’ll come in for another dose. Ay, you’d best look out. Let me catch you venturing to be insolent to Madame Léon or her father!” And as Jean went off in wholesome dread of threats which he knew his father too well to doubt would be carried out, Jacques remained looking doubtfully at the ground and scratching his head. “There’s trouble in the air, and I’m fearful it has to do with Monsieur Léon,” he reflected. “Madame has eaten next to nothing these two days, and as for Madame Léon, she is a ghost. It must be serious, for I’ve seen nothing like it since Monsieur Léon married; and if it’s an old story wakening up, why, all the worse! Monsieur Bourget, too; he will have been put out about something to give Jean a thrashing, and to go without so much as seeing Monsieur Raoul. A bad sign—a very bad sign.”

And Jacques went off mournfully to the gardens.

Chapter Nineteen.

The Bishop’s Visit.

Félicie’s untiring energy had really provided a very pretty welcome for the bishop. She had collected all the children far and near, given them flags and garlands of vine to carry, and grouped them at the entrance of the château. Raoul was there, kept quiet by the fond belief that he was acting as colonel, and, much to his aunt’s distress, steadily persistent in refusing to carry anything except his sword. The sight, with the old grey château behind, and the gayly coloured swarm of little creatures in front, was charming, and so the bishop said to his chaplain as he drove up, and set all the aprons and hats waving. Then Léon with the abbé and two neighbouring vicaires advanced to the door of the carriage to welcome him, and, smiling and blessing his little flock with uplifted hand, monseigneur passed into the house to be received by the ladies of the family.

To Nathalie the prospect of a guest, in a time of such perplexity and trouble, had seemed a terrible ordeal, but Mme. de Beaudrillart thought that to put off the bishop’s visit would be at once to excite surprise in the neighbourhood, and Léon had taken the same view. They had curtailed their intended hospitalities, however, and only some half a dozen of the principal people of the neighbourhood, with the clergy already at the château, were invited to dinner.

Nathalie had once beheld the bishop in the cathedral at Tours, immediately after he was installed, but it was at a distance, and she had only been aware of a large man, who wore his gorgeous vestments with a magnificent air. Now that she saw him close at hand, she was immediately attracted by the strength and charm of his expression, and by a breadth of kindliness which she had not anticipated. He, on his part, was a sympathetic reader of faces, and he had not been five minutes in the house before he had convinced himself that the shadow of sorrow rested upon the family. Mme. de Beaudrillart’s usual rigid dignity was shaken by an emotion which looked like that of fear, and the sadness of sleepless nights hung heavy on Nathalie’s eyes, while Léon was white and nervous, talking hastily and restlessly, and unable to keep still for many consecutive minutes. Félicie was the only one who had forgotten their troubles in delight at the achievement of her purpose, and it must be owned that her respectful colourless chatter bored the bishop frightfully, the more so because he took himself to task for his impatience. He was much more interested in the others with their evident impending trouble, even in Mlle. Claire’s sharp, bitter speeches. Raoul attracted his notice at once, and he praised him warmly to his grandmother, but Mme. de Beaudrillart’s face did not lighten; he even fancied that he had unconsciously touched the wound, whatever it was. With the young wife he had no opportunity of speaking, and, indeed, she had learned silence when strangers were present; he noticed, however, that her eyes rested constantly on her husband, and that when he left the room she immediately slipped out after him. The evening was not gay, though Mme. Lemballe vied with Félicie in devoted homage, and M. and Mme. de la Ferraye did their best in a languishing conversation.

That night a tremendous thunder-storm broke over the province, and torrents of rain fell to the north of Poissy. That only the fringe of the storm reached Poissy, Félicie always ascribed to a miraculous interposition on behalf of her cherished decorations, but the proof of its violence elsewhere was to be found in the swift rising of the river. It ran with wintry force, and from its darkened colour, and the vegetation it brought down, had evidently overflowed its banks higher up, and caused considerable damage. This, however, was the only grave result of the storm at Poissy. There the rain had merely been sufficient to freshen everything, and to give an indescribable brilliancy to the foliage. The great walnut-tree to the left of the château glistened in the morning sun, a fresh little breeze fluttered the poplars, and the lizards stole out again, and darted here and there in the crannies of the old stones.

All Félicie’s dreams were carried out. The bishop officiated at high-mass, the white church was crowded with worshippers—M. Georges among the number—and the procession which conducted him afterwards to the little hospital which was to be opened for the very old people of the neighbourhood was thick with banners, and did credit to her training. Only one terrible disappointment came to her—the bishop, although he did not say much, managing to express his dislike to her paper flowers, and the gewgaws which decked the altar. She could scarcely keep back her tears, for there was no mistaking the few words he uttered, and to her own thinking the effect had been unequalled.

Setting this aside, however, all had gone admirably; there was nothing, she felt sure, in which even Mme. Lemballe could pick a hole. And when they were all back at the château again, she was feverishly anxious for her reward in the shape of a private interview with, and a special blessing from, the bishop, together with instructions as to how the money for the next pilgrimage should be raised. But Claire, who was moodily wandering from room to room, gave her unwelcome intelligence.

“Monseigneur is in the grounds talking to Nathalie, and his carriage is ordered in half an hour.”

“To Nathalie! How has Nathalie got hold of him? What has she to do with him!”

“As much as any of us, I suppose. And it is he who has got hold of her, for he asked to speak to her.”

“Oh!” cried Félicie discomfited. The next moment she exclaimed: “I should not wonder in the least if he has heard of the books she reads. I shall be obliged to see him about the pilgrimage, and I dare say he will tell me.”

Her sister looked at her in displeasure.

“For pity’s sake, do not talk any more about those trifles! Do you never think of what is hanging over us?”

Félicie took refuge in tears.

“How unkind you are, Claire! Of course I think of it a great deal in my prayers. But I believe his Grandeur’s visit will bring a blessing, and this morning Léon seems quite himself again.”

Claire flung back her head. “Sometimes I think,” she said, “that Léon has no soul, though of course you do not understand what I mean.”

“No soul!” Félicie stared amazedly. Claire turned and hurried away.

It was quite true, as Mlle. de Beaudrillart said, that the bishop had asked for young Mme. Léon, and that they were at that moment walking together in the kitchen-garden, between strawberry beds, of which the leaves were turning brown and bronze. More than ever, in the church, had her face, with its strength and sadness, interested him. He felt as if he could not leave that face behind without trying to bring a little comfort; and if there was a pinch of curiosity mixed with his never-failing sympathy, who will blame him? With womanlike tact he went straight to his point.

“My daughter,” he said, “you are in trouble.”

She answered him as directly. “Yes, monseigneur, in great trouble.”

“Can you tell it to me!”

This time she hesitated. “I do not know. It is not my own.”

“No. It is your husband’s. Does it belong to his past or present!”

“Oh, his past, poor Léon!”

“One other question. Are you in doubt?”

“Yes, monseigneur. For I urge him one way and all the others another—even my own father,” she sighed.

“Whatever it is, I am certain she is in the right,” reflected the bishop. Aloud, he said, quietly: “If you like to tell me, you may safely do so.”

She made a swift resolution, and she told him. He listened in amazement to the end.

“Before I speak, will you let me hear what is your own counsel!”

“I want him to meet the charge with the truth,” she said, “and to hide nothing.”

“That is a difficult task for a man in your husband’s position,” said the bishop, walking along the path with his head bent and his hands clasped behind him, wondering.

She sighed. “Very. And they are all against it. They think this Monsieur Lemaire may find it impossible to bring proofs, and they think also that from my birth I am no judge of the terrible indignity there would be if—if—”

She paused and covered her face. The bishop said, very gently—“Yet you are ready to face this ordeal!”

“Oh, I—I! I am no judge. If he were a beggar, it seems to me I should feel the same. But, oh, monseigneur, no wonder he shrinks. For him it is terrible!”

They walked silently. The bishop, who had expected to have to give advice, noticed that she had not asked for it. “My daughter,” he said, “when I invited your confidence, it was because you said you were in doubt. But you do not speak doubtfully.”

She turned to him quickly. “Whenever I put it into words, all doubt flies.”

“So that if I were to say I thought you wrong, you would not change your opinion!”

She was silent. He pressed her. “Tell me.”

“No, monseigneur, I could not,” she said, scarcely audibly.

“Well, then, let me tell you that you are right, splendidly right,” he said, his face brightened by his appreciation. “Do not let any one persuade you to the contrary. For your husband’s soul as well as for his honour, yours is the only saving course, and at whatever cost of suffering—for you will both suffer—hold fast to it. If ever, in any way, I can help you, send for me. I shall remember you in my prayers, and thank God that He has made you braver than most women—yet I ought not to say that, for you women put us to shame.”

If Nathalie were womanlike in courage, she was womanlike in this also: that the moment she had got his approval, she began to doubt.

“There is our boy,” she said. “When I remember him, I am ready to shrink.”

“Will it do him good to have a father who sheltered himself behind a lie? Think only of that. My daughter, I do not fear for you. I believe that God will give you strength to prevail, but I wish I were permitted to help you.”

“Monseigneur, you have helped me. Until now I have been alone, and to know that you are on my side—But I have kept you too long, and here comes Félicie.”

“Ah,” said the bishop, smiling, “and she will have a great deal to say.”

As the carriage with the bishop and his chaplain rolled out of the white gates, a man on horseback passed it, who had the appearance of having ridden hard. Léon, his wife, and his sisters were still standing by the entrance as he clattered up.

“The Baron de Beaudrillart?” he said taking off his hat.

“Here.” Léon stepped forward with a white face.

“Monsieur Rodoin sent me down with this for monsieur,” he said, handing a letter.

He tore it open.

“I think it well to inform you that Monsieur Lemaire intends proceeding to extremes; that he has instructed the Procureur de la République, and that in all probability you will be arrested to-morrow or the next day. I have learned this from a sure source.”

Chapter Twenty.

The River.

There was a minute of dumb horror; then Félicie would have broken into lamentation before the messenger if Claire had not hastily signed to him to go round to the offices. Léon stood, ghastly white; his wife clasped his arm with both hands, and Félicie’s sobs, the only sound, came to her ears as distant as the rush of the river. Léon did not hear them at all. For the moment he was turned into stone, and his heart stood still. He had talked of it, dreaded it, but until this instant the horror of the thing had never really touched him. Arrested! He, Léon de Beaudrillart!

He looked round at his wife, and her eyes met his with brave tenderness. But he wanted words, and he held the letter to her with piteously trembling hands. Every word had already burned itself into her brain. His lips faltered the words: “What does it mean?”

If she could only have told him that it was a dreadful nightmare from which they would presently wake! The clasp on his arm tightened. She whispered:

“Dear, we will meet it together.”

Claire, who in spite of her anger against him, was listening breathlessly for some suggestion, turned away with a groan and rushed up-stairs to her mother’s room. She panted out:

“We must think of a way of saving Léon. Nathalie is helpless, and if something is not done he will be arrested.” In the immediate face of danger Mme. de Beaudrillart’s iron will exerted itself. She was deadly pale, and she clutched the back of a chair; but her voice was unshaken as she put the quick question: “When? To-day?”

“To-morrow.”

“Then we must act. Bring them here.”

They were already on the stairs. Léon came in first, his round face absolutely colourless, his limbs dragging. He tried to smile, but the effort only seemed to contort his features, and, stumbling forward, he sank into a chair, and stretched out the hand which held the letter to his mother. She read it with staring eyes, and when she spoke her voice sounded as if one metal struck another.

“This is no time for crying out, or for tears,” she said. “Monsieur Rodoin has done very well in giving us warning, and he no doubt understands that you must not be arrested. What remains is to decide how to act, and then to act quickly. There has been too much delay already. I suppose the time for money is past—”

“Owing to Nathalie,” murmured Claire.

”—And only flight remains.”

Léon lifted his head and looked at her with feverish eyes.

“You must fly, my son. Apparently there are countries where you will be safe; I do not know which they are, but that can be ascertained. You must start at once, telling no one and going alone, until your wife can safely join you. This is the only way of escaping the worst degradation. Claire, you have a good head; do you not think with me?”

“It is the one thing he can do for us,” said Claire, rigidly.

“Félicie?”

Félicie nodded, but was weeping too much to speak. Léon had buried his head in his hands, and his wife knelt by him, her eyes fixed on Mme. de Beaudrillart’s face.

“You see we are all agreed, Léon,” his mother went on, vanquishing a catch in her voice. “My son, remember what you owe to your name, and act. Where will you go? to Bordeaux or Marseilles? If you could reach America—” Her voice failed, she stood trembling, while her lips formed the words she had not strength to utter. As for Léon, with a mute gesture of despair he turned and hid his face against his wife’s arm. The little dependent action gave her words. She started to her feet, her tall figure swaying, her whole frame one passionate protest.

“You forget me, madame! I am not agreed. I say that he did not do this shameful thing, and that he shall not fly from it as if he were a coward. A De Beaudrillart a coward! Because there is one act of which he is ashamed, you want him to own to what is a hundred times worse! Léon, do not listen to them! For Raoul’s sake, do not listen to them! Dear love, be brave, live it down!” She dropped again by his side, gathering him to her heart, and with quivering lips kissing his hair, his hands. Claire would have answered angrily, but her mother stopped her.

“You have a right to be heard,” she said to the young wife, “and we have, perhaps, all too much forgotten that you suffer too. But let us clearly understand each other. What is it that you suggest? That—that he submits to arrest?” Her voice dropped miserably.

Nathalie made a mute sign of assent.

“Then you think,” Mme. de Beaudrillart went on, in the same dry and mechanical tones, “that it will be found they have not sufficient evidence to prove what they—have to prove!”

“I do not know,” said the wife, breathing hard. “I do not know. I only know that he must tell the truth.”

His mother’s hands gripped her chair.

“Acknowledge that—that he took the money?”

“Yes. Because it is true.”

A groan burst from Claire’s lips.

“Impossible!” cried Mme. de Beaudrillart, with an agitation she had not yet shown. “Plead guilty!”

Nathalie drove back anguish, recognising that all her strength was needed.

“What would flight plead, madame? That would mean that he was guilty of everything.”

“Yes,” the mother moaned. “His honour is lost. But he would escape the dreadful disgrace of punishment.”

“All his life would be one miserable punishment—too heavy, because unjust. If he comes forward now, and tells the troth when it goes against him, has he not a much better chance of being believed when it is in his favour? There is the letter he wrote to Monsieur de Cadanet. May that not still be found among his papers?”

Her heart was throbbing, and, holding him in her clasp, it was almost beyond her powers to speak calmly. Mme. de Beaudrillart’s self-control began to forsake her, and all unconsciously the sight of her son clinging to his wife impelled her into opposition. She cried out:

“But suppose they will not believe! Suppose he is—” She choked at the word “convicted.”

Nathalie felt her husband shiver, and pressed her lips on his hair.

“He will bear it,” she breathed.

“No, no,” cried his mother, starting up, “this is asking too much! You are no judge. You cannot tell what he, what we all, would suffer. Léon, speak! Flight is your only hope. Do not listen to your wife.”

At this appeal he raised himself, and stared vacantly round the room. His eyes lit on Félicie, and a haggard smile crossed his face.

“You had better not weep so much, Félicie; you will have no eyes left for your embroideries.”

She broke into more poignant sobs, and cried out:

“Mamma, must he go? Could we not hide him here somewhere?”

“In perpetuity,” he muttered. “Nathalie is right, mother, in one thing, for flight would only condemn me, and I could not bear it. I should not be spared a single humiliation. Besides, in these days one must be unknown to hide successfully, and all that I should gain would be the being dragged back in ignominy.”

Nathalie’s eyes were fixed anxiously upon him, her lips trembled, her shoulders contracted; it was as if she were trying to send strength from her soul to his, in his weak striving against fate.

“I believe I know what I shall do,” he went on, in a mechanically dull voice; then suddenly starting up, clasped his hands across his burning eyes, his face ghastly pale. His words came out slowly, shortly. “Yes, do not fear, mother. I know what to do. Have a little patience. I shall think of our honour, believe me.” Then he reeled, and his wife caught his arm. She was as white as he, but all her trembling had gone.

“Hush, Léon,” she said, firmly; “the shock has unnerved you so much that you do not know what you think or say. Whatever is done, even if you do go away as your mother wishes you, it could not be yet, for you could not reach the railway until dark; and you must have food. And if you stay, there is no use acting as though all were lost. Let him go to our room, madame, and come again to you later on. Come, dear love.”

Mme. de Beaudrillart made no opposition, for her strength had failed her. With a face of anguish she watched them out of the door, and fell back in her chair, scarcely conscious. Félicie, still sobbing, busied herself about her mother, and ran to fetch a handful of leaves from her stores, with which to make a tisane. Claire, dry-eyed and tense, stood with her eyes fixed on the photograph of her father, which always rested on a small easel near her mother’s chair.

“How unhappy we were when he died!” she said in a low voice, “and how much better it would have been if we had all died with him! I can never forgive Léon!”

Mme. de Beaudrillart did not speak—she could not. With her not only pride but love was smitten low—so low that her usual emotions had lost their leaders, and wandered objectless. Despair seized her whichever way she looked, and, like Claire, she, too, wished for death.

Léon submitted without resistance to his wife’s leading, clinging to her, indeed, as they passed along the passages to her room. The window leading into the stone balcony was open, and the whole air seemed to vibrate with the hoarse croaking of frogs from the pond beyond the kitchen-garden. Nathalie quietly closed it, and rang the bell. She stood at the door, and gave the astonished Rose-Marie directions to bring coffee at once, and, when it came, took it from her without allowing the girl to enter. Then she knelt by her husband, and coaxed him as if he were a child. He shuddered: “I cannot!”

“Dear, only to please me. It will do your head so much good.”

“There is a millwheel in my head. You see they are all falling away from me, so that even my mother will never be able to forgive.”

“Do you know,” she said, trying to speak cheerfully, “I believe we are all making too much of it. What will you say if it comes to nothing, and the jury are clever enough to take the sensible view of the case? Why should this man make the charge when Monsieur de Cadanet is dead? You will see that will tell against him.”

He groaned.

“And if worst comes to the worst, your friends will know that you have told the truth, dear; they will not think evil of you. And you will have us—your mother and sisters, and Raoul, and me. Do not we count for anything? Do not—”

He lifted his face and looked at her, and all her loving words stopped midway in her throat, and made a lump there. If she could have thought of herself she would have cried out to him to take away his eyes and their anguish, for if Léon’s soul had been wanting before, it had come to him now, and gazed at her; and it needs an angel or a devil to bear the sight of a human soul wrung with misery. Curiously enough, she felt all the time that if she had known about the world and its ways, her husband would have listened to her more readily. What she said to comfort him he set down to ignorance. One of his old companions with a jest and a laugh might have had a stronger influence than she with a bleeding heart. But this only made her try the more. She knew enough of Léon to be assured that silence would not soothe; she must talk, argue, entreat, go over the same ground again and again, appeal to his sentiment for them all, and this with a horrid fear deep within her to which she dared not allude, and scarcely dared to think of. He was not going to attempt to fly; so much she gathered. But that there was some rising purpose in his mind which was colouring his broken words and looks at her she was certain, and the certainty drove her almost mad with hidden fear. She made him drink a little coffee, which was something, and she wanted to bring Raoul to the rescue. But Raoul had gone off with the pony and Jacques Charpentier to see the last of the vintage at a distant farm, and would not be home until late—perhaps not till after dark.

By this time all the household was aware that there was something wrong, though they had different opinions as to the what, but, with a feeble sort of pretence, dinner was gone through as usual. Mme. de Beaudrillart, however, went away before it was ended, and Nathalie detained Claire, to ask her if she would come to her room as soon as Raoul returned. She grew more and more uneasy.

The lamp had been brought in before Claire appeared with the news that she had heard the pony pass the window a few minutes before. His wife glanced at Léon, but he sat, as he had sat for the last hour, his head buried on his arm, and she hoped that, worn out, he might be sleeping. She signed to Claire to speak to her outside the door.

“Please don’t leave him, even for a minute,” she whispered, and flew down the stairs.

Rain was falling at last, and though Jacques had sheltered Raoul with his own coat, the boy was wet. His mother hurried him up the stairs, his laugh ringing out so strangely in the sorrow-stilled house that she almost hushed it. But she did not, because she thought within herself that a child’s laugh is a healthy thing, and that the sound might drive away other things not so healthy. She left the door of his room open, however, and kept her ears on the alert, while she hustled him into dry clothes, and then, holding his hand, ran along the passages to the room where she had left her husband and Claire. Claire met her at the door.

“He is gone,” she said, in a frightened whisper.

“You left him?”

“Only for a minute. He asked me to get him a newspaper from down-stairs, and when I came back the window was open—”

Nathalie rocked as she stood, caught at the wall, and said, with a gasp: “Take the boy to your mother, and don’t frighten her.” Then she ran—how she ran!—though to this hour she thinks her feet were tied together.

In three minutes she had found Jacques in the stable. He thought a ghost was upon him till she spoke.

“Your master is out somewhere, and I think he is going to kill himself. You and I must find him.”

Jacques understood at once. He had known that some calamity was at hand. He snatched up the stable-lantern, went outside, locked the door, and put his question:

“Had he his pistols, madame?”

“No.”

“Then I believe he will have gone to the river.”

“I know it, I know it!” she cried, wildly. “But where!” Jacques muttered to himself, “He would go to the bridge, because it is at its deepest, but there is no use in following him there; one must strike it lower down.” He caught up a long rake which stood against the wall. “Come, madame.” The rain had been swept off by a strong breeze, and the moon made the leaves glisten like diamonds, and flung deep shadows under the trees. The two hurried round in front of the château, and plunged into the heavy wet gloom which brooded round the garden. Nathalie’s cry, “Léon, Léon!” at first timid, rose sharper as they left the house behind them; then she remembered the whistle which she used as a call for her husband, and blew shrilly.

“That is better,” said the gardener, encouragingly. He had kicked off his shoes and stockings before Mme. Léon came out, and ran all the easier, his steps falling with a soft thud. That, the croaking of frogs, the soft hoot of owls, and the rush of the river were the only sounds, and to the wife’s strained ears the silence seemed full of strange significance.

Suddenly Jacques stopped.

“Go round by the bridge, madame. I shall take the bank.”

“I am coming with you,” she said, determinedly.

He raised no further objection, and they went where she and Jean had followed Raoul not so long ago, down a dark abyss of underwood which snatched at them as they pushed through it, slipping and sliding on the wet ground, her dress torn by briars and sharp twigs. Here and there, as they parted the branches, they caught a gleam of the river running, fiercely swollen, below, the moon striking the swift current, and leaving the darkness on either side more impenetrable. Several times Nathalie fell, but she repelled her companion’s help almost angrily, catching at the branches, and trying to add her feeble voice to the gardener’s shouts. When they reached the river it was like coming out into the day, the freakish moonlight falling in a flood of light on the grass, and bringing into clear distinctness the broad burdocks and mulleins which spread themselves near the water, while it left a fringe of poplars lower down on the other side in misty shadow. Jacques knew the river well, and had hastily made up his mind. Close to the spot where they were was a shallow into which he could wade, a spot where, when the river was in flood, things brought down by the current were often recoverable, caught as they were by a few stakes driven in at that point. It might be—But how the river ran, how it ran! What a slender hope was here! Their thoughts, though they had sprung together to this point, might be all unfounded; they might already be too late, or Léon might be lying, stiff and ghastly, in some gloomy shadow close to which they had passed unknowing. Jacques stood for a moment considering, and with the foolish inconsequence of misery Nathalie found herself noticing how white his bare feet looked in the moonlight, sunk as they were in the wet grass.

“I will stay here with the pole, madame,” he said. “Will you go up towards the bridge, and whistle for me if there is need?”

She was gone before he had finished, stumbling along, her staring eyes devouring the waters as they rushed by her; and she had not gone twenty yards before Jacques heard a scream, a splash, and, running to the spot, found her up to her knees in the water among the flags, clutching something which rose and fell, and, when it rose, turned a white face to the moonlight.

Chapter Twenty One.

Out of the Depths.

There was no sign of life as with difficulty they dragged him out of the water. His hands were tied together by a handkerchief, drawn to a knot, as Jacques guessed, by his teeth. His saturated clothes were pulling him down, and it was the catch of his sleeve in a protruding stake which had held him for a few minutes, and shown him to his wife’s searching eyes. In the river she had fancied he moved, mistaking the movements with which it mocked its plaything for life, but on the grass he lay motionless. Still she kept her presence of mind, and gave directions, telling the gardener to run to the nearest house across the bridge for help. It was nearer than the château.

“I know what to do,” she said, kneeling down. “I have done it before.”

“But alone, madame?”

“Go, go, and bring blankets with you.”

He went reluctantly, running along the bank without any hope in his heart. “First his father, and now Monsieur Léon,” he reflected. “Poor madame, it will be the death of her! And what lies behind? I must make it out to have been an accident, if it comes to breaking down a rail of the bridge.” Help was not at first to be found, and it was old Antoine who at last started at a run for the spot, while Jacques got blankets at another cottage. When he reached the spot again, Mme. Léon was so stiff and numbed that she could scarcely move her husband’s arms up and down, and she made him a sign to watch her and take her place.

“Ah, madame!” said the gardener, sorrowfully.

She did not hear him. She was bending over the motionless body, laying her hand on his chest, listening. Old Antoine was reflecting that she had certainly gone mad, and that if monsieur le baron was not drowned beyond hope of recovery, there would be more sense in rubbing him with blankets, and pouring brandy down his throat, when suddenly Nathalie lifted her head. “Keep on, keep on!” she cried to the gardener, “I am sure that he breathes!”

Twenty minutes later Claire, wretchedly flitting across the terrace, cried out with terror at seeing a figure swathed in blankets carried towards the house. A woman ran in front, drenched, ghastly, who cried out as she came near:

“He is alive! Get his bed and hot things ready!”

Yes, he lived; and when the first moment of relief was over, Claire felt as if it might have been better had Nathalie not been there to call him back to dishonour. She did as she was told, but with no eagerness of love, feeling, indeed, as if all love for her brother had been killed in her heart. It was not so, for, thank God, love does not die so easily, but it gave her a fierce sense of satisfaction to believe it.

They did not tell Mme. de Beaudrillart that night how near he had been to death; though perhaps, poor woman, when she heard that monsieur le baron, in going to look at the river in its turbulence, had leaned upon a rotten rail, and had slipped into the stream, she guessed. Jacques went back at once that night, under pretence of its being unsafe for chance passers-by, and managed to break down and roughly mend again a piece of the railing. Old Antoine came by as he was at his work, and chuckled.

“So you are acting up to your name, Monsieur Charpentier, he, he, he! Strange that I should never have seen the hole as I passed, he, he, he!”

“Your eyes are not so good as they were, Antoine,” said the gardener, coolly.

“No, that’s true; and it’s natural the glass of good beer I got up there should have improved their sight. Well, I’m not a talker.”

“I’d keep to that if I were you,” said Jacques, whistling, “for we all know you’re a good deal besides. If you don’t see all you might, the saints know whether monsieur le baron has not looked at you with his eyes shut! There, that will do till the morning. Good-night, Antoine. You can tell your neighbours that monsieur le baron was leaning over to see if it was all right, when the rail gave way, and gave him a bad wetting. And when the next storm blows down a few branches up by the château you may have them for your store in the winter. I’ll see about it. Old fox!” he muttered, as he turned away. “But I think that will muzzle him. If all else could be as easily put right! Or if one only knew what Monsieur Léon did it for! But perhaps now he will take it quieter, whatever it was.”

Through the night Nathalie watched her husband, sore misery in her heart, and her young limbs aching. The latter part of it he slept well, and when he woke in the morning he was himself again—something more than himself, she thought, indeed, after he had called to her.

“Nathalie!”

“Dear.”

“Is it true? Did you save me?”

“Jacques and I.”

He said no more, but lay watching her. Presently he exclaimed: “How you have suffered!”

She shuddered. She knew that the hours had written on her face with lines which, come what would, would never be erased. She took his hand in both hers. “Léon, I want you to promise me something.”

“That I won’t do it again? Well, I promise. I did not think any one could care so much. It seemed the best way for myself; but when I was in the water—” He stopped, and went on in a minute: “It struck me as rather a sneaky way of getting out of it.”

She sank down by his side, and buried her face in her arms. “It was cruel, cruel to those who love you!”

He put out his hand and touched her gently.

“You really love me so much! Still!”

“Still? Oh, Léon, more than ever!”

She heard him murmuring to himself as if wondering. “More than ever! Well,” he went on, raising himself on his elbow, “I owe you something for sticking to me. You shall have your way.”

With a sudden cry of tenderness and pity, Nathalie flung her arms round him and sobbed. At that moment what a way it seemed! Was she right? Could she give him up? She was speechless, thankful, miserable, all at once, and, seeing it, he tried to jest a little.

“Suggest what I shall put on for the occasion—my best or my oldest coat! One has no precedent to go by—”

She interrupted him, eagerly: “Léon, let us go to Paris.”

“Thrust my head into the lion’s mouth?”

“Whatever—whatever happens, it will not be so terrible for you there as here—at Poissy. Telegraph to Monsieur Rodoin, and he will let them know that you are coming up by the morning express—if you are strong enough to travel.”

“Yes, yes!” he cried, with sudden energy, “you are right. Then my mother—Poissy—will be spared something of humiliation. Send off a messenger at once with the telegram, and order the carriage in an hour. And—and, Nathalie, let them know, keep them away; I cannot bear my mother’s reproaches.”

They fell on her; Claire’s with stinging sharpness, but the conflict in her own heart had this effect that words did not succeed in wounding. Mme. de Beaudrillart was more passive; it struck Nathalie that the blow had stunned her, and that physically her stately height had shrunk. She kept in her own room, sending only a message to her son that she could not wish him good-bye. Félicie wandered miserably about, suggesting impossible plans, though unable to realise that anything so terrible as Claire suggested could fall on Poissy. “If only Monsieur Georges were here, I am sure he would think of something, or if only I might go and ask the abbé! If Nathalie had attended more to his advice, and less to those dreadful books of hers, this would never have been permitted to come upon us. There they are in her room still, in spite of all that monseigneur said.”

Claire stared. “How do you know he said anything!”

“What else can he have had to say? He asked me whether it was not a great pleasure to have my sister-in-law with us, and I said I was afraid she held very strange opinions, so of course he spoke.”

“Oh, I wish you wouldn’t talk!” cried Claire, irritably. “Have they gone?”

“They would not go so unceremoniously,”—Félicie was strong in etiquette. “Besides,”—she broke again into sobs—“dear, dear Léon could not leave us without a single word!”

It was a strange farewell when the carriage drove round: Léon kissing his sisters; Félicie clinging to him; Claire white, cold, and impassive as she presented her cheek. At the gates stood Jacques, hat off, sadness on his face. When they had gone a short distance, Léon turned impulsively and looked back. The gardener was in the road, gazing after them; behind him rose a frowning Poissy, for the day was sunless, the stone had lost its mellow tint, and the roof was dark and unbeautiful. Léon shivered.

“Are you cold?” asked Nathalie, anxiously. She was afraid that the night might have left a chill, and wrapped the rug round him.

“I do not think that will warm me,” he said, with a smile which she felt to be piteous.

They had driven a mile before he asked whether she would like to leave word at her father’s. “We have time.”

But Nathalie refused. She did not tell him that she did not dare face the possibility of an outburst from M. Bourget, but she owned that she knew he would disapprove of the course they had taken.

“It seems to me that every one disapproves,” he muttered, restlessly.

Then Nathalie took a resolution.

“I am afraid you will be angry with me,” she said, timidly, “but when the bishop was at Poissy he saw that something was wrong, and spoke to me. I was sure he was to be trusted, and I told him.”

“Ah, you are a woman,” said Léon, who told everything. But he said it with a smile.

“He was very kind, and helped me,” she went on, more freely. “And he—he did not disapprove. I believe he thought it was the most noble act that you could do.”

Léon turned his face to her, pleased as a child at praise, though he only said, “Ah?”

His spirits rose almost to their old level when they were in the train. He had a power which she envied, of letting himself be distracted by the events of the moment; and while, as the train neared Paris, a painful tension held her limbs in a vice, he might have been on an errand differing in no degree from one of every-day importance.

The train ran smoothly into the station as he laid down a newspaper with a remark on a scene in the Chambers. Standing on the platform, Nathalie recognised M. Rodoin. He came hastily towards them, and at the same moment she saw two men approach. M. Rodoin said, in a low tone: “There will be no open scandal. They know that you have come voluntarily, and we can all go together as far as the carriage. You have acted courageously, Monsieur de Beaudrillart, and I honour you. Trust to me to see to madame.”

Nathalie’s throat was parched, her head swam; but now, more than ever, she must call her fortitude to her aid. At the door of the carriage she kissed her husband, even smiled at him, though with quivering lips.

“God bless you, Léon; I shall be near.”

White, mute, confused, he stepped into the carriage; one man followed him, the other clambered to the box, and they rolled away.

Chapter Twenty Two.

Before the Trial.

When Nathalie, by a strong effort of will, succeeded in calling back her thoughts from following her husband, her eyes fell upon M. Rodoin, who sat respectfully opposite to her in his own carriage. The change in the lawyer’s manner was indeed remarkable. When Léon had consulted him before, in spite of his outward politeness her keen intuition had detected a certain veiled distrust which had annoyed her, while it was too impalpable to be openly noticed. She had been convinced that he disbelieved his client’s story; and twenty times had wished that her husband’s case had been in other hands. She had looked at him with disfavour, taking exception to the coldness of his expression and the eccentricity of his nose, which, starting on a straight line, suddenly towards the end developed an upward turned knob, on which the eye fastened itself to the exclusion of his other features, and which seemed to accentuate the air of incredulity which displeased her. The knob, it need hardly be said, remained, but it had acquired so different an expression that although she read anxiety in the look with which he regarded her, its general tenor was that of unmistakable pity and good-will.

When he saw that she was giving him her attention, he leaned forward and said, abruptly:

“Yes, my dear lady, I congratulate you. Your husband is acting with extreme courage, but you should not be alone.”

“Servants talk,” she said, quietly.

“There are his sisters?”

“Ah, but they were strongly opposed to his coming. So was my father, and you yourself, Monsieur Rodoin, permit me to say, did not suggest it.”

He put up his hand. “Your reproach is quite justified. Honestly, I did not believe that Monsieur de Beaudrillart would ever run so counter to the traditions of his family as to take so sensible a course. No, madame, do not suppose I am speaking offensively. No Beaudrillart would be deficient in courage; but this required another form of courage—one which they would be slow to recognise as such; it surprised me beyond words when your telegram was put into my hands. If it was your doing, madame—”

He bowed respectfully, his knowledge of men recognising in the new lines in Nathalie’s beautiful face what the struggle had cost her; but she scarcely heard his words. She put her head out of the window as they rattled over the stones, trying to catch a last glimpse of the carriage which contained her husband. It was but of sight, and her next question was almost a sob:

“Where do they take him, monsieur?”

“To the Palais de Justice.” And as she shuddered, he added: “You will have ample opportunities of seeing him. Do not fear.”

“To-night?”

“To-morrow, I hope.”

“Meanwhile we must think, we must act for him,” she said, driving back her own anguish. “Who do you suggest for his counsel!”

“Madame, there can be no better than Maître Barraud, and I went to him on receipt of your telegram. He was so touched by the baron’s action that he at last consented. The Procureur de la République is Maître Miron.”

“He is terribly formidable!” cried Nathalie.

“It is impossible to deny it; both are of the first rank, and I own frankly that I do not think there is a sou to choose between them. But I am quite content to have secured my man. One thing is necessary, and I should like you to impress it strongly upon monsieur le baron: that he must be absolutely frank with Maître Barraud, place the matter clearly in his hands, and permit himself no reservations.”

She smiled faintly.

“Reservations are at an end, Monsieur Rodoin.”

“All the better. Our one chance lies in perfect openness. We tell our story as it happened; it is for the jury to judge of the probabilities. Unfortunately, we must bear in mind that it is not always truth which carries the most innocent face. This Lemaire has a lie tucked away somewhere, and he will naturally take more pains with it than with any other part of his case. But if once Maître Barraud gets his finger on it he will have it out.”

“The lie,” said Nathalie, calmly, “says that my husband never repaid the money.”

M. Rodoin waited for the rattle of passing cabs to subside before he replied.

“I do not know.”

She started, flushing crimson. “Monsieur! you do not know!”

“Ah, madame, hear me patiently! I am sure that Monsieur de Beaudrillart repaid it—though I wish to Heaven he had insisted upon proper forms and claimed a receipt—but we must allow that it is quite possible that Monsieur Lemaire never heard of the repayment. He says he was told of the affair by the count; that I take leave to doubt, for it seems to me an extraordinary revengeful act for a dying man, after he had kept silence for six years, to put the reputation of his cousin at the mercy of another. I prefer to believe that Monsieur Lemaire contrived to ferret out some of the facts, and to jump at other conclusions. And I base my opinion a good deal upon what I have found out of the man’s life.”