The Duchesse de Montgeron, who had passed the rest of the day with Mademoiselle de Vermont, did not return to her own dwelling until eight o’clock that evening, bearing the most reassuring news.
Longing for fresh air and exercise, Henri went out after dinner, walked through the Champs-Elysees, and traversed the crossing at l’Etoile, in order to approach the spot where Zibeline lay ill.
If one can imagine the feelings of a man of forty-five, who is loved for himself, under the most flattering and unexpected conditions, one can comprehend the object of this nocturnal walk and the long pause that Henri made beneath the windows of Zibeline’s apartment. A small garden, protected by a light fence, was the only obstacle that separated them. But how much more insuperable was the barrier which his own principles had raised between this adorable girl and himself.
Had he not told his sister, confided to Eugenie Gontier, and reiterated to any one that would listen to him, the scruples which forbade him ever to think of marriage? To change this decision, in asking for the hand of Mademoiselle de Vermont, would-in appearance, at least—sacrifice to the allurement of wealth the proud poverty which he had long borne so nobly.
But the demon of temptation was then, as always, lurking in the shadow, the sole witness of this duel to the death between prejudice and love.
When he returned to his rooms he found another note from his former mistress:
“You have just had a terrible experience, my dear friend. Nothing
that affects you can be indifferent to me. I beg you to believe,
notwithstanding the grief which our separation causes me, in all the
prayers that I offer for your happiness.
“ARIADNE.”
“My happiness? My torture, rather!” he said, the classic name of Ariadne suggesting the idea that the pseudonym of Tantalus might well be applied to himself.
But he had long kept a rule to write as little as possible, and was guarded in making reply to any letter, especially to such a communication as this.
When he left the house the next morning, on his way to attend to military duties, he learned that his sister had gone away early on an excursion to one of the suburbs, and that she would not return until evening. As the Duchess was the only person who had been initiated into the mystery surrounding Zibeline on the subject of the building of the Orphan Asylum, it was evident that she had gone to take her place in the directing of the work.
In the afternoon Henri called to inquire for the invalid, and was received by the Chevalier de Sainte-Foy. She had had a quiet night; a little fever had appeared toward morning, and, above all, an extreme weakness, requiring absolute quiet and freedom from any excitement. On an open register in the reception-room were inscribed the names of all those persons who had called to express their interest in Mademoiselle de Vermont: Constantin Lenaieff, the Lisieux, the Nointels, Edmond Delorme, the Baron de Samoreau, and others. Only the Desvanneaux had shown no sign of life. Their Christian charity did not extend so far as that.
Henri added his name to the list, and for several days he returned each morning to inscribe it anew, feeling certain that, as soon as Valentine was able to be placed half-reclining on a couch, she would give orders that he should be admitted to her presence. But nothing of the kind occurred.
On the evening of the fifth day after the accident, the Duchess informed her brother that their young friend had been taken to the country, where it was thought a complete cure would sooner be effected.
This hasty departure, made without any preliminary message, caused Henri to feel the liveliest disappointment.
Had he deceived himself, then? Was it, after all, only by chance that she had so tenderly pronounced his name, and had that familiar appellative only been drawn from her involuntarily because of her surprise at beholding his unexpected presence at her bedside?
Regarding the matter from this point of view, the whole romance that he had constructed on a fragile foundation had really never existed save in his own imagination!
At this thought his self-esteem suffered cruelly. He felt a natural impulse to spring into a carriage and drive to the dwelling of Eugenie Gontier, and there to seek forgetfulness. But he felt that his bitterness would make itself known even there, and that such a course would be another affront to the dignity of a woman of heart, whose loyalty to himself he never had questioned.
Try to disguise it as he would, his sombre mood made itself apparent, especially to his brother-in-law, who had no difficulty in guessing the cause, without allowing Henri to suspect that he divined it.
The date for the formal transfer of the Orphan Asylum to the committee had been fixed for the fifteenth day of May.
On the evening of the fourteenth, at the hour when the General was signing the usual military documents in his bureau, a domestic presented to him a letter which, he said, had just been brought in great haste by a messenger on horseback:
The superscription, “To Monsieur the General the Marquis de Prerolles,” was inscribed in a long, English hand, elegant and regular. The orderly gave the letter to his chief, who dismissed him with a gesture before breaking the seal. The seal represented, without escutcheon or crown, a small, wild animal, with a pointed muzzle, projecting teeth, and shaggy body, under which was a word Henri expected to find: Zibeline!
The letter ran thus:
“MY DEAR GENERAL:
“An officer, like yourself, whose business it is to see that his
orders are obeyed, will understand that I have not dared, even in
your favor, to infringe on those imposed upon me by the doctor.
But those orders have been withdrawn! If you have nothing better to
do, come to-morrow, with your sister, to inspect our asylum, before
Monsieur Desvanneaux takes possession of it!
“Your military eye will be able to judge immediately whether
anything is lacking in the quarters. Yours affectionately,
“VALENTINE DE VERMONT.
“P.S.—Poor Seaman is dead! I beg you to carry this sad news to his
friend Aida. V.”
If a woman’s real self is revealed in her epistolary style, finesse, good-humor, and sprightliness were characterised in this note. Zibeline’s finesse had divined Henri’s self-deception; her good-humor sought to dissipate it; and her sprightliness was evidenced by her allusions to M. Desvanneaux and the loss of her horse.
When they found themselves reunited at the dinner-hour, the Duchess said simply to her brother:
“You must have received an invitation to-day from Mademoiselle de Vermont. Will you accompany us tomorrow?”
“Yes, certainly. But where? How? At what hour?”
“We must leave here at one o’clock. Don’t disturb yourself about any other detail—we shall look after everything.”
“Good! I accept.”
As he was not so curious as the Desvanneaux, it mattered little to him to what place they took him, so long as he should find Zibeline at the end of the journey.
At the appointed hour the brother and sister drove to the Gare du Nord. The Duke, a director of the road, who had been obliged to attend a convocation of the Council until noon, had preceded them. He was waiting for them beside the turnstile at the station, having already procured their tickets and reserved a carriage in one of the omnibus trains from Paris to Treport which make stops at various suburban stations.
“Will it be a very long journey?” Henri asked, on taking his place in the carriage.
“Barely three-quarters of an hour,” said the Duke, as the train started on its way.
The third road, constructed between the two lines which met at Creil, passing, the one by way of Chantilly, the other, by Pontoise, was not in existence in 1871, when, after the war, Jeanne and Henri de Prerolles went to visit the spot, already unrecognizable, where they had passed their childhood. L’Ile-d’Adam was at that time the nearest station; to day it is Presles, on the intermediate line, which they now took.
“This is our station,” said Madame de Montgeron, when the train stopped at Montsoult. They descended from the carriage, and found on the platform two footmen, who conducted them to a large char-a-banc, to which were harnessed four dark bay Percherons, whose bridles were held by postilions in Zibeline’s livery, as correct in their appearance as those belonging to the imperial stables, when the sojourn of the court was at Compiegne or at Fontainebleau.
“Where are we going now, Jeanne?” asked Henri, whose heart seemed to him to contract at the sight of Maffliers, which he knew so well.
“A short distance from here,” his sister replied.
The horses set off, and, amid the sound of bells and the cracking of whips, the carriage reached the national road from Paris to Beauvais, which, from Montsoult, passes around the railway by a rapid descent, from the summit of which is visible, on the right, the Chateau of Franconville; on the left, the village of Nerville perched on its crest.
One of the footmen on the rear seat held the reins, and a quarter of an hour later the carriage stopped just before arriving at the foot of Valpendant.
Valpendant had formerly been a feudal manor within the confines of Ile-de-France, built midway upon a hill, as its name indicated. On the side toward the plain was a moat, and the castle itself commanded the view of a valley, through which ran the little stream called Le Roi, which flows into the river Oise near the hamlet of Mours. Acquired in the fifteenth century by the lords of Prerolles, it had become an agricultural territory worked for their profit, first by forced labor, and later by farmers.
Even recently, the courtyard, filled with squawking fowls and domestic animals of all kinds, and the sheds crowded with agricultural implements piled up in disorder, presented a scene of confusion frequent among cultivators, and significant of the alienation of old domains from their former owners.
“We have arrived!” said the Duchess, alighting first.
“What, is it here?” Henri exclaimed, his heart beating more quickly.
“Your old farm was for sale just at the time that Mademoiselle de Vermont was seeking an appropriate site for the Orphan Asylum. This spot appeared to her to combine all the desirable conditions, and she has wrought the transformation you are about to behold. It might as well be this place as another,” the Duchess added. “In my opinion, it is a sort of consolation offered to us by fate.”
“Be it so!” said Henri, in a tone of less conviction.
He followed his sister along the footpath of a bluff, which as children they had often climbed; while the carriage made a long detour in order to reach the main entrance to the grounds.
The footpath, winding along near the railway embankment, ended at a bridge, where Zibeline awaited the three visitors. A significant pressure of her hand showed Henri how little cause he had had for his apprehensions.
They entered. Seen from the main entrance, the metamorphosis of the place was complete.
The old tower that had served as a barn alone remained the same; it was somewhat isolated from the other building, and had been repaired in the style of its period, making a comfortable dwelling for the future director of the Asylum. Mademoiselle de Vermont occupied it temporarily.
On each side of the grounds, standing parallel, rose two fine buildings: on the ground floor of each were all the customary rooms and accessories found on model farms; on the upper floors were dormitories arranged to receive a large number of children of both sexes. There were schoolrooms, sewing-rooms, a chapel-in short, nothing was lacking to assist in the children’s intellectual and manual education.
“You have done things royally,” said the Duke to the happy donor, when, having finished the inspection of the premises, they returned to the directors’ room, indicated by a plate upon its door.
As for Henri, silent and absorbed, he hesitated between the dread of facing a new emotion and the desire to go once more to gaze upon the tower of Prerolles, hardly more than two kilometres distant.
“What is the matter with you, General?” Zibeline asked, observing that he did not appear to take pleasure in the surprise she had prepared.
“I lived here many years a long time ago,” he replied. “I am thinking of all that it recalls to me; and, if you would not consider it discourteous on my part, I should like to leave you for a little time to make a pilgrimage on foot around the neighborhood.”
“Would you like to have me take you myself? I have a little English cart which can run about anywhere,” said Zibeline.
The proposition was tempting. The sweetness of a tete-a-tete might diminish the bitterness of recollections. He accepted.
She ordered the cart brought around, and they climbed into the small vehicle, which was drawn by a strong pony, driven by Zibeline herself.
“Which way?” she asked, when they had passed through the gates.
“To the right,” he said, pointing to a rough, half-paved slope, an abandoned part of what had been in former days the highway, which now joins the new road at the Beaumont tunnel.
Passing this point, and leaving on their left the state road of l’Ile-d’Adam, they drove through a narrow cross-cut, between embankments, by which one mounts directly to the high, plateau that overlooks the town of Presles.
The hill was steep, and the pony was out of breath. They were compelled to stop to allow him to rest.
“It is not necessary to go any farther,” said Henri to his companion. “I need only to take a few steps in order to see what interests me.”
“I will wait for you here,” she replied, alighting after him. “Don’t be afraid to leave me alone. The horse will not move; he is used to stopping.”
He left her gathering daisies, and walked resolutely to the panoramic point of view, where a strange and unexpected sight met his eyes!
All that had once been so dear to him had regained its former aspect. The kitchen-gardens had given place to the rich pastures, where yearling colts frisked gayly. The factory had disappeared, and the chateau had been restored to its original appearance. The walls enclosing the park had been rebuilt, and even several cleared places indicated the sites of cottages that had been pulled down.
Henri de Prerolles could hardly believe his eyes! Was he the sport of a dream or of one of those mirages which rise before men who travel across the sandy African deserts? The latitude and the position of the sun forbade this interpretation. But whence came it, then? What fairy had turned a magic ring in order to work this miracle?
A crackling of dry twigs under a light tread made him turn, and he beheld Zibeline, who had come up behind him.
The fairy was there, pale and trembling, like a criminal awaiting arrest.
“Is it you who have done this?” Henri exclaimed, with a sob which no human strength could have controlled.
“It is I!” she murmured, lowering her eyes. “I did it in the hope that some day you would take back that which rightfully belongs to you.”
“Rightfully, you say? By what act?”
“An act of restitution.”
“You never have done me any injury, and nothing authorizes me to accept such a gift from Mademoiselle de Vermont.”
“Vermont was the family name of my mother. When my father married her, he obtained leave to add it to his own. I am the daughter of Paul Landry.”
“You!”
“Yes. The daughter of Paul Landry, whose fortune had no other origin than the large sum of which he despoiled you.”
Henri made a gesture of denial.
“Pardon me!” Zibeline continued. “He was doubly your debtor, since this sum had been increased tenfold when you rescued him from the Mexicans who were about to shoot him. ‘This is my revenge!’ you said to him, without waiting to hear a word from him. Your ruin was the remorse of his whole life. I knew it only when he lay upon his deathbed. Otherwise—”
She paused, then raised her head higher to finish her words.
“Never mind!” she went on. “That which he dared not do while living, I set myself to do after his death. When I came to Paris to inquire what had become of the Marquis de Prerolles, your glorious career answered for you; but even before I knew you I had become the possessor of these divided estates, which, reunited by me, must be restored to your hands. You are proud, Henri,” she added, with animation, “but I am none less proud than you. Judge, then, what I have suffered in realizing our situation: I, overwhelmed with riches, you, reduced to your officer’s pay. Is that a satisfaction to your pride? Very well! But to my own, it is the original stain, which only a restitution, nobly accepted by you, ever can efface!”
She paused, looking at him supplicatingly, her hands clasped. As he remained silent, she understood that he still hesitated, and continued:
“To plead my cause, to vanquish your resistance, as I am trying now to triumph over it, could be attempted with any chance of success only by a dear and tender friend; that is the reason why I sought to establish relations with—”
“With Eugenie Gontier?”
“But she would not consent to it—all the worse for her! For, since then, you and I have come to know each other well. Your prejudices have been overcome one by one. I have observed it well. I am a woman, and even your harshness has not changed my feelings, nor prevented me from believing that, in spite of yourself, you were beginning to love me. Have I been deceiving myself?—tell me!”
“You know that you have not, since, as I look at you and listen to you, I know not which I admire more-your beauty or the treasures of your heart!”
“Then come!”
“Whither?”
“To Prerolles, where all is ready to receive you.”
“Well, since this is a tale from the Arabian Nights, let us follow it to the end! I will go!” said Henri.
Browsing beside the road, the pony, left to himself, had advanced toward them, step by step, whinnying to his mistress. Valentine and Henri remounted the cart; which soon drew up before the gates of the chateau, where, awaiting them, reinstated in his former office, stood the old steward, bent and white with years.
The borders of the broad driveway were of a rich, deep green. Rose-bushes in full bloom adorned the smooth lawns. The birds trilled a welcome in jumping from branch to branch, and across the facade of the chateau the open windows announced to the surrounding peasantry the return of the prodigal master.
At the top of the flight of steps Valentine stepped back to allow Henri to pass before her; then, changing her mind, she advanced again.
“No, you are at home,” she said. “It is I that must enter first!”
He followed her docilely, caring no longer to yield to any other will than hers.
Within the chateau, thanks to the complicity of the Duchess, the furnishings resembled as closely as possible those of former days. The good fairy had completed successfully two great works: the restoration of the chateau and the building of the asylum. The inhabitants of the one would be so much the better able to foresee the needs of the other.
Having explored one of the wings, they returned to the central hall. Mademoiselle de Vermont made a sign to the steward to remain there, and beckoned to Henri to accompany her to the historic gallery. After they had entered it, she closed the door. The family portraits had been rehung in their former places, in chronological order, and, in its proper place, figured that of the General of Division the Marquis de Prerolles, in full uniform, mounted on Aida, the portrait being the work of Edmond Delorme.
At this sight, touched to the depths of his heart, Henri knelt before Valentine, and carried her hand to his lips.
“I adore you!” he said, without attempting to hide the tears of gratitude that fell upon those generous hands.
“Do you, indeed?” Zibeline murmured.
“You shall see!” he replied, rising. “Come, in your turn.”
He led her before the portrait of the ancestral marshal of France, and said:
“Twenty-three years ago I vowed before that portrait either to vanquish the enemy or to regain with honor all that I had lost at play. I have kept my word. Will you be my wife?”
“Ah, you know my heart is yours!” Zibeline whispered, hiding her face upon his shoulder.
The door at the end of the gallery opened; the Duc and the Duchesse de Montgeron appeared. Henri took Zibeline’s hand and approached them.
“The Marquise de Prerolles!” he said, presenting her to his sister and her husband.
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