Читать книгу The Bastonnais - John Lespérance - Страница 34

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Swift as the lightning's flash are the instincts of love. Before a word had been spoken and without being able to read her face in the dusk, Roderick felt in his heart that Pauline's presence there was an omen of ill. But, like a true man, he smothered the suspicion and spoke out bravely.

"Why, Pauline, what an agreeable surprise. How did you know that I had returned? I should have sent you word this morning, but I was so occupied that it was impossible. … You probably heard it from others. … But I am so glad to see you. … How is your father? … And you, darling, I hope you are well. … "

To these words of the young officer, broken by breathing spaces so as to admit of replies, not an answer was returned. But when he had finished, all that Pauline did was to stretch out her arms and lay her two ungloved hands in the hands of Hardinge, while her face looked imploringly into his and she murmured:

"O, Roddy, Roddy!"

They were then standing alone near the water, the two companions of Roderick having ascended to the city. Gently and silently, he drew the yielding form toward him until he could scan her features and learn in those eyes, which he knew so well, the secret of her sorrow. But the light of the eyes was totally quenched in tears, and the usually mobile face was veiled by a blank expression of misery. Hardinge was thunderstruck. All sorts of wild conjectures leaped through his brain.

"Speak to me, Pauline, and tell me what this means," he said imploringly. "Has anything befallen you? Has any one injured you? Or am I the cause of this grief?"

Still holding her extended hands clasped in his, and casting her eyes upon the ground, she replied:

"O, Roddy, you cannot tell, and you will never know how wretched I am, but it is some comfort that I can speak to you at least once more."

"At least once more!" These words quivered through him, chilling him from head to foot.

"Pauline, I entreat you, explain the meaning of all this," he exclaimed.

"It means, Roddy, that I who have never disobeyed my father, in my life, have had the weakness to disobey him this evening. I did not mean to do it. I did it unconsciously."

"Disobeyed your father?"

"Yes, in seeing you again."

"Surely, you do not mean—?"

"Alas! dearest, I mean that my father has forbidden me ever to meet you."

Roderick was so astonished that he staggered, and the power of utterance for a moment was denied him. At last he whispered falteringly:

"Really, there must be some mistake, Pauline."

She shook her head, and looking up at him with a sad smile, replied:

"Ah! I also thought it was a mistake, but, Roddy, it is only too true. These two days I have brooded over it, and these two nights. To-day, hearing that you had returned, I could endure the burden no longer. I thought of writing to you, but I had not the heart to put the terrible injunction on paper. I have wandered the whole afternoon in the hope of meeting you. I walked as in a dream, feeling indeed that I was doing wrong, but with this faint excuse for my disobedience, that, by telling you of it myself, I would spare you the terrible disgrace of being driven from my father's door, if you presented yourself there without knowing his determination. For myself such a misfortune would have been a death blow."

Every word went burning to Roderick's heart, but he had to master his own agony a moment, in the effort to support Pauline who had utterly broken down. When she had recovered sufficiently, he protested tenderly that there was a mystery in all this which he was unable to fathom, and entreated her to help him discover it by telling him minutely all that had happened since they had last met. She gradually summoned strength and composure enough to do so, relating in detail the scene in Cathedral square; the arrival of the Lieutenant-Governor's aide-de-camp; his delivering of a letter to her father; the conversation that took place between the latter and the officer; her father's visit to the Chateau; his return therefrom; and, relapsing into tears, she narrated how her father had found her reading a note from Roderick, and how he had ordered her to cast it into the fire.

The young officer did not lose the significance of a word. At first the mystery remained as impenetrable as ever, but after a while a thread of suspicion wove itself into his brain. He tried to brush it away, however, by rubbing his hand violently over his brow and eyes. It was too painful. It was too odious. Finally, he asked:

"Did your father give any reason why you should burn my note?"

"Ah! Roddy, why do you force me to say it? When I told him that you had sent him your regards, he replied 'he has just sent me his hate!'"

These words solved the mystery. Hardinge saw through it all, distinctly, sharply, unmistakeably. He drew a long breath, and his broad chest swelled with the fresh air from the river.

"Pauline, my dear," he said with that tender authority with which a strong man can miraculously revive a weak, drooping woman, "Pauline, take heart. It is all a terrible mistake and it will be explained. Your father has suspected me of a dreadful thing, but I am innocent and will convince him of it. I will see him this very night and make him and you happy."

She raised her hands imploringly.

"Fear nothing, darling, I am as certain as that we are standing here together, that it is all a fearful misunderstanding, and that I will make it clear to your father, in a quarter of an hour's conversation."

"But why not tell me, and I will tell him?"

"Because there are several points connected with the matter with which you are not familiar, and because he might misconstrue both your motives and mine. No. It is a matter to be settled between man and man. Besides, it is late and your absence must not be prolonged. I, too, have a military report to make to the authorities without delay."

Pauline suffered herself to be convinced, and the two, after a few mutual words of love, which wonderfully recuperated them, bent their way up Mountain Hill. At the gate they separated.

"I will be with you within two hours," said Hardinge, as he took the direction of the Chateau.

Pauline stepped into the old church on her way, and in its consecrated gloom poured out a prayer at the feet of Her whom she worshipped as the Comforter of the Afflicted. Consolatrix Afflictorum.