Anne interrupted him, laughing again. "I see the facts--the one fact--what are the circ.u.mstances to me?"

"They are a great deal to Herve," Monsieur Joseph persisted.

"Herve, Herve!" she cried. "But Joseph--mon Dieu, how can you take his wretched excuses! I thought you loved Ange! I thought the boy--"

She broke off with a sob, turning white as death. The two men stared at her, Monsieur Joseph with wild eyes and trembling lips. Would this be more than he could bear?

He took refuge in talking. He talked so fast that he hardly knew what he was saying. He poured out Herve's explanations, his regrets, his trouble of mind. Georges was bent upon this ball; it had been proposed long before his return; the first invitations had been sent out directly he came. He wished to make acquaintance with all the neighbours, old and new, official, or friends of the family; he wished to pay a special compliment to the officers at Sonnay, his brothers in arms. A formal invitation had been sent to General Ratoneau, who had actually accepted it, to Herve's great surprise. He had laughed and said that the dog wanted another thrashing. But let him come, if he chose to humble himself! He might see even more clearly that Helene was not for him. In Adelade's opinion, no private prejudices must have anything to do with this ball. It was given chiefly as a matter of politics, under imperial colours; it was for the interest of Georges that his family should thus definitely range itself with the Empire.

"Poor Herve said that he had already, more than once, spoilt his wife's calculations and failed to support her views. She and Georges, whatever private feeling might be, thought it impossible to put off this ball because of the misfortune that happened to Angelot. They would be understood to show sympathy with the Chouans. Then he abused me well, poor Herve," said Monsieur Joseph, amiably. "He said, as Urbain did, that I had ruined Angelot's life, and it was no one's fault but mine.

'Well, dear cousin,' I said to him, 'I will punish myself by not appearing at this fine ball of yours. Not that my dancing days are over, but for me, Ange's absence would spoil all.' 'You love that fellow!'

says Herve, looking at me. 'Love him!' says I. 'I would cut off my right hand to serve him, and that is a good deal for a sportsman.' Herve laughed as I said it. I do not dislike that poor Herve, though his wife rules him. Listen to me, you two. I believe if Ange had been reasonable and honest, Herve might have given him his daughter."

"Heaven forbid!" cried Anne. "But if you love Ange, do not blame him. He was young, he was mad, the girl was beautiful--and, after all, Joseph, you had something to do with putting that into his head. Ah, we are all to blame! We have all been cruel, blind, selfish. You and I thought of the King, Urbain thought of his cousins, they thought of themselves. We left my boy to find his own way in a time like this, and your Chouan friends were as dangerous for him as Helene de Sainfoy. Ah! and you excuse yourself with a laugh from dancing on his grave!"

She wrung her hands, threw herself back in her chair with a pa.s.sionate sigh.

"Madame," said the Cure, suddenly;--his dim but watchful eyes had been fixed on Joseph; "Madame, Monsieur Joseph could tell you, if he would, what has become of Angelot. He is not dead; I doubt if he is even in prison. Ah, monsieur, you do not dissimulate well!" as Joseph made him an eager sign to be silent.

But it was too late, for Anne was holding his two hands, and in the light of her eyes all his secret doings lay open.

"Why did I come!" he said to himself, in the intervals of a very difficult explanation. "There is some magic in those walls of Lancilly, which attracts and ruins us all. If we live through this, thousand thunders, Herve de Sainfoy may make his own excuses to our dear little Anne in future!"

CHAPTER XXII

THE LIGHTED WINDOWS OF LANCILLY

There was no way out of it, without telling all. Fortunately Joseph knew that his secrets were safe with these two, whose hearts were absolutely Royalist, though circ.u.mstances held them bound to inactivity. Presently Anne rose and left the room.

"Thank G.o.d! that is over," Joseph said, half to himself. "I must be going. Monsieur le Cure, I leave her to you. Do not let her be too anxious. D'Ombre is rough, but a good fellow; he will take care of our Angelot."

The old Cure was plunged in gloom. Tall and slight in his long black garment, he stood under the high chimneypiece, and leaned forward shivering, to warm his fingers at the blaze.

"Ah, monsieur!" he murmured. "Have you thought what you are doing? Can you expect good to come out of evil? Your brother, who has done everything for us all, how are you treating him? If madame does not see it, I do. You are taking Ange, making him a conspirator and a Chouan. If you save him from one danger, you plunge him into a greater, for if he and Monsieur d'Ombre are caught on this mission, they will certainly pay for it with their lives. You are doing all this without his father's knowledge--"

"Ah, my dear Cure, I know the police better than you do," Monsieur Joseph said hastily. "These young fellows will not be the first who have escaped to England; and Ange cannot stay here with their eyes and claws upon him. Even his father would not wish that. Leave it to me. What is it, Anne? what are you thinking of?"

His sister-in-law had come back into the room, wrapped in a cloak, with a hood drawn over her face.

"I am going with you to see Ange," she said.

The wind was howling, the rain was pattering outside. But Monsieur Joseph had all the trouble in the world to make her give up this idea.

At last, after many arguments and prayers, he persuaded her that she must not come to Les Chouettes but must absolutely trust Ange to him. He promised solemnly that the young man should not start without her knowing it, that, if possible, she should see her boy again.

"And if Urbain comes back before they are gone?" she said, looking whitely into his face. "I tell you positively, Joseph, I shall not dare--"

"My dear friend, owing to Monsieur le Cure's unfortunate second-sight, your son's life is in your hands. If Urbain comes back, tell him all, if you will. His presence did not save Ange from being arrested before, it will not save him from being retaken. My fault, perhaps, as Urbain said--all my fault--" He struck his breast as if in church, with his fine smile. "But then it is my place to save him, and I will do it, if you will let me--in my own way."

They were both trembling, and large tears ran down the old Cure's thin cheeks. Joseph, still smiling, bent to kiss her hand. He held it for a moment, then looked up with dark imploring eyes.

"Adieu, chere Anne! and think of me with all your charity!" he said.

A minute later he had slipped noiselessly out, and plunged alone into the wet, howling darkness.

Through those days of suspense, while Angelot was hidden at Les Chouettes, while master and servants alike acted on the supposition that the house was watched by gendarmes with all the power of the Ministry of Police behind them--through these days, one person alone was happy; it was Henriette. She adored her cousin; it was joy to watch over him, to scold him, to amuse him, to keep him, a difficult matter, within the bounds prescribed by his uncle. Every day Angelot said it was impossible; he must be ill, he must die, if he could not stretch his legs and breathe the open air. Every day Henriette, when her father was out, allowed him to race up and down the stairs, played at hide-and-seek with him in the pa.s.sages, let him dance her round and round the lower rooms. Or else she played games with him, cards, chess, tric-trac; or he lay and listened to her while she told him fairy tales; listened with a dreamy half-understanding, with a certainty, underlying all his impatience, that there was nothing to live for now. What did it matter, after all? One moment, life and hope and youth made him thrill and tremble in every limb; the next, his fate weighed upon him like a millstone; he laid his head down on the broad pillow of the sofa, and while Henriette chattered his eyelashes were sometimes wet. All was settled now. He must be banished to England, to Germany, banished in a cause he did not care for, in which he was involved against his will.

Never again should he walk with his gun and Nego, light-hearted, over his own old country. Never again, more certainly, should he see Helene, feel the maddening sweetness of her touch, her kiss. There was to be a ball. Henriette told him all about it; he heard of his cousin Herve's visit, and was half amused, half miserable. Helene would dance; white and slender, her eyes full of sadness. She would dance with other men, thinking, he knew, of her lost friend, her Angelot. In time, one of them would be presented to her as her husband. Not Ratoneau; Angelot had her father's word for that, and he drew a long breath when he thought of it.

But some one else; that was inevitable. Ah! as life must pa.s.s, why cannot it pa.s.s more quickly? Why must every day have such an endless number of hours and minutes? What torture is there greater than this of waiting, stifled and idle, for a fate arranged in spite of one's self?

Henriette flitted in and out, eager and earnest like her father. After Monsieur Joseph's visit to La Mariniere, he sent her there one day with Marie, and she was embraced by her aunt Anne with a quite new pa.s.sion of tenderness, and trusted with a letter and a huge parcel of necessaries for Angelot's journey. Monsieur Joseph laughed a little angrily over these.

"Tiens, mon pet.i.t! your mother thinks you are going to drive to the coast in a chaise and four," he said; but Angelot bent his head very gravely over the coats and the shirts that those little thin hands had folded together for him.

"You must give me fair notice, Uncle Joseph," he said. "Police or no police, I do not go without wishing her good-bye."

Everything came at once, as fate would have it. It was after dark, a wild, windy evening, stars looking through the hurrying clouds, no moonrise till early morning. With every precaution, Monsieur Joseph now allowed his nephew to dine in the dining-room, taking care to place him where he could not be seen from outside when Gigot came in through the shutters from the kitchen. Angelot had now been kept in hiding for ten days, and the police seemed to have disappeared from the woods, so that Monsieur Joseph's mind was easier.

Suddenly, as they sat at dinner that evening, all the dogs began to bark.

"Go into your den!" said the little uncle, starting up.

"No, dear uncle, this game pie is too good," Angelot said coolly. "I heard a horse coming down the lane. It is Monsieur d'Ombre's messenger."

"If it is--very true, you had better eat your dinner," said his uncle.

And to be sure, in a few minutes, Gigot came in with a letter, Angelot's marching orders. At five o'clock the next morning Cesar d'Ombre would wait for him at the etang des Morts, a lonely, legend-haunted pool in the woods where four roads met, about two leagues beyond the _landes_ by way of La Joubardiere.

"Very well; you will start at three o'clock," said Monsieur Joseph.

"Give the man something to eat and send him back, Gigot, to meet his master."

"Three o'clock! I shall be asleep!" said Angelot. "Surely an hour will be enough to take me to the etang des Morts--a cheerful rendezvous!"

He laughed and looked at Riette. She was very pale and grave, her dark eyes wide open.

"The good dead--they will watch over you, mon pet.i.t!" she murmured. "We must not be afraid of them."

"This is not a time for talking nonsense, children," said Monsieur Joseph; he looked at them severely, his mouth trembling. "Half-past three at latest; the boy might lose his way in the dark."

Riette got up suddenly and flung her arms round Angelot's neck.

"Mon pet.i.t, mon pet.i.t!" she repeated, burying her face on his shoulder.

"What are you doing?" he cried. "How am I to finish my dinner? You come between me and the best pie that Marie ever made! Get along with you, little good-for-nothing!"

He laughed; then Marie's pie seemed to choke him; he pushed back his chair, lifted Riette lightly and carried her out of the room.