he murmured, and was silent.

"And then, mamma, there began a struggle for rescue such as I dare not even recall. I saw it because I could not look elsewhere, but I crushed its meaning from my consciousness, lest I should myself perish before I saw him safe. And all the while the figure hanging over us swayed with the rocking of the beam, and gave no help until that last terrible moment when his cousin, reaching down, was able to sustain him under the arm till he could get his other hand up and clasp it around the beam.

Then it all looked well, and we began to hope, when suddenly and without warning the nearly rescued man gave a great shriek, and crying, 'You have conquered!' unloosed his grasp, and fell headlong into the abyss.

"Mamma, I did not faint. An unnatural strength seemed given to me. But I looked at the marquis, and for the first time he looked at me, and I saw the expression of horrified amaze with which he had beheld his cousin disappear gradually change to one of the softest and divinest looks that ever visited a n.o.ble visage, and knew that even out of that pit of death love had arisen for us two, and that henceforth we belonged to each other, whether our span of life should be cut short in a moment or extended into an eternity of years. His own heart seemed to a.s.sure him of the same sweet fact, for the next moment he was renewing his superhuman efforts, but this time for our rescue and his own. He worked himself along that beam; he gave another leap; he landed at our side, and tore a way for us through that closed door. In another five minutes we were in the street, with half Paris surging about us, but before the crowd had quite seized upon me, he had found time to whisper in my ear:

"'I am the Marquis de la Roche-Guyon. It will always be a matter of thankfulness to me that I was not left to sacrifice the fairest woman in the world to the rescue of a thankless coward.'

"Mamma, do you blame me for giving such a man my heart, and do you wonder that what I have dedicated to this hero I can never yield to any other man?"

The mother was silent--for a long time silent. Was she horror-stricken at the story of a danger she had never fully comprehended till now? Or were her thoughts busy with her own past, and its possible incommunicable secrets of blood and horror? The cry she gave at last betrayed anguish, but did not answer this question.

"My child! my child! my child!" That was all, but it seemed torn from her heart, that bled after it.

"He was not long in seeking me out, mamma, dear. With grace and consideration he paid me his court, and I was happy till I saw that you and papa frowned upon an alliance that to me seemed laden with promise.

I could not understand it, nor could I understand our hurried departure from France, nor our secret journey here. All has been a mystery to me; but your will is my will, and I dare not complain."

"Pure heart!" broke from the mother's lips. "Would to G.o.d--"

"What, dear mamma?"

"That you had been moved by a lesser man than the Marquis de la Roche-Guyon."

"A lesser man?"

"With Armand Thierry, since he is the one you will have to marry."

"I shall not marry him."

"Shall not?"

"If I cannot give my hand where my heart is, I remain unmarried. I dishonor no man with unmeaning marriage vows."

"Honora!"

"I may never be happy, but I will never be base. You yourself cannot wish me to be that. You, who married for love, must understand that a woman loses her t.i.tle to respect when she utters vows to one man while her heart is with another."

"But--"

"You did marry for love, didn't you, sweet mamma? I like to think so. I like to think that papa never cared for any other woman in all the world but you, and that from the moment you first saw him, you knew him to be the one man capable of rousing every n.o.ble instinct within you. It is so sweet to enshrine you in such a pure romance, mamma. Though you have been married sixteen years--ah, how old I am!--I see you sit and look at papa sometimes, for a long, long time without speaking, and though you do not smile, I think, 'She is dreaming of the days when life was pure joy, because it was pure love,' and I long to ask you to tell me about those days, because I am sure, if you did, you would tell me the sweetest story of mutual love and devotion. Isn't it so, mamma mine?"

Would that mother answer? Could she? I seemed to behold her figure pausing petrified in the darkness, drawing deep breaths, and scarcely knowing whether to curse or pray. I listened and listened, but it was long before the answer came. Then it was short and hurried, like the pants of one dying.

"Honora, you hurt me." Another silence. "You make my task too hard. If I know what love is--" She found it hard to go on; but she did--"all the more anguish it must cost me to deny you what is so deeply desired. I--I would make you happy if I could. I will make you happy if it is in my power to do so, but I can hold out no hope--none, none."

"Nor tell me why?"

"Nor tell you why."

"Mamma, you suffer. I see it now, and somehow it makes it easier for me to bear my own suffering. You do not willfully deny me what is as much as my life to me."

"Willfully! Honora! Listen." The mother had stopped in her walk, for I heard her restless tread no more. "You say that I suffer, child. I have never had one happy day. Whatever romance you have woven about me, I have never known, from the hour of my birth till now, one moment of such delight as you experienced when you saw the character of the marquis unfold before you so grandly. The nearest I have ever come to bliss was when you were first placed in my arms. Then, indeed, for one wild moment, I felt the baptism of true love. I looked at you, and my heart opened. Alas! it was to take in pain as well as joy. You had the face-- Oh, Heaven! what am I saying? This darkness unnerves me, Honora. Let us have light, light, anything to keep my reason from faltering."

"Mother, mother, you are ill!"

"No. I am simply weak. I always am when I recall your birth and the first few days that followed it. I was so glad to have something I could really love; so glad to feel that my heart beat, and to know that it beat for one so innocent, so sweet, so helpless as yourself. What if I had pains and hours of darkness, did I not have your smile, also, and, later on, your love? Child, if there has been any good in my life--and sometimes I have thought there was a little--it came from you. So, never even question again if I could hurt you willfully. I not only could not do this and live, but to save you from pain I would dare-- What would I not dare? Let man or angels say."

Before such pa.s.sion as this young Honora sank helpless.

"Oh, mamma, mamma," she moaned, "forgive me. I did not know--how could I know? Don't sob, mamma, dear; let me hold you--so; now lay your cheek against mine and simply love me. I will lie quite still and ask no questions, and you will rest, too; and G.o.d will bless us, as he always blesses the loving and the true."

But madame did not comply with this endearing request. Satisfying her daughter with a few kisses and some words that the paroxysm of her grief was past, she resumed her walk up and down the room, pausing every now and then as if to listen, and hastily resuming her walk as some slight exclamation from the bed a.s.sured her that mademoiselle was not yet asleep. As these pauses always took place when she was near the wall behind which I crouched, I frequently heard her breath, which came heavily, and once the rustle of her gown. But I did not stir. As long as her uneasy form flitted about the room, I clung to the part.i.tion, listening, determined that nothing should move me--not even my own terrors. And though night presently merged into midnight, and the silence and horror of the spot became frightful, I kept my post, for the stealthy tread continued, and so did the desultory sc.r.a.ps of conversation, which proved that, if the mother was waiting for the daughter to sleep, the daughter was equally waiting for the mother to retire. And so daylight came, and with it exhaustion to more than one of us three watchers.

And this is the record of the first night spent by me in the secret chamber.

CHAPTER XXII.

A SURPRISE FOR HONORA.

OCTOBER 22, 1791.

[Ill.u.s.tration: E]

Events crowd. This morning the one girl I have taken into my confidence came to my room with a strange tale. A stranger had arrived, an elegant young gentleman of foreign appearance, who had not yet given his name, but who must be a person of importance, if bearing and address go for anything. He came on horseback, attended by his valet, and his first word, after some directions in regard to his horse, was a request to see the landlady. When told she was ill, he asked for the clerk, and to him was about to put some question, when an exclamation from the doorway interrupted them. Turning, they saw madame standing there, her face petrified into an expression of terrified surprise.

"Mrs.--"

"Hush!" sprang from the lady's lips before he could finish his exclamation; and advancing, she laid her hand on his arm, saying, in French, which, by the way, my clerk understands: "If you hope anything from us, do not speak the name that is faltering on your tongue. For reasons of our own, for reasons of a purely domestic nature, we are traveling incognito. Let me ask you as a gentleman to humor our whim, and to know us at present as Madame and Mademoiselle Letellier."

He bowed, but flushed with embarra.s.sment.

"And mademoiselle? She is well, I trust?"

"Quite well."

"And yourself?"

"Quite well, also. May I ask what has brought you into these parts, whom we thought in another and somewhat distant country?"

"Need you ask?"

They had drawn a little apart by this time, and the clerk heard no more; but their manner--the lady's especially--was so singular that he thought I ought to know that she was here under a false name, and so had sent Margery to me with the news. As for the gentleman and Madame Letellier, they were still conversing in the lowest tones together.

Interested intensely in this new development in the drama hourly unfolding before my eyes, I dismissed Margery with an instruction or two, and pa.s.sed into the hidden chamber, where I again laid my ear to the wall. The mother would have something to say when she returned, and I determined to hear what it was.