THE PASSWORD.
The first blow was terrible. It indeed required all Maurice's self-command to enable him to conceal from Lorin how powerfully he was affected by these startling events; but once in the garden, once alone in the silence of night, his mind became more calm, and his ideas, instead of running disordered through his brain, became once more under the control of reason.
What! this house that Maurice had so often visited with the purest pleasure; this house which had formed for him a paradise on earth,—was in reality only a den of sanguinary intrigues. The kind and flattering receptions bestowed on his ardent friendship resulted then from sheer hypocrisy; the love of Geneviève from fear.
The plan of the garden is well-known, our readers having more than once followed our young folks there. Maurice glided from bush to bush till he was shaded from the moon's rays by the little conservatory where he had been imprisoned previous to his first introduction to the house. This conservatory was opposite the pavilion inhabited by Geneviève. But this evening, instead of gleaming stationary from her chamber, the light moved frequently from one window to another. Maurice saw Geneviève through the curtain, evidently raised by accident, hastily packing some things in a portmanteau, and with astonishment beheld some weapons in her hands. He raised himself upon a post to enable him to see farther into the room. A large fire was blazing on the hearth, where Geneviève was destroying papers.
At this moment the door opened and a young man entered the room. At first Maurice imagined this man was Dixmer. The young woman ran toward him, seized his hands, and they both stood facing each other for a moment, evidently influenced by some deep emotion. What this emotion meant he could not divine, as their words did not reach his hiding-place. But all at once Maurice measured his height with his eye.
"This is not Dixmer," murmured he. Indeed, the man who had entered was small and delicate, while Dixmer was tall and masculine. Jealousy is an active stimulant, and in a second he had compared the figure of this man with that of her husband.
"This is not Dixmer!" murmured he, compelled as it were to repeat it, to convince himself of the perfidy of Geneviève.
He approached still nearer to the window, but the nearer he came the less he saw. His brain was on fire. He stumbled on a ladder; the window was seven or eight feet high. He seized the ladder, and planting it firmly against the wall, ascended and placed his eye at an aperture in the curtain.
Geneviève's unknown visitor was a fair young man, about twenty-six or twenty-seven years of age, with blue eyes, and an elegant demeanor; he retained both the young woman's hands within his own, and was speaking soothingly, endeavoring fruitlessly to assuage the grief of Geneviève, which was plainly evinced by the tears which suffused her charming countenance. A slight noise, accidentally made by Maurice, caused the young man to turn his face toward the window. Maurice suppressed a cry of astonishment, he recognized his mysterious deliverer of the Place du Châtelet. At this moment Geneviève withdrew her hands from those of the unknown, and went toward the fireplace to ascertain that the papers were utterly consumed.
Maurice could no longer command his indignation. All those fierce passions which torture the heart of man—love, vengeance, and jealousy—lacerated him with their fangs of fire. He at once threw open the ill-closed casement, and vaulted into the chamber. At the same moment two pistols were pressed to his breast.