Because of conscience

by Amy Ella Blanchard

With a look at Adriaen, Madam retired and the young Dutchman followed. Alaine, mute, troubled, a little pitiful for the invalid, wholly resentful toward the man, stood there.

François regarded her for some moments in silence. “I have been the cause of much suffering for you, mademoiselle,” he said at last, “and I wish to tell you of my sorrow.”

“Sorrow comes too late, monsieur. In return I can only say that if I despised you before, now that you are become the worst of creation, a murderer, I can only look at you with horror and loathing.”

He winced but went on speaking. “Let us first talk of that morning when I saw you last. The attack was not a personal matter. I was with others who had long desired to make a raid into the English colony. The opportunity came and we took it. I was chosen to lead the little company of Frenchmen who were allies of the Indians. If the carrying out of what seems one’s duty in serving one’s country is a crime, then I am punished. None but myself can realize how great is this punishment, this long death. I lie here paralyzed; only my head and my hands are free to move. I do not say this to extort pity from you, but to let you know that I have not come off better than my enemies. M. Verplanck——”

“Hush!” Alaine raised her hand. There was agony in her eyes and in her voice.

François turned his head away. “I did not understand,” he said, after a pause. “I thought it was your sweet womanly pity which made you give your body as a defence. I thought it was the other one,—that Pierre. I cannot ask your forgiveness now, mademoiselle, for I understand. I must tell you that I employed one who played the spy for me in those first days of our acquaintance, and when you came so readily in answer to the supposed word from Pierre, I believed he was the one you favored. I thought it was but a friendship and a wish to oppose me that gave you a kindly attitude toward any one else. I understand. Holy Mother! yes, who better? I wish to tell you; it was Étienne, and I desired revenge. I loved Constance De Caux in my student days there in France, but Étienne she loved. He laughed when I said he had stolen her from me. He said, ‘If you do not know how to keep her love, find out, but if you expect me not to profit by your ignorance, you are a fool.’ And I vowed I would win her or would have my revenge. She did not love me, although I swear but for Étienne she would have done so, and she was all pity for Étienne, who had lost his cousin Alaine. He came to me bowed down with grief, and I pretended to give him my friendship again. But I had not forgotten. No, I had not forgotten. Will you give me a drop of that wine? I am very weak.”

Alaine handed him the cup but did not offer to help him to drink; instead she turned away and stood looking out the window till he spoke again, then she took the cup from him and placed it on the table.

He went on with his story. “Then I said, I will find her, this cousin, and if I can bring her back to Étienne he will marry her, and after a while Constance will remember how long I have loved her. I came. I found Alaine, but she would not marry Étienne, I saw that, but I did not tell him, for I had then another plan. He believed Alaine to be dead, and then he married Constance, and broke her heart by his indifference. I never told you all this, for I wished to marry you myself, and returning, I thought to flaunt my wife in the face of him who had vowed to win her, as I had vowed to win Constance. I knew that your estates would return to you once you became my wife, and I said I will have them and herself too; thus will I revenge myself upon Étienne, who would fain have had both. He crossed me in my love, and I will show him that I can do the same. A sweet revenge! A sweet revenge! for Constance is dead and in heaven; she will know who it is that loves her, and there she is mine and not his—not his. I would have won you for my wife, and so he would have been left with neither one to bless his days. Now it is all over and I have lost my last throw.”

He lay very still, his eyes closed, his breath coming quickly. It was evident that the recital had cost him all the strength he could summon. Alaine again took the cup of wine to him. “Will you drink?” she said. “It has been an effort to tell me all this.”

He opened his eyes to smile at her. “Thank you. How kind you are! How good and sweet you have always been! Even when you have flung your defiance at me, it was always as a rebuking angel might speak. If I had never loved Constance—Yet, I would have been kind to you. I would have loved you as most men love, or even better. One does not love madly, with the pain and the depth of a hundred loves all bound in one, one does not love so but once. Never but once that comes, and to few.”