After their accidental encounter Gaston de Bois called upon Maurice repeatedly, but never found him at home.
Bertha continued to write sorrowful letters teeming with inquiries. Maurice answered briefly, as though he could not spare time to devote to his pen, but always giving her hope that the very next letter would convey the glad intelligence which she pined to receive. Four months was the limit of her yearly visit to the Château de Gramont, and the period of her stay was rapidly drawing to a close. She wrote that in a few days her uncle would arrive and take her back to his residence in Bordeaux. The language in which this communication was made plainly indicated that she would rejoice at the change. She touched upon the probability of seeing Maurice before she left; but he was unmoved by the half-invitation; nothing could induce him to leave Paris while he cherished the belief that Madeleine was within its walls.
Count Tristan wrote and urged him to return home; but the summons was unheeded. He could not have endured, while his mind was in this terrible state of incertitude, to behold again the old château, which must conjure up so many harrowing recollections. Then, too, his natural affection for his father and his grandmother was embittered by the remembrance of their persecution of Madeleine. Until she had been found,—until he could hear from her own lips (as he knew he should) that she harbored no animosity towards them,—he could not force himself to forgive their injustice and cruelty. She alone had power to soften his heart and cement anew the broken link.
CHAPTER XII.
THE SISTER OF CHARITY.
The marvellous change in the bearing of Gaston de Bois, by which Maurice was struck, had been wrought by a triad of agents. A man who had passed his life in indolent seclusion, who had plunged into a tangled labyrinth of abstruse books, not in search of valuable knowledge, but to lose in its mazes the recollection of valueless hours; who had allowed his days to drag on in aimless monotony; who had fallen into melancholy because he lacked a healthy stimulus to rouse his faculties out of their life-deadening torpidity; who had allowed his nervous diffidence to gain such complete mastery over him that it tied his tongue, and clouded his vision, and confused his brain; who had despised himself because he was keenly conscious that his existence was purposeless and profitless;—this man, subjected to the sudden impetus of an occupation for which his mental acquirements and sedentary habits alike fitted him, found his new life a revelation. He had emerged from the dusty, beaten, grass-withered path his feet had spiritlessly trodden from earliest youth, and entered a field of bloom and verdure where the very stir of the atmosphere exhilarated, where the labor to be performed called dormant capacities into play and tested their strength, where each day's achievement gave the delightful assurance of latent powers within himself hitherto unrecognized,—in a word, where his manhood was developed through the regenerating virtue, the glorious might, the blessed privilege of work!
The second cause which had contributed to bring about the happy metamorphosis in Gaston de Bois sprang out of the hope-inspiring words Madeleine had dropped on that day which closed so darkly on the duke's orphan daughter. Those few, passing, precious words had fallen like fructuous seed and struck deep root in Gaston's spirit; and, as the germs shot upward, every branch was covered with blossoms of hope which perfumed his nights and days. He dared to believe that Bertha did not look upon him with disdain,—that she sympathized with the misfortune which debarred him from free intercourse with society,—that a deeper interest might emanate from this compassionate regard. The possibility of becoming worthy of her no longer appeared a dream so wild and baseless; but he was too modest, too distrustful of himself, to have given that golden dream entertainment had it not been inspired by Madeleine's kindly breath.
The third cause which combined with the two just mentioned to revolutionize his character will unfold itself hereafter.
The more cognizant M. de Bois became that powerful influences were vivifying, strengthening, and bringing order out of confusion in his own mind, the more troubled he felt in pondering over the disordered mental condition of Maurice. During a whole month after their accidental encounter in the street he called repeatedly at the lodgings of the viscount, but never once found him at home. Half discouraged, yet unwilling to abandon the hope of an interview, he persisted in his fruitless visits. One morning, to his unbounded satisfaction, when he inquired of the concierge if M. de Gramont was within, an affirmative answer was returned. Gaston could hardly credit the welcome intelligence, and involuntarily repeated the question.