"I will tell him that he may be here in an hour?" said Gaston interrogatively, for he saw the mighty struggle Madeleine was making to control herself, and thoughtfully desired to give her some little time for preparation.
Madeleine bowed her head in acquiescence.
Gaston had too much delicacy to prolong the conversation. He bade her adieu and at once sought Maurice.
CHAPTER XXVI.
MEETING OF LOVERS.
M. de Bois lost no time in communicating to Maurice the result of his visit. He found the young viscount awaiting him with torturing impatience. Gaston had scarcely said that Madeleine would receive her cousin in an hour, when Maurice, without heeding the last words, caught up his hat, convulsively grasped his friend's hand, and, without uttering a syllable, hurried forth.
He was acquainted with Madeleine's residence,—he had sought it out the night previous,—and thither he now hastened. He bounded up the street door-steps, but paused a moment as his hand touched the bell. Was he again about to look upon that face which he had sought with such fruitless, but frenzied ardor? He thought of those days when all creation became a blank because that heaven-lit countenance no longer shone upon him. His brain and heart throbbed and beat at those tumultuous recollections until both seemed mingled in one wild motion.
He comprehended Madeleine's character so well that he knew he should find her tranquil and self-possessed; and was he about to enter her presence as voiceless and unmanned as during their brief rencontre the day previous?
He turned to descend the steps in the hope of collecting his scattered faculties, by walking awhile, but the very thought of delaying, even for a few moments, an interview for which he had so long pined caused him too sharp anguish for endurance; he seized the bell, and rang with as sudden an impulse as though he feared the mansion before which he stood would vanish away, and he would awake from one of the old dreams by which he had been haunted.