There was one other subject on which he had made up his mind to speak, but on which even he, calm and collected as he was, found it difficult to express himself; he had, however, determined that it was his duty to do so, and though the words almost refused to come at his bidding, still he went through his task.
“You will be desolate for a time, Victorine, when I shall have left you,” said he.
She answered him only by a look, but that look was so full of misery—of misery, blended with inexpressible love—that no one seeing her, could have doubted that she would indeed be desolate when he was gone.
“We have loved each other too well to part easily,” he continued, “and, for a time, the world will all be a weary blank to you. May God, who knows how to pour a balm into every wound, which in his mercy He inflicts, grant that that time may not be long! Listen to me patiently, love. It is a strong sense of duty which makes me pain you; my memory will always be dear to you; but do not let a vain, a foolish, a wicked regret counteract the purpose for which God has placed you here. You are very young, dearest, you have, probably, yet many years to live; and it would multiply my grief at leaving you tenfold, if I thought that your hopes of happiness in this world were to be buried in the grave with me. No, love, bear with me,” he said, for she tried to stop him. “The pain which I give you now, may prevent much grief to you hereafter. Remember, Victorine, that should these evil days pass by—should you ever again be restored to peace and tranquil life, my earnest, my last, my solemn prayer to you is, that my memory may not prevent your future marriage.”
She was still kneeling by his side, and with her face upturned and her hands clasped together, she now implored him to stop. She uttered no dissent, she made no protestations; but she beseeched him, by their long and tender love, by all the common ties which bound them together, to cease to speak on a subject which was so agonising.
“I have done, love,” he said; “and I know that you will not think lightly of a prayer which I have made to you in so serious a manner.”
De Lescure had expressed the same wish to his wife on former occasions, which, however, had, of course, been less solemn; and then his wife had answered him with a full, but not grieving heart. “Had our lot,” he once said, “been cast in an Indian village, the prejudices of the country would have required you to submit to a horrid, torturing death upon my tomb. The prejudices of Christian lands, which attribute blame to the wife who does not yield herself a living sacrifice to a life of desolation from a false regard to her husband’s memory, are, if not so horrid, every whit as unreasonable; such a sentiment is an attempt to counteract God’s beneficence, who cures the wounds which he inflicts.”
Henri’s first care, after having seen Marie and Madame de Lescure, was to provide for their transit, and that of his wounded friend, to the other side of the water; for he felt that if the blues came upon St. Florent before that was done, nothing could prevent the three from being made prisoners. No tidings had yet been received of the advance of the republicans from Cholet towards St. Florent, and the precautions which Henri had taken were such as to ensure him some few hours’ notice of their approach. He knew, however, that those hours would be hours of boundless confusion; that the whole crowd of unfortunate wretches who might then still be on the southern side of the river, would crowd into the small boats, hurrying themselves and each other to destruction; that discipline would be at an end, and that all his authority would probably be insufficient to secure a passage for his party. About three o’clock he sent word to Arthur to have the strongest of the boats kept in readiness a little lower down the river than the usual point of embarkation; so that they might, if possible, escape being carried through the throng. He then procured a waggon into which de Lescure was lifted on his bed; his wife sat behind him, supporting his head on her lap, and Henri and his sister walked beside the vehicle down to the water’s edge.
The little Chevalier was there with the boat, and he had with him two men, neither of whom were young, and who had been at work the whole day ferrying over the Vendeans to the island. Arthur’s figure was hardly that of an aide-de-camp. His head was bare and his face begrimed with mud. He was stripped to his shirt sleeves, and they were tucked up nearly to his shoulders. He still had round his waist the red scarf, of which he was so proud; but it was so soiled and dragged, as hardly to be recognized as the badge of the honourable corps to which he belonged, for he had, constantly since the morning, been up to his breast in the water, dragging women and children out of the river, heaving the boats ashore, or helping to push them off through the mud and rushes.
It was settled on the bank that Arthur should go over with them into Brittany, as Henri felt that he could not conscientiously leave the St. Florent side of the river, while so many thousands were looking to him for directions; and, consequently, as soon as de Lescure and the two ladies had, with much labour and delay, been placed in the boat, he swung himself out of the water into the bow, and the frail bark with its precious load was pushed off into the stream.