When after an interval the Chevalier returned to the party his smile was as suave, his tone as bland as usual. No one would have divined that the Sicilian had received, and accepted as irrevocable, his death-warrant. Toward Diane he had gained a new confidence; his manner was respectful, as became a gentleman, but he scarcely withdrew his eyes from her face. The miserable past and doubtful future were forgotten in the rich flavor of the exquisite present, intensified now by the conviction of its brief duration.
Du Chesne presently reappeared, looking flushed and annoyed.
“It is a cheat! I saw nothing—but the water was red as blood,” he announced.
“Mort diable! I am convinced that no deception exists.” D’Ordieux shook his perfumed locks excitedly. “I have had the very happiest predictions, far exceeding my expectations, which should naturally be great in a man of my rank—the promise of realizing my dearest hopes. I entertain no doubt of its truth.”
“I wish we had not been tempted to come. I shall vow a taper to the Virgin to keep us from harm,” whispered Madame de St. Rochs to her husband.
“I am persuaded that this is very wicked. I was induced to consent against my sense of right,” murmured Lydia, her blue eyes swimming in tears. She was so deliciously timid and gentle that in his efforts to reassure her du Chesne was betrayed into several trifling follies; but her scruples were not sufficiently urgent to induce her to relinquish her intentions, and she returned from the interview radiant and flushed.
It had finally come to Diane’s turn. The shade of the trees was excessively dense, and for an instant the French girl stood confused by the prevailing obscurity and the air of unreality in which all things seemed to be wrapped. Presently she perceived the witch, with a long wand in her hand, standing before a fountain of water. She was speaking rapidly in her native tongue, her voice rising and falling in a weird, monotonous recitative, a strange fantastic incantation in which distant voices appeared to join, rendered more impressive by the perfect stillness of the forest. She could hear sounding and re-echoing a slow, solemn chant, dreamy and plaintive, redolent of mystery and melancholy—long-drawn sighs, the whisper of angels’ voices, the song of the winds, all those magical accents that captivate imagination. Then there was a change. Quick and bright came broken notes, rising to a mad, reckless gaiety that set the blood aflame; then mournful melody like the autumn wind moaning in the branches, deepening and still deepening; anon rising into the flourish of trumpets on the battle-field, and ending in a funeral hymn floating through the dim aisles of some vast cathedral. It was like the entrance into dream-life, for those enchanted strains embodied all the extremes of human joy and suffering, aspiration and yearning.
As she listened, the witch’s decrepit form expanded, acquiring size, height and dignity; the crafty, sensual features gained a strange power and majesty. A sudden sense of mystery, of dominant and all but overpowering force, took possession of Diane. Every thought of her heart, to the very depth of her being, seemed familiar to this influence and responsive to its command. She shivered with an excited desperation of feeling, of mingled desire and apprehension, of attraction and repulsion. A rich, heavy perfume, resembling the fragrance of incense, filled the air, and a thick cloud hung over the large basin of water which stood before her. Obeying an imperious gesture of the Indian woman, the girl advanced and bent over the basin.
Diane’s form grew rigid as she stood with eyes fixed on the water, their pupils dilated in a terror-stricken gaze. A light film of pungent smoke arose, which, wreathing itself in airy circles, seemed to catch a fiery color from some unseen flame. Then, gradually crystallizing, it assumed definite form. Was it a tissue of fancy and reality that produced a creation so fantastic? Vaguely, as in a dream, she perceived remote vistas, all weird and mysterious, peopled by spectral shapes, resounding with far-off, uncertain footsteps. Then out of the darkness there glided wavering, shadowy figures, at first faint and indefinite, then gradually becoming more distinct. Clear as a reflection in a mirror, every trifling, delicate detail perceptible, the scene shaped itself before her eager gaze. It was a spacious apartment; two nuns were moving softly to and fro about the lofty four-post bed; wax tapers, in tall curiously-chased silver candlesticks, shed a softened radiance upon the room. Lying on the bed, still and stately, like the heroic statue of some knight asleep upon his tomb, lay a young man. In the shadow a girl, slender and delicately formed, knelt upon a prie-dieu, her head bowed upon her tightly clasped hands. For a time she seemed to be looking on some scene that she had long known and loved, but which had taken on a new aspect. Then as the flickering, uncertain light settled into a clearer reflection, Mademoiselle de Monesthrol asked herself if that aged nun with the sweet, benign expression did not surely resemble the venerable Sister Marguerite Bourgeois; and that other, taller and more active, certainly must be Sister Berbier, Superior of the Congregation of Notre Dame. The young man’s features were concealed from her, but the girlish mourner moved, and with the listlessness of apathetic suffering turned her head.
A horrible paralyzing dread ran shuddering through Diane’s veins, for that face, haggard, bloodless, convulsed by inexpressible grief, was her own. Then a thick cloud of darkness passed between her and the mystic scene; she was conscious only that the glowing eyes of the witch were riveted intensely upon her. When, bewildered, she turned to look again, all had collapsed like shadows in a dream; the basin of water alone remained.