Silently they both of them withdrew, and the stranger was left alone with the advocate, who, laying his hand detectingly on the other's shoulder, thus addressed him:
“Claude Montigny, I do not ask of you what brings you here, for I have something overheard, and in that something, all. Given the arc, the eye completes the perfect circle; furnished the angle and the object's distance, and we can tell the dizzy altitude. Mark me, sir. We climb with risk, but there is greater danger in descending. Young sir seigneur, you have ascended to a height you may not safely stoop from. As sportive and adventurous schoolboys sometimes ascend a scaffolding in the absence of the builders, and continue to scale from tier to tier, until they pause for breath; so, I fear, that you this night, in her protector's absence, have soared in the affections of my ward. Beware, beware: I would not threaten you—a gentleman neither needs nor brooks a threat—but, by my life and the strength that yet is left me, woe to the man that shall fool me in yonder girl! Seek not to trifle with me, Claude Montigny. Tell me your purpose; inform me how your acquaintance with my ward began; how it was fostered; how it has been concealed; and how it thus has ripened into this secret, midnight interview. Speak; what do you say, sir, in arrest of judgment? Be seated, and recount to me the story of your love, if you do love my ward—as you have told her that you do—and to that love be attached a story, long or brief; or if this passion—which you have propounded most passionately to her—be of a mere mushroom growth, born of to-night, sown by the hand of moonlight in a girl's dark eyes; or in her heart, perhaps, by the fairies that you spoke of, and producing some form of feeling or forced fruit of fancy; coeval with, and meant to be as transient, as is the present fungi of these fields. Sit down by me, and let your tongue a true deliverance make between yourself, me, and my foster-daughter.” And seating himself heavily on a garden bench, and leaning with both hands clasped over the top of his gold-headed cane, he looked enquiringly up into the face of the young man, and added: “Come, plead before me to this charge of heart-stealing, as touching which you have been taken in the act.”
“Sir,” then said the stranger with dignity, whilst he slowly seated himself; “sir, you are justified in thus misdoubting me; for though a gentleman should, like the wife of Caesar, be above suspicion, never yet knew chivalry a time but there were recreant knights. Moreover, I can perceive that circumstances now must shadow, and, as with refracting influence, distort me, so that I may well stand here seeming to be deformed, although my soul, if you could see it, would show wanting no part of honour's fair proportions. Hear me, then, patiently, for I plead less for my own defence than for her vindication who has just retired beneath your frown.”
And the ingenuous but compromised Montigny sketched the brief history of his passion, and when he had done, the advocate, looking into his countenance keenly, but confidingly, rejoined:
“You speak the truth, I know it by your eye, wherein no falsehood might harbour for a moment; yet, young seigneur, you have entered on a perilous path; dare you walk in it? It is the way of honor, and will prove to be the way of safety; but, beshrew me, if I do not fear that it may prove to you a way of pain. Whatever may be the ways of wisdom, the ways of honour are not always ways of pleasantness, nor is the path of duty always one of peace. If you would wear the rose you must grasp it as it grows amidst the thorns. And now, farewell—yet, hold. I hold you to your bond. The forfeit were the forfeit of your word, which you have pledged to me and mine. Remember, not only have you offered love unto my ward, but you have been accepted.”
“Even so:” exclaimed Montigny; “and may—”
“Call nothing down that might become your harm,” said the advocate admonishingly: “Rain has before now become transformed to hailstones, and done much damage; and dews descending so benignly, have once, it is said, in form of rain, swelled to a deluge that has drowned the world. May the skies be still propitious to you, Claude Montigny. Although temptation burn as fiercely as dogdays, do not fall beneath it, for less hurtful were a hundred sunstrokes to the body, than to the soul is one temptation that hath overcome it. Again farewell.” And he pressed Claude's hand convulsively, then tossed it from him half disdainfully, and both departed from the grounds.
[CHAPTER VIII.]
“Think no more of this night's accidents.”