‘And who may that bride be?’ said Eustacie, endeavouring to speak as though it were nothing to her.
‘Nay, ma petite! it is too long to play the ignorant when the bridegroom is on his way from Paris.’
‘Madame,’ said Eustacie, turning to her aunt, ‘you cannot suffer this scandal. The meanest peasant may weep her first year of widowhood in peace.’
‘Listen, child. There are weighty reasons. The Duke of Anjou is a candidate for the throne of Poland, and my son is to accompany him thither. He must go as Marquis de Nid de Merle, in full possession of your estates.’
‘Let him take them,’ began Eustacie, ‘who first commits a cowardly murder, and then forces himself on the widow he has made?’
‘Folly, child, folly,’ said the Chevalier, who supposed her ignorant of the circumstances of her husband’s assassination; and the Abbess, who was really ignorant, exclaimed—‘Fid donc niece; you know not what you say.’
‘I know, Madame—I know from an eye-witness,’ said Eustacie, firmly. ‘I know the brutal words that embittered my husband’s death; and were there no other cause, they would render wedlock with him who spoke them sacrilege.’ Resolutely and steadily did the young wife speak, looking at them with the dry fixed eye to which tears had been denied ever since that eventful night.’
‘Poor child,’ said the Chevalier to his sister. ‘She is under the delusion still. Husband! There is none in the case.’ Then waving his hand as Eustacie’s face grew crimson, and her eyes flashed indignation, while her lips parted, ‘It was her own folly that rendered it needful to put an end to the boy’s presumption. Had she been less willful and more obedient, instead of turning the poor lad’s head by playing at madame, we could have let him return to his island fogs; but when SHE encouraged him in contemplating the carrying her away, and alienating her and her lands from the true faith, there was but one remedy—to let him perish with the rest. My son is willing to forgive her childish pleasure in a boy’s passing homage, and has obtained the King’s sanction to an immediate marriage.’
‘Which, to spare you, my dear,’ added the aunt, ‘shall take place in our chapel.’
‘It shall never take place anywhere,’ said Eustacie, quietly, though with a quiver in her voice; ‘no priest will wed me when he has heard me.’