"I am going with you to see Ange," she said.
The wind was howling, the rain was pattering outside. But Monsieur Joseph had all the trouble in the world to make her give up this idea. At last, after many arguments and prayers, he persuaded her that she must not come to Les Chouettes but must absolutely trust Ange to him. He promised solemnly that the young man should not start without her knowing it, that, if possible, she should see her boy again.
"And if Urbain comes back before they are gone?" she said, looking whitely into his face. "I tell you positively, Joseph, I shall not dare—"
"My dear friend, owing to Monsieur le Curé's unfortunate second-sight, your son's life is in your hands. If Urbain comes back, tell him all, if you will. His presence did not save Ange from being arrested before, it will not save him from being retaken. My fault, perhaps, as Urbain said—all my fault—" He struck his breast as if in church, with his fine smile. "But then it is my place to save him, and I will do it, if you will let me—in my own way."
They were both trembling, and large tears ran down the old Curé's thin cheeks. Joseph, still smiling, bent to kiss her hand. He held it for a moment, then looked up with dark imploring eyes.
"Adieu, chère Anne! and think of me with all your charity!" he said.
A minute later he had slipped noiselessly out, and plunged alone into the wet, howling darkness.
Through those days of suspense, while Angelot was hidden at Les Chouettes, while master and servants alike acted on the supposition that the house was watched by gendarmes with all the power of the Ministry of Police behind them—through these days, one person alone was happy; it was Henriette. She adored her cousin; it was joy to watch over him, to scold him, to amuse him, to keep him, a difficult matter, within the bounds prescribed by his uncle. Every day Angelot said it was impossible; he must be ill, he must die, if he could not stretch his legs and breathe the open air. Every day Henriette, when her father was out, allowed him to race up and down the stairs, played at hide-and-seek with him in the passages, let him dance her round and round the lower rooms. Or else she played games with him, cards, chess, tric-trac; or he lay and listened to her while she told him fairy tales; listened with a dreamy half-understanding, with a certainty, underlying all his impatience, that there was nothing to live for now. What did it matter, after all? One moment, life and hope and youth made him thrill and tremble in every limb; the next, his fate weighed upon him like a millstone; he laid his head down on the broad pillow of the sofa, and while Henriette chattered his eyelashes were sometimes wet. All was settled now. He must be banished to England, to Germany, banished in a cause he did not care for, in which he was involved against his will. Never again should he walk with his gun and Négo, light-hearted, over his own old country. Never again, more certainly, should he see Hélène, feel the maddening sweetness of her touch, her kiss. There was to be a ball. Henriette told him all about it; he heard of his cousin Hervé's visit, and was half amused, half miserable. Hélène would dance; white and slender, her eyes full of sadness. She would dance with other men, thinking, he knew, of her lost friend, her Angelot. In time, one of them would be presented to her as her husband. Not Ratoneau; Angelot had her father's word for that, and he drew a long breath when he thought of it. But some one else; that was inevitable. Ah! as life must pass, why cannot it pass more quickly? Why must every day have such an endless number of hours and minutes? What torture is there greater than this of waiting, stifled and idle, for a fate arranged in spite of one's self?
Henriette flitted in and out, eager and earnest like her father. After Monsieur Joseph's visit to La Marinière, he sent her there one day with Marie, and she was embraced by her aunt Anne with a quite new passion of tenderness, and trusted with a letter and a huge parcel of necessaries for Angelot's journey. Monsieur Joseph laughed a little angrily over these.
"Tiens, mon petit! your mother thinks you are going to drive to the coast in a chaise and four," he said; but Angelot bent his head very gravely over the coats and the shirts that those little thin hands had folded together for him.