Mademoiselle Moineau, flushed, agitated, in her best gown, stood on the threshold with hands uplifted.
"What—what is all this?" she stammered; and the scene that met her eyes was certainly strange enough to bewilder a respectable governess.
It had occurred to Madame de Sainfoy to miss her daughter from the ball-room. Suspecting that the stupid girl had escaped to her own room, she had told Mademoiselle Moineau to fetch her at once, to insist on her coming down and dancing. And even now, in spite of this amazing, horrifying spectacle, in spite of the Comte's presence, and his voice repeating, "Come in, mademoiselle!" the little woman was brave enough to protest.
"What is happening?" she said, and hurried a few steps forward. "Hélène, I am astonished. This must be stopped at once. Good heavens, what will Madame la Comtesse say!"
"Let me beg you to be silent, mademoiselle," said Hervé de Sainfoy.
He had already closed and locked the door. He now bent forward with an almost savage look; his pleasant face was utterly transformed by strong feeling.
"Sit down," he said peremptorily. "You see me; I am here. My authority is sufficient, remember—Monsieur le Curé, have the goodness to proceed."
Mademoiselle Moineau sank down on a bench and groaned. Her shocked, staring eyes took in every detail of the scene; the banished lover, the supposed prisoner, in his country clothes, with that dark woodland look of his; the white girl in her ball-dress, standing with bent head, and not moving or looking up, even at her mother's name. The joined hands, white and brown; the young, low voices, plighting their troth one to the other; then the trembling tones of the old priest alone in solemn Latin words, "Ego conjungo vos in matrimonium...."
The service went on; and now no one, not even Monsieur de Sainfoy, took any notice of the unwilling spectator. She was a witness in spite of herself. She sank on her knees and sobbed in a corner, partly from real distress at a marriage she thought most foolish and unsuitable, partly from fear of what Madame de Sainfoy might say or do. Her rage must certainly find some victim. She would never believe that Mademoiselle Moineau could not have escaped and called her in time to interrupt this frantic ceremony. As for Monsieur de Sainfoy, his brain must certainly have given way. The poor governess hoped little from him, though he showed some method in his madness by leaving her locked up in the chapel when they all went away and telling her to wait there in silence till he came back. At least that was better than being forced to go down alone to announce this catastrophe to Hélène's mother. The Comtesse would have been capable of turning her out into midnight darkness after the first dozen words.
Hélène, her dearest wish and wildest dream fulfilled in this strange fashion, seemed to be walking in her sleep. She obeyed her father's orders without a word to him or to Angelot, threw on a cloak, and followed them and the Curé down the steep blackness of the winding stairs. At the door her father put out his light, and it was his hand that guided her through the long grass and bushes in the moat, while Angelot gave all his care to the old priest. At the top of the steps, as the four hastily crossed into the deeper shadows of the wood, the tall and strange figure of Martin Joubard appeared out of the gloom. A few hurried words to him, and he readily undertook to see the Curé safely home. The sight of Monsieur de Sainfoy impressed him amazingly; it was evident that Monsieur Angelot had not been acting without authority. Martin stared with all his eyes at the cloaked woman's figure in the background, but promised himself to have all details from the Curé on their way through the lanes.