"You will spend the day and dine with us, will you not?"
"Ah! how gladly would I do so! But I shall be obliged to leave in an hour!"
Mr. Reed stood motionless for a moment, actually stupefied with astonishment.
"What! you are going to leave me so soon?" cried Antoinette, despairingly.
"I will explain my reasons," replied Philip.
Mr. Reed bowed and followed his wife, who had just disappeared.
Two years had passed since Philip fled with Antoinette from the burning château and from the bedside of his dying father. On quitting the scene of the catastrophe that destroyed the home of his childhood, Philip accompanied by Mlle. de Mirandol repaired to Valence. There, a friend of the Chamondrin family furnished them with the means to pursue their journey to England, which country they gained after many perils and vicissitudes.
London served as a refuge for many of the Émigrés, but Philip had chosen the capital of Great Britain as a retreat for Antoinette, principally because he knew that a portion of Mlle. de Mirandol's fortune was in the hands of a banker in that city, and because it would be easy there to obtain news from Louisiana, where the heiress of M. de Mirandol still owned considerable property.
After their perilous journey was concluded and they were safely established in England, the agitation caused by the great disaster which had deprived them of so much that they loved was succeeded by a relative calm which gave them an opportunity to look their situation in the face. They both found it exceedingly embarrassing. Antoinette remembered only that she loved Philip, and that, in obedience to the request of his dying father, he had solemnly promised to marry her. She was simply waiting for him to fulfil this promise, and already regarded herself as his wife.
As for Philip, he inwardly cursed this promise. His thoughts were constantly occupied with Dolores; he said to himself that since the convents had been broken up, she must be free if she were still alive; and he would not believe that she was dead. He was certain that she was still alive, that Coursegol had remained with her to protect her, and that the day of their meeting was near at hand. These thoughts made his heart rebel against the yoke he had striven to impose upon it; for no matter what attempts may be made to destroy it, hope will not die in a heart that loves sincerely. It resists time and the sternest ordeals. Death alone can, not destroy it, but transform it, by associating realization with the delights of a future life which shall know no blight or decay.