“Mamma, must he go? Could we not hide him here somewhere?”
“In perpetuity,” he muttered. “Nathalie is right, mother, in one thing, for flight would only condemn me, and I could not bear it. I should not be spared a single humiliation. Besides, in these days one must be unknown to hide successfully, and all that I should gain would be the being dragged back in ignominy.”
Nathalie’s eyes were fixed anxiously upon him, her lips trembled, her shoulders contracted; it was as if she were trying to send strength from her soul to his, in his weak striving against fate.
“I believe I know what I shall do,” he went on, in a mechanically dull voice; then suddenly starting up, clasped his hands across his burning eyes, his face ghastly pale. His words came out slowly, shortly. “Yes, do not fear, mother. I know what to do. Have a little patience. I shall think of our honour, believe me.” Then he reeled, and his wife caught his arm. She was as white as he, but all her trembling had gone.
“Hush, Léon,” she said, firmly; “the shock has unnerved you so much that you do not know what you think or say. Whatever is done, even if you do go away as your mother wishes you, it could not be yet, for you could not reach the railway until dark; and you must have food. And if you stay, there is no use acting as though all were lost. Let him go to our room, madame, and come again to you later on. Come, dear love.”
Mme. de Beaudrillart made no opposition, for her strength had failed her. With a face of anguish she watched them out of the door, and fell back in her chair, scarcely conscious. Félicie, still sobbing, busied herself about her mother, and ran to fetch a handful of leaves from her stores, with which to make a tisane. Claire, dry-eyed and tense, stood with her eyes fixed on the photograph of her father, which always rested on a small easel near her mother’s chair.
“How unhappy we were when he died!” she said in a low voice, “and how much better it would have been if we had all died with him! I can never forgive Léon!”
Mme. de Beaudrillart did not speak—she could not. With her not only pride but love was smitten low—so low that her usual emotions had lost their leaders, and wandered objectless. Despair seized her whichever way she looked, and, like Claire, she, too, wished for death.
Léon submitted without resistance to his wife’s leading, clinging to her, indeed, as they passed along the passages to her room. The window leading into the stone balcony was open, and the whole air seemed to vibrate with the hoarse croaking of frogs from the pond beyond the kitchen-garden. Nathalie quietly closed it, and rang the bell. She stood at the door, and gave the astonished Rose-Marie directions to bring coffee at once, and, when it came, took it from her without allowing the girl to enter. Then she knelt by her husband, and coaxed him as if he were a child. He shuddered: “I cannot!”
“Dear, only to please me. It will do your head so much good.”