At length, as they descended the side of the hill, Charles of Montsoreau lifted his eyes to the face of his fair companion, saying in a low tone, "I told you this morning, Mademoiselle de Clairvaut, that I should ask a few minutes' audience of you. Let me offer you my arm--nay, be not agitated, I have nothing to say which should move you. I have to apologise, as I told you, for some parts of my conduct yesterday, and to ask you to forgive me."
"Oh, I told you," she replied, "and I tell you again, that there is nothing to apologise for, nothing that I have to forgive; every thing that I have to be grateful for, every thing that will make me thankful to you through my whole life."
"Would that I could believe it were so!" replied Charles of Montsoreau. "But I remember that in the first agony of thinking you lost for ever, of thinking that bright spirit gone, that gentle heart cold, that beautiful form inanimate for ever, I gave way to transports of grief and sorrow, I spoke words, I used actions, that I neither would have dared to speak or use towards you, if I had known that you were then living and conscious. And yet I am sure, quite sure, that you knew, and saw, and heard those words and actions; and I fear that they may have offended you."
"Oh no, no, indeed!" replied Marie de Clairvaut, with her eyes bent down, her hand trembling upon his arm, and the colour glowing bright in her cheek--"Oh no, no, indeed! I did see, I did hear; but----"
In the course of that bright and beautiful thing called Love, very often between two beings in every respect worthy of each other there comes a moment when the very slightest touch of that pardonable hypocrisy in woman, which, from a combination of many bright and beautiful feelings, teaches her in some degree to veil or hide the passion of her heart--when the slightest touch of that hypocrisy, I say, at a moment when it should be all cast away together, and the bosom of love laid bare to the eye of love--when the slightest touch of that hypocrisy seals the misery of both for ever.
It was such a moment then with Charles of Montsoreau and Marie de Clairvaut. She knew not all that was in his heart at that moment, she could not know it; but she knew herself beloved, and might well have acknowledged her love in return. Had she done so, had she acknowledged that her own feelings towards him had rendered the caresses which he bestowed upon what he thought her dead form easily pardonable, the passionate grief for her death deeply touching to her heart--had she done this, their course might have gone on in brightness. But she knew not all that was in his heart at that moment, she could not know it; and the first impulse was to give way to woman's habitual hypocrisy, to cast a veil over the true feelings of her heart, and to hide the timid love of her bosom till it was drawn forth by him.
"Oh no, no, indeed!" she said; "I did see, I did hear; but--I thought it was but natural grief for one under your charge and protection that you thought lost in so terrible a manner----"
She hesitated to go on; she feared that she spoke coldly; and she thought of adding some word or two more which might take from the chilliness of such an answer, and let her real feelings more truly appear. Before she could collect herself to do so, however, Charles of Montsoreau answered, with a deep sigh, "You thought it was but natural, Mademoiselle de Clairvaut; you thought it was but natural; and so, indeed----"
But as he spoke, his brother turned the angle of the little wood through which they were proceeding down the hill, and came towards them, followed by several of the huntsmen. There was a frown upon his brow, a fire in his dark eye, which Charles of Montsoreau saw and understood full well. But he met his brother calmly and steadfastly--with deep and bitter grief in his heart, it is true, but with grief which he had power over himself to conceal.
The angry feelings of the heart of Gaspar de Montsoreau were not so easily repressed, and he spoke in a tone and manner well calculated to produce angry words between himself and his brother.