She sat down on the chair in which she had been reading with a look of melancholy thoughtfulness, and Charles of Montsoreau sat down beside her, and there was a long silent pause, for the hearts of both were too full of agitating feelings for words to be plentiful at first. The moment and the circumstances, indeed, took from love all shame and hesitation. Death and deprivation and desolation gave affection a brighter, a holier light,--it was like some eternal flame burning upon the altar of a ruined temple.
Marie de Clairvaut felt that at that moment she could speak things that at any other time she would have sunk into the earth to say; she felt that--with the exception of their trust in God--his love for her and hers for him formed the grand consolation of the moment, the healing balm, the great support of that hour of peril and of terror. She looked at him and he at her, and they mutually thought that a few hours perhaps might see them there, dying or dead by each other's side, with love for the only comfort of their passing hour--with the voice of death pronouncing their eternal union, and the grave their bridal bed.
They thus thought, and it may seem strange to say, but--prepared as their minds were for leaving the life of this earth behind them--such a death to them appeared sweet; and neither feared it, but looked forward upon the grim enemy of human life, not with the stern defying frown of the martyr, not with the fierce and angry daring of the warrior, but with the calm sweet smile of resignation to the will of Heaven, and hopes beyond the tomb.
Thus they remained silent, or with but few words, for some time; and Charles of Montsoreau felt that he was beloved. Indeed, there was not a word, there was not a look, that did not tell him so: and yet he longed to hear more; he longed that those words should be spoken which would confirm, by the living voice of her he loved, the assurance of his happiness. Gradually he won her from conversing of the present to speak of the past; and she gently reproached him for leaving her at Montsoreau so suddenly as he had done.
"Marie," he said, with that frankness which had always characterised him, "let me tell you all; and then see if I did right or wrong. If I did wrong, you shall blame me still, and I will grieve and make any atonement in my power; but if I only mistook, and did not act wrong intentionally, you shall forgive me, and tell me that you love me."
Marie de Clairvaut gazed in his face, and asked, "And do you doubt it now, Charles?"
"Oh, no!" he cried, "oh, no! I ought not to doubt it, for Marie de Clairvaut could not speak such words as she has spoken without loving." And gently bending down his head over her, he pressed a kiss upon that dear fair brow. "Marie," he said, "it is our fate to meet in strange scenes. The last time that I kissed that brow, the last time that I held you to my heart, was when I thought you dead, and lost to me for ever."
"And when I woke up," replied Marie de Clairvaut, "and was not only grateful to God and to you for having saved me, but happy in its being you that did save me, and happy," she added, slightly dropping her eyes, "in the signs of deep affection which I saw."
"And yet," he exclaimed, "and yet, when my stay or my departure hung upon a single word from your lips, you gave me to understand that you had not received those signs of affection as signs of affection; that you looked upon them but as the natural effect of my witnessing your restoration to life, when I thought you dead."
"Oh, Charles!" exclaimed Marie de Clairvaut, with a slight smile, "could you not pardon and understand such small hypocrisy as that? Did you not know that woman's heart is shy, and seeks many a hiding-place, even from the pursuit of one it loves?"