"I never loved but you, Marie," replied the Count, "and I am sadly ignorant, I fear, of woman's heart. Nevertheless, upon those few words and that moment depended my fate."
"I knew not that," cried Marie de Clairvaut, eagerly; "I knew not that, or, upon my honour, I would have been more sincere: but what was it, Charles, made you take so sudden a resolution? what was it made you leave me, without a reply, in the hands of those who have striven constantly ever since to make me believe that you cared not for me?"
"I will tell you all," replied her lover; and, pouring forth in eloquent words all the passion of his heart towards her, he told her how his love had grown upon him, how it had increased each hour; and making that the main subject of his tale, he told but as adjuncts to it the pain which his brother's conduct had inflicted upon him, and all the signs of rivalry which he had remarked. He then spoke of his conversation with the Abbé de Boisguerin on their way to visit the Count de Morly; and he told how agonised were all his feelings--how terrible was the struggle in his heart,--and what was the resolution that he took, to ascertain whether her affections were really gained, and by the result to shape his conduct. He next spoke of his conversation with her immediately preceding his departure, and of the words which had led him to believe that she was unconscious of his love, and did not return it.
As she listened, the tears rose in her eyes, and, laying her soft fair hand on his, she said, "Forgive me, Charles! oh, forgive me! but do believe that there is not another woman on all the earth who would not have done the same."
"Alas! dear Marie," he replied, "in such knowledge you have but a child to deal with."
"Oh, be so ever, Charles!" she cried, clasping her hands and looking up in his face. "There may be women who would love you less for being so; but I trust and hope that you will never love any one but Marie de Clairvaut, and she will value your love all the more for its being, and having ever been, entirely her own. But you were speaking of the Abbé de Boisguerin, Charles--you have told me of his conversation with you--I saw, when I was at Montsoreau, that you loved and esteemed him."--She paused, and hesitated. "I fear," she added, "that what I must speak, that what I ought to tell you, may pain and grieve you:--I doubt that man, Charles--I more than doubt him."
"And so do I, Marie," replied her lover with a melancholy shake of the head; "and so do I doubt him much. Indeed, as you say, I more than doubt him, for I know and feel that he is not true."
"Alas! Charles," she replied, "I fear that in that very first conversation with you he meditated treachery towards you. I fear much, very much, that his design and purpose even then was to separate us."
"Perhaps it might be so, Marie," replied her lover: "though he has never shown any strong preference, I have often thought he loves Gaspar better than he does me."
"But it was no love of your brother, Charles," she said; "it was no love of your brother moved him then; for if your brother trusted him, he betrayed him too. Now hear me, Charles, and let me, as quickly as possible, tell a tale that makes my cheek burn, for it must be told. After you were gone, I avoided your brother's presence as far as might be. I was never with him for a moment alone if I could help it, for I could not but see feelings that were never to be returned. Although there was something from the first in the Abbé de Boisguerin that I loved not, though I could not tell why--something in his eye that made me shrink into myself with a kind of fear,--I now courted him to be with me, in order to avoid the persecution of love for which I could not feel even grateful. At first he seemed inclined to give your brother opportunities; and I believe, I firmly believe, that he did so because he knew that those opportunities would but serve to confirm the coldness of my feelings towards him. When he saw that I sought him to be with us, he seemed to yield, and was now with me often almost alone, when there was none but one or two of my women in the further end of the room. He timed his visits well; and, for a space, well did he choose his conversation too. It was such as he knew must please my ear. He told me of other lands, and of princely scenes beyond the Alps, the beauties of nature, the miracles of art, the graceful but dangerous race of the Medici, the treasures, the unrivalled treasures of Florence and of Rome. I learned to forget the prejudices--I had first taken towards him, and he saw that I listened well pleased, and then he ventured to speak of you and of your brother. But oh, Charles, he spoke not as a friend to either. He blamed not, indeed; he even somewhat praised; but he undervalued all and every thing. There was not a word of censure, but there was every now and then a light sneer in the tone, a scornful turn of the lip, and curl of the nostril. It pleased me not, and seeing it, he wisely dropped such themes. He spoke of you no more; but he spoke of himself and of his own history. He told me that his was the more ancient branch of your own family, but that reverses and misfortunes had overtaken it; and that, careless of wealth or station, and any of the bubbles which the world's grown children follow, he had made no effort to raise his own branch from the ground to which it had fallen. But he said, however, that if he had had an object, a great and powerful object, he felt within himself those capabilities of mind which might raise him over some of the highest heads in the land: and none could hear his voice, and see the keen astuteness of his eye, without believing that what he said was true. And then again he spoke of the objects, the few, the only objects, which could induce a man of great and expansive intellect to mingle in the strife and turmoil of the world; and the chief of those objects, Charles, was woman's love. He was a churchman, Charles, and had taken vows which should have frozen such words upon his lips. I was silent, and I think turned pale, and he instantly changed the conversation to other things, speaking eloquently and nobly upon great and fine feelings, as I have seen one of the modellers in wax cast on the rough harsh form that he intended to give, and then soften it down with fine and delicate touches, so as to leave it smooth and pleasant to the eye. At length we set out to join my uncle; and your brother now had opportunities of paining me greatly by the open and the rash display of feelings that grieved and hurt me. He took means too to find moments to speak with me alone, which I must not dwell upon--means which were unworthy of one of your race, Charles. He tried to deceive me into such interviews by every sort of petty art; and if the Abbé de Boisguerin came to my relief, alas! it was but now to inflict upon me worse persecution. He dared to speak to me, Charles, words that none had ever dared to speak before--words that I must not repeat, that I must not even think of here, so near the holy calmness of the dead. These words were not, indeed, addressed to me directly; but they were used to figure forth what were the passions which an ardent and fiery heart might feel. They were intended evidently to let me know of what he himself was capable: though they breathed of love, there was somewhat of menace in them likewise. The very sound of his voice, the very glare of his eyes, now became terrible to me: but he seemed to consider that I was more in his power now than I had been at Montsoreau; and I need not tell you that to me the journey was a terrible one. To end it all, Charles--as I take it for granted that you know some part of what has taken place, even by seeing you here this night--I feel sure that it was by his machinations that I was betrayed into the hands of the King, whom I have all my life been taught to abhor, and by him given up to the power of a relation, from whom I have been sheltered by all my better friends as from the most venomous of serpents."