As Albert Maurice spoke, the cheek of the druggist turned even paler than before; and he answered, in a subdued voice, "Ha! indeed! We do, then, know more of each other that I thought. But this is all vain," he added, after a momentary pause; "if you know so much you know, too, that I love you. But, Albert Maurice, I must--I will have my revenge."
"You shall have justice," replied the young citizen, "and I will not oppose you; though I think reason, and humanity, and a right construction of the law, should save the unhappy men at whom you aim. The day after to-morrow, however, plead your own cause before the council in the town-hall. I will be absent; and if they judge for you, I will not interpose by word or deed."
The druggist paused, and thought for a moment. "Be it so," he said, at length. "They must condemn them: and now for you, Albert Maurice. Mark me! There are two paths open before you. The one, which you seem choosing for yourself, leads to a long struggle between the people and the throne, which, after nicely balancing rights, and weighing tenderly the thousand grains of dust that constitute all questions of government and policy, shall end in nothing for the state, and your own death and ruin. The other, on which I would guide you, conducts, by a few bold strides, to power, to empire, and to love! You see I know you, too! Choose for yourself, and let your actions speak the result. Farewell! I will be ever by your side, to prompt you to your own advantage, even to the last moment."
Thus speaking, the druggist quitted the apartment, and followed the rest of the citizens; while Albert Maurice remained in the solitude of his own chamber, with his eyes fixed still upon the spot where Ganay had stood.
"To power--to empire--to love!" he repeated, in a low tone "How dexterously yon man knows to mix the small portion of leaven, calculated to turn and change the whole heart of him to whom he speaks. To power--to empire--and to love!" and the young burgher seated himself slowly, and turned his head towards the shady side of the room, as if the very light of the lamps looked into his heart, and disturbed the intense thoughts that were working in the dark chamber of his bosom.
"No!" he cried, at length, clasping his hands together; "no! not no! My country, thou shalt be my first object! and if, in serving thee, without one effort for myself, aught of good befall me personally, I will receive it, only as a reward for working thy freedom; but never shall the thought of my individual wishes mingle with my aspirations for the benefit of my native land. Fiend! how thou hast tempted me!"
He then gave a moment or two to other ideas connected with his situation at the time; and the first blossom of that full harvest of regrets, which every man, who sows the Cadmean seeds of civil strife, is destined to reap in bitterness of heart, rose up in his bosom, as he thought of the fate of the unhappy men, whom he felt forced to yield to the revenge of Ganay; or to resign every hope of delivering his country. It was the first sacrifice of better feeling he had yet been obliged to make; but the first is ever the augury of many more. Albert Maurice, indeed, would fain have persuaded himself that it was not a sacrifice. He strove to prove to his own mind that the men deserved their fate. He called up instances of their severity--of their cruelty; and recapitulated to his own heart the specious sophistry of Ganay; asserting that the act they had committed, however just had been their sentence on the druggist's son, was illegal from the previous death of him from whom alone they derived their power. He reasoned, he argued in vain--his heart was unsatisfied; when a neighbouring clock, striking the hour of five, made him start from his seat, and gladly take advantage of its warning voice, to cast away thoughts that brought regret, in the busy activity of preparing the city to hold firmly the power it had assumed.
CHAPTER XXI.
We shall pass over the forenoon of the following day rapidly. The news of her father's death reached Mary of Burgundy early in the morning; and though she wept long and bitterly, her grief was now more calm and tranquil than it had been while uncertainty remained mingled with sorrow. More agitating tidings, however, had reached the Lord of Imbercourt and the Chancellor Hugonet, at a still earlier hour: for, by daybreak, the first rumours of the disarming of the soldiery, and the seizure of the gates and walls of the city by the burgher guard, had been communicated to them; and before they could take any measures in consequence, the painful fact that every post or defence in Ghent was in the hands of the citizens, had been reported from all quarters. Respect for the grief of the princess caused them to withhold from her, for some hours, the knowledge which they themselves possessed of the state of the city; and it was only when, by means of some other private agents, they received information that the principal burghers of the town had assembled in the town-house, and were voting a petition to the princess, praying a restitution of all those rights and privileges of which they had been deprived by Duke Charles, that they found it absolutely necessary to communicate to her, both what had occurred and what was likely to follow.
The news affected Mary of Burgundy less than they had expected; and, indeed, proved only a sufficient stimulus to rouse her from the grief into which she had fallen.