The Marchioness laughed. "Did you ever know me without a plan?" she asked; "but my present scheme is somewhat difficult to explain. However, do you not think, good father, that things might be so contrived, as to render, in a marvellous short time, a wedding with my son Chazeul, a very good and expedient thing in the eyes of Rose d'Albret herself?"
"What do you mean?" exclaimed the priest after a moment or two of consideration. "You would use no violence? You would not--surely you would not do her a bitter wrong!"
"Oh, no!" cried the Marchioness, "but simply by means and contrivances, which I well know how to manage, make her believe that her fair fame is lost, if she do not marry Chazeul. Luckily, he has a goodly reputation as a bold and successful lover, and so the matter will have every appearance of truth."
"But can you ever clear a fame once clouded?" asked the priest; "can you remove the black plague-spot from the fair name which you have stained? Alas! lady, in this world, every idle tongue, every vain, licentious man, every rancorous woman, can blast the reputation of the good and bright, even by a light word; but where is the power that can restore it? Foul suspicion still whispers the disproved lie in the ear of the credulous multitude, and human malice receives it with delight, and propagates the scandal with busy pertinacity. Will you thus destroy the good name of your son's wife?"
"Only to make her his wife!" replied Madame de Chazeul, "only to herself;" and she proceeded to detail her plan, not sincerely, indeed, not fully; for she was one of those who can deal in complete sincerity with no one; but the priest knew her well, and gathered that which she did not tell, from that which she did. His brow was doubtful and gloomy, however, and he asked, "And yet no violence?"
"None, none!" cried Madame de Chazeul.
"Well," he said, after another long pause, "perhaps it is the only way to obtain her acquiescence.--Yet I love not such plans; and am glad that I myself am to play no part in the affair."
"But should you hear or see Chazeul," asked the Marchioness, "You will take no notice?"
"I shall neither hear nor see him," replied the priest, "for I keep vigil in the chapel by your brother's corpse, according to my promise, until matins."
"That is fortunate!" cried Madame de Chazeul; and then she added, lest he should put his own interpretation on her exclamation, "I mean, that you will be thus freed from all personal knowledge of the business."