Madame de Chazeul felt none of these things. She maintained a decent gravity, indeed, but kept her eye fixed upon the countenance of her brother, marking the varying emotions that passed over his countenance, and calculating very accurately, the sources from which they sprang in his mind. From time to time, she suffered her own thoughts to revert to the conduct which she had to pursue; and her insight into her brother's character, with the moving picture his face displayed, aided her not a little in determining her course. Of the rest of the things around her, she took little or no heed. It was but a pageant in which she took a part; a procession in which she walked; one of those ceremonies, in which, her state and station as a mortal being, required her to share.
Too much, indeed, are we apt to go through all the strange and instructive scenes of life, as if we were automata. Their lessons are learned by rote, and not by heart; and oh! how much wiser, and how much better, should we be, if out of everything that surrounds us, out of each event affecting ourselves and others, lighted by the word of God, we were to draw the high moral that is to be found in all his doings! Who would dare to commit wrong, if he saw the hand of God close to him in every event of existence?
All was, at length, concluded; the body deposited in its last home; the priest returned to the altar; the labourer with his pickaxe, and his trowel ready at the side of the vault, to close the coffin of the good old Commander for ever from the light of day; and Monsieur de Liancourt, offering his hand to his sister, led her out into the court.
The spring sunshine was beaming brightly; a light bird, perched upon a shrub that grew out of the wall, was caroling sweetly in the warm air--the image of thoughtless life; and the Count felt relieved; for it was all over, and his heavy thoughts were buried with his brother in the tomb. Madame the Chazeul too felt relieved, though in another manner, for she had dreaded the effect of what had just taken place upon her brother's mind. It was done. The sad paraphernalia of the funeral would soon be removed from the chapel; the decorations for the marriage would take their place; and it seemed to her as if a step was gained.
"Well, Jacqueline," said the Count, as they came forth: "what is it you have to tell me?"
"It must be in private," replied the Marchioness, "for various reasons, which you will soon see. Come to my apartments, where we shan't be interrupted.--But first give orders about the marriage. We cannot get any flowers but violets and snowdrops: but they must deck the hall and the chapel out as well as they can. You are sure the notary will be here?--tell them to have everything ready." She did nothing without art, and even these ordinary words had their object.
The Count hesitated, but her ascendancy was complete; and, after a short pause, he called some of his servants to him, gave several of those orders, which his sister knew he would not be willing to recall, for fear of betraying that weakness of resolution of which he was internally conscious, and then accompanied the Marchioness to her apartment.
CHAPTER XXXVIII.
It is very rarely, indeed, I believe, that human beings become, even by long habit, so hardened in evil as to commit crimes deliberately, without some shrinking reluctance, without some moments of hesitation and dismay. The voice of conscience may be reduced to a whisper; but still, if an interval of silence occurs in the tumult of the passions, that whisper is heard. If unattended to for reformation of purpose, it does, indeed, but serve to irritate the guilty mind to more culpable excess; for conscience, by those who are resolute in wickedness, is soon ranked amongst their enemies, as one of those to be overcome by the more vehement opposition; and in its defiance they go beyond even the point they at first desired, as a fierce and hard-mouthed horse leaps much farther than is necessary to clear an opposing fence.
As Madame de Chazeul walked to her room with her brother, a momentary glimpse, a vision as in a dream, a picture like the scene of a play, presented itself to her all at once, of the complicated intrigue in which she had involved herself, the difficulties which awaited her whichever way she turned, the consequences of the deceits she had practised, their ultimate exposure, and the contempt and suspicion which might follow her after-life, from the discovery of all the falsehoods she had told, and all the arts she had had recourse to.