"That they assuredly did!" replied Herval, his brows knitting as he spoke; "and if we had not been commanded by such a man, they would not only have kept him, but us too. One half of our people failed us. Boursault was not there. Kerac and his band never came. We were full seven hundred short, and then the petard went off too soon, and did no good, but brought the whole town upon us. They had dragoons, too, from Niort; and tried first to drive us back, then to take us in flank by the tower-street, then to barricade the way behind us; but they found they had to do with a Count de Morseiul, and they were met every where, and every where defeated. Yet, after all," continued the man, "he will ruin us from his fear of shedding any blood but his own. But I must go in and see after the good man; and then speed to the woods. We shall be close round about, and one sound of a conch[[3]] will bring a couple of hundred to help you, good Antoine."
Thus saying, he went into the cottage, where Clémence had already taken her place by the side of the unhappy pastor's bed; and, on the approach of Herval, she raised her finger gently to indicate that he slept. He had, indeed, fallen into momentary slumber, utterly exhausted by suffering and fatigue; but the fallen temples--the sharpened features--the pale ashy hue of the countenance, showed to the eyes of Clémence, at least, that the sleep was not that from which he would wake refreshed and better. Herval, less acute in his perceptions, judged differently; and, after assuring Clémence in a whisper that she was quite in safety there, as the woods round were filled with the band, he left her, promising to return ere night.
Clémence would fain have asked after Albert of Morseiul, and might, perhaps, have expressed a wish to see him; but there were strange feelings of timidity in her heart which kept her silent till the man was gone, and then she regretted that she had not spoken, and accused herself of weakness. During the time that she now sat watching by the pastor's side, she had matter enough for thought in her own situation. What was now to become of her, was a question that frequently addressed itself to her heart; and, more than once, as she thus sat and pondered, the warm ingenuous blood rushed up into her cheek at thoughts which naturally arose in her bosom from the consideration of the strange position in which she was placed. Albert of Morseiul had not seen her, she knew. He could not even divine or imagine that she was at Thouars at all, much less in the prison itself; but yet she felt somewhat reproachfully towards him, as if he should have divined that it was she whom he saw borne along, not far from the unhappy pastor. Though she acknowledged, too, in her own heart, that there were great excuses to be made for the decided part which her lover had taken in the insurrection of that part of the country, still she was not satisfied, altogether, with his having done so; still she called him, in her own heart, both rash and ungrateful.
On the other hand, she remembered, that she had written to him in haste, and in some degree of anger, or, at least, of bitter disappointment; that she had refused, without explaining all the circumstances which prevented her, to share his flight as she had previously promised; that, hurried and confused, she had neither told him that, at the very time she was writing, the Duchess de Rouvré waited to accompany her to the court, and that to fly at such a moment was impossible; nor that, during the whole of the following day, she was to remain at Versailles, where the eyes of every one would be upon her, more especially attracted towards her by the news of her lover's flight, which must, by that time, be generally known. She feared, too, that in that letter she had expressed herself harshly, even unkindly; she feared that those very words might have driven the Count into the desperate course which he had adopted, and she asked herself, with feelings such as she had never experienced before, when contemplating a meeting with Albert of Morseiul, how would he receive her?
In short, in thinking of the Count, she felt that she had been somewhat in the wrong in regard to her conduct towards him. But she felt, also, at the same time, that he had been likewise in the wrong, and, therefore, what she had first to anticipate were the words of mutual reproach, rather than the words of mutual affection. Such was one painful theme of thought, and how she was to shape her own immediate conduct was another. To return to the house of the Duc de Rouvré seemed utterly out of the question. She had been found in the prison of Claude de l'Estang. Her religious feelings could no longer be concealed; her renunciation of the Catholic faith was sure, at that time, to be looked upon as nothing short of treason; and death or eternal imprisonment was the only fate that would befall her, if she were once cast into the hands of the Roman Catholic party.
What then was she to do? Was she to throw herself at once upon the protection of Albert of Morseiul? Was she to bind her fate to his for ever, at the very moment when painful points of difference had arisen between them? Was she to cast herself upon his bounty as a suppliant, instead of holding the same proud situation she had formerly held,--instead of being enabled to confer upon him that which he would consider an inestimable benefit, while she herself enhanced its value beyond all price, by the sacrifice of all and every thing for him? Was she now, on the contrary,--when it seemed as if she had refused to make that sacrifice for his sake,--to come to him, as a fugitive, claiming his protection, to demand his bounty and his support, and to supplicate permission to share the fate in which he might think she had shown a disinclination to participate, till she was compelled to do so?
The heart of Clémence de Marly was wrung at the thought. She knew that Albert of Morseiul was generous, noble, kind-hearted. She felt that, very likely, he might view the case in much brighter hues than she herself depicted it to her own mind; she felt that, if she were a suppliant to him, no reproach would ever spring to his lips; no cold averted look would ever tell her that he thought she had treated him ill. But she asked herself whether those reproaches would not be in his heart; and the pride, which might have taken arms and supported her under any distinct and open charge, gave way at the thought of being condemned, and yet cherished.
How should she act, then? how should she act? she asked herself; and as Clémence de Marly was far from one of those perfect creatures who always act right from the first impulse, the struggle between contending feelings was long and terrible, and mingled with some tears. Her determination, however, was right at length.
"I will tell him all I have felt, and all I think," she said. "I will utter no reproach: I will say not one word to wound him: I will let him see once more, how deeply and truly I love him. I will hear, without either pride or anger, any thing that Albert of Morseiul will say to me, and then, having done so, I will trust to his generosity to do the rest. I need not fear! Surely, I need not fear!" and, with this resolution, she became more composed, the surest and the strongest proof that it was right.
But, to say the truth, since the perils of the night just passed, since she had beheld him she loved in a new character; since, with her own eyes, she had seen him commanding in the strife of men, and every thing seeming to yield to the will of his powerful and intrepid mind, new feelings had mingled with her love for him, of which, what she had experienced when he rode beside her at the hunting party at Poitiers, had been but, as it were, a type. It was not fear, but it was some degree of awe. She felt that, with all her own strength of mind, with all her own brightness of intellect and self-possession, there were mightier qualities in his character to which she must bow down: that she, in fact, was woman, altogether woman, in his presence.