"You must remember, my good Father," I answered, "I am no longer a boy, and may well be expected to lose the plump, smooth-faced roundness of my youth: besides, I have seen some hard service; and more than eighteen years which I have now spent--ever more or less in the tented field--may well be supposed to take away a great deal from one's youthful freshness."
Laura sighed deeply, and Father Ferdinand gravely shook his head; and I could see distinctly that neither the one nor the other gave credit to the reasons I assigned for my altered appearance. No more questions, however, were asked; and all the bustle and the little tittle-tattle of a first arrival in the country carried us well and lightly over the evening. I dreaded, it is true, the coming of the next morning; for now that I was in the midst of the peril, I had become apprehensive of myself; I felt that each night I should have to thank God if I had done nothing wrong; I felt that every day would bring a renewed struggle against myself; I felt that I should look to every sunrise with dread, lest I should fail in resolution during the coming day. Even the sweetest and dearest feelings of my heart were causes of apprehension. Every look, every word, of Laura de Villardin was to me a subject of delight, so bright, so deep, that, conscious of all which was going on within my bosom, I feared the joy I felt in her society would each instant betray itself to others. But that fear was not all that embittered the enjoyment. I felt now but too keenly that I was nurturing a passion which must end in misery; and that the sweet, sweet draught, which I was draining to the dregs, was mingled with poison which must speedily take effect. Yet now that I grasped the cup, with the full knowledge of all that it contained, I would not have resigned it for a world till the last drop had been drained. I listened to the tones of her voice, I hung upon her every smile; and when, during the evening, with her fair arms thrown round little Clement de la Marke, she listened while the boy repeated enthusiastically how very very kind I had been to him during his illness, I gazed upon her beaming countenance till she turned her eyes towards me with a look of sweet applause; and the feelings of my heart becoming too overpowering to be mastered, I quitted the room hastily, lest the mingled emotions should make a woman of me, and overflow at my eyes.
How the night passed, it were useless to relate. Agitation such as I felt, sleeps but little; and with the grey dawn, I plunged into the woods and wandered on wildly, seeking to gain command over myself ere I encountered any of the family. For nearly two hours I pursued a varying and irregular path, avoiding the hamlets and scattered cottages that here and there sheltered themselves in the edges of the wood surrounding the Prés Vallée, and walking on, now quick, now slow, amongst the gloom of the old trees, and by the dim banks of the silent stream. Bitter, bitter was my commune with my own heart, and little way did I make in the attempt to vanquish emotions that seemed to become more turbulent under reflection. Following solely as my guide the desire of avoiding a meeting with any human being, I scarcely knew which way I turned, till at length I found myself within a few yards of the grave of the unhappy Count de Mesnil. Some impulse, I do not well know what,--whether there was a latent sympathy in my bosom with the love, however mad and vicious, which had been expiated by his death, or whether there was alone that thirst of calm repose which was to be found nowhere but in the grave, I cannot tell,--but some impulse caused me to cast myself down upon the turf that covered his remains, and, giving way to all the bitterest feelings of my heart, I wept aloud, fervently wishing that I might soon find a quiet resting-place like that.
Ere I had been there a moment, I heard a flutter of female garments bending over me; and raising my eyes, I beheld Laura de Villardin with her eyes full of tears at the suffering which she saw me endure without being able to account for. I started up, and, in the agitation of the moment, gazed upon her without salutation, while she exclaimed,--"Oh, tell me--do tell me, dear De Juvigny, what is it makes you so unhappy?"
My firmness was gone before--my good resolution vanished, and pressing the hand that she held out to me to my lips and to my heart, I told her all--how deeply, how passionately I loved her. With the warm blood crimson over her cheek and forehead, she sank down in my arms and hid her face upon my bosom, while a tear or two sprang up in her eyes, and shone like living diamonds amongst her long dark eyelashes. It was but for a moment that, yielding to woman's first impulse, she hid her face; but then, raising her look to mine, as, sitting on the very grave of De Mesnil, I held her circled in my arms, she asked,--"And is that all? Do I not love you too?"
The hardest and bitterest part of the task was still to come. I had to tell her how hopeless was our love, which her ignorance of the world had not suffered her to perceive; and although I thought I had no right to inform her that her father destined her for another, which I found he himself had not yet communicated, yet I had to explain to her that our union was quite impossible.
"But are we not very happy as we are?" she asked. "Why make yourself wretched by thinking of what you acknowledge cannot be? Why not let us live on as we now are, loving each other more dearly than anything else in life--seeing each other every day--spending our whole days together? Why not let us live thus, and be as happy as we have hitherto been?"
I had to crush the bright bubble for ever. "But," I said, "when you are required to marry some other, Laura, what will then become of me?"
"Oh, but I will never marry any one else!" she replied, eagerly: "no, no, I love you; and if I cannot marry you, of course no one else shall ever have my hand!"
"But listen to me, dear Laura," I replied. "Suppose your father makes it a command; can you disobey? Suppose he comes to you and tells you that he has plighted his word and engaged his honour that you shall be the bride of some man equal in fortune and station to yourself--will you refuse to redeem his pledge? will you offend him for ever, and bring upon him the imputation of breaking his word? Can you do it, Laura?"