Just before going to his brother's room, the Duke, who was resolved upon a reconciliation, walked for five minutes on the lawn. Involuntary fits of wrath returned upon him, and he feared that he might not be master of himself, if the Marquis should renew his admonitions. At last he came to a decision, went up stairs, crossed a long vestibule, hearing his blood beat so loudly in his temples as to conceal the sound of his footsteps.
Urbain was alone at the farther end of the library, a long room in the ogive style, with slender arches, which his small lamp lighted but feebly. He was not reading; but hearing the approach of the Duke, he had placed a book before himself, ashamed of appearing unable to work.
The Duke stopped to look at him before saying a word. His dull paleness, and his eyes hollow with suffering, touched the Duke deeply. He was going to offer his hand, when the Marquis rose and said to him in a grave voice: "My brother, I offended you very much an hour ago. I was unjust probably, and, in any case, I had no right to remonstrate with you,—I who, having loved but one woman in my whole life, have yet been the guilty cause of her ruin and her death. I confess the absurdity, the harshness, the arrogance of my words, and I sincerely beg your pardon."
"Well, then, I thank you with all my heart," replied Gaëtan, taking him by both hands; "you are doing me a great kindness, for I had resolved to make an apology to you. The deuce take me, if I know what for! But I said to myself, that in wrestling with you under the trees, I must have excited your nerves. Perhaps I hurt you; my hand is heavy. Why didn't you speak to me? And then—and then—Come, I had been causing you much suffering, and perhaps for a long time, without knowing it; but I could not guess,—I ought to have suspected it, though, and I, too, sincerely beg your pardon for that, my poor brother. Ah! why did you lack confidence in me after what we had both solemnly promised?"
"Have confidence in you!" rejoined the Marquis; "do you not see that this is my greatest need, my keenest thirst, and that my wrath was only grief? I wept for it, this confidence that was put in question, I wept bitter tears for it. Give it back to me; I cannot do without it."
"What must I do? Tell me, do tell me! I am ready to go through fire and water! It is only the trial by water which I beg you to spare. What if I should be called upon to drink it!"
"Ah! you laugh at everything; do you not see that you do?"
"I laugh—I laugh—because it is my way of being pleased, and from the moment you love me again, the rest is nothing. And then what is there so very serious? You love this charming girl. You are not wrong. Do you wish me never to speak to her, and never to meet her, or never to look at her? It shall be done, I swear, it, and if this is not enough, I will set out to-morrow, or now, if you like, on Blanche. I don't see what worse thing I can do?"
"No, no, don't go away, don't desert me! Do you not see, Gaëtan, that I am dying?"
"My God! why do you say that?" cried the Duke, lifting up the shade of the lamp and looking his brother in the face; then he seized the hands of the Marquis, and, not finding the pulse readily, laid both his own on his brother's chest, and felt the disordered and uneven beating of the invalid's heart.