"Then who drew the bolts of the door on the terrace?"
"Nobody comes into the house that way," replied Gerard, pouring oil into his lamp.
"I did," returned Louis.
The worthy German looked more astonished at this information, than he had seemed to be when he suspected the learned secretary had passed through the key-hole, by some of the occult arts of Ignatius; who his wife had long persuaded her credulous husband to believe, was nothing short of a wicked necromancer.
Louis followed the sluggish steps of his attendant to every door that opened from the house; and being satisfied that all were safe, he bade Gerard good-night, who mumbled out the same, without casting a thought on the unusual caution of his master. Louis proceeded to the room which contained all the state-manuscripts that were yet under his care; and feeling no sleep in his eyes, or in his wishes, he laid his pistols on the table, and prepared to watch and to meditate until morning.
CHAP. X.
When morning broke, it found the wearied spirit of Louis fast reposing under his closed eye-lids. He had arraigned himself and his fair mistress before the bar of his reason, again and again. He fatigued memory in recalling every word he had ever heard her utter, to judge how her former sentiments agreed with her late unqualified declaration on the side of expediency; and, to his consternation he found that he could recollect no one generous thought from her lips, which had not been the echo of some opinion from his own. She had never led the way in noble sentiment. How different was the case in his conversations with his now far distant Cornelia and Alice! Sympathy reigned throughout their circle, and it was only to speak first to have the good fortune to promulgate the thought of every breast.
What then, had the woman he regarded as Perfection's self, had she met only one compulsive occasion of declaring her unbiassed opinion on a subject of principle; and had she proved herself divested of any? Devoted alone to the dominancy of passion, whether it point to the right or to the wrong? To him, who had been brought up at the feet of the christian instructor of Lindisfarne, it was no excuse that devotedness to love, or zeal in friendship, were her motives for abandoning the rule of human conduct. They were the hills of paradise, on which man might repose his grateful heart, but there was a heaven above them; and when its flaming sword passed between him and his earthly Eden, Louis believed there should be obedience without appeal.