After a minute's pause, while he stood painfully silent, she resumed in great emotion.
"What is it I have done, to deserve this harsh contempt? Oh, de Montemar, I have only proved myself, a fond, a feeble woman? For your sake, I gave way to the suggestions of a zeal, that would have carried me, as surely on the points of your enemies' daggers, as to violate the letter which gave notice of your danger.—And thus am I repaid!"
With a suffocating gasp, she fell back into the chair on which she sat, and covered her face with her hands. Her whole frame was shook, as if life were indeed passing in agonizing throes from her body. The heart of man could not bear this. Could these mortal struggles be indeed dissimulation?—Whatever they might be, he could not look on them unmoved. He hastily approached her, and touched her hand. It was cold as death, but the plastic fingers closed on his agitated pressure. He trembled fearfully as he drew it away from her pale face, and beheld those matchless features convulsed with mental agony. Again her eyes opened upon him, as he hung over her. They fixed themselves on his face, with a languid, but pleading sorrow.
"Countess!" said he in a voice of anguish. "Oh, call me Otteline—your Otteline!" cried she, impetuously grasping his arm, and hiding her face on it; "or, repeat that word, and release me, by killing me! But, I have survived your esteem, and why should I longer wish to live?"
His heart was subdued; and with tears starting from his own eyes, he exclaimed. "And is it possible that you do really love me?"
In that moment she was on her knees beside him. She clasped her hands; and looked up with such beaming beauty in every feature, such effulgence in her dewy eyes; that his were rivetted on her, as they would have been on a kneeling angel. Her lips appeared vainly to attempt sounds, that were too big for utterance; and, finding it impracticable, she turned towards him, and meeting the relenting expression of his anguished countenance, she smiled like heaven, and threw herself upon his breast. Louis's heart heaved, and panted under the beautiful burden it sustained, as her sighs breathed on his cheek, and her tender tears bathed it; but, even in that moment of female victory, the excess of his emotion smote on that betrayed heart: and sensible to all the shame of his defeat, the rapid current in his veins, chilled to its former ice; and, with a tremor, far from ecstacy, he replaced her in her chair, and, almost unconsciously knelt down by her side.—But the attitude was dictated by his humbled sense of his own weakness, not, indeed, addressed to her; though he now believed she loved him; and while he looked on her agitated frame, he thought to himself:—
"If I cannot be happy myself, in the degradation to which I am doomed; at least, I do not leave you miserable! I will cherish, and protect; and, perhaps, recall that fond heart, to respect the principles of her husband!" As he thus thought, he raised her hand to his lips; and, by that action, sealed to himself, the compact to be hers.
"My de Montemar!" murmured the Countess, feeling the import of this mute symbol. At this crisis, she heard a light step in the room. She looked round, and beheld the young Arch-duchess, standing pale, and fixed in the middle of the floor, with her eyes rivetted on the kneeling figure of Louis.
"The Princess!" exclaimed Otteline, in a voice of surprise, to Louis.
He started from his knee, and in the confusion of his feelings, retreated a few paces back. The gentle Maria Theresa smiled mournfully, but did not speak. Taking her hand, the Countess enquired her commands. The Princess still kept her eyes fixed on Louis, while, in a suppressed and unsteady voice, she answered her governess.