Gabrielle remained so long in apparent torpor, while the Medusan horror on her face permanently hardened there, that the enemy waxed impatient. It is indecent for the stricken stag to lie down where shot. Decorum bids him conceal himself in the bracken--make a move of some sort to veil his agonies. Gabrielle being too crushed to make a motion must be stirred up with an eleemosynary stab.
"We will come to an arrangement," mademoiselle suggested cheerfully, "without troubling our dear marquis on the subject. Go away somewhere--to some nice place which we will engage never to visit, and I will promise never to teach anything naughty either to Victor or Camille. Refuse, and--well--h-m!"
"Oh! the wicked, wicked woman!" the marquise ejaculated, inwardly. "There must be a hell somewhere for the punishing of such villanous dastards." But in her new-born strength, the possession of which was unaccountable and amazing, she found herself enabled to smile sadly, and remark, without a tremor in her voice, "You will leave me now, if you please, and give me time to think."
That was reasonable, and desirable to boot. The more she thought, the better would she comprehend that she was hemmed in, undone; that a certain wherry was swinging on the tide, under which was a soft bed preparing.
"By all means," returned the enemy, with bonhomie. "Take time, my dear; but you must not be too long deciding. A little friendly counsel before I go: when our Clovis comes back to-morrow--for, oddly enough, he is for the present ours--better say nothing, you have disgusted him enough already."
With that she waved a light adieu, and ere long her bass voice was to be heard in the corridor, accompanying the joyous treble of her shouting charges engaged in a game of romps.
What a day's experience--a day to sear the brain and blanch the hair with silver. Gabrielle, her hands tight clasped behind her back, strode up and down the long saloon deeply immersed in thought, quite calm and self-possessed. The time for impulsive moaning and mad frenzy was gone by. Drowsy reason stood upright and alert upon her throne. At any cost of pain to herself or others duty must be done--the little ones rescued from the ogress. Even the dear father must for their sakes bear his share of the burthen. It was decreed. He must learn the truth, which she had hoped would lie buried in her grave. Victor, Camille; their blythe merriment in the corridor was an eloquent sermon. Up to now--all thanks to Heaven for it--they were unsmirched by aught of evil, their sky sunny and unclouded. Instinct told their mother that the ogress, by some paradox, was capable of some measure of wholesome affection, and would do them no injury unless it were necessary to strike through them at her. The new fledged diplomate must temporize--gain time. A power of dissimulation, to which hitherto she had been a stranger, was developing itself in Gabrielle. The dear father--he would be terribly concerned--would arrive posthaste, wreak vengeance on those who had so nearly slain his child, bear away her and his grandchildren to safety.
Gabrielle locked herself in her bedroom, and wrote with feverish energy. The pen flew over the sheets and covered them with close writing that told a piteous tale. Toinon, who knew that in the absence of my lord, both abbé and governess had been persecuting her mistress, tried the door once or twice, and, receiving no response to her knocks, grew so seriously alarmed, that she dashed off in search of Jean Boulot, dreading some new catastrophe. Just as the latter appeared with a hatchet in his grasp, and anxious lines upon his brow, the door opened, and the chatelaine herself stood on the threshold holding a letter.
She was flushed with fever, but quite self-possessed. With a strange smile she beckoned them both in, and again turned the key in the lock.
"Something has happened, dear good friends, whom I can trust," she explained, rapidly. "Something so terrible, that I cannot tell it you. I am still scared and horrified, but Heaven permits me to retain my senses. Jean, for love of me and mine, you will saddle your horse and ride leisurely to Onzain, as though bent on ordinary business; and there engage with the Maître de Poste to send this letter by special courier. He must take no rest till he reaches Paris. Two precious souls--three--depend on punctual obedience. I may trust you, Jean? Let none suspect your mission."