Vainly she strained her hearing to catch a sound of the dear voice, dearer, far dearer than she had ever dreamed. She could hear a leaf of the ponderous gate revolve on its rusty hinges, a horseman ride into the courtyard. There was a colloquy in low tones. Heavens! what if she had been mistaken! Yet who could the horseman be but Jean Boulot, the deputy, or some one sent by him? She heard Mademoiselle Brunelle bid some one, in commanding tones, to go in search of the abbé. "Tell him there is important news," she said. "Here is a letter despatched in haste from Blois. M. le Marquis de Gange intends to come home to-morrow."
Not Jean, then? The marquis home to-morrow! How by his arrival would the position of the prisoners be bettered? Why was he coming home to-morrow? Had something fresh transpired? He was a tacit accessory to the villainous plot of the schemers. He was led in leash, a willing slave, by that wicked man and woman.
No hope! No hope! Heaven had abandoned the victims. Overwhelmed by the quick revulsion from nascent hope to hopelessness, Toinon gave a moan, and sank swooning on the marble floor.
CHAPTER XXVII.
[THE DECKS ARE CLEARED FOR ACTION.]
Gabrielle maintained her attitude of uncompromising dignity, until the boudoir door clanged to, and, left alone, sank back upon the cushions numbed. The sword had fallen. She had herself severed the last frayed strands. What form would the abbé's vengeance take now that he had wakened to the fact that under no circumstances whatever would she submit herself to his desires? What mattered it, so that the end was swift? The dear ones were safe in distant Paris. No cause to fear for them. Their mother had been careful in signing the second will to add the tell-tale cross. On the whole, she was to be congratulated on the approaching change, for her worldly affairs were in order, there was no motive left for lingering. To one placed as she was, death, as she truly said, would be release. Victor and Camille would grow up under the care of grandmamma, secure from the machinations of their father and the crew by which he was surrounded. Her death would be an advantage to them, for the tale of the two wills and the precautionary declaration would become public property, and a barrier be raised under the scrutiny of public opinion, which would protect the dear ones from her husband.
And yet how whimsical the situation was! In the course of charitable wanderings among the poor, she had looked with amaze on creatures lying upon their rotten straw with scarce a rag to cover them, who clung to their wretched existence with a pertinacity that was both weird and ludicrous, considering that it was but a step, and such an easy one, into the peaceful grave. Now she herself was within distance of that step, and could look calmly into the chasm, contemplate the precise spot beneath whose crust she was to sleep for ever. But was it for ever? Ah! If she only knew. She had long ago learned to smile at the mediæval absurdities, invented by naïve, ignorant churchmen, of flames and pitchforks, and demons with red-hot tongs; but now that she stood so near to Death, that she could feel the chill rustle of his garments, she felt herself drawn into the sea of idle and abortive speculation.
Why is it, amusing paradox, that the virtuous--those, that is, who have somehow succeeded, to a creditable extent, in avoiding the rugged but fascinating path of temptation--should be tossed by doubts and shadowy tremors, while those who have wallowed in enormosities are snugly complacent as to the end? It is nearly always so. The more hopelessly heinous the crime of the murderer, the more abominably abandoned the criminal, the more glibly will the monster prate of his salvation; the more sure will he be of sleeping on Abraham's bosom. Verily, in the long course of globe-rolling, so much vermin of nauseous kind has tumbled off, vowing, as it fell, that its destiny was the bosom of Abraham, that that patriarch must by this time somewhat regret the flattering prominence of his position. The sublimely compassionate declaration, "To-day shalt thou be with Me in Paradise," has been so largely and freely rendered into a conviction of immunity from the results of sin by the worst of scoundrels, that a premium is offered to crime. The scarce discoloured soul goes tremulously off, conscious of tiny spots, wondering and fearing as to its reception in its next resting-place, while that one which is black and ulcered, soars aloft singing a seraphic pæan. Brethren, it is easy to cultivate contrition. There is nothing more easy than to repent when there are no more sins to commit. Let us all commit crimes of abnormal horror, that the parson may assure us on the scaffold that purged with hyssop we are clean.
Such reflections as these passed vaguely through the mind of Gabrielle as she strove to nerve herself to endure, with becoming composure, the coming ordeal. She recalled and contemplated her peccadilloes. The various naughtinesses of her brief life swept past in procession as distinct and rapid as the last vision of the drowning man. Her conscience kept whispering that she could have little to fear if God were just, for the small sins of which she could accuse herself must be balanced against her earthly woes. And then she chided herself bitterly for presumption. How dared she to conclude that she was not a terrible sinner, considering that as a chit, her father confessor had imposed fearsome pains and penalties, as punishment for childish transgressions? She was bad, very bad indeed. Had she not impiously endeavoured once to cut the thread and escape? And now that thread was to be cut for her by an alien hand. Why did she not feel the same eagerness to be away, as on that night, when she leapt out of the wherry?
It always came back to this. The same refrain was singing in her ears. So young, so rich, so beautiful--to be put away, crushed under the heel, like the rat that cumbers the earth. It was hard, very hard, and somehow the joyous careless days of Versailles and Trianon, would glitter up out of the mirage to dazzle and disturb her vision.