Adèle felt a satisfaction in the anticipation of being restored to the dignities of Rossillon, which she was too proud to manifest.
Mr. Dubois alone hesitated in entertaining the idea of a return. His innate love of independence, together with a remembrance of the early antipathy the Count had shown to the marriage with his niece, made the thought repellant to him. A calmer consideration, however, changed his view of the case. He recollected that the Count had at last consented to his union with Mrs. Dubois, and reflected that the infirmities and loneliness of the Count laid on them obligations they should not neglect. He found, also, that his own love of home and country, now that it could at last with propriety be gratified, welled up and overflowed like a newly sprung fountain.
The tornado had spent itself, the fire had rushed on to the ocean, the atmosphere had became comparatively clear and the weather cool and bracing.
On the evening before the departure of Mr. Norton and Mr. Lansdowne, the family met, as on many previous occasions, in the Madonna room. In itself, the apartment was as cheerful and attractive as ever, but each one present felt a sense of vacancy, a shrinking of the heart. The sunny changeful glow of one bright face was no longer there, and the shadows of approaching separation cast a gloom over the scene.
These people, so strangely thrown together in this wild, obscure region of Miramichi, drawn hither by such differing objects of pursuit, bound by such various ties in life, occupying such divergent positions in the social scale, had grown by contact and sympathy into a warm friendship toward each other. Their daily intercourse was now to be broken up, the moment of adieu drew nigh, and the prospect of future meeting was, to say the least, precarious. Was it strange that some sharp pangs of regret filled their hearts?
Mr. Lansdowne, who had up to this time been wholly occupied with his preparations for departure, was sitting, in an attitude betokening weariness and despondency, leaning his arms upon a table, shading his face with his hand. A few days of grief and anxiety had greatly changed him. He looked pale and languid, but Adèle thought, as she occasionally glanced at him from the sofa opposite, that she had never seen his countenance so clothed with spiritual beauty.
Mr. Dubois, who had not yet spoken to his friends of his intention to remove to France, now broke the heavy silence, by announcing his purpose to leave, in the course of a week, and return with his family to Picardy.
Mr. Lansdowne started suddenly and uttered a slight exclamation. Adèle looked at him involuntarily. He was gazing at her intently. The strange light again glowed in his eyes. Her own fell slowly. She could not keep her lids lifted beneath his gaze.