Edmée swore as I asked her, and she made me swear in return that her promise should be a secret. Then I clasped her in my arms, and we remained motionless until fresh shots announced that the fight had begun again. Every moment of delay was dangerous now. I seized a torch, and lifting a trap door made her descend with me to the cellar. Thence we passed into a subterranean passage, and finally hurried forth into the open, holding each other's hands as a sign of mutual trust. I found a horse that had belonged to my grandfather in the forest, and this animal carried us some miles from Roche-Mauprat, before it stumbled and threw us. Edmée was unhurt but my ankle was badly sprained. Fortunately we were near a lonely building called Gayeau Tower, the dwelling place of a remarkable man called Patience, a peasant who was both a hermit and a philosopher, and who, like Edmée, was filled with the new social gospel of Rousseau. Between these two a warm friendship existed.
"The lamb in the company of the wolf," cried Patience when he saw us.
"My friend," replied Edmée, "welcome him as you welcome me. I was a prisoner at Roche-Mauprat, and it was he who rescued me."
At that Patience took me by the arm and led me in. A few days later I was carried to the chateau of the chevalier, M. Hubert de Mauprat, at Sainte-Sévère, and there I learnt that Roche-Mauprat had been taken, that five of my uncles were dead, and that two, John and Antony, had disappeared.
"Bernard," added the chevalier, "I owe to you the life I hold dearest in the world. All my own life shall be devoted to giving you proofs of my gratitude and esteem. Bernard, we are both of us victims of a vicious family. The wrong that has been done you shall be repaired. They have deprived you of education, but your soul has remained pure. Bernard, you will restore the honour of your family, promise me this."
III.--I Go to America and Return
For a long time I am sure my presence was a source of utter discomfort to the kind and venerable chevalier, and to his daughter. I was boorish and illiterate and Edmée was one of the most perfect women to be found in France. She found her happiness in her own family, and the sweetest simplicity crowned her mental powers and lofty virtues. Brute like, at that time I saw her only with the eyes of the body, and believed I loved her because she was beautiful. Her fiance, M. de la Marche, the lieutenant-general, a shallow and frigid Voltairean, understood her but little better. A day came when I could understand her--the day when M. de la Marche could have understood her would never have come.
The first step was taken on my part when I realised that I was ignorant and savage, and I applied to the Abbé Aubert, the chaplain, whose offices I had hitherto despised, to instruct me. I learnt quickly, and soon vanity at my rapid progress became the bane of my life.
With Edmée I was so passionately in love that jealousy would awaken the old brutality that I thought dead, and I would gladly have killed de la Marche in a duel. Then after an outburst remorse would overtake me.
My cousin at last told me plainly that while she would be true to her word, and not marry anyone before me, she would not marry me, and that on her father's death a convent should be her refuge. I knew my boorishness was responsible for this, and resolved to leave her.