The funeral train proceeded—the King and his court followed. They reached the grave-yard, hard beneath those superb gray towers!—they reached the grave, in a remote and gloomy corner, where, in unconsecrated earth, reposed the executed felon—the priests attended not the corpse beyond the precincts of that unholy spot—their solemn chant died mournfully away—no rites were done, no prayers were said above the senseless clay—but in silence was it lowered into the ready pit—silence disturbed only by the deep hollow sound of the clods that fell fast and heavy on the breast of the guilty noble! For many a day a headstone might be seen—not raised by the kind hands of sorrowing friends nor watered by the tears of kinsmen—but planted there, to tell of his disgraceful doom—amid the nameless graves of the self-slain—and the recorded resting-places of well-known thieves and felons. It was of dark gray free-stone, and it bore these brief words—brief words, but in that situation speaking the voice of volumes.
Ci git Armand
Le Dernier Comte de Laguy.
Three forms stood by the grave—stood till the last clod had been heaped upon its kindred clay, and the dark headstone planted. Henry, the King! and Charles, the Baron De La-Hirè; and Marguerite de Vaudreuil.
And as the last clod was flattened down upon the dead, after the stone was fixed, De La-Hirè crossed the grave to the despairing girl, where she had stood gazing with a fixed rayless eye on the sad ceremony and took her by the hand, and spoke so loud that all might hear his words, while Henry looked on calmly but not without an air of wondering excitement.
“Not that I did not love thee,” he said, “Marguerite! Not that I did not pardon thee thy brief inconstancy, caused as it was by evil arts of which we will say nothing now—since he who plotted them hath suffered even above his merits, and is—we trust—now pardoned! Not for these causes, nor for any of them—have I declined thine hand thus far—but that the King commanded, judging it in his wisdom best for both of us. Now Armand is gone hence—and let all doubt and sorrow go hence with him! Let all your tears, all my suspicions be buried in his grave forever. I take your hand, dear Marguerite—I take you as mine honored and loved bride—I claim you mine forever!”
Thus far the girl had listened to him, not blushingly, nor with a melting eye; nor with any sign of renewed hope or rekindled happiness in her pale features—but with cold resolute attention—but now she put away his hand very steadily, and spoke with a firm unfaltering voice.
“Be not so weak!” she said. “Be not so weak, Charles de La-Hirè!—nor fancy me so vain! The weight and wisdom of years have passed above my head since yester morning—then was I a vain, thoughtless girl—now am I a stern wise woman. That I have sinned is very true—that I have betrayed thee—wronged thee! It may be, had you spoke pardon yesterday—it might have been all well! It may be it had been dishonor in you to take me to your arms—but if to do so had been dishonor yesterday, by what is it made honor now? No! no! Charles de La-Hirè—no! no!—I had refused thee yesterday, hadst thou been willing to redeem me, by self-sacrifice, then from the convent walls!—I had refused thee then, with love warming my heart toward thee—in all honor! Force me not to reject thee now with scorn and hatred. Nor dare to think that Marguerite de Vaudreuil will owe to man’s compassion, what she owes not to love! Peace! Charles de La-Hirè—I say, peace! my last words to thee have been spoken, and never will I hear more from thee! And now, Sir King, hear thou—may God judge between thee and me, as thou hast judged. If I was frail and fickle, nature and God made woman weak and credulous—but made man not wise, to deceive and ruin her. If I sinned deeply against this Baron De La-Hirè—I sinned not knowingly, nor of premeditation! If I sinned deeply, more deeply was I sinned against—more deeply was I left to suffer!—even hadst thou heaped no more brands upon the burning. If to bear hopeless love—to pine with unavailing sorrow—to repent with continual remorse—to writhe with trampled pride!—if these things be to suffer, then, Sir King, had I enough suffered without thy just interposition!” As she spoke, a bitter sneer curled her lip for a moment; but as she saw Henry again about to speak, a wilder and higher expression flashed over all her features—her form appeared to distend—her bosom heaved—her eye glared—her ringlets seemed to stiffen, as if instinct with life “Nay!” she cried, in a voice clear as the strain of a silver trumpet—“nay! thou shalt hear me out—and thou didst swear yesterday I should live in a cloister cell forever!—and I replied to thy words then, ‘not long!’—I have thought better now—and now I answer ‘never!’ Lo here!—lo here! ye who have marked the doom of Armand—mark now the doom of Marguerite! Ye who have judged the treason, mark the doom of the traitress!” And with the words, before any one could interfere, even had they suspected her intentions, she raised her right hand on high, and all then saw the quick twinkle of a weapon, and struck herself, as it seemed, a quick slight blow immediately under the left bosom! It seemed a quick slight blow! but it had been so accurately studied—so steadily aimed and fatally—that the keen blade, scarcely three inches long and very slender, of the best of Milan steel, with nearly a third of the hilt, was driven home into her very heart—she spoke no syllable again!—nor uttered any cry!—nor did a single spasm contract her pallid features, a single convulsion distort her shapely limbs! but she leaped forward, and fell upon her face, quite dead, at the King’s feet!
Henry smiled not again for many a day thereafter—Charles De La Hirè died very old, a Carthusian monk of the strictest order, having mourned sixty years and prayed in silence for the sorrows and the sins of that most hapless being.