In good truth, it was long before I knew it; nor can I guess how much longer the ignorance might have lasted, when General Urleben suddenly dispelled the clouds, by informing me that he had just received from the minister of war at Vienna a demand for the name, rank, and regiment of his prisoner, previous to the negotiation for his exchange.
"You will fill up these blanks, Tiernay," said he, "and within a month, or less, you will be once more free, and say adieu to Kuffstein."
Had the paper contained my dismissal from the service, I shame to own it would have been more welcome! The last few months had changed all the character of my life, suggested new hopes and new ambitions. The career I used to glory in had grown distasteful; the comrades I once longed to rejoin were now become almost repulsive to my imagination. The marquise had spoken much of emigrating to some part of the new world beyond seas, and thither my fancy alike pointed. Perhaps my dreams of a future were not the less rose-colored, that they received no shadow from any thing like a "fact." The old lady's geographical knowledge was neither accurate nor extensive, and she contrived to invest this land of promise with odd associations of what she once heard of Pondicherry—with certain features belonging to the United States. A glorious country it would, indeed, have been, which, within a month's voyage, realized all the delights of the tropics, with the healthful vigor of the temperate zone, and where, without an effort beyond the mere will, men amassed enormous fortunes in a year or two. In a calmer mood, I might, indeed must, have been struck with the wild inconsistency of the old lady's imaginings, and looked with somewhat of skepticism on the map for that spot of earth so richly endowed; but now I believed every thing, provided it only ministered to my new hopes. Laura, evidently, too, believed in the "Canaan" of which, at last, we used to discourse as freely as though we had been there. Little discussions, would, however, now and then vary the uniformity of this creed, and I remember once feeling almost hurt at Laura's not agreeing with me about zebras, which I assured her were just as trainable as horses, but which the marquise flatly refused ever to use in any of her carriages. These were mere passing clouds; the regular atmosphere of our wishes was bright and transparent. In the midst of these delicious day dreams, there came one day a number of letters to the marquise by the hands of a courier on his way to Naples. What were their contents I never knew, but the tidings seemed most joyful, for the old lady invited the general and myself to dinner, when the table was decked out with white lilies on all sides; she herself, and Laura also, wearing them in bouquets on their dresses.
The occasion had, I could see, something of a celebration about it. Mysterious hints of circumstances I knew nothing of were constantly interchanged, the whole ending with a solemn toast to the memory of the "Saint and Martyr;" but who he was, or when he lived, I knew not one single fact about.
That evening—I can not readily forget it—was the first I had ever an opportunity of being alone with Laura! Hitherto the marquise had always been beside us; now she had all this correspondence to read over with the general, and they both retired into a little boudoir for the purpose, while Laura and myself wandered out upon the terrace, as awkward and constrained as though our situation had been the most provoking thing possible. It was on that same morning I had received the general's message regarding my situation, and I was burning with anxiety to tell it, and yet knew not exactly how. Laura, too, seemed full of her own thoughts, and leaned pensively over the balustrade and gazed on the stream.
"What are you thinking of so seriously?" asked I, after a long pause.
"Of long, long ago," said she sighing, "when I was a little child. I remember a little chapel like that yonder, only that it was not on a rock over a river, but stood in a small garden; and though in a great city, it was as lonely and solitary as might be—the Chapelle de St. Blois."
"St. Blois, Laura," cried I; "oh, tell me about that!"
"Why you surely never heard of it before," said she, smiling. "It was in a remote quarter of Paris, nigh the outer Boulevard, and known to but a very few! It had once belonged to our family; for in olden times there were chateaux and country houses within that space, which then was part of Paris, and one of our ancestors was buried there! How well I remember it all! The dim little aisle, supported on wooden pillars; the simple altar, with the oaken crucifix, and the calm, gentle features of the poor curé."
"Can you remember all this so well, Laura?" asked I, eagerly, for the theme was stirring my very heart of hearts.