The guests of the Château Sarrasin heard two cries mingle with the joyousness of their féte. The organist seized his child just at the moment when, from the edge of the precipice, she would have plunged into eternity.
He had saved her life, but not regained her soul. That evening, the child separated herself from him in a spirit of revolt which almost broke his heart to witness.
XIII.
Master Swibert slept but little, and badly. When he awoke, he wondered how he had been able to omit to Paganina his usual good-night. His eyes fell instinctively on the door where, every morning, she came, half-clothed, to salute him. The sun's rays gilded the sill, and the good father's heart beat, thinking how happy he would be if at that moment she would appear. He said, "She is coming;" but she came not.
The organist walked up and down his room, interrupting, from time to time, his monotonous promenade, to listen, in hopes of hearing a word, a creaking, a fluttering of a robe. He heard nothing but the uncertain step of André, wandering sad and lonely in the parts of the house least occupied.
The hours passed. The organist still waited, his suffering becoming anguish. Sometimes he felt he must call out, "My child! my child!" Already he opened his arms to receive her; but his sense of duty prevailed, and he waited for her.
The night again returned, and Paganina had shown no signs of life. A bitter sadness, drop by drop, was accumulating in the heart of her unfortunate father. The most mournful thoughts took possession of him. He dreamed of his approaching death, and saw his child alone, abandoned to interior and exterior enemies, and in his weakness he reproached himself for having brought her into this world.
Already more than half the night had gone. Overwhelmed with sorrow, exhausted, he threw himself into an arm-chair, wondering if he could bear to suffer more, when Paganina entered noiselessly, on tiptoe, lest she should awaken her father, whom she believed asleep. She approached him gently, knelt by his side, and, taking one of his hands, covered it with silent tears.
What a change for our poor organist! An immense joy overflowed his heart, and spread over his whole being in delicious emotion. He forgot all past suffering and future inquietude. He lost all consciousness of the present but the knowledge that his daughter was there, pressed to his heart, and palpitating midst her sobs.