Alba had heard nothing of this great event which was stirring the country for fifty miles round. She and Virginie lived a life apart up in their sea-nest, and old Jeanne was not given to gossip, but did her marketing without waste of words, and brought home little news in her basket.
It was a lovely morning; the sun shone brightly on the sea; the breakers were scampering in, not loud and angry, but tossing over one another in masses of creamy foam. Alba loved these laughing seas, and would sit for hours on the rocks, watching the tide ride in on the silver horses. To-day the salt breath of the ocean and the mellow west wind excited her like wine, and carried her off to the old dreamland where she seldom ventured now. She was away on the dancing billows, sailing to the land of the sun with a noble knight by her side. Virginie sat there with maidens serving her; there was music on shore, and crowds waving glad farewells. Alba began to sing as she walked briskly along the cliff, building her castle in fairy-land. But the Fortress standing out like a spectral prison, with the ivy blown inside out on its grimy walls, sent a sudden chill through her and put out the sunlight. There was a figure at the window watching her. She turned hastily back, walking quickly until she got down the slope, when she almost flew across the moor, on and on till she was safe in the shelter of the park. O that figure, how it pursued her! How the Fortress threatened her! If she could but fly from them for ever, and never hear of Marcel Caboff any more! She had fancied latterly that the prospect of being his wife and living with old Mme. Caboff in the gloomy, rat-haunted place was less odious to her than it used to be; but to-day the thought nearly drove her mad. She had sped along as if some evil fate were behind her, and she was tired; there was a moss-grown oak close by, and she sat down on the trunk to rest. The wind rustled the dead leaves at her feet and swept the topmost branches of the pines; then the anthem died softly away and all was silent. The place was very still; nothing stirred but the insects in the grass, and the zephyr high up above her head, as it rose and fell in swift, Æolian breathings. In the distance, with a forest of trees between, lay the castle, its battlements and towers and flying buttresses rising majestically against the sky—a high romance of chivalry and war chronicled in stone; to Alba the door of an enchanted realm whose portals she might never pass. No wonder men were heroes who lived in homes like this; how easy it must be to lead grand lives where the very walls are heralds and witnesses urging to noble and knightly deeds! The present owner of this splendid house was worthy in all this of his proud ancestors. What a royal act of heroism it was of the old Marquis to enlist as a common soldier out of gratitude to a dead man and pity for his widow! Then Alba thought of Marcel, of the poor, tame creature he showed beside this race of knightly nobles, and she despised him, and fell to wondering how it would be when she was his wife. Gradually the castle melted away, and in its place rose the Fortress, dark and frowning, and it lowered on her like a doom, and Marcel and his grim old mother stood at the window beckoning her to advance. Alba flung herself down upon the trunk and buried her face in the moss, and began to cry passionately. She cried a long time, being full of pity for herself, and there was no one within reach that she need check her sobs.
“What has happened? What is the matter with you, child?” said a voice close to her.
She started up in terror. Yet the speaker was not at all terrible to look at—a gentleman in the brilliant uniform of the Imperial Guard, young and handsome, with a most commanding air, and carrying his left arm in a sling. When Alba rose it was his turn to start. Lying there in an attitude of child-like abandon, shaken with sobs, her scarlet hood thrown back and her masses of black hair falling in loose coils over her neck and face, he had taken her for a little girl; he had called her child, and, lo! she was a full-grown maiden, and lovely beyond words, despite her tears and her dishevelled mien. He bowed to her as he might have done to a queen.
“You are M. le Comte!” said Alba, pretty much as she might have said to a celestial apparition, “You are the Archangel Gabriel!”
“Hermann de Gondriac, your humble servant, mademoiselle.”
She stared at him through the big tears that hung like dew-drops from her lashes, her soft, large glance modest, yet unabashed as if it were gazing on a picture. The knighthood in Hermann recognized the maidenhood of that fearless gaze and did it reverence, but he could not quench the glowing admiration of his own. How liquid and pure they were, those black stars with which she stared at him, those soul-lit eyes that met his without dismay, too innocent to quail beneath their burning light! Why should they quail? Were they not looking at a vision, a dream transmuted into substance? This was the young chief whom she had pictured to herself so often, whose lineage and prowess were the pride of all the people. Only how much grander the reality was than anything she had fancied! What a martial air he wore in his gold-embroidered uniform, with his spurs and clanging sword and plumed helmet, the stars upon his breast—every inch a warrior and a knight!
“You have hurt yourself, mademoiselle; you are in pain,” said Hermann. “Can I send to the castle for assistance for you?”
“Thank you, monseigneur; I have not hurt myself.”
“Yet you were crying?”