She was so fresh of thought, so free from all affectation, so gentle and winning in all her ways, and, sooth to say, so happy in the admiration of Philibert, which she was very conscious of now. It darted from his eyes at every look, although no word of it had yet passed his lips. The radiance of her spirits flashed like sunbeams through every part of the old Manor House.
Amélie was carried away in a flood of new emotion; she tried once or twice to be discreetly angry with herself for admitting so unreservedly the pleasure she felt in Pierre's admiration; she placed her soul on a rack of self-questioning torture, and every inquisition she made of her heart returned the self-same answer: she loved Pierre Philibert!
It was in vain she accused herself of possible impropriety: that it was bold, unmaidenly, censurable, nay, perhaps sinful, to give her heart before it had been asked for; but if she had to die for it, she could not conceal the truth, that she loved Pierre Philibert! “I ought to be angry with myself,” said she. “I try to be so, but I cannot! Why?”
“Why?” Amélie solved the query as every true woman does, who asks herself why she loves one man rather than another. “Because he has chosen me out in preference to all others, to be the treasure-keeper of his affections! I am proud,” continued Amélie, “that he gives his love to me, to me! unworthy as I am of such preference. I am no better than others.” Amélie was a true woman: proud as an empress before other men, she was humble and lowly as the Madonna in the presence of him whom she felt was, by right of love, lord and master of her affections.
Amélie could not overcome a feeling of tremor in the presence of Pierre since she made this discovery. Her cheek warmed with an incipient flush when his ardent eyes glanced at her too eloquently. She knew what was in his heart, and once or twice, when casually alone with Philibert, she saw his lips quivering under a hard restraint to keep in the words, the dear words, she thought, which would one day burst forth in a flood of passionate eloquence, overwhelming all denial, and make her his own forever.
Time and tide, which come to all once in our lives, as the poet says, and which must be taken at their flood to lead to fortune, came at length to Amélie de Repentigny.
It came suddenly and in an unlooked-for hour, the great question of questions to her as to every woman.
The hour of birth and the hour of death are in God's hand, but the hour when a woman, yielding to the strong enfolding arm of a man who loves her, falters forth an avowal of her love, and plights her troth, and vows to be one with him till death, God leaves that question to be decided by her own heart. His blessing rests upon her choice, if pure love guides and reason enlightens affection. His curse infallibly follows every faithless pledge where no heart is, every union that is not the marriage of love and truth. These alone can be married, and where these are absent there is no marriage at all in the face of Heaven, and but the simulation of one on earth, an unequal yoking, which, if man will not sunder, God will at last, where there is neither marriage nor giving in marriage, but all are as his angels.
The day appointed for the long-planned excursion to the beautiful Lake of Tilly came round. A numerous and cheerful water-party left the Manor House in the bright, cool morning to spend the day gipsying in the shady woods and quiet recesses of the little lake. They were all there: Amélie's invitation to her young friends far and near had been eagerly accepted. Half a dozen boats and canoes, filled with light-hearted companions and with ample provisions for the day, shot up the narrow river, and after a rapid and merry voyage, disembarked their passengers and were drawn up on the shores and islands of the lake.
That bright morning was followed by a sunny day of blue skies, warm yet breezy. The old oaks wove a carpet of shadows, changing the pattern of its tissue every hour upon the leaf-strewn floor of the forest. The fresh pines shed their resinous perfume on every side in the still shade, but out in the sunshine the birds sang merrily all day.