The Sieur La Force would not wait to be further questioned,—he rode off furiously.
The bridesmaids all turned pale with affright at these ominous words, and stood looking at each other and asking what they could mean.
Amélie and Héloise caught some of the conversation between Hortense and La Force. They sprang up and ran to the balcony just as two of the servants of the house came rushing up with open mouths, staring eyes, and trembling with excitement. They did not wait to be asked what was the matter, but as soon as they saw the ladies they shouted out the terrible news, as the manner of their kind is, without a thought of the consequences: that Le Gardeur had just killed the Bourgeois Philibert in the market-place, and was himself either killed or a prisoner, and the people were going to burn the Friponne and hang the Intendant under the tablet of the Golden Dog, and all the city was going to be destroyed.
The servants, having communicated this piece of wild intelligence, instantly rushed into the house and repeated it to the household, filling the mansion in a few moments with shrieks and confusion.
It was in vain Hortense and Agathe La Corne St. Luc strove to withhold the terrible truth from Amélie. Her friends endeavored with kindly force and eager exhortations to prevent her coming to the balcony, but she would not be stayed; in her excitement she had the strength of one of God's angels. She had caught enough of the speech of the servants to gather up its sense into a connected whole, and in a moment of terrible enlightenment, that came like a thunderbolt driven through her soul, she understood the whole significance of their tidings.
Her hapless brother, maddened with disappointment, drink, and desperation, had killed the father of Pierre, the father of her betrothed husband, his own friend and hers; why or how, was a mystery of amazement.
She saw at a glance all the ruin of it. Her brother a murderer, the Bourgeois a bleeding corpse. Pierre, her lover and her pride, lost,—lost to her forever! The blood of his father rising up between them calling for vengeance upon Le Gardeur and invoking a curse upon the whole house of Repentigny.
The heart of Amélie, but a few moments ago expanding with joy and overflowing with the tenderest emotions of a loving bride, suddenly collapsed and shrivelled like a leaf in the fire of this unlooked-for catastrophe.
She stared wildly and imploringly in the countenances of her trembling companions as if for help, but no human help could avail her. She spake not, but uttering one long, agonizing scream, fell senseless upon the bosom of Héloise de Lotbinière, who, herself nigh fainting, bore Amélie with the assistance of her friends to a couch, where she lay unconscious of the tears and wailing that surrounded her.
Marguerite de Repentigny with her weeping companions remained in the chamber of Amélie, watching eagerly for some sign of returning consciousness, and assiduously administering such restoratives as were at hand.