“Libera nos a malo,” she said, endeavoring to make the young man comprehend her fears.
The latter raised his head and looked at her. Tears were in his eyes; tears of love and of despair. At sight of them the lady trembled and betrayed herself. Both had, no doubt, long resisted and could resist no longer a love increasing day by day through invincible obstacles, nurtured by terror, strengthened by youth. The lady was moderately handsome; but her pallid skin told of secret sufferings that made her interesting. She had, moreover, an elegant figure, and the finest hair in the world. Guarded by a tiger, she risked her life in whispering a word, accepting a look, and permitting a mere pressure of the hand. Love may never have been more deeply felt than in those hearts, never more delightfully enjoyed, but certainly no passion was ever more perilous. It was easy to divine that to these two beings air, sound, foot-falls, etc., things indifferent to other men, presented hidden qualities, peculiar properties which they distinguished. Perhaps their love made them find faithful interpreters in the icy hands of the old priest to whom they confessed their sins, and from whom they received the Host at the holy table. Love profound! love gashed into the soul like a scar upon the body which we carry through life! When these two young people looked at each other, the woman seemed to say to her lover, “Let us love each other and die!” To which the young knight answered, “Let us love each other and not die.” In reply, she showed him a sign her old duenna and two pages. The duenna slept; the pages were young and seemingly careless of what might happen, either of good or evil, to their masters.
“Do not be frightened as you leave the church; let yourself be managed.”
The young nobleman had scarcely said these words in a low voice, when the hand of the old seigneur dropped upon the hilt of his dagger. Feeling the cold iron he woke, and his yellow eyes fixed themselves instantly on his wife. By a privilege seldom granted even to men of genius, he awoke with his mind as clear, his ideas as lucid as though he had not slept at all. The man had the mania of jealousy. The lover, with one eye on his mistress, had watched the husband with the other, and he now rose quickly, effacing himself behind a column at the moment when the hand of the old man fell; after which he disappeared, swiftly as a bird. The lady lowered her eyes to her book and tried to seem calm; but she could not prevent her face from blushing and her heart from beating with unnatural violence. The old lord saw the unusual crimson on the cheeks, forehead, even the eyelids of his wife. He looked about him cautiously, but seeing no one to distrust, he said to his wife: —
“What are you thinking of, my dear?”
“The smell of the incense turns me sick,” she replied.
“It is particularly bad to-day?” he asked.
In spite of this sarcastic query, the wily old man pretended to believe in this excuse; but he suspected some treachery and he resolved to watch his treasure more carefully than before.
The benediction was given. Without waiting for the end of the “Soecula soeculorum,” the crowd rushed like a torrent to the doors of the church. Following his usual custom, the old seigneur waited till the general hurry was over; after which he left his chapel, placing the duenna and the youngest page, carrying a lantern, before him; then he gave his arm to his wife and told the other page to follow them.
As he made his way to the lateral door which opened on the west side of the cloister, through which it was his custom to pass, a stream of persons detached itself from the flood which obstructed the great portals, and poured through the side aisle around the old lord and his party. The mass was too compact to allow him to retrace his steps, and he and his wife were therefore pushed onward to the door by the pressure of the multitude behind them. The husband tried to pass out first, dragging the lady by the arm, but at that instant he was pulled vigorously into the street, and his wife was torn from him by a stranger. The terrible hunchback saw at once that he had fallen into a trap that was cleverly prepared. Repenting himself for having slept, he collected his whole strength, seized his wife once more by the sleeve of her gown, and strove with his other hand to cling to the gate of the church; but the ardor of love carried the day against jealous fury. The young man took his mistress round the waist, and carried her off so rapidly, with the strength of despair, that the brocaded stuff of silk and gold tore noisily apart, and the sleeve alone remained in the hand of the old man. A roar like that of a lion rose louder than the shouts of the multitude, and a terrible voice howled out the words: —
“To me, Poitiers! Servants of the Comte de Saint-Vallier, here! Help! help!”
And the Comte Aymar de Poitiers, sire de Saint-Vallier, attempted to draw his sword and clear a space around him. But he found himself surrounded and pressed upon by forty or fifty gentlemen whom it would be dangerous to wound. Several among them, especially those of the highest rank, answered him with jests as they dragged him along the cloisters.
With the rapidity of lightning the abductor carried the countess into an open chapel and seated her behind the confessional on a wooden bench. By the light of the tapers burning before the saint to whom the chapel was dedicated, they looked at each other for a moment in silence, clasping hands, and amazed at their own audacity. The countess had not the cruel courage to reproach the young man for the boldness to which they owed this perilous and only instant of happiness.
“Will you fly with me into the adjoining States?” said the young man, eagerly. “Two English horses are awaiting us close by, able to do thirty leagues at a stretch.”
“Ah!” she cried, softly, “in what corner of the world could you hide a daughter of King Louis XI.?”
“True,” replied the young man, silenced by a difficulty he had not foreseen.
“Why did you tear me from my husband?” she asked in a sort of terror.
“Alas!” said her lover, “I did not reckon on the trouble I should feel in being near you, in hearing you speak to me. I have made plans, – two or three plans, – and now that I see you all seems accomplished.”
“But I am lost!” said the countess.
“We are saved!” the young man cried in the blind enthusiasm of his love. “Listen to me carefully!”
“This will cost me my life!” she said, letting the tears that rolled in her eyes flow down her cheeks. “The count will kill me, – to-night, perhaps! But go to the king; tell him the tortures that his daughter has endured these five years. He loved me well when I was little; he called me ‘Marie-full-of-grace,’ because I was ugly. Ah! if he knew the man to whom he gave me, his anger would be terrible. I have not dared complain, out of pity for the count. Besides, how could I reach the king? My confessor himself is a spy of Saint-Vallier. That is why I have consented to this guilty meeting, to obtain a defender, – some one to tell the truth to the king. Can I rely on – Oh!” she cried, turning pale and interrupting herself, “here comes the page!”
The poor countess put her hands before her face as if to veil it.
“Fear nothing,” said the young seigneur, “he is won! You can safely trust him; he belongs to me. When the count contrives to return for you he will warn us of his coming. In the confessional,” he added, in a low voice, “is a priest, a friend of mine, who will tell him that he drew you for safety out of the crowd, and placed you under his own protection in this chapel. Therefore, everything is arranged to deceive him.”
At these words the tears of the poor woman stopped, but an expression of sadness settled down on her face.
“No one can deceive him,” she said. “To-night he will know all. Save me from his blows! Go to Plessis, see the king, tell him – ” she hesitated; then, some dreadful recollection giving her courage to confess the secrets of her marriage, she added: “Yes, tell him that to master me the count bleeds me in both arms – to exhaust me. Tell him that my husband drags me about by the hair of my head. Say that I am a prisoner; that – ”
Her