"And I," he said, covering Denyse's face and hair with kisses, "I could not go on living with the thought that I might be taken away without your future being provided for in the way in which I should wish it to be."

"Don't talk about all those things," she murmured. "I want to think that I shall never be separated from you--never, never!"

Trying, in spite of the darkness, to look into Bijou's eyes, he asked anxiously:

"Will you be able to love me a little, as I love you?"

Without answering, she held her pretty lips up to him, but just at that moment the sound of voices made them move away from each other abruptly.

Only a few yards away from them they could hear several persons talking in low voices, and also the sound of heavy footsteps walking with measured tread. It seemed as though just there, quite near to them, a heavy burden were being carried along, whilst, in the midst of the darkness, lights kept pa.s.sing by.

"It's very odd," said M. de Clagny; "one would think something had happened."

Bijou, however, who had stopped short, her heart beating fast with anxiety, struck with the strangeness of the little procession, put her hand on the count's arm, and said, quite tranquilly:

"Oh, no! it must be the men going back to the farm. Just now they are at work up at the house through the day, and then, when they have had something to eat, they go back home."

"It seemed to me, though, that the lanterns were on the way towards the house."

She was walking along with her hand on his arm, and a thrill of joy ran through him as he drew this beautiful girl, who had just promised herself to him, closer still, in a pa.s.sionate embrace.

They returned slowly to the house along the avenues, meeting several carriages, which were bearing away the departing guests.

"How's that?" exclaimed Bijou, in surprise. "They are going away already--but what about the cotillion? Is it very late?"

On arriving at the hall-door steps, they met the La Balues coming towards their carriage.

"How's this?" asked Bijou. "You are going? But why?"

M. de la Balue mumbled out some unintelligible words, whilst his son and daughter, looking very sad, shook hands with Bijou.

"Well, what long faces they are making," remarked M. de Clagny, beginning to get anxious in his turn. "Ah! what's that? Whatever's the matter?"

In the hall there was a long pool of water. The servants were going backwards and forwards quickly, looking awestruck, and then Pierrot came in sight, his eyes swollen with crying, and his hands full of flowers. Madame de Rueille was following him, carrying flowers, too.

Bijou stopped short, thunderstruck; but M. de Clagny hurried up to Madame de Rueille.

"What has happened?" he asked.

"M. Giraud has drowned himself," answered Bertrade. "They have just brought him back here. It was the miller who found him near the dam--"

And then, seeing that Pierrot was gazing at her in consternation, shaking his flowers about at the end of his long arms in sheer desperation, she added, in a hard voice:

"Yes, I know very well that grandmamma has forbidden anyone to speak of it before Bijou, but, for my part, I want her to know about it."

XVII.

AS she stood waiting at the threshold of the little church for her Uncle Alexis, who was just getting out of the carriage, Bijou turned round, and, after giving a little kick to her long white satin train, and pulling the folds of her veil over her face, she gazed round at the motley crowd, who were hurrying towards the church-porch, with that quick look in her luminous eyes which took in everything at a glance.

She saw first the profile of Jean de Blaye towering above the others; he was advancing towards her with an indifferent, languid expression on his face, and talking to M. de Rueille, who looked slightly nervous and excited. Henry de Bracieux, with a worried look on his face, was listening in an absent sort of way to the marchioness, as she gave her orders to the coachman.

Pierrot had got one of the tails of his coat, which was too short for him, caught in the carriage-door, and, with his big, white-gloved hands, he was awkwardly endeavouring to get free, but unsuccessfully.

M. Sylvestre, with an enormous roll of music under his arm, looking very nervous, and in a great hurry, was rushing towards the staircase which led to the gallery, without daring to lift his eyes from the ground; whilst Abbe Courteil, accompanied by his two pupils, pa.s.sed by, looking very business-like--he, too, not venturing to glance in the direction of Bijou.

Jeanne Dubuisson, who had got rather thinner, was waiting with her father until the crowd made way for her to pa.s.s.

Among the Bracieux villagers, and just behind all the fine ladies and gentlemen, who had come from Pont-sur-Loire and the country-houses in the neighbourhood, Charlemagne Lavenue was pressing forward with long strides. He was dressed in his best clothes, and his square shoulders and ruddy complexion seemed to stand out against the background of blue sky.

As she stood there, with her eyes lowered, looking as though she had seen nothing, with the sun, which had brightened up the whole country round for her marriage, shining full on her, Bijou was enjoying to the full the bliss of living, of knowing herself beautiful, and of being beloved by everyone.

The sound of her Uncle Alexis' voice as he offered her his arm, and said: "Are you ready?" woke her up out of her ecstasy.

Very graceful and beautiful she looked, as she moved along to the music of the organ, which was pealing forth.

A cabman, who had gone inside the church to see "the wedding,"

exclaimed, as Bijou pa.s.sed up the aisle:

"Bless my soul! but ain't she a pretty one---the bride?"

Whereupon one of Farmer Lavenue's day-labourers replied:

"I believe you. And I can tell you what--she's as good as she is pretty--she is! And even better nor that!"

THE END.