"You must have been, to authorize the boasts of Monsieur de Cymier. He had seen Fred so seldom, and Tonquin had so changed him that he spoke in his presence--without supposing any one would interfere. I dare not tell you what he said--"

"Whatever spite or revenge suggested to him, no doubt," said Jacqueline.

"Listen, Giselle--Oh, you must listen. I shall not be long."

She forced her to sit down; she crouched on a foot stool at her feet, holding her hands in hers so tightly that Giselle could not draw them away, and began her story, with all its details, of what had happened to her since she left Fresne. She told of her meeting with Wanda; of the fatal evening which had resulted in her expulsion from the convent; her disgust at the Sparks family; the snare prepared for her by Madame Strahlberg. "And I can not tell you all," she added, "I can not tell you what drove me away from my true friends, and threw me among these people--"

Giselle's sad smile seemed to answer, "No need--I am aware of it--I know my husband." Encouraged by this, Jacqueline went on with her confession, hiding nothing that was wrong, showing herself just as she had been, a poor, proud child who had set out to battle for herself in a dangerous world. At every step she had been more and more conscious of her own imprudence, of her own weakness, and of an ever-increasing desire to be done with independence; to submit to law, to be subject to any rules which would deliver her from the necessity of obeying no will but her own.

"Ah!" she cried, "I am so disgusted with independence, with amus.e.m.e.nt, and amusing people! Tell me what to do in future--I am weary of taking charge of myself. I said so the other day to the Abbe Bardin. He is the only person I have seen since my return. It seems to me I am coming back to my old ideas--you remember how I once wished to end my days in the cell of a Carmelite? You might love me again then, perhaps, and Fred and poor Madame d'Argy, who must feel so bitterly against me since her son was wounded, might forgive me. No one feels bitterly against the dead, and it is the same as being dead to be a Carmelite nun. You would all speak of me sometimes to each other as one who had been very unhappy, who had been guilty of great foolishness, but who had repaired her faults as best she could."

Poor Jacqueline! She was no longer a girl of the period; in her grief and humiliation she belonged to the past. Old-fashioned forms of penitence attracted her.

"And what did the Abbe Bardin tell you?" asked Giselle, with a slight movement of her shoulders.

"He only told me that he could not say at present whether that were my vocation."

"Nor can I," said Giselle.

Jacqueline lifted up her face, wet with tears, which she had been leaning on the lap of Giselle.

"I do not see what else I can do, unless you would get me a place as governess somewhere at the ends of the earth," she said. "I could teach children their letters. I should not mind doing anything. I never should complain. Ah! if you lived all by yourself, Giselle, how I should implore you to take me to teach little Enguerrand!"

"I think you might do better than that," said Giselle, wiping her friend's eyes almost as a mother might have done, "if you would only listen to Fred."

Jacqueline's cheeks became crimson.

"Don't mock me--it is cruel--I am too unworthy--it would pain me to see him. Shame--regret--you understand! But I can tell you one thing, Giselle--only you. You may tell it to him when he is quite old, when he has been long married, and when everything concerning me is a thing of the past. I never had loved any one with all my heart up to the moment when I read in that paper that he had fought for me, that his blood had flowed for me, that after all that had pa.s.sed he still thought me worthy of being defended by him."

Her tears flowed fast, and she added: "I shall be proud of that all the rest of my life! If only you, too, would forgive me."

The heart of Giselle was melted by these words.

"Forgive you, my dear little girl? Ah! you have been better than I. I forgot our old friendship for a moment--I was harsh to you; and I have so little right to blame you! But come! Providence may have arranged all for the best, though one of us may have to suffer. Pray for that some one. Good-by--'au revoir!"

She kissed Jacqueline's forehead and was gone, before her cousin had seized the meaning of her last words. But joy and peace came back to Jacqueline. She had recovered her best friend, and had convinced her of her innocence.

CHAPTER XIX. GENTLE CONSPIRATORS

Before Giselle went home to her own house she called on the Abbe Bardin, whom a rather surly servant was not disposed to disturb, as he was just eating his breakfast. The Abbe Bardin was Jacqueline's confessor, and he held the same relation to a number of other young girls who were among her particular friends. He was thoroughly acquainted with all that concerned their delicate and generally childish little souls. He kept them in the right way, had often a share in their marriages, and in general kept an eye upon them all their lives. Even when they escaped from him, as had happened in the case of Jacqueline, he did not give them up. He commended them to G.o.d, and looked forward to the time of their repentance with the patience of a father. The Abbe Bardin had never been willing to exercise any function but that of catechist; he had grown old in the humble rank of third a.s.sistant in a great parish, when, with a little ambition, he might have been its rector. "Suffer little children to come unto me," had been his motto. These words of his Divine Master seemed more often than any others on his lips-lips so expressive of loving kindness, though sometimes a shrewd smile would pa.s.s over them and seem to say: "I know, I can divine." But when this smile, the result of long experience, did not light up his features, the good Abbe Bardin looked like an elderly child; he was short, his walk was a trot, his face was round and ruddy, his eyes, which were short-sighted, were large, wide-open, and blue, and his heavy crop of white hair, which curled and crinkled above his forehead, made him look like a sixty-year-old angel, crowned with a silvery aureole.

Rubbing his hands affably, he came into the little parlor where Madame de Talbrun was waiting for him. There was probably no ecclesiastic in all Paris who had a salon so full of worked cushions, each of which was a keepsake--a souvenir of some first communion. The Abbe did not know his visitor, but the name Talbrun seemed to him connected with an honorable and well-meaning family. The lady was probably a mother who had come to put her child into his hands for religious instruction. He received visits from dozens of such mothers, some of whom were a little tiresome, from a wish to teach him what he knew better than they, and at one time he had set apart Wednesday as his day for receiving such visits, that he might not be too greatly disturbed, as seemed likely to happen to him that day. Not that he cared very much whether he ate his cutlet hot or cold, but his housekeeper cared a great deal. A man may be a very experienced director, and yet be subject to direction in other ways.

The youth of Giselle took him by surprise.

"Monsieur l'Abbe," she said, without any preamble, while he begged her to sit down, "I have come to speak to you of a person in whom you take an interest, Jacqueline de Nailles."

He pa.s.sed the back of his hand over his brow and said, with a sigh: "Poor little thing!"

"She is even more to be pitied than you think. You have not seen her, I believe, since last week."

"Yes--she came. She has kept up, thank G.o.d, some of her religious duties."

"For all that, she has played a leading part in a recent scandal."

The Abbe sprang up from his chair.

"A duel has taken place because of her, and her name is in all men's mouths--whispered, of course--but the quarrel took place at the Club.

You know what it is to be talked of at the Club."

"The poison of asps," growled the Abbe; "oh! those clubs--think of all the evil reports concocted in them, of which women are the victims!"

"In the present case the evil report was pure calumny. It was taken up by some one whom you also know--Frederic d'Argy."

"I have had profound respect these many years for his excellent and pious mother."

"I thought so. In that case, Monsieur l'Abbe, you would not object to going to Madame d'Argy's house and asking how her son is."

"No, of course not; but--it is my duty to disapprove--"

"You will tell her that when a young man has compromised a young girl by defending her reputation in a manner too public, there is but one thing he can do afterward-marry her."

"Wait one moment," said the Abbe, who was greatly surprised; "it is certain that a good marriage would be the best thing for Jacqueline.

I have been thinking of it. But I do not think I could so suddenly--so soon after--"

"Today at four o'clock, Monsieur l'Abbe. Time presses. You can add that such a marriage is the only way to stop a second duel, which will otherwise take place."

"Is it possible?"

"And it is also the only way to bring Frederic to decide on sending in his resignation. Don't forget that--it is important."

"But how do you know--"

The poor Abbe stammered out his words, and counted on his fingers the arguments he was desired to make use of.

"And you will solemnly a.s.sure them that Jacqueline is innocent."

"Oh! as to that, there are wolves in sheeps' clothing, as the Bible tells us; but believe me, when such poor young things are in question, it is more often the sheep which has put on the appearance of a wolf--to seem in the fashion," added the Abbe, "just to seem in the fashion.

Fashion will authorize any kind of counterfeiting."

"Well, you will say all that, will you not, to Madame d'Argy? It will be very good of you if you will. She will make no difficulties about money.

All she wants is a quietly disposed daughter-in-law who will be willing to pa.s.s nine months of the year at Lizerolles, and Jacqueline is quite cured of her Paris fever."

"A fever too often mortal," murmured the Abbe; "oh, for the simplicity of nature! A priest whose lot is cast in the country is fortunate, Madame, but we can not choose our vocation. We may do good anywhere, especially in cities. Are you sure, however, that Jacqueline--"