"The ninth of October fell on a Tuesday; it was then, or the day after, that I gave you a diamond clasp, a present?"

"It was."

"Who performed this ceremony?"

"A priest, but I am not at liberty to tell his name,--at least, without the a.s.surance of your forgiveness."

"Then do not tell it! The man is still living?"

"I believe so."

"And your husband,--where is he?"

"In the city. He is waiting but to be received by you ere he return to France to arrange his affairs in that country."

"He need not long delay his departure, then: tell him so."

"You forgive us, then?" cried she, almost bursting with grat.i.tude.

"No!--never!"

"Not forgive us!--not acknowledge us!"

"Never! never!" reiterated he, with a thick utterance that sounded like the very concentration of pa.s.sion. The words seemed to have a spell in them to conjure up a feeling in her who heard, as deeply powerful as in him who spoke them.

"Am I no longer your daughter, sir?" asked she, rising and drawing herself to her full height before him.

"You are a Countess, madam," said he, with a scornful irony; "I am but an humble man, of obscure station and low habits. I know nothing of n.o.bility, nor of its ways."

"I ask again, do you disown me?" said she, with a voice as calm and collected as his own.

"For ever and ever," said he, waving his hand, as though the gesture was to be one of adieu. "You are mine no longer,--you had ceased to be so ere I knew it. Go to your home, if you have one; here, you are but an intruder,--unasked, unwished for!"

"Bitter words to part with! but hear me, sir. He who has joined his lot to mine should not pay the penalty of my fault. Against him you can bear no malice; he at least does not merit the reproach you have cast on me.

Will you see him,--may he speak with you?"

"Whenever he pleases,--provided it be but once. I will not be importuned."

"You will bear in mind, sir, that he is a man of birth and station, and that to his ears words of insult are a stranger."

"I will treat him with all the deference I owe to his rank, and to the part he has performed towards myself," said f.a.gan, slowly.

"It were, perhaps, better, then, that you should not meet?"

"It were, perhaps, better so!"

"Good-bye, sir. I have no more to say."

"Good-bye, madam. Tell Raper I want to speak to him, as you pa.s.s out."

With Raper the interview was briefer still. f.a.gan dryly informed his old follower that he no longer needed his services. And although Joe heard the words as a criminal might have listened to those of his last sentence, he never uttered a syllable. f.a.gan was brief, though bitter.

He reproached him with the long years he had sheltered him beneath his roof, and reviled him for ingrat.i.tude! He spoke of him as one who had eaten the bread of idleness, and repaid an existence of ease by treachery. Once, and only once, did the insulting language he lavished on him seem to sting him beyond further endurance. It was when f.a.gan said:

"You think me in your power, sir; you fancy that amid that ma.s.s of rubbish and confusion my affairs have been involved in, that you alone can be the guide. But I tell you here now that were it even so, I 'd rather heap them on the fire, and stand forth a beggar to the world, than harbor within my doors a man like you!"

The struggle that it cost poor Joe to hear this, without reply, was great; but a sense of the deference that throughout a long life he had ever rendered to his master, overpowered all considerations of self. He indeed felt that he had been wronged; he knew all the injustice of the reproach; but he also bethought him of the many years in which that house had been his home, and that hearth his own. He was not one to remember what he had rendered in return, nor think of the long existence of toil by which he had earned his livelihood. The settled humility which was the basis of his whole character made him esteem himself as one whose station excluded all thought of those relations that exist between members of the same community; and that his conduct should be arraigned, argued that his acts possessed a degree of importance he had never attributed to them.

He heard f.a.gan, therefore, throughout, without any effort at reply; and, heaving a faint sigh, withdrew.

I have no means of knowing how Gabriac behaved in this trying emergency.

All that I have heard came from Raper; and poor Joe was neither shrewd in his observation of character, nor quick to appreciate motives. The Count decided at once on a return to the Continent: perhaps he thought there might arise some chance of reconciliation with the father if Polly, for a time, at least, were withdrawn from his sight; perhaps, too, some hope there might be of arrangement of his own affairs. Raper was also to accompany them, in the prospect of finding some clerkship in an office, or some employment in a mercantile house abroad, where his knowledge of languages might be available. At all events, his protection and companionship would be useful to Polly, whenever the Count would be compelled to absent himself from home; and, lastly, the funds for the enterprise were all supplied by Joe, who contributed something under four hundred pounds,--the savings of a whole life of labor!

As for Polly, to the humblest ornament she had ever worn, to the meanest gift she had received in childhood,--she left all behind her. Her jewels were worth some thousands,--her wardrobe was even splendid; but she went forth without a gem, and with barely what sufficed her in dress.

"And what is this?" said the Count, half disdainfully touching with his foot what seemed to be an oblong basket of colored straw.

"Poor Josephine's baby!" said Polly, with eyes swimming in tears.

"And is he, is she,--whichever it be,--to form one of the party?" asked he, angrily.

"Can you ask it, Emile? You remember the last words she ever spoke to us on the morning we left the Killeries."

"That unlucky journey!" muttered he; but fortunately not loud enough for her to catch the words.

"The little fellow will soon be able to walk, and to mutter some words; he will be company for me when you are away!" said she, sorrowfully.

"L'Ami Joseph ought to fill up that void," said De Gabriac, laughing. "I think myself the very paragon of husbands to accede to the arrangement!"

Strange words were these for her to hear,--nor, indeed, could she penetrate their meaning; but Polly's cares at that moment gave little time for thought, for every detail of preparation was left to her.

Raper, it is true, did his utmost to aid her; but already De Gabriac had a.s.sumed a manner of superiority and command towards Joe which greatly embarra.s.sed Polly, and compelled her to use every means of keeping them apart.

Thus were they started on the sea of life: does it need much foresight to predict the voyage?

CHAPTER XXIII. A MOUNTAIN ADVENTURE

Why do we all refer to the period of boyhood as one of happiness? It is not that it had not its own sorrows, nor that they were really so light,--it is simply because it was the season of hope. In after-life, as deception after deception has checked us, when disappointment has dulled expectancy, we become more practical, less dreamy, and, alas!

less happy. The possible and the probable of youth are not the possible and the probable of manhood, still less those of riper age. The realms of boyish fancy are as wide as the great ocean; and we revel in them in all the plenitude of unrestricted power. There is not a budding effort of intellect that we do not magnify to ourselves as the origin of future distinction. We exalt our feats of strength and courage into deeds of heroic daring; and we fancy that the little struggles and crosses we meet with are like the great trials and reverses of after-life; and in our pride of success, we deem ourselves conquerors. Oh for one day, for even one short hour, of that time of glorious delusions! Oh that I could once more look out upon the world as one gazes at a sunset at sea, wondering what beauteous lands lie afar off in the distance, and imagining the time when we should be journeying towards them, buoyant, high-hearted, hopeful! Who has ever achieved any success that equalled his boyish ambitions? Who has ever been as great or as good as his early visions have pictured him?

I have already told my reader that my youth was not pa.s.sed in affluence.

Our means were limited to the very merest requirements of existence; our food and our clothing were humble as our dwelling; and I believe that many a sore privation was needed to escape the calamity of debt. Of all these hardships I knew nothing at the time; my experience pointed out none who seemed to possess an existence happy as my own. I had all that unvarying affection and devoted love could bestow. My little turret in winter, the fields and the mountains in summer, made up a glorious world, full of interest; and the days seemed never long enough for all my plans of pleasure.

I had no companions of my own age, nor did I feel the want of them; for when my school hours were over I was free to follow the caprices of my own fancy. There was in my isolation a sort of independence that I gloried in. To be alone with my own day-dreams--my own ambitious hopes--my own high-soaring thoughts--was an ecstasy of delight that I would not have exchanged for any companionship. The very indulgence of these humors soon rendered me unsuited for a.s.sociation with others, whose ideas and habits appeared to me to be all vain, and trifling, and contemptible. The books of travel and discovery which I loved to read, had filled my mind with those stories of adventure which attend the explorer of unknown lands,--the wonders of scenery, and the strange pictures of life and people. There was in the career itself that blending of heroism and philanthropy, that mingled courage and humanity, which appealed to my heart by its very strongest sympathies; and I felt for these n.o.ble and devoted adventurers not less admiration than love.

All my solitary rambles through the wild valleys of the neighborhood, all my lonely walks over mountains, were in imitation of these wanderers, whose hardships I envied, and whose perils I longed to share.

Not a rugged crag nor snow-capped summit that I did not name after some far-away land; and every brook and rippling stream became to me the Nile, the Euphrates, or the Ganges. The desolate character of the scenery amidst which we lived, the wide tracts of uninhabited country, favored these illusions; and for whole days long not an incident would occur to break the spell which fancy had thrown around me.

My kind mother--for so Polly always taught me to call her--seemed to take delight in favoring these self-delusions of mine, and fell readily into all my caprices about locality.