"Uncle, what I have to say to you is very grave."

"What a lot of preamble! Well, I am listening."

"The Duke de Morlay-La-Branche loves Esperance pa.s.sionately."

"Well, that is a pity for the Duke, but he will console himself easily enough."

Maurice was silent before he continued, "Esperance is madly in love with the Duke!"

Francois started violently.

"You are raving, Maurice; she is engaged to Count Styvens and has no right to forget him."

"She has never been in love with the Count, and can hardly endure him since she has foreseen another future."

"What future?"

"The Duke wants to marry Esperance."

"But it is impossible, impossible," said the philosopher violently. "A word that has been given cannot be taken back so lightly."

"Calm yourself, uncle, if you please. For three days I have been wandering about in this untenable situation. We must make a decision.

Every instant I fear an outbreak either from Albert or from the Duke."

"How have Esperance and the Duke contrived to see each other?"

"I will tell you all that uncle, later, but the how and the why are not very important at this moment. I want you to send for Albert.

Esperance does not wish to marry him. She has loved the Duke a long time, but did not know that he loved her, and did not suppose an alliance possible between our families, even though you have made the name ill.u.s.trious. For that matter I should never have supposed myself that the Duke would consent to make what would generally be considered a mesalliance."

"It all seems unbelievable," murmured Francois.

And with his head in his hands he groaned despairingly, "How can we sacrifice that n.o.ble and unfortunate Albert?"

"One of the three must suffer, uncle. It would be a crime to sacrifice Esperance who has the right to love whom she pleases and to choose her own life. The Duke Morlay is loved, Count Albert is not and never has been. He knows it as you know it now. Esperance consented to marry him through grat.i.tude to you."

"Ah! I feared as much," said the professor prostrated.

Francois Darbois remained a long time in thought, then he got up, his face lined with sadness.

"Tell your cousin to come to me, I will wait for her here."

"I will send her to you at once. Forgive me for having so distressed you, dear uncle."

"It was your duty!"

Francois pressed his hand affectionately. Left alone he felt despairing. The futility of the precautions he had taken, the inanity of all reasoning, of all logic, plunged him into the scepticism he had been combatting for so many years.

Maurice found his cousin talking to Albert, the Marquis of Montagnac, and Genevieve.

"Your father is feeling a little indisposed and is going to bed. Would not you like to say good-night to him?"

Esperance rose immediately. Albert wanted to go with her, but Maurice held him back, and began asking under what conditions he proposed to play the duet with Esperance next day.

"It is all one to me," replied the Count wearily. "I am in a hurry to get away from here. I find myself too much disturbed by my nerves, and you know, cousin, how unusual it is for me to be nervous."

At this term of family familiarity, Maurice shivered. He thought of the interview now taking place in his uncle's room. Genevieve joined them and they strolled up and down, but Albert made them return continually near the tower.

When Esperance opened the door of the little salon where her father was waiting, she saw him in such an att.i.tude of distress that she threw herself at his knees.

"Father, darling father, I ask your pardon. I am ruining your life just as you begin to reap the harvest of so many n.o.ble efforts. You have been so good to me," she sobbed, "and I must seem to you so ungrateful. Do not suffer so, I beg you. Take me away with you, let us go and I will do my best to forget; let us go!"

"But," said the Professor, hesitatingly, "Albert would follow."

The girl rose.

"Oh! no, not that. I wish I could marry Albert without loving him; I have tried, but I cannot go on to the end, I cannot!"

"You really love the Duke?"

"Father, for a whole year I have struggled against that love."

"Why have you never told me?"

"Because I saw nothing in the Duke's attentions except the agitation they caused me; and I was too ashamed to speak of it to you. I thought, considering the position of the Duke, that I was an aspiring fool. He overheard me talking to Genevieve. When he appeared before us, I so little expected to see him there at such an hour--six o'clock in the morning, in the grove--that my heart could not bear the shock, and I fainted. From that instant I understood how much I loved him. I had no idea before of the power of love, but now I feel it the master of my life. I will sacrifice that to your will, father; but I will not sacrifice the immense happiness of loving. Even if the Duke did not love me, I should still be uplifted by my own love."

She sat down beside her father.

"Who knows what unhappiness may not be lurking for me, ready to spring at any moment?"

She drew near him shivering.

Francois took her charming head in his hands. He looked at her tenderly, but with an expression almost of terror in his face.

"Alas! all happiness built upon the unhappiness of others always risks disillusionment--and collapse."

"Dear father, my life has been bathed in such sunlight for the last three days, that I shall keep that glow of warmth for the rest of my life."

"I only ask, you little daughter, to do nothing, to say nothing, before the end of this fete. We have no right, however grave our personal troubles and responsibilities are, to betray the hospitality of the d.u.c.h.ess. To-morrow, after the fete, I will talk to Albert. Go, my darling, go back to that poor boy. I hate to send you to practice a dissimulation that I abhor, but we are in a situation of such delicacy and difficulty.... G.o.d keep you!"

He kissed her tenderly. She went back to her fiance, to find to her surprise that the Countess de Morgueil had just pa.s.sed by with him.

Maurice pointed them out where they were walking slowly in the distance.

"Oh! so much the better," said Esperance. "That gives me an excuse to go to my room."

Maurice urged her to wait. "I am convinced that that woman is meddling in our affairs. It is plain enough that we have upset her."

"How? What do you mean, cousin?"

"Did you not know that the Countess is madly in love with the Duke, and that she had hoped to marry him this winter?"