Fabiola : or, The church of the catacombs - Digital Repository Services

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.pon it with different feelings He. was loss agitated
had entered tin- room lie looked at her for
tinu' previously to h him.
was leading by the hand two little ohildren who Iiad been
ig their father, a sick soldier and telling the person who
had brought them to .'.n in a week's time. Then :-he
turned to an old man, sitting with his chin resting on his stick,
:iud joked and laughed with him till she made him look merry;
and next she examined papers presented to her by n pale soldier
with his arm in a sling, and irave him directions about the office
where he was to app'y for admission. Yes, she looked just as
beautiful as ever; and each poor person who spoke to hei ^
to hang on her words as if there had been in them a spell to bring
them relief. It was delightful to watch her, as with a light step,
a clear voice, and a pretty resolute manner, she got through her
business with each of those who had asked for her. But as he
watched and gazed, George felt that a change had come over De-
iiisc de la Pinede, which unconsciously was changing also the
feelings with which he looked upon her. The wild, the agitating,
the sentimental worship with which he had regarded the
girl who, like an angel of beauty and brightness, had visited her
ancestral home, and roused in him the first emotions of a roman-
tic affection, seemed to disappear like magic in the presence of
the earnest, business-like, serene, sweet-faced Sister of Charity.
They melted away in the healthy sunshine of her joyous, placid
countenance as the white frost disappears from the pane where
it had formed fanciful pictures. By this time she perceived him,
and coming up to him with a smile, said:
"
Oh, M. le Baron. I wanted to speak to you.'"
George felt quite calm and composed.
"You must excuse me," So3ur Denise said, " if I doubted for
an instant that a dying person's wish to see you, and that person
an old man who has loved you from a child, would be sufficient
to decide you to give up your departure. Excuse me for having
thought it necessary to claim the fulfilment of a rash promise,
which you had probably by this time forgotten."
"
I have forgotten nothing," George answered, "and I
thanlj
you for having made it impossible for me to hesitate between two
duties which seemed equally imperative."
"That of consoling Vincent on his death-bed, and the other?
"
What was that other duty, M. George?
There was a sort of smile on Dcnise's face, a look of amusement
in her dark, bright eyes, which piqued George, and he answered
with a heightened color:
"
May I ask, ma saiur, if in writing to claim the fulfilment of
my promise, and stopping my departure, you were actuated by
the sole desire that I should visit poor VincenUon his death-bed? "
"
No, M. le Baron, I wished also to save you from committing
a wrong and foolish action."
"What do you mean? How can you judge of my reasons?
You do not even know what where my intentions."
"I know this much, that you are married to a virtuous and
amiable girl, and that without her consent without the knowl-
edge of your parents, to whom you owe respect, if not obedience;
you are acting on pure impulse, and abandoning your
home, your wife, and your duties in a fit of anger or
despondency."
There was something so severe in the expression of Sceur
Denise's countenance, that George quailed beneath her glance.
He had once looked upon her as an angel sent to console him
when his mother's illness was breaking his heart. Now she
seemed like a heavenly messenger commissioned to upbraid him.
Tie felt half indignant, half subdued. His cheek was flushed
and his brow contracted. He burst forth in a tone of voice as
loud as was compatible with the fear of being heard by some of
the groups scattered about the room, and began to justify him-
self. He spoke of having been forced to marry a girl he did not
care for. Soeur Denise interrupted him and said:
" No force should have compelled you to do that, M. George-,
you are a perfectly truthful person, and I am sure you will not
venture to say that it was not optional for you to resist the pres-
gure put upon you."
[y parents were bent on this marriage."
"
If you were bo:md to obey them then, what right have you
DOW to lly in their faces by forsaking the wife they have given
you?"
"
She hates me, and I can never love her."
11
Are you sure she hates you? Have you tried to love her?
Have you tried to make her love you? Have you forgot that
you are bound to her by the vows you made before God's altar,
and that yon have no right to deal with her us with a stranger?
M. le Baron, you are a man of honor; }-ou would not have.
broken a promise you gave me. half in joke, perhaps, and you
deliberately break one you made to protect and cherish this
young girl whom God has committed to your keeping, and for
whose soul you will have to answer, if, abandoned at the
seventeen to all the temptations of youth and inexperience, she
should stray from the path of virtue and honor. You have not
thought of this: you have been deluding yourself; you have been
on the point of committing a great sin. Thank God that lie has
saved you from it. Oh, M. de Vedelles, how blind you have
"
been ! how
nearly wicked without knowing it !
" She hates me, and my wish was to deliver her from the pres-
ence of one whom she looks upon with aversion."
Soeur Denise made a little gesture of impatience, and said:
"Because a child like your young wife turned her back upon
you once and vexed you, are both your lives to be wretched?
Do your duty: leave the rest to God. Would I had still, as some
"
hours ago, the right to command you !
" Sornr Denise," George exclaimed with emotion, "listen to
me; I am not so bad as you think me. I really thought what I
meant to do was best for Rose, and my plans were not BI
I left her all the means of enjoyment I renounced, and my in
tention was to offer myself to work with the Catholic mi
ries in the South Sea Islands, and lead, far away from Europe,
the sort of life you are leading here."
Soeur Denise could not repress a smile.
"My dear M. de Vedelles," she replied, "that was a very fine
dream, but it is God alone who can call people to lives of this
sort, not their own deluded fancies. You have before you your
path traced out. It may still be a happy one."
George shook his head.
" You can make it a happy one if you choose, even if it was
full of trials and sorrows. But earthly happiness may still be
yours, if you do not thrust it from you. I have a great mind to
tell you a secret, in two words, for I must be off. That little
wife of yours you know I have never told a lie in my life,
even for a good object I say, your wife loves you, and is
breaking her heart at your leaving her. Good-bye, M. de Vedelles!
Give my kind regards to M. Vincent, and tell him that
Srcur Denise will offer up her communion for him to-morrow."
As she, passed through the passage into the wards, Scrur penise
met Mademoiselle Lescalle, who had been praying durin.
whole time of the interview. She took her by the hand and led
her to the window. It was getting dark, but they could see
George hurrying down the street leading
Diligences.
" There he goes," she whispered to Mise Jledc.
" Does he know he will find Rose at La Pinede?"
to the Bureau des
"No, I thought it better not to tell him so. I think all will
be right; but now we must leave the rest to our good God, and
Lope for the best."
CHAPTER XX.
ROSE AT LA PINEDE.
IT was about five o'clock in the morning when George dc
Vedelles got out of the diligence at the place where the cross-
roads which led to La Pinede branched off from the high
The sun was rising, and the birds beginning to sing. After the
jolting and the dust of the drive in the diligence tin .
something wonderfully refreshing in the morning nil
1
and lh