CHAPTER XXII
LOVE REQUITED
Then Diane threw herself into Gabriel's arms,—"And you, too, Gabriel," said she, "you, too, I must thank and bless. With my last conscious thought, I invoked my guardian angel, and you came to me. Thanks! oh, thanks!"
"Oh, Diane," he replied, "how I have suffered, and what a weary time it has been since I saw you last!"
"And I too have suffered, and have found the waiting weary," she cried.
They then began—at too great length to be dramatic, it must be confessed—to tell what each had endured and felt during their unhappy separation.
Calais, the Duc de Guise, vanquished and victors,—all were forgotten. All the strife and all the deadly passion which was rife about the two lovers did not reach them. Lost in their world of love and ecstasy, they no longer saw or heard the sights or sounds of the sad world around them.
When one has undergone so much grief and terror, the heart is enfeebled and softened to a certain extent by suffering, and though brave to overcome disaster, can no longer resist happiness. In this balmy atmosphere of chaste emotion, Diane and Gabriel gave themselves up without restraint to the sweet influences of peace and joy, to which they had so long been strangers.
To the scene of insane passion which we have described succeeded another similar, and yet widely different at the same time.
"How good it seems to be with you, my friend," said Diane. "Instead of the presence of that impious wretch whom I hated so, and whose love made me shudder, what ecstasy to have you near me, so reassuring, and so precious!"
"And I," rejoined Gabriel, "since our childhood, when we were happy without knowing it, do not remember, Diane, that I have ever known in my poor lonely, troubled life a single moment to be compared to this."
For a while they were silent, gazing in rapt enjoyment at each other.
Diane resumed:—
"Come and sit by me, Gabriel. Can you believe it, dear, this moment, which has united us once more in so unhoped-for a manner, I have nevertheless dreamed of and foreseen, even in my apparently hopeless captivity? I have always felt sure that my deliverance would come through you, and that in my supreme peril God would send you, my own knight, to rescue me."
"For my part, Diane," said Gabriel, "the thought of you has always led me on as a lover and guided my steps like a ray of light. Shall I make a confession to you and to my own conscience? Although many other potent motives might have urged me on, I never should have conceived the idea of taking Calais, Diane, which is mine alone, nor should I ever have had the courage to carry it out by resorting to such reckless expedients, had it not been that you were a prisoner here, and that my prophetic instinct of the danger which beset you encouraged and stimulated me. Except for my hope of rescuing you and the other holy purpose for which I live, Calais would still be in English hands. May God, in His mercy, not chastise me for having wished to do and having done what was right for selfish reasons only!"
Gabriel thought at that moment of the scene in the Rue St. Jacques, of the self-abnegation of Ambroise Paré, and the stern belief of the admiral that Heaven demands unstained hands to sustain a pure cause.
But Diane's beloved voice restored his confidence somewhat as she exclaimed,—
"God chastise you, Gabriel! God chastise you for being noble and generous!"
"Who knows?" said he, casting upward a look heavy with sad foreboding, as if he were asking the question of Heaven.
"I know," replied Diane, with a lovely smile.
She was so bewitching as she said it that Gabriel, in admiration of her beauty, and lost to every other thought, could not restrain the exclamation,—
"Oh, Diane, you are as beautiful as an angel!"
"And you as valiant as a hero, Gabriel," said Diane. They were seated side by side; their hands touched by accident and met in a fervent clasp. Darkness was beginning to fall.
Diane, with blushing cheeks, rose and walked away a few steps.
"Are you going, Diane? You are flying from me!" said the youth, sadly.
"Oh, no indeed!" said she eagerly, drawing near again. "With you it is very different; and I have no fear, dearest."
Diane was wrong; it was a different sort of danger that threatened her now, but danger nevertheless; and it might be that the friend was as much to be feared as the foe.
"That is right, Diane!" said Gabriel, taking the little hand, white and soft, which she surrendered to him once more; "that is as it should be. Let us enjoy a little happiness after all we have gone through. Let us give free play to our hearts to revel in their confidence and joy."
"Yes, indeed; it is so good to be near you, Gabriel!" Diane replied. "Let us forget the world and the uproar around us for a moment; let us enjoy to the full the unaccustomed sweetness of this hour. God, I think, will allow us to do so without anxiety or dread. You are right; else why have we suffered so?"
With a graceful movement which was common with her when she was a child, she laid her lovely head upon Gabriel's shoulder; her great velvety eyes slowly closed, and her hair brushed the lips of the ardent youth.
It was he then who rose, shuddering and bewildered.
"Well, what is it?" said Diane, opening her drooping eyes in wonder.
He fell on his knees before her, pale as a ghost, and threw his arms about her.
"Oh, Diane, Diane! I love you!" he cried from the bottom of his heart.
"And I love you, too, Gabriel," Diane replied, fearlessly, and as if in obedience to an irresistible impulse of her heart.
How their faces came nearer together; how their lips met; how in that long, sweet kiss, their very souls were blended, God only knows; certain it is that they did not know themselves.
But suddenly Gabriel, who felt his reason trembling in the vertigo of happiness, tore himself away from Diane.
"Diane, leave me!" he almost shrieked, with a note of horror in his voice, "let me fly!"
"Fly! and why, pray?" she asked wonderingly.
"Oh, Diane, Diane! if you should turn out to be my sister!" replied Gabriel, beside himself.
"Your sister!" echoed Diane, overwhelmed, paralyzed. Gabriel checked himself, dismayed and like one stunned by his own words; drawing his hand across his burning brow, he asked in a loud voice,—
"What did I say?"
"What did you say, really?" said Diane. "Must I believe it to be literally true, that fearful word? What is the key to this terrible mystery? Can I really be your sister? Oh, mon Dieu!"
"My sister? Did I tell you that you were my sister?" said Gabriel.
"Ah, it is true, then!" cried Diane, gasping for breath.
"No; it is not, cannot be true! I do not know it, and who can know it? Besides, I ought not to have said a word of all this to you. It is a secret involving life and death which I have sworn to keep. Ah, Heaven have pity upon me! I have preserved my self-control and my reason amid suffering and misfortune; must it be that the first drop of happiness which passes my lips should intoxicate me even to insanity and forgetfulness of my oath!"
"Gabriel," rejoined Madame de Castro, gravely, "God knows that it is no vain and purposeless curiosity which moves my words; but you have said either too much or too little for my peace of mind. Now you must finish."
"Impossible, impossible!" cried Gabriel in terror.
"And why impossible?" said Diane. "Something in my heart assures me that these dread secrets concern me quite as nearly as yourself, and that you have no right to conceal them from me."
"That is very true," Gabriel rejoined, "and you have certainly as much right as I to this suffering. But since the burden bears upon me alone, ask me not to share it with you."
"But I do ask it, and desire, nay, I demand my rightful share of your burdens," Diane returned; "and to go still further, Gabriel, I implore you! Will you refuse me?"
"But I have sworn to the king!" exclaimed Gabriel anxiously.
"You have sworn?" rejoined Diane. "Very well, keep your oath loyally to strangers or to indifferent persons, nay, even to your friends, and it will be well done of you. But with me, who, as you admit, have as deep an interest as yourself in this mystery, can you, ought you, to preserve this baleful silence? No, Gabriel, not if you have any pity for me. My doubts and anxiety on this subject have already torn my heart enough. In this matter, if not, alas! in the other events of your life, I am, in a measure, your second self. Do you perjure yourself, pray, when you muse upon your secret in the solitude of your own conscience? Do you think that my loyal and sincere heart, tried by so many bitter tests, will not be as steadfast as yours to retain and hold in trust the secret of joy or sorrow confided to it, and which belongs to it as much as to you?"
The soft and soothing tones of Diane's voice flowed on, moving the young man's inmost soul, as if it were an instrument obedient to her words.
"And then, Gabriel, since fate forbids our being bound together by the ties of happy love, how can you have the heart to deny me the only communion of feeling which is permissible for us,—that of sorrow? Shall we not suffer less if we suffer together? Is it not, then, very sad to think that the only bond which can unite us still keeps us apart?"
Feeling that Gabriel, though half convinced, was still in doubt, she resumed,—
"Besides, you must beware! If you persist in your silence, why should I not adopt the same language with you which caused you so much terror and anguish just now,—why, I know not,—but which you yourself, after all, long ago taught my lips and my heart? Surely your betrothed has the right to tell you over and over again that she loves you, and none but you. Your promised wife in God's sight may surely, with a chaste caress, put her head upon your shoulder and her lips to your forehead thus—"
But Gabriel, with a sinking heart, again put Diane aside, with a shudder.
"No!" he cried, "have pity on my reason, Diane, I implore you. So you really wish to know the terrible secret in all its details? Well, in the face of a possible crime, I allow it to pass my lips. Yes, Diane, you must take in their literal meaning the words which I let bill in my agony a moment ago. Diane, it is possible that you are the daughter of the Comte de Montgommery, my father; it is possible that you are my sister."
"Holy Virgin!" murmured Madame de Castro, overwhelmed by this revelation. "But how can it be?" she added.
"I should have preferred," said Gabriel, "that your pure and peaceful life should never have come to know aught of this mystery, so full of terror and crime. But I am confident, alas! that in the end my strength alone would not have been sufficient to prevail against my love. So you must assist me against yourself, Diane, and I will tell you all."
"I listen, Gabriel, in terrible dread, but with attention," said Diane.
Gabriel then narrated everything to her: how his father had loved Madame de Poitiers, and in the eyes of all the court had seemed to be favored by her; how the dauphin, the present king, had become his rival; how the Comte de Montgommery had disappeared one day, and how Aloyse had come to know, and had revealed to his son what had taken place. But that was the extent of the nurse's information; and since Madame de Poitiers obstinately refused to speak, the Comte de Montgommery alone, if he were still living, could tell the secret of Diane's birth.
When Gabriel had finished the lugubrious history, Diane cried,—
"This is indeed frightful! But whatever be the issue, my friend, there is misery in store for us. If I am the Comte de Montgommery's daughter, you are my brother Gabriel; if I am the king's daughter, you are the rightfully outraged enemy of my father. So that in either event we must be parted."
"No, Diane," Gabriel replied, "our wretchedness, thank God, is not altogether hopeless. Since I have begun to tell you the whole story, I will go on to the end. I feel, too, that you were in the right; it has encouraged me to confide in you; and my secret, after all, has only left my heart to be shared by yours."
Gabriel then told Madame de Castro of the strange and perilous bargain he had made with Henri II., and the king's solemn promise to restore the Comte de Montgommery to freedom if the Vicomte de Montgommery, after having defended St. Quentin against the Spaniards, should wrest Calais from the English.
Now Calais had been for an hour a French city, and Gabriel thought that he might say with all modesty that he had had a large share in bringing about that glorious result.
As he continued, the light of hope began to chase away the gloom from Diane's face as the light of dawn dissipates the darkness.
When Gabriel had finished, she remained silent for a moment in deep thought; then she said firmly, holding out her hand to him,—
"Poor Gabriel! doubtless we have as much to think about and suffer in the future as we have had in the past. But let us not stop there, my friend. We must not allow ourselves to become weak and timid. For my part, I will do my best to be strong and brave like you and with you. The important thing now is to set to work and unravel our fate one way or the other. Our agony is drawing to a close, I believe. You have now kept and more than kept your promise to the king, and he, I trust, will redeem his to you. It is upon that expectation that we must henceforth base all our thoughts and hopes. What do you mean to do now?"
"Monsieur le Duc de Guise," replied Gabriel, "was my illustrious confidant, and was accessory to all that I undertook to do here. I know that, except for him, I could have done nothing; but he knows as well that he could have done nothing without me. He, only, can and ought to bear witness to the king of the part I have taken in this new conquest. I have so much the more reason to expect this act of justice from him because he promised me solemnly, for the second time, within a few days, to give that testimony. Now I am going at once to remind Monsieur de Guise of his undertaking, also to request from him a letter to his Majesty, and since my presence here is no longer essential, to start at once for Paris—"
Gabriel was still speaking eagerly, and Diane listening with her eyes beaming with hope, when the door opened, and Jean Peuquoy appeared, discomposed, and in apparent consternation.
"Well, what is it?" asked Gabriel, anxiously. "Is Martin-Guerre worse?"
"No, Monsieur le Vicomte," replied Jean. "Martin-Guerre has been taken to our house by my efforts, and Master Ambroise Paré has already seen him. Although amputation of the leg was deemed necessary, Master Paré thinks that we may be sure that your gallant squire will survive the operation."
"Splendid news!" said Gabriel. "Ambroise Paré is doubtless with him still?"
"Monseigneur," replied the burgher, sadly, "he was obliged to leave him to attend another wounded man, more illustrious and more hopeless."
"Who is it, pray?" asked Gabriel, changing color. "Maréchal Strozzi, Monsieur de Nevers—?"
"Monsieur le Duc de Guise, who lies dying at this moment," said Jean.
Gabriel and Diane simultaneously uttered a cry of grief.
"And I was just saying that we were nearing the end of our agony," said Madame de Castro, after a moment's silence. "Oh, Mon Dieu! mon Dieu!"
"Call not upon God, Madame," said Gabriel, with a sad smile. "God is just, and justly chastises my selfishness. I took Calais only for my father's sake and yours. It is God's will that I should have taken it for the good of France.”