Her Majesty's Minister Part 16

And next instant I recollected the strange effect the news of his arrival in Paris had had upon Yolande, and the curiously tragic event which had subsequently occurred. All was puzzling--all inscrutable.

A silence fell between us. I was revolving in my mind whether I should ask this wizen-faced old leader of Society a further question. With sudden resolve I turned to her again and asked:

"O Baronne, I had quite forgotten. Do you chance to know the Countess de Foville, of Brussels? They have a chateau down in the Ardennes, and move in the best set in Belgium?"

"De Foville? De Foville?" she repeated. "What, do you mean the mother of that little witch Yolande?"

"Yes. But why do you call her a witch?" I demanded, with feigned laughter.

"Why?" cried the old woman, the expression of her face growing dark with displeasure. "Well, I do not know whether she is a friend of yours, but all I can tell you is that should she be, the best course for you to pursue is to cut her acquaintance."

"What do you mean?" I gasped.

"I mean exactly what I have said."

"But I don't understand," I cried. "Be more frank with me," I implored.

"No," she answered in that hard voice, by which I knew that mention of Yolande's name had displeased her. "Remember that we are friends, and that sometimes we have interests in common. Therefore, take this piece of advice from an old woman who knows."

"Knows what?"

"Knows that your friends.h.i.+p with the pretty Yolande is dangerous-- extremely dangerous."

CHAPTER TEN.

CONFESSION.

Next day, when the manservant asked me into the tiny boudoir in the Rue de Courcelles, I found Yolande, in a pretty tea-gown of cream silk adorned with lace and ribbons, seated in an armchair in an att.i.tude of weariness. The sun-shutters were closed, as on the previous day, for the heat in Paris that July was insufferable, and in the dim light her wan figure looked very fair and fragile. The qualities which imparted to her a distinct individuality were the beautiful combination of the pastoral with the elegant--of simplicity with elevation--of spirit with sweetness.

She gave vent to a cry of gladness as I entered, rose, and stretching out her hands in welcome, drew a seat for me close to her. I looked at her standing before me in her warm, breathing, human loveliness.

"You are better, Yolande? Ah! how glad I am!" I commenced. "Last night I believed that you were dead."

"And if I had died would it really have mattered so very much to you?"

she asked in a low, intense voice. "You have forgotten me for three whole years until now."

"I know--I know!" I cried. "Forgive me."

"I have already forgiven," she said, allowing her hand still to remain in mine. "But I have been thinking to-day--thinking ever so much."

Her voice was weak and faltering, and I saw that she was not herself.

"Thinking of what?"

"Of you. I have been wondering whether, if I had died, you would have sometimes remembered me?"

"Remembered you?" I said earnestly. "Why, of course, dearest. Why do you speak in such a melancholy tone?"

"Because--well, because I am unhappy, Gerald!" she cried, bursting into sudden tears. "Ah! you do not know how I suffer--you can never know!"

I bent and stroked her hair, that beautiful red-gold hair that I had so often heard admired in the great salons in Brussels. It had been bound but lightly by her maid, and was secured by a blue ribbon. She had apologised for receiving me thus, but declared that her head ached, and it was easier so. Doctor Deane had called twice that morning, and had p.r.o.nounced her entirely out of danger.

"But why are you suffering?" I asked, caressing her and striving to charm away her tears. "Cannot you confide in me?"

She shook her head in despair, and her body was shaken by a convulsive sob.

"Surely there is confidence between us?" I urged. "Do you not remember that day long ago when we walked one evening in the sunset hand-in-hand, as was our wont, along the river-path towards La Roche? Do you not remember how you told me that in future you would have no single secret from me?"

"Yes," she answered hoa.r.s.ely, with an effort, "I recollect."

"Then you intend to break your promise to me?" I whispered earnestly.

"Surely you will not do this, Yolande? You will not hide from me the cause of all this bitterness of yours?" She was silent. Her breast, beneath its lace, rose quickly and fell again. Her tear-filled eyes were fixed upon the carpet.

"I would not break my promise," she said at last, clasping my hand convulsively and lifting her eyes to mine; "but, alas! it is now imperative."

"Why imperative?"

"I must suffer alone," she responded gloomily, shaking her head. Her countenance was as pale as her gown, and she s.h.i.+vered as though she were cold, although the noonday heat was suffocating.

"Because you refuse to tell me anything or allow me to a.s.sist you?" I said. "This is not in accordance with the promise made and sealed by your lips on that evening long ago."

"Nor have your actions been in accordance with your own promise," she said slowly and distinctly.

"To what do you refer?"

"You told me that you loved me, Gerald," she said in a deep voice, suddenly grown calm. "You swore by all you held most sacred that I was all the world to you, and that no one should come between us. Yet past events have shown that you have forgotten those words of yours on the day when we idled in the Bois beneath the trees. You, too, remember that day, do you not--the day when our lips met for the first time, and we both believed our path would in future be strewn with flowers? Ah!"

she sighed, "and what an awakening life has been to me since then!"

"We parted because of your refusal to satisfy me as to the real state of your feelings towards the man who was my enemy," I said rather warmly.

"But was it justifiable?" she asked in a tone of deep reproach and mingled sweetness. Her blue eyes looked full upon me--those eyes that had held me in such fascination in the golden days of youth. "Has any single fact which you have since discovered verified your suspicions?

Tell me truthfully;" and she leaned towards me in an att.i.tude of deepest earnestness.

"No," I answered honestly, "I cannot say that my suspicions have ever been verified."

"And because of that you have returned to me when it is too late."

"Too late!" I cried. "What do you mean?"

"Exactly what I have said. You have come back to me when it is too late."

"You speak in enigmas, Yolande. Why not be more explicit?"

Her pale lips trembled, her eyes were br.i.m.m.i.n.g with tears, her chilly hand quivered in mine. She did not speak for some moments, but at last said in a low, tremulous voice half choked by emotion:

"Once you loved me, Gerald,--of that I feel confident; and I reciprocated your affection, G.o.d knows! Our love was, perhaps, curious, inasmuch as you were English and I was of a different creed and held different ideas from those which you considered right. It is always the same with a man and woman of different nationality--there must be a give-and-take principle between them. Between us, however, there was perfect confidence until, by a strange combination of circ.u.mstances--by a stroke of the sword of Fate--that incident occurred which led to our estrangement."

She paused, her blanched lips shut tight. "Well?" I asked, "I am all attention. Why is it too late now for me to make reparation for the past?"