"Nothing, dear girl; you put your hand on my wound, that is all.
What is that noise in the tree? Anybody listening to us?""I'll see," said Rose, with all a woman's wit, and whipped hastily round to hinder Camille from going.She found Josephine white as death, apparently fainting, and clutching at the tree convulsively with her nails.Such was the intensity of the situation that she left her beloved sister in that piteous state, and even hoped she would faint dead away, and so hear no more.She came back white, and told Camille it was only a bird got into the tree."And to think you should be wounded," said she, to divert his attention from the tree.
"Yes," said he, "and it is rather inflamed, and has worried me all the way.You need not go telling Josephine, though.They wanted me to stop and lay up at Bayonne.How could I? And again at Paris.
How could I? They said, 'You will die.'--'Not before I get to Beaurepaire,' said I.I could bear the motion of a horse no longer, so at the nearest town I asked for a carriage.Would you believe it? both his carriages were OUT AT A WEDDING.I could not wait till they came back.I had waited an eternity.I came on foot.Idragged my self along; the body was weak, but the heart was strong.
A little way from here my wound seemed inclined to open.I pressed it together tight with my hand; you see I could not afford to lose any more blood, and so struggled on.'Die?' said I, 'not before Beaurepaire.' And, O Rose! now I could be content to die--at her feet; for I am happy.Oh! I am happy beyond words to utter.What Ihave gone through! But I kept my word, and this is Beaurepaire.
Hurrah!" and his pale cheek flushed, and his eye gleamed, and he waved his hat feebly over his head, "hurrah! hurrah! hurrah!""Oh, don't!--don't!--don't!" cried Rose wild with pity and dismay.
"How can I help?--I am mad with joy--hurrah! hurrah! hurrah!""No! no! no! no! no!"
"What is the matter?"
"And must I stab you worse than all your enemies have stabbed you?"sighed Rose, and tears of womanly pity now streamed down her cheeks.
Camille's mind began to misgive him.What was become of Josephine?
she did not appear.He faltered out, "Your mother is well; all are well I hope.Oh, where is she?" and receiving no reply, began to tremble visibly with the fear of some terrible calamity.
Rose, with a sister fainting close by, and this poor lover trembling before her, lost all self-command, and began to wring her hands and cry wildly."Camille," she almost screamed, "there is but one thing for you to do; leave Beaurepaire on the instant: fly from it; it is no place for you.""She is dead," said Camille, very quietly.
When he said that, with an unnatural and monotonous calm such as precedes deliberate suicide, it flashed in one moment across Rose that it was much best he should think so.
She did not reply; but she drooped her head and let him think it.
"She would have come to me ere this if she was alive," said he.
"You are all in white: they mourn in white for angels like her, that go to heaven, virgins.Oh! I was blind.You might have told me at once; you see I can bear it.What does it matter to one who loves as I love? It is only to give her one more proof I lived only for her.I would have died a hundred times but for my promise to her.
Yes, I am coming, love; I am coming."
He fell on his knees and smiled, and whispered, "I am coming, Josephine, I am coming."A sob and a moan as of a creature dying in anguish answered him.
Rose screamed with terror when she heard it.
Camille rose to his feet, awestruck."That was her voice, behind this tree," he whispered.
"No, no," cried Rose; "it was me."
But at that moment a rustle and a rush was heard of some one darting out of the tree.
Camille darted furiously round it in the same direction.Rose tried to stop him, but was too late.The next moment Raynal's wife was in his arms.
