"I am obliged to be.I am the husband of the proudest woman in France.""Hush! not so loud: there is Dard on the grass.""Dard!" muttered the soldier with a word of meaning."Josephine,"said he after a pause, and a little peevishly, "how much longer are we to lower our voices, and turn away our eyes from each other, and be ashamed of our happiness?""Five months longer, is it not?" answered Josephine quietly.
"Five months longer!"
Josephine was hurt at this, and for once was betrayed into a serious and merited remonstrance.
"Is this just?" said she."Think of two months ago: yes, but two months ago, you were dying.You doubted my love, because it could not overcome my virtue and my gratitude: yet you might have seen it was destroying my life.Poor Raynal, my husband, my benefactor, died.Then I could do more for you, if not with delicacy, at least with honor; but no! words, and looks, and tender offices of love were not enough, I must give stronger proof.Dear Camille, I have been reared in a strict school: and perhaps none of your *** can know what it cost me to go to Frejus that day with him I love.""My own Josephine!"
"I made but one condition: that you would not rob me of my mother's respect: to her our hasty marriage would appear monstrous, heartless.You consented to be secretly happy for six months.One fortnight has passed, and you are discontented again.""Oh, no! do not think so.It is every word true.I am an ungrateful villain.""How dare you say so? and to me! No! but you are a man.""So I have been told; but my conduct to you, sweet one, has not been that of a man from first to last.Yet I could die for you, with a smile on my lips.But when I think that once I lifted this sacrilegious hand against your life--oh!""Do not be silly, Camille.I love you all the better for loving me well enough to kill me.What woman would not? I tell you, you foolish thing, you are a man: monseigneur is one of the lordly ***, that is accustomed to have everything its own way.My love, in a world that is full of misery, here are two that are condemned to be secretly happy a few months longer: a hard fate for one of your ***, it seems: but it is so much sweeter than the usual lot of mine, that really I cannot share your misery," and she smiled joyously.
"Then share my happiness, my dear wife."
"I do; only mine is deep, not loud."
"Why, Dard is gone, and we are out of doors; will the little birds betray us?""The lower windows are open, and I saw Jacintha in one of the rooms.""Jacintha? we are in awe of the very servants.Well, if I must not say it loud I will say it often," and putting his mouth to her ear, he poured a burning whisper of love into it--"My love! my angel! my wife! my wife! my wife!"She turned her swimming eyes on him.
"My husband!" she whispered in return.
Rose came out, and found them billing and cooing."You MUST not be so happy, you two," said she authoritatively.
"How can we help it?" asked Camille.
"You must and shall help it, somehow," retorted this little tyrant.
"Mamma suspects.She has given me such a cross-examination, my blood runs cold.No, on second thoughts, kiss her again, and you may both be as happy as you like; for I am going to tell mamma all, and no power on earth shall hinder me.""Rose," said Camille, "you are a sensible girl; and I always said so."But Josephine was horrified."What! tell my mother that within a month of my husband's death?"--"Don't say your husband," put in Camille wincing; "the priest never confirmed that union; words spoken before a magistrate do not make a marriage in the sight of Heaven."Josephine cut him short."Amongst honorable men and women all oaths are alike sacred: and Heaven's eye is in a magistrate's room as in a church.A daughter of Beaurepaire gave her hand to him, and called herself his wife.Therefore, she was his wife: and is his widow.
She owes him everything; the house you are all living in among the rest.She ought to be proud of her brief connection with that pure, heroic spirit, and, when she is so little noble as to disown him, then say that gratitude and justice have no longer a place among mankind.""Come into the chapel," said Camille, with a voice that showed he was hurt.
They entered the chapel, and there they saw something that thoroughly surprised them: a marble monument to the memory of Raynal.It leaned at present against the wall below the place prepared to receive it.The inscription, short, but emphatic, and full of feeling, told of the battles he had fought in, including the last fatal skirmish, and his marriage with the heiress of Beaurepaire; and, in a few soldier-like words, the uprightness, simplicity, and generosity of his character.
They were so touched by this unexpected trait in Camille that they both threw their arms round his neck by one impulse."Am I wrong to be proud of him?" said Josephine, triumphantly.
"Well, don't say too much to me," said Camille, looking down confused."One tries to be good; but it is very hard--to some of us--not to you, Josephine; and, after all, it is only the truth that we have written on that stone.Poor Raynal! he was my old comrade;he saved me from death, and not a soldier's death--drowning; and he was a better man than I am, or ever shall be.Now he is dead, I can say these things.If I had said them when he was alive, it would have been more to my credit."They all three went back towards the house; and on the way Rose told them all that had passed between the baroness and her.When she came to the actual details of that conversation, to the words, and looks, and tones, Josephine's uneasiness rose to an overpowering height; she even admitted that further concealment would be very difficult.
