A Blot on the Scutcheon Part 28

"Amel and Penhor had no children, but now the Virgin was pleased with them, and gave them their hearts' desire. Their little son they called Paol, and dedicated him to the Holy Mother of G.o.d. In her honour he always wore a blue dress.

"Then one night the river Couesnon rose rapidly, the wind howled, and the earth shook. In the morning the sea had risen over the barriers.

"All the inhabitants of the land fled to the church, which stood on a hill; but Amel and Penhor came too late.

"Then Amel lifted Penhor high in his arms, and she in turn raised her child above the cruel waves. It was at this moment that the Virgin left her niche in the church to fly heavenwards, and, in pa.s.sing, she saw Paol's blue frock, and remembered he was hers.

"So she raised him in her arms, but found he was very heavy. Then, as she lifted him higher to her breast, she saw his mother held him, and that Amel, the father, held both; so, with a smile, she gathered them all in her arms, and they awoke in heaven."

"A pretty legend," said Morice absently, for he had heard but little of the tale, his eyes being on the speaker's face.

"It is the land of legend," she replied--"the land of romance and poetry."

"And of sorrow, too."

"Ah! you feel that? It is because you are also Breton. Yes, we have our sorrow--it is in the voice of the sea. Not only the lament of the crierien,* but the warning that always at our doors there waits an enemy as cruel as it is remorseless. Yet to-day----"

* Unburied dead, drowned at sea.

"To-day we will not think of the sighings of ghosts or the weepings of widows to be. I prefer your romance."

"And I. But the sorrow is there, and now----"

She was thinking of the tales Louise had told her that morning.

The shadow of the Terror eclipsed the possible sunshine of the present.

But Morice was not one to see coming shadows. The present for him; and his pulses were stirring as they never had before.

"You are teaching me," he said suddenly.

She smiled.

"Yes; and you are clever. But Pere Mouet would do it better than I."

"I was not speaking of your Breton lessons."

"No!"

She looked up in surprise, and, meeting his gaze, felt the warm blood surge in her cheeks.

"I would like to teach you of our Brittany," she said falteringly, "because--well--is it not your country too?"

"I never counted it such till I knew you."

"You have never been here before?"

"I vow I shall never wish to leave it, _if_----"

"If----"

Her face was half turned from him, so that he should not see the blushes which might betray the fact that she had read a secret in his eyes.

But he was leaning forward, half across the rocky ledge on which they sat, his blue eyes aflame with sudden pa.s.sion.

"If you will go on teaching me--always--always--Cecile."

She was no coquette, this child of a grim and yet tender land, where all are in earnest with the battle and stress of life.

And yet her lashes drooped over her eyes as though she dared not meet his glance.

"Teach you, Monsieur, I who know nothing? What could I teach, save only----"

"Save only what love is," quoth he, with new-born boldness, for the magic of the moment was with him, transforming him into something stronger, deeper, truer than his old self.

No need for veiling lashes now. He had caught her two little hands, slender, sun-burnt hands which seemed too soft for resistance, and bent his face to the level of hers.

It was a new mode of wooing, as startling as bewildering; yet there was sweetness in it, too.

"Love?" she whispered, and drew one long, wondering breath as she looked into those blue eyes so near her own.

"_My_ love. _Our_ love, Cecile--Cecile."

His voice was hoa.r.s.e with suppressed emotion. She was trembling, too, but a smile broke on her lips.

"Morice," she whispered, and her heart beat in echo of the name as he bent to kiss her.

Over the grey waters came the sighing of the autumn breeze, presaging a storm. Aloft, circling round broken crags and high, gaunt rocks, wheeled the ospreys, uttering their shrill, weird cries.

But dirge of rolling waves and wailing winds mattered nothing to those two who sat sheltered in the rocky cleft, for they were dreaming the golden dream of youth, which may come but once in a lifetime, yet leaves a trail of glory on its path for ever.

Side by side they sat, man and maid, with never a thought of anything beyond that dream, and the knowledge that love had bound them thus together.

But what Eden is long without its serpent? Morice Conyers, basking in present sunshine, suddenly felt a quick chill strike his heart. It was the Marquis de Varenac, n.o.ble of Brittany, come purposely to save his country, whom the little Cecile loved.

And the day of reckoning drew near.

But Love is nothing if he be not at his purest and best a reformer.

All the latent manhood, all the better feelings, which ill-training and ill comrades had kept dormant, were stirred to life by this innocent child, whose great eyes shone into his with an expression of perfect trust and love. She called for the highest in him, and that highest, neglected, scarcely acknowledged before, rose in response to the appeal.

He would be what she thought him to be, whatever the cost.

In presence of that dominant pa.s.sion now stirring and animating him, the past shrank into pitiful insignificance.

What were Marcel Trouet and the London Corresponding Society to him now but traps to rob him of that newly cherished honour and love?