The Mysteries Of Paris Volume Vi Part 5

"It would have been better to have awaited the young creature's coming out of prison, before you sent to request the Grand Duke to come here."

"Awaited! And do I know that the salutary crisis in which I now am will last until to-morrow? Perhaps I am but momentarily sustained by my ambition only."

"What proofs have you for the prince, and will he believe you?"

"He will believe me when he reads the commencement of, the disclosure which I wrote from the dictation of that woman who stabbed me,--a disclosure of which I have, fortunately, forgotten no circ.u.mstance. He will believe me when he reads your correspondence with Madame Seraphin and Jacques Ferrand, as to the supposed death of the child; he will believe me when he hears the confession of the notary, who, alarmed at my threats, will come here immediately; he will believe me when he sees the portrait of my daughter at six years of age, a portrait which the woman told me was still a striking resemblance. So many proofs will suffice to convince the prince that I speak the truth, and to decide him as to his first impulse, which will make me almost a queen. Oh, if it were but for a day, I could die content!"

At this moment a carriage was heard to enter the courtyard.

"It is he! It is Rodolph!" exclaimed Sarah.

Thomas Seyton drew a curtain hastily aside, and replied, "Yes, it is the prince; he is just alighting from the carriage."

"Leave me! This is the decisive moment!" said Sarah, with unshaken coolness; for a monstrous ambition, a pitiless selfishness, had always been and still was the only moving spring of this woman. Even in the almost miraculous reappearance of her daughter, she only saw a means of at last arriving at the one end and aim of her whole existence.

Seyton said to her, "I will tell the prince how your daughter, believed dead, was saved. This conversation would be too dangerous for you,--a too violent emotion would kill you; and after so long a separation, the sight of the prince, the recollection of bygone times--"

"Your hand, brother!" replied Sarah. Then, placing on her impa.s.sive heart Tom Seyton's hand, she added, with an icy smile, "Am I excited?"

"No, no; not even a hurried pulsation," said Seyton, amazed. "I know not what control you have over yourself; but at such a moment, when it is for a crown or a coffin you play, your calmness amazes me!"

"And wherefore, brother? Till now, you know, nothing has made my heart beat hastily; and it will only throb when I feel the sovereign crown upon my brow. I hear Rodolph--leave me!"

When Rodolph entered the apartment, his look expressed pity; but, seeing Sarah seated in her armchair, and, as it were, full dressed, he recoiled in surprise, and his features became gloomy and mistrustful. The countess, guessing his thoughts, said to him, in a low and faint voice, "You thought to find me dying! You came to receive my last adieu!"

"I have always considered the last wishes of the dead as sacred, but it appears now as if there were some sacrilegious deceit--"

"Be a.s.sured," said Sarah, interrupting Rodolph, "be a.s.sured that I have not deceived you! I believe that I have but very few hours to live.

Pardon me a last display of coquetry! I wished to spare you the gloomy symptoms that usually attend the dying hour, and to die attired as I was the first time I saw you. Alas, after ten years of separation, I see you once again! Thanks, oh, thanks! But in your turn give thanks to G.o.d for having inspired you with the thought of hearing my last prayer! If you had refused me, I should have carried my secret with me to the grave, which will now cause the joy, the happiness of your life,--joy, mingled with some sadness, happiness, mingled with some tears, like all human felicity; but this felicity you would yet purchase at the price of half the remainder of your existence!"

"What do you mean?" asked the prince, with great amazement.

"Yes, Rodolph, if you had not come, this secret would have followed me to the tomb! That would have been my sole vengeance. And yet, no, no! I shall not have the courage. Although you have made me suffer deeply, I yet must have shared with you that supreme happiness which you, more blessed than myself, will, I hope, long enjoy!"

"Madame, what does this mean?"

"When you know, you will be able to comprehend my slowness in informing you, for you will view it as a miracle from heaven; but, strange to say, I, who with a word can cause you pleasure greater than you have ever experienced, I experience, although the minutes of my life are counted, I experience an indefinable satisfaction at prolonging your expectation.

And then, I know your heart; and in spite of the fierceness of your character, I fear, without preparation, to reveal to you so incredible a discovery. The emotions of overwhelming joy have also their dangers."

"Your paleness increases, you can scarcely repress your violent agitation," said Rodolph; "all this indicates something grave and solemn."

"Grave and solemn!" replied Sarah, in an agitated voice; for, in spite of her habitual impa.s.siveness, when she reflected on the immense effect of the disclosure she was about to make to Rodolph, she was more troubled than she believed possible; and, unable any longer to restrain herself, she exclaimed, "Rodolph, our daughter lives!"

"Our daughter!"

"Lives, I say!"

These words, the accents of truth in which they were p.r.o.nounced, shook the prince to his very heart. "Our child!" he repeated, going hurriedly to the chair in which Sarah was, "our child--my daughter!"

"Is not dead, I have irresistible proof; I know where she is; to-morrow you shall see her."

"My daughter! My daughter!" repeated Rodolph, with amazement. "Can it be that she lives?" Then, suddenly reflecting on the improbability of such an event, and fearing to be the dupe of some fresh treachery on Sarah's part, he cried, "No, no, it is a dream! Impossible! I know your ambition--of what you are capable--and I see through the drift of this proposed treachery!"

"Yes, you say truly; I am capable of all--everything! Yes, I desired to abuse you; some days before the mortal blow was struck, I sought to find out some young girl that I might present to you as our daughter. After this confession, you will perhaps believe me, or, rather, you will be compelled to credit irresistible evidence. Yes, Rodolph, I repeat I desired to subst.i.tute a young and obscure girl for her whom we both deplore; but G.o.d willed that at the moment when I was arranging this sacrilegious bargain, I should be almost fatally stabbed!"

"You--at this moment!"

"G.o.d so willed it that they should propose to me to play the part of falsehood--imagine whom? Our daughter!"

"Are you delirious, in heaven's name?"

"Oh, no, I am not delirious! In this casket, containing some papers and a portrait, which will prove to you the truth of what I say, you will find a paper stained with my blood!"

"Your blood!"

"The woman who told me that our daughter was still living declared to me this disclosure when she stabbed me with her dagger."

"And who was she? How did she know?"

"It was she to whom the child was confided when very young, after she had been declared dead."

"But this woman? Can she be believed? How did you know her?"

"I tell you, Rodolph, that this is all fated--providential! Some months ago you s.n.a.t.c.hed a young girl from misery, to send her to the country.

Jealousy and hatred possessed me. I had her carried off by the woman of whom I have been speaking."

"And they took the poor girl to St. Lazare?"

"Where she is still."

"She is there no longer. Ah, you do not know, madame, the fearful evil you have occasioned me by s.n.a.t.c.hing the unfortunate girl away from the retreat in which I had placed her; but--"

"The young girl is no longer at St. Lazare!" cried Sarah, with dismay; "ah, what fearful news is this!"

"A monster of avarice had an interest in her destruction. They have drowned her, madame! But answer! You say that--"

"My daughter!" exclaimed Sarah, interrupting Rodolph, and standing erect, as straight and motionless as a statue of marble.

"What does she say? Good heaven!" cried Rodolph.

"My daughter!" repeated Sarah, whose features became livid and frightful in their despair. "They have murdered my daughter!"

"The Goualeuse your daughter!" uttered Rodolph, retreating with horror.

"The Goualeuse! Yes, that was the name which the woman they call the Chouette used. Dead--dead!" repeated Sarah, still motionless, with her eyes fixed. "They have killed her!"

"Sarah!" said Rodolph, as pale and as fearful to look upon as the countess; "be calm,--recover yourself,--answer me! The Goualeuse,--the young girl whom you had carried off by the Chouette from Bouqueval,--was she our daughter?"

"Yes. And they have killed her!"