THE FIRST SENTIMENT of Andree, when she saw Gilbert, was not only that of profound terror, but of invincible repugnance.
Gilbert, on the contrary, entertained for Andree, in spite of her contempt, scorn, and persecutions, not the ardent love which led him when young to crime, but the deep passionate devotion which would have made a man do her a service, even at the peril of his life.
The reason is, that he saw that all Andree's troubles were due to him, and that he owed her a sum of happiness equal to that of which he had deprived her.
Andree spoke first: she said, “What do you wish, sir? How came you here, and why? What wish you?”
“I came to demand a treasure which is valueless to you, but inestimable to me. What do I wish? To know how that child was borne away by you, and know what has become of him.”
“What has become of him?” said Andree. “How do I know? He fled from me. You have taught him thoroughly to hate his mother.”
“His mother!” said Gilbert. “Are you really such?”
“Ah!” said she, “he sees my distress, he hears my cries, and asks if I am really a mother!”
“You do not know where he is?”
“I tell you he fled from me. When I came to this room, in which I had left him, he was gone. The window was up, and he gone.”
“My God! what will become of him? How can he find his way through Paris? It is after twelve, too.”
“Oh!” said Andree, “think you that he is in danger?”
“We will know, and from you,” said he.
“Monsieur!” said she, drawing back to avoid the magnetic influence.
“Madame, do not fear. I talk to a mother of her son, of the means to find him. To me you are sacred. Sleep, and read with your heart.”
“I do sleep.”—“Do you, with me, employ all the power of my will, or do you sleep voluntarily?”
“Will you again say that I am not Sebastian's mother?”
“As the case may be. Do you love him?”
“Can he ask if I love the child I bore? Yes, I love him deeply.”
“Then you are his mother, madame, for you love him as I do.”
“You will reply voluntarily?”—“Will you permit me to see him?”
“Have I not said that you were his mother, as I am his father? You love him as I do, and shall see him.”
“Thanks,” said Andree, with an expression of unutterable joy, and she clasped her hands. “Now ask—I see.”
“Follow him since he left, that I may not lose track of him.”
“Well, where did you see him?”—” In the green room.”
“Where did he follow you?”—” Down the corridor.”
“Where did he join you?”—” At the carriage.”
“Whither did you take him?”—“To the next room.”
“Because the noise of a carriage was heard.”
“Who was in the carriage?” said Gilbert, in a firmer tone, and a positive expression of will.
“Where did you hide the child?”—” In that room.”
“What did he say as he left you?”
“Why? Speak, for I will have it so.”
“What?”—” Because I said you were a vile rascal.”
“Look at the heart of that poor child, madame, and see the wrong you have done.”
“My God! my God! Forgive me, my child!”
“Did M. de Charny suspect the child was yours?”—” No.”
“M. de Charny does not live with me.”
Andree was silent for a moment. Her eyes became fixed, and she attempted to see into darkness.
“My God!” said she, “Charny, dear Charny!”
Gilbert looked at her with surprise.
“Alas!” said she, “it was for the purpose of returning to me that he refused this mission. He loves me.”
Gilbert began to read confusedly the terrible drama he first penetrated.
“Why do you ask me that question?” said Andree.
“Yes, your intention is good. You would make me forget the wrong you have done me, by conferring happiness on me. I would not, however, owe happiness to you. I hate, and will continue to do so for ever.”
“Poor human nature,” murmured Gilbert; “is so much happiness set aside for you that you can refuse this? You love him?”
“Since I have known him. Since the day he came from Versailles in the carriage with the queen and myself.”
“Then you know what love is?” said Gilbert, sadly.
“I do,” said the young woman, “know that love is given us too as a measure of woe.”
“True; you are now a woman. A rough diamond you have been, set by the hands of the terrible lapidary, grief. Let us return to Sebastian.”
“Ah! yes, let us do so. Do not let me think of M. de Charny. The idea of him troubles my faculties, and, instead of my child, I will, perhaps, follow the count.”
“True; wife forget the husband, mother remember the child alone.”
A half gentle expression at once took possession of her face and whole frame, entirely displacing the one she usually bore.
“Where was he while you talked with your husband?”
“Did he hear the conversation?”—” A part of it.”
“When did he resolve to leave the room?”
“At the moment when the count—
“When M. de Charny kissed my hand, and I cried.”
“Yes, with pleated brow, his lips fixed, and clenched hands.”
“Sees if there be no door opening into the garden. Seeing there is none, goes to the window, opens it, looks out, glances at the saloon, springs out and disappears.”
Gilbert passed his hand in front of Andree's eyes.
“You know that for you there is no darkness. Look!”
“Ah! ah! Runs down the alley by the wall, he opens the gate unseen, and gains the Rue Platriere. He stops, and speaks to a woman.”
“Listen; do you hear him?”—” I do.”
“What does he ask?”—” The way to Rue Saint Honore.”
“Yes; I live there. Poor lad: he awaits me there.”
“No!” said she, shaking her head with an expression of great sadness. “He did not go in. He did not wait.”
“Let me follow him, or I shall lose him.”
“Follow him, follow him,” said Gilbert, who saw that Andree foretold some misfortune for him.
“Well?”—“He is in Rue Grenelli; he is at Rue St. Honore; he crosses the Place Palais Royal at full speed: he asks the road again; he hurries on; he is in Rue Richelieu, in Rue des Frondeurs, Rue New St. Roch. Stop, stop, my poor child! Sebastian, do you not see that carriage driven down Rue Sourdiere? I see, I see the horses!”
She muttered a terrible cry, rose up, and maternal agony was imprinted on her brow.
“Ah!” said Gilbert, “if anything happens to him, remember it will recoil on you.”
“Ah!” said Andree, without hearing or listening to anything said by Gilbert. “Thank the God of heaven, the horse has thrown him out of the way of the wheels! I see him senseless, but not dead. No, no, not dead! He has only fainted. Help, help! my child!”
With a cry of agony, Andree fell back again on the bed.
Great as was Gilbert's wish to know more, he granted to the trembling woman the repose she needed so much.
He feared, if he excited her too much, a fibre of her heart would break, or that she would burst a blood-vessel.
As soon, however, as he thought he could question her safely he said, “Well?”
“Wait! wait! There is a crowd around him. Ah, for mercy's sake let me go! It is my son, Sebastian. My God, is there no surgeon?”
“Oh, I will go!” said Gilbert.
“Wait!” said Andree, seizing his arm; “the crowd opens; here is one. Quick, sir, quick! You see he is not dead; you must save him!”
“What is the matter?” asked Gilbert.
“It is not a man, but a gnome, a dwarf, a vampire—hideous, hideous!”
“Madame, madame, do not lose sight of Sebastian.”
“Ah!” said she, with a fixed expression of the lip and eye, “do not be uneasy, I will not.”
“He carries him away. He goes into Rue Sourdiere. He enters the lane of St. Hyacinthe. He approaches a low door which is half open. He ascends a stair-way, and places him on a table covered with papers, both printed and manuscript. He takes off Sebastian's coat, rolls up the sleeve, and binds his arm with ligatures, which a woman, dirty and hideous as the man, is bringing him. He takes out a lancet, and is about to bleed him. Ah! I cannot bear to see my child's blood.”
“Well?” said Gilbert, “look, and count the steps.”
“Look at the door, and tell me what you see strange about it?”
“A little opened; closed by a cross-bar grating.”
“Hurry, and you will find him there.”
“Do you wish to awake at once and to remember? or not until to-morrow, after having forgotten all?”
“Arouse me now! Let me remember!”
Gilbert passed his hands in front of Andree's eyes, breathed on her brow, and said, “Awake!''
The eyes of the young woman immediately became bright, and her limbs lost their rigidity. She looked at Gilbert almost without fear, and continued when awake the advice given him in sleep.
“Hurry! hurry!” said she, “and take him from that man, of whom I am afraid.”
