FEASTING after sorrow is either an increase of grief or an absolute consolation.
Pitou saw, after the lapse of two hours, that his grief was not increased.
He arose when his companions could not.
He made even an oration on Spartan sobriety to them, when they were all dead drunk.
He bade them go away when they were asleep under the table.
We must say that the ladies disappeared during the dessert.
Pitou thought; amid all his glory and honor, the prominent subject was his last interview with Catherine.
Amid the half hints of his memory, he recalled the fact that her hand had often touched his, and that sometimes her shoulder had pressed his own, and that he on certain occasions had known all her beauties.
He then looked around him like a man awaking from a drunken dream.
He asked the shadows why so much severity towards a young woman, perfect in grace, could have been in his heart.
Pitou wished to reinstate himself with Catherine.
A Lovelace would have said, “That girl laughs at and deceives me. I will follow her example.”
Such a character would have said: “I will despise her, and make her ashamed of her love as of so much disgrace.
“I will terrify and dishonor her, and make the path to her rendezvous painful.”
Pitou, like a good fellow, though heated with wine and love, said to himself, “Sometime I will make Catherine ashamed that she did not love me.”
Pitou's chaste ideas would not permit him to fancy that Catherine did aught but coquet with Monsieur de Charny, and that she laughed at his laced boots and golden spurs.
How delighted Pitou was to think that Catherine was not in love with either a boot or a spur!
Some day Monsieur Isidore would go to the city and marry a countess. Catherine then would seem to him an old romance.
All these ideas occupied the mind of the commander of the National Guard of Haramont.
To prove to Catherine that he was a good fellow, he began to recall all the bad things he had heard during the day.
But Catherine had said some of them. He thought he would tell them to her.
A drunken man without a watch has no idea of time.
Pitou had no watch, and had not gone ten paces before he was as drunk as Bacchus or his son Thespis.
He did not remember that he had left Catherine three hours before, and that, half an hour later, she must have reached the farm.
Let us leave him among the trees, bushes, and briers, threshing with his stick the great forest of Orléans, which returned blows with usury.
Let us return to Catherine, who went home with her mother.
There was a swamp behind the farm, and when there, they had to ride in single file.
Catherine was about to go when she heard a whistle.
She turned and saw in the distance the cap of Isidore's valet.
She let her mother ride on; and the latter, being but a few paces from home, felt no uneasiness.
“Mademoiselle,” said he, “my master wishes to see you to-night, and begs you to meet him somewhere at eleven, if you please.”
“Has he met with any accident?” inquired Catherine, with much alarm.
“I do not know. He received to-night a letter with a black seal from Paris. I have already been here an hour.”
The clock of Villers-Cotterets struck ten.
“Well, the place is dark; tell your master I will wait for him here.”
Catherine followed her mother home.
What could Isidore have to tell her at such an hour?
Love-meetings assume more smiling forms.
That was not the question. Isidore wished to see her, and the hour was of no importance. She would have met him in the graveyard of Villers-Cotterets at midnight.
She would not then even think, but kissed her mother and went to her room.
She suspected nothing, and if she had, it mattered not, for Catherine was mistress there.
Catherine neither undressed nor went to bed.
She heard the chime of half after ten. At a quarter before eleven she put out the lamp and went into the dining-room. The windows opened into the yard. She sprang out.
She hurried to the appointed place with a beating heart, placing one hand on her bosom and the other on her burning head. She was not forced to wait long.
She heard the galloping of a horse.
Without dismounting, he took her hand, lifted her on to his stirrup, embraced her, and said:—
“Catherine, yesterday my brother George was killed at Versailles. My brother Olivier has sent for me; I must go.”
Catherine uttered an exclamation of grief, and clasped De Charny in her arms.
“If,” said she, “they killed one brother, they will kill another.”
“Be that as it may, my eldest brother has sent for me; Catherine, you know I love you.”
“Stay, stay!” said the poor girl, who was only aware of the fact that Isidore was going.
“Honor and vengeance appeal to me.”
And she threw herself pale and trembling into his arms.
A tear fell from De Charny's eyes on the young girl's brow.
“You weep; thank God, you love me!”
“Yes; but my eldest brother has written to me, and you see I must obey.”
“Go, then; I will keep you no longer.”
The young girl consented, knowing that nothing could keep Isidore from obeying this order of his brother. She slid from his arms to the ground.
The young man looked away, sighed, hesitated, but under the influence of the order he had received, galloped away, casting one long last look on Catherine.
Catherine lay alone where she fell, completely closing the narrow way.
Just then a man appeared on the top of the hill, coming from Villers-Cotterets, and rapidly advancing towards the farm; he was very near treading on the inanimate body that lay in the pathway.
He lost his balance, stumbled and fell, and was not aware of the body until he touched it.
“Catherine!” said he; “Catherine dead?”
He uttered a cry of such agony that he aroused the very dogs of the farm.
“Who,—who has killed her?” He sat pale, trembling, and inert, with the body on his knees.
THE END.
