Part 31

The father made a superhuman effort for self-control. “If she is happy with you,” he said, “she is not worth regretting.”

Helene knelt timidly before her father.

“Father, I love and revere you,” she said, “whether you lavish all the treasures of your kindness upon me, or make me feel to the full the rigor of disgrace.... But I entreat that your last words of farewell shall not be words of anger.”

The General could not trust himself to look at her. The stranger came nearer; there was something half-diabolical, half-divine in the smile that he gave Helene.

“Angel of pity, you that do not shrink in horror from a murderer, come, since you persist in your resolution of intrusting your life to me.”

“Inconceivable!” cried her father.

The Marquise then looked strangely at her daughter, opened her arms, and Helene fled to her in tears.

“Farewell,” she said, “farewell, mother!” The stranger trembled as Helene, undaunted, made sign to him that she was ready. She kissed her father’s hand; and, as if performing a duty, gave a hasty kiss to Moïna and little Abel, then she vanished with the murderer.

“Which way are they going?” exclaimed the General, listening to the footsteps of the two fugitives.--“Madame,” he turned to his wife, “I think I must be dreaming; there is some mystery behind all this, I do not understand it; you must know what it means.”

The Marquise shivered.

“For some time past your daughter has grown extraordinarily romantic and strangely high-flown in her ideas. In spite of the pains I have taken to combat these tendencies in her character--”

“This will not do----” began the General, but fancying that he heard footsteps in the garden, he broke off to fling open the window.

“Helene!” he shouted.

His voice was lost in the darkness like a vain prophecy. The utterance of that name, to which there should never be answer any more, acted like a counterspell; it broke the charm and set him free from the evil enchantment which lay upon him. It was as if some spirit passed over his face. He now saw clearly what had taken place, and cursed his incomprehensible weakness. A shiver of heat rushed from his heart to his head and feet; he became himself once more, terrible, thirsting for revenge. He raised a dreadful cry.

“Help!” he thundered, “help!”

He rushed to the bell-pull, pulled till the bells rang with a strange clamor of din, pulled till the cord gave way. The whole house was roused with a start. Still shouting, he flung open the windows that looked upon the street, called for the police, caught up his pistols, and fired them off to hurry the mounted patrols, the newly-aroused servants, and the neighbors. The dogs barked at the sound of their master’s voice; the horses neighed and stamped in their stalls. The quiet night was suddenly filled with hideous uproar. The General on the staircase, in pursuit of his daughter, saw the scared faces of the servants flocking from all parts of the house.

“My daughter!” he shouted. “Helene has been carried off. Search the garden. Keep a lookout on the road! Open the gates for the gendarmerie!--Murder! Help!”

With the strength of fury he snapped the chain and let loose the great house-dog.

“Helene!” he cried, “Helene!”

The dog sprang out like a lion, barking furiously, and dashed into the garden, leaving the General far behind. A troop of horses came along the road at a gallop, and he flew to open the gates himself.

“Corporal!” he shouted, “cut off the retreat of M. de Mauny’s murderer. They have gone through my garden. Quick! Put a cordon of men to watch the ways by the Butte de Picardie.--I will beat up the grounds, parks, and houses.--The rest of you keep a lookout along the road,” he ordered the servants, “form a chain between the barrier and Versailles. Forward, every man of you!”

He caught up the rifle which his man had brought out, and dashed into the garden.

“Find them!” he called to the dog.

An ominous baying came in answer from the distance, and he plunged in the direction from which the growl seemed to come.

It was seven o’clock in the morning; all the search made by gendarmes, servants, and neighbors had been fruitless, and the dog had not come back. The General entered the salon, empty now for him though the other three children were there; he was worn out with fatigue, and looked old already with that night’s work.

“You have been very cold to your daughter,” he said, turning his eyes on his wife.--“And now this is all that is left to us of her,” he added, indicating the embroidery frame, and the flower just begun. “Only just now she was there, and now she is lost... lost!”

Tears followed; he hid his face in his hands, and for a few minutes he said no more; he could not bear the sight of the room, which so short a time ago had made a setting to a picture of the sweetest family happiness. The winter dawn was struggling with the dying lamplight; the tapers burned down to their paper-wreaths and flared out; everything was all in keeping with the father’s despair.

“This must be destroyed,” he said after a pause, pointing to the tambour-frame. “I shall never bear to see anything again that reminds us of her!”