Part 43

“Do you not see that he will poison my few remaining hours? When I ought to be thinking of heaven he will nail me to earth,” cried Veronique.

The rector took her arm and constrained her to walk aside with him. When they were alone he stopped and gave her one of those angelic looks with which he was able to calm the violent convulsions of the soul.

“If it is really so,” he said, “as your confessor, I order you to receive him, to be kind and affectionate to him, to quit that garment of wrath, and forgive him as God will forgive you. Can there still be the remains of passion of a soul I believed to be purified. Burn this last incense on the altar of your penitence, or else your repentance is a lie.”

“There was still that effort to make--and it is made,” she answered, wiping her eyes. “The devil lurked in that last fold of my heart, and God, no doubt, put into Monsieur de Grandville’s mind the thought that brings him here. Ah! how many times must God strike me?” she cried.

She stopped, as if to say a mental prayer; then she returned to Madame Sauviat and said in a low voice:

“My dear mother, be kind and gentle to Monsieur de Grandville.”

The old woman clasped her hands with a feverish shudder.

“There is no longer any hope,” she said, seizing the rector’s hand.

The carriage, announced by the postilion’s whip, was now coming up the last slope; the gates were opened, it entered the courtyard, and the travellers came at once to the terrace. They were the illustrious Archbishop Dutheil, who was on his way to consecrate Monseigneur Gabriel de Rastignac, the procureur-general, Monsieur de Grandville, Monsieur Grossetete, Monsieur Roubaud, and one of the most celebrated physicians in Paris, Horace Bianchon.

“You are very welcome,” said Veronique, advancing toward them,--“you particularly,” she added, offering her hand to Monsieur de Grandville, who took it and pressed it.

“I counted on the intervention of Monseigneur and on that of my friend Monsieur Grossetete to obtain for me a favorable reception,” said the procureur-general. “It would have been a life-long regret to me if I did not see you again.”

“I thank those who brought you here,” replied Veronique, looking at the Comte de Grandville for the first time in fifteen years. “I have felt averse to you for a very long time, but I now recognize the injustice of my feelings; and you shall know why, if you can stay till the day after to-morrow at Montegnac.” Then turning to Horace Bianchon and bowing to him, she added: “Monsieur will no doubt confirm my apprehensions. God must have sent you, Monseigneur,” she said, turning to the archbishop. “In memory of our old friendship you will not refuse to assist me in my last moments. By whose mercy is it that I have about me all the beings who have loved and supported me in life?”

As she said the word loved she turned with a gracious look to Monsieur de Grandville, who was touched to tears by this mark of feeling. Silence fell for a few moments on every one. The doctors wondered by what occult power this woman could still keep her feet, suffering as she must have suffered. The other three men were so shocked at the ravages disease had suddenly made in her that they communicated their thoughts by their eyes only.

“Allow me,” she said, with her accustomed grace, “to leave you now with these gentlemen; the matter is urgent.”

She bowed to her guests, gave an arm to each of the doctors, and walked toward the chateau feebly and slowly, with a difficulty which told only too plainly of the coming catastrophe.

“Monsieur Bonnet,” said the archbishop, looking at the rector, “you have accomplished a miracle.”

“Not I, but God, Monseigneur,” he replied.

“They said she was dying,” said Monsieur Grossetete, “but she is dead; there is nothing left of her but spirit.”

“A soul,” said Gerard.

“And yet she is still the same,” cried the procureur-general.

“A stoic after the manner of the Porch philosophers,” said the tutor.

They walked in silence the whole length of the balustrade, looking at the landscape still red with the declining light.

“To me who saw this scene thirteen years ago,” said the archbishop, pointing to the fertile plain, the valley, and the mountains of Montegnac, “this miracle is as extraordinary as that we have just witnessed. But how comes it that you allow Madame Graslin to walk about? She ought to be in her bed.”

“She was there,” said Madame Sauviat; “for ten days she did not leave it; but to-day she insisted on getting up to take a last look at the landscape.”

“I can understand that she wanted to bid farewell to her great creation,” said Monsieur de Grandville; “but she risked expiring on this terrace.”

“Monsieur Roubaud told us not to thwart her,” said Madame Sauviat.

“What a stupendous work! what a miracle has been accomplished!” said the archbishop, whose eyes were roving over the scene before him. “She has literally sown the desert! But we know, monsieur,” he added, turning to Gerard, “that your scientific knowledge and your labors have a large share in it.”

“They have been only the workmen,” replied the mayor. “Yes, the hands only; she has been the thought.”