第51章

"No one can fail in respect to me," she said.It was the last word spoken by the Duchess and the woman of fashion.

The Vidame went.Mme de Langeais wrapped herself about in her cloak, and stood on the doorstep until the clocks struck eight.

The last stroke died away.The unhappy woman waited ten, fifteen minutes; to the last she tried to see a fresh humiliation in the delay, then her faith ebbed.She turned to leave the fatal threshold.

"Oh, God!" the cry broke from her in spite of herself; it was the first word spoken by the Carmelite.

Montriveau and some of his friends were talking together.He tried to hasten them to a conclusion, but his clock was slow, and by the time he started out for the Hotel de Langeais the Duchess was hurrying on foot through the streets of Paris, goaded by the dull rage in her heart.She reached the Boulevard d'Enfer, and looked out for the last time through falling tears on the noisy, smoky city that lay below in a red mist, lighted up by its own lamps.Then she hailed a cab, and drove away, never to return.

When the Marquis de Montriveau reached the Hotel de Langeais, and found no trace of his mistress, he thought that he had been duped.He hurried away at once to the Vidame, and found that worthy gentleman in the act of slipping on his flowered dressing-gown, thinking the while of his fair cousin's happiness.

Montriveau gave him one of the terrific glances that produced the effect of an electric shock on men and women alike.

"Is it possible that you have lent yourself to some cruel hoax, monsieur?" Montriveau exclaimed."I have just come from Mme de Langeais's house; the servants say that she is out.""Then a great misfortune has happened, no doubt," returned the Vidame, "and through your fault.I left the Duchess at your door----""When?"

"At a quarter to eight."

"Good evening," returned Montriveau, and he hurried home to ask the porter whether he had seen a lady standing on the doorstep that evening.

"Yes, my Lord Marquis, a handsome woman, who seemed very much put out.She was crying like a Magdalen, but she never made a sound, and stood as upright as a post.Then at last she went, and my wife and I that were watching her while she could not see us, heard her say, `Oh, God!' so that it went to our hearts, asking your pardon, to hear her say it."Montriveau, in spite of all his firmness, turned pale at those few words.He wrote a few lines to Ronquerolles, sent off the message at once, and went up to his rooms.Ronquerolles came just about midnight.

Armand gave him the Duchess's letter to read.

"Well?" asked Ronquerolles.

"She was here at my door at eight o'clock; at a quarter-past eight she had gone.I have lost her, and I love her.Oh! if my life were my own, I could blow my brains out.""Pooh, pooh! Keep cool," said Ronquerolles."Duchesses do not fly off like wagtails.She cannot travel faster than three leagues an hour, and tomorrow we will ride six.--Confound it!

Mme de Langeais is no ordinary woman," he continued."Tomorrow we will all of us mount and ride.The police will put us on her track during the day.She must have a carriage; angels of that sort have no wings.We shall find her whether she is on the road or hidden in Paris.There is the semaphore.We can stop her.

You shall be happy.But, my dear fellow, you have made a blunder, of which men of your energy are very often guilty.They judge others by themselves, and do not know the point when human nature gives way if you strain the cords too tightly.Why did you not say a word to me sooner? I would have told you to be punctual.Good-bye till tomorrow," he added, as Montriveau said nothing."Sleep if you can," he added, with a grasp of the hand.

But the greatest resources which society has ever placed at the disposal of statesmen, kings, ministers, bankers, or any human power, in fact, were all exhausted in vain.Neither Montriveau nor his friends could find any trace of the Duchess.It was clear that she had entered a convent.Montriveau determined to search, or to institute a search, for her through every convent in the world.He must have her, even at the cost of all the lives in a town.And in justice to this extraordinary man, it must be said that his frenzied passion awoke to the same ardour daily and lasted through five years.Only in 1829 did the Duc de Navarreins hear by chance that his daughter had travelled to Spain as Lady Julia Hopwood's maid, that she had left her service at Cadiz, and that Lady Julia never discovered that Mlle Caroline was the illustrious duchess whose sudden disappearance filled the minds of the highest society of Paris.

The feelings of the two lovers when they met again on either side of the grating in the Carmelite convent should now be comprehended to the full, and the violence of the passion awakened in either soul will doubtless explain the catastrophe of the story.

In 1823 the Duc de Langeais was dead, and his wife was free.

Antoinette de Navarreins was living, consumed by love, on a ledge of rock in the Mediterranean; but it was in the Pope's power to dissolve Sister Theresa's vows.The happiness bought by so much love might yet bloom for the two lovers.These thoughts sent Montriveau flying from Cadiz to Marseilles, and from Marseilles to Paris.

A few months after his return to France, a merchant brig, fitted out and munitioned for active service, set sail from the port of Marseilles for Spain.The vessel had been chartered by several distinguished men, most of them Frenchmen, who, smitten with a romantic passion for the East, wished to make a journey to those lands.Montriveau's familiar knowledge of Eastern customs made him an invaluable travelling companion, and at the entreaty of the rest he had joined the expedition; the Minister of War appointed him lieutenant-general, and put him on the Artillery Commission to facilitate his departure.