Which? Part 17

"Dolores! Dolores!"

"Philip!"

Then, with a wild cry of rapturous delight, she flung herself in the arms of her lover from whom she had been parted three long weary years.

They clung to each other a moment without uttering a word, completely overcome with emotion. It was Philip, but Philip grown older and thinner. His face was unshaven and his clothing disordered, and he was frightfully pale. When she saw the ravages time and suffering had made upon the face of the man she loved, Dolores burst into tears.

"Oh Dolores!" sighed Philip, "have I really found you again after all these years!"

She smiled and wept as he devoured her with his eyes, then stepped by him and after satisfying herself that the door was securely closed and locked, she lowered the curtain and led Philip to an arm chair near the fire.

"Do you find me changed?" she asked.

"You are even more beautiful now than in the past!"

She blushed and turned away her face, then suddenly inquired: "How happens it you are here, Philip?"

"I came to Paris with a party of n.o.blemen to rescue the queen from the hands of her executioners. We failed; she died upon the guillotine. My companions were arrested; I alone succeeded in making my escape--"

"Then you are pursued--you are a fugitive. Perhaps they are even now upon your track!"

"For a week I have been concealed in the house of a kind-hearted man who had taken compa.s.sion on my misery. I hoped to remain there until I could find an opportunity to make my escape from Paris. Day before yesterday, he told me that he was suspected of sheltering some enemy of the nation, and that his house was liable to be searched at any moment by Robespierre's emissaries, and that I must flee at once if I did not desire to ruin him. I obeyed and since that time I have been wandering about the streets of Paris, hiding in obscure nooks, living like a dog, and not daring to ask aid of any one for fear I should be denounced.

This evening, half-dead with hunger and cold, I was wondering if it would not be better to deliver myself up when, only a few steps from here, I met a man who was formerly in the employ of the Duke de Penthieore, and to whom I had once rendered an important service.

Believing that he had not forgotten it, I approached him and told him who I was. The wretch cursed me, and tried to arrest me. The instinct of self-preservation lent me fresh strength. I struggled with him and knocked him down, and while he was calling for help, I ran across the unoccupied ground near the house. A low wall suddenly rose before me. I leaped over it, and found myself in this garden. I saw the light from your window; the door stood open. I entered and G.o.d has willed that the hours of agony through which I have just pa.s.sed should lead me to you.

Ah! now I can die. Now that I have seen you again, Dolores, I can die content!"

"Why do you talk of dying?" exclaimed Dolores. "Since you are here, you are saved! You shall remain!"

She paused suddenly, recollecting that the house was not hers; Philip noticed her hesitation.

"Am I in your house?" he asked.

"No; you are in the house of Citizen Vauquelas, Coursegol's business partner."

"Vauquelas! How unfortunate!"

"Why?"

"Because, unless there are two individuals by that name, the master of this house is the friend of Robespierre, and one of the men who aided in the discovery of the plot formed by my companions and myself for the rescue of the queen."

Dolores uttered a cry and hid her face in her hands.

"What shall we do?" she murmured.

"Is not Coursegol here?"

"He will not return until late at night."

"He would have found some way to conceal me until to-morrow."

"I will conceal you in his room," said Dolores. "No one enters it but himself. I will await his return and tell him you are there."

Philip approved this plan.

"But you said just now that you were hungry;" exclaimed Dolores. "Ah!

how unfortunate it is that the servants are in bed."

She hastily left the room, and Philip, worn out with excitement, hunger and fatigue, remained in the arm chair in which Dolores had placed him.

She soon returned, laden with bread, wine, and a piece of cold meat, which she had been fortunate enough to find in the kitchen. She placed these upon a small table, which she brought to Philip's side. Without a word, the latter began to eat and drink with the eagerness of a half-famished man. Dolores stood there watching him, her heart throbbing wildly with joy while tears of happiness gushed from her burning eyes.

Soon Philip was himself again. The warmth and the nouris.h.i.+ng food restored his strength. A slight color mounted to his cheeks, and a hopeful smile played upon his lips. Not until then, did Dolores venture to utter the name that had been uppermost in her thoughts for some moments.

"You have told me nothing of Antoinette."

This name reminded Philip of the sacred bond of which Dolores was ignorant, and which had never seemed to him so galling as now.

"Antoinette!" he replied. "She is living near London in the care of some friends to whom I have confided her."

"Is she your wife?" inquired Dolores, not daring to meet Philip's eyes.

"No."

"But your father's wishes--"

"In pity, say no more!" interrupted Philip, "If I had not found you again, if I had had certain proofs that you were no longer alive, I might, perhaps, have married Antoinette, but now--"

"Now?"

"She will never be my wife!"

"Does she no longer love you?"

Philip's head drooped. There was a long silence; suddenly he glanced up.

"Why should I conceal it from you longer, Dolores? I love you; I love you as I loved you in years gone by when I first dared to open my heart to you; and since that time, in spite of the barriers between us, I have never ceased to love you. Nor can our love be a sin in the sight of Heaven since it is G.o.d's providence, in spite of your will, that brings us together again to-day. And I swear that nothing shall separate us now!"

Dolores had no strength to reply to such language, or to destroy the hopes which seemed even stronger now than in the past, and far more precious since three years of absence had not sufficed to extinguish them in the faithful and impa.s.sioned heart of her lover. Philip continued:

"Ah! if I could but tell you how miserable I have been since we have been separated. My Dolores, did you not know when you left the chateau in which we had grown up together to offer as a sacrifice to G.o.d the love you shared, did you not know that you took away a part of myself with you?"

"Stop!" she entreated, sinking into a chair and burying her face in her hands.

But he would not listen.

"Since that day," he continued, "my life has been wretched. In vain I have striven to drive from the heart which you refused to accept the memory of your grace and your beauty; in vain have I striven to listen with a complaisant ear to Antoinette, whom you commanded me to accept as my wife. Do you not see that this sacrifice is beyond my strength. I cannot do it--I love her as a sister, but you----"

Dolores interrupted him. Suddenly quieted, and recalled to a recollection of duty by some mysterious inspiration, she rose, and in a gentle and firm voice said:

"Philip, I must hear no more. I belong to G.o.d, and you, yourself, are no longer free. Antoinette----"