This reply had passed through the impure lips of the Sieur de Lantagnac before it reached Amelie and Pierre. They did not believe it came from their brother. They left the Palace with heavy hearts, after long and vainly seeking an interview, Philibert resolving to appeal to the Intendant himself and call him to account at the sword's point, if need be, for the evident plot in the Palace to detain Le Gardeur from his friends.
Amelie, dreading some such resolution on the part of Pierre, went back next day alone to the Palace to try once more to see Le Gardeur.
She was agitated and in tears at the fate of her brother. She was anxious over the evident danger which Pierre seemed to court, for his sake and--she would not hide the truth from herself--for her own sake too; and yet she would not forbid him. She felt her own noble blood stirred within her to the point that she wished herself a man to be able to walk sword in hand into the Palace and confront the herd of revellers who she believed had plotted the ruin of her brother.
She was proud of Pierre, while she trembled at the resolution which she read in his countenance of demanding as a soldier, and not as a suppliant, the restoration of Le Gardeur to his family.
Amelie's second visit to the Palace had been as fruitless as her first. She was denied admittance, with the profoundest regrets on the part of De Pean, who met her at the door and strove to exculpate himself from the accusation of having persuaded Le Gardeur to depart from Tilly, and of keeping him in the Palace against the prayers of his friends.
De Pean remembered his presumption as well as his rejection by Amelie at Tilly, and while his tongue ran smooth as oil in polite regrets that Le Gardeur had resolved not to see his sister to-day, her evident distress filled him with joy, which he rolled under his tongue as the most delicate morsel of revenge he had ever tasted.
Bowing with well-affected politeness, De Pean attended her to her carriage, and having seen her depart in tears, returned laughing into the Palace, remarking, as he mimicked the weeping countenance of Amelie, that "the Honnetes Gens had learned it was a serious matter to come to the burial of the virtues of a young gentleman like Le Gardeur de Repentigny."
On her return home Amelie threw herself on the neck of her aunt, repeating in broken accents, "My poor Le Gardeur! my brother! He refuses to see me, aunt! He is lost and ruined in that den of all iniquity and falsehood!"
"Be composed, Amelie," replied the Lady de Tilly; "I know it is hard to bear, but perhaps Le Gardeur did not send that message to you.
The men about him are capable of deceiving you to an extent you have no conception of,--you who know so little of the world's baseness."
"O aunt, it is true! He sent me this dreadful thing; I took it, for it bears the handwriting of my brother."
She held in her hand a card, one of a pack. It was the death-card of superstitious lookers into futurity. Had he selected it because it bore that reputation, or was it by chance?
On the back of it he had written, or scrawled in a trembling hand, yet plainly, the words: "Return home, Amelie. I will not see you.
I have lost the game of life and won the card you see. Return home, dear sister, and forget your unworthy and ruined brother, Le Gardeur."
Lady de Tilly took the card, and read and re-read it, trying to find a meaning it did not contain, and trying not to find the sad meaning it did contain.
She comforted Amelie as best she could, while needing strength herself to bear the bitter cross laid upon them both, in the sudden blighting of that noble life of which they had been so proud.
She took Amelie in her arms, mingling her own tears with hers, and bidding her not despair. "A sister's love," said she, "never forgets, never wearies, never despairs." They had friends too powerful to be withstood, even by Bigot, and the Intendant would be compelled to loosen his hold upon Le Gardeur. She would rely upon the inherent nobleness of the nature of Le Gardeur himself to wash itself pure of all stain, could they only withdraw him from the seductions of the Palace. "We will win him from them by counter charms, Amelie, and it will be seen that virtue is stronger than vice to conquer at last the heart of Le Gardeur."
"Alas, aunt!" replied the poor girl, her eyes suffused with tears, "neither friend nor foe will avail to turn him from the way he has resolved to go. He is desperate, and rushes with open eyes upon his ruin. We know the reason of it all. There is but one who could have saved Le Gardeur if she would. She is utterly unworthy of my brother, but I feel now it were better Le Gardeur had married even her than that he should be utterly lost to himself and us all. I will see Angelique des Meloises myself. It was her summons brought him back to the city. She alone can withdraw him from the vile companionship of Bigot and his associates at the Palace."
Angelique had been duly informed of the return of Amelie to the city, and of her fruitless visits to the Palace to see her brother.
It was no pleasure, but a source of angry disappointment to Angelique that Le Gardeur, in despair of ****** her his wife, refused to devote himself to her as her lover. He was running wild to destruction, instead of letting her win the husband she aspired to, and retain at the same time the gallant she loved and was not willing to forego.
She had seen him at the first sober moment after his return from Tilly, in obedience to her summons. She had permitted him to pour out again his passion at her feet. She had yielded to his kisses when he claimed her heart and hand, and had not refused to own the mutual flame that covered her cheek with a blush at her own falseness. But driven to the wall by his impetuosity, she had at last killed his reviving hopes by her repetition of the fatal words, "I love you, Le Gardeur, but I will not marry you!"
Angelique was seized with a sudden impulse to withdraw from the presence of Amelie in the Cathedral before being discovered by her.