Tears and sorrow she had welcomed in a spirit of bitter penitence for her fault in loving one who no longer regarded her. "I do not deserve any man's regard," murmured she, as she laid her soul on the rack of self-accusation, and wrung its tenderest fibres with the pitiless rigor of a secret inquisitor. She utterly condemned herself while still trying to find some excuse for her unworthy lover. At times a cold half-persuasion, fluttering like a bird in the snow, came over her that Bigot could not be utterly base. He could not thus forsake one who had lost all--name, fame, home, and kindred--for his sake! She clung to the few pitying words spoken by him as a shipwrecked sailor to the plank which chance has thrown in his way. It might float her for a few hours, and she was grateful.
Immersed in these reflections, Caroline sat gazing at the clouds, now transformed into royal robes of crimson and gold--the gorgeous train of the sun filled the western horizon. She raised her pale hands to her head, lifting the mass of dark hair from her temples.
The fevered blood, madly coursing, pulsed in her ear like the stroke of a bell.
She remembered a sunset like this on the shores of the Bay of Minas, where the thrush and oriole twittered their even-song before seeking their nests, where the foliage of the trees was all ablaze with golden fire, and a shimmering path of sunlight lay upon the still waters like a glorious bridge leading from themselves to the bright beyond.
On that well-remembered night her heart had yielded to Bigot's pleadings. She had leaned her head upon his bosom, and received the kiss and gave the pledge that bound her to him forever.
The sun kept sinking--the forests on the mountain tops burst into a bonfire of glory. Shadows went creeping up the hill-sides until the highest crest alone flamed out as a beacon of hope to her troubled soul.
Suddenly, like a voice from the spirit world, the faint chime of the bells of Charlebourg floated on the evening breeze: it was the Angelus, calling men to prayer and rest from their daily labor.
Sweetly the soft reverberation floated through the forests, up the hill-sides, by plain and river, entering the open lattices of Chateau and cottage, summoning rich and poor alike to their duty of prayer and praise. It reminded men of the redemption of the world by the divine miracle of the incarnation announced by Gabriel, the angel of God, to the ear of Mary blessed among women.
The soft bells rang on. Men blessed them, and ceased from their toils in field and forest. Mothers knelt by the cradle, and uttered the sacred words with emotions such as only mothers feel. Children knelt by their mothers, and learned the story of God's pity in appearing upon earth as a little child, to save mankind from their sins. The dark Huron setting his snares in the forest and the fishers on the shady stream stood still. The voyageur sweeping his canoe over the broad river suspended his oar as the solemn sound reached him, and he repeated the angel's words and went on his way with renewed strength.
The sweet bells came like a voice of pity and consolation to the ear of Caroline. She knelt down, and clasping her hands, repeated the prayer of millions,--"'Ave Maria! gratia plena.'"
She continued kneeling, offering up prayer after prayer for God's forgiveness, both for herself and for him who had brought her to this pass of sin and misery. "'Mea culpa! Mea maxima culpa!'" repeated she, bowing herself to the ground. "I am the chief of sinners; who shall deliver me from this body of sin and affiction?"
The sweet bells kept ringing. They woke reminiscences of voices of by-gone days. She heard her father's tones, not in anger as he would speak now, but kind and loving as in her days of innocence.
She heard her mother, long dead--oh, how happily dead! for she could not die of sorrow now over her dear child's fall. She heard the voices of the fair companions of her youth, who would think shame of her now; and amidst them all, the tones of the persuasive tongue that wooed her maiden love. How changed it all seemed! and yet, as the repetition of two or three notes of a bar of music brings to recollection the whole melody to which it belongs, the few kind words of Bigot, spoken that morning, swept all before them in a drift of hope. Like a star struggling in the mist the faint voice of an angel was heard afar off in the darkness.
The ringing of the Angelus went on. Her heart was utterly melted.
Her eyes, long parched, as a spent fountain in the burning desert, were suddenly filled with tears. She felt no longer the agony of the eyes that cannot weep. The blessed tears flowed quietly as the waters of Shiloh, bringing relief to her poor soul, famishing for one true word of affection. Long after the sweet bells ceased their chime Caroline kept on praying for him, and long after the shades of night had fallen over the Chateau of Beaumanoir.