The calm continued for nearly a month; and though an occasional fit of gloom would fall upon Monsieur de Villardin, it disappeared on every occasion ere it had lasted many hours. So much, indeed, did the harmony of the family now seem restored, that Father Ferdinand, although he had agreed to fix his residence permanently in the house of his friend, took advantage of the tranquillity which he had so greatly tended to re-establish, in order to visit Rennes, and arrange his affairs in that city before he finally settled at Dumont.

The situation of Madame de Villardin, and her appearance, became every day more interesting; and although I could at times see a shade come over the countenance of her husband while, as he gazed upon her, some unworthy suspicion crossed his mind, yet, in general, he seemed to regard her with that increased tenderness and interest which every man must, or ought to feel towards a being they love, under such circumstances. The medical attendants of the Duchess had strongly enjoined her to take as much exercise on foot as possible; and, followed by a servant carrying a small garden seat, she continued her walks through the park, resting whenever she found herself tired, and proceeding again when she felt able. In many of these walks the Duke himself accompanied her, and still more frequently joined her at one of her halting places. All this bespoke renewed affection and confidence; and I too certainly hoped and believed that the demon which had caused so much unhappiness in our household was quelled for ever. Such was the state of affairs when one day, by the Duke's desire, I set out to visit Avranches and St. Malo, the latter of which places I had a strong desire to see. My little tour lasted four days; but nothing of any interest occurred in its course, except an accidental interview which I had at St. Malo with an acquaintance I certainly did not expect to see so soon again and in such a place. After having visited the port, and perambulated such of the fortifications as I was permitted to see, I retired to the house of one of those aubergistes, whose hospitable dwellings are ever ready to receive the money of successful captains just returned from the sea; and there, sitting down in the general receptacle of guests, I ordered my dinner, which was set before me by the servants with all the promptitude of men accustomed to deal with a hungry and impatient race.

Scarcely had I begun to eat, when a gaily-dressed personage entered, and placing himself nearly opposite to me, ordered his dinner also, in a tone of authority which was answered with due respect by the garÇon, with, "Yes, captain--not a moment, captain--directly, captain." This new guest was a strong, square-built man, with a face that any one would have unscrupulously pronounced a frank, open countenance; but as soon as my eyes rested upon it--although his whole garb and appearance was perfectly naval--yet I thought that I had seen him filling the office of captain in the land service rather than the marine. He caught me gazing at him, and, as he did so, a slight frown curled his brow; but as I did not usually respect frowns particularly, I only smiled in return, and proceeded tranquilly to the discussion of my dinner. Before I had proceeded far, however, my acquaintance seemed to have made up his mind as to his conduct; and, taking a moment when the room was full of different persons, he exclaimed, after fixing his eyes upon me for a moment, "I think, monsieur, I have had the honour of meeting you before."

"I think so also," I replied, making an inclination of the head: "your face is familiar to me, though I really cannot tell where I have seen it."

"The same is my case," replied he, "in regard to you; but, at all events, you see that I have abandoned the profession of arms, which I followed till within the last six months, and have become a humble captain of a merchant vessel trading to the colonies."

"I admire the versatility of your talents," said I, assuming the same tone, though doubting greatly the truth of the tale he told me; "you must have acquired a knowledge of naval matters quickly; for now I remember you were, when last I saw you, a very distinguished, active, and expeditious officer in the service to which you were then attached."

"Oh, monsieur, you are too flattering," he replied; "and, in regard to my versatility, too, do me more honour than I deserve; for, to tell the truth, I was originally brought up in the navy. You doubt me," he added, in a lower tone, "and perhaps doubt the whole story, but it is true, nevertheless. I have, indeed," he continued aloud, "condescended to go into the merchant service, but it is only on condition that my ship be armed, and one of the finest on the water. I should be proud to show her to you, sir. We sail at high water, which will be in an hour; and if you will come with me to the port, you shall see us get under weigh."

I very well comprehended that it might not be quite agreeable to Captain Hubert, with whom I had made a somewhat interesting acquaintance in a certain forest near Rennes, to leave a person who knew his former pursuits so well as I did, to walk unwatched through the town of St. Malo, at least till such time as he himself had fairly sailed; the merchant service, it appeared, being his real occupation at the present moment. To put his mind at ease, therefore, as it certainly never entered into my head to betray him, I agreed to walk with him to the port; and, after he had concluded his dinner, which was interrupted by the applications of half a dozen clerks, and twice the number of seamen, all proving that his tale was true, we turned our steps towards the spot where his vessel was lying.

Near the door of the auberge I saw the servant who had accompanied me thither, and whom I had left to take care of himself. I now, however, made him a sign to follow, and we thus proceeded to the port, which was crowded with people of all kinds, every one busy on their own peculiar affairs, and seeming to think that there was nobody else in the world but themselves. Here the worthy captain pointed out to me his vessel, which, indeed, was of a goodly size, and, apparently, well armed; and it being now time that he should embark, he gave me a friendly invitation to go with him and take a hasty view of the interior. This honour, however, I declined; and, playfully catching me by the collar, he declared I should go, pushing me at the same time towards his boat with an air of jest, but at the same with sufficient force to hurry me on a step or two, before I was aware. The spectators laughed at the good-humoured captain's badinage; but I, who had seen more of his jests than pleased me, laid my hand upon my dagger, and beckoned the groom towards me, saying, at the same time, "Let go my collar, my good sir, while the matter is a joke! You know I am hasty."

"Oh, if you take it in that light," replied the other, seeing the groom running up, "you are, of course, free to do as you like. But, remember!" he added, in a low, deep voice, "Remember!"

"Pshaw!" I replied, in the same tone, "do not be afraid; I will not betray you."

"I trust you," he said; "I trust you;" and, springing into his boat, he was instantly rowed off to his ship, leaving me to congratulate myself on having escaped a trip to the colonies, where most likely I should have been treated more as the merchandise than the merchant.^[3]

Amused with my adventure, I returned to my auberge, where I asked one or two questions concerning the worthy gentleman from whom I had just parted, and found, by the replies, that, since our former rencontre in the forest, he had already made one successful trip across the Atlantic, and had given every sort of satisfaction to the owners of his vessel. "All is well that ends well," I thought; but, however, it was no business of mine to interfere with a man's return to an honest profession, and therefore, of course, I held my peace concerning one, at least, of his previous occupations.

The next morning at an early hour, I set off on my return to Dumont, pleased with my whole expedition, and trusting, foolishly, to find everything in the same state of tranquillity which had reigned there when I left it. As I rode on, and entered the park by the gates near Juvigny, all appeared sunshine and brightness, and there was an aspect of calm serenity about the whole place which rendered it almost impossible to conceive that it was the abode of anything but happiness. About half way up the avenue I perceived Monsieur de Villardin approaching towards me, with his arms crossed on his breast, and a sort of staggering, uncertain step, which seemed to me extraordinary. I immediately dismounted, and, giving the horse to the groom, advanced on foot to meet the Duke, who evidently saw me, but suddenly turning away, he took a path into one of the side alleys; and seeing that he wished to be alone, I remounted my horse and rode on to the chÂteau. The first person I saw in the house was Gaspard de Belleville, who passed me in the vestibule, with a sort of grin upon his countenance, which made me fear that matters were not going so well as I could wish; for I had remarked that his smiles were not, in general, the precursors of anything very pleasant to myself.

The feeling, indeed, that some disagreeable event had occurred was vague; but I had always found it the best plan to make instant inquiries into the situation of affairs around me, as soon as ever I had the slightest suspicion that anything had gone amiss. Without even proceeding to my own apartments, therefore, I directed my steps, at once, to the room of my domestic oracle, the major-domo, and entered unannounced. The old man was busy with papers and accounts; but the moment he saw me he threw them down upon the table, and, lifting up his hands with an air of affliction, he exclaimed, "It has all gone wrong again, sir; it has all gone wrong."

"Why, what, in Heaven's name, is the matter now, Jerome?" I demanded. "When I left you, all bade fair to continue tranquil and at peace."

"Ay! but there is some demon of mischief at work in the house," replied the old man, "whose machinations we don't understand. My lord is a thousand times worse than ever. Indeed, he hardly appears to me to be sane."

This news, as it may well be supposed, grieved me deeply; but, of course, my first thought was to discover the origin of the change that had taken place, in order, if possible, to counteract any evil that might have been produced either by accident or by design. "Tell me, good Jerome," I said, as the old man was going on with desultory lamentations and vague facts, "tell me exactly what has occurred since I went away, step by step, as nearly as you can remember it."

"Why, my son," he replied, "I have very little to tell, except what I have before said, that my lord seems nearly insane. However, let me see! The only thing that occurred worth noticing the day after you went away was, that in returning from Juvigny, where I had been visiting my nephew, late in the evening, I found Master Gaspard and Madame Suzette, my lady's maid, in one of the alleys of the park a great deal more intimate than I liked. I had seen something of the same kind before at the PrÉs VallÉe, and then, though I did not choose to show myself in the matter, I took good care that my lady should know what was going on; and I know that she scolded Suzette severely, and threatened to discharge her if she behaved so lightly. However, there they were again, walking along together, certainly more like two lovers than a page of good birth and a lady's tiring-woman ought to be. Coming upon them suddenly, I passed by without their well seeing who I was; but I heard him say to her, speaking of some one else, 'Oh! he would take fire at it in a minute; anything of that kind would do very well.' This time I thought it my bounden duty to tell my lady myself what I had seen, and she was very angry indeed. The morning after that, as I was just going up the great staircase, I heard a terrible noise in my mistress's dressing-room, and the next moment my master passed me like a madman; while I saw Lise, the other maid, running out of my mistress's room as if for help. The moment she set eyes upon me, she called me to come up and help her; and I found my mistress lying upon the floor of her dressing-room, as if she were dead; while beside her there was a large roll of bright blue riband, which seemed to have fallen out of her hand. While we were lifting her up to put her on the couch, my lord rushed in again, and, giving a glance at her as if she had been a viper, snatched up the riband, and left us to bring her to herself as we best could. She did not recover for some time; and I thought it but right to call the doctor, who kept her to her bed all that day. In the meanwhile, I asked Lise to explain the cause of all this discomfort; and she told me that she knew but little, not having heard all that passed between my lady and my lord. When first she went into her mistress's dressing-room, she said, she found Suzette persuading her mistress to have her white mantle trimmed with that blue riband; and, though her mistress said it would look ugly, still she held it in her hand. In a minute or two afterwards, Suzette went away, and the Duchess asked Lise whether she thought the riband would look well on the mantle. Just while they were speaking, in came my lord, and Lise went on into the bed-room beyond; but, in a moment after, she heard a word or two about the riband, and my lord gave my lady some hard names which she would not repeat. Hearing some one fall, she ran in, she said, to see, and found the Duchess as I have told you she was when I came there. Ever since that time, my lord has been like one distracted; and though he saw his wife yesterday, he spoke not a word to her, but all the time he was in the room, he continued playing with the curls of Mademoiselle's hair, and thinking of something else."

Although I saw more deeply into the mystery than good old Jerome Laborde, and felt afraid, indeed, that he himself might unintentionally have contributed to bring about the change that we both deplored, yet there were many points of the whole business still dark and obscure even to myself. That the discovery of a riband in the hands of his wife, of the same colour, and probably the same shade, as that which suspended the locket to the neck of the unfortunate Count de Mesnil, had revived in the mind of Monsieur de Villardin, with more tremendous force than ever, those suspicions which the exhortations of Father Ferdinand and mv own direct testimony to the Duchess's conduct had crushed with difficulty, I did not in the least doubt. Nor had I more hesitation in concluding that Gaspard's hatred of myself, and desire to supplant me in the confidence of Monsieur de Villardin, together with the offence which the Duchess's rebuke in regard to the page had given Suzette, were sufficient motives for the lovers, or paramours, or whatever they might be, to combine in fostering the suspicions of Monsieur de Villardin against his wife, and thus revenging themselves upon her while they rendered themselves agreeable to him. But how they came by the knowledge necessary to make such schemes effectual was, I confess, a wonder to me. Could Monsieur de Villardin, I asked myself, could he have been weak enough to confide in Gaspard de Belleville the secret of his encounter with the Count de Mesnil, and the discovery of the locket and its contents? or could either Gaspard or Suzette have watched our proceedings on that occasion, or have overheard any of the conversations relating to it which had taken place between myself and the Duke? The first supposition I rejected at once, for it was impossible to believe that Monsieur de Villardin would trust to the ear of one, whom he himself suspected of having betrayed his confidence in former instances, a secret which, from the concealment and privacy that had attended the duel, might, in all probability, involve his own life. Neither could I, in calling to mind with the most scrupulous accuracy every circumstance relating to the transaction, believe that we had either been watched, or that any of our words had been overheard. The spot where the duel had taken place was so remote and private, everything in the house had been so much in its usual train when we returned, that, certainly, no one could have followed us from the chÂteau to the place of combat; and any conversations that had taken place upon the subject afterwards had always been carried on in low tones, and in places where it was almost impossible that they could be overheard.

All this perplexed me greatly; and, although good Jerome Laborde pressed eagerly for my opinion, I could neither give him insight into the past, nor advice concerning the future. All that I could suggest was, that, with the very first opportunity, he should send off notice of what had occurred to Father Ferdinand, who might boldly originate the subject in conversation with the Duke, without waiting till he was addressed upon it. This, of course, neither Jerome Laborde nor I dared attempt; though we naturally determined to do our best, should the occasion of serving the unhappy Duchess present itself.

The means of sending off speedily to Father Ferdinand were, luckily, found without difficulty; for, though we could not risk despatching a servant to him from the chÂteau, yet Jerome saw that another messenger might be procured by the intervention of Jacques Marlot.

Under these circumstances, I determined to write to the Priest myself; and, having done so, I committed the letter to the hands of the good major-domo, who undertook that it should go, at the latest, the next morning. All this occupied some time, and it was now growing late; but yet the Duke had not returned. Another hour elapsed; supper-time arrived; and, although one of the most regular men in his habits that I ever saw, still Monsieur de Villardin did not appear. The whole household became alarmed; and Madame de Villardin herself, whom some one foolishly informed of the facts, gave herself completely up to terror; and, weeping bitterly, came down to the hall in order to send out people to seek for her husband. At that moment, however, Monsieur de Villardin's step was heard in the vestibule; and immediately afterwards he entered the hall.

He took but little notice of his wife, merely asking, "Why are you weeping, madam?" and after her reply, that she was apprehensive for his safety, he cast down his eyes and stood musing, in the middle of the hall, for two or three minutes, which seemed perfect ages to those who were the spectators of so painful a scene. Then, starting suddenly, he looked round frowningly upon myself and several of the servants, who were gazing upon him in surprise and sorrow, and sat down to table unwashed, and in his dusty dress.

He seemed, however, by this time to have recovered some kind of command over his demeanour, and appeared eager to prevent the servants, whose astonishment he saw that he had excited, from remarking that there was anything in his behaviour different from his ordinary habits. He spoke to Madame de Villardin frequently during supper, to which she sat down with him, using, as he addressed her, all those forms of cold courtesy and politeness, which none knew better how to employ than himself. To me, also, he spoke once or twice concerning my late expedition; and evidently strove, with a desperate effort, to appear attentive to my replies. It was in vain, however, that he did so; for he continually relapsed into deep thought, every two or three minutes rousing himself violently from his reveries, and then falling back again, whether he would or not, into a state of dreary abstraction.

The next morning, a new change seemed to have taken place in his mood, for he came down perfectly himself, collected, and firm. He was quick and stern, it is true, but that was a frame of mind in which we had all often remarked him, and thought there was now, perhaps, something more approaching towards fierceness in his manner than we had ever beheld; yet this demeanour was so much better than the state of the preceding evening, that it appeared a relief.

Several times during the course of the morning I hoped that he was going to speak to me on the subject of his new suspicions, for more than once he looked earnestly, I may call it wildly, in my face; and once, when he had done so during a longer space than ever, he suddenly broke off, and turned away, muttering, "No, no! myself alone!"

I eagerly watched his conduct to Madame de Villardin during dinner, and saw that it was certainly very different from that of the night before--keen and rapid, but no longer harsh and abstracted. Yet though the Duchess herself seemed delighted with the change, and did all she could to soften him still farther, there appeared to me something not natural in his manner, which alarmed me, and I determined to walk down to Juvigny in order to make sure that the letter had been despatched to Father Ferdinand, for whose coming I prayed more fervently than I had ever done for the presence of any other man in my life. The reply was satisfactory--a messenger having been sent off to Rennes at an early hour; and I felt certain, though it might be late the next day before the Confessor could arrive, that he would not suffer two suns to rise ere he was in the chÂteau.

So far relieved was the mind of Madame de Villardin by the alteration in her husband's conduct, which she apparently trusted would now return to its ordinary course, that she began to resume her usual habits; and, accompanied by her little girl, took her stated walk in the cool of the evening; for it was now the month of May, and as warm as June. The Duke was shut up in his library all day, and, I supposed, alone; but in descending the back staircase--which, leading from my apartments in the wing, passed one of the library doors, and thence to the court behind the chÂteau--I encountered Suzette, the Duchess's woman, coming out from a conference with Monsieur de Villardin; and I felt sure, from that moment, that no internal change of feeling had taken place in his bosom, though he might assume, by a great effort, a different demeanour to those around him. To the hour of supper he was this night exact: and though his conversation was evidently forced, and perhaps a little rambling, yet it was fluent and courteous.

After supper, I, as usual, retired to my own apartments, and, full of painful thoughts, turned to the window, and gazed out upon the park as it lay before me, sleeping in the calm moonlight. I had not been there a moment, when a figure appeared upon the terrace, which I instantly recognised as that of Monsieur de Villardin. With a quick and irregular pace he descended the flight of steps that led into the garden, crossed it towards the park, and in a minute after was lost to my view in one of the dark alleys. Never did I feel so tempted to play the spy; but though I was conscious that the motive was not an evil one, yet my mind revolted from the thought, and casting off my clothes, I went to bed.

The next morning and day passed much in the same manner; but, about half an hour before dusk, while Madame de Villardin was preparing for her evening walk, the Duke himself set out on foot before her, saying to his wife, as he left the saloon, in which I happened to be at the time, "As you are not going to take Laura with you to-night, if you come down the walk by the water side, I will meet you. Our young friend here will accompany you!"

Madame de Villardin's joy at these words almost overflowed at her eyes; and though she had never said she was not about to take her little girl with her as the Duke implied, yet she determined to follow his words exactly, and leaving Mademoiselle to play in the flower-garden, under the superintendence of Suzette, she set out about ten minutes after her husband, accompanied by myself alone. She walked but slowly, and rested about half way down the walk; but although the sun was below the horizon, and the light was growing faint, yet the air was so warm and the sky so clear, one could have walked on for hours with far more pleasure than in the full glare of day.

Ere we had again proceeded a dozen yards, we saw Monsieur de Villardin come into the alley as if from the bank of the river; and offering his arm to his wife, he took the garden-seat which I was carrying, and walked on down the alley in silence. A minute or two after, however, as we approached one of the little wooden bridges, he paused, and asked Madame de Villardin whether she was able to walk on a little further on the other side of the river. "I have just now seen a wounded chevreuil," he said, "and wish to put it out of its agony;" and then turning to me, he bade me run back to the house, and bring his carbine, which I should find charged in his dressing-room.

His voice faltered, I observed, as he spoke, and the moment he had done, he turned towards the little bridge which might lie at about fifty or sixty yards from the spot where we stood. A feeling of awe and agitation came over me not to be described, for I had a sort of instant conviction that all was not right; and though I took a few steps towards the chÂteau, I paused again almost immediately, not knowing how to act or what to do. Never in my existence did I feel such a painful state of uncertainty; and gazing after Monsieur de Villardin and his fair wife, as they advanced slowly towards the bridge, my mind in a moment ran over a thousand vague apprehensions, probable and improbable, which only left the conviction that something fearful was about to occur, though of what nature I could not divine.

"His carbine!" I thought; "long before I can get back, it will be too dark for him to shoot anything thirty yards from him!" and I resolved to follow, and, pretending I had forgotten what he had said, to ask where the weapon was to be found. When I turned--though, as I have said, it was quite dusk--I could see the figures of Monsieur and Madame de Villardin approaching the river; and walking fast to come up with them, I was within twenty yards of the bridge when they began to cross it. Scarcely, however, had they taken two steps upon the wood-work when I heard a crash, a scream, a plunge, and both figures at once disappeared.

I darted forward to the spot where the bridge had stood, but nothing now remained of it but some broken fragments attached to the piles, which, driven into the high bank, had served as the foundation. The growing obscurity of the twilight, the trees that overhung the banks, the height of the banks themselves, which at that spot rose full twenty feet above the stream, the rushing and rippling of the current, which, there, considerably confined by its bed, hurried on towards a sharp turn which it took about fifty yards below; all served to prevent me seeing distinctly what were the objects on the surface of the water. Fragments of the bridge there certainly were; but I saw neither Madame de Villardin nor her husband, though the whirling of a part of the woodwork in one of the eddies of the river made me for a moment think I beheld the struggles of a living creature. I paused but for a single instant to calculate what were best to do; and then, seeing that there was nothing else to be done, I leaped from the high bank at once into the stream, and as soon as I rose after the first plunge, I struck rapidly down the current, in order, by exceeding its own speed, to come up with whatever objects it was carrying down. Almost at the turn of the river, where the water, in circling round the point, drifted strongly against the bank, which was here again less steep, at least on one side, I saw, amongst some broken pieces of wood, a larger object, impeded in its course down the stream by some projecting stones and roots of trees, and the next moment I grasped the arm of Monsieur de Villardin. He seemed perfectly insensible; but, springing to the shore, I dragged him up the bank, and laid him upon the turf. Still he made no movement; but, as I confess, that from various feelings which I need not explain, I felt more interested in the fate of Madame de Villardin than even in his own, I left him at once, and again plunging into the stream, I swam rapidly round the little peninsula I have mentioned.

The river here was more open, and whatever light was in the sky was reflected clearly from its bosom; but by this time all the fragments of the bridge had drifted out of sight, and in vain lifting my head as high as I could, I attempted to discover any object floating upon the water. Still darting on as fast as my utmost efforts could impel me along the current, I endeavoured to regain the time lost in drawing Monsieur de Villardin on shore; and after a moment, a faint and very distant cry for help caught my ear and encouraged me to strike on. The cry, however, was never repeated; and after swimming till I was perfectly exhausted, I was obliged to abandon the attempt in despair, and landed about a mile below the dwelling of good Jacques Marlot. Thither I directed my steps as fast as possible; and finding the door locked, I knocked for several moments so violently as to bring him himself, with a face of terror, to the gateway. Telling him what had occurred, I besought him to rouse all the servants of the farm and the cotters in the neighbourhood, and dividing into two parties, one on either bank, to search the whole course of the stream with torches and lanterns.

In the meanwhile, I hurried back, and calling the woodcutter at the nearest gate of the park, made him hasten on with me to the spot where I had left Monsieur de Villardin, answering as well as I could the eager questions which he put to me, as we went, concerning the events which had occurred.

We found the Duke exactly where I had left him; but, though he had not moved in the slightest degree, it was evident that he was still alive, for he was breathing loud and hard, like a person in a deep sleep. Taking him up in our arms, we carried him as quickly as we could to the chÂteau, when we were instantly surrounded by the whole household; and by the lights which were now brought, we perceived that a severe blow on the head was more probably the cause of his insensibility than the short time he had remained in the water.

Leaving him in the hands of the physician, who for the last month had inhabited the chÂteau, attending upon Madame de Villardin, I set out, with the greater part of the household, all furnished with torches; and for three hours continued our search for the body of the unhappy lady, from the spot where the bridge had broken to a village nearly six miles farther down the stream. Our search, however, was in vain; and all feeling that a good mistress, a kind friend, and a gentle lady, was lost to us for ever, we returned, sad and sorrowful, to the chÂteau.