For a few seconds after Bertrand had gone, Nicolette remained standing where she was, quite still, dry-eyed now, and with lips set; she seemed for the moment not to have realised that he was no longer there. Then presently, when his footsteps ceased to resound through the house, when the front door fell to with a bang, and the gate gave a creak as it turned on its hinges, she seemed to return to consciousness, the consciousness of absolute silence. Not a sound now broke the stillness of the house. Jaume Deydier had sunk into a chair and was staring unseeing, into the fire; MargaÏ and the serving wenches were far away in the kitchen. Only the old clock ticked on with dreary monotony, and the flame from the hard olive wood burned with a dull sound like a long-drawn-out sigh.

Then suddenly Nicolette turned and ran towards the door. But her father was too quick for her: he jumped to his feet and stood between her and the door.

“Where are you going, Nicolette?” he asked.

“What is that to you?” she retorted defiantly.

Just like some dumb animal that has received a death blow Deydier uttered a hoarse cry; he staggered up against the door, and had to cling to it as if he were about to fall. For a second or two he stared at her almost doubting his own sanity. This then was his little Nicolette, the baby girl who had lain in his arms, whose first toddling steps he had guided, for whom he had lain awake o’ nights, schemed, worked, lived? The motherless child who had never missed a mother because he had been everything to her, had done twice as much for her as any mother could have done? This, his little Nicolette who stabbed at his heart with that sublime selfishness of love that rides rough-shod over every obstacle, every affection, every duty, and in order to gain its own heaven, hurls every other fond heart into hell?

Deydier was no longer a young man. He had married late in life, and strenuous work had hastened one or two of the unpleasant symptoms of old age. The last two days had brought with them such a surfeit of emotions, such agonising sensations, that this final sorrow seemed beyond his physical powers of endurance. Clinging to the door, he felt himself turning giddy and faint; once or twice he drew his arm across and across his forehead on which stood beads of cold perspiration. Then a shadow passed before his eyes, the walls of the room appeared to be closing in around him, hemming him in. Everything became dark, black as night; he put out his arms, and the next moment would have measured his length on the floor. It all occurred in less than two seconds. At his first cry all the obstinacy, the defiance in Nicolette’s heart, melted in face of her father’s grief—her father whom she loved better than anything in the world. When he staggered forward she caught him. She was as strong as a young sapling, and fear and love gave her additional strength. A chair was close by, she was able to drag him into it, to prop him up against the cushions, to fondle him until she saw his dear eyes open, and fasten themselves hungrily upon her. She would then have broken down completely, great sobs were choking her, but she would not cry, not now when he was ill and weak, and it was her privilege to minister to him. She found a glass and a bottle of old cognac, and made him swallow that.

But when he had drunk the cognac, and had obviously recovered, when he drew her forcibly on his knee crying:

“My little Nicolette, my dear, dear little Nicolette,” and pressed her head against his breast, till she could hardly breathe, when she felt hot, heavy tears falling against her forehead, then she could not hold back those sobs any longer, and just lay on his breast, crying, crying, while he soothed her with his big, fond hand, murmuring with infinite tenderness:

“There, there, my little Nicolette! Don’t—don’t cry—I ought to have told you before. You were a grown girl, and I did not realise it—or I should have told you before——”

“Told me what, father?” she contrived to whisper through her sobs.

“You would have understood,” he went on gently. “It was wrong of me to think that you would just obey your old father, without understanding. Love is a giant,” he added with a sigh, “he cannot be coerced, I ought to have known.”

He paused a moment, and stared out straight before him. Nicolette slid out of his arms on to the floor; her hand was resting on his knee, and she laid her cheek against it. He drew a deep breath, and then went on:

“Your mother was just like you, my dear, I loved her with as great a love as man ever gave to a woman. But she did not care for me—not then.—Did she ever care, I wonder—God alone knows that.”

He sighed again, and Nicolette not daring to speak, feeling that she stood upon the threshold of a secret orchard, that time and death had rendered sacred, waited in silence until he should continue.

“Just like you, my dear,” Deydier resumed slowly after awhile, “she had given her heart to one of those Ventadours. Ah! I don’t say that he was unworthy. God forbid! Like young Bertrand he was handsome and gallant, full I dare say of enthusiasm and idealism. And she——! Ah, my dear, if you had only known her! She was like a flower! like an exquisite, delicate snowdrop, with hair fairer than yours, and large grey eyes that conquered a man’s heart with one look. All the lads of our country-side were in love with her. Margaridette was her name, but they all called her Ridette; as for me I was already a middle-aged man when that precious bud opened into a perfect blossom. I was rich, and I worshipped her, but I had nothing else to offer. She used to smile when I spoke to her of my love, and softly murmur, sighing: ‘Poor Jaume.’

“But somehow I never gave up hope, I felt that love, as strong as mine, must conquer in the end. How this would come about I had not troubled to think, I was not likely to become younger or handsomer as time went on, was I?”

Once more he paused; memories were crowding around him fast. His eyes stared into the smouldering embers of the hearth, seeing visions of past things that had long ceased to be.

“Then one evening, my dear, something was revealed to me. Shall I ever forget that night, soft as a dream, warm as a downy bed; and spring was in the air—spring that sent the blood coursing through one’s veins, and beating against one’s temples with a delicious sense of longing and of languor. It was Candlemas, and I had been to church at Pertuis where Monseigneur the Bishop of Aix had celebrated Mass. I remember I had walked over with MargaÏ because she had never seen a real bishop celebrating. We had some beautiful tall green candles which I had bought in Marseilles, they were nearly two metres high, and very thick, and of course these were blessed by Monseigneur. The air was so marvellously still, and we both walked so carefully with our candles, that their lights never went out the whole of the way back from Pertuis. Your grandmother was alive then, and my cousin Violante was staying at the mas with her two children, so when MargaÏ and I arrived home with our beautiful green candles alight, my mother started the round of the house with them, and we all after her, Violante, the children, MargaÏ and the servants, and she marked every door and every window of the mas with a cross, as is traditional in our beautiful country, so as to preserve us all against God’s thunder and lightning. And still the candles were burning; neither the draught nor the rush up and down the stairs had blown out the lights. And they were so tall and thick, that I stuck them up on spikes which I had got ready for the purpose, and they went on burning all through dinner and the whole of the long afternoon. And MargaÏ would have it that candles blessed by a bishop were more potent as harbingers of good fortune than those on which only the hand of a curÉ had lain. So when the sun had gone down, and the air was full of the scent of spring, of young earth, and growing grass and budding flowers, I took one of the candles and went down into the valley. I wanted to give it to Margaridette so that all the blessings of God of which that burning candle was the symbol, should descend upon her head.

“I went down into the valley, and walked on the shores of the LÈze. The candle burned clear and bright, the flame hardly flickered for the air was so still. Then suddenly I spied, coming towards me, two young forms that seemed as one, so closely did they cling to one another. Young Raymond de Ventadour, it was, and he had his arm around your dear mother’s waist, and her pretty head rested against his shoulder. They did not see me, for they were so completely absorbed in one another; and I remained quite still, crouching behind a carob tree, lest I should disturb them in their happiness. But when they had gone by I saw that a breath of wind, or perhaps the lips of an angel, had blown my candle out.

“Well, my dear, after that,” Deydier went on in a firmer and more even voice, “I was convinced in my mind that all was well with Margaridette. True, Raymond de Ventadour belonged to an ancient and aristocratic race, but the Revolution was recent then, and we all held on to those ideals of equality and fraternity for which we had suffered so terribly. Margaridette’s father had been a ship-builder in Marseilles; he had retired at the outbreak of the Revolution and bought a house and a little piece of land on the other side of La Bastide. We all looked upon him as something of an “aristo,” and to me it seemed the most natural thing in the world that the two young people, being in love with one another, should eventually get married, especially as Raymond de Ventadour was a younger son. But though I was a middle-aged man, turned forty then, I had it seems not sufficient experience of life to realise to what depths of infamy man or woman can sink, when their ruling passion is at stake. I had not yet learned to know Madame la Comtesse Margarita de Ventadour, the Italian mother of Bertrand’s father, and of young Raymond.

“You know her, my dear, but have you eyes sharp enough to probe the abyss of cruelty that lies in that woman’s soul? Her arrogance, her pride of race, her worship of grandeur have made her a fiend—no longer human—just a monster of falsehood and of malice. Well do I remember the day when first the news reached my ears that young M. Raymond was affianced to Mademoiselle Marcelle de Cercamons. There,” he added quickly, and for the first time turning his gaze on the girl kneeling at his feet, “your dear hand is trembling on mine. You have begun to guess something of the awful tragedy which wrecked two young lives at the bidding of that cruel vixen. Yes, that was the news that was all over the villages that summer. M. Raymond was marrying Mademoiselle Marcelle de Cercamons. He was fighting under General Moreau in Germany, but he was coming home early in the autumn to get married. There was no doubt in anyone’s mind about it, as the news was originally brought by PÉrone, Mme. la Comtesse’s own confidential maid. She spoke—to MargaÏ amongst others—about the preparations for the wedding, the beauty of Marcelle de Cercamons, the love M. Raymond had for his beautiful fiancÉe. The lady was passing rich, and the wedding would take place at her ancestral home in Normandy; all this that spawn of Satan, the woman PÉrone, told everyone with a wealth of detail that deceived us all. Then one day she descended like a hideous black crow on Margaridette with a letter purporting to be from M. Raymond, in which he demanded that the poor child should return him the ring that he had given her in token of his faith. The next day the Comtesse left the chÂteau, accompanied by PÉrone. She was going to Normandy for the wedding of her son.”

“It was all false?” Nicolette murmured under her breath, awed by this tale of a tragedy that she felt was also the story of her destiny.

“All false, my dear,” Deydier replied, and the fire of a fierce resentment glowed in his deep-set eyes. “It was M. le Comte de Ventadour, Madame’s eldest son, who was marrying Mademoiselle de Cercamons. He, too, was away. He was in Paris, leading the life of dissipation which one has learned to associate with his family. M. Raymond was in Germany fighting under Moreau, and writing letters full of glowing ardour to his beloved. But mark the fulness of that woman’s infamy. Before her son left for the war, he had confessed to his mother his love for Margaridette, and the Comtesse, whose cruelty is only equalled by her cunning, appeared to acquiesce in this idyll, nay! to bestow on it her motherly blessing. And do you know why she did that, my dear? So as to gain the two young people’s confidence and cause them to send all their letters to one another through her hands. How should a boy mistrust his own mother? especially after she has blessed him and his love; and Raymond was little more than a boy.

“Madame la Comtesse withheld all his letters from Margaridette, and all Margaridette’s letters from him. After awhile, Margaridette thought herself forgotten, and when the news came that her lover had been false to her, and was about to wed another, how could she help but believe it?

“From such depths of falsehood to the mere forging of a letter and a signature asking for the return of the ring, was but a step in this path of iniquity. Poor Margaridette fell into the execrable trap laid for her by those cunning hands, she fell into it like a bird, and in it received her death wound. It was the day of the wedding at Cercamons in Normandy—PÉrone, you see, had not spared us a single detail—and I, vaguely agitated, vaguely terrified of something I could not define, could not rest at home. All morning, all afternoon, I tried to kill that agitation by hard work, but the evening came and my very blood was on fire. I felt stifled in the house. My mother, I could see, was anxious about me; her kind eyes fell sadly on me from time to time, while she sat knitting in this very chair by the hearth. It was late autumn, and the day had been grey and mild, but for some hours past heavy clouds had gathered over Luberon and spread themselves above the valley. Toward eight o’clock the rain came down; soon it turned into a downpour. The water beat against the shutters, the cypress trees by the gate bowed and sighed under the wind. Presently I noticed that my mother had, as was her wont, fallen asleep over her knitting. I seized the opportunity and stole out of the room, and out of the house. Something seemed to be driving me along, just as it did last night, my dear, when I found that you had gone——”

His rough hand closed on Nicolette’s, and he lifted her back upon his knees, and put his arms round her with an almost savage gesture of possession.

“I went down into the valley,” he went on sombrely, “and along the river bank. The rain beat into my face, and all around me the olive and the carob trees were moaning and groaning under the lash of the wind. I had a storm lanthorn with me—for in truth I do believe that God Himself sent me out into the valley that night—and this, I swung before me as I walked through the darkness and the gale. Something drew me on. Something!

“And there, where the mountain stream widens into a shallow pool, and where a great carob tree overshadows the waters, I saw Margaridette crouching beside a boulder, just as I saw you, my little girl, last night. Her hair was wet like yours was, her shawl had slipped from her shoulders and was soaked in the stream; her dear arms were thrown over the wet stone, and her face was buried in her hands. I gathered her up in my arms. I wrapped my coat around her shoulders, and I carried her to the mas, just as I carried you....”

He said no more, and with his arms still held tightly around his child, he once more stared into the fire. And Nicolette lay in his arms, quite still, quite still. Presently he spoke again, but she scarcely heard him now: only a few phrases spoken with more passionate intensity than the rest reached her dulled senses: “She acquiesced—just like a child who was too sick to argue—her father urged it because he thought that Margaridette’s name had been unpleasantly coupled with that of M. Raymond—and then he liked me, and I was rich—and so we were married—and I loved my Margaridette so ardently that in time, I think, she cared for me a little, too—Then you were born, my Nicolette—and she died——”

Nicolette felt as if her very soul were numb within her; her heart felt as if it were dead.

So then this was the end? Oh! she no longer had any illusions, no longer any hope. What could she do in face of THIS? Her father’s grief! that awful tragedy which he had recalled had as effectually killed every hope as not even death could have done.

This, then, was the end? Tan-tan would in very truth go out of her life after this. She could never see him again. Never. She could never hope to make him understand how utterly, utterly impossible it would be for her to deal her father another blow. It would be a death blow! And dealt by her? No, it could not, could not be. Vaguely she asked—thinking of Bertrand—what ultimately became of Raymond de Ventadour.

“He came back from the wars,” Deydier explained, “three months after I had laid your mother in her grave. We, in the meanwhile, had heard of the cruel deceit practised upon her by old Madame, we had seen M. le Comte de Ventadour bring home his bride: and it is the fondest tribute that I can offer to my Margaridette’s undying memory, that never once did she make me feel that I had won her through that woman’s infamous trick. Raymond de Ventadour had naturally been led to believe that Margaridette had been false to him: when he came home his first visit was to me. I think he meant to kill me. Never have I seen a man in such a passion of despair. But, standing in the room where she died and where you were born, I told him the whole truth just as I knew it: and I don’t know which of us two suffered the most at that hour: he or I.”

“And after that?” Nicolette murmured.

“He went away. Some said that he fought in Egypt, and there was killed in action. But no one ever knew: not even his mother. All we did know was that Raymond de Ventadour never came back!”

He never came back!

And Nicolette, lying in her father’s arms, took to envying her mother who rested so peacefully in the little churchyard way up at La Bastide. As for her, even her life was not her own. It belonged to this grief-stricken man who held her so closely in his arms that she knew she could never go. It belonged to him, and would have to go on, and on, in dreary, or cheerful monotony, while the snows on Luberon melted year after year, and, year after year, the wild thyme and rosemary came into bloom, and the flowers on the orange trees blossomed and withered again.

Year after year!

And Bertrand would never come back!