White Lies Part 30

"Madame, if the case was not grave, should I take this unusual step? I tell you if some change does not take place soon, he will be a dead man in another fortnight. That is all TIME will do for him."

The baroness uttered an exclamation of pity and distress. Josephine put her hand to her bosom, and a creeping horror came over her, and then a faintness. She sat working mechanically, and turning like ice within.

After a few minutes of this, she rose with every appearance of external composure and left the room. In the pa.s.sage she met Rose coming hastily towards the salon laughing: the first time she had laughed this many a day. Oh, what a contrast between the two faces that met there--the one pale and horror stricken, the other rosy and laughing!

"Well, dear, at last I am paid for all my trouble, and yours, by a discovery; he never drinks a drop of his medicine; he pours it into the ashes under the grate; I caught him in the fact."

"Then this is too much: I can resist no longer. Come with me," said Josephine doggedly.

"Where?"

"To him."

CHAPTER XII.

Josephine paused on the landing, and laid her hand on Rose's shoulder.

It was so cold it made Rose shudder, and exacted a promise from her not to contradict a word she should say to Camille. "I do not go to him for my pleasure, but for his life," she said; "I must deceive him and save him; and then let me lie down and die."

"Oh, that the wretch had never been born!" cried Rose, in despair.

But she gave the required promise, and offered to go and tell Camille Josephine was coming to visit him.

But Josephine declined this. "No," said she; "give me every advantage; I must think beforehand every word I shall say; but take him by surprise, coward and doubleface that I am."

Rose knocked at the door. A faint voice said, "Come in." The sisters entered the room very softly. Camille sat on the sofa, his head bowed over his hands. A glance showed Josephine that he was doggedly and resolutely thrusting himself into the grave. Thinking it was only Rose--for he had now lost all hope of seeing Josephine come in at the door--he never moved. Some one glided gently but rapidly up to him. He looked up. Josephine was kneeling to him.

He lifted his head with a start, and trembled all over.

She whispered, "I am come to you to beg your pity; to appeal to your generosity; to ask a favor; I who deserve so little of you."

"You have waited a long time," said Camille, agitated greatly; "and so have I."

"Camille, you are torturing one who loved you once, and who has been very weak and faithless, but not so wicked as she appears."

"How am I torturing you?"

"With remorse; do I not suffer enough? Would you make me a murderess?"

"Why have you never been near me?" retorted Camille. "I could forgive your weakness, but not your heartlessness."

"It is my duty. I have no right to seek your society. If you really want mine, you have only to get well, and so join us down-stairs a week or two before you leave us."

"How am I to get well? My heart is broken."

"Camille, be a man. Do not fling away a soldier's life because a fickle, worthless woman could not wait for you. Forgive me like a man, or else revenge yourself like a man. If you cannot forgive me, kill me. See, I kneel at your feet. I will not resist you. Kill me."

"I wish I could. Oh! if I could kill you with a look and myself with a wis.h.!.+ No man should ever take you from me, then. We would be together in the grave at this hour. Do not tempt me, I say;" and he cast a terrible look of love, and hatred, and despair upon her. Her purple eye never winced; it poured back tenderness and affection in return. He saw and turned away with a groan, and held out his hand to her. She seized it and kissed it. "You are great, you are generous; you will not strike me as a woman strikes; you will not die to drive me to despair."

"I see," said he, more gently, "love is gone, but pity remains. I thought that was gone, too."

"Yes, Camille," said Josephine, in a whisper, "pity remains, and remorse and terror at what I have done to a man of whom I was never worthy."

"Well, madame, as you have come at last to me, and even do me the honor to ask me a favor--I shall try--if only out of courtesy--to--ah, Josephine! Josephine! when did I ever refuse you anything?"

At this Josephine sank into a chair, and burst out crying. Camille, at this, began to cry too; and the two poor things sat a long way from one another, and sobbed bitterly.

The man, weakened as he was, recovered his quiet despair first.

"Don't cry so," said he. "But tell me what is your will, and I shall obey you as I used before any one came between us."

"Then, live, Camille. I implore you to live."

"Well, Josephine, since you care about it, I will try and live. Why did not you come before and ask me? I thought I was in your way. I thought you wanted me dead."

Josephine cast a look of wonder and anguish on Camille, but she said nothing. She rang the bell, and, on Jacintha coming up, despatched her to Dr. Aubertin for the patient's medicine.

"Tell the doctor," said she, "Colonel Dujardin has let fall the gla.s.s."

While Jacintha was gone, she scolded Camille gently. "How could you be so unkind to the poor doctor who loves you so? Only think: to throw away his medicines! Look at the ashes; they are wet. Camille, are you, too, becoming disingenuous?"

Jacintha came in with the tonic in a gla.s.s, and retired with an obeisance. Josephine took it to Camille.

"Drink with me, then," said he, "or I will not touch it." Josephine took the gla.s.s. "I drink to your health, Camille, and to your glory; laurels to your brow, and some faithful woman to your heart, who will make you forget this folly: it is for her I am saving you." She put the gla.s.s with well-acted spirit to her lips; but in the very action a spasm seized her throat and almost choked her; she lowered her head that he might not see her face, and tried again; but the tears burst from her eyes and ran into the liquid, and her lips trembled over the brim, and were paralyzed.

"No, no! give it me!" he cried; "there is a tear of yours in it." He drank off the bitter remedy now as if it had been nectar.

Josephine blushed.

"If you wanted me to live, why did you not come here before?"

"I did not think you would be so foolish, so wicked, so cruel as to do what you have been doing."

"Come and s.h.i.+ne upon me every day, and you shall have no fresh cause of complaint; things flourish in the suns.h.i.+ne that die in the dark: Rose, it is as if the sun had come into my prison; you are pale, but you are beautiful as ever--more beautiful; what a sweet dress! so quiet, so modest, it sets off your beauty instead of vainly trying to vie with it." With this he put out his hand and took her gray silk dress, and went to kiss it as a devotee kisses the altar steps.

She s.n.a.t.c.hed it away with a shudder.

"Yes, you are right," said she; "thank you for noticing my dress; it is a beautiful dress--ha! ha! A dress I take a pride in wearing, and always shall, I hope. I mean to be buried in it. Come, Rose. Thank you, Camille; you are very good, you have once more promised me to live. Get well; come down-stairs; then you will see me every day, you know--there is a temptation. Good-by, Camille!--are you coming, Rose? What are you loitering for? G.o.d bless you, and comfort you, and help you to forget what it is madness to remember!"

With these wild words she literally fled; and in one moment the room seemed to darken to Camille.

Outside the door Josephine caught hold of Rose. "Have I committed myself?"

"Over and over again. Do not look so terrified; I mean to me, but not to him. How blind he is! and how much better you must know him than I do to venture on such a transparent deceit. He believes whatever you tell him. He is all ears and no eyes. Yes, love, I watched him keenly all the time. He really thinks it is pity and remorse, nothing more. My poor sister, you have a hard life to lead, a hard game to play; but so far you have succeeded; yet could look poor Raynal in the face if he came home to-day."

"Then G.o.d be thanked!" cried Josephine. "I am as happy to-day as I can ever hope to be. Now let us go through the farce of dressing--it is near dinner-time--and then the farce of talking, and, hardest of all, the farce of living."

From that hour Camille began to get better very slowly, yet perceptibly.