Mind my words, Fanchon! I never fail to do what I threaten."
"Oh, only do not look so at me, my Lady!" replied poor Fanchon, perspiring with fear. "I am sure I never shall speak of it. I swear by our Blessed Lady of Ste. Foye! I will never breathe to mortal that I gave you that letter."
"That will do!" replied Angelique, throwing herself down in her great chair. "And now you may go to Lizette; she will attend to you. But REMEMBER!"
The frightened girl did not wait for another command to go.
Angelique held up her finger, which to Fanchon looked terrible as a poniard. She hurried down to the servants' hall with a secret held fast between her teeth for once in her life; and she trembled at the very thought of ever letting it escape.
Angelique sat with her hands on her temples, staring upon the fire that flared and flickered in the deep fireplace. She had seen a wild, wicked vision there once before. It came again, as things evil never fail to come again at our bidding. Good may delay, but evil never waits. The red fire turned itself into shapes of lurid dens and caverns, changing from horror to horror until her creative fancy formed them into the secret chamber of Beaumanoir with its one fair, solitary inmate, her rival for the hand of the Intendant,--her fortunate rival, if she might believe the letter brought to her so strangely. Angelique looked fiercely at the fragments of it lying upon the carpet, and wished she had not destroyed it; but every word of it was stamped upon her memory, as if branded with a hot iron.
"I see it all, now!" exclaimed she--"Bigot's falseness, and her shameless effrontery in seeking him in his very house. But it shall not be!" Angelique's voice was like the cry of a wounded panther tearing at the arrow which has pierced his flank. "Is Angelique des Meloises to be humiliated by that woman? Never! But my bright dreams will have no fulfilment so long as she lives at Beaumanoir,-- so long as she lives anywhere!"
She sat still for a while, gazing into the fire; and the secret chamber of Beaumanoir again formed itself before her vision. She sprang up, touched by the hand of her good angel perhaps, and for the last time. "Satan whispered it again in my ear!" cried she.
"Ste. Marie! I am not so wicked as that! Last night the thought came to me in the dark--I shook it off at dawn of day. To-night it comes again,--and I let it touch me like a lover, and I neither withdraw my hand nor tremble! To-morrow it will return for the last time and stay with me,--and I shall let it sleep on my pillow! The babe of sin will have been born and waxed to a full demon, and I shall yield myself up to his embraces! O Bigot, Bigot! what have you not done? C'est la faute a vous! C'est la faute a vous!" She repeated this exclamation several times, as if by accusing Bigot she excused her own evil imaginings and cast the blame of them upon him.
She seemed drawn down into a vortex from which there was no escape.
She gave herself up to its drift in a sort of passionate abandonment. The death or the banishment of Caroline were the only alternatives she could contemplate. "'The sweetest eyes that were ever seen'--Bigot's foolish words!" thought she; "and the influence of those eyes must be killed if Angelique des Meloises is ever to mount the lofty chariot of her ambition."
"Other women," she thought bitterly, "would abandon greatness for love, and in the arms of a faithful lover like Le Gardeur find a compensation for the slights of the Intendant!"
But Angelique was not like other women: she was born to conquer men-- not to yield to them. The steps of a throne glittered in her wild fancy, and she would not lose the game of her life because she had missed the first throw. Bigot was false to her, but he was still worth the winning, for all the reasons which made her first listen to him. She had no love for him--not a spark! But his name, his rank, his wealth, his influence at Court, and a future career of glory there--these things she had regarded as her own by right of her beauty and skill in ruling men. "No rival shall ever boast she has conquered Angelique des Meloises!" cried she, clenching her hands. And thus it was in this crisis of her fate the love of Le Gardeur was blown like a feather before the breath of her passionate selfishness. The weights of gold pulled her down to the nadir.
Angelique's final resolution was irrevocably taken before her eager, hopeful lover appeared in answer to her summons recalling him from the festival of Belmont.
