Saint Michael

The tone was the same to which Raoul had always submitted, but now he burst forth in open rebellion: "Grandfather, do not goad me too far. You have always reproached me with having my mother's blood in my veins, and you are right. All that I knew of happiness and freedom in the sunny days of my youth belonged to France, and there alone does life seem to me really worth the living. Here, in cold, gray Germany, I have never felt at home. Every joy is doled out to me grudgingly here; the phantom of duty is always held up to me. Do not inexorably force me to choose. The result might be other than what you desire. I do not love your Germany; I never loved it; and, come what may, I will not fight against my France!"

"My Raoul,–I knew it!" cried Hortense, exultantly, extending her arms to him.

Steinrück stood still, gazing at the pair. He had not looked for this. Raoul's fear of him had hitherto kept him within bounds; he had not dared to give utterance to his sentiments. These bounds were broken, and even the old Count's iron nature was shaken. His voice sounded strangely when he spoke again,–"Raoul, come here!"

The young man did not stir; he stayed beside his mother, who had thrown one arm around him as if to detain him. Thus they stood, hostile and defiant; but the general was not the man to endure such revolt beneath his roof.

"Did you not hear my command? I must repeat it, then: Come here to me!"

His tone and look once more exercised their old power. Raoul obeyed mechanically, as if yielding to an irresistible force.

"You will not fight?" said Steinrück, seizing the young man's hand in a vice-like grasp. "That remains to be seen. I shall volunteer in your name, and once enlisted, you will be taught the meaning of discipline. You are aware of what awaits the soldier who disobeys, or–deserts. Hush! not a word!" he continued, as the young man started as if to protest against words so full of disgrace. "In spite of your threat, I bid you choose. And that you may not lavish too much admiration upon your son's courage, Hortense, I tell you what could not long be kept from you; Raoul's betrothal to Hertha is annulled, and by his own fault. For love of Frau von Nérac he has been false to the duty he owed to his betrothed."

"Raoul!" exclaimed the Countess, in utter dismay. The general slowly released his grandson's hand from his clasp and turned away.

"You must settle all that with him. I shall know how to avert the worse evil. I will see to it that the last of the Steinrücks is saved from the disgrace of betraying his fatherland as he has betrayed his betrothed."

With these words he left the room.

The discord in the Steinrück family weighed heavily upon its members. Hortense left for Steinrück, since the general insisted that one member at least of his household should follow his relative to the grave. He could not leave town himself, and political events might well account for Raoul's absence. But had Hortense also been absent the world would have suspected the family dissension, and she complied all the more readily with her father-in-law's desire on this occasion, since she still had some confidence in her personal influence with Hertha. In the stormy scene between Raoul and herself that preceded her departure, Michael's name had not been mentioned; she knew nothing of his relations with Hertha, or of his connection with the Steinrücks. In her mind Héloïse von Nérac was the sole cause of the breach between the young people, and she still hoped that she should succeed in appeasing the offended girl, and in recovering for her son all that he had so wantonly sacrificed with Hertha's hand.

The general and his grandson had met but for a few moments in the twenty-four hours following their decisive interview, and these moments had been painful enough. At present the young man had gone to his friend Clermont's, determined to prove to his mother and grandfather that he was no longer a boy to be disposed of according to their pleasure. He found Héloïse alone, and informed her of all that had taken place on the previous day, the passionate agitation of his manner showing how profoundly he had been moved.

"The die is cast," he concluded. "My betrothal with Hertha is at an end. I am as free as you are, and there is no longer any reason for concealment. Tell me at last, Héloïse, that you consent to be mine, to bear my name. You have never yet really done so."

Héloïse had listened in silence, and with a slight frown. It seemed almost as if this turn of affairs were an unwelcome one to her.

"Stay! not so fast, Raoul!" she said, in reply to his ardent words. "You acknowledge that your grandfather never will consent to our union, and you are entirely dependent upon him."

"For the moment. But I am his heir-at-law; nothing can affect that, as you know."

Héloïse was quite aware of it, but she was also aware of how little the income to which the young Count would fall heir would comport with her requirements. The matter had been the subject of an exhaustive discussion, but a little while previously, between herself and her brother, and the picture that Henri had then so ruthlessly drawn, of the dull life of a retired provincial town, had little in it to allure a woman to whom luxury and splendour were as her vital air.

"Then let us hope for the future," she said. "The present is hostile enough to us. Not only your family dissensions, but political events threaten to part us."

"Part us? And wherefore?"

"Why, you must see that we cannot stay here if the war, which Henri thinks unavoidable, should really be declared. As soon as our ambassador leaves the capital we must go too. Henri tells me to be ready for a hasty departure."

"Then let Henri go, but stay yourself. I cannot let you go. I know that I ask a sacrifice of you, but remember what I have sacrificed for your sake. To lose you now would be too horrible! You must stay!"

"What should I stay for?" she asked, sternly. "To look on while the general carries out his threat, and sends you in full uniform to fight against France?"

Raoul clinched his fist. "Héloïse, do not you too drive me to desperation. If you knew all that I have had, and yet have, to bear! My grandfather has scarcely spoken to me since yesterday, but his eyes, when he looks at me, make my blood boil, they are so full of scorn. My mother, from whom I have hitherto never known anything save love and tenderness, reproaches me bitterly. And now you talk of our parting, and I must brave it all alone. It is beyond endurance."

He did indeed look like a desperate man, and Héloïse gazed at him with mingled pity and indignation. With all his gallantry, his reckless bravery, and his scorn of danger, he was but as a reed shaken by the wind when moral courage was in question.

"Must we be parted?" she asked, gently. "It is for you to decide that, Raoul."

He looked up surprised. "For me?"

"Certainly. I cannot stay any more than can Henri. We know that you are ours at heart, and that only compulsion keeps you among Germans. Break loose from your bonds, and follow us to France!"

"What madness!" exclaimed Raoul, springing to his feet. "Now, when war is imminent! It would be rank treachery!"

"No, it would be a bold, courageous step to take,–a fearless confession of the truth. If you stay here you are false to yourself as well as to others. What should you resign? A country where you always have been, and always must be, a stranger, circumstances that have become intolerable, and a grandfather with whom you are in open warfare. The only one whom you have to consider–your mother–may, indeed, grieve over the destruction of her schemes, but she never would grieve over such a step on your part."

"My name is Steinrück," said Raoul, gloomily. "You seem to forget that, Héloïse."

"Yes, that is your name, but you are a Montigny from head to heel. You have often boasted to us that this was so; why deny it now? Is your father's name to dictate to you what you must think and feel? Has not your mother's blood an equal right? It draws you in every fibre towards her land, to her people, and should the holiest force in nature be outraged and denied? They would compel you to fight against us. That would be 'rank treachery,'–a use to which you never can allow yourself to be put."

Raoul had turned away; he would fain have been deaf to her words, but yet he drank them in eagerly. These were his own thoughts as they had besieged him day after day, refusing to be banished.

The only thing that could now be his safeguard he did not possess,–a sense of duty. Duty had always been to him a ghastly phantom, and thus it appeared to him now; but it possessed the power to appall.

"Hush, Héloïse!" he said, hoarsely. "I must not listen,–nay, I will not listen. Let me go."

And in fact he turned as if to leave the room, but Héloïse approached him and laid her hand upon his arm. Her voice was full of eloquent entreaty, and there was the soft veiled look in her eyes which he knew but too well.

"Come with us, Raoul. You will be consumed in this wretched struggle with yourself. It will be your ruin, and I–ah, do you think I can endure to part from you? that I shall suffer less than your mother in knowing you in the ranks of our foes? Follow us to France."

"Héloïse, spare me!" The young Count made a desperate effort to escape; in vain. Sweeter and more alluring rang the tones from which he could not flee. The toils of the glittering serpent were thrown more and more closely around him.

"Ah, he will find means to bend you to his will, that inexorable old man. Escape from him before he makes good his threat. War is not yet declared. You are still free to act. Procure your leave from the Foreign Office, no matter under what pretext. When you are far away, when orders can no longer reach you–"

"Never! never!" exclaimed Raoul. He felt himself about to succumb, and his sense of honour, all of it that was left, revolted. His grandfather's image arose before him,–the 'inexorable old man' with scorn in his eyes. Once more it won the victory over the threatened loss of his love, once more it snatched him from danger.

"Never!" he repeated. "I could not live beneath such a burden, even beside you, Héloïse. Farewell!"

He hurried to the door, where he encountered Henri Clermont, who had just returned from a walk, and who would have detained him.

"Whither so fast, Raoul? Have you not a moment to give me?"

"No!" the young Count gasped. "I must go on the instant. Farewell!"

He rushed away. Clermont looked after him, surprised, and then turned to his sister: "What ails the fellow? why is he in such desperate haste?"

"It is his reply to my suggestion that he should follow us to France," Héloïse replied, in a deeply irritated tone. "You heard it. He bade me farewell."

Henri shrugged his shoulders. "He will be here again to-morrow. I should suppose you would be aware by this time of your power over him. He has resigned Hertha Steinrück and a princely fortune for your sake. You he never will resign!"

The storm had burst: war was declared, and events followed one another with such rapidity that all personal considerations, all personal interests, were overwhelmed by them.

In the house occupied by the Marquis de Montigny everything was packed and ready for departure. He had remained to share the last cares of the Ambassador, and was now to leave the capital in a few hours. He seemed still to be awaiting some one, for from time to time he went to the window and looked out impatiently. At last the servant announced young Count Steinrück, who instantly appeared.

Raoul looked unusually pale, and his air was strangely disturbed, but it passed unnoticed by his uncle; at that time every one was in a state of feverish agitation. He held out his hand to the young man.

"Did you get my note? I am just about to start, but I cannot go without a few words with you."