Chapter VII.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XI, Issue 45, 7 March 1884, Page 7

Chapter VII.

May 22. It was on Sunday, at Mass, in the parish chapel, that I saw him. I was beside my aunt, and we were turning towards the pulpit to listen to the sermon, when my eyes fell upon Germain, right opposite u<?, and not three steps away. I knew him at the very first glance. He is grand, Elise. lam sure you are dying to hear what he is like. He looks grave and manly. The thick clusters of hair on his forehead are beginning to thin just a little, but except for that, the calm, good face is not changed. His dress is very simple, and yet there is something elegant about it. Anyone might feel proud to belong to him. His head was turned towards the pieacher, and so I had plenty of time to look at him. It is he him9elf, I thought, the very Germain that 1 remembered, the very Germain that I pictured to myself. Then, I cast down my eyes again, I tried to draw down my veil, I shrank behind a very stout lady who happened to be between us, and began to think. I am afraid I did not hear much of the sermon that day ; and, moreover, I am afraid I fell into a reverie, for I know I was troubled with very strong remembrances of a ceitain morning in a dark garret, and of a little child sitting on a bench behind her mother's kneeling figure, and' St. Raphael with a kind, sweet face blazing out of a painted window overhead. Then, with a stait, I came back to Stephanie, wondering what my dead mother would advise me to do now, what I ought to do, where my duty lay. When the sermon was over I fell on my knees, and burying my face in mv hands implored God to grant that I might be the wife of my mother's benefactor oi remain unmarried all my days. Oh, Germain, Germain, I could not give away the heart that was not mine to give, for it is as full of you as you desired it to be ! My aunt rose to leave the church, and I followed. We passed slowly by the bench where Germain knelt, and I ventured to take just one look at him. He was praying with head bowed down, and a few gray hairs scattered among the locks about his temples told, me what a laborious life he had been leading since I saw bim last. I recognized his prayer-book, for he taught me to read Latin'm it, and I wondered if there was a little picture of St. Rose of Palmero there which I had given him shortly before our separation. My aunt • retcaiked him, and observed that he seemed very pious. Why could I not say ".I know him. H;is my benefactor, my oldest, truest friend " ? However, that rcmaik of hers seemed a good omen as well as the face that it was in so holy a place that Providence had allowed me to see my old friend again. Once outside the church my fin>t feeling was dread that I should lose sight of him. I darted up to my own room to watch which way he would go. Presently from my post behind the curtains l saw him pass down a very quiet street just opposite the Hotel d'Aubecourt. He gave something to that poor old woman whom you may remember to have seen always theie with her crucifix on her breast and her " Are Maria" on hir lips. Thanks to my long sight, I was able to watch bim all down the street till he entered a plain but pretty-looking house at the end, which is shut in like a convent. By-and-by he came out again, without his prayer-book, so I coocluded that it was his own house. What a lot of discoveries all in one day ! To see him, to know that he waa alive and well, and to find him living just within sight of my own window I He came up the street and passed our house with an attentive look at the caivcd escutcherncd doorway and windows. Germain I Germain 1 look again, don't pass by so quickly. Your little Ecescben is watching you behind the rich curtains of one of those sculptured windows that have caught your eye, and loving you betttr than she did in those old, happy days, even with such*a love as you wished her to have for you. But without another thought of the gorgeous Hotel d'Aubeconrt, and still less of pcor Eoeschen, he went on and soon was out of sight. Then I rose with a great sigb, locked the door, took out my precious letter, unfolding it with a sort of tender lespect and renewing in my heart the prayer I had made an hour before in the presence of God. At Vespers that evening he was in the very fame place. " so, most probably," I thought, "be belongs (o tbe parish, and I shall see bim very ofttn.'' A fortnight went by and I saw him every day. Nearly every morning we met at Mass and then he disappeared intc bis quiet-looking old house and did not come out again until evening, or if he did pass the

threshold he was back directly with two or three awful-looking old books tucked affectionately under his arm ; from all of which I concluded he had no particular occupation except study, and that he was not changed since he wrote that wonderful letter. Once or twice I saw him at a particular window in which a light burns until the most unearthly hours ; and this I supposed was his own room, and probably bis study also. You will smile at all this, I know, dear ; but my life is very sweet just now. I piece out my little puzzle every day. When I awaken, I feel that he is not far away. I guess at all his occupations as the day goes on. I kneel near him in the church. 1 pray for him, little as he suspects it ; and I wait in hopes of some day having an opportunity of Bhowing him what a grateful, loving heart I have. Sometimes he looks sad and careworn ; and I think he has some great trials to bear, and I long so much to comfort him who comforted us in our troubles. He looks lonely, too ; I wonder where his mother and sister can be ? He does not recognise me ?in the lea9t. Sometimes he happens to glance at me iv passing ; but it does not seem to awaken the slightest rememhrance in his mind. You know one sometimes sees on people's faces a look as if they were trying to remember where they had seen you. Of course, L was only ten years old when he went away and now I am twenty, just double the age I was then. Besides, at that time I was a miserable and rather plain child, and now I am a girl, and if the opinions of M. de Sauveterre and hia mother are to be relied upon, rather a nice girl. Well, there is no use in my hiding anything from you, Elise, and I do not thiuk you will be vexed with me for what lam going to say. I wish that Monsieur Germain could hold the same opinion on this subject as my aristocratic admirer. But I laugh to see the two men side by side in my mind, and to fancy two sucu different beings haying any feeling in common, and I fear the contrast is hardly complimentary to the Viscount de Sauveterre.