INTO STILL WATERS AND SILENCE
Into the princess's own chamber they carried Maurice, and laid him on the white bed.Thus would she have it.No young man had ever before entered that sacred chapel of her maiden dreams.
Beside the bed was a small prie-dieu; and she knelt upon the cushion and rested her brow against the crucifix.The archbishop covered his eyes, and the state physician bent his head.
Chastity and innocence at the feet of God; yet, not even these can hold back the fleeting breath of life.She asked God to forgive her the bitterness in her heart; she prayed for strength to repel the weakness in her limbs.Presently she rose, an angelic sweetness on her face.She looked down at Maurice; there was no sign of life, save in the fitful drawing in of the nether lip.She dampened a cloth and wiped the sweat of agony from the marble brow.
"O, if only he might live!" she cried."And he will not?""No, your Highness," said the physician."He has perhaps an hour.
Extraordinary vitality alone is the cause of his living so long.
He has lost nearly all the blood in his body.It was a frightful wound.He is dying, but he may return to consciousness before the end.
The archbishop, with somber eyes, contemplated the pale, handsome face, which lay motionless against the pillow.His thoughts flew back to his own youth, to the long years which had filled the gap between.Friends had come and gone, loved ones vanished; and still he stood, like an oak in the heart of a devastated forest, alone.Why had he been spared, and to what end? Ah, how old he was, how very old! To live beyond the allotted time, was not that a punishment for some transgression?
His eyes shone through a mist of tears.
The princess, too, contemplated the face of the dying man.How many times had that face accompanied her in her dreams! How familiar she was with every line of it, the lips, that turned inward when they smiled; the certain lock of hair that fell upon the forehead! And yet, she had seen the face in reality less than half a dozen times.Why had it entered so persistently into her dreams? Why had the flush risen to her cheeks at the thought? At another time she would have refused to listen to the voice which answered; but now, as the object of her thoughts lay dying on her pillow, her mind would not play truant to her heart.
Sometimes the approach of love is so imperceptible that it does not provoke analysis.We wake suddenly to find it in our hearts, so strong and splendid that we submit without question....
All, all her dreams had vanished, the latest and the fairest.
Across the azure of her youth had come and gone a vague, beautiful flash of love.The door of earthly paradise had opened and closed.That delicate string which vibrates with the joy of living seemed parted; her heart was broken, and her young breast a tomb.With straining eyes she continued to gaze.The invisible arms of her love clasped Maurice to her heart and held him there.
Only that day he had stood before her, a delight to the eye;and she had given him her hand to kiss.How bravely he had gone forth from the city! She had followed him with her ardent gaze until he was no longer to be seen.And now he lay dying....
for her.
"Monsieur," she said, turning to the physician, "I have something to say to Monseigneur."The physician bowed and passed into the boudoir, the door of which he closed.
