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CHAPTER XXX.

"ANDRÉ," said a faint voice.

The young Provençal started. He was sitting by Armand de Valtour's bed, lost in a reverie.

It was the third day of his attendance on the sick man.

"Yes, monsieur," he said quietly, and rose at once and bent over the helpless figure.

"I am better to-night," said Armand de Valtour faintly. "After all, God seems kinder to me than I deserve. What does the doctor say? Does he think I shall recover?"

"Assuredly, monsieur, with care and attention."

"Tell me why you came here. It was very good of you."

"You are forbidden to speak, monsieur," said the young man evasively. "Remember, you are still very weak."

"But I can listen. I long for some news of home. Tell me all about them, André."

It seemed odd to the young Provençal to be addressed humbly, almost entreatingly, by the man who had treated him with insolent disregard for so long a time. But his instinctive dislike to the Count | | 326 was discernible in his cold voice--his averted face, as he complied with his request.

"Mdlle. de Valtour was in great alarm when she heard of your accident, monsieur," he said; "she knew not what to do at first. She dared not tell the Countess in her present delicate state. There was no one whom she could think of to send to you. At last she thought of me. To please Mademoiselle and Madame I would do anything that lies in my power. I came at once, and, travelling with all speed, reached you just three days ago. That is all."

"It was kind of you, indeed," said Armand de Valtour feebly. "But two things puzzle me. You were to have gone to Italy by this time. What has changed your plans? And you speak of my wife being in delicate health. What is the matter? There is nothing serious, I hope."

"Is it possible you do not know?" exclaimed André.

"Know what?"

"The reason of Madame's indisposition. They say she will be a mother soon. But surely you knew that?"

His face had grown very white--his voice sounded harsh and constrained. Armand sprang up in the bed from sheer amazement at the unexpected news, then, faint and exhausted, sank back again on the pillows.

"I fear I am but a bad nurse," said André, in alarm, as he administered a restorative to him. "I should | | 327 not have told you anything that would excite you thus. But of course I thought you knew."

"No, I did not know," gasped Armand de Valtour; "I can scarcely credit it. A child--my child! Oh! Heaven, I thank thee! Perhaps I may win forgiveness at last."

He thought of Adrienne in her beauty and her youth--thought of her crowned with the glory of motherhood--the sweet Heaven-sent joy that her child's smile and touch would bring to her heart. A great remorse and a great horror of himself filled his own, as he thought of the wrongs she had borne from him, the scandal of his past conduct. Pure and guiltless she had been; faithful in word and deed, loving and tender despite all coldness and neglect, while he had only gone on from sin to sin, and stung her pride and purity by an outrage too gross to be overlooked or even pardoned. For, with all his sophistries and excuses, he knew that he had sinned in intention if not in actual deed--he had never been worthy of Adrienne for one single moment. Fickle, disloyal, selfish, tyrannical, so he saw himself at last, and the sight was so odious that he hid his face from sight and groaned aloud.

André watched him with anxiety.

"Do you feel ill, monsieur? Can I do anything for you?" he asked.

"No," answered Armand de Valtour, turning away and burying his shamed and sorrowful eyes in the pillows; "no one can do anything for me now."

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The humiliation and anguish of that moment were feelings he had never known in all his facile, careless, pleasure-loving life. He saw himself as he was, in that complete mental isolation, which only comes to human souls in the bitterness of a great grief, or the agony of a great remorse.

Both of these were with him now, and would be with him through many a day and night to come.

"Is it my fault, or the world's?" he thought, lying there in the weariness of convalescence, and seeing ever before him the long array of his own faults and follies, his own caprices and sins. His heart grew bitter and ashamed.

He took a strange, unaccountable fancy to André Brizeaux. He could not bear him out of his sight. It was wearisome and irksome to the young peasant, this constant demand on his attention, this fretful discontent at his absence. But having once set himself the task, he went through it manfully: its very distastefulness only made it assume the right of a duty.

He wrote daily to Valtours with accounts of Armand's returning strength, and from the answers received by Armand and himself he knew that Adrienne was still in ignorance of her husband's illness.

A day came at last when the Count de Valtour was able to leave his bed and lie on a couch by the window. But it was a day that turned the hopefulness of recovery to a painful despair, for the doctor | | 329 announced to him that he would be lame for life--the injury to the leg was incurable. The shock to Armand de Valtour's feeling was very great. He could have turned away and cried like a child as he heard that pitiless decree. Yet he knew it was but just that in some way he should suffer; that the sins and follies of his life should not go altogether unpunished.

"Will she be sorry when she hears?" he thought.

Slowly, wearily the days passed on. More and more melancholy he grew. André became uneasy, the doctor looked grave. He pronounced progress to be less satisfactory than he had expected, and announced that the patient's mind must be roused or interested in some way. With untiring patience the young Provençal exerted himself to carry out these instructions. He gave a faithful account of Armand's condition to his sister, and spoke of his slow progress and broken spirits with ill-concealed alarm. "I think he grieves for some word from Madame," he wrote.

One day a letter came for the Count. André took it to him himself, and put it in those feeble, languid hands that seemed now too weak for any exertion. As Armand glanced at the writing, the blood flew to his face. His lips quivered, his hands trembled so that they could scarcely break the seal.

His eyes seemed to devour the lines before him, a great sigh that was almost a sob, burst from his pant- | | 330 ing heart; then, quite suddenly, the letter fell from his grasp. He bent his head down on his clasped hands and sobbed like a child.

"It is too much happiness;" he cried wildly. "Oh, my angel! my wife! Heaven grant that the future may atone for the past!"

This was Adrienne's letter:--

Armand do Valtour needed no more tonics after that letter. Happiness was the medicine that gave back strength to his body--hope to his heart.

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In all his life he had never known joy so pure, remorse so keen, as that which had come to him with the assurance of his wife's pardon, the knowledge of his wife's restored love.