gone, Gilbert remained, not watching, but contemplating Andrea, lovely in her thoughtful pose, till he perceived with astonishment that she was slumbering. When convinced of this, he grasped his head between his hands like one who fears his brain will burst from the overflow of emotions.
"Oh, to kiss her hand!" he murmured, in a gush of fury. "Oh, Gilbert, let us approach her – I so long to do it."
Hardly had he entered the room than he felt the importance of his intrusion. The timid if not respectful son of a farmer to dare to raise his eyes on that proud daughter of the peers. If he should touch the hem of her dress she would blast him with a glance.
The floor boards creaked under his wary tread, but she did not move, though he was bathed in cold perspiration.
"She sleeps – oh, happiness, she sleeps!" he panted, drawing with irresistible attraction within a yard of the statue, of which he took the sleeve and kissed it.
Holding his breath, slowly he raised his eyes, seeking hers. They were wide open, but still saw not. Intoxicated by the delusion that she expected his visit and her silence was consent, her quiet a favor, he lifted her hand to his lips and impressed a long and feverish kiss.
She shuddered and repulsed him.
"I am lost!" he gasped, dropping the hand and beating the floor with his forehead.
Andrea rose as though moved by a spring under her feet, passed by Gilbert, crushed by shame and terror and with no power to crave pardon, and proceeded to the door. With high-held head and outstretched neck, as if drawn by a secret power toward an invisible goal, she opened the door and walked out on the landing.
The youth rose partly and watched her take the stairs. He crawled after her, pale, trembling and astonished.
"She is going to tell the baron and have me scourged out of the house – no, she goes up to where the guest is lodged. For she would have rung, or called, if she wanted Labrie."
He clenched his fists at the bare idea that Andrea was going into the strange gentleman's room. All this seemed monstrous. And yet that was her end.
That door was ajar. She pushed it open without knocking; the lamplight streamed on her pure profile and whirled golden reflections into her wildly open eyes.
In the center of the room Gilbert saw the baron standing, with fixed gaze and wrinkled brow, and his hand extended in gesture of command, ere the door swung to.
Gilbert's forces failed him; he wheeled round on the stairs, clinging to the rail, but slid down, with his eyes fastened to the last on the cursed panel, behind which was sealed up all his vanished dream, present happiness and future hope.
CHAPTER VI
THE CLAIRVOYANT
Balsamo had gone up to the young lady, whose appearance in his chamber was not strange to him.
"I bade you sleep. Do you sleep?"
Andrea sighed and nodded with an effort.
"It is well. Sit here," and he led her by the hand the youth had kissed to a chair, which she took.
"Now, see!"
Her eyes dilated as though to collect all the luminous rays in the room.
"I did not tell you to see with your eyes," said he, "but with those of the soul."
He touched her with a steel rod which he drew from under his waistcoat. She started as though a fiery dart had transfixed her and her eyes closed instantly; her darkening face expressed the sharpest astonishment.
"Tell me where you are."
"In the Red Room, with you, and I am ashamed and afraid."
"What of? Are we not in sympathy, and do you not know that my intentions are pure, and that I respect you like a sister?"
"You may not mean evil to me, but it is not so as regards others."
"Possibly," said the magician; "but do not heed that," he added in a tone of command. "Are all asleep under this roof?"
"All, save my father who is reading one of those bad books, which he pesters me to read, but I will not."
"Good; we are safe in that quarter. Look where Nicole is."
"She is in her room, in the dark, but I need not the light to see that she is slipping out of it to go and hide behind the yard door to watch."
"To watch you?"
"No."
"Then, it matters not. When a girl is safe from her father and her attendant, she has nothing to fear, unless she is in love – "
"I, love?" she said sneeringly. And shaking her head, she added sadly: "My heart is free."
Such an expression of candor and virginal modesty embellished her features that Balsamo radiantly muttered:
"A lily – a pupil – a seer!" clasping his hands in delight. "But, without loving, you may be loved?"
"I know not; and yet, since I returned from school, a youth has watched me, and even now he is weeping at the foot of the stairs."
"See his face!"
"He hides it in his hands."
"See through them."
"Gilbert!" she uttered with an effort. "Impossible that he would presume to love me!"
Balsamo smiled at her deep disdain, like one who knew that love will leap any distance.
"What is he doing now?"
"He puts down his hands, he musters up courage to mount hither – no, he has not the courage – he flees."
She smiled with scorn.
"Cease to look that way. Speak of the Baron of Taverney. He is too poor to give you any amusements?"
"None."
"You are dying of tedium here; for you have ambition?"
"No."
"Love for your father?"
"Yes; though I bear him a grudge for squandering my mother's fortune so that poor Redcastle pines in the garrison and cannot wear our name handsomely."
"Who is Redcastle?"
"My brother Philip is called the Knight of Redcastle from a property of the eldest son, and will wear it till father's death entitles him to be 'Taverney.'"
"Do you love your brother?"
"Dearly, above all else; because he has a noble heart, and would give his life for me."
"More than your father would. Where is Redcastle?"
"At Strasburg in the garrison; no, he has gone – oh, dear Philip!" continued the medium with sparkling eyes in joy. "I see him riding through a town I know. It is Nancy, where I was at the convent school. The torches round him light up his darling face."
"Why
