my love's sake.
Is not our work one, moreover? Are we not one in heart and purpose, Jacqueline? You are alone; let me protect you."
He needed no other answer than he had while his eyes constantly sought hers. Her calm look, the dignity and strength of her composure, assured him of all he longed to learn,—assured him that their hearts, even as their purposes and faith, were one."
"But speak one word," he urged.
The word she spoke was, "I can be true to you, Victor."
Won hardly by a word: too easily, you think? She loved the youth, my friends, and she loved the Truth for which he dared not say that he could sacrifice himself.
"We are one, then," said Victor Le Roy. "It concerned me above all things to prove that, Jacqueline. So you shall have no more to do with these harvest-fields and vineyards henceforth, except to eat of the fruits, if God will. You have borne all the burden and heat of labor you shall ever bear. I can say that, with God's blessing. We shall sit under our own vine. Death in one direction has prepared for life in another. I inherit what my uncle can make use of no longer. We shall look out on our own fields, our harvests; for I think this city will keep us no longer than may he needful. We will go away into Picardy, and I will show you where our Joan was a prisoner; and we will go back to Domrémy, and walk in the places she loved, and pray God to bless us by that fountain, and in the grave-yard where your father and mother sleep. Oh, Jacqueline, is it not all blessed and all fair?"
She could hardly comprehend all the brightness of this vision which Victor Le Roy would fain bring before her. The paths he pointed out to her were new and strange; but she could trust him, could believe that together they might walk without stumbling.
She had nothing to say of her unfitness, her unworthiness, to occupy the place to which he pointed. Not a doubt, not a fear, had she to express. He loved her, and that she knew; and she had no thought of depreciating his choice, its excellency or its wisdom. Whatever excess of wonder she may have felt was not communicated. How know I that she marvelled at her lover's choice, though all the world might marvel?
Then remembering Mazurier, and thinking of her strength of faith, and her high-heartedness, he was eager that Jacqueline should appoint their marriage-day. And more than he, perhaps, supposed was betrayed by this haste. He made his words profoundly good. Strong woman that she was, he wanted her strength joined to his. He was secretly disquieted, secretly afraid to trust himself, since this defection of Martial Mazurier.
What did hinder them? They might be married on Sunday, if she would: they might go down together to the estate, which he must immediately visit.
Through the hurry of thought, and the agitation of heart, and the rush of seeming impossibilities, he brought out at length in triumph her consent.
She did consent. It should all be as he wished. And so they parted outside that town of Meaux on the fair summer evening.—plighted lovers,—hopeful man and woman. For them the evening sky was lovely with the day's last light; for them the serene stars of night arose.
So they parted under the open sky: he going forward to the city, strengthened and refreshed in faith and holy courage; she, adorned with holy hopes which never until now had found place among her visions. Neither was she prepared for them; until he brought them to a heart which, indeed, could never be dismayed by the approach and claim of love.
Love was no strange guest. Fresh and fair as Zephyrus, he came from the forest depths, and she welcomed him,—no stranger,—though the breath that bore him was all heavenly, and his aspiration was remote from earthly sources. Yes, she so imagined.
She went back to the cottage where she and Elsie lodged now, to tell Elsie what had happened,—to thankfulness,—to gazing forward Into a new world,—to aspiration, expectation, joy, humility,—to wonder, and to praise,—to all that my best reader will perceive must be true of Jacqueline on this great evening of her life.
X
That same night Victor Le Roy was arrested on charge of heresy,—arrested and imprisoned. Watchmen were on the look-out when the lover walked forward with triumphant steps to Meaux.
"This fellow also was among the wool-comber's disciples," said they; and their successful dealing with Mazurier encouraged the authorities to hope that soon all this evil would be overcome,—trampled in the dust: this impudent insurrection of thought should certainly be stifled; youth and age, high station, low, should be taught alike of Rome.
Tidings reached Martial Mazurier next day of what had befallen Victor Le Roy, and he went instantly to visit him in prison. It was an interview which the tender-hearted officials would have invited, had he not forestalled them by inviting himself to the duty. Mazurier had something to do in the matter of reconciling his conscience to the part he had taken, in his recent opportunity to prove himself equally a hero with Leclerc. He had recanted, done evil, in short, that good might come; and was not content with having done this thing: how should he be? Now that his follower was in the same position, he had but one wish,—that he should follow his example. He did not, perhaps, entirely ascertain his motive in this; but it is hardly to be supposed that Mazurier was so persuaded of the justice of his course that he desired to have it imitated by another under the same circumstances.
No! he was forever disgraced in his own eyes, when he remembered the valiant John Leclerc; and it was not to be permitted that Victor Le Roy should follow the example of the wool-comber in preference to that he had given,—that politic, wise, blood-sparing, flesh—loving, truth-depreciating, God-defrauding example.
Accordingly he lost no time in seeking Victor in his cell. It was the very cell in which he himself had lately been imprisoned. Within those narrow walls he had meditated, prayed, and made his choice. There he had stood face to face with fate, with God, with Jesus, and had decided—not in favor of the flogging, and the branding, and the glorious infamy. There, in spite of eloquence and fervor and devotion, in spite of all his past vows and his hopes, he had decided to take the place and part of a timeserver;—for he feared disgrace and pain, and the hissing and scoff and persecution, more than he feared the blasting anger of insulted and forsaken Truth.
He found Victor within his cell, his bright face not overcast with gloom, his eyes not betraying doubts, neither disappointed, astonished, nor in deep dejection. The mood he deemed unfavorable for his special word,—poor, deceived, self-deceiving Mazurier!
He was not merely surprised at these indications,—he was at a loss. A little trepidation, doubt, suspicion would have better suited him. Alas! and was his hour the extremity of another's weakness, not in the elevation of another's spiritual strength? Once when he preached the Truth as moved by the Holy Ghost, it was not to the prudence or the worldly wisdom of his hearers he appealed, but to the higher feelings and the noblest powers of men. Then he called on them to praise God by their faith in all that added to His glory and dominion. But now his eloquence was otherwise directed,—not full of the old fire and enthusiasm,—not trustful in God, but dependent on prudence, as though all help were in man. He had to draw from his own experience now, things new and old,—and was not, by confession of the result of such experience, humiliated!
"You are under a mistake," was his argument. "You have not gone deep into these matters; you have made acquaintance only with the agitated surface of them." And he proceeded to make good all this assertion, it was so readily proven! He also had been beguiled,—ah, had he not? He had been beguiled by the rude eloquence, the insensibility to pain, the pride of opposition, the pride of poverty, the pride of a rude nature, exhibited by John Leclerc.
He acknowledged freely, with a fatal candor, that, until he came to consider these things in their true light, when shut away from all outward influences,
