Page:Frank Leslie's Popular Monthly, Volume 1.pdf/486

 —For four days nothing has occurred worth recording, as I have been almost entirely alone. Mr. Noel hands me a chapter or two each morning, receives my copy at night, and only the necessary directions are asked and given. Madame has not been visible, ill I am told, yet her cousin looks tranquil, and no nurse or physician has been summoned to my knowledge. Very brief and silent are our interviews at dinner, and not once have I found the drawing-room occupied of an evening. No one calls, but Mr. Noel drives out often and returns late. My days have been spent at the writing-table, my evenings in my own room, or solitary walks about the country. Returning from one of these, I saw the window under the vines brilliantly lighted, and resolved to satisfy my curiosity the first moonless night. This ends my first week's record; I trust it is satisfactory, and that out of my own darkness I have given light.

—To-day, being Sunday, I asked Mr. Noel, when I met him at lunch, in which of the three truth churches, over the hill, I should find his pew.

"In none; I go nowhere just now. My cousin cannot, and I join her in a little service here at home," he said, slowly; adding instantly, as if afraid I should expect to be included in that domestic service: "My friend, Mrs. St. Michael, will be happy to do the honors of her husband's chapel. I have spoken to her, and she expects you." I thanked him, went to church, found the pastor a dull preacher, though apparently an excellent and pious gentleman; his wife a grave, motherly lady, who received me with courtesy, examined me with interest, and, as we came out together, asked me how I liked her neighbors.

"Mr. Noel seems an eccentric but most charming young man, and madame a wonderfully cheerful sufferer," I replied.

"Genius has many privileges, and eccentricity is one, you know," replied the lady, adding, rather guardedly: "Madame Estavan is younger than she seems, and manifold afflictions cannot wholly darken her bright spirit. May I trouble you to give my regards to her, and tell Mr. Noel I will see him to-morrow?"

At dinner I delivered the messages; Mr. Noel turned graver than before on receiving his, and madame turned gay. I was glad to see her so, and did my best to interest her, observing that her cousin often took the word from her lips, and that Pierre's usually expressionless face wore an aspect of uneasiness. In drawing out her handkerchief madame dropped an ebony rosary. No one heard it fall, for it slipped noiselessly through the folds of her dress, and no one saw it but myself. Pierre was busy at the side-board, and, stooping, I lifted and returned it to her. She received it with the exclamation:

"Ciel! How careless I am grown! I thought I put it by after mass."

"Madame is a Catholic, one sees."

The words slipped from me involuntarily, her answer seemed to do the same.

"Oh, yes; in truth I am, and so is"

A heavy silver fork clanged down into Mr. Noel's plate, and madame started at the clatter, leaving her sentence unfinished.

"Pardon, cousin; if you are forgetful, I am awkward. You were about to say, 'and so is Pierre.'" Noel spoke quite naturally, but I suspect madame caught some warning for the color mounted to her forehead as she eagerly assented.

"Surely, yes. Whom else could I mean? Not you, my too-Protestant and English Bernard."

Poor lady, she overdid the matter sadly, and that anxious emphasis upon the words "Protestant" and "English" convinced me that Noel was neither, though but for this I never should have suspected it. As if anxious to banish it from my mind, he led the way to the drawing-room, and, as all madame's spirits had departed, exerted himself to entertain us both. In conversation I found him witty, earnest, and frank, but in the midst of an animated description of