Page:Georges Eekhoud - Escal Vigor, a novel.djvu/99

Rh exacting vocation of devotion and self-sacrifice.

She had made up her mind she would go to the prison. She would see Ariaan in order to pardon him. She would free him from guilt by a sublime falsehood; lay the burden on her own shoulders, say she had surrendered herself to him voluntarily and had concealed her true age. Developed as she was, Ariaan might easily have believed in all good faith that he had seduced a girl who had attained her majority.

So it was decided. She would accept to be the wife of a thief and a jail-bird …

But what mysterious presentiment stopped the young girl in her charitable impulse, and made her understand that her hour was not yet come, and that a being, wretched and anathematised in a far different way from the simple poultry-thief, was waiting for her somewhere?

While she still hesitated and doubtful battles were waging in her heart, an event happened, that rendered any sacrifice, for the time being at least, unnecessary:—Blandine brought into the world a dead child.

This climax disarmed the rancour of the parish and cut short the scandal. Her fault