Page:Peterson Magazine 1869B.pdf/198

 DEATH IN LIFE.

should hear of her death, would it matter to him? Would he give one regretful thought to the woman he had once loved? Oh! did he love her still? If only she could know that he sometimes thought of her; if this terrible blank of silence and uncertainty could be broken; if she could see him once more! The robe that shook her wasted frame told plainly enough of the heart that still clung to earth, though she would fain have given it all to heaven.

It was midsummer. The flowers bloomed again on the terraces of Hautlieu, and filled with their perfume the chamber where Vivienne knelt beside her dying mother. All that fair summer day Madame de Beranger had lain calm and still, and faintly smiling, while her heart throbbed with pulsations that grew slower and weaker every moment.

Priest and physician had rendered their last services, and there was no sound in the room but Vivienne's low, clear tones, and her mother's faint whispers.

The dying woman held her daughter's hands in her feeble clasp, and looked up with undying love into the sweet, solemn eyes of her child.

So the hours wore away, and the end was very near. The rays of the declining sun penetrated the crimson curtains of the windows, and shed a roseate glory over both the pale, worn faces of the women.

The gloom faded, and twilight gathered in the room; but still Vivienne knelt there with her hands clasped in those feeble, clinging ones which were growing chill in death.

Suddenly Elise drew near, and stooping, whispered something in her young mistress' ear.

Vivienne looked up, and shook her head ; but Elise still lingered, with a disturbed expression on her face.

"What is it, my child?" whispered the dying voice. " Ah! I know now! Elise is right. It is time for you to leave me. Oh, Vivienne! must you go from me now?"

"No, my mother! " said Vivienne, gently. "I will not leave you now. My work is almost done; I will stay with you tonight. "

A smile lit up the wan face of the mother, and an expression of deep peace and rest succeeded the momentary look of anguish that had ruffled her brow.

Silence again inthe dim, flower-scented room, and then, faintly and slowly came the chime of the clock. Vivienne counted the eight solemn strokes, and bent her head that her lips might touch her mother's hand.

So the night wore on, and hour after hour the hands that clasped Vivienne's grew colder, yet the end did not come.

The short summer night had passed, and the morning breeze stole gently through the windows, from which the curtains had been withdrawn. The eyelids of the dying woman, that had been closed in the gray, morning twilight, opened gently as an infant's ; the eyes wandered from Vivienne's face to the rosy sky. There was a movement of the pale lips, a fleeting smile on the white face, and with one gentle sigh, Madame de Beranger had ceased to breathe.

For a moment Vivienne knelt with those pale hands still clasping bers ; then she gently folded them on the quiet bosom, and rose up from the couch. Her work was ended now, and in her weary heart there was no thought but a passionate longing to pass beyond the gates which parted her from the mother she had lived for.

Pallid as the corpse she had left, with bowed head and woeful eyes, she went from the chamber of death.

On the threshold stood Duroc, his eyes glittering with malicious triumph.

He leaned toward her, and half whispered, " Madame has, perhaps, forgotten the penalty attached to what she has done. "

She looked at him quietly, and his evil eyes sunk before the dignity and purity of her glance.

"No, monsieur," she said, simply, " I have not forgotten. I am no longer mistress here, and we are going away, my mother and I."

She glided past him, and entering her own chamber, summoned Elise, and began to give directions for the funeral of her mother.

Vivienne was adored by every person on the estate, and she knew her requests would be obeyed, though the right to command was no longer hers.

She wished that her mother's body should be laid, not in the drear vaults of Hautlieu, but in the green church-yard of the village, and that the hands of the humble peasants, who loved her so faithfully, should perform the last sacred duties for the dead.

It was done as she directed. In the hushed calm of the mid-summer evening, the day after her death, they laid Madame de Beranger in the peaceful church-yard; and rough peasants sobbed aloud as they gazed at the black-robed figure, and the pale, lovely face of the young marquise, who stood alone at the head of the grave.

When at last all was finished, Vivienne turned away, and leaning on the arm of the sobbing Elise, she went slowly along the path leading