CHAPTER VI.
A DELICATE MISSION.
The vague uneasiness which Herminie had felt was greatly increased at the sight of Olivier, for the young man looked unusually grave. The duchess even fancied that he avoided her gaze, as if embarrassed, and this embarrassment on his part was made still more apparent by his silence and evident reluctance to explain the object of his visit.
Herminie was the first to break this silence.
"You wrote, M. Olivier, that you wished to see me about a very important matter," she said, at last.
"Very important, mademoiselle."
"I judge so from your manner. What have you to tell me?"
"It concerns Gerald, mademoiselle."
"Great Heavens! What misfortune has befallen him?" exclaimed the duchess, much frightened.
"None, mademoiselle. I left him only a few minutes ago."
Herminie, thus reassured, felt deeply incensed with herself for her unguarded exclamation, and, blushing deeply, she said to Olivier:
"I trust you will not misinterpret--"
But the natural frankness of her character asserted itself, and she said, with quiet dignity:
"But why should I try to conceal from you something that you know already, M. Olivier. Are you not Gerald's dearest friend, in fact, almost a brother to him? Neither of us have any cause to blush for our mutual attachment. To-morrow, he is to inform his mother of his intentions and ask her consent, which he is almost certain to gain. For why should he not gain it. Our conditions in life are almost identical.
He supports himself by his own exertions, as I support myself by mine.
Our lot will be humble, and--But, forgive me, M. Olivier, for thus boring you. It is a fault to which all lovers are prone. But as no misfortune has befallen Gerald, what is the important matter that brings you here?"
Herminie's words indicated such a feeling of perfect security that Olivier realised the difficulties of his task even more keenly, and it was with painful hesitation that he replied:
"As I said before, no misfortune has befallen Gerald; but I come to you at his request."
Herminie's face, which had grown quite serene, became anxious again, and she said:
"Pray have the kindness to explain, M. Olivier. You say you have come at Gerald's request? Why is an intermediary needed, even in the person of his most intimate friend? This astonishes me. Why did not Gerald come himself?"
"Because there is something he is afraid to confess to you, mademoiselle."
Herminie started violently; the expression of her face changed, and, looking searchingly at Olivier, she repeated:
"There is something Gerald is afraid to confess to me?"
"Yes, mademoiselle."
"It must be something terrible if he dares not tell me," exclaimed the girl, paling visibly.
"I meant to have used more precautions, and to have approached the subject in a more roundabout way, mademoiselle," replied Olivier, who was in torture, "but I see that such a course on my part would only serve to prolong your anxiety--"
"My God! What am I about to hear?" murmured the young girl, trembling violently in every limb.
"Truth is better than falsehood, Mlle. Herminie."
"Falsehood?"
"In a word, Gerald can no longer endure the false position in which a peculiar combination of circumstances, and his desire to see you, have placed him. His courage has failed him. He has resolved that he will deceive you no longer, and, whatever may come of it, trusting to your generosity, he sends me, I repeat, to tell you what he is afraid to confess himself,--for he knows how bitterly you abhor deceit, and unfortunately Gerald has deceived you."
"Deceived me?"
"Yes, Gerald is not what he seems to be. You have known him under an assumed name. He has pretended to be what he is not."
"My God!" murmured the young girl, in abject terror.
A horrible suspicion had assailed her.
Never supposing for an instant that Olivier could have an aristocrat for an intimate friend, the poor child feared that Gerald had taken another name in order to conceal, not the obscurity of his birth or condition,--these were no disgrace in Herminie's eyes,--but guilty or dishonourable antecedents. In short, she imagined that Gerald must have committed some dishonourable act in the past.
So, in her wild terror, the girl, holding up her two hands as if to ward off an impending blow, exclaimed, brokenly:
"Do not finish this shameful confession, do not, I beseech you."
"Shameful!" repeated Olivier. "What! because Gerald has concealed the fact that he is the Duc de Senneterre--"
"You say that Gerald, your friend--"
"Is the Duc de Senneterre! Yes, mademoiselle. We were at college together; he enlisted, as I did. In that way I met him again, and since that time our intimacy has never flagged. And now, Mlle. Herminie, you can, perhaps, understand why Gerald concealed his real name and position from you. It was a wrong to which I became an accomplice through thoughtlessness; for what has since become a serious matter, that I deeply regret, was at first merely intended as a joke. Unfortunately, the introduction of Gerald as a notary's clerk to Madame Herbaut had already been made, when a singular chance brought you and my friend together. You will understand the rest. But I repeat that Gerald resolved, of his own free will, to confess the truth to you, as a continued deception was too revolting to his sense of honour."
On hearing that Gerald, instead of being a disgraced man, hiding under an assumed name, had really been guilty of no other wrong than that of concealing his noble birth, the revulsion of feeling Herminie underwent was so sudden and violent that she at first experienced a sort of vertigo; but when she became capable of reflection, when she became able to realise the consequences of this revelation, the young girl, who was as pale as death, trembled in every limb. Her knees tottered under her, and for a moment she was obliged to lean against the mantel for support.
When she did speak, it was in a strangely altered voice.
"M. Olivier," she said, "I am going to say something that may seem utterly senseless to you. A moment ago, before you had told me all, a terrible suspicion that Gerald had concealed his real name because he had been guilty of some wrong doing occurred to me--"
"What, you could believe that?"
"Yes, I did believe that, but I do not know but the truth you have told me concerning Gerald's position causes me deeper sorrow than that I experienced when I thought Gerald might be a dishonoured man."
"Impossible, mademoiselle, impossible!"
"This seems to you as absurd as it does senseless, does it not?" asked the young girl, bitterly.
"It does indeed."
"But in that case, by the power of my love, I might hope to raise him from his slough of despond, to restore his self-respect, to rehabilitate him in my eyes, and in his own; but between me and M. le Duc de Senneterre there is now an unfathomable abyss."
"Oh, reassure yourself on that point," hastily exclaimed Olivier, hoping to cure the wound he had inflicted and to change his companion's grief to joy. "You really need have no fears on that score, Mlle. Herminie. I was deputised to inform you of Gerald's deception, but, thank Heaven! I am also authorised to tell you that he intends to atone for his fault and in the most satisfactory manner. Gerald may have deceived you in some matters, but he has never deceived you as to the sincerity of his sentiments. They are now what they have always been; his determination does not waver in the least. To-day, as yesterday, Gerald has only one desire, one hope,--that you will consent to bear his name, only to-day his name is that of the Duc de Senneterre. That is all."