The Greatest Works of Émile Gaboriau. Emile Gaboriau
and was then drawn toward the bottom. In a swollen river the current is unequal, being much stronger in some places than in others; hence the great danger.
Gaston knew it, and guarded against it. Instead of wasting his strength in vain struggles, he held his breath, and kept still. About twenty-five yards from the spot where he had plunged in, he made a violent spring which brought him to the surface.
Rapidly drifting by him was the old tree.
For an instant, he was entangled in the mass of weeds and debris which clung to its roots, and followed in its wake; an eddy set him free. The tree and its clinging weeds swept on. It was the last familiar friend, gone.
Gaston dared not attempt to reach the opposite shore. He would have to land where the waves dashed him.
With great presence of mind he put forth all his strength and dexterity to slowly take an oblique course, knowing well that there was no hope for him if the current took him crosswise.
This fearful current is as capricious as a woman, which accounts for the strange effects of inundations; sometimes it rushes to the right, sometimes to the left, sparing one shore and ravaging the other.
Gaston was familiar with every turn of the river; he knew that just below Clameran was an abrupt turning, and relied upon the eddy formed thereby, to sweep him in the direction of La Verberie.
His hopes were not deceived. An oblique current suddenly swept him toward the right shore, and, if he had not been on his guard, would have sunk him.
But the eddy did not reach as far as Gaston supposed, and he was still some distance from the shore, when, with the rapidity of lightning, he was swept by the park of La Verberie.
As he floated by, he caught a glimpse of a white shadow among the trees; Valentine still waited for him.
He was gradually approaching the bank, as he reached the end of La Verberie, and attempted to land.
Feeling a foothold, he stood up twice, and each time was thrown down by the violence of the waves. He escaped being swept away by seizing some willow branches, and, clinging to them, raised himself, and climbed up the steep bank.
He was safe at last.
Without taking time to breathe, he darted in the direction of the park.
He came just in time. Overcome by the intensity of her emotions, Valentine had fainted, and lay apparently lifeless on the damp river-bank.
Gaston’s entreaties and kisses aroused her from her stupor.
“Gaston!” she cried, in a tone that revealed all the love she felt for him. “Is it indeed you? Then God heard my prayers, and had pity on us.”
“No, Valentine,” he murmured. “God has had no pity.”
The sad tones of Gaston’s voice convinced her that her presentiment of evil was true.
“What new misfortune strikes us now?” she cried. “Why have you thus risked your life—a life far dearer to me than my own? What has happened?”
“This is what has happened, Valentine: our love-affair is the jest of the country around; our secret is a secret no longer.”
She shrank back, and, burying her face in her hands, moaned piteously.
“This,” said Gaston, forgetting everything but his present misery, “this is the result of the blind enmity of our families. Our noble and pure love, which ought to be a glory in the eyes of God and man, has to be concealed, and, when discovered, becomes a reproach as though it were some evil deed.”
“Then all is known—all is discovered!” murmured Valentine. “Oh, Gaston, Gaston!”
While struggling for his life against furious men and angry elements, Gaston had preserved his self-possession; but the heart-broken tone of his beloved Valentine overcame him. He swung his arms above his head, and exclaimed:
“Yes, they know it; and oh, why could I not crush the villains for daring to utter your adored name? Ah, why did I only kill two of the scoundrels!”
“Have you killed someone, Gaston?”
Valentine’s tone of horror gave Gaston a ray of reason.
“Yes,” he replied with bitterness, “I have killed two men. It was for that that I have crossed the Rhone. I could not have my father’s name disgraced by being tried and convicted for murder. I have been tracked like a wild beast by mounted police. I have escaped them, and now I am flying my country.”
Valentine struggled to preserve her composure under this last unexpected blow.
“Where do you hope to find an asylum?” she asked.
“I know not. Where I am to go, what will become of me, God only knows! I only know that I am going to some strange land, to assume a false name and a disguise. I shall seek some lawless country which offers a refuge to murderers.”
Gaston waited for an answer to this speech. None came, and he resumed with vehemence:
“And before disappearing, Valentine, I wished to see you, because now, when I am abandoned by everyone else, I have relied upon you, and had faith in your love. A tie unites us, my darling, stronger and more indissoluble than all earthly ties—the tie of love. I love you more than life itself, my Valentine; before God you are my wife; I am yours and you are mine, for ever and ever! Would you let me fly alone, Valentine? To the pain and toil of exile, to the sharp regrets of a ruined life, would you, could you, add the torture of separation?”
“Gaston, I implore you—”
“Ah, I knew it,” he interrupted, mistaking the sense of her exclamation; “I knew you would not let me go off alone. I knew your sympathetic heart would long to share the burden of my miseries. This moment effaces the wretched suffering I have endured. Let us go! Having our happiness to defend, having you to protect, I fear nothing; I can brave all, conquer all. Come, my Valentine, we will escape, or die together! This is the long-dreamed-of happiness! The glorious future of love and liberty open before us!”
He had worked himself into a state of delirious excitement. He seized Valentine around the waist, and tried to draw her toward the gate.
As Gaston’s exaltation increased, Valentine became composed and almost stolid in her forced calmness.
Gently, but with a quiet firmness, she withdrew herself from his embrace, and said sadly, but resolutely:
“What you wish is impossible, Gaston!”
This cold, inexplicable resistance confounded her lover.
“Impossible? Why, Valentine——”
“You know me well enough, Gaston, to be convinced that sharing the greatest hardships with you would to me be the height of happiness. But above the tones of your voice to which I fain would yield, above the voice of my own heart which urges me to follow the one being upon whom all its affections are centred, there is another voice—a powerful, imperious voice—which bids me to stay: the voice of duty.”
“What! Would you think of remaining here after the horrible affair of to-night, after the scandal that will be spread to-morrow?”
“What do you mean? That I am lost, dishonored? Am I any more so to-day than I was yesterday? Do you think that the jeers and scoffs of the world could make me suffer more than do the pangs of my guilty conscience? I have long since passed judgment upon myself, Gaston; and, although the sound of your voice and the touch of your hand would make me forget all save the bliss of your love, no sooner were you away than I would weep tears of shame and remorse.”
Gaston listened immovable, stupefied. He seemed to see a new Valentine standing before him, an entirely different woman from the one whose tender soul he thought he knew so well.
“Your mother, what will she say?” he asked.
“It is my duty to her that keeps me here. Do you wish me to prove an