The young officer felt no doubt of Ginevra’s loyalty when once he had looked at her.
“You are wounded?” she said.
“Oh, it is nothing, mademoiselle; the cut is healing.”
At this moment the shrill and piercing tones of men in the street came up to the studio, crying out, “This is the sentence which condemns to death—” all three shuddered. The soldier was the first to hear a name at which he turned pale.
“Labédoyère!” he exclaimed, dropping on to a stool.
They looked at each other in silence. Drops of sweat gathered on the young man’s livid brow; with a gesture of despair he clutched the black curls of his hair, resting his elbow on Ginevra’s easel.
“After all,” said he, starting to his feet, “Labédoyère and I knew what we were doing. We knew the fate that awaited us if we triumphed or if we failed. He is dying for the cause, while I am in hiding—”
He hurried towards the studio door; but Ginevra, more nimble than he, rushed forward and stopped the way.
“Can you restore the Emperor?” she said. “Do you think you can raise the giant again, when he could not keep his feet?”
“What then is to become of me?” said the refugee, addressing the two friends whom chance had sent him. “I have not a relation in the world; Labédoyère was my friend and protector, I am now alone; tomorrow I shall be exiled or condemned; I have never had any fortune but my pay; I spent my last crown-piece to come and snatch Labédoyère from death and get him away. Death is an obvious necessity to me. When a man is determined to die, he must know how to sell his head to the executioner. I was thinking just now that an honest man’s life is well worth that of two traitors, and that a dagger-thrust, judiciously placed, may give one immortality.” This passion of despair frightened the painter, and even Ginevra, who fully understood the young man. The Italian admired the beautiful head and the delightful voice, of which the accents of rage scarcely disguised the sweetness; then she suddenly dropped balm on all the hapless man’s wounds.
“Monsieur!” said she, “as to your pecuniary difficulties, allow me to offer you the money I myself have saved. My father is rich; I am his only child; he loves me, and I am quite sure he will not blame me. Have no scruples in accepting it; our wealth comes from the Emperor, we have nothing which is not the bounty of his munificence. Is it not gratitude to help one of his faithful soldiers? So take this money with as little ceremony as I make about offering it. It is only money,” she added in a scornful tone. “Then, as to friends—you will find friends!” And she proudly raised her head, while her eyes shone with unwonted brilliancy. “The head which must fall tomorrow—the mark of a dozen guns—saves yours,” she went on. “Wait till this storm is over, and you can take service in a foreign land if you are not forgotten, or in the French army if you are.”
In the comfort offered by a woman there is a delicacy of feeling which always has a touch of something motherly, something farseeing and complete; but when such words of peace and hope are seconded by grace of gesture, and the eloquence which comes from the heart, above all, when the comforter is beautiful, it is hard for a young man to resist. The young Colonel inhaled love by every sense. A faint flush tinged his white cheeks, and his eyes lost a little of the melancholy that dimmed them as he said, in a strange tone of voice, “You are an angel of goodness!—But, Labédoyère!” he added, “Labédoyère!”
At this cry they all three looked at each other, speechless, and understood each other. They were friends, not of twenty minutes, but of twenty years.
“My dear fellow,” said Servin, “can you save him?”
“I can avenge him.”
Ginevra was thrilled. Though the stranger was handsome, his appearance had not moved her. The gentle pity that women find in their heart for suffering which is not ignoble had, in Ginevra, stifled every other emotion; but to hear a cry of revenge, to find in this fugitive an Italian soul and Corsican magnanimity! This was too much for her; she gazed at the officer with respectful emotion, which powerfully stirred her heart. It was the first time a man had ever made her feel so strongly. Like all women, it pleased her to imagine that the soul of this stranger must be in harmony with the remarkable beauty of his features and the fine proportions of his figure, which she admired as an artist. Led by chance curiosity to pity, from pity to eager interest, she now from interest had reached sensations so strong and deep that she thought it rash to remain there any longer.
“Till tomorrow,” she said, leaving her sweetest smile with the officer, to console him.
As he saw that smile, which threw a new light, as it were, on Ginevra’s face, the stranger for a moment forgot all else.
“Tomorrow,” he repeated sadly. “Tomorrow, Labédoyère—”
Ginevra turned to him and laid a finger on her lips, looking at him as though she would say, “Be calm, be prudent.”
Then the young man exclaimed: “O Dio! Chi non vorrei vivere dopo averla veduta!” “O God! who would not live after having seen her!” The peculiar accent with which he spoke the words startled Ginevra.
“You are a Corsican!” she exclaimed, coming back
