She saw at a glance all the ruin of it. Her brother a murderer, the Bourgeois a bleeding corpse. Pierre, her lover and her pride, lost,--lost to her forever! The blood of his father rising up between them calling for vengeance upon Le Gardeur and invoking a curse upon the whole house of Repentigny.
The heart of Amelie, but a few moments ago expanding with joy and overflowing with the tenderest emotions of a loving bride, suddenly collapsed and shrivelled like a leaf in the fire of this unlooked- for catastrophe.
She stared wildly and imploringly in the countenances of her trembling companions as if for help, but no human help could avail her. She spake not, but uttering one long, agonizing scream, fell senseless upon the bosom of Heloise de Lotbiniere, who, herself nigh fainting, bore Amelie with the assistance of her friends to a couch, where she lay unconscious of the tears and wailing that surrounded her.
Marguerite de Repentigny with her weeping companions remained in the chamber of Amelie, watching eagerly for some sign of returning consciousness, and assiduously administering such restoratives as were at hand.
Their patience and tenderness were at last rewarded,--Amelie gave a flutter of reviving life. Her dark eyes opened and stared wildly for a moment at her companions with a blank look, until they rested upon the veil and orange blossoms on the head of Agathe, who had put them on in such a merry mood and forgotten in the sudden catastrophe to take them off again.
The sight of the bridal veil and wreath seemed to rouse Amelie to consciousness. The terrible news of the murder of the Bourgeois by Le Gardeur flashed upon her mind, and she pressed her burning eyelids hard shut with her hands, as if not to see the hideous thought.
Her companions wept, but Amelie found no relief in tears as she murmured the name of the Bourgeois, Le Gardeur, and Pierre.
They spoke softly to her in tones of tenderest sympathy, but she scarcely heeded them, absorbed as she was in deepest despair, and still pressing her eyes shut as if she had done with day and cared no more to see the bright sunshine that streamed through the lattice. The past, present, and future of her whole life started up before her in terrible distinctness, and seemed concentrated in one present spot of mental anguish.
Amelie came of a heroic race, stern to endure pain as to inflict it, capable of unshrinking fortitude and of desperate resolves. A few moments of terrible contemplation decided her forever, changed the whole current of her life, and overthrew as with an earthquake the gorgeous palace of her maiden hopes and long-cherished anticipations of love and happiness as the wife of Pierre Philibert.
She saw it all; there was no room for hope, no chance of averting the fatal doom that had fallen upon her. Her life, as she had long pictured it to her imagination, was done and ended. Her projected marriage with Pierre Philibert? It was like sudden death! In one moment the hand of God had transported her from the living to the dead world of woman's love. A terrible crime had been perpetrated, and she, innocent as she was, must bear the burden of punishment.
She had but one object now to live for: to put on sackcloth and ashes, and wear her knees out in prayer before God, imploring forgiveness and mercy upon her unhappy brother, and expiate the righteous blood of the just man who had been slain by him.
She rose hastily and stood up. Her face was beautiful as the face of a marble Niobe, but as pale and as full of anguish.
