Five days later the newly married pair took possession of their mansion at Champdoce. Hampered with a wife whom he had never affected to love, and whose tearful face was a constant reproach to him, and with a father who was an utter imbecile, the thoughts of suicide more than once crossed Norbert’s brain. One day a servant informed Norbert that his father refused to get up. A doctor was sent for, and he declared that the Duke was in a highly critical condition. A violent reaction had taken place, and all day the invalid was in a state of intense excitement. The power of speech, which he had almost entirely lost, seemed to have returned to him in a miraculous manner; at length, however, he became delirious, and Norbert dismissed the servants who had been watching by his father’s bed, lest in the incoherent ravings of the invalid, the words “Parricide” or “Poison” should break forth. At eleven o’clock he grew calmer, and slept a little, when all at once he started up in bed, exclaiming: “Come here, Norbert,” and Jean, who had remained by his old master’s side, ran up to the bed and was much startled at the sight. The Duke had entirely recovered his former appearance. His eyes flashed, and his lips trembled, as they always did when he was greatly excited.
“Pardon, father; pardon,” cried Norbert, falling upon his knees.
The Duke softly stretched out his hand. “I was mad with family pride,” said he; “and God punished me. My son, I forgive you.”
Norbert’s sobs broke the stillness of the chamber.
“My son, I renounce my ideas,” continued the Duke. “I do not desire you to wed Mademoiselle de Puymandour if you feel that you cannot love her.”
“Father,” answered Norbert, “I have obeyed your wishes, and she is now my wife.”
A gleam of terrible anguish passed over the Duke’s countenance; he raised his hands as though to shield his eyes from some grizzly spectre, and in tones of heartrending agony exclaimed: “Too late! Too late!”
He fell back in terrible convulsions, and in a moment was dead. If, as has been often asserted, the veil of the hereafter is torn asunder, then the Duke de Champdoce had a glimpse into a terrible future.
After her repulse by Norbert, Diana, with the cold chill of death in her heart, made her way back to the Chateau of the De Laurebourgs, over the same road which but a short time before she had traveled full of expectation and hope. The sudden appearance of the Duke de Champdoce had filled her with alarm, but her imagination was not of that kind upon which unpleasant impressions remain for any long period; for after she had regained her room, and thrown aside her out-door attire, and removed all signs of mud-stains, she once more became herself, and even laughed a little rippling laugh at all her own past alarms. Overwhelmed with the shame of her repulse, she had threatened Norbert; but as she reasoned calmly, she felt that it was not he for whom she felt the most violent animosity. All her hatred was reserved for that woman who had come between her and her lover--for Marie de Puymandour. Some hidden feeling warned her that she must look into Marie’s past life for some reason for the rupture of her engagement with Norbert, though the banns had already been published. This was the frame of mind in which Diana was when the Viscount de Mussidan was introduced to her, the friend of the brother whose untimely death had left her such a wealthy heiress. He was tall and well made, with handsomely chiseled features; and, endowed with physical strength and health, Octave de Mussidan had the additional advantages of noble descent and princely fortune. Two women, both renowned for their wit and beauty, his aunt and his mother, had been intrusted with the education which would but enable him to shine in society.