The marriage was hastened on.  Porpora and the doctor served as witnesses.  Albert found strength to pronounce a decisive “Yes,” and the other responses in the service in a clear voice, and the family from this felt a new hope for his recovery.  Hardly had the chaplain recited the closing prayer over the newly-married couple, before Albert arose and threw himself into his father’s arms; then, seating himself again in his arm-chair, he pressed Consuelo to his heart, and exclaimed: 

“I am saved!”

“It is nature’s last effort,” said the doctor.

Albert’s arms loosed their hold, and fell forward on his knees.  His gaze was riveted on Consuelo; gradually the shade crept from his forehead to his lips, and covered his face with a snowy veil.

“It is the hand of Death!” said the doctor, breaking the silence.

Consuelo would take neither her husband’s title nor his riches.

“Stay with us, my daughter?” cried the canoness, “for you have a lofty soul and a great heart!”

But Consuelo tore herself away after the funeral, though her heart was wrung with grief.  As she crossed the drawbridge with Porpora, Consuelo did not know that already the old count was dead, and that the Castle of the Giants, with its riches and its sufferings, had become the property of the Countess of Rudolstadt.

* * * * *

Mauprat

It was while George Sand was pleading for a separation from her husband, on the ground of incompatibility of temperament, that “Mauprat” was written, and the powerful story, full of storm, sentiment, and passion, bears the marks of its tumultuous birth.

I.—­Bernard Mauprat’s Childhood

In the district of Varenne, within a gloomy ravine, stands the ruined castle of Roche-Mauprat.  It is a place I never pass at night without some feeling of uneasiness; and now I have just learnt its history from Bernard Mauprat, the last of the line.

Bernard Mauprat is eighty-four and no man is more represented in the province.  Passing his house with a friend who knew the old man, we ventured to call, and were received with stately welcome.  Later Mauprat told us his story in the following words: 

There were formerly two branches of the Mauprat family and I belonged to the elder.  My grandfather was that Tristan de Mauprat whose crimes are still remembered.  My father was his eldest son, and on his death, which occurred at a shooting party, the only living member of the younger branch, the chevalier, Hubert de Mauprat, a widower with an infant daughter, begged that he might be allowed to adopt me, promising to make me his heir.  My grandfather refused the offer, and when I was seven years old and my mother died—­poisoned some said by my grandfather—­I was carried off by that terrible man to his house at Roche-Mauprat.  I only knew afterwards that my father was the only son of Tristan’s who had married and that consequently I was the heir to the property.