“I shall be at home all the evening.”
“I will tell her.”
And Prudence left me.
I did not even write to tell Olympe not to expect me. I never troubled much about her, scarcely going to see her one night a week. She consoled herself, I believe, with an actor from some theatre or other.
I went out for dinner and came back almost immediately. I had a fire lit in my room and I told Joseph he could go out.
I can give you no idea of the different impressions which agitated me during the hour in which I waited; but when, toward nine o’clock, I heard a ring, they thronged together into one such emotion, that, as I opened the door, I was obliged to lean against the wall to keep myself from falling.
Fortunately the anteroom was in half darkness, and the change in my countenance was less visible. Marguerite entered.
She was dressed in black and veiled. I could scarcely recognise her face through the veil. She went into the drawing-room and raised her veil. She was pale as marble.
“I am here, Armand,” she said; “you wished to see me and I have come.”
And letting her head fall on her hands, she burst into tears.