“All I beseech of heaven and you is your according me a remembrance for having too late perceived the treasure he possessed.
“With all the respect in my heart,
“George Oliver de Charny.”
The reader returned the letter to Andrea, and let her hand fall inert by her side, with a sigh.
“Have I betrayed you,” murmured the countess: “have I failed in the faith you put me in, for I made no promises?”
“Forgive me, for I have suffered so much,” faltered Marie.
“You, suffered,” exclaimed the ex-lady of honor, “do you dare to talk to me of suffering? what has happened me, then? Oh, I shall not say that I suffered, for I would not use the word another did for painting the same idea. I need a new one to sum up all griefs, pangs and pains,—you suffer? but you have not seen the man you loved indifferent to that love, and paying court on his bended knees to another woman! you have not seen your brother, jealous of this other woman whom he adored in silence as a pagan does his goddess, fight with the man you loved! you have not heard this man, wounded it was thought mortally, call out in his delirium for this other woman, whose confidential friend you were: you have not seen this other prowling in the lobbies, where you were wandering to hear the revelations of fever which prove that if a mad passion does not outlive life it may follow one to the grave-brink! you have not seen this beloved one, returning to life by a miracle of nature and science, rising from his couch to fall at the rival’s feet.—— I say, rival, and one, from the standard of love being the measure of greatness of ranks. In your despair you have not gone into the nunnery at the age of twenty-five, trying to quiet at the cold crucifix your scorching love: then, one day when you hoped to have damped with tears if not extinguished the flame consuming you, you have not had this rival, once your friend, come to you in the name of the former friendship to ask you to be the wife of this very man whom you had worshipped for three years—for the sake of her salvation as a wife, her royal Majesty endangered——!
“She was to be a wife without a husband, a mere veil thrown between the crowd and another’s happiness, like the shroud between the corpse and the common eye: overruled by the compulsory duty, not by mercy, for jealous love knows no pity—you sacrificed me—you accepted my immense devotion. You did not have to hear the priest ask if you took for helpmate the man who was not to be your husband: you did not feel him pass the ring over your finger as the pledge of eternal love, while it was a vain and meaningless symbol; you did not see your husband quit you at the church door within an hour of the wedding, to be the gallant of your rival! oh, madam, these three years has been of torture!”
The Queen lifted her failing hand to seek the speaker’s but it was shunned.
“I promised nothing, but see what I have done,” said she. “But you promised two things—not to see Count Charny, the more sacred as I had not asked it; and, by writing, to treat me as a sister, also the more sacred as I never solicited it.