She put out groping hands to find his feet. He heard her sobbing and whispering:—
“I’ll work for you.”
Then he knelt, and touched her, and spoke to her very tenderly.
“Not so bad as that. You shall work for me, indeed; but not with these soft hands. Listen, while I tell you how he died; and why God killed him; and what is the moral of it all to me.”
She turned her ear to him, one arm, like the rustic Griselda she was, bent across her weeping face. But his first words seemed to catch her breath back, and fill out her bosom, holding her dumb from speech and tears alike.
“There was a lady in Le Prieuré called the lily, because she was so sweet and pure of heart. She was of an ancient family, but poor—the child of a proud, cold man. She had pledged her love, unknown to her father, to a stranger of modest means, a soul as good and pious as she. But the man was weak of purpose, and delayed to confess himself to the parent. Then came di Rocco, doating, and asked her hand of her father; and she was given to him on condition that he settled everything he possessed on her, and that the marriage was to be one in form only for the space of a year. And the poor child was forced in a moment into complying, and she became di Rocco’s wife, and a broken-hearted woman. She sought refuge, defying her father, now that it was done, in a little auberge on the hills; and thither her husband, scorning his vow, followed her secretly one stormy night in order to force her to his will. But Heaven intervened before he could accomplish his vile purpose, and he went astray on the ice, and fell into a crevasse and was killed.”
He paused. The girl did not speak for a minute. Her mind was still loitering on the road to that tragic conclusion. Di Rocco’s death was only of relative interest to her. Her first word showed it.
“Is she—prettier—than I am?”
Cartouche smiled.
“She is only an angel, ma mie; but eligible—eligible! Have you forgotten her lover?”