The world is wide; there may be a man in it who can paint the sudden bliss that fell on these two much suffering hearts; but I am not that man; this is beyond me; it was not only heaven, but heaven after hell.
Leave we the indescribable and the unspeakable for a moment, and go to a lighter theme.
The day Rose’s character was so unexpectedly cleared, Edouard had no opportunity of speaking to her, or a reconciliation would have taken place. As it was, he went home intensely happy. But he did not resume his visits to the chateau. When he came to think calmly over it, his vanity was cruelly mortified. She was innocent of the greater offence; but how insolently she had sacrificed him, his love, and his respect, to another’s interest.
More generous thoughts prevailed by degrees. And one day that her pale face, her tears, and her remorse got the better of his offended pride, he determined to give her a good lecture that should drown her in penitent tears; and then end by forgiving her. For one thing he could not be happy till he had forgiven her.
She walked into the room with a calm, dignified, stately air, and before he could utter one word of his grave remonstrance, attacked him thus: “You wish to speak to me, sir. If it is to apologize to me, I will save your vanity the mortification. I forgive you.”
“YOU forgive ME!” cried Edouard furiously.
“No violence, if you please,” said the lady with cold hauteur. “Let us be friends, as Josephine and Raynal are. We cannot be anything more to one another now. You have wounded me too deeply by your jealous, suspicious nature.”
Edouard gasped for breath, and was so far out-generalled that he accepted the place of defendant. “Wasn’t I to believe your own lips? Did not Colonel Raynal believe you?”
“Oh, that’s excusable. He did not know me. But you were my lover; you ought to have seen I was forced to deceive poor Raynal. How dare you believe your eyes; much more your ears, against my truth, against my honor; and then to believe such nonsense?” Then, with a grand assumption of superior knowledge, says she, “You little simpleton, how could the child be mine when I wasn’t married at all?”
At this reproach, Edouard first stared, then grinned. “I forgot that,” said he.