Her husband appeared, swathed in a bath dressing-gown.
“My dear,” he said, “it’s too easy. Take a fresh envelope and pass the letter on.”
“Who to?” said his wife.
Virgil fingered his chin.
“The trouble is,” he murmured, “I’m not quite sure of her address. I think it was Bloughbridge.”
MADELEINE
MADELEINE
It was upon the seventh day of September that Madeleine Peyre, of Ruffec, made a mistake. This was notable; first, because the lady was justly accounted wise, and, secondly, because, as errors go, the mistake was a bad one.
Madeleine was the Silvia of Ruffec. She went faithfully to Mass, and what she believed to be proper, that unobtrusively she endeavoured to do. She spoke ill of no one. Her exquisite pink-and-white complexion, her raven hair, her steady grey eyes, were three great several beauties. Add that her features were regular, her teeth most white, and her figure graceful, when you will understand that the swains of Ruffec commended her with cause. As I have said already, Madeleine’s judgment also was unusually sound. To ram home my comparison, it was, I think, the light in her wonderful eyes which you forgot last of her comeliness, while the flowers she was constantly receiving gave her actual distress. She never would wear them. No other girl in Ruffec received any flowers.
When, therefore, Madeleine Peyre, the Silvia of Ruffec, married the wrong man, the town pulled her down from her pedestal and let her lie.