Moved by a far more powerful emotion than any she had ever known before, the baroness uttered an exclamation of joy. “Ah! how good you are!” she exclaimed—“how generous! how noble! You take your revenge in giving me back life, honor, everything—for you are my daughter; do you not know it? Did they not tell you, before bringing you here, that I was the hated and unnatural mother who abandoned you?”
She advanced with tearful eyes and outstretched arms, but Marguerite sternly waved her back. “Spare yourself, madame, and spare me, the humiliation of an unnecessary explanation.”
“Marguerite! Good God! you repulse me. After all you have promised to do for me, will you not forgive me?”
“I will try to forget, madame,” replied the girl and she was already stepping toward the door when the baroness threw herself at her feet, crying, in a heart-rending tone: “Have pity, Marguerite, I am your mother. One has no right to deny one’s own mother.”
But the young girl passed on. “My mother is dead, madame; I do not know you!” And she left the room without even turning her head, without even glancing at the baroness, who had fallen upon the floor in a deep swoon.
XIX
Baron Trigault still held Madame de Fondege a prisoner in the hall. What did he say to her in justification of the expedient he had improvised? His own agitation was so great that he scarcely knew, and it mattered but little after all, for the good lady did not even pretend to listen to his apologies. Although by no means overshrewd, she suspected some great mystery, some bit of scandal, perhaps, and her eyes never once wandered from the door leading to the boudoir. At last this door opened and Mademoiselle Marguerite reappeared. “Great heavens!” exclaimed Madame de Fondege; “what has happened to my poor child?”
For the unfortunate girl advanced with an automatic tread, her eyes fixed on vacancy, and her hands outstretched, as if feeling her way. It indeed seemed to her as if the floor swayed to and fro under her feet, as if the walls tottered, as if the ceiling were about to fall and crush her.
Madame de Fondege sprang forward. “What is the matter, my dearest?”