“As I told you, madame, Gaston is dead; and it was I who closed his eyes, and received his last wishes. Do you understand?”
The poor woman understood only too well, but was racking her brain to discover what could be the purpose of this fatal visit. Perhaps it was only to claim Gaston’s jewels.
“It is unnecessary to recall,” continued Louis, “the painful circumstances which blasted my brother’s life. However happy your own lot has been, you must sometimes have thought of this friend of your youth, who unhesitatingly sacrificed himself in defence of your honor.”
Not a muscle of Mme. Fauvel’s face moved; she appeared to be trying to recall the circumstances to which Louis alluded.
“Have you forgotten, madame?” he asked with bitterness: “then I must explain more clearly. A long, long time ago you loved my unfortunate brother.”
“Monsieur!”
“Ah, it is useless to deny it, madame: I told you that Gaston confided everything to me—everything,” he added significantly.
But Mme. Fauvel was not frightened by this information. This “everything” could not be of any importance, for Gaston had gone abroad in total ignorance of her secret.
She rose, and said with an apparent assurance she was far from feeling:
“You forget, monsieur, that you are speaking to a woman who is now advanced in life, who is married, and who has grown sons. If your brother loved me, it was his affair, and not yours. If, young and ignorant, I was led into imprudence, it is not your place to remind me of it. This past which you evoke I buried in oblivion twenty years ago.”