“Well, yes,” said she: “I have a secret.”
“Dear me!”
“And, if I did not confide it to you, it is because it is also the secret of another. Yes, I confess it, I have been imprudent in the extreme; I have stepped beyond all the limits of propriety and social custom; I have exposed myself to the worst calumnies. But never,—I swear it,—never have I done any thing of which my conscience can reproach me, nothing that I have to blush for, nothing that I regret, nothing that I am not ready to do again to-morrow.”
“I said nothing, ‘tis true; but it was my duty. Alone I had to suffer the responsibility of my acts. Having alone freely engaged my future, I wished to bear alone the weight of my anxiety. I should never have forgiven myself for having added this new care to all your other sorrows.”
Mme. Favoral stood dismayed. Big tears rolled down her withered cheeks.
“Don’t you see, then,” she stammered, “that all my past suffering is as nothing compared to what I endure to-day? Good heavens! what have I ever done to deserve so many trials? Am I to be spared none of the troubles of this world? And it is through my own daughter that I am the most cruelly stricken!”
This was more than Mlle. Gilberte could bear. Her heart was breaking at the sight of her mother’s tears, that angel of meekness and resignation. Throwing her arms around her neck, and kissing her on the eyes,
“Mother,” she murmured, “adored mother, I beg of you do not weep thus! Speak to me! What do you wish me to do?”
Gently the poor woman drew back.
“Tell me the truth,” she answered.