A postscript she had added ran thus,—
“Ah! why did you not prevent my marriage, when you could do so by a word? They think I have reached the summit of my wishes. I have never been more wretched.”
This letter made Daniel utter an exclamation of rage. He saw nothing in it but bitter irony.
“This miserable woman,” he thought, “laughs at me; and, when she says she does not blame Henrietta, that means that she hates her, and will persecute her.”
Maxime’s letter fortunately reassured him a little. Maxime confirmed Sarah’s account, adding, moreover, that Miss Henrietta was very sad, but calm and resigned; and that her step-mother treated her with the greatest kindness. The surprising part was, that Brevan did not say a word of the large amounts that had been intrusted to his care, nor of his method of selling the lands, nor of the price which he had obtained.
But Daniel did not notice this; all his thoughts were with Henrietta.
“Why should she not have written,” he thought, “when all the others found means to write?”
Overwhelmed with disappointment, he had sat down on a wooden bench in the embrasure of one of the windows in the hall where the letters were distributed. Travelling across the vast distance which separated him from France, his thoughts were under the trees in the garden of the count’s palace. He felt as if a powerful effort of his will would enable him to transport himself thither. By the pale light of the moon he thought he could discern the dress of his beloved as she stole towards him between the old trees.
A friendly touch on the shoulder recalled him rudely to the real world. Four or five officers from “The Conquest” were standing around him, gay, and free from cares, a hearty laugh on their lips.
“Well, my dear Champcey,” they said, “are you coming?”