For was she not really a widow?
Only it was not death which had deprived her of her husband, but an odious rival—an infamous and perfidious creature lost to all sense of shame.
And yet, though she had been disdained, abandoned, and repulsed, she was no longer free.
She belonged to the man whose name she bore like a badge of servitude—to the man who hated her, who fled from her.
She was not yet twenty; and this was the end of her youth, of her life, of her hopes, and even of her dreams.
Society condemned her to solitude, while Martial was free to rove wheresoever fancy might lead him.
Now she saw the disadvantage of isolating one’s self. She had not been without friends in her school-girl days; but after leaving the convent she had alienated them by her haughtiness, on finding them not as high in rank, nor as rich as herself. She was now reduced to the irritating consolations of Aunt Medea, who was a worthy person, undoubtedly, but her tears flowed quite as freely for the loss of a cat, as for the death of a relative.
But Blanche bravely resolved that she would conceal her grief and despair in the recesses of her own heart.
She drove about the country; she wore the prettiest dresses in her trousseau; she forced herself to appear gay and indifferent.
But on going to attend high mass in Sairmeuse the following Sunday, she realized the futility of her efforts.