But her despairing grief overflowed when Martine, who had entered the room a moment before, said in a harsh voice:
“Ah, mademoiselle has good reason to cry! for if monsieur is dead, mademoiselle is to blame for it.”
The old servant stood apart, near the door of her kitchen, in such a passion of angry grief, because they had taken her master from her, because they had killed him, that she did not even try to find a word of welcome or consolation for this child whom she had brought up. And without calculating the consequences of her indiscretion, the grief or the joy which she might cause, she relieved herself by telling all she knew.
“Yes, if monsieur has died, it is because mademoiselle went away.”
From the depths of her overpowering grief Clotilde protested. She had expected to see Martine weeping with her, like Ramond, and she was surprised to feel that she was an enemy.
“Why, it was he who would not let me stay, who insisted upon my going away,” she said.
“Oh, well! mademoiselle must have been willing to go or she would have been more clear-sighted. The night before your departure I found monsieur half-suffocated with grief; and when I wished to inform mademoiselle, he himself prevented me; he had such courage. Then I could see it all, after mademoiselle had gone. Every night it was the same thing over again, and he could hardly keep from writing to you to come back. In short, he died of it, that is the pure truth.”
A great light broke in on Clotilde’s mind, making her at the same time very happy and very wretched. Good God! what she had suspected for a moment, was then true. Afterward she had been convinced, seeing Pascal’s angry persistence, that he was speaking the truth; that between her and work he had chosen work sincerely, like a man of science with whom love of work has gained the victory over the love of woman. And yet he had not spoken the truth; he had carried his devotion, his self-forgetfulness to the point of immolating himself to what he believed to be her happiness. And the misery of things willed that he should have been mistaken, that he should have thus consummated the unhappiness of both.
Clotilde again protested wildly:
“But how could I have known? I obeyed; I put all my love in my obedience.”