“Then, now it is ended, my dear child; all ended?”
Angelique at first did not appear to understand what was said to her. Soon the words returned to her as if from a distance. She looked fixedly before her, seeming anxious to question the empty space, and at last she replied:
“Without doubt, mother.”
Indeed, on the morrow she seated herself at the work-frame and embroidered as she was wont to do. She took up her usual routine of daily work, and did not appear to suffer. Moreover, no allusion was made to the past; she no longer looked from time to time out of the window into the garden, and gradually losing her paleness, the natural colour came back to her cheeks. The sacrifice appeared to have been accomplished.
Hubert himself thought it was so, and, convinced of the wisdom of Hubertine, did all in his power to keep Felicien at a distance. The latter, not daring to openly revolt against his father, grew feverishly impatient, to such a degree that he almost broke the promise he had made to wait quietly without trying to see Angelique again. He wrote to her, and the letters were intercepted. He even went to the house one morning, but it was Hubert alone who received him. Their explanatory conversation saddened them both to an equal degree, so much did the young man appear to suffer when the embroiderer told him of his daughter’s calmness and her air of forgetfulness. He besought him to be loyal, and go to away, that he might not again throw the child into the fearful trouble of the last few weeks.
Felicien again pledged himself to be patient, but he violently refused to take back his word, for he was still hopeful that he might persuade his father in the end. He could wait; he would let affairs remain in their present state with the Voincourts, where he dined twice a week, doing so simply to avoid a direct act of open rebellion.
And as he left the house he besought Hubert to explain to Angelique why he had consented to the torment of not seeing her for the moment; he thought only of her, and the sole aim of everything he did was to gain her at last.
When her husband repeated this conversation to her, Hubertine grew very serious. Then, after a short silence, she asked:
“Shall you tell our daughter what he asked you to say to her?”
“I ought to do so.”