"Did I not pardon you when I said to you, 'Return,' after that frightful morning?" said she, with the greatest gentleness.
"Oh, my life, my whole life shall be spent in expiation of this hour of folly. Marguerite, I swear that in me you will have the most devoted friend, the kindest brother; let me only come and worship you, let me come each day to contemplate in you the treasures of nobility, candour, and goodness that for an instant I misunderstood. You shall see that I am worthy of your confidence."
"Oh, now I believe you, and you shall know everything. I will tell you all, I will tell you what I have never dared to confide to any other; and yet you must not think that I am about to tell you any extraordinary secret. Nothing is simpler than what you are going to hear. It is only the proof of the saying, 'If the world can always discover false and guilty sentiments, it never believes there are any sentiments that are natural, true, and generous.'"
"Ah, what shame, what remorse must it ever be to me to have shared such stupid and malicious prejudices! Why did I not listen to the inward voice that said to me, 'Believe, have faith in her?' With what noble exultation could I now have said, 'I alone was able to understand her pure and generous nature!'"
"Comfort yourself, my friend, for I will teach you how to understand me. Does not that show that I have more confidence in you than you have in yourself? If I am willing to tell you all, does it not prove that you are the only person whose good opinion I care for? So if I desire to explain to you the apparent singularity of my life, which has been so misunderstood, it is because I wish, I hope, in the future to be able to give utterance to every thought in your hearing. This avowal requires some knowledge of the past; listen to me, then, my story will be short because it is true.
"I was a very rich heiress, free to choose whom I wished, spoiled by the homage that was paid as much to my fortune as to myself. At eighteen I had never loved any one. On a voyage I made to Italy, with M. and Madame de Blémur, I met M. de Pënâfiel. Though he was still young, he was the Spanish ambassador to Naples at a time when political troubles were very complicated; this will show you what a superior man he was. When, in addition, he was handsome,"—here she showed me the portrait,—"with charming manners, high principles, an extremely noble character, perfect taste, superior education, appreciative sense of all the arts, an illustrious name and a large fortune, you will be able to know his worth. I met him, I appreciated him, I loved him. The incidents of our marriage were very simple, for all interests were united. Only, soon after our first interview, he begged me to tell him if I authorised him to ask for my hand, as, knowing that I was entirely free in my choice, he wished to spare me any advances that my uncle might have to make in his name. I told him very innocently the great joy his proposal was to me, but I besought him to give up a career that would necessarily keep him always at a distance from France, and to promise not to live in Spain. His answer was noble and prompt. 'I will sacrifice cheerfully my dreams of ambition,' he said, 'but not the interests of my country. When my mission here is accomplished, I will return to Spain to thank the king for his confidence in me, and render him an account of what I hope to be a successful negotiation; then I will belong entirely to you and do as you think best.' It was thus that he acted. He obtained all that his government had wished, went to Madrid to make his adieux to the king, returned, and we were married. I shall not speak again of our happiness, but I will now tell you that it was perfect and mutual. However, as in the eyes of the world the arrangements had been so suitable, the world would never admit that it had been a love match, but insisted that it was simply a marriage of convenience."
"That is true, at least it is what I have always been given to understand; indeed, it is generally believed that, while you and M. de Pënâfiel were always the best of friends, your existence was, as often happens, quite apart from his."
"How false! What an absurdity! but it must have been believed, for our happiness was so simple and natural that the world, not understanding true love, could not give us credit for it. Besides, we liked to make a sort of mystery of our felicity, so how could society, accustomed as it is to scandal, suppose for an instant that a young wife and a charming husband of equal position and birth could go the length of adoring and wishing to live for one another? Alas! though, nothing was ever more true."
"Now, at last, all is explained clearly to my mind. Do you remember the absurd and malicious interpretation of that race and the story about Ismaël?"
"Of course I do."