"I was cruelly hurt this evening, but it was such a disgraceful thing that, out of respect to you, my dear mother, I will not write it, nor do I really believe that I should have the courage.
"Good night, my darling mamma. To-morrow and the day following, I am going to nine o'clock mass with Mlle. de la Rochaiguë. She is so good and kind that I could not refuse. But my most fervent prayers, my dear mother, are those I offer up in solitude. To-morrow morning and other mornings, in the midst of the careless crowd, I shall pray for you, but it is when I am alone, as now, that my every thought and my very soul lifts itself to thee, and that I pray to thee as one prays to God—my beloved and sainted mother!"
After having replaced the book in the writing-desk, the key of which she wore always suspended around her neck, the orphan sought her couch, and slept much more calmly and peacefully now she had made these artless confessions to an—alas!—now immortal mother.
CHAPTER XXIV.
AN UNWELCOME VISITOR.
On the morning following the day on which M. de Maillefort had been introduced to Mlle. de Beaumesnil for the first time, Commander Bernard was lying stretched out in the comfortable armchair which had been a present from Olivier.
It was a beautiful summer morning, and the old sailor gazed out sadly through the window on the parched flower beds, now full of weeds, for a month before two of the veteran's old wounds had reopened, keeping him a prisoner in his armchair, and preventing him from working in his beloved garden.
The housekeeper was seated near the commander, busy with some sewing, but for several minutes she must have been indulging in her usual recriminations against "Bû-û-onaparte," for she was now saying to the veteran, in tones of bitter indignation:
"Yes, monsieur, raw, raw; I tell you he ate it raw!"
The veteran, when his acute suffering abated a little, could not help laughing at the housekeeper's absurd stories, so he said:
"What was it that this diabolical Corsican ogre ate raw, Mother Barbançon?"