“I will wait then. I can repress my impatience, I have so much to say to you.”
“Dear, gentle Magdalen!”
“Oh, my friend!” cried the girl, interrupting Agricola, with tears of joy: “I cannot tell you what I feel, when I hear you call me Magdalen. It is so sweet, so soothing, that my heart expands with delight.”
“Poor girl! how dreadfully she must have suffered!” cried the smith, with inexpressible emotion, “when she displays so much happiness, so much gratitude, at being called by her own poor name!”
“But consider, my friend; that word in your mouth contains a new life for me. If you only knew what hopes, what pleasures I can now see gleaming in the future! If you knew all the cherished longings of my tenderness! Your wife, the charming Angela, with her angel face and angel-soul—oh! in my turn, I can say to, you, ‘Look at me, and see how sweet that name is to my lips and heart!’ Yes, your charming, your good Angela will call me Magdalen—and your children, Agricola, your children!—dear little creatures!—to them also I shall be Magdalen—their good Magdalen—and the love I shall bear them will make them mine, as well as their mother’s—and I shall have my part in every maternal care—and they will belong to us three; will they not, Agricola?—Oh! let me, let me weep! These tears without bitterness do me so much good; they are tears that need not be concealed. Thank heaven! thank you, my friend! those other tears are I trust dried forever.”
For some seconds, this affecting scene had been overlooked by an invisible witness. The smith and Mother Bunch had not perceived Mdlle. de Cardoville standing on the threshold of the door. As Mother Bunch had said, this day, which dawned with all under such fatal auspices, had become for all a day of ineffable felicity. Adrienne, too, was full of joy, for Djalma had been faithful to her, Djalma loved her with passion. The odious appearances, of which she had been the dupe and victim, evidently formed part of a new plot of Rodin, and it only remained for Mdlle. de Cardoville to discover the end of these machinations.
Another joy was reserved for her. The happy are quick in detecting happiness in others, and Adrienne guessed, by the hunchback’s last words, that there was no longer any secret between the smith and the sempstress. She could not therefore help exclaiming, as she entered: “Oh! this will be the brightest day of my life, for I shall not be happy alone!”
Agricola and Mother Bunch turned round hastily. “Lady,” said the smith, “in spite of the promise I made you, I could not conceal from Magdalen that I knew she loved me!”
“Now that I no longer blush for this love before Agricola, why should I blush for it before you, lady, that told me to be proud of it, because it is noble and pure?” said Mother Bunch, to whom her happiness gave strength enough to rise, and to lean upon Agricola’s arm.
“It is well, my friend,” said Adrienne, as she threw her arms round her to support her; “only one word, to excuse the indiscretion with which you will perhaps reproach me. If I told your secret to M. Agricola—”