“‘And then he told me how many times he had written, and we hunted through my father’s chest which I had brought here with me—he had died that year, and so had my dear mother—and there we found all Henri’s letters tied together with a string, and not one of them opened.’
“‘What did you do?’ I asked.
“‘I went at once to my husband and told him everything. He burst into a great rage; and the two had hard words, and then the next day he was out in the field and the sun was very hot, and he was brought home, and has been as you see him ever since.’
“‘And where is Henri?’
“‘He is here on the farm. When the doctor gave my husband no hope of ever being well again, my husband sent for him and begged Henri’s pardon for what he had said, saying he wanted no one to hate him now that he could not live; that all Henri had done was to love me as a man should love a woman, and that, if I would be willing, Henri should take care of the farm and keep it for me. This was four years ago, and Henri is still here and my husband has never changed. When the weather is good, Henri puts him in his chair, the one we bought in Rouen, and wheels him about under the apple-trees, and every night he comes in and sits beside him and goes over the accounts and tells him of the day’s work. Then he goes back home, six kilometres away, to his mother’s, where he lives.’”
Madame la marquise paused and shook the ashes from her cigarette, her head on one side, her eyes half-closed, a thoughtful, wholly absorbed expression on her face. Lemois, who had listened to every word of the strange narrative, his gaze fastened upon her, made no sound, nor did he move.
“And now listen to the rest: Two years later the poor cripple passed away and the next spring the two were married. The last time she came to me she brought her child with her—a baby in arms—but the dazzling light of young motherhood did not shine in her eyes—the baby had come, and she was glad, but that was all. They are both alive to-day, sitting in the twilight—their youth gone; robbed of the joy of making the first nest, together—meeting life second-hand, as it were—content to be alive and to be left alone.
“As for me, knowing the whole story, I had only a deep, bitter, intense sense of outrage. I still have it whenever I think of her wrongs. God is over all and pardons us almost every sin we commit—even without our asking, I sometimes think—but the men and women who for pride’s sake rob a young girl of a true and honorable love have shut themselves out of heaven.”