Clasping her hands, she looked at him with her blue eyes wide open, like a child who is half-grieved, half-frightened, to see its plaything broken, yet not entirely devoid of curiosity to know what there is inside. Like a flash came back to him the white walls, the drooping laburnums, the trellised beech-walk in the convent garden, and before him stood Mademoiselle de Montmirail, the Cerise of the old, wild, hopeless days, whom he ought never to have loved, whom least of all should he dare to think of now.
“Do you remember our Lady of Succour?” said he; “do you remember the pleasant spring-time, the smiling fields, and the sunny skies of our own Normandy? How different from these grey, dismal hills! And do you remember the day you told me your mother recalled you to Paris? You cannot have forgotten it! Lady Hamilton, everything else is changed, but I alone remain the same.”
The broken voice, the trembling gestures betrayed deep and uncontrollable emotion. Even Cerise could not but feel that this man was strangely affected by her presence, that his self-command was every moment forsaking him, and that already words might be hovering on his lips to which she must not listen. Perhaps, too, there was some little curiosity to hear what those words could be—some half-scornful reflection that when spoken it would be time enough to disapprove—some petulant triumph to think that everybody was not distant, reserved, impenetrable, like Sir George.
“And who wishes you to change?” said she, softly. “Not I for one.”
“I shall remember those words when I am far away,” he answered, passionately. “Remember them! I shall think of them day by day, and hour by hour, long after you have forgotten there was ever such a person in existence as Florian de St. Croix. Your director, your worshipper. Cerise! your slave!”
She turned on him angrily. All her dignity was aroused by such an appeal in such a tone, made to her, a wedded wife, but her indignation, natural as it was, changed to pity when she marked his pale, worn face, his imploring looks, his complete prostration, as it seemed, both of mind and body. It was no fault of hers, yet was it the wreck she herself had made. Angry! No, she could not be angry, when she thought of all he must have suffered, and for her; when she remembered how this man had never so much as asked for a kind word in exchange for the sacrifice of his soul.
The tears stood in her eyes, and when she spoke again her voice was very low and pitiful.
“Florian,” said she, “listen to me. If not for your own sake, at least for mine, forbear to speak words that can never be unsaid. You have been to me, I hope and believe, the truest friend man ever was to woman. Do you think I have forgotten the white chapel above Port Welcome, or the bright morning that made me a happy wife?” Her face clouded, but she resumed in a more composed tone, “We have all our own burdens to bear, our own trials to get through. It is not for me to teach you that this world is no place of unchequered sunshine. You are right. I shall, perhaps, never see you again. Nay; it is far better so. But let me always remember you hereafter as the Florian St. Croix, on whose truth, and unselfishness, and right feeling Cerise Hamilton could rely, even if the whole world besides should fail, and turn against her at her need!”
He was completely unmanned. Her feminine instinct had taught her to use the only weapon against which he was powerless, and she conquered, as a woman always does conquer, when madly loved by him who has excited her interest, her pity, and her vanity, but who has failed to touch her heart.
“And you will remember me? Promise that!” was all he could answer. “It is enough; it is my reward. What happiness have I, but to obey your lightest wish?”