"However you made the discovery, young man, you say true. She did calumniate her mistress! For though there is still much to be accounted for, which, probably, will never in this world receive an explanation, yet I were worse than base to doubt the proofs of virtue and of love with which those cabinets have furnished me. I heap coals of fire upon my own head by yielding to the conviction; I inflict the tortures of hell already on my heart by making the acknowledgment; but I own before you, who probably have seen more deeply into my weakness and my madness than any human being, that I did that beloved girl false and shameful wrong, and that from my soul I believe her--now that it is too late--to have been as pure as purity itself."
He trembled as he spoke with the very energy of his feelings, though every tone was as low as a lover's whisper, and when he had concluded, he sank down into a seat, and gazed at vacancy, giving way, I am sure, to all that longing, burning thirst to recal the past, which every one at some time feels amidst the errors and the faults of life.
It was long ere he recovered himself; but when he did so, he called my attention to a letter that he held in his hand, saying, that it concerned me as well as himself. The handwriting was that of Madame de Villardin, and the epistle covered two sheets of paper, one of which he gave me to peruse, after having made an ineffectual effort to read it to me himself. I remember the contents almost word for word, and put down here that part which most interested me at the time.
"I mean not to reproach you, my lord," it went on, after a broken sentence at the top of the page; "far, far from it; and I only thus assert my innocence of even one evil thought; I only thus attempt to prove that I could not have been guilty; I only thus depict all that I have suffered, in order that you may love our children when I am dead, and grant me, in dying, a few not very burdensome requests. I repeat again, that without knowing why, I am convinced that I shall not survive many months. Nor does this conviction arise in the common terror of women in my present situation. On the contrary, I fear not to die; and now that I am deprived of your affection, I have nothing to attach me to the world but the dear child that we both love, and the one which is yet unborn. Still I feel that death is not far from me; and therefore these lines, which will never meet your eye till I am dead, may well be looked upon as my dying words. Oh then, my lord, I beseech you to love the children that I leave you with tender and equal affection; and should a regret at any time cross your mind for sorrows inflicted on their mother, make me atonement by your affection for them. If ever the spirits of the dead be permitted to watch over those they loved while living, my soul shall follow you and our children through existence, and every kind word or deed towards them shall be received as wiping away some unmerited reproach or some harsh act towards myself.
"My next request is, that you would yourself confirm and sanction an engagement which I caused the young Englishman, who has since saved our daughter from a watery grave, to enter into in regard to our children. Your fate, my lord, is, of course, uncertain; and how long you may be permitted to guard and protect them no one can tell. I have heard much of this young gentleman and his history, both from yourself and from others, and I have myself seen that he is always prompt to succour and defend, and that his knowledge of the world, in all its changes and disguises, is extraordinary for one so young. As it is more than probable that he will grow up with our children as an elder brother, I have made him promise that he will never wholly leave them, but will always come forward to give them aid and assistance, wherever you may be, whenever they may need his help. In making this request to him I felt sure that I could not be doing wrong, as the person whom I besought to undertake the task, and whom I entreated, while you acted towards my children as a father, to act towards them as a brother, is one in whom you yourself seem to place the fullest confidence; but I have since been confirmed in what I have done by the opinion of our excellent friend and spiritual guide, Father Ferdinand, who not only assures me that this young gentleman's goodness of heart and rectitude of judgment may be depended on, but undertakes boldly that in case of my death, you shall sanction my conduct, induce him to repeat his promise, and give him every opportunity of executing it, both during your life and after your death.
"My requests, I think, are now all made, except that you would bestow upon my servants the sums which I have written down upon the paper attached to this letter, and that you would assign to the convent of Ursulines at Juvigny the thousand crowns of revenue which, with your consent, I promised them on the birth of our daughter, and which has never been formally made over to them. Besides this, I trust that you will give a thousand livres to the church of St. Peter at Rennes, to be expended in masses for my soul; and as my last request, I beseech you to think of me kindly, and when I am dead, to do that justice to my memory which you have not done to my faith and honour while living."
I could well conceive, as I read these words, how poignantly they must have gone home to the heart of Monsieur de Villardin; and even as I read them in silence before him, I could see from his eye,--which was fixed upon my face, scanning its expression from line to line,--that he again mentally ran over all which that paper contained, and inflicted on his own heart every gentle word as the most severe of punishments.
"Do you undertake the task?" he demanded, when I had done.
"I have already done so, my lord," I replied; "and I never forget my word."
"Your task may become a strange and a difficult one," he said, musing; "but never mind," he added, abruptly, and at the same time rising, "whatever comes of it, so it shall be. I on my part promise, before Heaven and before you, on my hope of pardon, and on my honour as a man, to give you every means of executing what you have undertaken, and to take such measures as will secure you the same opportunity should I die. She said right," he continued, holding out his hand to me; "she said right, poor girl; you do possess my confidence most fully; none ever possessed it so much; and would to God, would to God, that you had possessed it more! Oh, had I but trusted your words! oh God! oh God! that it should now be all beyond recall!" and he groaned bitterly under the torture of remorse.