"On my everlasting salvation!" replied Jean, raising his hand above his head with dignity. "I hope that you are going to tell me at last."
The marquis seemed not to hear this direct and sincere appeal. He felt that Jean told the truth, and he had resumed his seat. Turning his chair toward the study door, which Jean had opened, he gazed with profound sadness at his wife's features.
"I can understand that you continued to love your wife, that you forgave the innocent child," he said; "but how you could endure and continue to meet the friend who betrayed you—that is what passes my comprehension!"
"Ah! Monsieur de Boisguilbault, that was in fact the most difficult thing of all! especially as it was not my duty, and everybody would have applauded me if I had broken every bone in his body. But I tell you what disarmed me: I saw that he was terribly remorseful and really unhappy. So long as the fever of love had hold of him, he would have walked over my body to join his mistress. She was as lovely as a rose in May; I don't know whether you ever saw her, or remember her, but I know that Nannie was as beautiful in her way as Madame de Boisguilbault. I was mad over her, and so was he! He would have turned heathen for her, and I turned idiot. But when the youthful ardor began to die away I saw well enough that they no longer loved each other and that they were ashamed of their sin. My wife began to love me again, seeing that I was kind and generous to her, and as for him, his sin was so heavy on his heart, that, when we drank together, he always wanted to confess to me; but I wouldn't have it, and sometimes, when he was drunk, he would kneel at my feet, yelling:
"'Kill me, Jean, kill me! I deserve it and I shall be satisfied!'
"When he was sober, he forgot about that, but he would have let himself be chopped to pieces for me; and at this moment he's my best friend, next to Monsieur Antoine. The subject of our suffering no longer exists, and our friendship has endured. It was on his account that I had my trouble with the excise people and became a vagabond for a while. Well, he worked for my customers, so as to keep them for me; he brought me money, and when I was free again gave my customers back to me; he has nothing that doesn't belong to me, and as he is younger than I am, I trust that he will close my eyes. He owes me that much; but after all, it seems to me that I love him on account of the injury he did me and the courage it required to forgive him!"
"Alas! alas!" said Monsieur de Boisguilbault, "we are sublime when we are not afraid of being ridiculous!"
He closed the study door gently and walked back toward the fireplace, when his eye fell at last on the package and a letter addressed to him.
"MONSIEUR LE MARQUIS:
"I promised you that you should hear no more of me; but you yourself compel me to remind you that I exist, and I am going to do it for the last time.
"Either you made a mistake in handing me certain objects of great value, or you intended to bestow alms on me.
"I should not blush to accept your charity if I were reduced to the necessity of imploring it; but you are mistaken, monsieur le marquis, if you think I am in want.
"Our circumstances are comfortable, considering our necessities and tastes, which are modest and simple. You are rich and generous; I should be blameworthy to accept benefactions which you might bestow on so many others; it would be robbing the poor.
"The one thing which it would have been very sweet to me to carry away from your house, and which I would have given all my blood to obtain, is a word of forgiveness, a friendly word for my father. Ah! monsieur, you cannot conceive what a child's heart suffers when she sees her father unjustly accused and knows not how to set him right. You did not furnish me with the means to do so, for you persisted in keeping silent as to the cause of your resentment; but how could you fail to understand that, under the present circumstances, I could not accept your gifts and take advantage of your kindness!
"I retain, however, a small cornelian ring which you placed on my finger when I entered your house under an assumed name. It is an object of trifling value, you told me, a souvenir of your travels. It is very precious to me, although it was not as a pledge of reconciliation that you chose to give it to me: but it will remind me of a very sweet yet very painful moment, when I felt all my heart go out toward you, with vain hopes that vanished instantly. I ought to hate you, for you hate a father whom I adore! I know not how it is I esteem your gifts with no feeling of wounded pride, and that I renounce your friendship with profound grief.
"Accept, monsieur le marquis, the deep respect of
"GILBERTE DE CHÂTEAUBRUN."