They landed, if the account comes down to us right, at Bordeaux. The captain, a fellow of the peeping sort, found pastime in keeping them in sight after they had passed out of his care ashore. They went to different hotels!
The vessel was detained some weeks in this harbor, and her master continued to enjoy himself in the way in which he had begun. He saw his late passengers meet often, in a certain quiet path under the trees of the Quinconce. Their conversations were low; in the patois they used they could have afforded to speak louder; their faces were always grave and almost always troubled. The interviews seemed to give neither of them any pleasure. The monsieur grew thinner than ever, and sadly feeble.
"He wants to charter her," the seaman concluded, "but she doesn't like his rates."
One day, the last that he saw them together, they seemed to be, each in a way different from the other, under a great strain. He was haggard, woebegone, nervous; she high-strung, resolute,--with "eyes that shone like lamps," as said the observer.
"She's a-sendin' him 'way to lew-ard," thought he. Finally the Monsieur handed her--or rather placed upon the seat near which she stood, what she would not receive--a folded and sealed document, seized her hand, kissed it and hurried away. She sank down upon the seat, weak and pale, and rose to go, leaving the document behind. The mariner picked it up; it was directed to M. Honoré Grandissime, Nouvelle Orléans, États Unis, Amérique. She turned suddenly, as if remembering, or possibly reconsidering, and received it from him.
"It looked like a last will and testament," the seaman used to say, in telling the story.
The next morning, being at the water's edge and seeing a number of persons gathering about something not far away, he sauntered down toward it to see how small a thing was required to draw a crowd of these Frenchmen. It was the drowned body of the f.m.c.
Did the brig-master never see the woman again? He always waited for this question to be asked him, in order to state the more impressively that he did. His brig became a regular Bordeaux packet, and he saw the Madame twice or thrice, apparently living at great ease, but solitary, in the rue--. He was free to relate that he tried to scrape acquaintance with her, but failed ignominiously.
The rents of Number 19 rue Bienville and of numerous other places, including the new drug-store in the rue Royale, were collected regularly by H. Grandissime, successor to Grandissime Frères. Rumor said, and tradition repeats, that neither for the advancement of a friendless people, nor even for the repair of the properties' wear and tear, did one dollar of it ever remain in New Orleans; but that once a year Honoré, "as instructed," remitted to Madame--say Madame Inconnue--of Bordeaux, the equivalent, in francs, of fifty thousand dollars. It is averred he did this without interruption for twenty years. "Let us see: fifty times twenty--one million dollars. That is only a part of the pecuniary loss which this sort of thing costs Louisiana."
But we have wandered.