She sat a long time with this letter on her lap. Perhaps it was true
what the priest said. And all her religious doubts began to torment
her conscience. And in her cowardly hesitation, which drives to church
the doubting, the sorrowful, she went furtively one evening at
twilight to the parsonage, and kneeling at the feet of the thin abbé,
begged for absolution.
He promised her a conditional pardon, as God could not pour down all
His favors on a roof that sheltered a man like the baron. "You will
soon feel the effects of the divine mercy," he declared.
Two days later she did, indeed, receive a letter from her son, and in
her discouragement and grief she looked upon this as the commencement
of the consolation promised her by the abbé. The letter ran:
"My Dear Mamma: Do not be uneasy. I am in London, in good health, in
very great need of money. We have not a sou left, and we do not have
anything to eat some days. The one who is with me, and whom I love
with all my heart, has spent all that she had so as not to leave
me--five thousand francs--and you see that I am bound in honor to
return her this sum in the first place. So I wish you would be kind
enough to advance me fifteen thousand francs of papa's fortune, for I
shall soon be of age. This will help me out of very serious
difficulties.
"Good-by, my dear mamma. I embrace you with all my heart, and also
grandfather and Aunt Lison. I hope to see you soon.
"Your son,
"Vicomte Paul de Lamare."
He had written to her! He had not forgotten her then. She did not care
anything about his asking for money! She would send him some as long
as he had none. What did money matter? He had written to her! And she
ran, weeping for joy, to show this letter to the baron. Aunt Lison was
called and read over word by word this paper that told of him. They
discussed each sentence.
Jeanne, jumping from the most complete despair to a kind of
intoxication of hope, took Paul's part. "He will come back, he will
come back as he has written."
The baron, more calm, said: "All the same he left us for that
creature, so he must love her better than us, as he did not hesitate
about it."