‘Take my arm, Henriette,’ he said, very gently, approaching Mademoiselle, who throughout the scene was silent. ‘My poor girl,’ I heard him add, in quite an altered tone, as he gathered her trembling frame to him.
At an end for me the quiet studies and the pleasant talks upon the lovely long terrace of that old house by the grey river. At an end for Mademoiselle the waiting; at an end the long shadow of deferred hope stretched like a pall upon the backward years. I know not if the defence of the Emperor Julian has been concluded. When last I heard from her she was in Italy with Joséphine, Gabrielle, and Gabrielle’s strange father. She stands clear before me in her new home, the snow gathering early upon her head, and the mark of the silent, tragic years deepening the austerity that autumnal joys could never melt from sensitive lips and shadowed glance. I frame her image against some old Italian palace in the blackened arches of its balcony, and see her, when the stars are out, and regret throbs more poignantly, gazing across the blue waters that wash her beloved land, the mirthful, sunlit waters, into which flows her own grey river.
The old house beyond the broken arches of the bridge, that leads to the desolate island, has been sold. Who now sits upon the terrace that overlooks the towers and spires of Beaufort? I cherish the hope that it is some one with a bosom not insusceptible to the thrill of romance, some one with a heart that still can beat to the swift measure of fear.
Anatole I have since seen in Paris. He is working steadily at some profession, and sharp illness has made a saner and stronger man of him. Upheaval, after a while, when the elements quiet down again, generally brings reform. The Café Lander knows him no more, I have ascertained, and while he shrinks from mention of Dr. Vermont’s name, he is ever glad and grateful to talk of Henriette Lenormant. He bore his dismissal bravely, after she had so devotedly nursed him through that heavy shock, and he is generous enough to give thanks for the cherishing friendship of the woman he loved in vain.
Gaston Favre has accepted an official post in the provinces, and Julien Renaud is an industrious journalist.
BRASES
À Madame Bohomoletz