Then, in a moment, before he had time to form the slightest suspicion that she meditated any such thing, she had flung herself at his feet, and, with hands clasped before her, was beseeching him also to pardon her for having wrecked his life. But, gentle as ever, he raised her from the ground and placed her again in the seat she had left, beseeching her not to distress herself.
"Remember this," he said; "what I did I did out of the love I bore you when first I sought yours; remember that, though you had no love in your heart to give me, I had plighted my faith to you. Remember that my duty is pledged to you; that, if I prosper, as I hope to do, you shall prosper too. Or, better still, if in years to come this yoke which you took upon yourself galls too much, and you have no longer any need of it, we will find means to break it. I will find means to set you free."
"To--set--me--free!" she repeated slowly.
"Yes. Now I will go and seek the concierge. Then I will leave you until to-morrow. You will, as I have said, be perfectly safe here--perfectly at liberty. Have no fear, I beg. No one can harm you."
The concierge came at his summons and took his orders, he telling her briefly that the lady would occupy his apartments for a few days, and that he would use some other rooms at the top of the house which she had for disposal. Then, when he had seen a light meal brought to her and the woman had withdrawn, he bade his wife good-night.
"In the morning," he said, "I will tell you how my plans are progressing. I am about now to visit one who is much concerned with the colonisation of Louisiana, and, indeed, of the whole of the Mississippi--doubtless I may obtain some useful knowledge from him."
"And it is to this exile--this life in a savage land--that I have driven you! You, a gentleman--I, God only knows what," she exclaimed.
"Nay, nay. In any circumstances I must have gone forth to seek my living in some distant part of the world. It could not have been long delayed--as well now as a month or a year later."
"At least, you would have gone forth free--free to make a home for yourself, to have a wife, a----"
But he would listen to none of her self reproaches; would not, indeed, let her utter them. Instead, he held out his hand to her--permitting himself that one cold act of intimacy--and said, "Farewell. Farewell, for the present. Farewell until to-morrow."