M. de Vauvenargues shivered, but the haughty expression of his face did not relax.
“You are Luc de Clapiers, and my eldest son,” he answered.
“And for that reason I shall not marry Mademoiselle de Séguy,” said Luc gently, “because it would be so—unworthy.”
A dark flush came over the Marquis’s face. He turned abruptly and left the room. His heavy, proud tread echoed with a sound of authority through the confined, silent spaces of the convent.
Luc remained for a moment with his dim gaze resting on the door through which she had passed for the last time. He could recall every fold of her brocade gown, every line and shade in her face, every curl and twist in the long, loose knot of her dark hair.
He wondered where her grave was, and how she had looked in her shroud. His vivid fancy pictured her the thing of loathing into which the hideous disease she died of had turned her—and shuddered back from that image, and saw her again standing against the whitewashed walls saying, “Good-bye.”
“Clémence,” he said under his breath, and saw two women—one forgone and lost, one to forgo and lose.
CHAPTER III
THE BETROTHED
He met her in his father’s house that evening. He entered upon her through the folding doors of the withdrawing-room, and saw her before she saw him.
The sight of her filled him with an almost intolerable yearning and longing for that happiness he must never enjoy. She was standing by the fire-place. A lamp was on a low table beside her, and it illuminated a gentle beauty that seemed divine to the man who had crawled back mutilated from the embrace of death.