“I came as soon as you sent for me,” said Madame de Fonblanque, gently. “I want to say now, that if you think I bear you any anger for anything you have said or done to me, you are mistaken. I forget it all as I look at you.”
“Did you think I sent for you to ask your forgiveness?” asked Mr. Romaine, faintly, but fluently.
“I can think of no other reason.”
“Then you must be a very unimaginative person. I sent for you to punish you as you deserve. It won’t make life any pleasanter for you to know that you helped me out of it. I have had, for some years, as you know, an affection which the doctors told me any agitation or distress might make fatal. I might have lived for years—but your presence here last night was my death blow. I don’t care a rush about living,—in fact, I would rather die than suffer as I do now,—but I would have lived possibly ten years longer, but for you.”
“Pray do not say that,” cried Madame de Fonblanque, turning pale. “Think what a painful thought to follow one through life.”
“That’s why I tell you.”
“Pray, pray withdraw it,” cried Madame de Fonblanque, in tears. “I implore you.”
“You would not withdraw your demand for one hundred thousand francs. If you had—if you had shown me the slightest mercy, there is a way by which I might have rewarded you. I could have borrowed a good deal of money upon some few pictures I have in Europe. But forced under the hammer, they will not bring, with this Virginia land, more than enough to pay my debts and a few legacies.” He stopped a moment, out of breath, and the silence was only broken by Madame de Fonblanque’s faint sobs.
“Nobody has ever yet relied upon my generosity without experiencing it. But everybody that has ever fought me, I have made to rue it,” he continued.
Madame de Fonblanque sank kneeling by his chair, and wept nervously.