'To go!'
'Yes,' he rejoined; 'I think of going to Italy.'
'When?' asked Emilie in astonishment.
'Most probably the day after to-morrow.'
He meant what he said. He had calculated that Suzanne would require about twenty-four hours for her preparations if she decided to go. If she decided to go! The mere possibility of his attempt failing caused him such pain that he did not care to dwell upon it. Since the scene at the Opera, when he had left her pale and crushed in the semi-darkness of the private box, he had imposed almost superhuman restraint upon himself by stemming the torrent of passionate longing within him. The hope so suddenly conceived was a kind of breach through which the torrent swept with such unrestrained and violent fury that it overturned and carried away all before it. In his madness René even went so far as to look at some trunks in two or three shops in the Rue de la Paix. Since the departure from Vouziers no one in the Vincy family had left Paris, even for twenty-four hours. The only articles in the Rue Coëtlogon that could hold anything were two old worm-eaten coffers and three leather portmanteaus falling to pieces from age. These preparations, which lent an appearance of reality to the poet's dreams, cheated the fever of suspense until the hour of his appointment. The illusion in which he had indulged had been so strong that he did not realise his actual position until he stood in the little salon in the Rue Murillo. Nothing had yet been achieved.
'Madame will be here in a moment,' the servant had said, leaving him alone in the room. He had not been there since the day when he read his choicest verses to her whom he then regarded as a Madonna. Why did she keep him waiting for full five minutes in this place that must awaken in him so many recollections? Was it yet another ruse on her part? Recollections did indeed rise up before him, but produced an effect totally different from that anticipated by Suzanne. The elegance of these surroundings, once so much admired, now inspired him with horror. An atmosphere of infamy seemed to hang over all these objects, many of which had no doubt been paid for by Desforges. The horror he felt intensified his desire to drag the woman he loved away from her misery, and when she appeared on the threshold it was not love that she read in his eyes, but a fixed and determined look of resolve.
What resolve? Of the two she was undoubtedly the most agitated and least under control. Her long white lace robe lent a sickly hue to her face, already drawn and haggard by the trouble she had lately undergone. There had been no necessity for her to pencil her eyes—a custom practised by actresses of the drawing-room as well as by those of the stage—nor of studying the movement with which, at sight of René, she brought her hand to her heart and leant against the wall for support. At the first glance she saw that she had a hard battle to fight, and she feared the result. There fell upon the two lovers one of those spells of silence so awful in their solemnity that in them we seem to hear the flight of destiny!
The silence became unbearable to the unhappy woman, and she broke it by saying in a low tone, 'René, how you have made me suffer!' Then, rushing forward in her mad state of agitation, she took hold of his two hands, and, throwing herself upon him, sought his lips for a kiss. But he had the strength to shake her off.
'No,' he said, 'I won't.'
Wringing her hands, she cried in distress, 'Then you still believe in those vile suspicions! You did not come, and you condemned me unheard! What proofs had you? That you saw me leave a certain house! Not a single doubt in my favour—not one out of twenty suppositions that might have pleaded for me! What if I tell you that a friend of mine living in that house was ill, and that I had been to call on her? What if I tell you that the presence of the other person whose sight drove you mad was due to the same cause? Shall I swear it by all I hold most sacred, by——'