“I don’t know whether it is a delusion,” she said, “but that man—it seems to me—yes—look—it is he, it is——”
She could say no more. Jacques ran to the little gate, he recognized his brother, and threw the gate open. Edouard entered the garden, clad in rags and tatters, overdone by fatigue and suffering, and presenting a perfect image of misery and desperation.
“Help me, save me!” he said, dragging himself toward Jacques, who scarcely dared believe his eyes; “for God’s sake, do not turn me away!”
“Oh! let’s go away, mamma, that man frightens me!” said Ermance, clinging to her mother. Adeline, standing as still as a statue, gazed at Edouard, while tears flowed from her eyes and fell on the child’s face.
“Unhappy wretch,” said Jacques at last, “why have you come here? Do you propose to pursue us everywhere? Must your infamy inevitably follow your family and make this child blush?”
“Ah!” said Edouard, throwing himself at Jacques’s feet, “I am a miserable wretch indeed! she even hides my child from me, she shields her from her father’s glance!”
Jacques no longer had the strength to spurn him; Edouard approached Adeline and threw himself at her feet, placing his head against the ground, and sobbing piteously. When she heard the unhappy man’s groans, Ermance turned and looked at him; terror yielded to pity.
“Oh! that poor man looks very unhappy, mamma,” she said to Adeline; “he causes me pain; let me help him to get up; I don’t feel afraid of him any more.”
Thereupon Edouard seized his daughter’s hand and pressed it affectionately in his, looking up at Adeline with an expression of which she understood the meaning.
“I forgive you,” she said to him; “oh! if you had offended no one but me! but your child, my daughter, she can never mention your name.”