“Ah! and this girl is your kinswoman, or perhaps even more than that? Why shrink from admitting it? Men do many foolish things in their youth; they should never be ashamed to try to atone for them.”
“You are mistaken, madame; this girl is no connection of mine; and yet, it is my duty to stand in a father’s place to her, for I had the misfortune to deprive her of her father—in a duel.”
“In a duel! Ah! I guessed as much; I understand it all now!”
“What? what did you guess?”
“This duel took place in the ravine yonder, by your estate of the Tower.”
“That is true, madame. But who can have told you?”
“We had heard the story of a young man being found dead on that spot; no one knew whether he had been attacked there, but he had not been robbed; so that it was presumable that he was killed in a duel.”
“Yes, madame, yes. Ah! that is the deed for which I can never forgive myself; for that unfortunate man had never offended me—he was the victim of an execrable plot. A woman—but I am not sure that one should give that name to such a monster of wickedness!—I loved her, I loved her madly! Our liaison had lasted three years. I was young, rich, independent; my father, Monsieur Duronceray, had left me more than thirty thousand francs a year, so that I could afford to make every sacrifice for that woman; I would have gone so far as to give her my hand and my name. But that woman deceived me. A man whom I believed to be my friend was secretly her lover; but in order to turn aside my suspicions more effectually, she played the flirt with other men; with one, among others, of whom I was jealous—for he was well adapted to seduce! he was young and rich and had every quality likely to attract and charm a woman. Ah! if he had chosen to respond to that woman’s allurements, I am sure that she would have asked nothing better than to number him among her lovers. And it was to revenge herself for his indifference that she made him her victim.—But I ought to have been enlightened as to the real sentiments of those who surrounded me. My faithful Ami, my brave companion, had never been willing to bestow the slightest caress on the woman who betrayed me; far from it! he always manifested such an aversion for her, that I had ceased to take him with me when I went to see her. Whereas, whenever I was with that young man whom I believed to be my rival, Ami would run to him and display as much friendly feeling as he displayed just now for you. But at that time I did not know that the dog was so skilful in divining the sentiments that people entertained for his master; I attributed his behavior to caprice, and drew no other inference from it.
“At last, on a certain day—a fatal day, which I cannot recall without a shudder!—this woman, by the way, had hired a small country house near the village of Couberon—I went to her house in Paris; not finding her there, I suspected that she was in the country, and I hastened thither, torn in advance by a thousand suspicions, for she was not in the habit of going to Couberon without me.—I arrived. A lady’s maid, who was doing sentry duty, saw me in the distance and hastened to warn her mistress. She instantly dismissed her lover, and learning that Comte Adhémar had just arrived——”
“Comte Adhémar! was that the name you said, monsieur?” cried Honorine, in the most intense excitement.