"Do not reproach yourself, Ambroisine; was it your fault that the count found me—to his liking; and that I could not help feeling the most tender affection for him? You did all that you could do to keep me from loving him. You advised me like a mother. But the wound was inflicted—my heart had already ceased to be mine. It was no longer possible for me to shield myself against that love, which was stronger than my reason.—Ah! if you knew how sweet it is to love! Look you, even at this moment, when I am so miserably unhappy, I do not curse my troubles when I remember that it is for Léodgard that I am subjected to them!"
"And to think that I believed you to be cured of that love! Because for a long time you had not mentioned the letter that the count wrote you; you never asked me for it!"
"What need had I of the letter, when I could see every day the man who wrote it?—How shall I tell you, Ambroisine? My mother was away; all day long I could see him from the windows looking on the street. At night I was imprudent enough to go there still and look. And one night—I don't know how he did it—I found him there, before me, then at my feet, swearing that he would always love me; and I had not the courage to send him away."
"The harm is done and cannot be undone. Well?"
"Two months passed—oh, so quickly! My mother was still absent, and I saw Léodgard almost every night. How many times during those two months, when you came to see me, I was tempted to make you the confidante of my love and my sin! It was painful to me to have a secret from you, but he had enjoined upon me the strictest secrecy, he had made me promise that I would tell you nothing, and I did not want to disobey him.—At last, about a month ago, I learned that my mother was coming home. My blood ran cold with fear, and I begged Léodgard to delay no longer asking my parents for my hand. He promised to do it; but I have not seen him since that day! It is true that I ceased to be free of my movements in the house. My mother had returned; she watched me, kept me in sight, as before. For the last two days it seemed to me that she was harsher than ever with me; her face was dark; when her eyes met mine, I could not sustain them; I felt that I turned pale and trembled. More than once I was on the point of falling at her feet and confessing all. But I waited, I still hoped. I said to myself: 'To-day, perhaps, he who made me a guilty woman will come to ask my parents for my hand. And as the reparation will follow the confession of my sin, they will not refuse to forgive us.'"
"Yes," said Ambroisine, with a sigh; "but your seducer did not keep his promise!"
"Oh! he will keep it, Ambroisine; I refuse to doubt it. If he had known, if I had dared to tell him, that I was a mother, I am sure that he would have come before this to dry my tears! But I had not dared to make that confession to him before my mother's return parted us so abruptly."
"Ah! he does not know—— But finish your story, I beg you!"
"Mon Dieu! I have nothing left to tell but what took place at our house this evening. I was working with my mother, in a room away from the street. We were perfectly silent; but from time to time I saw that my mother's eyes were fixed on my person. I trembled lest she should discover what I still tried to conceal. But suddenly my father entered the room; and he, usually so kind and gentle, also had a lowering, troubled expression. He came to me and held out a white plume, which I recognized as one I had seen on Léodgard's hat.
"'Here,' he said, 'here is something that a lover of yours sends you! But the fellow will not be tempted to try it again, I fancy; for I treated him in a way to take away any such desire.'