"'What step?' I cried; 'What are you going to do? You are ready dressed for a journey; you don't mean to go and leave the house in this way, in the dark and cold? Your brother has not come back to fetch you.'"
"'I am going to him,' she said; 'I am going to beg him to take me away with him--to the very end of the world, rather than leave me here. Oh! that I had only had the courage to do so sooner! Miserable I might have been, for I should have left my heart behind me, but I should not have been sinful; and I could have looked you bravely in the face and said good-bye to you, my dear kind friend, who have been a mother to me. I know you will forgive me for all I have done, you are so good and pitiful. But now you will shiver when you hear my name, and when you think of one who has been the cause of all this misery, and made your darling feel the greatest pain a man can feel. Dear Mamsell Flor, only yesterday he told me that he loved me,--and I ... for many months I have been his father's--'
"She stopped, as if in horror at the sound of her own words; and I who but yesterday had been so full of rage and hate, Sir, a daughter of my own could hardly have melted me so soon. She stood before me the very picture of wretchedness, her bosom heaving, her eyes drooping, as though she could not bear one ray of light to fall upon her and her miserable lost life. I sat like one struck dumb, and at last, only to say something:
"'Won't you take a seat?' I said, 'You have a long way to go;' and then immediately I blushed at my own silliness--such foolish words, you know. Sir,--so out of place. But she did not seem to hear me. After a pause, she said:
"'I did what I could to save myself in time; you know that. I plainly saw my danger--plainly--I am not naturally careless. I am not a giddy girl, dear Flor. I walked into this with open eyes--that is, I thought I knew the path I had chosen; I little dreamed that it could lead to this. Did I say with open eyes? Yet I think they might be blinded by my tears. I cried so terribly when I saw his wound, and knew it was for me. He had often tried to make me love him, and I had told him more than once that I never would be his, except as his wedded wife--that I could never be, he told me; he had a son who was not to be defrauded of his inheritance, and who would be shocked if he gave him a young stepmother. 'As it is, we never can agree,' he said; 'and this would bring us to an open rupture.' He took some trouble to make this very plain to me, but he never succeeded in altering my resolution. I had never heard of what he called a conscience-marriage, and all my principles rose up against it--not to speak of my pride, that revolted at the secresy. If two persons are worthy of each other, I thought, and their consciences worthy of being called to witness what they do, why should there be secret?
"'I was in sore trouble day and night, and God knows how I struggled, Flor! To hear that proud man--naturally so violent and so imperious--to hear him beg and beseech, and to see him suffer, and to go on living here in this solitary wilderness beside him, without a soul to help me, or any counsel, save my own weak heart--it was hard to bear, it was terrible! and it was worse when he never spoke to me at all for months, nor even looked at me; and all the while I could see how his dumb passion was wearing him out; and then at last the blood from that wound!--then I did feel my courage spent, and I gave myself up. Dear Flor, if there really be a woman's pride, that could have taken her through all this unmoved--ordeals, I may say, by fire and water--if there be such courage, I hardly think I could covet it!
"'We took an oath,' she went on; 'we pledged ourselves to eternal constancy and to secresy. My mind was at peace--happy I was not. Not that I ever doubted him, whatever he may have done--and indeed he never tried to make me think better of him than others. This I know--never will he love another woman now, nor I another man. But there was always a heavy presentiment of evil that was to come--and now it has come, and my life is at an end.
"'It is not possible for me to remain where I am,' she continued; 'between father and son. If Count Ernest had come back, and found me as his father's lawful wife, he would have smothered his boyish flame at once, and all would have been plain and open. But now this wretched secresy has borne its bitter fruits! I have prayed to God to guide me, and I am resolved to take it all upon myself, and by leaving the house at once, to save what there is yet to save. If I were to die, it would be the best thing I could do for all of us, and so I must anticipate death, and take myself away, never to be heard of more. I will tell my brother all, and that shall be my penance. I do not mean to spare myself, for henceforth I shall have to live all my days alone. But it will be a comfort to me, dear Flor, to think that you remember me and have a kindly feeling for me!'
"I held her hand and stroked her cheek; 'I will never forget you, dear,' I said: 'Wherever you go, my heart will follow you;' and it quite moved me to see a faint rose return to her pale cheeks, with pleasure at hearing me speak so. She drew a deep breath, as if a load had been taken off her mind; and then she begged me to keep her flight a secret. Afterwards, when it was no longer to be concealed, I was to say that she had gone to her brother to persuade him to go back to England quietly, and that perhaps she would not come back that night.
"'When I am safe across the channel, I will write to the count; she said; 'and as for you, my best and dearest friend, I shall always think of your love and goodness for me to my dying day.'