She added she knew the oaths of such as she were not believed, yet she could swear she knew nothing of Armand’s collecting his fortune into his own hands; but M. Duval, still being in doubt, she nervously took from a drawer a folded paper, and gave it into his hands.
It was a paper on which she had noted down what each of her valuables would probably realize; and, as her visitor had come without warning, he saw that she could not have prepared it in anticipation of his present visit. Then, believing her words were true, he began to show a courtesy to her which an hour before he would not have dreamed of using. Indeed, he expressed himself sorry that he had entered so abruptly, and told her that he thought, perhaps, she had a good heart after all. “And,” he added, “perhaps so good that it will prompt you to make a sacrifice greater than all you have yet made.”
She trembled violently; but strong in his duty, the old man went mercilessly on.
Gradually as he proceeded, the place grew dark around her; gradually all happiness drifted away, and she was left tossing about on a sea of troubles quite alone, with no guide, no hope.
He began by saying he had more than one child—he had a daughter, whose happiness rested on her brother’s will. She might be married, but on one condition—that her brother led an honest life. As Marguerite covered her mouth, that she might save herself from hearing her own cry of terror, he added, that away in the provinces, they looked more severely on sin than they did in large cities; and indeed he had that morning received a letter from the father of his daughter’s proposed husband, which peremptorily said that if Armand did not at once break off his connexion with Marguerite, all intercourse between the families must immediately cease. “See,” he continued, “refined as you may have become, even in my eyes, by your affection for my son, the world will only look on your past life, and will forever close its doors to you.”
She said she comprehended, and would obey him. She must leave his son for a time—only for a time? And he might write to her?
He required more—she must leave his son altogether—for good.
She said, “Never, never!” And with pardonable selfishness she cried, “that dying, as she was, having but a few years of life left she had built upon these few years for peace and love near the man who had reclaimed her. To leave him, it would kill her.”
“No, no my child, not kill you. Let us be calm and do not let us exaggerate. You take for a mortal disease that which is but the fatigue of a weary life; you will not die before that age when we are all prepared to die, I hope. I may seem severe, but consider that you have known my son but for three months, and I will believe that you love him; but shall your love supplant ours? Shall your love destroy a whole future, for in staying near my son, you do destroy his future. And again, are you sure this love will last? Are you sure of yourself? And if now, a little later, you should dethrone him. And, pardon me—your past justifies the supposition. Again, can he be sure of himself? Can you both, at your ages, be sure of yourselves—of your hearts. Consider this—he who loves you so now, but a little time gone by poured out his wealth of love on us at home. Hearts will change—does not a man love his wife more than he loves his parents? Then his children more than his wife? If nature gives prodigally, she extorts rigorously. I say, you may be deceiving yourselves, both of you. This is a probability. Now will you see realities—certainties, for you are listening to me, are you not?”
She answered him but with a look; a long, terrible, miserable look.