She rose and held out her hand. Jules took it as if it were the hand of a queen, bent over it, touched it respectfully with his lips, placed a hand on his heart, bowed again, then turned and went away without another word. He was only a garçon, as he had remarked, but then he was a Frenchman as well.
‘Poor fellow!’ said Madame De Vigne as she resumed her seat and took up her embroidery. ‘It is pleasant to know that there is a little gratitude left in the world; only I wish, somehow, that to-day, of all days, he had not spoken to me about a past which I so often pray that I might be able to forget. Was it not enough that the writing of that letter this morning should cause all my old wounds to bleed afresh, should call up one spectre after another which I would fain chain down for ever in the lowest dungeon of my memory! Yes, the letter is written which reveals the secret of my life—a secret unknown even to dear Clarice. What will he say, what will he do, when he has read it? I fear, and yet I hope. If I did not hope a little, I should be one of the most miserable women alive.’
She rose, opened her sunshade, and stepped down from the veranda on to the lawn. Here she paced slowly to and fro. For the time being she had that part of the grounds to herself.
‘Two months ago, he asked me to marry him, and I refused, although even then I had learned to love him. But how could I say Yes with that terrible secret clinging round me like a shroud? When he was gone, and I thought I had lost him for ever, I found out how dear he was to me. Five days ago he came again and told me that his feelings were still unchanged. My heart refused to say No, and yet I dreaded to say Yes. He went away unanswered. But to-day he is coming back—to-day must decide the happiness or misery of all my life to come.’ She sighed deeply, and closing her sunshade, went slowly back to her seat in the veranda.
‘He asks no questions, he seeks to know nothing of my past life. But if I were to marry him without telling him, and some day, by some strange chance, he were to learn the truth, would he not say that I had deceived him? Would not his love?—— No, no; I dare not. Come what may, he must know the truth before it is too late, and then if he—— O Harold, Harold! why have you taught me to love you so deeply!’
Her head drooped forward into her hands. She thought herself unseen; but her sister had entered the sitting-room unheard, and was now standing at the open window, gazing at her.
‘Mora dear, what is the matter? what is amiss? are you ill?’ she asked as she crossed to her sister. Then drawing up a footstool, she sat down on it, and took one of Mora’s hands in both hers.
‘The matter, dear! Nothing. What should be the matter?’ asked the latter with a fine assumption of indifference, but her under-lip trembled so much that she was fain to bite it.
‘That is just what I want to find out,’ answered Clarice. ‘For the last four days there has been a change in you, that puzzles me and makes me unhappy. You scarcely speak, you scarcely eat, you shut yourself up in your room; nothing seems to interest you. Since Colonel Woodruffe was here, you have been a changed woman.’
‘Colonel Woodruffe!’