Fifteen years since then, is it? Why, it scarcely seems as many months. How well I remember it, and yet my schoolboy days ended long ago, and now I am a staid married man. My wife, to tell the truth, is sitting near me as I write, and now and then she comes and looks over my shoulder at what I have written, saying with a smile that she wonders how I can exaggerate as I have done once or twice. I turn the tables on her by replying that instead of being a help to me, she is my greatest hindrance, for as long as she is in the room I am always neglecting my work to look at her. And that is the truth. I am continually looking at her, because, to my mind, she is the prettiest picture one can look at. She has soft brown hair, with here and there a gleam of gold, bright hazel eyes, and a gentle face without a trace of ill-humour. It is true you may see on her forehead the faintest traces of a scar, but then, I say, it is a beauty-mark. Sometimes she says, in a make-believe solemn way, that she wonders how I could have married any one with one arm stiff and good for nothing. But I know she is only joking, for I don’t think her arm is a whit worse now than any one else’s.
But I am not the only one who worships her. There are her two brothers, for instance, who are quite as foolish as I am. The elder of them is a lieutenant in the navy, and he misses no opportunity of sending her wonderful treasures and curiosities, which he collects for her on his travels. Before long, our modest-sized dwelling will be a storehouse of marvels. The other, a young lawyer, who lives with his widowed mother, is a perfectly infatuated brother, and under one pretext or another is always coming to see that all is going well with his idol. I tell him sometimes, laughingly, that I shall become jealous if this sort of thing goes on; that I shall forbid him the house, and bar the doors against him! But my threats are of little use; for he says that neither husband nor bolts nor bars shall prevent his coming, like a loyal subject, to pay allegiance to Queen Margerie. For the one slender chance did prevail, and my story ends happily after all.
ONE WOMAN’S HISTORY.
CHAPTER IV.
The day was an hour older. The heat of the afternoon sun was tempered by a fresh breeze from the hills, which had sprung up a little while ago. The windows of Madame De Vigne’s sitting-room stood wide open, and the curtains waved to and fro in the breeze, but the room itself was empty.
In a little while a sound of knocking was heard; but there being no response, the door was presently opened, and Jules, followed by Lady Renshaw and Miss Wynter, entered the room.
‘Pardon, milady, but Madame De Vigne is not here,’ said Jules.
At this moment Nanette, madame’s maid, entered the room, seeing which, Jules made his exit. ‘You wish to see madame?’ inquired Nanette.
‘When she is at liberty,’ said her ladyship graciously.
‘What name shall I give madame?’