“A lofty and noble air, a remarkable physiognomy, and a grave and sonorous voice,” replied Fleurange. “But, in spite of the gratitude I perhaps owe him, the remembrance of his visit always troubles and depresses me.”
“Why so?” said Josephine.
“Because it was the cause of the last and fatal crisis of my father’s malady, who at that time even could not bear the slightest agitation. I do not know the words the stranger murmured as he glanced at me, but they greatly excited my father, who requested me in a tremulous voice to leave the studio. As a general thing, he never allowed me to enter it at the hour for visitors. The evening of that day he spoke to me in an agitated manner of the lone condition in which I should soon be left, and gave me some incoherent counsels, which were his last words. He never recovered his full mind after that.”
“Poor man!” said the doctor; but he did not pursue the subject that led to this account. Fleurange’s fleeting blush disappeared, and she was again pale and calm as before, her pen in hand ready to correct her letter according to the doctor’s advice. After a final deliberation between the young girl and her elderly friends, it was decided that the letter should be sent after it was signed Gabrielle d’Yves.
III.
The day Margaret married Gerard d’Yves, the aged Sigismund Dornthal blotted out his daughter’s name from his will, and gave orders that it should never be uttered in his presence. Notwithstanding this, softened by illness, and urged by his second son Ludwig, Margaret’s favorite brother, he soon consented to send her his forgiveness and blessing, but when they reached Pisa poor Margaret had just expired! In the fury of his despair, which increased the impetuosity and thoughtlessness of his character, Gerard tore up the letter containing the long-delayed pardon, and only replied in these two words: “Too late!”
It was thus the aged Dornthal was informed of his daughter’s death. He himself died shortly after, ignorant of the existence of the child to whom she had given birth. His property was divided between his two sons, but Ludwig, devoted to study, and already in possession of a professor’s chair at Leipsic, entirely abandoned to his elder brother the administration of their common fortune, and Heinrich Dornthal became the sole head of the commercial and banking houses founded by Sigismund. He thenceforth made use of his brother’s capital as well as his own, paying him regularly his income, without any interference in his business on Ludwig’s part. The latter was at the same time pursuing so brilliant a career as to attract the attention of all the learned men of Germany to his labors. One of these, a resident of Frankfort, invited him to pass at his house the annual vacations of the numerous students who attended his lectures. The result of these visits was that this professor’s daughter became Ludwig Dornthal’s wife, and, in the course of time, the
mother of his five children. The professor, when he married, resigned his position at Leipsic to settle in his wife’s native place. There, free from a professor’s duties, he had leisure to write books that constantly added to his reputation and increased his income, which the flourishing business of the commercial house alone made sufficient.
Such was, in a few words, the condition of the new home that awaited Fleurange. A second letter came promptly in reply to hers. Her uncle expressed the liveliest joy at having found her, and invited her very particularly to arrive at Frankfort in time for Christmas, so dear to the Germans as the time of family reunions. To do this she would have to leave Paris, at the very latest, on the twenty-first of December, for at that time it took three days and nights for the journey to Frankfort. The doctor and his sister, though sorry to part with their young protégée, hastened the preparations for her departure. They were touched by the cordial tone of this unknown uncle’s letters, and predicted a happy life for her in his family, which they did not wish to defer. But every day added to their attachment to Fleurange and to her tender gratitude to them.
“If this continued a week longer,” said the doctor, “I could not part with that child.”