Clement soon finished. Fleurange closed the great book before her, and resumed: “Do you remember our conversation in the garden a fortnight ago?”
“I do, most assuredly.”
“Well, after leaving you that evening, I passed the night in reflection, and ended by writing to the best, and, indeed, the only gentleman-friend I have in the world out of this house.”
“Dr. Leblanc?” said Clement, aware, of course, of all the circumstances that preceded his cousin’s arrival.
“Yes, Dr. Leblanc. I wrote him all I had just learned. I made known the situation my uncle and his family would soon be in, and my desire, my ardent desire, not only to cease to be a burden, but to fulfil a daughter’s duty with regard to them. His own daughters have other duties, now they are married, but I have only this, and it is one so precious—so precious,” repeated Fleurange in the soft tone that sometimes made her simplest words penetrate to the depths of the listener’s heart, “that I shall consider my life happy and well-spent if I can consecrate it entirely to this duty!”
Clement bent down his head, and took up his pen as if to correct a mistake on the paper before him. She must not see the effect of her words on his countenance—no! she must not.
“Well,” said he presently, without looking up, “what did Dr. Leblanc say?”
“Here, Clement, read the letter I received from him two days ago.”
Clement took the letter, but, while reading it, he was all at once filled with a similar anguish to that he experienced after the conversation that night in the garden which Fleurange had just alluded to. He was obliged to make a violent effort to restrain his feelings, and not tear the letter in his hands into a thousand pieces. Fortunately he succeeded, for it would have been the most foolish act he ever committed. And there was really nothing in Dr. Leblanc’s letter to justify such a mad desire. It read as follows: