Eugénie at first declined reading the letter. Then she took it with a pleasure she endeavored to conceal. Before reading it, she said:
"Why did you not tell me your friend was at St. M——?"
"I have been greatly preoccupied for some time, and I seldom see you, mademoiselle. It was in a manner impossible to tell you that my poor friend had come here to be quiet and gain new strength in solitude."
"I should have been pleased to see her." So saying, Eugénie, without appearing to attach any importance to it, read my letter from beginning to end.
Thus all Albert and Mme. Smithson's calculations were defeated. There is no need of my telling you the inference Louis' enemies had drawn from the interest he had manifested in the Vinceneau family.
"He left everything to save them, or rather, to save that girl," said Mme. Smithson. "He would have let us all perish rather than not save her."
My being at St. M——, and my letter, threw a very different light on everything. Thenceforth, Louis, dismissed by her father, and calumniated by her mother and Albert, was, in Eugénie's eyes, a victim. And he had risked his own life to save that of his friend. It is said that noble hearts, especially those of women, regard the rôle of victim as an attractive one.
When Eugénie left Louis, there was in the expression of her eyes, and in the tone of her voice, something so friendly and compassionate that he felt happier than he had for a long time.... To obtain this interview, Eugénie had been obliged to evade not only her mother's active vigilance, but that of her cousin and Fanny. This vigilance, suspended for a moment, became more active than ever during the following days. It was impossible to speak to Louis; but she saw him sometimes, and their eyes spoke intelligibly....
The water receded in the course of a week. Louis profited thereby to come and see me, and make me a sharer in his joy. I was then somewhat better. I passed the night of the inundation in fearful suffering, but felt relieved the following day. My dreadful attack of paralysis did not occur till some weeks afterwards. I little thought then I had symptoms of the seizure that has rendered my life so painful.
The refugees were still living at the manufactory, the Vinceneau family among them. Louis had scarcely returned to his room that night, when he heard a low knock at his door, and Madeleine Vinceneau presented herself before him.