Chapter Ten.
Confession.
Next day, when the manservant asked me into the tiny boudoir in the Rue de Courcelles, I found Yolande, in a pretty tea-gown of cream silk adorned with lace and ribbons, seated in an armchair in an attitude of weariness. The sun-shutters were closed, as on the previous day, for the heat in Paris that July was insufferable, and in the dim light her wan figure looked very fair and fragile. The qualities which imparted to her a distinct individuality were the beautiful combination of the pastoral with the elegant—of simplicity with elevation—of spirit with sweetness.
She gave vent to a cry of gladness as I entered, rose, and stretching out her hands in welcome, drew a seat for me close to her. I looked at her standing before me in her warm, breathing, human loveliness.
“You are better, Yolande? Ah! how glad I am!” I commenced. “Last night I believed that you were dead.”
“And if I had died would it really have mattered so very much to you?” she asked in a low, intense voice. “You have forgotten me for three whole years until now.”
“I know—I know!” I cried. “Forgive me.”
“I have already forgiven,” she said, allowing her hand still to remain in mine. “But I have been thinking to-day—thinking ever so much.”
Her voice was weak and faltering, and I saw that she was not herself.
“Thinking of what?”