"You mean Clementine Sucaret? People coupled our names without cause,"
I replied coldly, almost cruelly. Yet I knew she spoke the truth.
"And I--I am mad," she whispered.
I rose and looked at her. She was still seated, her eyes riveted upon
the fire, her cheek resting upon her hand, appearing to have forgotten
my presence. For a moment I remained in that position, then I reseated
myself. There was nothing awkward in our silence. We felt too deeply
for idle words. As we contemplated our past, the wind whistled without,
the rain fell furiously, and from time to time I added a log to the fire
and stirred the embers.
"Theophile," she exclaimed suddenly, looking me straight in the face,
"it is your fault that I am married."
"Married?" I gasped in amazement. "I--I thought this cottage was your
aunt's; that you kept house for her?"
There was a silence. The voice made me tremble, gay, careless idler
that I was. She spoke slowly, without moving, as though giving
utterance to the thought that possessed her. "When a woman is forsaken
by the man she loves, who can blame her for a hasty, loveless marriage?"
she asked. "You wrecked my life, Theophile, but I forgive you freely.
After you had left, I was stricken down with grief, madness followed,
and I accepted the first man who proposed to me. I did not love him;
I--I shall never love him. And how could I? He is a dissolute
ne'er-do-well, who spends his days in the _estaminet_, drinking cognac.
It is I who am compelled to toil and earn money for him to spend in
drink. Ah, Theophile, you little know how dull and utterly hopeless is
my life!"
"But your husband, does he not try and make you happy?" I asked.
"Happy?" she cried, jumping to her feet and impetuously tearing open the
bodice of her dress. "See! See, here; the marks of his violence, where
he tried to murder me!" And she disclosed to my view her delicate
breast disfigured by an ugly knife-wound, only partially healed.
"Horrible!" I exclaimed, with an involuntary shudder.
"That is not all," she continued, turning up her sleeves and revealing
cruel bruises and lacerations upon her alabaster-like arms. "He wants
to rid himself of me, to be free again; and when the brandy takes
effect, he threatens to kill me."
"Why stay and be brutally ill-used in this manner?" I asked.
Shrugging her shoulders, she smiled sadly, replying, "If I were dead, it
would end my misery. Should he ever know that you have been here, his
jealousy would be so aroused that I believe he would carry his threat
into effect."
"Come, come, Mariette, you must not talk like that," I exclaimed. "It
grieves me to know of your unhappiness, to think that I am to blame."
"Remember, I forgive you."
"Yes, but try to bear up against it; do your duty to your husband, and
thus compel him to treat you kindly."
"I have tried to do so, Heaven knows," she replied hoarsely, bursting
into tears; "But everything is useless. Only death can release me."
"Don't talk so gloomily," I urged, taking one of her cold hands in mine.
"Although we can be naught to one another save friends, let me be
yours. I am ready to do anything you command me."
"You are kind, Theophile, very kind," she replied bitterly, shaking her
head; "but friendship is poor reparation for love."
I thought of the years we had passed together at the time when years are
so long and beautiful.