"A misfortune?" I said.
"No, it is not precisely that. Besides, you shall judge for yourself.
My dear child, you have passed two or three evenings this week at the
chateau. Have you noticed nothing unusual, nothing peculiar, in the
attitude of the ladies?"
"Nothing."
"Have you not even noticed an unusual serenity in their appearance?"
"Perhaps I have. Allowing for the melancholy due to their recent
sorrow, they seemed calmer and happier than before."
"No doubt. Other things would have struck you if, like me, you had
lived in daily intimacy with them for fifteen years. Thus, I have
observed signs of some secret understanding and mysterious agreement
between them. Moreover, their habits have been largely altered. Mme.
Laroque has given up her _brasero_, her sentry-box, and all her little
Creole fancies. She rises at marvellous hours, and at daybreak instals
herself with Marguerite at the work-table. They are both taken with a
sudden passion for embroidery, and have ascertained how much a woman can
earn at that work in a day. In short, there is a riddle to which I
cannot find the answer. But it has been told me, and though I may be
intruding on your secrets, I thought it right to inform you at once."
I assured Mlle. Porhoet of my absolute confidence in her, and she
continued:
"Mme. Aubry came to see me this evening secretly. She began by throwing
her wretched arms round my neck, which displeased me very much. Then,
to the accompaniment of a thousand jeremiads about herself--which I will
spare you--she begged me to stop her relations on the brink of ruin.
This is what she has heard, through listening at doors, according to her
pretty habit: The ladies are trying to get permission to transfer all
their property to a community at Rennes, so as to do away with the
difference of fortune which separates you and Marguerite. As they can't
make you rich, they will make themselves poor. I thought it impossible
to let you remain ignorant of this determination, which is equally
worthy of those generous souls and of those Quixotic heads. You will
forgive my adding that it is your duty to put an end to this design at
any cost. I need not point out the regrets it will infallibly bring to
our friends, nor the terrible responsibility it will throw on you. That
you will see at a glance. If, my friend, you can from this moment
accept the hand of Marguerite, everything will end in the best way
possible. But in that respect you have tied yourself by an engagement
which is not the less binding because it was made imprudently and
blindly. There is then only one thing for you to do--to leave this
country and resolutely extinguish all the hopes that your presence here
must inevitably encourage. When you are no longer here I shall have less
difficulty in bringing these two children to reason."
"Very well. I am ready. I will go this very night."
"Good!" she said. "When I give you this advice I obey a very rigorous
law of honour. You have made the last moments of my long solitude
pleasant, and you have given me back the illusion of the sweet
attachments of life, which I had lost for so many years. In sending you
away I make my last sacrifice; it is immense."
She rose and looked at me for a moment without speaking.
"At my age we do not embrace young people," she continued, smiling
sadly; "we bless them. Adieu, dear child, and thank you. May God keep
you!"