“After what has just taken place,” he said at last, “an explanation
is necessary between us. I will be at your house in an hour. Wait
for me.”
M. Costeclar had become more pliable than his own lavender kid
gloves: in fact, alarmingly pliable.
“I am at your command, sir,” he replied to M. de Tregars.
And, bowing to the ground before Mlle. Gilberte, he left the parlor;
and, a few moments after, the street-door was heard to close upon him.
“Ah, what a wretch!” exclaimed the girl, dreadfully agitated.
“Marius, did you see what a look he gave us as he went out?”
“I saw it,” replied M. de Tregars.
“That man hates us: he will not hesitate to commit a crime to avenge
the atrocious humiliation you have just inflicted upon him.”
“I believe it too.”
Mlle. Gilberte made a gesture of distress.
“Why did you treat him so harshly?” she murmured.
“I had intended to remain calm, and it would have been politic to
have done so. But there are some insults which a man of heart
cannot endure. I do not regret what I have done.”
A long pause followed; and they remained standing, facing each other,
somewhat embarrassed. Mlle. Gilberte felt ashamed of the disorder
of her dress. M. de Tregars wondered how he could have been bold
enough to enter this house.
“You have heard of our misfortune,” said the young girl at last.
“I read about it this morning, in the papers.”
“What! the papers know already?”
“Every thing.”
“And our name is printed in them?”
“Yes.”
She covered her face with her two hands.
“What disgrace!” she said.
“At first,” went on M. de Tregars, “I could hardly believe what I
read. I hastened to come; and the first shopkeeper I questioned
confirmed only too well what I had seen in the papers. From that
moment, I had but one wish,--to see and speak to you. When I
reached the door, I recognized M. Costeclar’s equipage, and I had
a presentiment of the truth. I inquired from the concierge for
your mother or your brother, and heard that Maxence had gone out
a few moments before, and that Mme. Favoral had just left in a
carriage with M. Chapelain, the old lawyer. At the idea that you
were alone with Costeclar, I hesitated no longer. I ran up stairs,
and, finding the door open, had no occasion to ring.”
Mlle. Gilberte could hardly repress the sobs that rose to her throat.
“I never hoped to see you again,” she stammered; “and you’ll find
there on the table the letter I had just commenced for you when M.
Costeclar interrupted me.”
M. de Tregars took it up quickly. Two lines only were written. He
read: “I release you from your engagement, Marius. Henceforth you
are free.”
He became whiter than his shirt.
“You wish to release me from my engagement!” he exclaimed. “You--”
“Is it not my duty? Ah! if it had only been our fortune, I should
perhaps have rejoiced to lose it. I know your heart. Poverty would
have brought us nearer together. But it’s honor, Marius, honor that
is lost too! The name I bear is forever stained. Whether my father
is caught, or whether he escapes, he will be tried all the same,
condemned, and sentenced to a degrading penalty for embezzlement and
forgery.”
If M. de Tregars was allowing her to proceed thus, it was because he
felt all his thoughts whirling in his brain; because she looked so
beautiful thus, all in tears, and her hair loose; because there
arose from her person so subtle a charm, that words failed him to
express the sensations that agitated him.
“Can you,” she went on, “take for your wife the daughter of a
dishonored man? No, you cannot. Forgive me, then, for having for
a moment turned away your life from its object; forgive the sorrow
which I have caused you; leave me to the misery of my fate;
forget me!”
She was suffocating.
“Ah, you have never loved me!” exclaimed Marius.
Raising her hands to heaven,
“Thou hearest him, great God!” she uttered, as if shocked by a
blasphemy.
“Would it be easy for you to forget me then? Were I to be struck
by misfortune, would you break our engagement, cease to love me?”
She ventured to take his hands, and, pressing them between hers,
“To cease loving you no longer depends on my will,” she murmured
with quivering lips. “Poor, abandoned of all, disgraced, criminal
even, I should love you still and always.”
With a passionate gesture, Marius threw his arm around her waist,
and, drawing her to his breast, covered her blonde hair with
burning kisses.
“Well, ‘tis thus that I love you too!” he exclaimed, “and with all
my soul, exclusively, and for life! What do I care for your
parents? Do I know them? Your father--does he exist? Your name
--it is mine, the spotless name of the Tregars. You are my wife!
mine, mine!”
She was struggling feebly: an almost invincible stupor was creeping
over her. She felt her reason disturbed, her energy giving way, a
film before her eyes, the air failing to her heaving chest.
A great effort of her will restored her to consciousness. She
withdrew gently, and sank upon a chair, less strong against joy
than she had been against sorrow.
“Pardon me,” she stammered, “pardon me for having doubted you!”
M. de Tregars was not much less agitated than Mlle. Gilberte: but he
was a man; and the springs of his energy were of a superior temper.
In less than a minute he had fully recovered his self-possession
and imposed upon his features their accustomed expression. Drawing
a chair by the side of Mlle. Gilberte,
“Permit me, my friend,” he said, “to remind you that our moments are
numbered, and that there are many details which it is urgent that I
should know.”
“What details?” she asked, raising her head.
“About your father.”
She looked at him with an air of profound surprise.
“Do you not know more about it than I do?” she replied, “more than
my mother, more than any of us? Did you not, whilst following up
the people who robbed your father, strike mine unwittingly? And
‘tis I, wretch that I am, who inspired you to that fatal resolution;
and I have not the heart to regret it.”
M. de Tregars had blushed imperceptibly. “How did you know?” he
began.
“Was it not said that you were about to marry Mlle. de Thaller?”
He drew up suddenly.
“Never,” he exclaimed, “has this marriage existed, except in the
brain of M. de Thaller, and, more still, of the Baroness de Thaller.
That ridiculous idea occurred to her because she likes my name, and
would be delighted to see her daughter Marquise de Tregars. She
has never breathed a word of it to me; but she has spoken of it
everywhere, with just enough secrecy to give rise to a good piece
of parlor gossip. She went so far as to confide to several persons
of my acquaintance the amount of the dowry, thinking thus to
encourage me. As far as I could, I warned you against this false
news through the Signor Gismondo.”
“The Signor Gismondo relieved me of cruel anxieties,” she replied;
“but I had suspected the truth from the first. Was I not the
confidante of your hopes? Did I not know your projects? I had
taken for granted that all this talk about a marriage was but a
means to advance yourself in M. de Thaller’s intimacy without
awaking his suspicions.”