“If I were to tell you, you would repeat it to him when he comes back.”
“No, I promise you.”
“Swear it on your mother’s sacred memory.”
“I swear.”
Thus reassured, the old woman came close up to her bed; and, in an
animated but low voice, she said,--
“Well, I mean this: if you accept now what Papa Ravinet will offer you,
in six months you will be worse than any of Mrs. Hilaire’s girls. Ah!
don’t tell me ‘I do not mean to touch him.’ The old rascal has ruined
more than one who was just as good as you are. That’s his business; and,
upon my word! he understands it. Now, forewarned, forearmed. I am going
down to make you a soup. I’ll be back at night. And above all, you hear,
not a word!”
By one word Mrs. Chevassat had plunged Henrietta once more into an abyss
of profound despair.
“Great God!” she said to herself, “why must the generous assistance of
this old man be a new snare for me?”
With her elbow resting on her pillow, her forehead supported by her
hand, her eyes streaming with tears, she endeavored to gather her ideas,
which seemed to be scattered to the four winds, like the leaves of
trees after a storm; when a modest, dry cough aroused her from her
meditations.
She trembled, and raised her head.
In the framework of the open door stood a man of mature age and of
medium height, looking at her.
It was Papa Ravinet, who, after a long conversation with the concierge,
and after some words with his amiable wife, had come up to inquire after
his patient. She guessed at it, rather than she knew; for, although she
lived in the same house with him, she was not in the same part of the
building, and she scarcely recollected having caught a glimpse of him
now and then in crossing the yard.
“That,” she thought, “is the man who plots my ruin, the wretch whom I am
to avoid.”
Now, it is true that this man, with his mournful face, his huge,
brushlike eyebrows, and his small, yellow eyes, startling by their
incessant activity, had for the observer something enigmatical about
him, and therefore did not inspire much confidence.
Nevertheless, Henrietta thanked him none the less heartily, although
greatly embarrassed, for his readiness to help her, his kind care, and
his generosity in providing every thing she wanted.
“Oh! you owe me no thanks,” he said. “I have only done my duty, and that
very imperfectly.”
And at once, in a rather grim manner, he began to tell her that what he
had done was nothing in comparison with what he meant to do. He had but
too well guessed what had led Henrietta to attempt suicide; he had only
to look around her room. But he swore she should have nothing more to
fear from want as long as he was there.
But, the more earnest and pressing the good man became in his
protestations, the more Henrietta drew back within her usual reserve;
her mind being filled with the prejudices instilled by Mrs. Chevassat.
Fortunately he was a clever man, the old dealer; and by means of not
saying what might shock her, and by saying much that could not fail to
touch her, he gradually regained his position. He almost conquered her
when he returned to her the letters she had written before making her
dreadful preparations, and when she saw that they looked unhurt,
and sealed as before. Thus, when he left her, after half an hour’s
diplomatic intercourse, he had obtained from the poor young girl the
promise that she would not renew the attempt at her life, and that she
would explain to him by what fatal combination of circumstances she had
been reduced to such extreme suffering.
“You would not hesitate,” he said, “if you knew how easy it often is, by
a little experience, to arrange the most difficult matters.”
Henrietta did not hesitate. A thought which had occurred to her as soon
as she found herself alone had brought her to this conclusion: “If Papa
Ravinet were really what Mrs. Chevassat says, that bad woman would not
have warned me against him. If she tries to keep me from accepting the
old man’s assistance, she no doubt finds it to her advantage that I
should do so.”
When she tried, after that, to examine as coolly as she could the
probable consequences of her decision, she found enormous chances in
her favor. If Papa Ravinet was sincere, she might be enabled to wait for
Daniel; if he was not sincere, what did she risk? She who had not feared
death itself need not fear any thing else. Lucretia’s dagger will always
protect a brave woman’s liberty.
But still, in spite of the pressing need she had for rest, her promise
kept her awake for the greater part of the night; for she passed in her
mind once more over the whole lamentable story of her sufferings, and
asked herself what she might confess to, and what she ought to withhold
from the old dealer. Had he not already discovered, by the address of
one of her letters, that she was the daughter of Count Ville-Handry? And
just that she would have liked to keep him from knowing. On the other
hand, was it not foolish to ask the advice of a man to whom we will not
confess the whole truth?
“I must tell him all,” she said, “or nothing.” And, after a moment’s
reflection, she added,--“I will tell him all, and keep nothing back.”
She was in this disposition, when in the morning, about nine o’clock,
Papa Ravinet reappeared in her room. He looked very pale, the old man;
and the expression of his face, and the tone of his voice, betrayed an
emotion which he could scarcely control, together with deep anxiety.
“Well?” he asked forgetting in his preoccupation to inquire even how the
poor girl had passed the night.