My Dear Daniel,--I need two witnesses for my marriage. I beg of you to
come to-morrow evening for this purpose, bringing with you our worthy
and honored friend, Joseph Bridau. She who is to be my wife, with an
instinctive divination of my dearest wishes, has declared her intention
of living far from the world in complete retirement. You, who have done
so much to lighten my penury, have been left in ignorance of my love;
but you will understand that absolute secrecy was essential.
This will explain to you why it is that, for the last year, we have seen
so little of each other. On the morrow of my wedding we shall be
parted for a long time; but, Daniel, you are of stuff to understand me.
Friendship can subsist in the absence of the friend. There may be times
when I shall want you badly, but I shall not see you, at least not in
my own house. Here again _she_ has forestalled our wishes. She has
sacrificed to me her intimacy with a friend of her childhood, who has
been a sister to her. For her sake, then, I also must relinquish my
comrade!
From this fact alone you will divine that ours is no mere passing
fancy, but love, absolute, perfect, godlike; love based upon the fullest
knowledge that can bind two hearts in sympathy. To me it is a perpetual
spring of purest delight.
Yet nature allows of no happiness without alloy; and deep down, in the
innermost recess of my heart, I am conscious of a lurking thought, not
shared with her, the pang of which is for me alone. You have too often
come to the help of my inveterate poverty to be ignorant how desperate
matters were with me. Where should I have found courage to keep up the
struggle of life, after seeing my hopes so often blighted, but for your
cheering words, your tactful aid, and the knowledge of what you had come
through? Briefly, then, my friend, she freed me from that crushing load
of debt, which was no secret to you. She is wealthy, I am penniless.
Many a time have I exclaimed, in one of my fits of idleness, "Oh for
some great heiress to cast her eye on me!" And now, in presence of
this reality, the boy's careless jest, the unscrupulous cynicism of the
outcast, have alike vanished, leaving in their place only a bitter sense
of humiliation, which not the most considerate tenderness on her part,
nor my own assurance of her noble nature, can remove. Nay, what better
proof of my love could there exist, for her or for myself, than this
shame, from which I have not recoiled, even when powerless to overcome
it? The fact remains that there is a point where, far from protecting, I
am the protected.
This is my pain which I confide to you.
Except in this one particular, dear Daniel, my fondest dreams are more
than realized. Fairest and noblest among women, such a bride might
indeed raise a man to giddy heights of bliss. Her gentle ways are
seasoned with wit, her love comes with an ever-fresh grace and charm;
her mind is well informed and quick to understand; in person, she is
fair and lovely, with a rounded slimness, as though Raphael and Rubens
had conspired to create a woman! I do not know whether I could have
worshiped with such fervor at the shrine of a dark beauty; a brunette
always strikes me as an unfinished boy. She is a widow, childless, and
twenty-seven years of age. Though brimful of life and energy, she has
her moods also of dreamy melancholy. These rare gifts go with a proud
aristocratic bearing; she has a fine presence.
She belongs to one of those old families who make a fetich of rank, yet
loves me enough to ignore the misfortune of my birth. Our secret passion
is now of long standing; we have made trial, each of the other, and find
that in the matter of jealousy we are twin spirits; our thoughts are the
reverberation of the same thunderclap. We both love for the first time,
and this bewitching springtime has filled its days for us with all the
images of delight that fancy can paint in laughing, sweet, or musing
mood. Our path has been strewn with the flowers of tender imaginings.
Each hour brought its own wealth, and when we parted, it was to put our
thoughts in verse. Not for a moment did I harbor the idea of sullying
the brightness of such a time by giving the rein to sensual passion,
however it might chafe within. She was a widow and free; intuitively,
she realized all the homage implied in this constant self-restraint,
which often moved her to tears. Can you not read in this, my friend, a
soul of noble temper? In mutual fear we shunned even the first kiss of
love.
"We have each a wrong to reproach ourselves with," she said one day.
"Where is yours?" I asked.
"My marriage," was her reply.
Daniel, you are a giant among us and you love one of the most gifted
women of the aristocracy, which has produced my Armande; what need to
tell you more? Such an answer lays bare to you a woman's heart and all
the happiness which is in store for your friend, MARIE GASTON.