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Page 29
CHAPTER VIII.
"I AM A DISGRACED WOMAN."
ROZEL, _October 10_.
Here I am back in my cell, my friend. Why did I ever leave it? Never has
a man felt a more troubled heart beat between these cold walls, than
my own wretched heart! Ah! I will not curse our poor human reason, our
philosophy; are they not, after all, the noblest and best conquests of our
nature? But, great Heaven! how little they amount to! What unreliable
guides, and what feeble supports! Listen to a sad story: Yesterday,
thanks to Madame de Malouet, I remained alone at the chateau the
whole day and the whole evening. I was therefore as much at peace as
it was possible for me to be. Toward midnight I heard the carriages
returning, and soon after all noise ceased. It was, I think, about three
o'clock in the morning when I was aroused from the species of torpor that
has stood me in lieu of sleep for the past few nights, by the sound quite
close to me, of a door cautiously opened or closed in the yard. I know
not by what strange and sudden connection of ideas so simple an
incident attracted my attention and disturbed my mind. I left abruptly
the arm-chair in which I had been slumbering, and I went up to a
window. I distinctly saw a man moving off with discreet steps in the
direction of the avenue. I had no difficulty in satisfying myself that the
door through which he had just passed, was that which gives access to
the wing of the chateau contiguous to the library. This part of the house
contains several rooms devoted to transient guests; I knew that all were
vacant at this moment, unless Madame de Palme, as it often happened,
had occupied for the night the lodging that was always set apart for her
in that wing.
You may guess what strange thought floated across my brain. I repelled it
at first as sheer madness; but remembering, within the field of my
somewhat extended experience, certain facts that lent probability to that
thought, I entertained it with a sort of cynical irony, and I was almost
ready to admit it, as an odious but decisive denouement. The early dawn
found me struggling still in this mental anguish, calling up my
recollections, examining in a childish way the most minute circumstances
that might tend to confirm or to banish my suspicions. Excess of fatigue,
brought on at last two hours of prostration, from which I emerged with a
better command of my reason. It was impossible for me to doubt the reality
of the apparition that had struck my eyes during the night; but it
appeared to me that I had put upon it a hasty and senseless construction,
and that my ailing spirit had attributed to it the least likely
explanation.
I went down at half past ten o'clock as usual. Madame de Palme was in the
parlor; she must therefore have spent the night at the chateau.
Nevertheless, a mere glance at her was enough to remove from my mind the
very shadow of suspicion. She was talking quietly in the center of a
group. She greeted me with her usual gentle smile. I felt relieved of an
immense weight. I was escaping a torment of such a painful and bitter
nature, that the positive impression of my previous grief, freed from the
disgraceful complications with which I had for a moment thought it
aggravated, appeared almost pleasant. Never had my heart rendered to this
woman a more tender and more sincere homage. I was grateful to her from
the bottom of my soul, for having restored purity to my wound and to my
memory.
The afternoon was to be devoted to a horseback ride along the sea-shore.
In the effusion of heart that succeeded the anxieties of the night, I
yielded quite readily to the entreaties of Monsieur de Malouet, who,
arguing on my approaching departure, was urging me to accompany him on
this excursion. It was about two o'clock when our cavalcade, recruited as
usual by a few young men of the neighborhood, marched out of the chateau's
gate. We had been traveling merrily for a few minutes, and I was not the
least merry of the band, when Madame de Palme suddenly came to take her
place by my side.
"I am about to be guilty of a base deed," she said; "and yet, I had so
strongly resolved--but I am choking!"
I looked at her; the haggard expression of her eyes and of her features
suddenly struck me with terror.
"Well!" she went on, in a voice of which I shall never forget the tone,
"you have willed it so! I am a disgraced woman!"
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