Le Monsieur De La Petite Dame | Page 9

floor. Now will you read it?"
"Good God!" he cried, as he fell into his chair again, his brow sinking
into his hands.
"I have read it," said Madame, with a tragic gesture, "and I choose to
place one stumbling-block in the path that would lead her to an old age
like mine. I do not like your Americans; but I have sometimes seen in
her girl's face a proud, heroic endurance of the misery she has brought
upon herself, and it has moved me. And this let ter--you should read it,
to see how such a man can plead. It is a passionate cry of despair--it is a
poem in itself. I, myself, read it with sobs in my throat and tears in my
eyes. 'If you love me!--if you have ever loved me!' he cries, 'for God's
sake!--for love's sake!--if there is love on earth--if there is a God in
heaven, you will not let me implore you in vain!' And his prayer is that
she will leave Paris with him tonight--. to-night! There! Monsieur, I
have done. Behold the letter! Take it or leave it, as you please." And
she flung it upon the floor at his feet.
She paused a moment, wondering what he would do.
He bent down and picked the letter up.

"I will take it," he said.
All at once he had become calm, and when he rose and uttered his last
words to her, there was upon his face a faint smile.
"I, too," he said,--"I, too, Madame, suffer from a mad and hopeless
passion, and thus can comprehend the bitterness of M. Edmondstone's
pangs. I, too, would implore in the name of love and God,--if I might,
but I may not." And so he took his departure.
Until evening Bertha did not see him. The afternoon she spent alone
and in writing letters, and having completed and sealed the last, she
went to her couch and tried to sleep. One entering the room, as she lay
upon the violet cushions, her hands at her sides, her eyes closed, might
well have been shocked. Her spotless pallor, the fine sharpness of her
face, the shadows under her eyes, her motionlessness, would have
excused the momentary feeling. But she was up and dressed for dinner
when M. Villefort presented himself. Spring though it was, she was
attired in a high, close dress of black velvet, and he found her almost
cowering over the open fire-place. Strangely enough, too, she fancied
that when she looked up at him she saw him shiver, as if he were struck
with a slight chill also.
"You should not wear that," he said, with a half smile at her gown.
"Why?" she asked.
"It makes you so white--so much like a too early lily. But--but perhaps
you thought of going out?"
"No," she answered; "not to-night."
He came quite close to her.
"If you are not too greatly fatigued," he said, "it would give me
happiness to take you with me on my errand to your mother's house. I
must carry there my little birthday gift to your sister," smiling again.

An expression of embarrassment showed itself upon her face.
"Oh," she exclaimed, "to think that I had forgotten it! She will feel as if
I did not care for her at all."
She seemed for the moment quite unhappy.
"Let me see what you have chosen."
He drew from his pocket a case and opened it.
"Oh," she cried, "how pretty and how suitable for a girl!"
They were the prettiest, most airy set of pearls imaginable.
She sat and looked at them for a few seconds thoughtfully, and then
handed them back.
"You are very good, and Jenny will be in ecstasies," she said.
"It is a happiness to me to give her pleasure," he returned. "I feel great
tenderness for her. She is not like the young girls I have known. Her
innocence is of a frank and noble quality, which is better than
ignorance. One could not bear that the slightest shadow of sin or pain
should fall upon her. The atmosphere surrounding her is so bright with
pure happiness and the courage of youth."
Involuntarily he held out his hand.
"Will you"--he began. His voice fell and broke. "Will you go with me?"
he ended.
He saw that she was troubled.
"Now?" she faltered.
"Yes--now."
There was a peculiar pause,--a moment, as it seemed to him, of

breathless silence. This silence she broke by her rising slowly from her
seat.
"Yes," she responded, "I will go. Why should I not?"
It was midnight when they left the Trents', and Jenny stood upon the
threshold, a bright figure in a setting of brightness, and kissed her hand
to them as they went down the steps.
"I hope