“Then I conscientiously discharge the trust which the countess placed in me when she embraced me for the last time this morning. She made me swear not to say a word about it till we got to Avignon.”
“All this puzzles me, dearest; explain yourself.”
“Will you forgive me for not placing it in your hands sooner?”
“Certainly, if you passed your word to the countess; but where is this letter?”
She drew a large bundle of papers from her pocket, saying,--
“This is a certificate of ‘good conduct.’”
“That’s no use. Did you get it from a midwife?”
“Here is your brother’s promise of marriage; he wanted to be a Protestant.”
“I will tell you another time. Give me the letter.”
My heart beat fast, as I opened it, and found, instead of an address, these words in Italian:
“To the most honest man of my acquaintance.”
Could this be meant for me? I turned down the leaf, and read one word--Henriette! Nothing else; the rest of the paper was blank.
At the sight of that word I was for a moment annihilated.
Henriette! It was her style, eloquent in its brevity. I recollected her last letter from Pontarlier, which I had received at Geneva, and which contained only one word--Farewell!
Henriette, whom I had loved so well, whom I seemed at that moment to love as well as ever. “Cruel Henriette,” said I to myself, “you saw me and would not let me see you. No doubt you thought your charms would not have their old power, and feared lest I should discover that after all you were but mortal. And yet I love you with all the ardour of my early passion. Why did you not let me learn from your own mouth that you were happy? That is the only question I should have asked you, cruel fair one. I should not have enquired whether you loved me still, for I feel my unworthiness, who have loved other women after loving the most perfect of her sex. Adorable Henriette, I will fly to you to-morrow, since you told me that I should be always welcome.”
I turned these thoughts over in my own mind, and fortified myself in this resolve; but at last I said,--
“No, your behaviour proves that you do not wish to see me now, and your wishes shall be respected; but I must see you once before I die.”
Marcoline scarcely dared breathe to see me thus motionless and lost in thought, and I do not know when I should have come to myself if the landlord had not come in saying that he remembered my tastes, and had got me a delicious supper. This brought me to my senses, and I made my fair Venetian happy again by embracing her in a sort of ecstacy.