Part 29 (1/2)
”That is all right,” said Murville as he put the papers in his pocket.
”Now I must hurry to the Bourse, to conclude this important affair.”
He kissed Adeline and hurried from the room. She realized that it was not to see her that he had come home; but her heart made excuses for him; she believed him to be entirely engrossed by business.
”He loves n.o.body but me,” she said to herself; ”that is the main thing.
I must forgive this love of work, and this perfectly natural desire to enrich his wife and children.”
Poor Adeline! she did not know what use her husband proposed to make of the money that he was in such haste to obtain.
XIX
IT WAS NOT HER FAULT
Edouard returned in triumph to Dufresne; he was the possessor of a considerable sum of which he could dispose as he pleased, for his wife would never ask him for an accounting, and his mother-in-law had ceased to meddle in his affairs. Dufresne was awaiting Murville impatiently; he was afraid that Adeline would make some objections. But when he saw the precious papers, a smile of satisfaction played about his lips; a sentiment which he tried to dissemble gave to his face a peculiar expression which would have attracted the attention of anybody but Edouard; but he did not give Dufresne time to speak; he urged him to go at once and obtain the funds, and Dufresne made haste to gratify him, fearing that he might change his mind.
Adeline waited in vain for her husband to return; the day pa.s.sed and he did not come. She thought that he had probably been invited to dine by some of his new acquaintances; she tried to reconcile herself to it; but what grieved her most was her husband's blindness with respect to Dufresne, and the indifference with which he had listened to her story of the outrageous conduct of the man whom he considered his friend.
Dufresne's threats recurred to Adeline's memory; she thought of her husband's weakness of will, and she could not help shuddering as she reflected that her happiness, her repose, and her child's, perhaps, were in the hands of a wicked man, who seemed to be capable of going all lengths to gratify his pa.s.sions.
It was nine o'clock in the evening; Adeline, absorbed in her reflections, was sadly awaiting her husband's return, when she heard a loud knock at the street door. Soon she heard someone coming upstairs--it was Edouard, of course. She ran to open the door; but it was not he; one of her servants appeared, bringing a letter which a stranger had just left at the door with an urgent request that it be handed to madame at once. The stranger had gone away without waiting for a reply. The servant handed the letter to his mistress and left the room.
Adeline broke the seal; the writing was unfamiliar to her; it seemed the work of a weak and tremulous hand; the letter was signed by Madame Dolban.
”What can she have to write to me?” thought Adeline; ”let me see.”
”Madame:
”I am very ill; I have been unable to leave my room for a long while, but I am unwilling to delay any longer to give you some most important advice. I am responsible for all the harm, and it is my place to try to repair it. I brought a man named Dufresne to your house. Alas! how bitterly I repent it! but at that time I believed him to be incapable of doing anything indelicate even. A deplorable pa.s.sion had long made me blind, but now it is no longer possible for me to doubt the ghastly truth. This Dufresne is a miserable wretch, capable of every villainy. I have only too many proofs of the infamy of his conduct. He has robbed me of all that I possessed, but my regret for my money is less than my shame at having been his dupe. Gambling, debauchery, all sorts of vice are familiar to him, and he has the art to conceal his shocking pa.s.sions. I dare not tell you what I know--but break off instantly the intimacy he has formed with your husband, or fear the worst for him from the advice of a monster to whom nothing is sacred.
”WIDOW DOLBAN.”
Adeline shuddered; her heart was oppressed by secret terror; she read the fatal letter once more, then raised her lovely tear-bedewed eyes heavenward.
”So this is the man on whose account Edouard fell out with my mother!
this is the sort of man that his adviser, his best friend, is! O heaven!
what misery I foresee in the future! but how am I to avert it? My husband no longer listens to me; he spurns my advice, he is deaf to my prayers. But he could not be deaf to my tears. No, Edouard is not hard-hearted; he loves me still, he will not spurn his Adeline. I will implore him, in our child's name, to cease to see a man who will lead him on to ruin. This letter will be a sufficient proof, I trust; he will open his eyes and sever all relations with him who has already caused me so much unhappiness.”
These reflections allayed Adeline's distress in some measure; fully determined to show her husband, as soon as he should return, the letter that she had received, she decided to sit up for him. He could not be much longer, it was already quite late, and all she needed was a little courage. Poor woman! if she had known how her husband was occupied, while she, melancholy and pensive, devoured in silence the torments of anxiety and jealousy! You who try to read the future,--how you would deserve to be pitied if your eyes could pierce s.p.a.ce, and if your ears always heard the truth! Illusion was invented for the happiness of mortals; it does them almost as much good as hope.
The young woman tried to beguile the time by making plans for the future. She rejoiced in the approach of the season of fine weather; soon they might return to the pretty little place in the country. She had been so happy there in the early days of her married life that she looked forward to finding there once more the happiness that she had not found in Paris. Edouard would accompany her; he would have forgotten all his plans, have given up the business that tormented him, and have broken entirely with the perfidious Dufresne. Then nothing could disturb their felicity. Her mother would return to live with them; little Ermance would grow up and be educated under her parents' eyes, learning to love and respect them. What a delightful future! How short the time would seem! how well it would be employed!
Adeline's heart thrilled with the pleasure caused by the delicious tableau which her imagination had conjured up. But the clock struck; she glanced at it and sighed; the image of happiness vanished, the melancholy reality returned!
Thus do the unfortunate try to deceive their suffering, to conceal their grief from themselves. He who has lost a beloved sweetheart has her image constantly in his thoughts; he sees her, speaks to her, lives again with her in the past; he hears her voice, her sweet accents, her loving confession which makes his heart beat fast with bliss; he recalls those delicious interviews of which love bore the whole burden; he fancies that he holds his loved one's hands in his; he seeks her burning lips from which he once stole the sweetest of kisses--but the illusion vanishes; she is no longer there! Ah! what a ghastly void! what a cruel return to life!
Adeline was agitated by all these gleams of hope and fear; twenty times she went to her daughter's cradle, then returned to her place at the window and listened anxiously, intently, for the faintest sound; but only the rumbling of an occasional carriage broke the silence of the night. Each time that she heard that noise, Adeline's heart beat faster.