Part 41 (2/2)
”Yes; until to-morrow. Adieu, I leave you.”
Edouard hurried away, and Adeline returned to her hotel, pa.s.sing from hope to fear and from fear to hope. She knew her husband, she knew how little she could rely upon his promises, so that she awaited the morrow with anxiety. But on the morrow Dufresne and Lampin returned with money.
The discounter had fallen into the trap; he had thought that he had recognized the banker's signature. Those men led Edouard away; they abandoned themselves anew to the pleasures of the table and the gambling house. They made Murville drunk; they put his remorse and his scruples to silence; they laughed at his fears; and Adeline, instead of seeing him whom she expected, received in the morning a note containing only these words:
”Do not try to see me again, do not hope that I will go with you to bury myself in a cottage; that sort of thing does not suit me.
Leave Paris without me; this is the last command that you will receive from your husband, who leaves you entirely at liberty to do whatever you please.”
Adeline bathed the letter in her tears.
”You have no father now,” she said to little Ermance; ”poor child, what will your lot be? Let us leave this city, let us follow my husband's last orders. Let us go back to the honest villagers; at the farm they will not spurn me. I shall not blush to ask them for work. O mother! If you were still alive, I should find comfort in your arms. If only I had followed your advice! Perhaps Edouard then--but it's too late! At all events, you never knew the full extent of my sorrow.”
Adeline sold all that she thought unlikely to be of use to her in the situation which she was about to occupy. No more jewels, no more flowers, no superfluous wardrobe; in a simple dress and a straw hat tied with a modest ribbon, with her daughter on one arm and a small bundle on the other,--thus did Madame Murville set out for Guillot's farm.
XXVII
ADELINE FINDS A PROTECTOR
The farmer's family were in despair at Madame Murville's flight. Since the day that Dufresne had been driven from the village, Adeline, buried in the most profound melancholy, had not left her home; she took no diversion whatever, and the solicitations of the peasants had failed to induce her to emerge from her retirement.
Jacques did not know what to think of his brother's conduct. He easily guessed that he made his wife unhappy; but he was still far from suspecting the extent of his misbehavior! Edouard's brother dared not question Adeline, but she read in his eyes his sympathy with her distress, and her grateful heart rewarded the honest laborer with the most sincere friends.h.i.+p. Every two days Jacques went to the village to enquire for Madame Murville's health. One morning when he rang as usual at the courtyard gate, the old gardener answered the bell, with tears in his eyes.
”What's the matter, Pere Foret, what has happened to Madame Murville now?” Jacques asked anxiously; ”can it be that that scamp of the other day has come again?”
”Ah! my dear monsieur, more than one scamp has come to-day! And they have turned my mistress out of doors!”
”Turned her out! That isn't possible, ten thousand dead men!”
”It is true, however.”
”What were they? brigands, robbers?”
”No, no, monsieur, they were bailiffs, creditors, what do I know? They showed madame some papers, and told her that she wasn't in her own house any longer. Poor woman! she cried, but she didn't make any answer; she just did her clothes up in a bundle, took her daughter in her arms, and left.”
”Left! She has gone away? Is it possible? The villain! he has reduced her to dest.i.tution!”
”Monsieur Jacques, I tell you there was a lot of them. Look, here's the placard; this house is for sale now, and they left me here, so that there might be some one to show it to people.”
”Do you know where Madame Murville has gone?”
”Bless me! she took the Paris road.”
”She has gone to join him.”
”Yes, no doubt she has gone to her husband; but look you, between ourselves, they say that he is a regular good-for-nothing; that he raises the devil at Paris; and you must agree, Monsieur Jacques, that when one has a pretty, good, young wife like madame--For, bless my soul, she is virtue and goodness personified! And then a child, which will be its mother's portrait; well, I say, when a man has all that, and forgets them all the year round, it ain't right, and it don't speak well for him.”
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